Now, my friend, can prophecies or miracles convince you or me, that infinite benevolence, wisdom and power, created and preserves for a time, innumerable millions, to make them miserable forever for his own glory?
Wretch! what is his glory? Is he ambitious? Does he want promotion? Is he vain-tickled with adulation? Exulting and triumphing in his power and the sweetness of his vengeance?
Pardon me, my Maker, for these awful questions. My answer to them is always ready. I believe no such things. My adoration of the Author of the Universe is too profound and too sincere.
The love of God and his creation, delight, joy, triumph, exultation in my own existence, though but an atom, a molecule organique in the universe, are my religion. Howl, snarl, bite, ye Calvinistic, ye Athanasian divines, if you will. Ye will say I am no Christian. I say ye are no Christians, and there the account is balanced.
Yet I believe all the honest men among you are Christians, in my sense of the word.
When I was at college, I was a metaphysician, at least I thought myself such. And such men as Lock, Hemenway and West, thought me so too; for we were forever disputing though in great good humor.
When I was sworn as an Attorney, in 1758, in Boston, though I lived in Braintree, I was in a low state of health—thought in great danger of a consumption; living on milk, vegetable pudding and water. Not an atom of meat, or a drop of spirit. My next neighbor, my cousin, my friend Dr. Savil, was my physician. He was anxious about me, and did not like to take the sole responsibility of my recovery. He invited me to a ride. I mounted my horse and rode with him to Hingham, on a visit to Dr. Ezekiel Hersey, a physician of great fame, who felt my pulse, looked in my eyes, heard Savil describe my regimen and course of medicine, and then pronounced his oracle: "Persevere, and as sure as there is a God in Heaven you will recover."
He was an everlasting talker, and ran out into history, philosophy, metaphysics, &c., and frequently put questions to me as if he wanted to sound me, and see if there was anything in me besides hectic fever. I was young, and then very bashful, however saucy I may have sometimes been since. I gave him very modest and very diffident answers. But when I got upon metaphysics, I seemed to feel a little bolder, and ventured into something like argument with him. I drove him up, as I thought, into a corner, from which he could not escape. "Sir, it will follow from what you have now advanced, that the universe, as distinct from God, is both infinite and eternal." "Very true," said Dr. Hersey, "your inference is just, the consequence is inevitable, and I believe the universe to be both eternal and infinite."
Here I was brought up! I was defeated. I was not prepared for this answer. This was fifty-five years ago.
When I was in England, from 1785 to 1788, I may say I was intimate with Dr. Price. I had much conversation with him at his own house, at my house, and at the houses and tables of my friends. In some of our most unreserved conversations, when we have been alone, he has repeatedly said to me: "I am inclined to believe that the universe is eternal and infinite. It seems to me that an eternal and infinite effect must necessarily flow from an eternal and infinite cause; and an infinite wisdom, goodness and power, that could have been induced to produce a universe in time, must have produced it from eternity. It seems to me the effect must flow from the cause."