The author is without God; but did he believe there is one, still would he scorn to _affect_ for Him a love and a reverence that nothing natural can feel for the supernatural; still would he scorn to _carry favour_ with Deity by hypocritical and most fulsome adulation. Finely did Eschylus say of Aristides-- To be and not to seem is this man's maxim; His mind reposes on its proper wisdom, And wants no other praise. Tell us, ye men of mystery, shall a God need praises beneath the dignity of a man? Shall the Creator of Nature act less worthily than one of his creatures? To do God homage, we are quite aware, is reckoned by Christians among their highest duties. But, nevertheless, it seems to us impossible that any one can love an existence or creature of which he never had any experience. Love is a feeling generated in the human breast, by certain objects that strike the sense--and in no other conceivable way can love be generated! But God, according to Newton, is neither an _object_ nor a _subject_, and though, all eyes, all ears, all brains, all arms, all feeling, all intelligence, and all action, he is _totally unknown to us_. If Christians allow this to be a true description of the God they worship, we wish to understand how they can love Him so vehemently as they affect to do--or how they can pay any other than _lip_ homage to so mysterious a Deity? It is usual for slaves to feign an affection for their masters that they do not, cannot feel--but that believers in a God should imagine that he who 'searcheth all hearts,' can be ignorant of what is passing in theirs, or make the tremendous mistake of supposing that their _lip homage_, or interested expressions of love, are not _properly_ appreciated by the Most High God, and 'Universal Emperor,' is indeed very strange. To overreach or deceive a God who created the heavens and the earth, is altogether beyond the power of puny mortals. Let not therefore those who bend the knee, while the heart is unbent, and raise the voice of thankful devotion, while all within is frost and barrenness, fancy they have stolen a march upon their Deity; for surely _if_ the lord liveth, he judgeth rightly of these things. But it were vain to expect that those who think God is related to his creatures as a despot is related to his slaves, will hope to please that God by aught save paltry, cringing, and dishonestly despicable practices. Yet, no other than a despotic God has the great Newton taught us to adore--no other than mere slaves of such a God, has he taught us to deem ourselves. So much for the Theism of Europe's chief religious philosopher. Turn we now to the Theism of Dr. Samuel Clarke.