punishment on me for the abuse of his grace and favour? He should never have permitted me to abuse them. Or the grace he bestowed should have been efficacious and have directed my steps according to his liking. "But, say you, he makes man free." Alas? why did he present him with a gift of which he must have foreseen the abuse? Is this faculty of free agency, which enables me to resist his power, to corrupt and rob him of his worshippers, and in fine to bring eternal misery on myself, a present worthy of his infinite goodness? In consequence of the pretended abuse of this fatal present, which an omniscient and good God ought not to have bestowed on Beings capable of abusing it, everlasting, inexpressible torments are reserved for the transitory crimes of a Being made liable to commit them. Would that father be called good, reasonable, just and kind, who put a sharp-edged and dangerous knife into the hand of a playful, and imprudent child, whom he before knew to be imprudent, and punished him during the remainder of his life for cutting himself with it? Would that prince be called just and merciful, who, not regarding any proportion between the offence and the punishment, should perpetually exercise his power of vengeance, over one of his subjects who, being drunk, had rashly offended against his vanity, without causing any real harm to him, especially, when the prince had taken pains to make him drunk? Should we consider as almighty a monarch, whose dominions were in such confusion and disorder, that, except a small number obedient servants, all his subjects were every instant despising his laws, defeating his will and insulting his person? Let ecclesiastics then acknowledge, that their God is an assemblage of incompatible qualities, as incomprehensible to their understanding as to mine. No: they say, in reply to these difficulties, that wisdom and justice in God, are qualities so much above or so unlike those qualities in us, that they bear no relation or affinity towards human wisdom and justice. But, pray how am I to form to myself an idea of the divine perfection, unless it has some resemblance to those virtues which I observe in my fellow creatures and feel in myself? If the justice of God is not the same with human justice, why lastly do any men pretend to announce it, comprehend and explain it to others?" POSTSCRIPT. Previous to this publication the editor sent the following Letter to Dr. Priestley. "Reverend Sir,