XX

An Account os the Life and Writings,

the firmest bulwark against Atheism , and consequently the surest foundationof true religion. This knowledge does more than excite mere wondering ;it inspires love and adoration of the Creator, our reasonable Service : for itmust be a superficial view of nature, indeed, that suggests no relation , orduty, to Him in whom we live, move, and have our being. The argu-ment from final causes, from the order and design that evidently shews it-self throughout the universe, Mr. Maclaurin held to be the shortest andsimplest of all others ; and consequently of most general use, and the best,adapted to the human faculties: whereas metaphysical deductions are to beapprehended but by the few, and are ever liable to be perverted. So that al-tho’ he could use them with as much subtlety and force as any man living, hechose rather, in his conversation as well as his writings, to bring the disputeto a short issue in his own way.

He was no less strenuous in the defence of revealed religion; which hewould warmly undertake as often as it was attacked, either occasionally inconversation, or in those pernicious books which have brought the nameof Free-thinker into disgrace, and have so much contributed to spoil ourtaste as well as our morals : and how firm bis own pe> suasion of it was, ap-peared from the support it afforded him in his last hours.

Such was the life of this eminent person ; spent in a course of laborious,yet not painful, study ; in continually doing good to the utmost of hispower : in improving curious and useful arts ; and propagating truth, vir-tue, and religion amongst mankind. He was taken from us at an age whenhe was capable of doing much more ; but has left an example which, wehope, will be long admired and imitated : till the revolution of human af-fairs puts an end to learning in these parts of the world; or the ficklenessof men, and their satiety of the best things, have substituted for this philo-sophy some empty form of false science ; and, by the one or the othermeans, we are brought back to our original state of barbarity.