AN ESSAY. 491 such enact care as never to make two particles of any body per- fectly equal and similar, and at the same time that he took care to make each of them so nearly equal and Similar as to keep all the particles of one species of bodies in shape andsize sufficiently distinct from the particles that compose every other species ? Ile that can suppose this, plainly appears to serve an hypothesis. It is evident enough that the objector's supposition, that there are no two things equal and alike, is only brought in to oppose this doctrine which 1 have laid down, and that without any proof, or indeed probability : And the supposition that there are or may be a multitude of things which are entirely alike and equal, is certainly a possible thing, and vastly the more probable of the two. If we had no proof of it, yet the various difficulties or seeming absurdities that press hardupon the contrary supposition, viz. that no two things are equal, and that the will of God or man is always determined by some superior fitness of things, would incline one to renounca that hypothesis. These will be represented at large in the next section. Since the first edition of this bookan ingenious friend has proposed this objection, viz. If God exerts his creatingpower, he hath some reason for it takenfrom the preferableness of the existence of what he creates to its non-existence ; otherwise he would never createat all. To this I answer, This is more than can be proved, for the non-existence of that creature may beat fit in itself as the existence of it ; and God might have created another being equally fit in the room of it, by the mere deter- mination of his own will. Myfriend goes en, If of two possible objects equally fit to be chosen, he gives existence to one, leav- ing the other in its non-existent state, the reason of his creating but one is the absenceof any good reason for creating of both. Answer. It is possible there might be equal reason for the crea- tion of one or of both, that is, no reason at all in superior fit- ness : hut the existence of one rather than both may be entirely owing to the will of God. Or suppose God was determined by superior fitness to create one out of two possibles rather than both, yet the existence or the non -existence of either of them alone, may have equal fitness, though the existence of both should be supposed unfit. But how ready are we to lose and confound our thoughts in this abstract reasoning upon divine ideas and decrees, which are indeed too high and too hard for us ; and it becomes us not to be too positive and presumptuous upon either side of such sublime and abstruse reasonings. SECT. VII.The Difficulties that attend the contrary Scheme. When we enter into a narrow disquisition Of the eternal counsels of God, and the determinations of his will, perhapswe OAP find some difficulties pressing us on all sides, which cannot
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