Franklin, Benjamin / 2008-06-25 00:00:00

PHILADELPHIA 1726-1757
by Benjamin Franklin
_Articles of Belief and Acts of Religion_
IN TWO PARTS.
Here will I hold ------ If there is a Pow'r above us
(And that there is, all Nature cries aloud,
Thro' all her Works), He must delight in Virtue
And that which he delights in must be Happy. Cato.
PART I.
Philada.
Nov. 20 1728.
First Principles
I believe there is one Supreme most perfect Being, Author and
Father of the Gods themselves.
For I believe that Man is not the most perfect Being but One,
rather that as there are many Degrees of Beings his Inferiors, so
there are many Degrees of Beings superior to him.
Also, when I stretch my Imagination thro' and beyond our System
of Planets, beyond the visible fix'd Stars themselves, into that
Space that is every Way infinite, and conceive it fill'd with Suns
like ours, each with a Chorus of Worlds for ever moving round him,
then this little Ball on which we move, seems, even in my narrow
Imagination, to be almost Nothing, and my self less than nothing, and
of no sort of Consequence.
When I think thus, I imagine it great Vanity in me to suppose,
that the _Supremely Perfect_, does in the least regard such an
inconsiderable Nothing as Man. More especially, since it is
impossible for me to have any positive clear Idea of that which is
infinite and incomprehensible, I cannot conceive otherwise, than that
He, _the Infinite Father_, expects or requires no Worship or Praise
from us, but that he is even INFINITELY ABOVE IT.
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