powerful influence is to be regretted: but it is, beyond all other things, adapted to correct and refine us; to show us, that our duty is also our interest in an inconceivable degree; to apply with peculiar emphasis to our hearts the question, What manner of persons ought we to be? The presence of this doctrine with the mind, has often paralyzed the arm of the assassin, and preserved the life of his victim: it has often cast over the midnight revelry a deeper gloom than ever overspread the face of nature; it has often embittered, beyond endurance, the life of a villain, who did his work in secret, and defied detection, and compelled him to confess his crime, and to prefer death to life.

What, in these cases, could have produced an equal effect? What could have supplied the place of this overwhelming foreboding of a judgment to come? In such instances, and in thousands more, which must now be nameless, "the sense of an ever-present Ruler, and of an avenging Judge, is of the most awful and indispensable necessity; as it is that alone which impresses on all crimes the character of folly, shows that duty and interest, in every instance, coincide, and that the most prosperous career of vice, the most brilliant successes of criminality, are but an accumulation of wrath against the day of wrath."!

8. It is by thus tracing the demoralizing influence of atheism upon mankind, that its detestable character and direful tendency are perceived. And what other influence can it possibly exert? When there is an obliteration from the mind of any man, of all belief of a pervading and an omniscient Deity, of personal accountableness, of another life, and of rewards and punishments; when he repudiates moral rule and moral obligation, as dreams of superstition, and a selfish expediency becomes the regulating principle of his life;

1 Modern Infidelity, by the late Robert Hall.

when hope and fear cease to be inmates of his bosom, and the Epicurean doctrine of the chief good of man is fully adopted; when all this occurs, we know not what moral excellence can exist in him. An individual under these circumstances may be virtuous, but he has nothing to make him so; he admits of no Being of perfect justice, truth, and goodness, to be pleased or to be imitated; he holds himself accountable to no one, but himself; his own inclination is his only rule; he can throw the reins upon the neck of his passions, and live without restraint-except from an insufficiency in the means of indulgence-and without apprehension, except in relation to earthly considerations.

It appears, then, that atheism not only shifts the ancient land-marks of virtue, to suit its own convenience, but actually destroys them: it not only relaxes the moral habits of men, but breaks them up: it not only vitiates the life, but depraves the heart: it not only holds virtuous conduct a nugatory thing, but regards it as useless, if not pernicious. In whatever station or relation, then, an atheist is found, his sentiments place him under suspicion. The probability is, that the man's conduct will symbolize with his opinions. And this has, generally, we presume, been the case with those unhappy men, whether of ancient or modern times, who, yielding to the solicitations of an alluring scepticism, first doubted and then denied the existence of Him, in whom they lived, moved, and had their being.

9. Finally: As there is nothing in atheism to produce virtue-but the reverse, so there is nothing in it, to win the approval and secure the preference of virtuous minds. A sincerely religious man has no interest to achieve, in renouncing his belief in the great and good Being, whom he is wont to adore. He feels, that were a permanent doubt of the divine existence to obtain a lodgment in his mind, that doubt would desolate creation, destroy every noble sentiment of his heart, annihilate

every vestige of long and fondly-cherished hope, and, in short, make him, of all creatures, most miserable.

We do not, therefore, find the names of persons of high moral excellence, on the muster-roll of the avowed enemies of God. Their faith in his being and perfections is in proportion to their excellence, as it is the spring of it. And from the whole, it may be fairly inferred, that every man who claims to be considered an atheist, is either openly or covertly wicked; that he is under the influence of some sinister motive, and aiming at some pernicious end; that his heart is more than ordinarily corrupt; and that whatever adroitness he may evince, in concealing and garnishing his real character, a deep-rooted love of vice, and a desire of impunity in all excesses, an ensnaring fondness of eccentricities and novelties, a restless impatience of restraint, and a proud and daring defiance of authority, and the vanity of wishing to be thought superior to ordinary minds and vulgar prejudices, or some of these, must be placed amongst the causes of the bold and impious conduct we deplore.

CHAPTER VIII.

ATHEISM DEPRECIATES AND DEGRADES HUMAN NATURE.

1. It is recorded of Procrustes, a famous robber of Attica, a country of ancient Greece, that he fastened all who unfortunately fell into his hands, on a bed; and if they chanced to exceed this bed in length, he cut off a part of them, to equal his victims to that on which they were laid. Now, it is similarly to this, that atheists treat human nature. They, find that it stands in the way of their speculations; that, to an atheistical mind, it presents an insolvable problem; and that, in fact, they must get rid of much of it, or abandon their theory. They, therefore, pare it down, to suit their own convenience; and to what, will appear from the following paragraphs of this chapter.

2. Mankind have ever shown a desire to magnify themselves, by exalting their extraction. To have been of mean parentage-to possess plebeian blood circulating through our veins-to have nothing of ancestry of which to boast, is thought by some, to enfeeble our claims to respectability, whatever position we occupy in society, or whatever acquisitions we make, which the world values. And, on the other hand, to have descended from some ancestor of lofty name, even should many generations have intervened between him and us; to have been born to title and estate, although now pos

sessed of neither; to be able to trace back our connection to any thing which gives pre-eminence, or confers honourable distinction, is a sure means of procuring for ourselves, in any station or condition of life, some degree, at least, of respect and attention. This may be censurable, or commendable-there may be much of conceit and absurdity in it; but it has prevailed in all ages and throughout all nations. To have descended from a God was esteemed and coveted, as the highest distinction, amongst the ancient heathen. Throughout the eastern world, great importance is attached to birth: a man's caste is determined by his extraction. In our own, as in other countries, the vagrant Jew, a proverb and a by-word with all, boasts of his descent from faithful Abraham; and is anxious to be thought of the most honourable tribe of his people. Many instances there are of persons endeavouring, at an immense cost, to establish their pretensions to consanguinity, with nobility or royalty. We have nations investigating their origin; that deducing it from some distinguished founder, honour might accrue to themselves.

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And thus the whole human family have been wont to regard themselves as the offspring of a Deity; as the production of his own creative wisdom and power. And it must be admitted, that there is something exceedingly elevating, in the belief of such an origin. But atheism forbids us this boast; and, that it might strip us the more effectually, of every pretension which can attach importance, or impart dignity, it robs us of our exalted parentage, and makes us mere creatures of chance, the spawn of the earth, or a concretion of atoms. We had no origin, or we had an origin utterly fabulous! Some cloud evolved us, or some mud ejected us from its bosom! We crept out of some mountain's side, or we crawled up from some prolific river! We are, in short, the offspring of nothing, or of any thing, rather than of an intelligent Creator! Into what depths of absurdity do