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character of a moral and religious instructor, a minister, a prophet, of the truth of the infinite God. Truth is a virtue perfectly defined, mathematically clear, and completely understood by all men of common sense. There can be no haltings between uttering truth and falsehood, no doubts, no mistakes, as between piety and enthusiasm, frugality and parsimony, generosity and profusion. Transgression, therefore, is always a known, definite, deliberate villainy. In the sudden moment of strong temptation, in the hour of unguarded attack, in the flutter and trepidation of unexpected alarm, the best man may, perhaps, be surprised into any sin; but he who can coolly, of steady design, and with no unusual impulse, utter falsehood, and vend hypocrisy, is not far from finished depravity.

The morals of Rochester and Wharton need no comment. Woolston was a gross blasphemer. Blount solicited his sisterin-law to marry him, and, being refused, shot himself. Tindal was originally a protestant, then turned papist, then protestant again, merely to suit the times; and was at the same time infamous for vice in general, and the total want of principle. He is said to have died with this prayer in his mouth, "If there is a God, I desire that he may have mercy on me. Hobbes wrote his Leviathan to serve the cause of Charles I.; but, finding him fail of success, he turned it to the defence of Cromwell, and made a merit of this fact to the Usurper, as Hobbes himself unblushingly declared to Lord Clarendon.* Morgan had no regard to truth, as is evident from his numerous falsifications of Scripture, as well as from the vile hypocrisy of professing himself a Christian in those very writings in which he labours to destroy Christianity. Voltaire, in a letter now remaining, requested his friend D'Alembert to tell for him a direct and palpable lie, by denying that he was the author of the Philosophical Dictionary. D'Alembert, in his answer informed him, that he had told the lie.+ Voltaire has indeed expressed his own moral character perfectly in the fol

See Deism Revealed.

† See Priestley on the Causes of the Increase of Infidelity.

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lowing words, " Monsieur Abbe, I must be read, no matter "whether I am believed or not." He also solemnly professed to believe the Catholic religion, although at the same time he doubted the existence of a God. Hume died, as a fool dieth. The day before his death he spent in a pitiful and affected unconcern about this tremendous subject, playing at whist, reading Lucian's dialogues, and making silly attempts at wit concerning his interview with Charon, the heathen ferry-man of Hades.*

It will easily be supposed, that my information concerning the private lives of these men must be distant and imperfect: what has been said will however furnish any one at all acquainted with the human character with just ideas of their morality. I shall only add, that Rousseau (Jean Jacques) is asserted to have been guilty of gross theft, perjury, fornication, and adultery, and of abjuring and assuming alternately the Catholic and the Protestant religion, neither of which he believed.

Thus have I summarily exhibited to you the nature and the actual state of this philosophy. From this view of it, I think you will unite with me in a full conviction, that if the Gospel had been liable to so many and so serious objections, it would, instead of exciting and sustaining a controversy through eighteen centuries, have solicited the faith and obedience of mankind in vain; would have been smothered in its birth, and only added one to the numerous moral systems which have for ages slept the sleep of death in the regions of oblivion.

• Smith's Life of Hume.

SERMON XX.

THE NATURE AND DANGER OF INFIDEL PHILOSOPHY.

SERMON II.

COLOSSIANS II. 8.

"Beware, lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ."

SECOND, I shall now endeavour to show you, that vain and deceitful as this philosophy is, both in its nature and in fact, you are still in danger of becoming a prey to it.

This danger will arise from several sources. I shall specify those which appear to me to be of chief importance.

I. You will be exposed to this danger from the arguments brought by philosophers against the Scriptures.

Infidels will probably triumph, and you may be surprised to find arguments mentioned as a source of danger. But your surprise and their triumph are both without foundation.

Wherever arguments are fairly adduced, and questions thoroughly explored by reasoning, there can be no danger to truth, or to the friends of truth; for, in every such investigation, truth must have decisive advantages over falsehood. But

questions are not always so explored, nor arguments always so adduced. Ingenious and able men are not always candid men, nor always desirous of investigating or establishing truth. Their ingenuity is not unfrequently employed in obscuring where it should illumine, and in perplexing where it should clear. Ignorant persons may always be embarrassed by the reasonings of the learned and skilful, and those who are not versed in any subject of controversy by studied champions.

Many readers of this philosophy are ignorant; many impatient of thorough investigation, and accustomed to depend for their opinions on others; to be swayed by great and celebrated names, and implicitly to yield to high authority; and all are by nature inclined to their side of the question. Christianity is a system of restraint on every passion and every appetite. Some it forbids entirely; and all it confines within limits, which, by the mass of mankind, both learned and unlearned, will be esteemed narrow and severe. Philosophy, on the contrary, holds out, as you have already seen, a general license to every passion and appetite. Its doctrines therefore please of course, and find a ready welcome in the heart.

Mankind being thus prepared, it cannot be thought strange that infidel philosophy, although destitute of a basis in truth, and of support from evidence, should present danger, even from arguments. Its great object is to unsettle every thing moral and obligatory, and to settle nothing. Objection is, therefore, its chief employment, and its only employment in which danger can be found. Had it been engaged merely in devising moral systems of its own, it would have provoked no other answer from common sense than a stare or a smile.

An objector will always find some advantages from the character which he assumes. He finds advantages with respect to labour. A sentence will often express an obligation, which must be answered by a volume. He will find advantages in the nature of his disputation. The plainest and most undoubted truths may be forcibly assailed by objections, and by such as are obvious to a very limited understanding.

The objections against the Scriptures, which will be formidable, arc chiefly derived from two sources.

First, The doctrines of the Scriptures are, and in the nature of the case must be, in several instances, mysterious. The doctrines of the Scriptures are chiefly employed about the nature of man, and the existence, character, designs, and will of God. The first of these subjects, notwithstanding the laborious and ardent investigation of three thousand years, is still far from being satisfactorily explained. The daily inquiries and voluminous treatises of these very philosophers, and the new views which they continually attempt to exhibit of this subject, prove the assertion to be true, in their opinion at least; and, were there a doubt remaining, a child could easily remove it; for a child can ask questions concerning human nature, which no philosopher can answer. The last of these subjects, the existence, character, designs, and will of God, is more mysterious than any other. Of both these subjects revelation is a professed account; and as the subjects are in their nature mysterious, so the revelation must, to consist with truth, be in many respects mysterious also. In such subjects, difficulties may be easily and always found. As it is impossible that we should thoroughly understand them, the parts which we do not understand will furnish difficulties respecting those which we do. Of the nature of existence, substances, causality, and the mode of operation, we know little or nothing, even where creatures are the subjects of investigation. Of the Creator it may well be supposed, and must be acknowledged, that we know less than of creatures. Many particulars of these great subjects of the Scriptures must be unknown. Wherever we are ignorant we cannot comprehend, and wherever we cannot comprehend we can find many difficulties, much perplexity, and much doubt. A man of moderate talents will easily perceive, and forcibly represent such difficulties; but no man can in many cases remove them. They can be removed only by the attainment of perfect knowledge of the subjects, and such knowledge can never be attained by man.

The difficulties objected to the Scriptures on this score, all arise from what we know not, and not from what we know. Infidels do not show, that that which is disclosed is contrary to any thing which we know, but merely that all is not dis

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