on an extensive scale, to establish the principles of atheism; the first effort which history has recorded to disannul and extinguish the belief of all superior powers; the consequence of which, should it succeed, would be to place mankind in a situation never before experienced, not even during the ages of pagan darkness. The system of polytheism was as remote from modern Infidelity as from true religion. Amid that rubbish of superstition, the product of fear, ignorance, and vice, which had been accumulating for ages, some faint embers of sacred truth remained unextinguished; the interposition of unseen powers in the affairs of men was believed and revered, the sanctity of oaths was maintained, the idea of revelation and of tradition as a source of religious knowledge was familiar; a useful persuasion of the existence of a future world was kept alive, and the greater gods were looked up to as the guardians of the public welfare, the patrons of those virtues which promote the prosperity of states, and the avengers of injustice, perfidy, and fraud.*

The testimony of Polybius to the beneficial effects which resulted from the system of pagan superstition, in fortifying the sentiments of moral obligation, and supporting the sanctity of oaths, is so weighty and decisive, that it would be an injustice to the subject not to insert it; more especially as it is impossible to attribute it to the influence of credulity on the author himself, who was evidently a skeptic. It is scarcely necessary to remark, that all the benefits which might in any way flow from superstition, are secured to an incomparably greater degree by the belief of true religion.

"But among all the useful institutions (says Polybius) that demonstrate the superior excellence of the Roman government, the most considerable, perhaps, is the opinion which people are taught to hold concerning the gods: and that which other men regard as an object of disgrace, appears, in my judgment, to be the very thing by which this republic is chiefly sustained. I mean superstition, which is impressed with all its terrors, and influences the private actions of the citizens and the public administration of the state, to a degree that can scarcely be exceeded.

Of whatever benefit superstition might formerly be productive, by the scattered particles of truth which it contained, these advantages can now only be reaped from the soil of true religion; nor is there any other alternative left

"The ancients, therefore, acted not absurdly, nor without good reason, when they inculcated the notions concerning the gods, and the belief of infernal punishments; but much rather are those of the present age to be charged with rashness and absurdity, in endeavouring to extirpate these opinions; for, not to mention other effects that flow from such an institution, if among the Greeks, for example, a single talent only be entrusted to those who have the management of any of the public money, though they give ten written sureties, with as many seals and twice as many witnesses, they are unable to discharge the trust reposed in them with integrity. But the Romans, on the other hand, who in the course of their magistracies and in embassies disburse the greatest sums, are prevailed on, by the single obligation of an oath, to perform their duty with inviolable honesty. And as, in other states, a man is rarely to be found whose hands are pure from public robbery, so among the Romans it is no less rare to discover one that is tainted with this crime."-Hampton's Polybius, Vol. III. book vi.

Though the system of paganism is justly condemned by reason and scripture, yet it assumed as true several principles of the first importance to the preservation of public manners; such as a persuasion of invisible power, of the folly of incurring the divine vengeance for the attainment of any present advantage, and the divine approbation of virtue so that, strictly speaking, it was the mixture of truth in it which gave it all its utility, which is well stated by the great and judicious Hooker in treating on this subject. "Seeing, therefore, it doth thus appear, (says that venerable author,) that the safety of all states dependeth upon religion; that religion, unfeignedly loved, perfecteth men's abilities unto all kinds of virtuous services in the commonwealth; that men's desire is, in general, to hold no religion but the true; and that whatever good effects do grow out of their religion, who embrace, instead of the true, a false, the roots thereof are certain sparks of the light of truth intermingled with the darkness of error; because no religion can wholly and only consist of untruths, we have reason to think that all true virtues are to honour true religion as their parent, and all wellordered commonweals to love her as their chiefest stay."-Eccles. Pol. book v.

than the belief of Christianity, or absolute atheism. In the revolutions of the human mind, exploded opinions are often revived; but an exploded superstition never recovers its credit. The pretension to divine revelation is so august and commanding, that when its falsehood is once discerned, it is covered with all the ignominy of detected imposture ; it falls from such a height (to change the figure) that it is inevitably crumbled into atoms. Religions, whether false or true, are not creatures of arbitrary institution. After discrediting the principles of piety, should our modern freethinkers find it necessary, in order to restrain the excesses of ferocity, to seek for a substitute in some popular superstition, it will prove a vain and impracticable attempt: they may recall the names, restore the altars, and revive the ceremonies; but to rekindle the spirit of heathenism will exceed their power; because it is impossible to enact ignorance by law, or to repeal by legislative authority the dictates of reason and the light of science.

2. The efforts of infidels to diffuse the principles of Infidelity among the common people is another alarming symptom peculiar to the present time. HUME, BOLINGBROKE, and GIBBON, addressed themselves solely to the more polished classes of the community, and would have thought their refined speculations debased by an attempt to enlist disciples from among the populace. Infidelity has lately grown condescending: bred in the speculations of a daring philos ophy, immured at first in the cloisters of the learned, and afterward nursed in the lap of voluptuousness and of courts; having at length reached its full maturity, it boldly ventures to challenge the suffrages of the people, solicits the acquaintance of peasants and mechanics, and seeks to draw whole nations to its standard.

It is not difficult to account for this new state of things.

While Infidelity was rare, it was employed as the instrument of literary vanity; its wide diffusion having disqualified it for answering that purpose, it is now adopted as the organ of political convulsion. Literary distinction is conferred by the approbation of a few; but the total subversion and overthrow of society demands the concurrence of millions.

3. The infidels of the present day are the first sophists who have presumed to innovate in the very substance of morals. The disputes on moral questions, hitherto agitated

*

*For a summary of the contradictory doctrines proposed by the most eminent opposers of revelation, in order to evade the reception of the Scriptures as a standard of religious belief, see "An Introduction to the Critical Study and Knowledge of the Holy Scriptures," pp. 24-34. The absurdity of their notions is well exposed in the following compendium, executed by the author of the "Connoisseur," (one of those numerous collections of periodical essays, which reflect so much honour on British literature); who has thrown together a few of the principal tenets held by free-thinkers, under the title of

66 THE UNBELIEVER'S CREED."

"I believe that there is no God, but that matter is God, and God is matter; and that it is no matter, whether there is any God or no.

"I believe that the world was not made; that the world made itself; and that it had no beginning; that it will last for ever, world without end. "I believe that man is a beast; that the soul is the body, and the body the soul; and that after death there is neither body nor soul.

"I believe that there is no religion; that natural religion is the only religion, and that all religion is unnatural.

"I believe not in Moses; I believe in the First Philosophy; I believe not the Evangelists; I believe in Chubb, Collins, Toland, Tindal, Morgan, Mandeville, Hobbes, Shaftesbury; I believe in Lord Bolingbroke," [Hume, Voltaire, Diderot, Boulanger, Volney, and Thomas Paine;] "I believe not St. Paul.

"I believe not revelation; I believe in tradition; I believe in the Talmud; I believe in the Koran; I believe not the Bible; I believe in Socrates; I believe in Confucius; I believe in Sanchoniathon; I believe in Mohammed; I believe not in Christ.

"Lastly, I believe in all unbelief."

CONNOISSEUR, No. 9. (Chalmers's Edition of the British Essayists, vol. xxx. p. 48.) quoted by Mr. Horne in his Introduction.

among philosophers, have respected the grounds of duty, not the nature of duty itself: or they have been merely metaphysical, and related to the history of moral sentiments in the mind, the sources and principles from which they were most easily deduced; they never turned on the quality of those dispositions and actions which were to be denominated virtuous. In the firm persuasion that the love and fear of the Supreme Being, the sacred observation of promises and oaths, reverence to magistrates, obedience to parents, gratitude to benefactors, conjugal fidelity, and parental tenderness, were primary virtues, and the chief support of every commonwealth, they were unanimous. The curse denounced upon such as remove ancient landmarks, upon those who call good evil, and evil good, put light for darkness, and darkness for light, who employ their faculties to subvert the eternal distinctions of right and wrong, and thus to poison the streams of virtue at their source, falls with accumulated weight on the advocates of modern Infidelity, and on them alone.

Permit me to close this discourse with a few serious reflections. There is much, it must be confessed, in the apostacy of multitudes, and the rapid progress of Infidelity, to awaken our fears for the virtue of the rising generation; but nothing to shake our faith-nothing which Scripture itself does not give us room to expect. The features which compose the character of apostates, their profaneness, presumption, lewdness, impatience of subordination, restless appetite for change, vain pretensions to freedom and to emancipate the world, while themselves are the slaves of lust, the weapons with which they attack Christianity, and the snares they spread for the unwary, are depicted in the clearest colours by the pencil of prophecy: Knowing this first, (says Peter,) that there shall come in the last days scoff