crown of life, to be furrendered with laughter? " Is an exceeding and eternal weight of glory too light in the balance against the hopeless death of the Atheist, and utter extinction? It was a noble saying of the Emperor Marcus, That he would not endure to live one day in the world, if he did not believe it to be under the government of Providence. Let us but imagine that excellent perfon confuted and fatisfied by fome Epicurean of his time, that all was but atoms, and vacuum, and neceffity, and chance: would he have been fo pleafed and delighted with the conviction? Would he have so triumphed in being overcome? Or rather, as he hath told us, would he not have gone down with forrow and despair to the grave? Did I but once fee an Atheist lament and bewail himself; that upon a ftrict and impartial examination he had found to his coft, that all was a mistake; that the prerogative of human nature was vanished and gone; thofe glorious hopes of immortality and blifs, nothing but cheating joys and pleafant delufions; that he had undone himself by losing the comfortable error, and would give all the world to have better arguments for religion: there would be great hopes of prevailing upon such an Atheist as this. But, alas! there are 2 Cor. iv. 17. none none of them of this temper of mind; there are none that understand and feek after God; they have no knowledge, nor any defire of it; they P thrust the word of God from them, and judge themselves unworthy of everlasting life; they willingly prefer darkness before light; and obftinately choose to perish for ever in the grave, rather than be heirs of falvation in the refurrection of the juft. Thefe certainly are the fools in the text, indocile intractable fools, whose ftolidity can baffle all arguments, and be proof against demonstration itself; whofe end (as the words of St. Paul do truly defcribe them) whofe end and very hope is deftruction, an eternal deprivation of being; whofe God is their belly, the gratification of fenfual lufts; whofe glory is in their fhame, in the debafing of mankind to the condition of beafts; who mind earthly things, who if (like that great Apostle) they were caught up to the third heaven, would (as the spies did of Canaan) $ bring down an evil report of those regions of bliss. And I fear, unless it please God by extraordinary methods to help their unbelief, and enlighten the eyes of their understanding, they will carry their Atheism with them to the pit; Ver. 2. and 4. of this Pfalm. • Phil. iii. 19. • Numb. xiii. 32. P Acts xiii. 46. r 2 Cor. xii. 2. S 1 Mar. ix. 24. Eph. i. 19. and and the flames of hell only muft convince them of their error. This fupine and inconfiderate behaviour of the Atheists is fo extremely abfurd, that it would be deemed incredible, if it did not occur to our daily observation; it proclaims aloud, that they are not led aftray by their reasoning, but led captive by their lufts to the denial of God. When the very pleasures of paradise are contemned and trampled on, like pearls caft before swine; there is small hope of reclaiming them by arguments of reafon. But however, as Solomon adviseth, we will answer these "fools not according to their folly, left we alfo be like unto them. It is expedient that we put to filence the ignorance of thefe foolish men, that believers may be the more confirmed and more refolute in the faith. Did religion beftow heaven without any terms or conditions indifferently upon all; if the crown of life was hereditary, and free to good and bad; and not fettled by covenant upon the elect of God only, fuch as live Soberly and righteously and godly in this prefent world; I believe there would be no fuch thing as an infidel among us. And without controverfy it is the way and means of attaining to heaven, that makes profane fcorners fo wil lingly let go the expectation of it. It is not the articles of the creed, but the duty to God and their neighbour, that is fuch an inconfiftent incredible legend. They will not practife the rules of religion, and therefore they cannot believe the promises and rewards of it. But, however, let us fuppofe them to have acted like rational and ferious men; and perhaps upon a diligent inquifition they have found, that the hope of immortality deserves to be joyfully quitted, and that either out of intereft, or neceffity. I. And first, one may conceive indeed how there might poffibly be a necessity of quitting it. It might be tied to fuch terms as would render it impoffible ever to be obtained. For example; if it should be required of all the candidates of glory and immortality, to give a full and knowing affent to fuch things as are repugnant to common fense, as contradict the xova avvolay, the univerfal notions and indubitable maxims of reafon; if they were to believe, that one and the fame thing may be and not be at the fame time and in the same respect; if, allowing the received ideas and denominations of numbers and figures and body, they must serioufly affirm, that two and two do make a dozen, or that the diameter of a circle is as long as the circumference, or that the fame body body may be all of it in diftant places at once. I must confefs that the offers of happiness, upon fuch articles of belief as thefe, would be mere tantalizing of rational creatures; and the kingdom of heaven would become the inheritance of only idiots and fools. For, whilst a man of common capacity doth think and reflect upon such propofitions, he cannot poffibly bribe his understanding to give a verdict for their truth. So that he would be quite fruftrated of the hope of reward, upon fuch unpracticable conditions as thefe; neither could he have any evidence of the reality of the promife, fuperior to what he is confcious to of the falfity of the means. Now if any Atheist can shew me, in the system of Christian religion, any fuch abfurdities and repugnancies to our natural faculties, I will either evince them to be interpolations and corruptions of the faith, or yield myself a captive and a profelyte to his infidelity. II. Or, 2dly, They may think it is the intereft of mankind that there should be no heaven at all, because the labour to acquire it is more worth than the purchase; God Almighty (if there be one) having much overvalued the bleffings of his presence. So that, upon a fair eftimation, it is a greater advantage to take one's fwing in fenfuality, and have a glut of voluptuoufnefs in this life, freely refigning C |