heart, There is no God: the fecond declaring the corruption and flagitiousness of life which naturally attend it; they are corrupt, they have done abominable works, there is none that doeth good. Now this latter part to a genuine Atheift is mere jargon, as he loves to call it; an empty found of words without any fignification. He allows no natural morality, nor any other diftinction of good and evil, just and unjuft; than as human inftitution and the modes and fashions of various countries denominate them. The most heroical actions or detestable villanies are in the nature of things indifferent to his approbation; if by fecrecy they are alike concealed from rewards or punishments, from ignominy or applaufe. So that, till we have proved in its proper place the eternal and effential difference between virtue and vice, we must forbear to urge Atheists with the corruption and abominablenefs of their principles. But I prefume, the first part of the text, the folly and fottishness of Atheism (which fhall be the fubject of this discourse) will be allowed to come home to their cafe, fince they make such a noisy pretence to wit and fagacity; and I believe several of them first engage in that labyrinth of nonsense and folly, out of an abfurd and prepofterous affectation of seeming wiser than their neighbours.

I

But, before I proceed any farther, it will be neceffary to clear and vindicate this expreffion of the Pfalmift, The fool hath faid in his heart, There is no God. For I know not any interpreters that will allow it to be spoken of fuch as flatly deny the being of God; but of them that, believing his existence, do yet feclude him from directing the affairs of the world, from obferving and judging the actions of men. fuppofe they might be induced to this from the commonly received notion of an innate idea of God, imprinted upon every foul of man at their creation, in characters that can never be defaced. Whence it will follow, that fpeculative Atheism does only fubfift in our fpe'culation; whereas really human nature cannot be guilty of the crime: that indeed a few fenfual and voluptuous persons may for a season eclipse this native light of the foul; but can never fo wholly smother and extinguish it, but that at fome lucid intervals it will recover itself again, and shine forth to the conviction of their confciences. And therefore they believed, that the words would not admit of a strict and rigorous interprétation; but ought to be fo tempered and accommodated to the nature of things, as that they may describe those profane perfons, who, though they do not, nor can really doubt in their hearts of the being of God, yet openly deny his providence in the

course

course of their lives. Now, if this be all that is meant by the text, I do not fee how we can defend, not only the fitnefs and propriety, but the very truth of the expreffion. As to that natural and indelible signature of God, which human fouls in their first origin are fuppofed to be stamped with, I fhall fhew at a fitter opportunity that it is a mistake, and that we have no need of it in our disputes against Atheism. So that, being free from that prejudice, I interpret the words of the text in the literal acceptation, which will likewife take in the expofitions of others. For I believe that the royal Pfalmift in this comprehenfive brevity of fpeech, There is no God, hath concluded all the various forms of impiety; whether fuch as excludes the Deity from governing the world by his providence, or judging it by his righteousness, or creating it by his wisdom and power: because the confequence and result of all these opinions is terminated in downright Atheism. For the divine inspection into the affairs of the world doth neceffarily follow from the nature and being of God. And he that denies this, doth implicitly deny his exiftence: he may acknowledge what he will with his mouth, but in his heart he hath faid, There is no God. A God, therefore a Providence, was a general argument of virtuous men, and not peculiar

to the Stoicks alone. And again, No Providence, therefore no God, was the most plaufible reason, and the most frequent in the mouths of atheistical men. So that it feems to be agreed on all hands, that the exiftence of God and his government of the world do mutually fuppofe and imply one another.

There are fome infidels among us, that not only disbelieve the Chriftian religion, but oppofe the affertions of Providence, of the immortality of the foul, of an universal judgment to come, and of any incorporeal effence; and yet, to avoid the odious name of Atheists, would fhelter and fcreen themselves under a new one of Deifts, which is not quite fo obnoxious. But I think the text hath cut them short, and precluded this fubterfuge; inasmuch as it hath declared, that all fuch wicked principles are coincident and all one in the iffue with the rankeft Atheism: The fool, that doth exempt the affairs of the world from the ordination and difpofal of God, hath faid in his heart, There is no God at all. It was the opinion of many of the ancients, that Epicurus introduced a Deity into his philosophy, not because he was perfuaded of his existence, (for, when he had brought him upon the stage of nature,

b

Pofidon. apud Ciceron. Plutarch. &c.

he

Сс

he made him only muta perfona, and interdicted him from bearing any part in it,) but purely that he might not incur the offence of the magistrate. He was generally therefore suspected verbis reliquiffe Deum, re fuftuliffe; to have framed on purpose fuch a contemptible paltry hypothefis about him, as indeed left the name and title of God in the world, but nothing of his nature and power. Just as a philofopher of our own age gave a ludicrous and fictitious notion about the rest of the earth, to evade the hard censure and usage which Galileo had lately met with. For my own part, as I do not exclude this reason from. being a grand occafion of Epicurus's owning a God, so I believe that he and Democritus too were compelled to it likewise by the neceffity of their own systems. For seeing they explained the phænomena of vision, imagination, and thought itself, by certain thin fleeces of atoms, that flow inceflantly from the furfaces of bodies, and by their fubtilty and fineness penetrate any obftacle, and yet retain the exact figures and lineaments of the feveral bodies from which they proceed; and in this manner infinuating themselves through the pores of human bodies into the contexture of the foul, do there excite fenfation and perception of