pleasure is there in common profane swearing? Yet neither the fear of God nor of the law will persuade men to leave it. 'Tis prevailing example that hath now made it fashionable; but it hath not always been so, nor will be hereafter. So other epidemical vices, they are rife and predominant only for a season, and must not be ascribed to human nature in the lump. In some countries, intemperance is a necessary part of conversation; in others, sobriety is a virtue universal, without any respect to the duties of religion. Nor can they say, that this is only the difference of climate that inclines one nation to concupiscence and sensual pleasures, another to bloodthirstiness and desire of revenge. It would discover great ignorance in history, not to know that, in all climates, a whole people has been overrun with some recently invented or newly imported kind of vice, which their grandfathers never knew. In the latest accounts of the country of Guiana, we are told, that the eating of human flesh is the beloved pleasure of those savages: two nations of them, by mutual devouring, are reduced to two handfuls of men. When the Gospel of our Saviour was preached to them, they received it with gladness of heart; they could be brought to forego plurality of wives, though that be the main impediment to the conversion of the East Indies. But the great stumbling-block with these Americans, and the only rock of offence, was the forbidding them to eat their enemies that irresistible temptation made them quickly to revolt and relapse into their infidelity. What must we impute this to? to the temperature of the air, to the nature of the soil, to the influence of the stars? Are these barbarians of man-eating constitutions, that they so hanker after this inhuman diet,† which we cannot imagine without horror? Is not the same thing practised in other parts of that continent? Was it not so in Europe of old, and is it not now so in Africa? If an eleventh commandment had been given, Thou shalt not eat human flesh; would : [* What must we impute this to? to the temperature; 1st ed. "What, must we impute this to the temperature."-D.] [t this inhuman diet; 1st ed. "this diet."-D.] not these cannibals have esteemed it more difficult than all the ten? And would not they have really had as much reason as our Atheists to plead the power of the temptation, and the propensity of flesh and blood? How impudent, then, are the Atheists,* that traduce the easy and gracious conditions of the Gospel, as† unreasonable and tyrannical impositions! Are not God's ways equal, O ye children of destruction, and are not your ways unequal ? II. Secondly and lastly, for the good influence of religion upon communities and governments, habemus confitentes reos; 'tis so apparent and unquestionable, that 'tis one of the objections of the Atheists, that it was first§ contrived and introduced by politicians, to bring the wild and straggling herds of mankind under subjection and laws. Out of thy own mouth shalt thou be judged, thou wicked servant. Thou sayest that the wise institutors of government, souls elevated above the ordinary pitch of men, thought religion necessary to civil obedience. Why, then, dost thou endeavour to undermine this foundation, to undo this cement of society, and to reduce all once again to thy imaginary state of nature and original confusion? No community ever was or can be begun or maintained, but upon the basis of religion. What government can be imagined without judicial proceedings? and what methods of judicature without a religious oath? which implies and supposes an omniscient Being, as conscious to its falsehood or truth, and a revenger of perjury. So that the very nature of an oath (and therefore of society also) is subverted by the Atheist, who professeth to acknowledge nothing superior to himself, no omnipresent Observer of the actions of men. For an AtheistTM to compose a system of politics is as absurd and ridiculous as [* then are the Atheists; 1st ed. "are they then."-D.] [t as; 1st ed. " for."-D.] [ for the good; 1st ed. as to the benign."-D.] [§ the objections of the Atheists, that it was first; 1st ed. "the wise objections of the Atheist, that it first was."-D.] 9 Luke, xix. 22. Hobbes de Cive, Leviathan. Epicurus's sermons were about sanctity and religious worship. But there was hope, that the doctrine of absolute uncontrollable power, and the formidable name of Leviathan, might flatter and bribe the government into a toleration of infidelity. We need have no recourse to notions* and supposition; we have sad experience and convincing example before us, what a rare constitution of government may be had in a whole nation of Atheists. The natives of Newfoundland and New France in America," as they are said to live without any sense of religion, so they are known to be destitute of its advantages and blessings; without any law, or form of community; without any literature, or sciences, or arts; no towns, no fixed habitations, no agriculture, no navigation. And 'tis entirely owing to the power of religion, that the whole world is not at this time as barbarous as they. And yet I ought not to have called these miserable wretches a nation of Atheists. They cannot be said to be of the Atheist's opinion, because they have no opinion at all in the matter: they do not say in their hearts, There is no God; for they never once deliberated, if there was one or no. They no more deny the existence of a Deity, than they deny the Antipodes, the Copernican system, or the Satellites Jovis; about which they have had no notion or conception at all. "Tis the ignorance of those poor creatures, and not their impiety: their ignorance, as much to be pitied as the impiety of the Atheists to be detested and punished. 'Tis of mighty importance to the government to put some timely stop to the spreading contagion of this pestilence that walketh by day, that dares to disperse its cursed seeds and principles in the face of the sun. The fool in the text had only said in his heart, There is no God: he had not spoken it aloud, nor openly blasphemed, in places of public resort. There's too much reason to fear, that some of all orders of men, even * Пeрl 'Оσióтnтos. Laërt. De sanctitate et de pietate adversus Deos. Cic. [ notions; 1st ed. " notion."-D.] "De Laet, p. 34, 47, 50. Voyage du Sieur de Champlain, p. 28 et 93. W magistracy itself, have taken the infection; a thing of dreadful consequence, and most imminent danger. Epicurus was somewhat* wiser than ordinary, when he so earnestly advised his disciples against meddling in public affairs: he knew the nature and tendency of his own philosophy; that it would soon become suspected and odious to a government, if ever Atheists were employed in places of trust. But, because he had made one great rule superior to all, that every man's only good was pleasure of body and contentment of mind, hence it was, that men of ambitious and turbulent spirits, that were dissatisfied and uneasy with privacy and retirement, were allowed by his own principle to engage in matters of state: and there they generally met with that fortune which their master foresaw. Several cities of Greece," that had made experiment of them in public concerns, drove them out, as incendiaries and pests of commonweals, by severe edicts and proclamations. Atheism is by no means tolerable in the most private condition; but if it aspire to authority and power, if it acquire the command of an army or a navy, if it get upon the bench, or into the senate, or on a throne; what then can be expected but the basest cowardice and treachery, but the foulest prevarication in justice, but betraying and selling the rights and liberties of a people, but arbitrary government and tyrannical oppression? Nay, if Atheism were once, as I may say, the national religion, it would make its own followers the most miserable of men; it would be the kingdom of Satan divided against itself; and the land would be soon brought to desolation. Josephus, who† knew them, hath informed us, that the Sadducees, those Epicureans among the Jews, were not only rough and cruel to men of a different sect from their own, but perfidious and inhuman one towards another. This is the genuine spirit and the natural product of Atheism. No ▾ Plutarch. Aάle Biwoas. Lucret. &c. [* somewhat; 1st ed. "not a little."-D.] w Plutarch. "Oti ovdè ηdéws Sŷv. Cicero, Athenæus, Elian, &c. man, that adheres to that narrow and selfish principle, can ever be just, or generous, or grateful, unless he be sometime overcome by good nature and a happy constitution. No Atheist, as such, can be a true friend, an affectionate relation, or a loyal subject. The appearance and shew of mutual amity among them is wholly owing to the smallness of their number, and to the obligations of a faction. "Tis like the friendship of pickpockets and highwaymen, that are said to observe strict justice among themselves, and never to defraud a comrade of his share of the booty. But, if we could imagine a whole nation to be cut-purses and robbers, would there then be kept that square dealing and equity in such a monstrous den of thieves? And if Atheism should be supposed to become universal in this nation (which seems to be designed and endeavoured, though we know the gates of hell shall not be able to prevail), farewell all ties of friendship and principles of honour; all love for our country and loyalty to our prince; nay, farewell all government and society itself, all professions and arts, and conveniencies of life, all that is laudable or valuable in the world.* Si sibi ipse consentiat, et non interdum naturæ bonitate vincatur. Cic. de Offic. i. 2. [* world; after this word the 1st ed. has the following paragraph:"And now having in the first place explained the words of the text, and secondly detected the mere Deists of our age to be no better than disguised Atheists, seeing they have now no pretence to the deism of Epicurus; and afterwards having shewn that willingly to entertain the hypothesis of Atheism (which is literally to choose death and evil before life and good, and to love darkness rather than light) is the most absurd and inconsiderate folly; and that there is nothing to excuse so silly a choice: not any necessity of it; for religion doth not impose any articles of faith that are repugnant to our faculties, and incredible to natural reason: not interest; because religion itself is, even in this present life, the truest and best interest, as well of every single person (for a Christian's belief is the most comfortable, and his hope the most glorious, of all men's, and the practical duties he is obliged to are in themselves agreeable to his nature and conducible to his temporal happiness,) as of communities and governments; because religion is not only useful to civil society, but fundamentally necessary to its very birth and constitution: having, I say, competently VOL. III. * Deut. xxx. 15; Joh. iii. 10. [19.] E |