conduct free from those vices which natural conscience condemns; a behaviour not inconsistent with the docility, the earnestness, the prayer for divine instruction which we profess in our inquiries-a life which: shall not obviously make it our interest that Christianity should be untrue-a freedom, in short, from those primary hindrances to an impartial examination of religion, which, as films and mists, distort every object presented to the view, and make it impossible to discern the form and features of truth.

II. Now, if this be manifestly the state of mind in which the subject of the truth of Christianity should be studied, it may be useful to show THE MANIFEST WANT OF IT in too many of those who reject revelation. Young persons will thus be guarded, in the first instance, against the assaults of impiety, and may judge of the cause in which unbelievers are engaged, by the spirit which actuates them. For I assert boldly, that the very disposition and temper of unbelievers, give an assurance to a sincere inquirer that they were never likely to attain to truth. I assert boldly, that instead of docility, their inquiries are conducted with scorn; instead of seriousness, with levity; instead of a spirit of prayer, with irreligion and impiety; instead of any obedience to the acknowledged will of God, with open immorality and vice.

Let us look at the three classes into which, in the present day, they may be divided-the Literary; the Uninformed; the grossly Profane-and we shall see the proof of what I state.

Let us look at the LITERARY and SCIENTIFIC unbelievers. I speak not of individuals-I speak of the body, as known by their writings publicly submitted to the view of mankind. What is the temper of mind in which they have obviously entered upon the inquiry? Are docility, earnestness, a devotional and humble reliance upon God in prayer, and obedience to his

will, at all apparent in the general tenour of their books? Is this the complexion of their reasoning? Do they not, so far from acting in such a temper, generally disavow, ridicule, or condemn it? Mark their whole spirit and conduct. Instead of docility, observe the unfairness, the inconsistency, the dishonesty with which they conceal or pervert the plainest facts. Instead of seriousness, notice their proud, supercilious, flippant levity in treating the most so- 1 lemn of all subjects. Instead of the spirit of prayer to Almighty God, observe how their arguments are directed, not against the particular proofs of Christianity, but against the production of any proofs in favour of any revelation. See them virtually denying the very being of that God, whom in theory they profess to acknowledge. Hear their blasphemies, their impieties, their profaneness, which, whether Christianity be true or not, are condemned by natural religion itself. Lastly, instead of obedience to the will of God so far as it is known, notice the frightful abandonment of morality in their systems, and the overturning of all the foundations of virtue, which they scarcely take any pains to conceal, and which their own conduct too frequently betrays.

With such a temper apparent, I have a key to the secrets of their unbelief.

I see one writer speaking of the life and discourses of our Saviour with the ignorance and buffoonery of a jester, and asserting that ridicule is the test of truth ;—I want no one to inform me that he is an unbeliever.3

I see another virtually denying all human testimony with one breath, and with another defending suicide and apologizing for lewdness and adultery;-I do not ask if he is dissatisfied with the Christian evidence.1

I see a third, after composing a work full of hypocricy and deceit on the subject of religion, publishing it to the world on the persuasion of having heard a voice from heaven. I observe another explaining away the historical narrative of the Old Testament as a mystical representation of the signs of the zodiac. I discover in the writings of another—and him a poet and a man of birth-that caprice and vanity, that self-conceit and misanthropy, that delight in the alliance of vice with gilded virtues, which mark an abandonment of all moral feeling.-I want no one to explain to me the sources of the unbelief of such writers.7

I turn to our modern historians, and I mark their blunders in what relates to religion, their inconsistencies, their misrepresentations, the impurities which defile their pages, their vanity and self-confidence, and the malice and spleen with which they pursue the followers of Christ.---I ask no further questions.

I open the works of the German infidels, and find the index of their real temper in the follies and absurdities with which they are content to forsake all common sense in their comments on the sacred text, and to exhibit themselves as the gazing-stocks of Christendom."

I cast my eye on the flippancy of the French school of irreligion, and see such entire ignorance of the simplest points of religious knowledge, such gross impurities, connected with blasphemies which I dare not repeat; I see such an obvious attempt to confound truth and falsehood on the most important of all subjects, and such a bitterness of scorn, a sort of satanic rancour, against the Christian religion and its divine Founder, as to betray most clearly the cause in which they are engaged. I take the confession of one of their number, and ask whether, in

5

Lord Herbert.

7 Lord Byron.

6 Sir W. Drummond.
Hume and Gibbon.

8

9 The German Neologists.

such a temper of mind, any religious question could be soundly determined? "I have consulted our philosophers, I have perused their books, I have examined their several opinions, I have found them all proud, positive, and dogmatical, even in their pretended scepticism; knowing every thing, proving nothing, and ridiculing one another." "If our

philosophers were able to discover truth, which of them would interest himself about it? There is not one of them, who if he could distinguish truth from falsehood, would not prefer his own error to the truth that is discovered by another. Where is the philosopher, who for his own glory would not willingly deceive the whole human race ?" 10

If from the literary and scientific unbelievers, we

turn to THE UNINFORMED AND NEGLIGENT CLASS

OF YOUNG PERSONS, who have imbibed, or profess to have imbibed, the tenets of scepticism, what is their state of mind? I do not ask what are their arguments-those we may hereafter notice-but I ask what is their obvious temper of mind? In what sort of disposition have they approached the sacred subject? Have they ever shown any real marks of docility and candour? Have they ever taken pains, serious pains, about the question? Have they ever acquired any sound information on the subject of religion? Have they ever made themselves thoroughly acquainted with the New Testament ? Do they know what the Christianity is which they oppose? Is there any thing of devotion, and a spirit of prayer to the great and glorious God, to illumine and guide their minds ? What is their spirit and temper? This, this is the key. Ask their parents, their families, their neighbourhoods. The case speaks for itself. Their unbelief is not the result of honest and laborious inquiry, but the careless vanity and indif

10 Rousseau, Emile, liv. iv. p. 264, 5.

ference of a mind inflated and corrupted by immoral pleasure, and which has never seriously examined the subject. They have glided into infidelity by the lapse of time and the current of the passions. They are not, properly speaking, unbelievers. They do not know enough of the Bible. Their vices and pride have occasioned doubts indeed, but they dare not trust to them; their ignorance has adopted these doubts, but they do not understand them. Their vanity boasts of these doubts, but they are not able to make them a resource. 11

If from this vapid class we turn to the LOW AND PROFANE, and what I may call, without a breach of charity, the RUFFIAN unbelief which is propagated among the dregs of society in the present day, shall I stop to insult the ears of a devout audience, by asking, whether the obvious temper of mind which animates them, and which, if it were to spread, would break out into open violence against the peace of society, can consist with a dispassionate and candid search after religious truth? What, when I see all the first principles of our moral nature outraged, the foundations of virtue overturned, civil order and subjection openly invaded, and adultery and assassination vindicated-what, when I see the most daring blasphemies vomited forth in the face of day, not against the God of the Bible only, but against the God of nature-did I say against the God of nature? -Alas! some of them deny the very being of a God, and have proceeded to the frightful and unparalleled impiety of exhibiting to public view a wretched, disgusting caricature.-I use the only appropriate words to describe the fact-nothing else than a wretched, disgusting caricature-with the design of ridiculing the ineffable glory and attributes of that omniscient

11 See a noble Sermon of Massillon, Carême, Mardi de la quatrième semaine, Des doutes sur la Religion.