of poetry, in company with such men as Spencer, Waller, Cowley, Prior, Gray, Thompson, Young, Milton, and Cowper? Alas! they never have. They never moved in the honored circle of physicians, with such men as Arbuthnot, Brown, Boerhave, Pringle, Heartly, Haller, Mead, and Rush. They were never enrolled in the splendid constellation of those moral luminaries that shone with so much brilliancy in the moral firmament-I mean such men as Luther, Calvin, Erasmus, Beza, Owen, Pool, Campbell, Lardner, Sherlock, Gill, Doddridge, and Gale. When did they ever fill the honorable stations of counsellors and judges, in company with men like IIale, Melmoth, Forbes, Jones, Russell, Blackstone, Erskine, Selden, and Grotius. But I will not follow out the long list of statesmen and philosophers, who have adorned the country and age in which they lived, among whom such men as Hobbes, Servin, Voltaire, Newport, Volney, Paine, Gibbon, Hume, Rousseau, Mirabeau, Altamont, and Emerson, would never have been permitted to associate on the ground of moral equality. Where is it, then, that we are to look to find infidels, in their various associations and connections? Assuredly we would not wish to load them with unmerited reproach. Far be so unworthy an object from our purpose or design; but bound as we are by our sacred profession, and the solemn behest of heaven, to "return and discern between the righteous and the wicked," we cannot, dare not hold our peace. It is not, young gentlemen, in the paths of the virtuous and the good; it is not in the execution of those philanthropic and magnanimous enterprises to bless and save mankind, that you are to expect to find infidels. But go to our jails, our prisons, and our penitentiaries, or listen to the culprit's confession as he swings from the gallows, and learn there the end of the infidel blasphemer. I do not here assert, that no infidel has ever distinguished himself in the field of science; or that they all will come to the prison or the gallows. But if they are saved from this end, it will not, cannot, be by any virtue in infidelity; for this only tends to this very end, by encouraging vice of the grossest kind. Whatever, then, of moral virtue is found in the breast of any infidel, is but the remnant of that religious influence he has been so assiduous to destroy. For in his own bosom there can exist nothing but the faded refuse of blighted faith. From the genius of infidelity, I trust, young gentlemen, it has been sufficiently proved, that its tendency is a subversion of all morals and good order in society; but it will be reserved for another lecture, to show this principle boldly and unblushingly asserted, in the writings of the champions of infidelity. But I must not detain you longer. Tell me then, in view of this picture of infidelity, (true, you will, you must acknowledge it to be,) will you choose it, and settle down with the cold, heartless, speculative, and malignant foes of Jesus Christ? Will you shut the pearly gates of heaven against your own souls, and open the doors of everlasting damnation, and then invite yourselves to enter in? Oh! you cannot thus stake the future destiny of your immortal spirits upon this hopeless chance. Sensuality is the very nurse, the mother of infidelity; and hence, with its seductive, delusive charms it comes to young men, tempting and inflaming their strongest passions, until reason leaves her throne, and the passions are all set on fire, and then, in the phren sied heat and impetuosity of the moment, they thoughtlessly plunge headlong into ruin, and thus, by infidel influence, is withered up the brightest hopes of thousands. There is now awaiting the world, an eventful period. The church has had her pagan persecution, and waded through it, deep in blood. She has had, too, her Papal night of cruel storms; when, from the dark vaults of the accursed inquisitions, poured in purple torrents her richest blood. Her groans from these caverns of death, were heard in heaven, and God awoke to her redemption. But there awaits her yet, another furnace-the product of infidel wrath--which shall be kindled in fiercer flames, and rage with unremitting violence, till all her dross shall be separated from the precious metal. Then like the unconsumed bush, surrounded by the flame, she shall appear again in her primitive loveliness, and shine forth in all the splendor of her native glory. Such will be her trial and such her triumph. She will arise in all her beauty and the glory of her majesty, amid her astonished and confounded foes. Floods of divine glory will be poured out upon her; while around her shall be "salvation for walls and for bulwarks." We invite you to her bosom, warm with love divine; and to a participation of her splendid triumphs, and her transcendent joys. Then, when the perils and dangers of life are over, the gates of the city-the city of the great King-will be opened to receive you, amid the loud hosannas of unnumbered millions, to the right hand of bliss! STANDARDS OF INFIDEL VIRTUE. "Then shall ye return, and discern between the righteous and the wicked; between him that serveth God, and him that serveth him not.-MAL, 3: 18. "My hopes and fears Start up alarmed, and o'er life's narrow verge We remarked during the last lecture that infidelity was subversive of all morals and good order in society. We attempted its demonstration from the very genius of infidelity; showing that it was negative in its nature, and gaseous in its elements, and agreeing in no one principle, except in its opposition to the revelation of heaven, and in universal doubt-debasing as it does the origin of man to the lowest level of the animal creation, and associating his future existence only in the various forms of vegetable life; amalgamating vice and virtue; destroying every motive drawn from another world, with all its fearful retributions; making the grossest vices to become resplendent virtues, when they would gratify a sensual passion, or some depraved and unholy appetite; hushing the tumultuous voice of a reproving conscience, and blunting the sensibilities of nature. A principle that would accomplish this, must, I from the very nature of its operation, subvert all morals and good order in society. Such being the tendency of infidelity, it has thus shown itself in the lives of all its votaries-which are the most lucid demonstrations of its immorality. We challenge infidelity to show that such is not its legitimate tendency and its uniform result. Conscious of its truth, they have not attempted to disprove it; but, to blind the minds of the inquiring, have attacked the friends and advocates of morals and good order, by scurrility, low wit, the grossest abuse, and the most profane and blasphemous obscenity. With such wea pons, perfectly accordant with their spirits and sentiments, fought Shaftsbury, Tindal, Morgan, Bolingbroke, Rousseau, Voltaire, Hume, Volney, and Gibbon. But such carnal weapons, however analogous to the spirit and temper of infidelity, cannot be tolerated by the servant of God, or in the church of Jesus Christ. The minister of the sanctuary, in the exercise of the high and holy functions of his most sacred office, cannot stoop down to these moral sloughs, to follow through them the vanquished and retreating foes of God and man; neither can he, consistently with the moral purity and dignity of his heavenly calling, answer the blasphemous ribaldry of these sons of infidelity; for in this consists their, "coup de grace." Met, and vanquished, again and again, as infidelity has been in the field of controversy; and as often made to retire with Ichabod, written upon its broken and dismantled shield-yet it has as often rallied again; but always under a new garb, or false colors, and thus comes up again to the moral conflict, under the character and form of a new enemy. It was in prophetic vision, |