in the world. It is to be hoped that direct Atheists are few. Some persons question the reality of such a character, and others insist, that pretensions to Atheism have their origin in pride, or are adopted as a cloak for licentiousness. In the seventeenth century, Spinosa, a foreigner, was its noted defender; and Lucilio Vanini, an Italian, of eccentric character, was burnt, 1619, at Toulouse, for his Atheistical tenets. Being pressed to make public acknowledgment of his crime, and to ask pardon of God, the king, and justice, he replied, that he did not believe there was a God; that he never offended the king; and as for justice, he wished it to the devi!. He Confessed that he was one of the twelve who parted in company from Naples, to spread their doctrines in all parts of Europe. The poor man, however, ought not to have been put to death; confinement is the remedy for insanity. Lord Bacon, in his Essays, justly remarks, that "A little philosophy inclineth a man's mind to ATHEISM, but depth in philosophy bringeth men's minds about to religion; for while the mind of man looketh upon second causes scattered, it may rest in them and go no farther: but when it beholdeth the chain of them confederated and linked together, it must needs fly to PROVIDENCE and DEITY." And Dean Sherlock justly remarks respecting the origin of Atheism, that "The universal Deluge and the confusion of languages had so abundantly convinced mankind of a Divine Power and

Providence, that there was no such creature as an Atheist till their ridiculous idolatries had tempted some men of wit and thought rather to own no God than such as the Heathens worshipped!"

Archbishop Tillotson, speaking of Atheism, says, "For some ages before the reformation, Atheism was confined to Italy, and had its residence at Rome. All the mention that is of it in the history of those times, the Papists themselves give us, in the lives of their own popes and cardinals, excepting two or three small philosophers, that were retainers to that court. So that this Atheistical humour amongst christians was the spawn of the gross superstition and corrupt manners of the Romish church and court. And, indeed, nothing is more natural than for extremes in RELIGION to beget one another, like the vibrations of a pendulum, which the more violently you swing it one way, the farther it will return the other. in this last age ATHEISM has travelled over the Alps and infected France; and now of late it hath crossed the seas and invaded our nation, and hath prevailed to amazement!"

But

The Sermons preached at Boyle's Lectures-the discourses of Abernethy on the Divine Attributes-and the treatises of Dr. Balguy, are an excellent antidote against Atheistical tenets. This last writer thus forcibly expresses himself on the subject:

"Of all the false doctrines and foolish opinions which ever infested the mind of man, nothing can

possibly equal that of ATHEISM, which is such a monstrous contradiction to all evidence, to all the powers of understanding, and the dictates of common sense, that it may be well questioned whether any man can really fall into it by a deliberate use of his judgment. All nature so clearly points out, and so loudly proclaims a CREATOR of infinite power, wisdom, and goodness, that whoever hears not its voice, and sees not its proofs, may well be thought wilfully deaf and obstinately blind. If it be evident, selfevident, to every man of thought, that there can be no effect without a cause, what shall we say of that manifold combination of effects, that series of ope rations, that system of wonders, which fill the universe; which present themselves to all our perceptions, and strike our minds and our senses on every side? Every faculty, every object of every faculty, demonstrates a DEITY. The meanest insect we can see, the minutest and most contemptible weed we can tread upon, is really sufficient to confound Atheism, and baffle all its pretensions. How much more that astonishing variety and multiplicity of God's works with which we are continually surrounded! Let any man survey the face of the earth, or lift up his eye's to the firmament; let him consider the nature and instinct of brute animals, and afterwards look into the operations of his own mind: will he presume to say or suppose that all the objects he meets with are nothing more than the result of unaccountable acci

dent and blind chance? Can HE possibly conceive that such wonderful order should spring out of confusion; or that such perfect beauty should be ever formed by the fortuitous operations of unconscious, inactive particles of matter? As well, nay better, and more easily, might he suppose, that an earthquake might happen to build towns and cities; or the materials carried down by a flood fit themselves up without hands into a regular fleet. For what are towns, cities, or fleets, in comparison of the vast and amazing fabric of the universe! In short, ATHEISM offers such violence to all our faculties, that it seems scarce credible it should ever really find any footing in human understanding."

The arguments for the being of a GoD are distributed by the learned into two kinds:-1st. Arguments à priori, or those taken from the necessity of the divine existence;-2d. Arguments à posteriori, or those taken from the works of nature. Of the latter species of proof the above quotation from Dr. Balguy is a fine illustration. On the former sec Dr. Clarke's Essay on the being of a GoD, which has been deemed a masterpiece on the subject. The reader is also referred to DR. PALEY'S incomparable work on Natural Theology, which, though it bears a resemblance to Derham's Phisico-theology, is by far more compact and impressive.

Newton, Boyle, Maclaurin, Ray, Derham, Locke, Wilkins, Cudworth, Abernethy, and Fenelon, together

with other philosophers, distinguished for the profun. dity of their researches, and the extent of their eru dition, are to be enrolled amongst the principal advocates for the existence and superintendance of a DEITY. On this subject the celebrated Lord Chesterfield made the following declaration; and no man can suppose his understanding to have been clouded with religious prejudices: "I have read some of Seed's sermons, and like them very well. But I have neither read, nor intend to read, those which are meant to prove the existence of God; because it seems to me too great a disparagement of that reason which he has given us, to require any other proofs of his existence than those which the whole and every part of the creation afford us. If I believe my own existence, I must believe his: it cannot be proved a priori, as some have idly attempted to do, and cannot be doubted of à posteriori. Cato says very justly— "And that he is, all nature cries aloud!" Dr. Priestley's Letters to Hammon of Liverpool, in confutation of Atheistical tenets, deserve well to be consultedit is a Work of great thought and ability. The name Hammon was, it seems, fictious-the Atheist wishing to conceal himself in obscurity.*

* Dr. Priestley (in one of his Fast Sermons) observes, that when he visited France in 1774,-"All her philosophers and men of letters were absolute infidels, and that he was represented by one of them, (in a mixed strain of censure and compliment) as the only man of talent he had met with, who haď: