feek for objections against religion. Above all, are not these objections urged with the greateft zeal against thofe doctrines fo dreadful to the guilty, the final judgment of God, and the eternal retributions of his juftice? Is it not in order to free their minds of the ap prehenfions created by thefe awful truths, that they fo earneftly endeavour to fhake the deepest foundations of the chriflian faith? These ideas give no moleftation to virtue : they are terrible only to vice, and vice alone is folicitous to defroy them. Becaufe “the carnal mind is enmity ag inft God, and is not fubject to his law, neither indeed can be," it would endeavour to annihilate both the law and the lawgiver.

While, enflaved as they are to their lufts, they admit the authority of religion, they are compelled fecretly to tremble at the ideas of futurity. Their fears are a proof of their crimes. In this cafe, their only resource for peace of mind is to renounce religion; to perfuade themfelves, that, at death, they fhall ceafe to exift; and that, hereafter, there will be neither tribunal nor judge. When these ideas are establishC

ed, conscience has no more ground for its reproofs; the heart no more caufe for its fears. To this point, therefore, all their ftudies are bent, that they may acquire tranquility in the pleasureable pursuits of vice. Senfual pleasure is their fupreme good, and if they can diveft themselves of all apprehenfions for the future, into it they plunge, with headlong and brutal appetite.

It is the object of all those writers, who have lately distinguished themselves as enemies of the crofs of Chrift, to establish the licentious idea, that death is an eternal fleep; that there is no moral governor of the universe, no judge to whom we are accountable for our actions. And is it not the object of philofophy in every nation, and in every age, when morals have become extremely corrupted, to prove that men have the fame end with the brutes, only that they may abandon themselves to the fame petites?

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If religion prefented nothing to their faith but abftrufe fpeculations, and incomprehenfible myfteries that had no relation to morals, they would pass them with the

Fame indifference, that they do the abstractions of any other science: but it touches the heart, and controuls their luftstherefore it is, that it awakens in them the keeneft oppofition. They profefs, indeed, to be fhocked at its mysteries; they find doctrines in it that revolt their reafon, and on these they inceffantly declaim: but, it is only to conceal from themselves and from the world, the true grounds of their enmity. It is because religion commands them to renounce this guilty commerce; to facrifice this criminal connection; to fubdue this dominant luft, and to flee even the motives and temptations to evil, that it excites all rancour of hatred, and all the bitterness of hoftility. Afhamed to avow these difhonorable causes, they endeavour to enlist reason in the fervice of the paffions, and pretend to reft on it an infidelity, that takes its true origin from the heart. It is because religion can make no compromife with vice, that it is the object of their abhorrence.— By the rancour of their minds, we may judge of the real ground of their enmity to the law of Chrift. Hypocrify and impofture, are the leaft crimes which they impute to religion. Their farcafins and fneers, they are

never tired of reiterating against its hiftories, its doctrines, and its minifters. They urge them on all occafions; they repeat them without regard to decency or opportunity. The malignity of their hearts, the irritation of provoked and difappointed paffions, continually burft forth, and difplay themfelves in the whole manner of their oppofition to the inflitutions of piety. Too plain it is, to be denied, that their pretended infidelity, and their declared hollility to religion, take their rife folely from their vices.

Another proof that infidelity springs from the vices of men is, that, ufually, it keeps pace with their paffions; it flourishes in profperity-in adverfity it lofes its confidence and effrontery. The tide of pleasure buoys it up; health, and a vigorous flow of spirits, keep far out of view that interefling period that tries the honefty and folidity of the principles of our conduct. But, let affliction weaken the force of the paffions-let fome great and unexpected reverfe of providence. wreit from the proud the power or the wealth in which they trufled, and from the voluptuous the pleasures which intoxicated

them-let them be reduced to feel the vanity and uncertainty of the world, within the narrow circle of which they had circumfcribed all their happiness and their hopestheir infidelity begins to totter-their hearts begin to mifgive them--that future world which they had hitherto defpifed, and profeffed to difbelieve, begins to acquire reality and importance-anxiety and alarm take poffeffion of the foul, and in the moment of diftrefs and weakness, when they most need a support like that of religion, they are left to despair. When real danger appears, their pretended principles are not able to fuftain them: they find indeed that they had no principles-they were only the deceitful dictates of a fenfual heart, which they had mistaken for principles. Why do their opinions vibrate? Infidels in prosperity, believers in extreme adverfity-Why does their boafted impiety forfake them at a feafon fo critical? If it were founded on reafon, it could not change-reason is always the fame. But, refting only on the paffions and the vices, it is mutable like them. When the fuel that nourishes them is withdrawn, its delufions and effrontery are both at an end.