under their oppressions, sufferings, and misery ; but must sink into dark despair, without the least hope of relief. To deny there is a God, is to deprive men of their greatest, or rather of their only refuge, support, and comfort, in life and death.

However many professed atheists there may be in this world, it is certain there is not one in that which is to come. But, though God now exercises patience toward these sinners of the first magnitude, a terrible vengeance awaits them in a future state. Nay, they have reason to be afraid of exemplary strokes of his justice in time; few professed atheists, whose names are recorded in history, but came to some awful and tragical end. Lucretius, who commended Epicurus as the first who dared to encounter the notion of a Deity, and had thereby set the minds of men free from the fear of God, which had long kept them in awe, according to ancient authors, was seized with madness, and killed himself. So likewise two ingenious, but profane persons, Mr. Creech and Mr. Blount, who translated Lucretius into English, not influenced to this work by the best motives, found their minds so burdened, though in no mean circumstances, that both of them followed their admired author in his dismal exit, putting an end to their lives with their own hands;-the one hanged, and the other shot himself.

May we not ask, Can there be any such person as a direct, absolute, speculative atheist, who in his heart believes there is no God? Such a man

must be an utter stranger to the common conceptions of reason; and even divest himself of humanity, before he can thus deny God. Indeed there have been, even in our day, persons who professed themselves atheists, and with their lips boldly denied the existence of God. But, no doubt, their hearts contradicted what their lips profanely uttered, and while they thus openly denied him, they were secretly haunted with a dread of his presence. A heathen philosopher gives the lie to those who say, they believe there is no God. And if it be not so, whence is it that even the thought and mention of death is so very terrible to these men? Is it not because their consciences tell them that death is the messenger of Divine justice to arrest their progress, and cause them to appear before that God whom they have reproached, blasphemed, and denied? If they did indeed believe there is no God, and had no doubt about this matter, as they say they have not, why should they be so much afraid of the dissolution of the body, since, according to their own principles, death puts an end to all their miseries, and leaves them in the same condition they were in before they had any being! Cotta assures us, that no school boy was ever more afraid of the rod, than Epicurus was of a deity and death, though with his tongue he seemed to despise both. The earl of Rochester acknowledged, when he became a penitent, that he both believed and feared the glory and power of that God, against whose existence he had

disputed with all the wit and eloquence of which he was master. Many appear like atheists in their health, wine, and company, who are quite otherwise in solitude, sickness, danger, and the prospect of death. It may be replied, we read in the Scripture, The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God. True: and he well deserves the appellation of fool who says so. But that expression may denote, not his real opinion or persuasion, but his desire or wish; for, living in opposition to the Divine will, he wishes there was no God to punish him for his wickedness, no future tribunal before which he must stand.

There being such demonstration of the existence of God, how horrible must their sin be, who, notwithstanding this evidence, deny that solemn truth; and who abuse the excellent faculty of reason, to instil their pernicious and destructive principles into the minds of those with whom they converse, exerting their powers to banish the belief of a Supreme Being out of the world, to erase the notions of him out of the human mind, and thus to render men atheists in the world. This impiety is worse than that of devils, for though they wish there was no God, as the atheists do, yet they own their be-lief of his existence, which these deny. How admirable is the patience of God toward such prodigious sinners in suffering them to live, and not sending them immediately to hell, to be convinced of his existence, holiness, justice, and power, by the torments which his avenging

hand inflicts on the miserable spirits there for their sins.

As all nature proclaims the existence of God, so every correct feeling of the human heart is responsive to its voice. The instant we begin to breathe, says one, a connection with him is commenced, which can never be dissolved. All other unions are formed for a limited duration only; time will diminish them; death will destroy them; but this connection defies the injuries of time, remains equally vigorous amid the triumphs of death, and is commensurate with the ages of eternity. The moment we are capable of discerning between moral good and evil, our responsibility to God is begun it commences with the dawn of reason, and looks forward to the judgment seat as its issue. Man may be cut off from human society, but he cannot be separated from God: he may renounce all intercourse with, his fellow men, but never can dissolve the bonds of moral obligation by which he is held to his Maker.

The last sigh that rends the bursting heart terminates the correspondence between man and man, but strengthens the union between God and man. It ought therefore to be an object of the first magnitude with mankind, to learn something of the Being with whom they are thus intimately and inseparably connected; who is light and warmth in the sun, softness in the breeze, power in the tempest, and the principle which pervades, animates, regulates, and sustains universal nature; while to deny his

existence, is the madness of desperation, and the temerity of presumption: of all insanity it is the worst, and of all ingratitude it is the deepest. (Dr. Collyer.)

Then He, who is the author of all created beings, must possess an unlimited superiority over them; "Their immensity showing his omnipotence, their vast variety and contrivance his omniscience, and their adaptation. to the most beneficent purposes; his infinite goodness and philanthropy." His power no one is competent to resist, his wisdom no one can deceive, his presence no one can elude; his sovereignty gives him an unquestionable right to do whatever he pleases, and his benevolence leads him to dispense blessings to his creatures with a liberal hand.

O God! thou art eternal, without beginning of days or end of life. Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world; even from everlasting to everlasting thou art God, without any succession in thy duration, or change in thy nature. All possible excellencies meet in thee, as streams in the ocean. In the beginning of time, thou didst give existence to the universe, and to all those different kinds and species of creatures, rational, sensitive, and inanimate, with which it abounds. And in the works of creation, thou hast made a glorious display of thy infinite wisdom, omnipotent power, and ineffable goodness. Thou hast the highest heaven for thy throne, and this earth for thy