INTRODUCTION. ATHEISTS. The Atheist does not believe in the existence of a God. He attributes surrounding nature and all its astonishing phænomena to chance, or to a fortuitous concourse of Atoms! Plato distinguishes three sorts of Atheists; such as deny absolutely that there are any Gods; others who allow the existence of the Gods, but deny that they concern themselves with human affairs, and so disbelieve a Providence; and, lastly, such as believe in the Gods and a Providence, but think that they are easily appeased, remitting the greatest crimes for the smallest supplication. The first of these are the only Atheists, in the proper sense of the word. The name of Atheist is composed of two Greek terms, a and Oeos, signifying without God, and in this sense the appellation occurs in the New Testament, Ephes. ii. 12. "Without God (or Atheists) 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 at the devil! 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, remarks, that "A little phi losophy 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 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." The arguments for the being of a God are distributed by the learned into two kinds :-1st. Arguments a priori, or those taken from the necessity of the divine existence; -2d. Arguments a posteriori, or those taken from the works of nature. Of the latter species of proof a fine illustration may be found in the treatises of Dr. Balguy. On the former, see 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 work on "Natural Theology," which though it bears a resemblance to Derham's "Physico-theology," is by far more compact and impressive. Newton, Boyle, Naclaurin, Ray, Derham, Locke, Wilkins, Cudworth, Abernethy, Fenelon, Van Mildert, and Chalmers in his eloquent Discourses on Astronomy, together with other philosophers distinguished for the profundity of their researches, and the extent of their erudition, are to be enrolled amongst the advocates for the existence and superintendence of a Deity. On this subject 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 a 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 consulted-The name Hammon was, it seems, fictititous-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 had any faith in the Scriptures. Nay, Voltaire himself (who was then living) was considered by them as a weak-minded man, because, though an unbeliever in revelation, he believed in a God." By some Christian writers, Atheists and Deists are used without discrimination. They are by no means synonymous terms. Even Thomas Paine, one of the most inveterate Deists, asserts the existence of a Supreme Being. Finally, Dr. Bruce of Belfast has published a very masterly work on "The Existence and Perfections of the Deity,' ,”—entitled to the utmost attention. He is a Presbyterian minister, of talent, learning, and respectability. He has been connected with the seminary or college at Belfast, and his son occupies the chair of one of the tutors in that seminary. It has produced many men of eminence for the Christian ministry. Paley has, in his "Natural Theology," demonstrated from the visible creation, the existence and the superintendence of One Supreme, all-powerful, all-knowing, and benevolent Author, whose natural attributes are-Omnipotence, omniscience omnipresence, eternity, self-existence, necessary existence, and spirituality! Dr. Gisborne also has published a kind of Appendix to this work, entitled "The Testimony of Natural Theology to Christianity." DEISTS. The Deists believe in a God, but reject a written revelation from him. They are extravagant in their encomiums on natural religion, though they differ much respecting its nature, extent, obligation, and importance. Dr. Clarke, in his treatise against Deism, divides them into four classes, according to the number of articles comprised in their creed. "The first are such as pretend to believe the existence of an eternal, infinite, independent, intelligent Being; and who, to avoid the name of Epicurean Atheists, teach also that this Supreme Being made the world; though at the same time they agree with the Epicureans in this, that they fancy God does not at all concern himself in the government of the world, nor has any regard to, or care of, what is done therein, agreeably to the reasoning of Lucretius, the Epicurean poet For whatsoe'er 's divine must live at peace, Nor care for us, from fears and dangers free, Nought here below, nought in our pow'r it needs, "The second sort of Deists are those who believe not only the being, but also the providence of God with respect to the natural world, but who, not allowing any difference between moral good and evil, deny that God takes any notice of the morally good or evil actions of men, these things depending, as they imagine, on the arbitrary constitution of human laws. "A third sort of Deists there are, who, having right apprehensions concerning the natural attributes of God and his all-governing providence, and some notion of his moral perfections also, yet being prejudiced against the notion of the immortality of the soul, believe that men perish entirely at death, and that one generation shall perpetually succeed another without any further restoration or renovation of things. "A fourth, and the last sort of Deists, are such as believe the existence of a Supreme Being, together with his providence in the government of the world; also all the obligations of natural religion, but so far only as these things are discoverable by the light of nature alone, without believing any divine revelation.” These, the learned author observes, are the only true Deists; but as their principles would naturally lead them to embrace the Christian revelation, he concludes there is now no consistent scheme of Deism, in the world. Dr. Clarke then adds these observations, mingled with a just severity: "The Heathen philosophers, those few of them who taught and lived up to the obligations of natural religion, had indeed a consistent scheme of Deism, as far as it went. But the case is not so now; the same scheme is not any longer consistent with its own principles, it does not now lead men to embrace revelation, as it then taught them to hope for it. Deists in our days, who reject revelation when offered to them, are not such men as Socrates and Cicero were; but under pretence of Deism, it is plain they are generally ridiculers of all that is truly excellent in natural religion itself. Their trivial and vain cavils; their mocking and ridiculing without and before examination; their directing the whole stress of objections against particular customs, or particular and perhaps uncertain opinions or explications of opinions, without at all considering the main body of religion; their loose, vain, and frothy discourses; and, above all, their vicious and immoral lives show, plainly and undeniably, that they are not real Deists but mere Atheists, and consequently not capable to judge of the truth of Christianity. The present Deists are of two sorts only, those who believe and those who disbelieve in a future state.' a Theist (from the Greek 0805, God) be different from a Deist, it is that he has not had revelation proposed to him, and follows therefore the pure light of nature.* If * Paganism is the corruption of natural religion, and is little else than the worship of idols and false gods. These were either men, as Jubiter, Hercules, Bacchus, &c. ; or fictitious persons, as Victory, Fame, Fever, &c.; or beasts, as in Egypt crocodiles, cats, &c.; or, finally in |