cause he was first a libertine in practice, that the heart or animal part of us, by one means or other, prompts the mind to some opinions, or withholds it from others, and leads men into, or out of principles. Were it not that the animal is very predominant in him, he might easily be made sensible, that Christian faith is so far from being no virtue, that it is really a perfect summary, and the highest improvement of all virtues. True philosophy had reduced all the virtues to one, that is, fortitude. And what is true fortitude, but confidence? or true confidence, but faith and trust, not in fortune, not in the multitude, not in man, the dependence of fools; not in ourselves, the dependence of vain and conceited fools; but in God, in almighty wisdom and goodness? Is not this faith, temperance, inasmuch as it keeps us within the bounds of moderation, when appetite and desire allure us to excess? Is it not prudence, as it shews us the true, the important end, or chief good, of our being, and points to the means of attaining that end? Is it not justice, as it fixes our eyes on the final determination of our lot before the tribunal of unerring rectitude, and bids us make the justice of God the rule and motive of all our actions? And is it not fortitude, as it preserves us undaunted and invincible in all trials?

As to the sixth objection, that the rewards and punishments proposed to faith and infidelity, make faith itself and all its effects mercenary, and so destroy the very nature of virtue; let the infidel himself shew, that faith follows evidence, and cannot be bribed by rewards; and that infidelity is never found but for want of evidence, and therefore cannot be terrified by punishments. For our own part, we shall readily and humbly confess the effects of our faith to be mercenary, if it is mercenary to embrace virtue, not only for her own beauty, but for her dowry of endless honour and happiness; if it is mercenary to love her for the sake of her author and giver; and to do good on some reason, and for some end. Nay, we confess farther, that whereas she is sometimes exceedingly shocking to our weak and degènerate nature, we stand in need of her highest encouragements to preserve us steadily attached to her.

Vice, on the other hand, does not always look so ugly, as they who have taken her to pieces, report her. She paints

with infinite art, wears all dresses, especially those most in fashion, keeps the best company, and by candle-light eclipses all the other beauties. Now, rather than fall into her hands, we are humble enough to bless our faith for shewing us her serpentine tail and sting. It may be mercenary, it may be mean-spirited and slavish, to owe our safety to this sight; but it can never destroy the nature of our virtue, which disdains not the use of fear, if it were but for this reason, that God hath made it a part of our nature, and that for excellent purposes, as not only we, but all the legislators that ever lived, have found by experience. We even presume to think, that a small mixture of our gross mercenary hopes and fears would do no harm in the philosophic virtue of our acquaintances, were it but just enough to make it visible, for really at present their love of virtue and hatred of vice, are so excessively refined, that, to ordinary eyes, the difference is hardly perceptible.

The last objection, that faith of any kind is seldom found, but in weak and superstitious minds, is to be understood as a flout at the professors of all traditionary religions, rather than as a reflection deserving notice. I should perhaps have said nothing of it here, were it not strongly echoed by a pretended party of Christians, the Arians, I mean, who cry up morality and run down faith, as if the one were just going to destroy the other. This however they did not do, till they had first vilified the person of Christ, who promises salvation to faith. For my part, who own no speculative principles of religion, who look on the heart and will as equally concerned with the understanding, in every thing to be believed, I cannot help regarding these distinctions between articles of faith and principles of practice, as laying the pick-axe to the very foundation of Christianity, as separating its soul from its body. However, as they cried up the one only to run down the other, they have of late made equally free with both, and improved so well on the casuistry of the Jesuits, that an equivocation comes as readily to them in practice, as in speculation; and if we will but put ourselves for a little time under their tuition, we who could not practise as we formerly believed, may have the pleasure to hope, we shall soon believe, as we now practise.

Be this as it will, it is but charity to wish these overgrown moralists, together with their friends, the more sceptical kind of Deists, an island or world to themselves; that they might fully experience the sweets of living without histories of past times; without any records of rights, titles, properties, prior to their newly acquired possessions; without magistrates, for who is to be trusted with power? Without trials or witnesses, for there is to be no report; without borrowing, lending, sending, or receiving messages, or transacting business of any kind by others; without a possibility of extending commerce farther, than each person could carry his own goods, and bring back what he buys; without honesty; or at least, for want of trust and confidence, without the use of it; abandoned to fraud, or perpetual suspicions of it, without remedy; unable to bear one another, or live together, and quite incredulous of any other world or island, to which they might escape. See what is lost by a want of faith! were it not as wise a way to believe every thing that is told one?

How circumscribed a being is man in point of knowledge, and of all that dignity and happiness which result from useful knowledge, if without faith! If shut in, and confined to the narrow limits of his own sensory! How little can he find out of those things which tend most to the improvement of his mind, and to the comfortable, not to say, ornamental accommodation of life, if he will not hear and believe, as well as see, feel, and taste; if he will not trust and confide, as well as demonstrate!

How, on the other hand, is he enlarged by faith in men! Seeing with the eyes of all men! Hearing with the ears of the whole species, from the earliest ages to the present, over the face of the whole earth! and cheaply appropriating to himself the dear-bought experience of all mankind! How much farther still are his views carried by divine faith into the real nature and use of things here, whereof the infidel sees only the surface! How far beyond these again, into regions of glorious, important, and otherwise unattainable knowledge into new worlds! into the world of spirits, his kindred spirits! into the court, and to the throne of the heavenly king into the abyss of his own immortality! into the abyss of almighty wisdom, exerted in the works of

creation and providence! into the abyss of almighty love exemplified in the condescension of a suffering and assisting God, for his eternal salvation, for his salvation, who had corrupted his own nature, proved ungrateful for all other blessings, and even persecuted his benefactor! Crucified his divine Redeemer !

What a narrow heart hath unbelief! How great a coward is the infidel! who dare not believe in these things because they are so great! who dare not believe in the miracles of Christ, notwithstanding reason tells him aloud, that these, though wrought for a greater purpose, are by no means so stupendous as those he sees, eats, drinks, breathes, every hour! who trembles at the thoughts of bringing a disingenuous, a lewd, a dastardly heart to the test of Christian morality! He hath not virtue enough so much as once to look his vices in the face. He shudders at the thoughts of reformation, and looks pale at the name even of mercy, if that of repentance is pronounced before it. What now must his infinite vanity do, thus miserably circumstanced? Why, he hath no shift left to keep that in countenance, but setting up for an immense stock of penetration, and consequently of contempt for faith, at the instant that he is a bankrupt to common sense and common honesty. He must be more than others, to conceal his being less. He must parry with a sneer, or bully in an harangue, that close encounter with reason on the merits of Christian faith, which he knows he cannot stand. How just is the sentence pronounced on him by the son of Syrach, Woe unto him that is faint-hearted, for he believeth not.' The character he would assume is that of sagacity and intrepidity. Infinite impudence! Whereas ignorance and timidity are the peculiar distinctions of his mind, and beget between them all his infidel suspicions. He knows not, such is his ignorance, how to distinguish error from truth; and observing how many impostures prevail in the world, he fears, such is his timidity, that every thing is imposture. His views are dark, short and narrow; and therefore suspicion is all he hath for precaution, just as other ignorants have cunning only for wisdom. He can neither be, nor have a friend, for he who cannot trust, cannot safely be trusted. Credulity, it is true, is a weakness, but hath the simplicity of a child to excuse it. Suspicion is a weakness

too; but then it is a vice also; and hath this to expose it, that the suspicious is always suspected of only imputing to others, what he is conscious of in himself. I dwell thus on suspicion, because the fearful and jealous temper gives essence to the evil heart of unbelief,' in the same manner and degree, as bravery or fortitude of mind constitute the good heart of faith. As this religious fortitude of faith is truly a virtue, the parent and patron of all other virtues; so this irreligious cowardice of infidelity is really a vice, the parent, the nurse, the patron of all other vices; at once idolizing through vanity, and sceptically extinguishing through fear, the reasoning faculty with which it is joined; at once haughtily dictating what never can be proved, and believing (for here it can only believe) that nothing is to be believed; at once peremptorily dogmatizing on precarious negatives, and miserably doubting, or impudently denying, positives, of the highest proof.

After all, we wrong the libertine in calling him an infidel, for in truth he does little else, as a thinker, but believe; and believes with a wider and prompter swallow, than the most credulous religionist.

As faith consists both in an assent of the understanding, and in the hopes, expectations, and wishes of the heart; so the negative faith of the libertine, as it regards his understanding, consists in believing, that God never made any revelation to mankind; that there were no such persons, as Christ, the prophets, and apostles; or if there were, that they wrought no miracles; and that they did not offer up their lives in testimony of a mission from God. So far as his faith is the faith of his heart, it consists in believing, that the soul will not, or, at worst, hoping that it may not, exist hereafter; and that there is no tempter, no place of torment; or if there are, that he will not always be a devil, nor that always a hell.

Howsoever hard it may be to prove a single one of these negatives (and certain it is, there can be no proof for any of them), yet he believes them all; and to get rid of the gospel history, believes in the falsity, or at least utter uncertainty, of all history. This faith begins in the heart, and is at first only a violent passion or desire of somewhat, which Christian faith would mortify. This desire soon improves