ever is the necessary agent and cause of all things, the producer of man-it must be cruel indeed to have brought man into being to be perplexed and tormented as he is, during his existence, without the least prospect or intimation of a reparation in a better state; but though, as the atheist says, the worst of men are commonly the arbiters of the world, and those whom fortune loads with her favours, and consequently the best of men the most exposed to common evils, yet there is no hope of having matters adjusted in another life. This is inexpressibly more unreasonable, cruel and unrighteous, than the belief of God and his works, who will bring all things to order, and give the upright man a life of endless felicity. In vain, therefore, may the atheist cavil against the sufferings of Jesus Christ, whom God gave to be a leader and a guide to his people, (I do not say suffering to appease an angry God or satisfy offended justice; this doctrine doth not belong to the Gospel,) or of the sufferings of his apostles and other ministers, who were leaders of those whose sufferings are to eventuate in a greater good and better appreciated. If God suffers these things to be, they are not in vain. They work for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory. Christianity, therefore, is the most consistent and righteous, and atheism the most unreasonable and unjust. "The world," says the atheist, "is a necessary agent." And again: "The universe is a cause, it is not an effect;-the world has always been; its existence is necessary; it is its own cause." The necessary

existence of a first cause is unavoidably acknowledged by all; for, to suppose the first cause to be created or produced, would be to place a cause prior to the first, which is absurd. The necessary existence of any first cause or agent being admitted, includes, with the same facility of mind and reason, the existence of infinite power, wisdom, and every other perfection. For no reason can be given why a Being of infinite power, wisdom, and every other perfection, should not necessarily exist, which would not equally (not to say more so) militate against the necessary existence of a being imperfect. The necessary existence, therefore, of God, infinitely perfect, is admitted with as much facility and simple reason as the necessary existence of the universe, supposing it to be a self-existing agent. There is nothing, therefore, unreasonable in the belief that God is, and that he is the rewarder of them that diligently seek him. But there is something very unreasonable in atheism, that nature, (for nature, the world, the universe and matter are all confounded and considered as one by the atheist ;) I say, that nature should be the necessarily existent parent of men, independent and self-existent, and should introduce them into existence in the midst of unavoidable sufferings in body and mind, (for men have intelligent, provident and reflecting minds, and we are obliged to believe it, although we can neither see nor comprehend them,) and cannot supply them with a portion to make them comfortable, either in this life or the life to come-for they desire, they intensely reach after an endless life, and no reasoning can prevent them it is incorporated with their existence. Whence these dreadful and shocking disappointments and miseries to the human race? Doth intelligent and just nature (and nature must be intelligent, or not the parent of intelligent man) bring men into existence to suffer all these things for nought, and then cease to be forever?

For, according to atheism, there can be no sin, no transgression in man-he necessarily doeth whatever he doeth-he hath no choice in his conduct. A reasonable man need not be told that atheism is unreasonable-is unjust. So false is the futile and ungenerous cavil of the atheist, that religion excludes and rejects reason, and that faith, in religion, is consent without evidence.

But it is proved that, according to reason, a necessary agent is necessarily perfect; but nature is imperfect in all her works, and unable to make out the road to perfection, even to make her children perfect according to their kind, but man, the noblest part of her productions, must be left more exquisitely wretched than all the rest; ever in pursuit of something permanently to fill his mind and can never find it, and she can point out no practicable method to cure him. We are therefore compelled by reason to admit of the being of God, and our faith is not consent without evidence. I will not deny that God and his works are greatly illustrated by revelation from that God who is superior to all our reason, and from whom ours is only an emanation of his own; but revelation is so congenial with reason in man, that the honest are readily gained to the faith, where revelation is fairly and justly exhibited to view in those who have it.

The atheist objects to the being of God because he is said to punish a rebellious people or nation. But do not the most kind and affectionate parents punish refractory children by way of chastisement? And is it not acknowledged, by the atheist himself, that the best of governments punish rebellious subjects, even to cutting them off, for the good of the community, when they become such a nuisance as to require such severity? Yea, he says they do it of necessity. If, therefore, it be related of God, that he hath cut off some, or even many, for the good of the whole, it argues nothing against his existence or his goodness, for it is all done for the procuring and securing of a greater benefit. And even those who have been cut off, or afflicted with the greatest punishments known by man, if they have not made a full and final rejection of the everlasting Gospel, are not out of the reach of eternal life and peace. I know this is not acknowledged by those who confine the work of God in the Gospel, to the narrow limits of this life; but it accords with the Gospel of Christ, as shown in its place.

As for the monstrous affair relating to the sin of David, king of Israel, and the seventy thousand slain by the pestilence, the objector hath surely never impartially considered the subject in its connection. David sinned indeed; and was chastised by the destruction of the people, his subjects; but they had sinned also as a people; for the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel before David numbered the people, not by caprice, as the atheist speaks, but on account of their iniquities, against which his displeasure is as necessary as his existence.

I know the atheist objects that it is incompatible with the existence of God, possessing the perfections which are attributed to him, that man should be capable of transgression at all, and accordingly he ascribes every evil or improper action in man to the immediate agency of God, who necessarily imposes it on every man to do this and that: (for he denies the possibility of a choice, or freedom, in

God or in man, whether man be the son of God or of nature.) But such arguing is weak in the man who is exclusively a reasoner; for that man does transgress and is liable to go astray, and therefore needs restraint, is a fact undeniable, and acknowledged by the atheist himself. And this stubborn fact is utterly inconsistent with his doctrine of man, who, according to him, is moved in a certain line of conduct without any choice, and acts by imperious necessity, whether he be the son of nature or of God. Besides, as before stated, it is impossible that man should be equal to his Maker; for a created uncreated being is impossible, contradictory and absurd; and no effect can equal the cause; it is therefore impossible that men should possess the perfection of Deity. Consequently it is impossible that man, who is a rational being, should not be subject to trial, whether he would obey his superior or not. And where there is no possibility of falling, or of transgressing, there can be no trial; it was therefore impossible that man could have been created impeccable, or out of the reach of transgression.

Why, then, says the atheist, did God create man? For his own good pleasure in the display of his own glory and perfections, and for the good pleasure, that is, the happiness of man. God being infinitely good, it is reasonable that he should exercise infinite delight in the works of his power, and in communicating happiness to his creatures as they become fit to receive and use it. God's wisdom is much more displayed by creating man a reasonable and responsible being, than it could have been by creating him in an unavoidable line of conduct a machine can make no active offering of praise to its former. And much greater foundation is laid for the glory, honour, immortality and eternal life of man, by his being made capable of choosing good or evil, and putting him in a situation to bring him to the trial, than could have been by a contrary procedure.

t;

Man was not required to transgress, by any imperious or insurmountable necessity; he was only seduced by the temptation, and he yielded to his disgrace. Had he remained stedfast in his obedience with integrity, it had been much more to his honour, than to have been prevented from falling by irresistible power or necessity. And God's foreknowing that he would fall, is no good reason why he should not be put to the trial, seeing that man in the nature of things, as shown above, could never arrive to the summit of that happiness of which he is capable, without such trial. Neither is God's foreknowledge of the event of man's trial any evidence against the most consummate goodness of God, or his good will to his creatures, especially considering that he stood ready, at the time appointed, or when it would be the most expedient, all things considered, to introduce Christ the Redeemer, and by him to restore man to a superior state of happiness, better confirmed and better appreciated, after experiencing the contrary. All these things are included in Christianity. This view of the subject shows the unreasonableness of the man of boasted reason, who objects, If God could not make man impeccable, why did he make him at all? and then punish him for not being impeccable? It is not so; man is not punished for not being impeccable; but for unnecessary transgression. And he is subject to chastisement to bring him to a sense of his duty, and to punish

ment for transgressions committed against better information, according to their nature and the degree of unrighteousness.

But the atheist, impatient of restraint, or the least subjection to God, insists that God, if he exists at all, is required to clear the way for man to be happy at once, and to prevent by absolute power every degree of pain or distress; thus implicitly, not to say explicitly, demanding that God ought to be subject to the will of his creatures in every punctilio; as if that would be reasonable; or as if parents ought to be subject to the desires of children or minors, and use no more chastisement than the minors would love. Would they ever know the benefits of dutiful obedience ? But men will all learn in the event, that God is more wise, as well as more patient than they. But let the atheist tell, why his good, necessary and self-existing nature, the parent of men, hath produced men, and still propagates them, exposed to such miseries, when she has no power nor wisdom to consummate their happiness. For if he insist that light will some time break in on the people; her cruelty is inexcusable towards those who have heretofore perished out of existence without any fault in them, and those who now exist in the same condition and for all these there is no hope. For it is poor consolation for my distress that some time, perhaps a thousand or two years hence, some people will see better times, for a few days, and then sink into an unconscious chaos with all the rest. But the only possible apology for this conduct of the all-producing nature is, that she is absolutely incapable of the sensation of good or evil, happiness or misery, being unconscious, unintelligent and improvident; she is therefore not the parent, or producer, of man, who is intelligent, conscious and provident, having the sensation of good and evil, happiness and misery, both in himself and others, and therefore far superior to his boasted cause, nature. Thus the necessary existence of nature, as excluding the Being called God, is reasoned out of existence.

The atheist combats the notion of the existence of God, because he is called a Spirit, insisting that the existence of a Spirit, or any being distinct from matter, is impossible. "The idea of spirituality," says he, "is an idea without model." Without material form no doubt he means. But whence comes this idea? All ideas are either real or imaginary; and the imagination cannot form an idea of any thing which has no existence, or strictly no model; for it is only the imagery of realities, though often variously formed and mingled together. And as no known assemblage, modification, organization or combination of material existences can produce a result which is spiritual, it follows of course, that spirit does exist, and is made known to our senses by sufficient evidence, else the imagination had never formed the idea. "But wherein," says the atheist, "is modern theology superior to that of the savages? The savages acknowledge a great spirit for the master of the world." And why do they acknowledge such a master? First; very rationally; Because they see that done which no material being can be descried or discovered to do. And secondly; Because all nations have acknowledged the existence of God from time immemorial, before men had time to contrive or the imagination to paint, without a model, such an idea. It is therefore commensurate with man's existence, and was communicated to

him in his creation. But as men, through ignorance and other causes, differ in opinion on various subjects, while the existence of the things is indisputable, so in relation to God and his worship, there are various opinions and practices, all which argue the existence of the original facts, as counterfeits argue the existence and utility of the genuine, without which there could be no motive for the counterfeit.

The similitude by which the atheist attempts to ridicule and confront the existence of God is not only imperfect but contemptible. "The savages, like all ignorant people, attribute to spirits all the effects of which their inexperience cannot discover the true cause. Ask a savage what moves your watch. He will tell you, it is a spirit. Ask your divines what moves the universe. They answer, it is a spirit." But the artist can point out, even to the savage, the spring of motion in the watch and its author; yet the greatest artist, the master of reason, even the atheist, exclusively eminent, cannot point out to the most enlightened nation or man, the spring of motion in the universe, much less the author of it, one side of that necessary existence called God. As to the superiority of modern theology, (that is Christianity; for nothing in contrast with that is of sufficient utility,) above that of the savages, it will appear in its consistency, reasonableness, and other superior and appropriate fruits. By Christianity I do not mean every thing called by that name. Nothing is worthy of that name, except that which is consistent in its principles, reasonable in its requisitions, intelligible to the human mind, peaceable in its measures, and happifying to its subjects, imposing no arbitrary measures on its friends or enemies.

God from the considera"We are told," says he,

But the atheist combats the existence of tion that he is said to be incomprehensible. "that divine qualities are not of a nature to be comprehended by finite minds. The natural consequence must be, that divine qualities are not made to occupy finite minds.” If God be not a proper subject of contemplation for man, to occupy his mind, because he is incomprehensible, it follows as a natural consequence, that man is not made to occupy the mind of man, for man is incomprehensible to man. The life of man is an inexplicable mystery to man; and his intellectual part, which we call by the name of spirit, and whose existence is undeniable, according to the irresistible evidence of sense, and according to whose volitions the material system is moved to different actions, is utterly inexplicable to man in his present state of existence, not to say, ever will be; its mode of existence and method of operation are unknown, whether it be accounted for by the creating power of God or by the assemblage of material essences. But its existence is irresistibly confirmed.

Let us instance a case by which it will appear evident that the spirit is an agent entirely distinct from the material body or any of its properties. It is known in ten thousand instances, to men of sober reflection, that fleshly propensities, or passions, invite to the enjoyment of certain objects, which by a co-operation with the bodily organs create more or less pleasure, when the intellectual power informs the man that such an object is improper and attended with so much evil, as to overbalance the pleasure, and in many cases, even convert it into pain. In other instances, when the object is justifiable