the wisest of them, and their practice too, was abject superstition and gross idolatry. Nor have modern heathens been more successful. Hindostan is a country highly civilized; and its progress in useful arts is universally acknowledged. The Brahmins are highly extolled for their learning, and for the recondite wisdom which is contained in their shasters. China has been still more loudly celebrated for its improvements in science as well as in arts, and for the superior wisdom of its institutions; and it has had also its philosophers and its priests. These two countries have been so long in a state of civilization as to unite in themselves the discoveries both of ancient and modern times. Surely then we may look for the purest system of natural religion from them. But instead of this, the grossest idolatry reigns in both; the learned support it by their influence; and they as well as the ignorant are the slaves of the most abject and degrading superstition.

If such be the state of the ancient and modern nations which have had reason for their guide, how comes it to pass that European deists are so much superior to them in the knowledge of natural religion? Is it because deists now are superior in talents? This you dare not assert. Whence is it that reason, which would not be wooed by them, is so kind to you? Assign the cause. You will not. It is no other than this: you live where the light of the gospel shines; and from it you have derived your knowledge of natural religion. "I am under no obligation to the New Testament. I never read so much of the book, as to be able to form any system from it." This may be true; but recollect that all the religious sentiments which float on the minds of those with whom you associate, and all the just and good ideas on moral subjects which you have received from your very childhood, all originate in the sacred Scriptures. You are like a man in a cloudy day who denies that the light which illuminates the path in which he walks, and every object around, proceeds from the sun, because he does not see his face.

SECTION VII.

A comparison between the most eminent Deists and Christians, as to their temper and conduct in life.

THE best and fairest trial of the goodness of principles is by their moral influence on disposition and conduct. As the deist

conceives his religion to be superior to Christianity, it must form better men, and produce lives of more eminent purity and goodness. I make no account of that licentious herd professing deism, who give a full swing to every appetite and every passion which craves indulgence, and say their religion warrants such gratifications; every infidel of character and honour must, I am sure, disown them as his brethren. What I have in view is (will it not throw light on the controversy?) to compare the lives of the most noted deists with those of the most zealous Christians.

In Peter, and Paul, and John, disciples of Jesus, of whose principles and conduct brief notices are given in the New Testament, there is an unwearied study to cultivate humility, meekness, compassion, forgiveness of injuries, beneficence, and the returning of good for evil. There is a constant endeavour to please God, and to be devoted to him. There is a constant endeavour to do good to men-to all, without distinction of country or religion-to instruct them, to make them holy, and to make them happy. For the attainment of these ends they submit to the greatest hardships and sufferings, and to death.

Bring forward into the field of comparison the most famous votaries of deism. Celsus, and Porphyry; or men better known, Voltaire, Rousseau, Diderot, D'Alembert, Hume and Gibbon. Do they display such sanctity of character, such purity of heart, such a veneration for the Supreme Being, such disinterested and ardent love to men, and such sacrifices of their own safety and comfort for the happiness of others? Two of these chiefs in the camp of deism, Gibbon and Rousseau, have written their own memoirs; let them be compared with the lives of Peter and John. Every Christian may triumph at the result, and every deist blush. In the brilliant memoirs of the eloquent historian of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, he must be a quicksighted reader who can perceive a noble or dignified sentiment, or a disinterested or benevolent principle of conduct from beginning to end. Self is the idol to whom a constant adoration is paid. How different from the tenor of this man's thoughts, affections, and dispositions, are those of Paul of Tarsus! "For me," says he, to live is Christ. No man liveth to himself; but whether we live, we live to the Lord. Herein do I exercise myself, to keep a conscience void of offence both towards God and towards man. I endure all things for the elect's sake." From the confessions of Rousseau, we find that his life was polluted with vices, and his heart defiled with the indulgence of evil passions to an extreme degree. Will

his temper and conduct bear a comparison with the apostle John, who practised the doctrine which he taught, and whose doctrine is," He that hateth his brother is a murderer"-" God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him". 66 Hereby we know that we are passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren ?"

SECTION VIII.

The most eminent Deists and Christians compared, as to their Views and Hopes at the approach of Death.

WHETHER principles be good and efficacious or not, will be best discovered in the season of distress; and the more bitter the distress, the brighter will the discovery be. For bitterness, no season can be compared to that in which man perceives the near approach of death. He deserves not the name of a philosopher, he argues and feels not as a man of reason, who does not consider that as one of the most awful portions of human existence, in which the soul is about to pass from a state of probation into a state of retribution. None, therefore, can be more proper to try men's principles and the influence which they produce. Let the deist take a view of his brethren in this solemn hour of trial, and the Christian of his; and let the goodness of their principles be determined by the result.

Deists speak in the highest terms of the ancient heathens; behold the last hours of one who is celebrated by historians for his eminent virtues. Germanicus at the approach of death called together his friends; suspecting, though without evidence, that Piso and Plancina had shortened his days by poison or witchcraft, he spends his dying moments in pressing them to take revenge, in directing them how it may be accomplished, and in binding them by an oath to do it. In addition he thus speaks: "Had I died by the decree of fate, I should have had just cause of resentment against the gods for hurrying me away from my parents, my wife, and my children, in the flower of my age, by an untimely death."*. At no great distance of time and place, Stephen, the first martyr for Jesus, presents us with the last hour of a Christian. While his unrelenting murderers were crushing his body with stones, he lifted up his eyes to heaven, and having implored his Saviour to receive his departing soul,

Tacitus, b. ii.

he closed life with these words on his lips, "Lord, lay not this sin to their charge."

But, perhaps, more may be expected from modern deists. History records the example of one, a man of talents, a wit, a courtier, who, at the approach of death, looked round for the support of deism in that hour, but could find none; and his tortured soul sought refuge in the consolations of the gospel. In bitter agonies, he warned others against the fascinating delusions of infidelity; and cried to Jesus the Saviour of sinners for mercy. In this manner died the Earl of Rochester. Favour me, deists, with an instance of a Christian at the close of life crying out against the gospel as a system which had led him on to vice and misery, and having recourse to deism for relief and consolation in that awful season. You cannot. But did not others," you say, "retain their principles to the last?" They did: and let us examine their tendency, their strength, and their influence on the most eminent unbelievers. Of Voltaire's death various accounts have been given: his friends say that he remained stedfast in his infidelity to the last; but they mention no grand sentiments or solemn truths, which his dying moments furnished for the instruction of mankind. Some of the Roman Catholics assert that he died in horrors of conscience; but it would be unfair to rest evidence on an uncertainty. The manner of Rousseau's death accords with his former ideas, when he had represented the human race assembled on the ruins of the world; and after narrating the history of his life, challenges any one of them to say, I am better than that man. Diderot spent his last hours in deciphering riddles. Hume, according to the testimony of a brother deist, expressed no fears of dying, was cheerful, joked about crossing Styx in Charon's boat, and consoled himself with the consideration that his fame was high and rising, that he could not expect to leave his brother's family in more comfortable circumstances, and that by dying at the age of sixtyfive, he only cut off a few years of infirmities. Gibbon on the evening before his death sought consolation amidst his afflictions, in computing that he might still live twenty years.

We

I have brought forward the best things which deism can produce; but these tranquil deaths more deeply impress my mind, and furnish more powerful evidence against deism, than all the horrors which Voltaire is said to have endured. have here all the strength and consolations of the infidel system presented to view. But what are they? The levity of Diderot, and the pride of Rousseau, all must condemn as

highly unbecoming. But what is there in the dying hours of those calm philosophical deists, Hume and Gibbon, to recommend infidelity, or to shake the credit of the gospel? No one acquainted with human nature can say, that there is any force in the considerations which they adduce to reconcile the mind to death. They may amuse a man who is in health, and at his ease; but they can give no rational support in the near views of his decease. Besides, futurity is as much out of sight, with these men, as if death were an eternal sleep.

But the dreadful blank in the departing deist's soul will appear still more striking, if we place over against it the sentiments and deportment of a Christian in the views of death. Paul of Tarsus, who had deeply imbibed the spirit of the gospel, amidst bonds and imprisonment, and in the prospects of his dissolution, thus expresses the sentiments of his heart: "I desire to depart and to be with Christ, which is far better." With pleasing reflections on the past, he cries, " I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith.” Delighted with the prospects of futurity, he exclaims with exultation: "Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will give unto me; and not to me only, but to all them that love his appearing."-2 Tim. iv. Calm and unmoved on the verge of both worlds, he thus expresses the language of a stedfast faith: "I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed to him, against that day."-2 Tim. i. 12. Millions of Christians have died with the same sentiments, and with equal hope and joy; and instances still occur from week to week. Let the man who quits the society of Christians for the camp of infidels, compare and judge.

There is a remarkable circumstance which ought not to pass unnoticed, and of which the adversaries of the gospel are bound to give a satisfactory account. I never heard of a modern deist who was desirous to die, that he might enjoy the blessings of immortality. Can you produce an instance? Bring it forth, for it is a stranger upon earth. If you cannot, assign the reason. Many Christians have longed" to be absent from the body, and present with the Lord :" but why does the deist never express a desire to quit this life for the happiness of futurity, nor utter the language of joy in the prospect of removing from a present state? Is the fault in him, or in the system, or in both? A great fault somewhere there must certainly be.