this: There are those who profess to be Christians, and yet are wicked men; but they are wicked in direct opposition to the influence of Christianity, as well as to the character and influence of those with whom they are connected. There are also those who profess to be infidels, and yet are men of sobriety and amiableness and moral deportment; but they are such in direct opposition to the influence of infidelity, as well as to the character and influence of those with whom, as infidels, they are associated. The former and the latter are alike exceptions to the general rule.

But let us turn from infidels in general to their teachers and leaders. A stream is seldom purer than its fountain. A river rises no higher than its source. We may consider the chief priests and scribes, the elders and rulers and champions of infidelity, who have constructed its various creeds and composed its books of scripture-its Humes and Tindals and Bolingbrokes and Paines and Voltaires and Rousseaus-as affording in the average of their character a fair standard for the measurement of the moral stature of infidels in general. What then was the moral worth of those renowned leaders in the war against Christianity? Let us look at their principles.

Herbert maintained that the indulgence of lust and anger is no more to be blamed than the thirst of a fever, or the drowsiness of a lethargy. Thus every vicious propensity was licensed. Hobbes, that every man has a right to all things, and may lawfully get

them if he can. Thus, all theft was licensed. Again, that a subject may lawfully deny Christ before a magistrate, although he believes in Christ in his heart. Thus, all hypocrisy was licensed. Again, that a ruler is not bound by any obligation of truth or justice, and can do no wrong to his subjects. Thus, all tyrannical oppression and cruelty were licensed. Again, that the civil law is the sole foundation of good and evil, of right and wrong. Thus, moral principle is as various as climate and country, and vice in one place may be exalted virtue in another. Hume maintained that self-denial, self-mortification, and humility, are not virtuous, but useless and mischievous; that pride and self-valuation, ingenuity, eloquence, strength of body, etc., are virtues; that suicide is lawful and commendable; that adultery must be parctised, if we would obtain all the advantages of life; that female infidelity, when known, is a small thing; when unknown, nothing. Bolingbroke, that ambition, the lust of power, avarice, and sensuality, may be lawfully gratified, if they can be safely gratified; that modesty is inspired by mere prejudice, and has its sole foundation in vanity; that man's chief end is to gratify the appetites and inclinations of the flesh; that "adultery is no violation of the law, or religion of nature; that there is no wrong in lewdness, except in the highest incest."*

These principles will suffice as specimens of infidel writers in regard to moral obligation. It is fair See Dwight on Infidel Philosophy.

to judge men by their professions. Few rise above their opinions in practice, none in heart. When one contends that he may innocently indulge his vicious propensities, we need not doubt that he does indulge them. These writers either believed what they professed, or they did not. If the latter, they were gross hypocrites, endeavoring to spread what they knew was deadly poison. If the former, then tell me what kind of practice-what veracity, what honesty, what chastity, or any other virtue, can be supposed to have dwelt in men who in grave, philosophical discussions could publish such sentiments to the world? Had we no other evidence of the lives they led, we might conclude with certainty, from these professed opinions, that while one here and there may not have carried them out to their full extent, none could have been in any sense good men; while the mass of them must have been without any regard to truth, guilty of gross hypocrisy and dissimulation, willing to offer any sacrifice at the shrine of ambition and human praise, unbridled in temper and passion; seducers, adulterers, and corrupters of their fellowcreatures. Such is the description which, so far as any accounts of their private character have been received, is fully sustained by facts.

Hume pretended to a great diligence in search of truth, and spent all his powers against the gospel; and yet, says Dr. Johnson, "confessed that he had never read the New Testament with attention." His friend in scepticism, Adam Smith, considered him as approaching as nearly to the idea of a perfectly

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wise and virtuous man, as perhaps the nature of human frailty will permit." But since, in his estimation, female infidelity when unknown was nothing, one needs pretty positive evidence to believe that he was specially pure.*

Gibbon's moral character is seen in his history of the Roman empire—a work full of hypocrisy, perversion, and impurity; the production of a mind as unchaste as it was insidious. When he could not find an occasion to insult Christianity, he made it by false glosses or dishonest colorings. "A rage for

* That Hume was virtuous without chastity, is evident from his essays, They contain passages by way of wit or illustration, not only gratuitously introduced, but forced in by a mere amateur taste of the writer, which a chaste mind would not have thought of, and a man of chaste habits and principles would have rejected, as both polluting to his pages and disgraceful to his character. I cannot believe that one who could venture on such sentences before the public eye, and show such pleasure and evident facility in grovelling indecencies of writing, was free from unclean practice where no public eye was to be encountered. And still, in Adam Smith's opinion, he may have been as perfectly virtuous as the nature of human frailty would permit." What exceptions are included under this last clause, who can say? In an infidel's creed, virtue has no more quarrel with unchasteness, than, in the creed of the Spartans, it had with theft. Among the latter, nothing was required to make stealing virtuous, but concealment. Among the virtuosi of infidelity, what more is required to establish the innocence of impurity?

The person who put out an edition of Hume's Essays in this country, dedicating it to the president of the United States, and lauding Hume and his principles to the skies, showed very plainly how he had profited by his favorite volume, at least by the essay in defence of suicide. He killed himself by drunkenness.

indecency pervades the whole work, but especially the last volumes. If the history were anonymous, I should guess that these disgraceful obscenities were written by some debauchee, who having from age, or accident, or excess, survived the practice of lust, still indulged himself in its speculations, and exposed the impotent imbecility after he had lost the vigor of the passions.' This was no 66 arrow shot at a

venture."

What gross hypocrisy and lying pervade the writings of Herbert, Hobbes, Shaftesbury, Woolston, Tindal, Collins, Blount, Chubb, and Bolingbroke. One while they are praising Christianity, exalting Jesus, professing to have the sincerest desire that the gospel may be promoted. At another time they are scoffing at its essential doctrines, charging its founder with imposture, and diligently laboring to destroy it. Hobbes affirms that the Scriptures are the voice of God, and the foundation of all obligation, and yet, that all religion is ridiculous. Shaftesbury says, that it is censurable to represent the gospel as a fraud; that he hopes its enemies will be reconciled to it, and its friends prize it more highly; and yet he represents salvation as ridiculous, insinuates that the designs of Christ were those of deep ambition, and his zeal and spirit savage and persecuting; that the Scriptures were an artful invention for mercenary purposes. Collins protests that none are further than he from being engaged in the cause of infidelity; that he writes for the honor of Jesus, * Porson.