that if he loses his life, he loses every thing, he endeavours to postpone annihilation to as great a distance as possible. But even this consideration will not render him a good neighbour; for if his prospect of advantage be greater than his risque of life, there is nothing that he will not hazard to attain it. In the other instance, atheism makes gradual advances. The mind becomes distracted with doubts in the same proportion as the conduct recedes from virtue. Having once been in the habit of computing the value of moral actions, he dares not commit. himself to the unrestrained pursuit of vice, till he has satisfied, or attempted to satisfy his mind, that he may safely do so. Thus he commences an apology for sin. If there be a God, he knows that he must be, the avenger of wickedness. But as such an acknowledgment would be misery for him, he cherishes the dreadful thought, that the world is left without a ruler, without a providence to direct it. Can we wonder, that a man, under these circumstances, should endeavour to take refuge in atheism? Can we be surprized that he, who deliberately tramples tramples upon divine and human laws, should deny the power, nay the existenceof the framer of them both? The comforts of hope he can never possess, with such an horrible disposition of his mind; as he lives under an inconceivable distraction of imagination, he dies the martyr of despair. "Lord Cardinal! if thou think'st on heav'n's bliss, He dies! and makes no sign!-” But though the atheist may have no hope, it is certain, notwithstanding all his endeavours, that he will often experience many fears. The remonstrances of conscience will sometimes arise; and with greater violence as the hour of death approaches. "Men may "live fools"-fools, in the psalmist's sense, who say that there is no God-" but fools they cannot die." When the moment of departure arrives, they shrink back from the apprehension of falling into nothing. And if at that important crisis, their imagination represents to them that they have been, through a long life perhaps, deluding their own hearts, that their unbelief was not the consequence of unprejudiced argument, but of of premeditated crimes, who can conceive the horrors of their situation? They wildly look around for help, but no man can help them. They turn their eyes on heaven in hope of mercy. To God's mercy indeed we must leave them, for there is no record of salvation that mitigates their case. The deaths of Voltaire, and some of his unbelieving associates, are too recent and important events to be passed over in silence. The facts are too plain to be contradicted, and the lesson too striking to be withheld. In the midst of Voltaire's triumphs at Paris, he was arrested by the hand of death. Here," says the Abbé Baruel, "let not the histo"rian fear exaggeration: rage, remorse, "reproach and blasphemy, all accompany "and characterize the long agony of the dying atheist *." I shall not recite the minute horrors of this dreadful picture; but emark how earnestly he called upon that Saviour, whom he had stigmatized during a long life with the most dreadful appellation. "Oh! Christ! Oh! Jesus Christ!" he History of Jacobinism, 2 would would cry out, and then complain that he was abandoned by God and man. "His "physicians thunderstruck retired, declaring "the death of the impious man to be ter"rible indeed. His friends fly from the bed-side, declaring it to be a sight too "terrible to be sustained; and one of them. "said that the furies of Orestes could give "but a faint idea of those of Voltaire.” D'Alembert on his death-bed betrayed the same symptoms of remorse, and would have exhibited the same scene, but for the vigilance of a friend. "He was on the eve," says the same author, "of sending, as the only method of reconciliation, for a mi"nister of that same Christ, against whom "he had also conspired; but Condorcet ferociously combated these last signs of repentance in the dying sophister, and he gloried in having forced him to expire in "final impenitence." When Diderot was ill, who had also manifested some appearance of contrition, his philosophic friends removed him suddenly into the country, that there might be no witnesses of his mournful end. Thus Thus died the men who for many years had waged secret and open war, against the meek and benevolent Founder of Christianity; and yet whose opinions could not sustain them through the last, and most eventful moment of their lives. Whilst we behold the scenes of devastation which have followed the propagation of their pernicious principles, let us with ten-fold strength "hold fast the profession of our faith with"out wavering; and let us come boldly "unto the throne of grace, that we may "obtain mercy, and find grace to help in "time of need." As there is every reason to believe that atheism for the most part originates in vicious pursuits, it becomes necessary to apply the remedy to the foundation of the evil. Let it be represented that pure and undefiled religion, is the parent of sound morals and virtuous conduct; let it be demonstrated, that revelation promises and assures to us a future state, a truth which unbiassed reason cannot but acknowledge; let it also be fully understood, that reward or punishment is annexed to obedience or disobe |