thinking, when they express a dread of
danger or a zeal for ceremonies. These at least are not virtues; and
few indeed must be those, who at any time are really Theists, if their
faith is lost or forgotten every time they have a mind to indulge a
vitious passion. To support still the efficacy of religion in making
men virtuous is to oppose metaphysical reasoning to the truth of fact;
it is like the philosopher denying motion, and being refuted by one of
his scholars walking across the room. If then it is true, as history
and the whole course of human life shew it is, that men can still
plunge themselves into all sorts of crimes, though they are persuaded
of the truth of religion, which is made to inform them that God
punishes sin and rewards good actions, it cannot but be suspected that
religion even encourages crimes, by the hopes it gives of pardon
through the efficacy of prayer; at all events it must be granted, that
those who hold up a belief in God as a sufficient proof and character
of a good life are most egregiously mistaken.

Some Theists may have lighter sense of personal dignity than some
atheists. If the Theist thinks himself allied to and connected with
the Deity he may plume himself upon his station; but how apt are
those worshipers of a God, instead of having a high sense of personal
dignity, to debase themselves into the most abject beings, dreading
even the shadow of their own phantom. An atheist feeling himself to be
a link in the grand chain of Nature, feels his relative importance and
dreads no imaginary Being. An atheist, who is so from inattention and
without intelligence, may indeed feel himself as much debased as the
meanest and most humble Theist.

Another argument against atheists is, that where men are atheists it is
generally found that their usual turn of thinking and habits of life
have inclined to make them so. Is not this to be turned upon Theists?
But granting that the idea of a supreme author is more pleasing, and
that the argument with respect to the existence or non-existence of a
God was in _equilibrio_, it is not therefore right to conclude that the
mind ought to be determined by this or any other bias. Nor is it quite
clear if there is no God (by which term let it again be noticed, is
meant a Being of supreme intelligence, the contriver of the material
universe and yet no part of the material system) that the world in
which man inhabits is either fatherless or deserted. The wisdom