d, only he transfers it from the Creator to the creation; he ascribes
to finite, relative, and contingent being the properties of the
necessary Being; he confounds the work with the workman. Matter being,
according to him, eternal, is endowed with certain primitive,
unchangeable properties, which, having their own reason in themselves,
are themselves the reasons of all successive phenomena;" and "it matters
little whether he rejects the _name_ of God or not," or "whether he has,
or has not, an explicit knowledge of Him;" he cannot but acknowledge an
eternal First Cause.[7] And so a whole host of Pantheistic Spiritualists
will indignantly disclaim the imputation of Atheism, and even attempt to
vindicate Spinoza himself from the odious charge.[8] Nay, some of the
grossest Materialists, such as Atkinson and Martineau, while they
explicitly deny the existence of a living personal God, will affirm that
Pantheism is not Atheism.[9] Now, unquestionably, if by Theism we mean
nothing more than the recognition of an active power in nature,--such a
power as may or may not be identified with motion, and as may be
designated indifferently as the Divinity, or as the Soul of the
world,--the possibility of Atheism may be effectually excluded; but this
only serves to show the indispensable necessity of a correct definition
of the terms which are employed in this discussion, since it is
perfectly manifest that they are not used in the same sense by the
contending parties, and that consequently the disputants are not arguing
about the same thing. For Pantheism, whatever form it may assume, and
whatever language it may adopt, can be regarded in no other light than
as a system of Atheism, by all who have any definite conception of what
is meant when we either affirm or deny the existence and government of a
living, intelligent, personal God.

As Atheism has appeared in several distinct forms, it is necessary to
consider both its _generic nature_ and its _specific varieties_. It may
be defined, generally, as that state of mind which involves either _the
denial_ or _the doubt_ of the existence and government of God as an
all-perfect Being, distinct from the created universe; or which leads to
the habitual forgetfulness and wilful neglect of His claims as our
Creator, Preserver, and Lord. This state of mind, whether evinced by
words or by actions, contains in it the essence of Atheism, and it is
recognized in Scripture, in each of its two aspec