endeavoured to depreciate their abilities; but they wanted nothing but a sincere belief in revelation, to have been as eminent benefactors to the world, as they were largely endowed with the gifts of Providence. Had Voltaire, for example, put his varied talents to a right and hallowed use, his name would have been had in everlasting remembrance, as one who had made error ridiculous as well as hateful, who had brought home truth to every understanding, and who, uniting, in a high degree, philosophy and common sense, had made the most difficult passages of science amusing as well as plain. But they liked not to retain God in their knowledge, and their foolish heart was darkened. They gave up the principles of Christianity, and could find no other in their stead. Even their infidelity became of a darker and more hopeless character as they grew in years. Zadig, the work of Voltaire's youth, is incomparably superior in sentiments of natural religion to Candide, the production of his old age. The progress in profanity and irreligion which must have taken place in his mind between the composition of these two works, is very striking, and shows by what an imperceptible current men are borne forwards in their first progress in infidelity, to that confirmed impiety which hates even the name of Deity. The truth of Christianity is proved by the darkness of the heathen world; it is proved still more by the dark

ness of infidelity. The Gentile philosophers had some principles, however erroneous; the modern infidels have no other principle than that of removing from the truths of Christianity as far as they can, and they scarcely think themselves safe, while the notion, or even the name of the Deity, is retained.

The truth of Christianity is proved by the morals of the ancient heathens. Practices which they related without a blush are not even to be named in countries professing Christianity. The truth of Christianity is proved also by the morals of unbelievers. Their pages, even when a higher tone of sentiment is assumed, are too frequently stained with impurity, whether it is that the loss of higher hopes leaves men sensual and earthly, or that, distrusting the power of mere reasoning, infidels have attempted to corrupt the heart, when they failed to perplex the understanding. Even when broken with age, or worn out with disease, many of these writers spend the last dregs of life in corrupting others, and seem to cling with fond remembrance to those vices that have deserted them, as the ghosts of impure livers were supposed, by the ancient moralists, to haunt the places where their bodies were deposited, and to long to be reunited to their ancient companions, through whosemedium all their pleasures and satisfactions had been derived.

XI. The first source of infidelity is the corruption of the heart; the weakness of the understanding is only the second. The silence which infidels in general observe respecting the direct and positive proof of Christianity, is a sufficient evidence that they are aware of its strength. They cannot but know that works exist, containing, in a very moderate compass too, the essence of the argument for Christianity, by refuting which, or even by invalidating which, they would be held as the oracles of the world. Yet they decline the trial, not from any diffidence, certainly, in their own abilities, but from a secret, though deep-seated, consciousness, that the arguments for Christianity are invincible. Christians are always ready to meet them in the open field, but they refuse the main combat, and betake themselves to a petty and lingering warfare of detail. They shrink from the face of the direct evidence of Christianity, and spend their time in raising objections to its doctrines. Thus, it is evident, that if infidels neglect the proof of Christianity contained in the writings of Paley and other standard authors, it is not that the arguments are too weak to engage their attention, but that they are too strong; and that if they were more easily refuted they would be more frequently studied. It is the heart that first forsakes revelation, the head only follows its lead. The purity of Christianity is still more opposed to the lives of infidels

than the doctrines of Christianity are to their understandings.

XII. The second source of infidelity is the narrowness of the human understanding, united to the presumption which naturally proceeds from contracted views, for the less any one knows, the more disposed he is to draw bold and sweeping inferences from his own narrow field of information. There is a necessary difference between the views of the finite and the infinite understanding. 'My thoughts are not as your thoughts," says God. The vision, which at a glance takes in the whole of immensity, and the vision which is confined to a mere point, of course, cannot form the same representation of existence. If our narrow and limited mind constitutes itself the judge of the revelation which God has vouchsafed to give us, whether of his own character or of our future destiny, error must unavoidably result from all our reasonings and inquiries. Whether we seek to modify revelation to our own comprehension, with rational divines, or reject it altogether as utterly incomprehensible, with the philosophic infidel, we carry along with us a principle of endless wandering from the truth, which will only bewilder us the more, the more closely we reason upon it, and precipitate us from mistake to mistake, till we lose the last glimmer of light, and reach the confines of utter darkness, Infidelity has no facts nor principles to

rest upon; like the reveries of ancient philosophy, it has nothing but a priori reasonings to support it, objections drawn from ignorance, and arguments borrowed from preconceived opinions and prejudices. But Christianity, like inductive philosophy, is established wholly upon facts and experience; it appeals to no principles but those which are in every day operation, and it rests upon the same evidence as all the other useful knowledge which we possess, and, if there be any difference, it is merely this, that the evidence of Christianity has been more strongly objected to, examined, and proved, than any other evidence whatsoever.

XIII. The third source of infidelity is the imperfection of our knowledge, which, in its best estate, is progressive, but never full and perfect. It is evidently the intention of Providence that society should be advancing in knowledge; that one generation should outstrip another, and that mankind are never to rest in any present attainment, but are ever to be pressing forward to some future discovery. Thus the human faculties have scope for perpetual activity, and none are precluded from exertion by the labours and success of former generations. But it is evident, by this constitution of the moral world, that no age enjoys exactly the same degree of information as another; the system of science which is fitted for one period is unfitted for a succeeding one, and the form of