But if there be a future state, and he should deceive himself in rejecting faith, what does he not risk? The loss of eternal riches; the possession of thy glory, O my God! which would for ever have rendered him happy. But even that is only the commencement of his misery: he goes to experience punishment without end or measure, an eternity of horror and wrath. Now, compare these two destinies: what party here will the freethinker adopt? Will he risk the short duration of his days, or a whole eternity? Will he hold by the present, which must finish to-morrow, and in which he even cannot be happy? Will he tremble at a futurity which has no other limits than eternity, and can never finish but with God himself? Where is the prudent man, who in an uncertainty even equal, durst here balance? And what name shall we give to the unbeliever, who, with nothing in his favour but frivolous doubts, while on the side of truth, beholding the authority, example, prescription, proof, and voice of all ages, the entire world, singly adopts the wretched cause of unbelief; dies tranquil as though he were no longer to have existence; leaves his eternal destiny in the hands of chance, and carelessly prepares to encounter so awful a scene. O God! is this a man conducted by cool reason; or, is it a man, who looks forward to no resource but despair? The uncertainty of the freethinker is therefore foolish in the proofs on which it depends.
But, lastly, it is still more dreadful in its consequences. And here, my brethren, allow me to lay aside the deep reasonings of erudition and doctrine; I wish to speak only to the conscience of the unbeliever, and to confine myself to the proofs which his own feelings acknowledge.
Now, if all shall finish with us, if man have nothing to expect after this life, and that here is our country, our origin, and the only happiness we can promise ourselves, why are we not happy? If only created for the pleasures of the senses, why are they unable to satisfy us? and why do they always leave a fund of weariness and sorrow in the heart? If man have nothing superior to the beast, why, like it, do not his days flow on without care, uneasiness, disgust, or sorrow, in sensual and carnal enjoyments? If man have no other felicity to expect than merely a temporal happiness, why is he unable to find it on the earth? Whence comes it that riches serve only to render him uneasy; that honours fatigue him; that pleasures exhaust him; that the sciences, far from satisfying, confound and irritate his curiosity; that reputation constrains and embarrasses him; that all these united cannot fill the immensity of his heart, and still leave him something to wish for? All other beings, contented with their lot, appear happy in their way in the situation the Author of nature has placed them; the stars, tranquil in the firmament, quit not their station to illuminate another world; the earth, regular in its movements, shoots not upwards to occupy their place; the animals crawl in the fields, without envying the lot of man, who inhabits cities and sumptuous palaces. The birds carol in the air without troubling themselves
