sought him, who longed to consult and see him, those frivolous and dissolute men were fools who wished to become impious; and who, not finding sufficient authority to remain believers in the testimony of all ages, of all nations, and of all the great men who have honoured religion, sought, in the single testimony of an obscure individual, of a deserter from every religion, of a monster obliged to hide himself from the eyes of men, a deplorable and monstrous authority which might confirm them in impiety, and defend them from their own conscience. Great God! let the impious here hide their faces; let them cease to make an ostentation of an unbelief which is the fruit of their depravity and ignorance, and no longer speak, but with blushes, of the submission of believers: it is all a language of deceit; they give to vanity what we give to truth.
I say vanity; and this is the grand and final reason which more clearly exposes all the falsity and weakness of unbelief. Yes, my brethren, all our pretended unbelievers are bullies, who give themselves out for what they are not: they consider unbelief as conveying the idea of something above the common; they are continually boasting that they believe nothing, and, by dint of boasting, they at last persuade themselves of it: like certain mushroom characters among us, who, though touching the obscurity and vulgarity of their ancestors, have the deplorable vanity of wishing to be thought of an illustrious birth, and descended from the greatest names; by dint of blazoning and repeating it, they attain almost to the belief of it themselves. It is the same with our pretended unbelievers; they still touch, as I may say, that faith which they have received at their birth, which still flows with their blood, and is not yet effaced from their heart: but they think it a vulgarity and meanness, at which they blush; by dint of saying and boasting that they believe nothing, they are convinced that they really do not believe, and have consequently a much higher opinion of themselves.
First. Because that deplorable profession of unbelief supposes an uncommon understanding, strength, and superiority of mind, and a singularity which is pleasing and flattering; on the contrary, that the passions infer only licentiousness and debauchery, of which all men are capable, though they are not so of that wonderful superiority attributed to itself by impiety.
Secondly. Because faith is so weakened in our age, that we find few in the world who pique themselves upon wit and a little more knowledge or erudition than others, who do not allow themselves doubts and difficulties upon the most august and most sacred parts of religion. It would be a disgrace, therefore, in their company to appear religious and believers: they are men high in the public esteem, and any resemblance to them is flattering; in adopting their language, their talents and reputation are thought likewise to be adopted; and not to dare to follow or to copy them would, it seems, be making a public avowal of weakness and mediocrity: miserable and childish vanity! Besides, because they have heard say, that certain characters, distinguished in their age, did not believe, and as the memory of their talents and great actions has been
