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suppositions, indeed, the general rules of justice, benevolence, and temperance, may subsist, for they are immutable; but when we come down to particular acts of virtuous conduct, proper to a certain order of beings, to particular situations, special occasions and circumstances, the firm believer and pious worshipper of an all-wise and gracious Being, who has fixed the various occurrences of human life in the most perfect manner, must have the decided advantage in point of moral motives over him, who admits not the being and providence of God. Rules which require privations and strong opposition to craving passions, an Atheist may reckon harsh and oppressive, and look upon them with discontented and rebellious eyes. And what is there to rectify his judgment? Fate and chance, the idols which he substitutes in the place of God, are with him names of no such estimation as to control him ; for he, who has dared to put the true God out of the world, will surely not be so cowardly as to be afraid of a mere name. If he thinks that the state of mankind is unfitly settled, that the state of the world is wrong, and the rules of moral conduct naturally resulting from them are wrong likewise, he can have no restraints but self-interest, and the dread of civil punishment, to prevent his surmounting every obstacle to the free gratification of his desires. And since self-interest is often promoted by breaking through the sacred obligations of virtue, and artful men act so as to escape the penalties of human law, what security can these offer to society for the observance of the fundamental obligations which are necessary for its support?
