constant prosecution of their lusts has deluded into a real disbelief of religion, or diverted from a serious examination of it; and those who are convinced of the truth of revelation, but affect to contemn and ridicule it from motives of interest or vanity.
I shall endeavour, therefore, to evince,
First: The folly of scoffing at religion in those who doubt the truth of it. And,
Secondly: The wickedness of this practice in those who believe it.
First: I shall endeavour to evince the folly of scoffing at religion in those who doubt the truth of it.
Those who in reality disbelieve, or doubt of religion, however negligent they may be in their inquiries after truth, generally profess the highest reverence for it, the sincerest desire to discover it, an the strongest resolutions to adhere to it. They will frequently assert, and with good reason, that every man is valuable in proportion to his love of truth; that man enjoys the power of reason for this great end, that he may distinguish truth from falsehood; that not to search for it is the most criminal laziness, and not to declare it, in opposition to the frowns of power, or the prejudices of ignorance, the most despicable cowardice.
When they declaim on this darling subject, they seldom fail to take the opportunity of throwing out keen invectives against bigotry; bigotry, that voluntary blindness, that slavish submission to the notions of others, which shackles the power of the soul, and retards the progress of reason; that cloud, which intercepts our views, and throws a shade over the light of truth.
Such is the discourse of these men; and who, that hears it, would not expect from them the most disinterested impartiality, the most unwearied assiduity, and the most candid and sober attention to any thing proposed as an argument upon a subject worthy of their study? Who would not imagine that they made it the grand business of their lives to carry the art of reasoning to its greatest
