with Chrift; faying with the apoftle, I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith; henceforth is laid up for me a crown of righteoufnefs, which the Lord the righteous judge fhall give me at that day. Grant all this, O Father! thro' Jefus Chrift our Lord, and Saviour. Amen.

Sept. 21, 1690.

IX. Of Atheism fpeculative and practical.

T was a noble saying of a heathen, that fuppofing he thought there were no God to govern the world, it would not be worth his while to live in it; and certainly, were all acknowledgment of a fupreme all-feeing power banished from among men, it would be highly eligible for a wife man to choose to be annihilated, and return to a state of infenfibility, or at leaft to the condition of the brutes that perifh, rather than live among canibals and lawless monfters, (fuch as mankind, by fuch a disbelief, would degenerate into) a prey to every one stronger than himself, and without any hope or glimmering expectation of ever feeing the world reformed; and in utter despair of ever enjoying himself better than he would then do. What comfort could a man reap in any affliction, if all were nothing but inexorable fate, or unthinking chance? whither fhould a diftreffed innocent apply himself when he is unjustly condemned? what could engage a prudent man to generofity, and patience under the irremediable load of worldly cares, troubles, disappointments, and vexations? finally, where fhould a fick, dying creature address his prayers? whither should he look for a little fupport and allay for his heart-piercing throws and pangs? and how, with any tolerable view, could he reflect on the king of ter

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ror's

ror's approach, and flide into an abhorred nonentity; as he must fancy at best. But far worfe is the atheist's cafe, if his confcience awakes before he dies; and he finds, by its cutting lafhes, and dire forebodings; by its condemning fentence, and dreadful foretelling the approaching Judgment, and fubfequent burnings; that his fullen and obftinate incredulity has not annihilated the God of heaven, but only heated the fire of his indignation seven times hotter than otherwife it would have been; if, I fay, the cafe should stand thus with the guilty wretch, where now is the confidence with which he dared the Almighty? what will all his fenfual pleasures now confer to his comfort and fatisfaction, and his jolly company, the clubs of debauchees; how will they be able to adminifter one dram of confolation in his greatest need? miferable, thrice miferable man! thus to have, by thy own obftinacy and infidelity, precluded all hope from thyself at thy latter end! thus to have been without God all thy life, but only to be thy torment at thy dying minute! fo to have spent that life, which might have been improved into never-fading pleafures in heaven, as to have precipitated thyfelf headlong into thofe flames which have been thy fport and paftime, and now like to prey upon thee to all eternity! wretch that thou waft! for a wanton, vile, contradictious humour; for a few fadeing, withering, beaftly pleasures; for a not confiderable time of licentioufnefs and uncleanness, of fin and profanenefs; for the fake of fome base, hectoring, damning companions; to have denied and provoked that infinite Being, which would have been thy fupport and protector, thy hope and fatisfaction, thy comforter and benefactor, and to have rendered him bound in juftice to make good his infupportable threats in thy everlasting perdition! this, this is the fad and deplorable cafe

of

of an atheist awakened just as the pit of hell is opening its mouth to receive him; not to mention all the fecret ftings and goads of his conscience in an affliction, or in a fober interval; the meanness and pufillanimity his atheism betrays him. into; the voice of nature, and the fears and mifgivings, left at laft he fhould be mistaken, and fo be loft irrecoverably, This is the way of them that forget God, and endeavour to root out the belief of the being of their own omnipotent Creator, from the minds of men: and fuch are the wages of their daring fin, and hectoring profaneness. O my foul, come not thou into their fecrets; enter not into their fociety here, as ever thou defireft not to enjoy it hereafter. The condition of the fpeculative atheift, as is described before, one would think were as bad, as miferable as is any way poffible to fancy. But yet the worse half is yet to come; the folly of the former is notorious; but confider awhile, and you will fee the practical atheist is the greater fool, and more inexcufable, and fo, perhaps, must abide a greater punishment in hell. The other had fo much cunning as to fee the belief of a God would be a fevere reftraint to his jollities, and put a stop to his career of fenfuality he forefaw his confcience, if trufted with a belief of the almighty power and unrelenting justice, would be always an impertinent, troublesome interrupter of his unhallowed mirth, and give him now and then a fevere reprimand for his unreafonable vices. Therefore he craftily undermines the root, and aims at the extirpation of that Being which he could not love, and imitate, and was loath to fear and dread. At leaft providing, as well as he could, for a prefent enjoyment of fin, if he fail of avoiding its punishment hereafter. But the man before us, the practical atheift, fcorns to trouble himself with so prevailing a belief, contents himfelf

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himself with following his fwing of luft at a venture, and refolves (vivens videnfque pereo) let what will be the iffue of it, he will have his vices; and, though his life be fhort, the devil fhall have as much of it as he can give him: come what will, he refolves not to be a renegado, or turncoat; and though hell be the end of his Journey, he confeffes, he finding much company in the road, is fixed to go with them, and fhift hereafter as well as he can. He dares heaven, and openly in the face of God blafphemes him by his actions, and feems fearful of nothing, but left he should be a small finner, and fo fhould have but fmall torment in the other world. His confcience tells him of his duty and obligations to God; of his breaches of the divine law; warns him of the feverity of abused patience, and affronted omnipotence; prefents to him the jaws of hell gaping to receive him, and fets before his eyes the miferies, of an everlasting hell, which muft foon be his portion, without timely and ferious repentance. Yet all this notwithstanding, the hardened wretch ftops his ears, runs to his companions, and fo, with new fins, takes away the remembrance of the former. But, O moft miferable man! what doft thou do? with whom doft thou contend? with the eternal God. What joys doft thou lofe? pure and never-failing at God's right-hand for evermore. What torments doft thou run ftrait into? endless, eafelefs, and remedilefs. And who can abide devouring. fire? who can dwell with everlafting burnings? confider a little with thyfelf the joys which thou now haft will be gone, and the torments prefent, what wilt thou then do? or to whom wilt thou flee for help and fuccour? no one can be able to give thee any comfort or release, but that Majefty whom thou art rendering inexorable; and who is treafuring up wrath against the day of his righ

teous

teous judgment, to pour down on thy head, and confume thee with a never-dying death. What wilt thou do on a death-bed, when all thy friends cannot help thee, and the phyfician gives thee over for incurable? and how inexcufable wilt thou be at the great day, when the doom which then will be pronounced has been thy free choice, and uncompelled election: depart thou curfed into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels; into outer darkness, where is weeping and gnashing of teeth, for evermore; where the worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched.

O my foul! envy thou not the finners, and choofe none of their ways; for their fteps lead to deftruction, and the chambers of death. If thefe are the paths, fuch the folly, and madness, and punishment of finners, and atheistical perfons, good Lord deliver me from them. Deliver me not into the bitter pains of eternal death! let my flesh tremble for fear of thee, and make me fo afraid of thy judgments, as to work out my falvation with fear and trembling, as to go through any the most irksome and tedious duties of religion, rather than thus to fall into the hands of the living and incenfed God; who is a confuming fire, and can deftroy both foul and body in hell. Through Jesus Christ, our Mediator and Redeemer. Amen!

X. On occafion of Mr. Hollis's death, July 15, 1691. and my being chofe Fellow the next day.

SA

AD and miferable is their end, who have lived without God in the world. Deplorable is their cafe, who never laid up a good foundation against the time to come, that they might lay hold on eternal life. Affrighting is the approach of death in any fhape; but when it comes on a fudden, in the