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 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 
 
INFIDELITY AGAINST ITSELF. 
 
 BY THE 
 
 RET. B. B. HOTCHKIN. 
 
 a 
 
 "WRITTEN FOR THE BOARD OF PUBLICATION. 
 
 PHILADELPHIA: 
 
 PRESBYTERIAN BOARD OF PUBLICATION, 
 NO. 821 CHESTNUT STREET. 
 
e>1 \i* 
 
 Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1859, by 
 
 JAMES DUNLAP, Treas., 
 
 in the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the Eastern District 
 
 of Pennsylvania. 
 
 STEREOTYPED BT 
 
 JESPER HARDING & SON, 
 
 INQUIRER BUILDING, SOUTH THIRD STREET, PHILADELPHIA. 
 
INFIDELITY AGAINST ITSELF. 
 
 DEFINITION. 
 
 We use the term Infidelity in the pop- 
 ular sense, which restricts it to its re- 
 lation to religion. Still, even when thus 
 restricted, it is not easy to define it. It 
 is Protean shaped. This results in 
 great part from the fact that it is not a 
 s} r stem, but a negation, seeking to 
 break up systems without offering one 
 affirmative article in their place. Des- 
 titute of a single positive sentiment 
 for a bond of union, it exists, not to 
 give, but to destroy faith; never to 
 build, but always to lay waste. Its 
 
 (3) 
 
4 INFIDELITY AGAINST ITSELF. 
 
 whole strength is for desolation. Hence 
 it is capable of great versatility, ena- 
 bling its adroit advocates, at their con- 
 venience, to slip from under any specific 
 definition. Still, where exactness of 
 meaning is important, it becomes ne- 
 cessary to define, as near as possible, 
 the thing of which we speak. 
 
 The Infidelity now under review is 
 not a mere scepticism. It is true that 
 much which passes under the last term, 
 is more deeply obstinate and malignant 
 than the name properly implies, and 
 not a few who claim for themselves 
 the softer appellation of sceptics, would 
 find their proper place among undis- 
 guised infidels. But that which is 
 scepticism, and nothing more, may 
 consist with candour, openness to con- 
 viction, and even honest inquiry after 
 truth. It does not necessarily involve 
 
INFIDELITY AGAINST ITSELF. 
 
 opposition to truth, bitterness toward 
 it, or a reprobate spirit. True, the 
 difficulties in the way of belief, which 
 it presupposes, may be so persistently 
 maintained, in the face of the strongest 
 demonstration, as to show that the 
 boundary of candour is passed, and the 
 point of voluntary and resolute unbe- 
 lief is reached ; but the time has then 
 come to give another name to this sen- 
 timent toward Divine Revelation. In 
 the present discussion, we detach 
 scepticism from infidelity. 
 
 Neither can the Infidelity in ques- 
 tion properly claim identity with cer- 
 tain doctrines of heathen philosophy, 
 to which it has sometimes turned for 
 countenance. We shall have occasion, 
 in the sequel, to speak of an elemen- 
 tary distinction between such infidelity 
 
 as is now taught among us, and the 
 l* 
 
O INFIDELITY AGAINST ITSELF. 
 
 supposed atheistic features of some of 
 the schools of Greece and Rome. We 
 only refer to it, in this place, for the 
 purpose of reaching a definition. 
 
 Neither is the Infidelity before us a 
 simple unbelief. We fall far short of 
 describing the avowed infidel, as he is 
 known in a Christian country, when 
 we say he has no faith in our holy 
 Scriptures. True as it is, that, on the 
 subject of religion, his views aspire to 
 nothing higher than a negation, still we 
 shall directly see that a positive object 
 is before his mind, and his tendencies 
 are ever toward it as the needle to the 
 pole. It may be said that unbelief is 
 all that is meant by the word Infidel- 
 ity. Etymologically this is true; but 
 words often make out for themselves 
 specific senses, which absorb their de- 
 rivative meanings. We speak of Infi- 
 
INFIDELITY AGAINST ITSELF. 7 
 
 delity as it exists under our notice, — 
 the Infidelity which we meet in open 
 antagonism to Christianity. 
 
 Half a century ago, the use of the 
 single term French Infidelity might 
 have stood in the place of any further 
 description. It stood unmasked and 
 could not be mistaken. There is now 
 more occasion for a positive definition, 
 and in giving it, we make the following 
 analysis : 
 
 1. The Infidelity here described 
 wholly rejects the doctrine of the 
 Divine inspiration of our holy Scrip- 
 tures, and wholly repudiates their at- 
 thority as a rule of faith and conduct 
 sent from heaven. 
 
 2. It rejects the Bible in such terms 
 as involve the denial of any sensible 
 intercourse between God and his crea- 
 tures. Men are placed under no law 
 
8 INFIDELITY AGAINST ITSELF. 
 
 for the regulation of their conduct, 
 higher than their instincts, reason, or 
 the necessities of their condition. 
 
 3. It denies any connection between 
 the present conduct of men, and a 
 future state of existence. An occasion- 
 al dim fancy, borrowed from the hea- 
 then doctrine of transmigration, may 
 seem to form an exception to the liter- 
 al truth of this statement ; but these 
 exceptions are rare, and of no practi- 
 cal account when they exist. The 
 denial of any moral relation between 
 the present life, and all beyond it, and 
 generally the denial of any future 
 state of existence, may be set down as 
 one of the characteristics of Infidelity. 
 
 4. It wholly ignores the religious 
 sentiment in man. We refer to the 
 instinctive consciousness of the human 
 mind, that religion is a necessity and 
 
INFIDELITY AGAINST ITSELF. 9 
 
 duty growing out of our relation to 
 some superior power; and that there 
 must be some moral ligament to bind the 
 actors and events of the present, to 
 some higher scenes and. vaster results. 
 This is not the place to show, as will 
 be shown under the proper head, that, 
 with the single exception before us, peo- 
 ple of every age and clime have given 
 some practical response to the call of 
 human nature, for something which 
 may serve as a religion. Infidelity, 
 as we now use the word, repudiates 
 this inborn sense that religion is a 
 want of our moral natures. To give 
 the definition the greatest possible 
 plainness — for so it is — religion itself 
 is abandoned. The religion of the 
 Bible is not exchanged for some other 
 religious system, as that of Confucius 
 or Buddha; not even for the religion 
 
10 INFIDELITY AGAINST ITSELF. 
 
 of reason in any appreciable sense ; but 
 the transition is from religion to irre- 
 ligion. 
 
 5, This Infidelity becomes a princi- 
 ple of active hostility toward Christian- 
 ity. It pursues the religion of the Bi- 
 ble with an opposition which is bitter 
 and unrelenting. When it feels itself 
 loosened from the restraints of public 
 Opinion, it speaks of the holy Scrip- 
 tures and the Christian church, in terms 
 of opprobrium and virulence which be- 
 tray a deadly hatred. 
 
 Illustrations of these points will 
 come up in their place. Here we have 
 simply mentioned them, to make the 
 definition of the Infidelity under dis- 
 cussion, as accurate as the nature of 
 the case will admit. With this defini- 
 tion before us, we proceed to state 
 
INFIDELITY AGAINST ITSELF. 11 
 
 THE ARGUMENT OF THIS TRACT. 
 
 When the inner life of Infidelity is 
 exposed, we regard the necessity of 
 an elaborate defence of Christianity 
 against its attacks, as in a great mea- 
 sure removed. 
 
 It sometimes appears in disguised 
 forms, professing reverence for the holy 
 Scriptures, and seeming to accept them 
 in certain meanings; but subjecting 
 them to interpretations which, like 
 the weird sisters in Macbeth, 
 
 " palter with us in a double sense," 
 
 until the mind is unconsciously loos- 
 ened from a true faith in their inspira- 
 tion from heaven, or from reverence 
 of their divine authority. It is often 
 a laborious task, requiring a deep exam- 
 ination of facts in the natural world, 
 and of truths in the departments of 
 
12 INFIDELITY AGAINST ITSELF. 
 
 reason and ethics, to meet these spe- 
 cious assaults upon Divine Revela- 
 tion. 
 
 But Infidelity, in the form now un- 
 der review, is a weak, though wily foe. 
 The most satisfactory processes of rea- 
 soning against it have been short; they 
 lie mostly within the range of common 
 minds, and they deal largely with the 
 moral sense of men. Where the con- 
 science acts freely, a few obvious 
 principles, aided by such a knowledge 
 of facts as all Can acquire, are sufficient 
 to sustain the friends of the Bible in 
 the field of argument. 
 
 Let such reasonings as we find in 
 Faber, Leslie, or Nelson, be read with 
 reference to what is said above, and 
 who does not observe, with surprise, 
 the accessibility of the means for 
 
INFIDELITY AGAINST ITSELF. 13 
 
 reaching truth, and the directness and 
 simplicity of the way to it? 
 
 Gibbon and Hume must watch everv 
 turn in voluminous compositions — the 
 labour of the best years of their lives 
 — to get out, through every opening 
 which can be forced, an insidious 
 attack upon Divine Revelation. Ask 
 Volney for an argument; and he takes 
 you into the studio and shows you a 
 picture. Demand it of Paine, and he 
 leads you through a labyrinth after it, 
 and when it is reached, it turns out a 
 burlesque. 
 
 The reasonings of Infidelity are 
 never elemental. They are not ad- 
 dressed to the fundamentals of Christ- 
 ianity, but to its minor parts— commonly 
 to its accidentals. The highest seem- 
 ing triumph of the Infidel, is to rive now 
 
 and then a chip from the eternal 
 2 
 
14 INFIDELITY AGAINST ITSELF. 
 
 pyramid. Some calm eye looks a 
 little more closely for the actual re- 
 sult of so many labours, when, lo ! the 
 proper surface of the structure has 
 not received a scratch. The destruc- 
 tive started a few excrescences from 
 the marble, and then fancied himself 
 standing over a heap of " Ruins." 
 
 We feel no call to multiply argu- 
 ments in defence of Divine Revelation. 
 Incidentally we may run over some 
 beaten ground, but it is not our object 
 to reproduce views which are familiar 
 to such as have read on the subject. 
 The purpose of this Tract is simple. 
 It is to force one reluctant witness to 
 the stand ; to give to Infidelity a voice 
 to speak, not from the pens or lips of 
 those who give it an artificial utter- 
 ance, but from its own inner soul ; to 
 behold it, not as it writes and lectures, 
 
INFIDELITY AGAINST ITSELF. 15 
 
 but as it is and does. We intend to listen 
 to this testimony from various points — 
 from the stand-point of its own history; 
 from that of reason and philosophical 
 inquiry ; but especially as it is given 
 by the witness when brought face to 
 face with the holy Scriptures. There 
 we expect it to proclaim itself in such 
 terms as betray its own writhings under 
 the power of God through the word, 
 thus revealing the existence of that 
 power there, as palpably as the contor- 
 tions of the animalcule, in the solar 
 microscope, tell of a sun whose burn- 
 ing rays are concentrated on them 
 through the instrument. We have often 
 enough heard its advocates : we have 
 now seated ourselves to hear it. We 
 summon Infidelity as a witness. 
 
16 INFIDELITY AGAINST ITSELF. 
 
 INFIDELITY IN THE PRESENCE OF ITS OWN 
 HISTORY. 
 
 We look only to a few general facts 
 and features in this history, carefully 
 selecting those which best illustrate 
 the character and spirit of Infidelity. 
 
 It will belong more to a future part 
 of the examination, to note a striking 
 significancy in the fact that the whole 
 of this history is limited to one certain 
 field. Infidelity, as known to us, is 
 the growth of a Christian soil, fasten- 
 ing itself like a parasite to Christianity, 
 to draw its support from the life-blood 
 of the church. In its present form, it 
 was unknown to the world, until it 
 awoke to being in antagonism to the 
 Divine mercy, which flows from the 
 cross, and in this form it has followed 
 the gospel of Christ through the 
 
INFIDELITY AGAINST ITSELF. 17 
 
 world, never seeking any field, but 
 that which has been consecrated by 
 evangelical toils and triumphs. It 
 cares little who worship false gods 
 and dumb idols ; it enters into no cru- 
 sade against the Shasters or the 
 Koran ; it reserves all its bitterness 
 for Christ and Christianity, and devotes 
 its whole existence to the war against 
 the Christian gospel. We expect soon 
 to draw, from the very limitations of 
 its history, a signal example of the 
 power and judgment of God over re- 
 probate hearts. 
 
 We turn to another fact in its his- 
 tory, which, under all the circumstan- 
 ces of the case, strongly illustrates its 
 atrociousness. We refer to its miser- 
 able failure, in regard to success. We 
 do not infer its atrocity from the mere 
 
 fact that it has met with poor encour- 
 2* 
 
18 INFIDELITY AGAINST ITSELF. 
 
 agement from the world, for that would 
 be a wild and wicked judgment. Much 
 that is really good, has been crushed 
 under the public frown, But we look 
 at the great facilities of Infidelity for 
 access to men; at the corresponding 
 difficulties of Christianity ; at the fact 
 that, notwithstanding all this, the ad- 
 herents of the latter are, to those of 
 the former, as ninety nine to one hun- 
 dred, and probably in much greater 
 proportion ; and then at the manifest 
 reason why these results are such as 
 they are ; and from these premises, we 
 deduce the odiousness of Infidelity in 
 view of the moral sense of mankind. 
 
 Infidelity seems to approach the 
 masses of mankind with the highest 
 adaptations for success. It comes to 
 a world lying in wickedness. It finds 
 human hearts depraved, and impatient 
 
INFIDELITY AGAINST ITSELF- 19 
 
 of any restraints upon their depravity. 
 The promptings to sin are strong, the 
 restrictions of the Divine law are un- 
 welcome, and the prospect of future 
 retribution is a bitter ingredient in the 
 cup of pleasure. Infidelity proposes 
 to remove these restraints and abolish 
 this retribution. It has but one law 
 of enjoyment — inclination ; one law of 
 abstinence — present peril. The man 
 of vindictiveness, lust, or pleasure, 
 could not frame a license for his pas- 
 sions broader than that which is here 
 offered him. The man also who recoils 
 from the grosser forms of depravity, but 
 at the same time revolts from the gos- 
 pel standard of holiness, may here re- 
 joice in exemption from the duty of 
 Christian self-denial, and from the 
 dread of future accountability. 
 
20 INFIDELITY AGAINST ITSELF. 
 
 We may add to these facilities of 
 access, the fact that Infidelity accom- 
 modates itself to the level of the 
 masses. Its reasonings, sarcasms, and 
 jests belong to the stump, and not the 
 professorial chair. This statement is 
 pre-eminently true of the present cen- 
 tury. We find some writers who have 
 a finer appreciation of moral proprieties, 
 and loftier aspirations of character, but 
 who are really in hostility with the 
 Bible, taking a higher ground. They 
 are cultivated and intelligent, and they 
 feel the value of both intellectual and 
 moral reputation. Perhaps they shrink 
 from the stigma of an association with 
 those who treat Divine Revelation 
 with open scorn ; perhaps they are in- 
 fluenced by the pride of Philosophy, 
 or the ambition to strike out new the- 
 ories in science ; but whatever else be 
 
INFIDELITY AGAINST ITSELF. 21 
 
 the motive, all other incitements are 
 under the ever quickening one of alien- 
 ation from the Divine law. They seek 
 more specious modes of reaching the 
 practical ends of Infidelity. They in- 
 vent their glossaries, work out their 
 philosophical interpretations, or enforce 
 the authority of new discoveries in sci- 
 ence, upon the meaning of the Bible, 
 until they have wrought a semi-infidel- 
 ity for the aristocracy of mind, which 
 effectually secures the moral repose, 
 without the shame of avowed unbelief. 
 But Infidelity undisguised turns 
 from the intellectual aristocracy to the 
 people. Among them, it is the better, 
 as it is the bolder warfare. Subtle 
 theories, which keep a hold on the 
 name of Christianity, and yet play 
 into the hands of its adversaries, are 
 not to the taste of the masses. The 
 
22 INFIDELITY AGAINST ITSELF. 
 
 human mind pays homage to consisten- 
 cy and intrepidity, and in both these 
 respects an unmasked Infidelity has 
 the advantage over all semi-infidel 
 theories of interpretation. Duplicity 
 is odious ; and to plain minds it will 
 always appear double-tongued to read 
 a Book which says one thing, and apply 
 to it interpretations which speak the 
 opposite. 
 
 More than this, outspoken Infidelity 
 accommodates itself best to mental in- 
 dolence ; and with multitudes, this is 
 an influential consideration. It is a 
 laborious work to transcendentalize 
 the language of the Bible ; to examine 
 its coincidences with, or divergencies 
 from, the physics and metaphysics of 
 science ; to emendate, fill up supposed 
 ellipses, and work out possible render- 
 ings ; to carry it about among the " ves- 
 
INFIDELITY AGAINST ITSELF, 23 
 
 tiges of creation/' or trail its genesis 
 among the " types of mankind." It is 
 cheaper to drop it outright. Pseudo- 
 philosophical annotations and rational- 
 istic interpretations tax the mind. But 
 any one who can comprehend a sneer, 
 may find intellectual pastime under an 
 infidel lecture. 
 
 Thus Infidelity, pandering to ihe 
 passions of our race, and accommodat- 
 ing itself to the mental habits which 
 are widely prevalent, would seem to 
 approach the people with every reason- 
 able prospect of success. 
 
 This prospect seems largely increased 
 when, on the other hand, we turn to 
 Christianity, and observe how it must 
 encounter the strongest prejudices, 
 and conquer all the moral bias of the 
 human mind, before it can be accepted 
 as the object of faith. Men must be- 
 
24 INFIDELITY AGAINST ITSELF. 
 
 lieve those things which, above all 
 others, their pride prompts them to 
 disbelieve. They must crucify those 
 passions and feelings which are most 
 tenacious in their natures, and the 
 indulgence of which, is the dearest 
 idolatry of the corrupt heart. They 
 must bend under obligations of duty 
 which such a heart always loathes, 
 and they must accept favour upon 
 terms which reduce their boasted inde- 
 pendence to beggary. 
 
 Infidelity says, Walk after the law 
 of your own nature, and please your- 
 self: the gospel of Christ says that 
 the only fulfilling of the Divine law 
 of life, is in self-denial, or as it is ex- 
 pressed in figures which speak for 
 themselves — bearing the cross, and 
 crucifixion to the world. The prom- 
 ises of Infidelity are carnal secur- 
 
INFIDELITY AGAINST ITSELF. 25 
 
 ity in pleasure, with no fear of 
 reckoning beyond the present life : 
 those of the gospel are tribulation and 
 great exposures for the sake of Christ. 
 Infidelity exalts humanity to regal in- 
 dependence : the gospel requires every 
 sinner to become an applicant for mercy, 
 and to receive every kindness of God 
 as fi grace. 
 
 These contrasts are vivid. We all 
 know the proclivities of human nature, 
 the strength of its unholy promptings, 
 and its impatience of restraint. Leav- 
 ing a Divine influence over the decisions 
 of men out of view, and reasoning a 
 priori of the probabilities in the case, 
 who would not say that, in this race, 
 Infidelity must win the prize ? Apart 
 from that Divine control of means and 
 hearts, its appliances have the highest 
 
 adaptation to the end sought, while 
 3 
 
26 INFIDELITY AGAINST ITSELF. 
 
 Christianity is devoid of every essen- 
 tial element of popularity. So we 
 should certainly have said, before 
 knowing anything of the power of God 
 in the holy Scriptures, or witnessing 
 any example of the rival efforts of the 
 two forces in the same field. 
 
 But we have now a surer guide 
 than this a priori reasoning. Ages of 
 contest have settled the question as one 
 of fact, and not of probabilities. And 
 what is the result? Among all the 
 leading forms of opposition, with which 
 Christianity, in its progress, has had 
 to contend, Infidelity has been least 
 felt. It has been the weakest numer- 
 ically, and weakest in the charac- 
 ter and influence of its champions. 
 Through centuries of effort, it has 
 never come dangerously near to a gen- 
 eral ascendency. It has never enjoyed 
 
INFIDELITY AGAINST ITSELF. 27 
 
 so much as a local triumph, except in 
 a single instance ; and that one excep- 
 tion proved, in the end, a disaster to 
 it. The only time the world gave it 
 rope enough, it hung itself. 
 
 Almost from the moment of its 
 establishment, Christianity has been 
 the accepted system of the civilized 
 world. For strength of influence, it 
 has been the leading religious system 
 in the world. It has attached itself 
 to the most brilliant of the human races, 
 and the most enlightened nations. It 
 has marched with them in all their con- 
 quests, settled itself in every territory 
 which they have acquired, and become 
 the life of every empire which they 
 have founded. These are facts in 
 historjr, and they were never more 
 true than at the present time. There 
 is not now one fully civilized nation, 
 
28 INFIDELITY AGAINST ITSELF. 
 
 but glories in the name of a Christian 
 people ; and the influence of any of the 
 leading Christian nations — say Great 
 Britain, with her population of thirty 
 millions — is felt over the globe with 
 fifty times the power of the influence 
 of China, with her two hundred and 
 fifty millions. 
 
 In the midst of this strength of Christ- 
 ianity, numerical and potential, Infidel- 
 ity is lost. True, it lives. Now and 
 then we meet with a man who openly 
 professes it; here and there we see a 
 bill posted, notifying us of a Sunday 
 lecture for denouncing the Bible ; and 
 occasionally there is a pompous parade 
 of a challenge for discussion, from one 
 of its champions. There is always 
 more or less of it lingering about the 
 drift-ways of life; and at rare intervals, 
 a man of higher respectability is found 
 
INFIDELITY AGAINST ITSELF. 29 
 
 about the purlieus of its places of pub- 
 lic assembly. True to its nature as 
 the vampire to Christianity, it comes 
 into higher activity in times of peculiar 
 religious interest. But it is a vigour 
 which soon exhausts itself, and all set- 
 tles back into the old up-hill track. 
 
 Look at New York with its 300 
 Christian churches, and how many 
 " Halls of Science," or congregations 
 of Infidels, exist beside them ? Possi- 
 bly two or three. Take Philadelphia 
 with its 280 Christian churches, and we 
 have, on the other hand, one " Sunday 
 Institute," and no other Infidel assem- 
 bly of which we have learned. Count- 
 ing the attendance, the disparity would 
 be still more striking, (jo to Balti- 
 more, Boston, Richmond, or Charleston, 
 and the result would not be materially 
 
 different. Go even to our western 
 3* 
 
30 INFIDELITY AGAINST ITSELF. 
 
 cities, into which the German States 
 have poured so largely, not of their ra- 
 tionalism, but of the gross Infidelity 
 which is the proper residuum of a ration- 
 alistic ferment ; there the proportion of 
 infidels is larger, it is true, but they 
 are still a miserable minority, if we 
 reckon people according to their undis- 
 guised professions. 
 
 And yet we have always heard that 
 the cities are the hot-beds of Infidelity. 
 If it is so hopeless of triumph there, 
 what must it be in the rural districts 
 where, as an open profession, it has 
 scarcely a name ? The great heart of 
 the country is there, and there, how- 
 ever low vital religion may sometimes 
 be, the great mass call Christianity 
 their system, and cases are exceeding- 
 ly rare — often not one in a township — 
 in which it is boldly denied. 
 
INFIDELITY AGAINST ITSELF. 31 
 
 With such results before us, after 
 the experiment of centuries, we do In- 
 fidelity no wrong, when we pronounce 
 it a miserable failure. It met Christ- 
 ianity with every apparent prospect of 
 success; it seemed to possess superior 
 facilities for access to the people, in the 
 very respects in which the gospel ap- 
 peared forbidding; and yet Christianity 
 is, at this moment, the controlling reli- 
 gious system of the world, everywhere 
 known and influential, and fast growing 
 in influence, while Infidelity has sunk 
 to the smallest of the impediments in 
 its way. 
 
 What is the moral of all this? The 
 best answer to the question will be 
 given, when we bring Infidelity into 
 the presence of Divine Revelation, and 
 hear it relate its own experience of the 
 power of God through the gospel. 
 
32 INFIDELITY AGAINST ITSELF. 
 
 Not wishing to forestall that point, we 
 will only say here, that Infidelity con- 
 fesses, through its history, that it is 
 too atrocious for human depravity. It 
 shocks even a sin-loving world. It is 
 so plainly the enemy of all that is pure, 
 lovely, just, and of good report, that 
 the wicked, as well as the good, recoil 
 from it. With all the tendencies in its 
 favour, which grow out of the opposition 
 of depraved hearts to the moral purity 
 of the Bible, still every finer sentiment 
 of the human mind loathes it, and it 
 must find even a worse race than ours, 
 before it can triumph. 
 
 This is the decision of the civil- 
 ized world. It is the world's verdict 
 against Infidelity, on the charge that 
 it is a moral nuisance — the verdict of 
 even a jury with a bias in its favour. 
 
INFIDELITY AGAINST ITSELF^ 33 
 
 How then could it stand before an 
 impartial judgment? 
 
 There is still another point in the 
 testimony of Infidelity, as heard from 
 its history — the witness which it bears 
 respecting its own immoral tenden- 
 cies. 
 
 We should naturally come to the 
 inference that, if it answers in any 
 measure to the description thus far 
 afforded, its influence upon private 
 and public virtue must be deeply per- 
 nicious. We have no hesitation in 
 adopting this inference. No assertion 
 could be less hazardous than this, that 
 by removing from vice its most power- 
 ful restraints, and proposing no sancti- 
 fying influence in their place as the 
 safeguard of virtue, it becomes the 
 foster parent of the most intolerable 
 immoralities. This point might soon 
 
34 INFIDELITY AGAINST ITSELF. 
 
 be argued into a logical necessity, but 
 unfortunately there is a shorter way to 
 reach it — through the history of actual 
 sins and sufferings. 
 
 As a general rule, the champions of 
 Infidelity have done what, in a better 
 cause, would have been a virtue — 
 their practice has agreed with their 
 preaching; their doctrines have been 
 illustrated in their lives. Exceptions 
 to this statement are cheerfully admit- 
 ted, but they are few, far too few to 
 invalidate the morale of infidel biogra- 
 phy. We may grant to Infidelity all 
 the benefit of a case, like that of 
 David Hume, in which an estimable 
 life before the world accompanied an 
 energetic infidel spirit, while the great 
 host of examples illustrates the general 
 certainty that infidel sentiments and 
 profligate morals go hand in hand. 
 
INFIDELITY AGAINST ITSELF. 35 
 
 Read what is known of the personal 
 history of Voltaire, Rousseau, Vol- 
 ney, Bolingbroke, Diderot, D'Alembert, 
 Paine, Mary Wolstonecraft, or of almost 
 any leading infidel lecturer of the pre- 
 sent century, male or female ; and who 
 among them all would be selected as a 
 pattern of virtue, even in the light of 
 the lowest system which preserves any 
 hold on the name of morality ? Is one 
 known among them, whose life was not 
 odious, and are not the names of the 
 most brilliant among them, synonyms 
 for moral putrefaction ? 
 
 These are not the times, nor is this 
 the country, to see the true moral pro- 
 clivities of Infidelity. The world has 
 had few good opportunities to see it 
 working freely in the harness. For rea- 
 sons abundantly given on the preceding 
 pages, it feels itself an object of public 
 
36 INFIDELITY AGAINST ITSELF. 
 
 suspicion. Hence its advocates find 
 it necessary to control themselves, 
 and pay some respect at least to the 
 exterior virtues of life. 
 
 We have already alluded to what 
 we must now notice at more length — 
 the one memorable instance in which 
 it sprung into power, and loosened 
 itself from the restraints of public 
 jealousy. A few pages back, we 
 heard the testimony from its failure ; 
 let us improve the only opportunity 
 it has ever enjoyed to proclaim its own 
 character from the field of triumph. 
 The experiment was wide enough : 
 the whole of a great empire was its 
 field. It was not straitened in time, 
 for it lasted until it had buried almost 
 a whole generation. It stands alone 
 in the world's history, but it was 
 enough for the life-time of a world. It 
 
INFIDELITY AGAINST ITSELF. 37 
 
 has left so enduring records, that no 
 coming age will be uninformed of what 
 the moral instincts of Infidelity are, 
 or what it will do with human virtue 
 when it is once enthroned. 
 
 The reader, who has the slightest 
 knowledge of modern history, recog- 
 nizes in the above, a reference to the 
 state of things in France, for several 
 years preceding and following the 
 opening of the present century, when 
 the nation, morally, politically, and 
 socially, was given up to Infidelity. 
 It had wormed its way into the public 
 heart, through the wiles of the Jacobin 
 clubs, and the brilliant pages of some 
 of the most accomplished writers of 
 the da)'. The regicidal revolution 
 placed it in political ascendency, and 
 the National Assembly disowned all 
 allegiance to religion, by a solemn de- 
 
 4 
 
38 INFIDELITY AGAINST ITSELF, 
 
 cree which, in language and intent, 
 dethroned God and made eternity a 
 fable. So much for negation : what 
 for positive devotion? A prostitute 
 was brought out and deified, in the 
 presence of an applauding multitude, 
 as the representative of Reason. These 
 be thy gods, Infidelity I 
 
 This was the religion of the nation : 
 now what were the morals? The 
 romping career of the most infamous 
 vices is without a parallel in the annals 
 of time. Lewdness cast off shame, 
 forsook the dark corners of cities, and 
 walked unblushingly into the seats of 
 honour. Treachery made even the 
 name of friendship perilous. The 
 sworn confederates of to-day betrayed 
 each other to a blood-thirsty police to- 
 morrow. Men lost confidence in the 
 truth and fidelity of their most intimate 
 
INFIDELITY AGAINST ITSELF. 39 
 
 associates. Violence rivalled lust in 
 atrociousness, and private assassination 
 and self-murder vied with the guillo- 
 tine in rolling a sea of blood over the 
 realm. One third of the births regis- 
 tered in the office of the Prefect of 
 the Police, in Paris, were without the 
 sanction of marriage, and nearly the 
 same proportion of deaths were by pub- 
 lic executions, private assassinations, 
 or suicide. The best computation 
 reckons not less than three millions 
 of human beings out of that nation, 
 swept violently into their graves, in 
 the short space of ten years. A gra- 
 phic writer,* speaking while these 
 things were yet fresh, says — "The 
 kingdom appeared to be changed into 
 one great prison; the inhabitants con- 
 verted into felons; and the common 
 
 * The late President D wight. 
 
40 INFIDELITY AGAINST ITSELF. 
 
 doom of man commuted for the violence 
 of the sword and the bayonet, the 
 sucking boat and the guillotine. To con- 
 templative men, it seemed for a season 
 as if the knell of the whole nation 
 was tolled, and the world summoned 
 to its execution and its funeral/' 
 
 The nation was at last fain to accept 
 the return of an intolerant hierarchy, 
 which was little better than a counter- 
 feit of Christianity, as a refuge from 
 the unendurable scourge of utter ir- 
 religion. Infidelity, exhausted and 
 terrified by its own enormities, made 
 scarcely a show of resistance to the 
 restoration of Romish ecclesiasticism. 
 
 It is too late to ask for proof that 
 this was Infidelity exposing itself 
 under every advantage for appearing 
 in its true temper. Its agency in the 
 moral atrocities following the revolu- 
 
INFIDELITY AGAINST ITSELF. 41 
 
 tion, is unquestionable. The ante- 
 revolutionary infidels of the French 
 school made no scruple of ridiculing 
 what we understand by morality. 
 Loosening themselves from all the re- 
 vealed laws of heaven, they only 
 pushed their principles to the point of 
 consistency, when they disowned any 
 higher law than sensual gratification, 
 or any stronger obligation than obe- 
 dience to physical compulsion.* 
 
 * We are indebted to the writer last quoted, Dr. 
 Dwight, who always took his observations carefully, 
 and made his statements cautiously, for the following 
 incident, which occurred a short time previous to the 
 revolution, and for the truth of which, he regards 
 his authority as good. " A numerous assembly of 
 French Literati, being asked in turn, at one of their 
 meetings, by their president, whether there was any 
 such thing as moral obligation, answered, in every in- 
 stance, that there was not." English infidels, though 
 
 speaking under stronger restraints, have not always 
 4* 
 
42 INFIDELITY AGAINST ITSELF. 
 
 The influence of Infidelity in the 
 political crimes which stained the 
 movement, which might otherwise have 
 been a noble stroke for human liberty, 
 is scarcely less obvious. Disclosures 
 made, and proofs collected, by eotem- 
 poraneous writers, such as Robison 
 and the Abb6 Barruel, have revealed 
 the fundamental principle of the Jaco- 
 bin club — ruin to altars and thrones. 
 The blending of these two objects 
 exposes their meaning as a whole. 
 The thing aimed at is, independence 
 of outward control; the means of accom- 
 plishment are, the destruction of reli- 
 gion and government. The effort, 
 
 been able to conceal this doctrine, so dangerous to 
 the virtue and peace of the wo r ld. Hobbes, for exam- 
 ple, declares it lawful to do and get whatever we can, 
 with safety. 
 
INFIDELITY AGAINST ITSELF. 43 
 
 when successful, can have but one real- 
 ization — corruption and anarchy. All 
 our reasonings from the nature of the 
 case, make it probable: experiment 
 has reduced it to a certainty. 
 
 Thus we have listened to the wit- 
 ness of Infidelity, as spoken from its 
 own history. We have heard the 
 confession of its inability, after ages 
 of effort, to overcome the detestation 
 of mankind toward itself; and it has 
 told us what corruption and misery 
 might be expected from its universal 
 triumph. We now transfer the wit- 
 ness to another field — the one where 
 it most plumes itself. 
 
 INFIDELITY IN THE PRESENCE OF REASON 
 
 Sparing the reader from a ramble 
 over philosophy at large, we shall se- 
 
44 INFIDELITY AGAINST ITSELF. 
 
 lect the pertinent points for inquiry. 
 Have those who have laboured only in 
 the field of reason, given any counten- 
 ance to Infidelity? On the contrary, 
 has not rational philosophy always ab- 
 horred it; and have not the discoveries 
 of that philosophy always indicated the 
 necessity for such a communion be- 
 tween heaven and earth, as is only 
 realized in the Christian system re- 
 vealed in our holy Scriptures? 
 
 Here we must refresh the reader's 
 memory concerning the terms in which 
 we have defined the Infidelity of which 
 we speak, especially that part of the 
 description which gives to it the posi- 
 tive character of a voluntary abandon- 
 ment of religion, and opposition to it 
 — a deliberate choice of irreligion in- 
 stead of religion. It now becomes 
 
INFIDELITY AGAINST ITSELF. 45 
 
 essential to keep this definition in 
 mind. 
 
 The infidel is generally loud in his 
 boast of being the disciple of nature 
 and reason. But the question, what 
 nature and reason do teach on the sub- 
 ject, is soonest settled by a reference 
 to facts. We must look among those 
 who have been deprived of superior 
 means of knowledge, and left to intu- 
 ition, nature, and reason alone. If, 
 upon any point concerning religion, 
 these people have all spoken with one 
 voice ; if, under all their grades of cul- 
 tivation, barbarous or civilized, igno- 
 rant or learned, and through all their 
 various systems, from the lowest idol- 
 atry to the highest philosophy, they 
 have proclaimed for a religion in oppo- 
 sition to irreligion, and have always 
 sought out for themselves something 
 
46 INFIDELITY AGAINST ITSELF. 
 
 which should be to them religion ; then 
 we have the highest proof which the 
 nature of the case admits, that there 
 is, in the human breast, an inborn 
 yearning for religion. The form in 
 which this point is often stated is, that 
 man is naturally a religious being. If this 
 be true, the conclusion is unavoidable, 
 that Infidelity outrages the human rea- 
 son and conscience. 
 
 It will be understood that the term, 
 "religion" is not here used in its restrict- 
 ed sense, as denoting saving grace in the 
 heart, but as descriptive of all intended 
 acknowledgment and worship of su- 
 perior beings, in distinction from total 
 irreligion. It is the sense in which 
 Paul employed the word, when he said 
 to the Athenians, while pointing to 
 their heathen altars — " I perceive that 
 
INFIDELITY AGAINST ITSELF. 47 
 
 in all things, ye are exceedingly reli- 
 gious" * 
 
 The testimony of the world upon 
 this point is unequivocal. There is 
 no exception to it, but that which 
 comes from the form of Infidelity now 
 under review — an exception which we 
 expect to find, in the sequel, confirming 
 instead of weakening the point before 
 us. That one exception passed, the 
 whole world has proclaimed religion to 
 be a necessity of our moral nature. 
 
 A religious instinct certainly seems 
 to lie at the basis of heathen idolatry. 
 Men, without the better light of revel- 
 ation, still felt a consciousness of some 
 relation to a superior power, which made 
 worship a duty. Their minds were 
 too feeble to scale the conception of an 
 
 * Acts xvii. 22. In our translation, unhappily ren- 
 dered, " too superstitious." 
 
48 INFIDELITY AGAINST ITSELF. 
 
 object of worship dwelling for ever in 
 the mysterious unknown, and so they 
 made gods for themselves. They dei- 
 fied heroes, worshipped the noblest 
 visible objects: as, sun, moon, stars, 
 fire ; or with their descending civiliza- 
 tion, went down to the deification of 
 beasts, reptiles, stocks, and stones. 
 But low as idolatry has sunk, the con- 
 sciousness of religion, as a moral neces- 
 sity, has ever abode by it, as a redeem- 
 ing feature, and an anchor of hope for 
 a coming morning to the night of hea- 
 thenism. 
 
 If the historical assertions which 
 we have made, should be anywhere 
 controverted, the issue would probably 
 be taken, not on pagan ground, but in 
 the field of ancient philosophy. We 
 shall not deny that in the dawn of 
 Grecian philosophy, when the popular 
 
INFIDELITY AGAINST ITSELF. 49 
 
 deities — the gods of whom Homer 
 sung — were repudiated as unworthy 
 of the reverence of the wise, and be- 
 fore philosophy had wrought out the 
 problem of a Supreme Power and In- 
 telligence, doctrines were inculcated 
 which, from our present stand-point, 
 seem to reveal atheistic assimilations. 
 It is too true that Thales, Pythagoras, 
 and others among the earliest Grecian 
 masters, left God out of their systems. 
 Had everything stopped with them, 
 philosophy would have remained with- 
 out a Theism. All this may be granted 
 without disturbing our position. 
 
 Still these men afford no counten- 
 ance to the infidel under Christian 
 light. Their search was for creating 
 energy, and for the vitalizing principle 
 of things. Turning from Polytheism, 
 they took up with a kind of Panthe- 
 
 5 
 
50 INFIDELITY AGAINST ITSELF. 
 
 ism, which was their nearest point to- 
 wards Infidelity. It was serious in its 
 tone, looking anxiously for higher 
 light, and ever moving away from ir- 
 religion. The doctrine of chance was 
 never so much as suggested. From 
 the first, the effort of the philosophers 
 was to search out the eternal principle 
 of working, which they saw so abund- 
 antly developed in the visible creation, 
 and to discover the relation of the seen 
 to the mysterious unseen — of the tran- 
 sient to the permanent. The first as- 
 pirations of philosophy were heaven- 
 ward. Its earliest inquiries for animat- 
 ing principles and causative energy 
 were the earnest commencement of a 
 reasoning process, which could not and 
 did not rest until Glod was enthroned, 
 and his creatures were bound to him, 
 at least in the obligation of reverence* 
 
INFIDELITY AGAINST ITSELF. 51 
 
 In asking whether the wisdom of 
 that age sustains the point that the reli- 
 gious instinct is universal in men, we 
 are not so much concerned about the 
 personal feelings of certain philoso- 
 phers toward religion, but we are to in- 
 quire of their systems, what were the 
 wants, out of which their inquiries 
 started, and what were the aspirations 
 of those systems. No one can study 
 even the crude notions of the ear- 
 liest schools, without feeling that they 
 were groaning under the want of some- 
 thing better than Mythology, to bring 
 the created into communion with the 
 Creator, and that the great labour of 
 philosophy w T as & feeling after God. 
 
 We must remember the darkness 
 from which they emerged. They start- 
 ed from Polytheism ; they had imbibed 
 their views of Divinity from that, and 
 
52 INFIDELITY AGAINST ITSELF. 
 
 of course those views were low. The 
 gods of their people were vicious, 
 treacherous, lustful, and revengeful; 
 deified men and women who, in their 
 apotheosis, had parted with none of 
 their terrestrial corruption. They were 
 gods whose bones were scattered about 
 the world. It was the boast of the 
 island of Crete, that it contained the 
 tomb of Jupiter, the father of gods and 
 men. Is it then surprising that the first 
 philosophers, in their eager search for 
 something that should sustain to them- 
 selves and the world, the relation of 
 first cause and animating principle, 
 never thought of a god as befitting the 
 void which they sought to fill? Are 
 we to conclude, from this natural mis- 
 take of theirs, that there was not a 
 deep religious element in their system 
 — the germ of a religious growth, which 
 
INFIDELITY AGAINST ITSELF. 53 
 
 must eventually develope itself in 
 God ? If, for a time, we fail to find phi- 
 losophy a fully developed religion, are 
 we to jump to the conclusion that its 
 tendency was not in that direction? 
 
 Apply such conclusions to the strict- 
 ly scientific features of the system, and 
 we can all see the absurdity of the 
 judgment. For example, Thales held 
 the world to be an animal, with water 
 for its soul; he argued that the loadstone 
 must possess a soul, because it has 
 power to stir iron. Do we conclude 
 from this, that his system contained the 
 germ of no higher advances in science ? 
 So far otherwise, we behold, through 
 an absurdity, over which a school-boy 
 of this day would laugh, the great 
 principle of causation and life-energy 
 struggling to reveal itself. It was 
 
 a first looking toward the sublime, 
 5* 
 
54 INFIDELITY AGAINST ITSELF. 
 
 though still illusory discovery of Plato's 
 world of Eternal Archetypes. 
 
 So with the religious element. The 
 first doctrines of Grecian philosophy, 
 with all their negative godlessness, 
 contained the germ of an extensive reli- 
 gious inquiry, and deep religious con- 
 viction. It developed itself with in- 
 creasing distinctness, as the subject 
 passed from teacher to teacher, until it 
 culminated in the one Supreme Divin- 
 ity of Socrates and Plato — a gleam of 
 Jehovah, seen through the mist of the 
 wisdom of this world, but too shadowy 
 to give a definite notion of what the 
 god of the Athenian Academy really 
 was. It was however sufficient to re- 
 veal the fact, that philosophy could 
 not rest, until it had given to the world 
 an object of worship, and established 
 a connection between time and eternity 
 
INFIDELITY AGAINST ITSELF. 55 
 
 — between the creature and his God. 
 It settled the point that irreligion is the 
 abomination of philosophy . 
 
 And yet philosophy reached its lof- 
 tiest achievment, only to reveal a still 
 deeper religious want. The mind, 
 once lifted up to the true existence of 
 a God, becomes a prey to an intense 
 longing for some sensible communion 
 with him — some coming of God to us 
 in appreciable manifestations — some- 
 thing that can be felt as a participation 
 of the Divine nature. 
 
 The religion of Polytheism confesses 
 to this want, and proposes to supply it 
 with gods of our own moral nature, 
 like us in grossness and perverseness. 
 We need not dwell upon the unfitness 
 of the resort. Too vile to be accepted 
 as a supply, that worship is nevertheless 
 a symptom of this universal craving for 
 
56 INFIDELITY AGAINST ITSELF. 
 
 perceptible sympathy between God and 
 men. 
 
 Philosophy, by ennobling God, ex- 
 cites this longing to the point of inten- 
 sity, but it despairs of providing for it. 
 Plato may talk of our apparent exist- 
 ence as only a transient outward mani- 
 festation of an eternal Divine "Idea/ 7 
 which is soon to reabsorb us ; we obtain 
 from the thought no sense of commu- 
 nion; we have no feeling of being 
 brought nearer to God. The excel- 
 lencies of the Socratic Divinity are 
 abstract, and irrelative to our condition. 
 As God he is as much — we will not say 
 too high — but too far out of our reach, 
 as the Jove or Aphrodite of Homer is 
 beneath what we need. 
 
 In their conceptions of God, men, 
 without the Bible, have never found 
 a medium between the extremes of 
 
INFIDELITY AGAINST ITSELF. 57 
 
 gross familiarity with human nature, 
 on the one hand, and an awful dread- 
 inspiring mysteriousness, on the other. 
 When left to this darkness, the world 
 has cried earnestly, though vainly, for 
 something to bridge the abyss between 
 the human and the Divine. The earn- 
 est expectation of the creature has 
 waited for just that coming forth of 
 God from the darkness of the unknown, 
 into actual sympathy with his crea- 
 tures, which is only realized in the 
 system revealed in our holy Scriptures. 
 Unconsciously, but none the less truly, 
 it has longed for the Incarnation — 
 for Immanuel, God with us; living, 
 walking, speaking, and suffering with 
 us ; giving us palpable knowledge of his 
 fellow feeling, yet in such a way as to 
 leave the impression that, so far from 
 compromising the purity or dignity 
 
58 INFIDELITY AGAINST ITSELF, 
 
 of his nature, he has met us in our na- 
 tures, only to raise us to his own. 
 
 Such is the call of reason and 
 humanity for religion. Standing forth, 
 the sole exception to this moral sense 
 of the world, Infidelity proclaims itself 
 a crime against nature. In the world 
 of reason, it is a prodigy which could 
 never have been expected — -which, 
 from all a priori reasoning, would have 
 been pronounced an impossibility. 
 
 Had it been told us that, w 7 hen our 
 holy Scriptures should be offered to 
 the Hindoo, he would reject them 5 
 and abide by his Vedas, or that the 
 Mahommedan would refuse to exchange 
 his Koran for them, we should not 
 have regarded the result as improba- 
 ble. Our knowledge of the attach- 
 ment of men to early and long-cherished 
 views and customs, would lead us to 
 
INFIDELITY AGAINST ITSELF. 59 
 
 expect some demur against a change. 
 And in our estimate of the probabilities 
 in the case, we should attach great 
 importance to the consideration that 
 the religious system which they were 
 asked to abandon, deeply inferior as it 
 is, still provides something for the reli- 
 gious element which is strong in every 
 human constitution. Such men, in re- 
 jecting the Bible, do not absolutely 
 repudiate those religious instincts which 
 are interwoven in the manly, as dis- 
 tinguished from the brutish nature. 
 They do not leap into an abyss where 
 all is void godlessness. 
 
 More than this : had it been said that 
 some who were speculative believers 
 in our sacred writings, would abandon 
 them, to accept the Vedas or the Shas- 
 ter in their place, as the word of God, 
 improbable as the event might have 
 
60 INFIDELITY AGAINST ITSELF. 
 
 appeared, we should not have regarded 
 it so outrageous to nature as to defy 
 belief. It would be such a diversion 
 of the moral vision from luminous to 
 absurd theologies, and so deep a 
 descent from the spiritual to the carnal, 
 as to betray a mournfully diseased con- 
 dition of the moral nature ; still an object 
 would be left for the grasp of those in- 
 born yearnings of humanity which cry 
 out for religion. 
 
 Or suppose the Bible to have come 
 under the notice of Socrates or Plato. 
 They were men of strong religious 
 aspirations, but, unlike the Hindoo, 
 they were without a scrap of writing 
 which claimed the character of a Divine 
 revelation. Theirs was simply the re- 
 ligion of philosophy, but it strove 
 earnestly to penetrate the eternal mys- 
 teries which lie beyond sensual vision. 
 
INFIDELITY AGAINST ITSELF. 61 
 
 We should look, with great interest, 
 for the result, when they were brought 
 within reach of a direct revelation 
 from God, which, at once, answered 
 their most anxious inquiries for truth. 
 Perhaps, from our knowledge of the 
 Bible, as supplying the great want 
 under which their philosophy groaned, 
 we should hopefully await their deci- 
 sion. 
 
 Still we should not regard a predic- 
 tion that Socrates or Plato would re- 
 ject the Bible, as out of the range of 
 probability. The refusal of their faith 
 to it would form no parallel to the In- 
 fidelity before us. They began their 
 religious inquiries in the school of phi- 
 losophy. In the case supposed, the 
 existence of a written revelation from 
 God was a thing unknown and unex- 
 pected, until the hour when it was laid 
 
62 INFIDELITY AGAINST ITSELF. 
 
 before them. They had never been 
 consciously indebted to it for one reli- 
 gious idea : it had not exerted a sensible 
 influence over a single conclusion of 
 their minds. * With philosophy as 
 their guide, they were on the moral 
 ascent, hopeless of the attainment, it 
 is true, but still rising toward truth. 
 If they should reject the aid of Divine 
 Revelation, it would probably be the 
 result of a resolute attachment to their 
 installed teacher, philosophy. It would 
 not betray in them, under their circum- 
 stances, any relaxing of the bonds of 
 religion, or any weakening of the reli- 
 gious element within them. It would 
 indeed be the loss of an all-sufficient 
 
 * This mode of expression is purposely conformed 
 to the hypothesis, that some gleamings from remote 
 revelations might have remained unquenched in the 
 night of heathenism. 
 
INFIDELITY AGAINST ITSELF. 63 
 
 means of the very knowledge after 
 which they were reaching, and thus 
 the act would be an irreparable error. 
 But it would not be a deliberate back- 
 ward step from light to darkness, nor 
 would it be stamped with the infernal 
 mark of apostasy. Still they might 
 push on their researches after the Eter- 
 nal, and still pursue their labours to 
 exalt humanity nearer to God. 
 
 The Infidelity which we are contem- 
 plating, differs from all this. And it 
 is a difference which does not consist 
 in degree merely : it is elementary. 
 The Pagan, or the Socratic philosopher, 
 may reject our Bible, without such an 
 inroad upon the ground-work of human 
 nature, as brings organic destruction to 
 the moral sense, as it came from the 
 hand of God. The Infidelity which is 
 propagated in Christian lands, is radi- 
 
64 INFIDELITY AGAINST ITSELF, 
 
 cal in its destructiveness, revolutioniz- 
 ing the entire moral being. In this 
 respect, it stands alone in the world, a 
 moral prodigy, unaccountable except 
 on the reason which we shall presently 
 assign for it. 
 
 It is a fact full of significance, one 
 which alone would be almost decisive 
 in the present argument, that there is 
 no record of the existence of an intelli- 
 gent human being who renounced all 
 religion, at any time when, or in any 
 land where, the influence of our holy 
 Scriptures was unfelt. We believe time 
 and the world may be searched in vain, 
 for a single exception to the truth of 
 this statement. We may find, among 
 people who have never been brought 
 into familiarity with the heavenly gift, 
 and the powers of the world to come, 
 the grossest absurdities in relation to 
 
INFIDELITY AGAINST ITSELF. 65 
 
 religion; we may find Polytheism, idol- 
 atries that are loathsome, and rites 
 which violate decency, and shock our 
 compassions; but slimy as is the wad- 
 ing through the records of heathenism, 
 there is even there no corruption so 
 foul, and no descent so low, as the de- 
 liberate wilful abandonment of reli- 
 gion.* 
 
 * In the foregoing references to ancient philosophy, 
 we have not thought it necessary to bring the later 
 schools of Kome and Alexandria into the account. 
 They would not vary the result. It is true, their gen- 
 eral tone was less serious, and sometimes scornful to« 
 ward certain heathen religious systems. But the reli- 
 gious element was often brought into the foreground 
 of their teachings, and almost always respected. We 
 are not aware that it was ever derided, or even ignored, 
 until we come down to the times when the philoso- 
 phers, as in the case of Lucian and Porphyry, were 
 brought into the presence of Christianity, and made 
 
 to feel its power in antagonism with their systems. 
 6* 
 
68 INFIDELITY AGAINST ITSELF. 
 
 Passing from the faith of the Chris- 
 tian, to the unbelief of the heathen in 
 the holy Scriptures, we pass, it is true, 
 from a consistent and well-compacted 
 scheme of moral accountability; from 
 the record of a long and beautiful ad- 
 ministration of a holy government; 
 from a system of redemption which is 
 full and finished, glowing in the bright- 
 ness of eternal wisdom, and reposing 
 in the softer lights of eternal love : we 
 pass from these, into regions of myths 
 and theological chaos, or into dark and 
 cold speculations which are powerless 
 to supply the moral necessities which 
 they reveal. Still however we find 
 ourselves among systems where the re- 
 ligious element is assiduously culti- 
 vated. But passing from our Christ- 
 ian churches, to the schools of Shaftes- 
 bury or Voltaire, or to the so-called 
 
INFIDELITY AGAINST ITSELF. 67 
 
 "Halls of Science" and "Free Inquiry 
 Associations" of our American cities, 
 we take the wide leap from religion to 
 irreligion. We join ourselves to those 
 who would eradicate every religious 
 instinct from our natures, and cut every 
 fastening which binds the present to 
 the future, or man to his Maker. We 
 go where all this is done, not incident- 
 ally or inferentially, but expressly and 
 with a will. 
 
 Could we become oblivious of all 
 which we now know of the existence 
 and power of the Bible, and of what has 
 occurred in Christian lands, under its 
 influence, and thus oblivious, look out 
 from the stand-point of natural reason 
 alone, we should unhesitatingly pro- 
 nounce this an impossible state of mind. 
 We should say that human nature can- 
 not be brought to it. All the experi- 
 
68 INFIDELITY AGAINST ITSELF. 
 
 ence of men would forbid it. A funda- 
 mental law of the human mind would 
 forbid it. 
 
 But returning to the land of Chris- 
 tian influences, we do see it. How 
 shall we account for it? We must 
 look outside of natural causes. For 
 the solution of this great moral wonder, 
 Infidelity must come, at last, before 
 the light of Divine Revelation, and 
 once more speak for itself. 
 
 INFIDELITY IN THE PRESENCE OF THE 
 HOLY SCRIPTURES. 
 
 We shall not burden the examination 
 with quotations from the Bible. A 
 limited number will stand as examples 
 of many which might be cited, descrip- 
 tive of Infidelity, and — what is espe- 
 cially in point — accounting for its ex- 
 istence. The logical reader will see 
 
INFIDELITY AGAINST ITSELF. 69 
 
 the purpose for which they are intro- 
 duced; not as begging the question, or 
 assuming their inspiration while they 
 are offered in proof of such inspiration; 
 but to show that we can account for 
 the phenomena which they teach us to 
 expect, only on the presumption of 
 their Divine inspiration. 
 
 There will be no objection to our 
 assuming the historical fact that the 
 narratives, given by the four evangel- 
 ists, as contained in our holy Scrip- 
 tures, are a cotemporaneous record of 
 the sayings and doings, life and death, 
 of a person, known as Jesus, who about 
 eighteen centuries ago, appeared among 
 men, claiming to be the Christ from hea- 
 ven. Apart from the question of 
 inspiration, the chain of evidence which 
 authenticates these events, is so perfect, 
 that they cannot be denied, except 
 
70 INFIDELITY AGAINST ITSELF. 
 
 upon principles which would destroy 
 all our faith in human history. 
 
 We may then say that it is now 
 nearly two thousand years, since Jesus 
 publicly announced the influence which 
 his coming, preaching, life, and death, 
 would have upon the hearts of men. 
 " For judgment," said he, "I am come 
 into this world, that they which see 
 not, might see; and that they which 
 see, might be made blind." John ix. 
 39. 
 
 No laboured explanation of these 
 terms is necessary. A moderate ac- 
 quaintance with the style of description 
 common in the sacred writings, is suffi- 
 cient to enable us to define them. 
 The words, "which see not," manifestly 
 refer to those who are humble, distrust- 
 ful of their own wisdom, docile, and 
 otherwise in a frame of mind to wel- 
 
INFIDELITY AGAINST ITSELF. 71 
 
 come light from above. They "which 
 see," are plainly those who, in all these 
 respects, are the opposite of the last. 
 Their confidence in their own know- 
 ledge, wisdom, and opinions, is too ex- 
 alted to allow them to accept any 
 instruction from heaven. 
 
 The narrative which precedes the 
 quotation before us, affords an illustra- 
 tion of the latter class, in the persons 
 of their then living prototypes. We 
 there see the whole process of Infidel- 
 ity worked out, first to obstinate unbe- 
 lief, and then to malignant opposition. 
 The Pharisees, after a long examina- 
 tion of a man, whom Jesus had mirac- 
 ulously cured of a blindness in which he 
 was born, which ended in overwhelming 
 proof of the reality of the miracle, final- 
 ly ordered him to disown the power of 
 Jesus in the matter. He met the de- 
 
72 INFIDELITY AGAINST ITSELF. 
 
 inand with a few words of manly ap- 
 peal to their reason, challenging their 
 common sense to answer whether such 
 a proof of the indwelling power of God 
 was to pass for nothing. Their reply 
 was an example of the last argument 
 of haughty and bitter opposition to 
 Christ, the world over — denunciation, 
 and scorn of instruction. As much as 
 to say — we know it all, and we are 
 not to be taught, even by a miracle 
 from heaven. 
 
 This was wilful unbelief, sought and 
 cultivated, existing in the face of the 
 highest evidence, and manifestly ex- 
 cited by an unconquerable hostility to 
 Christ, in his proposed character of 
 Redeemer of men. It was Pharisaism 
 then, but waiting only for its divorce 
 from Judaism, to become the Infidelity 
 of the Christian ages. 
 
INFIDELITY AGAINST ITSELF. 73 
 
 With such a case before him, Jesus 
 pronounced Infidelity a Divine infliction. 
 This blinding of those " which see," 
 was to be a judgment which his coming 
 should work in the world. If men 
 would deliberately reject the evidences 
 of Divinity, with which his gospel 
 clothed itself; if they would do worse 
 — would meet that gospel with a fore- 
 gone purpose to disbelieve it, they 
 should experience a darkening, instead 
 of enlightening influence from the hea- 
 venly light. Meeting the gospel in that 
 spirit, they could not simply remain 
 unenlightened; they must sink to 
 deeper ignorance, from hour to hour. 
 
 The judicial character of this blind- 
 ness is still more fully brought out, in 
 another prediction of the New Testa- 
 ment, bearing upon strongly aggra- 
 vated cases of opposition to the gospel. 
 
74 INFIDELITY AGAINST ITSELF. 
 
 "For this cause, [i e. not receiving 
 the love of the truth— in other words, 
 hating it,] God shall send them strong 
 delusion, that they should believe a lie : 
 that they all might be damned who be- 
 lieve not the truth, but had pleasure 
 in unrighteousness." 2 Thessalonians 
 ii. 11, 12. This delusion differs from 
 the common unbelief of sinners, in the 
 important and fearful particular already 
 named. It is rendered more awful 
 and generally hopeless, by containing 
 this additional element of wrath, that 
 it is a blindness in which God, by an 
 act of holy judgment, confirms the 
 soul. 
 
 Among all the lights in which a set- 
 tled unbelief of the gospel can be 
 viewed, there is no other so terrible as 
 this. It is as if God said to the 
 sinner who had adopted the resolute 
 
INFIDELITY AGAINST ITSELF. 75 
 
 purpose not to be convinced — "I met 
 you, in your ignorance, and brought 
 you instruction from the eternal fount- 
 ain of truth. I found you striving to 
 guide the vessel, laden with your 
 immortal destinies, by the false lights 
 of human wisdom, which were luring 
 you into fatal currents, soon to dash 
 among destructive rocks, and from the 
 shore of heaven, I hung out the lamp 
 of Divine Revelation, warning you 
 what to shun, and where to lay your 
 course. When you were slow to believe 
 the heavenly illumination, I bore w 7 ith 
 your infirm reason, overwhelming the 
 field of inquiry with evidence that the 
 gospel offered you was indeed the 
 light of God. I did more. After hav- 
 ing given Christ to become the Re- 
 deemer of sinners, I advanced from 
 your reason to your heart, with pre- 
 
76 INFIDELITY AGAINST ITSELF. 
 
 cious influences from the cross, to win 
 your acceptance of mercy. I drew 
 nearer and nearer, imparting to those 
 influences more tenderness as they ap- 
 proached closer, until it became fully 
 demonstrated that you nourished such 
 a settled, invincible repugnance to the 
 gospel, as led you to wish and resolve 
 to abide in unbelief. Now, after hav- 
 ing yourself passed the boundary of 
 mercy, the hour of just and holy judg- 
 ment has come. You would not believe ; 
 now, in judicial wrath, I withdraw 
 from you the power of belief. You 
 would be deluded; now you shall have 
 strong delusion. From henceforth, the 
 lights of conscience and revelation 
 shall cease to stand between you and 
 destruction." 
 
 Another prediction— only contingent 
 it is true, but still pertinent when we 
 
INFIDELITY AGAINST ITSELF. 77 
 
 see it reduced to reality — presents an 
 additional feature, which we may expect 
 to see more strikingly exemplified in 
 those who fall from a Christian profes- 
 sion, into the embrace of Infidelity. 
 This feature is a mad opposition, added 
 to an abandonment of the gospel. The 
 apostate not only removes himself from 
 the field of hope, but he becomes the 
 bitter adversary of the Bible. The 
 passage to which we refer, says that 
 "if we sin wilfully, after that we 
 have received the knowledge of the 
 truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice 
 for sins, but a certain fearful looking 
 for of judgment and fiery indignation 
 which shall devour the adversaries." 
 Hebrews x. 26, 27. This scripture is 
 only quoted as defining the spirit 
 which we are taught to expect as the 
 
 sign of apostasy from the Christian 
 
 7* 
 
78 INFIDELITY AGAINST ITSELF. 
 
 system to Infidelity. Such apostates 
 will not stop at the point of giving up 
 their faith in the word of God. We 
 are taught to expect that we shall meet 
 them in the character of adversaries. 
 
 Add to these predictions, one of the 
 reasons which the holy Scriptures as- 
 sign for this revolt from themselves. 
 The Bible is offered as the standing 
 testimony against sin, and the con- 
 demning judge of all who will not 
 conform to the holy morals of heaven. 
 When it is accepted as the authorized 
 revelation of the will of God, then the 
 principles and morals of religion have 
 an abiding witness. It then becomes 
 the test to which all human conduct 
 can be forced. There the wrong-doer 
 reads his own condemnation. To sen- 
 suality, lechery, falsehood, fraud, avar- 
 ice, inhumanity, malevolence, soul- 
 
INFIDELITY AGAINST ITSELF. 79 
 
 vampires all, it is the rising sun, 
 before which they fly screaming in 
 search of moral darkness. Those who 
 are resolved to sin, wish for the annoy- 
 ance of no such incessant voice of re- 
 proof. But they can shield their con- 
 sciences from it, only by some violent 
 process, which, by benumbing the 
 moral sensibilities, renders the heart 
 inaccessible to the heavenly warning. 
 
 So one of the inspiring motives to 
 Infidelity is thus stated : " This is the 
 condemnation, that light is come into 
 the world, and men loved darkness 
 rather than light, because their deeds 
 were evil. For every one that doeth 
 evil, hateth the light, neither cometh 
 to the light, lest his deeds should be 
 reproved." John iii. 19, 20. Men wish 
 to sin, but they recoil from enduring 
 reproof, either from their consciences 
 
80 INFIDELITY AGAINST ITSELF. 
 
 or from a virtuous community. If they 
 can destroy their own faith in the Bi- 
 ble, they remove the most powerful 
 exciting agent from conscience. If 
 they can destroy the public faith, sin 
 will cease to expose them to the 
 reproach of those among whom they 
 live. Infidelity is the chosen agent 
 for relieving them from all moral 
 restraints. 
 
 Carry a lighted lamp into the mid- 
 night den of a felon, surrounded by the 
 instruments and evidences of his guilt, 
 and his first impulse will be to escape 
 the light. Follow him up with it, and 
 his next, his desperate effort will be to 
 extinguish it. If he can do this sea- 
 sonably, he may yet have the protection 
 of darkness in his controversy with 
 the law. So Infidelity generally pro- 
 gresses from personal unbelief to active 
 
INFIDELITY AGAINST ITSELF. 81 
 
 opposition — from an attempt to escape 
 personally from the influence of truth, 
 to an effort to destroy its influence in 
 the world. The former achievment 
 might help a man to sin without re- 
 morse; only the latter — putting out 
 the light — will enable him to do it 
 without shame. A patient examination 
 of the histories already reviewed will 
 show that the animus of this effort is 
 correctly stated—" lest his deeds should 
 be reproved." 
 
 We have given a few examples of 
 the predictions of our holy Scriptures, 
 bearing upon the Infidelity now under 
 review. They are clear, pointing out a 
 class of people with so much precision, 
 that we cannot fail to identify them 
 when we behold them. We are taught to 
 look for unbelievers who possess strik- 
 ing characteristics, distinguishing them 
 
82 INFIDELITY AGAINST ITSELF. 
 
 from common sinners, and whose infi- 
 delity is unlike that of the Mahomme- 
 dan or Buddhist, who rejects Christian- 
 ity to abide in another religious system. 
 We are taught to expect the appearance 
 of men, whose error is clearly traceable 
 to the approach of the highest know- 
 ledge in the universe, whose lack of 
 faith carries every mark of inveterate 
 obstinacy, and whose bitterest animos- 
 ity against the truth is excited by 
 those features of it which should ren- 
 der it most acceptable to the sinner. 
 They are to be "men of corrupt minds, 
 reprobate concerning the faith." 2 Tim, 
 iii. 8. They are to "deny the Lord 
 that bought them." 2 Peter ii. 1. 
 They are to "tread under foot the Son 
 of God, count the blood of the covenant 
 wherewith he was sanctified an unholy 
 thing, and do despite to the Spirit of 
 
INFIDELITY AGAINST ITSELF. 83 
 
 grace." Heb. x. 29. We are led to 
 expect a desperation of rage against 
 Christ, proportionate to the loftiness 
 of their former standing on the Christ- 
 ian system. The name "Adversaries " 
 is applied to some with peculiar empha- 
 sis. The spirit which that name speaks, 
 is satanic. Satan is emphatically the 
 Adversary. 1 Peter v. 8. So it is inti- 
 mated that we shall find those that are 
 eminently adversaries, in the persons 
 of such as have sinned wilfully, after 
 having received the knowledge of the 
 truth. 
 
 The argument for the Divine inspir- 
 ation of the holy Scriptures, which is 
 derived from the fulfilment of prophe- 
 cies, comes incidentally, but strongly, 
 forward here. 
 
 When it is shown that events were 
 predicted thousands of years before 
 
84 INFIDELITY AGAINST ITSELF. 
 
 their occurrence; that these events 
 were too improbable to permit the sup- 
 position that their prediction was guess 
 work ; that in truth they were, in their 
 details as well as their general character, 
 contrary to all human experience, and 
 opposed to all the probabilities of hu- 
 man conduct ; that still men and things 
 were so turned from their ordinary 
 bent that everything took place in ex- 
 act accordance with the prediction, 
 then we insist that the coming forth 
 of the result is an evidence that the 
 prophecy originated in the omniscient 
 mind of a Being, who also possesses 
 omnipotent energy for accomplishment. 
 
 We place such passages as we have 
 quoted— especially those in which judi- 
 cial blindness is so distinctly brought 
 out — in the catalogue of remarkable 
 predictions, which have been remarka- 
 
INFIDELITY AGAINST ITSELF. 85 
 
 bly fulfilled in all the ages since. We 
 have contemplated Infidelity as a crime 
 against nature, a moral prodigy, with- 
 out an existence until it arose in spe- 
 cial opposition to the gospel, and so 
 foreign even to the worst moral expe- 
 riences of the previous ages, that no 
 rational expectation of its existence 
 could have been formed. As we have 
 already said, could we become oblivious 
 of our present knowledge of its exist- 
 ence, and transfer ourselves to the 
 stand-point from which the holy Scrip- 
 tures spoke, we should pronounce the 
 state of mind there described, a moral 
 impossibility. We should regard the 
 modern infidel as an anomaly — a moral 
 miracle. 
 
 But we do see this anomaly, just 
 as those holy Scriptures, in the face of 
 the whole moral history of the world, 
 
86 INFIDELITY AGAINST ITSELF. 
 
 predicted that we should behold it. 
 We see so many of its characteristics, 
 and so much of its moral likeness, that 
 we unhesitatingly identify it as the 
 object of those predictions — the won- 
 derful fulfilment of a prophecy, too 
 deep for any mind below God's. His 
 Spirit taught us that when we should 
 behold the fulfilling of such wonders, 
 we must believe. The infidel comes 
 unasked into the field, and even ob- 
 trudes his testimony upon us, that in 
 his own person they are fulfilled. 
 
 But in the presence of the holy 
 Scriptures, the witness of Infidelity 
 against itself, is chiefly decisive in the 
 exhibition which it affords of the power 
 of God, through the word, on a re- 
 probate heart. The Christian gospel 
 claims for itself, that where it is not 
 accepted as a savour of life unto life, 
 
INFIDELITY AGAINST ITSELF. 87 
 
 its power must be felt as a savour of 
 death unto death. 2 Cor. ii. 15, 16. 
 We have exhibited the origin and 
 character of that most fearful condition 
 of the moral faculties, which is known 
 as a judicial blindness; and when we 
 meet with a type of unbelief which 
 perfectly answers to it, then we see the 
 power of God in his awful judgment. 
 When we find the word, which is the 
 exciting medium for this state of feel- 
 ing, we recognize the power of God 
 there indwelling. 
 
 We look on the infidel, and see it all. 
 Before him lies an open Bible. What- 
 ever may be said concerning its Divine 
 inspiration, it is beyond question cal- 
 culated, in its whole character and 
 spirit, to win the regard of all who 
 delight in human happiness. Its pre- 
 cepts enjoin just the virtues which 
 
88 INFIDELITY AGAINST ITSELF. 
 
 administer to the tranquillity, joy, and 
 prosperity of society. Its laws are 
 just, and its morals are pure. It 
 guards holiness, and lays sin, including 
 all human cruelties and wrongs, under 
 the ban of heaven. Its loftiest princi- 
 ples relate to the wants of sinners, 
 providing pardon, and opening the way 
 to holiness and happiness. It comes, 
 loaded with goodness for a wicked 
 world, and comfort for an anguished 
 heart. Its leaves bring healing to the 
 nations. 
 
 This is the Bible that goads the 
 infidel to madness. His hostility be- 
 comes more intense, as he approaches 
 the loveliest matter of Divine Revela- 
 tion, that central beaming glory of the 
 gospel, the provision made for sinners 
 in the death of Christ. The shafts 
 of infidel scorn and blasphemy fly 
 
INFIDELITY AGAINST ITSELF. 89 
 
 thickest around the cross. Writers 
 and lecturers seem most exultant, 
 when they imagine they are detecting 
 some absurdity in the evangel, or some 
 defect in the statement of Christ's 
 birth, life, death, or resurrection. They 
 have bestowed on his earthly parentage, 
 slanders too vile to repeat. They 
 have sneered at Calvary, and taunted 
 its dying victim. In Voltaire's secret 
 correspondence with the anti-christian 
 clubs of France and Germany, "The 
 Wretch," is his synonym for our Sav- 
 iour Jesus Christ. In a letter to his 
 confederate, D'Alembert, complaining 
 that he is obliged to chafe under a 
 mask before the world, on account of 
 the superstition of men, he says that 
 he would much prefer to " wage open 
 war with the Wretch, and die on a 
 
 8 ; 
 
90 INFIDELITY AGAINST ITSELF. 
 
 heap of Christians, immolated at his 
 feet." 
 
 The gospel accounts for all this. We 
 have seen some of the numerous pre- 
 dictions in point; such, for example, as 
 that the same influence which, to the 
 submissive, is a savour of life unto life, 
 will be, to the rebellious, a savour of 
 death unto death. Those truths which 
 relate more especially to the cross, 
 strike deepest into human pride, soar 
 most sublimely above mortal wisdom, 
 reveal most of the wickedness of the 
 human heart, exalt God highest, and 
 sink the creature lowest. They pre- 
 sent the believer most unblemished in 
 the final judgment, and make the same 
 judgment most terrible to the unbe- 
 liever. Hence, while among all parts 
 of the Bible, those which have the 
 nearest connection with the cross, 
 
INFIDELITY AGAINST ITSELF. 91 
 
 bring most delight to the obedient, 
 that cross becomes the hardest rock of 
 offence to those who revolt from its 
 mercy. 
 
 " The vital savour of his name 
 Eestores our fainting breath ; 
 But unbelief perverts the same 
 To guilt, despair, and death." 
 
 This power, through the word, has 
 its strongest manifestation in those 
 who have apostatized, from the profes- 
 sion of a Christian faith, to Infidelity. 
 There we generally find a sublimated 
 spirit of opposition to the Bible. In 
 this country, a large portion of the pub- 
 lic infidel lecturers belong to this 
 class. Some of them have enjoyed 
 the charity of the church, and occupied 
 Christian pulpits. They often boast 
 of their descending experience, and 
 parade their apostasy before their 
 
92 INFIDELITY AGAINST ITSELF. 
 
 audiences, to give zest to the perform- 
 ance. 
 
 The enmity of such people to the 
 gospel is intense and satanic. Their 
 opposition is sleepless, their denuncia- 
 tions bitter to the last extreme, and 
 their language not unfrequently blas- 
 phemous. If they are lost sight of for 
 a time, seasons of a religious revival 
 bring them again to the surface, as the 
 viper is warmed into life by the sun. 
 Then they may be known by their 
 efforts to raise a counter excitement, 
 calling assemblies together, sending 
 out challenges for debate, and omitting 
 no occasion to strike at the gospel. 
 Body, soul, spirit, all which constitutes 
 their being, is absorbed in the ceaseless 
 war against Christ. These are the 
 "Adversaries," who in the passage 
 already quoted from the Epistle to the 
 
INFIDELITY AGAINST ITSELF. 93 
 
 Hebrews, are said to sin wilfully, after 
 having received the knowledge of the 
 truth. If the reader will refer to the 
 sequel of the passage, he can take 
 his own solemn view of what remains 
 for them. And well may he be alarmed 
 for his own moral sensibilities, if he 
 does not find it in his heart to say — 
 u my soul, come not thou into their 
 secret! unto their assembly, mine 
 honour, be not thou united!" 
 
 Such is the moral condition which 
 we once more characterize as beyond 
 nature. Throughout the records of 
 time, we search for it in vain, until we 
 come below the Christian era, and into 
 the lands of Christian influences. Nat- 
 ural cau^bs fail to account for it. It is 
 an impenetrable mystery, until we ac- 
 cept the solution of the problem which 
 the holy Scriptures offer. 
 
94 INFIDELITY AGAINST ITSELF. 
 
 In the presence of those Scriptures, 
 Infidelity proclaims itself the revolt of 
 a proud and bad heart, from the purity 
 and denunciations of the Divine law, 
 from the conditions of pardon, and 
 from the administration of God, as it is 
 read in the living light of heaven. It 
 is antagonism to Christ, and resistance 
 to the gracious influence which God 
 employs on human hearts. But it has 
 a worse tale for itself than this, and 
 herein is its testimony to the Divine 
 energy in the gospel. When matured, 
 it is God's holy judgment upon the 
 soul, leaving it to fill up its measure 
 of iniquity, and inflicting upon it the 
 strong delusions which it seeks. Why 
 enlarge? We have seen what it is. 
 The Scriptures which predict the in- 
 fliction of judicial blindness, afford 
 the only rational account of its origin. 
 
INFIDELITY AGAINST ITSELF. 95 
 
 It is the weight of the Divine power 
 in the written word. The presence 
 of that power involves the Divine in- 
 spiration of the holy Scriptures. 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 Thus we secure the witness of Infi- 
 delity against itself. From its inner 
 being, a voice is ever heard, proclaim- 
 ing the falseness of all which comes 
 from its lips. As long as a vestige of 
 it abides in the world, it will be a 
 monument of the power of God in the 
 gospel, producing supernatural changes 
 of mind, in the direction of ruin, as 
 well as of heaven. The scars which it 
 brings out from every battle, are indel- 
 ible marks on the moral nature, show- 
 ing for themselves that they are 
 inflicted by the hand of God. It comes 
 before the world with both hands 
 
96 INFIDELITY AGAINST ITSELF. 
 
 loaded; one with the bane, and the 
 other with the antidote. It is itself 
 the answer to all its own arguments. Its 
 boasting apostle is ever doomed to con- 
 front himself. He is himself a living, 
 moving, and acting testimony to the 
 truth which his words deny. All this 
 is so apparent that, in a world where 
 there is enough impatience of mora! 
 restraints, to give popularity to loose 
 religious views, we have found Infidel- 
 ity shamefully small in numerical im- 
 portance, and still lower in influence. 
 If we speak of the great peril of 
 Christian nations from this source, it 
 is not from any apprehension that Infi- 
 delity, under its own name, will become 
 very extensive. In our cities — ^possi- 
 bly to some extent in the rural districts 
 — the sewers of humanity will empty 
 somewhat of their flow into the halls 
 
INFIDELITY AGAINST ITSELF. 97 
 
 of infidel lecturers, and, in rare cases, 
 men who are supposed to be respect- 
 able and intelligent may submit to 
 the appellation. But other means 
 of evading the force of truth, involv- 
 ing less peril to reputation, are now 
 too numerous to permit the open emis- 
 saries of Infidelity to hope for the coun- 
 tenance of the public. Men who can- 
 not accept the scandal of such an asso- 
 ciation, but whose hearts are really 
 hostile to the living element in the 
 gospel, will sacrifice candour to repu- 
 tation, and wear the Christian name, 
 while they repudiate the proper sense 
 of the Bible. The aristocracy of unbe- 
 lieving intellect now passes the clubs 
 of Paris, as a detestable vulgarity, and 
 pursues its journey to the transcend- 
 ental regions beyond the Rhine. 
 9 
 
98 INFIDELITY AGAINST ITSELF. 
 
 But among the people at large, the 
 thing most feared, and which, in fact, 
 has always followed the efforts of In- 
 fidelity, is this — that its specious ap- 
 peal to passions which are naturally 
 restive under the holy sanctions of the 
 Bible, will insensibly weaken the force 
 of Divine truth upon the consciences 
 of speculative believers, and bring about 
 that result which is correctly named 
 Practical Infidelity. This is the dan- 
 ger which prompts the appearance of 
 these pages. They are written, more 
 in hope of a confirming, than a reclaim- 
 ing influence. They go forth with the 
 earnest desire that the yet unpolluted 
 reader may be warned, never to allow 
 his faith in the word of God to become 
 shaken; never to think of any safe and 
 honourable path of life, but such as the 
 Bible marks out ; and never to doubt 
 
INFIDELITY AGAINST ITSELF. 99 
 
 that the gospel scheme of mercy is, for 
 him, the true way to heaven. The 
 solemn inference arises from the whole 
 of this examination, that there is fear- 
 ful danger in trifling with the word of 
 God. From every view which has 
 been taken of the origin, growth, and 
 fruits of Infidelity, the warning comes 
 forth, that those gracious influences 
 which flow through the holy Scriptures, 
 cannot be neglected without placing 
 both the moral character and the soul 
 in peril of ruin. 
 
 But though Infidelity, as such, is 
 never to overwhelm the land, still indi- 
 viduals are in danger of even the worst 
 that has been contemplated. The 
 young sinner often shudders at the 
 thought of parting from the Bible, 
 as a system of faith. In time, fa- 
 miliarity with infidel criticisms and 
 
100 INFIDELITY AGAINST ITSELF. 
 
 cavillings, brings him to look upon the 
 word of God, with less reverence. As 
 he feels himself more alienated from 
 its spirit, he insensibly comes to wish 
 it may prove true, that there is no such 
 law and judgment against his sin. 
 With that wish growing upon him, he 
 listens to " the counsels of the ungodly.' 7 
 By degrees dangerous intimacies spring 
 up between himself and those enemies 
 of his soul. Then he stands in " the 
 way of sinners." It is but a step more 
 to " the seat of the scornful." These are 
 the progressive workings of an aliena- 
 tion of heart, from the principles of the 
 holy word. The first movement from 
 the Bible brings the soul upon en- 
 chanted gronnd. Few slumber there 
 without sleeping the sleep of death. 
 
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