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words, to which themselves are not able to affix any certain and adequate ideas; fuch as virtue, the moral sense, and the eternal fitness of things.

One would imagine, that they were conscious of the weakness of their cause, by their manner of maintaining it. What few arguments they have, have been retailed over and over again, and have been answered a thousand times: they feem indeed to be fenfible of their weakness, and therefore have armed themselves with their favourite weapon, the air-drawn dagger, Ridicule, which they call "the "teft of truth." The moft ancient, facred, and venerable truths are tried by this touchstone, and condemned In short, that which

as counterfeit.

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which made Felix tremble, they laugh

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righteousness, temperance,

and judgment to come."

It is not my intention to endea vour to confute their principles, after so many able hands; but by way of caution and prefervative for you who are not fallen into their errors, to depict the dangerous nature of their crime, which is nothing less than "denying the Lord that bought them:" and what lefs can they expect, than that He, when he cometh with his holy angels to judge the world, fhall also "deny them before "his father which is in heaven;" and that he fhould sentence them to endure that eternal punishment, which they have fo much derided?

One

One great aggravation of their crime (which will alfo, doubtless, aggravate their punishment) is, that not content with quietly and privately enjoying their own opinions, they have by every artifice they could devife, endeavoured to feduce others; and have but too often prevailed, even over fuch as have been well difpofed and inftructed; who through an excess of weakness, have at once been laughed out of their religion, their morality, and their hopes of falvation,

These are the fatal effects of infidelity, whilft it is confined within the bounds of fpeculation; it fubverts all religion, rejects the light of the gospel, insures damnation to it's profeffors, and involves others in

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their misery.-----Let us next see what dangers are to be apprehended, when these pernicious principles come to be reduced to practice, and how deftructive it is both to virtue and to the ftate, and contradictory to the laws of fociety.

One of their favourite opinions is that of the eternal fitness of things; by which they mean that whatsoever is fit to be done, was fit to be done from all eternity. So that if an infidel can but perfuade himself, that it is fit for him to commit fornication; or to rob a person that is richer than himself; and if he refifts even to murder him; he will not hesitate, in his vindication, to affert, that it is, and ever was, fit for him to indulge the call of nature; that it was unfit

for

for one man to poffefs more than ano

ther; and that it was both fit and neceffary to defend himself; and all

this under the fanction of reason. ----For what is reason, which is to be the fovereign judge of his actions? No certain and invariable rule; but as various and changeable as the different faces, conftitutions, and tempers of mankind: biassed by our paffions, and overborn by our wills!----It is not at all strange therefore, that they have no certain definition of virtue; that in one age and country it is one thing, and another in a second, and quite contrary to both in a third; or that every man should define it as he pleaseth ; and, to make fhort of it, that whilft they are thus disagreeing about the name of virtue, they should entirely lose the fubftance.

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