justly be considered as the open or disguised abettors of atheism."

In this profound discourse the metaphysical sophistry of the new school of scepticism, which founded all virtue in private interest or convenience, is exposed in all its native deformity, together with its total inefficiency to the production of any moral good, either to society or to individuals. Its tendency to atheism is reprehended with just severity, in one of the sublimest apostrophes that was ever penned by any writer. Many of these modern liberators had dissolved man's connection with the deity, and declared there was no God in whom to trust, in the great struggle for liberty. Human immortality, that truth which is the seed of all greatness, they derided. According to their philosophy man was a creature of chance, a compound of matter, an ephemeron, who was soon to rot and perish for ever. Who then could expect that such men were to work out the emancipation of their race, or that in such hands the hopes and dearest rights of humanity were secure.

"Their infatuated eagerness," says Mr. Hall, "their paricidal zeal to extinguish a sense of deity, must excite astonishment and horror. Is the idea of an almighty and perfect Ruler, unfriendly to any passion which is consistent with innocence, or an obstruction to any design which it is not shameful to avow? Eternal God! on what are thine enemies intent? What are those enterprises of guilt and horror, that, for the safety of their performers,

require to be enveloped in a darkness which the eye of heaven must not pierce? Miserable men! Proud of being the offspring of chance, in love with universal disorder; whose happiness is involved in the belief of there being no witness to their designs, and who are at ease only because they suppose themselves inhabitants of a forsaken and fatherless world!"

A performance like this, which has been considered as one of the noblest efforts of his genius, could not fail to irritate the whole tribe of unbelievers, whose hideous system it exposes to the detestation of every well-regulated mind. Nothing can be more fearfully sublime, than the picture given of the dreadful state to which atheism would reduce the world; or more beautiful and triumphant than his vindication of the social affections. Something therefore must be said against it, to show at least, that though the impious theory was shattered to pieces, its abettors had some quiverings of life still remaining. Accordingly, there appeared some animadversions from the pen of Mr. Anthony Robinson, who having laid aside his ministerial character along with his religion, seemed to think he could not give a stronger proof of his sincerity, than by acting as far as possible the part of a persecutor. Another of the new fraternity, but of a higher class, the author of an

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Inquiry concerning Political justice," who had also been a dissenting minister, contented himself with glancing at what he called "the much vaunt

ed sermon of Mr. Hall of Cambridge, in which every notion of toleration or decorum was treated with infuriated contempt!"

In stigmatising the author of the sermon as an enemy to toleration, the advocate of what was called political perfectability' gave an apt exemplification of his doctrine, and showed that those who make universal philanthropy a substitute for religion, are either ignorant of their own scheme of morality, or they know not how to put it into practice. In the insult offered to truth and justice however, in the present instance, there was nothing but what very well became the character of an infidel philosopher, who had previously the audacity to impeach christianity itself, and even its divine Founder, as intolerant and persecuting, demanding a belief in unexplained dogmas on pain of endless perdition. The manner in which Mr. Hall held up to public abhorrence the malevolence of this apostate, and other scorners, was such as the interests of society demanded; and for this unanswerable and splendid performance he received the plaudits of the whole christian world.

In the present instance the author confined himself to one specific view of the subject-the total incompatibility of sceptical principles with the existence of society; but proposed at some future period to enter into a more particular examination of the infidel philosophy, both with respect to its speculative principles and practical effects. This of all others would have furnished

the best antidote, and would at once have carried the war into the enemies' quarters; but unfortunately, this purpose, like many others, was never accomplished. It is true, other writers were called into the field of argument, by the lofty pretensions of these modern philanthropists; and among the rest, his intimate friend Mr. Fuller, who successfully exposed "the immorality and absurdity of deism," in his able work entitled the "Gospel its own Witness." And though it was not written precisely on the plan contemplated by Mr. Hall, it met his cordial approbation, and was generally admired for its sound and conclusive reasoning. "I have read Mr. Fuller's book with great pleasure," said he in a letter to a friend: "it displays an extraordinary force of understanding, and I hope it will be extensively useful. The two chapters on the Atonement are alone sufficient to make the writer immortal. Our friend however has higher views, and aims at a very different immortality from that which the breath of a worm can confer. He appears to me rather more at home in establishing the doctrines of christianity, than in detecting the absurdities of deism, though a considerable acumen is everywhere manifest." Dr. Hamilton, bishop of Kilkenny, himself the author of some valuable publications, strongly recommended this work to the attention of his clergy, as one of the ablest he had ever met with on the subject; and the excellent Mr. Wilberforce was of opinion that it was the acutest of all the author's performances.

There was one point however on which Mr. Fuller differed from the author of the sermon on Modern Infidelity. In charging the sceptics with subverting the law of nature, making virtue to consist in a passionate attachment to the general good, while they were labouring to eradicate the private affections, Mr. Hall expressed his persuasion that some able theological writers had undesignedly given them some advantage, in making virtue to consist in the love of being in general; contending that the order of things is evermore from particulars to generals, and that disinterested universal benevolence is the last and most perfect fruit of the private affections, and not the root that bears them. His reasoning is, that we cannot comprehend the whole system of intelligent existence, nor the degrees of affection due to their infinitely various orders, and therefore the exercise of virtue would on this hypothesis be impracticable.

Mr. Fuller immediately perceived wherein this statement failed, and the bearing it had upon his own system; he therefore remarked, it was not necessary that we should be able to "comprehend" either one or the other; all that the argument required was, that the principle itself should be of an expansive tendency, ready to embrace the good of the intelligent universe as far as knowledge might extend. That what in this case is termed "the order of nature," is rather the order of time than of nature, as all knowledge is progressive, and what is unknown cannot be the specific object