ends of the earth? If God be such a Being as I have described, woe to the world if it were without him. This would be a thousand times greater loss to mankind, and of more dismal consequence, and if it were. true, ought to affect us with more grief and horror than the extinguishing of the Sun.

Let but all things be well considered, and I am very confident that if a wise and considerate man were left to himself and his own choice, to wish the greatest good to himself he could devise; after he had searched heaven and earth, the sum of all his wishes would be this, that there were just such a being as God is. Nor would he choose any other benefactor, or friend, or protector for himself, or governor for the whole world, than infinite power conducted and managed by infinite wisdom and goodness and justice, which is the true notion of a God.

Nay, so necessary is God to the hap

piness of mankind, that though there were no God, yet the Atheist himself upon second thoughts would judge it convenient that the generality of men should believe that there is one. For when the Atheist had attained his end, and (if it were a thing possible) had blotted the notion of a God out of the minds of men, mankind would in all probability grow so melancholy and so unruly a thing, that he himself would think it fit in policy to contribute his best endeavours to the restoring of men to their former belief. Thus hath God secured the belief of himself in the world, against all attempts to the contrary; not only by riveting the notion of himself into our natures, but likewise by making the belief of his being necessary to the peace and tranquillity of our minds, and to the quiet and happiness of human society.

So that if we consult our reason, `we

cannot but believe that there is-if our interest, we cannot but heartily wish that there were, such a being as God in the world. Every thing within us and without us gives notice of him. His name is written upon our hearts; and in every creature there are some prints and footsteps of him. Every moment we feel our dependence upon him, and do by daily experience find that we can neither be happy without him, nor think ourselves so.

I confess, it is not a wicked man's interest, if he resolve to continue such, that there should be a God; but then it is not men's interest to be wicked. It is for the general good of human society, and consequently of particular persons, to be true and just; it is for men's health to be temperate; and so I could instance in all other virtues. But this is the mystery of Atheism, men are wedded to their lusts, and resolved upon

a wicked course; and so it becomes their interest to wish there were no God, and to believe so if they can. Whereas if men were minded to live righteously and soberly and virtuously in the world, to believe a God would be no hindrance or prejudice to any such design, but very much for the advancement and furtherance of it. Men that are good and virtuous do easily believe a God; so that it is vehemently to be suspected, that nothing but the strength of men's lusts, and the power of vicious inclinations, do sway their minds, and set a bias upon their understandings toward Atheism.

II. Atheism is imprudent, because it is unsafe in the issue. The Atheist contends against the religious man that there is no God; but upon strange inequality and odds, for he ventures his eternal interest; whereas the Religious man ven

tures only the loss of his lusts (which it is much better for him to be without), or at the utmost of some temporal convenience; and all this while is inwardly more contented and happy, and usually more healthful, and perhaps meets with more respect and faithfuller friends, and lives in a more secure and flourishing condition, and more free from the evils and punishments of this world, than the atheistical person does; however, it is not much that he ventures: And after this life, if there be no God, is as well as he; but if there be a God, is infinitely better, even as much as unspeakable and eternal happiness is better than extreme and endless misery. So that if the arguments for and against a God were equal, and it were an even question whether there were one or not; yet the hazard and danger is so infinitely unequal, that in point of prudence and interest every man were obliged to incline to the affirm