practice of every sensual vice. Death has bounded his crimes, but has not limited his criminal desires. The just and upright Judge* who fathoms the heart, will therefore proportion the punishment to the guilt.
What are we to conclude from this Discourse? That the freethinker is to be pitied for grounding the only consolation of his future destiny on the uncertainty of the truths of the gospel: that he is to be pitied because his only tranquillity must be in living without faith, worship, confidence, or God; because the only hope he' can indulge, is, that the gospel is a fable; the belief of all ages a childish credulity; the universal opinion of men a popular error; the first principles of nature and reason prejudices of education; the blood of so many martyrs, whom the hopes of a future state supported under all their suffering and tortures, a mere tale concerted to deceive mankind; the conversion of the world a human enterprise; and the accomplishment of the promises a mere stroke of chance: in a word, that every thing, the best established, and the most consistent with truth and reason in the world, must all be false, to accomplish the only happiness he can promise himself, and to save him from eternal misery.
O man! I will point out to thee a much surer way to render thyself tranquil, and to enjoy the sweets of internal peace. Dread that futurity thou forcest thyself to disbelieve. Question us no more what they do in that other world of which we tell thee; but ask thyself, without ceasing, what thou art doing in this? Quiet thy conscience by the innocency of thy life, and not by the impiety of thy unbelief; give repose to thy heart by calling upon God, and not by doubting that he pays attention to thee. The peace of the unbeliever is despair. Seek, then, thy happiness, not by freeing thyself from the yoke of faith, but by tasting how sweet and agreeable it is. Follow the maxims it prescribes to thee, and thy reason will no longer refuse submission to the mysteries it commands thee to believe. A future state will cease to appear incredible to thee from the moment thou ceasest to five like those who centre all their happiness in the fleeting moments of this life. Then, far from dreading a futurity, thy wishes will anticipate it. Thou wilt sigh for the arrival of that happy day, when the Son of man, the Father of all future ages, shall come to punish the unbelieving, and to conduct thee to his kingdom, along with those who have lived on the earth in the expectation and hope of a blessed immortality.
That you, my brethren, may be partakers of this eternal felicity, is my fervent prayer. Amen.
