Discourses upon the Existence and Attributes of God

I question whether there ever was, or can be in the world, an uninterrupted and internal denial of the being of God, or that men, (unless we can suppose Conscience utterly dead) can arrive to such a degree of impiety: For before they can stifle such sentiments in them, (whatsoever they may assert) they must be utter strangers to the common conceptions of reason, and despoil themselves of their own humanity. He that dares to deny a God with his lips, yet sets up something or other as a God in his heart. Is it not lamentable that this sacred truth, consented to by all Nations, which is the band of civil societies, the source of all order in the world, should be denied with a bare face, and disputed against in Companies; And the Glory of a wise Creator ascribed to an unintelligent nature, to blind chance? are not such worse then Heathens? They worshipped many Gods, these none: They preserved a notion of God in the world under a disguise of Images: These would banish him both from Earth and Heaven, and demolish the Statues of him in their own Consciences: They degraded him, these would destroy him: They coupled Creatures with him; Rom 1.25. Who worshipped the Creature with the Creator, as it may most properly be rendered: And these would make him worse than the Creature, a mere nothing. Earth is hereby become worse than Hell. Atheism is a persuasion, which finds no footing any where else. Hell that receives such persons, in this point reforms them: They can never deny or doubt of his being, while they feel his strokes. The Devil that rejoices at their wickedness, knows them to be in an error; for he believes and trembles at the belief. ^*This is a forerunner of Judgment: Boldness in sin is a presage of vengeance, especially when the honour of God is more particularly concerned therein. It tends to the overturning human society, taking off the Bridle from the wicked inclinations of men. And God appears not in such visible Judgments against sin immediately committed against himself, as in the case of those sins that are destructive to human society. Besides, God as Governor of the world will uphold that, without which all his ordinances in the world would be useless.

I question whether there ever was, or can be in the world, an uninterrupted and internal denyal of the being of God, or that men, (unless we can suppose Conscience utterly dead) can arrive to such a degree of impiety: For before they can stifle such sentiments in them, (whatsoever they may assert) they must be utter strangers to the common conceptions of reason, and despoile themselves of their own humanity. He that dares to deny a God with his lips, yet sets up something or other as a God in his heart. Is it not lamentable that this sacred truth, consented to by all Nations, which is the band of civil societies, the source of all order in the world, should be denyed with a bare face, and disputed against in Companies; And the Glory of a wise Creator ascribed to an unintelligent nature, to blind chance? are not such worse then Heathens? They worshipped many Gods, these none: They preserved a notion of God in the world under a disguise of Images: These would banish him both from Earth and Heaven, and demolish the Statues of him in their own Consciences: They degraded him, these would destroy him: They coupled Creatures with him; Rom 1.25. Who worshipped the Creature with the Creator, as it may most properly be rendred: And these would make him worse than the Creature, a meer nothing. Earth is hereby become worse than Hell. Atheism is a perswasion, which finds no footing any where else. Hell that receives such persons, in this point reforms them: They can never deny or doubt of his being, while they feel his stroaks. The Devil that rejoyces at their wickedness, knows them to be in an error; for he believes and trembles at the belief.