a person who does not believe the existence of a Deity. Many people, both ancient and modern, have pretended to atheism, or have been reckoned atheists by the world; but it is justly questioned whether any man seriously adopted such a principle. These pretensions, therefore, must be founded on pride or affectation.

Atheism, as absurd and unreasonable as it is, has had its martyrs. Lucilio Vanini, an Italian, native of Naples, publicly taught atheism in France, about the beginning of the 17th century; and being convicted of it at Toulouse, was condemned to death. Being pressed to make public acknowledgment of his crime, and to ask pardon of God, the king, and justice, he answered, he did not believe there was a God; that he never offended the king; and, as for justice, he wished it to the devil. He confessed that he was one of twelve, who parted in company from Naples to spread their doctrine in all parts of Europe. His tongue was first cut out, and then his body burnt, April 9, 1619.

Cicero represents it as a probable opinion, that they who apply themselves to the study of philosophy believe there are no gods. This must, doubtless, be meant of the academic philosophy, to which Cicero himself was attached, and which doubted of every thing. On the contrary, the Newtonian philosophers are continually recurring to a Deity, whom they always find at the end of their chain of natural causes. Some foreigners have even charged them with making too much use of the notion of a God in philosophy, contrary to the rule of Horace:

Nec Deus interficit, nisi dignus vindice nodus.

Among us, the philosophers have been the principal advocates for the existence of a Deity. Witness the writings of Sir Isaac Newton, Boyle, Ray, Cheyne, Nieuwentyt, &c. To which may be added many others, who, though of the clergy (as was also Ray), yet have distinguished themselves by their philosophical pieces in behalf of the existence of a God; e. gr. Derham, Bentley, Whiston, Samuel and John Clarke, Fenelon, &c. So true is that saying of Lord Bacon, that though a mattering of philosophy may lead a man into atheism, a deep draught will certainly bring him back again to the belief of a God and Providence.