IMPORTANCE OF RELIGIOUS TRUTHS. 



161 



Bible and Missionary Societies. We are thus 

 Jed to infer, with some degree of reason, ihat such 

 characters have no impressive belief of the Di 

 vine origin of the Christian system ; and it would 

 be much more honourable and consistent, at once 

 to avow their infidelity, than to put on the mask 

 of dissimulation and hypocrisy. No individual 

 ought to be subjected to any civil penalties on 

 account of the opinions he holds, as for these he 

 is accountable only to his Maker ; nor should 

 any opinions be attempted to be extirpated by any 

 other weapons than the strength of reason and 

 the force of arguments. But, at the same time, 

 it is requisite, that society should know the lead 

 ing principles of any one who proposes himself as 

 a public instructor of his fellow-men, in order 

 that they may judge wheiher it would be proper 

 to place their relatives under the instructions of 

 one, who might either overlook Christianity al 

 together, or occasionally throw out insinuations 

 against it. To act the hypocrite, to profess a 

 decent respect for the Christian religion, while 

 the principles of infidelity are fixed in the mind, 

 accompanied with a secret wish to undermine its 

 foundations, is mean and contemptible, unworthy 

 of the man who wishes to be designated by the 

 title of philosopher. Yet such hypocrisy is not 

 at all uncommon ; it was particularly displayed 

 by the sceptical philosophers on the continent, 

 prior to the French revolution, and avowed to 

 their most intimate associates. 



Buffon, the natural historian, who appears to 

 have been an atheist, was also, according to his 

 own confession, a consumma e hypocrite. In a 

 conversation with M. Herault Sechelles, in 1785, 

 about four years before his death, and when he 

 was in the seventy-eighth year of his age, he de 

 clared, &quot; In my writings I have always spoken of 

 the creator ; but it is easy to efface that word, and 

 substitute in its place, the powers of nature, 

 which consist in the two grand laws of attraction 

 and repulsion. When the Sorbonne* become 

 troublesome to me, I never scruple to give them 

 every satisfaction they require. It is but a 

 sound, and men are foolish enough to be content 

 ed with it. Upon this account, if I were ill, and 

 found my end approaching, I should not hesitate 

 to receive the sacramen.. Helvetius was my in 

 timate friend, and has frequently visited me at 

 Montbart. I have repeatedly advised him to 

 use similar discretion ; and, had he followed my 

 advice, he would have been much happier.&quot; 

 &quot; My first work (continued he) appeared at the 

 same time with IJ Esprit des Lois. Montesquieu 

 and myself were tormented by the Sorbonne. 

 The president was violent. What have you 

 to answer for yourself .? says he to me, in an angry 

 tone. ( Nothing at aW, was my answer, and he 

 was silenced and perfectly thunderstruck at my 

 indifference.&quot; In perfect accordance with such 



The faculty of Theology at Paris. 



a system of hypocrisy, Buffon kept a father con 

 fessor almost constantly with him, to whom h 

 was in the habit of confessing, in the same apart 

 ment where he had developed the Principles of 

 Materialism, which, according to his system, was 

 an abnegation of immortality. He also regularly 

 attended mass on Sundays, unless prevented by 

 indisposition, and communicated in the Chapel 

 of the Glory, every Whitsuntide. Though he 

 heartily despised his priestly confessor, he flat 

 tered and cajoled him with pompous promises, 

 and condescending attentions. &quot; I have seen 

 this priest (says Sechelles,) in the absence of the 

 domestics, hand over a towel to the count, set the 

 dining table before him, and perform such-like 

 menial services. BufFon rewards these atten 

 tions with, I thank you my dear child.&quot; Such 

 was the habitual hypocrisy of this philosopher; 

 and, said he, &quot; it has been observed by me in all 

 rny writings : I have published the one after the 

 other in such a manner, that men of vulgar capa 

 cities should not be able to trace the chain of my 

 thoughts.&quot; His intolerable vanity and pompo 

 sity, his breach of promises, the grossness of his 

 conversation, and his numerous amours and in 

 trigues, were in perfect correspondence with such 

 principles, and the natural result of them. &quot; His 

 pleasantries (says Sechelles) were so void of de 

 licacy, that the females were obliged to quit the 

 room.&quot;* What a scene of moral anarchy would 

 be introduced, were such principles to be uni 

 versally inculcated and acted upon in socie 

 ty! All confidence between man and man 

 would be shaken, and the foundations of the so 

 cial system undermined and destroyed. Yet 

 such was the morality which almost universally 

 prevailed among the continental philosophers, in 

 consequence of the sceptical and atheistical prin 

 ciples they had imbibed. Truth, sincerity, mo 

 desty, humility, and moral obligation, formed no 

 part of the code of their morality ; and such, in 

 all probability, wouW soon be the result in our 

 own country, were the pursuits of science and phi 

 losophy to be completely dissevered from reli 

 gion. 



In the last place, there are several topics con 

 nected with religion, which might occasionally 

 be made the subjects of discussion in scientific 

 associations : such, for example, are the eviden 

 ces and importance of the Christian Revelation 

 the physical and moral facts to which it occasion 

 ally adverts the attributes of the Divinity the 

 general principles of moral action the laws 

 which the Creator has promulgated for preserv 

 ing the order of the intelligent system, and the 

 foundation on which they rest the evidences for 

 the immortality of the soul, and the eternal desti 

 ny of man. These, and similar topics might, on 



See an account of some particulars in the private 

 life of Buffon, by M. Sechelles, one of his admirers, 

 in the Monthly Magazine foi July 1797, supplemen 

 tary No. vol.3, pp. 49&-501. 



