PROLEGOMENA. XXXI. 



right atheism, inasmuch as it implies a thought 

 on the subject sufficient to constitute a neglected 

 opportunity of enquiry, and thus of inculpating us 

 in rejecting the offered means of Salvation. I 

 know hell is hard to think of, and is not of a 

 piece with the baubles of this giddy age, in which 

 our dye is cast. I once fell into a similar error 

 myself of doubting of the eternity of punishment, 

 till my wrong notion was set right by one of our 

 learned Fathers ; and I am glad of an opportunity 

 of correcting the error. I do not marvel that 

 the doctrine be unpalatable, nor wonder that 

 among sects who reject the comfortable doctrine 

 of absolution by the Sacrament of Penance, it 

 should frighten numbers into madness, and fill 

 our lunatic asylums with the melancholy dupes 

 of private judgment ; but I do marvel that 

 men who take such pains to search to the bottom 

 of the least question relating to profit and loss, 

 should slur over the great question of eternal 

 loss, or lucre. For as the actual sum of evil of 

 any danger is as the absolute pain of the thing 

 dreaded multiplied by the probability of its 

 happening; so the bare possibility of hell must be 

 an immense sum of present evil, because if the 

 future chances were ever so few, the multiple 

 would be of tremendous import, from the im- 

 mensurable pain of one of its ingredients. The 

 converse argument may be applied to the ad- 



