Recapitulation. 431 



the last ten or fifteen years of the century, as it 

 marks a period of luxury and taste, so we may 

 question whether it has not been carried to an in- 

 jurious length. If this system of sacrificing the 

 useful to the ornamental be pursued much further, 

 it must contract the circulation of books, and, of 

 course, diminish the number both of authors and 

 of readers. Some have even pronounced, that it 

 must operate to produce a " counter revolution in 

 the republic of letters, and introduce all the mis- 

 fortunes of a manuscript age." 



11. The century under consideration may be 

 denominated the age of infidel philosophy. 

 There have been in every age " profane and vain 

 babblings, and oppositions of science falsely so 

 called." But it may be confidently pronounced, that 

 there never was an age in which so many deliberate 

 and systematic attacks were made on Revealed 

 Religion, through the medium of pretended sci- 

 ence, as in the last. A few truly learned and in- 

 genious men made such attacks the main business 

 of their lives; and many others, of humbler name, 

 who vainly aspired to the name of philosophers, 

 have directed their puny efforts towards the same 

 object. 



The doctrine of Materialism, probably, had a 

 greater currency among certain classes of the 

 learned, during this period, than in any former 

 age enlightened with Christian knowledge. It 

 was, indeed, pushed to an atheistical length by 

 some who assumed the name, and gloried in the 

 character of philosophers. Astronomical records 

 have been fabricated or misinterpreted for the pur- 

 pose of discrediting the sacred chronology. The 

 natural history of the Earth, of Man, and of other 

 animals, has been pursued with unwearied dili- 

 gence, to find evidence which should militate 

 against the information conveyed in the Scriptures. 



