doctrines have been applied to such different and even opposite uses, is a sufficient proof of itself that they are not in their own nature essentially atheistic, and that they should be carefully discriminated from the systems with which they have been occasionally associated. We are not entitled to identify them with Atheism, in the case of those by whom Atheism is explicitly disclaimed; and yet there may be such an apparent connection between the two, and such a tendency in the human mind to pass from the one to the other, as may afford a sufficient reason for examining these cognate doctrines, each on its proper merits, for defining the sense in which they should be severally understood, for estimating the evidence which may be adduced for or against them individually, and for showing in what way, and to what extent, they may have a legitimate bearing on the grounds of our Theistic belief. For this reason, we shall bring under review, not only several systems of avowed Atheism, but also various theories, not necessarily atheistic, which have been applied to the support and defence of Atheism, and which have a tendency, as thus applied, to induce an irreligious frame of mind. The _causes and springs of Atheism_ may easily be distinguished from _the reasons_ on which it is founded. In the present state of human nature, there is _a permanent cause_ which is abundantly sufficient to account for this species of unbelief, notwithstanding all the evidence which Nature affords of the being, perfections, and providence of God. Our Lord explained in a single sentence the whole Philosophy of Unbelief, when he said that "men loved the darkness rather than the light, because their deeds are evil; for whoso doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved." No thoughtful man can seriously reflect on his own conscious experience, without discovering, in the disordered state of his moral nature, a reason which sufficiently explains his natural aversion from God; he finds _there_ an evidence, which he can neither overlook nor deny, of his own personal turpitude and guilt; he is self-convinced and self-condemned at the bar of his own conscience; he remembers with remorse and shame many cases of actual transgression in which he resisted the dictates of reason, and resigned himself to the dominion of evil passions; and when, with these convictions and feelings, he is asked to conceive of God as a living, personal Being, everywhere present, beholding the evil and the good, whose "eyes are as a flame of fire," and can discern "the very thoughts and intents of the heart;" when he conceives of such a Being as his Lawgiver, Governor, and Judge, as one who demands the homage of the heart and the obedience of the life, and who has power to enforce His rightful claims by the sanctions of reward and punishment, he will be sensible, in the first instance, of an instinctive disposition to recoil from the contemplation of his