character, and a strong desire to deny, or at least to forget, His claims; and just in proportion as the idea of God becomes more vivid, or is more frequently presented to his mind, it will become the more intolerable, insomuch that he will be tempted either to banish the subject altogether from his thoughts, or, if he cannot succeed in this, to alter and modify his view of the Divine character so as to bring it into accordance with his own wishes, and to obtain some relief from the fears and forebodings which it would otherwise awaken in his mind. If he should succeed in this attempt, he will fall into one or other of two opposite states of mind, which, however apparently different, do nevertheless spring from the same latent source,--a state _of security_, or a state of _servitude_. In the former, he either forgets God altogether,--"God is not in all his thoughts;" or he conceives of Him as "one like unto himself," indulgent to sin, and neither strict to mark nor just to punish it: in the latter, he either "remembers God and is troubled," or, if he would allay the remorse and forebodings of an uneasy conscience, he has recourse to penance and mortification, to painful sacrifices and ritual observances, in the hope, that by these he may propitiate an offended Deity. In the one case, the conflict ends in practical Atheism, in the other, in abject Superstition. And these two, Atheism and Superstition, however different and even opposite they may seem to be, are really offshoots from the same corrupt root,--"the evil heart of unbelief which departeth from the living God." In the case of the great majority of mankind, who are little addicted to speculative inquiry, or to serious thought of any kind, it may be safely affirmed that, in the absence of Revelation, they will inevitably fall into one or other of these two extremes, or rather, that they will oscillate alternately between the two,--in seasons of ease and prosperity living "without God in the world," and in seasons of distress or danger betaking themselves for relief to the rites of a superstitious worship. The apostle describes at once the secret cause and the successive steps of this sad degeneracy, when, speaking of the Gentiles, he says that "when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful, but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened; professing themselves wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man."--"And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind."[17] The secret cause of all these evils was a latent "enmity against God,"--"they did not _like_ to retain God in their knowledge." From this proceeded, in the first instance, a _practical habit_ of Atheism,--"they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful;" and from hence proceeded, in the second