The Guardian Author:Joseph Addison Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: news, had caufed his foul to anticipate that for- row which fhe would never have felt, fo long as the ungrateful truth lay concealed. Let us then refpect the ... more »happinefs of our fpe- cies, and in this fight examine the proceedings of the free-thinkers. From what giants and mon- fters would thefe knight-errants undertake to free the world ? From the ties that religion im- pofeth on our minds, from the expectation of a future judgment, and from the terrors of a troubled confcience, not by reforming men's lives, but by giving encouragement to their vices. What are thole important truths of which they would convince mankind ? That there is no fuch thing as a wife and juft Providence; that the mind of man is corporeal; that religion is a ftate- tfiek, contrived to make men honeft and virtuous, and to procure a fubfiftence to others for teaching and exhorting them to be fb ; that the good tidings of life and immortality, brought to light by the gofpel, are fables and impoftures; from believing that we are made in the image of God, they would degrade us to an opinion that we are on a level with the beafts that perifh. What pleafure or what advantage do thefe notions bring to mankind ? Is it of any ufe to the public that good men mould lofe the comfortable profpect of a reward to their virtue; or the wicked be encouraged to perfift in their impiety, from an aflurance that they fhall not be punifh- ed for it hereafter ? Allowing therefore, thefe men to be patrons of liberty and truth, yet it is of fuch truths and that fort of liberty which make them juftly be lookedupon as enemies to the peace and happinefsof the world. But upon a thorough and impartial view it will be found, that their endeavours, in- ftead of advancing the caufe of liberty and truth, tend only to introduce flavery and...« less