Bacon's Essays, with annotations by Richard Whately and notes and a glossarial index, by Franklin Fiske Heard.

Essay xvi.] Annotctions. 167
cannot possibly be a God, and that to believe otherwise is a
gross absurdity. Such a belief he may, indeed, consider as
useful for keeping up a wholesome awe in the minds of the
vulgar; and for their sakes he may outwardly profess Christianity
also; even as the heathen philosophers of old endeavoured to
keep up the popular superstitions; but a real belief he will
regard as something impossible to an intelligent and reflective
mind.
It is not meant that all, or the greater part, of those who
maintain the principle here spoken of, are Atheists. We all
know how common it is for men to fail of carrying out some
principle (whether good or bad) which they have adopted;-how
common, to maintain the premises, and not perceive the conclusion to which they lead. But the tendency of the princple
itself is what is here pointed out: and the danger is anything
but imaginary, of its leading, in fact, as it does naturally and
consistently, to Atheism as its ultimate result.
But surely, the Atheist is not hereby excused. To reject
or undervalue the revelation God has bestowed, urging that it
is no revelation to us, or an insufficient one, because unerring
certainty is not bestowed also,-because we are required to
exercise patient diligence, and watchfulness, and candour, and
humble self-distrust, —this would be as unreasonable as to disparage and reject the bountiful gift of eye-sight, because men's
eyes have sometimes deceived them-because men have mistaken a picture for the object imitated, or a mirage of the
desert for a lake; and have fancied they had the evidence of
sight for the sun's motion; and to infer from all this that we
ought to blindfold ourselves, and be led henceforth by some
guide who pretends to be himself not liable to such deceptions.
Let no one fear that by forbearing to forestall the judgment
of the last day,-by not presuming to dictate to the Most
High, and boldly to pronounce in what way He nzust have imparted a revelation to Man,-by renouncing all pretensions to
infallibility, whether an immediate and personal, or a derived
infallibility,-by owning themselves to be neither impeccable
nor infallible (both claims are alike groundless), and by consenting to undergo those trials of vigilance and of patience
which God has appointed for them,-let them not fear that by
this they will forfeit all cheerful hope of final salvation,-all