And who sees not this to be the case with the modern atheist, who hath been pursued with that strength and vigour of argument, even in our own days, that would have baffled persons of any other temper than their own, into shame and silence? And so as no other support hath been left to irreligion, than a senseless stupidity, an obstinate resolvedness not to consider, a faculty to stifle an argument with a jest, to charm their reason by sensual softnesses into a dead sleep; with a strict and circumspect care that it may never awake into any exercise above the condition of dozed and half-witted persons; or if it do, by the next debauch, presently to lay it fast again. So that the very principle fails in this sort of men, whereto, in reasoning, we should appeal, and apply ourselves. And it were almost the same thing, to offer arguments to the senseless images, or forsaken carcasses of men. It belongs to the grandeur of religion to neglect the impotent assaults of these men: as it is a piece of glory, and bespeaks a worthy person’s right understanding, and just value of himself, to disdain the combat with an incompetent or a foiled enemy. It is becoming and seemly, that the grand, ancient, and received truth, which tends to, and is the reason of, the godly life, do sometimes keep state; and no more descend to perpetual, repeated janglings with every scurrilous and impertinent trifler, than a great and redoubted prince would think it fit to dispute the rights of his crown with a drunken, distracted fool, or a madman. Men of atheistical persuasions having abandoned their reason, need what will more powerfully strike their sense—storms and whirlwinds, flames and thunderbolts; things not so apt immediately to work upon their understanding, as their fear, and that will astonish, that they may convince, that the great God makes himself known by the judgments which he executes. Stripes are for the back of fools (as they are justly styled, that say in their hearts, There is no God.) But if it may be hoped any gentler method may prove effectual with any of them, we are rather to expect the good effect from the steady, uniform course of their actions and conversation, who profess reverence and devotedness to an eternal Being; and the correspondence of their way, to their avowed principle, that acts them on agreeably to itself, and may also incur the sense of the beholder, and gradually invite and draw his observation; than from the most severe and necessitating argumentation that exacts a sudden assent.
Many go securely on in a course most ignominiously wicked and vile, without ever debating the matter with themselves, or inquiring if there be any rational principle to justify or bear them out. Much more may they, with a cheerful confidence, persist in their well-chosen way, that have once settled their resolutions about it upon firm and assured grounds and principles, without running over the same course of reasonings with themselves in reference to each single, devotional act; or thinking it necessary every time they are to pray, to have it proved to them, there is a God. And because yet many of these do need excitation; and though they are not destitute of pious sentiments and inclinations, and have somewhat in them of the ancient foundations and frame of a temple, have yet, by neglect, suffered it to grow into decay. It is therefore the principal intendment of this discourse, not to assert the principles of religion against those with whom they have no place, but to propound what may some way tend to reinforce and strengthen them, where they visibly languish; and awaken such as profess a devotedness to God, to the speedy and vigorous endeavour of repairing the ruins of his temple in their own breasts; that they may thence hold forth a visible representation of an indwelling Deity, in effects and actions of life worthy of such a presence, and render his enshrined glory transparent to the view and conviction of the irreligious and profane. Which hath more of hope in it, and is likely to be to better purpose, than disputing with them that more know how to jest, than reason; and better understand the relishes of meat and drink, than the strength of an argument.
John Howe. The Living Temple.