ATHEISM.
The wicked, through the pride of his countenance, will not seek after God: God is not in all his thoughts.—Psalm x. 4.
The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God.—Psalm xiv. 1.
And they say, How doth God know; and is there knowledge in the Most High?—Psalm lxxiii. 11.
Is not God in the height of Heaven? and behold the height of the stars, how high they are!
And thou sayest, How doth God know? can he judge through the dark cloud?—Job, xxii. 12, 13.
For this they willingly are ignorant of, that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water, and in the water.—II. Peter, iii. 5.
Having no hope, and without God in the world.—Ephesians, ii. 12.
“There is no God,” the fool in secret said:
“There is no God that rules or earth or sky.”
Tear off the band that binds the wretch’s head,
That God may burst upon his faithless eye!
Is there no God?—The stars in myriads spread,
If he look up, the blasphemy deny;
While his own features, in the mirror read,
Reflect the image of Divinity.
Is there no God?—The stream that silver flows,
The air he breathes, the ground he treads, the trees,
The flowers, the grass, the sands, each wind that blows,
All speak of God; throughout, one voice agrees,
And, eloquent, His dread existence shows:
Blind to thyself, ah, see him, fool, in these!
Giovanni Cotta.
Hardening by degrees, till double steel’d,
Take leave of Nature’s God, and God reveal’d—
Then laugh at all you trembled at before;
And joining the freethinker’s brutal war.
Swallow the two grand nostrums they dispense—
That Scripture lies, and blasphemy is sense;
If clemency, revolted by abuse
Be damnable, then damn’d without excuse.
Cowper.
These are they
That strove to pull Jehovah from His throne,
And in the place of Heaven’s Eternal King,
Set up the phantom Chance.
Glynn.
The owlet Atheism,
Sailing on obscene wings across the noon,
Drops his blue-fringed lids, and shuts them close,
And, hooting at the glorious sun in Heaven,
Cries out, “Where is it?”
Coleridge.
They eat
Their daily bread, and draw the breath of Heaven
Without or thought or thanks; Heaven’s roof, to them,
Is but a painted ceiling hung with lamps,
No more, that lights them to their purposes.
They wander loose about; they nothing see,
Themselves except, and creatures like themselves,
Short-lived, short-sighted, impotent to save.
So on their dissolute spirits, soon or late,
Destruction cometh, like an armed man,
Or like a dream of murder in the night,
Withering their mortal faculties, and breaking
The bones of all their pride.
Charles Lamb.
No God! Who warms the heart to heave
With thousand feelings, soft and sweet,
And prompts the aspiring soul to leave
The earth we tread beneath our feet,
And soar away on pinions fleet,
Beyond the scene of mortal strife,
With fair ethereal forms to meet,
That tell us of an after life?
William Knox.
“There is no God,” the foolish saith—
But none, “there is no sorrow:”
And Nature oft the cry of Faith
In bitter need will borrow.
Eyes which the preacher could not school,
By way-side graves are raised;
And lips say “God be pitiful,”
That ne’er said, “God be praised.”
Miss Barrett.
An Atheist’s laugh’s a poor exchange,
For Deity offended.
Burns.