Excerpt from Evan's Sketch of the Demominations of the Christian World: To Which Is Prefixed an Account of Atheism, Deism, Theophilanthropism, Judaism, Mahometanism, and Christianity The Atheist does not believe in the existence of a God. He attributes surrounding nature and all its asto nishing phaenomena to chance, or a fortuitous concourse of atoms. Plato distinguishes three sorts of Atheists such as deny absolutely that there are any Gods; others who allow the existence of the Gods, but deny that they con cern themselves with human affairs, and so disbelieve a Providence; and lastly, such as believe in the Gods and a Providence, but think that they are very easily appeas cd, and remit the greatest crimes for the smallest suppli cation. The first of these, however, are the only true Atheists, in the strict and proper sense of the word. The name of Atheist is composed of two Greek terms, a and 0m, signifying without God, and in this sense the appel lation occurs in the New Testament, Ephes. Ii. 12. Without God in the world. It is to be hoped that direct Atheists are few. Some persons, indeed, question the reality of such a character, and others insist, that pre tensions to Atheism have their origin in pride, or are adopted as a cloak for licentiousness.
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