The contemplative atheist is rare: a Diagoras, a Dion, a Lucian perhaps, and some others; and yet they seem to be more than they are; for that all that impugn a received religion or superstition are by the orthodox part branded with the name of atheists. But the great atheists indeed are hypocrites; which are ever handling holy things, but without feeling; So as they must needs be cauterized in the end.

The most important of congenital obligations is that which concerns the duty of all men toward God, the final arbiter of this universe; by it we are obligated to venerate Him and to acknowledge His dominion and laws. Whoever wholly denies this obligation brings upon his own head the stigma of atheism. And this takes place whenever anyone denies either that God himself exists, or else that He takes an interest in human affairs. For these two statements as regards moral effect are equal, and by each of them all religion is destroyed and reduced to a bit of mummery, wherewith to curb the unlicensed mob.

… atheists, who deny either the existence of God or his divine providence, and to whom those persons who deny the immortality of the soul are closely related. For the only justice these last know is that which is based on advantage, measured by their own judgement. […]