Whilst all the stars that round her burn, III. What though, in folemn filence, all "The Hand that made us is Divine. C SECT. IX. Against the modern FREE-THINKERS. SIR, T of HERE arrived in this neighbourhood two days ago one your gay gentlemen of the town, • who being attended at his entry with a ' servant of his own, besides a country ८ man he had taken up for a guide, ex' cited the curiosity of the village to • learn whence and what he might be. • The countryman (to whom they applied as most easy of access) knew little more than that the gentleman came ' from London to travel and fee fashions, ' and was, as he heard say, a Free' thinker: What religion that might be, he could not tell; and for his own part, if they had not told him the man ' was a Free-thinker, he should have • guessed by his way of talking, he was ' little 6 • little better than a Heathen; excepting ' only that he had been a good gentle man to him, and made him drunk twice ' in one day, over and above what they • had bargained for. I do not look upon the simplicity ' of this, and several odd enquiries with • which I shall trouble you, to be won' dered at, much less can I think that our youths of fine wit, and enlarged ⚫ understandings, have any reason to • laugh. There is no neceffity that every • squire in Great-Britain should know what • the word Free-thinker stands for, • but it were much to be wished, that * they who valued themselves upon that • conceited title, were a little better in structed in what it ought to stand for; • and that they would not perfuade them• selves a man is really and truly a Freethinker in any tolerable sense, merely ⚫ by virtue of his being an Atheist, or an • Infidel of any other diftinction. It may • be doubted with good reason, whether ' there ever was in nature a more abject, • slavish, and bigotted generation than the ' tribe of Beaux Esprits, at present so • prevailing in this island. Their preten' fion to be Free-thinkers, is no other • than M3. ⚫ than rakes have to be free-livers, and ، favages to be free-men, that is, they can ⚫ think whatever they have a mind to, ⚫ and give themselves up to whatever con⚫ ceit the extravagancy of their inclina• tion, or their fancy, shall suggest; they ⚫ can think as wildly as talk and act, and • will not endure that their wit should be • controlled by such formal things as de cency and common sense: Deduction, • coherence, confiftency, and all the rules ' of reason they accordingly disdain, as too precife and mechanical for men of a • liberal education. • This, as far as I could ever learn from • their writings, or my own observation, ' is a true account of the British Free⚫ thinker. Our visitant here who gave ' occafion to this paper, has brought with ⚫ him a new system of common fenfe, the particulars of which I am not yet acquainted with, but will lofe no opportunity of informing myself whether it • contain any thing worth Mr. SPECTATOR'S notice. In the mean time, Sir, • I cannot but think it would be for the good of mankind, if you would take ⚫ this fubject into your own confideration, * and convince the hopeful youth of our 6 ، nation, that licentiousness is not freedom; or, if fuch a paradox will not be understood, that a prejudice towards • Atheism is not impartiality. T I am, Sir, your most humble Servant, PHILONOUS. Quidquid est illud, quod fentit, quod fapit, quod vult, quod viget, cœlefte & divinum est, ob eamque rem æternum fit neceffe est. Tull. I AM diverted from the account I was giving the town of my particular concerns, by cafting my eye upon a treatise, which I could not overlook without an inexcusable negligence, and want of concern for all the civil, as well as religious interests of mankind. This piece has for its title, Adiscourse of free-thinking, occafioned by the rise and growth of a fect called free-thinkers. The Author very methodically enters upon his argument, and says, By free-thinking, I mean the use of the understanding in endeavouring to find out the meaning of any propofition whatsoever, in confidering the nature of the evidence for, or against, and in judging of it according to the seeming force or weakness of the evidence. As soon as he has M 4 de |