solutely distinct; that the deficiency of the one might be suppliec by the sufficiency of the other; and that what you want in virtue, you must make up in religion. But this religion, so dishonourable to God, and so pernicious to men, is worse than Atheism, for Atheism, though it takes away one great motive to support virtue in distress, yet it furnishes no man with arguments to be vicious; but superstition, or what the world means by religion, is the greatest possible encouragement to vice, by setting up something as religion, which shall atone and commute for the want of virtue. This is establishing iniquity by a law, the highest law; by authority, the highest authority; that of God himself. We complain of the vices of the world, and of the wickedness of men, without searching into the true cause. It is not because they are wicked by nature, for that is both false and impious; but because, to serve the purposes of their pretended soul savers, they have been carefully taught that they are wicked by nature, and cannot help continuing so. It would have been impossible for men to have been both religious and vicious, had religion been made to consist wherein alone it does consist; and had they been always taught that true religion is the practice of virtue in obedience to the will of God, who presides over all things, and will finally make every man happy who does his duty.

This single opinion in religion, that all things are so well made by the Deity, that virtue is its own reward, and that happiness will ever arise from acting according to the reason of things, or that God, ever wise and good, will provide some extraordinary happiness for those who suffer for virtue's sake, is enough to support a man under all difficulties, to keep him steady to his duty, and to enable him to stand as firm as a rock, amidst all the charms of applause, profit, and honour. But this religion of reason, which all men are capable of, has been neglected and condemned, and another set up, the natural consequences of which have puzzled men's understandings, and debauched their morals, more than all the lewd poets and atheistical philosophers that ever infested the world; for instead of being taught that religion consists in action, or obedience to the eternal moral law of God, we have been most gravely and venerably told that it consists in the belief of certain opinions, which we could form no idea of, or which were contrary to the clear perceptions of our minds, or which had no tendency to make us either wiser or better, or which is much worse, had a manifest tendency to make us wicked and immoral. And this belief, this impious belief arising from imposition on one side, and from want of examination on the other; has been called by the sacred name of religion, whereas real and genuine religion consists in knowledge and obedience. We know there is a God, and we know his will, which is, that we should do all the good we can; and we are assured from his perfections, that we shall find our own good in so doing.

And what would we have more? are we after such enquiry, and

in an age full of liberty, children still? and cannot we be quiet unless we have holy romances, sacred fables, and traditionary tales to amuse us in an idle hour, and to give rest to our souls, when our follies and vices will not suffer us to rest?

You have been taught indeed, that right belief or orthodoxy, will, like charity, cover a multitude of sins; but be not deceived, belief of, or mere assent to the truth of propositions upon evidence is not a virtue, nor unbelief a vice: faith is not a voluntary act, it does not depend upon the will: every man must believe or disbelieve, whether he will or not, according as evidence appears to him. If, therefore, men, however dignified or distinguished, command us to believe, they are guilty of the highest folly and absurdity because it is out of our power, but if they command us to believe, and annex rewards to belief, and severe penalties to unbelief, then are they most wicked and immoral, because they annex rewards and punishments to what is involuntary, and therefore neither rewardable or punishable. It appears then very plainly unreasonable and unjust to command us to believe any doctrine, good or bad, wise or unwise, but, when men command us to believe opinions, which have not only no tendency to promote virtue, but which are allowed to commute or atone for the want of it, then are they arrived at the utmost pitch of impiety, then is their iniquity full; then have they finished the misery, and completed the destruction of poor mortal man, by betraying the interest of virtue, they have undermined and sapped the foundation of all human happiness and how treacherously and dreadfully have they betrayed it! A gift, well applied, the chattering of some unintelligible sounds called creeds; an unfeigued assent and consent to whatever the church eujoins, religious worship and consecrated feasts; repenting on a death-bed; pardons rightly sued out; and absolution authoritatively given, have done more towards making and continuing men vicious than all the natural passions and infidelity put together, for infidelity can only take away the supernatural rewards of virtue; but these superstitious opinions and practices, have not only turned the scene, and, made men lose sight of the natural rewards of it, but have induced them to think, that were there no hereafter, vice would be preferable to virtue, and that they increase in happiness as they increase in wickedness: and this they have been taught in several religious discourses and sermons, delivered by men whose authority was never doubted, particularly by a late Rev. prelate, I mean Bishop Atterbury, in his sermon on these words, "If in this life only be hope, then we are of all men most miserable," where vice and faith ride most lovingly and triumphantly together. But these doctrines of the natural excellency of vice, the efficacy of a right belief, the dignity of atonements and propitiations have, beside depriving us of the native beauty and charms of honesty, and thus cruelly stabbing virtue to the heart, raised and diffused among men a certain unnatural passion, which we shall call religious hatred; a hatred

constant, deep-rooted, and immortal. All other passions rise and fall, die and revive again, but this of religious and pious hatred rises and grows every day stronger upon the mind as we grow more religious, because we hate for God's sake, and for the sake of those poor souls too, who have the misfortune not to believe as we do, and can we in so good a cause hate too much? the more thorough we hate, the better we are; and the more mischief we do to the bodies and estates of those Infidels and Hereticks, the more do we shew our love to God. This is religious zeal, and this has been called divinity, but remember the only true divinity is humanity. W. PITT.

DEAR SIR,

TO MR. CARLILE. '

No man who values the freedom of the press, or liberty of conscience, can view with indifference the recent endeavours of the ereatures of the present corrupt system, to abolish the one, and fetter the other in their proceedings against you, Sir. Indeed it has been the practice of those whose religious or political faith, has been founded upon established principles, however absurd, not only to shrink from the test of truth, and to stigmatize and calumniate all who differ from them with every fonl abuse and opprobrious epithet, but to embrace every opportunity of persecuting them ❝even unto death." "Is not this the carpenter's son ?" "Can any good thing come out of Narazeth ?" "This man is a blasphemer, and is mad, why hear ye him?" "Crucify him, crucify him," were the cries of the priest, the despot, the bigot, and the interested against that great Reformer of Church and State, whom the very same men worship at the present day as the great Creator of the Universe, that are raising a similar hue and cry against yourself, Sir, for the like conduct. You are represented as a traitor, an infidel, and a blasphemer; and as such have been persecuted and hunted down by the scribes and pharisees of 1819, but like the great Reformer to whom I have above alluded; you stand undaunted, unshaken against all their puny and malignant efforts and their contemptible threats.

"Thou shall love thine enemies." "Thou shalt return blessings for railing.' "Thou shalt do good to them that revile and persecute you, are the commands of him upon whom your persecutors profess to believe as the "God of their fathers," and whose precepts they pretend to practise. How far they may be considered to be the sincere followers of their great master and lawgiver, is clearly made known in their conduct toward you, Sirlet it suffice to say that their consummate, hypocrisy can only be exceeded by their diabolical malignity. It is somewhat curious that amongst other charges equally absurd, it is said that “the opinions of such men (priests, despots, &c.) are not to be insulted,"

any

and that "their characters are not to be vilified." With respect to the latter allegation, I have only to ask whether any thing can be a vilification of character that is affirmed of the upholders of the present system? And with respect to the former allegation, I should wish to be informed what is meant by insult offered to opinions. Is it, Sir, daring to differ from these Christian politicians, and to express the reasons of such dissent, or is it the refraining from manifesting the same forbearance towards their opinions and practices as has been shewn toward their venerable personages? But who ever heard of charity for opinions? And who would preach such a doctrine but those that believed they stood in need of it? No! If an opinion be submitted for the assent or belief of individual, let it be fairly discussed, and if it be found too absurd for general admission, let it be exposed to all the contempt and ridicule it merits, however sanctioned by Act of Parliament, or supported by the rich and powerful: but if it be one that tends to enlighten the minds, or to ameliorate the condition of our fellow-men-who but the priest and the despot, will be found to oppose the philanthropic individual who exerts himself for the general weal? It is said that you are "a traitor." Certainly you have spoken most severely against corruption, and have held up those whom you considered to be the cause of the People's calamities, to the just execration and abhorrence of every honourable mind. May England contain millions of such traitors! By the same respectable authority you are said to be an infidel. This I suppose is because you have conscientiously stated your disbelief in a book that every impartial Christian, as well as every Deist, must admit not only contains what must necessarily implicate the moral attributes of the Deity, but the grossest absurdities, the most horrid blasphemies.

By the same party, Sir, you are also termed a blasphemer:

This arises, no doubt, froin your opposition to a creed maintained by law, (and which maintains so many in luxurious idleness) abounding in absurdity and the most palpable contradiction.

To shew how far the Deist is deserving the epithets of infidel and blasphemer, so liberally bestowed upon him, I shall select a few passages from the book in which all who are Christians profess to believe as being a divinely inspired revelation.

"Before me there was no God formed, neither shall there be after me; I, even I, am the Lord, and besides me, there is no Saviour.""Is there a God besides me? Yea, there is no God; I know not any." The language of the Almighty, and the belief of every Deist.

"Hear O Israel! The Lord our God is ONE Lord," and "Thou shalt have NO OTHER GOD but HIM."- The language of Moses and the belief of every Deist. "Hear O Israel! The Lord our God is ONE Lord," and "HIM only shalt thou serve.". "Why callest thou ME good, there is none good but ONE, that is God."

The Greek word of which this is a translation signifies perfect.

"For my

"The true worshippers worship the Father ONLY." Father is GREATER than I."The language of Christ and the belief of every Deist. Who could believe that had heard and read the dogmas of the present day, that the above was Scripture language? But let us proceed a little farther and compare the above with the doctrine and belief of the Trinitarian Christian, for the ridiculing of which you have been termed a blasphemer !!!

"Whosoever will be saved, before all things it is necessary that he hold the Catholic Faith; which faith, except every one do keep whole and undefiled, without doubt he shall perish everlastingly. And the Catholic Faith is this: that we worship one God in Trinity, and Trinity in unity, neither confounding the persons nor dividing the substance. For there is one person of the Father, another of the Son, and another of the Holy Ghost. So likewise the Father is Almighty, the Son Almighty, and the Holy Ghost Almighty and yet there are not three Almighties, but one Almighty. So the Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy' Ghost is God, and yet there are not three Gods, but one God. likewise the Father is Lord, the Son is Lord, and the Holy Ghost is Lord, and yet there are not three Lords but one Lord. For like as we are compelled by CHRISTIAN VERITY to acknowledge EVERY PERSON BY HIMSELF to be GOD and LORD so, so are we forbidden by the CATHOLIC RELIGION to say there be THREE Gods or THREE Lords!!!

:

So

“Furthermore it is necessary to everlasting salvation, (and to arrive at the honours and emoluments of church and state) to behieve rightly the incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ. For the right faith is, that we believe and confess that our Lord Jesus Christ the Son of God, is GOD and MAN. God of the substance of the Father, begotten BEFORE the world: and man, of the substance of his mother, born IN the world; PERFECT GOD and PERFECT MAN, of a reasonable soul and human flesh subsisting. Equal to the Father as touching his Godhead, and inferior to the Father as touching his manhood.

"This is the Catholic Faith, which except a man believe faithfully he cannot be saved!!!"

Such is the language of an African monk, and such is the professed belief of the established priesthood of the present day, but the abomination of every reasonable man and Deist.

Judge ye, says Christ, even of yourselves, what is right," and one of his apostles says "Prove all things."

The Deist is said to be an infidel although he believes in the existence of one infinite and immutable Being: and a blasphemer, although the name of the Deity is never used or thought on by him, but with feelings of the most heartfelt love, gratitude, and reverence for all the benefits received at his hand. "Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain," is a commandment never coolly and deliberately broken by the Deist. Can as much be said by the Trinitarian Christian? Is the sacred and