monarchy?" Were the Socrates', the Ciceros, the Brutuses, the Trajans, the Antonines, and the Julians, (those great infidels of antiquity) less virtuous than Charles Phillips?

I shall pass over your Sectarian cant about Providence being "neither dead nor sleeping," and ask you if you have never heard of any other Deistical temple than that of Fleet-street; or of any infidels but Paine and Palmer? Have you never heard the names of Herbert, Hobbes, Shaftsbury, Bolingbroke, Pope, Garth, or Halley? never of Montesquieu, Boulainvilliers, Boyle, Condorcet, Mirabeau, Diderot, Helvetius, or Voltaire? Never of our great persecuted, injured Byron? Yes, you quibbling sophist, you know them well, but you dared not draw a comparison between them, and your Milton and Bacon, a gloomy fanatic, and a sycophant courtier. But I am astonished at the effrontery with which you confound Locke and Newton with the vile mob of rabble-enthusiasts who make up the mass of Christians. Where did learn that Newton or Locke were Christians, till interest, weakness, or absolute dotage, had annihilated those talents which had once distinguished them from the world! Newton, in the poor, decrepit dotage of eighty, writing a Commentary on the Revelations, was no more that Newton who had made discoveries in nature, that dashed the Mosaic, or rather Jewish, system of the world to atoms. As for the "prescient Bacon," I do not dispute about his religion. That

Wisest, brightest, meanest of mankind”

you

would profess any which could bring money into his pocket. But be his religion what it may, it is extremely probable, that, with all his prescience, he could not foresee the contempt with which Pope, and posterity would treat his memory.-In Bacon we never admire the Man, but the Author.

But to come a little nearer " your own business and bosom ;" let us see what changes, time, and a few adventitious circumstances, have been able to make in your sentiments.

"When the pride of rulers (say you, in a publication of no very ancient date*) so predominates that the cries of injury are unheard, or, if they are heard, unheeded; when assumed privilege usurps the garb of law, and law shrinks from the punishment of injustice; then, the Monarch's crime becomes the insurgent's justification, and the feeling which respects it, is not submission but servitude.". "The providence which places one man on a throne' implants the patriot ardour in another; the very voice which gives the sacred trust to Majesty, calls loudly on the People to redeem it if abused." -"Both the Bishop and the General, though so different in their pursuits, find their common origin in the vices of the world. At all events, it is not policy in the priest to

*The Loves of Celestine and St. Aubert.

quarrel with the soldier, to whose pious efforts he is indebted for so many fees and so many converts.'

To prove how strangely and unaccountably your sentiments are altered with respect to Mr. Paine, I will take the liberty to transcribe more than a page of your interesting novel. Speaking of the victinis of the French Directory you say :

"Among these there was one whom I could not help viewing with peculiar admiration, because, by the sole power of a surprizing genius, he had surmounted the disadvantages of birth and the difficulties of fortune. It was the celebrated Thomas Paine, a man, who, (no matter what may be the difference of opinion as to his principles) must ever remain a proud example of mind unpatronized and unsupported, eclipsing the factitious beams of rank, and wealth, and pedigree. I never saw him in his captivity, nor heard the revilings with which he has been since assailed, without cursing in my heart that ungenerous feeling which, cold to the necessities of genius, is clamorous in the publication of its defects.

"Ye great ones of his nation! ye pretended moralists! so forward now to cast your interested indignation upon the memory of Paine, where were you in the day of his adversity! which of you, to assist his infant merit, would diminish even the surplus of your debaucheries! where was the fostering hand to train his mind to virtue! where the mitred charity! the practical religion! Consistent declaimers, rail on :-what, though his genius was the gift of heaven-his heart the altar of friendship! what, though wit and eloquence, and anecdote, flowed freely from his tongue, while conviction made his voice her messenger! what, though thrones trembled, and prejudice fled, and freedom came at his command! he dared to question the creed which you, believing, contradicted, and to despise the rank, which you, boasting of, debased!!"

I apprehend, Sir, when you wrote the above panegyric on Paine, you had not sufficient "prescience" to foresee that you should ever make your memorable Speech before the Bible Society, in which you appear in the unequivocal character of a Political Renegade. But every thing human is changeable: and Charles Phillips, who ten years ago, was the champion of civil and religious liberty, is become the tool of a desperate fanatic faction.

J. A. ST. JOHN.

P. S. I hope you mean shortly to regale the public with another Oration, for the shallow-ones to admire, and for the wits and infidels to laugh at, and for some better writer than me to reply to.

To the Editor of the REPUBLICAN.

A LETTER TO DR. RUDGE, OF LIMEHOUSE, RELATIVE TO HIS CORRESPONDENCE WITH MR. CARLILE.

REVEREND SIR,

In the 10th number of "The Republican," I find two letters which you have addressed to Mr. Carlile. For au humble individual like myself, to animadvert on the sentiments contained in them, proceeding as they do from so consequential a source, to some persons, perhaps, might seem presumption; but, Sir, the days are gone by, in which reason, bowed beneath the overwhelming weight which the sound of a name, and that which is falsely called learning, contrived to heap upon it. In you I view, (I am sorry to say it) not the enlightened philosopher, but a mere Christian of the common cast; not the man who dares to assume the prerogative of the free exertion of his mental faculties, but the deluded victim of a childish superstition; in fine, I perceive in you the same deficiency that is common to all your brethren, I mean the want of a firm foundation on which to build your arguments. The Christian logician, like the unwary architect that builds a massive structure on unsolid ground, may decorate his work at his pleasure, but as it has not truth to rest upon, it falls like this fabric, into a mighty ruin, a monument of the folly of him who reared it.

But to commence in reality. I admire your generosity in leuding Mr. Carlile "Paley's Evidences of Christianity," (though some persons, perhaps, might sneeringly assert, that the loan was not so valuable, since a copy of it may be purchased any evening at Mr. Tegg's sale in Cheapside, for three shillings and six-pence,) it was a Christian-like action, and the motive which led to it, partook also of the same conscientious spirit; for you supposed that the perusal of this formidable work would convert one of the most confirmed

Deists in Europe to your belief. But, Sir, if you had such a notion, it argues but little in favour of your judgment; can he, who has once read the works and imbibed the sublime sentiments of the Deistical philosophers, ever after condescend to go through the drudgery of reading the volumes in question, filled as they are with the most tedious, trivial, and inconclusive arguments, and which, after the most patient and attentive perusal, prove nothing. more than this: that it is not absolutely impossible, but that Christianity may be founded on truth. But as much as this may be proved of any religion, no matter what, for who shall attempt to demonstrate in an equally convincing manner as Euclid demonstrates his positions, that Mahomet was not a prophet sent from. God?

Who can forbear to smile, when you talk about the free and unbiassed state the mind should be in, when it attempts to investigate the subject of Christianity? Such cant is now become too

common to be endured; it really means nothing but this: that a person who sits down to the task of examining the evidences iu favour of the Bible, should go to it with a predisposition to believe it, and then, according to Bishop Watson and other profound writers like him, much may be done; though still, not without the blessed aid of the Holy Spirit! But your advice to Mr. Carlile, as respects this matter, really appears to me in a very simple light, for the Scriptures have no need, at this day, to be examined at all; they have already passed the fiery ordeal, though not without being partially consumed; they have already been weighed in the balance of reason, and found deficient.

But cannot the Deist retort your arguments, in putting the question to Christians, whether they have examined the writings on the other side, with all that cool and deliberate attention they deserve? The thing speaks for itself, they have not; their narrow and ignoble sentiments prove, beyond all doubt, that they are even fearful of using that degree of mental energy, which in this, case is necessary: nay, some Christians carry their absurdity to such a pitch, that so far from presuming to freely investigate the, word of God, they think that even our prying into the wondrous works displayed in the universe, is an impiety; and would conceive themselves greatly culpable, were they to behold, through a telescope, those glorious and stupendous bodies which revolve in the regions of space.

You conceive, that because there are some objectional parts in the Bible, we should not on that account reject the whole; but this ridiculous and worn-out argument, like that which Christians urge in favour of miracles, has no need of being refuted at this present day; still, as you seem to be ignorant of its futility, I will offer an observation upon it. Wheir we find in a book, professing to be the word of the Deity, accounts that we are convinced are false, we have no longer the shade of an evidence to believe that any of those which are of a supernatural cast are authentic; for if one account is a forgery, why, in the name of common sense, should not another be the same? Yet, still, I admit there is a line of distinction to be drawn; those events which are according to the common and ordinary course of nature, we have no reason to doubt of, neither is it of importance to us whether such be ge-, nuine or not.

In alluding to Sir Isaac Newton, Locke, &c. you intimate, that their change of sentiments, in respect to Deism and Christianity, ought not to affect that which is true, and only prove the inconsistency and hypocrisy of these men, and should operate as a preventative to our paying an indiscriminate deference to a name, merely because it may be a distinguished one. I here perfectly agree with you, for, most undoubtedly, a superstructure that is reared upon a name, however that name may be exalted, must prove a weak and baseless fabric. But when you make this confession, you certainly forget what you have said in your first letter,

since you there intimate, that we should pay a deference to the above persons, "and others of the same order of intellect, of the same mental calibre," and whom you distinguish by the elegant appellation of "Masters in Israel." But this is the consistency of Christians, and it originates intirely from the want of a true principle.

In returning thanks to Mr. Carlile, for the copy of "The Age of Reason," you acknowledge it to be many years since you read it, but that you are well acquainted with Deistical writings. Perunit me, however, to doubt the truth of this latter assertion; a person who, for many years, has ceased to practise any particular thing, can have but little acquaintance with it, and this position will more particularly apply to intellectual matters; since those, who like yourself, remain satisfied with what they have long ago acquired, are of course quite excluded from those advantages which are to be derived from the continual progress of intellectual improvement. But I am well aware, from experience, that the tenets of Christianity are exactly calculated to produce this apathy of mind, and that they excite a sentiment of pity, or rather contempt, in Christians towards these philosophers who would leave no subject uninvestigated. Pope, I know, has said, "The man despises the boy, the philosopher the man, and the Christian all.” But Pope spent the greater part of his life in rhyming, and therefore he may be excused for not having been aware, that the philosopher despises the Christian in his turn, and not only so, but looks down upon him from an elevation which the mental ken of the mere Christian is inadequate to reach.

You say, you examined and thought for yourself; so has Mr. Carlile-so have 1-so did the greater part of our philosophersand so do the chief of the literati in Europe; and yet, the conclusions drawn are quite in opposition to your own. To insinuate that Mr. Carlile is not competent to judge of the merits of Christianity, is, indeed, assuming a vanity in yourself, that must excite the smile of every unbiassed person. The fact is, that no one party, in the estimation of another one, is competent to judge of their opinion, and a Mandarin, or Bramin, has as much right to call your competency in question, as you have theirs; but Deists, however they may have this conceit in common with all others, yet cannot be upbraided on that account with the charge of illiberality, since they loudly avow their wish to bring their every sentiment to the test of reason.

You give us your notions of the Trinity, but, alas! what a falling off is here! Why, Sir, you have annihilated two persons in the Godhead, and have left us only God the Father. (THE GOD OF NATURE I presume.) This confession of yours will certainly subject you to the reproaches of most of your "fellow-labourers in the vineyard;" they will maintain you not to be a true Christian; nay, they will lavish upon you the opprobrious appellation of a Deist; but, never mind, Sir, I am content to participate with you