bi, the men most eminent for their purity and learning, whom you had purposely collected to hear your infidel ridicule of all they reverenced-when he saw you raise the Holy Bible in one hand, and the Age of Reason in the other, as it were confronting the Almighty with a rebel-worm, till the pious Judge grew pale, and the patient Jury interposed, and you (or, as he is pleased to style you, "the self-convicted wretch,") after having raved away all your original impiety, was reduced into a mere machine for the re-production of the ribald blasphemies of others"-" I could not help exclaiming" adds this pious and liberal-minded Christian, Infatuated man! if all your impracticable madness could be realized what would you give us in exchange for our establishments ? What would you substitute for that august tribunal? for whom would you displace that independent Judge, and that impartial Jury? or would you really burn the Gospel, and erase the statutes, for the dreadful equivalent of the crucifix and the guillotine? Indeed if I were asked for a practical panegyric on our Constitution, I would adduce the very trial of that criminal; and if the legal annals of any country upon earth furnished an instance, not merely of such justice, but of such patience, such forbearance, such almost culpable indulgence, I would concede to him the triumph. I hope too in what I say, I shall not be considered as forsaking that illustrious example. I hope I am above an insult on any man in his situation (Is not this sheer hypocrisy, is it not the whine of bigotry ?) perhaps, had I the power I would follow the example further than I ought (of oppression no doubt, Mr. Cantwell) perhaps I would even humble him into an evidence of the very spirit he spurned (as there would be little probability of success, Mr. Barrister, I need not exclaim Heaven forbid!) and as our creed was reviled in his person, and vindicated in his conviction, so I would give it its noblest triumph in his sentence, and merely consign him to the punishment of its mercy." I say when I heard such language as the above, I scarcely knew which to execrate most, his fulsome adulation," his whine of bigotry," his despicable calumnies, or his endeavours to suppress every thing like " rational liberty." As to the noble triumph which this champion of error and of Christianity would confer upon his creed in merely consigning you to the punishment of its mercy,* I am too fearful that it will receive it by sending you to the Spanish Inquisition that you may be converted to "the faith," and then roasted or baked alive, that you may escape the danger of relapsing into the same damnable heresies; or, perhaps, in consideration of your family, or, what is more probable, from fear of so dangerous an ex peri

* Christian mercy is said to be extended to a man who differs from the Holy Mother Church when he is burned or flayed alive, or when he is prosecuted and imprisoned for several years, or, perhaps, for life far away from his nearest and dearest connections.

ment) they may be induced to exercise their mercy (towards themselves) by immuring you only for life in some Country Bastille. But not to take up your valuable room by commenting at large upon all the unmanly calumnies of this Gentleman, I shall dismiss this letter with two other quotations only from his celebrated Speech.

After conceding that Christianity may be false, or, in his own words, that it may, indeed, be nothing but delusion," he cosoles himself with the negative satisfaction, that "he errs with the disciples of philosophy and of virtue-with men who drank deep at the fountain of human knowledge, but who dissolved not the pearl of their salvation in the draught." Better and better, Mr. Phillips; but are you really sincere when you say that it is a consolation to" err with Locke, whose pure philosophy taught him to adore its source; whose warm love of genuine liberty was never chilled into rebellion with its Author-with Newton, whose war-like spirit, shooting athwart the darkness of the sphere, too soon to re-ascend to the home of his nativity-with Franklin, the playmate of the lightning, the philosopher of liberty, whose electric touch thrilled through the hemisphere? With men like these, my Lord, (the Barrister would have been more correct had he said, with men like you, my Lord,') I shall remain in error; nor shall I desert those errors even for the drunken death-bed of a Paine, or the delirious war-whoop of the surviving fiends, who would erect their altar on the ruins of society." What, in the name of every thing that is consistent, are we to suppose from the selection of the above great men, that the religious opinions of the Barrister are? And I am naturally led to ask this question, because for broaching similar opinions to those held by these truly excellent and dignified characters, he has loaded you with the foulest epithets that a man could possibly lay his tongue to. Locke and Newton were, if not Deists, certainly Unitarians; and Franklin was a confirmed Deist--but I had almost forgotten that Barristers can at any time, to answer a purpose, take both sides of a question; and that Mr. Phillips is not behindhand with the frateruity, is, I think, clearly proved in the following declaration against the Deists:-" Iu my opinion, it is difficult to say whether their tenets are more ludicrous or more detestable." Now, my dear Sir, most unfortunate for this Gentleman, this turns out to be a most unhappy expression of his spleen, especially as a Right Reverend Father* in God (Watson) states, that there is nothing in Deism but what is in Christianity”— and Deists are very willing to admit, that "there is much in Christianity that is not in Deism." But as assertion is at all times

*"Call ye no man Father on earth," says Christ, "for one is your Father in heaven." Yet Catholics have their Popes, Papás, or Fathers, and Protestants their Fathers in God.

equivalent to assertion, and as Deists, with honest indignation, repel the unfounded calumnies charged upon them by this honourable man," it may be as well to compare the leading tenets of the religion which this man advocates with those professed by the Deist, that a correct judgment may be formed as to which are most Ludicrous, and which are most detestable.

The Trinitarian Christian, then, (and it is only from the Trinitarian Christian that the Deist experiences insult and persecution!) believes, or professes to believe in the individuality, and, conse quently, in the indivisibility of his God; yet he states that this God is composed or made up of three distinct persous, each of whom, taken separately, is Almighty God! He believes, or professes to believe, that these three persons are co-eternal and coequal; yet he also affirms that the Son was begotten* of the Father, and the Holy Ghost proceeded from both. He believes his God to be just and immutable, yet he also says that his wrath was kindled into love by the sacrifice of his only begotten Son, his equal; and whom he suffered to be put to the most cruel and disgraceful death that it was possible for the worst of malefactors to experience, and that too after he had received the grossest insults and indecencies from the very beings he had created!! Yet we are still gravely informed that the Father and the Son are but one God; that the sender and the sent are one and the same Being; that the God who suffered and died (God to suffer and die!!!) is one and the same Deity with him to whom the sacrifice of his life was madet!!!) The Trinitarian Christian also believes that his God is infinitely just and merciful towards his creatures; yet he adds, that from all eternity millions and millions of the offspring of mankind were doomed to everlasting tortures for no other crime than that of not being born of those who had been selected from the great mass for the enjoyment of eternal bliss! But let us turn from this disgusting picture, this horrible libel upon infinite wisdom and goodness, to the tenets of the Deist, and which cannot be given in a better form than in the language of an elegant writer upon this subject :

"Deism declares to intelligent man the existence of one perfect God, Creator and Preserver of the Universe; that the laws by which he governs the world are like himself, immutable, and, of

* The disgusting construction put upon this word, which simply signifies selected or chosen from a number of other objects, reminds one of the heathen story of Jupiter and Semelè, and the consequent production of Bacchus from Jupiter's thigh.

+ If Jesus Christ were really and truly Almighty God, equal with the Father, had he not an equal right to require the same satisfaction for the sins of a guilty world as the Father? for if they be one God, possessing the same mind and will, they must be equally offended at the same crimes.

course, that violations of these laws, or miraculous interference in the movements of nature, must be necessarily excluded from the grand system of universal existence; that the creation is justly entitled to the adoration of every intellectual being throughout the regions of infinite space; and that he alone is entitled to it, having no co-partners who have a right to share with him the homage of the intelligent world. Deism also declares that the practice of a pure, natural, and uncorrupted virtue, is the essential duty, and constitutes the highest dignity of man; that the powers of man are competent to all the great purposes of human existence; that science, virtue, and happiness, are the great objects which ought to awaken the mental energies and draw forth the moral affections of the human race.

"These are some of the outlines," adds this excellent author, "of pure Deism, which Christian superstition so dreadfully abhors, and whose votaries she would willingly consign to endless torture. But it is built upon a substantial foundation, and will triumphantly diffuse happiness among the nations of the earth for ages after Christian superstition and fanaticism have ceased to spread desolation and carnage through the fair creation of God."

"

Now, my dear Sir, what unprejudiced and candid inquirer after truth will, upon the perusal of the above Christian tenets, (without taking into account the horrible, torturous murders of millions of our fellow-men to this worse than Pagan system) consider Deists as deserving the gentlemanly and Christian-like epithets of " Bacchanals of orgies," venom-breathing brood,"-" hell brood of infidelity," infuriate regicides," or that they are guilty of dealing out" ribald blasphemy,' "infectious venom,' or that their doctrines tend to "change this healthful land into a charnelhouse, where murder, anarchy, and prostitution, will quaff the heart's blood of the consecrated and the noble."* But taking it into consideration, Sir, that the man, who has not scrupled to prostitute his talents to the worst of purposes, is a Barrister and a bigoted Christian, it would be useless to impress upon his mind the necessity of acting according to the golden Republican rule, "Do unto ALL men as you would have them do unto you." I shall therefore conclude by subscribing myself, with every sentiment of the most heartfelt regard, and trusting that you may not experience the “ punishment of Christian mercy," Yours most respectfully,

142, Fetter Lane, Fleet Street.

T. WHITWORTH.

*The Bishops Bonner and Laud were the consecrated; and Harry the Eighth (the first villain whom the priests dignified with the title of Defender of the Faith,") and Judge Jefferys were the noble of their day.

Printed and Published by T. Davison, 10, Duke-street, Smithfield.

No. 15. Vol. I.] LONDON, FRIDAY, Dec. 3, 1819. [PRICE. 2D.

CRISIS. No. V.

Ir might be said without presumption, or without the fear of false predictions, or of contradiction, that the CRISIS has arrived. That Crisis, when it is become the duty of Britons to protect their rights, and endeavour to obtain a salutary change, or reformation, or REVOLUTION, (if it will please the Borough-mongers better,) in the existing form of the Government. It is a most important Crisis, and requires all the virtue as well as all the courage of the age to meet it. Britons, the time is now come when the chains which have for a long time been thrown round you, and to which you are almost tacitly habituated, must be shaken off, or rivetted with additional fetters. There is no alternative.

At the time I write this, I am not aware that any application has been yet made to the House of Commons to suspend the Habeas Corpus Act, but from what has passed on the first and second night of debate, I think there can be little doubt but it will be so. We find the Ministers have avowed to make no concession in point of Reform, therefore if they do not suspend the Habeas Corpus Act, they will do nothing to preserve their own places a few months longer. I fear they know too well the ground they stand on to neglect to do this.

It is now probable that this will be the last article written. under the above head in this publication, as I am informed from good authority that the Government are determined to put this paper down because of its title. Howbeit, no effort on my part shall be wanting to keep it up; I shall, there

Printed and Published by T. Davison, 10, Duke-street, Smithfield.