This abuse, so illiberal and so undeserved, with which the clergy have, in every age, been loaded, (and in no period more than in the present) affords, to that most distinguished order of men, one, amongst many similar, proofs of the truth of the religion the care of which is peculiarly committed to them. "If they were of the world, the world would love his own; but, because they are not of the world, but God hath chosen them out of the world, therefore the world hateth them." Comparing

them with other men, and impartially reflecting on the advantages mankind have derived from them, such a return was certainly not to be expected. But when we seriously compare the event with the prediction, and the whole with the circumstances and views of the men who, from age to age, have opposed and ridiculed them, we shall be better able to account for it; and though we may still look upon it with surprise and indignation, we shall at length be compelled to conclude that human nature is ever the same, and that this fact affords one more instance of human depravity, of human obstinacy, and of divine foreknowledge. The followers of the humble Jesus, the teachers of his pure morality, and the supporters of his divine religion, cannot, when we come further to reflect on the subject, be candidly judged, or justly esteemed, by the vain cultivators of human reason, by the bold and im

pious opponents of all that is serious or manly, virtuous or sacred: Nor can it be expected that their actions, however laudable; their abilities, however distinguished; and their beneficence and candour, however eminent, should be allowed their full force and just praise,-by men to whose principles and conduct they are so directly, and happily as yet so successfully, opposed. It is only to be regretted, that men, and those not a few, who have not entirely renounced Christianity, and who even wish it will, have given countenance to this unjust railing, and added force to its baneful effects, by joining in the unmeaning laugh, and by retailing the unjust and impious slander of infidelity.

"Something I thought it necessary, gentlemen, to say upon this subject; because the scurrility of the authors you have put into my hands, exceeds all the bounds of decency. I have been warm upon it; and by honest and honourable men,-who have themselves suffered from the insolence of malice, or the misrepresentations of ignorance and conceit,-my warmth will readily be forgiven. More I could have said; but with ingenuous men, more would be needless; and to those of less amiable dispositions, it would be but speaking to the wind, or like casting pearls before swine. I have only to regret that this illustrious order of the community have not found an abler advocate.

"It is not a little remarkable, that, whilst the opponents of Christianity allow themselves thus lavishly to bestow upon the Clergy, and on Christians, the most odious epithets, and the most scurrilous abuse,-all opposition, however temperate, all answers however cool and candid, appear to their. distempered minds as the effect of bigotry, superstition, and even as indicating. a wish to persecute. An infidel may do or say what he pleases; he may use language of which an inhabitant of Billinsgate would be ashamed, but in him it is all fair. He has, in his own opinion, philosophy-he has science, on his side; and, though scurrilous and intemperate as language will permit, he confidently palms his scurrility and intemperance upon the world, as the genuine effects of a sincere love of truth; of a manly, enlightened and philosophical freedom of thought; and of a just indignation and honourable warmth against bigotry, superstition, and the persecuting spirit of his oppo-nents. The warmth of a Christian, on the other hand, though tempered with all the mildness of the most beneficent system of religion which was ever taught, is estimated in a different manner. His answers, however cool and however masterly, are consi-dered as the artful defence of a hypocrite,. or the weak excuse of a bigot; and his. warmth, however justifiable, as downright: persecution. Were a plain honest man,

unacquainted with quirks of the party, and with the bare-faced effrontery with which they bring forward their calumnious charges, and who had never seen Bishop Watson's Apology for the Bible, or heard of his Lordship's character, to read what Dr Francis is pleased to call Watson Confuted, he would certainly conclude that the Bishop of Landaff is a weak unworthy bigot, alike ignorant of his profession and of general science; that the Apology is a wild libel against common sense, and the first principles of knowledge; and that it was written to excite the minds of the people to a violent persecution of atheists and deists. How unjust all this is, neither you, gentlemen, nor the public, who, in spite of the illiberal jargon of Dr Francis, and his friends, judge of characters and actions with some regard to truth and justice, need be informed. Mr A. Macleod, with more apparent caution, leads us, by insinuations of most obvious. tendency, to no very different conclusion. He preserves, or pretends to preserve, some degree of respect for the Bishop of Landaff; but the whole of his brethren, bishops,. priests, and deacons, experience from him the most intolerable scurrility which perhaps ever dropped from the pen of any infidel, except Thomas Paine and Samuel Francis. One would imagine that these three champions of infidelity had all experienced the most violent persecution which human

beings ever suffered, and that they had writ ten their venomous remarks in the short and uncertain intervals of respite, and in the horrible expectation of further severity; or that they had dictated them as a kind of memorabilia amidst the excruciating tortures of the stake or the wheel. Dr Francis commences his personal insult and abusive remarks, in the advertisement, and continues them, with little intermission, to the end of a work which is certainly calculated to confer little credit either on his head or his heart. To follow him through all the dirt he has thus raised, would afford but a sorry entertainment for you, and is a labour for which I feel myself neither inclined nor qualified.

Bishop Watson has said, that it, would probably have been fortunate for the Christian world, had the life of Thomas Paine been terminated before he had fulfilled his. intention of writing against Christianity; and he seconds his remark by adverting to the baneful consequences which must follow the annihilation of religious principle in the minds of the bulk of the people. This enables his intelligent and candid opponent to raise a violent dust" about the clerical passion for the extermination of the heterodox," the intolerant spirit of Christianity, and of clergymen, "about the dogmatical dictates of bigotted priests, passive obedience, and the persecuting mandates of in