this country from the penalties of which the late act would not exempt us. In this happy land of religious liberty and toleration, I am liable, at any time, and with out any offence of a civil nature, to have all my goods confiscated, and to be imprisoned for life. But though I think these laws most absurd and unreasonable, and that, as a man who has not disturbed the peace of his neighbours, I am entitled to all the rights of other citi zens; so that I neither ought to be molested on account of my own religion, nor compelled to contribute to the support of that of another person, any more than to pay his physician; I think myself happy, considering how much more unfriendly to truth civil governments and civil governors have been, that I am not exposed to all the difficulties and hazards that the apostles were exposed to; and when I cannot obtain a legal toleration, I am very thankful for a connivance.

You say, p. 168, that "conscientious scruples are no excuse at all for doing what the law allows not to be done." In this you totally mistake the ground of my conduct. I do not pretend that it is authorized by the laws of this, or of any country. It is enough for me if I think myself justified by the laws of God; and whether I ought to obey God, or man, in this case, do you yourself judge.

What would you yourself advise us unitarians in this country to do? We have heard again and again all that you have to say in defence of your trinitarian notions, and trinitarian worship, without any approach to wards conviction, and yet we think it our duty to make a public profession of our unitarian principles, and to adopt an unitarian form of worship. Would you seriously say we ought, with the views of things that we

really have, to keep our opinions to ourselves, and have no public worship at all? And yet between this conduct and our acting more or less openly in opposition to you, and incurring the penalties of the laws now in force against us, there is no medium.

If you really be a friend to any thing that deserves the name of toleration, you must feel for the disgrace of your country, on account of the unjust and impolitic restraints the laws of it lay upon us, and you will use your endeavours to promote the repeal of all penal laws in matters of religion, and likewise to lay open all civil offices to all persons who are qualified to fill them; which indeed is no more than is already done in several countries in Europe. That those who prefer the mode of religion now established should bear the whole expense of it, without compelling us to assist them in it, while they do nothing for ours in return, though a thing perfectly reasonable, is more than I expect the Archdeacon of St. Alban's to countenance. I, however, live in the firm belief that even this will take place some time or other; and my belief is grounded on this general and glorious truth, that there is a wise and good being at the head of all affairs, bringing good out of all evil. I therefore believe that good will finally take place of all evil, and, conse quently, equity of injustice.

You Sir, as Archdeacon of St. Alban's, may believe that the church of England will continue to the end of the world, and that all nations (at least all that speak the English language, and can read the book of Common Prayer in the original) will flow into it. On the other hand, it is my firm persuasion that when Babylon the great, the mother of harlots, shall fall, all her

daughters, all the little Babylons, all the lesser esta blishments, of what I deem to be corrupt christianity, will fall with her, or soon after her; and therefore I apply to them as well as to the church of Rome, that awful warning, Rev. xviii. 4. Come out of her, my people, that ye partake not of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues.

While we unitarians behave as good subjects, (and I do not know that we are worse thought of than other dissenters in this respect,) I have such confidence in the good sense of my countrymen, though without any particular obligation to yourself on this account, and in the spirit of the times, (which throughout all Europe is daily more favourable to freedom of inquiry and toleration, and less favourable to old and corrupt though venerable establishments,) that I have little doubt but that I shall be suffered to proceed as I have hitherto done, unmolested, promoting by every means in my power what I deem to be important truth, though our legislators in the last century voted it to be heresy and blasphemy. What our present législative body, if the question was brought before them, would decree is unknown; but I am pretty confident that when the subject shall come properly before them (and this be pretty soon) they will be disposed to hear reason and to do justice*.

may

From what you say of your own freedom of inquiry, one would think that you might have treated us dis

* The learned writer was mistaken in expecting that he should be permitted to proceed unmolested in his defence of important truth, having been driven from his pastoral charge by the disgraceful rios at Birmingham in July 1791, when his house was burned to the ground, and his laboratory, his library, and his papers were destroyed. He was right, however, in his expectation of the increas

senters with a little more respect. For after observing that you are much at home in the Greek language, and that you have read the ecclesiastical historians, you add, p. 163," I had been many years in the habits of thinking for myself upon a variety of subjects before I opened Dr. Clarke's book. There is in most men a culpable timidity; you and I perhaps have overcome that general infirmity, but there is in most men a culpable timidity, which inclines them to be easily overawed by the authority of great names.” It will make some persons smile to see you, Sir, groupe yourself with me upon this occasion, and they may ask for similar evidence of your having overcome this culpable timidity, and of your having really thought for yourself, when they see you professing to believe, and complying with every thing that those who do not think for themselves at all, profess to believe and comply with. Your profound admiration of Bishop Bull's writings is no proof of your thinking for yourself. All that can be inferred from it is, that you have made a wise choice of masters. The writer for whom I always profess the greatest admiration is Dr. Hartley, but I differ from him in many things, and things also of great consequence.

If, however, you still retain the habit of thinking for yourself, allow me to return your civility to me, when you joined my name, p. 164, to those of Bolingbroke, Voltaire, and Gibbon, by adding yours also to this list of free inquirers, and your sentence

ing liberality of succeeding times: the penal laws against the impugners of the doctrine of the Trinity having been totally repealed by a bill introduced into parliament by Mr. W. Smilk, the upright member for Norwich, in July 1813, which passed without any op position through both houses.—ED.

will then close thus,-a Gibbon, a Priestley, or a Horsley.

For my own part, I cannot say that I much dislike my situation in the light in which I view the different characters; since I find myself placed between an unbeliever on the one hand, and a high churchman on the other. Medio tutissimus ibis.

I am, &c.

LETTER XVIII.

Of the Charge of wilful Misrepresentation, &c.

REV. SIR,

As both yourself and your great and good ally, Mr. Badcock, have employed so much of your respective publications on the subject of perversions, wilful misrepresentations, artifice, management, &c. &c. &c. (for you are at no loss for words or phrases of this import) it may not be improper to give you one short letter on that subject.

I was willing to hope that, in this second publication, you would have observed the rules of decency and of probability in your charges against me, and that you might have expressed some little concern for your former violations of them. But I am sorry to find, that, instead of retracting any thing, you have considerably added to your offences of this kind. You had before charged me with knowingly misquoting the English translation of the Bible, when, in fact, I should not have gained any thing by it. You now talk, p. 5, of my designedly omitting a significant adjective, as you