of

what he is not. The truth of religion is nothing yet known, but something that will be found out, if there be but discussion enough; and therefore discussion is what he is constantly recommending. There is to be no establishment any kind; but all discussion, discussion; and the end of it, a right understanding of religion. Every person who is strongly possessed with any persuasion, of which he has no proof, is an enthusiast or fanatic. Dr. Priestley comes fairly under this description, because he turns prophet without his credentials. "Whatever was

"the

We have heard it asserted, that Dr. Priestley had predicted the end of the world in fourteen or twenty years. But this matter was not truly represented. In the sermon on the death of Dr. Price, he taught his audience, that they who should die at the end of fourteen, or twenty, or seven years, would at the end of those periods respectively meet Dr. Price: and thus he made it out: that as the soul dies with the body, the interval between any particular person's death and his resurrection, is to be reckoned as nothing; therefore he that should die soonest would soonest meet Dr. Price. Q. E. D.

After this he proceeded to tell them, that the news with which the' surviving friends of Dr. Price will entertain him at the Resurrection, will consist of those events, in which while alive he was so much interested. He knew the triumphs of the memorable 14th of July; and as they were so agreeable

"the beginning of this world," says he, "the "end of it will be glorious and paradisaical, be

yond what our imaginations can now conceive; "the contemplation of which always makes me happy." (Essay on Gov. p. 5.) How this will come to pass the Doctor to be sure knows; but we can only conjecture from his example; who, as he tells us himself, was once what we commonly call a Christian, but what he calls a Trinitarian; then he was a high Arian; then a low Arian, like his friend Dr. Price; then he became a Socinian, and that, as he confesses, of the lowest kind. (Letters, p. 101.) All these changes are in a progress of descent; the Doctor is a falling body all the way. We may judge from this his progress toward paradisaical felicity, what the end will be: men will believe less and less all the way, as he has done, till they

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agreeable to his taste, how will he be delighted to hear of the massacre on the 10th of August! &c. &c.

The idea the Doctor has formed of persons of his own persuasion in a future state is very singular. Such saints, he thinks, will be pleased at the tremendous day of the Resurrection, to hear what rebellions and massacres happened after their death; and enquire with anxiety, perhaps, whe ther England had been as fortunate in this respect as France?· But, as the prospect is opening wider, he that goes latest to Dr. Price, will have the best news to tell him!

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they come to paradise and believe nothing at all. The learned have held many arguments about the situation of paradise; but thus much we learn now for certain, that the road to paradise is downwards.

In his capacity of a prophet, he tells us what wonderful things will come to pass in consequence of the French revolution. His 14th letter to Mr. Burke is such a curiosity upon this subject, that I wish the reader would peruse the whole. He will there discover, what a new and happy creation is to arise out of the French chaos. Religion shall no longer be established, but truth will establish itself-Governments will all be rectified, when the superstitious respect paid to kings and priests shall vanish: all contention for power shall cease, and differences will no longer be determined by the sword: the grand secret is discovered of living without war. Religious disputes will be at an end; because so great a majority will be of one opinion that the minority will see the necessity of giving way. The one opinion is, his own opinion, Socinianism of the lowest kind; and the thing which is to be overpowered by numbers, and give way, is the Christian persuasion and thus he provides for the preservation of religious liberty

berty to us all. Some must decide, and the rest must give way, and then every man will, as the Doctor has it, provide religion for himself. How ignorant would this world be, if there were not prophets to enlighten it! I would not, however, depend absolutely on the Doctor's infallibility. For when he wrote his letters to Mr. Burke, he foresaw the approaching downfal of that nuisance (p. 128.) that old and decayed building (129.) the Church of England, from the rapid increase of the Dissenters, and particularly of those at Birmingham. But how little do prophets sometimes foresee! The fable tells us, how the astrologer, gazing at the stars and foretelling the fate of empires, did not foresee, that he himself was falling into a ditch even so, that ruin which the Doctor had so plainly and so positively predicted to the old building, fell unfortunately upon the new meeting-house, and upon his own dwelling. How active the Doctor might be at that time in promoting the ruin he had in prospect, he knows better than we do: but instead of being so weak as to take any thing to himself, he persists in laying all the blame upon the clergy of Birmingham. Yet he has not made it appear in a single instance, that any person of character had a share in the mischief of the late riots:

it rather appears to have originated totally with the undistinguishing vulgar: who seeing their country menaced by some alarming motions toward a French revolution in England, and not approving it, very unadvisedly took the preservative justice of the time into their own hands. Persons of more refined understandings act differently. When they see a man parading the streets with a torch in his hand; telling the populace that the combustibles are all ready; and that the conflagration will be sudden and unexpected; they are tender of his rights; so they leave him to proceed, and wait to see what he will do; and when the town is on fire, they try to put it out as well as they can. This was the policy which brought the city of London to the verge of destruction in 1780. Sleeping justice in time of danger; and a dangerous execution of it by the vulgar, are so bad, that it is hard to say which is the worst; yet we might have justified the latter on our Doctor's principles; which are accommodated to the demolition of Churches, but not of conventicles. We might have pleaded, that old and decayed buildings, maintained at a great expence, for purposes of error and superstition, being nuisances, it were better for the good of the whole, that they should be removed by the justice of the people: Unita