Can fociety be worse than it is, and hath been, under this bleffed difpenfation? Can man live more the enemy of man than he does; and hath not religion been the watch-word of impofition and corruption? Have not bad governments, war, rapine, and the happiness of worthy myriads of millions been facrificed to the WORTHLESS FEW at its bidding? It is the wire that moves the expenfive puppets that dif tribute poverty, diftrefs, and flavery around them. But to return-It is fuch books as yours, my Lord, that will lead people to fufpect the Bible not to be the word of God; not to be a book upon which man's prefent and future happiness depends.-You, my Lord, have a prodigious mass of intellect and knowledge; there are few men greater in fome parts of science than yourself, few more highly gifted; and yet, at a very advanced age, after employing a life. mainly in divinity and its obliged to write a large researches, you are book, to prove the validity of the Bible, &c. why, my Lord, to be 1 be what it you and the religionists want to make appear to be, it should stand in need of no fuch ftrength and voluminous matter to fupport it. It should be clear, evident, unequivocal. and bear not the fhadows, clouds, and thick darkness about it that it does. You fay, "God made the Ifraelites the executors of his vengeance." Now, the vengeance of God, and his creating people to execute his wrath upon, &c. and all fuch matter, is to me incomprehenfible; and if the word of God, it is calculated to astound, and involve the mind in -mystery and diffatisfaction. You write of the history of the world, as if you really believed the tale of the first man and woman to be matter of fact; the fall of Adam and Eve to be true, in the way it is told, and the world no older than a few thousand years. Sure, my Lord! there are very many natural appearances that go to prove the world infinitely -aged, as far as our calculation goes; and it is not either improbable or unphilofophical to fuppofe fuppofe it hath exifted myriads of millions of ages. You are a great man, but if a great and generally wife man, continues in a profeffion, and Supports one in which there is so much stuff, as there is in the ordinances of the Church, and in the common prayer book, fo much of all that is impofing, abfurd, contradictory, and I had almost faid, blafphemous, we have a right to suspect either his weakness or defign in the belief, and admittance of books attached to and the support of fuch profeffion, and that profession having much emolument, grandeur, wealth, influence, and ariftocracy in it. You fay fomewhere in your answer to Thomas Paine" Priefts are as impartial as Laymen," now this, I think, is not just so, and I contend, and I believe moft men will do fo with me, that from education, habit, and INTEREST, they are not fo, having selfish views and pecuniary purposes to answer, which the Layman cannot this fubject have upon "The "The objectors to miracles have, you obferve, fabricated a kind of deistical axiom, "that no human teftimony, can establish the credibility of a miracle."-Whether this be fo or not, this I conceive, that no teftimony taken from a book very jumbling, contradictory, abfurd, cruel, and obfcene in its matter, will eftablish them. A great part of your Apology is taken up to prove, that the books called the Bible, have been written by fomebody. Their existence proves their having been written, and who they were written by matters not one farthing; that they are not divine, or the word of God, more than any other ancient piece of literature, is all the Deifts infist on. You are too good a man, my Lord, to do as Priests formerly would have done, answer Thomas Paine's book as a damnable herefy, and fend the author Pell-mell to the Devil; but theirs was the fecure way to rid the world of fuch matter, to burn the book, and its author inte the bargain, and they were right; for investiga tion will bring out the truth, and shake that fa bric, which force, perfecution, and ignorance is better calculated to keep entire, and which the cool and honeft attack of reafon and investigation uncontrouled, will infallibly deftroy.-The age of reafon is dawning, and your book will accelerate its perfect light! The old fyftems of Religion and Government must go, and every defence of them; and every fort of defpotifm to fupport them, will act as underminers.-Ignorance is paffing away; as that goes, the work will be accomplished.-The world, perhaps for the first time, is fet rightly a thinking, thanks in a great measure to Thomas Paine-a man, whom his best friends and admirers have under-rated, and whofe wifdom is exceeded only by his humility and confiftency. You fay to Thomas Paine, " you have done " and |