National Convention, on the 3rd of January 1794, “Liberty, my dear fellow citizens, is a privileged and general creditor: not only has she a right to our property and persons, but to our talents and courage, and even to our thoughts!” Oh, liberty! what a metamorphosis hast thou undergone in the hands of these political jugglers!
If this be liberty, may God in his mercy continue me the most abject slave! If this be liberty, who will say that the English did not do well in rejecting the Doctor’s plan for making them free? The democrats of New York accuse the allies of being combined to prevent the establishment of liberty in France, and to destroy the rights of man; when it is notorious that the French themselves have banished the very idea of the thing from amongst them; that is to say, if they ever had an idea of it. Nay, the author of the Rights of Man, Ref 014 and the authoress of the Rights of Women, are at this moment starving in a dirty dungeon, not a hundred paces from the sanctum sanctorum of liberty and equality; and the poor unfortunate goddess herself is guillotined! Ref 015 So much for liberty and the rights of man.
The Tammany Society comes forward in boasting of their “venerable ancestors,” and, says the Doctor in his answer, “Happy would our venerable ancestors have been to have found, &c.” What! were they the Doctor’s ancestors too? I suppose he means in a figurative sense. But certainly, gentlemen, you made a faux pas in talking about your ancestors at all. It is always a tender subject, and ought to be particularly avoided by a body of men “who disdain the shackles of tradition.”
You say that in the United States “there exists a sentiment of free and candid inquiry, which disdains the shackles of tradition, preparing a rich harvest of improvement, and the glorious triumph of truth.” Knowing the religious, or rather irreligious principles of the person to whom this sentence was addressed, it is easy to divine its meaning. But, without flattery, your zeal surpasses that of the Doctor himself: he disdains revelation only; the authority of Moses, David, and a parcel of folks that nobody knows; but you disdain what your fathers have told you: which is the more surprising, as, at the same time, you boast of your “venerable ancestors.” People should always endeavour to be consistent, at least when interest does not interfere. However, suppose the shackles of revelation and tradition both completely shaken off, and the infidel Unitarian system established in their stead, what good would the country derive from it? This is certainly worth inquiry, because a thing that will do no good, can be good for nothing. The people of these States are, in general, industrious, sober, honest, humane, charitable, and sincere; dutiful children, and tender parents. This is the character of the people, and who will pretend to say that the Gospel, the belief of which has chiefly contributed to their acquiring of this amiable character, ought to be exchanged for the atheistical or deistical doctrines of a Monvel Ref 016 or a Priestley? For my part, I can see nothing to induce us to try the experiment; no, not even “the rich harvest of improvement, and the glorious triumph of truth,” that you say it promises. We know the truth already; we want no improvement in religious knowledge; all we want is, to practise better what we know; and it is not likely that our practice would be improved by disdaining the theory.
You allow that a public and sincere spirit of toleration exists among us. What more is wanted? If you were to effect a general disdain of the shackles of tradition, perhaps the “rich harvest” would be a corruption of manners, discord, persecution, and blood. The same causes generally produce the same effects: to see and be terrified at those effects, we have only to turn our eyes to that distracted country, where it must be allowed, even by yourselves, the shackles of tradition are sufficiently disdained.
Doctor Priestley professes to wish for nothing but toleration, liberty of conscience. But let us contrast these moderate and disinterested professions with what he has advanced in some of his latest publications. I have already taken notice of the assertion in his letters to the students of Hackney, “that the established church must fall.” In his address to the Jews (whom, by-the by, he seems to wish to form a coalition with), he says, “all the persecutions of the Jews have arisen from Trinitarian, that is to say, idolatrous Christians.” Idolatrous Christians! It is the first time, I believe, these two words were ever joined together. Is this the language of a man who wanted only toleration, in a country where the established church, and the most part of the Dissenters also, are professedly Trinitarians? He will undoubtedly say, that the people of this country are idolaters too, for there is not one out of a hundred at most, who does not firmly believe in the doctrine of the Trinity.
Such a man complains of persecution with a very ill grace. But suppose he had been persecuted for a mere matter of opinion; it would be only receiving the measure he has meted to others. Has he not approved of the unmerciful persecution of the unfortunate and worthy part of the French clergy? men as far surpassing him in piety and utility as in suffering. They did not want to coin a new religion; they wanted only to be permitted to enjoy, without interruption, the one they had been educated in, and that they had sworn, in the most solemn manner, to continue in to the end of their lives. The Doctor says, in his address to the Methodists, “You will judge whether I have not reason and Scripture on my side. You will at least be convinced, that I have so persuaded myself: and you cannot but respect a real lover of truth, and a desire to bring others into it, even in the man who is unfortunately in an error.” Does not this man blush at approving of the base, cowardly, and bloody persecutions that have been carried on against a set of men, who erred, if they did err at all, from an excess of conscientiousness? He talks of persecution, and puts on the mockery of woe: theirs has been persecution indeed. Robbed, dragged from their homes, or obliged to hide from the sight of man, in continual expectation of the assassin’s stab; some transported like common felons, for ever; and a much greater number butchered by those to whose happiness their lives had been devoted, and in that country that they loved too well to disgrace by their apostacy! How gladly would one of these unfortunate conscientious men have escaped to America, leaving fortune, friends, and all behind him! and how different has been the fate of Dr. Priestley! Ah, gentlemen! do not let us be deceived by false pretenders; the manner of his emigration is of itself a sufficient proof that the step was not necessary to the enjoyment of “protection from violence.”
You say he has “long disinterestedly laboured for his country.” ’Tis true he says so, but we must not believe him more disinterested than other reformers. If toleration had been all he wanted; if he had contented himself with the permission of spreading his doctrines, he would have found this in England, or in almost any other country, as well as here. The man that wants only to avoid persecution, does not make a noisy and fastidious display of his principles, or attack with unbridled indecency the religion of the country in which he lives. He who avoids persecution, is seldom persecuted.
“The lifted axe, the agonizing wheel,
Luke’s iron crown and Damien’s bed of steel,
To men remote from pow’r but rarely known,
Leave reason, faith, and conscience all our own.”
But the Doctor did not want to be remote from power or profit either; for in his sermon on the test laws, he proposes “to set apart one church for the Dissenters in every considerable town, and a certain allotment of tithes for their minister, proportioned to the number of Dissenters in the district.” A very modest and disinterested request truly! Was this man seeking peace and toleration only? He thinks these facts are unknown in America. After all his clamour against tithes, and his rejoicing on account of their abolition in France, he had no objection to their continuing in England, provided he came in for a share. Astonishing disinterestedness!
In this country there is nothing to fear from the Doctor’s disinterestedness, because there being no public revenue annexed to any worship whatever, there is nothing to wrangle for; but from the disseminating of his deistical doctrine, there is much to fear. A celebrated deist in England says, that there can be no such thing as an atheist; that it is impossible: for, says he, “every one must necessarily believe that some cause or other produced the universe; he may call that cause what he pleases; God, nature, or even chance; still he believes in the efficacy of that cause, and therefore is no atheist.” And, indeed, we shall find that deism is but another name for atheism, whether we consider it in theory or in practice. That we should not be bettered by the introduction of deism or atheism, I think is a