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"I beseech you therefore, brethren, by these compassionate kindnesses of God, to present your bodies for a living sacrifice, "and holy, well pleasing unto God; that religious service of "reason, which ye owe: and conform not yourselves to the present manner, but transform yourselves by the renewal of your minds, that ye may shew in yourselves what is that good, "and acceptable, and perfect will of God." (Wakefield.)

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R. N.

THE CHARACTER OF AN HONEST FREETHINKER. By John Ryland M. A. of Northampton.

THE addition of the epithet Freethinking to the Title of Christian, in the description commonly given of our church, has always given offence to many who have not understood our views and motives. The best men, and the most enlightened of all ages, and those who have done most good to society, have been freethinkers. Bad men-designing menun-thinking men, have also laid claim to the appellation; but it is as producing a belief in Christianity, and in connexion with the practice of its principles, that we think freedom of thought most valuable.

Our ideas on the 66 Character of an honest Freethinker" we have found so well expressed in a small publication which has fallen into our hands that we have been induced to extract the following passages for the perusal of our readers. The original pamphlet is entitled "A Contemplation on the Insufficiency of Reason and the Necessity of Divine Revelation to enable us to attain Eternal Happiness. To which is prefixed THE CHARACTER OF AN HONEST FREETHINKER. By John Ryland M. A. of Northampton. London 1775."

It may be well to observe that some intermediate passages not essential to the sense, or not so distinguished for excellence as the rest, have been omitted.

"IN the conduct of my studies, many years ago, I fixed it as an unalterable rule, that I would take nothing upon trust, but as far as possible see every thing with my own eyes, and feel the truth of every great subject of religion in my own mind, as the result of rational and solid conviction.

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"As I am fully convinced of the absolute necessity of a divine revelation, so I have inquired with the utmost care and deliberation into the possibility of it, and have proceeded to consider the nature of inspiration, as far as I could attain clear and determinate ideas on such a most delicate and sublime subject.

"I have found by happy experience, that if a man have an honest love of truth, a just sense of the defects of his own mind, an humble dependance on God to assist him in laying aside prejudices: and if he proceed with caution and by slow and sure steps, there is no subject in the whole system of truth and religion but what he may investigate, so far as it hath a relation to his duty and happiness.

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It is the greatest honour to a human character to be an honest inquirer after truth; and although I will not say I have attained this character, yet I will dare to affirm that I love and admire it, and I wish to possess so great an excellence.

"As I write chiefly for my young friends, I will endeavour to give them the outlines of such a character; in order that. they may keep it ever before their eyes, and feel a generous ambition to be what they love and revere.

"All persons, who devote themselves to the study of religion and the pursuit of learning, profess themselves free inquirers after truth, and rational freethinkers; but if we try. many of them by the true and eternal rules of just freethinking, we shall find them wanting in all the essential qualities of a true freethinker; and if my idea of freethinking be right, we may justly say, 'How few honest and free searchers after truth are there to be found in the world! how arduous the labour! how honourable the character!'

"A most sincere and honest freethinker is just the opposite to an infidel, a sceptic, a sophist. An infidel is not willing that all should be true, which God has declared to be true. A sceptic doubts of every thing, and is sure of nothing. A sophist attempts to impose on your understanding the most specious errors in the garb of truth; he deludes you with the shadow instead of the substance of truth. Not so the honest freethinker: he is just the reverse of such odious and contemptible characters! he is heartily willing that ALL should be true, which God has discovered to be true, whether by reason or revelation. He is resolved to submit to evidence as fast as it shall arise before the eyes of his mind, and he scorns to impose one single thought on mankind, of which he is not fully convinced in his own conscience.

"But to possess this glorious character, the mind must be smitten with the beauties and charms of truth; we must be purified from every species of lust, pride, and extravagant self-love; we must be cured of our boundless self-admiration, and fond desires of a vain distinction; we must be made honest in the very essence and powers of the soul for

ever.

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A man thus qualified is a generous and upright freethinker: if you severely examine his internal character you find in him the following great qualities:

"He has an ardent love to truth, merely on account of its excellent nature, beauty, and goodness; he loves it purely for its own sake; an infidel does not; he doth not love truth for its own intrinsic goodness and beauty. The good man fears no consequences that can follow from truth, and therefore he lays open his whole soul to the light of evidence, and, is determined to follow wherever truth shall lead the way.

"He is willing from the very bottom of his soul to divest himself of all prejudices, and to put off all opinions and notions, that will not stand the test of a severe and impartial examination.

"He is resolved to use all the best helps that God has put in his power, or laid within his reach for the attainment of truth.

"He is determined to embrace truth, even all truth, wherever he meets with it, and from whatsoever hand it comes: whether from a throne or from a dunghill; a palace or a cottage; from a child, a Newton, or a Paul.

"He is invariably resolved to buy the truth at any rate, and sell it at no price; but will rather part with all that is dear to him in this world, than part with this jewel. He will give up his name, his estate, his blood and life, rather than betray or part with the truth. He makes an honest use of his reason to find out the truth, or the real nature and relation of things.

"He uses his understanding in such modes of operation as these: (viz.) in considering the degree of evidence or clear appearance of truth in the mind:-in determining to judge according to the apparent strength or weakness of the evidence before him, on any important question:-in ballancing evidence on both sides of a question, and embracing that side on which the weight of evidence preponderates.

Honest freethinking gloriously appears in thus con

sidering impartially the nature of the evidence FOR or AGAINST any point that is proposed to us for truth.

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"A man of this spirit and disposition looks upon it as bondage of thought and the mark of a low slavish soul, to contradict or despise a truth without inquiring into it, merely because it has been commonly received, for a thousand or seventeen hundred years past. Such is the bondage and slavery of soul in all those who contradict or despise the evidences of divine revelation.

"True freethinking does not consist in a power or a right to dissent from the eternal principles of right reason and truth, but in being superior to vile bigotry and low prejudices, which imprison and debase the soul.

"An honest and generous freethinker is not attached to any low party or faction in divinity or philosophy; nor is he a slave to his own vile passions, or to the passions or humours of other men: he scorns to be under the arbitrary will, or the tyrannic pleasure and influence of his superiors, in mere civil power, or worldly honours and emolumentsbut truth, eternal, almighty, and all amiable truth, is the sovereign of his soul, the empress of his heart. He dedicates himself to truth alone, and aims and wishes to be for ever a disciple to pure and beautiful truth.

"An honest freethinker will not suffer himself to be driven from truth by the faults or the foolishness of those that profess it. He does not forsake REVEALED TRUTH, and leave it bleeding in the dust, on account of sneaking and impure hypocrites, artful impostors, or imperious tyrants, who profess it and disgrace it; and are the curse and bane of the most sacred and beautiful system in the world.

"To conclude this sketch of the beautiful character of an honest freethinker:He disdains the thought of a secret indulgence of sensual lusts, or the foul appetites of the flesh: -he knows that a gratification of the unclean inclinations of his body, are utterly inconsistent with all greatnes of soul, and generous freedom of thought.

"An honest free inquirer after truth scorns to persist in an error, because he has in some things, and at sometimes, made a mistake, or formed a wrong apprehension of some objects.

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He is not ashamed nor afraid to say, at such a time, or in such an affair, I WAS MISTAKEN.'

"This is not the temper of our modern Deists, who having from some bad springs rejected divine revelation, and set themselves up as advocates for reason and natural religion alone,

their pride prompts them to persist in the way of error, and they disdain the thought of acknowledging themselves in the wrong.

"Not so the true freethinker: he accounts it a victory to conquer his own pride; and to change an error for truth, he esteems an eternal gain."

DRYDEN AND SOUTHEY; OR, THE BLASPHEMY OF POETS LAUREAT.

""Tis from high life high characters are drawn,

“A saint in crape is twice a saint in lawn ;

"Wise if a minister; but, if a king,

"More wise-more just-more learned-more every thing."

It has been a common, but, perhaps, an excusable error, of rational Christians to suppose, that, in the eyes of heaven, all ranks of men are equal; and that the ways of the God of the universe are much too far above our ways, to induce him to pay respect to the earthly distinctions of wealth, power and dominion. Such, however, is not the doctrine of courts and courtiers; and such has never been the faith, as it has been held by pensioned bards, and poets laureat of all ages.

We have, before us, two striking instances of the respect described as having been paid by heaven to crowned heads; and we submit them for the amusement of our readers, provided a feeling of amusement be not overpowered by a sense of the sickening servility, and abominable extent of blasphemy, which characterize both productions.

The one of these is a tribute paid, by the muse of Dryden, to the memory of Charles II.; the other is a description of the beatification of George III, by the author of Wat Tyler, Robert Southey; each of these writers, at the time, wearing "the laurel," and enjoying one hundred pounds, and a butt of sack, per annum, as a reward for, and an assistance in, their labours, as court poets.

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And, first for the first, it is entitled "A FUNERAL PINDARIQUE POEM, SACRED TO THE HAPPY MEMORY OF

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