8s 



LIBERTY OF REASONING 



but a very few years after the world had been fo well- 

 informed, affected, and edified, the Abrahamites in 

 our days were banged with cudgels out of Abraham's 

 bofom into the bofom de notre fainte mere 1'eglife 1 

 that in our days a dreadful court of inquifition was 

 erected at Parma ! that, in one of the firft capital ci- 

 ties of Germany, a day was folemnized by ringing and 

 ringing and general jubilations, wherein it was deter- 

 mined by a great majority, that the proteftants fhould 

 not be allowed to have a houfe of prayer within that 

 city, as if the republic had been delivered from their 

 corruptions on that day ! — What need of more exam- 

 ples? — And yet we fooaft of living in enlightened 

 times ! and think the monfter fuperftition is difarmed 

 and bound for ever ! 



" Why ftiouldfl: thou thus deceive thyfelf ?" my 

 good genius whifpers : " Never, fo long as men con-, 

 tinue to be men, will light be completely victorious 

 over darknefs ! Never will the reafon of a fmali num- 

 ber gain the fuperiority.over the ignorance, the imbe- 

 cility, the dizzy imagination, the poverty of mind, 

 and the weaknefs of heart, of the greater number. 

 Never will whole nations learn to fee their real interefts, 

 and remain true to this fagacity any otherwife than by 

 the moft cruel fhocks, and even then only in particular 

 particles, and but for a period of time. Always will a 

 great man have a contemporary or a fuccelfor, t!o de- 

 molifh what he has been building. The future already 

 teems with new Goths, new Saracens and Turks, new 

 Gregories of Nazianzen and Gregories of Rome, for 

 annihilating the works of the philanthrophical mufes, 

 and for replunging the world into the darknefs of bar- 



barifm 



