his country is not the
religion of Nature, but the religion of Moses and Jesus, with whom the
writer has nothing to do. He trusts therefore he shall not be received
as a malevolent disturber of such common opinions as are esteemed to
keep in order a set of low wretches so inclinable to be lawless. At
least, if he attempts to substitute better foundations for morality,
malevolence can be no just charge. Truth is his aim; and no professors
of religion will allow their system to be false. Or if he should be
thought too bold a speculator, such of the ecclesiastics as will be his
opponents may rather laugh at him than fear him. They have a thousand
ways of making their sentiments go down with the bulk of mankind, to
one this poor writer has. They are an army ready marshalled for the
support of their own thesis; they are in the habit of controversy;
pulpits are open to them as well as the press; and while the present
author will be looked upon as a miracle of hardiness for daring to put
his name to what he publishes, they can without fear or imputation lift
up their heads; and should they even be known to transgress the bounds
of good sense or politeness, they will only be esteemed as more zealous
labourers in their own vocation.

PREFATORY ADDRESS.

Dr. Priestley,

Your Letters addressed to a Philosophical Unbeliever I perused, not
because I was a Philosopher or an Unbeliever; it were presumption to
give myself the former title, and at that time I certainly did not
deserve the latter; but as I was acquainted with another, who in
reality, as far as I and others who know him can judge, deserves the
title of a Philosopher and is neither ashamed nor afraid of that of an
Unbeliever, I conceived them apt to be sent to my friend, and when I
presented them to him, he said he was the person whom he should suppose
you meant to address, if you had a particular person in view; but he
had too much understanding of the world, though much abstracted from
the dregs of it, not to conceive it more probable that you meant your
Letters to be perused by thinking men in general, Believers and
Unbelievers, to confirm the former in their creed, and to convert the
latter from their error. You shall speedily know the effect they have
had in both ways. For myself I must inform you that I was brought up a
Believer from my infancy; a Theist, if a Christian is such; for I
suppose the word will be allowed, though the equivalent term of Deist