of a profeffion ftill exposed to the wanton lash of every religious perfecutor, were deemed a fufficient plea for exclufion from a fociety composed of so many great and shining men.

Robertfon's religion has proved no obftacle to his admiffion among the Spanish academicians. You, my brethren, have set the brilliant example of philanthropy in this kingdom; and foared far above the fphere of contracted minds. Happy for the world had the gentle voice of Nature been always liftened to, and his religion forgotten in the man!

The calamities, of which a contrary conduct has been productive, are flightly glanced at in my treatife on toleration. In the two neighbouring kingdoms, the fcenes which have been exhibited laft year, are melancholy proofs, that a tolerating fpirit, the fair offspring of candour and benevolence, confers happiness on individuals, and gives nations a bloom and vigour which intolerance blasts and enervates. In confequence of the happy change in the difpofitions of

the

the people, Ireland has feen her peaceful natives employed in the useful labours of life; her citizens, confident in each other, improving trade and commerce, under a variety of difficulties; her judges respected on their tribunals; and the pleafing fcenes of harmony and union fpread through every province. Such the refult of benevolence! Such the fruits of toleration! Such was our situation, when in Great-Britain nothing could be feen but the course of public juftice f pended, and martial law proclaimed, the law and the legiflature trampled in their awful fanctuary; the torn canonicals bishops, the lacerated robes of tempora peers, the ftreets enfanguined with the ftreaming blood of deluded victims fumptuous edifices changed into blazing piles; the conflagration of Rome renewed by the torch of religious frenzy the houses of inoffenfive citizens chalked out for deftruction; a city given up to plunder; affaffins and malefactors let loose from their chains, and invited, by the hollow voice of fanaticism, to fhare the fpoils; a king on the verge of de ftruction;

ftruction; a kingdom on the eve of being plunged into the calamities of civil war; the fword taking the place of the robe, and dictating to the violators of the law; and the ftern hand of justice fucceeding, in its turn, to the sword, and fweeping from the face of the earth, the gleanings of military execution.

Such the poisonous fruits of mifguided zeal, and religious intolerance! The feeds of fuch difafters have been fown in diftant times, when barbarity, or the compofition of princes, contending for the throne, contributed to divide the people; and, from a mistaken policy, fovereigns themfelves, in oppofition to the maxims of legiflation and wifdom, thought it more eligible to become heads of the half, than the fathers of all their fubjects.

Such measures weakened their arms abroad, and will ever prove deftructive at home. In every plain the English generals met with their fellow fubjects, difputing the laurel, under the banners of kings who gave them encouragement.

The Catholic and Proteftant powers on the Continent, by adopting a differ

ent

actition

1

1. A Defence of the Divinity of Chrift
and the Immortality of the Soul: in
answer to the author of a work,
lately published in Cork, entitled,
"Thoughts on Nature and Religi-

hended invafion by the French and
Spaniards, in July, 1779, when the
united fleets of Bourbon appeared
in the Channel.

1

IV. Remarks on, a letter written by
Mr. Wesley, and a Defence of the
Proteftant Affociations.

to the above Remarks.

on." Revifed and corrected.
II. Loyalty afferted or, a Vindicati-
on of the Oath of Allegiance; with
an impartial enquiry into the Pope's V. Rejoinder to Mr. Welley's Reply
TEMPORAL Power, and the pre-
fent claims of the STUARTS to
the English throne: proving that
both are equally groundless.
III. An Address to the common People
of Ireland, on occafion of an appre-

VI. Essay on Toleration: tending to
prove that a man's SPECULA-
TIVE opinions ought not to deprive
him of the rights of civil society.

In which are introduced,

The Rev. John Wefley's Letter, and the Defence of the
Proteftant Affociations.

1

THE SECOND EDITION.

DUBLIN:

PRINTED BY JOHN CHAMBERS.

M.DCC.LXXXI.