By GILBERT WAKEFIELD, B. A. LATE FELLOW OF JESUS-COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE, Beware of false prophets!-Ye shall know them by their JESUS. Ye blind guides! which strain out a gnat, and swallow a Nefas illic fetum jugulare capellæ; Hunc abicit, sævâ dignum verâque Charybdi? - Tam vacui capitis populum Phæaca putavit? JUVENAL. THE SECOND EDITION, ENLARGED AND CORRECTED. : LONDON: PRINTED FOR THE AUTHOR, BY A. HAMILTON; AND SOLD BY I. CUTHELL, MIDDLE-ROW, HOLBORN. 1797. 1 A 10-14 SIR! THE privilege, which you have claimed and employed, of addressing " the higher " and middle classes of this country" on the religious system " of profefsed Christians, "contrasted with real Christianity," cannot be grudged with confiftency, in application to yourself, from one, according to the vulgar acceptation of those words, neither in the high nor middle class, but in the very lowest order of the community, in which we live. Your attention to religious subjects, in the midst of a corrupt and faithless generation, is regarded with more honour and approbation by none of your warmest friends than by your opponent: nor, I believe, have your thoughts, fince we were contemporaries once at Cambridge, and before that period, been more intenfely occupied in the same speculations and purfuits, than mine. Our conclufions, however, from these diligent researches prove not only different, but in many points totally contradictory: yet, (for I am disposed to pay no futile compliments and to facrifice no felf-applause, at the expence of conviction and fincerity, though ready to concede in your favour all that can possibly be true) I prefume your purposes and affections to have been equally pure, equally zealous, and equally dispaffionate, with my own. Perhaps, in consequence of your elaborate publication, which, from the peculiar situation and character of it's author, is likely to engage a confiderable portion of popular attention, it may be a circumftance not altogether unimportant to some of our fellowcitizens, nor absolutely unworthy of your own regard, to contemplate fome prominent particulars of our disagreement, and the grounds on which we differ. But, Sir! my leading motive to this public and free address had it's origin in that countenance, which the favourable opinion of your character, very generally entertained, as a fincere and pious Christian, has reflected on the political conduct of those statesmen, whose views you have promoted with eagerness and constancy; and whose interests you have in terwoven with your own. It becomes on this account, I am perfuaded, a confideration of no mean concernment to Englishmen at large to be supplied with fome measure of determination, whether one, thus fanctified in the eftimation of his countrymen, - thus affuming the dignified office of a religious cenfor in fociety, - be indeed entitled to this large tribute of admiration, and illuminated with that knowledge of his fubject, which has a claim to ensure his precepts a reverend acceptance with his disciples. That reasonable poftulatum too, I apprehend, is no less pertinent to the subject of Christianity, than to topics of philology and taste; founded on a requifite alliance between magisterial animadverfion and personal accomplishment; your foon |