n unbelievers, and since you
absolutely insist on my expressing my opinion before the public, I shall
now fulfill this rather disagreeable task with all possible brevity,
for the sake of economizing the time of our readers. In the first place,
sir, it appears evidently, from your pamphlet, that your design is less
to attack my book than my personal and moral character; and in order
that the public may pronounce with accuracy on this point, I submit
several passages fitted to throw light on the subject.

You say, in the preface of your discourses, p. 12, "There are, however,
unbelievers more ignorant than Mr. Paine, Mr. Volney, Lequino, and
others in France say," &c.

Also in the preface of your present observations, p. 20. "I can
truly say that in the writings of Hume, Mr. Gibbon, Voltaire, Mr.
Volney--there is nothing of solid argument: all abound in gross mistakes
and misrepresentations." Idem, p. 38--"Whereas had he (Mr. Volney)
given attention to the history of the times in which Christianity was
promulgated . . . he could have no more doubt . . . &c., it is as much
in vain to argue with such a person as this, as with a Chinese or even a
Hottentot."

Idem, p. 119--"Mr. Volney, if we may judge from his numerous quotations
of ancient writers in all the learned languages, oriental as well as
occidental, must be acquainted with all; for he makes no mention of any
translation, and yet if we judge from this specimen of his knowledge of
them, he cannot have the smallest tincture of that of the Hebrew or even
of the Greek."

And, at last, after having published and posted me in your very title
page, as an unbeliever and an infidel; after having pointed me out in
your motto as one of those superficial spirits who know not how to find
out, and are unwilling to encounter, truth; you add, p. 124,
immediately after an article in which you speak of me under all these
denominations--

"The progress of infidelity, in the present age, is attended with a
circumstance which did not so frequently accompany it in any former
period, at least, in England, which is, that unbelievers in revelation
generally proceed to the disbelief of the being and providence of God
so as to become properly Atheists." So that, according to you, I am a
Chinese, a Hottentot, an unbeliever, an Atheist, an ignoramus, a man of
no sincerity; whose writings are full of nothing but gross mistakes and
misrepresentations. Now I ask you, sir, What has all this t