making me first his deputy, and giving me the full profits of the place, brought me to be a candidate, as his recommendation of me to the heads of colleges in Cambridge, made me his successor; so did I enjoy a large portion of his favour for twenty years together. But he then perceiving that I could not do as his other darling friends did, that is, learn of him, without contradicting him, when I differed in opinion from him, he could not, in his old age, bear such contradiction; and so he was afraid of me the last thirteen years of his life. See my Authentic Records, page 1070, 1071. He was of the most fearful, cautious, and suspicious temper, that I ever knew: and had he been alive when I wrote against his Chronology, and so thoroughly confuted it, that nobody has ever ventured to vindicate it, that I know of, since my confutation was published, I should not have thought proper to publish it during his life-time: because I knew his temper so well, that I should have expected it would have killed him. As Dr. Bentley, Bishop Stillingfleet's chaplain, told me, that he believed Mr. Locke's thorough confutation of the Bishop's Metaphysics about the Trinity, hastened his end also."

Whiston was the early friend of Newton and succeeded him at Cambridge in the professor's chair in the science of the Mathematics. Newton when young was a firm adherent to the ridiculous doctrine of the Christian Trinity, and so useful as figures were to him in his mathematical and astronomical discoveries, and to such an extent, beyond all predecessors, could he carry them, yet superstition could persuade him, that three could be explained to be but one; and one to comprise three! The science of Whiston in the Mathematics was almost equal to that of Newton, though I believe the former had not so fertile a genius as the latter, and was obliged to acquire by labour what to the other was natural. Yet Whiston, although he had superstition enough to make him a honest and conscientious Christian, knew the proper use of arithmetic, and would not allow three to be one, nor one to be three: he rejected the doctrine of the Trinity in the Godhead. Whiston honestly and openly combated this impossibility, and avowed himself an Arian, and contended under much persecution throughout his lifetime that such were the sentiments of the early Christians, and that the doctrine of the Trinity was but a corruption of the church after it had been long established. Such tenets were then called blasphemous, and Whiston was expelled from his professor's chair, and from the university of Cambridge altogether, and had to endure more clamour about blasphemy than ever I had, or have any reason to fear in future. This circumstance connected with a rivalry in the Mathematics occasioned the breach between Whiston and Newton, but ridiculous as even Whiston's superstition appears to me, I think him a much more honest man than ever was Newton, and as a member of society much more useful to the age in which they lived. Newton courted distinction and popularity by servilely succumbing to all the despotisms of the day: Whiston was a man of principle, and lived and died poor for the satisfaction of writing and speaking what he thought and believed. The one has been too much flattered and applauded; the other too much vilified and degraded, and the clamour by which both circumstances have been effected has been equally disgusting and disgraceful to the country.

I have contrasted the conduct of Whiston and Newton, and have made my observations on the latter to shew that even his name carries no weight with it in the support of superstition, I trust I have sufficiently shown that superstition and science can never amalgamate, which also justifies the inference that, morality and religion never can amalgamate. Superstition corrupts and deteriorates all the human passions: science alone is qualified to amend and moralize them. The Man of Science who knows his duty, and what is conducive to the interest of mankind, will ever boldly and openly set himself in opposition to the priest. This has not been sufficiently done hitherto, and I hope that even my appeal will not be altogether useless, but that, it will rouse some latent spirit among the Men of Science in this island to assert their own dignity and importance; and silence the foul, the wicked, and the mischievous clamour of Priestcraft.

It is beyond doubt that Locke was hostile to the system of Government, both in Church and State, and the odium which he incurred from a certain quarter, was quite equal to that which has fallen upon Thomas Paine, or those who, since the American and French revolutions, have travelled so much farther in their opposition. Opposition to ill-founded establishments, possessing power, must necessarily be progressive. Locke was thought to have gone to an extreme in his time, but I now consider his writings to be scarcely-worth reading, as far as they apply to toleration in matters of opinion, or to political economy and political government. The sentiments which I have put upon paper would have been called high treason a century ago, and the author hung, beheaded, embowelled, and quartered, with the general approbation of the people; and a person of the name of Thomas, Matthews was actually hung for writing and printing what was called a treasonable libel, in the reign of George the First; which libel, or a similar one, would not now bethought seditious by the Attorney General himself. Such is the effect of general instruction among the people—such is the progressive power of the printing press, that, I feel a moral conviction that the sentiments which I have avowed will became general in another generation. The circumstance is as sure as that no one will now condemn the political opinions of John Locke, as going too far, but rather as weak and insipid, and not going far enough in honest principle.

Then come forward, ye Men of Science, it is reserved for you to give the death blow, or the last blow to superstition and idolatry. Now is the time—you are safe even from momentary persecution, if you stand forward numerously and boldly. You will have a people, an all mighty people, with you, a circumstance which no philosopher could ever heretofore calculate upon. You have nothing to fear, and nothing to lose, but every thing to gain, even that which is most dear to you, the kind reception of your instructions, the adoption of your principles, founded in truth and the nature of things.

Kings and Priests have, in some cases, made partial pretensions to patronize the Arts and Sciences, as a cloak for their enmity towards them. They ever were, and ever will be, in reality, their direst foes. An advanced state of Science cannot benefit them. Their present distinctions, and misery-begetting splendour, could not be tolerated, when mankind shall so far be illuminated as to know the real cause and object of animal-existence. Common sense teaches us that good government requires none of those idle distinctions; for why should the servants, or the administrators of the laws of society, be distinguished above those whence those laws should emanate? It is the duty of the Man of Science to attack those distinctions, to combat all the established follies of the day, and endeavour to restore society to its natural state; to that state which first principles will point out; the mutual support, the comfort, the happiness, and the protection of each other. At present we are but as so many beasts of prey, each strengthening himself by the destruction of his weaker fellow. The many unnatural distinctions which Kingcraft and Priestcraft have brought into society, have totally undermined the first object of the social state. In addition to this universal evil, those two crafts have set themselves up as a bar to all useful improvement. They countenance no change but that which swells the amount of their depredations, (for the manner in which their incomes are extorted deserves no other appellation.) Societies can obtain no real or lasting strength under the sway of those two crafts, for every improvement that has been