The New-Jersey gazette — Burlington [N.J.], 1786-06-12 00:00:00, page 1

For the New-Jerse/ Gazette.
D E I S M.
Read and revere the sacred page, a page
Where triumphs immortality: a page
Which not the co hole creation could produce,
Which not the conflagration Jball destroy ;
'Tis printed in the minds of Gods for ever ;
In nature's ruins not one letter loft.
Dr. Young's Night Thoughts.
DID you ever fee a man, courteous reader,
arrogating to himfclf the title of phi
losopher and of a profound thinker,
who could not even give a definition of
philosophy, nor ever had a serious
thought in his life? A man who, with
little wit, and much felf-conceit, was constantly re
tailing scraps and shreds from Toland and Tindal,
and glorying in the wretched sophistry of those fuper
ficial reasoners against the authenticity of the sacred
scriptures, but who had never so much as looked into
Leland, a celebrated and philosophical divine, who
had solidly confuted them both ?
Have you ever seen a man who ridiculed all faith
and all mystery, and expected to obtain eternal felicity
by prattiling the morality dictated by the light of na
ture, acknowledging at the fame time his belief of the
greatest absurdities in the world; and pradifing no
more morality than a horse ? A man pretending to
the acutest penetration and judgment ; and yet not know
ing how to doubt where he ought; to rest allured
where he ought; and to submit where he ought?
Did you ever fee a man who infilled that the bare light
of nature was fufficient (and revelation consequently
unnecefTary) to conduct us at present in the path of
duty, and to everlafiing happiness hereafter; and in
the fame breath confeffing, that, notwithttanding this
light, (luminous and brilliant as he made it) a very
great part of the world that has no other guide, is
this moment involved in pagan superstition, and the
groffeftidolatry ?
Did you ever fee a man who denied the miracles
wrought by Jesus Christ, though proved by a cloud of
witnesses who sealed their testimony with their blood ;
and yet affecting ty believe the fabulous wonders of
Apbllonius of Tyana, upon the credit of Philoftratus,
who has written a filly romance about that astrologer,
.which was never believed by any, save by those who
believe every thing but what is true ?
Did you ever fee a man who resolved all the moral
attributes of the Deity into that of Mercy ; and this
mercy into a connivance at fin, and the virtual aboli
tion of all his laws ?
Did you ever fee a man who flattered himfclf that
the precepts, the morality and the hillory of our ho
ly religion; the wonderful and unparalleled life and
death of its author ; the wisdom and fanttity of its
injunctions; the authority and sublimity of the sacred
writings; the testimony of ocular witnesses; the blood
of so many martyrs ; the accomplishment of so many
prophesies; the alteration of so many miracles ; the
tradition of so many ages ; the conversion of so great
a part of the world to a religion renouncing the world,
and propagated not only without, but againJl, exter
nal force; the perpetuity of the faith through a per
petuity of the most bloody persecutions ; the impreg
nable foundation of the church; and all the other
proofs in support of chriftianity, are answered and con
futed, orrathertotally annihilated by the unphilofophical
philosophy of a Bollinbroke, or the wretched pun or
thread-bare jest of a Voltaire, or a Rousseau ?
Did you ever fee a man who had the aflurance to
tell you, that our belief in the divine origin of the
scriptures is wholly to be ascribed to the force of educa
tion, and the early infufions of the pried and the nurte ;
but that all men of unfettered uninfluenced sentiments,
all philosophers and reasoners, have ever cftcemed re
velation as imposture ; and this man at the lame time
confeffing that fir Isaac Newton, and mr. Lock, and
lord Bacon, and fir Robert Boile, and Grotius, and
Boerhaave, and Littleton, and Weft, and Pascal, and
Penn, and Barclay, and Phipps, were all chriftians, af
ter the molt impartial scrutiny, and the moll assiduous
investigation of the evidences by which revelation is
supported?
Did you ever fee a man who denied the possibility
of miracles, and yet demanding a conllant fcrics and
.uninterrupted fuccellion of them, to prove a divine
million ?
Have you ever seen a man who reproached religion
with all the horrors of persecution, and the fanaticifm
of the mod sanguinary zealots, and at the fame time ac
knowledging that these excesses were the evident abu
ses of chriftianity; and directly repugnant to the peace
able spirit of the gospel, and the notorious inhibitions
of its illustrious founder ?
Did you ever fee a man unable by the light of rea
son to reconcile the blemishes in the natural, and the
NEW-JERSEY GAZETTE.
[Vol. IX.]
TRENTON: Printed by ISAAC COLLINS, Printer to the State.
MO ND AY, June 12, 1786.
disorders in the mcral, wor.d, with the idea of an
all-wife and all-good governor of the universe—some
regions for instance, almost deprived of the heat of
the fun ; others scorched by its infoppor^hle splen
dor ; winds, tempests and earthquake, vuicanoes and
inundations threatening universal deftruCtion ; the ocean
overflowing the greatest part of the fl,c; and an
immense quantity Of its terra firma covered with
rocks and mountains and defarts of land, incapable
of cultivation ; nor apparently formed for thelukenance
of man or beaft —and this fame man able, by revela
tion, to reconcile all this; and yet scorning by revelation
to do it ?
Refpetting the moral world —have you ever seen a
man unable to account, by the light of reason, how a
Being infinitely good and infinitely powerful, Ihould
permit fin (which from the purity of his nature he
mult abhor, and by his omnipotence can certainly
prevent) not only to enter in's the world, but to be
more prevalent in it than virtue—Why he should fuf
fer injustice and tyranny to reign uncontrouled ; op
pression and violence to be fuccefsful and triumph over
pro-rate virtue and innocence; humility to be con
founded ; and piety to wander in penury and rags—
and able, by revelation, to account for all this, and
yet scorning by revelation to solve those, otherwise inex
plicable, difficulties !
Did you ever fee a man, who unable by the light of
reason to account for the competition of his own spe
cies, as at the fame time material and thinking beings,
while it is confeffedly of the essence of matter to be
incompatible with thought, equally unable to account
for the double nature 111 man—his general propensity
to vice, and his insuperable veneration for virtue—
his video meliora, proboque, and his deteriora fequoi —
his unconquerable moral depravity, and the remain
ing splendid fragments of his primaeval luftre ; and able
by revelation to account for all this; and yet scorning
by revelation to do it?
Have you ever seen a man, who, unable to prove,
by the light of reason, the immortality of the foul;
or that, from the intimate union between the opera
tions of the foul and those of the body, the latter
ccaling, the.former will not rminatc ; —and able, by
revelation, which hath brought immortality to light,
to prove his eternal duration; and yet scorning by
revelation to prove it ?
Did you ever fee a man who, unable by the light of
reason to account for his own hope^ of immortal hap
piness, from the absolute impossibility of reconciling,
by the help of that light, the immutable justice of
the Supreme Legillator, with the impunity of the
tranfgrefibrs of his laws (for as to the idea of the at
tribute of mercy, it is indubitably borrowed from re
velation ; and in the hands of those inferable reasoners,
most miserably perverted) and who by revelation, could
account for it; and yet scorning thus to solve this,
otherwise inscrutable, enigma?
Have you ever seen such a man fir? Why then you
have seen a—blockhead.
Let all the heathen writers join
To form one perfect book,
Great GOD, if once compar'd with thine,
How mean their writings look ?
Not the most perfect rules they gave
Could fbew one Jin forgiv'n;
Nor lead a Jlep beyond the grave,
But thine conduct to heaven.
Dr. Watts's verlion of the psalms.
HORTENTIUS.
^^^^^^^H^^O^
C^^@fc=-^
Foreign Intelligence.
P A R I S, March 31.
ON ,the 6th of this month, at a quarter after ten
o'clock in the morning, the wind being at north,
and very violent, a fire broke out in the village of
Tenelles, near Ribemont and Origny-Sainte-Bcuoit ;
and in less than three quarters of an hour, out of 160
houses of which it conliflcd, only 5 remained, among
which was one fuigle farmer's, all the rest having been
reduced to allies. By this terrible disaster the loss is
computed at near 500,000 livres, and about 650 per
form remain without habitations, food, or the means
of procuring any. Fourteen farmers are reduced to
the lalt extremity, and without nourishment for their
cattle.
A MSTERDA M, March 31.
The lalt letters Irom Lilboii, dated February 24,
mention the arrival of four Portuguese vessels from the
Eall-Indies, and had anchored at the Cape of Good
Hope. A paffengcr who was 011 board one of those
Ihips confirms the accounts we formerly received of
the regiment of Luxembourg having mutinied at Co
THE
" Being desirous to do every thing in our power to
present this dangerous moment, we think ourselves
bound to address their high mightinesses (the States
General) praying them that they would be pleafcd to
contribute to the utmost of their power to prevent the
fall of the company, and confequcntly the ruin of our
country. Permit us also to renew this request to you,
and to implore that you will have a dilpofition as fa
vourable, as ready to comply with our petition of the
17th of January, by which we recommended to you
the interest of a million of people.—We pray God,"
&c.
April 11. Ihe Dutch East-India company seems
nows at its last gasp. The missive they have presented
to the date of Holland, is a full proof that its ruin is
inevitable : it is conceived in the following terms:
" Noble, great and powerful lords,
" Being under the neceflity of laying before your
great mightinesses our want of money, we think it
our indilpenfible duty to inform your mightinesses
that this want has come to full extremity, that if we
do not obtain some assistance we fliall be obliged to flop
payment in a month's time.
" The right hon. lord Bristol, a virtuoso and a libe
ral encourager of the fine arts, being a few days ago
at the Villa Medicis, to examine the paintings exhi
bited there, was struck, among other things, with the
works of mr. Berger, a young pupil, native of Savov.
The English nobleman particularly admired his print
of Epaminondas drawing the spear from his bowels ;
he immediately enquired for the author of it, pur
chaled all his pictures at the price he set upon them,
made him a present of 600 livres Tournois, and fet
tled a penlion of f. 50 per annum during his life, on
condition that he fliall yearly furnilh him with a pic
ture, which his genius may fugged to him, and for
which his benefactor will pay him, independent of his
said pension."
It is a fact, that many of the bankers, with several
confiderablc merchants are so full of cash, that they
now discount good bills at four per cent, and the monied
men complain of their being luch a large sum in cir
culation, that they know not how to employ their ca
pitals to the fame advantage they have been ufcd to
for several years past.
March 27. A letter from Lisbon has the following
article : " The General Laurence, an American veffe[
is arrived here from Baltimore, laden with wheat and
flour. The matter lays, that he was obliged to rhn
into Gibraltar to elcape being taken by the Moors,
and the governor ordered a frigate to convoy him as
far as the coall of Portugal; a'favour he did not ex
pect from that quarter. He has petitioned for a con
voy to fee him out of the reach of the Barbarians,
which is granted, and the queen has ordered two men
of war for that fcrvice. The queen has done this to
encourage the Americans to bring the produce of their
country into Portugal, particularly corn and flour.
April 9. A few days since the Albion Mill, on the
Surry-fide of Blackfriars-bridge, commenced working.
This mill, the iargeft in the world, has been erected
by the proprietors for the beneficent and falutarv pur
pose of supplying this great metropolis with flour, and
of course reducing the price of bread, the greatest
blefling the poor can experience on this earth. The
machinery is worked by the operation of fleam, and
we are happy to fay, there is every reason to expert,
it will amply fulfil the intent, and fully reward the
ingenuity and publick spirit of those gentlemen, who
have risked their money in this arduous and laudable
undertaking.
DUBLI N, March 8.
Nothing is more ardently wished for by the mer
chants of Portugal, than an adjustment of the present
differences with this kingdom. The Portuguese am
bassador left his court with full powers and inftrudi-
The Rates of the province of Utrecht have lately
passed a vote, which serves to assure that they are not
likely to close with the States General in their late ne
gociations: the purport of it goes thus far, " Refolv
cd, that this Rate will never be blindly led by num
bers to adopt any measure, however warmly and high
ly lecommended, unless it fliall firft be made appear
as essential to the general interest of all the confederate
provinces; and that our deputies in the States Gene
lal be so intruded."
The petition is signed by the directors and princi
pal proprietors of the East-India company at Amster
dam.
lumbo, in the island of Ceylon, but he adds, that the
Dutch government had found means to quell the in
lurredion, and that twenty of the ringleaders were
condemned to die.
LONDO N, March 15.
Extract of a letter from Rome, February 17.
[Numb, 422.]