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LETTER II.
To Mrs. K———.
April 6, 1781.
Madam,
Of all the letters which I have received on this occasion, I cannot single out one, which appears to me so adapted to shew the force of prejudice, as yours of the 3d inst. You are so civil, and so charitable, as to say—"I cannot help comparing you to Voltaire; you, like him, have written against the religion of your country, and to make the laws of the church contemptible; and what you have said against the marriage-act does not discover much more veneration for the laws of the state." In short, Madam, you might have summed up all this in a much less compass, and called me heretic and rebel at once.
As for Mr. de Voltaire, whose works I have read throughout, I think him the most ignorant and impudent blasphemer of the Bible that ever yet appeared: but at the same time, I must set him down as a lively and brilliant writer, and acknowledge, that no man ever attacked the superstition, folly, and knavery of the church of Rome with so much genuine wit, or ever placed these in so contemptible a light, or with so much probability of making them ridiculous, as Mr. de Voltaire. Pity, that while the acuteness of his genius was cutting up the tares, the rooted infidelity of his heart was endeavouring to destroy the wheat also.
Now, Madam, if you can produce me a single passage from my book, which, by any fairness of construction, can tend to lessen that reverence for the holy Scriptures, which, I can truly say, was one chief design of every volume to inculcate, I will undertake (like Mucius Scevola, when he had killed one of King Porsenna's nobles) to commit (not only the book, but) the hand that wrote it to the flames.—So much for my "writing, like Voltaire, against the religion of my country."
As to the laws of the church"—so far as they agree with the Scriptures, I hold them in equal veneration—so far as they relate to things indifferent, I would, for peace sake, observe them; but, so far as any of them appear to me to contradict or oppose the law of God, I feel myself wishing for the zeal of our first Reformers to oppose them. So far as they are pregnant with the most apparent mischiefs to the weaker sex, in preventing those claims on their seducers which God's laws allow them, and are thus instrumental in their ruin and destruction, I would wish for Virgil's hundred tongues and mouths to declaim against them: and so far as "the laws of the church" minister to the cause of folly and superstition, I could wish for the wit, genius, and spirit of Voltaire to laugh them out of the world.
With regard to "the laws of the state," you may, if you please, apply to them what I have said concerning "the laws of the church." As for the marriage-act, the frequent attempts which have been made to repeal it, and a bill for that purpose being very probably designed to be part of the business of every session of parliament, 'till it is done, are evidences that I am by no means singular in my sentiments on that subject.
I intended to have added something on the prejudices which seem to have such full possession of your mind; but as it would make this letter too long, I must defer it till a future opportunity, adding no more at this time, than that I am,
Madam,
Yours, &c. &c.
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