то George Poplewell, Efq; OF. East-Retford in Nottinghamshire. SIR, S A liberty you are a lover of truth and liberty, and a foe to priestcraft and fpiritual tyranny, I beg leave to infcribe this volume to your name. Having no views selfish or perfonal, I am under no temptation to flatter you nor am I fo vain as to think, that this dedication can do you any honour. It will, probably, expose you to the fame cenfures which the editor himself has long fuffered; the cenfures of the ignorant, the bigot, the hypocrite, and the priest. But you and I, Sir, God be thanked! have both learned to defpife these things, and to pity the authors of them. To that juft zeal which I have often heard you exprefs for civil liberty, you have likewife added a noble zeal for that which is religious. After having acquired a plentiful fortune by honest induftry, you still continue to affociate with those only who are the friends of liberty; nor are you afhamed to countenance and encourage thofe that dif fent from the established church. And indeed it is quite inconfiftent with all juft notions of civil liberty, to be indifferent about religious fhackles and the impositions of priefts. Oppreffion in matters of religion, and ecclefiaftical tyranny, ever made way for, and will eternally introduce, civil bondage, and the tyranny of princes: and in our own history more especially it appears, that civil and religious oppreffion rife and fall together. I congratulate you upon that noble fpirit which of late years hath appeared in this nation; a fpirit of free enquiry, and careful fearch after truth: The confequences of it will, we hope, be happy and glorious to our country. That God Almighty may long preferve your life; and as you increase in years, that you may advance in wif dom |