Norfolk Gazette And Publick Ledger

From the Weekly Inspector.

A picture of the character, views and designs of the French philosophists and their great leader the high-priest of impiety, the prime architect of ruin ---the infamous Voltaire. All eulogium on the author will be superfluous, when it is understood that it is by the pious, the learned, and the eloquent Horsley, late Bishop of St. Asaph.

"The centre from which the mischief hath spread, is France. In that kingdom the mystery of iniquity began to work somewhat earlier than the middle of the century that has just passed away.

Its machinations at first were secret, unperceived, disguised. Its instruments were persons in no conspicuous stations.

But by the persevering zeal of an individual, who, by an affectation of a depth of universal learning he never possessed; by audacity in the circulation of what he knew to be falsified history; by a counterfeit zeal for toleration; but above all by a certain brilliancy of unprincipled wit, contrived to acquire a celebrity for his name and a deference to his opinions, far beyond the proportion of what might be justly due either to his talents or to his attainments, (though neither the one nor the other were inconsiderable); by the persevering zeal, I say, of this miscreant, throughout a long, though an infirm and sickly life of bold active impiety, a conspiracy was formed of all the wit, the science, the philosophy and the politics, not only of France alone, but of many other countries, for the extirpation of the Christian name.

-The art, the industry, the disguise, the deep laid policy, with which the nefarious plot was carried on, the numbers of all ranks and descriptions which were drawn in to take part in it, are facts that are indeed astonishing. In this confederacy the men of letters certainly played the principal part. And with so much earnestness they played it, that for many years nothing was done in France for the improvement of science, without a view to the disservice of religion. To this purpose every discovery was bent, every advancement in learning was applied.

"From the middle of the century to the period of the French revolution, every great literary undertaking in that kingdom, every considerable publication upon whatever subject, Natural Philosophy, Natural History, Chymistry, Anatomy, Morals,

Law, and Politics, was in some way or other brought to bear, directly or indirectly, upon the great object of the conspiracy, the defamation and discredit of the Christian religion. This was seldom indeed the immediate and avowed object, but it was a sort of under-plot, if the expression may be allowed, in every piece, to which what appeared to be the main action was subservient. The scheme was in this part the more certain of success, and of a wide and permanent effect, because many of the works which have this tendency, were performances of great merit in their avowed subjects. and for a long time will be standard books among those who apply themselves to the sciences of which they treat. Thus they convey the poison in the most unsuspicious form; they have scattered it wide over the civilized world, and they will transmit it to remote ages.

The learned prelate then goes on to give several examples of the wonderful skill and success with which this deep laid plot was carried into execution, and particularly takes notice of that great monument of all the science, all the literature, all the wit of infidel France, the Encyclopedie Francaise.

"The famous Encyclopedie was undertaken by a knot of atheists, at the suggestion of the leader of the band, as a work which would prove highly conducive to the success of their plot, by the opportunities it would afford them, in the way in which it was proposed to them to manage it, in which, indeed, they have managed it, of disseminating their own principles, of bringing darkness, doubt. and uncertainty upon the first principles of religion and morals, and of perplexing the inquisitive mind with the subtlety of dismembered disquisition. upon abstruse metaphysical questions; disquisitions not given altogether, but broken into parts, and scattered as it were, in fragments through the work. care being taken, that what seems proved in one passage shall seem to be confuted in another; while the reader is studiously referred from the one to the other of these contradictory articles; that if he is a studious inquirer after truth, he may derive nothing from the most diligent consultation of these omniscient volumes, but the torment of doubt, mistrust, and universal scepticism. Foundering in that muddy ocean for a certain length of time, it will be well with him, indeed, if its troubled waters float him not at last, when his strength is spent, to the dreary shores of atheism. For if a man who has once believed in God, can but be brought to waver and doubt in that belief, the end generally will be, that. there will be no God for him. To bring man slily and unawares to this state, was the object of the Encyclopedie.'