Gazette Of The United States & Evening Advertiser

For the Gazette of the United States.

To JOSEPH PRIESTLEY, LL.D. &c.

SIR,

A stranger arrived in a new country with whose opinions, habits, and manners, he has but that imperfect acquaintance which is formed by literary correspondence, will be safer by preserving a respectful distance from, than by an intimate union with, any party who may step forward and endeavor by a flattering address to possess his mind in their favor.

Your answer to the address of the Democratic Society of New-York, is modest and decent, it conveys ideas of peace and harmony with all the world, but differing from their expectations.

They hoped to find in you the enemy of those who have persecuted you—they trusted that you were like themselves unable to forgive injuries or to forget wrongs done by or to themselves; that because you have written and preached in favor of the Unity of the Deity, you therefore, with them, were adverse to the principles of Christianity, inculcated in the sermon of Jesus Christ, delivered on the Mount of Olives, wherein he tells us that "Blessed are the Peace-makers for they shall be called the Children of God." Matt. v. 9. "Blessed are ye when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and say all manner of Evil against you falsely, for my sake; Rejoice and be glad: For great is your Reward in Heaven: For so persecuted they the Prophets, which were before you," Matt. v. 11 and 12.

Your answer to them convinces a number of your friends that they were and are mistaken in their ideas of your sentiments. There are few men in America, who will not be happy in the acquaintance of a person distinguished as you are by your researches in philosophy and mathematics—and the moderation of your enquiries into moral, natural, and revealed religion, and you will reap in this Western World a temporal enjoyment of a well earned reputation, if you preserve yourself from the spirit of party.

But, Sir, you are in danger—a party is endeavoring to make a merit to themselves of your weight and influence—Beware, Sir, of casting it into the scale on either side. In the preponderant scale, its value will be lost by a mixture with the majority—in the lighter scale it will kick the beam with your associates and be found wanting:—Preserve it then; for the good of mankind, by your guarded conduct. and let us (who have only heard from a distance) see that your virtues are truly Christian, tho' you express doubts of the Divinity of our Saviour; that you believe in the message, tho' you doubt the character attributed to the Messenger, and that persecuted in one City you have fled to another, only for peace and repose.

Be assured Sir, that there is no persecution here against opinions, and that however different yours may be from that of the majority, you may write, print or preach them, without danger of persecution of any kind; and that while we are instructed by those parts of your doctrines, which with freedom we imbibe, we shall never be angry because we cannot subscribe to those which we reject, nor suspect you of being displeased for the exercise of our free will.

Conducting yourself in this way, your private virtues, your industry in the pursuit of knowledge useful to mankind, will render your name respected as Franklin's by a contrary conduct, by coalescing with any party whatever, you will certainly diminish your fame as much as the opposite party is proportioned to that which you shall adopt, and possibly by the merger of that party, sink the whole of your well earned reputation in a long life.

Yours, &c.

SENEX.

Phil. June 7th, 1794.