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510 TESTIMONY OF CONTEMPORARIES. [Doc. 259.
of any considerable profession or body of men is concerned.
Established doctrines and opinions are considered as sacred,
and the sanction of custom gives them, with many, the firmness
of a rock; as is known to have been the case in physics,
astronomy, and natural philosophy, in which truth, though
supported by the evidence of demonstration, has scarcely been
able to make its way in a century. Besides, the pride of
learning is strong on the side of established institutions, and
for men to part with what they have been building up with
much study and pains for a great part of their lives, is a
mortifying consideration ; they are startled at the thoughts of
becoming thus poor, and some would be as willing to part
with their lives as with their acquisitions of this kind ; and
hence it is, that we read of so many martyrs to error and
folly in all ages.
20. "These things considered, we are not to wonder that
our author’s publications have met with no better encouragement
hitherto in his own country, (as is usually the case with prophets,)
we being informed some time ago by a worthy merchant at
Gottenburg, that but few of the clergy (as far as had come
to his knowledge) had there received them; and that the
Reverend Dr. Beyer,22 a learned man, and lector in the
gymnasium of that town, had suffered much persecution for
adopting and propagating the truths contained in his writings,
and was not suffered to print his explication and defence of
them in Sweden.* But, to the honour of our constitution, we
can as yet call the liberty of the press (and a liberty with
in the bounds of decency may it always be) the privilege of
Englishmen, and therefore may reasonably hope for better
success to our author’s writings in this land of freedom; not
that we expect any encouragement on their behalf from our
Pharisees and bigots of any denomination, for they are the
same everywhere; but our hopes are from men of unprejudiced
minds, dead to self and the world, of a simplified understand
ing, and such as are friends to wisdom wherever they find
her; in a word, whose spirit harmonizes with truth, and whose
hearts are in unison with heavenly things."
For further particulars see Document 245.
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