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THE

Gentleman's Magazine:

For OCTOBER 1762.

Oa. 19, 1762. OU have been fo kind as to oblige your readers, by inferting many curious anecdotes and

letters of deceafed A perfons, fome of which I have fent you. This gives me encouragement to hope you will publish the following epiftle (in your next Magazine) which I can warrant an original. It was written by the Rev. Mr Simon B Brotune (who was many years ago a minifter and an author in this city) to the Rev. Mr Read, of Bradford, Wilts, deceafed, from whom I received it. It is well known, that for feveral years Mr Browne had a peculiar and unhappy turn of mind concern-C ing himself, imagining that he had no rational foul; at the fame time he was fo acute a difputant, that his friends faid he could reafon as if he was poffeffed of two fouls. Your publishing this letter, as it may be ufeful to fome perfons, will oblige,

Sir, Yours. &c. R. W.

Reverend Sir,

Doubt not you have been earnest

I with God on my behalf, fince you

left the city, who expreffed fo much tender concern for me while you were in it. I wish I could write any thing to you that might turn your compaffion into thanksgiving, and your prayers into praifes. But alas! nothing of that kind is to be expected from one who has lived a life of def. ance to God, under a Chriftian pro feffion, and a facred character, and is now, thro' his juft difpleafure, in the most forlorn ftate a man can be in on earth, perfectly empty of all thought, reflection, confcience, or confideration; deftitute, entirely deftitute of the knowledge of God, and Chrift,

D

and his own foul, and the things beth of time and eternity, being unable to look backward or forward, or inward or outward, or upward or downward; having no conviction of fin or duty, no capacity of reviewing his conduct, or looking forward with expectation of either good or evil; and, in a word, without any principles of eligion, or even of reafon, and without the common fentiments or affections of human nature; infenfible even to the good things of life, incapable of tafting any prefent enjoyments, or expecting future ones; dead to his children, friends, and country; having no intereft, either bodily or fpiritual, temporal or eternal, to value or mind, but converted into a meer healt, that can relish nothing but prefent bodily anticipation or recollection. enjoyments, without tafting them by

This is my true condition: Thus am I thrown down from my excellency. Because I had not, God has taken away the things that I had. Indeed I have not thofe horrors on my mind to which you was a witness;

I

am grown more calm, because more infenfible, and every day fince you faw me has this infenfibility been growing upon me; nor can it be removed without a miracle of grace, and for this grace I cannot pray, baving loft all fight of God, and tendernefs of foul towards him. Such an inftance of divine displeafure, the world hardly ever faw, much lefs one recovered by divine grace out of fuch a condition. I doubt whether you have room to pray, but if you think you have, I doubt not but you will be fervent at the throne of grace in your reques. But I am fo changed, that I must first be made a man, before I can become a Chriftian; having now none of that knowledge or common fentiments on which a faving change must be founded. I am utterly inca

paple

454

Original Letter of the Rev. Simon Browne.

pable of any business in life, and must quit my prefent ftation, and think as foon as I can to be retiring into my own country, there to spend out the wretched remains of a miferable life, which yet I am continually prompt to deftroy. I thought you would be willing to hear from me; and tho you cannot be pleafed with the account, I am obliged to give you a true one, and beg an intereft in your prayers, which will turn to your own account, if it avails nothing towards the falvation of the most wretched and wicked finner, who would yet, if he was able, be

Your Friend and Servant,

SIMON BROWNE.

But the moft aftonishing proof both of his intellectual excellence and defect, is, A Defence of the Religion of Nature and the Chriftian Revelation, in anAfwer to Tindal's Chriftianity as old as the Creation, and his dedication of it to the late Queen. The book is univerfally allowed to be the beft which that controverfy produced, and the dedication is as follows:

B

The following account of this extraordinary man ve have taken from the Adventurer, No. 88, as a proper fup. C plement to this letter; for which we are greatly obliged to our correspondent.

R Simon Brorene was a diffenting

M teacher, of exemplary life, and

eminent intellectual abilities; who, after having been fome time feized with melancholy, defifted from the duties of his function, and could not be perfuaded to join in any act of worthip either public or private. His friends often urged him to account for this change in his conduct, at which they expreffed the utmolt grief and aftonishment; and after much importunity, he told them, that he

had fallen under the fenfible difpleafure of God, who had caufed his rational foul gradually to perifh, and left him only an animal life in common with brutes; that it was, therefore, prophane for him to pray, and incongruous to be prefent at the prayers of others."

In this opinion, however abfurd, he was inflexible, at a time when ali the powers of his mind fubfifted in their full vigour, when his conceptions were clear, and his reafoning ftrong:

'MADAM,

Of all the extraordinary things that have been rendered to your royal hands fince your first happy arrival in Britain, it may be boldly faid, what now befpeaks your ma'jefty's acceptance is the chief.

Not in itfelf indeed; it is a trifle 'unworthy your exalted rank, and what will hardly prove an entertaining amufement to one of your majelly's deep penetration, exact judg

'ment, and fine taste.

But on account of the author, who is the first being of the kind, 6 and yet without a name.

He was once a man; and of fome little name; but of no worth, as his Dprefent unparallelled cafe makes but too manifelt: for by the immediate hand of an avenging God, his very thinking fubftance has for more than feven years been continually waiting away, till it is wholly perifhed out of him, if it be not utterly come to nothing. None, no not the least remembrance of its very ruins remains, not the fhadow of an idea is left, nor any fenfe that, fo · much as one fingle one, perfect or imperfect, whole or diminished, ever did appear to a mind within him, or was perceived by it.

E

F

Being once importuned to fay grace at the table of a friend, he excufed G himself many times; but the request being ftill repeated, and the company kept standing, he difcovered evident tokens of diftrefs, and, after fome irrefolute geftures and hesitation, expreffed with great fervor this ejaculation: Moft merciful and almighty H God, let thy fpirit, which moved upon the face of the waters when there was no light, defcend upon me that from this darknefs there fe up a man to praife the

Such a prefent from fuch a thing, however worthlefs in itself, may not be wholly unacceptable to your majefty. the auther being fuch as hiftory cannot parallel; and if the fact, which is real, and no fiction nor wrong conceit, obtains credit, it must be recorded as the most memorable and indeed aftonishing event in the reign of George the IId, that a tract compofed by fuch a thing was prefented to the illuftrious Caroline; his royal confort needs not be added; fame, if I am not mifinformed, will tell that with pleasure to all fucceeding times.

He has been informed, that your majelty's piety is as genuine and eminent, as your excellent qualities are great and confpicuous. This * can, indeed, be truly known to the