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THE 
 
 BROTHERS' CONTROVERSY ; 
 
 A GENUINE CORRESPONDENCE 
 
 BETWtKN A 
 
 CLERGYMANXH' THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND 
 
 -^-"^yii -L0.4UJ 
 
 LAYMAN OF UNHARL^N OPINIOK8: 
 
 CHIEKLY ON THE OT'ES/lOS 
 
 HOW FAR BELIEF IS AN A( T OF THE WU.J. : 
 
 ON THE USE OF REASON IN THE STIDY OF THE HLBI.E ; 
 
 AND HOW FAR IT IS THE DL'TY OF ITNI.EAKNEI) < HKISTIANS TO 
 
 EXAMINE <JR IMPLICITLY ABIDE BY THE RELKilON 
 
 OF THEIR EDI'CATIUN. 
 
 " Let each be regarded by each as a fellow pilgrim to tlie 
 land of eternity, as much concerned as his brother to imder- 
 stand what God has been pleased to reveal of himself, and 
 of the final destiny of his rational offspring."— -VorfyA Tun 
 Ditco u rtes^PreJa tory A ddress. 
 
 LONDON : 
 B. FELLOWES, LUDGATE STREET. 
 
 1836. 
 
LONDON :— R. CLAY, PRINTER, EREAD-STREKT-HILL. 
 
EDITORS PREFACE. 
 
 It will be apparent to any reader into whose 
 hands the following correspondence may fall, 
 that no one Letter it contains was written with 
 any view to publication ; but it does not follow 
 that its publication may not be useful. The 
 Editor is of opinion that it may be highly so, 
 principally from the example it affords of the 
 manner in which controversy may be carried 
 on when the parties are actuated solely by 
 earnest anxiety for truth, not influenced by the 
 pride of triumph. They seem to have left 
 off' nearly where they began — each satisfied 
 with his own arguments, and each wondering 
 at, and lamenting the immobility of the other ; 
 yet, as the Editor can say, from personal 
 
IV PREFACE. 
 
 observation, and from the declaration of the 
 parties themselves, drawn nearer in affection 
 in the later period of their lives. 
 
 The Letters have been in the Editor's pos- 
 session many years, and he had permission to 
 lend them (that is, a copy without names) 
 to a few chosen friends, some of whom have 
 entreated that they might see them in print ; 
 a request with which he could not comply, nor 
 could he even permit a copy to be taken, with- 
 out appearing to give uneasiness to the 
 friends of one of the writers, who had much 
 objection against his being at any time quoted 
 as a theological controversialist. 
 
 Under circumstances which have since oc- 
 curred, (the MSS. being still in his hands,) he 
 finds himself at liberty to use them according to 
 his discretion, without violating the confidence 
 originally implied. He gives the following rea- 
 sons for the step he now takes : — 
 
 One of the friends above alluded to, many 
 years ago, writes, — " Your MSS. are intensely 
 interesting; I have not fully perused them, 
 which is partly accounted for by the limitation of 
 my leisure, and partly by the nature of the sub- 
 ject, which admits not a cursory view. What I 
 have read, however, sufficiently proves that chris- 
 tian theology may be debated with christian 
 
PREFACE. V 
 
 charity; and while it highly confirms my esti- 
 mation of the parties, it transports me with an 
 earnest desire of enjoying the more intimate 
 acquaintance of the frank and zealous layman, 
 and his highly learned, pious, and eloquent 
 brother." 
 
 From the same, shortly afterwards : — 
 " There is much in the correspondence Avhich 
 I should like to discuss with you when oppor- 
 tunity offers, but, at present, I have not suffi- 
 cient command of my thoughts to enter on a 
 subject so important ; but although the parties 
 intimate a cessation of the correspondence, I 
 trust it will be renewed, for it certainly cannot 
 be called concluded ; and if such prove to be the 
 case, I shall esteem a sight of it a particular 
 favour." 
 
 This was written nearly ten years ago. The 
 renewal never did take place, and it is now 
 impossible; but it is not too late for others to 
 take it up, and that the Editor would be very 
 desirous to witness.* 
 
 • If some influential religious periodical would open its 
 pages to discussion on both sides, the example of these cor- 
 respondents may be followed on the same principle of amicable 
 and affectionate controversy. Controversy is all ivarfare now ; 
 why should there not be continued treaties for peace ? Many a 
 scowl and censure passes from one to another merely from 
 misapprehension and want of explanation. Friends would find 
 
 h 
 
VI PREFACE. 
 
 Another friend says : — 
 
 " I wish you would print it. The perusal of 
 these letters, when known to be genuine, may be 
 gratifying to any class of serious persons, whether 
 of the Church of England, or Dissenters from it ; 
 and may help them in that self-examination which 
 Mr. Erskine, in his Essay on Faith, so justly 
 inculcates ; viz. ' whether their ideas are not 
 derived almost entirely from creeds and church 
 articles, or human compositions of some kind,' 
 the evil consequence of the want of which in- 
 quiry, he says, ' are most grievous.' " 
 
 Another friend says : — 
 
 *' I and my wife are very much interested in 
 the ' letters :' you must permit me to say, that, as 
 an Unitarian, I should advise against the publi- 
 cation ; for I think the clergyman will make the 
 converts." The Editor answers, " that is nothing 
 to me. I want to make orthodox and sectarians 
 think and discuss." 
 
 Lastly, a friend, an author, whom the Editor 
 has not permission to name, lately consulted, 
 says, " I should be glad to hear of its publi- 
 cation : not because I am of opinion that it will 
 go far in making converts on either side ; but 
 
 brethren and fellow-christians amongst those whom they have 
 thought infidels ; be freed from painful doubts by conversing 
 on'y with those whom they have feared. 
 
PREFACE. VII 
 
 because it may tend to promote a spirit of in- 
 quiry, and certainly presents an admirable spe- 
 cimen of the temper in which such discussions 
 ought to be conducted I admire the con- 
 troversy, because both parties appear to be 
 influenced by an earnest and serious desire of 
 maintaining what they think is important truth . . . 
 I might, of course, animadvert on many parts of 
 tlie correspondence on either side," &c. &c. &c. 
 
 These parts the Editor does not give ; leaving 
 comments entirely to the reader. 
 
 In compliance, then, with the wishes thus 
 expressed, with his own desire and hope of 
 promoting such a spirit of non-polemic, family, 
 friendly controversy, the Editor now sends them 
 to the press ; giving the whole of the letters 
 faithfully, without comment, without altering a 
 word or syllable, vouching only for their ge- 
 nuineness ; the internal evidence of which he 
 considers will, of itself, suffice to satisfy most 
 readers. 
 
 One caution he desires much to enforce, and 
 particularly to his female readers : " Do not 
 throw it down, frightened at a few Greek words." 
 See the mention of that subject in Letter XI. 
 and lay the Greek by.* 
 
 • There are only five or six Greek phrases brought into 
 view at all, and the difference of construction put on them needs 
 
VIU PREFACE. 
 
 not interrupt the argumentative expostulation on either side : — 
 b wv, Rom. ix. 5, is by one party construed, " who is," and by the 
 other, " the being who is:" iir\ira.vT()>v, " over all," or " above 
 all," or " over all things :" 5t' ov, Heb. i. 2, is by some con- 
 strued, " iUrough whom," or "by whom;" by some, "for 
 vi'liom :" dpnayfibs, by some, " robbery," by others, " a prey," or 
 " a prize :" Tcra, " like," or " as," or " equal with :" iTrrwxevae, 
 " became poor," or " led a life of poverty :" Alwvfs, by some, 
 " worlds," by others, " ages or dispensations :" iysvero, " was 
 or were 7nade, or done," or " happened," or " came to pass." 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 LETTER I. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 C to S Fcbruari/ 6, 1823 .... 1—9 
 
 LETTER n. 
 D to C February, 1823 10—15 
 
 LETTER in. 
 
 C to D February 20, 1823 . . . . 16—22 
 
 In page 16, reference is made to pages 12 and 14 
 „ 21 35 
 
 LETTER IV. 
 S to C April M,\823 23—17 
 
 LETTER V. 
 
 D to C May 18, 1823 28—42 
 
 In page 29 reference is made to page 14 
 
 ■io 21 
 
 37 ib. 
 
 LETTER VI. 
 
 C to D January 19, 1824 . . . . 43—58 
 
 In page 43 reference is made to pages 30 and 31 
 , oO 39 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 LETTER YIl. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 D to C Fehruary, \%2\: 59-82 
 
 In page C3 reference is made to pages 50, 4^, and 31 
 
 60 
 65 
 71 
 
 77 
 78 
 79 
 
 17, 30, 31, and 44 
 44 and 40 
 45 
 S5 
 50 
 109 
 67 
 
 D- 
 
 LETTER VIII. 
 toC JprU,l82i . ■ 83-92 
 
 LETTER IX. 
 
 to D September, 1824 
 
 93—120 
 
 In page 95 reference is made to pages 61, 44, 66, and CS 
 
 108 79 and 80 
 
 111 21 and 35 
 
 112 35, 71, and 76 
 
 114 91 and 90 
 
 118 ......... 90 
 
 120 92, 61, and 62 
 
 LETTER X. 
 
 D to C Februanj, 1825 121- 
 
 In page 127 reference is made to pages 32 and 94 
 
 „ 128 95 
 
 „ 129 128 
 
 132 98 
 
 „ 134 9^ and 97 
 
 „ 135 100 
 
 ,, 137 102 
 
 „ 138 ih. 
 
 „ 141 ......... . 104 andS6 
 
 „ 142 105 and 106 
 
 -148 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 XI 
 
 LETTEU XI. 
 
 D to C April, \S2b 149—182 
 
 III jiage 150 reference is made to page 51 
 
 ,, 155 ib. 
 
 „ 159 119 
 
 IC8 ib. 
 
 „ 169 160 
 
 .. 170 119 
 
 LETTER XII. 
 
 toD- 
 
 Julij, 1826 183—21! 
 
 In page 184, f/ scq. reference is made 
 
 principally to Letter XI. page 150, el scq. 
 
 189 125 
 
 193 136 
 
 194 ib. 
 
 196 144 and iro 
 
 197 
 198 
 199 
 200 
 204 
 205 
 207 
 208 
 209 
 
 139 
 HO 
 141 
 142 
 143 
 ISO 
 152 
 153 
 176 
 
 211 178, 169, and 100 
 
 213 180 
 
 218 170 
 
 Tni s Work, which was at first printed only to distribute amongst friends, 
 being now published, the Editor deems it not less than justice to one of 
 the Correspondents, (with both of whom, as he has intimated in his Pre- 
 face, he was upon the footing of the most perfect intimacy,) to observe, 
 
 that one of them (to wit, he whose letters are subscribed C ) had no 
 
 opportunity of keeping copies of his own letters, and, therefore, never had 
 the correspondence, as a whole, before his eyes; while D , unengaged. 
 
Xll ERRATA. 
 
 in any public or personal duty, certainly did keep copies, and had leisure 
 to study his part. If, then, either unnecessary repetition, or even some 
 apparent inconsistency, should, in any degree, seem chargeable upon 
 
 C , the Editor, professing to give genuine Letters, considers it his 
 
 duty thus to present each on its just and true footing. 
 
 ERRATA. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 31, /or Estlen, read Estlin. 
 
 32, last line, /or his, read this. 
 
 55, for Mozsey, read Moysey. 
 
 81, lines 11 and 12, insert parenthesis marks before 'to which,' and 
 
 after 'punished.' 
 85, line 11, for has, read have. 
 
 98, line 7 from bottom, dele quotation marks before ' totldem,' and insert 
 
 before ' haeretici ;' also place ' totidem verbis' in parentheses. 
 
 99, lines 1 and 3, for ci/ii; read c! /i>;. 
 103, line 17, /or hnoin'rn read t?roi'ti<re. 
 
 142, lines 18 and 19, for purchased with blood, read with his'own blood. 
 H6, line 5 from bottom, for now-a-days, read now-o'-days, which is the 
 original MS. {nunc dierum, Lat.) 
 
 163, line 2, for made wood, read made of wood. 
 
 164, line 9 from bottom, /or friend, read friends. 
 
 175, line 12, place quotation mark after 'heaven ;' line 13, before 'a sin- 
 cere,' and comma after ' that.' 
 193, ref to Phil. ii. 6, add 2 Cor. viii. 9, 10. 
 195, line 7, for orbs, read oibis. 
 219, line 10 from bottom, for observation, read observations. 
 
LETTERS. 
 
 LETTER I. 
 
 February 6, 1823. 
 
 My Dear S , 
 
 The two little treatises (viz. Erskine on 
 Faith, &c.) which accompany this letter, appear 
 to me to bear the stamp of divine truth most 
 strongly impressed upon them ; and as they treat 
 of subjects of the very last importance both to 
 you and to me, I earnestly beseech you to give 
 them a candid and attentive perusal. 
 
 The state of your religious belief has long 
 been a subject of the most harassing anxiety to 
 me, because, although I presumed not to fix 
 the cause which at first influenced that belief, 
 
 B 
 
yet I could not blind niy eyes to the conclusion 
 that it might have originated in something which 
 involved moral guilt in the sight of God ; and 
 the bare idea of this filled me with apprehension 
 on your behalf. In reviewing the chastisements 
 which it has pleased God from time to time to 
 impose upon me, this I have ever considered as 
 the heaviest sorrow that has visited me ; and 
 whenever I have, in thought, anticipated the bed 
 of death, your image has so been associated with 
 it, that I have felt as if, in the last solemn hour, 
 the last worldly care that should weigh upon me, 
 the last worldly prayer that I should utter, 
 would be for your return to the faith which 
 you had abandoned. 
 
 These perpetually recurring thoughts naturally 
 suggested the attempt to lead you back again ; 
 but any invitation to retrace your steps through 
 the endless mazes of critical controversy, I was 
 convinced must be useless ; there must be some 
 simpler method ; and I had myself begun to 
 pursue a train of reasoning which I have lately 
 found so forcibly developed in the works I now 
 offer to your attention, that I resolved no longer 
 to delay intreating your consideration in behalf 
 of these momentous subjects. 
 
 When you are assured that the happiness of 
 one of your fellow-creatures is deeply concerned 
 
n the decision you shall make upon them, the 
 common feelings of humanity would prompt you 
 to examine thoroughly the arguments he pro- 
 poses for your consideration ; but when the 
 appeal is made by an affectionate brother to 
 an affectionate sister, it surely cannot remain 
 unheeded. 
 
 One caution, however, you must excuse me 
 for addressing to you ; and most solemnly do I 
 conjure you to attend to it : If you enter upon 
 these subjects in your own strength, I utterly 
 despair of your ever discovering or abidino- in 
 that great truth which is the very corner-stone 
 of Christianity. I am too well aware how much 
 it is the custom, among many of your persuasion, 
 to ridicule the idea that human reason alone is 
 incompetent to secure us from error on these 
 points. T must, therefore, bespeak your attention 
 for a few minutes, while I explain to you my sen- 
 timents upon this subject. 
 
 If I were prepared to admit that the truths 
 revealed in the gospel are abstract and purely 
 intellectual propositions, I should agree that 
 unaided human intellect might comprehend them 
 in their fullest meaning, though I should still 
 hold that man to be presumptuous, to be wanting 
 in humble dependence upon God, and untaught 
 by the system of moral discipline, whose 
 b2 
 
evidences obtrude themselves on his notice on 
 all sides, who did not, in entering on the inves- 
 tigation of them, implore the Divine assistance 
 to aid him in this, as in all his other under- 
 takings. Widely different, however, is the case 
 with gospel truth. As it is, somehow or other, to 
 be a mighty instrument in our salvation, it must 
 be of such a nature as to exert a moral influence 
 over us ; and our blessed Lord intimated as 
 much when he spoke of the truth as sanctifying 
 us. (Johnxvii. 19.) This truth, therefore, comes 
 in contact with our moral character, and its accept- 
 ance, or rejection, is influenced by moral causes. 
 Now it is a fundamental maxim, not only 
 in christian, but in heathen ethics also, that 
 the wilfulness of the heart blinds the under- 
 standing ; and that, in practical matters, what- 
 ever we wish to believe, we soon do believe. In 
 sitting down, therefore, to investigate that object 
 of belief, whatever it may be, which is declared 
 to be essential to salvation, it is plain that not 
 only the head, but the heart also, must be 
 aright ; so that if, when we first set forth upon 
 the inquiry after the truth as it is in Christ 
 Jesus, we have indulged in feelings and reflec- 
 tions calculated to awaken a spirit contrary to 
 the spirit of any doctrine there to be met with, 
 the influence thereby produced upon our deci- 
 
sions will more than counterbalance the etTects 
 of the most acute penetration. 
 
 If any one has that unhesitating confidence in 
 the singleness and simplicity of his heart, and 
 in the uncompromising strength of his judgment, 
 that he holds it impossible for his practical con- 
 clusion in moral truths to be any other tiian the 
 right one, it must be confessed that that person 
 will feel but little inclination to summon to his 
 aid the counteracting influence of Divine grace 
 upon his heart and understanding ; but it must, 
 at the same time, be admitted, that though aided 
 by the light of revelation, he practically denies 
 one of the first principles in morals which 
 natural religion long since taught the philo- 
 sophers of Greece and Rome; he practically 
 refuses to acknowledge the truth that (Wis- 
 dom ix- 15, 17) "the corruptible body presseth 
 down the soul, and the earthly tabernacle 
 weigheth down the mind that museth on many 
 things;" or, with Solomon, he would have ex- 
 claimed, " Thy counsel, O God, who hath 
 known, except thou give him wisdom, and send 
 thy Holy Spirit from above ? " 
 
 Such, surely, my dear S , must be the 
 
 feelings of the rational, the humble, the pious 
 Christian. Suppose him conscious of possessing 
 an understanding of unrivalled vigour, yet with 
 
6 
 
 him is intellectual confidence so blended with, 
 and subdued by a sense of moral infirmity, that 
 he acknowledges (Wisdom viii. ^1,) he cannot 
 obtain wisdom, except God give it him ; he con- 
 fesses that it is a point of wisdom to know whose 
 gift it is ; he prays to the Lord for it with his 
 whole heart, and he knows that he shall receive 
 it, for God is faithful who has promised. 
 
 The demonstration I have here attempted really 
 seems so self-evident, that I am almost ashamed 
 of seeming to think you require proof of it ; but, 
 unhappily, I perceive that the leading persons of 
 your persuasion openly profess principles op- 
 posed to those which I have been endeavouring 
 to enforce ; and though I can hardly bring myself 
 to imagine that you go with them such lengths, 
 yet, as I cannot blind myself to the conclusion 
 that you are in an error which may prove fatal, 
 and as I see a moral cause directly tending to 
 produce that effect, operating among many who 
 think with you, I cannot rest satisfied that you 
 are not, in some degree, influenced by it. 
 
 Did you then, my dearest S , when you 
 
 first entered upon the investigation of these ques- 
 tions, indulge no lurking wish in your heart that 
 the belief you now entertain might be impressed 
 on your mind? If this was the case, if your 
 judgment was unaided by the Divine influence, 
 
it entered the field at unequal odds, and was, of 
 necessity, vanquished; the wish, then, necessarily 
 led to its completion : and if, in perusing the 
 arguments I now offer to your consideration, you 
 shall still wish to continue in the same per- 
 suasion, you almost infallibly will do so, how- 
 ever erroneous that persuasion may be. This, 
 you will perhaps say, is a hard doctrine ; but it is 
 a doctrine founded upon the first principles of 
 man's moral constitution, and confirmed in every 
 page of God's revealed word. 
 
 Is conviction, then, never to be complete ? and 
 are w'e never to feel satisfied that we have appre- 
 hended the truth ? In answer to this, I must for 
 ray own part state, that though the doctrines for 
 which I am so anxious to gain your belief, 
 though these doctrines, I say, are the delight and 
 consolation of ray existence ; though I feel that 
 were I to surrender the hopes which they sug- 
 gest I should surrender all that to me makes life 
 most valuable; though I am persuaded that they 
 have the highest influence in cultivating the best 
 and noblest affections of our heart, and in bring- 
 ing it gradually into conformity with the prin- 
 ciples of our heavenly Father; — in short, though 
 I do believe that I apprehend the truth, however 
 faintly and imperfectly; yet if it be God's will, 
 and truth after all be not on my side, I am 
 
8 
 
 content to abandon all ; and therefore do I still 
 pray continually and most cordially, that God 
 will remove all those obstacles which close the 
 avenues of the heart against the entrance of his 
 blessed word, and that he will guide me, through 
 his mercies in Christ Jesus, into all truth. The 
 principles which influence me in this view of the 
 subject, and in these feelings, are the follow- 
 ing. 
 
 If the truth that produces conviction is to 
 sanctify us, it must come in contact with all that 
 is unsanctified, and subdue it. Our difference, 
 then, in the formation of our moral conviction, 
 will be exactly in proportion to the conviction we 
 have of our own distance from moral perfection ; 
 and self-confidence in the formation of our moral 
 conviction must argue a sense of self-righteous- 
 ness, which man is no where taught to indulge ; 
 which militates most especially against that 
 humble frame of mind so indispensable to the 
 christian character, and which will never bring 
 down God's blessing upon its labours in discovery 
 of truth. (In aid of these observations, pray 
 read 1 Cor. i. 16, to the end, and Luke x. 21.) 
 
 I will now conclude, and commit the issue of 
 this appeal to Him who is the great disposer 
 of all events : if He be with us, who shall be 
 against us ? and if He be not with us, vain 
 
indeed is the help of man. We, indeed, may 
 plant and water, but it is God that giveth the 
 increase ; the sower may liberally dispense the 
 seed, but if there be noxious weeds that obstruct 
 its growth, it will soon be choked ; and even 
 with all due cultivation and preparation of the 
 husbandman, his labour will be fruitless, unless 
 cherished by the genial influence of the sun, and 
 visited by the precious dew of heaven. 
 
 O may you and your husband, (for to him 
 also are these observations, in all affection, ad- 
 dressed,) may you both meditate upon these 
 things to your soul's health ; and may the Divine 
 blessing be with you ! Think not still to say 
 within yourselves, like Naaman, that the rivers 
 of Damascus are better than all tlie waters of 
 Israel, or the leprosy of sin v/ill still cleave to 
 you ; but having once, like him, rejected the 
 proffered remedy, may you like him, too, repent 
 of your hasty refusal ; and, purified by the blood 
 of the Lamb, which cleanseth from all sin, may 
 you be enabled by God's grace to meet Him 
 without confusion as your judge, whom you shall 
 then have acknowledged as your Redeemer also. 
 Believe me ever, 
 
 My dearest S , 
 
 Your unalterably attached Brother, 
 
 C. 
 
 B.3 
 
10 
 
 LETTER II. 
 
 February, 1823. 
 
 My Dear C , 
 
 Your sister is about to thank you for the 
 book you have sent, and for your affectionate 
 letter which accompanies it. I desire to add my 
 thanks for both ; but I have bid her consider, 
 read, and write, from her own feehngs, uninflu- 
 enced by me : and though we generally read 
 together, and write all our letters in concert, yet 
 I shall not make any observations to her upon 
 this subject till she has read the book, and given 
 you her own unbiassed sentiments of it. 
 
 The affectionate expression of your feelings, 
 and the motives that prompt your letter, excite a 
 correspondent feeling in us ; yet it could not be 
 that such expostulation could be read without 
 also exciting many a painful feeling. There is, 
 however, one paragraph which I so cordially 
 
11 
 
 subscribe to, and which finds its eclio in my 
 breast, that I shall subjoin a copy of it, in 
 order that we may each of us be in possession of 
 an explicit expression of sentiment, to which, if 
 we shall differ in subsequent reasoning, we may 
 recur ; and, to use a seaman's expression, " take 
 our reckoning afresh from that point," viz. — • 
 
 " Is conviction, then, never to be complete ? 
 and are we never to feel satisfied that we have 
 apprehended the truth ? In answer to this, I 
 must for my own part state, that though the 
 doctrines for which I am so anxious to gain your 
 belief, though these doctrines, I say, are the 
 delight and consolation of my existence ; though 
 I feel that were I to surrender the hopes which 
 they suggest I should surrender all that to me 
 makes life most valuable ; though I am persuaded 
 that they have the highest influence in cultivating 
 the best and noblest aflfections of our heart, and 
 in bringing it gradually into conformity with the 
 principles of our heavenly Father; — in short, 
 though I do believe that I apprehend the truth, 
 however faintly and imperfectly; yet if it be God's 
 will, and truth after all be not on my side, I 
 am content to abandon all ; and therefore do I 
 still pray continually and most cordially, that 
 God will remove all those obstacles which close 
 the avenues of the heart against the entrance of 
 
12 
 
 his blessed word, and ihat he will guide me, 
 through his mercies in Christ Jesus, into all 
 truth." 
 
 To this I subscribe with all ray heart ; it is 
 very much the expression of sentiment I am 
 accustomed to find in Unitarian writings, and of 
 which I often lament to perceive so little in the 
 writings of the professed Orthodox, whose 
 language generally is, " Never listen to any 
 thing but that which you are sure does not 
 militate against your first faith, imbibed in bap- 
 tism," Sec. &c. 
 
 You must now let me quote another sentence 
 from your letter. " Did you, when you first entered 
 upon the investigation of these questions, indulge 
 the lurking wish in your heart, that the belief 
 you now entertain might be impressed on your 
 mind ?"' 
 
 Now not only am I able to assure you that no 
 such wish was prevalent, but I must also 
 request you to consider, and to explain to me, 
 what kind of motive you can imagine to have 
 raised that wish in the mind of one, all whose 
 prejudices of education and early affection lay 
 on tlie other side. I am at a loss to conceive 
 what motive (other than a love of truth) can 
 induce any one to embrace the rigid doctrines of 
 Unitarianism, and to profess so unpopular a 
 
13 
 
 belief, or to join such a calumniated sect : all 
 worldly motives are against it. But still more in 
 the present case, how can such an one as you 
 are now addressing have wished that a belief 
 might be impressed on her mind, not accordant 
 with the creed and catechism of infancy, che- 
 rished till womanhood, in concert and com- 
 munion with those she held most dear ? 
 
 Perhaps you will say, that she must now wish 
 to think with the one to whom she had united 
 herself for life in the bonds of affection ; and 
 that this union would be paramount, and the 
 former continued in subservience to it. But put 
 it to yourself. Suppose yourself to be united 
 by conjugal ties to one whose creed differed 
 from yours. What should you most wish ? to 
 bring over that one to your belief, or to be con- 
 vinced of its error ? In point of fact, I can say, 
 — and my much-loved partner will always bear 
 witness to the truth of my words, — that I never 
 used influence, nor even persuasion. Asked my 
 own opinion, I explained it: but we should have 
 agreed to differ without an interruption of affec- 
 tion, if serious reflection on the grounds of our 
 several tenets had not brought us to think 
 exactly alike. I think I scarcely ever (if ever) 
 went further with her than to recommend to her 
 to consider what ideas she did really annex to 
 
14 
 
 the words she used ; and what was the founda- 
 tion on which her opinions rested ; and she 
 found (to use the words of the book you recom- 
 mend) that they were " derived entirely from 
 creeds and Church articles, or human composi- 
 tions of some kind." Arguments 1 never did 
 use ; but only referred to the plain language of 
 Scripture, and recommended to her to reflect on, 
 and analyse, and explain to herself the meaning 
 of the terms used by herself; and try whether 
 that was taken from the words of Christ and his 
 apostles, or from human authority ; and whether 
 it was consonant even with itself; and whether 
 she was not, by long-continued habit, using 
 (even in devotion) phrases to which she had 
 never annexed any meaning at all. 
 
 But I am writing more than I intended. I 
 set out with asking you whence you could sup- 
 pose that such a wish as that you allude to could 
 arise ? I will add one more question, viz. — From 
 what Unitarian vvritings you take your estimate 
 of them as to those sentiments which you "think 
 you have observed amongst the leaders of the 
 sect?" And do not be offended at my surmise, 
 that you may have formed your opinion of them 
 not from their writings, but from those of their 
 opponents, which is exactly the same thing as if 
 one should read in Roman Catholic books their 
 
15 
 
 account of the damnable heresies of Protestants, 
 and from those writings judge of the Christianity 
 of Protestants. 
 
 S knows nothing of this letter, further 
 
 than that I write to assure you that yours is 
 taken in good part, and that I add some ques- 
 tions and remarks, so that what you hear from 
 her will be from the feelings of her own heart ; 
 and in this way will she read the book, not led 
 in any degree by comments of mine. 
 
 I shall always be happy to hear from you. 
 Freedom of expression I use and court : " Ha/ic 
 veniain pelhinis, dabimusque vicisshn." Be as- 
 sured that your letters will always be received by 
 me and your sister in that spirit of affection in 
 which we doubt not they are written. 
 
 D. 
 
16 
 
 LETTER III. 
 
 Friday, February 20, IS 23. 
 
 Dear D , 
 
 This is literally the first moment I have 
 been able to put pen to paper in answer to your 
 letter received on Sunday morning; a circum- 
 stance I regret, because I have felt most anxious 
 to answer the questions you therein put to me. 
 The term ''motive" I remember particularly 
 avoiding, and substituted the word " cause" for 
 it, as it never could for a moment enter into my 
 head that interested, or, as they ai*e commonly 
 called, ivorldly motives, could have influenced 
 
 S in the change of her belief; besides, I 
 
 have a peculiar dislike to imputing motives, 
 thinking it a very unchristian practice : but when 
 I saw an effect, of which I believed there might 
 be a criminal cause, I could not rest satisfied 
 without explaining my views, and requesting 
 your opinion upon the soundness of those views. 
 
17 
 
 The cause or causes which might liave led to 
 the effect of her present behef I shall hereafter 
 advert to ; in the mean time I will answer your 
 second question, as to the source from which I 
 have derived my estimate of the sentiments which 
 I think I have observed among the leading per- 
 sons of your persuasion. I answer solely from 
 Mr. Belsham's Reply to the Bishop of London's 
 Charge ; in which charge you are no doubt aware 
 the following expressions occurred: " Prostration 
 of the understanding and will are indispensably 
 necessary in the Christian religion;" and Mr. B.'s 
 remark upon it is, " Prostration of the under- 
 standing !" God forbid : if the Christian religion 
 itself were to require this debasement of the intel- 
 lect, this prostration of the understanding in those 
 who approach it, I for one would reject it with 
 disdain."* Of course the only way I have of 
 arriving at Mr. B.'s meaning (unless indeed I 
 hunt through his works for some more explicit 
 declaration, which I really have not time to do) 
 is by making up my mind as to what he professes 
 to reject. Now, to me, the obvious interpre- 
 tation of the Bishop's word is, that all a jjriori 
 argument, all preconception, all human pride, 
 prejudice, and passion, must be made to submit 
 to the truth as revealed in the Scriptures. Con- 
 
 * Belsham's Letter, p. 75. 
 
18 
 
 scientiously I believe that to be the Bishop's 
 meaning ; and therefore I had no alternative left 
 but to imagine that Mr. B. meant to deny that 
 part which relates to the understanding, and to 
 maintain that a priori argument and preconcep- 
 tion were not to give way to Scripture; and 
 certainly I have been somewhat confirmed in my 
 supposition, by having had occasion to remark 
 (quite incidentally, and while in search of the 
 passage I have above quoted,) the mode Mr. B. 
 takes of interpreting and translating scripture by 
 new rules of grammar, and criticism applied to 
 passages which made against his hypothesis. 
 This subject I will hereafter draw your attention 
 to ; at present merely stating the impression 
 they left upon my mind in confirmation of the 
 opinion I had before formed. If, said I, a critic, 
 who had never heard of the controversy in 
 question, were to consider the merits of the text 
 which Mr. B. adopts, the principles of criticism 
 which he follows, as well as the canons of gram- 
 mar and criticism, by which he supports his inter- 
 pretation, would he not reasonably distrust the 
 text as well as the critic who had compiled it ; 
 would he not directly suspect that there was some 
 object at variance with the plain meaning of the 
 text, which the editor wished to support ; and 
 could he be considered uncharitable in concluding 
 
19 
 
 that from this prepossession he was resolved to 
 make Scripture bow to liis reason, instead of his 
 reason to Scripture? 
 
 Before I proceed further, let me assure you 
 that, as far as I know my own heart, truth 
 and your good are the sole objects I have in 
 view in thus addressing you. In my opinion, 
 there is no event in the life of man, however 
 trifling, which does not form a part of that great 
 scheme of moral discipline to which we are all 
 subject. The corresponder^pe which I have 
 
 entered into with you and S , the very letter 
 
 which I now write, I consider as instrumental to 
 my own probation. God is on my heart while I 
 write ; and any sentiment or expression dictated 
 by passion or wilful prejudice ; any thing, in 
 short, which shall not be the result of pure con- 
 viction, that may escape me, will, I hold, make 
 me criminal in his sight. I entreat you, therefore, 
 to believe that such are my present feelings, and so 
 to interpret my words as if dictated by this spirit. 
 
 As to the criminal cause which I conceived 
 
 might have influenced S 's belief, I will now 
 
 proceed to explain myself. You yourself must, 
 of course, acknowledge, from Mark xvi. 16, that 
 he who believes not the gospel is condemned. 
 The main argument, then, between us resolves 
 itself into this simple question, What is the 
 
20 
 
 gospel? Upon that subject I shall say nothing 
 at present, because the immediate question is, 
 not what is truth — but what is the frame of mind 
 which will enable us to arrive at truth, and why 
 God should have pronounced the belief in truth to 
 be essential to salvation ? Now it is acknowledged 
 that the quality of an action depends solely upon 
 the principle which influenced it ; selfishness and 
 vanity may prompt nominal Christians to perform 
 acts of the greatest munificence, which may 
 benefit society largely ; but the love of God is 
 the only motive proposed to the Christian, which 
 can make his works in any way acceptable to 
 God. We will then, with your leave, put belief 
 upon the footing of actions ; as far, at least, as 
 each derives its quality solely from the principle 
 of which it is, as it were, the effect and repre- 
 sentative. Under this view we shall both agree 
 that this condemnation can have no reference to 
 those persons who have had no opportunity of 
 believing, but merely to those who, having had 
 the gospel (whatever that name may comprise) 
 presented to them, shall, through any principle 
 of the heart which is in opposition to the Divine 
 will, reject it. This is the doctrine of the Church 
 of which I am a minister ; and that is what is 
 meant by the damnatory clause in the Athana- 
 sian Creed ; for the Commissioners appointed to 
 
21 
 
 review our Liturgy, in 1GS9, express themselves 
 thus: — " The articles of which (the Athanasian 
 Creed) ought to be received, and believed as 
 agreeing with the Holy Scriptures; and the con- 
 demning clauses are to be understood as relating 
 only to those who obstinately deny the substance 
 of the christian faith." 
 
 My interpretation of the term ** obstinacy" is 
 as above ; — the holding any principle of the heart 
 in opposition to the will of God, and suffering it 
 to obstruct the entrance of faith ; and, by the 
 articles of the Athanasian Ci'eed, are meant 
 merely two propositions: 1. The Trinity in 
 Unity ; 2. The Incarnation of our Lord Jesus 
 Christ. With the explanatory part, the dam- 
 natory clauses have nothing to say. If, there- 
 fore, I am satisfied that these two doctrines are 
 essential to the Gospel, of course I have no 
 alternative left but to pronounce that the " obsti- 
 nate denial" of these doctrines must be con- 
 demned by God ; and then you must allow that 
 there is nothing more bigoted and uncharitable 
 in this view of the subject, than in your own 
 assertions, which, of course, you must be pre- 
 pared to make, that he who disbelieves that Gos- 
 pel, in your sense of the word, cannot be saved. 
 
 To come to the point — it is the frame of mind 
 with which we sit down to weigh the evidence, 
 
22 
 
 as to what is or is not, the Gospel, which will 
 influence our decision as to what it is, and will 
 make our belief, if, after all, it should be the 
 wrong one, criminal in the sight of God. If we 
 allow a priori argument and preconception to 
 have too much weight when balanced against 
 the authority of Scripture ; if we permit our 
 heart, which is naturally proud and deceitful, to 
 rise in insurrection against the humiliating doc- 
 trine of the atonement ; if we rely too much on 
 the strength of our own understanding in the 
 search of gospel truth, when we are clearly 
 told in Scripture that we are to look for Divine 
 illumination as our guide in that search, (an 
 influence not superseding, but assisting, the full 
 exertion of every intellectual faculty we have ;) 
 the combination of these causes, which are, in 
 my opinion, enmity to God, would be sufficient 
 obstacles to the discovery of Divine truth. 
 
 These are the three points in which, in my 
 opinion, we are all likely to offend ; and it is 
 upon these that I will dwell in another letter, if 
 you are not already tired of this correspondence. 
 I will then substantiate what I said upon Mr. 
 Belsham's method of translation and criticism. 
 Believe me, 
 Your very affectionate Friend and Brother, 
 
 C. 
 
23 
 
 LETTER IV. 
 
 April 14, 1823. 
 
 I HAVE read Mr. Erskine's book with the 
 utmost seriousness and attention ; but I must 
 honestly confess, (though I shrink from the idea 
 of the pain my avowal may give you,) that so far 
 from its having produced any change in my views 
 respecting the doctrines of the Gospel, it has only 
 tended to confirm those I had been led to form 
 by previous inquiry ; and you must believe me, 
 
 my dear C , when I declare that these have 
 
 not been taken up lightly and precipitately, but 
 that, from the time I entered upon this most 
 important pursuit, it has been my earnest prayer 
 to God that I might be led to discern the truth ; 
 and that, having made up my own mind, T might 
 have courage to avow the opinions I had adopted, 
 in spite of the unsparing abuse so universally 
 
24 
 
 heaped upon Unitarians. Such being the case, 
 (or, if you doubt the truth of ray assertion, I 
 could give you proof of it in numerous extracts 
 from the works of orthodox opponents of Uni- 
 tarianisra,) I would put it seriously to you, my 
 
 dear C , to say what motive, other than the 
 
 firmest conviction of the truth of those opinions, 
 could have induced me to become one of a 
 " sect every where spoken against." You will 
 probably reply, that my husband's influence had 
 weight. But I do most solemnly assure you 
 that he never, either by word or deed, attempted 
 to influence me one way or the other ; it was my 
 own desire to make myself acquainted with the 
 arguments on both sides. I read all the books I 
 could procure, and the result was a most decided 
 conviction that the opinions of Unitarians are 
 sanctioned by the preaching of our Saviour 
 himself and his Apostles, but that the orthodox 
 doctrines of the Trinity and the Atonement are 
 not taught by them. 
 
 I now come to that part of your letter in 
 which you speak of the state of mind necessary 
 for entering upon the inquiry after the truth 
 as it is in Jesus; and here I must freely acknow- 
 ledge I do not understand what it is you mean 
 to express. Of what nature you conceived the 
 truths revealed in the Gospel to be, I cannot 
 
25' 
 
 at all comprehend ; since, though you believe 
 they are intended to exert a moral influence 
 over us, you still think that unaided human 
 intellect cannot comprehend them. Now, hold- 
 ing as I do, that the main design of the 
 gospel revelation was to proclaim the hitherto 
 unrevealed doctrine of a future state of rewards 
 and punishments, to be awarded strictly accord- 
 ing to the use or abuse of the talents committed 
 to us in this life, I can see that such a doctrine, 
 attested by the miraculous powers of our Saviour 
 and his Apostles, and still further, by that 
 greatest of all miracles, the resurrection of Jesus 
 Christ, which his disciples always appeal to as a 
 pledge and pattern of the future resurrection of 
 all mankind; I can see that such a doctrine as 
 this would address itself most forcibly to the 
 minds of men, would infallibly exert a most 
 powerful moral influence over them ; and we 
 do accordingly see, in reading the account 
 of the preaching of the Apostles, as given in 
 the Acts, that these plain truths were the means 
 of converting thousands at once to the belief and 
 reception of the Gospel, in spite of the blindness 
 and prejudice so notorious among the Jews. 
 
 I am also at a loss to understand how it is 
 that you suppose a person has it in his power 
 " to summon to his aid the influence of Divine 
 c 
 
26 
 
 grace upon his heart and understanding." It 
 appears to me that the miraculous influence of 
 the Holy Spirit ceased with the miraculous 
 powers that were bestowed by the Apostles on 
 the first converts to Christianity, and that we 
 have no warrant from Scripture for expecting 
 that they would be continued beyond that time. 
 But though I should be sorry to see any 
 enter upon so serious and important an inves- 
 tigation as that we are speaking of, without first 
 preparing his mind for it by earnest prayer to 
 the Supreme Disposer of all human events, that 
 he might be enabled to discern the truth, and to 
 divest himself of prejudice in the pursuit of it ; I 
 cannot but think that if you once admit that a man 
 may be sensible of special Divine influence upon 
 his mind, you sanction at once all the wild and 
 enthusiastic pretences of the fanatics of all ages. 
 In conclusion, I must add, that I am not 
 conscious of having indulged in any feeling 
 of self-confidence, or self-righteousness, in form- 
 ing my conviction of what I believed to be the 
 truth. I certainly entered upon the investigation 
 with no predisposition in favour of Unitarian 
 opinions, but the contrary ; and God only knows 
 what I have suffered in the profession of them, 
 from the consciousness that they were so misap- 
 prehended by very many of those I most love 
 
27 
 
 and esteem upon earth ; but I humbly submit to 
 this, as to every other painful dispensation, 
 earnestly praying that I may make the best use 
 of it in weaning my affections from earthly 
 things, and fixing them on that state of blessed- 
 ness which is promised to those who, by patient 
 continuance in well doing, seek for glory, 
 honour, and immortality. 
 
 I cannot close this long letter without assur- 
 ing you once more, my dearest C , that I am 
 
 deeply sensible of the affectionate feeling which 
 dictated your letter to me, and shall ever con- 
 sider it as a most convincing proof of strong 
 attachment on your part ; 1 am grieved at the 
 thought of the pain I fear my reply may give 
 you, but I could not disguise the truth. It will 
 always give me pleasure to hear from you, if 
 you feel disposed to continue the subject by 
 letter ; but as I have never shrunk from con- 
 sidering the arguments of the opponents of 
 Unitarianism, I feel that there is less probability 
 of my being induced to alter my opinions, than 
 there might be with one who had looked at only 
 one side of the question ; still, if you should 
 write, I will promise to weigh and consider all 
 you say, and most seriously and honestly to 
 avow the result. 
 
 Your affectionate Sister, 
 
 S. 
 c2 
 
28 
 
 LETTER V. 
 
 May 18, 1823. 
 
 Dear C , 
 
 Your letter has lain a long time unreplied 
 to, unless a short conversation we had when we 
 accidentally met has stood as an answer to some 
 
 parts of it. S , however, to whom your 
 
 first was addressed, has written to you in the 
 interim ; and the expectation of this, rather 
 delayed my taking up the subject, as you know 
 my wish was, that her answer should be entirely 
 unbiassed by conversation with me ; and it has 
 been so. Necessary avocations and occasional 
 society, and the reading of some new books, has 
 since put by, for a time, my attention to the 
 immediate subject of our correspondence : and 
 in fact it requires some preparation and winding 
 up on my part, knowing how much a good 
 cause may suffer in being advocated by one 
 
29 
 
 who, though not unused to listen to and judge 
 of the arguments of others, is quite unused to 
 collect and arrange his own for the purpose of 
 disputation or defence. An unbiassed and dili- 
 gently attentive juvor may be well satisfied with 
 the verdict he has given, and yet be very un- 
 equal to the task of vindicating it by re-arguing 
 the cause with those who object to his verdict. 
 However, if our correspondence continues, I will 
 not in my future letters fill my sheet with apolo- 
 gies. We are disputants mutually and equally 
 disposed to enter into each other's meaning, 
 and not to take advantage of inaccuracies of 
 expression. I now take up your letter. 
 
 Of two questions I had put to you, you 
 notice first that relating to the source from 
 which you had derived your estimate of the sen- 
 timents of the leading Unitarians. You answer, 
 " Solely from Mr. Belsham's Reply to the Bishop 
 of London's Charge." I am very glad you have 
 read that book ; both because I think it excellent 
 in itself, and also because I think you could not 
 fail to observe in reading it, how very unfairly 
 and unjustly the Bishop had calumniated the 
 Unitarians, in likening them to Deists : and as to 
 the Quarterly Review, I think no one can read 
 Belsham's book, and the review of it, and not 
 see that truth was not the object of the writer of 
 
30 
 
 the article. I know not, nor even surmise who 
 the writer was ; but I should be very much hurt 
 if any one so wrote on our side. I am not 
 pleased at the phraseology of the individual 
 sentence you quote from Mr. Belsham's answer, 
 nor do I ever approve of asseverations of that 
 kind ; and I acknowledge that I sometimes find 
 phrases in Mr. Belsham's controversial writings, 
 for which the best apology I can make is, that 
 they are less objectionable and less frequent 
 than in the writings of his opponents. How sad 
 is it to read from the pen of such a man as Mr. 
 Venn, " If such be the meaning, I would burn 
 my Bible !" &c. But (to drop criticism as to 
 mere expression) the objection of Mr. Belsham 
 to the Bishop's doctrine, that " prostration of the 
 understanding is indispensably necessary for 
 proficiency in the christian religion," I perfectly 
 concur in ; and the inference I should draw from 
 it is very different indeed from yours, in the 
 estimate you thence form of Mr. Belsham's 
 general sentiments. You interpret the Bishop's 
 words to mean that ** all a priori argument, all 
 human pride, prejudice, and passion, must be 
 made to submit to the truth as revealed in Scrip- 
 ture." Now these sentiments are ever most 
 strongly maintained by Mr. Belsham, in his 
 v/ritings, preaching, and conversation, as well as 
 
31 
 
 in those of Lindsey, Priestley, Carpenter, Yates, 
 South wood Smith, Estlen, Simpson, &c. In- 
 deed, I not only never met with, but scarcely 
 ever knew how to conceive of one who would 
 set up his reason and understanding against 
 Revelation. Not only would it be presumption, 
 but absolute incapability of exercising the power 
 of reasoning. 
 
 The Deist may deny that there has been any 
 revelation from the Supreme Being, or the 
 Atheist may deny that there is any intelligent 
 First Cause ; but he who believes in an omni- 
 potent and omniscient Creator, knows, that what 
 he has revealed is truth itself. Now if the 
 Bishop means by "prostration of the under- 
 standing," the submission of human fallible 
 a priori conception, to a revelation from Omni- 
 science, he must suppose himself writing to 
 persons insane ; but if he means that we are to 
 reject the use of our reason in our construction 
 of the words in which revelation is given to us, 
 it is absurd ; for to what power can language be 
 addressed, but to the understanding? This may 
 do very well in the Church of Rome— there it 
 is perfectly consistent ; " prostrate your under- 
 standing to that construction which the infallible 
 Church puts upon Scripture." With them private 
 judgment is even criminal : but the Protestant 
 
32 
 
 Church says the Gospel is addressed to every 
 individual ; and I say that he who does not 
 use his most serious and powerful under- 
 standing in endeavouring rightly to comprehend 
 it, hides his best talent, instead of improving it. 
 If the Bishop meant that which you attribute to 
 him, we can only lament that he has said some- 
 thing very different. But surely your interpreta- 
 tion is not at any rate what you call it, 
 f' obvious;" still less can you have been without 
 any alternative but to imagine that Mr. Belsham 
 meant to maintain that " preconception is not to 
 give way to Scripture ;" for such is very different 
 indeed from refusal to assent to the proposition 
 that "prostration of the understanding is neces- 
 sary for proficiency in the christian religion, (a 
 sentiment which I think derogatory and degra- 
 ding to the christian relisfion ;) and still further 
 may I be surprised at such construction of yours, 
 when in the very book which you so censure on 
 that supposition, you read, " It is the first prin- 
 ciple of Unitarians, that all which God reveals is 
 to be believed ; — that all which God requires is 
 to be done. Their second axiom is, that too 
 much attention cannot be applied, too much 
 pains cannot be taken, to distinguish the doc- 
 trines of heaven from the traditions of men." Is 
 his " being resolved to make Scripture bow to 
 
33 
 
 his reason, instead of his reason to Scrip- 
 ture ?" 
 
 What are the " principles of criticism" y(^u 
 suppose Mr. Belsham to follow, or the " canons of 
 grammar and criticism by which he supports his 
 interpretations," and which you think would "lead 
 the reader to distrust the text as well as the 
 critic," I do not know ; when they are specified, 
 I shall very readily attend to your objections ; at 
 present I can only say, take your opinion of 
 Unitarians from their own writings, not from the 
 representations of others concerning them, in 
 which they are expressly accused of " believing 
 what they choose to believe, and rejecting all 
 they do not choose to believe ;" they are so 
 accused because they reject the words substituted 
 for the words of Scripture. We are not afraid 
 of the inquiry, who are they that " add to, or 
 take from this book?" We demand to be so 
 tried, and our trial is refused us: our judges 
 require our peers to shut their ears to our de- 
 fence, and so to condemn us. By whom are 
 these accusations made ? Who requires other 
 Christians to shut their ears against our defence? 
 (I wrote the word other Christians quite un- 
 awares, — they refuse us the appellation ; they 
 will not allow that the sincerest and most ardent 
 desire to understand and embrace all that Jesus 
 c3 
 
34 
 
 Christ taught, is to be a disciple of Christ.) But 
 by whom are these accusations made against us ? 
 Rather ask, by whom are they not made ? I can 
 scarcely open a book in which the subject is 
 directly, or even remotely introduced, written by 
 prelate, priest, or layman, male or female, in which 
 they are not dragged in. To speak only of con- 
 temporaries — take Archbishop Magee, Dr. Nares, 
 Bishop Burgess, Bishop Horsley, Dr. Chalmers, 
 Mr. Cunningham, Hannah More, Mrs. Trimmer, 
 Mrs. Cornwallis, Miss Hawkins, and her brother, 
 not to mention the anonymous writers in the Bri- 
 tish Critic, Quarterly Review, and a swarm of edi- 
 tors and correspondents in the orthodox, as well 
 as evangelical periodical publications. Not so 
 Archbishop Tillotson. He in christian candour 
 said of the Unitarians (even while he said their 
 cause M'as bad, and truth not on their side) that 
 they were " a pattern of the fair way of dispu- 
 ting, and of debating matters of religion ; argu- 
 ing matters with that temper and gravity, and 
 with that freedom from passion and transport, 
 which becomes a serious and weighty argument." 
 Bishop Burnet said " they were men of probity, 
 justice, and charity, and seemed much in earnest 
 in pressing the obligation to very high degrees of 
 virtue." Dr. Nares expressly says, they are not 
 Christians ; and Mr. Hawkins says, they follow 
 
35 
 
 *' a very convenient fashion of belief, as it anni- 
 hilates much of the culpabiHty of sin ;" and very 
 similar to this are the innuendoes of those who 
 write or preach concerning them : but in fact, I 
 do not know one instance in which those who 
 (from accident, or curiosity, or the true spirit of 
 the search after truth) have been induced really 
 to inquire what Unitarianism is, and what are the 
 views of Unitarians, have not been astonished to 
 find them so different from what they are repre- 
 sented to be, and so utterly undeserving of the 
 calumnies heaped upon them. Indeed we owe 
 the increase of our numbers to the virulent 
 attacks upon us, and the cautions against listen- 
 ing to us, which are brought so forward in the 
 charges of the Bishops, and the visitation ser- 
 mons, &c. of modern times. 
 
 You introduce the subject of the Athanasian 
 Creed, otherwise I should not have mentioned it ; 
 but being called on, I cannot but say that I 
 regard it with horror. When I saw Nares's 
 Sermons on the three creeds advertised, know- 
 ing how many pious clergymen had wished v.ith 
 Tillotson, that the Church was well rid of it (the 
 Athanasian Creed,) I thought " if a clergyman 
 vindicates the continuance of the use of it, upon 
 the principle that it is difficult to make reforms ; — 
 that the Liturgy has excellencies which atone for 
 
36 
 
 its defects, and the one is endangered by an 
 attempt to remove the other ; — that the power to 
 make aherations is a dangerous one to raise, 
 and so forth ; — let such an one console himself 
 as he can, under the obligation to comply with 
 forms ; but to set forward to vindicate the form 
 itself in the abstract, and the use of it at times 
 of devotion, does raise my astonishment. I 
 bought and read his book, and found the thing 
 defended to come out worse for the defence ; and 
 so it ever will from every attempt at its vindi- 
 cation. Your father was with me, and I pre- 
 vailed on him to read Nares's Sermon. He 
 perfectly agreed with me. " Why will they 
 meddle with it?" he said ; "he has made it 
 worse." And what can be said to excuse the 
 presumption of declaring that he shall not be 
 saved who does not hold the faith and doctrine 
 of fallible men, at best inferred, not copied, from 
 Revelation ? The learned and the unlearned, the 
 old and the young, the rich and the poor, from the 
 mitred prelate to the meanest peasant, meet together 
 for the purpose of instruction and devotion ; and 
 the mixed congregation, old women and charity 
 children, look towards a consecrated altar, and 
 hear a priest solemnly read, — " WJiosoever will 
 be saved, above all things it is necessary that he 
 hold the Catholic faith ; and the Catiiolic iaith is 
 
37 
 
 this ;" then follow clauses (which we say are as 
 thoroughly contradictory as language can make 
 them, not mystical, hut specifically detailed, and 
 of which not one word is to be found in any 
 part of Scripture ; but waiving this, then follow 
 clauses, I say,) to which is annexed the decla- 
 ration — " this is the Catholic faith, which, 
 except a man believe faithfully, he shall, without 
 doubt, perish everlastingly," and all the people 
 shall say Amen ; and when they have so said for 
 ten, twenty, or fifty years, one in a thousand 
 learns that it may be explained ; and though all 
 is read in one breath, and Amen follows, yet the 
 latter part of that which is included in the Amen, 
 is not connected with the former part ; or the 
 clauses are not damnatory, but defensory ; or 
 the damnatory clauses have nothing to do with 
 the explanatory clauses ; or that the words, " This 
 is the Catholic faith, w^hich, except a man believe," 
 &c., means only that " those who obstinately 
 deny the substance of the Christian faith can- 
 not be saved," — and this from those who are 
 perpetually accusing others of " explaining 
 away:" and though not one of the points is 
 capable of being expressed in Scripture lan- 
 guage, the understanding is to be prostrated to 
 their inferences ! (By the bye, some of the 
 Orthodox deny that the clauses are explanatory ; 
 
3S 
 
 and, indeed, it does seem absurd to insist upon 
 explaining in detail, that which the same clauses 
 declare to be incomprehensible.) But is this 
 christian instruction, and christian worship ? 
 I often adduce Nares as an instance of the 
 mischief of the practice of scholastic disputation. 
 I am fully satisfied that it brings the practiser 
 into a habit of sacrificing reason to eloquence, 
 sense to sound; till the orator really deceives 
 himself, and is satisfied with his rounded periods, 
 without ever knowing, or asking himself, what 
 meaning he himself annexes to his own phrase- 
 ology. Very frequently might a complete refu- 
 tation be produced of Nares's triumphant 
 arguments, (and he is very apt to be triumphant 
 when he has nothing else for it,) by simply 
 saying to the reader, "think — think — read the 
 sentence again — does it prove what he main- 
 tains ? or does it prove the contrary ? or does 
 it prove any thing ? Is it not an effusion of 
 habitual and practised eloquence, containing no 
 meaning at all ?" 
 
 But I am getting farther than I intended. I 
 could have wished to postpone entirely the con- 
 sideration of the points in which the Church 
 and the Dissenters differ, till we had more fully 
 canvassed our original subject, " the question of 
 the duty of inquiry and openness to conviction," 
 
39 
 
 l)aJ it not been that in your discussion you make 
 a kind of appeal to me, taking for granted (as 
 necessarily to be admitted by me) that, against 
 which I must protest totis viribi/s. You 
 say, " there is nothing more uncharitable in 
 this view of the subject than in your own 
 assertion, which, of course, you must be pre- 
 pared to make, that he who disbelieves the 
 Gospel in your sense of the word cannot be 
 saved." God forbid that I should make such 
 an assertion, or entertain such a sentiment ! I 
 must then condemn many of those whom not 
 only I love as friends and near connexions, but 
 to whom I look up as my superiors in all chris- 
 tian attainments, save only that, from the preju- 
 dices of their education, they have always 
 neglected to examine themselves, to find whether 
 their belief or doctrine was not " derived en- 
 tirely from Creeds and Church Articles, or human 
 compositions of some kind." I must look back 
 to the hours when I was parting with my dear 
 mother, in her submissive expectation of the 
 immediate approach of death ; and because her 
 explanation of the doctrine of atonement differed 
 from mine, and, in my opinion, was not conso- 
 nant to the Gospel, shall the dreadful thought 
 come over my mind, that " she shall not be 
 saved J" No ! Without any doubt in my mind, 
 
40 
 
 1 say that hev opinions were founded on the 
 erring construction of men, instilled into her early 
 mind from the nursery, and not on the doctrine 
 of Jesus Christ or his Apostles; yet, with all 
 full confidence, I believe, and trust without 
 doubt, or fear, that she is gone to receive the 
 reward of those who patiently persevere in well 
 doing. My father was one of the most upright 
 men that ever lived, and uniformly devout and 
 pious. I am not at all anxious to know whether 
 his creed and mine would exactly agree, if he 
 had left documents by which I could ascertain 
 it; but most heartily do I wish that I had 
 through life imitated his serious and earnest 
 obedience to the will of his God. I remember 
 old Gilpin in intimacy with my father, and fre- 
 quent amicable discussion between them, of the 
 questions of dissent from the Church, and the 
 doctrine of the Trinity ; — the one ex animo 
 assenting to it, the other freely treating it as a 
 strangely contradictory, unscriptural, and un- 
 meaning hypothesis : — did they condemn each 
 other ? No ! they often talked of the happiness 
 of meeting where clouds and doubts will be 
 removed. I look to the biography of two men 
 whom I barely remember, Price and Priestley ; 
 intimate friends through life, writing, preaching, 
 praying together ; one an Arian, the other an 
 
41 
 
 Unitarian, in the strictest sense, arguing con- 
 tinually Nvith each other on that very point ; did 
 they condemn each other? or shall I, judging 
 between them, say of either, " he shall not be 
 saved ?" No ; I trace the progress of each in 
 obedience and ardent desire to spread the bene- 
 fits of the Gospel amongst their fellow men, and 
 looking to the temper which each manifested at 
 the close of life, and the submissive confidence 
 in the faithful mercies of their Creator, with 
 regard to each can I say, " May my last end be 
 like his !" 
 
 I have made my letter sadly long, but if I 
 had not noticed what you take for granted, I 
 must have appeared to admit it ; and the suppo- 
 sition awakened me so, that I could not but 
 dilate in answering it. I regret that we should 
 have been so led away from our first point. I 
 shall pay a thorough attention to any remark 
 upon what I have written, and shall enter just 
 as far as you please on the consideration of any 
 point that you propose : but I very much wish 
 either to stick entirely to our preliminary point, 
 " the propriety and duty of every individual to 
 examine the doctrines he has imbibed," until we 
 are either agreed, or have determined wherein 
 our difference consists, or else to divide our 
 subject into two series as it were, so as not 
 
42 
 
 to mix our questions in the desultory manner 
 we have done. 
 
 But I now find I must conclude, and postpone 
 what was intended for the principal subject of 
 this letter. Perhaps I may write again without 
 waiting for your reply to this ; if I do, I promise 
 you a short letter confined to that subject 
 merely. 
 
 I shall always be happy to hear from you, 
 but do not mean to bind you to enter into 
 discussion to the interruption of the pleasure 
 I hope you will meet with in your intended 
 tour. 
 
 Your affectionate Brother, 
 
 D. 
 
43 
 
 LETTER VI. 
 
 Cheltenham, Jan. 19, 1824'. 
 
 Dear D 
 
 As S 's unseasonable illness has 
 
 most unfortunately prevented our meeting this 
 
 Christmas, I cannot return to , where 
 
 my incessant round of occupation would prevent 
 me from devoting any time to our correspond- 
 ence, without replying to some points in your 
 letter, received just before I went abroad. 
 
 As to my view of the Bishop of London's 
 meaning, when he asserted that " prostration of 
 the understanding is necessary for proficiency in 
 the christian religion," it still remains unaltered, 
 in spite of the passage you quote from Mr. Bel- 
 sham's Answer to the Bishop, in which he 
 declares that " it is the first principle with Uni- 
 tarians, that all which God reveals is to be 
 believed." 
 
44 
 
 It is impossible that any passage of Scripture 
 can have greater credit for genuineness, than 
 such an one as all manuscripts and versions 
 agree in inserting, without the slightest alteration 
 or difference one from the other. The fifth 
 verse of the ninth chapter of Romans, therefore, 
 is the revealed word of God ; or we have no 
 security for any passage of Scripture, and the 
 whole volume must be given up upon the same 
 principle that I abandon the passage in question. 
 Now Mr. Belsham, in his late translation of St. 
 Paul's Epistles, acknowledging that no manu- 
 script version, or ecclesiastical authority what- 
 ever, warrants him in so doing, arbitrarily alters 
 the Greek text, (which, as it stands, is a familiar 
 Greek idiom, and makes perfectly good sense,) 
 merely because it happens to be entirely sub- 
 versive of his hypothesis. Now, therefore, Mr. 
 Belsham cannot complain that his adversaries 
 should charge him, at least, with refusing to 
 believe what God reveals ; for if we can be sure 
 that God revealed a single sentence in the Bible, 
 we can be sure that he revealed the verse in 
 question. It matters little, whether or no it be 
 granted that the four concluding words in the 
 sentence are elliptical, that the word d-n is to be 
 understood, and the clause to be translated, 
 "God be blessed for evermore;" for still 6 wv 
 
45 
 
 iTTt iravTtov is predicated of Christ; and wliat lie 
 is " who is over all," if he be not God, it 
 remains for the Unitarian to satisfy himself. 
 That he cannot satisfy himself without altering it, 
 is clear, by Mr. Belsham's bold and unwarrant- 
 able dealing with the text of Scripture. Such a 
 frame of mind as that which prompted Mr. Bel- 
 sham to this step, is the temper which the Bishop 
 of London, in my opinion, is writing against, 
 when he makes use of the expression which has 
 been so much objected to, never dreaming, I 
 should think, that any body would suppose he 
 meant to interfere with the right of private 
 judgment, or lay down the maxim that the con- 
 struction which the Church put upon Scripture 
 was infallible, when the very Articles of that 
 Church lay down the contrary doctrine. 
 
 Thus I have given you one of the instances of 
 Mr. B.'s false criticism, as it appears to me, 
 which at once shews me the temper of mind 
 with which he comes to the study of Scripture, 
 as well as the unsoundness of the principles 
 upon which he proceeds in his translation. Had 
 I met with such a specimen of criticism in the edi- 
 tion of any Greek classic, I should, of course, 
 reject it ; and, upon the same grounds, I reject 
 it here, and must call upon you to do the same. 
 
 Another instance to the same point, (and I 
 
46 
 
 assure you I met with them both in turning 
 over the leaves of Mr. Belsham's version in a 
 very cursory manner) ; another instance of Mr. 
 B.'s unsound criticism is to be found in the 
 second verse of the first chapter of the Hebrews, 
 where I was very much surprised to find " Si ov 
 KOI Tovg ahovaq ewoiricrev," rendered, " with a 
 view to whom also he made the dispensations;" 
 an interpretation which Mr. B. supports from 
 a passage of Thucydides, book vi. § 7 ; from 
 the authority of Grotius and Beza, in their 
 remarks on Rom. vi. 4; and from the use of 
 Sia at 1 Cor. xiv. 19. This translation of Sta 
 at once struck me as contrary to the doctrine 
 I had been accustomed to believe, with respect 
 to its force where governing a genitive case — 
 having always myself held, and taught my pupils 
 in like manner, that Sia with the genitive signi- 
 fied t/ie instrumental cause, and Sm with the 
 accusative the Jirst cause. The latter, in Attic 
 Greek, sometimes signifies the instrumental 
 cause, as well as the final cause, I am aware ; 
 but I had held, that the preposition with the 
 genitive could never signify the final cause. I 
 lost no time in investigating the question ; pre- 
 pared, by God's help, to give up all those 
 important passages from otir translation of which 
 the instrumentality of Christ in creating the 
 
47 
 
 world derives considerable support. I first 
 examined the authorities quoted in Mr. Bel- 
 sham's note. That from Thucydides was not 
 to be found according to the reference ; and 
 the few words of the text which are quoted, 
 wherever they are to be found, may, as far 
 as I can see without the context, just as well 
 be translated as signifying the instrumental 
 as the final cause. The authority of Grotius 
 and Beza upon Rom. vi. 4, Mr. Belsham 
 neutralizes, as far as he himself is concerned ; 
 because he translates Rom. vi. 4 in a different 
 way from them, giving its instrumental force. 
 Now if he himself translates Sm there as the 
 instrumental cause, he has no right to appeal 
 to it as a passage in which it may be tians- 
 lated as signifying the final cause. The passage 
 from the Corinthians I was convinced, from 
 reading carefully the thirty-three first verses 
 of the chapter, could not bear the interpretation 
 of Mr. Belsham. Am voog fxov cannot signify 
 " with a view to my being understood." I have 
 not been able to discover that vovq ever signifies 
 " meaning ;" and our translation, '* with my 
 understanding," harmonizes very well with the 
 context. I next applied to Lexicons and cri- 
 tical works. All that I referred to confirmed 
 me in my former opinion ; in Budaeus alone 
 
48 
 
 a passage was quoted from the writings of 
 Gregory Nazianzene, which appeared to coun- 
 tenance M. B., but no reference was given ; 
 and 0776 passage of such a W7iler against the 
 word, is, after all, no authority to justify such a 
 deviation from established rule. An author, too, 
 is the best interpreter of himself; and when, at 
 Col. i. 16, I find the expressions St' avrov and 
 £(C avToi' standing together, I conclude St' avrov 
 cannot mean " with a view to whom," or dg 
 avTov, which signifies precisely the same, would 
 never have been placed im.mediately after it. 
 
 Still the most satisfactory confirmation of all 
 remained. I was in company with Mr. Elmsley, 
 (who is, I believe, without much doubt, the 
 greatest living Grecian,) at the Bodleian Li- 
 brary at the time I was examining the passage. 
 Without hinting to him my object in asking 
 the question, I begged him to give me his 
 opinion as to the force of dia with the geni- 
 tive — " Can it, or can it not, signify the object, 
 or final cause?" His answer was remarkable. 
 " I am afraid it cannot; / wish it could; for 
 there is a passage in Aristophanes which I 
 should alter directly upon that principle, if I 
 dared do *o." My conviction, then, upon the 
 subject was complete ; and I was also forced 
 to admit the conclusion, " that Mr. Belsham 
 
49 
 
 dare take that license with the word of God, 
 which Mr. Ehnsley would not venture upon a 
 line of Aristophanes." 
 
 Now if you will point out to me any mis- 
 translation in King James's Version, I will most 
 diligently examine it ; and if I shall find that 
 authority is really against our interpretation, 
 you may rely upon my immediately adopting the 
 right rendering ; and, with this profession, I 
 think I have a right to demand that, unless you 
 can shew cause to the contrary, you should 
 adopt the translation of Sm as the instrumental 
 cause in John i. 3; Heb. i. 2; and Col. i. 16; 
 and if so, confess that Christ was instrumental 
 in the creation of the world, and, therefore, 
 that he pre-existed at least. 
 
 These are instances of Mr. Belsham's notions 
 of grammar and criticism, discovered quite inci- 
 dentally, which are sufficient to make me distrust 
 both the critic and the text of the translation 
 which he has put forth. Surely the way in 
 which he has dealt with the Scriptures is not 
 giving them fair play ; give them the same chance 
 you would to an uninspired work, and the con- 
 clusions we draw seem inevitable ; take the two 
 perverted passages I have happened to hit upon, 
 and Christ's pre-existence must result from the 
 one, and his divinity from the other. 
 
 D 
 
50 
 
 There is a misunderstanding which I perceive 
 has arisen from these passages in my last letter to 
 you, which I am anxious to clear up. You seem 
 to imagine that I had therein stated, that your con- 
 viction must be, that none who differed from you 
 on religious subjects could be saved. What I 
 meant to assert was this — If you believe what 
 Christ declares (Mark xvi. 16), that " he who be- 
 lieveth not shall be damned," you must, I sup- 
 pose, have made up your mind what that object 
 of belief is, which, if not believed in, will entail 
 condemnation on the unbeliever. Whoever, 
 therefore, is in such a case as to disbelieve that 
 which you conceive to be referred to by Christ in 
 this expression, you must surely conclude to be 
 under the condemnation therein pronounced, 
 or it seems to me that the words are left entirely 
 without meaning. I cannot imagine how any 
 body, who allows that passage to be genuine, 
 can fail to agree that there is some object or 
 other of belief which is essential to salvation, 
 and that he who disbelieves that essential is 
 under condemnation. As to the instances you 
 quote of persons who differed from each other 
 on religious subjects, and yet lived in harmony 
 and charity, they are perfectly consistent with 
 my notions. Even if each considered the other 
 to be an unbeliever in the essential point, what- 
 
51 
 
 ever it may be, there is no reason why there 
 should be a breach of charity between them : 
 but, very probably, neither of the parties you 
 mention conceived the other to be errinjr in the 
 essential. All I mean to contend for is, that if 
 Christ's words have any meaning at all, unbelief 
 is a sin which will be condemned and punished; 
 and every body who attaches any meaning to 
 these words, must have made up his mind as to 
 what that essential object of belief is. If you 
 choose to shut belief entirely out of the condition 
 of salvation, that alters the'case; but as long as 
 Scripture has authority, I see not how we are to 
 evade the conclusion, that belief, according to 
 opportunity, is one of the essentials to salvation. 
 As to the duty of free inquiry, it is impossible 
 for any one to advocate it more entirely than I 
 do, only let Scripture authority be paramount. 
 But if any one tampers with Scripture, as I 
 think Mr. Belsham has done, then, be he friend 
 or foe, I will join in reprobating such conduct. 
 Let all who can carry the investigation through, 
 enter upon it ; but how are those who have not 
 made the Greek language their study to decide 
 upon these questions of criticism? Yet, since 
 it has pleased God to reveal his will to us in 
 that language, all who are not well versed in it 
 must depend upon the interpretation of others. 
 
52 
 
 The last resort in the argument with an Unita- 
 rian must be made to the proper mode of 
 interpreting particular passages ; and if you are 
 not prepared to depend upon your own inter- 
 pretation, you must lean upon human authority. 
 I will now request you attentively to compare 
 John iii. 16 with Rom. v. 7, 8. Is there not 
 represented in both passages a great personal 
 sacrifice on the part of the Deity ? Was there 
 any such sacrifice in allowing Christ, if merely 
 the son of Joseph and Mary, to die upon the 
 cross? Was there any such sacrifice, if God 
 forgives the sin of man, merely in compliance 
 with his attribute of mercy ? Under your hypo- 
 thesis, as Erskine truly observes, are not the 
 expressions of God's love towards man quite 
 hyperbolical ? In Rom. v. 7, 8, God and Christ 
 together stand in the relation to sinful man, that 
 He who sacrificed his life to ensure the life of 
 the good man does to him. But where is the 
 resemblance between God and the self-devoting 
 individual under your hypothesis ? If you will 
 show me any contradiction between the inter- 
 pretation put upon the passage, and any other 
 passage in Scripture, or the general tenour of 
 Scripture, then I will hesitate to admit my own 
 conclusion. But if it is on a priori argument 
 that your objection is grounded, that I cannot 
 
53 
 
 admit against tiie plain declaration of Scripture, — 
 and it is, as you must have seen from my last letter, 
 in the allowing preconception to outweigh the 
 authority of Scripture, that the sinfulness of 
 unbelief, in my opinion, really consists. There 
 is no act of our lives which is so important in 
 respect of our moral probation as the formation 
 of our religious belief; and certainly while thus 
 engaged, we have the constant temptation before 
 us of being wise above what is written. The heart 
 is very deceitful, and it is only by a deep sense 
 of that deceitfulness that we are led to examine 
 with anxiety the process by which we arrive at 
 conviction ; endeavouring with the most watchful 
 jealousy to detect any undue bias which may 
 prevent the inspired word from having its due 
 influence. 
 
 Much, indeed, was I grieved to find, in turn- 
 ing over some volumes to find the passage I 
 quoted to you from Mr. Belsham's Letter in my 
 last, that Mr. B. has so different a notion of the 
 value which a minister of the Church of England 
 sets on truth, when he represents that we all 
 must, of necessity, be its enemies. Is this, I 
 thought, the spirit that thinketh no evil? If it 
 be not, then I should not expect that the mind 
 which harbours that spirit could arrive at gospel 
 truth ; because our blessed Lord says, " He 
 
54 
 
 who will do the will of my Father which is in 
 heaven, shall know of my doctrine, whether it 
 be from heaven." Does Mr. B. really think that 
 there is no minister of our Church who prac- 
 tically believes that he shall be a loser if he 
 " gains the whole world, but loses his own soul ;" 
 who knows and feels that this world passeth 
 away with the lusts thereof; but that he who 
 doth the will of God abideth for ever ? If he 
 does, I am prepared to expect his opinions to be 
 erroneous upon matters connected with divine 
 truth. But where I meet with such a work as 
 that I have recommended to you, breathing, as 
 it does in every page of it, a spirit the most 
 truly christian, I conceive such a mind as the 
 writer's to be well adapted for the reception of 
 truth ; and in full reliance on Christ's promise, 
 I am prepared to expect that he has arrived at 
 truth. Finding then that such a mind admits 
 the doctrines which I believe, is to me an internal 
 evidence of their truth. 
 
 Well, too, does Erskine observe that we are 
 not required to understand or believe how the 
 Trinity in Unity exists. Nor would that mys- 
 terious doctrine, probably, ever have been revealed 
 to us, had not a belief in it been calculated to pro- 
 duce a most beneficial influence upon our prac- 
 tice. It would be unreasonable to expect that 
 
55 
 
 this doctrine should liave been fully revealed till 
 the day of Pentecost. It certainly was not till 
 then that the Apostles thoroughly understood the 
 nature of the christian dispensation ; then the 
 hidden meaning of those difficult discourses con- 
 tained in St. John's Gospel was explained to 
 them through the medium of the promised Com- 
 forter, who was " to teach them all things." At the 
 same moment, therefore, that they were taught 
 the meaning of those discourses which had before 
 been so unintelligible to them ; when they under- 
 stood the true interpretation of John Baptist's 
 opening declaration, that Christ was " the Lamb 
 of God, who should take away the sins of the 
 world," and that he should " baptize with the 
 Holy Ghost;" then was it that a belief in the 
 accompanying doctrine of the Trinity became 
 necessary ; then they comprehended the full 
 meaning of our Saviour's last charge to them, 
 that they should baptize in the name of the 
 Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. 
 
 In the histories, therefore, written by those 
 Evangelists who confine themselves exclusively 
 to a recital of some leading discourses of our Lord, 
 and to an account of some of his principal mira- 
 cles, I should expect to find fewer traces of these 
 higher doctrines. In Mr. Belsham's own words, 
 (p. 57 of his Reply to Dr. Mozsey) I would ask, 
 
56 
 
 " when our Lord was so very cautious in discovering 
 himself to be the Messiah, would he, at the 
 same time, make no hesitation in declaring him- 
 self to be ' the very eternal God ? ' What 
 would have been the effect upon the Apostles 
 (says he again, p. 13,) the instant the amazing 
 truth was communicated to them ? their faculties 
 would be absorbed in terror and astonishment; 
 no more free conversation, no more asking of 
 questions, no more attempts to impose upon him, 
 or to rebuke him ; the greatest awe and distance 
 would instantaneously take place, and all the en- 
 dearing and familiar relations of master, instructor, 
 companion, and friend, would at once have been 
 broken off." 
 
 The little impression which our Saviour's 
 miracles made upon the Apostles, and the waver- 
 ing and unsettled conviction of their minds as to 
 his being the Messiah after all, (Luke xxiv. 
 11, 25,) is evident from many passages. Such a 
 frame of mind as this would be incapable of re- 
 ceiving and comprehending doctrines more ab- 
 struse, when even the testimony of their senses 
 produced so little effect upon them. I should 
 therefore be prepared to expect that the grand 
 disclosure of Christ's divine nature would not 
 be formally made to them till that period should 
 arrive when they should be " able to bear all 
 
57 
 
 things;" which period, from John xvi. \2, 13, 
 we learn to be the epoch of the descent of the 
 Holy Ghost. I need not, I am sure, when ad- 
 dressing you, multiply quotations to prove that 
 the truth, whatever it was, was not communicated 
 completely at once ; the conversation with Xico- 
 demus, (John iii. 12,) as well as that with the 
 disciples, (John vi. 61, 62,) when coupled with 
 John xvi. 12, all tend to prove this. It is, 
 therefore, no argument to me against the truth 
 of the doctrine of Christ's divine nature, that he 
 does not teach it to the Apostles, before his 
 crucifixion, so openly as might be expected. 
 Nor should I expect to find in the histories 
 of the three Evangelists who merely give an 
 historical narrative of our Saviour's ministry, 
 without any comment of their own, such direct 
 statements of the doctrine as I do in the Gospel 
 of that Apostle who prefaces his account with 
 remarks of his own. These remarks teem with 
 observations on the leading doctrines of the 
 Gospel, which the Spirit of God had taught liim 
 since the resurrection, partly by explaining the 
 full bearing of those discourses and allusions, 
 many of which had been a dead letter to the 
 disciples before ; partly by hearing those things 
 revealed to them which were not said unto them 
 befox"e, because they could not bear them ; but 
 D 3 
 
58 
 
 which the Spirit of Truth, when he came, should 
 speak unto them. (John xxi. 12, 13,) 
 
 January 28. 
 
 Going up to London gives me an opportunity 
 of sending this. I am extremely glad to hear 
 
 S has suffered so little from her journey. 
 
 Give her my kindest love, and accept the same 
 from your very 
 
 Affectionate friend and brother, 
 
 C. 
 
59 
 
 LETTER VII. 
 
 February, 1824. 
 
 My Dear C- 
 
 I THANK you for your long letter 
 
 brought me by , but cannot say that 
 
 I find in it any defence of your censure of 
 dissenters in general, of Unitarians in parti- 
 cular, nor of the individual you have singled 
 out as their representative. We acknowledge no 
 man, or set of men, as our representatives, or 
 head, or leader. We have among us preachers 
 and writers whom we highly value, and with 
 whom, generally, we agree in opinion and doc- 
 trine; and amongst these Mr. Belsham is emi- 
 nent: but while I do not feel myself bound to 
 defend every point of criticism or translation put 
 forth by him, or any writer, I yet entirely differ 
 from you in your censure of his translation and 
 
60 
 
 criticism, in the two passages you refer to, and 
 still more in your reproof of the temper of mind 
 with which he comes to the study of the Scrip- 
 ture, and your charge that he " refuses to 
 believe what God reveals." I do not feel any 
 force in your reasoning from Mark xvi. In 
 the inference you draw from Rom. v. 8, 9, I 
 differ very strongly indeed; and most of all in 
 your sentiments on the duty of inquiry, and the 
 necessity or allowableness of " leaning upon 
 human authority;" and as this last leads us 
 back to the most important point, that from 
 which we set out, I shall desire to abide there 
 till we quite understand each other as to the 
 right and duty of examining the foundations of 
 our belief. However, that I may not appear to 
 shrink from the discussion of the other points 
 of your letter, I will take them in order for the 
 present, and conclude with that important point 
 upon which the whole of your affectionate expos- 
 tulation with S must be grounded. 
 
 You say your view of the Bishop of London's 
 meaning in the passage that has been quoted 
 between us remains unaltered, in spite of the 
 passage I produce from Mr. Belsham. Be it 
 so : I think differently ; but I did not commence 
 an attack upon the Bishop ; I defend Mr. 
 Belsham against your censure of his answer, 
 
61 
 
 according to tlie meaning he put upon the 
 Bishop's proposition. 
 
 You say, (Letter III. Feb. 1823,) that you 
 " derive your estimate of the sentiments of the 
 leading persons amongst the Unitarians solely 
 from Mr. Belsham's Reply to the Bishop's 
 Charge ;" and add, that from that reply you had 
 no alternative but to imagine that he meant to 
 maintain, that d. priori argument and precon- 
 ception were not to give way to revelation. I 
 think I answered that fully in shewing that the 
 supposition, instead of being your only alternative, 
 was in itself impossible, and, in point of fact, 
 quite opposite to the whole drift and principle of 
 the very book from which the sentence is quoted ; 
 and I point out a distinction (in itself surely 
 obvious enough) between, on the one side, 
 opposing our reason to revelation, and, on the 
 other side, using our reason in discovering what 
 are the words of revelation, and the construction 
 of those words. Now, supposing that you had 
 discovered an instance of an error in his con- 
 struction or translation, (which you profess to 
 have done in Rom. ix. 5,) that would not be 
 opposing his reason to what he believes to be 
 the word of God, but only erring in that judg- 
 ment; and even if he erred in consequence of 
 preconception and bias, that would be, not an 
 
62 
 
 abandonment of his professed principle, but an 
 unperceived instance of departure from it — an 
 instance of inconsistency with himself, to which 
 all men (writers of voluminous works particu- 
 larly) must sometimes be subject. What writer 
 amongst the Church-of-England divines could 
 stand such a test? But you have not hit upon 
 such a blot as you suppose ; nor is it even just 
 to charge him with " refusing to believe what God 
 reveals," nor with altering the text,because it hap- 
 pens to be subversive of his hypothesis. You do 
 not quote his words, and I am absent from my 
 books ; I therefore will not venture to say from 
 memory whether I agree with him in the reasons 
 he gives for his proposed emendation. But you 
 acknowledge that he gives it hypothetically, not 
 hiding from view the text as found in the MSS. 
 that exist ; a charge which may be brought 
 against the text and version called orthodox. In 
 the publication called the " Improved Version," 
 it stands — " God, who is over all, be blessed for 
 evermore," a doxology that has been, (and I be- 
 lieve, to this day is,) habitual with the Jews ; and 
 of frequent introduction as a parenthesis in 
 their solemn writings and exhortations ; and 
 therefore, in ray mind, a very probable reading, 
 and one which the construction of the Greek 
 text, as it stands, will fully bear; and if it is the 
 
63 
 
 right reading, "6 wv iir\ ttuvtwv" is not " pre- 
 dicated of Christ." I believe, too, you will find 
 that the primitive Christians, writing on that very 
 passage, denied that it was. But suppose the 
 reading a mistaken one, the Unitarian does not 
 shrink under your piirase — " Let the Unitarian 
 satisfy himself what He is who is ' over all.'" 
 IldvT(i)v is a plural adjective, and no substantive 
 is expressed; so that a substantive must be 
 supplied by implication. Must we necessarily 
 supply the blank with such a substantive as will 
 ascribe to him omnipotence, which he was so far 
 from claiming himself, that many of his solemn 
 assertions were in direct contradiction to it? 
 e. g. Matt, xxviii. 18, " All power is given unto 
 me in heaven and in earth!" At any rate, 
 it must be our reason and understanding, on 
 which only we can rely for filling up the blank 
 at all. A great leader, founder of a new and 
 holy system — the christian dispensation, may 
 surely be styled the head over all that dispen- 
 sation. Have you not a canon declaring the 
 king of England the head of the Church, and 
 therefore " over all things" in that Church? 
 
 Suppose, again, that this construction is wrong. 
 Suppose I cannot mend it. Well ! then you have 
 produced a passage from an Epistle written by 
 Paul to a church, or society, of converts of his. 
 
64 
 
 which sentence I cannot -understand. Is that to 
 be wondered at ? Must I adopt that mode of 
 supplying the elhpsis which appears to con- 
 tradict numberless passages of Scripture, and 
 even the whole tenour of that revelation which 
 teaches me that God alone is over all his works ; 
 that there is none other ; that Jesus Christ was 
 sent by him ? And then of Him who prayed to 
 his Father, and said, " I can do nothing of 
 myself," shall I be compelled to find a word to 
 supply the blank, which word shall imply that 
 he is the One that is " over all" the works of 
 his creation ? and shall I be compelled to receive 
 this implication as revelation from God himself? 
 No. If I find two passages in the book that 
 appear to contradict each other, I know that in 
 one of them either the text has been corrupted, 
 or is mistranslated, or at least is misunderstood. 
 Some misapprehension must be the cause of 
 apparent contradiction, for revelation cannot con- 
 tradict itself. I will therefore endeavour so to 
 construe the passage as to reconcile it with that 
 of which the meaning is indisputable ; and if I 
 cannot do that, I will be content to say I do not 
 understand it. I will listen to any interpre- 
 tation that seems reasonable and probable ; but 
 I will not adopt, upon any authority, that which 
 appears to me inconsistent with the indisputable 
 
65 
 
 doctrines of revelation. This principle no Pro- 
 testant can condemn, without abandoning the 
 principles on which he protests against the in- 
 fallibility of the Church of Rome. Your ex- 
 pressions, that because a certain sentence in a 
 letter written by an Apostle to a society of his 
 converts has universal credit for " its genuine- 
 ness," " therefore it is the revealed word of 
 God, or we have no security for any passage of 
 Scripture ;" and afterwards, ** if we can be sure 
 that God revealed a single sentence in the Bible, 
 we can be sure that he revealed the verse in 
 question ;" would put dangerous weapons in the 
 hands of Deists, of which they are ready enough 
 to avail themselves. But you must have written 
 the page without much reflection on the danger 
 of that style of argument, and therefore I will 
 say no more upon it at present. 
 
 You next take hold of Mr. Belsham's trans- 
 lation of Heb. i. 2. (By-the-bye, there is no 
 proof that Paul was, — and there are many rea- 
 sons for thinking that he could not be, — the 
 author of that epistle. You know that in the 
 primitive ages of Christianity it was not ad- 
 mitted as the undisputed writing of an Apostle : 
 and that Eusebius and Origen have both de- 
 clared that the writer was unknown. But I 
 shall not debate your point upon that ground.) In 
 
66 
 
 the first place, then, the rendering you object to 
 of " St' ov Km ToiiQ ahovag," Sec. does not originate 
 with Mr. Belsham, but was debated long before 
 his time. In the second place, whether the pre- 
 position will, or will not, bear the rendering he 
 adopts, he has yielded to no inducement from 
 an idea that the other construing favours the 
 doctrine of the pre-existence of Christ. How 
 came you to pass over the next word ? Will 
 you or Elmsley say that aliovag signifies " the 
 heavens, the earth, the seas, and all things that 
 are therein?" Ask him. I think he M'ill say 
 that it is a license he would not dare to take with 
 Aristophanes. 
 
 You cannot make out any thing from this text 
 that favours the doctrine of the pre-existence of 
 Christ. But suppose you could. Do you not 
 know that many Unitarians hold that doctrine ; 
 and what is there in it inconsistent with the 
 belief that he was the creature of God, and not 
 God himself? I form no limit to the power of 
 God, nor judge of the means or instruments 
 whereby his great will is executed. Pre-exist- 
 ence in another state is no step towards eternal 
 existence. You say, " acknowledge that he 
 pre-existed, at least ;" but this least is nothing. 
 Is there any gradation between a created being 
 and a self-existent being ? Were I to grant 
 
67 
 
 that Clirist was literally the Creator of the earth, 
 and all things thereon, that would be no step 
 towards the stupendous doctrine that he is God 
 himself. If Moses stretched forth his hand and 
 the rivers became blood, as this was an exercise 
 of a power delegated by the Almighty, might 
 not the power to form the globe and the crea- 
 tures be delegated by the same Almighty, in 
 like manner, to a created being? I do not 
 believe that it was, because I do not read that it 
 was : I read, " I alone made," &c. *' God the 
 Lord, he that created the heavens and stretched 
 them out ; he that spread forth the earth, he that 
 giveth breath unto the people," (Is. xlii. 5 :) will 
 £7ronj(T£ Tovg auovaQ answer to these words ? 
 
 You say, that during Christ's abode on earth 
 he did not declare himself to be the eternal 
 God, and that this doctrine was not revealed 
 till the day of Pentecost. Read, then, the 
 book of the Acts of the Apostles, and all the 
 preaching of the Apostles from the time when 
 they were filled with the Holy Spirit, and sure I 
 am you cannot shew me where they preach this 
 doctrine. When under the immediate influence 
 of inspiration, the whole of their divine com- 
 mission now fully opened to them, filled with 
 the Holy Spirit, and working miracles in proof 
 of it, they say, " A man from God manifested 
 
68 
 
 among you by works," &c. " which God did 
 by him," — " whom God hath raised up" — 
 *' exalted to the right hand of God," — " having 
 received from the Father the promise of the 
 Holy Spirit," — " God made that Jesus both Lord 
 and Christ." " The God of Abraham hath 
 glorified his servant Jesus." — " Moses said. The 
 Lord your God will raise up unto you from 
 your brethren a prophet like unto me." — " The 
 God of our fathers raised up Jesus, whom ye 
 killed" — " him God exalted" — " and we are his 
 witnesses." And Stephen, full of God's grace 
 and power, and probably with even the vision of 
 Jesus Christ in his exalted state before his eyes, 
 refers to the prophecy of Moses as now fulfilled : 
 " A prophet the Lord God will raise up," &c. 
 " like unto me, to him shall ye hearken," (not to 
 him shall ye pray.) And afterwards, Paul : 
 *' God hath fulfilled the promise," to us, their 
 children, *' in that he hath raised up Jesus ;" 
 " This Jesus whom I preach unto you is the 
 Christ." And in Athens: " The God who made 
 the world, and all things therein, hath appointed a 
 day, in which he will judge the world, by that Man 
 whom he hath appointed ; of which (appoint- 
 ment) he hath given proofs in that he hath 
 raised him from the dead." So in Corinth : 
 " Paul was employed with them, testifying to 
 
69 
 
 the Jews that Jesus was tlie Christ;" and they 
 opposed themselves to what? — to the assertion, 
 not that he was God, but that he was the Mes- 
 siah. So in Ephesus, " proving by the Scrip- 
 ture that Jesus was the Christ :" this continued 
 for years. Afterwards to the Elders, (chap xx. 
 ver. 18, et seq.) " I have not kept back any thing 
 that was profitable to you ;" announcing to Jews 
 and Gentiles " repentance towards God, and 
 faith towards our Lord Jesus Christ :" " I have 
 kept nothing back, but have shewn you all the 
 counsel of God." And afterwards, at his trial, — 
 *' So worship I the God of our fathers ;" and he 
 declares, " Concerning (not the God-head of 
 Christ, but concerning) the resurrection of the 
 dead I am judged by you ;" and before Agrippa, 
 " That Christ should suffer, and that he being 
 the first who rose from the dead should announce 
 light," &c. 
 
 Here I have not "altered the text" — not 
 commented — not inferred — but have given the 
 plain words of the preaching of the Apostles, from 
 the time they were fully instructed and commis- 
 sioned, inspired, and professing their inspiration, 
 as well as repeating the living instruction of their 
 Master, uninterruptedly to the end of the history, 
 and in language that he who runs may read ; 
 and after all this, can I believe that concerning 
 
70 
 
 this Jesus, — whom the Apostles so preached year 
 after year, to Jews and Gentiles, professing their 
 inspiration, and express commission to teach, 
 saying that they had taught all the Gospel, — it 
 was afterwards for the first time revealed, in a 
 letter written by one of them to a church he had 
 established in a heathen country, (and in this 
 letter, not by direct declaration of the writer, but 
 incidentally, by way of allusion in a parenthesis,) 
 that he was the very and eternal God ? That the 
 Almighty, who had promised he would send the 
 Messiah, had come himself? That the ineffable 
 / Jm was born, nursed, educated, was taught ; 
 that it was God that hungered, was tempted ! 
 wept, died ? and the church to whom it was so 
 for the first time revealed, were they not in con- 
 sternation at that doctrine, (at which one of your 
 divines says, " reason stands aghast, and faith 
 herself is half confounded?") It is utterly incon- 
 sistent with the principles or feelings of human 
 nature, from the creation to the present time, 
 that it should be so received by them. Such a 
 construction of the epistle of their apostolic 
 teacher never once entered into their minds. 
 The doctrine never came from the mouth of 
 Christ, nor from the lips or pen of an Apostle. 
 
 But I am going farther than I intended — I do 
 not wish to persuade you to be a Unitarian. 1 
 
71 
 
 act on the defensive, and only vindicate the right 
 and duty of distinguishing the doctrines of heaven 
 from those of men, (according to Mr. Belsham's 
 expression,) or of trying ourselves, " whether our 
 ideas are not derived from creeds and articles, or 
 human compositions of some kind," (according 
 to Mr. Erskine's expression,) and applying all 
 the reason and understanding " that God has 
 tjiven us with that aim." 
 
 Now let me say a word on the " frame of mind 
 which prompted INIr. Belsham to this step, " 
 and the " temper of mind with which he comes 
 to the study of the Scriptures." You have hit 
 upon an instance which, together with that of 
 Lindsey, (almost a martyr,) and of several others 
 of our leading men, must stand as a thorough 
 refutation of your ** fundamental maxim, that 
 in practical matters, whatever we wish to believe 
 we do believe." 
 
 Mr. Belsham was in a situation very congenial 
 to his feelings, and very consonant with his view 
 of the comforts of life, that of divinity tutor in a 
 dissenting college, educating young men for the 
 ministry. You will not deny that pious, learned, 
 and eminent men, have proceeded from that foun- 
 dation ; (Doddridge and Watts, I believe, inter 
 al. :) Mr. B. was deeply concerned to find that 
 some of his pupils were falling off in orthodoxy, 
 
(as it was called there,' as in the several churches 
 in the world,) and that they were led from the 
 truth, deceived by the writings of Priestley, &c. 
 
 With the hope of bringing them back to the 
 doctrines they had first learnt, he sat down to 
 select from the Bible the passages he thought 
 most convincing. Could a more proper " temper 
 of mind " have prompted him to the search ? At 
 length, the love of truth alone compelled him to 
 confess to himself that he had before believed 
 that to be judgment which was prejudice, or 
 founded on a biassed reading of Scripture ; and 
 his conscience obliged him to desist from teach- 
 ing that which, on a patient and painful investi- 
 gation, he found to be opposed to the doctrine of 
 the Gospel ; and therefore to resign an honour- 
 able post, and submit to the pain of parting from 
 friends and friendships. 
 
 Conviction is irresistible ; and nothing less 
 than irresistible conviction is deserving of the 
 name of belief. We cannot believe because we 
 wish to believe. Your friend Erskine both denies 
 it and declares it. I never met with a more 
 confused argumentation than that which runs 
 through the whole of his book. But the know- 
 ledge of facts as exemplified in all the converts 
 from orthodoxy (as it is termed) to Unitarianism, 
 (and of such a large proportion of Unitarians 
 
73 
 
 consists,) would be sufficient, if argument could 
 fail, to disprove it undeniably. What temper of 
 mind, what wishes, prompted Lindsey to resign 
 a valuable living, and high prospects in the 
 Church, and to part from and ofTend expostula- 
 ting and beloved friends, scarcely knowing where 
 to lay his head ? It is said of him, that his 
 friend Mason, (author of Self-Knowledge,) find- 
 ing him immovable by any consideration respect- 
 ing himself, asked him whether he had a right to 
 subject Mrs. Lindsey to such hardships — that 
 this consideration, though pouring into his cup a 
 tenfold portion of bitterness, could not shake him. 
 He v/as observed afterwards, with an altered 
 look, and depressed countenance ; but reasoning 
 with himself, he said, " How is this? can one in- 
 dispensable duty be really incompatible with 
 another?" and he recovered his serenity. Believe 
 
 me, C , the change from " Orthodoxy," or 
 
 conformity to the doctrines held by those with 
 whom we have associated in life, is painful to pro- 
 fessors or private individuals. It is consonant to 
 no wishes but that of finding the truth, and is to 
 be produced only by irresistible conviction, to 
 which I maintain it is our duty at all times, and 
 during the whole course of our lives, to expose 
 ourselves ; and it is the best, (I may say the 
 
 E 
 
74 
 
 only, confirmation of aur belief, to find that it 
 will bear this constant exposure. 
 
 I must give you one more instance of the 
 " principles of the leading persons of our per- 
 suasion." I copy a paragraph from Estlin's 
 preface to his Book of Prayers. In his apology, 
 he says of himself^ (the writer,) " In connecting 
 himself with Dissenters, he was influenced by no 
 sectarian spirit ; for the first wish of his heart, 
 till he was nearly twenty years of age, was to 
 officiate in the Established Church, and to pro- 
 cure for himself that share of its emoluments and 
 honours which was to be obtained by a fair com- 
 petition, by professional industry, and by consis- 
 tency of character. It has often been a painful 
 consideration with him, and it has led to a most 
 unpleasant general inference, that his close atten- 
 tion to the subject, and his fixed determination 
 never to sacrifice principle to inclination, should 
 have operated as the cause of his exclusion." 
 Such are the principles you condemn in our 
 writers. Look at Priestley ! He was educated 
 a Calvinist. What advantage did he expect 
 from promulgating his change of opinion ? — per- 
 secution ? He did not expect that, to be sure. 
 But the fearless love of truth, for its own sake, 
 and the irresistible conviction that followed a 
 
75 
 
 patient investigation of the evidence, which a 
 diHgent and unbiassed searching of the Scriptures 
 brought before him, exposed him to it; and his 
 sufferings have stood as a warning to others not 
 to wish, at least, to think as he thouglit. Lardner ! 
 What temper of mind influenced his writings ? 
 What temper of mind influenced the pious and 
 amiable Watts, or the universally esteemed 
 Whitby, when, towards the close of life, soon to 
 appear before the judgment-seat of Christ, they 
 both embraced Unitarianism ? I am very far 
 from denying that your sect abounds with exam- 
 ples, living and dead, of piety, and of every thing 
 amiable in their religious temper of mind: but I 
 am as far from shrinking from the comparison of 
 them with ours. We are speaking of leading 
 men. I should think you would not in this com- 
 parison select Archbishop Magee, Bishops Hors- 
 ley, Burgess, or Howley ; nor Dr. Nares, nor 
 Moysey ; I mean as to " temper of mind," — for 
 I do not suspect any of them, (with the exception 
 perhaps of Horsley,) of insincerity, nor with a 
 want of religious feeling. And as to argument, 
 look at Serle's " Horae Solitariae " — what a deter- 
 mination to support a system through thick and 
 thin is apparent m that work ; what an uninter- 
 rupted string of palpable ?ion seqidturs does he 
 triumph in ! What a wonderful prejudice in 
 F <^ 
 
76 
 
 favour of hypothesis carries him on in a torrent 
 as it were of sophisms ! (I use the word in its 
 least obnoxious sense, for I fully believe him 
 sincere.) On the other side, take Carpenter, in 
 his Reply to Magee ; the calm and gentle, yet 
 forcible rebuke of the unfeeling heedlessness of 
 his accusations and misrepresentations. See 
 his close and unanswerable arguments and evi- 
 dences. Take Turner's Letter in answer to the 
 same, on the sacrifices and Mosaic ritual. Com- 
 pare Yates with Wardlaw. See the temper of 
 mind in Southwood Smith's Essay on the Divine 
 Government : the ardent but moderated zeal 
 and affection with which he discusses the impor- 
 tant subject, the logical minuteness of his argu- 
 ments, the fairness and candour with which he 
 weighs those of his opponents, the closeness 
 with which he adduces his proofs from Scripture, 
 and the fine strain of benevolence with which he 
 concludes. I know of no book more animating, 
 more stimulating in the duties of life, more justly 
 terrifying to the conscience of evil doers, more 
 consoling to those who suffer under the dispen- 
 sations of a wise and kind Providence ; — as su- 
 perior to Erskine's, as sound logic is to the 
 effusions of imagination. Neither am I afraid to 
 mention the appeal of Rararaohun Roy, a 
 learned Brahmin, a convert to Christianity — a 
 
77 
 
 book which it will be almost a shame to any 
 member of any Christian Church not to read ; 
 and which for learning and sound sense I should 
 not hesitate to compare with the work of almost 
 any member of any European university. 
 
 As 1 have before said, I do not wish to make 
 you a Unitarian : on the contrary, 1 should be 
 much concerned at it, (I think I can vindicate 
 the sentiment, though it has an appearance of in- 
 consistency,) but I do wish to convince you that 
 they do not deserve the calumnies heaped upon 
 them ; — that they are unfeignedly anxious to pre- 
 serve (that which they are accused of perverting) 
 the integrity of the records of revelation, and of 
 making every thing bow to that. 
 
 If I have not the happiness to find you, upon 
 calm reflection, disposed to join Tillotson and 
 other eminent men of your Church, ashamed of 
 the Athanasian Creed, and wishing to keep it as 
 much as possible out of sight, at least do ours 
 the justice to understand, that while we shudder 
 at it, we do not inconsistently " assert that he 
 who does not believe the Gospel, in our sense of 
 the word, cannot be saved." 
 
 I must refer you to my former letter on that 
 point : I assure you, I read all yours more than 
 once or twice. Can you really think you have at 
 all answered that protest of mine, by the remark, 
 
78 
 
 that the persons there alluded to might "live in 
 harmony and charity, consistently with the notions 
 you had expressed?" The question is not con- 
 cerning harmony and charity, but the believing 
 each other to be condemned to eternal perdition. 
 You put me now to express our sentiments 
 strongly. The Unitarians not only do not think 
 that any humble and sincere inquirers after 
 gospel truths and gospel evidences shall be so 
 condemned, but they think that for any unin- 
 spired men to assert it, and to make themselves 
 judges of what is truth, and condemn others for 
 differing in that judgment, is a wicked and im- 
 pious presumption : and charging this presumption 
 on the inventor of that creed, they entertain no 
 spirit at all analogous with it. 
 
 You still say that we must surely conclude 
 that they are under the condemnation who disbe- 
 lieve what we conceive to be referred to by Christ 
 in the expression alluded to, Mark xvi. 16. I 
 thank God, I never joined a sect that arrogates 
 to itself such a tremendous reliance upon its con- 
 ceptions of the meaning of a record. Sincere 
 doubt is no crime ; blind assent, a very great one. 
 A few pages back, I barely noticed a style of 
 asseveration against which, (now that I find it a 
 third time in your letter,) I must take the liberty 
 to caution you. Such phrases as, "if Christ's 
 
79 
 
 words have any meaning at all " — *' as long as 
 Scripture has authority," &c. 
 
 In order to shew you the danger of them, I 
 will now personate a caviller against your belief, 
 and reading just the remainder of the very sen- 
 tence you quote, in such character (of caviller,) 
 I will say, *' You, and all your fraternity are 
 yourselves destitute of saving faith, or any belief 
 at all. Can you swallow poison unhurt? can 
 you lay hands on the sick and heal them ? No ! 
 Then either you do not believe, and shall be con- 
 demned, or the words of Christ your God have 
 no meaning at all. Do you all, smitten on the 
 right cheek, turn your left ? No. Then you 
 ' refuse to believe what God reveals,' or to obey 
 what God commands. Either you eat the very 
 body of Christ, or his words have no meaning at 
 all." Thus you see, that by the use of such ex- 
 pressions you deprive yourself of all rational 
 answer to the objections of unbelievers. Let me, 
 in the purest good-will, and for your own sake, 
 whatever cause you espouse, recommend to you 
 to observe and check that style of arguing. The 
 habit of using it has a certain, though impercep- 
 tible tendency to increase. When your argument 
 is sound, its force is not augmented by assevera- 
 tion ; and if you are in error, its force recoils 
 upon you. 
 
80 
 
 I consider you to be exceedingly mistaken in 
 the sentiment you found upon the verse in ques- 
 tion, (Mark xvi. 16,) as to both the word 
 " believe," and the word " saved," and the oppo- 
 site. To " believe " evidently means to "receive 
 the Gospel." Amongst the Jews, to believe that 
 Jesus was the Messiah. Amongst the Gentiles, 
 to believe that he was a man sent from God, to 
 teach the doctrine of eternal life ; and that he 
 had given proof of his divine mission, by the 
 miracles which he did, and of his doctrine, in 
 that he himself rose from the dead. 
 
 Could Jesus Christ, by the word " believe," 
 mean, " form a correct hypothesis." This is what 
 you require. " Consubstantial " — " Very God of 
 very God " — " begotten, not made," " proceeding 
 from " two other persons, with whom he was 
 " co-existent and co-eternal." Jesus Christ says, 
 *'This is the work of God, that ye believe in 
 Him whom he hath sent." What did the believers 
 believe of him (John vii.) ? " This is that Pro- 
 phet" — "this is the Christ." Philip said to the 
 eunuch, " If thoubelievest, thou mayest be bap- 
 tized;" and he answered, " I believe that Jesus 
 Christ is the Son of God." And what was the 
 belief taught by the Apostles, as recorded in the 
 Acts ? Of this I have said enough before. Then 
 as to the word " saved ;" may it not justly be 
 
81 
 
 said of the nations, who are rescued from the 
 worship of dumb idols to the worship of the true 
 God, or from ignorance and barbarism, from sin 
 and voluptuousness, to the knowledge of eternal 
 life, and the conditions of it ; they are saved from 
 ignorance and all its evils ? Your friend Erskine 
 thus construes it in one place, (see page 30 of 
 his Second Book.) " Salvation," he says, "here 
 signifies healing or deliverance, not from the 
 condemnation, but from the influence of sin ;" and 
 the opposite word, " condemned," to which, by- 
 the-bye, you add the words " and punished," 
 appear to signify, " shall remain under the con- 
 demnation of darkness, ignorance, and its evils." 
 " Shall " (it is scarcely necessary to observe to 
 you) is a word peculiarly English ; and though 
 the peculiarity gives us generally an advantage 
 over other languages, in the expressiveness of 
 the two modes of forming our future tense, yet 
 in translation it is disadvantageous ; because it 
 determines the intention of the sentence, which, 
 in the original, is left so far doubtful. " Shall 
 be condemned," then, is not necessarily the de- 
 nouncing of a sentence of condemnation, but the 
 whole seems to signify — '*if they receive you, 
 receive them ; if they reject you, (not otherwise,) 
 reject them. Cast not your pearls before swine, 
 e3 
 
82 
 
 but leave them as you' find them, condemned to 
 ignorance and idolati'y." 
 
 Now that I have written this, shewing you 
 that I have no need to shelter myself against the 
 application of the passage you quote, and con- 
 cerning which you say, " If the words of Christ 
 have any meaning at all," I request you to look 
 at Griesbach's note upon the last twelve verses 
 of that chapter ; and to remember that Griesbach 
 was an orthodox divine. 
 
 There are several dubious indications of more 
 modern writing in those verses ; but it is not 
 necessary to my argument to cast a doubt upon 
 them. 
 
 I am frightened at the sight of this twentieth 
 page, and the more so, because I find I have not 
 got half through your letter. Yet I have con- 
 stantly checked myself, and endeavoured to com- 
 press what I have to say. But it would have 
 the appearance of inattention to the feelings 
 which have prompted you to enter on the subject, 
 if I were to leave unnoticed any material part of 
 your arguments ; and to withhold my own, would 
 be to abandon the principles of that conviction 
 which binds me. At present, I can only send 
 this off as a fragment. 
 
83 
 
 LETTER VIII. 
 
 April, 1824. 
 
 My dear C , 
 
 I SENT you a terribly long half letter 
 
 from , broken off abruptly, because I found 
 
 it necessary to postpone the continuation of 
 the detail of answer to your last, in order to 
 settle first the principles on which we proceed, 
 and to understand each other as to what we 
 mutually acknowledge to mean by free inquiry. 
 
 The question between us is, whether Christians, 
 of any or every sect (that of the Church of Rome, 
 the Church of England — of Scotland— Luthe- 
 ran, Calvinist, Dissenters of any denomination, 
 Quakers, Arian, Unitarian, &c.), or, I may add, 
 Jews, Mahommedans, or Hindoos, pursue or 
 transgress the sacred line of duty, in undertaking, 
 for the first time, at any period of life, a free 
 examination of the doctrine they were taught 
 to profess, at an age when it was confessedly 
 
84 
 
 impossible they could be competent either to 
 believe or disbelieve any system offered to them 
 by the authority of parents and teachers — a 
 belief which they have ever since professed in 
 union and concert with beloved instructors, as 
 well as with fellow-disciples, and which, under 
 their influence and example, they have learnt to 
 hold sacred. 
 
 The Jew speaks with reverence of the religion 
 of his ancestors, of the God of his fathers, of the 
 law of Moses, of the promise of the Messiah ; the 
 Christian tells him he reverences, in like manner, 
 the same God, the same law, the same prophets, 
 and the same promises : but he tells him the 
 promise is fulfilled, the law of Moses is super- 
 seded by that of the Messiah that was to come ; 
 that the Messiah is come, and that Jesus Christ 
 was the Messiah ; and he offers him proof of it, 
 which proof cannot be addressed but to his rea- 
 son. Ought the Jew to listen to him? or would a 
 willing listening to the proofs of the Christian 
 " involve moral guilt in the sight of God ?" 
 
 The Mahommedan believes also in the one 
 God, the God of the Jews — in Jesus Christ, as 
 his prophet; but the revelation of Jesus Christ 
 is superseded by his greater successor, Mahomet. 
 What is the foundation of his belief? Why, that 
 he was born a Mussulman ; he has been taught 
 
S5 
 
 from his infancy to hold the doctrine sacred, and 
 he would as soon hsten to Satan himself as to 
 a Christian who would offer proofs that Jesus 
 Christ was the last that should come, and that 
 his kingdom shall endure for ever. The bolder 
 amongst them will abhor the christian dog : the 
 more timid one will shrink from him with fear 
 and trembling. We pity their ignorance, but 
 we justify their aversion to listen to what we 
 call divine truths, only by referring it to the dark- 
 ness in which the prejudices of their education 
 has involved them. 
 
 Now we will look to the christian world. An 
 infant is born in a Roman Catholic country, of 
 Catholic parents. He is baptized with holy 
 water — he is made, in extreme youth, to repeat 
 certain sounds, and to perform certain acts, of 
 the meaning of which he knows nothing ; but 
 they are all necessary for the safety of his soul. 
 He grows up ; he is never to question even the 
 reason of these acts, or the real meaning of the 
 words. Holy Church determines them. The 
 true faith is in its mysteries. The mysteries are 
 sacred. He may read the Bible in such parts of it, 
 and in such words as Holy Church prescribes, 
 but must not question whether they are the words 
 of revelation, nor examine, or pry into their doc- 
 trine in any other sense than as construed by his 
 
86 
 
 priest. If he doubts,- he is damned. If he 
 Hstens to one who would show him that he is 
 under any error, (though he who would show it 
 him may be ready to seal his own conviction 
 with death and torture,) he becomes an heretic, 
 and shall suffer the punishments of heretics. He 
 hears with horror the Protestant, who tells him 
 that the Virgin Mary, and the Saint under whose 
 special protection he is, and who has heard and 
 answered his prayers in all times of his distress, 
 are not to be worshipped. 
 
 Do you not say, that these are the means 
 whereby the errors of Popery are continued 
 amongst multitudes (a large majority) of Chris- 
 tians, from generation to generation, now down 
 to the nineteenth century, after the promulgation 
 of gospel truth ? Are these errors perpetuated 
 in any other way than by forbidding the disci- 
 ples of Popery to listen to reason ? Would not 
 reasoning from Scripture, and expounding Scrip- 
 ture, by comparing it with itself instead of the 
 dogmas of men, by degrees bring out the truth 
 of the Gospel, and dispel those errors from the 
 face of the earth, if priestcraft and prejudice did 
 not forbid that their dogmas should be so exa- 
 mined? Do you not, as a Protestant, condemn 
 that principle of exclusive doctrine ? Do you 
 not call the infallibility pretended to, gross 
 
87 
 
 presumption in the sight of God ? Do you not 
 excuse the wilfulness wherewith the Catholic so 
 educated shuts his eyes to what you offer him as 
 gospel truth, solely by the pity you have for the 
 darkness that has thus been cast over his under- 
 standing ? Is he not, in so shutting his eyes, 
 obeying the solemn teaching he has received from 
 all whom in this world he looks on with love and 
 reverence ? 
 
 Now in Great Britain, a child born of parents 
 professed members of the Church established by 
 law, is baptized also in infancy ; — words are said 
 for him — persons undertake that he shall be 
 taught the Belief. When he can speak, but before 
 he can understand, he is taught to say that his 
 sponsors promised for him so and so. Then he is 
 taught 'to repeat a creed, in which he says, 
 " 1 believe in the Catholic Church : the commu- 
 nion of saints, — the forgiveness of sins,"&c. What 
 it means he has no means of inqmring, nor per- 
 haps, in the course of his life, ever does inquire ; 
 still at an age when it is quite impossible he 
 should demur to any declaration that his instruc- 
 tors put into his mouth, he releases his sponsors 
 from their promise (which, probably, they have 
 never thought of, nor had any power to execute 
 if they did), and he takes the responsibility upon 
 himself. Now he believes that " the Father is 
 
88 
 
 God, the Son is God, and the Holy Ghost is 
 God ; and yet there are not three Gods, but one 
 God — without confounding the persons," and so 
 on, — and that all who do not acknowledge this, 
 *' without doubt, perish everlastingly." Further, 
 believing that he and all his fellow-creatures are 
 subject to condemnation to eternal torment for 
 sin committed thousands of years before he was in 
 being, and his only hope of pardon for such sins 
 is in his faith or belief that God himself became 
 man, and suffered in his stead an equivalent to 
 that eternal torment. Hitherto, his belief rests 
 upon a foundation exactly equal to that of the 
 Mahommedan, the Jew, or the Roman Catholic 
 Christian, — the mere accident of birth. 
 
 Ought it to rest there ? If so, no longer 
 blame the Church of Rome for forbidding its sect 
 to listen to heretical insinuations ; still less, lead 
 them into temptation, by an attempt to convert 
 them. Send no missionaries amongst the Hindoos 
 or Mahommedans ; denounce the Society for Pro- 
 pagating the Gospel in Foreign Parts, and the 
 Society for Converting the Jews, &c. &c. for they 
 are tempting men to " abandon the faith in 
 which they were brought up." 
 
 If not, ( that is, if it is really their duty to try 
 whether their religious belief does not " depend 
 entirely upon human compositions of some kind,"') 
 
S9 
 
 then tell me how is that sclt-examination to be 
 conducted ? 
 
 " Read the Bible," you will say. We also 
 say so : but the Bible does not contain these 
 doctrines. We find no such words ! " No," 
 you say, " not in words, but the doctrine may be 
 inferred." But must we listen to the inferences, 
 reasonings, and comments, of one side only ? — 
 of those who first taught that belief, of which 
 now, for the first time, we are able to examine 
 the foundation ? Then the foundation of our 
 belief is again reduced to the level of the belief 
 of the Mahommedan, or the Roman Catholic. 
 
 Protestant Christians are, as jurymen, required 
 each to return his own verdict on his own con- 
 science, according to evidence. Can a juryman 
 have any pretence to say he returns even a con- 
 scientious verdict, after hearing the evidence on 
 one side only ; explanation and comments on the 
 Acts of Parliament, by advocates on one side ? 
 But, perhaps, I can put the whole in a shorter 
 compass, by confining my question to one 
 instance, by way of illustration. You have given 
 
 to S (and to your other sisters,) a book, of 
 
 which you say, that in it is forcibly illustrated a 
 train of reasoning which you seem to conclude 
 ought to influence her religious belief." She 
 read it with serious attention. Unitarians never 
 
90 
 
 refuse to listen to argument, or to expose their 
 belief to examination. You must admit that 
 there is in this some prima facie evidence (not 
 only of sincerity, but) of the soundness of their 
 doctrine : and you have since given to them a 
 book of extracts from Serle's " Horas Solitariae," 
 &c. by way of confirming them in that faith in 
 vv^hich they were brought up. Now suppose a 
 book to be written by a serious Christian in 
 answer to Erskine, reasoning with him, and 
 professing to show him his abundant errors; or 
 in answer to Serle, referring with him verse by 
 verse, to Scripture, drawing opposite inferences, 
 and justifying those inferences by comparing 
 Scripture with itself throughout, — what would 
 be the duty of those sisters, desirous in all ear- 
 nest humility to know the truth? 
 
 There are four predicaments, one of which 
 they must choose : — either they must refuse to 
 read both the one and the other ; 
 
 Or they must read the books you gave, and 
 not the answers ; 
 
 Or they must read the answers, and not the 
 books ; 
 
 Or they must read both books and answers. 
 
 The Evangelical sect would say, " Read nei- 
 ther — read the Bible, and pray that the Holy 
 Spirit will enlighten you." But this answer 
 
9 
 
 involves the supposition that that sect only 
 pray as they ought, — (a presumption too preva- 
 lent amongst some, who flatter themselves that 
 they arc very humble ;) or else, that the Holy 
 Spirit gives different answers to them, and to 
 those who differ from them, which would be 
 somewhat impious and absurd. You, however, 
 could not agree with them in their recommenda- 
 tion, for that would be inconsistent with the 
 design of giving the books. 
 
 Then plainly say, ought they to read the an- 
 swers if such were before them ? Would it be 
 the reading, or the refusal to read, that would 
 go most nearly to " involve moral guilt in the 
 sight of God V 
 
 If you say they ought in such a case to shut 
 their eyes to the unorthodox argument, then 
 show me in what respect the foundation of their 
 faith stands higher than that of the Hindoo, the 
 Mahommedan, the Roman Catholic, or any other 
 — (I don't say their faith, for that would be 
 begging the question, but the foundation of their 
 faith ;) I say, that those whom they pity for 
 their blindness have exactly equal right to be 
 confident in their faith. It rests upon the same 
 foundation, — the mere accident of birth. 
 
 Can the Protestant rest in comfort and confi- 
 dence on the account he shall one day give of 
 
92 
 
 the talents (or talent) entrusted to him, who has 
 never once used it in the inquiry whether the 
 mystery (on which his only hope of salvation 
 rests !) was taught by Jesus Christ, or only by the 
 framers of creeds, and modelled into catechisms 
 to be learnt by rote in infancy? 
 
 The self-examination necessary requires no 
 knowledge of Greek. Sad, indeed, were our case 
 if our salvation depended on Greek criticism. 
 Your Affectionate Brother, 
 
 D. 
 
 Pray give me the etymology and signification 
 of the following Hebrew names — 
 
 Elihu. 
 
 Elijah. 
 
 Elishapliat. 
 
 Adonijah. 
 
 Elishama. 
 
 Badjah. 
 
 Eliah. 
 
 Tobiah. 
 
93 
 
 LETTER IX. 
 
 September, 1824. 
 
 My Dear D , 
 
 My tardiness in replying to your last 
 letter may reasonably have excited your sur- 
 j)rise; but it is only during my vacation that I 
 have a moment to attend to any thing but my 
 parish, my pupils, and the correspondence they 
 entail upon me. During the short interval I had 
 at Easter, I was so very unwell as to be unable 
 to give my mind to any thing that required 
 exertion ; and, once entered upon the long 
 vacation, I thought I might as well be the 
 bearer of my own dispatches when I should 
 pay my promised visit to you at your country 
 house. 
 
 In answering your last sheets, I shall, for 
 clearness' sake, follow, as nearly as may be, the 
 order of subjects which you have adopted ; 
 finishing with that important one upon which 
 
94 
 
 you are naturally anxious we should mutually 
 come to an understanding. 
 
 I regret very much that I have no copy of 
 my last to you ; as from some expressions in 
 yours, I think some misconception must have 
 arisen from it. You speak of my having "cen- 
 sured Dissenters in general ;" of which I am 
 really at this moment quite unconscious. You 
 also seem to imply that I have imputed blame to 
 
 S , absolutely,— for having abandoned the 
 
 faith in which she was brought up ; whereas, 
 I thought I had endeavoured to guard against 
 any such construction of words, by stating that 
 my apprehensions on her account arose, not 
 from any guilt I conceived might attach to her 
 entering upon the inquiry into the grounds of 
 her faith, but from the frame of mind in which 
 that inquiry might have been conducted. 
 
 I now proceed to the substance of your letter. 
 As to my censure of Mr. Belsham's Answer to 
 the Bishop of London's Charge, I can have no 
 object in pressing it beyond the bounds of fair 
 argument. It was founded principally upon my 
 interpretation of the Bishop's expressions ; and 
 it seems that had I read farther into Mr. B.'s 
 Reply, I should have discovered that he under- 
 stood these words in a different sense, and, 
 therefore, denied a different proposition from 
 
D5 
 
 that which I imagined he had controverted. I 
 cannot, however, aher my opinion as to the im- 
 putation I cast on Mr. B. for the way in which 
 he has handled those passages of Scripture 
 which T remarked upon in my last. That he 
 has gratuitously " altered the text at Romans 
 ix. 5, is undeniable, and that he has done so 
 in support of an hypothesis is equally unde- 
 niable ; for it would be idle to maintain that 
 he would have done so had the passage in 
 question been totally irrelevant to the point at 
 issue. I can only say, that when I treat Scrip- 
 ture in the way that he has done, I shall not 
 complain of any injustice if I am subjected 
 to the same charge that I have cast on him ; 
 nor shall I think it unfair, should any one accuse 
 me of "refusing to believe what God reveals," 
 when, to avoid the necessity of assenting to that 
 w^hich every extant MS. and version agrees in 
 representing as the word of inspiration, I sub- 
 stitute words of ray own invention. 
 
 Before I quit the passage above alluded to, I 
 shall wish to correct a mistake into which you 
 seem to have fallen. Who the primitive writers 
 are of whom you say that they deny that 6 wv 
 iTTi irav-wv Qibg was predicated of Christ, I 
 know not ; but I think the following testimonies 
 from Irenaeus and TertuUian arw of some autho- 
 
96 
 
 rity in showing your- notion to be erroneous. 
 Irenaeus (cap. xvi. Against Heresies), quoting 
 St. Paul's words, says, " Et iterum ad Ro- 
 manos scribens de Israel dicit, ' Quorum patres, 
 et ex quibus Christus secundum carnem, qui 
 est Deus super omnes benedictus in secula.'" 
 This quotation proves — 1st, That the reading of 
 our text was the understanding at that time 
 acknowledged in the Church ; for had there 
 been any suspicion of its authority, he never 
 would have made use of it against heretics, 
 without some apology and justification of him- 
 self for so doing. 2dly, It proves that our inter- 
 pretation was the received interpretation at that 
 time acknowledged in the Church. Again, Ter- 
 tullian, Adversus Praxeam, chap, xiii., towards 
 the end, quoting St. Paul, says, " Ex quibus 
 Christus ; qui est ' inquit' Deus super omnia 
 benedictus in crane sevum. When you can 
 bring me such authority as this to prove that 
 the primitive Church denied 6 wv lirX iravriov 
 Oeog to be predicated of Christ, I shall be less 
 inclined to trust to the fidelity of our inter- 
 pretation of these words. 
 
 These questions, I think you will allow, afford 
 some ground for supposing that Itti ttovtwv was 
 meant by the Apostle to signify " over all 
 things," absolutely ; and as to the quotation 
 
97 
 
 you make from our canons, it seems to mc (juilc 
 irrelevant. Tn the context of Romans ix. 5, 
 there is nothing which leads to limit the sphere 
 of Christ's supremacy, as there is to limit that of 
 the king in the canon where the Church is 
 spoken of. The phrase lirl ttuvtmv here predi- 
 cated of Christ, is also predicated of the Father 
 in Eph. iv. G ; in both cases equally without 
 any thing to limit the sense to any particular 
 sphere of preeminence, and, apparently, with 
 the same general signification. However, tliis 
 part of the passage is of comparatively little 
 moment, when we see what was the opinion of 
 the early Church as to the whole clause. When, 
 in defence of your explanation, you say that 
 " revelation cannot contradict itself," you seem 
 to me to use an argument most favourable to our 
 view of the question ; for it is by our inter- 
 pretation of these disputed passages alone that 
 the apparent contradiction is got rid of. He 
 who maintains that Scripture declares Christ 
 to be mere man and not God, immediately 
 makes the Bible ct)ntradict itself; for the Bible 
 says that " Christ was over all, God blessed for 
 evermore." But he who maintains that Christ 
 was both God and man, is immediately relieved 
 from the dilemma, and reconciles Scripture with 
 Scripture. The very principle, therefore, which 
 
 F 
 
98 
 
 induces you to reject our. interpretation, urges me 
 to adopt it. 
 
 As the passage I have quoted from Irenaeus 
 is unanswerable as to his opinion about St. 
 Paul's meaning, I was curious to see how 
 Priestley disposed of it in his History of Early 
 Opinions. In the chapter in which he discusses 
 Irenaeus's notions of heresy he does not allude 
 to it ; and I find his main ai'gument to prove 
 that the Ebionites were not considered by him 
 as heretics, is, that he nowhere discovers that 
 he calls them heretics, whilst the chief argu- 
 ments of that Father are directed against the 
 Gnostics. Every body knows that by far the 
 most prevalent heresy in the early Church was 
 that of the Gnostics, who denied Christ's hu- 
 manity ; one would reasonably expect, there- 
 fore, that the major part of his treatise should 
 be directed against that party. But to argue 
 that Irenaeus did not consider the Ebionites 
 as heretics, because he cannot find that he says 
 "totidem verbis, hceretici sunt Ebiotiitcs," seems 
 of little avail ; if, in his book against heretics, 
 he quotes the passage from the Romans against 
 those who denied the divinity of Christ, and 
 maintained the doctrines of the Ebionites. Take, 
 too, this passage from Irenseus against heretics, 
 lib. iv. 59 : 'AvaK/otva St koX tovq 'HJiioveQ — iru^g 
 
99 
 
 Cl'l'aiTOt (T(t)0r/l'O£ £//tJJ 6 Gtoc'/i' o ~t)v ^(OTi'ipiav 
 uvTiov iTTt rF/t,' -yTj^ ifjjaaaiiiii'og', »/ Trwr uvOpoj-oc; 
 \(x)pi]au etc 0£ov, fi/u) 6 Gtoc \)^(vpiiOti iir 
 avOpioTTov ; How any man, after perusing this 
 passage, can doubt whether Irenoeus tliought 
 the Ebionites heretics, I know not. Priestley 
 alludes to tlie passage, omits the latter clause 
 from 7/ TTiog avdpwTTog in his translation, and, 
 as it appears to me, gives a sense to the former 
 part quite foreign to the meaning of his author, 
 as collected from the subsequent clause. Irenieus 
 says that God will condemn the Ebionites ; and 
 in proof of his assertion, asks, " How can they 
 be saved, unless he was God who worked out 
 their salvation for them on earth ; or how shall 
 man go to God, unless God has come to man ?"' 
 Priestley slurs over the passage in this way : 
 *' He says, indeed, (speaking of Irenoeus) God 
 will judge them." " How can they be saved if 
 it be not God that worketh out their salvation 
 on earth?" Will you give me your opinion as 
 to the sentiments of Irenaeus on the subject of 
 the heresy of the Ebionites, and Priestley's can- 
 dour in his dealing with this passage ? 
 
 From the high character you gave of the 
 precepts of Rammohun Roy, I was induced to 
 look at them; and there again was almost imme- 
 diately struck with a most preposterous piece 
 f2 
 
100 
 
 of criticism. It is there maintained that the 
 words oi';^^ apirayfxov rjyi^craTO to kivai icra toj 
 Gfw, are rightly rendered thus : " He did not 
 think of the robbery of being equal with God :" 
 and in a note it is said, " we find the verb ir/ioi.uu 
 implying ' to esteem ' as well as ' to think,' 
 with a simple accusative; e.g. wg riveg (ipadv- 
 r?}-a i]yovvTai, ' as some men count slackness,' 
 properly speaking, ' think of slackness.' " Now 
 these remarks betray, in two instances, great 
 ignorance of the Greek language ; {jyiofxai will, 
 of course, signify "to esteem" as well as "to 
 think," for they are synonymous, both answering 
 to the word arbitror ; but that does not prove 
 that it will signify " to think about," (an ex- 
 pression almost idiomatic in our language) a 
 sense which nyio/xai never had. Suppose I 
 wished to express in Greek, " I never thought 
 of writing this letter;" and were to say ovx 
 i]y)](TcifXiv TO jpacpeiv TavTi]v Tr)v i7ri(TTo\i]v, I 
 should commit an error which I should be 
 ashamicd to discover in a pupil of my own. 
 Again, it is a well known rule in Greek, that 
 when two substantives occur together with a 
 verb intervening, that which has the article 
 attached to it is to stand as the subject, and 
 the other as the predicate. Now the sense of " to 
 consider," which is the only one i]yiOfxai can here 
 
101 
 
 bear, shows at once that the verb elvat must be 
 understood between to laa dvai r<jj Qtoj (ulilch 
 stands for a substantive), and apirayiiov. Then 
 comes the question which is to be predicated of 
 the other, and the rule above mentioned obhges 
 apnay/uLuv to be predicated of to ilvai to-ct rtij 
 0£o». The passage, then, cannot be construed 
 in the sense given it by Rammohun Roy ; nor 
 can it be otherwise rendered, than " He did not 
 think that the being equal to God was robbery." 
 What, then, can be understood from this, but 
 tliat Jesus did consider himself equal with 
 God? 
 
 I know that you are not ansv/erable for the 
 errors committed by writers on your side ; but 
 you may perhaps have been influenced in your 
 belief by some such misrepresentations (I call 
 them not wilful) as I have here exposed. Look- 
 ing into Unitarian writings has certainly ex- 
 plained one thing to me which was before 
 incomprehensible : I never could conceive how 
 persons with the Bible and the Fathers open 
 before them, could arrive at the conclusion that 
 the doctrine of the Trinity was unscriptural. 
 But while such misrepresentations as I have 
 noticed pass current for truth, the difiiculty is, 
 in some degree, solved. As to those who may 
 have been induced by such statements to deny 
 
102 
 
 this doctrine, as well as that of the atonement, 
 God will assuredly judge them according to that 
 which they have, and not according to that which 
 they have not. The blame will attach to those 
 guides who have undertaken the task of instruc- 
 tion without the competent means ; and I trust 
 no expression of mine could ever be construed 
 into an assertion that " our salvation depended 
 on Greek criticism." 
 
 Before I proceed to the remainder of your 
 letter, I will merely state, that it is at present 
 my conscientious belief, that were I to allow 
 myself the use of those principles of inter- 
 pretation, &c. which I have remarked and 
 specified to you in some of the writers of your 
 sect, I could make out a most plausible case to 
 prove that the New Testament no where preaches 
 the doctrine of the resurrection from the dead. 
 
 I am well aware that the rendering of 
 Heb. i. 2, did not originate with Mr. Belsham ; 
 but as he has adopted it, he is responsible 
 for it. I am surprised at your assertion, that 
 " he has yielded to no inducement (in render- 
 ing the preposition Siu in the way he does), 
 from an idea that the other construction favours 
 the doctrine of Christ's preexistence." The 
 habit of assigning motives is certainly most 
 scrupulously to be avoided ; but it cannot be 
 
103 
 
 denied that he has given an unwarrantable 
 meaning to the preposition ; and it is to me 
 most evident that the doctrine of Christ's pre- 
 existence must follow immediately, if we grant 
 that he was instrumental in the creation of the 
 universe- But then you intimate that it is an 
 unwarrantable license which Elmsley would not 
 take with Aristophanes, to translate altuvar, the 
 worlds. At Heb. xi. 3, St. Paul again uses 
 the word in such a way that it can signify nothing 
 else than " the heavens, the earth, the sea, and 
 all things therein ;" the word aluivag there must 
 mean the visible universe, because, in the con- 
 clusion of the verse, it is paraphrased by " the 
 things that are seen," i. e. the visible creation 
 of God ; so that I think your question set at 
 rest as to whether eTroiricn] tovq oiwrac can 
 answer to " created the heavens and spread 
 forth the earth." 
 
 When I said that Heb. i. 2 proved Christ's 
 preexistence at least, of course I never meant 
 to imply that the proof of his preexistence was 
 any step towards the proof of his divinity, as you 
 observe " there is no gradation between a created 
 and a self-existent being." 
 
 Yet I cannot but differ from you, when you 
 say if you were to grant that Christ was literally 
 the Creator of the earth and all things therein. 
 
104 
 
 that would be no step - towards the stupendous 
 doctrine that he is God himself. 
 
 God says, " I alone created," &c. ; and Scrip- 
 ture informs us that by him (Christ) were all 
 things created that are in heaven and that are 
 in earth, visible and invisible." (Col. i. 16.) 
 Either, therefore, Christ did not create the 
 world, or he is God. Until you can show 
 me a passage in which God says, " I alone 
 turned the rivers into blood," I do not see that 
 your argument from the miracles wrought by 
 Moses' hands will be valid ; but it being granted 
 that Moses was the instrument of God's ven- 
 geance, it seems reasonable to suppose that God 
 would not express himself so as to declare — *' I 
 alone turned the rivers into blood ;" nor, in fact, 
 do I find that he has any where so expressed 
 himself. 
 
 The objection you have made against the 
 doctrine of Christ's divine nature, from its not 
 being more dwelt upon in the Acts of the 
 Apostles, has often presented itself to me ; and 
 various are the answers which have occurred to 
 me. Among others, one which I met with a few 
 days since, in one of Lord Bolingbroke's Essays, 
 seemed reasonable. He thinks it natural (and I 
 like to quote his opinion as he is a sort of 
 neutral,) that St. Paul, when addressing the 
 
105 
 
 Gentiles, should have reserved the doctrine of 
 the Trinity for their future instruction, lest 
 he should seem, in any degree, to countenance 
 their favourite polytheism. When they were 
 established in their belief of Christ's divine 
 legation, he would then proceed to unfold this 
 mystery to them ; and this notion as to St. 
 Paul's mode of proceeding seems to me strongly 
 countenanced by the very passage you quote 
 from Acts xx. 18, 19. He then tells his Ephe- 
 sian converts " that he had kept nothing back, 
 but had shown them all the counsel of God ;" 
 and immediately after, bids them " take heed 
 to feed the church of God which he had pur- 
 Ciiased with his blood." So that whether St. 
 Paul had or had not revealed to the Ephesians 
 the mystery of Christ's divinity when he first 
 addressed them, it is evident that before this 
 his last visit to them, they were acquainted 
 with it, or he never could have used such an 
 expression as that above quoted, without the 
 least comment. By the Unitarian canon of 
 criticism, the passage, Eia tov 'ISiov (tl/naTog, will 
 be explained away. 
 
 But supposing no satisfactory solution could 
 be given of the objection, I should feel that the 
 general mass of evidence in favour of this doc- 
 trine was so great as to make me lose sight of 
 f3 
 
106 
 
 any apparent deficiency in any particular part of 
 the New Testament. It is not for me to impugn 
 the wisdom of God in not having given me 
 more clear and pregnant evidence of that which 
 I feel confident he has revealed, provided he has 
 given me enough to found my belief upon. If 
 I were once to admit the principle, that nothing 
 should be believed upon evidence, however 
 strong, whilst any proof which might have 
 been adduced has been omitted, 1 should find 
 much difficulty in answering the objection of 
 tiie infidel when he denies the truth of the 
 resurrection, because Christ appeared only to 
 certain witnesses chosen beforehand. 
 
 At the conclusion of your quotations from the 
 Acts, you say, " Here I have not altered the text 
 nor translation, nor inferred," &c. Granted that 
 you have not altered the text or translation, and 
 I heartily assent to every quotation you have 
 adduced ; but surely you mean to infer something. 
 You could not merely mean to prove that Christ 
 was man, because that you know I acknowledge ; 
 you must have meant me to infer that he was not 
 God. Passages multiplied without end, proving 
 that Christ was man, prove nothing against the 
 Trinitarian : one single passage stating that he 
 was God, overthrows the Unitarians. Every 
 Scripture proof by which the Unitarian main- 
 
107 
 
 tains that Christ was not God, must be one 
 drawn from inference or implication ; for it is no 
 where written in Scripture " Christ was not 
 God ;" whereas, it is directly asserted in Scripture 
 that " Christ is over all, God blessed for ever- 
 more." I abstain from quoting other passages 
 till this is disposed of. It is acknowledged that 
 our text is the only one authorised by any MS. 
 or Version ; and I have shown by quotations 
 from Irenaeus and Tertullian, that the primitive 
 Christians understood it in the sense we attach to 
 it. I can conceive no more positive or complete 
 demonstration upon the question than this ; and 
 I may now fairly ask whether does the Unitarian, 
 when he asserts that Christ is not God, or the 
 Trinitarian, when he maintains that Christ is God, 
 most rest his proof upon inference and implication? 
 I cannot of course doubt that you quote my 
 words exactly, when you say, I call it " a funda- 
 mental maxim, that in practical matters whatever 
 we wish to believe we do believe ;" — and upon 
 this supposition, I shall beg leave to explain 
 that sentiment, by stating that all I meant to 
 assert was, that our wishes have a great influence 
 over our judgment. — '* Tarde qucc credita 
 Icedunt, credinius," says Horace. IlXiov fxipo^ 
 viuovTsg T(u /ujj ftovXiirOai aXi'tOtg elvai, says 
 Thucydides of the Athenians, who refused to 
 
• 108 
 
 believe the evidence of tlie Mitylenian revolt, 
 because they wished it false. This is all I wish 
 to lay down, and certainly never thought of as- 
 serting that we were compelled to yield our assent 
 to what we wished to be true ; nor did I, when 
 I spoke of " the principles of the leading per- 
 sons of your persuasion, allude to the motives 
 which had originally influenced them in adopting 
 Unitarian sentiments, but to those principles of 
 scriptural interpretation, &c. which I had observed 
 among some of them. The principles, there- 
 fore, which you have set forth as having actuated 
 Belsham, Lindsey, Estlin, and Priestley, I never 
 thought of impugning or condemning; but no- 
 thing that you have stated as to Mr. B.'s mo- 
 tives for embracing Unitarianism have in the 
 least degree altered my opinion as to his unwar- 
 rantable treatment of Scripture. 
 
 Nothing that I have advanced upon the sub- 
 ject of the Athanasian Creed is, as I conceive, 
 in the least degree inconsistent with my joining 
 in the sentiment of Tillotson, and wishing it 
 removed from our Church service. If I were 
 called upon to give my vote upon the subject, it 
 would be for its omission ; but this would not at 
 all imply that I felt less uneasiness as to the future 
 salvation of those who deny the Lord that 
 bought them ; nor do I see how the entertaining 
 
109 
 
 such fears necessarily leads to any breach of 
 charity; — at least I hope I have not displayed 
 
 such in the expostulation I addressed to S . I 
 
 should still believe that God had olfered salva- 
 tion upon certain conditions ; and that those who 
 refuse to comply with those conditions must submit 
 to the punishment denounced against them in 
 Scripture. 
 
 This leads me to notice your interpretation of 
 Mark xvi. 16, which appears to me inadmissible ; 
 and I will proceed to explain the grounds upon 
 which I think so. The question between us is, 
 what was meant by the words " believe" and 
 •' be saved." I shall begin by showing my 
 reasons for conceiving that nothing but " eternal 
 salvation from the effects of God's wrath" can 
 be meant by the word saved ; and if you shall 
 admit that my reasoning upon that head is con- 
 clusive, and approve of the method I have 
 adopted in supporting my interpretation, I will 
 then proceed to explain my grounds for under- 
 standing the word " believe" in the sense I 
 attach to it. Should we not agree as to the 
 meaning of the expression " be saved," it will 
 be useless for me to proceed farther. 
 
 Now I am fully aware that the words " sal- 
 vation," and " be saved," sometimes, though 
 rarely, have the meaning you attach to them — 
 
110 
 
 of " being saved from ignorance and all its 
 evils ; " but because it may rarely be so ren- 
 dered, it is no proof that it is to be so here. 
 Upon carefully examining every passage in 
 which it occurs, I find several in which it 
 may mean either present freedom from the 
 dominion of sin, or future escape from the 
 punishment due to it ; e. g. Mark x. 26 ; 
 John v. 34 ; Acts ii. 47 ; Rom. x. 1 ; 1 Cor. 
 X. 33 ; Tit. iii. 5: these, of course, prove nothing 
 either way. In 1 Cor. i. 18; xv. 2; Eph. ii. 
 5, 8 ; it seems most reasonable to understand it 
 in your sense, i. e. of present freedom from 
 the power of sin. On referring to Luke vii. 50 ; 
 viii. 12; xiii. 23; John iii. 13; Acts iv. 12; 
 XV. 1 ; xvi. 30 ; Rom. viii. 24 ; 1 Cor. v. 5 ; 
 2 Cor. ii. 15; 1 Pet. iv. 18; Acts xv. 11; 
 Rom. V. 9, 10; I find it to be absolutely neces- 
 sary in most of the passages, and highly rea- 
 sonable in others, to interpret them as referring 
 to eternal life. This comparison of text in 
 which they occur, affords a prima facie evi- 
 dence in my favour; and when I refer to St. 
 John's Gospel, iii. 36, and find it written — " He 
 that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life, 
 and he that believeth not on the Son shall not 
 see life," I perceive this passage to be so com- 
 plete a gloss of Mark xvi. 16, that I at once am 
 
Ill 
 
 convinced that loss of eternal life is therein pro- 
 nounced to be the consequence of unbelief. I 
 cannot allow myself to be guided by what the 
 word awB{\aiTai may mean in other parts of 
 Scripture, but by what it evidently does mean 
 upon a comparison with its parallel passage. 
 I shall be happy, however, to listen to any 
 reasons which may induce me to adopt your 
 interpretation ; and when you have given me 
 your opinion as to the grounds of my own, I 
 will proceed to compare Scripture with Scrip- 
 ture, and show you my reasons for assigning 
 the meaning I have given to the word " belief." 
 
 Before I quit this part of the subject, I wish 
 to make a few observations in elucidatior. of the 
 principle upon which I have apologized for the 
 Athanasian Creed. 
 
 You must, if you believe the Gospel, acknow- 
 ledge that repentance is therein laid down to be 
 one condition upon which we may escape the 
 wrath to come ; and I read that faith is just as 
 much a condition as repentance of our escaping 
 it; for I read, *' He that believeth on the Son 
 hath everlasting life, and he that believeth not 
 the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God 
 abideth on him." Now when you, by comparing 
 Scripture with Scripture, have made up your 
 mind as to what gospel repentance means, could 
 
112 
 
 you feel any hesitation in subscribing to tiie 
 doctrine, that he who has not repentance in the 
 sense you find to be its proper one in Scripture, 
 will suffer under the wrath to come ? When I, 
 by comparing Scripture with Scripture, have 
 made up my mind as to what gospel faith 
 means, I can have no objection to say, in ac- 
 cordance with the words of our Saviour, " He that 
 believeth and is baptized will be saved ; he that 
 believeth not shall be damned ; " attaching to 
 the words " belief" and " be saved" such mean- 
 ing as I find warranted by Scripture. Will you, 
 therefore, answer me whether you think any 
 reasonable Christian could have any objection 
 to explain what repentance means, and then to 
 say that he who has not such a frame of mind 
 as he has described will not be saved? If you 
 think he could have no objection, neither ought 
 he to find fault with those who explain what 
 they find to be the Scripture meaning of faith, 
 and then pronounce that he who has not the 
 frame of mind expressed by that word shall 
 not be saved. 
 
 For your remarks upon my expressions, " if 
 Christ's words have any meaning at all," " as 
 long as Scripture has any authority," I am much 
 obliged, as I doubt not they were well meant ; 
 but I can see nothing prejudicial to the cause of 
 
113 
 
 Cliristianity in the use of them. Whenever 1 
 have made up my mind as to the right text, 
 and sliall tlien have translated it according to 
 its grammatical and obvious sense, — unless I can 
 find any thing in any other part of Scripture 
 which contradicts the assertion in that passage, 
 (there is no contradiction between the assertions 
 Clirist is God, and Christ is man ; it is not the 
 same substance of which it is declared that it is 
 God and man ;) — I hold myself bound to believe 
 it implicitly as the word of God, or I consider 
 myself guilty of dishonouring God, and refusing 
 to believe what he reveals. So that my answer 
 to you, in the person of the caviller, would be 
 simple. I do not believe that I can swallow 
 poison unhurt ; nor do I thereby disbelieve 
 what Christ says. I find no other passage of 
 Scripture which asserts any thing of the same 
 kind ; and I see that for many ages no Christian 
 has been able to do so. Either, therefore, Christ 
 must here have spoken of his immediate fol- 
 lowers, and those who should live during" the 
 prevalence of the miraculous powers conferred 
 on the early Christians, or he has spoken falsely : 
 of course I choose the former alternative. Again : 
 " I do not believe that 1 eat the body of Christ ;" 
 for if Christ had meant to use the terms body 
 and blood literally, he would have contradicted 
 
114 
 
 himself, for he elsewhere calls the consecrated 
 element " the fruit of the vine ;" and it would 
 be a contradiction to say that the same substance 
 is, at the same time, bread and flesh. With this 
 understanding I can conceive no evil resulting 
 from the phrases you have objected to. 
 
 I now come to the second part of your letter, 
 which seems to be dictated by a misconception 
 
 of my first to S . I entirely disclaim the 
 
 idea of attaching any moral imputation to any 
 one who chooses to examine into the foundation 
 of the faith he was taught to profess. My 
 
 anxiety on S 's account, my expostulation 
 
 with her, was not grounded upon her having 
 renounced a certain belief merely because it was 
 the belief in which she was bred up, but because 
 it was a belief which, as far as I could under- 
 stand Scripture, was the only one which, con- 
 nected with repentance, was offered to the lost 
 race of mankind, as the condition of their re- 
 admission into the favour and presence of God. 
 I am sorry, therefore, that you should have given 
 yourself the trouble of stating the case of the 
 Mahommedans and Roman Catholics so much 
 at large. There are, however, certain ques- 
 tions interspersed throughout those remarks, 
 which I will distinctly answer. 
 
 You ask, ought the Jew to listen to the Chris- 
 
115 
 
 tian's proofs? Undoubtedly, provided he thinks 
 (for it is a matter entirely between God and his 
 own conscience) — provided, I say, he thinks the 
 objections brought against his creed are at all 
 reasonable, and feels that he has the means of 
 arriving at a satisfactory conclusion upon the 
 question, but not otherwise. 
 
 As to the Catholic, you ask me whether the 
 system adopted by the Church of Rome is not 
 the means whereby the errors of Popery are 
 continued ? Certainly they are ; but I see 
 nothing analogous to this in the method adopted 
 by the Church of England for disseminating and 
 upholding its doctrines, or in the principles 
 which I individually advocate. We prohibit 
 no one from reading heretical works. ^Ve say, 
 reason from Scripture, and expound Scripture 
 by comparing it with itself, instead of with the 
 dogmas of men ; and this is the appeal I wish 
 every where to be made. 
 
 I will now follow you through your descrip- 
 tion of the grounds of belief of a member of the 
 Church of England. You first make out a fair 
 representation of the mode in which a child's 
 education is conducted under our Establishment; 
 and then state that when he has arrived at years 
 of maturity, his faith rests upon a foundation no 
 better than that of the Roman Catholic Christian. 
 
116 
 
 This may be the case, though it by no means 
 follows that it necessarily must be so. This 
 member of the Church of England 1ms had 
 unrestrained access to the Scriptures, trans- 
 lated for him into his native tongue, which 
 access has been denied to the Roman Catholic ; 
 he has been allowed to "reason from Scripture, 
 and expound Scripture, by comparing it with 
 itself instead of with the dogmas of men;" so 
 that he has had the very means which you so 
 justly recommend, of satisfying himself as to 
 the reasonableness of his faith ; and he is 
 accountable to God if he has not used them. 
 But then, you will probably reply that many 
 of them have only had opportunities of study- 
 ing .the Scriptures through a translation which 
 you call incorrect; and that they should read 
 the Unitarians' Improved Version. As to the 
 correctness of either, ninety-nine out of every 
 hundred are incompetent judges, and must 
 therefore take the matter upon trust after all ; 
 so that were they to take the Improved Version, 
 and form their belief from that, they would be 
 grounding their belief upon human authority 
 just as much as if they read our version. 
 
 Suppose, then, that one of these individuals 
 is influenced by the opinion of persons, whose 
 judgment he relies upon, to believe that our 
 
version is, in all essential points, correct ; and 
 shall l)ave diligently searched the Scriptures to 
 see how far the doctrines he has early imbibed, 
 are warranted by the word of God; and shall, 
 after this search, find that he has no reasonable 
 ground for doubting the creed he has learnt 
 from his infancy ; I can see no obligation 
 whatsoever which binds him to set about reading 
 the Unitarian controversy. Life is not long 
 enough to allow of his studying every question 
 which divided the Churcii ; and if he has no 
 reasonable grounds for doubting in his belief as 
 to the points in question between his church and 
 the Unitarian, why should he enter upon that 
 controversy rather than upon the Romish one ; 
 upon that concerning infant baptism, regene- 
 ration, or any of the others which have agitated 
 the Christian Church ? Do you recommend every 
 body to read Hume on Miracles, and Paine's 
 Age of Reason, and tell them, if they liave not 
 done so, that their faith rests upon no better 
 foundation than that of Turk, Jew, or Roman 
 Catholic ? and yet it seems to me just as reason- 
 able to maintain this as to declare that the faith 
 of him who has not read the Unitarian contro- 
 versy rests on similar foundations. 
 
 You ask me whether it would not be the duty 
 of my sisters to read any answer to Erskine's 
 
118 
 
 book which might be -put into their hands. I 
 must here make a distinction between those who 
 have and those who have not entered upon 
 controversy ah'eady. If you ask me whether 
 those who have not yet entered upon the con- 
 troversy are blamable if they do not read any 
 answer which may be offered to them, I answer, 
 not a bit more than they would be blamed for 
 not making it a point to read Hume on Mira- 
 cles, and Tom Paine's Age of Reason, supposing 
 I had given them a copy of Paley's Evidences. 
 
 But perhaps you will reply, that, by reading 
 Erskine's book, they have already entered upon 
 the controversy. I can only say that I did not 
 put it into their hands as a controversial work, 
 but as a book which I thought calculated to 
 awaken piety on that principle which I read to 
 be a great motive for love to God, namely, his 
 having first so loved us as to give his Son to 
 redeem the world ; and in proof of my assertion 
 that I did not view it as a controversial work, 1 
 
 can appeal to my first letter to S , and the 
 
 opposition I made between Erskine's book and 
 works of controversy. It is certainly much less 
 a book of controversy than Paley's Evidences. 
 
 As to M , the question whether she 
 
 chooses to read such answer, must be decided 
 between God and her own conscience. Neither 
 
119 
 
 you nor 1 can say, unconditionally, whether she 
 ought or ought not to read them. If tiie perusal 
 she has ah'cady made of Unitarian arguments 
 has been attended with advantage, she would do 
 wrong to refuse receiving additional support in 
 the establishment of her religious faith upon 
 these new grounds. But if she had reason to 
 repent the day on which she entered upon the 
 study of this controversy, — if she has ever re- 
 gretted that she neglected her father's recom- 
 mendation, wdien he advised ids daughters to 
 study their Bible, and learn the doctrines and 
 precepts of Christianity from it, without attending 
 to controversy, — if her conviction is returning, or 
 perhaps I should say, returned to its former 
 state, — if her mind is (as I trust in God it is) 
 regaining its former tranquillity, — I then say that 
 she would do wrong in exposing herself again 
 to a trial which has wrought no good effect, and 
 been the author of much pain and misery to 
 her. 
 
 My general answer, therefore, to your four 
 predicaments is this : — 
 
 If my sisters, having had access all their lives 
 to the Scriptures, and having diligently studied 
 them, with a view to the examination of the 
 grounds of their belief, have found that they 
 have no reasonable ground for hesitating in it. 
 
120 
 
 they are not called upon to enter into any study 
 of controversy, and, least of all, into the study 
 of the Unitarian, in which the appeal must ulti- 
 mately lie to the interpretation of certain pas- 
 sages from a language of which they are ignorant. 
 
 You ask me, in conclusion, for the etymology 
 of Elijah, &c. They are, of course, compounded 
 of 7i«^ God, and TlV Jehovah. Your object in 
 putting the question is obvious ; but what you 
 gain by it I really do not see. If, after Elijah 
 had been carried up into heaven, I had found 
 that he was there an object of worship to every 
 creature in heaven and earth, and had found him 
 in other parts of Scripture declared to be God, 
 not only by name, but by nature also, then I 
 should pronounce him to be very God. 
 
 Will you give me any other explanation of 
 Rom. V. 8, 9, than that which I set forth in my 
 last? 
 
 Believe me. 
 
 Ever your affectionate brother, 
 C. 
 
121 
 
 LETTER X. 
 
 February, 1825. 
 
 Dear C , 
 
 I HAVE suffered your letter of Septem- 
 ber last to lie a long time unanswered, for which 
 delay I cannot plead want of time, but want of 
 courage ; not from fear of difficulty, for no task 
 can be easier than to point out the errors (as they 
 appear to me to be) in your reasoning, and the 
 inapplicability of your replies to my former 
 answers : but it is painful to perceive that our 
 points of difference multiply as we proceed, 
 
 instead of drawing to a close. S has felt 
 
 it so ; and while (unprompted by me, but reading 
 your letters before I made any remark upon 
 them) she freely declared how every discussion 
 fortified her in her faith as to what the doctrines 
 of revelation really are, and how different from 
 those usually taken upon trust as Orthodox, 
 
 G 
 
122 
 
 she has found herself -fearful (anxious at least) 
 upon the effects of a prolonged controversy 
 between parties to whom she is so affectionately 
 attached, and has more than once pressed me to 
 withdraw from it. 
 
 Unwilling to resist any request of hers, in 
 which the repose of her affectionate heart is in 
 the slightest degree implicated, I could not but 
 find my reluctance to sit down to the task, much 
 increased. I have not, however, any of the fear 
 which her tremulous mind seems to entertain; for 
 I am quite confident that while I differ from your 
 doctrines, and wonder at your arguments, that 
 difference has no tendency to abate my personal 
 regard, ray brotherly affection, or my estimation 
 of the goodness of your heart. 
 
 But if what I consider a duty you call a crime, 
 and I consider that to be a crime which your 
 sect denominates an essential duty, while I bless 
 the memory of those martyrs to whom we owe 
 that the consolations of Christianity have been 
 brought down to us, I feel it shameful to suffer 
 a mere reluctance (though a painful one), to in- 
 duce me to shrink from the avowal or defence 
 of the belief to which I annex so much import- 
 ance ; or to leave the erroneous objections made 
 to it, and the imputations so mistakenly cast upon 
 it, unanswered. 
 
123 
 
 I argue, however, under great disaclvantiigc 
 fishtinft as it were with my right hand boiuul 
 down ; lor I act on the defensive merely, not 
 wishing (or, as I have before said, wishing not) 
 to convert you to Unitarianism, but only to 
 assert the right and the duty of the disciples of 
 every church to examine carefully and impar- 
 tially whether the doctrines in which they have 
 been brought up are the doctrines of the Bible, 
 or of fiillible men ; and this cannot be if they 
 listen to the arguments of its advocates only, and 
 refuse to listen to a fair examination of them. 
 Perhaps I am now called on to reconcile this 
 sentiment I maintain towards you, with the 
 sentiment I maintain, that to separate the doc- 
 trines of Christ; from the corruptions of that 
 doctrine, is of the highest importance ; and main- 
 taining also, as I do, that Trinitarianism is a cor- 
 ruption dangerously subversive of the important 
 truths he revealed to men. 
 
 Satisfied that no exertion of time or talent 
 could be more beneficial to mankind than that of 
 which the purport is to restore genuine Ciiris- 
 tianity freed from the corruptions which unhappily 
 pass under the name of Orthodoxy, it is only 
 by the perception of the hopelessness of the 
 attempt, and consciousness of my own inability to 
 further what far greater talents are unable to effect 
 g2 
 
124 
 
 (I mean the calling almost any one's attention 
 to the question), that I can excuse to myself the 
 absence of that exertion. But how is this con- 
 sistent with the wish not to effect the ultimate 
 purpose in any individual instance? 
 
 By way of explanation I will put a supposed 
 case. Imagine a certain district, in which dwell 
 a number of rude and ignorant persons of the 
 Roman Catholic persuasion. Suppose a priest 
 of pious disposition, sincere in all the errors of 
 his sect, governing the minds of his flock, and, 
 together with the absurdities and superstitious 
 belief of that church, teaching them at the same 
 time much of the valuable truths of Christianity, 
 the rewards and punishments of the life to come ; 
 and by his zeal, and piety, and good example, 
 leading them on in a religious life, — however 
 much you might wish to free that religion from 
 its corruptions, and introduce pure Christianity 
 among the people, I think yet you would not 
 wish that the priest should be the one convinced 
 of the errors of his sect so as that his conscience 
 should oblige him to abandon those whom he 
 could not convert, and leave them without any 
 religious instruction, or leave his vacant place to 
 be filled by one of more superstition, or perhaps 
 more carelessness. If he were to attack your 
 faith, and call on you, or on those whom you had 
 
125 
 
 convinceil, to justify or abandon it, you would 
 defend yourself and them ; but with a wish to 
 stop short, without bringing him over from his 
 place of usefulness. 
 
 This is very nearly an illustration of my diffi- 
 culty; and a vindication by analogy, of any appa- 
 rent inconsistency in my professed wishes. You 
 must then have observed (or on re-perusal of our 
 correspondence you will observe) that I have 
 written entirely in defence ; answering only your 
 propositions; except that as to the right and duty 
 of free and perpetual examination of the founda- 
 tion of all articles of our belief, — that I call for, 
 and stand forward to maintain, as an unceasing 
 duty of every individual; but most particularly 
 of those who ever pronounce creeds. I vindi- 
 cate those who have exercised and who continue 
 in this duty, and maintain that it is impossible 
 that any one can " have reason to repent the 
 having entered upon it," or that they '* will do 
 wrong in continuing to expose their doctrines to 
 trial ;" surely you must, in consistency, be angry 
 at Erskine's requiring of them to examine within 
 themselves whether " their belief is not derived 
 from creeds and church articles, or human com- 
 positions of some kind," if you say they do wrong 
 in exposing their doctrines to trial ! 
 
 I have heard lately of a melancholy (indeed, 
 
126 
 
 it strikes me as a tremendous) instance of what 
 I call presumptuous obstinacy in this respect. 
 A young lady (of course I shall never name her), 
 a descendant of an old family of Dissenters, an 
 Unitarian not only by education, but in principle, 
 was about to be married to a member of the 
 Church of England, — a religious man, I do not 
 doubt. The difference in their religious opinions 
 was a subject of uneasiness to them ; and the 
 gentleman made it a point that the lady should 
 read the works of some of the divines of the 
 Church, who had combated the Unitarian doc- 
 trine. So far well. I do not know whether the 
 requisition was reciprocal, but there cannot be a 
 doubt that it ought to have been so. It was 
 understood that she was to spend a certain time 
 in studious review of the arguments laid before 
 her. This is also well; but if she was to confine 
 herself during that time to the statements of one 
 side, and not to compare or study the replies 
 that had been, or might be made, such is not 
 the probable road to truth : but I am not yet 
 come to my objection. — After spending the time, 
 she was to decide ; and never afterwards to re- 
 open the controversy, or listen to the arguments 
 of her former religious friends. The die is cast. 
 What would you have thought and felt, if, 
 when you sent to S your first letter of 
 
127 
 
 appeal, with tlie accompanying little volume, she 
 had returned the letter and the book, saying 
 that she had made up her mind, and had pro- 
 mised to me and to herself, that she would never 
 more listen to such reasoning as might shake 
 the faith she had adopted ? And where lies the 
 difference between the cases? God forbid that 
 I should live with such a load on my conscience, 
 as to have shut up the door of honest inquiry, 
 or shut out well-intended instruction, or forbid 
 reiterated reflection upon the tenets embraced 
 by Christians as essential articles of saving 
 faith. 
 
 I will now go back to the omissions in my 
 former letters, and take your questions in the 
 order of your last letter, with its references. 
 You say (in page 2) you have no object in 
 pressing your censure of Mr. Belsham beyond 
 the limits of fair argument, &c.; "and it seems," 
 (you say) " that if you had read farther into his 
 reply, you should have discovered that he 
 denied a different proposition from that which 
 you imagined he had controverted." We do not 
 read your books so. In my first or second 
 letter, I expressed a pleasure in finding (as I 
 supposed I had) that you had read that excellent 
 reply of Mr. Belsham's ; and now I have the 
 mortification to find that you have either met 
 
128 
 
 with an insulated quotation from it in the writing 
 of some opponent, or you have dipped into some 
 page, and laid it down, satisfied with what 
 you thought at the first blush an objectionable 
 sentence. 
 
 Quitting that book, how can you harp so upon 
 his text, Rom. ix. 5, " gratuitously altered the 
 text," " substituting words of his own invention " 
 to avoid the necessity of assenting to what all 
 extant MSS., &c. agree in representing as the 
 words of inspiration, and thus refusing to believe 
 what God reveals ?" when you know that he 
 nowhere hides what are the words of the extant 
 MSS,; that he merely informs his readers that 
 such and such commentators have supposed that 
 one single letter may have been transposed in 
 old copies, and that he leans to that as the more 
 probable case : but so far from insisting or laying 
 a stress upon it, the Improved Version, as you 
 know (and in which version, as you also know, 
 he had much, if not the principal share,) translates 
 the passage without the conjectural transposition. 
 *' It would be idle to maintain," you say, " that 
 he would have given the supposed alteration, &c. 
 had the passage in question been irrelevant to 
 the point at issue." What can be the meaning 
 of " the point at issue " in the translation of a 
 book ? But so far from admitting the idleness 
 
12^ 
 
 of the supposition, I have no doubt that he would 
 have given it, if it had been adduced by commen- 
 tators in opposition to his dechircd exposition of 
 the Apostle's meaning ; and I feel fully assured 
 that in his construction of St' aiirov, if he were 
 publishing another edition, and Elmsley's answer, 
 " that he did not dare so to construe the prepo- 
 sition," when he wished it in his edition of 
 Aristophanes, were communicated to him, he 
 would give Elmsley's answer in Elmsley's words, 
 and perhaps adopt his translation : but certainly 
 record it. It is characteristic of all Unitarian 
 writers with whose works I am acquainted, to 
 produce all arguments for or against them. 
 Their decision may be different from yours, but 
 {hey never hide the argument. 
 
 You go back to tTrt iravrtov, Rom. ix. 5. It 
 is to me inconceivable that the Apostle coidd 
 possibly, in the winding up of a sentence in an 
 epistle, intend to reveal the astonishing doctrine 
 that Christ was God ; that he who said to him, 
 " I am Jesus whom thou persecutest," should 
 ever have added, " I am the God of the uni- 
 verse, who took upon myself the form of a 
 created being;" and that the Apostle, having 
 preached Christ crucified and risen, should, after 
 years of such preaching, bring out this revelation 
 in so cursory and elliptical a manner ; and that 
 G 3 
 
130 
 
 any stress in support of such a supposition can 
 be laid upon the phrase "over all" or "above 
 all," which might be in so many ways justified 
 by the character and office of him to whom you 
 suppose it to be applied. He was superior to 
 Moses and the prophets ; it was he of whom 
 they spake; he superseded the Mosaic dispen- 
 sation ; he brought life and immortality to light; 
 he was the founder of the new dispensation, 
 which embraces all mankind ; his kingdom shall 
 endure for ever. I by no means admit that it 
 was applied to Christ ; but if you insist upon 
 that, still does not this character fully justify the 
 title "above all?" 
 
 Your quotations from Irenaeus and Tertullian 
 prove that the now received construction existed 
 in their time, and was received by them ; in 
 other words, that they were Trinitarians, and 
 that is all. 
 
 Looking back to my letter of February, 1824, 
 I think I have said enough on that subject, and 
 rest in the opinion I advanced there. I turn, 
 however, to your reference to Ephes. iv. 6 ; but, 
 because God is there said to be (as in all times, 
 places, and occasions, he must be said to be) 
 " above all things," must the words have the 
 same meaning if applied to one sent by him ? 
 God is called a Father in the same passage. 
 
131 
 
 May no man, then, thenceforth be called a 
 father i The Apostle is speaking to the Romans 
 of the Jewish and Christian dispensations. The 
 Israelities — the adoption — the admission of the 
 Gentiles by Christ, who is "above all" (that is, 
 if I admit your construction,) and then the 
 doxology, " God be blessed for evermore," may 
 very aptly follow. (By the bye, in the text you 
 refer to, ettI is translated " above" in the autho- 
 rized version ; and if there is any difference in 
 the English expression, it may with equal pro- 
 ()riety be adopted in Rom. ix.) Upon the whole, 
 1 do not agree with Mr. Belsham, nor Whitby, 
 Taylor, and the others whom he quotes, in 
 adopting the supposition of the transposed 
 letter ; but, taking the original as it stands, I 
 have little doubt of the construction, " God who 
 is over all things (or God, the Being above all), 
 be blessed for evermore." 
 
 You would not let a pupil translate 6 wv, 
 " who is," without, at least, remarking that it is 
 not literal : you would tell him that wv signifies 
 " being;" and may be (like the English word,) 
 taken as a participle, or a substantive ; that " he 
 who is," is nearer to 6 wv than " who is ;" and 
 that, as there is no verb in the sentence, one not 
 expressed must be understood; and 1 do think that 
 an impartial critic, having no system in view, but 
 
132 
 
 philology only, would say that such translation 
 is a more literal translation of the Greek as it 
 stands, than " who is God over all things, 
 blessed," &c. ; and the Apostle Paul, as a 
 Pharisee, was very likely to use a Jewish 
 doxology at the close of his sentence. 
 
 You then expressly desire my opinion of 
 Priestley's candour in dealing with a passage in 
 Irenasus, commenting on the text in question^ 
 
 I am not a little surprised at your charge 
 against Priestley. No charge ever fell more 
 harmlessly from the one accused. Priestley, 
 after showing that Unitarians abounded in that 
 age, contending (and successfully I think) that 
 they then formed a large majority of the Chris- 
 tians, considered, that, opposed as the opinions 
 were of Trinitarians and Unitarians, still they 
 joined in worship together, and did not call each 
 other heretics. He says, that at first he had 
 considered Irenasus to include Unitarians in his 
 class of heretics ; but, on further attention, he 
 thought he did not; but that the Gnostics were 
 exclusively meant in those pages he had before 
 so construed : and then he gives his reasons, 
 which, if you had read two pages farther, you 
 would have found. I think he reasons well ; 
 perhaps you would differ. But what should 
 prompt Priestley to disguise or conceal any 
 
133 
 
 tiling ? ITe knew that Irenaeus was a Trini- 
 tarian ; and your passage proves nothing more. 
 Why should he bring forward a sentence which 
 has nothing to do with the point in question ? — 
 But how is this ? I read in Priestley the whole 
 Greek sentence, including the very words you 
 accuse him of omitting. lie might have omitted 
 them as not to his purpose ; but he has not 
 omitted them. It is true, your words are, "he 
 has omitted them in his translation;" but this is 
 no charge at all. He was not writing three- 
 penny tracts for the ignorant ; in which case, 
 leaving the passage in Greek only, might be 
 virtually hiding it. Nine-tenths of his readers 
 would be Greek scholars. For the convenience 
 of mere English readers, he translates that part 
 of the sentence on which he founds any argu- 
 ment ; but he could not hide the remainder 
 when the Greek is in his book. Priestley 
 has been often accused of hastiness in drawing 
 conclusions ; of daring boldness perhaps in 
 his expressions ; of being led, and leading 
 others into error by intemperate zeal : these 
 things have been said of him by his opponents ; 
 but at the charge of caution, and disguise, and 
 concealment, all who know any thing of the life 
 or writings of Priestley, must smile. He spent 
 his life in active and disinterested exertions for 
 
134 
 
 the benefit of his fellow-creatures ; in an attempt 
 to restore Christianity to that which Jesus Christ 
 taught. He was persecuted in a manner that 
 goes down in history as a disgrace to Great 
 Britain, He is gone to receive his reward. 
 The obloquies cast on him are not removed, 
 but the truth opens out by degrees ; his writings 
 speak for themselves ; and though slowly, will 
 make their way, to the advantage of the present 
 age, and of posterity. 
 
 But our present question is concerning the 
 sentence of Irenseus, " How can man go to God 
 unless God has come to man ?" I am sure I 
 have no objection to be called a heretic by the 
 writer of that sentence. What ! is not God 
 always present with us ? about our bed, and 
 about our path ? can there be required (or, 
 indeed, can there be) local presence distinct 
 from omnipresence, or added to it ? " Draw 
 nigh to God ;" " Come before him ;" " Unto 
 thee shall all f.esh come ;" "Blessed is he whom 
 thou causest to approach unto thee :" and shall 
 one answer, " How can man go to God unless 
 God has come to him ■!" meaning, thereby, a 
 local coming in a visible and tangible form ? 
 
 I am astonished at your sentiment, that, " ad- 
 mitting, of course, that Scripture cannot con- 
 tradict itself, the Trinitarian gets rid of the 
 
13^ 
 
 apparent contradiction, by maintaining that 
 Clnist is both God and man ;" but, as this is 
 introduced again in a latter part of your letter, 
 I postpone my reply. 
 
 You were induced, you say, to look into 
 Rammohun Roy ; and then you lay down the 
 book because you dislike one of his renderings 
 of a Greek word. But when we were discussing 
 the temper and spirit with which a man should 
 come to the study of the Scriptures, it was in that 
 light that I brought forward his "Appeal/' As 
 far as I am a judge, I think him mistaken in his 
 construction of the verb I'jYto^at ; but I am not 
 sure that the difference does not arise from his 
 misapprehension of the English language, into 
 which he translates. At any rate you cannot 
 subscribe to the translation in the common ver- 
 sion, " thought it not robbery to be equal with 
 God."' The Greek will not bear it out, nor is 
 the sense intelligible. Is there meaning in the 
 words " God thought it not robbery to be equal 
 Avith God?" 'A/OTToyjuoc is not "robbery;" 
 neither is laa " equal." Jesus was tempted in a 
 vision, when his miraculous powers were made 
 known to him, to use them for his own glory and 
 worldly power, as a prince over all the kingdoms 
 of the world, and for his own personal safety 
 against his enemies. " Command that these 
 
136 
 
 stones be made bread ;" *' The angels shall bear 
 thee up," &c. ; and he perceived in this tempta- 
 tion, that he had power to be as (" not equal to") 
 a God. But this prize, or prey, or bait, he did 
 not grasp; oi/\ riyiicraTO apr^j-ay/iov, " he did not 
 consider it a prize to be grasped ;" but (rich as 
 he was in power to procure all that is desirable 
 in the world,) he tTrrw^^fvcre, (not became poor, 
 but lived poor and exposed to suffering) for our 
 sake. You may not agree with me in this con- 
 struction, but cannot support the other ; and 
 you cannot deny that this is tenable, if not con- 
 vincing. 
 
 I am, however, very sorry to have been led 
 into Greek criticism, because my main object is, 
 to maintain that those who do not know a word 
 of the language, are bound, and have full oppor- 
 tunity offered them, of learning all that is essen- 
 tial to salvation, without reliance on human 
 authority. 
 
 " Looking into Unitarian writings," you say, 
 (and certainly you seem to have merely looked 
 into them,) " explains to you, for the first time, 
 how persons, with the Bible and the Fathers 
 open before them, could arrive at the conclusion 
 that the doctrine of the Trinity was unscriptural." 
 I am very sure that if they had the Bible before 
 them, and no creed preceding their perusal of it, 
 
137 
 
 (hey would never find it there, even in the 
 received text and version. I am very sure 
 it never proceeded from Jesus Christ or his 
 Apostles. You excuse, however, those that are 
 ignorant and misled by their teachers, but con- 
 demn " those guides who have undertaken the 
 task of instruction without the competent means." 
 Wliat are the qualifications they want? A man 
 who spends a long life in study must either be a 
 fool by nature, or he must be a learned man ; and 
 what are the qualifications, or ''competent means," 
 adapted to the task of religious instruction, other 
 than good sense, learning, and piety? Lardner, — 
 the learned, pious, and indefatigable Lardner, — 
 (as even the Quarterly Reviewers, the declaredly 
 bitter enemies of Unitarianism, call him) ; Farmer, 
 who, like Griesbach, spent years and years in 
 the faithful and diligent collation of existing 
 MSS. and copies of the sacred writings; Priestley, 
 Price, Lindsey, Simpson (I name only those who 
 are gone) ; any, and every one of them, spent 
 more years than many of their critics could have 
 spent weeks in the diligent study of the Scrip- 
 tures ; and will you for a moment join with those 
 who would cry them down as ignorant, or without 
 the competent means ? To whom may we look 
 up, if not to men who, purposely avoiding or 
 forsaking every road to worldly emolument or 
 
138 
 
 honour, dedicated their whole lives to devotion 
 and study ? 
 
 Now I come to a sentence which it grieves me 
 to read, — " Were I to allow myself the use of 
 those principles of interpretation, &c. which I 
 have specified to you in some of the writers of 
 your sect, I could make out a most plausible 
 case to prove that the New Testament nowhere 
 preaches the doctrine of the resurrection from 
 the dead!" This is an hyperbole beyond my 
 comprehension. 
 
 We believe (rather we know) that God is 
 truth ; that he is omnipotent, omniscient, every 
 where present, infinitely wise and benevolent ; 
 we know, therefore, that what he reveals must 
 be true ; that his promises and threatenings are 
 wise and just ; and his will must be carried into 
 execution, and therefore his commands must be 
 obeyed. 
 
 Our "principles of reasoning" lead to this 
 undoubted conclusion. They lead us also to 
 believe that he has revealed his will by Jesus 
 Christ, whom he fully instructed and commis- 
 sioned to teach us all that is necessary to prepare 
 us for eternal happiness, if obeyed ; that Jesus 
 Christ gave full and undoubted proofs of that 
 commission : and our *' principles of interpre- 
 tation " shew us that his great doctrine was, that 
 
139 
 
 man shall be raised from the dead to eternal life, 
 to judgment, to a state of retribution. Now, if 
 from " these principles of interpretation" you can 
 prove that there is no resurrection, there is an 
 end of all religion, at least of revealed religion, 
 and we may throw every thing at once into the 
 hands of the Paines and the Carliles, &c., (or at 
 least) of Hume and Gibbon, and that class of 
 writers. Of these writers, undoubtedly, in my 
 opinion, the Unitarians have been the best 
 answerers. O, I think you must wish you had 
 not written that paragraph ! and so I will 
 leave it. 
 
 Again, you bring me back to Heb. i. 2, and 
 poor Belsham is accused of warping the Scrip- 
 tures to favour a preconceived opinion, when 
 you know that his preconceived opinion was the 
 direct contrary, and that it was to oppose the 
 doctrine of Priestley that he sUt down to collect 
 texts of Scripture. He found them to fail him, 
 and he painfully gave up his preconceived 
 opinion. 
 
 I think you rather blink the question, *' whe- 
 ther you or Elmsley can find any authority for 
 translating attJvEc * worlds ? ' and I am justified 
 in supposing that you cannot." 
 
 Your reference to Heb. xi. 3 confutes you ; 
 for the writer himself explains it otherwise in 
 
140 
 
 express terms, — " whether they be thrones, 
 principahties, powers," &c. The words would 
 be without meaning, — " the heavens, the earth, 
 the sea, &c., whether they be thrones," &c. Can 
 principalities and powers be visible in the sense 
 in which the sun and stars are visible ? or can 
 they be created, in the sense in which man and 
 beast are created ? The question is, as you say, 
 " set at rest," but on the side opposite to where 
 you would place it. Alooveg cannot be construed 
 *•' worlds." 
 
 Then you go to Col. i. 16; but would you let 
 a pupil construe lyivero " were created ?" This 
 verb yivofxiu, with its inflections, is said to occur 
 upwards of seven hundred times in the New 
 Testament, and never bears the sense of " to 
 create." It is one of the commonest words in 
 the language, and is never so used. I think, if 
 you met with it in an Unitarian book, you would 
 lay it down, and read no further. 
 
 After all, I am ready to leave the Trinitarian 
 to contest the point with the Arians, who believe 
 that Jesus Christ pre-existed, and, by power 
 derived from God, created the habitable worlds ; 
 but who yet do not believe that he was uncreated 
 himself, nor does it at all follow. 
 
 But if you insist upon the belief that Jesus 
 Christ was the Creator of the world, why do you 
 
Ml 
 
 not say, " I believe in God the Father, and in 
 Jesus Christ his only Son, our Lord, maker 
 of," &c. ? But you say, "I believe in God, 
 maker of," See. ''and — (with this conjunction 
 brinijinof in another being;) — " a/id in Jesus 
 Christ his Son," &c. " We also believe in God 
 the Father, maker of," Sec, "and in Jesus 
 Christ his Son, our Lord." The framer of this 
 creed surely did not believe that Christ was the 
 Creator. 
 
 You would next repel my "objection against 
 the doctrine of Christ's divine nature," supposing 
 my objection to be " its not being more dwelt 
 upon in the Acts of the Apostles." I did not say 
 "not more dwelt upon," but "nowhere mentioned 
 or alluded to, in all their preaching, for years 
 after they had received the Holy Spirit." A 
 much better reason for this may be given than 
 that of Bolingbroke. The true reason is, that 
 they had never learned the doctrine, and there- 
 fore never could, and assuredly never did, 
 teach it. 
 
 But see now what a surrender you have made : 
 first, you declare in your letter, January, 1824, 
 that the grand disclosure as to Christ's divine 
 nature was not formally made to the Apostles 
 until the epoch of the descent of the Holy Ghost; 
 and that there are no direct statements of 
 
142 
 
 tlie doctrine previously, thereto. I shew you, 
 that after that epoch, the doctrine is unnoticed 
 by them as far as appears in the history and 
 detail of their preaching in the book of the Acts. 
 Then you shift it further still, and say, " it was not 
 to be expected till the Gentiles were established 
 in their belief of Christ's divine legation;" and 
 then your belief of St. Paul's having so preached 
 is countenanced by his telling his Ephesian 
 converts that he had shewn them all the counsel 
 of God : so that, after all, it is only a coun- 
 tenanced or probable surmise that you bring 
 forward in proof of the revelation. I did 
 not press you into this surrender ; the whole 
 originates with yourself. 
 
 Your belief is further countenanced by the 
 expression of St. Paul, (Acts xx. 28,) " Feed 
 the church of God, which he has purchased with 
 blood." This would be only an allusion, not 
 a revelation, and an expression too obscure for 
 such an astounding doctrine, if there were such 
 a text ; but there is not. It is " the church of 
 the Lord," Kvpiov. You make no use of your 
 Griesbach, though you must know the value of 
 the book, and the fidelity of the author. 
 
 Having produced no evidence at all of such a 
 revelation, you say, " you must not impugn the 
 wisdom of God in not having given more clear 
 
113 
 
 and frequent evidence." We never call for any 
 evidence on the part of the Almiglity, but look 
 only for what he has declared : but do you mean 
 evidence of the revelation, or evidence of the 
 truth of it ? full evidence that it is revealed must 
 be essential to belief. 
 
 Afterwards you say, " it is nowhere written in 
 Scripture that Christ was not God," and, there- 
 fore, that such a doctrine must rest on inference 
 or implication ; but this is exactly preposterous ; 
 i. e. putting the things out of their places, or in- 
 verting the order of just arrangement. Should 
 such a thing ever be expected ? Do we expect 
 that it should be said that Adam was not God ? 
 or Elijah, Moses, Isaiah, or any prophet or 
 apostle? It was not blasphemy to say "that 
 they were Gods to whom the word of God 
 came ; and it is said of Moses even rather more 
 strongly than of Jesus Christ. Either, then, 
 you believe that Moses was God, or you refuse 
 to believe what God reveals." If you vindicate 
 the use of such expressions in argument, I do 
 not see with what justice you can repel them 
 when applied to your own reasoning. But, 
 though we could not expect it, (and it seems 
 utterly strange that such a sentiment should 
 occur as an objection,) it does happen that we 
 are told it ; for Christ is expressly foretold. 
 
144 
 
 (and the prophecy is afterwards brought in evi- 
 dence,) as a man like unto Moses. These things 
 must require a good deal of explaining away 
 on the part of the Trinitarian, though this is a 
 crime in Unitarians. To your categorical ques- 
 tion, then, " Does the Unitarian, when he asserts 
 that Christ is not God, or the Trinitarian, when 
 he maintains that Christ is God, most rest his 
 proof upon inference and implication ?" I answer 
 as plainly, "The Trinitarian entirely, the Unita- 
 rian not at all." We have nothing to do with 
 inference. — We need not infer that a man is not 
 God ; and we are repeatedly told by Christ him- 
 self, that his power was derived, and that he 
 could do nothing of himself. He prayed to God 
 for all he desired, and was thankful that his 
 prayers were heard, and for his support in afflic- 
 tion, and for the promise and the prize that was 
 set before him. To say that this was in his 
 human nature, as distinct from his divine nature, 
 is not only begging the question, or making an 
 assertion to favour a pre-conceived hypothesis, 
 but it is an equivocation which a Christian ought 
 not to submit to. Jesus Christ never spoke of 
 his *' human and divine nature," nor did any of 
 his Apostles. This is not Scripture, nor can it 
 be expressed in the language of Scripture ; the 
 words are utterly without meaning. 
 
145 
 
 You advert again to the influence of our 
 wishes upon our belief, and you deduct some- 
 what from the strength of your former " funda- 
 mental maxim." But in your first letter (to 
 
 S ,) you added, " if in pursuing, &c. you 
 
 shall still wish to continue in the same persua- 
 sion, you almost infaliibl}' will do so." Now 
 can you possibly not be aware that the same 
 thing may be said to you, and if just in the one 
 case, is so in the other ? Do you not " wish to con- 
 tinue in the persuasion" you have entered into? 
 Now she has shown you most clearly that her 
 wishes were the same as yours must be ; and 
 that, painful as the change Mas, she did not ''con- 
 tinue in the persuasion " her wishes laid hold of: 
 and she has shewn that she will never close her 
 mind against the arsruments of those who would 
 bring her back to it. Nor will I. Neither of 
 us, so long as God grants us a continuance of 
 those faculties which alone render us responsi- 
 ble beings : and you know that I left her to read 
 both your letter and your book entirely by her- 
 self. But the mode of orthodox teaching is, to 
 caution the disciple to close the avenues of his 
 understanding to the arguments of those whose 
 desire (at least) is, to receive all the doctrine 
 Christ taught. The disciple is cautioned to 
 remain in a safe ignorance of those arguments ; 
 
 H 
 
146 
 
 as if knowledge and security could arise from 
 ignorance ! 
 
 I do maintain that an unceasing willingness to 
 expose our doctrines to ti'ial, is the only test of 
 our conviction of their truth ; and that they who 
 have taken their belief for granted from educa- 
 tion only, and have never so examined themselves, 
 cannot, in a proper sense, be said to believe, and 
 have not a shadow of right to say, that their 
 belief stands upon a ground superior to that of 
 the Jew who abides by the religion of his ances- 
 tors, and refuses to look at the proofs that Jesus 
 rose from the dead, and that in his person was 
 fulfilled the promise of the Messiah : or than 
 that of the Roman Catholic, who dares not look 
 at any thing that casts a doubt upon the autho- 
 rity and the mysteries of Holy Church. 
 
 Having I think gone through all those parts 
 of your letters that so call upon me, I trust I 
 have now done with Greek criticism. I do not 
 mean to preclude your reply, to which, undoubt- 
 edly, I shall attend, though I am desirous not 
 to continue it on my part ; and I do maintain 
 that a knowledge of it is noiv-a-days by no 
 means necessary to the satisfaction of the mind 
 in inquiry after gospel truth ; — that the unlearned 
 reader has no excuse for reliance on the doctrine 
 of men, (as you contend,) and that all that is 
 
147 
 
 essential to saving faith is plainly revealed, and 
 that to say otherwise is charging God vv^ith in- 
 justice ; — that there is no need nor ground for 
 that trepidation which seizes the Christian when 
 startled with doubts as to the doctrines they have 
 been taught to consider so sacred ; — that the 
 more sacred they think them, the more incumbent 
 it is to scrutinize them ; — that the true tendency 
 of this scrutiny is to console and calm the mind ; 
 and that where it has not that effect, the failure 
 is entirely attributable to early and unjust preju- 
 dice. Indeed, that trepidation itself is a proof 
 that the faith does not rest on a true foundation ; 
 that though it may be right, it may be wrong, 
 and that we deceive ourselves in relying upon it. 
 
 We doubt not that mankind are all going 
 where it will be asked, not " What hast thou be- 
 lieved," but, " What hast thou done ?" This we 
 are sure a Christian will be able to learn from 
 his Bible, and therefore creeds and controversies 
 are not so necessary to us ; but if you will insist 
 that salvation depends upon belief, you ought to 
 teach, that controversy should he the busitiess of 
 our lives. Assuredly creeds and controversies 
 must go together, else we merely cast lots for 
 our salvation, and let it depend upon the mere 
 accident of birth. 
 
 These are the points I wish to confine myself 
 II 2 
 
148 
 
 to, and I shall resume the task, and continue my 
 reply to your letters, but for the present must 
 close, 
 
 I have left for you a copy of a printed sermon 
 by Lant Carpenter, which I request you to 
 read, as it gives a summary of Unitarian belief, 
 and I think a pleasing specimen of the " temper 
 of mind" of Unitarian preachers. If I had 
 met with it sooner, my letter would have been 
 shorter. 
 
 Farewell for the present. I do not find that 
 " controversy " has any tendency to diminish 
 kind regards. 
 
 Your affectionate Brother. 
 
 D. 
 
149 
 
 LETTER XI. 
 
 FROM D. TO C- 
 
 April, 182i5. 
 
 My Dear C , 
 
 If you imagine that I make any boast, 
 or have any self-complacency concerning my 
 knowledge of Greek, I desire to put an end at 
 once to that supposition, by confessing (which I 
 do with some shame, and much regret,) that for 
 five and twenty years after arriving at manhood, 
 I am not sure that I ever read a continuous page 
 in any Greek book ; and that having in my later 
 and more leisure years taken up again ray old 
 school-books, I have been surprised and mortified 
 to fi.nd how much I had lost. If you think that 
 a smattering of the language has had any ten- 
 dency to render S confident in her con- 
 struction of the Bible, you are still more 
 mistaken. She has read the Greek Testament 
 
150 
 
 with me, and it is a pleasure to us to be able to 
 read together ; and the prospect of that pleasure 
 was, I believe, her only reason for desiring to 
 meddle with Greek at all. 
 
 This preface brings me to your sentiment 
 (letter of January 1824, p. 10,) " Since it has 
 pleased God to reveal his will to us in that lan- 
 guage (viz. Greek,) all who are not well versed 
 in it must depend upon the interpretation of 
 others ;" and " if you are not prepared to 
 depend upon your own interpretation, you must 
 lean upon human authority." This I deny. But 
 I consider that you in professing it have almost 
 granted me the whole of my argument; which 
 was, to prove that it is on human authority 
 only, and not upon revelation, that the members 
 of the Church do, (for you in plain terms say 
 " they must) rely." 
 
 In what a dreadful state do you place them ! 
 How can any fail to fall into misery and despair? 
 *' He that believeth not shall be damned :" to 
 believe signifies to believe in a certain hypo- 
 thesis, — this hypothesis depends on the con- 
 struction of Greek words. Learned men differ 
 one from another in that construction and hypo- 
 thesis-— "the unlearned must rely on human 
 authority" — they cannot know which authority 
 to prefer, but choose they must, and abiding by 
 
151 
 
 that choice, they must admit of no doubt ; they 
 must so believe, or perish everlastingly ! 
 
 Happily, however, there is no point whatever 
 wherein our salvation depends upon the right or 
 wrong interpretation of Greek words. I now de- 
 sire in this discussion to put myself entirely on a 
 footing with those who do not know one word of 
 that language, and am yet satisfied that I shall 
 find all that is necessary to salvation without em- 
 bracing a creed founded on human authority ; 
 and at the same time as you say that I " shall 
 probably reply that they have studied the Scrip- 
 tures through an incorrect translation, and that 
 they should read the Unitarians' Improved Ver- 
 sion," I must assure you I shall make no such 
 reply ; nor shall I call on them to ground their 
 belief upon any thing but thorough conviction 
 (I admit no meaning to the word " belief " but 
 *' conviction,") the result of the honest exercise 
 of the talents which God has measured to them, 
 and the use of the means he has afforded to 
 every one in his or her peculiar station. But 
 till they attain that conviction, or even if unable 
 to attain it, how dreadful is it, how insincere and 
 false before God, to profess it ! 
 
 As for the Unitarian Version, (as you call it,) 
 it is a publication of the other day only — the first 
 edition was published in 1808; and though I 
 
152 
 
 value it highly, I did not read it in order to be 
 convinced that Unitarianism is the doctrine which 
 Christ and his Apostles taught. But why should 
 they not read it ? If any thing in Scripture is 
 hard to be understood, why should they refuse 
 any help, or to know what interpretation other 
 Christians use ? " They cannot rely on their own 
 interpretation ;" but can they less rely upon it 
 after hearing the opinions of others ? You 
 add, '' it would be grounding their belief upon 
 human authority as much as the other :" I admit 
 it would, if they were called upon by us to read 
 it, and prohibited from reading any other; thus 
 reduced to the dreadful alternative of choosing 
 between two authorities with no reason for pre- 
 ferring either, except that they have happened 
 first to fall in with it. 
 
 But to return to our ignorance of Greek. 
 Do you suppose that it is from reading a transla- 
 tion of the New Testament which varies from the 
 authorized version, that we embrace Unitari- 
 anism ? You know very little about us. It is 
 not the Unitarian, but the Trinitarian, that rests 
 his doctrine on a few disputed or difficult pas- 
 sages : if we take up these passages critically it 
 is in self-defence. We do not set forward to 
 adduce the correction even of corrupt or mis- 
 translated texts, or disputable interpretations, as 
 
153 
 
 the grounds of our belief. You I am sure will 
 not deny that the received text was taken from 
 certain copies, not the jnost authentic ; nor that 
 Griesbach, having access to copies more ancient 
 and of better authority, has given to the world a 
 copy, which (though not absolutely perfect) is 
 undoubtedly nearer to the genuine apostolic 
 writing. No learned men, orthodox or other- 
 wise, differ on this point. One of the highest 
 dignitaries in your Church published a transla- 
 tion of this improved copy. Was he to blame in 
 this ? His whole edition (about the time of his 
 death, I believe) was sunk at sea, and so damaged 
 that a very few copies remained legible. Was it 
 not desirable that such a translation should 
 exist? Why did not the Church take it up, and 
 reprint the lost translation ? If they had, the 
 Unitarians would not have published any. You 
 will not deny that there are in the received text 
 some few (very few) palpable interpolations. 
 Does reverence for the Scriptures induce the 
 Church to publish millions of copies without 
 even a note of caution to the reader that the 
 Apostle did not write them ? This is a strange 
 way of shewing a veneration for Scripture ! The 
 Unitarians, finding that the Church would not 
 take it up, have republished Archbishop New- 
 come's translation, inserting nothing which he 
 II 3 
 
154 
 
 or Griesbach had omitted ; omitting nothing 
 which they have inserted. 
 
 In a few instances (very few of moment) they 
 have varied from his translation ; and when they 
 have so varied, they have still given his trans- 
 lation in a note, and their reasons for differing 
 from him. 
 
 But without going out of the common autho- 
 rized copy and version, any unprejudiced person 
 commencing his study would be astonished to 
 find, if he will expressly search for and register 
 them, how few passages there are that even seem 
 to countenance the mystery of the Trinity — of 
 passages in which it is revealed he will find not 
 one. These few texts are for ever brought for- 
 ward in support of the inferred doctrine, while 
 the whole tenor of Scripture establishes the con- 
 trary — i. e. the absolute Unity of One Spirit, un- 
 divided, indivisible, whether into Beings, Minds, 
 Intelligences, or Persons. One or two palpable 
 forgeries, (the tsxt of the three witnesses, 1 John 
 V. 8 ; "God manifest in the flesh," 1 Tim. iii. 16 ; 
 and "the church of God, which," &c. Acts xx. 
 28 ;) have been much relied on, and are still often 
 quoted. These the Archbishop's translation of 
 Griesbach's copy points out manifestly to all im- 
 partial readers ; but these corrections are not what 
 we single out as the foundation of Unitarianism. 
 
155 
 
 You say, "it has pleased God to reveal his 
 will in the Greek language." I cannot adopt 
 the phrase, for God needs not the intervention of 
 language to communicate to the objects of his 
 inspiration the instructions he vouchsafes. They 
 have used the language in their communication 
 to their fellow-men, and it is true, that if that 
 language were lost, loe should be without revela- 
 tion. But, although that translation is the work 
 of men, it is not upon human authority we rely : 
 for the coincidence of language (both in sacred 
 and profane writings) is to the unlearned a proof 
 in the nature of things that the words did signify 
 what we suppose them to have signified. 
 
 I have never crossed the Atlantic, and cannot 
 know, but by reading voyages and histories, or 
 by oral communications, that any land exists 
 there ; voyagers and historians have often lied or 
 erred ; yet I am as much convinced of the exist- 
 ence of a continent there, as I am of that of the 
 field now before my eyes. Do I then rely upon 
 the testimony of men, who may be deceivers ? 
 No : it is not in the nature of things, — it is abso- 
 lutely impossible that such concurrence should 
 take place in the relation of falsehoods. The 
 history of the death and resurrection of Christ 
 was written in a language as unknown to me as 
 are opposite shores of the ocean I have never 
 
156 
 
 traversed ; yet the concurrence of translators is 
 as convincing to me as if the account were in my 
 native language, and I do not rely upon human 
 authority. Where all agree, the reader knows 
 as much as the translators — they have given him 
 their knowledge ; where they do not agree, he 
 knows as much as one of the parties, for one 
 must be wrong. In these cases, all ought to 
 doubt ; and he is as fit to try the cause between 
 them, by comparing their testimony, as either of 
 them can be; — oftentimes more so, as being less 
 biassed. 
 
 But, you say, " let all who can carry the in- 
 vestigation through, enter upon it." What is 
 meant by " carrying it through ?" Do you mean 
 "attaining conviction?" can they not be con- 
 vinced ? then how can they believe without all 
 doubt? " Incompetent to decide a question that 
 the most learned disagree on " — yet you call on 
 them to decide. 
 
 We say, act, obey, pray for assistance, and 
 if sincere, be assured that all necessary know- 
 ledge may and must be attainable. He gave me 
 my understanding in measure and limit, exactly 
 according to his will. Will he be angry that I 
 cannot go beyond the limit he purposely as- 
 signed ? He gave me my eye and my ear, will 
 he be angry that my eye cannot penetrate further 
 
157 
 
 into space than his gift enables me? This indeed 
 is making him a hard master, " reaping where he 
 lias not sown." He will be angry that I do not 
 use his gift as far as it will penetrate, but let me 
 not repine because his gift was not greater — 
 two or five talents : nor call it humility to declare 
 that he has given me only one, and that I dare 
 not use it. It is presumption, not humility ; in- 
 gratitude, not submission ; indolence, not obe- 
 dience ; wilful blindness — "prostration of the 
 understanding," not to revelation, but to prejudice. 
 
 But what is the " investigation" they are 
 called on to enter upon ? To decide questions 
 of Greek criticism ? no such thing. We call on 
 them to think when they read the Bible. Does 
 the gospel teach us that we are to work out our 
 own salvation with fear and trembling ? or, does 
 it teach us that " the first thing is, to be con- 
 vinced that we can do nothing towards our own 
 salvation?" that we must rely solely on the 
 merits of Jesus Christ? In what part of the 
 English Bible do we read that ? 
 
 I do verily believe, that from having read the 
 words so often in sermons and human composi- 
 tions, a very large portion of well-meaning Chris- 
 tians do really tliink that they have in their 
 English Bible read of a " scheme or plan of re- 
 demption" — of " the incarnation of God" — of his 
 
158 
 
 *' taking upon him our nature ;" of " two natures 
 in Christ, " " his human nature — his divine 
 nature ;" of " vicarious sacrifice " — " satisfaction 
 to the justice of God" — of his "bearing the 
 Divine wrath " — of his " submitting to punish- 
 ment for the sins of mankind " — of his " all- 
 atoning, expiatory death," &c. They think they 
 have read that " the Jewish sacrifices were 
 types of the great sacrifice," &c. &c. They do 
 not indeed think they have met with the word 
 *' Trinity," but, probably, many think they have 
 read of " God the Son, and God the Holy 
 Ghost:" they actually carry these things in their 
 minds as Scripture language, and when they 
 hear of the Unitarians adopting so much of 
 Scripture as suits their views, and " rejecting all 
 the rest," (for this is the constant cry,) they 
 imagine that the Unitarians strike them out; it 
 never occurs to them that they are Trinitarian 
 glosses. 
 
 I do not want to talk about Greek ; read the 
 common English translation, and shew me the 
 passages. And who is not competent to consider 
 the question ? What source of information is 
 open to one Christian more than to another ? 
 What renders one Christian less able than 
 another, or less responsible ? 
 
 In support of those doctrines which I main- 
 
159 
 
 tain to be genuine Christianity, I do not need 
 to call readers to any Unitarian book, but only 
 call on them to think when they read Trinitarian 
 books : — but they are called on by their Church 
 to take every thing for granted ; not to criti- 
 cise — not to reason or object ; and if any one 
 would point out the fallacies, not to dare to look 
 at the objection. 
 
 Thus the passage is pointed out to them, " I 
 and my Father are one, and the glory I had 
 with thee before the world was," &c. ; and these 
 are called decisive : but the explanatory passage, 
 John xvii. 20, and following verses, — *' As thou. 
 Father, art in me. and I in thee, that they also may 
 be one in us : that the world may believe that thou 
 hast sent me. And the glory thou gavest me I 
 have given them ; that they may be one, even as 
 we are one : I in them, and thou in me," — they 
 forget ; and if an Unitarian would call their atten- 
 tion to these words of the same great teacher, 
 Christ, they must shut their ears against his plau- 
 sible arguments, " lest they should shake their 
 faith!" And even you say they will "have cause 
 to repent," if they thus use their weak reason in 
 considering Scripture in this way, or enter on the 
 inquiry, " whether they have not been in the 
 habit of considering what has been pointed out 
 by their human instructors, and forgetting the 
 
160 
 
 rest." *' This is life eternal, that they might 
 know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, 
 whom thou hast sent." Can the Greek scholar 
 understand these words better than the unlearned 
 Christian? It is quite a mistake to suppose that 
 the appeal must ultimately be to the interpreta- 
 tion of languages of which they are ignorant." 
 
 Where, in Scripture, is the justice of God set 
 in opposition to his mercy? "God's conflicting 
 attributes," as Dr. Chalmers, from his own fancy 
 and presumption, (and as I almost think, blas- 
 phemously,) calls them ? Where is it said that 
 justice required a sacrifice, an infinite sacrifice ? 
 and who are the Christians that ought not to put 
 these questions to themselves, or that are less 
 able to answer (if free to consider) them ? 
 
 Take from Bishop Porteus's (generally excel- 
 lent) lectures, " His justice, his wisdom, his au- 
 thority, as the moral Governor of the Universe, 
 all these must have been shaken to their very 
 foundation had he pardoned mankind without 
 some satisfaction made to him for their disobe- 
 dience." 
 
 Is not this human reasoning ? and why am not 
 I, an unlearned Christian, to use my reason in 
 reply ? and what knowledge of Greek is neces- 
 sary to enable me to answer that it is neither 
 reason, nor Scripture ; but the presumption of a 
 
IGl 
 
 man who would legislate for the Almighty ? and 
 what Christian ought not to " enter on the inves- 
 tigation," rather than take it for granted ? From 
 the same — " It appears from the nature of the 
 things themselves, from the clearest deductions 
 of reason, from the ordinary course of human 
 affairs in the present world, &:c. &c. and above 
 all, from the positive declarations of God himself 
 both in the Old and New Testament ! ! ! that 
 besides the contrition of the sinner himself, some- 
 thing must be done, or suffered by some other 
 being, on his account," &c. 
 
 I read, that " whoso confesseth and forsaketh 
 his sins, shall find mercy." I read that " there is 
 joy in heaven over one sinner that repenteth ;" 
 and when the prodigal son returned, the fatted 
 calf was killed for joy, not put to agony as an 
 expiation of the youth's offence, nor was any sub- 
 stituted punishment proposed in our Saviour's 
 parable. Can it be wondered at that those who 
 are prejudiced from infancy in favour of such an 
 hypothesis, and debarred from, or cautioned 
 against, reading a review of orthodox works, 
 should in their memories and apprehensions con- 
 found those wild declamations with Scripture, 
 being told that they are " the positive declara- 
 tions of God?" Ought they not to look and see? 
 I am sure they will never find them there, in 
 
162 
 
 Hebrew, Greek, or English : nor can they "have 
 cause to repent," if, in searching the Scriptures to 
 see whether these things be so, they find they 
 are not ; and if they should find them to be so, 
 then you must of course say, they will have cause 
 to rejoice. 
 
 Observe, I have been quoting from one of the 
 most popular and deservedly esteemed dignitaries 
 of your Chureh ; and I do not desire to argue in 
 favour of Unitarianism in any other way than 
 to read the books of the orthodox, and fairly 
 examine their own arguments. It is really 
 melancholy to see the effect of early prejudice on 
 subjects so important, when we find such a man 
 as Porteus really fancying that in this he was 
 using Scripture language. 
 
 Take an extract from Dr. Munter's account of 
 the conversion of Struensee, a book now very 
 popular, and handed about, and recommended 
 as an impressive lesson. That there is much in 
 it that is good, I acknowledge ; but let us not 
 shut our eyes to its fallacies. 
 
 After a detail of his conversion to a belief of a 
 future state, and of the Christian revelation gene- 
 rally, he says, " He was now ready to acknow- 
 ledge the other mysteries to be divine ;" but Dr. 
 Munter has omitted to mention one single argu- 
 ment that induced him to acknowledge them. 
 
1G3 
 
 Now if in a chain of an hundred links one 
 link be made wood, to what purpose is it to shew 
 me that the other ninety-nine are of good iron ? 
 Yet this one link is wanting in all the Trinitarian 
 books of argument I have ever met with ; and I 
 have read many, and never turned from any. 
 " You see from this," says Dr. Munter, (after 
 shewing, truly enough, that the miracles became 
 necessary to serve him for credentials,) " that a 
 religion, whose Author performed miracles, must, 
 according to its intention, contain mysteries." 
 Now what reasoning is this ? He goes on — 
 " Reason tells us the Unity of God ; Revelation 
 adds, that three Persons are in one Deity," — and 
 these assertions are put into the hands of simple- 
 minded Christians, as revelation ! Again ; he 
 actually refers to Heb. i. 3, as if quoting it, as 
 declaring that Christ has the same essence as the 
 Father has, and is therefore perfectly equal with 
 him. From the same ; — " Christ commanded 
 me to believe that he was very God and very 
 man ; and that, in the divine nature, the Father, 
 the Son, and the Holy Ghost are one. I 
 thought myself obliged to believe these mysteries 
 upon the word of Clirist." 
 
 What would be said of an Unitarian who should 
 so introduce his doctrines, and call them Scrip- 
 ture language? You might brand that as 
 
164 
 
 ** unwarrantable treatment of Scripture," and I do 
 not see why any serious, simple-minded Christian 
 is not as competent as Dr. Munter, or his editor 
 Dr. Rennell, to judge of it; and I am sure it is 
 the duty of every reader to think, and to take 
 every help he can meet with, to enable him to 
 understand whether it is Scripture or human in- 
 vention that is laid before him as such. " No 
 other means to obtain pardon, but through the 
 merits of Christ," he says. This is not to be 
 found in the New Testament in Greek or English. 
 When a Chinese man was killed by an acci- 
 dental explosion of a loaded gun, from an Euro- 
 pean ship, the Chinese demanded an European 
 to be delivered up to be put to death as an ex- 
 piation. Any one would do ; it was not as a 
 deterring punishment of a guilty person, but 
 blood for blood — " satisfaction." A Canadian 
 was killed in a quarrel by an Englishman, who 
 escaped. The friend of the deceased lay in wait, 
 and seized an innocent English sergeant. They 
 put him to death, and were " satisfied." The 
 Chinese and the Canadians considered this to be 
 justice : we consider it as a ferocious injustice, 
 excusable only by their savage ignorance. An 
 Italian lately offered himself to the magistrates 
 in London to be executed in lieu of a con- 
 demned criminal, for whose pardon petitions 
 
105 
 
 had been pvcsentcd by his wife and son, and 
 some other persons. We consider the man to be 
 either a hypocrite or a madman, but we know 
 it would have been a mockery of justice if the 
 law could have admitted the self-devoted victim 
 in lieu of the actual criminal ; and yet, man pro- 
 poses, not only as a fact, but as a necessary 
 requisite for the pardon of repentant sinners, 
 that one who knew no sin should suffer as a 
 criminal, to appease the Divine wrath, and that a 
 claim which it is savage in man to make, in God 
 is just. Justice requires that we should be 
 punished everlastingly for sins committed before 
 we were in being, and mercy sacrifices to justice, 
 who accepts the agony of an innocent substitute. 
 This scheme being no where to be traced in 
 Scripture, they reason with us, and shew that it 
 must be so of necessity, and yet tell us that we 
 are not to " set up our reason" in canvassing it. 
 They illustrate their theory in part, by telling us 
 that in this world the children of the wicked are 
 punished for the offences of their parents. No ; 
 they are punished by them, not for them. 
 
 Would a judge, with any pretence to common 
 justice or common sense, say to a poor wretch 
 brought before him, " Your father and grandfa- 
 ther were thieves, and therefore you must be pu- 
 nished?" Would not his justice and his humanity 
 
166 
 
 operate the other way ? Would he not say, " This 
 poor wretch is to be pitied, he knows no better ; 
 he comes of a stock from whom he could not learn 
 honesty or any good feeling?" If he has actually 
 committed crime, the safety of society may require 
 that a deterring punishment should be inflicted 
 upon him ; but the sentence would be reluctantly 
 passed, and mitigated beyond that which the 
 guilty child of a virtuous parent would have to 
 expect. 
 
 Yet are we to be told from our infancy, that 
 on this belief depends our only hope of salvation 
 from eternal misery ; and searching the Scriptures 
 to see whether these things are so, or whether 
 the faith is not derived from creeds and cate- 
 chisms, or from merely imaginary feelings, con- 
 sequent upon early prejudices, is " controversy" 
 — an inquiry not to be entered upon except by 
 the learned? 
 
 As to feelings : the Roman Catholic feels as 
 much the protection of the Virgin Mary, who 
 hears her prayers, and intercedes for her, and 
 who has consoled her in all her trying hours in 
 this life. She confesses to her priest ; and having 
 received absolution, feels " maintenant pure 
 comme une ange." Any thing whatever that is 
 taught to an infant, and impressed on his mind 
 with a caution that it is sacred, and not to be 
 
167 
 
 questioned, will return, and be felt through life, by 
 Mahometan or by Christian, Papist or Protestant. 
 All their feelings are upon a par ; and they have 
 much to answer for who have excited them, and 
 forbidden the control of reason, and the unbiassed 
 comparison of them with the words of revelation. 
 Has the Christian, at his dying hour, to look 
 back (like Struensee,) on a lite spent in actual 
 crime ? then, if he can be sure of his repentance, 
 the mercy of the all-seeing God is promised him. 
 Who dares to say it cannot be granted on the 
 conditions the Almighty has promised, and that 
 God, according to some fancied scheme, must 
 sacrifice to justice? Or say, that the dying man 
 is not sure of his own sincere repentance ; — who 
 dares to tell him that he must rely on some other 
 conditions than those expressly declared ? He 
 ougJd to fear and tremble. It is his last and 
 only chance for repentance. Or can the dying 
 Christian look back on a well-spent life ? Who 
 dares to take from such an one the comfort of a 
 good conscience, and tell him (in any other than 
 Scripture words), that he may not rely on the 
 promise of a just God, who created him for his 
 happiness, and appointed the conditions, and 
 gave him his talents in measure and limit, accord- 
 ing to his will, and will judge him in that 
 measure and scale ? 
 
168 
 
 Or does the dying Christian feel a fear and con- 
 sciousness that he has not done all the good he 
 might, and ought to have done? Is that deficiency 
 to be put upon the footing of a wicked life ? is 
 all crime, in every degree, to be confounded, and 
 without distinction ? then there is an end of all 
 difference between good and evil conduct in this 
 life of trial. 
 
 But if the Christian have been so deficient, 
 where is it told him that the merits of another 
 Being will be accepted as a substitute ? or the 
 suffering stand in lieu of his ? Let us have our 
 answer in Scripture words. It is quite contra- 
 dictory to all ideas that God has enabled our 
 reason to form either of justice or mercy : — but, 
 (oh monstrous !) that this substituted victim to 
 God's justice, is God himself! ! ! Answer us not 
 to the question, " What thinkest thou ?" but, 
 " How readest thou ?" The mercy of an all-seeing 
 God is sufficient for all his creatures to rely on, 
 jf they will obey him according to the best of 
 their power, if obedience is the desire of their 
 lives. He wants no schemes or plans, nor need 
 we inquire his means. 
 
 Can it make any one unhappy, or " be the author 
 of much pain and misery," to be reminded that 
 those who in simplicity of heart and mind, like 
 children, desire to obey, are such of whom the 
 
169 
 
 kingdom of heaven is composed ? — that of the 
 poor in spirit, theirs is the kingdom of God ? 
 
 The great commandment, I read, is, "Thou 
 shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, 
 and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind ;" 
 and " thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself." 
 Is not this the state of mind which we are to 
 strive to attain ? Are we to be told we can do 
 nothing of ourselves ? Is any one called on 
 beyond the talents given him ? " As ye would 
 that men should do to you, do ye to them." 
 " Love your enemies, do good, and your reward 
 shall be great, and ye shall be the children of 
 the Highest." " He is kind to the unthankful, and 
 the evil." " Be merciful, as your Father is merci- 
 ful." Whose words are these ? Who adds to 
 them, that the wrath of God is poured on the 
 babe for sins committed ages befoi-e he was born? 
 and that " the justice, wisdom, and authority of 
 God must be shaken to its foundation," if he were 
 to pardon this unoffending child without some 
 satisfaction ? Bishop Porteus. Who adds that 
 we must believe that Christ " being God, took 
 our nature upon him, and that it is through his 
 merits only that we can obtain salvation ?" Mr. 
 Bowdler, father and son, Dr. Munter, — the 
 Church of England, and the orthodox writers ; 
 but they do not so read. They slip these 
 I 
 
170 
 
 tilings in, as if they we're in Scripture ; and their 
 readers really believe that it is in the Bible they 
 have read them. 
 
 But you have said, your sister "has neglected 
 her father's recommendation to his daughters 
 to study their Bible, and learn the doctrines and 
 principles of Christianity from it, without attend- 
 ing to controversy." This is what we require, 
 and what the Church forbids. Do you not first 
 give the creeds, and then require them to spend 
 their lives in hearing the orthodox comments, to 
 the exclusion of all others? It is the comments 
 on the comments that you interdict. If I may 
 be allowed to quote an expression, which, though 
 ludicrous, is exactly applicable, "your neutrality 
 is all on one side." Are not all sermons, all 
 doctrinal books, comments on the Bible ? But 
 mark the inconsistency into which the prejudice 
 of an orthodox education has led you upon this 
 very point. About the time of your father's death, 
 you gave your sisters a Bible, in wliich the notes 
 and comments exceed the text in bulk, at least 
 five times. The Unitarian edition of Archbishop 
 Newcome's New Testament has notes certainly 
 not amounting to a twentieth part of the text ; 
 so, by way of following their father's recommen- 
 dation, and reading the Bible without comment, 
 they are to read only that one in which the 
 
171 
 
 comments exceed those of the other at least one 
 hundred times. These comments are to be their 
 daily study, by way of avoiding controversy ! 
 
 Now the very first words of the book so given 
 are — text, *' In the beginning God created the 
 heavens and the earth ;" note, " In the begin- 
 ning of time, God the Father, Son, and Holy 
 Ghost, made of nothing the whole great and 
 goodly frame," &c. Another note in the same 
 page instructs them, that because the word 
 translated " God " is in the Hebrew plural, 
 therefore " it is reasonable to suppose that the in- 
 spired writer designed to intimate the Trinity of 
 persons in the Godhead." To have these strange 
 surmises of men always before their eyes, is to 
 study the Bible without note or comment ! and 
 to be advised to think whether they are part of 
 revelation, is "to be called into controversy — to 
 enter upon an inquiry which they will not be 
 able to ' carry through.' " 
 
 I do not understand Hebrew, but when I 
 am thus told that the word Elohim is a plural, 
 has not the learned Hebraist given me his know- 
 ledge, and placed me (on that point) perfectly on 
 a par with him ? Then I shall ask him whether 
 he finds the same plural word in any other part 
 of the Bible ; and if so, whether it must denote 
 plurality of persons in such other jxu't. (I think 
 I 2 
 
172 
 
 indeed he should have told us unasked.) We 
 unlearned readers too shall ask, why it is not in 
 our Bibles translated " Gods," and we shall also 
 ask, whether, when the Jews for ages read this 
 plural noun in their own language, it ever sug- 
 gested to them " a plurality of persons in the 
 Godhead ;" and if not, how in our age, when the 
 knowledge of the language is comparatively so 
 very imperfect, this nicety is to suggest to us a 
 notion so flagrantly opposite to that absolute 
 unity which distinguished their religion from 
 those of the nations from whom they were sepa- 
 rated by the counsel of God. 
 
 And what Christian of common education and 
 good sense, is unable to judge of these points, as 
 well as Dr. Mant, or the other learned editor, or 
 the bishops, or writers, whose notes these are ? 
 
 I have thus taken from the first page of the 
 book, given for the purpose of avoiding contro- 
 versy, these two samples out of the many, very 
 many instances, wherein the orthodox writers, in 
 their books, "force interpretations to favour their 
 preconceived opinions." 
 
 You grant me every thing when you say, the 
 Jew ought to listen to " Christian proofs," pro- 
 vided he thinks the objections are reasonable, 
 and feels that he has the means of arriving at a 
 satisfactory conclusion, but not otherwise. So 
 
173 
 
 that he must think the objections reasonable, 
 before he is at liberty to know what they are ; 
 and so must the orthodox-educated Christian ; 
 and if they do not feel the means of arriving at 
 satisfactory conclusion, they must rest their sal- 
 vation on the chance that has first befallen them. 
 " Satisfactory conclusion, " I suppose, means 
 ** conviction." How can any one be said to 
 believe that is not convinced I Why am I not 
 as capable of prosecuting the inquiry to convic- 
 tion as you are ? (I put out of question any 
 complimentary estimate of our several intellects, 
 and speak of the means in our power.) Why not 
 your sisters as well as either of us ? Why not 
 any of us as much as an archbishop of Dublin, 
 or bishop of St. David's, Peterborough, or 
 London ? We have the same map on which to 
 trace the road ; and, in fact, if you will fairly con- 
 sider, let me ask which of your sisters has not 
 had manifold more time and leisure to study that 
 map, than you have had in the last seven years, 
 or have at this day, or in immediate prospect ? 
 
 I read in the Quarterly Review, (I am only 
 surprised that the quotation should be from 
 Baxter,) " that Church is happy, in which all are, 
 in Christ's school, divided into the distinct ranks 
 of teachers and hearers." We know in which 
 rank the reviewer would place himself, but in 
 
174 
 
 the Church of Christ we are all fellow-disciples ; 
 and in the Gospel. I read, "call no man Master." 
 Then, you say, " they must enter into every 
 question that has agitated the Church for ages." 
 — No, no, no, into none of them. If they were 
 all forgotten, — if the decrees of councils, and the 
 existence of councils, and the Homoousian and 
 Homoiousian doctrines decided hy a casting voice, 
 and all the votes, as to what shall be believed 
 as essential to salvation, and all the jargon of 
 controversialists, were forgotten, — it would be 
 greatly to the advantage of genuine Christianity. 
 It is not we, but you, that suppose the necessity 
 for the study. For if the settling of the points 
 be necessary at all, how and why less necessary 
 for one Christian than another? 
 
 We say, they form no part of Christ's instruc- 
 tions ; and let the differing schoolmen anathema- 
 tize one another, — we pity both parties, and 
 stand aloof. But M'hen you say, "above all 
 things it is necessary to believe," — then every 
 Christian is bound to see and judge whether that 
 is Scripture or not; and every one has, equally 
 with the most learned, the means of judging; and 
 where the means and power of any one cease, at 
 that limit ceases his responsibility. If any one 
 says, " I believe," and does not understand, and 
 is not convinced of it, he is insincere before the 
 
175 
 
 God to whom he prays. If he humbly confesses 
 his difficulty, he cannot be punished by a just 
 God for want of power. Belief is not the act 
 OF the will, and I do mantain, that in whatever 
 degree our wishes influence our belief, in that 
 degree, to the full, we are insincere in the sight 
 of God ; and I do maintain with Dr. Price, that 
 "he who faithfully wishes to know the truth, and 
 who does his best to discover and to practise it, 
 must be approved by the Deity, and cannot pos- 
 sibly mistake fundamentally. In all his inquiries 
 he is under the superintendence of Heaven, — 
 and that a sincere disposition to receive whatever 
 information God is pleased to give us, may be 
 considered in all cases equivalent to a right 
 belief." If Price is wrong in this, then must we 
 indeed cast lots, and take our chance ; though 
 our chance, (it is not my word, but that of Judge 
 Blackstone, Dr. Nares, and other orthodox 
 writers,) must be better when we follow those 
 who say, *' Take nothing from us on trust, but 
 search, and judge for yourselves, whether these 
 things be so ; give fliir attention to all fair 
 serious instruction, whether from us or our op- 
 ponents ;" than in following those who say, " Take 
 this and abide by it, and dare not to listen to that 
 which may make you doubt whether our exposi- 
 tion of Scripture is right : the Church maintains 
 
176 
 
 it, and that is enough for you unlearned Chris- 
 tians," 
 
 We are called " schismatics," but we ought to 
 be called " the excluded." If schism be a sin, it 
 is indisputably from the Church it arises. We 
 desire with one accord to offer our common sup- 
 plications to God ; and with one voice to say, 
 " O God, have mercy upon us." And is not this 
 an address that must be fully satisfactory to 
 every believer in God ? But the Church insists 
 on adding, " O God the Son, have mercy on us — 
 O God the Holy Ghost, have mercy," &c. — and 
 then, " O holy, blessed, and glorious Trinity," 
 (who invented this word?) " three persons in one 
 God, have mercy upon us." Why these addi- 
 tions ? — for the purpose (and for the purpose 
 only) of excluding us. 
 
 If God consists of three persons, if such is the 
 essence of God, the scriptural address fully in- 
 cludes all that essence. Jesus Christ taught 
 us to address the Father: his Father and our 
 Father, his God and our God. " Schism " is 
 " division "^s it not ? Who divides the Church 
 of Christ ? Who shews best his reverence for 
 the words and doctrine of Jesus Christ ? He who 
 obeys them strictly and literally, or he who para- 
 phrases them according to his own preconceptions ? 
 
 " After this manner pray ye," was his instruc- 
 
177 
 
 tion ; and the Church, in order to exclude us 
 from joint worship, alters even the address — the 
 name and title of the Being to whom their prayer 
 is offered ; and even forbids its disciples to com- 
 pare these addresses with the instructions of the 
 Great Revealer of the will of God, lest they 
 should " have cause to repent of having entered 
 upon such a comparison, or unless they can 
 depend on their knowledge of the language " in 
 which he spoke. 
 
 In that solemn time when Jesus gave the bread 
 to his disciples, he said, " Do this in remembrance 
 of me ;"' and if a priest says, previously to admi- 
 nistering it, " above all things it is necessary 
 to believe," surely he ought to give the words 
 of Christ himself, not human paraphrase, and 
 one that cannot be expressed in scripture lan- 
 guage. We have at least a right to require this, 
 and then all the disciples of Christ might join in 
 the communion ; and we have all equally the 
 power, and therefore it must be our duty, to com- 
 pare the words of the priest with those of the 
 Bible. What is the investigation we call on all 
 Christians to enter into ? Why, to think when 
 they read the Bible, and to think what it is they 
 themselves mean when they pray. Do they 
 address one Being or three ? We call on them 
 for nothing but to think, and not indolently take 
 i3 
 
178 
 
 for granted, or imagine they can really divest 
 themselves of responsibility in the eyes of the 
 Creator, by leaving it to others — to their 
 Church. 
 
 I will now give a quotation from Mr. Bowd- 
 ler's Sermons. After descanting on the "gospel 
 doctrine of justification," he says, " Here is no 
 easy remission or forgetfulness of sin — the law is 
 enforced in all its rigour — the penalty is imposed 
 — the punishment is inflicted — and if mercy 
 rejoices, it is not in a triumph over justice," &c. 
 — and " the justice of God has been satisfied — 
 more fully satisfied by the perfect righteousness 
 and atoning sacrifice of his Son, than if in its 
 vengeance it had swept from the earth the whole 
 of a guilty race." What horrible ideas does 
 this good man's wild imagination suggest to him, 
 when he has laid by his Bible ! He goes on — 
 '* Greater than all the rest is that mighty work 
 of salvation, &c. by which he poured on one 
 devoted head the vials of the wrath, which should 
 else have blotted out the fair face of the creation." 
 (Surely this devoted head was another being, not 
 himself! — a Being too, who knew no sin, is the 
 subject of this wrath !) " Marvellous was the 
 redemption planned in the Divine mind, when 
 seeing there was none to help, and wondering (to 
 use the strong language of the prophet) that 
 
179 
 
 there was no intercessor, he himseh' consented to 
 become the victim," (/. e. of his own wrath !) 
 "and to travail in the greatness of his strength 
 for the deUverance of those he loved." 
 
 How can you, my dear C , in your con- 
 science, and in times of sober consideration, say 
 that such things as these being at all times before 
 the eyes and minds of humble Christians, in 
 sermons, books, letters, and memoirs, if any 
 serious persons call their attention to them, and 
 bid them think whether they are consonant with 
 revelation, reason, or common sense, they ought 
 to close their eyes to the inquiry ? and can you 
 in your conscience say that those who so read 
 these things, take their creed from the Bible ? I 
 look into no Unitarian books to furnish me with 
 answers to any of your positions ; and I care not 
 much what orthodox books I open to find these 
 glaring assumptions. Some of the wildest will be 
 from Simeon, Chalmers, Jowett, Bowdler, jun. 
 Serle ; but these perhaps you will say are not 
 orthodox. They will say so of you ; but let us 
 take the acknowledged orthodox Archbishop 
 Magee, Bishop Horsley, (Porteus I have quoted 
 just before ;) they all quit their Bibles, paraphrase 
 till they lose sight of the original, and incorporate 
 their dogmas into it. What is it the Unitarian 
 requires ? Why, to call Christians from the dogmas 
 
180 
 
 and reveries of men to the docrine of Christ, 
 Jesus Christ speaks of those who have done 
 good, and those who have done evil ; and sepa- 
 rates them accordingly. The Bible every whei'e 
 contrasts the righteous and the wicked, " to 
 receive rewards for deeds done in the flesh, 
 whether they be good, or whether they be evil ;" 
 and God has promised " mercy to all who love 
 him, and keep his commandments." Who is it 
 that has instilled into the minds of meek and 
 humble Christians, that they can do nothing that 
 is pleasing to their Creator — that they have no 
 sure foundation whereon to rest their hope of 
 acceptance, but that of the merits of Christ, and 
 that God himself has suffered for them ? — nothing 
 to plead before him in opposition to their own 
 unworthiness ? What are the words in which 
 Scripture teaches this ? and who contributes most 
 to the peace and the joyful serenity of mind of 
 such humble Christians, — he who recommends 
 to them to rest in the doctrine taught them in 
 their infancy, and not enter into the inquiry 
 whether it is the doctrine of God or of men, or 
 he who reminds them, that in the Bible, and all 
 through it, they will find that the vengeance of God 
 is denounced against crime — his wrath against 
 wilful disobedience ; tliat his doctrine is, " Cease 
 to do evil, learn to do well;" and '* His mercy is 
 
ISl 
 
 towards all who love him, and keep his com- 
 mandments ;" '* like as a father pitieth his 
 children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear him." 
 "Children, father,"— are the terms of the rela- 
 tionship expressed by Christ. We say, let the 
 Christian, who desires to obey, comfort himself 
 by reading the great and glorious book, in every 
 part of which he will find those assurances and 
 consolations. Are we in this recommendation the 
 " authors of pain and misery !" No! Let those 
 who think God has given them only one talent, 
 seek their happiness in rightly using that one, 
 without fearing that God will require more at 
 their hands. He has promised this in intelligible 
 words ; and of the promise, let no man or Church 
 deprive us. 
 
 I have left some of your questions unanswered; 
 but it is only lest I should tire you by the length 
 of ray letters. My part of the subject was, the 
 right and duty of inquiry, and the impossibility 
 of exercising that, by confining ourselves to argu- 
 ments on one side. I could not compress more 
 than I have done ; but I am not intending to 
 offer more, and am desirous that you should have 
 the last word, so you need not fear my dragging 
 you into tedious correspondence : only to such 
 interrogatories as you put to me I shall not 
 hesitate to reply. 
 
182 
 
 With thanks for the. good-will and kind inten- 
 tion in which this correspondence began on your 
 part, and with much esteem and heartfelt regard, 
 I remain, 
 
 Your affectionate Brother, 
 
 D. 
 
]83 
 
 LETTER XII. 
 
 July, 182(>, 
 
 My dear D , 
 
 Your two long letters of last year 
 ought not to have remained so long unanswered ; 
 but your own absence from England, and my 
 very close occupation during that year, induced 
 me to postpone the matter till your return ; and 
 the first leisure hours I have had since that time, 
 have been after my own excursion to the conti- 
 nent, now that I am quietly settled in my own 
 study. 
 
 The profession you make of undiminished 
 regard, in spite of our conflicting opinions, I 
 trust I can sincerely subscribe to myself; and as 
 the feeling which prompted me, in the first in- 
 stance, to enter upon this correspondence, was 
 one of affectionate interest in the welfare of those 
 who were dear to me, I doubt not that that 
 
1S4 
 
 feeling will continue -unimpaired to the end. 
 Whatever the issue maybe, it will still be my con- 
 stant prayer that your faith may at length be 
 built on the foundation which the Gospel seems 
 to me to point out as the only ground of pardon 
 and peace with God. Even if any thing had 
 occurred in the course of our discussion which 
 might have produced irritation, there is much in 
 your last letter to disarm resentment ; and as it 
 seems to be your wish that this letter should close 
 our correspondence, it will certainly be my object 
 that nothing shall occur in the course of it, which 
 may in any degree interrupt the affection which, 
 I trust, will ever continue to subsist between us. 
 The subject that first demands my attention, in 
 reply to your letter, is *' the right and duty of 
 the disciples of every Church to examine care- 
 fully and impartially the doctrines in which they 
 have been brought up." But before I state to 
 you explicitly and finally my sentiments on that 
 head, I must disclaim, both on my own part and 
 on the part of the Church to which I belong, the 
 charge you repeatedly bring against us, of *' for- 
 bidding inquiry." Speaking of the members of 
 the Church of England, you say, " They are 
 called upon by the Church to take every thing 
 for granted — not to criticise — not to reason or 
 object ; or if one would point out the obvious 
 
185 
 
 fallacies, not to dare to look at the objections." 
 Again, in illustrating the sort of inquiry you 
 would recommend, you bring forward various 
 passages in explanation of the nature of the glory 
 of Christ, and his unity with the Father ; and 
 make me say that persons " will have cause to 
 repent if they use their weak reason in consider- 
 ing Scripture in this way." Speaking of the 
 devotional feelings by which many persons are 
 influenced, you say, " that Church has much to 
 answer for who has so excited them, and for- 
 bidden the control of reason, and unbiassed com- 
 parison of them with the words of Scripture ;" 
 and towards the close of your last letter, you ask, 
 " Do you not first give the creeds, and require 
 them to spend their lives in hearing orthodox 
 comments, to the exclusion of all others ?" and 
 after having made various quotations from Bowd- 
 ler, Chalmers, &c. you say, " Can you, in your 
 conscience, and in times of sober consideration, 
 say, that if any serious persons would cull their 
 attention to them, and bid them think whether 
 they are consonant with reason, revelation, or 
 common sense, they ought to close their minds 
 to the inquiry V 
 
 Now as a general answer to all these charges 
 and questions, I assert that neither the Church 
 of England nor I have ever required persons to 
 
186 
 
 take their creeds for granted, or forbidden the 
 unbiassed comparison of them with the words of 
 Scripture. " Search the Scriptures" was the 
 command of our Master Christ ; and if we dis- 
 couraged obedience to that precept, we should 
 indeed deserve the obloquy you attempt to cast 
 upon us. I never met with or heard of any pas- 
 sage in any writer of our Church, which could 
 authorize such a charge ; and if any expressions 
 in my own letters have been so misunderstood as 
 to appear to countenance it, I shall be most 
 anxious at once to do away with the erroneous 
 impression. It was by maturely weighing the 
 word of God, by comparing Scripture with Scrip- 
 ture, by expounding one passage through the 
 help of all others in the sacred volume which 
 related to the same point, and by thus recon- 
 ciling the apparent contradictions which may be 
 found in it, that the errors of the Church of 
 Rome were detected ; it is to such practices that 
 we owe the very foundation of our own Church, 
 and the religious freedom we enjoy; and such do 
 we still recommend to all who profess the same 
 faith as ourselves. The eighth article of our 
 Church says, " The three Creeds ought tho- 
 roughly to be received and believed," — and why? 
 because the Church says so ? No ; but because 
 " they may be proved by most certain warrants 
 
187 
 
 of holy Scripture." The word of God is the 
 test by which we pronounce tliey are to be tried; 
 and in tlius pronouncing, we do in fact invite all 
 who are in communion with us to make use of 
 every faculty with which God has blessed them 
 in satisfying themselves of the consistency of 
 such creeds with the language and tenor of 
 Scripture. But when once they are convinced, 
 from such a diligent comparison as I have above 
 described, that such is the work of God, we then 
 tell them that " reason, revelation, and common 
 sense " combine, requiring that they should 
 submit to it with implicit obedience. The very 
 highest use of reason we conceive to be, to bow 
 to the word of Him who gave it ; and to listen 
 with the child-like docility of Samuel, when he 
 said, " Speak, Lord, for thy servant heareth." 
 
 You seem to have conceived that the inquiry 
 which 1 discourage is that which I now declare 
 I most earnestly invite all to enter upon ; and I 
 do most solemnly and conscientiously assure you 
 that all the expressions which have led you into 
 this error, were prompted by the fallacies, as 
 they appear to me, in translation and exposition, 
 which I have noticed in Unitarian writers. Some 
 of those fallacies the reader's own common sense 
 will enable him to answer ; but when he is told 
 the translation he has been in the habit of using 
 
188 
 
 is a wrong one ; that passages which he has 
 been accustomed to refer to, as the warrants for 
 his behef, do not in the original convey the 
 meaning he has been wont to attach to them ; he 
 is unable to answer the objection to the received 
 translation, though its absurdity may be palpable 
 to those who are more conversant with the origi- 
 nal, and he is left in a distressing state of uncer- 
 tainty. The inquiry then which I declared a 
 person might repent of entering upon was the 
 field of controversy and criticism : I agree with 
 you in believing that they never can repent of a 
 diligent and unbiassed comparison of their creed 
 and form of prayer with the word of God. I 
 have of course myself gone through such a com- 
 parison, and that with fervent prayer that the 
 Holy Ghost would enlighten my understanding, 
 and enable me to judge without partiality and 
 without hypocrisy. I arose from the study with 
 increased conviction and consolation, and have 
 therefore no reason to doubt that any who shall 
 apply themselves to the same investigation will 
 reap the same fruits from it. — {See Appendix, 
 Note A. sub. Jin.) 
 
 The Bible is happily now in every body's 
 hands ; and in this most inquiring age, religious 
 inquiry keeps pace with others. There are pro- 
 bably at this moment more individuals searching 
 
1S9 
 
 the Scriptures tlian were ever to be found in this 
 country; and if trutli lies with you, it will doubt- 
 less soon prevail in this age of universal inves- 
 tigation. It is the fashion of the day to take 
 nothing for granted; and I do most seriously 
 hope that this general bearing of men's minds 
 may induce all who have not done so, so to 
 search the Scriptures as to be able to give a 
 reason for the faith that is in them. 
 
 As to the case you refer to, the demand made 
 by the gentleman was undoubtedly to be con- 
 demned ; it can never be right indiscriminately 
 to close the door against all inquiry. Each 
 person must judge for himself, when the occasion 
 offers, whether the peculiar line of investigation 
 proposed is calculated to lead to any profitable 
 result; whether it will not rather " minister ques- 
 tions than godly edifying, which is in faith ;" 
 and if they are conscientiously convinced that 
 their faith is likely to i-eceive no improvement 
 from it, then let them decline it, but not other- 
 wise. 
 
 I will now proceed to your answers to my cita- 
 tions of Scripture. In reference to Rom. ix. 5, 
 you say you do not admit that the term ** above 
 all " applies to Christ; and even if it did, still you 
 think that as Christ was the founder of a new 
 dispensation which superseded the Mosaic, and 
 
190 
 
 as his kingdom was to .endure for ever, this cha- 
 racter would justify the title " above all." As to 
 its not applying to Christ, it appears to me that 
 common sense and common grammar both pro- 
 nounce it to be referable to him alone ; and here 
 is the stumbling-block which presents itself m 
 limine to any one who thinks of the Unitarian 
 doctrines and Unitarian interpretations of Scrip- 
 ture. Scripture speaks in terms so plain that 
 he who runs may read ; it was written for man- 
 kind at large, an enormous proportion of whom 
 are plain uninformed men, little capable of under- 
 standing language in any other manner than the 
 known and customary one. If the obvious mean- 
 ing of words be not the true one, then the Scrip- 
 tures were written for the enlightened and 
 educated portion of mankind alone, and common 
 sense has little chance of ever arriving at the 
 truth. The man of plain common sense, for 
 whose use I understand the word of God was 
 meant, could never for a moment doubt who the 
 term, " over all," applied to ; he would see that 
 there was nothing in the context of the passage 
 limiting the expression to a particular dispensa- 
 tion, but that it was an unqualified expression 
 of supremacy ; and his first and obvious impres- 
 sion would be confirmed, when he found that 
 Being, for whom this supremacy was claimed, 
 
191 
 
 was inslantly aficvwards termed the " Blessed 
 God ;" and should any one suggest to him the 
 objections which you have brought forward, he 
 would say Scripture is meant for plain men, and 
 if such shifts and subtleties are necessary for un- 
 derstanding it, such as we are had better shut it 
 up, for it cannot be meant for us. If I am to 
 renounce my belief in Christ's absolute supre- 
 macy, I may as well also deny the absolute 
 supremacy of God, although it is declared as 
 plainly as words can express it, Eph. iv. G. 
 
 These observations contain the substance of 
 one great reason why I am not an Unitarian ; 
 because, as far as 1 have seen, if I adopted your 
 belief, I must, in instances without number, 
 interpret Scripture according to what, by a very 
 remote possibility, and by a very forced construc- 
 tion, it might mean, abandoning the plain and 
 obvious sense ; in others, I must adopt readings 
 for which there is no authority whatever, or 
 submit to shifts and constructions, equally revolt- 
 ing to grammar and common sense ; and because 
 it is my firm conviction, that if you were to set 
 a man of plain but sound understanding, who 
 never heard of controversy, down to the study of 
 the Bible, and bid him, from the prophecies of 
 the Old Testament relating to Christ, and the 
 character given of him in the New, make out 
 
192 
 
 what order of being he was, he could rise with 
 no other behef than that he was God and man ; 
 bid him also find out the terms on which God had 
 covenanted to save Christians, and he could only 
 answer, faith in the redemption which Christ had 
 wrought, by dying for sinners ; and repentance, 
 bringing forth a life which should answer to that 
 faith. As to your question, whether I would let 
 a pupil, translating a profane author, construe 
 6 wy, " who is," without at least remarking 
 that it is not literal, I assure you, that I believe 
 those who are under me to be so familiar with 
 that idiom, that I should not have thought it 
 worth stopping them to make the observation. 
 By the bye, you seem to fancy that our transla- 
 tion runs, *' who is God over all things, blessed," 
 &c.; the words occur in this order, in exact con- 
 formity with the arrangement in the original, 
 " who is over all, God blessed for evermore." 
 
 In the course of your discussion of this passage 
 you admit that Ii'enaeus and Tertullian were 
 Trinitarians. If you have attended to the evi- 
 dence which the other Ante-nicene fathers gave 
 to the prevalent opinions of their time upon the 
 subject of the Trinity, I am at a loss to conceive 
 how you can imagine the Church for the three 
 first centuries had any other belief than that of 
 the divinity of Christ. Your interpretation of 
 
193 
 
 the passage from Irenaeus, ** How can man go to 
 God, unless God has come to man ?" is another 
 instance of that forced and figurative meaning 
 which the Unitarian is so often compelled to give 
 to passages in preference to the obvious sense, 
 and that which the context would seem to require. 
 Your criticism upon Phil. ii. 6, Sec. surprises 
 me still more. You say, " Rich as he (Christ) was 
 in power to procure all that is desirable in the 
 world, he (tTrrto^^cutrt) lived poor, and exposed to 
 suffering for our sakes ;" and add, " You may not 
 agree with me in this construction; but you 
 cannot deny that this is tenable, if not convinc- 
 ing." It appears to me to be not only not con- 
 vincing, but untenable. Common sense would 
 immediately object that you have represented an 
 opposition between a poor and a rich man, as 
 dwelt upon in the passage ; whereas, upon refe- 
 lence to the whole context, there is not the 
 slightest appearance of any such thing. The 
 statement refers to one who was " made in the 
 likeness of men," and was '* formed in fashion as 
 a man," not as a poor man. The contrast evi- 
 dently lies between man, and some other being 
 than man ; what the character of that being was 
 we learn from its being stated that he was in the 
 form of God, and ovx apirayfiov i^yticraTo to 
 aivai laa OftJ. You say apTraynog is no^ 
 K 
 
194 
 
 robbery. ^Eschines, one of the purest writers of 
 Attic Greek uses it in this sense. You say lira 
 is not equal. Granted : it literally means " things 
 equal," used here as the neuter plural instead of 
 the adverb. To iivai laa Gew literally means 
 " to be equally with God," an expression not 
 English : the least possible violation of the literal 
 construction, so as to reconcile the phrase to the 
 English idiom, is to render it " to be equal with 
 God." Then you ask, " Is there meaning in the 
 words, ' God thought it not robbery to be equal 
 with God V " This is equivalent I suppose to 
 asking what meaning there is in the words, 
 " Three persons in one God." If the doctrine of 
 the Church on that subject be true, God the Son 
 is equal to God the Father ; and that is the 
 meaning I attach to the words. 
 
 Speaking of those who believe in that doc- 
 trine, you say, " I am very sure, that if they 
 had the Bible before them, and no creed pre- 
 ceding their perusal of it, they would never find 
 it there, even in the received text and version. 
 It is difficult to find persons in these times who 
 have never heard of creeds before they read the 
 Bible; but it appears to me, that the most satis- 
 factory way of ascertaining the truth of your 
 remark, will be to observe what doctrines those 
 persons found in the Bible, who certainly could 
 
195 
 
 have tlieir minds prejudiced by no creed, save 
 that which they received from tlie mouth of the 
 Apostles, or which they learned from the inspired 
 writings ; — such was the only teaching that 
 Barnabas had, and yet he says, — " Ad hoc 
 Doniinus sustinuit pati pro anima nostra cum 
 sit orbs terrarum Dominus ; cui dixit die ante 
 constitutionem sajculi. Faciamus, &c." — {Eph, 
 c. V.) Again he says, — " For if he had not come 
 in the flesh, how could we men have been 
 saved when we looked at him ? For when men 
 look at the sun, the work of his hands, which 
 will cease to exist, they have not the power to 
 face his rays," (c. v.) Compare with this Gen. i. 16, 
 " And God made two great lights." 
 
 Let us next see what Clement of Rome be- 
 Heved while as yet unschooled by creeds and 
 articles. In his first Epistle he says,—" Ye have 
 all been humble-minded and arrogant in nothing, 
 subjected rather than subjecting, giving rather 
 than receiving ; being satisfied wuth the supplies 
 sent from God, and paying careful attention to 
 his words, ye have fixed them deeply in your 
 minds, and his sufferings were before your eyes." 
 Again he says, — " But it is faith in Christ which 
 confirmeth all things ; for he himself thus callcth 
 us by the Holy Ghost, 'Come, ye children,' &c." 
 quotingPs.xxxiv.il — 19. (Ep. I.c.xxxii.) Trying 
 K 2 
 
196 
 
 Ignatius by the same -test, we find him opening 
 his Epistle to the Ephesians with these words, — 
 " Ignatius to the church at Ephesus, which was 
 preordained before the worlds, according to the 
 will of the Father, and of Jesus Christ our 
 God." Again, "There is one Physician, fleshly, 
 spiritual, made and not made, God born in the 
 flesh, true life and death, both of Mary and God. 
 first capable of suffering, and then incapable." 
 These words expressly assert the two natures of 
 Christ. {Ep. ad Eph. c. vii.) But you say such 
 an equivocation is unworthy a Christian ; I will 
 only reply, that no one need be ashamed of such 
 an imputation when he finds he has to share it 
 with those who were the approved companions 
 and acknowledged disciples of the Apostles them- 
 selves ; and as to the object I had in view 
 in quoting these passages, since I find that 
 Barnabas, Clement, and Ignatius, without creed 
 preceding, arrived at the same conclusion that I 
 have, namely, that Christ was God, and also the 
 Creator of the world, I am little inclined to 
 distrust that " Orthodox education " to which 
 you seem to attribute the inferences I draw from 
 the study of the Scriptures. 
 
 What now becomes of Priestley's bold and 
 groundless assertion, that " we find nothing like 
 divinity ascribed to Jesus Christ before Justin 
 
197 
 
 Martyr?" {Hist. Con: Vol. I. p. 32); or that 
 ** Justin Martyr is the first writer who mentions 
 the miraculous conception?" {Hist. Earhj Op. 
 Vol. IV. p. 107.) 
 
 You accuse me of blinking the question about 
 the translation of the word alwvaq, Heb. i. 2. 
 The mode I took of settling its meaning in that 
 passage, namely, by referring to St. Paul's use 
 of it in other parts of his writings, appears to 
 me to be far more satisfactory than bringing 
 forward instances of its use in other authors. 
 The passage I adduced was Heb. xi. 3, which 
 you say confutes me, — " for the writer himself 
 explains it otherwise in express terms," — " whe- 
 ther they be thrones, principalities, powers," &c. 
 — referring, I conclude, to Col. i. 16 ; but the 
 reference seems to me in no degree to weaken 
 ray argument from Heb. xi. 3, to shew that 
 attJvec there must mean ** the visible creation:" 
 TO. (3Xen6fxeva is undoubtedly put in opposition 
 with aluJvtg, and interprets it. Your question, 
 " Can principalities and powers be visible in the 
 same sense in which the sun and stars are 
 visible?" only shews that it was for want of 
 looking a little more closely into the passage in 
 the Colossians that you did not discover that 
 the "principalities and powers" there spoken of 
 are an enumeration of the invisible things, of 
 
198 
 
 which, as well as of the visible things, whether 
 in heaven or earth, Christ is there declared the 
 Creator. Your objection, therefore, being irre- 
 levant, I still believe the question to be set at 
 rest as to the true meaning of the word aldJveg 
 in Heb. i. 2, and that it does there mean 
 " worlds." 
 
 You again refer me to Col. i. 16, and ask if 
 I would let a pupil construe kjivaro, " were 
 created." The word used by St. Paul is not 
 lyivero, but eKTiaOe, a term agreed, I believe, on 
 all hands, to be expressive of " Creator." I 
 suppose, however, you were thinking of John i. 3, 
 at the time, and boldly assert that the word 
 yivojuai and its inflexions never bear the sense 
 of "created " in the New Testament. I fear you 
 have relied upon the authority of the Improved 
 Version for this assertion ; — let us see how it is 
 borne out by fact. Referring to James iii. 9, 
 we find this expression, roue avOpwirovg tovq 
 KuO^ bfxoiuiGiv Qiov y^yovoTag' No one, I 
 think, can doubt that St. James meant this for a 
 version of the expression in Gen. i. 27, — " God 
 created man in his own image;" in the image of 
 God created cannot be doubted. 
 
 The inference you draw from the beginning 
 of the Apostles' Creed, as to the belief of the 
 framers of that creed with respect to the Creator 
 
199 
 
 of tlie world, seems to be by no means con- 
 clusive. The belief of the Apostles, that Christ 
 was the Creator of the world, is stated in their 
 own writings as clearly as language can express 
 it ; and that we understand the passages decla- 
 ratory of that fact in the right way, the testi- 
 mony of the apostolic fathers above cited give 
 us a convincing proof. Such unanswerable 
 evidence as to the opinions of the early Chris- 
 tians upon this point cannot be overthrown by 
 your appeal to the opening of the Apostles' 
 Creed, which is consistent with the belief I 
 entertain, insomuch as the passage from Heb. i. 2 
 declares that God made the world, by his Son. 
 He, therefore, who says that " God the Father 
 was Maker of heaven and earth" may also 
 believe and confess, in conformity with the 
 repeated declarations of Scripture, and especially 
 of the passage above referred to, that by Christ 
 " all things were made," and that by him " the 
 Father made the worlds." There can be no 
 doubt that the framers of the Nicene Creed held 
 Christ to be the Creator, and yet they hold the 
 same language as to the Father being Maker of 
 heaven and earth ; so that your argument from 
 the language of the Apostles' Creed, as to the 
 belief of those who framed it, is inconclusive. 
 As to the " great surrender " which you seem 
 
200 
 
 to think I have made with reference to the period 
 at which the disclosure of Christ's divine nature 
 was formally made to the Apostles, I think you 
 have been too hasty in drawing your inference 
 from my last letter. I declared, in my letter of 
 January, 1824, that I conceived the disclosure 
 not to have taken place till the descent of the 
 Holy Ghost : and because in my last I stated 
 that it was not to be expected that the Apostles 
 should enter at once in their preaching into the 
 higher mysteries and doctrines, till their converts 
 Avere established in their belief of Christ's divine 
 legation, you immediately conclude that I have 
 " shifted the period further still," i. e. the period 
 of disclosure to the Apostles — a conclusion evi- 
 dently not deducible from my words ; and the 
 " surrender" I have made is nothing. 
 
 In the course of your remarks upon that head, 
 you take upon yourself to make one of those 
 bold and unwarrantable assertions for which the 
 Unitarian school of the present day seem so 
 unhappily distinguished. You venture, without 
 reserve, to pronounce that there is no such text 
 as " the Church of God," (Acts xx. 28,) and 
 reprove me for making no use of my Griesbach, 
 — " 1 fear you have made no use of the last 
 edition of your Griesbach," — (London, 1818), 
 and reprint of the smaller edition of 1805, in 
 
201 
 
 whicli it appears that a remarkable change had 
 taken place in the mind of the great critic as to this 
 reading, founded, probably, upon his subsequent 
 knowledge that the Vatican MS. agreed with the 
 received text on this head. You have trusted 
 again, probably, to the Improved Version, when 
 it tells you that " the received text rests upon no 
 MS. of note or value ;" whereas it happens that 
 the oldest MS. of the original Greek, viz. the 
 Vatican, and the oldest MS. of the oldest 
 version, viz. the Syriac, support the received 
 reading. Equally unfounded is the assertion of 
 the Unitarians, that the expression, " the blood 
 of God," is not quoted by the earliest eccle- 
 siastical writers. Ignatius says, — " Being imi- 
 tators of God, having animated yourselves by 
 the blood of God, ye have performed perfectly the 
 congenial work." — {Ejj. ad Eph. in initio.) Cle- 
 ment of Alexandria speaks of the power of God 
 the Father, and the blood of God the Son." 
 Tertullian says, — " I well know we are not our 
 own, but bought with a price — and what sort of 
 price ? — t/te blood of God." — Ad Uxorem, II. 
 
 Origen and Dionysius of Alexandria might be 
 added ; but enough has been adduced to show 
 how groundless the assertion is. I fear, however, 
 you have been misled by it, and such-like decla- 
 rations; for had you been aware of the real state 
 K 3 
 
202 
 
 of the case, I cannot imagine you would have 
 permitted yourself to call Acts xx. 28 " a palpable 
 forgery." — (P. 154.) 
 
 Imagining that, by this round assertion, you 
 really have destroyed all the evidence as to the 
 doctrine of Christ's divinity drawn from this text, 
 you say, " 1 have produced no evidence at all of 
 the revelation," as if in adducing that text I had 
 been recapitulating the proofs in general, and not 
 merely brought it forward with reference to the 
 Acts of the Apostles, and with the view of shewing 
 at what period St. Paul certainly was acquainted 
 with the doctrine of the deity of the Son. 
 
 But after all, it is comparatively of little im- 
 portance to ascertain the period at which the 
 Apostles were fully convinced upon this point, 
 provided I am satisfied that they, writing under 
 the influence of inspiration, have revealed it to 
 me. " Evidence that it is revealed," you say, 
 "must be essential to belief." Of course it must; 
 and what more convincing evidence can I wish 
 for, than the fact that the Apostles, speaking by 
 the Holy Ghost, proclaim Christ to be "God," 
 " Creator of the world," — and an object of 
 worship ? If I wished to lay before you all the 
 grounds deducible from the New Testament 
 upon which I rest my conviction that the Apostles 
 were sooner or later inspired to announce those 
 
203 
 
 facts to the world, J certainly should not have 
 stopped short with that one expression in tiie 
 Acts ; nor should I have been contented with " a 
 few disputed passages," which you seem to think 
 the only support the Trinitarian has for his belief 
 in the divinity of Christ. 
 
 That the passages are disputed, seems to make 
 but little in favour of the inference you would 
 draw from the use of the expression ; for if they 
 were not disputed, the controversy would be at 
 an end. As to their being few, that I deny ; for 
 they are many score which, directly or by natural 
 inference, express the doctrine, even omitting 
 the two which you call palpable forgeries : e. g. 
 Christ called God : John i, 1 ; Rom. ix. 5 ; 
 Matt. i. 23, &c. ; Isaiah vii. 14 ; 2 Pet. i. 1 ; 
 Heb. i. 8, 9 ; Rev. xxi. 5. 7, compared with 
 Rev. i. 11, iii. 21; Tit. ii. 13; 1 John v. 
 20; John i. 23, compared with Isa. xl. 3; and 
 Malachi iii. 1. Eternity ascribed to him: Rev. 
 i. 10, ii. 8, compared with Isa. xxi. 17. Om- 
 nipresence : Matt, xviii. 20, xxviii. 20. Immu- 
 tability : Heb. xiii. 8 ; Ps. cii. 27, compared 
 with Heb. i. 10. Creator: John i. 3; Col. i. 
 16; Heb. i. 10, 12. Worship: Heb. i. 6; 
 Phil. ii. 9—11 ; Acts vii. 59, 60; 1 Thess. iii. 
 11, 12; 2 Thess. iii. 5; 2 Cor. xii. 8; Eph. 
 vi. 23; Acts ix. 14; 1 Cor. i. 1, &c. &c. Again, 
 
204 
 
 I find St. Paul placing that sort of general and 
 unqualified trust in the Lord Jesus, which scrip- 
 ture and common sense tell us is due to God 
 alone. " I trust in the Lord to send Timotheus 
 shortly unto you," (Phil. ii. 19.) Imagine Daniel 
 saying, " I trust in Moses to send Azariah shortly 
 unto you. " Presently afterwards, (ver. 24,) 
 St. Paul adds, ** I trust in the Lord that I also 
 myself shall come shortly." Who can he be but 
 God, who controls by his especial providence the 
 movements of men ? David tells us that " the 
 steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord ;" 
 and I cannot doubt but that St. Paul looked on 
 him, in whom he thus trusted, as very God. (I 
 have omitted the passages from the Old Testa- 
 ment, as well as many from the New, in proof of 
 the deity of Christ, because these are, I imagine, 
 entirely sufficient.) 
 
 With such unequivocal testimony before me, 
 if I am to believe that Christ was not God, I 
 should certainly say (in answer to your question 
 upon that head) that I must find it somewhere 
 expressly declared that he is not God. You 
 ask, '* Do we expect it should be said that Adam 
 was not God ?" Certainly not, I answer ; because 
 nothing is elsewhere said of Adam, which could 
 lead persons into any mistake as to his nature. 
 And although Jehovah says to Moses, " I have 
 
205 
 
 made thee a god unto Pharaoh," yet as it has 
 been evident ever since these words were written 
 that they are used metaphorically, inasmuch as 
 no individual to this day ever thence inferred 
 that Moses really was God, I should expect no 
 counter-declaration to be made as a caution 
 against such a belief. But when accumulated 
 declarations are made both in the Old and New 
 Testament of the divine nature of Christ ; and 
 when most of the divine attributes are assigned 
 to him in terms so distinct, that even those who 
 conversed with the Apostles themselves were 
 (according to you) misled by them, and ninety- 
 nine hundredths of the christian world have 
 from that time to this been equally deceived by 
 them ; then indeed I should imagine that he who 
 foresaw the evident conclusions that would be 
 drawn from the expressions, would have guarded 
 against consequences by some assertion that 
 Christ was " only man," and was " not God." 
 
 In answer to my assertion, that as the word of 
 God has been revealed to us in a foreign lan- 
 guage, our belief as to what is or is not declared 
 therein must in part rest on human authority, 
 you object that 1 thereby " reduce the inquirer 
 to a state of misery and despair ; he cannot know 
 which authority to prefer, yet he must choose, 
 he must believe, or perish everlastingly." I reply, 
 
206 
 
 in your own words, that all are bound to " the 
 honest exercise of the talents which God has 
 measured out to them," and to use " the means 
 he has afforded them in their peculiar station." 
 It is a question which rests between God and 
 their own consciences, what those means and 
 talents are, and whether they have exercised and 
 used them as they ought. In case they have, 
 I do not believe that any error into which they 
 may be led will be fatal to them ; but that those 
 who were the authors of it will be responsible in 
 the sight of God. 
 
 The question between us and the Unitarians 
 rests upon an appeal to the words of Scripture ; 
 and supposing two persons unacquainted with 
 the ancient languages were to be arguing upon 
 the point in dispute, how it is possible that 
 either party should proceed without appealing to 
 the opinions of the learned as to the meaning of 
 certain passages, or without referring to some 
 authority for believing that such and such words 
 are or are not the revealed word of God, I am at 
 a loss to imagine ; and if they do make this refer- 
 ence, they do so far forth acknowledge that their 
 belief rests oij human authority. 
 
 For instance, the member of the Church of 
 England maintains that Christ was the Creator 
 of the world, and quotes the beginning of St. 
 
207 
 
 John's Gospel ; the Unitarian says, No, the word 
 which your version translates " created " occurs 
 so many hundred times in the New Testament, 
 and never elsewhere signifies " created." Here he 
 relies on the authority of the Improved Version in 
 support of his peculiar creed ; and so in an infi- 
 nite number of other cases it must be ; so that the 
 mass of the members of your profession must 
 really believe, in a considerable degree, upon 
 human authority, unless indeed they proceed 
 according to that course, which I fear is too 
 common with them, viz. to reason first, and then 
 try whether the word of God agrees with the 
 result of their own lucubrations ; at least, if this 
 be not the case, and if they do pledge themselves 
 to abide by the word of God, whatever it may 
 declare to them, it seems to me absurd to mam- 
 tain that the Unitarian's belief has nothing to do 
 with the corrections of corrupt or misconstrued 
 texts. 
 
 As I never attacked the authors of the Im- 
 proved Version for having undertaken to give a 
 new translation to the world, it is needless for 
 me to reply to your defence of them ; the only 
 fault I have to find with them is for having 
 misled people by such notes as that to John i. 3, 
 and Acts xx. 28, to which I have before referred. 
 But when you attack the Church of England for 
 
208 
 
 not adding a note of caution to certain passages 
 which you refer to, intimating that the Apostle 
 did not write them, I would answer, that I should 
 be exceedingly sorry to find our Church follow- 
 ing the example of the Unitarians in denouncing 
 passages at once as positively spurious, because 
 there are doubts as to their authenticity. The 
 Unitarian may think himself justified in pro- 
 nouncing Acts XX. 28 a palpable forgery ; but 
 whether expressions somewhat more measured 
 might not have been more appropriate, I leave 
 you to judge from the observations I have else- 
 where made upon the subject. If you ask me 
 whether it would not be better for every one to 
 know the state of the argument for and against 
 such passages, I allow most willingly that it 
 would; but when once the door is opened to 
 note and comment, where is it to end ? Besides, 
 the advantages of giving the Bible without note 
 or comment are so very great, that they will 
 counterbalance any evil that might be derived 
 from the omission of any remark as to the doubts 
 that some persons entertain as to the genuine 
 reading ; and while the learned are still at 
 variance, it would be premature for the Church 
 to come to any conclusion, and stamp a given 
 reading with the seal of their authority. The 
 evidence as to Acts xx. 28 has materially varied 
 
209 
 
 within the Uist thirty years, by the examination 
 of the Vatican MS. ; so that desirable as it 
 would be in the abstract that each person should, 
 at each given period, be aware of the grounds on 
 which each reading rests, yet practically it is beset 
 with many difficulties, and we must be content to 
 put up with that which I believe is the least evil 
 of the two, viz. publishing one Bible, without 
 any note whatever. 
 
 And as I am upon the subject of our Church, 
 I will notice another grave charge which you 
 bring against it. You say that the Church, " in 
 order to divide and exclude us from joint wor- 
 ship, alter even the address, the name, and title 
 of the Being to whom their prayer is ofiered ; " 
 and therefore maintain that the offence of schism 
 rests with the Church. Now this appears to me 
 to be simply begging the question as to whether 
 the primitive Christians did, or did not, worship 
 Christ; it is assuming that St. Stephen and St. 
 Paul did not pray to Christ as a divine person ; 
 that " calling upon the name of the Lord," does 
 not mean offering prayer to Jesus, &c. &c.; that 
 Pliny's authority goes for nothing, when he tells 
 us that the early Christians used to " sing among 
 themselves alternately a hymn to Christ as a 
 God." But if, as I am entirely convinced, the 
 worship of Christ has, from the Apostles' time 
 
210 
 
 downwards, ever formed an essential part of 
 christian worship, then it must follow that those 
 who refused to join in such adoration were the 
 true schismatics. Supposing at this moment the 
 Church were to say to the body of Unitarians, 
 We will expunge from our Liturgy the objection- 
 able titles in the opening of the Litany and else- 
 where, but we will not abandon that which we 
 are fully persuaded to be apostolic, namely, the 
 worship of Jesus, think you an union could be 
 effected ? Certainly not with those who hold him 
 to be a mere man. How unfair it is then to 
 maintain that schism rests with the Church, and 
 to reproach it for not depriving its members of 
 that consolation in difficulties and trials which it 
 perceives St. Paul received in so abundant a 
 manner from addressing his petitions to the 
 Saviour. You will, perhaps, maintain that 
 Christ's own words, "In that day ye shall ask 
 me nothing," (John xvi. 23,) should overbalance 
 any argument drawn from the example of St. 
 Paul ; the answer to which is, that tptvTriaeTE 
 there signifies, "ask questions," and not offer 
 petitions to, " aniu)" being in that chapter used 
 to signify the latter ; and that our Lord himself 
 authorizes us to pray to him, when he says, " If 
 ye shall ask any thing in my name, I will do it," 
 (John xiv. 14.) A large portion of your last 
 
211 
 
 letter is occupied with quotations fruni Tri- 
 nitarian writers, (some of our Churcli, others, 
 Chalmers at least, not,) whose language you 
 object to, and 1 think not without reason in some 
 instances. For example, when speaking of the 
 atonement, I never would go the length of say- 
 ing, that it was impossible the Deity should have 
 saved mankind in any other way than by ac- 
 cepting a vicarious sacrifice ; I should content 
 myself with proving from Scripture that that was 
 the method he had thought fit to adopt, and 
 should therefore conclude that it was the most 
 proper one. Such expressions as " God's con- 
 flicting attributes" had better be avoided, per- 
 haps ; but if the doctrine of the atonement be 
 scriptural, I think it will be difficult for any one 
 to conceive of it without some such idea occur- 
 ring to him. Nor, as I think, can any one wlio 
 holds your belief, and acknowledges that a Being 
 both just and merciful will sit in judgment upon 
 mankind, avoid imagining that there must be a 
 sort of equipoise between his justice and his 
 mercy, which might metaphorically be called 
 " a conflict," without any great violation of 
 propriety. 
 
 As to the persons who you believe to imagine 
 that they have met with the words " incarnation of 
 God," " vicarious sacrifice," &c. &c. in the Bible ; 
 
212 
 
 if there be such, it is certainly not for me to 
 defend them. However, enumerating several 
 expressions of a similar character, you challenge 
 me to produce the passages from the common 
 English translation, which, as I conclude you 
 to mean, will justify the use of them ; for I 
 presume you do not expect that I should produce 
 texts in which those very words occur ; or that 
 you will go the length of saying, that no one should 
 in a sermon use the term " vicarious sacrifice," 
 because those two words do not occur consecu- 
 tively in the Bible, even though he should be 
 able to prove that the idea is founded upon 
 scripture truth. 
 
 Let me, then, take your catalogue of expres- 
 sions, and see whether they are, or are not borne 
 out by Scripture. " Incarnation of God," John i. 
 1, 14. " His taking upon him our nature :'* 
 Phil. ii. 7. " Of two natures in Jesus Christ 
 — his human nature, and his divine nature." 
 For his divine nature, see the various passages I 
 have quoted in a former part of my letter ; for 
 his human nature, Heb. ii. 17. '' Vicarious 
 sacrifice:" Isa. liii. 5; 1 Pet. iii. 18 ; John i. 29; 
 1 Pet. ii. 24; 2 Cor. v. 21 ; Rom. iii. 25; 
 1 John ii. 2; Eph. i. 7 ; Col. i. 14; Heb. x. 10— 
 12. " Satisfaction to the justice of God :" all the 
 passages in which Christ is spoken of as having 
 
213 
 
 reconciled *' God to man, and to have been a 
 propitiation " for their sins. For if God became 
 reconciled to mankind through Christ, his anger 
 must have been previously kindled ; and if 
 kindled, justly so, of course ; so that if Christ's 
 death was the means of appeasing that wrath, 
 which if unappeascd would have led the Deity to 
 exert his justice in punishing sin, Christ's death 
 was a satisfaction to the justice of God. The 
 other expressions you quote are so implied in 
 those of " vicarious sacrifice," and " satisfaction 
 to the justice of God," that I think they need not 
 he separately justified. 
 
 You elsewhere ask me, " In what part of the 
 English Bible do we read * that the first thing is, 
 to be conviced that we can do nothing towards 
 our own salvation ;' that we must rely solely on 
 the merits of Jesus Christ?" As to the former ex- 
 pression, it will be necessary to come to a right 
 understanding as to what is meant to be conveyed 
 by it. If it mean, that I could of myself have 
 done nothing by which I could have gained a 
 title to heaven ; and that if I should at length 
 attain to it, it be of God's infinite mercy, and not 
 of my own merits; I will undertake to support 
 that interpretation of it by Luke xvii. 10; Tit. 
 iii. 4, 5 ; Eph. ii. 8, 9. If, on the other hand, 
 it mean that I am not to work just as diligently 
 
214 
 
 as if I could save myself without any exercise of 
 mercy on the part of God, as that is not the doc- 
 trine of the Church of which I am a member, and 
 as it is decidedly unscriptural, I shall leave those 
 to defend it who maintain it. 
 
 As to relying solely on the merits of Jesus 
 Christ, that is a necessary consequence of the 
 doctrine of the atonement. If we were to sub- 
 stitute "mercy of God," for "merits of Jesus 
 Christ," you I suppose would acknowledge that 
 to be consistent with revelation ; and I who 
 maintain that the propitiatory sacrifice of Christ 
 is the efficient cause of God's mercy being ex- 
 tended to mankind, of course say, that those who 
 hope for pardon must rely solely on what " Christ 
 has done for them," — an expression tantamount to 
 " the merits of Christ ;" and when you say, " T 
 read that whoso confesseth and forsaketh his sins 
 shall find mercy," and would thence infer, that 
 by confessing and forsaking sin alone we are 
 pardoned, independently of any thing Christ has 
 done for us, ii is just as unreasonable in you 
 thus to take a part for the whole, as it would be 
 for me to say, that because I read, " When we 
 were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the 
 death of his Son," we may therefore obtain pardon 
 without either confessing or forsaking sin. 
 
 You next find fault with Struensee for not 
 
21 
 
 requiring an argument in favour of the mysteries 
 of our religion, after being satisfied of the truth 
 of revelation. Why should he? He was con- 
 vinced that the Bible was the word of God — he 
 found those mysteries distinctly revealed in it ; 
 and with the humility of a Christian, he hesitated 
 not to acknowletlge the truth. Had he, after 
 being satisfied, required proofs from human 
 reason to assure him of the truth of what was 
 therein contained, he must virtually have held 
 such language as this, " I will not believe what 
 1 am convinced God hath spoken, until I see 
 good reason to satisfy me that he ought so to 
 have spoken." 
 
 Upon the principle which you appear to main- 
 tain in thus condemning Struensee, it really 
 would seem to me that you must also condemn 
 Abraham for having such implicit faith as to obey 
 the Almighty message which bid him slay his 
 son, without requiring to be convmced of the rea- 
 sonableness of a command so contrary to the best 
 feelings of his own nature, and to all that he 
 knew of the divine attributes. The Unitarian 
 frequently complains of the imputation so unjustly 
 cast upon him, of making Scripture bow to reason. 
 
 Indeed, my dear D , I do not see how you at 
 
 any rate can complain of such a charge after your 
 strictures upon Struensee; if at least I compre- 
 
216 
 
 hend your meaning when you blame Dr. Munter 
 for omitting to mention one single argument, 
 which induced Struensee to acknowledge the 
 mysteries after he believed the Bible to be the 
 word of God. 
 
 " Thus saith the Lord " was argument enough 
 for him ; and the whole tenor of the account 
 shews that Struensee felt there was no alternative 
 between rejecting the Bible, or acknowledging 
 the mysteries. 
 
 As bearing upon the point, I was a good deal 
 struck with a conversation I had with a young 
 man in the course of my travels this summer. He 
 was I found of Unitarian connexions, and had 
 been educated as such ; he told me, however, that 
 he had been induced to abandon that communion 
 partly from perceiving how much, (I am using 
 his own words,) the Unitarians converted Reason 
 into a sort of god ; and how ill suited their inde- 
 pendent notions with respect to divine assistance, 
 and the natural strength of man, were to beings 
 of such frailties and infirmities as ourselves. 
 
 The declamation in which you indulge to prove 
 the impropriety of God's accepting the death of 
 his Son as a propitiation for the sins of the 
 world, illustrated by the anecdote of the Italian 
 refugee, and the Chinese demand, is only to be 
 answered by the fact that he did accept it. See 
 
217 
 
 Rom. iii. 25; 1 John ii. 2; Rom. v. 10, 11; 
 1 John iv. 10. And as to arguing in the way 
 you do, as to what may or may not be fitting for 
 the Ahnighty to do in his economy of the uni- 
 verse, it seems to me as presumptuous as for the 
 fly on St. Paul's to criticise the beauty and pro- 
 portion of the whole building, having not the 
 slightest idea of the relation which the parts bear 
 to each other. 
 
 And this, after all, is the hinge upon v/hich 
 the whole question between you and ine really 
 turns — here is the gulf which separates us, and, 
 after all the sheets we have written, we are just 
 where we were when we began ; because, when 
 you read that " when we were enemies, we were 
 reconciled to God by the death of his Son," you 
 refuse your assent to the declaration until your 
 reason is satisfied that God ought to have been 
 reconciled by such means, until you have tried 
 every link in the chain of the argument, and 
 found them all sound. I look for no chain of 
 argument, and seek not to be wise above what 
 is written, convinced of the weakness of liuman 
 reason, and its inability to fathom the deep 
 counsels of God. 
 
 That we are both conscientiously convinced 
 that the principle we have adopted is the right 
 one, I trust the Searcher of all hearts wil! hcie- 
 
 L 
 
218 
 
 after testify ; as long, however, as I believe that 
 God has pronounced an essential union between 
 belief and salvation (salvation meaning generally, 
 as I shewed in a former letter, pardon from sin 
 and acceptance with God), so long shall 1 con- 
 tinue to pray that He will have mercy on all 
 those who have erred and are deceived. And 
 now, with the most aflfectionate wishes and 
 
 prayers in behalf of S and yourself, I will 
 
 conclude in the words of the pious Baxter, — 
 *' While we wrangle here in the dark, we are 
 dying, and passing to that world which will 
 decide all our controversies ; and the safest 
 passage thither is by peaceable holiness." — His- 
 tory of his own Times. 
 
 Ever your truly affectionate Brother, 
 
 C. 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 Note A. see p. 188. 
 
 July, 1826. 
 
 I FIND I have omitted here to remark upon 
 some observations which occur towards the close 
 of your second letter, on the subject of the copy 
 of Mant's Bible, w])ich I gave my mother and 
 
219 
 
 sisters. Just so far as that can be fairly consi- 
 dered as inviting them to enter upon controversy, 
 so far I at any rate cannot refuse any invitation 
 to them on your part to read the answers to the 
 controversial arguments therein contained. It 
 will be for them to judge how far their belief has 
 been influenced by what you call the Trinitarian 
 glosses — how far they are conscientiously called 
 upon to study the replies to them. 
 
 November, 182G. 
 
 [In answer to a private letter, not included in the foregoing 
 extract.] 
 
 In answer to the postscript to yours 
 
 of the 10th instant. Of course I do not wish to 
 press you to send me the observation you say 
 you have written, without the preparation you 
 think requisite, nor to hurry you at a time when 
 your duties leave you no leisure for this corre- 
 spondence. I shall now receive them (as I have 
 some former ones) when absent from my own 
 books and memorandums, — not of much import- 
 ance, however, then or now ; but as you say you 
 are waiting to read the *' Testimonies of the Ante- 
 Nicene Fathers to the Divinity of Christ," it is 
 
220 
 
 but fair to let you anticipate ray want of interest 
 in the result of your labour. You may prove 
 that tliey all believed it ; and I am ready to pre- 
 suppose their belief, and save you the trouble of 
 proving it. We know, from the highest autho- 
 rity, that corruption of doctrine and false opinions 
 as to the person of Christ arose even in the time 
 of the Apostles ; and if those subsided, others 
 might become prevalent in their stead. If, 
 indeed, you look into that book for argu- 
 ment, I shall, no doubt, find that more interest- 
 ing ; but I admit no human authority without 
 reasoning. As to reasoning against divine autho- 
 rity, it is madness ; but not to reason upon the 
 construction of it is not to receive it. 
 
 I read the Scriptures without comment, — I 
 enter upon the consideration of them with all the 
 powers of my reason and understanding. I read 
 them also with the comments and explanation of 
 other persons, and particularly of those who 
 differ from me. Now, whether I read them with 
 or without comment, I am satisfied that the 
 Apostles not only did not believe in, but never 
 surmised or thought of the Godhead of Jesus 
 Christ (except in reprobating the doctrines of the 
 Gnostics) : and, therefore, concerning the sur- 
 mises of the Fathers I am very indifferent. 
 
 D. 
 
221 
 
 Dec. 23. 
 Your letter of the 20th of November has 
 saved me some trouble in pursuing my inquiries 
 into the belief of the Ante-Nicene fathers upon 
 the Godhead of Jesus Christ; and I assure you 
 that my first impression upon finding that you 
 rejected all conclusions drawn from their writings, 
 as to the prevailing belief of the Church in their 
 days, was, " what a desperate cause must that be 
 which is compelled to such a resource as this." 
 The Unitarian certainly is placed between the 
 horns of a fearful dilemma ; he must either deny 
 that the apostolic fathers, those who were acknow- 
 ledged by them as their disciples and compax 
 nions, are credible witnesses as to the fact of 
 what was the belief of the Apostles and the early 
 Christians, as to the Godhead of Jesus Christ ; 
 or unable to maintain such an opinion as this, he 
 must attempt the hopeless task of shewing that 
 these said fathers did not hold the doctrine in 
 question : either alternative seems to me so 
 absurd, that I am at a loss to say which is the 
 most so. As to the one you have adopted, you 
 give this as a reason for it : *' We know, from the 
 highest authority, that corruptions of doctrine, 
 and false opinions as to the person of Jesus 
 Christ, arose even in the time of the Apostles; 
 and if these subsided, others might have become 
 
222 
 
 prevalent in their stead ;" that is to say, because 
 the Apostles tell us there were certain persons 
 in their own times who perverted the truth, we 
 are therefore to confound all the early converts 
 together, to maintain that none of them are 
 W'Orthy of credit, and put those persons who 
 were their approved companions and disciples 
 upon a level with those whom they denounce as 
 persons who had erred from the truth. Let us 
 suppose the case of a disputed will : — the tes- 
 tator hints at some persons who would be ready 
 to put an improper construction upon it ; there- 
 fore, when it comes before the jury, the intimate 
 friends and companions of the testator, those 
 who heard him declare the sense in which he 
 wished the several clauses to be understood, are 
 not to be examined — their evidence is to be set 
 aside — and why ? because it is known that there 
 were some persons who perverted the truth 
 respecting them. If this be the course that 
 common sense would pursue, I am much mis- 
 taken ; nor need you, I think, be surprised that 
 you cannot get persons to listen to the Unitarian 
 arguments, if, in limine, you call upon them for 
 such a surrender of the principles which guide 
 them in the common course of life. 
 
 You also say that you are satisfied the Apostles 
 not only did not believe in, but never surmised 
 
223 
 
 or thought of the Godhead of Jesus Christ, 
 excepting in reprobating the doctrine of the 
 Gnostics. I will only remark upon this, that if 
 St. John wrote the first chapter of his Gospel 
 with that view, he adopted the most extraordinary 
 method of refuting them ; for if St. John really 
 believed in the simple humanity of Jesus Christ, 
 and yet wrote that chapter to confute the 
 Gnostics, he has completely betrayed his own 
 cause, and played into his adversaries' hands, 
 since that introduction was one of the great bases 
 on which they support the truth of their tenets. 
 That St. John, with the very object of over- 
 throwing these tenets, should have been so 
 simple and imbecile as to write in such a manner 
 as to countenance their errors, is really too in- 
 credible to be conceived. 
 
 Until the following statement can be satis- 
 factorily answered, I think I am not going too 
 far in using the expression : — 
 
 " If the Apostles preached, and the early 
 *' Christians believed, as the Unitarians tell us, 
 " that Jesus Christ was a mere man, the notion 
 " of his divinity could not have been introduced 
 *' and finally established in the Church without 
 
224 
 
 " long controversy land continued opposition. 
 " Historians would not have been silent as to 
 " the progress of so great a change — such a 
 " total revolution in the religious belief of 
 " Christians. Volumes must have been written 
 " in support of either doctrine. The writers of 
 " one age would be found to differ from those 
 " who preceded them ; and since we have works 
 " remaining of all the throe first centuries, v/e 
 " should find tracer of all those successive 
 " changes which must have existed between the 
 " creed of the apostolic times and the Council of 
 " Nice." — Burtons Testimonies of the Anie- 
 Nicene Fathers to the Divinity of Christ. 
 Introduction, p. vi. 
 
 THE END. 
 
 R.CLAY, PRINTEK, BREAD-S I REEX- HIL L. 
 
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