In the various tracts that I have presented to the public, as well as at the conclusion of my lectures and appendix, I have earnestly requested any one who deemed himself competent to the task, to refute and expose my errors publicly from the press. W. W. Horne was the first who made an attempt to prop up the tottering cause of orthodoxy, and re-build the Idol Temple; and how much this attempt met the approbation of the orthodox, may be gathered from the fact, that they would not permit his performance to see daylight in these parts!!! The person more immediately concerned to reply to my lectures and appendix, has contented himself, and satisfied his friends, with warning young people to be upon their guard against that bare-faced infidelity that dares to shew its hateful crest in open daylight; and by assuring them in one concise sentence, “that if they are saved it will be for ever and ever, and if they are lost it will be for ever and ever; and if they depend on having been sincere and morally honest, or on repentance and reformation of conduct, (though both he says are necessary), their hopes will prove totally fallacious and groundless, and will deceive their souls in the end, and they must sink into the frightful regions of despair, and become companions of those who must for ever weep, wail, and gnash their teeth, without any diminution of their sufferings or deliverance from them.” This is doing business with dispatch. Yet, I have never imagined, that any one would suppose that a note in a funeral sermon was a proper reply to my book, and therefore I have been waiting in expectation of hearing from some other quarter, so that I am neither surprised nor disappointed at being attacked by some one under the nom de guerre [3] of Hugh Latimer: nor am I at all surprised that the old bishop’s ghost, which has been conjured up on the occasion, should act so perfectly in esprit de corps, [4a] or so directly contra bonos mores; [4b] for this has ever been the spirit and temper of the whole body, that what they were deficient in truth and sober argument, they have abundantly made up by scurrility and vituperation. But since Hugh Latimer, who stalks forth incognito, [4c] whoever he is in propria persona, [4d] whether English, Irish, Scotch, or Welch, is to me a matter of small importance. I have nothing to do with the man, but with his evangelical matter: yet, I may be curious to ask, why such homo multarum literarum, [4e] as he affects to be, should be ashamed of his own name; especially to such a chef d’oeuvre [4f] as his performance appears to be. Probably, in the course of his extensive research into antiquity, he has discovered a striking similarity between the coarse sternness of the old bishop’s spirit and language and his own, and may think himself qualified for such an office; and he may perhaps have learned that as King Harry obtained from the Pope the title of Defender of the Faith, for writing in defence of popery, so Horsley, Magee, and others have been rewarded with mitres for writing against Socinians and Infidels; and, like the supplanter of old, he may wish to obtain the blessing, and rear his mitred front in parliament by wrapping himself in another person’s coat. Yet, blind as we are, we can discover, that although the voice is Jacob’s voice, the hands and the heart are those of Esau. But I shall leave all gens de l’eglise [4g] to scramble for bishoprics and mitres as they please, and attend to the author who styles himself Hugh Latimer, and who deigns to bestow his favors upon me.

In the first instance, he condescends to give me what he deems a severe castigation for my dulness; and, having laid on me forty stripes, save one, he feels some relentings, and kindly proposes to pity my ignorance and become my instructor, (p. 11.) I ought to thank him for his good will; but, before I become his elevÉ, [4h] I ought to be satisfied that he is quite competent to the task of a tutor; and, as I have my doubts on this head, (after all his pretensions to be savant, [5a]) this point must be settled entre nous [5b] before we proceed any further. My tutor, as he pretends to be, on page 11 says, “I have yet got to learn English.” Some would have chosen to say, in correct English, that I had yet to learn English; but this was perhaps a lapsus linguÆ. [5c] But my soi disant [5d] tutor, without shewing me wherein I am deficient, whether in orthography, etymology, syntax, or prosody, or even without enquiring whether I had learned the English alphabet, begins to treat me, as a judicious tutor ought to treat a pupil, by an attempt to teach me Greek and Latin, although he knew I had “got to learn English.” This surely was doing the thing comme il faut, [5e] and I shall here pay some attention to his learned lectures. In the first place, I am smartly reproved for writing Greek words in English characters—a fault which every author besides me has been guilty of, authors of Dictionaries and Concordances not excepted; but then, while I ought to have known that Greek words cannot be properly expressed in English letters, my tutor says, I should at least have written them in those English letters which would have expressed them properly: thus my modern task-master requires me to make bricks without straw. But I am next reproved for blundering in Greek orthography, because in one word, either I or the printer, have put a u, instead of an o—an unpardonable blunder in me; however it happened, and bonne bouche [5f] for a word catcher. For, as Bentley remarks, “a sophist abhors mediocrity; he must always say the greatest thing, and make a tide and a flood, though it be but a basin of water.” But I have also blundered on the unlucky words aion, aionian, oletheron, and kolassis, and have given them an unfortunate signification—a signification most unfortunate for his system of infinite and endless torment: since, in spite of all his criticisms, the true sense of the terms completely overthrows his blazing creed; at which he rages like a fury, and exhausts all his ample stores of skill in criticism on the original languages; yes, and pities and deplores my ignorance in these matters. It is not, however, worth my while to waste much time in debating whether he who (is at least capable of consulting a Greek lexicon) is possessed of more profound erudition on such points than I, who have “got to learn English yet;” the point may be satisfactorily settled by determining at once, whether of us has given the true and proper meaning of the words in question. I have said aion and aionian never mean unlimited duration, except when connected with the existence of God, or the future happiness of good men. In every other case they have only a limited signification. Many proofs of this I have produced from the scriptures in my lectures: not one of which has been corrected nor even noticed by my tutor. He asserts, that words are to be always taken in their literal and primary sense, unless there be something in the nature of the subject which requires them to be differently understood. This is first objecting to what I have said and then saying the very same thing himself, and accusing me of blundering, when he has made the very same blunder; but the fact is, I have stated the real truth as to the application of the terms, and he, nolens volens, [6] is compelled to admit the same, which he does twice over (page 9, 10). I had said, the true and primary sense of aion, is age, a limited period. For this I have given the authority of Doctor Doddridge, the Bishop of London, Dr. Hammond, and the Critical Review; (see Lectures, page 18, 19), to which I might add the authority of every person who pretends to be at all acquainted with Greek: yet my tutor, for the sake of exposing my ignorance, as he pretends, will thus expose his own, and fly in the face of all this host, even among the orthodox, who have had sense and honesty enough to admit the true meaning of the terms. He says (page 11) aion, is more expressive of proper eternity than the Bramfield scholar has any conception of, being derived from two words which signify “ever being.” Let us allow him this, and also what he claims before, that words are always to be taken in their literal signification. How will it sound in Matt. xxiv. 3, to read “What shall be the signs of thy coming, and the end of this everbeing.” Rom. xii. 2, “Be not conformed to this everbeing.” 1 Cor. x. 11, “Upon whom the ends of the everbeing are come.” Eph. ii. 2, “According to the course of this everbeing.” Verse 7, “That in the everbeings to come.” Heb. ix. 26, “But now in the end of the everbeing hath he appeared.” Matt xii. 32, “Shall not be forgiven neither in this everbeing, nor in the everbeing which is to come.” Tit. i. 2, “Before the everbeing begun.” Exod. xv. 18, “From everbeing to everbeing and farther.” Dan. xii. 3, “Through the everbeing and further.” Mich. iv. 5, “Through the everbeing and beyond it.” Thus my learned tutor by his wonderful skill in criticism, may if he please, burlesque the scriptures, and make them speak his ridiculous nonsense and Greek-English gibberish from beginning to end. [7a] Yet after all the rebuffs and blows, the pity and kind instructions which my tutor has bestowed upon me, such is my lamentable dulness, that I cannot yet perceive that aion is expressive of everbeing, eternity, or unlimited duration; and I am still ignorant enough to think, as the Critical Reviewers do, its true meaning is an age or limited period all through the scriptures, without a single exception, and until I am better taught menomen hosper osmen. [7b]

My tutor next charges me with reiterating my blunders as to the meaning of aionian, which he asserts is “everlasting.” Aion is singular, aionian is its plural, and so must, according to my tutor, mean everlastings, everbeings, eternities. This may be good Greek; but I, “who have got to learn English,” venture to pronounce it no English, but sheer nonsense. But my tutor informs me, “that it is an established canon of criticism, that an author is the best commentator on his own words; and that because in Matt. xxv. 46, the word aionian is connected both with future punishment and future happiness, it must have the same unlimited signification in both cases, and denote equal periods of time.” This is the same weighty argument that good Mr. Dennant, as my tutor styles him, brought forward in his funeral sermon, and for ought I know, may have been borrowed from the same source. But let my tutor try his artillery upon a text in Hab. iii. 6, where the word aionian is in the same manner used to denote the existence of God and the duration of the material hills. Let him here but keep the antithesis unbroken, and maintain that in both cases it must mean equal duration, and then the material hills will be as eternal as God; and thus my tutor, by overcharging his own cannon and firing at random, has not only blown up his own fortifications, but also demolished the strong hold of good Mr. D. with the same explosion.

My tutor next takes me to a lexicon to learn from it that the terms which I have said signify corrective punishment, signify nothing short of perdition, ruin, destruction. Admit all this: yet this does not express eternal misery; for a being destroyed or blotted out of existence cannot suffer any more, much less suffer eternal misery. I have shewn in my lectures, that the terms used in the original to express future punishment are all of a limited duration; this I have proved upon the authority of those who wrote and spoke Greek as their own vernacular tongue. But, as my tutor did not choose to come in contact with such authorities, he has prudently passed the whole without note or comment: for, as the Irishman said, the easiest way to climb over a high stile, is to creep under it; so he has found that the easiest way to get over a difficulty is to avoid it wholly; and upon this prudential maxim, he has uniformly acted. My tutor at length wearied out with ennui [8a] of leading me through l’empire des lettres [8b] and teaching me Greek, quite looses his temper, and in angry mood turns me back to a task in English and Latin etymology. Short-sighted mortal he exclaims! hadst thou not wit enough to see that the English word eternity was derived from the Latin Æternus, which is a contraction for Æviternus, or, age-lasting. Yes, my good tutor, short-sighted as I am, and whether I can see by my wit or not I had seen by my eyesight, and that too, independent of supposed influence, or special inspiration, long before you revealed the secret, that eternity IS (not was) derived from the Latin, and is a contraction OF (not for) the Latin word, which means age-lasting; and I had seen you try to turn the term age-lasting, when used by me, to ridicule, and I now see you use the same ridiculous expression as very proper, when used by idoneus homa. [9a] I had often seen the same words used in a limited sense, and applied to things of limited duration: to mountains crowned with eternal snows; to trees robed in eternal verdure; yes, sir, and to the eternal brawlings of an angry and contentious man or woman; and I had both seen and understood, that as a derived word can mean no more than the original from which it is derived, and as that, in the present case, is age-lasting and limited, I had seen that the English word eternity, like all others, can only express unlimited duration, when it derives that sense from the subject with which it is connected, and that is only when applied to the existence of God and future happiness; for tell me, sir, if you can, what else is properly eternal? And although you have charged me with it, yet I never said or thought that a scripture word of equal import would be conclusive; nor have you, nor can you show the page on which I have hinted at it. And I can also assure my tutor, that I am so well satisfied with the old morals, religion, and God of the Bible, that I covet none of those new ones, which were intruded upon the world four hundred years after Christ, by a set of Pagans calling themselves Christians; but can contentedly leave him and all his fraternity to share the paganized religion together, and to worship the tria juncta in uno, [9b]—the new God set up by Constantine and his council in the fourth century. Now, at the denouement [9c] of his learned lectures, my tutor, having arrived at the height of his choler, throws his last bolt, by scornfully asking, “And, where Master Latham, didst thou find the malaka topon in thy epistle to good Mr. Dennant.” If I had not perceived from what follows, that his lexicon, (that fruitful source of his wisdom) has furnished him with the meaning (at least) of the words after which he enquires, I would have advised him to read the New Testament, and if he keep his eyes open, he will sooner discover those words there, than either Trinity, Triune-Deity, God-Man, Vicarious Satisfaction, or that long catalogue of mots d’usage [10a] which he and his orthodox brethren pretend by “superior influence” to discover there, while those who make “their mind and reason their guide,” cannot find a single word which either in sense or sound bears the shadow of a resemblance to their shibboleth. By this time it will be seen quo warranto, [10b] my tutor has undertaken to correct my blunders, when out of twenty, and many others, with which he has charged me in the gross, on his 11th page, he himself has reduced them all to blunders of his own making; nor can I be surprised that my tutor, to keep up his own dignity, should pour contempt upon my illiterature, when the tutor of a Scotish seat of science (Dr. Wardlaw), has had the audacity to accuse both Grotius, Clarke, and Pierce, with being ignorant of the Greek language; nay, this minister of Albion-Street Chapel, Glasgow, accuses Origen and Eusebius with the same ignorance, although Greek was their native tongue, and the Scotch Doctor’s reflections turn only to his own disgrace. But quo animo [10c] are such charges made, except it be ad captandum vulgus [10d] and keep them still in ignorance: looking up to them as the only men of understanding, and implicitly receiving all they please to say as if it was uttered by the oracle of heaven.

Since my tutor has succeeded so poorly in teaching me Greek and Latin, cui malo, [10e] if, according to lex talionis, [10f] I, in my turn, give my tutor a short lesson or two in plain English; for although he thinks I have “yet got to learn English,” I am vain enough to think his English may be improved. My lessons shall be short, easy to be understood, and adapted to instruct my own tutor: and, in the first place, who that knows the meaning of Socinian and Infidel, would confound the two words as synonymous. An Infidel is a denier of revelation, but a Socinian believes in and receives revelation; if not, can my tutor tell how it has happened, that the most and the best of the works written in defence of revelation against Infidels, have been written by Socinians, or those who have the misnomer? Again, who that knows the meaning of sceptic, a doubter of the truth, or some parts of the truth of revelation, (except such a linguist as my tutor,) would confound this term with Socinian and Infidel, and use it as designative of the same person? Once more: who that knows the use of English words would expose himself by printing on a title page “Socinian Infidelity?” for these words are as incompatible as light and darkness, and a man can no more be a Socinian and an Infidel, than he can be a man and an angel; and this compound anomaly, this incongruous combination, (Socinian infidelity), which shames his title page, and was derived from good Mr. Dennant’s vocabulary and funeral sermon, is just as good English as the Irishman’s crooked straight, as dark lightness, and black whiteness. Again, “to have lounged and slipped,” as he says on page 2, conveys excellent sense to an English reader. To lounge, is to live idle, or lazy; to slip from the foundation is, in his sense, to deny the truth; and these two words combined make a very intelligible sentence—nearly as intelligible as when the Welch curate, having to say the lamb, said the little mutton, and left the people to guess at the meaning. But, had I lounged and, like the orthodox in general, been too lazy to examine into sentiments, and willing to take opinions upon trust, I should not have had the mishap to slip from their foundation; but, like them, should have remained stationary there, lounging in ignorance and error; but, by being active and industrious in proving all things, I have slipped from their foundation, or rather extricated myself from their quagmire system, and settled on the immoveable rock of truth. On the 11th page, my tutor raps my knuckles for blundering and writing o, instead of oh, although on page 9 he has set me the example in writing oh, instead of O, twice over; but he wants the qualification of a master who cannot find fault. On the same page, my tutor knits his brows, and with a learned frown exclaims, “Greek, indeed! Why, the man has yet got to learn English.” This sentence, in excellence of spirit and diction, matches well with the following: “so we will give the devil battle, we will beat the devil to.” [11] I shall not waste time to correct my tutor for writing was, where it should be is, and for, where it should be of, &c. &c. least my readers should be led to think I have learned from my tutor to be as expert in word catching as himself, and should be tempted to say of us, tel maitre, tel valet. [12a] But, as I promised that my lessons should be short, I leave him to study the following concise one: ergo docens alium tipsum non doces. [12b]

I have now to attend on my tutor while he gives me his most instructive lectures in theology; and it will be a pity indeed if my unaccountable dulness should prevent me from profiting by the wondrous wisdom which he has displayed, and by those floods of eloquence which flow from his silver tongue. However, I will do the best I can, by using such powers as I possess; and if I am denied the gift of “superior influence,” the fault is no more mine than it would be a fault in him not to see the daylight, had he been denied the gift of eyesight. Yet, mirabile dictum, [12c] the first sine qua non, [12d] that my tutor requires in his pupil is, that I should lay aside the reason I have or what is the same thing, “not suffer my mind to be its own guide.” But were I to shut, or put out my eyes, in order to behold a beautiful object, would he not be tempted to call me a fool? Were I to discard reason in the common concerns of life, would he not call me irrational? And if I take his advice in respect to religion, shall I not act the part of one insane? Has he laid aside reason in writing his squib? How, then, can he expect reasonable men to read, or me to profit by the irrational ravings of a mere maniac; but a man is never against reason in religion, but when reason is against his religion—and here my tutor feels the shoe pinch his corns. Nothing, however, he says, is too irrational to be believed by those who will not (as he directs) become irrational in religion, but will make the mind its own guide. He is therefore for doing the business by the aid of “superior influence;” and not to say, that in his performance he has given mathematical demonstration, that pretensions to “superior influence” have produced the effect of the most irrational belief, let others of the same school prove the fact. “A christian,” says Lord Bacon, “believes three to be one, and one to be three: a Father, not to be older than the Son; a Son, to be equal with his Father; and one proceedings from both, to be equal with both. He believes three persons in one nature, and two natures in one person: a virgin to be the mother of a son, and that very son of hers to be her Maker. He believes him to have been shut up in a narrow room, whom heaven and earth could not contain; him to have been born in time, who was and is born from everlasting; him to be a weak child carried in arms, who is the Almighty; and him to have died, who only has life and immortality: and the more absurd and incredible any mystery is, the greater honour we do to God in believing it, and so much the more noble the victory of faith.” The same lesson Bishop Beveridge learnt in the same school: “The mysteries, (says he) which I am least able to conceive, I think myself the more obliged to believe. That God the Father should be one perfect God of himself; God the Son one perfect God of himself; and God the Holy Ghost one perfect God of himself: and yet that these three should be but one perfect God of himself, so that one should be perfectly three, and three perfectly one; three and yet but one, but one and yet three. O heart-amazing, thought-devouring, inconceivable mystery! Who cannot believe it to be true of the glorious Deity?” From the above confessions of the orthodox faith, and hundreds more that might be added, equally clear and decisive, let my tutor now say what system produces the most irrational belief—his which enables him to give a reason of the hope that is in him, or his which prevents him from giving any reason at all why he believes such monstrous absurdities. And who acts the most like a rational being—he who knows what and why he believes, or he who, laying aside reason, believes the wildest contradictions, under pretence of believing mysteries, which is a thing just as possible as believing in the existence of non-entities, or seeing invisibilities, or possessing non-existences. But if I had the superior light with which my tutor is blessed, I might learn from him that Socinianism is scepticism and infidelity; for he has made it include this triad of irreconcilables in the compass of three lines; and then he says, it is a virtual rejection of apostolic doctrine, requiring no more than what reason can apprehend. The apostolic doctrine requires us to give a reason of our hope, to prove all things, to judge of ourselves what is right; and when Paul reasoned with the Jews and required them to judge what he said, he surely did not wish them to lay aside reason and believe mysteries which neither preacher nor hearers could comprehend. But a Senator in parliament, he says, described Socinianism as a species of Mahometanism. Well, if senators turn preachers, and my tutor writes them into notice, woe be to his own craft. Such men as he will soon be easily spared; but if any one will turn to the newspaper which contains the senator’s orthodox sermon, they will see by the rejoinder there made, that the preaching senator made as good a figure among his brother senators as my tutor and his performance is destined to make among readers who use reason and common sense when they read.

On page 3, my tutor has summed up the articles of my disbelief, and he has done it honestly and accurately; and I am free to speak le verite sans peur, [14a] and to acknowledge sans mauvaise honte, [14b] that I do deny and disbelieve the whole catalogue of absurdities which he has enumerated in toto; and I assert, that it is out of my tutor’s power to prove, that in so doing I have denied one truth revealed in the Bible, or that I disbelieve one iota of the faith originally delivered to saints by Jesus and his inspired apostles; nor can he prove, that in denying every one of those points, which are essentials in his creed, I have done any more than what every christian ought to do—that is, deny the faith of heathen philosophers, and reject the vain traditions of ignorant fallible men. My tutor, however, allows that I am not destitute of all faith, although I reject his faith; for he says, I believe with the Grand Turk in one God and one prophet. This piece of wisdom he seems to have borrowed from the senator mentioned above; still I can shew my tutor, that my Mahomedan faith is more scriptural, rational, just, and pure, than either his or that of the orthodox senator. I believe in one God; and will my tutor say he believes in more Gods than one? No, although Bishop Beveridge has made three—each perfectly God of himself; and although my tutor’s faith is just the same, yet, of the two evils, rather than be thought to be a tritheist, a plain pagan, a believer in many Gods, he will come over to Socinians, and subscribe the faith of one God; he will not pretend to deny that this part of my faith is scriptural, since scripture compels him to confess it; and if my faith in one prophet, be not scriptural, let him say what the following scriptures can mean: Deut. xviii. 15, the Lord thy God will raise up unto thee a prophet from the midst of thee, of thy brethren like unto me, unto him ye shall hearken. In verses 18, 19, the same title, a prophet, is given to the same person, and that this person here spoken of, and styled by Jehovah, his prophet, is Jesus Christ, let the New Testament determine; Acts, vii. 37, Stephen applies it to Jesus; Acts, iii. 22, Peter applies it to him; and in the following texts he is styled a prophet, Luke, vii. 16.—xx. 6.—Mark, xi. 32.—Luke, xxiv. 19.—John iv. 19.—ix. 17. and he styles himself a prophet Matt. xiii. 57.—Luke, iv. 24.—xiii. 33. And if I believe either in him, or in the scriptures, I must believe in one God, and in Jesus as his prophet. And whether this be a more scriptural faith than my tutor’s, who believes in Jesus as both God and his own prophet, I leave the reader to determine; and whether this faith in one God, and one prophet, be believing too little, I leave Christ to determine, who has said, “This is life eternal to know the Father the only true God, and Jesus to be the Christ the anointed prophet whom he has sent.” And Paul has reduced the articles of saving faith to a short compass, when he says, “If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shall believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.” Now, if this belief in one God and one prophet Jesus, be believing enough, that surely is believing too much, as my tutor does, when he embraces a creed made up of heathen reveries—not one sentence of which is taught in or required by the Bible. If to call my faith “christianity,” be a misnomer, what must it be to call his christianity?—not one article of which is taught in, but condemned in toto by the christian scriptures. My tutor says, he did not think it worth while to attempt to disprove my doctrines; no, nor even attempt to establish his own, which he styles the articles of the christian faith. And he had two very cogent reasons for this: first, he knew that to assert was far more easy than either to disprove or establish; and then he had given previous notice on his title page; that he meant only to assert, not to prove any thing, and this pledge he has honourably redeemed through his whole performance. It is worth my while, however, to remark in passing, that my tutor has encroached upon the science of the wandering gypsy, and affects to turn fortune-teller; he predicts the good news, that I am on the way to preferment, and stand a fair chance of becoming caliph of Constantinople. I can tell him honestly I have no such ambition; and was there even a chance of a mitre in the church of England, nolo episcopari, [16a] upon the usual conditions of assenting and consenting to all that is contained in an English version of the Latin Mass-Book.

On the foot of his 3rd page, my tutor applies himself to his task in good earnest, (at least pretends to do so), and begins to refute and expose my theological blunders; but he quickly lugs in the coup de main, [16b] and lays down the onus probandi [16c] after a very short and feeble display of his reasoning powers. He has attempted, it is true, on his 3, 4, 5, and 6th pages, to prove the infinite evil and demerit of sin. Had he succeeded in proving these, he must have established, also, that every sin, because committed against an infinite being, must be infinite in turpitude and demerit; then, where is the difference between his fifty and my five hundred pence debt? Between his ten and my ten thousand talents? Mine are infinite, and his, by his own confession, are no less. If every sin be infinite, how does the aggregate of infinites swell, when we calculate the almost infinite number of sinners, and the infinite number of sins committed by each? And if each of these infinite sins require an infinite atonement, where is such an one to be found? According to my tutor, page 4, it was found “in the vicarious sufferings of the Son of God:” but, when he has proved from the scriptures that the sufferings of Christ were such, which he neither has nor can do; and even one of his own school has confessed, “it is an unaccountable, irrational doctrine, destroying every natural idea we have of divine justice, and laying aside the evidence of scripture (which is none at all) it is so far from being true that it is ridiculous.” [16d] I have still to ask him, did the son of God suffer as God, in his supposed divine nature? If he be as flagrant as the poets are, to speak of a dying God, no man of sound mind will believe him. Should he admit, as truth will compel him to admit, that Christ suffered only as a man, then he has to explain the mystery how the sacrifice of a human victim could make, by finite sufferings, an infinite satisfaction. In describing what he judges proofs, that sin is an infinite evil, he musters together many things which without proof he assumes as points granted; and then, from the heat of this great burning, which his fiery temperament and frightened imagination has kindled, he infers, that finite men can perform those infinite acts which can subvert the order and council of heaven, annihilate all virtue and happiness in the universe, and shake the throne of the eternal:—thus he makes man and sin almighty, and the almighty God, weak, impotent, and subject to the caprice of his own creatures. Nay, more, he asserts, but does not prove it, that men and sin have changed the unchangeable deity; having “extinguished the paternal goodness of the creator,” and in his opinion converted the God of love into a merciless being like himself. God, he tells us, is the source of all excellence. This we know, and rejoice in the truth; but can fury, anger, indignation, wrath, and vindictive cruelty, such as he represents God manifesting towards his offspring, be reckoned among the moral excellencies of the divine character? Strange if they can! My tutor thinks these perfections belong to his God, the God of Calvinism; and so they may, but not to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. To overthrow what I said, that if sin be infinite in demerit, because committed against an infinite God, obedience must be infinite in merit, as obedience to the same infinite God. My tutor tells me, the case is just the reverse, and that as sin rises in turpitude, merit sinks in the same proportion. He who can reason with the same logical precision, may possibly arrive at the same conclusion, which is this: that the more virtuous a man is, the less is he entitled to the rewards of virtue; and, therefore, the more Paul pressed forward to the prize of his high calling, just in proportion was he further from the object of his pursuit. Well may the man that advocates such sentiments brand the opinions of others with immoral tendency! My tutor asks, page 6, whoever thought of good accruing to the chief magistrate of a country, or to the criminal himself, from the infliction of capital punishment? This is merely evading what I have said on the subject in my lectures; but I ask, what is the chief end aimed at in inflicting any punishments at all? Is it a vindictive disposition in the judge towards some, or is it not with a view to the good of the whole? And why are any capital punishments inflicted? Is it not because the ends of human justice cannot be attained without them? Had men the power to prevent the evil by any other means, would a wise and virtuous government make useless waste of human life, and take it wantonly away when it might be spared? And shall a God of infinite wisdom and almighty power, admit into the moral government of the universe an evil which he can never remedy; but which shall eternally cause his soul to burn with vindictive rage and fury against those puny ants which he called from nothing at first, and which in an instant he could crush to nothing as easily as a moth? Shall finite evil overcome infinite good? My tutor says, for any thing we know, the good of the universe may require the perpetuation of punishment, rather than the termination of sin. He does not know this: Why assert what he does not know? [18] But we know the contrary, and my tutor needs not remain in ignorance on this point if he will read his Bible—that will inform him, that God has exalted that same Jesus, who was crucified, to reign as his anointed king in Zion; and that he must reign till all rule, authority, and power is put down; till the last enemy death is destroyed and swallowed up in victory; till there shall be no more death, nor pain, nor sorrow, nor crying. But if death and sin must reign eternally and be perpetuated to an interminable duration, when will the end come for Christ to deliver up the kingdom to God, even the Father, and God be all in all? My tutor has been in too much haste to answer this, or any one of the many arguments which I have advanced on this head in my 6th lecture. With a view to expose the ignorance of those who, like my tutor, represent God as burning in an unquenchable fire, and roasting on eternal gridirons the bodies and souls of men, I have said in my lectures, the nature of man is incapable of eternal combustion; the body must quickly be consumed by fire; and material fire cannot act on the immaterial spirit, as they suppose the soul of man to be. To this last remark he has said nothing; to the former, he has pretended to reply, by asking me to inform him, how the nature of man can for an instant or for ages of ages endure future punishment? I tell him, that the future punishment of the wicked will be in nature suited to the nature of man; but God will have other means of punishing than roasting men in fire, as Calvin roasted Servetus. He says, Socinianism affords no answer to the question, how they can endure the fire that never shall be quenched for a single instant and not be consumed? It does not belong to Socinians to answer this, but to him who ignorantly thinks God will roast them in eternal fire. To say not only how they can endure it for an instant, but how they can burn eternally without being consumed; and if denying that they can, is denying future punishment, then by argumentum ad ignorantiam [19] my tutor has denied it most positively; and if I am going on to perfection, as he says I am, his stationary creed seems to be following me in that way.

I have stated in my lectures, that eternal misery is irreconcileable with the character and perfections of God. At this my tutor nibbles in his usual way; and although he has denied in the last paragraph that men are capable of burning for ever, yet here he charges me with being mistaken in thinking sin does not call for the vengeance of eternal fire. When will he attain perfection whose faith thus reels to and fro and staggers like a drunken man? Because I cannot receive his vengeance-teeming system, and believe that God who is love will pour tempestuous indignation upon his own offspring, and swallow them up in his wrath, I am charged, page 8, with not knowing how to deal with the fact, that God has admitted both moral and physical evil to have place in the universe. But I tell my tutor, these things are admitted not for their own sakes, but because infinite wisdom, power, and goodness both can and will and always has overruled them for the promotion of the greater sum of good. Will my tutor pretend that the sufferings of those millions of innocent and virtuous people, (whom he has found among a race who he says are totally depraved without a single exception,) or the death of infants, are examples and proofs of God’s vindictive ire and fiery indignation against them; if not, why has he referred to them as such? And why “not wiser he, in his just scale of sense, weigh his opinions against providence,” and compare one part of his system with another, and observe how one part proclaims war against the other?

My tutor has admitted, that “God is love; that his various perfections are only modifications of his love; that he delights in diffusing happiness; that his tender mercies are over all his works; that he does not willingly afflict nor grieve the children of men; nor take pleasure in the death of a sinner.” Yet he has made it out, that the God of love pursues some with eternal hatred; that his love is modified into inexorable justice, his mercy into vindictive cruelty, his compassion into unrelenting severity; that he delights to diffuse happiness and to perpetuate eternal misery; that his tender mercies are over all his works, while he inflicts upon the great majority the unmitigated vengeance of eternal fire; that he does not afflict willingly, but takes pleasure in punishing eternally; that he does not take pleasure in the death of a sinner, yet makes the eternal ruin and interminable misery of such the ultimate end of his moral government—all this my tutor has proved in his pages. He asks, is God required to seek the good of his creatures irrespective of their characters and deserts? No: the Bible teaches, “he will render unto every man according to his deeds;” but my tutor teaches, that God might have made all men to be damned, and he might or might not have saved any; and, that those few who will be saved, will be saved irrespective of their own deserts, by the merits and sufferings of another. Yet such men who speak of God as neither wise nor good, except he be and act as they dictate, are not, he says, to be reasoned with, but reproved; and who is less capable of being reasoned with, and who more deserving of reproof than my tutor? For his God must be a cruel, vindictive, wrathful being, and with unrelenting fury pursue his creatures with devouring flames and eternal indignation, or my tutor cannot avouch him for his God.

I have now attended my theological instructor so far as his lucubrations are connected with my lectures. He has not dispatched business indeed so quickly as he by whom he has been appointed to act as locum tenens, [21a] but he has managed in 12 pages, to answer all I have said in 228 pages—at least he has offered this scrap for an answer, and I have no doubt but it will be received by many as full to the purpose. But before any one comes to such a conclusion, he ought to read what I have written in my lectures, and then he will perhaps have reason to conclude, that all that my tutor has said is merely gratis dictum; [21b] for having left nearly every argument of mine untouched, and those which he has touched still unanswered, and having in profound silence passed over the whole task I have set him in the close of my sixth lecture; not daring to offer a single word in reply to any one of the twenty-two points that he and every advocate of eternal torments ought to disprove if they would establish their system; he takes his leave of me and my lectures, and finishes his performance by bringing forward a few stale arguments which were reiterated over and over again by Andrew Fuller, until he was ashamed to push them upon the public any longer.

Instead, therefore, of following him and wasting time to answer what has been answered times without number, I might here conclude; however, I will give him a short specimen of the way in which all his arguments may be disposed of. He says in his first, on page 12, my sentiments have some appearance of good will about them. This is confessing I approach near in this virtue to God, to Christ, and the true spirit of the gospel, which is “glory to God in the highest, and good will to men.” Does his vindictive system breathe this spirit? He had expected, it seems, to have found devils included in my scheme of benevolence; and had I believed in the existence of such beings, I should have included them; and can he tell me why not? If such there be, are they not the creatures of a God who hates nothing that he has made; and when he made them, if ever he did, he made them either to be happy or miserable, unless their fate was left wholly to chance? And is it very likely, that the God of boundless benevolence, whose tender mercies are over all his works, should create them for eternal misery? He says, they have for ages been suffering the vengeance of eternal fire. But this proves he knows no more of the meaning of that text, than when a school-boy he read it for his task. Let him contradict what I have said on it in my lectures. To use my tutor’s own polite words, on page 12, I might say, “short-sighted mortal! Hadst thou not wit enough to see,” that by shutting the door of mercy against devils, thou hast shut it against thyself! Surely thy critical skill in Greek ought to have taught thee, that every calumniator, false accuser, traducer, and slanderer, is, according to the true import of the word, a diabolos, a devil; and that thou art such, is proved on thy title page, as well as in many other parts of thy book, which breathes calumny and slander throughout. But my tutor wonders if my doctrine be true, why Christ and his apostles never plainly taught it. I wonder how he reads the Bible, and how he has read my lectures, in which I have shewn the doctrine taught through the whole, from the first promise in Genesis to Revelations, agreeable to the text which tells him, God has taught it by all the prophets since the world began. But he has been so long accustomed to gaze at the unquenchable fire, and to look at every object through clouds of smoke issuing from the bottomless pit of Heathen and Popish error, that he can form no distinct and proper notion of any text in the Bible; no, nor of the character of the God it reveals; and besides, this is one of Andrew Fuller’s arguments, who had never read my book—my tutor should have recollected this. He requires to know, page 13, “if future punishment be only corrective, what reason for the threatening in the Bible against impenitants can be given?” The answer is, God is not, cannot be, a vindictive God; he cannot punish with eternal vindictiveness: and never a threatening in all the Bible contains either a threatening of vindictive or eternal punishment; they are all to warn men to ensure a part, by repentance and obedience, in the first resurrection, and escape from the punishments which constitute the second death; and when he attributes eternal vindictiveness to God, he libels the Divine Being, and levels him with a Nero, a Moloch, or with the Devil of his own blind creed. He asks, how the mere infliction of pain is to purify sinners? I answer, it is for him, and those who like him, blindly imagine, that God has no other means to apply than the pains of eternal fire, to determine this; but those who believe, that God has both wisdom, power, and goodness sufficient to reconcile all things to himself, and to adapt the means to the end, both in the present and future state, can leave it with him whose counsel shall stand, and who will do all his pleasure to accomplish in his own way that purpose by which he has purposed to gather together all things, and to reconcile all things to himself; whether things in earth, or in heaven, or under the earth, without judging it a thing impossible with God. On page 14, he asks, if the wicked in hell be in a state of probation, what is the propriety and advantages of the present means of grace? I do not, like him, teach, that men are sent to hell as soon as they die, but with the scripture, “that the unjust are reserved unto the day of judgment to be punished.” But, were I a believer in a local hell, (still, if a Calvinist can talk of this life being a state of probation, while the elect are chosen to life, and the reprobates appointed to wrath and ruin, and of the free agency of man, when all is to be done by the agency of the spirit), I might surely think of hell being a state of probation; and that God can use means to reclaim sinners there, without destroying their free agency, as well as he does, according to Calvinism, by fixing the elect in a state of unfrustrable salvation, and the reprobate in final perdition, without leaving the chance of either to free agency. He tells me, Christ said the night cometh when no man can work; and Solomon says, nothing can be done in the grave. True; but he should know, that the present means of grace are what God has wisely adapted to men in the present life, and what they are to improve in this life to gain the first resurrection and shun the second death; and when the night of death comes, no man can work this work, or improve these means any longer. But this does not prove there will be no further means afforded; nor does Solomon’s saying, nothing can be done in the grave, prove that nothing can and that nothing will be done in the state beyond the grave; for God is able to accomplish his own pleasure, and he will have all men to be saved: he will make all things new; every knee shall bow to his authority. A Socinian or Infidel can believe all this, although such tutors as mine, though Christians, cannot believe these parts of the Bible. On page 15, he has become Socinian, and for fourteen lines together, he has made as good a confession of the Socinian faith as any Socinian can do. He confesses, that on earth at least God afflicts as a father, with designs of mercy, and in every affliction he sends, mixes the whole with mercy. But, in the next sentence, he shews the unchangeable changed; and he who punished in time, in measure, and in mercy, punishing in eternity with pure unmixed vindictiveness and eternal fury. To establish his system, he has quoted scripture again, which has nothing to do with the subject, and serves only to shew how little he understands the Bible; but such quotations and such comments as his, answer the purpose of representing the Father of all Mercies, us one of the most merciless beings in the universe. All that he advances in the remaining arguments, proceed upon the same false principle and groundless supposition, that God is bound to treat men in a future state, just as he has treated them in this; and, that since the means adapted to this state, have not accomplished God’s end, in the present salvation and blessing of all of human kind, that therefore infinite wisdom and goodness will be at an eternal loss to devise and apply any other adequate means; and that, consequently, he that does what he will in the armies of heaven, and among the inhabitants of the earth, must have his hand stayed, his sovereign will crossed, his purposes frustrated, his expectations cut off, his eternal plans deranged, and the disappointed Deity be compelled to submit to be baffled by these insuperable difficulties in his way, which omniscience could not foresee, or which omnipotence itself cannot surmount. When he is wiser than God, let him presume to give him counsel, and dictate to him what line of conduct he is bound to pursue with his creatures; or rather, let him acknowledge that the judge of all the earth can and will do right; and that it is right for him to fulfil his promise to accomplish his gracious purpose, in sending Christ to be the saviour and restorer of the whole world; and this will answer every argument and every objection that he can urge against limited punishment, or in favour of vindictive and eternal misery, inflicted by a God of mercy, kindness, compassion, and love. He has referred to and quoted almost every text in favour of his vindictive scheme, that I have quoted and explained in my lectures, in support of final restoration; but he has not so much as attempted to shew that any one of my explanations are wrong; nor has he taken any pains to shew that his own are right. He knew he could do neither; and, therefore, he has barely quoted them as common-place expressions, and asserted what he has no ability to prove—this was easy, as Andrew Fuller had done it ready to his hand.

I will now draw to an end by first pourtraying his vindictive system; and, secondly, noticing how he manages to support such a system. First, I shall briefly sketch out his vindictive system, and it may be described as follows: The God of his system is, according to his representation, a God without goodness, a Father without compassion; vindictive, malevolent, indignant, wrathful, tyrannical, cruel, unrelenting, furious, and fierce; breathing out threatenings and slaughter; inflicting punishment and perpetuating sin and misery to eternal ages; he is a Creator who has given existence to countless millions of rational beings whose final end he foresaw would be infinite and unmixed misery without respite or termination; a Creator who gave them existence without any assignable reason, but that it was his arbitrary will to confer existence upon them, that he might have the pleasure of making that being an eternal curse. This system further represents the God of it, as a partial, capricious being, arbitrarily appointing most men to endless ruin, while he appoints a few favorites to free unmerited favour and everlasting life. But still it represents him so sanguinary and unjust, that he punishes, in the most vindictive manner, one that did no sin, and extorts from him a full and rigid satisfaction in sufferings, groans, and blood, before even his own favorites shall taste his mercy or possess eternal life. This system represents the God of it, as possessing the propensities of the alligators of the Ohio, which bring forth such multitudes of young ones at every hatching, that the whole country would soon be desolated by them, did not the tender-hearted old ones prevent the evil by devouring and feeding deliciously upon their own young ones, and thus destroying their own progeny, as long as they have the power to destroy them. Let my tutor now draw near and behold this great sight: let him in fixed amaze, stand still and gaze and try to contemplate this monstrous God of Calvinism—a being shrouded in eternal frowns, clothed in eternal vengeance, and armed with eternal and vindictive fury; with eyes darting flames of devouring fire, with hands hurling the thunderbolts of eternal destruction, and breathing from his nostrils streams of fire and brimstone, “to blast a helpless worm and beat upon his naked soul in one eternal storm.” And let him tell us, if this horrifying spectacle, created in his own distorted and horror-brooding fancy, can be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, whose name is love, and whose nature is merciful, gracious, long-suffering, full of compassion, and ready to forgive. Let him say if the God of his sanguinary system possess any of those amiable perfections which can render him an object of love, confidence, and sacred veneration. Let him say if he can love the God of his system toto corde, [26] or pay to such a being a rational service; or whether the homage offered to such a being, must not spring from the same slavish principle as the worship of the benighted savages, when they worship an imaginary being, called by many enlightened christians a devil. An orthodox missionary records among other wonders in his journal, that when he had been describing to an Indian the infinite evil of sin, and the infinite and eternal punishment which God will inflict upon sinners in the next world; he asked the Indian if he should not like to go to heaven. To which he replied, no; if your God be such a dreadful being, I do not wish to be so near him. This was given as a proof of the man’s ignorance, but it proved him wiser than his teacher.

But I promised, in the second place, to shew the manner in which my tutor has attempted to support his preposterous system. He has not attempted it by shewing that I have given a wrong explanation of any of the numerous texts of scripture which I have quoted on the subject of future punishment, nor has he so much as attempted to prove, that the texts he has quoted have any reference to the subject; but like a salamander bred in fire, and breathing sulphur as his native element, he has piled together a few texts, in which the words wrath, vengeance, indignation, fire, fury, and the like occur; and although he knows, and even allows, that this is figurative language, he applies it literally, as if God was really the subject of the vilest passions that disgrace humanity. I have said in my Lectures, that the strongest figures and language used in the Bible, will not support eternal punishments; I have produced the strongest, and shewn that they will not do it; and why has he not shewn me to be in error? Not in one single instance—for this plain reason, because it was not in his power to do so. And I now defy him, and every man in existence to prove, that any one of those texts which he has referred to, will either prove eternal punishment, or that they have any thing to do with the subject. This shews his skill in the language of scripture, and how far his bare assertion is to be taken, when he says, “that if words have any meaning, the texts he has quoted prove future punishments eternal and vindictive.” He may assert the doctrine of endless punishment—but assertions are not proof; he may reproach those who cannot breathe in his sulphurous atmosphere, as Socinians, Sceptics, and Infidels; but veritas vincit, [27] and the doctrine I have advocated and the arguments by which I have maintained it, are still invulnerable to all the shafts of ignorance and bigotry which this pretender to wisdom can hurl against them. It is pleasing, however, to see how deeply he feels interested at the close for the cause of virtue and good morals, and it reminds me of the fable in which

“A grave skilful mason gave in his opinion,
That nothing but stone could defend the dominion;
A carpenter said, though that was well spoke,
It was better by far to defend it with oak;
A currier, wiser than both these together,
Said, try what you please, there is nothing like leather.”

So my tutor seems to think, that if men are not frightened into virtue and morality, by the senseless cry of suffering the vengeance of eternal fire, and by being threatened with being devoted as a prey to the fiery tusks and burning talons of the devil, that this imaginary fiction of heathen divinity will succeed in sapping the foundation of all virtue, “and bring dishonour upon God, and ruin upon a sinful world:”—that is to say, bring ruin upon a world which my tutor asserts to be already in a state of universal ruin. But, if my tutor is really desirous to become custos morum, [28a] let him adopt a system more to the purpose than Calvinism, which damns all reprobates, let them be as virtuous as angels, and provides a substitute for all the elect, and saves them independent of any duties or virtues of their own; and let him adopt a system producing better moral effects than Calvinism did, when it committed Servetus to the flames, kindled by the wrath of Calvin, in hopes too of precipitating the heretic into the flames that he thought never would be quenched. O the tender mercies of Calvin and Calvinism! Surely those who do not wilfully shut their eyes may see veluti in speculum, [28b] the transcendent glories of that immaculate system, which has John Calvin for its author, heathen errors for its subject-matter, and eternal ruin, pain, and misery for its end.

In my Lectures I have referred to every unquenchable fire mentioned in the scriptures, and have proved that, they are all long since extinguished, and none of them reserved for burning sinners eternally. My tutor has not disproved this; nor so much as noticed the subject in any part of his tract. And, although he has done his best to blow the extinguished embers into sparks and flames of his own kindling, and says, ah! ah! I have seen the fire; yet it sleeps harmless in his own pages, without burning even the paper; and all the effect it is destined to produce, is the burning of his own cheeks with blushes for his own ignorance. But, since my tutor seems to be affected with a cacoethis scribendi, [28c] he had best go to work again; for, as succedaneum [28d] for others, he ought to plead the cause of all his employers. He has indeed shewn so much sympathy with Mr. Dennant, that he has once mentioned the good man’s name; but, he has not offered a single word in defence of his system of dreams, sleep-walking, ghosts, and witchcraft. Why this profound silence? Was the case past all cure, and such as admits of no alleviation? Or was it because he has committed the same faults on his 15th page?

I have said in my Lectures, that kolasis intends corrective punishment; such as, according to Paulus, produces amendment; according to Plato, such as makes wiser; and according to Plutarch, promotes healing: and I have said, such punishments cannot be eternal. Will my tutor pretend to know the meaning of the Greek word, better than those who constantly spoke and wrote Greek as their native language? If so, what an oracle of wisdom is this learned word-catcher!

As all those who differ from my tutor in sentiment are Socinians, Sceptics, Infidels, Saducees, and Apostates, he has prudently passed, without notice, the sentiments of Bishop Newton, quoted in my Lectures, page 115–16—sentiments in perfect unison with mine, and utterly destructive of the scheme of endless torments; but, had he noticed this, he must have condemned the Bishop among his motley group of heretics, and detected the ruinous contagion in the Church of England, advocated there by one of her brightest ornaments. And, if he can prove his good advocate for sleep-walking and witchcraft, to be right in his opinion, as to natural immortality, he will prove that the pulpit in Halesworth church has been polluted by a poisonous error, and prove Bishop Law to have been a filthy heretic. But I suppose it was ad honores [29a] that he passed by these things in silence; and he may learn from Watson, Bishop of Landaff, “that though he was no Socinian himself, he was willing to believe Socinians to be christians.” My tutor might then without mauvaise hont, [29b] keep silent, and forbear from branding others with every reproachful epithet that calumny can supply, and such as he knows are wilful slander when he uses them.

Since my tutor has given me a lesson in poetry, which he thinks suits his scheme, but which I am sure suits mine much better, I will return him the favour from the same source:

“Yet gav’st roe, in this dark estate,
To know the good from ill,
And binding nature fast in fate,
Left free the human will.

“What conscience dictates to be done,
Or warns me not to do,
This teach me more than hell to shun,
That more that heav’n pursue.”

Now, if my tutor admits the above, he must overthrow his own system altogether; if he rejects it, he must condemn his own favourite author among those Socinian, Sceptical, and Infidel heretics; who, among other errors, “independent of superior influence,” make their mind and conscience their guide; and, having thrown himself on the two horns of this dilemma, he is at liberty to get off as well as he can without being gored; and his good friend, who has hung some time in the same predicament, may perhaps lend him some assistance, or advise him, like himself, to be content in every situation, and struggle no longer in the mud, lest he sink deeper in the mire.

If Hugh Latimer will do his work worthy of a bishop, let him employ his pen again, pro bono publico; [30a] or, if he prefers it, let him come forth from his sculking place, and meet me tete a tete, [30b] and I will canvass any one, or all of the favourite sentiments, belonging to his favourite system, with him viva voce; [30c] and, if I do not prove his opinions unscriptural and irrational errors, I will require nothing for my trouble; nor will I either menace him with a prosecution, nor prevent his books from being sold, as the good men at Halesworth have served me. But, if it be true, as my tutor asserts, page 2, that my book carries its own antidote along with it, why has so much alarm been taken at it? Why such active endeavours to prevent its circulation? (but all in vain) And why has Hugh Latimer wasted his time, spent his money, and exposed his own folly, to remedy an evil which required no remedy, but to be left to work its own cure according to his opinion? Various pretexts may be set up for such inconsistency; but the true reason may be given in these words: “if we let this man alone, . . . the Romans will come and take away our place and nation.” Yes, craft—your craft, good Bishop, is in danger; and how can such a man as you sleep at your post in a time of threatening danger? You must be patching the old garment, if you only make the rent worse. You have said, page 3, that “I deny the existence and agency of the Holy Spirit, the necessity of regeneration, justification by faith, the immateriality and immortality of the soul.” I deny them all in the orthodox sense. I deny the existence of the Holy Spirit, as a third personal God; but, I believe the existence of one God, who is a spirit. I admit the divine agency, called the Holy Spirit, at the first promulgation of the gospel; but, I deny such supernatural agency now, as the orthodox pretend to. I deny regeneration to be what they make it; but, I hold the necessity of a change of mind and conduct, whereby sinners must turn themselves from all their transgressions and save their souls alive. I deny justification by faith in the popular sense of believing in the merits and righteousness of another, which is a most flagrant error; but, I admit both Jews and Gentiles were justified by believing and obeying the gospel, without being tied to the ceremonial law, which was superceded by the gospel. This is the faith of the gospel, the faith at first delivered to the saints; and, to believe otherwise, is to believe a lie, and to believe what God has not required. I deny the immateriality and natural immortality of the soul; but, I firmly believe what the scriptures teach, that at the resurrection, that which is mortal, shall put on immortality. These remarks will serve to explain how I wished to be understood, when I said in page 14, that you had stated my disbelief honestly and accurately—that is, according to orthodox sentiments, I disbelieve all you have stated.

Had Hugh Latimer contented himself with singling me out as an individual, and with exposing (as he is pleased to call it), my ignorance, errors, and blunders alone, all the answer his tract would have merited, and all it would probably have received from me, would have been a silent contempt of such a paltry performance; but, when, instead of meeting my arguments fairly, and refuting my sentiments scripturally and rationally, he has declined do so, and has condescended to calumniate and wilfully misrepresent Unitarians in general, and condemn their sentiments in the gross, as disguised infidelity, &c. I felt myself compelled by a sense of duty to offer a short reply to his slanders. For it is a well-known fact, that bare assertions such as his, will pass with too many for argument, and the truth of his statements will be concluded, by such, from his positivity and confidence in making them; and if nothing was said, in answer to such writers, too many would conclude they cannot be answered. And as he has given another proof, that the orthodox are never tired of reiterating those arguments which have been answered and refuted an hundred times twice told, we heretics must not tire of refuting them over again. But we have the disadvantage, that so many are willing to take any thing and every thing upon trust, that comes from an orthodox pen, while few, very few, will so much as look at what is written by a reputed heretic; and the number is fewer still, who will impartially examine both sides, and candidly acknowledge, (even when convinced), that truth is on the side opposite to their own. Bishop Watson says, he knew a divine of great eminence, who declared, “that he never read dissenting divinity.” [32a] Another divine was once asked how he approved of Mr. Locke’s Reasonableness of Christianity: he replied, “very well; but, said he, if I should be known to think well of it, I should have my lawn torn from my shoulders.” [32b] A divine who has read my Lectures, being asked his opinion of them, said, “If I were to give my candid opinion on them, I should be styled a Unitarian too.” Another, who approved of them, being asked why such doctrine was never taught in the place where he preached, said, “When a boy is bound apprentice, he must obey his master’s rules.” Thus some from interest, others from indolence, and the many from ignorance and bigotry, never take trouble to examine and compare the different opinions proposed to them, and so remain in darkness and confusion all their days. And as it was well said, long ago, “As people in general, for one reason or another, like short objections (and bare assertions) better than long answers (and sound reasons), the odds must ever be against us; and we must be content with those for our friends, who have honesty and erudition, candour and patience, to study both sides.” [33] It is to be lamented, that readers of the last description are very rare in these parts, yet there is here and there one; and I had much rather my books should be consulted, read, and examined by a dozen such men as these, than I would have the stare and gape of hundreds listening to an harangue, five sentences of which they did not understand. That this is the general run of hearers hereabouts, no one can deny; and this sufficiently accounts for the spread of mysticism and enthusiasm, and the tardy progress of pure scriptural and rational truth; to say nothing of the salvo which orthodoxy affords, to those who can fancy themselves entitled to an interest in its inexhaustible and unconditional stores;—pardon, righteousness, and heaven, and all procured by the merits and sufferings of another, on the very easy terms of “only believe and be saved.”

I shall here attempt to obviate the objection so generally laid against me, that I am inimical and hostile to the Bible Society. I speak the truth when I say—first, that I esteem the Bible as the choicest gift of God, save that of his own Son, the restorer, the light and saviour of the world—Secondly, that I esteem and cordially approve the universal spread of the Bible among all nations, and in every language; believing, as I firmly do, in the sufficiency of the Scriptures to make all men (who use them properly) wise unto salvation, since all scripture (which is) given by the inspiration of God, is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished to all good works. Convinced as I am, that the Scriptures contain a full, clear, and plain revelation of every thing that is essential for mankind to know, believe, and practice; of all that God requires from them, or gives them ground to expect from him, in order to promote their virtue and peace on earth, and final happiness in heaven. I approve of the principle on which protestantism is founded, that the Bible alone contains the religion of protestants; I consequently fall in most heartily with the circulation of the Scriptures without note or comment; leaving every man at full liberty of conscience, and the use of his own reason and judgment in interpreting and understanding the word of God. I have attended Bible Societies from their first formation; I have contributed to them in several parts of the kingdom, and at Halesworth too, without sounding a trumpet; I have recommended them constantly on the principles stated above; and, if I have not been a public advocate on the platform, the reason has invariably been, because the advocates have universally treated me, even when on the platform among them, with silent contempt and cold disdain. It is not the Bible Society I object to; but, the way in which its professed advocates expose the cause and themselves, by bringing forward in their speeches subjects calculated only (in some instances) to insult a rational understanding, and impose on and deceive the vulgar; and the effect produced has been to lead numbers to imagine, that if they give a trifle, or obtain a Bible, it will go well nigh to secure their salvation. Hence it happens, that in every village I can find a Bible or two in almost every house; in many of which they are never read, because not one in the family can read them. Can it be otherwise in other countries? And yet what romantic tales we often hear of the wonderful conversions effected by the Bible! just as if the Bible could produce any good effect, but where it is read, understood, and its precepts reduced to practice. Let the professed advocates lay aside those arts and tricks which alone become mountebanks and quacks, and let them plead the cause of the Bible as becomes the dignity and grandeur of the subject, and I will wish them God speed in spreading the Bible to the remotest habitation of human beings; and, let those who cannot treat the subject as becomes truth and holiness, keep silent. Religion and the Bible require not the aid of enthusiasm, ribaldry, and buffoonery; nor of tales and anecdotes on a par with Mother Goose’s Fables.

In addition to those tales which I have advanced on former occasions, and numbers that I could still advance, I will only select the following. I once heard a preacher at a meeting in Wellingborough church recommend the Bible, as a quack recommends his pills and balsams—a cure for every malady, “Do you know (said he), a drunkard, a swearer, a liar, give him a Bible; do you know an adulterer, sabbath-breaker, or covetous miser, give him a Bible; do you know a bad husband, a bad father, a bad wife, or a bad mother, give them each a Bible; do you know a bad master, of mistress, or a bad servant or apprentice, give them a Bible; do you know a bad neighbour, a slanderer, backbiter, or busybody, give them a Bible.” Thus he ran on through the whole catalogue of vices, and recommended, as a cure for them all, the gift of a Bible. I need not remind my readers of what has been stated in the Ipswich Chronicle twice over, on the application of the funds of the Bible Society; but I remember a speaker said at the conclusion of a meeting at Halesworth, three years back, “that in answer to the question, what becomes of the money given at these meetings, he would assure them, on the word of a dying man, speaking as to dying men, in the presence of God, before whom all must appear in judgment, that not a single penny of their money was applied to any other purpose than that for which they gave it, (namely), for printing and circulation of the scriptures.” It belongs not to me to reconcile this with the statements in the Ipswich and London papers. Since those persons who have enjoyed the advantage of travel are allowed to enliven your meetings by anecdote, I will give a specimen or two of their manner and matter. At a meeting held at Leeds, some months past, Dr. Patterson stated, that in his travels he had found a set of men making an attempt to supplant the Bible by substituting in its place a Socinian Bible, full of errors, and void of every essential doctrine; that he had procured the suppression of it and of another as bad, and hoped the whole was rotten or rotting in a fort to which they were consigned; that a professor in a university, the author of the above, had been turned out of his professorship. All this and much more was stated and printed in the Leeds paper, but no name of the book, place, or professor was mentioned. The whole was a fabrication to suit a purpose, and has been well exposed by Dr. Hutton, Unitarian minister, at Leeds. At a meeting in the City-Road Chapel, London, last May, Lord Mountcassel proved, that the age of miracles was returned in Ireland; he could vouch, he said, as a missionary was preaching in a village, a Catholic priest interrupted him: the day following the priest pointing out the place to a friend, said, there is the spot where that cursed pharisee preached to the people;—he was struck with paralysis, his arm fell powerless, his mouth was distorted, he fell back, and was taken home senseless. Another priest, a great opponent of Bibles, was struck in a meeting with a paralytic shock and never spoke afterwards. These were the visitations of God, and are recorded as such in the Evangelical Magazine. While such men as doctors of divinity and titled noblemen can thus, with devotion’s visage and pious actions, sugar over the devil himself, we may expect that other pigmies, in a petty way, will ape and mimic their example; but if the Bible which they circulate teaches others no better morals than theirs, the gift will be of little use to those who obtain it. I wish such advocates as the above to recollect, that we are forbidden by the Bible “to do evil that good may come,” or to propagate “cunningly devised fables.”

Lately Published, Price 4s.

SIX LECTURES

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Non-eternity of Future Punishment, and on the final Restoration
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By T. LATHAM.

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