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-The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Self-Plumbed Bishop Unplumed, by T. Latham

-

-

-This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most

-other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions 

-whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of

-the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at 

-www.gutenberg.org.  If you are not located in the United States, you'll have

-to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook.

-

-

-

-

-Title: The Self-Plumbed Bishop Unplumed

-

-

-Author: T. Latham

-

-

-

-Release Date: October 7, 2018  [eBook #58052]

-

-Language: English

-

-Character set encoding: UTF-8

-

-

-***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SELF-PLUMBED BISHOP UNPLUMED***

-

-

-Transcribed from the [1828] T. Tippell edition by David Price, email

-ccx074@pglaf.org

-

-                   [Picture: Public domain book cover]

-

-

-

-

-

-                     THE SELF-PLUMED BISHOP UNPLUMED.

-

-

-                                * * * * *

-

-                                 A REPLY

-

-                                  TO THE

-

-                   PROFOUND ERUDITION OF THE SELF-NAMED

-

-                              HUGH LATIMER,

-

-                                  IN HIS

-

-                 DOCTRINE OF ENDLESS PUNISHMENT ASSERTED,

-

-                                    BY

-

-                                T. LATHAM,

-

-                     MINISTER AT BRAMFIELD, SUFFOLK.

-

-                                * * * * *

-

-    “Let us candidly admit where we cannot refute, calmly reply where we

-    cannot admit, and leave anger to the vanquished, and imputation of

-    bad motives to those who are deficient in good argument.”  REV. W. J.

-    FOX.

-

-    “Illi sæviant in vos, qui nesciunt quo cum labore verum inveniatur,

-    et quam difficile caveantur errores.  Illi in vos sæviant, qui

-    nesciunt quam rarum et arduum sit, carnalia phantasmata piæ mentis

-    serenitate superare.  Illi in vos sæviant, qui nesciunt quantis

-    gemitibus et suspiriis fiat, ut quantulacunque parte possit intelligi

-    Deus.  Postremo, illi in vos sæviant, qui nullo tali errore decepti

-    sunt, quali vos deceptos vident.”  ST. AUGUSTINE.

-

-                                * * * * *

-

-                               HALESWORTH:

-                     PRINTED AND SOLD BY T. TIPPELL;

-          SOLD ALSO BY MESSRS. TEULON AND FOX, 67, WHITE-CHAPEL.

-

-                                * * * * *

-

-                             PRICE SIXPENCE.

-

-                                * * * * *

-

-

-

-

-REPLY, &c.

-

-

-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’œuvre_ {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_ 4_s._

-

-                               SIX LECTURES

-

-                                  ON THE

-

-     Non-eternity of Future Punishment, and on the final Restoration

-                 of all Mankind to Purity and Happiness,

-

-                              BY T. LATHAM.

-

-       _Sold by the Author at Bramfield_; _also by Teulon and Fox_,

-                              _Whitechapel_,

-                  _London_; _and all other Booksellers_.

-

-                      TIPPELL, PRINTER, HALESWORTH.

-

-                                * * * * *

-

-

-

-

-FOOTNOTES.

-

-

-{3}  Assumed name.

-

-{4a}  The spirit of the party.

-

-{4b}  Against good manners.

-

-{4c}  Disguised.

-

-{4d}  In person.

-

-{4e}  A man of various learning.

-

-{4f}  Masterpiece.

-

-{4g}  Churchmen.

-

-{4h}  Pupil.

-

-{5a}  A learned man.

-

-{5b}  Between ourselves.

-

-{5c}  Slip of the tongue.

-

-{5d}  Pretended.

-

-{5e}  As it should be.

-

-{5f}  A nice morsel

-

-{6}  Willing or not.

-

-{7a}  I have read of a bishop who, on coming to his bishopric, ordered a

-Greek inscription to be written over his palace gate.  It was meant to

-say, “Gate be thou ever open to, and never shut against a good man.”  But

-when finished, it said, “Gate be thou always shut against, and never open

-to a good man.”  And as the bishop was so well versed in Greek, that he

-could not find out the blunder, he was for his learning deposed.  I give

-this as a hint to Hugh Latimer.

-

-{7b}  I must remain in my present sentiments.

-

-{8a}  Tiresomeness.

-

-{8b}  The republic of letters.

-

-{9a}  A fit man.

-

-{9b}  Three united in one.

-

-{9c}  Winding up.

-

-{10a}  Common phrases

-

-{10b}  By what authority.

-

-{10c}  With what intention.

-

-{10d}  To ensnare the vulgar.

-

-{10e}  What harm will it do.

-

-{10f}  The law of retaliation.

-

-{11}  See a speech by a minister.  (Lectures, page 177)

-

-{12a}  Like master like man.

-

-{12b}  Thou that teachest others, teachest thou not thyself.

-

-{12c}  Wonderful to tell.

-

-{12d}  Indispensable pre-requisite.

-

-{14a}  The truth without fear.

-

-{14b}  Without over bashfulness.

-

-{16a}  I do not wish to be made a bishop.

-

-{16b}  Sudden enterprise.

-

-{16c}  Burden of proving.

-

-{16d}  Bradbury.

-

-{18}  Jesus Christ has informed us, John iii. 16, 18, “that God has

-displayed his love to the world in sending his Son, not to condemn the

-world, but to save it.”  Hugh Latimer tells us, page 6, “that the

-perpetuity of punishment in vindictive justice, (which by the way is a

-contradiction in terms), is the emanation of love to the universe.”

-There is no method of reconciling these plain contradictions, but by

-allowing him to be acquainted with those sublime mysteries with which

-Christ was wholly unacquainted.

-

-{19}  A foolish argument.

-

-{21a}  Deputy.

-

-{21b}  Said for nothing.

-

-{26}  With the whole heart.

-

-{27}  Truth conquers.

-

-{28a}  The guardian of morality.

-

-{28b}  As in a looking glass.

-

-{28c}  Improper fondness of writing.

-

-{28d}  Substitute.

-

-{29a}  For decency sake.

-

-{29b}  Over much bashfulness.

-

-{30a}  For the public good.

-

-{30b}  Face to face.

-

-{30c}  By word of mouth.

-

-{32a}  Theological tracts, preface, page 19.

-

-{32b}  Molineux’s Familiar Letters, page 163.

-

-{33}  Bishop Horne.

-

-

-

-

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-

+The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Self-Plumbed Bishop Unplumed, by T. Latham
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most
+other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions 
+whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of
+the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at 
+www.gutenberg.org.  If you are not located in the United States, you'll have
+to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook.
+
+
+
+
+Title: The Self-Plumbed Bishop Unplumed
+
+
+Author: T. Latham
+
+
+
+Release Date: October 7, 2018  [eBook #58052]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SELF-PLUMBED BISHOP UNPLUMED***
+
+
+Transcribed from the [1828] T. Tippell edition by David Price, email
+ccx074@pglaf.org
+
+                   [Picture: Public domain book cover]
+
+
+
+
+
+                     THE SELF-PLUMED BISHOP UNPLUMED.
+
+
+                                * * * * *
+
+                                 A REPLY
+
+                                  TO THE
+
+                   PROFOUND ERUDITION OF THE SELF-NAMED
+
+                              HUGH LATIMER,
+
+                                  IN HIS
+
+                 DOCTRINE OF ENDLESS PUNISHMENT ASSERTED,
+
+                                    BY
+
+                                T. LATHAM,
+
+                     MINISTER AT BRAMFIELD, SUFFOLK.
+
+                                * * * * *
+
+    “Let us candidly admit where we cannot refute, calmly reply where we
+    cannot admit, and leave anger to the vanquished, and imputation of
+    bad motives to those who are deficient in good argument.”  REV. W. J.
+    FOX.
+
+    “Illi sæviant in vos, qui nesciunt quo cum labore verum inveniatur,
+    et quam difficile caveantur errores.  Illi in vos sæviant, qui
+    nesciunt quam rarum et arduum sit, carnalia phantasmata piæ mentis
+    serenitate superare.  Illi in vos sæviant, qui nesciunt quantis
+    gemitibus et suspiriis fiat, ut quantulacunque parte possit intelligi
+    Deus.  Postremo, illi in vos sæviant, qui nullo tali errore decepti
+    sunt, quali vos deceptos vident.”  ST. AUGUSTINE.
+
+                                * * * * *
+
+                               HALESWORTH:
+                     PRINTED AND SOLD BY T. TIPPELL;
+          SOLD ALSO BY MESSRS. TEULON AND FOX, 67, WHITE-CHAPEL.
+
+                                * * * * *
+
+                             PRICE SIXPENCE.
+
+                                * * * * *
+
+
+
+
+REPLY, &c.
+
+
+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’œuvre_ {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_ 4_s._
+
+                               SIX LECTURES
+
+                                  ON THE
+
+     Non-eternity of Future Punishment, and on the final Restoration
+                 of all Mankind to Purity and Happiness,
+
+                              BY T. LATHAM.
+
+       _Sold by the Author at Bramfield_; _also by Teulon and Fox_,
+                              _Whitechapel_,
+                  _London_; _and all other Booksellers_.
+
+                      TIPPELL, PRINTER, HALESWORTH.
+
+                                * * * * *
+
+
+
+
+FOOTNOTES.
+
+
+{3}  Assumed name.
+
+{4a}  The spirit of the party.
+
+{4b}  Against good manners.
+
+{4c}  Disguised.
+
+{4d}  In person.
+
+{4e}  A man of various learning.
+
+{4f}  Masterpiece.
+
+{4g}  Churchmen.
+
+{4h}  Pupil.
+
+{5a}  A learned man.
+
+{5b}  Between ourselves.
+
+{5c}  Slip of the tongue.
+
+{5d}  Pretended.
+
+{5e}  As it should be.
+
+{5f}  A nice morsel
+
+{6}  Willing or not.
+
+{7a}  I have read of a bishop who, on coming to his bishopric, ordered a
+Greek inscription to be written over his palace gate.  It was meant to
+say, “Gate be thou ever open to, and never shut against a good man.”  But
+when finished, it said, “Gate be thou always shut against, and never open
+to a good man.”  And as the bishop was so well versed in Greek, that he
+could not find out the blunder, he was for his learning deposed.  I give
+this as a hint to Hugh Latimer.
+
+{7b}  I must remain in my present sentiments.
+
+{8a}  Tiresomeness.
+
+{8b}  The republic of letters.
+
+{9a}  A fit man.
+
+{9b}  Three united in one.
+
+{9c}  Winding up.
+
+{10a}  Common phrases
+
+{10b}  By what authority.
+
+{10c}  With what intention.
+
+{10d}  To ensnare the vulgar.
+
+{10e}  What harm will it do.
+
+{10f}  The law of retaliation.
+
+{11}  See a speech by a minister.  (Lectures, page 177)
+
+{12a}  Like master like man.
+
+{12b}  Thou that teachest others, teachest thou not thyself.
+
+{12c}  Wonderful to tell.
+
+{12d}  Indispensable pre-requisite.
+
+{14a}  The truth without fear.
+
+{14b}  Without over bashfulness.
+
+{16a}  I do not wish to be made a bishop.
+
+{16b}  Sudden enterprise.
+
+{16c}  Burden of proving.
+
+{16d}  Bradbury.
+
+{18}  Jesus Christ has informed us, John iii. 16, 18, “that God has
+displayed his love to the world in sending his Son, not to condemn the
+world, but to save it.”  Hugh Latimer tells us, page 6, “that the
+perpetuity of punishment in vindictive justice, (which by the way is a
+contradiction in terms), is the emanation of love to the universe.”
+There is no method of reconciling these plain contradictions, but by
+allowing him to be acquainted with those sublime mysteries with which
+Christ was wholly unacquainted.
+
+{19}  A foolish argument.
+
+{21a}  Deputy.
+
+{21b}  Said for nothing.
+
+{26}  With the whole heart.
+
+{27}  Truth conquers.
+
+{28a}  The guardian of morality.
+
+{28b}  As in a looking glass.
+
+{28c}  Improper fondness of writing.
+
+{28d}  Substitute.
+
+{29a}  For decency sake.
+
+{29b}  Over much bashfulness.
+
+{30a}  For the public good.
+
+{30b}  Face to face.
+
+{30c}  By word of mouth.
+
+{32a}  Theological tracts, preface, page 19.
+
+{32b}  Molineux’s Familiar Letters, page 163.
+
+{33}  Bishop Horne.
+
+
+
+
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