have endeavoured to exhibit as the objects of your aversion and abhorrence. Truth is sure to be a gainer by every open discussion, and will, no doubt, be so by this; not perhaps in any great degree at present, but always after due reflection. If you have received either information, or amusement, from these Letters of mine, please to remember that you are primarily indebted to Mr. Madan and Mr. Burn for it, and do not fail to make them a suitable acknowledgment; for, certainly, their publications gave occasion to mine. As to myself, if, as Mr. Madan says, controversy be necessary to my support, if not to my existence, I am obliged to him, and to Mr. Burn, for the satisfaction that I most of all wanted, and (by giving me an additional degree of animation) for prolonging my life. It was, I ought to suppose, their pure good-will to me that prompted them to give me this exercise, so necessary to my health and happiness. It is possible, also, that Mr. Pitt, and those whom we have generally considered as the enemies of the Dissenters,* may have given us our late defeat with the most friendly intentions, viz. to promote the discussion of important topics, and to keep up a controversy in which they see we take so much pleasure. For had we gained our point, we must, in common decency, have been quiet at least ten or a dozen years; which, besides ill suiting such restless spirits, as I and some others are represented to be, would have stifled in their very conception a number of excellent publications, with which, I doubt not, the press will now teem for years to come. However, as the best way to come at a thorough good understanding is sometimes to begin with a full discussion Who appear to have little expected, as the reward for their political services to Mr. Pitt, his decided hostility, though they might no longer expect his cordial support as a minister, or even as a man. A writer, very likely to be well-informed, says, “ A deputation of the Dissenting Laity waited upon the Minister, as on former occasions, to communicate their intention; but they were not received with the same cordiality as their ancestors had been by his predecessors in office, for he neither acknowledged their right to relief, nor expressed his wishes for their success. He only told them, that he could not give an immediate opinion on an affair of such magnitude.' High-Church Politics, p. 13. This writer afterwards says, Mr. Pitt "did not condescend to give to the Dissenters, either formally, or through the medium of any friend, the smallest intimation of his intention to oppose them. On the 28th of March [1787] the motion was introduced into the House of Commons, and he was then prepared, to the surprise and sorrow of the Dissenters, not only to give a decided opinion, but, with the zeal of a proselyte, to exert the influence of the court to prevent even the appointment of a committee for considering their situation and grievances." Ibid. P. 14. of all our differences, (and I hope I am not prone to bear malice,) my several antagonists and myself may, by this means, come to understand one another better than we otherwise could have done, and thus be better friends than before. In settling the account between us I have more to forgive than they have; for I have never taxed them with malevolence, or wilful misrepresentation, which they have perpetually laid to my charge, as if they were words of course, without which, controversy could not be carried on; like the phrase at the instigation of the devil, in all indictments for felony; and I am willing to hope that, being unused to controversy, they did not consider them in any other light. All that I have to ask pardon for, is a little innocent, and as they will call it, awkward pleasantry, like that of the ass in the fable, such as can do them no material harm; and therefore I hope that, after some time, we shall meet on, at least, as friendly terms as ever. A good lady who wrote me an anonymous and scolding letter, on the idea, as she said, that, being unworthy of the castigation of any man, the pen of a woman was more properly employed, began her curious letter with saying, that I seized on Mr. Madan as a cat seizes on a mouse." But if she had recollected that both Mr. Madan and Mr. Burn were the aggressors in this controversy, she would have seen that they considered themselves as the cats, and me as the defenceless mouse. However, if they have found themselves mistaken, and see reason to think, with my anonymous correspondent, that I am the cat and they the mice, I hope they will be satisfied that, though I have played with them a little, I have done them no material injury, (such as they would have done to me,) but have taught them for the future not wantonly to provoke other animals of prey, more savagely disposed than myself. It is true I am an avowed enemy to the Church Establishment of this country, but by no means to any who belong to it. I write against Calvinism, but have the greatest respect pen, * Mr. Madan, and the Rector of St. Martin's, out of their abundant zeal, went about the country, I am informed, like two ecclesiastical knights-errant, in order to collect as great a force as they could of the genuine friends of the establishment, on a late occasion at Warwick. If, therefore, the Church of England, on any future emergency, shall want two champions, either to take the field, or to take the she may know where to look for them. It is something remarkable that the freeholders of Warwickshire were among the foremost in their addresses to procure a repeal of the bill in favour of the Jews, in 1753. Must every thing narrow and illiberal originate in this part of the country? Let us exert ourselves to wipe off the disgrace. (P.) for many Calvinists, and wish to make them exchange their darkness for my light. I am also an enemy to Atheism and Deism, but not to Atheists or Deists. I have a particular friendship for many of them, in this country and other countries, and I write in order to inform and reclaim them. There is nothing personal in all this. They think as unfavourably of my system, as I do of theirs. Let all points of difference be freely discussed. Truth will be a gainer by it. But let us respect one another, as we respect truth itself; love all, and wish the good of all, without distinction. This is true candour, and consistent with the greatest zeal for our particular opinions. To close with seriousness: I hope that, on reflection, we shall all take more pleasure in exerting our endeavours to promote the knowledge and practice of the great things in which we and all Christians agree, than in contending about the things of comparatively small importance with respect to which we differ; as I formerly told the excellent bishop of Waterford, [Newcome,] with whom I had [1780] a friendly controversy " on the duration of our Saviour's ministry;' and with what I observed to him on the subject, (as my publications of this kind will hardly ever fall into your hands,) I shall close these Letters. 66 "Your lordship is pleased to speak of our differing in some conclusions of greater importance than those we are now controverting.' Of this I am fully apprized; the articles of your lordship's faith, as a member of the Church of England, being upon record, and mine being sufficiently known by my writings, as also the stress I lay upon them, as opposed to the tenets of all the established churches in the world. Yet, my lord, it gives me more pleasure to reflect that, notwithstanding these very considerable differences, there are still greater things in which we both agree, and on which we both, I hope, lay still greater stress; and they are things in which all persons who call themselves Christians are agreed. "We both believe in a God, the intelligent author of nature, in his constant over-ruling providence, and in his righteous, moral government. We both believe in the divine origin of the Jewish and Christian revelations; that Christ was a teacher sent from God, that he is our master, lawgiver and judge, that God raised him from the dead, that he is now exalted at the right hand of God, that he will come again to raise all the dead, and sit in judgment upon them, and that he will then give to every one of us according to our works. "These, I need not tell your lordship, are, properly speak. ing, the only great truths of religion; because they are those which have the greatest influence on our conduct, and to these not only the Church of England, and the Church of Scotland, but even the Church of Rome, gives its assent. If we sufficiently attend to the importance of these great truths, and give ourselves up to the full influence of them, we shall all love as brethren, notwithstanding all lesser differences, and especially such as we are now discussing. "Whether our Lord preached one year or three years, three years or thirty years, we are perfectly agreed with respect to the great object of his preaching, and the obligation we are under to regulate our lives according to it; and from the catalogue of proper Christian virtues we can never exclude humility, benevolence, or candour. We must judge others as we would be judged ourselves, waiting for the final sentence of our great and common Judge, Jesus Christ." Hoping we shall all adopt these truly Christian sentiments, and that nothing that Mr. Madan or Mr. Burn have said, or can have to say, will make you lose sight of them, and induce you to think worse of the principles of any Christians, than reason or candour require, I am, My Friends and Neighbours, Birmingham, June 7, 1790. For the P. S. on Mr. Badcock, annexed to this Letter, see Appendix, No. VI. A project for the universal education of the poor, (see supra, p. 290,) appears to have been entertained by Sir William Petty, who, at the age of 25, published his "Advice to Mr. Samuel Hartlib, for the Advancement of some particular Parts of Learning, 1648.” He proposed "that literary workhouses be erected, where children may be taught to do something for their living, as well as to read and write, and likewise the elements of arithmetic, geometry, and some other useful arts." See Ward's Gresham Professors, 1740, p. 223; Brit. Biog. VI. p. 277. Since the Note Sp. 269, was printed, I have met with the following testimony in favour of King William, addressed to George II., by Edward Elwall: "Thy great predecessor King William, the glorious William, when the priests here, joined by some Dissenters too, solicited him to persecute the Socinians, a people that began to see a few of those monstrous doctrines of Trinity, Transubstantiation, absolute Election and Reprobation, infinite Satisfaction, imputed Righte ousness, making the Most High God, the holy One of Israel, to be a plurality of persons, and making God to have a couple of equals, (and some more such jargon as above,) but his generous soul, that had breathed in a freer air, gave them this truly Christian and courageous answer, That he would not do the priests' drudgery." A Declaration against all the Kings and Temporal Powers under Heaven, Ed. 3, 1734, pp. 16, 17. See Vol. II. p. 418. LETTERS то THE REV. EDWARD BURN, Of St. Mary's Chapel, Birmingham, IN ANSWER TO HIS LETTERS ON THE INFALLIBILITY Of the apoSTOLICAL TESTIMONY CONCERNING THE PERSON OF CHRIST. 2 Cor. vi. 8. By honour and dishonour, by evil report and good report; as deceivers and yet true. Blame not before thou hast examined the truth. Understand first, and then rebuke. Ecclesiasticus xi. 7. PREFACE. I am sensible that to many of my readers an apology for this publication will be necessary. There is, I freely own, something peculiarly irksome and unpleasant in a public controversy with a person residing in the same place with one's self, and especially one with whom we have some degree of acquaintance, and whom we are in the habit of occasionally meeting. On this account I was sorry to hear of Mr. Burn's publishing any thing against me; and though he was so obliging as to send me a copy of his Letters, I forbore to peruse them, till I was informed that they were much read, and made an impression unfavourable to the principles which I have maintained. Publications ascribed to two other clergymen of this town, the profits of the latter of which were to go to the General Infirmary, (though I do not suppose that it has been this that has encouraged the trustees to undertake the new wings of their buildings,) being aware of my natural infirmity, which is a too great promptness to write, I never read at all; because, if I have any contro Since the writing of this Preface there has been a second edition of Mr. Burn's Letters. (P.) |