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.”
* * * * *