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Discovering Diverse Content Through
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The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Self-
Plumed Bishop Unplumed
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
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Title: The Self-Plumed Bishop Unplumed

Author: Thomas Latham

Release date: October 7, 2018 [eBook #58052]

Language: English

Credits: Transcribed from the [1828] T. Tippell edition by David Price

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SELF-

PLUMED BISHOP UNPLUMED ***
Transcribed from the [1828] T. Tippell edition by David Price, email
[email protected]

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
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