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    MISCELLANEOUS COMMUNICATIONS.

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    Untitled Article

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    Miscellaneous Communications.

    MISCELLANEOUS COMMUNICATIONS .

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    }{ r . Bthhami on Mr . Carpenter ' s Epistle . Sir , Hackney , May 1 , 1811 . How far it may be considered as fair play , for a man to give his unsuspecting neighbour a sly blow and then to run away , crying I will not fi ^ ht . " I leave to be

    decided by the amateurs of an art which I do not profess . In the meantime , permit me to express ray wonder , what" busy , meddling " demon can have prompted my worthy friend , Mr . B . Carpenter , to revive the remembrance of a

    controversy which had long since passed into oblivion . But it seems that tlje unquiet spirit of my worthy friend 9 after long brooding over the subject , could not retire to its final repose , till it had giyen vent to its grief , indignation and surprise , " at the supercilious

    manner in whichhis friend Belsham treats those who £ till maintain the doctrines of the pre-existence and atonement of Christ , after the strong expressions he has made use of in letters to , and

    conversation with , the said B . C . in defence of these doctrines . " Now , sir , as I have had no intercourse with my worth y friend , directly or indirectly , by conversation or correspondence , for some years , and as it is

    <» so some years since I have published any thing upon the subject to which he alludes , till , since the date of his Valedictory Epfttle , 1 confess that I am completely at a loss to know to what circumstance

    toy friend refers ; and to his broad and general charge , I can only take refuge in the general plea of , ^ ot Guilty . And , till my friend nn forward some specific facts

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    to establish his not very candid insinuations , of my ' thinking ill , and speaking ill , and acting ill , like the great man now no more , respecting those who were once my coadjutors , '' I shall content myself with the security which I feel under the impenetrable shield of a good conscience .

    I have never denied that I was once a serious and firm believer in the pre-existence and atonement of Christ . And had I continued in the connection , in which I had the most intimate intercourse with

    ifiy worthy friend , I should probably have remairied to this day as firm a believer as himself But the goodness of divine providence placed me in a situation , in which light , very unexpectedly , forced its way into my mind , and I have stated , in the Preface to my Calm Inquiry into the Person of Christ , lately published , with how much difficulty and reluctance I was brought off from the errors and prejudices of education * And , so far from holding in contempt , the understandings or characters of those who still remain attached

    to the same errors , I have taken some pains in my Discourse upon the Death of the Duke of Grafton , published since the Inquiry , to account for the common , but wonderful fact , that many persons of the most cultivated understandings and the best characters , with the New Testament in their hands .

    should still adhere , with the greatest sincerity and ardour to doctrines which are most obviously repugnant to it . , - I shall not pursue my runaway friend with replies to arguments

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    C 2 <> 9 )

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), May 2, 1811, page 269, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2416/page/13/