they may be shaken by dissension. In the latter, I suppose, he alludes to some danger from within, and in the former to something from without.

Perhaps, on a nearer view than Mr. Madan has yet had the courage to take, this demon may not appear quite so hideous and frightful a thing as, from a distant view, it ap pears to him. However, I will shew you what this demon really is, and then you may judge for yourselves. The sight shall not cost you much, nor will the exhibition take up much of your time. As to myself, I shall attend you with pleasure, and as I shall go very near it, you will see that it does not actually devour all that come in its way. If you fear being contaminated by it, at first only look at it, and be careful not to touch it. But really you will find this same heresy to be as gentle, clean, and harmless a thing, as a young lamb, and no frightful, contaminating demon at all.

You may safely venture to approach and stroke it. It has neither the fierceness of the tyger, nor the filthiness of the hog, if it was this unclean animal that gave Mr. Madan the idea of its contaminating property. If it was suggested to him by the account of the unclean spirits in the history of our Saviour and the apostles, let him, and let the rest of the clergy, prove their genuine succession from the apostles, by casting them out. According to Mr. Madan, the number of persons possessed is of late much increased, and therefore, if they can" do any thing" (Mark ix. 22) in the business, they should exert themselves, and that soon. As to myself, Mr. Madan, I imagine, will conclude that I have within me not less than a legion of these unclean spirits, cum justo equitatu (he will understand me, and in his next sermon explain it to you). But let him, and his brother exorcists, take care, lest, by proceeding incautiously in this business, the possessed should cry out, as in Acts xix. 15, "Jesus we know, and Paul we know, but who are ye?" and thus some mischief should arise to themselves and their system, in consequence of the attempt.*

• This day I observe Mr. Madan is to publish one final reply to these Letters, including, no doubt, these which he has not yet seen, and those which I have not yet written, as well as the former. As I do not pretend to such a gift of second sight, I must wait till I have an opportunity of seeing his performance; and as I find by his second advertisement, that it is to be a Letter addressed to myself, you may depend upon my reading it, and giving you all the information I can concerning it. Having begun this correspondence, I do not mean to close it very I have been slow to speak, but having long forborne, now that I am urged to it, by Mr. Burn and Mr. Madan, I shall not stop till, as Pope says,

soon.

I've pour'd out all myself, as plain

As downright Shippen, or as old Montaigne. (P.)

LETTER IX.

Of Mr. Madan's Letter to the Author.

MY GENEROUS TOWNSMEN AND NEIGHBOURS,

As I promised you the best account that I could give you of Mr. Madan's Letter to me, and you will presume that before this time I must have perused it, you will naturally expect to know my opinion of it; and I will tell you in a few words. It is a very angry one, intended rather to hurt me, than to instruct you; and after all, as I shall clearly shew you, is nothing to his proper purpose, which was the vindication of himself from the most injurious and unjust aspersions of a large body of worthy men and good citizens.

He was charged with representing the Dissenters as holding principles inimical to government, and therefore, as unfit to be trusted in any place of profit, or power, even at the nomination of the crown itself; and he has neither retracted, nor sufficiently vindicated, his accusation. He has hardly so much as noticed or hinted at those of my arguments in vindication of myself and my brethren, to which it behoved him most of all to have particularly replied; so that he had much better have written nothing at all.

To judge from the tenor of the Letter itself, Mr. Madan's object in it was the same with that of Bishop Horsley and Mr. Burn, viz. to discredit me, and throw an odium upon my character, that you might not think it worth your while to look into any of my writings, or regard any thing that I might say. And that is certainly the shortest way with me, and the most effectual, next to hanging me up, to which Mr. Madan alludes; and collecting and burning all the copies of my publications, which might prove a troublesome, expensive, and uncertain business.

As I have been much used to such charges as Mr. Madan brings against me, and sometimes amuse myself with them; and as they appear to most advantage when brought together, and properly disposed, I have collected the different parts that Mr. Madan has given of his delineation of my character, that you may see at once what kind of person it is that is addressing you, and be upon your guard accordingly. If Mr. Madan had done the same, it would have

In his Note, p. 47. (P.)

better answered his purpose, which was that of deterring you from reading my publications; but being a young writer, he might not be sufficiently aware of the effect of sentiments properly concentrated. Behold then, my friends and neighbours, who it is that, according to Mr. Madan, writes these Letters.

66

I am infected, he says, with a cacoethes scribendi,* or an incurable itch of writing. "Controversy is necessary to my support, if not to my existence"† (and yet I was near forty before I wrote any controversy at all). "I am perpetually immersed and floundering, in the troubled waves of controversy." I deal in "low witticisms."§ I am actuated by a blameable and blind impetuosity."|| Notwithstanding my " artful misrepresentations and virulent invectives," I am "a passionate and disappointed assailant."** I am "an evasive Proteus."+t I deal in unjust invectives and unfounded assertions."‡‡ My "blindness is wilful."§§ My "perversions are artful."||| I am even "skilled in the art of misrepresentation,"¶¶ so that I might be able to teach this art to others. I have recourse to the deliberate misrepresentations*** of an old and subtle polemic, whose only settled principle is that of litigation ;" and to complete the whole, the motive that actuates me is nothing less than "malevolence."‡‡‡ The result of all this is, that my "censure is innocent calumny."§§§ Such is my obstinacy, that I "never acknowledged a single mistake;" and yet he describes me as "an avowed wanderer in points of the first consequence, where uncertainty is at present dreadful, and where error would in future be fatal;"¶¶¶¶ quoting what I have said

* Letter, p. 1. (P.)

+ Ibid. p. 34. (P.)

If there be any thing of a stifling nature in these muddy waters of controversy, it is a miracle that I survive so long as I have done. I fancy Mr. Madan supposes that I have the nature of a fish, or at least that of a frog, or perhaps he would say

$$ Ibid. p. 27. (P.)

Ibid. p. 41. (P.) tt Ibid. p. 17. (P.) Ibid. p. 23. (P.)

¶ Ibid. (P.) It Ibid. p. 37. (P.) ¶¶ Ibid. p. 5. (P.)

Bishop Horsley not only calls me a wilful liar, but also the great Origen, the most eminent Christian in all the early ages, because his account of things does not correspond to his views of them. He says, in a manner as solemn as that which Mr. Madan adopts, to make you believe that the Dissenters in general are rebels and hypocrites, that he would not take either my evidence, or that of Origen, upon our oath. To call their adversaries wilful liars seems, therefore, to be a clerical fashion. But do not you, my good neighbours, imitate your spiritual guides in this. (P.) See supra, pp. 37, 43.

§§§ Ibid. p. 38. (P.)

‡‡‡ Ibid. p. 35. (P.)
Ibid. (P.)

¶¶¶ Ibid. p. 47. In my last part only I acknowledged four errors in the pre ceding, and all who are acquainted with my writings (which Mr. Madan is not

of my frequent change of opinion, and having no fixed creed, in my Letter to Dr. Price.

As Mr. Madan says in his Sermon, that "few will say it was written with an uncharitable and unchristian temper," as well as that what he delivered was from "the settled principles and conviction of his heart,"† he would, no doubt, say the same concerning his account of me in this Letter. You see, therefore, who it is you have to do with, and if you read any farther, it is at your peril. You have fair warning both from Mr. Madan and myself. Well may he say, that I throw out" unhandsome and unnecessary sarcasms against characters at least as respectable as my own, and which I most illiberally introduce into my Letters." For if this picture be a just one, and if I do throw out sarcasms against any person, it must be a character much more respectable than my own. For, being possessed of such powers as he ascribes to me, and actuated by such malevolence, I can be no other than Satan himself. A bishop in Ireland, as I have been credibly informed, very seriously maintained that I was Antichrist, and that my experiments on air were those prodigies that he was to exhibit. But even this is short of the tremendous idea that Mr. Madan exhibits of me.

You will naturally ask what foundation Mr. Madan can have for charges of so serious a nature as these, especially that of wilful misrepresentation and perversion of his meaning. He gives two instances of this, and I will mention them both, that you may judge how so very heavy a charge is supported. When I quoted him as saying, "The Dissenters are under no disability, which can possibly be avoided, consistently with our own security," I added, as thinking it to be his meaning, that of the church, § whereas, it appears that he referred to the state, or the civil government.

well know that no writer has more frankly acknowledged so many. How can I "wander from one opinion to another," with which Mr. Madan himself charges me, without, virtually at least, owning the opinion that I abandon to be an error? The fatal error that Mr. Madan here speaks of must be my disbelief of the doctrine of the Trinity, the necessary consequence of which, according to the Athanasian Creed, is, that I must "without doubt perish everlastingly." But the Scriptures say, that hereafter all will receive according to their works, not their opinions. (P.)

See Vol. XVIII. pp. 414, 491, 492.

+ Sermon, p. 9. This reminds me of what is reported of the old duke of Marlborough, who said, that whatever faults he had, his enemies could not charge him with ambition or avarice. The duchess (who knew him much better than he knew himself) said, she was obliged to bite her lips when she heard him say it. (P.)

Letter, p. 34. (P.) VOL. XIX.

§ Supra, p. 159.

Р

But how did the insecurity to the state arise, but through the church, which he supposed to be connected with it? Now, will this authorize the violent exclamations quoted above? It is not, in fact, any misrepresentation at all; and, certainly, it is far from having the appearance of a wilful one.

The other instance is my inadvertently speaking of the Corporation Act as following the Test Act, whereas it preceded it, when it was of no consequence at all to my argument which of them was the first. But so high an opinion does Mr. Madan affect to have of my knowledge, and so little of my integrity, that he says, "I feel it justly due to your acknowledged learning, to confess, that when I see any blindness in any point of history, I much suspect it to be wilful." This mistake I was soon sensible of, and corrected, as you will see in the third part of these Letters.

Now, the most notorious liar must have some motive for violating truth; and in this case there could not be any at all. Mr. Madan often says, that when I consider what I have written, I shall be ashamed of it; and I hope that he will be ashamed of this. I am very far from supposing him to be so destitute of all moral principle as he makes me to be; but, like many others, he has been misled by popular opinions concerning my principles and character; opinions which, if he would read my writings himself, even my controversial ones, he would find to be void of all foundation.

Mr. Madan charges me with want of respect to himself; when all that I have said by way of disparagement of him, amounts to nothing more than that he is a young man, ignorant of some points of history; and even in this he might perceive I was not serious; meaning only that he had been inattentive to them, and did not properly apply them. I also hinted that his imagination was a little disturbed. But this applies to the whole body of the clergy; and what less can any man, in his sober senses, think of those who really apprehend the safety of the church and state to be in imminent danger from the repeal of the Corporation and Test Acts, which I clearly demonstrated to you, could not do any harm to either? Yet Mr. Madan can say, that this repeal would be" opening the constitution to the interference of the Dissenters, and eventually trusting to their moderation;" as

* This was in the first edition of one Part of these Letters. (P.) ↑ Letter, p. 26. (P.)

Sermon, p. 11. (P.)