Order are fo determined in their purpose, and fo indefatigable in their labours to fubvert the mild and tolerating religious Establishment of their country, and to abolish thofe fublime and effential Truths which it is the glory of that Establishment to maintain, and its facred Duty to preferve and perpetuate ; fuch a Manual cannot be unfeasonable, as is in any degree calculated to guard the minds of men, "left any one fpoil them through Philofophy, and vain deceit, after the Tradition of Men, after the Rudiments of this World, and not after Christ." *

JOHN GRAHAM.

YORK, April 6th, 1800.

*Cal. ii. 8.

LETTER I.

Mr. D. EATON,

I HAVE perufed with attention the Letters

lately published under your name, and as the fubjects on which they treat are of the utmost importance, I have thought it a duty to make fuch remarks upon them as the word of God feemed to warrant. I entirely approve of your principle, that the Scriptures are our guide to truth; for the very idea of a Revelation from God, calls for an entire and implicit regard and affent on our part.

I cannot, however, agree with you in confidering the holding or rejecting the Doctrines in question, as no more than matter of " mere opinion."* All the Doctrines of the Gofpel are of a practical nature; that is, they call for fome correfpondent affection or conduct in us.

Preface to Narrative, page 6.

A

Between you who deny thefe doctrines, and us who receive them, there can be no compromife. You cannot reject them, if true; we cannot hold them, if falfe, with impunity. One party must be blafphemers, or the other idolaters.

The order in which I fhall confider the con tents of fuch of your letters, as require diftinct notice, fhall be nearly the reverfe of yours.Your plan of demolition is, firit to throw down the fuperftructure, then to dig up the foundations; I fhall firft fhew that the foundation ftandeth fure, and then prove that the fair edifice of faith and holiness, and heavenly hope is fafely erected upon it.

Before I enter upon this my proposed design, there are four things to be premised.

ift. It is neceffary to guard against an improper impreffion which may be made upon the minds of your readers, in the very commencement of your Publication. In the greater part of pages 2. and 3. you labour to fhew, how prone we are to give an implicit confent to "our Father's Creed," and in page 7th of your Preface you remark "that no length of time can fanctify error, nor can any arguments from numbers be conclufive." Granted; and let us

(3)

add, that truth is no less venerable because it has ftood the teft of feventeen centuries; has repelled the attacks of its enemies in every age; has overcome (at a time when unsupported by temporal power or intereft) the strongest prejudices; and has received from time to time the fincere, difinterested teftimony of the greateft, fteadieft, beft of men. Surely it can be no dif grace to the Doctrines you oppofe, fo fupported, to have numbers on their fide. The majority is not always in the wrong; nor does it neceffarily follow that "through blind prejudice, "or interested views they harden their minds "against conviction and scrupulously avoid en"quiry." There are very confiderable numbers to be found in the kingdom, to whom Religion appears to be the first concern of life; who did not once think and believe as they do now in Religion; who are defirous not to be deceived; who have well weighed the matter, and who are firmly fixed, by conviction, in that Faith which you labour to destroy.

2d. It is expedient to adjust the Rule by which the Holy Scriptures are to be interpreted. Now it has been unanimously admitted, I think, by the best Critics, that in all cafes, we muft take the literal fenfe of Scripture, except

*Page 6th of Preface,

when the meaning of a paffage fo taken would be manifeftly abfurd, and repugnant to the analogy of Scripture. Thus when our Lord fays, "I came forth from the Father, and am come into the World; again, I leave the World and go to the Father," I fee no reason why I fhould not underftand him literally: I therefore fo understand him. But when he fays to his Difciples, "I am the Vine, ye are the Branches;" the abfurdity of understanding him literally is felf-evident. Many paffages of the word of God are however figurative, and a queftion of much importance arifes; how are we to interpret fuch paffages, that we may arrive at the precife meaning of the writer? We may either understand too much, or too little by them. The Popish interpretation of Matt. xxvi. 26, in which they understand a figurative speech literally, has evidently given birth to their monftrous doctrine of Tranfubftantiation : and when you fay, that Chrift's declaration to his Disciples, that they as Branches cannot bear fruit, except they abide in him as the Vine, only means the "holinefs of life and usefulness of conduct that his Gospel would produce in them if they did not abandon it," you feem to have deftroyed altogether the force and intention of the figure.

* Page 46