Letters addressed to the Rev. J. Richardson ... on his Vindication of the Athanasian Creed and the primary Visitation Charge of Archdeacon Wrangham. With a supplementary letter, addressed to the Rev. G. S. Faber, M.A, on his sermon [on Is. lx. 1-5] preached before the London Society for...

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LETTERS ADDRESSED TO THE REV. JAMES RICHARDSON. LETTERS ADDRESSED TO THE Rev. JAMES RICHARDSON, M. A. <©ne of tit Vian* Choral oC $orfe fiHimUtv, ON HIS VINDICATION OF THE ATHANASIAN CREED, AND THE PRIMARY VISITATION CHARGE OF ARCHDEACON WRANGHAM. WITH A 4ii|i|ilrmrtttari> Uttttt% ADDRESSED TO THE Rev. G. STANLEY FABER, M. A. On his Sermon preached before the London Society, for promoting Christianity among the Jews. CAPT. THOMAS THRUSH, R. N. ©orit : Printed by Thomas Wilson and Sons, High-Ousegate : SOLD BY K- HUNTER, 72, ST. PAUL'S CHURCH- VAIID, LONDON ; AND BY ALL THE BOOKSELLERS IN THE CITY AND COUNTY OF YORK. 1823. " UsitaRIAnism is a most unlearned system. What it wants in substance, it makes up in confident assertion, in wordy ostentation, and a hazardous display of authorities right or wrong.

They pass for right till they are proved to be wrong." Bp. Burgess. ( As quoted by Archdeacon Wrangham.) " They (Socinians) generally argue matters with that temper and gravity, and with that freedom from passion and transport, which becomes a se rious argument ; and for the most part they reason closely and clearly, with extraordinary guard and caution, -with great dexterity and decency, and yet with smartness and subtlety ; with a very gentle heat and /ac hard words.'' Abp. Tillotson.

Letter I

Reverend Sir, Though I deprecate religious controversy, when carried on in that angry and uncharitable spirit which has generally characterized it, as much as you can do ; and though I may be very ill qualified to engage in it ; yet, as Protestants, Britons ought to remember with gratitude, the noble privileges and substantial blessings they owe to what is denominated controversy. Bishop Home, speaking of it, says, " It is a wholesome exercise for us : it excites attention, and prevents indifference, the enemy, of all others the most to be dreaded." Without controversy, you, if in the ministry, would now have been a Catholic priest ; and I should not have addressed to you the following pages, but at the risk of my liberty, if not of my life. I trust I am not unthankful for so great a blessing as that of living in a free country where, and at a period when, I can, without endangering either my liberty or my life, advocate what I believe to be the cause of true and unadulterated Christianity.

To do this is no less the duty of the layman than of the ecclesiastic : it is the duty of every one who hopes to participate in the blessings promised under the gospel covenant. Considering myself as the cause of the appearance of a pamphlet, lately launched into the world with your name attached to it, entitled, "A Vindication of the Athanasian Creed" and believing that it contains doctrines and sentiments contrary to revealed religion, such as have rendered revelation assail able by Paine and his disciples, I deem it my duty, however unequal I may be to the task, to endeavour by every means in my power, to counteract its evil tendency. I hope the impartial and judicious, who have perused your pamphlet, will not accuse me of dogmatism, for saying that the arguments, or, more properly speaking, the bold and confident assertions contained in your work, are not likely to have much'weiaht with those, who will see with their own eyes, or hear with their own ears ; but a large portion of mankind do not like to take this trouble.

In the discharge of the task I have undertaken, it will be my study to be as brief as the importance of the subject will admit ; and after exposing, or endeavouring to expose, some of the errors I have alluded to, I shall feel no difficulty in making to you the promise I made on a similar occasion, viz. " to retire into the seclusion in which I usually live, and not contend with you for the honour of having the last word." I beg, however, that it may not be inferred from hence, that I shall ever be unwilling, to the best of my abilities, " to give an answer to every one that askcth me a reason of the hope that is in me," much less that I have formed the resolution of not again taking up my pen in defence of what I religiously believe to be " the faith once delivered to the saints." The'apostle Paul said, " woe is me if I preach not the gospel."

However presumptuous it may appear, I think this declaration, in a limited sense at least, applicable to myself, and to all professors of Christianity, at every period. To no one is it permitted to be passive or lukewarm, to be " neither hot nor cold," in the important concerns of religion. Though unable, like you, literally to follow the example of the great apostle ; yet, I regard it as a most sacred and bounden duty, never to shrink from pleading the cause of religious truth, I believe that on this truth depends not only the happiness of my own country, but of the whole world ; — not of the present inhabitants of the world only, but of generations to come; — and not in this world alone, but in the stable mansions of eternity. You observe, (page 110,) that "the Trinitarian and Socinian are the antipodes of each other.

One or the other must be wrong, and not indifferently, but fatally so. The former, if in error, is so from performing, as is alleged, an idolatrous service to that which is not God ; and the other, if in an error, is so from refusing adoration to Him who is ' God blessed for ever."1 " Though I agree with you in this general statement, I trust neither the Trinitarian nor the Socinian, if sincere, can be fatally wrong ; and, with Bishop Watson, I believe, that " if they add to their faith Charity, they will meet in heaven." Language still stronger than this has been used. The Socinian has been taxed with the impious crime of dethroning the Son of God ; and, in return, he has taxed the Trinitarian with the still greater impiety of dethroning Jehovah himself, by placing on his throne two other Gods or Persons, who are said to be co-equal and co-eternal with him.

Though there may be some justice in these remarks, I wish it to be most clearly and explicitly understood, that, notwithstanding, as an Unitarian, I should stand convicted, in my own mind, of the heinous sin of idol-worship, by joining in those prayers, to which I have elsewhere* objected ; yet I presume not to call any man an idolater, or any hard or opprobrious name, who offers up these prayers in the spirit of piety and true devotion. • See Appendix to my Letter to the Archdeacon of Cleveland, page S4. B I can assure you, I enter upon my task with no narrow or Sectarian views, with no feelings of enmity towards you, or any one, but with serious and deep impressions of the importance of my subject. I am as sensible as you can be, of the very limited powers of human reason, and of the overwhelming force of prejudice, even on the best informed and best regulated minds ; bnt this, instead of leading us to acquiesce in the opinions of others, ought to make us more active and alert in cultivating those energies and faculties given us by our wise and benevolent Creator; and particularly in our religious inquiries.

Having done this, I indulge in the cheering hope, that, however feeble, and however ill-directed my endeavours to promote tbe cawse of truth, which must always be the cause of God, they will be approved by the appointed Judge of all men. If in error, I trust, notwithstanding your creed, and your exposition of it, that my error will be a venial one — nay, that my mistaken zeal will be accepted as a proof and tribute of my love and gratitude to that Saviour and Judge, whom, as well as you, I love and venerate; but whom, from this very love and veneration, I dare not adore. Notwithstanding the labour and pains you have taken, I dare not, when I offer up my prayers to the great Jehovah, depart from a plain and positive, and I will add, a delightful command, '' When ye pray, say Our Father." In offering up prayers to tine Son qfGod, my reason tells me, and my conscience warns me, that I am not (indeed cannot be) " serving the Father in spirit and in truth."

Concerning this greatest of great difficulties, I have vainly asked for information, but I find not one word that is satisfactory, either in your pamphlet, or in the Charges of the Venerable Archdeacon of Cleveland. You merely look at the question, and pass by on the other side. In pursuing my patli upon the present occasion, I shall not, I trust, be diverted from my purpose, by the fear of encountering the odium, the obloquy, or the ridicule you have, with an unsparing hand, heaped upon Unitarians, sanctioned by the authority of great names ; nor yet shall I be tempted to follow your example in abusing others. As to the desire of the praise of men, were it worthy of a Christian to try for it, an Unitarian, of all men, has the least chance to obtain this. Your pamphlet alone, without appealing to other authority, will shew that the Unitarian is regarded " as the off-scouring of all things, unto this day."

In your Prefatory Letter, followiftg the example of .multitudes that have preceded you in the same cause, you begin with blackening the characters of those, whose tenets it was your duty, in the first place, to confute. The first accuser of this kind that we read of, after its being practised upon our Lord himself, was the celebrated orator Tertullus. His example has been faithfully followed in ■every period of the Christian history. At the time of the reformation, the reformers were held up to hatred and contempt, in the same way tha$ Saint Paul was, and which Unitarians now experience. The custom has been uniformly adopted against all separatists from all established churehes. The learned Bishop Horsley, with whom you identify yourself, as I shall hereafter have occasion to remark, was a highly-accomplished scholar of this intolerant school ; and I lament to say, that many disciples of it, of high learning and talents, remain unto this day, and the ■evil spirit is not dormant in the second city of the kingdom .at this time.

Instead of coming directly to the point, and, as a Christian minister, answering the questions proposed, you b endeavour (at least such must be the consequence) to render me odious, by associating my opinions with those of men, whom you hold up to public contempt and indignation. Your intentions, however specious, can hardly be mistaken ; but, had you succeeded in establishing the calumnies you have retailed at second or third-hand, it would in no way have promoted your cause. Had you been able to prove that Dr. Priestley, Mr. Lindsey, Mr. Belsham, and Dr. Carpenter were atheists ; that they had been plotting the downfal of the King and Constitution under which we live, and had you shewn that I had been their agent in such a diabolical plot, even this would give no stability to your cause.

The establishing such a fact would indeed cover with infamy, myself, and such base associates ; but this would afford no proof of the truth or falsehood of Unitarianism : that must stand or fall by the Bible, and not by the opinions of individuals, however numerous, and however respectable and learned. At the same time that the Unitarian feels grateful to these men, who have advocated his peculiar opinions, yet, he has a superior cause for gratitude and rejoicing ; he believes that his cause is that of the Most High God, and that it must and will, in his appointed time, prosper. Till then, let the Unitarian bear with patience and composure, the railing accusation that is brought against him. Calumny, he may be assured, must ultimately recoil on the heads of those who propagate it ; and those gratuitous calumnies against a few leading characters among Unitarians, will cast a suspicion on the motives of those who propagate them.

Thinking persons will readily perceive that the abuse of men is a question distinct from the defence of the doctrines of Christianity, and thus will be led to examine and search the Scriptures, and judge for themselves. Your pamphlet is calculated to produce this effect ; but it is at the same time calculated to bring Christianity into discredit among reflecting per sons, by the peculiar doctrines you attach to it. Although I feel perfect confidence that my cause re quires not the aid of much learning ; yet, as a single in dividual, with very slender pretensions to it, and opposed, as I am, to a host of learned men, I cannot view my situa tion with indifference. I am told, that the opinions I advocate, are dangerous to revealed religion, and that they have been again and again — nay, a thousand times, answered and confuted ; the very reverse of which I believe to be the ■case.

I am told, or something very like it, that my defeat is certain, and that the host to whom I am opposed, have nothing to do but pick up the splendid weapons of re nowned heroes in orthodoxy, which bestrew the arena of controversy, and hurl some of the keenest and weightiest of them at the hapless Unitarians. ' In this situation of difficulty, I will endeavour to turn some of the ponderous shafts of Trinitarians against them selves ; and with these, and a few pieces of shivered lances, defend myself as well as I can. Had I, however, nothing better to trust to than my own skill in the management of such weapons, I might justly be taxed with folly and temerity, for engaging in so unequal a contest. The Uni tarian believes that he has a better arsenal to trust to. He thinks, yes, and it is his boast, that he can at any time select " five smooth stones from the brook," such as the following, with which he trusts that he is not only able to defend himself, but ultimately to subdue a host of Athanasian Goliaths.

" When ye pray, say Our father." " Hear, O Israel, the lord our god is one lo.rd. b " This is life eternal, that they may know thee the ONLY TRUE GOD." " For unto us there is but one god, the father." " There is one god, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus." These smooth stones strike your creed in the front — they are already sinking into its forehead ; and the Uni tarian anticipates its fall with feelings of joy, because he identifies the fall of this creed with the happy period, when men " shall no more learn war," and " when the knowledge of the Lord (jehovah) shall cover the earth as the waters cover the seas." This state of things the Uni tarian thinks cannot arrive till after the downfal of your creed; for the prophet says that, "in that day, Jehovah shall be one, and his name erne" whereas your creed asserts that jehovah is three, and his name three.

From the same pure brook whence these smooth stones are taken, the Unitarian can at pleasure produce fifty, or five times fifty more. Trusting in these, though alone and opposed to an host, I feel no dismay, from a confidence that no armour is proof against these stones, and that no shield can turn them aside. Had you been able to turn these texts from their plain, direct, and literal meaning, you would have had no occasion to vilify Dr. Priestley, or any one. " But the children of this world are wiser in their generation, than the children of light." In my next, I shall proceed to the examination of your Prefatory Letter, particularly of those calumnies to which I have alluded. I am, Reverend Sir, Your most obedient servant, THOMAS THRUSH.

Letter II

Reverend Sir, Before I examine the calumnies alluded to in my last, or offer any comments on your pages, allow me to re mark, that it is an established rule in British jurisprudence, to require the very best evidence that can be produced. It is also expected that witnesses should be disinterested, and "not bear witness of themselves." Had you followed this salutary rule, with no object but truth in view, instead of giving publicity, as you have done, (p. 3,) to the garbled accounts of Bishop Horsley, Mr. Madan, and others, you would fairly and plainly have quoted Dr. Priestley's own words; you would have condemned him out of his own mouth. The changes in his creed,* mentioned in this page, • 1 beg leave to lay before the Rev. Vindicator, an extract from the Memoir of his valuable relative, the late W. Richardson.

P. 35, we read, " The first time that these friends (himself and Mr. Milner) met, was in the library of Dr. Drummond, Abp. of York, at Brodsworth, in the summer of 1768, at a public Ordination. In composing their allotted themes, they sat next to one another, at the same table. When they next met, (1773) it was under very different views of the nature and importance of the truths, to which they had subscribed at their Ordination. They had both been gradually led, though vrith great difficulty, to how to the authority of the gospel, and receive its humbling doctrines." Though differing most widely in doctrine, from your truly valuable brother, I have always highly esteemed him for his many Christian and apostolic virtues, for his charity towards those who differed from him in are honourable to him, inasmuch as they proceeded from an honest zeal in the search of religious truth ; and his ■candid avowal of these changes, affords a proof of the ingenuousness of his character, which we shall in vain look for in the writings of his gigantic opponent.

To supply your deficiency, I beg to lay before my readers the passage from Dr. Priestley's letters to Dr. Price, to which you here allude. Endeavouring to account for Dr. Price's continuing an Arian, he observes : " You have read, I doubt not, with as much care and attention, as from the previous state of your mind, could reasonably be expected, all that has been written by Dr. Lardner, by our common friend Mr. Lindsey, and by myself, in support of the Unitarian hypothesis. But I presume, you have often refreshed your mind, and recruited your former opinions, by the writings of Dr. Clarke, Bp. Butler, Mr. Pierce, Mr. Emlyn, and other Arians; and having been early conversant with them, they have made an impression hke that which is sometimes made on marble, before it is concreted into a solid form, and which nothing can afterwards efface.

" On the other hand, I shall not be offended, if you should account for my roving from one opinion to another, opinion, and particularly for the courage and magnanimity with which he embraced and defended opinions, that were then, and still are, unpopular. This •pirit, in less happy times, would have led him to prefer the crown of a martyr to that of a monarch ; a spirit, which every lover of Christ must admire, though few may aspire to it. I esteem your brother for having had the courage to own the change of his opinions, and, for the same reason I esteem Dr. Priestley. Why you should praise the one, and condemn the other, for acting upon the same principle, I have yet to learn. That conduct, which every candid person must allow to be praiseworthy in your brother, cannot surely he culpable in another, merely because he was an Unitarian. by supposing that I have a temper of mind too hostile to every thing that is established; or if you should say, that I am more apt to be satisfied with any thing belonging to myself than with my opinions, and that I am not likely to fix long in any scheme.

" Certain it is, that so far from having much fondness for the opinions that I received from my education, I have gone on changing, though always in one direction, from the time that I began to think for myself, to the present day, and I will not pretend to say when my creed will be fixed. " But, whether we be apt to keep our opinions a longer or a shorter time, they please us so long as we can call them ours ; and in that state of mind, it is natural to give more attention to arguments that make for, than to those that make against us." To this passage, I will add another from the same letters, and which will show that through all his changes, he was neither an atheist nor a deist. " There is not, indeed, any doctrine in the Calvinistic, or Popish system, but what the advocates for them will maintain to have excellent, practical uses.

With what un speakable reverence and devotion do the Catholics eat their Maker ! But is this any reason why we Protestants should embrace their opinions ? "We find sufficient sources of gratitude and devotion in a purer system of Christianity, and so shall we do in passing from Trinitarianism to high Arianism ; from this to your low Arianism, and from this to Socinianism, even of the lowest kind, in which Christ is considered as a mere man, the son of Joseph and Mary, and naturally as fallible and peccable as Moses, or any other prophet. I have myself gone through all these changes, and I think I may assure you, that you have nothing to apprehend from any part of their progress. In every stage of it, you have that consideration, on which the Scriptures always lay the greatest stress, as a motive to gratitude and obedience, viz. the love of God, the Almighty Parent, in giving his Son to die for us.

And whether this Son be man, angel, or of a super-angelic nature, every thing that he has done is to be referred to the love of God, the ori ginal Author of all, and to him all our gratitude and obe dience is ultimately due. " Far from detracting from the merit of Christ, or the value of his example, which I would endeavour to keep in view; but as a veneration for him should be checked, when it would lead us to ascribe to him divine honours, so, in any other respect, should we be careful how we give to him any part of that glory, which his God and Father will not give to another." Surely, there can be nothing criminal in this gradual change from one religious opinion to another. To me it seems the natural way in which men are likely lo relinquish errors of any kind. Your excellent brother took some years in parting with his early opinions.

The same thing may probably be said of Dr. Whitby, and Mr. Robinson of Cambridge, whom you and (what is more wonderful) the Archdeacon of Cleveland have incautiously cited as Trinitarian authorities. The pious Dr. Watts and the venerable and learned Dr. Law, with a host of others, have probably in this gradual way, changed their opinions, and no man, whose very object is truth, can pretend positively to say where his creed may be fixed. Are you so confident in the correctness of your own opinions, as boldly to affirm they will never alter ? If you are, and your stability pro ceeds from subscription, probably the Scribes and Pharisees might have had the same kind of plea for rejecting the novel doctrines and opinions of Christ. But to return to your pamphlet. You go on (p. 4) in the same strain of insidious (but still borrowed) insinuation ; and, without giving either the context, or the occasions on which the expressions were used, you say " Our Lord, he" (Dr. P.) " said, was a man fallible and peccable, &c." As I think it criminal to conceal our religious opinions, allow me, before I go on with the subject, to say that this is my belief ; and, though I may be branded as a God denying apostate, I am neither afraid nor ashamed to avow it.

I beheve this to be the doctrine of the Scriptures, for the following reasons. 1. Because, on the authority of the writer of the epistle to the Hebrews, it is declared to be necessary, that Christ should be made, in all things, like unto his brethren. This he could not have been, if, by nature, infallible and impeccable. He is to be praised, because not being infallible and impeccable, he did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth. 2. Because he was tempted. Had he been naturally infallible and impeccable, his temptation would have been to us a useless and unprofitable exhibition. 3. Because it is on account of his obedience, that God has highly exalted him. (Phil. ii. 8, 9.) Had Christ been, by nature, infallible and impeccable, it would have been out of his power to be disobedient, and, therefore, his obedience could have deserved no reward.

Many reasons, equally cogent, might be advanced to shield Dr. Priestley from the charge of impiety on this score ; I will only mention one as conclusive that he was right. We are told by the apostle, that Christ " was made perfect through suffering." Surely this implies, that he came into the world in a state of imperfection, that he was placed in it, as we are, in a state of probation, and that it was by the exercise of moral discipline, and his own ex ertions, and more particularly by suffering, that he was enabled (by the blessing of that God without whom he could do nothing) to attain such an unparalleled degree of perfection. If you can shew that this view of the Saviour of the world is contrary to Scripture, or that it militates against religion, morals, and social order, it will be your duty, however you may deprecate controversy, to do it.

For my own part, I cannot help believing that this view of the Saviour, has the most powerful tendency to encourage his followers to be imitators of him. Believing him to have been a man in all respects like his brethren, we may hope, by the exercise of moral discipline, and by emulating his example, to arrive (by the blessing of God) at the highest standard of perfection that humanity is capable qf. I think this explanation is consonant with the apostle's meaning, for had he supposed Christ to be, by nature, perfect, the expression of being made perfect through suffering, could not, with any consistency, be applied to him. Notwithstanding the insidious way in which you would take away Dr. Priestley's character, he was assuredly a Christian, and a pious and sincere one. His " Prayers" will prove this, and his " Letters to a Philosophical Unbelievers are considered by many, to afford the strongest arguments that are to be found in this, or in any language, against infi delity, and particularly against the sophisms of Hume, Gibbon, and other deistical writers.

I proceed now with my extract from p. 4. " Our Lord, he" (Dr. Priestley) "said, was a man fallible and peccable*, misled by vulgar prejudices, and apt to misapply the scrip tures of the Old Testament ; had not plenary inspiration, and was in short, inferior to an enlightened man of modern times.'''' On this passage, or rather on these garbled passages, appears the following extraordinary note. " That this man of modern times, was the Doctor himself, will appear from the following note from Dr. Smith's recent publication. Speaking of Jesus being the light of the world, this man of modern times exclaims with impious triumph, ' O thou man of Nazareth, after eighteen centuries, a greater than thou has arisen, who, though an admirer of thy virtues, and a believer in thy mission, has discovered that to follow thee implicitly, would lead him into mistakes ; and who at length proclaimed thine imperfections, detected thine errors, and convicted thee of ignorance and sin.'-f- To this deadly point of impiety," adds Dr. Smith, " could the influence of Unitarianism freeze down the understanding and the heart of a man, so estimable on many accounts,* as Dr. Priestley was." — See the " Scripture Testimony to the Messiah, &c." by John Pye Smith, D.D. p. 67, vol. I. An unguarded reader might be led to consider these " Dr. Waterland, quoted with so much complacency by the Reverend Vin dicator of the Athanasian Creed, says " the divine Logos, with the human nature, assumed the ignorance and other infirmities proper to it."

See his Sermons, p. 271. Can the admirers of Dr. Waterland throw a stone at Dr. Priestley, without striking their own Goliath in the forehead ?— He never could have made such a remark, had he regarded Jesus as infallible and impeccable. ■J- When Dr. Waterland affirms that the divine Logos, with the human nature, assumed the ignorance and other infirmities proper to it, does he not, in substance, affirm the same thing as Dr. Priestley, even in tbe distorted way in which Dr. Priestley's words are here quoted ? words as coming from Dr. Priestley, who never thus ex pressed himself. They are the words of Dr. Pye Smith, put into Dr. Priestley's mouth, but represented, or rather misrepresented, by the Rev. Vindicator, as proceeding im mediately from Dr. Priestley. This conduct is so per fectly disingenuous and insidious, that I hardly know how to express my feelings, without using the kind of language which some Trinitarians, with so httle ceremony, have ap plied to Unitarians.