A SERIES OF LETTERS, &c. REV. SIR: LETTER I. YOUR Continuation of Letters concerning the Constitution and Order of the Christian Ministry, has sufficiently engaged my attention to enable me to judge of its spirit, its decorum, and its weight of argument. Of its spirit, I cannot say much in commendation. It appears to me to be a spirit of resentment, and of a mind irritated by opposition. Of its decorum, I can say still less. It wants propriety and civility in a striking degree. And as to its weight of argument, it falls, in my judgment, much below your first publication. But general observations are of no material consequence; I shall, therefore, proceed to verify my assertions in a few instances. There is, Sir, I am bold to say, a great want of propriety and civility in your Continuation of Letters. You tell me on more than one occasion, that 'I ought to blush.' Now, Sir, as blushing seldom accompanies a consciousness of integrity and propriety; and as I am not destitute of this consciousness, you must excuse me for not complying with your intimation. In order to justify your censure, you say, that I charge you with 'contemptible cavilling;' with 'contemptible puerility;' with 'misrepresentations gross to excess;' with 'nonsense;' 'palpable nonsense ;' and with your calling episcopacy an 'anti-christian usurpation.' Without running over my two volumes, (for you have not pointed to the pages) I take it for granted that you are perfectly correct. I then ask, Supposing it were possible for you, Sir, to cavil; when you do, what am I to say? What name should I give it? Should I say, the objection is unreasonable? Would this mend the matter? Might you not say, Dr. B. calls me an unreasonable man? When I apply the term 'puerility' to some of your reasonings, would it alter the case, and be more polite to say your argument is weak? If your argument is weak, and your objections cavils, and that to a great degree, is there any thing improper in applying to them the epithet 'contemptible?" If Ï a Page 32 [239, 2d ed.] VOL. II.-1 had said that you are a contemptible man, or that you cavilled, perceiving it to be cavilling; or that you uttered puerilities, knowing them to be such; or that you laid down any position, involving in its consequences nonsense, being at the same time aware that it was nonsense, I should certainly be reprehensible. But when I had so liberally acknowledged your integrity, your good disposition, and your talents, I should really suppose that this, in conscience, is praise enough; and that you would never ascribe to your head, or to your heart, what I ascribe to nothing but arguments, hypotheses, or supposed facts. b But what makes this matter worse, you involve yourself in inconsistency also. You find fault with me for using terms which you deem offensive, when you yourself use terms much more so. You advise your people, to forgive their' (the high-toned Episcopalians) uncharitableness,' and to pity their delusion.' This certainly means, that we are uncharitable and deluded men. Now, Sir, were it put to my choice, whether to be called a caviller, or one who utters puerilities or nonsense, or to be called an uncharitable man, I should prefer the former by many degrees; for that affects only the head, but uncharitableness affects the heart; and I had much rather be called a weak than a bad man. Again in the same page you say, we make claims nearly allied to the doctrines of Popish infallibility.' If this be true, we certainly speak nonsense; for infallibility in a mere creature, deserves no better name. And in your last volume, you explicitly declare Prelacy to be a 'Popish doctrine,' and pronounce those who maintain it, bigots. Was I not then warranted in saying, that you assert episcopacy to be an anti-christian usurpation? Do you not ascribe its origin to Popery? And is not this anti-christian? And have you not conveyed this idea more than once in your Letters? What strange conduct is this! You wish to throw odium on me, for asserting that you consider episcopacy an anti-christian usurpation,' when your words will bear no other sense. Ah, my good Sir! how easy is it to see a mote in a brother's eye, and not perceive the beam in our own! If then I have been indecorous in a few of my expressions, it is very certain that you have been much more so in several of yours. For you have really called us names; but I have not applied any thing reproachful to you, as a man, or a Christian. We are uncharitable bigots; and in return for this, I have acknowledged you to be a man of integrity, and free from any design of misrepresenting things, or of misleading the reader. This appears to me to be very like returning good for evil.• b Letters, p. 19 [10, 2d ed.] d Letters, p. 286, 350. c Continuation, p. 427 481, 2d ed.] e As the following anecdote is directly in point, and may amuse the reader, I take the liberty of presenting it. "Bilibaldus Pirckheimerus, the great friend of Erasmus, in a company where much was said in commendation of him, took notice that a certain Mendicant Monk discovered by his countenance and gestures, that he was greatly dissatisfied with the encomiums that passed; and being hard pushed to declare Another circumstance which comes under the head of decorum, is your charging me with alluding to my own superior scholarship and reading. I could hardly believe my own eyes when I read this. What shadow have I given you for this assertion? You make it in page 384 [454, 2d ed.] after a long quotation from my second volume. I had been offering reasons, to show the moral impossibility of an early change from presbyterianism to episcopacy. Had I not a right to do so? Did not the point in hand require them? You certainly had no right to do any thing more than to show, if you were able, that my reasons were not well founded. But instead of that, you preface your observations. with a declaration, that I affect a superior degree of learning and reading. There is not the least appearance of learning in the quotation; nothing but a few plain observations addressed to the common sense of my readers. What must people think of such conduct? and what apology can you make for such indecorum? Does it come well from a man who is so extremely sensible that he cannot bear to hear the word 'cavil' applied to the most frivolous objections, without expressing displeasure? You, forsooth! may intimate that I am vain and ostentatious of learning, when there is not a shadow to justify it; and you may call me uncharitable, a bigot, and an abettor of Popish doctrine; but not the least hint must be given by me, or any body else, that Dr. Miller can argue weakly, offer idle objections, or say any thing that does not imply profound seuse. Pray, my good Sir, what entitles you to use such lofty language? Is it that you possess such pre-eminent talents, or that you have gained a victory? If these imaginations have raised you above your real standard, I must declare that I pity you. And as I am bound, upon Christian principles, to be charitable, and hope for the best, I will ascribe these occasional swellings of heart to-infirmity; and then I can readily forgive you; for I also have my infirmities. The next thing which I shall mention as coming under the head of decorum, is, your intimation of my want of command over my own temper. You say, 'It is exceedingly to be lamented, that gentlemen (Mr. How and Dr. B.) of their station should indulge in a style so scrupulously banished from all dignified what he had to censure in Erasmus, he said, that this man whom they affected to extol so much, was a notorious eater of fowls; and that he knew it to be true, not from the testimony of others, but of his own eyes. Did Erasmus buy them or steal them? said Pirckheimer. He bought them; answered the Monk; it is the sin of gluttony and it becomes the more heinous, when it is committed, and frequently repeated by churchmen. Perhaps, said Pirckheimer, he eats them on fast days. No, said the Monk; but we ecclesiastics ought to abstain upon all days from such delicacies. Ah, my good father, said Pirckheimer, it is not by eating bread that you have got that huge paunch of yours; and if all the fowls that have gone into it, could lift up their voice at once, and cackle in concert, they would make noise enough to drown the drums and trumpets of an army." The application is easy. CHANDLER'S Appeal further defended, p. 165. f The Doctor is full of pity towards us, as the reader will see in several passages of his Letters. and polished society; that a person so long employed, as one of them has been, in forming the moral principles and character of youth, should discover so little success in the discipline of his own temper.' This is a charge which does not indicate much modesty or decency, and has no little appearance of a design to injure. My temper, it seems, is not well disciplined, because I have applied the terms 'cavil' and 'puerility' to some of your objections and arguments, and, in one instance, (I do not recollect more) the term 'nonsense' to a hypothesis, which evidently implies, in its consequences, a total want of consistency and sense. But your temper, no doubt, is well disciplined, although you use the term 'cavil' more than once," and hold up to your readers Mr. How and myself, as calumniators, as uncharitable, as bigots, as abettors of Popish doctrine. Some of these termsare personally injurious to us, and are therefore calculated to excite a high degree of indignation in our breasts. Yet from your pen they indicate nothing but "the milk of human nature." I, Sir, expected no charge from you of using improper language, not only as yourself had used language much more unfit for polished and dignified society;' but also, as I had in the close of my work, bespoke your candour, and deprecated your displeasure at any improper expression that might have fallen from my pen, during the earnestness of a long controversy. My words are- Although my patience has been severely tried by your manner of quoting authors, by several provoking hints and expressions, and by a management strikingly partial and unfair; yet, I hope that I have not been hurried into any transgression of decorum. I certainly wished, while I spoke plainly, to avoid every thing that would unnecessarily hurt your feelings. That I am faulty in this respect, I am not conscious; but if you, Sir, perceive any thing of the kind, point it out, and it shall be immediately retracted.' After having read this, were you as candid a man as you wish to be thought, you would not have charged me with indecorum, even if it had, in the heat of controversy, occurred in a small degree; especially, when you yourself were not immaculate on this point. I must now settle one or two more accounts with you, before I come to your arguments. You seem to be highly pleased, that I have, in four or five instances, transgressed a rule which I myself had prescribed, It relates to the manner of quoting authors, as will be seen by referring to my first volume, page 58.i When, Sir, you advert to the great number of quotations which I have made from Greek, Latin, and English authors, (the number is about three hundred and thirty) it will not be deemed strange that I should have been guilty of a few omissions; especially when you take into consideration the circumstances in which I wrote my letters, Continuation, p. 35, 83, [241, 271, 2d ed.] h p. 55. [254, 2d ed.] as I have detailed them in the close of the work. My wonder is not, that I have been in a few instances negligent: but that I have not afforded you numerous instances for triumph. But while I acknowledge a trifling negligence in this particular, you, on the contrary, attempt to justify your conduct by a reason which is certainly a curiosity. Your justification shall be produced, after I have examined the instances, on which you ground your triumph. The first instance you produce, is my quotation from Archbishop Usher's Tract on Episcopacy. Here indeed the page is not marked. But when you consider that all Usher says on the origin of episcopacy, is comprised in seventeen duodecimo pages (the rest of the tract being on other points) you certainly would have lost no time worth speaking of, had you begun the tract and read on to the eighth page, where you would have found the quotation. This then comes pretty well within the spirit of my own rule, the design of which is to prevent needless trouble to an opponent. I did not find fault with your neglect in this particular, for the sake of finding fault; but because it was a very serious inconvenience, as it needlessly wasted my time and spirits. For I can assure you, whatever you may think of the matter, that it sometimes cost me an hour, and sometimes more, to find a single quotation. Had not this been the case, I never should have noticed your omissions. But you are now finding fault, either from a captious disposition, or from a spirit of resentment; most probably from the latter. Your next instance is in page 179 of your_Continuation, You observe, that I refer you to Jerome's Catalogue of Ecclesiastical Writers, without pointing to the page, and that the work is interpolated and suspicious.' With respect to the latter particular, I will settle it with you in another place; but as to the former, I would appeal to the candour of our readers, whether, in a catalogue, there is any advantage in referring to the page, when nothing more is necessary than to turn to the initial of a person's naine, and immediately you find the place you are in search of. Had you turned to the letter P, you would have found Polycarp, and, consequently, the words to which you were referred. This then I cannot acknowledge as a violation of my own rule. The third instance of neglect which you note is in page 66 of my second volume. It has a reference to a declaration of Luther's, to which I added a quotation from Melancthon. The authority I give is Dr. Chandler's Appeal defended, p. 239. Here I evidently intended to refer you to that page for both the quotations; for the conclusion of Luther's declaration, and the beginning of Melancthon's, stand upon the same line; so that you could not possibly perceive the one, without, at the same time, perceiving the other. What an instance is this of your [1 Vol. I. p. 217 of this ed.] (k This charge is omitted in the 2d ed.] |