Page images
PDF
EPUB

APPENDIX,

CONTAINING

LETTERS TO THE BISHOPS,

UPON THE SUBJECT OF THE CONTROVERSY WITH

DR. HORSLEY.

BY JOSEPH PRIESTLEY, LL.D.F.R.S.

APPENDIX,

CONTAINING

LETTERS TO THE BISHOPS.

LETTER I.

Of the Nature and Importance of the late Controversy concerning the Doctrine of the Trinity.

MY LORDS,

You have all been spectators of, and I must presume not unconcerned ones, and one of your body has been a principal actor in, one of the most important controversies that has been agitated in this or in any age of the christian church, as it relates to the great object of our common worship. It is no less than whether that God, who in the scriptures is emphatically styled The Father, the Maker of heaven and earth, the only true God, and also the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, be the sole object of our religious addresses; or whether he is to share these divine honours with two other persons, one of them Jesus Christ, called his Son, and the other his Holy Spirit. I have had the honour, as I certainly deem it, to maintain the former; and many of the members of your church, as by law established in this country, together with several who, like myself, dissent from it, have held the latter.

This controversy has now proceeded several years; so that, there being no probability of any thing very considerable being further advanced on either side of

the question, our readers will now be able to form a competent judgement of the merits of the case. Openly or silently, all who have given due attention to the publications on both sides will soon arrange themselves under the Unitarian or Trinitarian standard, not to contend by arms, but, being fully persuaded in their own minds, to adhere firmly to what they think to be the truth. And it may reasonably be expected that, in due time, the practice of all Unitarians will correspond to their professions, and that they will not content themselves with holding a silent opinion, but will confess the truth before men, giving countenance to no other mode of worship than that which they deem to be authorized by scripture and reason, in obedience to God and to conscience, and disregarding all that men may say of them, or do to them.

There are, we all acknowledge, such crimes as blasphemy and idolatry. The former is of an indefinite description, but it is generally ascribed to those who derogate from the honour of the true God. With this you may charge me if I do not pay divine honours to Jesus Christ, provided he be truly God; and with the same I charge you, if by giving divine honours to a creature you detract from the honour that belongs to God only. With idolatry, which is paying divine worship to that which is not God, you cannot charge me, because the being that I worship is also the object of worship with you; and the far greater part of your public devotions are addressed to no other. But the charge will fall with all its weight upon you, if the Father only be God, and you worship two other persons besides him.

You cannot therefore say that this is a matter of no

« PreviousContinue »