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angels and powers, and of every creature, and especially of the whole race of just men," &c.

You fee then, Sir, how greatly you have been mifled by your speculative theology, by your attention to particular texts, fingle incidents, and imaginary proprieties, without attending to the general tenor of fcripture, the plain directions that are there given for our conduct, and the conftant practice of the apoftles, which fupply the best interpretation of their doctrine. To conclude, as you have done, from the single cafe of Stephen, that all chriftians are authorised to pray to Chrift, is like concluding that all matter has a tendency to go upwards, because a needle will do fo, when a magnet is held over it. When you shall be in the fame circumstances with Stephen, having your mind ftrongly impreffed with a vifion of Chrift fitting at the right-hand of God, you may then, perhaps, be authorised to address yourself to him as he did; but the whole tenor of the fcriptures proves that, otherwise, you have no authority at all for any such practice.

LETTER XV.

Of the Unitarian Principles with respect to Mabometanifm and Infidelity.

RLV. SIR,

WE

JE are not, I hope, to judge of your acquaintance with the opinions of the ancients, (which we have dignified with the name of learning) by the correctness with which you state the opinions of the moderns, even those which you undertake to controvert, and therefore ought to have ftudied. Here, Sir, you certainly have no choice but of the groffeft ignorance, and confequently prefumption, or the most perverse and wilful of all mifreprefentations. Your ignorance of the ftate of the diffenters, of which a fufficient fpecimen has been given, fhews that you are far from being at home even in your own country; but the account you give in your fixteenth letter, of the principles of the unitarians, and the relation they bear to thofe of unbelievers, is fuch as can hardly be accounted for from mere ignorance. I fear it has a worfe origin. I hope I fhall not be thought uncandid; but I cannot put any favourable conftruction upon your infinuations on this fubject.

You

You fay, p. 151. " the whole difference be"tween you and them" (that is, between the unitarians and Mahometans) "feems very inconfiderable. The true muffulman believes "as much, or rather more, of Chrift than the "unitarian requires to be believed; and though "the unitarians have not yet recognized the "divine miffion of Mahomet, there is good ground to think they will not long ftand out. "In unitarian writings of the last century, it is "allowed of Mahomet, that he had no other de

fign than to reftore the belief of the unity "of God. Of his religion, that it was not "meant for a new religion, but for a reftitution "of the true intent of the chriftian.Of the

great prevalence of the Mahometan religion, "that it has been owing not to force and the "sword, but to that one truth contained in the "Alcoran, the unity of God. With these friendly difpofitions towards each other, it should seem "that the Mahometan and unitarian might easily "be brought to agree."

Now all these propofitions which you have laid down as certain facts, are fo highly improbable in themselves, that few perfons, perhaps, will believe that you can be serious in advancing them; and I shall think myself at liberty to treat them as groundless calumnies, till you fhall produce fome authority or evidence for them. For the state of things, as they now are, and which ought to be known to you, gives not the leaft colour

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colour of plausibility to them. If the difference between the unitarians and the Mahometans fo inconfiderable, that there is good ground p think that the unitarians will foon acknowledg the divine miffion of Mahomet, how has it happened that none of them have yet done it, and actually turned muffulmen? I think it is poffible that, notwithstanding the extensive reading of which you give us fo many intimations, I may be as well acquainted with the unitarian writers of the laft age as you can pretend to be; and I have never met with any fuch paffage as you mention; and I think if you could have produced any fuch in fupport of your affertions, you would not have failed to do it.

You may at any time fee what I have faid of the Mahometan religion on feveral occafions, and alfo what other unitarians of the prefent age have advanced concerning it. Do you find in my publications, or theirs, any thing favourable to the pretenfions of Mahomet? And if the tendency of the unitarian principles be to approximate towards thofe of the Mahometans, it might be expected that they would have been nearer to each other now than they were in the laft century. I fhall therefore, unless authorities are produced, confider what you have faid on this subject as another fpecimen of your invention of facts, and of your unparalleled effrontery in publishing them, in order to throw an odium

upon the unitarians.

You might indeed almoft

as well affert that all the unitarians in England are already fo far Mahometans, that, to your certain knowledge, they are actually circumcifed. What refpect, Sir, can be due to the man who has not fcrupled to have recourfe to these calumnies, for they cannot be called by any fofter name, in order to blacken his adverfaries? And what can we think of the caufe that requires to be thus fupported?

Your curious account of " the negociation regularly opened," p. 152, on the part of the English unitarians in the reign of Charles the "Second, with the ambaffador of the emperor of "Morocco," for which you quote Dr. Leflie, was probably an invention of his, fimilar to those of yours in these Letters, and calculated to answer a fimilar purpose. As it is a ftale business, it may be fufficient to give a ftale answer to it, and therefore, without examining into the hiftory of what paffed in the reign of Charles the Second, I shall content myself with copying what Mr. Emlyn said in answer to it, which is as follows:

"As to your rarity of the addrefs to the Mo "rocco ambaffador, I fee not what it amounts to, more than a complaint of the corruption of "the chriftian faith in the article of one God, "which the Mahometans have kept by confent "of all fides. Yet for as much as I can learn nothing from any unitarians of any fuch ad

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"drefs