will then close thus,-a Gibbon, a Priestley, or a Horsley.

For my own part, I cannot say that I much dislike my situation in the light in which I view the different characters; since I find myself placed between an unbeliever on the one hand, and a high churchman on the other. Medio tutissimus ibis.

I am, &c.

LETTER XVIII.

Of the Charge of wilful Misrepresentation, &c.

REV. SIR,

As both yourself and your great and good ally, Mr. Badcock, have employed so much of your respective publications on the subject of perversions, wilful misrepresentations, ar fice, management, &c. &c. &c. (for you are at no loss for words or phrases of this import) it may not be improper to give you one short letter on that subject.

I was willing to hope that, in this second publica tion, you would have observed the rules of decency and of probability in your charges against me, and that you might have expressed some little concern for your former violations of them. But I am sorry to find, that, instead of retracting any thing, you have considerably added to your offences of this kind. You had before charged me with knowingly misquoting the English translation of the Bible, when, in fact, I should not have gained any thing by it. You now talk, p. 5, my designedly omitting a significant adjective, as you

of

say,

in a quotation from Athanasius, when I neither intended to quote nor to translate the passage, but only referred to, and gave the general sense of it; and this, I doubt not, was the true one. Yet upon this you raise loud exclamations concerning truth, candour, consistency, and dealing in sarcasms.

You also think with Mr. Badcock, that I really meant to conceal from the unlearned part of a quotation from Justin Martyr, which I printed in Greek at full length, and this in a public controversy with yourself, of whose vigilance in this respect I could not entertain a doubt. "The entire passage," you say, p. 83, "as long as it appears not in your translation, lay innocently enough in the Greek, at the bottom of your page." But I must have been an ideot indeed in plain English, and something worse than the idiota of Tertullian, as well as the homo nefarius of Bishop Bull, to have attempted a deception in these circumstances.

As, in another place, you sp ak more fully on the subject of my artifice and insincerity, enlarge upon the nature of it, and the degree of its guilt in controversial writings, I shall produce the passage at length, and then give a general answer to it.

"Indeed, Sir," you say, p. 159, "in quoting ancient authors when you have understood the original, which in many instances is not the case, you have too often been guilty of much reserve and management. This appears in some instances in which you cannot pretend that your own inadvertency, or your printer's, hath given occasion to unmerited imputations. I wish that y complaints upon this head had been groundless: but in justice to my own cause I could not suffer unfair quotations to pass undetected. God forbid that

I should draw any conclusion from this unseemly prac tice against the general probity of your character. But you will allow me to lament that men of integrity, in the service of what they think a good end, should indulge themselves so freely as they often do in the use of unjustifiable means. Time was when the practice was openly avowed, and Origen himself was among its defenders. The art which he recommended he scrupled not to employ. I have produced an instance, in which, to silence an adversary, he hath recourse to the wilful and deliberate allegation of a notorious falsehood. You have gone no such length as this. I think you may believe me sincere when I speak respectfully of your worth and integrity, notwithstanding that I find occasion to charge you with some degree of blame, in a sort in which the great character of Origen was more deeply infected. Would to God it had been otherwise. Would to God I could with truth have boasted To these low arts stooped Origen, but my contemporary, my great antagonist, disdains them.' How would it have heightened the pride of victory, could I have found a fair occasion to be thus the herald of my adversary's praise!"

All these, Sir, and such like charges of artful, and therefore highly criminal misrepresentation (for they cannot amount to any thing less notwithstanding all your qualifying clauses,) which you and Mr. Badcock are perpetually urging, are in their own nature too absurd to gain any credit, and therefore can only show that what you want in argument you are willing to make up some other way. I have completely vindicated the character of Origen, which you have endeavoured to blot; and as to myself, you are quite at liberty to think of me just as you please. I am not

conscious of any unfairness whatever in any part of my proceedings, but have a perfect willingness to bring before the public every thing that may enable them to form a true judgement on the subject of this controversy. If I knew of any circumstance favourable to your argument, I would produce it as readily as I should do any thing in favour of my own; and I am as willing to detect my own mistakes as you or any person can be to do it for me. For this I appeal to the tenor of all my writings, and to my general character, which I will venture to say is as fair as yours.

You are pleased, indeed, to balance the account of my wilful misrepresentations, &c. with an allowance for the general probity of my character, p. 160, and a cordial esteem and affection for the virtues of it, which, you say, are great and amiable. What you know of my private character I cannot tell, but I suppose not much; and I shall not attempt to balance your account in the same manner; for really of your private character I know but little, either good or evil; and therefore I presume the former, though the liberties you have taken as a writer are not very favourable to that presumption. But this kind of apology is absurd; and had I thought you or Mr. Badcock capable of the things with which you charge me, I should not say that your virtues were either great or amiable."

66

By way of softening those charges, which materially affect my moral character, you sometimes (though it makes a poor compensation for defects of a moral nature) introduce compliments (whether sincerely or ironically is equally indifferent to me) respecting merit of a philosophical kind. These also, for want of information, I am unable to return. For if I were asked

Y

what improvements in science the world owes to you, I really could not tell; and I think it is very possible, that, in fact, you are as much a stranger to my pursuits as I am to yours. By this I do not mean to insinuate that you have no merit as a mathematician, to which you make high pretensions; but though for some years I applied pretty closely to the study of pure mathematics, and was thought to have made some proficiency in them, it was when I had not the means of employing my time as I now do, so that I give but little attention to those Whatever may be the case with you, I find that if I particularly cultivate one branch of knowledge, it must be at the expense of others. I have therefore made my choice of the different objects of pursuit, and shall hardly change it now, except, as I get older, to circumscribe my studies still more.

matters.

If any thing would justify a retort of such charges of unfairness, it would be your readiness, upon every slight occasion, to bring them against me. For we do not easily suspect others of what we feel we are incapable of ourselves. But as I am conscious of the utmost fairness in my own conduct, I cannot lightly believe the contrary of others.

As I observed to Mr. Venn, in the first theological controversy in which I engaged, p. 9, "It behoves us carefully to distinguish between a latent insincerity” (the nature and causes of which I there explain)" under the influence of which men deceive themselves, and that direct prevarication, with which those who are engaged in debate are too ready to charge one another, as if their adversaries knowingly concealed or opposed the truth. This is a crime of so heinous a nature, that I should be very unwilling to impute it to