always represent me, naturally vain) be too vain of being the instrument of your your further exaltation. Report says, that one of the wisest of your Lordship's bench generally recommends silence with respect to such writers as myself. He himself religiously observes it. Absistamus, ait, nam lux inimica propinquat. VIRGIL. In all events, whether prudence should dictate that it is a time to speak, or a time to be silent, my motions will, with all just deference, be governed by those of your Lordship; being at all times, and with all due respect, My Lord, Your Lordship's most obedient, humble servant, 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 |