To Samuel Sparrow

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DLIV. — To Samuel Sparrow, Esq. 111

SIR, February 26, 1772.

I HAVE read with pleasure your ingenious book, which contains many just and noble sentiments, expressed in easy and proper language. I observe only two points in which we do not quite think alike. One of these is expressly treated of in that Tract which reduces us to that clear dilemma: “Either Jesus Christ was God, or he was not an honest man.” The other is largely considered in the book 112 of which I now desire your acceptance. Wishing you all happiness in this life, and in a better, I remain, dear Sir,

Your affectionate servant.

DLV. — To the Same.

DEAR SIR, Near LEEDS, July 2, 1772.

I HAVE delayed answering our favor from time to time, hoping for leisure to answer it at large. But when that leisure will come, I cannot tell; for, in the summer months, I am almost continually in motion. So I will delay no longer, but write a little as I can, though not as I would. I incline to think, that when you engaged in business, though you had no leisure for reading polemical writers, you had leisure to converse with those who ridiculed the doctrines which you till then believed, and perhaps of hearing a Preacher who disbelieved them, and talked largely against human authority, bodies of divinity, systems of doctrine, and compiling of creeds. These declamations would certainly make an impression upon an unexperienced mind; especially when confirmed by frequent descants upon the errors of translators; although I really believe our English translation, with all its faults, is the best translation of the Bible now in the world. When you had heard a good deal of this kind, then was the time to offer you such arguments as the cause afforded; which, to a mind so prepared, would naturally appear as so many demonstrations. And it is no wonder at all, that by lending you a few books, and properly commenting upon them, those new apostles should confirm you in the sentiments which they had so artfully infused.

To the questions which you propose, I answer,

1. I really think, think if an hundred, or an hundred thousand, sincere, honest (I add, humble, modest, self-diffident) men were, with attention and care, to read over the New Testament uninfluenced by any but the Holy Spirit, nine in ten of them, at least, if not every one, would discover that the Son of God was “adorable,” and one God with the Father; and would be immediately led to “honor Him, even as they honored the Father;” which would be gross, undeniable idolatry, unless He and the Father are one.

2. The doctrine of original sin is surely more humbling to man than the opposite: And I know not what honor we can pray to God, if we think man came out of His hands in the condition wherein he is now. I beg of you, Sir, to consider the fact. Give a fair, impartial reading to that account of mankind in their present state, which is contained in the book on Original Sin. It is no play of imagination, but plain, clear fact. We see it with our eyes, and hear it with our ears, daily. Heathens, Turks, Jews, Christians, of every nation, are such men as are there described. Such are the tempers, such the manners, of Lords, gentlemen, clergymen, in England, as well as of tradesmen and the low vulgar. No man in his senses can deny it; and none can account for it, but upon the supposition of original sin.

O Sir, how important a thing is this! Can you refuse to worship Him whom “all the angels of God worship?” But if you do worship one that is not the supreme God, you are an idolater! Commending you and yours to His care,

I am, dear Sir,

Your affectionate servant.

DLVI. — To the Same.

DEAR SIR, WINDMILL-HILL, October 9, 1773.

ON Scripture and common sense I build all my principles. Just so far as it agrees with these, I regard human authority.

God could not command me to worship a creature without contradicting Himself: Therefore, if a voice from heaven bade me honor a creature as I honor the Creator, I should know, This is the voice of Satan, not of God. The Father and the Son are not “two beings,” but “one.” As he is man, the Father is doubtless “greater that the Son;” who, as such, “can do nothing of himself,” and is no more omniscient than omnipresent. And, as man, he might well say, “I ascend to my Father and your Father,” and pray to his Father and his God. He bids his disciples also to pray to him, but never forbids their praying to himself. I take this to be the plain, obvious, easy meaning of our Lord’s words; and the only one wherein they are reconcilable with a hundred passages both of the Old and New Testament. With regard to original sin, (I mean the proneness to evil which is found in every child of man,) you have supposed it in the Essays with which you favored me, almost from the beginning to the end: And you have frequently asserted it; although you could not assert it in plainer terms than the honest, unbiased Heathens have done: Vitiis nemo sine nascitur. 113 Hence, Omnes natura proclives ad libidinem. 114 Hence, Dociles imitandis turpibus et pravis omnes sumus. 115

But I believe nothing can set this point in a more clear and strong light than the tract which I beg you to accept of. 116 Accept, likewise, the best wishes of,

Dear Sir,

Your affectionate servant.

DLVII. — To the Same.

DEAR SIR, December 28, 1773.

UPON the head of authority we are quite agreed. Our guides are Scripture and reason. We agree, too, that Preachers who “relax our obligation to moral virtues, who decry holiness as filthy rags, who teach men that easy, palatable way to heaven, of faith without works,” cannot easily fail of having a multitude of hearers; and that, therefore, it is no wonder if vast numbers crowd Blackfriars church, and the chapel at the Lock. There is also too “just a ground for charging the Preachers both there and at the Tabernacle with grievous want of charity.” For most of them flatly maintain, all who do not believe as they believe, are in a state of damnation; all who do not believe that absolute decree of election, which necessarily infers absolute reprobation.

But none were induced to hear my brother and me, or those connected with us, by any such means as these: Just the reverse. We set out upon two principles:

1. None go to heaven without holiness of heart and life:

2. Whosoever follows after this (whatever his opinions be) is my “brother, and sister, and mother:” And we have not swerved an hair’s breadth from either one or the other of these to this day.

Thus it was, that two young men, without a name, without friends, without either power or fortune, “set out from College with principles totally different from those of the common people,” to oppose all the world, learned and unlearned; to “combat popular prejudices” of every kind. Our first principle directly attacked all the wickedness, our second, all the bigotry, in the world. Thus they attempted a reformation, not of opinions, (feathers, trifles not worth the naming,) but of men’s tempers and lives; of vice in every kind; of everything contrary to justice, mercy, or truth. And for this it was, that they carried their lives in their hands, — that both the great vulgar and the small looked upon them as mad dogs, and