been repaired, and there is little reason to expect that it will fall, we cannot have it again but must procure another church! Your insisting that I should finish from the press a discussion which was begun in conference, shows that, you are learning by experience. With the help of God, you shall be satisfied here

also.

As you are unwilling to have your flight from the controversy viewed in its real character, you propose new terms of conference. Three of your requisitions are, that I shall prove eternal punishment from the law, the prophets, and the New Testament. Without by any means, admitting that this is impracticable, it may be correctly observed that no man who believes in the inspiration of Scripture will reject any doctrine or precept, merely because it is not revealed by every inspired writer. Abundant testimony from the Old and New Testament was advanced in the debate. Yet, as you arrogate to yourself, though a party, the sole right of judging of my evidence; and as you have already decided that the Old Testament gives no intimation even of a future state, this demand for proof from that quarter was only intended as an insurmountable obstacle to another meeting.

The same general features characterize your fourth demand, requiring proof that the soul can exist separate from the body, before you will admit even the testimony of Moses and the prophets and the apostles, that it does so exist; as if infallible proof of the fact itself did not at once establish the possibility of the fact. You might as well say, that before you will admit scriptural testimony of the existence of God, this must first be proved from reason, independently of revelation. Although sound reason is entirely consistent with revelation, none but an infidel will give it paramount authority.

Our relative standing in this businness may be plainly shown by the following supposed case: A Kentucky duellist, a character far too common, publishes a general challenge, and repeats it often. Suppose that the last edition reads as follows: "He once more respectfully invites and entreats the gentlemen of other states, or some one of them, the more expert the better, to exchange a few shots with him." Suppose that an eastern merchant, not scrupulous about the sixth commandment, is in Lexington on business, and meets him on his own premises. After four rounds, the Kentuckian, faint for the loss of blood, gives a hint to his antagonist, that they cannot probably occupy the ground any longer. They part, but after the invitation is again repeated and accepted, the Kentuckian demurs to the former regulations, and insists upon many new conditions, among which the following are four: 1. The lock of his antagonist's weapon must come from Europe. 2. The stock must come from

Asia. 3. The barrel must come from Africa. 4. No firearms will be admitted in this contest, unless you can first prove to my satisfaction that a man may be killed at the distance of ten steps, by the use of the ramrod alone, independently of powder and lead, and separate from the pistol. On hearing these demands, would not the eastern gentleman conclude that the backwoodsman was not yet recovered from his wounds? He would ask, why were not these conditions considered necessary to the first encounter? Of what importance is it where the weapon was manufactured, or how it is compounded, provided it is a lawful one? And why should it then be laid aside for something else?

Where obtained you right to choose for weapons your antagonist as well as yourself, I cannot conceive. If it belong to either party, it is rather to the one who has accepted, than to the one who gave the challenge. Although analogy would decide that you have forfeited your claim in my favor, I thank God that I neither desire nor need exclusive privileges. They cannot be secured to you nor to me, by the principles of propriety, nor by the usages of theological polemics. You are at perfect liberty to choose your own position, and your own manner of defending it. If you choose, you may again ride into the field on the shoulders of Dr. Priestly, clothed in all the beauties of the improved version, covered from head to foot with such arms and accoutrements as your many Latin versions and Hutter's Polyglott. You may again tell the people how many languages you can read, and how many you cannot read, (alas!) for the want of Lexicons and grammars. While you set yourself off to the best advantage, you shall be at perfect liberty again to ridicule my country, my talents, and my pronunciation. You may also laugh again at my poor little unbound book of notes; while you smilingly shew to the assembly your miniature Testament with its new coat! You may as before, wander from the point whenever you please; and have great latitude, in repetitions, absurdities and sarcasms. You may again try every possible artifice to drive or to decoy me from the question in debate, and when you have failed, you may (as before) spend the other half of your time in complaining that I have never yet come to the point. These things should convince you that I am willing to accept your invitation on liberal principles, while you are afraid to prosecute your own challenge without very unfair advantages.

Your letter informs me moreover that we cannot again meet unless we are on the level;-unless I prove my christianity;unless I am virtually re-ordained; and unless I give you the right hand of fellowship.

Since our debate the duties on orthodoxy appear to be rising.

As this policy is intended to exclude that article from the market, the distinguishing features of your new polemical tariff deserve particular attention.

1. You say, "If I meet a man to discuss religious subjects before the public, I must meet him on the level." Many are at a loss for your meaning. Do you mean that you would more easily find your level among the unfledged disputants of your little debating societies; or among heretical teachers, whom the christian church has never acknowledged in any age? If so, your prudence may be commended, though not your piety. The words immediately following the above quotation seem rather to contradict than explain it. They are the following: "and he is not to have the privilege of assuming that he is a christian, and that his antagonist is an infidel, until he has proved both from theory and practice that such is the fact." To place us upon a level, then, in your view, I must prove myself a christian and you an infidel! This absurdity is not surprising in a man who has labored hard, as you have, to prove that Lazarus in Abraham's bosom, and the rich man in torment, were on a level.

2. Whether you meant the words last quoted as an illustration of the immediately preceding context or not, they require me to produce proof of my christianity in doctrine and practice. But who is to be the judge in this matter? As you are not satisfied with the decisions of many congregations and judicatories of the church, you would probably like, previous to meeting me again, to sit in judgment yourself upon my character. As you have, in common with other infidels, a great esteem for Dr. Priestly's "learning and piety;" and as you have, in your lectures, decidedly expressed this sentiment, and earnestly recommended his "History of the Corruptions of Christianity" to your readers; it is easy to see that you would pronounce me an impious idolater, and no christian. For this we need go no farther than a sermon preached by him, in the year 1796, in the church where our debate took place. For the proof of its doctrines he refers to the history mentioned above. In it he would persuade us that Christ is a mere creature, like Moses, or even the idol Baal. And he expressly declares, that "it is no less idolatry and impiety to worship him," than to worship them! In speaking of the corruptions that were left untouched at the reformation, he declares "that the first and the greatest of these corruptions is the idolatrous worship of Jesus Christ, as God equal to the Father." The Father he declares to be "the sole object of religious worship, and not Christ, any more than Moses, or any other person or being whatever."

It is not surprising that such tion of the Scriptures. In his Christianity, which you have

a man should deny the inspiraHistory of the Corruptions of earnestly" recommended to

your readers, he says, (and you virtually say with him,) that Paul wrote "without any particular inspiration," and that "the Scriptures were written without any particular inspiration." To be approved as a christian in theory, by such men as you and Dr. Priestly, it is necessary, then, that I should deny the divinity and atonement of Christ, and the inspiration of the Scriptures. From such theory it is easy to tell what sort of practice you would demand. This subject may receive some illustration hereafter, from your publications and those of your universalist coadjutor, concerning our debate. As, during that contest, I persisted in quoting your lectures, although you were thoroughly ashamed of them, you must excuse me if I now insist upon your connexion with a stenographer of whom you are as much ashamed. That you have reason to be so shall hereafter be fully proved, if Providence permit.

3. You appear to demand that I shall be ordained by the body of the Presbyterian clergy to the special work of contending with you, or I shall not enjoy this enviable privilege again. You require satisfactory evidence that they consider me as a brother in the faith, and approve of my mode of arguing on religious subjects. As the demand was made only to cover your retreat, the best evidence would not be satisfactory to you. That I had the approbation and the prayers of all the orthodox of all denominations who were present, is well known to yourself: And you well know from my being a member of the last general assembly, that the Presbyterians consider me a brother in the faith. Can you give the evidence which you here demand of me? Do you not know that some universalists of the Winchester stamp discard you as an infidel? Did you not know that others of your own sentiments lamented that you made so lame a defence, and wished that Mr. Mitchell of New York, (except for his irritability,) or Mr. Ballou of Boston, had occupied your place in the controversy? If I were afraid, here is a sine qua non of your own invention, under which to take shelter.

On a former occasion, you made pathetic complaints of a pretended combination of the clergy against you. In your debate, you made what you could of my standing alone; telling the audience that I could not find a ministerial second in the city. Failing in this, you resort now to the old plan, and determine on not moving a step farther in the business until such a combination is formed, in order to increase your importance, and add pungency to your complaints. Whenever you will show satisfactory evidence that you have been appointed as an approved advocate of unitarianism or infidelity, by the University of Cambridge, or Transylvania, or the College of South Carolina, then may you demand of an antagonist, special Presbyterial or synodical credentials, and then shall you have them. But do not ex

pect that our ecclesiastical ocean is going to rise in its majesty "to waft a feather or to drown a fly."

4. You object to meeting a man who has refused to join with you in religious worship; and who has refused to give you his hand in your own desk. During the debate, we were informed by yourself that it was your own desk; which, of course, induced me to close reluctantly when you told us that the house could not probably be procured another day. Yet this was not done without repeated declarations that I could not complete my defence in the time allowed me. I am glad, however, that you have publicly complained of my refusing you my hand in this famous desk of yours, since it has been incorrectly reported by one or more of your followers that I afterwards repented of this act. Immediately after the debate, you requested me to give you my hand as a man, since I could not do it as a christian. As this was only an emphatical way of rejecting your claims to christianity, I complied; and in doing so made an express and repeated denial of your christianity. For refusing to give you my hand, the Apostle John is my precedent, and his disciple, Polycarp, for my subsequent compliance with your request. John rejected your unitatarian ancestor Cerinthus, as "the enemy of God;" and Polycarp acknowledged your relative Marcion, as "the first born of the devil."

But why should the unqualified eulogist of Dr. Priestly be so anxious to join in worship with trinitarians? This very man, "whose learning and piety" you so much admire, and whose writings you so 66 earnestly recommend" to your readers, has declared in your own desk that "no unitarian can conscientiously join in worship with trinitarians, since they have not the same object of worship." He declares that they cannot conscientiously join in the devotions of others, who, believing both Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit to be, each of them, possessed of all divine attributes, as well as the Father, make them, (as to be consistent with themselves they ought to do,) equally the objects of their worship. This unitarians necessarily consider as idolatry, as much as the worship of the Virgin Mary, or any other saints in the Popish calender." Why should you wish to worship with trinitarians, when, with your oracle, the charitable Mr. Ballou, you think that you find them causing their sons and their daughters to pass through the fire to a God which is the vanity of their imaginations?" And recollect, sir, that notwithstanding your evasions during the debate, those lectures of yours, which you are so anxious to preserve from another castigation, will ever fix upon you the same sentiments.

Great as your pretentions are to liberality and chatholicism, you there represent us as the antichristian votaries of a God, with whose character you say that we "associate all the charac