but vents itself in wilful forgeries, contempt, calumny, and all the overflowings of an enraged malevolence. The Essay and the Defence of it being generally allowed to have come from the same hand, the inde cent heat and obloquy of this latter piece will oblige us to understand all the candid expressions in the former work as things uttered under a mask, and against the course of nature. Where the mind is misled, the spirit is very apt to be embittered: and true charity is the fruit only of true religion. Whence it comes to pass, that if gentleness and moderation are affected by the disturbers of our peace to serve a turn, they are pretty sure to appear in their proper character as soon as they are contradicted. When the wolf assumes the person of the sheep, the likeness is found only in the skin; the voice, and the teeth, and the claws, are just as different as they were before; and if the animal is suspected, and forced upon a scuffle in his own defence, the cloathing is of no farther service.

However this may be, it plainly appears, that the favourers of Arianism are not always candid and charitable therefore I must beg leave to observe, that if any learned gentleman, who is of their opinion, should think so inconsiderable a writer as I am worth his notice, and fairly propose his objections to any

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part of the following work with sense and argument, 1 shall be ready, with God's leave, to give him satisfaction to the best of my abilities, and with seriousness and moderation. But if any writer should unfortunately fix upon the same plan with the author of this Defence, and persuade himself that he can invalidate my arguments by setting me down for an animal, a buzzing insect, or an hard head, I can easily for. give him, but must be excused from making any reply.

When the first edition of this answer was pub lished, it was heavily threatened, and I was assured that some sufficient hand would undertake to write against it; but nothing appeared, except some flourishes of the Bear-garden in a Monthly Review, the production of a set of writers, with whose principles, designs, and calumnies, the public is now so well acquainted, that they will never think the worse of any Christian, because he is reviled and outraged in their publications,

If some may have been prevented either from reading or approving this work, or any other I have published, by the illiberal railings of Reviews and News Papers, the time may come when they will be undeceived: and if not, I have met with so much friendship and favour from men of genius, men of the best learning,

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learning, and highest station, that I am already more than recompensed for all the detractions of infidelity, envy, ignorance, or uncharitableness.

The Defence of the Essay on Spirit, of which I have now been giving an account, is so empty of wit and argument, and withal so domineering in its manner and expression, that the reader may perhaps be discouraged from going through the following sheets, and think it scarcely worth his while to see the book itself confuted. Therefore I beg leave to assure him, that many articles of great importance are brought into consideration, to which I endeavoured to do as much justice as I was able; and there is among the rest a subject of great curiosity, the Trinity of the Heathens, which I have here opened as to its meaning, and illustrated it from prophane authors in a manner not to be met with in any other publication that I know of.

This answer was written at a time when I could not possibly have gone through it, under the disadvantage of my situation upon a country curacy, unless I had been favoured with the use of a well furnished library, belonging to my principal, Sir John Dolben, to whom the first edition was dedicated; a gentleman, whose memory I shall always regard with honour and gratitude, for the benevolence of his nature, his learning,

learning, and accomplishments, and above the rest, his piety and charity: all of which were once so well known, and are now so well remembered, that it is not necessary for me to enlarge upon them in this place.

When a man ventures to become an author early in life, it is very possible that his zeal, on some occasions, should be greater than his experience; and this consideration will, I hope, be of some weight with those who are friends to the church, and are more than pretenders to learning, not to be extreme in remarking the imperfections of the following treatise ; some of which this latter impression has given me an opportunity of removing.

As to those readers, who are content to ground their belief (if I may call it such) on the infallibility of a Clarke, a Sykes, or an Hoadley, &c. I shall be disappointed if I expect that they will either make any candid allowances for me, or venture to give me any of their arguments; and so I leave them to proceed as they have hitherto done: not without beseeching God that he would open their eyes, and bring them back to the ways of truth, righteousness, and peace, for his glory, and the saving of their own souls.

PLUCKLEY, March 7, 1769.