say nothing of my own knowledge; but mathematicians of my acquaintance do not say that it does much credit to either, and that your Notes illustrate no real difficulty.

The depth of your Lordship's knowledge on the subject of this controversy has been sufficiently explored; and what you have published in the form of Sermons*, though at the request of grave bishops, on other subjects of theology, are truly curiosities of the kind, and have contributed to the amusement of such of my friends as have had time to spare for the perusal of them. But as I hope the Public will not be influenced by your mere opinion concerning me or my writings, so neither do I desire that they should be influenced by mine concerning you or yours. Our arguments are before them, and I desire nothing more than a candid attention to them.

I am, &c.

LETTER II.

Of the Charge of Want of Candour in Dr. Priestley.

MY LORD,

PROFESSING, as you somewhere do, to “strike at your adversary without remorse," (and, as I may add, without judgement or discretion,) and perhaps per

* One of these, viz. an Ordination Sermon, has been well animadverted upon by Mr. Wakefield, and another by the anonymous author of A Letter to his Lordship, occasioned by his Sermon on the Principle of Vitality in Man.

ceiving by the impression which your writings have made upon others, that you had indulged your pride and resentment rather more than became a christian, or more than answered your purpose, you seemed willing at least to bring me in as a sharer in your guilt, and charged me with " dividing the clergy into two classes, the ignorant and the insincere." In answer to this charge, I said that I could not pretend to recollect all that I had written, but that I was confident I never meant to say what you ascribed to me; that I had frequently declared the very contrary in the very frankest manner; and that if I had advanced any thing which by a fair construction should amount to the charge, I retracted it, and asked pardon. In a generous mind this kind of reply would have excited some generous sentiment; but it is to mistake the soil to expect any such produce from your Lordship.

After being frequently called upon to cite the passage on which your charge was founded, you now produce one in which I speak of trinitarians in general (but without any particular view to the clergy, many of whom are not trinitarians) as persons who, "if they were ingenuous, would rank with Socinians, believing that there is no proper divinity in Christ besides that of the Father, or else with tritheists, holding three equal and distinct Gods." You also quote two other in one of which I speak of some persons as passages, writing so weakly in defence of the doctrine of the Trinity, that it is barely possible that they should be in earnest; and another in which I suppose that some defenders of the established religion are insincere. But who will say that the whole of any class of men, defenders of an establishment or not, are sincere? Must

complaisance require us to say that there are no bad men in the world, or that any particular class of men is free from them, when truth requires the contrary, and candour allows that there are many who are good?

If what I have said with respect to ingenuousness had been interpreted by the general strain of my writings, the controversial ones not excepted, it would have been ascribed to what I have more than once said of that secret influence of motives, of which the agent himself is not distinctly apprized, and what only a rigorous examination of himself, and a comparison of his conduct with that of other men, can enable him to discover. In this sense many worthy persons are far from being those ingenuous and impartial inquirers after truth that they take themselves to be, not perceiving the real source or tendency of their principles.

As this is a subject to which I wish that more attention were given, I shall take the liberty to make a pretty large quotation from what I advanced concerning it in the very first of my controversial tracts, viz. Considerations on Differences of Opinion among Christians, addressed to Mr. Venn; and I do it the rather, as that pamphlet has now been long out of print, and, having fully answered its purpose, will hardly ever be reprinted. A small part of it was quoted before.

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Very few of the actions of men," p. 41, "have, I believe, one simple cause. We are generally influenced by a variety of motives in whatever we do. It therefore behoves us the more carefully to distinguish the influences to which we are subject, and under which we really act.".

"When persons expressly avow the motives of their

conduct, not to acquiesce in their declarations has the appearance of questioning their veracity, because it is taken for granted that every man must know the principles of his own conduct. But the human mind is so complex a thing, that there is great room for selfdeception, especially in cases where the passions and affections are strong, and when they occasion similar emotions as well as produce similar effects. In this case a by-stander may be a better judge than a man's self. A zeal for our opinions, and a zeal for our party, on the advancement of which our own personal reputation and influence depend, are necessarily connected, and reciprocally promote one another. For the same reason, a dislike of opinions has an affinity with the dislike of those who hold them, as men who are embarked in an interest opposite to ours, and whose credit and authority obstruct our own; and all the emotions of mind that are excited by the same object, how different soever they be originally, by frequent association mix together, so that the parts of that complex feeling which results from their union are no longer distinguishable. When two persons who have had frequent intercourse, have been a long time at variance, and the subjects of their contention have been numerous, can either of them analyse the sudden emotion they will feel in an unexpected meeting?

"We often begin to act from one motive, but, as we proceed, we come insensibly within the influence of others; so that in some cases the habit shall continue, though the original motive should cease to have any influence at all; and yet it may be impossible to say in what part of this progress the influence of one motive ceased, and that of another began; the change

of principle and character having been insensible, and altogether imperceptible.

"The application of this doctrine may be made both by those who are provoked at others for holding opinions which they think damnable, and by those who laugh at them for opinions which they think ridiculous. In many cases, I am satisfied that the pure love of truth is on both sides absorbed in passions of a very different nature. I would overlook every thing in a man who meant nothing but to inform me of any thing that he thought me ignorant of; but they who have that pretence in their mouths only, when it is far from their hearts, though they may deceive themselves as well as others, are by no means entitled to so favourable a reception.

"It behoves us, however, carefully to distinguish between this latent insincerity, 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 opposed, or concealed, the truth. This last is a crime of so heinous a nature, that I should be very unwilling to impute it to any person. whatever. For a man voluntarily to undertake the defence of what he thinks to be error, and knowingly to pervert the scriptures in order to make them favour his purpose, argues the heart to be so totally void of all principle of rectitude; it is such an insult upon the God of truth, and such a contempt of his judgements, that I think human nature could never be so depraved as to be capable of it, and that no situation in human life could supply a sufficient temptation for such conduct. There are such well known instances of the