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upon

him the office of a monitor, and, if I may be allowed fo to fpeak, of a tutor to you, on the prefent occafion.

He hereby does no more than difcharge the duty which one man owes to another, and I promife myfelf that I fhall have you agreeing in fentiment with me. But whether another perfon, who has condemned him fo highly in this matter, has acted a candid and wife part towards him and you,

we are next to examine.

Of the Undergraduate's letter to Dr.
Priefley.

It was no unpleafing circumftance to obferve in this letter, that Dr. Priestley's addrefs to you had gained fome degree of attention, and was likely to gain more. Such a curious device, fo fpeedily put in execution, without any argument, and merely in the way of drollery, to deter you from looking into his writings, betrayed great apprehenfions left you might be inclined to perufe them; especially when it was by no means clear from the first, that the letter originated with you. For though the writer fome

times paffes himself off tolerably well in that refpect as one of you, his manner of defending the cause he efpoufes, difcovers the ftrong bias and prepoffeffions of an older head too much, to make the deception natural.

It foon began therefore to be whispered about, that under the humble name of undergraduate lay concealed a perfon of eminence in the university, and the rumour foon grew into a very general perfuafion, which no one that I can find calls in queftion, that it was the compofition of no lefs a person than the learned prefident of Magdalen college, and dean of Canterbury; who, by a very venial artifice and anachronism, chofe to make himself pass for one of you, as he formerly had been fuch, the better to answer his purpose. And though the tendency of his work be to shut you up in darkness, and ignorance of a subject of all others the most important, all your lives; yet I conceive him to have written from a pure defign of serving you, and of promoting what he apprehends to be right. For his general character and practice befpeak

him

him a good man, and it appears very particularly from his other publications, that he is not only a fincere believer in, but a worfhiper of Jefus Chrift as God Almighty, and this in an extraordinary manner, beyond many and therefore, not to mention other fubjects of wide difference, he must be greatly hurt with, and to the utmost of his power endeavour to turn you away from writings, whose aim is to prove from scripture, and the teftimony of Chrift himself and his apoftles, and the general perfuafion of chriftians in the earlieft ages, that our Lord was only a most virtuous and excellent creature, the meffenger and prophet of the most high and only true God, a mortal man of the nation of the jews, and family of Abraham and David.

The doctrine embraced, and pleaded for, by Dr. Horne, being not taught in the bible, as has been often fhewn, and will be feen hereafter in this work; yet being drawn in almost with your first breath (of which I may speak from fome experience) from nurses, parents, creeds, catechifms; inculcated daily in prayers, public and pri

vate; bound upon you afterwards by a subscription to articles of faith, framed by ignorant and fallible men, by whofe decifions nevertheless you are to abide and to interpret the fcripture itself by them, fo that all avenues of free inquiry into its meaning are shut up under fuch early impreffions and influence, it must have been with great pains and difficulty that have emancipated themselves, and come at the truth in this point.

any

be

That these fetters which are now in youth comparatively light upon your minds, may be taken off; and particularly, that you may enabled to form fome judgment purely your knees in prayer,

own,

when bend

you

your

whether you are to addrefs yourselves to three eternal, almighty perfons, or to one fuch perfon only; Dr. Priestley directed his first letters to you, at the close of those inscribed to the dean of Canterbury, compofed in a ftrain of good fenfe, piety and benevolence, justly admired; and now again, at the instant I am writing, he has fhewn the weaknefs of the arguments, which the fame worthy perfon under his feigned name of Undergraduate,

Undergraduate, had advanced, in reply to him, and in plea for your remaining under these chains of fubfcription for ever. It will be my talk to acquaint you with the defective accounts, and mifreprefentation of many things, which this your pretended brother-undergraduate's prejudices have led him into, fuch as I do not find noticed by Dr. Priestley.

SECTION II.

Subfcription to the creeds and articles of the church, a grievance long complained of. Archbp. Tillotson's wish concerning Athanafius's creed. Curious hiftory of a contrary temper in the prefent day. Of Mr. Locke's fentiments. Of Dr. Clarke's. Of Mr. Whifton's. The candid difquifitions. The clerical petitioners at the Feathers. Clerical affembly at Tennifon's library. Of Dr. Durell's fentiments. Of Bp. Lowth's.

NOTHING is more difficult than to affume a character that belongs not to us,

and

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