'Do you think, Mr. Turl,' retorted I with indignation, 'that making
scratches, with a bit of steel on a bit of copper, is contributing
more to the public good than the examination of a question of so
much importance?'--'No, Mr. Trevor: but, I repeat, I have examined
the question; and whenever the public good shall make it my duty,
am willing to examine it again. I am not I think so called upon at
present, and I therefore must decline the task. I could wish you were
not to leave me in anger, for I assure you I have an affection for
your genius. But it may now be said to be in a state of ferment: when
it subsides, if I do not mistake, it will brighten, and contribute I
hope to the greatest and best of purposes.
'Upon my honour, Mr. Turl, you are a strange person!'
So saying, I hastily put my manuscript in my pocket and took my
leave: offended with his peremptory refusal, but half appeased by the
something more than compliment with which it was concluded.
This market always failed me; but I had one that was better calculated
for my ware, which was immediately open to me. I hastened to the
bishop, displayed my precious cargo, and did not fail to report
its value. I stated my principal arguments and boldly affirmed, in
conformity with the most approved leaders of our church, that the
articles were to be interpreted in an Arminian sense, and that
only; that is strictly in regard to the Trinitarian controversy,
and liberally in the questions of predestination and grace. Nothing
according to my reasoning could be more plain than that they were
purposely left ambiguous, in these matters, by the compilers;
in favour to men in their public capacity, who I admitted in
their private were treated by them as heretics, blasphemers, and
anti-christs. I allowed no quarter to those who fixed the standard
of orthodoxy a hair's breadth higher or lower than I had done;
and attacked, with a virulence that shewed I was totally blind to
the lameness of my own cause, the socinianizing clergy, who dared
subscribe in defiance of the grossness of their heresy, and the
Calvinists, who had the impudence to understand the articles in the
sense in which their authors wrote them.
Then I had a formidable army of authorities! The fathers: Tertullian,
Chrysostom, Austin, Jerome! The famous high church men: archbishops,
bishops, deans and doctors; from Whitgift to Waterland, from Rogers
to Rutherforth! Them I marshalled in dread array, a host invincible!
The church thundered by my lips! I created myself the organ of her
anathemas, and stood forth her self-elected champion.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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