itself, and the main one to which a reply to Mr. Fuller's work need to be directed."

Now, reader, what would you have expected that one point to be? The title prefixed to his Letters, recollect is this; The practical Efficacy of the Unitarian Doctrine considered. Would you not have supposed, that the Doctor was going to offer evidence in favour of the practical efficacy of modern Unitarianism? From the title of his book, could you have expected any other than an exhibition of the most forcible arguments in favour of the holy tendency of his principles, together with a number of undoubted facts in which their efficacy has appeared, sufficient, at least, to confront the evidence alleged on the other side? How great then must be your disappointment, to find him employed in " producing evidence in support of his opinion, from passages of scripture;" and in proving what nobody calls in question, that the preaching of the apostle was productive of great moral effects?

Dr. Toulmin, it should seem, can find no such fruits of Socinian doctrines as will support an appeal, and therefore is under the necessity of going seventeen hundred years back, in search of examples. But are these examples in point: Were the principles of Christians, in the apostolic age, the same as those of Socinians? With what face can Dr. Toulmin take it for granted that they were, or even go about to prove it, as a medium of establishing the practical efficacy of modern Unitarianism?

When the grand end of a controversy is to determine a principle, a writer who assumes that principle as a medium of proof, is guilty of begging the question: and, if in order to escape the public censure, he endeavour to give evidence of this principle, from some other source of argument than that which he professes to answer, he is guilty of shifting the ground of the controversy; and by so doing, virtually gives up his cause as indefensible.

This is exactly the case with Dr. Toulmin. The Doctrine of the apostles is allowed, on both sides, to have produced great moral effects. The object of the controversy was to ascertain what that doctrine was. The medium of proof which I had adopted, and to which Dr. Toulmin, if he pretended to write an answer to me, ought to have confined himself, was the effects which it produced.

I attempted to prove that the apostolic and Calvinistic doctrines are nearly similar, from the similarity of their effects; and, that the apostolic and Socinian doctrines are dissimilar, from the dissimilarity of their effects. To have answered this reasoning, Dr. Toulmin should have proved, either that the effects of the Calvinistic doctrine are not similar to those which attended the doctrine of the apostles, and that the effects of the Socinian doctrine are so ; or else, that a similarity of effects is not a proper ground from which to infer a similarity in the nature of the doctrines. His attempting to prove the practical efficacy of the Unitarian doctrine, by assuming that the apostles were Unitarians, in his sense of the term, is nothing better than begging the question; and his endeavouring to screen himself from this reproach; by labouring to prove the point in dispute from a review of the Acts of the Apostles, let his reasonings be ever so just, is foreign from the purpose: it is shifting the ground of the argument: it is declining to meet the inquiry on the ground of moral tendency, and substituting in its place, observations on the meaning of scripture testimony: which to all intents and purposes, is relinquishing the practical efficacy of modern Unitarianism, as indefensible. The plain language of his performance is this: There are no examples to be found of any considerable moral influence which the Unitarian doctrine has had upon the hearts and lives of men of late ages; and, therefore, I have had recourse to the preaching of the Apostles, and have endeavoured to prove, that they were Unitarians.

If Dr. Toulmin thought the moral tendency of a doctrine an improper medium of proof, why did he not professedly decline it? Why did he not acknowledge, that Dr. Priestley was wrong in challenging an inquiry on such a ground? And why did he entitle his performance, The practical Efficacy of the Unitarian Doctrine? This piece does not answer to its title it ought rather, to have been called, An Inquiry into the Doctrines which the Primitive Preachers delivered, by a Review of the Acts of the Apostles. The practical efficacy of either doctrine makes no part of his argument, and occupies scarcely any place in his performance, except the title page; and there is reason to think, it would not have been

there, but for the sake of its wearing the appearance of an answer to the piece against which it is written.

it

I am not obliged by the laws of controversy to follow Dr. Toulmin in his review of the history of the Acts of the Apostles; nor is my intention to be diverted from the subject by the manœuvres of any opponent. The only notice I shall take of this part of his performance will be in the form of an Appendix, as being a subject beside the question; and that, merely to show, as a thing by the bye, that, even upon his own ground, his cause is indefensible.

An anonymous writer, in the Analytical Review, discovers a similar inclination with that of Dr. Toulmin, to shift the ground of the controversy; but with this difference: the Reviewer openly awows his dislike of the medium of proof which I have adopted; calling it " "a fallacious test," and recommending to all parties, "instead of asking, by whom any system is professed, to confine themselves to the single inquiry, by what evidence it is supported: whereas Dr. Toulmin, though he discovers the same dislike to the ground of argument on which I have proceeded, yet has not the ingenuousness to acknowledge it, but pretends to reason upon the practical efficacy of his principles, while, in fact, he has utterly relinquished it, and endeavoured to establish his system upon another ground.

The writer above-mentioned, having quoted the concluding paragraph of my Letters, calls it " an unfounded and presumptuous sentence, pronounced upon the hearts of those who adopt Socinian principles," and insinuates, that I must have written in a bad spirit. Before I have finished these pages, I shall have occasion to defend the passage referred to, more particularly. At present, I only observe, that, taken in its connexion, it amounts to no more than this, That, if Socinianism be an immoral system, immoral dispositions are the avenues which lead to it: and it is possible, that this writer, notwithstanding what he has said under cover, might be ashamed to come forward, and, in a publication to which he should prefix his name, avow his denial of this proposition.

This Reviewer wishes to have it thought, that the moral effects

*Vol. XVII, pp. 183, 184.

produced by a doctrine form no part of the evidence by which it is supported; that is to say, he wishes to shift this ground of argument, as unsuitable to his purpose. If the effects of a doctrine upon the hearts and lives of men be no proper ground of argument, why are we directed by our Lord to judge of false teachers by their fruits? and why were not the same observations made, while Socinians were throwing out their accusations of immorality against the Calvinists? Writers may rave like furies against them, and be applauded by Socinian Reviewers. But a single attempt to repel these shafts of calumny, and to prove, from facts which no one has yet undertaken to dispute, that immorality attaches to the other side, quite alters the nature of things: lo, then, the ground of argument is unfair, and the writer must be a man of a bad spirit!

About forty years ago, the Socinians, and those who veered towards their sentiments in the Church of Scotland, are said to have attacked the Calvinistic system with various kinds of weapons. Amongst others, they abounded in the use of ridicule; so much, indeed, that they seemed disposed to adopt Lord Shaftesbury's maxim, that "Ridicule is the test of truth." At this juncture, Dr. Witherspoon, as it is supposed, published his Ecclesiastical Characteristics; in which he successfully turned their weapon upon themselves. The effect of that performance was very considerable: a dead silence succeeded its publication; none moved the wing, or opened the mouth, or peeped; but they comforted one another, by suggesting, that the author of the Characteristics must be a man of a bad heart!

* See Monthly Review, for July, 1792, on Llewellyn's Tracts, p. 226.

SECTION II.

CONTAINING FURTHER REMARKS ON DR. TOULMIN, WITH REPLIES TO VARIOUS OF HIS ANIMADVERSIONS.

DR. TOULMIN gives us, at the outset of his performance, a short account of the" fundamental principles" of his scheme. These, he tells us, are, "That there is but ONE God, the sole former, supporter, and governor of the universe, the ONLY proper object of religious worship; and that there is but one mediator between God and men, the MAN Christ Jesus, who was commissioned by God to instruct men in their duty, and to reveal the doctrine of a future life."* He afterwards complains, that," instead of applying my arguments against these principles, I have brought forward particular positions, scattered through the works or discourses of several eminent persons, known and able advocates of the Unita rian faith, which have no immediate and direct connexion with the first principles of it." These positions, he observes, "might, or might not, be true; and the truth of the great doctrines of the unity of God and the humanity of Christ remain, in either case, unaffected by it." The unity of God, and the humanity of Christ, then, it seems, are the principles which I ought to have attacked: that is to say, I ought to have attacked principles which I profess to believe, and not those which I profess to disbelieve! Dr. Toulmin seems disposed to be on the safe side. By avoiding a defence of those positions which are quoted from the principal writers of the party, and adopting the words of scripture as the medium by which to express his sentiments, (taking it for granted, as he goes along, that these scripture-expressions are to be understood in his sense of them,) his work becomes very easy, and very pleasant. But thinking people will remark, that, by so doing, he has retired from the field of controversy, and taken