ever be caused to be
neglected, or forgotten, by any man, or by the subvertion of any
opinions whatever. The propriety of the publick worship of God stands
independent and without need of support from the peculiar doctrines of
any sect. And the idea that this great duty would be superceded by the
dismission of the New Testament is so utterly groundless and absurd:
that to make it appear so, any man has only to recollect that the
public worship of the Supreme existed before the New Testament was
written or thought of; and to look round the world and see millions of
men worshipping God in houses of prayer, who know nothing about the New
Testament except by report. I regard, sir, the imputation I have spoken
of, as either a gross mistake of the simple, or a cunning and
deliberate calumny of the crafty. I have made this statement and
representation to show, that it does not follow, that in giving up the
New Testament Christians will be deprived of all religion. For in
retaining the Old Testament they would adopt nothing new, and would
retain nothing but what they now acknowledge as containing a divine
revelation; and in giving up the New Testament they would not, as I
think has been shown, give up a jot of what had ever any right to the
name of Scripture.

Whether however, people give up both, or retain one, or both, is their
concern. I have stated what I have merely to show, that in giving up
the New Testament they would not necessarily give up more than a part
of their bibles, or any part of their bible, except that whose
authenticity cannot be proved; nor any more of their faith, than that
part of it which for almost eighteen hundred years has produced
interminable disputes among themselves and misfortunes, and causeless
reproach to others.

"With great regard, and the most respectful esteem, I subscribe myself,
Reverend Sir, Your obliged and humble servant

GEO. BETHUNE ENGLISH.

NOTE

Jerom speaking of the different manner which writers found themselves
obliged to use, in their controversial, and dogmatical writings,
intimates, that in controversy whose end was victory, rather than
truth, it was allowable to employ every artifice which would best serve
to conquer an adversary; in proof of which "Origen, says he, Methodius,
Eusebius, Apollinaris, have written many thousands of lines against
Celsus, and Porphyry: consider with what arguments and what slippery
problems they baffle what was contrived against t