THE SELF-PLUMED BISHOP UNPLUMED.
A REPLY
TO THE
PROFOUND ERUDITION OF THE SELF-NAMED
HUGH LATIMER,
IN HIS
DOCTRINE OF ENDLESS PUNISHMENT ASSERTED,
BY
T. LATHAM,
MINISTER AT BRAMFIELD, SUFFOLK.
“Let us candidly admit where we cannot refute, calmly reply where we cannot admit, and leave anger to the vanquished, and imputation of bad motives to those who are deficient in good argument.” Rev. W. J. Fox.
“Illi sæviant in vos, qui nesciunt quo cum labore verum inveniatur, et quam difficile caveantur errores. Illi in vos sæviant, qui nesciunt quam rarum et arduum sit, carnalia phantasmata piæ mentis serenitate superare. Illi in vos sæviant, qui nesciunt quantis gemitibus et suspiriis fiat, ut quantulacunque parte possit intelligi Deus. Postremo, illi in vos sæviant, qui nullo tali errore decepti sunt, quali vos deceptos vident.” St. Augustine.
HALESWORTH:
PRINTED AND SOLD BY T. TIPPELL;
SOLD ALSO BY MESSRS. TEULON AND FOX, 67, WHITE-CHAPEL.
Price Sixpence.
p. 3REPLY, &c.
In the various tracts that I have presented to the public, as well as at the conclusion of my lectures and appendix, I have earnestly requested any one who deemed himself competent to the task, to refute and expose my errors publicly from the press. W. W. Horne was the first who made an attempt to prop up the tottering cause of orthodoxy, and re-build the Idol Temple; and how much this attempt met the approbation of the orthodox, may be gathered from the fact, that they would not permit his performance to see daylight in these parts!!! The person more immediately concerned to reply to my lectures and appendix, has contented himself, and satisfied his friends, with warning young people to be upon their guard against that bare-faced infidelity that dares to shew its hateful crest in open daylight; and by assuring them in one concise sentence, “that if they are saved it will be for ever and ever, and if they are lost it will be for ever and ever; and if they depend on having been sincere and morally honest, or on repentance and reformation of conduct, (though both he says are necessary), their hopes will prove totally fallacious and groundless, and will deceive their souls in the end, and they must sink into the frightful regions of despair, and become companions of those who must for ever weep, wail, and gnash their teeth, without any diminution of their sufferings or deliverance from them.” This is doing business with dispatch. Yet, I have never imagined, that any one would suppose that a note in a funeral sermon was a proper reply to my book, and therefore I have been waiting in expectation of hearing from some other quarter, so that I am neither surprised nor disappointed at being attacked by some one under the nom de guerre [3] of Hugh Latimer: nor am I at p. 4all surprised that the old bishop’s ghost, which has been conjured up on the occasion, should act so perfectly in esprit de corps, [4a] or so directly contra bonos mores; [4b] for this has ever been the spirit and temper of the whole body, that what they were deficient in truth and sober argument, they have abundantly made up by scurrility and vituperation. But since Hugh Latimer, who stalks forth incognito, [4c] whoever he is in propria persona, [4d] whether English, Irish, Scotch, or Welch, is to me a matter of small importance. I have nothing to do with the man, but with his evangelical matter: yet, I may be curious to ask, why such homo multarum literarum, [4e] as he affects to be, should be ashamed of his own name; especially to such a chef d’œuvre [4f] as his performance appears to be. Probably, in the course of his extensive research into antiquity, he has discovered a striking similarity between the coarse sternness of the old bishop’s spirit and language and his own, and may think himself qualified for such an office; and he may perhaps have learned that as King Harry obtained from the Pope the title of Defender of the Faith, for writing in defence of popery, so Horsley, Magee, and others have been rewarded with mitres for writing against Socinians and Infidels; and, like the supplanter of old, he may wish to obtain the blessing, and rear his mitred front in parliament by wrapping himself in another person’s coat. Yet, blind as we are, we can discover, that although the voice is Jacob’s voice, the hands and the heart are those of Esau. But I shall leave all gens de l’eglise [4g] to scramble for bishoprics and mitres as they please, and attend to the author who styles himself Hugh Latimer, and who deigns to bestow his favors upon me.
In the first instance, he condescends to give me what he deems a severe castigation for my dulness; and, having laid on me forty stripes, save one, he feels some relentings, and kindly proposes to pity my ignorance and become my instructor, (p. 11.) I ought to thank him for his good will; but, before I become his elevé, [4h] I ought to be satisfied that he is p. 5quite competent to the task of a tutor; and, as I have my doubts on this head, (after all his pretensions to be savant, [5a]) this point must be settled entre nous [5b] before we proceed any further. My tutor, as he pretends to be, on page 11 says, “I have yet got to learn English.” Some would have chosen to say, in correct English, that I had yet to learn English; but this was perhaps a lapsus linguæ. [5c] But my soi disant [5d] tutor, without shewing me wherein I am deficient, whether in orthography, etymology, syntax, or prosody, or even without enquiring whether I had learned the English alphabet, begins to treat me, as a judicious tutor ought to treat a pupil, by an attempt to teach me Greek and Latin, although he knew I had “got to learn English.” This surely was doing the thing comme il faut, [5e] and I shall here pay some attention to his learned lectures. In the first place, I am smartly reproved for writing Greek words in English characters—a fault which every author besides me has been guilty of, authors of Dictionaries and Concordances not excepted; but then, while I ought to have known that Greek words cannot be properly expressed in English letters, my tutor says, I should at least have written them in those English letters which would have expressed them properly: thus my modern task-master requires me to make bricks without straw. But I am next reproved for blundering in Greek orthography, because in one word, either I or the printer, have put a u, instead of an o—an unpardonable blunder in me; however it happened, and bonne bouche [5f] for a word catcher. For, as Bentley remarks, “a sophist abhors mediocrity; he must always say the greatest thing, and make a tide and a flood, though it be but a basin of water.” But I have also blundered on the unlucky words aion, aionian, oletheron, and kolassis, and have given them an unfortunate signification—a signification most unfortunate for his system of infinite and endless torment: since, in spite of all his criticisms, the true sense of the terms completely overthrows his blazing creed; at which he rages like a fury, and exhausts all his ample stores of skill in criticism on the original languages; yes, and pities p. 6and deplores my ignorance in these matters. It is not, however, worth my while to waste much time in debating whether he who (is at least capable of consulting a Greek lexicon) is possessed of more profound erudition on such points than I, who have “got to learn English yet;” the point may be satisfactorily settled by determining at once, whether of us has given the true and proper meaning of the words in question. I have said aion and aionian never mean unlimited duration, except when connected with the existence of God, or the future happiness of good men. In every other case they have only a limited signification. Many proofs of this I have produced from the scriptures in my lectures: not one of which has been corrected nor even noticed by my tutor. He asserts, that words are to be always taken in their literal and primary sense, unless there be something in the nature of the subject which requires them to be differently understood. This is first objecting to what I have said and then saying the very same thing himself, and accusing me of blundering, when he has made the very same blunder; but the fact is, I have stated the real truth as to the application of the terms, and he, nolens volens, [6] is compelled to admit the same, which he does twice over (page 9, 10). I had said, the true and primary sense of aion, is age, a limited period. For this I have given the authority of Doctor Doddridge, the Bishop of London, Dr. Hammond, and the Critical Review; (see Lectures, page 18, 19), to which I might add the authority of every person who pretends to be at all acquainted with Greek: yet my tutor, for the sake of exposing my ignorance, as he pretends, will thus expose his own, and fly in the face of all this host, even among the orthodox, who have had sense and honesty enough to admit the true meaning of the terms. He says (page 11) aion, is more expressive of proper eternity than the Bramfield scholar has any conception of, being derived from two words which signify “ever being.” Let us allow him this, and also what he claims before, that words are always to be taken in their literal signification. How will it sound in Matt. xxiv. 3, to read “What shall be the signs of thy coming, and the end of this everbeing.” Rom. xii. 2, “Be not conformed to this everbeing.” 1 Cor. x. 11, p. 7“Upon whom the ends of the everbeing are come.” Eph. ii. 2, “According to the course of this everbeing.” Verse 7, “That in the everbeings to come.” Heb. ix. 26, “But now in the end of the everbeing hath he appeared.” Matt xii. 32, “Shall not be forgiven neither in this everbeing, nor in the everbeing which is to come.” Tit. i. 2, “Before the everbeing begun.” Exod. xv. 18, “From everbeing to everbeing and farther.” Dan. xii. 3, “Through the everbeing and further.” Mich. iv. 5, “Through the everbeing and beyond it.” Thus my learned tutor by his wonderful skill in criticism, may if he please, burlesque the scriptures, and make them speak his ridiculous nonsense and Greek-English gibberish from beginning to end. [7a] Yet after all the rebuffs and blows, the pity and kind instructions which my tutor has bestowed upon me, such is my lamentable dulness, that I cannot yet perceive that aion is expressive of everbeing, eternity, or unlimited duration; and I am still ignorant enough to think, as the Critical Reviewers do, its true meaning is an age or limited period all through the scriptures, without a single exception, and until I am better taught menomen hosper osmen. [7b]
My tutor next charges me with reiterating my blunders as to the meaning of aionian, which he asserts is “everlasting.” Aion is singular, aionian is its plural, and so must, according to my tutor, mean everlastings, everbeings, eternities. This may be good Greek; but I, “who have got to learn English,” venture to pronounce it no English, but sheer nonsense. But my tutor informs me, “that it is an established canon of criticism, that an author is the best commentator on his own words; and that because in Matt. xxv. 46, the word aionian is connected both with future punishment and future happiness, it must have the same unlimited signification in both cases, and denote equal periods of time.” This is the same weighty argument that good Mr. Dennant, as my tutor styles p. 8him, brought forward in his funeral sermon, and for ought I know, may have been borrowed from the same source. But let my tutor try his artillery upon a text in Hab. iii. 6, where the word aionian is in the same manner used to denote the existence of God and the duration of the material hills. Let him here but keep the antithesis unbroken, and maintain that in both cases it must mean equal duration, and then the material hills will be as eternal as God; and thus my tutor, by overcharging his own cannon and firing at random, has not only blown up his own fortifications, but also demolished the strong hold of good Mr. D. with the same explosion.
