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Untitled Article
especially , for the obliging present of your Disquistions concerning Matter and Spirit ; and of the Appendix , concerning Necessity . I have read them , with great
attention : and , as you condescend to request my opinion of those ingenious pieces , you shall have it with the most transparent unreserve . 1 need not say any thing , as to the article of necessity : because you well know that I have the honour to coincide , almost
entirely , with your own view of that great subject . Permit me , however , to ask , en passant ^ in what part of any printed work of mine , I seem to think that the torments of hell will not be eternal ?
You , yotirself , dear sir , I doubt not , will , on a calm review , be -the first to condemn your own temerity , in having publicly advanced a conjecture totally
unwarranted on my part ; and I am equally disposed to believe , that this will be the last liberty of the kind , which you will venture to take , either with me or with any other man . You must be sensible , that not
a word on , the nature or duration of future punishment , ever passed between you and me , either in writing or in personal converse .
Consequently , you must be entirely unacquainted with my ideas of < lhatawful subject : and , as such , were totally unqualified to advance the insinuation- of which I
have such just reason to complain . cC This publication has not lessened , in the smallest de gree , my respect and esteem for the author . You have a right to think for yourself , and to publish the / esult of your thoughts to the world . 11 my own brother were > W ? a 4 ifferent judgment , as to this &olut , I should bet him , down for
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an enemy to the indefeasible prc rogatives of human nature . I revere and admire real probity , whereever I see it . Artifice , duplicity and disguise , I cannot away with ! Transparency is ^ in my opiaion , the first and the most valuable of all social virtues . Let a man ' s
principles be black as hell , it matters not to me , so he have but integrity to appear exactly what he is . Give me the person , whom I can hold up , as I can a piece of chrystal , and see through him . For
this , among many other excelfencies , I regard and adnyire Dr . Priestley /* Mr . Toplady ' s intimacy with the Doctor , commenced at the
close of the year 1774 . In his first letter to him , dated Dec . 23 d . Air . T . opens with , Condescend to accept the thanks of a person who has not the honour of being
acquainted with you for the plea , sure and improvement , recently received , from a perusal of your spirited animadversions on the three northern Doctors . Allow
me also to thank in an especial manner , the good" providence of God , which has raised up no less a man , than yourself , to contend so ably , for the great doctrine of
necessity : a doctrine , in my idea , not only essential to sound and rational philosophy ; but , ab * stracted from which , I could not , for rny own part , consider Christianity itself , as a defensible system . " From the frankness and
intrepidity of Mr . Toplad / s disposition , I sincerely believe , that had his days been prolonged till the fir £ of youth subsided , l je would have viewed the doctTinesof Christianity through a more rational medium ; perhaps little different from Dr , Priestley hi mselr .
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284 Defence of Mr . Topladp :
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), May 2, 1811, page 284, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2416/page/28/
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