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end wilful perversion ' properly applies- To the verdict of such judges I most willingly appeal , and am , Sir , Yours , &c .
T . BELSHAM . Postscript . —As truth is the only object in view with the writer of the ^ e letters , it is the furthest
from his wish to take an ung <* nc rousadvantageof any inadvertency of language , to charge an opponent with principles which he would disavow . The author
certainly understood the bishop as explicitly approving of whai ] o . gicians call the argumentum ad ignorant tarn 9 or assuming and arguing from principles known to
be false , provided the opponent is too ignorant to detect the untruth : and he strongly expressed the indignation * which he felt , and which he trusts he shall ever feel
against such a mode of reasoning . The following are his lordship ' s words , Tracts , p . 173 . 4 t 1 skall take what you may think a bold step . I shai ! tax the veracity of your witness , — -of this Orison . He alleges of the Hebrew
Christians , in general , that they had ru > t renounced the Mosaic law . The assertion served him for an answer to the invective which Celsus had put in the mouth of a Jew , against the converted Jews , aa deserters of the laws and
customs of their ancestors . The answer tvas not the worse for want * ing truth , if his heathen antagonist was not sufficiently informed tn the true distinctions of Christian sects to detect the falsehood . But in all the time which he spent W Palestine , bad Origen never
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conversed with Hebrew Christians of another sort ?** It never entered into the author ' s conception , and probably never would , that the bisjiop in this
passage is not expressing his own sentiments , but those of Origen . But he finds that some very intelligent and impartial persons see the case in a different light . A correspondent , to whose judgment
he pays great deference , expresses himself in the following language : — 4 C May I suggest to you , that the passage about Origen , which you animadvert upon in your last letter in the Repository , from Dr .
Iiorsley , does not seriously mean to approve of his using a groundless argument , provided his heathen adversary could not detect a fallacy , but that suck a man as Origen would think it not the worse for wanting truth . This makes a material alteration , so far
as Dr . Horsley ' s character is concerned ; and it seems to me to be the only sense the words will bear . " The reader having the passage before him , will judge which of the two senses is most natural and
obvious . The express / on is , at least , ambiguous : and it would have been very easy for the learned prelate to have fixed the sense by inserting the words , in Origen ^ s estimation , or some equivalent
phrase . Considering therefore the ambiguity of the phraseoiogy , the author hopes that he shall be acquitted of the charge of intentional misrepresentation . Many will , no doubt , understand the expressions in the same sense with the author ' s
correspondent * And the author himself is willing to believe that he has misconceived the bi&kop's
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Mr . Behham ' s Reply to the Rev . H . Hbrsley . 45 $
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), July 2, 1813, page 453, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2430/page/29/
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