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they are pot easy to answer on yQur hypothesis , but such as you had rather not meet ?* ' I will illustrate the justness of my remark , and the pertinency of Mr * W * s . observations upon it by the following case . I maintain that drunkenness is a sin against God ; an opponent replies you are
mistaken , it is no such thing , and puts ihis plain question to me . Does not the Divine Being , in the scriptures , command men to get drunk ? Now , I cannot answer this question unexplained , without conceding what I ought not to concede , for the question must be answered " in the
affirmative ; " because it is written , 66 Thus saith Jehovah of hosts , the God of Israel ; drink ye , and be
drunken , and spue , and fall . " Jer . xxv . % J % I object , therefore , to the question in this form unexplained . * What does this prove , " says my opponent , " but that you do not like the question , that
it is not easy to answer it on your hypothesis , but that it issuchasyou h $ d rather not meet ?* ' Mr . W . asks , Was it not a consciousness of this , ( i . e . that the question , Did God ever design the happiness of men ? will scarcely admit of a direct answer but in the
affirmative ) that led you to decline giving it a direct answer ? ' 1 was not called upon to give it a direct answer by -what I undertook ; he had himself already done that , I had nothing to do wiih the question but as connected wiih hi ^
answer , and with him sis having oiven that answer , aid t »» thi * , I have closely attended But , he a ^ ds «> iiwicui of which you have H » \ il % :, a number of rt marks some
[; . which nre perfectly just , but % j all to the purpose ? ' Very
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good ! Mr * W . is to be judge in his own cause , afrel tb protfoutsee a sentehce of condemnation on his opponent , without producing an iota of evidence . Why did he not cite some of those remarks , and shew that they were riot to the
purpose ? Instead of doing itiffe has not throughout his whole let . ter quoted one single sentence from my reasoning in order to shew that it was either inc&ncltU sive , or not to the purpose . " However / ' he says , theyenai bled you to avoid a direct
answer . ' Mr . W . does , indeed , in tftfe same page , 622 , quote the foU lowing question from me , a question put to himself , * Is rtiorSl character , are virtue and vice of God ' s creation ? '' Does Mr . \ V
give a direct answer to this question ? Nothing like it . He airswers it by saying , unsaying , and evasion , * ' I answer , " * says Be ^ 64 they are produced under W government on whom all thin ^ are every moment dependant * ' * Again , ifcI do not say God creaM
or virtue in any proper sense of the word create , for both are the work of man . ' * Does he mean to sa 3 then , that he does create them in some improper sense of the word ? Or that he does not
create them at all ? It is impossible , I believe , to ; find out what he means , by what he has said . After the above short sentence
there is riot , in the subsequent part of Mr W ' s . letter , a single line quoted from my piece that has anj relation lo the four questions and answers . He does ,
however , in the next page , refer to what I have said respecting the description Universalists give of the future punishment of men as
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7 Q % Mr * Mfrsoty , reply to Mr . Wright , on Future Punishmen t
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Dec. 2, 1814, page 760, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2447/page/32/
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