452 
[Dec. 1, 
Reply of Christiams 
tilent to call. This was probably the 
only writ taken out of a superior court, 
in proper person^ not being an attorney, 
for the last two or tliree hundred years. 
I hope, Sir, that the remedy and anti¬ 
dote I have on this occasion recommend¬ 
ed to Alfred, Ilumanitas, and otliers, 
will prevent the proposed establishing 
of an odious society. 
John Jonus, Barrister-at-Law. 
12, Holborn Court, 
Graph InUf Oct. 12, 1811. 
To the E'ditor of the Monthly Magazine. 
SIR, 
^f^HOUGH your correspondent, the 
JL Biographer of Translmm, seems to 
ihink he has completely answered my 
oi>jections, I doubt not many of y >ur 
readers will think differently, and that 
he has laid himself open to further ob¬ 
jections by his reply. These considera¬ 
tions, together with some new reflec¬ 
tions he has thought fit to make, induces 
me to request the insertion of the fol¬ 
lowing remarks. 
1 am not so ignorant of tlie rules of 
biographic writing, as to suppose it need¬ 
less, in sketching the life of any person, 
to mention such circumstances as might 
influence his sentiments or character; 
but, when I read tlie Memoirs of Fran- 
sham, I considered the aim of the writer 
to be, to make them the vehicle of an 
attack upon Christianity; and, as a 
Christian, there was nothing out of cha¬ 
racter in me to attempt a defence of it. 
In his vindication of what I next ob¬ 
jected to, all he says amounts to this, 
that, if the literature of infidelity dimi¬ 
nishes the certainty and authority of 
theologians, it does tiirninish them, 
which is indeed a truism. My appeal 
to the New Testament upon the subject 
of persecution is next noticed, and two 
passages are quoted from it, as com¬ 
manding the Christian church to punish 
heresy and apostacy with death, and 
that by fire. The first, (Heb. x. 28, 29,) 
“ He that despised Moses’ law died with¬ 
out mercy under two or three witnesses, 
of how' much sorer punishment, suppose 
ye, shall he he thought worthy, who hath 
trodden under foot the Son of God?’’ See. 
It never struck me that this passage has 
the smallest referetice to any punisli- 
ment to be inflicted by the Ciiristian 
church, and indeed aids sense of it is 
so recondite that none but those who 
have a purpose to serve would ever dis¬ 
cover it. What follows in the next verse 
is a plain proof of the writer’s meaning} 
“ For we know him that hath said, 
vengeance belongeth unto me, I wilt re- 
conripence, saitb the Lord a passage 
which the apostle Paul quotes from the 
Old Testament (also in Rom.xii. 19.) as 
3 reason why Christians should not avenge 
themselves, but leave the punishment of 
their enemies to God. “ And again the 
Lord shall judge his people;” to which 
he immediately adds, (verse 31,) “It is 
a fearful thing to fail into the hands of 
the living God;” which is distinguished 
in Scripture from falling into the hands 
or under the punishment of man. In¬ 
deed, had IMr. Fransliatn opened the 
New Testament, and quoted the first 
passage he had accklentally met with, 
it would have been, in my view, equally 
to his purpose. It might be farther 
asked, whether it would be in the power 
of the church to inflict a niuck sorer 
punishment than stoning a person to 
death? The latter quotation from John, 
XV. 6- (If a man abide not in me, he is 
cast forth as a branch and is withered, 
and men gather them and cast them 
into the fire and they are burned,) 
is, I am satisfied, no more favourable to 
a spirit of persecution than the former. 
It is merely an allusion to the practice 
of using the withered prunings of the 
vine as fuel, which was designed as an 
intimation of the punishment which 
apostates are liable to suffer in a futui s 
state, usually represented in scripture 
under the idea of fire. That Christ did 
nor design to countenance persecution 
in this, or any other, part of his dis¬ 
courses, inav be inferred from the man- 
tier of his reproving tvvo of his disciples^ 
who expressed a wish to call down fire 
from heaven to consume those who would 
not receive their master, Luke ix. 55, 50. 
He turned and rebuked them, and said, 
“ Ye know not what manner of spirit ye 
are of, for the son of man is not come 
to destroy men’s lives, but to save them.” 
Is this the language of persecution ? 
From what sources the ditferent bodies - 
of professing Christians formerly derived 
the doctrine of persecution, if is nothing 
to the present purpose to enquire, if they 
did not derive it from the New Testa¬ 
ment, which I am satisfied they did nut. 
The principles of toleration, wmeh hap¬ 
pily now prevail, do not appear, how¬ 
ever, to be the fruit of scepticism ; since 
those professing Christians who first 
adopted them, in England at least, were 
tlie Independants under the Protector- 
