BAMPTON LECTURER REPROVED;

BEING

A REPLY

TO THE CALUMNIOUS CHARGES OF

THE REV. C. A. MOYSEY, D.D. ETC.

In his late Bampton Lectures against the Unitarians, and especially
the Editors of the Improved Version;

IN LETTERS TO A FRIEND.

TO WHICH IS ANNEXED

A LETTER,

IN REPLY TO THE CHARGES OF THE VERY REVEREND
DEAN MAGEE,

In Volume II. Part II. of his Dissertations on
Atonement and Sacrifice.

BY THOMAS BELSHAM,

MINISTER OF ESSEX STREET CHAPEL.

* The writers and wranglers in religion fill it with niceties, and dress it up
with notions, which they make necessary and fundamental parts of it, as if there
were no way into the church but through the Academy or Lyceum." LOCKE.

London:

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ADVERTISEMENT.

As it has now become so much the fashion with a certain description of the Clergy, upon all public occasions, to make an attack upon the Unitarians on the one hand, and the Evangelical party on the other, I had long ceased to give myself any concern upon the subject, especially since the Letters which I had the honour to address to the Bishop of London; in which I have advanced what many have thought sufficient for the satisfaction of "men of sound understandings " and honest hearts," in defence of the Unitarians and their cause.

But my attention having been excited to Dr. Moysey's late Bampton Lectures, as concentrating in one focus all the abuse which has lately been, and indeed all that ever can be, vomited forth against the Unitarians, and particularly against the Editors of the Improved Version; and having been informed

by a learned friend and member of the University, that Bampton Lecturers are in high repute at Oxford, and likewise from other quarters that Dr. Moysey was a man of a correct and courteous character in private life, I was induced to comply with the recommendation of some valued friends to animadvert upon the extraordinary language which Dr. Moysey has held concerning the Unitarians, that it may not be supposed that we are silent because we have nothing to say. And I engaged in this undertaking the more willingly, as it afforded me an opportunity of defending the Editors of the Improved Version of the New Testament against the attacks which have been made upon their integrity and honour, which have all been collected and exaggerated in the most unqualified and aggravating language by Dr. Moysey. It is impossible that Dr. Moysey should ever have seen the volume itself, as in this case he could not have used language so unbecoming a gentleman and a scholar, and, I may add, a christian. Indeed it is very plain that he has raked all his information from the dunghill of Dean Magee; and how

far that very reverend dignitary is worthy of credit, will appear to those who take the trouble of reading the Appendix to this Work. It will be strange indeed if others do not take warning from the awkward predicaments into which Bishop Burgess and Dr. Moysey have been betrayed by their too easy confidence in the unguarded assertions of the Dean of Cork.

ESSEX HOUSE, February 3, 1819.