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[Letter of Francis William Newman to Dr. Chapman] 7 PVE. NW, My dear Sir, I learn this morning that Dr. Brencton has kept the WR in the Mechanics Institute of Sheffield by a majority of 10 to 7. The minority is described to me as "mostly clergymen." In the Bradford Subscription Library the clergy would attempt the same, but know themselves powerless. Every such instruction to them is a step forward. I know nothing of Dr Brencton except that he has some practical taste. I always expect a Swedenborgian to be amiable, but to have habits of reasoning unintelligible to me. I do not know positively that he will communicate with you. I return herewith the remarks of my Reviewer, none of which give me any satisfaction. But it is useless (in my opinion) to return to the subject. It is astonishing to me that he persists in assuming that Christianity is the basis on which Theism stands; so that when Christianity (as an authoritative preternatural system) is overthrown, Theism ipso facto falls with it, is swept away, & needs to be reconstructed! (I do not know whether I myself (hastily & imprecisely) used the phrase, that I am underpropping Moral Theism; when I mean that I am engaged in establishing the Theism which is an underprop to Christianity, to Judaism & to Mohammedism, the Monotheistic National Creeds.) If the Reviewer, with his eyes open to the fact, that the belief in a God or Gods preceded Christianity and is all but universal to mankind, has a theory of his own that this belief is not the basis of Christianity but its superstructure, he yet ought not to impute to me so peculiar & novel a theory. He now seems to admit that in the matter of God speaking to man in Conscience, I do but uphold the doctrine of Paul, as indeed it is the doctrine of Plutarch; so that I am "mystical" in good company. I cannot think it fair to throw at me a vague epithet of this kind, when it is not meant that it applies to me more than to Paul and Bishop Butler and Locke and Plutarch; I almost think I might say, to every man who has any spring of religion in him,—every man who would not have been satisfied with practical Atheism if others would say nothing about religion. ("Subjective Christians" with him are in a leaky boat. Paul, it seems, was one of them. What is the tight Christian boat?) His doctrine that he may write as an advocate of the devil seems to be me dangerous even to one who gives his name, pernicious in anonymous writing. It tends to universal scepticism & undermines truthfulness. Of course we may insist that an argument is bad, while we hold the conclusion; or that its premisses are such as we cannot expect antagonists to admit. But when we deal with first principles, or propositions which are proposed as Postulates for practical service, of which no attestation is possible (at least for the majority) any other than the fact that mankind accepts them, then for an anonymous critic to affect unbelief, if he believes them, is surely disingenuous. We want to learn how many thoughtful men will dare to reject certain Axioms or Postulates. Do they or do they not "command respect"? If the Reviewer feels in his own mind that they do, he has no right to swell the apparent number of rejectors by fictitious objection. Sincerely yours,
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