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ciples or mistaken opinions to an opponent, which he himself disavows; is not so earnest in refuting as to fancy positions never asserted, and to extend its censure to opinions which will perhaps be delivered: Charity is utterly averse to sneering, the most despicable species of ridicule, that most despicable subterfuge of an important objector: Cha-inter rity never supposes that all sense and knowledge are confined to a particular circle, to a district, or to a country: Charity never condemns and embraces principles in the same breath; never professes to confute what it acknowledges to be just, never presumes to bear down an adversary with confident assertions: Charity does not call dissent insolence, or the want of implicit submission a want of common respect." *

This, I cannot help exclaiming in the words of the R. R. Remarker: "this is the solution of a philosopher indeed; clear, simple, manly, rational, and striking conviction in every word, unlike the refined and fantastic nonsense of a writer of paradoxes."+

The esteem, the affection, the reverence which I feel for so profound a scholar, and so honest a man as Dr. Jortin, make me wholly indifferent to the praise and censure of those who vilify without reading his writings, or read them without finding some incentive to study, some proficiency in knowledge, or some improvement in virtue.

*Page 51 of the quarto edition of Dr. Leland's answer. printed at London, 1765.

+ See remarks on Hume, p. 93.

A

LETTER

TO THE

RIGHT REV. DR. MILNER;

OCCASIONED BY SOME PASSAGES CONTAINED IN HIS BOOK,

INTITULED,

"THE END OF RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSY."

The reasons for publishing this posthumous work of Dr. Parr have been stated by the Rev. John Lynes, in his Preface.

It was originally intended for the Gentleman's Magazine; but the work grew too bulky for insertion in that useful repository, and on that account was laid aside, at the time, by the author, who has left behind him a large collection of observations on points of controversy between Catholics and Pro

testants.

A

LETTER TO THE REV. DR. MILNER.

REVEREND AND LEARNED SIR,

I HAVE lately read, with the greatest attention, a very interesting and elaborate work, which bears your celebrated name, and to which you have prefixed this title: "The End of Religious Controversy, in a friendly Correspondence between a religious Society of Protestants and a Roman Catholic Divine, addressed to the Right Reverend Dr. Burgess, Lord Bishop of St. David's, in answer to his Lordship's Protestant Catechism."

The contents of that book have not lessened the high opinion which I had long entertained of your acuteness as a polemic, your various researches as a theologian, and your talent for clear and animated composition. I acknowledge, too, that in my judgment you have been successful in your endeavours to vindicate the members of the Church of Rome from the imputations of impiety, idolatry, and blasphemy, in their worship of glorified saints, and in their adoration of the sacramental elements, which they believe to have been mystically transubstantiated into the body and blood of Christ.

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