To Samuel Sparrow Date: NEAR LORDS, July 2, 1772. DEAR SIR, I have delayed answering your favour from time to time, hoping for leisure to answer it at large. But when that leisure will come I cannot tell; for in the summer months I am almost continually in motion. So I will delay no longer, but write a little as I can, though not as I would. I incline to think that when you engaged in business, though you had no leisure for reading polemical writers, you had leisure to converse with those who ridiculed the doctrines which you till then believed, and perhaps of hearing a preacher who disbelieved them, and talked largely against human authority, bodies of divinity, systems of doctrine, and compiling of creeds. These declamations would certainly make an impression upon an unexperienced mind, especially when confirmed by frequent descants upon the errors of translators; although I really believe our English translation, with all its faults, is the best translation of the Bible now in the world. When you had heard a good deal of this kind, then was the time to offer you such arguments as the cause afforded; which, to a mind so prepared, would naturally appear as so many demonstrations. And it is no wonder at all that, by lending you a few books and properly commenting upon them, those new apostles should confirm you in the sentiments which they had so artfully infused. To the questions which you propose, I answer: 1. I really think that if an hundred or an hundred thousand sincere, honest (I add humble, modest, self-diffident) men were with attention and care to read over the New Testament, uninfluenced by any but the Holy Spirit, nine in ten of them at least, if not every one, would discover that the Son of God was 'adorable' and one God with the Father; and would be immediately led to 'honour Him, even as they honoured the Father'; which would be gross, undeniable idolatry, unless He and the Father are one.

2. The doctrine of Original Sin is surely more humbling to man than the opposite; and I know not what honour we can pay to God if we think man came out of His hands in the condition wherein he is now. I beg of you, sir, to consider the fact. Give a fair, impartial reading to that account of mankind in their present state which is contained in the book on Original Sin. It is no play of imagination, but plain, clear fact. We see it with our eyes and hear it with our ears daily. Heathens, Turks, Jews, Christians, of every nation, are such men as are there described. Such are the tempers, such the manners, of lords, gentlemen, clergymen, in England, as well as of tradesmen and the low vulgar. No man in his senses can deny it; and none can account for it but upon the supposition of original sin. O sir, how important a thing is this! Can you refuse to worship Him whom 'all the angels of God worship' But if you do worship one that is not the supreme God, you are an idolater! Commending you and yours to His care, I am, dear sir, Your affectionate servant.