The Self-Plumed Bishop Unplumed / A Reply to the Profound Erudition of the Self-Named Hugh Latimer, in His Doctrine of Endless Punishment Asserted

A REPLY
TO THE
PROFOUND ERUDITION OF THE SELF-NAMED
HUGH LATIMER,
IN HIS
DOCTRINE OF ENDLESS PUNISHMENT ASSERTED,
T. LATHAM,
MINISTER AT BRAMFIELD, SUFFOLK.
“Let us candidly admit where we cannot refute, calmly reply where we cannot admit, and leave anger to the vanquished, and imputation of bad motives to those who are deficient in good argument.” Rev. W. J. Fox. “Illi sæviant in vos, qui nesciunt quo cum labore verum inveniatur, et quam difficile caveantur errores. Illi in vos sæviant, qui nesciunt quam rarum et arduum sit, carnalia phantasmata piæ mentis serenitate superare. Illi in vos sæviant, qui nesciunt quantis gemitibus et suspiriis fiat, ut quantulacunque parte possit intelligi Deus. Postremo, illi in vos sæviant, qui nullo tali errore decepti sunt, quali vos deceptos vident.” St. Augustine.
HALESWORTH: PRINTED AND SOLD BY T. TIPPELL; SOLD ALSO BY MESSRS. TEULON AND FOX, 67, WHITE-CHAPEL.
Price Sixpence.
My tutor next charges me with reiterating my blunders as to the meaning of aionian , which he asserts is “everlasting.” Aion is singular, aionian is its plural, and so must, according to my tutor, mean everlastings, everbeings, eternities. This may be good Greek; but I, “who have got to learn English,” venture to pronounce it no English, but sheer nonsense. But my tutor informs me, “that it is an established canon of criticism, that an author is the best commentator on his own words; and that because in Matt. xxv. 46, the word aionian is connected both with future punishment and future happiness, it must have the same unlimited signification in both cases, and denote equal periods of time.” This is the same weighty argument that good Mr. Dennant, as my tutor styles him, brought forward in his funeral sermon, and for ought I know, may have been borrowed from the same source. But let my tutor try his artillery upon a text in Hab. iii. 6, where the word aionian is in the same manner used to denote the existence of God and the duration of the material hills. Let him here but keep the antithesis unbroken, and maintain that in both cases it must mean equal duration, and then the material hills will be as eternal as God; and thus my tutor, by overcharging his own cannon and firing at random, has not only blown up his own fortifications, but also demolished the strong hold of good Mr. D. with the same explosion.