Rev. Joseph Walton.
P.S. I have reserved three particulars in your "friendly admonition" for the subject of another communication.
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LETTER. III.
From the Same to the Same.
Portsmouth, Jan. 5, 1811.
Rev. Sir,—Having notified you in a postscript of my letter of Dec. 11th, that I had reserved three particulars in your "friendly admonition" for the subject of another communication, I am disposed to embrace this opportunity to fulfil my engagement. The three particulars reserved are expressed, in your letter, in the following words:
"For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers having itching ears; and they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables. You, my friend, once professed the true faith of the gospel—have you kept it? I think not. I fear you have fallen from it. You are now preaching a doctrine which pleases the world, but it makes against you according to scripture. The apostle John says in his 1st epistle 4th chapter 5th and 6th verses, They are of the world; therefore the world heareth them; we are of God; he that knoweth God, heareth us, he that is not of God, heareth not us; hereby know we the spirit of truth and the spirit of error." I would not, dear sir, knowingly misapply your words, nor make a use of the above quotation contrary to their most plain and evident sense which I conceive is as follows:
1st. The doctrine which I believed before I believed as I do now, is the true gospel according to the testimony of the apostle John, in his 1st epistle, 4th chapter 5th and 6th verses.
2d. That in believing as I now do, I have fallen from that faith, and turned unto fables.