To the Reverend James Martineau, J. H. Thom, and Henry Giles.

Gentlemen,—As Christian courtesy seems to require a reply to your address, published in the Albion of this day, I hasten to furnish it, though unwilling, for many reasons, to enter into a newspaper discussion with you on the important subjects which just now engage our attention. I shall, therefore, (without intending any disrespect,) pass by unnoticed your critical remarks on certain portions of my recently published invitation to the members of your body to attend and give a patient hearing to the lectures about to be delivered at Christ Church, and confine myself altogether to those points of inquiry to which it is but reasonable that you should receive an answer. And,

1. You ask, whether I will recommend my congregation to attend (I presume, in your respective chapels) to hear the replies which you intend making to our proposed lectures. To this I am compelled to reply in the negative. Were I to consent to this proposal, I should thereby admit that we stood on the terms of a religious equality, which is, in limine, denied. As men, citizens, and subjects, we are doubtless equal, and will also stand on a footing of equality before the bar of final judgment; I therefore use the term “religious equality” in order to convey to you the distinction between our relative position as members of the community and as religionists. Being unable (you will excuse my necessary plainness of speech) to recognize you as Christians, I cannot consent to meet you in a way which would imply that we occupy the same religious level. To you there will be no sacrifice of principle or compromise of feeling, in entering our churches; to us, there would be such a surrender of both in entering yours, as would peremptorily prohibit any such engagement.

2. You next inquire how early an appearance of our printed lectures may be expected. In answer to this I have only to say, that arrangements have been made for publishing each lecture as soon after its delivery as may be practicable. Within what time this practicability may be found to coincide, it is of course impossible precisely to determine. It will be obvious, that I cannot answer for my brethren upon this point; but shall only observe for myself, that I should hope a week or ten days will be sufficient for the necessary revisal of proofs, arrangement of authorities, and other business connected with a careful and correct publication.

3. Your third inquiry respects a proposal to have an epitome of each lecture, and its reply, published weekly in the columns of some previously selected newspaper. Not having as yet had the opportunity of collecting the sentiments of my reverend brethren, I can only, as before, give the view which suggests itself to my own mind. I am inclined to think it would be unfair to the respectable bookseller, who has undertaken to publish the course at his own risk, to expect him to concur in a proposal which could not but materially injure his sale. As it is our intention to publish each lecture separately, as well as the whole collectively, at the close of their delivery, and that in the cheapest possible form, with a view to the most extensive circulation, I cannot but hope and believe that our united object will be equally, if not better, answered, than by resorting to a process which should necessarily so condense and curtail the matter as to present a very meagre and insufficient exhibition of the arguments, reasonings, references, and authorities, on which so much of the value of the lectures will depend.

4. And, finally, as to your proposal of making some public journal the vehicle of a discussion independent of the lectures, I regret that I feel again obliged to decline pledging myself to concur in it. While I reserve to myself the right of noticing and replying to any communication which may appear, in a duly authenticated form, in any of the public journals, I must at the same time express my conviction, that a newspaper is not the most desirable medium for disquisition on the deep and awful subjects which must pass under review in a controversy like that in which we are about to engage. The ordinary class of newspaper readers, including too frequently the ignorant scoffer, the sceptical, and the profane, is not precisely that whose attention we desire to solicit to our high inquiry into the laws of Scriptural Exegesis, and our application of these laws to the elucidation of the profound mysteries of the Book of Revelation. I feel no doubt that all who feel interested on the subject, will contrive to hear or read what we shall preach and publish; and will thus be furnished with more solid and suitable materials for forming a correct judgment, than could be afforded by the casual study of the ephemeral pages of the public press.

Having thus distinctly replied to the several points of your letter, on which you may have reasonably expected to hear from me; and trusting that you will not attribute to any want of respect to you the omission of all notice of the remainder; and congratulating you with all sincerity on your avowed intention of coming, with your respective congregations, to hear the exposition which we are about to give of what we believe to be fatally false in your system, as contrasted with what we think savingly true in our own; and praying with all fervency, to the great Head of the Church, to bless and prosper the effort about to be made for the promotion of his glory, through the instruction of those who are “ignorant and out of the way,”

I remain, Gentlemen,

Yours for the Lord’s sake,

January 28, 1839.Fielding Ould.