To the Rev. James Martineau, J. H. Thom, and Henry Giles.
Gentlemen,--I owe it to you and to myself to state, that no offence was intended, either by me, or, as I conscientiously believe, by my clerical brethren, in the title of the subject to which my name stands affixed in the Syllabus of the Lectures on the Unitarian Controversy. I am also bound to acknowledge, that your letter, on the subject of the lecture, is written in a style of calmness and courtesy, of which, I trust, you will have no reason to complain of the absence in the statements which I shall have to submit to your attention. Of course, this is not the time for the vindication of the view which I adopt on the great question: I content myself, therefore, with this public disclaimer of any desire to substitute irritating language for sound argument.
I remain, Gentlemen,
Yours, with all due respect,
Thos. Byrth.
To the Reverend Fielding Ould.
Rev. Sir,—We beg to offer you our thanks for your prompt and distinct reply, in the Liverpool Courier of yesterday, to the proposals submitted to you in our letter of Monday. We are as little anxious as yourself for the prolongation of this preliminary newspaper correspondence; and however much we may regret the negative character of your answers to our questions, we should have reserved all comment upon them for notice elsewhere, if you did not appear to us to have left still open to consideration the proposed discussion (independent of the lectures) through the press. That the pulpit controversy should be on unequal terms, is, we perceive, a matter of conscience with you; but your objections to a newspaper controversy seem to arise, not from any desire to withhold your readers from our writings, as you would your hearers from our preaching, but from the unfitness of a political journal to be the vehicle of religious argument. Permit us, then, to say, that we have no preference for this particular medium of discussion; that we are wholly indifferent as to its form, provided the substantial end be gained of bringing your arguments and ours before the attention of the same parties, and that any plan which you may suggest, affording promise of the attainment of this end, whether it be the joint publication of the lectures in your church and those in our chapels, or the appearance in the pages of a religious journal (either already established, or called into existence for the occasion, and limited to this single object), will receive our welcome acceptance.
Had we any desire to see a theological opponent in the wrong, we should leave the case between us in its present position, and should not persevere thus in opening the way towards a fair adjudication of it; but our reverence for the religion of which you are a representative and symbol before the world, transcends all paltry controversial feelings, and we should see, with grave sorrow, the honour of Christianity compromised by the rejection, on the part of its authorized ministers, of the acknowledged principles of argumentative justice. You will not, we trust, incur the reproach of inviting a discussion with us, and then changing it into an indictment against us. You have originated the appeal to the great tribunal of public opinion in this Christian community; you are plaintiff in this controversy; you will not, we feel assured, so trifle, in things most sacred, with the rules of evidence, as to insist that your case shall be heard in one court, and before one jury, while your defendant’s case is banished to another, and the verdict pronounced without balancing the attestation and comparing the pleadings. Should you, moreover, succeed in convincing your readers, that this is a discussion not (as we submit) between church and church, but (as you contend) between Christianity and No-Christianity, the effect will be yet more to be deplored, for, in such case, Christianity will appear to claim from its votaries the advantage of an exclusive hearing for itself, and, while challenging, by the very act of controversy, the appeal to argument, to leave, for those who are stigmatized as unbelievers, the honour of demanding that open field which, usually, truth is found to seek, and falsehood to avoid. We trust that you will not thus inflict a wound on a religion which, in all its forms, we deeply venerate.