YOUR last came safe to hand. I have had my suspicions according to the contents of your's, but this was no matter of grief to me. I was the more concerned from thinking, that he had imbibed his tenets from you, which I am certain will bring bitterness in the end both to you and to him.
God knows I want to deceive, beguile, or mislead, no man. Dreadful conflicts hath the devil carried on with me for years against that point. When I had no friend to condole, no sound minister to attend, no commentator to consult, God gave me this promise, "Call upon me and I will answer thee, and shew thee great and mighty things which thou knowest not," Jer. xxxiii. 3. But it was long before he fulfilled it, and when he did make it good he did it effectually. I have a letter which hath been lately sent to me by a very honest, simple man, and he holds God the Father to be the only object of worship, and excludes both the, Son and Spirit. You hold the Saviour to be the only person, and exclude both the Spirit and the Father; and the Bible favours him as much as it favours you: and thus you two hold two distinct Gods.
However, my former teaching is now of use to me, and I am endeavouring to handle every text that he hath sent, and every text that you have, and to set them in their own proper light, in harmony with other parts of holy writ, in which there is no confusion, nothing froward nor perverse. Satan can distress, confound, confuse, and perplex us about these deep things of God; and he can suddenly abate in these his infernal operations, and cast a false ray of light, put a false construction on God's word, make a false application of it, give a false joy with it, and fix a false confidence in it. I have seen enough of this to make you tremble, and of the dreadful consequences of it, in three persons who held just the same as you do.
But let a man fix on what he may, all the time that nine parts of scripture out of ten militate against him, it is impossible that he should ever stand the fiery trial. Truth must be our shield and buckler, and truth must make us free; but those who are found to be false witnesses of God, are without this armour, and without this freedom. However, if you have any reverence of your Maker, or any regard to your soul's welfare, and are not wise above what is written, you might wait upon me at my house, you would find an open heart, and an open mouth. I should neither defile your judgment with heresy, or corrupt your manners by bad example. If you do not comply with this, your trying hour will soon find you out; and when once you begin to sink, and your bands to be made strong, you will find this to be true, God shutteth up a man and there can be no opening. I can shew you a man now in town, who fell from your trap, and has lain in irons twelve years, and there he will lie I believe to all eternity.
I admonished him, but he was too well established to listen to a fool, therefore began to preach the same doctrine that you do, but down he came in a moment; and by this awful instance God convinced me, and confirmed me, that the teaching he had given me was the truth. I cried to God day and night for years for this man, because I loved him, but never could prevail. God stopped my mouth, and at last turned my heart to hate him; and this is the second time, Sir, that I have admonished you. Should you humble yourself so much as to accept this offer of mine, signify it to me by a line, and I will appoint the morning when I shall be at leisure, and you can come early and breakfast with me alone in my study. Your willing servant in the truth,
W. HUNTINGTON.
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