A material part of the volume is composed of such matter.
I cannot congratulate him on the spirit which he has displayed.
Personally I am profoundly indifferent to such attempts at detraction,
and it is with heretical amusement that I contemplate the large part
which purely individual and irrelevant criticism is made to play
in stuffing out the proportions of orthodox argument. In the first
moment of irritation, I can well understand that hard hitting, even
below the belt, might be indulged in against my work by an exasperated
theologian--for even a bishop is a man,--but that such attacks should
not only be perpetuated, but repeated after years of calm reflection,
is at once an error and a compliment for which I was not prepared.
Anything to prevent readers from taking up _Supernatural Religion_:
any misrepresentation to prejudice them against its statements.
Elaborate literary abuse against the author is substituted for the
effective arguments against his reasoning which are unhappily wanting.
In the later editions of my work, I removed everything that seemed
likely to irritate or to afford openings for the discussion of minor
questions, irrelevant to the main subject under treatment. Whilst
Dr. Lightfoot in many cases points out such alterations, he republishes
his original attacks and demonstrates the disparaging purpose of
his Essays by the reiterated condemnation of passages which had so
little to do with the argument that they no longer exist in the
complete edition of Supernatural Religion.
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