the Rev. W. Turner , Jun. , MA., Lives of the eminent Unitarians

My Lord,

Though your Lordship may perhaps judge me guilty of a fault that you cannot admit any apology for, yet I may presume upon so much compassion as to have leave to offer something by way of mitigation. I do assure your Lordship, that I have no greater desire than to learn the truth from the Holy Scriptures, by which I shall always be guided according to my best light; and if I am mistaken in my opinions, God knows, it is altogether unwillingly. It is most obvious that I have forfeited my interest and sacrificed my reputation in the world, and exposed myself to such evils as nothing could ever make me submit to, but the real fear of offending God; which your Lordship will, I doubt not, allow for a very great reason. I am ready to do any thing consistent with my judgment and conscience; but I am ashamed to do that for fear of shame from men, for which my conscience may suggest to me that Jesus Christ will be ashamed of me at the great day. I imagine, by something spoken on my trial, that your Lordship conceived I had written some deriding, scornful expressions of the holy Jesus, which I am sure I never designed; the sum of the whole book being only to shew the Father to be greater than he, not denying him any glory consistent with that. I hope that, as the great and merciful God will sooner forgive many errors of the understanding than one wilful crime, so your Lordship will make a considerable difference between disputable errors, which men of probity and learning are divided about, and scurrilous reflections on the blessed Jesus, which are intended for contempt, and which my soul shall ever abhor. I shall only presume to add, that as it is entirely for my conscience