The Irish clergyman was not able to meet me.

He wrote a very desultory letter of grave alarm and inquiry, stating that he had heard that I was endeavouring to sound the divine nature by the miserable plummet of human philosophy,--with much beside that I felt to be mere commonplace which every body might address to every body who differed from him.
I however replied in the frankest, most cordial and trusting tone, assuring him that I was infinitely far from imagining that I could "by searching understand God;" on the contrary, concerning his higher mysteries, I felt I knew absolutely nothing but what he revealed to me in his word; but in studying this word, I found John and Paul to declare the Father, and not the Trinity, to be the One God.

Referring him to John xvii, 3, 1 Corinth.

viii, 5, 6, I fondly believed that one so "subject to the word" and so resolutely renouncing man's authority _in order that_ he might serve God, would immediately see as I saw.
But I assured him, in all the depth of affection, that I felt how much fuller insight he had than I into all divine truth; and not he only, but others to whom I alluded; and that if I was in error, I only desired to be taught more truly; and either with him, or at his feet, to learn of God.

He replied, to my amazement and distress, in a letter of much tenderness, but which was to the effect,--that if I allowed the Spirit of God to be with him rather than with me, it was wonderful that I set my single judgment against the mind of the Spirit and of the whole Church of God; and that as for admitting into Christian communion one who held my doctrine, it had this absurdity, that while I was in such a state of belief, it was my duty to anathematize _them_ as idolaters .-- Severe as was the shock given me by this letter, I wrote again most lovingly, humbly, and imploringly: for I still adored him, and could have given him my right hand or my right eye,--anything but my conscience.