"...Rivers of blood as well as of ink..."

Extract of a Letter from Judge Hopkinson, of Philadelphia, to a Gentleman in England, Published in the London Morning Chronicle of the 15th October, 1829 [Caption title] / Judge Hopkinson's Letter [cover title]

Hopkinson, Joseph

Notes: An appeal for religious faith over theology.

"I have all my life avoided all knotty and disputed points of religion. I argue with nobody about the trinity or the unity of the Godhead; the mysteries of free knowledge and free will; or the profound doctrine of the atonement by the death of Christ... I profess not to understand them; and I know that much wiser and stronger men have come to no understanding about them, after centuries of learned and intolerant disputation, in which rivers of blood as well as of ink, have flowed in support of this savage and unchristian warfare... I consider religion to have nothing to do with the conflicts of theologians."

Hopkinson (1770–1842) served in the US House of Representatives and as a federal court judge. His father, Francis Hopkinson, was a signor of the Declaration of Independence.

A single sheet folded to make four pages.

Edition + Condition: First edition. An attractive copy with mild foxing; unbound and untrimmed, as issued.

Publication: [Philadelphia?]: (n.p.), [1829?].

Item No: #306856

Price: $75