Samuel Greatheed, Newport Pagnell, to Thomas Williams, 2 Foy Place, [Henton], near London, 30 October 1798.

Newport Pagnel, 30 Oct. 1798

Dear Sir,

Accept my warmest thanks for the Care and trouble you have taken in circulating the Addresses to so many associated Bodies of Religious people. May the lord unite all their hearts more to himself and to each other by the means used to promote that great end!

By a letter from brother Eyre this Morning I find that the Business of preparing the Address for a more extensive Circulation with the Evangelical Magazine devolves also into your hands. Conscious that they are sufficiently full already, I can only say that I feel the greater obligation on the Account for your attention to an Object which I have so much at heart, and shall be very glad to embrace any opportunity of rendering you a similar Service.

My Brethren who have united in this part of the Country are desirous of having the Address in its Octavo Form printed as nearly as possible uniform with the Sermon, and the report of our Proceedings (which is in the same Type with the Sermon), that these, and any other paper we may have occasion to print, may the better bind together in a Volume.  I have too little experience in printing to judge precisely how many Octavo pages the Address will fill upon the same letter and paper with the Sermon, but I suppose it cannot exceed twelve.

I am not aware of more than one error which escaped in printing the former Copies. It is in page 4. There ought to be no paragraph between “may present.” & “It seems,” but a short break, like those in the 16th & 22d lines, between “formed.—It is obvious,” and “frustrated.—It appears.” 

If it will be of use to save room, no spaces need be left between any of the paragraphs.

Should you meet with any difficulty be so kind as to inform me of it by post. Every incidental Expense, with that of postage already incurred, I will either defray, when next in town, or Mr Reyner will, whenever applied to. When the Charge of printing is ascertained, and communicated to me, I will direct Mr Foster our Treasurer to defray it.

The hurry of the Missionary publications obliges me to postpone at present any attempt to bring forward the Cause of Union in the Christian Spectator, but I shall gladly avail myself of your hint the first leisure I can find for the purpose.

It gave me pleasure to learn from my friend Fuller that you have undertaken the good work of replying to Mr Belsham’s Review of Wilberforce. I am provoked at the impudence of the Socinians in assuming that Scriptural Criticism is on their side. I have critically attended to the various readings of the New Testament, and more particularly of the Epistles, and know the reverse to be true, except in the single Instance of I John 5: 7, which is unquestionably spurious. I mentioned Mr. Fuller as Authority that I think would appear with advantage in replying to Mr B.s dogmatical assertions. It is that of the great Michaelis and the passage is quoted in the Review of Marsh’s Translation of that incomparable Critic’s Introduction to the New Testament. Evang.l Magazine, March 1794 p. 126, 127. I take this Opportunity of pointing it out to you, in case Mr F. should omit doing so.

It will give m pleasure to hear from you on any subject.  

Believe me

                  Very sincerely and affectionately 

                                                      Yours

                                                                        Sam.l Greatheed

Text: Eng. MS. 370, f. 54b, John Rylands University Library of Manchester. Greatheed, along with Samuel Hillyard of Bedford and William Bull of Newport Pagnell, helped found the Bedfordshire Union of Christians in September 1797. In Greatheed’s Address (most likely the work referred to above), delivered on 31 October at the Old Meeting, he commented: “Surely it is time that the keen edge of bigotry, which has so long mangled and separated the members of Christ’s body, should be taken off for ever. What are the points of difference between real Christians, compared with the greatness of those objects in which we all agree.”  See H. G. Tibbutt, Bunyan Meeting Bedford 1650-1950 (Bedford: Trustees of Bunyan Meeting, [1950]) 48-49. See also Greatheed’s General Union Recommended to Real Christians in a Sermon Preached at Bedford, October 31, 1797 (London: Thomas Conder, 1798). Others referenced above include Joseph Reyner (1754/5-1837), a successful London cotton importer and shipper and supporter of numerous religious societies; John Foster of Biggleswade (1765-1847), a prosperous merchant and prominent Baptist layman; and the devout evangelical William Wilberforce (1759-1833) and his popular title, A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians in the Higher and Middle Classes of this Country Contrasted with Real Christianity (1797).