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

[47] were to a very considerable extent by the notoriety and public sympathy which he derived from these repeated persecutions, had excited a spirit of inquiry, and even a disposition to embrace his doctrines in numbers sufficient to rouse the alarm both of the sincere bigot, who honestly believed that the profession of the right faith (meaning his own faith) was essential to salvation, and of others, who, with more unworthy motives, were anxious to maintain their own personal influence, and the political predominance of the religious party to which they belonged. To the former class probably must be referred a Mr. Griffin, the minister of a Baptist congregation in the city, many of whose hearers had begun to shew a leaning to Unitarian opinions; he was induced, in consequence, to challenge Mr. Biddle to a public disputation on the subject in his own meeting-house. With considerable hesitation and reluctance, probably arising from an unwillingness to court the hostile notice of the temporal power, though he never allowed such considerations to deter him from the path of indispensable and acknowledged duty, Mr. Biddle at length complied, and met his antagonist, whom he found surrounded by a numerous auditory, including some of his own most bitter and vehement adversaries. Griffin began by asking, if any man there did deny that Christ was God most high? on which Mr. Biddle replied, with sincerity and firmness, ‘I do deny it.’ The disputation then proceeded by Griffin endeavouring at large to establish the affirmative, which he is said to have done in such a manner as to shew himself no fit opponent for Mr. Biddle, who it was agreed