Robert Aspland (1782–1845), minister and editor, was born at Wicken, Cambridgeshire, England. He was ordained in 1801 by a General Baptist congregation at Newport, Isle of Wight. Aspland gradually changed his religious convictions to those of Unitarianism, and in 1805 he accepted an appointment to the Gravel Pit Chapel at Hackney, a London suburb, where he remained until his death. His numerous publications were often based on his sermons, and he started two major Unitarian periodicals: the Monthly Repository, which he edited 1806–26, and the Christian Reformer, which he edited from 1815 until his death. Aspland also founded several important religious societies: the Unitarian Fund, which encouraged missionary work, in 1806; the Christian Tract Society in 1809; and the Association for the Protection of the Civil Rights of Unitarians in 1819. He merged the first and third societies with the Unitarian Society in 1825 to form the British and Foreign Unitarian Association, the central body of the denomination. Thoughout his life Aspland was a leading proponent of and activist for religious liberty in Great Britain (ODNB description begins H. C. G. Matthew and Brian Harrison, eds., Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, 2004, 60 vols. description ends ; R. Brook Aspland, Memoir of the Life, Works and Correspondence of the Rev. Robert Aspland, of Hackney [1850]).

In the Bible, Jesus likened those who heard and followed his teachings to a wise man who built his house on a rock (Matthew 7.24; Luke 6.48).

When he printed the material forwarded by Van der Kemp, Aspland followed the text above with TJ’s letter to Benjamin Rush of 21 Apr. 1803 (PTJ description begins Julian P. Boyd, Charles T. Cullen, John Catanzariti, Barbara B. Oberg, and others, eds., The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, 1950– , 39 vols. description ends , 40:251–5). He identified the author only as Crito. In the eponymous dialogue by Plato, Crito, a supporter of Socrates who has arranged for the latter’s escape after his condemnation, is thwarted when the reasoning of Socrates rebuts Crito’s plea that he save himself (Plato, Euthyphro, Apology, Crito, Phaedo, Phaedrus, trans. Harold North Fowler, Loeb Classical Library [1914; repr. 1990], 1:148–91).

The accompanying sketch by TJ was published as a “Syllabus of an Estimate of the Doctrine of Jesus, compared with those of others.” For other versions see EG description begins Dickinson W. Adams and Ruth W. Lester, eds., Jefferson’s Extracts from the Gospels, 1983, The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, Second Series description ends , 332–6.

Aspland combined all three items under the title “Letter, &c. on the Doctrine of Jesus, by an Eminent American Statesman,” preceded by the following introductory paragraph: “We have received a packet of valuable communications from a venerable Correspondent in America, of which the following is a part. No. I. is an introductory Letter by our Correspondent, who adopts the signature which he affixed to Letters on the Life of Servetus, in our Fifth Volume. Nos. II. and III. are a Letter and Syllabus, by an eminent American Statesman, whose name we are not at liberty to mention, but who will probably be recognized by such of our readers as are acquainted with the characters of the leading men in the American revolution. Other communications from our valuable Transatlantic Correspondent will follow” (Monthly Repository 11 [1816]: 573–6).