to give attention to the momentous sentiment contained in it." Of this you complain. The serious truth is, that I was so forcibly struck with those passages, in contrast with the language which we are accustomed to hear from your quarter, that it really occurred to me that such disgust would be excited by them in the minds of readers of the liberal class, as would almost induce them to throw down the pamphlet and read no further: and I paused to deliberate whether it might not be expedient to suppress the quotations. It was under this impression that the remark was made. On reflection, however, after the Letter was published, and before I saw your reply, I was apprehensive, that, in this instance, I had conveyed an unjust imputation, and sincerely regretted that I had made the remark. When I found that you considered it in this light, and were wounded by it, my regret was increased. I confess my fault in this particular; and devoutly wish that the remark could be obliterated from the Letter, and effaced from every mind.

I have now, I believe, noticed all the instances, in which you have intimated that I am chargeable with misrepresentation, or unjust imputation; and with these brief remarks, I cheerfully submit them all to the candid and serious reconsideration of yourself and every reader.

My next inquiry was, whether you had invalidated any of my "criticisms," statements, positions, or arguments: and after a very attentive examination and re-examination, you will permit me, dear Sir, to say, what I feel perfectly safe in saying, it is my deliberate judgment, and in it I have the concurrence of all with whom I have conversed on the subject, that you have not directly met me at a single point, shewn me to be incorrect in a single statement, nor refuted me in a single position or argument; and, in a word, that your Remarks are no real answer to my Letter.

It becomes then an inquiry, by what means you have given to your Remarks the appearance and effect of an answer? For that they have with some this appearance and this effect, I do not doubt. This inquiry, though a delicate and unpleasant one, justice to the cause of truth forbids me to decline.

In the first place, you have imputed to me a bad spirit anil intention. With this you begin, and with this you end; and in this, I believe, the effective force of your Remarks mainly lies. Were no bad spirit or intention imputed to me, I presume no person would suppose my Letter to have been answered. But with persons who allow their feelings and passions, instead of reason, and conscience, and scripture, to decide upon the controversy, this imputation has all the effect of the most victorious argument.

My Letter, you say, "though milder in language, BREATHS too much of THE SPIRIT OF THE REVIEW." The spirit of the Review you have represented, in your Letter to Mr. Thacher, as being a spirit of "falsehood," "unfairness," "disingenuousness," "uncharitableness," "illiberality," "censoriousness," "insult," "bitterness," "malignity," "pride," "cruelty," "fury," "denunciation," "heresy," and "awful temerity." It was by imputing this spirit to the Reviewer, that you roused the passions of your party into a flame. And now you impute to me the same spirit-whether in equal measure you do not say. It was easy, Sir, if nothing in the breast rendered it difficult, to make this imputation: but it ought not to have been made without proof-clear, substantial proof. Had you convicted me of such a spirit, though it would not have been a refutation of my Letter, yet it would have fixed on me an indispensable obligation to humble myself before you, before the world, and above all before Him whose servant I profess to be. But you have offered no proof; and utterly unconscious as I am of having written with such a spirit, I confidently refer it to all candid judges -I humbly refer it to Him who judgeth righteously—whether the imputation is not entirely gratuitous and unjust.

Of my Letter you further say, "It is too obviously DESIGNED to drive both me and my brethren from the church and from the ministry." Could charity, Sir, neither discern nor imagine any other design than this? What other course should have been adopted, what other means should have been used, had one designed to do what he could to convert his brethren from the errour of their ways, and thus to hide a multitude of

sins?

You repeatedly speak of my "ATTEMPTS to render your preaching and your sentiments ODIOUS;" and this you represent to be one "GREAT OBJECT of my Letter." This also plainly imports a malignant spirit and intention. But, Sir, in what way have I attempted to render your sentiments and preaching odious, excepting by a simple exhibition of them, without discolouring, distortion, or declamation, in contrast with those of orthodox ministers and of the apostles of Christ. In pp. 22 and 23, you make a representation of my spirit and intention, at which you "shudder," and at which you had reason to shudder. But that part of your Remarks I shall have occasion to consider in another place.

Towards the close you have this passage: "It does not "appear, no, not in a single line, that Dr. Worcester ever "brought home to himself the case of his injured brethren, "ever imagined himself in their situation, and inquired how "under such circumstances he would himself have felt and "acted." Here I am represented as devoid of brotherly sympathy and feeling; and here is the consummation of that unchristian and malignant spirit, which is imputed to me from the beginning of your Remarks to the end. Sir, I have reason to sympathize with my brethren, whenever they are injured by attempts to drive them from the ministry," or to deprive them of their comfort, their good name, or their usefulness; I have no occasion to "imagine myself in their situation;" and I should, indeed, be a monster of insensibility, had I no tenderness of feeling for them. I have not forgotten that I was once myself "driven" from a settlement, a church, and people, dear to my heart; driven, indeed, not by persecuting Calvinists, but by liberal men; yet not on that account entirely without pain. I have witnessed the sufferings of others in similar circumstances, and particularly of a beloved brother in your vicinity. If I have not been deceived, these painful scenes, while they have brought me pretty fully acquainted with the charity and liberality of the age, have had a salutary effect upon my feelings, and taught me how much it becomes the professed servants of Christ to treat their brethren with forbearance, kindness, tenderness, and undissembled good will. This lesson may I never forget

never fail to practise towards all my brethren, however they may differ from me in opinion, and in whatever way I may be called in duty to bear testimony against their errours, or their proceedings.

Your imputation to me of a bad spirit and design, I do not attribute to any particular unfriendliness to me. I attribute it to a general cause-to a general state of mind, and habit of thinking and feeling; and on this account I am induced to consider it with more particularity, than I should be willing to bestow on any thing merely personal. It is but too manifest that you and your liberal brethren are in the habit of regarding, and of representing and denouncing those who hold the sentiments which I espouse, as being possessed of a malignant spirit. And having been accustomed to witness how completely the imputation of this spirit serves, with a large portion of people, instead of a thousand "proofs of holy writ" against us, you resort, it would seem habitually, and, I would hope, without any meditated intention to injure, to this convenient and effectual expedient. To what, if not to this habit, shall we attribute the frequent, and entirely unnecessary mention, both in your Letter and Remarks, of Calvinists;* and almost always with some insinuation, as if they above all men were sinners in the odious matter of persecution?

But, Sir, is this charitable, is it candid, is it magnanimous, is it just? Was not Arius, the father of that class of Unitarians to which you yourself seem to belong, a violent persecutor? Was it not he and his followers, who, first of all among professed christians, set the hideous and direful example of secularizing the discipline of the church, and persecuting their opponents to imprisonment, banishment, and death? And did they not crimson the whole Roman empire with the blood of Trinitarians? Did not Davides perish in prison,

* The present controversy has no respect to points peculiarly Calvinistick. Arminius was as decided as Calvin on the doctrines of the Trinity in the Godhead, the entire corruption of human nature, atonement by the death of Christ, justification by grace through faith in him, and moral renovation by the Holy Spirit. His system, it is true, was soon corrupted, and a mixture of Pelagianism and Socinianism came to be called Arminianism; but genuine Arminianism is no lass directly in opposition, than Calvinism, to every species of Unitarianism

under the unrelenting severity of the persecuting spirit of Faustus Socinus and his adherents, the founders of another class of Unitarians? Was it not by Archbishops Laud and Sheldon, the fathers in England of adulterated Arminianism, and of sentiments once called latitudinarian, now called liberal, that Calvinists were forbidden to preach on the "Five Points," that two thousand ministers, confessedly the best in the kingdom, were "driven" from their parishes on St. Bartholomew's day, and persecuted with fines and imprisonments, and some of them to death, and that our Calvinistick forefathers were compelled to leave their native country, and seek an asylum in the American wilderness? In our own country and in our own age, who have shewn the most determined spirit to "drive" their opponents from the ministry, by private exertions, by ecclesiastical proceedings, and by judicial decisions? And since the commencement of the present controversy, on which side, may I not ask, has there been most of wrath, and clamour, and evil speaking, among the people in the places of greatest excitement?

I have no pleasure, Sir, in adverting to these deplorable facts; nor would I, for my life, mention them with the spirit and for the purpose of retaliation, I should deem it most unchristian, unjust, and injurious in me to reproach you and your liberal brethren, with the violent spirit of persecution, displayed by men of your sentiments in the days of other times, when ecclesiastical discipline was secularized, and confounded with judicial proceedings. I should deem myself a most unfair and ungenerous disputant, should I, in this discussion, endeavour to divert attention from the real points in debate, and to enlist passion and prejudice on my side, by a perpetual recurrence to such extraneous and odious facts. Persuaded as I am, that your feelings would revolt at the thought of acting over again the violent and bloody scenes of Arius or of Laud; I am no less full in the confidence, that you have no good reason to believe, or to insinuate, that your opponents would not revolt with equal horrour from every thing like "the flames lighted for Servetus." Such a belief, such an insinuation, permit me, dear Sir, to say, is unworthy of your enlightened mind, and your elevated standing; and could