BY SAMUEL WORCESTER, D. D.

PASTOR OF THE TABERNACLE CHURCH, SALEM.

BOSTON:

PRINTED BY SAMUEL T. ARMSTRONG, NO. 50, CORNHILL,

REV. AND DEAR SIR,

I HAVE read your Letter to your Friend and Brother the Rev. SAMUEL C. THATCHER, with some pleasure and with much regret. The causes of the one and of the other will in part be laid open in the subsequent remarks, which I have thought proper to address in the form of a letter to you. I need make no apology: the subject is deeply and extensively interesting; and involves considerations of infinite moment to the general cause, to which you and I profess to be sacredly devoted. Nor shall I make any professions of candour, or charity: for I have been taught by the best of books, that "charity vaunteth not itself, doth not behave itself unseemly; from other books I have learned, that high professions too often serve to cover a temper very different from that which "is not easily provoked," but "suffereth long and is kind;" and I am thoroughly convinced, that persons who have the greatest confidence in their good dispositions, do not always know what manner of spirit they are of."

I wish it to be understood, distinctly, that I have no connexion, or privity in this business, with the writer of the Review, which is the subject of your strictures. I write not in his behalf; but in behalf of the general interests of truth, and justice, and mercy. He probably will answer for himself; and to him I shall leave the particular vindication of himself, his statements and conclusions, his spirit and style: a labour which does not belong to me, and which I should be less disinclined to undertake, were the Review in all respects exactly such as I could wish it to have been. It might perhaps have been better, had the Reviewer been less intent on exciting those whose cause he espouses, and consulted more the conviction and benefit of those against whom his animadversions are directed.

With what justice, and to what extent, a similar remark might be applied to your Letter, you, my dear Sir, and your friends will consider. It cannot, however, but be regretted,

that you should have found it necessary to sit down to write, while breathing an atmosphere to which you were not accustomed;" while purturbed with the feelings which, in spite of all your efforts to restrain them, are so copiously infused into the entire body of your Letter. But all reasonable allowance should be made for the urgency of the case. Had you waited till the excitement had subsided, your opportunity for preventing or counteracting the impressions which the Review was likely to make, might have been lost. I frankly confess that a similar reason has induced me to avail myself of the earliest remission of other pressing calls of duty, for bestowing some attention on your subject. Could you, however, have waited till the cool of the day, though probably your Letter would have been less animated, and less adapted to a particular purpose, it would not, I am persuaded, have displayed less of the meekness of wisdom, or been less correct in its representations.

You bring, dear Sir, against the Reviewer an accusation of "falsehood:" an accusation certainly of no trivial kind, and never to be lightly preferred against any one. "The Re"view," you say, "asserts, 1. That the ministers of this town "[Boston] and its vicinity and the great body of liberal "christians are Unitarians, in Mr. Belsham's sense of the "word. 2. That these ministers and liberal christians are "guilty of hypocritical concealment of their sentiments, and “behave in a base, cowardly and hypocritical manner.” In these two assertions, especially in the first of them, it should seem, lies the alleged falsehood of the Reviewer. These also make the first two heads of your Letter. The 3d is this: "Christians are called to come out and separate themselves "from these ministers and the liberal body of christians, and to "withhold from them christian communion." Under these three heads in their order, the remarks which I have to submit to your consideration, will chiefly be arranged.

I. Does the Reviewer then assert, "That the ministers of Boston and the vicinity, and the great body of liberal christians are Unitarians, in Mr. Belsham's sense of the word?" This you affirm; and to support the affirmation, you quote from the Review the following passages. P 267,

"We feel entirely warranted to say, that the predominant "religion of the liberal party is decidedly Unitarian, in Mr. "Belsham's sense of the word. P. 254, We shall feel our❝selves warranted hereafter, to speak of the first as certain, "that Unitarianism,' meaning Mr. Belsham's, is the pre❝❝dominant religion among the ministers and churches of “Boston.' P. 271, The liberal party mutilate the New "Testament, reject nearly all the fundamental doctrines of "the gospel, and degrade the Saviour to the condition of a fallible, peccable, and ignorant man."" These passages I shall briefly consider; but not in the order in which you have chosen to arrange them: for I am not satisfied that it was quite right, to place the passage, quoted from the 267th page, in which there is no mention of Boston, before the one, quoted from the 254th page, and which refers to Boston directly. By this arrangement, with the help of a clause which you have thought proper to insert in the second passage, you have given to the three passages an aspect which, I believe you will readily perceive, does not belong to them. I think it more fair to consider the passages in the order in which they stand in the Review, and to refer them severally to their proper connexions.

The first passage then is this: "We shall feel ourselves warranted hereafter, to speak of the first as certain, that Unitarianism is the predominant religion among the ministers and churches in Boston." Is this, Sir, an assertion, "That the ministers of Boston and the vicinity, and the great body of liberal christians are Unitarians, in Mr. Belsham's sense of the word?" You will please to observe, that no mention is here made of "the vicinity," or of "the great body of liberal christians." The remark is limited to Boston. Further, it is not said that "the ministers, i. e. all the ministers, even of Boston, are Unitarians. The word "predominant" is evidently restrictive, and implies, that they were not all intended to be included. Further still, it is not said that any of the ministers of Boston are Unitarians, "in Mr. Belsham's sense of the word."

Does the connexion, then, warrant the broad construction, which you have given to the passage. The Reviewer pre