cause I believe, that it tends to awaken unfriendly feelings in the community, and that it ought therefore to cease as soon as the interests of truth will admit; because I fear, from observations on my own heart, that it is not favourable to the best affections in those who are immediately engaged in it; because I am persuaded, that it will never end, if I resolve to answer every new pamphlet and every fresh charge; because a continuance of it will be inconsistent with the regular duties of my profession, and with more useful pursuits; and lastly, because the most important topicks in the controversy cannot be thoroughly and fairly discussed in the form of short publications abounding in personalities.-I am willing to relinquish the privilege of saying the last word, and shall of course be condemned by those, who consider the last word as a sign of victory. With respect to the direction, which the publick mind will take on this subject, it is not easy for a man of retired habits and of very limited connexions to determine. To God I cheerfully leave the event. Believing in his providence, assured that the gospel is his care, and looking forward to his promised kingdom, where the animosities, reproaches, divisions, and poor contentions of this world will never enter, I desire and hope to maintain in every condition an equal mind, and to attain some portion of that peace which, as men cannot give so they cannot take away.

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NOTE.

In the preceding remarks I have wished to observe something like method, and to hold the attention of the reader to the great points of the controversy. For this reason, and I hope for a still better reason, I have passed over several of Dr. Worcester's courteous sarcasms, minute criticisms, and appeals to popular feeling. But there are some particulars, not undeserving attention, which were excluded by the order which I proposed, and which I have therefore reserved for a note.

I did not notice Dr. Worcester's criticisms on my interpretation of the Review, because I have not met a single individual, who has expressed one doubt as to the import and design of that publication. But there is one of Dr. Worcester's criticisms which ought not to be overlooked. I refer to the attempt which he has made to defend the Reviewer from the charge of a very criminal mutilation of Mr. Wells' letter. If the reader will turn to my letter to Mr. Thacher, page 12, he will see the mutilation stated at length. Dr. Worcester alleges, that the passage was varied by the Reviewer, merely that it might be inserted conveniently in a list of encomiums, passed by Mr. Wells on liberal gentlemen. To this defence I reply, first, that the mutilated part of the passage, as it stands in the Review, is not an encomium, and could not have been introduced as possessing that character. In the next place, it is very singular, that the passage could not have been properly “shaped,” without excluding those words which most forcibly vindicate the

Boston ministers from the charge of concealment. But thirdly, it is still more remarkable, that the passage could not have been properly shaped without printing the last clause in italicks, a clause which, when thus printed, entirely changes the meaning of the sentence. How these italicks help to give the right shape to the quotation, is not obvious to a common reader, nor has Dr. Worcester thought proper to inform us.

Dr. Worcester asserts that I "claim all charity" for myself and my friends, and "deny it all" to our opponents, and thus "deny that they have true religion." God forbid. If any part of my letter is marked by this exclusive spirit, I ask forgiveness of my injured fellow christians. I did think that I expressed a very opposite temper. I certainly felt it.

Dr. Worcester says that I have given a very distorted view of Calvinism. I should rejoice to think so. It is a painful thought, that such dishonourable views of our merciful Father in heaven, as I have ascribed to that system, should find admission into a single human mind. I represented Calvinism, however, precisely as I had been accustomed to understand it; and, what is more, since reading Dr. Worcester's letter, I have consulted Miss Adams' " View of Religions," to correct my errours on the subject; but still I am met by the same heart-chilling doctrines; Calvinism still wears the same frowning aspect; still seems to me a dreadful corruption of true Christianity. That my letter contains any reflections on Calvinists, as Dr. Wo ter intimates, cannot be true. I indeed think that, as a class, they have defects which may be traced to their system; and some of their number seem to love none of the principles of Geneva so well as those which lighted the flames for Servetus. But as a body I have always regarded them with respect, and it has been my happiness to witness among them very bright examples of christian virtue. If Dr. Worcester shall ask, how characters so excellent can have grown up under so corrupt a system, I will answer him, when he can explain how a Fenelon and a Pascal were formed in the most corrupt church in christendom.

orces

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Dr. Worcester says that I have unjustly represented Dr. Watts as a Unitarian. I hope that Dr. Worcester does not mean to avail himself of an ambiguous word. Does he mean to deny that Dr. Watts was an Antitrinitarian, that he rejected the doctrine of three distinct persons in God? Dr. Watts believed, that the Holy Spirit was not a divine person distinct from the Father, but the active power of God, to which personal properties were figuratively ascribed in Scripture. That at least I have always regarded as his opinion; and if so, one of the three persons has certainly disappeared from his system. Dr. Watts, indeed, believed that Jesus was properly a divine person, and he often speaks of him as God-man. But he believed that this divine person had a beginning, and was formed by the union of the Father with the human soul of Jesus; and still more, he believed that Jesus was divine, because the Father and not a second divine person dwelt in him; in other words, Jesus Christ, according to this system, is to be acknowledged as the supreme God, because he is the Father himself united with a human soul; all his divinity is derived from the indwelling Father. Have we here then a second divine person, distinct from the Father, yet equal with him in cternity and every other glory? This view of Dr. Watts' system is confirmed by his particular friend Dr. Doddridge who has given substartially the same account in his lectures; and by Dr. Samuel Palmer, the disciple and admirer of Dr. Watts. I have not one doubt, that Dr. Watts was a Unitarian, in the sense of believing that God is one person, in opposition to the Trinitarian doctrine of three persons, a doctrine which he calls a "strange and perplexing notion." Dr. Worcester says, that my assertions respecting Dr. Watts are bolder than Mr. Belsham dared to make. Mr. Belsham's assertions, which Dr. Worcester pronounces more cautious than mine, related to a very different point from that which I maintained. Mr. Belsham was anxious to prove, not that Dr. Watts was a Unitarian in the broad sense of that word, but a believer in the simple humanity of Jesus Christ. Did not Dr. Worcester know this fact? and was he ingenuous in ascribing to me greater boldness than to Mr. Belsham, when our objects were entirely different?