"partial inquiry. The time may come, when he will view this transaction with other eyes; when the rage of party "will have subsided; when the obligation of a fair and equita"ble temper will appear at least as solemn as the obligation "of building up a sect; when misrepresentation, intended to "injure, and originating, if not in malignity, yet in precipi"tancy and passion, will be felt to be a crime of no common "aggravation."-God in mercy preserve me from the desire of applying this passage. But, my dear Sir, I must be permitted to intreat you, at some favoured moment, when passion is hushed, when conscience is awake, when God and eternal things are in view, very seriously to consider, whether it might be applied with greater justice to the writer of the Panoplist Review, than to the writer of the Letter to the Rev. Mr. Thatcher.

II. In the second place you allege, that "the Review as"serts, that the ministers of Boston and the vicinity, and the "most considerable members of the liberal party, operate in ““secret, intrust only the initiated with their measures; are guilty of hypocritical concealment of their sentiments; behave in a base and hypocritical manner, compared with ""which Mr. Belsham's conduct, rotten as he is in doctrine

to the very core, is purity itself.'-Such, you are pleased to add, “is the decent language scattered through this Review." And in a note, at the bottom of the page, you throw together a number of severed phrases, selected from various parts and connexions of the Review, and represent them all as having been applied, by the Reviewer, directly to yourself and your clerical brethren generally of Boston and the vicinity, together with the most considerable members of the liberal party at large.

You are perfectly aware, Sir, how easy a thing it is to select from any book detached sentences and members of sentences, and so to arrange them as to give them a very different aspect and bearing, from what they have in their proper connexions. A more striking example of this kind I have seldom if ever witnessed, than the one which you have afforded in the instance now before us. Of all the quotations which you have made from the Review, as the basis of your

accusation under this second head, I think I may safely affirm, there is not one sentence, or scrap of a sentence, which appears in your Letter, with the same aspect and bearing as in the Review. When I first read them in your Letter, I felt, I confess, no small degree of excitement in regard to the Reviewer; and no little surprise that I could have read the Review without a similar excitement. But not less was my surprise, when, on turning to the Review, I perceived how very differently they there, in their proper connexions, appeared. My limits will permit me to present but a few of them here.

Speaking of the Stone Chapel, the Reviewer remarks, "We must say that the conduct of this society and their minister, in coming out openly and avowing their sentiments to the world, is vastly preferable to a hypocritical concealment of them." The words in Italics are those which you quote, as being applied by the Reviewer to "the ministers of Boston," &c. but no such application of them is made by him. Of a remarkable letter, written by a clergyman in this country to his friend in England, and published by Mr. Belsham, the Reviewer says, "the object of Mr. Belsham in publishingit was, to chastise the Boston clergy for their cowardice in concealing their religious opinions." This expresses what the Reviewer supposed to be Mr. Belsham's opinion of the Boston clergy: and I presume, Sir, you will admit that he was warranted by the documents before him, in believing that such was Mr. Belsham's opinion, and such his design in publishing the letter. "The idea that a minister believes the truths of the gospel to be of infinite importance, and still conceals them, is incompatible with either fidelity or integrity.” Here the Reviewer expresses a general sentiment, without applying it; a sentiment which you, Sir, I doubt not, will readily acknowledge to be just.

My principal reason for selecting these passages, rather than others partly quoted by you, is, that they could be presented in their proper connexions and aspects in fewer words. These, however, will be admitted, I trust, as a pretty fair sample of the whole.

After making such quotations of detached sentences and scraps of sentences, as you thought proper, to shew that the Reviewer had charged you and your liberal brethren with a hypocritical concealment of your sentiments," you proceed to notice the proofs upon which he rests this charge. These, as you state, are "a letter from Dr. Freeman, and the letter of Mr. Wells to Mr. Belsham." These letters you very dexterously despatch; excepting that you quote from that of Mr. Wells a particular passage, for the purpose of shewing "the method," as you say, "in which it is distorted by the Reviewer." This letter the Reviewer gives entire, and I believe correctly; but afterwards he does quote the passage in question with some variation. The quotation however is made, not, as you represent, for the purpose of supporting the charge of hypocritical concealment, nor in any connexion with this topick; but most plainly for the purpose of making out a list of epithetical and encomiastick descriptions, given by Mr. Wells of gentlemen of the liberal party; and the pas-, sage is so shaped, as to be the more conveniently arranged in the list. This alters the case materially. The Reviewer does not bring forward a passage in a "distorted” form, for the purpose of proving a charge of hypocritical concealment. But you have accused him of doing this; and to give the accusation the deeper impression, you utter yourself in the following remarkable terms: "An unperverted mind turns with sorrow and disgust from such uncharitable and disingenuous "dealing; and why all this labour to distort what is so plain? the object is, to fix the character of knaves and hypocrites "on a large class of christians and christian ministers. I "might here be permitted to dip my pen in gall; but I do not "write for those whose moral feeling is so dull, as to need "indignant comment on practices like these."—And certainly, Sir, this passage of yours needs no "comment" of mine. I can only deplore and deprecate the state of mind from which only it could have proceeded.

I mean not, dear Sir, to deny that the Review does chargę ministers, and perhaps others, of the party called liberal, with want of openness and clearness in avowing and explaining their sentiments; nay, with designed "concealment" and cul

pable disguise. Nor will I dissemble that I have felt no little regret, that its language on this subject had not been in a style of less repulsive freedom and apparent asperity. I am fully aware that this is tender ground; and I feel most deeply the difficulty and the delicacy of the subject.

It does, however, appear to me very clear, that Dr. Freeman, Mr. Wells, and Mr. Belsham did suppose, and that in the documents on which the Reviewer principally relics as his youchers, they do represent, that liberal ministers, and other liberal gentlemen have judged it proper, not to make ordinarily a free and full disclosure of their sentiments: that they have in fact thought it expedient to temporize. Whether, in this opinion of you and your brethren, those gentlemen are correct or not, you must have been apprised, that the opinion is not peculiar to them, but very extensively prevalent: prevalent, not among those only, whom you would consider your adversaries, but also among your friends. Hundreds and hundreds of times have I heard it uttered from various quarters, and with various expressions of approbation and disapprobation; and never, in any debate or conversation, as I recollect, have I heard the truth of it denied, or called in question. It seems indeed to have been received as an estab lished, uncontested fact, that ministers of the liberal class were not accustomed to be unreserved and explicit in the public avowal and declaration of their sentiments. I confess to you, Sir, that I had so received it; nor did I ever imagine that in so receiving it, there was any thing injurious or uncharitable: for I did suppose that you and your liberal brethren held it as a maxim, founded upon reasons satisfactory to your own minds, that a degree of reserve and concealment, greater or less according to circumstances, was prudent, and justifiable, and praiseworthy. In this supposition I have been from time to time strengthened, by conversations with respectable individuals of the class, and not a little confirmed by what I have occasionally heard from the pulpit. I have now in very fresh remembrance some sentiments to this effect, delivered in a sermon which I heard at an ordination in Boston a few months ago; and in which the preacher very distinctly, and with considerable amplification, held forth

that, though in some places it might be well, and "contribute "to the faith and virtue of the people," for a minister openly and plainly to declare his sentiments, yet in other places it would not be prudent or proper: and in regard to this, the gentleman then ordained was affectionately and earnestly advised to regulate himself, according to the habits of thinking and feeling, the prejudices or freedom from prejudice, which he should find to prevail among his people.

Judge then, Sir, of my surprise, when I read, in your Letter, what I understood to be intended as an absolute denial, that any such reserve or concealment had been practised. After some reflection, however, I discerned, or thought I discerned, very clearly, the foundation of the apparent contradiction. The primary question between you and your opponents on this subject is, What is to be understood by a minister being open, clear, and faithful in the avowal and declaration of his sentiments? Upon this question there is evidently, between you and them, a real and material difference of opinion; and this difference is very manifestly the foundation of the apparent contradiction between you and them on the question, whether you are open, clear, and faithful, or concealed, indistinct, and unfaithful.

You are perfectly aware, that the ministers, called orthodox, are accustomed generally to preach out their sentiments without reserve, perhaps sometimes without prudence. They do not shun to declare unto the people all the counsel of God, as they understand it. They do not avoid preaching any doctrine which they find to be revealed in the word of God, either because that doctrine is mysterious, or because it is denied by some and doubted by others; but the very circumstance of its being denied or doubted, is with them a reason why they should be the more particular, and the more earnest, in shewing its truth, in obviating the objections against it, and in so instructing their hearers upon it, as to promote the increase of their knowledge and the establishment of their faith. These ministers, therefore, are accustomed to use great plainness of speech, endeavouring to make themselves well understood upon every subject: to let it be distinctly known what they believe concerning mankind, their fallen