of his discussions on these subjects; or the faintest manifestation of a desire to correct either his doctrines or statements, even when the most resistless demonstration has been furnished of their erroneousness? Can you designate a single objection to his scheme that has been frankly and fairly met by him; or a solitary attempt that he has made to justify himself, in which he has not been guilty of inconsistency, evasion, chicane, or downright misrepresentation? If you can, I recommend it to you forthwith to make it known. You cannot render a higher service to him, or yield a more unexpected gratification to the church. What other effect, then, could, or ought to have resulted, from this extraordinary course, than the forfeiture, by which he is now so fatally embarrassed, of general confidence in his professions? There is not an individual in the church, whose testimony such a career would not have rendered utterly distrusted and worthless. It were a reproach to the upright and intelligent, not to discriminate between such a system of proceedure, in "a teacher of theology," and the candor, supreme love of truth, and unsullied integrity, that not only become, but are essential to so sacred and responsible an office. It is a reproach to those who still sustain him, that they continue to overlook or apologize for his confessed obliquities, and treat him and the public as though no adequate cause existed, for the disapprobation that is felt and manifested, of his doctrines and conduct.

As then the dissatisfaction that exists respecting him, is thus founded on facts that are wholly indisputable, and that have been made public by himself and widely disseminated through the community; it is manifest that, while they remain unchanged, no mere asseverations of his can have any adaptation to remove or diminish it. If he wishes

to dispel the thick clouds in which he has become involved, and reinstate himself in the general respect, he has no other expedient for it but candidly and unanswerably to refute the objections that are alleged against him; or else, admitting them to be irrefutable, publicly to offer such a retraction of his speculative, and apology for his practical errors, as integrity dictates, as is enjoined by the gospel, and as the wellbeing of the church requires.

It is that you may lend your aid to the achievement of this result, that I offer to your notice these considerations; and urge you, if in your power, to meet the objections that are alleged against him, in such a manner as they should be met, to accomplish his vindication, and entitle him to the approval and support of the orthodox; or should you find it impracticable to render him that service, to suggest to you the propriety of your doing the justice to those who urge against him those objections—and whom you have taken it upon yourself in your Letter to impeach-to admit that their objections are legitimate, and that the facts on which they are founded, form a just and necessary ground for all the distrust and disapprobation of which they have rendered him the object.

In giving publicity to your Letters, you have relinquished the station of a mere spectator, and assumed that of a judge of the merits of his controversies; and in the satisfaction which you have expressed with his professions, and the intimations in which you have indulged, that no known reason exists for the disapprobation with which he is regarded; you have in effect exhibited those who assail and distrust him, as guilty not only of causelessly suspecting and opposing him, but of cherishing their doubts and maintaining their opposition against conspicuous and demonstrative

evidences of his innocence and title to unqualified approbation. The fair inference from your Letters is, that you regard it as abundantly clear that the "impression" that "has been made to some extent" that he is "unsound in the faith," "is wholly groundless and unauthorized." If such is indeed the fact, those whom you thus impeach are indubitably guilty of enormous injustice, and merit all the rebukes and reprobation which a general disapproval can inflict; and if it is not the fact, you are as indubitably guilty, in thus traducing them, of a degree of injustice as much greater, as the number of individuals, the intelligence and the respectability are greater, which your imputations affect. It concerns you then most intimately, as well as them, to determine beyond disputation, on which side it is, that this injustice lies. They will not shrink from a fair and demonstrative trial. They solicit it; they insist on it; and no plea that you have not designed to become a participator in these discussions, no reluctance to controversy, no professional employments, after the step you have thus gratuitously taken, can, in their judgment, form a sufficient apology for your declining to meet it. If you were prompted to the correspondence by his solicitation, rather than your own wishes, and betrayed into the impression you express, that his professions may justly satisfy the churches, by the seeming frankness on the one hand of his statements, and the absence from his Letter of an open avowal of the erroneous sentiments which are the chief grounds of objection to him; and the neglect on the other, to compare this representation of his faith with the doctrines he has heretofore taught and still teaches; or if it was your object in giving his Letter to the public, to place him under a necessity of more fully vindicating or correcting

himself, if solicited, rather than that it should be regarded as furnishing sufficient ground for the cessation of apprehension respecting him; justice to yourself would seem to require that it should be known that such was the fact.

If you concur with him in his doctrinal peculiaritieswhich it would seem is fairly to be inferred from your allowing his statement to pass without comment, that he never supposed that you differed from him in your views of the great doctrines of the gospel-approve the course he has heretofore taken for their defence and propagation, and spontaneously lend your influence to sanction and uphold him; it is likewise essential that it should be fully known that you sustain toward each other that relation; that the eorrespondence itself and the value of your approval, may be justly appreciated. What favorable influence with the churches can your conviction of his continued orthodoxy be entitled to exert, if in place of adhering to that system, you have yourself become his disciple, concurring in his cspculations, sympathizing with his perplexities, and seconding the means he is employing for the purpose of retaining his hold of the general confidence? And, as to leave the public to their own conjectures from the Letters in regard to your doctrinal views and sentiments respecting his principles as a controversialist, will expose you to the imputation of regarding his practical as well as speculative errors with approbation-justice again to yourself, if that is not the fact, requires you to make known what your real sentiments respecting them are. If you regard his views as scriptural, and the measures to which he resorts for his vindication as sanctioned by the gospel, kindness to his opponents as well as to him, renders it your duty to make them

acquainted with the grounds on which you rest that conviction; and if you are not a convert to his theories, but regard them as false and fraught with a pernicious influence; your obligations to your fellow-men, and responsibili ties to God, require you not only to withhold from them your sanction, but openly to express your dissent from them, and to endeavor to arrest their dissemination.

Let me hope then that you will regard it not only as an indispensable, but as a grateful task, to meet these exigencies; and assure you, that should you vindicate yourself, on whatever ground it may be; should you exculpate him; should you give supremacy to the truth; you will meet a generous approval from his opponents as well as friends, and from none more spontaneous congratulations than

from

REV. J. HAWES, D. D.

THE AUTHOR OF

VIEWS IN THEOLOGY.