Excerpt from Letter to the Rev. Samuel C. Thacher: On the Aspersions Contained in a Late Number of the Panoplist, on the Ministers of Boston and the VicinityOn the present occasion, when our moral character is impeached, we are justified, I think, in an appeal to our respective societies, and I trust, my'friend, that we and our accused brethren can say with confidence to those to whom we minister, Brethren, you know us, for we live among you, we visit you in your families, we speak to you from the pulpit, we repair to you in your sorrows, and we sit too at the table of your festivity. You know some thing of our conduct in our families, and in the common relations of life. We are, indeed sensible, that in all these sitnations, we have exhibited to you much of human imper fection, and our frequent prayer to God is, that he will for give our deficiences. But, brethren, we ask you to recels lect our general deportment and ministrations. Have we seemed to you men of artifice and deceit, men Without rev erence for truth, and without the fear of God, men of sordid and selfish views, seeking your wealth or applause, and careless of your souls Have we ever seemed to you to belabouring to build up a cause, or to establish sporty, which we were ashamed to acknowledge? Have we ever directed you to any foundation of hope or guide of life, but the Gos pel of Christ? Have we not continually exhorted you, as a father doth his children, that you would walk worthy of this religion from heaven? In your af¿iction have We not sup plied you with the 'consolations which it offers? And in the more dangerous seasons of enjoyment, have We not' discov ered the purity and moderation which it inculcates? To what work of christian usefulness have you found us reluc tant? In what relation of life have you found us unfaithful? On what occasion have We discovered, that our profession is a cloak of hypocrisy? It is not our design, by these questions, to advance our own glory God forbid it But we wish to impress you deeply with the criminality of those aspersions, which are casthabitually on your teachers and with the urgent necessity of discouraging that unrelenting party spirit, which has no respect for innocence or virtue, and which threatens to overwhelm our churches with dis 'cord and contention.About the PublisherForgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.comThis book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully, any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.