remarkable fact, what good reason can be assigned? Since the period so often referred to, scores of writers have come forward under their own names, and appeared as advocates of the "new doctrine." But why this surprising change in the mode of operation, except that a studied concealinent had been previously practised, which then, by an unwelcome disclosure, was suddenly broken up? If there was no intentional concealment, up to this time, why, I ask, was the work, making the disclosure here referred to, so long secreted after its arrival in this country? This work, as is generally known, is the Memoirs of Lindsey by Mr. Belshamfrom which was extracted the pamphlet afterwards reviewed in the Panoplist, entitled "A brief history of the progress and present state of the Unitarian churches in America." The Memoirs of Lindsey were published in London in 1812, were probably received in Boston shortly afterwards, but were unseen and unknown, except by a few select individuals, until the beginning of 1815. The motive for suppressing this work was well understood by the editor of the pamphlet extracted from it. "The care," says he, "which has been manifested to limit the knowledge of this interesting work, during many months, probably two years, since its arrival in Boston, indicates pretty plainly the unwillingness of those who have possessed copies of it to have its contents generally known." p. 4. The saine account of the matter is given by a reviewer of this pamphlet (a Unitarian) in the Boston Patriot for May 13, 1815. "It is a fact," says this reviewer, "that the work (Memoirs of Lindsey) no sooner arrived here, than it was studiously concealed. But a few copies were received, and the circulation of these was confined to a small number of select individuals. On a careful perusal, we can find but one motive for this suppression, viz. that the Unitarians, who are principally confined to Boston and its vicinity, are not yet prepared for an open and explicit avowal of their sentiments." Thus reasoned a political writer, a Unitarian, in 1815; and to the same conclusion must every candid mind be brought, when made acquainted with the facts. It was shown in my last, that the Hollis Professor of Divinity in Harvard College and the late President both obtained their places by concealment. When Dr. Ware was elected, the suggestion that he was an Arian was strenuously resisted, and represented as "a calumny." And says a Unitarian clergyman, who had the best means of knowing, "Had Dr. Kirkland been an acknowledged defender of Unitarianism," at the time of his elevation to the Presidency, "he would not have been elected to that place."*—It should be added in this connection, that most of See Spirit of the Pilgrims, vol. ii. pp. 471, 477. the present Unitarian clergy, who were settled previous to 1815, obtained their places by a like concealinent. What I mean is, they did not go to their parishes as Unitarians, or disclose to their people, previous to settlement, their Unitarian principles; and if they had disclosed them, in all probability they would not have been settled. Of the first part of this proposition, there can be no doubt. To call names in support of it might appear invidious, and is unnecessary. I aver, therefore, in the general, and I challenge contradiction, if what I say is not the truth, that there is not now a Congregational Unitarian minister in Massachusetts, settled previous to 1815, who went to his people in the name and with the character of a Unitarian, and plainly preached to them, before ordination, the peculiarities of Unitarianism; and I do not believe there is one, who, had he done this, could have been settled without difficulty, if at all.* I have here called your attention to various undeniable facts, all conspiring to establish the point at issue, viz. that previous to the controversy in 1815, there was, on the part of Unitarians in this region, a studied concealment of their religious opinions. I do not mean that these opinions were entirely concealed. Doubtless, those holding them were wont to express them-to use the language of Mr. Wells- when they judged it proper.' But they did not judge it proper to express them from the pulpit, or (with their names) from the press, or in any other place or manner where their expressions would be likely to be quoted in proof of their being Unitarians.† 2. The conduct of Unitarians was such, in former years, as made the impression on those around them that they were intending and endeavoring to conceal their sentiments. In his first letter Many persons now living recollect what took place at the time when the late Mr. Buckminster received his call to become ininister of the Brattle-street church and society in Boston. When the proposal was made to give him a call, Mr. Cooper, a venerable member of the church, and son of one of the former ministers, rose and objected, on the ground that Mr. B. did not believe the divinity of Christ. To this it was replied, that Mr. Cooper must be mistaken; that, though Mr. B. might not have been so explicit on that point as some desired, it was not to be doubted that he believed so important a doctrine as the divinity of the Saviour. Mr. Cooper, however, insisted, that he had taken pains to satisfy himself of the truth of what he had stated, and that he was not mistaken. On this, a wish was expressed by a third person that Mr. Cooper might leave the meeting, as the society would undoubtedly give Mr. B. a call, and it was very desirable that they should be unanimous. This suggestion, however, was not followed or approved; Mr. Cooper was suffered to remain; but it was under these circumstances that the call was given. Though the cloak of concealment was in a good measure torn off by the controversy of 1815, sull, there has not been all that explicitness since which oght to have been expected. Several improvements in theology (so calle) which now egin to be disclosed, have long been concea ed; and more, doubtless, are still conceale, to be published in due time. As an indication of this, allow me to advert to a single fact. Why is it that the lectures at the th ological school at Cambridge have always been considered as private lectures? Why is it that the st dents have not been expected, if they have been permitted, to reciprocate the civilities shown them at other seminaries, by inviting their friends, and especially the students of other seminaries, to go with them to the lecture room? to Dr. Channing, Dr. Worcester says, "The opinion is very extensively prevalent," "that liberal ministers, and other liberal gentlemen have judged it proper not to make ordinarily a free and full disclosure of their sentirnents; that they have, in fact, thought it expedient to temporize. 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 established, 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 anything 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." p. 17. The same impression was made on the editor of the History of American Unitarianism, the pamphlet extracted from the Memoirs of Lindsey. "Those," says he, "who have been chiefly concerned in conducting these operations," introducing and promoting Unitarianism," have deemed it expedient, till this stage of the process, to conceal from the mass of the Christian community their ultimate designs." p. 4. A similar impression was made on the conductors of the Panoplist-men favored with the best opportunities of observing and judging for themselves. They speak of "the work of error" as having been "carried on for the most part in secret"-as having silently and covertly extended itself." The advocates of Socinianism in general have not dared to be open," but "have clandestinely crept into Orthodox churches." vol. xi. pp. 241, 260. The same opinion is expressed by the editor of the Vermont Adviser. "These ministers (the Unitarians) have all along carefully refrained from an explicit avowal of their actual belief. They have rather pretended that they did not essentially vary from the generally received opinions," and their "efforts to propagate Unitarianism have been made" in an "insidious and covert manner." vol. vii. pp. 228, 239. 66 The reviewer in the Patriot, already quoted, who could have been impelled by no religious antipathies, is still more full in expressing the same sentiment. Why," he asks, "do not the" (Unitarian)" clergy openly profess and teach the tenets of their belief ?" "We may feel pretty sure that it does not spring from any particular objection to controversy;" "nor from any peculiar and unusual delicacy to the feelings of an opposite party. We think we may safely infer so much, from the fact, that political questions are discussed with great freedom, and with quite as liberal a use of the vituperation style, as comports with the decency and moderation expected from the pulpit." 3. The conduct of American Unitarians was formerly such, as to give occasion to Mr. Belsham to reproach them with " a mean and temporizing policy," and to represent them as unwilling to disclose their sentiments. Speaking of the Result of the Council by which Mr. Abbot, of Coventry, (Conn.) was dismissed, he says, "Thus, again we see the sacred cause of Christian truth sacrificed to a mean and temporizing policy, and the faithful champion of truth, the amiable, useful and beloved pastor, torn from his weeping flock and consigned to poverty and solitude, for the sake of preserving a hollow, deceitful, temporary peace."* In another place, under the semblance of an apology for the Boston clergy, he exposes the concealment they were practising in the following terms: "Can it, upon the common principles of human nature, be reasonably expected of a body of clergy, nursed in the lap of ease and affluence, and placed in a station of such high secular consideration and comfort as that of the ministers of Boston, that they should come forward, and by an OPEN PROFESSION OF UNPOPULAR TRUTH, voluntarily risk the loss of all their temporal dignity and comfort, and incur the contempt and enmity of many who are now their warm"Who will venture to say of himself, est admirers and friends?" that his virtue would be equal to the trial? Yet still, it cannot be reasonably hoped that truth will make any visible and rapid progress, till her advocates rise above the fear of man, and the love of ease, and are willing, with the Apostles of Christ and the reformers of every age, to forsake all, and to sacrifice their dearest interests in her glorious cause."+ 4. In proof of the concealment formerly practised by Unitarians in this country, we have the testimony of numbers from among themselves.-Dr. Worcester speaks of an ordination which he attended in Boston, where "the preacher (a Unitarian) 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 a people, for a minister openly and plainly to declare his sentiments, yet in other places it would not be prudent or proper."‡ And we are told of another ordination, at which an aged Unitarian minister, in the charge to his young brother, took occasion to congratulate him "on the favorableness of existing circumstances Hist. of Am. Un. p. 33. The Committee who prepared the Result of this Council were the Rev. Doctors Lathrop of Poston, Reed of Bridgewater, Porter of Roxbury, Bancroft of Worcester, and Thayer of Lancaster. First Letter to Channing, p. 18. compared with those of former years. The time has been,' said he, when our peculiar sentiments were so unpopular that it was hazardous to teach them. The minds of men were not prepared to receive them. We were obliged to conceal them from public view, or disclose them in ambiguous language.'"* Dr. Freeman, in a letter to Mr. Lindsey, written in 1796 or 1797, speaks of certain "cautious" ministers, "who content themselves with leading their hearers, by a course of rational but prudent sermons, gradually and insensibly to embrace " Unitarianism.t William Wells, Esq. writing to Mr. Belsham in 1812, says, "With regard to the progress of Unitarianism, I have but little to say. Its tenets have spread very extensively in New-England, but I believe there is only one church PROFESSEDLY Unitarian."† A Unitarian minister at Philadelphia, in 1811, speaks of eight Congregational ministers in Boston who "are anti-Calvinistic and anti-Trinitarian ;" and yet he says, "there is only one place of worship at Boston which is avowedly Unitarian ;"-of course, the Unitarianism of all but one was disguised or concealed. The same writer, the next year, repeats the assertion, that "with the exception of Dr. Freeman's church, no place of worship at Boston is avowedly Unitarian." The Rev. Francis Parkman, speaking of the Boston Association of Ministers in 1812, says, " Of these gentlemen, about twenty in number, there is only one whom, from anything I ever heard him offer, either in private, or in his pulpit, I or anybody else, would have a right to call an Unitarian. Even this gentleman, when I was in Boston, did not preach Unitarianism systematically. I never heard him express such views of the person of Christ, and it was rather from inference that I could say he held them." Of Dr. Freeman, the same writer says, "I never heard him express an Unitarian sentiment, and I believe he carefully avoids it in the pulpit, because it might unnecessarily disturb some of his hearers.— There is now one more gentleman in Boston who, with his intimate friends, may perhaps be considered a Unitarian; but HE MAINTAINS THE SAME CAUTIOUS RESERVE; and from neither his sermons, his prayers, nor his PRIVATE CONVERSATION, could I infer that he was a Unitarian.-Now even admitting, what I hardly think I have a right to do, that these three gentlemen are Unitarians, to what can all this prudent reserve be ascribed, but to their conviction that the preaching of Unitarian doctrines would be offensive to their hearers, and injurious to their usefulness ?”|| But, a "little time has elapsed," says a writer in the Christian Spirit of the Pilgrims, vol. ii. p. 6. + Hist. of Am. Unitarianism, pp. 22, 43, 44 Monthly Repository, vol. vii. p. 199. |