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The Works of Theodore Parker: Saint Bernard and other papers
The Works of Theodore Parker Saint Bernard and other papers Author:Theodore Parker Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: Ill A LETTER TO THE BOSTON ASSOCIATION OF CONGREGATIONAL MINISTERS TOUCHING CERTAIN MATTERS OF THEIR THEOLOGY Gentlemen: The peculiar circumstances of t... more »he last few years have placed both you and me in new relations to the public, and to one another. Your recent actions constrain me to write you this public letter, that all may the more fully understand the matter at issue between us, and the course you design to pursue. You are a portion of the Unitarian body, and your opinions and conduct will no doubt have some influence upon that body. You have, I am told, at great length and in several consecutive meetings, discussed the subject of my connection with your reverend body; you have debated the matter whether you should expel me for heresy, and by a circuitous movement, recently made, have actually excluded me from preaching the Thursday Lecture. I do not call in question your motives, for it is not my office to judge you, neither do I now complain of your conduct, public or private, towards me during the last three years. That has been various. Some members of your Association have uniformly treated me with the courtesy common amongst gentlemen; some also with the civilities that are usual amongst ministers of the same denomination. Towards some of your number I entertain an affectionate gratitude for the good words I have heard from their lips in my youth. I feel a great regard forsome of you, on account of their noble and Christian characters, virtuous, self-denying, pious, and without bigotry. I cherish no unkind feelings towards the rest of you; towards none of you do I feel ill-will on account of what has passed. I have treated my opponents with a forbearance which, I think, has not always been sufficiently appreciated by such as have had the chief benefit of that f...« less