Opening the text

A Series of Letters, in Defence of Divine Revelation: In Reply to Rev. Abner Kneeland's Serious Inquiry into the Authenticity of the Same. To Which is Added, a Religious Correspondence, Between the Rev. Hosea Ballou, and the Rev. Dr. Joseph Buckminster and Rev. Joseph Walton, Pastors of Congregational Churches in Portsmouth, N. H.Ballou, Hosea

Religion

A Series of Letters, in Defence of Divine Revelation: In Reply to Rev. Abner Kneeland's Serious Inquiry into the Authenticity of the Same. To Which is Added, a Religious Correspondence, Between the Rev. Hosea Ballou, and the Rev. Dr. Joseph Buckminster and Rev. Joseph Walton, Pastors of Congregational Churches in Portsmouth, N. H.

Name: A Series of Letters, in Defence of Divine Revelation: In Reply to Rev. Abner Kneeland's Serious Inquiry into the Authenticity of the Same. To Which is Added, a Religious Correspondence, Between the Rev. Hosea Ballou, and the Rev. Dr. Joseph Buckminster and Rev. Joseph Walton, Pastors of Congregational Churches in Portsmouth, N. H.
Author: Ballou, Hosea

Ballou, Hosea

Revelation; Universalism -- Doctrines

I know not with what sentiments you will receive this address, nor
what use you may make of it; my concern is with the sentiments and
spirit that dictate it. I think they are such as will induce me
continually to pray that you may not pierce yourself through with many
sorrows, nor be left to mourn at the last.

Your friend and humble servant,

J. BUCKMINSTER.

       *       *       *       *       *

LETTER II.

FROM THE REV. HOSEA BALLOU TO THE REV. JOSEPH BUCKMINSTER.

PORTSMOUTH, JAN'Y. 1, 1810.

_Rev. Sir_,--The receipt of your affectionate, friendly address,
bearing date December 28, 1809, is gratefully acknowledged, and
although I have not words fully adequate to express the satisfaction I
feel arising from the circumstance and spirit of your epistle, I
cannot be willing to suppress my feelings so much as not to notice,
that it is with uncommon pleasure that I appreciate your favour,
which, I am happy to acknowledge, is a demonstration of that
friendship first reciprocated at your house, and secondly
recapitulated in your epistle. This friendship founded, as you justly
observe, in the _law_ of our _common nature_ and in the _spirit_ and
_principles_ of the _christian religion_, is such an inexhaustible
treasure of moral riches that the aggregate sum of earthly wealth is
poverty in the comparison.

This friendship, sir, being founded on such principles, will
undoubtedly last as long as such principles remain; and if you are my
real friend on the principle of the law of our common nature, so long
as you possess the law of our common nature, you will be my real
friend; and if you are my real friend, on the principles and spirit of
the christian religion, so long as you possess the principles and
spirit of the christian religion, you will remain my real friend. And
if I be, as I trust in God I am, your real friend, on those
imperishable principles, I shall continue to possess this friendship
for you so long as I possess those principles. If these observations
on friendship be correct, as I conceive they are, you will know why I
so highly prize the treasure, especially when I find it in a man
capable of exercising it to so much advantage as your learning,
ability and experience enable you to do. You justly observe that
neither piety nor friendship dictated the question, "Am I my brother's
keeper?" How different must have been the spirit which dictated that
question from the spirit of him who saith, I will declare thy name
unto my brethren, my mother's children were angry with me, they made
me the keeper of the vineyards, but mine own vineyard have I not kept?

Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.