24 Letter 3
LETTER III FROM THE REV. JOSEPH BUCKMINSTER TO THE REV. HOSEA BALLOU.
PORTSMOUTH, JAN. 10, 1810.
_Dear Sir_,--It was not my intention, in the letter which I sometimesince addressed to you, to enter into a discussion of the subject of Universalism, much less, for reasons that were suggested, provoke a dispute upon it. I therefore endeavoured so to express myself that no reply should be necessary. My object was to discharge what I thought a duty of friendship and affection, rendered more necessary by my personal declarations to you at my house, by stating to you with frankness and decision what I was persuaded would be the final result of that sentiment which you have embraced, and are advocating among us; and to fulfil a duty which I owe to myself, and to Him who has set me here to be a watchman, that I might use every proper precaution to appear before my Judge at last with unstained garments, preclude an occasion for a crimination and reproach, and give up my account with joy and not with grief.
I might have a secret hope that the apprehensions so seriously and candidly suggested might excite you to review your sentiments, and renewedly compare them with the only standard, and that this serious, calm and retired exercise might be accompanied with an influence from above, that might alter your views and conclusions upon the subject; but my principal design was to discharge what I thought my duty as above stated. You have thought it your duty to remark upon the address, and intimate an expectation that I should rejoin; your professions and candor have induced me for a time, to hesitate whether I ought not, in this instance, to depart from my general resolutions, and this hesitation has had influence in my delay to notice your letter. But the result of my hesitations, reflections and prayer, is a more full persuasion, that if the writings of Dr. Edwards, Dr. Strong and others who have discussed the subject, and which doubtless you have seen, have produced no hesitation or conviction in your mind, it would be vain and idle to expect it from any efforts of mine; and that it would be a misuse of time, which might be employed in more hopeful prospects of usefulness. This is a reason which I at present feel satisfied to give to God and my conscience for declining to enter upon a discussion of this subject, and I trust it will be accepted at the tribunal of God. To that tribunal I humbly and cheerfully refer the decision of the question that would be matter of dispute between us, from which decision there will be no appeal, and to which there will be no liberty to reply. I reciprocate the tender of every office of friendship consistent with what I think my duty to God and my conscience, and shall not cease to pray that those who have erred from the truth may be recovered from their errors, and being sanctified by the truth, may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus. Your friend and well wisher.
J. BUCKMINSTER.