Mr. Bridgman: "The preacher said, indeed, that he respected our feelings, yet at the same time dealt out with all his vehemence, hard blows, not, indeed, of sound argument, but which certain sophists know best suit weak minds, merely hard words and positive assertions." My Reply: 1. You make a mistake about my saying that I respected your feelings, for I neither said, thought, nor meant so; but that I loved my Independent brethren in the faith of Christ, although I condemned infant sprinkling to be sent back to its mother at Rome, and I am still of the same mind. My work, my aim, and my object was to state what I believe in the presence of God, and on the text of the…

Mr. Bridgman: "I should say to the preacher concerned in this censure, my brother, let us do to others as we would they in like circumstances should do to us. And as a Baptist (so called) would not have patience to hear a Pseudo-Baptist rant on a general occasion about infant sprinkling; so neither vice versa." My Reply: What have I done, but honestly spoken out principle at a proper place, occasion, and time? It was a Baptist ordination, and I was published to state sentiments according to my well known public profession and personal belief, and I did so, and will leave the public to judge if I should not have departed from the laws of honesty on such an occasion if I had…

Mr. Bridgman: "But as an ordination is a service similar to the first opening or anniversary of a chapel, I for one, nor I alone by many, consider the preacher quite as much breaking the rule of the Apostle, 'Let all things be done decently and in order,' as was Joseph in sprinkling an infant in the presence of John Andrew the dipper." My Reply: I never did know, and you are the first person who ever said within my knowledge, that an ordination is a similar service to that of opening a chapel, or to that of an anniversary: for, 1. At an ordination the church is required to give an account of the leadings of Providence, relative to their chosen minister, and this…

Mr. Bridgman: "I ask was it candid, was it fair, when bills were sent round to Pseudo-Baptist chapels, with requests to ministers and people to attend (not an immersion, but) an ordination, was it fair in the preacher to turn the opportunity into a clap-trap, to draw away the weak and simple among our people into your pools of water?" My Reply: My reasons for saying so much on baptism, on that and on all such occasions are, 1. Because so much is said against it without the least true authority of chapter or verse from the mouth of God. 2. Because so many of its professed friends say so little about it as a part of the revealed will of God and of their…

Dear Sir,—Your letter came to hand Oct. 21, or the day following the date thereof. At first sight I thought of giving a short and private answer only, but in looking it over again, I feel convinced that justice to you, to myself, to the truth, and to the denomination to which I have the honor to belong, demands an answer in a very different way. My labor in the pulpit at Crosby Row, on the eighteenth, in stating the nature, constitution, and order of a gospel church, seems greatly to have displeased you, both in manner and in matter too; so that beside speaking very low and contemptuously of me, calling me "The Preacher" sixteen times on your single sheet, you have condemned our…