By taking on yourself the office of which I am
unjustly deprived, you have, in my judgment, committed a great sin. Use
the power you are allowed to exercise with such temperance as may
mitigate the awful inquisition which will one day be made into the means
by which you acquired it. While you act as a pastor to this parish,
remember you are not a shepherd to your own party and a wolf to mine.
Deny not the blessed sacraments instituted by our common Saviour, to
those whose only crime it is to reject the ordinances and covenants
which a faction in one branch of the legislature attempt to impose,
notwithstanding the protests they have made against what they call human
institutions, though sanctioned by all the legal authorities in the
kingdom. Endeavour to allay the ferment of men's minds instead of making
the pulpit a seditious tribune, and the Bible a trumpet calling aloud to
battle. Remember, the latter is a rule of conduct to Christians in all
ages and all conditions of the world, and that its prophecies are not of
private interpretation, nor its texts designed to be bandied about as
the watch-words of party, to inflame disagreement into enmity, or to
smite down our opponents with the spiritual staff of misapplied
scripture.
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