[Beecher, Lyman]. A Candid Address to the Unitarian Ministers of Boston and Vicinity: In Three Letters, signed Candor. NP: 1829. [12073]
Removed, no wrapper, 8 1/2 x 5 1/4 inches, 34 pages. Good. Pamphlet.
Our anonymous author addresses the Unitarian ministers of Boston on points of doctrine and fellowship. His manner is mild, his persuasions are friendly; he does not want to disparage them or hold them in contempt. Nevertheless he brings up points of disagreement, such as on the atonement, and shows that they are outside the mainstream of Christianity.
"Whatever your belief may be of the method of salvation, or of the principle doctrines of the bible, you will readily perceive that you are contradistinguished, as an order of christians, from all other christian sects, although they may differ among themselves in many respects. And should it be true, that you deny the doctrine of the atoning efficacy of the sacrifice of Christ, you will be contradistinguished from all christian sects of every name, who are all agreed on this one point." - p. 32.
The Christian Examiner, in the same year, issued a response: A Reply to Three Letters of the Rev. Lyman Beecher, D. D.
Lyman Beecher, D.D. (1775-1863), “an eminent Presbyterian minister, was born at New Haven, Connecticut…was sent to Yale College, where he graduated A.B. in 1797…In 1825 he accepted a call to the Hanover Street Church, Boston, where he spent six years of immense activity and popularity, distinguished also by his boldness and success with which he opposed Dr. Channing and grappled Unitarianism…
"In 1832 he accepted the Presidency of Lane Theological Seminary, Cincinnati, in which service, and that of the Second Presbyterian Church, Cincinnati, he remained during twenty eventful years…The doctrinal views of Dr. Beecher has always been moderately Calvinistic, and he was charged by some of the stronger Calvinists with heresy. A trial ensued, ending in 1835, by the adoption of resolutions to which Dr. Beecher assented; but the controversy went on until at last the Presbyterian church was rent in twain by it. In 1852 Dr. Beecher resigned the presidency of the seminary and returned to Boston.” – M’Clintock & Strong.
Dr. Beecher was the father of Harriet Beecher Stowe, who wrote Uncle Tom’s Cabin, and the father of the preachers Henry Ward Beecher, Charles Beecher, Edward Beecher, and Thomas Beecher.
