No doubt such avowals will surprise many, who have been led to suppose that the writer, and the Congregational and Presbyterian denominations with which he has been associated, are in the van of ambitious desire, and sinister intrigue, and unholy plotting to compass a union of church and state in their own behalf. I have only to say, that the sentiments on this subject avowed in this discourse, are the sentiments of my whole life, and the regulators of my conduct; and have been repeatedly, in various forms, published within the last ten years; and are in accordance with the views of the great body of the Congregational and Presbyterian ministers whom I now know, and have ever known. Should any, however, be still troubled in mind at the apprehension of our machinations, they may well be tranquilized if they will search the records of legislation and political office in this nation, and in all the states, and witness how harmless and impotent our intrigues must have been to secure either legislative power or official trust; and how large a portion of popular and governmental favor has fallen, happily for us, as I think, upon clerical men without the sphere of the Congregational and Presbyterian denominations.