N04497:13
Copies of the two letters cited by the Rev. Mr. Clap, Rector of the…
Copies of the two letters cited by the Rev. Mr. Clap, Rector of the college at New-Haven, in his late printed letter to a friend in Boston, concerning what he has reported, as from Mr. Edwards of Northampton, concerning the Rev. Mr. Whitefield. Communicated in a letter to a friend. : With some reflections on the affair those letters relate to, and Rector Clap's management therein. / By Jonathan Edwards, A.M. Minister of the Gospel at Northampton, and writer of those letters.
Boston: printed by S. Kneeland and T. Green, 1745
Title page typeset from the transcription.
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
or that be ever turned off such Discourse to any Thing else; I SAY THESE THINGS ARE NOT TRUE. And if I ever told you any such Things as these when we were riding through Leicester, or at any other Time, I was beside my self and knew nothing what I said; or else I am beside my self now, and have had some strange supernatural Change passed upon me, so obliterating my own Ideas, and all Memory of most remarkable Things that formerly I knew, and remembered for a long Time, so as to give a particular Account of 'em to you; that they are to me as if they never had been. I do solemnly declare in the Fear of GOD, that I haven't the least Trace or Footstep of any one of these Things in my Memory, either as true in Fact, or spoken by me. And dear Sir, if these remarkable Things are true, is it not strange that I should keep these great Secrets shut up in my own Breast, from all Mankind, to reveal 'em to you only; that when I knew such remarkable Things of one so famous as Mr. Whitefield, and so much the Subject of Conversation through' New-England, I should make you, above all the World, my Confident, to declare them so freely to you, after I had kept them secret for two or three Years. If I had mentioned such remarkable Things to any other, it could not but be much taken Notice of by them: and it would doubtless have been talked of by some-body else besides you. These Things are all new to my nearest Friends; they never heard of any of them, 'till they heard of them as coming from you. And I am willing that all my Acquaintance, ⟨p. 9⟩and those that I have been most conversant with, Ministers or others, in this Town or elsewhere, should be enquired of, whether they ever heard me report any such Thing. I have most diligently searched my Memory as to what passed between Mr. Whitefield and me, to find out what there was that I could say about it, from whence it should be possible for you so to conceive of Things. And I cannot conceive what it should be. Whether you have heard some Report from some-body else, that in Length of Time is become insensibly blended with something that I might say, and you might misapprehend, I cannot tell; if you diligently enquire, you will be most likely to find out:
or that be ever turned off such Discourse to any Thing else; I SAY THESE THINGS ARE NOT TRUE. And if I ever told you any such Things as these when we were riding through Leicester, or at any other Time, I was beside my self and knew nothing what I said; or else I am beside my self now, and have had some strange supernatural Change passed upon me, so obliterating my own Ideas, and all Memory of most remarkable Things that formerly I knew, and remember'd for a long Time, so as to give a particular Account of 'em to you; that they are to me as if they never had been. I do solemnly declare in the Fear of GOD, that I han't the least Trace or Footstep of any one of these Things in my Memory, either as true in Fact, or spoken by me. And dear Sir, if these remarkable Things are true, is it not strange that I should keep these great Secrets shut up in my own Breast, from all Mankind, to reveal 'em to you only; that when I knew such remarkable Things of one so famous as Mr. Whitefield, and so much the Subject of Conversation thro' New-England, I should make you, above all the World, my Confident, to declare them so freely to you, after I had kept them secret for two or three Years. If I had mention'd such remarkable Things to any other, it could not but be much taken Notice of by them: and it would doubtless have been talked of by some-body else besides you. These Things are all new to my nearest Friends; they never heard of any of them, 'till they heard of them as coming from you. And I am willing that all my Acquaintance,