N04498:13
An expostulatory letter from the Rev. Mr. Edwards of Northampton, to the Rev. Mr.…
An expostulatory letter from the Rev. Mr. Edwards of Northampton, to the Rev. Mr. Clap, Rector of Yale College in New-Haven, in reply to his late printed letter to him, relating to what he reported concerning the Rev. Mr. Whitefield, at Boston and Cambridge and elsewhere, as from Mr. Edwards; making the falsity of that report yet much more manifest. : [Two lines from Job]
Boston: printed by Kneeland and 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.
And now I have mentioned this, I would pray you, Sir, seriously to consider, whether that Report you had as coming from Mr. Hopkins, of what I told him of my Suspicion, was not the sole Foundation, on which you in Length of Time gradually framed in your Imagination the whole Story, which you afterwards reported, as being told immediately by me to you, in our Journey to Boston.
And now I have mention'd this, I would pray you, Sir, seriously to consider, whether that Report you had as coming from Mr. Hopkins, of what I told him of my Suspicion, was not the sole Foundation, on which you in Length of Time gradually framed in your Imagination the whole Story, which you afterwards reported, as being told immediately by me to you, in our Journey to Boston.
But you, Sir, have said it, in your first printed Letter, and you will stand to it still, that I have in Effect owned the very same Thing that you have reported, in a Variety of Terms that are equally full and strong; yea, that you may be sure not to be wanting to yourself, you go further now than before, and say that my Terms are fuller and stronger than yours; and are abundant in affirming it, that what I have said of MY OPINION of Mr. Whitefield's aiming at People's forsaking unconverted Ministers, and at converted ones being introduced, is most plainly, and manifestly, and fully the same Thing as saying, that Mr. Whitefield TOLD ME that he designed to ⟨p. 8⟩turn the generality of Ministers in the Country out of their Places, and bring over Ministers from England, Scotland and Ireland, and place them in their Room; so that for me to own the Former, and deny the Latter, is a most plain, flat, amazing self-Contradiction; and represent it (p. 7.) as an absurd Thing to make any Distinction between expressing what I supposed of Mr. Whitefield, as my Opinion, and expressing it as a declared Design of Mr. Whitefield; and cry out, What can you mean by this Distinction? If I had only heard this of you from others, I should hardly have believed it: But if I may believe my own Eyes, I have seen a Gentleman of your Understanding, not in Jest or only to make Sport, but gravely and seriously and in great earnest, go about to show that these two Things are exactly the same, and to make it plain, even to a Demonstration, by rehearsing over Words on both Sides, and elaborately finding out, and cutting off Evasions, and placing the Words one against another in parallel Columns, that the World might see the exact Identity; and the astonishing Contradiction there is in owning one and denying the other.