[386] Wakeley's "Anecdotes of Whitefield."
[387] The Rev. Josiah Smith graduated at Harvard College in 1725, was ordained minister for Bermuda in 1726, and afterwards took charge of the Presbyterian Church in Charleston. Having become a prisoner of war at Charleston, he was sent on parole, in 1781, to Philadelphia, where he died in the same year, aged 76. He published a considerable number of sermons, including one on the preaching of Whitefield, in 1740.
[388] The clergy of the Church of England.
[389] Among other ministers, converted by Whitefield's preaching at Boston, was John Porter, pastor at Bridgewater, who writes: "I knew nothing rightly of my sin and danger, of my need of a Saviour, of the way of salvation by Him; neither was I established in the doctrines of grace, till I heard that man of God, Mr. Whitefield, at Boston." Six months after this, a revival took place at Bridgewater, and a large number of the population were converted. Another minister similarly benefited was the Rev. Jonathan Parsons, of the West Parish of Lyme, where, in the spring of 1741, occurred a revival quite as wonderful as that at Bridgewater. At Portsmouth, where Whitefield preached on October 3, 1740, God's work was remarkably revived some months afterwards. In fact, as is well known, for two or three years subsequent to Whitefield's visit, nearly the whole of New England became another "valley of vision," where "the breath from the four winds" breathed, and, as the newly quickened prophets "prophesied," in thousands of instances, "dry bones" were made to live. It would be absurd to attribute the whole of this to Whitefield's visit; but there cannot be a doubt that, in an indirect way, by the impressions he made on ministers and churches, his usefulness was great. (See Gillies' "Historical Collections," vol. ii., pp. 184-338.)
[390] Home Missionary Magazine, 1827, p. 7.
[391] The Rev. Nathaniel Appleton, D.D., who, after a faithful and successful ministry of sixty-six years, died in 1784, preached, on November 30, 1740, a sermon at Cambridge, from, "I have planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the increase." The sermon was published, and was stated to have been "occasioned by the late powerful and awakening preaching of the Rev. Mr. Whitefield."
Colonel Brattle, a representative of Cambridge in the general court, published two letters in the Boston Gazette, for April 20, and June 29, 1741; in which he vindicated the college at Cambridge against Whitefield's strictures upon it, but, at the same time, admitted that, "by the preaching of Whitefield and Tennent, the students in general had been deeply affected, and their enquiry now was, 'What shall we do to be saved?' These gentlemen," continues the colonel, "have planted, Mr. Appleton has watered; but, after all, it was God who gave the increase." Brattle adds, that "the overseers of the college thought it proper to set apart the forenoon of June 12, 1741, humbly to bless and praise the God of all grace for His abundant mercy to that Society."
[392] The Rev. Thomas Prince was ordained pastor of the Old South Church, Boston, as colleague with Dr. Sewall, in 1718. He was an eminent preacher; and Dr. Chauncy pronounced him the most learned man in New England, excepting Cotton Mather. For more than fifty years, he availed himself of every opportunity of collecting public and private papers relating to the civil and religious history of New England; but, during the war of independence, his collection was almost entirely destroyed. He received Whitefield with open arms; and, amid all vicissitudes, remained his faithful friend. He died in 1758, aged 71.
[393] Gillies' "Historical Collections," vol. ii., pp. 163-183.
[394] Gillies' "Historical Collections," vol. ii., p. 169.