7. “The Declaration of the Faculty of Yale College,” dated “February 25, 1745.” The “Faculty” endorse “The Testimony” of their brethren of Harvard College. They also especially insist upon two things: 1. “That Whitefield and other itinerants had laid a scheme to turn the generality of ministers out of their places, and to introduce a new set, attached to Whitefield; because Whitefield had stated, that, the generality of ministers were unconverted, and that all unconverted ministers were half beasts and half devils, and could no more be the means of any man’s conversion than a dead man could beget living children.” 2. That Whitefield had “publicly told the people in New England, that they might expect, in a little time, a supply of ministers from his Orphan House; and that he had told Edwards, of Northampton, that he intended to bring over a number of young men from England to be ordained by the Tennents.”
8. This publication was followed by “A Letter from the Rev. Mr. Clap, Rector of Yale College, in New-Haven, to the Rev. Mr. Edwards, of Northampton, expostulating with him for his injurious reflections in a late Letter to a Friend,and shewing that Mr. Edwards, in contradicting the Rector, plainly contradicts himself.”
Mr. Clap was a strong-minded man, and, in the higher branches of mathematics, had no equal in America, except Professor Winthorpe. He constructed the first orrery made in that country. The pith of his present pamphlet was a dispute between him and Edwards, as to what Whitefield had said respecting his design “to turn the generality of the ministers of New England out of their pulpits, and to bring ministers from England, Scotland, and Ireland,” to supply their places. Besides displaying considerable bitterness between the two disputants, the publication of Rector Clap exhibited Whitefield in an obnoxious light.
9. “Mr. Pickering’s Letter to Mr. Whitefield, touching his Relation to the Church of England, his Impulses, or Impressions, and the present unhappy state of things.” The letter of the Rev. Theophilus Pickering, minister at Ipswich, is dated “February 12, 1745,” and the writer objects to Whitefield, 1. Because he is a clergyman of the Church of England; 2. Because of his “dreams and impressions;” 3. Because Whitefield’s “travelling services will be more hurtful than beneficial.”
10. “A Letter to the Second Church and Congregation in Scituate; written by their Reverend Pastor, shewing some Reasons why he doth not invite the Rev. Mr. George Whitefield into his Pulpit.” The Letter is signed “N. Eells,” and is dated “April 15, 1745.” Mr. Eells had been the pastor of the Church at Scituate forty years and ten months; and his “Reasons” were—1. Whitefield “did not stand right in the gospel of Christ; for, by his episcopal ordination, he received no authority to itinerate, as he had done for years past; and the authority he had received from the bishop who ordained him, he had forfeited, and was now suspended from the ministry of the Church of England, and from communion at the Lord’s table.” 2. “The manner of his itinerancy was not according to Scripture, but was rather a blemish, reproach, and scandal to the ministry; for he had no authority from Christ, either mediately or immediately; and he spent his time in places where the people did not want him.” 3. “He had made it manifest that he was noreal friend to the ministers and churches of this land; for he had represented the pastors of these churches to be men of no grace, without the knowledge of Christ, and so unqualified for the ministry; he had preached in places at the invitation of factious persons, contrary to the mind of their pious and orthodox pastors; he had favoured disorders in the public worship of God, such as screaming, etc.; and he had encouraged separation and separatists from our churches.”
Such are specimens of the publications against Whitefield. We have met with three only in his favour.
1. “An Apology on behalf of the Rev. Mr. Whitefield, offering a fair Solution of certain Difficulties, objected against some parts of his Public Conduct, in point of Moral Honesty and Uniformity with his own Subscriptions and Ordination Vows: as the said exceptions are set forth in a late Pamphlet entitled, ‘A Letter to the Rev. Mr. George Whitefield, publicly calling upon him to vindicate his Conduct, or confess his Faith,’ signed L. K. By Thomas Foxcroft, A.M., one of the Pastors of the first Church in Boston. Being several Letters, written for the satisfaction of a Friend, and published by Desire. Boston, 1745.” (4to. 38 pp.)
For twenty-eight years, Mr. Foxcroft had been the minister of the Church just mentioned, and, strangely enough, Dr. Chauncy was his colleague. Mr. Foxcroft’s first letter is dated “December 31, 1744,” and his second and third were written during the fortnight next ensuing. He shews, that, “Bishops of the Church of England have power to grant licenses of wider extent than the narrow district of a single parish, to any ordained minister they think proper, who, in virtue of such license, may travel from place to place as they think fit.” “The sending forth of itinerant preachers was a practice of the Church of England at the beginning of the Reformation; and has been remarkably revived of late years, particularly with relation to foreign parts.” “Mr. Whitefield is not the only episcopal itinerant in America. In the Abstract of the Proceedings of the Society for Propagating the Gospel, for 1743, Mr. Morris is expressly named ‘Itinerant Missionary,’ in Connecticut; Mr. Punderson, ‘Itinerant Missionary,’ in New England; and Mr. Lindsay, ‘Itinerant Missionary,’ in Pennsylvania and New Jersey. It is no violation, therefore, of the original commission from the Bishop, to act beyond the limits of a particular cure or charge, or even in the character of an itinerant. And, with regard to special license,” continues Mr. Foxcroft, “I question whether the itinerant missionaries above-mentioned have had this any more than Mr. Whitefield.”
2. “An Inquiry into the Itinerancy and the Conduct of the Rev. Mr. George Whitefield, an Itinerant Preacher: vindicating the former against the charge of unlawfulness and inexpediency, and the latter against some aspersions, which have been frequently cast upon him. By William Hobby, A.M., Pastor of the first Church in Reading. Boston, 1745.” (8vo. 28 pp.)
Mr. Hobby was a graduate of Harvard College, and was a fluent and fervid preacher. He died in 1765, aged fifty-seven. Passing over that part of his pamphlet which refers to the lawfulness of itinerancy, it may be stated, that he successfully replies to the attacks on Whitefield respecting his Orphan House accounts,his being an enthusiast and ecclesiastical chameleon,[118] and his aspersion of ministers. With regard to the accusation that he was a perjurer, because he had sworn to prosecute his appeal against Commissary Garden’s censure, and had not done so, Mr. Hobby says, “Whitefield exerted himself to the utmost to get a hearing in the court at home (which he now proves by an affidavit, taken before the Lord Mayor of London by himself and his solicitor), but all in vain.”