[653] Ibid., pp. 4–13.
[654] As far as the present writer has been able to discover, President Dwight did not deal publicly with the Illuminati charge until a little later. Tappan’s reference must therefore be to general discussions of infidelity, a favorite topic with Yale’s president, as we have seen.
[655] The reference is to Robison. Whether or not Tappan had personally read Robison’s volume at this time is not altogether clear. The general impression created by his sermon is that he had.
[656] Cf. Tappan’s Sermon, p. 19.
[657] Ibid., pp. 15 et seq. (foot note).
[658] Cf. Tappan’s Sermon, pp. 15 et seq. (foot note).
[659] THE DUTY OF AMERICANS IN THE PRESENT CRISIS. Illustrated in a Discourse, Preached on the Fourth of July, 1798; by the Reverend Timothy Dwight, D. D., President of Yale-College; at the request of the citizens of New-Haven. New-Haven, 1798.
[660] Ibid., p. 8.
[661] The elaboration of this point necessarily led to some emphasis upon the spirit of irreligion and savage persecution that had thus manifested itself, and this in turn necessitated an effort to find a way out of the embarrassment of seeming to approve this persecution. The following ingenious foot note appended to the text of the published sermon admirably illustrates the inventive resourcefulness of many a New England clergyman of the day who found it necessary to rescue himself from such an impasse as Dwight’s method of exegesis produced: “In the mention of all these evils brought on the Romish Hierarchy, I beg it may be remembered, that I am far from justifying the iniquitous conduct of their persecutors. I know not that any person holds it, and all other persecutions, more in abhorrence. Neither have I a doubt of the integrity and piety of multitudes of the unhappy sufferers. In my view they claim, and I trust will receive, the commiseration, and, as occasion offers, the kind offices of all men possessed even of common humanity.” (Ibid., p. 9.) The truth is that in some cases Protestant clergymen in New England, out of their concern for Christianity in general, went so far as to deprecate the persecutions which Roman Catholicism suffered.
[662] Dwight offered as his sources of authority Robison’s Proofs and an article on Barruel’s Memoirs of Jacobinism which he had discovered in the British Critic.