him. And God did not leave him without tender valuable friends at Northampton. For a small number of his people who had opposed his dismission from the beginning, and some who had acted on neither side, but after his dismission adhered to him, under the influence of their great esteem and love for Mr. Edwards, were willing, and thought themselves able to maintain him and insisted upon it that it was his duty to stay among them, as a distinct and separate congregation from the body of the town, who had rejected him.

Mr. Edwards could not see it to be his duty to continue at Northampton, as this would probably have been a means of perpetuating an unhappy division in the town; and there appeared to him no prospect of doing the good there, which would counterbalance the evil. However, that he might do all in his power to satisfy his tender and afflicted friends, he consented to ask the advice of an ecclesiastical council. Accordingly, a council was called, and met at Northampton on the 15th of May, 1751.-The town on this occasion was thrown into a great

tumult. They who were active in Mr. Edwards's dismission supposed, though without any good reason, that he was contriving with his friends again to introduce himself. They drew up a remonstrance against their proceedings, and laid it before the council, (though they would not acknowledge them to be an ecclesiastical council,) containing many heavy, though groundless insinuations and charges against Mr. Edwards, and bitter accusations of the party who had adhered to him: but refused to appear and support any of their charges, or so much as to give the gentlemen of the council any opportunity to confer with them about the affair depending, though it was diligently sought. The council having heard what Mr. Edwards and they who adhered to him had to say, advised, agreeably to Mr. Edwards's judgment, that he should leave Northampton, and accept of the mission to which he was invited at Stockbridge; of which a more particular account will be given.

Many additional facts relative to this sorrowful and surprising affair (the most so,

H

doubtless, of any of the kind that ever happened in New England; and perhaps in any part of the christian world) might be related; but as this more general history of it may be sufficient to answer the ends proposed, viz. to rectify some gross misrepresentations that have been made of the matter,* and to

From all that we have been able to collect, respecting this very singular affair, we are disposed to infer, that the precise causes of the difference, and consequent separa tion, between Mr. Edwards and his people at Northampton, are not sufficiently attended to, or duly appreciated. That Mr. Edwards was very ill used no one can question; but if that usage proceeded from "the passionate ignorance of the brutish multitude," from a principle “becoming the disciples of Ignatins of Loyola," a principle “ which no church of Christ ever avowed;" if it proceeded from “such a kind of men as the idolaters at Ephesus," men who were determined that "the business was to be bellowed down with the force of lungs," in opposition ta the voice of meekness and wisdom, reason and revelationmen who "meditated the ruin of their pastor by designs of coafusion," men " whose rebellion added stubbornness to their iniquity," men who "agreed with lies and contumelies to promote this mean and unjust design, in the true spirit of injustice and meanness”—if the pastor of these men was treated by them with "wayward ignorance, cunning intrigues, and ́insolent_clamours ;”—in short, if these people may be fairly called an "ungodly party," and a "licentious mob," composing an ecclesiastical body of above two hundred against twenty, a dispassionate en

discover the great trial Mr. Edwards had herein, it is thought best to omit other

quirer will be solicitous to reconcile all this with the uni versally acknowledged great awakenings, convictions of sin, conversions to God, and the most unequivocal effects of genuine religion among numbers of them, according to Mr. Edwards's own account of the matter; and he was far from drawing hasty conclusions about the genuineness of religion. Towards a solution of this difficulty, we beg leave to propose a few remarks.

I. In reference to Mr. Edwards himself.-And if we mistake not, though eminently devoted to God, and a lover of holiness, this great man was not perfectly accurate in some particulars.

1. He seems to have presumed too much on his influence over all the inhabitants of the town in an affair of the utmost delicacy. And may we not add, that his recluse mode of living among them (pastoral visits not being included in his ministerial plan) contributed not a little to lessen his influence? Whether he did right in that particular, and whether the people made sufficient allowance for his motives, are other questions.

2. The manner in which the buddings of iniquity, among several of the young branches of the people,were counteracted, manifested more of a steady abhorrence of the rising evil, than of prudence in managing human passions. To read the list of names in the manner stated, was calculated, perhaps, to cause a ferment, circumstanced as the people were, without supposing them much worse than other societies.

3. It does not appear that proper means were sufficiently employed to counteract a rising spirit of opposition, viz.

particulars. As a proper close to this melancholy story, and to confirm and illus

private, friendly calls and expostulations with parents, previous to a more open and general investigation.

4. The time for discussing the question of right to the Lord's supper, was peculiarly unfavourable to an amicable agreement, in addition to other causes of difference in sentiment on that point.

II. In reference to the people.-No one, probably, will attempt to justify their conduct; and we hope that most of them, if not all, had a more just sense of the matter, when the heat of controversy had abated; a pleasing specimen of which we shall insert. However, we think there were some circumstances, which, if duly considered, though they do not exculpate them, yet will shew their conduct in a far less aggravated light than that in which some have been pleased to represent it. To mention these is but the part of candour.

1. It does not appear that the parents of the young persons defended them, or gave them countenance, in the alleged improprieties of their practice. The fairer inference is, that they objected only to the manner in which they were to be called to an account, and the right of Mr. Edwards to exercise official authority in such cases.

2. As to their views of the ordinance of the Lord's supper, it was by no means a new peculiarity of theirs: it was a dong established custom among them. And this also was maintained by many churches and able ministers around them.

3. The true state of the question about a right .to communion, has not, we think, been candidly stated, by those who have indulged acrimony in their censures. When it