revival, he acknowledged that its fervent emotionalism had also provoked strong opposition. He mentioned the “unhappy case” of New London where “increased difficulties” had “produced an open separation” and where “Christians had such sharp contentions between them, as to part asunder from one another.”
Nor had the “happy work” of the revival prevailed in Saybrook. There Rev. William Hart (1713–1784) in August 1741 had denied the use of his pulpit to Rev. James Davenport after the itinerant preacher declared Hart “unconverted.” Parsons stated he had not known at the time that Mr. Davenport referred to the neighboring minister as unconverted. His Christian History report omitted mention of the impassioned sermon he delivered in Boston in 1742 defending Davenport after his arrest there for deliberately provocative preaching in the streets late at night. Also missing from the Lyme minister’s account was mention of Davenport’s frenzied preaching in New London in 1743, when he exhorted followers to burn all books of history and theology, then urged them to create a sacrificial blaze and incinerate their worldly goods. “I greatly loved him for his eminent piety, but I can’t justify all his measures,” Parsons wrote, acknowledging that the itinerant preacher had “greatly prejudice[d] persons against religion.”
Rev. Jonathan Parsons traveled to Boston in 1742 to deliver a sermon Wisdom justified of her Children defending the incendiary minister James Davenport, who had been jailed after his deliberately provocative preaching and his denunciation of fellow clergymen.
In Lyme’s north parish the great danger that concerned Rev. George Beckwith in August 1741 was not the problem of unsaved souls but the authorizing of anyone displaying a “divine impulse” to pass judgment on other brethren. In two strongly worded sermons Beckwith warned against following the “dictates of man’s wild fancies” and denounced those “who usurped God’s judgment and presumed to act in His place.” A group from his congregation, together with a few from Parsons’s west parish, funded the printing of the paired sermons. Influential among the contributors was Dr. Eleazar Mather (1716–1789), a Yale graduate and local physician who later quipped that Lyme had been favored during the Great Awakening “with the lights of several wandering stars, viz. traveling Tennant, singing Davenport … whining Whitefield.”
After George Whitefield died of chronic asthma in Newbury, he was interred in a crypt beneath the pulpit in Jonathan Parsons’s church. Fervent admirers later removed pieces of his clothing and parts of his body, and today a glass case at the Methodist Center at Drew University displays what is said to be the famous evangelist’s thumb.
Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.
Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».
Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.
Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.
