George-Whitefield-Field-Preacher

216 GEORGE WHITEFIELD
A quick answer returned from Northampton, and on
October 15 th Neal wrote again. He says :
' I am not insensible, sir, that the respect many of your people bore to
Mr. Whitefield, and your own acquaintance with him, must have made it
a matter of difficulty for you to have avoided showing him some polite
regards on his coming to Northampton ; and I greatly rejoice in being
furnished with so particular an account of the circumstances attending his
visit that may enable me to say you were so far at that time from seeking
his preaching in your pulpit, that you took several steps, and indeed all
that you thought you could prudently venture on, and such as might,
if they had succeeded, have been sufficient to have prevented it ; which
I doubt not will, and I am sure ought, to have some weight with those
who censure this step on the ground of imprudence. I could only wish that
I were able to make these circumstances known as far as that censure
is likely to extend.'
Doddridge continued ' imprudent,' and dared ' the cen-
sure ' ; so that Neal returned again to the task of remon-
strating. His third letter is more direct, and plainly tells
the feelings which he had only hinted at before.
The answer of Doddridge is plain and honest ; in one part
of it he says :
' I shall always be ready to weigh whatever can be said against Mr.
Whitefield, as well as against any of the rest ; and though I must have
actual demonstration before I can admit him to be a dishonest man, and
though I shall never be able to think all he has written and all I have
heard from him nonsense, yet I am not so zealously attached to him as to
be disposed to celebrate him as one of the greatest men of the age, or to
think that he is the pillar that bears up the whole interest of religion
among us. And if this moderation of sentiment towards him will not
appease my angry brethren, as I am sensible it will not abate the enmity
which some have for many years entertained towards me, I must acquiesce,
and be patient till the day of the Lord, when the secrets of all hearts shall
be made manifest ; in which I do from my heart believe that with respect
to the part I have acted in this affair I shall not be ashamed.'
Two sentences, in which the devout, tender, and humble
spirit of Doddridge expresses itself, are, when taken in con-