Note 271 — Chapter II · (continued 2)

The expostulatory and polemical literature of the “Great Awakening in New England” is abundantly set forth in Haven’s list appended to the Antiq. Soc. ed. of Thomas’s History of Printing, vol. ii., and in the Collections towards a bibliog. of Congregationalism, appended by Dr. H. M. Dexter to his Congregationalism as seen in its Literature, to be found in chronological order in both places between 1736 and 1750; and in the Prince Catalogue, p. 65. Thomas Prince supported, and his son published, during the excitement, a periodical called The Christian History, containing accounts of the revival and propagation of religion in Great Britain, America, etc. (March 5, 1743, to February 23, 1744-5, in 104 numbers). Cf. Thomas, Hist. Printing, Am. Antiq. Soc. ed., ii. 66. A letter of Chas. Chauncy to Mr. George Wishart, concerning the state of religion in New England (1742), is printed in the Clarendon Hist. Soc. Reprints, no. 7 (1883). Chauncy’s Seasonable Thoughts on the State of Religion in New England, Boston, 1743, is the main expression of his position in the controversy, followed up by a Letter to the Rev. Mr. George Whitefield, (Boston, 1743), in vindication of passages in the Seasonable Thoughts which Whitefield had controverted. (Carter-Brown, iii. no. 813, for this and other tracts of that year.) Whitefield’s journals were frequently issued (Carter-Brown, iii. nos. 631-34, 669-70), and the most comprehensive of the modern Lives of Whitefield is that by Tyerman (London, 1876). Poole’s Index (p. 1406) gives the clues to the mass of periodical literature on Whitefield. Cf. Tracy’s Great Awakening (1842). In Connecticut the controversy between the New Lights (revivalists) and the Old Lights took on a more virulent form than in Massachusetts. (Cf. Trumbull, Hollister, etc.) About the best of the condensed narratives of the “Great Awakening” is that of Dr. Palfrey in his Compendious Hist. of New England, iv. ch. 7 and 8, the latter chapter outlining the course of the commotion in Connecticut.