Note ° — VII

135. But in all probability this will never be again. It is sometimes asserted that Edwards never again occupied the pulpit in Northampton. This is not true. He preached, in fact, twelve Sundays, though, to be sure, not consecutively and only when other supplies could not be secured, before his removal to Stockbridge. There is perhaps more reason for the statement of Dr. Hopkins, quoted by Dwight (op. cit. p. 418), that the town at last—it is thought in November, 1750—voted that he should preach no longer. But the records of town and precinct are alike silent on this matter, the only vote bearing on it being one passed by the precinct in November, “to pay Mr. Edwards £10 old tenor per Sabbath for the time he preached here since he was dismissed.” Trumbull, who has established this fact (History of Northampton, Vol. II, p. 227), says that the last sermon by Edwards in Northampton was in the afternoon of October 13, 1751, from the text Heb. xi. 16. But even this is doubtful; for among the manuscripts in New Haven, Professor Dexter discovered a sermon on 2 Cor. iv. 6 marked as preached in Northampton, May 1755, and in a book of plans of sermons at least three notes of texts and doctrines of the same period marked as designed for Northampton. (F. B. Dexter, The Manuscripts of Jonathan Edwards, p. 8.)