When this was
known to the faculty, they forbade the publication; and all the students
apologized but one, who learned a few days before commencement that his
name was to be dropped from the roll of graduates. He went to the faculty
with the statement that he was of age, that he possessed ample means, and
that he would carry his case to a hearing before the crown in England. In a
few days he was quietly informed that he would be permitted to graduate.
This is but a straw, and yet it shows clearly enough the direction of the
current at this time. A demand for toleration was made because it was felt
that there was a need for it.
[Sidenote: Books Read by Liberal Men.]
The names of no less than thirty-three ministers have been given who,
during the period from 1730 to 1750, did not teach the Calvinistic
doctrines in their fulness, and who had adopted more or less distinctly
some form of Arminianism or Arianism. These men were among the best known,
most successful, and most scholarly men in Eastern Massachusetts, though
they were not wholly confined to that neighborhood. We find here and there
some hint of the books these men read; and in that way we not only
ascertain the cause of their departure from Calvinism, but we also obtain
some clew to the nature of their opinions. Among the charges brought by
Whitefield against Harvard in 1740 was that "Tillotson and Clarke are read
instead of Shepard and Stoddard, and such like evangelical writers.
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