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| WELD or WELDE
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| Volume 4, Page 463
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his own confess. overrul. the London press in 1644, so that my expression,
as he fairly gives it on his p. 329, may stand unreprov. Beside,
Mr. Felt candidly, p. 554, takes notice, that Wheelwright, s. of Rev.
John "endeavors to show from the concessions of Weld, that his f. did
not adopt the main principles of his sis.-in-law, Mrs. H." and he still
more fairly quotes a let. of 1647, from Hooker of Hartford to Shepard
of Cambridge, both of wh. must have kn. what the truth, and the hole
truth was a. the publicat. "I cannot be persuad. but these men" [the
Scotch Presbyterians, Rutherford and Baylie] HAD A SECRET HAND TO
PROVOKE MR. WELD TO SET FORTH HIS SHORT STORY," &c
Certain. Weld's desire was not be thot. author of the "Short Story,"
&c. and he would gladly have the reader presume that Gov. Winthrop
whose name belongs to part of the official documenta. matter therein
print. had issued the vol. tho. any careful student could detect the most
of the pages due to ano. hand. The assist. librar. at Harv. Univ.
drew my attention to the vol. of Rutherford, professor at St. Andrews,
call. Survey of Spiritual Antichrist. London 1648, p. 171, where he
says of our N. E. heretics, "They held these wicked tenets especially,
that follow, as may be gathered out of the story of the Rise, Reign, and
Ruin of the Antinomians and Libertines that infected the Chhs. of N.
E. penned (as I am informed) by M. Winthrope, Gov. a faithful witness,
and approv. by M. T. Weld in his preface to the book." This is
in c. XV, yet in the next c. p. 180, he twice names Weld as author of
that work, as in the first sentence of the same c. p. 176, of Mrs. Hutchinson,
one of the authors of the "wicked opinions," he borrows the
happy designat. of our Roxbury historian, saying "This woman is call.
the American Jezabel." How R. was informed that Gov. W. penned the
work, may easily be conceiv. for in his sev. journeys from St. Andrews
to London, and back, his road lay straight thro. Gateshead, opposite
Newcastle, wh. was Weld's resid. So high was his estimat. of the vol.
that in the sec. pt. of R.'s work, it is cit. hardly less than three hundred
times, always by the tit. of Rise, Reign, and Ruin. It must be kept.
constant. in mind, that Rutherford and Bailie were of the four great
Scotch magicians employ. as mem. of the famous Westminister Assembly,
that sat above five and a half yrs. to regulate the true faith for all
future time. Great opportunities for acquir. knowl. as to every thing.
espec. of a relig. value, that had occur. in N. E. were, of course, enjoy.
by them.
Being sharp, reprov. in the Geneal. Reg. VIII. 84, for what is my
sec. ed. of Winthrop's Hist. of N. E. was utter. about the attempt of
Weld to conceal his first connex. with this work, I may be permit. in
explanat. if not justificat. to add not a little. By the change of words,
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