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| Volume 4, Page 467
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princip. suffer. was able to issue the very next yr. in "Mr. Weld's his
Antitype" observat. on "a paper styled a Short Story of the Rise,
Reign," &c. Even without suppos. any unworthy fear in him that
prompt. what he wish to have consid. as a sec. ed. of a Book bef.
issued by ano. person, and that, as he says, "the necessity of the times
call for it, and its requisite that God's great works should be made
known," he might deceive himself into the hope, that "Antinomians and
Familists condemn." tho. issued by the same publisher, the same yr. if
publish. without preface, would to taken to be a different composure
from Short Story, with a preface one quarter as large as the whole work.
Well might he believe, that in those stirring times of extreme convulsion
and civil war, nobody would have the leisure and take the trouble
to ascertain, that his publicat. was indeed two faces under one hood.
Next may our scrutiny be applied to his excuse of "being earnestly
presseed by divers to perfect" the work, "by laying down the order and
sense of this story." Perhaps any other man, with half as much literary
skill as T. W. would have giv. a very differ. ORDER to his materials, at
least so far as chronology is concered. If he did not print the Apology
for the Gen. Ct. of Mar. 1636-7, begin. p. 46 before the result of the
Synod 30 Aug. - 22 Sept. foll. wh. begins on p. 1, he would naturally
(unless blinded by a strong sensibility) have giv. it place prior to the
preced. of not merely a later sess. of the same, but of ano. Gen. Ct. in
Nov. 1637, wh. begins on p. 21 See our Col. Rec. I. 187 to 205.
What good reason for breach of such natural sequence of time can be conjectur.
I see not, nor is it necessary to think of a bad one; especial. as in
putting all the matter bef. p. 46, Mr. Weld, the Editor, seems to have
arrang. with high regard to this point, making a blunder of Oct. 2 for
Nov. 2 as date of open. the session of the Ct. that the postponement of
Mrs. Dyer's unhappiness, wh. had been at two public lectures of the first
ch. largely spoken of by Mr. Cotton (as Winthrop tells, in his Hist.)
when prob. Mr. Weld and other min. from the neighb. twons (wh.
usually attend. the Thursday lect. were present) 17 Oct. might seem to
be in a fit place. A reasonable cause for this breach of natural order
may be found in the circumstances that led Weld (but would lead no
other person) to think more of Mrs. Hutchinson than any thing else in
the long agony of the antinom. controv. In Nov. 1637 she was commit.
to custody of Joseph Weld, own br. of the casuist, in the town of Roxbury,
her banishm. being suspend. until the spring. While thus a prisoner
for more than four mos. all access of husband, childr. friends
denied, exc. with leave of the Ct. as in Col. Rec. I. 207-25 is seen, she
was expos. to visitat. of any holy inquisitor; and the min. of R. must
have used his sacred office with equal ardor for her conversion, and
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