Three Letters From The Reverand Mr. George Whitefield

NOTES: Franklin published all three of these letters in successive issues of Pa. Gaz., April 10-24, 1740. In his first letter Whitefield undertook to support the charge that Archbishop Tillotson knew no more Christianity than Mahomet, an assertion that alienated many of his followers in the Colonies. Alexander Garden, Rector of St. Philips, Charleston, replied to these three letters and three others of Whitefield's on justification in Six Letters to the Rev. Mr. White-field printed in 1740 both in Charleston and in Boston, and reprinted in part by BF in the April-June issues of Gen. Mag., 1741, giving the lie to the charge brought on BF and his fellow printers "that Mr. Whitefield had engag'd all the Printers not to print any Thing against him, lest his Doctrine and Practice should be expos'd and the People undeceiv'a" (Pa. Gaz., May 8, 1740).

COPIES: PU. BM, CSmH, CtY, DLC, MB, MWA. RareBookHub lists only 4 copies; one copy in 2011 and prior to that 1920 and two previous to that.

From Catalog III

The three letters Franklin ran in the <em>Pennsylvania Gazette</em> of April 10–24, 1740, and then as a pamphlet: on Archbishop Tillotson, who Whitefield said knew no more of Christianity than Mahomet; on justification; and to the slaveholders of the southern colonies. Franklin printed Alexander Garden's reply the next year to disprove the charge that Whitefield had 'engag'd all the Printers.' The auction record shows four copies, one since 1920.