PASTOR OF THE WEST CHURCH AND SOCIETY IN BOSTON,
FROM JUNE, 1747, TO JULY, 1766.
BY ALDEN BRADFORD, LL. D.,
HONORARY MEMBER OF HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF NEW-YORK AND OF PENNSYLVANIA,
AUTHOR OF HISTORY OF MASSACHUSETTS, EDITOR OF MASSACHUSETTS
STATE PAPERS, &c.
"I am, indeed, a 'poor man,' as this gentleman calls me; but, through the goodness of
God, and the generosity of his people, I have a comfortable subsistence and contentment;
which, if attended with integrity and godliness, is all the gain my soul aspires after in this
world. In this respect, I have been publicly upbraided-in another sense, as I suppose.
Nor has the irreproachable memory of my father escaped insult from some of my opponents.
But I had rather be the poor son of a good man, who spent a long life in the laborious and
apostolic employment of preaching the unsearchable riches of Christ to poor Indians, than
the rich son and heir of one who, by temporizing in religion and tampering with politice, by
flattering the great, and prostituting his conscience, has made his way to a bishoprick and
the worldly dignity of a peer."—[Remarks on an anonymous writer, supposed to be the arch-
bishop of Canterbury.]
"I must, once for all, declare, that I will not be even religiously scolded, nor pitied, nor
wept or lamented, out of any opinions which I believe, on the authority of scripture, in the
exercise of that small share of reason which God has given me; nor will I postpone this au-
thority to that of all the good fathers of the church, with that of the good mothers added to
it."[Preface to sermons on hearing the word and receiving it with meekness.]