USA > Connecticut > New Haven County > New Haven > Thirteen historical discourses, on the completion of two hundred years : from the beginning of the First Church in New Haven, with an appendix > Part 1
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Gc 974.602 N41bad 1890898
REYNOLDS HISTORICAL GENEALOGY COLLECTION
ALLEN COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY 3 1833 01104 3244
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PART
DAT
PIERPONT
WHITTELSEY.
DANA
Engraved by
Daggett, Hinman & C
THIRTEEN
HISTORICAL DISCOURSES,
ON THE COMPLETION OF
TWO HUNDRED YEARS, FROM THE BEGINNING
OF THE
FIRST CHURCH IN NEW HAVEN,
WITH AN APPENDIX.
BY LEONARD BACON, PASTOR OF THE FIRST CHURCH IN NEW HAVEN.
" Ye temples, that to God Rise where the fathers trod, Guard well your trust, The truth that made them free, The faith that dar'd the sea, Their cherish'd purity, Their garner'd dust."
NEW HAVEN: PUBLISHED BY DURRIE & PECK. NEW YORK : GOULD, NEWMAN & SAXTON. 1839.
Entered, according to act of Congress, in the year 1839, By LEONARD BACON, In the Clerk's office of the District Court of Connecticut.
Printed by B. L. Hamlen.
1890898
PREFACE.
THE completion of two hundred years from the settlement of the town and colony of New Haven, was celebrated with appropriate religious and civic observances, on the 25th of April, 1838. As the Church with which I am connected as pastor, is coeval with the colony, and was indeed the parent of the civil state, it seemed proper for me to notice in the pulpit an occasion so interesting. In compliance therefore with the expressed desires of many without, as well as within, the circle of my pastoral charge, I undertook to prepare one or more discourses illustrative of our ecclesiastical history, little thinking of such a volume as this. But as I proceeded, from one Sabbath evening to another, I found the materials so abundant, and the expressions of interest on the part of the hearers were so strong, that my discourses, instead of being, according to my first expectation, three or four, be- came thirteen.
The interest, not to say the value, of history, depends chiefly upon details. I might have summed up the history of this Church in a few paragraphs ; but in that form it would have been dry and unprofitable. Need I, then, apol- ogize, for the minuteness of this history? Why may not the 'annals of a parish' be as lively with illustrations of human nature, and as rich in important practical lessons, as the annals of an empire ?
If in speaking of the fathers of New England, and par- ticularly of New Haven, I have insisted more on their vir- tues than on their faults and errors, it is partly because while
iv
PREFACE.
their faults have been often and sufficiently blazoned, their virtues have been, to the popular mind, but imperfectly il- lustrated; and partly because we in this age are far more likely to forget their virtues, than to adopt their errors, or to imitate their faults. If I have spoken freely of the secular constitution of the Church of England, and of the evils re- sulting from it which made our fathers exiles, it is no more than becomes a man and an American ; and the candid reader will observe, that in so doing, I have not spoken at all of the Episcopal Church as it is organized in this coun- try. I am far from imputing to American bishops, chosen by the people of their charge, and responsible to those who choose them, the sins of English prelates under the Stuarts. A man might even believe that Laud deserved to die on the scaffold as a traitor to the liberties of England, and yet think none the worse of Bishop White.
Historical Discourses, even though prefaced with a text of Scripture, are not sermons, and ought not to be judged as if they were. If the reader finds words or passages unsuited to the gravity of the pulpit, he may be reminded that the printed book is not exactly what was uttered in the congre- gation. More than half the volume has been written since the last of the discourses was delivered; and though the original form has been retained, the expression has frequently been changed, and the didactic and religious reflections, ap- propriate to the time and place, have been generally omitted.
The sources from which I have derived my information, are generally referred to in marginal notes. Yet in this place some more distinct acknowledgment seems due to those, by whose labors so much has been done to illustrate the early history of New England. But why should I speak of the many occasional discourses which have treated of the his- tory of particular towns or Churches, or of the more stately and elaborate works of Trumbull, Holmes, and Hutchinson ? To name the thirty seven volumes of the Massachusetts His- torical Society ; the notes on Morton's Memorial by Judge Davis; the accurate transcript of Winthrop's History, by Mr.
V
PREFACE.
Savage, with the vast and various lore in the notes of the transcriber, is to praise them : without these works as exam- ples of what diligence can do, as guides showing how such investigations are to be conducted, and as sources of infor- mation, I should have done nothing. And in naming the last of these works, I am reminded of my obligations to the first editor of Winthrop. The perusal and reperusal of " Winthrop's Journal," together with the study of Trumbull's first volume, made me feel when I was yet a boy, that the New England race "is sprung of earth's best blood." And knowing as I now know, under what disadvantages that first edition was published, before the public had begun to be in- terested in such documents, before even Massachusetts had a historical society, by the unaided enterprise of a young man to whom the undertaking was attended with heavy pecu- niary sacrifices ; and knowing how much historical inquiries in New England have been stimulated and aided by that publication ; I cannot but regard it as not among the least of the many debts of American literature to the now venerable lexicographer. Mr. Savage's more perfect and more fortunate edition, the fruit of years of learned toil, cheered by the co- operation of enthusiastic antiquaries, aided by appropriations from the treasury of a generous commonwealth, and greeted by an applauding public that had already learned to honor its ancestry, needed not the poor recommendation of dispar- aging censures upon its predecessor.
I must be allowed to add my acknowledgment of the aid which I have received in these studies, from the learning and kindness of Professor Kingsley. Certainly it was a rare priv- ilege, to be able to avail myself continually of hints and counsels, from one so familiar with the written and unwritten history of New England, and especially of Connecticut.
Some of my friends have expressed a little impatience at the delay of this publication. The mere magnitude of the volume will probably be to them a sufficient apology for the delay. Had I been told twelve months ago, that within a year I should prepare and publish such a volume, gathering
vi
PREFACE.
the materials from so many different sources, few of which I had at that time even explored, I should have smiled at the extravagance of the prediction. Yet the work has been done, and that in the midst of public labors and domestic cares.
And now in dismissing the last page of a work which with all the fatigues and midnight vigils it has cost me, has been continually pleasant, I desire to record my thanks to the divine providence which has permitted me to begin and finish this humble memorial. May He who hath said that the righteous shall be had in everlasting remembrance, accept the unworthy service.
New Haven, February, 1839.
CONTENTS.
DISCOURSE I.
Page.
Causes of the colonization of New England .- The spirit of the first 1
planters,
DISCOURSE II.
The foundations laid in Church and Commonwealth .- Constitution
formed in Mr. Newman's barn .- The Puritans, -
17
DISCOURSE III.
Ecclesiastical forms and usages of the first age in New England,
-
39
DISCOURSE IV.
Specimens of Puritan ministers in the New Haven colony. Prudden, Sherman, James, Eaton, Hooke, - -
55
DISCOURSE V.
John Davenport in England, in Holland, and in the New England synod of 1637,
75
DISCOURSE VI.
John Davenport and Theophilus Eaton the founders of a new republic : vicissitudes in New Haven till 1660, 90
DISCOURSE VII.
John Davenport in his old age, the protector of the regicides, the op- ponent of union with Connecticut, the champion of the old way against the synod of 1662, - - 117
DISCOURSE VIII.
Nicholas Street .- The first generation passing away .- The era of the war with King Philip, - 155
DISCOURSE IX.
From 1684 to 1714 .- James Pierpont .- Causes of progressive declen- sion, and attempts at reformation .- Founding of Yale College .- Formation of the Saybrook constitution, - 171
DISCOURSE X.
From 1714 to 1740 .- Joseph Noyes .- " The great revival" of Presi- dent Edwards's day, - 198
viii
CONTENTS.
DISCOURSE XI.
Page.
Extravagances and confusion .- The New Haven Church divided .-
Mr. Noyes in his old age, . - 211
DISCOURSE XII.
Chauncey Whittelsey and his ministry .- The age of the Revolution, 243
DISCOURSE XIII.
James Dana at Wallingford and New Haven .- The past and the . 267
present,
APPENDIX.
I. Davenport's Discourse about civil government, -
- 289
II. The primitive ordinations in New England, - -
. 293
III. Specimens of Church discipline, - - . 296
IV. The primitive meeting-house in New Haven, - 310
V. Notices of some of the planters of New Haven,
. 313
VI. John Winthrop of Connecticut, . 323
VII. Edward Tench's will and inventory, -
. 327
VIII. Treatment of the Indians, .
- 330
IX. Governor Eaton, .
- 354
X. The statement of the New Haven colony, - 358 . Additional notices, . 387
366
XII. Madam Noyes, . 391
XIII. Dr. Dana's Installation,
. 393
Miscellaneous corrections and additions, . 398
XI. Letters from John Davenport to Gov. Winthrop,
DISCOURSE I.
CAUSES OF THE COLONIZATION OF NEW ENGLAND .- THE SPIRIT OF THE FIRST PLANTERS.
PSALM Ixxx, 8-11 .- Thou hast brought a vine out of Egypt; thou hast cast out the heathen and planted it. Thou preparedst room before it, and didst cause it to take deep root, and it filled the land. The hills were cov- ered with the shadow of it; and the boughs thereof were like the goodly cedars. She sent out her boughs to the sea and her branches to the river.
THIS is the first Sabbath in the third century of the history of this religious congregation. Two hundred years have just been completed since the fathers and founders of this Church first united in public worship, on the spot which they had chosen for their home, and to which they had borne the ark and the ordinances of their God. Within these two centu- ries, great revolutions-one after another-have changed the aspect of the world ; thrones have been overturned, dynasties have arisen and passed away ; empires have been reared and have fallen ; nations have perished, and nations have been born ; and, what is more, opinions, systems, dynasties and and empires in the world of thought, have flourished and have departed ; but amid all these changes, God has been worshiped here through Jesus Christ, from Sabbath to Sab- bath, with no recorded interruption. The fire of pure and spiritual worship, kindled by the founders of this Church so long ago, still burns upon their altar and amid their graves.
On such an occasion, I need offer no apology for departing somewhat from the usual forms and topics of pulpit instruc- tion. I propose to speak of the various causes which led to the founding of this Church, and of the character of those who in successive generations have maintained its ordinances and enjoyed its privileges. And as I wish to make the occasion instructive to all, to the less informed as well as to those who have had greater advantages, I shall freely enter into the
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statement of some historical details, with which many are entirely familiar.
This western world-America-was discovered by Colum- bus, near the close of the fifteenth century, (A. D. 1492. ) The discovery of America was preceded by the invention of the art of printing, (A. D. 1455, the date of the first printed book,) and by the revival of learning in Europe which ensued upon the capture of Constantinople by the Turks and the extinction of the Greek Christian empire, (A. D. 1453,) and the consequent dispersion of learned Greeks over Europe ; and it was very soon followed by the commencement of the Protestant Reformation, (A. D. 1517.) These four great events, occurring within the compass of a single lifetime, have wrought, by their combined influence, such changes in the condition of the world, that the age in which they occurred is the most memorable in the annals of mankind, save only the age in which the world was redeemed by the Son of God.
When America was discovered by the Spaniards, the trop- ical regions, from Mexico to Brazil, enjoying a climate without any winter, rich in all the natural means of subsistence and enjoyment, abounding in gold and silver and precious stones, adorned in some places with temples and palaces and popu- lous cities, and inhabited by nations whose half-armed effemi- nacy, could offer no effectual resistance to the strength of European warriors, clad in iron, and equipped with the terri- fic implements of modern warfare, presented such a field as was never before opened to human rapacity. In a few years, the Spanish monarchy, by invasion and violence, by cruelty and treachery, had become possessed of vast provinces and rich dependent kingdoms in America. Portugal, then one of the most considerable powers of Christendom, had at the same time laid the foundations of her great western empire. What effect the planting of such colonies, founded in rapine, and moulded by the combined influences of Popery in religion and of despotism in government, has had on the progress of the world in freedom, knowledge, and happiness, I need not show in detail. Those colonies and conquests poured back indeed
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upon the parent empires, broad streams of wealth ; and Spain and Portugal with their possessions in the west, were for a few short ages the envy of the world. But all prosperity, whether of individuals or of nations, that does not spring from honest industry and from the arts of peace, brings curses in its train. The wealth which Spain and Portugal derived from their possessions in America has been their ruin. And from the hour in which they, weak and paralyzed, were no longer able to retain their grasp upon their American provinces- from the hour in which the various countries from Mexico to Brazil became independent, what a sea of anarchy has been tossing its waves over those wide realms, so gorgeous with the lavished wealth of nature. It may even be doubted whether there is, at this hour, in Mexico or in Peru, a more stable and beneficent government, or a more numerous, com- fortable and virtuous population, than there was before the atrocious conquests of Cortez and Pizarro. What substantial benefit has accrued to the world from the planting of Spanish colonies in America? What, beyond the benefit of having one more illustration, on the grandest scale, of the truth so often illustrated in history, that to nations, as to individuals, the wages of crime is death.
The success of Spain, and the reports of adventurers who came back to Europe enriched with spoils, excited the cupi- dity of other nations to similar enterprises. England, among the rest, was ambitious to have tributary provinces in the new world, from which gold and gems should come, to fill the treasury of her king, and to augment the riches and splen- dor of her nobility. One expedition after another was plan- ned and undertaken, in the hope of acquiring some country which should be to England, what Mexico and Peru had been to Spain. And when in consequence of successive and most discouraging failures, such hopes began to be abandoned ; and plans of colonization, and cultivation, and rational com- merce, had succeeded to dreams of romantic conquest and adventure-when commercial companies with royal grants and charters, actuated by ordinary commercial motives, at-
4
tempted to establish settlements in North Carolina and Vir- ginia, and upon the bleak coast of Maine, the disappointments and disasters which ensued, demonstrated that another call, and another sort of charter, and other and higher impulses, were necessary to success. Commercial enterprise, cheered by royal patronage, and availing itself of the genius of Ra- leigh and the adventurous energy of Smith, sent forth its ex- peditions without success. The wilderness and the solitary place would not be glad for them, and it seemed as if the sav- age was to roam over these wilds forever.
But the fullness of time was approaching. Other causes, the working of which was obvious to all, but the tendency of which no human mind had conjectured, were operating to secure for religion, for freedom, and for science too, their fair- est home, and the field of their brightest achievements.
The reformation from Popery, which Wycliffe attempted in the fourteenth century, and for which Huss and Jerome of Prague were martyrs in the fifteenth, was successfully begun by Luther in Germany, and by Zuingle in Switzerland, about the year 1517-twenty-five years after the discovery of Amer- ica. The minds of men having been prepared beforehand, not only by the writings of Wycliffe and the martyrdom of Huss and Jerome, but also by the new impulse and independence which had been given to thought in consequence of the revival of learning then in progress, and by the excitement which the discovery of a new world, and of new paths and regions for commerce, had spread over Europe ; and the invention of printing having provided a new instrumentality for the diffu- sion of knowledge and the promotion of free inquiry-only a few years elapsed from the time when Luther in the univer- sity of Wittemberg, and Zuingle in the cathedral of Zurich, made their first efforts, before all Europe was convulsed with the progress of a great intellectual and moral emancipation.
The reformation was essentially the assertion of the right of individual thought and opinion, founded on the doctrine of individual responsibility. Popery puts the consciences of the laity into the keeping of the priesthood. To the priest you
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are to confess your sins ; from him you are to receive penance and forgiveness ; he is to be responsible for you, if you do as he bids you; to him you are to commit the guidance and government of your soul, with implicit submission. Life and immortality are only in the sacraments which he dispenses ; death and eternal despair are in his malediction. You are to do what he enjoins ; you are to believe what he teaches ; he is accountable to God-you are accountable to him. The reformation, on the contrary, puts the Bible into every man's hand, and bids him believe, not what the priesthood declares, not what the Church decrees, but what God reveals. It tells him, Here is God's word ; and for your reception or rejection of it, you are individually and directly accountable to God. Thus it was that from the beginning-though princes and statesmen did not always so regard it-the cause of the refor- mation was every where essentially the cause of freedom, of manly thought, and bold inquiry ; of popular improvement, of universal education. When religion, instead of being an affair between man and his priest, becomes an affair between man and his God; the dignity of man as man at once out- shines the dignity of pontiffs and of kings. By the doctrine of the reformation, men though fallen and miserable in their native estate, are yet, in the estate to which they are raised as redeemed by Christ, as emancipated by the truth, and as anointed by the Holy Spirit-"kings and priests unto God."
In England-always to be named with reverential affection as the father-land of our fathers-the seeds of truth and spiri- tual freedom, sown by Wycliffe a hundred and fifty years before Luther's time, were never entirely extirpated. And when Germany and Switzerland began to be agitated with the great discussions of the reformation, men were soon found in England, who sympathized with the reformers, and se- cretly or openly adopted their principles. But in that country, peculiar circumstances gave to the reformation of the national Church a peculiar form and aspect.
The English king at that period, was Henry VIII. He was, for a prince, uncommonly well educated in the scholastic
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learning of the age ; and not long after the commencement of the reformation, he signalized himself, and obtained from the Pope the honorary title of "Defender of the Faith," by wri- ting a Latin volume in confutation of the heresies of Luther. But afterwards, wishing to put away his wife on account of some pretended scruple of conscience, and not being able to obtain a divorce by the authority of the Pope, who had strong political reasons for evading a compliance with his wishes, he quarreled with the Pope, (1529,) and began to reform after a fashion of his own. Without renouncing any doctrine of the Romish Church, he declared the Church of England inde- pendent of the see of Rome; he assumed all ecclesiastical power into his own hands, making himself head of the Church ; he confiscated the lands and treasures of the monasteries ; he brought the bishops into an abject dependence on his power ; he exercised the prerogative of allowing or restraining at his pleasure the circulation and use of the Scriptures ; and, with impartial fury, he persecuted those who adhered to the Pope, and those who abjured the errors of Popery. The religion of the Church of England, under his administration, was Po- pery, with the king for pope.
During the short reign of Edward VI, (1547,) or rather of the regents who governed England in his name, the king himself being under age, the reformation of the English Church was commenced with true good-will, and carried for- ward as energetically and rapidly as was consistent with dis- cretion. Thus when the bloody Queen Mary succeeded to the throne, (1553,) and attempted to restore, by sword and faggot, the ancient superstition, hundreds were found who followed the protomartyr Rogers, and like him sealed their testimony at the stake ; and hundreds more, of ministers and other intelligent and conscientious men, having the opportu- nity of flight, found refuge for a season in the various Protes- tant countries of the continent. At the places at which these exiles were hospitably received, and particularly at Geneva, they became familiar with forms of worship, and of disci- pline, more completely purified from Popery, than the forms
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which had as yet been adopted or permitted in their native country. Among the English exiles in the city of Frankfort, who had the privilege of uniting in public worship in their own language, there arose a difference of opinion. Some were for a strict conformity of their public services to the or- der which had been established in England under King Edward, while others considered themselves at liberty to lay aside every thing which savored of superstition, and to imitate the simplicity which characterized the Reformed Churches around them. These were denominated by their adversaries, " Puritans ;" and the dispute at Frankfort in the year 1554, is commonly regarded by historians as marking the beginning of the Puritan party.
When the reign of Queen Elizabeth commenced, (1558,) the exiles returned, expecting that a princess educated in the Protestant faith, whose title to the throne was identified with the Protestant cause, would energetically carry forward the reformation which had been begun under the reign of her brother, but which by his premature death had been left con- fessedly imperfect. This expectation was disappointed. The new Queen was more the daughter of Henry than the sister of Edward. She seemed to dislike nothing of Popery but its inconsistency with her title to the throne, and its claims against her ecclesiastical supremacy. The doctrines of the Church of England, as set forth in its articles, were indeed truly and thoroughly Protestant, being originally conformed to the views of Calvin and other illustrious reformers on the continent ; but the discipline was not reformed-no ade- quate provision being made for excluding the unworthy from communion in sacraments, or for securing to the people an intelligent, evangelical, teaching clergy ; the liturgy was only partially reformed-it being made to follow, more closely than in King Edward's time, the Popish missals from which it had been compiled and translated ; and finally the vestments and ceremonies which in the popular mind were inseparably asso- ciated with superstitious notions, and against which the Pu- ritans had a strong dislike, were scrupulously enjoined and
8
maintained. Those ministers who, in any particular, neg- lected to conform to the prescribed ceremonies and observ- ances, were called "Non-conformists ;" and though their non- conformity was sometimes connived at by this or that more lenient bishop, and sometimes went unpunished because of the danger of exciting popular odium, every such minister was always liable to be suspended or silenced ; and many of them, though the ablest and most efficient preachers in the kingdom, at a time when not more than one out of four of the clergy could preach at all,* were forbidden to preach, and were deprived of all their employments.
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