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 11
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At a town meeting,-or as it was called in those days, a general court for the town,-on the 28th of February, 1659, a request was made by the farmers of what is now East Ha- ven and North Haven, for certain grants of lands and privi- leges in order to the establishment of villages, so that they maintaining public worship and other town expenses by themselves, should not be taxed for such expenses here, and should have the power of taxing all the lands within their limits whether belonging to themselves or to non-residents. Their application was of course resisted on the ground that this setting off of new parishes would increase the town's taxes, and would diminish the ability of the people to sup-
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port the ministry here. It was obvious that the inhabitants on this side of the river had an immediate pecuniary inter- est against the petition. The petitioners seem to have thought-reasonably enough-that by having such privileges and forming distinct parishes, each with a village at its cen- ter, they would not only be relieved from the very serious inconvenience of coming into town every Lord's day, and every training day or town meeting day ; but would be able to give more value to their lands, and to get a more compe- tent subsistence. They seem to have considered themselves as reduced to the necessity either to give up their scattered residences on the farms, and to come into the town and live as they might, or else to form themselves into separate villages according to their proposal. The proposal seems to have been something like an effort on the part of a body of men of inferior condition, to obtain such a change as would put them more completely on a level with the merchants and capitalists in the town. One of the farmers said, "it was well known that at the first they were many of them looked upon as mean men to live by their labor ; therefore they had at first small lots given them ; but they finding by experience that they could not in that way maintain their families, they were put upon looking out." He further argued " that, when the town gave them these lots, it was upon condition they should inhabit upon them ;" and that having in compliance with that condition invested their property there in buildings and improvements, they had a right to such additional privi- leges as were necessary to their comfortable subsistence.
On this occasion, Mr. Davenport took the lead in the dis- cussion. He addressed the meeting immediately after the proposal had been stated ; and in opposition to what most would regard as the town's pecuniary interest in the case, in opposition to the feeling, how shall the support of the ministry here be secured, and in opposition to the natural reluctance with which towns as well as individuals give up any particle of power, he argued strenuously for the extension of these privileges to the farmers. His arguments are so characteris-
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tic, not only of his piety, but of his good sense and of his political wisdom, that they are worth repeating at length, as we find them on the records.
" The business they were exercised about, being of great weight both for the honor of God and the good of posterity, he therefore desired that it might be weightily considered.
" If we look to God, it is that his kingdom may come and be set up among us, and that his will may be done. Now if we provide not for the sanctification of the Sabbath, the will of God will not be done. The law, he said, was ex- pressed Levit. xxiii, 3, 'Six days shall work be done, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of rest, a holy convocation, ye shall do no work therein, it is the Sabbath of the Lord in all your dwellings." This law was not proper to the land of Canaan, but a brief repetition of the fourth commandment, which requires that we should sanctify the Sabbath as a day of holy rest. Now in this way of farms at such a distance, it cannot be kept as a holy convocation, and as a day of holy rest in all our dwellings. Therefore we shall live in the breach of the fourth commandment in this way.
" Besides, there are other things to be attended (as they ought to be) in a well ordered commonwealth ; particularly, to use all due means to prevent sin in others, which cannot be done in this way ; for many great abominations may be committed, and bring the wrath of God on the plantation ; like the secret fact of Achan,-for which, wrath came upon the whole congregation of Israel, because they used not what means they might to prevent it; therefore could they not prosper when they went against the men of Ai. Therefore, would we prosper, let us prevent sin what we can in the farms. If they were brought into a village form, there might be some officer to look to civil order. But that being not done, he saw not but that we are in continued danger of the wrath of God, because we do not what we may for the prevention of disorders that may fall out there.
" And besides this, we are to look to the good of posterity. Now it is a sad object to consider, how they are deprived of
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the means for the education of their children. But if they were reduced to villages, they might then have one to teach their children.
" Mr. Davenport farther said, Let there be no divisions or contentions among you. But let every one, with some self- denial, set himself to further the work so as may be for the good both of the town and the farms. He said he sought not the destruction of the town or farms. But in his judg- ment, he thought, if the town fall into a way of trade, then the villages might be helpful to the town, and the town to the villages. And if the town did not consider of some way to further trade [that is, not only buying and selling, but the production of commodities to be bought and sold,] how they would subsist he saw not. He further said, he did like it well that there had been some consultations about a mill,"- which-" if God prosper it, may be a furtherance of trade. And if it please God to bless the iron work, that may be also a foundation for trade. Now put all these together ;- the town falling into a way of trade will be in a better state, and the villages accommodated ; and the honor of God in the sanctification of the Sabbath and the upholding of civil order will be provided for.
" Mr. Davenport farther said, that he looked upon it as a merciful hand of God that his wrath hath not broke out against us more than it hath, when sin hath not been pre- vented at the farms as it might have been. Let us now, said he, set our thoughts a-work how the kingdom of Christ may be settled among us, and that the will of God may be done in the sanctification of the Sabbath, by reducing the farms into villages. But herein we must go above sense and reason. Lay this foundation, Doth God require it ? If he doth, then here we must exercise faith; as the Jews,-how they should be supplied, being God had commanded that ev- ery seventh year their land should rest,-and for safety, when at the commandment of God all their males must thrice in the year appear before the Lord at Jerusalem. Yet we must make use of reason and understanding that it may be done in
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such a way as may be for the good both of the town and of the farms. And the Lord guide you in it."
By this argument of Mr. Davenport's, the subject was in- troduced, and the discussion opened. All the veneration with which the people regarded their pastor did not pre- vent the free expression of objections. Among others, Sergeant Jefferies, while he professed himself "marvellous willing the villages should go on," thought it was " to be con- sidered whether villages will not wrong the town much," and suggested, furthermore, " that the ministry of the colony was much unsettled,* which is a great discouragement to such a work." "To which Mr. Davenport answered, that Christ holds the stars in his right hand, and disposes of them as seems good to him. But this we must know, that if we obey not the voice of the prophets, God will take away the prophets. He further said, If we build God's house, God will build our house. He exhorted to consider whether it be our duty or not, and said that unless we look upon it as a duty, he would never advise to go about villages, nor any thing else of that nature."
All this, I say, shows us the character of the first pastor here, and the sort of influence which he exerted in the com- munity. His great concern was that Christ's kingdom might be set up here, that God's will might be done, and that to this all the arrangements of the commonwealth might tend .. Sin, which when not duly restrained, brings God's wrath up- on communities as upon individuals, was that which of all things he most feared. To him the good of posterity as de- pendent on education, was the greatest of public interests. The thought that any of the people were deprived of means for the education of their children, affected him with sadness. His influence made men feel that the surest way to prosper, was to be ever doing God's work, and to have all our inter- ests identified with the prosperity of the kingdom of God.
* This was in Feb., 1659. The Church in Milford was then vacant by the death of Mr. Prudden, in 1656. Mr. Higginson left Guilford in 1659.
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Yet his piety was not inconsistent with the most sagacious policy. Even when he would have men " go above sense and reason," and "exercise faith," he would nevertheless have them "make use of reason and understanding" to ascertain and promote the public welfare. His comprehensive mind, which his piety enlarged instead of contracting, formed in itself the idea which we now behold set forth in the happy reality ; a manufacturing and commercial town here ; rural municipalities filling the country around ; and town and country each free from subjection to the other, yet mutually dependent, and ministering to each other's prosperity.
To the stranger passing through New England, and be- coming acquainted with the peculiarities of our social condi- tion and of our civil polity, nothing is more striking, or more admirable, than the continual succession of villages, each with its neat white spire, its school houses, its clusters of com- fortable dwellings, its own municipal rights and regulations, and each vieing with its neighbor villages in order, thrift, and beauty. In other parts of the country, where, New England influence not having predominated at the beginning, the forms of society are not molded after ours, you see a succes- sion of broad farms, with many a pleasing indication of pros- perous industry ; but the villages are only at the "county seat," or where the exigencies of business create them. New England is a land of villages, not of manufacturing villages merely, or trading villages, but of villages formed for society, villages in each of which the meeting house is the acropolis. The reasons of this peculiarity appear from that argument of Mr. Davenport's which I have just recited. These villages were created-not as many have supposed for defense alone, else why did not the same reason cause villa- ges in Pennsylvania and Virginia-but first that the worship of God might be maintained, and his Sabbaths be duly honored ; secondly, that the people might have schools for all their children ; thirdly, that they might maintain among themselves the most efficient civil order ; and fourthly, that instead of living, each planter in solitary independence, they
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might live in mutual dependence and mutual helpfulness, and might thus develop more rapidly and effectually the nat- ural resources of the country.
In the year 1660, when monarchy was restored in Eng- land, many who had acted prominently in the revolution which had thus suddenly gone backward, were obliged to flee for their lives. Some fled to different countries on the continent of Europe ; some sought a retreat in the obscurity of the American settlements; and some, not making their escape betimes, died by the tortures and hideous mutilations which the barbarity of the English law inflicted upon those whom it condemned as traitors. Among those who came to New England, were three of the men who acted as judges in the trial of King Charles I, and who feared not to sign the death-warrant of a king found guilty of treason against his people. Two of these, Edward Whalley and William Goffe, who, in consequence of the rank they had held in the armies of the Parliament, and in the commonwealth of England, were especially obnoxious to the restored king and to his triumphant partisans, arrived at Boston on the 27th of July, 1660, in the same ship which brought the first news of the king's restoration.
Whalley was closely connected with Cromwell by kin- dred, as well as by the tie of a common political interest. He was the colonel of that regiment of cavalry in the Par- liament's army, in which Richard Baxter was chaplain ; and between him and the author of the Saint's Rest, there was an intimate friendship, not only while Baxter continued in the army, but afterwards when Whalley had become, under the protectorate of his cousin Cromwell, one of the chief of- ficers of the empire. To him, in token of their continued friendship, Baxter dedicated one of his works, in an epistle which is among the most beautiful examples of that kind of composition. Alluding to the honors which then clustered upon the head of the veteran warrior, he said, "Think not that your greatest trials are now over. Prosperity hath its peculiar temptations by which it hath foiled many that stood
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unshaken in the storms of adversity. The tempter who hath had you on the waves, will now assault you in the calm, and hath his last game to play on the mountain till nature cause you to descend. Stand this charge, and you win the day."* How beautiful the prediction, but how short sighted !
Goffe was the son-in-law of Whalley, and like him, hav- ing distinguished himself in the army, in which he rose to the rank of Major General, he became a member of Crom- well's House of Lords, and was one of the principal support- ers of the Cromwell dynasty. So eminent was he, that it was thought by some that he might in time become the head of the empire.
When these men arrived in Boston with the news of the king's restoration, they were at first received with undis- guised attention by the Governor of that Colony, and the principal inhabitants. For some time they resided openly at Cambridge, where they attended public worship, and were active in private religious meetings, and were received to oc- casional communion in the church by virtue of letters which they brought from the churches in England, with which they had been previously connected. As they became personally known, they were greatly respected for their piety, as well as for their talents and intelligence. It was hoped that in so distant a part of the world as this, they would escape the notice of their enemies ; and the first rumors that followed them from England, gave some confirmation to the hope. But in November the act of indemnity arrived, which se- cured all, with certain exceptions, against being called in question for any thing which they had done against the gov- ernment since the beginning of the civil wars; and it ap- peared that these two men, with many others, were excepted from the general pardon. Still, however, compassion and friendship prevented the government of Massachusetts from taking any measures to arrest them. On the 22d of Febru- ary, 1661, the governor called his council together, to con- sult about seizing them ; but the council, not having yet
* Baxter's Practical Works, (Orme's ed.) I, 453.
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received any special order on that subject, refused to do any thing. Four days after this, the two regicide judges, fore- seeing that a warrant, or order for their arrest, must soon arrive from England, and that Gov. Endicott and their other friends there would in that case be unable to protect them, left Cambridge, and passing through Hartford, where they were hospitably received by Gov. Winthrop, arrived at New Haven on the 7th of March. Almost immediately after their leaving Cambridge, and before they had reached this place, the king's proclamation, denouncing them as convicted traitors, was received at Boston ; and thereupon a warrant was issued by the government there, and a search was made at Springfield and other places, where they were sure not to find them.
Here the people were prepared to receive them and to stand by them. Mr. Davenport in a long series of sermons from the words of the prophet in Lam. iii, 24, " The Lord is my portion, saith my soul, therefore will I hope in him,"- had been inculcating on his flock the duty and the safety of confidence in God; and having considered that hope in va- rious relations, had dwelt particularly on its operation in establishing and strengthening the heart against all discoura- ging, distrustful fears "of evil times, when all things are turned upside down, and the mountains, princes and great potentates, render themselves terrible to the Church and peo- ple of God, and the profane multitude rage against them like the roaring of the waters, and they can have no rest in their dwellings." Under this topic, he had exhibited the discour- aging aspect of the protestant cause, the cause of truth and religion and liberty, as it then was in various parts of Europe, touching cautiously but significantly upon the state of affairs in their native country, from which tidings more and more painful were daily to be expected.
He had proceeded to teach them more particularly what disposition of spirit was necessary to qualify them for the ex- ercise of confidence in God amid such fears, and how, by what acts and efforts, their hope in God was to manifest itself
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in those days of deep depression. " Whosoever," said he, " would have and exercise this hope in reference to the pub- lic state of the afflicted churches of Christ ; they must have and exercise public spirits in the communion of saints"- "must take to heart the public state of the churches and Christ's interest in them, whatever their own private condi- tion is ; and must prefer the public concernments before and above their own private, in their judgments, affections, and endeavors." "The saints of old," said he, "could not be satisfied with their own private welfare, if the church of of God was in affliction and danger, or under reproach." " When there hath been a double affliction upon them, both public and private, the public hath swallowed up the private, and made it inconsiderable in comparison." "When they have had a double opportunity of doing or procuring good, to the public, and to their own private, they have preferred the public advantage to their own private interest." How do their examples, said he, " shame most Christians in these days, who, if their garners may be full, their sheep multiply, their oxen be strong to labor, their sons be as plants grown up, and their daughters polished and set forth with ornaments, and there be no complaining in the streets, think themselves happy, and regard not what becomes of religion, and of Christ's cause and interest in the churches ; they take not to heart the afflictions of God's people, if their trading increase ; one good bargain will more comfort them than all the calami- ties of the church can grieve them ; they can hear and speak of the breaches and ruins of Zion, as the Athenians did of news, without remorse or regard. Brethren, it is a weighty matter to read letters and receive intelligence in them con- cerning the state of the Churches. You had need to lift up your hearts to God, when you are about to read your letters from our native country, to give you wisdom, and hearts duly affected, that you' may receive such intelligences as you ought ; for God looks upon every man, in such cases, with a jealous eye, observing with what workings of bowels they read or speak of the concernments of his Church." "Christ,"
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he said, " will look on them as his enemies that disown his cause and people at such times, as he saith, He that is not with me is against me: Are the people and ways of God under reproach ? Christ is reproached in them and with them. Ah ! but they are called fools and fanatics ! I answer, When was it otherwise ?"'
Having shown how godliness had been hated and scoffed at in other ages, he went on to say, "The present tempta- tion of this time, in the other afflictions of the Churches, is the reproachful titles put upon the people of God, whom pro- fane men call fanatics. But if he is a fool that will be laughed out of his right, much more is he a fool and a mad man that will suffer himself to be laughed out of heaven, that will hazard the loss of his soul, and salvation, to free himself from the mocks and scoffs of a profane and sinful world. If Christ had not for our sakes endured the cross, despising the shame, we could never have been redeemed and saved ; 'let us go forth therefore to him, without the camp, bearing his reproach.' The Christian Hebrews are exhorted to call to remembrance the former days in which, after they were illu- minated, they endured a great fight of afflictions, partly whilst they were made a gazing stock both by reproaches and afflictions, and partly whilst they became companions of them that were so used. (Heb. x, 32, 33.) Let us do like- wise, and own the reproached and persecuted people and cause of Christ in suffering times."
Kindling as he proceeded, he left his hearers no room to misunderstand him. He came out boldly with what might have passed in England for treason. " Withhold not coun- tenance, entertainment, and protection, from such, if they come to us from other countries, as from France or England or any other place. Be not forgetful to entertain strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares. Re- member them that are in bonds, as bound with them, and them who suffer adversity as being yourselves also in the body. (Heb. xiii, 2, 3.) The Lord required this of Moab, saying, 'Make thy shadow as the night in the midst of the
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noon-day ;'-that is, provide safe and comfortable shelter and refreshment for my people in the heat of persecution and op- position raised against them ;- ' hide the outcasts, bewray not him that wandereth : let mine outcasts dwell with thee, Moab ; be thou a covert to them from the face of the spoiler.' (Isaiah xvi, 3, 4.) Is it objected, But so I may expose my- self to be spoiled or troubled ? He, therefore, to remove this objection, addeth, 'For the danger is at an end, the spoiler ceaseth ; the treaders down are consumed out of the land.' While we are attending to our duty in owning and harbor- ing Christ's witnesses, God will be providing for their and our safety, by destroying those that would destroy his people."
This was certainly intelligible. But he went on to arm their minds still more for the expected crisis. "Two helps I shall propound to arm you against those fears of reproach, or dangers, whereby men are apt to be drawn to flinch from the cause and witnesses of Christ in suffering times. First, strengthen your faith. A sight of the invisible God, and an eye to the recompense of reward, so quickened and strength- ened the faith of Moses, that 'he chose rather to suffer afflic- tion with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season ; esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt.' (Heb. xi, 25, 26.)" Secondly, "Exalt God as the highest object of your fear. Fear God as he ought to be feared-fear him above all. The greater fear will expel the lesser. Therefore the Lord pre- scribes this fearing him aright, as the best remedy against all carnal fears, whereby men are wont to be hindered from obey- ing God in those duties that will expose men to hurt from the creature. (Isa. viii, 12, 13. li, 7, 8, 12, 13. So doth Christ in Mat. x, 28.) The balking of any duty which God com- mandeth, is the ready way to bring upon you, by the wrath of God, that very evil which you fear that the doing of your duty will expose you to by the wrath of men."*
" Saints' Anchor-Hold, 178-201. There can be no doubt that this is the original and the truth of the tradition recorded by Stiles, (History of Judges,
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By such appeals and arguments were the people of New Haven prepare I to receive the regicides with kindness, and to protect them in the face of the king's displeasure. The regicides themselves had special reasons to expect the most friendly treatment here. The sister of Gen. Whalley, Mrs. Hooke, had long resided here, her husband being for twelve years Mr. Davenport's colleague here in the work of the ministry. Mr. William Jones, whose father within a few weeks after their departure from England, had suffered death for the same act for which they were thus hunted through the wilderness, and who having married in London the youngest daughter of the late Gov. Eaton, had recently come to this country, was here, and ready to show them all kindness for his father's sake .*
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