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 17
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The activity of Mr. Pierpont, as one of the original trus- tees of Yale College, is evident not only from the early rec- ords of the institution, but also from letters written to him by the agent for the colony in London, whose good offices he had secured in aid of that favorite undertaking. His in- fluence seems to have been employed, in directing towards the college the regards of that benefactor, whose name it has made immortal.t
In 170S, a synod, or general council of the Churches of Connecticut, was held at the College in Saybrook, by order of the legislature, for the purpose of forming a system that should better secure the ends of church discipline, and the benefits of communion among the Churches. The meeting
Kingsley's History of Yale College.
t The following paragraph is part of a letter to Mr. Pierpont, by Jeremiah Dummer, Jun., then agent in London for the colony of Connecticut. The date is " London, 22d May, 1711."
" Here is Mr. Yale, formerly Governor of Fort George in the Indies, who has got a prodigious estate, and now by Mr. Dixwell sends for a relation of his from Connecticut to make him his heir, having no son. He told me lately, that he intended to bestow a charity upon some college in Oxford, under certain restrictions which he mentioned. But I think he should much rather do it to your college, seeing he is a New England and I think a Con- necticut man. If therefore when his kinsman comes over, you will write him a proper letter on that subject, I will take care to press it home."
In another letter, 23d January, 1712, he speaks of begging for College, and of having " got together a pretty parcel of books."
In another letter, dated Whitehall, 3d May, 1713, he says, " The library I am collecting for your College comes on well. Sir Richard Blackmore (to whom I delivered the committee's letter) brought me, in his own chariot, all his works, in four volumes folio; and Mr. Yale has done something, though very little considering his estate and his relation to the colony."
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of that synod marks an important era in our ecclesiastical history.
For a long time, indeed from the first, there had been in New England some influential ministers,* who disliked what was deemed the looseness and inefficiency of Congregation- alism, and were solicitous to introduce, as fast as the people would bear it, something more like the Presbyterian system. Not a few political men too, were in favor of some departure from the primitive platform, which did not seem to work well, while all were seeking to complete the alliance between the Churches and the State. And in truth simple Congrega- tionalism is, in its nature, very difficult to be wrought into a convenient and compact ecclesiastical establishment. Where each particular Church is recognized as a complete and self- subsistent body, with no constitution but the Bible, and no legislation over it but that of Jesus Christ, it is no easy matter to reduce the Churches into a complete subjection to the civil power, or to incorporate the ecclesiastical organization with the organization of the commonwealth. Protracted ex- perience had taught the leading politicians of Connecticut, that their legislative intermeddlings with ecclesiastical quar- rels, whether local or general, whether by clerical councils or by lay committees, was of little avail. The religious es- tablishment of the colony,-the propriety or policy of which, in the abstract, no man called in question,-was felt to be defective without another ecclesiastical constitution.
At the same time, it is true that the system under which the Churches had been organized was in some respects im- perfect. The communion and mutual helpfulness of the Churches was not adequately secured. Light is obtained by conference, and love is promoted by fraternal consultation ; but there had been no provision for the stated consultation of ministers with each other, in order to their mutual im- provement ; nor was there sufficient opportunity for Churches
* Mr. Parker and Mr. Noyes, the first pastor and teacher of the Church in Newbury, were decided in favor of the Presbyterian discipline.
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to confer together by their officers and messengers, on mat- ters of common interest, in order to their seeing alike and acting harmoniously. There was no uniform method of in- troducing candidates for the ministry, to the work of preach- ing for the trial of their qualifications. When a young man aspiring to the sacred office had finished his studies at Col- lege, he was commonly introduced into the pulpit first by his own pastor, or his instructor, or some other friend, and grad- ually found his way to the acquaintance and confidence of the Churches, without any formal examination, or any cer- tificate of approbation from an organized body of ministers. Such a way, however it might answer the purpose when the country was new, was not suited to the wants of the commu- nity at a more advanced period.
Of the synod at Saybrook, Mr. Pierpont was a leading member. The " Articles for the administration of Church Discipline," which were adopted as the result of the synod, and which constitute the so famous "Saybrook Platform," are said to have been drawn up by him .* By the order of the legislature, the ministers and delegates in each county, at the preliminary meeting at which their representatives were to be chosen for the General Council, were "to con- sider and agree upon those methods and rules for the man- agement of ecclesiastical discipline, which by them should be judged conformable to the word of God;" and the duty of the General Council was, to "compare the results of the ministers of the several counties, and out of and from them to draw a form of ecclesiastical discipline." The " Articles," by whomsoever penned, were obviously a compromise be- tween the Presbyterian interest and the Congregational ; and like most compromises, they were (I do not say by design) of doubtful interpretation. Interpreted by a Presbyterian, they might seem to subject the Churches completely to the
* Stiles, Serm. on Chris. Union, 70. See also Dwight, Life of Ed., 113, where it is also stated, that Mr. Pierpont read lectures to the students in Yale College, as professor of Moral Philosophy. This is possible, though the Col- lege was not removed from Saybrook till after Mr. Pierpont's death. A son of his, bearing the same name, was tutor from 1722 to 1724.
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· authoritative government of classes or presbyteries, under the name of consociations. Interpreted by a Congregation- alist, they might seem to provide for nothing more than a sta- ted council, in which neighboring Churches, voluntarily con- federate, should consult together, and the proper function of which should be not to speak imperatively, but, when regu- larly called, to "hold forth light" in cases of difficulty or per- plexity. The Churches, though they gradually came into the arrangement, were jealous of it; and in this county, where the influence of Davenport in favor of the simplest and purest Congregationalism was still felt, they refused to adopt the Platform till they had put upon record their strict construction of it .* For the first half century or more, the Saybrook Platform made more quarrels than it healed. But in later years, the Congregational construction of its articles having become established by general usage, its working has been in a high degree salutary. Under this system, more than under any other, ministers and Churches are continually promoting each other's peace and strength.+
Mr. Pierpont died in the midst of his usefulness, on the 14th of November, 1714, at the age of fifty five years. His grave is one of those which are covered by this edifice.}
* Records of Consociation.
t The history of the synod of Saybrook is given by Trumbull, in its de- tails, I, 478-488.
# Mr. Pierpont was of the younger branch of a noble family in England. It is believed, though the necessary legal proof appears to be wanting, that his son was the heir to the estates, and the now extinct title, of the earls of Kingston. Mr. P. married Abigail Davenport, a grand-daughter of his prede- cessor in the pastoral office, on the 27th of October, 1691. A little more than three months afterwards, on the 3d of February, his wife was taken from him by death. She died, as tradition tells us, of a consumption caused by exposure to the cold on the Sabbath after her wedding, going to meeting ac- cording to the fashion of the time in her bridal dress. Two years afterwards, he was married at Hartford to Sarah Haynes, a grand-daughter of Governor Haynes, " by Lt. Col. Allen, Assistant, the 30th May, 1694." On the 7th of October, 1696, he was again bereaved. His second wife left one daughter, who bore the name of his first wife. He was married to Mary Hooker, a grand-daughter of the first pastor in Hartford, on the 26th July, 1698. This lady, who survived him till November, 1740, was the mother of several chil- dren, one of whom, Sarah, became at an early age the wife of Jonathan Ed- wards, and was truly " a help meet for him."
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'That he was greatly distinguished and highly honored in his day, is sufficiently manifest. His particular friend, Cot- ton Mather, says of him in the preface to a sermon which he had preached at Boston, in Mather's pulpit, and which was published at the request of the hearers,-He " has been a rich blessing to the Church of God." "New Haven values him ; all Connecticut honors him. They have cause to do it." That we are not able to form so lively an idea of him as of Davenport, is partly because his life was shorter, and was less involved in scenes of conflict, and partly, no doubt, because his nature and the early discipline of Divine providence, had less fitted him to make himself conspicuous by the origi- nality and energy of his character, and to leave his image stamped with ineffaceable distinctness on the records of his times.
In the pulpit, Mr. Pierpont was distinguished among his cotemporaries. His personal appearance was altogether pre- possessing. He was eminent in the gift of prayer .* His doctrine was sound and discriminating ; and his style was clear, lively and impressive, without any thing of the affected quaintness which characterized some of the most eminent men of that day.
* If the following sentence in one of Dummer's letters to Mr. Pierpont, be called a compliment, it should be remembered that Dummer would not be likely to make such a compliment at random. " That little composure of Mr. Henry's about prayer, I the rather pitched upon, because he is as re- nowned for his gift in prayer in Great Britain, as I know you have always been in New England."
In President Stiles' Literary Diary, (MS.) Sept. 25, 1777, I find the fol- lowing : " Rev. Daniel Rogers, æt. 70 et supra told me, it was remarked of Mr. Cobbet, anciently a minister of Ipswich, (Mr. Rogers' native place,) that he was eminent for free prayer-that the first ministers of New England, though they did not pray ex libro, yet went into each one his own form which he pursued with but little variation : and that it was a remark, that the min- isters of this century, and the present pastors, surpassed those of the last cen- tury with respect to free prayer. But I think for clear evangelical divinity 1 they do not equal them."
Cotton Mather gives, somewhere, a similar testimony ; but I am not able, now, to turn to the passage.
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The only specimen of his preaching that remains to us, is the published sermon already mentioned. That sermon is from the text, (Psalm cxix, 116,) " Uphold me according to thy word, that I may live ; and let me not be ashamed of my hope ;" and, though it falls short of the originality and intel- lectual vigor which mark the performances of Davenport, it proves sufficiently that its author's eminence was not acci- dental. It discusses one of the most common, though ever one of the most serious and interesting subjects,-" False hopes of heaven ;" and the views which it presents, are the same views which are habitually urged upon you. That you may judge for yourselves as to the matter and style of his preaching, I transcribe a few passages.
" Whatever other regards we bear and manifest to Jesus Christ, this only and mighty Savior, if we have not faith in him, the root of our hope as well as other graces, all our flourishing hopes of a future happiness will fall and fly from us, as leaves in autumn. Nothing can be more express and positive, than what the Author of everlasting life has with his own sacred lips uttered, John, iii, 36 : 'He that believeth not the Son, shall not see life : but the wrath of God abideth on him.' The tremendous effusion of divine wrath is sus- pended for a few fleeting, uncertain moments ; when they are run out, it shall be inevitably showered down upon every one that believeth not in the name of the only begotten Son of God. See also, John, viii, 24: ' For if ye believe not that I am he, ye shall die in your sins ;' and so die without hope, perish for ever, in the want of a Christ, and faith in him. You may observe what the great apostle of the Gentiles most plainly and solemnly offers on this head, 2 Cor. xiii, 5: 'Ex- amine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith ; prove your own selves : Know ye not your own selves?' (q. d. ye know no- thing as Christians, if ye know not this great truth, ) 'how that Christ Jesus is in you,' (viz. by faith, apprehending him, and deriving grace and strength from him into your souls,) ' except ye be reprobates :' i. e. in the state of the ungodly, and
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in the way that leads to final despair and everlasting destruc- tion."
" Great hazards are much to be feared, and imminent dan- gers are greatly to be deprecated; our danger of resting in ill-grounded hopes, is inconceivable great.
. 1. From our natural strong propension most fondly to em- brace hope, let the kinds or grounds thereof be as they are. If hope be but deferred, it makes the heart sick ; but if hope be cut off, we hasten to die. Who of us would be content to breathe an hour longer, if we had no hope for this or a fu- ture life ?
2. From a criminal slightiness in the grounds of our hope for future blessedness, which we are sadly incident to. Too many of us content ourselves with hopes of going to heaven when we die, which have not so much as a shadow of good grounds. The reason of such persons' hope, if plainly ren- dered, would appear most inconsistent with this Word, and with good reason itself. Deut. xxix, 19: 'I shall have peace, though I walk in the imagination of mine heart.'
3. From inordinate self-love, and from thence self-flattery. When in our first apostacy, we left God, and lost our good affection to him, we then fell into a criminal love of our- selves. When we desisted adoring and praising our glorious Maker, we then began fondly to admire and flatter ourselves : hence we cannot easily be brought to entertain low and mean thoughts of ourselves, or to realize to our own minds the misery we are naturally exposed to. We cannot think we are enemies to God, or he is such to us-ward ; we know not how to receive it, that our souls, remaining unconverted, shall be banished from the presence of God, from the expe- rience of all good ; that these very bodies and souls shall be ere long made the flaming monuments of unutterable and everlasting wrath ; that a gracious God and our merciful Ma- ker can ever find it in his heart to show us no mercy, when with bitter outcries, heart-breaking shrieks, wringing hands, floods of tears, and bleeding hearts, we shall at the bar of Justice appeal to and implore his infinite commiseration.
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Our irregular self-love and flattery tell us, when the terrors of God's unappeasable wrath are set before us, 'These things shall not be unto you! We hope and cannot but hope better things some way or other shall happen to you.' And thus we incline 'to flatter ourselves, until our iniquity be found to be hateful.' Psalm xxxvi, 2.
4. Our dangers herein spring also from the mistaken opin- ion, or cologue of others with whom we converse. We live in a fawning, flattering world ; our friends and neighbors, whatever they think, may speak well of us, nay, oft-times much better than we have deserved; and it may be, that they might the more easily serve themselves and their inter- ests by us : whence we are liable to take up a good opinion of ourselves, and to form a hope we are as good as they re- port. Yea, godly people and able ministers of the gospel, not knowing our hearts, or the secrets of our lives, upon many outward appearances, judge well of us, hold us in reputation for Christians, nay, for shining saints. Whence we are prone to value ourselves, and to feed up hope, that we are the wise virgins, have oil enough in our vessels, and shall not (on the most surprising call) fail of a joyful entrance into heaven ; when truly the way of peace we have never yet known.
5. From the artifices of Satan, that crafty seducer. As he goeth about like a roaring lion, seeking by many vio- lences to devour men ; so he crawls as a sly serpent, de- signing men's destruction, by innumerable devices ; among which, he doth his utmost to flatter or lull silly souls into an ill-grounded hope ; persuading them they are in the safe road to heaven, when truly they are sliding down apace into the dungeons of eternal darkness and perdition.
6. From the tremendous righteous judgment of God, our dangers of taking up with false hopes of heaven may arise. For great reasons and high provocations, God doth leave some to build their hopes high, who are the children of greatest wrath. Read instances hereof with much fear and trem- bling : Isaiah, vi, 9, 10. 2 Thess. ii, 10, 11, 12. 'God shall
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send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie, that they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness.' ">*
Such was the preaching inculcated upon the fathers and predecessors of this congregation, five generations ago. What- ever else has changed since then, the gospel has not changed. You are witnesses that here Christ is now set forth as the great object of the repenting sinner's faith,-Christ, as the sinner's only hope,-" Christ, the same yesterday, to-day, and forever."
* The title of the pamphlet from which these specimens are taken, is, " Sundry False Hopes of Heaven, discovered and decried. In a sermon preached at the North Assembly in Boston, 3. d. 4. m. 1711. By James Pierpont, M. A. Pastor of New Haven Church. With a Preface by the Rd. Dr. Mather."-" Boston in N. E. Printed : sold by T. Green, at his shop in Middle street. 1712,"
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DISCOURSE X.
FROM 1714 TO 1740 .- JOSEPH NOYES .- "THE GREAT REVIVAL" OF PRESIDENT EDWARDS'S DAY.
HABAKKUK, iii, 2. O Lord, revive thy work in the midst of the years.
WE come now to a portion of our history in some respects more difficult to be treated than any which we have hereto- fore examined. The age which succeeded the ministry of Mr. Pierpont, was an age of more controversy in the Churches, of greater errors and extravagances, of fiercer contention, and of more alarming agitation, than can be found in any other period of the history of New England. In all the emergencies of that age, our predecessors here had their full share of agitation and of peril. And though the fires which then burned so fiercely, seem to have burned out, he who walks among the ashes needs to walk circum- spectly, lest he tread upon embers which are covered indeed, but not extinguished. The grandchildren, and in some in- stances the children, of those who acted in the scenes we are now to review, are still upon the stage ; and their feelings towards those whom they regard with a natural veneration, may not be rudely invaded. Another Church, now happily associated with this so intimately as hardly to be another, came into being here amid those convulsions ; and to enter into that history, to trace the errors of one party and of the other, however impartial the design, and however beneficial the legitimate tendency, may be dangerous, if there is any lack of discretion on the part of the speaker, or of candor on the part of the hearers.
The age of the ministry of Mr. Pierpont, has already been described, as an age of gradual declension throughout New England. Some of the causes of the declension have been pointed out-causes which, though continually counteracted by the ability and faithfulness of the great body of the min-
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isters, were perpetually working to secularize the Churches, and to demoralize society. The same causes continued to work through the following age, and had much to do with the contentions and disasters that accompanied or followed what is so commonly spoken of as the great revival of 1742.
The Church was not long vacant after the death of Mr. Pierpont, which took place in November, 1714. On the first of July, in the following year, "at a meeting of the First Society," which is the first meeting on record under that name, *- " after some discourse, the votes were brought in, in writing, to nominate a man to carry on the work of the ministry on probation." In this proceeding, an omen appears of what was to follow. The people were divided in their preferences. "Mr. Joseph Noyes was chosen by the major vote, he having eighty six votes, and Mr. Cooke forty five votes." Mr. Cooke, the opposing candidate, was afterwards pastor of the Church in Stratfield, now Bridgeport, and be- came somewhat distinguished in the conflicts of the age, as a zealous opponent of the party with which Mr. Noyes was identified. It may be presumed, that when they were both young, and the preferences of the people of New Haven were divided between them, the difference in their characters was essentially the same as afterwards. Mr. Cooke, we may sup- pose, was, of the two candidates, the more fervent and pun- gent in the pulpit, and the more impetuous in his measures ; Mr. Noyes, the more discreet in counsel, the more cautious in his statements, and the more scholarlike in his studied per- formances.
, The old habit of proceeding deliberately in so great a mat- ter as the settlement of a minister, was not yet laid aside. In September, two months after the call to preach on probation, the society voted their approbation of Mr. Noyes's labors, "so far as they had experienced the same," and engaged to give
* East Haven, North Haven, and perhaps West Haven, had been erected into distinct parishes or " ecclesiastical societies ;" but the records of the First Society, as distinct from the town, commenced only at the date above mentioned.
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him, while he should labor in the ministry among them, "one hundred and twenty pounds per annum in money, or in grain and flesh" at certain prices, and two hundred pounds in the same pay, as a settlement .* In December, the Church pro- ceeded to declare their good acceptance of his labors, and to invite him to settle among them. He was ordained on the 4th of July, 1716.+
Mr. Noyes was greatly recommended and aided at his in- troduction to the ministry, by the celebrity of his father and grandfather ; for in those days a young man's parentage was of more consequence than it is now. He was the son of the Rev. James Noyes of Stonington, whose father, James Noyes, was one of the original settlers of Massachusetts, and the first teacher of the Church in Newbury. Mr. Noyes of Ston- ington was, in his day, one of the leading ministers of the colony, greatly respected for his wisdom and his piety. He was " a distinguished preacher, carrying uncommon fervor and heavenly zeal into all his public performances. His or- dinary conversation breathed the spirit of that world to which he was endeavoring to guide his fellow men. In ecclesiasti- cal controversies he was eminently useful." " He was also counsellor in civil affairs, at some critical periods."} He was selected to be one of the first trustees and founders of the College ; for though he was then an old man, and in a remote corner of the colony, his influence was deemed essential to the success of the undertaking. His son Joseph was a mem- ber of the class which graduated in 1709, while the College
The prices at which Mr. Pierpont's salary of £120 was to be made up, as fixed in 1697, were as follows : Winter wheat at 5s the bushel ; rye 3s 6d; corn 2s Gd; peas 3s 6d; pork 3 1-4d the pound ; and beef 3d. The stipulated prices at which Mr. Noyes was to receive the grain and flesh of his salary were " as followeth : wheat at 4s 6d per bushel, rye at 2s 8d, Indian corn at 2s ; pork at 2 1-2d per pound, beef at 1 1-2d,-the grain and flesh to be good and merchantable." If Mr. Noyes's salary was worth more than his predecessor's, his £200 settlement was probably worth much less than Mr. Pierpont's home-lot and house and his one hundred and fifty acres of land.
... t Church Records, and Records of Society.
#. Allen, Biog. Dict.
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was under the presidency of the Rev. Mr. Andrew of Milford, the inferior classes being instructed at Saybrook by the tu- tors, and the senior class residing with the rector at Mil- ford. The class of 1709, was by far the largest that had ever gone forth from the institution. It consisted of nine mem- bers, five of whom became ministers of the gospel.
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