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 21
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at a subsequent meeting, an annual salary was voted for him. It was now the turn of the " old lights" to exercise the grace of patience, and to record their protests.
At a meeting in October, it was voted, that whereas the difficulties in the Society had been occasioned by " the great deficiencies of Mr. Noyes in the work of the ministry," and particularly by his " neglecting to open, explain, and inculcate some of the great and important doctrines of Christianity," and his "imprudent" and " inexcusable conduct with regard to the settlement of a colleague ;" and whereas it was doubt- ful whether the contract originally made with Mr. Noyes could be enforced by law, owing to some technical informali- ties which they thought they had discovered; and whereas for several months, Mr. Noyes had not attended public wor- ship at the place appointed for that purpose by the Society,- therefore a committee should wait on Mr. Noyes "and inform him that, for the foregoing reasons among many others, it is the desire of this Society that he would desist from his min- isterial labors in this place, and that no farther provision will be made by this Society for his support and maintenance." Mr. Noyes continued his labors as before ; and he took pains to remove all doubts respecting the validity of the contract under which he was settled, by bringing an action against the Society, and thus enforcing the payment of his salary.
In February, 1758, a proposal was formally tendered by the adherents of Mr. Bird to the other party, that a division of the property, both that belonging to the Society and that which was peculiar to the Church, should be made by arbi- tration of individuals mutually chosen. The proposal being rejected by the adherents of Mr. Noyes, who would not for a
the matter, and in answer say, that since Providence has fixed my abode among you, I shall not be unwilling to serve you to the best of my power ; provided due encouragement be given for a comfortable subsistence among you so long as it may be the pleasure of God to continue me in the work, and my labors may be acceptable to you. This with my kindest salutations to you, wishing that grace, mercy and peace may be multiplied to you and yours, and asking an interest in your prayers for me, leaves me nothing fur- ther but to subscribe your well wisher and humble servant,
" New Haven, Aug. 8th, 1757."
SAML. BIRD."
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moment entertain any overture implying that the property of the Church belonged to the Society, was ordered to be put upon record " as a standing evidence of the pacific disposi- tion of Mr. Bird's adherents."*
At the same meeting, votes were adopted, protesting in the strongest terms against the intended ordination of Mr. Whit- telsey as colleague with Mr. Noyes in the pastoral care of this Church. The ordination was however performed, just three weeks afterwards. This event doubtless, tended to bring the controversy to a conclusion ; for thenceforward the per- sonal and official unpopularity of Mr. Noyes no longer ope- rated as before, to weaken the hands of his Church and congregation.
At last on the 8th of January, 1759, it was voted to apply to the General Assembly again for a division of the Society, and that all questions as to which party should be the First Society, and how the property in dispute should be divided, be left to the wisdom of the legislature. In October of the same year the request was granted. The adherents of this Church were made the First Society ; and the adherents of the separate Church were incorporated as the White Haven Society. The plate and all the property of this Church re- mained undivided. The new brick meeting house, erected partly by the funds of the Church, and partly by donations from individuals, was declared the property of the First So- ciety. The old meeting house, the bell, and all the property which had belonged to the Society before the commence- ment of the difficulties, was declared to belong to the two Societies in equal proportions. And thus the controversy of eighteen years was concluded.
Mr. Noyes lived a little more than three years after the ordination of his colleague. "Finding the infirmities of age to increase upon him, he very much desisted from the public work of the sanctuary, and entertained himself almost wholly
* Under this record as it stands in the Society's book, some later pen has written, " Quere, Whether there are not sometimes violent gusts of wind in the Pacific Ocean ?"
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with reading and conversing with his friends and people. And thus," says his colleague and successor, "he seemed very agreeably to pass away the years of his old age, often expressing peculiar satisfaction in the present peaceable state of his flock, and the provision that God in his providence had made for them."* He died on the 14th of June, 1761, aged 73 ; and his dust lies under this edifice.
As he left behind him no published works, and as none of his manuscripts are now known to exist, it is impossible for us to form any just estimate of his intellectual powers and attainments. Mr. Whittelsey, who knew him well for more than twenty years, has given a careful delineation of his char- acter in a manuscript now before me. "Mr. Noyes was a gen- tleman of good natural powers ; and as he resided at the Col- lege several years after he received the honors of it, he made himself very much master of the learning taught at College in that day. He was naturally observing, judicious, and pru- dent ; and these very useful and important qualities, he, from time to time improved by experience, and thence was an excellent economist in the management of the affairs both of his family and of the public. His conversation was very entertaining and useful ; even those who, after the difficulties arose in his Church, were not so well pleased with his preach- ing and public ministerial labors, yet allowed him to have an uncommon talent at pleasing and instructing in private and familiar discourse. In public prayers he was equaled by few in justness of sentiment, and in readiness, variety and aptness of expression ; on special occasions, he was admired for his discernment and accuracy in noticing every particular that was proper to be noticed, and in choosing expressions that were pertinent and well adapted to the occasion. In his public discourses, as he remembered that the gospel was to be preached to the poor, and was of opinion that the un- learned, the more ignorant part of the people, stood in need of instruction and help more than others ; so he, upon prin- ciple, aimed rather to be plain, familiar, and instructive, than
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learned, critical, ornamental, or moving .* Indeed, in ex- pounding passages of Scripture occasionally, he discovered a close attention, and a good acquaintance with the phraseology of Scripture, and a sufficient knowledge of the art of criti- cism. In expounding doubtful passages, and treating upon deep and mysterious doctrines, about which good and great men had entertained different sentiments, he was always cautious, and judiciously charitable and moderate."
It would be unjust not to pay, in this place, some tribute to the memory of Madam Noyes. She was the eldest daugh- ter of the Rev. James Pierpont, and the only child of his second wife. Distinguished by the advantages of birth and station, she was more distinguished by her intellectual and moral endowments. Her example, her prayers, and her un- wearied diligence in doing good, made her, from early youth to the most venerable age, one of the best of blessings, not to her husband and children only, but to the Church and to the public. Her memory long flourished here, and her name was greatly honored, even by those who remembered her husband with aversion. She died at the same age with her husband, having survived him seven years.t
Need I say what lesson we ought to learn from the pain- ful history we have been reviewing? We have been study- ing the operation of party spirit ; and how instructive is the study in reference to our own duties and dangers. That, in our times, which most counteracts and threatens to turn into bitterness the purest affections of piety-that which tends most to the perversion and progressive corruption of religious doctrine, and to prevent the just understanding and applica- tion of the word of God-that which, most of all things in
* This, however well expressed, is a poor apology for poor preaching. Ig- norant people need the best preaching ; and that which is good for ignorant people, is good for the most enlightened. I have heard the story, that Presi- dent Clap once undertook to expostulate with Mr. Noyes for not preaching better. " You do not know," said Mr. Noyes, " what an ignorant people I have to preach to." " Yes I do," said the President, " and I know that as long as you preach to them in this way, they always will be ignorant."
t The character of Madam Noyes, as delineated by Mr. Whittelsey, in a sermon occasioned by her death, will be found in the Appendix, No. XII.
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the Church, dishonors God, exposes the name of Christ to scorn, and grieves the Spirit of grace-is the party spirit among ministers and Churches, which so much talent and so much industry are continually laboring, with disastrous suc- cess, to fan into a devouring flame.
During the period which has now been reviewed, the coun- try was passing through the struggles of the " old French wars." The French monarchy had formed a gigantic scheme of dominion in America. Having possessed itself of the Mis- sissippi and the St. Lawrence, it was stretching a chain of forts and trading stations from the one to the other, and was designing to sweep the English from the continent. Two protracted wars, of which the greatest brunt and burthen came upon New England, annihilated that ambitious project. The first, in which France and Spain were allied against Great Britain, commenced in 1740, and ended in 1748 with the treaty of Aix la Chapelle. This war was signalized by that most adventurous exploit on the part of the New Eng- landers, the capture of Louisburg; and it first made Great Britain acquainted with the iron energy that was developing itself in this unnoticed corner of her empire. Signalized as it was by the most enthusiastic exertions on the part of New England, and by the most unlooked for successes, it resulted in nothing. Peace was made on the plan of restoring every thing to the state before the war; and then both parties had as it were a breathing time, preparing for another conflict. The second of these wars commenced in 1755, and ended in 1760, with the conquest of Canada, and the destruction of the French scheme of empire on this continent. In this war, Connecticut distinguished herself even above her sis- ter colonies. She had no immediate interest. Her terri- tory was not invaded ; her hearths and her altars were far from the scene of conflict. Yet, year after year, she spon- taneously furnished a double quota of men and of all the materials of war. For three successive campaigns, she kept in the field, at her own expense, an army of five thousand men,-and those, not wretched conscripts from a wretched
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peasantry, nor the miserable sweepings from the streets of cities, but hardy freeholders and their sons, who knew how great was the prize for which they were contending ; and who, by that lavish expenditure of treasure and of blood, saved their posterity from becoming the vassals of a popish despot, and opened the boundless west to be planted by the sons of New England, and to be filled with New England institutions. Thus the colonies were made to know their own strength. They learned that their own armed yeoman- ry, contending for their rights, for their hopes, for their pos- terity, were better on the march and in the battle, than the mercenary soldiers of Britain. And when, about twelve years from the close of the last French war, the long expected crisis came, and the country rose in arms to the awful struggle for its independence ; all was ready. Those who commanded at Bunker Hill, those who formed and trained the continental armies, and led them to their victories, were men who, in the preceding conflicts, had learned the art of war by contact with its stern realities.
In those preceding conflicts, New England moved as with one soul. The "old light" and the "new light" stood shoulder to shoulder. New Haven gave two heroic leaders, Whiting from the old Church, and Wooster from the new, both of whom rendered the most important services to their country, and one of whom lived long enough to die in the more desperate conflict of the revolution .*
* A brief but just tribute is paid to the memory of these two citizens of New Haven by Prof. Kingsley, in his Historical Discourse, 68. It is not impertinent to transcribe here the title of an old pamphlet. " The Charac- ter and Duty of Soldiers illustrated, in a Sermon preached May 25, 1755, in the Rev. Mr. Noyes's meeting-house in New Haven, at the desire of Col. Nathan Whiting, to the military company under his command in the present expedition for the defence of the British Dominions in America. By Isaac Stiles, A. M. Published at the request of said Colonel, and the other officers of said company. Who will lead me into Edom ? Wilt not thou, O God ! go forth with our hosts ?- DAVID. So Joshua ascended from Gilgal, he and all the people of war with him, and all the mighty men of valor : and the Lord said unto Joshua, Fear not ; for I have delivered them into thine hand ;- there shall not a man of them stand before thee .- JOSHUA. New Haven : Printed and sold by James Parker, at the Post office. MDCCLV."
DISCOURSE XII.
CHAUNCEY WHITTELSEY AND HIS MINISTRY .- THE AGE OF THE REVOLUTION.
PSALM CXxiv, 1-3. If it had not been the Lord who was on our side, may Israel now say, if it had not been the Lord who was on our side when men rose up against us, then they had swallowed us up quick, when their wrath was kindled against us.
HAVING said all that the plan of these discourses will per- mit respecting the ministry of Mr. Noyes, I now proceed to speak of the life, labors and character of his successor.
The Rev. Chauncey Whittelsey was born at Wallingford, Oct. 28, 1717. His father, the Rev. Samuel Whittelsey, was the second pastor of the Church in that place, a man greatly distinguished in his day for his abilities and his public useful- ness. His mother was a granddaughter of the famous Presi- dent Chauncey of Harvard College. From both parents he inherited strong mental powers, which were highly cultiva- ted by education. He graduated at Yale College in 1738, and continued his classical studies as a resident graduate on Bishop Berkeley's foundation. At the resignation of Rector Williams, which took place in 1739, Mr. Whittelsey was elected a tutor. He served the public in that office six years, and was concerned in the instruction of four classes, two of which received a great part of their education under him. Many of his pupils became afterwards greatly distin- guished in the Church and in the commonwealth. Presi- dent Stiles says of him,-"He was an excellent classical scholar, well acquainted with the three learned languages, the Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, but especially the Latin and Greek. He was well acquainted with Geography, Mathe- matics, Natural Philosophy, and Astronomy, with Moral Philosophy and History, and with the general cyclopedia of Literature. He availed himself of the advantages of an academic life, and amassed, by laborious reading, a great
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treasure of wisdom ; and for literature, he was, in his day, oracular at College, for he taught with facility and success in every branch of knowledge. He had a very happy talent at instruction and communicating the knowledge of the liberal arts and sciences."* Religious himself from his early youth, he did not fail to urge religious truth and duty upon those who were under his instruction. His pupils afterwards re- garded him with great respect. One of the most illustrious of them said of him, at his funeral, " I shall never forget the pathetic and earnest recommendations of early piety which he gave to us in the course of the tutorship."
It was during his official connection with College, that the institution, the town, and the whole of New England, were shaken with the religious agitation of 1740. At that very period, (Sept. 30, 1740,)+ he was first licensed to preach as a candidate for the work of the ministry. Before this, in the first year of his tutorship, he was solicited to become a can- didate for settlement in a neighboring parish, (Amity,) which he declined, partly because of his College engagements, and partly because he considered himself not yet qualified for the work. In reference to that request, I find him, recording in his private journal-of which a single leaf is all that re- mains-the following thoughts : "Having repeatedly com- mended my case to God by prayer, and, I think, strictly and impartially examined myself, I am obliged to think myself as yet too little acquainted with God, the Scriptures, human nature in general, and my own heart in particular, to venture to undertake the great and important work of the ministry. O God ! fit me for that noble and honorable employment, if it be thy will that I should be improved in it. Let me not enter upon it without thy direction and blessing: Lord Je- sus ! mighty Head of the Church ! fit me for thy service, and improve me in thy vineyard. But unless thou go forth with me, let me not go forth upon that weighty business. O may I never be an idle spectator or a slothful laborer in the vine-
* Funeral Sermon, 24.
t Records of Association.
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yard of my God. May I be willing to spend and be spent in the work of the Lord, and for the good and salvation of souls. May I wait God's time, be resigned to his will, aim at his glory, have more of the meek and humble spirit of Jesus Christ, be more and more weaned from the world, and live above it, that I may preach the gospel in truth, not influen- ced therein by the fear of man ; but may I speak the truth boldly in Christ, and be blessed by him."
This is none other than that "tutor Whittelsey," known to thousands in both hemispheres as the man of whom David Brainerd declared : "He has no more grace than this chair !" David Brainerd came to College at the same time at which Mr. Whittelsey was introduced as tutor. During his Fresh- man and Sophomore years, he had "found divine life and spiritual refreshment" in the ordinances, and his soul had enjoyed "sweet and precious frames," even under the ad- ministration and preaching of Mr. Noyes. When Whitefield made his first visit here, Brainerd was spending his vacation at home in Haddam. Near the close of January, in his Sophomore year, he esteemed himself to have "grown more cold and dull in religion, by means of" his "old temptation, ambition in" his "studies." But in the month of February, he was quickened by " a great and general awakening" which spread itself over the College and the town .* In March, Gil- bert Tennent, then returning from his labors in Boston to New Jersey, visited New Haven, and in the course of a week preached seventeen sermons, most of them in the meeting house, two or three in the College Hall; and thus the work previously begun, became an overpowering excitement.+ Amid so great an excitement of feeling, in himself and in others around him, Brainerd's growth in grace was probably not equal to his enjoyment, or his activity in promoting the work. Six months afterwards, came Davenport with his wildfire, his denunciations, his extravagances, to draw off a part of the congregation and establish a separate meeting.
* Edwards's Works, x. 45-50.
t Hopkins's Life of himself.
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Then it was preeminently that, in the words of Edwards, " an intemperate and imprudent zeal, and a degree of enthu- siasm, crept in and mingled itself with the revival of religion." Then it was that Brainerd, far more than at any other period of his life, " had the unhappiness to have a tincture of that intemperate, indiscreet zeal which was at that time too prev- alent, and was led from his high opinion of others whom he looked upon as better than himself, into such errors as were really contrary to the habitual temper of his mind." Then it was that those " imprudences and indecent heats," as he called them, found place in his diary, on account of which he afterwards on his death bed, consigned to the flames all the records of his feelings from January, 1741, to April, 1742. Then it was that when the rector of the College forbade his going to the separate meeting, he went in defiance of author- ity. Then it was that, on one occasion, after Mr. Whittel- sey had been praying with the students in the College Hall, and had uttered his devout desires with more than usual pa- thos of expression, David Brainerd replied to a question by one of his zealous companions : "He has no more grace than this chair."
If what I have already quoted from Mr. Whittelsey's pri- vate journal, is not sufficient to show his humility, his jealousy of himself, his hungering and thirsting after right- eousness, and his dependence upon Christ alone, and thus to demonstrate the slanderousness of Brainerd's rash judgment respecting him; let us examine a little farther the con- tents of this worn and broken leaf from the journal of the man whom Brainerd, inoculated with censoriousness, pro- nounced to be destitute of grace. Under the date of " Mon- day, July 6," 1739, he says, " Yesterday was sacrament, at which I renewed my covenant, at least externally, with the Lord Jesus Christ, having set apart the day before for prepa- ration by fasting and prayer, and examination of my own heart. But I could not obtain that satisfaction as to my estate Godward, which I earnestly desire, and without which I cannot, and I pray God I may not be easy. My difficulty
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is chiefly for fear I was never brought thoroughly off from myself and my dependence on my own works for accept- ance with God, and to resign myself up entirely into the hands of a holy and sovereign God, and actually to close with, and receive Christ Jesus for my alone and all-sufficient Saviour, as my prophet, priest and king. Yet I feel in my soul some working so much like it, if it is not genuine, that I cannot entirely renounce my hopes. O Lord ! let me not be deceived." " I am resolved, by Divine grace, that I will spend my time more carefully, and watchfully, and account- ably for the future, knowing that that, and all my other tal- ents, are not my own, but only lent to me to be improved ; and that I have also dedicated them to the Lord. O how ex- ceedingly have I come short of my obligations ! Lord, for- give me, for Christ's sake ; and enable me to live more to thine honor and glory hereafter. O whither shall I go but unto thee ? Lord, help me under all my darkness and diffi- culty, for thy mercy's sake alone !"
" August 2d, Sabbath evening," he writes again, " This day I joined with the Church of Christ in this place in cele- brating the sacrament of the Lord's supper." Then, having spoken of the lifelessness of his feelings in the ordinance, he adds, "I fear there is nothing right in me towards the Lord my God. But if there is, I have some way provoked the Spirit of God to withdraw from me. I am exceedingly de- pressed by my sins. Lord let me not be deceived for thy name's sake, for thy mercy's sake ! For thy Son's sake have pity on me, and save me !"
The next date is "August 7th, Friday." "I have been all this week, and am still, exceedingly in the dark. O my sin ! my guilt ! Without Christ I see no way possible but that I must perish eternally. O Lord, let not what he has done and suffered be in vain to my soul. O that Christ might be mine, and I his. Surely, O Lord, there is none in heaven like unto thee, nor any on earth to be compared with thee."' -" O can a holy God have pity on such a sinner as I have been ? From such a lump of deformity as my heart, can
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there be created a vessel of honor for the service of the great God ? Lord, with thee all things are possible."
I might say now, if I supposed that there were any doubt here respecting the piety of this man, Compare these breath- ings of penitence and devotion with any parallel passages in Brainerd's own journal, and tell me whether even Brainerd's records seem more like the broken heart and the contrite spirit which God will not despise, or more like a heart that knows its own deceitfulness. But I choose rather to call your attention to another view. Brainerd, who always felt whatever he did feel with all his soul, and who knew as little as a child, of the analysis of complicated motives and emo- tions,-Brainerd, carried away with a gust of inconsiderate zeal and a spirit of censoriousness caught by his quick sym- pathy with others, and admi ing the passionate extravagances of the wandering Davenport, saw nothing which seemed to him like the grace of God, in the staid, self-possessed, deco- rous piety of tutor Whittelsey. To him, the tutor's prayers against self-deception, and for a knowledge of the deceitful- ness of the heart, however fervent and pathetic, however full of humiliation and contrition, seemed formal and dead, com- pared with the freedom and fearlessness, the familiarity and vulgarity of the itinerants, whose preaching caused so great an excitement. The rector and tutors, on the other hand, were very naturally dissatisfied with that sort of piety, which was inconsistent not only with what they esteemed decorum, but with the order of College, and with a due attention to the daily duty of study. They were alarmed at the growing propensity among the students to violate not only the rules of College, but the law of the land, by running away from the appointed place of worship to the separate meeting. They probably had an eye on Brainerd, as one who would be likely by his religious zeal to come into conflict with their authority. And very likely they were quite willing to be rid of him, and to inflict a signal blow upon the intemper- ate spirit of the times, by dealing sternly with him for that calumnious censure of his superior. Accordingly, Brainerd
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