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 25
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In this review of the history of two centuries, I have con- tinually seen the illustration of one lesson which I desire never to forget, and which I hope you will remember. While I have felt the impulses of that natural enthusiasm which admires whatever is venerable with antiquity, the studies which have made me far more familiar than I was before, with the men, the opinions, and the conflicts of former times, have been quickening in me the conviction, that THE GOLDEN AGE IS NOT IN THE PAST BUT IN THE FUTURE.
The golden age of heathenism was in the remotest past. It was followed, as the fabling poets taught, by the age of silver, that by the brazen age, and that by this last age of iron. According to this view the world is, and ever has been, progressively degenerating. How gloomy such a faith, how dispiriting to noble enterprise, how powerful in its tendency to selfishness! The golden age of Christianity on the con- trary is in the future, when "the mountain of the Lord's. house shall be established in the tops of the mountains, and exalted above the hills, and all nations shall flow towards it and be saved," when " the nations shall learn war no more,"
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when " the wolf shall lie down with the lamb, and the leop- ard shall lie down with the kid, and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them." Toward that consummation, that complete and uni- versal triumph of the kingdom which is righteousness, and peace, and joy,-all things under the universal providence of God are tending. To those cheering pictures of a renovated earth filled with knowledge, peace and love, the eye of faith and of active or suffering virtue is ever looking. And every act of virtue, from the most conspicuous to the humblest,- every aspiration of true prayer, adds its little contribution to bring on the golden age to come, those "last days," when " the light of the moon shall be as the light of the sun, and the light of the sun shall be seven fold, as the light of seven days."
Some view allied to the heathenish doctrine of a golden age, is always natural. And if at any time our confidence in the immortal energy of truth, in the veracity of God's predictions, or in the all-controlling providence of God, grows weak, it is easy for us to become alarmed at the progress of change, and easy to pass from alarm to despondency. This is peculiarly easy with minds of a melancholic temperament ; and such minds, in this world of change, need to be armed with a double measure of faith in him who permits and bounds all changes according to infinite wisdom and love.
The world is always full of a certain sort of " conserva- tivism" which places the golden age not indeed so far back as the heathen poets placed it, but just far enough back to make it a constant motive to despondency. You can always find men who seem to think that the golden age was some- where from fifty to two hundred years ago, and that ever since that indefinite point in the past, the world, and the Church too, has been degenerating. They are not ordinarily very well read in history, but they have a strong impression, that in those good old times every thing was very nearly as it should be. That was the age of orthodox theology ; that was the age of revivals without new measures ; that was the
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age of tranquility in the Churches ; that was the age of sound principles in politics ; that was the age of good morals. But alas for us ! we are fallen upon the most "evil days and evil times" that ever mortals lived in. This class of " conserva- tives" has been in the world ever since the deluge ; and al- ways they have held the same language, like the hypochon- driac who on every day in the year was " better than he was yesterday but worse than he was the day before." Against such feelings, so discouraging to faith and to benevolence- so dishonorable to the gospel and to its author, the careful and minute survey of past ages is well fitted to guard us.
The truth is, that of all the ages since New England was planted, we live in the best age, the age in which it is the greatest privilege to live. The self-styled conservatives of this age are scared at "new divinity." So was Dr. Dana in his day scared at the " new divinity" of Bellamy and Hop- kins. They are scared and scandalized at " new measures." So was Mr. Noyes, in his day, scared at the " new measures" of Davenport and Tennent. They are scared at women's preaching, taking it for an omen that the world is getting old and crazy, as if there had been in other ages no Mrs. Hutch- inson, no Deborah Wilson, no Mary Fisher. They are scared at itinerant agitators who broach strange and disorganizing doctrines respecting Churches and ministers, laws and magis- trates ; as if some doctrine had been invented more radically destructive than were the doctrines, or had been published in terms more abusive than were the manners, of George Fox and his emissaries. Undoubtedly this age has its evils, its perils, its downward tendencies. It is eminently an age of progress, and therefore of excitement and change. It is an age in which the great art of printing is beginning to manifest its energy in the diffusion of knowledge and the excitement of bold inquiry ; and therefore it is an age when all opinions walk abroad in quest of proselytes. It is an age of liberty, and therefore of the perils incidental to liberty. It is an age of peace and enterprise, and therefore of pros- perity, and of all the perils incidental to prosperity. It is an
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age of great plans and high endeavors for the promotion of human happiness ; and therefore it is an age in which daring but ill balanced minds are moved to attempt impracticable things, or to aim at practicable ends by impracticable meas- ures. If we could exorcise the spirit that moves men to do good by associated effort on the grandest scale, perhaps we might be rid of some few ill concerted enterprises that im- portune us for cooperation. If we had war instead of peace, and robbery instead of commerce, we should soon be rid of the evils attendant on national prosperity and this vast accu- mulation of the outward means of human happiness. If our liberty were abolished, our free schools, our equal rights, our elective government, we should be rid of the perils of this constant political agitation. If the universal circulation of books and newspapers were taken away, and the waking up of mind in all directions were quieted, if all religious wor- ship and instruction were regulated by the sovereign and made to conform to one standard, if intellectual culture and general knowledge could be confined to the " better classes," and they would be content to take every thing by tradition ; we might have a very tranquil state of things,-all calm as the sea of Sodom. But so long as we have liberty, civil, intellectual, and religious ; so long as we have enterprise and prosperity ; so long as the public heart is warm with solici- tude for human happiness ; so long we must make up our minds to encounter something of error and extravagance ; and our duty is not to complain or despair, but to be thank- ful that we live in times so auspicious, and to do what we can in patience and love, to guide the erring and check the extravagant.
When the car rushes with swift motion, he who looks only downward upon the track, to catch if he can some glimpses of the glowing wheel, or to watch the rocks by the wayside, that seem whirling from their places, soon grows sick and faint. Look up, man ! Look abroad! The earth is not dis- solved, not yet dissolving. Look on the tranquil heavens, and the blue mountains. Look on all that fills the range of
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vision,-the bright, glad river, the smooth meadow, the vil- lage spire with the clustering homes around it, and yonder lonely, quiet farmhouse, far up among the hills. You are safe ; all is safe ; and the power that carries you is neither earthquake nor tempest, but a power than which the gen- tlest palfrey that ever bore a timid maiden, is not more obe- dient to the will that guides it.
What age since the country was planted, has been more favorable to happiness or to virtue than the present ? Would you rather have lived in the age of the revolution ? If in this age you are frightened, in that age you would have died with terror. Would you rather have lived in the age of the old French wars, when religious enthusiasm and religious con- tention ran so high, that ruin seemed impending ? How would your sensibilities have been tortured in such an age ! Would you rather have lived in those earlier times, when the savage still built his wigwam in the woody valleys, and the wolf prowled on our hills? Those days, so Arcadian to your fancy, were days of darkness and tribulation. The "temp- tations in the wilderness" were as real and as terrible as any which your virtue is called to encounter.
The scheme of Divine Providence is one, from the begin- ning to the end, and is ever in progressive development. Every succeeding age helps to unfold the mighty plan. There are indeed times of darkness; but even then it is light to faith, and lighter to the eye of God; and even then there is progress, though to sense and fear all motion seems retro- grade. To despond now, is not cowardice merely, but atheism ; for now, as the world in its swift progress brings us nearer and nearer to the latter day, faith, instructed by the signs of the times, and looking up in devotion, sees on the blushing sky the promise of the morning.
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APPENDIX.
No. I.
DAVENPORT'S DISCOURSE ABOUT CIVIL GOVERNMENT.
" A DISCOURSE about civil government in a new plantation whose design is religion. Written many years since by that Reverend and worthy minister of the gospel, John Cotton, B. D. And now pub- lished by some undertakers of a new plantation, for general direc- tion and information. Cambridge, printed by Samuel Green and Marmaduke Johnson. 1673."
This is the title of a tract of twenty four pages, small quarto, in the library of the Massachusetts Historical Society. Cotton Mather in his Life of Davenport, (Magn. III, 56,) says that in this title page, " the name of Mr. Cotton is by a mistake put for that of Mr. Dav- enport." The testimony of Mather is perhaps sufficient in itself to decide the authorship, inasmuch as his father, who was the son-in- law of Cotton, and particularly acquainted with Davenport, may be
presumed to have authorized the statement. The internal evidence however seems to me to demonstrate not only the author of the " Discourse," but the occasion on which it was written.
1. The tract was written in New England. " We in this new plantation." p. 10. " These very Indians that worship the Devil, will not be under the government of any Sagamores but such as join with them in observance of their pawawes and idolatries." p. 24.
2. It was written probably by a man who had been in Holland,- certainly by one familiarly acquainted with that country. "In Hol- land, when the Arminian party had many Burgomasters on their side, Grave Maurice came into divers of their cities with troops of soldiers, by order from the States General, and put those Arminian magistrates out of office, and caused them to choose only such as were of the Dutch Churches. And in Rotterdam (and I think it is so in other towns) the Vrentscap, (who are all of them of the Dutch Church and free burgers,) do out of their own company choose the Burgomaster and other magistrates and officers." pp. 23, 24. Cot- ton never was in Holland. Davenport resided in that country about
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three years, and his " Apologetical Reply" was published at Rot- terdam.
3. It was written before the reign of the long parliament. " In our native country, none are entrusted with the management of pub- lic affairs but members of the Church of England, as they call them." p. 23. There is a peculiar tone in this language which no New Eng- land Puritan would have used while the parliament was reforming the Church of England. It could not have been written after the restoration, for in 1673, it was " written many years since."
4. It was written not for publication, but in the way of private and amicable discussion with a friend,-a "Reverend" friend,- with whom the writer had opportunities of personal conference. It is in the form of an epistle, commencing thus :- " Reverend Sir, The Sparrow being now gone, and one day's respite from public la- bors on the Lord's day falling to me in course, I have sought out your writing, and have reviewed it, and find (as I formerly expressed to yourself ) that the question is mis-stated by you." p. 3. So at the conclusion,-" If you remain unsatisfied, I shall desire that you will plainly, and lovingly, and impartially weigh the ground of my judg- ment, and communicate yours, if any remain against it, in writing. For though much writing be wearisome unto me, yet I find it the safer way for me." p. 24.
5. It does not appear to have been written with any purpose of vindicating a constitution already established, but rather with refer- ence to a question of practical moment not then decided. The manifest design of the whole composition is inquiry and discussion, rather than the vindication of something already determined. "The true state of the question" is declared thus :- " Whether a new plan- tation, where all, or the most considerable part of the free planters profess their purpose and desire of securing to themselves and to their posterity the pure and peaceable enjoyment of Christ's ordi- nances,-whether, I say, such planters are bound, in laying the foundations of Church and civil State, to take order that all the free burgesses be such as are in fellowship of the Church or Churches which are or may be gathered according to Christ; and that those free burgesses have the only power of choosing from among them- selves civil magistrates, and men to be entrusted with transacting all public affairs of importance according to the rules and directions of Scripture ?" The writer proceeds, "I hold the affirmative part of this question, upon this ground, that this course will most conduce
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to the good of both states; and by consequence to the common wel- fare of all, whereunto all men are bound principally to attend in lay- ing the foundations of a commonwealth, lest posterity rue the first miscarriages when it will be too late to redress them," &c. "The Lord awaken us to look to it in time, and send us his light and truth to lead us into the safest way in these beginnings." p. 14. So in another place, " We plead for this order to be set in civil affairs, that such a course may be taken as may best secure to ourselves and our posterities the faithful managing of civil government for the common welfare of all." p. 12. Now the principle for which this discourse contends, was settled in Massachusetts before Mr. Cotton came to New England, and I believe was never afterwards, in his life-time, made the subject of such questionings as would lead to the writing of such an epistle.
From these various indications it seems altogether probable, not only that this tract was written, as Mather affirms, by Davenport ; but also that it was written at Quinnipiack sometime between April 15th, 1638, and June 4th, 1639, while the constitution of New Ha- ven was not yet formed. It seems probable also, that the letter was addressed to Samuel Eaton, who during that period was Davenport's assistant in the work of the ministry, and who, as Mather says, dis- sented from his colleague "about the narrow terms and forms of civil government" adopted in this colony. Nor will it be thought fanciful to suppose that this letter was one of " the former passages between them two," of which Mr. Davenport gave " a short relation" at the meeting in Mr. Newman's barn "on the fourth day of the fourth month, called June, 1639," when one man whose name is not recorded, objected to the principle, that " free burgesses should be chosen out of the church members."
Another inquiry suggests itself. The fract was written when the departure of "the Sparrow" concurring with one Sabbath's respite from preaching, gave the author time for such a study. Are there any traces elsewhere of "the Sparrow ?" In 1622, a ship of that name appears in the history of Plymouth. She was sent over by Mr. Thomas Weston of London, and having been employed on a fishing voyage at the east, was retained at Weston's ill-starred plantation of Wessagussett. (Davis's Morton, 78. Baylies' Memoir of Plym- outh, 92, 95.) That the same Sparrow was afloat, and on the New England coast as late as 1638, let others affirm or deny. But what had the author of this tract to do with the Sparrow? If it be sup-
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posed that in the spring or summer of 1638, the Sparrow came to Quinnipiack, bringing Mr. Davenport's books and household goods, and laden with similar freight for the planters, it may easily be con- ceived, how the time of her remaining in the harbor might be a time when the friendly debate between Mr. Davenport and Mr. Samuel Eaton, must needs stand still. This is a trifling conjecture ; but inest sua gratia parvis.
This pamphlet is the most formal exhibition that I have ever seen, of the reasons by which our ancestors themselves vindicated that principle in their polity, which has been so much condemned and ridiculed. It has therefore an importance as a historical document, which might win for it a place in the collections of the Historical Society.
The last of the six arguments by which the author maintains the affirmative of his question, is " taken from the danger of devolving this power upon those who are not in Church order." "The dan- gers to the Church are (1) the disturbance of the Church's peace, and (2) the danger of corrupting Church order, either by compelling them to receive into fellowship unsuitable ones, or by imposing on them ordinances of men and worldly rudiments, or by establishing idolatrous worship." "The dangers to the civil State are (1) the danger of factions,-there will naturally be a party opposed to the Churches, and (2) the danger of a perversion of justice by magis- trates of worldly spirit." With men who had had a taste of the Star Chamber, and who had come so far to " enjoy Christ's ordinances in purity and peace," every word in this enumeration of dangers had great significancy.
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No. II.
THE PRIMITIVE ORDINATIONS IN NEW ENGLAND.
THE statement on page 41, that the act of ordination at the or- ganization of a Church was performed by two or more brethren in the name of the Church, is made with some hesitation, but with very little doubt :- with some hesitation, because it asserts as generally true, what is commonly considered as an exception ; yet with very little doubt, because the statement corresponds with all the evidence which I have been able to discover. Johnson (Wonder Working Prov., II, Mass. Hist. Coll. vii, 40,) undertakes to declare how " all the Churches of Christ planted in N. England" "proceeded in reli- gious matters," yet he describes the ordination of a pastor as per- formed by "two persons in the name of the Church," after which, prayer is offered by "one of the elders present." Lechford's testi- mony is to the same effect, (p. 3.) I remember no instance in Win- throp, of an ordination performed by an elder called in from a neigh- boring Church. The Cambridge Platform (C. ix,) says, " In such Churches where there are no elders, imposition of hands may be per- formed by some of the brethren orderly chosen by the Church there- unto." The language evidently implies that such was the ordinary and regular course in the case described. The authors, instead of intimating that this ordination by a committee is doubtful or inexpe- dient, only add, that "where there are no elders and the Church so desire, we see not why imposition of hands may not be performed by the elders of other Churches."* If a synod should now say, " We see not why imposition of hands may not be performed by brethren
* The notions of Cambridge Platform respecting ordination were not at the time so entirely novel as some imagine. Archbishop Cranmer was very much of the same way of thinking. " In the admission of many of these officers [he is speaking of all officers, ecclesiastical and civil] there be divers comely ceremonies and solemnities used, which be not of necessity but only for a goodly order and seemly fashion. For if such offices and ministrations were committed without such solemnity, they were nevertheless truly com- mitted." Stillingfleet's Works, Irenicum, 401. So again, " In the New Tes- tament, lie that is appointed to be a bishop or a priest, needeth no consecra- tion by the Scripture, for election or appointing thereto is sufficient." 402.
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in the name of the Church," would the language imply that imposi- tion of hands by a committee is the ordinary course of proceeding ? It is matter of record that in the ordination of Mr. Prudden over the Milford Church, (1640,) the imposition of hands was by brethren, though it was done at New Haven, and therefore, doubtless, in the presence of Mr. Davenport. So again in the ordination of Mr. New- ton over the same Church, (1660,) the ruling elder was assisted by one of the deacons and one of the brethren. So again in the ordi- nation of John Higginson at Salem, in the same year, (Hutchinson, I, 425.) Can any authentic instance be found, of a primitive New England ordination performed by the officers of neighboring Churches ?
Contrary to all the primitive testimony, we have the declaration of Cotton Mather (Mag. V, 42,) "that setting aside a few plebeian ordi- nations in the beginning of the world here among us, there have been rarely any ordinations managed in our Churches but by the hands of presbyters." This shows plainly enough that the custom in his day was the same as in ours, and the context shows that Mather was anxious to obliterate as far as possible the memory of a con- trary custom. It may be added, that the only time when such ordi- nations were expected to take place, was at what Mather calls " the beginning of the world here." A church once organized was ex- pected to have, and for the first half century did ordinarily have a presbytery within itself, by whose hands subsequent ordinations were performed. Nor should it be forgotten, that the ministers thus ordained by committees were men previously ordained by bishops in England, and that their re-ordination here was similar to what we now call installation ; so that those who, like Pres. Stiles, are fond of tracing their sacerdotal pedigree to the English bishops, and through them to the apostles, may easily make out an " uninterrupted succession," notwithstanding these "plebeian ordinations." See Stiles's Election Sermon, 59-64.
It may seem audacious to attempt to correct the editor of Win- throp ; but I may be allowed to inquire whether, in his note on ordi- nation by bishops, he has not mistaken the meaning of his author. (Savage's Winthrop, I, 217.) At a council in Concord, April, 1637, "it was resolved by the ministers then present, that such as had been ministers in England were lawful ministers by the call of the people there, notwithstanding their acceptance of the call of the bisk- ops, (for which they humbled themselves, acknowledging it their
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sin, &c.,) but being come hither, they accounted themselves no min- isters, until they were called to another Church." Upon this the editor remarks, "Ordination by a bishop in England must have been thought valid, for by that rite it was that all the other ministers as- serted their claims to office, as we may see at the election in August, 1630, of Wilson to the first Church of Boston." "But how it should be a sin, yet a valid entrance or admission to the Christian min- istry, can be explained only by such timid casuists as humbled them- selves for their act in submitting to it."
With all deference to this most learned and honored antiquarian, I remark,
1. That in Gov. Winthrop's account of the ordination of Wilson, not a word is said about his having derived any claims from ordina- tion by a bishop in England. " We used imposition of hands, but with this protestation by all that it was only as a sign of election and confirmation, not of any intent that Mr. Wilson should renounce his ministry he received in England." Winthrop, I, 33.
2. That the lawfulness of the ministry of such as had been minis- ters in England depended on the implied call of the people there, and was therefore lawful, "notwithstanding" the acceptance of prelatical ordination.
3. That the sin which they so humbly acknowledged, was not that ministry received and exercised in England, which Mr. Wilson did not renounce, but their submitting to the supposed ordaining power of the bishops, which was an invasion of the divine right of every Church to ordain its own ministers.
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No. III.
SPECIMENS OF CHURCH DISCIPLINE.
THE early records of the New Haven Church exhibit the course of proceedings in only one instance of trial and censure, and in one instance of absolution or the restoration of an offending member to regular standing. The proceedings in these instances seem to have been put on record, as specimens of church discipline ; that posterity might know both the principles and the forms by which such pro- ceedings were then conducted. That there were other instances of excommunication is manifest from other sources, and particularly from the records of the town ; but either by the loss of the records, or the negligence of the proper officer, or-what is more probable- because no record of such transactions was considered necessary, the Church book, as we have it, is silent respecting them.
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