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 7
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" Withal, let us think upon our natural relations to many in that land. Some of you, I know, have fathers and moth- ers there, some of you have brethren and sisters, others of you have brethren and kinsfolk. All these, sitting in grief and sorrow, challenge our sympathies, and it is a fearful sin to be void of natural affection. [Rom. i, 31.]"
" But what is more, let us remember how, for many of us, we stand in a spiritual relation to many, yea, very many in that land. The same thread of grace is spun through the hearts of all the godly under heaven. Such a one there is thy spiritual father ; he begot thee in Christ Jesus through the Gospel ; and there thou hast spiritual brethren and sis- ters and mothers. [Matth. xii, 50.] O, there is many a sweet, loving, humble, heavenly soul in that land, in whose bosom Christ breathes by his blessed Spirit every day, and such as I hope we shall ever love at the remotest distance, were it from one end of the earth to the other. Why, they are bone of our bone, and flesh of our flesh in the church, nearer by far than friends and kindred; Oh, let their sorrows be our sorrows, and their miseries ours.
" Besides these relations, civil, natural, and spiritual, let us think upon the special ties and engagements that many there have upon us. Among your friends there, whether natural or spiritual, there are no doubt some whom you prize above the rest."-" Alas! these now, perhaps, are weeping in their secret places ; these are now sitting with Job among the ashes. If you could but see the expressions of their sorrows, and hear their present speeches and complaints; and how they, their wives and little ones, do sit and lament together,- it may be, some of them in expectation of daily death, and how they fast and pray and afflict their souls, or how, per- adventure, they wish themselves at this very instant with us ; O you would weep and cry, and melt away into tears of sorrow.
" To this, add the consideration of the many mercies, heaps of rich and precious mercies, twenty, yea, thirty and forty years' mercies, and to some more, which we have there received ; especially soul-mercies. There the light of
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the glorious Gospel of Christ Jesus first shined forth unto thee ; there thou first heardst his pleasant voice ; there did his good Spirit first breathe upon thine heart ; there didst thou first believe and repent and amend thy lewd ways. And never was there a land, I think, since Christ and his Apostles left the world, so richly blest in converts, or that ever brought forth, such and so many worthies into the world. Yet there now (alas! where sooner, when sin aboundeth ?) doth judgment begin to reign, as we may greatly fear.
" Or is it not meet that we should bear a part with them in their sorrows, who have borne a part with them in their sins ? Have we conferred so many sins as we have done, to speed on their confusion, and shall we bestow no sorrow on them? Shall we not help to quench the fire with our tears, that we have kindled with our sins ?"
" Again ; let us suppose that things were even now turned end for end, and that we were this day in distress, and those our brethren in peace ; I am confident that they would con- dole with us, yea, and pour out many a prayer for us : for they did as much, I know, when this land lay sometime un- der dearth, another time when the Indians rebelled, a third when the monstrous opinions prevailed. And how have they always listened after our welfare, ebbing and flowing in their affections with us? How do they (I mean all this while, multitudes of well affected persons there ) talk of New England with delight! How much nearer heaven, do some of their charities account this land than any other place they hear of in the world ! Such is their good opinion of us."- " And when sometimes a New England man returns thither, how is he looked upon, looked after, received, entertained, the ground he walks upon beloved for his sake, and the house held the better where he is! how are his words listened to, laid up, and related frequently when he is gone! neither is any love or kindness held too much for such a man.
" Neither let this be forgotten, that of all the Christian people this day in the world, we in this land enjoy the great- est measure of peace and tranquillity. We have beaten our swords into ploughshares and our spears into pruning hooks,
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when others have beaten their pruning hooks into spears and their ploughshares into swords. And now, as Moses said to the Reubenites and the Gadites, 'Shall your brethren go to war, and shall ye sit still ?'-so, shall our brethren go to war, and we sit still and not so much as grieve with them ? Shall they be wounded with the sword and spear, and not we be pierced so much as with brotherly sorrow ?"
" What shall I say ? If there should be any one heart here, digged out of a Marpesian rock, let such an one remem- ber, lastly, that in the peace of that land, we shall have peace, and therefore in the misery of that land we shall never be happy. You know that God hath hitherto made that land a blessing to this. If Christ hath a vine here, that land hath as yet been the elm that hath sustained it. Thence hath the Lord thus stocked this American part with such wor- thies ; there were they bred and nursed ; thence, hitherto, have been our yearly supplies of men, and of many a useful commodity. If then they suffer, we may easily smart ; if they sink, we are not likely to rise. And this at least may be a persuasive to a sordid mind, that will not be wrought upon by more ingenuous arguments.
" The merciful God stir up all our affections, and give us that godly sympathy, which that land deserveth at our hands, and teach us to express it upon all occasions of ill tidings coming to our ears from thence. Yea, let us sit, at this time, like old Eli upon the wayside, watching as he did, for the ark of the Lord, with a trembling hand and heart. And let us be every day confessing of our Old England's sins, of its high pride, idolatry, superstition, blasphemies, blood, cruel- ties, atheisms. And let us never go to our secrets, without our censers in our hands for Old England, dear England still in divers respects, left indeed by us in our persons, but never yet forsaken in our affections. The good God of heaven have mercy upon it, and upon all his dear people and ser- vants in it, for Christ's sake. Amen."
Such is a specimen of our first teacher's style of preaching. I offer no comments on it. Only let me ask whether those who are most accustomed to depreciate the intellectual and
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moral character of our ancestors, must not own that such a specimen refutes their prejudices ?
Several other sermons of Mr. Hooke's appear to have been published, some of them at least while he was here in New England. Another work of his, printed in his old age, was entitled " The privileges of the saints on earth, beyond those in heaven"-a title which, though the book should be lost, deserves to be kept in remembrance. What sort of a man must he have been, who in his old age, disappointed, afflicted, persecuted, could write a book to show the privileges of the saints on earth beyond those in heaven-the privilege of laboring for the Redeemer, and the privilege of bearing the cross, and enduring reproach and sorrow for him. Methinks prejudice itself will own, that such a man must have had something of the same spirit with that apostle who said, "I am in a strait betwixt two, for to me to live is Christ, but to die is gain."
It may be stated here, that Mr. Hooke's home lot in this town, on which he lived, was at the southwest corner of Col- lege and Chapel streets, and was of the same extent with the other original town lots. That lot, with the house and ac- commodations upon it, he gave to this Church, on the express condition that it should never be alienated, " that it might be a standing maintenance either towards a teaching officer, schoolmaster, or the benefit of the poor in fellowship." The lot, however, was alienated in 1721, by a perpetual lease, to the trustees of what is now Yale College, for the sum of forty three pounds. This may have been legally right, but by the lease, the intention of the donor was as really defeated as it could have been by a direct sale. In a letter to the Church, confirming his gift and defining the terms of the donation, written after fifteen years' absence from them, he says: " Brethren, I daily have you in remembrance before the Lord, as retaining my old brotherly affection towards you, desiring the return of your prayers and brotherly love for him in whose heart you have a great interest. The Father of mercy be with you all, dwell in the midst of you, fill you with all joy and peace in believing, and bring you to his
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everlasting kingdom in glory through Jesus Christ, in whom I rest."
This good man died on the 21st of March, 1678, aged seventy seven, and was buried in the cemetery of Bunhill fields, in London, which is a sort of Westminster Abbey of the Puritans and Dissenters.
From the facts which have been now exhibited, it may be seen what sort of men the fathers of New England had for ministers, and what zeal the fathers manifested, to have the work of the sanctuary well attended to. It was truly said by one of them, in his quaint way, that it was " as unnatural for a right New England man to live without an able min- istry, as for a smith to work his iron without fire."
Their ministers were all educated men; educated at the universities of England in all the learning and science of that age, and especially in every thing pertaining to the science of theology. None of them counted himself properly ac- quainted with the Scriptures, till he could read them famil- iarly in their original languages. It was no uncommon thing for the ministers of that age, in their daily family devotions, to read not only the New Testament from the Greek, but the Old Testament from its native Hebrew. The fathers of New England did not think so meanly of themselves as to calculate on being instructed by an uninstructed ministry.
Their ministers were such men as they considered to be called of God, men of approved faith, purity and piety, men whom they could trust and honor. The more I see of the piety of the fathers, and especially of the piety of their minis- ters-the more I analize their characters, and separating their piety from the quaintness in which it was sometimes attired, and from that peculiar zeal about forms and institutions which resulted from their circumstances, see how they realized con- tinually the grand and simple objects of Christian faith, and thus continually walked with God-the more am I con- strained to honor them, and the more do I find myself in- structed, reproved, stimulated by their example. The fathers
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of these churches dreaded above all outward curses the curse of a worldly, unholy ministry.
Their ministers were expected to do the work of the sanc- tuary well. They did not suppose that a little unstudied declamation, or a little prosy traditional metaphysics, uttered from one Lord's day to another, " thought echoing to thought, and sermon to sermon," in perpetual monotony, was enough to feed the flock of God. They did not imagine that men whose spirits were continually jaded and exhausted by excess of labor, were the most likely to build up and adorn God's liv- ing temple. They intended that their ministers should not only be well qualified before entering the ministry, but should also, while in the ministry, have no excuse in the burthen- someness of their duties for not maintaining by various and continued study, that elastic vigor of mind which is always essential to successful effort. Their plan was to place, in every congregation, two preachers, well qualified, who, divi- ding between them the work of the ministry, should hold up each other's hands, and stimulate each other to constant per- sonal and mutual improvement. To the enlarged views · with which they acted, we of this generation are greatly in- debted. The pulpit has not yet lost in New England, that eminence of intellectual and moral power which it gained when New England was planted. The original plan of an associate ministry in every church, has indeed been given up ; but the benefits of that plan are still secured in a great meas- ure, by the multiplication and communion of churches. Ministers still assist each other's labors, bear each other's burthens, guide each other's studies, and aid and stimulate each other's progress. If this is a benefit ; if it has always been an honor and a blessing to the people of Connecticut, that from the beginning they have ever had " a scholar to their minister in every town or village ;"* for this we are indebted to our ancestors. Let us give to posterity no occa- sion to reproach us with having impaired, in this respect, their just inheritance.
* Narrative of the King's Commissioners, in 1666, Hutch. III, 413.
DISCOURSE V.
JOHN DAVENPORT IN ENGLAND, IN HOLLAND, AND IN THE NEW ENGLAND SYNOD OF 1637.
JOHN V, 35 .- He was a burning and a shining light.
I HAVE reserved to this occasion the work of giving some account of the life and character of the Rev. John Davenport, the first pastor of this Church, and one of the two chief men in the company that founded the colony of New Haven.
He was born in the ancient city of Coventry, in the year 1597. Of his father we know only that he was at one time mayor of the city in which he resided, and that he was descended from a highly respectable family of that name in the county of Chester. Of his mother it is recorded that she was a pious woman, and that " having lived just long enough to devote him, as Hannah did her Samuel, to the service of the sanctuary, left him under the more immediate care of heaven, to fit him for that service." That mother's dying prayer received an early answer. Before the son had attained to fourteen years of age, " the grace of God had sanctified him with good principles ;" and he had already entered upon that conscientious and devout manner of living by which he was ever afterwards distinguished .*
At the age of fourteen, he was admitted into one of the colleges of the university of Oxford,t where he pursued his studies not more than five years. A volume of his manu- script notes and sketches of sermons, bearing the date of 1615,¿ appears to indicate in some places, that sometime in
* Magnalia, III, 52.
t Wood says that he was sent in 1613 to Merton College, and was trans- ferred two years afterwards to Magdalen Hall. Mather, who was more likely to know, having Davenport's papers before him, says he was admitted into Brazen-nose College, when " he had seen two sevens of years in this evil world," which fixes the date in 1611.
# Preserved in the Library of Yale College.
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the course of that year, he was officiating as domestic chap- lain at Hilton castle, not far from the city of Durham. At the age of nineteen, he entered upon public life as a preacher in the great metropolis. He was at first an assistant to an- other minister ; but afterwards he was vicar of St. Stephen's Church in Coleman street. He was soon distinguished and honored, not only for his accomplishments as a minister, but by his courageous devotedness to his people in a time of pes- tilence, when others either retreated from their posts or de- clined the dangerous duty of visiting the sick and afflicted.
He had left the university without taking the degree of Master of Arts; but in 1625* he returned to Oxford for a time, and having gone through the necessary exercises, he received that degree and the degree of Bachelor in Divinity together. He was by no means one of those whose studies are finished when they leave the walls of the university. He was not the less a hard student for being a laborious city preacher. "His custom was to sit up very late at his lucu- brations ;" but though " he found no sensible damage him- self" from the practice, "his counsel was, that other students would not follow his example." His sermons were more elaborate, and written out more fully, than was generally cus- tomary among the preachers of that day; yet his sermons were not his only studies, " but the effects of his industry were seen by all men in his approving himself, on all occa- sions, an universal scholar."+
One of the members of his congregation in Coleman street, was Theophilus Eaton, with whom, though about six years older than himself, he had been intimate in child- hood, the father of Eaton being then one of the ministers of Coventry. It had been the hope of Eaton's friends to see him in the ministry; but the providence that controls all things had other designs concerning him ; and therefore the pious ambition of his friends was defeated. Being permitted to follow his own preferences, he became a merchant; and
* Wood. t Mather.
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in that employment he was eminent and successful. It may be presumed that Eaton's friendship for Davenport had some- thing to do with bringing the young preacher to London, and fixing him there. Thenceforward the two lived in un- interrupted intimacy ; they were rarely separated from each other ; their history runs in one channel ; their names are in- separably associated.
What a contrast to this beautiful picture of friendship and of a common destiny, do we find in the life of another of their Coventry schoolmates. There was only about a year's difference in age between John Davenport and his cousin Christopher ; and long after Eaton had left Coventry and gone to his apprenticeship in London, the two cousins went to the university together, and were in the same college there .* But how great was the difference and distance be- tween them afterwards. The one became a most thorough and fearless Puritan, the founder of a Puritan Church and colony in the wilderness of the new world. The other, with much of the same native genius and temper, after some two years' study in Oxford, became a papist, went to the continent, and connected himself with the Franciscan order of friars, pursued his studies at Doway, and in one of the universities of Spain, and at length came back to his native country, a Romish missionary, eminently learned and ac- complished, under the assumed name of Franciscus a Sancta Clara. In this capacity, he became one of the chaplains to Queen Henrietta Maria, the wife of Charles I. He was an active, leading spirit in those stormy times, doing great ser- vice for the popish cause in England, raising money among the English papists for all sorts of purposes ; writing books, gain- ing proselytes, and intriguing in all quarters, (the archbishop himself not excepted,) to bring about a reconciliation between the National Church of England, and the Church of Rome. During the interval between the downfall of the monarchy
* I follow here, the testimony of Wood, which on this point is not neces- sarily contradicted by that of Mather.
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and the return of the Stuarts, he lived in obscurity, but not therefore inactively. At the restoration, he appeared again, and his faded honors revived and blossomed. King Charles II, having married a popish princess of Portugal, Franciscus a Sancta Clara became again chaplain to the Queen of Eng- land. He died in 1680, at the royal palace of Somerset House, and was buried in the Church of the Savoy Hospital, where William Hooke, the chaplain to Oliver Cromwell, had preached a few years before.
That Mr. Davenport, when vicar of St. Stephen's in Cole- man street, had notwithstanding his youth, no inferior position among the men of the Puritan party in the Church of England, appears from various sources. " The ablest men about Lon- don," says Mather, " were his nearest friends." Dr. Preston, the master of Emmanuel College in Cambridge, a man who had declined the bishopric of Gloucester, and of whom it was understood, that had he been dishonest enough to be the ally or the tool of Buckingham, he might have been chancellor of England,-a man who by his eloquence as a preacher, his learning and skill in controversy, and his various talents for business, was, more than any other of his time, the head of the Puritans,-was numbered among the intimate friends of the young preacher at St. Stephen's. When Dr. Preston died, he left his posthumous works to the care of Mr. Daven- port.
In the year 1627, an association was formed in London, with the design of providing for all parts of England an able and evangelical ministry, in connection with the established Church. Some explanation is necessary to make the plan of their proceedings intelligible to those who are not familiar with the ecclesiastical institutions of England. By an ancient arrangement in that country, the tenth part of all the products of the soil is devoted to the Church,-the tithes of each par- ish belonging ordinarily to the minister of the parish. Du- ring the ages of popery, however, the tithes of many parishes became appropriated to different monasteries,-the monastery in such cases providing a priest for the parish, who acting in
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their behalf, was called the vicar ; while the tithes of the parish, above what was necessary to pay the vicar, went to augment the revenues of the monastery. When Henry VIII, dissolved the monasteries, and distributed their wealth among his friends and courtiers, these appropriated tithes, as they were called, became the property of laymen, and were thenceforward called " lay impropriations"-the layman who owed the tithes of the parish, being obliged to pay some part of the tithes for the support of the parish clergyman, and enjoying, as his private property, all that surplus which form- erly went to the monastery. In thousands of the parishes of England, the tithes are thus impropriated. The scheme in which Davenport and others were concerned, proposed to re- cover these revenues, or at least some part of them, for the use of the Church. They undertook to raise, by voluntary contribution, a fund which should be invested in the pur- chase of "lay impropriations," and the revenues of which should be employed in supporting lecturers,-or stated preach- ers,-in all those parts of the kingdom where there was most need of such a ministry. Mr. Davenport was one of the twelve trustees to whom the entire management of the undertaking was committed. The plan was regarded by the public with great favor ; and in a very short time thirteen impropriations had been purchased at an expense of five or six thousand pounds. But to Laud, then bishop of London, such a movement seemed very threatening, inasmuch as preaching tended continually to the growth of Puritanism. Here was a sort of Home Missionary Society-a develop- ment of the principle of voluntary association, which if not crushed might grow too strong for control. He therefore represented to the king, that these trustees were engaged in a conspiracy against the Church, and caused them to be pros- ecuted in the court of the Exchequer, as an unlawful society. The result was a decision of that court, that the proceedings were unlawful ; that the impropriations purchased should be confiscated ; and that the trustees themselves were liable to be fined in the star chamber. But the unpopularity of the
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prosecution was so great, that it was dropped at this point ; and, the fund having been confiscated, the trustees escaped being punished as criminals by fines which might have strip- ped them of their private property .*
In reference to this passage of his life, Mr. Davenport, made the following record in his great Bible :
"Feb. 11, 1632. The business of the feoffees, being to be heard the third time at the Exchequer, I prayed earnestly that God would assist our counsellors in opening the case, and be pleased to grant that they might get no advantage against us to punish us as evil doers ; promising to observe what answer he gave. Which seeing he hath graciously done, and delivered me from the thing I feared, I record to these ends :
1. To be more industrious in my family. 2. To check my unthankfulness. 3. To quicken myself to thankfulness. 4. To awaken myself to more watchfulness for the time to come, in remembrance of his mercy.
Which I beseech the Lord to grant ; upon whose faithful- ness in his covenant, I cast myself to be made faithful in my covenant.
JOHN DAVENPORTE."*
By this time, or soon after, Mr. Davenport seemed to have become a decided non-conformist. It is related of him, on the authority of some written testimony of his own-" that he was first staggered in his conformity, and afterwards fully taken off, by set conferences and debates which himself and sundry other ministers obtained with Mr. John Cotton, then driven from Boston [in England] on account of his non-con- formity."+ Nor did he study one side of the question only. He had conferences with Bishop Laud, as well as with the
* Neal, II, 247.
t This is copied from Mather. The orthography of the name as here given is correct, if we permit every man to determine the spelling of his own name. Mr. Davenport, as we call him, always wrote his name John Davenporte. I have followed in this work the orthography adopted by his posterity, which was also adopted in the records both of the Church and of the town and colony.
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