USA > Massachusetts > Worcester County > Mendon > Centurial history of the Mendon association of Congregational ministers, with the Centennial address, delivered at Franklin, Mass., Nov. 19, l851, and biographical sketches of the members and licentiates > Part 2
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Truly the first period of our religious history teaches that they that despise God shall be lightly esteemed !
II. I pass to the second period.
Though God spake against Ephraim, he earnestly re- membered him still. His sustaining promise to ancient Zion deserted was not recalled. "For a small moment have I forsaken thee ; but with great mercies will I gather thee. In a little wrath I hid my face from thee for a moment ; but with everlasting kindness will I have mercy on thee, saith the Lord thy Redeemer."
God was preparing the way for its fulfilment. He was raising up a youth in an obscure village in the Con- necticut colony, and was leading him through the miry depths of his own depravity, that he might, through pain-
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fully-gained self-knowledge, proclaim the truths of sove- reign and special grace to a slumbering generation.
In 1734, Jonathan Edwards preached his sermons on 'Justification by Faith alone.'. Multitudes condemned the introduction of such a controversial theme into the pulpit. But God's Spirit owned his truth and came down in mar- vellous power amongst the faithful shepherd's flock. Above three hundred in Northampton became the hopeful subjects of Divine grace. Other watchmen, waiting in the darkness, saw the light, and they sounded out the Gospel- call with a new energy. Sleeping assemblies were start- led, heard, and believed. The great revival of 1740 had begun.
Notwithstanding its bitter opposition and its manifest extravagances towards the close, that revival must be ac- knowledged to be a work of God, which proved the reani- mation of the fainting churches. President Edwards, under whose ministry it was first manifested, and in its purest stage, was no artful, fascinating orator. He stood calm and serene in his pulpit, while he reasoned of right- eousness, temperance, and judgment to come. In plain but solemn language he preached on such themes as : ' Men naturally God's enemies ;' ' the Justice of God in the Damnation of Sinners ;' ' Wicked Men useful in their destruction only ;' 'Sinners in the hands of an angry God ;' ' God exercises his sovereign Mercy in the salvation of Sinners ;' and the people often cried out in such agony of conviction, that he had to request them to be still, that he might be heard.
In that time of refreshing from the presence of the Lord, carried on by the labors of Edwards, Whitefield, the Ten- nents, and others, it was abundantly evident, that the
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most numerous and most decided cases of conversion took place under the clearest exhibitions of the sovereign grace of God in the salvation of men. The most successful min- isters were preeminently marked for the prominence they gave to this aspect of the Gospel. They demolished the curious distinctions that dreaming speculatists had traced over the space which separates the sinner from his God ; they stripped him of his filmy guises, put on to hide his inborn deformity, and brought him under the burning gaze of Jehovah's awful holiness. They knocked away the props of his tottering hopes and let him fall, helpless, into the hands of a sovereign God, who can justly destroy or graciously save. They banished the apologies of a natu- ral necessity of sinning, and made their hearers feel that they were voluntary transgressors of a holy law, and de- served eternal death ; and that their only hope of deliver- ance lay in the will of him " who hath mercy on whom he will have mercy, and whom he will he hardeneth." And what wonder if men cried out in agony, " Men and brethren, what shall we do ?" And what wonder if, struck with the agreement of such an aspect of the Gospel with their own convictions, multitudes believed ?
If in anything Theology as a science then received a New England type, it mainly consisted in making sin to consist in a voluntary selfishness, which could be em- braced by the mind as a conscious reality, and to whose charge the heart had to confess, with self-conviction of its truth.
The definitions of depravity which made it to be an inherited physical, intellectual, and moral corruption, antedating the sinner's agency, if not his individual being, were then invaded, and the deadening inference fell with
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it, that man must wait the operations of the Divine Spirit to restore what he himself cannot reach. Instead thereof, man's ruin was made to stand out as really his own vol- untary work, for which God and his own conscience held him responsible. Because his lack of holiness sprang from his own voluntary wilfulness of choosing the fancied hap- piness of self to the glory of God. Religion was no longer the belief of a nicely-adjusted system of opinions, neither a zeal in unregenerate doings, but a radical change of the affections from selfishness to benevolence.
The actual amount of influence of the deep researches of President Edwards upon the theology of his times, re- mains to be determined. It cannot be doubted that he exposed many untenable positions, which had been taken by the defenders of truth, and that he did make new and valuable contributions to the treasures of doctrinal know- ledge. Few perhaps would adopt literally the encomium of Dr. Dwight, that he,
"- In one little life, the Gospel more
Disclosed than all earth's myriads kenned before."
Yet all admit that the pearl of great price, so to speak, sparkled with fresh brilliancy and with a brighter play of colors, under the friction of his powerful hand. He cer- tainly presented its salient points in clear and sharp outline, and he removed much of the incrustation which had accumulated on its faces and dimmed their original brightness. In other words, he carefully defined the terms of Theology and clearly showed the arguments on which its truths really rested, and as clearly showed what arguments weakened the force of truth and exposed it to perversion.
1
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Had he only exhibited Theology as a rational and har- monious system, he would deserve the high honor God bestowed upon his labors. But he did more. Guided by a singular sagacity, always true to the lode-star of Revelation, he searched regions of truth before unexam- ined, and returned safely, as few others could have done, laden with rich spoils, which he laid at the feet of " Him in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and know- ledge." The younger Edwards specifies ten particulars wherein his father made improvements in Theology .* The chief of them respect the subjects of liberty and necessity, the nature of true virtue, the origin of moral evil, the atonement, imputation, the nature of experi- mental religion and regeneration. The substance of these consists in bringing God and man near together, and shortening the chain connecting the moral agency of the Creator and the creature. Many of these points were followed out by Bellamy, Hopkins, Emmons, and others, and made to cast a clearer light upon some of the obscu- rities of theological science.t
* See Edwards's Works, Vol. I, p. 481, Doct. Tract Soc. Edition. t The history of doctrinal theology in New England is a rich and yet unexplored field, and a volume upon the subject a desid- eratum which ought to be supplied. Inquiry and research has had unrestricted freedom, and every position has been most rigorously scrutinized, assaulted, and defended, and the progress and results would furnish a captivating and valuable theme. President Ed- wards has been lauded, but who has traced his actual progress in investigation, and shown what he actually did in theology ? Who has fully exhibited the influence of the studies, preaching, and printing of Bellamy and Hopkins upon their contemporaries and successors ? Who has analyzed 'New England Theology,' and
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1 Without deciding whether President Edwards is to be considered the father of Hopkinsianism, it is certain that he believed and stated some of its leading peculiarities, however he might have reconciled them with opinions elsewhere uttered in his works.
The influence of such a view of Divine truth as Edwards and his associates and successors presented, so far as it extended, was felt in the preparation of sermons, and in their delivery, and in their reception. It fashioned that metaphysical, argumentative style, - that doctrine, proof and inference method, - of sermonizing, which still char- acterizes most of the pulpits of Massachusetts, and im- parts to them much of their efficiency.
This mode of preaching has been severely criticised. But if such were human depravity, as Edwards, Bellamy, and Hopkins defined it, its defences were not to be de- molished by a volley of proof texts from a phalanx of exegetical comments in quaint uniform ; but by some one mighty truth from God's word aimed at the gate of the understanding, under cover of which, earnest logic made
traced its elements along their respective channels, up to the parental source ? Is it not time that this were fully, fairly, tho- roughly done ? The great quaternions of the last century deserve it. Dr. Hopkins, especially, has been viewed through some such medium as Cromwell has until lately been, - a cold, abstract speculatist, with a meagre retinue of disciples, now di- minished to a point. His able memoir, by Prof. Park, has refuted this impression, and shown the leader of the New Divinity to have been one of the mightiest and most influential minds of America, full of benevolent plans, which now bless the world by their prac- tical operation.
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repeated charges, through the breach, upon the conscience and heart.
Sinners that had long stood the pattering of divisions and subdivisions, and, like the walls of Jotapata, had only become harder under the concussion, fell now at once before the sword of the Word, when wielded by Him who knows the joints of the soul and spirit. This practical, common-sense theology - if New England may have the glory of it - was a sure earnest of that honor which cometh from God only. The blessed fruits of the ministerial labors of the Edwardses and their contempo- raries - of Bellamy, Hopkins, Strong, West of Stock- bridge, Spring, Emmons, and others - are still cluster- ing and ripening to refresh the people of God. The honor which God bestowed upon them that thus honored him, still circles the brows and sparkles on the robes of Zion. The churches which sympathized with the spirit of those times of refreshing stand to-day, perhaps without exception, with the light of that gracious visitation linger- ing about their walls and watch-towers, and clothing them in beauty and radiance. But there were many ministers and churches who looked either suspiciously or hatingly upon the revivals of the last century. Some honestly opposed, regarding only the excesses of their close. But many wickedly maligned a work which so plainly con- demned them of having sadly mistaken the spirit of the Gospel.
The results and the cause of this hostile attitude towards vital piety thus revived were not long concealed. The opposing ministers mostly took with rapidity the few remaining steps which separated them from open Ar- minianism. The leader of the opposition stopped not in
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his haste, till he reached the middle of the great desert of Universalism. The churches, losing sight of their fleeing shepherds, wandered dreamily on, tithing their mint and anise and cummin on their way, undisturbed by the weight- ier matters of the law, until they were gradually lost in the misty regions of Unitarianism, where many of them are still stumbling and still dreaming .* In rapid succession after the revival of 1740, followed the exciting scenes of the Indian wars, the oppressions of the English parlia- ment, the stirring times of the Revolutionary war, the formation of the Federal Government. They absorbed the thoughts and energies of the country, and the light of Zion was for a time again obscured.
III. The illustration of the sentiment of this discourse might be continued from the present century, but the want of time and a becoming modesty forbid my entering where many before me have the familiar acquaintance of active participation.
I will just say, however, that the deadening influences of the Revolution, and the blasted path of the infidelity imported with our French allies, are still traceable, and Zion has not yet wholly recovered of her sickness and faintness, from eating the fruits of Arminianism. And on the other hand, the vigorous struggles of a few firm lovers of the Gospel of the grace of God, against these
* The new divinity has been repeatedly accused of opening the door for the admission of Unitarianism into the Congregational churches. No accusation is more unfounded. It was the chief barrier to its entire prevalence. Of the Hopkinsian churches, none are known to have become Unitarian. This error flourished exclusively among the opponents to Hopkinsianism.
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antagonistic influences, are fresh in remembrance. I need only allude to the surprising evidences of a once secretly and actively driven effort to undermine the foundations of the Gospel revealed by the disclosures of Belsham's chapter on " American Unitarianism." You saw the width to which many eyes were then opened, and the light then reflected on many movements ambiguous before.
The startling cry of alarm was raised from many a watchman who had not been asleep in his observatory. The " Spirit of the Pilgrims " reappeared amongst their descendants. The well-proved weapons of the Panoply were drawn from the " Christian's Armory," and the encounter was earnest.
Many a church planted by the Puritans - the object of their living labors and their dying prayers - found itself suddenly and magically jostled from the sanctuary of its fathers. The legal tribunals seized many a fund, " devoted to Christ and the Church," and even grasped the sacramental vessels, and handed them over to those who accounted the blood of the covenant an unholy thing.
But God appeared for those who boldly honored him when his Gospel was reviled, and he rained down right- eousness upon them. Extensive revivals followed, and many a plundered and exiled church was enriched and strengthened, as it came out of the wilderness of its destitution, leaning upon the arm of the Beloved.
Within twenty-five years after the Unitarian contro- versy, upwards of two hundred Congregational churches were gathered in this state alone, on " the foundation of the Prophets and Apostles, Jesus Christ himself being
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the chief corner-stone ; " and now in the middle of this century of revivals and of active benevolence for the cause of Christ,
" Let strangers walk around The city where we dwell, Compass and view the holy ground, And mark the buildings well, -
and let them say if God doth not still observe the prin- ciple which he announced to the high-priest of Israel more than three thousand years ago : " Them that honor me I will honor, and they that despise me shall be lightly esteemed."
IV. Illustrations of the truth in the text might be drawn from the history of this Association, and of the churches within its bounds. But I am confined to the brief statements of a few facts of general interest, leaving it to you to trace their connection with the general theme.
As the services of this day show, this Association of ministers was organized on the 8th of November, 1751, old style, or on the 19th according to present computa- tion. It was formed in the second parish of Mendon, now called Milford, at the house of Rev. Amariah Frost, pastor of the church in that parish.
Its name was derived from the place of its organiza- tion.
On that day, four pastors of neighboring churches, having met together, and as they say, " Being thotful that it might tend to the advancement of ye glory of Christ and of his kingdom and interest in this vicinity,
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for them to associate, have tho't it duty, and accordingly, first voted themselves associated."
These pastors were,
Rev. Joseph Dorr, pastor of the first church in Mendon,
" Nathan Webb, pastor of the church in Uxbridge,
" Amariah Frost, pastor of the second church in Mendon.
Elisha Fish, pastor of the church in Upton.
Ministerial associations had existed in England as early as 1576, though they were soon put down by Elizabeth as savoring too much of Puritanism. They have existed here substantially from the beginning of the country ; but at times watched with great jealousy, lest they should prove a stepping-stone to Presbyterianism and ministerial usurpation .* In 1641, the general court virtually authorized such meetings, with the proviso, " that nothing be concluded or imposed by way of authority from one or more churches upon another, but only by way of brotherly conference and consultation." A proviso which more than two centuries has shown to have had but rare application.
In the three towns just mentioned, churches had but recently been gathered.
The first church of Mendon was indeed formed in 1669,
* See Christian Observatory, vol. iii., p. 389. The oldest known regular association there given was formed " at Charlestown, N. E., October 13, 1690," and met at the College in Cambridge on "Monday, at nine or ten o'clock in the morning, once in six weeks, or oftener if need shall be." A semi-monthly meeting of the ministers of Boston and vicinity, at the house of the members in succession, was commenced in 1635.
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but was broken up by the Indian wars. The second church was not organized until 1741.
The church in Uxbridge was gathered in 1731, by the labors of Mr. Dorr, and that in Upton in 1735.
At the date of the formation of this body, Rev. Mr. Dorr, the moderator, was sixty-two years old, and in the thirty-eighth year of his ministry ; Rev. Mr. Webb was forty-four years old, and in the twentieth year of his ministry ; Rev. Mr. Frost was thirty-one, and in the eighth year of his settlement ; Rev. Mr. Fish was thirty- one, and had been settled but six months.
Of their ministerial character I have not time to speak. A single fact reveals their sympathy with the revival of 1740. The names of Joseph Dorr and Nathan Webb are appended unconditionally to the testimony of the New England pastors in favor of that revival, signed Boston, July 7, 1743.
The other two members were not then settled.
The length of their period of settlement may perhaps indicate the sympathy of their churches with them in this particular.
Mr. Dorr ministered to his people over fifty-one years ; Mr. Webb, forty-one years ; Mr. Frost, forty-nine years ; and Mr. Fish, forty-four years ; and each died among his own people, and was succeeded by a pastor of like faith with himself.
Wars and civil commotions arose soon after the forma- tion of this body, and it shared the general depression of religious interest. But it arose again when those com- motions subsided. The accession of Dr. Emmons to its numbers in 1783, and his vigorous activity for more than half a century, put new life into its meetings, and made
3*
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them a center of earnest deliberation and of powerful influence.
Questions of deep and vital interest were discussed, various sermons, essays, tractates, and periodicals were published by the Association, and other measures, of last- ing value to the progress of truth, and whose influence still operates, had their origin in its deliberations.
Since the organization of this Association, it has enrol- led seventy-seven members, of whom forty-two are still living, - our respected moderator being the oldest mem- ber, - and twenty are still connected.
In the past century, its territorial center, contrary to the commercial law, has travelled eastward, to this spot, where for half that period stood firm and evident the pivot of its moral power.
Its territory, once embracing the pastors in three towns, has variously enlarged, till its outward points have extended from Worcester to Dighton, and from Abington to Seekonk, enclosing the pastors of thirty-three different churches, in twenty-nine different towns. This extent has not been from convenience more than from sympathy with the scheme of theology predominant in this Association.
That scheme, I need not say, has been called Ed- wardean, Hopkinsian, sometimes Emmonsism. Some
call it New England Theology, or, as others term it, New Theology ; who, if they will have it considered new, may call it New Testament Theology. It is a system which most obviously - as some say, unduly - exalts and honors God as the Sovereign Ruler of His creatures, and abases man .* And God has not left it without an
* The term Hopkintonian, or Hopkinsian, was applied to this
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evidence of his blessing, in the purity and stability of the churches where it has been embraced and taught, and in the rich fruits which it has borne to Zion at large.
While we avow our predilection for the system of doc- trines in which we were nurtured, we believe that history will show. that system to have been productive of far more good than many are even now disposed to allow. It has modified the current theology of all New England, and given to it its harmony, consistency, and beauty, as it now appears in the creeds of the churches and the teaching of the ministry. Hopkins's system of theology has been, from its publication, a classic in the hands of candidates for the sacred office, and has sharpened the intellect and molded the sentiments of nearly every preacher.
When this Association was formed, Dr. Hopkins says he could count but four or five Edwardean preachers. And one of them - Rev. Dr. Hall, of Sutton - was a member of this body. But within forty years afterwards, he knew of more than a hundred who espoused his own sentiments ; and these, he declares, "are the most popular preachers."
In those days, when theological seminaries were not, candidates pursued their studies with private teachers.
system of theology in 1770, by Rev. William Hart of Saybrook, Ct. It was previously styled Edwardean, and more generally 'New Divinity.' The designation, New. England Theology, ap- propriately belongs to the views current in the beginning of this century, -the result of the discussions of the last, and which now obtain, with few exceptions, in New England. See Memoir of Hopkins, by Prof. Park, p. 183 ; and Dr. Pond's Sketches of N. E. Theological History, in the Congregationalist, vol. IV.
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And the teachers most numerously resorted to were Hopkinsians. The instructors, par excellence, were Bellamy, Hopkins, Strong, Backus, and Emmons. An- dover Seminary was endowed by Hopkinsian funds, and Bangor Seminary was founded as well as endowed by Hopkinsian energy. The theological chairs of both in- stitutions have been filled by Hopkinsian professors. Those at Bangor have all been students of Dr. Emmons.
Of the powerful revivals which prevailed in more than a hundred towns in New England, at the beginning of the present century, it has been said, that " they took place in almost all, if not in every instance, under the preach- ing of those ministers who had embraced Edwardean principles."*
The influence of Hopkinsianism is no less visible in the history of our benevolent organizations. The first efforts in England to send the Gospel to the heathen originated in Carey's contact with Edwardean theology. The Massachusetts Home Missionary Society is the own child of Hopkinsianism. Its first officers, missionaries, and its periodical, were strongly Hopkinsian.} Its resources came from Hopkinsian churches, and they have been acknowledged to be still its most liberal supporters. The Doctrinal Tract Society was formed by Hopkinsian divines, within the then bounds of this Association, and mostly by its members. Some of the first movements, which resulted in the formation of the American Board, were taken by a young man, - an ardent disciple of
* See Hopkins's Letter to Rev. A. Fuller, Prof. Park's Memoir, page 237.
t See Historical Appendix, article Home Missions.
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Hopkins and Emmons, who in 1809 unsuccessfully essay- ed to bring the subject of foreign missions before the General Association of Connecticut ; and who next turned his efforts to the establishment of a magazine devoted to this object, and visited Mr. Evarts, then at New Haven, with special reference to the editorship. Mr. Evarts replied, " I will think of it." The following spring, Mr. Evarts was at Charlestown, as editor of the united Pan- oplist and Magazine, now the Missionary Herald. Rev. W. Jackson, D. D., a Hopkinsian pastor and student of Dr. Emmons, suggested the idea of the first education society in America, which his exertion carried into suc- cessful operation.
These facts are not mentioned to glorify Hopkinsianism, but as a reply to the occasional insinuation, that it is a system delighting only in abstrusities, and cold towards the wants of a perishing world. A system teaching that all sin consists in voluntary selfishness, and all holiness in disinterested benevolence, must, when cordially em- braced, produce just such results as have been indicated.
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