USA > Massachusetts > Suffolk County > Boston > History of the Old South church (Third church) Boston, 1669-1884, Vol. I > Part 23
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Nine days before he died the governor executed a will, the chief purpose of which was to perpetuate the Congregational polity as understood and practiced by the majority in the First Church in Boston. After providing for his wife, Penelope Pel- ham, whom he married in 1641, and giving one of his four farms to his son and his son's daughter for the term of their natural lives, and making other bequests, he devoted his estate, which embraced nearly the whole of the present city of Chelsea, as we have already said, "to be an annual encouragement to some godly ministers and preachers, and such as may be such, who shall be by my trustees judged faithful to those principles in church discipline which are owned and practised in the First Church of Christ in Boston of which I am a member." He appointed as his trustees the ministers of this church, Mr. Oxenbridge and Mr. Allen, the Rev. John Russell, author of the Hadley and Northampton memorial to the General Court in 1670,1 and Mr. Anthony Stoddard, and he instructed them to
those that are behinde in theire pay- ments of theire subscriptions to the Colledge and to demand and receave the same, The Selectmen doe apoynt Thomas Dewer and Ephraim Serle to that worke for the subscriptions taken by the Officers and others of the first Church in Bostone, Mr. John Cony and W'm. Coleman for the second Church,
And Lt. Theophilus Frary and James Hill for said subscriptions taken by the officers of the third church." - Town Records.
1 See ante, pp. 95, 96. Mr. Russell de- clined the trust under the will, pleading the distance at which he lived from Boston and his pressing duties as a par- ish minister.
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GOVERNOR BELLINGHAM'S WILL.
build at Winnisimmett a minister's house and meeting-house, to make an annual allowance for the support of the gospel there, to train for the ministry four or six young men, more or less, as the estate would bear, and, to quote the words of his eighth direction, "That every quarter of the year, one sermon be preached to instruct the people in Boston in church discipline, according to the word of God; and such competent allowance be given to each of them [the preachers] as my trustees shall judge fit and sufficient."
This will became at once the subject of litigation. "Early the next spring, before the grass had begun to grow on the governor's grave, between Richard Wharton, representing the governor's only son, Dr. Samuel Bellingham, then in Europe, on one hand, and the Rev. James Allen and his co-trustees, on the other, began a series of legal proceedings which were prose- cuted in every tribunal, from the lowest to the highest, under three governments, - colonial, provincial, and state, -and were terminated only at the end of one hundred and eleven [fifteen] years, by a decision against the validity of the will by the Supreme Judicial Court in 1787, held by Judge Sumner." 1
Mr. Wharton, the attorney and personal friend of Dr. Bel- lingham, made the very serious charge against Mr. Allen, not only that he had exercised an undue influence over the mind of the governor upon his death-bed, to the injury of his son, but also that he had actually tampered with the will after its execu- tion by the insertion of a clause revoking all former testaments. A deposition to this effect was made before Daniel Gookin, a member of the court of assistants, January 24, 1673. It should be said that the charge against Mr. Allen was not sub- stantiated ; but we can understand that the reproach under which he rested for tampering, directly or indirectly, with the memorable New Haven letter rendered it easy to suspect him of similar action in connection with other documents, when "good ends" were to be served thereby. It would be foreign to our purpose to follow the litigation that ensued through all its tedious stages, but we could not avoid this passing reference to Governor Bellingham's will as part of the case of the First Church against the Third.
Governor Bellingham was succeeded by John Leverett, who had been deputy-governor since the death of Francis Wil- loughby.
1 See Sewall's Letter Book, vol. i. pp. editors on this subject, of which we have 99-105, for a valuable foot-note by the made free use.
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HISTORY OF THE OLD SOUTH CHURCH.
The extreme men in the colony, who by assertion and as- sumption in their own behalf, and by misrepresentation and denunciation of their brethren, had kindled and kept alive the fires of religious controversy, promoted distrust and dissension among the churches, and brought them to the very verge of disastrous schism, had much to answer for. They were few in number ; they could not claim to be more learned, more conse- crated, or more successful than the Christian brethren whom they denounced and calumniated ; but they were aggressive, pertinacious, self-confident, and self-willed, and they did not stop to think of consequences. They no doubt believed that they were right, but if they had been more modest they might have remembered that they were fallible, and that possibly all the wisdom and all the goodness were not on their side.1 They certainly ought to have been very confident of their position, in view of the effect of the prolonged agitation, for which they were responsible, upon the spiritual life of the community. This was suffering blight, in the midst of all the wrangling and confusion, all the "browbeatings, censures, reproaches, calumnies, and contempts." Defeated in open debate in the General Court in 1671, the anti-synodists seem to have maintained what we may call a guerilla warfare of misrepresentation and slander. At length, the more judicious men among the leaders in church and state made up their minds that something must be done to stop the evil. The preacher of the Election Sermon in 1673 was Mr. Oakes, Mr. Mitchell's successor in the First Church of Cambridge, and afterward (upon the retirement of Dr. Hoar) president of the college ; and he had the courage, in the pres- ence of the influential and representative assembly before him, to rebuke in the severest terms the mistaken and mischievous
1 Increase Mather, addressing the anti- synodalians in 1671, made the follow- ing pertinent suggestions : "Consider that it is possible that you may be mis- taken in your apprehensions. Many things might be mentioned to you, which ought to cause an humble jealousy in you, lest so it should be. Were there that only consideration, that so many learned and godly men are opposed, it ought to cause trembling, and an holy fear in you, lest your notions should be erroneous. It is a Christian speech and spirit which blessed Burroughs hath in
his excellent Irenicum where he saith, He that differs in his judgment from godly learned men, had need to spend much time in prayer and humiliation before the Lord. There is a notable ex- pression of Basil cited in an Epistle of Luther to the Ministers of Norimberg, who were at variance one from another, ' He who will separate from his brethren, had need to consider many things even to anxiety, he had need break his sleep many nights, and seek of God with many tears the demonstration of the truth.' Thus, he."
193
MR. OAKES'S ELECTION SERMON.
zeal of these partisans. He took for his text the words of Moses in Deuteronomy xxxii. 29: " O that they were wise, that they understood this, that they would consider their latter end !" 1 This is what he said to the men who had kept the churches in a ferment ever since the formation of the Third Church had been proposed : -
Consider what will be the latter end of your unreasonable jealousies, abusive calumnies, or other ill usage of persons of great worth, use and interest among you. Consider (I beseech you) in the fear of God, what will be the end of the ill-entertainment of the best men among you. Who sees not (that is not wofully blind) that no men are more suspected and taken up in the lips of talkers, (Ezekiel xxxvi. 3,) ca- lumniated and abused, than pious and faithful magistrates and min- isters ? . . . It is the hard condition of magistrates and ministers that they must bear all the murmurings of discontented people, and be loaded with all the obloquies and injurious reproaches that can be. They had need be men of great meekness and patience, able to bear much, that are pillars in the Church and Commonwealth. But great is the sin and unworthiness of those that put them to such an exercise of meekness and patience. And are not many among us guilty in this respect? It is a sad time when a lying spirit is gone forth into the mouths of many professors ; when lies are invented to the disparage- ment of rulers and ministers, and calumnies and base reproaches are vended and put off and dispersed through the country with much sub- tlety and industry, as if there were some Lying Office set up in New England. It hath been my observation since I came among you, that almost all the mischief in this poor country is made and carried on by lying. Tale-bearer, or slanderer, in the Hebrew, hath its origination from a word which signifies a merchant, quasi fama ac honoris proximi nundinator, - one that sets to sale the name and honour of other mnen. We have many such merchants, or pedlars, rather, that go up and
1 The sermon was preached May 7, 1673, and was published under the fol- lowing title: "New England l'leaded with, And pressed to consider the things which concern her Peace, at least in this her Day : Or, A Seasonable and Serious Word of faithful Advice to the Churches and People of God (primarily those) in the Massachusets Colony; musingly to Ponder and bethink themselves what is the Tendency, and will certainly be the sad Issue, of sundry unchristian and crooked wayes, which too too many have been turning aside unto, if persisted and gone on in." A brief address is pre-
fixed to the sermon, signed by John Sherman and Thomas Shepard.
Mr. Shepard preached the Election Sermon in 1672. Ilis text was Jer. ii. 31 : "O generation, see ye the word of the Lord : Have I been a wilderness unto Israel ? a land of darkness ? Where- fore say my people, We are lords ; we will come no more unto thee?" He rebuked the divisions and calumnies of the times, in connection with other public sins, but not so scathingly as Mr. Oakes. The sermon was printed, with an address to the Christian Reader by the Rev. Thomas Thacher.
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HISTORY OF THE OLD SOUTH CHURCH.
down the country with this kind of commodity ; and it is a lamentable thing that they should have so good a trade of it, and meet with so many chapmen that are ready to take their ware off their hands. . . . Many pregnant instances of this evil spirit might be produced to con- firm what I say : but herein I shall spare the guilty only, who knows not (that is no stranger in our Israel) that the ministers of Christ among you indefinitely have been deliberately and solemnly charged with " declension from primitive foundation work, innovation in doc- trine and worship, opinion and practice, invasion of the rights, liberties and privileges of churches, usurpation of a lordly, prelatical power over God's heritage," and with the like things, which are " the leaven, the corrupting gangrene, the infecting, spreading plague, the provoking image of jealousy set up before the Lord, the accursed thing which hath provoked Divine wrath and further threatens destruction?" I need give you no other instance of this evil spirit of jealousy and calumny than this. Here is good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over. Enough and enough to demonstrate the disaffected and embittered spirit of some men ; and what unkind usage from some hands. those your poor ministers find among you. Such men (whom I wish either that they were better enformed and affected, or less considerable in the Commonwealth) impute all the blastings and droughts and judgments of God upon the country to the defection and apostacy of their ministers. As if the confident accusers themselves were men of such unquestionable innocency, as not to con- tribute anything to the sins and sorrows of the country ; or as if there were no other sinners among us that are kindling the wrath of God against the land, and pulling down his judgments, but a few despised ministers : Or as if there were no other sins against the Lord our God found among us, to provoke the wrath of a jealous God, but the sup- posed deviations of pious, conscientious, learned men, truly studious of truth and reformation, and a due progress therein.
W'e could quote page after page from this faithful and fearless discourse, which might be pondered to good advantage by the men in every generation who set themselves up as conservators, in opposition to freedom and progress in religious thought, and who too often become slanderers and persecutors ; but one paragraph more must suffice : -
What peace can be expected so long as this trade of lying and ca- lumniating men of piety, worth and authority is continued and driven on among us? And indeed though it may be thought by some that these wretched practises are but the small devices of some petty poli- ticians and little creeping statesmen among us that have no very con- siderable influence into our publick affairs : yet I must needs say, that I look upon this course of calumniating your best men, as the very
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195
CALUMNIATORS REBUKED.
Gunpowder-Plot that threatens the destruction of Church and State. Nothing (as experience shews) is more advantagious to the designs of innovators, than the right knack of kindling and fomenting jealousies and fears in the minds of men concerning magistrates and ministers. Such men are wont to make and improve false alarms of danger, that people may believe that religion and liberties are at the stake, and in danger to be lost ! Designers are wont to impose upon the credulitie and easiness of well meaning people this way. . . . Moreover these calumnies are immoralities, and scandalous evils, and it is the duty of Gods servants to lift up their voice as a trumpet, to cry aloud and not spare them that are guilty whatever the issue be : yea to cry to God and man for redress. And I would humbly commend it to our Hon- ourable Rulers, upon whom the lot of this days Election shall fall, that they would take it into serious consideration and fixe upon some ex- pedient, to put these lying lips to silence, and to find out the principal authors and fomentors of these mischievous calumnies. They are cer- tainly moral evils, and God is angry with us for them, (for he is very tender of the name and reputation of pious rulers and ministers) and many good people are deceived and drawn in the simplicity of their hearts, into a disaffection to their leaders ; yea, and the people of God abroad are abused and misinformed, and these calumnies (to my knowl- edge) are handed and transmitted over sea ; insomuch that many good people take it for granted that most of the leaders in this country are meditating a revolt from the good old principles and practises of their worthy predecessors.
This sermon must have made a deep impression upon those who heard it and upon those who heard about it. It no doubt prompted the brethren of the Third Church to another attempt at reconciliation with the church from which they had felt it to be their duty to separate themselves, for, as appears from the records of the latter, a letter from the " dissenters " was read before it on the 27th of June, and was "much debated." Its further discussion was postponed to the 8th of July, when a vote was passed that it should be answered by "the three magis- trates and the three elders." An answer was prepared, accord- ingly, and, after several meetings of the First Church had been held to consider and settle its terms,1 it was transmitted, on the 22d of August, to Mr. John Hull, addressed, " To our beloved brethren, Captain Thomas Savage, Mr. Hezekiah Usher, Mr. John Hull, to be communicated to the rest of our brethren who departed from us." It was conceived in a much more concili- atory spirit than previous communications from the same source
1 See First Church Records.
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HISTORY OF THE OLD SOUTH CHURCH.
had been, but it did not yield the point of dismissing and recom- mending the wives of the seceding brethren to the watch and care of the new church. This point, indeed, the First Church never conceded ; and it was only upon the recommendation of an assembly of ministers called, a year later, to consider and pass judgment upon the case, that these long-suffering women recovered their good and regular standing as members of a Christian church. The correspondence which followed Mr. Oakes's Election Sermon is given in full in the Third Church Narrative, to which we again turn : -
After a long silence the 3d Church was incouraged by Magistrates and Elders of the Countrey to make another Essay for 13: (4) 1673 peace. the teaching Elders of the first Church allso pub- liquely prayed and exhorted to it this ensuing letter was sent unto them
Honourd Reverend and dearcly beloved
As the ey of Christ in the midst of us like a flame of fire, and his f[eet] like fine brasse is a matter of great aw, soe his severe com- mand to love one another as he hath loved us is of deep meditation for constan[t] humble obedience, the thoughts of both presse strongly to have salt in ourselves and peace one with another. for indeed what better becometh the presence of the Prince of Peace than peace in his presence among all his loyall subjects, seing that the Spirit of Christ is one in all his members and is a spirit of love and peace, hence that restlesse working in all his faithfull servants towards this peace, making it easy to them to observe all those other rules of mu- tuall forbearance and forgivenes as God for Christs sake forgave them, whiles as the Elect of God holy and beloved they put on bow- ells of mercy and kindnes, humblenes of mind meeknes long suffring to forbear and forgive one another, if any of them have a quarrell against any, even as Christ forgave them for the spirit of prayer is a spirit of forgivenes as it is said by our Lord Jesus Matt. 11. 25. and when ye stand praying forgive if ye have aught against any, that your ffather allso which is in heaven may forgive you allso your trespasses, but if you doe not forgive neither will your ffather which is in heaven forgive you your trespasses for the spirit maketh intercession according to the will of God, and this is his will that ye forgive one another, after his example, who forgave not onely the knowne grosse sins and daily infirmities of his people, which they confesse but sins that they are ignorant of, else who should stand before him, for he knoweth all things, but who of us understandeth his errours as we know in part with our best knowledge soe we obey in part in our best obedience, for our obedience cannot exceed our knowledge, what hath passed from
197
ANOTHER APPEAL FOR PEACE.
us towards you in these last transactions could but be obedience in part that it was obedience is our comfort, that it was but in part we hope doth humble us, that your knowledge may exceed ours in that matter we would humbly suppose and therfore that which to us is obedience may to you be offence, hence there is a bar to our Com- munion you being offended, did we know as you we hope we should be as ready through the grace of Christ to yeild as you to require a particular acknowledgement, but acknowledgement cannot be without knowledge, must this be a wall of separation, and must it still keep of our peaceable and Brotherly Communion, God forbid. Is there no compassion for the ignorant, if we are ignorant is not the blood of Christ sufficient without particular acknowledgement to break downe such a wall between those which live by faith for the pardon of their ignorance which they cannot confesse, if there be any power in that better veiw of the blood of Christ to speak peace between us, then we humbly and earnestly intreat you if you have ought against any or all of us in this or any other matter that you forgive us as he hath forgiven you and let there be and continue brotherly love and Church Communion between us as becometh the Churches of Saints, As there is one body, one Spirit as we are called in one hope of our call- ing one Lord one faith one Baptisme one God and ffather of all, who is above all and through all and in all, soe let us be likeminded one towards another according to Christ Jesus that we may with one mind and one mouth glorify God and the ffather of our Lord Jesus Christ and let us to that end according to Paulls exhortation receive one an- other notwithstanding all matters of doubtfull disputations between us as Christ allso received us to the glory of God, whereinsoever therefore we or any of us have done or spoken anything that hath bin matter of greif or occasion of offence to you or any of you we againe and againe heartily desire you to forgive it and forget it. and let it be no offence to you that we receive those of you who desire it that have hitherto held Communion at the table of the Lord with us into our Communion, but grant your Loving dismission unto them, neither let it be any offence for any of ours as they may desire it to come and par- take with you in your neerest Communion, or of yours henceforth on the like occasion to sit downe at the Lords table with us, we trust it shall be no greif of heart unto you afterwards, we have all the same common cause viz the Congregationall way laid downe for substance in the Platforme of discipline, the same friends, enemies, hopes, feares, dangers, desires, imbarked in the same Commonwealth, and in hazard to be in the same Common woe, should god let loose an adversary against us, Oh let us serry close togither in the Lord, union strength- ens, division weakens, exposeth to contempt, maketh a prey to the enimy, multiplieth iniquity, and increaseth transgression and trans- gressors among men, among saints, its managed by another wisdome
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HISTORY OF THE OLD SOUTH CHURCH.
than that which is from above, and therfore is suted to ends not to be desired. could the heathen come to a forgiving, forgetting, burying all offences, to heale publique breaches and strengthen a decayed and jeoparded Commonwealth by morall vertu and prudence, and will it not be below Christians to fall short of heathens in like Case, should we that have through grace bin stated in such a degree of profession fall short, God forbid, Now God even our owne God be the very God of peace, so quench and calme our hearts by his owne Spirit, and supply them with that heavenly oile that we may be tenderly affected with all brotherly love each to other and may dwell together as a daughter with her mother in sweetest neerest neighbourhood to his owne glory and the furtherance of our everlasting joy and conso- lation of his people. we shall add no more, but that you are in our hearts to dy and to live with you in that capacity wherein the Lord hath set us, to whose grace commending you and ourselves, as our- selves allso to your Brotherly love, we humbly subscribe ourselves.
Your Brethren and servants in the Gospell
13 : (4) 1673
THOMAS THATCHER
EDWARD RAINSFORD
To the Honourd Reverend and beloved Elders and Brethren of the first gathered Church in Boston.
In the name and with the Consent of the Brethren.
This letter was carryed to the Teaching Elders by T. S. H. U. and J. H. The 22th of the 6th in the Evening the two deacons of the old
Church brought unto Mr. John Hull a letter subscribed to 22th. (6) 1673 our beloved Brethren Captaine Tho : Savage, Mr. Hez : Usher Mr. John Hull to be Communicated to the rest of our Brethren who departed from us. the coppy whereof followeth.1
Deare and well beloved Brethren in our dearest Lord Jesus.
Yours of the 13th 4th 1673 we received which gives occasion to cleare ourselves of a misconstruction of a passage in our last as if we had imposed a silence as to any friendly treaty with you, for in truth we would neither be, nor thought to be men averse from peace, but rath[er] from division and contention, the former being our duty the latter a[n] abomination to us, the Lord both yours and ours is as ye say the prince of Pea[ce] and his will it is that we should be at peace with all men, but more abundantly with such as professe themselves to have us in their hearts to live and to dy with us and to have the same common cause viz. the Congregationall way as in the booke called the Platforme, the same friends, enimies, and
1 [We have compared this copy of the Hist. Society, and we have made a few letter with a copy (evidently made at the slight verbal changes in it to bring the time) in the possession of the Mass. two into conformity with each other.]
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A MORE CONCILIATORY REPLY.
dangers, imbarked in the same Common weale, and in hazard to be in the same Common woe, wherfore deare Brethren we open both armes to receive and unit[e] with you for the Common weale, and against the Common woe of the Lords people in th[is] land, that transgress- ors may not be favored and multiplied among us, a[s] to your desire in yours of pardon of what may have offended any or all of us in your late transactions we understand you to speake of your depart- ing from us, which being an houre of temptation may have found in you severall deviations from the rule, and that you soe humbly heartily and earnestly againe and againe ask forgivenes as it implyeth some blameable proceeding in the action aforesaid, (for we see not what roome there is for pardon whe[re] there is no fault at all, soe we see not need of so much pressing this knowne duty of Brotherly forgive- nes upon us) wherfore leaving the Rule in its owne entirenes, and not revoking our testimony to it, nor calling bitt[er] sweet, we doe in our affection to you passe by what failings have escaped you in that transaction (for soe our judgment was and is) and desire that both with you and us all bitternes wrath and anger evill speaking and clamour may be put away, with all malice, and that we may be kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another even as God for Christs sa[ke] hath forgiven us. Another desire of yours is that without our offence you may receive some into your Communion that doe desire it, we conceive you to speak of those sisters your wives, whome we find in our Church reco[rds] to have desired a release from their Covenant ingagements. Now you may please to take notice that after that in the Case of Sarah Pemerton one of them the Church did declare that they looked on themselves as disingaged from any Cove- nant duty to her, and that she ceaseth to stand in memberly relation to us and accordingly we doe now declare in love concerning all the afore- said sisters that they are upon their owne irregular choice gone out from us and from any further Authority of this Church
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