USA > Massachusetts > Suffolk County > Boston > History of the Old South church (Third church) Boston, 1669-1884, Vol. II > Part 2
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We heartily pray that the Rev'd Author and his Flock may for a long Time be happy together ; that their cordial Love and Tenderness to each other may continue and operate in mutual and all lawful Conde- scentions and Forbearances under different Sentiments in these Par- ticulars ; that every One may be open to Light, and guard against all Prejudice, Precipitance and Passion ; that they may be very watchful against the Devices of Satan to disunite or disaffect them ; that they may study the Things that make for Peace and Edification. - And the God of Light, Love and Peace will continue with them.
This paper, no doubt, was written by Mr. Prince, and the spirit of Christian kindness and conciliation which it breathes is eminently characteristic of the man. If he had been a mere partisan, he would have placed himself on one side or the other in the controversy between the Northampton church and its minister, and so would have widened the breach still more, had this been possible. His own convictions were more in harmony with the views of Mr. Stoddard than with those of Mr. Ed- wards ; 1 but nothing could be more tender and affectionate than his commendation of the learning, piety, and judicial fairness of the latter, and his prayer for the renewal of peaceful and happy relations between him and his flock. If anything could have brought them together upon the old basis of mutual con- fidence and love, this hearty appeal would have produced its due effect.
Mr. Edwards again sought to preach to his people upon the question in controversy, but they strenuously objected ; he then, in the months of February and March, 1750, made it the sub- ject of a course of week-day lectures, which were attended by large numbers from the neighboring towns, but by few of the residents of Northampton. The breach was too wide to be healed ; and a council met on the 19th of June, and sat for three days, which decided by a majority vote that the pastoral relation between Mr. Edwards and his parish ought to be dis- solved.2 He preached his farewell sermon July I, and this
1 See ante, vol. i. p. 520, note.
2 "No intelligent Congregationalist will doubt for a moment that Mr. Ed- wards's idea of bringing it first before the church was the true one. Perhaps they could settle the matter among them-
selves, and then no council would be needed. According to Scripture, - cer- tainly according to the Cambridge Plat- form, -this was the way to begin ; and, beginning thus, the first regular step would be for the pastor to state the rea-
7
TROUBLES AT NORTHAMPTON.
closed his regular ministry there; but he supplied the pulpit from time to time, until those who were opposed to him began
sons on which his proposal was founded ; and then for the church to consider them, and act upon them by a formal vote of acceptance or rejection. If, after due consideration, it appeared that he and they could not walk together, it would be best for them to part. But before taking this final step, they should seek advice, - not a judicial decision, but ad- vice ; and here a council would properly come in. Mr. Edwards had all along proposed this measure, when, after tak- ing the preliminary steps, their 'affairs were sufficiently ripe ' for it. But a false view of the appropriate functions of an ecclesiastical council had become preva- lent at that time, which has not been en- tirely corrected since. With all their repugnance to Mr. Edwards's principles, together with their manifest reluctance to be convinced that he was right and they were wrong, they would hardly have refused him a hearing on the subject but for the mischievous notion that a Congregational council is a sort of church court, to which they could ap- peal and get a swift decision, without the hazard of encountering arguments. They knew very well that only two churches and three ministers throughout the county (then comprising the present counties of Franklin, Hampshire, and Hampden) were in sympathy with Mr. Edwards in the existing controversy about church qualifications. His con- demnation, therefore, seemed almost certain, if the case should come before a council; and to make it quite certain, a vote was passed restricting both par- ties to that county in the selection of the members. This cruel and unconsti- tutional vote, at the remonstrance of the pastor, was so far modified as to allow him liberty to go out of the county for two of his half. In accounting for these tyrannical proceedings, it may here be stated that from beginning to end the parish took the lead, contrary to all rule and precedent. Yet the council, repre- senting nine churches, when they came together, found no difficulty in procecd-
ing to business, and bringing in the fol- lowing result : first, 'it is necessary that the relation between pastor and people be dissolved;' second, 'it is expedient that this relation be immediately dis- solved.' No wonder that Mr. Edwards, in a letter soon after to Mr. Erskine, of Scotland, who kindly inquired whether he could accept of a pastorate there under Presbyterian rule, expressed him- self ' perfectly out of conceit of our un- settled, independent, confused way of church-government in this land.' Noth- ing could have been better adapted to create disgust for the whole system of Congregationalism, if this was indeed the ' way' of it. But it was not; it was a perversion of that way, - as much so as the jugglery of Elymas, the sorcerer, was a perversion of 'the right ways of the Lord,' and was instigated by motives hardly less sinister. It was an ebullition of party prejudice, seeking vent through an ecclesiastical council. That event could never have hap- pened, even under the blinding influ- ence of party strife, had not ministers and churches, by looking at precedents more than principles, come to regard the functions of a council as judiciary rather than advisory. Edwards himself had lent his sanction to this mischief-making notion, in a controversy, about sixteen years before, respecting the settlement of Mr. Breck at Springfield. A council was called 'to advise,' and, if thought proper, 'to assist' in his ordination. They advised not to settle him, as, with their views of the case, they ought to have done. Here their responsibility ended, and they went home. The church and society saw fit to reject that advice, as they had a right to do, and called a second council, who ordained him. This was complained of by the first, as tram- pling on constituted authority, - which complaint only showed an existing usur- pation of authority. With such views pervading the community, and gaining additional force by every new develop- ment of them, we ought not to wonder
8
HISTORY OF THE OLD SOUTH CHURCH.
to be uneasy, and a town meeting was called, at which it was voted that it was not agreeable to the people that he should preach to them any more.
" A small number of his people who opposed his dismission from the beginning, and some who acted on neither side, but after his dismission adhered to him, under the influence of their great esteem and love of Mr. Edwards, were willing, and thought themselves able to maintain him : And insisted upon it that it was his duty to stay among them, as a distinct and sep- arate congregation from the body of the town, who had rejected him. Mr. Edwards could not see it to be his duty to stay among them, as this would probably be a means of perpetuating an unhappy division in the town ; and there was to him no prospect of doing the good there, which would counterbalance the evil. However, that he might do all he could to satisfy his tender and afflicted friends ; he consented to ask the advice of an eccle- siastical council. Accordingly, a council was called, and met at Northampton on the 15th of May, 1751. [This is the council to which the South Church voted to send messengers.] The town on this occasion was put into a great tumult. They who were active in Mr. Edwards's dismission supposed, though without any good ground, that he was contriving with his friends again to introduce himself at Northampton. They drew up a remon- strance against their proceedings, and laid it before the council, (though they would not acknowledge them to be an ecclesiastical council), containing many heavy though groundless charges against Mr. Edwards, and bitter accusations of the party who
at the eagerness shown by Mr. Edwards's opposers to trust the decision of a coun- cil rather than to encounter his logic. A court of appeal will never want business. But the deplorable result in this case should admonish us to keep these advi- sory bodies to their appropriate functions, and, as far as possible, to settle our ec- clesiastical disputes before the only tri- bunal recognized in the New Testament or known to Congregationalists, -the church." - Hist. Sketch, by Joseph S. Clark, D. D., pp. 188-190.
Mr. Breck, to whom Dr. Clark refers above, laid before the council which or- dained him a paper, in which it was said : " These may certifie that on the 8th day of May 1735, we discours'd with him [Mr. Breck] to our good satisfaction concern-
ing his Orthodoxy in the great Doctrines of Christianity, as believ'd and profess'd in the Churches of Christ in New Eng- land, agreable to the Westminster Con- fession of Faith. And so recommend him to the Grace of God, and are his Brethren in Christ, Benjamin Colman, Joseph Sewall, John Webb, William Cooper, Thomas Foxcroft, Samuel Checkley, Joshua Gee, Mather Byles."
The churches outside the county, in- vited by Mr. Edwards to sit in the coun- cil, were the First Church, Boston, of which Mr. Foxcroft was senior pastor, and those of Mr. Parkman at Westbor- ough, Mr. Wigglesworth at Ipswich, and Mr. Hobby at Reading, -the last two provisionally. Of these, only the Read- ing church was represented.
9
JOSEPH HAWLEY.
had adhered to him : But refused to appear and support any of their charges, or so much as to give the gentlemen of the coun- cil any opportunity to confer with them about the affair depend- ing, though it was diligently sought. The council, having heard what Mr. Edwards and they who adhered to him had to say, advised, agreeably to Mr. Edwards's judgment, that he should leave Northampton, and accept of the mission to which he was invited at Stockbridge." 1
One of the most able and influential of Mr. Edwards's oppo- nents, Mr. Joseph Hawley, afterward wrote a letter to the Rev. David Hall, of Sutton, a member of the council of 1750, and a friend of Mr. Edwards, in which, in most humble and touching terms, he made acknowledgment of the bitter injustice done by him to Mr. Edwards during all this controversy. In reference to the council of 1751 he said : -
Nor do I think that the church's conduct in refusing to appear, and attend before that council to support the charges and allegations in the said remonstrance against Mr. Edwards and the said brethren, which they demanded, was ever vindicated by all the subtle answers that were given to the said demand ; nor do I think that our conduct in that instance was capable of a defence. For it appears to me, that by making such charges against them before the said council, we necessarily so far gave that council jurisdiction ; and I own with sor- row and regret that I zealously endeavoured that the Church should perseveringly refuse to appear before the said council for the purpose aforesaid ; which I humbly pray God to forgive.2
1 The Works of President Edwards, vol. i. pp. 72, 73.
"There seem to have been two causes of his dismission, - first, his rejection of the doctrine of Mr. Stoddard and of the church concerning admissions to the Lord's Supper ; and secondly, some of his movements as to matters of discipline, to which the church had not been accus- tomed, and which they regarded as rigid and severe. It may be that his people were in the wrong, and that their treat- ment of him is worthy of indignant repre- hension ; yet some allowance may be made for the force of prejudice, for the strength of old customs and habits of thought, for family pride, and for the rev- erence felt for the venerable name of Mr. Stoddard, whose principles had been op- posed by his successor." - An Address at Northampton, 1854, by Wm. Allen.
" Of course, he held the theology that was then and there orthodox, - that ganglion of heroic, acute, and appalling dogmas commonly named after John Calvin. To the defence of that theology, in all its rigors, in all its horrors, Jona- than Edwards brought his unsurpassed abilities as a dialectician." - Tyler's History of Amer. Lit., vol. ii. p. 188.
It may be that the revulsion in the minds of many of his people, caused by the remembrance of some of his mer- ciless sermons, had much to do with their bitter feeling against him in the day of his trial, although it did not excuse their unfairness and misrepresentation.
2 [ The Works of President Edwards, vol. i. pp. 74-81. Mr. Hawley was a family connection of Mr. Edwards. His letter was published by his desire in a Boston weekly paper May 19.]
IO
HISTORY OF THE OLD SOUTH CHURCH.
Mr. Edwards removed to Stockbridge, to take up the work there among the Indians, which had been interrupted by the death of the Rev. John Sergeant, under the direction of the commissioners in Boston of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel among the Indians.
April 29, 1751.
The Brethren of the Church and Congregation met, and Voted ; Inasmuch as it appears in the Representation made to this Meeting by a Committee appointed to inquire; That sundry Persons have been deficient in their contributions for some time past, whereby a difficulty ariseth in supporting the public Worship, and other neces- sary expences, that, Therefore there be a Contribution on Lord's Day, the 12 of May next, wherein it is expected that such Persons as have not heretofore contributed their Proportion, should make it up; and that others would also give their helping Hand as their hearts and circumstances shall incline and enable them, besides the weekly charge ; and that this vote be publicly read by one of the Deacons, the next Lord's Day.
Lord's Day Septr 8. 1751.
The Brethren of the Church stay'd, and Voted that Deacon Simp- son, Mr. Isaac Walker, Mr. John Kneeland, Mr. Samuel Bass and Mr. David Jeffries be the Church-Committee for the year ensuing. JOSEPH SEWALL.
The Brethren of the Church and Congregation were stayed Lord's Day Octr. 27. 1751, and Voted
That there be a collection for Charitable and pious uses on the An- niversary Thanksgiving Novr. 7. next : And that the rest of the Con- gregation be notified of this Vote next Lord's Day, and be desir'd to assist in said Collection. JOSEPH SEWALL.
Thanksgiving Novr 7. 1751
Collected for Charitable and pious uses.
For the Fund .
5. 0. 0
For the Rev'd Mr. Campbell
3. IO. 0
Mr. Brett 3. o. o
For several of our own people 16. 6. 0
27. 16. 0
Unappropropriated
166. 10. 0
Total
194. 6. 0
Novr 24. 175I. Lord's Day.
The Brethren of the Church staid by Adjournment. A letter was readd again from sundry Brethren of the Westerly Church in Sud-
II
OLD AND NEW STYLE.
bury, desiring our Help in Council under their present Difficulties : Voted. Messengers, the Hon. S. Welles and Mess'rs Symmes and Scollay.
The Rev. Israel Loring became pastor of the church in Sud- bury November 20, 1706. Upon the formation of a church on the west side of the river, in or about 1722, Mr. Loring, who had been settled over the whole town, and had been preaching on the east side, moved to the west side, and became the minis- ter of the church there.1
It will be noticed that the next entry in the records is dated March 15, 1752, and not March 15, 1751-2. Until now, the year had begun on the 25th of March, and all legal documents and records had borne date accordingly ; but by an act of Par- liament passed in 1751 the year 1752 began for all purposes on the Ist of January. By the same act it was ordered that eleven days should be struck out of the following September (the 3d was to be called the 14th), so that the equinoxes and solstices should fall on the same days as at the time of the Council at Nicaa in the year 325. This change in the style of dating occasioned the use of the terms Old Style and New Style.
Lord's Day March 15 1752
The Brethren of the Church and Congregation were stayed and Voted
That £166. 10. of the last collection be given to the poor of this church and congregation by the Deacons, according to their best Discretion.
And whereas there is danger of the small-Pox spreading in this Town, and that many of the poor of this church and congregation will be brought under great difficulties : Voted that there be a Collec- tion on the Anniversary Fast, 26. March Instant, for their relief, in case said distemper should spread among us ; or if otherwise, that the collection be dispos'd of as this church and congregation shall deter- mine : And that the rest of the Congregation be notified of this Vote next Lord's Day, and be desired to assist in said collection.
JOSEPH SEWALL.
Anniversary Fast March 26. 1752 Collected £188. 16.3
The small-pox had been brought to Boston several months before this, by a vessel from London. Eighteen hundred peo- ple are said to have fled from the town, while the disease was
1 See Sudbury Records, MSS., in the library of the Hist. Gen. Society.
12
HISTORY OF THE OLD SOUTH CHURCH.
raging, and four or five hundred deaths took place. The popu- lation was then about sixteen thousand.1
General Fast July 2. 1752
Upon a Brief emitted with the Proclamation, in which it is recom- mended to all Charitable Persons to contribute on said Day for the relief of the Poor of the Town of Boston under their present dis- tressed circumstances of the small Pox,
Collected 188. 16. I
Augt. 30 1752. Lord's Day.
The church was stay'd ; And Frances B- was Admonish'd and suspended for a course of gross intemperance in drinking Strong Drink. J. SEWALL.
Lord's Day Septr. 24 N. S. 1752
The Brethren of the Church were stay'd, and Voted, that the Hon. Josiah Willard, Andrew Oliver, Messrs. Samuel Bass, Isaac Walker and David Jeffries be the Church-Committee for the year ensuing.
JOSEPH SEWALL.
Novr 26. 1752 Church stay'd. Letter read from several Brethren of the Ist Church in Braintree desiring our help in Council, under their present Difficulties. Voted. Messengers, Hon. Sam. Welles Esq. Deacon Henchman, Mr. Jackson.
The Rev. Lemuel Bryant was minister of Braintree at this time. He was out of sympathy with the prevailing theology, so much so, that John Adams, when ex-president, spoke of him as having been an Unitarian. He was dismissed at his own request, on account of ill-health, in the autumn of 1753, and died at Hingham in 1754.
[There is no record of the collection on Thanksgiving Day in 1752 or on Fast Day in 1753.]
Lord's Day April 8, 1753.
The Brethren of the Church and Congregation were stay'd.
Voted, That the remainder of the money in the Treasury for Chari- table and pious uses, be dispos'd of by the Pastors and Deacons of this church according to their best Discretion. J. SEWALL.
Augt. 26. 1753 The Church was stay'd: And Richard S- was admonish'd and Suspended - for a course of gross Intemperance in drinking strong drink. J. SEWALL.
The Rev. Andrew Eliot, in a Fast Day sermon preached this year, deplored the state of religion in the town, lamented over the general apathy which prevailed in reference to joining the
1 Drake's Hist. and Antiq. of Boston, p. 632.
I3
THE REV. AMOS ADAMS.
church and participating in the Lord's Supper, and rebuked the prevailing intemperance. More than a million, he said, of the old currency had been spent in this province in a single year for spirituous liquors.
Lord's day Septr. 2. 1753.
The Church was stay'd, and a Letter read from the Ist Church in Roxbury desiring our Assistance in Council at the Ordination of Mr. Amos Adams.1 Granted. Messengers, Our Brethren that are or have been of the [Governor's] Council ; the Deacons, and Messrs. Edward Bromfield and Isaac Walker. J. SEWALL.
The Rev. Nehemiah Walter, of Roxbury, died September 17, 1750. The Rev. Oliver Peabody, who had been settled over the little missionary church in Natick, was installed as his successor on the 7th of November of the same year, and died May 29, 1752. Mr. Adams was ordained September 12, 1753, and preached there until his death in 1775.
Lord's Day, Octr. 7. 1753.
The Brethren stay'd, and Voted, that Deacon Henchman, Messrs. Isaac Walker, Joseph Jackson, David Jeffries and John Scollay be the Church-Committee for this year. JOSEPH SEWALL.
Lord's Day Octr. 21. 1753.
The Brethren of the Church and Congregation were stayed and Voted, That there be a Collection for Charitable and pious uses, on the Anniversary Thanksgiving Novr. I next: And that the rest of the Congregation be notified of this Vote next Lord's Day, and be desir'd to assist in said collection.
JOSEPH SEWALL.
Thanksgiving Novr. I. Collected as follows,
Appropriated Old Tenor.
To the Rev. Mr. Cambell . 37. 17. 6
To the Rev. Mr. Brett 9. 12. 6
To a Widow
2. 5. 0
49. 15. 0
Unappropriated
114. 16. 0
Totall .
164. II. O
Lords Day Novr. 11. 1753
The Brethren of the Church and Congregation were stay'd, and Voted, That the sum appropriated to the Rev. Mr.
Othniel Campbell in the late collection be made up . 40. 0. 0 That the sum appropriated to the Rev. Mr. Silas
20. 0. 0 Brett, be made up
1 [Mr. Adams married Sarah, daughter of the Rev. Charles Chauncy.]
14
HISTORY OF THE OLD SOUTH CHURCH.
That there be given out of the late collection to the
. 20. 0. 0 Rev. Mr. Ivory Hovey
That the Remainder of said collection be dispos'd of to Charitable and pious uses by the Pastors and Deacons of this Church, according to their best Discretion.
J. SEWALL.
[Two blank pages here follow in the record book.]
Edward Winslow, for many years sheriff of the county of Suffolk until he was promoted to the bench, died in December, in his eighty-fifth year. He was son of Edward Winslow, by his second wife, Elizabeth, daughter of Edward Hutchinson, and grandson of John and Mary (Chilton) Winslow. He was born in 1669, - the year in which the South Church was founded, - and he and his wife Hannah became members in 1692. He was held in high esteem in the town and province. Among other offices which he held at the time of his death was that of treasurer of the county of Suffolk. He was succeeded on the bench by Samuel Welles, also of the South Church.
The use of the South meeting-house was granted to the King's Chapel congregation for the usual service of the Church of England on Christmas Day of this year. In 1687, when Governor Andros took forcible possession of the old building for the services of the English Church on Good Friday and Easter Day, a sense of outrage deepened the prevalent feeling of dislike for liturgical worship. This feeling may not have changed very much in 1753, but the people of the town had be- come more familiar with forms of worship other than those to which the large majority still adhered ; and not only was the right of the minority to the peaceable enjoyment of their own preferences more generally recognized, but there seems to have been a disposition, on the part of some at least, to accommodate them with a place or places of worship in the time of their need. The stone chapel on the corner of Tremont and School streets - now the oldest building in Boston in which divine service is held - was then approaching completion, and the congregation had been holding their week-day services in Mr. Croswell's meeting-house ; 1 but for the observance of Christmas
1 When Mr. Caner and the church- wardens wrote to Mr. Croswell, asking for the use of his meeting- house "on festival and prayer days, and other occa- sions for performing Divine service," Mr. Croswell replied in behalf of his
church, granting the request, and add- ing : "This wee looke on to be only doe- ing as wee would be don by, -a thing highly agreeable to Christianity and Hu- manity, And therefore, for myselfe and them, I bid you heartily welcome to it."
15
CHRISTMAS COURTESIES.
a larger building was desired, and hence the application to the South Church and its cordial response, which laid only one re- striction on the use of the building as proposed, namely, that it should not be decorated. The records of the South Church are silent upon this incident, but the Rev. Henry W. Foote has given us the following from the records of King's Chapel : -
3Ist October 1753 Voted, That Doctr John Gibbins and Doctr. Silvester Gardiner make Enquirey whether Doctr. Sewalls Meeting house Can be Obtained for the Chappel Congregation to Assemble in on Christmass Day ; and if to be don, the Church Wardens to make Proper Application for Liberty of the Same.
Voted, Unanimously, That the Vote of the Vestry the 31st October, Relating to Meeting at Dr. Sewalls on Christmass day, be continued, and that the Church Wardens write to the Gentlemen proprietors of said Meeting house for Liberty of the same, which was don Accord- ingly, and the letter delivered to Thomas Hubbard Esqr.
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