USA > Massachusetts > Middlesex County > Cambridge > Lectures on the history of the First Church in Cambridge > Part 3
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There was the first of the Sparrowhawkes, the house which in different generations gave the church four deacons, and served the community in other offices of
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trust. And Edward Collins, the deacon, father of fa- mous sons, one of whom, after joining the church, was the chaplain of Monk when, by Cromwell's orders, he brought Scotland into subjection to the Parliament. There was Henry Dunster, the first President of the College, who after fourteen years of service was com- pelled to resign his place. He went away in sadness, and at his death gave directions that he should be buried here, by the side of the school he loved. So it was, and careful research has discovered his grave ; " as true a friend," says Mr. Quincy, "and as faithful a servant, as this College ever possessed." Among the records to which I have alluded is a long statement of his religious belief and character, evidently made by himself when he united with this church. And Thomas Danforth, Treasurer and Steward of the College, Rep- resentative, Assistant, Deputy-Governor, President for Maine, and Judge of the Supreme Court for the pro- ceedings against witches. And Daniel Gookin, the " Worshipful Captain," Representative, Speaker, As- sistant, Major-General ; who had a prominent part in public affairs at home, and an influence which was recognized abroad ; the friend of the Indians ; the pro- tector of Whalley and Goffe, yet loyal enough to dedicate his Historical Collections to the King. There was Herbert Pelham, who, after befriending the cause of the colonists for ten years as a member of the com- pany in London, came to this country. He was of high rank, matriculated at Magdalen Hall in Oxford, and for a long time engaged in public service. He was the first Treasurer of our College. He married the widow of Roger Harlakenden, and in 1649 returned to England. There was Elijah Corlet, for more than forty years the
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schoolmaster here, and highly approved for his "abil- ities, dexterity, and painfulness in teaching." These were all in Shepard's time. These selected names sug- gest a goodly list for the day of beginnings. Our ecclesiastical ancestry is noble.
What was this organization ? It was a Congregational church. Its members were men and women who con- fessed God as their Creator and Sovereign, and Jesus Christ as their Saviour. They confessed the Bible to be the word of God, and promised to walk by its pre- cepts. They professed to have been born again by the Holy Ghost, and to have entered thus upon a new life, whose inspiration was from heaven, whither its aspira- tions bore it. They banded themselves together for the worship of God and all the ordinances of religion. They made covenant one with another, and all with God. They claimed the right to order their affairs for them- selves, subject only to the Great Head of the Church, and obedient to his revealed will. But they owned the fellowship of the churches, and asked counsel in their important affairs, and held themselves bound by the laws of Christian communion and affection. Their model was in the first Christian churches. They had suffered from human inventions, and found comfort and strength in the simplicity which is in Christ and his Apostles. The infant colony has become a mighty nation ; many generations have come and gone; but their church re- mains, cleaving as fondly and firmly as ever to the faith and order which were once delivered unto the saints. Time testifies to their wisdom.
The form of covenant to which this church assented has not been preserved. But we have the covenant of the First Church in Charlestown, formed a little earlier,
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and it is probable that the covenant here agreed sub- stantially with that. The Charlestown covenant is in these words: "In the Name of our Lord God, and in obedience to his holy will and divine ordinances. We, whose names are here written, being by his most wise and good providence brought together, and desirous to unite ourselves into one Congregation, or Church, under our Lord Jesus Christ our Head, in such sort as be- cometh all those whom he hath redeemed and sanctified unto himself, do here solemnly and religiously, as in his most holy presence, promise and bind ourselves to walk in all our ways according to the Rules of the Gospel, and in all sincere conformity to his holy Ordinances, and in mutual love and respect each to other, so near as God shall give us grace." There was another covenant, in almost the same words, with the change of form which was needed, to which those assented who were received to the church after its formation.
There was no written confession of faith besides this. The church at Salem had a fuller confession, framed by Mr. Higginson, but that was not usual. The fathers did not think it needful to make a formal statement of doctrine which should be peculiarly their own. In doctrine they agreed with other reformed churches, and it was not on that matter, but upon the question of worship and discipline, that they separated themselves from the English Church, and came out into a new land They thought it an advantage, and to the honor of their Lord, if many churches could unite in the same con- fession. In 1648 the Synod composed of the Elders and Messengers of the churches, which met here and framed the Cambridge platform of church discipline, having been requested by the magistrates to draw up a public con-
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fession of that faith which was constantly taught and generally professed, thought it good to present to the churches the confession which had been recently issued by the Westminster Assembly of Divines, excepting cer- tain parts which related to discipline. In 1680, by the call and encouragement of the General Court, the elders and messengers met again in council in Boston, and prepared what is known as the Boston Confession. It was a declaration of faith. For matters of discipline they referred to the Cambridge Platform. These two documents have been essentially the constitution of our churches, while it has become almost universal for each church to have an abridgment of their statements for common use. But while our earliest churches had no written confession, they required of their members as full and distinct an avowal of their faith and their per- sonal religious life as has ever been demanded. They had their creed. Every church has. It may be written or unwritten. But a body of men formed for a distinct purpose must believe something in common, and that belief, be it ever so narrow, be it on paper or in the gen- eral consent, is a creed. Men may contend against this or that particular statement, but warfare against creeds is simply beating the air; it is warfare against belief, that is, against reason, intelligence, conscience. Our fathers left no one in doubt regarding their views of truth. They knew the men whom they admitted to the establishment and increasing of a church. The covenant itself was no blind confession, as we have seen. The book kept by Thomas Shepard, of which I have spoken, gives us the confession of fifty persons. On the day of the organization here, those who were to be formed into the church made public confession of
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their faith. These statements agreed in point of doc- trine. The preaching of such men as Shepard would keep the people instructed in the truth and prepared to make covenant with God and their brethren. " The matter of a visible church are saints by calling," so they said here. The theory of the fathers was that each church should make its own officers and administer its own affairs. But in doing this they were working in fellowship with others who were seeking the same ends by the same means, owning allegiance to the same Lord and Saviour, following the precepts of the same inspired Word. In their statements they emphasize the freedom of each church. They are the more careful to do this because they have broken away from a consolidated
body, with a hierarchial clergy. Their past sufferings, their present exile, their own experience and dread and hope, put the stress upon their independence. Yet they loved the other churches, and lived in fellowship with them. One chapter of the Cambridge Platform is devoted to " the communion of churches one with another." Their common history, position, perils, de- sires, united them. Advice, assistance, communion, we may call that which the churches gave and took among themselves ; but in meaning, in force, in regard, it was law. There are no bands stronger than love throws around us. Silken and soft, they hold when iron breaks. The decrees of the High Commission Court came with more sound of authority, but men resisted them and turned their faces to the wilderness to render willing alle- giance to the elders and messengers of the churches. We find freedom at the Mount of the Beatitudes ; yet from the lips of our Lord Christ fall commandments as strict, as exacting, as were heard amid the thunders of Sinai.
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I dwell on this now, because there is some tendency towards a mere independence among our churches. Congregationalism confers independence under the law of Christian fellowship. For men, for churches, the commandment is one : Love thyself ; love thy neighbor as thyself. Under this the Fathers acted; in this is our safety and honor. In the view of the fathers a church should have five officers, - pastor and teacher, who were called elders, ruling elder, deacon, and deacon- ess. The last I do not find that they ever had in form. These officers were to be chosen and ordained by the church in which they served. The pastor's special work was to "attend to exhortation, and therein to admin- ister a word of wisdom." He was to apply the pre- cepts of Scripture to the lives of men. The teacher was to "attend to doctrine, and therein to administer a word of wisdom." The one, therefore, had what we should term the practical, and the other the doctrinal, part of the present ministerial office. Both were to administer the sacraments of the church. Both were also "to exe- cute the censures." The earliest church here had both pastor and teacher, but in our own church the two offices seem to have been combined from the beginning. The ruling elder was to attend to the discipline of the church, and to take the lead in all matters of business. " To feed the flock of God with a word of admonition, and as they shall be sent for, to visit and pray over their sick brethren." The office was not of long con- tinuance. In fifty years from the settlement of the country it had fallen into comparative disuse, although it was continued here till near the close of the century. The deacon was to be a man proved and found blame- less. His work was "to receive the offerings of the
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church, and to keep the treasury of the church, and therewith to serve the tables which the church is to provide for ; as the Lord's table, the table of the minis- ters, and of such as are in necessity, to whom they are to distribute in simplicity." Some churches had one deacon, some two, some three. The number of elders varied in different churches. In the two hundred and thirty-five years of the history of this church there have been eleven pastors ; and I find the names of four ruling elders and thirty-one deacons. Having seen the constitution of the church, shall we look now at its methods, and somewhat at the ordering of the social life about it ?
" The public worship," says an early writer, " is in as fair a meeting-house as they can provide, wherein, in most places, they have been at great charges." If we could go within the rude sanctuary which once stood near this spot, we should find a rough room, divided by a central passage, and furnished with benches. On one side of the house the males would sit, on the other the females. Very likely some of the men would have carnal weapons. The pulpit would be found to be a stand or desk, within a railing, and in its plainness in keeping with its surroundings. On the Lord's Day there was a bell here to call the people, but for some reason there was at one time the beating of a drum for the same purpose. In our town records for 1646 is an entry of " fifty shillings paid unto Thomas Langhorne for his service to the town in beating the drum these two years past." It was common to have an hour-glass in the church by which to measure the time of the services. When the people became able to arrange the meeting- house according to their idea of the fitness of things,
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the ruling elders had a seat below the pulpit, and the deacons a seat a little lower down, where they faced the congregation. The pulpit was an elaborate structure under a sounding-board. The boys had a place by themselves, in one of the galleries, with a tithing-man to maintain order. In 1666 we have this record on the town-book, "Thomas Fox is ordered to look to the youth in time of public worship." In 1669 there was . complaint that sundry persons were spending holy time unprofitably without the meeting-house, and the constable was ordered to see "that they do attend upon the public worship of God."
In many cases the meet-
ing-house was finished by degrees. At first benches
would be put in. A man could obtain a deed of a space on the floor, some six feet square, and erect a pit or pew upon it. He was to keep his pew in repair, and " maintain all the glass against it." Where there was no such private arrangement, the people had seats assigned them by a committee, according to rank or property or age. This was called "dignifying" a house. Here is an order of 1658: "That the elders, deacons, and selectmen for the time being shall be a constant and settled power for regulating the sitting of persons in the meeting-house from time to time as need shall require." Here is the committee's appointment for 1662. I will not read it, but it begins in this way : " Brother Jackson's wife to sit there where Sister Kemp- ster was wont to sit. Mrs. Upham with her mother. Esther Sparhawke in the place where Mrs. Upham is removed from," and so on. In the New England cus- toms the congregation met as early as nine o'clock on Sabbath morning and about two in the afternoon. The services consisted of prayer, singing, reading and ex-
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pounding the Scriptures, for it was generally accounted improper to read them without exposition, - " dumb reading," they called it. There was a sermon also by the pastor or teacher. As they accounted a man a minister only in his own congregation, when one was in the pulpit of another clergyman it was common for the ruling elders of the place to give him authority to speak in some such form as this: " If this present brother hath any word of exhortation for the people at this time, in the name of God let him say on." His "saying on " was called prophesying. An hour was considered the proper length for a sermon, although upon occasions the preacher might " take another glass," as it was sometimes facetiously described. The sermon was usually preached without notes in the- first century. The prayers were, of course, extemporaneous. Children were baptized in the meeting-house, generally on the next Sabbath after their birth, sometimes on the day of their birth. The pastor or teacher stood in the deacons' seat, as that was an "eminent place," and with an address to the church and the parents, and two prayers, administered the sacred ordinance. " No sureties were required." The Lord's Supper was administered once in each month, at the morning service. The form was very much like our own. Persons were received to membership in public, but with more of examination and profession than with us. Cases of discipline were more publicly dealt with than is usual now. It is to be remembered that the whole life of the people was marked by a simplicity and frankness and familiarity which have lessened with the changes which have come upon society. Every Sabbath afternoon there was a contribution. One of the deacons stood up in his
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place, and said, " Brethren of the congregation, now there is time left for contribution, wherefore, as God hath prospered you, so freely offer." "On some extraor- dinary occasions," says an old writer, "as building and repairing of churches or meeting-houses, or other necessities, the ministers press a liberal contribution, with effectual exhortation out of Scripture." Then the people passed up to the deacons' seat with their offer- ings. " The magistrates and chief gentlemen went first, then the elders, then all the congregation of men, and most of them that are not of the church, all single per- sons, widows, and women in absence of their husbands." Money and papers were dropped into a box ; if the offering were "any other chattel," it was set down before the deacons. The writer just quoted says, " I have seen a fair gilt cup with a cover offered there by one, which is still used at the Communion." It was customary for visitors in the congregation to make an offering which was called " the strangers' money," and was often stipulated for by the clergyman as a per- quisite of his office. At first the minister's salary was paid from the voluntary contribution made on the Sab- bath, but this soon gave way to the system of taxation. In a list of the salaries given to different ministers during the first twenty years of the Massachusetts colony, Mr. Shepard's salary is stated at seventy pounds. This was among the largest salaries of the time. Two are given at ninety pounds, three at eighty pounds, and they decrease gradually to thirty pounds. At almost every point we can see where the fathers were swinging away from the customs of the church in which they had lost and endured so much. Thus, marriage was not a sacrament, but a civil contract, entered into by the
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parties before a magistrate. This marrying by a magis- trate was for the Pilgrims "according to the laudable example of the Low Countries in which they had lived." To perform this ceremony was nowhere found in the gospel to be laid on the ministers as a part of their office. Winthrop mentions a great marriage to be solemnized in Boston, when the bridegroom invited his minister to preach on the occasion. "The magistrates sent to him to forbear. We were not willing to bring in the custom of ministers' performing the solemnity of marriage, which sermons at such times might induce ; but if any minister were present, and would bestow a word of exhortation, etc., it was permitted." In like manner funerals were stripped of the ceremonies which had attended them abroad. The dead were no longer buried with imposing rites beneath the floor of the church or in consecrated ground, but were laid in some convenient enclosure, without even a prayer. Lechford, writing in 1641, says, " At burials nothing is read, nor any funeral sermon made, but all the neighborhood, or a good company of them, come together by tolling of the bell, and carry the dead solemnly to his grave, and there stand by him while he is buried. The ministers are most commonly present." No burial was allowed on the Sabbath, except by leave obtained from a justice. It was long the custom when a woman was buried for the women to walk first in the procession ; the men when a man was to be interred. Funerals were somewhat expensive, although not in the same direction as at present. This was especially the case when a person of note was buried : wine, cider, gloves, were provided ; and in one case, in Ipswich, at the funeral of a minister, in 1768, the bearers were furnished with gold rings, one
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of which was also given to "a candidate who was preaching for them," and the attending ministers re- ceived eighteen pairs of white leather gloves. At length an Act was passed to retrench extraordinary ex- penses at funerals. They kept none of the former holy days, except the Lord's Day, associating the observance of them with superstition and oppression. But they instituted days of public fasting and thanksgiving. In addition to the Sabbath services there was a weekly lecture. The Thursday lecture in Boston has come down to our own time. They gave great heed to the training of the young in religion and good learning. This town was early divided into districts, which were assigned to certain persons who were to see to the cate- chizing and educating of the youth. The school which here grew into the College was established the same year with the church, and watched over with interest and generosity. In 1648 is an order that a part of the Com- mon shall be sold "for the gratifying of Mr. Corlet for his pains in keeping a school in the town." In 1644 the General Court granted, on the petition of Cambridge and Charlestown, one thousand acres of land to be for- ever appropriated to a grammar school; and also made a grant of two hundred acres of land to Mr. Corlet. The instruction in the family and school was simple, compared with that which is now given. There were no spelling-books, no English grammars, little of what is now considered the essential apparatus of instruction. Children learned to read from the Bible, taking in truth with the letters and syllables. An out-of-door life gave the youth object-lessons and teaching in practical mechanics. A grammar school was one where Latin and Greek were taught. Students learned to talk in
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Latin, and gained a familiarity with its usages which our present system hardly gives. Our schools are in advance of the old, doubtless. But there was some advantage in having only a few books, and those the best, which were to be read till they were almost known by heart. Printing in this part of America began here. The first printer was Stephen Day, who brought out " The Freeman's Oath" in 1639 ; an al- manac by William Pierce, Mariner, in the same year, and in the following year a psalm-book. The singing in the churches was without instrumental accompani- ment. This was thought to be forbidden by the words of Amos, " I will not hear the melody of thy viols." It was compared to the idolatrous performance which Nebuchadnezzar delighted in, " the sound of the cornet, flute, harp, sackbut, psaltery, and dulcimer, and all kinds of music." Through the first century there were not more than ten different tunes, it is said, and few con- gregations could sing more than five. In the singing it was customary for the ruling elder, or deacon, or some other proper person, to read the hymn line by line and give out the tune. When a line had been read, it could be sung by the people. The amount read at each time was increased in some cases, and after a time the whole hymn was read at once by the minister. In the old Ipswich church in 1763 there were seats assigned the choir, " two back on each side of the front alley." After- wards the choir went into the gallery. The rude simplicity of our fathers had some things to recommend it in comparison with the services which in some places have of late been thrust into public worship under the guise of sacred song. The version of the Psalms in use here, as far as I can determine, was that made by Stern-
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hold and Hopkins, and printed at the end of the Bible. But there was a desire for a better book. There was complaint that the translation in use had "so many detractions from, additions to, and variations of, not only the text but the very sense of the psalmist, that it was an offence unto them "; so Cotton Mather explains it. A number of prominent divines were appointed to make a new version. Eliot of Roxbury and Mather of Dor- chester were among them. Our Thomas Shepard gave them warning in a stanza which makes us submissive to his absence from the committee, and reminds us that great men are not always poets.
" You Roxb'ry poets, keep clear of the crime Of missing to give us very good rhyme. And you of Dorchester, your verses lengthen, But with the text's own words you will them strengthen."
The book came out in 1640, and was well received. It was revised by Mr. Dunster, and received the addi- tion of " spiritual songs." It passed through seventy editions, and was used extensively in Great Britain, especially in Scotland. It was in use in some of our churches until after the Revolution. It was entitled " The Bay Psalm Book," and afterwards, "The New England Version of the Psalms." In order to compare it with the work which it displaced, I give a part of the Twenty-third Psalm, first in the version of Stern- hold and Hopkins : -
" My Shepheard is the living Lord, Nothing therefore I neede ; In pastures faire, with waters calme he sets me for to feede. He did convert and glad my soule, and brought my mind in frame ; To walke in paths of righteousnesse, for his most holy name."
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