USA > Massachusetts > Bristol County > Rehoboth > Rehoboth in the past. An historical oration delivered on the Fourth of July, 1860 > Part 2
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HIS CONCORDANCE. There had been partial Concord- ances, or rather indexes to certain parts of the Bible, attempted by Cardinal Charo, in the thirteenth cen- tury, and by several others in Hebrew, Greek and Latin, but the first full Concordance in English, that on which Cruden's and all later ones are based, was writ- ten or compiled by Samuel Newman. The first edition was printed at London in 1643, the last year of his ministry at Weymouth. The second edition was pre- pared in this town and printed at London in 1650, and
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the third and last edition, still more complete, was prepared here and printed at London in 1658, two hundred and two years ago this year; and here is the identical copy he reserved for his own use. It has been pronounced by Biblical scholars a monument of learning, genius, industry and skill. To the christian world, as its sacred literature then was, the admirable arrangement and perfect execution of this task was a glittering casket of diamonds, cut from the Scriptures, and set, for convenience, in pictures of gold. Highly and justly as this perfect guide to every significant word in the whole Bible, Apocrypha and all, was prized in Europe and America, this infant town, though then a wilderness, could claim the honor of its production. But,
" Each pleasure hath its poison, too, And every sweet a snare."
His publishers at London failed and defrauded him of all pecuniary reward for his labors; and about the time of his death, another edition being called for by the sales it met with, it was re-published at Cambridge University, England, under the high-sounding title of the "Cambridge Concordance," faintly crediting its authorship to the initial letters "S. N.," in small type, without stating whether of Old or New England, or the moon. Perhaps it would be difficult to find in the whole history of authorship an instance of more flagrant wrong committed upon a toiling scholar, about leaving the world, and unable to speak for himself by a distance of three thousand miles. But it was said by the Psalmist of old, "The righteous shall be in ever- lasting remembrance," a reward of far more value than
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booksellers' remittances; and I am proud of an op- portunity, though at the distance of two centuries, to vindicate his memory on this the original site of his achievements, though I could wish that the task had fallen to abler hands. Thus much of this sacred monu- ment of his literary labors.
HIS INTELLECTUAL AND RELIGIOUS CHARACTER, AND HIS DEATH. It is to be regretted that thirteen years after his decease, his library and papers, bequeathed in his will to his son Noah, and successor in the ministry, fared hard at the burning of the "ring of the town " on the 28th of March, 1676, by the Indians in Philip's war. Only a fragment of his diary escaped that con- flagration, but it is an important one. It was the private platform of his life, and the one on which cotemporary writers say he implicitly stood during his whole residence in America. This brief but im- portant document is as follows :
" Notes or marks of grace I find in myself; not wherein I desire to glory, but to take ground of assurance, and after our apostle's rules, to make my election sure, though I find them but in weak measure :
1. I love God, and desire to love God, principally for himself.
2. I desire to requite evil with good.
3. A looking up to God, to see him and his hand in all things that befall me.
4. A greater fear of displeasing God, than all the world.
5. A love of such christians as I never saw, or received good from.
6. A grief when I see God's commands broken by any person.
7. A mourning for not finding the assurance of God's love, and the sense of his favour, in that comfortable manner, at one time as at another ; and not being able to serve God as I should.
8. A willingness to give God the glory of any ability to do good.
9. A joy when I am in christian company, in Godly conference.
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10. A grief, when I perceive it goes ill with christians, and the contrary.
11. A constant performance of secret duties, between God and my- self, morning and evening.
12. A bewailing of such sins which none in the world can accuse me of.
13. A choosing of suffering to avoid sin."
As his implicit practice of, and adherence to, these thirteen golden rules, offsprings of their great proto- type in the New Testament, is corroborated by ample cotemporary testimony, no other evidence need be adduced to exhibit his as a well balanced, pure and lofty christian character. The more they are scru- tinized from a christian stand-point, the purer and brighter they will shine. And, to a suggestive mind, this number of thirteen might appear as rather ominous, for they would have strengthened the moral force of that immortal document we have heard read to-day as the platform of the thirteen new-born States, crea- ting a vast Republic, which can permanently endure only on a basis of political righteousness.
There are two events in his life which we could wish had never occurred, because they were misrepre- sented in the history of those times; but neither of them did his character any permanent harm, as they received their false coloring from the careless use of words by earlier and partizan historians. I would not shroud his faults in the mantle of his virtues, ample as that would be to cover them, for that would not be honest. That he participated in the limited vision that belongs to our mortal existence there can be no doubt. The sun itself has spots, and imperfection is clearly
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admitted in the twelfth item of his personal platform. The two events are these :\ Eight persons, with Oba- diah Holmes as their leader adopting the Baptist sen- timents, voluntarily withdrew from this church and held meetings of their own. The censure imputed to the pastor by the polemical writers of those times consisted in what they tortured into harshness in ercommunicating these persons from his church, when all he did in the matter was to formally discontinue their names as members of his church, after they had voluntarily withdrawn. The word excommunicate was not the right term ; it implied an unkindness that he never manifested. It is true that Obadiah Holmes was unmercifully and wrongfully whipped for his re- ligious opinions, but it was done for the exercise of those opinions in another place, and by the rigid, per- secuting authorities at Boston, and in a colony that had no control over Rehoboth. In religious tolera- tion, the governments of the Massachusetts and Ply- mouth Colonies were two very different bodies, and so were the people that sustained them; and this was one of the freest towns in this colony. But toleration, in those days, was as far as any of them could see, and to be tolerant was to be magnanimous. But tol- eration implies the reserved right to withhold that which is tolerated. The great idea that perfect relig- ious freedom, in all matters of conscience, was an in- herent, inalienable right in man, was reserved for an outcast of the Massachusetts Colony, and not the Ply- mouth. The sublime truth of " soul liberty " was a celestial spark that ignited the heart of Roger Wil- liams alone, but was destined by Omniscience to shed
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its radiance over our entire world. The intolerant severity wrongfully attributed to Rehoboth, had no real existence. And I think that if our aged friend, who, thank God, still lives, and is with us here to-day, the venerable and learned historian of the great and respectable Baptist denomination in this and other countries, [Rev. Dr. Benedict,] had written his lumi- nous history under the developments of the present day, instead of a half century ago, I think that he, with all his acknowledged ability and fairness of pur- pose, would have more amply shielded the memory of this generous and high-minded christian scholar.
The other regretted event is brief. Several citi- zens, whose zeal probably swerved their judgment, reported to the pastor that Mr. Holmes had made a false statement on some matter at court; and, in a public discourse on the importance of moral recti- tude, the pastor alluded to this report, not then suffi- ciently doubting its truth. Mr. Holmes brought an action for damages of £100. The pastor appeared at court, fully admitted the allusion he had made, and presented the testimony of those who thus informed him, they further testifying that they were mistaken and not willful in the charge. The court, seeing no evidence of intentional wrong on the part of the ac- cused or his informers, dismissed the idea of any dam- age, and ordered that the pastor should pay only the few shillings of cost. The complainant, Mr. Holmes, expressed himself perfectly satisfied that the pastor had intended him no wrongful injury, and preferred to pay the cost himself; and, in his next public dis- course, the pastor took occasion to set the whole mat-
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ter right. This case still stands thus on the Plymouth records; yet there have not been wanting religious partizans who have stated that the pastor of this church was prosecuted for defamation, damages £100, without giving its honorable termination. And this complain- ant was the same Obadiah Holmes who had been for- merly dismissed from this church at his own request, but not " excommunicated ;" and his manly feelings ex- hibited in this case show how little he supposed the meek pastor of this ancient church had to do with his being whipped at Boston for his religious opinions by those ministerial tigers who were so " voracious to do good."
Hospitality and generosity were marked features in his character. We read in Goldsmith of a parson
" Passing rich with forty pounds a year."
Our pastor had fifty pounds a year, but as he was the largest tax-payer in the town, excepting two, his peo- ple gave themselves but little trouble about paying him, deeming their wants for improvements to be greater than his, and with which he found but little fault. He loved his church as if it had been his fam- ily, and taught his family as if it had been his church ; and his church was pretty nearly the town. Once, on a journey from Boston to Rehoboth on horseback, [after that committee, with their civil engineer, had found the way to Dedham,] our pastor accidentally heard of a set lecture to be delivered by Rev. Richard Mather, at Dorchester, for the particular benefit of certain noted irreligious men. He resolved to hear it, and, turning his horse, rode to Dorchester, arriving
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there just as Mr. Mather was opening his meeting with prayer. Mr. Mather pressed him into his own place as preacher for the occasion, thus unexpectedly. Our pastor delivered one of his off-hand " christian philippics," and the result was that, in after days, several eminent christian citizens of Dorchester dated their conversion from that meeting.
Very few of his discourses were ever committed to writing. He is described by his almost forgotten co- temporaries as a lively, energetic and highly eloquent extemporaneous speaker, whose perspicuous sermons, like the orations of Homer's Nestor,
" Whose lip dropped language sweet,"
and which fell like the dews of Hermon on his cap- tive congregations; and if stenography or phonogra- phy had been as common then as now, this old town might have furnished one of the richest caskets of jewels in our country's theologie literature.
In a sort of three-fold eulogy pronounced by an eminent clergyman of those times, the year 1663 is termed a memorable year, inasmuch as in that year Norton of the Massachusetts Colony, Stone of the Connecticut Colony, and Newman of the Plymouth Colony,-the three divines from whom their respec- tive colonies were then drawing their largest share of christian light and influence,-all three expired within a few days of each other; a fact to which President Stiles of Yale College, a century later, adds his cor- roborative testimony. This remark alone, among the distinguished men of that age, implied no small dis- tinction.
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But although he has lived in the floating paragraphs of biographical dictionaries, and in the detached and fading scraps of a too much neglected department of by-gone literature, and in his Concordant folio of Bibli- cal jewels of utility and energy, yet his grave, in yon- der cemetery, remains unmarked by a fragment that tells his name ; and his memory is almost in the con- dition of another of more distant times, of whom it was said : "He was an ornament to the age in which he lived, but, in the multiplied troubles of the age, he had no historian, and was forgot."
I have but little faith in what is now passing over this age under the name of " Spiritualism," but I know of nothing in revelation, or in the laws of Nature as thus far developed in the fields of physical or intellec- tual philosophy, that positively precludes the idea that the disembodied existences of just men mnade perfect take cognizance and interest in the more refined por- tions of the mode of existence in which they once had so great an interest. In the absence of all positive proof, analogy would seem to favor the position that they do. The apostrophy in rhetoric is based on this probability. If, then, your departed pastor of this ancient church, with his beloved Deacons Cooper and Carpenter, and Goodman Paine, and Wheaton, and Bowen, and Read, and all that pious band of warin- hearted christians who, two centuries ago, trod in cheerful meekness this consecrated soil,-if they are now witnessing with interest this pious gathering of their descendants to commemorate them, let us listen a moment, with the ear of imagination, and catch some faint resemblance of their thoughts to us, as
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they are breathed on seraphs' wings and wafted from their celestial portals.
" Descendants and successors, now gathered on the spot of our once mortal existence! With a vision incomprehensible to you, we turn a moment from our higher employments, and with sympathetic in- terest in your present existence, we greet you in the dialect of earth. When we once breathed the life that you now breathe, we, like you, were mortal and imperfect, and stood upon a probationary foundation. We only acted in earnest the best we then knew, and in the light of that Revelation which was then our guide, and should now be yours. In our weakness we were sustained through our faith in promised grace, and clothed in the mantle of the great atone- ment. Thus equipped in the armor of Christ, who is now our associate, we were admitted to these realms where just men are made perfect, and where they reap the legitimate awards that flow, as a natural result, from their innate purity, thus made perfect through Divine influence. In the light of these, our mortal trials and immortal triumphs, we say to you, live on in the full discharge of your duty ;- to the best of your ability fulfil every Divine command, and cling to the atonement, in all its essential conditions, as your ark of safety. Thus answer the greatest ob- ject of your mortal existence, and, in due time, come to us. Then will we joyfully introduce you to scenes which mortal eye hath not seen, nor ear heard-a blissful beatitude, unknown and unexpressed in the dialect of man; and, with you, enjoy such an exist- ence, in unfading life, through endless duration. In-
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habitants of our once earthly abode! We appreciate the objects of your innocent, fraternal gathering, the first of its kind since we were summoned away ; and, with thoughts like these, we beckon you to a better world, at the appointed time; and until you thus meet us-adieu !"
Returning from this digressive apostrophy, we will close the ecclesiastie portion of our review by de- scribing the singular death of the first pastor of this church, and then turn our attention to civic things.
His death was different from that of the ordinary lot of men, but I do not regard it in that miraculous light in which it was then viewed, wonderful and ex- traordinary as it truly was. From the nature of his Biblical studies in compiling his Concordance, he had every part of the Divine revelations under constant rumination, and this, to him, was the means of arriv- ing at an extraordinary measure of that sanctity which these great truths, rightly improved, would naturally inspire. Thus, as he drew towards the close of his life, he seemed to advance more and more towards the beginnings of his final triumph over his portion of our fallen nature; and a foresight of its joys very observably, but calmly, irradiated his whole being.
On Sunday, June 28, 1663, O. S., one hundred and ninety-seven years ago this year, he delivered his last sermon, from Job XIV., 14 : " All the days of my appoint- ed time will I wait, until my change come." In that discourse he presented a brilliant synopsis of his whole christian teachings since he had been their shepherd, informing his sorrow-smitten congregation that his mission upon earth was closed, and imparted his final
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and tearful benedictions, though then in perfect health and but sixty-one years of age. He was seen no more mingling in the affairs of men, and spent the follow- ing seven days at his house, in the midst of his family altar, where his physical nature gradually grew weak without pain and without any visible cause ; and as his mortal structure receded, his spiritual being visi- bly increased in heavenly irradiation. On the fol- lowing Sunday, July 5, the church drum was silent, and ceased to call the accustomed congregation, and men met each other that morning in silent salutation and with downcast and foreboding countenances. A few select members of the church spent some time in an interview with their pastor, at his house, in the afternoon, of the minutiæ of which there is no record, other than at the termination of it, he asked Deacon Cooper to close the parting with prayer; immediately after which, he turned his face from the gaze of mor- tals towards the wall of the room, and calmly spoke these words : " And now, ye angels of the Lord Jesus Christ, come, do your office !" and gently falling back upon his couch, breathed no more.
Such was the manner of his death, as attested by Rev. Drs. Mather, Elliot and others; and accounts of it were drawn up at the time by several clergymen and others, and sent to their friends in England; but they gave to it a miraculous shade to which these sin- gular facts were not entitled. The laws of physical and intellectual life were less understood then than now ; and there was no miracle about it. It was sim- ply a result ; not a general, but an occasional result, flowing from a deeply pious and energetic intellectual
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christian life ; and was but another of the very few, but well authenticated, instances of premonition, or that premonitory presentiment whereby, for some Divine Providential reason, unknown to us, but which we have no right to question,-a well developed instance among the few who have been permitted to foresee the time and circumstances of their own exchange of worlds.
His departure was long and deeply lamented by his bereaved flock, and throughout New England. In his toil on his Concordance and Biblical studies he was compared with Neander, a Rector of a German Uni- versity, who, in the preceding century, had spent many years of vast labor in making notes and com- mentaries on the Greek classics of antiquity ; and, in view of all these facts, an eminent scholar of another colony wrote the following brief but comprehensive Latin epitaph to his memory, which, if future piety and justice should ever set up a stone to his yonder lonely grave, might, with propriety, be a part of its inscription :
" Mortuus est Neander Nov-Anglus, Qui ante mortem dedicit mori, Et obiit eâ morte quæ potest esse, Ars benè moriendi."
Which permit me to offer in an English dress :
Thus died the Neander of New-England, Who in his life had learned how to die, And whose death may be called the Art of dying well. (h)
For the five succeeding years there was no settled minister of this church; but Rev. Mr. Symes, Rev. John Miles and Rev. Mr. Burkley were severally em- ployed to supply the desk until March, 1668, when Noah Newman, youngest son of the former pastor, 5
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having then completed his preparatory studies, was ordained as the successor to his father; and after ten years of acceptable and appreciated service, died in 1678, and his grave is yonder, by the side of his father's. I have identified the location of each, but
"No stone now tells Their name, their worth, their glory."
The third pastor was Rev. Samuel Angier; from 1679 till his health failed in 1692.
The fourth was Rev. Thomas Greenwood ; settled in October, 1693. [The record looks like 91, but it is a faded 3.]
The fifth was Rev. John Greenwood, son of the for- mer, and ordained 1721. These two Greenwoods were most worthy and pious men, and their memory should long be kept green as the woods of perennial summer.
The sixth was Rev. John Carnes, a graduate of Har- vard, and installed April 18, 1759. He resigned his post in 1764, and from 1776 to the close of the Revo- lution was a chaplain in the American army,-nine years representative in the Legislature, and a mem- ber of the Massachusetts Convention that adopted the National Constitution. He died in 1802, aged 78, a patriotic and pious citizen of unblemished reputation.
The seventh was Rev. Ephraim Hyde, a graduate of Yale College, ordained May 14, 1766, preached seven- teen years, and died in 1783, aged 45. He was much beloved by his people, and his grave is in yonder cemetery.
The eighth was Rev. John Ellis, a graduate of Har- vard College in 1750. He was a chaplain in the army
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throughout the entire Revolution, and installed over this church March 30, 1785, dismissed, at his own re- quest, in 1796, from age and infirmities, and died at Norwich, Connecticut, 1806, aged 78. During the min- istry of Mr. Ellis, the neighboring and highly respec- table and flourishing Baptist Church on the south end of this Common was organized, in 1794. That church had its origin in a mistaken view of the ownership of certain legacies bequeathed to this society at an earlier period. They believed, or appeared to believe, that a donation made and accepted for a specific purpose, could be changed for another purpose at the will of a majority of its recipients ; and they being then in a majority, barred the doors of this church until the Supreme Ju- diciary, after a patient and most thorough investigation, unbarred them and restored order. But no crimination nor recrimination need now be uttered, for this state of things soon died away, and the two churches, though different in what I regard as non-essential human creeds, have long walked hand in hand in the spirit of unity ; and down to this day are exhibiting inter- changes and religious courtesies but rarely met with, and are setting an example of genuine liberality wor- thy of all christian commendation ; and they approach nearer than any instance within my knowledge to that immortal line in the writings of an English bard, a sen- timent which will one day pervade the whole world :
" Be all distinctions, in the christian, lost."
The ninth pastor of this church was Rev. John Hill ; installed September 22, 1802, and lost his life by the kick of a horse in 1816. I was present at his funeral.
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He was an erudite linguist in Hebrew, Greek and Latin, and well versed in the various departments of English literature. In addition to his very accepta- ble ministerial duties, he kept a school for the above named studies; and was beloved by his church and the youth under his charge. His wife was Roby Bowen; born at Coventry, Rhode Island, November 29, 1766, a lineal descendant, in the fifth generation, from "Father Richard Bowen," the town clerk and standing regulator of town meetings in this place two hundred years ago ; and she still survives in yonder house of her departed husband, in sight of this church, and at the age of nearly ninety-four, and being the nearest link that connects us with the first settlers of this ancient town. The word grandfather, with two greats to it, will carry this lady back, genealogically, to England, at a period when the passengers of the Mayflower were quietly located in Holland, and when no Indian in these colonies had ever beheld a pale- faced European. This fact arose from several gene- rations being born late in the lives of their fathers. "Father Bowen " died February 4, 1675, at an ad- vanced age, [I know not what,] and two families of his grand-children, containing fourteen persons, lived one thousand and thirty-nine years, being an average of over seventy-four years each.
De mortuis nil nisi verum.
The tenth is our friend, Rev. James O. Barney, the present pastor, a graduate of Brown University, and ordained February 4, 1824, and whose labors and success, and whose long appreciation by this people,
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is a subject which will tell its own story,-an agree- able task, of which I have no prescriptive right to rob the future historian. Long may it yet be before his successor shall be finally announced.
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