USA > Massachusetts > Suffolk County > Charlestown > The history of the First church, Charlestown, in nine lectures, with notes > Part 9
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The labors of Mr. Shepard were not in vain ; God encouraged him by making such additions to the church, as few churches in the country at that time received. He has recorded the
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names of sixty persons-twenty males and forty females-as received to the full communion of the church ; and this during his brief ministry of five years, shows an average increase of twelve for each year, which is a larger number than the average of admissions under his father, or since the organization of the church.
The only vote of the church, recorded by Mr. Shepard during the period of his ministry, is the following :
" March 8, 1685. Voted and concurred in by the church, that men's relations (their own pronouncing them having been con- stantly found inconvenient) be for the future read: Nemine contradicente. T. S."
Originally, in the formation of the first Puritan churches, those who sought admission were privately examined by the ministers ; but in the year 1634, one of the brethren was present at an examination, and was so much interested, as to awaken a desire in others to be present, until at length the whole church attended.1 It then became the practice for men to give a verbal account of their religious experience, or relations, as they were, called, while those of the women were written and read. It will be remembered that Mr. Shepard, on being admitted to the church, made a statement of his religious views and experience. This practice, however, being attended by many inconveni- encies, it was resolved by our church at this date, and by the Old South also about the same time, to dispense with oral, and receive written relations. This latter mode becoming after a few years a mere form, it was dropped, and our churches returned to the former mode of examinations before the officers of the church, to whom is now commonly added a committee of the brethren.
The above-mentioned vote of the church was passed just three months before the sudden and lamented death of their youthful pastor. About this time he was preaching a series of thirteen sermons on those words of the Preacher in Ecclesiastes xii. 5: " Man goeth to his long home." His friend tells us that " he had a strange and strong presage on his own mind, that he was himself to be not long from that home." His family were short-lived. His grandfather, of Cambridge, died in his
1 Magnalia, I1. 209.
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forty-fourth year, his father in his forty-third year ; and he him- self had a presentiment that he should not outlive the age of twenty-seven, at which his uncle died, the Rev. Samuel Shepard, third pastor of the church in Rowley-a man so much beloved by his people, that they would have plucked out their eyes to have saved his life."
This apprehension of early death seems to have deeply impressed the mind of Mr. Shepard, and influenced both his preaching and his conduct, so that he stood prepared for the sudden visitation which at last befell him. By a surprising coincidence with his unaccountable forebodings, he expired on Sabbath night, June 7, 1685, after an illness of one or two days, when he was a month short of twenty-seven. He was some- what indisposed on Friday, but continued his labors all the day following, to be ready for the Lord's day, when he was to have administered the sacrament of the Lord's supper. But, on Saturday night, his illness grew so much upon him, that he desisted, and said to his wife, " I would gladly have been once more at the table of the Lord, but I now see that I shall no more partake thereof, until I do it after a new manner in the kingdom of heaven !" "On Lord's day noon," says Cotton Mather, who, together with Mr. Nathaniel Gookin, supplied the pulpit that day, " I visited him, and at my parting with him, he said, 'my hopes are built on the free mercy of God, and the rich merit of Christ, and I do believe, that, if I am taken out of the world, I shall only change my place ; I shall neither change my company, nor change my communion ; and as for you, sir, I beg the Lord Jesus to be with you until the end of the world !' After this he said but little to his attendants, but was often overheard pouring out prayers, and especially for the widow-church (as he often expressed it) which he was to leave behind him. And in the night following," says Mather, "to the extreme surprise of his friends on earth, he went away to those in heaven."
The surprise with which the intelligence of Mr. Shepard's death was received by his friends, is well expressed by Judge Sewall, in his MS. journal, the day after it occurred. " Asaph Eliot comes in and tells me the certain news, doleful news, of Mr. Shepard of Charlestown, his being dead; of whose illness I heard nothing at all. Saw him very well this day sennight.
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Was much smitten with the news. Was taken on Friday night ; yet being to preach and administer the Lord's supper on Sab- bath day, forbore physick, at least at first."
His funeral took place on Tuesday, June 9th. The gover- nor, lieutenant governor, and magistrates, together with some of the most distinguished clergymen, were present; the faculty of Harvard College were also present, inasmuch as he was one of the overseers of that institution-and the students walked before the hearse. The pall-bearers were Mr. Mather, Mr. Simmes, Mr. Willard, Mr. Hubbard of Cambridge (Hobart of Newton), Mr. Nathaniel Gookin, and Mr. Cotton Mather. Judge Sewall says " that there were some verses, but none pin'd on the herse ; " this refers to a practice in those days, of compos- ing complimentary verses upon the deceased, and attaching them to the hearse.
In addition to the account which has now been given of Mr. Shepard's life, it will not be necessary to say much of his character. For so young a man, he possessed an extensive acquaintance with theology. He had no sympathy with the new divinity of the day, but was ardently attached to ortho- doxy, and able in defending the truth against Arminian oppo- sers. " He looked," says Mather, "upon many late books written to undermine the orthodox articles of the Church of England, by persons who perhaps had got into preferment by subscribing those very articles, as books that indeed betrayed the Christian religion under pretence of upholding it." Among his favorite authors, were Usher, Caryl, Owen, Sherlock, and Hooker.
The facts which I have given, have been chiefly derived from Cotton Mather, who was (as I have before said ) but two years the junior of Mr. Shepard in college, and who has drawn his friend's character with the warm coloring of personal affec- tion and admiration. " I confess," he says, "my affection unto my dear Shepard to have been such, that if I might use the . poet's expression of his friend, anime dimidium mec, I must say, I am half buried since he is dead ; or, he is but half dead since I am alive."
" Dear Shepard, sure we dare not call thee dead :
Tho' gone, thou'rt but unto thy kindred fled."
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By the decease of Mr. Shepard, the church was again left without a pastor and teacher ; nor do we know to whom the minds of the people were directed, until the arrival in this country, the following summer, of the Rev. Charles Morton, whose celebrity for great and various acquisitions drew towards him at once the attention not merely of this town, but of the community at large. This gentleman was born at Pendavy, in the county of Cornwall, in the year 1626.1 His father, the Rev. Nicholas Morton, was minister of St. Mary Overy's, in Southwark, where he died. Two of his brothers were also clergymen. He descended from an ancient and honorable family at Morton in Nottinghamshire, the seat of Thomas Mor- ton, who was secretary to king Edward III. in the fourteenth century. At the age of fourteen, he was sent by his grand- father to Wadliam College in Oxford, where he applied himself with great diligence to study, and became very zealous for the rites and ceremonies of the Church of England, after the exam- ple of his grandfather, who was a great royalist. When the civil wars came on, however, he observed that the most virtuous part of the nation were on the side of the parliament against the king, and this is said to have led him to examine the con- troversy ; the consequence of which was, that he sided with the Puritans. While he was fellow of the college, he greatly distinguished himself by his mathematical genius, as he did indeed by his general scholarship. After leaving college, he settled in the ministry in Blisland, where his father had settled before him and from which he had been ejected for non-con- formity, and here he lived comfortably for several years. From this living, however, he was ejected by the act of Uniformity of 1662, and afterwards lived in a small house of his own in the parish of St. Ives, where he preached to a few people of a neighboring village until the great fire of London. By that event he suffered great losses, and was compelled to remove to London that he might take care of his affairs. Here he was prevailed upon to engage in the instruction of youth, for which he was singularly fitted, and which he prosecuted with distin- guished success for some years at Newington Green. He edu- cated some scores of ministers, and many of his scholars attained
1 Calamy's Non-Conformist's Memorial.
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distinction both in church and state. De Foe, the celebrated author of Robinson Crusoe, was one of his pupils. He is said to have had a peculiar tact in winning youth to the love of virtue and learning, both by his pleasant conversation and a familiar way he had of making difficult subjects intelligible. The design of Mr. Morton's academy at Newington Green was to extend the privileges of a liberal education to Dissenters, who were excluded from the national universities. He carried his pupils not only through the literary and scientific studies pursued at college, but also gave lectures to those who were preparing for professional life. Twenty years of his life were spent in this useful and honorable employment; but during the whole period he was subjected to continual processes from the bish- ops' courts, to which he was compelled at length to yield, and, in consequence of the aspect of public affairs in England, to betake himself to this country. Among the motives that induced him to remove to New England, was the expectation afforded him of presiding over Harvard College. But when he arrived, the political condition of the country was so changed- James II. having revoked the charter, dissolved the General Court, and placed the colony under arbitrary rule-that it was inexpedient, if not impossible, to intrust the college to one so obnoxious to the government as Mr. Morton. His fitness for the station, however, was universally conceded; the office of vice-president was created for him, and he would, no doubt, have been elected president, had his life been prolonged. He was followed to this country by two or three young men, who attended his lectures on philosophy, which he read at his own house ; and his fame as an instructor was beginning to draw to him several from the college ; but this causing great uneasiness in the corporation, he was forced to decline teaching any farther.
Of the welcome reception which Mr. Morton received on his arrival in this country, we have an account in the journal of John Dunton,1 who has left us a very lively narration of what he saw during a visit he made to Boston in 1686, bringing with him letters of introduction from various persons in England, and among the rest from Mr. Morton himself.
1 2 Mass. Hist. Coll I1. 115.
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He had been making a visit to Natick, where he had gone to see with his own eyes what Christianity had done for the Indians, and to hear Mr. Eliot preach to them ; and upon his return, he says :
" Upon my coming to Boston, I heard that the Rev. Mr. Morton, so much celebrated in England for his piety and learn- ing, was just arrived from England, and with him his kinsman, Dr. Morton the physician. The news of Mr. Morton's arrival was received here with extraordinary joy by the people in general, and they had reason for it, for besides his being a useful man in fitting young men for the ministry, he always gave a mighty character of New England, which occasioned many to fly to it from the persecution which was then raging in London." " I know it would be presumption in me," he continues, " to draw Mr. Morton's character ; yet, being personally acquainted with him, I cannot but attempt something like it. His conver- sation showed him a gentleman-he was the very soul of philosophy ; the several manuscripts he writ for the use of his private academy, sufficiently showed this. He was the reposi- tory of all arts and sciences, and of the graces too; his dis- courses were not stale or studied, but always new and occasional, for whatever subject was at any time started, he had still some pleasant and pat story for it. His sermons were high, but not soaring -- practical, but not low ; his memory was vast as his knowledge, yet (so great was his humility ) he knew it the least of any man ; he was as free from pride as ignorance, and if we may judge of a man's religion by his charity, (and can we go by a surer rule ?) he was a sincere Christian." 1
We may readily suppose that this church and town did not delay long in making the necessary arrangements to secure the services of Mr. Morton as their minister. He arrived in the month of July, 1686, and in the following November (5th ) he was solemnly inducted into the pastoral office, after the " widow- church"-as the dying young Shepard called it-had been without a pastor about a year and a half.
There was something peculiar about the method in which Mr. Morton entered upon the pastoral office. He himself called it an induction ; it was properly an installation, as that
1 Note 37.
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word is now used in distinction from ordination, and is probably the first instance in which this distinction was recognised.
It will be remembered that the Rev. John Wilson, and all the first Puritan ministers, who had received ordination in England, were re-ordained with the imposition of hands afresh, when they took upon them the charge of a particular church. The design of this was not to deny the validity of their former ordination, but to teach a principle of Congregationalism, incor- porated into the Platform, and there expressed in these words : " He that is clearly loosed from his office-relation unto the church whereof he was a minister, cannot be looked at as an officer, nor perform any act of office in any other church, unless he be again orderly called unto office ; which when it shall be we know nothing to hinder but imposition of hands ought to be used towards him again." It was under the influence of these sentiments that Mr. Cotton thought himself incompetent to baptize his infant son, born at sea, because there was no church on ship-board, and as a minister he had no right to administer the seals except in his own church.
This extreme and rigid opinion was now giving way, and Mr. Morton, by the influence of his character and example, contributed not a little to bring it into discredit. Indeed it is rather a feature of Independency, than Congregationalism. Judge Sewall was present at the installation, and from his account 1 we learn that the new practice was not pleasing to all. In the first place opportunity was offered to the church, and to all, to offer objections if they had any, and then the vote of the church was taken. Mr. Morton preached from Rom. i. 16, " For I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ; for it is the power of God unto salvation, to every one that believeth ; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek." He alluded very pithily to the 5th of November, the day of his installation, which was the anniversary of Thanksgiving in England for their deliverance from the Gunpowder Treason ; he said that just the contrary to what the Epistle to the Romans inculcated was taught and practiced at Rome. Mr. Mather gave him his charge, and " spoke in praise of the Congregational way, and
1 Am. Quart. Reg. xiii. 44. In this periodical will be found much valuable information respecting our church, in a series of articles furnished by Rev. Samuel Sewall of Burlington.
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said, were he as Mr. Morton, he would have hands laid on him." Mr. Moodey also in his prayer alluded to the subject, and intimated that " that which would have been grateful to many (viz : laying on of hands) was omitted."
Mr. Morton was sixty years of age when he entered, in this manner, upon the duties of a pastor in this church-a period of life much more advanced than any other of our ministers had attained to at the time of settlement. During his ministry of nearly twelve years, fifty-nine were admitted to full communion with the church, and six hundred twenty-three baptized, two hundred eighty-four males and three hundred thirty-nine females.
Before concluding this discourse, I cannot refrain from making a few observations upon the mutability of human affairs. Verily man walketh in a vain show! In dwelling upon the events to which our attention has been called, we have wit- nessed but a representation of the shifting scenes in which we are ourselves actors! We have been thinking over again the thoughts of men long dead, we have been moving in the midst of a generation of shadows, the magistrates and pastors and people of olden time have passed before us, we have beheld them again agitated with the desires and hopes and fears of life. It is an impressive thing to walk the earth in imagina- tion, with forms that are dust now-whose voices and passions have been left far behind us in the lapse of time-whose projects and hopes are low beneath our feet, like autumn's leaves; for the reflection cannot but recur with force to every mind, that as they and theirs now are, so shall we soon be! How profita- ble the lessons of history ! Each tolling bell, that marks the passing away of life, utters the same lesson which time has been teaching since it first began to mete off man's probation ; vanity and change-the same allotments happen to all alike ! With all the variety of life-variety enough to interest and excite each successive generation of men-the experience of man is still the same. Upon this same theatre-for these houses and lands-you contend, and then retire, and leave others to act over the same scenes, and with a like result !
We have wept by the bier of the youthful Shepard, and have looked with reverence upon the ancient men of that early gen- eration. So, too, are the aged and the young among us ; and
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among us the blighting of early promise, and the falling of hopes that have opened to fade and drop. I have had occasion before, to allude to the few survivors of the Pilgrim generation. As we have seen a few leaves clinging to a naked tree, and sometimes the young and tender ones holding on till mid-win- ter notwithstanding frost and tempest ; so a few of that first generation out-lived the privations of their settlement in the wilderness, and saw their children's children, in an old age full of years and honors. By the kindness of the Rev. Mr. Sewall, of Burlington, I have been furnished with an extract from his ancestor's journal, which makes mention of the death and funeral of the relict of Increase Nowell, and a few others who were probably among the last of Winthrop's companions.
" 1687. March 22. A considerable snow on the ground which fell last night. Mrs. Eliot, of Roxbury, dies. Now about, Goodman Francis, an ancient and good man indeed, of Cam- bridge, dies. Friday, March 25. Mrs. Nowell, Samuel Nowell Esq's. mother dies. 28. Went to Mrs. Eliot's funeral, which was a very great one ; no scarfs. 29. To Mrs. Nowell's, the widow of Mr. Increase Nowell, a Patentec. Mr. Danforth, Davie, Richards, Russell, Cook, Sewall, bearers. None else of the old government were there but Mr. Secretary Rawson. I helped to lift the corpse into Mr. Shepard's tomb, and to place it there, carrying the head. Mr. Nowell went not in. Eighty- four years old."
Thus have they passed away-the dead and they that buried their dead ! How emphatically do the places that once knew them-not only the places of their abode, but the places of their sepulture-know them no more for ever. The memorials of nearly all the first settlers have been effaced by the action of time, or destroyed by the desolating war, which, a century after, laid the town in ashes, and left to the violence of soldiers the hill where the fathers were gathered together in the sleep of the grave. You will search in vain, among the sunken and inclining stones of your burying-hill, for the names so familiar to your early history ; not one of the names of the early religious teachers of the church, Symmes, Harvard, the elder and younger Shepard, or the aged Morton, can now be found. But they are not and never can be forgotten. Their names are now living freshly on the tablets of immortal hearts.
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They are, we may not doubt, surrounded by those to whom they ministered the word and sacraments of life on earth ; and think you that in their hearts the names and services of their faithful pastors can ever be forgotten ?
But peace to their ashes ! Whatever philosophy may say, it is the dictate of religion, as well as of natural taste and sentiment, to care for the burial places of those that sleep in Jesus. We believe not only in the immortality of the soul, but also in the resurrection of the body ; does not the Redeemer himself watch over the sleeping dust of his disciples, and does the believer want any greater incentive, to hallow the last resting place of his guide or companion in faith ?
And here let me say a word to the inhabitants of this town respecting the reverence that is due their 'burying-hill,'-piled (if I may be allowed the expression) with sacred dust. It is indescribably dear to many of you, because those are sleeping there whom you once loved, and still love; and those also are there, whom it was a blessing to know, and whom it is a blessing to succeed. Cherish the place then, and guard it with a rampart of filial hearts ! It is a pleasing indication of modern taste and refinement, that some of the most beautiful spots in nature, like Mount Auburn, have been consecrated to the burial of the dead. Surely it is a becoming act of piety to protect from injury, and render attractive, the spots which the venerable dead have themselves consecrated by making them their last resting places. The fathers of the town acted upon this principle, and offered the best they had, when they devoted the ' burying- hill' to their dead; it was the most beautiful and appropriate site on the peninsula, commanding a varied and extensive prospect, eminently calculated to soothe and elevate the mind when seen in the soft twilight of a Sabbath evening, at which time the Puritans and their children were wont to pay a solemn yet cheerful visit to the graves of their departed kindred. That ground is still capable of being beautified and rendered at- tractive, and thus made to serve a valuable moral purpose, by impressing upon the hearts of the present generation a salutary reverence for the Pilgrim Fathers.
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LECTURE VI.
GENESIS Xvii. 7, 8.
AND I WILL ESTABLISH MY COVENANT BETWEEN ME AND THEE, AND THY SEED AFTER THEE IN THEIR GENERATIONS, FOR AN EVERLASTING COVENANT, TO BE A GOD UNTO THEE AND TO THY SEED AFTER THEE. AND I WILL GIVE UNTO THEE AND TO THY SEED AFTER THEE, THE LAND WHEREIN THOU ART A STRANGER, ALL THE LAND OF CANAAN, FOR AN EVERLASTING POSSESSION ; AND I WILL BE THEIR GOD.
AMONG all the ministers of this church, no man enjoyed a higher reputation for talents and learning with his cotemporaries than Mr. Morton. The circumstances of his arrival in this country, the welcome he received, together with his previous reputation, afford evidence of this ; but ampler proof may be derived from the writings he has left us, both published and unpublished. It was Mr. Morton's practice to prepare essays and tracts on various literary and scientific subjects, and place them in the hands of his students to be copied by them. One of these has been published by Mr. Calamy. It was a paper drawn up under the reign of king Charles II., and bears the title of " Advice to Candidates for the Ministry under the present discouraging circumstances." I shall take the liberty of pre- senting a few extracts from this essay, not only for their intrinsic value, but for the light they will cast upon the author's views of the ministerial office, and his own character as a minister.
" Presuming you will accept of advice from one you know loves and wishes you well, and whose comforts are much bound up in your well-doing-having observed some desid- eranda in divers who are entering into the sacred work-I thought it my duty to deal plainly and faithfully with you in a few suitable and seasonable admonitions to you.
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