USA > Rhode Island > Washington County > Narragansett > A history of the Episcopal church in Narragansett, Rhode Island, including a history of other Episcopal churches in the state > Part 17
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religion. And, what seems most farcical, this sentence is gravely pronounced in the name of a king who was the civil head of the church whose rights Checkley maintained ; and that king is coolly made to pocket a fifty pounds penalty, not for the assault, but tie defence of a faith he himself was sworn to uphold !
Checkley republished his pamphlet in 1728, in the city of London, during a visit he made to England with the view of obtaining Holy Orders ; and remembering the harshness and almost comic inconsis- tency with which he had been treated, added to it the following, as he calls it, " specimen of a true dissenting catechism, upon right true blue dissenting principles, with learned notes by way of ex- plication." He gives us two questions, and two answers, with one note, composed of two lines of poetry. Whether this is a sample of a longer catechism, or the entire catechism itself, the writer of this article cannot say ; but here is what he gives, and as he gives it.
Question .- Why don't the Dissenters, in their public worship, make use of the Creeds ?
Answer .- Why ? Because they are not set down, word for word, in the Bible.
Question .- Well; but why don't the Dissenters, in their public worship, make use of the Lord's Prayer ?
Answer .- Oh ! Because that is set down, word for word, in the Bible.
Note .- They're so perverse and opposite, As if they worshipped God for spite,
Checkley, doubtless, paid his fine for rendering the king a service, entered into his recognizances, and lived on to annoy the poor Puritans a second time. He obtained secret information of the anti- Episcopal conclave which was to assemble at Boston in 1724-5, to discuss the rationale of the Divine Administration respecting New England; and by means of his letters, with those of Dr Cutler's, the council was not so much as permitted to assemble. Some " account of this affair may be found in Dr. Coit's book on Puritan- ism, note 103, pp. 503-505.
In 1727, Checkley, now at the advanced age of forty-seven, determined to go to England, that he might devote the residue of his
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life to the service of the church of his love, in his native land, in functions of the most sacred character. Why, at such a very un- usual age, he should take that step, we are not particularly informed. His enemies said he had learning enough, but was altogether desti- tute of piety. Piety ! could secular motives induce a man, almost half a century old, and who had spent his life probably in literary leisure-who had time enough, and means enough, to take a journey over Europe, and bring home curiosities which would have been thought sufficient for the revenue of a lordling-could secular motives induce such a man to assume a religious office, amid a people who would never give him rest, and for the paltry pittance of fifty pounds a year-the salary he might receive as a missionary from the society for propagating the gospel ? They may think so, with whom a penny is a weighty, and a dollar an almighty consid- eration ; but a mind imbued with a particle of Christian generosity, will put a different construction on the matter.
Checkley was not seeking much, either in the way of revenue or comfort, by resorting to London to ask his bishop for holy orders. Nevertheless he was followed to London, and most sedulously, by Puritan apprehension and vengeance, He had scarcely slept there a night before he was, at the instigation of New England informers, absolutely seized as a traitor by a king's bailiff; and, of course, not his liberty only, but his life, put in jeopardy. I have this from a manuscript letter of the Rev. Dr. Burhans, one of our oldest clergy, formerly of Newtown, Connecticut, whose first wife was a direct descendant of one of Checkley's wardens, when he was finally gratified in the long-cherished desire of his heart, and established in an American parish.
This project was plainly somewhat desperate, and failed. But his enemies were too shrewd to rest their hopes upon a solitary effort. Beside their complaint of him as a traitor, two of the Puritan min- isters of Marblehead indited a letter against him to the Bishop of London, the celebrated Edmund Gibson. In this sweet missive, in order to awaken the bishop's political prejudices, they denounced him as a Non-juror, and in consequence an enemy to the house then on the British throne-the House of Hanover. To awaken the bishop's prejudices against him as a peace disturber, (for they knew
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Dr. Gibson's kindly feeling and Catholic temperament,) they called him a bitter enemy to all other denominations but his own-to awaken the bishop's prejudices against him as an ignoramus, they declared he had had no liberal education : very true this last, when we remember they had Harvard College only in their eye. and thought nothing of Oxford, with all its sad appliances for making churchmen. One of the ministers, also, who signed this letter, was a man who complained, down to his very grave, of somewhat similar treatment received by himself from the hands of Cotton Mather- (Mass. Hist. Coll. Ist ser. viii. 68.) But a churchman was now the object of his vengeance ; and as it is lawful to spoil the Egypt- ians, he probably felt no very alarming twinges of conscience.
The second shot against Checkley was better aimed, and it told well. Bishop Gibson declined ordaining him, and he was constrain- ed to return a layman, rather than a Reverend, with the stately income of fifty whole sterling pounds !
Nevertheless, the anxious desire to serve God in the Gospel of his Son slept not in the breast of this unfortunate churchman, who had not a nook or corner there for true piety to nestle in ! In the year 1739, the Bishop of Exeter, Stephen Weston, a friend of Bishop Sherlock's, was found willing to hear this impracticable man, begging at the age of fifty-nine, to be allowed to minister in one of the hard- est spheres on earth to which a churchman was ever doomed, and for enough-so far as the income of his post was concerned-to keep body and soul possibly in each others neighborhood. Bishop Weston actually ordained him-perhaps the oldest candidate in the history of the Christian church, who was ever admitted to the honors of an office, which was all but enough to kill any ordinary subject of his years in twelve round months. And it is pleasant to reflect, that he probably ordained him with the consent of Bishop Gibson ; for he was then alive, and in fact did not die till nearly ten years afterwards.
Well, armed with his sacred credentials, John Checkley at last stood upon his natal soil prepared to contend for the faith once delivered to the saints. He was sent to Providence, in Rhode Island, no doubt to remove him somewhat from the atmosphere of Boston, which would certainly have mustered for his devoted head some good stout thunderclaps. And there he ministered, officiating
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at intervals at Warwick aad Attleborough, for 14 years ; till, in 1753, in the seventy-third year of his ardent life, God gave him respite, and called him home.
It was much to be desired that we had some authentic memorials of a ministry, began at almost the utmost verge of man's longest ordinary life. It ought to have been a curious and exciting thing to hear one who had been a scholar from his youth-a traveller, a wit, and a philosopher-who had been contending half his life, per- haps, to be permitted to be a priest in any parish, however humble, and amid perils almost as thick and dangerous as an apostle's, and who at length clambered up to a deacon's " good degree," with the marks of sixty winters on his head. But almost a century has piled its dust upon a Checkley's grave, and this short record is all, perhaps, which will ever so much as strive to do honor to his name. Peace to thine ashes, untiring servant of Christ and of the church. The faith which sustained thee teaches us, that ample amends will soon be made for all earth's forgetfulness. One day is with the Lord as a thousand years ; and thou shalt be recompensed immortally at the resurrection of the just.
"Mr. Checkley had two children," says Dr. Elliott, " a son," the Mr. John Checkley, Jun., mentioned in the church record, " who was graduated at Harvard College, 1738. He studied divinity with his father, went to England for orders," and was appointed mission- ary to Newark, N. J., and during his sojourn in England " he died of the small-pox. His talents were excellent, and he was a most amiable youth. The daughter married Henry Paget, an Irish gen- tleman. She left three children, two of them are living at this time," (when Elliot published) " united to very respectable con- nections."
" March 10, 1774. Dr. McSparran baptized at New London (where he officiated the 3d and 10th, the first and second Sundays in March,) Elizabeth, the daughter of Matthew Stewart, and Abigail, his wife. The said child was born the 6th day of March, at 3 o'clock."
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Matthew Stewart emigrated from Ireland to America, and settled at New London. He married Abigail, the daughter of William, and grandaughter of William Gardiner, one of the first settlers in Boston-neck, Narragansett. Mrs. Stewart was niece of Dr. Gardi- ner, of Boston, and Mrs. McSparran. Mr. Stewart left eight child- ren. Elizabeth, the person baptized, married Roswell Saltonstall, the son of Governor Saltonstall. 2. Abigail died single at the age of 15. 3. Matthew died at 17. 4. William married Jane Win- throp, of New London, a descendant of Gov. Winthrop, and died in 1798, and left one child, Ann, who is living and unmarried. 5. Hannah was the second wife of John Robinson, of South Kingstown, survived her husband, and died about 20 years since, without issue. 6. Ann died single. 7. Mary married Joshua Starr, of New London-left no issue. 8. Walter died single. 9. Abigail died young. 10. Frances was the third wife of Major John Handy, the oldest son of Capt. Charles Handy. Capt. Handy's first wife was the daughter of Capt. John Brown, the father of Col. Robert, who settled and died in South Kingstown. His second wife was the widow of Capt. Philip Wilkinson, and daughter of Jahleel Brenton, of Brenton's Neck, near Newport.
Major John Handy was a merchant in Newport. He entered the revolutionary army, and was promoted to the rank of Major. He died in Newport, in 1828, aged 72. He read the Declaration of Independence to the military and people from the Court House steps in Newport in 1776, as ordered by the Legislature ; and at the semi-century celebration in 1826, Major Handy read it again to the military and people from the same place.
Nicholas Lechmere, Comptroller of the Customs in Newport, married Elizabeth, the daughter of William Gardiner, and sister of Mrs. Stewart. He went away with the British, when they evacua- ted Newport. Nicholas, his son, was appointed a Commissary in the British army.
" May 17, 1745. Dr. McSparran read prayers and preached at the house of Samuel Cooper in Scituate, thirty miles distant from his own house, and baptized a
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son of Mr. Howard, named Joseph Howard, and receiv- ed another of said Howard's sons into the congregation, having formerly been privately baptized by Mr. Pigot in his travels through these woods where his wife had, and still has some lands."
The Rev. Mr. Stickney, Rector of St. Michael's Church, Marble- head, has kindly furnished the following memoir of the Rev. Mr. Pigot :
" The Rev. George Pigot was educated in his father's grammar school, in which he was for some time an usher.
" Mr. Pigot was the Venerable Society's Missionary at Stratford, (Conn.) He removed thence to Providence, Rhode Island, about 1723, to make way for the Rev. Mr. (afterwards Doctor) Johnson. From Providence he removed to Marblehead, and became the Rector of St. Michael's parish in the autumn of 1727.
" Besides his parish in Marblehead, Mr. Pigot had a small congrega- tion of worshippers in Salem, to whom he gave monthly lectures, and administered occasionally the Holy Communion.
" He was a gentleman of considerable literary ability, and distin- guished himself honorably in a controversy with the Rev. John Bar- nard, one of the Congregational ministers of the town, upon the cele- bration of Christmas, a controversy which Mr. Barnard had provoked by an attack upon the ancient practice of the Church.
" Mr. Pigot suffered domestic afflictions of very rare severity during the prevalence of that fatal malady, known by a familiar tradition in this part of New England, as ' the throat distemper.'
" The sad and touching account of this and other misfortunes giv- en below, is from his own pen. After the lapse of more than a hun- dred years the mournful recital still excites a lively and tender sym- pathy. It is taken from a letter addressed to the Venerable Society, dated June 27th, 1738.
" He writes, 'that in January preceding he was importuned to ad- minister the Lord's Supper to the good people of Providence, and having procured Mr. Watts to officiate at his church, he made a hard shift to visit them, notwithstanding the harsh season and great
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distance of that place from Marblehead ; but after eight days' ab- sence he received the melancholy news that the pestilential distem- per (which had carried off more than four hundred persons in Mar- blehead within a year,) was broken out again in his family, and upon his return found three of his children dead, and three very dangerously ill; and soon after he lost a fourth. This happened in one-and- twenty days, and within that melancholy space he slipt upon a ridge of ice, in his return from visiting a sick woman, and broke and splin- tered the bone of the upper part of his left arm; but he began to recover and to get strength as the warm weather came on, till he very unhappily slipt on the plain grass, and broke the same arm; that these troubles had been very heavy and expensive, and therefore he hoped the Society would honour a bill he had drawn on their treasurer for £20, and signify what time he should forbear to draw for his stated salary to balance this favor.'"
" In a letter to the Society dated September 22nd, 1738, Mr. Pigot asked leave to go to England on some very urgent affairs. The Society, ' out of an hearty compassion for Mr. Pigot's misfortunes, ordered the treasurer to pay his £20 bill, and gave him leave to visit England for a short time, if his church could be regularly sup- plied during his absence.'
"Soon after his arrival in England, Mr. Pigot was instituted to the rectorv of Chaldon, in Surrey, and (it is believed) did not return to America."
On the 17th of June, 1747, Dr. McSparran preached a sermon before the Convention of the Episcopal Clergy in Trinity Church, Newport, from Romans i. 16, which was printed, and of which a few copies are still extant. We subjoin a few extracts from this sermon :
" In the Augustan age, and down through the Apos- tles' times, learning and arts were in their zenith,-ne- ver since the foundation of the earth, was there a period of greater delicacy or politeness, or of taste in what the
!
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World calls wisdom, than when the Gospel was propos- ed to the notice of mankind. Learning was there, in all the glory and beauty of its fullest bloom, which must make every attempt to introduce a new and unadorned doctrine the more desperate and romantic, among so in- quisitive and discerning a people as the Romans were. In contrast to this, it has been observed of one Apostle (and as it should seem) objected to him, that besides his having no grandeur of person, no gracefulness of air or mein to recommend him, his speech was also contempti- ble, rude, and unadorned with the rhetorical paint, so taking at that time. How then could he expect to make a figure at Rome, where poets and orators vied with each other, whose speech should the most sparkle with the glistening drops of Grecian dew."
" Indeed, as to eloquence, he disavows all ambition of aiming at the first, and less principal part, consisting in the nice choice and beautiful arrangement of words, but in that, which lies in a chain of clear and strong reason- ing, famous figures, a becoming ardor, and an amazing art of persuasion; sure, no one ever outshone St. Paul. He surely had a masculine and flowing eloquence, a cer- tain majestic simplicity of words, that entered the hearts of his hearers, whenever he had a mind to admonish, exhort, or warm their passions,-doubtless he had di- vine and useful eloquence that enabled him always to speak with an emotion adapted, and in a style suitable to his sub-
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ject. Had there not been a majesty in his speech, whereby he spoke greatly of great things, it is not likely the Lystrians would have mistaken him for Mercury, the God of Eloquence, or Jove's Interpreter."
" But besides the objections to his person and man- ner, there were still greater against the gospel itself. It might be imagined, that no wise or modest man, could for shame, offer to the belief of the masters of mankind, a religion run down by all the world, how could he hope, that what was a stumbling block to the credulous Jew, and counted foolishness by the opinionated Greek, could be received as religion by the wise and haughty Romans ? The truth is, it was despised by almost all the great men upon earth. Festus held it in that contempt, that he thought Paul mad for embracing it. But alas ! he so little understood it, he could give no better account of it to a King, than to call it a trifling question about the Jewish superstitions, and one Jesus that was dead, whom Paul asserted to be alive. Nay, the polite and learned academicians of Athens treated St. Paul and his doctrines with a scorn equal to that of the forementioned Festus ; what is more wonderful, with an ignorance as amazing as unusual at an university, and manners seldom seen at the seat of the muses. They were so well bred as to condemn him as a babbler before they heard him, and so learned, forsooth, as to infer from his doctrine, that Jesus was a strange God, whilst they thought Anastasis, the
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resurrection, (it may be for the gender's sake) to be a Goddess."
" That men of no natural talents in the human powers of persuasion, of a nation contemptible, and themselves of no figure in it, should be able to enlighten understandings so benighted, and purify natures corrupted with long neglect, that they should have power to pluck out by the roots, customs, ceremonies, and sentiments of reli- gion, favored by education, strengthened by civil sanc- tions, founded presumptively on divine, and supported unquestionably by human authority : I say, that such great ends should be accomplished by such feeble and disproportionate means, must unavoidably imply a pow- er beyond that of men or devils, and therefore resolves itself into the supernal assistance of God."
" The Romans in particular, who incorporated the Gods of other conquered countries in their Capitol, would not even at the instigation of the Emperor, enrol our Redeemer ; but the Senate gave their suffrages against the Lord, and against his Anointed."
" Our religion was introduced without the ill arts of force or fraud, and at a very unpromising juncture. Ne- ver was learning, wisdom and power at a higher pitch in the empire. Innovation was narrowly watched, nor a State governed by more severe and suspicious Princes, than while Tiberius and Nero held the reins. No time therefore seemed more unfit for the entrance of a new A27
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doctrine ; and sure, no religion ever received more op- position from men. Laws were made to suppress it; prisons provided for its professors, and fires kindled every where to consume them. Nevertheless all methods meditated to extinguish, made it blaze the brighter, and multiply under sickles that were employed to cut it down.
" It soon gained footing, not in obscure corners only, but in the first and famous cities, the most polite and populous provinces of the Roman world ; and in twenty years' time (at least before all the Apostles died,) scarce- ly any part of the then inhabited earth, but abounded with professors of it. Rome, the grand nest and nurs- ing mother of idolatry, had so many Christians in every corner of it, that their faith was spoken of throughout the world. And although he is said to be the most terrible tyrant that ever breathed, yet we read of saints in Cea- sar's house. How glaring a testimony must it then be of the power of the gospel, that from so small a cloud, should rise so glorious a sun, that could thus chase be- fore it the power and darkness of Heathenism and Hell."
Speaking of faith, he continues : "Faith in general is the assent of the mind upon credible testimony ; so that in faith strictly such, there is nothing that moves our assent, but the credit of him who certifies what we be- liere. When we assent to things subject to sense, what we assent to is not only credible but apparent, and is not
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faith but knowledge. Thus, also, when we assent to things in consequence of ratiocination, our assent is not faith, but science or rational knowledge. From all this it seems an infallible inference, that divine faith is only and altogether founded on the truth and revelation of God. If, therefore, the first FATHERS of the world had faith, (as the Apostles assure us they had,) they must also have had a revealed religion, since it implies a con- tradiction to have the former without the latter. It will not be easy after this, to fix on any age or particular pe- riod, wherein what is now called natural religion, and that alone prevailed. God, we see, has hitherto been kinder to the world than this comes to; and blessed be his name for giving us his WORD that he always will."
We resume our extracts from the Church records :
" Aug. 6, 1747. Dr. Mc Sparran baptized Mrs. Eliz- abeth Wilkinson, wife of Capt. Philip Wilkinson, by immersion, in Petaquamscutt pond. Witness, the Doc- tor, his wife, and Mrs. Jane Coddington."
Captain Philip Wilkinson was a well-educated and intelligent gen- tleman, who emigrated from the north of Ireland to this country, and resided at Newport. His ancestors emigrated from Scotland to Ire- land. He visited much at Dr. McSparran's, Col. Updike's, and other families in Narragansett. Mr. Wilkinson and Doctor Sylvester Gardiner, of Boston, were the executors of Dr. McSparran's will. Capt. Wilkinson accepted the trust ; Dr. Gardiner living so distant from Narragansett, declined. Capt. Wilkinson's first wife died after their migration to this country. His second wife was Abigail Bren- ton, daughter of Jahleel Brenton, son of William ; she survived her
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husband, and married Captain Charles Handy. Capt. Wilkinson left no children.
"On Friday, the 29th of December, 1749, the bans of marriage between Martin Howard Jun., and Ann Concklin, being duly published in Trinity Church, at Newport, and certificates thereof being under the hand of the Rev. James Honyman, rector of said church, said parties were joined together in holy matrimony, at the house of Major Ebenezer Brenton, father of said Ann, by the Rev. James McSparran, D.D , incumbent of St. Paul's, in Narragansett, the parish where the parties do now reside."
Martin Howard, Jun., was a lawyer at Newport, and likewise a politician of considerable celebrity. From: 1750 to 1758 was one of the darkest periods in our Colonial history. The defeat of Col. George Washington and of General Braddock-the disgrace of the British fleet under Admiral Byng-the loss of Minorca-the des- truction of Oswego-the capture of our fleet on the lakes-the most shocking and affecting scenes of bloodshed, murder, and devastation on the unprotected frontiers of the governments of Virginia, Mary- land, and Pennsylvania-shed a gloom on every side. Previous to the year 1754, Great Britain perceiving a war with France to be inevitable, and aware of the advantages of securing the friendship of the Five Nations, or Iroquois, had written to the Governors of the respective colonies, recommending this essential object. At the suggestion of the Commissioners for the plantations, a Convention of the Delegates of the several colonies met at Albany, to hold a conference with the Five Nations on the subject of French encroach- ments, and to secure their friendship in the approaching war. The Congress consisted of the Delegates from New Hampshire, Massa- chusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, and Maryland,
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with the Governor and Council of New York. After endeavoring to secure the friendship of the Five Nations, by large presents, they directed their Committee, consisting of one member from each colony, to draw out a plan of union. Gov. Hopkins and Martin Howard, Jun., were the Delegates from Rhode Island in this impor- tant Congress.
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