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those doctrines which the Apostles were commanded to preach to every creature."

Rev. Mr. Grimshawe, the Editor of Cowper, who had lately been to Rome, said in his speech before the English Bible Society, that the Oxford Tracts were alleged at Rome, as evidence that England was returning to Popery. Popish priests, likewise, all over the land, are teaching the same fancy in their sermons to their people, quoting the same evidence. Even Caroline Fry has felt called upon to write against the Tracts, in "The Listener at Oxford." The writers of them opposed the admission of Dr. Hampden, Regius Professor of Divinity, to his office, on the ground of his heretical opinions, and he has taken up the gauntlet against them in an eloquent and learned discourse on the right uses of Tradition.

The whole Controversy does but prove, what even superficial observers knew before, that the Church of England is a mass of fragments kept in a kind of rattling, sharp cornered union, by the parental authority of the State. The moment the endowments are withdrawn, there will be a scattering worse than took place at Babel. In the meanwhile every legislative measure seems to embroil the Church. The great question, whether or not free and common education shall be allowed to the people independently of the shackles of sectarianism, is not only moving the Church from its foundations, but is piercing the foundations themselves, with a severe and searching scrutiny. Truly one would think that Union and not Discord would be the employment of Churchmen. They certainly are at present setting a poor example to the flock who wait on them as commissioned by the Apostles, as possessing exclusive authority to divide Christ's mystical body, and as professing to belong to the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church, whose proof and glory is Unity of Faith and Heart.

G. E. E.

ART. IV.-1. A Historical Discourse delivered by request before the Citizens of New Haven, April 25, 1838. The two hundredth anniversary of the first settlement of the town and colony. By JAMES L. KINGSLEY, New Haven: B. & W. Noyes. 1838. pp. 116.

2. Thirteen Historical Discourses on the completion of two hundred years, from the beginning of the First Church in New Haven, with an Appendix. By LEONARD BACON, Pastor of the First Church in New Haven. New Haven. 1839. pp. 400.

Few occasions of a public sort occur of a more interesting nature, than the centennial celebrations, which of late years have been multiplying among us. From that of the second centennial at Plymouth nearly twenty years since to the recent occasion at Barnstable, many of our oldest churches and townships have reached their two-hundredth year, and in none, as we believe, has the return been permitted to pass without due notice. The services that have thus been called forth have been of the most instructive character; and have contributed largely to our stores of civil and ecclesiastical history. Within our ancient Commonwealth, Salem, Charlestown, Boston, Dorchester, Watertown, Roxbury, Cambridge and the College, Dedham, and other places we might enumerate, have celebrated each its beginnings, and the worthy example will, we trust, be followed by all other places, as they reach successively the same period. They, who were so favored as to partake in the delightful festivities at Barnstable, will not soon forget either the pleasure or the benefit. The assemblage, which that event collected from distant quarters, of native citizens returning, some of them after long intervals of years and the various changes of life, to the homes of their infancy and early youth, amidst scenes so cherished, was certainly not the least among the heart-stirring incidents of that glorious day. And consecrated as these associations were, and this in extraordinary measures, by learning and eloquence, by devout and thankful recollections, it is difficult to imagine even the possibility of an occasion more agreeable or salutary.

Our sister state of Connecticut has entered also upon her third century and in the works before us we acknowledge our obligations both to Professor Kingsley and to Mr. (now also Professor) Bacon, for the valuable history they have given of one 3D S. VOL. IX. NO. II.

VOL. XXVII.

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of its oldest and most important settlements. The one furnishes a history of the First Church; the other of the town and colony of New Haven. Of the work by Mr. Kingsley notices have already appeared in our journals; and the reader will not have failed to remark the skill and judgment, no less than the eloquence, with which within the narrow limits of a single discourse he has exhibited the leading facts, and illustrated the principles, which belong to his subject.

In the larger work of Mr. Bacon, comprising no less than thirteen distinct discourses, delivered in the regular course of his pulpit instructions, we have a copious history of the First Church of New Haven. But it is by no means confined to this. So intimately connected in the days of our Fathers were the interests of church and state, that the history of the one is almost identical with that of the other. And accordingly we find here, as in the early accounts of the churches of Plymouth and Salem and Boston, ample notices of the Magistrates as well as the Pastors. Of these, the first and most prominent place is of course assigned to Eaton and Davenport, who to the civil and ecclesiastical interests of New Haven stood precisely in the same relation, as did Winthrop and Cotton to those of Boston. In the absence of the Pastor the Magistrate took upon himself the office of instructing the people, and on all questions of doubt or difficulty, political not less than religious, the people looked to the Pastors for their guidance.* It was

*In the history of the First Church in Boston we find many remarkable instances of this. When Mr. Wilson, the first minister, went on an important mission to England, he in a manner consecrated Governor Winthrop with deputy Governor Dudley to the temporary discharge of the pastoral duties. Again we are told, “On every occasion, where a matter was disputed, Mr. Cotton settled the difference by his public preaching. Mr. Hooker and his friends, for example, were about to remove to Connecticut-this was so early as 1634. Their design was strenuously seconded by some and opposed by others. After the matter had been for some time debated, Mr. Cotton ended the affair by preaching from Hag. ii. 4. And on another occasion within the same year, after the people had chosen seven new selectmen to the exclusion of very worthy gentlemen, who had served them in preceding years, Mr. Cotton interposed at the following Thursday Lecture, and showed that it was an order of heaven to have all such business committed to the elders." "Such," it is added, " was the weight of his authority, that he caused on the succeeding Thursday a new election." —See Emerson's History of the First Church.

a condition of things much resembling the Hebrew polity under its founders: and the resemblance has often been noted.

Of the topics presented in these discourses it would be easy, did the limits prescribed to this article permit, to select several for remark. In the characters here delineated of the founders of the New Haven Colony; in the broad and simple principles of righteousness, liberty, and Christian faith in which they sought to lay the foundations of their little republic; in the early provision they made for the maintenance of the institutions of religion, and for the universal education of the people; in the endeavors, as early as 1654, by Mr. Davenport and others for the beginning of a college, which though then premature mark the enlarged and generous views, with which these worthies were animated; in the subsequent establishment, difficulties, and ultimate prosperity of Yale College; in the early legislation of the province, marked by its simplicity, wisdom, and regard for the rights of all, and in which we look in vain for the absurdities, and petty tyranny which have been attributed, but here shown to be utterly groundless, to the "Blue Laws" of Connecticut; in the progress of religious controversy and the divisions among churches, ministers, and people, the fruit more especially of the excitements produced in the days of Noyes and Whittelsey by the preaching of Whitefield, -the reader may find ample materials for reflection. Nor will he fail to admire the patience, disinterestedness, and sustaining faith, with which the trials attending not the commencement only, but the progress through successive years of the colony were endured. On the other hand, in contrasting the bitter animosities and jealousies springing up in the churches after the memorable "Revival of religion" in 1742 with the charity of the present day, he will be slow to believe that the former times were better than these.

In regard to the early legislation, we will here adduce a passage from the discourse of Professor Kingsley, chiefly as it exposes the falseness of the charges which by Peters and others have been brought, and so generally credited, against the col

ony.

"On examining, says he, the more particular laws, one of the first things which strikes us is a general enactment, intended, without doubt, as a concise declaration of the object and character of the whole system. It is in these words, It is ordered by this court and the authority thereof, that no man's life shall be

taken away, no man's honor or good name shall be stained, no man's person shall be imprisoned, banished, or otherwise punished, no man shall be deprived of his wife or children; no man's goods or estate shall be taken from him, under color of law or countenance of authority, unless it be by virtue or equity of some express law of this jurisdiction, established by the General Court, and sufficiently published; or in want of a law in any particular case, by the word of God.' Is there any thing here ridiculous? any thing whimsical? any thing opposed to the dictates of common sense? On the contrary, do we not recognise, in this prefatory statute of the New Haven code, the great principles of free government, expressed in language full and explicit? principles, which have been constantly kept in view from the first settlement of this state." pp. 36,

37.

Again, in adverting to a fundamental law of the State for the establishment of Public Schools, Mr. Kingsley notices with it a record, "that Thomas Fugill is required to keep Charles Higginson, an indented apprentice, at school one year; or else to advantage him as much in his education as a year's learning comes to." He then remarks, .

"Charles Higginson was probably the first apprentice indented in the colony, and this condition of his apprenticeship was recorded, undoubtedly, as an example of privileges to be granted to all in the same circumstances. Here is a proceeding, which marks as distinctly, as any measure could, the views entertained by the leaders of the colony of the value of education, the protection, which ought to be extended to the indigent, and their regard for popular rights. If any one hereafter shall wish to inspect the early colonial records of New Haven, to find subjects of reproach or merriment, let him be referred to the entry by the indentures of Charles Higginson. If all the ridiculous and absurd reports, which have been circulated about the New Haven laws were founded in fact, this single record, in the opinion of the intelligent and unprejudiced, would throw them at once into the shade. Such a course of policy as is here unfolded, such charity for a class of the community, at that time and still, under every European government, but little regarded, would cover a multitude of sins. No suggestion for the adoption of a rule, by which an elementary education was secured to apprentices, could have been received from any law of the parent country. No act of parliament, it is believed, embracing such a provision, exists in England, with all its improvement and wealth, to the present day."- Professor Kingsley's Discourse, pp. 39, 40.

The merit of these admirable provisions is in a great degree

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