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DISCOURSE II.

THE FOUNDATIONS LAID IN CHURCH AND COMMONWEALTH.CONSTITUTION FORMED IN MR. NEWMAN'S BARN.—THE PU

RITANS.

PROV. ix. 1.-Wisdom hath builded her house, she hath hewn out her seven pillars.

THE first settlers of New England generally came hither, not for the improvement of their outward condition and the increase of their estates, not for the sake of putting in practice any abstract theory of human rights or of civil government, not even for mere liberty of conscience, but for the one great purpose of extending the kingdom of God, and promoting their welfare, and the welfare of their posterity, and the welfare of the world, by planting Christian institutions, in the purest and simplest form, upon this virgin soil. It was this purpose, which gave to their enterprise its character of heroic dignity. It was from this high purpose, that they derived the resolution which carried the enterprise through all its discouragements, and the faith which ensured its success. It was this one great purpose of theirs, which determined the form, the spirit, and the working of their civil institutions. They had seen, in their native country, the entire subjection of the Church to the supreme power of the civil state; reformation beginning, and ending, according to the caprices of the hereditary sovereign; the Church neither purified from superstition, ignorance, and scandal, nor permitted to purify itself; ambitious, time-serving, tyrannical men, the minions of the court, appointed to high places of prelacy; and faithful, skillful, and laborious preachers of the Word of God, silenced, imprisoned, and deprived of all means of subsistence, according to the interests and aims of him, or her, who by the law of inheritance, happened to be at the head of the kingdom. All this seemed to them not only preposterous,

but intolerable; and, therefore, to escape from such a state of things, and to be where they could freely "practice Church reformation," they emigrated as far from civilization, as if we were now to emigrate to Nootka Sound. Here, they determined that, whatever else might be sacrificed, the purity and liberty of their Churches should be inviolate. The Church was not to be, as in England, subordinate to the civil government, the mere dependent creature of the secular power,the secular commonwealth here was designed, created, framed, for no other end than to secure the being and the welfare of the Churches. "Mr. Hooker did often quote a saying out of Mr. Cartwright, that noe man fashioneth his house to his hangings, but his hangings to his house." "It is better," adds Mr. Cotton, "that the commonwealth be fashioned to the setting forth of God's house, which is his Church, than to accommodate the Church frame to the civill state. If, then, their civil polity was essentially popular, if their political institutions have grown into the most perfect specimen of a free commonwealth which the world has ever seen, that result is to be ascribed to the popular, or as we now use words, the democratic character of their ecclesiastical polity. With these views, when the planters of the New Haven Colony arrived here, their first care was to lay their foundations wisely and safely. In this they proceeded with great deliberation. They began, indeed, very soon after their arrival, by forming, at the close of their first day of fasting and prayer, a "plantation covenant," in which they solemnly pledged themselves to each other, and to God, "that as in matters that concern the gathering and ordering of a Church, so likewise in all public offices, which concern civil order, as choice of magistrates and officers, making and repealing of laws, dividing allotments of inheritances, and all things of like nature," they would be governed "by those rules which the Scripture holds forth." But under this general compact, they at first made only a temporary arrangement for the management of their religious and civil affairs. Their leaders.

* Cotton's letter to Lord Say and Seal, in Hutchinson I, 497.

had no idea of sitting down to frame, for their colony, a constitution and code of laws beforehand, as Locke did, at a later day, for the projected colony of Carolina. They knew that it was not for them, at the first dash, to strike out a complete scheme and system of government. They knew that what is done in a hurry, often needs to be done over again as hastily; and that the public welfare depends not merely on the provisions of the written constitution, but also on the worth and fitness of the men who act under the constitution; and therefore they determined, that before proceeding to lay the foundations, not only the principles on which their fabric should be constructed, but the men who were to be employed as living stones in that temple of wisdom, should be well examined. During a period of fourteen months, while they were rearing some temporary shelters, clearing away the dense growth of the wilderness, and raising their first crops from the soil, they were praying, and fasting, and inquiring, and debating, to get wisdom for the great work of laying the foundations of their Church and of their commonwealth. The town was "cast into several private meetings, wherein they that dwelt most together gave their accounts one to another of God's gracious work upon them, and prayed together, and conferred to mutual edification," and thus "had knowledge, one of another," and of the fitness of individuals for their several places, in the foundation-work, or in the superstructure.

While these discussions were in progress, a difference of opinion appears to have arisen between Mr. Davenport, and his colleague in the ministry, Samuel Eaton, respecting the principles on which a government should be constructed, in order best to secure the ends for which the colony was founded. It has been my privilege to have before me, while pursuing my inquiries respecting the men and the transactions. of that period, a treatise from the pen of Davenport, entitled, "A Discourse about Civil Government in a New Plantation whose design is Religion." From strong internal evidence, this pamphlet appears to have been written here in the woods of Quinnipiack, while the form and principles of the civil

government to be erected here, were yet unsettled, and to have been part of a written discussion which the author was maintaining with his colleague, on that subject, then so interesting to them, and so little illustrated by experience.*

At length, on the fourth, or according to the present style, the fourteenth of June, 1639, every thing having been prepared for so grand an occasion, "all the free planters"which expression includes all who were partners in the undertaking of planting the colony-met in Mr. Newman's barn, for the purpose of laying, with due solemnities, the foundations of their ecclesiastical order, and of their civil government. The solemnities of the occasion were introduced, it is said, by a sermon from Mr. Davenport on the words recited at the commencement of this discourse, "Wisdom hath builded her house, she hath hewn out her seven pillars." Then, all present having been seriously warned "not to be rash or slight in giving their votes to things they understood not," but "without respect to men, as they should be satisfied and persuaded in their own minds, to give their anwers in such sort as they would be willing they should stand upon record for posterity," they voted, unanimously, that the Scriptures do hold forth a perfect rule for the direction and government of men in all duties, as well in families.

* Some account of this treatise will be found in the Appendix No. I. There appears to be no reason to distrust the tradition which fixes on "Mr. Newman's barn" as the scene of that meeting. The only question is, Where was Mr. Newman's barn? When this question was proposed by the Committee of arrangements before the late Centennial celebration, it could not be answered.

Among the original planters of New Haven were two who bore the name of Newman,-Francis, who after a few years became Secretary both of the town and of the jurisdiction, and on the death of Gov. Eaton became governor of the colony,-and Robert, who was the ruling elder of the Church. Francis Newman appears to have been a young man when the town was settled; he was not a man of wealth, his estate being put in the list for taxes at only £160; and when he was made Governor, the colony provided him a house to live in. It is not at all likely that he was the proprietor of a large barn" as early as 1639. Robert Newman on the contrary, was at the beginning one of the leading men in the colony. He was a man of con

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and commonwealth, as in matters of the Church. They unanimously renewed the great engagement of their plantation covenant, and professed that they held themselves bound, not only in all ecclesiastical proceedings, but in all civil duties, the choice of magistrates, the enactment and repeal of laws, and the dividing of inheritances,-to submit themselves to the rules held forth in the Scriptures. They unanimously expressed their "purpose, resolution, and desire, to be admitted into church-fellowship according to Christ, so soon as God should fit them thereunto." They unanimously voted that they "felt themselves bound to establish such civil order as might best conduce to the securing of the purity and peace of the ordinances to themselves and their posterity according to God."

"Then," as the record informs us, "Mr. Davenport declared to them by the Scripture, what kind of persons might best be trusted with matters of government; and by sundry arguments from Scripture proved that such men as were described in Exod. xviii, 21; Deut. i, 13, with Deut. xvii, 15, and 1 Cor. vi, 1, 6, 7”—[viz. “able men, such as fear God, men of truth, hating covetousness"-"men of wisdom and understanding, and known among your tribes"-" not strangers, but brethren, and those whom the Lord your God shall choose"-"not the unjust, or the unbelieving, but the holy"]

siderable wealth, his estate being rated at £700. He acted as scribe on the occasion in question, the minutes of the meeting being written by him; and he was chosen for one of the seven pillars. If there is any truth in the tradition, we cannot doubt that the barn was his.

But Robert Newman's name does not appear among the "original grantees" on the old Plan of New Haven published in 1806 by Col. Lyon. And where such an antiquarian failed, it is not easy to succeed. One allusion, however, which I have happened to light on, supplies this deficiency. The deed by which the town in 1685 conveyed to the Rev. James Pierpont the lot on which he lived, extending on Elm Street some distance above and below where Temple Street now is,—describes that lot as bounded, in the rear, by the lot which was once Mr. Robert Newman's, and which is thus identified as the corresponding lot in Grove Street. In other words, Mr. Newman's barn was somewhere on the ground now occupied by the dwellings of Professor Kingsley and Dr. Webster.

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