DISCOURSE XIII.

JAMES DANA AT WALLINGFORD AND NEW HAVEN. THE PAST AND THE PRESENT.

ECCLESIASTES, vii, 10.-Say not thou, What is the cause that the former days were better than these? for thou dost not inquire wisely concerning this.

As we approach the close of this history, and begin to touch upon the doings and reminiscences of the living, our views must be more cursory, and we must advance with increasing rapidity.

After the death of the venerable Whittelsey, the pulpit was supplied for a season, according to one of the most beautiful of the ecclesiastical usages in New England, by the neighboring pastors-each of the thirteen ministers who were present at the funeral, volunteering to give one Sabbath's service for the benefit of the widow of their deceased brother and father.* Immediately afterwards, the Rev. Dr. James Dana, of Wallingford, being at that time free from the labor of preaching in his own Church, was called in to supply the vacant pulpit statedly. In January, 1789, the Church and Society, with great unanimity, elected him their pastor; and on the 29th of April, he was inducted into the pastoral office. Dr. Dana preached the sermon at his own installation, which I believe is the latest instance of that ancient usage in New England. Thus, in less than two years after the Church's bereavement, another pastor was harmoniously settled.

Dr. Dana, at the time of his removal to this Church, was more than fifty years old. He was born at Cambridge in Massachusetts, about the year 1735, was educated at Harvard College, where he graduated in 1753, at the age of eighteen, after which he appears still to have resided at Cambridge for some time. In the year 1758, the Church in Wallingford, having been without a pastor ever since the death of Rev.

Stiles, Lit. Diary.

Samuel Whittelsey in 1752, and having been somewhat divided into parties in consequence of hearing various candidates, was advised by some of the neighboring ministers to send to Cambridge for a new candidate. Accordingly a messenger was sent with a letter to the Rev. Dr. Appleton of Cambridge, the Rev. Dr. Chauncey of Boston, and the President of Harvard College, asking them to nominate, and send to Wallingford, some suitable and worthy candidate for the ministry in that place. Dr. Chauncey happening to be absent, the selection of a candidate devolved on Pres. Holyoke and Dr. Appleton; and at their nomination, Mr. Dana was requested to come to Wallingford for settlement.

This arrangement proved less happy for the Church and Society in Wallingford than was expected; for though both the Church and the Society, with apparent harmony, united after a few weeks in giving Mr. Dana a call, the voting of the call was immediately followed by the organization of a strong opposition, promoted, as was supposed, by some of the ministers of the neighborhood. A council, selected according to the undisputed usage of those days, was invited to meet for the ordination. The opponents of Mr. Dana, on their part, determined to prevent his ordination, by bringing a complaint before the consociation of the county. The consociation was accordingly summoned to meet for the purpose of attending to a complaint against the regularity of the proceedings of the Church and Society, and against the orthodoxy of the candidate. Whether it was by accident or design, is not known; but so it was, that the two councils, the one called by the Church and Society to ordain Mr. Dana, the other called by the minority to prevent his ordination, met in Wallingford on the same day,-and a memorable day it was in the ecclesiastical history of Connecticut. The story is too long to be repeated here in detail. The various pamphlets that were published respecting the "Wallingford Controversy" in the day of it, are a volume.* Dr. Trumbull has

* A Faithful Narrative, &c. By Jonathan Todd, A. M., a member of the ordaining council.-A few Remarks upon the ordination, &c. By William

related the particulars with great honesty of purpose, but not without some bias from his personal and party prejudices. Let it suffice to say here, that the Church and Society, and Mr. Dana, being cited to appear before the consociation, appeared and denied with strong arguments the jurisdiction of that council over any Church in such a case as that;—that the ordaining council, though expressly and solemnly forbidden by the consociation, went forward and ordained the candidate;that the consociation, finding themselves thus baffled, and perceiving that the affair was becoming very complicated, determined to call in the aid of the neighboring consociation of the southern district of Hartford county, and adjourned accordingly for three weeks;-that when at the appointed time the two consociations assembled in a joint meeting, Mr. Dana and the Church and Society still refused to acknowledge the jurisdiction of that body, as the case was then situated; and that the two consociations, after trying the case as well as they could when the parties to be tried refused to plead on any point but that of jurisdiction, declared the relation between Mr. Dana and the Church and Society to be dissolved ; and finally, that after waiting several months to see the effect of their doings, they pronounced a sentence of noncommunion against Mr. Dana and the Church, acknowledged the minority to be the consociated Church in the First Society in Wallingford, and denounced the ministers and delegates of the ordaining council "as disorderly persons, and not fit to sit in any of our ecclesiastical councils, until they

Hart, A. M., Pastor of the First Church in Saybrook.-Some Serious Remarks upon the Rev. Mr. Jonathan Todd's Faithful Narrative, &c. By Edward Eells, A. M., Pastor of the Second Church in Middletown.-The Principles of Congregational Churches, &c. By Noah Hobart, A. M., Pastor of the First Church in Fairfield.—A Letter to the Rev. Mr. Noah Hobart. By R. Wolcott.-Remarks on a pamphlet wrote by Mr. Hobart, &c. By William Hart.-A Vindication, &c. By Noah Hobart.-A Reply, &c. By Jonathan Todd: Together with an Answer, &c. By William Hart.-Some Remarks upon the claims and doings of the Consociation, &c. By Andrew Bartholomew, A. M., Pastor of the Church in Harwinton.—The Wallingford Case Stated, &c.

shall clear up their conduct to the satisfaction of the council of New Haven county."

What added to the violence of these proceedings, was, that the controversy was at bottom a conflict between the old light and new light parties, not only in Wallingford and in New Haven county, but throughout the colony. Mr. Dana was of that party which had opposed the revival of religion; his settlement in so large and important a Church, would be a triumph of that party, which had already become a minority in the county and in the colony; and therefore the new light men were determined by all means to prevent the ordination, and when the thing was done, to undo it if possible. The old light party had previously attempted to use the peculiar constitution of the Connecticut Churches as an engine of oppression. They had carried matters with a high hand while they had the power, interfering arbitrarily with the rights of pastors and of Churches; and now they found the very enginery which had been so convenient to them, turned against them. So true is it that they who take the sword shall perish by the sword, and that the violent shall find their violent dealing coming down upon their own heads. So true is it, too, that when parties run high, no party can be trusted to guard any body's liberty or interests but their own. Whatever party happens to wield power, will make the most of it, if necessary to their party ends, though by contradicting all the professions and complaints of their weaker days.

Mr. Dana and the ministers by whom he was ordained, being thus excluded from all ecclesiastical and ministerial intercourse with the other pastors of the county, formed an association by themselves, which was upheld till the year 1772, or later, when a sort of amnesty was proposed by the ministers who had formerly denounced them, parties,—and persons too, having changed in the mean time.*

From that great Wallingford controversy and a few similar conflicts, one result has arisen of no small importance to

* Stiles, Lit. Diary.

the Churches. I have already had occasion to show, that the Saybrook Articles of Discipline, commonly called the Saybrook Platform, were originally a compromise between two parties, the one inclined to a high Presbyterian form of government, the other holding strongly the great Congregational principle, of the competency and inalienable liberty of each particular Church to manage its own affairs. Hence that instrument has always been subject to two diverse interpretations. The one, which may be called the Presbyterian construction, gives to the consociation of the district a general and complete superintendency over the Churches, condemns all other councils as irregular, and claims for the decisions of the consociation, in cases of appeal, a juridical authority, so that they are to take effect not by the consent. or acquiescence of the Church appealed from, but by their own intrinsic power. The other, which we may call the Congregational construction, maintains, that the Congregational principle of the liberty of every particular Church is unimpaired by the Platform, and that the consociation is nothing else than a council of Congregational Churches, convened and organized by a particular rule. In 1740, and for a few years after, when the "old lights" were the majority, and were oppressing Mr. Robbins of Branford, and Mr. Allen of West Haven, they were of course great sticklers for the consociation, and for the Presbyterian construction of its powers; and then it was that the "new light" party in New Haven were so deeply aggrieved, because Mr. Noyes and the Church had declared this Church to be under the Saybrook Platform, that Messrs. Cook, Bellamy, and other new light ministers, for that one reason, proceeded to organize them into a separate and independent Church,-a Church in which the original prejudice against consociations is alive and vigorous at this day. In 1759, when by the change of parties the "new lights" were no longer a minority, they in their turn had become strict upholders of the Presbyterian construction of the Platform; and then it was that Mr. Noyes and Mr. Whittelsey, the colleague pastors of this Church,