nature there have been, and are, and shall be; many men, many races there are, and have been, and shall be, of more genial dispositions, more tasteful accomplishments, a quicker eye for the beautiful of art and nature, less disagreeably absorbed, less gloomily careful and troubled about the mighty interests of the spiritual being, or of the commonwealth. . . . But where, in the long series of ages that furnish the matter of history, was there ever one,—where one, better fitted by the possession of the highest traits of man, to do the noblest work of man; better fitted to consummate and establish the Reformation, to save the English constitution, at its last gasp, from the fate of other European constitutions, and prepare, on the granite and iced mountain summits of the new world, a still better rest for a still better liberty?"166

In conclusion, we would acknowledge, with devout gratitude to God, the rich inheritance which we have received from our puritan forefathers, in the religious institutions which they have transmitted to us.

They have given us a religion, more nearly allied, both in spirit and in form, to scriptural Christianity, than any other that has ever risen upon the world,—a religion, more abundant in blessings, and more highly to be prized than any other; a religion, from which the whole American system, with all its institutions, social, civil and religious, has arisen. Our pilgrim fathers, while at anchor off our coast, and before they set foot upon these shores, after solemn prayer to the God of nations, entered mutually into a solemn compact, on board the Mayflower, to establish a government here" for the glory of God and the advancement of the Christian faith." With this intent they landed and entered upon their great work, as if conscious of their high destiny, reared up by God to establish and extend those principles of civil and religious freedom which they had so nobly defended in their

166 Speech of Hon. Rufus Choate before N. Eng. Soc. N. York, Dec. 25, 1843.

father-land. There they had suffered the loss of all things and shed their blood, freely, in their inflexible adherence to these principles. Harassed and wearied, but not dismayed, by their continual bonds, imprisonments, and persecutions at home, and by their exile abroad, they resolved to seek an asylum in the wilderness of the new world, where, in peaceful seclusion, they might establish a government for the glory of God and the advancement of the Christian faith.' The Bible was their statute-book; and their religion, that primitive Christianity which God gave to the world through the medium of our Lord and his apostles. In fulfilment of their design, their first care was to set up the tabernacle of the Lord in this wilderness. They erected the church, and fast by this the school-house; then the court-house, the academy, the college, while yet they were of one faith and one name. No other form of religion was known, in this land of the pilgrims, until the great principles of the American system were developed, and established here by our puritan forefathers.

The truth is, they were no ordinary men. They lived for no ordinary purpose. They were men, the most remarkable that the world has ever produced. They lived for a nobler end, for a higher destiny than any others that have ever lived. These are the men to whom New-England owes her religion with all the blessings, social, civil, and literary, that follow in its train. These are the venerable men whose blood still flows in our veins, and into whose inheritance we have entered. Peace to their silent shades. Fragrant as the breath of morn

ing be their memory. The winds of two centuries have swept over their graves. The effacing hand of time has well nigh worn away the perishable monuments which may have marked the spot where sleeps their honored dust. But they still live. They live in the immortal principles which they taught ;-in the enduring institutions which they established. They live in the remembrance of a grateful posterity; and they will live

on, through all time, in the gratitude of unborn generations, who, in long succession, shall rise up and call them blessed. And shall we, "who keep the graves, and bear the names, and boast the blood" of these men, disown their church, or cast out as evil, and revile their religion? No; by the memory of these noble men; by their holy lives, their heavenly principles, their sacred institutions; by the sustaining strength which they themselves are still giving to our own freedom, and to the great cause of civil and religious liberty throughout the earth, let us never give up the religion of our fathers. No, never, never!

But we have seen of late years several young men, of a certain cast of character, annually straying away from the fold of their fathers, and coldly exchanging their own religious birthright for a more imposing ritual, encumbered with a mass of anti-scriptural ceremonials, and withal, sadly deficient in the means of spiritual improvement. And other young aspirants there may be, recreant to the faith of their fathers, and eager to follow in the footsteps of their apostatizing predecessors. Well, be it so. If there be any who find themselves seized with a desire to forsake the altar and communion of their fathers, and to consign their sainted ancestors, together with their kindred according to the flesh, and their brethren in Christ, with whom they have often sat at the table of the Lord, the very lambs of the flock it may be, whom they themselves have gathered into the fold of Christ, and sought gently to lead in the path of life,-if, I say, they can now leave all these, with "cool atrocity," to "uncovenanted mercy,"—if such be the humor of their mind, be it so; but if they have yet an ear to hear, there is a voice of gentle admonition to which they do well to give heed. From the dying lips of puritan ancestry it calls to them in tones of kind but earnest remonstrance, "We do earnestly testify that if any who are given to change, do rise up to unhinge the well established churches in this land, it will be the duty and inter

est of the churches to examine whether the men of this trespass are more prayerful, more zealous, more patient, more heavenly, more universally conscientious, and harder students. and better scholars, and more willing to be informed and advised, than those great and good men who left unto the churches what they now enjoy. If they be not so, it will be wisdom to forbear pulling down, with their own hands, the houses of God which were built by their wiser fathers, until they have better satisfaction." 159

159 Rev. John Higginson and Rev. William Hubbard.

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CHAPTER VII.

RISE OF EPISCOPACY.

Ar what period the republican principle, in the primitive church, began to give place to the aristocratic and monarchical element, is not distinctly known. It is, however, admitted by Dean Waddington, "that the spirit of religion and the first government of the church was popular ;" and that "the Episcopal government was clearly not yet established," at the close of the first century, when Clement wrote. Riddle makes essentially the same concession; and with him many other Episcopalians. Such, indeed, seems to be the acknowledged opinion of that class of this denomination who disclaim the doctrine of the divine right of Episcopacy.

On the other hand, it is generally conceded that the popular form of government in the church, began gradually to change into one more despotic, soon after the age of the apostles. Those changes in the organization of the apostolical churches, which finally terminated in the Episcopal system, began, in the opinion of some, as early as the first half of the second century. Many others, with greater probability, refer the commencement of the transition to the second half of the same century. Nothing appears in history to define with precision the period when the change in question began. It was doubtless different in different churches. Resulting gradually, and almost imperceptibly, from many causes, it was unnoticed at first, or left unrecorded in the scanty records of that early period which still remain.