justice. To have failed in such an attempt had been gloriTheir glory is that they succeeded.

ous.

In founding their commonwealths, their highest aim was the glory of God in "the common welfare of all." Never before, save when God brought Israel out of Egypt, had any government been instituted with such an aim. They had no model before them, and no guidance save the principles of truth and righteousness embodied in the word of God, and the wisdom which he giveth liberally to them that ask him. They thought that their end, "the common welfare of all," was to be secured by founding pure and free Churches, by providing the means of universal education, and by laws maintaining perfect justice, which is the only perfect liberty. "The common welfare of all," said Davenport, is that "whereunto all men are bound principally to attend in laying the foundation of a commonwealth, lest posterity rue the first miscarriages when it will be too late to redress them. They that are skillful in architecture observe, that the breaking or yielding of a stone in the groundwork of a building, but the breadth of the back of a knife, will make a cleft of more than half a foot in the fabric aloft. So important, saith mine author, are fundamental errors. The Lord awaken us to look to it in time, and send us his light and truth to lead us into the safest ways in these beginnings."*

Not in vain did that prayer go up to heaven. Light and truth were sent; and posterity has had no occasion to rue the miscarriages of those who laid the "groundwork" of New England. On their foundations has arisen a holy structure. Prayers, toils, tears, sacrifices, and precious blood, have hallowed it. No unseemly fissures, deforming "the fabric aloft," dishonor its founders. Convulsions that have rocked the world, have not moved it. When terror has seized the nations, and the faces of kings have turned pale at the footsteps of Almighty wrath, peace has been within its walls,

* Discourse upon Civil Government, 14.

and still the pure incense has been fragrant at its altar. Wise master-builders were they who laid the foundations. They built for eternity.

Among those truly noble men, it is not easy to name one more strongly marked with bright endowments, and brighter virtues, or more worthy to be had in everlasting remembrance, than he for whom the quaint historian has proposed as his fit epitaph,

VIVUS, NOV-ANGLIE AC ECCLESIÆ ORNAMENTUM,

ET

MORTUUS, UTRIUSQUE TRISTE DESIDERIUM.*

* Several letters from Mr. Davenport to Gov. Winthrop, heretofore unpublished, will be found in the appendix No. XI. The catalogue of Davenport's published works, and some other particulars of information concerning him, will also be found in the same place.

DISCOURSE VIII.

NICHOLAS STREET.-THE FIRST GENERATION PASSING AWAY.

THE ERA OF THE WAR WITH KING PHILIP.

ECCLESIASTES, i, 4.-One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh.

He was set

WHEN Mr. Davenport removed to Boston, he did not leave this Church destitute of the stated ministry of the word. His colleague, who has already been named as sustaining the office of teacher, was the Rev. Nicholas Street. Mr. Street received his education in England; but at which of the universities, if at either, I am unable to ascertain. Nor does it appear in what year he came into this country. tled at Taunton, in the Plymouth colony, as colleague with Mr. Hooke, at the first organization of the Church there, about the year 1638. There was a period in the history of the Plymouth colony-"an hour of temptation," as Mather describes it, "when the fondness of the people for the prophesyings of the brethren, as they called those exercises, that is to say the preachments of those whom they called gifted brethren, produced those discouragements to their ministers, that almost all their ministers left the colony, apprehending themselves driven away by the insupportable neglect and contempt with which the people treated them."* At the commencement, as I suppose, of "that dark hour of eclipse," Mr. Hooke relinquished the office of pastor in the Church at Taunton, and accepted that of teacher in the Church at New Haven. Twelve years afterwards, when the "eclipse" in Plymouth colony was probably the darkest, the office of teacher in this Church became vacant again by Mr. Hooke's

*

Magn. I, 14. Samuel Newman, of Rehoboth, " was almost the only minister whose invincible patience held out under the scandalous neglect and contempt of the ministry which the whole colony of Plymouth was for a while bewitched into."-Ibid. III, 114.

return to England; and it may be presumed that it was by Mr. Hooke's friendly influence that his old colleague at Taunton became his successor here. The Church did not proceed on that occasion as Churches now proceed when they call a minister away from his settlement. They did not place him over them as their minister, merely because of his general reputation, or because somebody recommended him. Mr. Street left Taunton, removed his family to New Haven, took up his residence here, and afterwards, when he had become acquainted with the people and the people with him, he was elected and ordained teacher of this Church. The date of his ordination stands upon our church records, "the 26th of the 9th, 1659."*

For eight or nine years, he was associated here with Mr. Davenport. After the removal of his colleague, he continued the only minister in the Church till his death, which took place on the 22d of April, 1674. Since that time, there has been no distinction attempted in this Church between the the office of teacher and that of pastor.

Of the character of Mr. Street, as of his life, we know but little. He appears to have been a pious, judicious, modest man. His "Considerations upon the Seven Propositions concluded by the Synod," published as an appendix to Mr. Dav

* The Rev. Richard Blinman appears to have preached to this Church for a short time after Mr. Hooke went away, and before Mr. Street was introduced into the vacancy. According to Winthrop, (II, 64,) who characterizes him as "a godly and able man," he came over from Wales in 1642. He labored a few months at Marshfield; then he and his friends removed from that place to Cape Ann, and founded Gloucester. In 1648, he was the first minister at New London. It is not improbable that he was brought to New Haven by the friendly offices of Governor Winthrop. The only instance in which his name appears on our records is on the first of July, 1658, when at a town meeting, "Deacon Miles informed that Mr. Blinman was like to want corn and other provisions within a short time, which he desired might be considered, how he may be supplied." From New Haven he went to Newfoundland, and thence to England. Mather (Magn. III, 13) says, that he "concluded his life at the city of Bristol, where one of the last things he did was to defend in print the cause of infant-baptism." He had been minister at Chepstow, near Bristol.-Non-conformist's Memorial, (Palmer's ed.,) III, 177. See Allen's Biographical Dictionary.

enport's more elaborate book on the same subject, shows great clearness of thought, and some pungency of style. That he was no inferior preacher, may be inferred from the fact that he was found worthy to succeed Mr. Hooke, and that he maintained his standing as the colleague of Mr. Davenport. The whole course of his ministry here, was about sixteen years and a half.

Most of the incidents of his ministry have been commemorated in our notices of Mr. Davenport. Yet one proceeding of the Church and people, which does not appear to have been consummated till after Mr. Davenport's removal, ought not to be omitted here. In the year 1665, on the day of the anniversary thanksgiving, a contribution was "given in" for "the saints that were in want in England." This was at the time when, in that country, so many ministers, ejected from their places of settlement, were, by a succession of enactments, studiously cut off from all means of obtaining bread for themselves and their wives and children. The contribution was made, as almost all payments of debts or of taxes were made at that period, in grain and other commodities; there being no money in circulation, and no banks by which credit could be converted into currency. It was paid over to the deacons in the February following. We, to whom it is so easy, in the present state of commerce, to remit the value of any contribution to almost any part of the world, cannot easily imagine the circuitous process by which that contribution reached the " poor saints" whom it was intended to relieve. By the deacons the articles contributed were probably first exchanged, to some extent, for other commodities more suitable for exportation. Then the amount was sent to Barbadoes, with which island the merchants of this place had intercourse, and was exchanged for sugars, which were thence sent to England, to the care of four individuals, two of whom were Mr. Hooke and Mr. Newman, the former teacher and ruling elder of this Church. In 1671, Mr. Hooke, in a letter to the Church, said, "Mr. Caryl, Mr. Barker, Mr. Newman and myself have received sugars from Barbadoes to the value