SERMON.

10001

PSALM CVII. 7.

And he led them forth by the right way, that they might go to a city of habitation.

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REJOICE, my friends, that, after so many memorials of the event we now celebrate, the time has arrived, when the Sons of the Pilgrims in this City, deem it a privilege publicly and in the house of prayer, to honour the only wise God, in their rehearsal of scenes, which so often drew tears from the eyes and praises from the lips of their pious progenitors. Two hundred years ago this day, our forefathers landed on the shores of this Western World. We cannot but feel, that this event deserves a grateful acknowledgment and commemoration. The ancient people of God, scattered as they had been in different portions of the globe, enslaved by one enemy after another, oppressed by difficulty and danger from every side, found no sweeter theme for their praise, than that eternal mercy to which they owed all their hopes, and that incessant guardianship which had so often interposed in miracles of mercy and judgment, to guide them to "a city of habitation." Their danger and their deliverance are exquisitely set forth by the Psalmist in the touching imagery of travellers lost in a pathless desert, wandering about this great wilderness world

as "pilgrims and strangers on the earth," but at last directed and conducted home. The way in which they are led is often dark and mysterious; but in the issue there is every thing to advance the praises of their guide and deliverer.

Nor can we at once advert to a series of events more illustrative of these sentiments, than the course in which a wise Providence conducted our ancestors. The first settlers of New-England were descended from a highly respectable class of men, who took their rise in England, in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, and were called Puritans.* After the year 1662, when the famous Act of Uniformity was passed by the English Parliament, requiring a solemn declaration of assent to every thing contained in the book of Common Prayer, and the administration of the Sacraments, they were called Non-Conformists, and since that period they have been more commonly called Dissenters.

Europe was not without the expectation of a partial reform as early as the fourteenth century. Not far from this period, the authority and influence of the Roman Pontiffs began to decline; and in the fifteenth century, some attempts at reformation were, to say the least, the ostensible objects of two important Councils of the Latin Church.† No serious advance

* The title Puritans appears originally to have been a term of reproach. Mr. Neal, in his history of these excellent men, remarks, "If a man maintained his steady adherence to the doctrines of Calvin and the Synod of Dort; if he kept the Sabbath and frequented sermons; if he maintained family religion, and would neither swear, nor [be drunk, nor comply with the fashionable vices of the times; he was called a Puritan."

The Council of Constance and the Council of Basil.

The Council of Constance was assembled by the Emperor Sigismund, in 1414; and after sitting three years and six months, was dissolved in April,

was made in this cause, until the shameless profligacy of the Popes, and the martyrdom of several distinguished witnesses* for the truth, together with the firmness and increase of the Lollards in England, and the Hussites on the Continent of Europe, had prepared the way for Martin Luther to enter upon a work, which was destined not only to suppress the preposterous pretensions of Papacy, but to give an effectual and salutary influence to the Church of God for centuries to come. This memorable REFORMATION was established in the sixteenth century. The principles of the Reformed Church, as adopted by Luther, were extensively received in different parts of Germany; found very powerful abettors in Switzerland, Geneva, France, and Sweden; and were introduced into England towards the close of the reign of Henry VIII, and during that of his successor, Edward VI. With the exception of the Eucharist, there was a happy agreement in the Reformed Churches on all the leading points of Christian theology; and with the exception of the Church of England, there was also a very general concurrence in the essential principles of Church government. A lingering attachment to

1418. The great design of this Council was to put an end to the schism which arose in the fourteenth century in consequence of a collision of sentiment with regard to a successor to Gregory XI. A reformation of the Church, however, was one of the professed objects of this Council, though it was altogether defeated.

The Council of Basil was convened in 1431, under the Pontificate of Eugenius IV. This Council sat twelve years; and though a reformation was one of its professed objects, it met with very little encouragement.

* John Huss and Jerome, of Prague in Bohemia, were condemned and burnt alive by the Council of Constance. The same Council also condemned the opinions of Wickliffe, who has well been styled "the morning star of the Reformation," and passed sentence that his bones should be dug up and burnt with his writings.

the rites and ceremonies of the Latin Church, in se veral of the Monarchs and Bishops who took a leading part in the Reformation, and especially in Elizabeth, in whose reign the Reformation was matured, operated as one of the causes in giving the Church of England its peculiar form of government. Among those, who manifested no small degree of zeal for the entire renunciation of the Popish ritual, and who earnestly contended for a purer reformation, both in discipline and ceremonies, were the Pilgrims of NewEngland. Neither Elizabeth nor James manifested any predilection for the views of the Puritans; but, on the other hand, became the advocates of a severe and rigorous uniformity, which obliged multitudes to resist the claims of the Establishment with a perseverance and decision of no bright augury either to their religious or civil tranquillity. Under the fairest and most sacred pretence, an effort was made, combining the power of Church and State, to impose and enforce restrictions upon the conscience, which well nigh proved the rock that severed the peace of England. Elizabeth was at heart averse to a pure reformation, and the enemy of the non-conformists; and James, though early inclined to favour their cause, and though no prince was ever more able so to favour it as to preserve the peace of the realm, was just pusillanimous and proud enough to become the mere creature of Prelacy, and from the professed advocate of religious liberty, to avow himself its implacable foe.

Toward the latter part of James's reign, it became obvious that the Puritans could not remain with safety in England; and a little company from one of the Northern Counties, composed principally of the

Church under the pastoral care of the Rev. Richard Clifton, and his successor the Rev. John Robinson, contemplated a removal to Holland, which was effected in the year 1607. After residing some time at Amsterdam, they removed to Leyden, where the kindness and hospitality of the generous Hollanders was conspicuous, and will ever be cherished in grateful remembrance. But notwithstanding the security and peace which this retirement afforded them from the bitterness of persecution, their condition in Holland was not without difficulties of a very serious kind. The labour of becoming familiar with a strange language-the hardships necessary to a bare subsistence-the exposure of the rising generation to the dissipation, immoralities, and profligacy of a populous city-together with the faint prospect of perpetuating a Church which they believed to be constituted upon the model of apostolical simplicity,* led them to direct their thoughts toward the New World.

It could not but be foreseen that their removal to America would be accompanied with the severest danger and deepest self-denial. They were about to

* The Puritans appear to have maintained a sort of Church government which was not strictly Presbyterian or Congregational; but which retained some of the principles of both. They believed,

"That every particular Church of Christ is only to consist of such as appear to believe in and obey him—

"That they have a right to embody themselves into a Church by contract or covenant

"That being thus embodied, they have the right of choosing their own officers, which are of three sorts, Pastors, or, Teaching Elders, Ruling Elders, and Deacons

"That these officers, being chosen and ordained, have no lordly, arbitrary, or imposing power, but can only rule and minister with the consent of the brethren." Prince's Chronology, vol. i. p. 92.

Prince, in his New-England Chronology, complains of the charge that Mr. Robinson and his followers were Brownists. Vide vol. i. p. 81.

B