was a person of great gravity and prudence, and of sober principles, and for one of that persuasion very pliable, gentle, and condescending, which occasioned the greater lamentation at his funeral obsequies, as if in him the people of that small Colony had buried all their help and hope. But he who made it at the first utterance a divine proverb, "in the Mount of the Lord it shall be seen,” hath in all following ages made it good to the experience of his people; in that those, in whom the choice of the people in that jurisdiction hath since centered, have been furnished with that measure of assistance as hath carried them through the difficulties as they have met withal in their government, both Mr. Thomas Prince, that immediately was called to that place, after Mr. Bradford's decease, and Mr. Josiah Winslow, that honorable gentleman who at this time, sc. 1678, supplied that place and several years before. Not long before,' Captain Standish ended his warfare, that was the military chieftain of that Colony. He was allied to the noble house of Standish, in Lancashire, inheriting some of the virtues of that honorable family, as well as the name. Mr. Ralph Partridge also died about this time, Anno 1658, in a good old age; a man of eminent piety and learning, sound judgment, that for above twenty years had faithfully dispensed the Word of God in that jurisdiction, at Duxbury, and, notwithstanding the paucity and poverty of his flock, continued in his work amongst them to the last, leaving behind him that honorable testimony of his patience, meekness, and contentation of mind. 2 In the following year, Mr. Henry Dunster,* the first President of Harvard College, ended his pilgrimage at Scituate, in Plymouth jurisdiction. His body was solemnly interred at Cambridge, where he had spent the choice part of his studies and of his life, and might there have continued, if he had been endowed with that wisdom which many others have wanted besides himself, to have kept his singular opinion to himself when there was little occasion for venting thereof.3 * Dunstarr. MS. ED. 1 In 1656, at Duxbury.-H. 2 Feb. 27, 1658-9.-H. 3 When shall we be gratified with a just tribute to the memory of HENRY DUNSTER-a man who, in extensive learning, sincere piety, and all the virtues which ennoble and adorn the Christian character, has been equalled by few, surpassed by none, of his successors.-H. New Haven also, within this time, lost two of their Governors, Mr. Eaton and Mr. Newman, of the first of whom mention is made before.' Mr. Thomas Mayhew, Jun., was also, in the year 1657,2 lost, with the whole ship's company of Mr. Garret, who were buried in the waves of the sea, in their voyage to England, whereby a great stop was put to the conversion of the Indians on Martin's Vineyard, of which the§ said Mayhew had been the chief instrument under God. But the principal and most momentous change that happened within this lustre, was the joyful acclamations of the happy restoration of his Majesty to the royal throne, which had been detained from him by the late usurpations; it being now hoped that the winter of public sorrows being over, the peaceful voice of the turtle should be heard in the flourishing spring approaching, through all the lands of his English dominions. An address was sent unto him from thence, December 103, 1660, which is as follows: To the High and Mighty Prince, Charles the Second, by the Grace of God, King of Great Britain, France, and Ireland, Defender of the Faith, &c. Most Gracious and Dread Sovereign, May it please your Majesty, in the day wherein you happily say, you [now'] know [that] you are King over your British Israel, to cast a favorable eye upon your poor Mephibosheth, now, and, by reason of lameness in respect of distance, not until now, appearing in your presence-we mean upon New England, kneeling with the rest of your subjects before your Majesty your Majesty as her restored King. We forget not our inaptness as to these approaches; we at present own such impotence as renders us unable to excuse our impotency of speaking unto our Lord the King; yet contemplating such a King, who hath also seen adversity, that he knoweth the hearts of exiles, who himself hath been an exile, the aspect of Majesty, [thus'] extraordinarily [circumstanced,'] influenced [and] animated [the1] exanimated outcasts, (yet outcasts, as we hope, for the truth,) to make this address unto their Prince, hoping to find grace in your sight. We present this script, the tran Conjectural; this is, at any rate, the sense. See page 329. Francis Newman died in 1661, before May 29th. In November.-H. 4 Supplied from Hazard.-H. VOL. VI. SECOND SERIES. See Trumbull, i. 241.-H. It should be Dec. 19th.-H. 22 -H. script of our loyal hearts into your royal hands, wherein we crave leave to supplicate your Majesty for your gracious protection of us in the continuance, both of our civil [privileges'] as of our religious liberties, (according to the grantees' known end of suing for the Patent,) conferred upon this Plantation by your Royal Father. This, this,§ viz. our liberty to walk in the faith of the Gospel with all good conscience, according to the order of the Gospel, (unto which the former, in these ends of the earth, is but subservient,) was the cause of our transporting ourselves with our wives, our little ones, and our substance, from that pleasant land over the Atlantic Ocean into the vast [and waste'] wilderness, choosing rather the pure Scripture worship, with a good conscience, in this [poor'] remote wilderness amongst the heathen, than the pleasures of England, with submission to the impositions of the then so disposed and so far prevailing hierarchy, which we could not do without an evil conscience. For this cause we are [at'] this day in a land which lately was not sown, wherein we have conflicted with the sufferings thereof, much longer than Jacob was in Syria. Our witness is in Heaven, that we left not our native country upon any dissatisfaction as to the constitution of the civil state. Our lot, after the example of the good old Nonconformists, hath been, only to act a passive part throughout these late vicissitudes and successive overturnings of States. Our separation from our brethren in this desert hath been, and is, a sufficient bringing to mind the afflictions of Joseph; but providential exemption of us hereby from the late wars and temptations of either party, we account as a favor from God; the former clothes us with sackcloth, the latter with innocency. What reception, courtesy, and equanimity those gentlemen and others, adherers to the Royal Interest, who, in their adverse changes, visited these parts, were entertained with amongst us, according to the meanness of our condition, we appeal to their own reports. Touching complaints put in against us, our humble request only is, that for the interim while we are as dumb, by reason of our absence, your Majesty would permit nothing to make an impression on your Royal Heart against 1 Supplied from Hazard.-H. * Substituted, from Hazard, for greater in the MS.—н. us, until we have both opportunity and leave to answer for ourselves. Few will be nocent, said that impleader, if it be enough to deny; few will be innocent, said the then Emperor, if it be enough to accuse. Concerning the Quakers, open and capital blasphemers, open seducers from the glorious Trinity, the Lord Jesus Christ, our Lord Jesus Christ, the blessed Gospel, and from the holy Scriptures as the rule of life, open enemies to the government itself, as established in the hands of any but men of their own principles, malignant and assiduous promoters of doctrines directly tending to subvert both our Church and State, after all other means for a long time used in vain, we were at last constrained, for our own safety, to pass a sentence of banishment against them, upon pain of death. Such was their dangerous, and impetuous, and desperate turbulence, both to religion and [the] State, civil, and ecclesiastical, as that, how unwilTingly soever, (could it have been avoided,) the magistrate at last, in conscience both to God and man, judged himself called, for the defence of all, to keep the passage with the point of the sword held towards them. This could do no harm to him that would be warned thereby; their wittingly rushing themselves thereupon was their own act, [and'] we with all humility conceive a crime, bringing their blood on their own head. The Quakers died not because of their other crimes, how capital soever, but upon their superadded presumptuous and incorrigible contempt of authority, breaking in upon us, notwithstanding their sentence of banishment made known to them. Had they not been restrained, so far as appeared, there was too much cause to fear that we ourselves must quickly have died, or worse; and such was their insolency, that they would not be restrained but by death; nay, had they at last but promised to depart the jurisdiction, and not to return without leave from authority, we should have been. glad of such an opportunity to have said they should not die. Let not the King hear men's words; your servants are true men, fearing of God and [of1] the King, not given to change, zealous of government [and'] order, orthodox and peaceable in Israel. We are not seditious as to the interest of Cæsar, nor schismatics as to the matters of religion. Supplied from Hazard.—н. 1 We distinguish between churches and their impurity, between a living man, though not without sickness or infirmity, and no man; irregularities, either in ourselves or others, we desire to be amended. We could not live without the public worship of God, nor [were we'] permitted the [use of1] public worship without such a yoke of subscription and conformities [as] we could not consent unto without sin. That we might therefore enjoy divine worship without [the'] human mixtures, without offence [either'] to God, man, [or1] our own consciences, we with leave, but not without tears, departed from our country, kindred, and fathers' houses, into this Pathmos; in relation whereunto we do not say our garments are become old by reason of the very long journey, but that ourselves, who came away in our strength, are by reason of [very1] long absence many of us become grey-headed, and some of us stooping for age. The omission of the prementioned injunctions, together with the walking of our churches, as to the point of order, [in] the Congregational Way, is it wherein we desire our orthodox brethren would bear with us. Sir, We lie not before your Sacred Majesty. The Lord God of gods, the Lord God of gods knoweth, and Israel he shall know, if it were in rebellion or schism that we wittingly left our dwellings in our own country for dwellings in this strange land, save us not this day! Royal Sir, If according to this our humble petition and good hope, the God of the spirits of all flesh, the Father of Mercy, who comforteth the abjects, shall make the permission of the bereavement of that all, (for which we have and do suffer the loss of all precious, so precious in our sight,) as that your Royal Heart shall be inclined to shew unto us the kindness of the Lord in your Highness' protection of us in these liberties, for which we hither came, [and'] which hitherto we have here enjoyed, upon Hezekiah's speaking comfortably to us as [to1] sons, this orphan shall not continue fatherless, but grow up as a revived infant, under a nursing father; these churches shall be comforted, a door of hope opened by so signal a pledge of the lengthening of their tranquillity, [that'] these poor [and'] naked Gentiles, not a few of whom through Grace are come and 1 Supplied from Hazard.-H. |