and humility he inculcated in life. The tears of a bereaved people were his eulogy; his works his monument; and the thousands he guided to Christ and confirmed in the faith, his crown of rejoicing on high.

ARTICLE IV.

The First Church in Newark. Historical Discourses, relating to the First Presbyterian Church in Newark, N. J., originally delivered to the Congregation of that Church, during the month of January, 1851. By JONATHAN F. STEARNS, D. D., Pastor of the Church.

IT is with no ordinary degree of satisfaction that we have read this history of "the oldest fully organized Church of Christ, of any denomination, within the State of New Jersey." Every page contains proof that the author has been careful to find out and present facts, drawn from more reliable sources than the imagination. For this kind of literary labor Dr. Stearns has some peculiar qualifications. His mind has a strong affinity for the truthful. His powers of analysis and comparison are strong and clear. He has unbending perseverance and patience, so that he could hunt up a date at the "cost of days of toil," "through volumes, pamphlets, records, and obscure manuscripts," and wait from 1851 to 1854, in order to issue as reliable a history as the material within his reach would allow. Withal we like the plain, lively, and perspicuous style of this book, so much in keeping with the character of its author.

New Jersey has a history, but until within a few years Jerseymen have been sad delinquents in reference to it, allowing many a precious relic to be destroyed, and much, deserving of remembrance, to be forgotten. Early settled by men of more than ordinary worth, and during several years the battle ground of the Revolution, New Jersey should have been inspired with a generous enthusiasm to preserve everything which could serve to illustrate her own history and keep in affectionate re

membrance her noble pioneers. Yet we know that very many venerable papers have perished from sheer carelessness, or ignorance of their value. But in 1845 the New Jersey Historical Society was formed, out of the very best talent in the State, and thus far it has prosecuted a labor of love, with marked success. Its able and enthusiastic corresponding secretary, William A. Whitehead, Esq., has written a careful and minute history of "East Jersey under the Proprietors," the safest authority within our knowledge in most matters pertaining to that history. In addition to this, Mr. W. has furnished a number of able papers on other points connected with the history of the State, besides editing the valuable Quarterly of the Society. Under the same auspices, in 1847, Judge Wm. A. Duer furnished a Life of Lord Stirling. In 1848, the influence of the same Society led the Legislature to publish "Selections from the Correspondence of the Executive of New Jersey, from 1776 to 1786." In 1849, the Society published "the provincial Courts of New Jersey, with Sketches of the Bench and Bar," by R. S. Field, Esq., a valuable and very readable book. In 1852 appeared "the Papers of Lewis Morris, Governor of the Province of New Jersey, from 1738 to 1746," a book invaluable to the right understanding of the history of the province during that period. Besides these more extended works, the Society has printed in its Quarterly, valuable discourses from Charles King, Esq. of Columbia College, Dr. Miller, President Frelinghuysen, Chief Justice Hornblower and others, and carefully compiled papers, such as the "Pennsylvania Insurrection in 1794," by Dr. Carnahan; "Review of the trial of Rev. Mr. Tennant, in 1742," by R. S. Field, Esq.; "the Hollanders in New Jersey," by Dr. Messler; "Memoir of Rev. James Caldwell," by Dr. Murray, "Biographical Sketch of Gov. Wm. Franklin," by Wm. A. Whitehead, Esq., etc. etc., together with journals, letters, etc., furnishing a very valuable collection of materials for history which might otherwise have perished. "It is an honorable instinct that prompts men to perpetuate the memory of their forefathers, and to preserve from the decay which overtakes all physical nature, those acts and counsels, which, springing from and informed by the soul, are, like it, capable of immortality."

Since the formation of this Society a number of valuable pamphlet histories of particular localities and organizations have also been published, showing that the zeal for finding and garnering what is left of the remote past, is beginning to be a popular feeling. Of these we have seen none which seems to us more valuable than that which Dr. Stearns has just given to the public. The history of this venerable Church is one of such interest that we propose to glance briefly at it, using the researches of the author of this book freely, and such other as we may have at hand.

The arbitrary consolidation, by a royal charter, of the colonies of Connecticut and New Haven into the one Province of Connecticut "was exceedingly offensive" to the people of the New Haven Colony, and was the cause which led some resolute spirits to remove to the banks of the Passaic. Believing that their religious rights were endangered by the "half-way covenant," which "was highly approved and likely to be recognized as authority, by the Government of Connecticut," a principle which disturbed "that animating vision, which continually floated before the mind of the Puritan emigrant, to found a Church upon pure principles, and a State, which, though separate in its jurisdiction, should act in perfect harmony with the Church, and be governed in all its procedures by the rules of God's Holy Word," a number of persons in the New Haven Colony resolved to emigrate to New Jersey, at that time a wilderness. They purchased a tract of land on the Passaic, of the Proprietors and also of the Indians. The object of their colonization, they declared to be that "they may endeavor the carrying on of spiritual concernments, as also of civil and town affairs, according to God and a godly government there to be settled by them and their associates." It was a "fundamental agreement" with them "to provide with all care and diligence for the maintenance of the purity of religion." Much has been said of the "two fundamental agreements touching their intended design," in which the Newark colonists entered, as being "in accordance with the spirit of sectarianism and intolerance which then so generally prevailed among the Puritans of New England,"* but we take a different view of the facts. * Whitehead's East Jersey, p. 44.

"The settlement of Newark, in the years 1666 and 1667, was probably the last attempt to realize the noble dream of the old Puritan emigrants. The restrictions they adopted, with all the measures consequent thereon, betray no particle of the spirit of bigotry and fanaticism. They were measures, not of oppres sion, but of simple self-protection; and as we hear of no dissentient voices in the whole band, it may be fairly presumed that they were equally in accordance with the views of those who were excluded from the power of government, as of those who were included. The simple design of their authors was to prevent an enterprize on which they had set their hearts, and for whose success they were willing to make large sacrifices, from being frustrated in the beginning, by passing under the control of those who could have no sympathy with its aims. Hence, while they confined the power of office, and even the elective franchise to church members, they added in the very same instrument, though all others, admitted to be planters, have right to their proper inheritances, and do and shall enjoy

all other civil and religious privileges.'"* While we may ad

mit that this plan cannot be realized, and therefore that it was, politically speaking, unsuitable, we yet recognize the yearning after "a millennium," in which the Church and the State should be, if not synonymous, yet supplementary and harmonious. If the sturdy fathers of Newark did fail to realize the permanence of their darling idea of "a godly government,' we will honor the sincerity and self-sacrifice they displayed in the attempt. To their praise let it be said, that they carried out their principles with such a regard to the rights of all, that we have yet to peruse one contemporaneous complaint of injus tice from their enforcement. From 1666 to 1685, the period of the practical existence of the "two fundamental principles," the affairs of the Newark colony were administered with singu lar purity and wisdom; realizing as perfect an equality of burdens and privileges as history has any where preserved.

The second of these "fundamental agreements" is in the words: "we shall, with care and diligence, provide for the maintenance of the purity of religion professed in THE CONGREGATIONAL CHURCHES.' The first pastor was Abraham * Stearns' First Church, p. 15.

Pierson, of whom Cotton Mather says, "wherever he came, he shone," and whom the elder Winthrop pronounced "a godly, learned man.”* His opinions were the type of those held by his people, and for twenty years he and they had tried their principles on Long Island until they abandoned the place, at great sacrifice, for the same reasons which led to their colonization at Newark. From the same high motives he removed a second time to an unbroken wilderness, with a church which never had any organization except that which it had on the shores of Long Island Sound. "It was the good fortune of this community, to have become a church almost as soon as it became a settlement. The settlers were perfectly homogeneous, both in the beginning and for many years afterwards, and were banded together, before they came, for the support of religious. institutions. Indeed, the old church at Branford, organized there twenty years earlier, was probably transported bodily, with all its corporate privileges and authorities. Its old pastor was conveyed hither at the expense of the town; its deacon continued his functions without any signs of re-appointment; its records were transferred and it immediately commenced 'Church Work,' and its pastor was invested with his office and salary on the new spot, without any ceremony of organization or installation. It is true that several of its members were left behind, but they no longer claimed to be a church; and hence there was no church in Branford after the removal, till a new one was organized there several years subsequent. The settlers who came hither from other towns, probably transferred their ecclesiastical relations to this pre-existing organization, and the Church of Branford *** became *** the First Church in Newark." And Dr. Stearns remarks in another place, "during the first seventy years, the town transacted all the business of the congregation; and the seventh minister, as were all his predecessors, was called to the office and had his salary fixed, by a vote of the town in town-meeting."‡

Dr. Hodge says, "Newark was settled in 1667 or 1668 by about thirty families, principally from Brandford in Connecti

* First Church, p. 29.

† Ib. p. 24.

Ib. p. 2.