Glass_f-j^L"a- 
 
 
 BookX^JP-3 
 

 FOR THE 
 
 CELEBRATION 
 
 CLOSE OF THE SECOND CENTURY 
 
 SINCE THE ESTABLISHMENT 
 
 THURSDAY LECTURE. 
 
 BY n: l. frothingham, 
 
 Pastor of the First Church. 
 
 PRINTED AT THE REQUEST OF THE BOSTON ASSOCIATION OF 
 CONGREGATIONAL MINISTERS. 
 
 BOSTON: 
 
 RUSSELL, ODIORNE, AND METCALF. 
 1833. 
 
r 73 
 
 BOSTON: 
 
 Samuel N. Dickinson. Printer, 
 52, Washington Street. 
 
SERMON. 
 
 JOB iv. 15. 
 
 THEN A SPIRIT PASSED BEFORE MY FACE. 
 
 What is the past, but a spirit, a shade, an image, like 
 that which Eliphaz the Temanite saw in his vision ? It is an 
 unsubstantial, hollow form, from which the life has departed. 
 We call it up as from the dead. It flits before the fancy 
 like one of those dim ghosts, that peopled the under-world 
 both of Grecian and Hebrew poetry, and that present 
 themselves to us again in the melancholy mythology of 
 the North, robed in grey mists and faint meteors ; in either 
 case possessing no part of their former strength, and uttering 
 their speech in the sigh of the night-wind or a whisper out of 
 the dust. 
 
 My brethren of this association seem to have assigned me 
 the task of summoning forth such a shade, when they have 
 
bidden me go back almost to the time, when this land was 
 first peopled by Christian men ; and to describe the origin 
 and fortune of a Lecture, which was once thought of the 
 utmost importance to the church and the state, but which we 
 are left to support with thankless pains, comforted indeed by 
 the sympathies of one another, but little cheered by the public 
 at large. Two hundred years, — that have departed as all 
 years must, but not into the utter forgetfulness, in which most 
 of the generations of men lie buried, — are required to gather 
 a few of their faded recollections, a few semblances of the 
 great life that once thrilled through them, as if into an 
 empty, air-drawn figure. We are to question it, and it is to 
 admonish us. 
 
 And if the time that has elapsed since our lecture was found- 
 ed glides before us like a spirit, when brought under the wand 
 of historical invocation, — what is the lecture itself, on the 
 account of which I am bidden to invoke and interrogate it, 
 but a shadow of what it once was, a sort of spectral imper- 
 sonation of former influence and honor ? One feels as if he 
 were dealing with scarcely a real subject ; as if he were asking 
 of one phantom to tell him of another ; as if he were surround- 
 ed but by aged recollections, and could be responded to but 
 by signs and echoes. He might wish to bow his head silent- 
 ly, like Saul at Endor, while the old veiled seer comes up ; 
 or be ready to tremble like Job's friend in the text, as the 
 indistinct vision passes by him. He will be thought reasonable 
 at least, in regretting that he has not the necromantic skill of 
 some, to bring the absent and forgotten before your eyes, and 
 to speak to you as with a voice from the land where all past 
 things are gathered darkly to their repose. For his own part, 
 
he has looked long and intently after what might be disclosed 
 to him, but with so little success as to be almost ashamed to 
 tell what he has seen. " It stood still, but he could not dis- 
 cern the form thereof." 
 
 There is an obscurity hanging over the early years of the 
 Thursday Lecture — or the Fifth-day Lecture, as it was an- 
 ciently called, — which it is difficult to account for, and which 
 the most diligent search that I could make has been unable to 
 clear away. It is well known that the institution of it is dated 
 from the ordination of Mr. Cotton, just two centuries ago, as 
 teacher over the church, that was then the only one, in this 
 town. The testimony to this point is of the most satisfactory 
 kind. Governor Winthrop tells us in his Journal, that on the 
 17th of Sept. 1633 "theGovernourand Council met at Boston, 
 and called the ministers and elders of all the churches to con- 
 sider about Mr. Cotton his sitting down. He was desired to 
 divers places, and those who came with him desired he might 
 sit down where they might keep store of cattle ; but it was 
 agreed, by full consent, that the fittest place for him was 
 Boston ; and that (keeping a lecture) he should have some 
 maintenance out of the treasury." The fittest place was 
 indeed Boston, that appears to have received its name out of 
 compliment to him, — while he was yet preaching at Boston 
 in Lincolnshire those doctrines, that brought him into 
 question with the high commission court, and compelled 
 him to fly for his safety, disguised and under a feigned 
 name, to these ends of the earth. He was accounted the 
 ablest man on this side of the sea, and his lecture rose 
 at once into an object of deep and general concern. On 
 the very first month of its establishment an order of 
 
court was passed, prescribing the hour at which it should 
 be attended, one o'clock in the afternoon.* The order, 
 however, could not have remained long in force, and midday 
 became the time, when this important service, by which the 
 magistrates were instructed and the churches advised and 
 the people warned, was performed. Its influence was felt in 
 the conferences of ecclesiastics, and at the council board of 
 state. It exerted its various power upon the customs and 
 even the dress of that generation, upon the order of disci- 
 pline, the tenets of faith, and the laws of the land. Such 
 was the well known efficiency of our Lecture while it was yet 
 young in its work, addressing itself to a community, that was 
 growing indeed, but still thin and scattered. 
 
 And here, before proceeding to any account of its further 
 celebrity and spread, I will ask you to stop for a moment, 
 and look behind the facts that have been already mentioned 
 and are generally understood, to consider a circumstance 
 even earlier than any that has been named ; one that is on 
 every account worthy to be mentioned in this connexion, and 
 the rather as it wears an air of novelty. The Thursday 
 Lecture does not only carry us back to the days of the first 
 settlement of the country, but to the native land of our fore- 
 fathers. It is connected with the old world, as well as with 
 old times. It was preached in the English Boston by the 
 same fervent ministry that brought it to ours. We can follow 
 it from the fens of the Witham to the New England coast. 
 The grandson of Mr. Cottonf assures us, that his famous 
 
 * Snow's History of Boston, p. 54, note. 
 t Mather's Magnalia, vol. ii. p. 238. 
 
ancestor kept "his ordinary Lecture every Thursday," 
 while he was under the directions of the Bishop of Lincoln, 
 and in friendship with the noble Earl of the same title. 
 One cannot but be struck with the thought, that the eloquent 
 voice might have been heard many and many a time rolling 
 among the stately Gothic arches of St. Butolph's, which came 
 here to fill a poor meetinghouse, having nothing better than 
 mud for its walls and straw for its roof; and that under one of 
 the loftiest cathedral towers in Europe, lifting itself up as the 
 pride of the surrounding country, and a landmark to them 
 that are afar off on the sea, this very institution had its origin, 
 which has long shown not even the vestiges of Jts ancient 
 renown, but is dying under our eyes and hands a lingering 
 death. I imagine it not only associating the present with 
 a remote age, but bringing together the opposite shores of 
 the Atlantic Ocean. I hear the heavy bell calling John 
 Cotton's hearers together in prelatical England ; and the 
 knell falls faintly around me of the intervening generations 
 that have gone away one after another into silence. 
 
 In returning from this digression, which some may think 
 full imaginary enough, to the history of the beginnings of the 
 Lecture among ourselves, the next fact that meets us is one 
 that does not partake at all of the fanciful. It is the sub- 
 stantial reality of a market, set up now for the first time in 
 this place. On the 4th of March, 1634, as Governor Win- 
 throp informs us, " By order of court a mercate was erected 
 at Boston, to be kept upon Thursday the 5th day of the week, 
 being the lecture day." And shortly afterwards he adds, 
 that " at the lecture at Boston, a question was propounded 
 
8 
 
 about veils. Mr. Cotton concluded, that where (by the cus- 
 tom of the place) they were not a sign of the women's sub- 
 jection, they were not commanded by the apostle. Mr. En- 
 dicott opposed, and did maintain it by the general arguments 
 brought by the apostle. After some debate, the Governor, 
 perceiving it to grow to some earnestness, interposed, and so 
 it brake off." It is curious to compare these two mementos, 
 laid so closely together ; the solid provision for the public 
 convenience, and the flimsy discussion on female attire between 
 the austerest of governors, — for a governor was disputant as 
 well as umpire, — and the gravest of divines. Both indicate 
 the character of the time ; its deficiency in what seems to us 
 indispensable, and its zealousness on what seems to us indif- 
 ferent. They could neither of them be passed over in 
 the sketch which is now presenting ; for there is but one 
 more circumstance of similar antiquity to be mentioned. It 
 is furnished by the imprinted records of this church, and 
 relates in the most illegible of hands a fact of which it is im- 
 possible to mistake the interpretation ; that some excommu- 
 nicated person, whose name I will not be the first to disturb 
 in its long sleep, was compelled to confess among other mis- 
 demeanors, his U sometimes forsaking the Lecture " for the 
 sake of indulging in his vices ; — a simple allusion, but one 
 that shows distinctly enough the reverence in which the ser- 
 vice thus " forsaken" was held. 
 
 Here then we may consider the first era of it to be com- 
 pleted ; and a few words will describe the aspect which it 
 now wore. It was a meeting of all that claimed or deserved 
 respect in the neighborhood. The magistrates were pres- 
 ent, the Governor of the colony with his counsellors ; and 
 
<) 
 
 after its appropriate offices were ended, it was followed by a 
 convention of the people, at which municipal regulations were 
 adopted, and questions of every kind were discussed that 
 engaged the minds of the men of that day. " Whatever 
 Mr. Cotton delivered," says an historian,* " was soon put 
 into an order of court, if of a civil, or set up as a practice in 
 the church, if of an ecclesiastical concernment." 
 
 The curtain of nearly half a century now drops before the 
 scene. We see nothing and hear nothing behind it. It was the 
 period, when the Lecture was steadily advancing to its highest 
 point of show and popularity, and yet precisely that which 
 has left the least account of itself; like the true prosperities 
 and well filled power, that love best to go on their way 
 with a rejoicing quietness. I will but lift the screen, and 
 exhibit to you as on a stage or in a picture the appearance 
 that it presented during this period. The thatched meeting- 
 house has disappeared and given place to a more commodi- 
 ous and worthy structure ; and towards this, on every fifth 
 morning of the week, there is a flowing together of the 
 people from many a mile round. The villages send their 
 yeomen and pastors. The walls of Harvard College, that 
 have risen at Newtown, contribute of its few students and 
 fellows to swell the train. All other instruction must cease, 
 while the lips of the benignant old patriarch Wilson, of the 
 eloquent and commanding Cotton, of the zealous Norton, of 
 Oxenbridge the well beloved, who broke off his own preach- 
 ing of this very Lecture to be carried to his death-bed, are 
 
 * Hubbard. 
 
10 
 
 dispensing diviner knowledge. The schools dismiss their 
 pupils in the forenoon, and are kept no more that day, in 
 order that no one may be deprived of so great a privilege. 
 The rough weather of a climate yet sterner than it has since 
 been, scarcely thins the assembly that comes to warm itself 
 with fervent words and the glow of a common interest and 
 the breath of its own crowd, in a cold place. What an array 
 is here of dignity, and sanctity, and comeliness ! What squares 
 of scarlet cloaks ! What borders of white but artificial hair ! 
 What living complexions, — of a less shining whiteness, and 
 less presumptuously red, — upon many fair but solemn faces, 
 which the arguments of Cotton have divested of their veils ! 
 And lest any thing should be wanting to so important an occa- 
 sion, and lest a single interesting association of life should be 
 overlooked or unconnected with it, I hear the list of names 
 repeated with a loud voice, of those who " intend," as the 
 good phrase still is, to make themselves the happiest of mor- 
 tals. Thus the recreations of the young and the meditations 
 of the old, the order of the churches and the guidance of the 
 state, the market-place and the marriage-ring, have their re- 
 membrances bound together in this ancient service. 
 
 In the year 1679 it sustained an alteration, of too much 
 consequence to be here passed by. The church of Boston 
 was no longer one. The thickening population at the North 
 required another edifice for their accommodation, which had 
 already existed for thirty years ; and religious dissensions, — 
 a less happy and a less honorable motive, — had planted, 
 somewhat violently, a third church at the South. Hitherto, 
 the Lecture had been conducted by the pastors and teachers 
 of the old congregation. But feebler hands than their pre- 
 
11 
 
 decessors were now bearing up its ark. The great names of 
 the former time had become names and recollections merely ; 
 and the question necessarily arose, whether there might not 
 be some enlargement of the present practice. The question 
 did arise ; — but in a shape that we should hardly have looked 
 for. A singular record is found at this date in the books ot 
 the First Church. It seems that there was passed " an order 
 and advice of y e magistrates, y' all the elders of this towne 
 might joyntly carry on the 5 lh day lecture." An order from 
 the magistrates ! And Cotton but a single generation in his 
 grave ! Where was the old bond of alliance, between him 
 who spoke from the sacred desk and him who sat in the 
 state chair ? One would think that in that age of visions his 
 angry spirit would have passed before their faces, making all 
 their " bones to shake." The times had changed however, 
 though a portion of their temper, in opposition at least, was 
 still remaining. The reply was expressed in the following 
 vote : " In answer to y e Hon ed Magistrates about the Lecture ; 
 Tho as an injunction wee cannot concurr with it, but doe 
 humbly bare our witnesse against it, as apprehending it tend- 
 ing to y e infringement of Church Libertie : yett if the Lord 
 incline the hearts of the other Teaching officers of this towne 
 to accept of desire of our officers, to give y r assistance with 
 those of this Church, who shall bee desired to carry on their 
 fifth day lecture, wee are willing to accept theire help therein." 
 It was nobly said ; — with a proper respect for themselves, 
 and a reasonable jealousy of political interference with relig- 
 ious offices. One can only lament, that with all the mixture 
 of human feelings, there can be the slightest pretence to sus- 
 pect them of any but the best. One can wish to forget that 
 
12 
 
 they were yet unreconciled, though after a quarrel that had 
 lasted as long as the siege of Troy, with their seceding breth- 
 ren of the Old South ; who had from the beginning the best 
 of the argument, and manifested throughout, perhaps, the 
 better temper. But whatever our judgment may be, — and it 
 should certainly not do them a wrong and dishonor, — the 
 event was, that from that time forth, other ministers, as they 
 were added to the Congregational name, bore their part in 
 these exercises, and many new gifts and powers were brought 
 in to aid in a venerable work. 
 
 There is now another interval of blankness for twenty 
 years, and when we look again the scene is changed. "The 
 world hasteth fast to pass away," says an apocryphal writer ;* 
 and how could the Thursday Lecture enjoy its immunities 
 for ever ? We see it declining now from its high ascendency, 
 though still preserving a certain dignity in its waning and its 
 descent. Towards the close of the century, Dr. Cotton 
 Matherf "gave notice that the Lecture was to begin at 11 
 o'clock instead of 12; reproved the town's-people that at- 
 tended no better ; and declared that it would be an omen of 
 their not enjoying it long, if they did not amend." Our se- 
 vere weather began now to act as a preventive or to patron- 
 ize an excuse. In the mid winter of 17 J 5, during a violent 
 snow-storm from the northeast, the worshippers not only 
 could be counted, but offered by their unprecedented fewness 
 a temptation to count them ; — and a Chief Justice assures us 
 
 * 2 Esdras, iv. 26. 
 
 t Chief Justice Sewall's MS. Journal. 
 
13 
 
 that the audience, barricaded as it might have been by the 
 driving tempest before the services should have exhausted 
 themselves, consisted but of sixteen women and two hundred 
 men. 
 
 We may well pause, after such an instance of deterioration, 
 and unwilling to pursue any further the course of neglect, 
 take refuge in a great public event, which sixty years after- 
 wards shook the whole land, and ended in throwing over our 
 withered Lecture a momentary glory ; — as the frost paints the 
 dying leaves of the woods with more magnificent colors 
 than when they flourished the freshest. During the siege of 
 Boston, it was for a few melancholy months suspended ; and 
 the deliverance of the town renewed it in the midst of uni- 
 versal acclamations. Individuals may be yet alive who beheld 
 its crowded assembly that day ; — a day that was suited to 
 remind men of the foundation of the colony, while celebrating 
 its redemption and freedom, — that saw one great era looking 
 back to another, and battle and victory stretching out their 
 mailed hands to greet all the ancient memories of peril and 
 destitution and " small " but unconquerable " things." The 
 officers of the army of Congress gave their attendance, throw- 
 ing a military splendor over the house of prayer ; and there 
 was Washington himself, that " Captain of the Lord's host " 
 for a continent and for mankind. 
 
 The Lecture might have closed its doors after this. It had 
 had enough of honor. I will add nothing further to its his- 
 tory. The rest is told by our own recollections of the wise 
 and good and eloquent, who have cast their words upon its 
 deserted walfe ; and whose voices — O, how gladly would we 
 bring back, though it were but for a moment, from the 
 lonelier chambers into which they have died away '• 
 
14 
 
 " A spirit passed before my face." — Let me return to the 
 text, and end the discourse as it was begun. The spirit in 
 the book of Job did not disappear till it had uttered its short 
 word of admonition : " Shall mortal man be more just than 
 God ? " The spirit which we have ventured to accost may- 
 have something else to tell besides its story of accidents and 
 changes. Before it is swallowed up in the shadows of the 
 night, from which we have summoned it, let us listen to 
 its advice. It says to us, — Have no regrets for what cannot 
 be called back. Make no complaints concerning what could 
 not be otherwise. Utter no lamentations over the decay of 
 observances, that cannot for ever be observed j nor over the 
 decay of piety, as if it were indicated and expressed by any 
 thing of this kind that is done or left undone. " Strengthen 
 the things that remain," and that you would not willingly let 
 die ; but lay it not to heart too much, if you find that you 
 cannot reverse the decree of their mortality. Do not mis- 
 trust the present. Do not tremble for the future. The world 
 that has been changing hitherto, will change more. Forms 
 will give place to forms; opinions will grow obsolete, 
 usages be laid aside, and establishments fall ; but truth will 
 gain, and improvement go on, and religion, that immortal one, 
 healed of its hurts and released from its thralls, draw freer 
 and freer breath. Reflect, that the institutions which have 
 become less used have become less required. A multitude 
 of means, new and full of life, spring forward into the place 
 of every one, which age has impaired or circumstances have 
 dispensed with. Rejoice, that whatever is lost by the wear- 
 ing out of a single instrument, is made up a hundred fold by 
 other facilities. Rejoice, that individual influence and au- 
 
15 
 
 thority have become less, that the strength of an enlightened 
 public sense might become more. The most famous of all 
 your divines* professed that " he loved not to sleep, till he 
 had sweetened his mouth with a piece of Calvin." But that 
 taste has altered. Some of you, like the fire-kings, profess 
 to savour the drug, while it is only a cunning substitute that 
 you swallow in its stead ; and others plainly say, that such 
 sugar of lead was fit only for the palates of an iron genera- 
 tion. Be instructed in lessons of humility, thankfulness, 
 hope, by the shade of the past. Mourn for nothing. 
 Despair of nothing. Be persevering and be content. 
 "Shall mortal man be more just" than time and destiny, 
 and the God who is over both ? 
 
 * Mather's Magnalia, vol. ii p. 250. 
 
PSALM CVII. 
 
 [From the New-England Version.] 
 Tone : St. Martin s. 
 
 Your thanks unto the Lord express, 
 
 Because that good is he, 
 Because his loving kindnesses 
 
 Last to eternity. 
 
 So say the Lord's redeem'd, whom bought, 
 He hath from enemies' hands; 
 
 And from the east and west hath brought 
 From south and northern lands. 
 
 Then did they to Jehovah cry, 
 
 When they were in distress, 
 Who did them set at liberty 
 
 Out of their anguishes. 
 
 O that men praise Jehovah would, 
 
 For his great goodness then ; 
 And for his wonders manifold 
 
 Unto the sons of men. 
 
 ORIGINAL HYMN. 
 
 Tune : Eaton. 
 
 Like Israel's host to exile driven, 
 Across the flood the Pilgrims fled ; 
 
 Their hands bore up the Ark of Heaven, 
 And Heaven their trusting footsteps led, 
 
 Till on these savage shores they trod, 
 
 And won the wilderness for God. 
 
 Then, where then* weary Ark found rest, 
 
 Another Zion proudly grew ; 
 In more than Judah's glory drest, 
 
 With light that Israel never knew. 
 From sea to sea her empire spread, 
 Her temple Heaven, and Christ her head. 
 
 Then let the grateful Church to-day 
 Its ancient Rite with gladness keep ; 
 
 And still our Fathers' God display 
 
 His kindness, though the fathers sleep. 
 
 O bless, as Thou hast blest the past, 
 
 While earth, and time, and heaven, shall last.