Wth Xst she reignes, in heaven she sings, Death was ye key weh let her out Pale ghastly death hath sent his shaft Of sudden future death to thine.-J. B., 24, 11.67. THE CHILDREN OF PRESIDENT CHAUNCY. According to Deane, in his history of the town of Scituate, the children of Charles Chauncy and of Catharine his wife were, 'Sarah; 'Isaac; Ichabod; 'Barnabas; 'Nathaniel; Elnathau, who was a twin brother of Nathaniel; 'Israel; Hannah. The sons were all educated at Harvard College and all became preachers of the gospel. All, it is believed, studied medicine and became physicians. He bestowed scriptural names on all of his children. Deeply versed as he was in the Scriptures in the original tongues, we can easily imagine that each name was given because it was significant. His first child was named Sarah-a lady. His first born son, in his joy at his birth, he named Isaac-laughter. The second son, born amid his troubles, was named Ichabod-the glory has departed. The third son, born the year he left England, he named Barnabas-the son of consolation. The fourth and fifth sons bore substantially the same name, Nathaniel, Elnathan-the gift of God. The sixth son was called Israel-the prince of God. The second daughter was called Hannah-a place of rest. Those of his children who left issue will be mentioned hereafter. Very little is known of the last-named child. BARNABAS, the third son, was born in England, in 1637; was admitted a member of the church in Cambridge, Dec. 10, 1656; graduated in Harvard College 1657; was admitted to the degree of A. M., in 1660, when he maintained the affirmative of the following question: Utrum notitia entis primi sit homini naturalis? was a preacher and a physician; is mentioned in the petition of Elnathan Chauncy to the General Court as diseased; died in early life; left no issue. ELNATHAN, the fifth son of President Chauncy, twin brother with Nathaniel, was born in or about the year 1639, in Plymouth, but baptized in Scituate, 1641. "At his birth, Robert Hix, a merchant in Plymouth, gave him fifty acres of land, so much were the people of Plymouth attached to President Chauncy." He was graduated at Harvard, 1661; took his second degree in 1664, when he maintained the affirmative of the following question: Utrum detur concursus per modum principii? studied theology and medicine; was a preacher and a physician; was a distinguished physician in Boston, where he resided; went to Barbadoes, where he died. Dr. Charles Chauncy says, "that he left no children, but his widow was alive since my settlement. I have seen and conversed with her." He had one child, a son, named Theodore, who died young. He presented a petition to the General Court, in which he stated, "that his father had been a servant of the country in the above trust, (i. e. as president of the college,) seventeen years, in all which time he had never received for allowance any other payment than what the country rate had brought in, which had greatly impoverished his family, through the great straits they had been put into; so that if they had not relief in some other kind, they could not have subsisted; and now after his decease, his children are left in a very poor condition, especially our brother, that through the Lord's afflicting hand is so far distempered as to render him wholly unable to do any thing toward his own maintenance, and he will be an annual charge; and it is a great addition to this so great affliction, that his poor brothers have not in their hands to relieve him. "The petitioner asks nothing for himself, nothing for the other members of President Chauncy's family, but only that what is now due may be paid in money, and that our dear distressed brother may not perish for want of support." "On this petition the magistrates grant, that the arrearages due should be paid in money, and the deputies assenting did further grant that ten pounds a year should be paid by the treasurer of the county to the deacon of Cambridge for the support of the petitioner's brother; to which the magistrates found it in their hearts to assent." THE WORKS OF PRESIDENT CHAUNCY. I. The ORATION before the Spanish and Austrian Ambassadors, given in this memoir. II. The Latin and Greek POEMS, given in this memoir. III. The CATECHISM, the title page of which has already been given. IV. The RETRACTATION of Charles Chauncy, formerly minister of Ware, in Harfordshire, written with his own hand before going to New England, in the year 1637. Published by his own direction for the satisfaction of all such who either are or partly might be offended with his scandalous submission made before the High Commission Court, Feb. 11, 1635. London. Printed 1641. This work the present writer has in his possession, transcribed from a copy in the Bodleian Library; and also a printed copy, in good condition, obtained more recently. It was carefully prepared and exhibits great logical accuracy in the statement of the argument against the use of the Rail, &c. V. A SERMON. God's Mercy shown to his People. Cambridge, 1655. VI. A SERMON delivered the day after Commencement, in 1665. From Amos, ii. 11. And I raised up of your sons for prophets, and of your young men for Nazarites. In the course of the sermon, he has the following passage: "God hath wonderfully erected schools of learning and means of education for your children, that there might be continually some comfortable supply and succession in the ministry. Is it not so, O ye people of God in New England? But then let me testify against you in the Lord's name for great unthankfulness to the Lord for so great a mercy. The great blessing of a painful ministry is not regarded by covetous earthworms. Or some little good they apprehend in it, to have a minister to spend the sabbath, and to baptize their children, and schools to teach their children, and keep them out of harm's way, or to teach them to write and cast accurately; but they despise the angel's bread, and count it light stuff in comparison with other things. Yea, there be many in the country that account it their happiness to live in the waste, howling wilderness, without any ministry, or school, or means of education for their posterity; they have much liberty, they think, by this want." Dr. Charles Chauncy says of this sermon, "He takes occasion in this sermon to bring in students and ministers, pleading for long hair from obligations the Nazarites were under not to suffer a razor to come upon their heads; and rejects their plea with the utmost detestation, representing their wearing long hair as abominable in the sight of God, a heathenish practice, and one of the crying sins of the land. It is strange that men of learning, rich good sense, and solid judgment, should be able to expend so much zeal against a trifle, not to say a thing absolutely indifferent to our nature. But the greatest as well as best men in this country, in that day, magistrates as well as ministers, esteemed the wearing of long hair as an enormous vice and solemnly testified against it as such." Though it seems "strange" that a "trifle" like this should be magnified into so much importance, yet we can find something like it in the fashionable external morality and the practical intolerance of some portion of almost every generation of the Puritans, from their first landing to the present time. There have always been those who were ready to tithe mint, anniss and cummin, whether or not they neglect the weightier matters of the law. There have always been those who were ready to wage war with externals that were of little more consequence in themselves than the cut of the hair. Men are governed more by associations than by reasons. The Cavaliers of the church of England wore long hair, and, from the association, some of the Puritan round-heads considered it as sinful. The Roman Catholics have a cross on their churches, and, from the association, some of the descendants of the Puritans consider this symbol of the religion of Christ as sinful. VII. TWENTY-SIX SERMONS. This work is entitled or the Plain Doctrine of the Justification of a Sinner in the sight of God. Printed in London, 1659. The following is the dedication: Honoratissimo et nobilissimo Heroi amplissimo utique et Piissimo domino Gulielmo Vicecomiti Sey et Seale; Nec non illustrissimo et dignissimo viro, domino; Nathanieli Fiennes, uni e dominis custodibus magni sigilli Angliæ. Hoc grati animi et debitæ observantiæ μνημόσυνον καὶ μαρτύριον D.D.D.C.C. In respect to the end aimed at in the work he remarks, in the preface, "My particular employment, wherein I hope that my desire is to serve the Lord in truth, and to seek the great benefit of the youth and students, who are to be trained up, Εν παιδία νεθεσια T8 qugis, that is, in the doctrine of the Lord, that may put a right understanding into them; hath moved me to represent this doctrine of justification as a standard of truth and salvation to them 1; which they should hold fast and hold forth in their generations." It has been my good fortune to obtain this book from London in a good condition. It is a small quarto of three hundred pages. It exhibits great vigor and earnestness and vehemence and thought, arranged in logical sequence, and thoroughly imbued with a christian and classic spirit. VIII. His last published work, so far as is known, is entitled ANTISYNODALIA Scripta Americana, or a proposal of the judgment of the dissenting ministers of the churches of New Enggland, Assembled by the appointment of the General Court, March 10, 1662, whereof there were several sessions afterward. The result of the Synod related to two points: 1. The Baptism of the grandchildren of church members, and in what is called the half-way covenant. 2. The Consociation of Churches. The Anti-synodalia related entirely to the first point. It exhibits great force of reasoning in opposition to the result of the Synod, which was in favor of baptizing under the half-way covenant. It also exhibits a very catholic christian spirit, and must have had great influence in settling the practice of the churches. The Anti-synodalia was published in 1662. It closes in the following characteristic way: "Now our good God which hath made hitherto salvation for walls and bulwarks to us, and hath led his people like sheep by the hand of Moses and Aaron, still make his people steadfast in one faith, and the order of the Gospel; and still call the name of our courts and churches and families, Jehovah Shammah. Amen." Mr. Allen, first minister of Dedham, replied to "Anti-synodalia;" while Mr. Davenport and Increase Mather supported the |