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MEMOIR
OBF
NATHANAEL EMMONS;
WITH
SKETCHES OF HIS FRIENDS AND PUPILS.
BY
EDWARDS A. PARK.
BO ST ON:
CONGREGATIONAL BOARD OF PUBLICATION,
23 CHAUNCY STREET.
1861.




Entered according to Act of Congress in the year 1861, by the
CONGREGATIONAL BOARD OF PUBLICATION,
In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts.
CAMBRIDGE:
ALLEN AND FARNHAM, ELECTROTYPERS AND PRINTERS.




PREFACE.
As Dr. Emmons was an active pastor, fifty-four years; a
preacher, fifty-eight years; a minister of the Gospel, seventyone years; as he lived through more than half of the eighteenth,
and through nearly half of the nineteenth century; as some of
his publications have now been seventy-eight years before the
world,- he must have come in contact with a large variety of
minds; and it is impossible to present a full view of his life,
without presenting side views of the times through which his
influence has been drawn out. This influence has been not
only extensive, but also, to a remarkable degree, indirect;
therefore his Memoir, if complete, must include the Sketches of
those Friends and Pupils through whom he has exerted his
power over the community.  Some of his former associates are
still among the living; and, of course, the notice of them in
this Memoir is either brief, or else is omitted altogether.  The
outward incidents of his life were few, so that his Biography
must be the memorial of his thoughts.  Many of these thoughts
are expressed in his Aphorisms, to which a considerable space is
devoted in the Memoir.
In preparing this Biography, the author has been indebted
to the Rev. Thomas Williams, whose "Discourse on the Official Character of Nathanael Emmons," was the result of faithful and prolonged study; to the Rev. Dr. Jacob Ide, from
(vii)                                            (iii)




iv                      PREFACE.
whose original Memoir the present volume contains many direct quotations, and also many extracts modified and abridged
with his consent; to the Rev. William Clark, Secretary of the
New Hampshire Missionary Society, who has been intimately
acquainted with the Pupils of Emmons, and with the fruit of
their toils; to the "History of the Mendon Association," by
Rev. Mortimer Blake; to the manuscript letters and the Published Writings of Rev. Dr. Field, of Stockbridge, Mass.; to
Dr. Sprague's Annals of the American Pulpit; to the valuable collection of pamphlets in the Library of Brown University, the gift of Judge Theron Metcalf; to the Library of the
American Genealogical Society, and to the private communications of Rev. Dr. Israel Putnam, Mr.-D. Williams Patterson,
and a large number of clergymen and laymen who deserve
and receive the hearty thanks of the Author.
It may be necessary to remind the reader, that when this
Memoir was first written, only two volumes of the new edition
of Emmons's Discourses had been published; and, therefore,
the Memoir often refers to the original edition of his Works.
Where the reference is to that edition, it is noted by the words
"Original Edition," or the syllables " Orig. Ed."; and where
the reference is to the present, new edition, it is noted by the
simple term, " Works."
EDWARDS A. PARK.
ANDOVER THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY, March 4, 1861.
(viii)




SYNOPSIS OF THE MEMOIR.
CHAPTER  I. — BIRTH-PLACE, CHURCH RELATIONS, AND FAMILT
OF EMMONS, pp. 1-24.
~ 1. Position and Divisions of his Native Town, 1-2.
~ 2. Natural Scenery, and Traditions of East Haddam; their Influence
over Emmons, 2-6.
Brainard's Poems, 3-4. The Machit Moodus, 4-6.
~ 3. The Importance of Haddam.  The Influences which have been
exerted upon it, particularly the Influence of the Brainerds;
their Influence on the Emmons Family, 6-12.
Nassau Hall, 7. Memoir of David Brainerd, 8-12.
~ 4. The Pastors of the Emmons Family, 12-15.
Rev. Timothy Symmes, 12-13. Rev. Hobart Estabrook, 13-14. Rev. Diodate Johnson, 14-15.
~ 5. The Church of the -Emmons Family; the Church Confession,
15-17.
~ 6. The Ancestors and Relatives of Emmons; their Pursuits in Life
and Influence upon him, 17-24.
He drew his illustrations from the Farm, 21-23, and from Natural Scenery, 5.
His Attachment to the Scenes of his Childhood, 21-24.
CHAPTER  II. -  THE INTERVAL BETWEEN HIS LEAVING THE FARM
AND ENTERING THE PASTORATE, 25-44.
~ 1. Preparation and Examination for College; his Life at College,
25-31.
His first Perusal of Edwards on the Will, 27. Governor Treadwell, Judge
Trumbull, Dr. Wales, 26-27.  College Friends, 26-30.  His College
Studies, 29-31.
~ 2. Professional Education, 32-34.
Rev. Nathan Strong, 32. Dr. John Smalley, 32-34. Emmons's opposition
to Calvinism, conversion to it, reception of the New Divinity, 32-34.
a  (v)




Vi                SYNOPSIS OF THE MEMOIR.
~ 3. Commencement of his Religious Life, 34-38.
Connection of his new Theological Views with his Religious Experience, 35-38.
His Missionary Experience, 37.
~ 4. Approbation to Preach the Gospel, 38-43.
His Examination in Theology, 38-42. Protest against it, 38-42.
~ 5. Mr. Emmons as a Candidate, 43-44.
His Modest Anticipations, and his Discouragements, 43-44.
CHAPTER III. —THE TOWNSHIP OF FRANKLIN, AND ITS RECEPTION OF THE NEW  PASTOR, 45-56.
~ 1. Its Religious History and Character, 45-52.
Dedham, 45-46. Wrentham, 46. The Church Covenant,'47. The Ruling
Elders, 48-49. The Religious Character of the Town, 47-50. The Clerical
Predecessors of Emmons, 49-52.
~ 2. Emmons's Entrance upon his Pastorate, 52-56.
His Ordination, 54-56. The first written, and the first printed Communications from his Pen, 54. His method of quieting a troubled Parish, 55-56.
His early Doctrinal Preaching, 55-56.
CHAPTER IV. - THE STUDIES AND THE BOOKS OF EMMONS, 57-83.
~ 1. Little Care for his Secular Concerns, 57-60.
Illustrations of his Decision, 58-60.
~ 2. His Taste and Talent for Business, 61-62.
His Physical Agility, 62.
~ 3. His Pecuniary Necessities, 63-64.
~ 4. Extent of his Reading, 64-67.
His Commencement of Hebrew Study, 65, 71. The Length of his Student
Life, 66.
~ 5. The Character of his Familiar Books, 67-71.
The Library presented by Dr. Franklin, 68. The Parish Library, 68-69. The
Books to which he most frequently referred, 69-7G.
~ 6. Mode of prosecuting his Studies, 71-83.
a. His own Statement of his Method, 71-78.
He meant to be liberal in his Studies, 72-73. His use of Novels,
of Shakspeare, 74. His Thoughtfulness in Reading, 75-76, 65-66.
His Thoroughness, 75-76. His Mastery of Difficult Subjects,
76-77.
b. Questions from his Common-Place Bqook, 78-81.




SYNOPSIS  OF  THE  MEMOIR.                          vii
c. His Apothe-gms on the Method of Study, 81-82; also, 66, 67, 76,
77, 104, 203-204.
CHAPTER  V. —  His FIRST MARRIAGE AND FAMILY, 84-92.
~ 1. Character of his First Wife, 84-85.
~ 2. Early Death of his Wife and Children, 85-88.
~ 3. The Effect of his Early Bereavements upon him, 88-90.
~ 4. His Aphorisms on Affliction, 90-92.
CHAPTER  VI.- IHis SECOND MARRIAGE AND FAMILY; HIS HOME
LIFE, 93-114.
~ 1. Character of his Second Wife, 93-97.
~ 2. His Conversation with Children, 97-100.
~ 3. Letters to his Grand-daughters, 101-104.
~ 4. His Regular Habits at Home, 104-107.
Remark of President Lord, 105. Diversions, 106-107.
~ 5. His Precision at Home, 107-109.
Illustrations, 108; also, 106.
~ 6. His Temperance, 109-111.
~ 7. His Use of Tobacco, 111-112.
~ 8. Seeming Tameness of his Life, 112-114.
Relieved by his Theories of Angelic and Divine Agency, 112-114.
CHAPTER  VII. -  His PERSONAL FRIENDS, ASSOCIATES, AND CORRESPONDENTS, 115-127.
~ 1. His Earlier Friends, 115-116.
Letter on Friendship, 115. Intimacy with Edwardean Divines, 115-116.
~ 2. His Later Friends, 116-121.
Dr. Samuel Spring, 117-118. Rev. David Sanford, 118-120. Rev. Samuel
Niles, 120-121.
~ 3. Correspondence with Dr. Emmons, 121-125.
Letters of Governor Treadwell, 122-123; of Dr. Price, 124; of Dr. Emmons, 123-125.
~ 4. Visit of Dr. Archibald Alexander to Dr. Emmons, 125-127




Viii             SYNOPSIS  OF  THE  MEMOIR.
CHAPTER  VIII. —  His INTEREST IN NATIONAL POLITICS, 128-143.
~ 1. His Troubles during the Revolutionary War, 127-132.
His Revolutionary Politics, 128-129. Pecuniary Sufferings of Clergymen
during the War, 130-132. His Attachment to his Parish, 131-132.
~ 2. His Political Discourses and Action; his Rulesfor them, 132-138.
Federalism of the Clergy, 133-134. The Religiousness of his Politics, 134-135.
His Regard for Principles rather than Men, 135-136. Subordination of Politics to Religion, 135-137.  His use of Fast and Thanksgiving Days,
135-136.
~ 3. His Jeroboam Sermon, 138-143.
Allusions to President Jefferson, 140-142. Dread of Jacobinism, 142-143.
~ 4. His Influence on Political Topics, 143.
CHAPTER   IX.-His  INTEREST  IN  ECCLESIASTICAL  POLITY,
143-152.
~ 1. Imagined Inconsistency between his Views of Civil and Ecclesiastical Government, 144.
~ 2. Radical Distinction between the Ecclesiastical and the Political
Commonwealth, 144-145.
The Spirituality of the Church, 145. Its Power, Executive only, 145.
~ 3. The Dignity of a Church and its Members, 146-147.
The Dignity of the Human Soul, 146.
~ 4. Dignity of the President of a Church, 147-150.
The Pastor a Chief Justice, 147. Appointed by God, 147-148. Permanency
of the Pastoral Relation, 147-148.  Regard for Ministerial Character,
148-149. Councils, 149-150.
~ 5. The Church is a School, 150.
~ 6. Emmons illustrated his own Type of Congregationalism, 150-152.
He was a true Bishop, 151. His Bishopric depended on his Worth, 151-152.
~ 7. The "Jealousy " of Emmons and Spring, 152.
CHAPTER X.- His INTEREST IN THE POLITY OF THE CHURCHES,
153-175.
~ 1. His Anticipatory Spirit, 153-154.
His Concession to Established Usages, 153. His Conservatism, 153-154.




SYNOPSIS  OF  THE  MEMOIR.                               ix
~ 2. His Apprehensions of Evilfrom  Sabbath Schools, 154-155.
Attachment to Home Influences, 154-155. Fears respecting Sabbath School
Literature, 154-155.
~ 3. His Apprehensions of Evilfrom  the National Tract Society, 156.
Doubts with regard to the Union of Calvinists and Arminians, 156.
~ 4. His Apprehensions of Evilfrom  all National Religious Societies,
156-161.
Opposition to Fashions, 157. Individuality of Influence, 157-158. Fears of
Arbitrary Power, 158-160. Duty of Calvinists, 159-160. His Agency in
establishing Charitable Societies, 161-162.
~ 5. His Distinction between the National and  the State Societies,
161-162.
~ 6. His Apprehensions of Evil from  the  General Associations of
Ministers in a State, 162-166.
Congregationalism or Romanism  the only Self-consistent Scheme, 163-164.
His Opposition to the Presbyterianizing Congregationalists of his day,
164-166.
~ 7. His Apprehensions of Evil from the "Plan of Union," 166-167.
The Union all on one side, 167. Love of Independence, 167-168. The Subjection of Congregationalists to Presbyterians, 163-172.
~ 8. His Letter to Dr. Lyman, 168-172.
~ 9. His Apprehensions of Evilfrom Protracted Meetings, 172-175.
His Friendliness to Revivals of Religion, 173-174. Suspicions of his Opposition to them, 173-174. The Approximations of Men to his own Opinions,
174-175; also 155, 158, 165-167.
CHAPTER XI. - HIS CONNECTION WITH THE CAUSE OF MISSIONS,
176-200.
~ 1. His Early Interest in Missions, 176-181.
Letter of D)r. Burton, 176-177. Missionary Theology, 177-178. Sermon in
1800 on Missions, 178-179. Formation of the Massachusetts Missionary
Society, 179-181.
~ 2. Connection of his Efforts with the Formation of the American
Board of Commissioners for Foreign MlIissions, 181-183.
Connection between the Massachusetts Missionary Society and the American
Board C. F. M., 182-183.
~ 3. The Influence of Hopkinsianism  on the Early Friends of the
American Board, 183-190.
Origin of the American Board, 183-185. Dr. Samuel Spring, 184-185. Dr.
Samuel Worcester, 185-187. Dr. Adoniram Judson, 188. Rev. Samuel J.
Mills, Jr., 188. Rev. Gordon Hall, 188-189. Dr. Cyrus Kingsbury, 189-190.
Rev. Daniel Temple, 190. Mr. Norris of Salem, 190.




x                 SYNOPSIS OF THE MEMOIR.
~ 4. The Special Interest of Emmons in Home.Missions, 190-192.
His Plan of Missionary Operations, 190-192. Example of David Brainerd,
190, 8-12.
~ 5. Influence of his Writings in Evangelizing our New Settlements,
192-200.
letters of Gratitude addressed to him, 193. Rev. Hezekiah Balch, 194-196.
Remarkable Will, i95. Dr. Charles Coffin, 196. Dr. Robert Henderson,
197. Dr. Gideon Blackburn, 197. Dr. Isaac Anderson, 197-199. James
Gallaher, 199. Dr. David Nelson, 199. Hopkinsians among the Negroes
in Tennessee, 200. Influence of Hopkinsians in Tennessee, 199-200.
CHAPTER XII. — His INTEREST IN THE CAUSE OF EDUCATION,
201-214.
~ 1. An Example of Individual and Indirect Influence in Educating
Men, 201-204.
Letter of Dr. Joel Hawes, 201-202. Dr. Gardiner Spring, 202-203. The
Hook upon Emmons's Study Door, 203.
~ 2. Tlhe Kindliness of his Severity in Criticism, 204-206.
Illustrations of it, 205-206. Confidence of his Friends in his Kindness,
204-206.
~ 3. His Interest in Seminaries of Learning, 206-214.
His Indirect Influence, 206, also 201.
a. His Interest in Andover Theological Seminary, 207-210.
Efforts for the Establishment of a Theological Seminary, 207.
Opposition to the Andover Compromise, 208. Ultimate Agreement between Dr. Emmons and Dr. Eliphalet Pearson, 209-210.
b. His Interest in Bangor and Auburn Theological Seminaries, and
in Yale, Williams, Dartmouth, and Amherst Colleges, 210-214.
The Professors at Bangor, 210. Professors at Auburn, 211. The
Yale Theologians, 212. The Early Hopkinsianism of Williams
College, 212-213.
CHAPTER  XIII. -His THEOLOGICAL SCHOOL, 215-265.
~ 1. Number of his Pupils, 215-216.
His Influence as a Theological Teacher, 215-216. Advantages and Disadvantages of a private Course of Theological Study, 215-216.
~ 2. HIis Method of Giving Instruction, 216-221.
His Modest Entrance upon his Career as a Teacher, 216-217. Letter to Rev.
Asahel Hooker, 218-220. Comparison of his Course of Study with that of
Dr. Tappan of Cambridge, 219.  Letter of Dr. Pond, 220-221. Rev.
Thomas Williams and Rev. Joseph Emerson, 220-221.



SYNOPSIS OF THE MEMIOIR.                               xi
~ 3. The Interest of his Pupils in the Cause of Education, 221-238.
Professor Abijah Wines, 222-224. Professor Bancroft Fowler, 224. Professor John Smith, 224. Professor Enoch Pond, 224-225. Rev. Kiah Bailey,
225-228.  President Stephen Chapin, 228-229.  Dr. William Jackson,
229-232. Rev. J. B. Preston, 232. Professor Nathaniel Kendrick, 232-233.
Rev. Joseph Emerson, 233-234.  Professor Alexander Metcalf Fisher,
234-236. Dr. John Crane, 236. Professor Calvin Park, 237. Dr. Ebenezer Burgess, 237. Rufus Graves and Samuel Fowler Dickinson, 237-238.
~ 4. The Interest of his Pupils in  the  Work of  illissions, 238243.
Rev. Herman Daggett, 238-239. Rev. Thaddeus Osgood, 239-242. Rev.
Joseph Rowell, 242-243. Rev. Jacob Cram, 243.
~ 5. His Pupils viewed as Pioneers in  establishing  Christian and
Charitable Institutions, 243-252.
Dr. Walter Harris, 244-247. Rev. Reid Page, 248-249. Rev. Jonathan
Ward, 249-251. Rev. Nathan Church, Rev. James Tufts, Rev. Pierson
Thurston, 251-252. Rev. William Riddel, Rev. Drury Fairbanks, 252.
~ 6. The Interest of his Pupils in  Revivals of Religion, 252254.
Rev. Eli Smith, 252-253; Rev. Benjamin Wood, Rev. Elnathan Walker, Rev.
Artemas Dean, 253-254.
~ 7. The Solid Pastors among the Franklin Pupils, 254-256.
Rev. Holloway Fish, 254. Rev. Nathaniel Hall, Rev. Samuel Judson, Rev.
Nathan Holman, Rev. John Fitch, Rev. David Jewett, Rev. Edward Whipple, 255. Rev. Emerson Paine, Rev. Willard Holbrook, 256.
~ 8. The Variety of Gifts and Fortunes among the Franklin Pupils,
256-258.
Rev. Nathaniel Howe, 256. Rev. Calvin Chadduck, Rev. Levi Nelson, Rev.
Roswell Randall Swan, 257. Rev. Nathaniel Rawson, Rev. Bela Kellogg, Rev. Jonathan Longley, Rev. Moses Partridge, Hon. Christopher
Webb, 258.
~ 9. Men of Mfark among the Franklin Pupils, 258-260.
Rev. Thomas Williams, 259-260. Hon. Thomas W. Thompson, 260-261.
Letter of Dr. Elijah Parish to Parker Cleaveland, LL. D., 259.
~ 10. The Age of the Franklin Pupils, 262-263.
~ 11. The Prolonged Influence  of  Emmons  through  his Pupils,
263-265.
CHAPTER  XIV. -  THE PUBLICATIONS OF EMMONS, 266-271.
Early Notices of him as a Pastor and Author, 266-268. President Stiles's
Allusion to him, 267. List of his Works, 268-271.




xii               SYNOPSIS  OF  THE  MEMOIR.
CHAPTER XV. —THE LIFE WORK OF EMMONS, 272-360.
~ 1. Dr. Emmons as a Preacher, 273-331.
A.-His own Description of his Homiletic Plan, 273-279.
Preaching, his Principal Object, 273. He began to write his Sermons late in the week, 273-274. Systematic Preaching, 274.
Argumentative Preaching, 274-275.  Occasional and Textual
Sermons, 274-275. His Principles in arranging a Discourse,
275-276. The Application of his Sermons, 276. Explanatory
Sermons, 276. The unexpected Development of his Sermons,
277-278. His Prudential Considerations, 278-279.
B.   General and Critical Remarks on Emmons as a Preacher and
Writer, 279-331.
Remarks of Dr. Gardiner Spring, 279.
1. -He spent but little time on a Single Discourse, 279-283.
Neatness of his Manuscripts, 280-281. His low Estimate
of their Value, 280-281. Number of his Sermons, 283.
2. - His Sermons are not Printed as they were Delivered, 283-284.
Difficulty of Estimating them as they were originally Delivered, 283-284. He was an Extemporaneous Preacher,
283.
3.- The Influence of his Sermons depended somewhat on the Occasion and Manner of their Delivery, 284-287.
Their Pertinence, 284-286. His Elocution, 285-287.
4.-He was a Representative of Intellectual Preachers, 288-291.
His Dependence on Truth rather than on Church Authority, 288-289.  The Logical Element in  Sermons,
289-290.  Popular Interest in Argumentative Discourses, 289-290.
5. -Was he Plain and Simple in his Discourses? 291-307.
a.- HE AIMED TO BE PERSPICUOUS, 292-294.
His Sermon on 1 Cor. 4: 2.
b. - HE ARRANGED HIS IDEAS IN A LUMINOUS ORDER,
294.
c. -HE REPEATED HIS IDEAS, 294-295.
d. -HE SPOKE AS HE THOUGHT, 296-297.
His Naturalness of Style, 296.
e.-HE EXPLAINED HIS THEME, 297-298.
He explained Things rather than Words, 297,
363.




SYNOPSIS  OF  THE  MEMOIR.                               xiii
f. -HE WAS NOT, IN ALL SENSES AND IN ALL RELATIONS OF THE TERM, A PLAIN PREACHER,
298-307.
Different Meanings of the word Plain, 298-299.
Boldness and Intensity of Emmons's Style,
288-299. The Variety of his Talents, 299.
His Remarks on the Mysteries of the Bible,
299-300;  on  Certainty  and  Necessity,
300-301. His Frankness in Preaching the
most unpopular Doctrines, 301-302. The
Proportions of his Theological System,
302-303.  His Remarks on the Essential
Doctrines of Religion, 303-305. His Distinction between the Fundamental and the less
Essential Doctrines of the Gospel, 305-307.
Was he a Catholic Divine? 303-307. Did
he regard the Atonement as the Central or
Fundamental Doctrine of the Gospel? 307.
6.- He was a Pointed Preacher, 308-309.
He aimed to make his Discourses appropriate to the wants
of his Hearers, 308-309. Familiarity of his Allusions,
308-309. His intensely Practical Aim, 308-309.  Sermon against Fortune-Telling, 309.
7.- He Developed the Harmony of Doctrine, 309-311.
Alleged Contradictions in his Sermons, 310.  Power of
retaining the Interest of his Hearers, 309-310. His
Popularity at Home, 310-311.
S. - His Originality and Ingenuity, 311-312.
9. -His Childlike Statements, 312-313.
He aimed to interest Children, 312. Here and hence 1he
is misunderstood, 312-313, also 345.
10.- The Pertinence of his Discourses, 313-315.
They must be studied in order to be understood, 313.
The Appropriateness of their Style, 314-315.
11. --   as he Concise or Diffuse, Exact or Indefinite in his
Style? 315-317.
The Different Opinions on this Question, 315-316.
12.- V as he a Neat Writer? 317-318.
Apothegms illustrating his Neatness of Style, 317-318.
13. - The Dramatic Element in Emmons, 318-319.
The Dialogue in his Sermons, 318-319.
14. -~ He was a Biblical Preacher, 319-321.
The multitude of his Biblical Quotations, 320-321. His
Style formed on King James's Version, 320.  His
Accommodations of the Inspired Words, 321.
15.-Apothegms illustrating his Didactic M-ethod, 321-324.
VOL. I.                        b




xiv                SYNOPSIS  OF  THE  MBM OIR.
16. - His Startling Apothegms, 324-327.
17.- His Iomiletic Apotheyms, 327-329.
18. - Efect of his Discourses, 329-331.
Illustrations of it, 329-331. Prof. J. L. Kingsley, 330.
~ 2. Emmons as a Pastor, 331.
A. -  His Devotion to his Flock, 331.
His Sermons are Franklin Sermons, 331.
B. -  His Originality in his Pastorate, 331-333.
His Pastoral Visits, 331-333. Visits to the Pastor, 332.
C.-  His Familiar Acquaintance with his Parishioners, 333-334.
His Knowledge of Character, 333.  He was a /Watchman, 334.
His Knowledge of the Business, and the Amusements of his
People, 333-334.
D. —Ie combined a Stern Fidelity with a Tender Love to his People,
334-335.
Letter of Hon. Tristram Burgess, 335.
E. - His Pastorate was a Solemn one, 335-336.
F. - Iis Pastorate was an Authoritative one, 336-337.
His Respect for the old Parish Lines, 336-337. The United Feeling of his Parish, 337.
G.-  The Pastor's WTit, 337, 338.
He used it for the Good of his People, 337. Intercourse with a
Pantheist, 338.
H.-  The Pastor's Dignity, 338-339.
His Personal Appearance, 338-339. His Pecuniary Affairs, 339.
1. -  His Promptness and Punctuality, 340.
His adherence to a Plan, 340.
~ 3. Emmons's Brief Statement of his Labors in his Parish, 340-344.
A. -" I Catechized the Children," 341.
The Interest of Children in him, 341.
B. -" I Preached a Concert Lecture," 341-342.
His Early Interest in Missions, 341.  The Popularity of his Quarterly Lecture, and other Occasional Services, 342.
C. —" I uniformly carried on the Work of the Miinistry." --   I
statedly Preached on the Sabbath."-1-'        constantly and
punctually attended all my Official Duties," 342-343.
His Mode of conducting the Services of the Sanctuary, 342-343.
D. -  Objections to his Method of conducting his Ministry, 343-344.
The Brevity of his Prayers, 343. The Infrequency of his Public
Services, 344.




SYNOPSIS OF THE MEMOIR.                                  XV
~ 4. His Intellectual Influence over his Parish, 344-350.
A. — His Methods of Quickening the Intellect of men who were associated with him, 345-348.
His Church was a School, 345; also, 150. Prominence given to
Religious Doctrine, 345. He insisted on the Attention of his
Parish to his Sermons, 346-347. Methods of securing Attention,
346-348. The Simplicity of his Aims, 346.
B.-  The Intellectual Results of his Pastorate, 348-350.
Hon. Jabez Fisher, 348-349. Professional Men trained under his
Pastorate, 349-350. The Acumen of his Parishioners, 349.
~ 5. Thze Religious Influence of Emmons over his Parish, 350-356.
A. -His own Statement concerning the Spiritual Results of his Labors, 350-351.
His great Aim was to enrich the Hearts of his People, 350.
B.   Appendix to this Statement, 352-354.
The Revivals in his Parish, 350-354. The Religious Character of
his Parishioners, 350-354. Their Testimony in regard to him,
353. Strictness in Examining Members for Admission into his
Church, 354.
C.- IHis Lengthened Rural Pastorate is a Lesson of Contentment to
Country Ministers, 354-356.
The Influence of a Retired Minister upon the world, 354. The
Influence of his Pastoral Life upon his Theological Speculations,
355.  A  New England Church-Member of the Olden Time,
355-356.
~ 6. Illustrations of his Ministerial Piety, 356-359.
His Anniversary Discourses, 357-358.  His Lowly Estimate of Himself,
357-359. His Attachment to Old Usages, 358-359.
~ 7. Apothegms illustrating his Ministerial Wisdom, 359-360.
CHAPTER  XVI. -  His THEOLOGICAL SYSTEM, 361-430.
The Antiquity of his Influence, 361.
~ 1. The Historical Aspects of his Theological Sgstem, 362-363.
A. -  His early Services in the Infidel Controversy, 362-363.
His Familiarity with the Writings of Infidels, 362. His strict
Theory of Inspiration, 363. His Estimate of the Internal Evidence for the Bible, 362. His Explanatory Preaching, 363.
B.- His early Services in the Arminian Controversy, 363-366.
He labored with regard to Principles rather than Men, 364. Not a
one-sided Partisan, 364-365.  His theories of Free Will and
of the Nature of Sin, were designed to subvert Arminianism,
365-366. He has suggested the only feasible Method of defending Calvinism, 366.




XVi               SYNOPSIS OF THE MEMOIR.
C. - His early Services in the Antinomian Controversy, 366-367.
He was not a man of One Idea, 366. His theory of Natural
Ability, 366. His theory of the Order of the Virtues, 366-367.
D.- His early Services in the Unitarian Controversy, 367-371.
He contended against Wrong Principles, rather than against Men,
367. His Sermon preached seventy-two years ago, 368. His
Convention Sermon, 369. His type of Congregationalism, 370.
His relations to the Exclusive System, 368-371. Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, 371.
E. — His early Services in the Controversy with the Universalists,
371-372.
The Ingenuity and Profoundness of his Arguments against Universalism, 372; also 311-312.
F.- His early Services in the Utilitarian Controversy, 373-374.
He was a man of Intuitions, 373. His Independence, 373.
G. -His early Services in behalf of the Theology of Religious Revivals, 374-380.
Letter to a Friend, 374. Influence of Brainerd upon him, 374;
also 373.
(1) He taught that God never requires of Men, what they have not
the Natural Power to do, 374-375.
(2) He taught that Sinners not old  can but should,- and,
when exhorted at all, should be exhorted uniformly, to make
for themselves the new heart, 376-379.
a. -ALL MORAL AGENCY CONSISTS IN CHOOSING, 376.
b. - HOLINESS DOES NOT CONSIST IN A GOOD NATURE,
PRINCIPLE, TASTE, OR RELISH, ANTECEDENT
TO CHOICE; AND SIN DOES NOT CONSIST IN AN
EVIL NATURE, PRINCIPLE, TASTE, OR RELISH,
ANTECEDENT TO CHOICE, 377-379.
Controversy between  his  classmate,  Gov.
Treadwell, and his teacher, Dr. Smalley,
377-388. Dr. Asa Burton, 378.
(3) ie taught that the Natural Tendency of Truth is to restrain
Men from Sin, 379-380.
Distinction between Natural Tendency and Moral Tendency, 379-380. The animating spirit of his Theology, 380.
H.- His early Services in behalf of a Philanthropic  Theology,
381-382.
He did not adopt a "cast-iron" Theology, 382. His theory of
Love to Men, 381-382.
~ 2. The Formative Principles of his Theology, 382-411.
A. —He aimed to make his Theology illustrate the Loveliness of God,
382-383.
He would never tolerate a Doctrine which he deemed Inhuman, 382.




SYNOPSIS  OF  THE  MEMAOIR.                             xvii
(1) He believed that it is not only possible, but it is also easy, to
do all that God commands, 383.
Difference between Dr. Emmons and Dr. N. W. Taylor,
383.
(2) He believed that all the Acts of Jehovah are.prompted by a
supreme Regard to the Law of Rectitude, 383-384.
His Thought on the Day of Judgment, 383.
(3) He believed that all, even the severest Acts of Jehovah, are
prompted by Infinite Love, 384.
B.-  Emmons aimed to make his Theology illustrate the Supremacy
of God, 385.
The fashionable Complaint against Anthropology and Ethics, 385.
His Theology is Objective rather than Subjective, 386. He insists on the Fairness and Equitableness of God, in order to insist
on the Divine Supremacy, 385.
(1) Emmons did believe in the Reality of Second Causes; in the
Laws as real Forces of Nature, 385-386.
(2) He chose to say but little of the Natural Forces, lest he should
withdraw Attention from the Supreme Dominion of Jehovah,
386-387.
His use of the word Efficient, 387.  Causation in God,
like Causation in Man, 387.
C. —He aimed to make his Theology illustrate the Sovereignty of
Divine Grace, 387-392.
(1) He regarded the Atonement of Christ as the Central Truth of
Theology, 387-388; also 307.
(2) Ile regarded the Atonement as concentrating in its Nature,
Origin, and Application, the Free and Sovereign Grace of
God, 388-392.
Reasons for his Theory of the Atonement, 389. His
Theory misunderstood, 389-392. A  Distinction mistaken for a Denial, 390-392.
D. -   e aimed to make his Theological System illustrate the Duty of
Union with God, 392-393.
His Genius is manifested in reducing an entire Science to a few
First Principles, 392.
E. - He aimed to make his Theology illustrate the Duty of Ml]en to
love themselves, 393-394.
The importance which he attached to this Principle, 393.
F. — He aimed to make his Creed illustrate the Harmony of Disinterested Submission with Love to Self, Love to Men, Love to
God, 394-403.
Madame Guion, 395. John Calvin, 396. Professor Stuart, 396-401.
Emmons misunderstood, 401.  The practical relations of his
Theory, 402-403. Manner of speaking of himself, 402-403.




XViii             SYNOPSIS  OF  THE  MEMOIR.
G. -He aimed to make his Creed Illustrate the Fitness of Humility
and Penitence, 403-404.
His Relations to Professors Woods and Taylor, on the Doctrine of
Sin, 403.
H. -  He aimed to make his Theology both Stimulating and Comprehensive, 404-407.
His Genius is seen in his combining these two Qualities, 404. His
regard to Consistency, 405.
I. -He aimed to make his Theology Biblical, 40 7-411.
His Stern words, 407. His Principle, that the Language of the
Bible should be the Language of Scientific Theology, 408-409;
also 364. Biblical Figures, 408. Divine Actions, 408. His
disagreement with Professor Stuart, 409.  His Unfaltering
Spirit, 409. Paraphrase of his Pharaoh Sermon, 409-411.
~ 3. The Creed of Emmons is generally MVisapprehended, 411-430.
Sources of this Misapprehension, 411.
A.- He has been supposed to teach that the Soul is a mere Series of
Exercises, 411-417.
Drs. Dwight, Woods, Richards, Anderson, 411-413. His aim to
represent the Soul as Spiritual, 412. Proof that he believed in a
Spiritual Substratum, 412-417. Letter of Dr. Ide, 413-417.
B. — He has been supposed to teach not only the Fact, that God does
secure the Fulfilment of his Decrees; but also the Mode in
which He secures their Fulfilment, 417-419.
He looked further than his Critics look, 417. He did not consider
the Mode, 417-419. Letter of Dr. Ide, 418-419. The Strictness of his Calvinism is seen in his making the Providence, coextensive with the Decrees, of God, 417-419.
C. - He has been supposed to teach that the Soul has no Constitutional
Tendencies which, being themselves devoid of moral Character,
are yet the Occasion of moral Character, 420-421.
Drs. Fitch, Taylor, and Goodrich, 420. Quotations from  Emmons, 420.
D. -He has been supposed to undervalue the Kindly Spirit of Theological Science, 421-422.
His Genial Expressions, 421; also 381-384, 393, etc.
E. - His Calvinism has been regarded as too High, and likewise as
too Low, 422-430.
a. — I is Critics overlook the Fact, that he aimed to teach a Positive Calvinism, 422.
The Decision and Positiveness of his Character, 422.




SYNOPSIS OF THE MEMOIR.                                  XiX
b. - His Critics overlook the Fact, that he aimed to make the Essence of Calvinism prominent and conspicuous, 423-426.
The Essence of Calvinism consists in exalting the Sovereign Government of God, 423. Emmons's View of
God's Agency in the occurrence of Sin, 423-425. Letter of Dr. Ide, 423-425. Emmons and the Westminster Assembly, 425. The Essence of Calvinism consists
in Doctrines that awaken Remorse and Self-abhorrence,
425-426.  Generic and Personal Sin, 426.
c. - His Critics overlook the Fact, that he aimed to exhibit a Consistent Cclvinism, 426-427.
The Semi-Calvinists of his day, 426-427.
d. —His Critics overlook the Fact, that he was an Independent
Calvinist, 427-430.
He was not a Calvinist by Nature, 427. The value of his
Independent Testimony in favor of Calvinism, 427.
Dr. Ware, of Cambridge, 427. Miss Hannah Adams's
History of all Religions, 428. Emmons's Summary of
his own Views, 428-430. The old Calvinism susceptible of Improvement, 429-430. Wens, 429-430.
CHAPTER XVII. - THE NEW ERA IN HIS LIFE, 431-447.
~ 1. His Later Afflictions, 431-438.
Character and death of his daughter Delia, 431-433; of his son Erastus,
433-435. Remarkable Funeral Sermon, 434. Character and death of his
daughter Sarah, 435-436. Death of Mrs. Emmons, 436-438.
~ 2. His Retirement from  his Pastorate, and his Relations to his Successors in Offece, 439-443.
Sound Principles with regard to Continuance in Office, 439. Letter of Resignation, 439. Charge to his Successor, 440-441. Treatment of his Successors, 441-443. Dismission of Dr. Smalley, 442. Another Pastor, 442-443.
Mr. Southworth's Testimony with regard to Dr. Emmons, 443. Emmons's
Idol, 443.
~ 3. His Third Marriage, 443-444.
~ 4. The Renewal of his Public Activity, 444-447.
A. - His Services in the Cause of Anti-Masonry, 444-445.
His Consistency and his Influence, as an Anti-Mason, 444-445.
B. -  His Services in the Cause of Anti-Slavery, 445-446.
His Self-consistency in the Anti-Slavery Cause, 445. He presides
at a Meeting of the Anti-Slavery Society, 446. His visit to
New York'and to Hallowell, 445-446.
~ 5. His New  Popularity, 446-447.
His philosophical Endurance of Popular Neglect, 446. Remarks of Judge
Theron Metcalf, 447.




XX                SYNOPSIS OF THE MEMOIR.
CHAPTER XVIII. -SOURCES OF THE GENERAL INTEREST IN DR.
EMMIONS, 448-460.
Confidence of his Friends in his Character, 448. His Faults, 448. Variety
of Excellences, 448-449.
~ 1. The Cheerful Virtues of Emmons, 449-450.
His wise Management of his Wit, 449-450.. Usefulness of it, 450.
~ 2. The prolonged  Tenacity  of his Physical and  Mental System,
450-452.
Vigor in Old Age, 450-452. His last Speech to his Parishioners, 450-451.
Simplicity in speaking of himself, 451. His Logic in his Ninety-sixth Year,
452.
~ 3. The Resemblance between his Outer and his Inner Being, 452-453.
His Uprightness, 452. His Frankness, 452-453.
~ 4. His Conversational Apothegms, and his Socratic Method, 453-454.
The New School and the Old, 454. His Conversation on the Cause of Sin,
454.
~ 5. The Combination of apparently Discordant Attributes in his Character, 454-457.
His Authority and Simplicity, 454-455.  Prudence and Frankness, 455.
Modesty and Self-Respect, 455.  His Method of rebuking an Opponent,
456. Candor and Inflexibleness, 456.
~ 6. His Consistency with himself, 457.
His Originality of Feeling, as well as of Thought, 457. His Life is a Study, 457.
~ 7. His Peculiarities of lManner, 457-459.
His Conversation on Optimism, 458. On the Substratum of the Soul, 458.
On Love to Self, 458-459.
~ 8. He was a Representative of the Ancient Divines of New England,
459-460; also 108-109.
Physical Regimen, 459. Personal Acquaintance with the New England Fathers, 460. A recent man but an ancient theologian, 460. His antique use of
Terms, 460. His Hebrew, 460.
CHAPTER  XIX-TIHE CLOSING SCENES IN HIS LIFE, 461-468.
His Meditations on Old Age, 461.
~ 1. His Meditations on Death, 461-464.
His Familiarity with it, 461-464. His Simple-hearted words, 462-464.
~ 2. His Decline and Death, 464-466.
"I am ready," 465. Closing Scene, 466.
~ 3. The Solemnities that followed his Death, 466-468.
His Funeral, 466-468. The Funeral Sermon, 467. His Grave-stone, 468.
His Monument, 468.




THE theological life of New England has a marked individuality. It is now, more than it ever was, attracting the attention
of European scholars. There has been nothing, there probably
will be nothing, exactly like it.  One of the most unique representatives of this clerical life is Nathanael Emmons. It is impossible to comprehend his character without understanding the
agencies under which it was moulded, and the influences which
have flowed from it. His predecessors and his followers are a
mirror in which we must look at his own benignant face. The
life of Emrmons, then, is a history of his times; not so much of
the outward events that signalized those times, as of the intellectual and moral struggles that underlay those events. It is
the record of a mind. It is the record of an inward power
which has worked in solitude, without the aid of combinations
and political machinery. It is the record of an individual authority, formed by private character. by silent reasonings by
modest, humble thought.
CHAPTER I.
BIRTH-PLACE, CHURCH RELATIONS, AND FAMILY OF EMMONS.
~ 1. Position and Divisions of his Native Town.
" I was born April 20, 1745, 0. S. in the town of East Haddam, county of Hartford, and colony of Connecticut." — lMemoir of Himself.
VOL. I.                A                           (1)




2                       MEMOIR.
This first sentence of Emmons's autobiography, unveils one
marked feature of his character. Why did he not write that he
was born on the first of May, New Style, 1745, and in the county
of Middlesex, to which East Haddam has belonged since the year
1785, and in the State, rather than the Colony of Connecticut?
He loved the Old Style of things; and chose to talk as his father
and mother had talked before him.
He might have added, that East Haddam was once a part of
the old township of Haddam  (formerly Had-ham), and was
legally separated from it in 1734; and that his early home was
in that parish of East Haddam which is called Millington, where
an ecclesiastical society was formed in 1733, and its first meetinghouse built in 1743, two years before he was born. The parish
of Millington is about twenty miles from Norwich and New London; eighteen miles from Saybrook; about thirty-five miles from
Hartford; and about five miles from the banks of the Connecticut
River, which affords to the inhabitants of East Ha.ddam various
facilities for navigation.
~ 2. Natural Scenery and Traditions of East Haddam; their Influence
over JEmmons.
Although Dr. Emmons wrote but little concerning the place
of his birth, he thought much of it. In his later age he visited
and revisited his old home, with a childlike joy that the lines had
fallen to him in so pleasant a place. His character was doubtless affected, in some degree, by the natural scenery, and the
early traditions of the township in which he was trained. The
rockbound hills of his native parish seem well fitted to nurture
his habit of digging among the hard twisted themes of theology.
For many years his father lived on the very verge of a precipice,
near a high and sharp ledge of rocks, at the foot of which flowed
a swift brook. The rising grounds covered with the cedar and
the oak, the intervening meadows through which wind limpid and
rapid streams, the " grate river," which the early records of the
town celebrate as enriching its borders, the thrilling legends in
regard to the Indian tribes who were attracted to the fishing
brooks and hunting forests of the town, were not without their
effect upon him, schooled though he was in the stern processes




MEMOIR.                                   3
of metaphysics.  He knew what was meant Dy a slight dash of
poetic superstition. He felt what an artist would have expressed.
His mind was silently moulded by that which a man of more
imaginative tendencies would have celebrated in song.1
The appropriate influence of the scenes in this " hill country"
of Connecticut has been well developed by the poet Brainard.
It was with his eye on the romantic townships of Old Haddam
and East Haddam, that he indited his poem  on the Connecticut
River, " the stream  of his sleeping fathers," along whose " noble
shores,9'
"the tall steeple shines
At mid-day higher than " the " mountain pines."
"Dark as the frost-nipped leaves that strewed the ground,
The Indian hunter here his shelter found;
Here cut his bow and shaped his arrows true,
Here built his wigwam and his bark canoe,
Speared the quick salmon leaping up the fall,
And slew the deer without the rifle ball."2
The Salmon River, so called from  the fish that once abounded
in it, enters into the Connecticut at East Haddam.  It was a favorite retreat of the poet Brainard, as its clear waters had been
for ages the chosen resort of the angler, and its wooded banks
had been the home of the Indian huntsman.  Brainard sings of
this river: 
" There's much in its wild history, that teems
With all that's superstitious, and that seems
To match our fancy and eke out our dreams
In that small brook."...
" Here Philip came, and Miantonimo,
And asked about their fortunes long ago,
As Saul to Endor, that her witch might show
Old Samuel."...
1 It is a mistake to suppose that Dr. Emmons was devoid of taste for poetical composition. He read Thomson's Seasons with delight; was particularly fond of
Young's Night Thoughts, and was a close, admiring student of Shakespeare. Milton
he read slowly. " I never can go through more than five pages without stopping," he
said of the Paradise Lost.
2 Remains, p. 60.                    3 Ibid. pp. 139-141.




4                           MEMOIR.
"Such are the tales they tell.'Tis hard to rhym
About a little and unnoticed stream,
That few have heard of-but it is a theme
I chance to love;
And one day I may tune my rye-straw reed,
And whistle to the note of many a deed
Done on this river- which, if there be need,
I'll try to prove."
The poem of Brainard on "The Black Fox of Salmon River,"
and also the poem, entitled "' Matchit Moodus," give us fine specimens of the legends, which, in the younger days of Emmons,
were familiar to the natives of East Haddam.l  With regard
to the Matchit Moodus, Rev. Dr. Field remarks:
" A large tribe [of Indians] inhabited East Haddam, which they called
Machemoodus, or the place of noises, from  the noises or earthquakes
which had been heard there, and which have continued to the present
time. These were of a fierce and wretched character, remarkable for
pawaws and the worship of evil spirits.  The noises from the earth regarded as the voice of their god, confirmed them in their monstrous notions of religion. An old Indian, being asked the reason of the noises,
said,'the Indian's god was very angry because the Englishmen's God
came here.' 2
" Those noises in East Haddam which caught the attention of the natives, were not disregarded by the first settlers and their associates, nor
have they been disregarded by later generations.  Seventy or eighty
years ago, in consequence of their greater frequency and violence, they
gained the attention of the neighboring towns, and became the subject of
inquiry and discussion among the learned and inquisitive throughout the
State. They have often been perceived in a small circle, producing a
slight motion in the earth and in the river, and have been called Moodus'
noises, but when they extended thirty or forty miles they have been denominated earthquakes.  The earthquakes felt in Connecticut for more
than forty years, have been observed to be more violent in East Haddam
than in any other place. The most violent of all was on the 18th of
May, 1791, which so agitated the earth as to untop many chimneys, and
excite consternation in every family. There were many shocks, some of
which were noticed at New York, Boston, and Northampton.  The next
day apertures and fissures were found in the northeast part of East Had1 Brainard's Literary Remains, pp. 141 and 47.
2 A History of the Towns of Haddam and East Haddam. By David D. Field,
A. M., Pastor of the Church in Haddam. Printed in Middletown, 1814, p. 4.




MEMOIR.                               5
dam, first society, which ascertained the spot where the explosion took
place.  Since that time the noises have been less frequent and violent." I
Many have supposed that Nathanael Emmons was entirely
above or beneath the influence of natural scenery, and have applied to him the remark of Edmund Burke: " There is no heart
so hard as that of a thorough-bred metaphysician."  But his sermons abound with illustrations from the fields and the streams,
"fire and hail, snow and vapors, gentle showers, stormy winds
and rolling billows."  He aimed to imitate the example of him
who spake as never man spake, and of whom Emmons remarks:
"Sensible that figurative language is the voice of nature, and best
adapted to explain and illustrate whatever is dark and obscure, he made
a free use of images, which spread much light and perspicuity upon all
the subjects he handled.  He borrowed his images, however, not from
music, painting, poetry, or any of the arts which are confined to the
learned few, but from the most familiar appearances and productions of
nature, which lie open and common to every observer." 2
On another occasion, this abstract reasoner remarks:
" Whenever any of mankind behold the beauty of God's goodness, they
immediately discover a divine glory spread over all his works.  How
often do those who are called out of darkness into marvellous light, stand
and admire the works of creation, on account of the moral beauty they
then see in them, but never saw before.  A clear view of the beauty of
the Lord never fails to put good men into the sensible enjoyment of the
world. Viewing it as his world, and as full of his goodness, it gives them
as much satisfaction as if it were all actually put into their hands. Hence
they ardently desire to see the beauty of the Lord, that the world which
often gives them so much trouble, might become a source of the purest
pleasure and enjoyment." 3
It has been also supposed, that as John Calvin gives in his
1 A History of the Towns of Haddam and East Haddam. By David D. Field,
Pastor of the Church in Haddam, pp. 8, 9. See a " considerable and awful" account
of these " Moodus noises," in a letter from Rev. Mr. Hosmer, Pastor at Haddam, to
Rev. Dr. Prince, of Boston, Aug. 13, 1729, and also in another letter from "a worthy
gentleman;" recorded in Trumbull's History of Connecticut, Vol. II. pp. 92, 93.
2 Original Edition of Collected Works, Vol. I. p. 3.
3 Ibid. Vol. VI. pp. 317, 31,8.
A^




6                        M1IEMOIR.
writings no evidence that he ever felt the influences of Mont
Blanc and the Lake of Geneva, and of the legends connected
with them, so Nathanael Emmons was insensible to such superstitions as were connected with the " Moodus Noises."  No one,
on the perusal of his a priori argument for the divine existence,
or of several passages against the indulgence of the fancy, would
suppose that he ever allowed his imagination a moment's recess
from the tutelage of his judgment.  It was however characteristic of him to make simple-hearted and childlike expressions,
which have but little resemblance to his logical formularies.
Once, describing a most unpleasant dilemma in which he was
involved, and from  which he was extricated by expressing a
thought that dropped into his mind suddenly, at the very instant
when alone it could avail, he said, in a tone which one would
have expected from Izaak Walton, " I do believe it was an immediate suggestion of a good angel."  He often made the remark: " I do not believe in signs, but I would rather not see
the new moon over my left shoulder."
Whatever may have been the real or imaginary sounds in certain parts of East Haddam, the neighborhood in which young
Emmons passed his school days was noted for the Sabbath stillness that reigned in it. In recent times the noise of manufactories and of steamboats disturbs the silence of the villages and
the river farms, but the road over which he walked to the commanding hilltop where stood his favorite parish meeting-house,
still winds through a country as silent as an oriental steppe.
These still scenes allured him to a thoughtful and pensive mood.
Through his long life he remained fond of a serene and quiet
home. He chose to labor as a minister in cultivating some retired field, where he might think more and talk less.  The
scenery and the history of " Old Haddam'  have affected his
entire life.
~ 3. The importance of Haddam. The influences which have been exerted
upon it,particularly the influence of the Brainerds; their influence
on the.Emmons family.
The Gazetteers of the day notice the fisheries, the navigation,
the manufacturing establishments, the granite quarries of the




MEMOIR.                                 7
tract of country once called Haddam, but they fail to herald its
real glory.  Dr. Emmons was wont to rejoice that his native
township was distinguished for its Puritan spirit.  The hard soil,
the bracing air, the pure waters of New England have done much
in forming its peculiar character, but the religious habits of its
fathers have done more. They have started an influence which
will continue to flow onward, and will be felt, even where it is
not recognized.  The Old Haddam-settlement may be regarded
as a representative region.  It represents that part of our land,
which, like ancient Numidia, may  be called  "  arida matrix
leonumn."  It exhibits the power which has been exerted over this
entire country by our small Puritan communities.  It illustrates
the importance of sustaining with augmented vigor the schools
and churches in these rural districts, which have sent forth such
a penetrating energy through the world.  It is estimated that
Deacon Daniel Brainerd, the grandfather of David, and one of
the original proprietors of Haddam, has had more than thirtythree thousand descendants.  Many of them have attained high
distinction in church and state.  Among the natives of the region
formerly called Haddam, who have been liberally educated, are
David Brainerd, who alone gives importance to a community;
Nehemiah Brainerd, a pastor in Eastbury (Glastenbury), Connecticut, who was a classical instructor of David, his younger
brother; John Brainerd, an eminent minister, who succeeded his
brother David in the Indian mission, and was for twenty-six years
a trustee of Princeton College; 1 Nathanael Emmons; Edward
Dorr Griffin, Professor at Andover, and President of Williams
College; his brother also, George G. Griffin, a noted lawyer and
I "I once heard the Hon. John Dickinson, Chief Judge of the Middlesex County
Court of Connecticut, and son of the Rev. Mr. Dickinson, of Norwalk, say,' that the
establishment of Princeton College was owing to the sympathy felt for David Brainerd, because the authorities of Yale College would not give hlim his degree, and that
the plan of the college was drawn up in his father's house.' There is evidence that
the Rev. Aaron Burr said, after the rise of Princeton College, that it would never
have come into existence, had it not been for the expulsion of David Brainerd from
Yale College. It is a significant fact, that three of the men who were conspicuous in
their sympathy and efforts for Brainerd, were the first three Presidents of Princeton
College: Jonathan Dickinson, Aaron Burr, and Jonathan Edwards."  See "The
Genealogy of the Brainerd Family in the United States, with numerous sketches of
individuals, by Rev. David D. Field, D. D., member of the Historical Societies of
Connecticut, Massachusetts and Pennsylvania."-pp. 265, 266.




8                        ME  OIR.
theological writer in New York city; Jeremiah Gates Brainard,
a Judge of the Superior Court of Connecticut, and the father of
John Gardiner Calkins Brainard, " the gentle poet of the gentle
stream;" James Brainard Taylor, and other men of no inferior
note among the living as well as the dead.
As the grandfather of David Brainerd was the minister of
Haddam for twenty-four years; as the brother-in-law of David
Brainerd, Mr. Phineas Fisk the eminent' tutor,' was pastor of
the same old church for the same number of years; as the
father of David Brainerd was a man eminent for his gifts, and as
there have been numerous intermarriages between the Brainerd
and the other ancient families of that region, it is reasonable to
believe that the household to which this missionary belonged,
has left a deep, decided impress upon all the townships into
which Old Haddam is now divided.  The father of Dr. Emnmons,
being a deacon of a church in East Haddam, often administered
the sacramental emblems to David Brainerd's sisters and other
relatives, and probably to the missionary himself. He felt the
profoundest veneration for that missionary, and was one of the
few original subscribers for the Memoir of Brainerd by President Edwards.  That Memoir was published four years after
Nathanael Emmons was born. It was the first book in which
he ever saw his father's name printed. As he rose into boyhood,
he did not find many " sensation volumes " in his father's library.
Janeway's " Tokens for Children," might have interested him,
but the Memoir which so often reminded him of his native
town and native parish, and favorite meeting-house, and the road
to the Meeting-house hill, must have interested him still more.
It was probably among the most decisive books by which his
youthful character was formed.  " I might mention the apostles,
Luther and Calvin, David Brainerd, and many other missionaries "- this is a specimen of the manner in which he was wont
to name his missionary townsman. It is probable, indeed, that
the missionary life of Brainerd suggested and formed the peculiar missionary policy of Emmons.
The following  circumstances may indicate  some of the
methods in which he, as every faithful Millington boy, was
attracted to the history of Brainerd.




ME MOIR.                              9
Jerusha Brainerd, the favorite sister of David, was married to
Samuel Spencer of East Haddam, and lived in that town. from
the year 1732, to 1747. This was the sister of whom President
Edwards speaks in his account of Brainerd's last illness:
Israel Brainerd made a farewell visit to his brother David and
"brought to him the sorrowful tidings of his sister Spencer's death at
Haddam; a sister, between whom and him had long subsisted a peculiarly dear affection, and much intimacy in spiritual matters, and whose
house he used to make his own, when he went to Haddam, his native
place.  He had heard nothing of her sickness till this report of her
death.  But he had these comforts, together with the tidings, namely,
a confidence of her being gone to heaven, and an expectation of his soon
meeting her there." 1
Martha Brainerd, another sister of David, was married to General
Joseph Spencer of East Haddam, August 2, 1738; and she resided
there fourteen or sixteen years. Her husband, who died January 13,
1789, aged 74, is thus described by Dr. Field:" General Joseph Spencer married a daughter of the Worshipful
Mr. Brainerd, and in several respects resembled his father-in-law.
From the native strength of his mind and diligent improvement of the
means of information in his power, he became well versed in those
branches of knowledge which were important in the stations he was
called to fill. For thirty-five years he was Judge of Probate for the
district of East Haddam and Colchester.  In 1758, he went into the
northern army in the capacity of a major under Colonel Nathan
Whiting, and the two following years as a lieutenant-colonel, in the last
French war; and acquired the character of a brave and good officer.
In 1775, in the war of the Revolution, he was appointed a brigadier,
and in 1776, a major-general in the army of the United States.  He
resigned his commission two years after. In 1779, he was a member
of Congress.  In 1766, he was elected into the Council, and held
a seat in it, excepting when a member of Congress, till his death.  His
civil and military offices were an honorable testimony to his abilities.
These, however, did not constitute his greatest glory.  He loved the
pure doctrines and obeyed the pure precepts of the gospel. Few have
given clearer evidence of a change of heart. He early made a public
profession of religion, and served many years as a deacon in the church
in Millington.  He died, as might be expected, in the full faith of a
blessed resurrection." 2 "Tradition represents that the influence of
1 Edwards's Works, Vol. X. p. 396.
2 A History of the Towns of Haddam and East Haddam, by David D. Field,
A. M. Pastor of the church in Haddam, pp. 23, 24.




10                          MEMOIR.
General Spencer was very great in that place [Millington] in promoting
religious order and the sanctification of the Sabbath." 1
The families of his two sisters and other relatives often attracted
David Brainerd to the Millington parish.  He says in his journal:
"About the 15th of April, 1733, I removed from my father's house to
East Haddam, where I spent four years; but still,'without God in the
world,' though, for the most part, I went a round of secret duty. I was
not much addicted to the company and amusements of the young; but
this I know, that when I did go into such company, I never returned
with so good a conscience as when I went.  It always added new guilt,
made me afraid to come to the throne of grace, and spoiled those good
frames with which I was wont sometimes to please myself. But, alas!
all my good frames were but self-righteousness, not founded on a desire
for the glory of God."2
It was in the native parish of Dr. Emmons,who afterward signalized
himself in advocating certain theories of " disinterested love," and of the
" inherent excellence of virtue," that David Brainerd penned in his journal some of those remarks, which were so well fitted to prepare the
Millington deacon's son for these his favorite theories. On a Sabbath
day in 1742, Brainerd wrote thus in Millington: —
"At noon I longed for sanctification and conformity to God. O that
is THE ALL, THE ALL. The Lord help me to press after God forever." 3
Having spent at East Haddam the three days before his first departure on his Indian mission, he writes, February 2, 1743: —" Preached
my farewell sermon last [Tuesday] night, at the house of an aged man,
who had been unable to attend on the public worship for some time.
This morning spent the time in prayer, almost wherever I went; and
having taken leave of friends, I set out on my journey towards the
Indians."  "On the road I felt an uncommon pressure of mind; I
seemed to struggle hard for some pleasure in something here below, and
seemed loth to give up all for gone; saw I was evidently throwing
myself into all hardships and distresses in my present undertaking. I
thought it would be less difficult to lie down in the grave; but yet I
chose to go, rather than stay." 4
1 The Genealogy of the Brainerd Family in the United States, with numerous
Sketches of Individuals. By Rev. David D. Field, D. D., Member of the Historical
Societies of Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Pennsylvania, p. 252.
2 President EdWards's Works, Vol. X. p. 35.
Ibid. p. 77.                                4 Ibid. pp. 85, 86.




MEMOIR.                            11
On his return from Kaunaumeek in March, 1774, Brainerd writes at
Salisbury:
" Here another messenger met me, and informed me of the vote of
another congregation, to give me an invitation to come among them upon
probation for settlement. Was somewhat exercised in mind with a
weight and burden of care."  "This congregation," President Edwards
adds, "was that at Millington, near Haddam. They were very earnestly
desirous of his coming among them." It " was near his native town and
in the midst of his friends." 
Statements like the preceding could not fail to interest the young men
of Millington in the preacher whom their fathers loved to hear. Young
Emmons and his comrades must have formed in their minds a pleasing
image of Brainerd riding on the 17th of April, 1744, from his old home
into Millington Parish, in order to deliver a Tuesday Lecture. "I
feared," writes the despondent missionary, that "I should never have
assistance enough to get through. But, contriving to ride alone, at a distance from the company that was going, I spent the time in lifting up my
heart to God. Had not gone far, before my soul was abundantly
strengthened with those words:'If God be for us, who can be against
us.' I went on confiding in God; and fearing nothing so much as selfconfidence. In this frame I went to the house of God, and enjoyed some
assistance. Afterwards felt the spirit of love and meekness in conversation with some friends."2
Five months before his death, Brainerd made his final visit to Millington Parish, and there writes:
" Lord's day, May 17 [1747]. Spent the forenoon at home, being unable to attend public worship. At this time, God gave me such an
affecting sense of my own vileness, and the exceeding sinfulness of my
heart, that there seemed to be nothing but sin and corruption within me.'Innumerable evils compassed me about;' my want of spirituality and
holy living, my neglect of God, and living to myself. - All the abominations of my heart and life seemed to be open to my view; and I had
nothing to say, but,' God be merciful to me a sinner.'- Towards noon,
I saw, that the grace of God in Christ, is infinitely free towards sinners,
and such sinners as I was. I also saw, that God is the supreme good,
that in his presence is life; and I began to long to die, that I might be
with him, in a state of freedom from all sin. Oh how a small glimpse of
his excellency refreshed my soul! Oh how worthy is the blessed God
I President Edwards's Works, Vol. X. pp. 135, 136.
" Ibid. p. 137.




12                         MrEMOIR.
to be loved, adored, and delighted in, for himself, for his own divine excellences! "
"Though I felt much dulness, and want of a spirit of prayer, this
week, yet I had some glimpses of the excellency of divine things; and
especially one morning, in secret meditation and prayer, the excellency
and beauty of holiness, as a likeness to the glorious God, was so discovered to me, that I began to long earnestly to be in that world where holiness dwells in perfection. I seemed to long for this perfect holiness,
not so much for the sake of my own happiness, although I saw clearly
that this was the greatest, yea, the only happiness of the soul, as that I
might please God, live entirely to him, and glorify him to the utmost
stretch of my rational powers and capacities." 1
~ 4. The Pastors of the JEmmons Family.,
Emmrons was only two years old when the preceding words of
Brainerd were written. They show the state of the moral atmosphere in which his childhood and youth were spent.  They
bear a striking resemblance to many of his own instructions.
He was educated by the scenes and the men around him, more
than by schools and lectures. The earliest impressions produced upon his native Parish, were by pastors imbued with the
theological life and enterprise of New England.
REV. TIMOTHY SYMMES.
A good illustration of the wide sweep of influences which have
started from the New England clergy,is furnished by Rev. Timothy Symmes the first pastor of the Millington Church.  He was
the great-grandson of the second minister of Charlestown, Mass.,
who was born in Canterbury, England, and who had a son and
also a grandson both pastors of the church in Bradford, Mass.
The Millington clergyman was born in Scituate, Mass., where
his father and grandfather resided; was graduated at Harvard
College in 1733, and was ordained at Millington, Dec. 2, 1736,
soon after the church was instituted.  During the great revival
of religion which prevailed in New England a few years after
his ordination, he became too highly excited,' and he prosecuted
1 President Edwards's Works, Vol.. X. pp. 381, 382.




MEMOIR.                          13
his work with a zeal not according to knowledge. This gave rise
to difficulties which ended in his dismission at the close of 1743."
He preached afterwards for a time at Springfield, N. J., and also,
it is said, at Ipswich, Mass., where he died in 1753. He married
Mary Cleaves, a daughter of Capt. John Cleaves of Long Island.
His eldest son was the celebrated John Cleaves Symmes, who
was born, according to one account, at Millington, July 21,
1742, and who died at Cincinnati Feb. 26, 1814, and was buried
at the North Bend.  This eminent patriot was a soldier of the
revolution, and was at the. battle of Saratoga. He became a
Judge of the Superior Court of New Jersey, and a Representative from that State in the United States Congress.  He purchased an immense tract of land in the Miami country of Ohio,
and he devised and prosecuted the most admirable plans for the
improvement of that entire State. He was at one time a Judge
in the " North West Territory."  Ie married a daughter of Governor Livingston of New Jersey, and was the father of the wife
of William Henry Harrison, late President of the United States.
The second son of the Millington minister was Timothy, who
was the father of John Cleaves Symmes, a captain in the war of
1812, somewhat distinguished at the battle of Brandywine and
at the sortie of Fort Erie, but more notorious as a lecturer on
the "L Hollow Earth."  He caused to be published a tract of 168
pages entitled "Symmes's Theory of Concentric Spheres, demonstrating that the earth is hollow, habitable within, and widely
opened about the poles."  He died May 28, 1829, at Hamilton,
Ohio, where a monument, surmounted with a globe open at the
poles, marks his resting-place.l  There lived in the secluded
towns of New England, many clergymen whose descendants exhibited a like diversity as well as extent of influence.
REV. HOBART ESTABROOK.
The second minister of Millington was Rev. Hobart Estabrook,
1 There is some discrepancy in the accounts given of Rev. Timothy Symmes and'
his family, in the New England Historical and Genealogical Register, Vol. XIII. pp.
136, 137; the Historical Magazine, Vol. I. pp. 154,155; Rev. Mortimer Blake's History of the Mendon Association, p. 110; Rev. Dr. Field's History of Haddam and
East Haddam, p. 34; and a MS. letter of Dr. Field.
VOL. I.                 B




14                       MEMOIR.
a son of Rev. Samuel Estabrook, first minister of Canterbury,
Conn. He was graduated at New Haven in 1736, ordained at
Millington Nov. 20, 1745. All the biographical notices of him
confirm the truth of his epitaph: " A wise, faithful and good
minister of Jesus Christ, who served his glorious Lord twenty
years in Millington, and fell asleep with the sweet calm and support of Divine grace on Jan. the 28th, 1766, in the 50th year of
his age."  The dwelling-house of Mr. Estabrool is yet standing,
and the neat panels of his study and parlor retain those marks
of good taste and aristocratic style which characterized the
clergy of his day. For twenty years, he was the pastor of Nathanael Emmons, and is said to have given him much private
instruction. It is interesting to trace the character of a man up
to the most hidden fountains from  which any part of it has
flowed. When Nathanael Emmons was thirteen years of age,
his pastor delivered and published a Discourse (still preserved)
of which the following is the title:
"The Praying Warrior; a Sermon preached at Millington, in East
Haddam, May 30th, 1758, at the desire of Major Joseph Spencer, and
the other Officers and Company under him, before the Expedition against
Canada (8vo. pp. 23, New Haven, 1758)."
It is easy to surmise, that such a discourse, pronounced amid
such martial scenes, produced a deep impression upon the mind
of the deacon's son. He imbibed early in life, a dread and an
abhorrence of the French nation. His father and pastor cherished the same. Through his long life he evinced an hereditary
hatred of French Politics. His sermons during the administrations of Adams and Jefferson overflow with the same sentiments
that animated Gen. Joseph Spencer, and thrilled the hearts of
" the other officers and company under him."  Few men have
been more affected than Emmons by even the incidental scenes
of their boyhood.
REV. DIODATE JOHNSON.
But Nathanael seems to have felt a more enthusiastic interest
in the third minister of Millington, Rev. Diodate Johnson, a son




MEMOIR.                          15
of Rev. Stephen Johnson of Lyme, Conn. This youtnful student was a Senior while Emmons was a Freshman at Yale College, and was a Tutor while Emmons was a Sophomore or Junior,
in 1765-6.  He was born in the same year with Emmons, 1745,
graduated in 1764, ordained at Millington July 2, 1767. He was
" eminent as a scholar and divine and disputant and preacher."
Dr. Field says, of him: " Possessed of superior abilities and ardent piety, Mr. Johnson bade fair to be a distinguished ornament and blessing to the church. But his bright prospects were
soon eclipsed in the mysterious providence of God. A consumption closed his life, Jan. 15, 1773, at the age of 28, and in the
sixth year of his ministry.l  He was struck with death, while
sitting down and reading that solemn'meditation and prayer,
suited to the case of a dying Christian,' which is recorded in
Doddridge's' Rise and Progress of Religion, etc.' - Among the
records of persons admitted to his church is the following notice,
written in Mr. Johnson's distinct exact hand: " August 6th, 1769,
was received Nathanael Emmons, Jr."
~ 5. The Church of the Emmons Family: The Church Confession.
As the pastors of the second church in East Haddam were
men of extensive ministerial connections, so the church itself
was one of the true ecclesiastical spirit. Now that the lines of
travel have lessened the relative importance of the parish, as
many rural precincts of New England have lost their comparative dignity, it is difficult to retain a right estimate of the intelligence and comprehensive aims that formerly characterized the
church.  Its members evidently addicted themselves to theological discussion, and to the care of souls. It is easy to discern
the influence of their acts on the young divine who was nurtured
in its bosom.
In 1814 Dr. Field wrote: " There has never been in Haddam
nor East Haddam, so far as I can learn, a general revival of religion. The great revival seventy years ago reached [these]
towns, but produced no extensive effects. God has usually taken
1 A History of the Towns of Haddam and East Haddam etc., p. 35; also, A Statistical Account of Middlesex County, p. 80.




16                            MEMOIR.
his elect here and brought them  singly unto Zion." I  But without any unusual excitement, the Millington church had pursued
a course of steady, noiseless, continuous exertion for the purity of
its members.2  It never adopted the Half Way Covenant, but
" Dec. 12, 1746, voted that baptized persons be accounted subjects
of discipline;" 3 and, about twenty years afterward, "resolved
that the following words be added to and accounted a part of"
their Church Covenant, namely: " that all baptized persons are under the Church watch, consequently subject to the reprehensions,
admonitions, and censures thereof for their healing and amendment as need shall require. [Cambridge Platform, Art. XII.]
Yet such persons are not to be admitted to special ordinances,
on their own account, until they make a credible profession of
their faith and repentance, in manner as all others do, as is
specified in the said [church] covenant."   That covenant is an
elaborate, though not an eminently doctrinal compilation. The
following supplementary articles, which Nathanael Emmons publicly adopted, and his father assisted in introducing into the constitution of the church, have started in his mind many lengthened discussions:
" And as to discipline, we agree that Church Government or Rule is
placed by Christ in the Officers of the Church, (viz.) such as are vested
with office power, and from thence it is, in the Scriptures, they are called
Rulers.  And the power Christ hath committed to them is to feed and
rule the Church of God; as by calling them  together and ordering
therein in all things necessary to order and government in the Church.
And that it belongs to them to examine any officers or members, before
they be received by the Church, - to receive accusations (if there be any
needful to be brought to the Church), and when any are brought, and
1 A History of the Towns of Haddam and East Haddam, p. 40.
2 Dr. Emmons has been condemned, sometimes, for preaching on the evangelical
graces more than on the moral virtues. He did give a peculiar prominence to the distinctive duties of Christianity, and did not so often preach on the common duties of the
moralist. He had been educated in this way. More than a half century after he had
left the church of his native town, that church, having declined from its pristine elevation, passed a vote excommunicating one of its female members, and specifying
seven distinct charges against her, of which the sixth is expressed thus: "Breach of
the fourth commandment in pursuing her husband through the fields on the Sabbath,
for the purpose of beating him."
3 Church Records.




ME MOIR.                           17
regularly heard and tried, they are to pass before the Church [for] their
judgment, and [the Rulers are] to publish and pronounce the will of God
as to the sentence, with the consent of the Church.
" For, taking into the Church, and casting out, and restoring, and admonishing offenders, &c., are acts of the same power, and belong to office
power, though not without the consent of the Church. For in a well regulated, organized Church, no acts can be consummated without the pastor
(or officers of the Church), and the major part of the brethren, then present, consenting and agreeing thereto. And we agree that the pastor
hath power to cite evidences, in order for the regular trial of cases, which
are regularly brought to the Church. And that the Gospel requires two
or three evidences, to prove a cause to the Church, and they are not to
condemn under the same.
" Further we agree, that it is agreeable to our minds that our pastor
should attend and associate with the Association of this Circuit in their
sessions, and on the Consociation when desired by the Moderator thereof.
And we would disclaim the independent and Brownistick notion of judging our Pastor, [that judgment] requiring office power, as well as the
Brotherhood; and is not the part of a particular Church, but of a Council.
And therefore we agree that, in all cases wherein any just objections
[arise] relative to our Pastor, as to his personal conduct, principles, or
office (if any should ever arise), such causes shall be determined by the
Council of the Consociation of this Circuit, being regularly called for
that purpose, as also in all such cases wherein our Pastor is personally
concerned, and therefore barred from acting. But in all other cases,
which may happen in this Church, wherein counsel may be needed, we
agree to reserve to this Church the liberty to call a Council out of any of
the Churches of Christ wherever we think proper for advice."
~ 6. The Ancestors ana Relatives of Emmons; their Pursuits in Life
and influence upon him.
Leaving now the obvious influences exerted on the mind of
Emmons by the town and the church of his early love, let us come
to the more intimate associations of his family.
" My father's name was Samuel Emmons, and my mother's
maiden name was Ruth Cone.  I was the sixth son, and the
twelfth and youngest child of my parents." -  Emmons's Memoir
of Himself.
The biographer of Dr. Ralph Wardlaw has traced the ancestry
B*




18                         MEMOIR.
of that divine, on the mother's side, up to King James the Fifth,
from whom Ralph was the ninth in descent.  But Dr. Emmons,
who was not given to " endless genealogies," has left no intimation which enables us to go beyond the modest name of Ruth
Cone, in the line of his maternal progenitors.  Ruth Cone satisfied him, nor did he care to rise so high as to his grandfather in
the line of Samuel Emmons.
We learn, however, from other records, that his ancestors were
of the substantial yeomanry of New England, were rigid Puritans, remarkable for longevity and the virtues tending to secure
it.  He inherited from them  a firm constitution.  He was early
invigorated by the ancestral discipline of the farm; and he would
probably have never performed his rare amount of hard thought,
had it not been for the hard work to which himself and his fathers
had been inured.
The following is the family record, as gleaned from  various
printed documents and private manuscripts:
There was a Thomas Emmons admitted a freeman in Boston, May 26,
1652. He died May 11, 1664. There was another Thomas Emmons,
perhaps a son of the preceding, who resided in Cambridge, Mass., whose
wife was named Mary, and whose daughter Mary was born in Cambridge, November 26, 1683. He is supposed to have been the father of
Samuel Emmons, who was the grandfather of Dr. Nathanael. But this
is not certain. We only know that Samuel, the grandfather of Nathanael,
removed from Cambridge near the latter part of the seventeenth century.
" He is mentioned, Oct. 15, 1705, as having been admitted into full communion in the church [the first church in East Haddam], together with
his wife, whose name is not given." 1 He lived to the age of ninety-six
years. He was the father of Samuel; Jonathan, who joined the church
of East Haddam, July 23, 1721, and married Rachel Griswold, Jan. 2,
1723; Mary, who was baptized May 7, 1704, and who married Mr.
Gates; Nathanael, who was baptized May 7, 1704, married Elizabeth
Welles, Sept. 21, 1727, and joined the church, Aug. 24, 1777; Ebenezer,
who was baptized Feb. 2, 1706-7; and Mehitabel, baptized Feb. 19,
1709-10.
Samuel Emmons, son of the emigrant from Cambridge, and father of
Dr. Nathanael, married Ruth Cone, Sept. 14, 1721. He became a member of the first church in East Haddam, July 11, 1731. His wife became
1 MS. Letters of Rev. Dr. Field and Rev. Lucius R. Paige.




MIEMOIR.                            19
a member, Sept. 22, 1723. The five elder children were baptized on her
account. He died in the summer of 1767. His children were: 
Dorothy, born Sept. 18, 1722; baptized Sept. 22, 1723; admitted to
the Millington Church, June 24, 1753; married to Enoch Arnold, of
Millington Parish.
Elizabeth, born March 6, 1724; baptized April 19, 1724; admitted
to the Millington Church, Nov. 12, 1752; married, Feb. 3, 1750, to Peter
Spencer, of Millington Parish.
Ebenezer, born Sept. 18, 1725; baptized Oct. 31, 1725; married Susanna Spencer, April 4, 1754; joined the Millington Church, Aug. 22,
1790; died Nov. 13, 1809, aged 84. He was the father of ten children.
He was the grandfather of Ebenezer Emmons, M. D., Professor of Natural History in Williams College, author of " Manual of Geology," " Manual of Mineralogy," " Reports " on the Geology of North Carolina, the
MIammals of Massachusetts, etc. etc.
Samuel, born Nov. 20, 1727; baptized March 10, 1728; died Nov. 7,
1806, aged 79; a member of the Millington Church. He was the father
of Major Samuel Emmons, who bore a striking resemblance in person
and in character to his uncle, Dr. Nathanael, and died July 2, 1850, in his
89th year.
Mary, born Feb. 6, 1730; baptized April 29, 1730; died unmarried
in Millington.
Daniel, baptized June 25, 1732; married Mary Cone, April 2, 1761;
died December 18, 1816, aged 84. He was the especial benefactor of
Nathanael.
Ruth, born in 1733; admitted to the Millington Church, Feb. 14,
1768; married to Abner Chapman, of Colchester; died May 13, 1796,
aged 63.
A son (name not recorded); baptized June 30, 1734; probably died
in infancy.
Jonathan, baptized March 14, 1736; probably died young.
Hannah, admitted to the Millington Church, Feb. 14, 1768; married
to William Cowdry, Sept. 18, 1760; died in Millington.
Sibyl, baptized June 6, 1742; died Oct. 1, 1812, aged 70.
Nathanael, born May 1, 1745.
After the birth of all his children, and after the death of his wife, Ruth
Cone, in 1757,2 Samuel Emmons married the second time, and in the
1 New England Historical and Genealogical Register, Vol. XIII. p. 127; also, a MS.
Letter of Rev. Dr. D. D. Field.
2 " I find [on the Town and Church Records of Haddam], but one Ruth Cone of
an age to marry Samuel Emmons. She was baptized July 16, 1704; the daughter




20                            MEMOIR.
family burial-ground, which is on a slight elevation of land overlooking
the beautiful valley of the " Meadow Brook," is the following inscription
on the grave-stone of his second wife: 1
In Memory of Mrs.
Rachel, wife of
Ensign Samuel
Jones; 2d wife of Dr.
Benijn. Kneeland; 3d.
wife of Mr. Nath'1I.
Man; 4th wife of Dn.
Samll Emmons.
Who died Febr. 25th,
1765. Aged 65
years.
On the first page of Rev. Hobart Estabrook's "Record of Church
votes" in Millington, are the following notices of Dr. Emmons's father:
"At a Church meeting, February 14th, 1745, regularly warned, the
Church repeatedly made choice of Deacon Samuel Emmons for their
deacon, who had removed for a time out of the parish, but has since
returned."
" At a Church meeting regularly warned, September 23d, 1748, voted,
that Deacon Samuel Emmons, Deacon Daniel Gates, and Sergeant
Joseph Cone, be a committee of the Church to assist the Pastor in inquiring into matters of uneasiness and offence, and prepare matters, if needful, to be laid before the Church."
On the first page of Rev. Diodate Johnson's " Record of Votes," it is
written:
" Nov. 20, A.D. 1767 - At a Church meeting regularly warned, the
Church renewed their choice of Col. Joseph Spencer, to be their deacon
in the room  of Deacon Samuel Emmons, deceased, which office he then
publicly signified his acceptance of."
It appears from other sources, that Samuel Emmons was chosen first
deacon of the Millington Church, when the church was formed in 1733,
of Jared Cone, and the grand-daughter of Daniel, one of the first settlers of Haddam."
-MS. Letter of Mr. D. Williams Patterson. Conant Cone, the father of the late Rev.
Spencer Houghton Cone, D. D., of New York, was a native of East Haddam, a descendant of the same Daniel Cone, one of the original proprietors of Haddam.
I This step-mother of Dr. Emmons was a woman of sterling character. In his old
age he often spoke with gratitude of her judicious advice to him, and kindly restraints
upon him. He was by nature irritable, and she taught him to remain silent when
angry. Even when an octogenarian, if he was tempted to irascibility, his bald head
would redden at its very crown, he would remember his step-mother and say nothing.




MEMOIR.                             21
only two years after his profession of religion; that he subsequently
spent some years out of the Millington Parish,l that he afterward returned to the parish, was rechosen to the office of deacon, remained in
the office twenty-two years, until his death, when his place was supplied
by the brother-in-law of David Brainerd.
Nathanael was born soon after his father had returned to Millington. During the first seventeen years of his life he lived in a
two storied house, thirty-six feet long by twenty feet wide, on a
knoll that overlooks a well watered meadow surrounded in the
distance by graceful hills. He retained through subsequent years,
a fondness for the location of his old homestead, and when he
selected his own residence in Franklin, he was charmed with
the thought, that he could look from his study-windows directly
toward the familiar windows of his mother's sitting-room. The
old Millington house was at the junction of two roads, but was
as retired and still as a monastery.
The home of his father during his absence from Millington
parish, was a less tranquil but more romantic spot.  It was in
close proximity to a mill-seat.  The father of Dr. Emmons, like
the father of Dr. Hopkins, was a miller; but a miller in those
days was equal to a senator in these. —   Suppose there are two
wheels, the one large and the other small. Suppose it is the
nature of the large wheel to stand still of itself, but the nature
of the small wheel to move of itself, etc." 2 This is one of several
illustrations which the home-loving Nathanael has drawn from
the wheel, and he was probably led to these comparisons by a
habit of letting  his  thoughts  roll around  the  machinery
of the old mill.  But Samuel Emnmons was a farmer as well
as a miller, and Ruth Cone spun the wool which was taken
from   her  husband's  sheep.   Now,  " a sermon," said the
home-bred Nathanael, " should be like a fleece of wool; take up
one part, and the other parts will hang to it."  We are moved
to smile at many of his homely illustrations.  They came from
his childlike love for the scenes of his homestead, and his fond1 The first eight of Samuel Emmons's children were baptized by Rev. Mr. Hosmer,
of East Haddam, before Mr. Emmons connected himself with the Millington Church;
the eleventh child was baptized by Mr. Hosmer while Mr. Emmons was temporarily
absent from Millington.
2 Emmons's Works, Vol. II. p. 6.




22                      MEMOIR.
ness for the handicraft of his fathers. They are the reappearances of the farmer's boy in the dignified theologian.  When he
wished to repeat again and again his favorite idea that all the
thoughts in a sermon should be bound into a firm tissue, one
topic leading and holding fast to the next, he remembered his
old garden slope; and " a sermon" he said, " should be like a
bunch of onions tied together without a string;- take hold of
one end of it, and it will all hang together." The thoughts of
the sermon must be indissolubly connected.
" It takes a hatchel to get out the tow," was his common
remark in allusion to his method of criticizing his pupils, and
separating the coarser from the finer parts of their sermons or
dispositions. -" It is now a fanning and winnowing time among
the churches," said the old pastor as he recommended a separation of the tares from the wheat. He now and then uttered
beautiful words that are fragrant with the garden scenes of his
youth: " Those who keep their hearts in the love of God, while
they sit under the bower of Christ, sit under it with great
delight, and his fruit is sweet to their taste, and they joyfully
anticipate the glory and blessedness of heaven."
It was interesting to see that even his sports on the farm
mingled themselves through life with his professional associations. "' I can chase the game much better than I can start it,"
was a saying which he was wont to utter, in illustration of his
reliance on other men for originating his own trains of thought.;' When I was on my first journey to Franklin as a candidate,"
he said in his old age, still retaining his childlike fondness for
old superstitions, " I was very bashful, and full of self-distrust.
I had heard that the parish was divided into two hostile parties,
contending fiercely with each other. I could not so much as
hope that they would unite in my favor, for I was nobody but
little Nat. Emmons. But the night before I reached the town, I
dreamed, that while riding along I saw a quail come out from the
bushes on the right hand side of the road before me. Presently
I saw another quail come out from the left side, and stand near
the other. I asked myself:' What if I can catch both of those
quails at once?' I started on my feet, took off my three-cornered
hat, walked softly to the quails, covered them both and took them.
I awoke, rode into Franklin the next day, quite relieved of my




MEMOIR.                          23
fear about uniting those two parties."  We shall see in the
sequel that the reality was stranger than the dream, and we
have already noticed that Emmons had a susceptibility to the
legends of " Matchit Moodus." 1
It is noticeable that all the relatives of Nathanael Emmons
who have been now mentioned are without a middle name.
Before the year 1800, one good Christian designation was ordinarily thought to be enough. The fashion of the present day is
unlike the old. In the public schools of an American city it was
found, a few years ago, that eighty-three in a hundred of the
pupils had more than one Christian name; twenty-one in a
hundred had more than two such names, and only seventeen
in a hundred had no such name. Nathanael loved his mother's
designation, Ruth Cone. He clung to the usage of his ancestors, and often insisted that John Bunyan was far nobler
than John W. Bunyan, and John Calvin better than John I.
Calvin. In naming his own children, however, he once departed from his chosen rule in his love to his Millington pastor,
and named his second son Diodate Johnson Emmons.
It may be here remarked that while the relatives of Dr.
Emmons have been noted for their diffidence, their love of
books, their puritanical regularity in religious duties, they
have also been addicted to the military art. The theologian
himself retained through life a fondness for those military
parades at which so many of his relatives have figured as
captains, majors, lieutenants.  " He was always on the musterfield," writes one of his Franklin parishioners, "'when the
muster was on the common near the Franklin meeting-house.
His white locks, his three cornered hat and small clothes rendered [the aged pastor] an object of curiosity and interest to
all."  "I remember," says a clergyman who studied theology at
Franklin, " that when I revisited my old instructor, after I had
become a settled clergyman, I first saw him  on the trainingfield, and was impressed by his gentlemanly bearing as he
moved along the line of soldiers, and bowed to the officers."
An eminent divine went far out of his way for the sake of a
visit to Franklin, and while sitting in the study of the octoge1 See pp. 4, 5, 6.




24                      MIEMOIR.
narian, noticed a company of artillery approaching the parsonage. " Open the window," cried the old divine at once, and
he rushed with the nimbleness of a boy to look upon the soldiers.
The company would have been  aggrieved, if the spiritual
captain had not smiled upon them. His early loves were the
last to die. One of the most charming features of the man at
the age of ninety-five, was his fondness for the things that had
been associated with Samuel Emmons and Ruth Cone. Each
of them was buried in a coffin made of pine wood and painted.lack. When their son died, almost a hundred years old, he
requested that he might be buried in a pine coffin painted black.
He chose to lie as his father and mother had lain before him.
When he thought of his death, he thought habitually of the
6' sable coffin."  His home attachments are a symbol of his theological tastes.  He loved the old paths. He deviated from
them here and there; not because he loved antiquity less, but
because he loved what he deemed the truth more.  His
departures from the way of his predecessors were made with
many a " longing, lingering look behind."




CHAPTER II.
THE INTERVAL BETWEEN HIS LEAVING THE FARM AND
ENTERING THE PASTORATE.
~ 1. Preparation and Examination for College; his life at College.' My mother died when I was about twelve years of age.
She was a very sincere, humble, heavenly Christian. Indeed,
both of my parents were professors of religion, and exemplary in
the general course of their conduct. They gave me much good
instruction in piety and virtue, and restrained me from all outward acts of vice and immorality. I was naturally inclined
to learning, and took peculiar pleasure in improving my mind,
by reading, and by hearing others converse upon instructive
subjects. Having such an inquisitive disposition, and being the
youngest child in the family, my parents early entertained
thoughts of giving me a public education. But while a schoolboy I manifested such a volatile, trifling spirit, that they altered
their purpose of sending me to college, and determined to make
me a farmer. This deeply wounded my feelings; for I never
loved labor, but my heart was set upon study. I revolved in
my mind a great many schemes to attain the object of my
wishes. I purchased a Latin Accidence and Grammar with my
own property, several years before I was permitted to attend a
grammar school. At length, I prevailed upon my father to give
me leave to study the languages, if I could find an instructor.
I went directly to a Latin master [in the vicinity of Hartford],
who engaged to fit me for college by the next Commencement.
This was in the year 1762, and as late as the month of November. I applied myself closely to my studies through the winter.
In the spring, a fellow student left me to study alone under a
very negligent teacher. But notwithstanding all my disadvantages, I made so much proficiency as to enter Yale College the
next September."- JMemoir of himself.
VOL. I.               C                          (25)




26                            MEMO IR.
When the diffident youth was first examined for admission to
college, at the Commencement, he was deemed unfit.  He was
told so.  " At once " he said, " I remembered all the promises
which I had made to my father that I would never add a burden
to his family cares, and I could not bear the thought of going to
his house with such a mortifying tale. One of my examiners,
a tutor, noticed my sad face, and kindly followed me out of the
room.' Whom  did you study with,' was his question.  I told
him.'That man, -  he is not fit to prepare any body for college,' was the tutor's reply,' but if you will stay here and study
with me through the vacation, I will warrant your entrance into
the Freshman class.' Then I felt as if I could leap over a stone
wall for joy. I staid, studied, and was admitted." 1
Through his entire college life, however, he suffered much from
this inadequate preparation. He was associated with young
men who had been  trained  to  early habits of classical study.
We have  seen  that John  Treadwell, afterwards Governor of
1 Professor Olmsted in his Memoir of a classmate of Emmons, writes (Am. Quart.
Reg. Vol. XV. p. 228): " On his admission he was presented with a copy of the old
Latin laws, on the blank leaf of which were contained the several certificates required
by law. The first was that of the Steward, signifying that a bond had been duly delivered to him for the payment of the college bills; and then followed the
Admittatur of the President and Tutors, thus:
COLLEGII YALENSIS Septris 20, 1763.
Syngrapha, secundum has leges, pro Johanne Treadwell admissionis candidate,
data est mihi.
JONTH. FITCH, Dispensatori.
COLLEGII YALENSIS, Septris 30mo, 1763tio.
Admittatur Johannes Treadwell, Collegii Yalensis Alumnus,
THOMAS CLAP, Praeses.
RICHARD WOODHULL, )
JONATHAN LYMAN,  Tutores."
EBENEZER K. WHITE.)
Both Emmons and Treadwell developed in their Freshman year their native independence and their high spirit, in refusing any more obeisance to the higher classes,
than was imperatively required by the college laws. Emmons was arraigned before
the Faculty for refusing to go on an errand when he was sent by a Sophomore. He
pleaded that the Sophomore sent him on the errand in a prescribed study-hour.
Emmons was acquitted, the Sophomore was punished, and the whole college was
amused.




MEMOIR.                                  27
Connecticut, was one of his classmates, and had enjoyed all the
means of mental culture which an excellent family, possessing a
competent estate, could give him. He became a hearty friend
of Emmons.  On one occasion, Emmons entered the room  of
Treadwell and saw President Edwards's Treatise of the Will,
lying upon the table.  The Treatise had not then been published
more than twelve years.  " Will you lend me this book," asked
Emmons.  " You cannot understand it," said Treadwell.  "' But
will you lend it to me," rejoined Emmons.  It was lent, perused
and re-perused, and that was the beginning, so far as we know,
of the young student's peculiar course of metaphysical theology.
Another of his  classmates  was  John  Trumbull, an  eminent jurist and  poet.   He was the  son  of a minister, and
descended  from   a  long  line  of  clerical ancestors.  He was
fitted for Yale, before Emmons was fitted for a common academy,' and while pursuing his collegiate course he reaped the
varied benefits which spring from early and exact discipline.
He, as well as Treadwell, took a deep interest in Emmons.  " I
have learned  more about English  style  from  Jack Trumbull,
than from any other man," was a frequent saying of the old theologian.  In his old age, he often spoke of "Jack"  with the
tenderest affection.
Still another of his classmates was Samuel Wales, afterwards
Professor of Divinity in his Alma Mater.  Dr. Wales, also, was
the son of a clergyman, and had been carefully trained in the
ancient classics from  his childhood.
It was to be expected that such men would leave Emmons
1 "After a course of preparatory study under the direction of his [Trumbull's]
father, the two started on a horse for Yale College; the boy, of course, behind. The
latter, says the Connecticut Gazette of Sept. 24, 1757,'passed a good examination,
although but little more than seven years of age; but, on account of his youth, his
father does not intend he shall at present continue at college.'" - Dr. Bronson's History of Waterbury, p. 441. In 1772-3, Judge Trumbull published a Poem entitled the
"Progress of Dullness."  In 1782 he published his McFingal. In 1783 he became a
member of a Literary Club at Hartford, Conn., to which Col. Humphreys, Barlow, and
Dr. Lemuel Hopkins belonged.  These writers were called the "Hartford Wits."
Judge Trumbull contributed largely to the publications of this club. He received the
degree of LL. D. from Yale College in 1818. In his Discourse addressed to the
alumni of Yale College in 1860, Dr. Sprague says: "In poetry, the English language
has scarcely a richer gem of its kind than McFingal, - its author, another Trumbull,
a man of splendid intellect and varied acquisitions, and in the power of satire well.
nigh unrivalled." pp. 57, 58.




28                         MEMOIR.
in a state of mortifying inferiority, but he had gained, on his
"paternal acres," the means of a healthier and a longer life than
is commonly given to men who are born in libraries.
Through his college course he did move along under the
weight of a faulty classical preparation; still he moved along
nearly abreast of those eminent classmates who had spent at
their books the time which he had spent in digging rocks.  The
Hon. David Daggett has informed us, that Judge Trumbull,
Governor Treadwell, Dr. Emmons, and Dr. Wales "were the
four most distinguished scholars of their class." I  A more common statement is, that these four men, and Dr. Joseph Lyman,
an eminent divine of Hatfield, Mass., were the five classmates
most noted when at Yale.  Professor Kingsley wrote to the
Rev. Thomas Williams: 2
"Nov. 18, 1840. At the time Dr. Emmons was in college, an oration, called the Cliosophic Oration, was pronounced by some one of the
Senior class, at the close of their examination for the Bachelor's degree.
This exhibition was in July, generally, eight weeks before commencement. This is the oration which Dr. Emmons delivered in 1767. The
Valedictory Oration, at that time, was delivered when the class received
their Master's degree. Dr. Emmons's class received their Master's degree in 1770, at which time Samuel Wales, afterwards Professor of
Divinity, was valedictory Orator. The Valedictory Oration was always
in Latin; the Cliosophic Oration sometimes in Latin, and sometimes in
English."
The modest and truly characteristic words of Emmons himself
in regard to his collegiate progress are simply these:
"I was now [on entering Yale] in the nineteenth year of my
age, and enjoyed a good degree of health, which enabled me to
pursue my studies without interruption, until I took my first
degree, in the year 1767.  But though I was pretty studious
during my residence at college, yet I could by no means equal
a number of my class." - emoir of himself.
Among the other prominent men who were college mates with
the subject of this Memoir, who imparted an influence to him,
1 Sprague's Annals, Vol-.I. p. 711.
2  Official Character of Rev. Nathanael Emmons, DD.," p. 74.




MEMOIR. -29
and received an influence from him, were Professor Bezaleel
Woodward, Rev. Samuel J. Mills, father of the Missionary,
Rev. Joseph Howe of Boston,' Dr. Isaac Lewis,2 Dr. Job Swift,3
Judge Theodore Sedgwick, Dr. Manasseh Cutler,4 Judge Jonathan Ingersoll, Jared Ingersoll, LL. D., Dr. Andrew Lee,5 Dr.
Charles Backus,6 Dr. Timothy Dwight, Dr. David Ely, Dr. David MacClure,8 Dr. Nathan Strong and Dr. Joseph Buckminster
of Portsmouth, N. H.  Some of these men remained his steadfast friends through life.
Singular as it now appears, the only Professor in the Institution at that time was Dr. Napthali Daggett, and he assumed the
duties of the Presidency, in addition to those of the theological
Professorship, during Emmons's Junior year.  The tutors who
first instructed Emmons were Richard Woodhull, Jonathan Lyman, and Ebenezer Russel White. "~ All of them were distinguished as scholars and acceptable in their places.  Mr. Woodhull and Mr. Lyman, particularly, were great proficients in the
mathematics, natural philosophy and astronomy.  Mr. Woodhull
and Mr. White had become converts, or were inclined to, the
theological opinions of the Rev. Robert Sandeman, which at that
time were spreading in Connecticut." 9 These tutors were succeeded by Punderson Austin and Diodate Johnson, who, " though
no doubt well qualified for their places, found themselves in
such difficult circumstances, that, in the summer of the year
1766, they also handed in their resignations."'0  This second
class of tutors were succeeded at the close of Emmons's Junior
year by Stephen Mix Mitchell, afterwards Chief Justice of the
State of Connecticut, Ebenezer Baldwin and Job Lane, three
scholars of rare promise, the last two of whom were cut down in
the flower of their youth.  Judge Trumbull says; "The management of the Institution fell almost entirely into the hands of
[these] tutors.  They encouraged the study of the English
1 See Sprague's Annals, Vol. I. pp. 707, 710.  2 Ibid. pp. 662-668.
3 Ibid. pp. 640, 645.                    4 Ibid. Vol. II. pp. 15, 19.
6 Ibid. Vol. I. pp. 668-672.             6 Ibid. Vol. II. pp. 61, 68.
7 Ibid. pp. 4-6.                         s Ibid. pp. 7, 8.
9 See Prof. Kingsley's History of Yale College in Am. Quart. Register, Vol. VIII.
p. 27.
10 Ibid. pp. 28, 29.. 




30                              MEMOIR.
Grammar and  language, and  excited  attention  to  composition
and oratory."'  Under the tutelage of these  men, Emmons received an  impulse to  express his thoughts "in  plain  and pure
and perfect prose." 2
Rev. Thomas Clap was President of the institution when Emmons entered  it.  Many of the  civilians in the State were vehemently opposed to him; so were many of the clergy, and some
of the Corporation. The students were in a tumult during the
first two years of Emmons's college life. In his Junior year they
presented a request to the Corporation, that their instructors be
removed  from  their places.  " The President and Tutors, who
with the Professor of theology, then constituted the entire Faculty of the college, thereupon  resigned  their offices."      "I put
my name to that paper," said Dr. Emmons seventy-four years
afterwards, " and I have never regretted  it but once, since I
did it, and that has been-  every hour." 
During Emmons's Junior year at college, President Clap published the following account of the course of study pursued
there:
1 Sprague's American Annals, Vol. I. pp. 635, 640.
2 That Emmons ever actually attained perfection in rhetoric, more than in virtue,
he did not believe; yet the modest man allowed himself to use the following rhythmical license, in the following lines; the only rhyme which he is known to have
indited during his studious life:
My thoughts I can with ease disclose
In plain, and pure, and perfect prose;
But give me e'er so much of time,
I cannot make a single rhyme.
No reason I could ever find
Why nature did so frame my mind,
But that it were to check my pride,
And give me reason for my guide.
This guide ne'er led a man astray,
Who heard its voice and did obey.
But there is something I deem higher,
To which I always will aspire, -
To lead mankind to fear and love
The God who lives and reigns above.
Blake's History of lendon Associatton, p. 112.
3 Judge Simeon Baldwin's letter in Sprague's Annals, Vol. I. p. 636.
4 " Certain it is that, in the last year of his [Clap's] Presidency, while the college
charter was attacked, and the press was issuing pamphlets against his administration,
more than usual carelessness prevailed among the students, so that perhaps the college never presented a more disorganized state; for which, according to the traditions
which old graduates have retained, a party of somewhat inefficient tutors was partly
responsible." - Pres. Woolsey's Historical Discourse, D). 28, 29.




MEMOIR.                             81
The scholars at their admission   are able well to construe and parse
Tully's orations, Virgil and the Greek Testament, and understand the
rules of common arithmetic. In the first year they learn Hebrew, and
principally pursue the study of the languages, and make a beginning in
logic and some parts of the mathematics. In the second year they study
the languages; but principally recite logic, rhetoric, oratory, geography,
and natural philosophy; and some of them make good proficiency in
trigonometry and algebra. In the third year they still pursue the study
of natural philosophy, and most branches of mathematics. Many of
them  well understand surveying, navigation, and the calculation of
eclipses, and some of them are considerable proficients in conic sections
and fluxions. In the fourth year they principally study and recite metaphysics, ethics, and divinity.- The two upper classes exercise their powers in disputing, every Monday in the syllogistic form, and every Tuesday in the forensic." -" The President frequently makes public dissertations upon every subject necessary to be understood to qualify young
gentlemen for [the] various stations and employments [of civil life],
such as the nature of civil government, the civil Constitution of Great
Britain, the various kinds of courts, the several forms of ecclesiastical
government which have obtained in the Christian church," etc. 1
It is obvious that Emmons's course of study at New Haven was
not fitted to make him an accomplished scholar, but it was fitted
to make him a strong man; not an encyclopaediacal student, but
a severe logician. Notwithstanding all the splendor of the apparatus which now dazzles the eyes of the students in our colleges, it is a question whether they would not become more vigorous thinkers, and in some respects greater men, if they would
sacrifice their multifarious reading to an exact logical discipline.
The profound study of a few abstruse treatises, gave to young
Emmons a sharper insight, a firmer grasp, a more independent
mind, than he would have gained, perhaps, from the more diversified studies of collegians in our day. It is surprising, however,
that more exercises in English composition were not required of
him at college. He wrote only two essays while he was at Yale,
besides the one oration which he delivered when he took his first
degree.
1 President Woolsey's Historical Discourse, pp. 60, 61. For remarks on the course
of study at Yale College from 1720 to 1770, see Memoir of Dr. Hopkins, pp. 13, 14.




32                        MBEMOIR.
~ 2. Professional Education.
"My father died about three months before I graduated, and
left me not the least patrimony, only directing in his will that
the expenses of my education should be paid out of his estate.
Accordingly, when I left college, I found myself in a state of entire poverty. I had nothing I could call my own, except a very
few clothes and a very few books.  My parents being both dead,
I was totally destitute of any place which I could call my home.
My brothers, however, were kind to me, especially my youngest
brotherl who in a good measure supplied the place and showed
the kindness of a father.  I was never given to idleness, but
always disposed to improve my time in some employment.  My
natural inclination, in this case, coincided with my situation,
and I soon engaged to teach an English school.  Having continued in this business seven or eight months, I applied to a
clergyman, Rev. Mr. Strong, of Coventry, Connecticut, to instruct me in theology. I lived in his family, and taught his
children several months.  After this, I spent a year with another
noted divine." - Memoir of himself.
Dr. Emmons always regarded it as a rare privilege to have
lived in the fcmily, and shared the familiar counsels of so wise
a man as Nathan Strong, of Coventry, the father of Dr. Nathan
Strong, of Hartford, and a college classmate of Dr. Samuel Hopkins, of Newport -both of whom were his special friends.  The
other " noted divine" with whom he " lived" 2 and studied, was
John Smalley, of Berlin, New Britain Society, Connecticut, a
theological pupil of Dr. Bellamy.  The following is Emmons's
delineation of the process through which he was guided by Dr.
Smalley:
" About the time I went to college, I was inclined to adopt
Arminian sentiments, and tried with all my might to refute the
doctrine of Divine decrees.  But early in my collegiate life, I
1 Daniel. See p. 19. above.
2 For the force of the word " lived," in this connection, see Dr. Bacon's Commemorative Discourse, in the Memorial of the Fiftieth Anniversary of Andover Theological Seminary, pp. 75-80.




MEMOIR.                         33
happily met with President Edwards on the Freedom of the Will,
which I read with close attention, and with more than common
satisfaction. He almost convinced me of the truth of those Calvinistic doctrines which I had opposed. But not being quite
satisfied, I applied to my tutor, Mr. Punderson Austin, who gave
me more light upon the doctrine of election than any other person had ever done; and before I left college, I was full in the
belief of what I supposed to be true Calvinism. Accordingly,
when I first turned my attention to the study of divinity, I applied to Mr. Strong, a well known Calvinist, who directed me to
read Willard's and Ridgely's Expositions of the Assembly's Catechism, and other authors, of the same sentiments. After reading such books as these, I thought myself pretty well acquainted
with the Calvinistic theory; but when I came to Mr. Smalley's,
I found myself in the situation of Apollos, who needed to be instructed more perfectly. Mr. Smalley was a man of a strong and
clear mind, who had thoroughly digested Mr. Edwards's writings,
and who was well qualified for an instructor. I lived with him
several weeks, before I had the least apprehension that he differed
in sentiment from those old Calvinistic authors which I had just
been reading. But he gradually opened what was then called
New Divinity. I was startled, and, with all the strength I had,
endeavored to object against the new sentiments he advanced;
but he always refuted and generally convinced me. At length
I became a thorough convert to his scheme of sentiments,
and received his instructions with great avidity." —Memoir of
himself.
In a more conversational mood Emmons has thus delineated
the progress of his mind, as he encountered the strong grasp of
his instructor:' For some time all things went on smoothly.
At length he began to advance some sentiments which were new
to me, and opposed to my former views. I contended with him;
but he very quietly tripped me up, and there I was at his mercy.
I arose and commenced the struggle anew; but before I was
aware of it, I was floored again. Thus matters proceeded for
some time; he gradually leading me along to the place of light,
and I struggling to remain in darkness. He at length succeeded, and I began to see a little light. From that time to the
present, the light has been increasing; and I feel assured that




34                      M EMOI R.
the great doctrines of grace which I have preached for fifty years,
are in strict accordance with the law and the testimony."  s I
can never forget the moment when the truth of the New Divinity
dawned upon me. I was walking in the open air, when all at
once the clouds began to scatter from before the face of the sun,
and they have never returned.'  He often spoke of his intercourse with Dr. Smalley as an incentive to his independent examination of theological problems. " At first," he said, " I
walked on crutches altogether; I thought as others had thought
before me; but when the light of New Divinity began to appear,
I threw away my crutches, and have gone without them ever
since." "I I remember the very day when I threw them away."
He uniformly aimed to cultivate, among his own theological students, the same love of original thought which had been nurtured
in himself by Dr. Smalley. "' Young ministers," he would say,
" feel themselves weak or lame, and they think they must use
crutches. But if they would ever do any thing in the world, they
must learn to walk alone."
He did not prize the rhetorical, so highly as the theological
instructions of Dr. Smalley. He often remarked that when his
bosom friend, John Trumbull, visited him at New Britain, the
young jurist taught him more than any other man had done,
about the structure of a discourse for the pulpit.;" My first
sermon," he said, "I esteemed a very good one, but when I
had read it to Trumbull and another of my classmates, and heard
their criticisms, I very tranquilly put it into the fire."
~ 3. Commencement of his Religious Life.
One peculiarity in the professional education of Dr. Emmons
is, that he began it before he regarded himself as morally fit for
it in any degree. He had never even witnessed a revival of religion, and did not suppose himself to have yielded to the more
private influences of the Holy Spirit. While he was a member of
college, an attempt was made by some thoughtless men to poison
the students with arsenic at one of their meals. The evils resulting from  this attempt were such as to awaken religious
thought in some of his college mates. Soon after this alarm,
Rev. George Whitefield visited New Haven, and preached in the




MEMOIR.                             85
chapel.l  The solemn impression on the students was thus deepened.  But Emmons does not appear to have shared in the
influences of this scene. He was regarded by others as " almost
a Christian;" he was peculiarly revered by his pious classmates.
But he speaks of himself in the most unassuming way. These
are his words:
"As my godly parents gave me much pious instruction, my
mind was early the subject of religious impressions; which always preserved me from gross vices, and even from many smaller
irregularities, to which, like other children and youth, I was
naturally exposed.  I was never noted2 for falsehood, profaneness, Sabbath breaking, or a great fondness for vain company.
I sustained, while a child, while preparing for college, and
while I resided there, a pretty fair moral character. Nor was
this all.  When I was quite young, I had many serious thoughts.
I remember well that, by reading the life of a pious youth, I was
sensibly struck with a conviction of my great guilt, and the
awful thought of dying unprepared, which led me for a while to
secret devotions. Though I did not continue long in this state
of mind, yet I entertained reverential thoughts of religion, and
fully resolved to become, some time or other, truly  pious.
These resolutions were cherished and strengthened, by a strong
desire to be a preacher of the gospel, I felt a peculiar respect
for ministers, and thought I should be extremely happy if I
could be properly qualified to be one myself.  When one of my
sisters died of the consumption, my fears about myself were
again alarmed; and I had some lively apprehensions of the state
of the damned, especially of the lake which burneth with fire
and brimstone.  I used to be much terrified with the prospect
of the day of judgment; and my fears constrained me to cry to
God in secret to save me from  the wrath to come.  But when
my fears abated, I soon fell into the neglect of this duty.
"c Such was the general state of my mind, till I turned my
attention more directly towards divinity, and began my theoI Mr. Whitefield was in America from Sept. 1763, until July 5, 1765.
2 So far as we can learn he was noted for his freedom from " falsehood, profaneness,
and Sabbath breaking." Possessing an exuberance of animal spirits, he was playful
in his boyhood, but his sports would be regarded, in these days, as very far within the
limits of innocent diversion.




36                        ME MOI  R.
logical studies. I now had a rational and serious conviction of
the great importance of becoming truly religious.  It had always
been my settled opinion, that saving grace was a necessary
qualification for a church member, and much more for a minister of the gospel. Accordingly, when I began to read divinity,
I began a constant practice of daily reading the Bible, and of
praying to God in secret. With such resolutions, I entertained
a hope that God would very soon grant me his special grace,
and give me satisfactory evidence of this qualification for the
ministry. Nor did I ever indulge a thought of preaching,
unless I had some good reason to believe I was the subject of
a saving change; for I viewed a graceless minister as a most
inconsistent, criminal, and odious character.  All this time,
however, I had no sense of the total corruption of my heart, and
its perfect opposition to God. But one night there came up a
terrible thunder storm, which gave me such an awful sense of
God's displeasure, and of my going into a miserable eternity, as
I never had before. I durst not close my eyes in sleep during
the whole night, but lay crying for mercy with great anxiety
and distress.  This impression continued day after day, and
week after week, and put me upon the serious and diligent use
of what I supposed to be the appointed means of grace.
" In this state of mind I went to Mr. Smalley's, to pursue my
theological studies. There I was favored with his plain and
instructive preaching; which increased my concern, and gave
me a more sensible conviction of the plague of my own heart,
and of my real opposition to the way of salvation revealed in
the gospel. My heart rose against the doctrine of divine sovereignty, and I felt greatly embarrassed with respect to the use of
means.1  I read certain books, which convinced me that the
best desires and prayers of sinners were altogether selfish,
criminal and displeasing to God. I knew not what to do, nor
where to go for relief. A deep sense of my total depravity of
heart, and of the sovereignty of God in having mercy on whom
he will have mercy, destroyed my dependence on men and
means, and made me almost despair of ever attaining salvation,
1 The prominence of this and kindred topics in his religious experience was one
cause of their prominence in Emmons's theoretical system, which had a practical
basis.




MEMOIR.                           37
or becoming fit for any thing but the damnation of hell. But
one afternoon, when my hopes were gone, I had a peculiar
discovery of the divine perfections, and of the way of salvation
by Jesus Christ, which filled my mind with a joy and serenity
to which I had ever before been a perfect stranger.  This was
followed by a peculiar spirit of benevolence to all my fellow men,
whether friends or foes.  And I was transported with the
thought of the unspeakable blessedness of the day when universal benevolence should prevail among all mankind.1 I felt
a peculiar complacence in good men, but thought they were
extremely stupid, because they did not appear to be more delighted with the gospel, and more engaged to promote the cause
of Christ.  I pitied the deplorable condition of ignorant, stupid
sinners, and thought I could preach so plainly as to convince
everybody of the glory and importance of the gospel. These
were my views and feelings about eight months before I became
a candidate for the ministry." -  Memoir of himself.
Having begun to hope, as early as February 1769, that he
was a child of God, he made a public profession of his faith
six months afterward, and only two months before he preached
his first sermon.  The night before he preached that sermon he
could not sleep one minute. He ever retained his solemn view
of the pulpit. It was, in his regard, an awe-inspiring theme.
His entire professional life was affected by the manner of his
preparing for it.  He adopted the new theology, and experienced the new birth at one and the same time.  His heart
yielded to the truth, when his mind perceived that truth in the
aspect given it by the apostles, rather than by the Mediaeval
theologians.  Hence he always associated the new and biblical
theology with practical godliness.  He believed that the truth
would result in other hearts, as it had resulted in his own heart,
and would be honored as " the power of God unto salvation."
The most profound and earnest Christians with whom he now
became associated, were friends of what was called the " novel
1 "The intelligent reader will perceive here, not only the germ of [Emmons's]
theology, but the spirit of missions; the very same spirit which moved Brainerd'and
Hall and Mills, and a host of others, to all their laborious and self-denying exertions
in behalf of the heathen." -Dr. Ide's Memoir, p. 94.
VOL. I.                 D




38                         MEMOIR.
scheme" and he defended that scheme from  the first day to the
last day of his ministerial life, not merely because it was logical,
not merely because it was biblical, but also because he felt that
it had been, and he had faith that it would be, the instrument
of the Holy Ghost in renewing and sanctifying the soul of man.
~ 4. Approbation to preach the Gospel.
The Records of " the South Association in Hartford County,"
contain the following notice of a session held at the house of
the Rev. John Smalley in New Britain, on Tuesday October 3,
1769.  "At this meeting Mr. Nathanael Emmons of East
Haddam, desiring to be examined as a candidate to preach the
gospel, was accordingly examined, found qualified, and licensed
to preach the gospel, wherever God in his Providence shall call
him to do the same."
This meeting was not a calm  one.  Rev. Edward Eells of
Upper Middletown, Connecticut, a classmate at Harvard College
with Rev. Timothy Symmes of East Haddam,' and one of the
most earnest writers in the noted Wallingford controversy, was
a decided opponent of Mr. Emmons's instructor; and was naturally inclined to suppose that the pupil's teeth would be set on
edge, because the teacher had eaten sour grapes. Three days
after the examination of the candidate, he wrote the following
document for insertion in the Records of the Association:
"At a meeting of the South Association in Hartford County, convened
at the house of the Rev. Mr. John Smalley in New Britain, October 3,
A.D. 1769, -
"The Rev. Mr. Smalley presented Mr. Nathanael Emmons to be
examined for preaching, and after his examination, he received a license
from  that Rev. Body, against which  I found myself obliged, in
faithfulness to God and his church, and in obedience to my own conscience, to enter my protest for the following reasons, which I minute
down this 5th day of October, 1769.
" Mr. Emmons was asked, how God created man. He answered, After
the image of God. He was asked, wherein that image of God consisted.
He answered, In a right temper of heart. He was asked whether he
designed to distinguish the heart or will from the understanding.  He
1 See pp. 12, 13, above.




MEMOIR.                           39
answered, Yes. He was asked whether the Divine image was upon
Adam's understanding as well as his will. He answered, No. And
while this important doctrine of the Divine image on man was illustrated
as it respected the whole man, understanding and will, the Rev. Mr.
Smalley said, the Divine image was no more upon Adam's understanding
than upon his fingers and toes.
Under the head of Adam's apostasy, Mr. Emmons said that the
whole nature of Adam was depraved. He was asked what Adam lost
by his apostasy. He said, A good temper of heart. It was asked,
whether he meant by that the image of God. He said, Yes. He was
asked whether the apostasy affected his understanding. He said, No.
He was asked whether the understanding of Adam after his fall was
as good, and equal to what it was in a state of innocency. He said,
Yes. Then, by the help of a friend, he was brought to grant that he
was not so teachable and apt to learn, under the influence of a bad
heart as a good one. It was observed, that to own a universal depravity
by the apostasy of Adam, and, that the understanding is not affected by
the apostasy, is a contradiction; which was attempted to be reconciled
by another hand. Upon which it was observed, it was not a proper
time to dispute matters among ourselves.
Speaking of the great doctrine of regeneration, it was said that
regeneration consisted in a new principle implanted in the soul, in
which the soul is passive. It was sometimes called a new temper of
heart. He was asked whether regeneration affected the understanding
as well as the will. He said, No; the heart or will was only renewed
by the Spirit of God. It was observed that whatsoever belonged to the
rational soul, not regenerated, could not be prepared for the kingdom
of God. Many things were said on this subject, besides what was said
by the candidate.
Upon the subject of the soul's being passive in regeneration, and yet
must attend to means antecedent to regeneration to obtain speculative
knowledge, he said that, by the use of means, the conscience may be
convinced that the law is just and good, and that he may have his
conscience convinced of sin by the law and his exposedness to the
Divine wrath; but while his conscience is convinced of these things, his
heart rises up against them; and the enmity of his heart against God
and his law rises in proportion to his conscience' being convinced of these
things; and when he is brought to the last stage of preparatory work
before regeneration, his enmity rises to the highest degree. He further
added, that God did not command or require the unregenerate to use
any means but with a renewed heart, a gracious principle, or love to




40                         MEMOIR.
God. This occasioned much conversation with others, as well as with
the candidate. But it issued in this, that there was no command of
God to pray or do any other duty but with a perfect heart. God commands the sinner to repent, and he is to use means to convince him of
sin, with a gracious principle, and so in every other duty.
Speaking of the seals of the covenant, especially of baptism when
applied to adult persons, his words in his confession of faith are as
follows,   -  upon which much was said. The sum of which is this,
That he must give a credible evidence of inward renewing grace, and
be satisfied himself, or have a prevailing hope of his good estate, or his
baptism is to be deferred: — and the same qualifications are to be looked
for in admitting persons into full communion. Further, he professed
that only the infants of those who are in complete standing in the church,
by which he meant those in full communion, are to be baptized.
When the examination was ended, each one was asked whether he
could license the candidate. It was said, Yes, by almost all. And
when I objected, and suggested my reasons, they appeared to have no
weight with my brethren. Then I urged that they would defer the
license for further consideration, for I had never known, for thirty years,
of but one instance of any being licensed without the approbation of
every member present, and that proved a great uneasiness amongst us.
I further urged that it might be deferred for this reason: In licensing
candidates, we act for the churches, and they depend upon our licensing
them upon the known faith of the churches; and it is apparent upon
examination, Mr. Emmons is not of the same faith, in some of the important doctrines of religion, we settled with our churches upon; and
therefore we ought to consult our churches before we licensed candidates
upon a different faith. But nothing I could say by way of argument
and persuasion, availed any thing.
I was told, if I did not like the proceedings of the Association, I might
enter my protest, with the reasons. Which was one reason of my
writing as above, the first opportunity. This was signed,
]EDWARD EELS.
Middletown, Oct. 6, 1769.
Mr. Eells was a reputable scholar, but his Protest is a sign that
he moved round about in turbid waters.  It is one of the landmarks by which we determine, how great a distance has been
made since Nathanael Emmons became a voyager in the ship.
The young candidate found theology in a different state from




MEMOIR.                                 41
that in which he left it.-  In his simple way he thus describes
the ecclesiastical storm  raised by Mr. Eells:
" But when I came to be examined for preaching I met with
peculiar difficulty. Several of the aged ministers were opposed
to Mr. Smalley's sentiments, and of course to mine. I had a
very long and critical examination upon certain disputed points;
and when the question was put, whether I should be approbated
to preach, several of the ministers voted against it, and one remonstrated in writing. This remonstrance occasioned a great
deal of trouble, not only to me but to the Association. The
points remonstrated against were agitated in the Association at
several subsequent meetings; but finally it was proposed that a
conciliatory creed should be formed upon the articles in question, and signed by the Association, and by myself.  This proposal was adopted, and put an end to the dispute respecting my
orthodoxy.
" Such a bustle, however, could not fail to make me in some
measure a speckled bird. This I regretted in the time of it;
but have since been disposed to think it has been of real service
to me.  It has made me examine my religious sentiments with
more attention, and inspired me with more zeal to propagate and
defend them against all opposition. I early began to pursue my
studies in a methodical manner. Upon reading the Life of Dr.
Doddridge, I transcribed his resolutions, and determined to follow his mode of improving the mind.2   Though I could not be
1 In view of the objections which he encountered when he entered the ministry, Dr.
Emmons might reiterate the following stanza:
" These errors, writ on memory's ample page,
May serve as landmarks to a future age,
From which our progress we may view with pride,
Our past and presentsetting side by side."
2 The following among the eighteen of Doddridge's Resolutions, were especially
congenial with the tastes of young Emmons:
"1. Let my first thoughts be devout and thankful. Let me rise early, immediately
return God more solemn thanks for the mercies of the night, devote myself to him,
and beg his assistance in the intended business of the day.
"3. Let me set myself to read the Scriptures every morning: In the first reading
let me endeavor to impress my heart with a practical sense of divine things, and then
use the help of commentators; let these rules with proner alterations be observed
every evening.
" 4. Never let me trifle with a book, with which I have no present concern. In apD *




42                          MEMOIR.
very methodical while I continued a candidate, yet as soon as I
was settled in the ministry, I began to divide my time, and
appropriate particular parts to particular duties and particular
studies. This I have found by long experience, to be highly favorable to the acquisition of knowledge." -  Memoir of himself.
Dr. Ide confirms what Dr. Emmons has here intimated, and
asserts that the effect of this troublous examination was " as
lasting as life" upon its victim.  " It led him to reexamine the
subjects of difference between him and his opponents; disclosed
to him the fact that the clergy of his own State, whom he highly
venerated, differed widely among themselves; and taught him
the importance, not only of being fully persuaded in his own
mind, but of being able to defend himself against the attacks of
men in high places. After this, he naturally felt that he must
stand or fall upon his own merits; that it was unwise, as well as
wicked, to place implicit reliance upon the faith of others; that
there was room  for improvement in theological science, and a
loud call in the providence of God for a more full and consistent
exhibition of the truth."
It is an interesting fact, that nearly all the promising clergymen of that day started with the conviction that theology is a
progressive science. Emmons writes:
"It is a sentiment as groundless as it is discouraging, which has been
often flung out, that all the subjects of divinity, all of human inquiry, are
nearly exhausted, and that no great discoveries or improvements, at this
time of day, are either to be expected or attempted. The present generation have superior advantages, which, with capacities no more than
equal to their fathers, may enable them to surpass all who have gone
before them in the paths of science." 1
" We ought to fix it in our minds, that we are capable of improvement.  Such a confidence in ourselves as this will embolden us to read
with a view not only of understanding, but of improving upon the authors
plying myself to any book, let me first recollect what I may learn by it, and then
beg suitable assistance fiom God, and let me continually endeavor to make all my
studies subservient to practical religion and ministerial usefulness.
" 5. Never let me lose one minute of time, nor incur unnecessary expenses, that I
may have the more to spend for God." - Orton's Life ofDoddridge, pp. 15-18.
1 Original Edition of Collected Works, Vol. II. p. 53.




MEMO IR.                                43
we read.  Very few authors have exhausted the subjects upon which
they have treated, and therefore [they] have generally left us ample
room to improve upon what others have written." 1
~ 5. MJr..Emmons as a candidate.
"I continued a candidate from October, 1769, to April, 1773,
when I was ordained to the pastoral care of the second church in
Wrentham  [now Franklin], Massachusetts."- Memoir of himself.
Thus Emmons had attained the good age of twenty-four years
and five months, before he began to be a candidate, and he then
waited before his ordination  three years and seven months.  It
is easy to see why he waited so long.  He was unconscious of his
own greatness, and as he speaks of his having sustained " a
pretty fair moral character," so he never dreamed of acquiring
any thing more than a pretty fair ministerial character. He
sought a retired and obscure place of settlement, and wandered
first among the then feeble churches in the central and western
parts of the State of New York, and in the northern part of New
Hampshire.  How  many invitations to  the pastorate of these
churches were extended to him  we do not know; 2 but wherever
1 Original Edition of Collected Works, Vol. II. p. 38. 
2 In the Church Records of Campton, New Hampshire, a township, the early proprietors of which were emigrants from Connecticut, and from Newburyport, Massachusetts, - one of the most energetic proprietors being a brother of William Bartlett,
a founder of Andover Theological Seminary - are the following votes:
"CAMPTON, Sept. 23d, 1771.
"Voted, Whereas, Mr. Nathanael Emmons has for some time past dispensed the
word of God in this place, to the general satisfaction of the Proprietors and Inhabitants of this Township, therefore it is the desire of this Proprietee, that the said Mr.
Nathanael Emmons should settle to preach the gospel in this place.
"Voted, That a committee be appointed or chosen to wait on Mr. Nathanael Emmons, to see if he inclines to settle in this place, provided he can have reasonable settlement and support.
"Voted, To raise a tax, to be paid forthwith, of seven shillings on each Original
Right; and those settlers that are not proprietors to pay a tax of three shillings and
sixpence upon their interest where they have no more than half a right; and, where
they own more than half a right, to pay in proportion to their interest towards paying
Mr. Nathanael Emmons for his past preaching and support; and the remainder, if any
there be, to go towards further supporting the Gospel.
Recorded and Examined.
"Attest:                   SAMUEL EMERSON,
"Proprietors' Clerk."




44                       MEMOIR.
he went,he suspected that either the people were unsuited to him
or he was unsuited to them.  At the close of many a Sabbath,
he might have written the words of his townsman, Brainerd:' In the evening, I could hardly look anybody in the face, because of the imperfections I saw in my performances in the day
past." I He was depressed because he found so many who did
not sympathize with his didactic tendencies, and so few with
whose rhetorical tastes he could persuade himself to comply.
Naturally distrustful of his aptness to persuade men, with his
weak, small voice, and his student-like demeanor, he became
more and more diffident.  His low opinion of his qualifications
for the pulpit prevented him from doing justice to them. And
withal, settlement or no settlement, he would preach the truths
of Calvinism, distasteful as he knew they were to the majority
of men. As he was at last, so he was at first, a doctrinal
preacher, and in order to be prized at his true worth, he must
either find, or else form  an educated people. He could not
ingratiate himself at once into the affections of an undiscerning
parish, and it was a long time before he discovered a vacant
Church interested in religious discussion, and inquisitive to learn
" what is truth."  Between his twenty-fifth and his twenty-eighth
year, he saw more of human life in all its varied phases, than he
ever saw before or since.  Had it not been for these three years
of travel, he would have failed to gain many rich experiences of
the world.  They were indeed years of affliction to him, for he
abhorred more than is meet, a roving life; still he learned from
them such lessons of humility as qualified him to become, for
seventy years, an exemplar of the Christian virtues to a parish
of solid, sensible men.
Pres. Edwards's Works, Vol. X. p. 192, also p 118.




CHAPTER III.
THE TOWNSHIP OF FRANKLIN, AND ITS RECEPTION OF THE
NEW PASTOR.
~ 1. Its Religious History and Character.
WE have a natural curiosity to learn something of the parish
over which the young metaphysician was ordained.  It was a
parish of farmers, and is about twenty-seven miles south-west of
Boston, Mass., about twenty miles north-west of Providence, R.
I., within fifteen miles of the birth-place of President Napthali
Daggett, President Jonathan  Maxcy, Judge David Daggett,
Fisher Ames; about twenty miles from  the home of Samuel,
John, and John Quincy Adams.  It has been, emphatically a
Puritan parish. It has a religious origin and religious annals.
For many years it remained a part of Dedham, which was " the
sixteenth or eighteenth settlement from  the first beginning of
the country."'  When the inhabitants of Dedham  first organized themselves into a township in the year 1638, they entered
into a "covenant of association," beginning thus:
" 1. We whose names are hereunto subscribed, do, in the fear and
reverence of our Almighty God, mutually and severally promise amongst
ourselves, and each to other, to profess and practise one faith, according
to that most perfect rule, the foundation whereof is everlasting love.
2. That we shall by all means labor to keep off from us all such as are
contrary minded, and receive only such unto us, as be such as may probably be of one heart with us," etc., etc.
This Town Covenant, containing five articles, was subscribed by
1 Dexter's Century Sermon, preached at Dedham, 1738, p. 45. See also, Dr.
Lamson's Three Historical Discourses, pp. 6, 7.
(45)




46                         MEMOIR.
one hundred and twenty-six persons, and it breathes a more religious spirit than is to be found in a majority of the very best
political constitutions.
In 1661, AMarch 27, a part of Dedham was constituted a distinct parish, and in 1673, Oct. 15, this parish, with the same
pious intent, became a distinct township, called Wrentham.
The inhabitants of the town were scattered, their houses having
been burned, in King Philip's war; and after the war they
signed a document beginning thus:
"We the subscribers- having formerly had our residence in Wrentham,
but by those sad and solemn dispensations of God's providence were removed: Yet desiring that a work for the honor of God and the good and
comfort of ourselves and ours might be again engaged in, and promoted
at that place: therefore our purpose is to return thither, God willing," &c.1
In the Town Records of Wrentham are the following notices
of the fact, that, before as well as during Emmons's pastoral life,
the minister of the town was the chief man in it:'1676, March ye 30th ye Inhabitance ware drawn of oy rason of
ye Endien Worre.
"1680, August ye 21st. The Revt. Mr. Man returned to Wrentham
again and divers inhabnts.'"
In 1737, Dec. 23, a part of Wrentham was formed into a distinct Parish, of which Dr. Emmons afterwards became the third
minister.  The Church Records of this "Second Precinct"
[afterwards called Franklin], inform us:
" The 16th day of February, 1738, was kept as a day of solemn fasting and prayer in the 2d Precinct in Wrentham, to implore the blessing
of God and his direction in the settling of a Church, and in order to the
calling and settling of a gospel minister in said place. Then, in a large
assembly, the covenant was read; and the Rev. Mr. Baxter, who assisted
in that affair as moderator, desired the brethren to signify their consent
1 A Sermon delivered at Wrentham, Oct. 26, 1773, on completing the first century since the town was incorporated. By Joseph Bean, A. M., Pastor of the First
Church in said town, p. 15.




MEMOIR.                            47
to it by lifting up the hand, which they accordingly did. He then dedared them to be a Church of our Lord Jesus Christ."
The Church Covenant here named is by no means equal in
point of doctrinal distinctness, to the covenant of the Church in
East Haddam  already alluded to.'  Dr. Emmons was never satisfied with it, but as he always retained a constitutional love for
" things of the olden time," and would never sacrifice his conservatism except at the stern demand of what he deemed the truth,
he never made an attempt to exchange the indefinite covenant
for a more distinctive creed. It is a significant fact that, for
nearly seventy years, he remained a member, and for fifty-four
years, the President and Ruling Elder of a Church, which had
no more explicit avowal of doctrine than the following words:
"3. And whereas there are different apprehensions in the minds of
great and wise men, even in the doctrinals of religion, we do declare
our consent to the New England Confession of Faith, apprehending, in
our judgment and conscience, that it is agreeable to the Holy Scriptures."
But although the Franklin Church conformed to the usage of
the times in the indefiniteness of its creed, it was in advance of
the times in regard to an intelligent orthodoxy.  For, says
Rev. Mr. Bean, "let it be observed, that it hath never been the
practice of the Churches in Wrentham  to baptize any children,
but those whose parents, one or both, are in full communion." 2
The conscientious fidelity of this Church is seen in the fact,
that on the first day of its formation, it " chose a committee
of the brethren, to ask the advice of the three neighboring
ministers, who were present at the gathering of this Church,
relating to the ministerial accomplishments of Mr. Elias Haven; [a native of Dedham], who had for a considerable time
preached in this Precinct; who were pleased to signify to said
committee their approbation of Mr. Haven, as one in some good
measure qualified for the gospel ministry."
On the 24th of February, eight days afterwards, this careful
Church, " in order for their fuller satisfaction as to the qualifications of Mr. Elias Haven for the Gospel ministry and suitableness
1 See pp. 16, 17, above.  2 Century Sermon, p. 23.




48                         MEMOIR.
for this place, by their moderator examined him as to his principles both of doctrine and discipline."
Having passed a satisfactory examination before the Moderator of the Church, Brother Robert Pond, —Mr. Haven was
called by the Church to be its Pastor, and was ordained by an
Ecclesiastical Council, in the open air, November 8, 1738. On
the 8th day of the following February it was
" Voted at a Church meeting to choose two Ruling Elders, to join with
the Pastor of this Church, in those acts of Spiritual rule, which are distinct from the ministry of the Word and Sacraments committed unto him."
This vote might seem to be an evil omen for Nathanael Emmons.  On March 8th, 1739, the two elders were chosen, and
after an adjournment " for a quarter of an hour," two deacons
were elected. We subsequently find the following records:
"June 9, 1742. At a Church meeting at the public meeting House,
"Voted, to proceed in convenient time, to have our Ruling Elders
(who have sometime since been chosen) ordained.
" Voted, to proceed in convenient time, to have our Deacons (who have
also sometime since been chosen) ordained.
"Voted, to send for two Churches, to assist in the ordination of these
Officers, by their Elders and other Delegates.
" Voted, to send for the New-North Church of Christ in Boston, and for
the Church of Christ in Hopkinton to assist us in this affair.
" Voted, that this Ordination be on the 2d Wednesday in September
next."
Here and there we read of these ordained elders signing
a letter of dismission from the Second Church in Wrentham to
other churches, or a letter of admonition to delinquent members;
but in the main they performed the same duties which are now
devolved on our church committees.  Fourteen years after
their appointment, we find the last intimation concerning their
usefulness, in the following vote, which had been considered
several months before it was passed:
"November 14, 1753. The Church met according to appointment;
and, the meeting being opened with prayer, the affair on which the
meeting was appointed was proposed, and discoursed of, a considerable




MEMOIR.  49
time, and the following vote was called, viz.: Brethren, if you think
it the duty of this Church, in its present circumstances, to proceed to the
choice of another Ruling Elder, please to signify it by holding up the
hand; and it passed in the negative.
" N. B. Present 38 brethren, and but 14 hands up."
It is an interesting fact, that Mr. Haven, the first minister of
this thoughtful church, was a college  classmate with  Rev.
Timothy Symmes, the minister of the Emmons family at East
Haddam, and also with Rev. Edward Eells, the author of the
Protest against the " approbation   of Emmons as a preacher.i
Mr. Haven was an exemplary man.  In the great revival of
1741, he labored with incessant activity. Associated with Rev.
Mr. Messinger of the Wrentham First Parish, he wrote thus in
the " Christian History: "
"August 12, 1743. The people in this town (so far as we can learn,
or have had opportunity to observe), have generally been externally
sober and honest; have kept up a great deal of external religion, especially in their families, and the house of God; so that the generations
that have risen up from time to time have generally been instructed,
from their very early youth, in the first principles of our holy religion.
But alas! " etc.
" The first open and public manifestation of the Lord's return to us
by the power of his grace, was on the 26th of February, 1740-1."
"The powerful awakenings and convictions on persons' minds spread
from neighborhood to neighborhood, so that by mid-summer there were
instances, in all parts of the town, under great concern to know what
they should do to be saved.  Yea, it- appeared to us, as far as we could
observe in our respective parishes, that very few houses, if any, in the
town, were passed by and left without some observable spiritual concern
on some or other of the family."
During the intermission of public worship on the Sabbath, " it became
a common thing for" the people, "to retire in small companies, to different places for religious conferences or reading, and more lately, there
are several societies that spend part of the intermission in praying,
reading and singing together.  So that, on many accounts the intermission, as well as time of public exercises of God's worship, is very
remarkably holy to the Lord, esteemed honorable, and a great delight
1 See pp. 38-40.
VOL. I.                   E




50                         MEMOIR.
unto the more serious among us. And even the time of travel to and
from our places of public worship, has often been sweetly redeemed
for pious discourse between two or three, as they walk in company
together.
" We are satisfied that the general concern upon people's minds which
prevailed among us above two years ago, and has not ceased, did not
arise from a disposition to conform to the prevailing custom of people
around us: for this was the first town which was so remarkably visited
and blessed by sovereign grace within many miles: and it evidently
appeared that many would be under the same concern at the same time,
and would be agreeably surprised when.they unexpectedly found one
another uttering the sahie complaints relating to the state of their own
souls."
Within a few years after his ordination, Mr. Haven was attacked with a disease of the lungs, " to the no small affliction of his
parishioners, who were thereby deprived of his excellent sermons
and other performances, which they were very passionately fond
of."   He died August 10, 1754, after having received kindnesses unusually liberal at that day, from  his " ministerial"
parish.
On the 10th of June, 1760, Mr. Caleb Barnum  was ordained his successor.   Rev. Samuel Hopkins Emery, in his
work on the " Ministry of Taunton," devotes about thirty
pages to the history of Mr. Barnum, who became the seventh
pastor of Taunton, after he retired from  his  pastorate in
Franklin.   He was characterized  by an  independent, fearless, resolute mind, which led him  at one time, into a severe
contest with his Taunton parishioner, the celebrated Robert
Treat Paine, in regard to the baptism of Judge Paine's children.
When the tidings of the battle of Lexington reached his parish,
Mr. Barnum  preached an eloquent discourse in allusion to the
event, and roused his hearers to a patriotic interest in the
freedom  of their country.  On the 10th of February, 1776, he
acted in sympathy with the words of his sermon, and joined the
army, as chaplain to the 24th Regiment, then stationed near
Boston.  When that city was evacuated, he " accompanied his
regiment to New York, thence to Montreal." In the disastrous
retreat from Canada, " he endured great hardships with exemplary Christian fortitude."  At Ticonderoga he was attacked




MEMOIR.                             51
with a bilious disorder which incapacitated him  for the duties
of his office. On the 2d of August, 1776, he reached Pittsfield,
Massachusetts, where he died on the 23d of that month.  On
his death-bed he remarked: "' I have no doubts concerning the
justice and goodness of that cause [the cause of our National
Independence], and had I a thousand lives, they should all be
willingly laid down in it."  His death, says Rev. Thomas Allen,
the minister of Pittsfield, who preached Mr. Barnum's funeral
sermon, was marked by' such sweetness of temper, such tranquillity of spirit, such serenity and peace in the near view of
death and eternity, such patience under pain, and entire submission to God's disposing will," as' manifested at once the
power of those supports which he enjoyed, and the excellence of
the Christian religion." I
The ministry of this brave man at Franklin, however, was not
a placid one. Dr. Elam Smalley writes:
"Though Mr. Barnum was a man of very pleasing address, popular as
a public speaker, of very respectable talents and attainments, and
throughout demeaned himself so that nothing could be substantiated
against his moral, or Christian, or ministerial character, yet there were
some who could not be satisfied with him. These were the occasion of
great trouble to the church and pastor. The church seemed to bear
and forbear to the farthest limit of Christian courtesy and ecclesiastical
lenity; still the divisions and contentions were not healed. Neighboring churches, by their pastors and delegates, came and went, and
went and came, and prayed and advised; but the difficulties continued.
In this state of things the special influences of the Spirit seem to have
been withheld, and the ways of Zion mourned." 2
Mr. Barnum was dismissed from  the Franklin church on the
6th of March, 1768; and, during a wearisome interval of five
years, the church called to their pastorate first, Mr. Elijah
Fitch, a man who is described by a neighboring minister, 3 " as in
1 Emery's Ministry of Taunton, Vol. II. pp. 1-29.
2 Centennial Sermon, delivered before the Church and Congregation in Franklin,
Massachusetts, February 25, 1838. By E. Smalley, Pastor of the Church, pp. 19,
20. Mr. Bean, in his Century Sermon, p. 21, speaks of Mr. Barnum as having
"carried on the work of the Lord there, faithfully performing the work of the ministry."
3 Centennial Sermon of Rev. Mr. Howe of Hopkinton. Mr. Fitch was the author




52                           MEM1OIR.
the pulpit remarkably eloquent," and " a man of great powers
of mind;" secondly, the church called Mr. Nathan  Perkins,
well known now  as Rev. Dr. Perkins of West Hartford, Connecticut.  Both of these candidates recoiled from  the guardianship of a people some of whom were so scrupulous, others so
contentious, many of them so intelligent, and all so earnest.'
~ 2. Emmons's Entrance upon Its Pastorate.
At length  this Puritan Church  invited Nathanael Emmons
to preach as a candidate. He knew that in some respects they
differed from him, and in other respects they were unprepared
to welcome any one.  Timorous, therefore, and self-distrustful,
he took his long journey to Wrentham, confiding in Providence
by day, and comforted by a dream at night.2 On the Church
Records are the following votes.
" May 17, 1772. The Church stayed, and voted to spend some time
in prayer to Almighty God, for direction, and his blessing on their
endeavors for the resettling a Gospel minister, and for the out pouring of
the Spirit, and Revival of Religion among us. Voted to meet on the
next Sacramental Lecture, at nine o'clock in the morning for the purpose above mentioned.
"Nov. 20, 1772. The Church stayed after Lecture and appointed a
Church meeting, to be atttended at the publick Meeting House, on
Monday the 30th instant, at ten o'clock in the morning, to see if the
Church are ready to proceed to the choice of a minister, to be the Pastor
of this Church, and to proceed accordingly, or to do any thing relative
thereto.
"At a meeting of the 2d Church of Christ in Wrentham, assembled at
of a poem in blank verse, entitled, " The Beauties of Religion." He died pastor at
Hopkinton, Massachusetts, in 1788, aged 42. He was graduated at Yale two years
before Dr. Emmons.
1 A little incident in Mr. Barnum's ministry illustrates the intense theological spirit
of the parish. One of his opposers, a young man, was seen taking notes of Barnum's
sermons. The pastor, unaccustomed to such methods of attending to his sermons,
met the young man and accosted him thus: " Do you write down my sermons as I
deliver them?" "Yes, Sir."  "Do you write down every word?"  "Yes, Sir, I
write down all that you say, and now and then add a little to make out good sense."
It is easy to see that such a people might have been prepared to appreciate such a
man as Mr. Emmons.
2 See pp. 22, 23.




MEMOIR.                             53
the publick meeting House in the 2d Presinct in said Town, on Monday
the 30th of November, A. D. 1772, the meeting being opened with solemn prayer, the Church proceeded in the following manner, viz:
"The Question being put, whether the Church were then ready to
proceed to the choice of a (learned Protestant) minister, to be the Pastor
of this Church and people, the vote passed in the affirmative.
" Then the Moderator called for paper votes, and it appeared that Mr.
Nathanael Emmons was chosen, 34 members being present; 32 voted.
" Voted, that a copy of these votes be presented to Mr. Emmons, with
the Church's desire of his acceptance of their choice, provided the Presinct shall concur with them in the same choice, and make such proposals, or grant such sum or sums of money for his support, as shall be
suitable encouragement for his settling in the work of the ministry
among us."
Although in many respects the Franklin Parish was admirably
fitted to the needs of the inquisitive young candidate, yet he saw
evil omens in the contentious mind which had been exhibited by
the reasoning farmers.  He once thought of preaching to them a
sermon on one word of 2 Timothy 3: 4,-the word " Heady,"" that word " he said " describes them to a charm."  He was a
cautious man. He hesitated ten weeks, —they waited patiently
for him  ten weeks, -  and at length he returned the following
answer to the preceding call:
" To the Church and Congregation in the 2d Precinct of Wrentham.
" BRETHREN AND FRIENDS, -Since you have been pleased to invite
me to labor among you in Word and Doctrine, I have taken the matter
into serious and deliberate consideration, as the weight and importance of
it justly requires; and, after seeking divine light and direction, and viewing the case on every side, as well as I am able, it appears to me, that I
am called of God in his providence to accept your invitation. Accordingly, I do hereby manifest my acceptance of the Call you have given
me, to settle with you, in the work of the Gospel ministry, -earnestly
entreating that He who hath disposed your hearts to give, and mine to
accept the call to the sacred office, would smile propitiously on our future proceedings, and make them happily subservient to his own glory,
the cause of Christ, and the best good of your souls and mine.
" NATHANAEL EMMONS.
6WRENTHAM, 2d Precinct, Feb. 13, 1773."
E*




54                            MAEMOIR.
Among the earliest records which Mr. Emmons wrote in the
Church Books were the following: 1
"A. D. 1773, April 21.  This day the ordaining Council, together with
the Church in this place, met at the house appointed.
" Then I (Nathanael Emmons) producing a Letter of Dismission and
Recommendation from  the 2d Church in East Haddam, was received
into communion with this Church.
"' Then, near the public Meeting House in this place 2 the Church renewedly manifested their desire that I should be ordained their Pastor,
to which I consented, in the presence of the Council; and accordingly
was set apart to the sacred work of the Gospel ministry.
" The Rev'd Mr. Hopkins, Pastor of the Ist Congregational Church in
Newport, began the Solemnity with Prayer. -  The Rev'd Mr. Hart, Pastor of a Church  in Preston, preacht the Sermon. -  The Rev'd Mr.
Haven, Pastor of the Church in Dedham, made the prayer after the
Sermon. -  The Rev'd Mr. Thatcher, Pastor of the 2d Church in Attlebrough, gave the Charge. —The Rev'd Mr. Frost, Pastor of the 2d
Church in Mendon, made the prayer after it. —And the Rev'd Mr.
Bean, Pastor of the 1t Church in this town, gave the Right hand of
Fellowship.
"May 5, 1773.  After public Lecture, the Church was stayed, and
informed what was expended in providing for the Ordination Council,
1 The first printed communication which we have lever seen from the pen of Dr.
Emmons, is a brief statistical record prepared for Rev. Mr. Bean's Century Sermon in
1774. In that record he states that "Twenty-four members [were] at first [in 1738]
embodied into a Church state [in the Second Parish of Wrentham]; fifty-three [have
been since] received from other Churches; one hundred and eighty-six [have been]
received here: which makes, in the whole, admitted since Mr. Haven's ordination [a
period of thirty-five years] two hundred and sixty-three, including the twenty-four first
formed into a Church. Six hundred and eighty-one have been baptized since Mr.
Haven's ordination, including a few adults."
2 " At the time Dr. Emmons was ordained, there was a forest within twenty rods
of the Church. His ordination took place in the open air; he stood in a kind of valley, and the people stood on the elevated ground above him. In allusion to this circumstance, he pleasantly remarked that he was ordained under his people, not over
them."  Barber's Historical Collections of Mass. p. 470. —The multitudes who
thronged at an ordination service a century ago in Franklin, rendered it impossible to
meet in a Church edifice: The day on which Emmons was inducted into the pastoral office was remarkable for its warmth and beauty. The apple trees were in full
blossom. Being the day after the anniversary of his birth, it was peculiarly interesting to the young pastor.




MEMOIR.                          55
which was ~10. 13.4. Whereupon they voted that the charge should be
paid out of the Church Treasury.
" At the desire of Brother James Metcalf, to have a person chosen to
assist him in tuning the psalm; the Church chose Brother Ebenezer
Dean to tune the psalm with Br. Metcalf."
Speaking, in his old age, of this ordination, Dr. Emmons remarked: "' When I was about to be settled in Franklin, some of
the neighboring ministers had the impression that I had embraced some heresies.  So when they came to examine me for
ordination, they tried to draw out my heresies. I answered all
their questions promptly; but if they had only known how, they
would have made me a heretic and never ordained me." Two
members of the Council, Dr. Hopkins and Dr. Hart (the son-inlaw of Dr. Bellamy) were especial friends of Emmons at that
early day. Dr. West of Stockbridge, another of his friends, was
invited, but was unable to take part in the ordination. The
other members of the Council were the moderate Calvinistsof
those times, who recoiled from some of the teachings of Bellamy,
Hart, and West.
Dr. Emmons always regarded the history of his settlement in
Franklin, as a commentary on the best method of quieting a turbulent parish. After a tedious decade of dissension, sometimes
about the use of Watts's new Hymn Book, at other times about
the most decorous method of tuning the Psalms, then about certain rules of Church discipline, again and above all, on the
question whether " the doctrines of universal redemption and assurance of faith " are consistent 1 with the other doctrines of
grace" and " the essential analogy of faith," or' dangerous
and destructive to the souls of men," -the people became at
once harmonious in tuning the songs of Zion; and the voice of
discord was hushed, not to be raised again for ninety years, perhaps not for nine times ninety. This is the influence of a prudent minister. And the prudence of this minister consisted in
aiming to appease his alienated hearers by preaching the doctrines of the Bible; in aiming to exalt religion by preaching the
doctrines well; in aiming to educate the mind, heart and taste
of his people, not by lyceum lectures, but by preaching the doctrines, proving them, applying them in a plain and simple way.




56                      MEMOIR.
Two of Emmons's favorite proverbs were: " The way to keep a
Church peaceable is, to keep them interested in the great truths
of the Bible:" " Men can do nothing more effectual to guard
their people against corrupters, than to teach them plainly the
principal doctrines of Christianity."
It is also a noteworthy fact, that the Franklin Parish owes its
fame to the sermons which have been written in it. Throughout
the neighboring towns, when a stranger inquired for the road to
Franklin, he was answered, " That road will take you to Dr.
Emmons's," as if the parsonage were the only attraction to the
place. About a half century ago, one reason urged for opening a
regular communication between Franklin and the main road
from Providence to Boston, was the fact that so many travellers
came to visit Dr. Emmons and his pupils. Theology was dominant in those times.




CHAPTER IV.
THE STUDIES AND THE BOOKS OF EMMONS.
~ 1. Little care for his secular concerns.
THE preceding sections prepare us to detect the full meaning
of the modest youth, when he writes:
" I entered on the ministerial work with a great deal of diffidence in my abilities to perform it, on account of the difficulties
which I expected to encounter.  Several things concurred to
awaken this apprehension. Though I had a large portion of
pride, yet it served to produce timidity rather than confidence.
I was conscious of many and great defects, which depressed my
mind, and rendered me incapable of exercising those talents I
possessed, to the best advantage. I was destitute of an easy address, of a strong voice, of a good style, and of a graceful delivery. Despairing of being a popular, I was solicitous only to become an instructive preacher. With this view, I determined to
give myself wholly to the ministry, and use every proper exertion
to acquire a thorough knowledge of divinity in general, and of
that scheme of sentiments which I had adopted in particular.
My zeal with respect to this object, had been awakened, and increased by a series of circumstances prior to my settlement in the
ministry." - Memoir of himself.
Again he writes: "' As soon as I entered," - he needed not
one hour for congratulations, but " as soon as I entered into the
ministry, I resolved to devote my whole time to the sacred work,
without encumbering myself with the cares and concerns of the
world. I expected, however, that I should need great firmness
and vigilance, to guard me against the solicitations of ease, interest, and seeming necessity, to neglect the proper business of
my calling. Upon this consideration, I determined not to be(57)




58                    ME MOI R.
gin to do the least manual labor, nor even superintend my secular concerns; but to make my study my home, and my ministerial duties my whole employment. Soon after my ordination,
I was invited by one of my parishioners to spend several weeks
at his house, upon free cost; but I declined the offer, for fear my
acceptance would obstruct my studies; and this refusal, I apprehend, prevented other invitations of the same kind.
" After I had been settled about a year, I employed some of my
friends to purchase me a house and farm. The house needed
repair, and I employed certain persons to repair it, and others to
superintend the business; so that scarcely a man in the parish
had less concern with it than I had." —Memoir of himself.
" Although he boarded" at this time, says Dr. Ide, " within
sight of his own house, and frequently passed it while under repair, he never allowed himself to see its interior, until it was
finished. This fact, which was told by himself to several of his
friends, a short time before his decease, whether it be considered
indicative of wisdom or the want of it, certainly evinces one
thing; and that is, a determination of no ordinary character, to
keep himself free from the entanglements of the world." 1 Such
facts as these develop the emphasis of Emmons, when he so
often charges his pupils to give themselves wholly to their office.
" The next year " [1774, continues Dr. Emmons], " I entered
into a family state, in which a great many worldly affairs invited
my attention; but I kept my resolution, and confined myself
wholly to my study, without doing so much as an hour's labor in
the garden, or in the field. It was a time of war; when laborers
were scarce and dear, and when many ministers supposed that
the circumstances of the times justified them in neglecting their
studies, for the purpose of laboring to support their families.
Though they might have thought this to be their duty, yet I
could never make myself believe that it was mine.  Hence I felt
constrained to separate myself from all secular concerns, and
devote myself wholly to my ministerial work." - Memoir of
himself.
Many efforts were made to bring this indefatigable student
back again into what he calls " the world." Sitting in a circle
1 Memoir of Emmons, p. 57.




MEMOIR.                           59
of friends, one of them, a clergyman, said to Mr. Emmons:.  In
the cold season I write my sermons for the whole year, and keep
them  for the warm season, in order that I may, then, labor an
my farm, and yet supply my pulpit."  " That is a wise plan,"
exclaimed one of the circle, " and Mr. Emmons, you are straitened for the means of support, why then do you not write sermons in this way and keep them?"' /My- sermons will not keep
so long," responded the impervious divine --  I have put my
foot down; I shall study," was his watchword, and at length the
agricultural clergy gave him up.
It is told of him that walking over his farm one day, he saw
the bars of his fence down. His first impulse was to put them
up, and thus save his fields from the depredation of cattle.  But
no: "' If I say A, I must say B; and it is safer not to begin the
alphabet."  With this favorite maxim on his mind, he left the
bars down, and went into his study.
Dr. Ide says of him, that he "merely exercised such a superintendence of his concerns as was unavoidable, and which he
could do, without any interruption to his studies, or parochial
labors.  He would never allow those in his employ to depend
upon his assistance in their work, in any emergency whatever.
If they laid out more than they could do, or failed to prepare
themselves for emergencies which might occur, and by this miscalculation or neglect got themselves into difficulty, they were
taught never to expect relief from any personal exertions of his.
Though he sometimes walked out among his laborers, and for
his own recreation took hold of their tools, and wrought with
them for a few moments, yet he would sooner see the waste or
ruin of his crops, than have it understood that he might be
called off from his studies, to assist in the labors of his farm.
The inflexibility of his purpose on this subject, may be. seen
from such facts as the following.
" At a time when a large quantity of his hay lay exposed in
the field, his men were suddenly alarmed at the prospect of rain.
They at once concluded that they could not secure it, unless
they had assistance, and it was now too late to go abroad for
help.  Though they knew  that in ordinary circumstances it
would be in vain to expect any aid from him, yet as there was
now so much at stake, and the loss to be sustained entirely his




60                       DIEMOIR.
own, they thought it possible that he would so far relax from the
rigidity of his habits, as to assist one of them in throwing off a
load of hay in the barn, while the other should get that in the
field in readiness to carry in. Accordingly, one of them went
to the doctor's study, and told him that a shower was rapidly
approaching, and that the hay must be wet unless he would give
them  aid in throwing off a load in the barn.' Then let it be
wet,' said he;' I am not going to leave my work to do yours.'
"Those who knew his accommodating spirit, his readiness
always to gratify the feelings of others, so far as he could consistently with his duty, and his daily habit of assisting the needy,
will see in this, not the recklessness or unkindness which the
apparently harsh expression might indicate to a stranger, but
that strong guard against every temptation to turn aside from
his appropriate work, for which he was so remarkable." 1
In his devotion to study, Dr. Emmons was a representative of
the old Massachusetts and Connecticut divines. We read of the
two Edwardses, Hopkins, Smalley, Stiles, Chauncy and Dwight,
as at their books, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, and sometimes
eighteen hours of the day. In this respect, the Franklin divine
equalled any of them. He had his study, not like Bishop Berkley, in his cellar, but on his lower floor, so that his family might
easily preserve a comfortable temperature in his room, if he
should ever be called out.  " By this means," he said, " I have
saved much time."  Many of the old divines left their domestic
concerns to others, and intermeddled not with the minor cares
of life. Neither President Edwards nor Dr. Emmons understood
very well, the topography of their barns. The former could not
distinguish his own domestic animals from those of his neighbor.
The latter rode home from  Boston, after the State election,
without noticing that he was carried by another man's horse.
" If I had heard," said one of his intimate friends, "that he had
broken into a bookstore, and brought home its contents, I might
have thought it probable; but as to this unministerial kind of
theft, I cannot believe it."
1 Dr. Ide's Memoir, pp. 58, 59.




MEMOIR.                           61
~ 2. His Taste and Talent for Business.
It has been imagined that Emmons abstained from  manual
labor partly on account of a distaste for it.  But when he
says "I never loved labor,"- he means that he never loved
agriculture as the employment of his life, and that he preferred
study as his chief occupation.  " In itself considered," he was
fond of the business of his ancestors.
It was not," writes Dr. Ide,2L the mere loss of time which he
regarded, in his total abstinence from all secular labor. He
feared its influence upon his mind and habits of study. An
intimate friend of his, and a brother in the ministry, once said
to him, when conversing upon his habit of refraining from the
usual modes of exercise which people adopt,  I should think,
Doctor, that you would find it pleasant to labor in your garden
an hour or two a day, and that this exercise would contribute to
your health and mental vigor.''Too pleasant, I fear,' said
he;'if I were to labor an hour a day in the garden, or long
enough to become interested in it, I should have my garden in
my study all the rest of the day.'
It has been also imagined that Dr. Emmons was unskilful
in the management of his estate. Exactly the reverse was true.
The hints which he gave to the superintendents of his fields
were prized by the farmers as oracles of sound judgment and
cultivated taste. His workmen well understood that he had a
quick eye for the fitness of their work; an unusual fondness for
a neat lawn, solid walls, comfortable barns, fair cattle. Whether
he could always identify them  or not, he would have a horse
and chaise worthy of being called " the minister's."  Such was
the impulse given to the laborers on his land, by his few words of
advice, and such was the sagacity of his comprehensive directions, that although his farm was large, containing one hundred
and twenty-nine acres, and although it was in a poor condition
when he bought it, still, during the greater part of his life it was
noted as the best farm in the parish. After all his abstractions he
never lost entirely the tastes or the skill of his boyhood. He was
1 See p. 25, above.       2 Memoir, p. 59.
VOL. I.                 F




62                        M EIMOIR.
then admired for his athletic feats and cunning in the use of
farmers' tools. True, it was often said to him by his father and
uncles whom he interrupted in their field labors: " Nat! you ask
more questions than you plant seeds;"   "You pry into learning
more than you dig into the earth; " but these rebukes were signs
not that he failed to work well, but that he was more intent on
learning than farming.  He was especially expert with the
sickle, and went ahead of all competitors on the field of rye.
Once a year in his ministerial life, he allowed the passion of his
boyhood to triumph, for a few hours, over the stern rules of his
manhood, and when the time came for reaping his grain he
would challenge some one of his students, or of his workmen
to overtake him  on the field.  Several of the neighbors would
sometimes hear of the approaching trial, and come to witness it.
Hand over hand, the brisk theologian would cut through the
grain, and leave his competitors far behind. But at length on a
certain day (it must have been after he had seen the new moon
over his left shoulder),1 a stout and agile student in divinity
outstripped him in the course, and the discomfited theologian,
covered with perspiration, his ruddy face now redder than ever,
put the sickle on his shoulder, walked with his hasty step
straight to his study, and never was seen again on the reaping
field. He was not a man to be beaten more than once, in the
same place and the same way.
It was a self-denial for him  to forego entirely the free labor
of the farm.  Accordingly, says Dr. Ide, it was " while able to
precch and actively engragwed in the ministry   that " he would
subject himself to no kind of secular labor, not even to harness
his horse, or feed his cattle, or bring in his wood. HIe depended
upon his hired men, or his children, to see that all these things
were done for him. After he had closed the active duties of
the ministry," however,' and no longer felt, himself under obligation to give his time and attention to this work, he would often
wait upon himself and others, very pleasantly observing,' I have
nothing else now to do.' "2 He wrote in the albums of his friends,
and showed his natural versatility by abandoning many old
habits which in his hale manhood he would not deign to relinquish, " no, not for King George."
1 See p. 6, above.        2 Dr. Ide's Memoir, p. 59.




MEMOIR.                             63
~ 3. His Pecuniary Necessities.
If Emmons had chosen to devote a portion of his time to the
care of his farm, he would not have been censured.  His pecuniary needs give a peculiar significance to his absorption in study.
His salary was meagre.  His family was somewhat expensive.
He was obliged and was content to practise a strict economy
through life.  His daughters, like those of President Edwards,
contributed to his financial relief by their household arts. The
first straw bonnet ever braided in Franklin (the town which is
now conspicuous for its bonnet manufacture), was braided in his
house.  When he was released from  his pastoral care, he received from his parish an annual grant of one hundred and fifty
dollars.  He was asked,  I How cal you support yourself on this
inconsiderable stipend?    " First," he replied, " I shall eat up
my wood [his farm contained some merchantable timber]; next,
I shall eat up my land."  But he felt no concern for the future,
even if he should be compelled to sell his farm  to supply his
table.   C I  have  always  been  nourished  by  underground
streams," was his favorite saying in allusion to the economical
arts of his household.    I can still trust in the secret will of
God."  Having labored in the active pastorate fifty-four years;
having published more than a hundred sermons, and instructed
about a hundred young men for professional life; having early
purchased a farm which through the seventy years of his ownership rose in value, and thus made money for him in the night-.time; having possessed many advantages for accumulating a
fortune, he left at his death, an estate which, had it been sold at
once, would not have yielded to his family twenty-five hundred
dollars, and his entire property never amounted to more than
three thousand dollars.2
His own remark is:  "No men have been called to make
i See Ch. VIII. ~ 1.
2 Ten years after his decease, when the railroad'passing through Franklin, had
augmented the value of his farm, it of course commanded a higher price than would
have been given while he lived. During the fifty-eight years from his approbation
to preach until his resignation of his pulpit, he earned about forty-four dollars per
annum more than his expenses. This is the pecuniary reward of theological study.




64                          MI EM OIR.
greater sacrifices of their worldly interests, than the ministers
of the gospel." The remark is true; still his own contented
life shows, that ministers have some compensation in this world.
With their modest income and moderate wants and frugal habits,
and exemption from  hazardous speculation,l they often enjoy
more than  is given  to the more  adventurous layman.  One
would have predicted, that the pecuniary condition of Governor
Treadwell, the classmate of Emmons, would be more enviable
than  that  of  Emmons  himself.   But  while the  Franklin
minister began life in  poverty, and ended it with a tolerable
competence, his classmate commenced his career in affluence,
and closed it with such words as these: " The prospect is, that
my sun will set in a cloud; my burden is bound with cords
upon me so that I cannot break them; I cannot turn to the
right hand or to the left." He was afflicted in various forms,
and was
"Like Cato firm, like Aristides just,
Like rigid Cincinnatus, nobly poor." 2
~ 4. Extent of his Reading.
The Franklin  pastor's absorption in study was indeed excessive; "so impossible it is to stop a soul in  the full speed
thereof; " but the main influence of it was good.  His example
stood out as a lesson to the men who were " hewers of wood
and drawers of water" and also preachers of the gospel; and
it reclaimed many a pastor from  an undue " care for oxen."  It
excited a love of study among his clerical associates.  It had no
small influence in starting our theological schools. It added
force to his adage: " If a minister does not give himself to his
office, he will give his office to himself.'
1 The Franklin pastor occasionally suffered a pecuniary loss. He once loaned a
sum of money to a friend, who offered the name of a rich and upright man as his
bondsman. Emmons regarding suretyship as opposed to the direct teachings of the
Bible, and as inconsistent with the spirit of the Golden Rule, replied: " That man
will not be profited in any way by this transaction, and it is not right that he should
take the risk. I hope and expect that you will pay me; if you do not, the loss belongs to me for trusting you, and I alone, will bear it." The borrower failed and
Emmons bore it, saying: " Glad I am that there is no bondsman."
2 Am. Quar. Reg. Vol. XV. pp. 249, 250.




MEMOI  R.                          65
Early in his ministerial life he commenced the study of the
Hebrew Language, and pursued it so far as to enable him  to
read intelligently and satisfactorily the Commentaries on the
Hebrew Bible.  His library contained the needful apparatus for
Hebrew investigations, as for Greek and Latin.'  He had no acquaintance with the German language, although he perused the
English translations of the German treatises on theology.  He
was a warm  personal, though not a theological friend of Rev.
Dr. Prentiss, of Medfield, Mass., and through him  had ready
access to the rich parochial library 2 of that town.  He was also
a favorite of the father of Miss Hannah Adams, of Medfield, and
was often gratified with the loan of books from that gentleman's
large collection.  At Brown University and at Harvard College,
he had pupils or admirers who were faithful in sending him rare
volumes from  the alcoves of those institutions.  During a part
of the revolutionary war, when the college edifice at Providence
" was occupied as a barrack for the militia, and afterward as a
hospital for the French troops, the college library was removed"
to the immediate vicinity of Dr. Emmons, and placed under the
care of Rev. William Williams, the pastor of the Baptist Church
in  Wrentham, and  for forty-seven  years one of Emmons's
nearest clerical neighbors.
In regard to the literature which he mastered, the Franklin
student was a representative of other New  England  divines.
They were not so remarkable for reading many volumes, as for
reading  thoroughly and well.  They adopted for their motto,
n' on multa sed multuz."  They followed the advice of Luther,
that those who study in what art soever, " should betake themselves to the reading of some sure and certain sorts of books
oftentimes over and over again; for to read many sorts of books
produceth more and rather confusion, than to learn thereout any
thing certainly or perfectly, like as those that dwell everywhere
and remain certainly in no place, such do well nowhere nor are
1 The writer of this Memoir has done injustice to the subject of it, by affirming, in
another place, what was then deemed correct, that "Dr. Emmons knew exactly as
much of Hebrew as Augustine ever learned, and would by no means suffer in comparison with Richard Baxter, of whom we read,' Of Hebrew, he scarcely knew any
thing; his acquaintance with Greek was not profound; and even in Latin, as his
works show, he must be regarded, by a scholar, as little better than a barbarian.'"
2 See Sprague's Annals, Vol. I. p. 678.
y *




66                        MEMOIR.
anywhere at home."    Beware of the man of one book," was in
good measure applicable to the New England divines. Cotton
Mather's library contained about two thousand volumes.  President Edwards's did not contain more than a quarter of that
number.  His son's contained about half of it.  Yet many of
their books were folios or quartos.  They were such books as
forced the reader to work.  They were books to be studied
over and over.  The leaves of such as have been preserved to us,
are thumbed or dog-eared.  Dr. Emmons read more than the
majority of New England divines; more indeed than the majority of scholars, for he persevered in his literary habits through
his threescore years and ten of mature reflection.  He read with
enthusiasm  and critical acumen.  The neat marks which he
made on the margin of his Kames and Hume, indicate the vigilance and sharp discrimination, that let not the slightest hint escape him.' The worst books," he used to say, " are the best;
they compel us to think."  Dr. Ide says of him:
" He read a great deal, but he studied more. Few men in his profession ever read more books. It was astonishing to see with what eagerness he would seize a new publication, and, if a work of importance, with
what avidity he would devour its contents. But in the acquisition of
new materials to the stock of his knowledge, the relation which these
bore to other facts in his possession, was always a primary object of his
inquiry.  There are men who have read more books than Dr. Emmons;
but there have been few, if any, who have read so many with deep
attention, and with so thorough an examination of the subjects of which
they treated." 1
He began to study in 1762; he ceased to preach in 1827;
during these sixty-five years he was an earnest student.  " He
always sat," writes one of his friends, "when he was alone in
his study, with a book or pen in his hand."  During ten of the
years which followed his resignation of the pastoral office, he
continued to be an assiduous reader, although he then relaxed
his habits of intense, energetic study.  It may be safely affirmed,
then, that he devoted seventy-five years to the perusal of books,
the meditation on their contents, and the writing on themes sug-,gested by them.  The thoughts of a man who spent more time in
1 tMemoir, p. 42.




MEMOIR.                              67
his study than many eminent authors have spent on the earth,
have a value of their own.
~ 5. The Character of his Familiar Books.
" I knew," writes the considerate scholar, that " it would be
in vain to propose an end, without devising and adopting proper
means to accomplish it. Accordingly, I resolved to divide and
appropriate my time to the various branches of knowledge which
I meant to pursue, and to furnish myself with a good collection
of books.  These I spared no pains nor expense to obtain.  I
examined the libraries of my brethren  in the ministry.  I
searched the old books which I found among my people.  I kept
my eye upon the catalogues of the booksellers; 1 and among the
great variety of authors which I found upon different subjects, I
made it a rule to select the best and the worst; that is to say,
those who had written most ingeniously in favor of the truth,
and against it.  I meant to read upon both sides of disputed
subjects, and wished to obtain those authors on both sides, who
had exhibited the most light.  Though I was not able to purchase many books at a time, yet I constantly made additions to
my collection, by buying and exchanging authors" [he often
stimulated a ministerial brother by sending to him some fresh
publication, and requesting the loan of some other new volume
in return]; " so that I rarely failed of procuring any book
which I felt a strong inclination to read. Providence often
smiled upon me in this respect.  The Rev. Diodate Johnson, the
minister of the church to which I at first belonged, gave me, at
his death, a donation of forty dollars, which I appropriated to the
purchase of books.  My own congregation had a pretty parish
library, when I was settled among them; and in the year 1786,
Dr. Franklin presented them a donation of some of the most
celebrated English authors.2  By these means I generally had a
1 Notwithstanding his zeal for new books, he had an inveterate disinclination to buy
them by subscription. When visited by a book-agent, especially in his study-hours,
his pithy words were, "I do not' subscribe for books; I make them."
2 " The' Western Precinct' [of Wrentham] obtained an act of incorporation, and
became the town of Franklin in 1778. The name was selected in honor of Benjamin
Franklin, LL.D. While Dr. Franklin was in France, a friend of his in Boston wrote




68                           M EM OIR.
supply of all those kinds of books which were necessary and useful to a divine; and I never wished for others, because I meant
to confine my studies to my own profession, and not waste time
in acquiring mere speculative knowledge." -  Memoir of himself.
Both the Town Library and the Parish Library were kept in
Dr. Emmons's house.  It is interesting to know the character of
the works which were given to the town by Dr. Franklin.  The
following is an extract from  the old printed  catalogue of the
volumes presented by him:
Clark's Works; Hoadley's Works; Barrow's Works; Ridgeley's
Works; Locke's Works; Sydney's Works; Montesquieu's Spirit of the
Laws; Blackstone's Commentaries; Watson's Tracts; Newton on the
Prophecies; Law on Religion; Priestley's Institutes; Priestley's Corruptions; Price and Priestly; Lyndsey's Apology; Lyndsey's Sequel;
Abernethy's Sermons; Duchal's Sermons; Price's Morals; Price on
Providence; Price on Liberty; Price's Sermons; Price on the Christian Scheme; Needham's Free State; West & Lyttleton on the Resurrection; Stennet's Sermons; Addison's Evidences; Gordon's Tacitus;
Backus's History; Lardner on the Logos; Watts's Orthodoxy and Charity; Doddridge's Life; Fordyce's Sermons; Life of Cromwell; Fulfilling
of the Scriptures; Watts on the Passions; Watts's Logic; Christian History; Prideaux's Connections; Cooper on Predestination; Cambridge
Platform; Burkett on  Personal Reformation; Barnard's  Sermons;
History of the  Rebellion; Janeway's Life;  American  Preacher;
Thomas's Laws of Massachusetts; American Constitutions; Young's
Night Thoughts; Pilgrim's Progress; Life of Baron Trench; Erskine's
Sermons; The Spectator, etc.
The following is an extract from  an old printed Catalogue of
the " pretty Parish Library " to which Emmons refers, and to
which he had constant access:
Robertson's History of Charles V.; Robertson's History of America;
to him, that a town in the vicinity of Boston had chosen his name, by which to be
known in the world, and he presumed, as they had no bell with which to summon the
people to meeting on the Sabbath, a present of such an instrument from him would be
very acceptable, especially as they were about erecting a new meeting-house. The
doctor wrote in reply, that he presumed the people in FRANKLIN were morefond of sense
than of sound; and accordingly presented them with a handsome donation of books
for the use of the Parish." - Dr. Smalley's Centennial Sermon, pp. 7, 8.




MEMOIR.                            69
Rollin's Roman History; Ramsay's History of the War; Brydone's
Tour; Guthrie's Geography; Edward's History of Redemption; Edwards on Original Sin; Ogilvie on Infidelity; Burlamaqui's Principles
of Law; Beccaria on Crimes and Punishments; Anson's Voyage; Vicar
of Wakefield; Dodley's Esop; Richardson on Shakespeare; Lavater's
Aphorisms; Steven's Lectures; Edwards on the Will; Franklin's
Miscellanies; Rollin's Ancient History; Carver's Travels; The Task;
Doddridge's Rise and Progress; Montesquieu's Rise and Fall of Rome;
Putnam's life; Webster's  Dissertations; Zimmerman on Solitude;
Life of William Pitt; Josephus's History; Mason on Self-knowledge;
Stackhouse's History of the Bible; Watts's Miscellanies; Franklin's
Electricity; Residence in France; Hutchinson's History of Massachusetts; Minot's History of Massachusetts; Wilberforce on Religion;
Edwards's Sermons; History of Charles XII.; Robertson's Proofs; History of Jacobinism; Peter the Great; Williams's History of Vermont;
Adam  Smith's Wealth of Nations; Bellamy's Glory of the Gospel;
Orton's Discourses; Belknap's Biography; Franklin's Life; Marshall's
Life of Washington;  Atlas; Smith on the Prophecies; Practical
Piety; Hopkins's Life; Buchanan's Researches; Johnson's Rasselas,
etc.
Among the works from which Emmons has made lengthened
quotations or abstracts are, the writings of Josephus, Dr. Reynolds, Dr. Charnock, Richard Baxter, Cotton Mather, Dr. Waterland, Bishop Bull, the'judicious Hooker," Dr. Benson,
Dr. Samuel Clark, Dr. Burnet, Dr. Shuckford, Dr. Prideaux,
Lindsey, Leslie (Short Method), Dr. Cave (Lives of the Fathers), Basnage, Condorcet, Peter Joseph Macquer (Chemistry),
Colquhoun on the Police of the Metropolis of London, Sale's
Koran, the History of Popery, the History of Ignatius Loyola,
Shakespeare, Watts, Young, Fenelon, etc.
Among the works which he considered fundamentally erroneous, but which he is known to have studied with great care,
are the ethical or theological writings of Dr. Whitby, Dr. John
Taylor, Dr. Chauncey, Dr. Priestley, Dr. Price, Bishop Law,
Bishop Warburton, Dr. Paley, David Hume, Mr. Belsham, Lord
Shaftesbury, Chevalier Ramsay, Adam Smith (in whose treatise
on the Moral Sentiments Emmons took a deep interest), Lord
Herbert, Bolingbroke, Tindale, Dr. Hartley, Morgan, Godwin,
Gibbon, some of the writings of Helvetius, Voltaire, etc.




70                        ME   OIR.
Among the works which he studied, and to which he alludes
in his writings, are those of Dr. Gill, Stackhouse, Dr. John
Brown (Essays on Lord Shaftesbury), John Locke, Bishop
Watson, Bishop Hoadley, John Newton, Bryant (Ancient Mythology), the Earl of Nottingham, Whiston, Gregory (Comparative View), Dr. Samuel Johnson, Pierce (Vindication of the
Dissenters), Leigh  (Critica Sacra), Dr. Mosheim  (Ecclesiastical History), Winthrop (History of New  England), the
writings of Relly, White (on Universal Salvation), Murray,
Huntington, Cicero, Seneca, Tacitus.
Among the additional works belonging to his library were
the following: Cudworth's Intellectual System, Works of
Reid, Beattie, Frances Hucheson, Stewart, Brown, Campbell,
Vattel, John Calvin, Dr. Owen, Howe, Mede, Waterland, Leland, Horseley, Shaw, Gale, Stillingfleet, William Worthington,
Warburton, Dunlap, Hallet (Notes on Peculiar Texts), Lewis
(Antiquities of the Hebrew Republic), Henry's Commentaries,
Poole (Synopsis and Annotations), the New England divines,
such as Stoddard, Shepherd, the Edwardses, Bellamy, Hopkins,
Smalley, Strong, Hemmenway, Lathrop, etc.
Professor Woods of Andover, has written: " In forming his
opinions on moral, metaphysical, and religious subjects, he
[Emmons] made but little use of books, but thought for himself,
and relied with unusual confidence upon the results of his own
reasonings."  In penning this sentence, Dr. Woods must have
intended to compare the Franklin divine with such European
scholars as Humboldt, the Grimms, Neander, Tholuck.  Emmons was not a reader but a thinker, in the comparison with
such omnivorous and quick moving students.  When set over
against the Encyclopedists of his day, it was said even of Des
Cartes:  "We must nevertheless grant you, that he did not
read much, and had a small parcel of books." 1  We do not
pretend that Emmons was a " learned man " in the technical
sense of that word; neither was Dr. Franklin, whom  in some
points he resembled; neither were Dr. Witherspoon, nor Drs.
Hill, Dick, Chalmers, Wardlaw. Men admire Jacob Boehme,
partly for the fact that he was not learned. Justin Martyr
1 Life of Des Cartes, p. 266.




MEMOIR.                          71
knew but little, Augustine nothing at all, of the Hebrew language. It would have been doubtless a great gain to Emmons,
if he had pursued to a greater extent his Hebrew study. He
said in his old age: " If I were a young man, I would acquire
a mastery of that tongue, and I advise all young ministers to
acquire it."  He would have been the gainer also, if he had
adopted the plan of his classmate, Governor Treadwell, reviewing
as often as possible through life, his entire course of collegiate
study.  Emmons read with great care the theological writings;of Dr. Priestley; if he had also read the essays of that author
on chemistry, and if he had kept pace with the schools in the
various branches of natural science, he would more completely
have filled out his own ideal of a divine.
One reason why the real amount of Emmons's learning has
not been appreciated, is the fact that in his discourses he so
unfrequently refers to books.  Dr. James W. Alexander might
have alluded to Emmons with as much pertinency as to any
scholar, when he wrote: " Though given to quotation myself, I
think it below the highest method.  There is more in a man
who spins all out e propriis visceribus.  This has often struck
me in my good father, - no scraps, no pretty phrases, no poetry,
no Latin sentences.  The other way is a sign of weakness;
habeas confitentem reum.  Yet still more am I convinced that
a man must be himself, and that he gains by following his
bent." 1
~ 6. Made of prosecuting his studies.
a. His own Statement of his Method.
" But I was sensible," writes the judicious student, "that both
time and books might be detrimental to the real improvement of
the mind, unless they were properly used. And in order to make
the best use of these two great advantages, I determined to govern myself in the prosecution of my studies, by particular rules.
" 1. I made a practice of paying my principal attention to but
1 Forty years' Familiar Letters of Dr. James W. Alexander, Vol. II. rep. 46, 47.




72                      MEMOIR.
one subject at a time. This had a happy tendency to engage all
the powers of the mind, and especially to set invention at work;
which is a faculty very necessary to investigate truth, and which
nothing but necessity, or a firm resolution, will call into exercise. It is much easier to read, to hear, to converse, than to
investigate; which requires the whole attention of the mind to
be steadily fixed upon one subject. Reading and conversing
upon a subject will never make a man master of it, without close
and steady thinking, and a fair and full decision. And no man
can make a fair and full decision upon any abstract or intricate,
point, until he has thoroughly examined it on all sides, and
fairly balanced the principal arguments for and against it.
Hence I perceived the importance of attending to but one subject at a time, and of not leaving that subject before I came to a
satisfactory and final decision. A final decision, I say, because
I found by experience that the more I thought, or read, or conversed upon any subject, the less I understood it, if, after all, I
did not discover sufficient evidence to form a full and final decision. But when I steadily pursued a subject until I had discovered the truth, and formed my decisive judgment, then I felt
that I had actually added to my common stock of real knowledge; which gave me new power and inclination to make farther
improvements.
" 2. I accustomed myself to attend to all subjects which appeared to be naturally connected with divinity, and calculated
to qualify me for the work of the ministry. That all the arts
and sciences bear some relation to each other, was long ago observed by Cicero, and has ever since been found to be true by all
who have read and studied upon an extended scale. It is extremely difficult to gain a clear understanding of natural and revealed religion, without a considerable degree of general knowledge. The more I attended to theology, the more I was convinced of the importance of acquainting myself with history, ethics, metaphysics, and civil polity. This led me to read freely
upon these subjects, and to form my own opinions upon them."
- Memoir of himself.
Before he wrote his sermon on the Law of Paradise, he studied the whole of Blackstone's " Commentaries on the Laws of




X MEMOIR.                      73
England."  The Works of Edmund Burke he did not read until
he had reached his seventieth year. Then he said: " They almost took me off my feet."' I marvel that any man can agree
with Burke in politics, and with Priestley in religion."  Of Montesquien on the Spirit of the Laws, he remarked: "' I have often
tried to read him, though I never could hold out." He studied,
as intensely as he abhorred, Godwin's Political Justice. One of
his sermons contains an elaborate refutation of the irreligious
theories defended in that treatise.
His memoir continues in a style indicating that the young
man of twenty-eight years, was in advance of his contemporaries:
" I thought it was an injury and reproach to clergymen, that
they so much disregarded general knowledge, and paid their
whole attention to divinity, and even to a few points in that noble and extensive science. There is no doubt, but that many
errors and wild notions in religion have originated from the ignorance of those who have undertaken to preach the gospel, without understanding the connection and harmony of its fundamental doctrines. Such preachers seldom attend to any sentiments
but the peculiarities of their own sect; and vainly imagine that
all are heretics who do not subscribe to their contracted creed.
To avoid this mistake, I resolved to read and study divinity in a
liberal manner, and not to adopt the sentiments of my own denomination, nor to reject the sentiments of other denominations,
without examining them for myself, in the best manner I was able.
And I can truly say, nothing has contributed more to establish me
in the belief of my own system of religious sentiments, than those
authors who have written the most forcibly against them; and
nothing has assisted me more in defending and maintaining the
pure doctrines of the gospel, than a general acquaintance with
the errors and delusions which have prevailed in the Christian
world. I have made it my practice, in the whole course of my
ministry, to read extensively, and to examine as critically and
impartially as I could, all ancient and modern errors and innovations in religion; which I have never seen any reason to regret.
" 3. Though I read a variety of books, yet I always meant, if I
could, to read the proper books at a proper time; that is, when
I was investigating the subject upon which they treated. I
VOL. I.                G




74                         MEMOIR.
gained but little advantage from reading any author without a
particular object in view; but when I read any author with
reference to a particular object, I then took much more notice of
what he said, understood it better, and derived much more
benefit from his writings. I usually restrained myself from
reading for amusement; and put captivating books out of sight,
when I had occasion of consulting authors upon any important
subject." - Memoir of himself.
A friend in the legal profession had loaned to Dr. Emmons
two volumes of a novel by Sir Walter Scott; and as the lawyer
was afterward passing the Dr.'s house, the venerable man rushed
out with the novel in his hand, exclaiming: " Take these volumes out of my sight; never lend them  to me again; I have
been crying ever since I began to read them."  He was not
always so rigid; for he says:
" At times, however, I read some authors for the sake of their
beautiful style, their lively descriptions, and moral sentiments.
Some few  novels possessed these excellences, and gained my
attention at leisure hours. But I read deep, well-written tragedies, for the sake of real improvement in the art of preaching.
They appeared to me the very best books to teach true eloquence.
They are designed to make the deepest impression on the human
mind, and many of them  are excellently calculated to produce
this effect. A preacher can scarcely find a better model for
constructing a popular, practical, pathetic discourse, than a
good tragedy; which all along prepares the mind for the grand
catastrophe, without discovering it, till the whole soul is wrought
into a proper frame to feel the final impression.
" I found also much benefit from reading a variety of sermons.
I read ancient authors, for the sake of the matter contained in
their discourses. They were more sentimental' than modern
preachers.  I found good ideas poorly expressed, in old sermons; and those ideas I felt myself at liberty to borrow, and
1 Dr. Emmons often uses the word sentimental as synonymous with doctrinal, or, as
Webster defines it, "abounding with sentiment or just opinions or reflections." He
even goes further than this, and employs the word "sentiment," to denote false opinion as well as true. Ho would not hesitate to speak of Jefferson's Messages as sentimentally incorrect.




MEMOIR.                         75
put into my own words. Besides, the Puritan writers breathed
a most pious and devout spirit into all their discourses; which I
wished to imbibe, and transfuse into my own sermons. I read
modern sermonizers, for the benefit of learning the various
methods of constructing sermons, and for the purpose of gaining
a neat and perspicuous style.
" But lest I should become a plagiary, and imitator of any
man, I made a point of choosing my subject and my text, and of
laying out my method, before I read any author, who had treated
on the same text. For I found, if I read anotlher man's sermon
before I had done this, I was naturally led to follow his track, or
take peculiar pains to avoid it. Nor did I ever mean to make
any single author my general model of sermonizing; though I
wished to unite as much as I could the peculiar excellences of
Watts, Doddridge, and Edwards. But it is probable that I did
approach nearer to Mr. Edwards's manner, than to that of any
other man, except Mr. Smalley, my admired instructor. His
great excellence consisted in representing divine truths in a
clear light, and in reconciling them with each other. This
I endeavored to imitate in the general course of my preaching."
- Memoir of himself.
Remarkable as the young minister was, in that early day, for
his love of letters, he was' yet more noted for mastering the books
that he perused.  He seldom named a certain eminent divine
without intimating a wish that' the good man would not agree
with every author whom he examined last."  He continues his
Autobiography:
" 4. Though I was fond of reading, yet I was still more desirous of examining and digesting what I read. I always found a
disadvantage from reading more than I could digest. This
never failed to unsettle my mind, and give it a bias towards
scepticism. And I believe there is scarcely any circumstance,
which has a more direct tendency to turn learned men into sceptics, than reading too much and thinking too little. When a
large number of different and opposite ideas upon a subject are
collected in the mind, without being properly examined and arranged, it requires more than common discernment to discover




76                         MEMOIR.
where truth lies; and many a weak mind has, I doubt not, been
plunged in darkness, by too much light.
" To investigate truth, it issnecessary to proceed gradually, and
attend to but one point at a time, till the mind has gone clear
round the subject, and viewed it in every attitude.  The natural
process is, first to separate from the subject of inquiry whatever
does not belong to it; then to consider what is in favor of the
sentiment examined; and lastly, to weigh the arguments against
it. Studying is often compared with digging; and in digging
stones there is peculiar art.  The man who understands the
business, will not leave a stone because it will not move by his
first exertion.  He will continue to try it in different positions,
until he has found that in which he can apply all his strength to
advantage, and effect his purpose.' Steady, patient, persevering
thinking, will generally surmount every obstacle in the search of
truth.
" Some subjects, indeed, are too high for human investigation.
When a difficult subject is proposed, the  first question  is,
whether it lies within the province of reason to decide.  This, in
most cases, can be easily and quickly determined, because there
is a wide difference between difficulties and mysteries.  If the
question does not involve a real mystery, there is sufficient encouragement to pursue it.  And the more difficult it is, and
the more others have neglected to examine it, or have failed of
success, the more worthy it is of peculiar attention. Accordingly, I have made it my practice to seek after and examine the
more difficult points in divinity.  This I have found to be the
best way for me to make proficiency in real and useful knowledge.  By solving one difficulty, I was enabled to solve another;
and every new solution gave me new ability and new resolution,
to pursue my studies with greater diligence and perseverance.
" 5. In the course of my studies, I have endeavored to obtain
certainty upon all points which would admit of it. Many points
in divinity, as well as in other branches of science, will not
admit of demonstration, and must remain problematical, after
1 "East Haddam," says Dr. Field in his History, p. 8, "is a good grazing township, less hilly and rocky than Haddam, though of a soil rather hard, especially in Mi3lington," where young Emmons learned to " compare studying with digging." See p. 21.




IMEMOIR.                       77
all human researches; but some may be brought to a fair and
full decision. In all cases in which I supposed certainty could
be obtained, I made it a practice to pursue a subject until I was
completely satisfied I had found the truth. I have spent more
time, more attention, and more hard study, upon critical and
difficult points, than, perhaps, most theologians have been
willing to do; and I have never regretted the time and pains I
have spent. For I have found, that the knowledge of the most
difficult subjects I ever attended to, has thrown the greatest
light upon the whole system of divinity; and more than any
thing else, enabled me to discover the connection and harmony
which run through the fundamental doctrines of the gospel.
And though men may be good Christians, and even  good
preachers, without understanding the mutual connection and
consistency of the first principles of Christianity, yet I believe
that no man can be a great and thorough divine, without critically examining and understanding what are generally considered the most difficult subjects in divinity.
C 6. I have made it my practice to improve every good opportunity of conversing upon theological subjects. While I was
a candidate, I derived a good deal of benefit from conversing
with both old and young ministers. Though I soon gave up
the idea of convincing those I happened to differ from in sentiment, yet I seldom failed of getting knowledge, by discoursing
freely with both orthodox and heterodox divines." - Memoir of
himself.
Here we are reminded of several apothegms which often fell
from his lips, and which were the ripe fruit of his growing experience.  To a young minister he said: " Never hope to convince a man, by disputing, after he is forty years old."  But, it
was asked, will not some light be struck out from the concussion
of the flint with the steel. " Certainly. You may get light, but
you will not give much.  You will learn from him, more than
he will learn from you. But when you find that you can derive
no further good from him, close your dispute. He is a hopeless
case." His practice accorded with his precept. He would very
often engage for his own improvement in oral discussion with
men of advanced life; but when he thought that he had exG*




78                           M E Mt  O IR.
hausted their stock of knowledge, he would stop at once.  They
often thought and reported, that he was silenced by their logic.
But during all his silence he was soliloquizing mentally: " No
use, no use;" " Vanity of vanities," and " Vexation of spirit;"
"Ichabod, Ichabod." -Emmons continues his Narrative:
" After I was settled, I fell into very happy ministerial connections, which afforded me peculiar advantages for improvement by conversation.' Nor did I fail of reaping benefit from
conversing with those whom I undertook to teach divinity. I
found that after I had read, and thought, and even written upon
a subject, I could rarely master it without the aid of conversation. I generally perceived, that in the course of free discussion,
some thoughts would be suggested, which had never occurred
to me in reading, or thinking upon the subject.' Though only
superficial knowledge can be gained by mere conversation, yet
this, in connection with reading and thinking, may be of great
service  in  theological researches.   But in  conversing upon
subjects, I never did of choice take that side of a question which
was contrary to my present opinion, lest I should insensibly
warp my mind, and lead myself into error.
" Such were the general rules by which I meant to govern myself in the course of my theological studies." -  Mem. of himsef.
b. Questions from his Common Place Book.
Among the methods to which Emmons resorted in his youth,
for the improvement of his mind, was the keeping of commonplace books.  He recorded in them  interesting extracts from
authors whom  he esteemed.  One of these books, which was in
use about the time of his entrance upon his Franklin pastorate,
contains notes on chronology, history, psychology and theology.
A fragment of another book is devoted to geography.  The following list of questions, penned as they occurred to his mind, and
1 Not only the conversation, but the correspondence of the early Hopkinsian
divines was, in great measure, theological. They were on the qui vive for scientific
intelligence. Thus in two of Dr. Burton's familiar epistles to Dr. Levi Hart, he
writes: " If there are any new ideas started by any in your acquaintance, you will
oblige me much [by stating] them in your next letter." " I should be very happy to
know what the difficulties are with which gentlemen your way feel themselves pressed,
upon the subject of atonement. This country produces but few publications in
divinity; but all that are or may be published this way, shall be sent you as soon as
they can be obtained."




MEMOIR.                            79
probably in or about the year 1773, illustrates the method of
his youthful miscellaneous inquiries.
QUESTIONS PROPOSED FOR SOLUTION.
1. Whether it is now lawful to eat blood?
2. Whether an atonement sufficient for the pardon of one sinner, is
sufficient for the pardon of all?
3. Whether men are by nature totally depraved?
4. Whether Samson was guilty of suicide or self-murder?
5. Whether the mind always thinks?
6. Whether love is the first exercise of a regenerate man?
7. Whether that first exercise of love be benevolence and not complacence?
8. Whether deception is lawful?
9. Whether a man ought always to follow the dictates of conscience?
10. Whether stealing ought to be punished with death?
11. Whether it is now lawful to take an oath before a civil magistrate?
12. Whether a man is accountable for thoughts in his sleep?
13. Whether Melchisedec was Christ?
14. Whether it is right for one church member to go to law with
another?
15. Whether there was in reality such a man as Job?
16. Whether there was a rainbow before the flood?
17. Whether saints ought to pray for perfection in this life?
18. Whether saints that know each other in this world, will know
each other in the next?
19. Whether departed saints are acquainted with the affairs of this
world?
20. Whether the happiness of saints will be eternally increasing?
21. Whether the saints will be properly rewarded for any holy exercises, but such as they had in this world?
22. Whether the finally impenitent will be properly punished for any
evil exercises, but such as they had here?
23. Whether from the happiness of communion, may be argued the
necessity for a Trinity of Persons in the Godhead?
24. What is Conscience?
25. How is the divine inspiration of particular books of Scripture to
be proved?
26. Whether the day of grace with sinners does not last till death,
excepting in the case of the unpardonable sin?




80                          M E M  I R.
27. Whether there is any act of God at the moment of the sinner's
justification?
28. Whether there is a personal indwelling of the Holy Ghost in the
souls of believers?
29. Whether it is now absolutely necessary to believe that Christ is
already come in the flesh?
32. Whether Joseph's selling corn to the Egyptians was extortion?
33. Whether Saturday or Sabbath day night ought to be kept holy?
34. Whether the fourth command is a moral precept?
35. Whether a communicant, that finds himself unregenerate, should
(upon Mr. Edwards's principles) abstain from the Sacrament?
36. Whether there was a new creation of bread, when Christ fed the
multitudes?
37. Whether God can create a sinful being?
38. Whether the thoughts or exercises of every created being, are not
distinct from each other, as to the order of time as well as order of nature?
39. Whether incorporeal spirits cannot see each other as plainly as
we now see matter?
40. Whether incorporeal spirits cannot see the eternal self-existent
Spirit as plainly as they see one another?
41. Whether one baptized by a layman ought to be rebaptized?
42. What works is faith opposed to in the Bible?
43. Whether men must know that God is an infinitely glorious being,
in order to prove that their sins are infinite evils, from the dignity of his
person?
44. Whether the grief, that good men feel on account of sin and
iniquity which abounds in the world, is wholly owing to their want of
faith that all things shall eventually terminate in the glory of God and
the highest good?
45. Whether there is any true virtue in righteousness, only as it implies benevolence, -or any moral evil in unrighteousness, only as it
implies want of benevolence? And if so,
46. Whether it may not be just to inflict punishment or pain upon an
innocent being, under certain circumstances, when a good end may be
answered by it?
47. Whether all ignorance of duty is criminal?
48. Whether a man may with propriety pray that his ticket in a lottery may draw a prize, after he knows that the lottery is drawn, though
uncertain whether his ticket is fortunate?
49. If God had made but one intelligent creature, and he had sinned,




MEMOIR.                             81
could divine goodness and justice have required God to punish him
eternally?
50. Does God's right to govern the world depend solely upon his
being the Creator?
51. Are the positive commands of God as much founded in the reason
and nature of things, as his moral?
52. Will the sins of good men be exposed to view at the last day?
53. Could the world have been created any sooner than it was?
54. If Adam had committed any other sin than eating the forbidden
fruit, would it have been equally destructive to his posterity?
55. If Eve only had sinned, would her sin alone have ruined her posterity?
56. What is the omnipresence of God?
57. Is conservation only creation continued?
58. Are there any purely incorporeal spirits except God?
59. Hath God affections?
60. Can a perfectly holy creature be made completely miserable?
61. Why need a justified person pray for pardon?
62. Are men active in regeneration?
63. Does true repentance imply a sorrow for the event of sin?
64. Are all holy affections properly volitions?
65. Can more than one volition exist in the mind at once?
66. Is there any increase of existence by creation?
67. Is all anger in man sinful?
68. Can any man who is not sent of God, work real miracles?
69. Does God feel as much benevolence towards a sinner in hell, as
he felt towards him whilst he lived in this world, and enjoyed many signal favors and blessings?
70. Are any adult persons saved without the external means of the
Gospel?
71. Does personal identity consist in consciousness?
72. Is there any explicit contract and visible intercourse between any
wicked men and the devil, here in this world?
His Apothegms on the Method of Study.
In his conversation and in his writings, Dr. Emmons often let
fall sententious remarks, which either are, or else suggest, the
laws by which he regulated his own scientific habits, and by
which he would advise other clergymen to regulate theirs.  The
following is a specimen of these apothegms:




82                       MEMOIR.
"c Habituate yourself to examine the evidence of every thing
you believe, without trusting to education, former opinion, or the
assertion of others.
" Begin the study of divinity at the root, and not at the
branches; that is to say, begin at the first principles of theology,
which alte few and plain, and afterwards trace them out in their
various consequences, relations, and connections.
" In order to fix your first principles, or fundamental doctrines,
read, besides the Bible, a few of the best authors on each side of
the point you would wish to establish.
" In reading authors, aim more at possessing yourself with their
general scheme and principal arguments, than with their particular expressions and incidental sentiments; and while you labor
to retain their ideas, labor to forget their words, which, if retained, will tend to prevent your making their ideas your own.
Therefore, abound not in extracts.
" Follow not too strictly the path of any particular divine or
divines; for, byfollowing, you will never overtake them; but
endeavor, if possible, to find out some new, nearer, and easier
way, by which you may get before them, and really add some
pittance to the common stock of theological knowledge.
" If you find a hill in the path of science, climb over it and not
run around it. Then you will have made some perceptible advance; but one may travel on a plain ever so long, and seem to
make no progress.
" Never try to avoid difficulties in theology, but seek for them.
" Let divinity be your supreme study, with an eye to which let
all your other reading, study, conversation and remarks be directed.
" There is not so much difference in men's ideas of first principles and elementary truths as is commonly thought; a greater
difference lies in their power of reasoning from these principles.
"Just definitions, like just distinctions, either prevent or end
disputes.
" Many a weak mind has been plunged into darkness by too
much light.
" Be careful how you take up a book, especially an entertaining
one, with which you have no particular concern.
"Read the old authors which have stood the test of time.




MEMOIR.                         83
"Read with a particular object in view.
"Every man should study himself, and adopt such rules of
diet, and of mental and moral discipline, as suit his own peculiarities.
" Follow the Chinese maxim:' A wise man will submit himself to circumstances, just as water shapes itself to the vessel
that contains it.'
" He is a learned man who understands one subject, and a very
learned man who understands two subjects.
" Never despair of a student who has one clear idea.' It surpasses all human calculation, how much knowledge may
be derived from a small original stock. It is like a spark, which
is capable of setting the whole material world on fire.
" A good retreat is next to a victory.' Great objects form great minds.
Great men always commit great errors.
"Make a practice of paying your principal attention to but one
subject at a time, and steadily pursue it until you have discovered the truth and formed your decisive judgment.
"Though you may read a variety of books, always aim to read
the proper books at the proper time, that is, when investigating
the subject on which they treat."




CHAPTER V.
HIS FIRST MARRIAGE AND FAMILY.
~ 1. Character of his first wife.
"' SUCH were the rules by which I meant to govern myself;" and
Emmons was, as he meant to be, a man of rules and of self-government. The question may now arise whether this persevering
student ever found the time to form a matrimonial alliance. He
writes 
" I have briefly delineated my manner of life, from my childhood to the time of my settlement in the ministry. From that
period till I entered into a family state, which was about two
years, I lived in much retirement and tranquillity. I met with
nothing where I resided, nor among my people, nor from any
other quarter, which either disturbed my peace, or interrupted
my studies.  My principal concern was, to discharge the duties
of the pastoral office faithfully. I loved my people ardently, and
received continual marks of their kindness, esteem, and affection.
My outward prospects were promising, and I anticipated scenes
of prosperity and usefulness. I generally maintained nearness
to God, and enjoyed almost constant light and peace in my own
mind. I had time and opportunity for all the duties of devotion, which I performed with great punctuality, with sensible
pleasure, and, I trust, with some sincerity. I felt very much
detached both from the cares of life and the transactions of the
world.  Providence directed me to the choice of an agreeable
companion, and I was married, April 6, 1775, to Miss Deliverance French, of Braintree [Mass.]."- Memoir of himself.
(84)




M EMOIR.                         85
This lady was' the grandchild of the grandchild of the Puritan, John Alden.' Her father was Moses French, of Braintree.
Early in life she was under the pastoral care of Rev. Samuel
Niles, an author of some note, whose grandson, Rev. Samuel
Niles, of Abington, one of Emmons's most intimate friends,
was also a native of Braintree, and an intimate in the family of
Moses French.' A brother of Mr. Emmons's wife was Rev. Jonnathan French, of Andover, Mass., who was one of the prominent.mzen in devising that Seminary which was to have been set in
operation in his parish, as the exponent of the Moderate Calvinism, distinct from the Hopkinsianism of his day.
The general testimony concerning the wife of Dr. Emmons
more than confirms his own account of her.' She possessed," he says, " a sprightly mind, a pious heart,
and a most amiable natural disposition." " For more than two
years, I enjoyed great comfort in my dear consort.  She was a
pattern of piety, prudence, condescension, benevolence, and
cheerfulness. I never saw her in a passion. I never received
an unkind expression from her lips.  Whenever I returned from
a journey, or even from a visit in the parish, she never failed to
welcome me home by a smile on her countenance.  I never
knew an instance, in which she appeared designedly to give me
a painful feeling. As she never meant to displease me, so it
seemed impossible to be displeased with her.  Hence our affections, instead of abating with time, mutually strengthened and
increased. Having received a pious education, she early imbibed
a peculiar veneration for ministers, whom she loved to see, converse with, and entertain. Notwithstanding she had a slender
constitution, and was frequently exercised with bodily infirmities,
yet she was neither gloomy nor impatient, but always maintained
a calm, serene, cheerful spirit." — Memoir of himself.
~ 2. Early Death of his Wife and Children.
As I was born on the twentieth of April, 1745, ordained on
the twenty-first of April, 1773, and married on the sixth of April,
1 For a notice of Mr. Niles, see Chapter VII. 4 2, below.
VOL. I.                 H




86                            MEMOIR.
1775, so our first child was born on the fourteenth  of April,
1776.  I proposed to name him  after my grandfather, father,
and one of my brothers; but my wife insisted upon calling him
Nathanael, after my own name, to which, with some reluctance,
I consented.  In  the next year, on  June  23, 1777, we had
another son born, whom  we named Diodate Johnson, as a token
of respect to the Rev. Diodate Johnson, of East Haddam, to whom
I was under peculiar obligations of gratitude.l  Our happiness
was now at the summit.  We had two lovely children, and a fair
prospect of a flourishing family.
"' But we were preparing for peculiar trials and affliction.  My
dear wife never enjoyed a moment of health, from the birth of
her last child to her death.  She soon fell into a decline, which
terminated  in a proper consumption, and put a period to her
valuable life, June 22, 1778.2   This was a great and heavy loss.
It is true, indeed, I had long anticipated the sorrowful event;
but when the parting moment came, it was distressing  above
any thing I had either anticipated or endured. It cast a gloom
over all things around me, and damped all my earthly prospects.
Though her conduct before and in her sickness gave me strong
confidence that she was prepared to exchange this for a better
world; yet this very circumstance served to increase the greatness of my loss, and the weight of my sorrow.
I See pp. 14, 15, above.
2 The following is the inscription upon her grave-stone:
In Memory of Mrs.
Deliverance Emmons,
The late amiable Consort of the
Rev'd. Nathanael Emmons,
Who departed this life
June 22, 1778,
In the 36th year of her age.
In that dark hour! how all serene she lay,
Beneath the openings of celestial day.
Her soul retired from sense, refined from sin,
While the descending glory wrought within,
Then in a sacred calm, resigned her breath,
And as her eye-lids closed, she smiled in death.
0! Death, where is thy sting,
0! Grave, where is thy victory?




MEM OIR.                        87
" I was now in a situation very lonely, but not altogether disconsolate. My much respected mother-in-law, who was a pious
and amiable woman, and who had resided with me during her
daughter's decline, continued to reside with me, and perform the
part of a tender mother to her little grandchildren. These, at
the same time, engrossed my attention and affections. The
fondness I had entertained for their mother, I soon transferred
to them, who became my idols, and the source of my greatest
earthly comfort. They contributed to divert my mind and
assuage my sorrows. They also raised my hopes of future felicity, in forming their minds, and preparing them to be useful in
life; as they both appeared to possess a good degree of docility,
and an amiable disposition. In this last particular, they manifested something very singular. Though they were very nearly
of an age, yet I never knew them to contend about the smallest
trifles. They discovered the tender, kind, condescending disposition of their departed mother, which took a strong hold of my
heart. I loved them  to excess; and God saw it was not
safe for them, nor for me, that they should long continue in my
hands.
" About two months after their parent's decease, I took a
journey to Braintree, whither I carried their grandmother, and
where I left her. I returned on Wednesday in the afternoon,
when I found my eldest child sick of the dysentery. I was alone,
and had nobody in the family but a hired man and maid. The
care of the sick child chiefly devolved upon me, though not altogether. But on Friday my youngest child was seized with the
same disorder, and would go to none but myself, if he could
help it. I was now borne down with incessant attention to my
children, and incessant concern for their lives. Their disorder
increased every day, and became more and more alarming.
On Monday the eldest fell into convulsion fits, and expired
in extreme agonies, about one o'clock at night.  His painful death deeply wounded my parental feelings; but I still
had one gleam  of hope left.  My youngest child was just
alive, and there was a bare possibility of his recovery; but before nine o'clock next morning, he also fell into convulsion
fits, and died in the utmost anguish and distress. Thus, in one




88                            M EM O IR.
day, all my family prospects were completely blasted."  l Memoir of himself.
~ 3. The Effect of his Early Bereavements upon him.
" My cup of sorrow," he continues, " was now filled to the
brim, and I had to drink a full draught of the wormwood and
the gall. It is impossible to describe what I felt. I stood a few
moments, and viewed the remains of my two darlings, who had
gone to their mother and to their long home, never to return.2
" But I soon found the scene too distressing, and retired to my
chamber, to meditate in silence upon my forlorn condition. I
thought there was no sorrow  like unto my sorrow.  I thought
my burden was greater than I could bear.  I felt as though I
could not submit to such a complicated affliction. My heart
rose in all its strength against the government of God, and then
suddenly sunk under its distress, which greatly alarmed me. I
sprang up, and said to myself,' I am going into immediate distraction; I must submit, or I am  undone for ever.'  In a very
few minutes my burden was removed, and I felt entirely calm
and resigned to the will of God. I soon went down, attended to
my family concerns, and gave directions respecting the interment
of my children. I never enjoyed greater happiness in the course
of my life, than I did all that day and the next.  My mind was
wholly detached from the world, and altogether employed in
pleasing contemplation of God and divine things. I felt as
1 The following is the inscription on the grave-stone of these favorite children:
In Memory of Nathanael
Emmons, & Diodate
Johnson Emmons,
Sons of the Rev'd.
Nathanael Emmons,
Both of whom died Sept. 8, 1778.
The eldest aged 2 years 4 months & 1 day,
The youngest aged 1 year, 2 months & 4 days.
" They were lovely and pleasant in their lives,
And in their death were not divided."
2 "When bereavements come singly," he writes elsewhere, " and at a considerable
distance from each other, they are much more easily borne; but when they come in a
train and in thick succession, like the waves of the sea, billow after billow, they sink
the mourner in the depths of sorrow."




MEMOIR.                                    89
though  I could follow my wife and children  into eternity, with
peculiar satisfaction. And for some time after my sore bereavements, I used to look towards the burying-ground, and wish for
the time when I might be laid by the side of my departed wife
and dear little ones. 1
" While I was thus under the correcting hand of Providence, I
had  great opportunity  of gaining  spiritual instruction.  And
though I was too  stupid, yet I believe  I learned  some things,
which I shall never forget, and for which I shall have reason always to bless God. I learned to moderate my expectations from
the world, and especially from  the  enjoyment of children and
earthly friends. I have scarcely ever thought of my present wife
and children, without reflecting upon their mortality, and realizing the danger of being bereaved of them.  And I have never
indulged such  high  hopes concerning my present family, as I
presumptuously indulged with respect to the family I have laid
in  the dust.2   I have likewise learned, by past painful experience, to mourn with them  who mourn, and to weep with them
who weep. I used to think before I was bereaved, that I heartily sympathized with the afflicted, at funerals; but I now know
that I never entered into their feelings, and was a stranger to
1 "All things considered, [Christians] are willing and even desirons to leave the
present for a future state, and [they] patiently and joyfully wait for death." Notwithstanding the frequency with which Emmons repeats this idea, he still believed,
that "neither the young nor the old ought to give up the hope of living."  "It
is," he says, " an indication of impatience, ingratitude and irreconciliation to God, for
any to omit praying for the continuance of their own life, or to desire others not to
pray for it."
2 It is remarkable that Dr. Emmons seldom trusted himself, even in his old age, to
speak of the wife and the children whom he consigned to their early grave. He felt
that she had been his idol, and he never intended to cherish a continued idolatry.
When, almost ninety years of age, he was interrogated concerning her, he fixed his
eyes upon the floor for a long time in silence; then looked up, and sighed out the
words: "She was a pretty creature," and he would say no more. When, almost
ninety-five years old, he was introduced to a resident of Braintree by the name of
French, he uttered the significant words: "French is a name I always love."  He
has detailed his own experience in one of his sermons: "Parents in general are too
fond of their children. And sometimes they are partial in their affections, and dote
upon some son or daughter, who has [the] more promising appearance or talents.
Now, God knows the feelings of parents better than they do themselves, and there is
reason to think that He often takes away some of their darlings, to teach them to
moderate their affections towards them that survive,"
H *




90                       AMEM OIR.
the heart of mourners. I now follow them into their solitary
dwellings, and mourn with them after their friends and relatives
have left and forgotten them.  Their heaviest burden comes
upon them while they are sitting alone, and reflecting upon the
nature and consequences of their bereavements.  This I now
know was my case.  How many painful hours did I experience
in secret!  And how many tears did I shed in silence! How
dreary did my empty house appear! And how often did its appearance, after I had left it for a time, and returned to it, awaken
afiesh my past sorrows!  The same causes, I am  persuaded,
have the same effects upon other mourners; and therefore I cannot easily forget them  nor cease to sympathize with them, in
their solitary hours.1 In these, and various other respects, I
have found it to have been good for me to bear the yoke in my
youth." - Memoir of himself.
~ 4. His Aphorisms on Affliction.
The richest fruit comes from  trees that have felt the knife of
the arborist.'The ripest consolations are administered by the
pastor who has bled under the deepest wounds. Not many ministers have ever preached so many funeral sermons as Dr. Emmons. He photographed his own emotions upon the discourses
in which he strove to illumine the hearts of his bereaved parishioners.  Where he makes no direct allusion to himself, it is easy
to see that he is uttering words which have cost him sighs and
tears.  Dr. Ide says that "Emmons left no diary: if he ever
kept one, he destroyed it." 2  But his funeral sermons are a secret
diary of his inward struggles and his sweet submission. His'
early burial of his family gave an emphasis to such aphoristic
words as the following:
"'Hear ye the rod and who hath appointed it.'  God would
not call upon men to hear the voice of his rod, if his rod had no
voice.  Men often speak as plainly by what they do, as by what
they say. And God often speaks as plainly by his rod, as by his
1 He was always touched peculiarly, by the death of children: " and where," he
writes, " is the family of children, who have not seen one or more of their little brothers
or sisters laid in the sable coffin and lonely grave."
2 Memoir, p. 40.




MEMOIR.                          91
word."- -' The men of wisdom will hear, understand and obey
the voice of the rod of his wrath, which is his most solemn, imperious and impressive voice."
" It is no less absurd than criminal for the afflicted to think
that their afflictions are greater than they can bear, when they
can easily and instantly cast them upon the Lord, who can ease
them of their burden."
" It is as reasonable to submit to the heaviest as to the lightest:afflictions, and commonly much more easy; because the heaviest
afflictions appear to come more immediately from the wisdom,
goodness, and justice of the Deity, which are the most powerful
motives to a filial fear, a holy confidence, and a sincere submission."  " Aaron held his peace under a very heavy, and Jonah
did not, under a very light affliction."
"- The greatest trials and troubles always produce the greatest
good, unless the afflicted abuse them, and refuse to be benefitted and comforted."
" The duty and happiness of the afflicted are intimately, naturally, and almost necessarily connected."
"I In all cases, there is more ground to hope that the afflicted
will derive spiritual benefit from their affliction, than that the
prosperous will derive spiritual benefit from their prosperity."
" Many have done more good by dying, than they ever would
or could do by living."
" God much oftener afflicts men for their profit, than lie prospers them for their profit. Prosperity tends to corrupt the heart,
but adversity to purify it. Prosperity tends to attach men to the
world, but adversity to wean them from it. It is probable that
prosperity has destroyed ten, where adversity has destroyed one. "
- Therefore;" men have more reason to fear prosperity than adversity."  " Those in prosperity have reason to rejoice with trembling, and those in adversity to rejoice with hope."
" There is much more danger of feeling too little, than of feeling too much, under divine chastisements."
" The hours of private sorrow are the most humbling. When
we suffer in the presence of a multitude, our natural pride
makes us bear the suffering with fortitude."
" Mankind commonly afflict themselves more than God afflicts
them.  Thousands suffer much more from  anticipated evils




92                             MEMOIR.
which  they never meet with, than  from  the calamities which
actually fall upon them." 
"' Self-commiseration is self-gratification, and not self-denial,
or true submission and resignation under the correcting hand of
God."
" One affliction seems to be a presage of another; and while
the unaffected and unresigned fly from the iron weapon, a bow
of steel strikes them through."' Death is one of the blessings inserted in the covenant of
grace to believers.  Death is theirs; for while it removes them
from the presence of the body, it instantly translates them to the
presence of the Lord."
" We should rejoice in God as the fountain of all blessedness,
who remains the same perfectly good being, whether he directs
the streams of his goodness to  us, or whether he turns  the
streams of his goodness from  us; yet to rejoice in God always
is the most difficult duty which Christians have to perform."
1 In a more colloquial way Dr. Emmons often uttered the counterpart of this observation: " Our most trying afflictions come unexpectedly. I have often seen the
clouds of adversity gathering over Mendon hills, but they would generally disperse before they reached Franklin; but those troubles that come in at the back door are most
grievous to be borne. We are unprepared for them, and the suddenness of their
shock often prostrates us,"




CHAPTER  VI.
HIS SECOND MARRIAGE AND FAMILY: HIS HOME LIFE.
~ 1. Character of his Second Wife.
THE youthful pastor was bereaved of his first family in the
midst of the Revolutionary war. That war, as we shall perceive
hereafter, was fraught with calamities to him. Many a revolutionary pensioner suffered less than he in person and estate, from
the demoralizing conflict. Through all these afflictions he persevered in his industrious life, and in his single aim to become a
good minister of Jesus Christ. He writes:
" In less than two years after my wife and two children died,
I married [Martha] a daughter of the Rev. Chester Williams,
of Hadley. Her father died when she was young, and her
mother married the Rev. Samuel Hopkins, D. D., the immediate
successor of Mr. Williams. She was well educated by her
father Hopkins, who treated her with truly paternal tenderness,
both while her mother lived and after her decease. She then
took the principal care of his numerous family, some of whom
were quite young. This gave her an opportunity of becoming
well acquainted with domestic concerns, and qualified her to
promote my personal comfort and public usefulness. By this
second marriage I have had six promising children, two sons
and four daughters. These all lived to adult age, and for nearly
thirty-four years, I had but little sickness, and no breach in my
family. I had peace in my parish, and some considerable
success in my ministry." - Memoir of himself.
We cannot draw a picture of Dr. Emmons without giving a
prominent place on the canvas to that "prudent wife" in
whom   the heart of her husband (did) safely trust."  Her.( 93 )




94                          M E AMO IR.
father was graduated at Yale College in 1735, and was a classmate of President Aaron Burr and Dr. Joseph Bellamy.  He
was a tutor in the college from  1738 to 1740; was ordained
pastor of the church in Hadley about January 1741, and died
October 13, 1753.  " He was a member and the scribe of the
ecclesiastical council that dismissed Jonathan Edwards from his
pastorate in Northampton." 1  He was the son of Rev. Ebenezer
Williams2 of Pomfret, Connecticut, a Fellow  of Yale College;'
" a fine scholar, a sound and discriminating divine."  He was a,
nephew of Rev. John Williams of Deerfield, who was carried
into captivity by the Indians.  An own brother of Mrs. Emmons
was Rev. Nehemiah Williams of Brimfield, Massachusetts, a classmate  of Judge  Theophilus Parsons at Harvard  College in
1765-9.  He was one of the first members of the American
Academy of Arts and Sciences, the author of an interesting
volume of sermons, and an eminently devout man.  One of
Mrs. Emmons's half sisters was married to Rev. Dr. Spring of
Newburyport; a second to Rev. Dr. Austin, pastor at Worcester,
afterwards President of Burlington College; a third to Rev.
William Riddel, who was one of Dr. Emmons's theological pupils;
and a fourth to Rev. Leonard Worcester of Peacham, Vermont.
These four strong  men were in  substantial agreement with
Emmons on theological doctrines.3  Each one of them  had an
independent mind, yet each looked up to the Franklin student
witl profound regard.
Dr. Hopkins of Hadley, their father-in-law, was a cousin of
Dr. Hopkins of Newport, but was a firm opponent of his cousin's
theology.  He was wont to say: " I myself hate the Hopkinsian
scheme, but my five daughters have fallen in love with it."
He was not altogether free, however, from  that pride which
1 Sprague's Annals, Vol. I. p. 520. President Edwards, in his Journal, mentions
Mr. Williams.
2 For a lengthened account of Rev. Ebenezer Williams, see the Genealogy and
History of the Family of Williams. By Stephen W. Williams, M. D., A. M. pp.
125-127.
8 Rev. Mr. Worcester of Peacham received with favor during one period of his
life, the theory of his acute brother, Dr. Noah Worcester, with regard to the person
of Christ, and of the Holy Spirit; "but in the later years of his life," says President
Smith, " I do not remember to have heard his orthodoxy impugned or even questioned in a single instance." See, however, Sprague's Annals, Vol. II. p. 455-460.




MEMOIR.                         95
springs up naturally in the heart of a father, whose daughters
have surrounded him with noted sons-in-law. On one occasion
he solicited an exchange of pulpits with one of the, most eminent
pastors in the Commonwealth, on the plea that Mr. Spring,
Mr. Emmons, and Mr. Austin had preached for him on the three
preceding Sabbaths, and now he added: " You must preach on
the fourth, so as to let me down easily to preach on the fifth."
The influence of Dr. Emmons over the churches will not be
understood, unless it be remembered that his second marriage
bound him to a large and an eminently intellectual circle of
companions. His chief treasure, however, was in his wife,
rather than in her connections.  She was of a clerical race, and
she preferred that her husband should be a student, and that
like her father's near neighbor, Jonathan Edwards, he should be
relieved of all secular care. " But Mr. Emmons, how can you
possibly live on your small salary, under your burden of debt,
and still perform no labor on your farm; " this was the question often addressed to him. " My wife supports me," was the
answer as often returned. - " But Mr. Emmons," he was asked,
" how can you in your poverty, always look and dress like a man
of competent fortune? " He might have responded in the words
of the wise man describing a virtuous woman: "- She seeketh
wool and flax, and worketh willingly with her hands; she layeth
her hands to the spindle, and her hands hold the distaff; her
husband is known in the gates when he sitteth among the elders
of the land."  But, Mr. Emmons, where do your sons and daughters obtain their comely attire? " She looketh well to the ways
of her household and eateth not the bread of idleness; She is not
afraid of the snow for her household; for all her household are
clothed with scarlet."  But, Mr. Emmons, how can you sit week
after week in your study, and never visit your parishioners, and
yet retain their confidence?  " She stretcheth out her hand to
the poor; yea, she reacheth forth her hands to the needy: She
openeth her mouth with wisdom; and in her tongue is the law
of kindness: Favor is deceitful and beauty is vain; but a woman
that feareth the Lord, she shall be praised."
" A good rule for me, may not be good for other ministers,"
was a maxim  of the Franklin sage. Many clergymen have
attempted to follow his example in keeping aloof from their




96                         MEMOIR.
parishes, but have not followed his previous example in obtaining
that " prudent wife," who " is from  the Lord."  Until she was
disabled by lameness, Mrs. Emmons made the visits which
would otherwise have been expected from  him.  His confidence
in her judgment and discreet benevolence, gave him  habitual
peace.  She was an intellectual woman.  She was skilled in
theoretical and practical theology. She consecrated herself to
the service of her God, in ministering to the wants of her husband and his parish.  One who knew her in her house, has thus
pictured her daily life:
" I remember well that old fashioned New England kitchen, where it
used to be considered honorable for the'lady of the house,' to preside,
and where the family, after having engaged in'doing up the work,' sat
and sewed, knitted, spun, took their meals, etc. That great fireplace,
with its huge backlog, forestick, and pile of smaller wood all ablaze at
once in the capacious open chimney —the little wooden chair beside it,
where the grandchild, who happened to be visiting there, was expected
to sit, the great spinning wheel on one side of the room, and the goodly
matron in an old-fashioned chair, with her crutches beside her, are
brought distinctly before me. She had been a cripple ever since my
recollection, but was not so until late in life. That slender, but finely
moulded figure, that delicate complexion, those black eyes, still so bright
and beautiful, and that Grecian profile all testify to her former beauty.
There is a quiet dignity about that old lady in that antique chair, that
shows she reigns in the parlor, as well as in the kitchen." " Housekeeping was with her an art, science, and an essential part of her religion.
She understood it thoroughly. The ink and blacking that were used in
the family; many other articles, also, that are usually purchased or else
dispensed with, were manufactured at home. Even after she could walk
only with the help of two crutches, she knew about the situation of every
thing in her house, and has often said, that she could go, without a
candle, in the darkest night and lay her hand upon the minutest article
that might be needed in any part of the house.
" When' Mr. Emmons,' as she called her husband, was not busy in
writing his sermons, and when he had unfastened his door, the falling of
the hook upon the study door being a well known sign that he was
willing to see the members of his household, she would go in, and he
would bring her chair and place it beside his own. The crutches were
laid down, and she would listen with great interest, almost reverence, to
whatever interested him.  She sought to allay his excitements, and




MEMOIR.                              97
soothe away his sorrows. She was calm in her temperament, foresaw
the coming needs of her household and the parish, made timely arrangements to meet them, executed her plans with a quiet care and skill,
diffused a spirit of tranquil diligence throughout her family circle, and
aimed to make them  all harmonious and cheerful.  During the later
years of her life when she had become lame and deaf, she did not ordinarily attend the public services of the sanctuary. When her little
grandchildren stayed at home with her, she would request them to climb
i'nto a chair by the window, and watch his chaise as he rode to church,
~and tell her when the bell had done tolling; - then she would say,' Your
grandfather is now in the pulpit,'- and would commence praying for him,
and the people to whom he was ministering."
~ 2. His Conversation with Children.
This was the helpmeet who cheered and sustained the pastor
of Franklin during more than forty-nine years of his laborious
life. His two sons and four daughters, also contributed to his
daily solace. Some of them resembled their father in sprightliness
and wit.  Some of them  were like their mother in gentleness
and forethought.  His domestic habits are well pictured out in
the following memoranda from one of his grandchildren:
" My first recollections of him were while he was still engaged in his
pastoral office. He had little time to devote to his grandchildren, but
when he did allow them an interview, he gave to them, as he did to
every thing, his whole mind; and so satisfied were they with the attentions they reqeved, that the first thing they did, on arriving at his house,
was to run to his study door, and ascertain if it were fastened. If it were
not, they were allowed to enter without further ceremony. They knew
that there was an old man sitting opposite the door, with no hair upon
the top of his head, with long white locks flowing down the sides of his
head and almost reaching to his shoulders, with a single breasted coat
and skirted vest, and what were called small clothes, with little silver
buckles upon his knees, and larger ones upon his shoes, and that he
would look over his glasses, and challenge the juvenile intruders thus:' Who comes here?''I' would be the invariable response of every
little one.'}Well, who is I?''It is,' giving his or her n ine.'Well who's -?' lie would continue these questions, till the little
ones, not knowing what to answer, would climb into his lap, receive a
hearty embrace, and end with a regular play, in which they invariably
tried to excel him in quickness of motion. But I do not think any of his
VOL. I.                   I




98                          MEMOIR.
grandchildren can ever remember a time, when they could move with
equal celerity with him.  But these playful strivings did not last long;
and when he stopped, they knew that was an end of it till after dinner,
when a short time was invariably devoted to them; and it would have
been difficult for the beholder to say which enjoyed the play most, the
grandparent or the child. If they were accompanied by their parents,
when they visited him, they received a warm welcome, but the play was
deferred till after dinner.
"In one of these playful hours, a grandchild passed her hand over his
bald head very gently, saying, 6 grandpa, your head is soft.'
"'What, what!' said he with apparent sternness,'do you call my
head soft?'
" 0' said the terrified little one,' I only meant it was smooth.'
"  Well, well,' he replied,' that'11 do better.'
"But there were times when they knew they must not try his study
door; these were during the hours of his secret devotions. Often while
playing in the yard, jumping from the fence, and climbing the trees, his
form was visible to them, standing, as was his custom, before his chair,
engaged in  supplication.  These involuntary glimpses through  the
window of grandfather at prayer, produced a deep impression upon their
young minds.
"Every Saturday afternoon, he shaved, had his boots brushed, and
prepared himself for the Sabbath.  Sunset, he considered the commencement of holy time, and from that hour there was a marked change in his
appearance. He wore no sanctimonious airs, but his countenance and demeanor were as one, who, in the sincerity of holy love and reverence for
the Author of the day, did not think his own thoughts, or speak his own
words.  But the idea never occurred to me, that it was a gloomy day to
him. His thoughts seemed to be in heaven and his conversation there.
He thought it was wrong to sing on the Sabbath, except as an act of
worship. If any of us went about the house singing on that day, he
would reprove us. He considered it as irreverent and improper, as to
go around praying audibly.
" After church, his grandchildren were allowed to sit a little while in
the study, when he would either converse with them  upon the importance of personal religion, hear them recite the catechism, or request them
to read to him a sermon or a portion from the Bible, and often both. Sabbath evening, he was pleased to have them spend in the study, singing.
" He induced his grandchildren to open their hearts entirely to him,
Secrets were confided to him, and though he lived till ninety-five, he
never so far lost his memory as to betray their confidence.  He had
such a depth of experience, and such largeness of heart, that he could




MEMOIR.                             99
sympathize with them  when he could not approve of their course.
It was really amusing, when he was receiving these confidential narrations, to see the tears of sympathy glitter in his eye, then the sudden
change of his countenance, as he would exclaim,' You were wrong there,
never do so again!' Anon as the narrative proceeded, he would
ejaculate' That was right; stick to it!' If the continuation was getting
ridiculous,'pooh!' was his response; if humorous, he would laugh
heartily, and in the end kindly sum up the case and give his advice."
He superintended the reading of his grandchildren while they resided
with him. "He was careful not to confine their reading to sermons, but
interspersed the writings of Goldsmith, Dean Swift, Pliny, Johnson,
Addison, etc.   The Vicar of Wakefield,' was the first volume of light
literature he put into their hands. He would bring this out to them
repeatedly, after an interval of a year or more, taking great pleasure in
remarking the effect it had upon them, as their minds matured, and
discussing the merits of the book at each reading. The perusal of these
works never failed to open subjects for conversation, and call forth from
him so much wit and wisdom, that the hours flew pleasantly and imperceptibly.  Speaking of' Gulliver's Travels,' he said,  I frequently place
that book in the hands of young people, to take the idea out of their
minds that they know every thing.'
" If the children had any book for their own private reading, he drew
the fact out of them, read the book himself, and then gave them his
opinion of it, and his reason for the same. He was so candid, yet so
keen, that they rather enjoyed than disliked this watchfulness, and ultimately cared to read few books, with the contents of which he was not
familiar.
" He was very fond of drawing people out, and giving both children and
adults, an opportunity to show what they knew, and testing their ability
to defend themselves. At these times, he would allow them to dispute
him with impunity, indeed he often obliged them to do so; but he always
improved these occasions to teach them important truths.
"He had a faculty of knowing what his youthful visitors were about
when out of his presence, without appearing to watch them.
"One evening as a young grandchild ran into the study, he exclaimed:
"' Here comes the little gambler.'
"'I'm not a gambler, Sir.'
"' Havn't you just been playing a game?'
"' Yes, Sir,' (and here the game was described by the child).
"'Then havn't you been gambling?'
" C No, Sir.'
"'Why not?'




100                         ME M o I R.
"' Because I didn't use any cards, only corns."
"' People can gamble without cards, now why havn't you been gambling?"
"No answer.
"'Well, I'll tell you if you'll remember.' With one of his goodnatured keen glances, that always seemed to burn into their minds what
he wished them  to recollect, he replied,'Because it was entirely a
game of skill. Any game which depends upon the throw of dice, orchance in any way, is wrong, and it is wicked to play it.'
"' Why is a chance game wicked?'
"'Because it is appealing to God on trifling occasions.'
"' Does the Bible say so?'
c Yes.'
"' Where?'
"'The lot iscast into the lap, but the whole disposal thereof is of the
Lord.' Prov. 16: 33.
"' I don't believe people ever think of God, when they throw dice.'
"'I don't suppose they do; neither do I suppose they often think of
God when they swear, but that doesn't prevent their being profane.' 
He was fond of cultivating the dialectical skill of the children around
him. He adopted Reinhard's plan of'teaching much by telling nothing.' He stimulated the logical faculties, by questions and disputes.
One of his granddaughters, when not more than six years old, came to
him with a trouble weighing on her mind:
" A. B. says, that the moon is made of green cheese, and I do not
believe it."
"Don't you believe it? Why not?"
" I know it isn't."
"But how do you know?"
" Is it, grandpa?"
"Don't ask me that question; you must find out for yourself"
" How can I find out? "
"You must study into it."
She knew enough to resort to the first of Genesis for information on
the structure of the heavenly bodies, and after a truly Emmons search,
she ran into the study:
"I've found out;- the moon is not made of green cheese, for the
moon was made before cows were." 1
1 It may be remarked here, that of the preceding, as of many other anecdotes
regarding Dr. Emmons, there have been given several versions, differing from each
other in some particulars, but harmonizing in their spirit and substance.




MEMOIR.                           101
~ 3. Letters to his grand-daughters.
In this playful manner did the enthusiastic logician regale
himself, and stimulate the children who came around him, during
the seventy years of his metaphysical study. The Christian tenderness as well as the confiding friendship with which the old divine treated his grand-daughters, may be inferred from the following letters, which he addressed to them in their early childhood:
"FRANKLIN, March 17, 1830.
"My Dear -~: I wish I were able to give you that good advice
which you request me to give. But, however, I will do as well as I can.
In the first place, I advise you to regard the advice, instructions, and
even reproofs, of your dear mother and excellent grandmother. They
have a right to advise, instruct and admonish you; and you are under
the most endearing obligations to regard their lessons of wisdom and
piety. You have been devoted to God, whose you are and whom you
are bound to serve in childhood, in youth, and through every period of
your life and existence. Read the Bible every day, and make it your
constant and infallible guide.' Acknowledge God in all your ways, and
he will direct your paths.' True piety spreads a brighter glory around
all the native beauties and acquired accomplishments in the female character than gold, or pearls, or costly array. Dress neatly and elegantly,
but not extravagantly and vainly. Form no intimacy with the unprincipled and vicious. Make as many friends as you can without flattery or
deception; but make very few confidants. If any become your causeless
enemies, forgive and watch them. Make no display of your talents or
attainments; for every one will clearly see, admire, and acknowledge
them, so long as you cover them with the beautiful veil of modesty. I
wish to keep up our mutual correspondence. It may not be unprofitable
to you, and it will certainly be amusing and gratifying to your aged,
lonely, and almost forgotten grandfather;
" N. EMMONS."
" FRANKLIN, May 5, 1830.
"My Dear -: I am  glad you are so able and ready to write
to me. I am very fond of your letters and examine them very critically, and am highly gratified with every beauty and elegance I discover in them......  If your grandfather and grandmother, and your
dear mother, have set you good examples, they lay you under very
I*




102                        MEMOIR.
strong and endearing obligations to imitate their virtues and excellences.
The more careful you are to tread in their steps, the more you will
please them while they live, and the more you will honor them after
they are dead. So long as you follow good example, you will set good
example. Oh how much good you may do your dear, young, sprightly
little sisters, if you take them by the hand and lead them in the paths of
virtue and piety. You have all been devoted to God, in one of his
sacred ordinances, and frequently been carried to the throne of divine
grace by those whose hearts have been bound up in you. Dear - ^
if you could give it under your hand and seal, in sincerity and truth,
that you daily read the Bible, and daily give your heart to God, and
commit yourself wholly and for ever to his disposal, it would be a great
consolation to your affectionate grandfather;
" N. EMMONS."
" FRANKLIN, Feb. 5, 1832.
"My Dear -: You are indeed my eldest grand-child, but it gives
me greater joy to hope you are become a child of God. I will tell you
that I have had peculiar and painful fears respecting your spiritual interests ever since you left us; for in one of the last times I conversed
with you, I took notice of some expressions you let fall, which excited in
my mind a strong suspicion that you were opposed to some of the most
essential doctrines of the gospel, and leaning towards Unitarianism, or some
other lax and dangerous errors. Under this impression, when I have
daily carried all my grand-children to the throne of grace, I never failed
to pray for you in particular. The moment, therefore, I read your letter,
it darted into my mind that my particular petition for you had been
graciously granted.  But be that as it may, your account of your late
views and exercises of heart, have given me great joy and consolation.
If you have not mistaken and misrepresented the change you have experienced, I am ready to say that it looks like a genuine conversion. I
wish however you would inform me how sudden your change was, and
whether you were conscious of any extraordinary excitements of your
natural passions, by any thing you heard or saw at the protracted meeting.... If you are a real subject of grace and follower of Christ,
you may be exposed to great trials from your former graceless intimates.
They will neglect no opportunities, and stick at no alluring motives, to
draw you astray from the path of duty.....   I hope you will write
as soon as you receive this, and fully answer the queries of your affectionate grandfather;
"NATHANAEL EM.IMONS."




MEiMOIR.                          103
" FRANKLIN, April 29, 1830.
"My Dear Ellen: I thank you for your short, pretty, pertinent letter,
and I hope you will send me another very soon, and give me a more
particular account of your Sabbath schools, Bible classes, the schools you
attend, and the studies you are pursuing. Now is the best season you
will ever enjoy to get that learning which may make you reputable, useful, and happy in years to come. You are growing up in an evil day,
when you will be exposed to all the vanities and snares which surround
childhood and youth. Remember your Creator, and he will guide and
guard you every day and everywhere. You ask for advice, and I will
give you a little. Give yourself more to thinking than to reading, for
reading without thinking will make you vain rather than knowing.
Your teachers may give you words and ideas, but they cannot give you
knowledge. You can derive real knowledge from no other source than
from your own mental exertions. Learn to think steadily, closely and
acutely upon every subject to which your instructors direct your attention. Do you seek knowledge while others cull flowers; for flowers will
fade, but knowledge will endure.....  Oh, Ellen, if you and 
would only think how much pleasure your letters give me, you will not
cease to write very frequently to your solitary grandfather;
" N. EMMONS."
"FRANKLIN, June 27, 1832.
" My Dear Ellen: I have long entertained the pleasing hope that you
had become truly a child of God, and stood entitled to his gracious promise to pious youth:' I love them that love me, and those that seek me
early shall find me.' This fond hope I am loath to give up, though the
description which you have given of yourself, in your late letter, seems
designed to weaken or destroy it. It is true, a false hope had better be
given up than indulged. But it is very possible to give up a good hope,
and young converts have often been led to give up such a hope. The
reason is, they hope for too much at first. They are ready to imagine,
that they shall continue to enjoy their warm feelings and bright prospects, without any interruption or diminution. This they have no right
to expect; for God has never promised to give them the" constant light
of his countenance and manifestation of his love. He often hides his face
from them and plunges them in darkness and doubts, to try their faith,
and the sincerity of their submission to his amiable and awful sovereignty.
I want to know, therefore, why you have given up your hopes. If it is
because you have lost a sense of danger, or a realizing sense of the divine




104                          MEMOIR.
presence, and of the great realities of the invisible world, your hopes may
revive again; but if it be because you still love the world supremely,
and cannot bear to take up the cross andto walk in the strait and narrow
path to heaven, you ought to give up your hope, and immediately repent
and give God the supreme affection of your heart.
" N. EMMONS."
~ 4. His regular Habits at Home.,A prominent, it may be the most prominent feature of Emmons's home life was its regularity.  On Monday he did not
crave a respite from work; but rose, at all seasons of the year,
before the sun, and in the winter by daylight; first, read his
Bible and rose for secret prayer, then attended family devotions,
wound up his watch, took his frugal breakfast, went into his
room as early as seven o'clock, sat down at his study table, having previously fastened his study door if he was unwilling to be
interrupted in his work; about noon, if the sky were cloudless, he
went to his study window, watched the meridian mark on the sill,
compared his watch with the sun's time, ate his dinner, occasionally took a brief stroll over his farm, returned to his room, fastened
the door if he was particularly occupied; resumed his chair at the
desk; when the evening twilight came he supped, attended family prayer, returned to his room once more; put down again, if
he was busy, the hook that defended him  from  intruders,' performed his private devotions, then resumed his hard work, retired
to rest before ten o'clock, slept soundly; and on  Tuesday went
through the same routine, repeated it on Wednesday, and did
not change it until Saturday afternoon, when he began to set his
house in order for the Sabbath day, which was a high day. As
the assiduous worker opened his book in the morning, he felt the
habitual assurance that he could enjoy twelve hours for medita1 Two young clergymen calling on Dr. Emmons, he said to them before they had
taken their seat: " Do you see that hook? Both of you are young ministers, and if you
have not such hooks on your study doors, I advise you to put them on without delay;
for I am more indebted to that hook than to any man on earth; it has kept me free
from many interruptions." On being told that some ministers might need the hook
on the outside of the door, he replied, " Then let them put the hook on both sides; for
if they need to be fastened in, they will surely need to fasten the world out."- Rev. A.
R. Baker's Memoir of Dr. Emmons, in Am. Quar. Reg. Vol. XV. p. 125.




MEMOIR.                                 105
tion, uninterrupted by extraneous cares. It is true, that sometimes an incident in his family, or on his farm; sometimes a
wedding or a funeral, in the town; sometimes a Sick or troubled
parishioner;  sometimes  a  friend, or / stranger  from   abroad;
sometimes an ordination, or an advisory council, or a ministers'
meeting, would interfere with his wonted toil; but on the other
hand, he often spent fourteen or fifteen hours of the day over his
lbooks or manuscripts. No one could look about in his room,
without knowing where the veteran's feet usually rested. The
marks which they left upon  the wainscot attracted so much attention from visitors, that he was obliged to procure a new panelling for one place in his room, which would suggest fewer
queries.'  He sat in the same study chair more than half a century, and when, about ninety years of age, he relaxed the severity of his mental toil, he fitly consented to abandon the old armchair for a new and easier one. Being asked, before this epoch,
but after he was released from parochial duties, why he did not
spend his leisure days in journeying, he replied, " I should like
well enough to travel, if I could take my study with me. Habits
are stubborn things; and I have become so accustomed to this
room, to this desk, to this chair, and to this spot where I sit, that
I do not feel at home anywhere else; I cannot talk anywhere
else." He had a regular hour for conversation with his students
and friends; and a peculiar movement of his body toward the
study table, was equal to a sheriff's order that the room should
be cleared, and he be left alone.
1 " If Emmons, instead of wearing holes in the floor of his study, by his chair,
where he sat'a fixture for seventy years,' had worn holes in his shoes by walking
sometimes among men, or going forth to breathe the fresh air of heaven, he would
doubtless have saved his Scripture without losing any thing of his logic. So of the'elect few' metaphysicians of kindred habits. Yet Professor Park calls their imaginative science'practical' and'common sense;' as if in a study that is never ventilated men could become any thing but idealists or mystics. - President Nathan Lord's
Letter to Dr. Dana on the Theology of New Enqland, p. 19. The same criticism may
be pronounced upon Kant, Hegel, and the great majority of the German scholars, upon
the monks in the Middle Ages, and upon many of the more ancient philosophers.
We presume that the nonogenarian of Franklin would have thought better, and lived
longer if he had followed Dr. Lord's suggestion. The remark of Professor Woods is
accurate: " Dr. Emmons was not without faults; but his very faults and mistakes are
edifying."  Some of them show the worth of a good physical constitution to start with
in life; also the native strength of that mind which knew so much of the world without mingling in its public routine.




106       -M EMOIP R.
The following illustrative incident is narrated by Dr. Ide: 
" A Mr. Brown, who had been a student of his and a boarder in his
family, shortly after he began to preach, became deranged in mind, and
fancied himself to be, as he said,'in the other world.' Though perfectly beside himself in respect to this point, yet he would reason with
great composure and strength upon other subjects, and in conversation
with his friends would often attempt to reason on this also. While on a
visit at the doctor's, sitting one day with the family in the parlor, he ir.troduced his all absorbing subject, and began to name one fact after
another, to prove that he was'in the other world.' Some of those;
present queried with him on this subject. This led to a pleasant, but
very animated debate, in which he defended his position with great ingenuity and earnestness. In the midst of the conversation, Dr. Emmons,
having been out some time, came in, and, perceiving the object of the
debate, sat down and listened to Brown's argument. As soon as Brown
saw him seated with the family, he turned with an air of triumph to his
opponents, and, pointing to the doctor, exclaimed,' See, there is demonstration that this is the other world. Dr. Emmons is out of his study,
and is now sitting here with the family; and you all know that no such
thing ever happened in the old world.'
"Though it is not true that Dr. Emmons never sat with his family,
yet so uniformly was he in his study when at home, and so well known
were his habits in this respect, that the wit of the maniac had a peculiar
point; and, while it produced a general burst of laughter, put an end to
the debate."
When we reflect on this pertinacious course of study drawn
out through a period of seventy years; when we remember that
the still roads of his parish were not disturbed by the wheels
of a regular mail-wagon, during the earlier years of his ministry; and that during two thirds of his long pastorate, the town
did not receive a regular mail oftener than  once a week,
we are subdued, if not appalled by the remark of Emmons:
" Diversions, properly so called, have no foundation either in reason or
religion. They are the offspring of a corrupt heart, and nourished by
vicious example.  God requires duties, and nothing but duties. And
the duties which he requires are so various and so well adapted to our
1 Memoir, pp. 60, 61.




MEMOIR.                          107
present state, that in the performing of them we may find all the relaxation of body and mind which either can ever require." 
With the meaning which this severe student attached to the
word, diversion (amusement for the sake of mere frivolous
pleasure), his remark is true; but whether true or false, it
illustrates his power of endurance, his broad capacities, the
admirable fitness of his temperament to the pursuits of a logician
vnd philosopher.  Surely a man who lived so long and toiled so
mnuch, must have written something fitted to excite our curiosity and teach us wise lessons.
~ 5. His Precision at Home.
Intimately connected with the regularity, was the precision
of all his movements at home.    Precisely so," writes his colleague, Dr. E. Smalley,2 "precisely so, must the wood be laid
on the fire, and the ready hearth-brush must almost instinctively do its duty in keeping dust and ashes in their places.
At such a time must the wood-box be replenished; the faithful
servant must know enough to enter that room with head uncovered; and so devoted was the sage to his own calling, so
much did he depend on others to do what belonged to other
departments, that he would often playfully say,' I cannot do
without a servant twenty-four minutes.'"  If he heard a knock
at his door, the precise man would first put his book or
manuscript under the green baize which covered his study-table;
- seldom did a visitor see any volume or paper lying on that
unspotted baize; the entire room, in his busiest hours, bore no
appearance of a laboratory; - and then the student would admit
his guests.  They always found him  scrupulously neat in his
person and attire.  His three-cornered hat was hanging on the
peg appropriated for it. Every chair was in its place, every
book on its shelf, except the one under the baize.
Rev. Dr. Harris of Dunbarton, N. H., once related the following incident to the writer of this memoir:
1 Original Edition of Collected Works, Vol II. p. 65.
2 Sprague's Annals, I. p. 704.




108                       MEMOIR.
1 Having served as a soldier in the Revolutionary war, I went to read
theology with Dr. Emmons. As I was expecting to remain several
months a member of his family, he felt that he might be more free with
me than with other strangers, and he wished to lose no time in training
me to habits of order. After I had taken my seat with him by the fire,
a brand fell upon the hearth; and as I was the younger man, and withal
the pupil, I arose and put the brand in its place, but put the tongs on
the left of the jamb. The Doctor instantly removed the tongs to the
right of the jamb. In a few minutes more, the fire fell down the second'
time; I rectified the matter, and put the tongs again on the left of the
fire place. The Doctor rose again, and put them on the right. Soon
the brands fell the third time; and as the Doctor's movements had
appeared to me somewhat singular, I determined to find out what they
meant. Having adjusted the brands, therefore, I placed the tongs,
designedly, along with the shovel at my left. My teacher then arose,
and having corrected my third error, looked significantly in my face, and
said:'My young friend, as you are going to stay with me, I wish to
tell you, now, that I keep my shovel at the left of my fire, and my tongs
at the right.' From this incident, I learned one of the most useful
maxims of a theologian; never to put on the left hand what belongs to
the right; never to place together what ought to be kept separate;
always to discriminate between things that differ; and to be accurate in
small things as well as great."
In his punctiliousness of habit, Dr. Emmons was a representative character.  Many of the choice men among the old
divines of New  England were methodical in all their ways.
Dr. Jonathan Edwards, when a boy, felt obliged to leave his
shoes in a particular place over night; and when once, by
accident, he forgot this duty, he left his bed and rectified the
disorder. Dr. Hopkins of Newport, could not sleep unless he
knew precisely where his gloves were.  So there was not an
article in Emmons's room but he could find it if he were blindfold.  The fathers were regular in their movements.  Dr. West
would come home from  Hartford on the Saturday of election
week, not Friday but Saturday, and would turn the corner to
go up from the plain to the hill where he lived, at half after
ten o'clock in the morning.  For the winding up of his watch
he had his fixed time.  He studied in one place, had certain
regular movements in his study-chair, left two cavities as the




ME M OIR.                         109
impress of his feet upon the floor, and in many other respects
was conformed to the same model with Dr. Emmons.
~ 6. His Temperance.
Another feature of Emmons's home-life was his temperance.
We  read that " Schiller, during his hours of composition,
kept at his side a bottle of champagne or Rhenish wine, or a cup
of strong coffee. Horace Walpole wrote usually from ten to two
o'clock at night, always having strong coffee by him.  Sir
William Jones drank a great deal of coffee to support him  in
his nocturnal studies.  Baron de Grimm  states that Voltaire, a
few days prior to his death, with his characteristic activity and
enthusiasm, attended the rehearsal of the Academy, and insisted on the production of a new and important edition of
their dictionary. To this project, many objections were started,
which he resolved to obviate in an elaborate discourse.  To
strengthen  himself for the task, he swallowed a prodigious
quantity  of strong coffee, and then continued to work for
upwards of twelve hours without intermission. This independent effort brought on a painful inflammation of his system. For
the purpose of relieving the pain, he swallowed, with his usual
impatience, a large quantity of laudanum.  The consequence
was that he fell into a lethargy from which he never entirely
recovered."
In contrast with these authors, the subject of this Memoir
very seldom drank aly liquid more stimulating than weak tea.
His usual beverage at supper was milk.  In the evening he
often drank the new milk before it was cool.l  Thus innocent
was his diet. Unless friends from abroad were at his table, he
adhered to a childlike regimen. He studied the indications of
nature in the treatment of his physical system, and he meant to
eat and drink what an unadulterated taste would crave, and
what the God of Nature had most obviously provided.  He was
1 It has been often and truly remarked, that the Franklin divine kept himself out of
his sermons. His use of the first personal pronoun was very infrequent. Still,
his discourses betray, sometimes, his individual tastes, and remind those who knew
him, of his private habits. There are signs of his milk-diet in his noted sermon on
I Corinthians 3: 2.
VOL. I.                  K




110                      MEMOIR.
nearly as averse as Napoleon to large doses of medicine. He
was no less abstemious than he was uniform, at his meals.
President Edwards was wont to leave the table for his study
before his family had concluded their repast, and would return
to dismiss the table, when they had satisfied their wants.
" Through life I have risen from my meals with as good an appetite as I had when I sat down," was the remark of Dr. Emmons
when he had passed his ninetieth year. He seldom uttered a
word, and wasted but few minutes in reasoning, with regard to his
repasts; he ate what was set before him, if it were not unwholesome; and he once summed up his dietetic rules in these words:
"I do not ascribe my long-continued health to any whimsical
care of my diet. What has hurt me, I have not eaten.  I have
avoided stimulating liquids, have seldom drank coffee unless it
were half milk and half sugar, have been always temperate in the
use of simple food, and have secured good sleep." But his temperance was a general virtue, extending to all his appetites and
passions; his securing good sleep was but one index of his character, of his calmness, patience, resignation, freedom from
exposure both physical and moral; his spirit reclining on the
bosom of eternal truth, while he rested his head upon his pillow
at night. His long life was a Providential result of his descent
from hardy yeomen, of his early labor on the Millington farm,
of his rational but not squeamish care for plain light meals, of
his regular ways, but, above all, of that disinterested and confiding submission which he practised first and preached afterwards.
It is an interesting fact that the celebrated temperance reformation which overspread the community after the subject of this
Memoir had become an octogenarian, found him  as it left him.
From the beginning to the end of the year, it modified scarcely
one drop of the liquid which he drank.  His habits of drinking, as of dressing, remained the same whether other men did or
did not come up to them, or down to them.  " Old people," says
Dr. Ide, " especially when they have arrived at their eightieth
or ninetieth year, are generally afraid of innovations, and disposed to doubt the utility of modern improvements. But Dr.
Emmons at this great age, hailed the temperance reformation as
a harbinger of good, and cheerfully gave his name to be enrolled




MEMOIR.                           11
with those who were pledged against the use of ardent spirit as a
drink.  It gave him great pleasure to see, near the close of his
life, the people generally embracing substantially the same views
on this subject. which he had entertained all his days." I
~ 7. His Use of Tobacco.
The truth, however, must be told.  When a visitor entered the
room of the celebrated theologian Brettschneider, he saw arranged on the study wall of the veteran scholar, twenty-seven
tobacco pipes. So when a stranger entered the room of Doctor
Emmons, he detected the signs that this apostle of temperance
had not attained perfection.  In common with the lawyers and
clergymen of his time, he had chewed the " meditative quid."
His indulgence had never been immoderate; still after he had
lived ninety years he became convinced that it was wrong, and
he determined at once to abstain from it.  An eminent physician
urged him not to interfere with a habit so long indulged, as the
consequences of its discontinuance at his great age might be unpleasant, and it was the duty of people greatly advanced in years
to make their last days as comfortable as possible, for the sake of
their friends. He therefore continued the use of the weed,
though he deplored the habit, and spoke of its evil tendency.
The report has been started that his conformity with this once
common practice of literary men, resulted in shortening his life.
His example has been held up as a warning to youthful scholars,
who might be cut off from their earthly existence at the age of
ninety-five, unless they abstained from  a habit so fatal to longevity. There is, perhaps, more reason for the warning than
might appear at a superficial glance.  It is a fact that Dr. Emmons died not of old age, but of a cancerous affection, which
may possibly have been exacerbated by any unnatural indul1 Memoir, p. 56. At the very first proposal of the temperance pledge, Emmons
did not admire it. He loved his father and mother, and they had joined no Temperance
Society. He was disinclined to novel schemes, and he loved individuality as well as
antiquity. "I have been abstinent without a pledge," he remarked in 1826 to a
young friend who was boasting of the temperance movement. Soon, however, the
temperate patriarch adopted the new method, which in fact was the substance of his
old teachings.




112                       MEMOIR.
gence.l  His own favorite theory was, that' not one in a thousand or a million of the human race reaches the bounds of life
which nature has set;' that' the course of nature may extend
these bounds an hundred and twenty, or thirty, or forty, or fifty
years; and perhaps would always do so, if it were not obstructed'
by some incident interfering with the laws of our physical constitution. It was interesting to hear him speak of an octogenarian, as not having lived to the full age of man, but as being
"deprived" of the normal "residue of his years."
~ 8. Seeming Tameness of his Life.
Some have imagined that the still retreat of Emmons was
one of tedious monotony.  His days and nights must have been
languid and dull, it is thought, and he must have hybernated in
a comatose condition for about three quarters of a century. But
such persons forget his brisk intellectual impulses, and the active
genius of his creed.  He was always amid stirring scenes; for
he saw angels encamping on the plains of Franklin, and hourly
ascending or descending to or from the skies. Was an infant
born in the still parish? This was not a mere terrene occurrence.
" The birth of every immortal soul," he teaches, " is an event
highly interesting to angels, though often disregarded by those
who are still more interested."2 Did a good man die in the
quiet town? The habitual and thrilling belief of the pastor was,
that " angels are the constant guardians and protectors of good
men."  He writes: " It is very probable, that every saint has
his guardian angel, who attends him  through life, takes care of
his departed spirit, and conducts him  safely to the mansions
Christ has gone before to provide for him." 3 C It is a gloomy
thought to thinking minds, that we must die alone as to our
fellow mortals; but it is a consoling thought, that if we are
friends of God, his holy angels shall take the charge of our souls
and guide them safely to the mansions of bliss. However we
may forget them in life and health, their presence and aid are
1 A distinguished physician who knew Dr. Emmons well, pronounces the opinion,
that his use of tobacco was too moderate to affect his health injuriously.
2 Orig. Ed. Vol. VI. p. 103.
3 Ibid. Vol. III. pp. 371-373.




MEMOIR.                          113
very desirable when we come to exchange worlds." 1 It was a
bright scene, when this keen-sighted pastor rode to the house of
a dying parishioner, and with the quick eye of faith beheld the
angel standing and waiting to convoy the exulting spirit from
this low earth.  He believed it most consonant to the analogy of
things, to suppose that angels " are clothed in either terrestrial
or celestial bodies," "light, ethereal, transparent and splendid
vehicles," and that " there is but one absolutely incorporeal
spirit" in the universe.2  This intellectual pastor felt no drowsi-:aess amid the tranquil valleys through which he rode, for he
was in a daily contest with principalities and powers of wickedness. " If every heir of salvation," he remarks, " has a good
angel to attend him, as the scripture seems to intimate, why
should it be thought absurd to suppose that there is an evil
angel, who occasionally, if not constantly, attends every impenitent sinner on the face of the earth? "'  This vigilant pastor
found not a moment for torpidity, for his great doctrine of Providence pointed him to the hand of the Almighty moving in every
part of the serene parish, the eye of God intently fixed on every
man and child and lamb and leaf. The world was all aglow and
astir with the Great Spirit. " As all the creatures of God are
always open to his all comprehensive view, so he regards them
all with equal attention and impartial affection." 4   Therefore
no event can be " small and trifling."  "The gaggling of geese
once saved the city of Rome from  destruction by the Gauls.
Fabius, the Roman General, who by his wisdom and valor drove
Hannibal, the greatest warrior then in the world, from the Roman empire, was suffocated by a single hair in a draught of
milk."6  The minutest accident results from  the eternal plan
and the present activity of God.  Who then can be listless?
One of Emmons's favorite sermons is entitled, " Constant Preparations making for the Day of Judgment."  His exciting life
was passed in the spirit of that sermon.  He saw in his own
parish that " God is preparing all things fast as possible " for the
great day. " Fast as possible," that was the chosen word of the
1 Works, Present Edition, Vol. II. pp. 499, 500.
2 Ibid. II. p. 464.      3 Ibid. II. p. 534.
4 Ibid. II. p. 482.       5 Ibid. II. p. 481.
K *




114                       MEMOIR.
rapid thinker.  " Though God moves all the wheels of nature as
fast as they can be moved, yet ages must roll away before he
can finish his great work, and prepare all intelligent creatures
for the retributions of eternity."  "Yet he neither alters his
purpose, nor remits his operations, but constantly employs the
whole creation in preparing things for the day of judgment."
Therefore he infers: "6 Every duty we perform has some influence
in preparing ourselves or others for the great day of retribution;
and for this reason we ought to esteem  every duty assigned us,
as a real privilege." It is " a duty and privilege to be aiding'
and assisting, or as the Scripture more properly terms it, to be
workers together with God, in his preparations for the day which
shall bring to a happy close his eternal purpose in all his works.
It is a privilege to ministers of the Gospel, to have the care and
instruction of immortal souls, and to be employed as instruments
of preparing them for their appearance before their Supreme
Judge." 1'" Fast as possible" Emmons beheld all things in his
tranquil precinct, tending to this grand centre, the final unfolding of the Divine plan. He saw that " the Lord of hosts is far
more zealous to attain the object of his supreme affection [in the
great concluding scene], than any of mankind ever were to attain the objects of their highest wishes."  Emmons "walked"
with God. He " worked " with God.  He was " zealous" with
God. He needed no more excitement.  He was a spiritual
man. No pastor has been more wakeful for so long a time.
1 Works, Present Edition, Vol. III. pp. 832-843. See Original Edition, Vol. V
pp. 619-627.




CHAPTER VII.
HIS PERSONAL FRIENDS, ASSOCIATES, AND CORRESPONDENTS.
~ 1. His Earlier Friends.
"I VALUE my friends amongst the richest blessings of life, and
receive every mark of their friendship with the most grateful
sensibility.  I had almost forgotten you, and supposed you had
quite forgotten me, until your unexpected letter which breathed
a most friendly and fraternal spirit, convinced me of my unhappy error. I have lived to bury some, and to lose more, of
those whom I numbered and embraced as friends; and of all
the evils I have ever suffered, this is truly the greatest.'Poor is the friendless master of a world;
A world in purchase of a friend is gain.'' There is nothing brings so great a gloom over my mind, in
my darkest hours, as the thought of outliving all my friends.
But in more lucid moments, I consider the loss of friends as a
happy circumstance, to wean me from the world, to which I am
too much attached, and to reconcile me to the thought of death
which may, through grace, put me in possession of perfect and
ever-growing friendship."
These are the familiar words addressed by Emmons to one of
his early associates. It was his maxim that " a man is made by
his friends." He was ever frank and cordial in acknowledging
the influence of his early companions, particularly of his eminent college mates and classmates upon him.1 He derived an
untold advantage from  his intimacy with so many pupils of
Edwards, Hopkins, and Bellamy. He learned from them with
signal exactness, the peculiar views and aims of the elder
Edwards. His character and history cannot be understood,
I See pp. 26-29, above.
(115)




116                       MEMOIR.
without a knowledge of the men who formed with him a school
for mutual instruction.
Having spent nis youth under the shadow of Yale College,
and under the influence of her alumni, he felt the change of
atmosphere when he moved his residence to the vicinity of the
Arminian College at Cambridge, and the Baptist College of
Providence. The town of Franklin was on the border line
between Massachusetts and Rhode Island; and the good men
of Connecticut had once a low opinion of Rhode Island, a State
which was not baptized in its infancy.  He had left the neighborhood of Dr. Smalley whom  he revered as an intellectual
giant, and of Dr. Hart whose polished manners he admired, and
of Dr. Strong of Hartford, whom he loved as a young brother.
He paid them frequent visits, however, and received from them
many tokens of regard.  He conducted several rather severe
controversies with Smalley, but always spoke of him with a
reverent, and even childlike affection. His friends, Dr. Strong
and Dr. Hart,' were active in turning the attention of young
men to Emmons as their theological teacher, and in securing
his contributions to  the Connecticut Evangelical Magazine.
Dr. Bellamy in his old age, paid one visit to Dr. Emmons, and
preached for him one Sabbath.
~ 2. His Later Friends.
In removing from the circle of his old associates, however,
Emmons came into new  relationships that were very dear
to him. He often entertained at his house that revered father
in Israel, Dr. Samuel Hopkins of Newport; and the private
memoranda of Hopkins contain allusions to certain interesting
disputes on baptism between the aged and the youthful divine.
Dr. Stephen West of Stockbridge, was also drawn into the
society of Emmons, and found in him  a man having striking
resemblances to himself.  It was through the incitement of
Dr. West, that Emmons was induced to issue some of his first
1 To a young candidate who applied for theological instruction to Dr. Hart, he
returned the answer: "I advise you by all means to pursue your studies with Mr.
Emmons of Franklin. He knows every rope in the ship."




MEMOIR.                                117
publications.  The two friends criticized each other's sermons
with confiding frankness.
After the second marriage of Emmons, he became intimate
with that energetic and eloquent theologian, Dr. Samuel Austin
of Worcester, and still more intimate with Dr. Samuel Spring
of Newburyport.  Two independent and self-reliant theologians
were never more emphatically brothers, than were the Franklin
and the Newburyport divines.' They were complements to each
other; the former persevering in study, the latter persevering in
Iaction.  Emmons once  remarked to me:'" When  Dr. Spring
died, I felt as if I had lost my right hand.  We thought together, felt together, acted together."   When bereaved of this
enterprising coadjutor, Emmons wept. His grief did not always
express itself in tears, but this was the grief of David for Jonathan.   He  deviated  from  his ordinary  routine so  far as to
preach a sermon on the bereavement to his ownl people.  In that
sermon he said:
"The late removal of Dr. Spring from the stage of action is much to
be lamented, not only by his family, his friends, his own church and
congregation, but by the pious public at large.  He was a brave and
faithful soldier of Jesus Christ. He fought a good fight, and he kept the
faith to his dying day. No minister was more correct in his religious
sentiments.  And few ministers of late, have done more to promote the
cause of truth. He not only faithfully discharged his ministerial duties
to his own flock, but he was one of the first members, and the last
President of the Massachusetts Missionary Society.  He was one of the
first movers and promoters of the Theological Seminary at Andover.
1 In his Journal for 1791, Dr. Ashbel Green of Philadelphia, speaks of Dr. Spring
thus: "July 5th. Went to Mr. Spring's, who is a new divinity man, as I am
informed, of nearly the highest order. He has, however, too much good sense to run
into all the rashness and violence of the system, and is too well acquainted with
human nature, not to know that it must be won and not driven into religious opinions. He appears to have studied closely, and to have acquired a considerable share
of information, especially on religious subjects. His knowledge, however, as it lies
principally in the track of new divinity, so it seems to be mostly directed to its advancement. After all, and better than all, he appears to be an excellently pious and
godly man, desirous to promote true religion, and disposed to rejoice in its advancement. He treated me with as much friendliness as I have ever met with, and I am
to preach for him on my return, when I expect we shall have (what we have not yet
had), a disputation on new divinity." -Memoir of Dr. Green, pp. 220, 221.




118                             l EMODI O IR.
He was one of the first movers and promoters of the Foreign Missionary
Society, and the vice-president of it. And all these offices he filled with
fidelity and dignity.  But alas! this standard-bearer is fallen, and the
friends of Zion have rarely, if ever, had more reason to lament the
decease of any minister, than the death of Dr. Spring.  There is reason
to fear that the breach will not be healed, and the wide chasm his death
has made, will not be filled up; but the cause of truth will be greatly
weakened.  This I fear and feel." 1
Among the friends of Dr. Emmons in his immediate vicinity,
are the following who are commemorated in Dr. Sprague's Arenals: 2 Rev. Habijah Weld of Attleborough, Rev. Dr. Prentiss of
Medfield,3 Rev. Jason Haven, and Rev. Dr. Bates of Dedham,
Presidents Manning, Maxcy, Messer, and Professor Calvin Park
of Providence, R. I.," Rev. Nathaniel Howe of Hopkinton, Rev.
Dr. Crane of Northbridge, and Rev. Dr. Strong of Randolph.
There were two of his clerical neighbors, however, to whom  he
formed an early and a very peculiar attachment.  The following
appendant notice of them  will disclose the quickening influences
which Emmons early enjoyed.
REV. DAVID SANFORD, OF MEDWAY.
This gentleman was named5 in honor of David Brainerd, and was a
great admirer of that pious missionary.  He was an intimate friend of
Dr. Bellamy and Dr. Hopkins, with both of whom he studied theology.
1 Original Edition, Vol. VII. pp. 503, 504.
2 There were several intimate friends of Emmons who are still among the living, and who contributed largely to his enjoyment. Among these are Rev. Thomas
Williams, whose keen wit, rich imagination, and acute discernment, were a source of
unfailing interest to the solitary student; also Rev. Dr. Ide of Medway, and Rev.
Dr. Burgess of Dedham.
3 Dr. Prentiss was the only clergyman except Emmons who retained the old
fashion of clerical dress, as late as 1814. After his decease his three cornered hat
was presented to Emmons. The two neighbors were not at all harmonious in their
theological views and tendencies, but were personally attached to each other. The
old church difficulty in Medway, which had disturbed the peace of the town for thirtytwo years, was settled by the intervention of Dr. Emmons as a friend of the more
Orthodox, and of Dr. Prentiss as a friend of the more Liberal contestants. See Rev.
Luther Wright's Century Sermon, p. 13.
4 Dr. Messer, although not a Trinitarian, often spoke of Emmons with great reverence, and sought opportunities to converse with him on theological topics.
5 The father of Mr. Sanford was a protector of the Separatists in Connecticut, and
made his house an asylum for them in their persecutions.




MIEMOIR.                                119
He was also a brother-in-law, and the spiritual son, of Dr. Hopkins.1 He
was once a stirring chaplain in the Revolutionary war. He was a natural orator.  He produced the same effect in Eastern Massachusetts, which
Dr. John M. Mason produced in New York City.  Dr. Emmons has said
of him:
"I know no man of any profession, in the circle of my acquaintance, who surpassed
him in natural eloquence. He was able to move any passion which he wished to
move, whether love or hatred, hope or fear, joy or sorrow. He knew every avenue to
the human hearts, and could make the deepest impressions upon it." "I never heard a
man preach," said Emmons to Dr. Hawes, "who was capable of making a more
powerful impression on an audience than Mr. Sanford."
Dr. Hawes, of Hartford, once a parishioner of this eloquent divine,
gives the following account of him:
" He was fluent beyond measure, and not only never wanted for a word, but rarely,
if ever, failed to get the right word. His voice was susceptible of every variety of inflection, and could wake into a tempest or sink to a zephyr, - could rouse, or agitate,
or melt, with equal ease and without the least apparent effort." 2
Dr. Emmons often sharpened his own mind by collision with his friend
Sanford.  He differed from  him  radically in politics, and very seriously
on some doctrines of religion.  Mr. Sanford, although in the main  a
Hopkinsian, yet believed that the atonement of Christ consisted in mere
active obedience, and that the penalty for the first offence was mere spiritual death.  "I am not afraid to take hold of you in private, but I dread
your gripe in public," was a remark of Emmons to this Hopkinsian
1 For an account of his remarkable conversion and his life, see Memoir of Hopkins,
pp. 60-62.
2 Dr. Sprague's Annals, Vol. II. p. 52. The wonderful power of Mr. Sanford's
countenance and tones, is illustrated in the following incident:
"During the Revolutionary war, he was called to preach at a place where a company of soldiers had encamped, and whose commander, attracted by his reputation as
a popular speaker, marched his men into the galleries of the meeting-house in which
Mr. Sanford was to hold his service. While he was speaking, a board by which a
shattered window had been replaced, fell, and the exercises were somewhat interrupted
by the noise and confusion of putting it back. By a repetition of the occurrence, he
was interrupted a second and a third time, when, rushing to seize the board, he cried
out to the soldiers,-'Let that board alone.' The officer, on retiring, being asked
how he liked the preacher, replied, -'Pretty well, but I should have liked him better
if he had not sworn so.'' Sworn, Captain, I heard no oaths.''Yes, he said,' (here
repeating a tremendous oath),'let that board alone.''You certainly mistake - he
uttered no oath whatever.'' Well,' replied the Captain,' if he did not say the words,
he looked them.' Hence, in after life, when his countenance was perceived to indicate dangerous displeasure, some anxious good-natured brother would tell him not to
swear so."-Sprague's Annals, Vol. II. pp. 50, 51.




120                            MEMOIR.
Apollos.  But while candidly acknowledging the superiority of Mr. Sanford in oratorical address, the modest metaphysician was severe in his
censure upon some devices of his friend.  I have heard him  narrate
with expressions of stern disapproval, the following incident, substantially as it has been given by Dr. Hawes: 
On some public occasion, it fell to Mr. Sanford to preach immediately after M:r.
N-, of A-, who was a very able man, and withal had fine pulpit talents. M.r.
N-  preached with remarkable power, and Mr. Sanford was not a little discomforted
at the idea of following him. He rose in the pulpit, announced his text, stammered,
and seemed unable to proceed. He apologized to his audience for his bad beginning,
and begged them to allow him to go back and commence anew. He did so, but hi.s
hesitating manner continued, till the audience really began to drop their heads in an-.
ticipation of a mortifying failure. When he had got them to this point, he made a
mighty effort and swept by father N-, as it was said, with incomparable majesty,
preaching a sermon which filled his audience with surprise and admiration. It was
shrewdly hinted afterwards, that there was some policy in the awkward commencement, and that he purposely let the audience down as low as he could, for the sake of
raising them as high as he could."
This incident was an altogether exceptional part of Mr. Sanford's history, as he was eminent for his enthusiasm in the cause of truth and
virtue.  The manner of his death illustrated the habits of his life.
"On the evening of the third of October, 1809, after he had retired to his lodgings,
while upon his knees at his bedside praying for his church and people, he received the
intimation that his work was done. He was there in that act and in that posture,
smitten with a paralysis from which he never recovered. He lingered in circumstances of great weakness and distress, until the seventh of April, 1810, when he fell asleep
in Jesus, in the 73d year of his age, and 37th of his ministry. When the summons
came, he was found watching, engaged in his proper work, presenting his people to
God, imploring for them his blessing." 2
REV. SAMUEL NILES, OF ABINGTON.
The clergyman whom Mr. Sanford outshone in the above named way,
was Mr. Niles, another bosom friend of Emmons, to whose rousing words
and magnetic influence the Franklin recluse owed a large debt. This
truly majestic man was a classmate at Princeton College with Dr. Samuel
Stanhope Smith, and a theological pupil of Dr. Bellamy.  When it is
said that Dr. Emmons was punctual and regular in his hour of retiring
I Sprague's Annals, Vol. II. pp. 52, 53.
2 A lofty marble monument has been recently erected to the honor of this- faithful
pastor in West Medway, Mass., where he was buried fifty years ago. The passage to
which this note refers, is extracted from Dr. Ide's Address at the completion of the
monument.




MEMOIR.                                 121
to sleep,l it must be understood that the arrival of his brother Niles at
the Franklin parsonage, was a signal that he was to spend the entire day,
and not seldom the entire night in earnest colloquy, if not in sharp discussion.  He once remarked that he considered Mr. Niles equal, if not
superior, in metaphysical acumen  to Dr. Hopkins, Dr. Edwards, Dr.
West, or Dr. Spring.  The following letter, from Emmons to Hon. Aaron
]Hobart, of Bridgewater, Mass., dated Sept. 11, 1832, illustrates his reverence for this vigorous thinker:
"The Father of Spirits endowed Mr. Niles with superior intellectual and reason-.ing powers. I rarely was acquainted with a man who, in my opinion, possessed a
stronger or clearer mind, and who could penetrate deeper into the most abstruse
subjects of mental philosophy, as well as of natural and revealed religion. He had a
clear and profound knowledge of the truth, connection, harmony, and consistency of
the first principles and essential doctrines of Christianity, which qualified him to
become one of the most instructive and powerful preachers I ever heard.  His
sermons were not superficial, but full of great and weighty truths, which not only
commanded the serious and eager attention of his hearers, but deeply impressed their
hearts and consciences. No man, whether learned, or unlearned, whether a lover or
hater of truth, could sit under his preaching with levity or indifference. His grave
and dignified appearance in the pulpit, in connection with his truly genuine eloquence, could hardly fail to strike the largest audience with awe and reverence, and
to render him one of the most popular preachers of his day. He was intimately
acquainted with human nature, and could render himself agreeable in his common
intercourse with all classes of people; but he was more especially entertaining in
private circles, by the flashes of his wit, and his curious, amusing, striking, and pertinent anecdotes. He could, however, turn with peculiar ease and propriety from
social to the most serious subjects, and converse very seriously and instructively upon
doctrinal and experimental religion. On all proper occasions, his speech was seasoned with the salt of Divine grace, and suited to strengthen the weak, console the
disconsolate, and animate the most growing Christian. I will only add one more
rare and shining trait in his character. He was one of the most undisguised, frank,
and faithful friends I ever knew. He was an Israelite indeed."
At the installation of Mr. Niles's successor at Abington, Emmons alluded to
the "late deceased and beloved pastor," as "one of the most luminous, the most
penetrating, the most instructive, the most energetic, the most fervent and successful
preachers of the present day."
~ 3. Correspondence witF  Dr. _Emmons.
The epistles of the early Hopkinsians to each  other were in
the main, theological treatises. A few of them, however, were
letters and not sermons.  The following communications to and
from  the  friends of  Emmons, illustrate  the  deferential style
I See p. 104, above.
VOL. I.                       L




122                             MEMOIR.
of their intercourse with him.  We may  catch  a pretty  clear
reflection  of  those  " ministerial days,"  from   the  letters  of
Emmons's  sterling  friend, Governor  Treadwell.   His  correspondence with Emmons, having been  long  discontinued, was
resumed in  1796.  Then  he writes:  "Having  dispatched  the
business which  announced  this letter, permit me to remark the
pleasure I feel in  the recollection of our formeir habits of intimacy; my regret at their having been  so long almost totally
interrupted, partly by  imperious circumstances, and partly, I
fear, from  inattention; my desire that they may be resumed  as
far as practicable, and the high esteem and regard with which I
still, and trust shall ever,, remain, your  friend  and  obedient
servant."   Among his subsequent letters are the following:
"FARMINGTON, NOV. 10, 1798.
" SIn:- On the second instant I received your letter and sermon with much delight. The memory of a friend of my youth rushed upon me with full vigor. Our
intercourse with each other has unhappily been, ever since we entered upon active
life, almost wholly discontinued. I have, however, had much the advantage of you,
in that I have been able to maintain a sort of converse with you, very pleasing and
edifying, in your writings. These emanations of your mind have enabled me to
mark, as I have done with much satisfaction, your progress in knowledge and refinement. I know not how it happens, except it be from union of heart and our former
intimate connection, that I seem to feel myself honored by your rising reputation. I
have long set you down, as one of those happy ones who are fast advancing towards
the perfection of their nature. I have only to say, Go on. and prosper. I ardently
wish and pray that I may bear you company in the happy course, though with
unequal steps. Your letter is very obliging, and though your expressions are partial
in my favor, they discover, I think, the heart of a friend; for I know your sincerity.
For myself; I have got along hitherto in life attended with many infirmities and
much weakness; which, though thorns in the flesh, I sometimes almost rejoice in,
because they evince most forcibly to my mind, the power and grace of Almighty God
in my support. I am an ambitious man; but yet I can truly say, I have more
feared promotion than I have either desired or sought it. It brings more cares and
duties than comforts. It is not in itself desirable, it is only so as a means of usefulness.
It has been pregnant with evil to many, I may say to most, who have attained it. It
may be so to me, but my comfort is a hope that the same invisible hand which has
1 This classmate of Emmons was ""a representative to the General Assembly [of
Connecticut] from  his native town [Farmington,] nine years; a member of the
Council twenty-four years, for eleven of which he held the place of Lieutenant-Governor, and one and a half years Governor [of Connecticut]; having, in the mean
time been twenty-six years judge of the court of probate, three years judge of the
County Court, twenty years a judge in the Supreme Court of Errors, and nineteen
years one of the Corporation of Yale College; and having sustained numerous other
and important relations to the State." - Prof. Olmstecl's ]Meiloir, in Am. Quar. Reg.
Vol. XV. p. 248.




MEMOIR.                                 123
conducted me, unconscious of the issue, to my present situation, will not fail to afford
that aid and support which may be necessary for me.
"I am, Sir, your cordial friend
"and humble servant,
"J. TREADWELL.'
"Rev. Nathanael Emmons."'FARMINGTON, July 11, 1800.
" SIR:- I took an early opportunity of acknowledging the receipt of your letter of
the twenty-second of October, 1798, and of your sermon accompanying it. I trust
yoe received mine in return, but of this I am uncertain. It would be grateful to me
to maintain a constant intercourse by letter with a friend so sincerely loved and
respected; but our situation renders this difficult. If our early friendship was useful,
a renewal of it at an advanced period of life, bringing with it the experience of years,
it might be expected, would be more so; sure I am, if it were not, the fault would be
my own. My life has not been greatly variegated by sudden reverses; unexpected
events have taken place; still, as a whole, they present a kind of uniform appearance.
I have hitherto, through the providence of Him who governs the storm and the tempest, sailed upon a calm sea; but unless I soon arrive in port, I may chance to sail
Mr. Jefferson's tempestuous sea of liberty, with the rest of my shipmates. A systematic attack on religion and government, characterizes the day.  The effects
already produced, are dreadful; but there is too much reason to fear they are but the
beginnings of sorrows. The moral state of the world seems to justify this apprehension. Liberty I love; but it is that liberty which results from the most perfect subjection of every soul to the empire of law, and not that which is sought by illuminees
and atheists. I have not time to enlarge. Accept this scrawl as a mark of my
respect, and as a kind of general map of the present state of my mind, and believe me
to be,
Your affectionate friend and humble servant,
"JOHN TREADWELL.
"Rev. Nathanael Emmons."
The following letter, acknowledging a literary honor, reminds
us that there was once a time when a Doctorate of Divinity had
a meaning:
"FRANKLIN, December 24, 1798.
"SIR:- I lately received your favor of the 25th of August, in which you politely
inform me, that the honorable and venerable Corporation of the University over which
you preside, were pleased at the last Commencement, to confer upon me the degree of
Doctor in Divinity. This unexpected and unmerited testimony of the approbation of
great and good men, justly demands my respectful acknowledgments. I have habitually entertained a peculiar partiality in favor of Dartmouth College, ever since I
attended its first Commencement, when it was devoutly consecrated to the honor and
service of the great Head of the church by your pious and venerable father. There is
not in America, I believe, any seminary of learning which has in so few years from
its institution, qualified so many men for public service, especially in the ministry, as
that which you have governed and instructed, with so much dignity and reputation.
May you long continue the ornament of your flourishing University, and be the




124                             MEMOIR.
happy instrument, in the hand of Heaven, of carrying into effect the noble design of
its pious and benevolent founder. Be pleased to accept for yourself, and for the
other gentlemen of the corporation, my sincere wishes for your personal prosperity
and public usefulness, as the only return which I am able to make for the honor
which you have ventured to confer upon me. And be assured that I shall ever consider your public mark of respect, as a sort of sacred trust which requires me to
support your judgment, as well as my own reputation, by constantly exerting my
best endeavors for the promotion of the best of causes.
" I am, with every sentiment of respect and esteem,
"Sir, your most obedient and obliged servant,
"NATHANAEL EMMONS.
"The Honorable John Wheelock, LL. D."
Dr. Emmons was a profound student, as well as a rigid opponent, of the noted metaphysician, Dr. Richard  Price.  His
feelings of personal esteem  for the English moralist, are intimated in the following reply to one of Emmons's letters:
"HACKNEY, NEAR LONDON, March 22, 1788.
"DEAR SIR:  I take the opportunity of Mr. Adams's return to America, to acknowledge the receipt of your letter and the sermons that accompanied it, and also the
letter from the Committee of your congregation. My best thanks are due to yourself
and to your society, for the honor which you and they have done me, by the favorable
manner in which the present I made them of my writings has been received; and they
have, in return, my ardent wishes that they may prosper and flourish by a constant
improvement in the Christian graces and virtues, and particularly in that enlightened
liberality of sentiment, and extended charity and candor of disposition, which I reckon
some of the most amiable and dignifying qualities, and above all things necessary to
the peace and happiness of the Christian church.
"I rejoice to find that they are under the instruction and care of a minister so able
and candid as you are. May your usefulness and comfort among them be always
increasing."
"The inquiry you make about my sentiments of Mr. Hume's assertion, that a thing
may begin to exist without a cause, you will find in some measure answered in the
first chapter of my Treatise on Morals; and my sentiments on most of the great disputed points of Christianity, you will find in the volume of sermons which I have
lately published. These sermons I beg may be accepted as an addition to the present
of books which I have made to your parish; and I shall take the first opportunity of
conveying them.
"Be so good as to inform your people, how truly sensible I am of the kindness of
their letter to me. With all the best wishes and great regard, I am, dear Sir,
"Truly yours,
"Rev. Nathanael Emmons."                                 RICHARD PRICE.
It must not be conjectured that all the correspondence of Dr.
Emmons is of this stately character.  His own letters are uniformly dignified, but often breathe out his warm personal attachments.  To a clergyman in sorrow, he wrote:




MEMO IR.                               125
" FRANKLIN, Jan'y 7, 1789.
" DEAR BROTHER:- When I heard of your late bereavement, it filled my mind
with a train of tender feelings. I immediately entered into your case and felt your
sorrows. I wished to see you and mingle my tears with yours. But I reflected that
there was a better Comforter near you, to whom you could pour out your heart, and
ion whom you could cast your burdens, with unspeakably more freedom, pleasure, and
advantage. We preach unconditional submission. This is a duty and this is a happi,
mess amidst the heaviest trials. It is much easier and happier to give up all to God,
Ithan a part. Afflictions therefore which dash all our hopes, and write vanity upon.all our comforts, are the best suited to prepare us for the nearest approaches to God
tnd the highest enjoyment of him. I trust, therefore, you will enjoy great supports:under your great trials. And, please to imagine that while you are sitting alone, bereaved of your nearest and dearest friend, you still have others, though at a distance,
who bear you upon their hearts with the tenderest sympathy and affection, among
whom you will, I hope, reckon your affectionate friend and brother,
" NATH'L EMMONS.
"Rev. Aaron Hall," [Keene, N. H.]
~ 4. Visit of Dr. Archibald Alexander to Dr. Emmons.
" Although  a Calvinist, he was no  bigot."   This remark is
often made by men who are sure that the normal tendency of
Calvinism  is to shrivel up the hearts of its advocates.  Nathanael
Emmons did not regard  Archibald Alexander as a consistent
theologian; still he loved Alexander's practical discourses.  In
the year 1800, when Emmons was in his fifty-sixth year, and
Alexander in his twenty-ninth, the latter paid a visit to the former, and remained with him  several days.  Emmons gave up
his time to the youthful guest, and listened with delight to his
sermons.  When asked, why he thus  abandoned his habit of
study, and rode around the country to hear the young minister,
Dr. Emmons replied: " I am  trying to learn how  to preach."
-In the Memoir of Dr. Alexander (pp. 244-249), a narrative
of his visit to Franklin is thus introduced:
"The name of Dr. Emmons " [writes the author of the Memoir], " was
perhaps as extensively known as that of any divine in New England.
The perspicuity, vigor and terseness of his style, the ingenious concatenation of his arguments, his adventurous boldness, the startling nature of
his conclusions, and the increasing number of his adherents, made him a
master not to be despised or overlooked."  [The Memoir then quotes
the narrative of Dr. Alexander.]'Franklin,' says our narrative,'the town in which Dr. Emmons lived, joined the
State of Rhode Island. Mr. Coffin [this travelling companion of Dr. Alexander, is
L*




126                             MIEMOIR.
the divine alluded to in Chapter XI. ~ 5, below] was desirous that I should see this
champion of the new divinity. I have no doubt that he had a design in taking me
to this venerable theologian, believing that by his conversation I should be brought
over, for I was already quite a follower of Edwards. Nor had I the least objection to
receive light from any quarter. We, therefore, turned aside from the main road, and
came to the doctor's house early in the evening. The country around was better cultivated than any I had yet seen in New England, and Dr. Emmons occupied a large)
and commodious farm-house very near to his church. I found him to be rather
taciturn than talkative. He indeed made many and earnest inquiries of Mr. Coffin.
respecting the progress of the new opinions in Tennessee, whither Dr. Balch har?
carried the seed from Massachusetts.' Mr. Coffin proposed to me, as did Dr. Emmons, to remain there and preach, as
he had promised to supply a vacancy at some distance. I consented without hesitation; expecting, however, to undergo a thorough sifting, and perhaps be under a
moral necessity of changing my creed. I found that my remaining for so many days
was likely to be an inconvenience to Mrs. Emmons, who appeared to be a discreet,
sensible and pious woman. But on the first day of my sojourn, the doctor took me to
a monthly meeting of ministers at old Mr. Sanford's, within a few miles, which, however, he was not in the habit of attending, as he did not belong to the club. A dinner was always provided, after which there was a sermon in the church. The two old
gentlemen had long been neighbors, but did not agree in their views of either doctrine
or church discipline; but they were friendly when they met. And as the doctor had
brought a Virginia preacher, a nondescript, they made him doubly welcome. They
differed even more in politics than in religion; for Mr. Sanford was a democrat, of a
school hitherto unknown to me, holding that when the church was fully established,
there would be no need of civil government.'On that day the sermon came in turn to be preached by the Rev. Mr. Alexander
Lsee Chapter XII. ~ 4, below] of Mendon, a man of some learning. But he was
understood to have gone to Boston, and it was doubtful whether he would be
there. It was therefore put upon me to preach, and Mr. Sanford took me up
stairs into his study, and left me to make such preparation as I needed. In
the mean time Mr. Alexander arrived, having ridden  twenty or thirty miles
in a very hot day.  To his inquiries as to what arrangement had been made
for preaching, Mr. Sanford replied, "We certainly expect Mr. Alexander to
preach."  Mr. A. declared it to be out of the question, but Mr. S. continued to repeat,
" We expect a sermon from Mr. Alexander, and no other." Thus he continued the
hoax, until the bell rang for the public service, upon which I descended and was formally presented as the Rev. Mr. Alexander, from Virginia. I never saw a man
more suprised or relieved. We went to the church, and found a respectable number
for a week day and a busy season. At that time I used no notes in the pulpit, but
being in a country where all sermons were read, I felt it incumbent on me to make
my discourses as methodical and accurate as I could. And though I never could
commit words so as to depend on my memory, I had long accustomed myself to follow trains of thought, and the regular array of an argument. I took as a text, " He:that hath my commandments and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me."...'As I insisted strongly on the position that love must terminate on the true character of the object beloved, I gave them all great pleasure, as this showed that I did
not hold to the selfish scheme of virtue. When I got into the chaise with the old




MEMOIR.                                 127
doctor, he made me quite ashamed with his laudation, and assured me there was
nothing in the sermon which he did not approve.'The next day, Dr. Emmons took me to a much greater distance to a weekly
lecture. The audience was small. My text was Luke 14: 18. "But with one consent they all began to make excuse."  The next day, being the Fourth of July, he
took me to a neighboring town, where an oration was to be delivered by a certain
Dr. Manning, who had once resided in Virginia. The doctor [Emmons] was greatly
out of his element at this meeting, for the oration was rabidly democratic, and the
people assembled were generally of this party.'The next day was Saturday, and Dr. E. left home for the place of his appointment. During the visit he never attempted to enter into any controversy, but
seemed rather to avoid all doctrinal discussion. He had a young man studying
with him, who was principally occupied in writing two discourses for the Sabbath,
and these, according to the custom, he read to his preceptor. I was present on one
of these occasions. The main object of the sermon was, to prove man's dependence
on God for every thing, including every thought and emotion. After this exercise,
the young man, whom I took to be very stupid, propounded to the doctor this question: "If man is dependent for all thoughts and feelings, and if the law of God
requires him to be holy, while his thoughts are sinful, then does not God require the
creature to be independent  "  I wondered how he would answer it, when, after a
few moments pause, he turned to me and asked me how I should reply to the question. I begged to be excused from any such attempt, and so the matter went off
without an explanation.'In person, Dr. Emmons was a little inclined to be corpulent. His hair was thin,
and his countenance rather florid than pale. His knowledge of the Southern States
was imperfect. He had just published a sermon on the character of Jeroboam,
which was considered excessively severe against Jefferson, who had just ascended the
presidential chair; yet, as far as I could judge, he cherished no malignity against any
one, on religious or political grounds.' (See Chapter VIII. ~ 3.)
We insert here [continues the author of the Memoir], for the sake of
connection, a statement found in another manuscript [of Dr. Archibald
Alexander, the MS. Life of Rev. William  Graham].'Old Dr. Emmons once said to me, in defending the bands and cocked hats which
were then used in New England: " Clergymen, when they travel or go abroad, should
have some badge of their profession. It preserves them from many unpleasant
rencounters, and causes them to remember their sacred office. For," added he, " when
a clergyman thinks that he is not recognized as such, he is very apt to yield to unsuitable compliance; and often, when he seeks to be incognito he is known to all the
company." This is a sage remark.'
"In the frequent mention [continues the Memoir], which Dr. [Archibald] Alexander was accustomed to make of this visit, he always spoke
of him [Emmons] in high terms of respect; while he entertained, as is
well known, very different theological opinions. But it was characteristic
of him to treat with great liberality, and in some respects with esteem and
affection, those whom he at the same time regarded as seriously erroneous."




CHAPTER TVIII.
HIS INTEREST IN NATIONAL POLITICS.
THE public life of Emmons might be divided into three epochs;
his early afflictions, his subsequent prosperity, his later troubles.
Among his early afflictions were those resulting from his inadequate preparation for college, his prolonged wanderings without
a parish, the death of his first wife and the burial of his two
children in one grave by the side of their beautiful mother.  By
these troubles he was educated for his lengthened pastorate.
Not by these alone, however; for while recording the scenes of
his first marriage, he thus describes
~ 1. His Troubles during the Revolutionary War.
" We went to housekeeping the next week after marriage,
with mutually raised expectations.  But alas! we knew  not
what a day might bring forth. A thick, and dark, and terrible
storm  was gathering, which  involved  us and our country
in  deep  distress.  In less than a week after we had entered our new and peaceful habitation, Lexington battle took
place, which proved to be the commencement of a long and
bitter war between Britain and America. This great and alarming event gave a dark and discouraging aspect to all our future
circumstances in life. I always dreaded war, being totally
destitute of a martial spirit, and viewing it highly detrimental
to the interests of learning, religion and morality. But the war
which now commenced, was of the most malignant kind. It
was really a civil war; which originated in, and was productive
of, the basest passions of the human heart.  Though Britain
and America were two countries, yet the inhabitants were one
nation, and had always been subjects of the same sovereign.
(128)




MEMOIR.                               129
Hence  it was to  be  expected, the  contention  between  such
brethren would be extremely cruel and bloody; and so it eventually proved. Besides, the Americans were divided among themselves.  Their crown officers, and some of their leading and most
opulent citizens were on the side of Britain, and obstructed all
measures in opposition to the British parliament. This created
reproaches, invectives, tumults, and violent proceedings in different colonies, counties, towns,'parishes, and even neighborhoods.
But being heartily attached to my country, and firmly believing
we had justice on our side, I met with very little difficulty on
account of my political principles or conduct. I always meant
to throw all the weight I had into the scale of liberty; though I
verily thought some of its advocates adopted sentiments and
pursued measures, which were really hostile  to  good government.  And now I believe that many honest Whigs are fully
convinced of the errors of some of their fierce and unprincipled
leaders." -  Memoir of himself.
It was very natural that Emmons should feel indignant in
regard to some  movements of the  Revolutionary party.  He
could not be tranquil in view  of such facts as the following
recorded by President Stiles in his diary for November 24, 1774.
" The Rev. John Smalley, pastor of the Congregational church in New Britain, in
Farmington, in Connecticut, has given great offence to the public and to his Congregation, by his expressions unfriendly to public liberty; particularly condemning the
rising of the people on the memorable Lord's day of fourth of September last. A
body of his neighbors, the sons of liberty in that vicinity were about to wait on him,
but he took horse, and fled to visit his wife's relations at Bethlehem. He sent Dr.
Bellamy, who went and preached for him and attempted to assuage the wrath of his
people, but could not give entire satisfaction. He is not at all connected with the
tories; however, he has adopted pretty absolute principles of civil government and
submission to the higher powers; and on the general question respecting the present contest between America and the Parent State, is for passive obedience and nonresistance. I believe it is partly from a conscientious persuasion, that passive obedience in civil things is the Apostolic doctrine."
" But though," continues Dr. Emmons, " I met with no peculiar difficulty in regard to the grounds of the war, yet I shared
largely in its common calamities; because I was not prepared,
as many of my fathers in the ministry were, to meet them.  I
had just purchased a settlement, and involved myself in debt, to




130                             MEM OIR.
the amount of at least two hundred  pounds  [$666.67].  The
two years before the war began, my people punctually paid my
salary, and advanced one hundred pounds of my settlement a
year before it was due by contract. [The settlement was two
hundred pounds, or $666.67; one half to be paid within one
year, the other half to be paid within two years after his ordination.  The salary was eighty  pounds, or $266.67.1]   But from
the  beginning  to the end of the war, my people, like  many
others, neglected to pay my salary at the usual time, and in the
usual manner.  Nor was this all; the paper currency very early
and rapidly depreciated, which threw  me into great embarrass1 The salary of a country pastor in Massachusetts at this time was between sixty,
and one hundred and forty pounds; or between two hundred, and four hundred and
sixty-six dollars. Generally it was between seventy-five, and one hundred and twenty
pounds; or between two hundred and fifty, and four hundred dollars. The salary of
Dr. Emmons was equal to that' of many eminent ministers in his day. His parish
voted him a "present" of thirty-three dollars in 1794; of sixty-six dollars in 1795;
of eighty dollars in 1796; of one hundred and twenty dollars in 1797; of one hundred dollars in 1798, 1799, and 1800, each year; of one hundred and thirty-three dollars in 1801 and 1802, each year; of one hundred and eighty-three dollars in 1803;
of two hundred dollars in 1804 and 1805, each year; of two hundred and thirty-three
dollars in 1806. From the year 1806 until his resignation of the pulpit in 1827, his
salary was five hundred dollars. From 1827 until his death, he received an annuity
from his parish of one hundred and fifty dollars per annum.  (See p. 63, above).
The sufferings of Dr. Emmons in consequence of the war, from the depreciation of
the currency, may be inferred from the following Church Record:
"MARCH 9, 1787.
"The Church voted to give to their Pastor the interest of their public moneys
for the two last years; and accordingly directed their Treasurer, Dea. Joseph Whiting, to pay their Pastor seventy-five dollars in public securities, which were estimated
at 4s. upon the pound, and amounted to about 16 Dollars in Silver."
The carefulness and particularity of the Franklin church has been already noticed in
Chapter III. It will be seen in Chapter IX. that their minister was invited to attend
one hundred and five Councils during his pastorate. When the church noticed the
pecuniary burden which these Councils imposed upon him, they resolved to give him
some pecuniary relief in this regard, and they passed the following votes on Jan. 28,
1790:
1. Voted, " That the Deacons of the Church should from time to time, as occasion
should require, take the following method to raise money to discharge the travelling
expenses of the members sent on Ecclesiastical Councils, beyond the distance of fortyfive miles, viz.: make an average among the male members of the church, and notify
each of his particular part of the expense arisen. And,
2. Voted, " That each member of the church should bring in his money bound up
in a paper, with his own name fairly written upon it, the next Sacramental Lecture
day, after he has been notified of his part of the sum due by average."




MEMOIR.                                131
ments.  For, instead of being able to pay for my farm, I was
obliged to run farther into debt, and even to borrow money from
time to time, to provide necessaries for my family.  In short, for
the space of fifteen or sixteen years, I was obliged to pay interest
for about two hundred pounds [or $666.67].  These were my
pecuniary difficulties, which arose principally from the war.,
" But it deeply affected me in other respects; it diverted the
attention, and even the affections of the people from  me.  They
were so much embarrassed themselves with the expenses, labors,
and fatigues of the war, that they  neglected to attend  public
worship, and became very indifferent to every thing of a religious
nature.  Those who had been apparently warm  friends, became
cold and distant in their behavior towards me, and sometimes,
indeed, treated me with real disrespect and contempt. These
things were severe and unexpected trials. For I always meant
to treat my people in a friendly and condescending manner, in
all my private and public conduct.  And being fully of the opinion, that no minister can be useful to a people, any longer than
he possesses their esteem, confidence, and affection, I determined
to  take a dismission  from   my  pastoral relation, whenever I
should discover such symptoms of unusefulness. This appeared
to be the case, at the close of the year 1780, and accordingly I
asked a dismission, on Lord's day, January 21, 1781.  But my
1 Rev. Dr. Peter Thacher, of Maiden, afterwards of Brattle Street, Boston, published in 1783 a Pamphlet, entitled: "Observations upon the Present State of the
Clergy of New England, with Strictures upon the power of dismissing them, usurped
by some churches."  On page 4 of this Pamphlet, he says: " The late contest with
Great Britain, glorious as it hath been for their country, hath been peculiarly unfortunate for the clergy. Perhaps no set of men, whose hearts were so thoroughly engaged
in it, or who contributed in so great a degree to its success, have suffered more by it."
" The sufferings of the clergy during the existence of the paper medium, were much
greater than many are willing to believe. Of the very necessaries of life, some of
them were at that time destitute."  In 1784, there appeared from the press: "Strictures on the Rev. Mr. Thacher's Pamphlet, etc., by J. S —, a Layman."  These
Strictures drew forth from Dr. Thacher a second Pamphlet, entitled: " A Reply to
the Strictures of Mr. J. S, etc."  The author of the Strictures had acknowledged
the deprivations of the clergy, but had said that parishioners who did not pay the
regular salary, had afterwards made grants of money to the suffering pastors. Dr.
Thacher replied: "It is very possible that the people in every parish (who did not
happen to be offended with their ministers), made them grants in paper-money. It is
very true, that before they received this, or it was collected, it depreciated so much as
to be inadequate to the purposes for which it was granted."




132                            MEMOT R.
request was not granted, and I continued in tolerable peace, till
the year 1784, when I again asked a dismission, on Lord's day,
May 20.  This request was also denied.1  In both these instances
of asking a dismission, I acted with sincerity, and without any
sensible sinister motives. No man, perhaps, felt more reluctance
to leaving his people, than I did mine.  I had cherished a warm
and sincere attachment to them, and viewed them in general as
the most intelligent, kind, and ministerial people I was ever ac —
quainted with.  And this attachment has never been destroyed,
though  sometimes weakened, by what I have deemed very unseemly and ungrateful conduct.
" But after all, I am  apt to think, they have generally entertained too high an opinion of my abilities, and too low an opinion
of my attachment to them.  Here, however, we may have erred
on both sides. Our feelings and opinions respecting each other
will never be known, till the day arrives that will disclose the secrets of all hearts, and rectify all mistakes; and I am willing to
refer all things to Him, who will judge without error and without
partiality."
~ 2. His Political Discourses and Action; His Rules for Them.
The patriotism of the clergy during the war of the Revolution,
has been  generally  admired.  Seldom  has the sincerity of it
been questioned.2   Still, the worth, the depth, the wide reach of
I These were bold measures. It was very unusual for a minister, at that early day,
to ask a dismission from his people. The Revolutionary war, instead of inducing
pastors to request a release from their parishes, more frequently stimulated the parishes to procure a release from their pastors. Hence in the pamphlet of Dr. Thacher,
mentioned in the preceding note, he proposes a stringent ecclesiastical rule, by which
the "power of dismissing" a minister shall be taken from  the people, who had
" usurped " it since the Revolution, and shall be vested in an authoritative judicatory,
consisting of delegates from churches who had no personal interest in the parish desiring to free itself from its pastor. The lay-author of the " Strictures" confesses, that
the Revolution had "diminished the awe" formerly felt for both "ministers and magistrates," but protests against any interference with the rights of the people. It is
worthy of note, that Dr. Emmons never intimates a wish to modify the old Congregational usage in this regard.
2 In one of the early pamphlets relating to the Revolution, the Congregational
ministers were accused of cherishing hostility to Great Britain on merely sectarian
grounds. The fear of Episcopacy, it was stated, aroused the opposition of these
clergymen to the country which sustained the Episcopal church.




MEMOIR.                                 133
their influence in achieving the freedom of the colonies, have
never been, as they  ought to be, appreciated.  They have not,
indeedbeen entirely forgotten. In the more recent crises of the
Republic, our statesmen have invoked the aid, and relied on the
wisdom of our pastors, for the conservation of the liberties which
the pulpit of the Revolution helped to secure. It seemed like a
matter of course to request and to  expect, that Dr. Emmons
would engage in political discussions.  It was natural for the
people to call him  out during " Shay's Rebellion," and the war
of 1812.  Millington, his native town, had been  uncommonly
patriotic.  His immediate  predecessor in the ministerial office
had sacrificed his life in the chaplaincy of the Revolutionary
war.  Some of his nearest clerical neighbors had been engaged,
two of them  with rare zeal, in the same service.l  Emmons had
long resided in the county of Fisher Ames,2 and Samuel and
John  Adams.  Some of his clerical friends were earnest politicians.3   He had been intimate with many of the Revolutionary
soldiers.  His eye had been watchful over political events since
1 Rev. David Avery of Wrentham.  See Sprague's Annals, Vol. I. p. 697; also
Rev. David Sanford of Medway, see Annals, Vol. II. pp. 48-53.
2 Among the letters addressed to Dr. Emmons, one was found from Fisher Ames,
requesting his advice with regard to the appointment of certain civil magistrates.
3 A few of Dr. Emmons's most intimate associates, as the patriotic Sanford, of
Medway, sympathized with the Democratic party; but the Hopkinsian as well as
the moderate Calvinists were, in the general, Federalists. Andover Theological
Seminary was denounced by some Democrats as designed to effect "the gradual
union of Hopkinsianism and Politics."  Rev. Solomon Aiken of Dracut, Massachusetts, published a severe Review of one of Dr. Samuel Spring's Political Discourses, and informed the stern Hopkinsian, that " his discourses have a tendency to
set the North against the South, to unite New England with old England, agitate the
people, stir men up to violate the laws of the State, of morality and religion."  In a
pamphlet published just before the war of 1812, and entitled, "A view of the Calvinistic Clubs in the United States," we read of "the Monthly Clubs of the Calvinistic Clergy," and we are told: "As they have not assumed a name by which they
can be properly designated, I will call them the Calvinistic Clubs. These originated
about thirty years ago, and were designed to increase the power and influence of the
clergy. They were projected by Drs. Bellamy, Goodrich, Sproat, Williams and
others in New England." (p. 4.) "Connecticut is almost totally an ecclesiastical
State, ruled by [Dr. Dwight] the President of the College, as a monarch." (p. 14.)
Princeton, Dartmouth, and Cambridge Colleges receive also their share of opprobrium. In 1814, was published a pamphlet bearing this title: "An Address to the
Clergy of New England, on their opposition to the Rulers of the United States. By
a Layman.'Ye are departed out of the way; ye have caused many to stumbletherefore have I made you contemptible and base before the people: — MalVOL.                        M. 




134                          X EMOIR.
the period of the old " French war."'  His political sufferings
had qualified him, and also entitled him  to speak on the affairs
of his adopted Commonwealth and his native country. He was
heard and read as one whose knowledge was dear bought and
worthy of deference. His political discourses were studied by
men of eminent name. Some of these discourses became highly
celebrated.  They were the fruit of extensive reading and of
large experience.
The political action of ministers is attended with some perils.
It should, therefore, be guided by judicious rules. The rules
which Emmons adopted for himself are illustrated thus:
First. He performed his duties to his country, in the spirit of
earnest love to God.
"He carried his religion, says Dr. Ide,2 "into every department of
life, and acted in reference to the affairs of state, with the same regard to
the authority and glory of God and the present and future good of
mankind, which he maintained in the discharge of his professional duties.
He believed that human governments ought to be based upon the great
principles of equity and justice which are inculcated in the Scriptures;
and that those who rule over men, ought to' be just, ruling in the fear
of God.' He therefore felt it to be his duty, not only to pray for all
that were in authority, but to use his influence in every proper way to
put good men into office, and to sustain them in their efforts to maintain
a righteous government. He believed that the right of suffrage belongs
to ministers as truly as to other men, and that they are under essentially the same obligation to use it as any other class of citizens; and
with the same independence which was characteristic of him in all other
cases, he uniformly went to the polls and deposited his vote for the man
of his choice.  He was no partisan either in his feelings or conduct.
He fomented no political disputes, attended no caucuses, and used none
of the arts, intrigues, or management which are common among politachi."-The author (Hon. William Plumer), writes: "The clergymen of New England,
your predecessors of 1775, 1776, in the time of our Revolutionary war, adopted a manly
course of conduct, directly the reverse of yours. Their time, their talents, both in
public and private, were directed to the cause of their country. They cordially supported the measures of our government, were active friends to the suffering soldiers,
and inimical to none but the enemies of their country." (p. 7.) The attitude of politicians toward the clergy is now what it was a half century ago.
1 See p. 14, above.
2 Memoir of Emmons, pp. 73, 74.




M E I MOIR.                       135
ticians in securing their object. But he always had his opinion, spoke
it freely, and acted with openness and decision according to it. He was
unwilling to have his people believe, as many seem to do, that religious
principle is useless in politics, while it is of acknowledged importance
in every thing else. He taught them their obligations not only to act as
citizens, but to act righteously in all their civil, as well as religious
concerns. He looked at the conduct of politicians and the actions of
civil governments, as they are suited to affect both the temporal and
spiritual interests of men. Though he believed tha't Christ's'kingdom
is not of this world,' yet he knew that the kingdoms of this world were
destined to exert an important influence upon the church, and the church
upon the world. As he watched the effects of every civil movement in
his own town upon the cause of religion there, so he watched the movements of the great men of the nation and of the world, and considered
with the deepest interest their probable influence upon the kingdom of
Christ."
Secondly. He did not preach his political discourses on the
Sabbath.  They were delivered on the days of the State Fast,
and the State Thanksgiving. His parishioners never went into
the house of the Lord, on the day of the Lord, with an apprehension that their views on the Embargo, or on the Alien and
Sedition Laws, would be either assailed or applauded.  At the
present time, the religious solemnities at the State Fast are
attended by a small congregation.  The discourses of Emmons
on this day were heard with lively interest by a large concourse.
At the present time, some are disposed to abandon the State
Fast as a religious observance; in the ministry of Emmons, politicians had "their portion in due season," and not a few of
them remembered his faithful words wih th ankful reverence.
Thirdly. He never made his political discourses prominent
among the services of his ecclesiastical year. His name was
associated with the doctrines of the Bible, far more than with
the schemes of statesmen.   When the Franklin pulpit was
mentioned, it suggested certain truths of revelation, rather than
certain votes of Congress. The complaint of him was, that he
preached too often on the "' hard doctrines of Calvinism," rather
than on moral or political duties.
Fourthly. He discussed political principles in his Fast and
Thanksgiving sermons, and did not ordinarily name the persons




136                         MEM OIR.
who defended wrong views.  His language was that of a Christian statesman, rather than that of a secular politician. He
elaborated his arguments and weighed his words.  During the
administration of rulers whom he detested, he was strenuous in
urging the duty of strict obedience to them.'  The greater part
of his political sermons would now meet the approbation of all
Christians.
Fifthly. He engaged in political discussion for the religious
benefit of his own people.  He did not stand up in the Franklin
pulpit, and discharge his cannon against a distant community.
He did not speak as our Representatives in Congress often
declaim, for the edification of the absent.  He believed that his
great duty was, to educate the souls of his own parishioners for
the eternal world.  His great aim was to form  their minds for
right action in politics, as for right action in agriculture or trade;
so that in  all things they might serve God, and secure the
plaudit,; Well done."  He conducted his ministry for the
benefit of the individual souls especially committed to his care;
and if his discourses, which were primarily designed to nurture
sound principle in his own hearers, could afterwards be applied
to the same use among distant communities, he was willing to
print what he at first intended merely to preach.
Sixthly. He discoursed on political themes, not so as to impair, but so as to augment his influence on the higher themes of
the Bible. He doubtless erred in certain particulars; but on the
great whole his political adversaries were compelled to own the
fairness of his statements and the soundness of his theories.
One of these opponents has said: "I often heard the doctor
preach what were called his political sermons, about which so
much noise was made at the time, and I always liked him. The
principles which he advanced were true, and such as I believe
the Bible inculcates." 2  He did offend now one and then another
of his parishioners, by his manner of applying some political
truth which he had proved.  But the offence was not permanent,
nor did it lessen the reverence which they felt for his conscien1 " Though we know beforehand," he writes, "that there are measures [limits] of
submission to all human authority, yet no man can determine what they are, until
cases actually take place which will justify resistance."
2 Dr. Ide's Memoir, p. 75.




MEiMOIR.                          137
tious fidelity.  It cannot be said of him, as it has been said of
his able classmate, Dr. Lyman: " His political relations subsequently gave rise to a very unhappy state of things in the parish,
and old animosities continued to rankle even till the day of his
death."  lHe never made the remark of that excellent classmate,
6; that too much zeal in politics had hindered his usefulness; " nor
like Dr. Lyman, did he address his successor in the pastoral office
in the following words of self-reproach: "You may profit by my
experience; attend to your spiritual duties, and let Caesar take
care of his own affairs." I  Lyman and Emmons were wise men,
both of them; and in examining the political career of Emmons,
we detect the very decisive signs, that he knew how far to go,
where and when to stop; that he understood his people, " spoke
out his whole mind" to them, but in such a way as to secure
their confidence when he lost their acquiescence, to heighten
their esteem  for his honest and strong mind when he failed to
make them love what he loved; and, above all,,he preached on
politics so much less than on the distinctive truths of the Gospel,
that the doctrines outshone the theories, and men's approval or
disapproval of him as a civilian, was lost in their approval or disapproval of him as a divine.
Seventhly. He discussed political principles in a style which
has been sanctioned by the wisest pastors in all lands and all
ages.  Clergymen have been called the " spiritual police," the
"moral constabulary of a land."  When Emmons was assailed
for his political sermons, he replied:
"In the beginning of this century, there was a party in Britain
friendly to the Pretender, who bitterly complained of Bishop Hoadley
and other clergymen, for supporting the house of Hanover, and inculcating loyalty and subjection to those in the peaceable possession of the
reins of government. And there are many now in America, who are
friendly to France, and who publicly reproach those preachers of the gospel who presume, at this interesting crisis of public affairs, to step forth
in the cause of their country, and inculcate the duty of submission to
those patriotic rulers who are seeking the safety and interest of the nation. But if what has been said in this discourse be true, their complaint
1 Sprague's Annals, Vol. II. p. 14.




138                          M E M o I R.
of the clergy is altogether unscriptural, unreasonable, and inconsistent.
It is unscriptural; because ministers are required by the precepts of the
gospel and the practice of Christ and the Apostles, to inculcate submission to government. It is unreasonable; because ministers have the
common right of citizens to form their own opinions and to speak their own
sentiments, upon such public measures as relate not merely to the local.
politics of a town or parish, but to the great body of the nation.  And itis inconsistent; because those who complain are highly pleased to hear
ministers preach in favor of the government they like, and in support of
the measures they approve. They now condemn the same kind of preaching which, less than twenty years ago, they highly applauded. They
have no real objection against political preaching, but against what is
preached upon political subjects. It is readily admitted, if ministers recommend tyranny to rulers, or sedition to subjects, they deserve to be
censured; but on the other hand, if they preach sound doctrine in politics
and morals, their preaching ought to be candidly heard and religiously
followed.  And for my own part, I verily believe there is now a special
call in providence to all the ministers of the gospel, to put men in mind
of the duty and importance of supporting the Constitution, and submitting
to the administration of our present free and excellent government." 1
~ 3. His Jeroboam  Sermon.
The fourth of the preceding remarks should not be received
without some grains of abatement.  The Franklin statesman did
sometimes name the individuals whom  he opposed, and he gave
them  a decidedly bad name.  He had watched the course of the
French philosophy; he had studied the career of Napoleon; he
believed that Thomas Jefferson was thoroughly stained with the
infidel principles of France, and that the Jeffersonian party was
an ally of the French usurper.  Hence he resisted the progress
of that party, as he would resist the promulgation of an infidel
creed.2  He regarded himself as defending the Bible, when he
defended the administration of Washington and Adams.3  Thus
1 Orig. Ed. Vol. II. pp. 139, 140.
2 "Republicans," he said in 1802, "are a new political sect, lately risen up in
America, who derive their notions of government from Turgot, Concorcet, Thomas
Paine, Needham, or some other politicians of the same class."
3 In his Thanksgiving Sermon for 1800, he speaks of "our present state of doubtful expectation, whether a professed Infidel or a professed Christian will be raised to
the first seat of our general government." He was a neighbor of John Adams, and




EM O IR.                            139
lie was deeply religious in his statesmanship.  Feeling that the
church as well as the country, was endangered by the rise of the
democratic, or as it was then called, republican, party, he supposed that he was called as a prophet of God, to utter bold
thoughts in bold words.  The most personal of his discourses on
the political dangers of our country, is what is familiarly called
his "Jeroboam  sermon."   On Wednesday eve, the eighth of
April, 1801, the metaphysical student was entirely unable to decide on the subject of his discourse for the following day, which
was the day of the State Fast. After much perplexity, he concluded to preach an extemporaneous sermon on 2 Kings 17: 21.
His discourse was so acceptable to his hearers, that they requested a copy of it for the press.  He then committed it to
paper for the first time,1 and as soon as it was published it kindled  a flame  throughout the Commonwealth.  A  writer in
Duyckinck's Cyclopwsdia of American Literature, says:
Emmons's "Jeroboam sermon, on the annual Fast of April 9th, 1801,
shortly after the inauguration of Jefferson, has been generally understood to have been levelled at the new President. It could hardly be
mistaken, as it plays off Solomon against the infidel Jeroboam with artful parallelism to the new nineteenth century.  It is long drawn, solemn,
and withering.  Reading it with the substitution of Washington, Adams,
and Jefferson for their Scriptural prototypes, and taking the federal politics of the time into view, it is a curious analogy." 2
The same writer indicates many of the parallelisms detected
in this sermon between Jeroboam  and Jefferson.  That Emmons
intended to make all these parallelisms so prominent, we are not
authorized to affirm.  It has been commonly supposed that he
he often alludes with great veneration to that impassioned Federalist. In 1798, he
said: " There is not perhaps a man in the world, who is superior to the President of
these United States, in political wisdom, integrity and experience." His other favorite politicians were Caleb Strong, John Jay, Ellsworth, Pickering, Pinckney, and
above all, George Washington, of whom he tersely says: "Instead of putting his
money, he put his character at interest." All of these men he supposed to be the
friends of the Bible and of Biblical institutions.
1 The discourse, as published, is said to be far inferior to the extemporaneous
words actually spoken.
2 Cyclopedia, Vol. I. p. 247.




140                              MEMOIR.
did.  The following correspondences have been  pointed out by
various writers:
Genius of President Jefferson. -Jeroboam  "early discovered some of those distinguishing natural and moral qualities, which formed him for the extraordinary part
which he finally acted on the stage of life. His natural genius was sprightly, bold,'
and enterprising, which he evidently cultivated, notwithstanding the peculiar disad-:
vantages and embarrassments which attended his education."
Jefferson as Secretary of State. -" And Solomon seeing the young man that he was
industrious, he made him ruler over all the charge of the house of Joseph. His
appointment to such an office, by such a penetrating prince, is an infallible evidence
of his popular talents and pleasing address.  Th3se excellent and amiable accomplishments, had they been properly directed to the public good, would have rendered
him a great blessing to the nation."
Jefferson in Paris. - His " flight into Egypt seems to have been the most fatal
period in Jeroboam's life."  "He was no doubt an infidel at heart, while he was
sowing the seeds of sedition, and plotting to ruin his king and country."  " He
could not have lived among a more dangerous people than the Egyptians, who were
then the most noted nation in the world, for learning, magnificence, superstition, and
the grossest idolatry. Hence his residence in Egypt prepared him  to return to his
native country a more bitter enemy to the God of Israel, and a more malignant
opposer of all his sacred rites and institutions, than any pagan priest, or Egyptian
philosopher.  Such was the ominous character of Jeroboam  the son of Nebat,
before he reached the object of his wishes, and was placed in the first seat of government."
Jefferson's Intrigues against thie Administration of Adams.- "Jeroboam the son of
Nebat had long been a man of intrigue. He had secretly employed every artifice to
prejudice the people against the former administration of government, and had openly
presumed to lift up his hand against the king. All this he had done before he fled
into Egypt; and it is extremely probable that, during his residence there, he kept up a
secret and treasonable correspondence with the disaffected in Israel, and only waited
for the death of Solomon to return and seize his throne."
Complaint of the Jeffersonians with regard to the taxes of the Adams Administration. 
Jeroboam's "business of collecting the public taxes in the tribe of Ephraim and
Manasseh, gave him a peculiar opportunity of tampering with the people, and of
instilling into their minds the most absurd prejudices against the king and his public
measures.  He could easily persuade the unthinking multitude that they were
unreasonably loaded with taxes, and that they ought to do themselves justice by
overturning the government." - " It is now easy to see how this subtle and aspiring
man obtained the suffrages of the nation in his favor. It was through his own intrigues, which deluded and infatuated the ten tribes. He actually made himself
king, by disaffecting the people to the administration of his predecessor; and he
caused this disaffection by basely misrepresenting the wise measures of that wise and
excellent ruler. He might justly have complained of Solomon's idolatry and deep
declension in religion; but he made no such complaint, because he knew it would not




M EM O IR.                               141
answer his purpose. IHe therefore made a more popular objection, and loudly
exclaimed against the intolerable burden of public taxes."
Jefferson's new appointments to Offce." - Jeroboam " was resolved to shake every
sacred as well as civil officer from his seat, rather than to lose his own. We are not,
indeed, informed whom he appointed to stand around his person, and assist him in,the administration of government; but who can doubt, whether he did not display
the same corruption of heart in appointing the officers of state, which he had displayed in appointing the officers of religion  "
Jefferson's Powers of Conversation, and his opposition to the Congregational Clergy. -
"It appears from [Jeroboam's] character and conduct in early life, that he possessed,
in a high degree, the art of captivating and corrupting all sorts of people, with whom
he conversed. And when he was clothed with the ensigns of royalty, his power and
opportunity of corrupting his subjects greatly increased. He became the standard of
taste, and the model of imitation. His sentiments and manners became a living law
to his subjects. In his familiar intercourse with all around him, he undoubtedly
seized those soft moments which were most favorable to his malignant design of
seduction. This he could do without departing from the dignity of his station; but
it appears that he did more than this, and even stooped to mingle with the priests,
and'to burn incense upon the altars of the golden gods of his own making.' "
"It appears from the character and conduct of Jeroboam, that corrupt rulers will
always aim to corrupt the faithful ministers of religion. No other men are so intimately connected with the great body of the people, and have such favorable opportunities of pouring instruction into their minds, and of conversing with them under all
circumstances of life. And whether it be a favorable or unfavorable aspect upon the
public good, it is a certain fact, that wise and faithful ministers have a larger share in
the respect and confidence of the people in general, than those of any other character
or profession.  Of course they have more influence in forming the religious opinions,
the common habits, and even the political sentiment of the subjects of governments,
than many of those who are immediately concerned in public affairs. Besides,
religion of any kind, whether true or false, takes a stronger hold of the human mind,
and has a greater tendency to govern the actions of men, than any theoretical knowledge in any of the arts or sciences, or in any of the pursuits and concerns of the
present life. The public teachers of religion, therefore, must necessarily be able in
many ways to weaken the hands, and obstruct the designs of corrupt rulers. And it
naturally follows that they will endeavor by all means, to corrupt those who minister
in holy things. This we find clearly illustrated by the conduct of Jeroboam the son
of Nebat, who drave Israel from following the Lord."
The writer in  Duyckinck's Cyclopaedia, Vol. I. p. 247, adds:
"If terms and  phrases like  these  needed  any'improvement,'
they had it in the sequel of the doctor's discourse:'It is more than possible that our nation may find themselves in the hand of a
Jeroboam, who will drive them from following the Lord; and whenever they do, they
will rue the day, and detest the folly, delusion, and intrigue, which raised him to the
head of the United States.'




142                           MEM O IR.
and he [Emmons] asks the pertinent question:' Who can say that men in power may not catch the spirit of the times, and follow
the example of Jeroboam, or rather that of the late apostates in Europe? We are
becoming more and more connected with those infidel nations, whose politicians and,
philosophers are the bold patrons and preachers of infidelity. This mutual intercourse affords a peculiar opportunity to try the whole force of their infatuating philosophy upon us in America. And it is beyond a doubt, that our rulers are the most,
exposed to their fatal delusions. What is there then to forbid our apprehensions, that
those in the highest places of power may be corrupted, and actually apostatize fromL
the religion of their country? And should they happen to apostatize, what could
hinder them from driving our nation from following the Lord?'"
It is easy to smile at remarks made by a man who in his
childhood saw his neighbors march forth in the old French war;
made by a man who regularly perused the Hartford Courant,
and the high Federal Newspapers; and made sixty years ago,
when all Europe was in consternation, and when the progress
of French principles in America was far more threatening than
it is now.  Perhaps the very words which  provoke our merriment to-day, were instrumental in averting the dangers which
would  have  turned  our laughter into  grief.  The following
paragraph illustrates the intense horror of Jacobinism which
characterized the Franklin politician, and which merely amuses
his present readers who cannot imagine the perils of a preceding
age.  On the fifth of July, 1802, Dr. Emmons remarked in his
discourse on American Independence:
"Permit me to observe that this Anniversary [July 4th], properly
belongs to the Federalists, who ought to improve it in promoting the best
interests of their country. It is presumption in Republicans to claim this
day as their own.  They are the men who have uniformly applauded
and justified the French Revolution in all its turnings and windings, and
who still pant after French liberty and equality.  Can they.have any
just pretence to celebrate the American Revolution?  No; they are
apostates from the true principles of the Revolution, and of consequence,
apostates from our Federal government. It is absurd in the extreme,
for their orators, on this day consecrated to commemorate the best moral,
religious, and political principles, to trumpet the corrupt principles of
democracy, anarchy, infidelity, and atheism, through our enlightened and
well indoctrinated nation. Let true Federalists expose such barefaced




M EM OIR.                          143
abuse of this memorial of our national independence; and convert it to
its proper end, which is to promote our national prosperity and happiness."
~ 4. His Influence on Political Topics.
The positive and decided language of Dr. Emmons could not
have been without its influence in political circles.  In his early
l'ife the highest politicians honored him. Even so late as in the
ilinety-second year of his age, he received a letter, of which the
following extracts illustrate his long-continued power:
" Permit me, in behalf of the Whig Central Committee of District
No. IX., to return you our thanks for the timely and efficient aid you
have afforded us in the election of.... as our Representative in the
next Congress of the United States..... However the Presidential
election may terminate, you and your friends will have the satisfaction
of knowing, that you have been mainly instrumental in saving this District from falling into the hands of the Radicals... Like the oak
which has outlived its day and generation, you, my dear Sir, yet remain
as one of the few connecting links of the present with the past. Your
great age, and the strong and retentive powers of mind which the goodness of God yet vouchsafes to your possession and enjoyment, I doubt
not, enable you to foresee, that, in all probability, a new party line will
soon be drawn among the people of this country; on one side of which
will be found all those who would preserve what is good in our free,
republican institutions, and on the other, all those who would tear down
and demolish the whole....
" Having, unexpectedly, drawn this letter out to a great length, I will
now close it by an expression of our individual and associated desire for
your happiness in all that remains to you of this life, and an unfading
crown, as the reward of your faithfulness, when God, in his own good
time, shall see fit to call you to another and better one.
"I subscribe myself,
" In behalf of the Whig Central Committee, District No. IX.
"Very respectfully, yours."




CHAPTER IX.
HIS INTEREST IN ECCLESIASTICAL POLITY.
~ 1. Imagined Inconsistency between his Views of Civil and of
Ecclesiastical Government.
THE earnest mind of Emmons could not fail to take a deeper
interest in the polity of the church than in the politics of the
nation.  He regarded the constitution  of the ecclesiastical
assembly, as a basis for the constitution of a republican State.
He believed  tlat our fathers founded our republic on the
principle of the church meeting, which is the model for the
town meeting; and where this principle is carried out most
fully, there is the spirit of our government developed most
safely.  At the first, " every man had his voice, though not
perhaps his choice, in all public transactions:" this was the
early republicanism  which Emmons advocated in the ecclesiastical and in the civil commonwealth.
An inconsistency has often been imagined to exist between his
theory of national, and his theory of ecclesiastical government.
He was a stern antagonist of Democracy in the State, and a
warm advocate of Democracy in the church.  Still he believed
that the State was modelled after the pattern of the church.
The following considerations, however, tend to lessen the seeming inconsistency.
~ 2. Radical Distinction between the Ecclesiastical and the Political
Commonwealth.
The same originality of mind which Emmons displayed on all
other subjects, he evinced in his theory of Church government.
(144)




MEMOIR.                          145
He had his own type of Congregationalism, and one organific
principle of it was that the church has no legislative power. It
is not the pattern for the State in all respects. It is a peculiar
body. It is a spiritual body.  Men say that the church must
have its Senate; but the Senate of this obedient brotherhood
is in the heavens.  Men say, that it must have its House of
Representatives, but its House of Representatives is that twofold Being who represents our nature and the divine nature in
the building not made with hands.  Those who are to form
" the general assembly and church of the first-born," need
no legislative General Assembly on earth.  The power of the
church is only executive (this term  including the judicial).
Emmons writes:
"Christ is the sole lawgiver of the church. He has made all the laws
by which it is to be governed. He has delegated no legislative power
to a church, by which it has authority to make ecclesiastical laws or
canons. The church of Rome has manifested herself to be anti-Christian, by claiming and exercising such a power. No particular church
whatever has a right to make a single law or canon to bind its members.
It has only the right to execute the law, which Christ has made and
published in the gospel."
The law of the church, then, has been given by the only
Legislator.  What he has commanded, the church is to execute.
He has given a rule in Matthew 18: 15-17, for the discipline of
an offender. The church is the Jury for the examination of
that offender.  The church is the Bench of Judges for passing
sentence upon him. The church is the Police for enforcing that
sentence.  The church has no right to require what the Lawgiver in the skies has not required; no right to execute a law
which He has not enjoined; no right to introduce a cumbrous
machinery for processes which are instituted by human legislators.  Emmons's theory was simple in itself, and its tendency
was to forestall the complicated manoeuvres of ecclesiastics. It
was designed to prevent an intermeddling spirit among church
members, and confine them to their proper business, the execution of the laws of Christ.  "I do not like," said the Millington
farmer's son, " the Presbyterian form of government, for I do
not like to be yoked up in so long a team."
VOL. I.                 N




146                      MEMOIR.
~ 3. The Dignity of a Church and its Iembers.
The ecclesiastical democracy of Emmons was not a mobocracy.
His type of Congregationalismt was eminently dignified.  It was
suggested to him by his Scriptural sense of the dignity of the
human soul.  While he condemned the character, he revered
the constitution of the mind, for it is the constitution of the
mind of Christ.  His language is: " Though man, since the fall,
comes into the world destitute of the moral image of God, yet
in the very frame and constitution of his nature, he still bears
the natural image of his Maker."  His soul is a transcript of
the natural perfection of God. " All the sufferings which Christ
hath endured on earth, and all the honors which he hath received in heaven, have displayed the dignity of man.  And for
the same reason, the dignity of man will be eternally rising with
the rising honor and dignity of Christ."  Dr. Channing has
been admired by his friends for developing the grandeur of the
human mind.  The sermon preached by Emmons in 1786, on
the Dignity of Man, is one illustration of his life-long tendency
to exalt the soul, and treat it with especial deference. He conversed with the poor, with the degraded, with the very outcasts
of society, as with men on whom God had bestowed a jewel of
infinite worth. This was the nobility of his Congregationalism.
This was his spirit of religious democracy. This was his principle of anti-slavery. This was the principle, that made him
jealous for the rights of every individual in the church.  He
aimed to exempt the humblest member from  the domination of
men who had received no express, official dominion from God.' The church," he writes, " is neither monarchical, like the
church of Rome; nor aristocratical, like the Presbyterian church;
but a pure democracy, which places every member of a church
upon a level, and gives him perfect liberty with order."
It was because Emmons revered the structure of the soul,
and regarded the local church as a society of regenerate souls,
endued not only with the natural but also with the moral image
of its Maker, that he exalted this local church as an assembly of
priests and kings, and therefore capable of regulating its own
concerns. A person who has been censured by the church, he
says, " has no right to appeal to any higher ecclesiastical tri



M E1MO IR.                       147
bunal for relief, because there is no higher ecclesiastical tribunal
on earth to which he can appeal; and the church have no right
to submit their decision to the decision of any higher tribunal."
~ 4. Dignity of the President of a Church.
His veneration for the local society of believers, Emmons extended to the ministry.  He denied the right of a pastor to put
his veto upon a vote of the church.  " The chief judge of the
supreme court," he writes, " has no negative on the side judges,
nor they upon him; for this plain reason, that they must bring
the matter before them  to a decision; but this could not be, if
they had a negative upon each other."  " The truth is, the pastor is but a mere moderator [of the church], and in respect to
voting, stands upon the same ground with a private brother."
Still, this Moderator of the church, this President of the society,
this Chief Justice among the Associate Judges, was treated by
the Franklin minister with peculiar reverence. He did not regard the presiding officer as appointed by men, but as chosen by
men, and as appointed by God when the men duly express the
choice which they have made.  He did not regard ordination as
a mere human acknowledgment, that the ordained man is a minister.  He teaches that' the ordainers do not convey any authority of their own, but only the authority of Christ, through
the medium of the church, to the man they ordain; by which he
is duly qualcfied to preach the Gospel to his own people, and
wherever he is called in providence to execute his ministerial
office, with which Christ has invested him."  When a church
has thus performed the condition on which God confers upon its
pastor the Presidential authority, that church has no right to
dismiss its President without the most imperative reasons.  The
ordination of a minister is a more dignified and authoritative
solemnity, than the election of a moderator by a secular association.  He writes thus:
Before the minister was ordained, " he was a mere candidate for
office; and whilst he stood in that predicament, they had a right to dismiss him from their service, if they were displeased with his voice, his
style, or any other mere personal defect, and call another upon trial.




148                        I EM 0 InR.
But after he is ordained, he no longer stands in the situation of a candidate; and the church have no longer a right to dismiss him, unless they
judge he is so heterodox in sentiment, or corrupt in practice, as to be
unqualified for the sacred work of the ministry. If a church dismiss a
minister without his consent, they must dismiss him as a man unfit for
the pastoral office in any other place, and refuse to recommend him.
The connection between a pastor and people, is too sacred and important
to be dissolved upon every trifling mistake on either side."
This is one of the paragraphs which illustrate the strength,
rather than the perspicuity of Emmons's style.1  He does not
mean that a council should never acquiesce in a minister's dismission from one church, when it can recommend him to another;
nor that a church may not find itself so embarrassed as to dismiss its pastor with a full testimonial of his excellence.  His
practice explains his meaning to be, that a church must not be
forward in discovering, still less in inventing, reasons for dismissing its pastor; its members must not disturb the peace of a
town by exciting hostility against a minister whom  they can
recommend to other churches; good men must never take the
initiative against a good shepherd, but must learn to bear with
his frailty, if they suppose that other men should^ bear with it.
It may be said, that even this is an extreme view of the indissoluble relation between the church and its President; but it
illustrates the tendency of Emmons to magnify the clerical office.  He revered this office so highly, that he overlooked many
a delinquency in the incumbents of it, because they sat in Moses'
seat.  About the time when Unitarianism  was developed in
Massachusetts, a neighboring pastor, favoring the Unitarian views,
was charged with certain improprieties of conduct, and examined
before a mutual council in reference to them.  Three of the
clergymen on the council were  chosen, because they were
friendly; and three, because they were hostile to the Unitarian predilections of the pastor; Dr. Emmons was invited by
the agreement of the two contending parties, because he was
known to be a candid, truth-loving divine.  In coming to the
result, the three counsellors chosen by the Unitarian party, voted
in favor of the suspected clergyman; the three chosen by the
1 See Chapter XV. ~ 6, below.




MEMOIR.                         149
Orthodox party voted against him. This tie indicates that the
case was a doubtful one, and in want of full evidence on either
side the partisans of each may have been governed by their theological predilections. But the moderator, Dr. Emmons, threw
his casting vote in favor of the accused.  It was hard for the
venerable patriarch to condemn a man who had not been proved
guilty, and who had been anointed of the Lord, and on whose.head had been laid the hands of tile Presbytery. In all the details of life he breathed the same reverence for the clerical dignity, whether the dignity was borne by his friends or foes. On
one occasion he heard some children in his household criticizing
sharply a sermon published by one of his ministerial neighbors.
He reproved them  for the style of their criticism.  The author
of the sermon was not a definitely Orthodox man, but he was an
ordained minister of God.  One of the children made a private
appeal to him: " Is not the sermon faulty?" —   Shut the
door," he replied; " come here; — it is rather a scattering
shot." -He must tell the truth, but not against a minister until
the door was shut.
" I have heard it said, even by a minister," he remarks in one
of his sermons, on an erroneous statement which might have
been expected from a layman, but which was actually uttered, as
he knew because he heard it, " even by a minister."
"Every minister of the Gospel," he remarks, " has a more
important cause to plead than ever employed the eloquence of
Demosthenes, or Cicero.  And if he gain his cause, he not only
saves a soul from death, and recovers a subject to God; but also
conquers the powers of darkness, and fills the world of light
with joy."
So highly did Emmons exalt the idea of a parish bishop, that
he left no room for any other bishop on earth.  So profound was
his respect for a local church, redeemed by the blood and sanctified by the Spirit of Christ, that he reserved no room for any
higher judicatory under the heavens.  He believed in the
advisory Council, and always stipulated that the local church
be at liberty to accept or reject the result of the Council, as
freely as the bench of supreme judges in a civil court adopt or
discard the opinions of advocates.  " One church," he writes,
"has as much power as another.  All churches are sisters, and
N^




150                      MEMO IR.
stand upon a level.  They may associate or consociate for
mutual advantage.  But no church has a right to give up its
power to an Association or Council, or any other ecclesiastical
body."  He resolutely opposed all attempts to make the Result
of a Council authoritative. He often spoke disparagingly of
Councils which aimed to assume a quasi ecclesiastical power.
He reprobated the practice of introducing lawyers to plead
before Councils.  The practice tends to transform  a familiar
reference for advice, into a stately process of judicature. The
principles of a Council ought to differ from  the principles of a
court.
~ 5. The C]hurch is a School.
" God has always held a school here, in which he has been
training rational and immortal creatures for their future and
eternal destination."  In an emphatic sense, Emmons regarded
every local church as a Christian school; and while it has a
Great Teacher in the heavens, it should have a subordinate.
teacher on the earth.  He was the subordinate teacher of the
Franklin church.  He had no more right to invent doctrines,
than to invent laws. He was to repeat the lessons which he had
learned from  his Master, as the church was to execute the
mandates given from  on high. He did not wish to fetter a
grammar school in Franklin with rules made by, or for, a grammar school in Georgia; and he did not wish to manacle the
church in Franklin with orders emanating from some astute
ecclesiastics in Florida.  He desired that the scholars of the
ecclesiastical school which he taught, would study their lessons,
would learn the truth, would confine themselves to their great
business of pondering on religious doctrine, and regulating their
life according to it, and would not cherish a meddlesome spirit
with regard to the internal processes of an ecclesiastical school
in Alabama.
~ 6. Emmons illustrated his own Type of Congregationalism.'" He was himself the great sublime he drew."  His example
developed his theory. We shall see hereafter that he ennobled




MEMOIR.                         151
his office by his teachings, that he adorned it by the dignity with
which he filled the Presidential chair, that he was a biblical diocesan, that he was a metropolitan hierarch, ordained in the temple
above.  We read that " he attended thirty councils called for
advice.  He received seventy-five calls to attend ordinations and
installations, as a member of councils, in six different States,
fifty-four of which he attended.  At twenty-five of these, he was
the preacher."  He was punctual at the meetings of the Mendon
Association, and regularly for the term of twenty-five years
presided over its deliberations.  Could the ministers of that
Association of which he was a member about sixty years, be introduced with him upon the canvas, as they appeared during the
last forty years of his life, they would all be painted as reverently
looking up to the only man in the group who wore a threecornered hat.  They were wont to visit him  as a mental mechanist, who would wind up their intellects and set them in
freer motion. The Presidents of our Colleges, the Judges of
our Courts, went out of their way to do him  reverence.  His
guests left him with renewed impulse to activity, with larger
views of the sphere in which they were called to labor. He did
not, at all times, engage the interest of his acquaintance, as he
did at chosen times; not abroad, so much as at home; not in
extreme old age, as in the prime of life.  But few men have
exerted greater power with so little parade. He has been called
a Jacobin; he might with as much propriety be called a monarchist.  He has been stigmatized as an agrarian; he might be
more fitly termed an aristocrat.  His manners were courtly.
His attitudes and whole bearing were those of the higher circles.
His opinions were received with great veneration by the clergy
around him. Why, then, was he not virtually an archbishop?
His honors were not official, but personal. His dominion was
not as an ecclesiastic, but as a Christian.  He was indebted
for his metropolitan authority to his character. He had no
bishopric save that of his superior worth.  If he had depended
for his diocesan supremacy upon the votes of a House of Bishops,
he would have been superseded by some more diplomatical
aspirant.  If he had relied on any popular election for his power,
he would have been outwitted by some more cunning strategist.
But he was borne along to his place gradually, imperceptibly,




152                      MEMOIR.
by the silent force of his inward, honest worth.  His influence
was independent of station; therefore it was permanent.  Accordingly, if he cherished a desire for influence, the desire
would not have led him to electioneering schemes, but to the
cultivation of his mind and heart. Those schemes might have
lubricated the way for him to slide into a place of ease or profit,
but nothing except inward culture will smooth the passage for a
scriptural archbishopric.' In free republics," he said, " where
liberty is equally enjoyed, every man has weight and influence
in -proportion to his abilities, and a fair opportunity of rising by
the dint of merit to the first offices and honors of the State."
But in a free church, where according to the remarkable words
of Richard Mather, every decree of a Council " has just so much
force, as there is force in the reason of it;" the influence of
solid worth is more facile and more certain, and the encouragements to promote it are more sacred and more sanctifying.
~ 7. The "Jealousy" of Emmons and Spring.
While the Congregationalism of Emmons does not appear at
all prominent in his writings, yet it influenced his entire life,
and incited him  to some of those public acts which, more than
any others, dimmed for a time his popularity. In a discourse
preached at the funeral of Dr. Samuel Spring, it was remarked
by Prof. Leonard Woods: " We [the friends of Andover Theological Seminary] had reason to thank him, not only for his
incessant watchfulness, but even for his jealousy over us;
because it was a godly jealousy."  This remark of Dr. Woods
gave umbrage to some men. It was true, however, and it might
have been applied to Emmons as well as to Spring, and might
have extended not only to one Theological Seminary, but to
many devices and processes of the churches.  Both of these
divines had an apprehension, though perhaps in an unequal
degree, that the principles of Congregationalism  might be imperilled by an undue zeal for extraneous help, and an improper
reliance on human authority, rather than on the simple truth.
How far Dr. Emmons was affected by this fear, will be obvious
in the ensuing chapter.




CHAPTER X.
IIS INTEREST IN THE POLICY OF THE CHURCHES.
~ 1. His Anticipatory Spirit.
IT was a characteristic of Dr. Emmons, that he would frankly
state his objections to a measure; and then, if his objections
were overruled, and if the measure promised on the whole to
result in more good than evil, he would acquiesce in the will of
the majority. He would have preferred, if he had been able, to
modify that will; but, being unable, he submitted to what he
deemed an inferior plan.  He lent his aid to the establishment
of various Institutions, while he apprehended injurious results
from some features of those Institutions.  He was not a foe to
the Establishments, and yet he disapproved of some peculiarities
in their structure.  He was decided in his disapproval; he was
open as the day in avowing it; but he was not obstinate in opposing what he would have chosen to alter.  Still less was he
selfish or malignant in attempting to injure what he would prefer to reform. He was as remarkable for his practical concessions, as for his theoretical objections, to new  schemes from
which he anticipated some mischief, but from which he hoped
for a still larger benefit to the common weal.
He was a conservative man; he did not easily move out of the
beaten track; yet he was enterprising, and in various particulars
he started forward in advance of his times. He was not fond of
the details of business. He was a man of principles, rather than
of facts. He had a profound acquaintance with human character.  He knew its latent springs of action, and its hidden tendencies. He estimated all plans of practical usefulness, according
to their agreement or disagreement with the general laws of the
human mind.  He sometimes failed to make sufficient allowance
(153)




154       -MEM OIR.
for the idiosyncrasies of particular individuals, and for the incidental and accidental circumstances which may essentially modify the result of these plans.  He judged of the machine by the
structure of its wheels and pullies, and sometimes did not calculate sufficiently upon those positions and exposures of the machine which materially affect the action of its parts. Hence his
anticipations, although often verified by fact, were sometimes
darker than the reality proved to be.  But his darkest anticipations had a solid basis. They evince his foresight and his
conservatism, even when they have not been borne out by subsequent history. They were often misunderstood, and were the
occasion of loading him with unmerited opprobrium. It was not
remembered, that his aversion to novelties often prevented him
from overlooking the objectionable features of new schemes.
~ 2. His Apprehensions of Evil from Sabbath Schools.
It has been reported, that he was an enemy of Sabbath Schools.
The charge is false, but still it was not fabricated without any
semblance of an apology for it. He highly approved of Sabbath
Schools in their original design.  This was to provide religious
instruction for the poor children who could not be taught by
their ragged, ignorant guardians.  But he anticipated, that if religious parents, who had been accustomed to teach the catechism
to their children every Sabbath day, should now send their little
ones to the Sabbath School, those parents would be tempted to
neglect their own appropriate duty of home instruction; and the
discourse, which fathers and mothers would utter with their
sense of responsibility for their offspring, could not, without detriment, be exchanged for the discourse of irresponsible, often
youthful teachers in the school.  He anticipated, for example,
that his own people would be more carefully instructed in the
Bible, if the fathers and mothers continued to feel their undivided responsibility to catechize their children every week, than
if they devolved this weekly exercise upon the often incompetent
guides who officiate in the Sabbath School. He revered the
family institution; he regarded the parents as priests in their
households, and he anticipated evil from any thing which dispensed with this priestly office. He believed that the members




MEMOIR.                           1,55
of a family should live at home. He disliked the practice of living out of doors, of having all things common, and of giving publicity to all religious action.  Home devotions, home teachings,
home duties of all kinds, he exalted to the highest place.
Besides, he had been accustomed to recommend distinctively
Calvinistic volumes for perusal in the families of his parish, and.he anticipated that the volumes prepared for Sabbath Schools by
a National Society, would be eviscerated of their Calvinism, and
would contain no doctrine or sentiment uncongenial with Wesleyan Arminianism, which was his especial abhorrence.  It is
interesting to notice, that since he made known his anticipations
of evil from  this source, the distinctively Calvinistic denominations have virtually sanctioned his view, have instituted libraries
for themselves, and have introduced a Sabbath School literature
from which the Calvinistic peculiarities need not be excluded.
It is also interesting to see, that all the evils which the Franklin
prophet foretold forty years ago, have been lamented in more
recent days.  The remark is often made, that the children of religious parents are not so carefully instructed in doctrinal theology, as they were once.  Indeed it has become fashionable, and
significant of rare orthodoxy, to express a fear that Sabbath
Schools are toning down our old Puritan faith.  Dr. Emmons
lifted up his voice on this theme, when the fashions were against
him.  He said, at the cost of his popularity, what men now say
with a gain to their popularity.  His predictions illustrate his
forecast, as well as his fondness for the old usages.  They also
prove that, although perspicacious, he was not perfect, and did
not foresee the methods in which the bad results which he feared,
might be obviated.  Notwithstanding, however, all his apprehensions, he did ultimately consent to the establishment of a Sabbath School in his own parish, where it'was needed less than in
parishes less carefully trained. By no means was he a foe to the
institution. He was a hearty friend of it amid uninstructed
communities, and a "jealous," watchful friend of it in all communities.
1 It is by no means pretended, that Dr. Emmons was the only evangelical divine
who feared some disastrous consequences from the Sabbath School. -In his discourse
delivered Sept. 10, 1860, at the funeral of Rev. Abel McEwen, D. D. of New London,
Connecticut, Rev. Professor Field remarks, p. 16, "There was one benevolent en



156                           I IE   OIR.
~ 3. His Apprehensions of Evilfrom the National Tract Society.
As Dr. Emmons apprehended some bad results from a Society,
that published only such  books for Sabbath Schools as would
secure the approval of Calvinists and Arminians; so he anticipated some bad results from  a Society, that published only such
Tracts for adults as would gain the assent of those antagonistic
parties.  At the formation  of the American  Tract Society, he'
predicted the very evils which have since been deplored. The
Calvinistic denominations have now formed Societies for circulating books and booklets which contain the distinctive articles
of the Calvinistic faith, and have thus borne witness to the foresight of Emmons, in prophesying that a National Society could
not furnish for the Calvinistic churches all the popular literature
which they need.   He did not oppose the writings published by
the  American Tract Society; he believed them  to be useful
within a certain and a large sphere; but he apprehended that
the plan of the Society, while it would accomplish vast good,
might also tend to lower the standard of our Puritan theology.
He did not love the National Tract Society less, but he loved
other philanthropic measures more.  He gave  counsel to  its
friends, and money to its funds, but he opposed some features of
its plan.  That plan  he regarded  as imperfect.  He regarded
himself as imperfect. Is he to be reprimanded for this distrust
of human beings?  May there not be what Dr. Woods called a' godly jealousy? 
~ 4. His Apprehensions of Evil from  all National Religious Societies.
One of his objections to the Societies named above, was equally
terprise in respect to the utility of which, in its incipient stages, he had doubt. It
was the Sabbath School. He was fearful, at first, that its teachings would be made a
substitute for the religious instruction of the household, which he believed to be the
divine institution for the training of the young. But he came to see its necessity for
those who could have no Christian instruction in the family, and the aid it might afford
to others, and he became its warm friend. Indeed he kept up, to the closing days of
his life, a fresh and lively interest in the varied objects of Christian benevolence."
1 We shall see hereafter, Chapter XIII. ~ 4, that one of Emmons's theological
pupils, Rev. Thaddeus Osgood, had virtually formed a Tract Society, was himself.
such a Society, long before the American Tract Society was originated.




MEMOIR.                         157
an objection to other National Societies.  He was not their
enemy, for he aided in sustaining them.  He was not their
blind admirer, for he apprehended evil from  some of their'tendencies. He was not made up of other people. He had so
long occupied one and the same chair in one and the same study,
that he placed a high estimate on individual thought, and indi-vidual methods of recommending it to the world.  His motto
was, "Let every man find his own level."  He apprehended
that National Associations might give undue importance to a
particular idea, and to particular persons. He reasoned thus:
Twenty or thirty leaders will control the Association; and its
thousands of members will be understood as lending their undivided authority to those few men. Twenty or thirty leaders will
propose one thought to the Association; and the thousands of
members of that Association, while in fact many of them dissent
from that thought, and many of them  know nothing about it,
will be understood as giving their influence in favor of it. Thus,
the idea acquires an authority which does not belong to it.
Thus, particular men gain a power to which they are not entitled.
This factitious influence is an evil.  The evil is augmented as
the Society is enlarged.  When the Society becomes National,
the time for warning has arrived.
The resistance which this self-consistent reasoner made to one
tendency of these associations, was like the resistance which he
made to what is termed fashion. He disliked the habit of every
man's giving up his individual opinion and individual preferences,
for the sake of complying with conventional modes in regard to so
small a matter as dress. He deemed it advisable for himself to
wear a clerical dress; and that style of apparel which he loved in
his childhood, and which was made venerable by his fathers.  He
did what he chose to do. He was willing that other men should
regulate their apparel according to their preferences, which were
different from his; but' his own tastes, which he deemed the
more respectable, he did not sacrifice to the conventional tastes
which he deemed the more undignified.  "'Do let every man
think for himself, and act for himself; "' Do not make every
man just like everybody else," were his mottoes. As he did not
1 See p. 127, above.
VOL. I.                 0




158                      MEMOIR.
insist, that other men wear shoe buckles and knee buckles, so he
did not wish other men to prevent his wearing them.  He was
not a conventional man, so much as he was an independent
thinker.
But he had a further objection to the National Societies. He
anticipated, not only that their moral power might become virtually a legal power, but also that certain individuals would
desire to form such associations as would in fact and in form
possess a legal power.  He early expressed the fear, that the
General Assemblies or Convocations of some churches would
assume legislative authority over processes, which ought to be
altogether within the domain of free thought and free speech.
He anticipated that the adherents of Samuel Spring would not
exactly coalesce with the adherents of Ashbel Green, in the
American Board of Gommissioners for Foreign Missions; and
that the adherents of Dr. Ashbel Green would be desirous of
bringing the cause of Foreign Missions under the legislative
authority of Church Courts.  The very complaints which he
made privately, when the Board was organized, were in less than
thirty years made publicly, when certain ecclesiastics withdrew
from that Board, in order to bring their missions under Church
control.  Could he have foreseen their withdrawal, one of his
objections to the structure of the National Board would have
been obviated.  The multiplication of large Societies would
divide the national authority between them, and thus prevent
that concentration of power which he feared.
This perspicacious man anticipated all the complaints which
the Presbyterians of the New School, have urged against the
Presbyterians of the Old School, in regard to voluntary societies
and the freedom of institutions from  the judicatories of the
church.  His revolutionary blood boiled at the idea of ecclesiastical control over the mind which God had made free. He
feared that the weapon of church power, although forged for the
cause of truth, might be silently turned against the very doctrines which it now defends.
The larger part of his autobiography was written almost sixty
years ago; a few paragraphs were written thirty-three years ago;
there are reasons for believing that the following sentences
were indited forty years ago.  Speaking of Calvinists, he says:




MEMOIR.                          159' They are indeed attacked by all sectarians and errorists; who
complain of them  for tenaciously maintaining an unsociable
religion; just as Jews and Gentiles complained of the primitive
Christians for maintaining the pure doctrines of the gospel,
which were equally hostile to every false religion in the world.
Those, therefore, who now understandingly embrace genuine
Calvinism, which is a system  composed of the essential and
fundamental principles of pure Christianity, cannot consistently
amalgamate with Arminians, Methodists, Antinomians, Sabellians, Arians, Socinians, or any species of Universalists and
Enthusiasts.  This is my settled opinion; and therefore I am
surprised that so many, who call themselves orthodox, appear so
fond of a coalition with other denominations of Christians, who
profess to hold systems of theology which are really opposite to,
and subversive of genuine Calvinism.  I have been a constant
and an attentive observer of the late revolutions in the religious
opinions of the clergy, the churches, and the people in New England and the United States.  I have also been considerably
acquainted with the various societies, which have been formed
for the promotion of very important and laudable purposes.
Some of these societies and some of their measures, I highly
approve and wish to promote. But I do not approve of any of
them as national societies, and claiming a national authority to
take the education of children out of the hands of parents;
or assuming a national authority to superintend our academies,
our colleges, our theological institutions, or our churches and
their pastors. And if they persist in their claims, and succeed
in their measures, I see nothing to prevent their establishing a
national religion, and exercising an ecclesiastical dominion, as
arbitrary and dangerous as any that now exists in the Christian
world.
" I believe it is my duty and the duty of all Calvinists and
Congregationalists, to use all proper means and exertions to
oppose and restrain every species of error and religious domination, which threatens to destroy our religious rights and
liberties.  The question now is, What can we do and what ought
we to do, in order to obstruct and check the growth and spread
of heresy and arbitrary power, among our churches and aspiring
ecclesiastics? It appears from all ecclesiastical history, that




160                      MEM O I R.
orthodoxy has been maintained, and heterodoxy suppressed, not
by uniting with the heterodox, but by fairly and boldly attacking
them with the powerful weapons of Scripture and reason. And
these are the only proper weapons to be used by the orthodox
against the heterodox, at the present day. I know, that the
heterodox have greatly the advantage of the orthodox, in respect
to numbers, union, and national popularity. But great is the
power of truth over error, and it will ultimately prevail. It
certainly becomes all Calvinists and Congregationalists to contend earnestly for the faith which was once delivered unto them,
by the first ministers and churches in New England. Harvard
College, Yale College, Dartmouth College, and all Theological
Institutions in Massachusetts and Connecticut, were founded by
Calvinists and Congregationalists; and it is to be hoped, that
some seeds of orthodoxy are still retained and cultivated in
these early seats of learning and religion. The orthodox, therefore, have some ground to expect, that if they put on the whole
armor of God, and magnanimously fight the good fight of faith,
they may yet revive and support the sinking cause of orthodoxy
and Christian liberty, in this day of declension, in this once
well instructed and well governed nation." - Memoir of himself.
Like many words of Dr. Emmons, these are too nervous to be
always rightly understood. They have been supposed to imply,
that he would lend no aid to our National Societies. But they
intimate no such thing. As he stated elsewhere 1 that no church
ought to dismiss a minister whom the church can recommend;
but as he still believed that when a church had become involved
in difficulties with its pastor, and had destroyed the prospect of
his usefulness, the church might, in those new circumstances,
dismiss and recommend him; so he stated here, that our National Societies ought not to have been formed; still, after they
were formed, he deemed it advisable to aid them. He opposed
the principle and the initiation of the societies, while he supported
them as establishments already existing.  He was an eminently
independent thinker, yet eminently inclined to respect such
institutions as were planted deep in the affections of good men.
1 See pp. 147, 148 above.




MEMOIR.                                  161
Like other self-forgetful Christians, Dr. Emmons does injustice
to himself in  the  paragraph  quoted  above.  " Some  of these
societies, and some of their measures I highly approve and wish
to promote!"  He does not proclaim  the fact, that he gave an
early impulse to some of them, and that he was alert in  recommnending them, before many of his brethren had recognized their
value.  If he had  sounded  his  own trumpet, he might have,claimed the honor of a pioneer in  advocating  the principle  of
Mutual Associations for benevolent purposes.  In  despite of all
his love for personal freedom  and individuality, he began, seventy
years ago, to propose the forming of such local societies.1
~ 5. His Distinction between the lNational and the State Societies.
When Dr. Emmons was asked, how he could defend the State
Societies, while he opposed some features in the National Societies, he would reply, that it is obviously day at eleven o'clock,
A. M., and it is obviously night at eleven o'clock, P. M., and yet
it is difficult to  draw  the exact line between  the day and the
1 As early as the third of November, 1790, he preached, and in the same year he
published, the words: "Nor let any imagine, that it is either impracticable or fruitless in these times to form unions in virtue to weaken and destroy the combinations in
vice."  After alluding to a sermon from the Bishop of St. David, portraying the
success of European Societies for the Reformation of Morals, Emmons continued:
" These accounts carry convincing evidence, that unions in virtue may be so formed
and conducted, as to restrain, in some measure at least, the progress of vice. What
is there, then, which can possibly prevent us, in this day of declension, from uniting
our exertions for the reformation of manners, but merely the want of virtuous resolution    Were we sufficiently possessed of virtuous resolution, we might easily form
such respectable unions, as would put the bold and brazen vices to the blush, and
cause them  to creep into corners.  Uinion is of singular service, to any who are
engaged in promoting the same common cause. It collects their wisdom, adds
weight to their characters, and at the same time enlivens their zeal and fortitude.
Indeed union in a good cause scarcely ever fails of success. Can we, therefore,
answer it to God, or to ourselves, if we neglect to pursue those measures which we
believe are wise and expedient, and would effectually check the progress of vice, and
produce a reformation of manners? I mean not, however, to urge this point. I
choose to submit this subject to your more private, deliberate, and solemn reflections.
But if the measure which we have now suggested should surpass the strength of your
virtue, yet there remain many other methods of restraining vice, which lie equally
open to every individual. Be entreated then to act properly as individuals, and
exert all the influence of your private characters and connections, to restrain the
licentiousness of the times."
Similar remarks are found in many other discourses preached more than sixty
0




162                              MEMOIR.
night; l so it is expedient to  form  religious associations within
the bounds of a community whose members are homogeneous,
and are naturally drawn together into social assemblages, but it
is inexpedient to  form   religious  associations,  comprehending
scattered  communities whose members are heterogeneous, and.
are not drawn naturally together into fraternal convocations; —
that it is difficult to mark out the precise line where the evil attending all artificial societies calls for public animadversion, and
where the advantage attending them justifies their enthusiastic,
unquestioning  eulogy; but the  general principle  is  apparent,
that large societies, concentrating the religious power of our extensive  domain, are  far more  perilous  than  smaller societies
which divide the power between them, and serve as checks and
balances to each other.   Could  he have foreseen  that the National Societies which elicited his criticism, would so soon divide
and subdivide into smaller associations, he would have indulged
still more hope and  still less fear respecting them.  His objections apply to the societies as they were, rather than to the societies as they are; to them as they were prospectively, rather
than as they are historically.
~ 6. His Apprehensions of Evilfrom  the General Associations of Ministers in a State.
There was one religious association, however, which  he preyears ago. As late as 1809, he printed in a pamphlet sermon, words like these:
"There never have been in any age of Christianity perhaps, so many benevolent
designs formed, to diffuse temporal and spiritual blessings among mankind as at the
present time. The Missionary Societies, the Tract Societies, the Bible Societies, the
Theological Societies, and the various species of Humane Societies, have greatly
multiplied within these very few years. All these societies not only present opportunities of doing good, but loudly call upon all classes of men to contribute, in some
mode or other, to the temporal and spiritual benefit of those who are suffering by a
famine of bread, or a famine of knowledge, or a famine of hearing the word of the
Lord. Let the rich, and all who enjoy a competency of the good things of life,
improve these precious opportunities -of giving from the purest motives and for the
noblest ends. Let them everywhere contribute according to their abilities, for the
comfort and relief of the poor, for the private and public instruction of youth, for the
maintenance of ministers at home, for the support of missionaries abroad, and for the
propagation of the gospel to the ends of the earth."
1 In 1796, he wrote: " We often meet with doubtful cases in seeing, hearing, and
reasoning; but we never infer from these, that there are no plain cases in which we
know, that we see and hear and reason according to truth."




M E   Ol  1R.                            163
ferred to limit, not only within narrower boundaries than those
of the nation, but also within narrower boundaries than those of
a State.  He favored the plan  of Clerical Associations that are
private and social, including the ministers of a County, or a sinlilar District; but he reprobated the plan of Clerical Associations
that are general, and comprehend all the District Associations of
a Commonwealth.1   He feared, that while a General Association
disclaimed  all authority over the churches, it would yet wield a
silent authority over them; for the inclination of men is to attribute special power to a large  convocation.  He thought, moreover, that he detected tendencies in some well-meaning Congregationalists, to introduce various elements of Presbyterianism
into  the  Congregational churches.  He  apprehended  that, instead of confronting Unitarianism by argument, certain clergymen  would become more and  more inclined  to  confront it by
church power, by an associational authority which would slide in
slow degrees into a modified Presbyterianism. His memorable
dictum  was: " Associationism  leads to Consociationism; Consociationism  leads to  Presbyterianism; Presbyterianism  leads to
Episcopacy; Episcopacy leads to  Roman Catholicism; and Roman Catholicism  is an ultimate fact." 2
1 The opinion which Dr. Emmons expressed a half century ago. is in some respects
confirmed by Dr. James W. Alexander, who says: "May 28, 1859. Upon any fair
calculation of probabilities, how likely is it that a promiscuous assembly at Indianapolis, will decide a question aright for the whole church? I have long looked in vain for
any scriptural or rational foundation for supreme'courts' having half a continent for
their scope. This feeling of mine does not extend to Presbyteries."  See Letters of
Dr. Alexander, Vol. II. p. 288.
2 He often reiterated the substance of this remark. He writes: "If we depart
from the platform of church discipline, which Christ has given us in the eighteenth
chapter of Matthew, there is nothing in Scripture to prevent our being Presbyterians,
or Episcopalians, or Papists."  He writes again: "It seems to be a very general
opinion, that churches can concentrate and increase their power by union. It is upon
this principle of union, that a presbytery is supposed to have more power than a single
church; that a synod has more power than a single presbytery; that the general assembly has more power than a single synod; and that the pope at the head of what is
called the universal church, has more power than all other ministers and churches in
the world. If the premises are granted, these consequences must follow. If churches
may concentrate and increase their power by union, then an association may have
more power than a single church; a consociation may have more power than an association; a synod may have more power than a presbytery; a general assembly may
have more power than a synod; and the church universal, with his Holiness at their
head, may have more power than all other churches and all other clergymen in the




164                          M EM OIR.
The Mendon Association, whose acts are singularly identified
with those of Emmons, has the following history in reference to
the Massachusetts General Association:
" A communication from the Brookfield Association, dated March 22,
1802, was received, proposing the subject of forming a State Association,
and inviting correspondence.  Whereon it was 6 voted, 8 June, 1802, to
choose a committee to repair to Northampton, to meet the committees of
other Associations, agreeably to proposals. Rev. David Sanford and
Rev. Samuel Austin were chosen as committee.' Both these gentlemen
attended the preliminary meeting at Northampton, July 7, 1802. The
consideration of their report was deferred from October 1802, until October 1803, when,' the minds of the Association being taken, whether they
will accede to the proposal made to them, and send two delegates to the
convention next June, the vote passed in the negative.' The motion of
Rev. Dr. Lyman, of Hatfield, in the Convention of Congregational Ministers, May 30, 1804, to enlist that body in a general movement to the
same end, and which was by vote of Convention referred to the district
Associations, was also rejected by this Association. The subject again
came up in 1807, by a letter from the scribe of the General Association,
when the same vote of refusal was repeated. So the matter rested until
April, 1841, when a vote of union was passed." 
" The chariot and horseman " of the Mendon Association had
at that time risen to the skies; and it was no longer necessary
to testify a reverence for his ancient opinions by remaining aloof
from the General Union.  Dr. Emmons had virtually succeeded,
in all that he aimed to accomplish by resisting what he deemed
the incipient tendencies of that Union.  He had exerted an efficient influence against investing that Body with any remnant of
Presbyterial power.  He believed that when that Body was first
projected, there were proclivities in certain minds, which would
incline them  to bring the Congregational Association into such
world. Congregationalists often complain of Presbyterians, Episcopalians, and Papists, on account of their church government: but they have no reason to complain;
for they act upon precisely the same principle, when they concentrate and increase
their ecclesiastical power by union with associations, consociations, and ecclesiastical
councils. When any church gives up its independence to any other ecclesiastical
body, it gives up all its power. But Christ has given no power to churches which
they may give away. Congregational churches at this day ought to be on their guard,
and strenuously maintain their independence."
1 Blake's History of the Mendon Association, pp. 52, 53.




MEMOIR.                          165
a correspondence with the Presbyterian Assembly, as would at
last result in a kind of authoritative union with it.  As an independent scholar he dreaded any such union as would interpose
the slightest check upon the sacred privilege of thinking and
writing freely, and such as would diffuse among the churches of
the Pilgrims that love of ecclesiastical rule, which had grown
with the growth of the Scotch and Irish Presbyterianism, transplanted into the Presbyterian Church of the United States.  He
believed that if no General Association were formed, the tendencies of these Presbyterianizing Congregationalists would be
effectually resisted; but if such an Association were formed,
there would be danger of infusing certain Presbyterian elements
into the Commonwealth where John Wise lived, and where men
were free born. No man that is born of a woman can now decide, what would have been the present state of our churches, if
the ecclesiastical patriot of Franklin who early learned that " the
price of liberty is perpetual vigilance," had not stood up erect
against the Presbyterian leanings of some Congregational divines.
Long after he put his foot down against all authoritative Associations, one and another of our clergymen have openly avowed
their preference for a stricter church government than now exists
among us; and more than one attempt has been made to introduce the principles of Consociationism into the system which has
made our fathers free.  Each of these attempts has been crushed
in its infancy, but it would not have been, we imagine, if the
strong utterances of the Franklin pastor had not moulded the
public opinion.  " Beware of the Concision" was the watchword of Emmons and Spring, when they detected a longing for
the Consociation.
Indeed some have supposed, that  the highest service which
Dr. Emmons ever rendered to the States of Massachusetts, New
Hampshire, Maine, and Vermont, where  his writings were
studied and his pupils were scattered, was in his resisting the
tendency to subvert the established freedom of their churches.
If any man will study the Proceedings of the General Association of Massachusetts during the years 1814, 1815 and 1816,1
1 After detailing the early history of the Association, Dr. Joseph S. Clark observes:
"The subsequent history of the General Association discloses many acts of great moment in their relation to Christ's kingdom, though the danger early pointed out of




166                             MEMOIR.
and will read various Essays published  in  the Panoplist during
those and the adjacent years, and if he will call to mind the interest felt by many Presbyterians out of New England in the
ecclesiastical progress of Connecticut and Massachusetts, he will
see that there must have been a strong power at work against
the Presbyterianizing policy, or it would have prevailed.  MeIn
like  President Kirkland, of Harvard  College, considered  that
c strong power " as residing in the Franklin pastor more than iri
any other one individual.  It is true that the Liberal Clergy resisted the movement for a virtual Consociation, but if Emmons
and his school had favored the plan, it would, probably, have
triumphed over the opposition of the Liberals.
~ 7. His Apprehensions of Evil from  the "Plan of Union."
As Dr. Samuel Hopkins anticipated  not much good,1 so Dr.
Emmons anticipated very much evil fiom  the " Plan of Union "
commenced in 1801 by the Congregationalists and Presbyterians
with the special design  of cooperating in  our recently  settled
States.  He did not believe  that an  ordinary house was large
enough for two families.  He believed that the " union " would
be a " union indeed," all on one side.2  He believed, that the rigid
treading upon ecclesiastical ground, has not been avoided in all their proceedings.
Not always have the fundamental principles of Congregationalism been kept in mind
when business, more pertinent to churches than ministers, has come up in these clerical meetings." — Iistorical Sketch of the Congregational Churches in MIassachusetts,
p. 241. The fact that the General Association have impinged so infrequently on the
genius of Congregationalism, may be attributed in no small degree to the " sensation"
caused by the outspoken sage of Franklin.
1 See Memoir of Hopkins, p. 167.
2 Dr. Emmons never condemned the Presbyterians for their attachment to their own
system of government; but he condemned the Congregationalists for their want of
attachment to their own. Dr. Ashbel Green gives the following illustration of the
denominational zeal which has compacted the Presbyterian church, and the want of
which has enfeebled the Congregationalists: "As early as the year 1799 [1809],
Dr. Griffin, with whom I was then intimate, endeavored by letter to persuade me to
take part with those who about that time were engaged in establishing the Theological Seminary at Andover, and to use my influence in favor of sending candidates
for the gospel ministry in the Presbyterian church to that institution, for their theological education.  This I refused, as calculated to lessen the attachment of our
candidates to the Presbyterian church, and as derogatory to our denomination, which
I thought ought to have, and would ultimately, I hoped, have a Seminary of its
own." - Memoir of Dr. Green, p. 332.




MEMOIR.                                  167
government of the Presbyterians would  prevail over the freer
government of the Congregationalists, unless the two denominations kept themselves distinct from  each other.  He believed,
that a sect which has an imposing machinery of rules and orders,
would absorb a sect which is not thus barricaded with artificial
laws, unless each of the sects maintained  its own individuality.
He believed, that it is easier to swallow a naked babe than a babe
encased in  steel.  He believed, that when  the lion lies down
with the lamb, the lion has little to fear. He resisted the tendency  of the Congregationalists to undervalue  and  relinquish
their peculiar privileges, and to mistake an indifference toward
their ancestral usages for a true catholicism. He did not look upon
a liberal spirit as consisting in a disregard for the best system,
but in an adherence to the best system  and in charity toward its
opposers.  He respected the Presbyterians too much to think, that
they would respect the Congregationalists for renouncing their
ancestral privileges.  He predicted ultimate contention from  the
plan  of amalgamating  sects which  ought to be separate and
fraternal; —separate  in  order to  be fraternal.  What he  described  in  prophecy, has now been  detailed  in  history;  and
multitudes who admire his penetration, repent that they had
not followed his advice.'
1 This far-seeing Congregationalist had perused such resolutions as the following,
passed by the General Assembly and by various Associations in New England. He
was startled by them; for when the Presbyterians obtained the right of voting in
Congregational "meetings," he feared that our simple "meetings" would become
mechanical structures. He regarded the following "orders" of the General Assembly, as a prelude to still more decisive and aggressive acts.
"May 16, 1794. On motion, Ordered, that the delegates appointed from  the
General Assembly to the General Association of Connecticut, propose to the Association, as an amendment to the Articles of intercourse agreed upon between the
aforesaid bodies, that the delegates from these bodies respectively, shall have a right,
not only to sit and deliberate, but also to vote in all questions which may be determined by either of them; and to communicate the result of their proposal to the next
General Assembly." - (3inutes of the General Assembly, p. 80).
"May 22, 1795. Dr. McWhorter, laid before the General Assembly, an extract
from the minutes of the proceedings of the General Association of the State of
Connecticut, which, having been read, was ordered to be entered upon the minutes of
the General Assembly, and was as follows:
" The motion of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian church, that the delegates
from that Assembly to this Association, and the delegates from this Association to
that Assembly, be empowered to vote in all questions decided in those bodies




168                            MEMOIR.
~ 8. His Letter to Dr. Lyman.
Four years  previous  to  the  union  described above, of the
Massachusetts  Association  with  the  General Assembly, Dr.
Emmons wrote  the following  epistle to his classmate Lyman.
He did not suspect his  excellent classmate  of an  attempt to
superinduce an autocratical authority over our free churches;
but he did suspect that his good friend was advocating a policy
which would result not merely in our receiving two Presbyterian
votes every year, but in our imbibing the spirit of ecclesiastical
rule, and the love of substituting church decisions for arguments.
He apprehended that the Assembly and the Associations might
eventually become one authoritative tribunal.  He wrote of results, as if he had a clear sight of them  in certain tendencies,
and  his  Revolutionary spirit was on  fire  at the  thought of
" strengthening " the Congregational churches by giving up their
individual power. Notwithstanding his habitual deference to the
persons of his opponents, and his wonted courtesy in expressing
his  antagonism  to  them, he now  writes with  the spirit of a
soldier:
FRANKLIN, February 9, 1807.
"DEAR SIR, — The Secretary of your last General Association has
duly transmitted their doings to a member of our Association, which will
be laid before them at their next meeting in June.
"I approve of your zeal and assiduity in promoting what you verily
respectively, was taken into consideration; and after discussion, the General Association voted a compliance with the said proposal." - (Minutes of the General Assembly, p. 96.)
The Minutes of the Assembly add (p. 462): "On the sixteenth of May, 1811, the
delegates from the Massachusetts General Association made a proposal for uniting
with the Assembly, and one article of the union was, that two delegates from each
body should be annually admitted to the other, and should have the same right of
sitting, debating, and voting, as was given to the other members of the body.
" The delegates stated that the Shorter Catechism of the Westminster Assembly
was adopted as the basis of their union, and by answering several questions proposed to them, fully satisfied the Assembly relative to the standard of their faith, and
the object of their Association: Whereupon,
" Resolved, unanimously, That said union be formed.
"And it accordingly was formed."
It was natural for such men as Emmons to inquire: Why did not the Congregationalists examine the Presbyterians; as well as the Presbyterians, the Congregationalists.




MEMOIR.                            169
believe to be such a good and important cause. I wish I could see
reasons to view it in the same light, and to unite my feeble efforts with
yours in carrying it on.
"But admitting you have given me a fair and full representation of the
basis, the design, the extent, and the desired and expected effects of your
plan of union, still, I apprehend, at present, that more evil than good will
finally result from it.
"I am very willing to submit my thoughts, upon this subject, to your
candid and discerning mind. I fully believe, your extensive Association
will eventually unite all the members in doctrine, discipline, and influence, by moral means, without the aid of civil authority to enforce
their advice, resolutions, or edicts. It will soon be found who are the
majority in regard to numbers and abilities; and these will be able and
disposed to carry all points of controversy or difference in opinion
respecting doctrine, discipline, and measures, according to their own
pleasure. The minority must submit, or feel the weight of a body which
can crush the influence and destroy the character of individuals. This
will be the case, supposing the Association should continue to act according to their first and sincere design.
"But may not, and will not, corruption creep in among them, and warp
them from the path of rectitude?  Will not their union and strength
create a thirst for more strength and more union? Did not ecclesiastical
domination arise from this source in the Church of Rome, in the Church
of England, and in the High Church of Scotland?  I cannot but fear
these evils will result from your united but heterogeneous body, when
I consider more particularly its component parts.
" Though you and I call ourselves Calvinists, and that justly, yet there
are very visible shades of difference in our religious opinions.  In your
body, there is a large number of my sentiments and a larger number of
yours. Suppose they all feel as you and I feel, very tenacious of their
own way of thinking.  Will they easily unite?  It is certain they
cannot unite without mutual condescension, but who shall begin to
condescend?  My side fear if they give up one point, they shall only
prepare the way to give up another. Your side have the same apprehension. But your side have the largest number and best abilities, and
consequently will, beyond all doubt, carry their points. This would be
the case, were there only two parties in the Association. There are
more than two; there may be ten. There are some old Calvinists,
some Hopkinsians, some Semi-Calvinists and Semi-Arminians, some
Congregationalists, and many Presbyterians. These last, in respect to
numbers, reputation, and talents, are superior to all the other members of
VOL. 1.                   P




170                           MEMOIR.
the union. Now, the professed design of this large combined body is to
bring about a greater union in religious and ecclesiastical theory and
practice.  But this union will require a centre, and who will be that
centre? Undoubtedly the Presbyterians; those of your cast will naturally unite with them in points of doctrine, and very easily in points of
discipline; those of my cast must make greater sacrifices and give up
their peculiar sentiments, in regard both to doctrine and discipline, to the
Presbyterians~ The Semi-Calvinists and Semi-Arminians, must come
up or down, which you please, to the Calvinistic and Presbyterian
standard. The final result will be a general union according to the
immutable laws of Presbyterianism.
"But can it be supposed that this large body, which may comprise
nine tenths of the clergy, will stop at this point?  Will they not in time
to come, as they always have in time past, endeavor to usurp authority
over all classes, ranks, and orders of mankind?
I know, you would not wish to be instrumental in producing such dire
effects in church and state; and I can hardly believe you would be
willing to meet some evils which you may experience in the proceedings
of the Association in its present form.  Should the Hopkinsian members
gain the ascendency in your meetings, which in this part of the Union
may happen, you might find yourself in an unpleasant situation. They
might bear hard upon your creed, and propagate their own.  But you
do not expect they will ever gain superior influence in the Association;
but I believe those who have joined you, expect it, and will labor hard
to obtain it, though I think with you, they will be entirely disappointed.
I consider the Association as not only calculated, but designed to overthrow Hopkinsianism.  It would not be strange to me, if, in your zeal
for orthodoxy and abhorrence of heterodoxy, you should generally unite
in bearing down and even confusing the Hopkinsian members for their
supposed heresy, not to say blasphemy.  We know  that the General
Assembly at Philadelphia arraigned the President of Tennessee College,
and condemned him for maintaining what they considered as Hopkinsian
sentiments.l  But you say there is no evil to be apprehended from your
1 The Minutes of the General Assembly for May 28, 1798, contain the Report
adopted by the Assembly in regard to President Balch. The Report specifies anong
other things, that "Mr. Balch is erroneous in making disinterested benevolence the
only definition of holiness or true religion; because this may perplex the minds of
those not accustomed to abstract speculations, is questionable in itself, and may
convey the idea, that an absolute God, or, a God out of Christ, is the object of the
highest affection to the renewed mind.".... The Report also states, " That Mr.
Balch has confounded self-love with selfishness in an abstract speculation, calculated
to puzzle plain Christians, and lead to unprofitable disputes.".... The Report




MEMOIR.                               171
Christian and benevolent design.  You may be right, or you may be
wrong in your opinion.  For my part, I do not wish to form a powerful
engine which  may do hurt as well as good, when I am  sensible I
cannot direct its operations. It appears to me, that all the benefits which
you  contemplate as arising from  the General Association may be
obtained without it; and all the evils I have mentioned, be happily
avoided.  The present clerical bodies may correspond upon all the
subjects you propose, without being linked together by an indissoluble
bond; and their mutual correspondence may collect all the information,
and produce all the good ends that can be reasonably desired.
" I do not expect, that these observations will have the least influence
upon your opinion which has been confirmed by practice; but I hope that
they will convince you I have not acted, and do not mean to act, from
mere caprice, in reference to a design which so many excellent men
patronize and wish to promote.  Nor is this all, for I ardently wish to
excite your caution and zeal, to prevent, as far as it lies in your power,
the evils which I think I foresee as arising out of a mode of conduct in
the clergy that has always heretofore injured the cause of Christ, and
oppressed some  of his faithful servants.  With this contrariety of
opinion,                I am your sincere
"and constant friend,
"NATHANAEL EMMONS."
" Dr. LYMAN."
One may easily smile at the apprehensions intimated in the
preceding letter, but one must consider the time when the letter
was written, and the spirit of the parties to whom the letter relates.  Many of the Presbyterians had indulged in the sternest
further states: " That in making repentance and faith to proceed wholly from love or
charity, Mr. Balch has expressed an opinion unnecessary and improper."....
The Report concludes: " On the whole, your committee recommend that Mr. Balch
be required to acknowledge before the Assembly that he was wrong in the publication of his creed; that in the particulars specified above, he renounce the errors
therein pointed out; that he engage to teach nothing hereafter of a similar nature;
that the Moderator admonish him of the divisions, disorder, trouble, and inconvenience which he has occasioned to the church and its judicatories by his imprudent
and unwarrantable conduct, and warn him against doing any thing in time to come
that may tend to produce such serious and lamentable evils; that if Mr. Balch
submit to this, he be considered as in good standing with the Church; and that the
reference and queries of the Synod of the Carolinas be considered as fully answered
by the adoption of those measures."- (Minutes of the General Assembly, pp. 155,
156.)




172                            MEMOIR.
philippics against the Hopkinsian scheme, and Emmons endeavored to prevent all occasion for transferring sharp words into
sharp acts. As early as 1791, Dr. Ashbel Green wrote in his
private diary: I
"Arrived at Mr. Austin's [Dr. G. refers to Emmons's brother-in-law at
Worcester] about seven o'clock.  He received me politely.  He appears
to be a man of real piety, and his wife is a very amiable woman.  He
has the reputation of being a new divinity man. The sentiments of this
system I do not altogether like; but I have expressed myself in regard
to it too freely and severely; let me be more cautious in future."
Emmons was fully apprised of Dr. Green's unsparing  criticisms, but he had not been apprised of these honorable confessions.  From  the data which he  did possess, he inferred that,
sooner or later, an " exscinding'"  spirit would arise in the Presbyterian Assembly, and he wrote many nervous letters that he
might forestall even the temptation to " exscind " the churches
of New England.  His aim  was pacific.  The result of such letters has been comparative peace.  The children  who are free,
forget the perils and ridicule the anxieties of their fathers, who
gave them liberty.
~ 9. His Apprehensions of Evil from Protracted Meettngs.
In the year 1816, the Synod of Philadelphia published a Circular Letter, containing the following  noteworthy paragraphs,
which called forth a rebuke from  the General Assembly on the
twenty-fourth of May, 1817:
"The Synod, assembled in Lancaster at the present time, consists of a greater number of members than have been convened at any meeting for many years; and from
their free conversation on the state of religion, it appears that all the Presbyteries are
more than commonly alive to the importance of contending earnestly for the faith once
delivered to the saints, and of resisting the introduction of Arian, Socinian, Arminian,
and Hopkinsian heresies, which are some of the means by which the enemy of souls
would, if possible, deceive the very elect. The Synod desire to cherish a stronger regard for the truth as it is in Jesus, than they find at present subsisting among themselves: and because they are not ignorant of the disposition of many good men to cry'peace,' where there should be no peace, and' there is no danger,' in cases in which
1 Memoir of Dr. Green, p. 217.




MEMOIR.                                 173
God commands us to avoid the appearance of evil, they would affectionately exhort
each Presbytery under their care, to be strict in the examination of candidates for
licensure or ordination, upon the subject of those delusions of the present age, which
seem to be a combination of most of the innovations made upon Christian doctrine in
former times.
"May the time never come in which our ecclesiastical courts shall determine, that
Hopkinsianism and the doctrines of our Confession of Faith are the same thing, or
that men are less exposed now than in the days of the Apostles to the danger of perverting the right ways of the Lord.
" The Synod would exhort particularly all the Elders of the Churches to beware of
those who have made such pretended discoveries in Christian theology as require an
abandonment of the'form of sound words,' contained in our excellent Confession
and the Holy Scriptures....
~ ~  " Three or four of our Churches have experienced what is commonly called a
vival of religion, and to them accessions of communicants have been numerous; but
ii many other congregations, a gradual but almost constant multiplication of the profes ed friends of Zion reminds us, that if the thunder storm in summer excites the
most attention, it is the continued blessing from the clouds which replenishes the
springs, and makes glad the harvest of the husbandman. For the many who are
united in a short time, and for the many who are gradually gathered to Christ, not by
the great and strong wind that rends the mountains, nor by the earthquake, but by
the still small voice, which cometh not with observation, we would give our Redeemer
thanks, and desire the churches to bless him, no less for the daily dew, than the latter
and the early rain."
These extracts are here given not as proofs, but as intimations
of the fact, that Hopkinsianism  and Revivals of Religion were
associated together; that the preachers of the New Divinity were
regarded as the stirring, progressive men, innovators upon the
practice, not less than upon the doctrine, of the more ancient Calvinists.  The Synod of Philadelphia did not intend, in the foregoing paragraph, to disparage Revivals of Religion.  Yet the Synod
was reprimanded by the Assembly for a passage which  " appears
capable of being construed as expressing an opinion unfavorable "
to them.  Dr. Emmons, at one time, was suspected, in a similar
way, of indifference  to  revivals  of religion.  His words were
misinterpreted.   The  mass  of men  did  not analyze.   They
judged  by the gross.  They  drew  large inferences from  small
premises.  Like  other Hopkinsians, Emmons was a  friend  of
progress in  doctrinal and  practical religion.  He was  not a
" man of bustle,"  but he was a "' man of stir."   He was a true
revivalist.  Professor Pond writes:' Emmons was not what may be specifically called a revivalpreacher;
P 




174                        MEMOIR.
and yet he loved revivals of religion, and enjoyed special seasons of refreshing among his own people. Of his deep interest in revivals, I may
notice an instance which came under my own observation. While I was
a settled minister in Massachusetts, I received a visit, - the only one I
ever received - from my venerated instructor. It was a time of general
religious interest among my people. In the course of conversation, I
stated to him some interesting particulars respecting the revival, and especially in regard to several very young persons who had recently indulged hope. The feelings of the good man were so much moved, that
he almost wept aloud. The tears literally ran down his face, and fell
upon the floor."
In what way did the rumor originate that Emmons was unfavorable to these religious excitements?  It sprang from  the
fact, that he was among the first, and, so far as we know, he was
the very first to prophesy evil from the Protracted Meetings which
were so frequent thirty years ago.  He uttered his predictions
at the cost of his popularity. On this, as on other practices, he
stemmed a tide of public opinion, and on this, as on other practices, he anticipated the ultimate judgment of men. Hundreds
agree with him  now, where tens agreed with him  once.  The
multitude who reproached him for his stiff antagonism to " Protracted Meetings," have at length gone beyond him in their opposition to them.  His clerical neighbor writes:
" Although there was a time when there was scarcely a minister or a
church of his own denomination, or any other which favors revivals of
religion, that did not in some way or other give them [Protracted Meetings]
countenance, yet he uniformly and decidedly opposed them. He did not
doubt that they might be instrumental of much present good. He listened
with interest to the accounts which were given of the numbers suddenly
awakened and convicted, and he candidly allowed that many by these means
might be brought to a saving knowledge of Christ. But still he would
say,'they are an unauthorized measure, a human device, which will in the
end do more hurt than good.' Among the evils which he feared, was an
undue excitement, which would lead ministers to give a distorted view of
the Gospel, by dwelling upon those points only which are suited to produce the greatest present effects; and the people to mistake the feeling
of interest awakened by the peculiar circumstances in which they are
placed, for genuine piety. He was afraid also, that these extraordinary
meetings would create a disrelish for the common means of grace; and




MEMOIR.                            175
that the performances ot ministers invited from a distance for the occasion, being, of course, if not their most labored discourses, their most popular and interesting ones, would create dissatisfaction among the people
with such sermons as their own pastor, in other circumstances, would be
able to preach. He used to say that a dreadful reaction would follow
these proceedings; that in some cases there would be great stupidity,
and in others great restlessness among the churches; that many churches
would be divided, many ministers dismissed, many souls deceived by the
encouragement of false hopes, and many sinners turned away in disgust
from the ministry of the gospel. He conceded that much might be done
to prevent these evils, by peculiar wisdom and care on the part of those
who had the management of the meetings. But still he contended, that
they were a measure illy suited to the permanent welfare of the churches;
a measure which the great Head of the church did not see fit to appoint,
and which no degree of wisdom or effort on the part of men could render
generally and permanently useful.
" How far he was right or wrong in the views which he entertained
in regard to this subject, the public now have a better opportunity to
judge than either he or they had, at the time when his opinion was expressed." 
1 Dr. Ide's Memoir, pp. 51, 52.




CHAPTER XI.
HIS CONNECTION WITH THE CAUSE OF MISSIONS.
~ 1. His Early Interest in Missions.
As there were Reformers before the Reformation, so there
was a missionary impulse before the commencement of the missionary enterprise. This diffusive spirit of Christianity developed itself,in an eminent degree, among the divines of the Hopkinsian  school.  They  trace their principles  to Edwards, the
teacher of Brainerd, who was the companion of Hopkins and the
townsman of Emmons.  Proximately, they trace their distinctive
views to  the Patriarch  of Great Barrington and Newport, who
was the projector of an important missionary scheme, and the
cherished counsellor of Samuel Spring, his pupil, and of Nathanael Emmons, his admirer.'  His adherents were early imbued with his own missionary spirit.  The following letter was
dated May 25, 1798, twelve years before the origin of the American Board, and was addressed by Dr. Asa Burton, a well-known
disciple of the Newport divine, to his old instructor, Dr. Levi
Hart, who was the most intimate companion of that divine, and
the preacher of his funeral sermon at Newport, R. I.
"You also desired me to give my opinion respecting the subject of Missions.
IThere is] no one who has a love for souls who has not an earnest desire for the salvation of the heathen, and the spread of the Gospel wherever it is not enjoyed. We
also know that God works by means; hence we cannot expect miracles will be
wrought to effect the spread of the Gospel through the world. Neither can we expect
the Indians in America, or heathen in any other part of the world, will, before they
are Christianized, do any thing to support the Gospel among them. If they will have
it when sent to them, this is as much as can be expected while they remain in a state
of heathenism.
1 See Memoir of Hopkins, sections XXXII-XLI.
(176)




MEMOIR.                                 177
"How, then, can missionaries be supported? To send any considerable number,
this support would amount to a large bill of expense. If money can be raised for
their support, one obstacle is removed. Whether any considerable sum can be raised,
cannot be known only by making the trial. If the attempt proves unsuccessful, the
object had in view is not injured. I would, therefore, in that way thought best, make
an attempt to raise money. If God should see fit to own and bless the attempt, might
we not hope he would dispose the hearts of people to contribute liberally?
"When money is raised, another object, in my view, of great importance, is the
choice of proper persons for missionaries. If persons should be sent who would make
it one of their chief objects to make a fortune in some way out of those they are sent
to preach to, their object would soon be discovered, which would most likely wholly
thwart the design. If men of ability, men of knowledge, men who, wishing for no
more of this world than enough to support them on their journey through it, desiring
to be a means of the salvation of souls more than any thing, men of prudence, who
would set an example also of Christianity in their lives; if men of such description
can be found who would willingly offer themselves to the service, we might undoubtedly hope for success.
"But can men of this character, in any considerable number, be found, who would
be willing to undertake in the business? I fear not. But few who are graduated at
our colleges at this day follow the work of the ministry, and some of those who do, are
not fit for it. I have sometimes thought whether it would not be beneficial to the
spread of the Gospel for such gentlemen as Mr. Hart, Emmons, Dr. West, Dr. Edwards, and others, to set up schools of Divinity, receive none but those who give good
evidence of sincere piety, and instruct them till they are fit to commence preaching.
Many, perhaps, of this number might be found who would be able to defray the expense of their education, which would be finished in a shorter time than a College
education.
"This suggestion you may think romantic, but there can be no hurt in having mentioned it. Indeed, what shall we do for pious ministers to supply vacancies in our
own country, if some such method is not adopted, so long as our Colleges remain in
such a state of degeneracy. The Baptists furnish a supply' of preachers, and the
Methodists. Where better men are not to be had, people will be more apt to hear
and settle them. Thus the prevalence of these sects will be one effect, I believe, which
will follow from the want of able candidates in the ministry. I have suggested these
thoughts for your remarks, if you think them worthy of notice."
"And I was transported with the thought of the unspeakable
blessedness of the day when universal benevolence should prevail
among  all mankind," -  this was  the  experience  of Emmons
during the first hour of his new life. It was a missionary, as
well as a Hopkinsian experience.  His bright hope of a millennium  was a missionary hope.  His doctrine of disinterested benevolence was a missionary doctrine.  His favorite theorems that
whatever God requires of men, God makes them  able to accom



178                        MEMOIR.
plish, and that their free action presupposes their dependence,
and their moral dependence presupposes their free action, are
missionary theorems.  The freeness of sin is essential to its
guilt, and the guilt of sin develops the need of missions.  His
entire system of theology, with its equipoise of obligation and
responsibleness on the one side; and, on the other side, of unconditional submission to that God all whose moral attributes
are love, and who therefore worketh all things after the counsel
of his own will, is a missionary system. Dr. Burton, who was
a Hopkinsian, and yet on some points was an antagonist of Emmons, knew  his missionary spirit, and therefore mentioned him
in the preceding letter.
The sermons of Dr. Emmons contain frequent incitements to
the missionary work.1 Ten years before the American Board of
Commissioners for Foreign Missions was thought of, he published
a discourse from  the text: " Be strong, therefore, and let not
your hands be weak; for your work shall be rewarded."  In this
resolute sermon, he says:
"The zeal of the Lord of hosts centres in the execution of his purpose
of grace towards this fallen world." -" Good men as well as bad, are able
to do almost any thing which they think they are able to do. Difficulties vanish before resolution."-" The United States are abundantly able,
in respect to numbers and wealth, to spread the Gospel through all North
and South America. And we were, there is reason to believe, raised up
and formed into a civil and religious community, to perform this service
for God in grateful return for his distinguishing and protecting mercy."
" When a man, merely for want of resolution, does not perform any
important work which belongs to him to perform, and which he has time,
opportunity, and abilities to perform, we never scruple to say that he is
guilty of negligence."- The friends of Christ "have long had time,
opportunity, and ability, to perform the duty devolved upon them. But
have they been faithful? Are there not many indubitable marks of their
negligence? Does not the languishing state of religion, bear testimony to
their timidity and indolence? Had they been bold, and zealous, and active in the cause of God, would there have been so many of the human
race, at this day, involved in Jewish, Pagan, Mohammedan, and Papal
darkness?  Have there not been Christians in Asia?  Why then has
Asia been so long perishing for the want of Gospel light? Have there not
See Original Edition of his Collected Works, Vol. VI. pp. 282-312, 435-447, etc.




MEMOIR.                           179
been Christians in Africa? Why then has Africa been so long perishing
for the want of Christian knowledge? Have there not been Christians
in Europe? Are there not many there still? Why then is so great a
part of that quarter of the world still ignorant of the pure doctrines of
the Gospel?  Has there not been a long succession of pious men in
America? Why then are there so many of the aboriginals still perishing
in their native barbarity and ignorance? Have we not many godly ministers in these United States? Why then are there so many declining
churches, so many destitute congregations, and so many individuals abandoned to vice, irreligion, and infidelity?
"These are plain indications of negligence in the friends of God, for
years, if not for ages past. Had Christians in every age possessed the
spirit of the apostles and the primitive believers, what great things would
they have done to promote the cause of Christ! Or, had they been as
wise as the men of the world, and as zealous to promote the salvation of
others, as sinners are to promote their temporal interests, the Gospel
would have long since been carried to the ends of the earth. Or, indeed,
if the same zealous, bold, and undaunted spirit, which has lately fired the
breasts of Christians in Europe and America, had fired their breasts but
a few years ago, the face of religion would have undoubtedly appeared,
at this time, unspeakably different. Nothing has been wanting, since
the revival of learning, the invention of printing, and the discovery of
the magnet, to prevent the universal spread of the Gospel, but merely
Christian resolution and zeal. This long and great negligence calls for
the humiliation of Christians in general, and especially of Christian ministers and magistrates; who ought to have been the first in zeal and resolution to promote the cause of Christ and the spread of the Gospel.
The world now looks like the field of the sluggard, because Christians, like
the sluggard, have been crying,' A little sleep, a little slumber, a little
folding of the hands to sleep.' The present melancholy state of Christianity throughout the world, reproaches all its friends for their past
irresolution and negligence."
Such words as these, coming from  a metaphysical recluse,
were like the sound of a trumpet.  They were the more effective because their author was known to be so thoughtful and
diffident.  They were uttered at Boston, May 27, 1800, in the
first sermon ever preached before the Massachusetts Missionary
Society.  The Constitution  of this Society was adopted May
28, 1799.  It was the joint product of Emmons and his Hopkinsian friends.  It affirms " The object of this Society is to
diffuse the knowledge of the Gospel among the heathens, as well




180                          MEMOI R.
as other people in the remote parts of our country, where Christ
is seldom or never preached." The Constitution, as modified in
1804, affirms " The object of the Society is, to diffuse the Gospel
among the people of the newly settled and remote parts of our
country, among the Indians of the country, and throughl more
distant regions of  the  earth, as circumstances  shall invite
and the ability of the Society shall admit." So this Board
was really a Board of Foreign as well as of Domestic Missions.
Of this Board, Emmons was one of the founders, and, for many
years, one of the most energetic members. In the Memoir of
Mrs. McFarland  then  a  resident in  Boston, she writes:" During Election week in May, 1799, a number of ministers
[Dr. Spring, Dr. Emmons, Mr. Sanford, and Father Niles,' as
they call him], came to my mother's, and requested the use of
that room to consult together about forming the Massachusetts
Missionary Society.  They met four or five times during the
week, and then resolved to form  the Society."
Dr. Emmons not only preached the first Anniversary sermon
before this venerable body, but was annually elected its President during the first twelve years of its existence. He was so
diffident, that he shrunk from  this office, but, as was his wont,
he practised self-denial in accepting a place of honor.
Hie was chairman  of the  committee who  prepared its first
Address to the public. Of the first two missionaries employed
by the Society, one was his pupil, and the other was his clerical
neighbor and intimate friend. He was one of the Founders and
one of the  original Editors of the  Massachusetts Missionary
Magazine,2 which was afterwards united with the Panoplist, and
1 See pp. 120, 121, above.
2 The title-page of the first volume of the Missionary Magazine is as follows (it
will be seen that all the editors, except one, were thorough Hopkinsians): " The
Massachusetts Missionary Magazine, for the year 1803, containing Religious and
Interesting Communications, calculated to Edify Christians, and inform the Rising
Generation. The profits of this work are to be applied to the support of Missionaries
in the new settlements and among the Indians of North America. The editors
appointed by the Society are, Rev. Messieurs Nathanael Emmons, D. D., David
Sanford, A. M., Daniel Hopkins, A. M., Samuel Spring, A. M., Joseph Barker, A. M.,
Samuel Niles, A. M., Samuel Austin, A. M., Abiel Holmes, A. M., Jonathan
Strong, A. M., Caleb Alexander, A. M., Jacob Norton, A. M., Paul Litchfield, A. M.,
Elijah Parish, A. M. Vol. I. Salem: Printed by Joshua Cushing, for the Editors."
A writer in the first volume, pp. 410-413 of the Magazine, proposed that " a number




XMEMOIR.                             181
subsequently  both were merged into the present Missionary
Herald.  He contributed many valuable articles to its pages.
In despite of all his opposition to National Associations, Dr.
Emmons was particularly interested  in  the American  Home
Missionary Society.  Before the Massachusetts Missionary Society became auxiliary to that National Board, he contributed
thirty dollars to constitute himself a life member of it, and lie
continued to aid it with his pecuniary resources as long as he
lived.
The early services of Emmons in  evangelizing  our waste
regions have not been altogether forgotten. The Massachusetts
Missionary Society had been in existence forty-two years, at the
Anniversary meeting which followed his decease.  It then paid
to his memory a fitting tribute, which closes thus:
" In taking leave of one who stood as a connecting link between the
present and'ancient times,' it is cheering to reflect that this Society,
from the day of its feeble beginning till the death of its first president,
had dispensed the means of salvation in Maine, New  Hampshire,
Vermont, and Rhode Island; throughout all western New York, in parts
of Pennsylvania and Tennessee,' among the Wyandott Indians,' on the
borders of Canada,'in Nova Scotia,' and'at New Orleans;' besides
sustaining a hundred and sixty feeble churches in Massachusetts, and
pouring into the treasury of the National Society many thousands of
dollars to assist in carrying the gospel to every new settlement in the
land." 
~ 2. Connection of his Efforts with the Formation of the American
Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions.
Rev. Dr. Ide of Medway, " was one of the original members of
the Society of Inquiry on the subject of Missions, formed in the
Andover Theological Seminary, January 8, 1811."  He was a
of pious young men be trained to the [Missionary] business, under the immediate
direction of the Missionary Society," and adds: "In the Colony at the Cape of
Good Hope are two Seminaries for the education of missionaries. Such an Institution will probably be found a necessary appendage to every Missionary Society of
importance."  Here, as in Dr. Burton's letter above quoted, is found a germ of a
Theological Seminary.
Report of the Massachusetts Missionary Society for 1841.
VOL. I.                    Q




182                         MEMOIR.
pupil of the Seminary at the  same time with Gordon Hall,
Adoniram  Judson, Samuel Newell, Samuel Nott, Luther Rice,
Samuel J. Mills, James Richards, Edward Warren, Benjamin C.
Meigs, Horatio Bardwell, Daniel Poor, and Alfred Wright, all
of them among the earliest missionaries of the American Board.
The following instructive reminiscences have been furnished by
Dr. Ide.
"There are good reasons for believing that the missionary spirit, which
manifested and diffused itself by means of the Massachusetts Missionary
Society, was one principal source whence sprang many other benevolent
Associations.  The American Board of Commissioners for Foreign
Missions owes its origin as much, if not more, to this, than to any other
known instrumentality. At the time the Board was formed, and many
years before, the Massachusetts Missionary Society.was the most active
and efficient missionary organization in the Commonwealth. The young
men at Andover with whom  the movement originated which led to the
organization of the Board, were some of them the sons of men belonging
to the Massachusetts Missionary Society, and may naturally be supposed
to have imbibed the spirit with which their fathers were actuated.  Previously to their efforts in behalf of foreign missions, these young men
were known to be zealously engaged in promoting the object of the
Massachusetts Missionary Society.  They circulated the Address and
Constitution of this Society, and made great exertions to procure signers
to the Constitution and contributors to its funds. I myself received the
Constitution and Address of this Society from the hand of one of these
young men, with a request that I would circulate it as extensively as
possible. I saw in other particulars their attachment to this Society,
and evidence that it had exerted, and was still exerting, an important
influence upon their minds.  The object contemplated by this Society
was to evangelize the heathen, as well as to supply the destitute among
those who were before acquainted with the gospel.  Its operations had
already directed the attention of the then rising generation, in some
measure, to this great object. It prepared its own members, as well as
others, for still farther and more important efforts for the conversion of
the world.  Dr. Worcester, the first Secretary of the A. B. C. F. M.,
had long been an active member and able Secretary of the Massachusetts Missionary Society. Jeremiah Evarts, Esq., whose influence
as Treasurer and Secretary of the A. B. C. F. M. was felt through the
world, was once the Treasurer of the M. M. S., and the Editor of their
journal. While we highly prize the more extended efforts which are




MEMOIR.                            183
now made for the conversion of the heathen, and honor the men who
bear a prominent part in this great enterprise, we ought not to forget the
important services rendered to this cause, by those who exercised the
self-denial and endured the labor of sustaining their feeble beginnings.
It is impossible now to say, who will be found to have exerted the most
important agency in erecting this glorious temple, the men who bear a
part in elevating the top-stone to its place, or those who assisted in
laying its foundation."
Confirmatory of this account, is the following statement of
the biographer of Dr. Samuel Worcester: I
"'None, probably, could have been better prepared to assume, if
expedient, the responsibility of a foreign enterprise, than the leading
members of the Massachusetts Missionary Society. And of the Board
of Foreign Missions, Dr. Worcester more than once found occasion to
say, that whatever good should be accomplished by this more recent and
far more important organization, should be referred mainly to the
Massachusetts Missionary Society, for the preparatory and formative
action.
"The Trustees were not only in correspondence with the London
Society and other kindred associations as engaged in a common cause,
but communications to the Massachusetts Missionary Society from  the
missionaries at Tahiti, were actually on their way, at the time when the
measures were adopted by the General Association of Massachusetts, for
the formation of the Board of Commissioners."
~ 3.  The Influence of Hopkinsianism on the Early Friends of the
American Board.
The character of Emmons has not been appreciated, because
his favorite scheme of doctrine has not been understood.  His
Memoir would be the Memoir of Hopkinsianism, were it not for
the simple fact that Hopkinsianism  is not dead.  His elasticity
of mind, his alert benevolence, his quick and quickening sympathies cannot be fully portrayed, unless we follow out the
various ramifications of the influences under which he grew up,
in the midst of which he lived and moved, and to the richness of
which he added the fertility of his own mind. Although he
1 Memoir of Worcester, Vol. II. p. 98.




184                           MEMOIR.
was not a "man of affairs," yet he defended a system of doctrine
which spurred men on to work the machinery of beneficence.
The spirit of his system  carried other men, further than it carried him, in the outward business of philanthropy.  He lived
close to certain lines of power that reached the extremities of
the land.  We wish that he had taken hold of some of these
lines with a stronger grasp.  But he was busy in maintaining
general principles, which excited other men to practical details.
Non omnia possumus omnes.  The following  appendant narrative is one illustration of the fact, that Emmons did not breathe
an exsiccating theological atmosphere, and was not enamoured of
a dried up scholasticism; but was joyful in the faith, that his
New Divinity would be the fresh spring of new practical benevolence. It is a narrative of Hopkinsian agencies:
Preferring the structure of the Massachusetts Missionary Society to
any national organization, Emmons had no direct agency in forming the
American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions.  If he had
been what is termed a " politic" man, a " shrewd diplomatist," he would
have been less frank in stating his fears, and more forward in proclaiming his joy, in relation to such Boards.  His downright, open-hearted
honesty is apparent here as everywhere.- The American Board immediately originated from the prolific minds of Samuel Spring and Samuel
Worcester. Its genesis was as follows:
Dr. Worcester wrote at the decease of Dr. Spring: - " I did not know before, how
deep an interest I had in that good man. In age he has been to me as a father; in
action, for a course of years and in many interesting scenes, as a brother. About
twenty years ago, we jointly united in forming the Massachusetts Missionary Society,
and in the concerns of this Society we have acted together ever since. Nine years
ago come June-passing in a chaise together from Andover to Bradford, we planned
the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, and have since been together in all its important deliberations and transactions." - Memoir of Dr. Worcester, Vol. II. p. 105.
Dr. Worcester afterwards wrote (Memoir, Vol. II. p. 106): On the twenty-sixth of
June, 1810, "Dr. Spring took a seat in my chaise, and rode with me [from Andover]
to Bradford, where the General Association was to convene. In the conversation on
the way, the first idea, I believe, of the AMERICAN BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS FOR
FOREIGN MISSIONS was suggested; -the form, the number of members, and the
name, were proposed. On the 27th, the question came before the Association; and
the report of the committee which was adopted by that body, was the substance of the
result of the conversation in the chaise."




MEMOIR.                                 185
The biographer of Dr. Worcester adds (Memoir, Vol. II. p. 46): "It is remarked
[by Rev. Joseph Tracy] in the History of American Missions, -' Dr. Worcester does
not ascribe the honor of first suggesting this idea to his companion, as he would have
done, had truth permitted, nor did his modesty allow him to claim that honor for
himself. The truth probably is, that the suggestion was first made by Dr. Worcester,
but grew out of their mutual conversation, and was perfected by their united
counsels.' "
This remark of Mr. Tracy is conjectural. At variance with it is a remark of Professor Leonard Woods, who said in his Sermon at the funeral of Dr. Spring, a Sermon which was delivered and published while Dr. Worcester was still living:" Dr. Spring acted a most important part in originating the Foreign Mission from
America. The measures which led to the organization of a public body for the promotion of that great object, were first suggested by him. And in the whole management of that benevolent and successful undertaking, he was among those who were
intrusted with the principal agency."
These records of individual effort are important, as illustrating the
great truth, that our Missionary Boards resulted from the spirit of the
age, under the influence of the Spirit of God; and that the spirit of the
age had been affected by that system of theology which presented striking and impressive views of the voluntariness, and consequently the
blameworthiness of sin; of our duty to cherish disinterested, unconditional submission to the Divine will; of our free activity in working out
the decrees of Him who is our Monarch, our Sovereign, and whose entire
character we may define by saying, " God is love."
That Samuel Spring, the inventive philanthropist, harmonized with
his brother-in-law, Emmons, more nearly than with any other divine, and
more nearly than any other independent thinker harmonized with Emmons, is a statement which will not be denied by any one who knew
their habits of thought. There is a surprising resemblance between the
sermons of the two men, so far forth as the shading of doctrine is concerned.
That Dr. Worcester was trained under the same influences which
formed the character of Dr. Spring, is obvious from the ensuing facts:
He was a theological pupil of Dr. Samuel Austin, who with Spring belonged to the
remarkable band of Emmons's brothers-in-law, and adopted the main principles of
Emmons's theology. While pursuing his theological studies with Austin, the young
student resided in the family of his brother, Leonard Worcester, a third redoubtable
brother-in-law of the Franklin divine, and a co-laborer with Emmons, Austin, and
Spring in defending the New Divinity. Worcester entered College in 1792; and in
1793, Rev. Eli Smith was ordained pastor of the church in Hollis, N. H. Dr. Worcester was a native of Hollis, a member of that church, and became an intimate
friend of Mr. Smith, who was a pupil and a steadfast disciple of Emmons. (See
Chapter XIII. ~ 6, below.)




186                              MEMOII R.
When Samuel Worcester was ordained at Fitchburg, the sermon was preached by
Dr. Austin, who spoke of himself and the young candidate as " agreeing, generally at
least, in the same Christian sentiments." (Memoir, I. 201.) When Worcester was
resettled in Salem, the introductory prayer was offered by the same Dr. Spring, whom
Dr. Daniel Dana was wont to call an " ultra Hopkinsian; " the sermon was preached
by Dr. Austin; the installing prayer was offered by Samuel Niles, another bosom
friend of Emmons (see pp. 120, 121, above); the charge to the pastor was given by
Dr. Daniel Hopkins, who is thought by some to have suggested more than his brother
Samuel originated, of the Hopkinsian scheme; and the closing prayer was offered by
the same Leonard Worcester, who with Spring and Austin belonged to that imposing
phalanx of metaphysical brethren who married their wives at the Hadley parsonage.
(It is a singular fact, that Jeremiah Evarts, the second Secretary of the American
Board, was in the year 1803 the preceptor of an Academy in the same Leonard Worcester's parish, and an inmate of this Hopkinsian's household.)
In the earlier years of his ministry, Dr. Samuel Worcester himself
was regarded as a Hopkinsian.  He writes (Memoir, I. 159), while studying with Dr. Austin, in 1795:
"You know, my friend, the outlines of my scheme of theological sentiments. I
have not yet seen occasion to alter essentially.  I shall doubtless be called a Hopkinsian; yet certainly I know no man, with whom I fully accord in opinion. You
wish me to'adopt Hopkinsian arguments, but Arminian manners.' " —"I cannot
say that I am altogether well pleased with the manners of the Hopkinsian clergy;
but you will excuse it, if I differ so much from you, as to think them at least as
unexceptionable as those of the Arminians." - " A clergyman ought to be a gentleman. Do we find no gentlemen among the Hopkinsians? Must we look to the
Arminians for a model? I think not. If the Hopkinsians as a body are too austere,
are not the Arminians too loose  "
Worcester writes again from his native town in 1796:
" Mr. Smith, junior pastor of the church in this place, is what they call a Hopkinsian. He is high in the esteem and affections of a large part of his parishioners;
but has many violent opposers, on account of his sentiments.  Some, I believe,
oppose his sentiments understandingly; but the most part raise a hue and cry against
Hopkinsianism, while they know nothing of the first principles of the system. The
points of doctrine, which, when insisted on, create the greatest uneasiness, are those
of impartial or disinterested benevolence, personal election, total moral depravity,
universal preordination, and efficient divine influence in the production of human
volition. Upon these points of doctrine, Mr. Smith, as well as many others of his
brethren in persuasion, treat frequently and elaborately. Perhaps they are dwelt
upon too much; certain it is, they occasion warm controversies or loud murmurings
in this quarter of the country, whenever they are preached.
" Most of the clergymen in this vicinity are what may be called modern or moderate
Calvinists.  They declaim  loudly against Hopkinsianism  and its advocates; nor,
indeed, are Hopkinsians wanting in retort and pointed animadversion.  And, what
is truly ridiculous, each party endeavors to fasten upon the other, the opprobrious
charge of Arminianism. It is, perhaps, difficult to ascertain the scheme of sentiments
which the modern Calvinists would wish to maintain. Hostility on their part seems




MEMOIR.                                  187
to be rat'lcr o iensive than defensive.  They do not so much contend for any tenets
of their own, as against those of their antagonists.  They profess, indeed, to be
Calvinists, yet they violently oppose the doctrines enumerated above. If there be
any sentiment for which they contend, it is this, -that all kinds of sentiment are
equally compatible with the Christian character.  They talk much of Catholicism, for
which they profess to be great sticklers; and labor by all means to fix upon the
Hopkinsians, the imputation of illiberality and bigotry." - (Memoir, I. 167, 168.)
Dr. Worcester writes from his parsonage at Fitchburg, in 1797:
" What is to be my lot in this place, God only knows, and time only must declare.
The aspect of things here, at present, is at least as promising for good, as it ever
has been since my first acquaintance among this people. It was here as in most
other places; violent and inveterate prejudices reigned predominant in the minds of
by far the greater part.  They were determined never to like a Hopkinsian. And I
need not tell you what difficulties I have had to encounter, and under what disadvantages I have had to labor. But I believe their prejudices are, by this time, in a
good measure destroyed.  They begin to think that a Hopkinsian is not that
dreadful creature they had contemplated." - (Memoir, I. 199, 200.)
We add the following statements:
While his parishioners in Fitchburg were contending against him, they accused
him of adherence to the theology of his teacher Austin. - " The cry of Hopkinsianism,
bigotry, intolerance, oppression, waxed louder and louder. Even the very children
in some families became so accustomed to hear the word'Hopkinsian' pronounced
in tones of bitter reproach and reviling, that they would employ it in their petty
strifes and bickerings, as one of the very worst of hard names to characterize an object
of their resentment." - (Memoir, I. 282.)
The biographer of Dr. Worcester remarks, that " Worcester's sermons at Fitchburg
were more uniformly cast in the distinctive Hopkinsian mould, than those written at
Salem."  He had elaborated his Fitchburg discourses "with much attention to
every quality, both of matter and of style. Great as was his temptation to draw
upon them [while he was in his Salem pastorate], seven or eight years had passed
away, before the temptation had become very troublesome. At length, however, he saw,
as he thought, that he was in serious danger from this source. He gathered all those
sermons together, and reserving but a small parcel, he committed the rest to the
flames! When interrogated upon the wisdom  of this sacrifice, he answered very
seriously:'I found that I was making crutches of them.' " - (Memoir, I. 210, 394.)
Still it is said by his biographer (Vol. I. p. 211), that "Dr. Worcester probably
never adopted any article of belief, called Hopkinsianism, unless it was such as had
been already recognized as a part of the theology of Edwards, or was a legitimate, and
not an ultra inference from well-established facts and principles."  This remark is in
accordance with the general style of Hopkinsian writers, who claim Edwards as the
defender of their first principles. Dr. Emmons would have made this remark with an
added emphasis in regard to himself, and would have insisted that he, not probably
but certainly, never adopted any part of Hopkinsianism unless it "had been already
recognized as a part of the theology of Edwards, or was a legitimate and not an ultra
inference from established facts and principles."




188                             MEMOIR.
The preceding items are sufficient to assure us that, notwithstanding
the diversities of belief which will always distinguish independent minds,
still the spirit of Hopkinsianism  and of Emmonism had enkindled the
two great lights which shone brightest upon the American Board at the
morning of its life.  It had also wrought more or less effectually upon
the young men who became the  earliest missionaries of that Board.
This is evident from the following sketches:
Some writers have maintained that Adoniram Judson, though not the cause, was
yet the first immediate occasion, of forming the new missionary scheme. He wrote
the " Statement and Inquiries," which resulted in the vote of the Massachusetts General
Association instituting the American Board.  His personal appearance before that
Association had a marked influence upon its members. Now Adoniram Judson was
the son of a clergyman, who loved the character and imbibed the theories of Emmons.
The enterprising young man, himself, adopted the same theories in his early youth.
He defended them while he was a student at Brown University. He was an inmate
there, in the family of a Hopkinsian Professor, and a pupil of Emrmons. When
young Judson lost his faith in the inspired word, he still believed that these theories
were contained in it, and that some of them were true, even if uninspired. He
continued to defend them after he became a devoted Christian in the Theological
Seminary at Andover. He was approbated to preach as a Hopkinsian and an
Emmonite. His first admirable wife, also, was an admirer and an earnest reader of
Emmons. So was Harriet Newell, her friend.
Samuel J. Mills is believed by many to have struck out the first hint which resulted
in our present Foreign Missionary organizations. His biographer goes so far as to
say, that Mills "is justly entitled to the praise of originating the plan of that noble
institution," the American Board. Mills was the son of a Connecticut pastor who was
an intimate friend of Hopkins, and a beloved college-mate of Emmons. He was a
champion for the "Litchfield County Divinity," a system cast in the Hopkinsian
mould.l The conversion of the youthful Samuel J. Mills, was, in a peculiar degree,
coincident with the Hopkinsian standard of practical religion. His' early plan of
Missions was like that of Emmons, in favor of the heathen on our own continent.
His last effort for Missions was like that of Hopkins, in favor of the African negro.2
That Gordon Hall, too, another early missionary of the Board, was essentially a
1 Rev. Abel McEwen, D. D., a few weeks before his death, wrote to me the following letter: " The theology of Mr. Mills of Torringford, was, in Litchfield county,
called Calvinism. It was very nigh Hopkinsianism, save the posthumous, peculiar
sentiments ascribed to Hopkins. Mr. Mills was enamoured of the doctrines of divine
sovereignty and election, but careful to let nothing impair man's free agency. If
Hopkins said that divine efficiency produced in man sinful action, Mr. Mills, I think,
would not have said this. He eschewed the doctrine of the imputation of Adam's
sin to his race. Mr. Mills once said to me:'They say,
" In Adam's fall,
We sinned all: "
They don't believe it, more than that' [here he quoted the old distich setting off the
absurdity of the old theory]."
2 See Memoir of Hopkins, pp. 164, 165.




Mr E MO I R.                              189
Hopkinsian, is attested by many witnesses, and is confirmed by the following extract
from a Doctrinal Essay which he wrote during his missionary life. After stating
that holiness consists in benevolence, and sin consists in selfishness, he thus proceeds
in regard to the benevolence of God:
"Benevolence desires the happiness of the whole; how then can it be reconciled to
the misery of a part? The answer is at hand. Benevolence desires the greatest good
of the whole. And if, on survey of the several parts, it be found that this good of the
whole will be augmented by the misery of a part, benevolence demands the suffering.
It demands this misery, not as in itself desirable, but because by it greater good will
be promoted. In view of the evil which is apparent in the system, the benevolent
mind reposes implicit confidence in the divine wisdom and goodness, believing that all
things will ultimately work together for good.
" It is asked if, since a part must be miserable, the benevolent mind must or can
consent to belong to that part? The question grates harshly upon the natural heart.
Nor do I conceive the question to be of the last importance.... The benevolent mind
must consent to the misery of a part, that the whole may be perfect. This suffering
part must be fixed, bearing a certain proportion to the whole. It must likewise be
composed of a definite number of individuals. To this the benevolent mind must
consent. Now if the benevolent mind sees, that this suffering part cannot be secured
to its exact proportion without its including himself, must he not acquiesce? And if
he is unwilling to be included in this part, does he not place himself in opposition to
the perfection of the system? The truth in this case, I think, cannot be mistaken. In
the love of benevolence consists true holiness.  The same representation comports
with the account which God, in his word, has given of his own holy nature, and the
nature of all who, through sanctification, are made one with him.
"'God is love.' This comprises all his moral perfections.  This he displays to the
view of the universe by creating and upholding all things, and diffusing the greatest
possible happiness throughout the vast system of being."
"I am sure," says the Rev. Horatio Bardwell, one of our early Foreign Missionaries, "that Mills, Hall, Richards, and Rice were Hopkinsian in the type of their theology."  "My mother and my minister were Hopkintonian (for that was the word);
and when by the grace of God I was converted, I became one also."
Rev. Cyrus Kingsbury, D. D., the veteran missionary among the Choctaws, was
nurtured under the immediate influence of the Franklin theology. He was a parishioner of Emmons's nearest clerical neighbor, Sanford (see pp. 118-120 above), and
when the rich marble monument was recently erected to that remarkable orator, Dr.
Kingsbury wrote:
Mr. Sanford, "that dear departed man of God, has a memorial in my affections
more enduring than marble or granite. My hope of an interest in the merits of
Christ, I owe to him, as an instrument in God'shand; and if I have ever been enabled to do any good to my fellow men, it is to be traced to him as the instrumental
cause.
"When I was inquiring as to my duty in relation to the ministry, he said to me,'Do not think of becoming a minister of the Gospel, if you are not willing to become
a poor, despised man all your days, for the sake of honoring Christ, and doing good
to the souls of men.' I have ever regarded the above as an instance of his faithful
dealing with those who applied to him for counsel. After an experience of more than
forty years, I am truly thankful that the Lord enabled me to prefer Christ and pov



190                          MEMOIR.
crty and reproach, to the riches, honor, and pleasures of earth. And now in my seventy-fourth year, I can say,'Hitherto the Lord hath helped me, so that I have not
wanted for any good thing."'
Another early Missionary of the Board, Rev. Daniel Temple, once remarked: " I
hear much said against the followers of Emmons. My pastor was one of them. I
am one of them. I owe my conversion, under God, to their instrumentality. I have)
derived my chief aid from them in preparing for my mission. I find no men so conscientious in supporting my cause."
Similar words have been uttered by other men who left our Hopkinsian
parishes, that they may practise in foreign lands, the disinterested benevolence which they had learned to exercise at home.  It has been
proverbially affirmed, that " Hopkinsianism  saved the churches in Mlassachusetts." It is equally true, that it contained the germ of many a
philanthropic enterprise for the world.  That mission to Africa, which
was projected by Samuel Hopkins, never ceased to exert an influence
upon his theological school.  As early as 1806, a parishioner of his
brother, Dr. Daniel Hopkins, of Salem, gave ten thousand dollars for
a Hopkinsian Theological Seminary, "because we must raise up ministers, if we would have men go as missionaries."  In 1811, the widow of
this parishioner, herself an intelligent Hopkinsian, gave thirty thousand
dollars to the American Board, and thirty thousand to the Seminary at
Andover.  It was not without reason that, as early as 1803, Samuel
Spring, the pupil of Samuel Hopkins, dedicated a brief eulogy on his
teacher " to the public at large, who must gratefully review his zeal and
exertions to promote the best interest of gospel missions among the
heathens," and "to his attending angels who guarded his bed when he
fell asleep." It was in the stirring spirit of this school, and in defence of
its rousing principles, that Emmons thought, and wrote, and preached.
~ 4. The Special Interest of Emmons in Home Missions.
We have already seen, that this independent man had his own
views of National Associations, and that the Massachusetts Missionary Society was his especial favorite. His missionary policy, perhaps, is what we might have expected from an aged and studious
recluse, attached  to  the old  processes of church and  state,
and peculiarly reverential toward the example of his townsman,
David Brainerd.'  In his Discourse  on  the Hopeless State of
the Heathen, he says: " Is there nothing to be done, or can too
much be done, to enlighten those immortal souls that are ready
1 See pp. 8-12, above.




MEMO OIR.                         191
to perish?  On whom does this labor devolve?- It particularly
devolves upon Europeans to enlighten the European, Asiatic,
and African heathens, and upon American Christians to enlighten
American heathens."  In his Constitution for the Massachusetts
Missionary Society, he had his eye fixed upon the destitute
regions of our own land, then upon the Indians of North America,
next upon all the heathens upon our continent, finally upon the
entire world. Dr. Ide says:
" Emmons was made an honorary member of the A. B. C. F. M., by
Hon. Samuel T. Armstrong of Boston, February 28, 1827, and he
always considered it an honor and a privilege to sustain this relation.
He contributed to the funds of the Board, was deeply interested in the
operations of this body, and devoutly rejoiced in their success. It ought
not, however, to be concealed, that he was more engaged in Home than
in Foreign Missions. He believed that American Christians are under
special obligations to give their own countrymen a knowledge of the
gospel, and that this is the most important measure they can adopt for
the conversion of the world. He did not desire that less should be done
for the propagation of the gospel in foreign lands; but he insisted upon
the duty of doing more comparatively for the conversion of our own
countrymen. It was his decided opinion, that the American church is
farther behind her duty in respect to the supply of the spiritual wants of
her own country, than she is in respect to the destitute of foreign lands.
In reply to the assertions often made by those who conversed with him,
that the more we do for foreign missions the more we shall do for our
own country, he would often say,  The reverse of that is true; the more
we do to sustain the gospel in our own country, the more we shall do
for its dissemination abroad.'" 1
The extracts already taken from his sermon, preached sixty
years ago, indicate his attachment to the old scheme which
proposes, first of all, the evangelization of those men and tribes
which are the nearest to us, and with which we have the closest
alliance.  When the new  scheme was organized, making the
Foreign enterprise more prominent than the Home enterprise,
he had nearly reached the common limit of life, and was too old
to cease from repeating his favorite maxim: " None will feel a
proper concern for others, who do not feel a proper concern
1 Memoir of Emmons, pp. 96, 97.




192                       M EMOIR.
for themselves. None will be greatly engaged to promote religion
abroad, who are not equally engaged to promote it at home.
None have any encouragement to embark in the adventurous
cause  of propagating the  gospel, unless their hearts glow
with love to God, and a tender concern for the souls of men."
Time has developed the harmony of the Home and the Foreign
enterprise, and the rightfulness of special efforts for either, as an
auxiliary to the other.  If Emmons had not reached his sixtysixth year when the American Board was formed, and if he had
not lived so solitary a life in his rural retreat, he would probably
have been more sanguine that the young Andover students, who
urged their fathers to establish a Foreign Mission, would find
their juvenile anticipations fully realized in history.  He was
not so quick as his classmate Treadwell, the first President of
the American Board, to adopt a new plan started by young men.
He was not, like Treadwell, a man of active commerce with the
world.  It is a singular fact, however, that Dr. James W.
Alexander, in 1854, and in the fifty-first year of his age, formed
an opinion of Foreign Missions which closely resembles that of
Emmons in his old age.  Dr. Alexander writes: "As we are
cutting ourselves off more and more from the old world, and
likely to carry out the Monroe doctrine, it seems to me that
Christians in the United States are proportionally more bound
to devise means of sending the gospel to Spanish America.
Brazil is quite open, and New Granada nearly so. It seems to
me that this, along with the black and red men, falls more justly
to our share, than Hindoos, Nestorians, Druses, Arabs, or
Turks."' 
~ 5. Influence of Iis Writings in Evangelizing our New Settlements.
The chief contribution which Emmons made to the Missionary enterprise, he made through his pupils and friends.
He lived in  them.  No one can  read the history of his
disciples without feeling that their instructor, whatever incidental objections he may have made to National as distinct from
State organizations, had an anticipatory spirit, intent on evangelizing the world.2
1 Forty Years' Familiar Letters, Vol. II. p. 204.
2 See Chapter XIII. ~ 2, ~ 3, ~ 4.




MEMOIR.                           193
Not by his pupils only, by his writings also, Dr. Emmons has
accelerated the work of Christianizing our destitute settlements.
His readers and admirers have been pioneers in spreading the
gospel along the frontiers of our land.  He often received letters
from  Christians whom  he had never seen, residing in regions
where he had never been, thanking him for the Missionary work
which he was performing by his printed discourses.  The following is a specimen of these letters. It was written to him as
President of the Massachusetts Missionary Society, from  the
State of New York, and it enclosed a liberal donation for that
Society.
"I embrace the first opportunity of communicating my sincere thanks
to you, as an instrument in the hands of God, of convincing me of the
truth, and establishing me in the belief of the doctrines contained in the
Bible, more than I ever was before, or probably should have been, had
I never read your sermons."  "So far as my ideas of divinity are
correct, it is in a great measure, if not wholly, owing to the light which
I have received from reading your sermons on doctrinal subjects, and of
course I feel myself very much indebted to your labors and study."
Many similar epistles he received from  New Hampshire and
Maine, whither his pupils carried his decisive influence,' and
where his printed sermons were found on the old mantel shelves
before other books had become accessible. Some intensely interesting communications came from East Tennessee, where there
was a Hopkinsian development which is itself a history.  A brief
notice of this development is essential to a full portraiture of
Emmons.  His face is reflected, though in a somewhat wrinkled
aspect, from the troubled waters of that western State. Some
have wondered why so many clergymen and laymen in Tennessee, with their vehement opposition to anti-slavery, united
with the New School Presbyterian body when it dissolved its
connection with the Old School Assembly.  The cause is found
in the influence which Hopkins, Spring, and Emmons, exerted
upon that distant settlement, more than sixty years ago.  The
following appendant sketches claim  a place in the Memoir of
the still metaphysician, for they illustrate the character of the
1 For the indebtedness of these States to Dr. Emmons, see Chapter XIII. ~ 3, ~ 4.
VOL. I.                  R




194                              MEMOIR.
" theological news" which flowed into  his parsonage from   year
to year, and cheered his solitary toils.
REV. HEZEKIAH BALCII, D D.
This divine was born in Maryland in 1741, graduated at Nassau Hall in 1762,
emigrated in 1785-6 to that part of the western wilderness which is now called.
Tennessee, and having been installed pastor of the first Presbyterian church in Greenville, originated the plan of Greenville College in 1793, and was elected the first
president of the College in 1794. At one period of his presidency, this college
"had students from nine different States and Territories, and a more than usual proportion of them rose to honorable eminence in the different walks of life."
In 1795, this resolute thinker visited New England, became acquainted with Dr.
Samuel Spring and Dr. Emmons, and his favorite college received from them and from
their opulent friends, valuable contributions in money and in books. Dr. Balch stated
to his friend, Dr. Coffin, "that it was impossible for him to travel under the rare
advantages of improving conversation with the most enlightened ministers and other
Christians, which he enjoyed, while soliciting for the college, without an earnest spirit
of theological inquiry.' This,' said he,'the great and good Dr. Green of Philadelphia did much to invigorate and direct by his kind and brotherly counsels to me on
my way to the North, for which I have ever been thankful.' He told me that I would
find, as he did, in the Northern States, a class of ministers, some of whose religious
sentiments were considered erroneous, while their main tenets were unquestionably
Calvinistic. He advised me by all means to become acquainted with these men.'I
do not myself agree with them,' he said,' in every thing; but in some things which are
questioned, I know they are right. I found reason to esteem them as among the
most laborious students, faithful pastors, successful preachers, and instructive writers
in all New England.'' Now,' added Mr. Balch, and often did he take occasion to
repeat it in my ears, -' these were the very ministers who most assisted me to obtain
donations; and who afforded me, by conversations and books, my principal helps in
the investigation of religious truth.' He informed me that he preached, of course,
boldly and explicitly on his return, his most illustrative thoughts on gospel doctrines,
as had ever been his way; keeping nothing back of the whole counsel of God; fully
persuaded that he had learned better to understand it by his opportunities of receiving
additional light.'I took pains,' said he,'to assure ministers and people, privately
and publicly, that I believed more firmly, because more intelligently, than ever
before, the cardinal doctrines of free and sovereign grace, which I had so long
preached; but I blessed God, He had led me into a clearer knowledge of them all
in their inspired meaning and essential harmony; that I felt myself able to unfold
them, and defend them in a more consistent manner, and to preach the truth on one
topic, without taking it back again, when discussing another.'"  [Here we see the
favorite thought of Dr. Emmons, that Hopkinsianism is "consistent Calvinism."]
Dr. Coffin continues his narrative (Sprague's Annals, III. 313, 314): " As to the
views which rendered Dr. Balch obnoxious to many of his brethren, it is impossible,
in so brief a space as is allotted to me in this letter, to go into detail. It will perhaps
be sufficient to say, that he sympathized with that class of New England divines, who
were, and still are known as Hopkinsians. His most familiar and favorite sentiment
was, that all true holiness, both in God and his intelligent creatures, consists in im



M EMOI R.                                 195
partial, disinterested good-will, love or benevolence to all beings capable of happiness;
and a benevolent complacency in the moral excellence of all who possess this essential
qualification for happiness, and for promoting its diffusion.
"The first impression which his preaching made upon his church and large congregation after his return from the North and East, as I received abundant evidence
from many of them, was very generally favorable. But alarms were gradually excited
among his people, and in due time, when he thought the case required it, he was
heard by his Presbytery, -that of Abingdon; before whom he stated what were his
views of Divine truth, which he fully believed were vindicated both by the Bible and
the Confession of Faith. So satisfied were the majority of that body that he embraced
nothing heretical, or dangerous to the souls of men, that they passed a vote to this
effect; and agreed individually to do what they could to quiet any alarms existing
among his people."
In the year 1800, the indefatigable President wrote thus to his friend Coffin, urging
him to become a pioneer in evangelizing the new settlements in Tennessee: " Since
my return from New England, sir, I have been cited to ecclesiastical trial for errors
imputed to me by my prosecutors, sixteen times before Presbytery; four times before
Synod; and once before the General Assembly. I had not far short of one hundred
scholars in the College. But my interruptions and absences to attend my trials, arrested the progress of the Institution. The students were obliged to go home. Nevertheless, sir, all that I have suffered has only served to confirm me more and more
in the belief, that what I have contended for is God's Bible truth, and will stand forever. My prosecutors have never yet taught me the doctrine of fear. Come over,
sir, and I hope God will so order it that you will fall in love with our country."
(Sprague's Annals, III. 313. These difficulties of President Balch are noticed by
Emmons on p. 170, above.)
When he was on the confines of death in 1810, this intrepid President, " looking up
with tears towards heaven," solemnly remarked to Dr. Coffin:'Sir, I cordially submit to the righteous sentence of God's eternal law; the precepts of which I have no
apology for breaking. At the same time, I trust I have a little - oh! how little, of that
holy disinterested love which makes the life of justifying faith in Christ; that love,
sir, that will bear the examination and meet the approving smile of the great Judge
of quick and dead.'' Even in his last will and testament" [adds Dr. Coffin], "he
gave his soul to his God to be made for Christ's sake, in boundless grace, an eternal
vessel of mercy in heaven, or, in righteous judgment for his sins, a vessel of everlasting wrath in hell; just as seemed good in his sight."-I said:'Mr. Balch, will all
who may read your will, understand your unshaken hope of salvation through
Christ?'' Sir,' said he,'I cannot allow myself to make conditions with God; to him
I cordially submit, without any reserve, for time and for eternity. Let the words
stand, sir; they show me the only way in which I mean to die. Those who have
heard me insist on unreserved submission, as always involved in saving faith, may learn
the importance of it in their own case, when they find how I choose to die.' So,
therefore, [adds President Coffin], the words now stand in the Register's office in
Greenville." - (Sprague's Annals, III. 319.)
This marvellous will and testament, no parallel to which can be found, perhaps, in
any Register's office on this globe, indicates that the General Assembly had some
reason for censuring the President's "improprieties and imprudences of speech."
He acknowledged, before his judges, his ill-considered words, and submitted humbly




196                              M E MOI R.
to the censure of the Ecclesiastical Court. He did not retract his Emmonism, but
those methods of expressing it which were injudicious.  He was doubtless misunderstood by the Assembly, and he was doubtless an imprudent, though a brave and stalwart man. It was a felicitous remark of Emmons (p. 170, above), that the Assembly
censured the President "for maintaining what they considered as Hopkinsian sentiments."
This use of the word " sentiments " suggests a philological curiosity, contained in one
of the Assembly's charges against the President of Greenville College. His censors
declare (see Minutes of General Assembly, p. 154), that "Mr. Balch appears to confound sentiment with the mere perception of truth, whereas it always partakes of the
disposition of the heart, and consequently involves either sin or holiness." President
Balch derived this use of the word sentiment partly from the New England divines,
and particularly from Emmons, who says that our Lord " did not preach superficially
but sentimentally," and that the good pastor's discourses are " more sentimental than
declamatory." 1 Seldom did it occur to the Franklin recluse, that his use of the word
sentiment for doctrine, would agitate the theological waters of Tennessee and of the
whole Presbyterian Church.
REV. CHARLES COFFIN, D. D.
This divine was named by Dr. Archibald Alexander, on p. 126, above. He was
born in Newburyport, Mass., August 15, 1775, and died June 3, 1853. Dr. Daniel
Dana says of this highly finished scholar: " Soon after leaving Harvard College, he
raised a trembling eye to the ministry, and commenced the study of Theology with
my father at Ipswich. The minister of his parents was the Rev. Dr. Spring, of this
place, whose religious views were, as you know, decidedly and strongly Hopkinsian.
But though such were not the early views of the young man, there occurred, afterwards, a great revolution in his mind. He finished his studies with Dr. Spring, and
becoming a candidate for the ministry, was viewed as one of the most acute and able
defenders of the new system which he had embraced."- (Sprague's Annals, IV. 249.)
In 1800, Dr. Coffin visited the State of Tennessee, and while there " became much
interested in the prosperity of Greenville College; and the conviction which he felt of
the importance of having the number of competent teachers, as well as ministers of the
Gospel, greatly increased in that newly settled Western country, gave direction to his
future course in life."-(Annals, IV. 247.)
In 1803-4, "he was occupied for a considerable time in soliciting funds [in New
England] for the endowment of Greenville College, of which he had now become VicePresident." Having devoted his energies to the building up of the College until 1810,
he was then, at the resignation of Dr. Balch, elected its President, and having served
it faithfully in this office until 1827, he "accepted a call to the Presidency of East
Tennessee University, at Knoxville," where he remained until 1833. Some of his
correspondence with the Massachusetts Missionary Society is still preserved in the
Massachusetts Missionary Magazine, and in the Panoplist. He was an enthusiastic
reader and admirer of Emmons, and received from him much aid, not only in doctrinal instruction, but also in philanthropic enterprises.
1 See p. 74, above. It is not pretended that this use of the word is peculiar to the
New England, or even to the American divines; but the frequency of the usage is peculiar to them.




MEMOIR.                                   197
REV. ROBERT HENDERSON, D.D.
The two Presidents, Balch and Coffin, had a stalwart coadjutor in Dr. Henderson,
whose rhetorical "fire and occasional flights of terrible grandeur" are highly celebrated by those who knew him. He was born in Virginia, May 31, 1764. His first
wife was the eldest daughter of President Balch. He labored as a preacher and instructor, until July, 1834, when he died amid the lamentations of multitudes. Dr.
Anderson writes of him (in Sprague's Annals, III. 531), that although he abounded
with oddities, he " was still eminently useful, and is remembered by the aged Christians of East Tennessee with the most affectionate respect."
REV. GIDEON BLACKBURN, D. D.
Drs. Balch, Coffin, and Henderson were happy in the cooperation of Dr. Blackburn, who, born in Virginia, August 27, 1772, became conspicuous throughout the
land, as a Christian pioneer in our western regions. He had been under the tuition
of Dr. Henderson, and he shared in the doctor's love for the divines of New England.
His correspondence with the Massachusetts Missionary Society is noticed in several
volumes of the Massachusetts Missionary Magazine and the Panoplist. It is a singular fact, illustrating the diffusive nature of personal influence, that this Western missionary was active and useful in promoting the union between the Hopkinsian and the
Calvinistic parties in the Andover Theological Seminary. From  1827 until 1830,
Dr. Blackburn was President of Centre College, Danville, Kentucky. He was an
important co-worker in establishing various literary institutions at the West, and was
the originator of the scheme which has now resulted in founding the Theological Seminary at Carlinville, Illinois.  After forty-six years of hard service, he died at Carlinville, August 23, 1838. Rev. J. W. Hall, D. D., who knew Dr. Blackburn well in
the vigor of his manhood, says of him: "Hopkins, Bellamy, Strong, Emmons, and
Edwards, were his favorites when I knew him. His three oldest sons were named
Newton, Hervey, and Emmons."  (Annals, IV. 53.)
Dr. Blackburn belonged to the puissant band of Tennesseeans and Kentuckians,
who guided the controversies leading to the disruption of the Presbyterian Church in
1837. The Hopkinsians "stood in solid phalanx to resist the usurpation of the
exscinding majority. Every shot they fired did execution."
REV. ISAAC ANDERSON, D.D.
He was born in Rockbridge County, Virginia, March 26, 1780. He received his
academical education at what is now called Washington College, and what was then
known as Liberty Hall Academy. Here Dr. Archibald Alexander, Dr. Baxter of
Virginia, Dr. John Holt Rice, and Dr. Conrad Speece, were trained academically.
He pursued his theological studies in part, with Rev. Gideon Blackburn, D. D. In
1802, he was ordained pastor of Washington church, in Knox County, Tennessee.
In 1812; he was installed pastor of New Providence Church, Maryville, Tennessee.
"For a period of fifteen years, there was a revival [of religion] in his congregation
every fall or winter."  "He has been considered as the first to establish what is
called the'anxious seat.' "-(Memoir of Dr. Anderson, p. 119.)  "The late Dr.
Allan, of Huntsville, Alabama, after hearing him on a certain occasion, said:'I
have been in Philadelphia, New York, and Boston, and have heard their greatest
speakers: I have been in Liverpool, London, and Manchester, and have listened to
the preaching of their most distinguished men; but that man (pointing to Dr. Anderson) is the greatest man I ever heard.' "- (Memoir, p. 124.),it *




198                               MEMOI R.
This athletic preacher took a strong hold of whatever he touched at all. For instance, he was so thoroughly aroused in favor of the Temperance reform, that one of
his theological opponents — Rev. Daniel Baker -wrote of him in 1843: "Among
other things, he has abolished the use of wine at the Sacrament, and uses raisin-water."
Dr. Anderson was a severe and indefatigable student, and particularly noted for
his untiring beneficence. He performed a great amount of missionary labor in the
western country. He was peculiarly beloved and trusted by the Indians. Through
life he was eminent for his self-denial, especially for his pecuniary sacrifices in the
cause of learning and religion. In 1819 he visited the Theological Seminary at
Princeton, " hoping to induce some of the young men who were about to enter the
ministry, to come to East Tennessee. Quite a number of them, at his request, met
him in his room at the hotel."  After a lengthened description of the country for
which he asked their services, he " put the question plainly:'Will not some of you
go with me, and help me to preach the gospel there?' The first question asked, in
reply to this was:' What salary do they pay their ministers?' Such a question addressed to such a man as Dr. Anderson - a man who had toiled and labored without
money and without price - whose own hands had ministered to his necessities, while
preaching the gospel-aroused his indignation, and he replied,'Go there and ask
such a question, and as ministers of the Gospel you are ruined.' "-(Memoir of Dr.
Anderson, p. 53.)
This was the true ring of the metal of the man. His failure to secure pastors of the
churches in East Tennessee, induced him to lay there the foundations of a Theological School. lie collected in 1819-20, a class of five young men, one of whom was
Rev. Dr. E. N. Sawtelle, and this was the first class in what is now  Maryville
College. He established a boarding-house, and sometimes provided for fifteen or
twenty young students in that Charity Home.  He solicited for it donations of
food and clothing.  "One day a letter came from the celebrated Dr. Emmons,
inclosing seventy dollars; and stating, that he had understood he was engaged
in educating young men for the ministry, and he had sent a few dollars to aid in the
good work."-(Memoir of Dr. Anderson, pp. 56, 95).
Persevering through obstacles which would seem insurmountable to many, and relying on the unforeseen aids of Providence, this eloquent pleader effected, at last, the
permanent establishment of his Seminary; and he was inaugurated its first Professor
of Didactic Theology, September 25, 1822. For several years, he gave his instructions without a salary, and at the same time furnished gratuitous board to many indigent students. His course of theological discipline bore striking resemblance, in
many respects, to that of Dr. Emmons. His Seminary was violently and virulently
persecuted. It was called "the nest of Hopkinsians."  Ie says: " The doctrines of
President Edwards, of Dwight and Strong, and old Dr. [Samuel] Spring, and writers
of this school, are the doctrines taught here."
Early in the morning of the seventeenth of March, 1856, Dr. Anderson's house was
consumed by fire. He himself had a narrow escape from the flames. As the old
man of seventy-five years was borne away from his falling edifice, he uttered not a
word except this: " My library is burned up."  His biographer adds: "Not a book
nor a manuscript was saved; not even a Bible." The loss of his Theological Lectures and Correspondence is to be more deeply regretted, than the loss of his books.
These Lectures contained a vigorous defence of the Hopkinsian peculiarities.




M EMOIR.                                  199
This energetic pioneer was employed as a teacher during a large part of a halfcentury, and was a theological instructor during nearly all of his last thirty-seven
years. He died at Rockford, Tennessee, January 28, 1857.
INFLUENCE OF THE MINISTERS NAMED ABOVE.
This influence is indicated in the following words of a Southern clergyman who
evidently does not adopt all the Hopkinsian theories:
" I was a gay, young Virginian, and felt myself buried there [in East Tennessee].
I had no society.  To spend time, I was wont to attend the occasional ministrations
of the Methodist itinerant, and to visit an old Presbyterian and his wife, a few miles
away, who took much interest in me, - a Mr. and Mrs. David Kinkcade. This old
gentleman and lady were called Hopkinsians, a phase of Presbyterians who then and
for a long time before, had divided East Tennessee with the Old School; and ultimately became the New School in that region. It was hard to tell whether the husband or the wife was the most thoroughly versed in Edwards, Hopkins, and Emmons; and strange, their society, wholly of this metaphysical tone, became a perfect
charm to me. I spent days with them contesting the extremes of Hopkins and Ermmons. I see now the little old man with his very short legs, waddling to get the
candle-stand, and piling it up with Hopkins's huge volumes - then seated in his great
old-fashioned chimney corner, spectacles in one hand, pipe in the other, he would
look at me with his piercing little black eyes, and press some' nice pint' of disinterested benevolence. The old lady, tall and angular, on the other side of the hearth, -
with pipe and spectacles too, would nod assent to the hardest paradoxes of Emmons,
and hope and believe from  her very heart that, some day, I would see the beauty of
these' new ideas.' It was on one such occasion, after little Davy, as he was called,
had read to me with exquisite delight, a sheet of his own poetry,- in which he made
Satan before he fell, consent that God might for his glory influence him to sin 1 - that
Polly, the wife, said with real affection for me,'I wish, Mr. Ross, you would just
ride down to New Providence next Sunday, and hear Mr. Gallaher. He is 2my
preacher, and you can't help liking him.''Yes,' added the old man,'you must -
Gallaher is not quite up to these " nice pints" yet; but he is a great preacher.'"
-(Annals, IV. 535.)
The "great preacher" here named is the celebrated James Gallaher, who published
the "Pilgrimage of Adam  and David," and the "Western Sketch Book."  He was
also an editor of the Calvinistic Magazine, which was in the general features, in the
substantial elements of its character, Hopkinsian. His friend, Dr. David Nelson,
another revival preacher, and the author of a noted work entitled, " Cause and Cure
of Infidelity," shared with Mr. Gallaher in the Hopkinsian influences of the four
instructors named above, although neither of these revivalists adopted all the peculiarities of either Emmons or Hopkins.  These peculiarities, however, were adopted
by many athlete preachers in that community of strong men. A clergyman who well
knows the community, makes the following allusion to one of the negro metaphysicians who loved the "nice points " of Hopkins and Emmons.
"In that house, and under those trees, fifteen persons were organized [in 1820]
into a Presbyterian church, -the same to which I afterwards preached nearly thirty
1 Any doctrine whatever, if stated loosely, may suggest a false idea, and if stated
playfully, may suggest an irreligious sentiment.




200                              MEMOIR.
years. The officiating ministers on the occasion were Dr. Coffin and Rev. George
Erskine. And strange as it may sound to our abolition brethren, Rev. Mr. Erskine
was an African negro, as black as ebony. There he stands preaching, -a large man
with strong, good face, - of decided talents, giving a masterly sermon in the vigorous
old Hopkinsianism and manly style of the Rev. Isaac Anderson of Marysville, by
whom he was educated. He was on his way to Liberia, where he died very soon, in
the morning of his usefulness. I remember only that sermon, and one of Dr. Coffin's,
the next day,- the Sabbath, and the first communion occasion in that little flock."
-(Sprague's Annals, IV. 254.)
In a letter dated May 6, 1807, President Coffin writes concerning John Gloucester,
another ebony Emmonite, and a pupil of President Balch: " He is indeed a genius,
an orator, a man of modest and engaging address, well acquainted with genuine good
breeding, and, we trust, of more than usual Christian experience. White people think
the word of God comes with power from his black lips."
The question may now arise: What is the present result of all these Hopkinsian
controversies in Tennessee and Kentucky. A  distinguished southern clergyman
affirms: "It was a struggle between New England Metaphysics and Scotch Irish
Presbyterianism - having all the energy of thought, and all the obstinacy of prejudice belonging to the men, the times, and the country. The storm  was pretty
well over before my day. Still I lived ministerially, so soon after the lull, that I had
much of the agitation of the elements, the flying dust, the leaves, the torn branches,
and other fragments of the war around me."
It must be remembered that some of the Hopkinsians and some of their opponents
were the Principals of Colleges.  The strife, then, was mingled in its motives, I
fear. The horses of Achilles had names different on earth from what they bore in
heaven.  So, it is a question not settled among the curious in such matters in East
Tennessee, whether that controversy was regarded by the All-Seeing, as wholly a
work of " Disinterested Benevolence" on either side.
These Hopkinsian views "gave tone ultimately to the New School theology;
throughout the Synod of Tennessee, covering a wide extent of country.  They were,
it is true, greatly modified in different minds. In many, they were denied in form.
Nevertheless these sentiments moulded, in fact, the thinking of men, and gave triumph
to the New School in much the greater number of churches in the region indicated."
The Hopkinsian "controversy, together with various Methodist discussions, has
made East Tennessee the most thoroughly instructed portion of the North-west," in
regard to religious doctrine.
Another southern theologian writes: "The churches of [East Tennessee], generally,
for a time preferred the ministers of the more liberal views, as Hopkinsians were often
called, and on this account [these ministers for a time] controlled the church in all
this region."  " It cannot be denied that [their] form of speculation had great power
for good."
"Not a few Presbyterian brethren in the State of Kentucky," writes an aged
divine, "sympathized and acted with the Hopkinsians of East Tennessee. They
were the friends and pioneers of all missionary enterprises " in that region.




CHAPTER XII.
HIS INTEREST IN THE CAUSE OF EDUCATION.
~ 1. An Example of Individual and Indirect Insluence in educating
Milen.
THE preceding narrative has been inserted as an illustration
of the fact, that some of the most thrilling events connected with
the labors of Emmons, were indirect results of those labors. He sat
at his desk, and his words moved a distant wilderness. He was
engaged, through life, in educating men and women and children, but he educated them with a still, small voice.'" Franklin
must be the centre of my world, and my study must be the
centre of Franklin," was his motto.  In his parish he worked
on those who came to see him.  In all the great movements of
the day, he exerted his influence on men who came to see him.
His written words, too, had an educating power.  They were
perused emphatically for " doctrine, for reproof, for correction,
for instruction in righteousness."
Rev. Joel Hawes, D. D., who was nurtured in the parish
adjoining that of Emmons, has thus illustrated the quickening
influence of the divine, from some of whose theories the Hartford
pastor dissents:
"My acquaintance with Dr. Emmons was of course never intimate.
Having friends residing in Franklin, I occasionally spent there a part of
my vacations in Brown University and in the Andover Theological
Seminary, and I always regarded it as a rich treat to hear him preach
and visit him in his study. He had a rare faculty of making me feel at
home with him. There was something so kind, genial, and lively, in his
voice and look, and manner of conversation, that he drew me close up to
him and made me feel entirely at ease in his society.
(201)




202                        MEMOIR.
" Beyond any man I ever conversed with, he had the power of quickening the mind, of stirring up thought, and setting one upon the track of
interesting and useful inquiry and reflection.  I never spent a half
hour with him, but he sent me away laden with rich ingots of thought,
enough to keep me thinking for weeks and months afterward. And I
have often said that I owe no small part of what I am, and have been
in the world, to impulses received from intercourse with Dr. Emmons
and from early familiarity with his writings. His conversation abounded
in principles, maxims, great thoughts, which one having heard, would
be likely never to forget. In this way, I caught from him the theme of
the first sermon I ever wrote -' The heart governs the understanding."
He dropped it as a casual remark; but it struck me as full of profound
meaning and exceedingly practical in its bearing; and so I found it,
when I set myself to analyze and apply it in my initiatory discourse.
" He had a quick way to dispose of a subject when he did not wish to
pursue it. Not long after I entered college, I called upon him, and in
the course of the conversation, something led me to ask him how he
understood that passage in 2 Cor. 6: 14, which says,-'Be ye not
unequally yoked together with unbelievers.' Fixing his keen eye upon
me, as if he saw mischief lurking in me or in the question; he said, —'I have always found that young men have a way to get round that
text, if they choose;' then, instead of giving his views of the passage, he
rose and took down from his library a folio volume of Poole's Synopsis
in Latin, and putting it into my hands, left me to study out the meaning,
at my leisure, while he attended to some business of his own."
Another eminent divine who has been educated, in no small
degree, by the Franklin recluse, is Rev. Gardiner Spring, D. D.,
of New York City.  In a letter to Rev. Dr. Ide, he has thus
declared his indebtedness to Emmons:
" I am under great obligation to him for giving a direction to my mind,
in relation to the great object of the Christian ministry.  He urged upon
me to make the pulpit and the press my chief concern; and instead of
those discursive habits of thought to which he perceived I was sufficiently exposed, to concentrate my efforts on this single object. While
I do not adopt all the theological views of this wonderful man, I am
more indebted to his writings and those of Bishop Butler, than to any
other men. I know of no such refutations of Arminian, Socinian, and
Universalist errors, as I find in the published works of Dr. Emmons.
In all my controversies with these errors, I have repaired to him, if not
to burnish my armor, to see that there were no loose joints in the




MEMOIR.                          203
harness. In unfolding the nature of true godliness, in making every
truth bear upon the conscience, in never relaxing the bonds of moral
obligation, and in constraining the incorrigible to acknowledge that their
excuses are refuges of lies, no man instructs me like Dr. Emmons. In
my early ministry, I had considerable correspondence with older and
wiser ministers than myself. I was not a little profited by their counsels;
but no man so condescended to my ignorance and impatience as your
venerable father."
We have already alluded  to the hook upon the study door
of Emmons.  That hook was a history.  It spoke with an iron
tongue to many a clergyman, and admonished him  to make his
life a studious one. That hook was a symbol of the resolute
man's example, and that example was a stimulus to all who
came near him.  His very door exhibited the sign of his enthusiasm in study, and his enthusiasm enkindled the spirit of other
men.  An intimate clerical friend, lingering in the Doctor's
room, long after the hour for work had come, said to the Doctor:
" Perhaps, sir, I am  detaining you from your books;" to which
the enthusiastic student replied, with an inimitable naivete:' I shall feel the happier when you have gone."  The friend went,
with a sharpened stimulus to his own books, and with a deeper
reverence for the man whose love of toil broke through the
barriers imposed by his love of good cheer. The industry of
Emmons was like a water-wheel moving a thousand belts connected with it. He believed that a love to the ministerial office
would animate the incumbents of that office, with a zeal for
mental improvement.  A great aim  of his life was to inspire
them with this zeal.  Such remarks as the following are found
scattered throughout his writings, and were distilled like honey
from his lips in familiar conversation.
" All good ministers have a high relish for divine knowledge,
and desire to dive into the deep things of God, and to enlarge
their minds with clear and extensive views of his character, his
designs, and works."
Studious and pious divines "move in a higher sphere than
1 See p. 104, above.




204                      MEMOIR.
mathematicians and astronomers, or natural and moral philosophers.  These study the science of means; but divines soar to
a higher region, and study the science of moral ends, which is
the highest science in nature."
" The ministers of the gospel may be considered as the lowest
order in the highest school in the universe. The knowledge of
all other arts and sciences shall fail; but the divine science
which they are pursuing, shall last forever; and their progress in
it shall be like the rising sun, which shineth more and more
unto the perfect day.'
~ 2. The Kindliness of his Severity in Criticism.
Not a small part of his educating influence was exerted in his
criticisms upon his brethren.  He compressed volumes of meaning into brief sentences, each sentence intimating the idiosyncracies of his brother, the nature of the fault which was condemned, and of the excellence which was recommended.  He
has been blamed for the severity of his criticisms.  It arose
from the terse method in which he desired to express them, and
by means of which they would be more distinctly remembered.
It did not offend the men whom he aimed to correct.  It was
regarded as excellent oil. It was coupled with such an obvious
interest in their improvement, that it rather incited them to
gratitude for his endeavor to stimulate their lagging industry.
He commended men who needed praise, and he was never
severe upon men whom he regarded as so deficient in mental
stamina, that they could not afford to be censured.  The sensible
clergymen whose faults he corrected were at last, if not at first,
pleased with his severity upon them. They considered it a sign
that he esteemed them as well worth an attempt to make better,
and this implied that they already possessed somewhat of good.
He did not look down upon them  as such feebly burning lights,
that a single application of the extinguishers would snuff them
out.  Iis style of criticism bore a striking resemblance to that
of Andrew Fuller and Robert Hall.  Who were sharper censors
than they, or more benevolent friends? The men who received
some of the most withering criticisms from Dr. Emmons, were




ME MOIR.                       205
the very first to repeat them afterwards often with glee, still
oftener with gratitude. They had full confidence, that he was
educating them by his comments on their faults, and while he
was reproving them with some sharpness in their presence, he
would commend them for some virtue in their absence. Young
clergymen often received from him  such criticisms as would
mortify them for a time, and still attach them to the critic, who
would by all means prompt them, even if he provoked them, to
good works.
When a young man had preached a whole system of theology
in one discourse, the doctor asked him, on leaving the pulpit,
" Do you ever mean to preach another sermon? "  C Yes, sir."
" What have you got to say?  You've preached about every
thing this morning."
When one of his former pupils had delivered an oratorical sermon, and had waited in vain for some commendation from his
teacher, he ventured to expedite the compliment by saying, " I
hope I have not wearied your people by the length of my discourse."  4 No, nor by its depth," was the reply.
A favorite clergyman undertook to apologize for the exuberance of metaphor in one of his discourses preached at Franklin,
but he was interrupted by the assurance, "' My people are like
the blacksmith's dog, not afraid of sparks."
A preacher once complained to him, " I find my greatest difficulty in drawing the inferences in my sermons."  "No doubt,"
was the doctor's reply, " for you have nothing to draw them
from."
To a candidate for settlement he remarked, " You have
struck twelve first. Fools will complain, if you do not strike
thirteen next; wise men will complain, if you do."
He was impatient of a fault, not only in other men, but also
in himself; he was less tolerant of his own foibles than of the
foibles in his brethren; he was desirous of correcting all that
was wrong, whether in his mind or manner, whether in the
mind or manner of those around him; his enthusiasm for the
reformation of his clerical friends prompted that caustic style of
remark, which those who knew him knew how to interpret as an
evidence of his kindness. On one occasion, while he was urging
his ministerial brethren to a more rigid discipline of themselves,
VOL. I.                S




206                     MEMOIR.
and exposing the lamenesses of a sermon which one of them had
read for criticism, the victim of the censure became indignant
for a moment, and thrust out the abrupt query: " Mr. Emmons,
what would you have been, if you had not been a good man? "
" Just like you," was the quick reply; and none of the hearers
was more amused with it than was the querist who had given
the occasion for it, and who at once rejoined: " The Association
is indebted to me for that good turn."
While the sharp words of a censor may sometimes irritate and
injure a sensitive mind, still the spirit which prompted the words
may be that of a man intent on a good service. The true captain does not pause to construct emollient phrases while he
ought to be stirring up a timid battalion to the charge. We
have heard the most benevolent fireman use harsh tones, when
he was starting his comrades to one last effort for the protection
of a family from the flames. Such was the kindly spirit of Emmons, even in those criticisms which appear sarcastic and scathing, when unaccompanied with his magnetic smile. He furnished a good illustration of the remark: "' Severitatem istam
pari jucunditate condire, summaeque gravitati tantumn comitatis
adjungere, non minus difficile quam magnnum est."
~ 3. His Interest in Seminaries of Learning.
We speak of Emmons as a recluse. Men think of him as a
mere inquirer into the decrees of heaven. But he was a man of
enterprise, and conversant with men of enterprise.  Such men
rode to his still parsonage in order to be electrified. He did not
mingle in Conventions, but he dropped sententious phrases into
the ear of those who did mingle in them.'" I always go away
from him with a new thought," has been the frequent word of
his departing guest.l  We can never trace all the influences of
his critical and scientific mind, as it scintillated through all the
circles which met around him. We can never learn how many
educational enterprises were started under the direct or indirect
stimulus of his remembered words and suggestive works. We
can never count up all the hints which he let fall upon good
ground, and they sprung up and bare fruit.
1 See ~ 1 of the present chapter.




MEMOIR.                              207
It is interesting, however, to notice, that some of the earliest
projects for establishing Theological Schools in the United States
originated from  his intimate friends, —men who had felt the
magnetic force of his fireside conversation.  The following appendant narrative illustrates, partly, the indirect services which
he rendered to some of our literary institutions, and, partly, the
interest which he felt in the theological character of some of
them.
a. His Interest in Andover Theological Seminary.
In 1778, thirty years before the Seminary at Andover was founded, a
brother-in-law of Emmons wrote thus to Judge Nilesl another friend of
Emmons:
Phillips Academy " has suggested a thought which I have often revolved in my mind.  What if some enterprising pious genius should rise
up, and set on foot a subscription for founding a Theological Academy? " 2
Rev. Samuel Spring, D. D., another brother-in-law of Dr. Emmons,
was one of the first men who proposed the establishment of a Seminary
for training thorough, direct, plain, pungent, argumentative, doctrinal
preachers, and for maintaining that definite and strict form of Calvinism
which is commonly named Hopkinsian.  That Emmons first suggested
this plan we do not know. That his whole soul was enlisted in it, is certain. So implicit was the confidence reposed in him by the Hopkinsians,
that many of them could not be satisfied unless their proposed Seminary
were located in his own parish. At one time it was not only the desire,
but the full expectation of Dr. Spring, to see the new Seminary in the
still retreat of Franklin, where it would be the safest and the strongest,
because under the sharp, quick eye of its ablest friend. When the project was named of uniting the Hopkinsian Seminary with the Institution
proposed for the interests of Moderate Calvinism at Andover, Dr. Emmons rose up against it.  He stood out against it, until he supposed that
he had defeated it. " The Conference closed," - these are his words in
relation to a meeting of the two parties,-'" the Conference closed, and I
rode home, fully satisfied that the Coalition was dead." 3 But by various
1 Nathaniel Niles, of Fairlee, Vt., grandson of Rev. Samuel Niles, of Braintree,
and brother of Samuel Niles, of Abington, who is named on pp. 120, 121, above, as
one of Emmons's most intimate friends. Judge Niles opposed some of Emmons's
theories, but took great delight in his society.
2 Memorial of the Semi-Centennial Celebration at Andover, pp. 148-150.
3 The writer of this Memoir has often heard Dr. Emmons narrate the proceedings
of this remarkable Conference. It was one of the few Business Meetings which he
attended at the sacrifice of his " study-hours."




208                         iM EM 0 IR.
processes, which it is needless to specify here and now, the Coalition revived.  Dr. Emmons, however, remained firm  in the conviction, that it
would be better for the Hopkinsians to found a Seminary for themselves.
He had a high esteem for many of the gentlemen interested in the rival
Seminary at Andover, but he did not regard them  as sufficiently outspoken and bold in their method of treating the doctrines of decrees,
election, divine sovereignty, the union of human activity and dependence,
the utter and entire sinfulness of all voluntary acts preceding the new
birth.  He looked upon the Constitution which those gentlemen had
adopted for the basis of their new Seminary, as too vague and indefinite;
and he insisted that there must be a Creed more exact and unequivocal,
more in sympathy with the views of the elder and the younger Edwards,
Hopkins of Newport, and Hopkins of Salem, Bellamy, Smalley, West,
Catlin, and Spring. He refused to meet again with the two parties in
the Coalition, but his advice was freely given to the Hopkinsian party,
who regretted his personal absence from  them.  They framed their
definite Creed, under his fatherly counsel. Before this carefully written
Creed was adopted, every word of it was placed, again and again, before
his keen eye.  Dr. Spring, of Newburyport, visited the Franklin parsonage repeatedly, for the purpose of obtaining the advice of EmmoMs, not only with regard to the substance and the form of this Creed,
but also with regard to the initiatory processes of the Seminary.  It was
thought to be of incalculable importance, that the Seminary begin right.
There was reason to believe, that as it began, so it would continue.
Therefore, the early history of the Institution received many an imprint
from the Franklin divine.'
Nor in later years did the friends of the Seminary which had sprung
from the " Coalition," forget to ask wisdom from the sage who had opposed the compromise. It has happened to me, recently, to peruse two
epistles which illustrate the regard paid to this modest divine by the first
Professors of the Seminary. One of the letters is from Rev. Dr. Porter,
who was wont to say: "I find much that is true and strong in the the1 The order of theological topics which Dr. Emmons had adopted for his School
was almost precisely the same which was adopted at Andover at the commencement of
the Seminary, and which, with very few changes, was continued during the professorship of Dr. Woods. Compare Emmons's Letter in Chapter XIII. ~ 2, below, with
Woods's Works, Vol. IV. pp. 549-591, and contrast the arrangement of his System
with the order of the Assembly's Catechism.
The second volume of Dr. Emmons's Sermons was published through the instrumentality of the students at Andover. Samuel J. Mills and Adoniram Judson took
eight copies, each. Many subscribers were procured through their agency. - Among
the few subscribers in Boston were the Rev. J. S. Buckminister and Rev. William E.
Channing.




MEMOIR.                                 209
ology of Dr. Emmons, and I find nothing in it essentially diverse from
the teachings of all our best theologians." The letter is as follows:
"ANDOVER, Dec. 3, 1827.
"REV. AND RESPECTED SIR: — Since I have been in this place, it has constantly
been my intention to visit you at your own house. But as I have commonly travelled
in the stage, I have hitherto been disappointed in fulfilling this intention, nor can I
say when I may be able to do it. I send the accompanying sermon, in consequence
of a suggestion that you had expressed a wish to see it, and because I am glad of any
opportunity to show you even so small a token of respect. The truth is, if you will
allow me to say it, that I have long regarded you as a father in our Zion, and should,
at any time, have felt it a high privilege to consult you respecting my own duties, and
the interests of our sacred Seminary. After this frank declaration, allow me to add,
that any strictures which you may find time to give me by letter, respecting this sermon, or the course of our measures here, will be gratefully received.
With sincere respect, yours, etc.,
"E. PORTER."
The other epistle is from  Rev. Dr. Woods, who more than once remarked: "Dr. Emmons has one of the grandest understandings, ever
created in this world."  The letter is as follows:
"ANDOVER, Aug. 9, 1830.
"REV. AND DEAR SIR:- I send you herewith a copy of my Letters to Dr. Taylor.
I have, for some time, been desirous of knowing what you think of his peculiar speculations. And considering how much you have thought upon such subjects, I should
be much gratified, if you would write me your views with freedom. It has been my
intention to visit you, and spend a few days with you some vacation; and I hope still
to enjoy that pleasure. If after reading my Letters to Dr. Taylor, you are led to apprehend that there is any thing wrong in my habit of thinking and reasoning, I shall
take it as a favor, if you will tell me.
" I am, dear sir, with great respect and affection, yours,
"L. WOODS."
It is a singular fact that Dr. Eliphalet Pearson, who was the Coryphaeus of the Moderate Calvinists in founding the new Seminary at Andover, and who was as earnest in advocating, as Dr. Emmons was earnest
in opposing, the union between the Calvinistical and the Hopkinsian
schools, became, in his later years, a convert to the opinion of his antagonist, and regretted that he had not allowed Dr. Emmons to have his own
way.  As the Franklin divine did not approve of the incipient processes,
so the Andover divine did not approve of the ultimate results, of the
Coalition between the two Schools.  The Seminary was more distinctively Hopkinsian, than Dr. Pearson wished or expected it to be.  He
did not hesitate to allow, in his open-hearted way, that he was disappointed and dissatisfied with the management of the Seminary, and that
he would never have favored the "compromise," if he had suspected
S *




210                          MEM fOIR.
that it would have enured so decidedly to the advantage of the Hopkinsians.l
It has been supposed that the stern Hopkinsian, as he disapproved of
the compromise on which the Seminary was founded, remained hostile to
the School. We have already seen, however, that although upright and
erect in stating his objections to a plan, he was equally remarkable for
acquiescing in that plan when it was fully established, and when it
promised, on the whole, to result in more good than evil.  To a youthful friend, who had been advised not to enter the new Seminary, but to
pursue his studies with Dr. Emmons, he remarked - and he more than
once repeated similar words to young men: " Go to Andover; -I do
not like the Coalition-  but go there. I think that right doctrine will
be taught there for the present.  If my son Williams were to be a minister, I would send him there, as Andover now is.  But I do not know
how long it will stay good."
b. His Interest in Bangor and Auburn Theological Seminaries, and in Yale, Williams,
Dartmouth and Amherst Colleges.
As the Seminary at Andover was started by men who had felt the
magnetizing influence of Emmons, so was the Seminary at Bangor.  He
was not a diplomatist.  He did not arrange the details of a scheme for
managing the pecuniary or the disciplinary interests of a theological
school; but no one can read the ensuing Sketches 2 of Bailey, Wines,
Fowler, Smith, and Pond, without the impression that these pupils of
Emmons were inspirited by him  to a great work, and that the Institution to which they so nobly consecrated their strength, owes a debt of
lasting thanks to their stimulating teacher.
It is another curious fact, that a clergyman, who for more than fifteen
years was one of Dr. Emmons's most intimate friends and neighbors, and
whose literary spirit was often enkindled in the Franklin study, is said
to have been " greatly instrumental in the establishment of Hamilton
College, and [in 1818 of] Auburn Theological Seminary."  This friend
was Rev. Caleb Alexander,a of Mendon, Mass.  He was the first President of the Board of Commissioners of the Auburn Seminary, and at
the inauguration of its first Professors, was selected to give the history
1 The preceding statement is borrowed from an Address prepared by the author of
this Memoir for the Semi-Centennial Celebration of the Founding of the Theological
Seminary at Andover. See Rev. John L. Taylor's Memorial, etc., pp. 227-236.
2 See Chapter XIII. ~ 3.
3 See History of Mendon Association, pp. 128-130.




MEMOIR.                                 211
of its rise, progress and needs.  In an obituary notice of this preacher
and author, the Onondaga Register for April 16, 1828, says: "Being
himself an excellent scholar, he excelled in this department of usefulness, and may be considered as the founder of several important literary
Institutions."'
Dr. Emmons had great confidence in Rev. Miatthew  La Rue Perrine, D. D., who from  1821 until 1836, was Professor of Ecclesiastical
History and Church Polity in the Institution at Auburn, and for two
years gave instruction in the theological as well as in the historical department.  Rev. Dr. A. E. Campbell says (Sprague's Annals, IV. 239) of
Dr. Perrine: "In his theological speculations, I suppose he harmonized
very nearly with Dr. Emmons; and though his peculiar views doubtless
gave a tinge to his preaching, yet I do not think that he was accustomed
to bring them forward very distinctly, especially in a controversial manner.
There is no doubt, that a considerable number of the earlier students of
the Seminary had their theological views moulded by his influence in
conformity with  Dr. Emmons's system."  Stimulated  by  such  facts,
Emmons contributed of his scanty income, at various times, and he also
induced many of his friends to contribute to the pecuniary relief of the
Auburn as also of the Bangor Seminary.
1 Another conspicuous agent in establishing the Divinity School at Auburn was
Rev. Dirck C. Lansing, D. D., an admirer and an earnest reader of the Franklin divine. Dr. N. S. S. Beman says of him: "He was, out and out, a Hopkinsian."  He
was elected Professor of Sacred Rhetoric in the Seminary, in 1821. When he retired
from office in 1826, the Board of Commissioners resolved, "that this Board, in behalf of this Christian community, and in their own behalf, do, in the exercise of Christian affection and respectful gratitude, record the name of D. C. Lansing, among the
Founders of this Seminary, and as one of the prime and most efficient agents in
measures which have led to its establishment and its present pleasing and flourishing
condition." See Hotchkin's History of Western New York. In his Semi-Centennial
Discourse, preached in Brooklyn, N. Y., January 1856, Dr. Lansing thus enumerates
the general results of his ministry: " To sum up all, to the glory of the blessed and
adorable God, I would say, that I have been instrumental in establishing various institutions of learning for the instruction of both sexes; was one of the original Trustees of Hamilton College; was tle principal building committee and financial agent
of Auburn Theological Seminary; and for four years gave occasional instruction in
the department of Sacred Rhetoric. I have been instrumental in erecting, enlarging,
or modifying eleven houses of worship. For all this I adore and magnify the great
and blessed God. But more than for all this, and unutterably beyond and above it
all-I do adore Him for having condescended to employ me, so unworthy as I am,
in being principally instrumental in promoting at least sixty revivals of religion, in
upwards of forty different places." —Discourse Commemorative of the late Dirck C.
Lansing, D.D. By Rev. Joseph P. Thompson, Pastor of the Broadway Tabernacle
Church, New York. Dr. Thompson ascribes to Dr. Lansing the honor of projecting
"the Auburn Theological Seminary, for which, mainly by his personal agency, he
secured an endowment of $100,000 in money and lands." - (pp. 42, 43.)




212                           MEMOIR.
In many of our colleges also, Dr. Emmons felt a living interest.  All
his theological predilections led him to cherish a peculiar reverence for
his Alma Mater.  Notwithstanding his independence of character, he
regarded himself as formed by Yale College, and the influences clustering around it; as formed by the Institution, rather than by any one
of its officers; by the atmosphere which he breathed at the side of
Governor Treadwell and Judge Trumbull and Dr. Strong.  If with his
early Arminian proclivities, he had not been trained in this ancient
school, and afterward in the house of its eminent alumnus, John Smalley,
it seems that his entire life-work would have been different from what it
has been.  He regarded his Alma Mater as the motheri of the soundest
theological literature in the world, and he has, in some degree, repaid the
debt of gratitude he owed her by reflecting the light of his own name
upon her already luminous record.
The son of one of his parishioners has thus described those theological
influences of the College, which gave to Emmons a personal interest
in it:
"The fathers of New England theology - Edwards, Bellamy, Hopkins, West,
Smalley, Emmons, and Dwight,-went forth from  Yale. The first and most
eminent of these, after taking his degree, remained here for several years as resident
graduate, and afterwards as tutor. Here, in his own judgment, his religious life
began; here his principles were formed, and he received the discipline which prepared him to take the highest rank in the field of intellectual science. Bellamy, who
was converted soon after leaving college, and Hopkins, were pupils of Edwards.
From  Hopkins, West derived his theology; Smalley studied with Bellamy, and
Emmons with Smalley. These men, and especially the foremost one among them,
who gave the impulse to all the rest, have strongly influenced the thinking of the age.
Whatever is distinctive in American theology as contrasted with the general theology
of the church may be traced to them." 1
" How could the Franklin recluse have satisfied himself in spinning out
and out his metaphysical theories, while he was aware that few men
understood him?"  This is a question often asked by impatient critics.
But he expected to be understood. He looked with hopeful interest to
the clergymen  connected with  our colleges.  Williams College, for
example, was intimately associated with the cause of Hopkinsianism, as
well as the cause of Missions, the one cause being a precursor of the
other.  That Institution was planted amid the churches  that were
gathered under the personal labors and influence of Dr. Hopkins, while
in  Great Barrington.  The first Vice-President of the College was
Emmons's intimate companion, Dr. Stephen West of Stockbridge; the
1 Prof. George P. Fisher's Discourse, commemorative of the Church of Christ in
Yale College during the first century of its existence; (pp. 36, 37).




MEMOIR.                                213
second Vice-President was another staunch  Hopkinsian, Dr. Alvan
Hyde of Lee.  The third Vice-President was Dr. Samuel Shepard of
Lenox, another disciple of Hopkins and friend of Emmons. Collins and
Little, who were early trustees of the Institution, studied theology with
Dr. Bellamy.  Dr. Fitch the first President of the College was regarded by Dr. Hopkins as an advocate of the New Divinity.' All the
clerical trustees of the Institution were so decided in their attachment
to the New Divinity, that they were tenacious in advocating the use of
Dr. Hopkins's System as a college classic. The following extract from
a letter of Dr. West to Dr. Hopkins, is a remarkable document:
" STOCKBRIDGE, September 19, 1797.
"You spoke in your last of our having prohibited your system being recited in
Williams College. It is true, the Trustees have prohibited it. It was introduced as a
classical study without the order of the Corporation. The President introduced it
because, as he told me, he thought it much exceeded any thing of the kind he had
seen. But the civilian part of our Board, it seems, were of another opinion. They
judged, that its being recited would be injurious to the reputation of our new Institution. The matter was considerably discussed. The clerical part of the Board
were all of one mind; and were greatly opposed to its being rejected. But when the
vote for its rejection was taken every hand was up, excepting those of the ministers.
Though the world seems to be madefor Ccesar, yet we know that Zion's God reigns.
The time is not yet come for truth to prevail. But in God's good time, it surely will
come. The Evil One intends to hold the Colleges, but the Lord will support his own
cause."
Such facts as these aroused Emmons and other IHopkinsian divines to
a peculiar interest in Williams College.  Whether it be wise or unwise
to be governed by theological predilections in an estimate of Collegiate
schools, Emmons early looked at these schools in their religious aspect.
Long before the orthodox clergymen of Massachusetts began to discountenance the practice of sending orthodox young men to Harvard
College, the Franklin pastor had discountenanced it in the most decisive
way.2   Here as elsewhere, he anticipated  the opinion  of his sect.
Dartmouth College, on the other hand, he trusted and loved as a nursery
of sound doctrine.  Many of his pupils were among its alumni.3  He
smiled upon Amherst College, also, in its gloomiest days.  One of his
1 See Memoir of Hopkins, p. 237.
2 Of the twenty-five young men, parishioners of Dr. Emmons who were liberally
educated during his residence in Franklin, eighteen were graduated at Brown
University. For many years, three of his pupils occupied Presidential or Professorial
chairs in three Baptist Universities.
3 See pp. 123, 124, above.




214                            MEM OIR.
pupils was largely instrumental in procuring the original endowment for
it.l He subscribed for that endowment five times as much as his friends
deemed it prudent for him to give.
It has been often asked, Where is the carefully selected library of
more than six hundred volumes, which once belonged to the Franklin
student?  He distributed the most valuable portions of it among the
literary men, and the literary institutions of the land.2  He was always
ready to aid indigent scholars from  his own limited income.  He gave
away his manuscript sermons, his books, and his ideas. -  But his more
important contribution to the work of training the public mind, will be
seen in the following chapter.
i See Chapter XIII. ~ 3.
2 The following is a specimen of the letters, betraying the manner in which his respectable library was scattered through the country forty years ago:
" FRANKLIN, July 20, 1820.
"REVEREND D ANDDEAR SIR,-I rejoice to hear that the Synod of Tennessee
have established a Theological Seminary, which promises fair to be extensively useful.
I hope they will happily succeed in their pious and benevolent design. And agreeably
to your request, I send you five volumes, as a very small addition to that little library
which you are collecting for that infant institution.
" With my best wishes for your personal felicity and public usefulness, dear sir, I
am affectionately yours,
NATHANAEL EMMONS.
" Rev. Dr. Richards, Newark, N. J."




CHAPTER  XIII.
HIS THEOLOGICAL SCHOOL.
~ 1. Number of his Pupils.
IN his old age Dr. Emmons recalled the names of eighty-six or
seven young men, who had pursued their theological studies
with him. He might have recalled a hundred names, if his
memory had retained its former power. He began to take
theological pupils eighty-three years ago, and he continued to take
them  for more than forty years. He preserved no written
catalogue, and in his final enumeration of them, he omitted
several prominent men.  No private instructor in the land has
ever trained so large a number of ministers as were trained at
Franklin.  Even the celebrated Dr. Charles Backus did not
instruct more than fifty students; Dr. Asahel HIooker, not more
than thirty-three; Dr. Asa Burton, not more than sixty. The
students of Emmons, as of other teachers in that day, continued
their preparatory course from three to twenty-four months. A
few of his pupils pursued their studies, in part, with other
instructors.
It is true, that Professors in theological seminaries have
participated in educating a larger number of theological pupils,
than were trained by Emmons; but their scholars have been
fashioned, not so much by any one of these Professors, as by a
collective band of them, by large associations of fellow-students
in social debate, by rich libraries and various public appeals.
The pupils of Emmons, however, were disciplined by himself.
Many of them lived in his family. He was intimate with each
one of them. He was not compelled to give general instructions,
which might surpass the comprehension of one, but would
appear insipid to another.  He knew how to apply his precise
(215)




216                      MEM OIR.
words to the individual sitting by his side. He did apply them
with an electric power.  It has been often said, that he has
effected more, without adventitious helps, in fashioning the
entire character of his pupils in divinity, than has been effected
by any other theological instructor in our land. It is, indeed, a
disadvantage to subject young men so exclusively to the sway of
an individual teacher. The public course of theological education is more expansive, and more healthful than is the private.
It is not, however, so conducive to the immediate, individual,
and personal influence of any single teacher or any single mind.
What it gains in expansiveness, it loses in concentration.
~ 2. His Method of giving Instruction.
In his simple-hearted way, Dr. Emmons has thus described
his manner of conducting his school:
" I was naturally fond of retirement; and when I entered into
a family state, I intended to live as much by myself, as would be
consistent with proper attention to my people, and to occasional
visitants. It did not once occur to my mind, that I should become an instructor in divinity. The first young gentleman that
applied for instruction [this was in or before the year 1778]
proposed to tarry but a few weeks, and accordingly left me as
soon as he proposed. I had then no expectation of any future
application.  But pretty soon after this, another young man in
the vicinity wished to live with me a little while [this was in the
year 1779]; and, being in a bereaved situation, I consented to
receive him into my family, and assist him in his theological
studies a few months.  Still, I had not the remotest' thought of
becoming an instructor of candidates for the ministry; but it so
happened, that numbers successively put themselves under my
instruction, and in the term  of about fifty years, I have taught
between eighty and ninety pupils." — Memoir of hinself.
The doctor omits to say, that he often resolved to decline all
applications of theological students, and that he often did positively refuse their requests for his aid in instructing them.  He
was surprised, that any one should desire his assistance. Ie
said in his old age to one of his former scholars: "I verily




MEMTAOIR.                       217
thought, when you asked me to take you as a pupil, that you
were bereft of your wit. I pitied you, from the bottom of my
heart." He writes;
" At first, I left my students to take very much their own
method of studying, only directing them  to read particular
authors, conversing with them occasionally, and hearing them
read their compositions. But after I durst consider myself as
an instructor, I adopted nearly the same mode of instructing
that Mr. Smalley had taught me. I drew up a concise system
of theological questions, which I put into the hands of my
pupils, and directed them to write a longer or shorter dissertation upon each question, in the order it was placed. But previously to their writing upon any subject, I directed them to read
some of the best authors I had, who had written upon each side
of the question. This appeared to be necessary, not only to give
them  a full and extensive view of every subject, but also to
guard them  against falling into errors afterwards. For while
they were reading on the wrong side of any question, I had opportunity to make such remarks upon what they read, or what
occurred to them in reading, as might prevent their being led
astray by false or sophistical reasoning.  Though I supposed it
was necessary, yet I knew it was dangerous, to read authors of
erroneous sentiments; because the best heads and the best
hearts are not always able to detect and refute sophistry, without some assistance. In this view, it appeared proper to put
authors on both sides of a question into the hands of my pupils,
and to give them  a general knowledge of the most false and
dangerous schemes of religion, before they left me. I thought
the danger was less in this way, than to allow them to go out
into the world, without being, in some measure, prepared to
meet and refute those who either professed or propagated false
and destructive sentiments.
"In hearing their discourses, I used to remark upon their
manner of arranging their thoughts, upon the sentiments they
exhibited, and upon the beauties and defects of their language.
I cautioned them against a flowery, bombastic style, on the one
hand; and on the other, against a too low, vulgar, slovenly manner of expression. I recommended a plain, neat, perspicuous,
energetic mode of writing and speaking, which all could underVOL. I.                T




218                           MEM OIR.
stand, which none could dislike, and which some of the best
judges would admire.  I commonly spent some time every day
with my students, either to hear their compositions, or to converse with them  upon particular subjects.  I often discoursed
upon the duties, difficulties, advantages, and trials of ministers.
I inculcated  the importance  of being prudent, faithful, and
exemplary, in every part of their ministerial duty. I urged
them to give themselves wholly to their work, and never encumber themselves with the concerns of the world, or dissipate their
minds by mixing with vain and unprofitable company.  I endeavored to point out how they should treat their parishioners
of various characters and dispositions, and taught them  as well
as I could, how to become able and faithful ministers." -Memoir of himself.
The following extract of an epistle from Dr. Emmons to Rev.
Asahel Hooker, the celebrated teacher in Goshen, Conn., illustrates the course of study pursued in the Franklin School:
FRANKLIN, July 16, 1804.
REVEREND SIR, -I am  glad that you have consented to instruct
young men for the ministry.  I wish you success in your undertaking,
and am willing to give you my sentiments upon what appears to me a
proper mode of conducting a Theological School.  I think students
should read and write systematically upon the principal subjects in
divinity.  They had better read and write upon a few important and
fundamental subjects, than to read and write upon a large number of distinct and unconnected questions. For when they read and write upon a
subject, the questions belonging to that subject will naturally occur, and
can be discussed with more advantage in that, than in any other connection.  The questions I commonly propose, and the authors I recommend,
are the following, viz:
1. On the Being and Perfections of God. Hume's Dialogues, Clarke, Doddridge.
2. On the Inspiration of the Scriptures. Deism Refuted, Doddridge, Paley.
3. On the Trinity.  Chubb, Priestly, Lyndsey, Clarke, Gill, Doddridge, Waterland.
4. On the Decrees of God. Edwards, Dickinson, Nelson, Whitby.
5. On Moral Agency. Edwards and Son, West of Stockbridge, Priestly, Dana.
6. On the Nature of Holiness. Edwards, Hopkins.
7. On the state of man before the Fall. Edwards, Chauncy, Whitby, Taylor.
8. On the state of Man after the Fall. The same.
9. On the effects of Adam's Fall on his posterity. The same.




M EMOIR.                                219
10. On the Atonement. Bellamy, Hopkins, West, Smalley, Edwards.
11. On the terms of Salvation. Gill, Dickinson, Sandeman.
12. On Regeneration. Hopkins.
13. On Repentance. Bellamy's Dialogues, Niles.
14. On Faith. Bellamy's Dialogues, Dickinson.
15. On Justification. Edwards, Dickinson, Gill, Bellamy.
16. On Saints' Perseverance. Bellamy, Dickinson, Whitby.
17. On Death. Bishop Law, Price and Priestly, Chauncy, Ditton.
18. On the Resurrection of the Dead. Doddridge, Locke, Gill.
19. On the General Judgment. Chauncy, Edwards, Strong, Kelly.
20. On Baptism. Gill, Lathrop, West, Peter Edwards.
21. On the means of Grace. Hopkins, Hemmenway, Spring, Tappan.
22. On the terms of Communion. Edwards, Stoddard, Cambridge Platform.
23. On the Form of the Christian Church. Hooker, Cambridge Platform.
24. On Church Discipline. Hooker, Cambridge Platform, Hopkins.
25. On Presbyterian Ordination.  Hooker, Hobart, Chauncy, Cambridge Platform.
26. On the Millennium. Bellamy, Hopkins, Newton, Lowman.t
In running over this catalogue, you will perceive, that I recommend
heterodox as well as orthodox  writers on  each question. Young men
will, sooner or later, meet with heterodox books, and they had better read
them under the eye and assistance of an instructor, than after they are
left to their own discretion only.  I commonly spend an hour or two
1 The course of study prescribed by Dr. Emmons appears quite limited, when
we compare it with the course pursued at our Theological Seminaries.  But it
appears quite respectable when we compare it with the course prescribed by other
clergymen of his time. The following is the syllabus of the Theological course
adopted by Rev. David Tappan, D. D., Hollis Professor at Harvard College, and the
chief teacher of the Calvinists, as distinct from the Iopkinsians in Massachusetts,
during the latter part of the last century:
On Natural Religion. - Abernethy's and Leland's Sermons on the Divine Attributes; Clarke's Demonstration, etc.; Price on Morals.
On the Necessity of Revelation.- Leland or Campbell.
On the Proof of Revelation. -Doddridge's three Sermons on this subject; Newton on the Prophecies; West on the Resurrection of Jesus Christ; Littleton on the
Conversion and Apostleship of St. Paul; Farmer on Miracles; Paley's Evidences;
Butler's Analogy.
On the Doctrines of Revelation.- The Expositions of Doddridge, Guise, Henry,
and Whitby; Ridgley's Body of Divinity; Edwards's History of Redemption, and
Treatise on the Affections; Berry Street Sermons; the Sermons of Blair, Doddridge,
Grove, Lathrop, S. Stennett, Sherlock, Tillotson, R. Walker, Watts, Evans.
On the Christian Church and Ordinances. -Hemmenway and Emmons; Edwards,
Lathrop, and Tawgood on Infant Baptism; Bell, Grove, and Henry on the Lord's
Supper.
On Jewish and Ecclesiastical History.- Lowman and Shaw on Judaism; Shuckford's and Prideaux's Connexions; Jortin's and Mosheim's Ecclesiastical History.




220                           MEMOIR.
every afternoon or evening, in hearing the students read their compositions, in making remarks upon them, and in answering questions proposed.  I seldom  propose questions myself, because the students can
best state their own questions and difficulties; and when they really find
difficulties, they will better attend to and understand what is said to
remove them.  I occasionally give them  particular advice and instruction upon sermonizing, public speaking, parochial duties, private conversation, and the general course of their studies in future life. This is a
very general mode of instruction, in which you may possibly find some
things to be approved.
One of his theological pupils, Rev. Dr. Pond, of Bangor, has
thus described the exercises at the Franklin School:
"Our teacher was not accustomed to favor us with his own private
opinion, before we had written on the doctrines which we examined.
He preferred that we should exercise our own thoughts upon them, and
investigate them independently. But when the time for reading came,
he was very free in his criticisms and remarks.  The discussions which
took place in connection with the reading of Essays, were always interesting, and sometimes considerably protracted.
"The course of instruction was admirably fitted to put a young man
upon his own resources, and if he had any thing in him, to draw it out.
The planning and preparing of Essays, which were to pass the ordeal of
Dr. Emmons's criticism, was a formidable affair, which no one would be
willing to pass lightly over; and then, this reading, thinking, writing, and
discussing upon a long train of connected subjects, -subjects involving
questions of great difficulty and importance, -was adapted, beyond almost any thing, to stir and to quicken the soul. Under such a process,
the mind became not only stored and furnished, but trained and disciplined, and prepared in the best manner, for future effort and usefulness.'
" Dr. Emmons had a peculiar faculty of attaching his students to himself personally.2  They not only revered and honored him, but they
1 " All the formal and incidental remarks of Dr. Emmons, all his hints and suggestions were wonderfully fitted to make his pupils think, compel them to think for themselves, to think right, and to express their thoughts in appropriate language."- ~MS.
Letter of Rev. David Brigham.
2 The language of one of these pupils is, " In the instruction of students in theology, of whom he had a large number, he excelled every teacher of whom I have
ever had any knowledge, in any department of education, whether literary, scientific,
or professional." — Rev. Thomas Williams's Discourse on the Official Character of Dr.
Emmons.
The following extract of a letter written to Dr. Emmons by his pupil, Rev. Joseph




MEMIOIR.                             221
loved him. Ie had also the faculty of imbuing them with his own peculiar sentiments, and of working out of them every thing of an opposite
tendency.  Of all young men whom he instructed in theology, very few
left him  without becoming pretty thorough Hopkinsians. And all this
was accomplished without any artifice, or any force put upon their opinions, except the force of his invincible logic.
"And not only did the pupils of Dr. Emmons imbibe his opinions, the
most of them were led to imitate him, so far as they were able, in his
style and manner.  They tried to make sermons after his model; and it
was chiefly through an influence of this sort, that his peculiar, topical
mode of constructing sermons prevailed so extensively in New England
for more than half a century.
"Among the hundreds of ministers, who regarded Dr. Emmons as a
sort of model preacher, some were servile imitators of him.  They strove
to think and speak precisely like him, - an attempt in which not a few of
them miserably failed. They had the bones of his theology, but they
were bare bones.  The skeletons of their sermons bore some resemblance to his, but his were covered with sinews and flesh, and were full
of the breath and the warmth of life; while theirs were mere skeletons,
cold and dry.  Others, while they admired Dr. Emmons, and would
have called him Rabbi, rather than any other uninspired man, still took
the liberty, which he always took, and always encouraged, of thinking
and speaking in their own natural way.  If they differed from  him
somewhat in their modes of sermonizing, or in stating and defending
some of the doctrines of the gospel; this was no more than he had done,
in regard to Edwards, Hopkins, and Smalley, and others whom he most
venerated as ministers of Christ."
~ 3. The Interest of his Puptls in the Cause of Education.
The twelfth Chapter of this Memoir describes the subject of it
as an educator of the public mind.  The stimulus which he gave
to his pupils, quickened many of them  to an interest in educational processes. This class of his students reflect his own
Emerson (see Emerson's Memoir, pp. 323, 324), illustrates the enthusiastic and lifelong attachment of the Franklin students to their teacher:- "Wethersfield, Ct., Aug.
2, 1828. Most Honored Friend and Father,,- Scarcely any house or study is so familiar or so dear to my heart, as yours. They are intimately associated with my most
valued improvements - with my happiest hours. I fear I shall no more enjoy with
you,' the feast of reason and the flow of soul,' except in memory, which still loves to
linkter tller". But though I cannot visit you, I must still look to you for advice and
counsel, withl the same filial confidence as thirty years ago."
T*




222                              MEMOIR.
image.  His life will not be seen in all its aspects, unless we look
at it as daguerreotyped upon his pupils in the schools. The
ensuing sketches are, therefore, appended to the record of his
educational labors.
PROFESSOR ABIJAH WINES.
This indefatigable worker was born in Southold, Long Island, May 27, 1766, was
married at the age of twenty to Ruth, daughter of Hon. Benjamin Giles, of Newport,
N. H., where Mr. Wines had resided five years. When he had become the father of
two children, and was fully established as a farmer at Newport, he became a real servant of God, and at once desired to become a public servant in the sacred office.
"But [writes the Secretary of the New Hampshire Missionary Society], what shall
he do with his wife and two children, and how shall he take care of his farm? His
wife, a lady of great energy and remarkable executive powers, relieved him on these
points; for she assured him that she could manage the farm, support herself and children, and aid him besides in obtaining means for his education.  This she actually
did, and when her husband was graduated at Dartmouth College in 1794, and was
the father of four children, his estate was of more value than at the time he committed
its management to his wife."
"On leaving College," [says Dr. Sprague, Annals, Vol. II. p. 473], Mr. Wines
" went to JFranklin, Mass., to prosecute his theological studies under the direction of
Dr. Emmons.  The teacher and the pupil are said to have been mutually pleased,
and each to have found in the other a kindred spirit. Having remained here not far
from a year, he was licensed to preach about August, 1795, and, on returning to his
house at Newport, was employed by the church and society there to preach as a candidate for settlement. In the course of a few months he was invited to become their
pastor; and, having accepted the call, was ordained January, 1796. The ordination
sermon was preached by the Rev. Dr. Burton, of Thetford, Vt."
It is a remarkable fact, that the church in Newport had waited nearly five years
without a pastor, for the purpose of enjoying the services of this " prophet in his own
country."  He remained the bishop of this people from Jan. 5, 1796, until November,
1816, having been favored with two extensive revivals of religion, one of them adding
about seventy converts to his church.  His parishioners loved him as "a father, a
brother, and a friend." They were thoroughly indoctrinated, and were made familiar
with a lovely ideal of the religious life. From 1796, the year of his ordination, until
1855, eight hundred and ninety-seven persons were admitted to his church. So have
his works followed him.
"After laboring," says the Secretary of the New Hampshire Missionary Society,
" more than twenty years at Newport, Mr. Wines conceived the design of establishing
a Theological Seminary in Ohio, then one of the remotest Western States. Having
a presentiment of what that State, and other parts of the great Valley of the Mississippi would become, he foresaw the importance of early establishing there a'school
of the prophets.' Thinking that he might be instrumental in laying the foundation
for an Institution of the kind, he asked a dismission from his pastoral charge, that he
might make the attempt.  With great reluctance his people granted his request. In
what way Mr. Wines expected to accomplish so great an undertaking, was not very




MEMOIR.                                  223
apparent. But lie addressed himself earnestly to the work of exploring the southern
part of Ohio, going all the way from Newport on horseback, in company with one of
his theological pupils, Rev. Dyer Burge. The last-named minister, now living in
Ohio at an advanced age, whom I often saw there from 1836 to 1840, frequently related to me the enthusiasm with which Mr. Wines entered upon his cherished enterprise. But he had not been long in Ohio, then mostly a wilderness, before he saw
that his undertaking was impracticable. No coadjutors could he enlist there. No
funds could he secure, and to his great disappointment, he was obliged to abandon his
project. The disappointment, together with the reaction of tearing himself away from
his attached church and people, and thus throwing himself out of an important position of usefulness, had the effect to dethrone his reason. He shortly returned to his
family in Newport, an insane man."
Mr. Wines, having already distinguished himself as an instructor of candidates in
theology, was invited, before his Western tour, to fill the theological professorship in
the Maine Charity School, an institution first projected at that time, and existing yet
as the Bangor Theological Seminary. After his Western tour, and the recovery of
his health, Mr. Wines was again importuned to occupy this new professorship. He
accepted the office, and in the spring of 1818, commenced its duties. The celebrated
Jehudi Ashmun was his colleague Professor.
Mr. Wines resigned his office in 1819, "and [writes the Secretary of the New
Hampshire Missionary Society], removed to Deer Island in Penobscot Bay, where he
supplied the Congregational church of the Island twelve years, earnestly devoted to
his work, and taking a deep interest in the cause of temperance, then just attracting
public attention. The morbid nervous affection which had prostrated his mind in
1817, returned; and, leaving Deer Island, he went with a son into the wilderness of
Maine, erected a saw-mill, and engaged in active business. But, his melancholy
increasing, he was removed, August 1832, to the McLean Asylum in Charlestown,
where he died, February 11, 1833, in his sixty-seventh year. Had Mr. Wines
yielded to the entreaties of his church and people at Newport to remain their pastor,
he probably would have escaped the terrible disease which visited him, and might
have continued useful and happy in his parochial relations."
" In stature, he was large, erect, but of a commanding aspect, and looking as if he had
been born to be a leader. His features were strongly marked,- his nose prominent,
his eye large, and his forehead uncommonly well developed —indeed his personal
appearance altogether was highly impressive, and there was an air of nobility about
all his movements."
" As a preacher, Mr. Wines possessed many admirable qualities. His voice was
strong and commanding, but not particularly melodious. His fine person and natural
and easy manner were greatly in his favor. His perceptions were clear and quick,
and he saw the remote relations of things, almost as by intuition. He reasoned with
great directness and force; marching forward to his conclusion by a path so luminous,
that his hearers generally felt constrained to follow him. His Calvinism was of the
Hopkinsian type, and his preaching was in a high degree doctrinal. He preached
with a boldness and fervor, that left no one in doubt as to the sincerity and strength
of his convictions."
But his highest excellence was his devoted piety. He seemed always ready to do




224                               M EM   O IR.
the will of his heavenly Father, and always to live as if he were longing to breathe
the atmosphere of heaven. It was manifest to all who witnessed his daily walk, that
the commanding purpose of his life was to glorify God in the faithful discharge of all
his duties. He was preeminently an honest man, and a consistent, every day Christian." -Sprague's Annals. II. 375, 376.
Mr. Wines published five sermons, also a Treatise on the "Nature of the Sinner's
Inability to become holy."  Four of his daughters were married to ministers of the
gospel.
PROFESsoR BANCROFT FOWLER.
This undervalued man was born in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, in 1776, was graduated at Yale College in 1796, was tutor in the college from 1800 until 1804; was
settled in Windsor, Vermont, from about 1812 until 1819, was then elected successor
to Jehudi Ashmun in the Professorship of Sacred Literature in Bangor Theological Seminary.  Remaining in this office until 1825, he was settled at Northfield,
Massachusetts, in 1831, and at Bernardston, Massachusetts, in 1836.  On the 20th
of November, 1839, he was installed in Greenfield, New Hampshire, and dismissed
April 2, 1845. He died at Stockbridge, Massachusetts, April 5, 1856, aged eighty
years.
" I knew him  personally," says the Secretary of the New Hampshire Missionary
Society. " He had a mind decidedly superior and a fine classical taste. He excelled
in the belles lettres. He was a good writer of sermons, and a devout Christian. But
his manners in the pulpit were not easy, and therefore as a preacher he was not
popular. He did not pass with the public for what he was worth. The impression
which he made as a speaker was unequal to his talents, his education, and his
soundness and ability as a theologian."  He mourned over this limitation of his
usefulness. Still he was venerated as a Christian gentleman, and his character did
more good than his words.
PROFESSOR JOHN SMITH.
This sterling divine was born in Belchertown, Massachusetts, March 5, 1766; was
graduated at Dartmouth College in 1794; was settled nineteen years, from January 2,
1797, until November 21, 1816, in Salem, New Hampshire; was installed at Wenham, Massachusetts, November 26, 1817; was invited to the Professorship of Theology
in Bangor, then made vacant by the resignation of Professor Wines, in 1819. He
was an admirable instructor.  He left a deep and permanent impression on his pupils.
He was severely logical in his mental processes. The term solid indicates exactly his
entire character. On the fourteenth of April, 1831, he died triumphantly, in the
twelfth year of his professorship, and the sixty-sixth year of his age. He published
six sermons, and a Treatise on Infant Baptism. Dr. Smith was highly prized by
Emmons, as a substantial thinker.
PROFESSOR ENOCH POND.
He was born near Franklin, in Wrentham, Massachusetts, July 29, 1791; was
graduated at Brown University, 1813; ordained pastor of the church in Ward (now




IMEM OIR.                                225
Auburn), Massachusetts, March 1, 1815. He continued pastor of the church in Ward,
a little more than thirteen years, during which time the church was favored with two
remarkable revivals of religion, in consequence of which about one hundred and sixty
persons were added to it, and from being weak and inefficient, it became one of the
largest and most flourishing in the county of Worcester.
In June, 1828, Dr. Pond relinquished his charge at Ward, and removed to Cambridgeport, in order to assume the editorial management of the Spirit of the Pilgrims,
which had just been established. He continued in this editorial chair four years. In
June, 1832, he accepted a call to become Professor of Theology in the Seminary at
Bangor, and from 1855 until the present time, has been Professor of Ecclesiastical
History in that Institution.
Dr. Pond has published the following volumes: A  book of Monthly Concert
Lectures, entitled " The World's Salvation"; Memoir of President Davies; Memoir
of Susannah Anthony;' Memoir of Count Zinzendorf; No Fellowship with Romanism;
First Principles of the Oracles of God; The Mather Family; Life of Increase Mather
and of Sir William  Phipps; The Ancient Church; Memoir of John Knox; The
Wreck and the Rescue, or Memoir of Rev. Harrison Fairfield; Life of Wickliffe;
The Morning of the Reformation; The Young Pastor's Guide; Pope and Pagan;
Review of Swedenborgianism; Life and Works of Plato; Review of Bushnell's
God in Christ "; a volume on Congregationalism, entitled " The Church."
His published pamphlets are: —  Reply to Judson on Baptism; Unitarianism
Exposed; Apology for Religious Conferences, and a Rejoinder; Letter to Rev.
Samuel Nott, in reply to his complaints of Dr. Pond's treatment of Dr. Judson.
Dr. Pond has published about twenty sermons on various subjects, more than
twelve of which have appeared in the National Preacher. He has also contributed to
the following magazines: — the Spirit of the Pilgrims (two thirds of the first five
volumes being from his pen); the Panoplist; the Guardian; the Christian Magazine,
published by the Mendon Association (about twenty Articles); Utica Christian
Repository, the Hopkinsian Magazine, the Pilgrim, Quarterly Register, the Christian
Keepsake, Monthly  Christian  Spectator, New  Englander, McClure's Christian
Observatory, Southern  Presbyterian, Lord's Literary and  Theological Journal,
Bibliotheca Sacra (several Articles to each); also many Articles to the Literary and
Theological Review, Biblical Repository, and Baptist Christian Review, -the New
Brunswick Review, and the American Theological Review.
Dr. Pond has likewise been a frequent contributor to the Boston Recorder, the Congregationalist, the Christian Mirror, and the Maine Evangelist.  He has edited
and published an edition of the Cambridge Platform, with preface and notes, and of
Norton's Life of Cotton.  Several of the tracts published by the American Tract
Society are also from his pen. The mere record of his publications proves him to
be an Emmonite in diligence.
REV. KIAH BAILEY.
It is a noticeable fact that the first four Professors of Theology in the Bangor
Theological Seminary, were pupils of Emmons.  This fact suggests the imporThoioial11




22G                              MEMOIR.
tance of naming, in this connection, the Rev. Mr. Bailey, whose history has been
extracted from various private letters, from Blake's History of the Mendon Association, pp. 253-255, but chiefly from the American Congregational Year-Book for 1858.
This good man was "born in Brookfield, Mass., 11th March, 1770. He removed
with his parents to Haverhill, N. H., 1775, when the country was a wilderness. In
1783, his father removed, with his family, to Newbury, Vt., where he fitted for college, under the instruction of Rev. Jacob Wood, minister of the place. While pursuing his preparatory studies, he taught the first school ever kept in Ryegate, Vt.,
1789. He entered Dartmouth College in the autumn of the same year, and was
graduated in 1793, with the honor of delivering the Greek oration. It was during
his Sophomore year, in the autumn of 1790, that, after a long and painful lawwork, as he himself expressed it,'the rebellion of his heart was hopefully conquered, and grace -free, sovereign grace triumphed.'
"From this moment his whole soul was set on the work of the ministry; and in
October, 1793, immediately after he was graduated, he commenced the study of theology
with Dr. Emmons, and was admitted into his church in May, 1794. The next month,
June, 1794, he was licensed to preach by the Mendon Association. He had calls to
settle in Milford, Northampton, Cornish, N. H., and Ashby, Mass. but he chose his field of
labor among the feeble and destitute churches of the then Province of Maine. He
was ordained pastor of the Congregational Church in Newcastle, Me., October 7,
1797 -at that time a church of three persons only, besides the pastor. The little
vine, by God's blessing on his labors was increased, not a hundred, but sixty-fold,
before the time of his dismission, which was at his own request, in 1824. Several
revivals had been enjoyed, particularly one in 1816 and 1817, which was of special
power and extent.
"After leaving Maine, Mr. Bailey preached two years and a half at Greensboro',
Vt., three years and a half at Thornton, N. H., and returned in 1833 and settled on
a farm in Hardwick, Vt., where his parents died, and where he chose to close his own
earthly pilgrimage. From this time he preached only occasionally in vacant congregations, but kept up his interest in the enterprises of the church, and the objects of
reform, till the very close of his earthly career.
"Few men in the State of Maine have been more extensively engaged in all the
benevolent movements of the churches there than Mr. Bailey. He -was a Representative from Maine to the Legislature of Massachusetts, in 1819 and 1820; a member of
the Board of Overseers of Bowdoin College, eight or nine years; acted at the election
of the first, second, and third Presidents of the College. He was President of the
Maine Missionary Society; and also one of the Board of Trustees; was one of the
Trustees of the Maine Charity School, and also Secretary of the same; he was a
Trustee of the Society for Theological Education in Maine, instituted June 27, 1811,
incorporated February 27, 1812, and was its Secretary several years.  This was the
second education society in New England. Mr. Bailey labored hard, journeyed,
wrote, prayed, and supplicated with God and man, and finally merged the Society
into the Bangor Theological Institution, which was incorporated by the Massachusetts
Legislature February 4, 1814. Mr. Bailey was named in the charter as one of the
Trustees -was the Secretary for five or six years of the Board of Trustees. He
drew up the by-laws of the Seminary, and did what he could to make it a rich blessing to the church. He corresponded more, and labored more abundantly than any




MEMOIR.                                    227
other man, to build up the infant Seminary. He has been well called a founder of
the Institution. It has been often said, that if he had not studied theology with Dr.
Emmons, the Institution at Bangor would not have come into existence."' About the year 1802, Mr. Bailey commenced an effort to establish an Academy in
Newcastle. As this was to be the Academy for the county, he had powerful competitors.  But he succeeded, and secured an act of incorporation, and a fund
of about thirteen thousand dollars for the Lincoln County Academy. Rev. Daniel
Haskel, subsequently President of Burlington College, was the first Preceptor, and
Rev. Dr. Beman, of Troy, was the second.  Rev. Mr. Bailey was Secretary, Treasurer, and Agent of this Institution for about twenty years, and when he left Newcastle
it was a prosperous school." The zealous man was wont to say: "I claim the Academy at Newcastle, and the Theological School at Bangor, as my own children. Not
that others did not help,- but on me the burden of laying plans and of executing
them without funds, for five or six years, rested."'The Lincoln and Kennebec Religious Tract Society was instituted May, 1802, and
printed and distributed about thirty thousand tracts. The work of selecting, preparing, printing, and distributing these tracts, rested very much on Mr. Bailey, as Secretary.  So the Christian Monitor, a magazine published by the Maine Missionary
Society six or seven years, and which did much to promote the cause of missions,
depended very much on Mr. Bailey for matter and for distribution. For several years,
he was one of the sub-Committee to aid in locating and directing the missionaries
sent by the Massachusetts Missionary Society into Maine.'In 1794 he married Abigail Goodhue, a lady who having been early ber;ft of both
her parents, enjoyed the parental attention and instruction of Rev. Sam'-el Hopkins,
D. D., and Rev. Dr. Spring, of whose church she was a member.  Cn the model of
these men her mind was formed. She was residing in the family of Dr. Emmons,
while Mr. Bailey was pursuing his theological studies in the sarpn house. After her
marriage to him, she lived nearly twenty-seven years at Newca-tle, Maine, where she
adorned the vocation of a pastor's wife.  She was particularly useful to the young
men in the Newcastle Academy, more than a hundred of whom boarded, at different
times, in her family, and some of whom  became interested there in religious truth.
She was a friend and correspondent of some distinguished literati.'
Mrs. Bailey was among the first to labor for tie establishment of a theological
school at Bangor. After her decease, her Memoir wvas published in a volume by Rev.
Daniel 0. Morton, author of the Life of Rev. Levi Parsons. Mr. Morton says respecting Mrs. Bailey, and two other ladies with whom she cooperated: "But for their
prayers and influence, perhaps, the Theological Institution of Bangor might not have
been established."  In 1814 she writes: "' blessed be God for honoring me, unworthy
as I am, with giving the first mite to ti-e treasurer for [Bangor Seminary].  This was
the free-will offering of a number oa females in different places, whose hearts the
Lord has made to feel for their fell )w immortals.  The Lord bless them individually
with his special love. The little sum was one hundred and sixty dollars. The Lord
make it to increase a thousand fold. Blessed be God for making me his almoner."
"Mrs. Bailey persevered,' adds her biographer, "in this labor of love, till she had
collected and paid to the treasurer of the Maine Theological Seminary, nearly two
thousand dollars."  (See Memoir of Dr. Samuel Hopkins, pp. 95-97.)




228                             MEMOIR.'Mrs. Bailey had a very retentive memory; a lively, chastened imagination; an ardent, unquenchable thirst for knowledge. She became a ready writer, and left at
her death many volumes of manuscripts, diaries, etc. She loved and read her Bible
much; was a strict observer of the Sabbath, always at meeting, if possible; loved to
do good; was active in all benevolent movements.  She lived near to God. Her
last sickness was short, and she fell asleep in Jesus, most peacefully, on the 18th of
March, 1846, at Hardwick, Vt., aged 89 years and 10 months.' Rev. Mr. Bailey's published works were, nine single sermons; - two doctrinal and
two ordination sermons,- one at the ordination of Rev. Mr. Spaulding, at Penobscot,
and the other of Rev. Mr. Beaman, Portland, Me.; one sermon before the Maine Missionary Society, one at the opening of the Lincoln Academy, one on the Evils of
War, one on Intemperance, and one against Fashionable Amusements. He edited a
reprint of Earle's Sacramental Exercises, published by Lincoln & Edmands, Boston,
1813; The Preciousness of Christ -edition, 400 copies: Armstrong, Boston; Two
Worlds Displayed; together with tracts and magazines, etc.'In the anti-Masonic contest, 1829, he wrote for the journals more, perhaps, than
any other person in New England; and he was no less zealous in the anti-slavery
cause. In one year he wrote over seventy pieces for the press, and for seven years
his communications, many of which appeared in the North Star, would amount to
fifty a year.'His own estimate of his multiplied labors was very humble.  "' If there was any
thing of good in them," he remarked, "give God the glory. I have been a poor, miserabtl, unprofitable servant, and must perish, if God does not have mercy upon me. If
saved at all, it must be by grace."'Mr. i3ailey left in manuscript, a Treatise on Baptism, drawn wholly from  the
Bible, in,llr sermons, covering ten sheets, on (1) the import of the institution, (2)
the elements, (3) how performed, (4) infant baptism. This work, he thought, met
the argument f6, immersion better than any he had seen. But he could not afford the
expense of printingk it.'
Mr. Bailey died a,. -ardwick, Vermont, August 17, 1857, aged eighty-seven years.
He had been a preacher of the Gospel sixty-three years.
PRESIDENT STEPHEN CIAPIN.
The great majority of the Franklin students remained firm Congregationalists. A
few of them became pastors of Presbyterian churches.  Two of them were Baptists.
One of these became such after he had entered the congregational ministry. He rendered essential service to his adopted denomination as an instructor of youth.  The
following is his history:
Rev. Dr. Chapin was born in Milford, IM ss., November 4, 1778; at the age of eight
or nine years he became, as he believed, a chi, I of God; at the age of seventeen he became a member of the Milford Congregational church; was graduated at Harvard
College in 1804, having among his class-mates Piofessor Andrews Norton, and Judge
Ashur Ware; was ordained June 19 1805, Pastoi of the Congregational Church in
Hillsborough, New Hampshire' his ordination sermon being preached by his theological instructor, Emmons.
In his pastorate at Hillsborough, Dr. Chapin "exhibited that firm  adherence to
what he believed to be the teachings of the Bible, which eminently characterized his




MEMOIR.                                   229
subsequent life. His conscientious convictions compelled him to oppose the Half-way
Covenant, or the baptism of children whose parents made no profession of having
felt the power of religion. Through his influence the church adopted an Orthodox
Confession of Faith, and required a profession of experimental piety as a condition of
membership; and their numbers were increased by the addition of many efficient
members. On the 30th of July, 1809, he took leave of this church, and, on the 26th
of November following, was installed as Pastor of the Congregational Church in
Mount Vernon, N. H. In this year he was married to Miss Sarah Mosher, of Hollis,
N. H. He remained in connection with the Mount Vernon Church for nine years, -
until the change of his sentiments on the Subjects and Mode of Baptism.  On account
of this change he was dismissed from this church on the 18th of November, 1818, and
in the same month was baptized by the Rev. Dr. Baldwin, and received a member of
the Baptist Church in Boston, of which Dr. B. was pastor.
"It seems that some two years previous to this time, for the purpose of strengthening
himself in the practice of Infant Baptism, he determined on a careful review of Ecclesiastical History.  The results at which he arrived were very different from what he
had anticipated, and led him to a fresh examination of the Scriptures of the Old and
New Testaments, and finally to a change in his ecclesiastical connections. In 1819,
he published a series of Letters, giving the processes through which his own mind
passed in his inquiries after truth and duty."
In the autumn of 1819 he was ordained Pastor of the Baptist Church at North Yarmouth, Maine; in 1823 was appointed Professor of Theology in the College at Waterville, Maine; after discharging the duties of this Professorship with distinguished
ability for the term of five years, he was inaugurated March, 1829, President of the
Columbian College, Washington, D. C.'For twelve years he labored as President of
this Institution, with unflagging zeal and energy.' His work was crowned with signal
success. No one could have performed it, who was not gifted with herculean strength.
His health became enfeebled, and having resigned his Presidency, he lived three or
four years on a small farm which he had purchased in the vicinity of Washington.
"It was on a cool and bright autumnal day, October 1, 1845, when the exercises of
the Annual Commencement of his beloved Columbian College were being performed
in a crowded assembly, honored by the presence of the President of the United States,
and other distinguished members of the National Government, - that the spirit of
Chapin, in his own quiet chamber, — his eye beaming with hope, and radiant with
light from another world, - took its flight to the abodes of the blessed. He had
nearly completed the sixty-seventh year of his age. Due honors were paid to his
memory, not only by his friends and the public at Washington, but by various Religious and Benevolent Societies in different parts of the country."
Dr. Chapin gave to the world eleven publications, written with remarkable purity,
precision, chasteness, and elegance. He wrote and read Lectures on Intellectual and
Moral Philosophy and Logic. "His favorite metaphysical authors were Locke and
Reid."  His greatest distinction was his consistent and fervent piety. —(The preceding narrative is compiled chiefly from  a letter of Rev. Dr. Alvah WVoods, in
Sprague's Annals of the Pulpit, Vol. V. pp. 673-677.)
REV. WILLIAM JACKSON, D. D.
He was born in Cornwall, Connecticut, December 14, 1768; was graduated at
VOL. I.                        U




230                              MEMOIR.
Dartmouth College in 1790; then became Principal of an Academy in Wethersfield,
Connecticut; afterward studied theology with Dr. Samuel Spring and Dr. Emmons.
Having been approbated as a preacher by the Mendon Association, June 4, 1793, he
was invited to the pastorate of the church in Dorset and East Rupert, Vermont.
Declining this invitation, he repaired for the improvement of his health to the
southern part of the Union; but, after the lapse of three years, he received a second
call from the church above named, and he took the'pastoral care of the church
September 27, 1796.
In this office he labored with marked fidelity, and enjoyed repeated instances of
special religious interest, for the period of forty-six years. Five years before his
death, he received the aid of a colleague; and then, in addition to his occasional
services in the pulpit, he took a class in the Sabbath school, and became as punctual
and enthusiastic in this office as were any of the youthful teachers. Although an
invalid through life, he was yet a young man at the age of seventy-four.  " He would
have been young at ninety."  He died October 15, 1842.
The sermons of Dr. Jackson were solid, "logical, coherent, convincing, opening to
appeals the most earnest and irresistible."  He was unconscious of his manner while
preaching; but it was peculiarly solemn and dignified. Like his teacher Emmnons, he
did not write what he called the "improvement " of his discourses, but delivered it
extempore. One of his constant auditors has remarked: " I never wish to hear any
greater eloquence than comes from my minister, when he gets through his notes, and
shuts up his Bible."  Like Emmons, also, he was "distinguished for a keen and ready
wit, and for shrewd, pointed, and laconic sayings."  But in the pulpit, he never
excited a smile. When suddenly interrupted in his study, he was often found in the
attitude of a suppliant. Hence his devotional services were fall of unction and rich
feeling. " It was worth a journey to Dorset, to hear that prayer," said a guest who
had united with Dr. Jackson in morning worship. A hearer describing one of his
impressive discourses, remarked: " I hardly knew whether I was in the body, or out
of the body. I saw his whole person trembling and shaken by the action of his mind
and heart."  He resembled Robert Hall in the mastery which his vigorous mind had
gained over his frail and agonized body.  "A more pure-minded man," says Dr.
Maltby, " rarely visits the world."
Dr. Jackson married a descendant of John Rogers.  She had been a resident in
the family of Rev. Dr. Samuel Spring.  She was a lady of rare culture. Her five
children received an exact and kindly discipline, both intellectual and moral.  One
of them is Rev. Samuel Cromwell Jackson, D. D., the Assistant Secretary of the
Massachusetts Board of Education. Another was the wife of Rev. John Maltby, D. D.,
of Bangor, Maine. Another is the wife of Rev. Nathaniel Beach of Millbury, Massachusetts.  Still another was the wife of Rev. Cyrus Hamlin, Missionary of the
American Board at Constantinople.  She died at Rhodes, November 14, 1850.
Her Memoir was printed in 1854, in a duodecimo volume of three hundred and
twenty pages. Both her father and mother were early distinguished for their missionary, which was the Hopkinsian, spirit.
But it was for his zeal in the education of youth, that Dr. Jackson claims our
special notice here. " He was a correct and thorough scholar in the ancient classics,
having a special fondness for them which he retained to the close of his life. With
some of the standard classical authors he was very familiar, being able to repeat large




AME M O I R.                              231
portions of them from memory, and sometimes to hear recitations in them without a
text-book. He took much pleasure in introducing others to an acquaintance with
them."
"It had been his practice to receive young men as pupils from his first settlement,
carrying them through their whole course preparatory to entering college. As many
as fourteen have already entered the ministry from his religious society alone, which
was never large - a greater number, it is believed, than have ever been brought into
the ministry from all the Congregational societies in the whole county beside. And
most of these individuals, perhaps nearly all, would never have obtained a public
education and become preachers of the gospel, but for his advice and encouragement
and his assistance as their teacher. Some have also been brought forward mainly by
his instrumentality at first, who have entered the other learned professions, besides
many from adjacent towns, who were under similar obligations to him. It is probable
that more young men in the small town of which he was pastor, have acquired a
classical education and been fitted for public stations of usefulness, through his agency
in encouraging and aiding them to commence a literary course, than have been led to
a similar course in any other town of equal population and means in the State." —
(Discourse at the funeral of Dr. Jackson, by Rev. Joseph D. Wickham, Principal of
Burr Seminary.)
"When Middlebury College was planned, Dr. Jackson was there, the intimate
adviser of the men whose funds lie at the foundation of that institution, and the first
elected member of the Corporation.  Said Dr. Bates, while President of that College,'If I wanted a thing done, I would enlist Dr. Jackson in it.'  He was the confidential adviser of Mr. Joseph Burr of Manchester; and his views prevailed with that
gentleman to leave a legacy of twelve thousand dollars to Middlebury College, and
another of ten thousand dollars to found the Seminary which now bears his name in
the place where he resided " [The Burr Seminary].- (Sprague's Annals, II. 340.)
In 1804, Dr. Jackson originated the "Evangelical Society" "to aid pious and
needy young men, in acquiring education for the work of the gospel ministry."
" The first regular meeting of the society was held in his parish, on the last Tuesday
of June, 1804, at which Rev. Nathaniel Hall of Granville, preached the opening
sermon. The plan of the Society was to aid suitable candidates for the ministry by
loans, without interest, for not more than six years."  Dr. Jackson was the first
President of the Society. In 1806, "when exhausted by his labors in a revival, he
took a journey on horseback for the benefit of his health. During this journey, he
visited Salem, Marblehead, Newburyport, and Boston, collecting fifteen hundred
dollars as a fund for the assistance of pious young men." — (Memoir of Mrs. Hamlin,
p. 20.)  This was the first important Education Society in the land. It aided more
than fifty young men for their great work. It continued its usefulness for twelve years,
when it was superseded by the National organization at Boston.
Professor Porter, of Andover, is well known to have been one of the earliest and
most persevering counsellors and advocates of the National Society. He was a member of the committee to frame its Constitution in 1815, and he bequeathed his estate
to it at his death in 1834. When a member of Dartmouth College, he was a cherished
friend of Dr. Jackson, and remained intimate with him through life. He said once:
"Dr. Jackson is the only minister of his age, who has kept up with the times."  Long




232                              MEMOIR.
before he became associated with the Andover Seminary, Professor Porter held frequent interviews with Dr. Jackson in regard to the eleemosynary plans for educating
indigent youth. From these interviews he derived many hints and impulses, which
resulted in his eminent services to the American Education Society.
REV. JOHN BowERs PRESTON.
He was born in Fairfield, New Jersey, October 3, 1770; was graduated at the University of Pennsylvania, in 1793; ordained at Rupert, Vt., February 8, 1798. He
was an associate of Dr. Jackson in founding the " Evangelical Society," and was the
President of its Board of Trustees at the time of his decease. "He was an able instructor of students in theology."  His excellent wife was a parishioner of Dr. Emmons. He died February 21, 1813.
PRoFESSOR NATHANIEL KENDRICK, D. D.
This patron of learning was born in Hanover, New Hampshire, April 22, 1777.
Although a Baptist, he studied theology six months under the care of Rev. Dr. Burton, the Congregational Pastor of Thetford, Vt. On the 16th of December, 1802, he
left Hanover, N. H. for Franklin, Mass., and after a journey of nine days, he reached
the house of Dr. Emmons on Saturday, December 25, and heard his new instructor
preach on the following day. He continued his studies in the house of Emmons about
three months, but preserved habits of intimacy with his teacher for many years afterward. He cherished, through life, an exalted opinion of Emmons, but did not agree
with him  on various theological topics. He finished his studies with Dr. Baldwin,
and was aided in them by Dr. Stillman, of Boston. He remained in that city about
one year. He was early distinguished for his missionary spirit, and he performed
much missionary labor. After preaching nearly a twelvemonth in Bellingham, a
town contiguous to Franklin, he was ordained over the Baptist Church in Lansingburgh, N. Y., August 15, 1805. He became pastor of the Baptist Church in Middlebury, Vermont, in 1810. He took the pastorate of the Baptist Churches in Eaton,
N. Y. in July, 1817. His ministry was crowned with signal instances of religious
awakening. During a large part of it, he combined the office of a teacher of youth
with his pastorate. He was an overseer of Hamilton College from 1825 until 1827.
On the twenty-fourth of September, 1817, Dr. Kendrick and a few of his Christian
brethren formed the plan of a Theological School, which has since become the Madison University.  " He was one of the most efficient founders and supporters of this
Institution, and was identified with it for thirty years. In 1820 he was appointed to
deliver lectures in it three times a week, on Moral Philosophy and Theology. In
1822, he became a permanent Professor of Systematic and Pastoral Theology, and of
Moral Philosophy in the Institution. He retained this Professorship until his decease,
although during the last eight years of his life he devoted the greater part of his time
to the Corresponding Secretaryship of the New York Baptist Education Society. He
preached the first Annual Sermon before the Society in 1818, and was for thirty years
a workman in its behalf. He died, September 11, 1848, aged seventy-one years."
" He was one of nature's and of grace's noblemen, formed alike physically, intellectually and morally, on a large and generous scale. In person he was tall [six feet
three inches] and commanding; his form and face eminently fitted to inspire respect
and veneration."  "His character was developed and rounded into remarkable sym



M EM I oIR.                               233
metry."  He was a lover and a preacher of the high doctrines of Calvinism. His
Memoir has been published in a volume of two hundred and eighty-five pages,
12mo.
REV. JOSEPH EMERSON.
This fervid preacher was born in Hollis, New Hampshire, October 13, 1777; was
graduated at Harvard College in 1798, being the honored class-mate of Dr. William
E. Channing, Judge Story, and Professor Sidney Willard; was a Tutor in the College from 1801 to 1803. In July, 1799, he commenced the study of divinity at Franklin, and with some intermissions he continued his study for two years.
Dr. Emmons has written of him: "Mr. Emerson; like other young gentlemen
with whom I have been acquainted while preparing for the ministry, not only conducted with propriety and agreeably to his Christian profession, but exhibited some
peculiar traits of character which qualified him for great and extensive usefulness,
through the whole course of his life. He possessed a strong, clear, retentive, discriminating mind. He was capable of rising to eminence in any branch of learning to
which he turned his particular attention. He had a taste for reading, and especially
for reading the Scriptures. He was as good a biblical as classical scholar. He studied
the deep things of God, and acquired very clear and consistent views of the peculiar
and fundamental doctrines and duties of Christianity. He chose the work of the
ministry, not for the sake of ease, or popularity, or filthy lucre; but for the sake of
employing all his time and talents to the best advantage, in promoting the spiritual
and eternal interests of mankind. So long as his health allowed him to pursue his
chosen work, he uniformly maintained the character of an able and faithful minister of
the Gospel. And after his feeble health constrained him a second time to relinquish
his pastoral relation to a particular church, he turned his whole attention to a business
for which he was eminently qualified, and in which he was extensively useful."(Emmons's Letter in the Memoir of Rev. Joseph Emerson, pp. 120, 121.)
This enthusiastic student was ordained Pastor of the Congregational Church at
Beverly, September 21, 1803, and after an animated, energetic and laborious pastorate
of thirteen years, he was dismissed September 21, 1816. The zeal of the Lord's
house absorbed and consumed him.
In 1818, he established at Byfield, Massachusetts, a Female Seminary, which in
1821 he removed to Saugus, Massachusetts, and in 1824 to Wethersfield, Connecticut,
where he continued to teach until, lamented by a large community, he died, May 13,
1833, in the fifty-sixth year of his age.
His career as a teacher, though often interrupted by physical debility, "helped to
form a new era in female education."  Rev. Dr. Caleb J. Tenney has written of him:
" In the introduction and establishment of Female Seminaries in New England, he
was very much a pioneer.  Such celebrity did he secure to his institution for its system, accuracy, thoroughness, and Christian character, that far and wide he spread before the public mind the importance of female education. His may properly be called
a parent institution. For several of his pupils and many others followed his example
in establishing schools of a high order for young ladies.  His usefulness in this respect
has surpassed that of any other teacher of females within the last half century."
- (Memoir of Emerson, p. 435.)
U*




234                              MEMOIR.
It was not merely in his school-room that Mr. Emerson educated other minds. He
was a spirited and a voluminous author and editor of books for the young. Two hundred thousand copies of his Evangelical Primer have been studied by children. His edition of Watts on the " Improvement of the Mind," with questions; also of Whelpley's
Compend of History, with questions, and an Imperial and Biographical Chart; his
Union Catechism, his Biblical Outline, his Astronomical Lectures, his " Questions to
Goodrich's History of the United States," his Chart of History, his Poetic Reader,
his numerous essays and letters on education, aroused a previously unwonted interest
in the processes of training the mind. He also published Lectures on the Millennium,
and various disquisitions on practical and scientific theology.
He felt an intense interest in all the benevolent enterprises of the day. His third
wife was a sister of Miss Hasseltine, the first wife of Rev. Adoniram Judson. At an
interesting crisis in Mrs. Judson's history, when " the general opinion was decidedly
opposed to" her departure from  her native land, when "no female had ever left
America as a missionary to the heathen," when only two or three individuals advised
her to begin this noble enterprise, Mr. Emerson was one of these advisers; "probably he did more for this object than any other person, or than all others. Indeed, at
one time, it is doubtful whether she would have gone, but for his efforts."- (For a full
account of this remarkable man, see his Memoir by his brother, Rev. Ralph Emerson,
D. D., Professor at Andover, pp. 454.)
PROFESSOR ALEXANDER METCALF FISHER.
A  tragic interest envelops this name. The winning person of Mr. Fisher, his
bright eye, his accurate conversation, his varied intelligence, manifesting itself through
all his reserve of manner, will never be forgotten by his friends.
He was born in Dr. Emmons's parish, July 22, 1794. His mother was a woman of
uncommon mathematical talent. His brother furnished the mathematical calculations
for the Christian Almanac,,for several years after it was commenced. At the age of
nine years, Alexander wrote his exercises in arithmetic in a style which indicated a rare
mathematical and mechanical genius. His manuscripts at the age of eleven years were
prognostics of a bright career in the future. He was graduated with signal honor at
Yale College in 1813. "At every exercise during his collegiate course," says Prof.
Kingsley, "whether recitation or lecture, he was always present, always attentive, and
always prepared."  He was then eminent for his originality of mind, his inquisitiveness, his acumen, his decided genius for the mathematics, and his general scholarship.
Loving all science, he felt a scholar's interest in theology. Without a definite purpose of preaching the Gospel, without being even a member of any church, he commenced in 1814 a course of theological study with his pastor, and, by the advice of
Emmons, he afterward spent nearly a year, 1814-15, at the Seminary in Andover.
Professor Pond was a fellow-student with him  at Franklin, and writes thus:
"Young Fisher was fond of speculating on religious truth, of examining thoroughly
all the objections against it; and if his love of discussion drew him into close dispute,
he enjoyed it the more. He indulged himself in greater freedom of debate with our
venerable teacher, than would have been appropriate for myself to use, but this was
a result of his long and intimate acquaintance with his pastor. I do not mean to say




MI ETOIR.                                 235
that his style of debate was disrespectful, but it was free and close, and the Doctor
seemed to enjoy it as much as he did [see pp. 77, 78 above].
" On one occasion he read an essay on the Perseverance of the Saints, and denied
the doctrine. He believed in election, and that all who were elected would be saved;
but then many are converted who are not of the elect; and such, of course, will fall
away and perish. This opened a new vein of discussion, which it took time and labor
to close. It devolved on the doctor to prove, which he did most substantially, that
the elect and the regenerate are identical; that whom God predestinates, them he also
calls; and whom he calls, them he justifies; and whom he justifies, them he glorifies."
After a lengthened process of inquiry, the keen intellect of the pupil saw the substantial truth of Calvinism. His later theological Essays develop the sharp lines
which the mind of Emmons had drawn upon him. They are not in complete harmony with the system  of his teacher, but they embrace some of its distinctive and
essential principles. His views were his own, and evinced his penetration, as well as
care for the exact truth.
From the year 1815 to 1817 this accomplished metaphysician was a tutor in Yale
College. In 1817 he was appointed Professor of Mathematics and Natural Philosophy in that Institution. Here his colleague, Professor Benjamin Silliman, Senior,
writes: "Mr. Fisher was the most extraordinary man of his years, whom I have ever
known. Acquisitions equal to his at the age of twenty-eight, I have never seen; nor
a more vigorous and acute intellect at any age."  "To his extraordinary scientific
attainments, he added the finish of classical and polite literature, derived from the
best ancient as well as modern sources; his elegant taste embraced the fine arts in
their extent and variety; and he was satisfied with nothing, even in the decorum and
accommodations of private life, which was not adapted to the same elevated standard."
Among the published writings of Professor Fisher are the following:
1. An Essay on Musical Temperament. Silliman's Journal of Science, Vol. I.
pp. 9 and 176.
2. Remarks on Dr. Enfield's Institutes of Natural Philosophy.
3. On Printing Presses and their Theory.  Silliman's Journal, Vol. III. p.
311.
4. On Maxima and Minima of Fractions of two variable Quantities. Ib. Vol. V.
p. 82.
5. Solutions of various Mathematical Questions under the signature of X. in the
American Monthly Magazine.
6. Solutions of various questions under the signature of Nov-Anglus, in Leybourn's
Mathematical Repository.
7. Observations on the comet of 1819, &c. Memoirs of the Connecticut Academy
of Arts and Sciences, Vol. IV.
Having already earned a shining name, and being cheered with dazzling prospects
of augmented usefulness in the future, the youthful Professor embarked in 1822 in the
packet ship Albion, for a visit to the European Universities, and for personal converse
with the philosophers whose works he familiarly understood. The scientific world
were saddened by hearing that he perished in the wreck of the Albion, on the coast of




236                               MEMOIR.
Ireland, within a hundred yards from  the shore, April 22, 1822, at the early age of
twenty-seven years and seven months.  His marble monument stands in the rural
burial-ground at Franklin, containing the following lines:
" Thy grave, 0! Fisher, is the rolling flood,
Thy urn the rock eternal, reared by God!
Yet near thy home, reared by affection's hand,
To speak thy name this simple stone shall stand.
How dark the scene, till Faith directs on high,
Beyond those orbs that charmed thy youthful eye.
There now thy noble mind, expanding, glows
In floods of light, nor pain nor darkness knows.
Youth, Genius, Knowledge, Virtue past away
From Earth's dim shores to Heaven's eternal day."
Soon after the decease of Prof. Fisher, Prof. J. L. Kingsley, of Yale College, delivered and published a eulogy upon him.  An obituary notice of him  appeared in
Silliman's Journal, Vol. V. pp. 367-376.  Dr. Emmons also published a sermon
commemorative of him. Prof. Olmsted of Yale College has more recently delineated
his character.
JOHN CRANE, D. D.
He was born in Norton, Massachusetts, March 26, 1756, of parents belonging to
the Society of Friends; was graduated at Harvard College in 1780, was the acting
pastor of the church in Northbridge, Massachusetts, from June 25, 1783, until March
14, 1832, and was the nominal pastor until August 31, 1836, when he died in the
eighty-first year of his age, and the fifty-fourth of his pastorate.
In his half century sermon, he said: "The fifty years which I have passed in this
place have been full of labor and hunry.  I was employed more than thirty years in
teaching youth.  I have instructed more than a hundred young men in their preparation for admission to college. [Among these students were Rev. Dr. Joel Hawes,
Rev. Dr. Willard Preston of Savannah, Georgia, Rev. Cyrus Kingsbury, missionary
to the Choctaws.]  I have written about four thousand sermons, and probably
delivered about two hundred extempore discourses."  In 1812, Dr. Crane made an
effort to establish an Education Society on an extended scale, to aid pious young
men in preparing for the ministry.
" Several revivals marked his ministry.  In 1800, twenty-seven were added to the
church; in 1809, twenty-eight were added.  In 1829-30, about thirty were joined to
the followers of Christ  In 1831, almost seventy were gathered into the fold."(Hist. of Mendon Association,p. 123.)  "He was an extensive reader as well as
vigorous thinker; and you could not converse long with  him  without having
evidence of both."  Dr. Joel Hawes, in Sprague's Annals, Vol. II. p. 215. He gave
to the world eleven publications, one of them being a volume of eight discourses on
baptism. For several years he represented the town of Northbridge in the General
Court.  " He exerted a commanding influence in the region in which he resided." -
(Sprague's Annals, II. 216.)




MEM OIR.                                  237
PROFESSOR CALVIN PARK, D. D.
He was born at Northbridge, Mass., September 11, 1774; was fitted for college by his pastor, Rev. Dr. Crane; was graduated at Brown University in 1797;
was an officer in the college twenty-five years, during which time he instructed more
than seven hundred pupils, among whom were the missionaries Dr. Judson and
Dr. Kingsbury. He also directed the studies of several young men in theology. As
a teacher in schools and in the college, he had more than a thousand pupils. He was
pastor of the Evangelical church in Stoughton, Mass., from  1826 until 1840. He
died January 5, 1847. He was one of the Founders of the Congregational Board of
Publication. He never resided in Franklin, but after having pursued his theological
studies with Rev. Dr. Austin of Worcester, he finished them under the direction of
Dr. Emmons, of whom he often said: "He has given to me my most inspiriting
thoughts."
REV. EBENEZER BURGESS, D. D.
He was born in Wareham, Mass., April 1, 1790; was graduated, with high
honor, at Brown University in 1809; was a tutor in the college fiom 1811 to 1813;
was afterwards Professor of Mathematics and Natural Philosophy in the University
of Vermont. In 1817, he was selected by Rev. Samuel J. Mills, Jr., as his companion in exploring the Western coast of Africa, with the design to select the most
eligible site for a colony of free negroes to be transported thither by the American
Colonization Society, then recently formed. Dr. Burgess embarked with Mr. Mills,
November 16, 1817, for London, with the purpose of sailing thence for the African
coast. Having labored industriously and successfully on that coast more than two
months, he embarked for London, May 22, 1818, and thence for his native land.
Since the fourteenth of March, 1821, he has been a devoted pastor in Dedham,
Mass.  For a period of forty years he has remained  a most liberal benefactor of schools, colleges, theological seminaries, domestic and foreign missions.
Few men have accomplished more than he, as an almoner of the Lord's bounty. He
studied theology in part at Andover, and in part with Dr. Emmons whose Works
he has distributed, with his accustomed generosity, among the ministers who needed
his benefactions.
RUFUS GRAVES AND SAMUEL FOWLER DICKINSON.
The former of these gentlemen was born in Sunderland, September 27, 1758;
graduated at Dartmouth College in 1795; studied theology with Emmons, but did
not enter the pastoral office. He early became interested in Amherst College, and
performed the work of an agent in its behalf with singular enthusiasm  and perseverance. It has been often said, that the college would never have been endowed,
if he had not devoted his restless energies to it, in the most critical period of its
history.
The second of the above-named gentlemen was born in Amherst, Mass., in
1774; graduated at Dartmouth College in 1798. Having studied theology one
year with Dr. Emmons, he found his health inadequate to the duties of the pulpit,
and he entered the legal profession. " He was one of the originators of Amherst




238                             MEMOIR.
Academy and of Amherst College, and was one of the original Trustees of both
these Institutions." In 1833, he removed his residence from Amherst, Mass., to
Cincinnati, Ohio, where le was an efficient laborer for Lane Theological Seminary.
In 1835, he removed to Hudson, Ohio, where he rendered important services to the
Western Reserve College. He died April 22,'1834.
~ 4. The Interest of Emmons's Pupils in the  Work of Missions.
The great object of Emmons as a theological teacher was to
develop in his pupils a spirit of self-denial.   "If we love our
office," he was wont to say,' if we are thankful for it, how readily shall we' take up the cross,' despise the pomp and splendor
of the world, and silently walk in the low vale of obscurity,
neglect, and dependence."   His dislike of National organizations
never interfered with  his missionary zeal.  He began  his theological school, thirty-two years before the American  Board was
organized. After that event, for he was then sixty-five years of
age, he received  but few  pupils, although  he was often  importuned to continue his labors as a teacher. Still, the following
record may be appended to the narrative  of his efforts in behalf
of missions, for it illustrates the fact, that he breathed into all
who stood near him, a desire to evangelize the desolate parts of
our own land and the world.
REV. HERMAN DAGGETT.
This devout man was born in Walpole,- Mass., Sept. 11, 1766; was a resident in
the contiguous town of Wrentham during his early youth; was a nephew of President Naphthali Daggett, of Yale College; was graduated at Brown University, in
1788. " Shortly after his graduation," says Dr. Sprague in his Annals, Mr. Daggett
"placed himself as a theological student under the direction of the Rev. Dr. Emmons, who even at that early period, had acquired the reputation of being very
learned in his profession. Having spent about a year in his preparatory studies, he
was licensed to preach by the [Mendon] Association, in October, 1789, and preached
for the first time, on the succeeding Sabbath, in Dr. Emmons's pulpit."  He was
settled nearly four years as a pastor at Southampton, Long Island, three years at
Westhampton, Long Island; between five and six years in Brookhaven, Long Island.
On the sixth of May, 1818, he was inaugurated Principal of the celebrated Mission
School at Cornwall, Connecticut.  Governor Treadwell and Mr. Daggett delivered
addresses on the occasion.  Henry Obookiah was a favorite pupil of Mr. Daggett.
The Cornwall school " consisted of youth and children from various Pagan nations. Though they were only about thirty in number, there were natives of Sumatra,




M EM OIR.                                 239
China, Bengal, Hindostan, Mexico, New Zealand; of the Society Islands and Marquesas
Islands; of the Isles of Greece and of the Azores; there were specimens also of tile
various North American Indian tribes - Cherokees, Choctaws, Osages, Oneidas,
Tuscaroras, Senecas, and the tribe at St. Regis in Canada. In age they ranged from
mere childhood to adult years. The languages which they spoke, rivalled in point of
number those which were heard at Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost. There was, of
course, a great variety of taste and disposition and character, in these representatives
of so many barbarous nations. A more difficult task can hardly be conceived than
the management of such a school as this; and yet Mr. Daggett, by his great kindness
and wisdom, succeeded in giving to the school a very harmonious character, and in
rendering it, for a season, the instrument of no inconsiderable usefulness. It became,
however, after a few years, obnoxious to public censure, on account of the intermarriage of two or three Indians with respectable young ladies in the neighborhood, and
in the year 1826, it was dissolved. Mr. Daggett's connection with it continued nearly
six years, terminating in 1824. Early in that year his health sunk so low as to forbid
his performing his duties as teacher, or even leaving his house. In consequence of
this continued indisposition, he tendered his resignation as Principal."
" He was accustomed to preach on the Sabbath to his pupils; and others in the
neighborhood who were disposed, had the privilege of attending on his ministrations.
His pupils were generally greatly attached to him, and not a few of them were believed to have been radically and permanently benefited by his influence." - (Sprague's
Annals, II. p. 293.)
On the 19th of May, 1832, in the sixty-sixth year of his age, and after a lengthened
period of debility, he "breathed out his life in perfect peace. When it became manifest that the spirit had fled, a prayer was offered by the side of his remains; and then
a letter read, which he had addressed to his beloved wife, designed to comfort her,
especially in that hour." - (Annals, II. p. 294.)
Mr. Daggett was a gentleman of well ordered mind, and of unusual learning. He
was remarkable for his equable temperament. A gentleman intimately acquainted
with him on Long Island, relates, " that he was never known to laugh, although of a
cheerful and happy turn of mind; to smile was all he ever did." - (Blake's History
of Mendon Association, p. 239.)
He published a sermon delivered at the funeral of Rev. Samuel Buell, D. D., the
cherished friend of David Brainerd, Jonathan Edwards and President Burr.
REV. THADDEUS OSGOOD.
This gentleman had so many salient points, that a volume is needed for his biography. He did not accept all the distinctive theories of Emmons, but was stirred up
by the original thoughts and aphoristic words which animated, when they did not
convince, the pupil.
Mr. Osgood was born in Methuen, Mass., was graduated at Dartmouth College in
1803, and " was generally estimated as belonging to the first third of his class in point
of scholarship."  After he had finished his theological course with Dr. Emmons, and
Dr. Lathrop, of West Springfield, he preached as a candidate in the State of Connecticut in 1804. Here he deemed it his duty to deliver a political sermon, denouncing
in strong language certain measures of the Democratic party. He was prosecuted for




240                               MEM OI IR.
a libel, and for some time was subjected to great annoyance. He afterward abstained
from political preaching, and repaired to Canada as a self-sustained Missionary.  The
Editor of the Montreal Witness says of him:
" Mr. Osgood was characterized by a strong will and indomitable perseverance. A
purpose once formed by him was certain to be carried out, if it were at all practicable.
No toil, danger, difficulty, or opposition deterred him; and if he could not accomplish
it in one way, he would try another and another. In this respect he was truly a
Christian hero. I will not say that his plans were always the wisest, or that the best
means were always adopted for putting them in execution, but the glory of God and
the welfare of man were his objects in them all, and self-denial, I might almost say
self-sacrifice, was his chief means of accomplishing what he had devised.
"As a teacher, evangelist, temperance advocate, voluntary agent for the establishment
of Sabbath schools, seaman's chaplain, city missionary, jail and hospital visitor,
etc., he labored most perseveringly, through the course of a long and active life
without salary or reward; and he accomplished, in the aggregate, an amount of
good which is altogether incalculable. The societies in connection with which he
labored were mainly originated by him, and in fact he was in each case the society
himself; for with a resolute will like his, no superior authority of a merely human
kind could coexist.  But if he took the direction of his own labors, he also acted as
collector to sustain them, and as the executive agent to carry out all the details of
his philanthropic plans.
"One of the special objects to which Mr. Osgood devoted his whole life, was the
Christian nurture of children. He established many Sabbath schools in destitute
localities. And a favorite plan with him was to collect second-hand Sabbath school
books and papers in the United States, and present them to the most indigent schools
of Canada, or to the degraded inhabitants of our cities. In this way he gave to our
population a large mass of religious literature. He was the first in Montreal to
establish what would be called in England, a'ragged school,' and to this school he
devoted his best affections and most assiduous attention.  Indeed, so kind was he to
children, and so courteous and considerate to parents, and so decidedly unsectarian
was he, that he was beloved by Roman Catholics as well as Protestants; and not
only among the children of his school, but in every family which he visited, his
memory is affectionately cherished."
"Another of Mr. Osgood's special objects was, the intellectual and moral improvement of boatmen, seamen, and immigrants.  He rented an edifice which combined a
seaman's chapel, a reading room, a free school for poor children, and some other
charities."  "In this Bethel," writes a Canadian clergyman, "was his home. Here
he gathered the sailors, and the outcasts as he could, and taught them, in the most
simple methods, the way of salvation by Christ Jesus. The last time I met him was
with a company of his vagrant pupils in that Bethel. When the service and the
subsequent conversation were ended, when we had knelt and prayed together and
spoken of retiring to rest, he bade me good night, saying that he did not leave the
premises.'But where do you lodge, Mr. Osgood' And he pointed me to a
ladder in one corner of the rough unfinished room, leading to an unfinished loft, and
said,'I lodge up there.' As I retired, I could but weep, and pray while I wept,' Oh! that we had a thousand more of men like Mr. Osgood."'




MEMOIR.                                    241
Through the wilds of Canada this hard and solitary worker made extensive tours,
often amid imminent perils. He visited the indigent inhabitants, and started plans of
usefulness, the influence of which is felt at this day. He often lost his regular meals,
and more than once was compelled to sleep in the forests, in the open air, using the
saddle of his horse for his pillow. In order to procure the funds requisite for publishing
and circulating religious books, he journeyed extensively through the United States,
everywhere dispensing charities as he found that they were needed. From  the
Panoplist, such facts as the following are gleaned:
In the year 1808-9, Mr. Osgood travelled three thousand miles in the destitute
regions of the United States, and in Lower and Upper Canada, preached two hundred
and sixty-five times, collected ten hundred and seventeen dollars, out of which he
paid for the printing of upwards of fifty thousand small tracts. In the year 1809-10,
he travelled more than two thousand miles, preached a hundred and fifty-eight
sermons, collected between twelve and thirteen hundred dollars, which he expended
in printing and distributing tracts, establishing libraries, etc. In the year 1810-11,
he collected about two thousand dollars, printed tracts in Maryland, Virginia, the
District of Columbia, Pennsylvania, and New York.  He travelled upwards of three
thousand miles, preached one hundred and eighty-eight times.  He writes: "I visited
the seat of our late president, Mr. Jefferson, by whom I was kindly received and
furnished with some pecuniary aid towards carrying on the tract business." In the
year 1811-12, he collected nineteen hundred and sixty-five dollars, made an extensive
tour through the Canadas, established religious libraries there, secured the pecuniary
and moral aid of the bishop of Quebec, and also of the governor of Virginia, and at
the close of the year, received from  a committee of the General Association of
Massachusetts, the following testimonial:
"We believe him to have been faithful, indefatigable, and successful; and that good
in a very extensive field, and where it is exceedingly needed, has been effected. The
Committee are satisfied in regard to his judgment and fidelity; and, in a plan entirely
novel, for the benefit of the frontier of our extensive country and the British colonies,
we esteem him competent by his experience to decide the best mode of his future
operations."
JEDIDIAH MORSE,   ommiee
July 11, 1812.                                ABIEL ABBOT,         C
So high was Mr. Osgood's reputation as an agent, that the General Assembly of
the Presbyterian church once attempted to secure his services in aid of the Foreign
Missionary cause, but were deterred by the consideration that his own chosen sphere
of labor was too important to be abandoned.
In the year 1813, he visited Great Britain and collected there large sums of money
for the destitute parts of the Canadas.  He was enthusiastic in his pleas before the
British public, and attracted great attention by his athletic frame and earnest spirit.
During his entire life he visited Great Britain seven, perhaps eight times on the same
philanthropic errand. Dr. R. D. Mussey, the distinguished Medical Lecturer, and
a classmate of Mr. Osgood at Dartmouth College, writes:
"In the summer of 1830, I found him in London. In addition to soliciting funds,
he labored as a street preacher and exhorter. On the Sabbath he preached at
Moorfields, at that time a cattle-market, and long memorable as the place of the
VOL. I.                         V




242                               MEMO IR.
martyrdom  of John Rogers.  On one occasion, not on the Sabbath, in passing
through one of the filthiest lanes in London, he stopped to rebuke profaneness issuing
from the mouths of debased and wanton females. Unaccustomed to that sort of
salutation, the sisterhood invoked their forces, seized upon his person apparently with
a view to drag him into one of their dens; but he, naturally athletic, beat about him
with so good a will that he shook off the tormentors and escaped unhurt."
"In his pulpit performances," writes Dr. Mussey, " Mr. Osgood was devout, ardent,
emphatic, and impressive."  In private religious conferences, for which he had a true
passion, his remarks were racy, spirited, often sparkling. In street-discussions he
was pointed, sententious, witty, slashing.  (See an illustration in Allen's Biographical Dictionary; Art. Osgood.)
During one of his visits to Great Britain, he was requested to give a report of the
moneys which he had collected during the visit preceding; and, being unprepared to
furnish the requisite documents, he was suspected of having embezzled the funds, and
was thrown into prison. A member of the Canadian Parliament, hearing of his incarceration, made the facts known in regard to his philanthropic career, and he was released
from his confinement. He again enjoyed the liberality of the men who had incarcerated him.  Some of them  furnished him  an outfit for his return to Canada, and
for the resumption of his beneficent work. He is said to have collected, in two of his
visits to Great Britain, fourteen thousand dollars for the Canadian enterprise. During all his missions he collected sixteen thousand dollars, besides books, pamphlets,
etc. The funds thus raised were safely invested, and still yield an annual income to
the cause of philanthropy.
After having been in himself a Tract Society, a Seaman's Friends' Society, a Sabbath School Society, a Prison Discipline Society, a Board of Publication as well as of
the Distribution of Books; having visited the jails and the purlieus of crime in Great
Britain, the Canadian Provinces, the Western and Southern portions of his own
country; having been zealous in prayer meetings, religious conferences, street preaching, and the regular services of the sanctuary, this athletic, enterprising, and indefatigable man terminated his career in Glasgow, Scotland. He died in great peace, after
a brief illness, in the year 1852, at the age of seventy-five years.
The Editor of the Montreal Witness writes: "During his last days, Mr. Osgood
received every attention that could be rendered by Christian kindness, and his funeral
was one of the most largely attended that ever took place in Glasgow. His remains
were followed to the grave by a long procession of the best citizens, ministers, and
Christian philanthropists, and by the captains of vessels then in that largely frequented
port.  The shipmasters of the Clyde, also, subscribed a handsome sum to erect a suitable stone to his memory, bearing an inscription expressive of their gratitude for his
services to seamen. Thus among strangers rested from his labors one who was, above
most men, a pilgrim  and a stranger on the earth, and whose citizenship was, to a
remarkable degree, in heaven."
REV. JOSEPH ROWELL.
This gentleman may be regarded as representing a large class of Dr. Emmons's
pupils who gave their children and friends, as jewels, to the missionary work.




M EMOIR.                                  243
He was born in Rowley, Mass., in 1767; was graduated at Dartmouth College in
1794; ordained at Cornish, N. H., September 23, 1800; dismissed Feb. 19, 1828;
died Nov., 1842, aged seventy-five years.  One of his successors in the ministry
at Cornish writes (see Blake's Hist. of Mendon Association, p. 267): "Mr. Rowell
possessed a mind of great strength and clearness. His sermons were logical in their
arrangement, lucid in thought, and easily understood by the hearers. It was a common saying;' Mr. Rowell's sermons would hold water.'"  He was a diligent student of
the original languages of the Bible. He had a large library, well selected. His
preaching was eminently doctrinal, but no less practical. He was a bold, fearless,
faithful, strongly argumentative, but not a popular preacher.
Four of his sons pursued a collegiate course; one of them, a highly promising
candidate for the ministry, died in Amherst College, of the class of 1836; two of
them are now foreign missionaries; one of his daughters, and also her husband, died
on a mission at the Sandwich Islands. Mr. Rowell himself was through life a foreign missionary at heart. Many young men in his parish were stimulated by his
influence to pursue a literary course; five of them are now clergymen. One of our
most prominent statesmen, Hon. Salmon Chase, the distinguished Senator of the
United States, is a native of Mr. Rowell's parish.
REV. JACOB CRAM.
This early missionary was born October 12, 1762, at Hampton Falls, N. H.; was
graduated at Dartmouth College, in 1782; was settled in Hopkinton, N. H., from
Feb. 25, 1789, until Jan. 5, 1792. He afterwards labored as a missionary among the
Stockbridge Indians. Mr. Cram, the pupil of Emmons, and Rev. David Avery,
the near neighbor of Emmons, were the first two missionaries employed by the Massachusetts Missionary Society. Mr. Cram's commission is dated July 3, 1800, and
specifies as his field of labor, " The region between Whitestown and Genesee River,
Western New York."  He toiled among the Indians mainly. His mission is respectfully noticed in Hotchkins's History of Western New York, p. 184. He was, perhaps
in his youth, certainly in his mature life, an eccentric man, and in his old age he was
a monomaniac. He died at Exeter, N. H., Dec. 21, 1833, aged seventy-one years.
5~. Emmons's Pupils viewed as Pioneers in establishing  Christian
and  Charitable Institutions.
It is difficult to distinguish the missionaries from  the pioneers,
among the Franklin  students.   Many of them  were aggressive
workmen, who did not build upon the foundations laid by others,
and yet were patronized by no  Missionary Board.  Others were
employed by Missionary Societies, and still were not more really
pioneers in their work, than several of their enterprising brethren.
Perhaps no one of these pioneers will illustrate the character
of their teacher more vividly, than it is illustrated by the revolu



244                             MIEMOIR.
tionary veteran who is next to be noticed.  This patriot, though
dissimilar in  constitution  to Emmons, was through  life, and in
an eminent degree, under the formative influence of his teacher.
He was called  to  a special intimacy  with  Emmons by the fact
that he married, for his first wife, a lady who belonged to Emmons's parish; and, for his second wife, a lady who had been for
many years a friend of the Elmmons family.'
REV. WALTER HARRIS, D. D.
He was born in Lebanon, Connecticut, June 8, 1761. He was graduated at
Dartmouth College, in 1787, and was ordained first pastor of the church in Dunbarton, N. H., August 26, 1789. "The father of Walter Harris died shortly before Walter's birth, and he was deprived of his mother before he was sixteen years
of age. The three daughters were provided for in other families, and Walter and his
brother Nathaniel, two years his senior, were left without parent or guardian, and
with a mere pittance of property, to provide for themselves. They enlisted into the
Continental Army in May, 1777. In the same year, Nathaniel fell in battle at Philadelphia, and Walter was often in jeopardy. But he served out his term of three
years enlistment, part of the time as fifer, and was honorably discharged, May, 1790,
then not quite nineteen years of age." "ZFamiliarly acquainted with Dr. Harris for
nearly thirty years," says Rev. William Clark, "I have often listened to his recital of
stirring incidents, occurring before his eyes during his soldier's life.  They were
related with an earnestness and eloquence characteristic of the man."
The historian of the Mendon Association adds:' With Harris's scanty wages and
patrimony, he migrated to Lebanon, N. H., purchased a tract of wild land near Dartmouth College, and went alone with his axe into the forest to spend the winter. But
the young pioneer was soon surrounded by the thrilling scenes of a powerful revival
of religion in the town. And a sermon he heard in the neighborhood, awakened him
to his own actual destitutions.' The struggle was long, obstinate, and characteristic of the future man. Wearied
with his anxious searchings, and crushed with his increasing convictions, and with his
protracted fastings, he resolved, in despair, in the midst of winter, to cast himself
down upon the snow in the bleakest place in his field, and there remain in prayer till
he perished with cold or found relief. He chose a position on the north side of a
stump, near an opening among the trees, where the cold winter's blasts rushed
through with unendurable keenness, and he fell upon his knees, determined never to
leave the spot till he should hear the voice of mercy. He remained but a short time
1 His second wife was the widow of Rev. John Cleveland, of North Wrentham,
a near clerical neighbor of Emmons, and the son ofthat Rev. John Cleveland who, in
1744, was expelled from Yale College for attending a meeting of the Separatists.
Emmons's townsman, Brainerd, had been expelled only two years before. This incident awakened in Emmons a peculiar regard for his neighbor and friend. In his
funeral sermon he highly eulogizes both the father and the son (see orig. ed. of Collected Works, Vol. I. pp. 351-354).




MEMOIR.                                  245
before he seemed to hear, in reality, a voice, saying in wrath, -" What, rebel! seek to
limit the Holy One of Israel! Arise! and fleefor thy life,- or thou art a dead man! "
He fled to the house in horror at his guilt.'After passing through what seemed to him a foretaste of the pains of hell, he fell
submissively, cordially, upon the sovereign, electing love of God in Christ for salvation. His experience imparted a peculiar thoroughness and fidelity to his subsequent
preaching.' His mind was from this moment directed to the Gospel ministry, as the chosen
avocation of his heart. And although without even a common school education, and
incumbered with his farm, yet he resolved, after prayerfully weighing the solicitations
of friends, that " go to college he would, let the consequences be what they might."'He first attended a common school; then began the study of the languages with a
private teacher, and finally completed his preparation in Moore's Charity School, on
Dartmouth plain. At his graduation from college, his commencement exercise was
delivered in the Hebrew language.' The following testimony is given of his college career by one of his instructors:
"Rarely have I met with a man more decided and unequivocal, more upright and
downright than he. He had a mind of uncommon strength, and unusually patient of
labor. He was most distinguished in the solid and useful branches of study."'After his graduation, he taught a Latin school six months in Boscawen. It was
here that an occasional sermon of Dr. Emmons fell into his hands. Having perused
it with deep interest, he laid it down, and said with emphasis, " I will study divinity
with the author of that sermon, if I can find him."  He did find him; and never fit
teacher had a fitter learner.''After he had finished his theological studies, he received a call to a pastorate in
Dunbarton, N. H. He accepted the call on condition that he might return to Dr.
Emmons, and pursue his theological studies three months longer. He did so, and
was ordained at Dunbarton on the 26th of August, 1789, two months after the church
was organized.'' It is thought,' says Rev. Dr. Burnham of Pembroke, N. H., that'Dr. Harris,
with his beloved brethren, Rev. Moses Bradford, late of Francestown, Rev. Reid
Paige, and Rev. Dr. Samuel Wood, late of Boscawen, was the happy instrument,
in the hand of God, of effecting an entire revolution in the sentiments and practice of the churches throughout this extensive field of their labors. That field embraced the then county of Hillsborough, now Hillsborough, Merrimac, and sections
of Rockingham, Strafford, Grafton, and Cheshire. Arminianism, and a lax discipline had extensively prevailed.  But by the doctrinal and faithful preaching, the
combined efforts, prayers, and influence of these holy men, a purer faith and discipline
were introduced and established.'
The parish of Dr. Harris, having but little sympathy with evangelical religion when
he was ordained, imposed upon him the most onerous duties. On the very first Sabbath of his pastorate he unfolded the doctrines which he should preach, and the course
he should pursue, and then added, with his manly, stirring emphasis: " These doctrines I shall preach, and this course I shall pursue, though you stone me out of the
pulpit."  "The truths of the Bible," says Rev. William Clark, " as embraced and
advocated by Calvin, Bellamy, Emmons, and kindred divines, Dr. Harris made the
V*




246                               M EMOIR.
principal themes of the pulpit. Grasping these fundamental doctrines with his strong
mind, and embracing them with all his heart, his statement of them distinct, his definitions clear, his proofs convincing, his illustrations luminous, his manner impressive,
his eye piercing, his voice commanding, his personal appearance majestic, he ere long
not only silenced all opposition to the great doctrines he proclaimed, but, through the
accompanying influence of the Holy Spirit, upon whom he ever relied, his hearers
were led to believe, and embrace them. A deathlike stillness pervaded his congregation on the Sabbath, save when that stillness was broken by the sighs and sobs of
those convicted of sin. In the third year of Mr. Harris's ministry, the Divine Spirit
descended with an energy that moved the entire people. The whole town was shaken.
The year 1792 formed a new era in Dunbarton. It introduced into the infant church,
not yet three years old, consisting at first of only ten members, nearly eighty persons,
among them many of the controlling minds and prominent families in the town, giving it an entirely new religious and moral aspect. Now the great, humbling doctrines
of the Bible, before hated and rejected, were received in the love of them. A higher
standard of morals was seen, the Sabbath observed with becoming reverence as an institution of God; children were brought by believing parents to the baptismal font,
family altars were erected, the community in general presented the aspect of a people
fearing God and living for eternity."
In the year 1816 occurred another revival, by means of which forty persons
were united to the church.  "The year 1826," continues Mr. Clark, "was signalized by still another outpouring of the Spirit.  The church had been reduced to
less than eighty members, and most of these advanced in life. But the revival in that
year greatly enlarged it again, bringing into its bosom nearly eighty persons. Being
then a member of the Theological Seminary, Andover, I was invited by Dr. Harris
to aid him in his extended parochial labors. Accepting this invitation, I passed two
or three weeks with the doctor, and attended the public examination of eighty applicants for admission to the church. The examination, held in the meeting-house, occupied two days, a large and deeply interested congregation being present.  It was
mid-winter; the roads were blocked with deep, stiff snow-drifts; great exertions were
necessary to make them  passable, and so anxious were the people generally to be
present, that large teams were employed simultaneously through the town, breaking
out the highways. No efforts were deemed too great for enjoying the privilege of
hearing the recital, by the young converts, of what God had done for them. The scene
was most instructive.  It developed the kind of religious instruction the converts had
received from their minister, and the effect of it, under the influence of the Divine
Spirit, on their intellect and heart.  Scarcely less profitable was the occasion, so far
as related to an exhibition of the great fundamental doctrines of the Bible, than is an
examination of students in theology in our Theological Seminaries.  The pastor conducted the examination, putting what questions he thought proper to the candidates,
one by one, and then calling upon the brethren of the church to continue the exercise,
as they were disposed.  The spectacle was sublime, awful, yet joyous.  The pastor
stood under the pulpit, his person imposing, with high, broad forehead, his eye keen
and piercing, all the features of his intellectual countenance aglow with reverence for
God, and love for souls, evincing the deep emotions of his great heart, and his sense
of responsibility in the solemn position he was occupying.  He questioned the candidates of all ages and both sexes, on their views of God, of his law, of his government,
of his sovereignty; of their depravity by nature, their personal sinfulness, their utter
ruin and helplessness; of their views of Christ, of his character and works; of the




MEM OIR.                                  247
Holy Spirit; of the ground and conditions of pardon, of justification by faith, of the
doctrines of election and of the saints' perseverance; of the resurrection, the final judgment, the eternal state of the righteous and the wicked. While eliciting their views of
scriptural doctrine, he questioned them minutely in regard to their feelings respecting
it. He abounded in such questions as these:'Do you feel God's law to be holy,
just, and good? Do you feel that it would be right for God to inflict upon you its
penalty' "
After a pastorate of forty-one years, Dr. Harris, enfeebled by the weight of his
office, requested a dismission from his people.  On the eighth of July, 1830, his connection with his parish was dissolved, and, agreeably to his expressed wish, his successor was installed. In 1831, he took a joyous and active part in another revival,
which enriched his church with fifty new members.  " During the ten following years,
heavenly influences, almost without intermission, rested upon the church."  He died
December 25, 1842, in his eighty-third year.
He was one of the Founders of the New Hampshire Missionary and Bible Societies,
and was enthusiastically interested in the cause of Foreign Missions, Ministerial Education, Temperance, and Anti-Slavery. His services were numerous, and highly
prized in Ecclesiastical Councils. Many of his parishioners have been trained for the
office of educators at home, or missionaries abroad. Nine or ten of these have been
Congregational ministers, one of them, Rev. Abraham Burnham, D. D. of Pembroke,
N. H.; another, Rev. A. W. Burnham, D. D. of Rindge, N. H. He wrote for
the religious periodicals somewhat, and printed fifteen pamphlets. He accomplished
great good as a talker. Few men have ever fascinated me more in familiar conversation.
Although the care of many churches was upon him, yet, like his Franklin teacher,
he kept his farm in a neater and better condition than other farms in his neighborhood were kept. Like his Franklin teacher, he preached two sermons from one text
on the Sabbath, proving his doctrine in the morning, and drawing inferences in the
afternoon. Like his Franklin teacher, he insisted on men's knowing that they know
the truth. To a Universalist minister he once put the question, while he fastened his
piercing eye upon the young man: " Do you know, for a certainty, that your doctrine is true?"  " No, sir," was the youth's reply, "I do not pretend to a certain
knowledge of the truth of it."  " Then, sir," rejoined Dr. Harris, "don't you ever
preach it again, till you know it is true."  This young clergyman, a year or two afterward, renounced Universalism, although it is not known that Dr. Harris's demand
for certain knowledge was the cause of the renunciation.
Rev. Dr. Daniel Dana of Newburyport, an opponent of Emmons's theology, has
written the following words in regard to Emmons's favorite pupil:
" As a preacher, Dr. Harris was esteemed among the first in New Hampshire. As
a pastor, he was affectionate and beloved.  The excellence of his character gave him
influence with the churches around him. In a word, he was one of those good men
on whom  memory loves to dwell. Nor do I think I can form a better wish for New
Hampshire, than that she may be blessed with many ministers possessing the piety,
the simplicity, the energy, and the devotion of Dr. Harris."




248                              MEMOIR.
REV. REID PAIGE.
This collaborator with Dr. Harris was born in Hardwick, Mass., August 30,
1764; graduated at Dartmouth College, 1786; was ordained the first minister in
Hancock, N. H., September 20, 1791. He died July 22, 1816, in the fifty-second
year of his age, and the twenty-fifth year of his pastorate.
The Secretary of the New Hampshire Missionary Society, formerly a parishioner
of Mr. Paige, has thus described him: "Possessing a strong, logical, well-educated,
and well-balanced mind, and a spirit of earnest prayer, having a remarkable familiarity with the Scriptures, and a profound knowledge of the great doctrines of
revelation, being a firm believer in the sovereignty of God, and the entire free agency
of man, his preaching was with power. Well do I remember his influence on his
hearers. Each sermon made them thoughtful. It was the subject of conversation
among them during the intervals of public worship. The doctrine of election, though
not cleared of its mystery, was yet generally accepted by them, so clearly did he
prove it, and earnestly enforce it. Their belief of the doctrine was accompanied with
adoring views of God, and a deep sense of dependence on his grace for salvation.
" Mr. Paige was not an eloquent preacher, in the usual meaning of the word. Nearsighted, he was wont to hold his brief notes in a small Bible directly before his eyes,
generally with both hands. In uttering the extemporaneous portions of his sermons,
he would turn the Bible a little aside, or place it upon the desk. When he did this,
strong utterances of truth were expected, nor was the expectation vain. It could not
be said that Mr. Paige was a close, constant student of books, for [unlike his teacher]
he was wont to work five days in the week on his farm with his own hands.  Saturday
he passed in his study, in preparation for the Sabbath.  Though not in his study much
of the time, he was much in study in the field. Having the Scriptures stored in his
memory, he meditated on their truths while at work on his farm, and there, no doubt,
he selected his texts and arranged the plans of his sermons. Though not technically
a student, he read extensively. He owned a good library of the old standard authors,
and he kept in his house a good town library which had been purchased through his
influence, and its volumes were mainly selected by himself.
"Mr. Paige was not only an able preacher, but he greatly excelled as a pastor.
He was peculiarly attractive to children and youth. After the lapse of more than
fifty years, I distinctly remember his apt and appropriate words at the meetings
which he held for the young members of his flock.
" He was the minister of the whole town, which contained at the time of his death
some sixteen hundred inhabitants. All were his parishioners; no other religious
society having been formed in the town during his ministry of twenty-five years.
Representatives from nearly all the families were regularly at worship on the Sabbath.
All the pews below and above were filled with parents and children, scarcely a place
where a child could sit being unoccupied.  Valuable as was the ministry of Mr.
Paige, it was not so fruitful in revivals as has been that of his two successors. But
the revivals that blessed the town since his death are, under God, the fruit of the seed
which he sowed, as well as of the labors of the men who followed him. During his
ministry, one hundred and forty-eight were added to his church. During the more
than six years after his decease in which the church was without a pastor, thirty-one
persons were added. During the ministry of his immediate successor, from 1822 to




MEMOIR.                                  249
1850, three hundred and fourteen were added. The whole number received into the
church from its organization, near the time of Mr. Paige's settlement, until 1855, is
five hundred and eighty-seven. At least five or six natives of the town have entered
the Congregational ministry. The late Rev. Isaac Robinson, D. D., of Stoddard,
N. H., the ablest biblical scholar ever known in the State, received his theological
education under Mr. Paige," who was an excellent instructor.
One of Mr. Paige's printed sermons was preached at the ordination of Dr.
Robinson. He printed eight solid pamphlets. One of them was a Fast sermon,
another a Thanksgiving sermon, both delivered on the same day, which was the day
appointed by the governor of the State for Fasting, and by the President of the
United States for Thanksgiving, April 13, 1815. Mr. Paige was distinguished not
only as a clergyman, but also as a politician. "He was," says his nephew Rev.
Lucius R. Paige, "one of the very few clergymen of that period who were both
Orthodox and Democrats. He took much interest in politics, was often a Representative in the General Court, and died in that office."
Mr. Paige advocated Emmons's theological system with great fidelity. In the main,
too, he followed the practical rules of his teacher. When he had finished his studies
at Franklin, and had taken leave of his instructor, he was called back by Dr.
Emmons, who remarked: "I have omitted one very important caution."  " What is
that? " asked Mr. Paige. " In all your public services," said the teacher, " remember
to leave off when you have done."
REV. JONATHAN WARD.
This colaborer with Bailey, Wines, Fowler, and Smith, was the son of Rev.
Nathan Ward of Plymouth, N. H. He was born at Plymouth, August 24, 1769;
was fitted for college with the late Dr. Wood of Boscawen - " studying one year and
entering in advance; was graduated at Dartmouth in 1792, and was the first native of
Plymouth who received a public education. He was a classmate with Rev. Jesse
Appleton, D. D., late President of Bowdoin College, and of Rev. Ebenezer Porter,
D. D., late of the Theological Seminary at Andover; - and I may say, possessed of an
order of mind scarcely inferior to either of those gentlemen." - (Rev. Dr. Bouton in
his Funeral Sermon.)  He was ordained pastor of the Congregational church in
Aina, Me., in 1796. Here he was one of the original trustees of that Society, which
at length germinated into the Bangor Theological Seminary. He was also one of the
Founders of the Maine Missionary Society. Having preached about twenty years at
Alna, he removed to his native town, and supplied its pulpit eleven years.  In
1829, he removed to Brentwood, N. H., and preached there three years and a
half. He published four sermons, and numerous essays in the religious newspapers
and other periodicals. He was one of the original members of the New Hampshire
General Association. The following incidents in his history have been narrated by a
surviving daughter:
"It was for many years his custom to sit up the greater part of Saturday nights,
and sometimes the entire night, pleading for the influences of the Spirit to give efficacy
to the labors of the Sabbath. And I well remember from early childhood, hearing
him at all seasons of the night, wrestling in prayer with an earnestness that said,'I
will not let Thee go except thou bless me.' Entirely self-sacrificing, with a heart




250                              MEMOIR.
overflowing with benevolence and love, we never went to him for counsel or sympathy,
but we had evidence of his tender interest to the full extent of our need — and often,
when I have mentioned some trial, or difficulty, long after I had almost forgotten it,
he has written to counsel, console, or suggest some means of relief. So entirely
forgetful was he of himself, of his own personal comfort, that I do not recollect of
ever hearing him make a request, or express a desire for any thing but cold water -
nor does my sister recollect of ever hearing him speak a dissatisfied word with regard
to domestic arrangements.  Under all circumstances it was ever an humble expression of unworthiness, or of gratitude for undeserved mercies."
" Ie was so interested in the spiritual welfare of his fellow-beings, and so desirous
to converse on the all-important subject of religion, especially in seasons of'revival,'
that on one occasion, spending a night in North Yarmouth, Me., when there was a
revival there, and being obliged to leave early in the morning, he rose very early,
before the family were up, and not finding his hat where he had left it the previous
evening, he threw his pocket handkerchief over his head, and went through the
village conversing with all whom he found up at that early hour, on the subject that
lay so near his heart."
" I think my father used to spend a great portion of his nights in prayer. I well
remember, while I lived at home, that my sleeping chamber was near his study, and
it was nothing unusual for me, waking in the night, to hear him groaning in prayer -
and sometimes, when riding, so lost was he in heavenly communings that the tears
would roll down his cheeks, and the reins would drop from his hands. He was
peculiarly tender-hearted. His heart overflowed with tenderness, and he would weep
always at any scene or recital of human suffering."
This persevering student died at Brentwood, February 24, 1860, aged ninety years
and six months. His last conversation, as related by his daughter, was characteristic
of his Hopkinsian theology.'Several times he spoke of the Prophecies relating to the Millennium, a subject he
had long been particularly interested in. He spoke also of Mohammedan persecutions, related the substance of an account he had read of some Christians, who had
been put to death, mentioning the precise number, etc. - Twice during his illness
he requested that the fifth chapter of the Second Corinthians should be read to
him, and also the twentieth and twenty-second of Revelation.  On the last, he made
some remarks and explanations.  On the Sabbath preceding his death he appeared to
suffer much, but when asked if he was in pain, he almost invariably answered in his
quiet, uncomplaining way, "Not much "-and although from that time, till a few
hours previous to his death, he breathed with difficulty and groaned at every breath,
yet to the question often put to him, " Do you suffer much," his patient reply was still
the same, "Not much," -or, " I have some pain."  A day or two before his death I
said, "Dear father, I long to ease your pain." He replied with difficulty, " You must
be contented."  To my sister and myself weeping by his bed, he said, "I would
have you be easy, and resigned to the will of God."  To Mrs. G-, who said to him,
near dying, " I am sorry to see you suffer so much," he answered, " The Judge of all the
earth will do right." I said, " Do you think you shall be raised up again, father? "
" Yes," he replied, "the Bible is very explicit."  I saw he had mistaken my meaning
of recovery to health, and said,'You mean at the last great day?' "Oh, yes."An hour or two before he expired, his breathing became easy, and he lay calm and




MEMOIR.                                  251
quiet. My sister repeated a number of texts of Scripture to him, " For me to die is
gain," etc. "Can you say so, father?     "  Yes."  When she repeated, " Though I
walk through the dark valley of the shadow of death I will fear no evil," etc., he answered, "Yes," and made an effort to add something more. - After he became
speechless, he still recognized the friends that were about him, and extended his hand
to one and another, in token of "farewell." Having tasted a little wine, he then
took his handkerchief, and with his trembling hand wiped his mouth and eyes; then
closed his eyes - a moment of apparent quiet sleep - and, the angels had taken him
to Abraham's bosom.'
The antiquity of the influence  of Emmons will be noticed  in
various Sections of the present chapter. It is illustrated by the
following record of self-forgetting, long-enduring pioneers in our
once destitute regions:
REv. NATHAN CHURCR  was born in South Hadley, Mass., in 1754, graduated at
Dartmouth College in 1784, ordained at Bridgton, Maine, in 1789, remained pastor of
that church thirty-eight years, was a thorough student of the Bible, and an able reasoner. He retired from the ministry in 1827, and died in 1836, aged eighty-two years.
He lived a missionary life among the feeble churches of his neighborhood, and the results of his labor remain sure and stable.
REV. JAMES TUFTS, born in New Braintree, Mass., in 1764, graduated at Brown
University in 1787, ordained in the yard of a private dwelling-house at Wardsborough,
Vt., Nov. 4, 1795, remained sole pastor of the church until 1837, and colleague pastor
until his death, August 11, 1841, at the age of seventy-seven years. His gratuitous
labors, in the mountainous region around his parish, were abundant. Over rough
roads, through narrow pathways in the forests, he travelled with wonderful energy,
perseverance, and self-denial, as real a missionary as if he had been in a foreign land.
He was noted for a vigorous mind, great skill in explaining difficult propositions, and
a pleasing originality in illustrating all truths. He was a rigidly doctrinal preacher,
and was forceful in pressing his clearly proved words upon the sensibilities of his
hearers. He was a prudent and wise pastor. He received three hundred persons
into his church, and his ministry was attended with several revivals of religion. He
was devout habitually. About an hour before his death, he learned, for the first time,
that he was in a state of peril; but he remained entirely calm, remarked that for a long
period he had thought daily of his departure, requested his son to pray that " God's
will may be done," and, after the prayer, he expired without a groan or sigh.
REV. PIERSON THURSTON was a Founder of the Maine Missionary Society. He
was graduated at Dartmouth College in 1787, was ordained at Somersworth, N. H.,
Feb. 1, 1792 (his ordination sermon being preached by Dr. Samuel Spring). He
was dismissed December 2, 1812. He was installed as the first pastor of the First
Congregational Church in St. Johnsbury, Vt., Oct. 25,1815. During his ministry of
two years in this place, fifty-two persons were added to the church. The whole number who had ever belonged to it before, was sixty. He died August 15, 1819, at
Leominster, Mass. He was a man of tall and commanding person; "had a pleasant
voice and was effective as a speaker."  He was a diligent student, but his library and
all his sermons were consumed with his parsonage at Somersworth. He was a circumspect, devout Christian, and although termed a "hard preacher," was highly




252                               MEMOIR.
revered. He was subject to great depression of spirits, and at one time became nearly
or quite insane.
REV. WILLIAM RIDDEL, a brother-in-law of Emmons, was born in Coleraine,
Mass., Feb. 4, 1768, graduated at Dartmouth College in 1793, was pastor at Bristol,
Maine, from 1796 until 1804, " then spent about one year as a Missionary in Western
New York," afterwards preached at Townsend and Whittingham, Vt., and died Oct.
24, 1849, aged eighty-two years. He was another of the four pupils of Dr. Emmons,
who were among the Founders of the Maine Missionary Society.  (See Sprague's
Annals, I. p. 520.)
REV. DRURY FAIRBANKS, born in Holliston, Mass., Oct. 13, 1772, graduated at
Brown University, 1797, ordained the second Pastor of the church in Plymouth, N.
H., in 1800, dismissed March 18, 1818; installed at Littleton, N. H., May 3, 1820,
dismissed March 13, 1836, died in 1853, in the eighty-first year of his age. The Secretary of the New Hampshire Missionary Society writes:
" I was favored with a personal knowledge of Mr. Fairbanks for more than forty
years. He had a good mind; an open, benignant countenance, a noble, commanding
person; a genial spirit; was very affable, kind, generous, loving; and he exhibited,
in all the relations of life, the excellences of the religion he taught. In the regions
around his settlement, he performed much gratuitous missionary labor; preaching,
visiting the sick, attending funerals, looking after the sheep and lambs of the Good
Shepherd's flock, scattered over those moral wastes. These missionary toils, and also
his labors in teaching youthful scholars in his own house were, in addition to his pastoral work, too severe for his constitution. After a faithful ministry of thirty-four
years, he retired to a farm, yet remained an active, lovely, venerable servant of God."
~ 6. The interest of Emmons's Pupils in Revivals of Religion.
The history of his Theological School discloses more numerous
and genuine religious excitements, than are noticed in the record
of any similar school that preceded his in our land. He aimed
to make his system  of theology an awakening one.  The stimulus of his doctrinal method has been indicated in the previous
Sketches of his pupils. It is also represented by the following
names:
REV. ELI SMITH.
This earnest pastor was born in Belchertown, Mass., Sept. 17, 1759; graduated at
Brown University in 1792, at the age of thirty-three; was ordained at Hollis, N. II.,
Nov. 27, 1793, and dismissed in 1831, after a pastorate of thirty-seven years. He
died May 11, 1847, in the eighty-eighth year of his age.
Four, at least, of his near relatives have been employed as foreign missionaries.
Rev. Mr. Blake, in his History of Mendon Association (pp. 249, 250), writes:'Mr. Smith's ministry in Hollis was signally blessed.  The first great revival
among his people began in 1801, and continued over a year. It was preceded for
three or four years, by an uncommon degree of religious feeling. As its fruits, one




MEMOIR.                                  253
hundred and forty-two, mostly heads of families, united with the church. This was
one of the first revivals of the present century. During his pastorate, between four
and five hundred were added to the church.
He was also an early and fast friend to missions, and once left his people as a
home missionary for a short time.' His prominent features of character, as gathered from his funeral sermon, by Rev.
Dr. Emerson, Professor at Andover, were an ardent temperament, and quick mental
activity, which gave peculiar point and power to his extempore efforts; an invincible
firmness, manifested in his boldness and distinctness in preaching the humbling truths
of grace. He was a revival preacher, in the best sense of the term; plain, pungent,
practical.' His late education prevented his being a learned theologian. Yet he was a diligent
student, rising usually at four o'clock in the morning, and spending much of his time
in secret devotion.' The system of Christian doctrine taught by his revered preceptor, Dr. Emmons,
he embraced in all its strictness, and with all his heart, and taught with all his power.'
The Secretary of the New Hampshire Missionary Society writes,l that "more
than forty young men in Mr. Smith's parish have been educated for the Christian
ministry; fifteen, for each of the other learned professions; more than seventy-five
natives of the town have finished their collegiate or professional course, and the great
majority of them were directly or indirectly stimulated to their literary life by Mr.
Smith. He was a great man, not great in learning, but great in mental power, moral
worth, and in general influence."
REV. BENJAMIN WOOD.
This fervid preacher was born in Lebanon, N. H., Sept. 15, 1772; graduated at
Dartmouth College in 1793; was a theological student, first with Rev. Dr. Samuel
Wood (his elder brother and Daniel Webster's teacher) at Boscawen, afterwards
with Dr. Emmons. He was pastor of the Congregational church in Upton, Mass.,
from June 1, 1796, until April 24, 1849, when he died at the age of seventy-six years.
"During the fifty-three years of Mr. Wood's labors in Upton, eight distinct seasons
of refreshing were enjoyed, which resulted in the addition of over four hundred members to the church."  He was a gentleman of great kindness and vivacity, a most delightful companion, and an eminently devoted Christian. " To a clerical brother, he
expressed his dying faith,' I have been examining the doctrines which I preached, to
see if any of them may be spared; but I cannot part with one. They are all precious.
They are all links in a golden chain.' " —(Blake's History, p. 141.)
REV. ELNATHAN WALKER.
" He was born in Taunton, Mass., Feb. 18, 1780, graduated at Brown University in
1803, ordained pastor of the Presbyterian Church in Homer, N. Y., Oct. 25, 1809,
died there in 1820, aged forty years. The Cortland Repository says of Mr. Walker:
" He was a firm advocate for the doctrines of grace. He preached them plainly and
cheerfully, and decidedly bore testimony in their favor on his dying bed. He was a
1 MS. Letter of Rev. William Clark.
VOL. T.                        W




254                            M EM 0 IR.
friend to revivals of religion by the efficacious influence of the Holy Spirit. No less
than three general revivals were experienced in the congregation during his pastoral
connection with them, and four hundred and sixty-eight members were added to the
church.
"Mr. Walker's funeral was attended by more than two thousand people, assembled
to pay their last tribute of respect to departed worth. Eleven of the neighboring
clergymen were present. The funeral sermon was preached by Rev. Mr. [Dr.] Lansing, from Heb. 11: 27;' For he endured as seeing Him who is invisible.'"
REV. ARTEMZAS DEAN.
He was born in Taunton, Mass., August 16, 1783, was graduated at Union College
in 1803. He was approbated as a preacher June 6, 1811, was ordained in 1814 over
a Presbyterian church in Bethlehem, N. Y., and dismissed in 1842. He died at New
Windsor, N. Y., Sept. 9, 1859. As an evangelist, he was a successful laborer. In
his pastorate, he enjoyed " three revivals of great power."  About five hundred persons were apparently converted under his ministrations.
~ 7.  The Solid Pastors among the Franklin Pupils.
Nearly all the students of Emmons were  adorned with the
name of " faithful ministers of the New Testament."   They are
characterized as " solid Christians," and " pastors of well wearing parts."   There were some exceptions.  There was one John
Smith, not the exemplary Professor at Bangor, but another and
very different clergyman, who has left behind him not a very
distinguished name.  He can be mentioned without giving particular offence to any who are indefinitely related to him. There
was another pupil, a good man and an indefatigable student, but
afflicted with an infirmity,-more injurious to a clergyman than
to a politician, in whom it is sometimes ranked as a virtue, - of
not paying his debts.  There was a third, of whom  his biographer says that he was too " cordially  treated"  by his parishioners.   In  the general, however, the  Franklin  pupils  were
methodical and circumspect, like their teacher, and are represented by the following names:
REV. HOLLOWAY FISH, born in 1762, graduated at Dartmouth College in 1790,
ordained in Marlborough, N. H., Sept. 25, 1793, "died praying for his people," Sept. 25, 1824, aged sixty-two years. He was the son of Rev. Elisha Fish,
of Upton, Mass., and brother of Rev. Elisha Fish, of Gilsum, N. H. During
his ministry of thirty years, he admitted to his church one hundred and seventy-four
persons, one hundred and twenty-nine by profession of their faith.




MEMOIR.                                   255
REV. NATHANIEL HALL was born in Sutton, Mass., April 9, 1764; graduated at
Dartmouth College in 1790; pastor of the Congregational Church in Granville, N. Y.,
from Oct. 3, 1797 to July 31, 1820, when he died at the age of fifty-six, and after a
pastorate of twenty-three years. He admitted to his church, on profession of their faith,
two hundred and fifty-five persons. He was the father of Hon. Willis Hall, formerly
Attorney-General of New York, and grandfather of Rev. Edwin H. Crane, missionary to the Nestorians.
REv. SAMUEL JUDSON, born Dec. 8, 1767, in Woodbury, Conn., graduated at
Yale College, 1790; was the beloved pastor of the Congregational Church in Uxbridge, Mass., from Oct. 17, 1792 until 1832. He died Nov. 11, 1832, at the age of
sixty-five years, after a successful pastorate of forty years. " He gave a thousand
dollars to found a scholarship for the education of pious young men."
REV. NATHAN HOLMAN, born in Millbury, May 17, 1769; graduated with distinction at Brown University in 1797; was a successful pastor of the Congregational
Church in East Attleborough, Mass., from Oct. 15, 1800 until May 22, 1821. He
died Oct. 28, 1844, aged 75 years.  "His iron diligence and perseverance are illustrated by the method in which he prepared himself for College. He would lay open
his Latin or Greek Grammar on the wall at one side of the plot of ground where he
was laboring, then would con his declensions and paradigms, while he followed the
plough, the hoe, or the scythe across and back. He thus worked his way through the
farm and the classics at the same time." - (Blake's History of Mendon Association,
p. 147.)
REV. JOHN FITCH, born in Hopkinton, 1770, son of Rev. Elijah Fitch; graduated
at Brown University in 1790; pastor at Danville, Vt., from  October 30, 1793 to
October 1, 1816, twenty-three years. He published several sermons.  Sixty-five persons were added to his church during his ministry.
REV. DAVID JEWETT, born at Hollis, N. H., July 16, 1773; graduated at Dartmouth College in 1801; "studied theology with his townsman, Rev. Dr. Worcester,
of Salem, also with Rev. Dr. Emmons, of Franklin, and Rev. Dr. Spring, of Newburyport."  He was ordained at Rockport, Mass., Oct. 30, 1805. "During the first
ten years of his ministry [at Rockport], seventy were added to the number of Christ's
professed followers. In the next ten years, twenty-six were added; and within ten
years more, two hundred and six; and, during the last year of his ministry there,
ten were received to the church: in all by him three hundred and twelve." He contended, "with Christian tenderness and an iron resolution," against the Universalism
which prevailed around Cape Ann. His health failing, he retired from his pastorate
in May, 1836, and died at Waltham, Mass., July 20, 1841, aged sixty-eight years.
His remains were reinterred fifteen years afterwards, with appropriate and impressive
solemnities, in the cemetery of his grateful parish. "It has been well said of him,
that if Augustus Casar could boast, that though he found Rome built of brick, he
left it built of marble, much more might this servant of the Lord affirm, that from a
mass of spiritual rubbish, he had collected and hewn the lively stones of a spiritual
edifice of fair proportions and firm foundations,'filled with the glory of the Lord."' -
(Rev. Dr. Crowell's Sermon at the funeral of Mr. Jewett, p. 19, and Appendix,
p. 32.)
REV. EDWARD WHIPPLE, born in New Braintree, Mass., 1778; graduated at Wil



256                              MEMOIR.
liams College in 1801; ordained at Charlton, Mass., 1804; dismissed in 1821, and
installed Sept. 26, 1821, at Shrewsbury, where he died Sept. 22, 1822, aged forty-four.
He followed the advice of his instructor, who preached at Mr. Whipple's ordination
the noted sermon on the "Spiritual Food of Christians."
REV. EMERSON PAINE, born in Foxborough, Mass., December 5, 1786; graduated
at Brown University in 1813; ordained at Middleborough, Mass., Feb. 14, 1816, dismissed June 4, 1822; installed at Little Compton, Nov. 20, 1822, dismissed April 20,
1835. "He preached again, a few months, in Middleborough, until invited to labor
in Halifax, where he continued to preach until his death, which occurred April 26,
1851, at the age of sixty-five years," after a ministry of thirty-five years. He published three pamphlets, and a volume of truly able sermons.
REV. WILLARD HOLBROOK, born in Uxbridge, Mass., April 7, 1792; graduated at
Brown University in 1814; after reading theology with Dr. Emmons, was advised by
him to complete his studies at Andover; was ordained at Rowley, Mass., July 22,
1818; dismissed May 12, 1840; installed at Mendon [Blackstone], August 18, 1841;
dismissed Feb. 19, 1850; preacher at Limebrook from March 1, 1851, until March 1,
1855; died at Rowley, Mass., Feb. 7, 1860, in the sixty-eighth year of his age. Like
several other pupils of Emmons, he suffered in the pulpit from  a defective elocution.
~ 8. The Variety of Gifts and Fortunes among the Franklin Pupils.
It is frequently imagined, that all who felt the power of the
Franklin  teacher, sacrificed their idiosyncracies to  him.   But
instead of aiming to cast them all in one mould, Emmons loved
to develop the constitutional peculiarities of his disciples. He
chose that each bear the image and superscription enstamped on
him  by his Maker.  The ensuing Sketches illustrate the diversity
that enriched his school.
REV. NATHANIEL HOWE.
He was born Oct. 6, 1764; was graduated at Harvard College in 1786; was a theological student first of Rev. Levi Hart, D. D. (Dr. Bellamy's son-in-law), of Preston,
Conn., secondly of Dr. Emmons. He was pastor of the Congregational Church in
Hopkinton, Mass., from Oct. 5, 1791, until Feb. 15, 1837, when he died, in the seventythird year of his age, and the forty-sixth year of his pastorate. Six publications came
from his pen. One of them, his Century Sermon, is thus noticed in the North
American Review for November, 1816.
" It has been our lot to read more polished sermons than the present, but never one
half so abounding in plainness and originality. It is a unique specimen, and beyond
all price. That it should have been delivered is remarkable —that it should have
been printed, still more so; particularly as it was printed by request, and dedicated to
the parish, with affectionate wishes for their peace, prosperity, and eternal happiness.
The text taken for the motto in the title-page, which is not that of the discourse, is
admirably chosen. We shall make some extracts, but almost every page of it will
reward perusal."




MEMOIR.                                  257
Mr. Howe was a man of genial temper, sparkling wit, and downright honesty. His
genius often flashed forth in the pulpit, and startled his auditors. Dr. Elam Smalley
affirms (see Sprague's Annals, II. pp. 308, 309) that some passages in Mr. Howe's
sermons "would have done no discredit to a Mason or a Bellamy."  He did not, as
Emmons did, abstain from witticisms in the pulpit.  He breathed pleasantry, and lost
the power of distinguishing between a humorous and a grave remark. As he was a
near neighbor of Emmons, he often enlivened the Franklin parsonage.
REV. CALVIN CHADDJCK. - The grandfather of this clergyman (named Chadwick) was early left an orphan, and an heir to an immense estate in Liverpool, England. In his boyhood he was impressed on board a man-of-war, and for ten years
afterward was scarcely ever on land. At length he made a narrow escape to the
shore of Virginia. The father of Rev. Calvin Chadduck was a brave captain in our
revolutionary army.  Several brothers of the clergyman served in the war. The
clergyman himself was born at Brookfield, Mass., in 1765; graduated at Dartmouth
College in 1791; was ordained Oct. 10, 1793, at Rochester, Mass., where he erected
an academy, and for several years was noted as a teacher. In 1806 he removed to
Hanover, Mass., and after twelve years of pastoral service in that town, he emigrated
to Charleston, Va., where he was resettled in the ministry, and died in 1822, aged
fifty-seven years. He was a man of zeal and energy; of a sensitive and confiding
nature.; and was admired as an impressive and powerful speaker.
REV. LEVI NELSON. -He was born in Milford, Mass., Aug. 8, 1779; was a member of Brown University and of Williams College, but forced by precarious health to
abridge his collegiate course. In 1803 he was appointed by the Massachusetts Missionary Society to labor in the northern part of Oneida and Lewis counties, N. Y.,
and in 1804, Dec. 5, he was ordained pastor of the Congregational Church in Lisbon, Conn., where he died Dec. 17, 1855, in the seventy-seventh year of his age, and
the fifty-second year of his ministry. " He preached five thousand and one hundred different sermons."  "He bequeathed one thousand dollars to his parish, provided they
did not settle as his successor a man embracing what was called the New Haven
theology." - (Allen's Biographical Dictionary.) He printed six pamphlets at least,
and numerous essays in religious periodicals, many of them in opposition to the New
Haven school.
REV. ROSWELL RANDALL SWAN.-He was born of opulent parents in Stonington,
Conn., June 16, 1778, was a graduate of Yale College in the class of 1802, and he
" ranked well with Hon. Isaac C. Bates, Jeremiah Evarts, President Daniel Haskell,
Professor John Hough, Judge Samuel Hubbard, President William Maxwell, Dr.
Junius Smith, Governor G. Tomlinson, and Professor S. S. Woodhull."  From
March until August, 1804, he studied theology with peculiar earnestness at Franklin;
but was driven from his books by a severe and dangerous disease. From October,
1804, until February, 1805, he continued his studies with Rev. Dr. Perkins of West
Hartford. He was ordained January 14, 1807, at Norwalk, Conn., was the pastor of
Roger Minot Sherman for a time, and of Governor Clark Bissell. Greatly lamented,
he died March 22, 1818, aged forty years. During the twelve years of his pastorate
he admitted to his church two hundred and sixty-one persons; an uncommonly large
number of them from among the youth of the town. He was a man of eminent piety,
and bore a striking resemblance to David Brainerd. In one of the last letters ever
written by Dr. McEwen of New London, he says: " Mr. Swan was an intimate
W*




258                            MHEMOIR.
companion of mine. He was resolute and devout; a warm-hearted, faithful minister;
a man of extensive knowledge and strong purposes."
REV. NATHANIEL RAWSON, born February 26, 1780, was a descendant of the
well-known Secretary Rawson. He was ordained pastor at Hardwick, Vt., February
13, 1811, dismissed May 30, 1817; "preached until 1834, as a missionary in Vermont,
New Hampshire, New York, and Canada."  He had various innocent peculiarities.
He had often expressed a wish to die without any premonition. "While raking hay
on his farm in Hampton, Conn., July, 1845, he was instantly killed by lightning, and
was buried in less than twenty-four hours from the time he entered his field in health."
His age was sixty-five years.
REV. BELA KELLOGG, born at Amherst, Mass., in 1780; graduated at Williams
College in 1800; approbated as a preacher in 1808; settled at Brookfield, Conn., in
1813, at East Avon, Conn., in 1819; died in 1831, aged 51 years. He was distinguished by his devout life, and by the patience with which he bore some peculiar afflictions.
REV. JONATHAN LONGLEY, born in Boylston, Mass., 1790, a member of Harvard
College in 1811, approbated as a preacher in 1819, died in Northbridge, Mass., January 20, 1850, aged sixty years. He was remarkable for the tenacity of his memory,
and his ability to quote proof-texts, and other passages of the Bible, naming the chapter and verse where the exact words are found.
REV. MOSES PARTRIDGE was born in Bellingham, Mass., 1788; graduated at
Brown University in 1814; labored about ten years in the service of the Massachusetts
Missionary Society, was ordained at Monument Point, Plymouth; and on the 25th of
September, 1824, soon after his ordination, he died at the age of thirty-six years. He
was a representative of those pupils of Emmons, who, without any peculiar metaphysical acumen, or scholarly acquisitions, maintained a religious character eminently pure,
sincere, simple, modest, hearty.
HON. CHRISTOPHEER WEBB. This gentleman was born in Weymouth, Mass.,
July 11, 1780, and graduated at Brown University in 1803. He practised law in his
native town; was often sent Representative from Weymouth to the Legislature; was
sent several times to the Massachusetts Senate; was County Commissioner, President
of the Palestine Missionary Society, and a highly honorable man in both church and
state. His doubts with regard to his religious character, made him shrink from entering the clerical profession. He remained about thirty years in political life. He died
in Baltimore, Md., Feb. 12, 1848, in the sixty-eighth year of his age.
~ 9. Men of Mark among the Franklin Pupils.
Forty-one of the deceased pupils of Dr. Emmons are noticed
in the Biographical Dictionaries of eminent men. In what other
school have one half of the stelligeri attained so good a name?
The preceding Sketches illustrate the fact, that men who were
to lay the foundations for schools of learning, and for other
beneficent institutions repaired to Emmons as their magnetic




MEMOIR.                                   259
instructor.  He did not impart to them  their originality of mind.
They had it before  they  resorted  to him.  But he quickened
their  inventive  genius.  His sympathy  with  their  intellectual
and  moral wants  attracted  them   to   him.  When  Professor
Cleaveland, the distinguished mineralogist and chemist, was
hesitating whether or not to enter the clerical office, his pastor,
Dr. Elijah Parish, entreated him to sit, for a few months, under
the instruction  of Dr. Emmons, as the man best fitted  to  influence a  mind  so  philosophical and truth-loving.  While  the
youthful naturalist was teaching a school at York, he received
from  Dr. Parish  the following words of advice in a letter dated
March 22, 1801.1
"I hope you are forming all your plans with the idea of spending the summer
with Dr. Emmons.  Settle this sacred link in the chain of your calculations. After
answering the principal object had in view for the school, let Dr. Emmons be the
next object. Let a few months of your immortal existence be consecrated as the
still Sabbath of your life. There pause ponder, reason, judge, determine. It will
give a complexion to your future existence. It may, I hope will, be the basis of
greater comfort, energy, and usefulness, whether it shall alter your professional
objector not."
The sketches already given develop the individuality of mind
which marked the Franklin pupils. There is a living clergyman
who is still characterized  by lines of thought and feeling borrowed from  no one, and who  has  often  "joined the train  of
pilgrims, seeking wisdom  at the lips of the sage of Franklin."
This is the
REV. THOMAS WILLIAMS.
He was born in Pomfret, Conn., November 5, 1779; was graduated at Yale
College in 1800; after having been a teacher in Boston, was approbated as a minister
in 1804; became a missionary in Delaware County, N. Y., then a pastor at Providence, R. I., next at Foxborough, Mass., and afterward at Attleborough, Mass.
He has performed a great amount of missionary labor among the feeble churches of
Rhode Island. He was one of the originators of the Evangelical Consociation of
that State. He was its first Scribe, and he " drafted its Articles of Faith."  As early
as 1809, he made efforts " to bring the subject of Foreign Missions before the General
Association of Connecticut," and to establish a Magazine for diffusing a missionary
spirit among the churches. He has contributed many Articles for the Connecticut
Evangelical Magazine, the Panoplist, and other periodicals. He has published more
1 See Dr. Leonard Woods's Address on the Life and Character of Parker Cleaveland, LL. D., p. 19.




260                             MEMOIR.
than fifty sermons, chiefly in the pamphlet form. He edited two volumes of Emmons's
sermons. I have heard him preach discourses which for originality of argument;
richness and saliency of imagination; exuberance of feeling; energy, boldness, fervor
of style; vehement, forceful, and commanding elocution, have been seldom surpassed. His bright thoughts, apt words, spirited and solemn tones, have been sometimes overpowering. His fertility of anecdote, his sprightliness of wit, his previous
intimacy with Dr. Nathan Strong and other old divines, his deep sympathy with
Edwardean doctrines, and his varied intelligence, made him a favorite at the Franklin
parsonage. He was selected by Dr. Emmons, twenty-five years before the Doctor's
death, to preach his funeral sermon.
There is another gentleman, who was not so eminent for a
sparkling  genius, as for a Christian  consistency in  high  civil
offices, and whose life uncovers various hidden branches of the
influence that flowed, more or less freely, from  Emmons and
Spring.
HON. THOMAS W. THOMPSON.
This Hopkinsian statesman was born in Boston, Mass., March 15, 1766, and was
graduated at Harvard College in 1786. He was a classmate of Hon. Alden Bradford,
Hon. John Lowell, Hon. C. G. Champlin, Judge Isaac Parker, and Rev. Dr.
William Harris. He left Harvard with the valedictory honors. He was tutor in the
college from 1789 until 1791. His father, having removed from Boston to Newburyport, became interested in Samuel Spring, and was a firm disciple of Emmons.
This was one reason for young Thompson's repairing to Franklin for theological
study. But while sitting at the feet of the teacher whom he revered, he felt impelled
by a patriotic impulse to join the forces called out for suppressing " Shay's Rebellion,"
and was appointed aid to General Lincoln, the commander of those forces.
Deeming himself better fitted for the legal than the clerical profession, he studied law
with his townsman, Judge Theophilus Parsons of Newburyport. He commenced his
legal practice in that part of Salisbury which is now included in Franklin, N. H.
Here he had an extensive practice. In politics he was, like Emmons, a decided
Federalist. He was often sent as Representative from Salisbury to the New Hampshire
Legislature, was speaker of the House in 1813 and 1814; was Representative in the
U. S. Congress in 1805-1807; was elected State Treasurer in 1810, when he removed
to Concord, N. H.; was Senator in the U. S. Congress in 1814-1817.
He was one of the most efficient friends of Dartmouth College. Elected to its
Board of Trustees in 1801, he remained an energetic member of the Board for twenty
years. During this period, that well-known litigation occurred which determined the
fate not only of Dartmouth, but of other New England Colleges. Mr. Thompson
was one of the foremost men in conducting this momentous controversy. He had
accumulated, in his legal profession, an estate of about fifty thousand dollars; but,
with a Hopkinsian disinterestedness, he put all his property at hazard in defence of
his adopted college. The successful issue of that controversy, is, in no small degree,
attributable to his wisdom.




MEMOIR.                                  261
Opposite to his office in Salisbury, was the farm  of Judge Ebenezer Webster.
Mr. Thompson and Judge Webster were the "next door neighbors" for nineteen
years.  For a long time, they were almost the only near neighbors.  They were
drawn into peculiar intimacy by their kindred pursuits in life. The attention of
Mr. Thompson was soon attracted to the promising talents of Daniel Webster, the
son of the Judge, and a boy nine years old when Mr. Thompson first knew him.
"The advice and entreaty of Mr. Thompson were very efficient in persuading Judge
Webster to let Daniel have a collegiate education."  In August, 1801, Daniel was
graduated at Dartmouth. He entered at once, the law office of Mr. Thompson, and
remained there till, in the words of Mr. March, "he felt it necessary to go somewhere
and do something to earn a little money." - (Webster's Works, Vol. I. p. xxvii.) In
September, 1802, having taught the Fryeburg Academy, he resumed his studies with
Mr. Thompson.  He continued them  until March 1804, eighteen months. He
"found in his instructor's family the habits of a Christian gentleman, strictly
religious in practice, orthodox in sentiment, refined and courteous in manners.
The influence thus bearing upon him, was the greater from the seclusion of the spot where
they lived. This influence marked his character through life."
The eminent biographer of Mr. Webster has criticized Mr. Thompson for directing
the legal studies of his pupils "on the principle of the hardest book first," and for
breaking his young men into their profession through the wall of Coke's Littleton.(Webster's Works, Vol. I. p. xxxviii.) But Mr. Thompson simply adhered to the old
methods of legal discipline. Like his theological instructor, he did not easily turn from
the trodden paths. He and Webster had lived in a comparative wilderness. In many
a cold winter, he had been compelled to rely on Indian snow-shoes for his means of
locomotion from one house to another. At the adjournment of a court in one county,
he often mounted his horse, rode during the entire night to the shire town of another
county, and stood up on the next morning to plead a new cause before a new Court.
He was thus inured to hard work, and did not fear the hard regimen of his fathers.
Loving the vigorous discipline, he maintained also the personal dignity of the old
school. He was eminent for his urbane and courtly manners, his polished and
gentlemanly conversation.  "He was among the last to discard the long silk stockings
and silver shoe buckles which rendered his handsome person quite imposing."
Says a Professor in one of our colleges: "He was one of the first men whom I
remember, and one of the last whom I can forget."
With all his culture he combined the strict religious discipline of the fathers.
While a member of Congress, he was active in maintaining at his own lodgings a
Congressional prayer-meeting.  While at his home, he was a faithful deacon of the
church, superintendent of the Sabbath school, a munificent patron of the various
benevolent societies.  The Temperance Reform had not commenced at the time of
his decease, but as early as 1816, ten years before the Total Abstinence Societies
were formed, he resisted the fashion of his time; and, having dispensed with them
himself, he removed all wines and spirits from his table and sideboard.
He died at Concord, N. H., October 21, 1821, in the fifty-sixth year of his age,
leaving generous bequests to the charitable objects of the day, and a good name
which is better than all his riches.




262                             MEMOIR.
~ 10. The Age of the Franklin Pupils.
Forty-one of these athletic men attained ages amounting, in
the aggregate, to three thousand and forty-seven years.  One of
the pupils died at ninety-one; another at ninety; one at eightyeight; another at eighty-seven; one at eighty-five, two others at
eighty-two, another  at eighty-one, and four others  at eighty.
Twenty-one of them passed or reached the age of seventy-five.
Thirty-five of these strong men were ministers of the gospel
fifteen hundred  and eighty-six  years in the aggregate; one of
them   was a minister sixty-four years; one, sixty-three; one,
fifty-four; and four, fifty-three years, each.1  In these days of
physical degeneracy, when, in  despite of their costly European
and Western tours, our clergymen are often deemed too frail for
the pulpit at the age of threescore, it is interesting to read of men
who  persevered in one place without an  annual vacation, for a
longer period than the majority of ministers now serve in successive pastorates during their entire life. The following is an
illustrative record:
REV. CALEB BLAIE was born at Wrentham, Mass., in 1762; was a graduate of
Harvard College in the class of President Webber, 1784; was a Congregational
pastor at Westford, Mass., forty-five years, and died May 11, 1847, aged eighty-five.
While a large proportion of the Franklin pupils were men of
brawny sinews and of stalwart frames, fitted to endure hardness
as good soldiers, there were some less robust, and four who died
in early life. These were the following:
PHINEAS TAFT, born August 11, 1762, a promising son of Rev. Moses Taft, of
Braintree (now Randolph); graduated at Harvard College in 1789; died in 1798,
aged thirty-six years. He died before his ordination.
1 Of these aged ministers, all of them did not remain pastors for so long a
time, thus:
REV. JOHN SIMPKINS, born in Boston, 1763, a son of Deacon John Simpkins,
was graduated at Harvard College, in 1786, a classmate, as well as townsman, of
Hon. Thomas W. Thompson, named on pp. 260-1. He was "a good scholar and
divine."  After a faithful pastorate at Brewster, Mass., he was compelled by feeble
health to return to his native city, where he died February, 28, 1843, aged seventy-five
years.
REv. LUKE WooD, an early parishioner of Rev. Charles Backus of Somers,
Conn., after having served as a pastor in Waterbury and Westford, Conn., returned
to Somers, and died there in 1851, aged seventy-four years.




MEMOIR.                                263
REV. ARIEL PARISH, born in Lebanon, Conn., 1764; graduated at Dartmouth College in 1788; ordained at Manchester, Mass., 1792; died in 1794, aged thirty years.
NATHANIEL OGDEN, born in Fairton, Cumberland Co., N. J., 1768; graduated at
the University of Pennsylvania, 1793; after completing his theological studies with
Dr. Emmons, supplied a vacant pulpit in Taunton, Mass., where stands his monument, having the following inscription:
"In memory of Mr. Nathaniel Ogden, A. B., of Fairfield, N. J., Preacher of the
Gospel, who died July 11, 1796, aged 28. He had preached on seven Lord's days,
when our high expectations of his future usefulness were suddenly blasted."
REV. SHERMAN JOHNSON, born in Southboro', August 18, 1776; graduated at
Yale College, 1802; ordained in Milford, Conn., 1804, where he died in 1806, aged
thirty years.
~ 11. TIe Prolonged Influence of Emmons through his Pupils.
The preceding record is significant of the protracted influence
which Emmons exerted over the land.  Ninety-eight years have
elapsed since he became a teacher of a school, though not more
than eighty-three years since he became an instructor of candidates for the pulpit. If the eldest of these theological students
were now living, he would be in the hundred and eighth year of
his age, and yet seven of these students remain in the church
on  earth.  Perhaps no theological instructor in the land  has
come so near as Emmons, to spreading out his pupils through an
entire century.  He remained so long with us, that we forget
how early he began to work for us, and for how long a period he
has been a " power in the land."  Rev. Josiah Read was born at
Uxbridge, Mass., July 23, 1753, was graduated at Brown University in 1775, and was one of Emmons's " promising young
men."   Rev. Enoch Pond was born in Wrentham, Mass., April
27, 1756, was graduated  at Brown  University in  1777; and,
having served one year in the Revolutionary war, and one year
as a teacher of music in Boston (he was an accomplished musician), he resorted to Emmons as a theological guide.  He remained the pastor at Ashford, Ct., from 1789 until his death,
August 6, 1807.  " He fitted many scholars for the University,
and some for the Gospel ministry."   These are the two eldest of
the Franklin pupils.1
And where are the youngest?  Two of them  are Rev. David
1 REV. THOMAS MOORE was a pupil of Dr. Emmons, and some think that Mr.
Moore was the first pastor of the church at Wiscasset, Me., and the oldest of the




264                             MEMOIR.
Brigham  and Rev. Sewall Harding, both among the Founders of
the Congregational Board of Publication, - a Board which owes
its origin entirely to the pupils of Emmons, and which now publishes his collected works, and those of his friends, Bellamy,
Hopkins, and the younger Edwards.
Mr. Brigham  was born at Westborough, Mass., Sept. 3, 1794;
was graduated at Union College in 1818; was pastor of the
Congregational Church in East Randolph, from Dec. 29, 1819,
until Nov. 15, 1836; of the Congregational Church in Framingham  from  Dec. 29, 1836, until May 14, 1844; of the Congregational Church in Bridgewater from April 23, 1845, until Jan. 1,
1859. Several revivals of religion have attended his labors.
Mr. Harding was born in  West Medway, Mass., March  20,
Franklin school. But the pastor at Wiscasset was graduated at Harvard in 1769, and
ordained at Wiscasset in 1773, the year of Emmons's ordination at Franklin.
Among the less ancient of the deceased pupils who are not elsewhere mentioned
in the Memoir, areREV. ELIAS DUDLEY, born in Saybrook, Conn., Aug.'12, 1761; graduated at
Dartmouth College in 1788; ordained at Oxford, Mass., April 13, 1791; dismissed
in feeble health March 6, 1799; died Jan. 25, 1808; a very devoted Christian.
REV. ROYAL TYLER, born in Uxbridge, Mass., May, 1762; graduated at Dartmouth College in 1788; pastor at Coventry, Conn., from 1792 to 11818; at Salem,
Conn., from 1818 to 1822; died in April, 1826, aged sixty-four years.
REV. JOHN MORSE, born in Medway, Mass., November 20, 1763; graduated at
Brown University in 1791; was ordained over a Congregational Church at Green
River, N. Y., where he remained twenty-three years. He was afterwards for twelve
years pastor of the Presbyterian church in Otsego, N. Y., and died Jan. 3, 1844,
"aged eighty years, more thanfifty of which he spent in the ministry."
REV. JOSIAH IOLBROOK, born in Wrentham, Jan. 19, 1765; graduated at Brown
University, 1788; spent his life in South Carolina.
REV. JOHN FITCH, born in Hopkinton, Mass., in 1770, the eldest son of Rev.
Elijah Fitch, pastor at Hopkinton; graduated at Brown University in 1790; ordained
the first pastor of Danville, Vt., Oct. 30, 1793, "in a grove of maples, at the base
of a circular valley;" dismissed Oct. 1, 1816; died Dec. 18, 1827.
REV. JOSEPH CHENEY, born in Holden, Mass., August 16, 1775; graduated at
Brown University, 1801; labored as a pastor from 1807 to 1817, at Milton, Vt.; from
1819 to 1823 at Salisbury, Vt.; died June 6, 1833, in the twentieth year of his active
ministry.
REV. GAITU  CONANT, born in Bridgewater, Mass., Sept. 6, 1776; graduated at
Brown University in 1800; labored as a pastor from Feb. 17, 1808, until May, 1830,
at Paxton, Mass., and from April 24, 1834, until April, 1841, at Plymouth, Mass.
Other deceased pupils of Emmons were Timothy Clark (pastor at Greenfield,
N. H.), Oliver Ayers, Gordon Johnson, Truman Baldwin, Daniel Farrington, Samuel
Brown, Nathan Waldo, William Warren, George Hall (a native of East Haddam),
Abel Farley, Elias Fisher (pastor forty-three years at Lempster, N. H.), Mr.Spalding.




MEMOIR.                                  2(5
1793; was graduated at Union College in 1818; was pastor of the
Orthodox  Congregational Church in Waltham, Mass., from  Jan.
17, 1821, until Nov., 1837, when he became pastor over the first
church in  his native town.  Here he remained  thirteen  years,
when he was called to the Secretaryship of the  Congregational
Board of Publication, an  office which he still retains.  He has
given one son to the Christian ministry, and two daughters to the
cause of Foreign Missions.  One of these daughters is the truly
heroic wife of Rev. Augustus Walker, missionary at Diarbekir,
Western  Asia;  the other was the wife of Rev. Mr. Williams,
missionary at Mosul, Turkey, but she fell asleep soon after her
arrival at the scene of her anticipated labors.
The other pupils of Emmons who yet live and have not been
already named are -
REV. DAVID HOLMAN, a native of Sutton, Mass., a graduate of Brown University
in 1803. He was ordained in Douglas, Mass., Oct. 19, 1808; dismissed Aug. 17,
1842, after a pastorate of thirty-four years; recalled to his old pulpit after the lapse of
six years. When he was ordained, his church consisted of twenty-seven members.
During his pastorate he admitted two hundred and twenty-six members, the fruit of
seven revivals of religion.
REV. JOHN BURT WIGHT, born May 7, 1790; was the son of Rev. Henry Wight,
D. D., of Bristol, R. I. He was graduated with valedictory honors at Brown University in 1808, and was pastor at Wayland, Mass., from Jan. 25, 1815, until May,
1835, afterwards at Castine, Me., Milford and Amherst, N. H., and North Dennis,
Mass.
REV. ABEL MANNING, born in Sterling, Mass., 1788; was graduated at Brown
University in 1817, and has performed missionary labors in New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island.
REV. WILLIAM TYLER was born in Attleborough, Mass., Jan. 7, 1789; was graduated at Brown University in 1809; was pastor of the Second Church in Weymouth,
Mass., from Feb. 24, 1819, until Oct. 17, 1831; of the Congregational Church in
South Hadley Falls, from Aug. 10, 1832 until 1839; now resides in Pawtucket,
Mass.
REV. ZOLVA WHITMORE, a native of East Haddam, Conn.; a graduate of Union
College, in the class of 1818; a pastor at North Guilford, Conn., from Sept. 5, 1821
until August, 1846; then preacher at Heath, afterwards pastor at Becket, Mass,
VOL. I.                        X




CHAPTER XIV.
THE PUBLICATIONS OF EMMONS.
"As a biblical scholar, sermonizer, and profound logical reasoner, he had few, if
any, superiors; yet as a successful preacher to win souls and gather them into the
fold of Christ, he was no more to be compared with such men as Nevins, Patterson,
and Nettleton, than was Franklin's angler, exulting over'one glorious nibble,' to be
compared with the fishermen of Galilee, who, in obedience to their Lord, cast their
net on the right side of the ship, and drew it to land full of great fishes,' an hundred
and fifty and three."'
THESE are the words of Rev. E. N. Sawtelle, D. D.,1 the Chaplain to British and American Seamen at Havre, France, an early
and beloved pupil of Dr. Isaac Anderson, and of the Tennessean
School, already described.2 If the words were accurate, they
would not disprove the great influence of Dr. Emmons; for,
besides being the teacher of ninety or a hundred ministers, he
has also for seventy-seven years been working through the press
on the minds of men.  He started early, in his career of authorship;  and  he thus  exerted  a formative influence  on  our
churches, at a time when books were like " angels' visits," and
when sermons were read by elect minds as religious novels
are devoured at present.  His influence on the cause of missions,
for example, has been often measured by the amount of time
which he spent in public meetings.  A  more accurate measure
would be, the amount of time which he spent in eliminating the
principles on which the work of missions must depend.
The first printed notice which we have ever seen concerning
him  is the following paragraph in the Century Sermon of Mr.
Bean, of Wrentham, published in 1774: " After the dismission
of Mr. Barnum, that [Second] Parish was destitute about five
years; when to their great joy, we trust, the vacancy was sup1 In his " Treasured Moments," p. 13.        2 See pp. 198, above.
(266)




M EMOIR                            267'
plied with their present worthy pastor, the Rev. Nathanael Emmons." I  The second printed notice which we find of him,
alludes also to his happy pastoral relations. Rev. Jason Haven,
of the First [and the parent] Church in Dedham, published il
1796 his Half-Century Sermon, and there speaking of the Franklin Church, names Mr. Emmons as "' the beloved pastor of that
flock." 2
Among the earliest unpublished notices of Dr. Emmons, is a
characteristic one from President Stiles, written in his Diary as
early as 1787:
"The New Divinity gentlemen perceive some of the pillars are removed; President Edwards has been dead twenty-nine years, or a generation; Dr. Bellamy is broken down, both body and mind, with a paralytic shock, and can dictate and domineer no more; Mr. Hopkins still
continues, but past his force, having been somewhat affected by a fit and
nervous debilitation; Mr. West is declining in health, and besides, was
never felt so strong rods as the others. It has been the ton to direct
students in Divinity, these thirty years past, to read the Bible, President
Edwards, Dr. Bellamy, and Mr. Hopkins's writings; - and this was a
pretty good sufficiency of reading. But now the younger class, but yet
in full vigor, suppose they see further than these oracles, and are disposed to become oracles themselves, and wish to write theology and have
their own books come into vogue. The very New Divinity gentlemen
say, they perceive a disposition among several of their brethren to
struggle for preeminence;- particularly Dr. Edwards, Mr. Trumbull,
Mr. Smalley, Mr. Judson, Mr. Spring, Mr. Robinson, Mr. Strong, of
Hartford, Mr. Dwight, Mr. Emmons, and others. They all want to be
Luthers.  But they will none of them be equal to those strong reasoners,
President Edwards and Mr. Hopkins."
" President Edwards's valuable writings in another generation will pass
into as transient notice, perhaps, as scarce above oblivion, as Willard,
or Twiss, or Norton; and when posterity comes across them in the rubbish of libraries, the rare characters who may read and be pleased with
them, will be looked upon as singular and whimsical, as in these days are
admirers of Suarez, Aquinas, or Dionysius Areopagita." a
In the same year, 1787, Dr. Burton of Thetford highly extolled Dr. Emmons as " a gentleman of great ingenuity; " and
1 Pages 22, 23.                     2 Page 25.
3 Memoir of Dr. Hopkins, pp. 234, 235.




268                            MEMOIR.
as early  as August 10, 1790, he  remarked  in  an  epistle to
Dr. Levi Hart: " In one of your letters, you speak very favorably of Mr. Emmons, and indeed there is scarcely any person I
more wish to see and converse with, from  what I have heard
respecting him  and seen of his writings."   The writings of Dr.
Emmons, which were published before this date, were the first
six in the following catalogue:
He printed in 1783, his effective Sermon against Universalism; in 1786, his Sermon at the Installation of Rev. Caleb Alexander, and also his Sermon at the Installation of (the Revolutionary Chaplain) Rev. David Avery; in 1787, his celebrated
Discourse on the Dignity of Man; in 1789, his elaborate Sermon at the Ordination
of Rev. John Robinson, and also his Discourse at the Ordination of Rev. Dr. Walter
Harris.
In 1790, 1792 and 1793, he published three Sermons preached to the Society for the
Reformation of Morals; in 1791, a Sermon at the Ordination of Rev. Elias. Dudley;
in 1793, a Sermon at the Ordination of Rev. Calvin Chaddock, and one at the Ordination of Rev. Eli Smith; also in 1793, a Dissertation on the Scriptural Qualifications for admission to the Christian Sacraments, in answer to Dr. Hemmenway; in
1794, a Sermon on the Mode and Subjects of Baptism; in 1795, a Candid Reply to
to Dr. Hemmenway's Remarks on his Dissertation on the Scriptural Qualifications,
etc.; also two Sermons, one at the funeral of Rev. Elisha Fish, the other at the Ordination of Rev. James Tufts; in 1796, a Thanksgiving Sermon; in 1797, a Sermon
at the Ordination of Rev. (Prof.) John Smith; in 1798, an Essay on Miracles, in the
"Mendon Evidences of Revealed Religion," also a Fast Sermon and an Election
Sermon; also, in 1799, a Fast Sermon.
He published in 1800, a Sermon on Washington, also a Sermon before the Massachusetts Missionary Society, and also a Sermon at the funeral of Mrs. Sanford, wife
of his friend, Rev. David Sanford, and a Thanksgiving Sermon; in 1801, a Fast
Sermon, and a Funeral Sermon; in 1802, a Fast Sermon, and a Fourth of July Sermon, and also a Funeral Sermon; in 1803, a Fast Sermon, and a Sermon at the Ordination of Rev. Joseph Emerson; in 1804, two Funeral Sermons, and a Sermon at
the Ordination of Rev. Edward Whipple, and also a Sermon before the Massachusetts Convention of Congregational Ministers, and a Thanksgiving Sermon; in 1805,
a Sermon at the Ordination of Rev. Dr. Stephen Chapin, and a Sermon at the funeral of the wife of Rev. Elisha Fisk, and also a Sermon on the death of Deacon Peter
Whiting; in 1806, a Sermon on Sacred Music, and also a Sermon on the death of
Hon. Jabez Fisher; in 1808, a Sermon at the Ordination of Rev. Gains Conant, and
also a Funeral Sermon; in 1809, a Sermon, entitled, The Giver more blessed than
the Receiver, (which was reviewed in the Panoplist).
He published in 1810, a Sermon (which when he delivered, he was overcome with
emotion) at the funeral of Rev. David Sanford; in 1811, a Sermon at the funeral
of the wife of Rev. John Wilder; in 1813, a Sermon at the funeral of Rev. Timothy
Dickinson, and an elaborate Sermon before the Mendon Association, and also a
Thanksgiving Sermon; in 1814, a Funeral Sermon; in 1815, a Sermon at the fune



M EMO IR.                                269
ral of Rev. John Cleavland, and a Thanksgiving Sermon, and also a Sermon at the
Installation of Rev. Holland Weeks; in 1816, a Funeral Sermon, and also a Sermon
at the Installation of Rev. Thomas Williams; in 1817, a Sermon before the Norfolk
Education Society; in 1820, a Sermon at the close of the Second Century from the
landing at Plymouth; in 1821, a Sermon at the Ordination of Rev. Zolva Whitmore,
and also a Sermon (preached in the Yale College Chapel) on the Foreknowledge of God;
in 1824, a Sermon at the Installation of Rev. Thomas Williams; in 1826, a Sermon
(the last of his Discourses before Ecclesiastical Councils) at the Installation of Rev.
Dr. Calvin Park, and also his Discourse, entitled, " The Platform of Ecclesiastical
Government established by Jesus Christ;" in 1836, a Sermon in the National
Preacher, on Reconciliation with God.
Among his contributions to Periodicals are the following:
On Praying for Perfection, New York                    VOL. V.
Theological Magazine, Vol. I. 254.    Happiness a Motive to Repentance,   17
Decrees of God,                     57
in the Massachusetts Missionary Magazine. Patience of God,                 131
VOL. I.          PAGE.  Spirit and Knowledge of Christians, 172
Self-existence of Christ,         292
State of the Soul after Death,      99  Punishment of Sinners,             297
Duty of a Church to censure its Mem-    Necessity of Atonement,            331
bers for Heresy,                 144  Assurance of Hope,                 372
Reference to Eternity,             378
VOL. II.                  Foreknowledge of God,              411
On Casting Lots,                   303  Influence of Moral Depravity,      417
Reward bestowed on Sinners,       450
VOL. III.
^~^VOL. VI.
Reasons for being a Calvinist,     212                VOL. VI.
Goodness of God,                    91
Disquisition on Romans iv. 19,     446                 Hol S,       131
Indwelling of the Holy Spirit,     131
VOL. V.                   Divine Government of the World,   172
Nature proves the Goodness of God, 241
Thoughts on Romans ix. 3,          215  Faithfulness of God,               291
Review of Dr. Reed's Sermon,       452  Doctrine of Election,              321
Christian Edification,            454
in the Connecticut Evangelical Magazine.
In the Utica Christian Magazine.
VOL. III.
Knowledge of God,                   81..
Human Depravity,                   121  On the Vindictive Justice of God,   348
Guilt of Sinners,                  127  Peace the  oundation of National
Salvation by Grace,                174    Prosperity,                      260
Appointed Weeks of Harvest,        300  Motives to Repentance,             301
Fellowship between God and his Peo-                   VOL. III.
ple,                             374
God governs Human Conduct,         379  Dissertation on Romans ix. 19,      39
Preparation for the Sacrament,     409
Importance of Systematical Divinity, 454       Utica Christian Repository.
Confidence in God,                 460                VOL. IV.
VOL. IV.                  Design of giving the Law,          358
Unregenerate  doings,  Reply  to
Middle-aged most desirous of Life,    7    Smalley,                        181
Terrors of the Lord,                55 
Piety of Primitive Christians,      81                 VOL. V.
Conditional Declarations of God,    220  On God's Government of the World, 265
Essay on Self-Examination,         248  Sinners cannot serve a holy God,    174
Returning Sinner assaulted,        302  Sinners bad as they can be, under
Blessedness of God,                365    present circumstances,            50
Agency of God,                     451  Sinners unwilling to see God as he is, 233
X *




270                             MEMOIR.
Hfopkinsian MYagazine.          God displeased with inconsistent Professors,                         139
VOL. I.                  The natur  of the Will,             147
Purpose of God to display his Grace, 390  Self-denial of Christ,            176
Condemnation of false Teachers,    184
VOL. II.                  The Bible easily understood,       193
Merciful Purpose of God,           203
Superiority of Men to Animals,     127  Angels pleased with the work of ReCertain Knowledge of Truth,        204    demption,                         225
On Vindictive Justice,             247  Peaceful effects of Confidence in God, 257
Sermon on Modern Prayer of Faith, 393  Godliness,                           353
Present Evils demonstrate future Pun-    Happy Influence of Holy Fears,     356
ishment,                         399
VOL. III.                                  OL IL
The Unreasonableness  of worldly
Gross Ignorance incompatible with          Anxiety,                            9
Piety,                           145
Piety,                 145  Decrees of God,                       33
Future Unity of Zion's Watchmen,  169  The Gospel of God glorious,            54
On Fear of God,                    193  The God of Abraham the Father of
On Intemperance,                   248    Christ,                             65
VOL. IV.                  Peter's Love to Christ,              97
Cause of God, 13'The Sealing Influence of the Holy
Cause of God,                       17    Spirit promised to Believers,     129
God knows what is best to do with        The least degree of Grace constitutes
Creatures,                        97    a real Saint,                     199
God's Supremacy,                   129  Piety a peculiar ornament to Old
God does not abuse Sinners in his          People,                          289
Word,                            193  The peculiar Excellence of divine
A sight of God tends to transform          Teaching,                         321
Men,                             241  More invited than are elected to SalWay to Heaven opposed by Sinners, 257    vation                             353
Cain no reason to complain,        340 
Giving up Hopes, -painful,         353                 VOL. III.
Heavy-laden Sinners,               384  Objection of Sinners to the conditions
Nature of Atonement,               432    of Salvation,                        1
Danger of Worldly-mindedness,      481  Divination,                           33
Good men love to obey God,         545  Mankind bring  nothing into, and
Chr'istian Magazine.             carry nothing out of, the World but
themselves,                       97
VOL. I.                   The Wisdom of God in the Plan of
Creation,                        193
The Everlastig Gospel,               1  Paul's direction to awakened Sinners, 321
Saints delight to know what the Bible
contains,                         33                 VOL  IV
The Gospel its own witness to those
who embrace it,                   53  The natural Powers and Faculties of
The influence of true Religion,     65    Sinners, depraved by the depravity
A prayer for the increase of Faith,   115    of their hearts,                 65
Sinners have no reason to complain of    Paul's  criminality  in  persecuting
God,                             129    Christ,                            225
Besides the preceding essays of Dr. Emmons, there are others in the Christian
Visitor, Evangelical Magazine, and New England Telegraph.
In the year 1800, he published - very reluctantly, and at the overpowering solicitation of his friends, -his first volume of sermons, at Wrentham.  In 1812, with the
same unwillingness, he published his second volume at Boston, and received one
hundred dollars for the copyright. In the year 1813, a " Collection" of his sermons
which had been already published in pamphlets, was reprinted at Boston in a volume,
constituting the third volume of his works. To this he consented not without the
fervent persuasion of his friends. In the year 1823, his fourth volume of sermons
was printed at Providence, R. I. In 1825, his fifth volume, and in 1826, his sixth




M EMO IR.                           271
volume were printed in the Merle city. After his decease, six volumes of his discourses, the larger part of the.m eing reprinted from former editions, were published
at Boston in a connected serie's, accompanied with his Memoir of himself, and an
additional Memoir by Rev. Jcr ob Ide, D. D. In 1850, a seventh volume was added
to this series. A new edition of his sermons, a few of them having never been previously given to the press, was sent forth by the Congregational Board of Publication
in 1860 and 1861.
Some of the Discourses named above, have gone through four
or five editions.  Many of them have encountered frequent and
earnest criticism. In the retrospect of his life, Emmons employed the following simple words in regard to the publications
which had awakened so much  enthusiasm  of either love or
hatred:'" When I entered into the ministry, I resolved to discharge
all the pastoral services, which are usually and justly expected
of a minister, and to pursue such studies as I deemed the most
intimately connected with my professional usefulness. Accordingly, I began to read pretty freely and to think pretty closely
upon some of the most important theological subjects, that had
been long and warmly agitated among different denominations
ot Christians. I imagined, that people were generally becoming
more fond of superficial, than of doctrinal preaching, and were
imperceptibly falling  into  a state of gross ignorance  of the
fundamental doctrines of the gospel.  Viewing our churches
and religious societies in this dangerous situation, I thought I
ought to contend earnestly for the faith which was once delivered
to the saints.  This led me to preach doctrinally to my people
for a number of years, before I durst venture to publish any
thing that I had written or preached.  But, after having committed several essays and single discourses to the press, I published numerous sermons on various subjects, time after time, in
separate volumes.  My principal aim  in these publications was,
to explain the meaning, to demonstrate the truth, and to illustrate the consistency of the primary doctrines and  duties of
Christianity, and thereby distinguish true religion from  false."
-  Memoir of himself.




CHAPTER XV.
THE LIFE WORK OF EMMONS;
HAVING now looked within the long white house of Dr. Emmons, and seen his wife by his side, and his children around him;
his vigorous friends riding occasionally to his spacious mansion;
such men as Hon. Thomas W. Thompson and Prof. Alexander
Metcalf Fisher sitting at his feet as theological learners, we are
prepared to contemplate him in the great labor of his life. His
life work was that of a Christian Minister.  If his pupils are
indebted to him for any part of their usefulness, they are indebted to his sermons; for by hearing him from his pulpit were
they stimulated to learn, and by preparing himself for the pulpit
was he stimulated to teach, the doctrines which educated them.
If his publications have startled men from their drowsiness, it is
because he was an animating preacher; for his printed works are
mainly his pulpit discourses.  When he was ordained, he expected to be nothing more than a parish minister. He aimed not
to write sermons for distant readers, but to edify the men and
women of Franklin by speaking to them. It did not enter his
mind, that he would become a teacher of candidates for the ministry; his sole aim was to instruct the candidates for heaven in
his own parish. We have seen that he has exerted a marked
influence over the States of Massachusetts, New Hampshire,
Maine, New York, Tennessee, but this influence has flowed from
his parochial discourses. Thus he has contributed to raise the
dignity of a parish, and to, show that, through a secluded people,
a minister may transmit a power over an entire land. He has
helped to exalt the character of sermons; for he has made them
the repository of a profound theological system. It is estimated
that during the fifty-eight years of his ministerial activity, he
preached six thousand times. Let us, then, consider
(272)




MEMOIR.                            2'73
~ 1. Dr. JEmmons as a Preacher.
A. —His own Description of his Homiletic Plan.
It was " to aid young ministers " that more than forty years
ago, he wrote the following statement of his homiletic principles:
" I resolved, upon my first entrance upon the pastoral office,
to make preaching my principal object. It had appeared to me
that many ministers, as soon as they had obtained a parish, began to be more inattentive to their public performances, especially to their preaching; and took less and less pains in preparing
their public discourses. Such a practice, I thought, betrayed
both want of wisdom  and want of faithfulness.  To avoid this
error, I determined to take time for the preparation of my sermons, and endeavor to preach better from Sabbath to Sabbath,
and from year to year.1 I was convinced by experience as well
as observation, that I could not long remain stationary, but must
necessarily decline, if I did not improve, in preaching. I farther
reflected that my people would naturally and justly expect me
to improve in my public performances, and that with all my
exertions it would be difficult to keep up with their expectations.
Under these impressions I resolved to take and appropriate sufficient time to prepare for the Sabbath. Though I did not usually
fix upon my subject in the beginning of the week, yet I took care
to call up various subjects, from which I might select one for my
next discourse.
" My delaying to fix upon any subject, until Friday or Saturday,
was owing to two or three reasons. Sometimes I could not hit
upon any subject that suited me, early in the week.  Sometimes I found, by contemplating a subject, unexpected difficulties
in the way of discussing it to my own satisfaction. And sometimes I did of choice delay fixing upon any subject, until the
week was nearly elapsed, because I wished to follow providence,
1 The permeating idea of Rev. Thomas Williams's Sermon, founded on Ecclesiastes 12: 9, and preached at the Funeral of Dr. Emmons, is this: "Because the
preacher was wise," "he taught the people;" and, after they had learned what he
gave them, he did not cease to instruct, but "he still taught the people knowledge;"
he made progress himself, in order that he might remain able and apt to teach those
who made progress after him.




274                          MEMOIR.
and make my discourses as occasionall as possible.  I always
aimed in my preaching, first to instruct and then to impress the
minds of my hearers.  And to attain these two points, I observed
the following things:
"' In the first place, I determined to preach upon the most
important and essential doctrines of the gospel. Indeed, I contemplated  going through a complete system  of divinity, and
very soon after my ordination, I began to execute my design,
and kept up a regular course of sermons, until I had gone
about half way through my proposed system.  Nor can I assign
any better reason for finally dropping the scheme, than my own
inattention and instability; for I found many advantages resulting from this practice. It often supplied me with subjects when
no particular occurrence of providence, and no particular circumstance of my people, suggested any.  Besides, it had a
happy tendency to enlighten my people in the great doctrines
of Christianity, and increase my own stock of theological knowledge.  And I am  persuaded, that studying and preaching systematically, is the best way for the preacher and hearer to become
thoroughly acquainted with that scheme of sentiments, which
runs through the Bible.
" In the next place, I endeavored to make my discourses doctrinal and argumentative, rather than superficial and declamatory.  For this reason, I seldom  preached textually; but chose
my subject in the first place, and then chose a text adapted to
the subject.2  This enabled me to make my sermons more simple, homogeneal, and pointed; while at the same time, it served
to confine the hearer's attention to one important, leading sentiment.  Those who preach textually, are obliged to follow  the
1 "Produced on some special occasion:'Those letters were not writ to all,
Nor first intended, but occasional.'
Dryden." - Dr. Worcester's Dictionary.
"A minister," says Dr. Emmons, " should attentively eye the hand of God, that
the voice of his discourses may follow the voice of God in his providence."
2 Not very seldom, however, did he adopt a plan that is partly textual. His sermon
on the words, "Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might; for there is
no work -in the grave" —is divided thus: "1. How men ought to find out their
duty; 2. What is implied in doing their duty with their might; 3. Why they should
do it in this manner."




MEMOIR.                            275
text in all its branches, which  often lead to very different
and unconnected subjects.  Hence, by that time the preacher
has gone through all the branches of his text, his sermon will
become so complicated that no hearer can carry away any more
of it than a few striking, unconnected expressions. Whereas,
by the opposite mode of preaching, the hearer may be master
of the whole discourse, which hangs together like a fleece of
wool.  And in constructing a sermon, regard ought to be had to
the memory, as well as to the understanding and attention of
the hearer.  A loose, desultory method of preaching may highly
entertain an audience; though it will never enlighten their understanding, nor impress their conscience, nor oblige them  to
retain what they have heard.  But when the preacher plans his
sermon so as to exhibit one great, leading object, and in the
prosecution of his subject, keeps that constantly in view; the
hearer feels himself tied to the speaker, and cannot leave him
until he has finished his discourse.  And after a discourse has
gained the constant attention of the hearer, he cannot very easily
erase from  his mind the instruction and impression he has received.  It is, therefore, essential to instructive preaching, that
a discourse be planned with great uniformity and simplicity.
And on this account, it is generally best to choose a text, which
fully and clearly contains the doctrine to be illustrated and improved.  Accordingly, I have always endeavored to find a subject, before I looked for a text; and in looking for a text, I have
aimed to find one, which was directly to my purpose, and naturally expressed or suggested the simple sentiment I meant to
explain, confirm, and apply.'
" Nor is this all that is necessary to be regarded in planning a
discourse, in order to render it instructive.  There must be such
divisions and subdivisions as will give the preacher scope to say
all that is pertinent to the subject he is treating; and to say all
in the most easy, natural, and forcible manner.2  I have always
1 lDr. Emmons formed this plan of choosing his subject before he chose his text, as
early, at least, as 1773. It was in 1772-3 that Dr. Campbell wrote the Lectures,
published long afterward, in which he says: "The first thing that falls under consideration is the choice of a subject." —"A subject being chosen, the next thing to be
sought is the text." (See Campbell's Lectures on Systematic Theology and Pulpit
Eloquence, Lect. VII.)
2 Emmons remarks elsewhere: "Though Fenelon, and some other celebrated writers




276                            MEMOIR.
found more difficulty in planning a discourse properly, than in
putting it together afterwards.  And the reason of this is plain.
If a discourse be planned to advantage, the proper thoughts will
readily occur, and the proper expressions will naturally present
themselves.  And when the plan, the thoughts, and language of
a sermon are altogether natural, it can hardly fail of instructing
those who hear and understand it.
"But I always aimed to impress the conscience, as well as
enlighten the understanding, of my hearers.  And to produce
this effect, I paid great attention to the'Improvement' or'Application' of my discourses. I remember, before I began to preach,
a plain, judicious, serious man gave me the first suggestion, that
the application of a sermon is the most important part of it.  I
was struck with the truth  of the observation, and resolved to
retain  and improve the advice.  But when  I began to write
sermons, I found the application to be the most difficult, as well
as most important part of a discourse.  But this, however, did
not discourage me from endeavoring to attain this excellence in
preaching.  And in order to attain it, I found it necessary to
digest my subject well before I formed the plan of the discourse;
and in planning it, to have a supreme respect to the application.
The last thing in  execution  should be the first in intention.1
The body of a discourse should be adapted to prepare the way
for the improvement, in which the speaker is to gain his ultimate end.  And it ought to be his ultimate end in every sermon, to make lasting impressions upon  the hearts  and  consciences of his hearers. But this cannot be effected, without
applying what has been said, in the body of the discourse, to
the peculiar state and character of both saints and sinners. The
on public speaking, recommend a concealed method, and reprobate the practice of
mentioning the leading topics and general divisions of a discourse, yet this seems calculated to excite attention, more than to convey instruction." — " Allowing Fenelon
to be correct, in representing the whole business of the preacher to consist in proving,
painting, and moving the passions; still the best way to effect all these purposes in
the same discourse, is to divide it naturally, and to mention the heads distinctly."
1 We need not remind the reader, that this sentence is substantially the old theological motto, which has been quoted for centuries, to prove the doctrine of limited atonement: "As the last thing in carrying out the atonement is to save the elect, and not
to save all men; so the first thing in planning the atonement was to save the elect,
and not to save all men; for what comes last in execution, comes first in intention."




MEMOIR.                           277
preacher ought to be acquainted with the peculiar views and
feelings of all classes of men, under all circumstances of life;
and to construct his discourses so as to be able, in the application, to point them to every hearer's heart.  Accordingly, I have
made it my object to enter into the feelings of my people, while
composing and delivering my sermons.
" Besides, I always endeavored to be intelligible to all my
hearers of every age and capacity.  With this view, I took pains
to explain1 the doctrines and duties I inculcated, with perspicuity and precision. And in explaining as well as illustrating
and applying divine truths, I was careful to clothe my ideas in
plain, familiar, decent language. I meant to use such words,
and form  my sentences in such a manner, that every common
person might easily understand, and not easily mistake my
meaning.  But while I aimed at perspicuity, I meant to avoid a
low, vulgar, slovenly mode of expression, and adopt, as far as I
could, that pure, neat, middle style, which is intelligible to all,
and displeasing to none.
"I endeavored, however, to unite prudence with plainness.
This required me to exhibit obnoxious sentiments, at a proper
time, in a proper connection and definite terms. There is an
order in the first principles of Christianity; and when they are
treated in their natural order, one truth serves to explain and
confirm another. It is extremely difficult for hearers to understand some doctrines, until they have been taught others from
which they flow, and with which they are intimately connected.
I proposed gradually to lead my people into the knowledge of
the most important, and self-denying doctrines of the gospel.
And in order to do this to the best advantage, I usually brought
in those truths which are the most displeasing to the human
heart, by way of inference.  In this way, the hearers were constrained to acknowledge the premises before they saw the conclusions, which, being clearly drawn, it was too late to deny.
This I often found to be the best method to silence and convince
gainsayers; and I believe there is hardly any other way, to lead
I Dr. Emmons's habit of explaining his thoughts, pursued him into the minutest
ramifications of his theme. "There is a propriety, therefore," he says, "in the
apostle's making use of milk and meat, which are different species offood, as metaphors
to represent different sorts of truth," etc. Sermon on 1 Cor. 3: 2.
VOL. 1.                  Y




278                         MEMOIR.
prejudiced persons to the knowledge and  acknowledgment of
some of the most essential doctrines of the gospel."-Memoir of
himself.
This method of springing a thought suddenly upon his hearers
was derived in part from his perusal of Shakespeare and other
tragedians.'  In many of his discourses he lays an ingenious
train of argument to establish his proposition, and then surprises us by the most logical yet startling inferences.2 In allusion to this habit of unexpectedly confounding his opponents,
the following comparison has been made between him  and his
friend Sanford: "Mr. Sanford is like a surgeon who comes before the patient, and parades all his instruments, explains their
mechanism, and describes their operation; -' This is the knife for
dividing the muscles, this the saw for cleaving the bone, this the
forceps for grasping the  arteries, this the ligament for tying
them'; -  and then he amputates the limb.  But Dr. Emmons is
like a surgeon who says nothing of any instrument, but, before
the patient knows what is going on, the limb is off." A critical
hearer, but an inveterate antagonist of both these pastors, has
indicated the same idea in a more serpentine way: " Mr. Sanford rattles before he bites, but Mr. Emmons bites before he
rattles."  The expectation that the Franklin preacher's inferences would unfold some truth which it would be " too late to
deny," stimulated his hearers to the closest scrutiny of the argument that had been uttered, and to the liveliest apprehension for
the remarks that were to follow.3  Dr. EInmons proceeds:
" But since captious hearers will always try to misrepresent
those sentiments which they dislike, prudence farther requires
the preacher to be careful, to deliver such sentiments in such
terms as are incapable of misrepresentation.  For instance, in
treating on divine agency, it is necessary to use such expressions
1 See p. 74, above.
2 See his celebrated Sermon on "Judas," in the Original Edition of his Collected
Works, Vol. VI. pp. 164-176.
3 Often we smile when we first glance at the text, and then at a particular inference of a discourse of Dr. Emmons. Without a survey of the intervening thoughts, we
cannot divine how the nimble athlete has made his leap from the text, "The words of
the wise are as goads," to the " improvement: " " We learn from what has been said,
that it is not very material, whether a minister preaches with notes or without."




MEMOIR.                           279
as cannot be construed to mean, that God commits sin.  So in
addressing the impenitent and unrenewed, it is necessary to use
such expressions as cannot be construed to mean either that
they can do duty with an unholy heart, or that an unholy heart
excuses them  for neglecting duty.  Such prudence as this, I
ever meant to exercise in preaching the gospel; which ought to
be exhibited in the most plain, which is the most prudent manner. In a word, I resolved, and, I believe, I have hitherto kept
my resolution, to declare all the counsel of God." - Memoir of
himself.
B.- General and Critical Remarks on Emmons as a Preacher and Writer.
About twenty years ago, Rev. Gardiner Spring, D. D., wrote
the following words concerning the subject of this Memoir:
" The more we have from  the pen of Dr. Emmons, the better.
Though I do not coincide with all which he has written, yet I
consider his works as invaluable, especially to Christian ministers.  For me to recommend them would be preposterous; quite
as much so, as for a boy in the Rule of Three to recommend
Euclid. Every thinking, reading man, even though he should
differ widely from the views of that great divine, must derive
benefit from the study of what he has written."  It cannot be
amiss to inquire into the characteristics of a preacher, who is
thus landatuts a laudato viro, and who has moulded the style of
so many American divines.  The following is an imperfect summary of these characteristics:
1. -- EMONS SPENT BUT LITTLE TIME ON A SINGLE DISCOURSE.
One of the instructive facts connected with this author's sermons is,
that he devoted very little time to the actual composition, and to the finish,
of them as individual sermons. IHe elaborated them generically, not
specifically. He concentrated his mind on the principles discussed in
them, and, in general, allowed his words to trip of themselves into their
places. Often, indeed, he did search out, laboriously, the fitting words
for particular ideas, but the search was performed not for one sermon
more than another. " The thing, the thing, - that is what I am after."
"I have often spent a whole day," he once remarked, "in selecting the
right phrase for a good thought," but this day was devoted to the use



280                             MEMOIR.
fulness of the thought, not to the excellence of any particular discourse.
He made himself familiar with a subject, and then, like a genuine miller's
son, he lifted the gate, and the sermon came out swiftly. As he often
did not begin his discourses for the Sabbath until the Friday preceding,
he could not devote much time to the balancing of words. " I must have
my audience in plain sight, before I can compose this sermon," was his
frequent remark.  The old rule of Roscommon is: "Write with fury
and correct with phlegm."  Thefuror of Saturday eve often came upon
the Franklin writer; but he did not correct at all. Fifty-four of his
manuscript sermons are now  lying before me.  There is scarcely one
interlineation in them  or one erasure, indicating that he had once deliberately chosen a phrase which he had afterward deliberately rejected.
He appears to have corrected merely the inadvertent lapses of his pen.
After he had published his first fifty discourses, he never rewrote, and
seldom even so much as modified a sermon for the press.  With him it
was emphatically true: Scripta litera manet.  His style had become so
natural to him, that he did not think of it.  He had very few of what
are called favorite discourses. In the main, — of course there were
some exceptions, -but in a very unusual degree, he'esteemed every
sermon alike,' which he had ever written.  More than once, when he
was requested to print a volume of discourses, he opened his drawer,
and let the applicants take what they chose.  More than once, when
desired to contribute articles for the Magazines, he opened his drawer,
and allowed the Editors to make their own selection both of sermons and
of extracts from them.  More than once, when he was asked for autographs,' he opened his drawer and permitted the petitioners to take his
I Sometimes he did not wait to be asked before he gave his sermons away. Rev.
Dr. Sawtelle, Chaplain to British and American Seamen at the Port of Havre, writes
thus of the Franklin patriarch at the age of eighty-one: My visit to him "was a
never to be forgotten one. The evening was spent in conversation at once delightful,
instructive, and impressive. My sleep was sweet and invigorating. Morning prayers
and breakfast refreshed both soul and body. My horse was at the door, the words'Farewell' and'God bless you,' were on the tip of my tongue, when this venerable
theological giant threw his piercing eye upon me, and said,' Be seated; I want you
to read to me one of your sermons.' This was like a clap of thunder from a clear
sky; and, from his tone and manner, I knew there was no retreat. It so happened,
however, that while I had a full supply of skeletons, I had with me but one sermon
fully written out, and that was my trial sermon before Presbytery, on the subject of the
Atonement.' That is the very one,' said he,' I want to hear.' As I read, he would
occasionally throw in a kind and just criticism; and at the close, he exclaimed,' That
will do,' and walked straight to his bureau, selected two of his own sermons upon
Eph. 1: 10. Is. 1: 18; both written within that year, 1826.'There,' said he,'please
accept these, with many thanks for your sermon and your visit.' I did accept them
gratefully, and keep them still as remarkable specimens of chirography, to say




MEMOIR.                               281
sermons for that purpose.  On one occasion he gave more than twelve
discourses to a single visitor, with whom  he had no very particular
acquaintance.  " Help yourself," was his welcome word to collectors of
manuscripts.  Indeed, he was so simple-hearted in his benevolence, that
he more than once gave up his sermons for the homely use of kindling
fires. If his friends had not prized his manuscripts more than he did, he
would have left but few legacies for the world.' As an individual composition, each one had cost him but little labor, and he was not miserly
with regard to it.  He felt that the discourse, when once preached, had
done its intended work, and that he could easily write another having
the same fitness to instruct "the people of Franklin."  He was by
nature diffident, and, therefore, he did not readily imagine that his
manuscripts were of any peculiar or signal value.
This habit of thought had its advantages as well as evils.  It kept
alive and fresh and glowing his love for the preacher's work.  The
writing of sermons was never to him a task, stirring up in his mind a
morbid anxiety about the details of their style.  It was rather associated
with living truths, and with the healthy joy of expressing them just as
they rose up spontaneously within him.  He guarded himself against
that sickening appetency for perfection, which will polish away all
positive excellence, and refine into nothing every natural beauty.  We
have read of an Italian author, who would whet and whet his knife till
there was no steel left to make an edge.  "Indeed," says Carlyle, "in
all things, writing or other, which a man engages in, there is the indispensablest beauty in knowing how to get done.  A  man frets himself to
no purpose, he has not the sleight of the trade, he is not a craftsman but
an unfortunate borer and bungler, if he know not when to have done.
Perfection is unattainable; no carpenter ever made a mathematically
right angle, in the world; yet all carpenters know  when it is right
enough, and do not botch it and lose their wages in making it too right.
Too much pains-taking speaks disease in one's mind as well as too little.
nothing of the logical powers in their composition by this Nestor of one of the phases
of New England theology. Written upon the large-sized sheets of letter-paper -no
interlineation -not a crooked line —not an undotted i, nor an uncrossed t —all
plain as the printed page; and so carefully punctuated, that, were they sent to the
press as they are, the compositor would not find a word or point to alter. A beautiful type, thought I, of the character of his mind, and the perspicuity with which it
perceived and unfolded divine truth." —Treasured Moments, pp. 12, 13.
1 Although Emmons began to preach as early as 1769, yet there were found among
his papers very few manuscript sermons which were written before the year 1800,
and scarcely one which was written before 1790. The great majority of the discourses, written during the first thirty years of his ministry, were scattered or destroyed.
Y^




282                         MEM OIR.
The adroit, sound-minded man will endeavor to spend upon each business
approximately what of pains it deserves; and with a conscience void of
remorse will dismiss it then."  Few authors have ever retained for
seventy years a healthier taste, in this regard, than Dr. Emmons.
His peculiar indifference, however, to the rhetorical niceties of any
individual discourse, should guard us against attempting to form our
estimate of him on the basis of one insulated composition. We might
as well judge of a forest by a single one of its trees. He cannot be
safely compared with other writers, unless his entire work be laid
along-side of theirs. Critics must remember, that he did not write with
an eye to the printer's types, but with both his eyes upon his people;
and that what he had written for oral address, he did not accommodate
to the printed page; and what he had once adapted to the exigencies of
his own parish, he did not select and arrange and adjust for the perusal
of strangers.  He is taken in his every-day attire, and, as far as he ever
allowed himself to be, in dishabille.  He has made no preparation for
company.  He has not painted a clapboard to be sent away and examined by men who wish to judge of his house. A  comprehensive
critic, then, will be careful to form no superficial judgment with regard
to the man who held out as a pastor fifty-four years, and as a minister
seventy-one years.
When we read the finished lines of Virgil, we must remember that the
poet wrote his Georgics at the rate of one line per day. We find him
"dictating a number of verses in the morning, spending the day in
revising, correcting, and reducing them, and comparing himself, as
Aulus Gellius mentions, to a she-bear licking her misshapen offspring
into shape. We see Petrarch returning day after day to his sonnets, to
alter some single word, or make some trifling change in the arrangement
of a line. The manuscripts of Ariosto, whose style appears the very
perfection of ease, and ani almost spontaneous emanation, still exist at
Ferrara, and show that many of the favorite passages in the Orlando
were written eight times over. Scarcely less attention was bestowed
upon the stanzas of the Gerusaleme of Tasso."'
The comparison between the first draught and the last draught of Pope's
Iliad is a literary curiosity.  The writings of Bossuet which were
prepared for the press by himself, are as dissimilar in finish of style to
those which were prepared by his Benedictine Editors, as are the productions of two different men. In writing his Reflections on the French
Revolution, Edmund Burke had sometimes more than twelve proofs
worked off and destroyed, before he could satisfy himself. Rousseau, says
1 Encyclopaedia Britannica.




MEMOIR.                            283
that his own blots, emendations, and transcriptions, before printing and
after it, were numberless. The Editor of Massillon's Lent Sermons,
regards it as a prodigy that he finished a discourse in so short a time as
ten or twelve days. This eminent preacher sometimes rewrote a single
sermon, fifteen or even twenty times. A distinguished scholar in our
own land rewrote the most useful of his sermons thirteen or fourteen
times, and labored in connection with a literary friend two whole days
on as many sentences.  A  living divine who has been called the
prince of our pulpit orators, spent a fortnight on a single paragraph of
one of his published sermons, and three months in elaborating another
discourse, which has already accomplished more good than the four
thousand sermons which were written by another of our pastors, at the
rate of two a week. On the blank leaf of one of Dr. Griffin's manuscripts, it appeared that his discourse had been preached ninety times.
Thus had it been touched and retouched, reviewed and recomposed,
until, so far as the author's power availed, it was perfected. It is needless to add, that signal injustice is done to Dr. Emmons when one page
of his discourses is compared with a certain page of John Foster's
Essays; for it is not at all improbable, that John Foster expended more
labor in directly fitting those few sentences for the press, than Dr.
Emmons expended in directly fitting for the press all the sermons which
he ever published.
If the Franklin pastor had concentrated upon five hundred sermons
the toil which he distributed over fifty hundred, and if he had adjusted
these five hundred to each other in one well compacted system, he would
have secured more readers through a longer succession of ages. But
then, he would have been a minister for the world, but he chose to be the
minister of Franklin. Then, he would have been Emmons the author,
but he aimed to be Emmons the parish minister, holding out in one
place until his head was covered " with those gray hairs which are a
fruit of righteousness and a crown of glory."
2.-HIs SERMONS ARE NOT PRINTED AS THEY WERE DELIVERED.
Another important fact, which in some aspects we regret, is, that he
did not give to his written sermons the form which they had as he first
delivered them.  To a large extent, he was an extemporaneous preacher.
In the forenoon of the Sabbath, he explained his text and proved his
doctrine; in the afternoon, he drew his inferences and made his application. The former part of the sermon was written; the latter part was
studied, but in great degree unwritten. When he laid down his large
note case, and raised the spectacles to the top of his head, and developed




284                         MEMOIR.
the fziale of his careful reasonings, he was often wrought up to the most
subduing eloquence.1  In his advanced age he filled out with written
words the blank spaces which he had left for extemporaneous remark;
but the old man of eighty years could not, in his solitary study, rekindle
the same fires that were lighted in his pulpit, when the glow of his youth
was upon him and his eager auditors were before him. These extemporaneous flashes went out forever. It is a sad loss. The effectiveness of
his perorations cannot be easily conjectured by those who read the present calm phrases, without having heard the former spirited appeals.
The old eagle flapping his wings gives a faint token of the speed with
which he once flew. We often detect sentences near the close of this
author's sermons, which appear abrupt, unfinished.  They are the signs
of those earnest appeals which leaped from him, but were too rapid to be
afterwards recalled.  One of his printed sermons ends with the words:' Plead not the busy season, as an excuse for delay."  But these words
are a memento of a now lost appeal, to make the earthly harvest a forerunner of the spiritual and eternal rest. Another sermon ends with the
words: " The repeated instances of mortality of late, solemnly admonish
all to prepare for death, which might be their lot."  This abrupt peroration will not illustrate the remark of a celebrated divine, who says:
" Often, when I heard Emmons utter his extemporaneous words at the
close of his discourses, I felt that Demosthenes did not surpass him." At
such times it has been said of Emmons, somewhat as was said of William
Pitt by Charles James Fox: " I never hesitate for a word; Pitt never
hesitates for the word."
3.- THE INFLUENCE OF HIS SERMONS DEPENDED SOMEWHAT ON THE OCCASION
AND MANNER OF THEIR DELIVERY.
Very few of Emmons's discourses appear to have been preached on
extraordinary occasions; and the common idea is, that his elocution was a
hindrance rather than aid to his success in the pulpit. But he was so
keen-sighted in detecting the moral state of his people, he was so quick to
discern the needs and the wants of the individuals who heard him, that
he made all his sermons apt, pertinent, timely. The services of one Sabbath awakened a curiosity, which was exactly met by the services of the
Sabbath following. "That is just the text," " That is just the subject we
were longing to hear discussed," was the frequent exclamation of his
auditors.  They came hungering for the bread of life to the sanctuary,
where they found the identical morsels for which their appetite had been
sharpened.
i In this respect many of his pupils resembled him. See pp. 230, 248.




MEMOIR.                              285
It was not necessary that there be a railroad disaster, or a balloon ascension, in order to call the men of Franklin into their meeting-house.
Their minister made occasions.  The sermon of one Sabbath was often
the theme of thought and remark throughout his parish, until the succeeding Sabbath.  Dr. Emmons seldom  made a lengthened allusion to
any physical occasion, to hurricanes and shipwrecks; but the occasions
which roused his parish were intellectual and moral, and resulted in the
main from his sermons themselves.
And then his elocution; - in many respects it was lame and impotent.
His voice was so feeble, that the remoter hearers, if they were strangers
to him, could not easily catch his words.  In the morning, when he read
his manuscript, it was held up in his left hand before his face,' and his
sentences were uttered with great rapidity. He seldom made a gesture,
unless a kind of argumentative nodding of the head be considered a gesture. His figure was small and slight. But on the other hand he stood
erect, his form and mien were dignified, he appeared modest, yet born to
command, his ruddy face beamed with intelligence; his eye twinkled, and
darted out quick and living thoughts; he ever appeared to be in earnest,
avoiding " a certain easy, graceful negligence " of mien which he repeatedly condemns; his tones were natural, and his whole manner was germane to his theme.  In the afternoon, when his "Improvement" came
on, he would read the carefully written statement of one inference, then
lifting his spectacles to the top of his head, he would freely utter his brisk
thoughts in a brisk style, his eye would flash on his audience, his whole
body would glow as if instinct with his whole doctrine; soon he would
adjust his glasses for another written statement of another inference;
again raise his spectacles; pour out a new stream  of fresh extemporapeous remark, and with this alternation between the reading of his manuscript and the unhampered method of a pithy talker, he enchained the
attention of his hearers until they regretted to hear him utter his last
sentence.  He seldom  closed his sermon or his prayer with the word,' amen."  This he regarded as a " vain repetition," no more obligatory
than the pedilavium.
Those who have listened to his " still, small voice," his earnest, expressive, authoritative, rapid intonations, can feel,2 more easily than we
can describe, the significance of words like the following:
I His rule had a peculiar significance: "Keep your sermon before your self, not
your self before your sermon."
2 Sometimes he was so much affected in the delivery of his discourse, that he found
it difficult to enunciate his words. " When I first heard him preach," said one of his
pupils, " he was sixty years of age. It was a stormy Sabbath. I supposed that the
service would be omitted. But when the hour for the service arrived, I saw the




286                             AM E   O I R.
"You [mourners for the recent dead] are now under trial; —and under trial for
eternity;- and perhaps the heaviest, if not the last, trial you will ever have before your
day of trial will cease, and you [will be] put into a state — where trials can never do
you any good. - If you thought this would be the case, would it not alarm you?And do you not need to be alarmed  — Do not all need to be alarmed? - Deaths,
sudden deaths are frequently occurring. —Let Christians trim  their lamps. -Let sinners fly to the ark of safety. -And let all stand in the posture of servants, waiting the
coming of their Lord. He may come quickly and suddenly. And you know not
what a day may bring forth. You are walking on the brink of time and verge of eternity. Oh, that you would be wise, that you would consider your latter end! "
The doctrine of Universal Salvation " is replete with infinite mischief. It strikes at
the root of all experimental religion. It confounds all notions of virtue and vice. It
destroys all distinction of character. It saps thefoundation of morality. It takes off
every restraint from vice. It opens the flood-gates of iniquity. It renders even God,
and Clhrist, and the prophets, and the apostles, the ministers of sin. It speaks peace
to the wicked, to whom, saith God, there is no peace. It has, indeed, every signature
of a damnable doctrine."'
He was wont to close a sermon or a paragraph with a brief, pithy
question, uttered in a quick, pointed style. His description of the practical atheism  of men utterly dependent on God, ends thus: " What a
world do we live in!-  And whose world is it? "  This question, uttered
in a sharp tone, drew  a sharp line on the hearts of his auditors.  The
last time I ever heard him preach, -it was in the eighty-second year of
his age, - he descended to a style of remark unusually familiar for one
who preserved so high a sense of ministerial dignity. He had applied
the reductio ad absurdunz to various pleas of the impenitent, and then
surprised them  with the following abrupt conclusion: "Now  here you
are, here you are, -  in a corner. -  How  can you get away? -  Not to
the right, for that is hedged up. -  Nor to the left, for that is hedged
up. -  You are in a corner.  Will you try to escape    You can't, you
can't escape.  You must yield,".etc.  After he had thus cornered his
opponents, he was truly powerful; not with what are usually called the
physical properties of an orator, but with the force of a mind conscious
of a previous triumph in argument, and stirred to its very depths with
pious feeling, and uttering its thoughts in earnest, authoritative, solemn
tones.
sleighs begin to pass the door of my boarding-house. I hurried into the sanctuary,
and found it full. Not more than two or three persons entered after the doctor. This
was the more remarkable, as at that time either there was no bell on the meetinghouse, or else it was out of order and not rung. It was evident in the forenoon, that
the preacher's subject had taken full possession of him. In the afternoon, his tears
chased each other down his cheeks, he well nigh sobbed, and the sighs of the hearers
were frequent and plainly heard."  Yet the sermon which produced this effect is now
pulblished, and no reader would imagine that it produced such an obvious excitement
of the audience.




M EMOIR.                                  287
By his concluding questions he often summoned his hearers to give an
account of themselves.  He arraigned  them  before a bar of trial, or
placed them on the witness stand. The following is a specimen:
"Every one ought to be prepared to meet death first.  Should the question be put
to the aged, Are you ready to meet death first? what would you say? Were the
question put to the man of middle age, Are you ready to meet death first? what
would you say? Were the question put to the youth, Are you ready to meet death
first? what would you say?  Or were the question put to the child, Are you prepared
to meet death first? he would in the simplicity of his heart say, No. And he would
have the best excuse for his negligence. The mouth of every other unprepared person
would be stopped."
Some have supposed that Dr. Emmons was not only inexpert in, but
also utterly regardless of his elocution.  It is true that he never rehearsed a paragraph before a mirror, but he was careful to cherish a
living interest in his theme of discourse, in order that his inward glow
might warm  his outward manner.  "The mind makes the orator," was
his motto.  His system of elocution he gave in these words:
How should a minister appear and speak in the pulpit?  "His voice, his looks, his
gestures, and his whole deportment, should be wholly governed by his ultimate end,
which is to penetrate and impress the minds of his hearers.  This is an infallible
guide. For while he means to penetrate and impress the minds of his audience, he
will necessarily avoid every unnatural tone, unmeaning expression, and insignificant
action. While he means to be natural, he will be natural. While he means to be significant, he will be significant. While he means to impress, he will impress. While
he aims at the understanding, he will penetrate the understanding. While he aims at
the conscience, he will penetrate the conscience. While he aims at the heart, he will
penetrate the heart.  The preacher always discovers his ultimate aim to every discerning hearer. His tone, his air, his attitude, is always correspondent to the impression
which he means to make. If he means to attract the eyes of the congregation,
his deportment will proclaim it. If he means to please the imagination, and gain
the esteem and applause of his hearers, his voice, his countenance, his language,
and all his attitudes will discover it. Or if he means to promote the instruction, conviction, and edification of his people, he will practically tell them so, by the manner, as
well as the matter, of his preaching."
"It is perfectly obvious, before a preacher has proceeded far, what his leading object
is. Some men preach their subjects, and some themselves.  Some have the rare faculty of hiding themselves behind their subjects. You think nothing of the man, but
only of the subject about which he speaks. Others are directly the opposite of this.
They preach themselves, and not their subject. You think little of the subject, but
only of the man.  The preacher employs his subject only as a means of displaying
himself to better advantage. He expects you to admire his fine person, his beautifully rounded periods, his graceful attitudes and gestures, his white handkerchief, and
his white hand. Be sure not to imitate such preachers, unless you mean to make
yourself the scorn and the pity of all good men."




288                            MEMOIR.
4.-HE WAS A REPRESENTATIVE OF INTELLECTUAL PREACHERS.
"The preaching of American Congregationalists of a certain age and school, may
be characterized as metaphysical; that of Dr. Emmons was such in an eminent degree. In this, as far as our knowledge goes, it differs from all other preaching since
the world began. We say preaching, for metaphysical theology has flourished in
the most brilliant periods of the church; but only here has the wall been broken
down between the church and the schools." - Princeton Review, Vol. XIV. p. 535.
"The common idea that he [Dr. Emmons] was a metaphysical preacher in the
ordinary acceptation of the term, is entirely incorrect. He was logical, discriminating, and often nice in his definitions and distinctions, but always clear, simple, and
intelligible. The body of his discourses was strongly banded together by argument
and close reasoning, but in the application they were singularly practical, direct, and
home;- and woe unto those who stood in the way of his battery when he had fixed
his guns, and was ready to apply the match and let them off." -MS. Letter of Rev.
Joel Hawes, D. D., of Hartford, Conn.
Between the two statements here recorded is a direct contradiction.
Dr. Hawes is doubtless correct in his estimate of the general character
of Emmons's sermons.  Dr. Hawes, however, does not intend to deny
that Emmons was an intellectual sermonizer.  That man deserves our
study, who is a distinct representative of an entire class.  That style of
preaching deserves our study, which can be characterized by its foes as
different "from  all other preaching since the world began."  Emmons
was, in an eminent degree, a representative of the intellectual sermonizers. He deserves our study because he sets out their distinctive lines
in bold relief.  He uttered vigorous thoughts in impressive language,
with peculiar frequency and with peculiar ease.  He did not rely on men
for his support, but on truth. He rested not on the decisions of councils,
but on argument.  He cherished a reverence for proof.  He did not appeal to the harmony of the church fathers, but to the mutual harmony of
biblical doctrines.  There is something not only characteristic of the
man, but truly sublime in his description of "weighty and powerful
preachers."  "Their discourses have a peculiar energy, which, as we
often see, bears down the minds of a whole assembly."  This energy
comes not from an association with imposing judicatories of the church,
but from the combinedforce of mutually related truths.  He writes:
These preachers "have the advantage of speaking under the united weight and influence of the whole of the divine system. As they consider every subject in connection with the whole counsel of God, so the whole counsel of God seems to be more or
less brought into view by every subject they handle, which necessarily gives it additional force and sublimity. For the whole counsel of God inseparably connects time




MEMOIR.                                 289
and eternity, heaven and hell, all worlds, and all beings in the universe. And every
truth exhibited in such a connection as this, must appear unspeakably weighty and
solemn to every discerning mind. Hence the preaching of these men has a superior
power to seize the heart and conscience; and the Gospel as it falls from their lips, falls,
as our Saviour says, like a weighty stone, which will grind every opposer to powder."
We do not affirm  that Emmons is a perfect model for intellectual
preachers.' Faultless ministers, outside of partisan biography, are rare.
But in an age when men and women are tempted to become more and
more superficial, to fall in love with forms and ceremonies, rather than to
delight in luminous and tonic thought, the Franklin metaphysician is a
timely mentor.  Congregationalism can never flourish when the pulpit is
effeminate and ostentatious.  Unless there be manly discussion in the
sermon, there will be in the hearer a fondness for parade.  Where there
is but little interest in religious doctrine, there will be a longing after the
" dim religious light," etc. etc. The Puritan spirit is dependent on the
substantial truths of Puritanism; and if these truths be not preached
and proved, the spirit of fashion will reign. As the love for these truths
declines, the love for a gaudy ceremonial will increase.  When the sun
is the lowest, the shadows are the longest.
The logical element in the pulpit may become tedious.  There was
peril in the Garden of Eden, much more in the groves of philosophers.
The tree of knowledge may yield apples of dry dust.  All men have not
the power of Emmons, but it must be admitted that he attracted hearers
to the sanctuary by his argumentative processes.  His parishioners were
curious to see what he would make out.  He often said: " Men love to
cry, but hate to think;" 2 still the mind has an instinct of reasoning, and
this, as well as every other instinct may be employed as an aid of divine
truth.  If hearers may be attracted to the sanctuary by its "groined
1 Rev. Samuel Whelpley, father of Rev. Philip Melancthon Whelpley, has given
in his "Triangle " the following criticism on the earlier publications of the Franklin
divine - "Emmons is an original of the noblest class, and certainly one of the most
decided character. No candid reader who reads for instruction, is disappointed, or
rises from the perusal of one of his sermons without some benefit. His sermons generally indicate extensive knowledge and acuteness of judgment. His style is neat,
appropriate, pure, and correct, though less elegant and splendid than that of Hall,
and less easy and graceful perhaps than that of Jay. In fervency and pathos, we may
have some in our own country who excel him; and his sermons are, perhaps, too didactic - too much the essay and not sufficiently the popular address, to answer, in the
best manner, all the ends of preaching. With less of the flowers of May, or fruits
of October than some others, his sermons may be compared to the meridian hour of a
clear day in June, when the Sun puts forth his strength, the Summer displays her maturity, and Vegetation all her energy."
2 Here is a singular instance of an apothegm really consistent, but verbally inconsistent with another apothegm  of Dr. Emmons: " Men love to hear, but hate to
feel." - The aphoristic style admits apparent contradictions.
VOL, I.                      Z




290                           MEMOIR.
arches," or its starred ceiling, or its " black walnut pews," why not by the
logic of the minister?  Is not the fascination of syllogisms as innocent
and innocuous as that of a chime of bells?  We must shun extremes.
We allow that men may be made opinionative and headstrong by their practice in reasoning. So they may be made shallow and fastidious by their
practice in church song.  But shall we abandon a normal avenue to the
heart, because it is often thronged by unseemly motives? In the year
1860, we find in a public newspaper the following programme of a Protestant Church Service on the Sabbath day, in the city of New York:
Venite and Psalms for the day chanted.
The Te Deum and Benedictus, from Cutler's Service in E flat.
The Nicene Creed chanted to Gregorian tone 8.
The Anthem by Marcello, " 0 Lord our Governor, how excellent is thy name in all
the world." The solos in this anthem are sung by Dr. Guillmette and Master James
Little.
Hymn 154, "Before Jehovah's awful throne."
After the Sermon, is sung Gloria in Excelsis.
Choir is " Antiphonal," and composed exclusively of men and boy choristers - 6
basses, 3 tenors, 4 altos, 10 sopranos, all in surplices.
The boy (James Little) who takes the solos in the anthem, has a voice of extraordinary power and splendor.
The service is choral throughout. The organ accompanies the choir at a distance
of 150 feet, and is played by Mr. Cutler, the director of the music.
No Franklin audience was ever allured into the meeting-house by any
such display.  But was there no adventitious allurement to that plain
edifice?  Dr. Emmons well knew  that intellectual appeals are attended
with a temptation to sacrifice the emotive to the speculative nature.,
He buffeted this temptation.  But he knew, also, that these intellectual
appeals are needed for the permanent and progressive interest, as well as
for the power and the authority of the pulpit.2  His favorite principle was:
" The wise preacher will instruct in order to affect, and enlighten in order
to inflame."  "He will address the understanding before the conscience,
and the conscience before the heart. This is the order of nature; and
this order must be observed, to make the deepest impression on the human mind.  When the understanding is informed, and the conscience
awakened, then the affections may be raised as high as possible.  There
is no danger of raising the affections too high by the exhibition of truth,
though there is nothing else that can raise them higher." 
1 See p. 53 above.
2 Bibliotheca Sacra, Vol. IV. pp. 97-104.
8 There is a singular felicity in the style of Emmons when he intimates the importance of considering the trath.o In one of his sacramental sermons (Orig. Ed. V. 508),




MEMOIR.                                 291
That a man who drew  so many inferences as Dr. Emmons, should
never draw a wrong one, is more than could be expected from even the
Stagyrite himself.  His false conclusions, however, are the result of an
error in his premise, oftener than of a crookedness in his passage from
the premise to the inference.  For more than seventy years, it has been
familiarly said: " Take the first step with him, and you must take the
last."'Start with him, and you must go with him."  " Give him his
first proposition, and he will get out of you his third."  When he steps
from  a false principle, he rushes onward, sweeping every thing in his
train, to its logical sequence. Thus, in one of his metaphysical discourses
he adopts the proposition: "6 To be incomprehensible is the same as to
be infinite."  Then he reasons: Though the Infinite One "be incomprehensible in respect to his creatures, yet he is not incomprehensible in
respect to himself; and therefore, notwithstanding he is infinite in respect to his creatures, yet he is not infinite in respect to himself," or he
is not absolutely infinite.' These are bold words. They would rouse a
hearer from  somnolence.  But they are a logical result from the inaccurate premise.  Dialectically, the conclusion is plausible; philosophically
it is erroneous; in this, as in other instances, it is interesting to inquire,
where the error begins, how did it arise, why is it maintained.  Such inquiries, more than a sonorous voice, or vehement gesticulation, provoke
the vigilance of the hearer.
5.- WAS EMMONS PLAIN AND SIMPLE IN HIS DISCOURSES?
"As a metaphysical writer, he [Emmons] has, within our knowledge, no superior,
if an equal, for stating exactly what he means in the shortest, clearest, plainest,
strongest, and (in the sense of the mathematicians) most elegant manner. You never
doubt an instant what his doctrine is. You never find him like Dr. Taylor, complaining that he is not understood. Nay, he is understood, and that too well."Princeton Review, Vol. XIV. p. 532.
he remarks " The exhibition of a crucified Saviour before our eyes is a solemn address to our understandings, and calls for the most serious and fixed contemplation upon
the most glorious truths and objects which can employ the minds of the most exalted
and holy creatures in heavenly places. The manifold wisdom of God shines in the
face of Jesus Christ, and ought to be contemplated while celebrating the memorials of
his death.' Wherefore, holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling, consider the
apostle and high-priest of our profession, Christ Jesus.'
1 Among the different theories with regard to the Infinite, Dr. Emmons adopted
the following: We have a positive idea of the Infinite, but there is no object actually
existing, of which we have this positive idea. There is no real thing or real being
that fills out our apprehension of the absolutely illimitable. Such a thing or being
would involve internal contradictions and absurdities. When asked, "What is
space'" Dr. Emmons answered: "Nothing."  When we speak of real existences as
infinite, we have only a negative idea of their infinity, and simply mean that they are
incomprehensible.




292                         MEMOIR.
Is it possible that the most metaphysical discourses which have been
preached "since the world began," 1 are also among the most perspicuous? How, whence can it be that the very last epithets which some
would apply to Emmons, are an "extemporaneous preacher," and a
" preacher to the masses," while the first epithets which others apply to
him  are, "a simple, plain preacher," "one who cannot be misunderstood?"
a. Hle aimed to be Perspicuous.
"When I sit down to compose a sermon," he said to Dr. Hawes, of
Hartford, "I ask three questions: 1. What do my people know about
this subject? 2. What do I know about it which my people do not
know? 3. How can I make my people know what I know, and they do
not?"  His bold, and oft-repeated maxim was:' We should endeavor
to make our people know all that we know about the Gospel, which conmprises all the designs and operations of the Deity."
Hundreds have entertained the idea that Emmons cared for nothing
more than to spin metaphysical cobwebs, whether anybody else could see
through them or not. But these critics have entirely mistaken the man.
He was sure that the doctrines of the Gospel could be made plain; he
meant to make them plain; he believed that he had made them plain.
He had devoted so many years of intense thought to the more recondite
of these doctrines, that it was natural for him to regard many propositions
as perspicuous which others deemed abstruse.  Knowledge is easy to
him that understandeth. A mathematician, like La voisier, smiles at the
trouble which tyros experience in working out the " simple problems" of
Algebra.  Often, Emmons promises at the outset: "I shall make this
appear; " or, on a doctrine of some difficulty: "I shall endeavor to make
this appear;" or, on a doctrine of special difficulty: "I shall endeavor
if possible to make this appear."  " To make it appear" is his favorite
and characteristic phrase. In his ingenious sermon,2 on 1 Cor. 4: 2,
"I have fed you with milk and not with meat; for hitherto ye were not
able to bear it, neither yet now are ye able," he has given the following
analysis of milk and strong meat, and has indirectly intimated the following reasons for classifying the majority of his sermons under the
genus of milk diet:
First, in order to learn what doctrines are milk and NOT meat, we must learn what
doctrines the apostle did actually preach to the Corinthians. The two Epistles are
1 See p. 289, above.
2 Various plagiarisms have been committed upon this original discourse.




MEMOIR.                                     293
searched.  The decisive texts are quoted.  It is made to appear " from the two letters
which the Apostle wrote to the Corinthians, that he publicly and plainly taught them
the doctrine of total depravity, the doctrine of regeneration, the doctrine of disinterested
love, the doctrine of saving faith, the doctrine of divine agency in human actions, the doctrine of the final perseverance of saints, the doctrine of divine sovereignty in the conversion of sinners, the doctrine of personal election to eternal life, and the doctrine of three
equally divine Persons in the only living and true God."
Secondly. Having fed the Corinthians with these nine doctrines, why does the
apostle call them milk?
(a.) These nine doctrines "are easy to be understood; milk is much easier to digest
than meat; meat is for men, but milk is for babes.  Those of the weakest constitution
can bear this light and easy food. So the first principles of the oracles of God are
plain and level to the lowest capacity."
(b.) These nine doctrines are called milk, because they "are highly pleasing to the
pious heart. Milk is not only easy to the stomach, but agreeable to the palate.  The
Scripture represents milk and honey as the richest dainties in nature: what is sweeter
than honey, or what is more grateful to the taste than milk? "1
(c.) These nine doctrines are called milk because they "are nourishing as well as
pleasing to the children of God; it is the nature of milk to promote the health and
growth of the human body; and it is equally the nature of divine truth to improve
the heart as well as the understanding of true believers."
Improvement a.- "If the metaphor of milk has been properly explained, then we
may easily conjecture what is to be understood by the metaphor of meat. If by milk
the apostle means the more plain and important doctrines of the Gospel, it seems to
be natural to suppose that by meat he means some other sentiments less plain, and
less necessary to be know:i by common Christians," sentiments which he had not
made prominent in his dpistles to the Corinthian churches. The doctrines, then,
which are meat and not milk, are such as relate to the rites and ceremonies of the
Mosaic dispensation; the types and predictions in the Old Testament; the character
and coming of the promised Messiah; " the predictions in the New Testament concerning the great apostacy in the Christian church; the rise and fall of the Man of sin;
the calling in of the Jews; the spread of the Gospel in the millennium; and the state
of things from that day to the end of the world. We know the apostle sometimes
preached upon these high points, to which St. Peter alludes in his second epistle.'Even as our beloved brother Paul also, according to the wisdom given unto him,
hath written unto you: As also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things;
in which are some things hard to be understood, which they that are unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do also the other Scriptures, unto their own destruction.' We will
not now affirm that the subjects which we have mentioned were the only subjects which
the apostle calls strong meat; but we will presume to say that all the subjects which
we have mentioned are more difficult to explain and comprehend, than the doctrines
which he taught the Corinthians, and which he calls milk."
Improvement b. -The nine "doctrines which Paul preached to the Corinthians
have been greatly misrepresented. He represents them as milk; but others represent
1 See p. 109, above., *




294                            MEM   OIR.
them as meat. He represents them as easy to be understood; but others represent
them as dark and mysterious.- How many people have been strongly prejudiced
against the doctrines which Paul preached to the Corinthians, by hearing them represented by their public teachers, as meat, as strong meat, too strong for any Christians
in the world to bear."
Improvement c.- This subject affords an infallible criterion, by which to determine who are the plainest preachers in point of sentiment. -" The Socinians, Arians.
Pelagians, and other sectaries, who early opposed the pure and simple doctrines
which Christ and the apostles taught, were obliged to have recourse to logical, metaphysical, and philosophical subtilties, in their own defence. And it is still the case
that those who preach against the doctrine of the Trinity, the doctrine of election,
the doctrine of divine sovereignty, the doctrine of divine agency, and the doctrine of
total depravity, are constrained either to renounce reasoning altogether, or else to
reason in the most intricate, obscure, unintelligible manner. There never was, and
there never can be, any false scheme of religion so easy to explain and understand,
as that true scheme of religion which Paul taught the Corinthians. Those, therefore,
who preach the very same doctrines which Paul preached, must be, of all others, the
plainest preachers in point of sentiment."
The basis of this truly original discourse is an old maxim  of Dr.
Emmons that " one man will arrange truths so that a child can understand them, and another man will disarrange them so that nobody can
understand them."  We therefore remark:
b. He arranged his Ideas in a luminous Order.
He held up the doctrines in such a relative position, that each one of
them illumined the others.  He derived a second truth from a first truth,
and thus illustrated both of them.  His " inferences" were one source
of his transparency. His course of thought was plain, and this made his
speech translucent.  The Princeton Review characterizes Emmons thus:
"His method of sermonizing we consider the worst of all methods."
This remark is perspicuous.  Still it may be made clearer by the following reminiscence of that excellent man, Dr. Hawes of Hartford, who
writes:
" I never heard a man preach, whose sermons I could remember as
well as I can remember his. I can now recall sermons which I heard
him deliver forty-five years ago, with as much distinctness in the main
outline and leading thought, as if I heard them a week since."
c. He repeated his Ideas.
"You do not repeat enough," was the answer of an eminent attorney,
who had been asked by a clergyman why the pulpit was so ineffective.
"I could never gain a verdict from a jury, unless I repeated my thoughts




MEMOIR.                                 295
oftener than you repeat yours." -  When Dr. Chalmers was interrogated
with regard to the secret of his rhetorical success, his reply was: " Repetition, Repetition, Repetition."  Dr. Emmons has been  criticized for
excess in reiterating his favorite thoughts.  The criticism will be mitigated, if we remember that in his unpublished sermons, these thoughts
do not appear and reappear so often as in his printed works; for in his
printed works his more peculiar methods of thought and speech are
introduced, rather than those methods in which he more nearly resembled other men.  It must be conceded, however, that he did strike and
strike and strike, until the rock was rent and he inserted in it what
he meant to insert.  He knocked and knocked again, and knocked once
more, and continued  knocking until the gate was opened or broken
through, and he entered just as he had resolved to enter the barred
castle.
His reiterations of the same word, though sometimes a blemish, are
at other times a beauty. He often augments the force of certain phrases
by reproducing them  at regular intervals.  Perhaps no author, except
MIacauley, exhibits so many instances of this emphatic repetition. Passages like the following are among the most notable characteristics of his
sermons:
Nothing can be said against the total depravity of unrenewed men, which
cannot be said against the total depravity of Satan. " If it be said that they love
those that love them, so does he. If it be said that they are kind and friendly to
those that promote their interest, so is he. If it be said that they do, in their conscience, approve of what is holy, just, and good in others, so does he. He approved
of the holiness of Christ, when he called him' the Holy One of God.' If it be said
that they do in their conscience disapprove of what is selfish and sinful in others, so
does he. He represented Job as selfish, and condemned him as wicked."
"The heart of every one extends just as far as his apparent interest extends, and
increases in magnitude just as the knowledge of his interest increases, whether his
interest be selfish or benevolent."  "When David was a shepherd, his mind and his
heart were as small as his flock. When he became a general, his mind and his heart
were as large as his army. And when he ascended the throne of Israel, his mind and
his heart were enlarged in proportion to the number of his subjects, the extent of
his kingdom, and the important interests of the nation."
" Here is a dividing line which sinners cannot pass over. They can pass over many
other things in the conduct and character of Christians, and stand side by side with
them, with great confidence and self-approbation. If Christians are industrious and
laborious in their callings, so are they. If Christians are honest in their dealings,
so are they. If Christians are faithful to their trusts, so are they. If Christians are
beneficent to others, so are they. If Christians avoid profaneness, levity, and every
appearance of external evil, so do they. If Christians maintain family prayer, attend
public worship, and hear the word of God with seriousness and attention, so do they.
But if Christians really do desire and wait for their appointed change, here they fail
and shrink from the comparison."




296                            MEMOIR.
d. He spoke as he thought.
"I once inquired of him," says Dr. Mark Tucker, " how he obtained
his style of writing."  He replied, " I never thought of my style; I wrote
as I thought."  His theory was that a man should have no exoteric,
which is different from his esoteric, idea, or language.  He employed the
simple Saxon words, with which his ideas first clothed themselves in the
silence of his own meditations.  The following paragraph contains a
development of his own rhetorical method:
" The wise preacher will choose the best words and place them' in the best order, to
enlighten the mind and affect the heart. When any person means to impress the mind
of another, his design always dictates a natural style, which is the most intelligible
and the most forcible. The general who means to be heard and regarded, speaks
the language of authority. And the beggar who means to be heard and pitied,
speaks the language of distress. They both speak in the words in which their
thoughts and feelings are concerned, and therefore they both speak the spontaneous
language of nature, which all understand and most sensibly feel. The preacher, like
every other person, always thinks in words; and the words, in which he thinks upon
his subjects, are the words to be used in his discourses. Could our thoughts drop
from our pens, or from our lips, in the very words in which they first rise in our
minds, we should write and speak in the most easy, natural, and forcible manner.
We often lose the energy of our thoughts and feelings, by trying to express them in
the language of art, instead of the language of nature. Why do we find it so difficult to describe our past feelings, in the view of a great, or terrible, or sublime object?
The principal reason is, we have lost our feelings, and of consequence, the proper
language to describe them."
Here is the secret of the power by which Emmons united his severe
analysis with his natural, artless diction. He might have introduced
scholastic terms, and betrayed a consciousness of familiarity with books;
but he found his delight in conveying with ease to an audience of farmers,
such thoughts as the style of Cudworth conveys with difficulty to a recluse
philosopher. His simplicity conceals his real greatness from anserous
critics.  " Any one can write just so, without effort," is a familiar objection to his style. But the difficulty will be, not so much to write in his
style without any effort, as to write in it with the most judicious effort;
for it is an old remark of Horace,
-    " Ut sibi quivis
Speret idem, sudet multum, frustraque laboret
Ausus idem."
Both the ancient and the modern critics have defined simplicity of
mind and manners, to be a virtue which often elicits a smile from the man
who notices it, and gives him a momentary idea of his superiority to the




MEMOI R.                              297
man in whom it is noticed.  When we remember that the great aim of
Emmons was to instruct his rural auditors, we smile now and then at his
simple ways of expounding the gorgeous or the delicate phrases of the
Hebrew poets.  He is determined to make them plain, whatever becomes
of their poetry. He certainly succeeds in making David's ejaculation,
"level to the lowest capacity" in the following comment: "'one thing
have I desired of the Lord, that will I seek after; that I may dwell in the
house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the
Lord, and to inquire in his temple.'  It was his sincere desire that his
business might always admit of his being in the house of God every Sabbath; and he determined, as far as possible, to order his secular concerns
so, that he might constantly attend the services of the sanctuary."'
e. Emmons explained his Theme.
In an eminent degree he was an expounder of doctrine.  His first impulse was to " open up" a subject, as the old preachers of Scotland love
to say.  Whatever theories he touched, he first of all enucleated.  IHe
learned in East Haddam not to put the whole chestnut burr into the
mouth of a child, but to open the outward integuments of the nut, and
then to feed the hungry with the sweet meat.  His sermons are treatises
on the nature of things; and his own clear ideas on the interior of doctrines were so expressed as to let his hearers into the heart of divine
truth. His own remark is: " Faithfulness in a steward of the mysteries
of God principally consists in unlocking, unfolding, and in the clearest
manner displaying, the whole character and whole counsel of" the Most
High.
We make a distinction between an expounder of doctrines, and an expounder of words.  The former Emmons was; the latter he was not.
He struck at the thing, and had but little taste for criticism on terms.
His sermons relate to the realities, not to the dress of sacred science.
Referring to the analysis of words, and remembering his father's farm, he
once remarked, that,'when going through a process of verbal criticism,
he felt as if he were going through a swarm of bees; he did not love to
stop and kill every bee one by one, but he chose to get out of the buzz
into the still air as quick as he could.' If the good man had not hurried
1 This entire ease and nonchalance of the Franklin sermons account, in part, for the
statement of Dr. Ide, that Emmons is "read without effort. So perfectly naked are
his thoughts, that his reasoning upon the most profound subjects in theology is read
with less effort of the mind than a common paragraph in a newspaper. A feeble minister was a short time time since heard to say, that he could read Emmons's sermons
on the Sabbath, after being so exhausted by the labor of the day, that he could not
endure conversation, nor even read a religious periodical."




298                         ME MOIR.
on to the doctrine, if he had stopped and leisurely explained his phrases
when he spoke of the causation of sin, he would have avoided many
stinging misapprehensions of his doctrine.  Hence we remark:
f. Emmons was not, in all Senses and in all Relations of the Term, a Plain Preacher.
The praises lavished on his luminous style are to be understood with
some qualification.  Although we acquiesce in the general verdict, that
he " said what he meant, and meant what he said," we yet regard him
as too rapid and intense in his thoughts for that perfect translucency of
language, which has been sometimes attributed to the imperfect man.
" I wish to impress this idea so deeply upon every mind, that it cannot
be eradicated or forgotten;" this is one of his remarks.  Now he must
be more than human, if, with such a fervid wish, he did not sometimes
give vent to a word more impressive in one relation, than perspicuous in
another relation.  Although we believe that much of his power resulted
from his plainness, we believe also that much of his power resulted from
his boldness, and that his boldness often interfered with his transparency
in one signification of that term.
The phrase, plainness of style, has different meanings in different relations.  At one time, it means perspicuity in relation to a certain subject,
and sermons may be very plain, when they are as perspicuous as the nature of their theme allows, and yet, like the writings of Laplace, cannot
be easily understood by the majority of men. At another time, the
phrase means perspicuity in relation to the persons addressed; and treatises may be called perspicuous when they are readily comprehended by
an audience of fathers, while they would be utterly unintelligible to an
audience of children. At one time, the phrase means perspicuity in relation to some one feature of a subject, that feature being the only prominent one before the mind. A discourse may be entirely plain to readers
who attend to this one feature alone, and yet may be obscure to such as
fail to notice the limited reference of the words. At another time, the
phrase means perspicuity in all relations, to the subject, to the hearers,
to the single feature of the theme and to its general lineaments.
In some of the preceding senses, we endorse the remark of Professor
Woods of Andover, that " the most important of all qualities, i. e. perspicuity, he [Emmons] had in an almost unequalled degree." But to affirm
that, in the last-named sense, he is uniformly perspicuous, is to affirm that
he has done, what no man before or since his day has ever attained.
While each of his sentences may be intelligible in itself, it is not always
easily understood in its relations; and while it may be as clear as the in



MEMOIR.                             299
tricate nature of the subject will allow, it is not always so clear as its unlettered readers demand.
The truth is, that the mind of Emmons had more varieties of phase
than has been generally supposed.  An entirely false estimate is put
upon him when he is represented as a frigid, generalizing philosopher,
holding up all truths in a "dry light," and in an exact equipoise. The
reader may smile at the remark, yet the remark is just, that Emmons
had in some particulars a rhetorical mind. He meditated on a theme;
while he mused the fire burned; he spoke, because he must speak with a
full free force on that one theme; he did not stop to square his present
utterances with what he might advance on some other topic, at some
other time; his intrepid proposition stirred up his auditors; how he could
reconcile it with some previous proposition they could not divine; they
were puzzled as well as startled, and so far forth as a writer is a puzzling
one, he is not in all senses and in all relations a plain one. He may be as
plain as his intricate topics allow, or as some feature of his theme requires,
or as a particular class of auditors need, but he is not so plain that it is
either impossible or unnatural for some men to misunderstand him.
With one doctrine to enforce, with one aim in view, Emmons did, here
and there, drop a remark which is not easily harmonized with another
remark made in pressing home a different doctrine, and achieving a different end.  Since the world was made, there never was an orator who
did not enkindle his hearers with a word in apparent conflict with some
other word, which he had previously employed to inflame their minds for
some other purpose.  The effort to compare these differing phrases, and
dovetail them together is too cooling for the fervid spirit of the orator.
He may at a coming moment apply the quarter-inch measure to the red
hot iron, but at this passing moment he must strike with his sledge.
Often there scintillated from Dr. Emmons a bright saying which made
his audience open their eyes; in itself it was clear, but in its relations it
was "dark with excess of bright."  Here was one source of his electrifying power.  The justness of these criticisms will perhaps be " made to
appear," from the following illustrations.
Remarkcs of Emmons on the Mysteries of the Bible. — In one of his
discourses he teaches that "the nature and perfections of God surpass the
comprehension of all minds but his own." In a second sermon he teaches
that " there are but two real mysteries in the Gospel, and these are the
doctrine of the blessed Trinity and the doctrine of the incarnation of
Christ."  "There are no other doctrines which are mysterious and incomprehensible by mankind."  In a third sermon he teaches that " the




300                          M EM OI R.
first principles of the oracles of God [among which he specifies the principle of three equally divine Persons in one Being] are plain and level
to the lowest capacity." 1
These are plain propositions in themselves; but in their relations to
each other they are startling and perplexing. They cannot be understood so as to be reconciled without intricate study.
In his first sermon, the earnest preacher aimed to penetrate our minds
with the power of mystery; and he therefore teaches that all the doctrines pertaining to God involve, as connected with them but not as forming them, many incomprehensible facts.
In his second discourse, the same fervid thinker aims to impress on his
hearers the truth, that a devoutly religious heart is a guide to clear intellectual views, and he therefore surprises us with the thought that, although the doctrines pertaining to God involve, as connected with them,
many incomprehensible facts, yet there are only two doctrines which
contain as parts of them such unintelligible facts.
In his third sermon, the zealous reasoner aims to cherish in his
hearers a love for the sincere milk of the word,2 and he therefore
startles us with the announcement that the doctrine of the Trinity,
as well as every other essential doctrine of the Gospel, is "as easy
to be understood by the weakest mind as milk is to be digested by
the weakest stomach; " but this announcement has reference to the doctrine so far forth as it claims to be believed, so far forth as it can be
made an object of thought or faith, and not so far forth as it implies some
truths which, instead of constituting the doctrine, are merely connected
with it, and as it contains some truths which, being superior to our apprehension, are not presented as demanding our assent. The impetuous
logician does not stop to specify his qualifications; he has intimated them
elsewhere; and now he does not linger away from his one grand design,
in order to adjust what he has already adjusted in other places.'He
contradicts himself," men say, but they make this charge because they
misapprehend him to be one of those tedious writers, who qualify so as to
make all the relations of a truth plain, and then leave the truth itself unimpressive.
Remarks of Emmons on Certainty and Necessity. -  The decree of God,
he affirms, makes things certain; "the agency of God makes things not only
certain but necessary."3 Does then the agency of God make our free choices
not only certain but necessary? Can it be replied, that it makes our free
1 See Original Edition of Collected Works, Vols. I. pp. 76, 143; V. p. 190.
2 See pp. 294, 295, above.
3 Emmons's Works, Vol. II. pp. 329, 330.




MEM OIR.                            301
choices morally necessary?  But Emmons teaches that moral necessity is
nothing more nor less than certainty; and can he here mean that the
agency of God makes our free choices not only morally necessary but
also morally necessary; not only certain but also certain?
What, then, does he mean by the word necessary as distinct from, and
more than, the word certain?  He uses the term  in the same sense in
which President Edwards 1 uses it, when he says that necessity sometimes
denotes that certainty which results from the fact that a thing " is already
come to pass, and either now is or has been." Emmons, therefore, means
to assert, that the decrees of God make our free choices certain, and the
agency of God causes them to be facts. They are more than certain then
in the sense that the event, the historical reality, has made them unalterable. " The existence," says Edwards, " of whatever is already come to
pass, is now become necessary."  All this is true. Emmons has expressed the truth emphatically. But has he expressed it so plainly, that
in some relations of the truth it is easily understood?
The style of Emmons with regard to the repulsive doctrines of Calvinism. -As he was perspicuous in the sense of vividly expressing a
particular relation of a doctrine, so he was eminently perspicuous in the
sense of distinctly expressing those relations of a doctrine which are
most unwelcome to the unrenewed mind. No man ever felt a deeper
obligation than he, to avoid all such ambiguous phrases as might possibly
blunt the sharp points of truth.  He was a plain preacher, in the sense
of abounding with "plain talk" on the obnoxious features of the Gospel.
He would not be misunderstood with regard to these. He would not
daub them over with untempered mortar. An open-hearted honesty characterized him here as everywhere. " There is," he says, " a dignity in
transparency, which universally commands esteem.  But there is a
meanness which wants a name, in a minister's flying to shelters or subterfuges to hide himself from the public eye." This meanness would have
been the last of his faults. He chose to conceal nothing, to know the
worst. He disliked all ambages and circumgyrations, and dreaded to
be even suspected of cunning. " Of all animals," he said, " I do most
heartily detest a fox."  He saw, for example, that some divines adopted
a system of moral agency, which, when pursued to its ultimatum, refers
the existence of sin to the will of Heaven. But these writers adopt
circumlocutory language in explaining the origin of moral evil, and leave
the divine causation to be a matter of inference. They are reluctant to
march up on a straight line to the avowal, that God makes peace and
1 On the Will, Part 1, Sect. III.
VOL. 1.                   AA




302                          M E   O IR.
creates evil.  Dr. Emmons is for the straight line.  "I believe, and
therefore speak," was his motto; and lest he should be suspected of covering up something, of not fully exposing the hardest of his doctrine, he
selects language which will not bear a construction milder than the true
one.  If he is to be mistaken by others, he chooses to be mistaken for
the worse rather than for the better. If he is to be thought a hypocrite,
he prefers to lose rather than gain by his hypocrisy. This fondness for
proclaiming the whole truth, this dread of ever seeming to shun an inference, especially an unpopular one, induced him to say, " God stood by
the criminal, and moved him to the crime."  Calvinists have been often
accused of believing that God is the cause of sin. Some of their theological systems repel this charge, because, in a very important sense,
God is not the cause of sin.  But the Franklin divine, though he believes that in the important sense above referred to, God does not originate moral evil, yet believes, that in another sense he does originate it;
that he is the universal cause; and therefore the outspoken preacher
does not hesitate to say that the universal cause is the cause of that particular effect which we call sin.  He moves straight forward, and boldly
adopts some of the very phrases 1 which have been disowned as slanders
by what he would term  Calvinistical divines.  He might have expressed
his theory in language which would have excited no unusual popular
odium; but he shrunk, with the sensitiveness of a cavalier, from  the
least appearance of cringing for the favor of men.  Hle never seemed to
have learned the old fable:
"Sead tacitus pasci si posset corvus, haberet
Plus dapis et rixae multo minus invidiaeque."
If, now, the question be asked, whether this frank writer has been perspicuous in explaining his theory of the causation of sin, we reply, that
he has been plain in letting out the worst of it, in keeping back no part
of it which is offensive to the enemies of Calvinism; but he has been
less transparent in displaying those lineaments of it, which illustrate the
comprehensiveness of his own views, and which are agreeable to the
philosophical inquirer after second causes. Here as elsewhere in his zeal
for Calvinism  his " vaulting" honesty "o'erleaps itself," not so far that
his meaning cannot be discerned, but so far that in order to ascertain his
full meaning we must patiently compare his detached and antithetic words.
A similar remark may be made with regard totlheproportions of his general system of theology. He is so faithful to Calvinism, which he heartily
1 The writer of this Memoir once made, but now recalls, the statement, that Emmons declared God to be " the author of sin." Emmons neither used nor tolerated
this phrase.




MEMOIR.                               303
believes to be Paulism, that he must unfold its distinctive truths; they are
so often assailed that he must as often defend them; they are so fitted
to rouse the indignation of an unhumbled mind, that he must so much
the more frequently set them out in bold relief. He does this, as he benevolently says, in order that he may "give men an opportunity of
knowing whether they love or hate their Creator."  He treats his beloved doctrines, as he would treat beloved children. He would lavish the
greater attention upon the child that was the more flagrantly abused; not
because he esteemed that child more highly than the others, but because
he deemed especial attention to be the more necessary for it.  His honest
nature and his intense desire to make men see the most humiliating
truths, induce him  to hold up these truths more prominently than he
would if they were not unpopular.  Hence he is often said to make
them  disproportionately conspicuous.  They are more conspicuous in his'
published sermons, than in the entire range of those which remain unpublished.  It must be confessed, that in his printed volumes he is so
plain spoken on the side of faithfulness in making known " the offence of
the cross," that he leaves himself liable to be misunderstood on the side of
giving to every truth that degree of prominence which he really accorded
to it.  He is often misapprehended in regard to his estimate of the relative value of doctrines, because he is not so plain in magnifying the importance of welcome as of unwelcome realities.
Remarks of Emmons on the Essential LDoctrines of Religion. -  Was
he a Catholic divine?  The liberal clergy of New  England bestowed
upon him  peculiar honor, and especially lauded his frankness and his
catholicism.  Other men, however, have condemned him as bigoted and
exclusive.  They have quoted such remarks as the following in illustration of his narrow spirit:
"Those who are ignorant of the essential doctrines of the gospel, cannot give
credible evidence to others that they are real Christians, or subjects of saving grace."
"No man was a more bitter and open enemy to the essential doctrines of the
gospel than Mr. Wesley. This I assert not from hearsay, but from his own words
which he published and I have read. Yet he was esteemed by multitudes as a most
eminently devout and pious Christian."
In citing passages like these, men forget that he elsewhere explains
them by concessions like the following:
"'Though some Christians complain of some of the conditions of salvation, yet
they virtually approve of them, in asking for mercy in a proper manner, and we may
charitably hope that some in these [Arminian, Antinomian, Unitarian, and Universalist] denominations do not understandingly believe their own schemes, nor understandingly disbelieve the disinterested doctrines of the gospel."




304                            MEMOIR.
An Installation Sermon of Emmons on Hebrews 13: 9, has been
vehemently condemned as illiberal, by men who do not recognize his
tendency to use nervous phrases that sharpen  a particular point of
doctrine while they do not illumine certain other points. The preacher
to be installed was a forceful man, and one of rare promise. But he
was suspected by Emmons of having certain erratic tendencies in speculation. The suspicions were subsequently verified. The powerful man
became at last a Swedenborgian.  With his far-reaching forecast, and
his timely discrimination, Emmons took for his text the words: " Be not
carried about with divers and strange doctrines: for it is a good thing
that the heart be established with grace." His soul was aglow with the
importance of an established faith, that would stand unshaken when the
floods came. The following is a sketch of the sermon:
Having enumerated as the essential principles of this faith, the doctrines of moral
depravity, regeneration, saints' perseverance, the atonement, the Trinity, election, and
decrees, Emmons remarks: Good men not only may be, but must be, " established
in these doctrines." "All Christians —not only think but know experimentally and
certainly that the essential doctrines of the gospel are true, and this knowledge must
establish them in the truth. When men know any thing to be true, they cannot
divest themselves of that knowledge at their pleasure, but are morally obliged to
retain it." - "All the subjects of grace see and feel that their eternal interests are
suspended upon their believing and loving the essential doctrines of the gospel; and
therefore, they can no more be moved to disbelieve, deny, and give up these doctrines,
than they can be moved to give up the salvation of their souls." Such words as these
appear to imply, that whoever is truly regenerate must believe the seven doctrines
which have been specified as absolutely essential to the gospel, and that whoever does
not believe these seven doctrines cannot be saved. Yet this odious tenet is not
fairly attributable to the preacher. For he expressly affirms in the discourse:
" Some doctrines may be called essential, because they constitute the essence of the
gospel, and are necessary to its very existence; and some may be called essential,
because they must be believed and embraced, in order to salvation."
Emmons also affirms, that the seven truths which he specifies in the sermon are
essential in the former sense, and may not be in the latter. He adds: " Though all
these doctrines are equally fundamental to the Gospel, yet they may not all be
equally essential to salvation. For many persons may not understand all these
doctrines, nor discern their inseparable connection,l but yet may understand, believe,
and love some of them, while they are ignorant of others; and this ignorance may
be consistent with their final salvation. It is not, however, to my present purpose
to say what doctrines a man must believe in order to be saved, but only to point out
what are fundamental to the gospel, and necessary to its very existence."
The real idea, then, of this misapprehended sermon is: "Every
1 When this intense writer says, in another discourse (Works, Vol. II. p. 402): "It
is absolutely necessary to approve of the doctrine of reprobation, in order to be
saved," he does not plainly announce, although he doubtless means to recognize,
the condition, that the doctrine is fully understood in itself and in its adjuncts.




MEM   IR.                          305
good man, so far forth as he is enlightened by the Holy Ghost, believes
the seven doctrines here enumerated: it is the normal tendency of true
religion to induce this faith in them; they must be lovingly received in
the complete, if not in the inchoate development of the divine life; the
want of belief in them is a concomitant, a cause, and an effect of a proportionate want of piety; a full belief in them  is eminently congenial
with a full-grown virtue, while there may be real goodness in the soul
that cherishes one of them and is too imperfect to discern the truth of
the others.
If the intent of Dr. Emmons had been, in this discourse, to make his
utterances quadrate with Christian catholicism, he would have multiplied
definitive classes; he would have thrown in the checks and balances.
But his aim was to make a strong impression on a strong man; to
put an intelligent people on their guard against any possible aberration
of their energetic pastor.  He did not stop to tythe mint, anise, and
cummin. He was sedulous to cut up the very roots of a stout error,
and he could not stay his broad axe just then, to split a hair. His
decisive words made the desired impress on his auditory. They did not
stir up the parish to suspect the new minister, but they were remembered;
and when the Swedenborgian mysticism had begun to infect the shepherd, these words were a cordon of fire around the flock, and saved them
from  the contagion. That minister who wore the three-cornered hat
understood better than he has been supposed to understand, that no
captain ever gained a battle by merely the delicate scales for weighing
powder; that no fortress was ever exploded by the simple niceties of
calculation with regard to the thickness of a bomb-shell. "Boldness,"
said Napoleon, "is often wisdom."  General Jackson once made the
rash remark, that " there is policy in rashness."
Emmons's distinction between the FUNDAMENTAL and the less ESSENTIAL Doctrines of the Gospel.-His attachment to all the truths of
theology was so intense, that he was disposed to exalt every one of them
when it was in his immediate view. As long as he looked at it, he saw
no end of its value. Thus, when he speaks of the Trinity, he makes an
impression on his cursory readers, that this doctrine is the fundamental
one of the Gospel. When he speaks of our Total, or of our Native
Depravity, he makes us believe, for the time, that this truth is the very
basis of the evangelical system. When he speaks of the Divine Decrees, he is so enamoured of the doctrine, that he seems to regard it as
the foundation of nearly all others. When he speaks of certain ethical
principles, he appears to regard each of them as the corner-stone of the
AA *




306                          MEMOIR.
edifice, which without them becomes a heap of rubbish. His expressions
with regard to all these truths are plain, as signs of his hearty love to
them.
But the superficial reader will have it, that they are plain in only one
respect; they involve a plain contradiction. Emmons, however, is too rapid
for his critics.  He implies more than they perceive.  He assumes what
they have not had time to grant.  He tacitly but not plainly intimates,
that in its subjective relations to the atonement the doctrine of our native
depravity is more fundamental than any other; but in its objective relations to the atonement, the doctrine of the Trinity is more fundamental
than any other.  Here is no contradiction.  Here is a deep truth.
Again, Emmons has so clear an insight of the logical relation between
different articles of faith, that he first represents various truths as depending on a certain one, and afterward he represents that one truth as depending on each of the others. Each is a fundamental doctrine; and in a
particular juxtaposition each is the fundamental doctrine.  A  hexagon
may rest upon either of its six sides.  Penetrated with a conviction, that
the truth which he may be now considering is essential to the integrity
of the system, he speaks as if this single truth were the deepest groundwork of the system, and he does not stop to inquire whether he is not
multiplying foundations until he will leave nothing for a superstructure.
He has been condemned for distinguishing too many doctrines as the
basis of the gospel. He specifies here seven, and there nine, of these doctrines as thus fundamental.' But his critics forget that he regards one of
the essential doctrines as involving the others, and therefore he intimates,
more sagaciously than perspicuously, that this one doctrine, if contrasted
with others which differfrom it in importance, is superior to them.  He
has been condemned for extravagance in exalting the metaphysical tenets
of Calvinism into the rank of primary truths.  But is he extravagant in
thus upraising the doctrine of decrees, after he has represented it as
comprehending the prophecies, the atonement, the regeneration, sanctification, final perseverance, and salvation of the elect, the eternal punishment of the wicked, the whole government, and even the entire character
of Jehovah? 2
Still again, this rapid thinker, more certainly than plainly, preserves
a distinction between a higher and a lower sense of the word, foundation;
also between a more obvious and a more hidden importance.  Thus he
affirms of the Trinity: "The gospel is so absolutely and obviously founded
on" it, "that whoever denies this great and fundamental truth, must,' See pp. 294, 304, above.
2 Works, II. pp. 335-340.




MEM OIR.                             307
in order to be consistent, deny all the peculiarities which distinguish
revealed from  natural religion."   "This doctrine is a fundamental
doctrine of the gospel, in the highest sense offundamental." 1
Once more, Emmons distinguishes, justly rather than clearly, between a
fundamental doctrine and a central doctrine.  The Atonement has the
Trinity for its objective foundation, and the Native Depravity of man for
its subjective foundation, but the Atonement is raised above these truths,
and is at the same time the basis of other truths, so that we may fitly call
it central. The ardent theologian has been reproached by men who misunderstand him, for not giving sufficient prominence to the atonement;
but he declares over and over and over, that Jehovah " gives the brightest
display of his goodness as well as of his power and wisdom, in the work
of redemption;" that ministers ought "to make Christ the primary
subject," "the main subject of their preaching;" that "the doctrine of
atonement is the most essential and peculiar principle of Christianity,"
for all other principles centre in it. The doctrines of Native and Total
Depravity are prized as the ground stones on which the atonement rests.
But the edifice is costlier than the stones which underlie it.  The doctrine of justification by faith, is the tower which rises above, and forms
the crown of, the atonement.  The central truth of the Gospel is sustained by some, and it sustains other, truths.
In these and various other ways, may Emmons be acquitted from the
charge of contradicting himself; but his acquittal is purchased at the
expense of an immaculate reputation for perspicuity.  IHe is one of the
great men who have been dishonored through their very fame.  His
fame has been that of a clear, rather than that of an earnest writer.
But his love of truth was as. intense, as his perception of it was vivid.
His spirit was so fervid, that his phrases are often too brief. Semper
festinat ad eventum.  The Princeton Review has caught a glimpse of
this peculiarity in Emmons.  It affirms: 2  "His intrepidity in the assertion of the most startling and odious of his dogmas is perhaps the grand
secret of his strength; he saves time by it; he saves the multiplied explanations and ambrages of the New Haven School."  These words of
the Reviewer are like those of Dr. Emmons, in one respect.  They are
decisive.  They are ardent.  They save time.  In asserting one truth,
they may leave one wrong impression.
Having made these criticisms on the perspicuity of the Franklin
preacher, let us proceed to a new theme.
1 Works, II. pp. 143, 153.
2 Vol. XIV. p. 532.




308                         MEMOIR.
6.- EMMONS WAS A POINTED PREACHER.
To preach plainly often means to preach pointedly.  The natural
frankness of Emmons aided him in making his discourses pertinent to the
condition of individuals.  He says more than once, that the preacher
" who means to penetrate and impress the minds of his hearers, will be
very particular in the application of his discourses."  In characterizing
certain pulpit orators lie has remarked, " They make the truth shine, but
do not make it pinch."  One of his most noted sermons was from the
text, " The words of the wise are as goads."  "The preacher is aiming
at me," was a very common exclamation of his auditors.  He would
have been a more popular divine, if he had discoursed about generic sin,
but he punctured men with the charge of their own personal sin.
Hearers would have been more amused with him, if he had talked on
their transgression committed six thousand years ago; but he would not
thus divert them from their present individual transgression.  He would
have smoothed the edge of his appeals if he had spoken of sin as a
passive state, as a mere liability, as something imputed, not actual; but
when he said sin, he meant Sin, that horrible act for which every one of
his hearers was then deserving of everlasting death.  He did not trifle
with abstractions.  He did not charm his hearers with grotesque generalizations. He thrust upon them, and into them, the accusation of the
very iniquity which they were committing while he was yet speaking.
It has been often surmised that he discoursed so much on the general
doctrines of revelation, as to render it needful for him to glide over the
practical details of life. But his sermons are not monotonous treatises
on a few abstract dogmas.  They are diversified with commendations of
all the virtues, and sharp censures of all the vices. They not only
specify the common offences against moral law, but they pointedly
condemn, under their own names, lotteries, card-playing, dancing, tavernhaunting, fondness for dress, eagerness to obtain clothing manufactured
in foreign lands, straggling over the road or fields on the Sabbath day.
Was he a "mere metaphysician," a theological abstraction?  "What
mean," he asks from the pulpit, " what mean the prancing of horses, the
rattle of carriages, the passing and repassing of travellers before and
after public worship?  What mean the circles round the house of God
after public services are ended?"  His maxim  was: " Christ never
drew a bow at a venture, but always directed the arrows of truth to the
hearts of his hearers."  There was doubtless a fluttering among his
auditors, when Emmons remarked from his pulpit: " Prodigality reigns
among us in every form, and in every place, covering the heads of rich
and poor with the feathers of folly and pride."  " The youth in this place




MEMOIR.                             309
are not so much governed in their fashions by the example of other
places, as by the example of afew in this. If thisfew therefore would
set a good example in this respect, they would easily bring into discredit
and disuse many superfluities and fopperies of dress, -which begin to
increase and prevail."
The dexterity with which Emmons applies his great doctrines to the
minute affairs of life, is often surprising. Does a juggler and fortuneteller straggle into the neighborhood of Franklin?  The parishioners
have a sermon which points out the distinction between decree and fate,
also between the secret and the revealed will of God; proves that the
divine purposes are not a rule for our duty, and are not in conflict with
the divine law; aims to solve the apparent contradiction between the
decree that insures the certainty of sinning and the command that forbids
the act of sinning, also between the predestined certainty and the entire
freeness of the act; and in the midst of all these high discussions the
"Inference" comes: "If God's secret will respects the taking place of
future events, then all uninspired men who pretend to reveal God's secret
will, or to foretell future events, are guilty of both folly and falsehood."
They " ought to be avoided, despised, and condemned."  The first three
sentences of this recondite sermon, illustrate the aptness of Emmons in
exciting the curiosity of his hearers.  The young men whom the strolling fortune-teller would entice from their field labors, were led to anticipate some "Improvement" from these opening words: -" It is a mark
of the moral depravity of mankind, that they are generally more inquisitive
to know their fortune, than to know their duty. They are much more
solicitous to know what God intends, than what he requires.  He has
told them their duty, which they do not desire to know; but he has not
told them their fortune, which they are fond of being told."
7. -HE DEVELOPED THE HARMONY OF DOCTRINE.
"I have spent the greater part of my time in making joints."  Unless
we remember this remark of Emmons, we shall derive a false idea from
some of the preceding Sections. Perhaps he was more distinguished for
his aptness in unfolding the connection of truths, than for his daring in
the utterance of pointed words.  One of his discourses would startle the
whole town, and bring out a large audience to hear another discourse, that
should be the correlative and counterpart of the first. The second sermon
would be equally bold and positive, and would arouse the curiosity of his
hearers to understand how two trains of thought apparently so dissimilar,
could be reconciled with each other. A third sermon would unfold the
consistency between truths which before seemed antagonistic. The three




310                          M E MOI R.
discourses, all equally novel, would excite and retain for three weeks the
deep interest of his parishioners, who would then be directed, in a similar method, to three other trains of thought, equally distinct and equally
stimulating.  Some preachers, he remarks, "not only contradict in one
discourse, what they have said in another, but they say and unsay, assert
and deny the same things in the same discourse."l  He has been blamed
for holding up one doctrine so high that it seemed to conflict with another
doctrine, which had previously been raised into bold relief. But he was
careful to reconcile in a distinct sermon, the statements which had appeared successively prominent, and mutually antagonistic.  The following is the substance of a colloquy which he conducted twice at least,
perhaps oftener, with more than one inquisitive parishioner:
" Mr. Emmons, did you not contradict yourself in your last discourse?"
" Contradict myself, how? where?"
"' Did you not say that a, b, c, was true  "' Yes; and did I contradict it?"
" Why, sir, you said in a previous sermon that " 
Ah, you mean, do you, that in my last sermon I contradicted what I had said in
my sermon before the last?"
" Yes, sir, that is what I mean."
" You do not mean, then, that I contradicted myself in one and the same discourse "
"No, sir."
"' Oh, that is a different thing. Come to meeting next Sabbath."
And the next Sabbath would develop the harmony which the careful
preacher deemed it unmeet to unfold in the private colloquy. Thus did
he quicken the interest of his auditors in the relation of truths to each
other.  His habitual aim was, to excite among his people a thirst for
knowledge.  He reiterated his maxim, "A  desire to learn divine truth
always accompanies a good capacity and a good heart."
This development of the connection between doctrines each of which
had been presented in a vigorous and positive style, gave to the Franklin
preacher a popularity among those who knew him, which he did not
possess among strangers.  Hearing him  occasionally, the strangers were
sometimes repelled by his bold, stern Calvinism. Hearing him regularly,
and revering his mental and moral worth, his friends were stimulated to
look out for some future reconciliation of apparent paradoxes.  Sparks
of light would come from the conflicting statements. Professor Pond, of
Bangor, writes: " Emmons was one of those preachers respecting whom
no one could be indifferent.  His friends greatly loved and honored him,
and his enemies as intensely disliked him. There was scarcely a congre1 See Dr. Balch's remark, p. 194, above.




MEMOIR.                                  311
gation within the circle of his exchanges, in which there were not some
two or three who would take their hats and make for the door, as soon
as they saw him enter the house. Still, the house, as a general thing,
was fuller than ordinary, when it was known beforehand that he was to
preach."
8. -THE ORIGINALITY AND INGENUITY OF EMMONS.
"I fully agree with the remark made to me some years since by Dr. [Lyman]
Beecher, that no man in our country has thought more on the subject of theology than
Dr. Emmons." - Letter of Rev. Joel Hawes, D. D.
"The man cannot be named whom Emmons followed, either in doctrine, or style,
or manner. He was himself, in every respect, and nobody else."- Dr. Ide.
As the Franklin recluse did his own thinking, he was original even
when he does not appear so.  He is an independent witness for the Bible.
His ingenuity was involved in his originality. It is conspicuous in such
sermons as "The Excuse of Sinners their Condemnation," and in minor
reasoning processes like the following:
Prayer has an actual, positive influence in persuading the Deity to grant afavor. - " If
prayers did not really operate as means in procuring divine favors, then it would be
as proper to pray for divine blessings after they are granted, as before. But this we all
know to be absurd. Suppose a good man hears that his friend at a distance is dangerously sick; it is certainly proper that he should pray for his life. But supposing
he is credibly informed, a few weeks after, that his friend is entirely restored to health;
it is certainly improper that he should continue to pray for the removal of his sickness.
The reason is, while his friend was sick, his prayers might be the means of procuring
his recovery; but after that event had actually taken place, his prayers could no longer
operate as means of bringing it to pass. Hence it appears, that the immutability of
the divine purposes, instead of destroying, actually establishes, the necessity and prevalence of prayer."
It is wrong to punish men for the sins of their progenitor.-" We know it is not right
that a present generation should be punished for the sins of a future generation.
What possible guilt can the present generation derive from a future generation? Suppose God now knows all the sins that the next generation after this shall commit;
and suppose he now knows that their sins will. be enormously great; and suppose
they shall surpass in number and guilt, the sins of all former generations; can this
knowledge of the next generation justify God in punishing us for their sins? How can
God justly punish us for the sins of a generation that are gone from the stage of life,
any more than he can justly punish us for the sins of a generation that have not yet
come upon the stage of life  "
The final separation of the wicked from the righteous does not prove that God is a respecter
of persons. -" It is said,'If God should save some of mankind and finally punish
others, then he would be a respecter of persons.' To this it is sufficient to reply, that




312                             MEMOIR.
divine inspiration assures us that God's rewarding the righteous and punishing the
wicked, is the very thing which demonstrates him to be no respecter of persons.' But
if ye call on the Father, who, without respect of persons judgeth according to every
man's work, pass the time of your sojourning here in fear.' 1 Pet. 1: 17.....'But
he that doeth wrong, shall receive for the wrong which he hath done; and there is no
respect of persons.' Coloss. 3: 23-25. And the apostle tells the finally impenitent sinner, that' God will render to every man according to his deeds,'....'For there is
no respect of persons with God.' Rom. 2: 6-11."
All believers in the Bible must believe in Universal Salvation, or else in Total Depravity. -
Some Universalists "deny, that there is any essential distinction between saints and
sinners in this life. They hold, that all men are partly bad and partly good, and that
none are totally depraved. If they can prove this, it is granted, that they can fairly
infer from it that all men will be saved. For the gospel does certainly promise eternal
life to all who truly love God, repent of sin, and believe in Christ, or have the least
degree of saving grace."
9.-HIS CHILDLIKE STATEMENTS.
The ingenuity of Emmons has been commended so often, that many
regard him  as a mere intellectual gymnast.  In  order to catch the
ear of children, he never, like John Wesley, composed an entire discourse in words of one syllable.  He is one of the last men who would
be called a " Children's Preacher."  He aimed, however, to give " their
portion in due season," to the young as well as the old. Regarding
him  as a mere dry metaphysician, his readers smile at some of his
sentences, and pronounce them more juvenile than philosophical. But
such readers forget, that these sentences were written for the purpose of
bringing down high truths to the comprehension of the youngest listeners.
The second sentence of his sermon on the Primitive Rectitude of Adam,
is: " No parent, perhaps, has ever been treated with so little propriety
and respect, as Adam."  Would not every small ploughboy " prick up
his predestinating ears," when he was startled with this homelike item of
history?  He would soon find himself in the midst of a discussion on the
power of one being, to create the holiness of another. In order to prove
that conscience is a distinct faculty of the mind, Emmons remarks that
" conscience is seated in the breast."  " It is here [in the breast that] we
feel pleasure or pain whenever we are approved or condemned by conscience. But when we freely employ the powers of perception, reason,
and memory, we find it is the head, which is either agreeably or disagreeably  affected."  This argument provokes a derisive laugh  from
critics, who do not consider that the substance of the argument is manly,
while only the form of it is childlike; and this simple form was chosen
because it was most fitted to interest the ploughboy and the dairy maid,




MEM I 0   R.                             313
who were stimulated to intellectual researches by such kindly accommodations to their need. This very argument once arrested the attention of
a boy only twelve years old, aroused his enthusiasm in the study of Mental Science, and made on him  a life-long impression  that the Moral
Faculty is the most peculiar, the most energetic, and the most authoritative of all the soul's powers.
Hundreds of artless, nursery phrases like the following, are specimens
of his condescension to children:
"The greatest travellers and navigators, for the time being, are not half so well acquainted with the world and the inhabitants of the world, as the angels are, who are
very numerous, very intelligent, and very attentive observers of all that they see and
hear while traversing Europe, Asia, Africa, and America. Though every individual
angel may not take the circuit of the whole world, yet some or other of them are continually making their excursions through all the nations and regions of the earth. -
They must visit all the cities, all the courts, all the armies, and all the navies in the
four quarters of the globe, and all other places and persons."
"Many, if not all, of the angels in heaven, have actually been in this world, at different times and on different occasions; and there is no time when they are all absent
from this place of their destination."
" They have understood the origin, nature, extent, and consequences of the scheme
of redemption for nearly six thousand years, though it was not so early or generally
known in this world."
"The living have sometimes requested the dead, before they left the earth, to break
over this barrier [between the two worlds] and appear to them again; and they have
engaged to do it, if it should be in their power."
"By hearing this, or some other discourse in which Christ condemned the selfrighteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees, Nicodemus, a Pharisee and ruler of the
Jews, was led to desire a private interview with him, for the sake of gaining more light
upon some subject which labored in his mind. This was probably the subject of regeneration, though he did not expressly mention it."
How could Abraham know that God spake to him, as God is said to have spoken
in Genesis 22: 8? "Abraham was under peculiar advantages to know the voice of
God, who had frequently appeared to him and conversed with him before. If this had
been the first time that God had spoken to him, he might not have known his voice.
Samuel did not know the voice of God, the first time he spake to him. But Abraham
was an old prophet. We have an account of God's speaking to him no less than six
times before this."
10.-THE PERTINENCE OF HIS DISCOURSES.
Each of his sermons was fitted to some peculiar exigency of some of his
hearers.  Those who have best known the timeliness of his discourses,
have most admired his skill in adapting them  to their specific end.  Not
in all, but in many respects, his style is singularly pertinent to his theme.
We fail to notice the appropriateness of his words, because they flow so
easily.  They cannot be fully understood unless they be studied, and
VOL. I.                       BB




314                               MEMOIR.
they  are apparently  too  simple  to  require, or to  reward  a toilsome
investigation. Scores of illustrations like the following may be gleaned
from his discourses:
His Sermon on the Preacher's Aim. - We are somewhat surprised when we hear an
abstract metaphysician declare, that'hearers always feel when the preacher hits them;
and he always hits them when he describes their character.' Why does Emmons
employ this striking phraseology?  His text is: "The words of the wise are as
goads."  The sermon, therefore, must be sharpened with phrases pointed like the
text.  Hence, the title of the sermon is: "The aim of a wise preacher;" and we
are told that the wise preacher "will handle the sword of the Spirit, which is the word
of God, with skill and dexterity, and strike every hearer in the most tender and vulnerable part."  The feelings of the author are so quickened by his theme, that the most
ordinary current of his language is affected by it, and we read such words as these on
almost every page: "penetrate," "impress," "fasten," "clinch," "pierce," "direct,"
"wound," "probe," "soothe,"  "stupefy," "bow," "subdte," "pungency," "spear,"
"nail," "flaw," "surgeon," "force," "bright," "sharp," "keen," "pointed," "defenceless," " searching," " smoother than oil," " naked truth," etc., etc.
His Sermon on Walking with God. - The text is, "And Enoch walked with God,"
etc.  Therefore, the style of the discourse moves onward in phrases like the following: " Those who walk with God view his hand," " saints walk together," "are companions," "come out from the world," "follow  Christ," "walk worthy of their vocation."
" God keeps those who walk with him, in the hollow of his hand," "spreads the wing of
his protection over them;" " they enjoy the light of his countenance," "approach unto
God," "draw nigh to God," "have eyes to see him, ears to hear him."  They are "pilgrims " and "strangers" on the earth, have " waited in the way" of the divine judgments, are comforted by the rod and staff of the shepherd, will enjoy " eternal rest.'
Some "are led astray fiom God," "depart from him, deviate from the path of rectitude,"
"(go back," "walk in darkness."  " God hides his face from those who wander from
him."  " Satan can be made to flee," etc., etc.
His Sermon on Spiritual Darkness.- From the text: "The way of the wicked is as
darkness; they know not at what they stumble," we find a discourse shaded with
words like these: The " wicked walk in darkness," "in crooked paths," are-" insensible
to objects leading to ruin," are "blind  t the moral beauty of God," are "groping at
noonday," have "darkness in the daytime," "grope for the wall," "grope as if they
had no eyes," "have their understandings darkened," "stumble at noonday," "sttumble
over each other," "stumble over their religious duties," "stumble over their own
hearts;"  " no light which men can exhibit will prevent the sinner from stumbling;"
"they run intofalse ways," have not " a gleam of hope," " Satan blinds their minds,"
" leads them blindfold to destruction," " they say, the Lord seeth not," " their way is
dark and slippery," "their body is full of darkness," they have a " selfish eye," "the
universe is clark to them and mysterious," their table is "a snare and trap," "their
path is as the setting sun which withdraws every beam of light from the eye," they " will
close their eyes in everlasting darkness," " in blackness and darkness forever;" "God involves them in total darkness and ruin," gives them "a spirit of slumber; " "they fall,"
" clouds and darkness gather around their path," " they must see Gol's truth; " " the




MEMOIRI.                                   315
Bible points out the way to heaven;" "the light of the body is the eye;" " a good eye
lets in naturcl light, a good heart lets in moral light; " good men "extend their views
into eternity'," " God causes the light to shine out of darkness," " to shine into men's
hearts and give them  the light' of the knowledge of his glory in the face of Jesus
Christ; " " marnallous light," "perfect day." "Look, ye blind, that ye may see;" " bring
forth the blind tht, have eyes," etc., etc.
His Sermon octhe Final Harvest. - This is redolent of the good seed found in the
Parable of the Sowver:   "God's seed time may continue thousands of years," he "will
have a harvest," he' mnst have a time to reap as well as to sow," "his laborers are sowing in hisfield," " hce employs men and angels as laborers in his vineyard, and instruments in his hand," ls " angels guarded the tree of life," " he will reap the fruits of
their labors," " they ae his servants," they " do the work which he gave them to do,"
"he employed Roman;, Grecians, Babylonians, etc., to labor for the coming of Christ;"
" from these worldly laborers he will reap a rich harvest," they, too, will " eat thefruit
of their doings; "- hi will reap the fruits of the labors of Jesus Christ, who "went into
his father's vineyard" and was " a faithful and laborious servant," more so than any
other man who ever" went voluntarily into his father's field; " after finishing his painful labors, Christ wil exhibit the fruits of " them before the eyes of all creatures; " - the
harvest will not come until the end of the world; neither wheat nor tares will be mature
till then; "all will be ripe then;" " God's harvest being fully ripe, he will gather it
in;" his "harvest:ll not be blasted, or injured by any accident;" "after the judgment God will rest t:om  his labors and reap the fruits of his works of creation;" he
"has been laboring rmom  the early days of eternity," "having formed his plan, he
began to labor with h:z. own hand; " he "will reap a rich and plentiful harvest of knowledge; " for " men grew in knowledge as they grow in years," angels have " been growing
in knowledge from the dav,i their creation, but will not come to theirfull growth till
they see all intellige.t creatures collected, and their views, etc., unfolded;" -improvements in knowledge are made under divine cultivation. - God " will reap a harvest of
holiness' as well as knowledge; this will augment the "joy of the harvest," " he might
haye enjoyed rest in contemplating his perfections; he knew how much care and labor
the universe would (ause him," but now " his creatures will enjoy his rich and happy
harvest,"' "his wheat is in, a green and imperfect state, hardly to be distinguished from'fare;  " " all iaellligent beings are trying to ripen it;" " when good men are fully
ripe, tlh7r cain be easily distinguished from  bad men;" " liqht is sowing for the righteous;" -" every one gathereth with God or scattereth;" " Israel is an empty vine
which bringeth forth fruit unto himself."  " Ye have sown much and bring in little,"
etc., etc.
1. — WAS EMMONS CONCISE OR DIFFUrrS, EXACT OR INDEFINITE IN HIS
STYLE?
" A very rare combination of excellences was found in his [Emmons's] sermons -
order, elegance, simplicity, purity, conciseness, clearness, pungency, power. They
seem almost equally adapted to the pulpit and the closet; and, as models, should be
in the hands of every young preacher."
These are the words of Dr. Ralph Emerson, formerly Professor in
the Andover Theological Seminary.  There are opponents of Emmolis,




316                           MEMOIR.
however, who affirm that, instead of being a concise, he is an eminently
diffuse writer. For such antagonistic judgments there must be some
reason.  One reason is, that in different sermons the Franklin preacher,
like every other, reiterates the same idea in different connections, and
reclothes the idea in the same old phrases. Hence comes the impression
that he employs more words than he needs, in enforcing a single truth.
A similar impression is made by the multitudinous speeches of Daniel
Webster.  If the repetitions were omitted, the bulk of these speeches
would be reduced within comparatively narrow lines, yet Webster, while
in one point of view diffuse, is in another point of view admirably concise.  If Emmons had compressed his sermons into one uniform treatise,
they would have gained in compactness, what they would have lost in
adaptation to different men at different times.
The theology taught in the works of Emmons, " so far as it is peculiar to a certain
school, is more precisely and perfectly exhibited [by these works] than by any other
writings; and, so far as it is not peculiar to that school, it is not only defined with
admirable exactness, but defended by the soundest, clearest, and strongest logic."
These are the words of Dr. Thomas H. Skinner, now Professor in the
Union Theological Seminary, New York.  There are opponents of Emmons, however, who affirm that he is indefinite rather than exact in his
phraseology.  They have some ground for their criticism.  In his compression of language, he sometimes crowds into one word, a more expansive meaning than properly belongs to it. He forces so many thoughts
into a single phrase, that it becomes more dense than clear, and it is too
comprehensive to be precise. Thus, in a sermon developing the superiority of men to animals, he desires to teach that we are distinguished
from brutes by our faculties of abstraction and generalization, and of
combining in new forms the ideas which we have abstracted and generalized.  But instead of perplexing the farmers of his parish by enumerating these three powers, he condenses his nomenclature into one word, and
employs the term  " imagination " as designating the three.l  In various
instances Dr. Emmons has sacrificed the exactness, to the close and nervous compression,2 and also to the Biblical forms, of his language.  In
1 Works, Orig. Ed. Vol. VII. pp. 279, 280.
2 " Two directly opposite doctrines cannot both be true, but one must be true and
the other false."  This assertion is correct with regard to those doctrines which Emmons
was considering, but he did not suppose it to be correct with regard to all opposing
statements; as, the two statements that no descendant of Adam has died, and all
descendants of Adam have died, are both false.
" God himself cannot (to speak with reverence) make them [sinners] contented."
The highest, purest kind of contentment he cannot give, but Emmons did not mean
to teach that Omnipotence cannot give to men any kind of contentment.




MEIEMOIR.                               317
the facile currm+,o" his words, however, we are often arrested by the
distinctness a-i  precision of his terminology.  "In what does sin consist?"  This v: the question.  "Sinning:" this was the reply; and
tihis one word is -A-L.emento of his definiteness as well as conciseness.
Many of his ai'-:ms in this Memoir exemplify the same rhetorical
virtues. 
-:2.  WAS IHE A NEAT WRITER 2
"The reader of Ei.   i's sermons is like one passing over an extensive and wellcultivated farm; the,'s are substantial and erect; the fields are verdant, square,
and regular, not tria.; the meadows are separated from the woodlands, and the
pastures from the till'   the mansion house is not lofty, but neat and spacious, and
speaks itself the seat (;alth, but not of dissipation- of happiness, but not of ambition. The prospect-   diversified with hills and valleys, and enriched with springs
and rivulets." - Rev..   tel }Whelpley's Triangle.
Signal injustice.ldone to the Franklin minister by comparing his
style with that of::-:shington Irving and Charles Lamb.  It ought to
be compared with     style of clergymen writing in his own land, and in
his own day.  In  i   omparison, his style is peculiar.  It is eminent for
its freedom from:A    I or declamatory paragraphs; from rough, jagged
phrases; from all''tation of learning or depth, of orthodoxy or originality.  In this co: -ison, it is a chaste, neat style. Slovenly sentences
may be found in!'!3courses; yet where is the author of his time and
condition who coun   -blish more than three hundred sermons, without
revising one quart:f them for the press, and exhibit so few clumsy,
slouching paragraph' -Thus, in his discourse on the " Necessity of Zeal
in maintaining Di-;   Institutions," he has "pointed out the difference
between positive a.  moral duties," in a way which may be called a
model for pure cc   se definition.  Hundreds of his sentences may be
quoted which dropt  d from  his pen without a moment's premeditation,
and yet are what c:' of his parishioners termed "uncommonly clean."
The following are i  en almost at random:
"Partiality consistsj I merely in treating one person differently from another, but
in treating one person differently from another without any reason."
" The highest degree of common grace leaves men unwilling to be saved; but the
lowest degree of special grace makes them willing."
" As the moral laws of God are founded in the nature of things, so they are immutable; but as the positive laws of God are founded in the relation of things, so they
are mutable, and may be abrogated or set aside, when the relation of things requires
it."
"'They went down both into the water, both Philip and the eunuch:'  As the
water, no doubt, lay in a valley, so Philip and the eunuch went down to get to it, and
went up to get from it. But there is nothing in the text, as it stands in the original,
BB *




318                           MEMOIR.
to determine whether either of them went under water. And since we cannot suppose
that Philip did, we must suppose the eunuch did not; for the expressions concerning
both are precisely the same."
" It is love to the objects injured, and not to the objects punished, that dictates the
nature, degree, and duration of their punishment."
13.  THE DRAMATIC ELEMENT IN EMMONS.
His sermons "are all alike; whatever be the subject, there is the same short and
easy exordium, the same statement of the proposition, the same brevity of proof, and
the same disproportionately prolix improvement." - Princeton Review, Vol. XIV.
p. 534.
" No man brings out so large a variety of truths, and all so rich, as Dr. Emmons.
He is without an equal in giving to his hearers, from the beginning to the end of the
year, different parts of doctrinal and practical divinity." - Dr. Samuel Spring, of Newburyport.
These two paragraphs, like the acid and the alkali, can be united in one
glass. There was a monotony of method, and a diversity of matter in the
Franklin pulpit. The monotony of method, however, was more apparent
than real, more on the surface than in the depths of the sermons.  The
discourses are interspersed with biography, as those on Daniel, Samuel,
etc.; with history, as those on the Origin of Man, the Dispersion at Babel,
etc.; with psychology, as those on Conscience, the Superiority of Men to
Animals, etc.; with Ontology, as those on the Being and Attributes of
God; with the Arts, as his discourse on Church Music; with Politics, as
his Fast Day sermons; with metaphysical proof, didactic statement, and
hortatory appeal, —" Are you secure? Awake! Are you alarmed?
Condemn yourselves, and justify God, and accept of mercy! Stand no
longer idle! " This is one of the numerous exhortations which broke up
the flow of the Franklin sermons.
Is there a dramatic element in these discourses? To affirm that there
is, will evoke from some the cry of paradox. But the word paradox is
so often applied to the works of Emmons, that we can listen to it once
more.  The staid metaphysician never introduced the dramatic form into
his chirography.  If some of his paragraphs had been penned or printed
in this form, their dramatic element would have attracted the eye.  The
element is not so obvious in his published, as it was in his spoken discourses; still it can be detected on the unbroken, seemingly monotonous
page.  The logical teacher never descended to buffoonery, or to any histrionic arts that could degrade his ministrations, but he at one time introduces the penitent thief as conversing with his unhumbled comrade:
"My fears are alarmed —and have not you reason to fear as well as
I; " at another time, he introduces Judas and Paul as engaged in earnest colloquy, the former declaring: " Paul, you and I are perfectly agreed,"




rME   OIn.                               319
etc., the latter responding: "I remember the time when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died," etc.; at one time he introduces the
condemned spirit as exclaiming: " Where am I? I am certainly in hell;"
" Oh, that I could forget that world, where I first received my existence,
and drew my breath; " at other times he introduces Jehovah as uttering
familiar words to the children of a day.' In such passages as the following, it was impossible for his auditors to overlook his quick sally and
brisk retort, which are somewhat concealed unless the style of the
printed page be somewhat modified:
I.
Hearers. - "But why do you attempt to alarm our fears by representing sin as a
transgression of the law, and the law as threatening death for every transgression?
We have often heard all this before, and are prepared to hear it again, without any
painful fears and apprehensions."
Preacher. - "But perhaps you are mistaken, as thousands of others have been who
were as stout-hearted as you are now. I will mention one instance. It is that of
Paul. He was a man of as much knowledge, and as much courage and fortitude as
you are. But he tells us, that he could not stand before the requirements and threatenings of the divine law."-" I think I see, what you have often seen, poor guilty
sinners. bowed down, hopeless and helpless, in the utmost anguish and distress,
crying, What must we do to be saved? And I think I see one and another of you,
who are most stout-hearted, sinking down in dismay and despair."
" I ask you: What is the matter? " - [You exclaim]
Hearers. -" We have sinned against God; we have transgressed his law; we
deserve his curse; his dreadful wrath abides upon us; we cannot stand before him;
we fall by our own sin and guilt into the endless torments of hell."
II.
Sinner. - " What shall I do? My case is deplorable and desperately wretched."
Preacher. -" God has often told you so, but you would not believe it. Can you
now believe otherwise    Can you believe that God has no secret will?  Can you
believe that he will not execute his secret will?  Can you believe that your opposition
to his secret will canfrustrate it?  Can you believe that God will give up his secret
will to gratify your unsubmissive will i ".... [You say]
Sinner.- These " are hard sayings. I hope they are not true. I will go to the
Bible, and see if they are to be found there."
Preacher. - "I beseech you to go, and I venture to say that, if you do go, you will
return - converted or - condemned."
14. - EMMONS WAS A BIBLICAL PREACHER.
"A better service, it seems to me, could hardly be done for the younger clergy of
our day, than to engage them to become familiar with the writings of Dr. Emmons;
and private Christians could not read and study them without being edified and
established in the truth."
I See Works, Orig. Ed. I. 322, 323; III. 305; IV. 296, 538, 539, 540; V. 274,
280, 575, 608, 609, 610; VI. 419, 424; VII. 171; etc.




320                         M E MO I R.
Dr. I-lawes, who uttered these words, is no Emmonite in his creed.
How, then, could he recommend to young clergymen and to ordinary
laymen, the perusal of writings which discuss the mysteries of theology
with more freedom and depth than have been allowed, in any other
rural parish than that of Franklin, since the foundation of the world?
The divines in Germany are astonished, when they hear of a congregation of farmers listening to sermons on themes which Leibnitz examined with anxious toil.
One reason, probably, why Dr. Hawes commended these sermons to
plain men is, their Biblical style. They contain so many direct quotations
from the sacred volume, as to attract the reverence of unlettered Christians. One of the sermons is enriched with sixty-nine, another with a
hundred and eighteen, and many others with a nearly equal number of
the inspired verses.  The frequency of his references to the historical
Scriptures is perhaps unprecedented in the American pulpit. Who has
alluded so often as Emmons to Cosbi, Zimri, and Jehonadab?  His
indirect and partial citations from the -inspired word are well nigh numberless. Had their author adopted the plan of some old English divines,
and italicized the Biblical phrases which he borrowed, his chequered
paragraphs would have been unsightly.  The very woof of his style is
from the version of King James. Thousands of his sentences diversified
with no italics or inverted commas, contain tacit references like the
following: The finally impenitent, " reject the counsel of God against
themselves, practically judge themselves unworthy of eternal life, and must
suffer the second death which is the full and proper wages of sin."  He
had read and reperused King James's Bible so often and so carefully,
that its words came to him like nimble servitors, and stood waiting for
his call. Not seldom do we find a phrase charming us by its grace, but
hidden like the Trailing Arbutus among the leaves of a preceding summer;
and as we inspect the phrase more narrowly, we find it a choice but
concealed quotation. Thus, in describing the circuit of good angels over
the earth, and their discovery of the spiritual darkness and drowsiness in
which men lie, this Biblical preacher says: " How, then, must [these
angels] feel while they see the earth sitting still and at rest! " Here is
no parade of familiarity with the prophets, but there is a tacit though
thrilling reference to the poetical words of Zechariah (1: 8-11): "1
saw by night, and behold a man - and he stood among the myrtle trees,
- and they answered the angel of the Lord that stood among the myrtle
trees, and said,' We have walked to and fro through the earth, and behold, all the earth sitteth still and is at rest.'"
Is it said, that Emmons was not an accomplished interpreter of the
Bible? The same may be said of all the American divines who wrote




MEMOIR.                                321
from 1786 until 1810. Is it said that he gives many forced expositions?
Not more than are given by the majority of writers who composed their
theological systems when, or before he prepared his discourses. M3en
have ridiculed the exegesis of Emmons, who have seen nothing ridiculous
in the strained interpretations invented by Turretin and Owen. Besides,
we are to remember that Emmons quoted the Bible, as the writers
of the New Testament quoted from  the Old; and we cannot infer from
his accommodations of the sacred text, that he ascribed to its authors the
meaning which he associated with it.  It is easy to smile at Dr. J. A.
Alexander's translation  of Psalm  107: 32: " Let them  exalt him
[Jehovah] in the congregation of the people, and in the session of the
elders praise him." But it were unfair to regard the author of this version
as intending by it to prove, that the Psalmist was a Presbyterian and an
advocate of the Eldership and Session. So it is unfair to regard Emmons
as believing in the scientific accuracy of all the forceful rhetorical turns
which he gave to the inspired words.  He designed to imitate the
apostles who made their thoughts the more impressive by saying: " That
it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet." Of a Saturday
evening, several young men in his parish were drowned, and only one
member of their party was saved.  With his wonted quickness Emmons
prepared a sermon for the next morning from the text:  "And I only am 
escaped alone to tell thee."  Did he therefore believe that Job referred to
the Franklin casualty? In the same style of vivid accommodation he
says:
"Life itself is paramount to all other earthly favors; for were they all taken away
but that, that alone would overbalance all the losses and bereavements that could
be sustained. Hence the prophet demands,' Wherefore should a living man complain?' "
" Our bodies are called tabernacles in allusion to that in the wilderness; and that
we know was so framed that every joint and socket and pin could be taken apart and
perfectl put together again. Why, then, should it be thought incredible that God should
literally raise the dead at the general resurrection? "
15.-APOTIEGMiS ILLUSTRATING HIS DIDACTIC METHOD.
"The audiences who heard Emmons, have heard more truth, and are better instructed, waiving all peculiar and discriminating points, than those who heard Davies
or Witherspoon; and trusting that time will cure prejudices, and assured that selfishness will soon yield the ground to a benevolence purely disinterested, I frankly declare,
that I would as lief be thought the writer of the sermons of Emmons, as of Watts or
Baxter, Hall or Fuller, Sherlock or Tillotson, Saurin or Claude, Bossuet or Bourdalone."
" A sermon is, or ought to be, a portion of the Gospel of Christ, adapted to the
attention of a public audience. Its style and manner may be compared to the vessels
on which a public feast is served up. Important truth is the food itself. Now, the




322                          MEMOIR.
service of dishes may be of gold, silver, porcelain, or common earthen ware, pewter,
or even wood. Some forty years ago, when the good people of this country used to
eat on wooden trenchers, even a pewter service was thought quite splendid and luxurious. Emmons treats his audience in a handsome service of silver; and if there are
those who can go as high as gold, enriched with diamonds, I am glad. Let it be
remembered, however, that very indifferent food may be served up in gold, and many a
deadly draught has lurked in a golden goblet." - Wlelpley's Triangle.
That the discourses of Emmons are instructive has been so commonly
admitted, that we need not linger in proving it.  We will only illustrate
it by the following apothegms, many of which are also specimens of his
concise, exact, and neat style.
"The breast of every Christian is a field of battle, where sometimes
benevolence and sometimes selfishness gains the victory; but there is no
solid peace till benevolence repels and excludes selfishness."
"The heart of the greatest and best sinner in the world is small, mean,
and contracted, in comparison with the benevolent, enlarged heart of the
least saint on earth."
" Awakened and convinced sinners often imagine that they really seek
and strive to come to Christ; but if this were true there would be no
occasion of the Father's drawing them to Christ."
"It is more eligible to belong to the race of Adam  since his apostacy,
than it was before he apostatized. It is more eligible to live in this
world, bad as it is, than to have lived in it while it was perfectly holy."
"Let Christians be entreated to improve the opportunities they enjoy,
to get and to do good in this world, where there is more good to be done,
and to be gotten and enjoyed, than in any other part of the universe."
" Those who have appeared to have the deepest conviction before they
were converted, have generally appeared to have the most tender conscience, and to be the most afraid of stifling it, or acting against its dictates and remonstrances."  " Good men are much more troubled with
their hearts from day to day, than sinners are with their hearts."
"Men always have just as much virtue as they have self-denial."
Christians have no more right to believe that they are insincere,
without evidence, than they have to believe that they are sincere, without
evidence."
" Those who walk with God are governed by his eye, as dutiful children are governed by the eye of the parent."
"The difference between the law and the gospel, does not lie in their
precepts, but in their promises."
"There is ground to believe that much the largest number of those
who shall be heirs of salvation, have not yet come into existence."




MEM OIR.                            323
"Not one in ten among the learned, and not one in fifty among the
unlearned, properly exercise their private judgment in forming their
religious sentiments."- "It is no less the duty than the right of every
man, to determine for himself what is true and false in theory, and what
is right and wrong in practice."
" If conscience ever discerns that we have submitted to it when it dictated wrong, it will justify our cordial submission, and pronounce it an
act of duty. It is indeed impossible to put a case, in which it would be
right to counteract conscience."   " We must give conscience full liberty
to judge before we act. It always stands ready to judge, and to judge
infallibly right."
"Though an angel never experienced selfishness, yet he knows enough
about it to hate it; and though a sinner never experienced holiness, yet
he knows enough about it to hate it."
" The Bible history is a glass, in which all men may clearly discern
their own moral features, and easily determine what manner of persons
they are."
"It is a common but erroneous opinion, that an effect must have the
same nature with the cause which produces it; and therefore a sinful act
must flow from a sinful principle. But what did the first sinful principle
flow from?"
" The contented person is in just such a situation as he, all things considered, desires to be in."
" The truth is, sometimes one moral duty ought to give way to another
moral duty; sometimes one positive duty ought to give way to another
positive duty; sometimes one positive duty ought to give way to another moral duty, and sometimes one moral duty ought to give way to
another positive duty.  This point cannot be determined by any universal rule, but must be left to the decision of every one's conscience, according to the circumstances of the present time."
" David discovered more true benevolence and virtue in his generosity
to Mephibosheth, the poor, feeble son of Jonathan, than in any of his
most splendid actions in the field of battle."
" Though there may be ignorance without error, yet there cannot be
error without ignorance. - Indeed, learning is often the fruitful source
of ignorance, as well as of knowledge; for the more ideas men collect
by reading, observation, or study, the more ignorant they are, unless they
are able to discern the agreement and disagreement of their ideas, and to
draw just conclusions from them."
"The prospect of success is essential to the existence of zeal.  Fire
may as well live without air, as zeal without hope." - "The fire of zeal,




324                        MEM OIR.
like all other fire, the longer it burns, and the wider it spreads, the more
it attracts every thing around it to feed its flame."
" Reproach as naturally follows poverty and depression, as the shadow
follows the body in motion."
"We have no ground to expect that God will afford us his peculiar
assistance, unless we use all the means in our power to defend ourselves."
" Mankind have never been satisfied with what God has given them,
with what he has denied them, with what he has taken away from them,
and much less with what he has inflicted upon them. The rich have
complained, that he has given them no more. The poor have complained,
that he has given them so little. The prosperous have complained, that
he has often interrupted their prosperity and disappointed their fond
hopes and expectations. And the afflicted have complained, that he has
laid upon them more than they are able to bear."
"False principles are as inconsistent with one another as with truth."
" It is true a man may be a useful member in any society while he is
destitute of vital piety, because he may, from selfish motives, externally
promote the benefit of the society to which he belongs; but he cannot be
a good member in any society, so long as he is destitute of true love to
God and man. Every man will acknowledge that he ought to be a good,
as well as useful member of society; and by acknowledging this he implicitly acknowledges that he ought to love God supremely, and his
neighbor as himself, and become a good man as well as a good member
of society."
" If it be the policy and strength of the vicious to divide the virtuous,
then it is the duty and strength of the virtuous to divide the vicious."
" That all men are equal in either a natural, or moral, or religious
view, is absolutely false."
"The common opinion of the world is generally just. They seldom
form a wrong judgment of those things which come under their own observation and experience. It is hardly conceivable, that they should be
united for ages in any sentiment which is not founded in the truth."
16. —His STARTLING APOTHEGMS.
In reading a sermon of Emmons one feels like a boatman sailing down
a smooth stream by the side of even banks, and when weary of gliding
along the unrippled waters, he is suddenly precipitated over a natural
dam, is whirled about for a time by swift eddies, but soon all is calm
again, and the silent waters move forward toward another unforeseen
cascade. The plan and words of the sermon are so simple, that the
reader is surprised at the bold affirmation breaking through the tranquil




MEMOIR.                            325
style, and at the suddenness with which the author, as if unconscious of
his startling thought, resumes the even tenor of his way. The reader
has listlessly perused a score of gentle sentences, and then springs
abruptly at words like the following:
"Certainly we have just cause to lament the decease of WASHINGTON
THE GREAT. This character of right belongs to him.  Great men have
always been very rare in our world. Not one in a century, not one in
a million of mankind has ever appeared. Though there have been
many shining characters in the various learned professions, yet none of
these, however acute their genius, or however extensive their learning
and information, have deserved to be called great. A profession always
cramps the genius, circumscribes the sphere of action, and stamps a
littleness upon any human character.  A great man is above learning
and every learned profession.  He must be an independent citizen, and
have a full scope for the display of all his mental powers. lie must be
either a statesman or a warrior.  In this capacity he may found, or
rule, or save a nation; and thereby establish a character more durable
than marble, and as lasting as the page of history. In our Washington,
both the statesman and the warrior were united."
" It seems to be the design of Providence to diminish other nations,
and to increase and strengthen ours.  The nations of Europe are
destroying one another by millions year after year." -" One war after
another will probably gather them to the battle of that great day of God
Almighty. Hence there is reason to believe that God is about to transfer
the empire of the world from Europe to America, where he has planted
his peculiar people." - Other nations " may be the occasion and we the
cause of enlarging, purifying, and adorning the Christian church."
The mode of baptism  was not designed to signify the mode of the
Spirit's operation; but, even if it were, "we must conclude that sprinkling is the scriptural mode of baptism.  For sprinkling much more
resembles the mode of the Spirit's descent and influence upon the minds
of men, than plunging.  The Psalmist, speaking of the descent of the
Spirit, says:' He shall come down like rain upon the mown grass; as
showers that water the earth.' God says:'I will be as the dew unto
Israel.' And again he says to the same people:'Then will I sprinkle
clean water upon you.'"
"Ten thousand times more has been said against God, in our rebellious world, than against any other being in the universe."
"The men of this world form the only ignorant and stupid part of the
intelligent creation."
VOL. I.                   CC




326                         MEMrOIR.
"The day of grace which sinners now enjoy is the most important
part of their whole existence."
" We are in a more solemn and interesting situation, than any other
intelligent creatures in any other part of the universe, because we have
more to gain or to lose than they, in the space of a very few years, or
a very few days."
"Christians are the most inconsistent persons in the world."
"There are only a few, that ever do good; and none, that always do
good."
"The certainty of a man's being saved is consistent with the danger
of his being lost."
"You are no better than your heart is, for your heart is yourself.
Your heart is no worse than you are; for you, as a moral agent, are
your heart."
" Those who built the ark were instrumental of saving the whole world
from utter ruin; but we have no reason to think that any one of them
had the least regard to the glory of God and the good of mankind."
"If Satan were placed in the same situation in which sinners are now
placed, he would appear as good as they. Or, if they were placed in the
same situation in which he is now placed, they would appear as bad as
he."
" Common Christians may now know much more about Christ, heaven,
and hell, than even the prophets and most eminent saints knew, before
the gospel day."
"Though the neglect of moral duties is a greater reproach to professors
of religion than the neglect of positive duties, yet the strict performance
of positive duties is a greater honor to their religion than the observance
of moral duties."
"Though ignorance may be the mother of devotion, it cannot be the
mother of piety."
" Every son and daughter of Adam  has had a heart that would, if
possible, destroy its Creator. On the cross, as in a mirror, we may see
our natural malignity and mortal enmity, and the natural malignity and
mortal enmity of all mankind against our rightful Lord and Sovereign."
"If Christians had neglected to attend and maintain this sacred ordinance [the Lord's supper] for more than eighteen hundred years past,
we have no reason to think that we should ever have heard of the person
and death of Christ, or the religion which he taught."
"Christ has chosen his friends from before the foundation of the world.
lie has thus commemorated them. Why, then, should they not commemorate him and his death?"




M EMOIR.                           327
If those who die go immediately to the dead, then every instance of
mortality may be as affecting to the inhabitants of the other world, as to
those in this."
17.-His HOMILETIC APOTHEGMS.
Perhaps the most vivid idea may be formed of Dr. Emmons as a
preacher, by considering the homiletic principles which he was wont to
enforce upon his pupils and young clerical friends. The following are
specimens of them:
Let your sermon, like a sugar loaf, begin at a point, and widen and
expand to the end."
"First address the understanding, secondly the conscience, and lastly
the passions of your hearers."
" Endeavor to leave the subject of your discourse on the minds of your
hearers, rather than a few striking sentiments or expressions."
"Take care, in delivery, to stand behind and not before your subject."
"Preach upon your subject, and not about it."' In composing, it is much less difficult to find out what to say, than
what to leave unsaid."
We ought to judge ministers not only by what they do say, but by
what they do not say."
To a young preacher he said, "Never try to do what you know you
cannot do; never try to bewhat you know you cannot be; but try to
preach better and better every Sabbath, which you can do."
" Let your eloquence flow from your heart to your hands, and never
attempt to force it the other way."
Being asked, C' What is the secret of popular preaching?" he replied, "To preach without meddling with your hearers' consciences;"
and again, "Preach with animation enough to produce a great excitement of the natural sympathies, which will make persons think they have
some native goodness;" and still again, " Let your sermons be without
beginning, middle, or end."' Every thing that captivates will at length disgust; therefore popularity cannot live."
" It is a great pity that certain men who can preach so well, do not
preach better."
On being asked what was the most important requisite for a preacher,
he replied, "That he be established in first principles.  If he be not, he
will continually contradict himself. The most important requisites for an
extemporaneous preacher are ignorance, impudence, and presumption.
It is a great blessing to be able to talk half an hour about nothing. The
b- W NVJ-LL~LVWVLII~  ~ ill  l~11 ~lIIM~i lUI1V0lll




328                           MEMOIR.
great body of extemporaneous preachers are pro tempore preachers. It
is easy, very easy, to preach, but very hard to preach well. I have
often wondered at myself, that I ever agreed to preach two sermons
a week.  It makes me shudder at times to think that I ever dared to do
it.  No other profession demands half so much mental labor as ours."
" In writing sermons, always have a plan, and let every sentence help
accomplish that plan.  Let your sermons and your prayers have a
beginning, middle, and  end.  Keep  your best and most important
thought till the last. The close of a sermon should be like the approach
of a ship to the wharf, with all sails standing."
"For attaining perspicuity and precision of style, first consider what
you wish to say, and then how to say it."
[In conversation he often modified this rule, and gave it in a form
which is itself worth a volume of rhetoric: " First, find out what you
wish to say; secondly, say it."]
" Style is only the frame to hold our thoughts.  It is like the sash of a
window; a heavy sash will obscure the light. The object is to have as
little sash as will hold the lights, that we may not think of the frame,
but have the most light."
" So construct your sentences as to bring out your principal meaning
as early as possible; this will secure brevity and perspicuity; it relieves
the minds of hearers or readers, and facilitates the entrance of ideas." 1
If you desire to be popular, do not explain your terms.  Preach about
total depravity, regeneration, etc., and leave your hearers to understand
your language in their own sense, which they will all approve. They
will praise you for saying a great many very good things.
" It is the proper business of an ambassador, who is appointed to negotiate a treaty of peace between two contending parties, to bring the
controversy to a crisis; and as soon as he has fairly stated the ultimatum
of his commission, mutual reconciliation immediately commences, or open
war is proclaimed.  Just so, it is the design of the faithful ambassadors
of Christ, to deliver the terms of reconciliation, which God has proposed
in the gospel, so plainly, so fully, and so impressively, as to bring the
controversy between him and his disaffected subjects to a crisis, and produce either peace or war.  Those ministers who preach the gospel
plainly, fully, and faithfully, do not usually leave their people as they
find them, from Sabbath to Sabbath. They either conciliate, or alienate
1 This rule is as different from the following aphorism of John Foster, as the
preacher of Franklin is unlike the British essayist: "Burke's sentences are pointed
at the end, - instinct with pungent sense to the last syllable. They are like a charioteer's whip, which has not only a long and effective lash, but cracks, and inflicts a
still smarter sensation at the end. They are like some serpents of which I have heard
it vulgarly said, their life is fiercest in the tail."- Foster's Life and Correspondence.
Vol. I. p. 178, London.




MEMOIR.                             329
the affections of their hearers towards their offended and  injured
Sovereign."
" It is not enough for the professed ministers of Christ and successors
of the apostles, to preach merely about the gospel, and about its leading
sentiments, and only inculcate some of its moral duties; they ought to
spend more time, and take more care to preach the pure gospel itself, and
make men understand it, in its true import and extensive meaning."
"Be short in all religious exercises.  Better leave the people longing
than loathing."
" There are no conversions after the hour is out."
" He who preaches less than half an hour, had better never have gone
into the pulpit; he who preaches more, had better never have come out
of it."
" Hearers will always give you their attention, if you give them any
thing to attend to."
The apostles " always preached boldly, though not always successfully;
but yet their success is not unfrequently ascribed to their boldness."
"' Those who attempt to preach the gospel without its threatenings, do
not preach the whole gospel, nor half the gospel, nor any part of the gospel, but that which is subversive of the whole gospel."
"The divine may walk with historians, metaphysicians, and philosophers, as far as they go, and then pass on to regions beyond the circle of
their acquaintance."
18. —EFFECT or HIS DISCOURSES.
Men who have been the most familiar with the Franklin pulpit, have
written the most glowing descriptions of its power. Dr. Ide informs us,
that whether the auditors of Emmons " believed or disbelieved, liked or
disliked what he said, they could not help hearing him; and, generally
speaking, the interest excited was equal to the attention."  "Every eye
would be upon him," " the stillness of the grave would pervade the assembly;" "emotions of high gratification and delight would be seen upon
the countenances of some, while conviction, alarm, opposition, solemnity,
and all sorts of feelings, would often be indicated by the looks of others."
The reports are numberless of the effect produced on particular individuals, by the words, as goads, of this pertinent sermonizer.  Some of
these rumors are too amazing to be narrated here, without more vouchers
for their authenticity than we have space to accommodate. One of the
tamer and ordinary traditions is, that a strong-minded young man, a ringleader in the irreligious plots of the community, was struck down as if an
electric shock had prostrated him, and was prevented from executing one
CC *




330                            MEMOIR.
of his mischievous schemes, by the tone in which Emmons repeated, and
by the pointed comments with which he accompanied the words: " Then
Saul (who also is called Paul) filled with the Holy Ghost, set his eyes
upon him, and said, O full of all subtilty and all mischief, thou -CHILD
OF THE DEVIL, thou enemy of all righteousness; — wilt thou not cease
to pervert the right ways of the Lord?"  This quotation is found in
Emmons's Works, Vol. II. p. 725.  There are internal signs that his
lightning-like comments may have been made extempore in that paragraph.
The electric spirit of them has vanished from the words as they appear
in type.  We can imagine what we do not distinctly see.  We are reminded of the language uttered by the younger Pitt: I have heard of
the marvellous eloquence of my father; I believe in it; but I could never
find it in his printed speeches.
There are numerous testimonies from eminent critics, ratifying the
common traditions of Emmons's power in the pulpit.  The following are
specimens:
When the modest preacher had passed his threescore years and ten, he was journeying through New Haven, Conn., and he concluded to tarry there a few hours. He
had no thought of being invited to preach at mid-day in that Athenian city; but being
urged, he consented to allow the church bell to be rung, and verbal notice to be circulated as rapidly as possible, that he would deliver a discourse. Professor Kingsley
heard him with great admiration, and said:
" After Emmons had announced his subject [the'Foreknowledge of God'], some of
t he harers rose and left the house; not caring to hear a metaphysical disquisition
from an old man, who held his manuscript before his face, and read it in a low monotone. The more intelligent auditors, however, remained; and as they saw one truth
educed from another, they became curious to see the whole thread unravelled; and
many leaned forward in their pews eager to catch every intonation of his still small
voice. It was the eloquence of reason. It was true, intellectual eloquence, compared
with which all florid declamation is contemptible."
A late Professor in one of our Theological Seminaries, has said:
" I passed a Sabbath in Franklin, partly for the purpose of hearing Dr. Emmons in
his own pulpit. He took for his text:' Samuel hewed Agag in pieces before the
Lord,' and educed from it the proposition,'Men are more merciful to their enemies
than God is to his.' From the beginning to the end of his two discourses on this
theme, the whole congregation were increasingly intent; first, to see what doctrine
would come from such a text, for all knew that some doctrine would come, of course;
then, after the thrill occasioned by so startling a paradox, to see how the preacher
would solve the enigma and unfold the truths it enveloped; and finally, to imbibe the
rich treasures of practical wisdom which were successively introduced and solemnly
enforced in what was called the Improvement. I was abundantly rewarded for my
Sabbath day's sojourn in that quiet town. I felt an emotion of the moral sublime,
when I saw one old man after another, who had grown gray under the patriarch's




MEMOIR.                              331
ministrations, bending forward in breathless silence, rising at length from their seats,
and gazing with eagerness to catch every word that fell from the lips of their teacher.
The several parts of the discourses were kept so distinct, were arranged with so much
skill, and announced in so uncompromising a style, that curiosity was kept on the
alert, to see what would come next; and we all looked forward with growing interest
for the catastrophe of the whole plan."
~ 2. -Emmons as a Pastor.
One of the most eloquent divines in this or in any land, has
remarked:' I have derived more accurate ideas of theology
from  Emmons's sermons, than from  any uninspired writings;
yet I regard his funeral sermons as his best."  Another has
said: "As a preacher, I regard Emmons as instructive, yet he
gives me the wisest lessons, as a pastor."  Each of these judgments is peculiar. Still, the pastorate of Emmons is eminently
suggestive. Its rich intimations may be seen in the following
particulars:
A. - His Devotion to his Flock.
"He devoted all his time to his strong doctrinal sermons, but very
little of his time to parochial cares: "- this is a general criticism on Dr.
Emmons.  It is unjust.  He was a good preacher, because he was a
good pastor.  His sermons are thought to be metaphysical essays, generic, abstract.  The reverse is true.  They  are Franklin sermons.
When we think of his devotedness to the men and women and children
of Franklin, we wonder at the exuberance of his philosophical investigations. He labored in the study, in order to enrich his people. He engaged in his most abstruse inquiries, so that he might answer some
objections propounded by some one of his people.  He diversified his
intellectual pursuits, in order to diversify his addresses to his people.
He was a pastor in his reading, in his thinking, in his writing.  " I do
love Franklin," was his phrase, uttered familiarly in his athletic manhood, and repeated in most affecting tones, on his dying bed.
A. - His Originality in his Pastorate.
As he had his own style of dress, so he had his own style of pastoral
supervision.  He has been criticized for interpreting the English Bible
too literally.  But we must not imagine that he really supposed the
apostle James to prescribe an immutable rule for Congregational Elders,
when that apostle said: " Is any man sick among you, let him call for
the elders of the church," etc.  Emmons did quote these words, in ac



332                              ME M  OIR.
commodation to his own rule for visiting his parishioners when, for a
special and valid reason, he was particularly requested to visit them. As
soon as he was invited to wait on an afflicted household, he promptly
complied with the invitation.  Whenever prayers were publicly asked
for an individual, he considered himself as requested to visit that individual, and  he uniformly yielded to the wish thus tacitly expressed.
We are told by Dr. Ide:
Dr. Emmons did sometimes call upon the sick without waiting for the above-named
formalities.' But he thought it best both for him and the people to have it understood
that, as a general rule, they must signify their wish, if they desired to see him. He
then always knew what to do, and they what to expect.' He encouraged his people'to visit him; and it was understood by them, that he was glad to see them at his
house whenever they desired to converse with him on religious themes. They availed
themselves of the opportunity which he gave them. The members of his church frequently called upon him, and encouraged their children and families and others to do
the same.' They dined or supped at the parsonage, more frequently than parishioners
often do.' He sometimes sent for individuals in his parish whom he wished to see, and when
they were retired with him alone, he would converse with them  with great plainness,
affection, and fidelity.'
Another clergyman writes' While on a journey through Franklin, I was surprised
in noticing a large number of carriages before the parsonage. I supposed that there
was some "Society Meeting."  But I afterwards learned that these were the carriages of individuals, who of their own accord, had gone up to see the old patriarch,
and learn from him what they must do for the welfare of their souls. It was a time
of awakened interest in religion, and this throng at the parsonage was one sign of it.'
We are further told by Dr. Ide, that' Emmons seldom conversed with individuals
in a family upon the subject of their own feelings or personal condition before each
other, because, as he used to say, they would not, unless very specially aroused, express themselves freely. In a revival, when his people were so much interested on the
subject of religion as to be willing to talk, he would converse with them anywhere.
After a lecture at the meeting-house, he would sometimes request those who were disposed to hold a conversation with him to tarry, and sometimes more than half the
congregation would stop either to converse or to hear. But he thought that in general
he was laboring at a great disadvantage, if he undertook to converse particularly with
the members of the same family on the subject of their own feelings, in the presence of
each other. On this account he chose to see them at his study, rather than at their
homes.'' The loss of time attending it, was one reason why he did not adopt the common
method of pastoral visitation. Frequently, the persons whom the minister goes to see
are not at home; and if at home, they are perhaps engaged in some business which
they cannot without great inconvenience leave; or if disengaged, they may be so connected with others either of their own family or visitors from abroad, that he cannot
accomplish the purpose of his errand. By the experiments which he had made on
this subject, Dr. Emmons was led to conclude that it would be a great economy of
time to see his people at his own house.'




M EM    I R.                            333'Some ministers,' he often remarked,'have a peculiar talent for conversing with individuals and families on religion, and can do more good in this way than they can by
preaching; and it is important that those who have this talent should know it, and
pursue such a course as will enable them to improve it to the greatest advantage.'
But he regarded himself as endued with a talent, not so much for the off-hand, desultory, miscellaneous converse of the parlor,1 as for investigating and explaining the
doctrines of the Bible in their reciprocal connections, and in lengthened discussions.
He therefore said, near the end of his days: "If I were to live my life over again, I
would pursue the same course " which I have pursued in reference to parochial labor.
The missionary, Gordon Hall, once remarked: " Though I admit that pastoral visits
are important, and may with propriety occupy a proportion of most ministers' time,
yet I do think that the man who can write as Dr. Emmons does, ought not to be diverted from his studies by these things."
C. -His familiar Acquaintance with his Parishioners.
He was a physiognomist.  He loved and studied Lavater. Because he
did not consume his days and evenings in the ordinary chit-chat of the social
circle, it has been inferred that he could not ascertain the private habits
and secret projects of his hearers. But in his study, he learned more
about them, than ordinary men could learn by promiscuous intercourse.
There seemed, at times, to be something almost magical in his power of
finding out every new scheme that was started within his diocese.  He
had a keen insight of the human heart.  One of his favorite remarks
was: "Every man carries a little world within himself, by knowing
which he may know all the rest of mankind, and form a just estimate of
human nature."   Another favorite saying was: "A  pious minister
knows more than others know about the human heart, and will tell his
hearers how they have felt and how  they feel at present."  A native of
Franklin has observed: " The mind of Dr. Emmons moved with great
rapidity.  His intuitions of character were less rapid than his other acts.
He did not see through men at a glance, but if you would give him time,
he would measure them like a tailor." - Dr. Ide and others have given
us the following testimony:
Emmons'took great pains to become acquainted with all his people; and in the
prime of his life, there were very few among them who were not well known to him,
either in person or by their characters. Every part of his parish, and every individ1 He was too diffident to converse freely with more than one person at a time;
hence he underrated his conversational powers. Professor Pond, of Bangor, writes:
"In his intercourse with all men he was courteous and affable; but was specially free
and sociable with his friends. No man enjoyed such intercourse more than he; no man
was capable of making it more agreeable. In conversation, as in reading, he was not
confined to theological subjects, but was able to take a wide range. One gentleman,
who often saw him, remarked:' He talks upon every subject introduced as though he
had just been studying it.' He knew how to be grave and instructive in conversation,
and he knew how to spice it with all the pungency of attic wit."




334                             MEMOIR.
ual in it, with whom he had become acquainted, was an object of his almost daily consideration. He inquired into their belief and practice, on the subject of religion.  He
always noticed their attendance upon, or neglect of the means of grace. Whether
they were penitent or impenitent, was a question of great apparent solicitude with
him. He noticed with special interest the conduct of church-members, and seriously
considered the influence which, in their respective circumstances, they were exerting
upon the cause of Christ. He always had his eye on the town, and upon men of influence in the town, and traced the bearings of every important transaction among them
upon their religious interests.'
He watched the aged, and marked the influence of their example on the rising generation. He kept his eye on men in the meridian of life, and endeavored to bring
their strength into the service of their Master. He was never unmindful of the young,
their means of education, their employments, their amusements. One of his parishioners has said: " If a dancing party, or a convivial sleigh-ride was proposed, he was
among the first to hear of it, and was quick as well as strict to prevent it. On the
Sabbath after any such proposition had been found out, his parishioners flocked to the
sanctuary; parents, apprehending that they might be reprimanded for their remissness; children, anticipating a lesson for themselves on frivolous amusements; all, expecting some wholesome advice, but no one foreseeing exactly how it would be
applied."' The wakeful pastor always kept watch of the literary, religious, and political publications of the day; upon the movements of the different religious denominations; the
doings of ecclesiastical bodies; the plans and operations of ministers; and the state of
religion in the community, especially in his own neighborhood; and never failed to
consider minutely the probable influence for good or evil, which these things would
have upon his own people.'
D. —He combined a stern Fidelity, with a tender Love, to his People.
" This is what I think; and I am  willing to speak what I think.  I
have nothing to conceal upon this subject.  1 mean to be frank and open
in opposing every thing which appears" to threaten any evil to you.
These are the words which he uttered, more than once, in critical emergencies among his people. Never could he be intimidated or bribed, from
his vigilant supervision over the high and the low. There goes a rumor,
that a gleeful company made him  a generous donation before they engaged in  a frolicsome ride, and  they hoped that his well-known  politeness would prevent his reprimand of his benefactors on the succeeding
Sabbath.  But he did not keep back the dreaded reprimand, being stimulated to an unwonted plainness of speech by the generosity of his young
friends.  Dr. Ide says:'No offender could long sit under the preaching of Emmons, or be in the habit of
familiar intercourse with him, without receiving, in some form or other, decisive evidence that his conduct was understood, and disapproved. His people felt that they
were under his eye, and anticipated reproof whenever their guilt was known. His
pastoral supervision was a constant source of encouragement to the righteous, and of
restraint to the wicked.'




MEMOIR.                                335
But many who know how vigilant he was in detecting, and how pungent he was in rebuking, the aberrations of his people, are not easily assured that he was an affectionate pastor.  Had he not felt a peculiar
attachment to his hearers, they would not have borne so meekly his stern
reproofs.  But they knew  that " he sympathized with them  in all their
enjoyments, and in all their sufferings. In the sick chamber, and at the
house of mourning, he was not only peculiarly appropriate and instructive in his conversation and prayers, but peculiarly kind and sympathetic." -The Hon. Tristram  Burgess, widely known as a Professor of
Rhetoric in Brown University, and as an eloquent orator at the Bar and
in Congress, has thus described the kindliness of the Franklin pastor:
"With Dr. Emmons I was personally acquainted. His excellence as a distinguished preacher of the gospel, is known and acknowledged universally. In this
eminent department I, many years ago, knew and admired him. Before that time,
he had become endeared to me by another kind of excellence. Though a stranger to
him, and not then residing in his parish,' I was sick, and he visited me.' To know
him as he really was, you must have met him by the bed of pain, prostration, and
anxiety. Here I first saw him; and such was his discourse, so pious, so parental, so
consoling, that it never has been, and I think never will be, forgotten by me. For at
this moment, he lives in my memory as he then sat by my bedside, the very image, it
seemed to me, of his great and gracious Master. My dear Sir,1 should you write the
biography of this good man, say, if you please, that, among divines, he was the
greatest; but you cannot forget to say, that, among Christians, he was the best."
E. -His Pastorate was a solemn one.
"All pious brothers and sisters, all pious parents and children, all
pious husbands and wives, all pious friends, and all pious ministers and
their pious hearers, will be forever known to each other and intimately
connected in heaven, and mutually promote each other's felicity:" - this
was a favorite thought of Emmons; and, accordingly, his pastorate was
commenced, and continued, and ended with an habitual anticipation of
its interminable influence.  In view of his relations to his parishioners in
the future world, he often appealed to them, as none but a conscientious
pastor would dare to appeal in public. In his seventy-fifth year, he addressed to them these plain, honest words:
"Have any children and youth, anywhere, become more stupid, hardened, profane,
and obstinate in wickedness, than those who are now before me, and who have often
heard my warning voice? How much soever I may have failed in the discharge of
1 The letter was addressed to Rev. Thomas Williams. See his Sermon on the
"Official Character of Dr. Emmons," p. 79.




336                             M EMOIR.
my ministerial office for forty-six years, I have not designedly been negligent in warning, admonishing, and reproving children and youth, as occasions have occurred. I
have been so uniform and constant in this part of my duty, that both the young and
the old have often anticipated reproofs, and taken pains either not to hear them, or
resist them. And though they have so often and so long resisted, yet I do not regret
the exertions I have made to awaken, and convince, and convert, and restrain the children and youth. But whether I have met with the concurrence of others in my exertions so much as ought to have been afforded, I leave to the serious consideration and
reflection of professing parents, and professing Christians, and every one who regards
the temporal and eternal good of the rising generation.
"But is there no hope? Most certainly there is. I can remember the time when
some of the best Christians now before me were vain and thoughtless youth. God
arrested them in their career, changed their hearts, compelled them to come in and
unite in building up his cause. The present children and youth are not beyond his
reach. The voice from the dead and from the living, this day, may do what has not
been done for years past. Though there is much ground to despair of veteran sinners,
there is still ground to hope that God will raise up from the children and youth a
generation to serve him, when we who are aged are laid in the dust."
F. —His Pastorate was an authoritative one.
"That is not to be done in Franklin," was a pronunciamento sometimes heard from his lips, and whenever it was once heard, the thing proposed to be done was numbered among the past things left undone.
Scores of illustrations like the following might here be cited:
When a very respectable clergyman of another denomination had appointed a
religious meeting within the bounds of Dr. Emmons's own diocese, but without consulting the diocesan himself, the bishop of Franklin met the "sectarian," and quietly
informed him: " You are expected to keep on your own side of the parish line."  He kept
there.
Another eminent clergyman, who did not belong to the " standing order," was once
invited to preach at the house of a Franklin parishioner; and he intended, as the
Franklin bishop thought, to excite an interest among the peaceful Congregationalists,
in favor of the "intruding sect."  Soon after receiving the invitation, this clergyman met Dr. Emmons in Boston, and told him that he had been invited to come and
give his people a sermon. The doctor very pleasantly replied,' You have a very important sphere of labor assigned you where you are. You need not take the trouble
to come to Franklin. I can take care of my own flock.' But said the clergyman,' You will not object to my coming.' The doctor understanding by this that he was
still inclined to come, notwithstanding the hint which had been given him, made the
following characteristic reply.'I do object. And if you come to Franklin in our
present circumstances, I'11 consider and treat you as a wolf in sheep's clothing.' This
clergyman never came.1
There has seldom lived an ecclesiastic whose voice was law within his
1 See Dr. Ide's Memoir, p. 71.




MEMOIR.                             337
own diocese, more decidedly than was the voice of Emmons. He was
" set apart " as the spiritual guardian of Franklin, and he considered himself as responsible for the spiritual care of the men over whom he had
been ordained.  He was stationed upon the watch-tower, and he felt
himself commissioned to let in all those soldiers who would promote the
peace of the enclosure, and to keep out all those who would foment strife.
He had a peculiar respect for the old parish lines, and he did more than
perhaps any other clergyman to preserve the dignity and the Episcopal
power of a parish minister.  Accordingly, the ancient precinct that settled him was the precinct that buried him sixty-seven years afterward,
having remained one strong, undivided parish as long as he lived. There
were not many townships in New England which had a population large
enough for two societies, and which yet continued to worship in one
sanctuary.  For strictly economical reasons, for his delivering them
from the expense of two meeting-houses, and from the trouble of two
systems of ecclesiastical action, the citizens of Franklin might well have
felt thankful to their sagacious custodian.
G.-The Pastor's Wit.
When Emmons could not silence a schismatical intruder by reason, he
resorted to wit. He was fond of argument, but if proofs would not secure the good which he desired, he would try the virtue of a jest; for
that good must be attained; logically, if possible; wittily, if needful.
" You can never throw a man down who stands upon nothing," was his
favorite remark, and he therefore never intended to waste his logic upon
a hopeless victim. It is a remarkable instance of his well balanced mind,
that while he was exuberant in pleasantries, at fitting seasons, he did not
intersperse his graver remarks with ludicrous allusions. In his thousands
of pulpit discourses, there is scarcely an expression which need excite the
sentiment of the ludicrous; and a man would scarcely suspect, from a perusal of them, that their author could indulge his mind in mere fanciful
relations.  But when he had tasked his logical power to its utmost intensity for the benefit of his hearers, and still detected in any of them a
peccadillo or a crime which could be shot at in no other way, he would
let fly some witty sarcasm; which would show that he had always a
dernier resort, and when foiled with one weapon, could turn his hand immediately to another. It is said of Lord Thurlow, that he was a kind of
guarda costa vessel, which cannot meet every turning and winding of a
frigate that assails her; but when the opportunity offers, pours a broadside which cannot fail of sinking the assailant. But Dr. Emmons was
armed on all sides, and at all points.  There was no such thing as getVOL. I.                   DD




338                            MEMOIR.
ting round him without receiving a shock.  Hence he was feared by evil
doers of every class.  He meant to be.  He employed his wit upon them,
when he found that he could employ nothing else.
There was a skeptic in religion who was very fond of displaying his acumen before
ministers of the gospel, and of perplexing them with atheistical queries. On one occasion he called on the man who was not so easily perplexed, and after giving sensible
evidence that he was too highly stimulated with brandy for aly rational conversation,
he asked with the gravity of a sage, " Dr. Emmons, can you tell me what I am to understand by the soul of man?"  "No, I can't tell a man that hasn't got any."  Here
ended the inquiries of the man who did not know the meaning of the word soul, but
found out that there was either a soul or something else in Dr. Emmons which was
not to be trifled with.
There was a physician in the neighborhood of Franklin, who was corrupting the
minds of men by his Pantheism. This physician being called to a sick family in the
Franklin parish, met the Franklin minister at the house of affliction. It was no place
for a dispute. It was no place for a physician to affect any unbecoming familiarity
with the minister. It was no place for a physician to inquire into the age of the minister, especially with any intent of entangling him in a debate; and above all, where
the querist was too visionary for any logical discussion. But the abrupt question of
the pantheist was:
"Mr. Emmons, how old are you?"
" Sixty, sir, and how old are you  " came the quick reply.
"As old as the creation, sir," was the triumphant response.
" Then you are of the same age with Adam and Eve."
" Certainly, I was in the garden when they were."
" I have always heard that there was a third person in the garden with them, but I
never knew before that it was you."
The pantheist did not follow up the discussion. The family felt that they had a
minister who was a minister, and who could shield them from all unseemly assaults
upon their faith.
H. -The Pastor's Dignity.
The preceding illustrations remind us, that the parishioners of Emmons felt proud of him, as a champion who could use all weapons that
were needful to repel assailants.  They revered him  for his native and
habitual dignity.  "Forty-five years ago," says one who left the neighborhood of Franklin in his youth, " I attended the funeral of a young
relative who had died suddenly in that neighborhood.  Dr. Emmons
officiated.  I can never forget his healthful face, the dignity with which
he took his three-cornered hat from his head, walked into the crowded
house, and began his address with these words:'That death should
come, is not strange; but that death should come suddenly, is strange.' "When Emmons appeared in the streets of a New England city, at the
age of seventy-seven, with his "distinctive" hat, the bright buckles on
his shoe and knee, his white locks flowing down his shoulders, the boys
flocked after him,,as after a military general.  Once, as he was seen




M EMOIR.                           339
walking with his usual upright mien over a parade ground, it was well
said of him, that he might be taken for some veteran commander, revisiting the plain over which he had marched seventy years before. Nor
was his character less erect than his person. He would be one of the
last men to be suspected of a meanness. He did not stoop. He was,
indeed, simple-hearted as a child. Like Luther and Calvin, he could
talk with the younger members of his parochial family, as if one of them,
and had a hearty interest in their sports. But on the other hand, he was
feared as well as loved. He could easily keep others at a distance,
when his office and his duty required. It was not uncommon for strong
men to tremble in his presence. Hence there has seldom lived a pastor
who can be more truly said to have ruled well in his parish, and whose
word was clothed with a simpler majesty.
We often read of Episcopal bishops, that their immense revenues are
essential to the dignity of their office. The episcopal revenue of Dr.
Emmons never amounted to more than five hundred dollars a year, and
it never added a very dazzling splendor to his see. He manifested the
exaltation of his nature by seldom alluding to his income. He never
hinted that presents would be welcome to him. He never intimated a
wish to have his salary raised. He never went, but once in seventy-six
years, to the treasurer of the parish, in order to receive the pittance due
to him. That treasurer knew, perfe.tly, that., Xrhen tpa  py-ay-   came...r.................. p ay-Uay? came
he was to visit the parsonage, and take with him the hard-earned salary.
But one year, a new treasurer was elected, who thought it advisable that
all the creditors of the parish should wait on him for the payment due to
them, rather than be waited upon by him  for their own benefit. The
"' salary day" came. He remained at home, to receive the doctor's call.
But the doctor remained in his study. The next day passed, and the
next, and at length came the eleventh day; when, each party waiting for
the other, there seemed to be a growing difference of opinion between
the man who taught the people and the man who kept the bag. At last
the treasurer saw the neat carriage driving up to his front door, and the
three-cornered hat in the carriage. The doctor alighted from the chaise,
holding his reins and his whip.  He knocked. The door was opened.' Is Mr. A. at home?"  " He is."  "I should be glad to see him." Mr.
A. came, and stood before his minister. " Good morning, sir," was the
minister's word.  "Good morning, sir," was the treasurer's reply. "I
have been expecting," added the minister, "for eleven days to see you at
my house.  Good-bye, sir," and he added no more, but his fleet horse
took him back straight to the parsonage, and the treasurer followed him
before noon, carrying the delayed salary, and resolving to try no more
experiments.




340                        MEMOIR.
I.- His Promptness and Punctuality.
"I never could think well of a man's intellectual or moral character,
if he was habitually unfaithful to his appointments," was a remark often
repeated by Dr. Emmons.'IIe always took care not to expose himself
needlessly to storms, to evening air, to excessive cold or heat, but when
duty obviously called him abroad, no weather could keep him in; he was
resolute and fearless.' As he was precise with regard to the position of
things in his study: " This chair belongs here," " That book belongs
there;" so he was precise with regard to the time of his services in doors
and out. His hearers did not loiter around the place for a religious
exercise, querying when he would arrive; but precisely at the hour
appointed he would come, as they knew, and he would expect to find
them in their seats. " A time for every thing, and every thing at its
time," was his motto, and it moulded not the religious character only, but
the secular habits also of both himself and his people.  He made out his
schedule of duties and adhered to it. One of his rules for the concerns
of his public and private life, for the course of a journey and for the
structure of a sermon was: "Beware of deviating from your original
plan, which is probably the best one."  He was saved from much annoyance, from many vexatious delays, by this simple rule. Near the close
of bis life, being urged by Judge Samuel Hubbard of Boston, to modify
his plan of a certain visit, he replied in his epigrammatic way: "I
never altered my mind but once, and have regretted that change ever
since." His high estimate of punctuality as a virtue is singularly illustrated in one of his sermons where it is written:'The Sovereign of the
universe is faithful and punctual in fulfilling all his promises.'
~ 3. Emmons's brief Statement of his Labors in his Parish.
The modest man has compressed a chapter into the following
significant words:
" I uniformly carried on the work of the ministry.  I statedly
preached on the Sabbath, and occasionally in private houses.
I visited the sick and attended funerals.  I catechized the
children and youths once a year, in eight or nine school districts
in my extensive  parish.  I always attended, and  generally
preached at religious conferences, in times of revival; and from
the year 1795 to the year 1813, I constantly preached a concert
lecture once in three months.  I constantly and punctually
attended all my official duties for fifty-four years." — Memoir of
himself.




MEM O IR.                              341
A.-" I catechized the Children."
The catechetical exercise of Dr. Emmons was conducted with great
spirit.  " What is your name?" was the first question formerly put to
every collegian, as he entered the room  of his President, even if the
collegian were as well known as the President's own son.  "What is
your name?" was the first question addressed by Emmons to every
child who rose up with the words of the Westminster divines upon his
tongue, even if the child were as familiar to the pastor as one of his own
household.  The name being given, two or three questions of the Shorter
Catechism were proposed to the child; and, at the end of the service, the
entire assembly was addressed by the impressive divine.  His words
were plain, instructive, and  engaging.  The children looked forward
with joy to their annual examination.  "I felt as if I had started for a
training, when I went to meet the Doctor in the school-house," said an
eminent jurist who had been one of Emmons's catechumens.  The terse,
racy words which the minister uttered to the children, were long remembered.  Some of his old parishioners have loved to repeat the sentences
which they heard from  him  in these catechetical exercises, and which
they had retained in their mind seventy or eighty years.  Rev. Mortimer Blake, rehearsing before his townsmen in Franklin, the virtues of
their pastor, bore the following testimony:
" It has been inquired, whether Dr. Emmons had much influence over the children
and youth of his parish. In answer, - and I speak the conviction of all my former
youthful companions, -I say, no one had so entirely our veneration. I think of no
better word to express our emotion. We felt not fear, but deep, involuntary respect.
We looked upon Dr. Emmons as God's ambassador.
" We can never forget our annual gatherings at the school-house, in the autumn, to
recite to him the Lord's Prayer, the Commandments, and the Assembly's Catechism.
We remember the sedulous preparation we used to make, to pass the examination
with credit to our parents and ourselves. The enjoyment of his approving smile still
thrills in our memory; and the truths we then learned, and his pithy observations to
us, are now as bright in our recollection as ever." -(Address at the erection of the
Emmons Monument, p. 10.)
B.-"I preached a Concert Lecture."
"For seventeen years, on the first Tuesday in each quarter of the
year, Dr. Emmons gave a public lecture in the meeting-house, on the
duty of prayer for the advancement of the Redeemer's kingdom throughout the world." This was in accordance with the recommendation of
President Edwards in his sermon published in 1784, and entitled:
DD 




342                             MEMOIR.
" An HUMBLE ATTEMPT to promote an explicit agreement and visible union of God's
people through the world, in extraordinary PRAYERfOr the REVIVAL of religion and the
advancement of Christ's kingdom on earth, pursuant to Scripture promises and prophecies
concerning the last time,
OCCASIONED
"By a late MEMORIAL published by a number of ministers in Scotland and sent
over to America; giving an account of a certain CONCERT for prayer,- which has
already been come into by many ministers and others in Great Britain and some
other parts, and in which they desire the general concurrence of their Christian brethren
everywhere," etc.
This concert lecture was attended in Franklin by large numbers and
with great enthusiasm.  It was a sign  of the lecturer's early zeal in
behalf of missions. In his attachment to the old usages, he preferred
this venerable exercise to the Monthly Concert, which was subsequently
introduced.  A young woman of his parish, having received an offer of
marriage from a young man who did not belong to the church, accepted
the  offer on  one condition; to wit: the young man must engage to
attend the Quarterly Lecture.l  Just so theological was the town which
derives its main celebrity from its modest pastor.
C. -" I uniformly carried on the Work of the Ministry." - "I statedly preached on the
Sabbath." - " I constantly and punctually attended all my official Duties."
These adverbs " unformly,"  "statedly,"  "constantly,"  punctually,"
condense a large analysis of the substance, the spirit, the method, and
the times of his public services.  Every year he kept fifty-two church
festivals, fifty-two Christmas, Easter, and Ascension days, fifty-two WhitSundays and Trinity  Sundays, fifty-two days for commemorating the
scene of Good Friday.  Thus he made the Sabbath memorable.
As no child in his parish ever went to the sanctuary with the hope of
seeing  the new  surplice, or hearing  the new  organ, so not one ever
expected to find the minister wearing a slouched hat or a soiled garment,
or making an antic gesture.  " Uniform" decorum  marked his appearance as he moved along to the house of'God.  A layman in his parish
never thought of calling him  " Brother Emmons."  "I am no leveller,"
1 It is difficult to estimate at the present day, the enthusiasm which was enlisted in
favor of this pastor's sermons among his own people. Professor Pond writes: " By the
fascination of his influence, he held his people together, and brought them together to
the house of God, as almost no other minister could. And this was the case, not
only on the Sabbath, but at his Sacramental Lectures. I remember the first time that
I attended one of these lectures. I was astonished, as I approached the house, to see
the long tier of horse-sheds filled with carriages; and was equally surprised, when I
entered the church, to find that filled also. The explanation is, Dr. Emmons made
the impression on his people, and kept it up to the last, that his public services were
worth something, and that to be absent from one of them was to sustain a great loss."




MEMOIR.                             343
was his word. He could never be mistaken for one of his parishioners.
When he entered the pulpit, he found his auditors already in their pews.
He needed to wait for no one. He began the "stated" services by
reading one of the songs of Zion. It was sung, and he allowed no instrumental accompaniment.  Then without reading the Scriptures (for the
Puritans did not) in the pulpit, he offered a prayer. It did not exceed
ten minutes in length.  After another hymn, he preached his sermon.
It was delivered in thirty, often in twenty-five, sometimes in twenty
minutes. Each of his printed sermons comprises two discourses, as they
were pronounced.  After his sermon, he offered his second prayer. It
did not exceed seven minutes in length. In the afternoon but not in the
forenoon, he read a third hymn.  He included the entire service within
sixty minutes.  " No conversions after the hour is out," was his motto.
He pronounced the benediction, and while his auditors remained standing,
he descended the pulpit stairs, and walked through the broad aisle of the
house to the front door. He bowed to his hearers as he passed their
pews. No military general ever marched with more propriety, if with
more grace, through the open file of soldiers.
When this " uniform " man had resigned his pastorate, he treated the
occupant of his old pulpit, as he himself had been treated by his hearers.
He stood in his pew after the benediction, until the preacher had descended the pulpit stairs, nor would he have moved from his standing place
until the preacher had left the house, if he had not been urgently invited
to walk, side by side, the old prophet with his youthful successor, between
the waiting parishioners on either hand.
D.- Objections to his Method of conducting his Ministry.
It is objected that, in one point, he deviated from the usage of his
Puritan ancestors. They were as remarkable for their length, as he for
the brevity, of the pulpit services.  In particular, he has been condemned for appropriating too small a proportion of time to distinctive
prayer and praise. On this theme, as on others, he had his own views.
He regarded not the length of a petition, but the spirit of it, as its chief
excellence.  He did not consider the brevity of his prayers as indicating
their inferior value, more than he considered the small dimensions of
the heart as indicating that it is of less value than the arm. He supposed not that the worship of the Sabbath alone, but that the prayers of
every day and every hour in the day, that the prayers breathed out in
words when appropriate, and in deeds when more appropriate, that this
worship of the life was the great duty of man; and that the design of
the sanctuary was not merely to unite the people in acts of public




344                        M EM  OIR.
devotion, but also to prepare them for private devotion, for ai entire life
of praise. The mind is fitted for this devotional life by the truth of God,
for in his truth dwells his Spirit.
He has been censured for the infrequency of his public services. But
he multiplied them, more than they were multiplied by the ministers of
his own age. For the present times, and for the present race of pastors,
he might have recommended a different regimen. He could do what
other men could not. He could accomplish in his day, what he might
fail to accomplish in our day. He insisted on the thoughtful cooperation of his parishioners. If he had a duty to perform, they had one also.
If he was bound to preach, they were bound to hear and to think. He
therefore judged, that two good sermons on the Sabbath were sufficient
for one day. The evening must be spent in meditation on what the
forenoon and afternoon had revealed. He meant that his hearers should
receive lessons enough on the first day, to occupy them during every
following day of the week. That "sincere milk of the word" which the
doctrinal preacher set before his people, was to be digested before he
prepared for them  any additional food.  And whenever a religious
service was appointed for one of the secular days of the week, his people
not only expected, but desired that the service be conducted by the
bishop himself. He had but few lay-exhorters who would venture
to speak often in his presence. The " ruling elders" of his church had
not been reappointed since 1742. The President must be the teacher,
when the members of his school came together to be taught. Of course,
there were some exceptions to this law. The Franklin pastor trained
more and better lay-exhorters, than were trained by his brethren who
entered the pulpit ninety-two years ago. He never trained any of his
laymen, however, to imagine that they could prophesy as well as the
prophet himself. He stood in a high pulpit, and the pews in his meeting house were on a level.
~ 4. His Intellectual Influence over his Parish.
When one reads the preceding Sketches of the Franklin
Pupils, particularly of such men as President Chapin, Professor
Kendrick, and Dr. Jackson, one is tempted to inquire: "' What
has all this to do with Emmons? "  All this illustrates the scintillating power of his mind, which drew  around him  men of
bright parts and made them brighter still. It is not by accident
that great rivers flow by large cities.  It is not by chance, that
Emmons found himself encompassed with a literary atmosphere
in his retired pastorate. Let us consider,




MEMOIR.                                 345
A. - His Methods of quickening the Intellect of Men who were associated with him.
It is impossible to specify all the influences which flowed from his
fresh thoughts and words.  His Table Talk was rich and invigorating.
This is illustrated by the apothegms which are scattered through the
present Memoir.  The parishioners who so often enjoyed the hospitality
of the parsonage, were stimulated by his Socratic Method. The annexed
narrative of his conversation with a minister, may be regarded as a
specimen of his conversation with many a layman.
A young clergyman and his wife, soon after their marriage, paid a visit to the
aged divine, and during the afternoon he took out his large manuscript of questions,
saying playfully, " I must examine you, and see if you are orthodox."  They had
often visited him separately, and held long conversations with him, and they enjoyed
the prospect of being questioned by him now, for they expected that he would evolve
some great truth. After replying to his first question, they eagerly asked if the answer were correct, as they supposed that the manuscript contained the solutions to its
inquiries. "There are no answers to these questions," he replied, with pleasant sarcasm;
"I always put these to people who know," and he went on with his examination.
They replied very readily, till at length it became evident that he meant to entangle
them. They defended themselves with earnestness and ability, but at the same time
were fearful that he might become irritated at their persistent opposition to him. Just
as they were beginning to feel that it would hardly be respectful to continue the controversy, he surprised them by a smile of approbation, saying: "I like you. You do
your own thinking, and you are not afraid to avow it. NSow, always remember, you
have as good a right to your opinion as any man, no matter WHO he is; and don't you
let any one beat you off your ground, except by a better reason."
His grand rule for enlivening the intellect of his parishioners, was to
make the doctrines of the Bible prominent.  He was determined to make
his people attend to these doctrines.  He was resolved to make his
church a school. In this view he did keep a " Sabbath School." He feared,
that amid the noise of the machinery of philanthropic societies, men
would lose those meditative habits on which the success of these societies depends.  He aimed first to win his hearers to the truth which educates the soul.  IIe was willing to forego often the luxury of such
investigations as would attract the regard of philosophers, if he could
wake up illiterate men to a bright intellectual life.  Hence he not seldom
cast his thoughts in the moulds fitted for children. In discoursing from
the text, " If I wait, the grave is my house," he says: 1. The " grave is a
very spacious house; " 2. It is " not only very spacious, but very dark and
dreary; " 3. It " is a house of silence as well as darkness; " 4. It is "an
empty as well as silent house;" 5. It " is a house of corruption;" 6. It
" is a house of oblivion."  When we peruse many of his simple discourses
on " Tasting Divine Goodness," on the " Dispersion at Babel," on the
"Trial of Abraham," etc. we are reminded of the lines:




346                            MEMOIR.
"And, as a bird each fond endearment tries,
To tempt her new-fledged offspring to the skies
He tried each art, reproved each dull delay,
Allured to brighter worlds, and led the way."
The Franklin disciplinarian, however, was conversant with the old
fable ending with the moral:  If grass will not answer, I will see what
stones can do."  It has been said of him in his family, that, "like a good
charioteer, he governed principally by the reins."  It was so in his parish.
Still he sometimes used the whip.  He would persevere in winning men
to think of the truth, but when he could not allure, he resorted to stringent measures. It is affecting to meditate on his childlike simplicity of
character, on the singleness of his aim  to "fulfil his ministry," on the
absorption of his whole soul in the welfare of his people, as these traits
are illustrated by the following incidents:
On a sultry day in the summer of 1790, while he was reading his discourse on the
Sabbath, he saw, or thought he saw, that his people, wearied probably with the labors
of the hot week preceding, were inattentive to his well reasoned words. He shut his
large thick note-case, and said, "I shall not preach again in this house, until I can be
assured of better attention from my people." He then took up his hat and walked out
of the sanctuary. In alluding to the incident afterward, he remarked: " I meant that
both my people and myself should either gain or lose; tiey should gain a minister
more faithful than he had been, or else lose a minister who always had been laborious;
and I should gain an audience more attentive than mine had been, or else lose an
audience which had generally shown a respect for my wishes."  This movement of
the pastor caused much emotion among the people. The following record is found
in the church books:
August 3, 1790. "The Church met agreeably to a notification the Sabbath preceding. And after the pastor had explained the grounds and motives of. his conduct
on the Lord's Day, July 18, in dismissing the assembly before he had gone through
the usual exercises of the day, and after the matter had been considerably canvassed
by the Church, the two following votes were put and passed in the affirmative:
" 1. That it is reasonable, the Pastor should insist upon having proper attention of the
People, in the time of public worship.
"2. That it is reasonable, the Church should desire and endeavor that proper attention
be given in time of public worship, and discountenance all inattention."
Twenty-six years after this commotion, we find the following record on the church
books:
"December 29, 1816. The Church stayed at the close of public worship, when. the
pastor stated to them, that there had been apparently designed inattention that day in
the time of public worship, but did not [mention] any supposed faulty person. After
some conversation on the subject, the pastor requested the church to meet on the next
Wednesday at one o'clock, p. M., to take the subject under consideration."
" Wednesday, Jan. 1. The Church met according to appointment. After the meeting was opened, the pastor read the following paper:
" Brethren, - When I became your Pastor, I supposed that a mutual relation between us then commenced, which laid us under mutual obligations to discharge vari



MEM OIR.                             347
ous duties towards each other. I was bound on my part to preach the gospel to you
statedly, from Sabbath to Sabbath, so far as my health and other circumstances would
permit, and to perform all other religious services, which belong to the ministerial office.
On the other side, I supposed you were bound to attend public worship statedly, from
Sabbath to Sabbath, so far as your health and other circumstances will permit, and to
attend with decency and propriety. And upon the ground of these mutual obligations, I have always supposed it properly belonged to me to insist upon order, decency,
and attention in the time of public worship. But it seems I have frequently given
offence by calling for attention, and in particular on the last Sabbath, which led me
to appoint the present meeting.
" I consider inattention in time of public worship, as detrimental to me and to the
faulty persons, and as tending to alienate the affections of the people from me, and
consequently to put an end to my ministerial influence in this place, which I greatly
deprecate. Now, brethren, I wish to know whether by my conduct on the last Sabbath, or at any other time or times, I have forfeited your confidence, your approbation, or your assistance in my ministerial office? The reasons for desiring to know
your opinion upon these points, might be mentioned, but I believe they are too obvious
to all to require a particular mention. I now refer it to your wisdom to determine
whether any, and if any, what means should be adopted to give me assurance that I
may safely lean upon your concurrence and assistance in my ministerial work."
After a due and deliberate consideration of the subject proposed, the Church passed
the following votes, namely:
1. It is inconsistent, with our covenant engagements to bring up those under our
care in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, to suffer them to attend balls and
places of vain amusements.
2. Voted to recognize the two following votes, passed by the Church, August, 1790.
[Here the votes are repeated as printed above.]
3. Voted that the pastor has not forfeited the confidence, the approbation and assistance of the church in his ministerial office, by his conduct on the last Sabbath, or at
any time or times.
The foes of Dr. Emmons have often censured him for these movements,
and especially for that passage of his sermon which was a passage out of
the meeting-house. But the measure was no more objectionable, than the
hundred devices to which ministers often resort for gaining the ear of the
multitude.  They advertise their sermons in the newspapers; or they
announce quaint and startling texts, or odd and outlandish propositions;
or they preach on the burning of a ship at sea, or on the concussion of
rail cars, or on Agricultural Fairs, or the Electric Telegraph, or the
Atlantic Cable.  One minister has cried out from  the pulpit, "'Fire,"
and having waked up the sleepers, has pursued the even tenor of his
discourse.  Another has exclaimed with a stentorian voice, " Mark," and
then has almost whispered the remainder of the passage, "the perfect
man and behold the upright;" and thus he has waked up the sleeper
whose name was Mark; still another has delivered half of an elaborated
sermon, and then thrown the manuscript behind him, taken a new text,




348                            MEMOIR.
begun an entirely new discourse, entreating his congregation that, as they
had slept through the half of a written address, they would now listen to
a fresh extemporaneous one.  Being a miller's son, Dr. Emmons might
have felt that he had more right than Rowland Hill, to stop his discourse
and say, " I have heard that the miller can sleep while the mill is going,
but if it stops it awakens him.  I'll try this method."  The incumbent of
Surrey Chapel spoke thus, and sat down; and when his hearers were
awake, he resumed his preaching.
It is needless to say, that the measures adopted by the Franklin pastor
to secure the attention of his people, were eminently successful. Let us
then consider
B.- The intellectual Results of his Pastorate.
Alford, the English Commentator, after perusing an American novel,
remarked: "The  picture which it gives of Calvinistic life in  New
England, is most interesting and informing."  So far as this novel is
founded on fact, it has a large part of its basis in the community trained
by Emmons.  Some of its most fascinating characters are drawn from
his parish.  "He made the most intelligent yeomanry in New England,"
is the remark of an eminent scholar who spoke from a personal knowledge of the Franklin farmers: " They were not so genial as they were
acute; not so charitable, as they were sharp in their judgments; but
they were well informed, and some of them  were profound thinkers."
We may learn the influences pervading the parish from  the following
notice of Hon. Jabez Fisher, a Franklin  farmer, a member of the
Provincial Congress at Salem in 1774, and of that at Cambridge in 1775.
Dr. Emmons wrote concerning him in 1806:
"He became, as he supposed, a subject of special grace, at the commencement of
the great and general revival of religion, above sixty years ago. Not long after he
made a profession of his faith, he was chosen to the office of deacon, which he sustained for more than fifty years, to the honor of religion and the prosperity of the
church. His superior abilities and integrity soon raised him to public notice, and he
was, with great unanimity, elected to represent the town in the Legislature of the
State, where he continued about twenty years successively, either as a member of the
House, or of the Senate, or of the Governor's Council. Though he held these high
stations in the most trying times that America ever saw, yet he never lost the love
and confidence of the public, who continued to esteem and employ him, until he
resigned his seat at the Council board for want of health." - "His candor was equal
to his moderation and mildness. He was as ready to hear, as to speak; as ready to
learn, as to teach; and whenever he saw reason for it, as ready to follow as to lead."
— "IHe availed himself of every source of knowledge and improvement, and made
rapid advances in practical wisdom, while engaged in public business with men of
eminence." - "He was no less judicious than candid. He had a clear and quick
discernment to distinguish truth from error, right from wrong, wisdom from cunning,




ME   OIR.                              349
and artifice from  sincerity. He seldom formed a false opinion of either men or
things. He was a self-taught politician, who could foresee what laws and measures
would have a salutary operation; but no artful or intriguing men could lead him to
aid or approve measures which were detrimental to the public weal."
This gentleman was one of the bosom friends of his pastor.  Emmons
had another parishioner, long noted for his strength of mind, and his
medical, particularly his surgical skill, -Dr. Nathaniel Miller.  There
were several men and women in the more retired circles of Franklin,
who were noted for their intellectual exploits. The mother of Professor
Alexander Metcalf Fisher, has been known to perform the mathematical
calculation of reducing a load, measuring more than a cord, of wood to
quarter cubic inches, without the use of pen or pencil, and without any
suspension of her manual labors.  Another of his parishioners, Miss
Harriet Ware, whose Memoir has been published under the supervision
of President Wayland, affords a good illustration of the strong mind as
well as sterling principle, which characterized many of the Franklin
women.  Some of them were vigorous and comprehensive theologians.
Probably there never was a parish in which so many women have rehearsed the arguments for the divine sovereignty, while they have been
engaged in spinning wool; or in which so many men have speculated
on the nature of Rectitude, while they have been gathering the new
mown hay.  A  large number of Emmons's young men commenced a
course of liberal study, but were prevented by ill health from finishing it.
Of the twenty-five collegiate alumni who went from his favored parish
during his residence in it, a large proportion have earned a high repute.
They are represented by such names as the following:
Peter Hawes, Esq., once a successful lawyer in New York, and an exemplary
elder in the church of Dr. Gardiner Spring.
Hon. Asa Aldis, formerly Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Vermont.
Hon. Alfred Metcalf, formerly a Judge of one of the courts in Kentucky.
Hon. Samuel Metcalf Pond, once a Judge of the Court of Common Pleas in
Maine.
Hon. Williams Emmons, once a Judge of the Probate Court in Maine.
Hon. Theron Metcalf, LL. D., a Collator and Editor of the Revised Statutes of
Massachusetts; Reporter of the Decisions of the Supreme Judicial Court from 1840
until 1847, and Editor of thirteen volumes of these Decisions; since February 25,
1848, an Associate Justice of the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts. He has
been a distinguished instructor of law-students, and a Fellow of Brown University.
Alexander Metcalf Fisher (see pp. 234-236).
Lewis Leprilete Miller, M. D., and Erastus Darwin Miller, M. D., both of them
distinguished medical practitioners, the former in Providence, R. I., the latter in
Dorchester, Mass.
Hon. Horace Mann, LL. D., a member of the Massachusetts House of RepreVOL. I.                      EE




350                            M EM O IR.
sentatives, where he is believed to have made the first speech in behalf of Railroads ever made in an American Legislature, and to have been the foremost advocate for that noble Charity, - the Lunatic Asylum. He was a member, and for
two years the President, of the Massachusetts Senate; for twelve years a most
efficient Secretary of the Massachusetts Board of Education; a member of the House
of Representatives of the United States; President of Antioch College; a voluminous
author. The legislature of Massachusetts have authorized the erection of a statue to
his memory on the grounds of the State House in Boston.
~ 5.  The Religious Influence of Emmons over his Parish.
A. - His own Statement concerning the spiritual Results of his Labors.
"Ministers may possess superior abilities, acquire extensive knowledge, and
abound in the blessings of Providence; but these things will be no ornament to their
peculiar and sacred character, unless they are sincerely consecrated to God upon the
altar of a benevolent heart. Those preachers of the gospel, who possess and display
the largest measures of holiness, do the most honor to their office, to the cause of
Christ, and to themselves."
This was the motto of Emmons; and in his parochial toil, he
aimed to. enliven the intellect, for the purpose of enriching the
heart, of his people. After recording the untoward events connected with  the Revolutionary war, he writes: "' But I should
be very ungrateful to  God, if, after mentioning so many disagreeable things, I should pass over in silence some very happy
circumstances in the course of my ministry.  From  the time of
my ordination to the year 1785, I seemed to labor in vain, and
to spend my strength  for nought.  Though  now  and then  an
individual joined the church, yet there was no general and deep
attention to divine things among my people.  This was a matter
of grief and discouragement.  I began to despair of ever seeing
any  considerable  success in  my  ministerial labors, and  was
brought to feel my entire dependence upon God for a revival of
religion.  While my mind was in this state, a serious attention
to divine things began  to appear in the second parish in Medway, which was contiguous to mine, about the middle of November, 1784.  In the space of five or six weeks after this, the
same serious attention  began  to  spread  in  my  congregation,
which continued and increased till April or May, and did not
wholly subside for above a year. It was indeed a glorious and
solemn season. On the Sabbath, at lectures, and in conferences,
the people in general were deeply affected.  And though many




MEMOIR.                        351
had high exercises of mind, and were extremely impressed with
lively views of eternal realities, yet no disturbance or irregularities occurred.  Those who entertained hopes of a saving
change, never expressed any enthusiastic fervor or zeal, but
manifested a sensible, rational, scriptural joy in God, and delight in religious duties. It could not be ascertained how many
were really awakened and convinced. There was, however, an
uncommon solemnity upon the minds of the people in general,
so that there was no opposition made to the work, by scarcely a
single person. There were about seventy who professed to entertain a hope of a saving change, though the whole of that
number did not join our church. This revival of religion put a
new face upon my congregation, and gave me new courage and
zeal in my ministerial labors.  Some who had been unfriendly
became friendly, and many who had been friendly, became more
and more attached to me. I believe I stood in a favorable light
among all my people; though probably some were more displeased with my preaching, the more they understood and felt it.
Not long after this revival, religion gradually declined among us,
though the late converts retained as much life and vigor and
zeal as could be expected, and generally gave convincing evidence that they had been savingly taught of God. But in February, 1794, God was pleased again to pour out his Spirit in a
more than common measure, but not to so great a degree as in
the former revival. It first appeared in one family, in which
two or three were hopefully converted. But upon preaching a
sermon in that family, the attention immediately and considerably spread; so that in the course of a few months, about thirty
professed to find comfort, and finally made a public profession
of religion. In consequence of these two spiritual harvests, my
church was greatly enlarged, and continues to be the most numerous in this vicinity. At this time, January, 1806, there is
awful coldness, and indifference, and stupidity prevailing, both
in the church and congregation.  On the whole, I have abundant reason to bless God, that he has given me to see so many
displays of divine grace, and afforded me so much ground to
hope, that I have been made the instrument of some saving benefit to the precious souls committed to my charge." - Memoir
of himself.




352                            M EMOIR.
B.- Appendix to this Statement.
" God favored me with three spiritual harvests, or revivals of
religion, which rendered my church about as large and flourishing as any in the vicinity."-  MIemoir of himself.
The preceding remark was added to his Memoir by Dr. Emmons in
1830.  The third harvest here alluded to was reaped in 1808-9, when
about forty persons were added to the church. No sooner had he retired
from the active duties of his office, than he rejoiced in the fulfilment of
his own aphorism: " The seed which a faithful laborer sows is apt to
come up when he retires from the field;" for as soon as he discontinued
his public labors in 1827, the seed which had long lain buried in the dust
germinated, and he was gladdened by a fourth revival, in which thirtysix persons made a public profession of their faith. In the year 1836-7,
he rejoiced in afifth ingathering of the fruits which he had planted. From
the time of his dismission to the time of his death, one hundred and thirteen persons were admitted to his church, on profession of their faith,
and twenty-seven from other churches. Thus before the decease of the
venerable  instructor, he had seen four hundred and fifty persons admitted to the " sacred school" for which he had toiled and prayed.  His
nearest clerical neighbor adds:
" During the fifty-four years in which he performed the active duties of his office,
there were added to his church three hundred and eight; thirty-six by letter, and two
hundred and seventy-two by profession.
" If it be considered that the greater part of his ministry was during the great declension of religion in Massachusetts, when the enemy came in like a flood, when
revivals of religion were little known, and when a majority of the churches in his vicinity were either overrun or torn asunder by the prevalence of Unitarianism and its
kindred errors, these facts indicate much more than ordinary success in the conversion
of sinners.
" It is well known to the people in the immediate vicinity of his labors, that conversions among his people were much more frequent and striking, than in the neighboring societies generally. His success as a preacher was once a common subject of 
remark. The number that was added to his church during the long period of his
ministry, is not indeed great for these days of revivals and increased population. But
for the times in which the vigor of his life was spent, and for the population of the
place in which he lived, it was uncommon.
" Though in his best days there were among his people as well as every other,
much sin and many overt acts of wickedness; yet it is well known that his parishioners
were remarkable, not only for the depth and consistency of the piety which prevailed
among them, but for their industry, honesty, and sobriety, for their observance of the
Sabbath, their domestic order and regularity, their attendance upon the public worship of God, and the respect which they paid to all the institutions of the gospel.
" But the greatest success of Dr. Emmons did not consist in the number of sinners
whom he was directly instrumental of converting. His influence in preserving his




MEAMO IR.                                 353'
church and congregation from the corrupting influence of error, which in his clay undermined the foundations of many generations, was a most important achievement.
So thoroughly were they established in'the faith once delivered to the saints,' that
they were not even shaken in their faith by all the various forms of error with which
they were assailed, or by the overwhelming popular influence which the friends of the
misnamed liberal principles, for a long time exerted around them. Only one or two
of his church were affected with the prevailing heresies of the day. And the influence
of these was immediately neutralized by the kind and faithful exercise of the discipline of the church. Though the leaven of error began to work in the congregation,
and some few expressed their preference for' liberal Christianity,/' falsely so called,'
yet the great body of the people remained firmly united with the church through all
the changes that occurred in the vicinity, and in the face of all the efforts that were
made to draw them off from the principles and practices of their fathers." - (Dr. Ide's
Memoir of Emmons, pp. 88, 89, 92.)
Seventy-two years after Emmons was ordained, one of his parishioners,
Rev. ]Mortimer Blake, delivered the following words to the inhabitants
of Franklin:
The practical operation of our pastor's "views of ministerial duty to his flock has
had a half a century to develop itself. And we say, without any disparagement of
other policies and other fields, that the town of Franklin has obtained an enviable
notoriety"......
"' We take pleasure in pointing the stranger, passing through our retired town, to
the single spire surmounting our only sanctuary of God, in a population of nearly two
thousand souls. While other towns have been parcelled out into different parishes of
opposite faith, this has hitherto remained united"...
"Hardly a case of defection from  the truth has ever occurred among those who
were turned unto God, under Dr. Emmons's ministry. Here there has been emphatically'one Lord, one faith, one baptism.' A live advocate of any of the different
sects was a rare sight to our youthful eyes."- (Address pronounced June 17, 1846,
at the Dedication of the Emmons Monument, p. 10.)
Rev. Abijah R. Baker, another clergyman who was nurtured in the
Franklin church, has borne the following testimony:
"If there has lived a man in New England, within the last century, who merited
the appellation of a revival preacher in the best sense, he [Emmons] was that man." -
" There was one characteristic of the converts under his ministry, which it would be
unpardonable to omit. Unlike many in our day, they did not need to be reconverted
the next month nor the next year. They believed the doctrine of the saints' perseverance, and their lives were a practical illustration of it. We cannot now recollect,
and we never heard our fathers mention, a solitary instance of an apostate among
them." — (Memoir of Dr. Emmons, in American Quarterly Register, Vol. XV. p.
117.)l
I Had we space, we might adduce a hundred incidents illustrating the unreasonable
prejudice against the veteran pastor of Franklin. Here is a specimen. "On one
occasion, a married daughter of his was travelling in the cars under the escort of a
clergyman, who formerly belonged to her father's parish.  She was introduced by her
DD *




354                             MEM OIR.
It must be remembered that, as has been said of one of his pupils, " he
would have admitted more members into his church, if he had not made
the examination for admittance so strict."  It must be further remembered, that the immigrants into Franklin were few during the pastorate
of Emmons, while the emigrantsfrom  the town were many.  Hence he
had not the opportunity of making fresh impressions upon new classes
of auditors, and thus multiplying the number of those who could ascribe
their religious life to his instrumentality.  Hence also many of the young
converts, who owed their new character to the means which he employed
and which the Holy Spirit honored, did not remain with him as his spiritual aids, but left him to labor without their help, while they disseminated
his influence through other regions. During the later years of his pastorate, Franklin began to lose its relative importance as a home for farmers,
and this proportional decline of its agricultural attractions brought down
with it many other interests, and drew  forth from  the venerable pastor
those desponding tones which are so natural to an old man, conservative
of the old ways.  His melancholy notes are as interesting as the last
foliage of an autumnal forest.
C. - His lengthened rural Pastorate is a Lesson of Contentment to country Ministers.
We have seen with regard to education and to missions, that a large
part of Emmons's influence was indirect.  Iis field was Franklin, but
it was the world also.   Rev. William  Clark, Secretary of the New
Hampshire Missionary Society, has written these memorable words:
"If the average usefulness of his pupils has equalled, or shall hereafter
equal that of the twenty-nine whom  I have known, it may be doubted
whether any minister in our land, holding simply the pastoral office, has
ever done so much to promote the interests of the Redeemer's kingdom
in our country or the world, as Dr. Emrmons." Yet this is the influence
of a country parson, who thus indirectly encourages other bishops of
rural parishes to be contented with their lot.
" When I preach in the city," said the pastor of a metropolitan church,
friend to another clergyman from a neighboring State. The latter, knowing her escort to be a native of Franklin, conversed with him in regard to the town and to its
former minister, Emmons. Not suspecting the lady's relationship to the old divine,
he very freely expressed his abhorrence of the Doctor's creed, and mentioned, as one
proof of its obnoxious character, the influence of it upon the parishioners of Emmons.' I have,' said he,'two men in my parish brought up under Dr. E-'s ministry, and
they are the worst men in the place. Their wives, however, are the best of women.'
"' What are their names?' asked the lady, who had been an attentive listener.
"The clergyman named them.'I know them both very well,' replied the lady,' but unfortunately for your statement, those gentlemen, though natives of Franklin,
removed from it at a very early age, and returned only to be married. They were
not brought up under my father's ministry, but their wives were; and I am very
happy to hear you bear testimony to such good fruits from his labors.'"




MEMOIR.                             355
"I wear my best coat; when I preach in the country, I take my best
sermon."  There are many still towns which demand more thoughtful
discourses, than are required in the crowded thoroughfares of our land.
Less regard to the graces of elocution, to the niceties of style, to the
poetical and historical illustrations is needed for the country; but often
there is needed a higher regard to the soundness of the argument, and
the depth of evangelical truth and feeling.
The life-long example of Dr. Emmons is itself a sermon on the blessedness of country ministers, as distinct from Theological Professors.
When the first "Divinity College" was projected in Eastern Massachusetts, certain admirers of Emmons desired that he should be its chief
Professor.  But he preferred to remain a preacher to farmers. There
is a degree of sterling, roundabout sense, and of simple, honest, Christian
sentiment among the yeomanry of New England, which is fitted to exert
the most benignant influence on a metaphysical theologian. To write
plain sermons for a plain people, is an admirable discipline for a philosopher. It tends to make his theology practical. It helps him to understand what he himself means.  The Franklin pastor has been often criticized as having a "presumptuous fancy," a "daring, scheming imagination." If he had any tendency to an undue indulgence in fanciful theories,
the congregation of solid yeomen was a better school for him than a class
of youthful students would have been. It proffered him all the restraints
which he needed. He knew that a kite could not rise, unless a string bound
it to the earth.  "It requires all our learning," says Archbishop Usher,
to make things plain."  It requires less learning and less power to propound mystical theories, and garnish them with a dazzling rhetoric. For
a bold metaphysician to retain a parish of eager listeners, during more
than half a century, among shrewd, strong, intelligent, laborious yeomen;
to make them and to leave them desirous of knowing more and yet more
of those great doctrines which have for ages puzzled the schoolmen and
the sages; to preach these comprehensive truths in a style so lucid and
so practical as to give the religious element a predominance over the
scientific, is a work not less profitable to the author himself, than it is
monitory to his readers.
We are aware that a change has come over us, and that a country
parish is not all that it was once.  The able-bodied and strong-minded
man, who lived in an " upright house" on the distant hill-top, and owned
a hundred and fifty or two hundred of the "paternal acres," who was nof
only a skilful farmer, but was also a tolerable carpenter, and a decent blacksmith, and a passable wheelwright, and was able, if he had need, to mend
or make a shoe, and was withal a Justice of the Peace, and chairman of
the Selectmen, and sometimes Representative or Senator in the " Great




356                          MP EM O IR.
and General Court," and perhaps a member of the Governor's Council;
who was also a deacon of the church, and a member of the " Standing
Committee," and often a Delegate with his pastor to an Ecclesiastical
Council, -that man has emigrated to the West, and has become a Member of Congress, and the tranquil parish of his early love sighs for him
in vain. Still, with all the changes introduced by railroads and cheap
prairie land, -a rural pastorate in New England may be an Eden to a
practical divine.
~ 6. Illustrations of his Ministerial Piety.
" To preach well, it is necessary to live well. To preach like Christ, it is necessary
to live like Christ. Christ lived the minister. He carried the minister into all companies." " Remember that Christ your Lord and Master, will keep his eye upon you
and watch you every moment. He will be with you in the study, and observe you in
your private preparations. He will attend you to the pulpit and hear you preach,
He will sit with you at his table, and observe your behavior at the head of his family;
and he will accompany you among the people and mark all your conversation and
carriage against the day of judgment. Let Christ then be always in your eye and in
your heart. Converse with him, consult him, and engage that gracious presence of
his, which he hath promised to all his faithful ministers. Often ask yourself,'how
would Christ preachi how would Christ live  how would Christ converse? how
would Christ behave under this trial or that trial? how would he treat this church
and congregation were he in my place and situation'? and always aim to follow the
example of Christ, both in living and in preaching."
This is the solemn charge addressed by the patriarch of Franklin to
one of his pupils.  He applied the motto to himself.  Those who had
the most intimate, acquaintance with him  as a man, felt the highest
reverence for him as a Christian.  His piety in his own house, retained
its glow when he was in the house of God.  It was acknowledged most
fully by those who listened to him most frequently.
Perhaps it is difficult to find more characteristic illustrations of his
clerical virtue, than are given in the words which he uttered on the days
commemorative of his entrance upon his pastorate. At the present time,
many a minister is well-nigh glorified in the literal sense, when he has
filled out a quarter of a century in one parish. Amid solemn parade, he
listens to encomiums which would be more appropriate for the angels in
heaven.  The patriarch of Franklin was sensitive, perhaps too sensitive
to any disrespect for his office, but he could never have inbreathed such
incense as is offered to the more juvenile patriarchs of our day. He
cast his eyes backward on his ministerial course with awe, penitence,
and trust in God.  His modest, unassuming spirit, his conscientious
fidelity, his sense of justice, his fear of Jehovah, his love to men, his




MEMOIR.                                   357
determination to labor more and more for hi; Redeemer and his brethren,
are plotographed in utterances like the following:
Address at his fifty-first Anniversary. - "Every thing tells me that I have almost
finished my course, and the time of my departure is at hand. This day finishes
fifty years of my ministry among you. I must soon leave you, and you all must, one
after another, follow me into eternity, where the serious consequences of our long
mutual relation will be seen and realized forever. These cannot be judged before
the time. But is there not ground to hope that some of us have fought a good fight
and kept the faith, and that we shall have a joyful meeting in the mansions of the
blessed, and receive a crown of righteousness which shall never fade away?
"Though we have lived in a very eventful period; yet nothing very extraordinary has happened [among us] which deserves particular notice.  Your Pastor
entered into [a] vineyard, which had been well cultivated before he came into it. He
has had peculiar motives to labor here with diligence and activity. He hopes
he has sown some good seed which in time to come will spring up and bear fruit unto
eternal life. He gratefully acknowledges that he has had the pleasure of seeing
several small harvests.  God has graciously smiled upon the pastor and people during
fifty years; which is a long period of ministerial life."...
"In reviewing what is past, we have all undoubtedly much cause to lament our
great negligence, unfruitfulness, and unfaithfulness, in the service of God; and no
less cause to fight the good fight of faith with increasing vigor, fortitude, and zeal, till
we have finished our course, and entered into everlasting rest."
Address at his fifty-second Anniversary. - "Now, my hearers, I ought to recollect and
you ought to recollect, that I have been in my watch-tower here fifty-one years.
"In the course of this long period many souls have been committed to my watch
and care; many more than will ever be committed to my trust again. I am still
responsible for those who have gone the way of all the earth, though they are now
entirely beyond the influence of my preaching and prayers, and the preaching and
prayers of any other man on the face of the earth.
" But I am still in my watch-tower, and the solemn and responsible duty of watching for your souls, lies upon me with redoubled weight. The past neglect of duty,
and the present decays of nature, and the nearness in which I, and some of you at
least, stand to eternity, remind me of my increasing obligations to fidelity. Though
you may complain of my past unfaithfulness, surely you cannot reasonably complain
of my future watchfulness and fidelity.
"Methinks I see dangers approaching, and grievous wolves entering in, not sparing
the flock. And the danger I see, or think I see, I must warn you of, let it come
from what quarter it will. I am responsible for warning, and you are responsible for
taking warning. - Brethren, the time is short, precious, and important. Death is at
the door; and when that comes we must go to our long home, and give up our
account with joy or grief."
Address at his fifty-third Anniversary. -" This day closes the fifty-second year of
my public ministry among you. You called me to preach the gospel, which is the
word of God, plainly and faithfully to you. I accepted your call, and engaged to
preach the gospel plainly and faithfully to you. You engaged on your part, to hear




-858                            MEMOIR.
me preach the gospel, not as the word of man, but as the word of God. The serious
mutual question before us is, Have we fulfilled our mutual obligations?
" I think I can safely say for myself, that I have endeavored to preach the gospel
as plainly and fully as I have been able. I have not meant to keep back any thing,
which I thought would be profitable unto you, nor shunned to disclose all the
counsel of God, so far as I understood it. I have taken pains to understand, explain,
defend, and inculcate the important doctrines and duties of the gospel, in the best
manner I could, for the benefit of saints and sinners. In respect to preaching the
gospel plainly, I am not conscious of very great deficiency.
"But whether I have preached the gospelfaitfully, is a more serious and difficult
question for me, and more difficult for you, to answer. To preach the gospel faithfully implies a great deal. It implies supreme love to God, and a disinterested
regard for the good of souls. I am conscious that I have failed, that I have often
failed, and that I have greatly failed, but I hope not entirely failed, of preaching the
gospel faithfully. I have rejoiced when I have seen any cordially embrace the gospel
as the word of God; and I have lamented when I have seen so many receive the
gospel, as the word of man, and make light of it; but whether my joy and sorrow
have flowed from pure love to God and the souls of men, I feel to be important to
determine, and to determine according to truth. My deficiencies, however, in fulfilling
my obligations to you, and to God, in preaching the gospel plainly and faithfully,
call for my humiliation and godly sorrow.
" It is yours now to inquire, whether you have faithfully fulfilled your obligations to
hear the gospel as the word of God, and not as the word of man. You as really
engaged to hear me preach constantly as I engaged to preach constantly....
"My hearers, the question is before you, whether the breach of obligation lies upon
you, or upon me. It is a melancholy truth, that religion is decaying among us. Are
there no secondary causes of it? Preaching appears at present to do but very little
good. Must it not be owing to the preacher, or to the hearers? It highly and
mutually concerns us to search out the cause or causes of the decay of piety, virtue,
and morality among us. Why does iniquity abound? Is it not because the love of
many waxes cold? Why does the love of many wax cold? Is it not because the
means of grace are not used, or not improved, and divine ordinances are despised and
neglected?
" It is affecting and humiliating to compare our religious state at present, with our
religious state fifty years ago; and if we look forward, a more dismaying prospect
presents itself to our view. There is reason to fear from what is past, that I shall be
more and more deficient in preaching, and that you will be more and more deficient
in hearing the great and precious truths of the gospel, and that we shall suffer religion
to die in our hands, and the blood of souls will be required of us. We are all acting
for eternity, and it behooves us by the faithful discharge of duty to prepare to give up
our great and last account with joy, and not with grief."
These are the pensive words of an octogenarian, who teaches that " the
essence of htumility consists in self-abasement."   He loved "to take the
lowest place which he could find." Hence his closing words are like the
notes of the dying swan.  In his best days he said: "I never stand up
in the pulpit without trembling."  In his last days, he could not speak of
his ministry as candid friends would speak of it.  He was a conservative




MEMOIR.                             359
man; he loved to recall the scenes of his boyhood at Millington; he
could not sanction the change of manners which had come over the land
since he worshipped with the relatives of Brainerd on Millington hill.
" Those good old times," - there was none like them in his view, and
his preaching was tinged with melancholy at their departure.
~ 7. Apothegms illustrating his Ministerial Wisdom.
" No hungry minister or parishioner ever called on the pastor of Franklin, without
receiving a loaf of bread to carry home." - The following are crumbs that fell from
his table.
" Ministers should be more than free from vice; they should be virtuous.  They should be more than virtuous; they should be pious.
They should be more than not condemned of the world; they should
condemn the world."
" Good men as well as bad are able to do any thing which they tink
they are able to do. Difficulties vanish before resolution." -" Five men
united in a parish can do any thing for or against a minister."
" Saints govern all the affairs of the world, so far as creatures have
any agency in governing the world."
" Christians have far stronger motives to be industrious in their secular calling, than sinners have."
" Let a minister take good care of the Gospel, and the Gospel will
take good care of him."
" Money destroyed one apostle, and two of the primitive church-members."
"The minister must move, before his people will move; he must feel
before they will feel; he must seek his end, before he can possibly attain it."
"A wise man takes advice, but does not follow it without examination."
"It is unwise and dangerous to force nature."
"Though God has immensely more laboring for him in his vineyard
every day, than Solomon had laboring for him while building the temple,
yet (rod has not a single laborer to spare."
"General reformations always begin with individuals."
"An undedicated saint cannot be found."
"Piety, poetry, and music, are intimately and happily united."
"The conduct of men is oftener a cover, than a display, of their real
feelings."
" Every circumstance that tends to indulge one corruption of bad men,
tends to restrain another."




860                         MEMOIR.
" When a young prince is born, all the kingdom feel the importance of
his education, and are anxiously concerned to have the ablest instructors
employed, to form him for great and noble actions. But you have more
than princes, even young immortals, committed to your care, whose
powers and capacities, whose dignity and importance will astonish you
at the great day, if not before."
" When a parent tells a child not to go near the well, this does not give
him leave to run into the fire."
" Eternity levels all distinctions, and raises all immortal souls into infinite importance."- "A minister's habit of viewing his people in the light
of eternity, must necessarily raise them all to a level. I do not say, sink
them to a level, but raise them to a level."
" Christians have no more right to neglect to pray for their minister,
than their minister has to neglect to preach to them."
" Let false teachers pass on your right hand and left, but say nothing
to them unless they attack you."
"Time-serving ministers generally have but few hearers."
"Though the Bereans were commended for searching the Scriptures,
in order to determine whether Paul preached the truth, yet we have no
ground to suppose that they would have been commended, if they had
rejected the truth after they had searched the Scriptures."
" No man is to be blamed for acting agreeably to the errors he really
believes to be truth, but he is to be blamed for loving and embracing his
errors." -" No man ever embraced a religious error as an error, but
only as a truth."
" The afflicted may always remember, that whether they do or do not
receive benefit from their own afflictions, the world certainly will."
" When a man preaches false doctrine on one Sabbath in my pulpit,
then on the next Sabbath I draw an inference against his false doctrine."
"It is the proper business of ministers to set, and not to follow,
example."
"I state and prove that men ought to keep Saturday, rather tl-an
Sunday evening, as a part of the Sabbath, and then I let my people do
as they please. On all such matters, a minister must reason with men,
but not crowd them." - " I can not see why I should keep Saturday
evening," said a parishioner.  "Then keep Sabbath evening," said the
pastor.
"A preacher always carries his habitual views and feelings into the
pulpit with him. If he conceals the Gospel, the Gospel will not conceal
him."




CHAPTER  XVI.
HIS THEOLOGICAL SYSTEM.
HAVING considered the Life Work of Emmons in its outward
relations, let us now consider it in its internal principles. We
have examined the superstructure; let us next examine the
foundations of the edifice. The basis of his discourses in the
pulpit and of his discipline in the pastorate, was his Theological
System. The importance of this system has been undervalued.
The preceding Sketches of his Friends and Pupils were designed
to show, that he moved forth as a giant, with a hundred athletes
in his train, and he must have wielded a power which the simplicity of his ways tempts men to overlook. The fact that some
of our clergymen who are now in' the meridian of life, were once
familiar with him, leads them to forget his influence over their
grandfathers, and great-grandfathers. When Emmons was born,
President Edwards and President Clap were, each, about fortytwo years of age; Dr. Samuel Mather and Dr. Mather Byles,
about thirty-nine years; Dr. Joseph Bellamy, twenty-six; Dr.
Ezra Stiles and Dr. Napthali Dagget, eighteen; Dr. Moses
Hemmenway, Dr. James Dana, Dr. Benjamin Trumbull, Dr.
Stephen West, each ten years of age. He was about one month
older than Dr. Jonathan Edwards; three years older than Dr.
Samuel Wales, Dr. Joseph Willard, and Dr. Nathan Strong;
four years older than Dr. Charles Backus; seven years older
than Dr. Timothy Dwight, and Dr. Eliphalet Pearson. Such
facts illustrate the long reach of his influence, and the early
beginning of that career which closed within our own remembrance. Let us then consider
(361)
VOL                    FF




862                         MEMOIR.
~ 1. The Historical Aspects of his Theological System.
A. —His early Services in the Infidel Controversy.
It is easy for an ungrateful public to forget, that one of the chief labors
of Emmons was in resisting the Infidel spirit which began to prevail
during and after the war of the Revolution.  The tendency of this spirit
was to degrade the clerical office. In struggling to preserve the clerical
dignity, Emmons toiled and suffered more than we can easily describe.
He wrote in 1795: "A  loose and infidel spirit prevails more or less
everywhere, and especially appears in opposition to faithful ministers."
He wrote in 1797: "The corruption of the times appears in nothing
more visibly, than in the united opposition of the people to sacred things,
and to sacred persons. They seem determined to bring down ministers,
and make reprisals upon them, for their having so long possessed the
public esteem and confidence."  He often remarked: " Once the people
believed what the minister says, because he says it; now they disbelieve
what the minister says, because he says it." Emmons early became familiar with the writings of Herbert, Tindal, Bolingbroke, Gibbon,
and Shaftesbury.  He studied the theories of Illuminism, which emanated from Adam Weishaupt, of Ingolstadt, as early as 1780.  He was
particularly conversant with the writings of David Hume. His Sermon
on Job 11: 7, printed in 1793, and entitled, " God Incomprehensible,"
was especially designed to combat Hume's Dialogues concerning Natural
Religion.  Another of his discourses contains an elaborate refutation of
Godwin's Political Justice. In October, 1796, the Mendon Association
published a volume on " the Evidences of Revealed Religion," of which
Dr. Emmons wrote the Chapter on Miracles.  He was one of our foremost divines in giving a preeminence to the Internal Argument for the
Bible. He said in 1804, that the doctrines of the Bible "afford the
strongest internal evidence" of its truth, "and carry greater conviction
to the minds of common Christians than prophecies or miracles, or any
other mere external proofs of Christianity." " It is impossible for any
man in the world to understand the Gospel and yet disbelieve it."  "If
a man will allow himself to examine, or suffer himself to be taught, the
great and distinguishing doctrines of the Christian religion, so as really
to understand them, he cannot resist conviction, but must believe them. to
be true, whether they are agreeable or disagreeable to his heart. If the
heart does not prevent the exercise, it cannot prevent the verdict of reason." 1 His firm conviction, that " if we can only make men understand
I See also, Works, Orig. Ed. Vol. VII. p. 528.




MEMOIR.                             363
the Gospel, we may be sure we have gained their everlasting belief,"
led Emmons to his style of plain, explanatory discourse. "It is said of
Paul, in distinction from all the other apostles, that he reasoned in his
preaching," and Emmons aimed to unfold the full meaning of the Bible,
because he believed that "the faithful preacher always has the reason
and conscience of men on his side," and a " reasonable religion will take
hold of these inflexible powers of their minds in spite of their hearts,"
and sinners will hear, even while they hate, what they believe to be true
and important.
It may be added, that the entire doctrinal course of this self-consistent
divine was shaped by his stringent theory of Inspiration. He believed
that the Divine Spirit " dictated the very words" in which the Divine
truth was expressed; that " the Holy Ghost suggested every thought and
word to the sacred penmen, all the while they were writing the Holy
Scriptures;" that "inspiration, in every degree of it, always means
something which is truly supernatural and miraculous."  He was not
moved by the objection that the original phrases thus dictated were to be
afterwards translated; but he says: Upon this very ground, " we may
reasonably suppose that the Divine Spirit dictated every thought and
word to the sacred penmen, to prevent gross errors and mistakes from
finally creeping into their writings by frequent transcriptions and translations."  This strict theory of Inspiration led him to accept every doctrine of the Bible as accurate, whether it could be substantiated by reason or not. For, he says: "If what we have endeavored to prove be
true, that every word and sentiment of the Bible was immediately suggested to the sacred penmen by the Holy Ghost; then their writings
are, strictly speaking, the word of God; and to appeal from their writings to reason, is the same as to appeal from  God to man; which is
absurd and criminal in the highest degree." On the same principle, Dr.
Emmons insisted that the style of the Bible should be the style of our
theological treatises, and hence he justified his assertions that God
" hardens the heart," "creates our choice."  It was by the reasoning of
Dr. Emmons on the inspired language, that Dr. Woods of Andover was
influenced in repeating so often his favorite rule:'The Bible should
be our standard, both in the matter and in the manner of our teaching.'
B.- His early Services in the Arminian Controversy.
During the last half of the last century, the orthodox divines were
in a constant warfare against Arminianism.  No one was more active
or efficient in the contest, than Emmons.  To no man are the Calvinistic
churches more indebted for tie defence of their faith. A large part of




364                          MEMOIR,
his published discourses appears to be affected by this controversy. Not
so large a proportion of his ordinary sermons was tinctured with it; for
his ordinary sermons, being more practical and less controversial, have
not been demanded for the press.  They are too much like the sermons
of other men, to awaken the popular curiosity.  While Calvinistic ministers condemn him for giving so great prominence to their distinguishing doctrines, they forget that he was urged to their defence by the
activity of their assailants. "The zeal of a man's hearers to oppose
and resist the force of divine truth, will increase his zeal to preach it
with the greater plainness and pungency."  Emmons illustrated the correctness of this, his own remark.  He never quailed before his opponents, and he spoke the louder when they attempted to drown his voice.
He chose to resist the Arminians by proclaiming the truth which they
would undermine, rather than by manoeuvres or inuendoes against them
as men.  He resisted them by resisting their doctrines, and he resisted
their doctrines by preaching his own. He took a positive attitude, and
preached for the sovereign decrees of God, rather than against the selfdetermining power of man.  If he had labored in opposition to persons,
rather than in opposition to their teachings; and if he had labored more
frequently in direct antagonism to the doctrine, that men are independent
in their relations; and less frequently in the direct maintenance of the
doctrine, that God worketh all things after the counsel of his own will, he
would have seemed to diversify his life-work more than he now seems to
have done.  lie was no more- disproportionate in his zeal for Calvinistic
peculiarities, than other controversialists have been. It is natural for
the friends of a truth to derive an excess of zeal for it, from the eagerness
with which it is opposed.  A  mother concentrates her affections upon
that child who has fallen into the most imminent peril. It is a singular
fact, however, that Emmons has been oftener blamed for a one-sided
partisanship for " decrees," " election," etc., by those men who enjoy the
fruit of his victory, than by those who felt the force of his logic against
themselves.
"A one-sided partisanship for' decrees,'' election,'" etc.! That Emmons, in his published discourses, has made such doctrines unusually
prominent, is admitted. So has he given a bold expression to the correlative or antithetic doctrines. He has not projected one class of truths
to a point where they excluded other truths.  His zeal against Arminianism led him  to exalt a class of principles which explain the Calvinistic creed, and defend it against the charge of fatalism. Arminians are
successful in their attack on the truth of Predestination, unless that truth
be allied with another; i. e. the natural ability of man to perform  all
that is required of him. Partly in order to prevent the success of this




MEM OIR.                                365
attack, the Franklin divine brought into a foremost position his doctrine
of human ability.  Arminians are victorious in their assault upon the
truth of man's native sinfulness, unless that truth be allied with another,
i. e. the freeness, voluntariness, activity of all sin. Partly to meet this
victorious assault, the Franklin divine raised into the front rank his celebrated dictum: " All sin consists in sinning."  A one-sided advocate of
divine decrees and. divine efficiency!   The quotations in the present
Chapter, if arranged in parallel columns, would give ocular proof of the
fact, that he aimed to take a comprehensive view of what is fixed and what
is free; to make an emphatic avowal of human liberty in order to maintain
the truth of divine sovereignty. His perspicacious mind was assured, that
unless he made frank avowals of the power of men, as commensurate
with their obligation, he could not maintain the Calvinistic creed, as distinct from the Mohammedan; and unless he admitted the active choice of
the will in all sin, he could not reconcile the doctrine of sin with the
primary beliefs of the mind. It was thus by his very dread of Arminianism, and by his horror at seeing the Genevan citadel surrendered to
its foes, that he was prompted to combine free agency with decrees, and
to represent free agency in sinning as the very essence of sin. It is
everywhere apparent, that in what men call his own Arminianism, he is
undermining the real Arminian error.  He has been stigmatized as
favoring the very scheme which he was opposing, and the triumph of
which he aided in preventing.  That the propositions which have been
superficially denounced as Arminian, are uttered by him in the most
honest and simple-hearted endeavor to overthrow the very scheme which
he has been accused of supporting, is obvious in such assertions as the
following:
"It is because Arminians, Antinomians, and Universalists do not understand, or
will not acknowledge the distinction between natural and moral inability, or between
talents and a heart to improve them, that they run into their different and dangerous
errors. And no one can refute them without understanding this distinction." - (Orig.
Ed VI. 94.)
"Those [divines] who disbelieve and deny the native depravity of children, always
deny it on the ground of [its] absurdity. But if they [children] do not become depraved before they become moral agents, where is the absurdity of their having free,
voluntary, sinful exercises at that time, any more than at any other period of their
lives? Upon their own principle, whenever children become moral agents, let that
time be when it will, they are then capable of choosing either good or evil; and there
is no more absurdity in the idea of their choosing evil first, than of their choosing
good first. It is just as difficult for those who maintain that children exercise free,
voluntary, holy affections at first, to account for their having holy exercises before
they have sinful; as it is for those who maintain that children have free, voluntary, sinful exercises at first, to account for their having free, voluntary, sinful exercises, before
they have holy. Both those who deny and those who maintain native depravity,
FF 




366                             E M O IR.
allow that children do not become morally depraved, before they become moral agents;
and after they become moral agents, both allow that they are capable of having either
good or bad moral exercises. There is no absurdity in either of these opinions." —
(Works, II. 624.)
The writings of Emmons are signally useful as a testimony that, in
the judgment of one who stood on a clearer mount of vision than the
majority of his race have reached, the sternest principles of Calvinism
cannot be sustained except on the basis of the truths, that God never
requires men to do what he cannot do himself, i. e. work an impossibility;
and that he never punishes men except for what they have done.  To
denounce these truths as inconsistent with Calvinism when they are logically and ethically essential to it, is to stigmatize one of the strongest
advocates of Calvinism as ignorant of its very spirit.  The influence of
Emmons will no sooner be counteracted by such denunciations, than a
rock in the sea will be overborne by the froth and fury of the waves.
C. -His early Services in the Antinomian Controversy.
John Flavel published a tractate entitled: "A  Blow  at the Root of
Antinomianism."  Dr. Bellamy wrote a small treatise entitled: " A Blow
at the Root of the Refined Antinomianism of the Present Age." These
titles suggest one marked feature of Emmons as a divine. His homely
rules were: " Lay the axe at the root of the tree;" "Strike the nail
full on the head." He was characterized by thoroughness in whatever
he undertook.  He early saw that one-sided men, fleeing from Arminianism, would rush into Antinomianism.  He was not a man of merely one
idea.  He rose up against the two extremes.  He defended the doctrine
that Natural Ability is equal to Moral Obligation, because he knew that
a denial of this doctrine is the logical precursor of Antinomianism. Why
should the law require men to do what they have no power to do? He
opposed the notion that Christ performed our obedience, and that Christ's
holiness is literally imputed to us, and that our sins are literally imputed
to Christ, because this notion is the logical antecedent of Antinomianism.
Why should the law demand of us an obedience which has been already
paid, and threaten us with a penalty which has been already borne?
There is another method in which this thorough reasoner knocked at the
underpinning of the Antinomian faith.  No small part of his life was
spent in proving, that in the order of nature [he also believed that in the
order of time] simple love is antecedent to repentance, and repentance
1 See Memoir of Hopkins, pp. 185, 187. -In an unpublished letter of Hopkins to
Dr. West of Stockbridge, he remarks: "Booth [the English divine], thinks we in
America are inclined to Baxterian and Arminian principles. I think him no better
than an Antinomian."




MEMOIR.                                 367
is antecedent to faith in Christ; that the faith which the Gospel requires
is love combined with trust, and this trust in the atonement depends upon
a previous sorrow for sin, and this sorrow depends on a previous love to
God and man.  Thus he toiled to undermine the very groundwork of
the Antinomian creed.  His native elasticity of soul made him  recoil
from Antinomianism with a singular dread.  He says:
Men "build a whole scheme of false religion on this ground," that " faith must be
before repentance, because sinners cannot repent of sin before they believe their sins
are forgiven; but after they believe Christ died for them in particular, and God has
forgiven their sins on his account, then they may love God and repent of sin. But
such love and repentance flow [may flowl] from mere selfishness, and are consistent
with entire enmity to God in his true character, and to the whole Gospel rightly understood. It [this faith] is the essence of Antinomianism, which is subversive of all
true experimental religion." —(Orig. Ed. VII. 208, 209.) "If we read Hervey's
Dialogues, Marshall's Gospel Mystery of Sanctification, The Marrow of Modern Divinity, or many of the writings of the Presbyterian divines in Europe and America
[Emmons elsewhere names Chalmers and Irving among the more recent European
divines], we find that these authors inculcate the doctrine that faith always precedes
love, and lays the foundation for love in the sinner's conversion." They "suppose
that men cannot love God before they believe that God loves them, and intends to
save them. But the love, the repentance, and all the religious affections which flow
from such a faith [i. e. are dependent upon, and would not exist apart from, such a
faith], are totally selfish, and diametrically repugnant to all the precepts of the divine
law."  This religion "is properly called Antinomianism, or a religion against the law
of God." -(Works, II. 153.)
D. - His Early Services in the Unitarian Controversy.
Dr. Emmons was one of the foremost men in our land who predicted
the irruption of Unitarianism, and prepared the weapons for resisting it.
Being a man of speculation more than a man of action; he resorted to argument more than to ecclesiastical processes, for checking the evil which
he foresaw.  He never attended a caucus designed to form  or recommend any scheme of partisan action. He had no taste for what is called
"' party management." But he "reasoned out of the Scriptures" against
the Unitarian forms of belief and speech. His name has not been so
often repeated as the names of other men have been, in the roll of combatants against these forms; for he silently cleared the avenue through
which many others marched at the beat of the drum. He did not make
so much noise as they, for they struck the blows while he held the light.
Not that he failed to deal out heavy blows of argumentation; not that
he passed through the controversy without giving serious offence to the
liberal clergy; but he was conspicuous and was censured for the trains of
thought which he started, more than for any speeches which he made, or
votes which he drafted, in the Convention or in Councils.




368                             MEMOIR.
One illustration of his anticipatory spirit in regard to Unitarianism, is
given in an Ordination sermon which he delivered from Acts 20: 24,
and which evoked.unfavorable criticism  seventy-two years ago.  The
sermon pre-intimates, with singular exactness, the course which was pursued by the Orthodox churches, a quarter of a century after Emmons
drew his sharp lines.  Such a sermon would not now arouse any peculiar indignation among the clergy of New England; for both the friends
and the foes of Unitarianism  have become habituated to its cutting
words.  The interest of it has in some measure faded away, as a spark
goes out in the flame which itself has kindled.  But when it was first
pronounced, it fell as a thunderbolt on a community, which, as early as
1789, had begun to disparage the worth of Creeds, to discountenance the
Examination of Candidates for the Ministry, and to cherish a Catholicism which would welcome the Unitarian, as cordially as the Trinitarian
belief. On these topics, he made the following terse remarks:
As the Gospel consists of the doctrines of grace, there may be a propriety in forming
and subscribing creeds. "If I conjecture light [men do not] object against creeds,
because they do not understand them, but because they do."
" It is an alarming circumstance, that ministers have become so remiss in examining
candidates for the work of the ministry. They not only approbate them to preach, but
even ordain them to the pastoral charge, without the least examination of their religious principles. And some boast of this conduct, under the noble idea of liberality of
sentiment."  But "modern catholicism is real infidelity."
" If ministers neglect to preach the doctrines of grace, they neglect to preach the
Gospel; " -so that, if we inculcate the same doctrines and duties which were inculcated by Socrates, Cicero, and Seneca, "upon the same natural principles, we deserve
the name of heathen, rather than Christian preachers."
"Men of modern catholicism make no distinction between essential and non-essential doctrines; but universally embrace, in the arms of charity, all sects or denominations of men, who believe the Bible to be the word of God, whether they profess
Arianism, Socinianism, Materialism, Universalism, or any other particular system of
religious principles. And what is still more remarkable, they are so lavish of their
charity to these needy objects, that they have little or none to spare for others who are
more strict and Orthodox than themselves. Mr. Locke, in his' Reasonableness of
Christianity,' labors to prove that all a man needs to believe in order to be saved, is
this single proposition, that Jesus is the Christ. And Dr. Price is equally liberal in
his religious sentiments. In a letter to Dr. Priestly, he expresses his most ardent
wish that this sentiment might be stamped on every human mind:'That worth of
character and true integrity, and consequently God's acceptance, are not necessarily
connected with any particular set of opinions.' Yet this great and catholic divine, in
one of his late sermons, first gives a concise and accurate account of the doctrines of
grace, and then reprobates them as the most absurd set of principles to be found in
the Christian world. This is modern catholicism, which extends to all but those to
whom it ought to extend; and which would break down all distinction between essential and non-essential doctrines, that every man may have full liberty to embrace any
scheme of religion, however false and absurd."




MEMOIR.                                 369
" A pretty bold sermon, sir," was the salutation of Emmons to President Kirkland, as the President was leaving the meeting-house where he
had preached the " Convention Sermon," in 1813.  "Rather bold," replied Kirkland, "but I followed the example which you set me nine
years ago."  In 1804, Emmons preached one of his most elaborate discourses before the Massachusetts Convention of Congregational Ministers.  He then repeated, what he had often said before, that the " indiscriminate charity," the "universal catholicism" which fraternizes with
essential error, is fraught with peril to the churches.  He foresaw that
the maxim  forming the basis of the Unitarian policy would be: "Men
may enjoy a great latitude of religious belief, for they can neither be
required nor expected to think alike on the great doctrines of the Bible."
In many of his earlier discourses, he had been striking at this foundation.  In his Convention Sermon, he thus endeavors to tear down the
bulwark of the concealed but rising Unitarianism.
"The Bible is the word of God; he gave it to be a rule of faith to all; he knew
the character, the circumstances, and the capacities of all; it must, therefore, be plain
and intelligible to all. To deny this is to impeach both the wisdom and goodness of
God in giving us his word." - " The Bible is a magnet which must necessarily draw
all men to the same point, if they will only yield to its attractive influence."
The two doctrines of " God's existing a Trinity in Unity," and of "the Personal
unity of humanity and divinity in the glorious Immanuel," "are as easy to understand, though not so easy to explain, as any other doctrines in Scripture. Nor is it
any more difficult to remove all plausible objections against these high points in
theology, than to remove all plausible objections against the existence of motion, or
spirit, or personal identity, or any other visible or invisible object."
"Christians who are united in believing the truth have a right to blame those who
think differently from them upon religious subjects." They must disapprove and
condemn and in some cases totally exclude "from their communion, such as openly
deny the essential doctrines of Christianity." -" There appears to be no propriety
in attempting to unite [Christians] in affection, without uniting them in sentiment."
God has given to Christians a complete system of divine truth. He may fitly, therefore, require them to believe, not only that it is a complete system, " but also to believe
all the particular truths, which compose the system. For it would be absurd to require
them to believe the system in general, and yet allow them to disbelieve any or all the
particular truths contained in it."  "And since all Christians have this perfect rule
of faith in their hands, God may justly require them to form their religious opinions
exactly according to it; which is precisely the same thing as to require them to
unite in their religious sentiments. For it is a universal maxim, that when two
things agree with a third, they also agree with each other. If, therefore, we say, as
we ought to say, that God may properly require all Christians to agree with the
Bible, then we must say, that he may properly require them to agree with each
other."
Thus did Emmons, in a style like that of Euclid, convince his friends,
that they ought to adopt what has since been termed the "Exclusive




370                          MEMOIR.
System." It is a noteworthy fact, that of the churches in New England
which participated in the Unitarian movement, a far smaller proportion
had been trained by the ministers of his school, than by the ministers of
the moderate Calvinistic school.1  His form of Congregationalism led its
evangelical advocates from, rather than to, the Unitarian views. Of the
ninety or a hundred clergymen who studied theology with him, not
more than one was suspected of adopting the Unitarian peculiarities.
They stood like breakwaters, stemming the tide which appeared almost
resistless toward the Arminian and Humanitarian theology. The man
to whom  these hundred ministers, with their hundred churches, looked
upward as to their centurion, may now be ungratefully forgotten, but if
his acute mind had reasoned in favor of the Liberal Faith, he would
have been fearfully remembered.
Another notable fact is, that while Emmons defended the " Exclusive
System" with rare decision, he was conservative and deliberate in his
method of commencing the System.  His enemies have stigmatized him
as a "rash" man.  In many respects he was eminently cautious.  His
enemies have likened him  to Hegel;- they might with equal aptness
have likened him to Hamlet.  He was bold in enunciating a principle;
he was circumspect in applying it to practice.  His uncompromising
assertions with regard to the Unitarians have been cited in our legal
tribunals; see, for example, the New Hampshire Reports of Decisions
in the Supreme Judicial Court, Vol. XXXVIII. pp. 16, 21.  Some. of
his assertions are like these: " However amiable in their conduct, or
however eminent for talents and learning Unitarians may be, they are
not Christians, and have no right to be admitted into Christian churches."
(Works, II. p. 155.) He asks: " Is there any essential difference between
their religious homage, and the religious homage of deists and pagans?"
(Works, II. p. 170.) Such decisive remarks had an equally decisive influence.  The popular mind is roused by bold, and never by hesitating
words.  Notwithstanding such utterances, however, this veteran controversialist did not refuse, so early as did some of his brethren, to exchange
pulpits with  Unitarian clergymen.  They were  regularly ordained
pastors; he respected their office; he was slow to innovate upon the
established usage of the churches; he disliked to disturb the good neighborhood of ministers; he made a broad distinction between the "infidelity" of his clerical friends, and the "infidelity" of Rousseau and
Godwin; between avowed Deism, and a Deism  which was merely
1 "The new divinity has been repeatedly accused of opening the door for the admission of Unitarianism into the Congregational churches. No accusation is more
unfounded. It was the chief barrier to its entire prevalence. Of the Hopkinsian
churches, none are known to have become Unitarian. This error flourished exclusively among the opponents to Hopkinsianism." - Blake's History of Mendon Association, p. 25.




MEMOIR.                            371
constructive, and not consciously perceived by its mistaken advocates.
He did not pretend to decide, what effect certain peculiarities of character
or station may have, in persuading even pious men to deny what cannot
be denied by pious men unless they are misled by such peculiarities;
see pp. 303, 304, above. He became an earnest opponent of Thomas
Jefferson, because Jefferson was an Infidel. He remained a decided
friend of John Adams, after John Adams had declared himself a Unitarian.  He regarded the logical but unrecognized results of Adams's
Unitarianism, as a different species of Infidelity from the barefaced creed
of Jefferson; yet he believed that the two systems belonged to the same
genus.  He spoke of Unitarians, often, not as Infidels, but as "leaning
toward Infidelity." He suffered some fruits and flowers to remain in
his garden, which were specifically, but not generically, different from
other fruits and flowers which he rooted up at once.  He distinguished
between beginning a process, and continuing it when it was begun.
Professor Woods of Andover, said of Emmons: "He showed great
severity towards every form  of false doctrine, but great candor and
kindness towards the persons and characters of those whose errors he
opposed." In his abstract instructions, he often appeared more radical
than his brethren, while in his practical developments he as often
appeared more conservative than they.
E. - His early Services in the Controversy with the Universalists.
John Murray, the noted Universalist clergyman, came to America in
1770, and, after preaching in New Jersey and Rhode Island, began his
ministry at Boston in 1773. Elhanan Winchester began his ministry of
Universalism at Philadelphia, in 1781. It was in 1783, one year before
Chauncey's celebrated publication on " The Mystery hid from ages, or
the Salvation of all Men," that the vigilant divine of Franklin printed
his first Sermon. This was designed to check the new tendency toward
a belief that all men will be saved. It was printed about two years before either of the publications of Dr. West, Dr. Edwards, or Dr. Smalley on the Atonement. Those publications had the same design with his
Sermon, and betray such a coincidence of views with it as reflects a high
honor on his originality.  The resistance which he began thus early to
the progress of Universalism, he continued until the close of life. The
form of his argumentation deserves far more regard than it has yet received.  In many aspects, it is original, as well as profound.  Germs of
it are discovered in the following sententious remarks:
" Guilt is eternal. A man who is once ill-deserving, is ill-deserving always, and
may therefore be justly punished forever." "The personal suffering of the fallen




372                               MEMiOIR.
angels, for nearly six thousand years, has not taken away any of their guilt or desert
of punishment, but they still deserve to be punished as much as if they never had suffered the least degree of punishment."..... "Whoever deserves to be punished at
all, deserves to be punished forever."..... "God does not always punish sinners,
when he sees that they deserve to be punished, but only when he sees good reasons for
punishing them. - He never does punish them merely because it is just to punish them,
but only [because] he sees [that there are other] good reasons to punish them."...
" The perfect goodness " of God " disposes him to hate " the "perfect wickedness " of
sinners, " and to punish them for it. And as it is his goodness that disposes him to
punish them, so it will dispose him to punish them forever. If he punished them
from a principle of malevolence and revenge, there could be no evidence that he would
punish them forever." -"No sefish creature, perhaps, would punish his worst enemiesforever.  Satan would not. His malice may be satiated; but moral rectitude can
never be satisfied without giving sinners a just recompense of reward." -" There is
no sinner in the world, who is willing that his greatest enemy should be punished
eternally."..... " God's punishing sinners will have no tendency to diminish or
take away his hatred of them. If his hatred of them arose from selfishness, and was
of the nature of revenge, it is true, his punishing them might gradually diminish, and
finally take away, his hatred of sinners.  Sinners often punish one another in revenge,
to such a degree, as to soften and turn their own malignant hearts into compassion
towards the objects of their hatred. But as God does not hate sinners from selfishness, so he will never punish them in malevolence and revenge, but only from benevolence which necessarily disposes him to hate them, because they are really hateful."..... "' Sinners generally plead that they have not power enough to go to heaven,
though they wish, desire, seek, and strive to go. But the truth is, they are too strong,
instead of being too weak.  They are stout hearted.  They have strength to avoid
walking in the strait and narrow path to heaven; and to walk and even run in the
broad road to destruction."......" It is as easy for any to comply with the terms
of salvation, as it is to be in heaven, and cordially unite with the heavenly hosts in their
enjoyments and employments." - " There is nothing which God requires men to do in
this life, in order to go to heaven, that is harder to be done than to be willing to be in
heaven.  The difficulty lies not in going, but in being there. A sincere desire to be in
heaven will certainly carry any person there."..... "We cannot conceive that
any favor can be offered upon any lower terms to any person, than his willingness to
accept it." - "A favor cannot be bestowed upon any who reject it." -" If men are
willing to ask for pardoning mercy, or even to receive it, Christ is willing to bestow it."
— " All sinners under the gospel must be saved unless they refuse to ask for mercy." -
" The wicked are punished, because they do not choose to be saved. Therefore their
punishment is reasonable." - "It is one thing to plead to be spared from going down to
the pit of destruction, and another to plead for a restoration to the forfeited favor of God.
The devils could plead with Christ not to torment them, but they had no disposition
to plead for future holiness and blessedness upon the self-abasing terms of the gospel."....." Though the innocent may claim justice, yet the guilty cannot claim mercy.".....   "  Some suppose, that after God had separated the wheat from the tares, he
will ripen the tares in fire, and reap a rich harvest from the unquenchable flames."..... " The common belief in the doctrine of Universal Salvation would not have
afforded half so much evidence of its truth, as the common disbelief of it affords of its
falsehood."...... "Though Universalists will not be pleased to be called deists,
yet they are deists to all intents and purposes; and their doctrine leads directly to
deism, and the preaching of it makes more deists than Universalists, among their
more discerning hearers."




MEMOIR.                                 373
F. -His early Services in the Utilitarian Controversy.
It is thought by some, that Edwards, the elder, believed in the Utilitarian theory.  It must be confessed that he let a few words fall from his
pen, which it is difficult, though possible, to reconcile with his disbelief in
that theory. (See Bibliotheca Sacra, Vol. X. pp. 720-722.) It is certain that Edwards, the younger, adopted the Utilitarian scheme.  So did
Dr. Dwight, Dr. Burton, and other eminent divines of New  England.
The independence of Emmons is nowhere more conspicuous, than in his
early and persistent opposition to a theory sanctioned by such venerable
names.  His arguments against it are not so felicitous as are his arguments against Universalism. In fact, he was not convinced by his reasoning, but by his intuitions.  He was a man of intuitions.  His original
ideas were quick and bright, and often needed no proof. His Sermons
on " Conscience," on " the Essential Difference between Virtue and Vice
in the nature of things," on " Original Sin," on the " Nature of Sin," on
the " Superiority of Men to Animals," on " Holiness Excellent and Valuable," illustrate his early and continued zeal to establish the Supremacy
of Right.  In affirming and reaffirming his views on the intrinsic Excellence of Holiness, and the inherent Odiousness of Sin, he indicates the
early impressions made upon his mind by his townsman Brainerd (see
pp. 8-12, above).  Some of his sententious remarks on the supreme authority of the idea of Rectitude are the following:
"Moral obligation does not result from the bare will of any being whatever, but
from the nature of moral beings, and their mutual relations to one another, which they
are capable of knowing.".....  God has an original and absolute right to
punish his reasonable creatures, for doing any thing which is wrong, whether he had
previously forbidden them to do it or not."...... "The decretal will of God
cannot alter the nature of things, or make that right which in the nature of things
is wrong, nor that wrong which in the nature of things is right." -" Any mere
positive law which God has given to any of his creatures, he has a right to abolish
or repeal, when a change of circumstances requires it; but the moral law he has
no right to abolish or repeal, under any change of circumstances; because it is
founded in the immutable relation which he bears to his creatures, and they bear
to him." - "No secret purpose, intention, or design of the Deity can annul or
diminish our obligation to obey his revealed will." -"Merely God's commanding a thing does not make it right, and his merely forbidding a thing does not
make it wrong."......  We ought to do some things and ought not to do others,
because we are men possessed of rational and moral powers." — " It is the moral
nature of benevolence that renders it morally excellent; and it is the natural tendency
of benevolence to promote happiness, that renders it naturally excellent."......
" Hume, Darwin, and Godwin, among the infidels, and Law, Brown, and Paley,
among the divines in England;" "the philosophers in France and Germany, and
many ingenious and learned men in America, professedly maintain that holiness is
VOL. I.                      GG




374                           MEMOIR.
not, in its own nature, morally and supremely excellent, but is valuable only as it
tends to promote happiness. This is an error of the first magnitude. It robs God,
angels, and saints, of all their moral beauty, excellence, and glory." -(Works, II. 348,
350, 677. Orig. Ed. Vol. IV. 226.)
G. -His early Services in behalf of the Theology of Religious Revivals.
" In three or four seasons of special religious interest among us, I
preached more doctrinally than usual, which I found made deeper and
better impressions upon the minds of the awakened and unawakened, than
loud and declamatory addresses to the passions.  Strangers occasionally
preached among us in such a manner, but with little effect.  Discourses
upon the divine character, the divine law, the total depravity of sinners,
the sovereignty of special grace, and the immediate duty of submission,
produced the most convictions and the most conversions."  These are the
characteristic words of Emmons in a letter to a friend. The preceding
Chapter on his Pupils was designed to indicate, that they learned from him
the peculiar type of theology, which is appropriate to an awakened
religious interest.  His early reverence for his townsman, Brainerd,
inspired him with an early zeal to cast his theology in those moulds
which are fitted to stir up the mind, and arouse the spiritual life.  We
have space, here, to particularize only three forms of his Theology of
Revivals
(1) HIe taught that God never requires of Men, what they have not the natural
Power to do.
He expressed this doctrine in the ordinary methods, and in some
methods which are extraordinary. A large part of his followers do not
sanction the phrase, that "men have natural power to regenerate' their
souls." But so fearful was this practical divine, lest men should excuse
their impenitence by the plea of an inability to make for themselves the
new heart, that he asserted not only our power to repent, but also to
regenerate ourselves. A large part of his followers do not hesitate to
affirm, that the operation of the Holy Spirit in renewing men is supernatural.  But so jealous was this practical reasoner, lest men should
console themselves in quietly waiting for a work which is above their
natural ability, and in this aspect supernatural, that he affirmed, with
reiterated emphasis: "In regenerating a sinner, the Spirit does not
counteract any law  of nature, nor produce any miraculous effect;"
"There is reason to believe that the speaking of regeneration, conversion,
or sanctification as a supernatural work, has led many to draw a very
false and dangerous consequence from  it."    Such facts as these, and
1 Works, III. 100, 136; Orig. Ed. IV. 357, 492; V. 117-128, 140, 141, 151-153.




MEMOIR.                                    375
such phrases as are found in the ensuing paragraph, illustrate the resolute and unshrinking way in which Emmons guarded his theory of human
freedom.  The first five sentences in the paragraph are memorable, as
they were uttered in a discourse commemorative of Dr. Samuel Spring,
and will have an historical value for decades of years to come.
"Nothing strengthens the hearts and hands of sinners more, than to hear the doctrine
of the blessed Trinity denied; the doctrine of the divine decrees denied; the doctrine
of the divine agency denied; the doctrine of total depravity denied; the doctrine of
special grace denied; the doctrine of unreserved submission denied; the doctrine of
natural ability denied; the duty of immediate repentance and faith denied; and the
doctrine of eternal punishment denied." —"It is not because they are unable to
accept the terms of mercy proposed in the gospel, that they do not accept them; but
it is because they choose to remain rebels, and to justify and defend themselves in
their rebellion.  Their plea of inability is a self-justifying and God-condemning plea.
It is virtually charging God with injustice and severity, and justifying themselves in
persisting in their enmity and opposition to him." -" Did any garrison ever plead,
that they had not power enough to throw down, their arms, and submit to the superior
force of their enemies? ", e.. " Men are never under a natural necessity of sinning."
"Every sinner is as able to embrace the gospel, as a thirsty man is to drink
water, or a hungry man to eat the most delicious food." -" Sinners do not need
to be regenerated, to enable them to embrace the gospel, but only to dispose, or make
them willing, to embrace it."-" They need no other principle, power, or ability,
to do all that God requires, than they naturally possess."- They "are as able,
therefore, to do right as to do wrong.".... "The non-elect have as fair an opportunity of being saved as the elect." —"The non-elect will forever feel, that they
might have gone to heaven, if they had chosen to go to that holy and happy place, and
that their own choice and not the decree of reprobation, shut them out of the kingdom
of glory."...  Men "are as able to obey any command of God, as to disobey it.
And if they are able to obey one command of God, they are able to obey every command of God."... " God has done enough and more than enough by the way of
means, to make you prepared and willing to die."  This is true of all the afflicted,
" whether they have, or have not set their souls and houses in order.".. e "Men are
persuaded not compelled to come to Christ for salvation.".... " They [saints] have
natural power to apostatize from the faith as well as to persevere in it."....  "All
men are conscious that they have natural power to neglect, whatever they have natural
power to do." -" So that it always holds true, that when God gives them  natural
power to fufil his decrees, they have the same natural power to neglect tofufil them." -
" They are as able to love God, before they are regenerated as afterwards." (For the
preceding and many similar expressions, see Works, II. 364, 365, 366, 368, 369, 383,
398, 422, 426, 427; III. 84, 85, 91, 92, 101, 183, 184. See also, Orig. Ed. I. 110, 111,
156, 162, 252; II. 355, 409; III. 199, 382, 455; IV. 307, 320, 321,333, 355,358,
359, 496, 498; V. 123, 137, 148, 153, 390, 391; VI. 79, 211, 415, 480; VII. 91, 92,
93, 484, 501, 503. In the preceding quotations, and in others throughout the present
Chapter, the Italics are introduced by "the author of the Memoir.")




376                             MEMOIR.
(2) Emmons taught that Sinners not only can, but should, -and when exhorted at all,
should be exhorted uniformly, to make for themselves the new heart.
It is common, at the present day, to insist on the act of immediate
repentance.  It was common in former days to insist on some acts preparatory to repentance.  Now we exclaim: " This is the way; walk ye
in it."  Formerly men exclaimed: " This is the way to the way; walk
ye in this way to the way." No divine of our own, or of any other land,
has done more than the Franklin preacher, to restore the Biblical style
of exhortation.  His sententious words are: " Ministers have no right
to give any direction to sinners, but such as, if sinners follow it, they
shall certainly be saved."  "The  same directions are to be given to
sinners as to saints." 1 He was, indeed, an abstract reasoner, but his great
aim was to present theology in a practical form; to exhibit a creed for
the pulpit and for the conference. It was with the intent of proposing
an  operative System, that he insisted with such  resoluteness on  the
following theories:
a. —All moral agency consists in choosing.
This is the doctrine of Edwards, but was made singularly prominent
by Emmons.  The divine commands regard man as a moral agent; are
addressed therefore to his choice; of course, require his instant choice,
and that choice should be right. He says:
"Many maintain that moral agency in creatures does not consist in volition, but in
the cause of volition. This is absurd; because it is placing free agency in something
which is involuntary. How can a man act freely, when he does not act voluntarily?
If a man should move without choosing to move, his motion would not be afree moral
action, worthy of praise or blame. We never feel ourselves to be praise or blameworthy in any case in which we do not actfreely and of choice."
"There can be no agency, where there is no choice or design."
"Hence we may safely say, that the agency of God consists in his will, his
choice, or volition; and in nothing which is either the cause or consequence of his
willing or choosing to produce any effect, or bring about any event."
" His agency consists in nothing before his choice, nor after his choice, nor beside his
choice. It does not consist in the cause of his choice, any more than in the effect of
his choice." — " Free agency must be the same in all intelligent beings. If God can
possess no higher moral freedom  than freedom  of choice, it is very certain that
mankind cannot possess-any higher moral freedom than freedom of choice." - (Works,
II. 449, 450, 456, 457.)
1 See also, Orig. Ed. Vol. I. 162, 167, 245, 246; Vol. IV. p. 528; Vol. V. p. 156;
Vol. VI. p. 382.




MEMO IR.                             377
b. - Holiness does not consist in a good nature, principle, taste, or relish, antecedent to choice;
and sin does not consist in an evil nature, principle, taste, or relish, antecedent to choice.
The defence of this principle was a grand aim of Emmons.  It is
often supposed, that his main labor was to establish the doctrine of
Divine Efficiency. He did endure much contumely in defence of this
doctrine; but he suffered more, and studied more in sustaining the proposition, that we should exhort men to instantaneous obedience; and therefore men have no involuntary nature, principle, or taste, which necessarily
prevents their immediate compliance with this exhortation. His defence
of this proposition is combined with interesting historical items.
His revered friend, Dr. Smalley, had been long noted as a defender of
the doctrine, that men have natural power to do whatever God requires
of them. But he was also a defender of the doctrine, that sin inheres in
our nature viewed as anterior to choice. Emmons early saw, that there
is a contradiction between the theory of natural power to do all that is
required of us, and the theory of passive and involuntary sin. If our
nature be in itself sin, we have no power to avoid all sin. If we have
power to avoid all sin, then our involuntary nature is not sin. We have
no power to avoid our involuntary nature at once.
About sixty years ago, when governors were theologians, the classmate of Emmons, Governor Treadwell, published a series of Essays,
designed to prove that "the inability of sinners to obey the Gospel, and
consequently the change in their regeneration are properly physical,"
"being seated in the nature or physical constitution of the soul;" that
sin consists in an evil "temper," and that this temper is "not, nor ever
can be, the proper object of choice," for it is "independent of choice and
the proper ground of it."  These Essays of Governor Treadwell produced a great excitement in New England.  Dr. Smalley, the Coryphaeus in maintaining the doctrine of Natural Power, was almost unanimously invoked to refute the Governor's logic.  He attempted the work.
" Without admitting a material difference," he said, " between moral depravity and any natural impediment, the whole word of God and all his
ways to men must appear involved in midnight darkness.  His requiring
absolute perfection of such imperfect creatures must appear shockingly
unreasonable.  His condemning to endless tribulation and anguish every
soul of man that doeth evil, when doing evil is what no soul of man can
help, would be excessively cruel; his unconditional decrees of election and
reprobation, and his having mercy on whom he will have mercy, in effectual calling, arbitrary, partial, and palpably unjust."  Still, Dr. Smalley
persisted in advocating the doctrine, that there is real sin in the evil
GG *




378                             MEMOIR.
temper, which lies at the basis of choice and exists antecedently to choice.
Hence his reply to Governor Treadwell was vacillating, inconsistent,
and feeble.  Emmons loved his classmate, and rejoiced in his classmate's
power.   He  loved his theological instructor still more, and he was
grieved at Smalley's discomfiture.  He loved truth more than all, and
he prepared  himself to defend the truth  against his classmate  and
his teacher.
Soon after this controversy, another friend of Emmons, Dr. Asa Burton, of Thetford, publicly maintained the theory, that holiness and sin
consist in a principle or " taste " existing back of the choice, and forming the ground of the choice.  The evil principle or " taste" must be
eradicated, before there can be a holy volition. A good principle or
"taste " must be inserted in the soul, before there can be any other than
a sinful volition. As Emmons believed that all holiness and sin consist
in choosing, his scheme was called the "exercise scheme," in opposition
to what was called the "taste scheme" of Dr. Burton.'  He opposed the
views of Smalley and Burton, because he regarded them as inconsistent
with free moral agency, with the duty of all men to repent of sin at once,
with the duty of all Christians to urge upon the impenitent the act of
instantly making the new heart.  With this practical aim he affirms:
"Nothing can be more repugnant to Scripture, reason, and experience, than the
notion of our deriving a corrupt heart from our first parents. If we have a corrupt
heart, as undoubtedly we have, it is altogether our own, and consists in our evil affections and other evil exercises, and not in any moral stain, pollution, or depravity derived
from Adam. This clearly appears from the very essence of an evil heart, which consists in evil exercises, and not in any thing prior to, distinct from, or productive of, evil
emotions or affections. The absurd idea of imputed and derived depravity, originated
from the absurd idea of the human heart, as being a principle, propensity, or taste, distinct from all moral exercises. But since every man's corrupt heart is his own, and
consists in his own free and voluntary exercises, he ought to repent, and look to God
1 Dr. Emmons always had a reason for his phrases, even when the phrases were
infelicitous. He often said that holiness and sin belong to the heart, but the term,
heart, is ambiguous, and he used it to denote the choices. He hesitated to say frequently, that all holiness and sin inhere in the actions of the soul, because the term,
actions, is understood to denote the outward, overt developments of the moral agent.
He used the word, exercise, because it would, as he thought, be more commonly associated with an internal operation of the moral agent. Still, he knew that the word
often does signify an external act. Thus in Richard Grant White's Edition of Shakspeare, Vol. VIII. p. 291, we find the following Note on a passage of Shakspeare's
text (p. 204). Lord Hastings says to the priest:' I thank thee, good Sir John, with all my heart,
I am in debt for your last exercise.
Come the next Sabbath, and I will content you.'
The Note adds: "For your last exercise."  The last word is here used in the same
sense which it has in the announcement of a New England prayer-meeting, that'the
exercise will commence at early candle-light."'




ME   OIR.                                 379
for pardoning mercy. And unless he does this, he must perish; for God has said,
the son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, but the soul that sinneth, it shall die."
" If a new heart consisted in a new faculty, principle, or taste, there could be no
more propriety in God's requiring sinners to change their heart, than in requiring them
to add another cubit to their stature. But if a new and holy heart consists in new and
holy affections, then there is the same propriety in God's requiring sinners to change
their hearts, as in requiring them to do any duty whatever. Indeed, it is only in view
of the heart as consisting in free and voluntary exercises, that we can see the consistency of the divine commands to sinners with the doctrine of regeneration. While
they view the new heart as distinct from new affections, and as the principle from which
they proceed, they will plead the want of a new heart as an insurmountable obstacle,
or natural inability, in the way of their loving God, repenting of sin, or doing any
thing in a holy manner. They will plead that they cannot give themselves a new and
holy principle, or change their own hearts. But as soon as they are convinced that a
new heart consists entirely in new and holy affections, and that they need no new
faculty or principle, in order to exercise such new and holy affections, they necessarily
feel their obligation to make them a new heart and a new spirit, and to obey every
divine command. They find they have no excuse for continuing any longer in impenitence or unbelief."- (Works, III. pp. 123, 125, 126. See also, Orig. Ed. I.
162-167, 245, 246; IV. 496, 497, 513; V. 113, 138, 139, 247, 248; VI. 416.)
(3) Emmons taught that the Natural Tendency of Truth is to restrain Men from Sin.
It has been found that, in Revivals of Religion, the doctrines of the
Gospel are presented with the greatest power, by men who believe in the
natural or constitutional fitness of these doctrines to meliorate the heart.
He who has the strongest confidence in the efficacy of motives, will feel
the keenest stimulus to apply them and enforce them. This confidence
justifies the exhortations, and forms a motive for addressing exhortations,
to those who are dead in sin. It has been supposed that the rigid Calvinist of Franklin, aiming to portray, in vivid colors, the total depravity
of men, and their need of an immediate divine interposition for their renewal, was unwilling to allow that the doctrines of the Gospel have the
slightest tendency to effect the great change.  It has been supposed by
others, that he contradicted himself with regard to the influence of motives; for he says:
"It appears to be out of the power of    "The law produced a surprising effect."
the Deity to convert men by moral sua-  The law "brought" men "to genuine resion." -" No moral suasion, or objective  pentance." The law "subdued" "the stublight can have the least tendency to make  born hearts of thousands."  "The doc[men] willing."  "No intellectual light  trines of divine revelation bowed the hearts
or moral motives which can be exhibited  of men to the sceptre of the crucified
before them, will have the least tendency  Saviour."  " This was such a signal disto alter or meliorate their hearts."-   play of the power and efficacy of the
"Though the word of God is suited and  gospel;" the gospel is "suited"  to "subdesigned to make deep impressions on the  due the hearts of all who are opposed to
hearts of sinners; yet it is not powerful  the kingdom of Christ."  "It is only in
and weighty enough to break their hearts."  the view, and in the love of the divine




380                             MEMOIR.
"The word of God is equally adapted to  law, that God can, so to speak, reconcile
change or harden the hearts of men, and  sinners to himself."  "It is through the
infallibly does produce the one or other of  medium of the law, that God begins, carthese effects, whether they are sensible of  ries on, and completes the salvation of
it or not." - [The truth is equally adapt-  sinners."- (Orig. Ed. I. 233; II. 304,
ed to convert men, if they do not, and to  483; III. 496; IV. 554, 555; V. 147,
harden men, if they do, resist it.]     541; VII. 316, 317, 391-403.)
These affirmations are not inharmonious with each other.  Their author distinguishes between a natural power and a moral impotence, to
repent.  On the same principle, he distinguishes between the natural
tendency of truth to make men better, and the moral tendency of truth to
make men worse if God does not prevent them from resisting the truth.
He believed that the natural tendency of the Atonement is, to awaken a
grateful love; but the moral tendency of the Atonement is, to awaken
new enmity, if God does not deter men from  thwarting the constitutional
fitnesses of the atonement.  There is the most animating motive to preach
this doctrine of atoning love, because there is reason to hope, that the
special influences of the Spirit will accompany the natural tendencies
of the preached word, and thus persuade the will.  He often said: " Men
must be converted, unless they wilfully oppose the influence of truth."
They must press hard against, unless they will be overborne by, the
force of sound doctrine.  He wrote:
" It is not easy to make men of clear apprehension and discrimination believe, that
the Spirit of God in regeneration operates upon the minds of sinners mechanically, and
produces a new natural faculty or principle, in which they are entirely passive."...
" It is the natural tendency of family government to promote family religion."....
The "warnings and cautions " given to the saints " are proper and necessary means
to prevent their falling away.".....A " realizing sense of the sovereignty of God
in afflictions, has a natural tendency to excite true submission in every pious heart.".... " This is a sighing, groaning, weeping world, and would be a penitent world,
did not the afflicted put forth vigorous efforts to prevent hearing and feeling the powerful and instructive voice of afflictions, and of him who has appointed them."....
" But adversity has an opposite tendency, to withdraw their [men's] thoughts, their
hopes and their dependence from the world, and to persuade them to give God the
supreme affection of their hearts, and to commit all their temporal, spiritual, and eternal interests into his hand."...    Error, according to the inspired writers, has as
great a tendency to destroy, as truth has to save, the souls of men.".... Faithful
ministers insist that God " hath established an intimate and indissoluble connection
between causes and effects, means and ends, both in the natural and moral world."....
The "intellectual faculties" of impenitent men "remain uncorrupt. Their perception, reason, and conscience are in their full strength and vigor." —(Orig. Ed. I. 40,
49, 206; II. 483; III. 119, 197, 201, 202, 243, 323, 496; IV. 87, 525; V. 152.)




MEMOIR.                                381
H. -The early Services of Emmons in behalf of a Philanthropic Theology.
"Abou Ben Adhem (may his tribe increase!)
Awoke one night from a deep dream of peace,
And saw within the moonlight in his room, 
Making it rich and like a lily in bloom, -
An angel writing in a book of gold.
Exceeding peace had made Ben Adhem bold;
And to the presence in the room he said,'What writest thou?' The vision raised its head,
And, with a look made all of sweet accord,
Answered,' The names of those who love the Lord.'' And is mine one' said Abou.'Nay, not so,'
Replied the angel. Abou spake more low,
But cheerly still; and said,'I pray thee, then,
Write me as one that loves his fellow men.'
The angel wrote and vanished. The next night
It came again with a great wakening light,
And showed the names whom love of God had blest;
And, lo! Ben Adhem's name led all the rest."
These lines have been quoted in praise of a philanthropic religion, by
men who contend that the Calvinistic theology is too stiff and straitlaced for any genial and glowing love to men.  But the creed of
Emmons, while theocratic in an eminent degree, was yet humanitarian,
in the best sense of that wronged word. The preceding Chapters on his
Pupils and on his Interest in Education and Missions, were designed
to intimate the philanthropic temper of his theology.  One among the
many illustrations of this temper, is found in his theory, that love to men
is the logical condition and prerequisite for love to God.  This theory
lies at the basis of the poetic stanzas which have been just quoted, and
which, though inaccurate in form, suggest a deep truth.  We  are
inclined to apply the same rerark to the theory of Emmons; and to
regard it as not precisely what it should be, but as involving one solid
principle, — the principle which started many a philanthropic scheme
among his early pupils and friends.  He writes:
"I know it has been said, that love to men flows from love to God; but the truth
is, love to God flows from love to men; or the love of complacency flows from the
love of benevolence. Men are as proper and direct objects of benevolence, as God is
the proper and direct object of complacency. He, therefore, who does not love his
brother whom he has seen and who is a proper object of benevolence, cannot love God
whom he has not seen, and who is the proper object of complacency."  " How often
do those who relate their experiences, tell us, that the first change they perceived in
their minds was the love of benevolence to every person they saw, and the love of
complacency to all good men in particular; and then, love to the goodness or benevolence of God, which shone in every person, creature, and object, around them." " Do




382                           MEMOIR.
not many Christians well remember, that when they were first regenerated, they in:;tantaneously felt benevolently and friendly to all around them, whether friends or foes, and
in consequence of that, immediately exercised peculiar love and complacency towards
God and towards all who appeared to bear his moral image? "- (Works, III. 94,
213, 214.)
The phrase " cast-iron," has been fabricated for the doctrines of Emmons, as if he intended to run his creed in a stiff, rigid mould.
But the benevolent man meant to form  a mellow, if not a malleable
system; and to infuse a human warmth into the most abstract speculations. One of his guiding principles was to conceive of the Creator,, according to the image found in the created; and he has often reiterated the formula, as profound as it is humane, reminding us of the divine
sympathy with men, of his fatherhood and of our sonship.
" Power in God is of the same nature as power in man. Wisdom in God is of the
same nature as wisdom in man. Goodness in God is of the same nature as goodness in
man. And free, voluntary, moral agency in God, is of the same nature as free,
voluntary, moral agency in man. If this be not true, we can form no right conceptions of our Creator, and can never know that he is a wise, powerful, benevolent, and
active being; for we derive all our ideas of Godfrom our ideas of ourselves." - (Works,
IV. 452. See likewise quotations from Emmons on pp. 384, 386, below.)
~ 2. The Formative Principles of the Theology of Emmons.
We cannot understand the creed of Emmons, unless we consider his
aim in propounding it.  Let us, then, inquire for the intent with which
he stated his various theories.  We shall see their meaning in their
design.  "In every work, regard the writer's end."
A.- He aimed to make his Theology illustrate the Loveliness of God.
The Princeton Review has defended the doctrine, that God requires
the non-elect to become holy, that he has threatened them with everlasting pain unless they do become holy, and yet they are literally as
unable to become holy, as they are to create a world.  The same
Princeton Review, after representing, in its own way, certain speculations of Emmons, exclaims: "A horrible doctrine!" " This bold and
impious opinion;" "There is a sort of sublimity in the very impiety of
his declarations."  Now the writer of this Memoir cannot approve of
certain "declarations" made by the subject of it; but is happy to know
that Emmons recoiled from the doctrine, as too barbarous for the faith of
civilized men, that God commands the non-elect to perform what they
are as literally unable to perform  as they are to create a planet or sun,
and God will inflict on them  unending agony, because they do not
accomplish what is utterly impossible.  The philanthropist of Franklin




MEMOIR.                                 383
had a moral nature too sensitive for tolerating some other doctrines of the
Princeton Review.  We may add the following illustrations of his aim to
represent his Maker as fair, equitable, and lovely.
(1) He believed that it is not only possible, but it is also easy, to do all that God
commands.
Here, this intense writer exceeded the bounds which are marked out
by his brethren.  Even Dr. Taylor of New Haven has contended, that
although it is practicable, yet it is difficult, for men to bow their will in
submission to God.  Perhaps Dr. Taylor might admit, that in view of
the human constitution it is easy, while in view of the human nature
it is hard, to repent of sin.  Emmons does not stop to distinguish, but
affirms boldly: " It is just as easy for a sinner to begin to love God, as to
continue to love him after he has loved him once; and it is just as easy
both to begin and to continue to love God, as to continue to hate him." -
"It is always easier to comply with the terms of the gospel, than to
complain of them and reject them."  "The terms of salvation are just as
low and easy as GoD could make them." -  (Works, III. 108, 215; Orig.
Ed. V. 377; VII. 213.)
(2) He believed that all the Acts of Jehovah are prompted by a supreme Regard to
the Law of Rectitude.
We have seen on pp. 373-4, above, that Emmons maintained the supremacy of Right. He believed that Jehovah is the grand impersonation
of this Idea, and that all the moral attributes of Jehovah are lovely,
because they are all harmonious with the rational, eternal, and immutable
law of Virtue.  One of his most amazing thoughts is, that the Day of
Judgment is the day on which the Most High is to be judged, and the
adjudication is needful for the Creator as well as for creatures, and will
compel the most unwilling to confess, that even the minutest acts of their
Sovereign  are fair, equitable, beautiful, noble, altogether lovely, and
altogether fit to be disclosed, revealed, opened in the light of the Final
Scene.  Some of his remarks with regard to the rectitude of his Maker
are:
"There is more of moral excellence and worth in one exercise of the Divine benevolence, than in all the benevolent exercises of holy creatures through eternal
ages."....  The guardian angels have always been acquainted with his [Jehovah's]
conduct towards every individual of mankind, and have always been the most impartial, benevolent, and competent judges of the divine conduct, towards those who
were committed to their care. And if they had seen a single instance of malevolence,
injustice, negligence, or want of benevolence, in the dispensations of divine providence
and grace towards any of the children of men, they would not unanimously cry,'Holy,
holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory.'.... "It is




384                              MEMOIR.
true, indeed, that God is a sovereign, and has a right to act as a sovereign, in governing all his creatures and all their actions. But may we suppose that his sovereignty
allows him to do injustice, or treat any moral agents contrary to the eternal rule of
right? "- "His sovereignty is limited by his justice, in his treatment of moral and accountable creatures." -(Orig. Ed. III. 120, 224, 248; IV. 488; VI. 106.)
(3) He believed that all, even the severest Acts of Jehovah, are prompted by Infinite
Love.
That the Franklin divine adopts a severe method of describing certain
divine arrangements, we do not deny. Were we to affirm that he never
errs in his rigid style, we should represent him as nearer to the perfect
standard than he supposed any man to be. But he intended, that all the
hard features of his system should be enlivened and softened by the
inner love which is its soul.  When we complain of his harsh terms in
portraying the vengeance of God, we must remember that he regards
this vengeance as one form of kindness; and all the woes inflicted by it,
as emanating from the tenderest love to sentient beings. It is not usual
to find in the writings of real Calvinists, such clement phrases as the
following:
Pious men " believe that God always treats them, and all other men, as well as infinite wisdom and goodness can treat them.".. " God represents his punitive justice, as the necessary fruit and effect of his infinite goodness and mercy.".... "If
God cannot seek his own glory in any other way than in displaying his goodness, then
to seek his own glory to the highest degree, is the same thing as to give the highest expression of universal and disinterested benevolence."... " God's goodness will shine
brighter in his conduct towards sinful, than in his conduct towards holy beings.
More of the heart of God will be seen in the work of redemption, than in all his other
works.".... God " always did and always will feel as much benevolence towards
those who are lost, as towards those who are saved.".... God's "love to his creatures can no morefail than his love to himself, because it is pure disinterested love,
which regards their good as his own." -" Vindictive [i. e. vindicative] justice flows
from the pure, disinterested, and universal benevolence of the Deity; and every expression of it in punishing the guilty, gives unequivocal evidence that he has a supreme
regard to the highest good of all holy beings, and is willing to sacrifice the good of individual transgressors for the blessedness of his holy kingdom; which reflects the
highest glory upon him.".... And what a great favor it is that he restrains the
malignant spirits of the regions of darkness from appearing, and wreaking their vengeance upon any of the living inhabitants of the world?... "His decree of reprobation originated in the same benevolence in which his decree of election originated. So
that there is the same reason to believe, that he will carry into effect his decree of
reprobation, as there is that he will carry into effect his decree of election."... " The
more holy he is, the more must he hate sin. The more benevolent he is, the more must
he hate selfishness.  The more he loves the happiness of sinners, the more he must hate
them for destroying it. The more he loves the good of their fellow men, the more he
must hate them  for opposing it."- He feels "benevolently toward them, while he
manifests towards them the tokens of his everlasting displeasure."- (Works, Orig. Ed.
IV. 254; V. 219, 307, 576; VI. 66, 67, 156, 181, 183, 305, 491.)




ME MOIR.                            385
B. -Emmons aimed to make his Theology illustrate the Supremacy of God.
It has become popular to declaim  against Anthropology as usurping
the place of Theology. In an emphatic sense, the writings of Emmons
are theological as distinct from  anthropological. He exalted Jehovah
upon the throne of Sacred Science. To an unwonted extent, his discourses are on the excellence and blessedness of the Universal Governor.- It has become fashionable to  declaim  against Ethics as
intrenching upon the province of Divinity. But the system of Emmons
is signalized by its elevation of the truths relating to the Divine Person,
above the truths relating to ethical abstractions.  He did not undervalue these abstractions.  He regarded moral science as the basis of
theological science.  He viewed ethical rules as supreme in regard to
all merely scientific rules. But he revered the great Impersonation of
moral good, as superior to all abstract qualities, and he adored Jehovah
as the Most High, because all ethical laws are realized and fulfilled in
the infinite mind.  He proved the fairness and equitableness of the
divine Spirit, in order that he may give unusual prominence to the
doctrines of the divine government and agency. The honorable preacher
taught, frst of all, that Jehovah wills, immutably, to do right; and,
then, the preacher insisted on our consenting that Jehovah do precisely
what He pleases.  Having laid the basis of the Divine Sovereignty in
the eternal principles of rectitude, the even-handed minister could not
think too much, or say too much of this adorable Sovereignty. - It has
become popular to complain of modern theology as too subjective.  But
the theology of Emmons is objective in an eminent degree. It may be
remarked of him, as decidedly as of almost any other man, God
was in all his thoughts. The grand object of reverence is conspicuous
through all the writings of this reverend thinker. He seems to have been
in haste to unfold some of the Royal attributes.  He does not linger long
enough to explain his words, but speeds onward to portray the divine excellence. Some of the most forcible objections against his creed are occasioned
by his impetuous eagerness to unfold the glories of his Monarch. Two
particulars may here be named, as illustrating, and illustrated by, his
tendency to honor the Great King.
(1) Emmons did believe in the Reality of Second Causes; in the Laws, as real Forces,
of Nature.
This has been denied.  But we have italicized certain words in the
following sentences, which are inexplicable unless he supposed, and we
might adduce scores of passages, proving him  to have supposed, that
VOL. I.                   HH




386                              MEMOIR.
effects in  nature  are produced  by the  dependent energy  of Second
Causes.
"The idea of cause and effect always carries something more in it, than the bare perception of antecedent and consequent." —"When we walk, we are conscious of a
power to produce motion. The exercise of this power gives us the perception of cause,
and the motion which flows from it gives us the perception, not only of a consequent,
but of an effect." (Works, II. 5.) — " We are capable of discerning the laws of nature,
and the various powers of all the creatures and objects around us. When we see fire
consuming wood, and water suffocating living creatures, we immediately perceive
that fire is the cause of consuming wood, and water the cause of drowning animals."
" The perception of cause and effect is peculiar to men [as distinct from brutes], and
is owing to a peculiar power, faculty, or capacity of their minds." (Works, VII. 280,
281.) - " But volitions are the next, immediate, and efficient cause of external action."
(Orig. Ed. V. 134.)-" The laws of nature absolutely limit the lives of men. The
seeds of mortality are implanted in their constitution.  Their bodies must, according
to a fixed law, return to the dust from which they were taken. All, therefore, who die
by sickness, or accident, or violence, or any other cause, than the course of nature, are
really deprived of the residue of their days." (Orig. Ed. III. 82.) —" Life is sustained and preserved by secondary causes; and all the secondary causes of the preservation of life are under the entire control of God, who can make them the means of
destroying, as well as of preserving life." (Orig. Ed. III. 408.)-" God employs so
many secondary causes in bestowing blessings upon mankind, that they are extremely
apt to overlook the primary and supreme Cause from whence they flow." (Orig. Ed.
II. 313.)-" God by his particular providence, causes one general law of nature to
counteract and obstruct another in producing its natural effect." (Orig. Ed. III. 330.)
- " The means to promote any end are as necessary as the end to be promoted." - By
employing men as means in carrying on his designs, God has made human agency
exceedingly necessary and important. (Works, IV. 308. See also, Orig. Ed. II.
204, 330; III. 10, 57; IV. 25; V. 102, 120, 535, 547, 623; VI. 45, 74, 212, etc.)
(2) He chose to say but little of the Natural Forces, lest he should withdraw Attention
from the Supreme Dominion of Jehovah.
He did, indeed, give a preeminence to those energies forming the
natural power of men to fulfil their moral obligations; for unless he did
so, he could not exhibit the honesty and honorableness of the Lawgiver.
But in other respects, he was wonderful for his habit of " looking through
nature up to nature's God."  On principle, he said less of the powers
with which the Creator has enriched the earth, than of the riches of power
remaining in the Creator himself. He was jealous of many remarks on the
forces of the material world, lest men should forget their dependence on
Him  who created, sustains, and governs all the forces of matter and
mind.  His remarks on nature are, comparatively, so few, that many
have supposed him to deny the separate existence of nature. His allusions to Second Causes are so much more infrequent than his allusions to
the great First Cause, that even Professor Stuart misunderstood him to




M EMO In.                           387
teach, that there is in fact only one real cause in existence. The objector
asks: Does not Emmons affirm that man is not the efficient cause'of his
own choices?  He does, sometimes; but then he means by efficient
cause, that agent who produces a volition by previously choosing to
produce it; and a man does not produce his choice, his first choice for
example, by previously choosing to produce it. Man does not begin his
moral action by choosing to choose. He does not put forth his first
preference, as an effect of his antecedently preferring to put it forth. On
this point, Emmons is the truest representative who has appeared, of the
Edwardean philosophy.  But rejoins the critic: Does not Emmons
affirm  or imply that God is the only efficient cause in the universe?
He does. But here he uses the word efficient as denoting independent.
He teaches that all other choices are put forth by the intervention of
powers which absolutely depend on the first eternal choice of the First
Cause. That first eternal choice is the only independent, and, with this
meaning, the only efficient cause in the universe.  But continues the
objector: Is this use of the word, plain and exact?  It is more intense
than plain. It is more emphatic than exact. Here as elsewhere, Emmons affords an illustration of the criticisms found on pp. 299-308 of
this Memoir. Accordingly, we maintain that although his language is
more nervous than perspicuous, more compressed than precise, on this
theme, yet it may be understood by considering the general scope of his
theology, and by remembering his favorite principle, that agency in God
is like agency in man, that causation in God is like causation in man.
If man, therefore, be not a real cause, God himself is not a real cause. —
(See pp. 376, 382, above.)
C. -He aimed to make his Theology illustrate the Sovereignty of Divine Grace.
If there be one truth predominant above all others in the creed of
Emmons, it is the Sovereignty of God in the dispensation of Grace. It
is not the mere sovereignty of God, it is not sovereign action, but it is
that form of sovereign goodness which consists in bestowing favor on the
ill-deserving. This predominance of sovereign grace might be illustrated
by various parts of his creed. It will be here illustrated by his theory
of the Atonement.
(1) He regarded the Atonement of Christ as the Central Truth of Theology.
In his herculean effort to raise the churches from an Arminian to a
Genevan faith, he employed such nervous phrases as have led ungrateful
readers to accuse him of overlooking the grand centre of all Christianity,
in his zeal for maintaining the distinctive tenets of Calvinism. A few




388                              MEMlOIR.
of his words may refute this accusation, and may prove that what he so
often calls "the astonishing love of the Divine Redeemer," stimulated
him to his most earnest thought.
We are sorry to say that Emmons, like Hegel, disbelieved that the stars are inhabited. But we are glad to notice his sublime conjecture, that these brilliant globes
are gems in the crown of Immanuel, whom Emmons calls "the grand centre of union
and blessedness among both men and angels."  These stars, he writes, "may have
been made to display divine power, and give magnificence to the Great Redeemer,
and his glorious work of redemption." - (Orig. Ed. VI. 29.) Philosophers "overlook the vast importance of the whole human race, who are rational and immortal
beings, and capable of endless happiness or misery; and the great and astonishing
work of redemption, which has been devised and carried on by the incarnation, life,
death, and government of the divine Redeemer. It is not half so strange that God
should garnish the heavens with'the sun, moon, and stars, those vast material orbs,
for the service of men, as that he should give his only begotten Son, the Lord of
glory, to suffer and die on the cross, to save the sinful race of men from deserved and
everlasting ruin. God designed that the whole work of creation should be subordinate
and subservient to the great work of redemption; and that the inhabitants of the upper
world should all be employed in the service of his Son and for the benefit of this
lower world. If philosophers had just and exalted ideas of the work of redemption,
they would not be so apt to magnify the sun, moon, and stars above this little world,
and its apparently little inhabitants.".....   "As he meant to make a peculiar
discovery of himself to principalities and powers above, by this gracious and glorious
interposition in favor of the sinful children of men; so the angels have been, for ages,
delightfully looking into and admiring the great plan of redemption, and have seen.more of God in it, than they ever did see, or will see, in any other parts of his works."...... " His providing such a glorious and divine Saviour for all mankind, was
the strongest expression of his benevolence toward them that he could exhibit. It was not
only morally but naturally impossible for him to give a higher testimony of his sincere
and ardent desire to save the whole fallen and guilty race of Adam."...... The
death of Christ "was the most wonderful and glorious and important event that ever
did or ever will take place in this or in any other part of the universe." - (I. 46, 86, 87;
V. 75; VI. 30, 64, 102; VII. 264.)...... God "has no other source of happiness
than the consummation of his eternal purpose which he purposed in Christ Jesus."....
" To deny the doctrine of atonement through the vicarious death and sufferings of
Christ, is to oppose the whole current of Scripture; and is subversive of the whole gospel,
which has always been preached from Adam to this day."- (Works, II. 830; III.
57. See also Orig. Ed. I. 46, 86, 87; V. 75; VI. 30, 64, 102; VII. 264. He speaks
of other doctrines as fundamental, but this as "fundamental and comprehensive."  He
speaks of other doctrines as fundamental, because they enclose this as their centre,
but he does not speak of this as fundamental, because it encloses others as its centre.)
(2) He regarded the Atonement as concentrating in its Nature, Origin, and Application,
the Free and Sovereign Grace of God.
Did Christ bear the legal penalty which was due to us?   "Yes,"
many Calvinists reply.  "No," was the reply of Emmons; for, after
our penalty has been borne once, distributive justice forbids that it be




MEIMOIR.                            389
borne the second time, and therefore, on this theory, our freedom from
punishment results immediately from  strict justice, not from Sovereign
Grace. — Are our sins literally imputed to Christ?  "Yes," many Calvinists answer.  " No," was the answer of Emmons; for, while our sins
are imputed to Christ, distributive justice forbids that they be imputed to
us also, and therefore, on this theory, we are freed from their burden
immediately by exact justice, and not by Sovereign Grace. - Has Christ
rescued us from  the guilt of sin?  "Yes," respond many Calvinists.
" No," responds Emmons; for, after we have been rescued from guilt, we
do not deserve to be punished, and it is a solecism to affirm, that we are
saved by Free Grace from a penalty which we do not deserve to endure.
Whatever is not exacted by justice, cannot, so far forth, be remitted by
grace. - Is the meritorious obedience of Christ literally imputed to us?
"Yes," many Calvinists affirm.  "No," is the word of Emmons; for
after a perfect and meritorious obedience is literally imputed to us, we
must receive its positive recompense from retributive justice, not from
Sovereign Grace. - Are we rewarded immediately on the ground of the
virtues cherished by Christ?  " Yes," many Calvinists believe. " No,"
is the belief of Emmons; for, if we are rewarded immediately on the
ground of Christ's virtues, it must be on the ground of their merit of
condignity, and if they have this literal and proper merit, they exact our
grand recompense from retributive justice, and if so, we are not recompensed by Sovereign Grace. Thus we perceive that from the beginning
to the end of his theory, this sterling Calvinist is inflamed with a zeal to
honor the dearest attribute of the loveliest being, and to ascribe all our
blessings directly and immediately to a more winning perfection than
justice, to the free, untrammelled, unnecessitated Grace of the Monarch.
The dominant aim of his speculations on the atonement, is to exhibit all
the favors which we receive as resulting from Christ's atoning death;
and to exhibit the remission of sins as the only one of these favors which
the Sovereign God would have no right to bestow upon us without that
atoning death; to represent the atonement as the cause or occasion without which we could not properly and wisely be regenerated, and as the
ground on which we could not with Justice be forgiven. Justice interfered with sovereignty not in regard to the positive blessings bestowed
upon us, but only with regard to the negative blessing, the release from
punishment.
Dr. Samuel Spring criticized one of the discourses of Emmons on
Justification, as departing unnecessarily from the received nomenclature.
It deserves this criticism; for in reality the favorite idea of Emmons required him to affirm, rather than to deny, that the atonement of Christ is
the ground of all those blessings which we receive from it indirectly and
HHI




390                               MEMOIR.
remotely. In his ardent aspiration to honor the divine sovereignty, he
chooses to substitute cause or occasion for ground; and he thus verbally
contradicts what he really teaches. We cannot sanction all the nervous
phrases in which he expressed his theory, nor all the ideas which he included in it.  But the annexed parallel columns will show, that his condensed utterances have, here as elsewhere, drawn a veil over his otherwise luminous composition.  They have exposed him  to the imputation
of believing what he never did believe.  They were prompted by his
enthusiastic desire to prove, that in the redemptive work God " displays
not only sovereign grace, but sovereign grace in the most sovereign manner, and at the highest possible expense; " for Emmons declares that, in
one view, God, " not Christ, made the atonement," and in another view,
Christ made it, thus " giving to his Father an opportunity of acting out
all the feelings of his heart towards his sinful and ill-deserving creatures."
The Bold Announcements.                   The Explanatory Words.
"Even now God bestows innumerable         The atonement "is only the occasion,
blessings upon his degenerate offspring,  or cause, without which none would be sancwithout respect to Christ.".... "There  tified, or prepared for heaven.".... "In
is no temporal favor so great, but he can   a word, the atonement of Christ is the
bestow it upon the vilest of men as a mere  occasion of the sinner's regeneration, and
act of sovereignty, without the least respect to  the sole ground of his pardon or justificaClOrist as mediator."  Scores of passages,  tion."..
like those in the opposite column, interpret... "It is easy to see how  all the
these words as implying, that God has a  blessings which God has ever bestowed, or
sovereign right to bestow a certain kind of  ever will bestow upon all intelligent creablessings on sinners whom he punishes for-  tures, have flowed and will flow, directly or
ever; that justice merely requires their  indirectly, through the medium of Christ."
eternal punishment, and merely forbids......  There is an important sense,
their being pardoned, and therefore, so  therefore, in which it is true, that all the
long as he inflicts upon them  their de-  temporal, spiritual and eternal good that
served pains, he has a Sovereign  right  mankind have enjoyed and will enjoy, comes
to bestow  upon them  such  favors as  to them through the medium of Christ." —
do not involve their release from  what  The doctrine of justification by faith in
justice  demands, nor  their  reception  the atonement, " is the only solid ground
of what justice forbids; that, accord-  upon which men can safely build their
ingly, in  his treatment of impenitent  hopes of escaping the wrath to come,
men who have not begun to endure their  and obtaining eternal life."........
everlasting punishment, he has a Sovereign.... "God may pardon little children,
right to bestow upon them such favors as  whom he renews and causes to exercise
do not involve their pardon, or their final  holy affections, though they are ignorant
release from  any merited evil; he may   of him  and of Christ, for whose sake he
bestow such blessings without respect to  forgives and admits them to heaven;" i. e.
the atonement, viewed as immediately and  he admits them  to heaven, ultimately on
directly obliging him, in point of justice, to  occasion of Christ's death, but inmmediately
bestow them, also without respect to the  on occasion of their holy affections.
atonement, viewed as givinq him a sovereign right, which he would not otherwise  "As Christ stood alone, and no one
have, to  bestow  them.  The opposite  with  him  in making  atonement, they
column shows, however, that God can  [believers] did  not deserve to be renever grant a solitary favor to sinners,  warded for what he voluntarily did and
without respect to the atonement, viewed  suffered; though it is true, that he deas making it wise and proper to grant the  served to be rewarded for making atonefavor.                                    ment.".. Emmons often speaks of




ME MOI.                                391
Christ "did not merit any thing at  all true obedience as "worthy  of his
the hand of God for himself, or for man-  [God's] approbation,"  "praiseworthy,"
kind."  " There is no propriety in using   etc.  He says: "All the sincere obethe term, merits of Christ."               dience and good works of believers deEmmons here means, that Christ has  serve the divine approbation and gracious
no merit which renders it obligatory on   reward, solely on account of their intrinsic
God, in point of strict retributive justice, to  and moral excellence."  Of course, then,
bestow any kind  of favor on sinners.  he believes that Christ's  obedience is
Thus he says: "Christ did  not lay   worthy of praise, and deserves a gratuiGod under the least obligation in point of  tons reward.  He  often  says: "God
justice, to pardon and save a single sin-  promised to reward him [Christ] and has
ner," "to pardon even true penitents."  rewarded, and continues to reward him,
God "exercises the same free grace in  by giving him those for whom he volunpardoning sinners through the atonement,  tarily suffered, and whom  he died to
as if no atonement had been made."  "God   save." -Emmons does not mean that
exercises as real grace in pardoning sin-  any good act of a creature deserves reners through the atonement of Christ, as  ward in point of justice, but he means
in sending him  to make an atonement."  that it is morally fit to approve, and to
" We deserve to suffer as much, as if Christ  express approbation, of every good act;
had not suffered at all."  "For if Christ  and this expressed approbation is a remerited salvation for all for whom he died,  ward not of justice but of gratuitous, or
then God is obliged, in point of justice, to  else of gracious benevolence. He does not
save all for whom he died; and if he died  regard it proper to characterize this desert
for all, then he is equally bound, in point  by the word merit, either the merit of conof justice, to save the whole human race."  gruity or of condignity.  Still he does, now
and then, comply with what he deems an
improper usage, and he speaks of the
" meritorious death " of the Son of God.
God " cannot consistently reward them      "The holy and virtuous actions of be[penitent believers] for their sincere obe-  lievers are as amiable and worthy of the
dience, on any other than their own ac-  divine approbation, as if they had never
count;" i. e. God cannot approve of them,  sinned; yet they cannot be rewarded, unon account of any thing, as a direct and   less they are forgiven. But after God
immediate cause, but their sincere obe-  justifies or forgives them, on Christ's acdience; he can not reward them, i. e.  count, they stand as fair to be rewarded
express his approval of them, on account  for all their good deeds, as if they had
of any thing, as the proximate condition,  never sinned and forfeited the divine fabut their own holy love; they do not de-  vor.  Thus there appears to be a perfect
serve approval, or any expression of ap-  consistency  between  God's justifying,
proval, directly and immediately on account  that is, forgiving believers, for Christ's
of what Christ has done, but only on ac-  sake, and yet rewarding them for their
count of what they have done, under in-  own sake, according to their works."
fluences which flowed from the atonement.. " The pardon and forgiveness of beas the remote and ultimate cause.- Em-  lievers is properly called justification, bemons uses the words, on account of, on   cause it places them  in a condition in
the ground of, to express the proximate   which God may treat them as though they
justifying cause.                          were and always had been perfectly innocent."-  " This plan of redemption has
rendered it consistent for God to grant
forgiveness to all true believers through
the blood of Christ, and to grant any other
favor to them, and to the rest of mankind, as
an act of mere sovereign goodness."
"God grants regenerating  grace to         " The ultimate design of Christ in all he
whom he pleases, as an act of mere sov-  did and suffered for the church, was to
ereignty, without any particular respect to  raise it to a state of holiness.  But would
the death or atonement of Christ," i. e.  he have done and suffered so much for
without any particular respect to  this  this end, if he had not viewed holiness
death as obligating God in distributive jus-  as intrinsically excellent?  His ultimate
tice to regenerate men..... "It was  purpose in dying for his people was, to
not the primary or principal design of  save them from  their sins and adorn them




392                            MEMOIR.
Christ, in coming and dying for his peo-  with the white robes of holiness. This will
pie, to redeem or save them  from  the  give them a crown of glory, which will
power and dominion of sin; but to save or  never fade, and raise them to the highest
redeem them from the punishment of it."  perfection to which they can be raised.
-Emmons often teaches that salvation  The whole of Christ's mediatorial confrom punishment is the blessing which  duct speaks louder than words, and procould not have been granted without an  claims holiness to be the supreme glory
atonement by a just God; in this sense,  and perfection of all created and uncreit was the primary or principal, in the  ated beings."  (The extracts in these
sense of first and fundamental, object of  parallel columns are found chiefly in
the atonement. The opposite column  Works, II. and III. Parts XIII. and
shows that Emmons makes a distinction  XIV. See also, Orig. Ed. I. 46, 86, 87;
between primary and ultimate.          VI. 29, 64; VII. 303, etc. etc.)
D. - He aimed to make his Theological System illustrate the Duty of Union with God.
The genius of a man is developed in the simplicity of his great works.
In no one particular is the intellect of Emmons more clearly distinguished,
than in the fact, that his entire " system of divinity " may be reduced now
to one, then to another, again to a third, grand principle. A single truth
permeates and forms his creed.  If that truth be not recognized, then
another truth presents itself, as moulding his whole faith. If the second
truth be unnoticed, then a third principle is found giving shape to his
theology. His doctrinal belief was fashioned by the rule, that men ought
to be one with  God.  Union with  the  Father and the  Son was the
principium  to which all his teachings, in a bright aspect of them, may
be traced.  He aimed to convince men, that their constitution is of the
same genus with the divine; that the divine glory is involved in their
welfare, and their welfare is involved in the divine glory; that the divine
will should be their will, the divine purposes their delight, the divine
triumphs their joy; that even in the most rigid and afflictive procedures
of their Sovereign, men  should  acquiesce; and should  merge their
individual preferences into his comprehensive choice, all creatures being
encompassed  and  swallowed  up  in  their Creator.  Had he been  as
poetical as he was metaphysical, he might have displayed his system in
the most gorgeous colors, and made it as dazzling as it is acute. He
prefers the simple, suggestive words:
" The pure spirits in heaven" "feel as God feels towards himself and all his holy
and unholy creatures.".... The truly contented man "is godly, and feels as God
does towards all the human race.".... The believer " loves what Christ loves, and
hates what Christ hates. He has the same views of the divine Majesty, of the divine
law, of sin, and of himself, that Christ has. And he has a joint interest with Christ in
the love of God, in the protection of providence, and in all the blessings which result
from the work of redemption. This union is of the same nature with that which
subsists between Christ and his Father.".... "This union makes the principal
figure in the sacred writings, and is oftener alluded to than any other. It is on account of this union, that saints or believers, in distinction from the world, are said to
die with Christ; to be crucified with Christ; to be buried with Christ; to be quick



MEMOIR.                                 393
ened with Christ; to rise with Christ; to live with Christ; to be circumcised with
C.;rist; to be baptized with Christ; to be complete in Christ; to be members of his
b,,ly, of his flesh, and of his bones. And it is on account of this union, that Christ
a,;l the church are so often prefigured and represented by the various metaphors of
Atlam and Eve; of Adam and his posterity; of the husband and wife; of Aaron and
his robes; of the vine and its branches; of the head and its members; and of the
corner stone and superstructure."
" The kind Parent of the universe places his happiness in the happiness of his immensely numerous offspring; and it would diminish his blessedness, if he saw a single
individual among his creatures, that was less happy than he could consistently make
him.".... " It would wound his benevolent heart, if one human person were not as
happy as he could consistently make him.".... "He knows infinitely better than
creatures do, what is most for his glory and for their good; and he means to promote
his own glory that he may promote their greatest good. He will be happy in seeing them
happy; and they will be happy in seeing him happy."- (Works, Orig. Ed. III. 492;
V. 308; VI. 178, 489, etc.)
E. - He aimed to make his Theology illustrate the Duty of Men to love themselves.
As early as 1786, when our Calvinists were not accustomed to such
words, he printed his Sermon on the Dignity of Man.  He portrayed the
constitutional ability of our souls, as a token of their high estate.  Notwithstanding all his antagonism  to the Arminian creed, he often insists
on the wonderful exaltation of minds made in the likeness of, and for a
union with, their divine original.  He adopted as a first principle of his
ethics, that virtue consists in impartial love, in such a love to every
individual as is proportioned to the intrinsic and comparative worth of
that individual, and therefore in such a love to self as quadrates with the
value of self, and in such a love to God as harmonizes with the infinite
worthiness of God.  He also maintained as a fundamental axiom, that
men should choose what their Maker chooses, and accordingly should
love themselves because they are loved by their Maker.  Like other
Hopkinsians, he did not sanction the phrase self-love as expressing an
innocent or a holy feeling; but he preferred the phrase love to self as
denoting the right kind or degree of attachment to self, and he used the
phrase self-love as equivalent to selfishness, and as denoting the wrong
kind or degree of this attachment. But his words, justifying and positively requiring a warm love to self, are so numerous that all of them
can not, and so explicit that many of them need not, be quoted here. A
few will suffice:
Paul "considered every person whom  he was instrumental of converting, as a
part of his future and eternal reward, and therefore most sincerely desired in his
preaching, to save the souls of men.".... "If Moses had respect, in the exercise
of disinterested benevolence, to a future and eternal reward, then saints may and do
regard their own eternal good more than sinners [regard theirs].".... " Good men,
therefore, view themselves vastly more valuable than sinners view themselves."....




394                              MEMOIR.
"Success in any business is the most animating motive to activity. It was the prospect
which Moses had of the recompense of reward, that animated him to labor so long and
so faithfully for God."..... "Moses had a right to regard his own future and
eternal happiness according to its worth, and to seek to promote it in the way God
required him to do it.".... " We see that in all his obedience and suffering, he had
respect to the joy set before him, which was his reward. Accordingly he prayed for the
bestowment of his reward.".... "No selfish man ever desired the enjoyment of
God for its own sake, as a source of real happiness.".... " If Moses was really
disinterested in having respect to the recompense of reward, then real saints may be as
disinterested in seeking their own good, as in seeking the good of others.".... " The
doctrine of disinterested love does not require any person to disregard his own interest
or happiness.".... "Neither Moses nor any other good man, ever disregarded his
own good in the exercise of disinterested benevolence to others, but only regarded their
greater good more than his own inferior good.".... " The benevolent man will give
up a less good of his own for a greater good of others. And the reason is, he places
his happiness in the happiness of others."
As the truly benevolent man "values the happiness of the whole universe more
than the happiness of a particular part, so he values the happiness of each part in exact
proportion to its intrinsic and comparative worth."... " Universal benevolence leads
the subject of it to regard all beings according to their apparent worth and importance, and to seek their good according to the rank they hold in the scale of existence.
This disposition will incline any being to treat himself, and every other being, perfectly
right.".... "If sinners love themselves because they are themselves, which is selfish
and sinful, then, after they experience a saving change, from selfishness to benevolence,
they love themselves in a manner totally different from what they did before. They
love themselves in the same manner that God loves them. He loves them  impartially
according to their character and capacities. He values their interest no more nor
less than it is worth. And they value their own interest no more nor less than it is
worth."...
"Good men have no right to be selfish in the least degree, but they have a right to
value their own temporal and eternal interest accordinq to its worth, and no more."(Works, II. 699, 700; Orig. Ed. I. 204; V. 241; VI. 132, 133, 241, 403, 504, etc.)
F. - He aimed to make his Creed illustrate the Harmony of Disinterested Submission,
with Love to Self, Love to Men, Love to God.
His favorite axioms were: " Unless we love ourselves, we cannot love
our fellow men, as we are required to love them." " Unless we love our
fellow men, we cannot love God, in whose image they are."  "Unless
we love our own interest, there can be no beauty or virtue in giving it
up for the greater interest of our neighbors, or of our Maker."  As the
missionary zeal of Emmons and his friends clustered around the doctrine
of Disinterested Love, and as this was one of the most efficient among
the formative principles of his theology, it demands our prolonged
attention.
It was in 1782 that Mr. Cowper published his Translation of certain Poems, written
by Madame Guion. In one of them, the poet sings:




MEMOIR.                                   395
"Be not angry; I resign
Henceforth all my will to thine;
I consent that thou depart,
Though thine absence breaks my heart;
Go then, and forever too;
All is right that thou wilt do."
In another of her Poems, the submissive quietist exclaims:
"Thou hast no lightnings, O thou just!
Or I their force should know;
And, if thou strike me in the dust,
My soul approves the blow.
"The heart, that values less its ease,
Than it adores thy ways;
In thine avenging anger sees
A subject of its praise.
"Pleas'd I could lie, conceal'd and lost,
In shades of central night;
Not to avoid thy wrath, thou know'st,
But lest I grieve thy sight.
"Smite me, O thou, whom I provoke!
And I will love thee still:
The well-deserv'd, and righteous stroke,
Shall please me, though it kill."
It was natural for a man, enamored like Dr. Emmons of all that is thorough, profound and heart-searching, to say of the doctrine suggested in the preceding stanzas 
It is "extremely noble, virtuous and honorable."  It is "pure, noble and benevolent."  He could not say with the self-abnegating songster:
"To me'tis equal, whether Love ordain
My life or death, appoint me pain or ease;
My soul perceives no real Ill in pain;
In ease, or health, no real Good she sees."
He did not believe, that a person should be " as pleased when shipwrecked, as
when safe on shore." But he did believe, that if the glory of God require any imaginable evil of us, we should submit to his will, and aim to secure his glory, while we
dread the evil. He could not have stated his theory better than in the words of the
quietist named above:
"Thy will in all things I approve,
Exalted or cast down!
Thy will in ev'ry state I love,
And even in thy frown."
We have already alluded to Emmons's fondness for expressing his opinions in a
style which can never subject him to the charge of aiming at popularity, of prophesying smooth things, of polishing away the corners of any triangle or hexagon. The
charge is a plausible one, that he often used the expression, "Sinners ought to be
willing to be damned."  But though plausible, it is not true. I do not know that he
ever uttered these words even in conversation. They are nowhere to be found in his
published volumes. Still, he does employ the phrase: " Sinners ought to be willing




396                              MEMOIR.
to be lost, if the glory of God requires it." He had read in the Commentary of John
Calvin, that when Paul said, " I could wish myself accursed from Christ," the apostle
did not speak of temporal death but eternal, (non de temporaneo duntaxat exitio - sed
oSterna morte.)  "Therefore," says Calvin, on Rom. 9: 3, "it was a proof of most
ardent love, that Paul did not scruple, for the purpose of delivering the Jews, to imprecate that damnation upon himself which he saw to be impending over them."  (INon
dlubitaret Paulus sibi damnationem imprecari quam videbat Judeis impendere, quo eos
liberaret.) Standing on the basis of this passage, as thus interpreted, the Franklin Calvinist contended, that whenever sinners regarded themselves as instantly exposed to the
divine justice, as liable to be sentenced immediately to everlasting punishment, the
sinners should submit to that justice, should acquiesce in that sentence, should be
willing that God's decree be executed, whatever that decree may have provided for
themselves.  The object that secures their willingness, is not their own state, but the
divine glory. In the strictest meaning of the terms, Emmons believed, not so much
that sinners should be willing to be lost, as that they should be willing to have God's
decree fulfilled, even although this decree require them to be lost; they should submit
not so distinctively to their endless ruin, as to the justice of Jehovah, even if that justice demand their endless ruin. It is not so properly distress to which they should
feel resigned, as it is the will of God, which requires that distress. He repeats and
reiterates the remark:
The willingness to endure eternal pain "does not imply love to pain or misery,
but ONLY a love to that BENEVOLENT JUSTICE which inflicts it." —(Works,
III. 224.)
The theory of Emmons, then, flowed from  his love of honoring Jehovah, even in
the severest of the divine inflictions. It flowed from his desire to make all men agree
with Jehovah, to make their will coincide with God's will in reference to their future
state. He often said: God is not willing that any should perish, and men should not
be willing that any should perish, perdition being viewed as mere sin or pain, or both;
but he said as often: God does will to execute his own decree, and men should be
willing that God execute his own decree, that decree being a good, and being viewed
as a good, even when it results in the sin and pain of men. He insisted, that if God
be willing in any sense to punish a transgressor, the transgressor should be willing in
that same sense, and in no other, to be punished; the creature should not differ from the
Creator.
The theory of Emmons flowed, also, from his desire that all men exercise impartial
benevolence. He read everywhere in the writings of Calvinists, that good men do
not rebel against God for justly and righteously punishing others; he supposed, therefore, that good men ought not to rebel against God, if he should justly punish themselves. As they ought not to contend against the will of God, so they ought to coincide
with that will, if it had provided for themselves the same ruin which it provided for other
beings who were no worse than themselves. The will of God is always right, and should
never be opposed. " For," says Dr. Emmons, " how could they [the saints] be happy
in seeing God treat other sinners according to their deserts, if they were never willing
that he should treat them in the same manner? Or how could they say'Amen,
Alleluia,' while they saw the smoke of the torment of the damned ascending for ever
and ever, if they were never willing to lie down in everlasting sorrow  "-  (Works,
III. 225.)
Professor Moses Stuart preached a sermon in the Seminary Chapel at Andover,
against the doctrine of Disinterested Submission, as it was advocated by Hopkins,




MEMOIR.                                   397
Emmons, and Spring. Notes of this sermon were sent to Dr. Emmons, and he was
requested to make his comments on them. The following are his criticisms in a letter
to the relative who solicited his opinion.
"I have read Mr. S.'s arguments against unconditional submission, which appear
to me more plausible than conclusive. Submission is as well understood, I believe,
as resignation; and either term properly signifies a willingness to suffer any evil
which God pleases to inflict. This willingness, however, does not imply any love to
evil, but only love to God who inflicts it. Love to God is always implied in submission, which can flow from no other source. None but a regenerate person, or if you
please, none but a Christian, ever exercises submission to God under any evil which
God inflicts, whether small or great. Indeed the same spirit of benevolence which
will dispose a person to submit to God under the least evil, will dispose him to submit
to God under the greatest; because God appears as amiable in inflicting the greatest,
as in inflicting the least evil. The difficulty, if there be any in this question, lies not
in determining the nature or degree of submission, but in determining when any
regenerate person or real Christian ought to be willing that God should destroy him
in a future state. To set this point in as clear a light as I can, I would observe,
" 1. That a person may be regenerated, and yet not know that he is so. Though
regeneration consists in new affections, and he may know in the time of it, that he
does exercise new affections, yet he may not know that his new affections are holy
affections; and consequently not know that he is the subject of a saving change, and
a real child of God. He maybe in this dark and doubtful state, for days, or weeks,
or even for months, after his heart is renewed. This many a Christian has declared,
when he made a public profession of religion.
"2. A renewed person, or real Christian, who does not know that he is renewed,
cannot know that he is entitled to eternal life, according to the promises of the gospel.
Though it be true that he is entitled to eternal life, yet he sees no evidence of it, so
long as he sees no evidence of being a subject of saving grace. Therefore,
"3. A regenerate person, or real Christian, in such a situation, must view himself
as exposed to future misery. As he does not view himself as a believer, he must
view himself to be an unbeliever, and actually deserving and exposed to the punishment of an unbeliever; or, in other words, he must suppose that God is as much disposed to punish him forever as any other sinner.
"4. While a regenerate person or real Christian thus views himself under a sentence
of condemnation, he certainly ought to be willing that God should execute that sentence of condemnation upon him. He certainly must be willing that God should do
this, or else he is unwilling. But to be unwilling, is practically saying that God shall
not reign over him, or dispose of him as shall be most for his own glory. Now I ask
Mr. S., or any other person, how a real subject of grace ought to feel in such a situation as this? You will say, he ought to desire salvation. I say so too. But ought
he to desire salvation absolutely, or unconditionally, whether he be a subject of grace
or not? He does not know that he is a subject of grace, or that he ever will be. And
therefore, he does not know but that God is morally obliged, according to the threatening of his law, and according to his eternal decree, to cast him off for ever. And
should he, in this situation, stand and contend with his Maker, or cordially submit?
I am now ready to meet the arguments or objections which you mention.
" Objection 1. —None but real Christians do exercise the virtue of true submission
to God's will under afflictions, or in the prospect of them.
" Answer. - This is said, and meant, as an objection against those who advocate
unconditional submission, and is really the substance of all Mr. S. has said to refute
VOL. I.                        II




398                              MEMOIR.
the doctrine he opposes; for all the absurdities he endeavors to point out, as arising
from the doctrine, are supposed to arise from the character and condition of a real
Christian. But this is fighting against a man of straw, of his own make. The
advocates of unconditional submission, who understand themselves, freely grant, that
it is only the subject of grace, or the real Christian, that does exercise true submission. I know indeed that Mr. Hooker and Mr. Shepard maintained, that a sinner
under awakening and conviction, must be willing to be cast off for ever, in order to
prepare him for regeneration or true conversion. This we acknowledge is an erroneous opinion; and no I-opkinsian that I am acquainted with, adopts this opinion.
"Objection 2.- If we suppose a person submissively resigned to future misery, we
must suppose him, of course, to be a Christian.
" Answer. - Freely and fully granted, as being nothing to the purpose.
" Objection 3.- We have, then, this incongruity presented. Here is a Christian,
resigned to future evil, which can by no possibility take place under the government
of God. For God cannot, without a sacrifice of his veracity, permit a real Christian
to perish.
" Answer. - Very true; but what then?  Though God cannot permit a real Christian to perish, and though a real Christian, who knows he is a real Christian, ought
not to be willing that God should violate his promise, and cast him off for ever; yet,
it by no means follows, that a real Christian who does not know that he is a real
Christian, ought not to be willing that God should cast him off for ever, if his own
glory requires him to do it. And if he be not a Christian, as he supposes he is not,
he cannot know but the glory of God will require him to cast him off for ever. His
duty is precisely the same in his supposed situation, as it would be if he were not a
real Christian.
" Objection 4. - It follows, then, as the evil in question is not, under the government of God, a possible one, that a supposed resignation to it is not, and cannot be
true submission; for true submission is resignation to present evils, or to those which
are certain in prospect.  This, therefore, is imaginary submission. It costs but little,
and is worth still less.
"Answer. - A real Christian may exercise as real submission to a supposed evil, as
to a real one. And if he does not exercise as real submission to a supposed evil, as
to a real one, he is as guilty, as if the supposed evil had been a real evil. When
Joseph's brethren came to their father and made him believe that Joseph had been
torn to pieces by a wild beast, ought not Jacob to have been submissive to God under
his supposed bereavement   And was he not criminal in feeling, and saying as he
did ~-' It is my son's coat: an evil beast hath devoured him: Joseph is without
doubt rent in pieces. And Jacob rent his clothes, and put sackcloth upon his loins,
and mourned for his son many days. And all his sons and all his daughters rose up
to comfort him, but he refused to be comforted.'- Though his son was not dead, yet
he verily believed that he was dead, and that God had bereaved him of his darling.
In this belief he was altogether inexcusable in refusing to submit to God, and to be
comforted. And surely, if he had submitted to this supposed, or if you please, imaginary evil, it would have cost him much, and been worth all the gold of Ophir.
The application is easy. A real Christian, who believes he is not a real Christian,
ought to be willing to suffer that future punishment, which God might inflict upon
him, if he were, and always should be, an impenitent sinner.
" Objection 5.- Imaginary submission can never be a real test of Christian character. Actual submission only is evidence of it. Indeed, no state of mind which depends upon the future, can ever be at present, evidence of a Christian temper. We




MEMOIR.                                    399
appeal, and must appeal, to past experience, or present actual experience only for a
test of our religion.  Submission, then, to a supposed misery that is future, is no
evidence to us of religion, unless that misery is so certain that it becomes present.
But in the case supposed, the misery is not only future, but actually impossible.
" Answer. - Is it not a present evil to expect and fear a future and eternal evil? Has
it not been shown that a real Christian, who does not know nor think that he is a real
Christian, has just ground to expect and fear a future and eternal evil 2 His fear is
not imaginary, but real; and his submission ought not to be imaginary, but real.
His case exactly resembles Jacob's. He supposed his son was dead; and his supposition, though not founded in reality, was yet founded upon credible evidence, and
such as carried full conviction to his mind, and laid him under moral obligation to be
really and immediately submissive to the supposed will of God; yea, to the real will
of God; for it was his revealed will that he should be submissive to him in the
mournful situation in which he had really placed him.  So it is the real will of God
that a real Christian, who does not know nor believe that he is a real Christian,
should be at that time, whether before or after he has had a hope, willing that he
should cast him off for ever, if his glory requires it, as he does not know but it may.
I now ask whether unreserved submission to the divine disposal, is not directly calculated to remove the doubts of a doubting Christian; and whether any thing else can
remove his doubts? Submission in this case is the test, and the only infallible test to
himself of his Christian character. If a doubting Christian comes to be submissive
to God whether he should save or destroy him, he then has an infallible evidence that
he is a friend of God, and that God is his friend; which must remove his painful
doubts.
" Objection 6.- There are other difficulties still, attending this speculation. A
state of future misery, involves a state of future disobedience and rebellion against
God. And we have already seen that submission can never be opposed to obedience.
Submission to a state of future disobedience is absolute rebellion.
"Answer. - It is granted that present submission is inconsistent with present disobedience. No person in the actual exercise of submission to God, can, by that actual
submission, disobey God. But how does it appear, that present submission to God is
inconsistent with future disobedience to him?  Does not a real Christian, in the
morning of life, desire that God would not take him away in the midst of his days,
but allow him to live longer in this world?  But does he not expect, that, if he should
live to the common age of man, he shall be guilty of more or less disobedience to
God in that period?  Is he not, then, willing, at present, to disobey God in future?
And is his present willingness to disobey God in future, when he has told him that he
shall not be perfect in this life, present disobedience? It is real submission to a certain, expected evil, which he hates in its own nature. But if a Christian may be
submissive to God, in appointing him to disobedience in time, why may he not be
submissive to God, in appointing him to disobedience in eternity? Supposing God
had told Lucifer, the day before he disobeyed, I have determined that to-morrow you
shall disobey.  Ought not Lucifer to have said, from the heart, I submit: Not my
will, but thine be done? And had he felt and said this, would his submission to future disobedience, have been present, actual disobedience? I leave it to Mr. S. to
solve these cases of conscience, which I have mentioned.
" Objection 7.- But the question sometimes comes up in this form: If we could be
assured, that it would be for the glory of God that we should be cast off, ought we
not to acquiesce?  And, in answer to this, I have simply to observe that such an
assurance is absolutely impossible.  God cannot break his promises.  God cannot




400                              MEMOIR.
change his character. It cannot be for his glory that those should be miserable for
ever, who are submissive to his will. Of what use is it, then, to state and reason from
cases that are impossible ones, and subversive of the whole nature and government of
God, if they should occur? Much more, how can it be a test of Christian character,
to conjecture how we should act and feel, or ought to act and feel, in cases that are
actually impossible?
" Answer. - It is readily conceded, that a Christian, who does not know nor believe
that he is a Christian, cannot be assured that it would be for the glory of God that he
should be cast off; and it is asserted, on the other hand, that a Christian, who does
not know nor believe that he is a Christian, cannot be assured that it would be for the
glory of God that he should be saved. For God cannot break his promises, nor his
purposes. The Christian, who does not know that he is a Christian, cannot know
what God's purposes are respecting him; and therefore, it is his present duty to be
willing that He should execute his purposes, whether they are in his favor or against
him. His present state of uncertainty requires him to exercise present submission,
whether his future state should be either happy or miserable. And his present submission or opposition to God, in his present state of uncertainty, is a criterion, to determine
whether he feels right or wrong at present; but not to determine whether he is a real
Christian or not. For though he may feel wrong in his present state of darkness, he
may afterwards feel right, as Jacob did, after he had refused to submit and be comforted.
" Objection 8. -It is again asked, Is it not the duty of those who are cast off, to
submit to their condition  And if you will only view this question as it respects
different considerations, it is very easy to answer it. As to that part of the future
state of condemnation, which involves disobedience and rebellion, it is no duty to
submit to this, but to become obedient and cease from rebellion. And in regard to
actual misery, fallen spirits are bound to acknowledge the justice of God in it, and
their full desert of it. But it is their duty to repent and reform, and, were it possible,
to deliver themselves from misery, though we have reason to believe that they will
never do this. 
"Answer. - The spirits in prison are undoubtedly bound cordially to acknowledge
the justice of God in punishing them for ever, and cordially to acknowledge the sovereignty of God in continuing them in a state of moral depravity for ever. And the
cordial acknowledgment of both the justice and sovereignty of God towards them, I
should call perfect submission to God, both as to their sinfulness and misery.
"Mr. S. concludes his arguments or objections against unconditional submission
with the following general observations, which deserve some notice:
"'On the whole it is a matter of regret, that this subject has been agitated in our
churches. It is easy to perceive that much has been said upon it, without definite
ideas of the nature of true submission; and much said against it with mistaken apprehensions of the design of those who advocate the affirmative. What is aimed at,
I take to be these simple truths: The will of God is the rule of right, and creatures
ought to submit to that will; the law of God is perfectly just, and we ought to approve of it, though it condemn our conduct; we ought to feel that we deserve to be
cast off, and it is mere grace which delivers us from destruction. To these truths we
all accede. Why not inculcate them, then, in this simple and intelligible form, and
not endeavor to impress them by the statement of cases which are revolting to the
feelings and impossible in the nature of things! Most of the disputants upon these
subjects seem to me to have left submission undefined, and not to have distinguished
between active obedience and suffering with resignation, or shown how the one stood
related to the other, or that the one can never interfere with the other.'




ME EMOIR.                                 401
"Answer. — Will not all those who are finally cast off at the last day, be constrained to accede, in their understandings and consciences, to these simple truths:'That the will of God is the rule of right, and creatures ought to submit to that will;
that the law of God is perfectly just, and they ought to approve of it, though it condemn their conduct; that they ought to feel that they deserve to be cast off, and that
it would have been mere grace to have delivered them from eternal sin and misery'
"But will those who are finally cast off exercise any true submission? Is a sense
of moral obligation to obey God the same as obeying him? Is a sense of our desert
of being punished for disobeying God, the same as submitting to his hand and heart in
punishing us?  Is there any thing in Mr. S.'s definition of submission, that an unregenerate man, remaining unregenerate, may not feel and express?
"I regret that the doctrine of unconditional submission, has not been better defined, and more repeatedly and forcibly inculcated in our churches than it ever has
been, and especially of late.'Young men think old men to be fools;' but it would
be well if young men would remember the last clause of the proverb.
"Yours, affectionately,
"NATHANAEL EMMONS.'
In his discourse on Disinterested Submission, Professor Stuart acknowledges that
the Hopkinsian doctrine is frequently misunderstood, and therefore, the true doctrine
should be stated in a more "simple and intelligible" form. The preceding letter of
Emmons illustrates the facility of misapprehending him. He represents a good man as
" willing at present, to disobey God in future."  But he does not mean to convey the
idea which these words often suggest. He does not mean that this willingness of men
to commit sin, should be at all different in kind, from the willingness of God that men
commit sin. He means, that in whatever sense God has decreed that men do wrong,
in that same sense should men have a holy willingness that the decree be executed.
Their willingness should be as holy as his. If they would always, as they can always,
retain this holy willingness, they would never, as they should never, commit a sin, be
it decreed or not decreed. Emmons was firm in maintaining, that no will or purpose
of God can ever obligate men to do wrong, or excuse men for doing wrong; and that,
as Jehovah never decrees sin as sin but only as connected with some good, so men
should never be willing to commit sin as sin, but only as an act connected with some
good; and they never should in any way commit the sin which, in a holy way, they
should be as willing to commit, as God is willing to have them commit; no more willing,
no less willing, no otherwise willing, in their limited measure, than he is in his unlimited
expansion. Emmons's theory of good men's willingness to sin, corresponds with his
theory of God's decree that men sin. If his decree be right, then, according to Emmons,
their willingness to have the decree executed, is right. If his decree does not imply
his love of sin, their willingness to have it fulfilled does not imply their love of sin.
If his decree is totally inconsistent with his doing wrong, their willingness to have his
decree executed is totally inconsistent with their doing wrong. If they ought not to
be willing, in any sense, to have his decree of their sin fulfilled, then he ought not, in
any sense, to be willing to have his decree fulfilled. Where his willingness goes, their
willingness should go; where his willingness stops, their willingness should stop.
For they do not submit to their own act, but to his; not to their sin, but to his decree.
Whether this doctrine, balanced and guarded, can be made intelligible to common
laymen, or common clergymen, is a question on which Dr. Emmons and Professor
Stuart entertained widely different notions. The doctrine was regarded by Emmons
as one part of the plain truth, that the will of man should be one with the will of God.
II*




402                         IEM OIR.
The willingness to abandon every selfish good for the well-being of
the universe, was not, with Dr. Emmons, so much a theory as a principle,
not a principle so much as a life. If he could give up all, he would give
up a part.  The wave that rolled through eternity, would roll through
time. He believed in missions that cost self-denial, for he taught that as
men should give up their future life, if needed, so they should give up
their present life, and of course their houses and lands, for the kingdom
of God. In his views of self crucifixion, he reminded one of the Archbishop of Cambray. Fenelon was born indeed under sunnier skies than
Emmons, and lived in a more polished society.  But there was a striking
resemblance between the tendencies of the two men to exalt Jehovah,
and annihilate self; to look upon eternal happiness as a small good in
the comparison with virtue, and eternal misery as a small evil in the comparison with sin. When the opposers of Emmons have indulged in
asperity of remark with regard to his willingness to be lost for the glory
of God, they have borrowed the style, and perhaps too the spirit, in
which Bossuet and his adherents aspersed the disinterested love of
Fenelon; and the following remark of the Pope, in his attempt to compound the matter and avoid an immediate decision against Fenelon, will
apply, with some modification, to Emmons, and those who have ridiculed
him for his theory of disinterestedness: "The Bishop of Cambray loves
his Maker too much, his opposers love their neighbor too little."
Views of disinterested love exerted an influence upon Emmons in his
mode of expressing his religious emotions. He aimed to avoid both the
appearance and the reality of loving God from merely selfish motives.
He disliked to represent his own eternal happiness as any thing more
than a unit amid innumerable and greater interests; and when, in his
ninety-fourth year, he was asked by a distinguished divine, calling on
him as a stranger, " How do you feel about your salvation? " he recoiled
from exposing his inward life; he did not know but that his private
remarks might find their way to the public; he dreaded to imply that he
was any thing more than a mote in the air: " If I never get to heaven,
others will," he replied, and he considered himself as compressing into
these words the pithy remark:" My own eternal happiness is but a
drop in the ocean; I choose to talk about the ocean, rather than about
the drop."  He could converse about himself in the comparison with
creatures, but when his relations to the' Creator were the theme he was
awed down into a submissive silence. He would interrupt that silence
in the circle of his bosom friends; but when a stranger intermeddled with
his hidden experience, he became jealous of himself, he shrunk back from
the slightest temptation to magnify his own importance, and to blazon
abroad his own goodness. In nothing did he avoid ostentation so much




MEMOIR.                                 403
as in the record of his religious life.  We need not affirm that he never
carried his reticence too far. He was not one of the perfect men who
find their home in biographies.  His diffident nature betrayed him  into
some faults, while it allured him into some virtues. It gave new force
to his dread of appearing to proclaim the worth of his moral character.
His advice to a young convert was, " First, maintain a uniform Christian
deportment; secondly, never make great pretensions to piety.  Those
who make great pretensions, too often become like Peter at the Judgment Hall.  Their diaries are too often the records of religious vanity."
G.- He aimed to make his Creed illustrate the Fitness of Humility and Penitence.
Schleiermacher has endeavored to resolve all religious character into
the feeling of dependence on God.  Emmons did not venture into this
extreme, but he portrays, more vividly than Schleiermacher, our dependence on our Sovereign for all positive happiness as well as for
release from  punishment, for the continuance as well as the commencement of the new life, for all our opportunities of action, for all our
ability to act, for our very being. But it was a Formative Principle of
the creed of Emmons to aim at the excitement of humility, as penitence
for sin, more than as lowliness for frailty.  It recognizes the real power
with which God has endued us, and thus discloses our guilt for abusing this
power.  It exhibits transgression  as a chosen act to be repented of,
rather than as a necessitated calamity to be mourned over. It insists on
the essential, intrinsic baseness of sin; and declares that Omnipotence
itself can never efface its ill desert; that even the atonement, while it
washes away the stain of punishment, can never wash away the stain of
guiltiness, for past rebellion; that even if sin be the necessary occasion
of the greatest good,l it remains immutably and eternally vile and hate1 While believing that sin is the necessary occasion on which God produces the
highest good, Emmons disclaims the belief that sin is the necessary means of the
highest good. His language on this topic has an historical importance, as it stands in
sharp contrast with the language of Dr. Taylor of New Haven. Indeed, the spirit
and aim  of the New Haven Professor on this theme, cannot be fully appreciated,
without setting his form of speculation over against that of the Franklin divine.
Neither can the Letters of Professor Woods to Professor Taylor, be well understood,
without considering the degree in which these Letters follow the general speculations
of Emmons. The substance of these speculations is found in the writings of John
Calvin, and even in some passages of John Wesley. As Emmons guarded his own
theory, he did not consider it liable to the danger of impairing a godly sorrow for sin.
It was attended with no such peril in his own mind, wonted as his mind was to
distinctions that escape the notice of inferior men. I gratefully own that, with regard
to the reasons for the Divine Purpose concerning the introduction of evil into the
world, I have learned more from  certain suggestions of Emmons, than from any
American divine; but his suggestions appear to me more profound and more accurate
than his formal theory, and they prepare the way for a different theory, which he
intimated rather than held; and which may be more conducive than his own, to the




404                         M1EMOIR.
ful, for it is the free uprising of a rebel against a fair, equitable, and
lovely Father.  Therefore the fit degree of penitence for sin consists in
"lying as low as possible" before God, confessing the justness of our
eternal woe, and submitting to him in all his punitive inflictions.  "To
raise God high, to bring man low," was the aim  of the two Millington
preachers, Brainerd and Emmons.  It was a characteristic remark of
the man last named: " We know the nature of sin better than the nature
of any other object around us; for we have heard, and read, and seen, and
felt, more of its evil and fatal effects, than of any other object in the
whole circle of our knowledge, observation, or experience."
H.- He aimed to make his Theology both stimulating and comprehensive.
The genius of a divine is evinced in his combination of vivid with
expanded views of truth.  Emmons was wonderful in his union of intensity with comprehensiveness.  He instinctively uncovered the point of
one doctrine, as if this were the only doctrine; and then instinctively
displayed the edge of another truth, as if that were the only truth,
although it appears to be in collision with the first; but he did not stop
here, as narrow minds would stop, for he then instinctively unfolded the
real agreement between the two seemingly discordant ideas.  A  onesided theologian, having given edge to one fact, will put velvet on the
edge of an apparently opposing fact.  Emmons was many-sided, and he
took no pains to blunt the point of any truth, on account of his having
developed the sharp point of a different truth.  His creed is termed stiff
and angular, because he lets men see the acute angles of so many doctrines, and never attempts to dull their edge. The bare naked points of his
creed make it stimulating.  Its pungent influence is seen in the Sketches
of his pupils.  Men in common life said that it put them  on a rolling
wheel, and tossed them about from one revolving shaft to another, from
one moving cog to another, and gave them  no time for sleep.  Men of
learning said, that his creed was a galvanic battery, and they could not
remain in drowsiness under the shocks of it.  Narrow-minded men have
been amazed at his boldness in even attempting to combine the positive
with the negative pole of his creed. " He is more acute than comprehensive," says one of his opponents: " He has too great fondness for the
symmetrical combination of doctrines," replies another opponent. With
all his love for startling theories, he did unite a more ardent love for
penitence which he aimed to foster. " Certainly," says Dr. Withington in Bib. Sac.
V. 626,'no man can read him [Emmons], without many suggestions, which a mind
far less fertile than that of the author of them may work into permanent and useful
truths."




MEMOIR.                                  405
their union in a system.  He teaches a sober lesson to those desultory
theologians, who let their words flare into seeming contradictions without
any attempt to reconcile them.  " Consistency," says Emmons, " is the
beauty and ornament, if not the essence of good preaching."  He regarded
it as the great labor of his life, to draw out two parallel lines of doctrine
in regard to various topics; each line, differing from the other, for there
were two lines; neither contravening the other, for they were parallel
lines; both projected in singular correspondence with each other, both
admitting the brightest colors, both tending to form a compacted whole
with unity amid variety.  Those who regard him as a giant with a keen
vision but only one eye, ought to bring together the sharp corners of his
system, and look at the variety of them when placed side by side.  That
man must aim to be a comprehensive thinker, and not a contracted partisan,
who holds out for seventy years in an attempt to evolve a scheme of
Consistent Calvinism, and to combine in it such propositions as are here
arranged in parallel columns.
Emmons has been accused of exaggerating   Eimmons has been accused of exaggerating
the Dependence of Men.                   the Freedom of Mlen.
" Since the first and best of men sinned  Men are bound to promise that, whether
and fell, all his posterity have sufficient  they receive the special aid of Divine
evidence of being absolutely dependent   Grace or not, they will "love God suupon God, without whose special influence   premely and -obey him perfectly, univerthey can neither become nor continue holy  sally, constantly, and perpetually, as long
and happy." (Works, II. 595.)           as they exist in this world, and in the
world to come, and seal their promise by
the solemnity of an oath."...
" No man can [i. e. will] be holy without  " Some have thought that there is a conthe special grace of God."  On the other   dition to be understood in the promise on
hand, aiming at faithfulness to both sides,  man's part.  Accordingly  some have
this intrepid reasoner affirms: "While  inserted a condition  in their church
Adam was placed in such a perfectly holy  covenant, and required the professor only
and happy situation, it is extremely  to say,'I will, by divine grace or the grace
difficult to conceive how he should be led   of God assisting, walk in all the commandinto sin, without the immediate interposi-  ments of the Lord constantly and pertion of the Deity.".... "It is in vain   petually.' But ue find no such condition,
to attempt to account for the first sin of  or reserve, in the covenant which God
the first man by the instrumentality of  required the children of Israel to make at
second causes. And until we are willing   Mount Sinai; and for this good reason,
to admit the interposition of the supreme   that such a condition and reserve would
first Cause, we must be content to con-  have destroyed all the obligation of the
sider the fall of Adam as an unfathoma-  covenant with respect to the great mable mystery." (Works, II. 553.)         jority of those who entered into covenant
By "interposition,"  Emmons  here   on that solemn occasion." (Works, III.
means an interposition of new influences,  596.)
or a change of the former influences. By  These bold words are designed to be
"the instrumentality of second causes," he   correlate with the Biblical oath: "All
means the mere influence of motives, etc.,  that the Lord hath said will we do, and
without any attendant and governing agency  be obedient." Emmons believed that "any
of God. He means nothing more than is  man can sincerely promise to do what
meant by the Westminster Assembly in  he knows he can do, and really desires
their Confession, V. 6.                 and intends to do."  (Works, III. 600.)




406                               MEMOIR.
Rejoicing in God amid all the mournful   Mourningfor events which take place under
events which take place under his Provi-         the Providence of God.
dence.
"It cannot be denied that there have
"Notwithstanding  the ten thousand   been, from the beginning of the world to
natural and moral evils that abound all  this day, thousands and  millions of
over the world, and wring the hearts of  things under the  divine government,
multitudes every day with anguish and   which are proper objects of regret, sorrow,
sorrow, there is always abundant reason   and mourning. Every natural and moral
to rejoice in God." - " How is it possible,   evil that has ever taken place in any part of
that we should obey his command to re-   God's extensive dominion, is an object of
joice always, and yet obey his command   mourning and sorrow."  (Orig. Ed. VI.
to mourn sometimes? "-"There is al-  140.) - "It seems as though the ministering
ways a good reason to rejoice in holiness   angels could not endure to discharge their
and happiness, but no good reason ever to   office in this world, where they are conrejoice in sin and misery." —" There is  strained to witness so many dreadful scenes
just cause to mourn for creatures, but no   and objects; but they have eyes to see
just cause to mourn for God." (Orig.   God in all, which fills them with raptures
Ed. VI. 140, 141.)                         of admiration and joy."  (Works, II.
506.)
God- The Cause of Moral Evil.         The Sinner - the Cause of his own Moral
Evil.
"' There is but one true and satisfactory
answer to be given to the question which     "When they [sinners] clearly see, and
has been agitated for ages, Whence came   sensibly feel, that all their depravity and
evil? - and that is, It came from the great   criminality consists in their free and volFirst Cause of all things."  (Works, II.   untary exercises of selfishness, they can
683.)- The controversy between Em-   no longer plead it as an excuse for immons and some of his opponents on this   penitence and  unbelief, because they
theme is a curious one.  They believe   know that it depends upon their own choice,
that God has created within us a nature   whether they shall love or hate God,
which is sinful. He denies it, for this,   whether they shall continue in, or cease
among other reasons, that such a belief  from  sin, whether they shall accept or
makes God the author of sin which man   reject the offers of mercy, and whether
has no freedom in committing.  He be-  they shall be saved or lost."  (Works,
lieves that God produces the wrong exer-  II. 701.)
cises of a free agent.  They deny this       Men's "dependence on God, and his
theory, because it makes God the author   controlling power over them, are perof sin.  Their doctrine makes God the   fectly consistent with their enjoying the
cause of a moral evil which we have   same free moral agency that God himself
no agency in committing; his doctrine   enjoys."  (Works, II. 457.)
makes God the cause of a moral evil          " Dr. John Taylor [of Norwich] pleads
which we have an agency in committing.   that holiness consists in the free, volun"They censure me," he once remarked,   tary choice of the agent.  This is un"for declaring that God creates sin; but   doubtedly true, and agreeable to the dicdo they know, or not, that they believe   tates of common sense."  (Works, II.
the same but do not declare it?  They   545.)
blame me for denying free agency; but I      "Whether they act virtuously or viassert it, and they virtually deny it. I   ciously, their actions are their own, and
teach, that God creates within us free   the praise or the blame is their own, as
moral exercises.  Can they say, that ex-   much as if they acted independently."
ercises which are createdffree are not free i   (Works, II. 417.)
One of my opposers once said in a ser-       "They have never been necessarily
mon, that an exercise which is not self-   drawn into sin by any corrupt nature or
originated cannot be voluntary, and if it  corrupt principle derived from  Adam.
is made free, it is not free. But this man   They have sinned freely and voluntarily,
was by birth an Irishman."                 and have therefore destroyed themselves."
(Works, II. 601, 602.)




1>MEMOIR.                                407
Adam's Sin determines the Moral Charac-     Adam's Sin leaves his Posterityfree.
ter of his Posterity.
If he [Adam] had transmitted to us a
"It is true, indeed, his [Adam's] first  corrupt nature, or a sinful principle, we
offence, according to the divine design,  might have had some ground to suppose
determined the event of our becoming sin-  that we were obliged to sin by the fatal inners. But the design of God never laid  fluence of his first transgression. But
any of his creatures under a necessity  since that sil neither directly nor indiof sinning.  God designed that Adam   rectly ever affected either our natural or
should fall, and from  eternity provided   moral faculties, it is certain that we act as
a remedy for it; but God's design laid  freely and voluntarily in committing sin, as
him under no necessity of falling, nor of  we could have done if Adam had never
accepting the remedy provided." (Works,  sinned, nor stood in the least connection
II. 600.)  "God appointed Adam to be   with us." (Works, II. 600.) -"Whenthe public head of his posterity; and de-  ever they [all men] become moral agents,
termined, in case of his disobedience, that  and capable of exercising sinful affecthey should begin to sin before they   tions, they at that time became capable of
should begin to be holy. This determina-  exercising holy affections."... "Why do
tion God has executed, by directly operat-  they begin to sin before they ever begin to
ing on the hearts of children, when they first  be holy? Here it is evident, that it is not
become moral agents." (Works, II. 623.)  because they are not as capable of exercisHere as elsewhere, Emmons means to  ing holy affections, as unholy and sinful
teach, that in whatever manner God has   ones." (Works, II. 622.) -" As soon as
decreed the existence of sin, in that same   they [children] become capable of exercising
manner does he secure the occurrence of  selfishness, they become capable of exercising
sin; that the divine agency keeps pace   benevolence; or, as soon as they become
with the divine determination; that the   capable of exercising morally good, they
providence of God embraces the same   are capable of exercising morally evil
principles, and has the same extent, with the   affections." (Works, II. 619.) -" They
decrees of God; that there is no more ob-  did not begin to sin before they became
jection to the doctrine of divine efficiency  free, moral agents.  Their first sinful
securing the occurrence of all things, than   exercises were as really criminal, as any
to the doctrine of divine purposes securing   of their past sinful exercises. They began
the certainty of all things.  This is one  to sin freely and voluntarily, as Adam
part of his " Consistent Calvinism."     did at first; and they have always continued to sin freely and voluntarily."
(Works, II. 629.)
I.-He aimed to make his Theology Biblical.
"For many years his father lived on the very verge of a precipice, near a high and
sharp ledge of rocks, at the foot of which flowed a swift brook." - Memoir, p. 2.
This was the birthplace of Emmons.  His mind, too, was at home
amid scenes of peril. He did employ language that makes men shudder.
He had for so many years looked with so sharp an eye through such intricate themes, that he did not recognize the troubles which men, less
keen-sighted and far-reaching, would feel, when they had not devoted so
many hours as he h ad devoted months to these perplexing themes.  He
did utter stern words.  We are appalled by them.  "How could he,"
we ask, for we know him  to have been a man of Christian tenderness,
" how could he, then, have uttered such and so many bold orientalisms as
terrify an occidental critic?" This question suggests its own answer.
He deemed it his duty to employ the sublime words of Jewish poets'in the




408                          MEMOIR.
prosaic statements of Christian doctrine.l  Dr. James W. Alexander
says, that the sermons of Emmons "were in a remarkable degree, clear
and icy metaphysical reasonings." But all who are familiar with him
know, that a warm heart throbbed within his manly breast.  He loved
his fellow-men.  He loved his Sovereign more.  He loved the words of
his Monarch.  He loved the idioms which the Adorable One selected for
the revelation of divine truths.  " Dr. Emmons! you do not interpret
the Bible aright!  That phrase is a Hebrew idiom."  "It is a divine
idiom," was the memorable reply.  His recent opposers imagine him to
have been ignorant of the fact, that the idiomatic phrases of the Hebrew
Bible are figurative. He knew this fact before these opposers were born.
He used the phrases as figurative. He revered them as divinely inspired
figures.  He did not stop to explain them as metaphorical; for men who
spake as they were moved by the iHoly Ghost did not pause, apologize, and
say, " These are tropes."  Emmons aimed to move straight onward, as
the writers of the Bible had marked out his path. Here was the piety
of his life, in catching with delight the verbal indications of what he
deemed the mind of the Most High.  Here was his religious sensibility
both quick and deep, in repeating the phrases which he found in his copy
of the Sacred Record.  " Why do you not select more scientific terms? "
" I choose to speak not in the words which man's wisdom  teacheth, but
in the words which the Holy Ghost teacheth." Is there a rising prejudice against the evangelical worth and virtue of the Old Testament?
Emmons is moved to illustrate his favorite opinion, that the Apostles lose
their authority if Moses and the Prophets be undervalued; and it is a
noteworthy fact, that of three hundred and sixty-eight sermons from his
pen, one hundred and twenty are founded on texts in the Old Testament.
Is there an increasing tendency to discard capital punishment, and all
the sterner forms of civil justice, and all the severer features of Calvinistic theology?  Emmons rose up against the effeminate spirit, and
quoted the Imprecatory Psalms.  He has been ridiculed for affirming
that " God justifies all true believers by Will," and " bequeaths legacies to
his children," makes them  "legatees" " upon certain terms or provisos."
But Emmons would never have employed these phrases, if he had not
1 The author of this Memoir, while he does not agree with the subject of it in
regard to the wisdom of adopting the poetical phrases of inspired men as the common nomenclature of scientific theology, cannot forbear to add, that he regards the
writings of Emmons as suggestive, though not as a faultless representative, of the
manner in which uninspired reasoners should employ, in their didactic treatises, the
overwhelming poetry and oriental idioms of inspiration. There is a volume of
meaning compressed in his narrative of a certain minister who took for his text, " The
Lord hardened Pharaoh's heart," and who affirmed, for the proposition of his discourse,
that the Lord did not harden Pharaoh's heart; and on leaving the church, was asked,
"which his hearers must believe, his sermon or his text?"




MEM OIR.                               409
aimed to meet the Bible at every point, to concur with it whenever he
met it, to follow out all its varieties of style, and to unfold the meaning
of the last and the New  Testament made by the Infinite Father to his
offspring. So resolute was this reverent man in copying the idiomatic
phrases of the inspired Model, that he has been censured as a slave to
the letter of that Model. On the other hand, he aimed to be so rational
in explaining the import of these phrases, that he has been censured'for
exalting  certain  First Principles  of philosophy above the revealed
word.  " He had a double soul," says Dr. Withington, and men are in
a dispute whether he was too pertinacious as a literal Biblicist, or too
rationalistic as a philosophical interpreter.'
A  suggestive characteristic of Emmons as a theologian is, that he
never seems to falter in his nomenclature. He is such an erect Calvinist
that he will not stoop to utter an apologetic phrase, or betray a hesitating,
staggering purpose.   If he had condescended to explain  the words
uttered in one sermon by the words uttered in another, he would have
mollified the paragraphs which are condemned as harsh.  But then he
would have been less galvanic than he is now, and he would have unveiled a wavering mind, instead of the unbending Genevan spirit.  He
would never have deigned to utter the following paraphrase of the most
unpopular sentences in the most unpopular of his discourses (Works, II.
391, 392); and yet, all the important words of this paraphrase are taken
from his scattered publications, or conversational remarks.  When they
are gathered up and placed in juxtaposition, they are uncongenial with
the style of the independent bishop; but they are a fit commentary on
his real meaning.
" It is often thought and said, that nothing more was necessary on God's part, in order to
fit Pharaohfor destruction, than barely to leave him to himself. But God knew, that no
external means and motives would be sufficient of themselves toform his moral character.
[Do you not remember, how often I have quoted the words of Paul,'Not that we are
sufficient of ourselves to think any thing as of ourselves;' in God' we live, and move, and
have our being;' if he leave us to our own strength, we cease to exist. I now
proceed with my discourse.]  He determined, therefore, to operate on his heart itself, and
cause him to putforth certain evil exercises in the view of certain external motives. [Does this
When Professor Stuart began his philological career at Andover, he made various
remarks which seemed to indicate, that men must examine the words of the Bible,
without any preconceived opinion in regard to any ethical or religious truth. In 1817
Emmons published a Discourse in opposition to the spirit of those remarks. This
discourse has been ably reviewed by Dr. Leonard Withington, in the Bibliotheca
Sacra, Vol. V. pp. 625-633. In one of his earlier sermons, Emmons enunciated his
favorite principle of interpretation thus: " Texts ought never to be adduced to explain
and establish anyfirst principles; but first principles are to be adduced to explain and
establish the sense of every text of Scripture. It is easy to select particular passages,
which, without a true explanation, will appear to support the most absurd doctrine
that ever was imbibed and propagated."
VOL. I.                      KK




410                               MEMI OIR.
offend you? Do you prefer to say, that the laws of hig nature operated on Pharaoh's
heart?  That is what I mean, provided that the laws of nature are, as Sir Isaac
Newton calls them,'the established modes of God's operation.' Do you choose to
say, that motives caused Pharaoh to put forth evil exercises?  That is what I mean,
provided that the motives are not regarded as independent of Divine efficiency; for
all the motives that influence us are suggested by the laws of nature, and these laws
are the established modes of God's operation, and what motives do instrumentally,
God must do ultimately, else he is not the Universal Cause.  I now continue my
discourse.]  When MJoses called upon him to let the people go, God stood by him and
moved him to refuse. [I am accused of believing, that the soul of Pharaoh was a mere
series of exercises produced by a Foreign Power. But no.  God stood by him and
moved him, a person existing as really as the person of God exists. But I go on with
my sermon.]  When Moses interceded for him and procured him respite, God stood by
him and moved him to exult in his obstinacy. [Do you think this language unscientific?
it is better than scientific; it is Biblical; for we read,'the nightfollowing the Lord stood
by him;' and' the angel of the Lord stood by him;' and,' they have moved me to jealousy;'
the Lord'moved David against them to say, Go, number Israel;' and, God' moved them to
depart from him;' and'they moved him to jealousy with their graven images;' and God
says,' I will move them to jealousy;' a motive is that which moves, and motives are
suggested by natural law, and that is a Providential law, and that is an operation of
God. But I return to my sermon.]  tWhen the people departed from his kingdom, God
stood by him, and moved him to pursue after them with increased malice and revenge.  [I
tell you now, as I have often told you before, that' I use this phraseology because it is
scriptural.' But I proceed.]  And what God did on such particular occasions, he did
at all times.  [Do you look upon this as unfair   Not so; for, on all these occasions,
God left Pharaoh with'as much power to do right as to do wrong;' during all this
time God made it' as easy' for him to act right as to act wrong; yea more, at all
times, God leaves it'easierfor a man to do well than to do ill.''When he moves moral
agents, he does not compel them. But I resume my thread of remark.]  He continually hardened his heart, and governed all the exercises of his mind, from the clay of his birth
to the day of his death.  [Do you complain again, of this language?  The meekest
man on the face of the earth was inspired to say eleven times, that the Lord would or
did harden Pharaoh's heart.'And the Lord said unto Moses: - Go in unto Pharaoh,
for I have hardened his heart.'' And I, behold I, will harden the hearts of the Egyptians.'
Moses also informs us of Sihon king of Heshbon,'the Lord thy God hardened his
spirit, and made his heart obstinate.' Even the beloved disciple quotes from Esaias
the words: God'hath blinded their eyes and hardened their heart.' Do you condemn
me for quoting the same words?  Do you complain, that these words are figurative?
I know they are. But do not men find fault with my style, because it is too literal,
and prosaic, and bald?  How shall I speak?  If I pipe, men will not dance; if I
mourn, they will not lament. If I write in plain language, I am blamed for not
writing in metaphors; if I employ metaphors, I am blamed for not employing plain
language.  But I go back to my sermon.]' This was absolutely necessary to prepare
him for his final state. All other methods without this would have failed of fitting him for
destruction.'  [Do you shrink from saying:' God prepared Pharaoh' I' For this very
purpose have I raised, or as some interpret it, roused, stirred thee up, that I may show
my power in thee;'' the vessels of wrath fitted to (or prepared for) destruction.' Do you
shrink from these inspired words? I stand where the Bible stands. I say what the
Bible says. If the Bible sanctions Hebrew idioms, they are good enough for my
sermons.  Are they wise idioms? you ask.  The Wise Teacher has recommended




MEMOIR.                                411
them.- Are they safe? It is always safe to copy the words of Inspiration. Are
they not too bold for modest men to use? I have said to you often, and I say to
you once more:'Arrogance consists in denying what God las asserted, but modesty in
believing and maintaining it.' To deny what God has asserted;'to be wise above what
is written, -this is real arrogance and presumption, in whomsoever it is found.' Men
have called me presumptuous, because I have said that God makes men sin. I have
used this word, because the readers of our English Bible are wont to hear it in such
verses as,' Make the heart of this people fat, and make their ears heavy.' You tell
God' will strike wicked men with giddiness and stupidity;' and again he says:'If you
me that these verses are figurative. But they imply what John Calvin says, that
must come to the predestination of God.' I know that in the phrase,'By one man's
inquire into the first cause [of the spiritual blindness with which men are visited] we
disobedience many were made sinners;' the word, made, should be exchanged for
constituted. But in whatever sense men were put into the place of sinners, they were
put there by a divine decree; and in whatever sense God decreed to constitute them
sinners, in that same sense he fulfilled his own decree; and when he constituted them
sinners, he secured the certainty that they would sin; and when I say that he made
men sin, I mean nothing more than that he made a decree that they sin, and made his
Providence fulfil his decree."
~ 3. The Creed of.Emmons is generally misapprehended.
Forming an exaggerated estimate of his perspicuity, men have not
searched for the recondite idea that lies under his facile style.  Knowing that he has conversed as a brother with friends who are yet in the
noon of their life, men have interpreted his words by the standard of
the present age, instead of interpreting them by the standard of the
age to which he belonged.  If he had died in 1810, when sixty-five
years old, he would have been estimated more correctly than he is now,
having died in 1840, when ninety-five years old.  If he had written
scholastic treatises on theology, he would have made a fuller development
of his belief, than he could make in insulated discourses.  He used
various terms, as heart, will, efficiency, etc., in a peculiar sense, and
these peculiarities of diction have been unheeded by his critics. Overlooking the Formative Principles of his creed, men have not explained
it according to his intent in stating it, but according to their own ideas
or suspicions. Some of the Principles which guided his reasonings, we
have considered already.  Others will be suggested by the following
notice of the particulars in which he has been misapprehended.
A. - He has been supposed to teach that the Soul is a mere Series of Exercises.
He has been so understood by President Dwight of New Haven,
Professors Woods and Stuart of Andover, Richards of Auburn, Anderson
of Maryville, and others.  It has been forgotten, that one great aim  of
Emmons was to emphasize the truths, that man is a moral agent, and has




412                               MEMOIR.
a nature the substance of which is spiritual.  His early interest in the
Infidel controversy (see pp. 363-4, above), prompted him to make his
representations of the human soul diverge as far as possible from  the
materialistic.  He therefore chose not to speak of the mind as a thing
but as an agent, not as a substratum  but as a person; he is emphatic in
discriminating between an act and a motion, and is so eager to make
men believe in the activity, by which he means the voluntariness, of all
moral character, that he uses terms which seem to represent activity as
the very essence of the soul. His ontological and psychological views
may  be  explained  by the  sentences  in  the  annexed  columns.  See
Orig. Ed. I. 321, 322, 339; III. 339; IV. 351, 356, 508, 522; V. 124,
138, 246, 535, 539; VI. 112, 119, 408.
The Spirituality of the Soul; the Activity   The Soul is not a mere Series of Exercises,
and Voluntariness of moral Character;   but possesses Powers, and is a Substance.
the Impossibility offorming an idea of an  T                         i        i
inert, passive S1oul; Activity Essential to.The souls of sinners" comprise all their
inthe Nature of u Avy Essen     tial to  intellectual and moral powers that constithe IVature of the Mind.             tute them proper persons, or moral agents."
The very nature of the soul " is all per-  [Emmons often recognizes the distinction
ception, sensibility, and activity;" "the  between thefaculties of the mind and its
very essence of the soul consists in per-  actions; between its nature and its exerception, sensibility, activity, and  voli-  cises.]  " To require or forbid any exertion; " "we are conscious of having per-  cise or action without the heart, would be
ception, reason, conscience, memory, and  the same as to require or forbid an act
volition; these are the essential proper-  without an agent, which is palpably abties of the soul, and in these properties  surd."
the essence of the soul consists; we can     "We know that the soul —is not a
form no conception of the soul as distinct  material, but a spiritual substance."
from these properties, or as thefoundation   " He [Jehovah] hates sinners themselves,
of them."                                 who are depraved, who are selfish, who
are impenitent, who are unbelieving, who
are disobedient, and who are rebellious.
"We may as easily conceive that all  Christ did not preach about sin in the abholy affections should spring from  that  stract, as being an object of God's'dispiece of flesh which is literally called   pleasure; but about sinners themselves
the heart, as to conceive that they should  being the objects of God's displeasure."
spring from any principle devoid of activ-   "There is no occasion for a distinct
ity."                                     faculty of will, as has been generally
supposed, in order to put forth external
actions or internal exercises."  [The
"All we know  about body are its  theory of Emmons was, that the soul, as a
properties;  and  all we  know  about  substance, puts forth voluntary exercises,
mind are its properties; and, by knowing   and it is inexpedient to ascribe these
these, we know that matter and mind are  exercises  to  a distinct faculty.   The
essentially different; and, so long as they  theory implies, that there are other disexist, they must be distinct existences."  tinct faculties, and  that the spiritual
substance, by its very nature, performs
the act of choice. It is not, then, mere
"For it is impossible to conceive of a  choice or mere act.]
corrupt and sinful nature, prior to, and    " We are not certain that the soul of
distinctfrom, corrupt and sinful exercises."  the child does proceed directly from  the
parents."  [By many  such  modes of
expression, Emmons implies, that he
"If a good heart were distinct from   regarded the soul as a substance; for if
love, then we could form a clear idea of  it be mere acts, it must necessarily pro



MEMOIR.                                 413
it [as] distinct from love. But whenever  ceed directly from God, and cannot poswe think of a good heart, either in our-  sibly proceed from the parents, and the
selves or in others, we think of kind,  fiankness of Emmons would not have
tender, benevolent feelings, or the exer-  allowed him to say, "  e are not certain,"
cises of pure, divine love. And it is out  etc. He implies the same in passages
of our power to conceive of a good heart,  quoted on pp. 366, 374-383, 385, 386,
which is not wholly composed of good  390-392, and others of this Memoir.]
affections, or the genuine feelings of true
benevolence."
A noted Sermon of Dr. Dwight, entitled: "The Soul not a Chain of
Ideas and Exercises," was aimed at a theory supposed to be involved in
the first of the preceding columns.  That the words of this column were
designed, not to deny the existence of the mental substratum, but to express, with an emphasis, the activity which is essential to the soul, and
the voluntariness which is essential to character, is distinctly asserted in
the following communication, addressed in 1857 to the author of this
Memoir by a divine who was a son-in-law, a confidential friend, for
twenty years a near clerical neighbor, of Emmons, and the editor of his
Works.
Letter of Rev. Jacob Ide, D. D.
Emmons considered the soul as a spirit, or invisible agent, a conscious, intelligent,
active agent, capable of knowing and doing the will of God, and by him placed under
moral law, and held accountable for every act of obedience or disobedience to this
law. In a manuscript sermon of Emmons upon Matt. 16: 20, "For what is a man
profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul  Or what shall
a man give in exchange for his soul," I find the following definition: " The soul is
that immaterial, living, thinking spirit, which we are conscious of possessing, and
which raises us above all the animal world, and which gives us the nearest resemblance to our Maker. Though the soul has neither form, nor extension, nor solidity,
nor any of the properties of matter, yet it has powers and faculties which form a
capacity for every thing that is great and noble." And in the progress of this discourse, he says that the capacity of the human soul for knowledge, usefulness, and
happiness, is strictly infinite.
In a discourse on the superiority of men to animals, he says of man, that he has,
not only the powers of perception and memory, and volition in common with other
animals, but the power of reason, the power of imagination, the power of perceiving
cause and effect and the marks of wisdom and design in all the works of nature and
art, the power of distinguishing between truth and error, the capacity of uniting in
affection with all intelligent beings and sensitive natures, and the faculty of distinguishing between right and wrong, or moral good and moral evil. Emmons has
been charged with believing that there is no such thing as personality in the soul of
man, or that in reality, there is, in the common acceptation of the word, no soul; but
only certain exercises, without any real being to put them forth. He never believed
any such thing. In his view the soul is that living and immortal being, of whom these
exercises, so far as they are voluntary, are the accountable acts, and who will, in the
day of retribution, be rewarded or punished, according to their conformity or nonconformity to the great law of love. He always spoke of love as the act of a being
XK *




414                              MEMOIR.
that loved - of submission as an act of a being that submitted, - of repentance as an
act of a being that repented, -of faith as an act.of a being that believed, -of obedience as an act of a being that obeyed, - and of disobedience as an act of a being who
transgressed the law of God. He did not believe that each of these acts was without
an actor, that each of these effects was without a human cause, or that each of these
virtues and vices came into existence without any one rightfully answerable for its
moral quality. Nor did he consider them as the acts of God. Though he recognized
the agency of God, as the ultimate source of all things, and as that to which in this
sense they might all be ascribed, yet he considered the persons who put them forth, as
their only proper and responsible authors. Pharaoh himself hardened his own heart,
and was for that reason the proper object of censure, and justly deserving of the fearful judgments with which he was visited. It is a well known and favorite opinion of
Emmons, that every man has a natural power to obey or disobey his Maker. He
even asserts that man has a natural, but not moral, power tofrustrate God's decrees.
But if man is nothing in distinction from his acts, has no soul save the exercises that
are required of him, and which he is said to put forth, what is this natural power to
obey or disobey the will of God, - to conform to or oppose the divine decrees? He
says of men (Vol. II. p. 476), "They are real andproper agents in all their voluntary
exercises and exertions.  Their actions are their own, and as much their own as if
they acted without any dependence upon God or any other being in the universe. If a man
loves God, his love is his own exercise, and a real virtue and beauty in his character.
If a man hates God, his hatred is his own sin, and a blemish in his character." Again
he says, " Unless God represented men as the authors of their own actions, he would
not represent them in their true light."- (Vol. II. p. 437.) Now I ask: " If there is
nothing in man of which character can be predicated, or to which it can be attached, -
if there is no soul to put forth these exercises, - no person whose own they are, what
did Emmons mean by the language he used  "
How the opinion originated, that he believed the soul of man to be a mere series
of exercises, I do not know. If the opinion were correct, it ought to be known to have
had its origin in his own unequivocal avowal. But although intimately acquainted
with him for many years, I never heard him express this belief. I have inquired of
those ministers nearer to him in age than myself, and who have enjoyed a better opportunity than I to know his views on this subject, and I can find none who ever heard
him avow this opinion.  There are now living, two very aged clergymen,1 intimate
and highly esteemed friends of his, accustomed to discuss with him, in a free and familiar manner, the principles of the gospel, for many years members with him of the
same Association, and familiar with his remarks in that body, both of whom say unhesitatingly, that he did not believe the absurd opinion so frequently attributed to him.
One of them2 says that he conversed with the doctor particularly on this subject, and
was told by him, that he read the work of Berkeley, and was at first much perplexed with
it, but when he read it the second time, he saw its fallacy, and thought he could answer
it.3 After much inquiry on the subject, of his students in theology, and many of the
1 Rev. Otis Thomson, of Abington, since dead, and Rev. Thomas Williams, of
Providence.
2 Rev. Mr. Williams.
3 Knowing that the writings of Bishop Berkeley affected the speculations of some
New England divines, and supposing that the Bishop exerted as prolonged an influence'upon Dr. Emmons as upon Dr. West, and never having heard the foregoing positive
testimony against this (common) supposition, the author of this Memoir wrote, what
he now recalls, the statements concerning Emmons, which are found on pp. cliv., clv.
of his Works, Orig. Ed.




MEMOIR.                                    415
church and people who heard him preach for years, I can find none who recollect the
avowal of such views as are now frequently attributed to him.
He did, however, publish some things, which, to a careless or superficial reader,
especially one disposed to disparage his theology, might give occasion to the report in
question.  For instance, he said that God creates the volitions of men.  This has
been assumed by some of his opponents as proof positive, that these exercises are
connected with no personal soul as the responsible author. Their inference is, that if
God creates the volitions of men, they are his, and not their acts, - that his agency
necessarily excludes theirs.  But this inference is entirely unauthorized, and in face
of his oft-repeated and well-sustained assertion, that mankind are active while they are
acted upon, in all their holy volitions.  Those who make the above objection, seem to
understand " created " here as a literal, and not a figurative expression, as though it
were an act of physical power upon a material subject. But who does not know, that
this very word is one which the Apostle uses, when he speaks of the influence of the
Holy Spirit in changing the hearts of men?  "For we are his workmanship, created in
Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath foreordained that we should walk in
them."  " And that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness." Is not that divine influence upon the soul of man, by which
he passes from death unto life, and makes progress in holiness rather than sin, here indicated by the word created?  And did not David use the same word when he prayed
for an influence from on high to purify his affections, and secure his continued obedience to the will of Heaven?  " Create in me a clean heart, 0 God; renew a right
spirit within me."  Dr. Emmons was once asked why he used the word create, when
he meant no more than the agency of God in forming the moral character of men.
His answer was, "Because it is the word that the Bible uses when speaking on the
same subject."  He does not mean, that God, in this case, operates upon dead matter, -much less upon nothing at all, when he creates the volitions of men. But that
he exerts a spiritual agency upon human souls, who have a spiritual, active nature, and
this agency is suited to influence them to the exercise of the free and accountable volitions which he sees will fulfil his wise and holy designs. The inference, from the
fact that the Doctor speaks of God's creating the volitions of men, that they have no
souls to which they belong, is therefore entirely gratuitous and unauthorized.
He did deny, that there is any thing in the soul, of a moral nature, holy or sinful,
besides its exercises. He was in the habit of saying, not only that we are conscious of
nothing else, but that we know there is nothing else holy or sinful, because all holiness
and sin consist in a conformity to, or transgression of the law of God. When combating his opponents of the Taste-Scheme, he would deny their right to assume that
there was a principle of holiness or sin, back of all exercises of the soul, and from
which, as their source, they all sprang.  He charged them with reasoning from that of
which they knew nothing, and of which, from the nature of the case, they could know
nothing. Now it is not impossible, that his denial of the existence of any thing sinful
or holy in the soul anterior to its exercises, may sometimes have been mistaken by his
opponents for a denial of the existence of any soul, but its exercises. And considering
the strong tendency of excited disputants to misrepresent their opponents with a view
to make them odious, or gain an advantage of them, I would respectfully ask, Is it
any more strange than many other things we know, that they should take occasion
from his frank and repeated avowal of the latter, to charge him with the former?
In the opinion of Emmons, activity is essential to the nature of the soul.  To suppose it in a state of inactivity, is to suppose it to be. in the condition of a material substance, and to render it impossible to distinguish it, in our conceptions, from dead




416                               MEMOIR.
matter.  He says, " I know it is generally supposed, that the soul itself is distinct
from all its perceptions, sensibility and exercises.  But it seems impossible to form an
idea of the soul without perception, sensibility and activity. A soul devoid of all
such exercises, cannot be distinguished from a mere senseless and lifeless body." -
(Vol. III. p. 725.)  "We know that the soul has neither length, nor breadth, nor
figure, nor visibility, nor any other property of matter; and consequently we know,
that it is not a material, but a spiritual substance.  As the soul is all spirit, so it is all
activity. We can form no idea of a dormant, inactive spirit. Separate activity from
the soul and its existence is not conceivable."- (Orig. Ed. VI. p. 408.)  This language, often used by him, might lead some to think, and say, that he believed in no
soul, but in mere exercises.  But observe, he not only speaks of its existence,but calls
it a spiritual substance, which is a plain recognition of it as a real being, to whom its
properties and acts belong.
What if he does say, " We can form no idea of the soul as distinct from its essential
properties?" What objection is there to this, if these properties belong to its spiritual
nature, and cannot be separated without changing its nature?  What if, as Emmons
says, we can form no conception of the soul as tlhefoundation of these properties, if, in
fact, it has nothing in its nature that in the least degree resembles a foundation, or
any other material object, but is a purely spiritual substance, of which no idea is possible, but that which is suggested by a consciousness of a spirit's actions?  Is the impossibility of gaining a conception of the soul, when the elements of which it is composed
are separated from it, decisive proof that none can be gained when these remain?  Must
we conclude, from  the circumstance that there is no evidence of the soul's existence
when its essential properties are all unseen, that there is no soul, when these are matters of consciousness every hour?
Emmons did not pretend to know all about the soul.  He did not deny that there
might be some substance, constitution, or nature that is unknowable.  But he contended, that all we do know about it is purely spiritual, different entirely from every
thing material. True, he did say that the properties of the soul constitute its essence,
as much as the properties of matter constitute its essence. But by essence he meant
here, in both cases, nominal essence, or that which is knowable, - the properties, and
not the real essence; — not as Locke would say, "the constitution of its invisible
parts, on which its properties depend, which are unknowable to us."  Emmons did
not deny that there is a real essence of the soul, he only denied that there is a dormant
essence of it. All that is inconceivable about this real essence, he regarded as an improper subject of affirmation or denial.  He would not adopt, as the basis of his reasoning, nor would he allow his opponents to adopt, any proposition which is entirely
beyond the reach of human thought.  He took great pains to expose what he considered an assumption, that there is an inactive, dormant principle, taste, or propensity,
back of all the exercises and faculties, of which we are conscious, as the ground,
source, or cause of them all; and especially, that there is any thing sinful or holy in
this principle.  This, in his estimation, was attributing a property of matter to the
mind, and making this material something the ground of all our spiritual exercises.
Without denying that there is any thing in the mind of which we are not conscious,
he was careful to have it understood, that he recognized nothing but what is spirit.
Be it so, he seemed to say, that there is a substance to the soul, it is a spiritual, and
not a material substance.
Whatever may be thought of the philosophy of Emmons, or the propriety of the
phraseology which he has occasionally used on this subject, his own language itselfeven that which is used in connection with the passages thought to indicate the opinion




MEMOIR.                                417
in question, is sufficient to prove that he believed no such thing. When he speaks of
perception, reason, memory, conscience, and volition, as properties of the soul, does
not his language irresistibly imply, that there is a soul to perceive, to reason, to remember, to feel moral obligation, and to will either right or wrong? Can any one
seriously think that such a man as Emmons, ever believed that perception is a possibility, without a soul to perceive? that there is or can be any such thing as reason or
reasoning, without a soul possessing the faculty of reason, or carrying on the process?
that there is such a thing as moral sensibility, without a soul actually discerning between good and evil? Is such a thing as memory conceivable, without a soul capable of recalling what it has previously seen, heard, or known? What is volition?
what did Emmons believe the volition of man to be, but his soul, loving or hating,
choosing or refusing? Those who, in view of all the facts in the case, can persuade
themselves that Emmons denied the proper being of a soul, while he spake thus of its
properties and acts, must either believe that he was destitute of common sense, or
show that they themselves are wanting in this important instinct.
B. — He has been supposed to teach, not only the Fact that God does secure the
Fulfilment of his Decrees, but also the Mode in which He secures their Fulfilment.
If a man believes that the Sovereign, who forms his purposes in eternity, does not so govern the universe in time as to secure the fulfilment
of these purposes, that man may be a kind-hearted citizen and an obliging neighbor, but he is no Calvinist.  Emmons had such an intense desire to represent the Providence of God as coextensive and coincident
with the Decrees of God, that he overlooked all theories with regard to
the mode of conducting this Providence. (See Orig. Ed. I. 80; IV.
344, 345, 371; V. 147, 565; VI. 54.)  Here as elsewhere he struck at
the ultimate fact, and would not notice the intervening methods.  His
critics have mistaken him, because they have not looked so far into the
distance as he.  They have been unmindful of his great aim  to reach
the practical truth, and to develop the end which God secures, and which
lies beyond the means and the methods in which God secures it.  Emmons would have saved his critics from several misapprehensions of his
meaning, if, here and there, he had turned his eye away from the fact
that God executes his decrees, to some truths with regard to the mode in
which God executes them.  But in his excessive desire to avoid all
mention of this mode, he has incurred the charge of having attempted to
explain it!
A duodecimo volume containing three hundred and eighty-eight pages,
and entitled " A Review  of Dr. Emmons's Theory of God's Agency on
Mankind," was published at New York in 1821; and the most plausible
accusation which it brings against Emmons, consists in repeating the old
remark, that he has undertaken to describe the method in which God
secures the fulfilment of his eternal purpose in regard to the commission
of sin.  The testimony of Dr. Ide on this oft repeated charge may be




418                              MEMOIR.
sufficient to refute it.  He writes in a letter to the author of this Memoir:
" It is remarkable that nearly all the opponents of Emmons in regard to the doctrine of divine efficiency, have founded their principal objections to him on the supposed fact, that he has actually assumed the province of determining in what mode
God's agency performs its work. But they ought to know, and it is a little surprising
that men of so much learning and acuteness as some of them have shown themselves
to be, do not know, that he never attempted any such thing. Before the Dr.'s death,
this charge was often preferred against him. He spoke of it frequently, and declared
it to be utterly groundless. It was among his common sayings, that no man could
see how, or explain the mode, in which God performs his operations. I-e believed that
God's agency, or the exertion of his power, consisted in his volition. But how his
volition brought the heavens and earth into existence, or gave being to the vast multitude of intelligences that are known as the work of his hands, or communicated
motion and activity both to matter and mind, he pretended to know nothing. There
are now numerous living witnesses to the truth, that he disavowed all knowledge of
the mode of divine operation in any case. In a sermon published more than fifty
years ago, and ever since before the eye of the world, Emmons writes:'Who can
conceive or explain how the Supreme Being exists of himself? or how he supports the
universe? or how he fills all places and surveys all objects at one and the same time?
But who except atheists and sceptics will presume to deny these truths, or venture to
call them inconsistent or absurd? Why, then, should any suppose there is the least
absurdity in men's working out their own salvation with fear and trembling, while
God, at the same time, works in them, both to will and to do of his good pleasure? It is as easy to conceive of this, as to conceive of the divine existence, omnipresence, or universal providence. In all cases of this nature thefacts are plain and
intelligible, but the manner of their existence or production is truly mysterious. Our
own existence is self-evident, but how we were formed is to us a profound mystery.
Our constant dependence on the Deity for the continuation of our existence, is capable of strict demonstration; but how God upholds us every moment, we are utterly
unable to explain.  So our dependence on the Deity to work in us to will and to do,
is equally demonstrable; but how God operates on our minds in our free and voluntary exercises, we are equally unable to comprehend."' (Vol. II. p. 411.)
" Emmons did indeed think it of great importance to assert and maintain the government of God over all creatures. He not only believed that God controlled the
hearts and actions of the wicked, as well as the righteous, but he felt it an imperative
duty to vindicate this truth, with zeal and energy against those who hold to his mere
permission of evil without any positive agency in its existence. In one discourse on
this subject, his zeal seems to have acquired such a degree of intensity as to excite
him  to the use of language less guarded than usual, and which may have led the
reader in some instances to suppose that he meant to designate the mode of divine
agency. But a more careful consideration of the object which he had in view, will, it is
believed, satisfy every candid mind that it was only the reality and not the mode of divine
agency which he meant to assert.'Many,' he says,'are disposed to make a distinction
here, and to ascribe only the good actions to a divine influence, while they ascribe
their bad ones to the divine permission. But there appears to be no ground for this
distinction in Scripture or reason. Men are no more capable of acting independently
in one instance than another. If they need any kind or degree of divine agency in
doing good, they need precisely the same kind in doing evil.'"  (Vol. II. p. 441.)




MEMOIR.                                   419
That is, mere permission will not do in either case. God must exert a real agency in
both, because in both are they equally dependent. God sent Joseph into Egypt; but
if his brethren who sold him, had acted without the exertion of any efficient influence
from God upon their minds, they only would have sent him there. God would have
had nothing to do with the event. They would have acted independently in the case,
contrary to the fact as recorded in the Scripture. The Doctor goes on to say,'It is
God that worketh in men both to will and to do, in all cases, without exception. He
wrought equally in the minds of those who sold and those who bought Joseph. He
wrought as effectually in the minds of Joseph's brethren when they sold him, as when
they repented and besought his mercy. He not only prepared these persons to act,
but made them act. He not only exhibited motives before their minds, but disposed
their minds to comply with the motives exhibited. But there was no possible way in
which he could dispose them to act right or wrong, but only by producing right or
wrong volition in their hearts. And if he produced their bad as well as their good
volitions, then his agency was concerned precisely in the same manner in their wrong,
as in their right, actions.'- (Vol. II. p. 441.)
" This I consider Dr. Emmons's most unguarded expression on the subject of divine
agency, and the one which has furnished the best apology which his opponents have,
for the charge of an attempt to define the mode of God's agency upon the human
mind. But if it is only observed here, that he leaves an assertion which he makes as
true in one respect, to be understood as though it was true in all respects, all that he
has said may be admitted without involving him in any error or inconsistency, except
that of asserting a general for a particular fact.'But there was no possible way in
which he could dispose them to act right or wrong, only by producing right or wrong
volitions in their hearts.' There is no error here. If all right or wrong consists
primarily in the volitions of men's hearts, which is admitted by others besides Dr.
Emmons, it is clear that no agency whatever can make them right or wrong only by
producing volitions of this character in their hearts. And now comes the general
assertion, which is true in the particular sense in which he intended it, but not perhaps in every sense,' And if he produced their bad as well as good volitions, then his
agency was exerted precisely in the same manner in their wrong as in their right
actions.' The same manner in this respect. Their actions in both cases, right and
wrong, were produced by producing volitions. But how the agency of God produces
volition, whether good or evil, is yet unexplained, and the explanation unattempted.'The same manner,' here, in which God changes the conduct or actions of men, was not
designed to cover the manner or mode in which he changes their volitions. The assertion amounts to no more than this: When God changes the conduct of men, either
for the better or worse, it must be by producing their sinful or holy volitions. But
how God operates to change their volitions still remains an inscrutable mystery. You
may say, if you please, he changes their volition by his own will, advice or volition
to that effect. But still the question returns, How does the act of God willing this
change, effect it? And it is as impossible to answer this question, as it is to tell how
the will of God that the world should be created, actually brought it into existence.
" Dr. Emmons has no theory on this subject. He aims to assert just what the Scriptures teach respecting it in such passages as Exodus 7: 3, 4; Proverbs 16: 1, 9;
20: 24; 21: 1; Jeremiah 10: 23; Matthew 10: 23; Ephesians 1: 11; Philipplans 2: 12, etc."




420                               M EMOIR.
C. - He has been supposed to teach that the Soul has no Constitutional Tendencies which,
being themselves devoid of Moral Character, are yet the Occasion of Moral Character.
Professors Fitch, Taylor, and Goodrich of Yale College, have borne
the following testimony:
" Dr. Emmons, in our view, deserves to be ranked with the ablest theologians which
our country has produced.  His style is pure, concise, and remarkably perspicuous.
His strict method brings all his thoughts into natural and beautiful order.  His
logical acumen in stating and defending positions and in deducing from them just
and necessary consequences, equals, if it does not excel, even that of the astute
metaphysician, Dr. Clarke.  His sermons form  a rich treasure of thought and instruction to the theologian, and a model for clearness and acumen to the preacher.
To his clear statements, the theology of the present day is much beholden for its
consistent views on the subject of human obligation and the moral government of
God, and their connection with the doctrines of grace.  The controversy between
him and Dr. Burton, enabled him  to place most triumphantly all morality and obligation within the sphere of voluntary action (or exercise), in distinction from constitutional tendencies (or taste), and had he, while denying the morality of those tendencies,
but admitted their existence in order to accountfor the certainty of voluntary action, instead
of referring it all to immediate divine efficiency, he would have taken every weapon out of
the hands of his antagonist, and have avoided the principal error, which in our view, lies
on thefair face of his theology, or hinders its success."
The acute metaphysicians who have thus criticized Emmons, would
probably be sustained  by  the larger part of his readers.   That the
criticism however, is not warranted, in all respects, may be seen in the
ensuing quotations from his Works:
"That religious instinct, if I may so call it, which is inherent in human nature,
constrains every person to revere the sacred character of a holy and faithful minister."
(Orig. Ed. I. 339.) - "Reason, conscience, and natural affections are no principles of
action, but only motives to action. It is acknowledged, that they often operate as
motives which influence the heart, the only proper principle of action."  [The
heart or choice is the only moral principle which does, or can exist.] -" If natural
affection dictate to a man to give to a beloved child the largest portion of his
inheritance, his natural affection is not the principle of action, but his heart,
which acts agreeably to his natural affection." (Works, II. 641, 642.)-" There is
nothing morally good or evil in hunger, thirst, or any natural taste." (Works, III.
119). —"All his (Adam's) natural powers, instincts, and appetites, must have remained as innocent, after he lost his holiness, as before he lost it." (Works, II. 697.)
- "Profane swearing is the most unnatural sin in this wicked world. It does not
originate from any natural propensity, instinct, or appetite in the human mind, but is
contrary to every dictate of reason and conscience.... There are many vices to
which mankind are naturally prone, because they gratify some of their natural inclinations; and we can easily account for their running into these without being led."
(Orig. Ed. II. 468.)- "A natural fear or a fear of natural evil or danger, is passive
and innocent." (Orig. Ed. VII. 439.)




MEMOIR.                               421
Dr. Ide writes: " The reason, conscience, and intellectual powers of man, Emmons
considered as belonging to man's moral nature; as indicating and enforcing moral obligation, but not as having in themselves any thing truly good or evil. The corporeal
appetites connected with the soul in its tabernacle of clay, such as hunger and thirst,
and sexual propensities, and other instincts more appropriately its own, as a sense of
right and wrong, the fear of injury, the love of happiness and hatred of misery, he
considered as important realities, which were often the occasion of good and evil, -
motives to sin and holiness, whose power and influence among men were universally
felt. But these appetites, instincts, and passions, he considered as neither sinful nor
holy, so far as unattended or uncontrolled by voluntary selfishness or benevolence."
D.- He has been supposed to undervalue the Kindly Spirit of Theological Science.
He has been represented as picturing forth the Divine Mind in the
aspect of an immense and infinite intellect, existing in one comprehensive and unbending decree, and feeling none of the genial affections so
lovely in a human father.  But the aim  of this many-sided man was, to
refute the dogma of God's immobility, to portray the infinite Parent as
overflowing with affections in kind like those of a finite friend or brother
or mother even; but in degree infinitely more exuberant, and in character
infinitely more amiable.  He represents God as "pleased" and "delighted," as experiencing "joy" and "pity" and "zeal;" and he sanctions
the remark of Hume that " a mind whose acts and sentiments and ideas
are not distinct and successive, one that is wholly simple and totally
immutable, is a mind which has no thought, no reason, no will, no
sentiment, no love, no hatred; or, in a word, is no mind at all." (Works,
II. 245.)-  He even goes so far as to affirm, in his Sermon on the
Blessedness of God: It implies no absurdity to suppose that his blessedness will be much greater at the end, than at the beginning of the
world.  "We must suppose that God views things as they are, and not
as they are not.  He views things which do not exist, as not existing;
and things which do exist, as actually existing."  When, therefore, all the
results of his infinite benevolence shall be realities actually in being,
instead of possibilities not yet realized in present fact, "where is the
absurdity of supposing that the happiness of the Deity will rise higher"
than it has now risen? " And where is the absurdity of supposing that
his blessedness should perpetually rise higher and higher, as the successive scenes of eternity are perpetually opening, and displaying new
effects of his benevolence?"  Many remarks similar to the preceding,
whether they be accurate or not, disclose the aim of Emmons to represent the nature of God as genial, affectionate, warm, rejoicing like a
bridegroom, pitying like a mother in her fondness for the infant of her
womb.  "God loves and hates with all his heart, and with all his mind,
VOL. I.                     LL




422                         ME MOIR.
and with all his strength."  When God afflicts men, he instructs them
"in the way most self-denying to himself, as well as to them."  (See
also, pp. 381-384, 393 of this Memoir).
E. —His Calvinism has been regarded as too High, and likewise as too Low.
a. His Critics overlook the fact, that he aimed to teach a Positive Calvinism.
One characteristic of Emmons, which exerted a perceptible influence
over his system, and received a reciprocal influence from it, was decision;
a preference of the positive attitude above the negative.  His whole deportment, even in the common interchange of civilities, showed his
definiteness and fixedness of mind. Being asked his opinion respecting
a certain quaternion of theologians, he summed it up in the following
words: "The first is Calvinisticalish; the second, Calvinistical; the
third, Calvinistic; the fourth, a Calvinist.  For my own part, I wish to
be either something or nothing, in theology.  I hate to be something-ish."
"Iam  a Calvinist," was a phrase which he often uttered.  His mind
was made up on theological questions; and his answers were never a
little more positive than negative, and considerably more negative than
positive; somewhat more of yes than no, and rather more of no than
yes.  His communication was, Yea, yea, nay, nay.  His theological
tenets were like his treatment of them, positive in their character. He
could never tolerate the statement that sin is a mere want of holiness;
he insisted that a mere want is a mere nothing, and sin is something.
It has been said," he remarks, " that cold is the absence of heat. It
might as well be said that heat is the absence of cold." So he could
never tolerate the statement that the first cause of sin is a mere want of
Divine Efficiency: ex nihilo nihil fit. The simple absence of a decree of
election does not constitute a decree of reprobation.
Whether in religious or civil concernments, a p&itive attitude will be
more commanding than any other.  Hence this attitude was uniformly
adopted from motives of policy by Napoleon, who perhaps understood,
better than any other modern, how to manage masses of men. The
multitude will never follow a leader who is not bold and unwavering.
A system  of negations will never enlist the sympathies of the people.
It was the nature of Emmons to take positive ground; and had he
possessed a different nature, his sagacity might have led him to take the
same.  He knew that a people would never respect their minister, if he
sailed round and round Point No-Point; he must sail for a definite port,
and know whither he is bound, and steer directly by the rocks and the
quicksands, and not ask the advice of his cabin passengers, nor beg his
sailors to pardon him for venturing to have a mind of his own.




MEMOIR.                                423
b. His Critics overlook the fact, that he aimed to make the Essence of Calvinism prominent
and conspicuous.
Many Calvinists do admit that there is a negative sin, but the essence
of Calvinism, as a complete system, is more clearly unfolded by the
truth, that all sin is positive. Emmons exhibits the true spirit of the
Genevan faith, by the prominence which he gives to the sovereign plan
of the Most High, and to the efficiency which executes this plan.  He
did not mean to represent the doctrine of divine decrees as equivalent to
the doctrine of Atoning Love, but he did mean to represent it as the distinctive mark of the creed whose aim  it is to exalt Jehovah.  It is by
the conspicuous position of Jehovah's electing love, and not by the article of Justification by Faith, that the Calvinistic, is distinguished from
the Lutheran, and every other Evangelical system.  Soberly aiming to
maintain the genius of the Reformed Creed, he did not amuse men by
declaiming on its "conservative tendencies," on its "high monarchism,"
on its lofty "conceptions of government," on its " spirit of royalty."  He
saw through that kind of Calvinism, which consists in sparkling words
about " the glory of the Institutes," and in not preaching on the doctrine
of election. He fully comprehended that class of Calvinists who uttered
high-sounding phrases about "the high truths of the Catechism," and
then carefully abstained in their sermons from unfolding the Sovereignty
of Jehovah.  There were men in his day, who would rather use the doctrine of Predestination as a glittering sword to be brandished on the
parade ground, than as a sober truth to be soberly explained, and proved
and applied in the pulpit. He believed it to be one thing to make an
ostentatious display of zeal for "high doctrine," but quite a different
thing to make a pungent application of the doctrine of decrees to the
hearts of men who love to hear about " high doctrine," more than they
love to have it pressed home upon their consciences.
Emmons has borne reproach from  professed Calvinists for his fidelity
to the creed which they pretend to adopt.  This is illustrated in his doctrine of the Divine Agency concerning Sin. Dr. Ide writes:
" Emmons believed that, in view of all its results, as overruled by the Divine providence and grace, God willed the existence of sin. He considered the agency of God
as primarily consisting entirely in his volition. By this, not only are all the means of
fulfilling his purposes arranged, but the energy imparted which is essential to their success. In his will, choice, or volition that moral evil should exist, Emmons admitted that
there is no approval of its nature. Sin is, in its own nature, the abominable thing
which God's soul hates. In all its forms and degrees he views it, as it is in itself, or in
its own nature, with perfect abhorrence. And its effects, except so far as overruled by
his wise providence, are just like itself, infinitely hateful and ruinous. But in his
foresight of all the possible occasions of promoting his own glory, and securing the




424                              MEMOIR.
highest good of the universe, he saw that light could be brought out of darkness and
good out of evil, or in other words, that the existence of sin might be so overruled as
indirectly to promote the good which it is suited to destroy. Though in its own
nature tending to dishonor God, and ruin the work of his hands, it might under the
counteracting, overruling, mysterious working of his providence and grace become
instrumental of glorifying his name, displaying his perfections, and promoting the
good of his creatures in a higher degree, than even holiness alone could do. The
unnatural and wicked conspiracy of Jacob's sons against their brother Joseph, in
ccnsequence of which he was sold as a slave into Egypt, was an act which God abhorred. But the sacred writers assure us, that his agency was concerned in this very
thing. In reference to this event, Joseph says to his brethren:'Now be not grieved
nor angry with yourselves that ye sold me hither; for God did send me before you to preserve
life -so now it was not you that sent me hither, but God; and he hath made me a father to
Pharaoh and Lord of all his house and a ruler throughout the land of Egypt.'- (Gen. 45:
5, 7, 8.) If God did not design that Joseph's brethren should conspire against him
as they did, and sell him to be carried as a slave into Egypt, in what sense did God
send him there? The least that can be made of God's agency in this transaction, is,
that in view of the important results which he could secure by counteracting its tendency and overruling it for good, he willed it. If we deny that God willed, chose, or
designed that the sons of Jacob should do as they did in respect to their brother Joseph, we cannot name any proper sense in which God sent him into Egypt. Explain
the subject as we may, when we have proved that God did not choose that Joseph
should go into Egypt under the influences and instrumentalities which led him there,
we have proved that God did not send him. Emmons's view of God's agency in this
sin, is that he willed its existence, not on account of any thing which he approved in
its nature, but that he might so overrule it as to bring good out of the evil. That
Joseph's brethren were voluntary, free, and accountable in all they did, is proved, not
only by the strong testimony of their own consciences, and the frank acknowledgment
of their guilt, but by the censure which the word of God passes upon them. They
were the responsible actors in this case. Though God disposed them to act, yet he did
not act for them. It was they, and not God, that envied and hated Joseph. It was
they, and not God, that sold him into bondage. It was their feelings and not his, that
approved of this wicked transaction.  They meant it for evil, but he iMeant it for
good. If the actor, that devises, approves, and perpetuates an evil deed, is the proper
and responsible author of that deed, then Joseph's brethren were the authors - the
only proper and responsible authors of the sin committed against their brother.  The
agency of God was not of a kind which involved an approval of the transaction.
Nor was he, in the plain common sense usage of the term, the author of the act. As
dependent creatures, they needed his agency to enable them to act. No man is, or can
be made, able to act independently of God. The agency which God exerted upon Joseph's brethren in the commission of the evil deed to which allusion is here made, was
just that agency which was necessary to enable them as creatures to act - to actfreely -
to act accountably, and to do that which God, although he hated its nature, and
viewed with indignation their motives, still chose should be done for the sake of great
and important results, which his infinite wisdom and goodness would overrule it to accomplish. This is the agency which Emmons believed God exerted upon other
wicked men, as well as upon the brethren of Joseph.
" The crucifixion of Christ was perhaps the greatest sin that was ever committed by
creatures.  The displeasure with which God viewed this sin in its own nature, was in
exact proportion to the love which he bore to his beloved Son. And the hatred which




MEM OIR.                                425
he felt toward the consequences which the nature of this wicked transaction had a
tendency to produce, was the same which he felt at the most determined hostility to
the great interests of his kingdom. But as overruled by him, it has been, and he from
the beginning determined it should be, the salvation of the world.'Him, being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken, and by
wicked hands have crucified and slain.' (Acts 2: 23.)'For of a truth, against thy
holy child Jesus, whom thou hast anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the
Gentiles and the people of Israel were gathered together, for to do whatsoever thy hand
and thy counsel determined before to be done.' (Acts 4: 27, 28.) But to deny that
God exerted an agency in the crucifixion of Christ, and in all the conduct of his betrayers and murderers, is virtually to contradict the inspired declarations of the
prophet:'It hath pleased the Lord to bruise him; he hath put him to grief.'
(Isaiah 53: 10, 6.)' The Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all;' and also to
deny all which is said of God's giving his Son to die for sinners, and of his having
given himself for the life of the world. We might as well dispute the purpose and
agency of God with respect to any event that has ever taken place beneath the heavens,
as to deny these respecting the sufferings and death of Christ by the hand of his enemies. To say that God had no choice, in reference to that display of his glory which
this event, under his overruling providence, would occasion, and to that great salvation
which without it must have been impossible to lost men, is to contradict the serious
convictions of three quarters of the Christian world. But God's choice or volition
that the Jews should, in the exercise of the appropriate powers of free moral agents,
crucify the Son of God with wicked hands, is the agency which Emmons supposed
that he exerted in this transaction."
" It is truly mortifying to hear divines charge Emmons with blasphemy on account
of his teaching, as do the Scriptures, that God exerts an agency over the hearts of the
righteous and the wicked, and at the same time condemn him for differing in some
respects from John Calvin, just as if it were not true that the most distinguishing feature in Calvin's theology is the doctrine of the divine purpose and agency in respect to
both moral good and evil. There are divines who condemn him for his disagreement
with Calvin, when there is more of genuine Calvinism in one of his sermons, than
these divines ever taught or ever believed in their whole life. It would be amusing,
were it not a subject on which merriment seems out of place, to hear grave theologians
mourning over Emmons's doubts respecting the infallibility of the Assembly's Catechism, and severely censuring his dangerous doctrine, that God's agency is concerned
in the conduct, both of the righteous and the wicked, while the sacred instrument
which they deem so nearly infallible as to make it almost sacrilege to suspect it of
error, actually declares that' the decrees of God are his eternal purpose, according to
the counsel of his will, whereby for his own glory he hath foreordained whatsoever
comes to pass,' and that his' works of providence are his most holy, wise and powerful, preserving and governing all his creatures and all their actions.'"
The essence of the Genevan faith consists, not only in presenting such
views of God as will awaken supreme adoration, but also in presenting
such views of men as will awaken remorse and self-abhorrence.  The
design and scope of Emmonism is to show, that " sinners hate God more
than they hate any other, yea, more than all other beings. They are his
most incorrigible and irreconcilable enemies.  They have done nothing
LL 




426                         MEMOIR.
but sin every day since they were born; and nothing prevents God
from  executing the penalty of his holy law upon them  but his mere
sovereign, unpromised mercy; -this is the plain, simple truth with respect to every sinner.  And this plain, simple truth is more alarming
and tremendous to an awakened sinner, than all the thunderings and
lightnings which attended the giving of the law at Mount Sinai."  By
such words did the Franklin Calvinist aim to excite a spirit of self-loathing.  He had no time, therefore, for entertaining his hearers with a
theory of their having committed a sin in Paradise.  They rose in rebellion when he announced that they would, if they could, dethrone God;
but they would have loved to hear him declaim on their having really
and actually eaten the apple six thousand years ago. He believed it to
be one thing to press on men the charge that they themselves are now,
of their own choice, ready to crucify their Lord afresh; and a very different thing to utter. mystical words on their generic participation in the
crime committed in the heart of Asia, before the birth of Cain. He saw
peril in all such terms as charm man with a notion of his mystical illdesert, and thus allure him away from the accusation of his ill-desert
in the plain, prosaic sense of that word. When sin is mentioned, it is
soothing to lose one's self in imaginative theories. If Emmons had
taken delight in this fashionable Calvinism, he might have astonished his
auditors with his sesquipedalian nomenclature, and earned a shining
name for his polished orthodoxy, but he chose to tell men, in a homely
way, that they in their own persons have committed all the sin which
they are guilty of, have committed their sin because and only because
they chose to do so, have committed it whenever they could, and they
mean now to commit it whenever they can, and they do not repent only
because they are unwilling to repent, and they are in danger of not being
saved, only because they prefer to sin and to be lost.
c. Hiis Critics overlook the fact, that he aimed to exhibit a Consistent Calvinism.
His theories on the freedom of the will, on the nature of virtue, on
the voluntariness of all character, on the atonement, etc., were designed
to prepare the way for preaching those truths which distinguished
Calvin from Arminius.  He conducted many a controversy with what
he termed Semi-Calvinists, the " Moderate Calvinists, which is but another
~name for moderate Arminians." They professed a faith in the Catechism;
this formed one half of their theological influence. They refused to
preach its most distinctive doctrines; this formed the other half of their
influence, and gave it a semitone. They believed in the absolute Sovereignty of God. This was one half of their record.  But they said




M EMO I R.                          427
nothing of the doctrine in the pulpit; this was the other half. They
silently admitted the divine purposes; thus far all was well. They
really denied the divine efficiency in executing all these purposes: thus
far all was ill. To accept the purposes is Calvinistic; to disown the
efficiency that gives to these purposes all their meaning, is Anti-Calvinistic. The same men proclaimed in general terms the doctrine of Total
Depravity; this was one part of their creed. They averred in specific
language, that all the choices of men arc not positively sinful; this
formed the other part of their creed, and made it semi-compact. To
avow a belief in Total Depravity is popular.  To avow a belief that all
the choices of men are not positively sinful is popular. To remain
Orthodox, and yet to assure the unregenerate, that their preferences are
not entirely wrong, must be popular.  "It has been much disputed of
late, among those who call themselves Calvinists," says the unfashionable
divine, "whether all the doings of unregenerate men are altogether
sinful.".... "There are many who acknowledge that the hearts of
sinners are totally depraved and yet deny that their actions are altogether criminal." But he adds, " Either all the actions of sinners are
totally corrupt, or none of them are so."
d. His Critics overlook thefact, that he was an Independent Calvinist.
"I am  General Washington's man;" "I am  President Madison's
man;" - Emmons commiserated the African who was wont to proclaim
his slavery by such words. In forming his creed Emmons was nobody's
man. " He was himself," says Dr. Ide, "in every respect, and nobody
else."  He is, therefore, an independent witness for the Genevan faith.
His testimony in its behalf is the more important, as, during his earlier
years, his moral feelings rose in strong antagonism to it. He was not a
Calvinist by nature. Through strict discipline, however, he became in
some particulars, a more faithful representative of Essential, as distinct
from Fashionable; of Consistent, as distinct from one-sided Calvinism,
than has appeared in our land for a hundred years. (See pp. 309-311.)
It is true that he did not wear a gold ring, but he was a Calvinist for all
that.  He did not burn with ambition for place or power, but he was a
Calvinist for all that. He was neither morose nor envious, but he was
a Calvinist for all that. He did not engage in wily manceuvres; but he
was a' Calvinist for all that.  He did not slander his opponents; but he
was a Calvinist for all that. He allowed some phrases which his
brethren disowned; but he was an essential Calvinist for all that.  He
disowned some phrases which his brethren allowed; but he was a
consistent Calvinist for all that. Dr. Ware of Cambridge said, that




428                         MEMOIR.
Emmons " is one of the ablest, and clearest and most consistent writers,
that has appeared on the side of Orthodoxy." He did maintain the Free
Will of man; he did so, partly in order that he might maintain the
Predestinating act of God.  He did affirm that all sin is a free choice;
he did so, partly in order that he might affirm the justice of God in
punishing forever so needless an offence.
Emmons has illustrated the type of his independent as well as " Consistent Calvinism," in his article written for Miss Hannah Adams's History of all Religions, on the Hopkinsian Theology, and also in the following record which he wrote near the close of his life.
"I have endeavored to show,
"1. That holiness and sin consist in free voluntary affections or
exercises.
2. That men can act freely under the divine agency.
"3. That the least transgression of the divine law deserves eternal
punishment.
" 4. That right and wrong are founded in the nature of things.
". That the posterity of Adam  are guilty of no sin but their own
free, voluntary, selfish affections.
6. That God exercises mere grace in pardoning or justifying penitent believers through the atonement of Christ, and mere goodness in
rewarding them for their good works.
"7. That the hearts of sinners are, by nature, totally depraved.
"8. That God has a right, notwithstanding their total depravity, to
require them to turn from sin to holiness.
" 9. That preachers of the gospel ought to exhort sinners to love God,
repent of sin, and believe in Christ immediately.
"10. That sinners do not perform one holy and acceptable act, until
they exercise pure, disinterested love.
"11. That sinners must exercise unconditional submission to God, before they can exercise saving faith in Christ.
"12. That men are active and not passive in regeneration.
"These are doctrines which I have preached in the general course of
my ministry, some of which I have endeavored to set in a clearer light
than I have ever seen done by any others."
This summary is of great historical importance; for it illustrates the
inaccuracy, not to say the inveracity, of representing Emmonism as distinguished from the popular Calvinism, merely by the theories that God
is the First Cause of sin, and that sinners should submit to the justice of a condemning God, or, as his maligners express themselves,
"should be willing to be damned."  The same inaccuracy is illustrated
by another statement which Dr. Emmons has made, concerning the type




MEMOIR.                             429
of his theology, and in which he has condemned what Professor Woods of
Andover was accustomed to call the " fag-ends of Calvinism." He writes:
In my discourses "I had no intention of starting any new scheme of
divinity; for I was early and warmly attached to genuine Calvinism,
which I believed to be built upon the firm foundation of the gospel itself.
This system, I have thought, and still think, is the very form of sound
words, which the apostles and their successors taught, long before Calvin
was born;. and which has been constantly maintained by those who have
been justly called Orthodox, in distinction from Heterodox Christians, ever
since the first propagation of the Christian religion. But Calvinism has
lost much of its purity and simplicity, by going through so many unskilful
hands of its friends. This has given great advantages to its enemies,
who have clearly discovered and successfully attacked some of its excrescences and protuberances.  The Calvinists and Arminians are more
directly and diametrically opposed to each other, than any other denominations of Christians; and after many skirmishes together, they had
long ago one great pitched battle, in which they concentrated their mutual attacks to a few cardinal points. These Dr. Price enumerates and
reprobates in the following order and strongest terms.
"' First, The doctrine of absolute predestination and election.
"' Secondly, The doctrine of original sin.
"'Thirdly, The doctrine of the total impotence of man, and irresistible grace, in opposition to free will.
"' Fourthly, The doctrine of particular, in opposition to universal redemption.
"' Fifthly, The doctrine of the perseverance of saints, after being once
called and converted.
"'These five doctrines have been called, by way of distinction and
eminence, the Five Points. They are the points about which the sect
called Arminians, differ from Calvinists. But there is one other point
connected with those now specified, which forms an essential part of this
system, and which, in justice to it, ought to be mentioned. That is the
doctrine of justification by faith alone, and the imputed righteousness of
Christ. All the orthodox confessions of faith agree in declaring that we
are accounted righteous before God, not for our good works, but only for
the merit of Christ. In truth, were any man (supposed unacquainted
with the controversies which have arisen among Christians) to set himself
to invent a system of faith so irrational and unscriptural as to be incapable of being received by Christians, he could scarcely think of one concerning which he would be more ready to form such a judgment.'
" It is not a little strange that Dr. Price should venture to speak so
reproachfully of Calvinism, when he knew that some of the greatest




430                         MEMOIR.
divines and metaphysicians in Europe had employed their profound
learning and reasoning powers to maintain it; white others of equal
learning and genius had labored in vain to overthrow it. The truth is,
Calvinists have so ably and perseveringly supported their system of
sentiments, that they have been, and still are, universally called the
orthodox, in distinction from all other denominations of Christians. This
can be accounted for, only on the supposition that their scheme of doctrines stands upon a firm and immutable foundation. I know that some
Calvinists maintain that the first sin of Adam is imputed to his posterity;
that the righteousness of Christ is imputed to believers for their justification; that sinners are under natural inability to turn from sin to holiness;
and that Christ made atonement for the elect only. I grant, these are
gross absurdities, or mere wens and protuberances, which must be pared
off from true Calvinism, in order to make it appear consistent with both
reason and Scripture. Accordingly, modern Calvinists readily surrender
their formerly untenable outposts, and now find it more easy to defend
their citadel against all attacks of their most numerous adversaries." —
2Memoir of himself.




CHAPTER XVII.
THE NEW ERA IN HIS LIFE.
THE prolonged  old  age  of Emmons, formed a distinct life in
itself.  His last quarter of a  century  on  earth  furnishes the
material for a new  Memoir, and may be divided into the following sections.
~ 1. His Later Afflictions.
His life was clouded over with troubles near the time of its commencement.  It soon brightened up, and remained cheerful and sunny for more
than thirty-three years. Then it was darkened by a series of bereavements.
We left the studious pastor, surrounded with his second wife and four
sprightly daughters and two enterprising sons.  He was pursuing his
course of cheerful study, and for the period of one entire generation, was
uninterrupted by any serious illness or misfortune, either in himself or
his joyful household.  He writes, however, " But my days of prosperity
were followed by days of adversity.  In the year 1813, I buried my
second daughter, Deliverance."  A sister of Delia has given the ensuing
narrative of her last days.
"In the sickness and death of this beloved daughter, my father was deeply affected.
She had reached mature years without having given her heart to the Saviour. We
never felt that our father had any favorites among his children, but that we all shared
alike his paternal care and affection. Still it was evident that in his opinion this
daughter partook very largely of his peculiar traits of character. He used sometimes
to say, pleasantly,' She is the only child I have that has the misfortune to resemble
me.' But to those who knew her best, it was evident that this resemblance was not in
person or feature, but in the cast of her mind. She was distinguished for her wit,
vivacity, and discrimination. In the exercise of her social powers she was the delight
not only of her youthful associates, but of her friends of every age. Her sickness
was a scrofula consumption, long and distressing, continuing more than three years
and a half. In the summer of each successive year her symptoms were less violent
and would invite the hope of her restoration. But the return of winter would again
confine her to her room, and nip those hopes which were so fondly cherished.
(431)




432                              MEMOIR.
"All this while, my father'at the dreadful post of observation,' was, in his own
-way, endeavoring to lead her to the Saviour. He conversed with and prayed for her.
He put such books into her hands as he thought best suited to bring her mind to a
decision. In the early part of the time he uniformly conversed with her alone, that
she might disclose her feelings without embarrassment. During the latter part of her
sickness the members of the family were present, and other Christian friends visiting
us were invited to converse with her upon the subject of her spiritual state. For some
time previous to her death the enmity of her heart appeared to be slain; but light had
not broken into her mind with sufficient clearness to allow her to indulge a hope of
her acceptance with Christ. Never will a remark be forgotten made by her to an
affectionate sister, who communicated to her her own change of views and hope in the
Saviour:'How is it that I rejoice that you are taken while I am left? But I do.'
She well knew that such joy in the sovereignty of God was not the feeling of the
natural heart, yet she felt that she could indulge no such hope herself.'If I were a
Christian,' she would say,' I should feel more deeply my sins. I know I am a sinner,
but do not feel it.' Shortly after this, the Saviour was pleased to manifest himself to
her in a most delightful manner. Her views seemed clear and rapturous. When questioned by her father with regard to these exercises, and asked why she might not now
be deceived, as Satan could transform himself into an angel of light; she promptly
replied,'Because I think my views and feelings are perfectly scriptural.' Ever after
this, her mind remained in the most delightful and tranquil state. For several days
the lamp of life burned dimly, and we were in constant expectation of her departure.
" When we were called in the night to enter her dying room, her countenance was
lighted with a smile, and she continued to converse with her brothers and sisters in the
most affectionate and interesting manner. Her parents stood with us around her dying
bed. Their calmness and composure were manifest in this hour of trial; and as the
sun was rising upon this dark world, her spirit fled as we trust to the abodes of light
and glory. During the whole of this period my father was calm and collected; yet
it was evident he felt it most deeply. When questioned with respect to this bereavement, in comparison with that he suffered in the removal of his two other children,
he replied,'There is a different train of reflections.  In the death of an adult child,
the loss is more deeply felt, but in the death of little children, the tender feelings are
more powerfully called into exercise.' One of the means made use of to keep himself from being overcome in this day of trial was, that he followed in contemplation
the departed spirit. This may be inferred from the advice given to one of his children
who was at this time disposed to linger around' the beautiful clay,' and continue by
its side:' Beware, beware,' he said,' of nursing your grief at the body; follow the
soul, and you never need fear being overcome.' This was found to be of great practical importance to the one to whom it was addressed.  That my dear father was
most deeply affected by this dispensation was evident from the fact, that when alone
in his room, he was often heard to repeat the lines which he afterwards placed upon
her gravestone.  They are, with slight alterations, taken from Henry Kirke White."
The epitaph here alluded to is thus written:
In Memory of Miss DELIVERANCE EMBiONS, who departed this life June 3d, 1813,
JEtatis 30.
"When o'er thy dawn the darkness spread,
And deeper every moment grew;
When rudely round thy painful head
The chilling blasts of sickness blew;




MEMOIR.                                  433
"Religion heard no plainings loud;
The sigh in silence stole from thee;
Thy cearest friends around thee crowd,
With hearts of deepest sympathy."
" This marble marks thy bed of mortal sleep,
And living statues here are seen to weep;
Affliction's semblance bends not o'er thy tomb,
Affliction's self deplores thy early doom."
" In the year 1820, I buried my son Erastus," is the concise announcement of Emmons in his Autobiography.  The long line of gravestones
belonging to his household presents the following epitaph:
In Memory of Wajor ERASTus EMMONS, who departed this life March 13, 1820,
aged 32.
Consult life's silent clock; thy bounding vein,Seems it to say, health here has long to reign?
Yet fear, youth ofttimes healthful and at ease,
Anticipates a day it never sees,
And manya tomb, like this of mine, aloud
Exclaims, Prepare thee for an early shroud.
Dr. Ide writes concerning Major Emmons:'He possessed a noble disposition, great buoyancy of spirit, and a talent for doing
business with order, neatness, and despatch. He had repeated offers of lucrative
employment in mercantile life, but from a regard to the feelings of his aged parents,
he was induced to decline these offers, and to remain under the paternal roof. If
there was any arm of flesh on which Dr. Emmons now leaned, it was the disposition
and ability of this beloved son to render his last days comfortable and happy. But
while on Boston Common, in the discharge of his duty as aid to Major-General Crane,
on a cold autumnal day, Erastus received a heavy chill which fastened disease upon
his lungs. From the first of this attack, Death seemed to mark him as his victim;
and, with one short interval of relief and encouragement, his course was onward with
rapid strides, to the grave.' His father now distinctly saw the heavy calamity that was before him. Erastus,
the dear object of his affections had given him no evidence of a preparation for death.
The thought of his son's leaving the world without a good hope of salvation, filled
him with the deepest solicitude. By his counsel and his prayers, he endeavored to
lead the invalid to a saving knowledge of Christ. For some time Major Emmons
endured great anxiety in view of his situation; but at length, as it was hoped, submitted himself to God. For a number of weeks previous to his death, he enjoyed
great consolation; and gave as much evidence of a change of heart as could be
expected from one converted upon a dying bed. By his appearance near the close of
life, the anxiety of his father respecting him was greatly relieved. Though always
distrustful of the saving nature of a change which takes place just as the day of probation is expiring, yet it was evident, from an expression which he dropped in the
ear of his dying son, that he cherished a hope of the son's salvation. Just before
Erastus left the world he looked up and said, " Father, I am dying." His father then
inquired, "Do your trust and confidence in God remain unshaken?"   Erastus
VOL. I.                        MM




434                              MEIMOIR.
replied in the affirmative. Then said his father,' Your passage is short, and, if you
are not deceived, your rest in heaven will be glorious."  The son expired.  Shortly
after the closing scene, the father, in the room where lay the remains of the strong
man who had been the hope of his old age, offered a prayer apparently full of submission and trust in God. So perfect was his composure, that once only was his
utterance choked by the depth of his emotions. There is no mystery in the extraordinary support and consolation which he then enjoyed; for it has since been ascertained that a number of his church, anticipating the fearful result of his son's sickness,
had met weekly to unite their prayers that he might be sustained under the approaching calamity.'
On the Sabbath after a funeral, the faithful pastor had been in the habit of delivering an appropriate sermon; and when there was no reason for believing that the
change of worlds had been a happy one, he would preach a judicious but still an
appropriate sermon, for he moved on a straight line. He did not expressly announce,
that there was no hope for the departed, but he spoke with the uncertainty which
candor required; and his subject was an alarming admonition to the living, not to
leave it doubtful whether they were to be saved or lost. He had often preached on the
deceptiveness of a death-bed repentance, and now, in the case of the favorite son, what
shall he say?  Shall he preach a funeral discourse?  Shall he be candid in his
allusions to the deceased? Shall he be submissive in the hour when others mourn,
and insubmissive in the hour of his own grief? With sublimer disinterestedness than
that of a Roman father, he closed his sermon on the Sabbath after the burial of his
son, with these characteristic words:
" This subject, and the late instance of mortality in this place, call aloud upon those
in the midst of their days, to prepare to follow one of their own age into that vast
eternity, whither he has gone and never to return. He lived stupid, thoughtless and
secure in sin, until he was brought to the very sight of death. He was carried away
with the vanity of the world, and the pleasing prospects of living; and abused the
calls, the mercies, and patience of God; which gave him pain, self-condemnation and
remorse. He was constrained to say,' The world, the world has ruined me.' He
was brought to give up all his vain hopes and expectations from the world, and to
feel the duty and importance of choosing the one thing needful. But whether he did
ever heartily renounce the world and choose God for his supreme portion, cannot be
known in this world. In his own view, he did become reconciled to God, and
derived peace and hope from his supposed reconciliation. But it is more than
possible, that like others on a sick-bed, he built his hopes upon a sandy foundation.
Let his case, however, be what it may, he is dead, and called away from his relatives
and friends, just as he entered the meridian of life. His death, therefore, speaks with
an emphasis to parents, brothers and sisters; and especially to those of his own age,
to be wiser and better than he was; and not to delay seeking and serving God, to a
dying hour. It is not I, but my son, who now preaches to you, whose voice once
sounded pleasant in your ears. Be pleased, therefore, to hear his voice from  the
dead; and prepare to follow him to heaven, if he has been permitted to enter there."
A few weeks afterwards, when called to baptize a child who was to bear the name
of this lamented son, the bereaved man lifted up his hand, spoke the word Erastus, --
and could proceed no further; thus evincing that his Christian and parental fidelity
was not stoicism. It was his development in practical life of the disinterestedness
which characterized his theory. He was a man. of philosophical practice, and of
practical philosophy.




MEMOIR.                                  435' In 1823, I buried my third daughter, Sarah," is another brief sentence in Emmons's Autobiography.  In the significant row of his family
gravestones is her epitaph:
In Memory of Miss SARAH EMMONS, who died Jan. 3d, 1823, aged 37 years.
"By nature's law, what may be, may be now;
There's no prerogative in human hours:
In human hearts, what bolder thoughts can rise,
Than man's presumption on to-morrow's dawn!
Where is to-morrow i In another world."
This daughter was remarkable for her liveliness and good cheer. Her
father delighted in her as a model of punctuality and of skill in the affairs
of his household.  She was admired for her amiable spirit, and her devotion to the welfare of her parents.  The circumstances of her departure
have been thus narrated:
" When Delia died," says her brother-in-law, " the bereaved father had five children left, and four of them were in his own family. When Erastus died, two of his
daughters had been married, and although the staff on which he leaned was taken
away, he still had one child in his house whose presence prevented, in some degree, his
sense of loneliness, and whose filial regard and attentions greatly alleviated the pains
of his bereavement. But when Sarah died, he and his feeble companion were left
alone, without a child at home to participate in their grief, or to lighten the burden of
their cares."
In a letter to a relative, Dr. Emmons wrote:
" I believe that she had but very little expectation of living for more than six months
before she died. All that time her mind was seriously impressed; but she did not entertain a hope of having right views and feelings till about two months before she left
the world. Ever after she first found light, she continued to enjoy it, which gave her
great peace and tranquillity of mind as long as she lived. She conversed very freely
about the state of her mind, and of her prospects beyond the grave. She seemed to
regret leaving the world, principally on account of her aged parents. But the wise
and holy Disposer of all things has been disposed to deny the gratification of her desires and ours. She is gone, and we are left to lament her loss."
On the Sabbath after her funeral, the submissive patriarch, then in his seventy-eighth
year, preached a sermon from the text: "And Aaron held his peace."  "Though
Aaron held his peace, and refrained from speaking, yet," said the old patriarch, " he
did not refrain from thinking." The sermon closes with these characteristic words:
The speaker " has been a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. God has
bereaved him of father and mother, of brothers and sisters, of one nearer and dearer
than either, of several young, tender, fair branches of his family, and of all his contemporary brethren in the work of the ministry. God has called him to bear the yoke
in his youth, in his riper years, and now even under the infirmities of old age. He
has poured out to him another cup of the wormwood and the gall, while the bitterness
of the former cups is still in remembrance. God has recently and prematurely bereaved him of a dear daughter, upon whom it was natural to place some hopes and




436                            MEMOIR.
some dependence; but those hopes and that dependence are now buried with her in
the grave. He may now with more propriety, and he hopes with a better spirit, say
as Jacob said, I will go down into the grave unto my daughter, mourning. He may
be allowed to mourn but not to murmur. He knows it becomes him to hold his
peace, and not open his mouth, because the Lord has done it. But you will permit
me to make the same request that Job made on a similar occasion:'Have pity upon
me, have pity upon me, O ye my friends; for the hand of God hath touched me.'"
" Never shall we forget," writes one of his parishioners, " the manner in which he
uttered those last words. Our youthful eyes beheld him, then in the seventy-eighth
year of his age, and in the fiftieth of his ministry, imploring the prayers of his people
that he might not sink, while the waves of affliction dashed over him. His eyes ran
down with tears; his people wept around him; his swelling grief choked his feeble
utterance in almost every sentence, till he was obliged to terminate his discourse.
He closed his sermon book, withdrew his spectacles, wiped off the falling tears, and
then, lifting his suffused eyes toward heaven, he said,' Let us find relief in prayer.'
God strengthened him, and enabled him to lead our devotions with unusual fervor.
He prayed for himself, his wife and children, his church and people, like a man who
stood on the confines of eternity, like one who stood between the living and the dead.
Never before nor since have we seen a Christian assembly so perfectly dissolved in
tears. Some wept at the remembrance of those whom God had taken away from
him; more by reason of their sympathy with his sorrows, and at the painful apprehension that they would soon hear his voice no more; and others because their hard,
impenitent hearts were not prepared to offer to God acceptable prayer for their afflicted
and beloved pastor. Prayer being ended, a hymn sung, and the benediction pronounced, we retired, wiser and better for the soul-stirring scene." - (American Quarterly Register, Vol. 15, pp. 118, 119.)
It was evident, through all the sufferings attending this bereavement,
that the stricken patriarch had been schooling himself for his hours of
sorrow.  His favorite remark had been: " Affliction is the good man's
shining time." One of his daughters, visiting him in his solitude, inquired: "Do you not feel anxious about your domestic arrangements,
now that all your children, on whom you had specially depended, are in
their graves?"  His characteristic reply was: "Not in the least."   He
remembered his text: " And Aaron held his peace."
But a new sorrow awaited him.  He had lived with his estimable
wife about half a century. For twenty years she had been an invalid,
suffering the severest pains from her broken limb. A faithful nurse who
had attended her for seven years, remarked: "I have often heard her
groan, but I never heard her complain." It was becoming obvious to
Mrs. Emmons, that her consumptive habit and the consequences of her
fractured limb, would soon release her from the earth.  With her usual
deliberation she made all the needful arrangements for the closing scene.
She prepared her shroud. On Saturday eve, when her Sabbath began,
she called her nurse to her bedside, and informed her that she should not




MEMOIRO.                                437
probably continue until the morning, desired her to bring the shroud
which she had wrapped up by itself in a safe place, also to bring down
the board on which the corpse of her son and her daughters had been
laid, and which she had kept in a safe place (just so sacred was her
care) - and to let her lifeless body rest on the same support which had
upheld the remains of her children.  She also requested that a man
might be called to spend the night in the house, as there was only a
small boy who could wait upon them, and he might be afraid to move
about in the dark tenement where a corpse was lying. She further expressed her wish that Mr. Emmons might not be disturbed during the
hours of sleep, as he would feel less burdened if he were to come into
her room on the Sabbath morning, and find the long agony over, than to
come at night and witness the pains which he could not relieve. Four
days after this dark night, the old patriarch, in his eighty-fifth year,
wrote the following letter to his wife's brother, John Hopkins, Esq., of
Northampton, Masse:
"FRANKLIN, Aug. 6, 1829.
"Dear Brother: The last Sabbath, about four o'clock in the morning, Mrs. Emmons exchanged that day of rest, I hope and believe, for' that rest which remaineth
to the people of God.' Your loss is great, but mine is irreparable. I am emphatically a pilgrim and stranger on the earth, having neither father nor mother, nor brother
nor sister, nor uncle nor aunt living. I am left alone to bear the heaviest affliction I
have ever been called to bear, in an evil time. Though I enjoy usual health, yet the
decays of nature and the infirmities of old age render me less able to bear troubles
and sorrows than I was in former days, when I was called to suffer breach after
breach in my family; therefore this last and widest breach seems destined to bring
down my gray hairs with sorrow to my grave. I sympathize with you, and I know
you will sympathize with me. You knew the excellent character of your sister, but I
knew more of her excellence, worth, and importance to me. She was indeed a rich
blessing to me, and to her family, and to her people, among whom I believe she never
had a single enemy. She was eminently a pattern of patience, meekness, and submission during a long life of peculiar trials, bodily infirmities, pains and distresses.
She was —but I forbear. Her health was visibly declining through the Winter and
Spring, but we did not view her immediately dangerous until the Tuesday before she
died. She was apparently struck with death Saturday evening, but did not expire till
morning. She retained her senses to the last, and left the world, not in triumph, but
in that hope which was an anchor to her soul, both sure and steadfast. You and
AMrs. Hopkins will, I hope, in your best moments remember your aged and bereaved
brother:                                                NATH'L EMMONS."
In  his Autobiography, this  devoted  pastor, noting  his personal
afflictions according to the Calendar of his Franklin church; and thus
betraying his ministerial "passion strong in" his old age, simply writes:
Within a few weeks after Mr. Smalley's ordination, I was bereaved of
MM *




438                            MEMOIR.
my dear consort, who closed her pious, exemplary life in peace to herself
and all her surviving friends."
The Epitaph of this devout woman is:
To the Memory of Mrs. MARTHA EMMONS, the wife of Nathanael Emmons, D. D.,
who died Aug. 2, 1829, in the 79th year of her age.
O! stop the tear, nor sorrow for the blest,
But with her fair example, fire thy breast.
Her worth still lives, that living worth regard,
And with like virtue, seek the same reward.
Another wave of trouble was soon added to the billows which had
gone over him.  His son-in-law, Willard Gay, Esq., a gentleman of rare
worth, was called suddenly from life, and the widow, having a frail constitution, and sinking under her unexpected bereavement, returned to
her father's house, in order to receive that soothing influence which he
was skilled in exerting over those who were agitated and disordered
both in body and mind.
During each of his later afflictions, he was "an object of admiration
to such as beheld the composure with which he sustained the shock, and
of deep and compassionate interest to all who considered his great age
and lonely condition." He had disciplined himself, by communion with
Infinite Grace, to endure calamities with fortitude, and to make disinterested submission the virtue of his life, as well as of his theory. He had
often reiterated his own words:
" Men are apt to murmur and repine because their troubles and afflictions come
upon them in an evil time, when they feel less prepared and able to bear them than at
any other time. They are ready to say that if they had been afflicted when they were
young, or when they were in their full strength and vigor, or at any time before they
felt the infirmities of old age, they could have borne it, but now their afflictions are too
heavy for their feeble powers to support. But all ought to remember, that God
knows the best times to afflict them, and always chooses the best times to do it. He
may see it best, that some should bear the yoke in their youth  that some should bear
the yoke in riper years; that some should bear the yoke in their declining days; and
that some should be afflicted, time after time, from the morning to the evening of life,
and then receive the heaviest stroke. If it were left to the afflicted to choose the time
of affliction, they would never know what time to choose. If it had been left to Aaron
when his sons should die, he would not have chosen that they both should have died
the same day, and the next day after he and they had been consecrated to the priest's
office. If Eli had been allowed to choose the time of his sons' death, he would not
have chosen that they should have died in one day, and at a time when he was stooping under the decays of nature, and when the bare news of his bereavement was more
than he could support, and live. It is well that God does not allow men to choose
when he shall afflict them, but has reserved the times and the seasons in his own
power."




M E    MOI  R.                        439
~ 2. His Retirement from  his Pastorate, and his Relation to his Successors in Office.
" Becoming more and more sensible of the common decays of nature,
and of the increasing infirmities of old age, I did, in 1827, entirely relinquish, and retire from  all my ministerial labors, and opened the way
for the settlement of another minister in my parish; and accordingly
Mr. Elam Smalley was settled here in July, 1829."-  Memoir of himself.
It had been a life-long decision of Dr. Emmons to retire from his ministerial office,'while he had sense enough to do so.' "Any man," he remarked, "can lead an army into action, but it requires a skilful and
experienced general to make a graceful retreat." He had noticed and
bewailed the fact, that clergymen often persevere in preaching, until
they regard themselves as brighter than ever before; and until their
parishioners are compelled to adopt a large variety of expedients for
hiding the light which is represented as bursting out into new flames.
He recoiled from  the thought of "becoming a burden to his hearers."
He dreaded to be " laid aside as good for nothing."  He chose to lay
himself aside, and to save his parishioners from all solicitude with regard
to his own tenacity of place.
"On the thirteenth of May, 1827, while delivering his sermon in the
pulpit, he fainted."  He was taken to his house, and did not recover his
full strength for several days. Deliberately reflecting on this illness, which
was so unusual to him, he was inclined to regard it not as an indication
that he was near the end of life, but as an intimation of the will of God
that he should now  retire from  the active duties of his office.  The
result of his thought on this subject, appears in the following communication:
" FRANKLIN, May 28, 1827.
" TO THE IMEMBERS OF THE CHURCH AND TO THE ME3MBERS OF THE RELIGIOUS
SOCIETY OF THIS PLACE:
"Brethren and Friends, —I have sustained the pastoral relation to you for more
than fifty [fifty-four] years, which is a long ministerial life. The decays of nature,
the increasing'infirmities of old age, and my present feeble state of health, convince
me that I must now retire from a field of labor which I am no longer able to occupy
to my own satisfaction or your benefit. I therefore take the liberty to inform you
that I can no longer supply your pulpit, or perform any ministerial labors among
you; and at the same time, that I renounce all claims upon any future ministerial
support; relying entirely upon your wisdom and goodness to grant, or not to grant,
any gratuity to your aged servant during the residue of his life.
"NATHANAEL EMMONS."
This letter took his people by surprise.  They did not regard him as




440                            I E   O IR.
having failed at all in his public performances, except in the strength of
his voice.  He remained not less acceptable to other congregations, or
to his own parishioners, than he had been for previous years.  His
people were not less grieved than astonished, by his withdrawal from the
office which they thought him able to fill with so much honor. " Many of
them were in tears."  They remonstrated with him, but it was of no use.
They desired him to remain Moderator of the church; but it was of no
use.  They insisted that he would occasionally at least perform  some
small part of his old duties; but his mind was decided.  "I have turned
a short corner" was his sure word.  With unabated attachment to
him as a man, with a grateful recollection of his past faithfulness, and
under a deep sense of the loss which they now sustained, his people at
length yielded their consent to his wishes, and took measures for the
supply of the pulpit which he had vacated.
But it was difficult for parishioners trained for so long a time by so
faithful a guardian, to become satisfied with any one as his successor.
They listened to different candidates "for the space of more than two
years."   During this long period their paternal counsellor exerted
himself with unwonted zeal, to procure for them exactly the right man.
When Mr. Smalley (afterwards Dr. Smalley of Worcester, Mass., and
Troy, N. Y.), was introduced to him,  1 like your name" he said: for he
could never outgrow his attachment to the Dr. Smalley of his younger
days. Dr. Ide writes:'The clay of Mr. Smalley's ordination, although attended with associations peculiarly solemn to this aged servant of God, was nevertheless one which he appeared to
enjoy very highly. He rejoiced in the union which now prevailed among his flock;
in the joy and satisfaction which they appeared to feel in view of their prospects; and
in the hope which he himself indulged, that the transactions of that day would be the
means of lasting good to the people in whose spiritual welfare he felt the liveliest
interest. He was now in his eighty-fifth year. Not more than once had he addressed
his congregation, since he fainted in the pulpit. A deep silence and a most intense
interest pervaded the great assembly when he arose to give the charge to his colleague.
In a fow and tremulous voice, he thus began:
"Dear Sir, -  More than fifty years ago, while standing near this
memorable spot, I was consecrated to the Pastoral office over the church
and religious society in this place, by my then fathers and brethren in
the ministry, who have long since finished their course, and one after
another gone the way of all the earth.  A vivid recollection of those
past scenes and events, awakens the most serious, the most painful and
the most grateful reflections, anticipations, and emotions in my breast, on
this affecting occasion.  Though I have very frequently attended the




M EMOIR.,                                441
usual solemnities of an ordination, yet this, in which I am now appointed
to bear a part, is to me, in many respects, the most solemn and interesting one that I ever attended in the long course of my protracted life.
I never read of but one man who was placed in a situation similar, or
more striking and impressive than mine at this present moment; and I
hope I do feel, in  some measure, as Aaron felt when Moses, at the
divine command, took him and Eleazar his son up to Mount Hor, in the
sight of all the congregation of Israel on the day of his death; and there
stripped off his sacerdotal robes, and put them upon Eleazar his son and
successor in the most holy and sacred office on earth.  This instance,
dear Sir, is instructive to us both. It tells me that I must soon die, but
it supposes that you may yet live many years; and in that case, admonishes you to fill my place properly, and supply my deficiencies in the
great work which I have forever relinquished."' He entertained the council,' continues Dr. Ide,'with a great number of other
guests at his own house and at his own expense. There was a glow of health upon
his cheek, his form was erect, his step was firm, and his movements were quick and
regular. The excitement of the occasion served, no doubt, to bring all his powers
both of body and mind into more vigorous action than usual. But it was remarked
by a number who were present at that time, that his mental activity, his social
powers, and the zest with which he participated in the enjoyments of the day, were
more than equal to what young men are accustomed to manifest on similar occasions.'
Dr. Smalley has thus described his relation to Emmons:
"It was not without trembling solicitude that I entered upon that intimate and
solemn relation with him, in the year 1829. I had serious apprehensions, that I
should not be able to meet the demands of a people who had enjoyed his services for
more than half a century; and knowing what collisions of opinion and feeling had
often arisen between colleagues of different temperaments and habits of thought, I
greatly feared that it would be impossible for me, in preaching and pastoral deportment, to secure his approbation in any tolerable degree. But after an experience of
more than nine years, I can truly say, that it is practicable for associate pastors of the
same church to live in perfect harmony and peace, though differing greatly in age, in
temperament, in style of communicating thought, and in many of the modes of
pastoral supervision. From  the first, he won my affection and confidence, and
taught me to trust in him as a friend and father. He only asked that I would yield
to him his place and rights, and most cheerfully he accorded to me all that I could
reasonably desire. It was my privilege to seek his advice on all occasions of interest
and solicitude; and it was his pleasure to select from his rich and varied experience
those maxims of practical wisdom, and those opportune suggestions, which at once
removed apparent difficulties and pointed out a path of light. In his criticisms on
my public performances, he was uniformly kind and candid. The stated seasons in
which I used to go and sit at his feet to listen to his timely and varied instructions;
to suggest my doubts and difficulties; and have them removed by his pithy and




442                            MEMOIR.
sententious sayings, his luminous and ready statements, have a degree of sacredness
in my mind, are among the most hallowed, the greenest spots on my memory of past
years. With no mind have I been permitted to hold more intimate communion on
the great truths of our holy religion than his; from no one have I ever received more
unequivocal testimonials of disinterested friendship; and I seriously doubt whether
the minister now lives, with whom I could spend nine years of such uninterrupted
harmony and perfect good will, as I did when associated with him. Numerous and
strong were my attachments to the church and people of Franklin; to break the ties
that bound me to them was indeed painful; but it was long before I could feel
willing to leave that father in Israel, with whom I had spent so many delightful and
profitable hours. Yet, when at last I frankly told him my views, and confidingly
asked him what I should do, he touchingly replied,'Though I had hoped to be
spared this trial, yet I do not see but you ought to go.' Now that he is dead, I
mourn for him as a father; and yet I rejoice in the strong assurance that he is an
inhabitant of that city which he was accustomed to speak of with glowing energy, and
is holding communion with those sainted spirits which entered upon their reward
before him."
We have seen that the characteristic plan of Dr. Emmons was to
retire wholly, when he retired at all, from  his parochial duties.  "No
ship can have two captains," was his motto.  He determined to avoid,
as far as he could, all possibility of invidious comparisons between himself
and his successor, and of apparent as well as real interference between the
purposes of the aged and those of the youthful clergyman. He uniformly
refused to take any part in the public services of the Sabbath, after he
had resigned his pastorate. He did mingle, however, in the spiritual
efforts of his church after he became a private member of it, and during
the revival of religion which occurred soon after the ordination of his successor, lhe was eminently useful in guiding the minds and hearts of many
inquirers who came to his house for his counsel and prayers.
The health of Mr. Smalley's household rendered it necessary for him to
resign his Franklin pastorate in 1838.  His removal though painful to
Dr. Emmons, gave a new exhibition of the Doctor's glowing attachment to
his people. He again united his efforts with theirs to procure the resettlement of a pastor. These efforts were successful; and on the 23d
of January, 1839, Rev. Tertius D. Southworth, was installed at Franklin.
Dr. Emmons was requested, on this occasion, to give the charge, but he
declined on account of his great age. Almost ten years had gone over
his head since the ordination of his first colleague, and brought with
them  the debilitating influence of ninety-three years.  He was able,
however, to attend the exercises of the occasion, and to enjoy in a good
degree the visit which he then received from  a large number of his
clerical and other friends. —Mr. Southworth has borne the following
testimony to the virtues of a man who was surrounded with all the
temptations of an ex-pastor, and died without yielding to them.




MEMOIR.                                 443
"I had received the impression that Dr. Emmons was austere, and arrogant; and
of course, the legitimate conclusion was, that he would be a most uncomfortable
colleague. But at my first introduction to him, his complaisance, and the kind
and affable reception which he offered me, at once dispelled my false and groundless impression, so contrary to his nature and dishonorable to his character.
From that time to the present, there has been no occasion to alter my favorable
opinion of him. He never manifested the least inclination to dictate to me in my
course, leaving me entirely unshackled and free. But his counsel he was ever ready
to impart. This was always wise, disinterested, and seasonable. Gratitude to his
memory demands of me an acknowledgment of many instances of advice peculiarly
timely and very advantageous to me. As a counsellor he was to me inestimable.
In this respect, I sensibly feel my need of him, and therefore sincerely and continually lament his death. He never gave me the slightest trouble by interfering with my
arrangements. As he venerated the sacerdotal offiee-,he always treated me with the
greatest respect on account of it. He uniformly manifested towards me, the sincerest affection, kindness, and friendship. During my connection with him, his
conduct was such as to command my highest respect, my deepest veneration, my
sincere and ardent love. I never saw the man, — my own reverend father excepted,
— whom I so much revered and loved. In fine, Dr. Emmons was such an one as a
modest, humble man, who is willing to be outshone by the brightness of a sun of
almost unrivalled glory, would wish for a senior colleague. At the feet of such an
one, it was delightful to sit and listen to the gracious words that proceeded out of his
mouth, to the great things of God's law which he unfolded."
In a sermon  preached on the Sabbath after the interment of Dr,
Emmons, Mr. Southworth adds:
" His idol, if he had one, was his parish. It was the object of his greatest care, and
tenderest solicitude. Even to his last days, he manifested the greatest concern for
your welfare, watching for you with godly jealousy; often repeating,'I do love
Franklin,' and offering up for you some of his latest prayers."
~ 3. His Third Marriage.
When the subject of this Memoir was ordained, one of his clerical
neighbors was Rev. David Hall, D. D., of Sutton, a personal and an
intimate friend of President Edwards.  Emmons enjoyed a profitable
intercourse with this eminent revivalist for the period of sixteen years.
He afterwards derived much enjoyment from  the society of Rev. Edmund Mills, the brother of his old friend Samuel J. Mills of Torringford,
Conn., and the successor of Dr. Hall at Sutton. For thirty-five years
Emmons and Mills were members of the same (Mendon) Association.
Mr. Mills died in 1825; and on the eighteenth of September, 1831, his
widow, Mrs. Abigail Moore Mills, was married to Dr. Emmons.  She
was the  sister of Rev. Zephaniah Swift Moore, D. D., President of
Williams and afterward of Amherst College, who was an admirer of the




444                        MEMOIR.
Franklin divine. She was a lady of an attractive and commanding
aspect, great amenity of manners, a sagacious mind and a pious heart. She
was admirably fitted to cheer the veteran student as he persevered in his
inquiries after truth, and she was not called to rejoin him in his higher
life, until she had witnessed the success of his posthumous Works, and
rejoiced in the indications that his successors would award to him the justice which was withheld by his contemporaries.
~ 4. The Renewal of his Public Activity.
The light is often re-illumined after it has flickered in the socket. We
read of one who regained his strength as soon as his body touched
the ground. Emmons descended to a private station, but at once rose
again into public activity. As in his earlier, so in his later years, he
illustrated his favorite principle, that the Christians of the United States
are summoned, first of all, to the Home Enterprise (see pp. 194-200),
and to the removal of those barbarous usages which at once disgrace and
endanger their land.
A. -His Services in the Cause of Anti-Masonry.
It had been his lifelong tendency to prize individual thought, to rely
on such truth as could stand in the light of day, to opposefactitious
influence, especially if it be secret. Accordingly he frowned upon all
Institutions that aimed to hide their light under a bushel. He knew
that many eminent divines were Free Masons; and that many, -
among them, even Dr. Charles Backus, while they did not unite with the
Lodge, consented to preach before it. But the open-hearted Emmons
had long predicted mischief from the clandestine Union. He uttered,
eighty years ago, the very complaints against the structure of Free
Masonry, which its political opponents began to utter, about thirty years
ago. When the political opposition rose against the Masonic Brotherhood, about the year 1830, he had no change to make in his opinions.
-le then expressed before the world, what he had been wont to utter
before his pupils and parishioners. He was then eighty-five years old,
but letters from fresh Anti-Masons poured in upon him in profusion,
soliciting his presence at their Conventions, and urging him to say in
public assemblies what he had always declared in social circles, that the
Masonic Lodge is "an imposition on the world," by means of its gaudy
displays and " pompous titles" and allurements to vice. The services
which he then rendered to the cause of Anti-Masonry, have been
acknowledged by the most eminent Anti-Masons of that day. One




MEMOIR.                                 445
of the Conventions chose a Committee to express their gratitude for the
letter which they received from him, and to which they listened "with
sentiments of high consideration," and with a " deep feeling of joy."
B. - His Services in the Cause of Anti-Slavery.
Calvinism has been stigmatized by its foes as a barbarous creed.
Emmons esteemed it as, in its essence, humane.  He was grieved that
any of its friends should hesitate to condemn the system of American
Slavery.  He had condemned it in his earlier and in his later sermons.
He had spent his life not only in " making joints," but also in breaking
chains.  His Congregationalism  was Anti-Slavery.  When the modern
excitement against the chattel-system  sprang up more than a quarter of
a century ago, it found him where he had been for three quarters of a
century before.  " Iam ready for it," was his characteristic word.
Ministers have degraded themselves by their political action, when
that action has played into the service of their opulent parishioners.
Emmons rose up in his old age against the rich, and for the poor;
against the judgment of idolized civilians, and for the down-trodden and
despised.  For a long time he stood well nigh alone among the eminent
clergymen of the land, in advocating immediate measures for the emancipation of Africans " whom  God has endued with powers of free moral
agency," who illustrate " the dignity of such men as Jesus came to
redeem."  The Sketches of his Pupils afford a symbol of his influence in
this once unpopular cause.  Another symbol is suggested by the following episode in his life:
His Visit to New York, and to Hallowell.
The interest of a Memoir is often heightened by the journal which the subject of it
wrote, while on a tour through the cities and deserts of Asia. Dr. Emmons once made
a visit to the city of New York! The journey from his native town to that metropolis, is now performed in a few hours. He never looked upon the city until the Spring
of 1835, when he had just entered his ninety-first year. He had then begun a new
life, and having received an urgent invitation from George Douglas, Esq. and Edward
A. Russell, Esq., to make their houses his home during his sojourn in the metropolis,
-the nonagenarian started forth on the longest tour which he had ever made. While
he remained in the city, these hospitable friends did not spare either pains or expense to
render his visit agreeable to himself and his companions. Many individuals and families of distinction were introduced to him, and he was treated everywhere with marked
cordiality and reverence.' His great age, his extraordinary activity both of body and
mind, and especially his antiquated costume, would naturally excite the attention and
curiosity of the multitude. But his eminence as a divine, was the great source both of
the curiosity and respect with which he was beheld.
VOL. I.                      NN




446                             MEMOIR.
It was the week of the May Anniversaries. He attended and highly enjoyed the
meetings of most of the benevolent societies which were held in the day-time. He
was earnestly solicited to take some part in the public exercises, but he uniformly declined, except in a single instance. He did consent to act as President pro tempore,
at the business meeting of the Anti-Slavery Society. He was influenced in this case
to deviate from his established plan, on the ground that the circumstances in which he
was then placed would speak an important language. The flame of liberty which was
kindled in our Revolutionary struggle continued to burn in his aged breast. He knew
that the sacred cause of freedom had recently been assailed in New York by a lawless
mob; and that its few friends were now struggling, not only with the deadly hostility
of slaveholders themselves, but with that unnatural sympathy which these slaveholders
were receiving from many professed friends of freedom. It was interesting to notice
the workings of his patriotic mind, when he received the invitation to attend this AntiSlavery meeting. Some of his friends who were present, advised him to accept, and
others to decline the invitation. He heard them both with candor and kindness, but
made no decisive reply until one of the party said to him, " This may be the last public act of your life." He then immediately arose and said, " I must go."'
It would be a fit study for an artist, to exhibit on the canvas the old friend of Hopkins and Bellamy, as he sat erect in the last decade of his century on earth, and
helped to initiate a new era of freedom in the land of the free.
He returned to his parsonage after an absence of eleven days, in as good health and
as elastic spirits as the most robust of the frienids who accompanied him. The tour
gave him new courage to sally forth on lengthened journeys. In 1837, when ninetytwo years old, he took a second steamboat excursion to Hallowell, Maine, the residence of his son, Hon. Williams Emmons. Returning to his old study he remarked
with his wonted buoyancy, that he " might yet cross the Atlantic and make the tour
of Europe." In April, 1838, when he was ninety-three years old, he took his last
journey on earth, attended the ordination of his parishioner, Rev. A. R. Baker, at
Medford, Mass., and visited Salem, Boston, Dorchester, and the neighboring towns.
Politicians, as well as divines, came out to welcome him during these excursions, and
received from him such racy, terse lessons as they afterwards loved to repeat in house.
hold
~ 5. His New  Popularity.
" He buffeted a strong current all his days, both in Church and State."
He  concealed no truth because it was distasteful, he proclaimed no
opinion because it was flattering to men. He resisted the clergy as well
as the laity, his own denomination as well as "sectarians" when he
deemed them  wrong.  His frank avowal of dissent from  friends and
foes, his independent and stern reprimand of rulers and people, theologians and infidels, high and low, made him for a time obnoxious to public censure. His meditations under the cloud of popular ill-will, were
philosophical as well as Christian.  " In the end, and on the whole, the
evil will bow down to the good:" "A faithful minister will be honored
at last by the men who receive his reproof, and by the men who reject
it; and he enjoys all the benefit which he does confer upon the former,




MEMOIR.                                 447
and all which he strives to confer upon the latter: "-  such were his prophecies of the reward that awaited him. He lived to see the cloud of his
unpopularity roll away.  Seldom  has an author been loved with more
enthusiasm by the considerate opponents of his doctrine. In an oration
delivered by Judge Theron Metcalf, before the Phi Beta Kappa Society
of Brown University, September 4, 1832, eight years before the death of
Emmons, a tribute which friends and foes welcomed with a loving heart,
was paid by the erudite jurist to the pastor of his youth, in the following
chaste and memorable words: -
"It might occur, one would think, to the discretion of all men, and especially to
clerical men, that the only way in which lasting respect can ever be acquired, is in the
pursuit of worthy ends by worthy means. Indeed, as a matter of immediate popularity, a clergyman would find his account in the bold and faithful discharge of his
sacerdotal functions, without anxious regard to applause or censure. I need not
refer to Massillon, and Oberlin, and other honored dead, in proof of this suggestion.
But I cannot resist the impulse which inclines me to allude to an eminent living
divine, personally known to many of you; whose plain and unshrinking enforcement
of his own views of truth, whose fearless reprehension of wickedness in high places
and in low, and whose entire devotion, for more than fifty years, to the duties of his
profession, have secured for him a most extensive and reverent respect, no less sincere and profound in the many who reject his peculiar opinions, than in the few who
adopt them. I desire to be grateful, that in the place of my nativity, such an example
of clerical dignity, fidelity, and contempt of the popularity'which is run after,' was
constantly before my youthful eyes; and that such an example of'the popularity
which follows,' is still before the eyes of the public."




CHAPTER  XVIII.
SOURCES OF THE GENERAL INTEREST IN DR. EMMONS.
No sooner had he been called to his home, than the community were anxious to read his Memoir. His prudent associates
were the most importunate for its immediate publication. This
fact, of itself, is a biography. Those who were most familiar
with him, felt that it was safe to expose his inner life, and that
his biographer need not lie in ambush until his contemporaries
were locked up in their tombs. His friends knew that many of
his published writings give no adequate idea of himself as a
man. They were written in the style of a secluded student,
with somewhat of the severity which is natural to one living
aloof from and above his race; but no one exhibition of his
character exhausted him. His aspect, in the pulpit, and in the
controversial treatise, will not display the whole of him. He
had enough of material for five or six different portraitures;
enough of manhood to fill out several quite notable personages.
Not but that he had faults of mind and heart; he not only had
them, but could afford that others should know them. "No
man's character," he used to say, " will bear examining; " and
again,' Everybody has something about him  to spoil him."
But his faults did not prevent him from receiving attentions
which he never courted, or from finding honors which he never
sought. While he disdained to run after the world, many wise
men of the world went on a pilgrimage to him. What were the
sources of the general interest felt in the Franklin metaphysician? The greater part of the following answer to this question
was published by the writer of this Memoir, in his " Reflections
of a Visitor," etc.
(448)








RESIDENCE OF DR. EmiIMONS.
The two windows at the left hand, on the first story, belonged to his study. " I have saved
months of time," he said, " by having my study on the lower floor."




MEMOIR.                                   449
~ 1. The  Cheerful Virtues of Emmons.
Living in a still parish, on a quiet road, he might have been expected to contract
an awkwardness and stiffness of manner, an habitual reserve and shyness, from which
a man of the world is free. Perhaps he did exhibit some constraint when with
strangers in a strange place; but in his own study, no one need be more courteous
and affable.  Cordiality and good-will marked his reception of his guests; whether
they harmonized or not with his political or theological views. They found in him
many sympathies in common with their own; they could not but see that their company was a pleasure to him; and they accordingly felt the ease and self-satisfaction,
which it is the characteristic of a polite man to give his visitors. They expected to
find an austere man, exsiccated by logic and abstractions. But they looked upon a
face which was a picture of hearty kindness and good-nature; and although he was
not unused to a knit brow in his study hours, he would converse on the literature, the
politics, the news of the day, with a freshness of interest belonging to a citizen more
than a scholar. " Whence hath this man these things  " was the frequent query of
his visitors. That large, spacious white house, which every one would know was the
minister's house, with the venerable trees before it, and the neat enclosure around it,
was often called the minister's hotel; and no minister's horse would pass it a second
time, without giving signs of pleasant remembrances.
Constitutionally, Emmons was a wit; if wit consist in the power of detecting such
resemblances between dissimilar objects, and such differences between resembling
objects, as will both surprise and please. Acuteness of discrimination is needed for
discovering these diversities and similitudes. Dr. Emmons was proverbially acute.
Alertness and vivacity of mind are essential for suddenly developing these relations.
His mind was so rapid, that his witticisms would seem to come in showers. A brisk
flow of animal spirits is necessary for that exercise which must at once produce two
effects, astonish and please. He was seldom stupid, and the cheerfulness resulting
from his well-controlled body and peaceful conscience, qualified him to please as well
as to surprise.  " He was the most uniformly cheerful man I ever knew," said a clergyman who had lived in his vicinity for thirty years.
Aware that wit is a dangerous faculty, he was philosophical in his management of
it. He indulged it, as he partook of food, for the sake of preserving that health of
mind, as well as body, which is a necessary condition of the highest Christian usefulness. He was not abstinent in all things, but temperate in all things. It is one
sign of his true greatness, that he could be temperate in an indulgence from which
weaker men abstain through fear of excess. He was free, on the one hand, from
that superstition which dreads, as if sin were there, the appropriate exercise of a
faculty implanted in our natures by God, and the tempered action of which doeth
good like a medicine.  He was generally free, on the other hand, from humoring even
a constitutional susceptibility further than a just equipoise of the system demanded.
When he had slept enough, or drank enough, or smiled enough, he would resume
his toil. The indulgence of wit at improper times, in an improper degree, on improper subjects, becomes levity. From levity he was as free as from stupidity. If a
serious topic required him to leave an amusing train of remark, he would drop his
facetiousness, and show himself at home in the discussion or the admonition. The
facility of his change from the one to the other, indicated that both were under the control of religious principle. When the bow was unstrung, it was so for a wise reason;
NN *




450                              MEMOIR.
and he would generally seize it and bend it at the instant of the summons. " Man,
kind," he was wont to remark, "were made for use, not for amusement."
It is difficult to say how much of his wholesome action had been lost, if he had
harbored that anile bigotry which would banish from our spiritual mechanism the
lubricating oil of joy, without which the wheels drag, and the machine wears out.
A man who could say, when nearly a century old, " I never took' an hour's exercise
for the sake of exercise, in my life," and who had withal some degree of constitutional irritability, would have become a morbid hypochondriac, or an obtuse plodder,
unless his mind had received relaxation and tone, and elastic versatile energy, from
the use of that gift which distinguishes men from brutes, and sane men from idiots.
Indeed, there must have been some such recreation, in order to perpetuate his life
through so many eventful periods, amid so many perplexing and fatiguing studies.
Some men, who are never guilty of startling others with agreeable remarks, have
felt themselves authorized thereby to pronounce a censure upon Dr. Emmons as less
apostolical in his conversation than they deem consistent with the command, "Be
sober." But if sobriety consist in preserving the mental faculties free from indolence
on the one hand, and morbid or useless action on the other, Dr. Emmons was a sober
man. His gravity indeed was not such, that "Newton might have deduced from it
the law of gravitation," yet it was a rational gravity. Few men have been further
than he from that foolish talking and jesting which a scriptural philosophy condemns.
There was a meaning in his wit. It was full of mind. One of our older writers
would have said that his humor was not the " mere crackling of thorns, a sudden
blaze of the spirits, the exultation of a tickled fancy, or a pleased appetite. It was a
masculine and severe thing; the recreation of the judgment, the jubilee of reason."
In what certain men would call his folly, he uttered more wise remarks than these
wise men ever uttered in their wisdom. He knew what to say, and when and where
to say it. In the private circle, on secular themes, he did not always express himself
as if he were in the pulpit. He adhered to the resolution of President Edwards,
"never to utter any thing that is sportive or matter of laughter on the Lord's day."
~ 2. The prolonged Tenacity of his Physical and Mental System.
In several applications of the term, tenacity was a prominent characteristic of his
body and his soul. It marked his predilections for men and things. He was a fast
friend; a steadfast advocate of the truth.  The power of long-continued attention
raised him above common men. It may be said of him as he said of another, "He
could look half an hour at the point of a needle, without moving an eye-lid."  Long
after others had let go their hold of an argument, or of a specific phraseology, he
would hold on, and hold out, and keep hold, and never let go. Possessing an athletic
and well-compacted frame, a sanguine bilious temperament, he was formed for protracted labor, and an old age tenacious of health and energy. Only three days before
his death, he made a remark which, for sprightliness and shrewdness, savored of the
flower of his life. When eighty-three years of age he journeyed from Franklin to
Haddam, driving his own horse forty miles a day, and conversing with singular discrimination. About the same time, he made one unwritten address to his townsmen,
which was generally considered the happiest and most effective that ever came from
him. It has been reported thus:
Some of his former parish, perceiving that their parochial guide had abandoned his




MEMOIR.                                   451
authority, and feeling disposed to taste the sweets of freedom, made an attempt to
introduce Universalist preachers into the old pulpit. The parish were called together
to act upon a petition for opening their meeting-house, occasionally, to other denominations; no particular sect being alluded to, but the Universalists being intended. Some
of the Doctor's friends deemed it advisable to grant the petition, and hoped that a conciliating course would preclude a threatened schism. But he was inflexible. He said
but little, and did nothing until the parish bell rung for the meeting. Then he called
for his horse and chaise, calculated knowingly for the time spent in the preliminaries of
business; and,when he supposed that his townsmen were ready to introduce the main topic,
he rode to the meeting-house door, and with a quick and firm step walked to his pew.
He took the parish by surprise. They had been looking for some other things, but
not for this. The three-cornered hat, they all supposed, had been hung up, and this
sudden re-appearance of it was like a resurrection from the grave. A highly intelligent citizen was speaking at the moment, in favor of indulging the petitioners; but
when he saw the veteran pastor enter the house, he sat down. A deathlike stillness
ensued.  The sight of the octogenarian, at a business meeting of the parish, was so
novel, that nobody could tell what was to come. Having asked, " What is the question now before the meeting  " the Doctor rose, and spoke for half an hour with
uncommon sprightliness; exposed the absurdity of opening the house on the Sabbath
for truth, and during the week for error; of building up one day, what is to be torn
down the next; of weaving a web in the morning, and unravelling it at night.
" This," he said, "is not what you have been taught. It is in the face of what you
have heard for the last fifty years."  He closed his speech with a keen and sarcastic
address to that "respectable class of persons called Universalists."  The petitioners
looked at each other; feeling somewhat like the Indians at Hadley, when discomfited
by the old regicide who suddenly presented himself as if from another world. As he
was wont in his speeches, the Doctor stopped when he had done. Not a sentence was
spoken afterward, except to take the vote, and this was nearly unanimous against the
petitioners. Those who had favored a mitigation of the Doctor's strict regime, united
in the general testimony that his master-piece of eloquence was in a forensic meeting,
when he was about eighty-three years old; and after he had retired from the pulpit
through fear, on his own part, of failing in his extemporaneous performances.
In describing his tenaciousness of mental vigor, there is need of some qualification.
Between the ages of eighty and ninety he retained so much of his acuteness, that
some did not perceive the least waning of his mind. It is doubtful whether there ever
lived another divine whose conversation, when in his ninety-fourth year, on an intricate point of metaphysics, would be treated with especial deference; yet words dropped
by Emmons, in regard to a theological nicety, when he had lived twenty-three years
beyond the prescribed age of man, have been made the theme of prolonged discussion.
But with all his retentiveness of the excellence which he once possessed, the old man
of ninety was correct in thinking that he did not retain the whole. Miracle if he did.
In the vigor of his life, his abstinence from egotism was exemplary. In his waning
age, he lapsed into a habit of thinking aloud concerning himself. IIe had become so
inwardly imbued with the Edwardean doctrine of " love to being in general," and
love to self according to the value of self, that when fourscore years had dimmed his
sense of propriety, he talked about Dr. Emmons as if Dr. Emmons were a third
person. Any mistake which he had made, or injury which he had received, would
be described by him as if they had no relation to him. I once asked him, "Did you
ever correspond with any eminent clergymen in other lands?"  " Not much," was




452                             MEMOIR.
his reply; "I had the following intercourse with Dr. Ryland, of Bristol, England.
In writing to Dr. West, he expressed a desire to correspond with a few of Dr. Hopkins's friends; with any of them, indeed, except Mr. Emmons, of Franklin."  On
the same principle, remarks in his praise would be repeated by the nonagenarian, with
no more apology than if they were in praise of an absent one. These outflowings of
a childlike frankness were agreeable to his friends; but they exposed him to the misapprehension of his foes.
Alluding to the failure of his memory toward the close of life, he was wont to say:
" My mind is just like a sieve. It takes in a great deal, but all that is valuable runs
through."  His loss of power in retaining recent impressions, however, was a foil to
set off his continued power in reasoning from remembered premises. One signal
illustration of his logical faculty, surviving the acuteness of his senses, was given
during a visit which an eminent civilian paid to him while he was on his dying couch.
The civilian, formerly well known by Dr. Emmons, was introduced: " This is Mr.
X. Y."  The Doctor responded: "No! no! this is not X. Y.; " and he persisted
in denying that the true name had been given him, but added: "I am glad to see
you, whoever you are." The civilian engaged in a conversation on bygone scenes, and
at length alluded to an incident connected with one of the Doctor's early sermons.
The old man of ninety-five years roused up: " Did I ever tell you that? When did
I tell you that? I never told that to more than one person. I told it to X. Y. He
knows that, and I know that, and nobody else knows that. But you know that.
Therefore you must be X. Y." Thus did his logic rectify his vision.
~ 3. The Resemblance between his Outer and his Inner Being.
The theory that the soul originally makes or develops the body, would find as
much confirmation in Emmons as in any other man. He was no more erect in his
outward, than he was upright in his inward nature. The neatness and order of his
room and dress, were symbols of the exactness with which his thoughts were classified. He arranged his ideas in conversation, as methodically as he arranged his
books upon their shelves. His chirography was precise like his logic, and he wrote a
better hand at the age of seventy-five than at thirty-five. So did his mental discipline affect his physical organs. The provincial dialect concerning him was: " He
is a spry man."  His gait was brisk.  "My feet are the best part of me," he
replied when told at the age of eighty, that he walked like a youth of twenty. Dr.
South would have said, that "his body was a fit workhouse for sprightly, vivid
faculties to exercise and exert themselves in. It was of so much quickness and
agility, that it not only contained, but also represented, the soul; for we might well
suppose that where God did deposit so rich a jewel, he would suitably adorn the
case."  His hands seldom moved as if they were numb. The twinkling of his eye,
as it darted out some bright idea, was the delight of the eyes of his beholders. His
enunciation was rapid, and this added keenness and point to his repartees. The
manner and the matter of his conversation were often sparkling. His quickness in
retort took his companions by surprise. It was a rare man, who was not sometimes
discomfited by the lightning-like rapidity of the Doctor's sallies, when he was in his
happier moods, and disposed for an encounter of wit. Not his eye only, but his
whole face would appear to scintillate; and his monosyllables would seemingly
spring from him, instead of being passively uttered. Hence the bon-mots which came
from him lose much of their force, when not associated with the vivacity and suddenness which his manner gave them. They did instant execution.




MEMOIR.                                   453
His sermon on the perdition of Judas was republished and reviewed by a Universalist clergyman, the review and the sermon being printed in the same pamphlet.
He was asked, " What do you think of sending out together, before the world, two
such things as your sermon and a Universalist's reply'l"  "It is against the law,"
was his sudden answer; " for it is said in Deuteronomy,'thou shalt not plough with
an ox and,an ass together.'" (Deuteronomy 22: 10.)
On one occasion a Universalist minister called on him, and heard him express his
disapprobation of certain new measures which the orthodox churches were adopting.
His objections were uttered in the privacy of his own parlor, and of course without
the slightest suspicion of their being made public. The next week he was told that
all these remarks were published in a certain Universalist periodical, and would
probably damp the zeal of some sincere Christians.  "No, no," he replied, "that
paper publishes so many falsehoods, that it cannot be believed when it publishes the
truth; and every one who reads my remarks in it, will conclude, of course, that I
never made them."
~ 4. iis Conversational Apothegms and his Socratic Mlethod.
" When I left his study," writes Dr. Joel Hawes, "I always carried away with me
ingots of the most precious metal, to be worked up at my leisure." His conversation
was full of well defined sentences which could be easily detached from their conclusions, and thus answer the etymology of the word, aphorism. On almost every one
of the following remarks, he has been known to discourse with divisions and subdivisions, as regular as those of a Chapter on Syllogisms.
" The less Christians conform to the world, the more will the world conform to
them."
"The more men have multiplied the forms of religion, so much the more has vital
godliness declined."
"The weakest spot in every man is where he thinks himself to be wisest."
" If men will define depravity and volition as they ought to do, they will understand
the most important doctrines of the Bible."
"Strict Calvinism  brings God near to us; all opposing systems put him  far
away."
"Reason is the same thing in God, in angels, and in men."
"No blank in time or in duty did God ever make or mean; hence there can be no
work of supererogation."
"Of the two Edwardses, the father had more reason than his son, but the son was
a greater reasoner than his father."
" Whatever President Edwards investigated for himself, he understood and mastered; but in his treatise on Original Sin, he took his first principle on trust, and
hence is like a great horse floundering in the mire. The more he tries to push
through, the deeper in he gets."
" Retail geniuses are worth nothing. Go to the wholesale merchants, if you wish
to buy knowledge."
" There was not a divine in America who understood the true use of the means of
grace, until Sandeman drove some upon correct ground."
"The great objection to the writings of Tillotson, Barrow, and that class of
preachers is, that they never teach the difference between a good and a bad man."
Being asked what is the difference between Natural Depravity and Original Sin, he
replied: " Natural Depravity is the truth; Original Sin is a lie."




454                              MEMOIR.
Being asked, " What is space?" he replied, "Nothing."
" Never reason from what you do not know."
"A man ought not only to know the truth, but to know that he knows it."
"If I were to prepare for the ministry again, I would study law first."
"If I had not chosen to be a minister I would have been a lawyer."
"I like lawyers best at a distance."
"I never could see how some persons could so manage as to be claimed on so
many different and opposite sides. Why, I was never claimed only on one side, and
hardly on that."
"I go," he said at the age of ninety-three, " with the Old School of New England
divines half way, and then turn round and oppose them with all my might. I go with
the New School half way, and then turn round and oppose them with all my might.
The Old School must say less of passivity, the New School more of dependence."
At the age of ninety years Emmons adopted the following Socratic Method, in his
conversation with a theological teacher: "Do you believe that God is the efficient
cause of sin?"  " No."  " Do you believe that sin takes place according to the usual
laws of nature?   "Yes."  "What are the laws of nature according to Newton? "
" They are the established modes of the divine operation."  " Do you approve of that
definition "  "Yes."  "Put those things together."
"Do you believe that God is the efficient cause of sin?"  "No."  "Do you
believe that he created the world by his mere volition; that he willed, and it was
done?"  "Yes."  "Do you believe that his will is creative; that he has only to
put forth a volition for an event, and the event takes place?   "  Yes."  " Do you
believe that on the whole he willed sin to exist?"  "Yes."  "Was not his will
creative then? " Pause. - " Is there any more harm in causing a thing to be, than
in willing it to be?" Pause. - " My theory is, that God causes moral evil in the act
of willing it; and you believe that he performs that act. If it be wrong to cause the
evil, it is wrong to will it. I believe that he caused it, in no sense morally different
from that in which you believe he willed it. Where, then, is the great discrepancy
between you and me? "
~ 5. The Combination of apparently discordant Attributes in his Character.
One of our Theological Reviews has classed him with the German transcendentalists, and has ranged side by side the names of Hegel and Emmons. A more frequent criticism is, that he is too empyrical, plodding continuously over one low plain.
Thus do men divide a great mind among different parties, giving to each a due proportion, and implying that the excellences of each may be gathered into one comprehensive spirit. What he was as a theologian, the same was he as a man. He not
only aimed to combine, in one great scheme of Consistent Calvinism, various truths
which seem to conflict with each other; but he also loved to combine, in one consistent
character, the different virtues which seem to be mutually antagonistic.
He was a man of authority. One of his parishioners, riding homeward after a
brief absence from town, overtook a chaise driven so slowly and surely, that it was
known to be the minister's. " What shall be done. Shall I pass the carriage of Dr.
Emmons? Shall Iride before him? That will never do."  So the parishioner turned




MEMOIR.                                  455
into a cross road, went two miles or more out of the direct course, and thus gave play
to the respectful instincts which his people generally felt toward him. Still he was
affable and simple as a child. Men did not suspect, either in his presence, or in his
absence, that he was desirous of gaining admiration by affected reserve, or of concealing
a weakness under the garb of profound,abstracted thought.
He was a prudent man; else he could not have ruled so long and so well, in the
Lord's house, especially during such exciting scenes as those of our Revolution, and
the succeeding years. Yet he was frank, wearing before his heart a glass through
which his companions might look. At times he was too transparent; but, in the
general, it was his open-heartedness which gave so peculiar a charm to his character.
Instead of evading an inquiry which he preferred not to answer, he would frankly tell
you that he chose to be silent.  " I do not wish to be catechised on that subject," was
his reply to a distinguished Professor, who was pushing a personal examination rather
too far. You would feel confident in his society, that you knew his attachments and
aversions; sure that he was not searching for your opinions, in order to make such a
use of them afterwards as you would dislike; free from suspicion that he was conversing as a diplomatist, and using language for the purpose of concealing his own
thoughts and exposing yours.. He never stooped in ambush, nor allowed his opposers
to complain that they were decoyed upon false tracks. If, like some of the apostles,
he had received a new name at the time of his ordination, what better name could
have been given him than that of Nathanael? for he was an Israelite indeed in whom
was no guile.
His simplicity was one of his noblest qualifications for a theological inquirer.
When a divine becomes interested in dark and petty manceuvres, he loses his affinity
for the truth which is noble and as the light. He mystifies what is plain, complicates
what is simple, and makes that crooked which the Bible has made straight.
Modesty and self-respect are qualities which, though seldom coalescing in one man,
were happily blended in Dr. Emmons. When he was in company with three or four
strangers, he could not easily converse in the hearing of them all, but was embarrassed
unless, while conversing with a single one of the strangers, the others were attending
to something more than his words. He distrusted his ability to satisfy or please other
men. Until the last Sabbath of his labors in the pulpit, he felt a tremor in view of
addressing a multitude.  " In one hour it will all be over," was the remark which he
often made for the sake of tranquillizing his agitated system, as he appeared before an
assembly. His diffidence or bashfulness did not, as it does in some, result from mere
nervous weakness, or from being unaccustomed to society, or from a self-esteem which
receives no sanction from the deference of the bystander. He was naturally predisposed to think of himself no more highly than he ought to think, and to esteem other
men, in some respects, above himself. But not in all respects. He knew his own
worth, and did not succumb to his brethren, when he believed that an impartial judge
would require concessions from them. He was not arrogant, but where he felt that he
had a right to govern, he governed. If one whom he knew to be his inferior assumed
a lordly attitude, and spoke to him in the tones of a master, he signified to the supercilious disputant, that it were well for every man to keep his own place. He did not pretend to know what he was ignorant of, but sometimes confessed his inability to give
the information which was desired and expected of him. He would not defend his
assertions when he suspected them of unsoundness; but if he had made a mistake, he
made an atonement for it by confessing it. On one occasion, he was severely criticized
by the well-known Mr. Niles, afterwards Judge Niles of Vermont, before an Associa



456                             MEMOIR.
tion of ministers, to whom Dr. E. had just preached a sermon. He replied to the
criticism, acknowledging its justness, and remarking that, somehow or other, he had
not gotten into his subject when he wrote the discourse. His critic interrupted him,
saying, " No, no, Mr. Emmons, that is not the difficulty; here it is; the subject never
got into you."  The criticism, he afterwards remarked, was no more severe than just.
He once spent several hours in company with Dr. Burton, his distinguished opponent
on the "taste and exercise" question, and was asked by one of his pupils, after the
conversation had closed, " What was the result of your discussion with your antagonist? "  "No result," was the frank and modest reply. " Neither of us broached the
subject."  Why? "We were both too much afraid of each other."
He had a peculiar mode of reproving an opponent, which indicated both his modesty and his confidence in his own opinion. Being aware that every important doctrine is liable to some objections, he was contented to show that the doctrine of his
opposer was liable to greater objections than his own. When pressed with a difficulty,
his resort was to prove that the same difficulty was involved in the system of his adversary. If, therefore, his opponent were pertinacious in repeating a query, which
neither party could answer, he would say reprovingly, " You have no right to ask me
that question; it belongs to you as well as myself; I can answer it as well as you, and
you as well as I."
He was not always, however, thus delicate in rebuking an opponent. A divine of
no small eminence, having read Dr. Emmons's sermon on the Atonement, a sermon
which was encountering at that time some opposition, sent to the Franklin minister
the following epistle, which was considered rather too laconic, magisterial, and patronizing to comport with the apostle's rule for the treatment of elders: "May 1st. My
dear brother, I have read your sermon on the Atonement, and have wept over it.
Yours affectionately, A. B. C."  These admonitory words were no sooner read, than
the following reply was written and sent to the Post-office: " May 3d. Dear Sir, I
have read your letter, and laughed at it. Yours, Nath'l. Emmons." The reader will
perhaps admit that there was no shorter way of reminding a man in high life not to
overlook modest worth; and of showing that an elder in the church must be reasoned
with before he is wept over. Few men could endure more meekly than Dr. Emmons
to be voted down, or to be reasoned down, or even to be laughed down, but he had a
peculiar repugnance to being publicly wept down.
There was a rare combination of candor with inflexibleness, of kindness with severity, in Dr, Emmons. He was aware that some readers of his works had been led
by his phraseology, to look upon him as devoid of the milder graces. When such a
reader once remarked to him, " I have come several miles out of my way to see you,"
he smiled, and said, " Now you see the bear. Men go out of their way to look at me,
as if I were a wild beast. But see, I have no horns."  Such was the confidence of
his friends in the mellowness of his temper, that even the insane of his parish would
sometimes insist on being sent to the parsonage for relief. When their request was
granted, they uniformly received from him that gentle and affectionate treatment
which their malady demands. He early adopted the same principles for the treatment
of this afflicted class, which are now adopted by our most scientific physicians. Those
who have read what in common parlance are called his Pharaoh and Jeroboam sermons, and thence derived their notions of his character, would little expect that his
company would be sought as a balm for the wounded spirit, and a soothing appliance
for an irritated nerve.
We might proceed in developing the combination of diverse excellences in Dr. Em



MEMOIR.                                   457
mons; his union, for example, of celerity with caution, of impulsive energy with constancy and perseverance. If he had been a heavy moulded man, too lethargic to turn
his eyes away from the one object that he happened to be plodding over, it would not
have been so noticeable that he sat for threescore and ten years at one study table.
~ 6. His Consistency with himself.
In portraying the character of Emmons, it would be easy to make his Self-Consistency the central attribute, around which all his other virtues would arrange themselves. Psychologists may labor in solving the problem, how he could reduce so
many original speculations into one system so well harmonized. He could not have
succeeded so well, if his mind had not moved by clock-work. In this, as in other
particulars, his personal character had an influence upon his scheme of theology, and his
scheme of theology upon his personal character. Men were interested in' him because
he was original in his feelings, as well as in his thoughts. IHe felt, not because others
did, not because men had taught him that he should feel, but because he felt spontaneously, as himself, for himself. His emotions being his own, were harmonious with
one another. It was commonly said of him, Every one knows where to find him,
what he will think of a new measure, how he will treat an old friend. It would be an
absurdity for him to appear with a bell-crowned or leghorn hat, to ride in an uncovered
carriage, or a worn-out chaise. Standing up, or sitting down, at home or abroad,
silent or conversing, cheerful or grave, he was just like himself.  " He never did that,
for that does not sound like him," was good logic with regard to his conduct; and
this was his great distinction above other men. He did not follow a party, but always
meant to follow truth; he did not yield to a fashion, but always meant to comply
with the canons of taste. Wherever his best friends went, he went with them  or
stayed behind, just as he was advised by his fixed principles. Hence his life is a study.
It had one organizing force, and became a unique system.
~ 7. His Peculiarities of Manner.
He did not attain that entire well-rounded completeness of character which allows
not even an outward idiosyncracy. He sometimes worked his intellect with so great
intenseness, and found so little intermission of his cares, as to lose for a few moments
his wonted amenity, and to say or do things which might with reason be expected of
a laborious recluse, but not of a perfect man. Still it is not extravagant to affirm,
that no hard student ever passed seventy years, in one room, with fewer morbid excitements; and if, for a short time, some scholars may have surpassed him in kindliness of manners, these were rare favorites of Providence; and after all, his smiles
were diffused through so long a life, that perhaps, in the end, they would outnumber
those of the happy men who contracted their joy into a briefer period.
His peculiarities added a freshness of interest to his life. One of them was, to stop his
conversation in an instant, when he perceived that neither himself nor his friend in the
colloquy was deriving either pleasure or profit from the intercourse.  (See pp. 77, 78,
above.)  He would desist at once from  a dispute, when his antagonist repeated an
objection which had just been answered three or four times, or proposed a question
which was too simple or absurd to merit a reply, or persisted in misunderstanding
what he had explained over and over again. He knew that he was thought to have a
genius for caustic repartees, and he chose to be utterly silent rather than to indulge in
VOL. I.                        00




458                              MEMOIR.
them. This silence was intended for a reprimand to his antagonists, but was sometimes interpreted as a sign of his own discomfiture.
He was visited once by a theologian of extensive fame, who allured him into a
debate on the theory of optimism. The objector closed his lengthened argument
against the Edwardean doctrine with this query: " If you now say, that the present
universe is the best possible, what would you say if the universe were made twice as
large and twice as good as it is? Would not the doubling of it augment its value  "
Dr. Emmons blushed, and made no reply. The visitor reported that this one question
confounded the Franklin optimist. I heard the boast, and afterward inquired of the
veteran who had been thus silenced, whether he remembered that fatal question. " I
do," was the reply. "Why did you not answer it?" was my second query. "It was
the question of" -a man who did not understand the rules of logic [the Doctor in fact
used a more racy phrase than this long periphrasis]. If the present universe is the
best possible, then it is the best possible in its relations, and any increase of the created
good would disturb the best relations of that good to the Creator, and would thus
be on the whole an evil. I had repeated that idea so often, that I could not afford to
utter it again."
Another divine of great renown, supposing that Dr. Emmons believed the soul to
be nothing more than a series of exercises, addressed to him this question at the close
of a protracted controversy: " On your principles, cannot God create holy feelings in
the back of that chair on which you are now sitting? "  I once heard this interrogator
say: " When I proposed my query to Dr. Emmons, he blushed, and could not say
one word in reply."  But the reddened mute referring to that interview and that
query, remarked: " He asked me a nonsensical question, and I made him no answer."
-In the year 1786, forty years before this conversation, Emmons had published the
sentence: " The horse and the mule, which have no understanding, and indeed all the
lower animals, are utterly incapable of holiness, and even Omnipotence himself, to speak
with reverence, cannot make them holy, without essentially altering theframe and constitution of their natures. But man is capable of holiness."  Having reiterated this
idea again and'again, through a longer period than his interrogator had breathed the
air, the venerable disputant preferred to waste no more breath in repeating so trite an
adage.  (See pp. 412, 417 above.)
On the eleventh of August, 1838, when he wanted less than seven years of being a
centenarian, he was visited by another divine, who afterwards published an essay, filling more than a hundred and fifty duodecimo pages, in regard to his " Memorable
Interview." In the flow of his conversation this distinguished visitor used such words
as "mercurial," "summation," "facade," "eclaircised," "contour," "alembic," "truth
eliciting fecundity," etc., etc. Now the old man of ninety-three years had been long
wonted to drink seven spoonsful of new milk, warm, pure, and fresh from  the cow,
every morning and evening, and along with this innocent liquid he had imbibed a
prejudice, as we all at that time of life may lapse into some antipathy, against the use
of new or Gallic or Latinized words in any familiar talk. But his guest not only
made a display of learned polysyllables, he also accused the nonagenarian of believing
that it is wrong for men to love themselves, that all love to self is sin, that men are
commanded not to love their own happiness in the least degree. The patriarch was
amused if not amazed, by this charge, for he knew that he had taught exactly the




MEMOIR,                                   459
opposite doctrine before his accuser had learned the English alphabet; and that the
entire system of Emmonism is built up on the principle that every man may, and
must, and should, love himself; that this love to self'is a privilege, an instinct, and a
duty.' (See pp. 393, 394, above.) The veteran kept his patience while his oratorical
friend exhibited the proof that men have a right to love themselves. This doctrine
being proved, as Emmons had proved it sixty years before, the listener broke his
ominous silence by the words: "Why, I am wrong; surely I am wrong, Sir."  It
was a characteristic reply. He meant it as a laconic reproof to his accuser. It was a
pithy announcement that he anticipated no more edification from that colloquium. But
his guest misinterpreted the sententious irony, as he had misunderstood the entire
creed of the patriarch. He exclaimed: "I am wonderstruck and overwhelmed. We
seem to reach a result portentous, unexampled, unexplained." —"I give you the
credit and God the glory, of your making a magnanimous confession, the like of
which, its proper parallel, I never knew before as a fact in history"! The magnanimous patriarch deemed it of no use to rectify this new misapprehension; and, when he
was left alone with his family, one bright word about the interview shot forth from him
like a meteor, and he never alluded to it again. It was his life long habit never to
triumph over the mistakes of friend or foe.
~ 8. He was a Representative of the Ancient Divines of New England.
Dr. Emmons often spoke of himself as being left alone, all the old familiar faces
long since veiled from his view. There has ever been a melancholy and sombre interest flung over such a man, staying so long behind his time, and watching over the
fourth generation of his successors. He has been likened to the bird that lingers in a
northern hemisphere, long after its companions have sought a more genial clime; to
the soldier compelled to slacken his movements, and loiter alone in the land of the
enemy, when his comrades have marched through, cheered with the sound of the
bugle and the society of a full band, in the hope of soon regaining their home and
enjoying their laurels. He has been compared, by an ancient poet, to the oak that
stands solitary, after the surrounding forest has been hewn down, and that stretches
out its stiffened arms, as if to implore mercy from the winds and the storm.
The regimen of Emmons, in body as well as in mind, illustrates the healthful discipline of the New England fathers. Both he and they were formed for long life.
They were so regular in their habits, so free from the excitements to which the clergy
are now exposed, they held so tense a rein over their passions, that they could not
waste away and consume themselves as their successors do. Mr. Stoddard, of Northampton, died at eighty-six; Dr. Increase Mather at eighty-four; Dr. Cotton Mather
at sixty-five; Dr. Stiles at sixty-eight; Dr. Johnson at seventy-six; Dr. Hopkins at
eighty-three; Dr. Bellamy at seventy-two; Dr. Hart at sixty-nine; President Chauncy, of Harvard College, and Dr. Chauncy, of Boston, at eighty-two; Dr. Smalley at
eighty-six; Dr. West at eighty-four; Dr. Strong at sixty-eight; Dr. Lothrop at ninety.
Rev. Joseph Adams, of Newington, Maine, an uncle of President John Adams, sustained an active pastorate at Newington sixty-eight years, the longest active pastorate
ever known in New England, and he died May 20, 1784, at ninety-five years of age.
Emmons reached as great an age, and but for his modesty, might have held on as
long upon a single pastorate.  His life exemplifies the rules for permanent influence.




460                             M EMOIR.
"Were you familiarly acquainted with President Dwight?" I once inquired.
"Many and many a time," he answered, "have I dandled him on my knee. When I was
at Yale I used to take him up in my arms. He was a very pretty boy." Thus did the
patriarch bring us near to men whom we associate with all that is great. He not only
resembled the fathers in his antique dress, his ancestral pronunciation, his courtly
manners, his cheering repartees, but in his principles of reasoning, and the general style
of his thought. He was a recent man, but an ancient theologian. His remarks on both
the Edwardses, and on the school which they founded, are numerous enough and important enough to form a volume of the Dogmatic History of New England.
He has been often condemned for employing terms which express an intellectual state,
when he means to express a moral state. Thus he speaks of " approving " a character,
when he intends to include the idea of preferring that character; and he uses the
phrase, "a right sense" of truth, when he means to imply a right choice of that truth.
But in this peculiarity of style, he represents President Edwards, and other fathers of
New England.
He has been criticized for a smaller degree of familiarity with the Hebrew language,
than has been attained by John Cotton, Thomas Thacher, Cotton Mather, Presidents
Dunster, Chauncy, Cutler, Stiles, and other New England fathers. He acted on the
principle of Martin Luther, that "to make a good and judicious Christian, it is not
enough to understand Greek and Hebrew. St. Jerome, who knew five languages, is
inferior to St. Augustine, who understood but one."  As is said of Dr. Sangrado, "he had published a book," before the clergy of New England were initiated
into the modern science of criticism, and we must not expect that a man of seventy
years will remodel his style, and look out for shevas and dagheshes at the opening of a
new era in sacred literature. It is rare praise which is rendered to John Knox, that he
began his study of the Hebrew when he was fifty years of age.
We wish that Emmons had been an immaculate divine. Still, in the imperfection
of his Hebrew learning, he represented the majority of our ancient theologians. Both
he and they attended more to the analogy of faith, to the consecutiveness of the inspired thoughts, than to the Hebrew words in which those thoughts were clothed.
We must remember, that there are witlings who sneer at Lord Bacon for his ignorance
of many truths which are now taught at the infant school. But the child who can do,
at the present day, what a giant could not do in days of old, is still a child, and may
never become a giant. Our fathers were Biblical students, and Biblical preachers, although more conversant with the matter than with the Hebraistic form, with the substance than with the oriental drapery of the inspired oracles. Instead of triumphing
that we find so many exegetical errors in their works, we should wonder that we find
no more.




CHAPTER XIX.
THE CLOSING SCENES OF HIS LIFE.
SOMETIMES it appears to the readers of Emmons that his favorite theme of meditation was, Old Age.  A volume might be
filled with his thoughts on this topic.  During his hale manhood
he  had  been  preparing himself for a likeness to  "good  old
Barzillai,"  who  seems to have been one of his favorite  characters.  In the same anticipatory  spirit, he spent " the chairdays of a most reverend age " in schooling himself for his last
lesson on earth. The following are,
~ 1. His Meditations on Death.
"It is a great thing to die.  The thought of it is very solemn and almost overwhelming.  I have now a great deal of time to think, and I do
constantly think of the change that is before me. I sit here and think of
the disembodied spirit, the nature of that change which the soul undergoes at death, and the condition of those who have entered the eternal
world."  These were the remarks that fell from him  two years before
his journey to the better land, The style of his meditations on that
journey, on the manner of starting, on all the things that would befall
him in his progress, on his arrival at his long home, on his employments
there, is intimated throughout his writings.
"Departed spirits never get lost on their passage from this to another world, however great the distance. They are probably conveyed by those good or evil spirits
who attended them through the scenes and changes of their probationary state. Good
men are attended by good angels, and bad men by bad angels. They know by their
conductors whither they will be conducted. Who can conceive the strong and strange
emotions of their hearts, while traversing unknown regions with their new conductors
to the places of their final and eternal residence  "
"If the conversion of a soul fills all heaven with joy, there is reason to think that
the arrival of that soul in Paradise spreads a greater and more general joy among the
blessed who had been waiting for the happy event. While those who are left lament;
00  (461)




462                            M EMr o IR.
those who meet, rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory. The spirits in prison
are not less, though differently, affected by the arrival of a poor, miserable, guilty,
malignant spirit among them. Like Dives, they dread the increase of their numbers,
which adds poignancy to their torments. The prophet forewarned the king of Babylon, that hell from beneath should be moved at his coming."
" When saints arrive in heaven, they are without doubt severally conducted to the
mansions which Christ has gone before to prepare for them. And those who have
acted a better part on the stage of life, and done more good in the world than others,
may be rewarded according to their works, by having better seats assigned them;
that is, by being placed nearer the throne of God, and the personal presence of Christ."
-" As the principalities and powers in heavenly places may be seated above the patriarchs, the prophets and apostles, so these may be seated above common Christians,
who will be in the same manner locally distinguished and favored according to what
they had done and suffered for the honor of Christ."- " They will feel that gratitude
to their Redeemer which angels cannot feel, and sing that song of praise which angels can never learn, and will give Christ a pleasure which angels cannot give him.
Their peculiar love to Christ will excite his peculiar love to them, and move him to
put them into the best mansions in his Father's house, where they must be the happiest of created beings."
In his Memoir of himself, after grouping together the afflictions of his
later life, he says, -and this is near the last, perhaps it is the very last,
passage which he wrote in his Autobiography: " I now enjoy, as I have
generally enjoyed, a good state of health, and have good reason to say,
IIitherto the Lord hath helped me.'  I know the time of my departure
is at hand; and I think I can say with some sincerity, I have fought a
good fight, I have nearly finished my course, Ihave kept the faith, and
cherish a comfortable hope, that I shall finally receive that crown of
righteousness, which awaits all the faithful ministers and followers of
Christ."
Conversing on the probability of his speedy  removal, the simplehearted pilgrim said: " When I first enter heaven, I shall feel ashamed
of myself, that I have done no more good on earth." -  Again, "When
I first enter heaven, I shall say, By the grace of God I am what I am,
and where I am."
On another occasion, in the same view of his speedy departure, Dr.
Ide describes him as saying: "I want to go to heaven. It is an inexpressibly glorious place. The more I think of it, the more delightful it
appears." After expressing his desire to behold the exhibition of divine
glory in the upper world, he added: " And I want to see who is there;
I want to see brother Sanford, and brother Niles, and brother Spring,
and'Dr. Hopkins, and Dr. West, and a great many other ministers with
whom I have been associated in this world, but who have gone before
me.  I believe I shall meet them  in heaven, and it seems to me our
meeting there must be peculiarly interesting."   "I want to see, too, the




MEMOIR.                           463
old prophets and the apostles. What a society there will be in heaven!
There we shall see such men as Moses, and Isaiah, and Elijah, and
Daniel, and Paul. I want to see Paul more than any other man I can
think of."- " I do love the gospel. It appears to me more and more
wonderful and glorious every day. I think I now understand something
about the gospel; but I expect, if I ever get to heaven, to understand a
great deal more." - The question in some form or other, was suggested,
Whether he was certain of obtaining salvation? He replied, " I cannot
say, I am certain that I shall be saved; but I have no doubt on the subject."- " I have an assurance of faith. I can say, I do know that the
doctrines which I have preached are true. And I can almost say, I
have an assurance of hope. I have no doubt that, through Jesus Christ,
I shall be saved."-~ He often,' as his son-in-law remarks,'spoke of
Christ as the only foundation of his hope, and he described the satisfaction
which he felt at the thought of being saved through him alone.''Hie frequently,' Dr. Ide continues,'expressed surprise that God
spared him so long; and although he uniformly appeared to be patient
with the continuance of life, and often expressed his conviction that long
life was a blessing; yet there were times when he evidently desired to
depart.  Some days before his last sickness, he was suddenly taken ill,
and fears were entertained by his friends that he would not recover.
While one of them was conversing with him in the evening, he said, "I
hope I shall be permitted to go, if it may be the will of God, before
morning." But during the night he revived, and in the morning was
much better. He said to the same individual,  "I am sensibly relieved,
and I may be spared some time longer, but I cannot help feeling disappointed."'
Though a submissive veneration was the most obvious feature in his
religious developments, yet I have sometimes heard him converse on the
heavenly state with the familiarity of one whose thoughts found their
home in the skies, and with the artlessness of one who did not query
with himself how his thoughts would appear if made known to the world.'I have no doubt,' he once remarked to me,'that spirits will know
each other in the coming life -and how many inquiries shall we have
to make of each other! It will be pleasant to see and converse with
Adam and Noah, and the patriarchs; but I think I shall be as anxious
to be introduced to the apostle Paul, and Martin Luther, as to any one
who has gone there before me.' I can never lose the impression made
upon me when, at the age of ninety-four, he spoke of his decease, which
he must speedily accomplish; and said with a child-like diffidence, and
with the simplicity of a great man,'I confess that I look forward with
interest to the time when I shall see Abraham and Isaac and Jacob. I




464                        MEMOIR.
have a great curiosity to look upon David and Isaiah; and I long to
talk with Paul. Paul was a wonderful man. But especially will Jesus
Christ and God fill my thoughts. I do not know, however, that I shall
be saved. If another man should be the subject of all my exercises, I
think I should have a hope of him. But it is a great thing to be allowed
to enter heaven. Perhaps I shall be shut out. But if I am not saved,
I shall be disappointed.' The semi-tone with which this last word was
uttered, the rigid pressure of his lips, and the long pause that followed
it, bespoke at once the humility, faith, and submission which he had
cherished in his bosom, as a jewel too precious for the promiscuous gaze.
I left him a few moments afterward with the profoundest reverence for
his piety, and I never saw him more. There was something in his
silence, - in what he did not utter, except with his significant eye, -
that beggars description.
~ 2. His Decline and Death.
After his ninetieth  year the internal cancerous affection which
finally terminated his life, began to debilitate him.' His bodily strength,'
says Dr. Ide,'failed in slow degrees, and although on the whole he
continued to enjoy a remarkable flow of spirits, yet there were short
intervals when his usual vivacity was suspended. During a portion of
every day he would appear dull, and sometimes would remain for hours
in a gentle slumber. At other times he would be wakeful, lively, and as
bright as in the days of his youth. Even until the period when he
became unable to speak, there were intervals when his judgment appeared as sound, his conversation as full of practical wisdom, as at any
former period.'He spent his time principally in reading, until he became too weak
to endure this exercise. At the age of ninety-one and two, it is believed
that he devoted as much time to books as most ministers do in the
meridian of life. Though he could not long remember what he read,
yet he appeared to understand it as well, and to enjoy it as highly as
ever; and it afforded him fresh topics of interesting conversation with
his friends from day to day. At this late period, he not only made himself acquainted with the leading periodicals of the time, but he also
encountered many a massy volume. When he became unable to read,
he would listen attentively to the reading of his friends. During the
last year of his life, he seldom attempted to use his own eyes on the
printed page, but would attend for consecutive hours to the books read
to him by his attendants. When visited by his grandchildren, he would
spend a part of the time in amusing and instructive conversation, and then




M E M OIR.                         465
request them to read or sing to him.' It is an interesting fact that, as
he early acquired a fondness for sacred song, so he did not lose his
musical taste until his dying day.
This dying day did come at last. After having lived the life of a selfscrutinizing and self-suspecting Christian for seventy years, having been
far more conversant than the majority of our best men, with those aweinspiring themes, Sovereignty, Decrees, Reprobation, Justice, Eternal
Penalty, Disinterested Submission, he was at length told that his end
drew near, and he must soon stand in the presence of his Judge. "I am
ready," was his reply; and to those who knew him, he could not have uttered more consoling, more satisfying words. They were the index of his
decided, matured, considerate hope; a hope formed under the influence,
not of the promises merely, but of the threatenings also; not solely of
God's forbearance, but also of his inflexible rectitude. It was the hope
of a man looking to the cross indeed, but also to the august and pure
throne; of one who had exalted the gospel, and magnified the law. Had
he been less rigid and unbending in his enforcement of the stern precepts
which come from Sinai, less cautious and reverent in his exposure of
those religious feelings that are almost too sacred to be exposed, the
three words,'"I am  ready," had not been so full of meaning; but now
they were the history of the man, of his past fears, his present hopes.
He measured his syllables, and shrunk back from  the least parade of
piety. And if, after the application of his rigid tests, he dared to express a hope, even a trembling hope, of receiving a welcome to paradise,
we instinctively repose a steadier confidence in that hope, than if it had
not passed through so protracted and fiery a trial.
During his last sickness, he would say but little.  His throat was in
such a state, that he could seldom utter an intelligible word. He appeared,
in general, to enjoy the perfect use of his reason, and several times he
seemed very desirous of communicating something to those who stood
near him, and made a great effort to speak articulately and distinctly.
But his meaning could only now and then be ascertained. A few hours
before he died, he turned his eyes upon one who sat by his bed, and
addressed him with great earnestness for some time. It was peculiarly
painful to behold him striving in vain to make himself understood, and
no small disappointment to his friends not to know what he would say in
his departing moments.  But he had left nothing to be done in a dying
hour.  He had given his friends and the world entire satisfaction in
regard to his own preparation for heaven. They had repeatedly heard
from his lips when in health, all, and more than all, which any man
could impart in death.




466                        MEMOIR.'It is gratifying, however, to know that up to the time when the
power of speech was taken away, his conversation was such as to indicate a readiness to meet his change. He was asked if he expected to
recover, and he answered " No."  He was asked if he had any fear of
death. His answer was, "I cannot say that I have no dread of the
passage through the dark valley; but I am  not afraid of what is
beyond."  "Your hope then sustains you in this trying hour," replied
his friend. "O  yes, I believe that I shall be accepted. I shall be
greatly disappointed if I am not."  He was asked if he was desirous "to
depart and be with Christ."  His answer seemed to indicate some remains of an instinctive dread of the agonies of death, while it showed
that his heart was in heaven. "I don't wish to die to-day, nor tomorrow; but the thought that I shall soon be gone gives me pleasure."
He always had a very great dread of pain, or bodily suffering. It was
his desire, if it might be the will of God, to have an easy passage from
the earth. And during his sickness he frequently expressed his gratitude that he went down so gently, and his hope that his removal might
be without a severe struggle. But it was the will of God that he should
taste the bitterness of death.  During the night previous to his departure, his distress for breath was frequently very great. Just before the
closing scene, however, he was comparatively free from pain, and when
he actually left the world, it was with so little alteration in his appearance that no one in the room could tell when he ceased to breathe.'On Wednesday, the twenty-third of September, 1840, about three
o'clock in the morning, his spirit took its upward flight. Though this
event had been for some time daily expected, yet when it came it produced a sensation which could not be anticipated. Every one felt that a
great and good man had fallen, that a valuable friend had been taken
away, and that the community had sustained an irreparable loss. "The
glory is departed," was written upon the walls of his house, and desolation marked the place of his former residence.' -Dr. Ide's Miemoir,
pp. 123, 124.
On the day of Emmons's death, he had reached the age of ninety-five
years, four months and twenty-two days.
~ 3. The Solemnities that followed his Death.
At eleven o'clock on Monday, the twenty-eighth of September, fortyfive clergymen assembled at the Franklin parsonage to look, for the last
time, upon the face with which some of them had been familiar for half
a century. Rev. David Long of Milford, offered a prayer at the house,




M EM O I R.                          467
and then the procession was formed for the Sanctuary.l Between two
and three hundred children, whose fathers and grandfathers or even great
grandfathers he had baptized in their infancy, walked first in the procession, and were followed by the men and women of the Society, after
whom came the members of the Church, " not one of whom took an
active part in his settlement."  He had requested to be buried in a plain
black coffin.  It was borne on a hearse, eight elders of the town serving
as Bearers, the youngest of whom had passed his seventieth year, and
eight clergymen officiating as Pall-Bearers, the eldest of whom was in
his eighty-first year. These clergymen were Rev. David Kellogg, D. D.
of Framingham, Rev. John Pierce, D. D. of Brookline, Rev. Benjamin
Wood of Upton, Rev. Elisha Fisk of Wrentham, Rev. Calvin Park, D. D.
of Stoughton, Rev. David Long of Milford, Rev. John Codman, D. D.
of Dorchester, Rev. Mark Tucker, D. D. of Providence, R. I.  On
arriving at the front door of the Sanctuary, the immense procession
opened to the right and left, and the Bearers "bowing under the weight
of years, carried the remains of their pastor through the weeping
throng."  In the draped old meeting-house, the anthem, " Iheard a voice
from  heaven," etc., was sung by the choir, without the aid of a single
musical instrument; the twelfth chapter of Ecclesiastes was read by
Rev. Thomas Williams; the ninety-ninth Psalm  of Watts, "Exalt the
Lord our God," etc., was sung; the Funeral Prayer was offered by
Rev. Elisha Fisk; the sixty-seventh Hymn of Watts's Second Book,' Great God, how infinite art Thou," etc., was next sung; a sermon
occupying an hour and fifty-seven minutes in the delivery, and holding
the undivided attention of the audience, many of whom were dissolved in
tears was delivered from Ecclesiastes 12: 8, by Rev. Thomas Williams,
who, more than twenty-two years before, had been requested by Dr.
Emmons to preach his funeral discourse; the closing prayer was offered
by Rev. Dr. Codman; the Psalm, " From all that dwell below the skies,"
etc., was then sung.  The procession, being again formed, moved to the
grave, passing the old mansion where the pastor had lived seventy-five
years.  At the burial-ground an original hymn was read, after the
primitive manner, line by line, and sung to the tune of Old Hundredth.
Nothing could be more affecting, than to see the old men weep as the
1 It is an interesting fact, which may deserve a mention here, that not only did
Emmons's parish remain entire, but his meeting-house remained unaltered until his
death. The high pulpit, and the old square pews were not removed while he lived.
His funeral was the last religious service performed in the house, before it was modernized. The day of his death had been appointed for the commencement of essential
repairs upon the edifice, but in consequence of that event they were deferred; and the
dismantling of the church did not begin until the day after the interment of the
patriarch. It was fitting that so long as he lived, all things should remain as they
were aforetime.




468                          M EM OIR.
coffin was laid in its last resting-place.  Then IHon. Williams Emnons,
the only surviving son of the deceased, with a voice well nigh choked
by emotion, expressed the thanks of the bereaved household for the
sympathetic attentions of the vast concourse.  A  large part of the
assembly had travelled many miles to mingle in these solemnities, and
had fasted from early morning until the sad rites were closed, at five
o'clock in the afternoon.
Dr. Emmons had requested that his grave-stone be like that of his
parents, and each one of his buried household, - a plain blue slate stone.
His epitaph is in these words
To the Memory of
REV. NATHANAEL EMMONS,
Pastor of the Church in
Franklin.
Born May 1, 1745.
Ordained April 21, 1773.
Died Sept. 23,1840,
In the 96th year of his age,
and the 68th of his ministry.
The truths of the gospel,
and the duties of his sacred
calling, were his delight.
" He meditated on these
things, gave himself wholly
to them, and his profiting
appeared to all."
On the seventeenth of June, 1846, his admiring parishioners held a
jubilee as they erected another monument to Dr. Emmons, on the common between his ancient dwelling-house and meeting-house.  The shaft
is of granite, seventeen feet high, resting on a granite pedestal four feet,
six inches in length and breadth, two feet, one inch in height. It is enclosed with an iron railing, and bears on its front the simple inscriptionN. EMMONS, D. D.
Aged 96.
Rev. Mortimer Blake, of Mansfield, Mass., delivered an able address
at the erection of the Monument; Rev. T. D. Southworth, of Franklin,
President of the Monument Association, made an appropriate speech as
he deposited various documents of historical value in the recess of the
granite structure; two original hymns were sung, and all the solemnities
of the day awakened a fresh interest in the man, who had been known
and loved by four generations of the town.




















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