PREACHED AT THE
FIRST PRECINCT AT NORTHAMPTON
AFTER THE PEOPLE’S PUBLIC REJECTION OF THEIR MINISTER, AND RENOUNCING THEIR RELATION TO HIM AS PASTOR OF THE CHURCH THERE.
ON JUNE 32, 1750;
Occasioned by Difference of Sentiments, Concerning the Requisite Qualifications of Members of the Church in Complete Standing
Acts. xx. 18.Ye know, from the first day that I came into Asia, after what manner I have been with you at all seasons Acts. xx. 20.And how I kept back nothing that was profitable unto you, but have showed you, and have taught you publicly, and from house to house. Acts. xx. 26, 27.Wherefore I take you to record this day, that I am pure from the blood of all men. For I have not shunned to declare unto you all the counsel of God. Gal. iv. 15, 16.Where is then the blessedness ye speak of? For I bear you record, that if it had been possible, ye would have plucked out your own eyes, and haven given them to me. Am I therefore become your enemy, because I tell you the truth?
PREFACE.
It is not unlikely, that some of the readers of the following Sermon may be inquisitive concerning the circumstances of the difference between me and the people of Northampton, that issued in that separation between me and them, which occasioned the preaching of this Farewell Sermon.—There is, by no means, room here for a full account of that matter: but yet it seems to be proper, and even necessary, here to correct some gross misrepresentations, which have been abundantly, and (it is to be feared) by some affectedly and industriously made, of that difference. Such as, that I insisted on persons being assured of their being in a state of salvation, in order to my admitting them into the church; that I required a particular relation of the method and order of a person’s inward experience, and of the time and manner of his conversion, as the test of his fitness for Christian communion; yea, that I have undertaken to set up a pure church, and to make an exact and certain distinction between saints and hypocrites, by a pretended infallible discerning the state of men’s souls; that in these things I had fallen in with those wild people, who have lately appeared in New England, called Separatists: and that I myself was become a grand separatist; that I arrogated all the power of judging of the qualifications of candidates for communion wholly to myself, and insisted on acting by my sole authority, in the admission of members into the church, &c.
In opposition to these slanderous representations, I shall at present only give my reader an account of some things which I laid before the council that separated between me and my people, in order to their having a just and full account of my principles, relating to the affair in controversy.—Long before the sitting of the council, my people had sent to the Reverend Mr. Clark of Salem Village, desiring him to write in opposition to my principles. Which gave me occasion to write to Mr. Clark, that he might have true information what my principles were. And in the time of the sitting of the council, I did, for their information, make a public declaration of my principles before them and the church, in the meeting-house, of the same import with that in my letter to Mr. Clark, and very much in the same words. And then, afterwards, sent in to the council in writing, an extract of that letter, containing the information I had given Mr. Clark, in the very words of my letter to him, that the council might read and consider it at their leisure, and have a more certain and satisfactory knowledge what my principles were. The extract which I sent in to them was in the following words: