JOHN COTTON AND HIS MEMORIAL TABLET.

THE good people of Boston, England, it seems, have been celebrating the restoration of the Southwestern chapel of their parish church (St. Botolph's), and, by a pleasant incident, taking in a goodly delegation from America, and especially from Boston, Massachusetts. The occasion, too, was honoured by the presence of the American minister, Mr. Dallas, and other men of note, who, after attending divine service in the church, received a formal address from the Mayor and the Rector, in the restored chapel, and were afterwards hospitably entertained in the Exchange Hall. The chapel itself is but a small affair, being only eighteen by forty feet, and rather plain in its decorations, &c. The prominence given to it is rather, therefore, to be found in the attendant circumstances, than in the thing itself. It seems that the Hon. Edward Everett, and sundry others of the "solid men of Boston," last year contributed £670 for the purpose of renewing the associations between the cities which bear the same name, in Old and New England, and raising some memorial to the famous John Cotton, once Vicar of the parish of Boston, England, and afterwards minister of the "first church" in the Cis-Atlantic Boston. And this is the key note of the whole occasion. As an instance of international fraternization it was a pleasant thing; but Mr. Dallas did well to caution his hearers not to rely too much. upon these casual interchanges of feelings, but rather for both nations, acknowledging their national differences, to learn habitually to respect each other.

It is very creditable to Mr. Everett and his coadjutors to have lent their aid in this restoration, and in what we may say, we beg that no one may imagine that we seek to lessen the credit due to them for having done "the handsome thing

* In some of the reports of the day's proceedings, Cotton is spoken of as "vicar" of Boston, in America, as well as in England. This satisfies us, among other things, how little the old Bostonians realize as to the character and quality of Cotton's "dissent " and puritanism. There was a good deal of talk, too, about his greatness of mind in exchanging so rich a cure as that of St. Botolph's, for the humble thatched shed in his American home. According to their own account of it, however, he fled for his life from the dreadful persecution of the Star Chamber. It does not require very great magnanimity of mind, or courage, to run for his life!

in this matter. But we must look at this, as at everything else, as Churchmen; and, looking at it thus, we see that its tendency, if not its intent, is to confuse those clear lines which mark the distinction between the Church and all the varied forms of Puritan sectarianism. It is worth notice that the principal object of the contributors was to set up some memorial of the Rev. John Cotton; and £120 went into a brass monumental tablet in honour of him, on which we read: "cruculu divina

Diligenter, docte, sancteque enuntiavisset."

Who was this John Cotton? Mr. Dallas spoke of him as "dissenting from the discipline, not from the doctrines," of the Church of England. And that is, in some sense, true. That is to say, he broke the plain law of the Church, which he had sworn to obey, and dissented from being disciplined therefor; he then fled to America, where he disciplined every body who would not swear to obey the doctrine which he, from time to time, saw fit to teach for the time being. And as for the "doctrine" of the Church of England, he held to some parts of it, as he understood it, and as all the standard authorities did not understand it. In particular, he renounced his own ordination, but held implicitly to the necessity of an ordination by laymen; not having received which, he would not baptize even his own son. Having lost his old land marks, he was blown about by every wind of doctrine, and, able and learned as he undoubtedly was, yielded up his own judgment to the impious ravings of a subtle woman.* Thus, in a "lustre of years," there was a synod called to sit in judgment upon "eighty-two blasphemous, heretical, and erroneous" doctrines which had grown up under Mr. Cotton's own system, and which claimed the protection of his great name.

Considering these things, and considering, too, the ecclesiastical position of most of the gentlemen who contributed to this Cotton memorial, and well knowing that most of them. are men who utterly reject the doctrine of the Trinity, of the Atonement, and of salvation through Faith, to all of which, in some sense, Cotton held so vigourously, that he would have

* Mrs. Hutchinson.

persecuted these very men to death or banishment on account of their religious opinions, we almost wonder at the event.

When, however, we read in the speeches of their representa tives, on this occasion, that he is thus glorified as the founder of the religious liberty which prevails in this country, we cannot but wonder the more. But this time we wonder at what is either their ignorance, or their perversion of history. Have they ever read Cotton on the " Bloody Tenet"? The doctrine laid down there is the doctrine of the Inquisition.

The truth is, that he did inaugurate their system of private judgment by example; but not by precept. He contended, for himself and for his associates, that they might set up their pri vate judgments against the judgment of the whole Church, throughout the world, for seventeen centuries; but he did not propose to allow those who came after him to set up their judg ments against that of himself and his associates, who had recently taken possession of the little territory of Massachusetts. It is not, therefore, for the truth he taught, nor for the liberty which he intended to establish, but for certain results which have followed from his course (which he himself would have abhorred, had he been able to anticipate them), that they build his brazen monument. Could Cotton have realized how, by a perfectly logical deduction from his own doctrine, all the transcendentalism and infidelity of such men as Ralph Waldo Emerson and Theodore Parker, would have become prevalent in his own Boston, and how Socinianism, in one and another form, would have become the controlling power in Massachusetts, he might have been saved from schism. He would have cried out, upon his own beginning of strife, "It is like the let ting out of water; therefore leave off contention before it be meddled with."

The character of the modern Bostonians must have been known to the Bishop of Lincoln, when he chose his text for the occasional sermon, which preceded the banquet. It was from Ezra, iv. 2: "Then they came to Zerubbabel and to the chief of the fathers, and said unto them, Let us build with you, for we seek your GoD as ye do." The newspapers do not give us more than the text, and we are left to conjecture as to how the passage was treated. Probably, in fact, he confined him

self to vague generalities, and carefully abstained from an exposition of the text and its context. The whole passage is singularly apposite to the relation of such men as Everett, Sparks, Bigelow, and most of the other contributors, to the Church of England, but by it their donation should have been refused! It was the "adversaries of Judah and Benjamin who made this proposal; they claimed that they worshipped the same GOD as did the Church of that day; and in words they did so, but they joined with it the worship of idols. They exercised their private judgment, and the second commandment became of no effect; and they felt injured when they were not allowed to worship with God's chosen people.*

"You have nothing to do with us to build a house unto our GOD, but we ourselves together will build unto the LORD GOD of Israel," was the answer of the chief of the fathers. And thereupon what followed? Why, of course just the same thing as happens in our own day, when Churches decline to fraternize in holy things with the sectarians of modern times, who, like their fellows of Ezra's day, would like to join with us just so far as to hide the clear lines which distinguish "the chosen people" from the self-willed sects who profess to us that they "seek the same GoD as we do." And so claim the right to join with us, and to have us join with them, whether we will or no, if not in building churches themselves, at least in the erection, management, and spiritual control of all our other institutions for charitable, educational, and pious purposes. If we answer as did the children of Israel, "Ye have nothing to do with us to build an house unto our GOD, but we ourselves together will build unto the LORD GOD of Israel," we meet with much the same "liberal" treatment which they of old did from the schismatics and sects of that day. "Then the people of the land weakened the hands of the people of Judah, and troubled them in building, and hired counsellors against them to frustrate their purpose, . . and wrote an

They seem to have had as many names as the various sects of modern Boston. There was Bishlam, and Mithredath, Tabeel, and the rest of their companions (i. e.. societies a ), and Rehum the chancellor, and Shimshai the scribe, and the rest of their companions (i. e., societies), the Dinaites, the Apharsathchites, the Tarpelites, the Apharsites, the Archevites, the Susanchites, the Dehavites, the Elamites, &c., &c. Sec. v. 7-10.

a Marginal reading.

แ

ers.

accusation against the inhabitants of Judah and Jerusalem." Had the Bishop of Lincoln made this plain exposition, and practical application" of his text, it would have been much to the point, and might have been fruitful to some of his hearWe do not wish that he had done so, because it was too late to return the proffered and perfected aid in building the temple, and therefore it would have seemed uncourteous and inhospitable. We do, however, beg the attention of our brethren of Boston, England, to the true principles, and bid them beware of the doctrine which their former vicar, Cotton, held, and to consider the danger of too close a fraternization with those who now hold to the faith, or want of faith, of those who thus build the tombs of the enemies and persecutors of the Church, and inscribe upon the tablet raised to such an one, "Vir eximius

Utriusque orbis desiderium et decus."

How much confidence can we, as Churchmen, repose in their declarations, "if we had been in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partakers with them," in their persecutions and wickedness?

The Six Days of Creation; or, The Scriptural Cosmology, with the Ancient Idea of Time-Worlds, in distinction from Worlds of Space. By TAYLER LEWIS, Professor of Greek in Union College. Schenectady: G. V. Van Debogert. London: John

Chapman.

IT is now something upwards of half a century since Dr. Chalmers avowed the opinion, that the Mosaic record does not determine the antiquity of the globe. We shall see, hereafter, that a similar view had been taken nearly fourteen hundred years before, by a much greater man than Dr. Chalmers. The avowal, however, all the circumstances considered, was a very bold act for Chalmers was then but just entering on his brilliant career, and had no stock of fame to give his opinions weight or currency; moreover, he was a minister of the Established Church of Scotland, and as such had to confront a formidable array of fast-rooted prejudices and prepossessions.