£_ ^^tauCds.lt

V|\a/v2.5

THE TESTIMONY ESTABLISHED.

-A. SEEMON
BY THE
Rev. 'E. E. BEARDSLEY, D.D., LL.D.

THE TESTIMONY ESTABLISHED.

J± SEEMON

Preached at the Re-consecration op

Christ dfjurrlj, Jobbing JftibgF,

Friday, July 6, 1888.

E. Edwards Bbardsley, D.D., LL.D.

Kector of St. ThouiaB'a Churcu, New Haven.

Reprinted from the Newtown Bee. *

PRESS OP TUTTIiB, MOREHOUSE & TAYLOR, NEW HAVEN.
1888.

THE TESTIMONY ESTABLISHED.

We WILL NOT hide them prom their children, showing to the
generations to come the praises op the Lord, and his strength,
and his wonderful works that he hath done.
For he established a testimony in Jacob, and appointed a law
in Israel, when he commanded our fathers that they should
MAKE THEM KNOWN TO THEIR CHILDREN. — [PSALM lxxviii, 4, 5.]
The Church of God was not provided for a single age. It
was intended to be perpetuated, to be kept up from one gen
eration to another and wonders were wrought in behalf of the
people of old to make the truth a living power among them,
as well as to establish the law of divine righteousness.
This Psalm, the longest of the historical Psalms, opens with
a call upon the Israelites to incline their ears to the oracles of
God. Speaking in his name and by His authority as an
inspired messenger, the writer comes forward to rebuke sin
and ingratitude and to bring out sharply and clearly the lessons
with which the past teemed. What was done to punish rebell
ion by the special interference of Jehovah may be done again
by the ordinary exercise of His Providence, if in these days
the conduct of believers be marked chiefly by forgetfulness of
His benefits, by murmurings at His dispensations and by gen
eral ungodliness. It was laid as a solemn duty upon the Israel
ites that they should pass down from generation to generation
what the Lord had done for them, so that parents were bound
to acquaint their children with the historical, as well as the
preceptive and doctrinal parts of their religion. All revealed
truth is a sacred trust, given to us, not for ourselves alone, but

that we may hand on the torch to others. As the text affirms :
" We will not hide them from their children, showing to the
generations to come the praises of the Lord, and his strength,
and his wonderful works that he hath done.
For he established a testimony in Jacob and appointed a law
in Israel, when he commanded our fathers that they should
make them known to their children."
It need not be said in this presence that the Christian Church
is the continuation of the. Jewish, and that, considered collect
ively as a body, it cherishes the ancient law appointed in Israel
and holds out, through its Divine Head, the offers of salvation,
not to one tribe or family only, but to the whole human race.
When our Lord commanded little children to be brought unto
him ; when he took them up in his arms, laid his hands on
them and blessed them ; when he declared that each of his
followers must " enter the kingdom of heaven as a little child,"
he was showing the identity of his religion in this particular
with the patriarchal and the Jewish and how the best natural
affections may be enlisted in communicating Christian instruc
tion to the young and pre occupying their minds with right
views and devotional sentiments. Future generations and ages
to come are helped to the remembrance of religious duty by
the good lives and righteous deeds of children as taught by
their forefathers. It has always been admitted to be a blessed
thing for our church in Connecticut that its earliest clergy,
with rare exceptions, were men of blameless character. They
stamped upon it an impress which it has strongly retained.
Every time I dip into their work my reverence for them is
revived and I thank God that he gave us such champions to
" establish his testimony."
There was no minister of any religious denomination what
ever on Redding Ridge when Henry Caner came up from the
center of his mission in Fairfield in 1727 to look after and
serve a few families here that professed attachment to the doc
trines and worship of the Church of England. Among these
families were some who well understood the principles of their
belief and contended for them with an earnestness and self-
sacrifice which no amount of opposition or persecution could

overcome. What was rooted in this village and in the neigh
borhood grew into a tree which spread its salubrious branches
far and wide and formed a shade and shelter for the refresh
ment and comfort of those who desired to worship God in the
' forms of the liturgy. We look back with amazement to the
days of bigotry and religious intolerance and wonder now how
good men could have opposed with so much bitterness the
introduction of Episcopal ministrations into the colony of
Connecticut. When John Beach announced to his flock in
Newtown, over which he had been settled as a Congregational
pastor for eight years, that, from a serious and prayerful exam
ination of the Scriptures and of the records of the early ages
of Christianity, he was fully persuaded of the invalidity of his
ordination and had determined to conform to the Church of
England and seek orders therein, he filled this region with
alarm and excitement and a lawful town meeting was called to
consult what was to be done with him after such a declaration.
It ended in the severance of Mr. Beach from the ecclesiastical
society in Newtown and the appointment of a day of solemn
fasting and prayer to be observed by the inhabitants of the
town " under the present difficult circumstances."
And now the dismissed or deposed minister is on his way
home, as it was termed at that period, for Holy Orders.
Lemuel Morehouse and others, "members of the Church of
England in Reading and Newtown," 1 have put into his hands
a petition to bear to the Venerable Society for the Propagation
of the Gospel to the effect that he may be returned, according
to his own desire, to the scene of his former ministrations, and
the petition has been granted. Hither he comes and enters in
faith upon the work which for half a century he prosecuted
with singular intrepidity and unremitting diligence. The
hardships that he endured, the trials and tribulations through
which he passed, in fulfilling his ministry and defending with
his pen the church of his adoption from the bitter assaults and
misrepresentations of enemies, made him a prominent figure in
the ecclesiastical history of the time and drew closer around
1 Church Documents, Connecticut, vol. i, p. 149.

him a people who never ceased .to regard him with love and
veneration. During his long pastorate, interrupted only by
occasional illness, he divided his residence between Redding
and Newtown and officiated alternately on Sundays in their
respective houses of worship, often going from one to the'
other and holding a third service in the evening. His week
day ministrations reached out to Ridgefield, Danbury, New
Milford and other places, in all of which the Church has since
become stronger than on this spot where he had, in the most
prosperous days, about 300 hearers and wrote so many en
couraging letters to the Venerable Society. He lived to see a
first and a second church built in each of his mission stations,
which was a gratifying evidence of his faithfulness and of in
crease in the strength and number of his people. These
churches, as in other towns of the colony, were constructed
of wood, and of the plainest architecture, in keeping with
the rustic habitations of the early settlers, but they answered
well their purpose and have been succeeded by the more con
venient, substantial and ornate structures demanded by the
luxury, the culture and wealth of the present day.
I have no doubt that churchmen loved and honored those
rude old sanctuaries with all the interest and affection which we
bestow on ours now. They travelled, many of them, it is cer
tain, six, eight and ten miles to offer in them prayer and praise
and to be publicly instructed in the way of Christian truth and
duty. Long years ago, when I was holding my first pastoral
charge in Cheshire, a venerable parishioner presented to me a
manuscript sermon written by the Rev. John Beach. It was
delivered to your ancestors in this village in 1754 and from the
text, " Keep thy foot when thou goest to the house of God
and be more ready to hear than to give the sacrifice of fools,
for they consider not that they do evil," he drew lessons which
are as significant and important at one time as another. A
single passage may be cited for its peculiar pertinency to this
occasion :
" When we are in the house of God, we should say, as
Jacob did, ' How dreadful is this place — this is none other but
the house of God and this is the gate of heaven.' God says,

' Ye shall keep my Sabbaths and reverence my sanctuary.'
The reverence is not to be paid to the place for itself, but to
God whose house it is and who is here in a special manner.
Where two or three meet in His name, there He is. He was
visibly present in the tabernacle and temple by the cloud of
His glory and He is as really present in all the assemblies of
His saints."
Nothing shows the presence of thrift and care so completely
as the neat farm house, kept with all its surroundings in the
best order and giving evidence thereby of the peace, the com
fort and the happiness of its occupants. In like manner, the
neat little church, rising on the hillside or nestled in the val
ley, is among the most attractive objects in a landscape and it
stirred to enthusiasm the sentiment and feelings of the
Christian poet when he penned the charming ballad, —
As I rode on my errand along,
I came where' a prim little spire
Chimed out to the landscape a song,
And glowed in the sunset like fire.
Its cross beamed a beckoning ray,
And the home of my Mother I knew;
So I pressed to its portal to pray,
And my book from my bosom I drew.
How sweet was the service within,
And the plain rustic chant how sincere !
How welcome the pardon of sin,
And the kind parting blessing how dear !
And the parson — I knew not his name,
And the brethren — each face was unknown;
But the Church and the prayers were the same,
And my heart claimed them all for its own. — Bishop Coxe.
More than half a century has passed away since a society
was formed in Cambridge, England, which took for its motto
the words of Horace, Donee templa refeceris ; and its object
was to stimulate an interest in church architecture and espe
cially to direct public attention to the condition of parish

churches throughout the realm, many of which were then
sadly neglected and even sinking into decay. No recent trav
eller in England can fail to note the wonderful restorations and
improvements which have been made within the last few
years of buildings, large and small, set apart for public wor
ship according to the ritual of the Church.
The interest thus awakened in the mother land has been
brought over to this country, where it has developed itself in
the erection or reconstruction of churches better fitted to a
rubrical and more dignified rendering of our service, i A large
part of this congregation may recall the time when the chan
cel arrangements were clumsy and inconvenient, when pul
pits in rural churches, overhung with sounding boards, were
spacious, built against the wall nearly midway between the
level of the floor and the apex of the roof and used frequently
both for the prayers and the sermon. Sometimes, lower down in
front of the pulpit, a high breastwork was raised, and outside
of this stood the Lord's Table, which the minister approached
only on Communion Sundays. The procession of a single
clergyman from the vestry room at one end of the church to
the chancel at the other, and, when a surplice was worn, his re
cession to change for the black gown to deliver his sermon, are
things in the past not to be revived and not pleasant for many
of us to remember.
To say nothing about the new edifices, I believe I am safe in
the statement that since the consecration2 of our present bishop
nearly every old Parish Church in the diocese has been enlarged,
remodeled, beautified or reconstructed. You have done a good
thing for yourselves, my brethren and " shown to the genera
tions to come the praises of the Lord " by richly adorning
your Church and making tasteful improvements in it, conform
able to the spirit and requirements of the day in which we live.3
2 October 29, 1851.
3 The improvements reflect great credit upon the Rector and people
of the parish, and upon the Rev. G. M. Wilkins, Rector of Trinity
Church, Newtown. The handsomely carved Eagle Lectern bears the
inscription: —

9
This chancel, erected by the munificence of descendants of
John Beach, is a fit memorial of one, the intimate convictions
of whose mind could not be smothered by persecution and
adversity or overlaid by the sharp controversies into which he
was unwillingly drawn. How it would have gladdened his
heart to behold the spectacle before us and to have shared with
a bishop and a company of clergymen in a service which it
was not permitted him to witness on this continent. He
labored zealously to build up the Church under the superin
tendence of an earthly head 3000 miles away and never ceased
to wonder why one of the Episcopal order could not be sent
over to perform the Apostolic offices and save young men, who
might have it in their minds to apply for Holy Orders, the
expense and dangers of a voyage to England. It is impossible
to interpret the policy of British rulers in denying the re
peated entreaties of the colonial clergy for the Episcopacy on
any ground but the fear of offending the Puritan element and
exciting the colonies to rebel against the home government.
This lectern is placed here to the glory of God and in grateful recognition of
the valuable aid rendered by the Rev. Gouverneur Morris Wilkins to this ancient
parish of Christ Church, Bedding Ridge.
The memorial gift of the chancel and its furniture is described in a
brass tablet occupying the space over the door leading into the vestry-
room from the rear of the church: —
To the glory of God and to the blessed memory of the Eov. John Beach, A.M.,
faithful missionary of the Venerable Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in
Newtown and Bedding in the troublous times from 1733 to 1783, this chancel is
erected and furnished by two of his descendants.
Near by is another brass tablet which preserves a relic of the early
history of the church in Redding and on which is engraved: —
This bullet was fired at the Eev. John Beach, A.M., while officiating in the
ante-Eevolutionary church of this parish and was found lodged in the sounding
board when that building was taken down and the present edifice erected. Paus
ing for a moment, the venerable pastor repeated these words to the alarmed con
gregation : " Fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul ;
but rather fear Him which is able to destroy both soul and body in Hell." The
bullet is preserved hero as a relic of his loyalty to the Church.
The musket ball forms the center of a Maltese cross in the left hand
corner of the tablet in bold relief to be seen from any part of the
church. Other memorial gifts to the church are recognized with suitable in
scriptions.

10
The narrow statesmanship of the day would not allow any
thing to be done for the Church which might be thought to
put in peril the possessions of the Crown, or interfere with
the trade and commerce of the country. But Providence
worked out the problem in His own way and in time gave us
Bishops untrammelled by the State and free to exercise the
spiritual functions committed to them in the Church of God.
With greater privileges and advantages come greater respon
sibilities. If the age, with its special characteristics, makes
new demands upon the clergy and requires them to meet and
ponder the questions which science and philosophy are per
petually raising, they are not to forget, and the people are not
to forget, the old truths, the old plan of salvation. No era of
religious thought can take away or lower the claims of Christ
and the standard of Christian duty. The worship which your
fathers offered on this summit was to the same God who claims
your homage and worship now. Your present condition is but
a link in a chain of events which stretches over a long period
and teaches you, as the children of a blessed inheritance, not
to be unmindful of what is before you, at the same time that
you are not forgetful of what is behind. The way to keep
alive an old parish that is constantly drained by a stream of its
people running outward is for those who remain to be patient
and more self-sacrificing, to stand fast by the teachings of
Christ and his apostles, which are the standard of the Church
and the rule of its existence. I have often thought that the
early churchmen of Connecticut were more careful to remem
ber the Lord in their wills than men of the present day. You
will not find great stones, elaborate in design and exquisite in
sculpture, erected to their memory in cemeteries, but their
names are written in many a parish re6ord book and, if the
legacies they devised were in some instances absorbed by the
Revolution and in others misused or misappropriated by ves
tries, they show at least a desire on the part of those who made
them to serve the Church after death and help maintain con
stant regular ministrations. Sometimes a man, who has gone
forth to the great city and been successful in accumulating a
fortune and making a name for himself, looks back to the

11
home of his boyhood and the Church where he was dedicated
to God in baptism and, by a timely benefaction, revives the
drooping hopes of the little rural parish and starts it into a
new and better life.
Much is said in these days about Christian unity, for which
we may all labor and pray. Time has mellowed the prejudices
and modified many of the opinions that existed a century ago,
but no true churchman will for a moment maintain that the
decomposition of the kingdom of Christ into a multitude of
sects is a matter of indifference to Him or that all the multi
farious communions around us are of equal value in His eyes.
John Beach never surrendered a cardinal principle of his
belief to gain a friend or secure peace. Pie carried on a war at
a distance in defence of the Church, but here at home he was
gentle as a lamb and taught his people to be so in the inter
course of private life ; else how could he have gone through
the struggles of the Revolution and continued to pray for the
king and royal family. In one of his communications to the
Venerable Society, ten years before his death, he said :
" We live in peace and harmony with each other and the
rising generation of the Independents seems to be entirely free
from any pique and prejudice against the Church."
This is the way for Christian bodies to live side by side.
May the Lord through His Spirit strengthen you and give you
prosperity. By all the hallowed memories of the blessings of
the Christian ministry, by the eucharistical feast, by the bap
tismal rite, by the marriage vow, by the remembrance of your
dead buried out of your sight " in sure and certain hope of the
resurrection to eternal life," by all these, be entreated to hold
the truth " in faith and love which is in Christ Jesus." That
truth will endure when everything which is not true shall have
passed away.

APPENDIX.

It was a delightful summer day when the church was re-opened.
The members of the Parish and visitors and friends from neighboring
towns and villages, gathered at an early hour and occupied every
sitting and standing place in the renewed edifice. The consecration
service was adapted to the occasion by Bishop Williams, and the
morning sermon was preached by the Rev. Sylvester Clarke, Professor
of Homiletics, etc., in the Berkeley Divinity School at Middletown,
from St. Luke II. 14, Glory to God in the highest.
The Bishop was assisted in administering the Holy Communion by
the Rev. M. B. Dunlap, Rector of the Parish, Rev. Mr. Wilkins of
Newtown, and the Rev. Dr. Beardsley.
During the noontide intermission the people were refreshed from the
bountiful tables spread in the Rectory and on the Rectory grounds, by
the good people of Redding Ridge ; and at half past 2 o'clock, the bell
was again rung, and the Church was again crowded. At this time the
Rev. G. P. Torrence, of Bethel, Rev. J. H. George, of Salisbury, Rev.
W. E. Hooker, of Bridgewater and Rev. E. S. Lines of New Haven,
conducted the service.
In addition to the clergy mentiond above there were present Rev. Dr.
J. S. Lindsay and G. S. Mallory of Bridgeport ; Rev. Messrs. C. W.
Boylston, Grace Church, Long Hill ; W. H. Bulkley, of Tashua ; A. P.
Chapman, Sandy Hook ; J. E. Coley, Westport ; B. J. Hall, Danbury ;
and C. W. Kelly, Redding Ridge.
The change in the interior and exterior of the building has made it
almost a new Church. The whole cost of the improvements amounts
to about $5,000.

9002 08540 1462