ART. II. THE LIFE AND CHARACTER OF EMMONS.

By ENOCH POND, D.D., Professor in the Bangor Theol. Seminary.

The Works of NATHANIEL EMMONS, D.D., late Pastor of the Church in Franklin, Mass.; with a Memoir of his Life. Second edition. Six volumes. Boston: Congregational Board of Publication. 1861.

THE religious community are under great obligations to the Congregational Board of Publication for this new and enlarged edition of the Works of Dr. Emmons. The former edition, published in 1842, has been for some time exhausted, and the many calls for it, which could not be supplied, made a new issue indispensable. The Works, as now published, are a great improvement on the former edition. In the first place, there is a new and elaborate Memoir of Dr. Emmons, occupy ing some five hundred pages, from the pen of Professor Park, of Andover; then there is the addition of many Sermons; and the whole is more methodically and scientifically arranged.

In the former edition, the first volume contained a brief autobiography of Dr. Emmons; an "additional Memoir," by his son-in-law, Dr. Ide; and a still further delineation of his character by Prof. Park. These several articles are here embodied in a continuous narrative, and with them a vast amount of other connected matter, including every thing calculated to throw light on the personal history, character, labors, and general influence of Dr. Emmons. First of all, we have an account of his birth-place, church relations, and family connec tions; then of his collegiate and professional education; and then of his settlement at Franklin, and of his early studies and labors as a pastor. Next we are informed of his first and second marriage; of his particular friends, associates, and correspondents; of his interest in national affairs, and in the polity of the churches; and of his early connection with the

cause of missions and that of education. Following this is a notice of his various publications, and of his theological school, including brief sketches of most of his hundred theological students. We are next presented with an elaborate critique upon Dr. Emmons, as a preacher and pastor, and also upon his system of theology. This part of the memoir will be read with great interest by ministers and other theological men. The whole is concluded with a particular account of his domestic afflictions, of his retirement from the ministry, and of the closing scenes of his long and useful life.

Such is a brief sketch-the briefest possible-of this extended memoir; including a history, not only of Dr. Emmons personally, but of the times in which he lived, and of the numerous incidents, running through almost a hundred years, which went to form and illustrate his character, and set forth the extent of his influence and usefulness. The preparation of such a memoir must have cost the writer a vast amount of research and labor; but it has been labor well bestowed. Prof. Park has erected a monument, more enduring than that of the granite block which rears itself in Franklin, to the memory of his friend, and his father's friend-a monument that will stand, and be studied and admired, in years and generations yet to come.

We have said that this edition of Emmons' Works is an improvement upon the former, in that it contains quite a number of additional discourses, and the whole is more methodically and scientifically arranged. Besides the memoir, the first volume contains twenty sermons, the most of them ordination sermons, and all of them on topics connected, directly or indirectly, with the great subject of preaching. The second and third volumes are occupied with discourses on systematic theology, arranged as before, under twenty-four general heads, but containing more than twenty additional sermons. This will be a great advantage of the second edition over the first. The three last volumes contain some hundred and sixty sermons on miscellaneous topics; some of them upon social and civil duties, some to the afflicted, and all of an experimental and practical character; showing that the author was not, as some have supposed, a mere theologian, but one who faithfully

dealt with the heart and conscience, and applied his theology to the character and life.

and

In giving a sketch of the life of Dr. Emmons, our limits will not permit us to go minutely into detail. He was born April 20th, old style, in the year 1745, at Millington, a parish of East Haddam, Conn.; the same town which gave birth to David Brainerd and Edward Dorr Griffin. He was the sixth son, the twelfth and youngest child, of his parents. In his youth he was averse to labor, but loved learning; and after much entreaty, obtained permission of his father to commence the study of languages, at the age of seventeen. He was fitted for Yale College in about ten months; and though his class contained some distinguished scholars, as Dr. Lyman, Dr. Wales, Gov. Treadwell, and Judge Trumbull, yet, in the judgment of his classmates, he was accounted worthy, at the close of his collegiate life, of the most honorable appointment which they had it in their power to confer. Being destitute of property, he engaged, for several months, in the business of teaching; after which he entered upon the study of theology, first with Rev. Mr. Strong, of Coventry, father of the late Dr. Strong, of Hartford, and afterwards with Rev. Dr. Smalley, of Berlin.

Dr. Emmons was blessed with pious parents who, he says, gave him much good instruction, and restrained him from all outward acts of vice and immorality. He was the subject of frequent and deep religious impressions almost from childhood, but seems not to have experienced a change of heart until after he began to study for the ministry. The account which he has left us of his impressions and feelings, preceding and accompanying this most important change, is highly satisfactory, and must be given in his own words:

"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 qualifi cation for the ministry. Nor did I ever indulge a thought of preaching, unless I had some good reason to believe that 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, in great anxiety and distress. This impression continued 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. I read certain books which convinced me that the best desires and prayers of sinners are 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, 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 benevolence should prevail universally among mankind. I felt a peculiar complacency 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 every body of the glory and importance of the Gospel. These were my views and feelings for about eight months before I became a candidate for the ministry."

The religious sentiments of young Emmons, when he entered college, were of an Arminian character, but of these he was thoroughly cured during his collegiate life, by the instructions of a tutor and by reading Edwards on the Will. He left college a Calvinist, of the old school, and put himself under the instruction of Mr. Strong, who was known to be of the same sentiments. He was here directed to the study of Willard's and Ridgeley's Expositions of the Assembly's Catechism, and other books of the like stamp, by which means he became

thoroughly grounded in the old Calvinistic explanations and doctrines.

Dr. Smalley was under the imputation, at this period, of having advanced some novelties in religion; and why Mr. Emmons was induced to exchange the instructions of Mr. Strong for those of the "New Divinity" teacher, does not appear. The kind of intercourse which he held with his new instructor, and the effect which his teachings produced upon him, he has himself described; and the passage is too interesting to be omitted:

"When I first went as a pupil to Dr. Smalley's, I was full of old Calvinism, and thought that I was prepared to meet the Doctor on all the points of his New Divinity.' 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 the great doctrines of grace, which I have preached for fifty years, are in strict accordance with the law and the testimony."

It was while this doctrinal struggle was going on between the teacher and his pupil, that Mr. Emmons was the subject of that deeper spiritual conflict which was above described. The change in his theological opinions, and his supposed change of heart, were very nearly coïncident.

Having become a convert to the views of his instructor, Mr. Emmons was destined soon to encounter another difficulty. In October, 1769, he appeared before the South Ministerial Association in Hartford county, to be examined for license to preach the Gospel; when it appeared that several of the more aged ministers were opposed to his teacher's sentiments, and of course to his. He had a long and critical examination upon the disputed points; and when the question of licensing him was at length put, several of the ministers voted against it; and one remonstrated against it in writing. The difficulty between the ministers was afterwards adjusted;