A copy of the original covenant of Second Parish in Hingham \u2014 since 1770 called the First Parish in Cohasset \u2014 appears in the ministry record book used from about 1741 to about 1796 by ministers of the congregation. Those ministers were Rev. John Fowle (minister from 1741-1747), Rev. John Brown (minister from 1747-1791), and Rev. Josiah Shaw (minister from 1792-1796). That original covenant was adopted in 1721.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Given the current interest in covenant among Unitarian Universalists, I thought I’d post a transcript of this covenant, along with some supplementary historical information from this book. If we’re going to claim that covenant is a key part of our history, we need to understand that history \u2014 and what better way to understand that history than to look at some early covenants.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Some extracts of diverse matters, extracted from the records made by Rev’d Nehemiah Hobart [probably copied out of that earlier book by Rev. Josiah Shaw c. 1792]. …<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n July 13th 1721. I, Nehemiah Hobart, came into this parish, & preached a fast, & continued constantly preaching here, until Decem. 13th 1721, when I was ordained pastor of the Second Parish in Hingham.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Here follows some account of the Church of Christ in Cohasset, or rather as it then was Second-Parish in Hingham \u2014 extracted from the Manuscript-Record kept by Rev’d Nehemiah Hobart, first Pastor.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n A Church gathered at Hingham Second Parish Decem. 12th 1721. \u2014 The Covenenant as followeth viz.:\u2014 We whose names are subscribed, apprehending ourselves called of God do unite & joyous together in bands of Gospel Communion & fellowship, for our mutual support & edification, in our Lord Jesus Christ: Under a Soul Humbling sense of our unworthiness of being in Covenant with God, our own insufficiency in, and of ourselves yo keep covenant with him. Humbly relying on free Grace for assistance, & with humble confidence of Acceptance We do in the name of our ord Jesus Christ, in the presence of God & his holy angels explicitly [?] & expressly covenant and bind ourselves in manner & form following \u2014 viz \u2014 We do give up ourselves unto God, whose name alone is Jehovah \u2014 Father, Son, & holy Ghost \u2014 To God the Father, as our chief and only good, & as our Lord Jesus Christ, as our Prophet, Priest, and King& only Mediator of the covenant of Grace \u2014 & unto the Spirit of God as our only Sanctifier & Comforter. And we do give up ourselves to one another, in the Lord, covenanting and promising to walk together as a Church of Christ, in all ways of his [illegible], according to the prescriptions of his holy word, promising with all tenderness and brotherly love we will with all faithfulness watch over one another’s souls, & that we will freely yield up to the discipline & power of Christ in his Church, & attend those seals & [illegible], & whatever ordinances Christ hath appointed & declared in his word; & wherein we fail & come short of duty, to wait upon him for pardon & remission, beseeching him to make our spirits steadfast in his covenant & to own us for his Church and covenant, people forever. Amen. \u2014 Nehemiah Hobart. …<\/p>\n\n\n\n 1721\/22 Febry 18th. … The persons who signed the Covenant were the following. Nehemiah Hobart \u2014 John Orcutt \u2014 Stephen Stoddard \u2014 Thomas James \u2014 John Jacobs \u2014 Ebenezer Kent \u2014 Jospeh Bates \u2014 Elijah Vinal [?].<\/p>\n\n\n\n [A later note in different handwriting states:] The males only, 8 in number, signed the covenant, at the gathering of the church \u2014 but about 21 females were immediately admitted [to full communion] \u2014 making the church to consist of 29 members.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n I notice several things about this covenant:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2014 The covenant was drafted and signed only after several months of weekly preaching. No doubt there were many conversations between Nehemiah Hobart and the people of Second Parish.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2014 It appears that the covenant was not written out and signed until a couple of months after the church was gathered.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2014 The covenant is with their God first, and after that with other humans who follow that God. In other words, the vertical dimension comes first; the horizontal or human dimension comes second.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2014 Their understanding of their God included a conception of a trinity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2014 The covenant does not explicitly state any relationship to other churches. However, there were implicit obligations assumed between the new church and other churches, e.g., the council that examined and ordained Hobart was made up of ministers from nearby churches.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2014 Women did not sign the original covenant.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A copy of the original covenant of Second Parish in Hingham \u2014 since 1770 called the First Parish in Cohasset \u2014 appears in the ministry record book used from about 1741 to about 1796 by ministers of the congregation. Those ministers were Rev. John Fowle (minister from 1741-1747), Rev. John Brown (minister from 1747-1791), and … Continue reading “An 18th century covenant”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[931,938],"class_list":["post-10393","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-religion-people-places","tag-covenant","tag-puritan-history"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/yauu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10393","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/yauu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/yauu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/yauu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/yauu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10393"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/yauu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10393\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10394,"href":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/yauu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10393\/revisions\/10394"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/yauu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10393"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/yauu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10393"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/yauu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10393"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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