"Revolutionary times having produced a disposition to investigate all the former principles and opinions of men, in politics and church government, Mr. Haven caused the mode of admission into the church to be altered. This was done in 1793. The new method required the candidate to be propounded to the congregation by the minister. If no objections within fourteen days were made, he was then of course admitted. At the same time the church covenant and creed was altered, and made very general in its expressions. This creed had so few articles, that all persons professing and calling themselves Christians, would assent to it without any objections. The church had ever in this place required of its members guilty of unlawful cohabitation before marriage, a public confession of that crime before the whole congregation. The offending female stood in the broad aisle beside the partner of her guilt. If they had been married, the declaration of the man was silently assented to by the woman. This had always been a delicate and difficult subject for church discipline. The public confession, if it operated as a corrective, likewise produced merriment with the profane. I have seen no instance of a public confession for this fault, until the ministry of Mr. Dexter [1724-1755], and then they were extremely rare. In 1781 the church gave the confessing parties the privilege of making a private confession to the church, in the room of a public confession. In Mr. Havens ministry, the number of cases of unlawful cohabitation increased to an alarming degree. For twenty-five years before 1781, twenty-five cases had been publicly acknowledged before the congregation, and fourteen cases within the last ten years. This brought out the minister to preach on the subject from the pulpit. Mr. Haven, in a long and memorable discourse, sought out the cause of the growing sin, and suggested the proper remedy. He attributed the frequent recurrence of the fault to the custom then prevalent, of females admitting young men to their beds, who sought their company with intentions of marriage. And he exhorted all to abandon that custom, and no longer expose themselves to temptations which so many were found unable to resist.