Cobb, Rise of Religious Liberty in America. Ch. V

Under this head are grouped all the New England colonies, with the exception of Rhode Island. In them all the Congregational Church was established by law, with more or less of proscription of other forms of worship. This establishment was not by charter or by imposition of external authority, but by act of the colonial legislature at the beginning of the colonies, in conformity with the will of the great majority of the people. Each colony had a spirit of its own in its regard for the established order, in some instances sharply contrasting it with its neighbors. Theocratic Massachusetts and New Haven reverenced the order as the chosen instrument of God, with which a man could interfere only to his peril, and on conformity to which all civil rights depended. Plymouth and Connecticut loved it as a seemly thing and as conducive to religious and social prosperity, but at the same time recognized the claims of charity toward men of other minds. Of this spirit also was New Hampshire, though for half a century merged with Massachusetts, and afterward vexed by foolish royal governors attempting forcible conversion to the Church of England.

When the men of Scrooby fled to Holland from English persecution, they had no thought of giving up their English citizenship. From 1609 to 1617 they remained in quiet enjoyment of Dutch toleration. But, though never disturbed by the authorities for the sake of religion, they were unsatisfied to remain in a foreign land and become merged in population

alien to their own English stock. Though driven out of England, they were still English at heart and desired to live and to bring up their children under the English flag.

With this desire strong within them they greeted the news of the planting of Virginia with the hope that in the bounds of this infant colony there might be found for them a place, where they could at once be subjects of their own king and enjoy religious freedom. So moved, in 1617, they sent Carver and Cushing to London with propositions toward settlement in Virginia. These propositions, while not evading the Separatist view of Church polity, yet asserted their agreement with the creed of the Anglican Church and their desire of spiritual communion with its members. In civil matters they declared their entire subjection to the king, with “obedience in all things; active, if the thing commanded be not against God’s word; or passive, if it be.” This first informal application to the Virginia company was favorably received, under the kindly influence of the secretary, Sir Edwin Sandys, a man of large liberality of spirit.

On the report of their agents the Pilgrims at Leyden, in December of the same year, transmitted by the hands of Robinson and Brewster their formal request of the company to be allowed to embark for Virginia. With this request was coupled a petition to the king, which brought temporary disaster to their enterprise. The petition sought a formal allowance to them of liberty in religious matters in their contemplated settlement in America. Strange to say, James, whose hatred for presbytery and addiction to prelacy were well known, hesitated as to the character of his reply. Both the king and Villiers seem at first to have looked upon the request with some degree of favor. At all events, they were unwilling to return a negative without advice. This advice they sought from the greatest man of the age, Lord Bacon, whose greatness was equalled, according to the epigram, by his meanness. His courtier-like sycophancy was abundantly able to silence a principle, which his philosophical intellect

might discern, in order to give voice to sentiments more pleasing to his royal master. It is hard to believe that so wise a man as Bacon could have failed to see that toleration at least could be demanded as a natural right; but he failed to express any such thought in his “Letter of Advice” — a letter which both disappointed the Pilgrims and established the administrative policy in religious matters through the colonial era. He says: “Discipline by bishops is fittest for monarchy of all others. The tenets of separatists and sectaries are full of schism and inconsistent with monarchy. The king will beware of Anabaptists, Brownists, and others of their kinds: a little connivency sets them on fire. For the discipline of the Church in those parts (the colonies) it will be necessary that it agree with that which is settled in England, else it will make a schism and rent in Christ’s coat, which must be seamless, . . . and for that purpose it will be fit that they be subordinate to some bishop or bishoprick of this realm. . . . If any transplant themselves into plantations abroad who are known schismatics, outlaws, or criminal persons, they should be sent back upon the first notice: such persons are not fit to lay the foundation of a new colony.”¹ So Bacon demeaned himself to compose a variation on his master’s favorite theme: “No Bishop, no King.” James listened only too willingly to this advice and refused the petition of the Pilgrims.

But they were not discouraged by this failure, nor disposed to give up their project of removal to America. They presently entered into arrangements with a number of London merchants, as yet not incorporated into a chartered company, who were to act as agents for the colony. These merchants, afterward chartered as the “Plymouth Company,” were to provide means of transportation and to attend to matters of supply and the sale of such produce as the emigrants should send to England. They presumed upon no steps of government nor marked out for the colonists any lines of either

civil or ecclesiastical procedure. Under such purely business arrangement with their London principals, the Pilgrims set out upon their voyage to New England; without any charter but their own will, without any consent or cognizance of the king, free to decide for themselves as to their local civil and religious institutions. They owed nothing to grants of power or to royal favor: but went forth in sublime confidence that God would be their guide and defence.

As to their churchly condition, it must be borne in mind that their emigration was that of a Church already constituted. In their own intention that band of men and women, who filled the cabins of the Mayflower, were but the advance company of the Church of English Separatists at Leyden, whose remaining brethren were to follow them as soon as might be possible. Their beloved pastor Robinson, who longed for America and “died without the sight,” remained at Leyden only for the sake of that portion of the flock which was left. So we do not read of any organization of a Church when the Pilgrims arrived at Plymouth. “These first inhabitants immediately formed themselves into a body politic, but they did not embody into a new Church state, looking upon it as unnecessary, as being a branch of the English Church at Leyden; and they expected the pastor and rest of the Church to follow them into the wilderness.” This is the language of J. Cotton, Esq., in his “Narrative of the Plymouth Church,” printed in 1760.¹ He also says that the failure of the expected balance of the Church was due to the “opposition of several of the merchant adventurers in England, who, not liking their principles or strictness in religion, would not provide shipping and money.”

The famous Mayflower compact, made when already the stern coast of New England had lifted itself in wintry garb before their sight, was solely for the direction of their civil affairs. So far as their local government was concerned this compact was an ordinance of a pure democracy. By it, they

say, “we solemnly and mutually, in the presence of God and one of another, covenant and combine ourselves together into a civil body politic.” With the general purpose and practice under this compact, the Plymouth company, chartered by the king in the following year, did not interfere. Under it for the first score of years the governing body of the colony was the gathering of all the colonists. This simple device afterward gave way for convenience’ sake to the general court, composed of deputies from the several towns.

Hutchinson, speaking of the Mayflower compact, says:¹ “Some of the inferior class among them muttered that, when they should get ashore, one man would be as good as another, and they would do what seemed good in their own eyes. This led the graver sort to counsel how to prevent it. One great reason of this covenant seems to have been of a mere moral nature, that they might remove all scruples of inflicting necessary punishments, even capital ones, seeing that all had voluntarily subjected themselves to them.”²

With the exception of the English statutes touching religious matters, the Plymouth men were well content to accept the opinion of Lord Chief Justice Holt, that, in case of an uninhabited country newly found out and settled by English subjects, all laws in force in England are in force there.

They, as Mr. Hubbard said, were willing to be subject unto them, though in a foreign land, only adding thereto “some particular municipal laws of their own, suitable to their constitution.” “They seem cautiously to have preserved as much of their natural liberty as could be consistent with the maintenance of government and order.” (Hutchinson.)

As to the rights of conscience and worship, they remained true to the principles, which in England gave them the name of Separatists¹ (as separating from the establishment), and which caused their afflictions and exile. Happily for them, they were not greatly tried during the early period by questions of dissent from the religious and Church order, under which by common consent they lived. They never established that order by any civil law, and what the magistrates did in Church affairs was in their character of Church members and not in their civil capacity.

Moreover, they never, after the example of the Puritans, made Church membership a condition of citizenship.² At first, in their colonial democratic assemblies every man could speak his mind and vote. Afterward it was ordered that candidates for the franchise should be propounded by the deputies to the general court, “being such as were approved by the freemen of the town where they live.” The law of 1671 said that none should be admitted freemen but “such as were 21 years old, of sober and peaceable conversation, orthodox in fundamentals, and of £20 ratable estate.”³

The purpose of the Plymouth colony was, indeed, predominantly religious, but it was uniquely confined to obtaining for themselves the freedom which had been denied at home.

Satisfied with this, they abstained from dogmatizing and from all attempts to force on others their own peculiar views.

Their design did not look toward the building up of a large and populous colony, but rather to the preservation of “a pure and distinct congregation.” Had not the colony of Massachusetts Bay settled near them in a few years, it is probable that Plymouth would have seen a much larger influx of newcomers. As it was, the population at Plymouth remained small and almost entirely homogeneous, while the great stream of immigration was directed to the Bay.¹ Thus the occasions of discord were not many at Plymouth, nor were there frequent temptations to the exercise of severity; while there are several tokens that the men of Plymouth looked with disapproval upon some of the severer actions of their brethren to the north. They granted to Mrs. Hutchinson, banished from Massachusetts, leave to settle on Aquidneck (Rhode Island), then in the Plymouth patent, although they did not approve of her teachings any more than did the magistrates at Boston. They were kindly to Roger Williams; went far to a charitable construction of the motives of Maverick and Childs, and distinctly disapproved of the cruelties visited on the Quakers. Indeed, the liberality of Plymouth was so offensive to the rulers of Massachusetts, that at one time it threatened to break up the New England Confederacy. “However rigid the Plymouth colonists may have been at their first separation from the Church of England, they never discovered that persecuting spirit which we have seen in Massachusetts.”² To this liberality Bancroft suggests that their sojourn in Leyden may have led them.³ “Their residence in Holland had made them acquainted with various forms of Christianity; a wide experience had emancipated them from bigotry, and they were never betrayed into excesses of religious persecution.”

In the Colonial Records of Plymouth there is a conspicuous absence of legislation on matters of religion. The general court did not take order for the formation of Churches, or building of meeting houses, or the payment of ministers, or to compel attendance on divine services. In 1646 the general court resolved, “that something be done to mayntaine the libertys of the Churches, without intermeddling or wronging each other, according to the statute of England, that they may live in peace.” But it does not appear that anything further was done by the legislature. In 1651 Arthur Howland was presented by the grand jury “for not frequenting the public assemblage on the Lord’s Day.” But no trial is recorded, and no law under which the presentment was made.

At the time of the “Presbyterian Cabal” (1643), of which account will be given in the story of Massachusetts, and as a part of the conspiracy, a proposition was made in the general court¹ “for a full and free toleration of religion to all men, without exception against Turk, Jew, Papist, Socinian, Familist, or any other.” As it was afterward supposed to be discovered, there was a political plot concerned with this motion, but the members of the Plymouth legislature did not know it at the time, and were very favorably disposed to the proposition²

That there was a strong influence through general consent leading to uniformity and to evenly distributed support of religious services, seems clear, but there was no laying down of rigid lines and no compulsion by the magistrate.³ This is well illustrated by the reply of the Plymouth general court to the commissioners of Charles II. in 1665. The king had demanded liberty of religious privileges for “all men of competent

estates, knowledge, civil lives, and not scandalous.” To this the court replied, “We would not deny a liberty to any, that are truly conscientious, although differing from us, they maintaining an able preaching ministry for carrying on of public Sabbath worship; and withdraw not from paying their due proportion of maintenance to such ministers as are orderly settled in the places where they live, until they have one of their own, and that in such places as are capable of maintaining the worship of God in two distinct congregations.”¹

The liberal men of Plymouth were frequently criticised by them of Massachusetts for too great laxity in matters of the Church. Thus in 1656² the governor and magistrates of the latter colony addressed to the commissioners of the United Colonies a solemn protest against the ecclesiastical indifference of Plymouth: “Our neighbor colony of Plymouth, our beloved brethren, in a great part seem to be wanting to themselves in a due acknowledgment and encouragement to the ministry of the gospel.” This complaint they justified on the ground that the covenant of the United Colonies called them “not only to strengthen the hearts and hands each of other in appointing and maintaining of religion in its purity, but also to be assistant each to other, where any deficiency in such respects may appear.”

The commissioners, of course, had no legislative capacity and had to content themselves with some resolutions of an advisory nature to act with moral pressure on the delinquent colony. One of their resolutions enlarged on the necessity of “an able orthodox ministry. . . . to be duly sought out in every society or township within the several jurisdictions”; another dwelt upon the “competent maintenance (as) a debt of justice. . . . from the whole society jointly”; while a third left (per force) the matter “to the wisdom of the general court to draw up such conclusions and orders as may attain the end desired.” Then, as though it were an afterthought, the

commissioners resolved: “We do further propose to the general courts that all Quakers, Ranters, and other notorious heretics be prohibited coming into the United Colonies.”

In this last action was Massachusetts’ real objective. She was not content to submit to Plymouth’s disapproval of her own cruelty to the Quakers, and thought to coerce the Pilgrims into sympathy. But the appeal was futile. The men of Plymouth took no very severe steps toward the sectaries, and went on in their own way of charity and peace.¹ The most that they could be brought to do was to rebuke any civil disorders. in John Cotton’s Account it is stated that: “The Quakers much infested the country between the years 1650 and 1660, and proved very troublesome and subverted many. In the Church one family only was wholly led away. But Plymouth never made any sanguinary or capital laws against that sect.”²

In this charitable disposition they were following the counsel of their beloved pastor, Robinson. In Holland they unhesitatingly communed with the Dutch and French Churches, and also with the Scotch, under his guidance; and on their departure for America he urged upon them a like liberal spirit, saying to them in his tender farewell, “there will be no difference between unconformable ministers and you, when they come to the practice of the ordinances of the kingdom.”³

In “Hypocricie Unmasked,” a tract written against Gorton by Edward Winslow, who himself frequently “exercised” as a preacher,⁴ it is denied that the Pilgrims were ever unwilling

willing that Presbyterians should settle at Plymouth. Some Presbyterians had written thither from Scotland, to learn if they would be welcome “to freely exercise their Presbyterial government amongst us; and it was answered affirmatively, they might.”¹

As further illustrating the liberal spirit of Plymouth stands their action toward Charles Chauncy, who was afterward the president of Harvard College. He was called in 1638 as colleague to John Reyner, the pastor at Plymouth, and preached there for three years. He refused, however, to be installed or remain, because he was an immersionist. But “the Church, being loth to lose a man of such eminency, offered, in case he would settle, to suffer him to practice according to his persuasion. . . . . . provided he could peaceably suffer Mr. Reyner to baptize according to the mode in general use.”² This offer Mr. Chauncy did not accept.

The action of the Plymouth authorities against Lechford — or Lyford³ — though represented by the sufferer as for religious exclusiveness, was in reality for misdemeanor as a citizen. Thomas Lyford was an Episcopal minister, whose experiences at Plymouth may be briefly related as illustrating the spirit of the Pilgrims.⁴ He was sent over by the company in 1623, to take the place of Robinson, whom they were unwilling to send. Though such forcible supply of

their pastorate could not commend Lyford to the favor of the colonists, they received him amicably, provided for his support, and suffered him to teach. At the same time came John Oldham, one of a small number of emigrants, whom the company sent out under ill-defined peculiar relations to the body of settlers, and were thence called “particulars,” and who were disposed to arrogate to themselves special dignity. Lyford and Oldham from the very beginning of their stay at Plymouth entertained sentiments hostile to the colony and its government, and conspired together to work “a reformation both in Church and State.” To this end they wrote to the company in London malicious letters, abusing the colony and its magistrates, and gave voice to their feelings in the hearing of such of the colonists as they hoped to influence. The letters were intercepted by Bradford, and the men were soon brought to trial, the action being precipitated by riotous conduct on the part of Oldham. Presuming on his privilege as a “particular,” he refused to do military duty and made no small disturbance, when the officers undertook to compel him. “The Governor, hearing the tumulte, sent to quiet him, but he ramped more like a ferocious beast than a man, and called them all treatours and rebells and other such foule language as I am ashamed to remember, but after he was clapt up for a while he came to himself.”

On this the two men were arraigned, and the intercepted letters produced. Bradford upbraided them for their conduct, that they had been kindly received and entertained, but they had been ungrateful, acting “like the Hedgehogg, whom the conny in a stormy day in pittie received into her borrow, but would not be content to take part with her, but in the end with her sharp pricks forced the poore conny to forsake her own borrow: so these men with the like injustice indevored to doe ye same to those that entertained them.”

Oldham met the charges with barefaced denials and hardihood, but Lyford “burst into tears and confest, and feared he was reprobate.” Both were bidden to leave the colony within

six months, but Lyford appeared so penitent and humble that he “was allowed to teach again,” and some of the people were in favor of setting aside the sentence. Presently, however, he relapsed and was incontinently sent out of the colony. On arrival in England he possessed the ears of the company with sundry tales against the Plymouth people, which, with some asperity, they communicated to Bradford for explanation. One of the charges was that “there was diversitie about religion;” to which Bradford replied: “We knowe no shuch matter, for here was never any controversie or opposition, either publicke or private (to our knowledge).” Another charge was, “that the Church have none but themselves and separatists to live here”; to which the Governor answered: “They are willing and desirous y^t any honest man may live with them, that will carry himself peaceably, and seeke the comon good, or at least doe no harm.”¹

Somewhat later the company complained to Bradford for “receiving a man in their Church, who renounced all, universall, nationall, and diocessan Churches &c; by which it appears that though they deney the name of Brownists, yet they practiss the same &c; and therefore they should sin against God in building up such a people.” This is another of Lyford’s insinuations and seems to have been adopted by the company to justify their continued refusal to send Robin-son to Plymouth. They insist that he should submit to the “French discipline” of Churches, and finally say, “Mr. Robinson and his company may not go over to our plantation, unless he and they will reconcile themselves to our Church by a recantation under their hands.”

Meanwhile Lyford, in London, presses for justice and gets more than he wants: for on examination by a choice committee

he is proved to be of very loose morals, and is discarded. He did not return to Plymouth, but went to Virginia and there “died miserably.” His pamphlet, “Plaine Dealing,” published in London, 1641,¹ represents that he was persecuted at Plymouth as an Episcopalian, but the pamphlet abounds in so much malicious abuse of the people at Plymouth and the Bay, that the statement is not worthy of credence. He tells of a Mr. Doughty, a minister, who, in the gathering of a Church at Taunton, insisted that all children of baptized persons, according to the covenant of Abraham, were the children of Abraham, and so ought to be baptized. This was held to be a disturbance on his part, and the minister spoke to the magistrates to order him to be silent, “and the constable dragged him out;” and he and his family left the town. It does not appear, however, that the treatment of Doughty was due to any religious intolerance. It is quite possible, to-day, for disturbers of religious meetings to draw upon themselves the adverse action of the magistrate; and it is not at all unlikely that Doughty suffered, not as a religionist, but as a brawler.

Nor can we put much confidence in Thomas Morton’s account of Lyford’s afflictions. In his “New English Canaan” he says that Lyford’s banishment was due to his refusal to submit to the “brethren at Plymouth, who would have him renounce his former episcopal ordination, and receive a new calling from them, after their fantastical invention.” Morton’s pamphlet is a conscious travesty, full of ridicule of the colonists, and with many flashes of very amusing wit.²

Morton, indeed, had his own score to settle with both Plymouth and Massachusetts. He came over in 1622, as an agent for Gorges, and established himself at Merry Mount — in the present town of Quincy — and there led so easy and hilarious a life that he excited the pious horror of the Plymouth men. Bradford describes him as “setting up a schoole

of atheisme,” as given to drink and “Maypole follies.” He does not seem to have been disturbed, however, by the colonists, until he began teaching to the Indians the use of gunpowder and furnishing them with both guns and rum. This intensified the Plymouth horror into alarm, and in 1628 brought Myles Standish to Merry Mount to abate a dangerous nuisance. The settlement was broken up, and Morton was sent to England, only to return again in another year and presently draw down upon himself the repressive hand of the Bay authorities.¹

It is unjust to credit the actions against Lyford and Morton to the spirit of religious intolerance. Of such spirit we look in vain through the early records of Plymouth for distinctly severe tokens, save in the exclusion of Romanists and Jesuits from the jurisdiction. How largely this freedom from intolerance was due to the comparative isolation of Plymouth we cannot say; nor can we declare what the action of that colony might have been, had it been tried by so frequent and incisive dissent as disturbed the peace of Massachusetts. For the most part such disturbing elements did not go to Plymouth, where the peace and contentment, natural to so religious and so notably homogeneous a society, gave small occasion for any restrictive action.

Doubtless the colony owed much of this peace to the wise influence of Bradford. Succeeding as governor to John Carver, who fell a victim to the seventies of the first winter, and reelected year after year, he guided the fortunes of Plymouth with a discretion, moderation, and firmness, which reveal him as a man well qualified both in mind and character to be the leader of his fellows. He was a man to be trusted, followed, and loved. His Letter-Book and Narrative abound in illustrations of his wise vigor, and of a religious spirit which was simple as a child’s. Occasionally he “drops into poetry,” as witness the following from his “Poetical Account of New England“:

Happy was that lot of Plymouth, which, while permitting to them opportunity “to maintain God’s service” in the way most fitting to their mind and conscience, exposed them to so infrequent contact with differing views. By reason of such lot the historical incidents illustrative of our present theme are few in number. In Plymouth abode a spirit of broad tolerance, if not a legally defined religious liberty. It was again her good fortune that, when the king in 1691 merged the colony with Massachusetts, the union did not take place until the Bay theocracy had become little more than a name and memory.

Of quite different complexion was the early history of Massachusetts. While in Plymouth peace abounded, in the colony on the Bay discord did “much more abound.” Hardly had the colonists housed themselves and taken the first steps toward settling their modes of life and government, when the voice of religious dissension made itself heard, to be repressed by a severely persecuting hand and, in one instance, in the midst of a controversy which shook the very foundations of the commonwealth.

The history of the Bay settlement begins with the arrival of Endicott and his company in 1628. There were a few

scattered settlers before his coming: Thomas Walford at Charlestown, William Blackstone at Shawmut, Samuel Maverick on Noddle Island, and Morton’s companions at Merry Mount. These were all Churchmen and looked upon the new comers with small degree of favor. Blackstone was a minister and a recluse, desirous of a solitary life and somewhat of a dissenter. After the first settlement of affairs at the Bay, with the Congregational Church establishment and Shawmut occupied and renamed Boston, Blackstone felt himself crowded out. He retired from the scene, complaining that he left England because he “did not like the Lord Bishops,” and now he could not join with the colonists because he “would not be under the Lord Brethren.” These men, on Endicott’s arrival, showed considerable unwillingness to allow his settlement or to submit to his authority. But they were helpless and were persuaded to peace, from which conclusion Endicott gave the name of “Salem” to the place chosen for this advance guard of the new colony.

Like the Plymouth Pilgrims, Endicott and his company came in advance of a charter. They were hastened in their departure by the company in England, which had already made application for a charter, in order to anticipate the schemes of Gorges. The charter was granted by Charles I. in the following year, and conferred upon the “Governor and Company of Massachusetts Bay in New England” a power of self-government, which the colony was not slow to use in maintaining a practical independence. In this charter, differing from all charters given to colonies out of New England, save that to Pennsylvania, there was nothing said about ecclesiastical affairs. It was not stated that churches should be founded “according to the laws of our kingdom of England.” Nor was there anything said about religious liberty, and “for a twofold reason: the crown would not have granted it, and it was not what the grantees wanted. They preferred to keep in their own hands the question as to how much, or how little, religious liberty they should claim or

allow.”¹ The charter did, indeed, contain a clause authorizing the colonial magistrate to administer the oath of supremacy “to all persons who should pass into their plantation.” But this was not required, being left to their discretion. It was also prescribed that the “Lawes and Ordinances (of the colony) be not contrarie or repugnant to the Lawes and Statutes of this our Realme of England.”²

It is evident that the Puritans of Massachusetts were jealous for their own freedom. They did not want the Church of England forced on them by the king, nor did they want religious liberty for any others than themselves. Whether this latter exclusiveness already lay in their mind when the charter was sought it is impossible to say, but, at once that their ecclesiastical regulations were formed, they appeared as sternly repressive of dissent as were the authorities of the English Church.

Their attitude toward the Church of England, as illustrated by the ecclesiastical polity immediately established at the Bay, marks a strange and almost unreasonable change of mind. Up to the time of the settlement in Massachusetts the distinction between the Puritans and those who were afterward called Pilgrims was sharply drawn. The latter were Separatists whose conscience led them to withdraw from the national Church, in protest against her oppression

and what they regarded as her corruptions. The Puritans, on the other hand, had never put themselves in such position, or withdrawn from the Church of England. Governor Hutchinson says of them:¹ “While they remained in England they continued in the communion of the Church. With some ceremonial parts all were more or less dissatisfied. The canons and rigid execution of them they accounted a grievous burden. The form of government in the Church was not a general subject of complaint, and they were very careful to distinguish themselves from the Brownists and other Separatists.” In the general, the Puritans approved the creed and polity of the Church of England and professed undying affection for her communion, only desiring to reform from within the Church certain errors of service and practice.

These are the sentiments expressed by them to the last day of their lives in England, and with the expression of this tender love for their “Mother Church” they bade farewell to English shores, to seek their new home across the sea. Of such feeling nothing can be more expressive than the words of Winthrop and his companions in their farewell, written just as their ship was about to sail: “Reverend Fathers and Brethren,” it says, “Howsoever your charitie may have met with discouragement through the misreport of our intentions or the indiscretions of some amongst us, yet we desire you would be pleased to take notice that the principals and body of our company esteem it our honour to call the Church of England, from whence wee rise, our deare mother, and cannot part from our native countrie, where she specially resideth, without much sadness of heart and many tears in our eyes; blessing God for the parentage and education, as members of the same body; and while we have breath we shall syncerely endeavor the continuance and abundance of her welfare.”

Men possessed of hostile feelings toward the Church could send no such tender and loving message. It is not too much to suppose that, at the time of their departure from England,

nothing was further from their minds than that attitude of separation from the Church of England immediately assumed on arrival in America.

The truth is, that the whole question of Church form was settled for them by their forerunner, Endicott, and so settled that, in spite of past affiliations and preferences, their wisest course was rather to acquiesce than to overturn. If it were their purpose, as their farewell words suggest, to maintain cordial and fraternal relations to the Church of England, then Endicott was the wrong man to lead their first band and lay the first course of the new commonwealth’s foundation. In him the sense of wrong in the Church had reached a deeper degree of dissent than in the most of the associates; while in character he was highly emotional, apt to give way to the strong impulse of the moment, sometimes in actions — like that of cutting the cross from the flag — which he soon found reason to regret. Withal, he was very devout, a man of rigid addiction to the sense of duty, and of a courage which no danger could alarm. Sent out by the company in advance as “a fit instrument to begin this wilderness work,” he used the power and opportunity thus in his hand to so mould the new Church that it should express the principles of non-conformity to the Church of England, no less clearly than the Separatists of Scrooby, Leyden, and Plymouth. Yet even in the mind of Endicott himself it would seem that the purpose of entire and hostile separation must have formed itself after he left English shores, if we are to credit him with the sincerity which is his due, in the words of his farewell:¹ “We will not say as the Separatists, ‘Farewell, Babylon! Farewell, Rome!’ But we say, ‘Farewell, dear England! Farewell, the Church of God in England!’”

It is but justice to suppose that the views of Endicott and his companions underwent some change during their long voyage, filled as it was with much religious counsel and exercise. With him came two ministers: Samuel Skelton,

“a friend to the utmost equality of privileges in Church and State,” and Francis Higginson, who had been deprived of his parish at Leicester for non-conformity. Through whatever motives they left England, the arrival of these men in their new home found them quite willing to commit themselves to a complete separation from the Church of England. It is possible also for them to have felt a practical unwisdom in making the order and discipline of their Church dependent on bishops three thousand miles away: a dependence which in after years furnished to the English establishments in America most exasperating and long-continued trouble.

Doubtless also the advice of Bradford had large influence with Endicott and his companions. It will be borne in mind that the Puritans of the Bay did not, as was the case with the Pilgrims, come to New England as an already organized Church. Members of the Church of England, they as individuals associated themselves for the purpose of a plantation in America. With very few exceptions, indeed, they were deeply religious men. Their aim in emigration was also chiefly religious. This aim is clearly expressed in the Conclusions, drawn up by the elder Winthrop and privately circulated in England. These stated that “former enterprises had aimed at profit: the present object is purity of religion; the earlier settlements had been filled with a lawless multitude; it is now proposed to form a peculiar government and to colonize the Best.”¹ The younger Winthrop, on receipt of the Conclusions, wrote to his father signifying his hearty approval of its statements and purpose, and his own readiness to join the new enterprise: “For myself,” he said, “I have seen so much of the vanity of the world, that I esteem no more the diversities of countries than of so many inns, whereof the traveller, that hath lodged in the best or in the worst, findeth no difference when he cometh to his journey’s end: and I shall call that my country, where I may most glorify God and enjoy the presence of my dearest friends.”²

A like testimony of religious aim is very strongly stated in “The Planters’ Plea: or the Grounds of Plantation Examined: a Manifestation of the Causes moving such as have undertaken a Plantation in New England.” This is the title of a pamphlet published in London, 1630.¹ The heading of Chapter V. runs, “That New England is a fit country for the seating of a Colonie for the propagation of Religion.” The country is not rich and so is better for the religious purpose. “If men desire people to degenerate speedily, and to corrupt their minds and bodies too, and besides to tole in theeves and spoilers from abroad, let them seek a rich soil, which brings in much with little labor: but if they desire that Piety and godliness shall prosper accompanied with sobriety, justice, and love, let them choose a Country such as this is — which may yield sufficiency with hard labor and industry.”

To our historical sense it would seem that inspiration itself could not have more clearly outlined one of the prime conditions of New England’s future greatness.²

Another and quaint description of the motive of colonization is contained in Scottow’s “Narrative of the Planting of Massachusetts.”³ It was published at Boston in 1694, and rivals productions of a hundred years before in its extravagant language. “Neither Gold or Silver, nor French or Dutch Trade of Peltry did Oil their Wheels; it was the Propagation of Piety and Religion to Posterity; and the secret Macedonian Call, COME OVER AND HELP US — the setting up

of Christ’s Kingdom among the Heathens. . . . Infinite Wisdom and Prudence contrived and directed this Mysterious Work of Providence: Divine Courage and Resolution managed it; Superhumane Sedulity and Diligence attended it, and Angelical Swiftness and Dispatch finished it. Its Wheels stirred not but according to the HOLY SPIRITS motion in them.”

The religious aim is very clearly stated in the company’s instructions to Endicott, April, 1629: “The propagation of the Gospel we do profess above all to be our aim: we have been careful to have a plentiful provision of godly ministers: we trust that, not only those of our own nation will be built up in the knowledge of God, but also that the Indians will be reduced to the obedience of God and Christ.”¹

But the company made no suggestions as to the form which the Church should take in the colony. They provided for the support of the ministers, and that “convenient Churches” should be built, one-half of the expense of which should be borne by the company, and the other half by the planters. Yet, strangely enough, as to Church polity they left the colonists free to choose for themselves. It was competent for the planters to adopt Independency, Presbytery, or Episcopacy, with or without dependence on the Church of

England. The only phrase of the instructions which could imply a thought of this matter is their language about the ministers: “For the manner of exercising their ministry, we leave that to themselves, hoping they will make God’s word the rule of their actions.”¹

With this freedom of action it was suggested that counsel might well be sought at Plymouth. Dr. Samuel Fuller wrote from Boston to Bradford in 1630: “Here is a gentleman, one Mr. Cottington, who told me that Mr. Cotton’s advice at Hampton was, that they should take advice of them at Plymouth and should do nothing to offend them.”² Upon this advice Endicott acted, when, shortly after landing, the scurvy broke out in the company. He sent to Bradford for medical help, and the issue shows that by the same means he obtained help toward a Church foundation. He wrote to Bradford:³ “God’s People are marked with one and the same mark, and sealed with one and the same seal, and have for the main one and the same heart, guided by one and the same Spirit of truth, and where this is there can be no discord — nay, there must needs be sweet harmony: and the same request (with you) I make unto the Lord, that we may as Christian Brethren be united by an heavenly and unfeigned love.”

To the application thus lovingly made Bradford responded by sending Dr. Fuller to Salem as a competent adviser in the two matters in hand of healing the sick and organizing a Church. It is safe to suppose that this angel of the Church at Plymouth acquainted the Salem brethren with the distinctive principles and teachings of the beloved Robinson, as illustrated in the Church of the Pilgrims. According to this teaching “a company of faithful people in the covenant of God is a Church, though without any officers; and this Church has an interest in all the holy things of God within itself, without any foreign assistance.⁴

The advice given by Fuller seemed so sound that Endicott wrote to Bradford: “I rejoice that I am by him satisfied, touching your form of outward worship; “and on this pattern he and the godly of Salem proceeded to “form themselves into a Church state.” Two fundamentals were at once laid down. The one was that the Church of Salem, though grateful for the advice received, should not “acknowledge any ecclesiastical jurisdiction in the Church of Plymouth.” The other was that the “power of ordination should not exist in the clergy, but should depend entirely upon the free election of the Church.”¹

Thereupon the people of Salem proceeded to organize their Church, first adopting a Confession of Faith and a Covenant; and then, after a day of humiliation, choosing and ordaining their pastor and teacher; the two clergymen of the company having declared their readiness to renounce the episcopal ordination received by them in England. Of this proceeding Mr. Charles Gott wrote to Bradford;² first describing the consensus of opinion, that a minister must have two calls; the inward by the Spirit of God and the outward by the people; and then recounting the election, which was by ballot. “The most voice,” he wrote, “was for Mr. Skelton to be pastor and Mr. Higginson to be teacher; and Mr. Higginson with three or four men of the gravest members of the Church laid their hands on Mr. Skelton, using prayer therewith: this

being done, there was imposition of hands on Mr. Higginson. . . . Now good Sir, I hope that you and the rest of God’s people (who are acquainted with the ways of God) with you will say that here was a right foundation laid, and that these two blessed servants of the Lord came in at the door, and not at the window.” Whereon comments Bradford in his History, “Now came these people and quickly grew into Church order, and set themselves roundly to walk in all the ways of God.”¹

Thus was constituted the first Puritan Church in New England, approaching very closely in character to the Church of the Pilgrims. But the men of Salem could not break away from all bonds or concede freedom of conscience to the individual. “Because they foresaw this wilderness might be looked on as a place of liberty, and, therefore, might in time be troubled with erroneous spirits, therefore they did put in one article into the confession of faith on purpose, about the duty and power of the magistrate in matters of religion.”² “This,” says Judge Story, writing on the settlement of Salem, “was their fundamental error, — the necessity of a union between Church and State. To this they clung as to an ark of safety.”³ As we look at the matter, over so long a time and through so many lessons of experience, it is easy to detect this error, which became the fruitful source of so many woes in the young commonwealth. But to most men of that time legal exclusion of error, and even of “diversitie,” was a prime condition of security. “it is by a mutual consent, through a special overruling Providence to seek out a place of cohabitation and consortship, under a due form of government both civil and ecclesiastical.”⁴ So wrote Winthrop on shipboard, describing the purpose of the Puritan emigration in his “Model of Christian Charity” — a name

which seems very much of a misnomer; for this expressed purpose, as illustrated in the immediately subsequent history, was quite distinct from that sufferance of opposing opinion, which a true Christian charity demands. Hutchinson expresses the purpose in clearer and more definite terms: “To obtain for themselves and their posterity the liberty of worshipping God in such manner as appeared to them to be most agreeable to the Sacred Scriptures.”¹

Immediately that this principle, denying all diversity and subjecting religious matters to the magistrate, was made a fundamental, the authorities found occasion to apply it. For the people were not altogether unanimous in the action. There was some dissent. How many were of that mind we are not told, but the party had very respectable leading in John and Samuel Browne. These brothers were among the substantial promoters of the plantation, entitled to respect and possessed of influence. Though decidedly Puritan, they still regarded the English Church and liturgy with affection, and were not willing to follow this abandonment of all her service. So with such as sympathized in this feeling they instituted a service of their own, using the book of common prayer and endeavoring to assert the continuance of their union with that “dear mother” in England.

But such liberty was not to be allowed.² To the mind of Endicott any dissent from the established order was a dangerous faction, to be put down with a strong hand. So he adopted an instant and imperious course, and, acting on his own authority alone, caused the Brownes to be put on a ship and returned to England. Thus early in the history do we find example of the then common inability of men to understand that liberty was a good thing for any others than themselves.

Endicott was deeply outraged by the law of conformity in England, but he found no objection to apply it in America. The sole criterion of its right or wrong was in the question as to who should suffer by it. When the power lay in his own hand he had no objection to range himself with the hated Laud.

The Brownes, thus summarily banished from New England, took home with them a deep sense of wrong, to which on arrival they gave voice in complaint. But, while they succeeded in creating much unfavorable comment about the new settlers, they did not obtain from the company a redress of their wrongs. The company, indeed, while avoiding specific reference to their case, if indeed it had by that tunic reached them, yet in their Instructions of 1629 already quoted, use language which goes far to justify Endicott’s action.¹ “If fair means do not avail (against disorderly persons) we pray you to deal as in your discretions you shall think fittest.” They apologize for sending over Ralph Smith (who afterward went to Plymouth), who, they say, desired and obtained passage “before we knew of his difference in judgment in some things from our minister’s.” Again, “It is often found that some busy persons, led more by their will than by any good warrant out of God’s word, take opportunity by moving needless questions, to stir up strife. . . from which small beginnings great mischiefs have followed: we pray you, if any such disputes shall happen among you, that you suppress them.”

One curious sequent to this affair of the Brownes is preserved in a letter from Dudley to the Countess of Lincoln,² written in December of 1630. He desired to defend the settlers at the Bay from the charge of the Brownes that they “were Brownists in religion and ill affected to our State at home;” and says, “I know no one person, who came over with us, the last year, to be altered in judgment or affection, either

in ecclesiastical or civil respects.” It is difficult to conceive how Dudley could have so written without a conscious perversion of the truth. There is documentary proof that, either these men grossly dissembled in their tender farewell to England and her Church, or else were radically “altered in judgment (and) affection in ecclesiastical affairs,” on their arrival in the plantation. As to the term “Brownists,” it is a dispute about a word, which was offensive to the Pilgrims themselves. But it is clear that, if the Pilgrims were Brownists, such also had the Puritans become in Massachusetts. They were Separatists from the Church of England as positively as the men of Scrooby, and differed only from the Pilgrims in that, having now the power, they merged Church and State together and suffered no dissent from their own opinions in matters of religious worship.

A more pleasing product of the time is preserved in Higginson’s¹ “NEW ENGLAND’S PLANTATION, or, a Short and True Description of the Commodities and Discommodities of the Country. Written by a rev. Divine now there resident. Printed, London, 1630.” This is a pamphlet and concludes: “But that which is our greatest comfort and meanes of defence above all others, is that we have here the true Religion and holy Ordinances of Almighty God taught amongst us.

Thanks be to God! We have plentie of Preaching and diligent
Catechizing with strict and careful exercise and good
and commendable orders, to bring our People into
a Christian conversation, with whom we have
to do withal. And thus we doubt not
but God will be with us, and, if
God be with us, who can
be against us?”

Early in 1630 the larger company of Puritans, for whom Endicott had prepared the way, disembarked in Massachusetts. They brought with them the charter which enabled them to

mould and establish a government of their own, without reference to a company in London or to king and parliament. So early was laid the foundation of American Independence.

Prominent in this company of seven hundred were John Winthrop, Thomas Dudley, and Sir Richard Saltonstall, the last of whom — unhappily for the colony, as we may think, because of his kind and liberal spirit — returned to England after a short sojourn in Massachusetts. Of these three Winthrop was easily the chief, a man who has had few equals in the history of America. A contemporary,¹ in language of enthusiasm, describes him as having “a more than ordinary measure of those Qualities which adorn an officer of human Society: “His Justice was impartial; His Wisdom excellently tempered Things according to the Art of Governing: His Courage made Him dare to do right; All which Vertues he rendered. the more illustrious by emblazoning them with the constant Liberality and Hospitality of a Gentleman. This made him the Terror of the Wicked, the Delight of the Sober, and the Hope of those who had any hopeful Design in Hand for the Good of the Nation and the interests of Religion. Accordingly, when the noble Design of carrying a Colony of chosen People into an American Wilderness was by some eminent persons undertaken, this Eminent Person was by the Consent of all chosen for the Moses who must be the Leader of so Great an Undertaking.” In far simpler phrase Dr. Fuller, who was at the Bay when Winthrop arrived, wrote to Bradford, “The Governour is a godly, wise, and humble gentleman, and very discreet and of a very fine temper.”²

Winthrop was in his forty-fourth year, in the full vigor of life and full maturity of a character, which all the years before had deepened, broadened, and sweetened. A devoted son of the Church of England, he never associated himself with dissenters until his coming to this country, but at the

same time was markedly Puritan in regard to existing errors. His diary reveals a nature remarkably sensitive to religious influence. While but a lad he wrote in it:¹ “I desire to make it one of my chiefe petitions to have that grace to be poore in spirit: I will ever walk humbly before my God, and meekly, mildly, and gently towards all men; so shall have peace. . . . I doe resolve first to give myselfe, my life, my witt, my healthe, my wealthe to the service of my God and Saviour, who by givinge himselfe for me & to me deserves whatsoever I am or can be, to be at his Commandement and for his glorye.” With this as a keynote to his life, he was making continual advances into the realms of spiritual experience. Of such the diary abounds in tokens, displaying faith and love in constant and increasing exercise; while in no line appears, after the fashion of religionists of his day, any censorious judgment of those who differed from him. As a man of affairs, both in business and public office, he had given evidence of marked judgment and ability, so that “both in character and capacity he was one to inspire peculiar confidence.”

Because of such character he was solicited by the company in England, himself not one of the original members, to join their adventure not only, but to accept the governorship in America. This he took under advisement, and wrote, May, 1629: “My deare wife, I am veryly persuaded God will bringe some heavye Affliction upon this lande, and that speedylye. . . . If the Lord seeth it will be good for us, He will provide a shelter and a hidinge place for us & others, as a Zoar for Lot.”² Then he proceeds, after a conscientious manner of consideration peculiar to himself, to set down “Reasons for the Plantation in New England”;³ and among them these: “What can be better worke and more honorable and worthy of a Christian than to helpe raise and supporte a particular Church, while it is in its infancy, It appears to be a worke of God for the good of his Church, in that he hath disposed the heartes of soe many of his wise and faithful servants,

both ministers and others, not only to approve, but to interest themselves in it.” With such thought in his mind, it was urged upon him by his associates that he must both go and assume command and presently he set down “Particular Considerations in the ease of John Winthrop,”¹ writing of himself in the third person: “1. It is come to that issue as (in all probability) the welfare of the Plantation dependes upon his goeinge, for divers of the Chiefe Undertakers (upon whom the rest depends) will not go without him. 2. He acknowledges a satisfactory callinge. 3. . . . If he should refuse this opportunity, the talent which God hath bestowed upon him for publicke service were like to be buried.”

This is an interesting process through which the strong, devout, and loving man came to the conviction that the call to him from God was clear. It accounts for much in his after life of devotion and patience.

We are not, then, surprised to see him on the Arbella westward bound, and to hear him discourse to his companions in words of rare eloquence and tenderness:² Thus stands the case between God and us. We are entered into a covenant with Him for this work. We have taken out a commission. . . The only way to avoid shipwreck, is to follow the counsel of 1 Micah, ‘to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly before God.’ For this end we must be knit together in this work as one man. . . . We must hold a familiar commerce together in all meekness, gentleness, patience, and liberality. We must delight in each other; make other’s condition our own; rejoice together, mourn together, labor and suffer together, always having before our eyes our commission and community in this work, as members of the same body.” There is abundant evidence in the after story that Winthrop faithfully exhibited in his own life the principles thus urged upon his brethren. He was far from sympathizing in

the intolerance of his companions and joined in its decrees, when so compelled, under the protest of his heart. During the nineteen years of his life in New England he was twelve times chosen governor, and one of the two charges brought against his administration was, that he “had dealt too remissly in point of justice in one or two passages. . . and failed in over much lenity.”¹

This charge was brought before the deputies by Dudley, to whom Winthrop replied that, “in the infancy of plantations justice should be administered with more lenity than in a settled state.” The leading magistrates and ministers differed from him, and Winthrop professed himself convinced.²

They were a hard-headed and determined set of men, with whom Winthrop had to deal, unwilling to submit to anything which looked like dictation, even from the all powerful ministers. Of this two notable expressions are found in respect to Winthrop’s occupation of office. In 1634, Winthrop being governor at the time, John Cotton preached the election sermon and argued against rotation in office, whereupon the deputies at once put Dudley in Winthrop’s chair. Again, in 1643, Winthrop being governor again, Ezekiel Rogers preached the election sermon and argued against the reelection of an incumbent, on the ground that it would tend

toward the creation of a life office. To this the deputies responded by immediately reelecting Winthrop!¹

Another incident may well be noted, for the sake of the utterance which it brought from Winthrop’s lips. In 1643 he was accused of having exceeded his authority in the matter of a trumpery dispute at Hingham, as to who should be captain of a militia company. Solemn impeachment of the governor was based thereon, and Winthrop, refusing to sit among the magistrates until he was acquitted, made his own defence, with the result of a most honorable dismissal of the charge. In the course of his speech he phrased as fine a definition of Civil Liberty as ever has been made:

“This liberty is the proper end and object of authority, and cannot subsist without it; and it is a liberty to that only which is good, just, and honest. . . . This liberty you are to stand for with the hazard (not only of your goods, but) of your lives, if need be. . . . This liberty is maintained and exercised in a way of subjection to authority; it is the same kind of liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free.”²

How much the exclusiveness of the Bay went against the grain with Winthrop is suggested by his refusal to sign an order for banishment of “a heretic.” This was brought to him by Dudley, in Winthrop’s last illness. He declined, saying, “I have done too much of that work already.” How he was regarded by the people, among whom he lived and whom he served, is well shown in Cotton’s sermon on his death: “A governor who has been unto us a brother; not usurping authority over the Church; often speaking his advice and often contradicted, even by young men and some of low degree; yet not replying, but offering satisfaction also when any supposed offences have arisen: a governor who has been unto us a mother, parent-like distributing his goods to brethren and neighbors, and gently bearing our infirmities without taking notice of them.”³

To this judgment of contemporaries may be fitly added that of posterity. Thus writes Doyle: “Every page in the early history of New England bears witness to the patience, the firmness, the far-seeing wisdom of Winthrop. But to estimate these qualities as they deserve, we must not forget what the men were with whom, and in some measure by whom, he worked. To guard the Commonwealth against the attacks of courtiers, churchmen, and speculators was no small task. But it was an even greater achievement to keep impracticable fanatics, like Dudley and Endicott, within the bounds of reason, and to use for the benefit of the state those headstrong passions which at every turn threatened to rend it asunder.”¹ The attentive student of Winthrop and his time can hardly fail of assent to the calm encomium of Young: “In his magnanimity, disinterestedness, and moderation; in his mingled firmness of principle and mildness of temper; in his harmonious character, consistent life, and well-balanced mind, the Father of Massachusetts reminds us of the great Father of his Country, and is the only man in our history worthy to stand as a parallel to Washington.”²

There is no need of apology for so long excursion in description of Winthrop, for it is well to remind ourselves of a somewhat forgotten greatness. Nor would the picture be complete without some notes of his close associate, Dudley. In nearly all respects where Winthrop was broad, patient, wise, and loving, Dudley was his opposite. Irritable, intolerant, narrow-minded, and censorious toward all who differed from him, Dudley stands in the history as a constant foil by which the nobler qualities of Winthrop appear the more illustrious. Jealous of Winthrop’s position and influence and impatient of his milder spirit, he was ever on the watch to discover faults where they did not exist, and to impede any efforts of Winthrop’s liberal spirit. Human kindness

was left out of his nature, and charity failed to express herself in his religious character. He was equal to approaching the death-bed of his Chief to solicit complicity in an act of spiritual tyranny. In his pocket, after his own death, was found the famous quatrain, supposed to be his own composition: —

It is impossible for men of our day to find anything lovable in the character of Dudley, though we cannot fail to respect in him a conscientious tenacity of what he regarded as duty, and a courage insensible of fear. Winthrop describes him as “a man of approved wisdom and godliness, and of much good service to the country.”

Such, then, were the two leading spirits in that company, which in the spring of 1630 landed at Salem to reënforce the band of Endicott; and with their charter in their hands to found an independent, self-governing commonwealth. As before noted, in one respect, and that which specially concerns this narrative, they found the work already done and awaiting their acceptance. The first Church of Massachusetts had been organized, and with it the ecclesiastical polity of the new state established.

To this establishment the new comers not only seem to have made no objection, but rather by immediate concurrence signified their hearty approval.¹ Though not patterned after any prearranged plan and instructions of their own, they recognized in Endicott’s work a form of united civil and ecclesiastical government which they were glad to adopt. Confessedly, having left England for the sake of religion, what better scheme could be devised to effect their desire?

We owe to John Cotton the explicit terms in which that governing desire is acknowledged. At the request of the General Court he drew up an “Abstract of Laws” for the guidance of magistrates, which he patterned after “the laws of judgement delivered from God to Moses.”¹ This abstract he accompanied with an argument of advice, “that Theocracy, i.e. God’s government, might be established as the best form of government, wherein the people that choose rulers are God’s people in covenant with Him, that is, members of the Churches.” Afterward Cotton, writing to Lord Say and Sele, describes the Government of Massachusetts as “a Theocracy in both, the best form of government in the Commonwealth, as well as in the Church.”²

In so expressing himself Cotton was but putting in a phrase of definition the formative principle which had already controlled the colonial legislation. The earliest legislative body in the Bay was the court of assistants, under Endicott as governor; and at their initial meeting the first question considered was, “How the ministers shall be mayntained?” This was at once answered by ordering that houses should be built for them, and competent provision be made in supplies and money “at the publicke expense.”³ Three months afterward the court ordered a tax to raise £60 for this purpose. Afterward there are many acts of the legislature having reference to such provision. Thus, in 1637, the people of Newberry having proved remiss, the general court ordered the selectmen to levy a tax for the minister’s support; and in 1638 enacted a general law that “all inhabitants are lyable to assessment for Church as for State,” the tax to be collected by distraint, if necessary. At the very beginning of the government there was by such action imbedded in the constitution one essential feature of an established Church, Church-rates to be levied and collected by the civil officer. There it remained a part of Massachusetts

law for two hundred years, not giving way until long after the political independence of the United States was effected.¹

An early instance of opposition is related by Hutchinson. One Briscue, a tanner of Watertown, published in 1644 a pamphlet against the Church tax, arguing that such method of supporting religion was immoral and contrary to justice, and that ministers accepting moneys so raised, disgraced themselves and the cause of religion. For this publication he was summoned before the general court and gravely admonished.

It is worth while to notice, in passing, that this first court of assistants emphasized their care for religion in another way. At the first meeting, having disposed of ministerial support, they cited Morton of Mount Wollaston or Merry Mount — to answer for his “godless” conduct, and at their next session ordered that he be sent to England, his goods confiscated to pay costs, and his house burned. Presently thereafter they ordered “all cards and dice to be made away with.” Their settlement was distinctly religious, and whatsoever legislation was deemed needful to sustain religion and keep the people in religious ways the authorities scrupled not to enact out of any consideration of personal liberty.

The next step in the establishment of a State-Church was taken by the first general court, which met on May 18, 1631. At this session applications to be “admitted Freemen” “were made by one hundred and ten persons. The applicants were admitted, on taking the oath of allegiance; but the court, as though alarmed by so large an influx of citizens and fearing the consequences of too wide entrance to the franchise, immediately

took the following action, the importance of which as defining the colonial aim cannot be exaggerated. The act is in these words: “To the end the body of the commons may be preserved of honest and good men, it is ordered and agreed, that, for the time to come, noe man shall be admitted to the freedome of this body polliticke, but such as are members of some of the Churches within the lymitts of the same.”

This restriction of the franchise went further than the intent recited in the act, “to preserve the body of the commons of honest and good men.” It went further than the requirement of religious character, or profession, on the part of electors, and confined the suffrage to members of a particular Church approved and supported by the state. There were “honest and good men” in the colony who were not members in that Church, and could not vote. This class so increased in number that at the time, 1665, when the restriction was somewhat relaxed, it was estimated that they outnumbered the freemen in the ratio of five to one.

Nor could the condition of freemen be obtained by the most positive evidences of Christian character. Neither Episcopalian, nor Presbyterian, nor Baptist, of howsoever exalted spiritual standing, could be a freeman. The only legal evidence that even a saint had honesty and goodness enough to fit him for the sacred duty of voting for a constable was the certificate of some minister that he was a member of a Congregational Church “in good and regular standing.” This is precisely the ground occupied by the parliament of England in its acts of uniformity, debarring from all civil privileges and office every man not a member of the Anglican Church, and from the oppression of which these Puritans had come across the sea. The only difference was that parliament established Episcopacy, while the general court of Massachusetts established Congregationalism.¹

The reasons of such action by the fathers of Massachusetts are not far to seek. They came into the wilderness to establish for themselves a religious commonwealth, in which both State and Church should be patterned after their own mind, and into which they desired that none should come, who were not in thorough sympathy with themselves on these cardinal points. They made little of what in modern phrase is called the “solidarity of humanity.” Their asylum was not founded as a refuge for all the oppressed. The world was wide. There was yet ample room in America: let those who were not of them keep away from them. “I do take upon me,” says the “Simple Cobler of Aggawam,” in words already quoted, — “to be the Herald of New England, so far as to proclaim to the world in the name of the Colony, that all Familists, Antinomians, Anabaptists, and other Enthusiasts shall have free Liberty to keep away from us, and such as will come to be gone as fast as they can, the sooner the better.”¹

There has been made no better defence of this policy of restriction shown, not only in the law of franchise, but also in the laws touching the chronicle of strangers, than is found in the “Considerations,” of Winthrop, of which the following are specially in point: — “1. If the place of our cohabitation be our own, then no man hath a right to come unto us, &c., without our consent. “2. If no man hath a right to our land, government privileges, &c., but by our consent, then it is reason that we should take notice of (them) before we confer any such upon them.

“3. If we are bound to keep off whatsoever appears to tend to our ruin or damage, then may we lawfully refuse to receive such whose dispositions suit not with ours, and whose society (we know) will be hurtful to us, . . . “7. A family is a little commonwealth and a commonwealth a great family. Now as a family is not bound to receive all comers, no more is a commonwealth. “8. It is worse to receive a man, whom we must cast out again, than to deny him admission.”¹

One other step remained to make the establishment complete. This was the giving to the magistrates power over the Churches themselves, and it was accomplished by an act of the general court in 1635. Already it would seem that irregularities had occurred in. the matter of organizing Churches, and the court proceeded to ordain a uniformity and prevent all diversities in ecclesiastical polity. The act recites:² “This Court doeth not, nor will hereafter, approve of any such companyes of men as shall henceforthe ioyne in any pretended way of Church fellowship, without they shall first acquaint the magistrates and the elders of the greater part of the Churches in this jurisdiction with their intentions, and have their approbation herein: and noe person, being a member of any Church which shall hereafter be gathered without the approbation of the magistrates and the greater part of the Churches, shall be admitted to the ffreedome of this commonwealthe.”

This effectually put into the hands of the civil power authority over the Church, an authority not only controlling questions of organization and polity, but assuming inquisitorial power. Indeed, before this act the general court had not hesitated to inquire into the affairs of the local Churches. Prince relates³ that one Richard Browne of Watertown had

said, that “the Church of Rome was a true Church, basing his opinion on the fact that the Reformed Churches did not re-baptize those who came over from Rome.” The Church at Watertown had just chosen Browne for an elder, and the general court notified the Church that “he was not a proper for such office.” This took place in 1631. In like exercise of power the court, as will presently be noted, rebuked the Salem Church for calling Roger Williams to the pastorate, compelling the Church to dismiss Williams and to apologize for its conduct.¹

The court also took upon itself to scrutinize any persons attempting to preach, forbidding all unauthorized persons, and also forbidding any one to preach before an unauthorized society. In 1650 a Mr. Matthews, for preaching to an unauthorized Church, was fined £10.² Such actions were based upon the principle formally adopted by the general court (1641) that “The civil authority. . . hath power and liberty to see the peace, ordinances, and rules of Christ observed in every Church, according to His word. . . . It is the duty of the Christian magistrate to take care that the people be fed with wholesome and. sound doctrine” (1658)³ Again in 1660, the following was enacted: “It being the great duty of this court (to see) that all places and people within our gates be supplied b an able and faithful ministry of God’s holy word the president of each county court shall duly, from time to time, give it in charge to the grand juries to present all abuses and neglects of this kind.” Eight years later, the court declared: “The Christian magistrate is bound by the word of God to preserve the peace, order, and liberty of the Churches of Christ, and by all due means to promote religion in doctrine and discipline.”⁴

The Massachusetts establishment differed from the State Church in England and in other colonies in that the law

conferred no right of presentation, save under special circumstances. The choice of minister was left to the people; but the law of 1692¹ provided that the county court should “take care that no town is destitute of a minister.” In case of any such vacancy, the court should notify the Church to choose; and, if the Church neglected to do so, the court should procure and settle a minister and levy on the town for his support.

Another great contrast is to be noted in the source of the establishment. In England the crown and parliament, without any consultation with the people, built up the fabric of the Anglican Church. The Church was imposed upon the nation by the monarch. A similar fact exists in the history of those colonies in which the Church of England was established. That Church came into possession by a royal rescript, a clause of the charter, or of instructions from the crown or the board of trade. It was imposed on those colonies without any consideration as to whether the inhabitants were in sympathy with it — a royal demand that what religious polity should obtain among them should be that which the king approved. It is true that the house of burgesses in Virginia did by formal act establish the Church of England as the State-Church of the colony, but in so doing they were in effect only recognizing and confirming that which a dozen years before had been ordered by the crown. This determination by the home government, it is also to be observed, was in most instances against the desire of the colonies and the religious preferences of the people. This was eminently the fact in Maryland from the beginning, and afterward became so in Virginia, while not more than one in twenty of the people of New York approved the futile efforts of Cornbury to establish the Church of England in that province.

The contrast presented in Massachusetts is marked. There was studious avoidance of any religious establishment in the

charter, and the crown attempted no dictation on the subject of the Church. But immediately that the planters were settled they supplied the lack for themselves, building up a State-Church on as rigid lines and as sharp requirements of uniformity as those which intrenched the Anglican Church in the English constitution. This was the expression of the popular will of early Massachusetts. The fact cannot receive too great an emphasis. What the people of that day wanted they established. The hardships of the after condition arose, not from any dictation of external authority, but from the incoming of persons who were not of the same mind, and from the growth of population out of sympathy with the purposes and measures of their fathers.

Under the earlier conditions which the more rigid of the second and third generation strove to maintain, there was much legislation, both to support the Church as an establishment, and to conserve the religious character of the community. Thus, very early, the law of domicile guarded against strangers and required all people to live within easy distance of the meeting-house, so that all could attend worship.¹ In 1640 the Act against Heresy ordained that any person denying the immortality of the soul, or the resurrection, or sin in the regenerate, or the need of repentance, or the redemption by Christ, or justification through Christ, or the morality of the fourth commandment or the baptism of infants, or “who shall purposely depart the congregation at the administration of that ordinance,”² or shall endeavor to seduce others to any of these heresies, should be banished. In the same year, contemptuous conduct toward the word or preacher was made punishable; for the first offence, by a public reproof from the magistrate and bonds for good behavior; for the second offence, by five shillings fine, or by

“standing on a block four feet high,” having on the breast a placard with the words,

“An Open and Obstinate Contemner of God’s Holy Ordinances”¹

One can hardly fail of noting the wide divergence between this law and its Preamble. The statute begins, “Although no human power be lord over the conscience, yet because such as bring in damnable heresies. . . ought duly to be restrained.” Evidently, in the Puritan view there was a human lordship of every conscience save their own! They demanded for themselves a power which they denied to all other men.

By the same law non-attendance on divine service was punished by a fine of five shillings. In 1656 it was enacted that any person denying any of the books of the Bible should be whipped or fined, and, if obstinate, banished. The Law of 1697 against “Blasphemy and Atheism” is remarkable both for the ingenuity of its penalties, and as an indication that only a sense of waning religious power in the magistrate could so express itself. In the act, which finds both atheism and blasphemy in “denying the true God,” various penalties are awarded; surety for good behavior, imprisonment for six months, the pillory, whipping, boring the tongue with a hot iron, and sitting on the gallows with a rope about the neck, at the discretion of the court; provided that not more than two of such penalties be inflicted for one and the same offence.

Of course, under the general law Roman Catholics were not suffered to live in the colony. In 1647 Jesuits were forbidden to enter the colony. If any should come, they were at once to be banished; if they returned, to be put to death.

We find another illustration of the religious and “orthodox” intent in the “Articles of Confederation,” which (1643) bound together the colonies of Massachusetts, Plymouth,

Connecticut, and New Haven in the “New England Confederacy.” The preamble recites: “Whereas we all came into these parts of America with one and the same end and aim, viz.; to advance the kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ and to enjoy the liberty of the Gospel in purity and peace;” and declares as one of the objects of the union, “preserving and propagating the truth and liberties of the gospel.” It was defined that only Church members could be commissioners to the federal council. The immediately practical aim of the union was mutual aid in defence against the Indians, but the colonists could not take measures for such a purpose save in the name of religion. Uniformity also, or at least regularity, seems to have been no less of a requirement; for when Rhode Island applied for admission into the confederacy it was refused, because “they ran a different course both in their ministry and in their civil administration.”¹

Thus the religious quality of early Massachusetts was with its State-Church very prominent and emphatic. It more than justified Dudley’s language in his letter to the Countess of Lincoln: “If any come hether to plant for worldly ends, that canne live well at home, hee comits an errour of which hee will soon repent him. But if for spirituall, and that noe particular obstacle hinder his removeall, he may find here what may well content him.”²

It were impossible that in a community so constituted the ministry should fail of acquiring an immense influence. They did not as such, after the fashion of the “spiritual lords” in parliament, occupy seats in the legislature, but their power was very great and very general. Their advice on all matters of importance, and on many of trivial nature, was sought by the magistrates. Without exception they were men of education and sincere godliness, without fear in the ways of conscience, as ready to suffer as to speak. But for the most

part they were intensely narrow, unable to conceive that truth could lodge outside of their own lines, and as bigoted and harsh as were the spiritual lords from whose tyranny themselves had fled. Among his censorious brethren the charity of the gentle Shepherd shows

Morton in his Memorial¹ gives a curious illustration of the feeling common among the ministry. When Wilson, the pastor at Boston, was dying, he was asked what were the special sins which provoked the displeasure of God against the country. He replied that the chief were Separation, Anabaptism, and Korahism, defining the last as a rising-up of the people against their ministers and elders, as though they took too much upon them. Wilson died in 1667, when the power of the ministers had begun to be impaired.

It needs to be noted, however, that, while the official dignity and authority of the ministers were very great, there was nothing therein of a priestly quality. It was solely because of character and ability that they were put into their sacred office. Every man of them had to be able to render a reason other than the sacred character of his office, or lose both place and respect. The functions of their office, with all its power and privilege, were rigidly conditioned on personal character and ability.² The Abstract of Laws drawn up by Cotton was never adopted by the general court, and all law was within the discretion of the magistrate. In 1641 a code was compiled by Rev. Nathaniel Ward, author of the “Simple Cobler of Aggawam.” This code was unwillingly adopted by the legislature

and named the “Body of Liberties”; the court being compelled to this action by the murmurs of the people, who had become impatient of a situation, which left all penalty to the discretion, and sometimes whimsical caprice, of the courts.¹

Of the code Winthrop writes in his Journal under date of December: “This session established 100 Laws, which were called the Body of Liberties, composed by Mr. Nathaniel Ward, sometime Pastor of the Church at Ipswich.” The code differs from Cotton’s Abstract materially, save that “in the article entitled Capital Laws each clause is supported by texts from the Old Testament.”² There is no need here of any analysis of this collection of laws, or of quotation, beyond one peculiar regulation as to forming a Church, viz.: “All the people of God within this Jurisdiction, who are not in a Church way, and be orthodox in judgement and not scandalous in life, shall have full liberty to gather themselves into a Church estate: Provided, that they do it in a Christian way, with due observance of the rules of Christ revealed in his word.”

though the permission here given is from the magistrate with a power of review, and it was possible for a strict constructionist to decide that no non-Congregational form of Church estate was in accordance with the rules of Christ, yet we have it on Winthrop’s¹ authority that there was a disposition to concede freedom of Presbyterian worship. This was in keeping with the greater liberality of the code in regard to other matters.² But such tendency toward a larger liberty in religion was speedily arrested by the “Presbyterian Cabal,” to be noted presently.

The adoption of the Body of Liberties was looked upon as happily settling the civil and ecclesiastical affairs of the Commonwealth. So Winthrop wrote in his “Small Treatise (1644): “It appears that the officers of this Body politic have a Rule to walk by in all their administrations, which Rule is the Word of God, and such conclusions and deductions as are or shall be regularly drawn from thence. . . . The fundamentals which God gave to the Commonwealth of Israel were a sufficient rule to them, to guide all their affairs: we having the same with all the additions, explanations, and deductions which have followed, it is not possible we should want a rule in any case, if God give us wisdom to discern it.”³ In much stronger language wrote Cotton, “The order of the Churches and the Commonwealth is now so settled in New England by common consent, that it brings to mind the new heaven and new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness.”⁴

But this condition was not arrived at without struggle. Hardly had the first course been laid in the foundation of the new theocratic commonwealth when the troubler of its peace appeared. Roger Williams landed at Boston in February of 1631, and brought with him a bundle of notions which the Puritan founders could ill abide. A protégé of the great Sir

Edward Coke, whose word and actions in after years were so trenchant and influential on the side of freedom in the Great Rebellion, he had received from his patron incentives to the most liberal views. Educated at Cambridge and a graduate of Pembroke College, with a singularly active mind and as singular boldness in expression of opinions, he soon attracted to himself the hostile regard of Archbishop Laud, from the reach of whose arm he withdrew into New England. While in England he became a devoted friend of Hooker and Cotton, whom he preceded to America, and who were not able to equal him in extreme liberality of views; and the latter of whom, with his usual facility to coincide with the dominant party, is found assenting to the banishment of his friend.

On Williams’s arrival at Boston he at once signalized his peculiarity of mind by refusing to join the Boston Church,¹ because “they had not publicly declared repentance for former communion with the Church of England,” and also because the Boston Church had shown a sympathy with persecutors. He also expressed his opinion that the magistrate had no right to punish a breach of the first table of the law, and that his function was limited to those offences which violated only the second table. Despite the singularity of these views, his sweetness of disposition, his marked spirituality of religious character, and his evident ability so won upon the people of Salem that they immediately called him to take the place of teacher, vacated six months before by the death of Higginson.

From the pulpit of the Salem Church, Williams at once began to express these and other opinions quite opposite to those dominant in the Bay. The Boston authorities had already remonstrated with the Salem Church for calling Williams, and when to his first offence he added insistence on, and amplification of, his dangerous and distasteful opinions, their indignation was extreme. He was fearless in denouncing what he regarded as error, and especially the

fundamental error of the commonwealth in conceding to the magistrate any power over religious matters.

“Everything in the polity of Massachusetts was made subservient to the interest of the State, and that State was virtually and exclusively the Puritan Church.”¹ To the average New England Puritan of the day, of course with the implied premise that his Church was the only one that had the truth, it was difficult to make a distinction between the two blended institutions. To such a view the attempt to separate these factors of a godly state, and, more than that, the hardihood of asserting such union to be a sin against God and conscience, took on the gravity of a heresy, alike impious and dangerous to the public weal.

From the mutterings of the storm Williams, after but few months at Salem, deemed it prudent to retire for refuge to Plymouth. There he was received with both kindness and honor. The tolerant Pilgrims, happy in serving God in such way as their conscience approved, content to accord to other men an equal liberty and abstaining from all attempts to forcibly fuse things civil and religious, at once tendered to this first American refugee from religious persecution the place of teacher in their own Church, assistant to the pastor, Ralph Smith. Here Williams remained for two years, laboring most acceptably in his religious office, though, as must be understood from the fearless and conscientious nature of the man, abating noth

Author:	Cobb, Sanford
Title:	The Rise of Religious Liberty in America: A History
Citation:	New York: MacMillan, 1902
Subdivision:	Chapter V: The Puritan Establishments
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