The Development of Religious Liberty in Connecticut Part 9

The leaders of the New Light party in the church of Canterbury were the nearest relatives and friends of the Cleveland boys, who came to be regarded as martyrs to their religion. Their treatment opened the question as to whether the steadily increasing numbers of New Lights were to lose for their children the benefit of the college, that they helped to support. Must they, in order to send their sons to college, deprive them for four years of a "Gospel ministry" and lay them open to consequent grave perils? Why should New Lights be required to make such a sacrifice, or why, in vacation, should their children be required to submit to the ecclesiastical laws of the college? If Episcopalians were permitted to have their sons, students at Yale, worship with them during the vacations, why should not the same liberty be granted to equally good citizens who differed even less in theological opinions?

Because of this college incident the difficulties in the Canterbury church attracted still more attention, but the end of the schism was at hand. In the month that witnessed the expulsion of the Clevelands, the minority of the original First Church voted that they were "The Church of Canterbury," and that those who had gone forth from among them in the January of the preceding year, 1743, as Congregationalists after the Cambridge Platform, had abrogated that of Saybrook. Consequently, to the minority lawfully belonged the election of the minister, the meeting house, and the taxes for ministerial support. Having thus fortified their position, they by a later vote declared:--

That those in the society who are differently minded from us, and can't conscientiously join in ye settlement of Mr. James Coggeshall as our minister may have free liberty to enjoy their own opinion, and we are willing they should be released and discharged from paying anything to ye support of Mr. Coggeshall, or living under his ministry any longer than until they have parish privileges granted them and are settled in church by themselves according to ye order of ye Gospel, or are lawfully released. [121]

At the repeal of the Toleration Act in 1743, a new method had been prescribed for sober dissenters who wished to separate from the state church, and who were not of the recognized sects. The method of relief, thereafter, was for the dissenters, no matter how widely scattered in the colony, to appeal in person to the General a.s.sembly and ask for special exemption. Moreover, they were promised only that their requests would be listened to, and the a.s.sembly was growing steadily more and more averse to granting such pet.i.tions. As a result of this policy, the Separatist church of Canterbury did not have a very good prospect of immediate ability to accept the good-will of the First Church, which went even farther than the resolution cited above. The First Church offered to a.s.sist the Separatists in obtaining recognition from the a.s.sembly. This offer the Separatists refused, preferring to submit to double taxation, and thus to become a standing protest to the injustice of the laws.

After the expulsion of the Clevelands, Yale made one more p.r.o.nounced effort to discipline its students and to repress the growth of the liberal spirit. She attempted to suppress a reprint of Locke's essay upon "Toleration" which the senior cla.s.s had secretly printed at their expense. An attempt to overawe the students and to make them confess on pain of expulsion was met by the spirited resistance of one of the cla.s.s, who threatened to appeal to the King in Council if his diploma were denied him. His diploma was granted; and some years after, when the sentiment in the colony had further changed, the college gave the Cleveland brothers their degree.

The church in Enfield[122] had an experience somewhat similar to that of Canterbury, to which it seems to have looked for spiritual advice and example. The Enfield Separate church was probably organized between 1745 and 1751, though its first known doc.u.ments are a series of letters to the Separate church in Canterbury covering the period 1751-53. These letters sought advice in adjusting difficulties that were creating great discord in the church, which had already separated from the original church of Enfield. In 1762, the Enfield Separatists, once more in harmony, renewed their covenant, and called Mr. Nathaniel Collins to be their pastor. They struggled for existence until 1769, when they appealed to the General a.s.sembly for exemption from the rates still levied upon them for the benefit of the First Society. They asked for recognition, separation, and incorporation as the Second Society and Church of Enfield. They were refused; but in May of the following year,--a year to be marked by special legislation in behalf of dissenters,--the Enfield Separatists again memorialized the a.s.sembly, and in response were permitted to organize their own church. [123] This permission, however, was limited to the memorialists, eighty in number; to their children, if within six months after reaching their majority they filed certificates of membership in this Separate church; and to strangers, who should enter the new society within one year of their settling in the town. The history of the Enfield Separatists gives glimpses of the frequent double discord between the New Lights and the Old and among the New Lights themselves. The period of the Enfield persecution extended over years when, elsewhere in the colony, Separatists had obtained recognition of their claims to toleration, if only through special acts and not by general legislation.

If churches suffered from the severe ecclesiastical laws of 1742-43, individuals did also. Under the law which considered traveling ministers as vagrants, and which the a.s.sembly had made still more stringent by the additional penalty "to pay down the cost of transportation," so learned a man as the Rev. Samuel Finley, afterwards president of Princeton, was imprisoned and driven from the colony because he insisted upon preaching in Connecticut. Indeed, it was his persistence in returning to the colony that caused the magistrates to increase the severity of the law.[124] When the ministers John Owen of Groton and Benjamin Pomeroy of Hebron, as well as the itinerant James Davenport of Southold, criticised the laws, all of them were at once arraigned for the offense before the a.s.sembly.

There was so much excitement over the arrest of Pomeroy and Davenport that it threatened a riot. All three men were discharged, but Davenport was ordered out of the colony for his itinerant preaching and for teaching resistance to the civil laws. Pomeroy, his friend, had declared that the laws forbade any faithful minister, or any one faithful in civil authority, to hold office. Events bore out his statement, for ministers were hounded, and the New Light justices of the peace, and other magistrates, were deprived of office. Pomeroy, himself, was discharged only to be complained of for irregular preaching at Colchester and in punishment to be,deprived of his salary for seven years.[125] The Rev. Nathan Stone of Stonington was disciplined for his New Light sympathies. Philemon Bobbins of Branford was deposed for preaching to the Baptists at Wallingford. This last procedure was the work of the Consociation of New Haven county, which thereby began a six years' contest, 1741-47, with the Branford church. In 1745 this church attempted to throw off the yoke of the Consociation by renouncing the Saybrook Platform.

During these years of persecution, the opposition to the Old Light policy was gradually gaining effective power, although the college had expelled Brainerd, and Mr. Cook, one of the Yale corporation, had found it expedient to resign because of his too prominent part in the formation of the North Church of New Haven. The Old Lights in the legislature of 1743 pa.s.sed the repeal of the Toleration Act because the New Lights had no commanding vote; but they were increasing throughout the colony. Fairfield East Consociation had licensed Brainerd the year that Yale expelled him. Twelve ministers of New London and Windham county had met to approve the revival, notwithstanding the repeal of the Toleration Act and the known antagonism of the Windham a.s.sociation to the Separatists. Windham Consociation and that of Fairfield East favored the revival. Large numbers of converts were made in these districts, and many also in Hartford county. In the New Haven district the spirit of antagonism and of persecution was strongest.

It was in accordance with the laws of 1742-43 that Mack, Shaw, and Pyrlaeus, Moravian missionaries, on a visit in 1744 to their mission stations among the Indians in Connecticut, were seized as Papists and hustled from sheriff to sheriff for three days until "the Governor of Connecticut honorably dismissed them," though their accusers insisted upon their being bound over under a penalty of 100 to keep the law.

"Being not fully acquainted with all the special laws of the country, they perceived a trap laid for them and thought it prudent to retire to Shekomeko" (Pine Plains, Dutchess County, N. Y.). Missionaries sent out from Nazareth and Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, had established this sub-centre for work in New York and Connecticut, and in the latter colony, in 1740-43, had made Indian converts at Sharon, Salisbury Indian Pond, near Newtown, and at Pachgatgoch, two miles southwest of Kent. Here was their princ.i.p.al station in Connecticut. They had made, in all, some twenty converts among the Indians, and had reclaimed several of their chief men from drunkenness and idleness. Moravian principles forbade these missionaries to take an oath. Consequently, the greed of traders, the rivalry of creeds, together with the belief that there was something wrong about men who would not swear allegiance to King George,--notwithstanding their willingness to affirm it, and notwithstanding their denial of the Pretender,--gave rise to the conviction that they must be Papists[d] in league with the French and their Indian allies. Accordingly both magistrates and ministers arrested the missionaries, and hurried them before the court at Poughkeepsie or at New Milford. Though the governors of both states recognized the value of the mission work, popular feeling ran so high that New York, in September, 1744, pa.s.sed a law requiring them to take the oaths prescribed or to leave the country, and also commanding that "vagrant Teachers, Moravians, and disguised Papists should not preach or teach in public or private" without first obtaining a license. In Connecticut, as has been said, the laws of 1742-1743 were enforced against them; later, when during the Old French War groundless rumors of their intrigues with hostile Indians were circulated against them, a vain hunt was made for three thousand stands of arms that were said to be secreted in their missions. The severe persecution in New York had driven these missionaries into Pennsylvania and into Connecticut, but these rumors of intrigue broke up their work and caused the abandonment of their stations in the latter colony. Some of these, such as Kent, Sharon, and Salisbury, were revived in 1749-1762, at the request of the English settlers as well as of the Indian converts.[126]

Returning to the main story of the progress of dissent, we find that in 1746 the General Court of Connecticut felt obliged to safeguard the Establishment by the pa.s.sage of a law ent.i.tled, "Concerning who shall vote in Society Meetings."[127] Its preamble states that persons exempted from taxes for the support of the established ministry, because of their dissenting from the way of worship and ministry of the Presbyterian, Congregational, or Consociated churches, "ought not to vote in society meetings with respect to the support or to the building and maintaining of meeting houses," yet some persons, exempted as aforesaid, "have adventured to vote and act therein," as there was no express law to the contrary. The new law forbade such voting, and limited the ecclesiastical ballot to members of the Establishment who "were persons of full age and in full communion with the church," and to other unexempted persons who held a freehold rated at fifty shillings per year, or personal property to the value of forty pounds. This law was just, in that it excluded all dissenters who had received exemption from Presbyterian rates. It included all others having the property qualification, whether they wanted to vote or not. That it was felt to be a necessity is a witness to the increasing recognition of the strength of the dissenting element.

In 1747, the Consociation of Windham sent forth a violent pamphlet describing the Separatists as a people in revolt against G.o.d and in rebellion against the Church and government. But the tide of public opinion was turning, and popular sentiment did not support the writers of this pamphlet. Moreover, the secular affairs of the colony were calling minds away from religious contentions as the stress of the Old French War was more and more felt. In 1748, venturing upon the improvement in public sentiment, Solomon Paine sent to the legislature a memorial signed by three hundred and thirty persons and asking for a repeal of such laws as debarred people from enjoying the liberty "granted by G.o.d and tolerated by the King."[128] It was known to these memorialists that a revision of the laws, first undertaken in 1742, was nearing completion, and their desire was that all obnoxious or unfair acts should be repealed. The pet.i.tion met with a sharp rebuff, and, as a punishment, three members were expelled from the a.s.sembly for being Separatists. But by such measures the Old Lights were overreaching themselves. A mark of the turning of public opinion was given this same year, when, upon the request of his old church in Hebron, the church vouching for his work and character, the a.s.sembly restored to his ministerial rights and privileges the Rev. James Pomeroy. The unjust laws of 1742-43 and of the following years were never formally repealed, but were quietly dropped out of the revision of the laws issued in 1750.

Thenceforth the people began to tolerate variety in religious opinions with better grace, and the dominant authoritative rule of the Saybrook Platform began to wane, though for twenty years more it strove to a.s.sert its power. In 1755, the Middletown a.s.sociation advised licensing candidates for the ministry for a term of years. The idea was to prevent errors arising from the personal interpretation of the Scriptures and indifference to dogmatic truths of religion from creeping into the churches. About the same time, the Consociation of New Haven invited their former member, Mr. Bobbins of Branford, to sit with them again at the installation of Mr. Street of East Haven. Conciliatory acts and measures such as these originated with both the Old and New Lights, and did much to lessen the division between them. Discussion turned more and more from personal opinions, character, and abilities, to considerations of doctrinal points. The churches found more and more in common, while worldly interests left the ma.s.ses with only a half-hearted concern in church discussions.

To summarize the effect of the Great Awakening as evidenced by the great schism and its results thus far considered: The strength of the revival movement, as such, was soon spent. The number of its converts throughout New England was estimated by Dr. Dexter to be as high as forty or fifty thousand, while later writers put it as low as ten or twelve thousand, out of the entire population of three hundred thousand souls. The years 1740-42 were the years of the Great Awakening, and after them there were comparatively few conversions during any given time. Even in Jonathan Edwards's own church in Northampton there were no converts between 1744 and 1748. The influence of the Great Awakening was not, however, transient, nor was it confined to the Congregational churches, whether of the Cambridge or the Saybrook type. Baptist churches felt the impetus, receiving many directly into their membership, and also indirectly, from those Separatist churches which found themselves too weak to endure. Episcopalians added to their numbers from among religiously inclined persons who sought a calm and stable church home unaffected by church and political strife. The Great Awakening created the Separatist movement and the New Light party, revitalized the Established churches, invigorated others, and through the persecution and counter-persecution that the great schism produced, taught the Connecticut people more and more of religious tolerance, and so brought them nearer to the dawn of religious liberty. Such liberty could only come after the downfall of the Saybrook, Platform, and after a complete severance of Church and State. The last could not come for three quarters of a century. Meanwhile the leaven of the great revival would be working. On its intellectual side, the Great Awakening led to the discussion of doctrinal points, an advance from questions of church polity. These themes of pulpit and of religious press led, finally, to a live interest in practical Christianity and to a more genial religion than that which had characterized the Puritan age. The Half-Way Covenant had been killed. Education had received a new impulse, Christian missions were reinvigorated, and the monthly concert of prayer for the conversion of the world was inst.i.tuted. [129] True, French and Indian wars, the Spanish entanglement with its West Indian expedition, and the consuming political interests of the years 1745-83, shortened the period of energetic spiritual life, and ushered in another half century of religious indifference. But during that half century the followers of Edwards and Bellamy were to develop a less severe and more winning system of theology, and the fellowship of the churches was to suggest the colonial committees of safety as a preliminary to the birth of a nation, founded upon the inherent equality of all men before the law. This conception of political and civil liberty was to develop side by side with a clearer notion of the value of religious freedom.

FOOTNOTES:

[a] This term came with the royal charter of 1662, but only gradually displaced the familiar "General Court."

[b] The Milford church, like that of New Haven, suffered for many years from unjust exactions and taxation.

[c] Commencement then came in September.

[d] And this notwithstanding their willingness to include in their affirmation a denial of Mariolatry, purgatory, and other vital Romish tenets.

CHAPTER XI

THE ABROGATION OF THE SAYBROOK PLATFORM

That house cannot stand.--Mark iii, 25.

The times change and we change with them.--Proverb.

The omission of all persecuting acts from the revision of the laws in 1750 was evidence that the worst features of the great schism were pa.s.sing, that public opinion as a whole had grown averse to any great severity toward the Separatists as dissenters. But the continuance in the revised statutes of the Saybrook Platform as the legalized const.i.tution of the "Presbyterian, Congregational or Consociated Church," and the almost total absence of any provision for exempting Congregational Separatists from the taxes levied in its behalf, operated, notwithstanding the many acts of conciliation between these two types of churches, to revive at times the milder forms of persecution. And such injustice would continue until the Separatists as a body were legally exempted from ecclesiastical rates, and until the Saybrook Platform was either formally annulled or, in its turn, quietly dropped from the statute book. But henceforth, the measure of intolerance would be determined more by local sentiment and less by the text of the law, more by the proportion of Old Lights to New in a given community. And the measure of toleration must eventually take the form of legalized rights rather than of special privileges, and this through a growing appreciation of the value of the Separatists as citizens. The abrogation of the Saybrook Platform might follow upon a reaffiliation of all Presbyterians and all Congregationalists in a new spirit of mutual tolerance and helpfulness. Whatever the events or influences that should bring about this reaffiliation, the new bonds of church life would necessarily lack the stringency of the palmy days of Saybrook autocratic rule. Consequently when such a time arrived, the Platform, at least in its letter, could be dropped from the law-book. The old colonial laws for the support of religion would still suffice to protect and exalt the Establishment, and to preserve it as the spiritual arm of the State. It so happened that toleration was granted to the Separatists at the beginning of the Revolutionary struggle, and that the abrogation of the Saybrook Platform followed close upon its victorious end. Many influences, both religious and secular, had their part in bringing about these progressive steps toward religious freedom, toward full and free liberty of conscience.

The revision of the laws completed in 1750 had been under consideration since 1742. At the beginning of the great schism, the important task had been placed in the hands of a committee consisting of Roger Wolcott, Thomas Fitch, Jonathan Trumbull, and John Bulkley, Judge of the Superior Court. The first three names are at once recognized as Connecticut's chief magistrates in 1750-54, 1754-66, 1769-1783, respectively. During the eight years that the revision was in the hands of this committee, the church quarrel had pa.s.sed its crisis; the Old Lights had slowly yielded their political, as well as their ecclesiastical power; and their controlling influence was rapidly pa.s.sing from them. The Old French War, with its pressing affairs, had so affected the life of the colony as to lessen religious fervor, weaken ecclesiastical animosities, and, at the same time, to develop a broader conception of citizenship.

English influence, moreover, had modified the ecclesiastical laws in the revision of 1750. The Connecticut authorities, when imbued with the persecuting spirit, did not always stop to distinguish between the legally exempt Baptist dissenters and the unexempted Separatists. This was due in part to the fact that many of the latter, like the church of which Isaac Backus was the leader, went over to the Baptist denomination. The two sects held similar opinions upon all subjects, except that of baptism. It was much easier to obtain exemption from ecclesiastical taxes by showing Baptist certificates than to run the risk of being denied exemption when appeal was made to the a.s.sembly, either individually or as a church body, the form of pet.i.tion demanded of these Separatists. The persecuted Baptists at once turned to England for a.s.sistance, and to the Committee of English Dissenters, of which Dr. Avery was chairman.

This committee had been appointed to look after the interests of all dissenters, both in England and in her colonies, for the English dissenting bodies were growing in numbers and in political importance. To this committee the Connecticut Baptists reported such cases of persecution as that of the Saybrook Separatist church, which in 1744 suffered through the arrest of fourteen of its members for "holding a meeting contrary to law on G.o.d's holy Sabbath day." These fourteen people were arraigned, fined, and driven on foot through deep mud twenty-five miles to New London, where they were thrust into prison for refusing to pay their fines, and left there without fire, food, or beds. There they were kept for several weeks, dependent for the necessaries of life upon the good will of neighboring Baptists.[130] The Separatists could report the trials of the Separate church of Canterbury, of that of Enfield, of the First Separate church of Milford, hindered in the exercise of its legal rights for over twenty years, and they could also recount the persecution of churches and of individuals in Wethersfield, Windsor, Middletown, Norwich, and elsewhere. Upon receiving such reports, Dr. Avery had written, "I am very sorry to hear of the persecuting spirit which prevails in Connecticut.... If any gentleman that suffers by these coercive laws will apply to me, I will use my influence that justice be done them."

The letter was read in the a.s.sembly, and is said to have influenced the committee of revision, causing them to omit the persecuting laws of 1742-44, in order that they might no longer be quoted against the colony. Governor Law replied to Dr. Avery that the disorders and excesses of the dissenters had compelled the very legislation of which they complained. To which Dr. Avery returned answer that, while disorders were to be regretted, civil penalties were not their proper remedy. This was a sentiment that was gaining adherents in the colony as well as in England. Among other instances of persecution among the Baptists was that of Samuel, brother of Isaac Backus, who in 1752, with his mother and two members of the Baptist society, was imprisoned for thirteen days on account of refusal to pay the ecclesiastical taxes.[131] Another was that of Deacon Nathaniel Drake, Jr.,[132] of Windsor, who, in 1761, refused to pay the a.s.sessment for the Second Society's new meeting-house. For six years the magistrates wrestled with the Deacon, striving to collect the a.s.sessment. But the Deacon was obstinate, and rather than pay a tax of which his conscience disapproved, he preferred to be branded in the hand. Outside of Baptist or Separatist, there were other afflicted churches, such as that of Wallingford,[133] where the New Lights could complain that, in 1758, the Consociation of New Haven county had refused to install the candidate of the majority, Mr. Dana; and had attempted to discipline the twelve ministers who had united in ordaining him; and that as a result the twelve were forced to meet in an a.s.sociation by themselves for fourteen years, or until 1772.

The Separatists attempted to obtain exemption through pet.i.tions to the a.s.sembly, trusting that, as each new election sent more and more New Lights to that body, each prayer for relief would be more favorably received. One of the most important of these pet.i.tions was that of 1753, when more than twenty Separatist churches, representing about a thousand members, united in an appeal wherein they complained of the distraining of their goods to meet a.s.sessments and taxes for the benefit of the Established churches; of imprisonments, with consequent deprivation of comforts for their families; and of the danger to the civil peace threatened by these evils. The a.s.sembly refused redress. Whereupon the pet.i.tion was at once reconstructed,[a] and, with authentic records and testimonies, to which Governor Fitch set the seal of Connecticut, was sent, in 1756, [134] to London. The Committee in behalf of Dissenters were to see that it was presented to the King in Council. The pet.i.tion charged violation of the colony's charter, excessive favoritism, and legislation in favor of one Christian sect to the exclusion of all others and to the oppression, even, of some. The English Committee thought that these charges might anger the King and endanger the Connecticut charter. Accordingly, they again wrote to the Connecticut authorities, remonstrating with them because of their treatment of dissenters. At the same time, they sent a letter advising the pet.i.tioners to show their loyalty to the best interests of the colony by withdrawing their complaint. These dissenters were further advised to begin at once a suit in the Connecticut courts for their rights, and with the intent of carrying their case to England, should the colony fail to do them justice. Legal proceedings were immediately begun, but were allowed to lapse, partly because of the press of secular interests, for the colonial wars, the West India expedition, and other affairs of great moment claimed attention, and partly because there were indications that the government would regard the Separatists more favorably.

In the colony itself a change was taking place through which the college was to go over to the side of the New Lights. In 1755, President Clap had established the College Church in order to remove the students from the party strife that was still distracting the churches. In order to avoid a conflict over the matter, he refused to ask the consent of the a.s.sembly, claiming the right of an incorporated college and the precedent of the English universities, since, in 1745, the a.s.sembly had formally incorporated "The President and Fellows of Yale College," vesting in them all the usual powers appertaining to colleges. In the same year, also, the initial step toward establishing a chair of divinity had been taken, and it became the first toward the founding of the separate College Church. President Clap always maintained that "the great design of founding Yale was to educate ministers in our way,"[135] and the chair of divinity had been established in answer to the suggestion of the Court that the college take measures to protect its students from the New Light movement. President Clap was hurried on in his policy of establishing the College Church both by his desire to separate the students from the New Light controversy in Mr. Noyes's church, where they were wont to attend, and by an appeal to him, in 1753, of Rector Punderson, the priest recently placed in charge of the Church-of-England mission in New Haven. The rector had two sons in college, and he asked that they and such other collegians as were Episcopalians might be permitted to attend the Church-of-England services. President Clap refused to give the desired permission, except for communion and some special services, and he at once proceeded to organize a church within the college. The trustees and faculty upheld him, but the Old Lights, then about two-thirds of the deputies to the a.s.sembly, opposed his course of action, and succeeded in taking away the annual grant that, at the incorporation of the college, had been given to Yale. After this, they regarded President Clap as a "political New Light," but as the latter party increased in the a.s.sembly, and became friendly to Yale, the college gradually reinstated itself in the favor of the legislature.

If in his pet.i.tions the Separatist demanded only exemption, only that much toleration, in his controversial writings he ably argued the right of all men to full liberty of conscience. Unfortunately, the ignorance and follies of many of the Separatists, when battling in advance of their age for religious liberty, militated against the logic of their position. Harmony among themselves would have commended and strengthened their cause, and given it a forceful dignity. They blundered, as did their English predecessors of a much earlier date, by laying too much stress upon the individual, upon his interpretations of Scripture, and upon his right of criticism. Much of their work in behalf of religious liberty took the form of pamphleteering. Again, it was their misfortune that the Establishment could boast of writers of more ability and of greater training. Yet the Separatists had some bold thinkers, some able advocates, and, as time wore on, and their numbers were increased and disciplined, the strength and quality of their pet.i.tions and published writings improved greatly. Sometimes these dissenters were helped by the theories of their opponents, which, when pushed to logical conclusions and practical application, often became strong reasons for granting the very liberty the Separatists sought. Sometimes an indignant member of the Establishment, smarting under its interference, was roused to forceful expression of the broader notions of personal and church liberty that were slowly spreading through the community. A few extracts from typical pamphlets of the time will give an idea of the atmosphere surrounding the disputants.

In 1749, a tract was issued from the New London press by one E. H. M. A. ent.i.tled, "The present way of the Country in maintaining the Gospel ministry by a Public Rate or Tax is Lawful, Equitable, and agreable to the Gospel; As the same is argued and proved in way of Dialogue between John Queristicus and Thomas Casuisticus, near Neighbors in the County." In answer to this, and for the purpose of vindicating the religious practices and opinions of the Separatists, Ebenezer Frothingham, a Separatist minister, took the field in 1750 as the champion of religious liberty. His book of four hundred and fifty pages had for its t.i.tle "The Articles of Faith and Practice with the Covenant that is confessed by the Separate Churches of Christ in this land. Also a discourse." So influential and so characteristic was this work, that rather long extracts from it are permissible, and, with a few arguments from other writers, will serve to reflect the thought and feeling of the day, and will best give the point of view of both dissenter and member of the Establishment, of liberal and conservative; for the pamphlet of the period was apt to be religious or political, or more likely both.

Frothingham, speaking of the injustice done the Separatists, writes:--

That religion that hath not authority and power enough within itself to influence its professors to support the same, without Bargains, Taxes or Rates, and the Civil Power, and Prisons, &c. is a false Religion. ... Now, if the Religion generally professed and practiced in this land, be the Religion of Jesus Christ, why do they strain away the Goods of the Professors of it, and waste their substance to support it? which has frequently been done. And which is worse, why do they take their Neighbors (that don't worship with them, but have solemnly covenanted to worship G.o.d in another place) by the throat, and cast them into Prison? or else for a Rate of Twenty Shillings, Three or Six Pounds, send away Ten, Twenty, or Thirty Pounds worth of Goods, and set them up at Vendue; where they will generally a.s.semble the poor, miserable Drunkard, and the awful foul-mouthed Swearer, and the bold, covetous, Blasphemous Scoffer at things Sacred and Divine, and the Sc.u.m of Society for the most part will be together, to count and make their Games about the Goods upon Sale, and at the owners of them too, and at the Holy Religion that the Owners thereof profess; and at such Vendues there are rarely any solid, thinking men to be found there; or if there are any such present, they do not care to act in that oppressive way of supporting the Gospel. Such men find something is the matter. G.o.d's Vice-regent in their b.r.e.a.s.t.s, tells them it is not equal to make such Havock of men's Estates, to support a Worship they have nothing to do with; yes, the Consciences of these persons will trouble them so that they had rather pay twice their part of the Rates, and so let the oppressed Party go free.

Upon the difficulty of securing collectors, Frothingham remarks: "If it be such a good Cause, and no good men in the Society, to undertake that good Work, surely then such a Society is awfully declined, if that is the case." Frothingham quotes the Suttler of the "Dialogue" as saying, "We have good reason to believe, that if this Hedge of human Laws, and Enclosure of Order round the Church, were wholly broken down, and taken away, there would not be, ('t is probable) one regular visible Church left subsisting in this land, fifty years hence, or, at most, not many. "To this, Frothingham replied that if by the "visible church, here spoken of," is meant "Anti-Christ's Church, we should be apt to believe it," for "it needs Civil Power, Rates and Prisons to support it. But if the Gospel Church, set up at first without the aid of civil power could continue and spread, why can't it subsist without the Civil Power now as well as then?" "To this day," this author adds, "the true Church of Christ is in bondage, by usurping Laws that unrighteously intrude upon her ecclesiastical Rights and civil Enjoyments; .... And Wo! Wo! to New England! for the G.o.d-provoking Evil, which is too much indulged by the great and mighty in the Land. The cry of oppression is gone up into the ears of the Lord G.o.d of Sabbaoth."

Frothingham thrusts at the payment or support of the ministry by taxation in his a.s.sertion that "there is no instance of Paul's entering into any civil Contract or Bargain, to get his wages or Hire, in all his Epistles; but we have frequent accounts of his receiving free contributions."[136] (Here, he but repeats a part of the Baptist protest in the Wightman-Bulkley debate of 1707.) Frothingham states that "the scope and burden of it [his book] were to shew ... both from scripture and reason that the standing ministers and Churches in this Colony [Connecticut] are not practising in the rule of G.o.d's word."

The book at once commanded the attention desired by its author. It drew upon Frothingham the concentrated odium of the Rev. Moses Bartlett, pastor of the Portland church, in a fifty-four-paged pamphlet ent.i.tled "False and Seducing Teachers." Among such Bartlett includes and roundly denounces Frothingham and the two Paines, Solomon and his brother Elisha. Elisha Paine had removed to Long Island. Returning to Canterbury for some of his household goods, he was seized by the sheriff for rates overdue, and thrown into Windham jail.[137] After waiting some weeks for his release, he sent the following bold and spicy letter to the Canterbury a.s.sessors:--

To you gentlemen, practioners of the law from your prisoner in Windham gaol, because his conscience will not let him pay a minister that is set up by the laws of Connecticut, contrary to his conscience and consent.

The Roman Emperor was called Pontifex Maximus, because he presided over civil and ecclesiastical affairs; which, is the first beast that persecuted the Christians that separated from the Established religion, which they call the holy religion of their forefathers; and by their law, fined, whipped, imprisoned and killed such as refused obedience thereto. We all own that the Pope or Papal throne is the second beast, because he is the head of the ecclesiastical, and also meddles in civil affairs.... He also compels all under him to submit to his worship, decrees and laws, by whips, fines, prisons, fire and f.a.gots. Now what your prisoner requests of you is a clear distinction between the Ecclesiastical Const.i.tution of Connecticut, by which I am now held in prison, and the aforesaid two thrones or beasts in the foundation, const.i.tution and support thereof. For if by Scripture and reason you can show they do not all stand on the throne mentioned in Psalm xciv: 20, [b] but that the latter is founded on the Rock Christ Jesus, I will confess my fault and soon clear myself of the prison. But if this Const.i.tution hath its rise from _that throne_ ... better is it to die for Christ, than to live against him.

From an old friend to this civil const.i.tution, and long your prisoner.

ELISHA PAINE.

WINDHAM JAIL, Dec. 11, 1752.

In 1744, in addition to his memorials and letters, Solomon Paine had published "A Short View of the Const.i.tution of the Church of Christ, and the Difference between it and the Church Established in Connecticut." Frothingham, when alluding to Moses Bartlett's denunciation of himself and Paine, refers to this book in his remark, "Elder Paine and myself have labored to prove, and I think it evident, that the religious Const.i.tution of this Colony is not founded upon the Scriptures of truth, but upon men's inventions."

In the year 1755, the same in which he established the college church, President Clap issued his "History and Vindication of the doctrines received and established in the Churches of New England," [c] to which Thomas Darling's "Some Remarks on President Clap's History" was a scathing rejoinder. Darling a.s.serted that for the President to uphold the Saybrook System of Consociated Churches was to set up the standards of men, a thing the forefathers never did;[138] that the picture of the Separatists' "New Scheme," which the President drew, was a scandalous _spiritual_ libel;[139] and then, falling into the personal attacks permitted in those days, Darling adds that President Clap was an overzealous sycophant of the General a.s.sembly, a servant of politics rather than of religion, and that it would be better for him to trust to the real virtues of the Consociated Church to uphold it than to strive for legal props and legislative favors for his "ministry-factory,"[140] the college. To raise the cry of heresy, Darling declared, was the President's political powder, and "The Church, the Church is in danger!" his rallying cry. He concluded his arraignment with:--

But would a man be tried, judged and excommunicated by such a standard as this? No! Not so long as they had one atom of _common_ sense left. These things will never go down in a free State, where people are bred in, and breathe the free air, and are formed upon principles of liberty; they might answer in a popish country, or in _Turkey_, where the common people are sank and degraded almost to the state of brutes.... But in a free state they will be eternally ridiculed and abhorred.... 'T is too late in the Day for these things, these gentlemen should have lived twelve or thirteen hundred years ago.

Among the champions of religious liberty was the Seventh-day Baptist, John Bolles. He wrote "To worship G.o.d in Spirit and in Truth, is to worship him in true Liberty of Conscience," and also "Concerning the Christian Sabbath, which that Sabbath commanded to Israel, after they came out of Egypt, was a Sign of. Also Some Remarks upon a Book written by Ebenezer Frothingham." These works were published in 1757, and, five years later, called out in defense of the Establishment Eobert Ross's "Plain Address to the Quakers, Moravians, Separates, Separatist-Baptists, Rogerines, and other Enthusiasts on immediate impulses, and Revelation, &c," wherein the author considers all those whom he addresses as on a level with Frothingham, whom he names and scores for "trampling on all Churches and their Determinasions, but your own, with the greatest disdain."[141]

In the same year, 1762, the Separatist Israel Holly published a defense of his opinions, quoting freely from Dr. Watts and from his own earlier work, "A Seasonable Plea for Liberty of Conscience, and the Eight of private Judgment in matters of Religion, without any control from Human Authority." This "A Word in Zion's Behalf" [d]

boldly ranges itself with Frothingham and Bolles, arguing against, and emphatically opposing, the state control of religion. Holly also engaged in a printed controversy, publishing in connection with it "The Power of the Congregational Church to ordain its officers and govern itself."

In 1767, while the Separatists still outnumbered the Baptists in Connecticut, Ebenezer Frothingham put forth another powerful and closely argued tract, "A Key to unlock the Door, that leads in, to take a fair view of the Religious Const.i.tution Established by Law in the Colony of Connecticut," [e] etc. In his preface he states:--