The Development of Religious Liberty in Connecticut by M. Louise Greene, Ph. D.

M >> M. Louise Greene, Ph. D. >> The Development of Religious Liberty in Connecticut

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Thus it happened that in the last decade of the sixteenth century two
forms of Congregationalism had developed, Brownism and Barrowism.
Neither Browne nor Barrowe felt any need, as did their later
followers, to demonstrate their doctrinal soundness, because in all
matters of creed they "were in full doctrinal sympathy with the
predominantly Calvinistic views of the English Established Church from
which they had come out."

"Browne, first of all English writers, set forth the Anabaptist
doctrine that the civil ruler had no control over the spiritual
affairs of the church and that State and Church were separate realms."
[5] In the beginning, Browne's foremost wish was not to establish a
new church system or polity, but to encourage the spiritual life of
the believer. To this end he desired separation from the English
church, which, like all other state churches, included all baptized
persons, not excommunicate, whether faithful or not to their baptismal
or confirmation vows to lead godly lives. [6] Moreover, as Browne did
not believe that the magistrates should have power to coerce men's
consciences, teaching, as he did, that the mingling of church offices
and civil offices was anti-Christian,[7] he was unwilling to wait for
a reformation to be brought about by the changing laws of the
state.[8] He further advocated such equality of power [9] among the
members of the church that in its government a democracy resulted, and
this theory, pushed to a logical conclusion, implied that a democratic
form of civil government was also the best.[f] Browne roughly
draughted a government for the church with pastors, teachers, elders,
deacons, and widows. He insisted, however, that these officers did not
stand between Christ and the ordinary believer, "though they haue the
grace and office of teaching and guiding.... Because eurie one of the
church is made Kinge, and Priest and a Prophet, under Christ, to
vpholde and further the kingdom of God."

Browne and Barrowe both made the Bible their guide in all matters of
church life. From its text they deduced the definition of a true
church as, "A company of faithful people gathered by the Word unto
Christ and submitting themselves in all things;" of a Christian, as
one who had made a "willing covenant with God, and thereby did live a
godly and Christian life."[10] This covenanting together of Christians
constituted a church. From their interpretation of the New Testament,
Browne and Barrowe held that this covenanting included repentance for
sin, a profession of faith, and a promise of obedience. Moreover, to
their minds, primitive Christianity had insisted upon a public,
personal narration of each covenanter's regenerative experience. From
sacred writ they derived their church organization also.[ll] Their
pastors were for exhorting or "edifying by all comfortable words and
promises in the Scriptures, to work in our hearts the estimate of our
duties with love and zeal thereunto." Their teachers were for teaching
or "delivering the grounds of Religion and meaning of the Scriptures
and confirming the same." Both officers were to administer baptism and
the Lord's supper, or "the Seals of the Covenant." The elders included
both pastors and teachers and also "Ruling Elders," all of whom were
for "oversight, counsel, and redressing things amiss," but the ruling
elders were to give special attention to the public order and
government of the church. According to both Browne and Barrowe, these
officers were to be the mouthpiece of the church in the admission,
censure, dismissal, or readmission of members. They were to prepare
matters to be brought before the church for action. They were also to
adjust matters, when possible, so as to avoid overburdening the church
or its pastor and teacher with trivial business. In matters spiritual,
they were to unite with the pastor and teacher in keeping watch over
the lives of the people, that they be of good character and godly
reputation.

Browne taught that the church had power which it shared with its
officers as fellow-Christians, but which lifted it above them and
their office. It lay with the church to elect them. It lay with the
church to censure them. Barrowe also maintained that the church was
"above its institutions, above its officers," [12] and that every
officer was responsible to the church and liable to its censure as
well as indebted to it for his election and office. But he further
maintained that the members of the church should render meek and
submissive, faithful and loving obedience to their chosen
elders. Barrowe thus taught that guidance in religious matters should
be left in the hands of those to whom by election it had been
delegated. The elders were to be men of discernment, able to judge
"between cause and cause, plea and plea," to redress evil, and to see
that both the people and their officers[g] did their full duty in
accordance with the laws of God and the ordinances of the
church. Barrowe had seen the confusion and disintegration of Browne's
church, and he planned by thus introducing the Calvinistic theory of
eldership to avoid the pitfalls into which the Brownists had plunged
while practicing their new-found principle of religious
equality. Barrowe hoped by his system to secure the independence of
the local churches and also to avoid the repellent attitude of a
nation that was as yet unprepared to welcome any trend towards
democracy.[h] Having devised this system of compromise, Barrowe made a
futile attempt to interest Cartwright, but the latter regarded the
reformer as too heretical. Yet Cartwright himself, tired of waiting
for the better day when his desired reforms should be brought about
through the operation of Parliamentary laws, was attempting in
Warwickshire and Northamptonshire to test his system of
Presbyterianism.

To the list of church officers already enumerated, both reformers
added deacons and widows. The deacons were to attend to the church
finances and all temporal cares, and, in their visiting of the sick
and afflicted, they were to be aided by the widows. The latter office,
however, soon fell into disuse, for it was difficult to find women of
satisfactory character, attainments, and physical ability, since, in
order to avoid scandal or censoriousness, those filling the office had
to be of advanced years.[i]

With respect to the relation of the churches among themselves, Browne
and Barrowe each insisted upon the integral independence and
self-governing powers of the local units. Both approved of the
"sisterly advice" of neighboring churches in matters of mutual
interest. Both held that in matters of great weight, synods, or
councils of all the churches should be summoned; that the delegates to
such bodies should advise and bring the wisdom of their united
experience to questions affecting the welfare of all the churches, and
also, when in consultation upon serious cases, that any one church
should lay before them. Browne insisted that delegates to synods
should be both ministerial and lay, while Barrowe leaned to the
conviction that they should be chosen only from among the church
officers. Both reformers limited the power of synods, maintaining that
they should be consultative and advisory only. [13] Their decisions
were not to be binding upon the churches as were those of the
Presbyterian synods,[j] whose authority both reformers regarded as a
violation of Gospel rule. The church system, outlined by these two
men, became, in time, the organization of the churches of Plymouth,
Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New Haven. The character of their
polity fluctuated, as we shall see, leaning sometimes more to
Barrowism and sometimes, or in some respects, emphasizing the greater
democracy which Browne taught. In England, and because of the pressure
of circumstances among English exiles and colonists, Barrowe's
teachings at first gained the stronger hold and kept it for many
years. Moreover, as Barrowe's almost immediate followers embraced
them, there was no objection to the customary union of church and
state. And furthermore, if only the state would uphold this peculiar
polity, it might even insist upon the payment of contributions, which
both Browne and Barrowe had distinctly stated were to be voluntary and
were to be the only support of their churches. Though Barrowism was
more welcomed, eventually--yet not until long after the colonial
period--Brownism triumphed, and it predominates in the
Congregationalism of to-day.

The immediate spread of Barrowism was due to the poor Separatists of
London. Doubtless among them were many who in the preceding years had
listened to Browne and had begun to look up to him as their
Luther. While Barrowe and Greenwood were in prison, many of these
Separatists had gone to hear them preach and had studied their
writings. During the autumn of 1592, there had been some relaxation in
the severity exercised toward the prisoners, and Greenwood was allowed
occasionally to be out of jail under bail. He associated himself with
these Separatists, who, according to Dr. Dexter, had organized a
church about five years before, and who at once elected Greenwood to
the office of teacher. Dr. John Brown, writing later than Dr. Dexter,
claims this London church as the parent of English Congregationalism.
To make good the claim, he traces the history of the church by means
of references in Bradford's History, Fox's "Book of Martyrs," and in
recently discovered state papers to its existence as a Separate church
under Elizabeth, when, as early as 1571, its pastor, Richard Fitz, had
died in prison. Dr. Brown believes he can still farther trace its
origin to Queen Mary's reign, when a Mr. Rough, its pastor, suffered
martyrdom, and one Cuthbert Sympson was deacon. [l4] After the death
of Greenwood and Barrowe, this London congregation was sore pressed.
Their pastor, Francis Johnson, having been thrown into prison, they
began to make their way secretly to Amsterdam. There Johnson joined
them in 1597, soon after his release. To this London-Amsterdam church
were gathered Separatist exiles from all parts of England, for
converts were increasing,[k] especially in the rural districts of the
north, notwithstanding the fact that persecution followed hard upon
conversion.

The policy of Elizabeth during the earlier years of her reign was one
of forbearance towards inoffensive Catholics and of toleration towards
all Protestants. Caring nothing for religion as such, her aim was to
secure peace and to increase the stability of her realm. This she did
by crushing malcontent Catholics, by balancing the factions of
Protestantism, and by holding in check the extremists, whether
High-Churchmen or the ultra-Puritan followers of Cartwright. She had
forced on the contending factions a sort of armed truce and silenced
the violent antagonism of pulpit against pulpit by licensing
preachers. The Acts of Supremacy and of Uniformity placed all
ecclesiastical jurisdiction, as well as all legislative power, in the
hands of the state. They outlined a system of church doctrine and
discipline from which no variation was legally
permitted. Notwithstanding the enforced outward conformity, the Bible
was left open to the masses to study, and private discussion and
polemic writing were unrestrained. The main principles of the
Reformation were accepted, even while Elizabeth resisted the sweeping
reforms which the strong Calvinistic faction of the Puritan party
would have made in the ceremonial of the English church. This she did
notwithstanding the fact that about the time Thomas Cartwright,
through the influence of the ritualists under Whitgift, had been
driven from Cambridge, Parliament had refused to bind the clergy to
the Three Articles on Supremacy, on the form of Church government, and
on the power of the Church to ordain rites and ceremonies. Parliament
had even suggested a reform of the liturgy by omitting from it those
ceremonies most obnoxious to the Puritan party.[l] That representative
assembly had but reflected the desire of all moderate statesmen, as
well as of the Puritans. But, in the twelve years between Cartwright's
dismissal from Cambridge and Browne's preaching there without a
license, a great change took place, altering the sentiment of the
nation. All but extremists drew back when Cartwright pushed his
Presbyterian notions to the point of asserting that the only power
which the state rightfully held over religion was to see that the
decrees of the churches were executed and their contemners punished,
or when this reformer still further asserted that the power and
authority of the church was derived from the Gospel and consequently
was above Queen or Parliament. Cartwright claimed for his church an
infallibility and control of its members far above the claims of Rome,
and, tired of waiting for a purification of existing conditions by
legislative acts, he had, as has been said, boldly organized, in
accordance with his system, the clergy of Warwickshire and
Northamptonshire. The local churches were treated as self-governing
units, but were controlled by a series of authoritative Classes and
Synods. Having done this, Cartwright called for the establishment of
Presbyterianism as the national church and for the vigorous
suppression of Episcopacy, Separatism, and all variations from his
standard. As he thus struck at the national church, at the Queen's
supremacy, and, seemingly to many Englishmen, at the very roots of
civil government and security, there was a sudden halt in the reform
movement. The impetus which would have probably brought about all the
changes that the great body of Puritans desired was arrested. Richard
Hooker's "Ecclesiastical Polity" swept the ground from under Thomas
Cartwright's "Admonition to Parliament." Hooker's broad and
philosophic reasoning showed that no one system of church-government
was immutable; that all were temporary; and that not upon any man's
interpretation of Scripture, or upon that of any group of men alone,
could the divine ordering of the world, of the church or of the state,
be based. Such order depended upon moral relations, upon social and
political institutions, and changed with times and nations.

The death of Mary Queen of Scots crushed the Catholic party, and the
defeat of the Armada left Elizabeth free to turn her attention to the
phases of the Protestant movement in her own realm. While Browne was
preaching in Norwich, the Queen raised Whitgift to the See of
Canterbury. He was the bitter opponent of all nonconformity, and
immediately the persecution both of Separatists and of Puritans became
severe. Elizabeth, sure at last of her throne and of her position as
head of the Protestant cause in Europe, gave her minister a free
hand. She demanded rigid conformity, but wisely forbore to revive many
of the customs which the Puritans had succeeded in rendering
obsolete. Notwithstanding such modifications, the English liturgy had
been so slightly altered that, "Pius the Fifth did see so little
variation in it from the Latin service that had been formerly used in
that Kingdom that he would have ratified it by his authority, if the
Queen would have so received it."[m] Elizabeth now forbade all
preaching, teaching, and catechising in private houses, and refused to
recognize lay or Presbyterian ordination. Ministers who could no
longer accept episcopal ordination, or subscribe to the Thirty-nine
Articles, or approve the Book of Common Prayer and conform to its
liturgy were silenced and deprived of their salaries. In default of
witnesses, charges against them were proved by their own testimony
under oath, whereby they were made to incriminate themselves. The
censorship of the press was made stringent, printing was restricted to
London and to the two universities, and all printers had to be
licensed. Furthermore, all publications, even pamphlets, had to
receive the approval of the Primate or of the Bishop of London. In
addition, the Queen established the Ecclesiastical Commission of
forty-four members, which became a permanent court where all authority
virtually centred in the hands of the archbishops. English law had not
as yet defined the powers and limitations of the Protestant
clergy. Consequently, this Commission assumed almost unlimited powers
and cared little for its own precedents. Its very existence undid a
large part of the work of the Reformation, and the successive
Archbishops of Canterbury, Parker, Whitgift, Bancroft, Abbott, and
Laud, claimed greater and more despotic authority than any papal
primate since the days of Augustine. The Commission passed upon all
opinions or acts which it held to be contrary to the Acts of Supremacy
and Uniformity. It altered or amended the Statutes of Schools and
Colleges; it claimed the right of deprivation of clergy and held them
at its mercy; it passed from decisions upon heresy, schism, or
nonconformity to judgment and sentence upon incest and similar
crimes. It could fine and imprison at will, and employ any measures
for securing information or calling witnesses. The result was that all
nonconformists and all Puritans drew closer together under
trial. Another result was that the Bible was studied more earnestly in
private, and that there was a public eager to read the religious books
and pamphlets published abroad and cautiously circulated in
England. Though the Presbyterians were confined to the nonconformist
clergy and to a comparatively small number among them, they were
rising in importance, and were accorded sympathetic recognition as a
section of the Puritan party. This party, as a whole, continued to
increase its membership. The Separatists also increased, for, as of
old, the blood of the martyrs became the seed of the church.

The hope that times would mend when James ascended the throne was soon
abandoned. As he had been trained in Scotch Presbyterianism, the
Presbyterians believed that he would grant them some favor, while the
Puritans looked for some conciliatory measures. Eight hundred Puritan
ministers, a tenth of all the clergy, signed the "Millenary Petition,"
asking that the practices which they most abhorred, such as the sign
of the cross in baptism, the use of the surplice, the giving of the
ring at marriage, and the kneeling during the communion service,
should be done away with. The petition was not Presbyterian, but was
strictly Puritan in tone. It asked for no change in the government or
organization of the church. It did ask for a reform in the
ecclesiastical courts, and it demanded provision for the training of
godly ministers. James replied to the petition by promising a
conference of prelates and of Puritan ministers to consider their
demands; but at the conference it was found that he had summpned it
only to air the theological knowledge upon which he so greatly prided
himself. His answer to the petition was that he would have "one
doctrine, one religion, in substance and in ceremony," and of the
remonstrants he added, "I will make them conform or I will harry them
out of the land." The harrying began. The recently organized
Separatist church at Gainsborough-on-Trent endured persecution for
four years, and then emigrated with its pastor, John Smyth, M.A., of
Christ's College, Cambridge. It found refuge in Amsterdam by the side
of the London-Amsterdam church and its pastor, Francis Johnson, who
had been Smyth's tutor in college days. The next year, after more of
the King's harrying, the future colonists of Plymouth, the Separatist
Church of Scrooby, an offshoot of the Gainsborough church, attempted
to flee over seas to Holland. The magistrates would not give them
leave to go, and to emigrate without permission had been counted a
crime since the reign of Richard II. Their first attempt to leave the
country was defeated and their leaders imprisoned. During their second
attempt, after a large number of their men had reached the ship with
many of their household goods, and while their wives and children were
waiting to embark, those on the beach were surprised and arrested, and
their goods confiscated. Public opinion forbade sending helpless women
and children to prison for no other offense than agreeing with and
wishing to join their husbands and fathers. Consequently the
magistrates let their prisoners go, but made no provision for
them. Helpless and destitute, they were taken in and cared for by the
people of the countryside, and sheltered until their men returned. The
latter had suffered shipwreck, because the Dutch captain had attempted
to sail away when he saw the approach of the English officers. When
the church had once more raised sufficient funds for the emigration,
the magistrates gave them a contemptuous permission to depart, "glad
to be rid of them at any price." So, in 1608, they also joined the
English exiles in Amsterdam. The rank injustice and cruelty of their
treatment, together with their patience and forbearance under their
sufferings, drew people's attention to the character and worth of the
pious "pilgrims" and Separatists whom James was constantly driving
forth from England.

Meanwhile, both in England and on the continent, the Separatists held
fast to the principles of their leaders, of which the cardinal ones
were a church wherein membership was not by birthright, but by
"conversion;" over which magistrates or government should have no
control; in which each congregation constituted an independent unit,
coequal with all others; and with which the state should have nothing
more to do than to see that members respected the decrees of the
church and were obedient to its discipline.

On the continent, the Separatists elaborated these fundamentals and
developed detailed and systematic expression of them. Such were the
"True Description out of the Word of God of the Visible Church" of the
London-Amsterdam church, put forth in 1589, and in which Barrowe
himself outlined his system; the "True Confession," issued by the same
church about ten years later; "The Points of Difference," some
fourteen in number, in which the London-Amsterdam church set forth
wherein it differed from the English church; and the "Seven Articles,"
signed by John Robinson and William Brewster. This last document the
exiled Scrooby church sent from Leyden to the English Council of State
in 1617, with the hope of convincing King James that if allowed to go
to America under the Virginia patent, and to worship there in their
own fashion, they would be desirable colonists and law-abiding
subjects. The "True Confession"[n] sets forth the nature, powers,
order, and officers of the church. It limits the sacraments to the
members, and baptism to their children. It insists upon the wisdom of
churches seeking advice from one another, and of their use of
certificates of membership so as to guard against the admission of
strangers coming from other churches, and possibly of unworthy
character. In the definition of eldership, the "True Confession"
passes out of the haze in which Barrowe's "True Description" left the
conflicting powers of the eldership, and of the church. It plainly
asserts that the elders have the power of guidance and also of
control, should members attempt to censure them or to interfere in
matters beyond their knowledge. This platform also insists that
magistrates should uphold the church which it defines, because it is
the one true church, and that they should oppose all others as
anti-Christian. [15] In the "Points of Difference," stress is again
laid upon the covenant-nature of the church, upon its voluntary
support, upon the right of election of officers, and upon the
abolishment of "Popish Canons, Courts, Classes, Customs or any human
inventions," including the Popish liturgy, the Book of Common Prayer,
and "all Monuments of Idolatry in garments or in other things, and all
Temples, Chapels, etc." Many of the Puritans desired these same
changes. Many favored a polity giving the local churches some degree
of choice in the election of their officers. If the "Points of
Difference" aimed to lay bare the errors of Episcopacy and of
Presbyterianism as well as to demonstrate the superior merits of the
new aspirant for the status of a national church, the "Seven Articles"
[16] aimed to minimize differences in church usage by omitting mention
of them when possible and by emphasizing agreement. The evident
advance along the line of a more authoritative eldership had developed
out of the experience of the first two English churches in
Amsterdam. John Robinson and his followers had held more closely to
Robert Browne's standard of Congregationalism, for Robinson maintained
that the government of the church should be vested in its membership
rather than in its eldership alone. In order to maintain this
principle in greater purity, Robinson withdrew his fold from their
first resting-place in Amsterdam to Leyden. Richard Clyfton, who had
been pastor of the church in Scrooby, remained in Amsterdam, partly
because he felt too old to migrate again, and partly because he leaned
to Francis Johnson's more aristocratic theories of church
government. These divergent views caused trouble in the Amsterdam
churches, and Robinson wished to be far enough away to be out of the
vortex of doctrinal eddies. For eleven years his people lived a
peaceful and exemplary church life in Leyden, and it was chiefly their
longing to rear their children in an English home and under English
influences that made them anxious to emigrate to America. As the years
passed, Robinson sympathized more with the Barrowistic standards of
other churches and came also to regard more leniently the English
Established Church as one having true religion under corrupt forms and
ceremonies, and accordingly one with which he could hold a limited
fellowship. This was a step in the approachment of Separatist and
Puritan, and Robinson was a most influential writer. Of necessity, his
work was largely controversial, but he wrote from the standpoint of
defense, and rarely departed from a broad and kindly spirit. In the
"Seven Articles" Robinson admits the royal supremacy in so far as to
countenance a passive obedience. His teaching had the greatest
influence in shaping the religious life of the first and second
generation of New Englanders.

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