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

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30

(f) Concerning synods,[w] the Platform asserts that they are
"necessary to the well-being of churches for the establishment of
truth and peace therein;" that they are to consist of elders, or
ministerial delegates, and also of lay delegates, or "messengers;"
that their function is to determine controversies over questions of
faith, to debate matters of general interest, to guide and to express
judgment upon churches, "rent by discord or lying under open scandal."
Synods could be called by the churches, and also by the magistrates
through an order to the churches to send their elders and messengers,
but they were not to be permanent bodies. On the contrary, unlike the
synods of the Presbyterian system, they were to be disbanded when the
work of the special session for which they were summoned was
finished. Moreover, they were not "to exercise church censure in the
way of discipline nor any other act of authority or jurisdiction;" yet
their judgments were to be received, "so far as consonant to the word
of God," since they were judged to be an ordinance of God appointed in
his Word.

(g) The Platform's section "Of the Civil Magistrate in matters
Ecclesiastical"[x] maintains that magistrates cannot compel subjects
to become church-members; that they ought not to meddle with the
proper work of officers of the churches, but that they ought to see to
it that godliness is upheld, and the decrees of the church obeyed. To
accomplish these ends, they should exert all the civil authority
intrusted to them, and their foremost duty was to put down blasphemy,
idolatry, and heresy. In any question as to what constituted the last,
the magistrates assisted by the elders were to decide and to determine
the measure of the crime. They were to punish the heretic, not as one
who errs in an intellectual judgment, but as a moral leper and for
whose evil influence the community was responsible to God. The civil
magistrates were also to punish all profaners of the Sabbath, all
contemners of the ministry, all disturbers of public worship, and to
proceed "against schismatic or obstinately corrupt churches."

These seven points summarize the important work of the Cambridge Synod
and the Platform wherein it embodied the church usage and fixed the
ecclesiastical customs of New England. Concerning its own work, the
Synod remarked in conclusion that it "hopes that this will be a proof
to the churches beyond the seas that the New England churches are free
from heresies and from the character of schism," and that "in the
doctrinal part of religion they have agreed entirely with the Reformed
churches of England." [36]

Let us in a few sentences review the whole story thus far of colonial
Congregationalism. With the exception of the churches of Plymouth and
Watertown, the colonists had come to America without any definite
religious organization. True, they had in their minds the example of
the Reformed churches on the Continent, and much of theory, and many
convictions as to what ought to be the rule of churches. These
theories and these convictions soon crystallized out. And the
transatlantic crystallization was found to yield results, some of
which were very similar to the modifications which time had wrought in
England upon the rough and embryonic forms of Congregationalism as set
forth by Robert Browne and Henry Barrowe. The characteristics of
Congregationalism during its first quarter of a century upon New
England soil were: the clearly defined independence or self-government
of the local churches; the fellowship of the churches; the development
of large and authoritative powers in the eldership; a more exact
definition of the functions of synods, a definite limitation of their
authority; and, finally, a recognition of the authority of the civil
magistrates in religious affairs generally, and of their control in
special cases arising within individual churches. In the growing power
of the eldership, and in the provision of the Platform which permits
ordination by the hands of elders of other churches, when a church had
no elders and its members so desired, there is a trend toward the
polity of the Presbyterian system. In the Platform's definition of the
power of the magistrates over the religious life of the community,
there is evident the colonists' conviction that, notwithstanding the
vaunted independence of the churches, there ought to be some strong
external authority to uphold them and their discipline; some power to
fall back upon, greater than the censure of a single church or the
combined strength and influence derived from advisory councils and
unauthoritative synods. In Connecticut, this control by the civil
power was to increase side by side with the tendency to rely upon
advisory councils. From this twofold development during a period of
sixty years, there arose the rigid autonomy of the later Saybrook
system of church-government, wherein the civil authority surrendered
to ecclesiastical courts its supreme control of the churches.

Turning from the text of the Cambridge Platform to its application, we
find among the earliest churches "rent by discord," schismatically
corrupt, and to be disciplined according to its provisions, that of
Hartford, Connecticut. From the earliest years of the Connecticut
colony there had been within it a large party, constantly increasing,
who, because they were unhappy and aggrieved at having themselves and
their children shut out of the churches, had advocated admitting all
of moral life to the communion table. The influence of Thomas Hooker
kept the discontent within bounds until his death in 1647, the year
before the Cambridge Synod met. Thereafter, the conservative and
liberal factions in many of the churches came quickly into open
conflict. The Hartford church in particular became rent by dissension
so great that neither the counsel of neighboring churches nor the
commands of the General Court, legislating in the manner prescribed by
the Cambridge instrument, could heal the schism. The trouble in the
Hartford church arose because of a difference between Mr. Stone, the
minister, and Elder Goodwin, who led the minority in their preference
for a candidate to assist their pastor. Before the discovery of
documents relating to the controversy, it was the custom of earlier
historians to refer the dispute to political motives. But this church
feud, and the discussion which it created throughout Connecticut, was
purely religious, and had to do with matters of church privileges and
eventually with rights of baptism.[y] The conflict originated through
Mr. Stone's conception of his ministerial authority, which belonged
rather to the period of his English training and which was concisely
set forth by his oft-quoted definition of the rule of the elders as "a
speaking aristocracy in the face of a silent democracy."[z] Mr. Stone
and Elder Goodwin, the two chief officers in the Hartford church, each
commanded an influential following. Personal and political
affiliations added to the bitterness of party bias in the dispute
which raged over the following three questions: (a) What were the
rights of the minority in the election of a minister whom they were
obliged to support? (b) What was the proper mode of ecclesiastical
redress if these rights were ignored? (c) What were those baptismal
rights and privileges which the Cambridge Platform had not definitely
settled? The discussion of the first two questions precipitated into
the foreground the still unanswered third. The turmoil in the Hartford
church continued for years and was provocative of disturbances
throughout the colony. Accordingly, in May, 1656, a petition was
presented to the General Court by persons unknown, asking for broader
baptismal privileges. Moved by the appeal, the Court appointed a
committee, consisting of the governor, lieutenant-governor and two
deputies, to consult with the elders of the churches and to draw up a
series of questions embodying the grievances which were complained of
throughout the colony as well as in the Hartford church. The Court
further commanded that a copy of these questions be sent to the
General Courts of the other three colonies, that they might consider
them and advise Connecticut as to some method of putting an end to
ecclesiastical disputes. As Connecticut was not the only colony having
trouble of this sort, Massachusetts promptly ordered thirteen of her
elders to meet at Boston during the following summer, and expressed a
desire for the cooperation of the churches of the confederated
colonies. Plymouth did not respond. New Haven rejected the proposed
conference. She feared that it would result in too great changes in
church discipline and, consequently, in her civil order,--changes
which she believed would endanger the peace and purity of her
churches;[aa] yet she sent an exposition, written by John Davenport,
of the questions to be discussed. The Connecticut General Court, glad
of Massachusetts' appreciative sympathy, appointed delegates, advising
them to first take counsel together concerning the questions to be
considered at Boston, and ordered them upon their return to report to
the Court.

The two questions which since the summoning of the Cambridge Synod had
been under discussion throughout all New England were the right of
non-covenanting parishioners in the choice of a minister, and the
rights of children of baptized parents, that had not been admitted to
full membership. These were the main topics of discussion in the
Synod, or, more properly, Ministerial Convention, of 1657, which
assembled in Boston, and which decreed the Half-Way Covenant. The
Assembly decided in regard to baptism that persons, who had been
baptized in their infancy, but who, upon arriving at maturity, had not
publicly professed their conversion and united in full membership with
the church, were not fit to receive the Lord's Supper:--

Yet in case they understood the Grounds of Religion and are not
scandalous, and solemnly own the Covenant in their own
persons,[ab] wherein they give themselves and their own children
unto the Lord, and desire baptism for them, we (with due reverence
to any Godly Learned that may dissent) see not sufficient cause to
deny Baptism unto their children. [37]

Church care and oversight were to be extended to such children. But in
order to go to communion, or to vote in church affairs, the old
personal, public profession that for so many years had been
indispensable to "signing the covenant" was retained [38] and must
still be given.

This Half-Way Covenant, as it came to be called, enlarged the terms of
baptism and of admission to church privileges as they had been set
forth in the Cambridge Platform. The new measure held within itself a
contradiction to the foundation principle of Congregationalism. A dual
membership was introduced by this attempt to harmonize the Old
Testament promise, that God's covenant was with Abraham and his seed
forever, with the Congregational type of church which the New
Testament was believed to set forth. The former theory must imply some
measure of true faith in the children of baptized parents, whether or
no they had fulfilled their duty by making public profession and by
uniting with the church. This duty was so much a matter of course with
the first colonists, and so deeply ingrained was their loyalty to the
faith and practice which one generation inherited from another, that
it never occurred to them that future descendants of theirs might view
differently these obligations of church membership. But a difficulty
arose later when the adult obligation implied by baptism in infancy
ceased to be met, and when the question had to be settled of how far
the parents' measure of faith carried grace with it. Did the
inheritance of faith, of which baptism was the sign and seal, stop
with the children, or with the grandchildren, or where? To push the
theory of inherited rights would result eventually in destroying the
covenant church, bringing in its stead a national church of mixed
membership; to press the original requirements of the covenant upon an
unwilling people would lessen the membership of the churches, expose
them to hostile attack, and to possible overthrow. The colonists
compromised upon this dual membership of the Half-Way Covenant. As its
full significance did not become apparent for years, the work of the
Synod of 1657 was generally acceptable to the ministry, but it met
with opposition among the older laity. It was welcomed in Connecticut,
where Henry Smith of Wethersfield as early as 1647, Samuel Stone of
Hartford, after 1650, and John Warham of Windsor, had been earnest
advocates of its enlarged terms. As early as in his draft of the
Cambridge Platform, Ralph Partridge of Duxbury in Plymouth colony had
incorporated similar changes, and even then they had been seconded by
Richard Mather.[ac] They had been omitted from the final draft of that
Platform because of the opposition of a small but influential group
led by the Rev. Charles Chauncey. As early as 1650, it had become
evident that public opinion was favorable to such a change, and that
some church would soon begin to put in practice a theory which was
held by so many leading divines. Though the Half-Way Covenant was
strenuously opposed by the New Haven colony as a whole, Peter Prudden,
its second ablest minister, had, as early as 1651, avowed his earnest
support of such a measure.

The Half-Way Covenant was presented to the Connecticut General Court,
August, 1657. Orders were at once given that copies of it should be
distributed to all the churches with a request for a statement of any
exceptions that any of them might have to it. None are known to have
been returned. This was not due to any great unanimity of sentiment
among the churches, for in Connecticut, as elsewhere, many of the
older church-members were not so liberally inclined as their
ministers, and were loth to follow their lead in this new
departure. But when controversy broke out again in the Hartford
church, in 1666, because of the baptism of some children, it was found
that in the interval of eleven years those who favored the Half-Way
covenant had increased in numbers in the church,[ad] and were rapidly
gaining throughout the colony, especially in its northern half. By the
absorption of the New Haven Colony, its southern boundary in 1664 had
become the shore of Long Island Sound.

Though public opinion favored the Half-Way Covenant, the practice of
the churches was controlled by their exclusive membership, and, unless
a majority thereof approved the new way, there was nothing to compel
the church to broaden its baptismal privileges.[ae] This difference
between public opinion and church practice, between the congregations
and the coterie of church members, was provocative of clashing
interests and of factional strife. For several years these factional
differences were held in check and made subordinate to the urgent
political situation which the restoration of the Stuarts had
precipitated, and which demanded harmonious action among the
colonists. A royal charter had to be obtained, and when obtained, it
gave Connecticut dominion over the New Haven colony. The lower colony
had to be reconciled to its loss of independence, in so much as the
governing party, with its influential following of conservatives,
objected to the consolidation. The liberals, a much larger party
numerically, preferred to come under the authority of Connecticut and
to enjoy her less restrictive church policy and her broader political
life. Matters were finally adjusted, and delegates from the old New
Haven colony first took their seats as members of the General Court of
Connecticut at the spring session of 1665. Thereafter, in Connecticut
history, especially its religious history, the strain of liberalism
most often follows the old lines of the Connecticut colony, while that
of conservatism is more often met with as reflecting the opinions of
those within the former boundaries of that of New Haven.

It was in the year following the union of the two colonies that the
quarrel in the Hartford church broke out afresh. The fall preceding
the consolidation of the colonies, an appeal was made to the
Connecticut General Court which helped to swell the dissatisfaction in
the Hartford church and to bring it to the bursting point. In
October, 1664, William Pitkin, by birth a member of the English
Established Church[af] and a man much esteemed in the colony, as
shown, politically, by his office of attorney,[39] and socially by his
marriage with Elder Goodwin's daughter, petitioned the General Court
in behalf of himself and six associates that it--

would take into serious consideration our present state in this
respect that wee are thus as sheep scattered haveing no shepheard,
and compare it with what wee conceive you can not but know both
God and our King would have it different from what it now is. And
take some speedy and effectual course of redress herein, And put
us in full and free capacity of injoying those forementioned
Advantages which to us as members of Christ's visible Church doe
of right belong. By establishing some wholesome Law in this
Corporation by vertue whereof wee may both clame and receive of
such officers as are, or shall be by Law set over us in the Church
or churches where wee have our abode or residence those
forementioned privileges and advantages.

Further wee humbly request that for the future no Law in this
corporation may be of any force to make us pay or contribute to
the maintenance of any Minister or officer in the Church that will
neglect or refuse to baptize our Children, and to take charge of
us as of such members of the Church as are under his or their
charge and care--

_Signed_--
Admitted freeman
Oct. 9th, 1662, Hartford, Wm. Pitkin.

Admitted freeman
May 21, 1657, Windsor, Michael Humphrey.

Admitted freeman
May 18, 1654, Hartford, John Stedman.
Windsor, James Eno.

Admitted freeman
May 20, 1658, -- Robart Reeve.
Windsor, John Morse.

Admitted freeman
May 20, 1658, Windsor, Jonas Westover. [40]

Eno and Humphrey had been complained of because their insistence upon
what they considered their rights had caused disturbance in the
Windsor church. Now, with the other petitioners, they based their
appeal in part upon the King's Letter to the Bay Colony of June 26th,
1662, wherein Charles commanded that "all persons of good and honest
lives and conversation be admitted to the sacrament of the Lord's
supper, according to the said book of common prayer, and their
children to baptism."

This petition of Pitkin and his associates was the first notable
expression of dissatisfaction with the Congregationalism of
Connecticut. Several Episcopal writers have quoted it as the first
appeal of Churchmen in Connecticut. In itself, it forbids such
construction. The petitioners had come from England and from the
church of the Commonwealth. They were asking either for toleration in
the spirit of the Half-Way Covenant or for some special legislation in
their behalf. Further, they were demanding religious care and baptism
for their children from a clergy who, from the point of view of any
strict Episcopalian, had no right to officiate; and, again, it was
nearly ten years before the first Church-of-England men found their
way to Stratford.[41]

The Court made reply to Pitkin's petition by sending to all the
churches a request that they consider--

whither it be not their duty to entertaine all such persons, who
are of honest and godly conuersation, hauing a competency of
knowledge in the principles of religion, and shall desire to joyne
with them in church fellowship, by an explicitt couenant, and that
they haue their children baptized, and that all the children of
the church be accepted and acco'td reall members of the church and
that the church exercise a due Christian care and watch ouer them;
and that when they are grown up, being examined by the officer in
the presence of the church, it appeares in the judgment of
charity, they are duly qualified to participate in the great
ordinance of the Lord's Supper, by their being able to examine and
discerne the Lord's body, such persons be admitted to full
comunion.

The Court desires y't the seuerall officers of y'e respectiue
churches, would be pleased to consider whither it be the duty of
the Court to order churches to practice according to the premises,
if they doe not practice without such an order.[42]

The issue was now fairly before the churches of the colony. The
delegates of the people had expressed the opinion of the majority. The
Court had invited the expression of any dissent that might exist, yet,
despite the invitation, it had issued almost an order to the churches
to practice the Half-Way Covenant, and with large interpretation,
applying it, not only to the baptism of children who had been born of
parents baptized in the colonial church, but also to those whose
parents had been baptized in the English communion, at least during
the Commonwealth.[ag] Pitkin at once proceeded in behalf of himself
and several of his companions to apply for "communion with the church
of Hartford in all the ordinances of Christ." [43] This the church
refused, and wrought its factions up to white heat over the baptism of
some child or children of non-communicants. The storm broke. Other
churches felt its effects. Windsor church was rent by faction,
Stratford was in turmoil over the Half-Way Covenant, and other
churches were divided.

Some means had to be found to put an end to the increasing
disorder. Accordingly the Court in October, 1666, commanded the
presence of all the preaching elders and ministers within the colony
at a synod to find "some way or means to bring those ecclesiastical
matters that are in difference in the severall Plantations to an
issue." The Court felt obliged to change the name of the appointed
meeting from "synod" to "assembly" to avoid the jealousy of the
churches. They were afraid that the civil power would overstep its
authority, and by calling a synod, composed of elders only, establish
a precedent for the exclusion of lay delegates from such bodies.
Before this "assembly" could meet, it was shorn of influence through
the politics of the conservative Hartford faction, who succeeded in
passing a bill at the session of the Commissioners of the United
Colonies, which read:--

That in matters of common concern of faith or order necessitating
a Synod, it should be a Synod composed of messengers from all the
colonies. [44]

Accordingly, Connecticut's next step was to invite Massachusetts to
join in a synod to debate seventeen questions of which several had
been submitted to the Synod of 1657, and had remained
unanswered. Among them were the questions of the right to vote in the
choice of minister; of minority rights; and where to appeal in cases
of censure believed to be unmerited.[ah]

Massachusetts courteously replied that the questions would be
considered if submitted in writing; but she was at heart so
indifferent that negotiations for a colonial synod lapsed, and
Connecticut was left to adjust the differences in her
churches. Consequently, in May, 1668, the Court,--

for promoting and establishing peace in the churches and
plantations because of various apprehensions in matters of
discipline respecting membership and baptism,--

appointed a committee of influential men in the colony to search out
the rules for discipline and see how far persons of "various
apprehensions" could walk together in church fellowship. This
committee reported at the October session, and the Court, after
accepting their decision, formally declared the Congregational church
established and its older customs approved, asserting that--

Whereas the Congregationall churches in these partes for the
generall of their profession and practice have hitherto been
approued, we can doe no less than still approue and countenance
the same to be without disturbance until a better light in an
orderly way doth appeare; but yet foreasmuch as sundry persons of
worth for prudence and piety amongst us are otherwise perswaded
(whose welfare and peaceable satisfaction we desire to
accommodate) This Court doth declare that all such persons being
also approued to lawe as orthodox and sound in the fundamentals of
Christian religion may haue allowance of their perswasion and
profession in church wayes or assemblies without disturbance.

The liberal church party had won the privileges for which they had
contended, but the conservatives were not beaten, for it was upon
their conception of church government that the Court set its seal of
approval. The Court had been tolerant, and the churches must be also.
Upon such terms, the old order was to continue "until a better light
should appear." The tolerance toward changing conditions, thus
expressed, was further emphasized by the Court's command to the
churches to accept into full membership certain worthy people who
could not bring themselves to agree fully with all the old order had
demanded. The second part of the enactment just quoted was, strictly
speaking, Connecticut's first toleration act; yet it must be realized
that now, as later, the degree of toleration admitted no release from
the support of an unacceptable ministry or from fines for neglect of
its ministrations. Tolerance was here extended not to dissenters, but
only to varying shades of opinions within a common faith and fold.

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30