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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Plymouth and Connecticut colonies strongly approved the work of this
local Massachusetts synod. As a result of the interest excited by its
suggestions to increase church discipline, for laws to encourage
morality and Christian instruction, and for renewed zeal on the part
of individuals in godly living, a goodly number of converts were
immediately added to the churches throughout all the colonies. Of
these, the larger number were admitted on the Half-Way Covenant. But
times had changed, and the churches could not keep pace. The attempts
to enforce religion were fruitless,[e] and only go to show that
political interests, that wars,[f] with their accompanying excitement
and license, and that engrossing civil affairs had torn men's minds
from the old interests in religious controversies and in religious
customs.

The Church itself had deteriorated as the towns in their civil
capacity had undertaken the support of the minister and to collect his
rates. Even earlier began, also, the gradual change by which the
election of the minister passed from the small group of church
communicants, or full membership, to the larger body of the Society,
and finally to the town. This change was partly brought about through
the increasing acceptance of the Half-Way Covenant with its attendant
results. In some localities, "owning the Covenant" and presenting
one's children for baptism came to be considered not as a necessary
fulfilling of inherited duties (because of inherited baptismal
privileges) and the consequent recognition of moral obligations, but
as meritorious acts, having of themselves power to benefit the
participants. Further, the rite of baptism, confined at first to
children one at least of whose parents had been baptized, was later
permitted to any for whom a satisfactory person--any one not
flagrantly immoral--could be found to promise that the child should
have religious training. Still another factor in the lowering of
religious life was Stoddardeanism, or the teaching of the Rev. Solomon
Stoddard of Northampton, Massachusetts, a most powerful preacher and
for many years the most influential minister throughout the
Connecticut valley. As early as 1679, he began to teach that baptized
persons, who had owned the covenant, should be admitted to the Lord's
Supper, so that the rite itself might exercise in them a regenerating
grace. In its origin, this teaching was probably intended as a protest
against a morbid, introspective, and weakening self-examination on the
part of many who doubted their fitness to go to communion. But as a
result of the interworking of this teaching and of the practice of the
Half-Way Covenant, church membership came in time to include almost
any one not openly vicious, and willing to give intellectual, or
nominal, assent to church doctrines and also to a few church
regulations. With the change, the large body of townsmen became the
electors of the minister. Cotton Mather in the "Ratio Disciplina" [52]
illustrates these changing conditions when he tells us that the
communicants felt that the right to elect the minister was invested in
them as the real church of Christ, and that, in order to avoid strife
or the defeat of their candidate by the majority of the town, they
would customarily propose a choice between two nominees.

Carelessness of the churches in admitting members had had its
counterpart in the carelessness of the towns in admitting
inhabitants. Very early, as early as 1658, the Connecticut General
Court had been obliged to call them to order. The March session of
1658-59 had limited the franchise to all inhabitants of twenty-one
years of age or over who were householders (that is, married men), and
who had thirty pounds estate, or who had borne office. This was
shortly changed to "thirty pounds of proper _personal_ estate,"
or who had borne office. The ratable estate in the colony averaged
sixty pounds per inhabitant at this time. Up to March, 1658-59, the
towns had admitted inhabitants by a majority vote. These admitted
inhabitants, armed with a certificate of good character from their
town, presented themselves before the General Court as candidates for
the freeman's franchise, and were admitted or not as the Court saw
fit. Disfranchisement was the penalty for any scandalous behavior on
the part of the successful candidate. One reason for the new and
restrictive legislation was that from 1657 to 1660, from some cause
unknown, large numbers of undesirable colonists flocked into the
Connecticut towns, and thus it happened that, as the Church broadened
her idea of membership, the State had need to limit its conception of
democracy. Consequently, it narrowed the franchise by adding to the
original requirements a large property qualification, and continued to
demand the certificates of good character. Moreover, the candidates
were further required to present their credentials in October, and
they were not to be passed upon until the next session of the Court in
the following April. This two-fold change in the religious and
political life of the colony gave greater flexibility and greater
security, for "with church and state practically intertwined, the
theory of the one had been too narrow and of the other too broad."
[53] After the change in the franchise, records of the towns show that
there was less disorder in admitting inhabitants and more care taken
as to their personal character.

As the townsmen became the electors of the minister, and when the new
latitude in membership had been accepted by the churches, there soon
appeared a growing slackness of discipline and also an increase of
authority in the hands of the ministers and their subordinate
deaconry. This excess of authority in the hands of one man tended to
one-man rule and to frequent friction between the minister and his
people. As a result councils might be called against councils in the
attempt to settle questions or disputes between pastors and
people. Consequently, among conservatives, there came to be the
feeling that there ought to be some authoritative body to supervise
the churches,--one to which both pastor and people could appeal
disputed points.

In Massachusetts, the Connecticut colonists saw a strenuous attempt to
establish such an authority. Between 1690 and 1705, the Massachusetts
clergy had revived the early custom of fortnightly meetings of
neighboring ministers. The new associations were purely voluntary
ones for mutual assistance, for debate upon matters of common
interest, or for consultation over special difficulties, whether
pertaining to churches or to their individual members, which might be
brought before them. These associations grew in favor, and later
became a permanent feature of New England Congregationalism. Because
they were received with so much, favor at the time of their revival,
the conservative Massachusetts clergy attempted in the "Proposals of
1705" to increase the ministerial and synodical power within the
churches, and to bring about a reformation in manners and morals by
giving to these associations very large and authoritative powers. The
Proposals provided that all ministers should be joined in Associations
for mutual help and advice; for licensing candidates for the ministry;
for providing for pastorless churches; for a general oversight of
religion, and for the examination of charges brought against their own
members. Standing Councils, composed of delegates from the
Associations and also of a proper number of delegates (apparently
laymen) to represent the membership of the churches, were to be
established. These were to control all church matters throughout the
colony that were "proper for the consideration of an ecclesiastical
council," and obedience to their judgments was to be enforced under
penalty of forfeiture of church-fellowship. The Proposals were
approved by the majority of the Massachusetts clergy; but the liberal
party within the churches would not accede to their demands, and the
General Court would not sanction the Proposals in the face of such
opposition. Consequently, the essential feature of the Proposals, the
Standing Councils, was never adopted. But the attempt to establish
them invigorated the Associations, and the licensing of candidates was
arranged for.

Many people in Connecticut approved the tenor of the Proposals and
desired a similar system. Moreover, there never was a time when the
General Court was so ready to delegate to an ecclesiastical body the
control of the churches. The trustees of the young college, Yale, the
most representative gathering of clergymen in the colony, were anxious
to have the Court establish some system of ecclesiastical government
stronger than that existing among the churches, and to have it send
out some approved confession of faith and discipline. Consequently,
when, in 1708, Guerdon Saltonstall,[g] the popular ex-minister of New
London, was raised to the governor's chair, the time seemed ripe for a
move to satisfy the widespread demand. In response to it, the May
session of the General Court--

from their own observation and the complaints of many others,
being made sensible of the defects of the discipline of the
churches of this government, arising from want of a more explicit
asserting of the rules given for that in the holy scriptures [saw
fit] to order and require the ministers of the several churches in
the several counties of this government to meet together at their
respective countie towns, _with such messengers as the churches
to which they belong_ shall see cause to send with them on the
last day of June next, there to consider and agree upon those
methods and rules for the management of ecclesiastical discipline
which shall be judged agreable and conformable to the word of God,
and shall at the same meeting appoint two or more of their number
to meet together at Saybrook... where they shall compare the
results of the ministers of the several counties, and out of which
and from them to draw a form of ecclesiastical discipline, which
by two or more persons delegated by them shall be offered this
Court ... and be confirmed by them. [54]

The bill was passed by the Upper House of the legislature and sent to
a conference from the Lower, May 22, 1708. It became a law May 22. In
the interim the words in italics were inserted in order to eliminate
any possible loss of liberty to the churches and to protect them from
a system of government, planned by ministers only, and enforced by the
General Court. [55]

No records of the preliminary meeting have come down to us, but the
Preface of the Saybrook Platform reports such a meeting and that their
delegates met at Saybrook, September 9, 1708. At this second
convention, twelve ministers, of whom eight were trustees of Yale, and
four messengers were present. Their work, known as the Saybrook
Platform, declares in its Preface that--

we agree that the confession of faith owned & consented unto by
the Elders and messengers of the Chhs assembled at Boston in New
England, May 12, 1680 being the Second Session of that Synod be
Recommended to the Honbl. the Gen. Assembly of this Colony at the
next Session for their Publick testimony thereto as the faith of
the Chhs of this Colony.

We agree also that the Heads of Agreement assented to by the
vnited Ministers formerly Called Presbyterian & Congregationall be
observed by the Chhs throout this Colony.

The work of the synod, including also a series of authoritative
"Articles," was laid before the October session of the Court and
received its approval, the Court declaring its "great approbation of
such a happy agreement" and ordaining "that all churches within this
government that are or shall be thus united in doctrine, worship and
discipline, be and for the future shall be owned and acknowledged
established by law." [58]

The period of transition was over. Connecticut had passed from the
individual consecration and democratic organization of the Cambridge
Platform to the comprehensive membership of a parish system and to the
authoritative councils, or ecclesiastical courts, provided for by the
Saybrook Articles. A consideration of them as the main points of the
Platform is next in order.

FOOTNOTES:

[a] The "Heads of Agreement" was destined to have more influence in
America than in England.

[b] The order of the Massachusetts Court was "for the revisall of the
discipline agreed upon by the churches, 1647, and what else may
appeare necessary for the preventing schism, haeresies, prophaneness,
and the establishment of the churches in one faith and order of the
gospell." There was no questioning of the Court's right to
_summon_ this synod, as there had been in 1646-48.

[c] The Savoy Declaration of October, 1658, was put forth by the
English leaders of the Independent, or Congregational, churches as a
confession of faith, and in its thirty articles contained a
declaration of church order. The formulated principles of church order
were suggested by the Cambridge Platform but were neither so clear nor
so fully stated as in the New England document. The Westminster
Confession, the Savoy Declaration, and the later Heads of Agreement,
were destined to have more influence in New England than in England,
where the effect was transient. The Reforming Synod preferred the
Savoy Declaration to the Westminster Confession because the terms of
the former were more strictly Congregational, and also because they
wished to hold a confession in common with their trans-Atlantic
brethren. The Massachusetts synod changed here and there a word in
order to emphasize the church-membership of children as a right
derived through the Half-Way Covenant, and also to state explicitly
the right of the civil authority to interfere in questions of
doctrine.

[d] In 1660 the lay ordination of the Rev. Thomas Buckingham of
Saybrook, Conn., was strongly opposed by a council of churches, but it
was reluctantly yielded to the insistent church.--J. B. Felt,
_Eccl. History_, ii, 207.

[e] "Whereas this Court [the General Court of Connecticut] in the
calamitous times of '75 and '76 were moved to make some laws for the
suppression of some provoaking evils which were feared to be growing
up amongst us: viz.--prophanation of the Sabbath; neglect of
catechizing children and servants and famaly prayer; young persons
shaking off the government of parents or masters; boarders and inmates
neglecting the worship of God in famalyes where they reside; tipling &
drinkeing; uncleanness; oppression in workmen and traders; which laws
have little prevailed. It is therefore ordered by this Court that the
selectmen constables and grand-jury men in their several plantations
shall have a special care in their respective places to promote the
due and full attendance of these aforementioned orders of this Court."

[f] King Philip's War, 1675-76; the usurpation of Andros; King
William's War, 1689-97, with its expedition against Quebec; Queen
Anne's War, 1702-13.

[g] Governor Saltonstall "was more inclined to synods and formularies
than any other minister of that day in the New England colonies." His
influence over the clergy was almost absolute. "The Saybrook Platform
was stamped with his seal and was for the most part an embodiment of
his views."--Hollister, _Hist. of Conn._ vol. ii, p. 585.

CHAPTER VI

THE SAYBROOK PLATFORM

A Government within a Government.

The Saybrook Platform subdivides into a Confession of Faith, the Heads
of Agreement, and the Fifteen Articles.

The Confession of Faith is merely a recommendation of the Savoy
Confession as reaffirmed by the Synod of Boston or the Reforming Synod
of 1680.

The Heads of Agreement are but a repetition of the articles that,
under the same title, were passed in London, in 1691, by fourteen
delegates from the Presbyterian and English Congregational
churches. Both parties to the Agreement had hoped thereby to establish
more firmly their churches and to give them the strength and dignity
of a strongly united body. The Heads of Agreement were drafted by
three men, Increase Mather, the Massachusetts colonial agent to
England, Matthew Mead, a Congregationalist, and John Hone, a
Presbyterian, who in his earlier years and by training was a
Congregationalist. Naturally, between the influence of the framers
and the necessity for including the two religious bodies, this
platform inclined towards Congregationalism, but equal necessity led
it away from the freedom of the Cambridge Platform, after which it was
patterned.

In the Heads of Agreement, the composition of the church is defined
according to Congregational standards, as is also the election of its
officers. The definition of the powers of the church is not strictly
Congregational, because initiative action and governing powers are
intrusted to the eldership, while, to the brethren, there is given
only the privilege of assenting to such measures as the elders may
place before them. The membership in the church, as defined, is
semi-Congregational; i. e., in order to become members, persons must
be "grounded in the Fundamental Doctrines of religion" and lead moral
lives, but they are eligible to communion only after the declaration
of their desire "to walk together according to Gospel Rule."
Concerning this declaration the statement is made that "different
degrees of _Expliciteness_ shall in no way hinder such Churches
from owning each other as _Instituted Churches_." Furthermore,
no one should be pressed to declare the time and manner of his
conversion as proof of his fitness to be received as a communicant.
Such an account would, however, be welcome. With reference to
parochial bounds, introduced into the primitive Congregationalism of
New England, but always existing in the English Presbyterian system,
the Heads of Agreement declare them to be "not of Divine Right" but--

for common Edification that church members should live near one
another, nor ought they to forsake their church for another
without its consent and recommendation.

In respect to the ministry, the Heads of Agreement affirm that it
should be learned and competent and approved; that ordinarily, pastors
should be considered as ministers only while they continue in office
over the church that elected them to its ministry; that ordinarily, in
their choosing and calling, advice should be sought from neighboring
churches, and that they should be ordained with the aid of neighboring
pastors. In the matter of installation into a new office of an elder,
previously ordained, churches are to exercise the right of individual
judgment and of preference as to reordination. This same right of
preference is to be exercised in deciding whether or not a church
should support a ruling elder. The Heads of Agreement assert that in
the intercommunion of churches there is to be no subordination among
them, and that there ought to be frequent friendly consultations
between their "_Officers_." There are to be "Occasional Meetings
of Ministers" of several churches to consult and advise upon "weighty
and difficult cases," and to whose judgments, "particular Churches,
their respective _Elders_ and _Members_, ought to have a
reverential regard, and not dissent therefrom, without _apparent_
grounds from the word of God." The Heads of Agreement command churches
to yield obedience and support to the civil authority and to be ready
at all times to give the magistrates an account of their affairs.

The Heads of Agreement were the most liberal part of the Saybrook
Platform, and were not considered sufficiently
authoritative. Accordingly,--

for the Better Regulation of the Administration of Chh Discipline
in Relation to all Cases Ecclesiastical both in Particular Chhs
and In Councils to the full Determining and Executing of the Rules
in all such cases,[57]--

were added certain resolutions, known as the "Fifteen Articles." They
are in reality the Platform, for all that goes before them is but a
reaffirmation of principles already accepted, and the new thing in the
document, the advance in ecclesiasticism, is the increased authority
permitted and, later, enforced by these Fifteen Articles.

The Articles affirm that power and discipline in connection with all
cases of scandal that may arise within a church, ought, the brethren
consenting, to be lodged with the elder or elders; and that in all
difficult cases, the pastor should take advice of the elders of the
neighboring churches before proceeding to censure or pass judgment. In
order to facilitate both discipline and mutual oversight, the Articles
provide that elders and pastors are to be joined in Associations,
meeting at least twice a year, to consult together upon questions of
ministerial duty and upon matters of mutual benefit to their
churches. From these Associations, delegates were to be chosen
annually to meet in one General Association, holding its session in
the spring, at the time of the general elections. The Associations
were to look after pastorless churches and to recommend candidates for
the ministry. Up to this time a man's bachelor of arts degree had been
considered sufficient guarantee that he would make a capable
minister. Henceforth, there could no longer be complaint that "there
was no uniform method of introducing candidates to the ministry nor
sufficient opportunity for churches to confer together in order to
their seeing and acting harmoniously." [58] In order that there should
be no more confusion arising from calling councils against councils
with their often conflicting judgments, the Articles formed
Consociations, or unions of churches within certain limits, usually
those of a county. These Consociations were to assist upon all great
or important ecclesiastical occasions. They were to preside over all
ordinations or installations; they were to decide upon the dismissal
of members, and upon all difficulties arising within any church within
their district. If necessary, Consociations could be joined in
council. Their decisions were to have the force of a judgment or
sentence _only_ when they were "approved by the major part of the
elders present and by such a number of the messengers"--one or two
from each church--as should constitute a majority vote. A church could
call upon its Consociation for advice before sentencing an offender,
but the offender could not appeal to the Consociation without the
consent of his church. By these last provisions, authority and power
tended still more to concentrate in the hands of the elders. The
Fifteen Articles, though they did not make the judgments of the
Consociations decisive, urged upon individual churches a reverent
regard for them.

The attitude of the churches towards these Fifteen Articles varied,
and it was already known in the Synod that such would be the case.
Some churches would find them more palatable than others. Many were
already converts to the Rev. Solomon Stoddard's insistent teaching
that "a National Synod is the highest ecclesiastical authority upon
earth," [59] that every man must stand to the judgment of a National
Synod. Even five years before the convening of the Synod at Saybrook,
there had issued from a meeting of the Yale trustees,[a] "altogether
the most representative ecclesiastical gathering in the colony," a
circular letter which urged the Connecticut ministers to agree on some
unifying confession of creed, and that such be recommended by the
General Court to the consideration of the people. The immediate answer
to the letter, if any, is unknown. Trumbull says that--

the proposal was universally acceptable, and the churches and the
ministers of the several counties met in a consociated council and
gave their assent to the Westminster and Savoy Confessions of
Faith. [60]

It seems that they also "drew up certain rules of ecclesiastical
discipline as preparatory to a General Synod which they still had in
contemplation,"[61] but took no further step to obtain the approval of
the Court. This first definite move toward the Saybrook system bore
fruit when the Fifteen Articles were added to the Platform. Their
authoritative tone was to satisfy those within the churches who
preferred Presbyterian classes and synods, while their interpretation
could be modified to please the adherents of a purer Congregationalism
by reading them in the light of the Heads of Agreement which preceded
them. Of their possible purport two great authorities upon
Congregationalism speak as follows. Dr. Bacon writes:--

The "Articles" by whomsoever penned, were obviously a compromise
between the Presbyterian interest and the Congregational; and like
most compromises, they were (I do not say by design) of doubtful
interpretation. Interpreted by a Presbyterian, they might seem to
subject the Churches completely to the authoritative government of
classes or presbyteries under the name of consociations.
Interpreted by a Congregationalist, they might seem to provide for
nothing more than a stated Council, in which neighboring Churches,
voluntarily confederate, could consult together, and the proper
function of which should be not to speak imperatively, but, when
regularly called, to "hold forth light" in cases of difficulty or
perplexity.[62]

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