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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Dr. Dexter sums them up in the following words:--

Taken by themselves, the fifteen articles were stringent enough to
satisfy the most ardent High Churchmen among the
Congregationalists of that day; taken, however, in connection with
the London document previously adopted, and by the spirit of
which--apparently--they were always to be construed, their
stringency became matter of differing judgment, so that what on
the whole was their intent has never been settled to this
day. [63]

In accordance with the system of government outlined in the Platform,
the churches of the colony were at once formed into five Associations
and five Consociations, one each in New Haven, New London, and
Fairfield counties, and two in Hartford. In later years, new bodies
were organized, as the other four Connecticut counties were set off
from these original ones. The churches of the New Haven county
Consociation, long cleaving to the purest Congregationalism, refused
to adopt the Platform until they had recorded their liberal
construction of it. Fairfield went to the other extreme, and put on
record their acceptance of the Consociations as church
courts. Hartford and New London accepted the Platform as a whole, as
it came from the synod, leaving to time the decision as to its loose
or strict construction.

A legislative act was necessary to make the Platform the legal
constitution of the Congregational Establishment. Such an act
immediately followed the presentation of the report by the committee,
whom the Saybrook convention, in accordance with the Court's previous
command, sent to the Assembly. Having examined the Platform, the
Legislature declared its strong approval of such a happy agreement,
and in October, 1708, enacted that--

all the Churches within this government that are, and shall be
thus united in doctrine, worship and discipline, be, and for the
future shall be, owned and acknowledged, established by law:

Provided always that nothing herein shall be intended or construed
to hinder or prevent any society or church that is or shall be
allowed by the laws of this government, who soberly differ or
dissent from the united churches hereby established, from
exercising worship and discipline in their own way, and according
to their conscience. [64]

The purport of this proviso was to safeguard churches which had been
approved according to the standards formerly set up by the Court, and
also to prevent the Act of Establishment from seeming to contradict a
"Toleration Act for sober dissenters" from the colony church that had
been passed at the preceding May session. Out of this proviso grew a
misunderstanding in the Norwich church, which happens also to furnish
a typical illustration of the difficulties sometimes encountered in
trying to collect a minister's salary.

When Mr. Woodward, pastor of the Norwich church, read the act
establishing the Saybrook Platform, he omitted the proviso. The
Norwich deputies, who had been present at the passage of the act,
immediately informed the people of the provision which the Court had
made for the continuance of those churches of which it had previously
approved and which might be reluctant to adopt the stricter terms of
the new system, at least until their value had been demonstrated. For
this behavior, the deputies were censured by the pastor and by the
majority of the church, who sided with him. Thereupon, the minority
withdrew and for three months worshiped apart. Then the breach was
healed, though seeds of discord remained. By 1714, six years later,
they had germinated and had attained such development that it was very
difficult to collect the minister's salary. In Norwich, as elsewhere,
there had formerly been a custom of collecting the ministerial rates
together with those of the county. This custom had arisen because of
difficulty in collecting the former, and in 1708 [65] this practice
was legalized, provided that in each case the minister made formal
application to have his rates thus collected. In the year 1714 and the
following year the General Court was obliged to issue a special order
commanding the town of Norwich to fulfill its agreement with their
minister and to pay his salary in full. The second year, the Court
added the injunction that the money should be collected by the
constables. But at the session following the order, the Norwich
deputies informed the Court that, owing to differences existing among
their townsmen, they had not seen fit to urge its commands upon their
people. Upon learning that Mr. Woodward's family were actually
suffering, the Court appointed a date, and ordered the Norwich
constables to produce at the time set a receipt, signed by Mr.
Woodward, and showing that his salary had been paid in full. If the
receipt was not forthcoming at the appointed time, the secretary of
the colony was empowered to issue, upon application, a warrant to
distrain all or any unpaid portion of the minister's salary from the
constables, and, also, any additional costs. This legislation seems to
have had due effect, though feeling ran so high that, in the following
year, it was decided to divide the church. When the two parishes were
formed, Mr. Woodward retired, and the life of the divided church was
continued under new ministers.

From the adoption of the Saybrook Platform, the Connecticut churches
were for many years preeminently Presbyterian in character. The terms
Congregational and Presbyterian were often used interchangeably. As
late as 1799, the Hartford North Association, speaking of the
Connecticut churches, declared them "to contain the essentials of the
Church of Scotland or Presbyterian Church in America." The General
Association in 1805 affirmed that "The Saybrook Platform is the
constitution of the Presbyterian Church in Connecticut."[b] Whether
called by the one name or the other, Presbyterianized
Congregationalism was the firmly established state religion, for under
the Saybrook system the local independence of the churches was largely
sacrificed. The system further exalted the eldership and the pastoral
power. It replaced the sympathetic help and advisory assistance of
neighboring churches by organized associations and by the authority of
councils.

In the new system the ecclesiastical machinery which, at first,
brought peace and order, soon developed into a barren autonomy and
gave rise to rigid formalism in religion, with its consequent baneful
results upon the spiritual and moral character of the people. The
Established Church had attained the height of its security and power,
with exclusive privileges conferred by the legislature. That body had
turned over to the "government within a government" the whole control
of the church and of the religious life of the colony, and had endowed
it with ecclesiastical councils which rapidly developed into
ecclesiastical courts.

"There was no formal coercive power; but the public provision for the
minister's support, and the withdrawal of it from recalcitrant members
formed a coercive power of no mean efficiency." [66]

FOOTNOTES:

[a] The charter for the college, together with an annual grant of
three hundred dollars, was granted in 1701. None but ministers were to
be trustees.

[b] The Hartford North Association in 1799 gave "information to all
whom it may concern that the Constitution of the Churches in the State
of Connecticut, founded on the common usage and confession of faith,
Heads of Agreement, Articles of discipline adopted at the earliest
period of the settlement of the State, is not Congregational, but
contains the essentials of the Church of Scotland, or Presbyterian
Church in America, particularly, as it gives a decisive power to
Ecclesiastical Councils and a Consociation consisting of Ministers and
Messengers, or lay representatives, from the churches, is possessed of
substantially the same authority as a Presbytery." The fifteen
ministers at this meeting of the Hartford North Association declared
that there were in the state not more than ten or twelve
Congregational churches, and that the majority were not, and never had
been, constituted according to the Cambridge Platform, though they
might, "loosely and vaguely, though improperly," be "termed
Congregational Churches."--See MS. Records. Also G. L. Walker,
_First Church in Hartford_, p. 358.

CHAPTER VII

THE SAYBROOK PLATFORM AND THE TOLERATION ACT

They keep the word of promise to our ear and break it to our
hope.--_Macbeth,_ Act V, Sc. viii.

The Connecticut General Court incorporated in the act establishing the
Saybrook Platform the proviso--

that nothing herein shall be intended or construed to hinder or
prevent any Society or Church that is or shall he allowed by the
laws of this government, who soberly differ or dissent from the
United Churches hereby established from exercising worship and
discipline in their own way, according to their conscience.

Here then was the measure of such religious toleration as could be
expected. It appears a liberal measure. It was liberal in that day and
generation, when men's minds were so firmly possessed by the belief
that civil order was closely dependent upon religious uniformity. The
exact purport of the proviso, however, can best be gauged by
considering it in connection with a legislative act that immediately
preceded it, and by studying the conditions which prompted or enforced
this earlier legislation, known as the Toleration Act of 1708.[a]

As conditions were at its passage, the proviso applied only to certain
Congregational churches that, preferring the polity of the Cambridge
Platform, were determined to adhere to it. In earlier years, these
churches, with their exacting test of regenerative experience, had
constituted the majority. In later years, the Half-Way Covenant
practice and Stoddardeanism had shifted the relative position of
church parties. Now, the proviso represented that liberal-minded
party within the church who would extend tolerance to the minority who
still clung to the outgrown convictions and principles of an earlier
age. This tolerance was extended from a two-fold motive: for the
reason just assigned, and because the government hoped, by permitting
a liberal interpretation of the Saybrook Articles, to win over these
tolerated Congregational churches. It trusted that the anticipated
benefits, proceeding from the new order of church government, would
further convince them of the superior advantages derivable from the
Presbyterian or more authoritative rendering of the Saybrook
instrument, and that through such a policy, the ready acceptance of
the Saybrook Platform by all the churches in the colony would be
secured. Furthermore, it would not do for the colony to make an
important law, following the great English precedent of 1689 which had
granted toleration to dissenters, and then, within six months, frame a
constitution for its Established Church, so rigid that no room could
be found in the colony for any fundamental differences in faith or
practice. Consequently, the proviso was made to include both tolerated
Congregationalists and any dissenters who might in the future be
permitted to organize their own churches, or, in the words of the
Court, "any Society or Church that is or shall be allowed by the laws
of this government." Thus the proviso was practically forced into the
October legislation of the General Court by the passing of the
Toleration Act at its spring session, notwithstanding the fact that
its inclusion was in accord with the sentiment of the liberal party.

Toleration Act and proviso notwithstanding, no rival church was
desired at this time in Connecticut. No rival creed was
recognized. True, there were a few handfuls of dissenters scattered
through the colony, but Congregationalism, with a strong tincture of
Presbyterianism, was almost the unanimous choice of the people. It was
largely outside pressure that had forced the passage of the Toleration
Act, even if it accounts for itself as a loyal following of the
English precedent of 1689. Although it had always been understood that
the colonies should make no laws repugnant to the organic or to the
common law of England, Connecticut was determined to protect as much
as possible her own approved church, to keep it free from the
contamination not only of infidels and heretics, but also from
Church-of-England dissenters and from all others. Accordingly she
placed side by side upon her statute book a Toleration Act with a
proviso in favor of her Established Church, and a Church platform with
a proviso for "sober dissenters" therefrom.

The circumstances which led up to and enforced the passage of the
Toleration Act were many and varied. The motives were complex.
Considerations religious, political, social, and economic entered into
the problem which met the Connecticut legislators when they found
their colony falling into disfavor with the King. This problem,
resolved into its simplest terms, consisted in securing continued
exemption from external interference. If Connecticut could retain the
King's approval, she could prevent the intrigues of her enemies at the
English court and could control the situation in the colony, whatever
its aspects, secular or religious. And with reference to the latter,
she would still be able to exalt her Establishment and to keep
dissenters, however they might increase in kinds or numbers, in a
properly subordinated position.

In order to obtain a grasp of the situation within the colony at the
time when its government concluded that the passing of the Toleration
Act would be politic, it is necessary to examine the status of the
dissenters there. Of these there were four classes, the Quakers or
Society of Friends, the Episcopalians, the Baptists, and the
Rogerines. Of these, the Quakers and the Episcopalians were the first
to make the Connecticut government forcibly realize that, if she
interfered with what they believed to be their rights, there would
probably have to be a settlement with the home government. But as the
efforts of these sects to interest the English government in their
behalf run parallel with and mix themselves up with other complaints
against Connecticut, it will make the history of the times clearer if
the early story of the Baptists and Rogerines is first told.

The Baptists early appeared in New England, but it was not until 1665
that Massachusetts permitted their organization into churches, and not
until 1700, only eight years before the Saybrook Platform, that Cotton
Mather wrote of them, "We are willing to acknowledge for our brethren
as many of them as are willing to be acknowledged." In her dislike of
them, Massachusetts had the full sympathy of Connecticut. And it was
with great dissatisfaction that the authorities of the latter colony
saw these dissenters, early in the eighteenth century, crossing the
Rhode Island boundary to settle within her territory. Accordingly, in
1704, the General Court of Connecticut refused them permission to
incorporate in church estate. When in the following year, in spite of
the legislature's refusal, they organized a church at Groton under
Valentine Wightman,[b] the Assembly proceeded to inflict the full
penalties of the law. While the Baptists had cheerfully paid all
secular taxes, they had made themselves liable to fines and
imprisonments by their refusal, on the ground of conscience, to pay
the ecclesiastical ones, and, as they continued to refuse, fines and
imprisonment and even flogging became their portion. Governor
Saltonstall, mild in his personal attitude toward the three other
groups of dissenters, thoroughly disapproved of the Baptists, seeming
to fear their growing influence in New England and their increasing
importance in the mother country. He believed in a policy of
restriction and oppression toward the mere handful of them that had
settled within his jurisdiction.

Apart from the main body of the Baptists, there were in Connecticut a
number of Seventh-day Baptists and Rogerine Baptists or Rogerine
Quakers. There were a very few of them,--not more than a dozen in
1680.[c] Setting aside the earliest persecution of the Quakers, these
Rogerines were the first dissenters to fall under the displeasure of
the Connecticut authorities. They were the first to be systematically
fined, whipped, and imprisoned for conducting themselves contrary to
the laws for the support and honor of the Connecticut
Establishment. For this reason, though they were weak in numbers and
often an exasperating set of fanatics, they deserve a hearing. Their
persecution began about 1677, while these people were chiefly resident
in New London and the Seventh-day men were mostly members of the
Rogers family. Later, the Rogerines spread to Norwich and Lebanon and
their immediate vicinity.

This sect of Rogerines arose from the intercourse through trade of two
brothers, John and James Rogers of New London, with the Sabbatarians
or Seventh-day Baptists of Rhode Island. These brothers were baptized
in 1674 and 1675, and their parents in the following year. All were
received as members of the Seventh-day church at Newport. This did not
trouble the Connecticut authorities, who appear not to have interfered
with the converts until they committed a flagrant offense and put
public dishonor upon the colony church; as in 1677, when elders of the
Rhode Island church arrived in New London to baptize the wife of
Joseph Rogers, another brother of the first two converts. The elders
selected for their baptismal ceremony a quiet spot about two miles
from the town. This did not suit John Rogers, who insisted that the
town was the only proper place, and led the little procession into
it. Mr. Hiscox, one of the elders, was seized while preaching and
carried before the magistrates, but was soon released. Deprived of
their leader, the Sabbatarians withdrew to another place, and John
Rogers, arrogating to himself the office of elder, performed the
baptismal service. From this time forth he began to draw disciples to
himself. When he pushed his personal opinions too far, the Newport
church attempted to discipline both him and his following, but, this
attempt failing, the Rogerines became henceforth a distinct sect.

The Rogerines, though strictly orthodox in the fundamental articles of
the Christian faith, were opposed by the Connecticut magistrates as
teachers of doctrines tending to undermine religion, as a persistently
rebellious sect, and as notorious breakers of the peace. In faith and
practice, these Rogerines bore some resemblance to the Baptists and
also to the Quakers. Hence, they were often called Rogerine-Baptists
or Rogerine-Quakers. Like the earlier Baptists and the Quakers, they
believed it wrong to take an oath. They differed from the
Congregationalists chiefly in their form of administering baptism and
the Lord's supper and in their opposition to any paid ministry. Rogers
also claimed that there were certain tests of personal regeneration
which the Congregationalists denied. John Bolles, one of the later
leaders of the sect, declared the Congregational Sunday to be "a great
Idol in this Country, and all the Religion built on the Holiness of
the pretended Sabbath is Hypocrisy and further that it is contrary to
Scripture, for Christians to exercise Authority over one another in
matters of Religion." [67] Rogers, with less dignity and more
pugnaciousness, called the authorities "the scarlet beast" and the
Establishment a "harlot," hurling scriptural texts with rankling,
exasperating abusiveness in his determination to prove her customs
evil and anti-Christian. Not content with such railing, the Rogerines
determined to show no respect to their adversaries' opinions and
worship. Thus, while maintaining that there should be no _public_
worship, Rogers, after his separation from the Seventh-day Baptists,
perversely chose Sunday as the day most convenient for the Rogerines
to hold their meetings. They not only exhorted and testified in the
streets, but forced their way into the churches, pestering the
ministers to argue disputed points. They offended in another way,
for, according to the colony law, they profaned the Sabbath by
working, claiming that, as all days were holy, all were alike good for
work. Fines and imprisonment began in 1677. They were continued in the
hope, held by the authorities, that they could suppress the Rogerines
by exactions which should melt away their estates. Sometimes these
penalties were unjust, as when John Rogers could rightly claim that he
was sentenced without benefit of jury, and, at another, that the
authorities had seized his son's cattle to settle the father's fines.
John Bolles pleaded against the injustice of forcing men "to pay Money
for his (the minister's) preaching when they did not hear him and
professed it was against their Consciences." [68] But such a plea was
many, many years in advance of his time. The Rogerines, important, in
their own estimate, as called of God, and angered by opposition,
seized upon every scriptural passage that bade them exhort and
testify, feeling it their duty to do so both in season and out. Had
they been willing to give up this practice in public, they would
probably have been left in comparative peace, for Governor Saltonstall
wrote to Rogers offering him protection for his followers if they
would consent to give up "testifying" and would hold their services
quietly and privately. Rogers refused upon the ground that he had a
right to use the colony churches for his preaching, since he and his
people were obliged to contribute to their maintenance. This was
logical, but not acceptable to the Connecticut magistrates, who
continued to cool the enthusiasm of the Rogerines by occasional heavy
penalties, and to look upon them as a set of fanatics, doomed to
self-extinction.

The attitude of the Connecticut authorities at this time toward the
Quakers, or Society of Friends, was quite different from that assumed
toward the Baptists and Rogerines. A retrospect of their history in
the colony shows them to have been the earliest dissenters, and also
the ones to whom concessions, though only temporary, were first
made. Previous to the Restoration, the Quakers were the only
dissenters with whom Connecticut had to deal. They appeared in
Massachusetts in 1655, and in the following year New Haven colony
found no laws could be too severe for the "cursed sect of the
Quakers." The General Court of Connecticut seconded the efforts of
both New Haven and Massachusetts to exclude the obnoxious and
determined sect, but it soon decided that its fears had been greatly
exaggerated, and that mild laws and town legislation were
sufficient. Accordingly, town officers were instructed to prevent
Quakers settling in the colony, to forbid their books and writings,
and to break up their meetings. It was forbidden, however, to lay upon
them a fine of more than ten pounds or, under any circumstances, the
death penalty.

While New Haven whipped, branded, and transported Quakers,[d]
Connecticut mildly enforced her laws against them, [69] and how mildly
the following incidents will show. In 1658, John Rous and John
Copeland, traveling preachers, reached Hartford. They were allowed to
hold a discussion in the presence of the governor and magistrates upon
"God is a Spirit." At its close, they were courteously informed that
the laws of the colony forbade their remaining in it, and were
requested to continue without further delay their journey into Rhode
Island. This request was heeded, but while on their way, to quote
Rous, "The Lord gave us no small dominion." It would seem as if the
wise Quaker had taken the benefit of the law which forbade his
remaining "more than fifteen days in a town," and, also, of the
friendly curiosity of the people along his route. Rous further
testified in behalf of Connecticut that "Among all the colonies found
we not like moderation as this; most of the magistrates being more
noble than those of the others." [70] A short time after Rous's visit,
two Quakers, who persisted in holding services, were arrested and
banished.[e] Still later, two women who attempted to conduct services
in Hartford met with similar treatment, of whom their historian
records: "Except that some extra apparel which they took with them was
sold by the jaoler to pay his fee, no act of persecution befell them
at Hartford." [71] As late as 1676, when the Congregationalists and
the constables of New London, with great violence, broke up a Friends'
meeting, held by William Edmundson, he tells us that "the sober people
were offended at them," [72] and that on the following Sunday, at "New
Hartford" (Hartford), after the regular morning service, he was
allowed to speak unhindered. The same afternoon, when he attempted to
speak in another meeting-house, the officers, urged on by the
minister, "haled me," he writes, "out of the worship-house, and hurt
my arm so that it bled." When he asked them if they thought that was
the right treatment of a man faint from fasting all day, they, with
excuses for the conduct of the minister and the magistrates, hurried
him to an inn. There the people were allowed to listen to his
discourse, and, the next morning, he was bidden to go freely on his
way.

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