THE CAMBRIDGE PLATFORM AND THE HALF-WAY COVENANT
It is always right that a man should be able to render a reason
for the faith that is within him.--Sydney Smith.
In each of the New England colonies under consideration, the settlers
organized their church system and established its relation to the
State, expecting that the strong arm of the temporal power would
insure stability and harmony in both religious and civil life. As we
know, they were speedily doomed to disappointment. As we have seen,
they failed to estimate the influences of the new land, where freedom
from the restraint of an older civilization bred new ideas and
estimates of the liberty that should be accorded men. Within the first
decade Massachusetts had great difficulty in impressing religious
uniformity upon her rapidly increasing and heterogeneous
population. She found coercion difficult, costly, dangerous to her
peace, and to her reputation when the oppressed found favorable ears
in England to listen to their woes. Ecclesiastical differences of less
magnitude, contemporary in time and foreshadowing discontent and
opposition to the established order of Church and State, were settled
in more quiet ways. John Davenport, after witnessing the Antinomian
controversy, declined the pressing hospitality of Massachusetts, and
led his New Haven company far enough afield to avoid theological
entanglements or disputed points of church polity. Unimpeded, they
would make their intended experiment in statecraft and build their
strictly scriptural republic. Still earlier Thomas Hooker, Samuel
Stone, and John Warham led the Connecticut colonists into the
wilderness because they foresaw contention, strife, and evil days
before them if they were to be forced to conform to the strict policy
of Massachusetts.[a] They preferred, unhindered, to plant and water
the young vine of a more democratic commonwealth. And even as
Massachusetts met with large troubles of her own, so smaller ones
beset these other colonies in their endeavor to preserve uniformity of
religious faith and practice. Until 1656, outside of Massachusetts,
sectarianism barely lifted its head. Religious contumacy was due to
varying opinions as to what should be the rule of the churches and the
privileges of their members. As the churches held theoretically that
each was a complete, independent, and self-governing unit, their
practice and teaching concerning their powers and duties began to show
considerable variation. Such variation was unsatisfactory, and so
decidedly so that the leaders of opinion in the four colonies early
began to feel the need of some common platform, some authoritative
standard of church government, such as was agreed upon later in the
Cambridge Platform of 1648 and in the Half-Way Covenant, a still later
exposition or modification of certain points in the Platform.
The need for the Platform arose, also, from two other causes: one
purely colonial, and the other Anglo-colonial. The first was, since
everybody had to attend public worship, the presence in the
congregations of outsiders as distinct from church members. These
outsiders demanded broader terms of admission to holy privileges and
comforts. The second cause, Anglo-colonial in nature, arose from the
inter-communion of colonial and English Puritan churches and from the
strength of the politico-ecclesiastical parties in England. Whatever
the outcome there, the consequences to colonial life of the rapidly
approaching climax in England, when, as we now know, King was to give
way to Commonwealth and Presbyterianism find itself subordinate to
Independency, would be tremendous.
In the first twenty years of colonial life, great changes had come
over New England. Many men of honest and Christian character--"sober
persons who professed themselves desirous of renewing their baptismal
covenant, and submit unto church discipline, but who were unable to
come up to that experimental account of their own regeneration which
would sufficiently embolden their access to the other sacrament"
(communion) [34]--felt that the early church regulations, possible
only in small communities where each man knew his fellow, had been
outgrown, and that their retention favored the growth of
hypocrisy. The exacting oversight of the churches in their "watch and
ward" over their members was unwelcome, and would not be submitted to
by many strangers who were flocking into the colonies. The
"experimental account" of religion demanded, as of old, a public
declaration or confession of the manner in which conviction of
sinfulness had come to each one; of the desire to put evil aside and
to live in accordance with God's commands as expressed in Scripture
and through the church to which the repentant one promised
obedience. This public confession was a fundamental of
Congregationalism. Other religious bodies have copied it; but at the
birth of Congregationalism, and for centuries afterwards, the bulk of
European churches, like the Protestant Episcopal Church to-day,
regarded "Christian piety more as a habit of life, formed under the
training of childhood, and less as a marked spiritual change in
experience." [35]
It followed that while many of the newcomers in the colonies were
indifferent to religion, by far the larger number were not, and
thought that, as they had been members of the English Established
Church, they ought to be admitted into full membership in the churches
of England's colonies. They felt, moreover, that the religious
training of their children was being neglected because the New England
churches ignored the child whose parents would not, or could not,
submit to their terms of membership. Still more strongly did these
people feel neglected and dissatisfied when, as the years went by,
more and more of them were emigrants who had been acceptable members
of the Puritan churches in England. They continued to be refused
religious privileges because New England Congregationalism doubted the
scriptural validity of letters of dismissal from churches where the
discipline and church order varied from its own. Within the membership
of the New England churches themselves, there was great uncertainty
concerning several church privileges, as, for instance, how far infant
baptism carried with it participation in church sacraments, and
whether adults, baptized in infancy, who had failed to unite with the
church by signing the Covenant, could have their children baptized
into the church. Considerations of church-membership and baptism, for
which the Cambridge Synod of 1648 was summoned, were destined, because
of political events in England, to be thrust aside and to wait another
eight years for their solution in that conference which framed the
Half-Way Covenant as supplementary to the Cambridge Platform of faith
and discipline.
What has been termed the Anglo-colonial cause for summoning the
Cambridge Synod finds explanation in the frequent questions and
demands which English Independency put to the New England churches
concerning church usage and discipline, and in the intense interest
with which New England waited the outcome of the constitutional
struggle in England between King and Parliament.
When the great controversy broke out in England between Presbyterians
and Independents, the fortunes of Massachusetts (who felt every wave
of the struggle) and of New England were in the balance. Presbyterians
in England proclaimed the doctrine of church unity, and of coercion if
necessary, to procure it; the Independents, the doctrine of
toleration. Puritans, inclining to Presbyterianism, were disturbed
over reports from the colonies, and letters of inquiry were sent and
answers returned explaining that, while the internal polity of the New
England churches was not far removed from Presbyterianism, they
differed widely from the Presbyterian standard as to a national church
and as to the power of synods over churches, and that they also held
to a much larger liberty in the right of each church to appoint its
officers and control its own internal affairs. At the opening of the
Long Parliament (1640-1644), many emigrants had returned to England
from the colonies, and, under the leadership of the influential Hugh
Peters, had given such an impetus to English thought that the
Independent party rose to political importance and made popular the
"New England Way."[b] The success of the Independents brought relief
to Massachusetts, yet it was tinctured with apprehension lest
"toleration" should be imposed upon her. The signing of the "League
and Covenant" with England in 1643 by Scotland, the oath of the
Commons to support it, and the pledge "to bring the churches of God in
the three Kingdoms to the nearest conjunction and uniformity in
religion, confession of faith, form of church government and
catechizing" (including punishment of malignants and opponents of
reformation in Church and State), carried menace to the colonies and
to Massachusetts in particular. The supremacy of Scotch or English
Nonconformity meant a severity toward any variation from its
Presbyterianism as great as Laud had exercised.[c]
In 1643 Parliament convened one hundred and fifty members[d] in the
Westminster Assembly to plan the reform of the Church of
England. Their business was to formulate a Confession which should
dictate to all Englishmen what they should believe and how express it,
and should also define a Church, which, preserving the inherent
English idea of its relation to the State, should bear a close
likeness to the Reformed churches of the Continent and yet approach as
nearly as possible both to the then Church of Scotland and to the
English Church of the time of Elizabeth. The work of this assembly,
known as the Westminster Confession, demonstrated to the New England
colonists the weakness of their church system and the need among them
of religious unity.[e]
Many among the colonists doubted the advisability of a church
platform, considering it permissible as a declaration of faith, but of
doubtful value if its articles were to be authoritative as a binding
rule of faith and practice without "adding, altering, or omitting."
Men of this mind waited for controversial writings,[f] to clear up
misconception and misrepresentation in England, but they waited in
vain. Moreover, the Puritan Board of Commissioners for Plantations of
1643 threatened as close an oversight and as rigid control of colonial
affairs from a Presbyterian Parliament as had been feared from the
King. Furthermore, a Presbyterian cabal in Plymouth and Massachusetts,
1644-1646, gathered to it the discontent of large numbers of
unfranchised residents within the latter colony, and under threat of
an appeal to Parliament boldly asked for the ballot and for church
privileges. In view of these developments, nearly all the colonial
churches, though with some hesitation, united in the Synod of
Cambridge, which was originally called for the year 1646.
In the calling of the synod Massachusetts took the lead. Several years
before, in 1643, the four colonies of Plymouth, Massachusetts,
Connecticut, and New Haven had united in the New England Confederacy,
or "Confederacy of the United Colonies," for mutual advantage in
resisting the encroachments of the Dutch, French, and Indians, and for
"preserving and propagating the truth and liberties of the gospel." In
the confederacy, Massachusetts and Connecticut soon became the
leaders. Considering how much more strongly the former felt the
pulsations of English political life, and how active were the
Massachusetts divines as expositors of the "New England way of the
churches," the Bay Colony naturally took the initiative in calling the
Cambridge Synod. But mindful of the opposition to her previous
autocratic summons, her General Court framed its call as a "desire"
that ministerial, together with lay delegates, from all the churches
of New England should meet at Cambridge. There, representing the
churches, and in accordance with the earliest teachings of
Congregationalism, they were to meet in synod "for sisterly advice and
counsel." They were to formulate the practice of the churches in
regard to baptism and adult privileges, and to do so "for the
confirming of the weak among ourselves and the stopping of the mouths
of our adversaries abroad." During the two years of unavoidable delay
before the synod met in final session, these topics, which were
expected to be foremost in the conference, were constantly in the
public mind. Through this wide discussion, the long delay brought much
good. It brought also misfortune in the death of Thomas Hooker in
1647, and by it loss of one of the great lights and most liberal minds
in the proposed conference. Nearly all the colonial churches[g] were
represented in the synod. When, during its session, news was received
that Cromwell was supreme in England, its members turned from the
discussion of baptism and church-membership to a consideration of what
should be the constitution of the churches. The supremacy of Cromwell
and of the Independents who filled his armies cleared the political
background. All danger of enforced Presbyterianism was over. The
strength of the Presbyterian malcontents, who had sought to bring
Massachusetts and New England into disrepute in England, was
broken. Since the colonists were free to order their religious life as
they pleased, the Cambridge Synod turned aside from its purposed task
to formulate a larger platform of faith and polity.
When the Cambridge Synod adjourned, the orthodoxy of the New England
churches could not be impugned. In all matters of faith "for the
substance thereof" they accepted the Westminster Confession of Faith,
but from its measures of government and discipline they differed.[h]
This Cambridge Platform was more important as recognizing the
independence of the churches and the authority of custom among them
than as formulating a creed. It governed the New England churches for
sixty years, or until Massachusetts and Connecticut Congregationalism
came to the parting of the way, whence one was to develop its
associated system of church government, and the other its consociated
system as set forth in the Saybrook Platform, formulated at Saybrook,
Connecticut, in 1708. Meanwhile, the Cambridge Platform[i] gave all
the New England churches a standard by which to regulate their
practice and to resist change.[j]
A study of the Platform yields the following brief summary of its
cardinal points:--
(a) The Congregational church is not "National, Provincial or
Classical,"[k] but is a church of a covenanted brotherhood, wherein
each member makes public acknowledgment of spiritual regeneration and
declares his purpose to submit himself to the ordinances of God and of
his church.[l] A slight concession was made to the liberal church
party and to the popular demand for broader terms of membership in the
provision for those of "the weakest measure of faith," and in the
substitution of a written account of their Christian experience by
those who were ill or timid. This written "experimental account" was
to be read to the church by one of the elders. In the words of the
Platform, "Such charity and tenderness is to be used, as the weakest
Christian if sincere, may not be excluded or discouraged. Severity of
examination is to be avoided."[m]
(b) The officers of the church are elders and deacons, the former
including, as of old, pastors, teachers, and ruling elders. That the
authority within the church had passed from the unrestrained democracy
of the early Plymouth Separatists to a silent democracy before the
command of a speaking aristocracy[n] is witnessed to by the Platform's
declaration that "power of office" is proper to the elders, while
"power of privilege"[o] belongs to the brethren. In other words, the
brethren or membership have a "second" and "indirect power," according
to which they are privileged to elect their elders. Thereafter those
officers possess the "direct power," or authority, to govern the
church as they see fit.[p] In the matter of admission, dismission,
censure, excommunication, or re-admission of members, the brotherhood
of the church may express their opinion by vote.[q] In cases of
censure and excommunication, the Platform specifies that the offender
could be made to suffer only through deprivation of his church rights
and not through any loss of his civil ones.[r] In the discussion of
this point, the more liberal policy of Connecticut and Plymouth
prevailed.
(c) In regard to pastors and teachers, the Platform affirms that they
are such only by the right of election and remain such only so long as
they preside over the church by which they were elected.[s]
Their ordination after election, as well as that of the ruling elders
and deacons, is to be by the laying on of hands of the elders of the
church electing them. In default of elders, this ordination is to be
by the hands of brethren whom because of their exemplary lives the
church shall choose to perform the rite.[t]
A new provision was also made, one leaning toward Presbyterianism,
whereby elders of other churches could perform this ceremony, "when
there were no elders and the church so desired."
(d) Church maintenance, amounting to a church tax, was insisted upon
not only from church-members but from all, since "all that are taught
in the word, are to contribute unto him that teacheth." If necessary,
because corrupt men creep into the congregations and church
contributions cannot be collected, the magistrate is to see to it that
the church does not suffer.[u]
(e) The Platform defined the intercommunion of the churches[v] upon
such broad lines as to admit of sympathetic fellowship even when
slight differences existed in local customs. In so important a matter
as when an offending elder was to be removed, consultation with other
churches was commanded before action should be taken against him. The
intercommunion of churches was defined as of various kinds: as for
mutual welfare; for sisterly advice and consultation, in cases of
public offense, where the offending church was unconscious of fault;
for recommendation of members going from one church to another; for
need, relief, or succor of unfortunate churches; and "by way of
propagation," when over-populous churches were to be divided.
(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.
In the spirit of such legislation, the Court advised the Hartford
church to "walk apart." The advice was accepted, the church divided,
and the members who went out reorganized as the Second Church of
Hartford. Other discordant churches quickly followed this example. The
Second Church of Hartford immediately put forth a declaration,
asserting that its Congregationalism was that of the old original New
England type. The force of public opinion was so great, however, that
despite its declaration, the Second Church began at once to accept the
Half-Way Covenant. "The only result of their profession was to give a
momentary name to the struggle as between Congregationalist and
Presbyterian." [45] It was no effective opposition to the onward
development in Connecticut of the new order. When the churches found
that neither the old nor the new way was to be insisted upon, the
violence of faction ceased. The dual membership was accepted. For a
while, its line of cleavage away from the old system, with its local
church "as a covenanted brotherhood of souls renewed by the experience
of God's grace," was not realized, any more than that the new system
was merging the older type of church "into the parish where all
persons of good moral character, living within the parochial bounds,
were to have, as in England and Scotland, the privilege of baptism for
their households and of access to the Lord's table."[46] Another move
in this direction was taken when the splitting off of churches, and
the forming of more than one within the original parish bounds,
necessitated a further departure from the principles of
Congregationalism, and when the sequestration of lands for the benefit
of clergy became a feature of the new order.[47] In this formation of
new churches, the oldest parish was always the First Society.[ai]
Those formed later did not destroy it or affect its antecedent
agreements.[48] Only sixty-six years had passed (1603-1669) since the
publication of the "Points of Difference" between the Separatists, the
London-Amsterdam exiles, and the Church of England, wherein insistence
had been laid upon the principles of a covenanted church, of its
voluntary support, and of the unrighteousness of churches possessing
either lands or revenue. The pendulum had swung from the broad
democracy and large liberty of Brownism through Barrowism, past the
Cambridge Platform (almost the centre of its arc), and on through the
Half-Way Covenant to the beginning of a parish system. It had still
farther to swing before it reached the end of the arc, marked by the
Saybrook Platform, and before it began its slower return movement, to
rest at last in the Congregationalism of the past seventy years.
FOOTNOTES:
[a] Among the causes assigned for the removal of the Connecticut
colonists were the discontent at Watertown over the high-handed
silencing by the Boston authorities of Pastor Phillips and Teacher
Brown for daring to assert that the "churches of Rome were true
churches;" the early attempt of the authorities to impose a general
tax; the continued opposition to Ludlow; their desire to oppose the
Dutch seizure of the fertile valley of the Connecticut; their want of
space in the Bay Colony; and the "strong bent of their spirits to
remove thither," i.e. to Connecticut.
[b] The _New England Way_ discarded the liturgy; refused to
accept the sacrament or join in prayer after such an "anti-Christian
form;" limited communion to church members approved by New England
standards, or coming with credentials from churches similarly
approved; limited the ministerial office, outside the pastor's own
church, to prayer and conference, denying all authority; and assumed
as the right of each church the power of elections, admissions,
dismissals, censures, and excommunications. The result, in that day of
intense championship of religious polity and custom, was to create
disturbance and discord among the English Independent churches. The
correspondence between the divines of New England and old England was
in part to avoid the "breaking up of churches."
[c] J. R. Green, _Short Hist. of the English People_,
534-538. The great popular signing of the Covenant in Scotland was in
1638.
[d] The original intention, in 1642, in regard to the composition of
the Westminster Assembly was to have noted divines from abroad. It was
proposed to invite Rev. John Cotton, Thomas Hooker, and John Davenport
from New England. Rev. Thomas Hooker thought the subject was not one
of sufficient ecclesiastical importance for so long and difficult a
journey, while the Rev. John Davenport could not be spared because of
the absence of other church officers from New Haven.--H. M. Dexter,
_Congr. as seen_, etc., p. 653.
Congregationalists or Independents in the sittings of the Assembly
pleaded for liberty of conscience to all sects, "provided that they
did not trouble the public peace." (Later, Congregationalists
differentiated themselves from the Independents by adding to the
principle of the independence of the local church the principle of the
local sisterhood of the churches.) In the Assembly, averaging sixty or
eighty members, Congregationalism was represented by but five
influential divines and a few of lesser importance. There were also
among the members some thirty laymen. The Assembly held eleven hundred
and sixty-three sittings, continuing for a period of five years and
six months. During these years the Civil War was fought; the King
executed; the Commonwealth established with its modified state-church,
Presbyterian in character. Intolerance was held in check by the power
of Cromwell and of the army, for the Independents had made early and
successful efforts to win the soldiery to their standard.--Philip
Schaff, _Creeds of Christendom_, 727-820.
[e] W. Walker, _Creeds and Platforms_, p. 136, note 2.
[f] The _New England Way_ defended its changes from English
custom under three heads: (1) That things, inexpedient but not utterly
unlawful in England, became under changed conditions sinful in New
England. (2) Things tolerated in England, because unremovable, were
shameful in the new land where they were removable. (3) Many things,
upon mature deliberation and tried by Scripture, were found to be
sinful. But: "We profess unfeignedly we separate from the
corruptions, which we conceive to be left in your Churches, and from
such Ordinances administered therein as we feare are not of God but of
men; and for yourselves, we are so farre from separating as visible
Christians as that you are under God in our hearts (if the Lord would
suffer it) to live and die together; and we look at sundrie of you as
men of that eminent growth in Christianitie, that if there be any
visible Christians under heaven, amongst you are the men, which for
these many years have been written in your forehead ('Holiness to the
Lord'): and this is not to the disparagement of ourselves or our
practice, for we believe that the Church moves on from age to age, its
defects giving way to increasing purity from reformation to
reformation."--J. Davenport, _The Epistle Returned, or the Answer to
the Letter of Many Ministers_.
A number of treatises upon church government and usage were printed in
the memorable year 1643, several of which had previously circulated in
manuscript. In 1637 was received the _Letter of Many Ministers in
Old England, requesting the Judgment of their Reverend Brethren in New
England and concerning Nine Positions_. It was answered by John
Davenport in 1639. _A Reply and Answer_ was also a part of this
correspondence, which was first published in 1643, as was also Richard
Mather's _Church Government and Church Covenant Discussed_, the
latter being a reply to _Two and Thirty Questions_ sent from
England. By these, together with J. Cotton's _Keyes_ and other
writings, and by Thomas Hooker's great work _Survey of the Summe of
Church Discipline_ (approved by the Synod of 1643), every aspect of
church polity and usage was covered.
[g] Hingham church preferred the Presbyterian way. Concord was absent,
lacking a fit representative. Boston and Salem at first refused to
attend, questioning the General Court's right to summon a synod and
fearing lest such a summons should involve the obedience of all the
represented churches to the decisions of the conference. The
modification of the summons to the "desire" of the court, and the
entreaty of their leaders, finally overcame the opposition in these
churches. In fact, delegates to the Court, representing at least
thirty or forty churches, had hesitated to accept the original summons
of the Court when reported as a bill for calling the synod. Although
the Court "made no question of their lawful power by the word of God
to assemble the churches, or their messengers upon occasion of
counsell, or anything which may concern the practice of the churches,"
it decided to modify the phrasing of the order.--H. M. Dexter,
_Congr. as seen_, p. 436. _Magnalia_, ii,
209. _Mass. Col. Rec._ ii, 154-156, also iii, 70-73.
[h] "This Synod having perused with much gladness of heart the
confession of faith published by the late reverend assembly in
England, do judge it to be very holy, orthodox and judicious, in all
matters of faith, and do hereby freely and fully consent thereto for
the substance thereof. Only in those things which have respect to
church-government and discipline, we refer ourselves to the Platform
of Church-discipline, agreed upon by this present assembly."--Preface
to the Cambridge Platform, quoted in W. Walker, _Creeds and
Platforms_, p. 195.
[i] In many parts the wording of the Platform is almost identical with
passages from the foremost ecclesiastical treatises of the period,
and, naturally, since John Cotton, Richard Mather, and Ralph Partridge
were each requested to draft a "Scriptural Model of Church
Government." The Platform conformed most closely to that of Richard
Mather. The draft by Ralph Partridge of Plymouth still
exists. Obviously, the Separatist clergyman did not emphasize so
strongly the rule of the eldership which New England church life in
general had developed. Otherwise his plan did not differ essentially
from that of Mather.
[j] "Even now, after a lapse of more than two hundred years the
Platform (notwithstanding its errors here and there in the application
of proof texts, and its one great error in regard to the power of the
civil magistrate in matters of religion) is the most authentic
exposition of the Congregational church as given in the
scriptures."--Leonard Bacon, in _Contributions to the Ecclesiastical
History of Connecticut_, ed. of 1865, p. 15.
[k] Cambridge Platform, chap. ii.
[l] _Ibid._ chap. ii.
[m] Cambridge Platform, chap. iii.
[n] The definition of the rule of the elders, given by the Rev. Samuel
Stone of Hartford, was "A speaking aristocracy in the face of a silent
democracy."
[o] Cambridge Platform, chaps, iv-x.
[p] "We do believe that Christ hath ordained that there should be a
Presbytery or Eldership and that in every Church, whose work is to
teach and rule the Church by the Word and laws of Christ and unto whom
so teaching and ruling, all the people ought to be obedient and submit
themselves. And therefore a Government merely Popular or
Democratieal... is far from the practice of these Churches and we
believe far from the mind of Christ." However, the brethren should not
be wholly excluded from its government or its liberty to choose its
officers, admit members and censure offenders.--R. Mather, _Church
Government and Church Covenant Discussed,_ pp. 47-50.
"The Gospel alloweth no Church authority or rule (properly so called)
to the Brethren but reserveth that wholly to the Elders; and yet
preventeth tyrannee, and oligarchy, and exorbitancy of the Elders by
the large and firm establishment of the liberties of the
Brethren."--J. Cotton, _The Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven,_
p. 12.
"In regard to Christ, the head, the government of the Church, is
sovereign and Monarchicall: In regard to the rule of the Presbytery,
it is stewardly and Aristocraticall: In regard to the people's power
in elections and censures, it is Democraticall."--_The Keys,_
p. 36; see also _Church-Government and Church Covenant,_
pp. 51-58.
[q] Cambridge Platform, chap, x.
[r] _Ibid._ chap. xiv.
[s] Cambridge Platform, chap. ix.
[t] _Ibid_. chap. ix.
[u] _Ibid_. chap. xi.
[v] _Ibid_. chap. xv.
[w] Cambridge Platform, chap. xvi.
[x] Cambridge Platform, chap. xvii.
According to Hooker's _Survey_ the magistrates had the right to
summon synods because they have the right to command the faculties of
their subjects to deliberate concerning the good of the
State.--_Survey_, pt. iv, p. 54 _et seq_.
[y] "However the controversy of the Connecticut River churches was
embittered by political interests, it was essentially nothing else
than the fermentation of that leaven of Presbyterianism which came
over with the later Puritan emigration, and which the Cambridge
Platform, with all its explicitness in asserting the rules given by
the Scriptures, had not effectually purged."--L. Bacon, in
_Contrib. to Eccl. Hist. of Conn_., p. 17.
See also H. M. Dexter, _Congr. as seen in Lit_., pp. 468-69.
Of the twenty-one contemporaneous documents, by various authors, none
mention baptism as in any way an issue in debate. "Dr. Trumbull
probably touches the real root of the affair when he speaks of the
controversy as one concerning the 'rights of the brotherhood,' and the
conviction, entertained by Mr. Goodwin, that these rights had been
disregarded." The question of baptism ran parallel with the question
under debate, incidentally mixed itself with and outlived it to be the
cause of a later quarrel that should split the church.--G. L. Walker,
_First Church in Hartford_, p. 154.
[z] Mr. Stone admitted: "(1) I acknowledge yt it is a liberty of ye
church to declare their apprehensions by vote about ye fitness of a
p'son for office upon his tryall.
(2) "I look at it as a received truth yt an officer may in some cases
lawfully hinder ye church from putting forth at this or yt time an act
of her liberty.
(3) "I acknowledge ye I hindered ye church fro declaring their
apprehensions by vote (upon ye day in question) concerning
Mr. Wigglesworth's fitness for office in ye church of
Hartford."--_Conn. Historical Society Papers_, ii. 51-125.
[aa] In the New Haven letter, she wrote, "We hear the petitioners, or
others closing with them, are very confident they shall obtain great
alterations both in civil government and church discipline, and that
some of them have procured and hired one as their agent, to maintain
in writing (as it is conceived) that parishes in England, consenting
to and continuing their meetings to worship God, are true churches,
and such persons coming over thither, (without holding forth any work
of faith) have all right to church privileges."--_New Haven
Col. Records_, iii, 186.
[ab] That is, they assent to the main truths of the Gospel and promise
obedience to the church they desire to join.
[ac] Among Massachusetts clergymen, Thomas Allen of Charlestown, 1642,
Thomas Shepherd, Cambridge, 1649, John Norton, Ipswich, 1653, held
that the baptismal privileges should be widened, and John Cotton
himself was slowly drifting toward this opinion.
The Windsor church was the first in Connecticut to practice the
Half-Way Covenant, January 31, 1657-58, to March 19, 1664-65, when the
pastor, having doubts as to its validity, discontinued the practice
until 1668, when it was again resumed.--Stiles, _Ancient
Windsor_, p. 172.
[ad] Stone held his party on the ground that over a matter of internal
discipline a synod had no control, and that he could exercise
Congregational discipline upon any seceders. The immediate result was
the removal of the discontented to Boston or to Hadley; where,
however, they could not be admitted to another church until Stone had
released them from his. This he refused to do. Thus, he showed the
power of a minister, when backed by a majority, to inflict virtual
excommunication. This could be done even though his authority was open
to question.--J. A. Doyle, _Puritan Colonies_, ii, p. 77.
[ae] Meanwhile the Massachusetts Synod (purely local) of 1662 stood
seven to one in favor of the Half-Way Covenant practice, and had
reaffirmed the fellowship of the churches according to the synodical
terms of the Cambridge Platform, as against a more authoritative
system of consociation, proposed by Thomas Shepherd of Cambridge.
[af] It must be remembered that the "Church of England meant the
aggregate of English Christians, whether in the upshot of the
movements which were going on (1630-1660), their polity should turn
out to be Episcopal or Presbyterian, or something different from
either."--Palfrey, _Comprehensive Hist. of New England_, i,
p. 111. J. R. Green, _Short Hist. of the Eng. People_, p. 544.
In England, Pitkin had been a member of the church of the
Commonwealth, and in all probability was not an Episcopalian or
Church-of-England man in the usual sense.
[ag] Such an order could only produce further disturbance. Stratford
and Norwalk protested. As a rule the order was most unwelcome in the
recently acquired New Haven colony. Mr. Pierson of Branford, with
some of the conservative church people of Guilford and New Haven, went
to New Jersey to escape its consequences.
[ah] Among the questions, still unanswered, which had been submitted
in 1657 were: (9) "Whether it doth belong to the body of a town,
collectively taken, jointly, to call him to be their minister whom the
church shall choose to be their officer." (13) "Whether the church,
her invitation and election of an officer, or preaching elder,
necessitates the whole congregation to sit down satisfied, as bound to
accept him as their minister though invited and settled without the
town's consent." (ll) "Unto whom shall such persons repair who are
grieved by any church process or censure, or whether they must
acquiesce in the churches under which they belong."--Trumbull,
_Hist. of Conn. i_, 302-3.
[ai] In New England Congregationalism, the church and the
ecclesiastical society were separate and distinct bodies. The church
kept the records of births, deaths, marriage, baptism, and membership,
and, outside these, confined itself to spiritual matters; the society
dealt with all temporal affairs such as the care and control of all
church property, the payment of ministers' salaries, and also their
calling, settlement, and dismissal.