A PERIOD OF TRANSITION
Alas for piety, alas for the ancient faith!
Though Massachusetts had been indifferent and had left Connecticut to
work out, unaided, her religious problem, the two colonies were by no
means unfriendly, and in each there was a large conservative party
mutually sympathetic in their church interests. The drift of the
liberal party in each colony was apart. The homogeneity of the
Connecticut people put off for a long while the embroilments, civil
and religious, to which Massachusetts was frequently exposed through
her attempts to restrain, restrict, and force into an inflexible mould
her population, which was steadily becoming more numerous and
cosmopolite. The English government received frequent complaints about
the Bay Colony, and, as a result, Connecticut, by contrast of her
"dutiful conduct" with that of "unruly Massachusetts," gained greater
freedom to pursue her own domestic policy with its affairs of Church
and State. Many of its details were unknown, or ignored, by the
English government. The period when the four colonies had been united
upon all measures of common welfare, whether temporal or spiritual,
had passed. There were now three colonies. One of these, much weaker
than the others, was destined within comparatively few years to be
absorbed by Massachusetts as New Haven had been by
Connecticut. Meanwhile, Massachusetts and Connecticut were developing
along characteristic lines and had each its individual problems to
pursue. While in ecclesiastical affairs the conservative factions in
the two colonies had much in common and continued to have for a long
time, the Reforming Synod of 1679-80, held in Boston, was the last in
which all the New England churches had any vital interest, because a
period of transition was setting in. This period of transition was
marked by an expansion of settlements with its accompanying spirit of
land-grabbing, and by a lowering of tone in the community, as material
interests superseded the spiritual ones of the earlier generations,
and as the Indian and colonial wars spread abroad a spirit of
license. In the religious life of the colonists, this transition made
itself felt not alone in the character of its devotees, but in the
ecclesiastical system itself, as it changed from the polity and
practice embodied in the Cambridge Platform to that of a later day,
and to the almost Presbyterian government expressed in the Saybrook
Platform of 1708. The transition in Massachusetts, in both secular
and religious development, varied greatly from that in
Connecticut. Hence, from the time of the Keforming Synod, the history
of Connecticut is almost entirely the story of its own career,
touching only at points the historical development of the other New
England colonies. On the religious side, it is the story of the
evolution of Connecticut's peculiar Congregationalism. The Reforming
Synod of 1679-80 had been called by the Massachusetts General Court
because, in the words of that old historian, Thomas Prince:--
A little after 1660, there began to appear Decay, And this
increased to 1670, when it grew very visible and threatening, and
was generally complained of and bewailed bitterly by the pious
among them (the colonists): and yet more to 1680, when but few of
the first Generation remained. [49]
The reasons of this falling away from the standards of the first
generation were many. In the first place, the colonists had become
mere colonials. Upon the Stuart restoration, the strongest ties which
bound them to the pulsing life of the mother country, the religious
ones, were severed. The colonists ceased to be the vanguard of a great
religious movement, the possible haven of a new political
state. Though they received many refugees from Stuart conformity, the
religious ties which bound them to the English nonconformists were
weakened, and still more so when both the once powerful wings of the
Puritan party, Presbyterian and Independent, were alike in danger of
extinction. Shortly after the Revolution of 1688, when, under the
larger tolerance of William and Mary, the Presbyterians and
Independents strove to increase their strength by a union based upon
the "Heads of Agreement," English and colonial nonconformity moved for
a brief time nearer, and then still farther apart. The "Heads of
Agreement"[a] was a compromise so framed as to admit of acceptance by
the Presbyterian who recognized that he must, once for all, give up
his hope of a national church, and by the Independent anxiously
seeking some bond of authority to hold together his weak and scattered
churches. After this compromise, the religious life of the colonies
ceased to be of vital importance to any large section of the English
people. After the Restoration the colonial agents became preeminently
interested in secular affairs, in political privileges, and commercial
advantages. The reaction was felt in the colonies by generations who
lacked the heroic impulses of their fathers, their constant incentive,
and their high standards. Moreover, the education of the second and
third generation could not be like that of the first. The percentage
of university men was less. New Harvard could not supply the place of
old Cambridge. If life was easier, it was more material.
Against such conditions as these, the Reforming Synod made little
headway.[b] It set forth in thirteen questions the offenses of the day
and in the answer to each suggested remedies. To these questions and
answers the synod added a confession of faith. This last was a
reaffirmation of the Westminster Confession of Faith as amended and
approved by Parliament, or that found in the Savoy Declaration.[c] In
respect to church government, the Reforming Synod confirmed the
"substance of the Platform of Discipline agreed upon by the messengers
of these Churches at Cambridge, Anno Domini, 1648," [50] desiring the
churches to "continue steadfast in the _Order of the Gospel_
according to what is therein declared from the Word of God." Cotton
Mather in the "Magnalia," [5l] writing twenty years later, gives four
points of departure from the Cambridge polity by the Reforming
Synod. First, occasional officiations of ministers outside their own
churches were authorized; secondly, there was a movement to revive the
authority and office of ruling elder and other officers; thirdly,
"plebeian ordination," or lay ordination, ordination by the hands of
the brethren of the church in the absence of superior officers, was no
longer allowed;[d] and fourthly, there was a variation from the
"personal and public confession" in favor of a private examination by
the pastor of candidates for church-membership, though the earlier
custom was still regarded as "lawful, expedient and useful." With
reference to the office of ruling elder, it had been done away with in
many churches, partly because of lack of suitable men to fill the
office, partly because of the mistakes of incompetents, and partly
because of a growing doubt as to the Scriptural sanction for such an
office. In many churches the office of teacher had also been
abolished, the pastor inheriting all the authority formerly lodged in
the eldership, and as he retained his power of veto, it came about
that the churches were largely in the power of one man.
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 Disciplinæ" [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.