The Authority of the Church and the Ministers.
Severely were the early colonists punished if they ventured to criticise
or disparage either the ministers or their teachings, or indeed any of the
religious exercises of the church. In Sandwich a man was publicly whipped
for speaking deridingly of God's words and ordinances as taught by the
Sandwich minister. Mistress Oliver was forced to stand in public with a
cleft stick on her tongue for "reproaching the elders." A New Haven man was
severely whipped and fined for declaring that he received no profit from
the minister's sermons. We also know the terrible shock given the Windham
church in 1729 by the "vile and slanderous expressions" of one unregenerate
Windhamite who said, "I had rather hear my dog bark than Mr. Bellamy
preach." He was warned that he would be "shakenoff and givenup," and
terrified at the prospect of so dire a fate he read a confession of his
sorrow and repentance, and promised to "keep a guard over his tongue," and
also to listen to Mr. Bellamy's preaching, which may have been a still more
difficult task. Mr. Edward Tomlins, of Boston, upon retracting his opinion
which he had expressed openly against the singing in the churches, was
discharged without a fine. William Howes and his son were in 1744 fined
fifty shillings "apeece for deriding such as sing in the congregation,
tearming them fooles." The church music was as sacred to the Puritans as
were the prayers, but it must have been a sore trial to many to keep still
about the vile manner and method of singing. In 1631 Phillip Ratcliffe,
for "speaking against the churches," had his ears cut off, was whipped and
banished. We know also the consternation caused in New Haven in 1646 by
Madam Brewster's saying that the custom of carrying contributions to
the Deacons' table was popish--was "like going to the High Alter,"
and "savored of the Mass." She answered her accusers in such a bold,
highhanded, and defiant manner that her heinous offence was considered
worthy of trial in a higher court, whose decision is now lost.
The colonists could not let their affection and zeal for an individual
minister cause them to show any disrespect or indifference to the Puritan
Church in general. When the question of the settlement of the Reverend Mr.
Lenthal in the church of Weymouth, Massachusetts, was under discussion, the
tyranny of the Puritan Church over any who dared oppose or question it was
shown in a marked manner, and may be cited as a typical case. Mr. Lenthal
was suspected of being poisoned with the Anne Hutchinson heresies, and he
also "opposed the way of gathering churches." Hence his ordination over the
church in the new settlement was bitterly opposed by the Boston divines,
though apparently desired by the Weymouth congregation. One Britton, who
was friendly towards Lenthal and who spoke "reproachfully" and slurringly
of a book which defended the course of the Boston churches, was whipped
with eleven stripes, as he had no money to pay the imposed fine. John
Smythe, who "got hands to a blank" (which was either canvassing for
signatures to a proxy vote in favor of Lenthal or obtaining signatures
to an instrument declaring against the design of the churches), for thus
"combining to hinder the orderly gathering" of the Weymouth church at this
time, was fined £2. Edward Sylvester for the same offence was fined and
disfranchised. Ambrose Martin, another friend of Lenthal's, for calling
the church covenant of the Boston divines "a stinking carrion and a human
invention," was fined £10, while Thomas Makepeace, another Weymouth
malcontent, was informed by those in power that "they were weary of him,"
or, in modern slang, that "he made them tired." Parson Lenthal himself,
being sent for by the convention, weakened at once in a way his church
followers must have bitterly despised; he was "quickly convinced of his
error and evil." His conviction was followed with his confession, and in
open court he gave under his hand a laudable retraction, which retraction
he was ordered also to "utter in the assembly at Weymouth, and so no
further censure was passed on him." Thus the chief offender got the
lightest punishment, and thus did the omnipotent Church rule the whole
community.
The names of loquacious, babbling Quakers and Baptists who spoke
disrespectfully of some or all of the ordinances of the Puritan church
might be given, and would swell the list indefinitely; they were fined and
punished without mercy or even toleration.
All profanity or blaspheming against God was severely punished. One very
wicked man in Hartford for his "fillthy and prophane expressions," namely,
that "hee hoped to meet some of the members of the Church in Hell before
long, and he did not question but hee should," was "committed to prison,
there to be kept in safe custody till the sermon, and then to stand the
time thereof in the pillory, and after sermon to be severely whipped." What
a severe punishment for so purely verbal an offence! New England ideas of
profanity were very rigid, and New England men had reason to guard well
their temper and tongue, else that latter member might be bored with a
hot iron; for such was the penalty for profanity. We know what horror Mr.
Tomlins's wicked profanity, "Curse ye woodchuck!" caused in Lynn meeting,
and Mr. Dexter was "putt in ye billboes ffor prophane saying dam ye cowe."
The Newbury doctor was sharply fined also for wickedly cursing. When
drinking at the tavern he raised his glass and said,--
"I'll pledge my friends, and for my foes
A plague for their heels, and a poxe for their toes."
He acknowledged his wickedness and foolishness in using the "olde proverb,"
and penitently promised to curse no more.
Sad to tell, Puritan women sometimes lost their temper and their
good-breeding and their godliness. Two wicked Wells women were punished in
1669 "for using profane speeches in their common talk; as in making answer
to several questions their answer is, The Devil a bit." In 1640, in
Springfield, Goody Gregory, being grievously angered, profanely abused an
annoying neighbor, saying, "Before God I coulde breake thy heade!" But she
acknowledged her "great sine and faulte" like a woman, and paid her fine
and sat in the stocks like a man, since she swore like the members of that
profane sex.
Sometimes the sins of the fathers were visited on the children in a most
extraordinary manner. One man, "for abusing N. Parker at the tavern," was
deprived of the privilege of bringing his children to be baptized, and was
thus spiritually punished for a very worldly offence. For some offences,
such as "speaking deridingly of the minister's powers," as was done in
Plymouth, "casting uncharitable reflexions on the minister," as did an
Andover man; and also for absenting one's self from church services; for
"sloathefulness," for "walking prophanely," for spoiling hides when tanning
and refusing explanation thereof; for selling short weight in grain,
for being "given too much to Jearings," for "Slanndering," for being a
"Makebayte," for "ronging naibors," for "being too Proude," for "suspitions
of stealing pinnes," for "pnishouse Squerilouse Odyouse wordes," and for
"lyeing," church-members were not only fined and punished but were deprived
of partaking of the sacrament. In the matter of lying great distinction was
made as to the character and effect of the offence. George Crispe's wife,
who "told a lie, not a pernicious lie, but unadvisedly," was simply
admonished and remonstrated with. Will Randall, who told a "plain lie," was
fined ten shillings. While Ralph Smith, who "lied about seeing a whale,"
was fined twenty shillings and excommunicated.
In some communities, of which Lechford tells us New Haven was one, these
unhouselled Puritans were allowed, if they so desired, to stand outside the
meeting-house door at the time of public worship and catch what few words
of the service they could. This humble waiting for crumbs of God's word was
doubtless regarded as a sign of repentance for past deeds, for it was often
followed by full forgiveness. As excommunicated persons were regarded with
high disfavor and even abhorrence by the entire pious and godly walking
community, this apparently spiritual punishment was more severe in its
temporal effects than at first sight appears. From the Cambridge Platform,
which was drawn up and adopted by the New England Synod in 1648, we learn
that "while the offender remains excommunicated the church is to refrain
from all communion with him in civil things," and the members were
specially "to forbear to eat and drink with him;" so his daily and even his
family life was made wretched. And as it was not necessary to wait for the
action of the church to pronounce excommunication, but the "pastor of a
church might by himself and authoritatively suspend from the Lord's table
a brother _suspected_ of scandal" until there was time for full
examination, we can see what an absolute power the church and even the
minister had over church-members in a New England community.
Nor could the poor excommunicate go to neighboring towns and settlements to
start afresh. No one wished him or would tolerate him. Lancaster, in 1653,
voted not to receive into its plantation "any excommunicat or notoriously
erring agt the Docktrin & Discipline of churches of this Commonwealth."
Other towns passed similar votes. Fortunately, Rhode Island--the island of
"Aquidnay" and the Providence Plantations--opened wide its arms as a place
of refuge for outcast Puritans. Universal freedom and religious toleration
were in Rhode Island the foundations of the State. Josiah Quincy said that
liberty of conscience would have produced anarchy if it had been permitted
in the New England Puritan settlements in the seventeenth century, but the
flourishing Narragansett, Providence, and Newport plantations seem to prove
the absurdity of that statement. Liberty of conscience was there allowed,
as Dr. MacSparran, the first clergyman of the Narragansett Church,
complained in his "America Dissected," "to the extent of no religion at
all." The Gortonians, the Foxians, and Hutchinsonians, the Anabaptists, the
Six Principle Baptists, the Church of England, apparently all the followers
of the eighty-two "pestilent heresies" so sadly enumerated and so bitterly
hated and "cast out to Satan" by the Massachusetts Puritan divines,--all
the excommunicants and exiles found in Rhode Island a home and
friends--other friends than the Devil to whom they had been consigned.
Though the early Puritan ministers had such powerful influence in every
other respect, they were not permitted to perform the marriage-service
nor to raise their voices in prayer or exhortation at a funeral. Sewall
jealously notes when the English burial-service began to be read at
burials, saying, "the office for Burial is a Lying very bad office makes no
difference between the precious and the vile." The office of marriage was
denied the parson, and was generally relegated to the magistrate. In this,
Governor Bradford states, they followed "ye laudable custome of ye Low
Countries." Not rulers and magistrates only were empowered to perform the
marriage ceremony; squires, tavern-keepers, captains, various authorized
persons might wed Puritan lovers; any man of dignity or prominence in the
community could apparently receive authority to perform that office except
the otherwise all-powerful parson.
As years rolled on, though the New Englanders still felt great reverence
and pride for their church and its ordinances, the minister was no longer
the just man made perfect, the oracle of divine will. The church-members
escaped somewhat from ecclesiastical power, and some of them found fault
with and openly disparaged their ministers in a way that would in early
days have caused them to be pilloried, whipped, caged, or fined; and often
the derogatory comments were elicited by the most trivial offences. One
parson was bitterly condemned because he managed to amass eight hundred
dollars by selling the produce of his farm. Another shocking and severely
criticised offence was a game of bowls which one minister played and
enjoyed. Still another minister, in Hanover, Massachusetts, was reproved
for his lack of dignity, which was shown in his wearing stockings "footed
up with another color;" that is, knit stockings in which the feet were
colored differently from the legs. He also was found guilty of having
jumped over the fence instead of decorously and clerically walking through
the gate when going to call on one of his parishioners. Rev. Joseph Metcalf
of the Old Colony was complained of in 1720 for wearing too worldly a wig.
He mildly reproved and shamed the meddlesome women of his church by asking
them to come to him and each cut off a lock of hair from the obnoxious
wig until all the complainers were satisfied that it had been rendered
sufficiently unworldly. Some Newbury church-members, in 1742, asserted that
their minister unclerically wore a colored kerchief instead of a band. This
he indignantly denied, saying that he "had never buried a babe even in most
tempestuous weather," when he rode several miles, but he always wore a
band, and he complained in turn that members of his congregation turned
away from him on the street, and "glowered" at him and "sneered at him."
Still more unseemly demonstrations of dislike were sometimes shown, as in
South Hadley, in 1741, when a committee of disaffected parishioners
pulled the Rev. Mr Rawsom out of the pulpit and marched him out of the
meeting-house because they did not fancy his preaching. But all such
actions were as offensive to the general community then as open expressions
of dissatisfaction and contempt are now.