The farmers in the rural district thenceforward to be called "Salem
Village," desired to have a meeting-house and a minister of their own;
but the town authorities insisted on taxing them for the religious
establishment in Salem, from which they derived no benefit. In 1670,
twenty of them petitioned to be set off as a parish, and allowed to
provide a minister for themselves. In two years more the petition
was granted, as a compromise for larger privileges; but there were
restrictions which spoiled the grace of such concession as there was.
One of these restrictions was that no minister was to be permanently
settled without the permission of the old Church to proceed to his
ordination. Endless trouble arose out of this provision. The men who
had contributed the land, labor, and material for the meeting-house,
and the maintenance for the pastor, naturally desired to be free in
their choice of their minister, while the Church authorities in Salem
considered themselves responsible for the maintenance of true doctrine,
and for leaving no opening for Satan to enter the fold in the form of
heresy, or any kind or degree of dissent. Their fathers, the first
settlers, had made the colony too hot for one of their most virtuous
and distinguished citizens, because he had views of his own on Infant
Baptism; they had brought him to judgment, magistrate and church member
as he was, for not having presented his infant child at the font; he had
sold his estates and gone away. If such a citizen as Townsend Bishop
was thus lost to their society, how could the guardians of religion
surrender their control over any church or pastor within their reach?
They had spiritual charge of a community which had made its abode on the
American shore for the single purpose of living its own religious life
in its own way; and no dissent or modification from within could be
permitted, any more than intrusion or molestation from without. Between
the ecclesiastical view on the one hand, and the civil view on the
other, there was small chance of harmony between town and village, or
between pastor, flock, and the overseers of both. The great point on
which they were all agreed was that they were all in special danger from
the extreme malice of Satan, who, foiled in Puritan England, was bent
on revenge in America, and was visibly and audibly present in the
settlement, seeking whom he might devour.
Quarreling began with the appearance of the first minister, a young Mr.
Bayley, who was appointed from year to year, but never ordained the
pastor till 1679, when the authorities of Salem tried to force him
upon the people of Salem Village in the face of strong opposition. The
farmers disregarded the orders issued from the town, and managed their
religious affairs by general meetings of their own congregation; and at
length Mr. Bayley retired, leaving the society in a much worse temper
than he had found on his arrival. A handsome gift of land was settled
upon him, in acknowledgment of his services; he quitted the ministry,
and practiced medicine in Roxbury till his death, nearly thirty years
afterward.