m 
 
 M 
 
 
 
THE PURITAN 
 
 IN 
 
 ENGLAND AND NEW ENGLAND. 
 
THE PURITAN 
 
 IN 
 
 ENGLAND AND NEW ENGLAND, 
 
 BY 
 
 EZRA HOYT BYINGTON, D.D. 
 
 MEMBER OF THE AMERICAN SOCIETY OF CHURCH HISTORY. 
 
 lit!) an JJntnrtmction 
 
 BY 
 
 ALEXANDER McKENZIE, D.D. 
 
 MINISTER OF THE FIRST CHURCH IN CAMBRIDGE. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 SAMPSON LOW, MARSTON & COMPANY, LIMITED. 
 
 1896. 
 
JOHN WILSON AND SON, CAMBRIDGE, U.S.A. 
 
 !* : 
 
 
Co Sfflfe, 
 
 WHOSE INSIGHT AND LITERARY TASTE 
 
 HAVE BEEN MY CONSTANT RELIANCE IN THE PREPARATION 
 OF THESE CHAPTERS, 
 
 AND WHOSE EFFICIENT HELP 
 
 HAS LIGHTENED THE LABOR OF CARRYING THEM THROUGH 
 THE PRESS, 
 
 THEY ARE NOW DEDICATED. 
 
 215586 
 
Preface. 
 
 THIS book has had a natural growth. It had its 
 origin in a paper, which I read before one of our 
 historical societies, on WILLIAM PYNCHON, a Puritan, 
 who came to New England in 1630, and who published 
 a book, some twenty years later, which was much talked 
 about. In preparing that paper I found it necessary 
 to read the works of Mr. Pynchon, and the replies to 
 them. The discussions relating to those volumes were 
 found to be connected with the progress of opinion 
 in England, and with the history of the Westminster 
 Assembly. It was only by tracing the history to its 
 sources, that I was able to gain an adequate knowl- 
 edge of the opinions and the influence of that leading 
 Puritan. 
 
 As other historical papers have been called for, from 
 time to time, I have followed the same topical method, 
 because I found it the most fruitful method in the study 
 of New England history. One topic led naturally to 
 another, so that I have prepared papers on The Origin 
 and Development of Puritanism in England ; The Two 
 Earliest Colonies in New England ; The Social and 
 Family Life of the Pilgrims and Puritans; Their Min- 
 
viii PREFACE. 
 
 isters and Modes of Worship ; Their Religious Opin- 
 ions ; and The Working of the Union of Church and 
 State, in their Second Century. The fathers of New 
 England have left a large number of journals, and nar- 
 ratives, and histories, with many theological treatises, 
 and discussions, and pamphlets. The literature which 
 has come down from the English Puritans is also abun- 
 dant. So that there is no lack of fresh materials for 
 the historical student. No other pioneers, of whom I 
 have any knowledge, have left materials so rich and 
 abundant, for those who would study their history. 
 One needs to get their point of view, if he would do 
 justice to them, and he can get their point of view 
 only through their writings. 
 
 Two of these papers were published, some time ago, 
 in the " Andover Review." Others have been read be- 
 fore a number of historical societies, and before stu- 
 dents, in colleges and seminaries. They have all been 
 rewritten, and reconstructed, so as to bring them into 
 connection with each other. New topics have been 
 introduced; with the purpose of covering, so far as 
 practicable, within our limits of space, the whole field 
 of the history of our forefathers. 
 
 I am under great obligations to a number of recent 
 authors, who have cast new light upon the history of 
 the Puritans. John Richard Green, in his " History of 
 the English People," has shown the origin and the mean- 
 ing of Puritanism, better than any of the earlier English 
 historians. Douglass Campbell, in his two volumes on 
 "The Puritan in Holland, England, and America," has 
 
PREFACE. i x 
 
 proved that the influences which moulded the Puritan 
 party came, not only from England, but from the Dutch 
 Republic, and from the other Protestant nations on the 
 continent. One needs to correct some of his extreme 
 statements by referring to Macaulay, and especially to 
 Motley; but, rightly used, his work is of great value. 
 Dr. Henry M. Dexter, in his monumental work on 
 " Congregationalism as seen in its Literature," has un- 
 covered the abundant materials for the history of our 
 fathers, and has shown us how to use them. And 
 not to mention other recent volumes of great value 
 Professor Williston Walker, in his book on " The Creeds 
 and Platforms of Congregationalism," has made a rich 
 and original contribution to our history. 
 
 This book, in its present form, is offered to the 
 public, in the hope that it may contribute toward a 
 fuller knowledge and appreciation of our forefathers, 
 who, under the limitations of a pioneer life, in the sev- 
 enteenth century, laid the foundations of this free and 
 progressive nation. 
 
 EZRA HOYT BYINGTON. 
 
 FRANKLIN STREET, NEWTON, MASS. 
 March 31, 1896. 
 
Contents. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 I. LIST OF AUTHORITIES REFERRED TO xxv 
 
 II. SOME IMPORTANT DATES IN PURITAN HISTORY . xxxi 
 III. INTRODUCTION, BY ALEXANDER MCKENZIE, D.D. xxxv 
 
 I. 
 
 THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND. 
 
 Estimate of the Puritans by Macaulay ; Hallam ; Hume ; Carlyle. 
 Numbers who came to New England. 
 
 I. Our forefathers to be understood by the history of 
 the struggle in England. Beginnings of the Ref- 
 ormation with Wyclif. Translation of the Bible. 
 
 Lollards 5 
 
 II. English reformation under Henry VIII.; political, 
 
 Growth of principles of the Reformation ... 9 
 III. Prayer Book of Edward VI. Queen Mary's per- 
 secution ii 
 
 IV. Elizabeth: a Protestant Queen; her Moderation; 
 acts of Supremacy, and of Uniformity. Rise of 
 the Puritan Party; grounds of dissent, not doc- 
 
 trinesjbut Jprms .a, n d.vest.meiiis 12 
 
 V. Mildness of the Church in the early years of the 
 Queen. Court of High Commission. The re- 
 ligio purissima. The London ministers silenced ; 
 severe penalties. Patience of the Puritans. i^ 
 Whitgift becomes Archbishop, 1583 16 
 
 VI. Success of the Archbishop. Censorship of the 
 
 press. The Bible read by the People ... 20 
 
Xll 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 V VII. 
 
 . VIII. 
 ^ IX. 
 
 X. 
 
 >XI. 
 
 -> XII. 
 
 > XIII. 
 
 XIV. 
 > XV. 
 
 XVI, 
 
 XVII. 
 XVIII. 
 
 The Separatists. Robert Browne ; his principles. 
 Persecution of the Brownists. Martyrdom of 
 Barrowe ; Greenwood; Penry 21 
 
 The Martin-Mar-prelate tracts; humor. Influence 
 of the tracts ; replies to them 28 
 
 Growth of Puritanism ; causes of growth. Weak- 
 ness of Protestantism in Europe ; its perils at that 
 time 30 
 
 James the First. Millenary petition. Hampton 
 Court Conference ; rejection by the King and the 
 Prelates 35 
 
 The greatjige of Puritanism ; political elements in 
 the contest 38 
 
 Why it became political. Arbitrary claims of the 
 King advocated by the Prelates. Character of 
 James. New Claims for Episcopacy. Laud. 
 Calvinism. Love of Freedom 39 
 
 First Parliament. The King levies customs and 
 taxes. The Puritans have a majority of the Com- 
 mons; demand redress of grievances : Pym; Eliot; 
 Wentworth ; Coke ; Archbishop Abbott .... 45 
 
 The Pilgrim Fathers. The Thirty Years War. 
 The French alliance 49 
 
 The Pilgrims from North England, Gainsborough, 
 and Scrooby. The old Manor House. Persecu- 
 tion of the people; their condition and spirit; 
 escape to Holland ; Amsterdam ; Leyden ; their 
 employments ; reasons for another removal ; voyage 
 to Plymouth 51 
 
 Charles the First. Laud. Tendencies toward 
 Rome. Parliament. No grants of money with- 
 out redress of grievances. Petition of Right. 
 
 ^ Puritans stand for the people. Tyranny of 
 Charles. Laud becomes Archbishop. Obser- 
 vance of Sunday. Milton's Lycidas .... 58 
 
 Causes of the so-called narrowness of the Puritans . 68 
 
 TheJPjJritan migration ; despair of good government 
 at home ; early settlements in New England . . 69 
 
CONTENTS. xiii 
 
 XIX. The Political struggle in England. Ship-money. 
 Hampden's great trial. The Scottish War. The 
 Short Parliament. Long Parliament. Went- 
 worth and Laud in the Tower. Death of Pym 
 and Hampden; mistakes of their successors; 
 failure of the effort to abolish the Monarchy and 
 the Established Church ; reasons for the failure . 72 
 XX. Final estimate of the Puritans; their limitations. ^_ 
 The Age. The Puritans compared with the 
 Dutch; their merits; defenders of liberty; their 
 culture and manners : Lord Essex ; John Milton ; 
 Hutchinson ; Winthrop. The Puritan ministers. 
 Puritan homes. Settlement of Massachusetts 
 in the best age of Puritanism 76 
 
 II. 
 
 THE PILGRIM AND THE PURITAN: WHICH? 
 
 The Province of Massachusetts of 1691 included two colonies, the old 
 Colony of Plymouth and that of Massachusetts Bay. Which had most 
 to do in moulding the people of New England ? 
 
 I. Earlier historians of New England gave the precedence 
 
 to the Puritans ; later writers to the Pilgrims ... 85 
 II. The Old Colony founded 1620; the Puritan Colony 
 
 1628 86 
 
 III. The Pilgrims Separatists; Puritans Non-Conformists. 
 
 Winthrop's greeting to the Church of England . 87 
 
 IV. The Pilgrims from humble stations in life ; their occu- 
 
 pations. The Puritans from upper middle classes 89 
 V. The Pilgrims were already exiles, and came to find a 
 Iplace of refuge. The Puritans came to found a 
 INEW England, where they could enjoy liberty in 
 
 jChurch and State 91 
 
 VI. The Pilgrims first on the ground; had already framed 
 
 their institutions ; the democratic state ; the free - 
 Church. The Puritans were guided by their ex- 
 ample. Dr. Samuel Fuller 94 
 
xiv CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 VII. The Puritans moulded the social institutions of the 
 Colonies. Influence of Holland. Aristocracy in 
 Massachusetts. Union of Church and State . . 98 
 VIII. The Puritans richer and more numerous; and more 
 
 enterprising; vigorous growth of their Colony . . 101 
 ^> IX. The Puritans the intellectual leaders; their Ministers 
 compared with those of the Pilgrims. Harvard 
 College. The literature from the Puritans . . . 103 
 X. The Puritans the leaders in New England Confed- 
 eracy. The Cambridge Platform 107 
 
 XI. In respect to Legislation, both Colonies made laws too 
 severe ; both used cruel punishments ; both punished 
 Quakers and Witches. The Pilgrims were more 
 merciful and just in the execution of the laws . . 109 
 > XII. Conclusion. The Pilgrims were gentle; tolerant; 
 merciful. The Puritans more vigorous ; enterpris- 
 ing; powerful 112 
 
 
 III. 
 THE EARLY MINISTERS OF NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 The Puritan ministers the best representatives of the Puritans. 
 
 I . In sympathy with the Puritan spirit ; had been moulded 
 
 by persecution ; their courage ; their opportunities . 118 
 II. They were men of education and culture; graduates 
 from the great universities; had been ministers in 
 the Church of England; their knowledge of the 
 classics; of literature; of the original languages of 
 the Bible ; their large libraries 120 
 
 III. Their dignity of character and their manners; wore the 
 
 gown and bands in the pulpit ; their general refine- 
 ment; Mrs. Stowe's sketch of their manners : Par- 
 son Lothrop ; Dr. Samuel Hopkins 125 
 
 IV. Support of the ministers voluntary in Boston ; a tax 
 
 by authority of law elsewhere ; salary and " settle- 
 ment;" amount of the salary; how collected; the 
 
CONTENTS. XV 
 
 PAGE 
 
 ministers farmers ; President Edwards' cows ; min- 
 isterial hospitality in the olden time 130 
 
 V. Dwellings of the ministers; furniture; dress; food; 
 
 log-houses; the old well-sweep; thatched roofs; 
 house of Mr. Whitfield in Guilford, Conn. ; pewter 
 platters ; no forks ; not much butcher's meat ; fish 
 and game ; rye and Indian bread ; hasty pudding ; 
 little tea, and no coffee ; beer and cider ; wine and 
 spirits ; no drunkenness 135 
 
 VI. The early meeting-house the central building in the 
 
 town : the pulpit ; sounding-board, benches, gallery ; 
 log meeting-houses ; frame buildings ; pointed roof 
 with belfry in the centre ; Hingham meeting-house 
 now in use ; origin of the Puritan church architec- 
 ture ; origin of " pews ; " " dignifying" the seats ; 
 third style of New England meeting-house; Old 
 South Church in Boston; meeting-houses never 
 lighted except by the sun ; objections to candles as 
 tending to Popery; no means of warming in winter . 139 
 VII. Methods of public worship : laws required attendance; 
 smoking within two miles forbidden ; Saturday night ; 
 morning service at nine o'clock ; summoned by beat- 
 ing of the drum ; the pulpit with the two minis- 
 ters ; seats for ruling elders and deacons ; order of 
 services : requests for prayer ; opening prayer ; ex- 
 position of the chapter ; singing by the congrega- 
 tion ; the tunes used ; hymn-books ; no instrumental 
 music ; style of church music. Music taught in 
 Harvard College. Decline of music in the second 
 and third generations. The influence of the minis- 
 ters in the revival of music. Singing by " note or 
 by rote." Style of preaching. Length of ser- 
 mons; the hour-glass ; subjects. Origin of written 
 sermons. The administration of the Sacraments. 
 The contributions. Church business, and dis- 
 mission " before the setting of the sun " .... 147 
 VIII. Mid-week lectures; habits of the people in attending 
 them. Lectures of John Cotton and John Norton, 
 
XVI CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 v "Milk for Babes." Religious instruction of the 
 
 young. Visiting the sick. Pastoral work . . .156 
 IX. The churches which they founded: the first church at 
 Plymouth; at Salem; at Boston. Officers; ordina- 
 tion; pastor and teacher; ruling elders; deacons. 
 
 A minister limited to his parish 158 
 
 X. Mistakes of the Puritan ministers. Readiness to cor- 
 rect errors. Changes they adopted in the reading 
 of the Scriptures; in their religious services; changes 
 in respect to funerals ; changes in the celebration of 
 marriage ; changes from the use of numerals for the 
 months and days of the week. Fast Day and 
 Thanksgiving for Good-Friday and Christmas . . 162 
 XI. Their progressive spirit. The suffrage limited by a 
 religious test. Connecticut Colony without such 
 a test. The test removed in Massachusetts. 
 No religious test at Plymouth. Case of Roger 
 Williams: his arrival in the Colony; preaching in 
 Salem; in Plymouth; in Salem again; denounces 
 the churches, and the charter; banished by the Gen- 
 eral Court; real reasons for the sentence; the sen- 
 tence revoked 168 
 
 XII. The persecution of the Quakers a great blot upon the 
 good name of the Puritans; less severe than in Eng- 
 land ; the good sense of the people arrested it in the 
 course of a few years. The Quakers punished for 
 disorder, not for their religion. The delusion in 
 respect to witchcraft thirty years later, the worst 
 thing in their history, but soon over. Origin of the 
 delusion in New England ; in Old England ; in Ger- 
 many. Part which ministers had in it; the minis- 
 ters the first to discover the sin and folly of putting 
 to death those suspected of witchcraft ." . . . . 174 
 
 XIII. The government of their churches: independent at 
 
 first; the need of fellowship ; Synod at Cambridge ; 
 Cambridge Platform ; Plan for Ecclesiastical Coun- 
 cils; their powers ; influence of the Platform . . . 177 
 
 XIV. The right of private judgment; the spirit of inquiry; 
 
 independence of the Puritans 181 
 
CONTENTS. XVI 1 
 
 IV. 
 
 WILLIAM PYNCHON, GENT. 
 
 The leaders among the Puritans: Winthrop, Dudley, Endicott, Sir 
 
 Henry Vane, Governor Bradford, Brewster, Winslow. 
 
 PAGE 
 I. William Pynchon ; less known than the others. The 
 
 Pynchon family came to England with William the 
 Conqueror ; a wealthy and honorable family for six 
 hundred years. W. Pynchon came to Massachu- 
 setts with Governor Winthrop in 1630; member of the 
 Board of Assistants of the Colony for twenty years ; 
 a man of business ; a fur-trader of great wealth ; 
 
 founder of the first church in Roxbury 186 
 
 II. Settlement of Springfield: reasons for it ; the pioneers 
 
 go in 1635 188 
 
 III. Pynchon and his company. Agawam. Plan of the 
 
 village. A minister secured. Settlements in 
 Connecticut 191 
 
 IV. A new government : Pynchon the magistrate. 
 
 Records of his court. A case of witchcraft. 
 Municipal regulations. Dealings with the Indians. 
 
 The Bay Path 195 
 
 V. Mr. Pynchon's book : its subject ; protest of the Gen- 
 eral Court; the book burned; its author summoned 
 to retract ; Mr. Norton appointed to reply to the 
 
 book ; causes of the commotion 200 
 
 VI. Analysis of the argument; remarkable learning which 
 it displays ; discussion of Hebrew and Greek texts ; 
 quotes Augustine to prove that Christ died a volun- 
 tary death 204 
 
 VII. John -Norton of Ipswich; his learned reply. Mr. 
 
 Pynchon's answer to the Court 208 
 
 VIII. Pynchon is placed under bonds ; retires from Massa- 
 chusetts and settles in England; defended by Sir 
 
 Henry Vane 210 
 
 IX. Mr. Pynchon in England: list of his theological 
 works; incidents of his closing years; death in 
 Wraysbury near Windsor Castle ; result of his the- 
 ological discussions in New England 214 
 
 b 
 
XV111 CONTENTS. 
 
 V. 
 
 THE FAMILY AND SOCIAL LIFE OF THE PURITANS. 
 Home the creation of the Puritan ; reasons why. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 I. Illustrations of Puritan life : Mrs. Hutchinson's life 
 of her husband, Col. Hutchinson ; his delicate phy- 
 sical organization; love of nature, of music, and fine 
 art ; his conjugal affection ; his love of the military 
 art; services during the Civil War; imprisonment 
 and death. John Milton : tract on Education ; love 
 of beauty ; the model Puritan. A Puritan Mother 222 
 II. Letters of Governor Winthrop and his wife; his per- 
 sonal history ; Margaret Tyndal, his third wife ; letter 
 from his father ; Winthrop's letters ; replies from 
 Mrs. Winthrop ; voyage of Mrs. Winthrop to New 
 England ; reception by the people ; spirit of all these 
 
 letters . 226 
 
 III. Numerous Journals of the Pilgrims ; and Puritans . 232 
 
 7V. Characteristics of their life; influences from the seven- 
 teenth century ; belief in Witchcraft ; cruel punish- 
 ments in England 233 
 
 V. The Colony at Plymouth : they were pioneers ; rough 
 life in the new country; struggles fora bare subsist- 
 ence; danger from the Indians 236 
 
 VI. The Massachusetts Colony; sufferings of the early 
 years. Rhode Island. Connecticut. New Hamp- 
 shire. The first wind-mill in Boston. The first 
 
 water-mill. Modes of travelling 239 
 
 VII. The Courtship of Miles Standish, a picture of life at 
 Plymouth in 1624 ; Priscilla Mullins ; Standish ; John 
 Alden ; the marriage ; the company gathered at the 
 
 marriage 242 
 
 VIII. Common schools for the people at Plymouth ; Massa- * 
 chusetts; Connecticut. Salaries of the first school- 
 masters 247 
 
 IX. Legislation as affecting social life. The Blue Laws, 
 invention of Samuel Peters ; sumptuary laws ; the 
 
CONTENTS. XIX 
 
 laws milder than those in New York, or Virginia, or 
 England ; number of capital crimes ; laws against 
 Quakers ; soon repealed ; juries refuse to convict 
 of witchcraft after 1692. Body of Liberties. 
 Tendency of Legislation to Democracy . . . .251 
 X. Meaning of the prefix Mr., Goodman, Goodwife. A 
 
 thief lost the title of Mr 256 
 
 XI. Dress in the Colonial Period. The Simple Cobbler 
 of Agawam complains of extravagance. Laws to 
 prohibit extravagance. Inventory of the clothing 
 
 of Elder Brewster 258 
 
 XII. Domestic furniture. Inventory of Governor Win- 
 
 throp's furniture. That of Martha Coytmore . . 260 
 
 XIII. Amusements. The Puritans enjoyed their religion. 
 
 Loved the new country. A hearty social life. 
 The first Harvest Festival at Plymouth ; not religious. 
 
 Training days. Judge Sewall's dinner parties. 
 
 "Mixt dances and unlawful gaming" of the 
 young people 262 
 
 XIV. Intercourse with the French Catholics. La Tour and 
 
 the learned Friar; entertained by Governor Win- 
 throp. The Sunday dinner at the Governor's. 
 The Jesuit Missionary, Druillette. His visit to 
 the Apostle Eliot ; they discourse concerning their 
 work for the Indians. Governor Bradford pro- 
 vides a "fish dinner" on Friday for the Jesuit . 265 
 XV. Results of Puritan training upon the eighth genera- Z- 
 tion. English families decay after a few genera- 
 tions. The Puritan type persistent. Ancestors 
 of Ralph Waldo Emerson ; of President Adams ; 
 Hawthorne ; Longfellow ; James Russell Lowell. 
 Members of the New England Historic Genealogical 
 Society who have died within three years, a majority 
 of Puritan descent, such as Phillips Brooks, Francis 
 Parkman, Judge Aldrich, Leverett Saltonstall, Dr. 
 A. P. Peabody, Dr. A. A. Miner, and Robert C. 
 Winthrop 271 
 
XX CONTENTS. 
 
 VI. 
 
 RELIGIOUS OPINIONS OF THE FATHERS OF NEW 
 ENGLAND. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 I. The Puritans first of all, Protestants ; appealed to the 
 Bible ; justification by faith; sanctity of the Lord's- 
 day. Sermons of a theological character . . . 282 
 II. Reformed branch of the Protestant Church; Cal- 
 
 vinists ; Exalted the Sovereignty of God .... 284 
 
 III. Their interest at first in Church polity. Why? . .285 
 
 IV. Later, their interest in doctrine. The first Catechisms, 
 
 Strongly Calvinistic. Candidates for Church 
 membership required to state their views in theology. 
 Church Creeds. The first Synod, 1637. Mr. 
 
 Pynchon's book 286 
 
 y V. The Cambridge Synod ; recommends the Westminster 
 
 Confession 291 
 
 VI. Thomas Shepard : life in England ; escapes in disguise 
 to America ; pastor at Cambridge. He teaches the 
 decrees : freedom of the will ; the fall ; imputation ; 
 limited atonement ; faith the gift of God .... 292 
 VII. John Norton: "The Orthodox Evangelist ;" decrees ; 
 freedom ; unity of the race ; grace of God ; parable 
 of the Prodigal Son ; saving faith ; justification. 
 Thomas Hooker: the great preacher, and practical 
 theologian ; a free will ; inability to good ; power of 
 the Holy Spirit ; motives to repentance .... 295 
 VIII. Willard's Body of Divinity, election and reprobation; 
 all mankind sinned in Adam ; the Person of Christ ; 
 satisfaction of God's justice; inability to good ; pas- 
 sive regeneration ; the work of the Spirit .... 302 
 ^ IX. The Half- Way Covenant; Synod of 1662 accepts the 
 new departure ; opposition to the decision ; effect 
 upon the churches. Decline of piety. Trust in 
 ordinances and forms. Spread of Arminianism . 305 
 X. The Reforming Synod : its statements in respect to 
 the decline of morality and religion; appeal for a 
 reformation; seconded by the General Court . .314 
 
CONTENTS. XX i 
 
 XI. Adoption of the Savoy Confession ; its present author- 
 ity. Council of 1865 319 ^ 
 
 XII. Practical results of the older Calvinism; a remarkable 
 type of religious character. A democratic tendency. 
 
 Transmission of a vigorous type of manhood . . 321 
 
 XIII. Other results of High Calvinism : small number in the 
 
 Churches ; comparison with the present time . . 324 ^ 
 
 XIV. Declension of the Puritan Churches. Statements of 
 
 Thomas Prince ; Whitefield ; the younger Edwards. 
 
 Spread of Arminianism 326 
 
 XV. The Edwardean theology: a new style of preaching ; 
 
 revivals of religion;* missionary enterprises. The 
 
 New England theology 330 ^~ 
 
 VII. 
 
 THE CASE OF REVEREND ROBERT BRECK, OF 
 SPRINGFIELD. 
 
 The beginning of the second century in New England a period of trans- 
 ition. The study of a single life of a past generation shows us the man- 
 ners, opinions, and institutions of the people. 
 
 I. Springfield one hundred and sixty years ago. Pros- 
 perity of the Connecticut Valley 337 
 
 II. Church and State. Four qualities required of minis- 
 ters. Methods of calling and settling pastors . . 338 
 
 III. Robert Breck in early life; in college ; as a candidate 
 
 for the ministry; called to Springfield; opposition of 
 the neighboring pastors . . ^ 342 
 
 IV. Replies to the charges. Asks to be judged by his 
 
 sermons, not by reports. Declines the call . . . 345 
 V. The people not satisfied. The ministers advise 
 against renewing the call. Mr. Breck returns, and 
 
 attempts to adjust the difficulties 348 
 
 VI. The Church renews the call. Mr. Breck goes to Bos- 
 ton for advice ; is examined and approved in Boston ; 
 and accepts the call 350 
 
xxii CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 VII. A Council called for his ordination. Doubts about 
 
 its legality. Judges summoned to Springfield . . 352 
 VIII. Meeting of the Council; a remonstrance presented; 
 evidence in support of the remonstrance ; the pro- 
 ceedings interrupted by the arrest of Mr. Breck, 
 who was taken from the Council to the Court House ; 
 he is sent into Connecticut, gives bail, and returns 
 to Springfield; the Council completes the examina- 
 tion and adjourns 356 
 
 IX. The case brought before the General Court, which 
 decides that the Council is a legal Council. The 
 Council again meets and ordains Mr. Breck . . . 362 
 X. Efforts to secure judicial action to remove Mr. Breck . 364 
 
 XI. Work of the young minister; growth of the Church; 
 forty-eight years of usefulness ; testimony of his 
 associates 366 
 
 VIII. 
 
 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE IN THE EIGHTEENTH CEN- 
 TURY IN NORTHERN NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 BRUNSWICK, MAINE. 
 
 Northern New England settled in the eighteenth century. Difference 
 between the older and the newer churches. 
 
 I. First preaching in Brunswick: the first meeting-house; 
 
 its environment 373 
 
 II. The first ministers : Rutherford; Dunlap; Miller. . 374 
 
 III. Records of the Parish 375 
 
 IV. The connection of Church and State; reasons why it 
 
 was unfavorable to the Church 376 
 
 V. Differences among the people in regard to Church gov- 
 ernment : Congregationalism vs. Presbyterianism. 
 The east end -vs. the west end of the town. The 
 Lord's Supper; how administered. Baptism. 
 The style of church music 378 
 
CONTENTS. XX111 
 
 PAGE 
 
 VI. Habits of the people : all went on foot to the church; 
 the saddle and pillion; no stoves in the meeting- 
 houses ; tunes used in the choir ; hymn-books . . 380 
 VII. The ministers of those days. Samuel Eaton. Genu- 
 ine manhood. Use of liquors 381 
 
 VIII. Religious teachings : instruction of children . . . . 383 
 IX. Methods of pastoral visiting. Journal of an old 
 
 minister. Revivals of religion 384 
 
 X. Permanent qualities of their religious life. Relation 
 
 of that century to the nineteenth 386 
 
 INDEX 391 
 
List of Authorities Referred to. 
 
 ADAMS, CHARLES FRANCIS. Three Episodes of Massachusetts 
 
 History. Boston. 1892. 
 AINSWORTH, H. The Book of Psalmes, Englished, both in prose 
 
 and metre. Amsterdam. 1612. 
 AMONG MY BOOKS. James Russell Lowell. 
 BACON, LEONARD. Genesis of the New England Churches. 1874. 
 BACON, LORD, Works. Montagu Edn. 
 BANCROFT'S History of the United States. 6 vols. 1876. 
 BAY PSALM BOOK. Cambridge. 1640. 
 
 BlBLIOTHECA SACRA. 5! VOls. 1844-1895. 
 
 BLISS, GEORGE. Historical Address. Springfield. 1828. 
 
 BLUE LAWS : False and True. J. Hammond Trumbull. 1876. 
 
 BOSTON NEWS LETTER, published from. 1704. 
 
 BOSTON, Memorial History of. 4 vols. 
 
 BOWDOIN COLLEGE, History of. 
 
 BRADFORD, W. History of Plymouth Plantation. Printed from 
 
 the Original Manuscript, for the Mass. Hist. Soc. 1856. 
 BROWNE, ROBERT. A treatise of reformation without Tarrying 
 
 for Anie. 1582. 
 BRUNSWICK, History of. 1878. 
 
 CAMBRIDGE PLATFORM OF CHURCH DISCIPLINE. 1648. 
 CAMPBELL, DOUGLASS. The Puritan in Holland, England, and 
 
 America. 2 vols. 1892. 
 CANNE, J. Necessitie of Separation from the Church of England. 
 
 1634. 
 
 CONGREGATIONAL QUARTERLY. 20 vols. 1859-1878. Boston. 
 CONNECTICUT VALLEY, History of the. 
 
XXVI LIST OP AUTHORITIES REFERRED TO. 
 
 CONTEMPORARY REVIEW. 1892. 
 
 COTTON, JOHN. The Keyes of the Kingdom of Heaven and Power 
 
 thereof ; according to the Word of God. London. 1644. 
 COTTON, JOHN. The Way of the Churches of New England. 
 
 1645. 
 
 COTTON, JOHN. Milk for Babes. 
 COURTSHIP OF MILES STANDISH. Boston. 1859. 
 CUMBERLAND ASSOCIATION. Centennial Pamphlet. 1891. 
 DEXTER, HENRY M. Congregationalism as seen in its Literature. 
 
 1880. 
 
 DEXTER, HENRY M. As to Roger Williams. 1876. 
 DEXTER, MORTON. The Story of the Pilgrims. 1894. 
 DUNNING, A. E. Congregationalists in America. 1894. 
 DWIGHT, SERENO E. Life of President Edwards. 
 EDWARDS, JONATHAN, President. Inquiry Concerning Qualifi- 
 cations for Full Communion. 
 EDWARDS, JONATHAN, D.D. Works. 
 ELECTION SERMONS. Massachusetts. 1668-1669-1670. 
 ELLIS. The Puritan Age and Rule. 
 ENCYCLOPAEDIA BRITANNICA. 9th ed. Articles on Education; 
 
 Quakers ; and Witchcraft. 
 FELT, J. B. The Ecclesiastical History of New England. 2 vols. 
 
 Boston. 1862. 
 FISHER, GEORGE E., Professor. History of the Christian Church. 
 
 1887- 
 
 FISKE, JOHN. The Beginnings of New England. 1890. 
 FOXE, JOHN. The Book of Martyrs. 
 FROUDE, JAMES ANTHONY. History of England from the Fall of 
 
 Cardinal Wolsey to the Defeat of the Spanish Armada. 12 
 
 vols. 
 GARDINER, S. R. History of England from the Accession of 
 
 James I. 
 
 GENERAL HISTORY OF CONNECTICUT. Rev. Samuel Peters. 1781. 
 GENERAL LAWS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 
 GOODWIN, JOHN A. The Pilgrim Republic. 1888. 
 GREEN, J. R. History of the English People. 4 vols. 1878. 
 GREENLEAF'S, Ecclesiastical Sketches. 
 HALLAM, HENRY. The Constitutional History of England. 
 HARLOW'S Address at Cape Elizabeth. 
 
LIST OP AUTHORITIES REFERRED TO. XXVli 
 
 HEREDITARY GENIUS. Galton. 
 
 HILL, HAMILTON A. History of the Old South Church. Boston. 
 2 vois. 1888. 
 
 HOLLAND, Dr. J. G. History of Western Massachusetts. 
 
 HOOD'S Music in New England. 
 
 HOOKER, THOMAS. The Soul's Vocation. 1638. 
 
 HOOKER, THOMAS. A Survey of the Summe of Church-Disci- 
 pline. 1648. 
 
 HOOKER, THOMAS. The Saints Dignitie and Dutie. 
 
 HOOKER, THOMAS. The Unbeliever's Preparing for Christ. 
 
 HOOKER, RICHARD. The Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity. 
 
 JEFFERSON'S Notes in Virginia. 
 
 JOHNSON, EDWARD. The Wonder- Working Providence of Sion's 
 Saviour. 1654. 
 
 LECHFORD, T. Plain Dealing. 1642. 
 
 LIFE OF COLONEL HUTCHINSON. By his widow. 
 
 LONGFELLOW, H. W., Life and Letters of. 2 vols. 
 
 MACAULAY, T. B. History of England. 4 vols. 
 
 MARTIN-MAR-PRELATE; Tracts. 1588-89. 
 
 MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL SOCIETY'S COLLECTIONS. 
 
 MATHER, RICHARD. Church Government and Church Covenant 
 discussed. 1643. 
 
 MATHER, COTTON. Ratio Discipline Fratrum Nov-Anglorum. 
 1726. 
 
 MATHER, COTTON. Magnalia Christi Americana. 1702. 
 
 MILTON, JOHN. Lycidas. 
 
 MINISTER'S WOOING. Mrs. H. B. Stowe. 
 
 MORRIS, HENRY. History of the First Church in Springfield, 
 Mass. 1875. 
 
 MORTON, NATHANIEL. New England Memorial. 
 
 MOTLEY. United Netherlands. 
 
 MOURT'S Relation; or Journal of the Plantation at Plymouth. 
 1865. Edited by Dr. H. M. Dexter. 
 
 NARRATIVE OF THE PROCEEDINGS OF THE MINISTERS OF HAMP- 
 SHIRE COUNTY. Answer to the same. Letter to the Author 
 of the Answer. Three Pamphlets. Boston. 1736-37- 
 
 NATIONAL CONGREGATIONAL COUNCIL, Debates and Proceed- 
 ings. 1865. 
 
 NEAL, S. D. History of the Puritans. 4 vols. 1732. 
 
XXVlli LIST OP AUTHORITIES REFERRED TO. 
 
 NEW ENGLAND'S FIRST FRUITS. London. 1643. 
 
 NEW ENGLAND HISTORICAL AND GENEALOGICAL REGISTER. 
 
 NEW ENGLAND PRIMMER. 
 
 NORTON, JOHN. A Discussion of the Sufferings of Christ. Reply 
 
 to Pynchon. 1653. 
 
 NORTON, JOHN. The Orthodox Evangelist. 1654. 
 OLD TOWN FOLKS. Mrs. H. B. Stowe. 
 PALFREY, J. G. History of New England. 5 vols. 
 PORTER, NOAH. New England Meeting-Houses. Article in New 
 
 Englander. 1883. 
 PRINCE, THOMAS. A Chronological History of New England in 
 
 the Form of Annals. 1736. 
 PROVINCE LAWS. Massachusetts. Vols. I.-III. 
 PURITANISM IN THE OLD WORLD AND IN THE NEW. Rev. J. 
 
 Gregory. New York. 1896. 
 PYNCHON, WILLIAM. The Meritorious Price of our Redemption, 
 
 Justification, etc. 1650. 
 PYNCHON, WILLIAM. Manuscript Records. Springfield City 
 
 Library. 
 
 RAVENSCROFT. The Psalter. 1621. 
 RECORDS OF THE CHURCH IN ROXBURY. Record Commissioners 
 
 report. Roxbury. 6. 1880. 
 RECORDS OF THE COLONY OF CONNECTICUT. 
 RECORDS OF THE COLONY OF MASSACHUSETTS. 
 RECORDS OF THE COLONY OF PLYMOUTH. 
 RESULTS OF THE SYNODS OF 1662 AND 1669, in the Magnalia. 
 ROBINSON, JOHN. Works. 3 vols. 1851. 
 SCARLET LETTER. Nathaniel Hawthorne. 
 SEWALL, SAMUEL, Diary of, 1674-1729. Mass. Hist. Society 
 
 Publications. 2 vols. 
 
 SHEPARD, THOMAS. Works. 3 vols. 1855. 
 SIMPLE COBBLER OF AGAWAM. Nathaniel Ward. 1647. 
 SOME OLD PURITAN LOVE-LETTERS. Twichell. 1893. 
 SPRAGUE, WILLIAM B. Annals of the American Pulpit. Vols. I.-II. 
 STODDARD, S. An Appeal to the Learned. 1709. 
 STRYPE, J. Workes. [Whitgift.] 
 TARBOX, INCREASE N. Art. on the Pilgrims. Collections of 
 
 the Old Colony Hist. Soc. 
 THE PILGRIM FATHERS. Rev. John Brown. New York. 1895. 
 
LIST OF AUTHORITIES REFERRED TO. XXIX 
 
 TRACY, JOSEPH. The Great Awakening. 1841. 
 
 TWICHELL, JOSEPH H. John Winthrop. 1892. 
 
 WADDINGTON, J. Congregational Martyrs. 1861. 
 
 WALKER, WILLISTON. Creeds and Platforms of Congregational- 
 ism. 1893. 
 
 WALKER, WILLISTON. A History of the Congregational Churches. 
 1894. 
 
 WESTMINSTER CONFESSION OF FAITH, AND CATECHISMS. 
 
 WHITEFIELD, GEORGE. Journals, and Life. 
 
 WILLARD, SAMUEL. A Compleat Body of Divinity. 1726. 
 
 WINSLOW, E. Brief Narration. 1622. 
 
 WINTHROP, JOHN. Journal of Transactions in the Settlement of 
 Massachusetts. 1790. 
 
 WINTHROP, R. C. Life and Letters of John Winthrop. 2 vols. 
 1864-67. 
 
 YOUNG, ALEXANDER. Chronicles of the Pilgrim Fathers. 1841. 
 
Some Important Dates in Puritan 
 History. 
 
 1324 John Wyclif born. Died 1384. 
 
 1380 Wyclif 's New Testament. 
 
 1525 Tyndale's New Testament. 
 
 1531 Henry the Eighth acknowledged as Supreme Head of the 
 
 Church of England. 
 1535 Coverdale's Bible. 
 1547 Edward the Sixth ascends the throne. 
 1553 Mary becomes Queen. 
 1555 Persecution of Protestants begins. 
 1558 Elizabeth becomes Queen. 
 
 Acts of Supremacy and Uniformity. 
 
 1564 The name Puritan first used. 
 
 1565 The Dean of Christ Church, Oxford, imprisoned for Non- 
 
 conformity. 
 
 1572 Massacre of St. Bartholomew. 
 1575 John Robinson born. 
 
 1580 Separatist Church in Norwich under Robert Browne. 
 1583 Whitgift, Archbishop of Canterbury. 
 
 Ecclesiastical Commission receives new powers. 
 
 Two Puritans hung for Non-conformity. 
 
 1588 Defeat of the Spanish Armada. 
 1588-89 Martin Mar-prelate tracts. 
 
 1593 Barrowe, Greenwood, and Penry publicly executed for their 
 Non-conformity. 
 
 1602 The Separatist Church at Gainsborough. 
 
 1603 Death of Queen Elizabeth. James the First ascends the 
 
 throne. Millenary Petition. 
 
XXX11 IMPORTANT DATES IN PURITAN HISTORY. 
 
 1604 Hampton Court Conference. 
 
 1605 Three hundred Ministers expelled from their parishes for 
 
 Non-conformity. 
 
 1606 Church formed at Scrooby. 
 
 1607-08 The Pilgrims removed to Amsterdam. 
 
 1609 The Pilgrims Settled at Leyden. 
 
 161 1 Authorized Version of the Bible. 
 
 1618 Thirty Years War begun. 
 
 1620 The Pilgrims land at Plymouth. 
 
 1621 Death of Governor Carver. Bradford chosen Governor. 
 1625 Charles the First ascends the throne. 
 
 1628 Endicott lands at Salem, with a colony. 
 
 1629 A Charter granted for the Massachusetts Company. 
 
 Agreement to settle in Massachusetts signed, in Cambridge, 
 
 by Winthrop and others. 
 
 Re-enforcements sent to Salem, with Higginson. 
 
 Puritan Church formed at Salem, August 6. 
 
 1630 Governor Winthrop arrives in Massachusetts with a large 
 
 colony of Puritans. 
 
 Boston settled. First General Court in Massachusetts. 
 
 1633 Laud, Archbishop of Canterbury. 
 
 1635 First Settlement in Connecticut. 
 
 1636 Harvard College founded. 
 
 1637 The first Massachusetts Synod. 
 
 The case of John Hampden tried, in England. 
 
 1639 The Constitution of Connecticut adopted. 
 
 1640 The Long Parliament met. 
 
 The Bay Psalm Book, printed. 
 
 1643-48 Westminster Assembly. 
 
 Confederacy of the colonies of New England. 
 
 1644 Death of Elder Brewster. 
 
 1646-48 Cambridge Synod. Platform of Church Government. 
 
 1649 Execution of Charles the First. 
 
 1651 Hugh Parsons tried in Springfield for Witchcraft. 
 
 1653 Oliver Cromwell, Lord Protector. 
 
 1656-62 Persecution of the Quakers. 
 
 1658 Death of Cromwell. 
 
 The Savoy Synod adopts a Confession of Faith. 
 
 1660 The Restoration of the Stuarts. 
 
IMPORTANT DATES IN PURITAN HISTORY. XXXlii 
 
 1662 The Boston Synod adopts the Half -Way Covenant. 
 1673 The first Church organized in Maine, at York. 
 The Act of Uniformity re-enacted in England. 
 
 1679 The Reforming Synod. 
 
 1680 The Synod adopts the Savoy Confession. 
 1691-92 Witchcraft in Salem and elsewhere. 
 1691 Charter of the Province of Massachusetts. 
 1701 Yale College founded. 
 
 1708 The Saybrook Platform adopted. 
 
 1 709 The General Association of Connecticut Ministers organized. 
 1716 Yale College located at New Haven. 
 
 1727 Jonathan Edwards ordained, Northampton. 
 
 1734-40 The Great Awakening. 
 
 1738 The Methodists appear in London. 
 
 1740 Whitefield preaches in New England. 
 
 1750 Jonathan Edwards dismissed from Northampton. 
 
 1754 Edwards' Work on The Freedom of the Will. 
 
 1758 Death of President Edwards. 
 
 1762 Church in Bennington, Vt., organized. 
 
 1 769 Dartmouth College founded. 
 
Introduction. 
 BY ALEXANDER MCKENZIE, D.D. 
 
 THE design of this book is a large one. While 
 many books have been written about the Puritans, 
 a continued study of the men and their work is de- 
 manded, and will have an ample reward. The time 
 seems to have come when they can be studied intel- 
 ligently and impartially; and there is good reason 
 to believe that the better they are known, and the 
 more accurately their work is estimated, the more 
 thorough will be the admiration which is the result. 
 It is difficult for one to set himself back two or 
 three centuries, and there rightly to judge the events 
 which are around him. Yet it is the grateful and 
 patriotic duty of every person in this country to gain 
 for himself a distinct knowledge of the forces which 
 made the beginning of our national life. We shall be 
 helped to carry on the incomplete work, if we know 
 the method and meaning of its origin. The very word 
 origin presents a broad and inviting field for research. 
 Whence came the name Puritan? " The Church of the 
 Purity " is an old phrase ; and if the name grew out of 
 an ancient sneer, as has been suggested, it is well to 
 know by what means, and by what men, it has justified 
 
XXXVI INTRODUCTION. 
 
 itself, and changed a term of scorn to one of honor. 
 Where shall the study of the Puritans begin? Certainly 
 not on the coast of Massachusetts. Nor can it begin in 
 England ; nor in Holland. We are led back to events 
 which concerned the entire history of Europe, as we 
 follow the Puritan idea towards its inception. But what 
 period of modern history is more helpful, and what 
 historic line can be more clearly traced than this, as it 
 runs in its unbroken way? It is not strange, but it is 
 interesting to mark that the best account we have had of 
 the earlier Puritanism is given by an English historian. 
 The fine pages of John Richard Green are as instructive 
 as they are delightful. It is a very full and compact 
 sentence in which he describes the transition into 
 which Puritanism was carried : " It ceased from the long 
 attempt to build up a kingdom of God by force and 
 violence, and fell back on its truer work of building up 
 a kingdom of righteousness in the hearts and consciences 
 of men." It is sincere and enlightened testimony which 
 he gives, that Puritanism had made the mass of English- 
 men " serious, earnest, sober in life and conduct, firm 
 in their love of Protestantism and of freedom. . . . The 
 history of English progress since the Restoration, on its 
 moral and spiritual sides, has been the history of Puri- 
 tanism." Surely there is room for diligent study, and 
 no study is more essential here, and at this time, than 
 that which makes us wise in our past that we may be 
 prudent in our future. 
 
 There are several questions of interest which arise 
 when the mind turns to this subject. One of these, 
 
INTRODUCTION. XXXVli 
 
 and one of the largest, is suggested by the first part 
 of the title of the Avork now before us, Puritanism 
 in England. What was this? What was its relation 
 to the government and to the Church of England? 
 What was England then, in itself and in its relation 
 to the continent ? There were three parties in the 
 Church : those who were content with things as they 
 were; those who were discontented, but proposed to 
 remain where they were and work out such reforms 
 as were possible ; and those who boldly came out, and 
 made a new start according to what they believed to be 
 an older and a better way. Which was the better of 
 the two plans of reformation, which has proved the 
 more effectual, is a question for the student of history, 
 especially the student of English and American history. 
 But this was not purely an English movement, even 
 in its immediate working. We have always recog- 
 nized the influence of their life in Holland upon 
 those who sought refuge there from the persecution in 
 England. That Leyden offered not merely hospitality 
 and freedom, but the best school in the world for the 
 training of men in the principles of liberty, and in en- 
 durance for the sake of liberty, is beyond question. 
 The siege of Leyden was too near to have lost its 
 influence over any who walked through the streets and 
 among the houses where men and women had starved 
 and died for freedom, or who looked across the fields 
 over which ships had sailed bringing them bread. But 
 of late there is an attempt greatly to magnify the influ- 
 ence of the Dutch upon the English. That the large 
 
XXXV111 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 numbers who came from Holland, and were associated in 
 many ways with the English, were of great service, not 
 merely in their handicrafts, but in their knowledge of reli- 
 gious liberty, should be promptly acknowledged. But to 
 what extent this influence made Puritans into exiles, and 
 then into Pilgrims, is a question to be calmly considered. 
 
 The connection between the Plymouth and the 
 Massachusetts Colony, in men, in spirit, in method, 
 in result, again calls for careful study. It is only by 
 a comprehensive view of these separate, yet allied, 
 movements that justice can be done to either Colony. 
 Nothing can be settled by setting one point against 
 another point. The two spheres of life must be com- 
 pared, and this will be to the advantage of both. 
 
 It will be long before men agree upon the wisdom 
 and justice of the Puritan polity in general, as it was 
 developed here in Massachusetts. That the policy was 
 narrow and strict may be at once admitted. Whether 
 it could have been more lenient and flexible is a fair 
 inquiry. It has been answered in various ways. In the 
 spirit of our own times it is easy to say that a more lib- 
 eral method of legislation would have been practicable, 
 and in all respects better. On the other hand, some 
 deference must be paid to the integrity and justice of 
 the men who were in charge of affairs at that time. 
 They were not weak, and they were not bigots. They 
 had not made themselves exiles that they might prepare 
 an arena where all kinds of beliefs might disport them- 
 selves. They had come three thousand miles, at a great 
 cost of money and of feeling, that they might here 
 
INTRODUCTION. XXXIX 
 
 make a better England according to their own con- 
 victions of that which was true and right. While, as the 
 work of sensible men, their movement had a commercial 
 quality, they weighed " the greatness of the work in re- 
 gard of the consequence, God's glory and the Church's 
 good." If others would join them in their enterprise, 
 they were welcome. How far they should tolerate men 
 and women who had different views of truth and duty, 
 and allow them to teach their contrary opinions, in those 
 early and critical days, may be still an open question. 
 It is very likely that a wider toleration would have been 
 less perilous than they supposed. They seem to have 
 interfered with no person's opinions except in so far as 
 these interfered with the things which they deemed 
 essential to the safety of the Colony. If their rules 
 were strict, banishment to Rhode Island does not 
 seem to have been severe. Perhaps it was well that 
 there was near at hand a pleasanter place than this 
 eastern coast. Perhaps Utopia must always have its 
 supplemental Narragansett. 
 
 It is not the province of an introduction to discuss 
 these matters. There are many things of less im- 
 port which are of interest in connection with the 
 Puritans. These relate to the manner of their life 
 here; their method of government; their churches 
 and forms of worship ; their homes and their domestic 
 concerns ; their books and schools ; their charities and 
 their sports; and all which made up their daily life. 
 There is abundance of material for many interesting 
 pages which will make curious and instructive reading. 
 
Xl INTRODUCTION. 
 
 But for all these things the reader must turn to the 
 chapters from which he has been too long detained. 
 I am confident that he will find here the results of 
 honest and patient study, presented in an attractive 
 way, with a style remarkably clear and strong ; so that 
 he is taken from chapter to chapter along pleasant paths, 
 with an increasing knowledge of the Puritan and of all 
 which the name stands for, and with a growing and 
 abiding admiration of the ancestry to which every 
 American owes so much. It will encourage the faith- 
 ful study of a book like this to remember that the 
 permanence and extension of the Puritan work depend 
 upon us and those who shall come after us. We have a 
 wonderful opportunity, but it is entirely in keeping with 
 our wonderful history. It will encourage us still further 
 if we can believe the generous prophecy of John Richard 
 Green in his History of the English People : " In the 
 centuries that lie before us, the primacy of the world 
 will lie with the English People: English institutions, 
 English speech, English thought, will become the main 
 features of the political, the social, and the intellectual 
 life of mankind. ... In the days that are at hand, the 
 main current of that people's history must run along the 
 channel, not of the Thames or the Mersey, but of the 
 Hudson and the Mississippi." 
 
 THE FIRST CHURCH IN CAMBRIDGE, 
 March, 1896. 
 
I. 
 
 The Puritan in England. 
 
The Puritan in England. 
 
 A MONG the great types of character that 
 have left a permanent mark upon modern 
 history we must place the English Puritans. 
 Macaulay speaks of them as perhaps " the most 
 remarkable body of men which the world has 
 ever produced." Hallam says " the Puritans 
 were the depositaries of the sacred fire of lib- 
 erty." Hume writes that " the precious spark of 
 liberty had been kindled and was preserved by 
 the Puritans alone ; " and that " it is to them that 
 the English owe the whole freedom of their 
 Constitution." Carlyle says, in his Introduction 
 to the Letters and Speeches of Cromwell : " One 
 wishes there were a history of English Puri- 
 tanism, the last of all our Heroisms, but sees 
 small prospect of such a thing at present. Few 
 nobler Heroisms, at bottom perhaps, no 
 nobler Heroism ever transacted itself on this 
 earth." Other writers on the history of the 
 English people in the sixteenth and seventeenth 
 centuries speak of the services which the Puri- 
 
4 THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND AND NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 tans rendered to religion and to freedom in 
 similar terms. 
 
 It is considerably more than three centuries 
 since Puritanism became a power in moulding 
 the people of English birth and speech. Both 
 England and America have felt their influence 
 as well upon the political institutions of the 
 people, as upon their intellectual development, 
 and their religious life. If that influence has 
 been more decided in America than 
 
 Puritan influ- ._-,... _ 
 
 ence in Hew m England it is because the Puritans 
 gland ' in this country had the advantage of 
 working in the forming period of our history, 
 when they were not limited by the power of 
 established customs. For a hundred and fifty 
 years our Puritan fathers and their descendants 
 lived here an isolated and peculiar people. There 
 was very little admixture of foreign blood. In 
 this new country they were free to build the 
 Church and the state according to their own 
 ideas. During that period the New England 
 spirit was developed, and embodied in the Puri- 
 tan churches and colleges and schools, and in 
 the political institutions of the New England 
 colonies. About twenty-one thousand persons 
 came from England within the twelve years 
 between 1628 and 1640. There was never after- 
 wards any considerable increase of their numbers 
 from England. From these twenty-one thousand 
 
THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND. 
 
 people about one fourth 1 of the present popula- 
 tion of the United States have descended. The 
 Puritan element in our population has been the 
 controlling power in the republic. It has been 
 modified by other influences, from Scotland, and 
 France, and Holland, as the country has grown 
 older, but on the whole, New England principles 
 and institutions have been moulding the whole 
 people and directing the policy of the nation. 
 
 I. 
 
 IF we would understand the Puritans who 
 planted the colonies on this side of the sea, we 
 must trace their history back to the mother 
 country. For our Pilgrim and Puritan fathers 
 were a part of the great Puritan party 
 
 f ' Power of the 
 
 which had been growing for about a Puritan party 
 century before 1620, and which was of * 
 sufficient strength not only to plant colonies in 
 New England, but also to overthrow the ar- 
 bitrary power of the Stuarts, and establish the 
 Commonwealth in 1649, and, forty years later, to 
 secure the political and religious liberties of the 
 English people, by a revolution under William 
 
 1 Mr. Bancroft states that in 1834 one third of the people of the 
 United States were descendants of the first settlers of Massachu- 
 setts. Vol. i. 375. Mr. John Fiske says one fourth the present popu- 
 lation have come from them. ' Beginnings of New England," 143. 
 
6 THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND AND NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 and Mary, which made England a free and 
 Protestant kingdom for all time. 
 
 The history of the English Puritans is almost 
 
 the same as that of the Protestant Reformation 
 
 in England. It is plain that the beginning of 
 
 the Reformation was at least as far back as the 
 
 time of Wyclif, in the last half of the 
 
 Beginnings of J 
 
 the Reforma- fourteenth century. He was born m the 
 year 1 324. He was the foremost among 
 the scholars of his time. His spare and ema- 
 ciated frame had been weakened by study, and 
 by the severe discipline to which he subjected him- 
 self. But within this frail form there was a mind 
 of great capacity, a restless and indomitable 
 spirit, and a conscience which directed all his 
 life. He was the special friend of John of Gaunt, 
 who was able to protect him from the power of 
 the ecclesiastics. His great work was the trans- 
 lation of the Bible into English, and his defence 
 of the right of every man to read the Scriptures 
 in his own tongue. He denied the doctrine of 
 transubstantiation, and asserted that, in the primi- 
 tive Church, there were but two sorts of clergy. 
 He was opposed to the multiplication of ranks 
 in the clergy. He advocated a simple form of 
 worship, and spoke against auricular confession. 
 John wyciif : His protest was against the practices of 
 1324-1384. t^ Church, rather than against its doc- 
 trines. He was the father of our English prose, 
 
THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND. 
 
 as Chaucer was the father of English poetry. 
 He made his appeal boldly to the people, against 
 the threats of the ecclesiastics. " I believe that 
 in the end the truth will conquer," he said. He 
 issued a multitude of tracts in the language of 
 the common people, in which he attacked the 
 worship of the saints and of images, the idle and 
 scandalous lives of the clergy, pardons, indul- 
 gences, and pilgrimages to the shrines of the 
 saints. He organized and sent forth an order 
 of preachers, who were called " Simple Priests." 
 They went everywhere among the people, wear- 
 ing the long russet-dress by which they were 
 known ; and they preached the doctrines of Wyclif 
 so forcibly, that it was said, a few years later, 
 " Every second man you meet is a disciple of 
 Wyclif." They were found in the cities as well 
 as among the peasants of the country. Some 
 of the nobility, and some of the men of learning, 
 adopted his opinions. 
 
 If Wyclif had lived a hundred and fifty years 
 later, it is very likely that the Protestant Refor- 
 mation in England would have been Thel( , llartg 
 developed under his lead, somewhat as 
 the Reformation in Germany was under Luther. 
 But Wyclif had not the advantage of the print- 
 ing-press, nor of the great intellectual awaken- 
 ing that accompanied the revival of learning. 
 The people of his time, although they wel- 
 
8 THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND AND NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 corned the truths which he gave them, were 
 not intelligent and stable enough to hold and 
 transmit these truths, in spite of the determined 
 opposition which they aroused. The severe per- 
 secution which followed his death checked the 
 progress of his doctrines. His followers were 
 called Lollards that is, idle babblers by their 
 enemies. Very severe laws for the punishment 
 of heresy were enacted in the reign of Henry 
 the Fourth. Thirty-nine prominent Lollards 
 were put to death in a single year ; and a much 
 larger number of the common people. The 
 movement for reform lost the vigor and hope- 
 fulness which it had shown at the outset. But 
 it continued to live through the next century and 
 a half. Little is said about it by the historians, 
 except when the movement showed its power in 
 some struggle for the rights of the people against 
 arbitrary power. Passages from Wyclifs Bible 
 and from his tracts were copied by hand and 
 passed about from cottage to cottage. The Lol- 
 lard preachers, clad in their long russet robes, 
 with their pilgrim staves, went barefoot from 
 village to village, reading the Word of God to the 
 common people, and making them familiar with 
 its teachings and its histories. This was the 
 preliminary work of the Reformation. The Lol- 
 lards were the Puritans of the fifteenth century. 
 They were numerous in the eastern counties 
 
THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND. 
 
 of England, the very section where, at a later 
 time, Puritanism had its greatest strength. As 
 late as 1520, the Bishop of Lincoln reported that 
 Lollardism was very troublesome in his diocese. 
 As many as two hundred heretics were brought 
 before him in the course of a single episcopal 
 visitation. 
 
 II. 
 
 THE Reformation in England in the sixteenth 
 century was very different from the Reformation 
 that was in progress on the continent. In Eng- 
 land, the movement was not religious but politi- 
 cal. On the continent, it was intensely religious. 
 This distinction is important because it is proba- 
 ble that if the Reformation in England had been 
 like that in Germany and in Switzerland 
 
 J Difference 
 
 and in France, there would have been between the 
 
 1,1- . i T Reformation in 
 
 no such thing as the Puritan party England and 
 
 in England. All over Europe there 
 had been a preparation for a great movement for 
 the reform of the Church. The books of Wyclif 
 had been read as far away as Bohemia. There 
 was a new interest everywhere in the Bible. 
 Men were longing for a simple gospel. Luther 
 was prepared for his work as the leader of the 
 Reformation by a very deep religious experience. 
 " Ah," he exclaimed, at one time, " with what 
 anxiety and labor, with what searching of the 
 
IO THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND AND NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 Scriptures, have I justified myself, in conscience, 
 in standing up alone against the Pope." " Here 
 I take my stand," he said, in the presence of the 
 Diet, and of the Emperor; "I can do naught 
 else. May God help me. Amen." It was this 
 deep religious spirit which made the words of 
 Luther so effective. Those who had been long- 
 ing and praying for a reform were eager to join 
 the great movement. The Protestants all stood 
 together, in opposition to the errors against which 
 they protested. 
 
 But in England the movement for separation 
 from the Church of Rome began with the king, 
 not with the people. Henry the Eighth was 
 never a Protestant, in the sense in which the 
 German Reformers were. He had earned the 
 title of Defender of the Faith by his book in 
 reply to Luther's work on the Sacraments. The 
 books of Luther were solemnly burned at St. 
 Paul's, and orders were issued for the persecution 
 of heretics. To the end of his life, Henry was 
 in most respects a Romanist. The Law of the 
 Six Articles, which he approved, sanctioned the 
 sacrifice of the Mass, the communion in one 
 kind, the celibacy of the clergy, monastic vows, 
 private masses, and auricular confession. The 
 so-called Reformation in his reign was incom- 
 plete and superficial. He broke away from the 
 Church of Rome for reasons that were personal 
 
THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND. 1 1 
 
 and political, rather than religious. Virtually, 
 the Church of England exchanged one Pope for 
 another. Henry denied the supremacy of the 
 Pope, but made himself the head of the English 
 > Church. He condemned to death those who 
 denied transubstantiation, and those who denied 
 his supremacy over the Church. 
 
 III. 
 
 YET all through his reign the Reformation 
 was making progress among the people. The 
 new translations of the Scriptures, by Tyndale 
 and Coverdale, were printed and scattered far 
 and wide. Later in the reign, the king or- 
 dered the English Bible to be read in the 
 churches. 
 
 In the short reign of Edward the Sixth, the 
 Protestant Book of Common Prayer was issued, 
 and a Protestant Confession was prepared and 
 imposed upon the Church by authority. But 
 Queen Mary restored the Mass, set aside the 
 new Prayer Book, and, as far as practicable, 
 brought back England to its old relations to 
 the Church of Rome. The great majority of the 
 priests, and of the people accepted the changes. 
 But there were many who held tenaciously to 
 the Protestant faith. More than three hundred 
 were burned at the stake, and their constancy 
 
12 THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND AND NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 gave new strength to their cause. Eight hun- 
 dred more whose lives were in danger escaped 
 beyond the sea, and spent the years of her reign 
 in close association with the Protestants on the 
 continent. When Latimer was burned, he said, 
 " We shall this day light such a candle, by God's 
 grace, in England, as, I trust, shall never be put 
 out." When Cramner, the Archbishop of Can- 
 terbury, was led to the stake, the act excited feel- 
 ings of abhorrence among the people. His mar- 
 tyrdom has been regarded as the death-blow to 
 Catholicism in England. 
 
 IV. 
 
 THE accession of Elizabeth to the throne, in 
 , was the critical period in the history of 
 the English Reformation. The young queen 
 was commonly believed to be a Protestant, al- 
 though she had conformed to the Catholic ritual 
 during the reign of Mary. Her first acts en- 
 couraged the hopes of the Reformers. She 
 released all the prisoners confined for their relig- 
 ion by her sister, and encouraged the Protestant 
 exiles to return to England. She kissed the 
 English Bible which the people of London pre- 
 sented to her, and promised " diligently to read 
 therein/' She restored the Book of Common 
 Prayer, which had been hallowed by the suffer- 
 
THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND. 13 
 
 ings of the martyrs ; but she caused certain alter- 
 ations to be made in the Book, which were de- 
 signed to recommend it to the Romanists. She 
 said to the Spanish embassador, " I shall do as 
 my father used to do." By the Act of Suprem- 
 acy, passed in the first year of her The Act of 
 reign, the queen was declared to be Su P remac y- 
 the supreme governor of the Church, authorized 
 to nominate all bishops, and to correct all heresies. 
 All those who held benefices or offices were 
 required to take the Oath of Supremacy, avow- 
 ing the queen to be the only supreme governor 
 within the realm, " as well in all spiritual and 
 ecclesiastical causes and things as temporal." 
 It was provided by the Act of Uniform- T heActof 
 ity that the Book of Common Prayer Uniformit y- 
 should be used in all public religious services, 
 and that any minister who should refuse to use 
 it, or who should use any other rites and forms 
 than those therein set down, should forfeit his sal- 
 ary for one year, and be imprisoned for six months; 
 and that for the second offence he should lose 
 his benefice, and be imprisoned for a year; and 
 for the third, he should be imprisoned for life. 1 
 Persons not in orders who should thus offend, 
 were to be punished with equal seventy. The 
 ceremonies of the Church, and the dress of the 
 clergy, were to be as in the time of King Edward. 
 
 1 i Eliz. cap. i, sect. n. 
 
14 THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND AND NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 The queen only had power to make changes in 
 these matters. 
 
 It was these acts which really formed the 
 Puritan Party in England. The Puritans were 
 origin of the those who were "for carrying the Refor- 
 puritans. ma ti on to its logical results." There 
 were certain things among the forms and cere- 
 monies of the Established Church to which they 
 could not conform with good consciences. The 
 fires of Smithfield had intensified the Protest- 
 antism of the English people. The exiles who 
 came back from the continent were full of admi- 
 ration for the simplicity of Protestant worship 
 abroad. " Protestantism," says Mr. J. R. Green, 
 " had become a fiercer thing ; and was pouring 
 back from Geneva with dreams of revolutionary 
 changes in Church and state." Many things in 
 the ritual of the Church of England seemed to 
 them to favor the errors and superstitions of the 
 Church of Rome. The contest was not, at that 
 time, in respect to the doctrines of the Church, 
 nor in respect to the Episcopal form of Govern- 
 ment. It related to forms and ceremonies and 
 vestments. These were immaterial in themselves, 
 and yet each one of them at that time had a 
 doctrinal significance. We have seen, in our own 
 times, something of the intensity of ritualistic 
 controversies. But in that age such matters 
 touched the life of the Church much more closely. 
 
THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND. 15 
 
 The separation from Romanism was still recent. 
 The majority of the English people were proba- 
 bly Romanists when Elizabeth ascended the 
 throne. The Protestant minority, however, in- 
 cluded the ablest and most powerful men in the 
 kingdom, and they were not in a mood to accept, 
 under a Protestant queen, any modes of worship, 
 or of the administration of the Sacraments, which 
 were suggestive of the Real-presence in the ele- 
 ments at the Lord's table, or of a superstitious 
 regard for the Cross, or of any of the practices 
 of the old Church which they had renounced. 
 They were protesting against transubstantiation, 
 when they refused to kneel at the altar to receive 
 the elements at the Supper. They objected to the 
 use of the sign of the Cross in baptism, and the 
 use of the ring in marriage, and to the use of 
 clerical vestments, especially to the use of the cap 
 and the surplice, not because they were wrong 
 in themselves, but because they could not use 
 them without seeming to sanction opinions which 
 they deemed inconsistent with the truth which 
 it was their special mission to defend. New and 
 better associations, and the mellowing influences 
 of time have made these things quite indifferent 
 to us ; but it is not difficult to understand how 
 significant they were three centuries ago. 
 
1 6 THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND AND NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 V. 
 
 IN the early years of Elizabeth the acts of 
 Supremacy and of Uniformity were not exe- 
 cuted very strictly. They were put in force first 
 against the Roman Catholics. Under their pro- 
 visions all the bishops except one lost their 
 places. The Protestant exiles who had returned, 
 were welcomed by the Church, and a number of 
 them were appointed to the vacant bishoprics. 
 Only about two hundred of the parish priests lost 
 their livings, out of some seven or eight thou- 
 sand. The changes were generally in favor of the 
 progress of the Reformation among the people. 
 
 The Act of Uniformity was administered more 
 strictly as the years went by. The Court of High 
 Commission, under the Archbishop of Canter- 
 bury, was clothed with ample powers for carry- 
 ing these laws into effect. About the year 1564, 
 the word Puritan began to be used, not at first 
 as a term of reproach, but to designate those who 
 sought the purest form of worship, " religio 
 purissima." They desired to remain within the 
 Church ; but they refused to conform to practices 
 which seemed to them the badges of Rome. A 
 large proportion of the clergy of the Established 
 Church were Puritans. So were a number of 
 the bishops, and some of the archbishops. 
 
 In 1565, the Commission sent to prison the 
 
THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND. 
 
 Dean of Christ Church, Oxford, because he re- 
 fused to wear the required vestments. The same 
 year all the clergymen of London me puritans 
 were brought before the Commission, 
 and asked to promise to conform to all 
 the requirements of the Prayer Book. Thirty- 
 seven out of ninety-eight refused to give the 
 promise ; and they were suspended from the min- 
 istry, and deprived of their livings. Miles Cover- 
 dale, one of the translators of the Bible, was 
 deprived of his parish for non-conformity, in the 
 eighty-third year of his age. John Foxe, the 
 Puritan author of the Book of Martyrs, also re- 
 fused to conform ; but he was suffered to go in 
 peace, on account of his great reputation ; and 
 he held his small office in the Church until his 
 death. When the Puritan ministers of London 
 were driven from their churches in 1565, their 
 followers held meetings in private houses, and 
 in public halls, without any disorder, and listened 
 to the Bible, and the sermons of their ministers. 
 A congregation of this sort was arrested by the 
 sheriff in 1567. The only charge against them 
 was that they were worshipping God under forms 
 not prescribed by law. They were found guilty 
 of this offence, and a large number of them were 
 sent to prison for a year. 1 The next year the 
 
 1 Neal's History of the Puritans, i. 108; Hallam, i. 186; Camp- 
 bell's Puritan in England, Holland, and America, i, 400-447. 
 
 2 
 
1 8 THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND AND NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 Spanish embassador, writing to Philip, said : 
 " Those who call themselves of the religio puris- 
 sima go on increasing. They are styled Puritans, 
 because they allow no ceremonies, nor any forms 
 save those which are authorized by the bare 
 letter of the gospel. They will not come to the 
 churches which are used by the rest, nor will 
 they allow their ministers to wear any marked or 
 separate dress. Some of them have been taken 
 up ; but they have no fear of prison." 1 
 
 The work of silencing the Puritans went on 
 from year to year, with increasing severity ; and 
 yet they still clung to the Protestant Church of 
 the realm, and tried to do their work under its 
 shadow. When they were expelled from their 
 livings for non-conformity, they obtained employ- 
 ment as preachers for the regular incumbents, 
 who were too ignorant or too indolent to preach 
 themselves, or they took refuge in the families 
 of the gentry, where they found a useful employ- 
 ment as teachers. Their books were suppressed ; 
 their private meetings were broken up ; and even 
 private citizens were brought before the High 
 Commission, and punished for non-conformity. 
 
 183, Whitgift, whom the queen used to 
 call her^ntttfe-^black parson," was appointed 
 Archbishop of Canterbury, that he might " root 
 out Puritanism and the favorers thereof." The 
 
 1 Froude, ix. 327. 
 
THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND. 1 9 
 
 next month after his appointment, he issued 
 orders for the enforcement of religious discipline 
 throughout the realm. Two months later, the , 
 court of High Commission was made a perma- A 
 nent institution to enforce the acts of Uniformity. 
 This court was continued for fifty years. Whit- 
 gift issued orders forbidding all preaching, read- 
 ing, or catechising in private houses. This was 
 intended to prevent the assembling of neighbors 
 to read the Bible, or for any religious service. 
 It was also provided that no one should assume 
 the functions of a clergyman unless he had been 
 admitted to holy orders in the Church of Eng- 
 land. All clergymen were required to subscribe 
 a declaration of approval of the Thirty-nine Arti- 
 cles, and of the Book of Common Prayer, as 
 containing nothing contrary to the Word of 
 God ; and also a promise to use its forms of 
 prayer, and no other. These requirements went 
 beyond the laws, but they were enforced with 
 unsparing vigor. Several hundred of the best 
 ministers in England were silenced, and their par- 
 ishes were left destitute. It was a short matter : 
 Do you wear the surplice ? Do you make the sign 
 of the Cross in baptism, and use the ring in 
 marriage, and require communicants to kneel 
 when they receive the Communion ? If not, you 
 must cease to preach, and give up your salary. 
 No witnesses were necessary. The accused was 
 
2O THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND AND NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 put under oath, and required to criminate him- 
 self. The methods of the High Commission 
 under Whitgift were as relentless and as unscru- 
 pulous as those of the Inquisition. 
 
 VI. 
 
 THESE extreme measures were for a time suc- 
 cessful. A uniformity of worship was brought 
 about. The Puritan ministers, whose non- 
 conformity had sometimes been winked at, were 
 now driven from their pulpits. The press was 
 placed under a strict censorship. No book could 
 be printed except with the approval of the Arch- 
 bishop of Canterbury, or the Bishop of London. 
 No printing-presses were allowed in any part of 
 England outside London, except one in each of 
 the Universities. This was the decree of the 
 Star Chamber, issued at the instigation of the 
 Archbishop. The effect of all this was to deepen 
 the convictions of the Puritans, and increase 
 their influence in the country. More and more 
 the attention of the people was directed to the 
 Bible. It was read everywhere. It became the 
 one book with which every Englishman was 
 familiar. It colored the common speech of the 
 people. The old Prophets lived again as God's 
 messengers to their nation ; the imagery of 
 the Bible moulded their common speech. This 
 
THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND. 21 
 
 familiarity with the Bible gave the people a more 
 serious spirit, and a higher view of the meaning 
 of life. " Theology rules here," said a discrimi- 
 nating foreign observer, in London, in one of the 
 later years of Elizabeth. The pressure brought 
 to bear by the High Commission set everybody 
 to reading religious books. A multitude of such 
 books and pamphlets, printed on the continent, 
 found their way across the Channel, and were 
 eagerly read. For a long time the great subjects 
 of discussion in England related to the Church 
 and its modes of worship. 
 
 VII. 
 
 ONE result of the arbitrary measures of the 1 
 High Commission was the division of the Puri- ' 
 tans into two sections. The larger x The won- 
 number of the Puritans continued to Worsts, 
 be simply Non-Conformists. They claimed their 
 rights as Protestants in the Church of England, 
 but refused to conform to certain of its require- 
 ments. The Separatists, however, renounced 
 their connection with the National Church, and 
 formed themselves into independent churches, 
 with the simplest possible organization, and a 
 plain and simple form of worship. They were 
 the people who insisted upon " reformation with- 
 out tarrying for any." From them have sprung 
 
22 THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND AND NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 the great body of dissenting churches in Great 
 Britain, and the Independent and Congregational 
 churches in America. 
 
 It is not easy to tell where Separatism had its 
 beginning. As early as the time of Queen Mary, 
 there were small companies of Christians who 
 origin of the were accustomed to meet in private 
 places for religious services, and who 
 disowned the Established Church. All through 
 the reign of Elizabeth, there were such gather- 
 ings in London, and in northern and eastern 
 England. The first organized Separatist Church 
 of which we have any definite account was formed 
 in Norwich, about the year 1580, by Robert 
 Browne, a graduate of Cambridge, and a relative 
 of Lord Burghley, a favorite Minister of Queen 
 Elizabeth. From him the Separatists received 
 the name of Brownists. He published a number 
 of books which were widely read, in which he 
 set forth his views in regard to the constitution 
 of a Christian church, and also in regard to the 
 relation of the state to the Church. 
 
 He held that the state, as such, has no ecclesi- 
 astical authority at all : so that the Church should 
 views of have no connection with the state ex- 
 Robert Browne. ce p sucn as grows OUt of its Secular 
 
 relations. He believed that the Church of Eng- 
 land had become so corrupt that it was impos- 
 sible to secure discipline within it. Not only 
 
THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND. 2$ 
 
 the most worldly people, but those whose lives 
 were scandalous, had a legal right to partake of 
 the Lord's Supper, side by side with the very 
 elect and anointed of God. It was therefore 
 the duty of true Christians to separate from that 
 Church, and to follow Christ elsewhere. 
 
 In respect to the Constitution of the Church 
 itself, Browne held these principles : 
 
 First: That any company of Christians who 
 covenant with God and with each other to walk 
 according to the teachings of Christ, and to en- 
 gage .in His service, and His worship, and who 
 observe the Sacraments, is a true Church, and 
 is independent of all control but that of the divine 
 Head of the Church. 1 
 
 Second : The government of the Church rests 
 with Christ in the first instance, and through 
 Him it comes to the members of the Church, as 
 His disciples united in His name. " The Church 
 government," Browne says, " is the Lordship of 
 Christ, in the Communion of His offices, whereby 
 His people obey His will, and have mutual use 
 of their gifts and callings to further their godli- 
 ness and welfare." So that the members of the 
 Church are to decide all questions which properly 
 come before it, subject only to the authority of 
 Christ. 
 
 Third : The officers of a church are the pastor, 
 
 1 Treatise on Reformation without tarrying for any. 
 
24 THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND AND NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 and the teacher, who are to teach the Word, and 
 exhort to good works, and true obedience ; and 
 one or more elders, " for oversight and counsel, 
 and redressing things amiss ; " and one or more 
 deacons, or deaconesses, to care for the secular 
 matters of the church, and to visit the sick, and 
 the afflicted, and to relieve the wants of the poor. 
 
 These principles seem harmless enough at 
 this day, but at that time they were regarded as 
 "strange and dangerous doctrines." The min- 
 ister was arrested and imprisoned for preaching 
 them. The little church in Norwich which ac- 
 cepted these principles was compelled to leave 
 the country, in order to find a place where it 
 would be free to worship according to this way. 
 Robert Browne was in prison thirty-two times 
 in the course of the next six years. Some of 
 the dungeons in which he was confined were 
 so dark that he could not see his hand at 
 midday. He was only safe from arrest when 
 he was outside the kingdom. At length, worn 
 out by persecution, broken in mind as well as 
 in body, he gave up the contest, returned to 
 the Established Church, and accepted a small 
 parish where he spent the later years of his life 
 in peace and obscurity. 1 
 
 About the year 1587, we find traces of con- 
 gregations of Separatists in London. They met 
 
 1 Dr. H. M. Dexter, on Congregationalism, 116-128. 
 
THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND. 2$ 
 
 sometimes in private houses, and sometimes in 
 the fields outside the city. At these meetings 
 they used to read and expound the 
 
 e . . , TM rr Separatist 
 
 Scriptures, and to pray. The officers churches in 
 were always in quest of them, for such Lon( 
 services were contrary to the Act of Uniformity. 
 As many as sixty persons were sometimes present 
 at these meetings, while a much larger number 
 were interested in them. So many were impris- 
 oned, that at some seasons the number in attend- 
 ance was less than twenty. Sometimes they were 
 nearly all in prison at once, and then they would 
 hold their religious services in the prison. Fifty- 
 nine of them were incarcerated in the various 
 prisons of London at one time. Some of these 
 prisoners were kept in irons. Some were with- 
 out proper food. A list has been preserved of 
 twenty-five who died in prison ; twenty of these 
 were men, and five were women. 1 
 
 Governor Bradford states in his history that 
 at least six of the Separatists were publicly exe- 
 cuted for their non-conformity. 2 These were John 
 Coppin, William Dennis, Elias Thacker, Henry 
 Barrowe, John Greenwood, and John Penry. 
 
 Of the three whose names are first in the list, 
 little is known except that they were publicly 
 executed as Separatists, after long periods of 
 
 1 A true Confession, et cetera 1596, quoted by Dr. Dexter. 
 2 Bradford's History. 
 
26 THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND AND NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 imprisonment. Coppin and Thacker were tried 
 for selling the books of Robert Browne, and for 
 heresy. Thacker was hanged at St. Edmunds 
 in Suffolk, June 4, 1583, and Coppin on the 
 following day. The moral effect was heightened 
 so the Chief Justice wrote by the fact that 
 about forty of the books of Browne and Harrison 
 were burned at the same time. 
 
 Of the three others we have fuller accounts, 
 which they prepared before they were put to 
 Trials of death. Henry Barrowe was arrested in 
 Barroweand November, 1^86, and was kept in prison 
 
 Greenwood. ' J ' . . 
 
 the most or the time for about seven 
 years. He was a graduate of Cambridge, and a 
 member of Gray's Inn. While in prison he pub- 
 lished a number of books, in which he set forth 
 his opinions in regard to the Church of England. 
 He was finally condemned to death for publish- 
 ing seditious books. He was reprieved by the 
 queen the next day; and efforts were made to 
 induce him to retract. It was in vain, and, after 
 being a second time reprieved, he was hanged at 
 Tyburn the 6th of April, 1593. 
 
 His friend and fellow prisoner, John Green- 
 wood, was also a graduate from Cambridge, and 
 a clergyman of the Church of England. He 
 had scruples in respect to his connection with 
 that Church, and finally withdrew from it and 
 joined the Separatists. He was arrested in 1586, 
 
THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND. 2J 
 
 for holding a private religious meeting at the 
 house of Henry Martyn in London. After six 
 years in prison, he was released, and returned to 
 the meetings of his old friends, the Separatists. 
 He was again imprisoned, and, in 1593, was tried 
 for publishing seditious books. He was found 
 guilty, and was sentenced to death. On the 6th 
 of April, 1593, he was hanged at Tyburn, with 
 his friend Barrowe. 
 
 John Penry was born in Wales, took his de- 
 gree of B. A. at Cambridge, and that of M. A. 
 at Oxford. He took orders in the 
 Episcopal Church, and preached both 
 at Oxford and at Cambridge. He also became 
 a Separatist, and was committed to prison. He 
 was kept on bread and water, although his wife 
 asked permission to provide him something 
 better, pleading that he was " a very weak and 
 sickly man." It was not easy to find any pre- 
 tense for condemning him, because he had not 
 published any books since he became a Sepa- 
 ratist. But his private papers were seized, and 
 among them was found the first draught of a 
 petition to the queen. It had not been fin- 
 ished, or published. He protested that this writ- 
 ing was a part of his private diary, and that no 
 creature under heaven knew of it except himself, 
 until it was seized by the officers. But he was 
 brought to trial for " speaking and writing against 
 
28 THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND AND NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 the queen, and for defaming her Majesty." He 
 was found guilty, and was executed at St. Thomas 
 Waterings in Surrey, May 29, 1593. The best 
 use that Elizabeth Tudor had for these honest 
 and independent men was to hang them by the 
 neck until they were dead. 1 
 
 VIII. 
 
 THE Puritans were helpless under the ar- 
 bitrary power of the State Church ; but they 
 The Martin st ^ made their appeal to public opin- 
 Mar-preiate ion, that power which in the modern 
 world is stronger than princes and 
 hierarchies. They could not lawfully own print- 
 ing-presses, or print books, without the approval 
 of the Archbishop. But a new turn was given 
 to the controversy by the sudden appearance of 
 a series of pamphlets bearing the name of Martin 
 Mar-prelate, gentleman. There were seven of 
 them published within about seven months, be- 
 tween the early winter of 1588, and midsummer 
 1589. It has been said that the Puritans lacked 
 a sense of humor, but the keen wit and satire of 
 these pamphlets made them the most effective 
 weapons for the Non-Conformists. The pamphlets 
 were of necessity anonymous ; and the secret has 
 
 1 Waddington's Historical Papers: Congregational Martyrs, 
 173- 
 
THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND. 2Q 
 
 been so well kept that no one knows, to this day, 
 w r ho Martin was. The press on which they were 
 printed was concealed in private houses, and car- 
 ried from place to place in a cart to escape the 
 officers. Four of the pamphlets were printed 
 upon this press. When at last it was seized, 
 Martin procured another, so that the remaining 
 pamphlets were printed in due time. A royal 
 proclamation forbade the owning or reading of 
 these tracts : but the students of the Universities 
 hid them in the folds of their gowns ; even the 
 nobles read them ; the Earl of Essex presented 
 one to the queen ; and all England was laughing 
 at the shrewd and audacious attacks upon the 
 prelates. There was a certain coarseness about 
 them, which belonged to the age, but there was 
 nothing indecent or blasphemous. " Now pre- 
 lates," said Martin, assuming an easy equality 
 with the bishops, " I give you more counsel. 
 Repent. Give over your lordly callings. Reform 
 your families and your children. Pray her 
 Majesty to forgive you, and the Lord first of all 
 to put away your sins. Write no more against 
 the cause of the Reformation. Punish nobody for 
 refusing to wear popish garments, or for omitting 
 popish corruptions from the Prayer Book, or for 
 not kneeling at the Communion table. Study 
 more than you do, and preach oftener. Take 
 no more bribes : leave your simony. In a word, 
 
3O THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND AND NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 become good Christians. Let me hear no more 
 of your evil doings." 
 
 Vigorous and systematic efforts were made to 
 break the force of these attacks. The police 
 force was ordered to spare no pains to discover 
 and arrest the author of them. An elaborate 
 reply to Martin's first pamphlet was prepared by 
 one of the bishops. It was a ponderous quarto 
 of two hundred and fifty-two pages. The effect 
 of this reply was to add to the importance of the 
 pamphlet, and to prepare the people to read the 
 second, which was issued a few weeks later. As 
 the other pamphlets of the series appeared, there 
 were other replies. The bishops quoted Latin 
 abundantly, and Martin quoted as much as the 
 bishops. It was a number of years before the 
 echoes of the discussion died away. 
 
 IX. 
 
 THESE were only incidents in the great move- 
 ment of the English people toward a thorough 
 Growth of reformation. It was not hindered by 
 th^Re^n/ 11 persecution. It had been growing 
 Elizabeth. stronger all through the reign of 
 Elizabeth; and when she died, in 1603, ^ ' IS 
 probable that the majority of her subjects were 
 of the Puritan party. The people were gain- 
 ing in intelligence. The printing-press was a 
 
THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND. 31 
 
 great power, though it was not yet free. The 
 books which could not be printed in England 
 were sent abroad for publication, and when they 
 came back they were eagerly read by the people. 
 For the first time in English history, an enlight- 
 ened public opinion was springing up. 
 
 One cause of the growth of Puritanism was the 
 unfriendly attitude of the Catholic powers toward 
 England. The Pope called upon Elizabeth, at the 
 beginning of her reign, to submit her claims to 
 the throne to his tribunal. After she had declared 
 herself a Protestant, the Pope issued his bull of 
 excommunication, deposing the queen, and re- 
 leasing her subjects from their allegiance. The 
 Catholic nobles in the north of England raised 
 the standard of rebellion. There were a number 
 of plots to assassinate the queen ; and these plots 
 were traced in most instances to Roman Catholics. 
 The latest of these plots was approved by Mary 
 of Scotland, and the discovery of her complicity 
 in this plot led to her execution. The Spanish 
 Armada, which sailed in July, 1588, was intended 
 to encourage a rebellion of the Roman Catholics 
 of England. The plan had the approval of the 
 Pope. 1 Three hundred priests were sent over to 
 organize the revolt. They circulated a book which 
 taught that it was the duty of the people to take 
 up arms at the bidding of the Pope, and to fight 
 
 1 Green's History, vol. ii. 439. 
 
32 THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND AND NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 for the Faith against the queen and other here- 
 tics. The Puritans were the leaders in the splen- 
 did uprising of the English people, of all faiths 
 and of all classes, which secured the defeat of the 
 Armada. It is not surprising that since that day 
 the great body of the English people, have re- 
 garded Romanism as a menace to the very exist- 
 ence of the nation. 
 
 The sufferings of their fellow Protestants on 
 the continent added to the intensity of feeling 
 among the English Protestants. The Massacre 
 on St. Bartholomew's day, in 1572, by which, 
 according to the most conservative writers, more 
 than twenty-two thousand Protestants, includ- 
 ing women and children, were cut off, filled 
 England with horror. In that awful hour, says 
 Mr. Campbell, the Spanish king laughed as he 
 had never laughed before, and the Pope ordered 
 a special Te Deum to be sung. 
 
 Still more fearful were the cruelties of which the 
 Spaniards were guilty in their war against the 
 Protestant provinces in the Netherlands. The 
 Duke of Alva boasted, at the time of his departure 
 from the Netherlands, that within six years he 
 had executed eighteen thousand ' six hundred 
 heretics and traitors. 1 A large number of the 
 Dutch Protestants found refuse in England. 
 
 o o 
 
 1 Campbell's Puritan in Holland, England, and America, vol. i. 
 212 and 488-490. 
 
THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND. 33 
 
 They settled in the eastern counties, and became 
 permanent citizens there. The narratives which 
 these refugees gave of the unspeakable sufferings 
 of their countrymen under the tyranny of their 
 Roman Catholic king had more influence in 
 England than even the Massacre of St. Bartholo- 
 mew. Large numbers of the French Huguenots 
 also settled in England. The story of the suffer- 
 ings of the Protestants was told with wonderful 
 pathos and vividness in Foxe's Book of Martyrs. 
 This book was set up in the parish churches by 
 order of Queen Elizabeth, and was read by the 
 people more than any other book except the 
 English Bible. The influence of these Protestants 
 from the continent was seen in the marvellous 
 vigor of the Puritan party in the seventeenth 
 century, in the eastern counties, where some 
 hundreds of thousands of these exiles made their 
 homes. It is well known that the first settlers of 
 New England came in the largest numbers from 
 eastern England. 
 
 One other cause of the spread of Puritanism in 
 the later years of Elizabeth should be mentioned. 
 England and Scotland had come to stand almost 
 alone as Protestant powers. The hopes of the 
 earlier reformers of a complete purification of the 
 Church had been disappointed. France had 
 seemed at one time likely to become a Protestant 
 country; but the Huguenots had been driven into 
 
34 THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND AND NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 exile, and scattered over the world. The United 
 Provinces had been trodden under the heel of the 
 oppressor. A part of them had accepted the rule 
 of Spain ; and few believed that the heroic struggle 
 of the Dutch Protestants could succeed. In Ger- 
 many, the Catholic powers were steadily gaining, 
 and the Protestants were already on the defensive. 
 The Thirty Years War was near at hand. The 
 cause of the Reformation seemed to depend upon 
 the fidelity of the English people. 
 
 This was the urgent reason for pushing the 
 Reformation in the English Church to its logical 
 results. The Established Church has grown out 
 of a series of compromises between those who 
 still favored some of the practices of the Roman- 
 ists, and the radical reformers who had adopted 
 the theology and the polity of the reformed 
 churches on the continent. The Puritans held 
 that it was dangerous, at that crisis, to halt between 
 two opinions. They demanded the abolition of 
 Romish ceremonies, and the training of an in- 
 telligent ministry, who should be competent to 
 teach the people. They complained that a large 
 proportion of the parish priests were ignorant, 
 and of scandalous lives. The Puritans of the 
 House of Commons presented an address to the 
 queen, in 1571, in which they said : " Great num- 
 bers are admitted to the ministry that are infa- 
 mous in their lives, so that the Protestant 
 
THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND. 35 
 
 religion is in great peril." ] Another petition com- 
 plained that the ministers who were competent 
 had been silenced for non-conformity, and that 
 such as were left were unfit for the office, " having 
 been either popist priests, or shiftless men thrust 
 in upon the ministry when they know not how 
 else to live, serving-men, and the basest of 
 all sorts, men of no gifts. So they are of no 
 common honesty, rioters, dicers, drunkards, and 
 such like, of offensive lives." The Council made 
 an examination of the statements contained in this 
 petition, and they reported that the statements 
 were correct. 2 With such a state of things within 
 the Church, the best men of the nation made 
 common cause with the Puritans in their demand 
 for a thorough reformation. " Why," asked Lord 
 Bacon, " should the~civil state be purged and re- 
 stored by good and wholesome laws, made every 
 three years, in Parliament assembled, devising 
 remedies as fast as time breweth mischief, and the 
 ecclesiastical state still continue upon the dregs of 
 time, and receive no alteration these forty-five 
 years or more ? " 
 
 X. 
 
 THROUGH the later years of Elizabeth the Puri- 
 tans had waited, in the hope that when her suc- 
 cessor, James the First, should ascend the throne, 
 the way would be open for the reformation of the 
 
 i Campbell, vol. i. 466. 2 Strype's Whitgift, 167-168. 
 
36 THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND AND NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 Church. James had hardly crossed the border, 
 on his way to London for his coronation, when 
 me Millenary he was met by what was called the Mil- 
 petition, lenary Petition, with the signatures of 
 some eight hundred of the English clergy. This 
 contained the proposals of the Puritan ministers 
 for the reformation of the Church. They did 
 not ask for any change in the government or the 
 organization of the Established Church. The 
 great body of the Non-Conformists would have 
 been satisfied to continue under the rule of bishops, 
 and to use the Book of Common Prayer in wor- 
 ship. The proposals which have been recently 
 made by the Lambeth Conference for the union 
 of all branches of the Church under the Historic 
 Episcopate would have been entirely satisfactory 
 to the Puritans. What they asked was : the 
 Requests of the omission of the sign of the Cross in 
 Puritans. baptism, of the ring in marriage, of 
 bowing at the name of Jesus, of the lessons 
 from the Apocrypha in public worship, and 
 the omission of the cap and surplice ; that the 
 music used in the churches be made plainer and 
 simpler ; that the Lord's day be hallowed ; 
 that none be made ministers who were unable to 
 preach ; that candidates for the Communion be 
 examined as to their fitness ; and that discipline 
 be attended to more strictly. 1 
 
 1 Gardner's History of England from the Accession of James I., 
 vol. i. 163. 
 
THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND. 37 
 
 These proposals were certainly moderate ; the 
 most of them have been long ago adopted by the 
 English Church. The Petition was an honest 
 effort at comprehension which would have led to 
 important results if it had been welcomed by the 
 king and the bishops. Lord Bacon, who was far 
 from being a Puritan, sent forth at that time a 
 plea that things which are not essential be left 
 " to the holy wisdom and spiritual discretion of 
 the master builders and inferior builders in 
 Christ's Church." He advised the king that it 
 would be proper and expedient to institute such 
 reforms as those which the Puritans had asked 
 for. 1 
 
 King James received the Millenary Petition 
 graciously, and promised a conference of bishops 
 and divines in which it should be discussed. 
 Ten months later, he summoned four Puritan 
 ministers to meet the Archbishop of Canterbury, 
 and eight of the bishops, and seven deans, at 
 Hampton Court. The proposals of the Puritans 
 were discussed for three days ; the King himself, 
 who has been called the " wisest fool in Christ- 
 endom," took the leading part in the discussion. 
 One suggestion of the Puritan divines for a new 
 translation of the Bible was received with favor. 
 This was afterwards carried out, and the author- 
 
 1 Bacon's Works. Montagu's Edition, vol. ii. 420-430, on the 
 Pacification of the Church. 
 
38 THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND AND NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 ized version of 1611 was the result. But the 
 propositions for a reform in the Church met the 
 decided opposition of the king and of all the 
 bishops. They were unwilling that any matters 
 of form or ceremony should be left to the discre- 
 tion of the clergyman who conducted the public 
 services. " I will have one doctrine, one disci- 
 pline, one religion, in substance and in cere- 
 mony," said King James ; " I will make them 
 conform, or I will harry them out of the land, or 
 else worse." The aged Archbishop of Canterbury 
 exclaimed : " Undoubtedly your Majesty spake 
 by the special assistance of God's spirit." And 
 Bancroft, the Bishop of London, fell on his knees, 
 and said, " There has been no such king since 
 Christ's time." Soon after, the Convocation, with 
 the approval of the king, passed a series of canons 
 which forbade, on penalty of excommunication, 
 the least deviation from the Prayer Book, or any 
 disparagement of the established system of gov- 
 ernment and worship in the Church. 
 
 XL 
 
 THE Puritans were disappointed, but not cast 
 down. They had hoped for favorable changes 
 from the new king. He had been bred a Pres- 
 byterian, and a Calvinist; he had subscribed to 
 the Solemn League and Covenant, and had 
 
THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND. 39 
 
 praised the Scottish Church as the " sincerest 
 in the world." He had spoken, while in Scot- 
 land, of the Anglican Service as "an evil said 
 Mass in English." 1 They had hoped that one 
 coming from another Protestant nation would 
 be prepared to mediate between the parties in 
 the English Church ; and they expected that he 
 would receive with favor the proposals for union 
 with liberty, and mutual charity. The grand op- 
 portunity of uniting English-speaking Protestants 
 in one Church, with one way of worship, was lost, 
 and the divisions, which have lasted till our own 
 time, have resulted from the mistakes of that 
 critical time. 
 
 The half century, that followed the accession 
 of James the First, was the great age of Puritan- 
 ism. The contest soon passed beyond ecclesi- 
 astical matters, and became political as well as 
 religious. The king opposed his prerogative 
 to the Constitutional rights of Parliament, and 
 of the people of England. The Puritans took 
 the lead in this contest on the side of liberty in 
 the state as well as in the Church. 
 
 XII. 
 
 THE causes which led to this broadening of 
 the questions in debate are not far to seek. The 
 first is to be found in the fact of the union of 
 
 1 Neal's Puritans, part ii. ch. I. 
 
4O THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND AND NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 Church and state. The new king assumed for 
 himself prerogatives which had never been con- 
 10 f ceded by the English people, and he was 
 supported in these claims by the prel- 
 the contest. a t e s of the Established Church. So that 
 the Puritans, in their contention for the right to 
 worship according to their convictions, found the 
 power of the king and of his council arrayed 
 against them. The character of the new king 
 also gave a new turn to the controversy. Eliza- 
 beth had been diplomatic, if not always sincere. 
 She knew how to keep in touch with her people, 
 and she never attempted to force upon them a 
 great measure to which they were op- 
 
 Characterof -f 
 
 james the posed. I he greatness of the queen 
 was shown when she acknowledged 
 her mistakes to her people, and adopted the 
 measures which they called for. But James 
 never understood the English people. He al- 
 lowed himself to drift into a position of opposi- 
 tion to their wishes. He was as obstinate as he 
 was wrong-headed. He dissolved one Parliament 
 after another because the Commons insisted, by 
 a very large majority, upon calling for a redress 
 of grievances before voting the supplies. He 
 said at one time, " As it is atheism and blasphemy 
 to dispute what God can do ; so it is presump- 
 tion and a high contempt in a subject to dispute 
 what a king can do." 
 
THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND. 41 
 
 The position which the clergy of the Estab- 
 lished Church assumed as the defenders of the 
 royal prerogative, and of the divine right of 
 kings, and of the duty of passive obedience, 
 tended to give a political character to The D ivine 
 the contest. When the king joined ^gut of Kings, 
 with the Church in setting forth these arbitrary 
 claims, the Puritans were led by the logic of 
 events to take the lead in asserting the liberties 
 of the people. " England is the last monarchy 
 that retains her liberties," said Sir Thomas 
 Phillips ; " let them not perish now." 
 
 Another reason if we accept the views of 
 the most eminent English historians was their 
 theological system. " Logically carried Calvinlsmand 
 out," says Mr. Campbell, " Calvinism is the Rights of 
 democratic in its teachings." "The 
 meanest peasant," says Mr. J. R. Green, " once 
 called of God, felt within him a strength that 
 was stronger than the might of kings. In 
 that mighty elevation of the masses, which was 
 embodied in the Calvinistic doctrines of election 
 and grace, lay the germs of the modern princi- 
 ples of human equality." 1 Whether we accept this 
 theory of the natural tendency of the system of 
 the Genevan reformer or not, it is true historically 
 that Calvinists have always stood for the rights 
 of the people in opposition to arbitrary power. 
 
 1 Green, vol. iii. 45. Campbell, vol. ii. 10-12. See also Froude, 
 Bancroft, Fiske, and others. 
 
42 THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND AND NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 The High Church party began at this time to 
 put forth claims which separated them further 
 than before from the Non-Conformists. 
 Right of In the reign of Elizabeth, Prelacy had 
 Episcopacy. ] Deen advocated as a form of church gov- 
 ernment which stood upon its merits as a useful 
 and ancient polity. 1 The great men of that age 
 never denied that a church without a bishop 
 might be a true church, or that a minister, who 
 had not received Episcopal ordination, might have 
 a true and valid commission. They recognized 
 the Protestant churches on the continent as true 
 churches. In repeated instances the English 
 Church had recognized Presbyterian ordination 
 as valid, and had admitted Presbyterian ministers 
 to benefices in the English Church without re-or- 
 dination. It was held that the Prayer Book did 
 not require such re-ordination. This liberal spirit 
 of fellowship with Protestant churches that were 
 not Episcopal was very grateful to the Non-Con- 
 formists. A recent writer has stated that the 
 doctrine of Apostolical Succession was not to 
 be found in the writings of the Elizabethan 
 divines until the celebrated sermon of Bishop 
 Bancroft was preached, in the year of the des- 
 truction of the Armada. 2 A more conservative 
 
 1 Macaulay, vol. i. 58, 59. Green, iii. 157, 158. Campbell, 
 ii. 367- 
 
 2 Contemporary Review, November, 1892, 437. See also articles 
 in The Guardian and The Church Quarterly, 1890. 
 
THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND. 43 
 
 statement is this: that the great divines of the 
 time of Elizabeth did not claim that ordination 
 by bishops was essential to a valid commission as 
 a minister. This is plainly the view of Hooker 
 in his Ecclesiastical Polity. 1 The broad and 
 generous spirit which he sought to impart to the 
 Church, would, if it had been carried out, have 
 prevented the division of Protestant England into 
 two hostile camps. 
 
 But in the time of James it began to be claimed, 
 by leading clergymen, that Prelacy was essential 
 to the existence of a church, or the validity of 
 Christian ordinances. " They claimed," says Ma- 
 caulay, " a celestial origin for the polity of the 
 Episcopal Church, and ascribed a new dignity 
 and importance to her services. Some practices 
 which had been long disused, and which were 
 commonly regarded as superstitious mummeries, 
 were revived." 2 In the time of Elizabeth, for 
 example, the Communion table had stood almost 
 always in the midst of the church. But in the 
 time of Charles the First, a royal decree required 
 its removal to the place in the nave of the church, 
 which it had occupied before the Reformation. 
 The priests wore the cap and the surplice during 
 the time of the service ; but they often wore the 
 
 1 Ecclesiastical Polity vii. ch. xiv. II. Green, vol. iii. 31. 
 
 2 Macaulay's England, vol. i. 60. Campbell, vol. ii. 222. 
 Green, vol. iii. 16. 
 
44 THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND AND NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 Genevan gown in the pulpit. In the chapel of 
 Lambeth House, the stained glass was removed 
 from the windows, in order that there might be 
 more light for the people to follow the lessons. 
 The Communion table was moved into the middle 
 of the chapel, the credence table was destroyed, 
 the cope was no longer used as a special vestment 
 in the Communion, and the archbishop forbore to 
 bow at the name of Jesus. The aspect of Eng- 
 lish churches, and of English worship, in the 
 reign of Elizabeth, says Mr. Green, " tended more 
 and more to the model of Geneva." But under 
 the Stuarts the forms of worship were brought 
 nearer to the ritual of the Church of Rome. 
 Some of the bishops, and a large number of 
 the clergy, advocated the doctrine of the Real- 
 presence in the Sacrament, and the practice of 
 auricular confession, and of praying for the 
 dead. 
 
 Last of all, the fact that the Puritans had be- 
 come a leading party perhaps a majority in 
 the kingdom, led them to make questions of the 
 reform of the Church the leading questions in 
 the Parliamentary debates. They were entirely 
 loyal to the king ; but their love of liberty, in the 
 state as well as in the Church, their English 
 pluck and stamina, required them to stand for the 
 rights of the people. 
 
THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND. 45 
 
 So it came to pass that the Puritans became 
 the leading defenders of constitutional liberty in 
 the time of the Stuarts. They had a majority 
 in the first Parliament of James the First, which 
 met in 1604, The first act of the House me First 
 of Commons was to frame bills for J^^^ 1 
 the redress of ecclesiastical grievances. I604< 
 When these were rejected by the Lords, at the 
 instigation of the king the Commons sent a very 
 bold address to the king, in which they said, 
 that Parliament had come together in the spirit 
 of peace ; that they desired to put an end to 
 the dissension among the ministers, and to pre- 
 serve uniformity by the abandonment of a few 
 ceremonies of small importance, by the redress of 
 grievances, and by training a preaching ministry. 
 They said : " Let your Majesty be pleased to 
 receive from your Commons in Parliament infor- 
 mation as well of the abuses in the Church, as in 
 the civil state and government." " Your Majesty 
 would be misinformed, if any man should deliver 
 that the kings of England have any absolute 
 power in themselves, either to alter religion, or to 
 make any laws concerning the same, otherwise 
 than by consent of Parliament." 
 
 The king did not profit by the advice of the 
 
46 THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND AND NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 Commons, and, after some further conferences, the 
 Parliament was adjourned. The High Church 
 party, with the assent of the king, set aside the 
 compromises that had been observed in the time 
 of Elizabeth, and adopted a series of canons which 
 increased the pressure upon the Non-Conformists. 
 Three hundred ministers, who were unable to 
 comply with the new demands of the Convocation, 
 were driven from their parishes in 1605. Ten 
 men who had presented a petition for reform, were 
 sent to prison, because, as the judges said, " Such 
 things tend to sedition and rebellion." The Con- 
 vocation formally asserted the divine right of 
 kings, and the duty of passive obedience. Test 
 oaths were imposed upon students entering the 
 universities. The Convocation denounced as a 
 fatal error the assertion that all power and au- 
 thority are from the people. In accordance with 
 these declarations was that of the University of 
 Oxford, that it is never lawful for subjects to take 
 up arms against their princes. 
 
 The king assumed the right to levy duties 
 upon certain classes of goods without the consent 
 of Parliament. As soon as Parliament came to- 
 gether, they asserted their right to determine what 
 impositions should be made. They also asked 
 that the ministers who had been silenced should 
 be permitted to preach ; and that the jurisdiction 
 of Ecclesiastical Courts should be regulated by 
 
THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND. 47 
 
 law. The king insisted upon his prerogative, and 
 in 1611 dissolved his first Parliament. 
 
 For three years, he tried the experiment of gov- 
 erning without a Parliament, while the people 
 were gradually coming to the point of 
 
 J . r The Second 
 
 governing the state without a king. " A parliament, 
 people may be without a king," said a 
 leading member of Parliament, " but a king cannot 
 be without a people." In 1614, he convened his 
 second Parliament. In this body the great Parlia- 
 mentary leaders appeared, for the first time, John 
 Pym, Sir John Eliot, and Thomas Wentworth. 
 This Parliament refused to vote supplies until 
 they had attended to the public grievances. They 
 fixed upon the abuses of the Church as the first 
 grievance to be redressed. The king dissolved this 
 Parliament after a session of only two months. 
 
 For the next seven years no Parliament was 
 summoned. The king attempted to raise money 
 by loans and benevolences. He sent letters to the 
 wealthy land-owners, asking for money to meet the 
 expenses of the government ; but the letters were 
 not answered. In three years only sixty thousand 
 pounds were raised. The judges were appealed to, 
 but in vain. The Chief Justice, Sir Edward Coke, 
 told the king that the laws of England were the 
 supreme rule, and that when any cause came be- 
 fore him he should act as it became a judge to 
 act. He was dismissed from his office ; but this 
 only increased the difficulties of the king. 
 
48 THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND AND NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 In 1621, a third Parliament was convened. The 
 king forbade them to discuss matters of state, and 
 
 Thir threatened to commit to the Tower those 
 parliament, who opposed his demands. They re- 
 162I> plied, that the rights and privileges of 
 
 Parliament are the birthright of the English peo- 
 ple ; that the making of laws and the redress 
 of grievances are proper subjects of debate in Par- 
 liament ; and that every member has, and of right 
 ought to have, freedom of speech. The king, in 
 his rage, sent for the Journals of the House, and 
 tore out the pages which contained the record of 
 The Fourth t ^ s P rote station, and dissolved the Par- 
 pariiament, liament. Three years later, he called 
 his fourth and last Parliament, which 
 proved to be as fearless and as far-sighted as those 
 that had gone before. The next year, the king 
 died, having failed in all his plans to check the 
 rising spirit of liberty in the nation. 
 
 The great leaders during this reign were 
 Hampden, Pym, Eliot, Coke, and Selden. They 
 were not all Puritans ; but they were agreed in 
 demanding their rights, and the rights of the peo- 
 ple. The Archbishop of Canterbury, in the later 
 years of James, was Dr. George Abbott, a man of 
 gentle spirit, and of great learning, who was dis- 
 posed to favor the Puritans so far as he could 
 without violating the laws of the Church. It was 
 commonly believed at the time that he was more 
 
THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND. 49 
 
 than half a Puritan. His name stands second 
 among the translators of the Bible. In his time, 
 the service in Lambeth Chapel was almost as 
 simple as that in Presbyterian churches. He for- 
 bade the reading of the proclamation of King 
 James, permitting sports and pastimes on the 
 Sabbath. He refused to license the publication 
 of a sermon in which the king's prerogative was 
 unduly magnified; he tried to moderate the 
 severity of the persecution of the Non-Conformists, 
 and to secure a compromise between the parties. 
 In this the Archbishop did not stand alone among 
 those who were devoted to the Established Church. 
 There was a large minority among the clergy, as 
 well as among the laity, who, while they did not 
 scruple to conform to the ritual of the Church, 
 joined heartily with the Puritans in their opposition 
 to the arbitrary measures of the Stuarts, and in 
 their demand for liberty in the Church. It was 
 their misfortune that they were overborne by the 
 extreme men who had been selected to fill the 
 more prominent positions in the Church. 
 
 XIV. 
 
 IT was during the reign of James the First that 
 the settlement of New England was begun. The 
 Pilgrim Fathers, and the Puritans, who laid the 
 foundations of these States, had been trained for 
 
 4 
 
5<D THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND AND NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 their work in the conflicts that were going on in 
 England in the earlier part of the seventeenth 
 century. They had seen thousands of the Prot- 
 estants of France and of the Netherlands driven 
 into exile, and they were becoming accustomed 
 to the thought that they must cross the sea, and 
 plant a New England in the New World. The 
 me Thirty Thirty Years War had already begun, 
 Years war. an( j fa e Parliament and people of Eng- 
 land had called in vain upon the king to throw 
 the great power of England into the scale, on the 
 side of the struggling Protestants. But James 
 was seeking to strengthen his dynasty by a matri- 
 monial alliance with Spain, the most cruel of 
 the persecutors of the Protestants. When this 
 plan failed, he turned to France, and entered 
 into negotiations for the marriage of his eldest 
 son with a French princess. But the rumor 
 of it awakened the opposition of the Puritans. 
 The French They knew the danger of introducing 
 a Roman Catholic queen, with her 
 French attendants, at such a critical time. They 
 also resented the stipulations to which the king 
 had consented of relaxing the laws against the 
 Romanists, as the price of the alliance, because 
 those stipulations would furnish a pretext to a 
 foreign government to interfere in the civil affairs 
 of England. They foresaw that the French alli- 
 ance would bring into the royal family influences 
 
THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND. 51 
 
 that would weaken the hold of the Reformation 
 upon the nation. In fact, the prospects of the 
 Protestant Reformation in Europe had never been 
 so dark as they were in the last years of James 
 the First. 
 
 XV. 
 
 Tjar Pilgrim Fathers, who began the settle- 
 ment of New England in 1620, came from the 
 northern counties of England. " They were from 
 several villages," says their historian, Governor 
 ^Bradford, ^some in Nottingham, some in Lin- 
 coln, and some in Yorkshire, where they bordered 
 nearest together." A number of zeal- Thepugrim 
 ous preachers had been going about in Fathers ' I604 
 these northern hamlets, teaching the people from 
 the Word of God, and moving them to reform 
 their lives. We are not told who these preachers 
 were, but their success was so great that there 
 was already a beginning of persecution. These 
 people formed themselves into two Independent 
 churches, which met from week to week on the 
 Lord's day for worship. One was at Gains- 
 borough-upon-Trent, which had as its minister 
 John Smith, and which left the country for 
 Amsterdam, under stress of persecution, in 1606. 
 The other church, in which we are especially 
 interested, was at Scrooby. It met for worship 
 in the chapel of the old manor-house, which was 
 
52 THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND AND NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 at that time under the control of Mr. William 
 Brewster, who was looking after the mails for the 
 government, and who was also the agent for the 
 Archbishop of York, for the care of the manor- 
 house. The place was described as a " mean 
 townlet," and it is hardly more than that to-day. 
 The ministers of this church were Mr. Richard 
 Clipton "a grave and reverend preacher who 
 had done much good" and Mr. John Robin- 
 son, "a famous and worthy man," a graduate 
 john f Corpus-Christi, in Cambridge, where 
 
 Robinson. ^ e attained a Fellowship. During the 
 four years from 1600 to 1604, he had been a 
 teacher or lecturer at Norwich. He was sus- 
 pended by the Bishop on account of his Puritan 
 tendencies. He made efforts to obtain the right 
 to preach in some chapel, or to secure the master- 
 ship in the Hospital. It was in such humble 
 positions as these that many of the ministers 
 who had been silenced for non-conformity con- 
 tinued to preach. But Robinson did not secure 
 a chapel or a lectureship, and so he went into the 
 north country, where he found the two Separa- 
 tist churches. They were already enduring per- 
 secution. " Some were taken and clapped up in 
 prisons, others had their houses beset, and watched 
 night and day, and hardly escaped their hands ; 
 and the most were fain to fly, and leave their 
 livelihood. Seeing themselves thus molested, 
 
THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND. 53 
 
 and that there was no hope of their continuance 
 there, by a joint consent they resolved to go into 
 the Low Countries, where they had heard was 
 freedom of religion for all men. So, after they 
 had continued together about a year, and kept 
 their meetings in one place or another, exercising 
 the worship of God amongst themselves, not- 
 withstanding all the diligence and malice of their 
 adversaries, they, seeing they could no longer 
 continue in that condition, resolved to get over 
 into Holland as they could, which was in the 
 year 1607 and 1608." l 
 
 These religious people were countrymen, " used 
 to a plain country life and the innocent trade 
 of husbandry." They were going to a strange 
 country where they must learn a new language, 
 and get their living they knew not how ; for they 
 were not acquainted with trades nor traffic. 
 " But their desires were set on the 
 
 Condition and 
 
 ways of God, says their historian, spirit of the 
 "and to enjoy His ordinances; and so 
 they trusted His providence. But they found 
 the ports and havens shut against them, so that 
 although they could not stay, yet were they not 
 permitted to go." A large company of them 
 purposed to sail from Boston in Lincolnshire; 
 and they hired a ship to take them and their 
 goods to Holland. But when they had gone on 
 
 1 Bradford's History of Plymouth Colony, chap. i. 
 
54 THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND AND NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 board, the master of the ship betrayed them to 
 the officers who were watching for them. They 
 were taken back to the town, rifled by the officers 
 of much of their money and other goods, and com- 
 mitted to prison. After a month's imprisonment, 
 the greater part were set at liberty; but some of 
 the principal men were kept in prison. In the 
 course of time they were set at liberty, and this 
 large company of plain people managed to sub- 
 sist through the winter. It is not easy to see how, 
 for they had broken up their homes, and sold 
 their property. 
 
 In the spring following, they made another at- 
 tempt to reach Holland. They made an agree- 
 ment with a Dutch shipmaster to take them to 
 Zealand. At the appointed time the women and 
 me Departure children with the goods were sent in 
 for Holland. a sma ll bark, and the men were to 
 meet them by land. The bark arrived one day 
 before the ship came, and ran aground in low 
 water. While they were waiting for the tide, 
 the ship came, and took on board a boat-load 
 of the men who were on the shore. Before the 
 others could get to the ship, a company of armed 
 men with officers appeared and took them into 
 custody, with the women and children. The 
 Dutch shipmaster, seeing that the most of his 
 passengers were gone, hoisted sail and went on 
 his voyage with such passengers as he had. 
 
THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND. 55 
 
 " Pitiful it was," says Bradford, " to see the heavy 
 case of these poor women in their distress : what 
 weeping and crying on every side, some for 
 their husbands that were carried away in the 
 ship ; others not knowing what should become 
 of them and their little ones ; others melted in 
 tears, seeing their poor little ones hanging about 
 them crying for fear and quaking with cold. 
 Being thus apprehended, they were hurried from 
 one place to another, and from one justice to 
 another, until in the end they knew not what to 
 do with them. For to imprison so many helpless 
 women and children for no other cause but that 
 they would go with their husbands, seemed to be 
 unreasonable, and all would cry out of them: and 
 to send them home again was as difficult, for they 
 alleged (as the truth was) they had no homes to 
 go to, for they had sold or otherwise disposed of 
 their houses and livings. After they had been 
 in these troubles a good while, and conveyed 
 from one constable to another, they were glad to 
 be rid of them upon any terms ; though, in the 
 mean time, the poor souls endured misery enoug- 
 In the end they all got over, some at one time, 
 and some at another, and met again according 
 to their desires, with no small rejoicing." JMr. 
 I\obinson and Mr. Brewster and the other lead- 
 ing men of the company remained in England 
 tojielp the women and children, so that they 
 
56 THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND AND NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 came to Holland last. The whole party was 
 gathered in Amsterdam. Such were the experi- 
 ences of these plain country people who were 
 fleeing from their native land in the years that 
 followed the Hampton Court Conference. By 
 such constancy in suffering they were preparing 
 for the great mission, which was to come to 
 them twelve years later, to lay the foundations 
 for a new Christian Commonwealth beyond the 
 sea. 
 
 The next year they removed to Leyden, " a fair 
 and beautiful city," where " they fell into such 
 trades and employments as they best could, and 
 at length they came to raise a competent and 
 comfortable living with hard and continual labor." 
 Mr. Robinson was duly chosen their pastor, and 
 Mr. Brewster their elder. "And so they grew in 
 knowledge and other gifts and graces of the Spirit 
 of God, and lived together in peace and love and 
 holiness. And many came unto them from divers 
 parts of England, so that they grew to be a great 
 congregation." That " fair and beautiful city " 
 was their dwelling-place for about twelve years. 
 Life in The friendly Dutch people saw that 
 
 Leyden. fa e y were diligent in their callings ; and 
 they gave them their confidence and favor, and 
 strove to get their custom, and to employ them 
 above others in their work, on account of their 
 honesty and diligence. The magistrates of the 
 
THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND. 57 
 
 city gave this testimony of them about the time 
 of their coming away : " These English have 
 lived amongst us now this twelve years, and yet 
 we have never had any suit or accusation against 
 any of them." 
 
 In due time it became plain to these Godly 
 people that it was expedient for them to make 
 one more removal. They had been hospitably 
 entertained in Holland, and had enjoyed liberty 
 of conscience there. They had continued to 
 worship God on the Lord's day, according to their 
 simple Congregational way, no man for- Reasonsforthe 
 bidding them. But that was not their removal from 
 country. There was no room to establish 
 a new commonwealth. Their children were not 
 likely to continue to use the English language, nor 
 to follow the customs of the English people. They 
 would be likely to become mingled with the people 
 of the land in which they dwelt. They had heard 
 much of the unpeopled countries of America. 
 They had a " great hope and inward zeal of laying 
 some good foundations for the propagating and 
 advancing the Gospel of the kingdom of Christ 
 in those remote parts of the world ; yea, though 
 they should be but as stepping-stones unto others 
 for preparing of so great a work." So, with much 
 difficulty, they obtained a patent from the Vir- 
 ginia Company, and made preparations for their 
 voyage. " They knew they were Pilgrims, and 
 
58 THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND AND NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 looked not much on those things, but lifted up 
 their eyes to Heaven, their dearest country, and 
 quieted their spirits." 
 
 XVI. 
 
 IT is not the purpose of this chapter to follow 
 them in their voyage, or to trace the history of 
 their settlement at Plymouth, but only to show 
 by what experiences they were prepared for their 
 great mission. " Through scenes of gloom and 
 misery," says Mr. Bancroft, " the Pilgrims showed 
 the way to an asylum for those who would go to 
 the wilderness for liberty of conscience. Endur- 
 ing every hardship themselves, they were the ser- 
 vants of posterity, the benefactors of succeeding 
 generations." " Out of small beginnings," said 
 Governor Bradford, "great things have been pro- 
 duced ; and as one small candle may light a thou- 
 sand, so the light here kindled hath shone to many, 
 in some sort to our whole nation." 
 
 The light did shine. There is abundant evidence 
 that the progress of that small colony, which went 
 to the New World in 1620, was watched with 
 great interest by the Puritan leaders who were 
 engaged in the struggle for civil and religious 
 liberty in England. " Let it not be grievous to 
 you," wrote some of the English Puritans to the 
 men of Plymouth, " that you have been instru- 
 
THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND. 59 
 
 mental to break the ice for others. The honor 
 shall be yours to the world's end." 
 
 'The Puritans were not ready to leave the old 
 country when the Pilgrims went, be- chariesthe 
 cause they were in the midst of the con- Rrst 162S - 
 test with James the First. When Charles became 
 king, in 1625, there were strong hopes that he 
 would profit by the experience of his father. He 
 had been popular as a prince. It was understood 
 that he was a decided Protestant, and that counted 
 for a great deal. It was believed that the young 
 king, who had lived so long among the English 
 people, would regard the will of the nation ; for 
 it was evident that England was becoming more 
 thoroughly Puritan every year. 
 
 But, unfortunately, the Duke of Buckingham 
 stood nearest to the king as his friend and adviser, 
 while Bishop Laud was his chief counsellor in 
 ecclesiastical matters. The pulpits of the Estab- 
 lished Church resounded with denunciations of the 
 Non-Conformists, and with the assertion of the doc- 
 trine of the divine right of kings, and of the duty 
 of passive obedience. Montague, a chaplain at 
 the court, advocated the doctrine of the Real- 
 presence in the Sacrament. Dr. Mainwaring 
 preached before the king that there was no need 
 to ask the consent of Parliament for the imposi- 
 tion of taxes, and that to resist the will of the 
 king was to incur eternal damnation. Both these 
 
6O THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND AND NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 clergymen were sent to prison by order of Parlia- 
 ment for their public utterances, but both were 
 set at liberty, and made bishops by order of the 
 king. Charles seemed only too ready to adopt 
 the principles which the High Church clergymen 
 were teaching. In May, he called together his first 
 Parliament, and asked for a grant of supplies. 
 They voted a hundred and forty thousand pounds, 
 and then proceeded to consider the public griev- 
 ances. The leading members of the House of 
 Commons had learned from their experiences 
 under James that the most effectual check upon 
 the arbitrary power of the king was the control 
 of the national treasury. They determined that 
 no grants of money should be voted except upon 
 condition of the redress of grievances. They made 
 the customary grant of the duties from customs, 
 but limited the grant to a single year, and then 
 proceeded to consider the complaints of the 
 people. " They saw," says Mr. Palfrey, " that the 
 time had come to determine whether the English 
 people should live in future under an absolute or 
 under a limited monarchy; and they launched 
 upon the course of measures which was to decide 
 that momentous question." l 
 
 Charles dissolved three Parliaments within four 
 years. He committed Sir John Eliot to the 
 Tower of London for his bold words in defence 
 
 1 Palfrey, vol. i. 265. 
 
THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND. 6 1 
 
 of the rights of the people. The House of Com- 
 mons refused to go on with the public business 
 until he was set at liberty. For ten sirjonn 
 days the king obstinately refused to Eliot * 
 release him. He finally yielded to the necessity 
 that was upon him, but soon dissolved the Parlia- 
 ment. After the dissolution, Charles attempted 
 to raise money by forced loans; but the people 
 refused to give anything save by way of Parlia- 
 ment. The Chief Justice refused to recognize 
 the legality of the taxes imposed by the author- 
 ity of the king, and he was summarily dismissed 
 from his office. John Hampden was thrown into 
 prison, because he refused to pay money that was 
 demanded without authority of law, in violation 
 of Magna Charta. The third Parliament, which 
 met in 1628, drew up the famous Petition of 
 Right, to which they asked the assent petition of 
 of the king, as the condition of the Ri8:llt ' 
 grant of money. In this Petition they demanded 
 that no taxes be hereafter levied without the con- 
 sent of Parliament ; that no person be fined, or 
 imprisoned, or in any way punished, without a 
 trial ; that martial law in time of peace, and the 
 billeting of soldiers upon the people, be discon- 
 tinued ; and that the rights and liberties of the 
 people, according to the laws and statutes of the 
 realm, be recognized by all the officers and minis- 
 ters of the king ; and especially that the writ of 
 
62 THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND AND NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 Habeas Corpus shall not be denied whenever the 
 law allows it. 1 To this Petition, after many 
 evasions, the king gave his assent in the usual 
 form : " Let right be done as is desired." The 
 bill for subsidies was immediately passed, and 
 the bells were rung, and the bonfires were lighted 
 in token of the joy of the people. 
 
 But the faithless king had no intention of keep- 
 ing the promises that he had given. Arbitrary 
 arrests were still made, and taxes and customs 
 were still levied, without authority of law. The 
 House of Commons refused to vote further 
 supplies until these grievances should be re- 
 dressed ; and when they found that the king had 
 determined upon a dissolution, they declared, by 
 formal resolutions, that whoever should bring in 
 innovations in religion, or should levy subsidies 
 not granted in Parliament, is a capital enemy to 
 Final Decia- the kingdom, and every subject volun- 
 pariSnfent, tar ^7 complying with illegal acts and 
 1629. demands is a betrayer of the liberty 
 
 of England, and an enemy of the same. 
 
 Thus the issue was joined between those who 
 stood for the ancient liberties of the people, and 
 the supporters of the arbitrary monarch. As 
 soon as Charles had dissolved this Parliament, he 
 entered upon that course of tyranny which, after 
 twelve years, led to the Great Rebellion. For 
 
 1 Neal's History of the Puritans, vol. i. 287, N. Y. Edition. 
 
THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND. 63 
 
 eleven years, he governed without a Parliament. 
 The leaders of the Commons in the last Parlia- 
 ment were thrown into prison. Sir John Eliot, 
 the boldest of the patriotic leaders, was subjected 
 to an imprisonment so severe that he The Tyranny 
 died after three years. Towards the f cnaries. 
 end of his life, the king was asked to order his 
 release for a time, in order that he might breathe 
 the fresh air, and gain some respite from the 
 attacks of disease. But he refused to grant even 
 this favor. After the death of Sir John, his son 
 requested permission to bury him in his native 
 county ; but the King replied, " Let Sir John 
 Eliot's body be buried in the church of that 
 parish where he died," that is, in the prison. 
 When the imprisoned patriots were claimed by 
 a writ of Habeas Corpus, the Lieutenant of the 
 Tower was forbidden to produce his prisoners in 
 court. They were condemned to pay heavy fines, 
 and to be imprisoned during the pleasure of the 
 king. Large sums of money were secured for 
 the Treasury by arbitrary fines, and by the sale 
 of Monopolies, which had been prohibited by 
 law since the time of Elizabeth. The customs 
 duties were collected without authority of law. 
 Those who protested against these illegal exac- 
 tions were ruined by excessive fines. Loans 
 were demanded in the king's name from the free- 
 holders in every shire. By such means as these 
 
64 THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND AND NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 the annual revenue was raised from half a million 
 to eight hundred thousand pounds ; and some of 
 the courtiers expressed the hope that " the king 
 would never need any more Parliaments." 
 
 While the king was carrying out his plans in 
 the government of England, Bishop Laud was 
 transforming the English Church. First, he 
 severed the ties which had united the Reformed 
 Churches of the continent with the Church of 
 England. He held that ordination by bishops 
 was essential to a valid ministry, and that the 
 Reformed Churches of Switzerland and of 
 Germany were not true Churches. The free- 
 dom of worship, which had been allowed to the 
 Protestant refugees from the Low Countries and 
 from France, was withdrawn, and those exiles 
 were required to conform to the ritual of the 
 Church of England, or to flee from the kingdom. 
 
 In 1633, Laud became Archbishop of Canter- 
 bury. He began at once to use the great power 
 of the court of High Commission to reduce the 
 Puritan ministers to submission. The offensive 
 ceremonies were strictly insisted upon. Every 
 minister who refused to conform to them was 
 silenced. The lectureships founded in towns, 
 which had been the refuge of the Puritan 
 preachers after they were silenced, were sup- 
 pressed by the Primate. He also withdrew the 
 privilege of keeping chaplains, because many 
 
THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND. 65 
 
 wealthy persons in the country had appointed 
 the suspended ministers as their preachers. The 
 Puritans had been buying up the appropria- 
 tions of livings in certain parishes, and they 
 attempted to secure, through feoffees, the right 
 to appoint their own ministers to the parishes 
 of which they were patrons; but the Arch- 
 bishop, by a stretch of power, put an end to 
 these feoffments. The people had become very 
 fond of the small pocket Bibles, with mar- 
 ginal notes, which had been imported from 
 Geneva ; but these marginal notes were obnoxious 
 to the Archbishop, and so the importation of 
 these Bibles was prohibited. Hundreds of laymen 
 were excommunicated for refusing to kneel when 
 they received the Communion. The English 
 people, under the influence of the Puritans, had 
 been accustomed to keep Sunday very strictly, 
 as they do to this day. But the Archbishop 
 ordered every minister to read from the pulpit 
 a declaration in favor of Sunday sports. Large 
 numbers were deprived of their livings, and 
 silenced, for refusing to read such a declaration. 
 One minister read the declaration to his people, 
 and then read the Ten Commandments, and said : 
 " You have heard the commands of man, and 
 the commands of God. Obey which you please." 
 The progress toward the doctrines and the 
 ceremonies of the Roman Catholic Church was 
 
 5 
 
66 THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND AND NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 rapid. It was this that touched the people most 
 deeply. " The Gospel," said Sir John Eliot, " is 
 that truth in which this kingdom has been happy 
 through a long and rare prosperity/' " Whenever 
 mention is made of danger to religion," said 
 another, "and of the increase of Popery, their 
 affections are much stirred." The Archbishop 
 was not a Romanist ; but he aimed at restoring 
 the pomp and splendor of Romanism in public 
 worship, and at bringing the Church into closer 
 relations with Rome. He avowed his preference 
 for a celibate clergy. Some of the bishops advo- 
 cated auricular confession, and prayers for the 
 dead. The doctrines of the Church of Rome 
 were preached in the pulpits from which the most 
 learned and devout ministers in the land had 
 Extreme been ejected. Laud was backed by the 
 power of the king, who was determined 
 f- o roo f- Qut Puritanism from the king- 
 dom, while the prelates were preaching passive 
 obedience, and turning religion into a systematic 
 attack on English liberty. In the pages of Neal, 
 one may still find the record of the petty perse- 
 cution which was carried into the most distant 
 and obscure parishes of the kingdom. Every 
 minister who hesitated to conform to any of the 
 requirements of the Established Church, in regard 
 to vestments, or ceremonies, or the manner of 
 observing Sunday, was pursued with unrelenting 
 
THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND. 6/ 
 
 vigilance. It was not enough to deprive him of 
 his living. He must not preach in the fields, or 
 in a private house. He must not teach a school, 
 or take private pupils. He must not practise 
 medicine, or engage in business. He was liable 
 to arrest for his non-conformity, and to heavy fines 
 and imprisonment. Those ministers who became 
 the first pastors of the churches in New England, 
 had almost all of them been silenced for non-con- 
 formity. Several of them had been imprisoned. 
 Some of the most eminent of them were fleeing 
 from the officers when they took passage for 
 America. 
 
 There is no more graphic picture of the con- 
 dition of England at that time than the few lines 
 of " Lycidas," one of the early poems Muton's 
 of that foremost Englishman of his age, " L y cidas -" 
 John Milton. In his tender lament at the too 
 early death of his friend Lycidas, he contrasts his 
 pure and beautiful life with the lives of those who 
 
 " for their bellies' sake, 
 Creep, and intrude, and climb into the fold. 
 Of other care they little reckoning make, 
 Than how to scramble at the shearer's feast, 
 And shove away the worthy bidden guest : 
 Blind mouths ! that scarce themselves know how to hold 
 A sheep hook." 
 
 The hungry sheep look up, and are not fed ; " 
 while the "grim wolf" of Rome, 
 
68 THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND AND NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 " with privy paw, 
 
 Daily devours apace, and nothing said : 
 But that two-handed engine at the door 
 Stands ready to smite once, and smite no more." 
 
 Milton says of himself, that when he came to 
 some maturity of years, he perceived " that tyr- 
 anny had invaded the Church, and that he who 
 Milton's Non- would take orders must subscribe slave, 
 conformity. an( j ta ^ e an oat h w ithal," so that he 
 
 thought it better to give up the sacred office, 
 rather than to obtain it by " servitude and for- 
 swearing." Milton was but one of many of the 
 cultured and devout young men from the univer- 
 sities who found themselves shut out from the 
 National Church by its lack of toleration. 
 
 XVII. 
 
 THAT which is called the bigotry of the Puri- 
 tans was the result of such experiences as these. 
 Their spirit was that of soldiers in an enemy's 
 country, encompassed by adroit and treacherous 
 enemies, and standing for their rights as English- 
 men and Protestant Christians. It may be that 
 men who have to contend with such kin^s 
 
 TheBigotry Vi i T_ 
 
 of the as the Stuarts are likely to become narrow. 
 
 ritans. j n ^ con J ct f Qr fa e T [gfa to Worship 
 
 according to their consciences, such men would 
 be likely to develop the sterner virtues. With a 
 
THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND. 69 
 
 great price, they obtained the freedom which we 
 enjoy, and so long as the conflict lasted, they 
 belonged to the Church militant. That which we 
 call their narrowness was the result of their vigi- 
 lance. They crossed the ocean to be free from 
 the power of the prelates and of Rome, and it is 
 not surprising that they claimed the right to 
 exclude from their new plantations those who 
 seemed to them to be unfriendly to their great 
 purpose. We who have entered into the heritage 
 which they gained, have little right to judge them 
 by the standards of an age of peace and luxury. 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 THE great Puritan migration to New England 
 began in the darkest hour of the struggle for con- 
 stitutional and religious liberty. King Charles 
 had determined to govern without a Parliament, in 
 defiance of the will of the people. There seemed 
 to be no available means of carrying out the will 
 of the people, when it was resisted by the power 
 of the king. It rested with him to summon a 
 Parliament when he pleased, and he could dis- 
 solve it when it interfered with his plans. By a 
 careful economy, and by maintaining peace with 
 foreign powers, Charles had reduced the expenses 
 of the government to the smallest practicable 
 sum, and this he succeeded in obtaining by means 
 
7O THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND AND NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 which were indeed illegal, but which it was not 
 easy to interrupt. The judges held their offices 
 Means of sus- during the pleasure of the king, and, 
 SSJJ^ ' m many instances, they became sub- 
 tle King, servient to his will. The moral power 
 of the Established Church was used by the Pri- 
 mate to sustain the personal government. 
 
 When Charles was dissolving his third Parlia- 
 ment, he granted the Charter which established the 
 The settle- Colony of Massachusetts. Men thought 
 ment of Mas- they saw the hand of Providence pointing 
 them to the lands beyond the sea as the 
 place where they could realize their ideal of a 
 free Church in a free state. The Puritans did 
 not all give up the contest. The great majority 
 remained to continue the struggle that was to 
 result in the overthrow of the personal govern- 
 ment and the vindication of the rights of the 
 people. It is an interesting fact, however, that at 
 one time even John Hampden purchased a tract 
 of land in New England, with a view to leading 
 a colony there. There is a tradition that Oliver 
 Cromwell was only prevented from going by a 
 royal embargo. The Puritan Lord Warwick 
 bought a tract of land in the Connecticut valley, 
 and Lord Saye and Sele and Lord Brooke at one 
 time expected to transport themselves to Massa- 
 chusetts. It was better, however, that these lead- 
 ers who were engaged in the struggle in England 
 
THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND. 
 
 remained behind, and that younger men, who 
 were not needed at home, led the colony across 
 the sea. Those who went away were not 
 inferior to those who stayed behind. Though sep- 
 arated by the breadth of the Atlantic, the two 
 sections of the Puritan party continued in full 
 sympathy with each other, each section carrying 
 out, in its own way, and according to its environ- 
 ment, the principles which they held in common. 
 The plan for emigration had been under discus- 
 sion in the Puritan families for a long time. Sir 
 John Eliot, while a prisoner in the Tower, corre- 
 sponded with John Hampden about it. 1 A notable 
 " agreement " was entered into at Cambridge, in 
 1629, for the settlement of New England, signed 
 by John Winthrop, William Pynchon, Isaac 
 Johnson, Thomas Dudley, and others. The emi- 
 gration was on a large scale. Endicott went to 
 Salem in 1628, with forty or fifty persons; four 
 hundred came with Higginson in 1629; eight 
 hundred arrived with Governor Winthrop in 1630. 
 Up to the time of the meeting of the Long Par- 
 liament, in 1640, the average number of emigrants 
 was about two thousand a year. After the meet- 
 ing of the Long Parliament, very few came over, 
 as the Puritans in England had gained a position 
 which gave them the assurance of success. 
 
 1 Life of Winthrop. 
 
72 THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND AND NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 XIX. 
 
 THE struggle in England had been going on 
 through all those years. The most important 
 events were connected with the efforts of the king 
 to collect money without the authority of Parlia- 
 ment. The law officers of the crown had found 
 me SMP- precedents for collecting money from 
 Money. fa Q p Or t towns to equip ships for 
 
 the navy. Writs were issued, and the money 
 was paid by the towns on the coast. But, it was 
 argued, the obligation to support the royal navy 
 rests as much upon the people who live away 
 from the sea, as upon those in the port towns. So 
 that it was claimed that all the people of England 
 were bound to pay ship-money. A quarter of a 
 million a year was collected in this way. But, 
 the ministers of the king reasoned, if the people 
 of England are bound to pay ship-money to sup- 
 port the navy, they are under an equal obligation 
 to pay ship-money to support the army, and to 
 meet all the expenses of the government. If such 
 claims as these were allowed, it was plain that 
 there would be no need of the authority of Parlia- 
 ment for the collection of the revenue. 
 
 It was John Hampden who brought the question 
 before the courts. The trial of this case, in 1637, 
 attracted the attention of the whole country. It 
 
THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND. 73 
 
 lasted twelve days. In the end, seven of the 
 twelve judges decided that no statute prohibiting 
 arbitrary taxation could be pleaded against the 
 king's will. " Rex is lex," said the judges. " Acts 
 of Parliament to take away the king's royal power 
 in the defence of his kingdom are void." The 
 king and his courtiers exulted over the decision ; 
 but the people of England were aroused to a sense 
 of the danger to their liberties. Hampden had 
 gained his purpose by the publicity of the proceed- 
 ings ; and from that day the people never forgot 
 the lesson of that historic trial. The struggle 
 began in Scotland. The Scottish people renewed 
 their covenant, and gathered an army to resist the 
 efforts of Charles to introduce the Episcopal forms 
 of worship into their churches. The Scottish war 
 made it necessary for the king to summon a Par- 
 liament, which met in April, 1640. The king 
 asked for grants of money to put down the Scottish 
 rebellion. But the Commons declared that no 
 subsidy could be granted till security was had for 
 religion, and the rights of the people. Charles 
 dissolved the Parliament after a session of three 
 weeks. This dissolution added to the determina- 
 tion of the people. The king found it impossi- 
 ble by any expedients to raise money to meet the 
 expenses of the war, and before the year ended he 
 was forced to summon another Parliament. While 
 the elections were pending, Hampden and Pym 
 
74 THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND AND NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 rode together through the counties to rouse the 
 people to a sense of the crisis which was upon 
 them. When the Houses came together, the first 
 The Long week was spent in receiving petitions 
 parliament. o f grievances, which came pouring in 
 from every county and borough. A list of the 
 officers, who had executed the illegal orders of the 
 king, was prepared. The oppression and persecu- 
 tion of Laud and his instruments were passed in 
 review. Straff ord was impeached and sent to the 
 Tower. The Archbishop followed him soon after. 
 The Puritans whose ears had been cropped off, 
 and who had been sentenced to imprisonment for 
 life, were set at liberty, and were received in Lon- 
 don with great honor, as the martyrs of liberty. 
 The House of Commons declared the collection 
 of ship-money illegal, and passed a statute which 
 put a final end to the claim of a right to im- 
 pose taxes of any sort without the consent of 
 Parliament. Another act required the assembly 
 of Parliament once in three years, and made it 
 the duty of the returning officers to proceed with 
 the elections if the king should fail to summon 
 them. 
 
 A Committee of Religion was appointed to 
 consider the state of the Church, and to free it 
 from the innovations which had been made by 
 Laud and his coadjutors. But the great majority 
 of this Parliament, in its best days, was opposed 
 
THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND. 
 
 to any change in the constitution of the Church. 
 They set themselves to restore it to its state under 
 Elizabeth, and to put an end to the persecution 
 of the Non-Conformists. 
 
 We have reached the point in the history when 
 the emigration to New England came to an end. 
 The direct influence of the English Puritans in 
 moulding the character of our Puritan forefathers 
 lasted only so long as the stream of emigration 
 continued to flow toward the Colonies. It is not 
 necessary for the purpose of this book to follow 
 it further. The two great objects for which the 
 Puritans had been contending seemed to be within 
 reach when the Long Parliament met at West- 
 minster. The plans of Charles had broken down, 
 and a personal government, without the control 
 of Parliament, was found to be impossible. The 
 National Church was to be henceforth a Protes- 
 tant Church, because the nation had become 
 thoroughly Protestant. If the English Puritans 
 had been content to secure these two capital 
 objects, a limited monarchy, and a Protestant 
 Church under Episcopal forms of government and 
 of worship, they would probably have held the 
 control of England for an indefinite period. But 
 unfortunately the great leaders of the party, Eliot, 
 Coke, Hampden, and Pym, did not live to guide 
 its policy when its success was assured. New 
 leaders gave a new direction to its action. The 
 
76 THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND AND NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 attempt was made to set aside Episcopacy and 
 Monarchy, both of which were firmly rooted in the 
 traditions of the people. The failure of the policy 
 of the new leaders to establish a republican Com- 
 monwealth, and to make Presbyterianism or 
 Independency the State Church, would have been 
 foreseen by such statesmen as John Hampden, 
 and John Pym. The restoration of the Monarchy, 
 and of the Episcopal Church only hindered for a 
 few years the success of those principles of con- 
 stitutional liberty and of religious reform for which 
 the Puritans had been contending so long. 
 
 XX. 
 
 A FEW words should be added in respect to the 
 quality and the value of the Puritan party in 
 England. We should, first of all, acknowledge 
 its limitations. They had the faults of their age. 
 The sixteenth and seventeenth centuries were 
 very far behind the nineteenth. Our goodly 
 heritage has come to us as the result of their 
 fidelity to the principles of liberty, as they were 
 able to apprehend them. It must be admitted 
 also that there was a certain insular narrowness 
 about the English Puritans. They were not as 
 tolerant as the Dutch Protestants of the sixteenth 
 century. William the Silent was in many ways a 
 more admirable character than Oliver Cromwell. 
 
THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND. 77 
 
 A republic was possible in the Low Countries, 
 while the English Commonwealth was a failure. 
 The Pilgrims went to Holland because they had 
 heard that in that country " there was freedom of 
 religion for all men." The Puritans were never 
 as tolerant as that. 
 
 On the other hand, the Puritans were the ad- 
 vanced Liberals of their time in England. They 
 were, first of all, Protestants in their 
 
 ' The Ftiritan 
 
 religion and Calvinists in their theology, spirit and 
 
 . Character. 
 
 and they were therefore the champions 
 of liberty in the Church and in the state. All their 
 tendencies led them to claim their rights as Eng- 
 lishmen under the ancient laws of the realm. They 
 stood for Magna Charta. They formulated the 
 Petition of Right. They combined to resist the 
 attacks upon the rights of the people. 
 
 No greater wrong has been done to the Puritans 
 than by the assumption that they were, as a class, 
 rude and ungraceful in their ways of 
 
 J Their Manners 
 
 living. There was a time, after they and Domestic 
 had gained political power, when large 
 numbers of selfish and insincere men joined 
 them, and when the Puritan character degen- 
 erated. There were perhaps hypocrites among 
 them when they had within their gift the high- 
 est honors of the Commonwealth. These men 
 exaggerated their peculiarities, and brought them 
 into contempt. But the Puritans of the age of 
 
78 THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND AND NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 Elizabeth, and of James and Charles, were genu- 
 ine patriots, and their lives were as gentle as they 
 were heroic. " The Puritanism of the first forty 
 years of the seventeenth century," says Mr. 
 Palfrey, " was not tainted with degrading or 
 ungraceful associations of any sort. The rank, 
 the wealth, the chivalry, the genius, the learning, 
 the accomplishments, the social refinements, and 
 elegance of the time were largely represented 
 in its ranks. The statesmen of the first period 
 of the Long Parliament had been bred in the 
 luxury of the landed aristocracy of the realm. 
 The Parliamentary General, Essex, was a man with 
 every grace of person, mind, and culture, fitted 
 to be the ornament of a splendid court. John 
 Milton, the Latin Secretary of Cromwell, who 
 was equal to the foremost of mankind in genius 
 and learning, was skilled in all manly exercises, 
 and proficient in the lighter accomplishments, 
 beyond any other Englishman of his day. There 
 was no better swordsman or amateur musician 
 than he ; and his portraits exhibit him with locks 
 as flowing as Prince Rupert's. John Owen, the 
 great theologian of the Puritans, was considered 
 in his time something of a coxcomb." l There are 
 no more tender or graceful letters in our literature 
 than those of John Winthrop to his wife. The life 
 of Colonel Hutchinson, written by his widow, gives 
 
 1 Palfrey, i. 279-281. 
 
THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND. 79 
 
 a most attractive picture of a Puritan family at 
 that time. She dwells on his personal beauty, 
 and on his love of music, " often diverting himself 
 with a viol, on which he played masterly." 
 
 Nor did the Puritans of that earlier time break 
 with the harmless gayeties of the world about them. 
 They entered with zest into the sports of English 
 country life. They were not iconoclasts until 
 they were convinced that the High Church party 
 were making use of music and art to divert men 
 from the true religious life. That which we call 
 the sternness of the Puritan spirit was the result, 
 in large part, of persecution and of the struggle 
 to maintain the truth. 
 
 The Puritans were the friends of learning in 
 their time. A large number of them were grad- 
 uates from Cambridge or Oxford. They made 
 some noble contributions to English literature. 
 A Puritan was the first Protestant founder of 
 a college in an English university. A graduate 
 from a Puritan college in Cambridge was the 
 founder of Harvard University. The Puritans 
 had a fair share of the learning and eloquence 
 of their times. 
 
 We do well to remember that the great 
 Puritan migration to New England took place 
 in the best period of Puritanism, before the party 
 had been weakened by those who came to it 
 after its victory had been won. Our forefathers 
 
8O THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND AND NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 brought to New England the best that the Old 
 England had to give. 
 
 If we inquire what influences this great party 
 
 has left with the English-speaking races, the 
 
 answer will be : Free governments, by 
 
 Permanent J 
 
 influence of the people, and for the people, on both 
 sides of the Atlantic ; a free press ; 
 an enlightened public opinion, which controls 
 princes and Cabinets ; free public schools open 
 to the children of the people ; a nobler Christian 
 manhood ; a fuller comprehension of the religion 
 of Christ, which brings help and comfort to the 
 poor, which brings liberty to the slaves as those 
 redeemed by the Saviour of the world ; the 
 separation of Chuirch _and state ; the equality 
 of all branches of the Church before the law; 
 freedom within the Church, whether it be Prela- 
 tical or Presbyterian or Congregational ; a cjuiet 
 Sunday, with its opportunities for the culture of 
 the spiritual nature ; and a free pulpit, in sympathy 
 with all sorts and conditions of men ; preaching 
 in pagan lands, and in those that are Christian ; 
 the Gospel for all such as labor and are heavy 
 laden. 
 
II. 
 
 The Pilgrim and the Puritan : 
 Which ? 
 
The Pilgrim and the Puritan : 
 Which ? 
 
 HPHE history of the Puritan party in England 
 * prepares us to appreciate the early settlers of 
 New England. That strong and peculiar type 
 of men had been developed by the experiences 
 of three generations in the Mother Country. 
 They brought with them the principles for which 
 they had been struggling. They came to the 
 New World because they hoped to lay the foun- 
 dations of a free state, and a free Protestant 
 Church such as they had tried to develop in the 
 land of their fathers. The success of the earlier 
 English colonies on this side of the Atlantic had 
 not been so great as to awaken any enthusiasm 
 for emigration. There had been severe priva- 
 tions, and some disastrous failures. The evi- 
 dence is conclusive that our forefathers came to 
 New England not as adventurers, but, as the 
 friends of liberty and of the Protestant religion, 
 to found a state in which they could work out 
 the principles for which they had been contend- 
 ing, and which they had come to believe could 
 not be developed in the Old World. 
 
84 THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND AND NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 We shall do well to study, first of all, the 
 characteristics of the two earliest colonies. For 
 The TWO it is we ll known that the Province of 
 colonies. Massachusetts, which was constituted 
 in the year 1692, was made up from two original 
 colonies, the Plymouth Colony, or, as we 
 say, the Old Colony; and the Colony of Mas- 
 sachusetts Bay. We have already seen that the 
 two colonies were settled at different times, by 
 different classes of people. The Pilgrims had 
 come from their life in Holland, where the influ- 
 ence of William the Silent had given a free and 
 tolerant spirit to the earnest Protestants who had 
 stood heroically against the armies of Spain. 
 They could not forget the country where they 
 had found refuge from persecution. They were 
 the disciples of Robert Browne, and they had 
 founded a Separatist Church in the new set- 
 tlement. The Puritans were fresh from the great 
 national contest for their rights as Englishmen 
 under Magna Charta, in the times of Charles 
 the First and Bishop Laud. They brought 
 with them the principles of Sir John Eliot, 
 John Hampden, and John Pym. They had a 
 great dread of Popery, and they believed the 
 Church of England was relapsing into the super- 
 stitions of Romanism. 
 
 Each Colony was developing its political and 
 religious institutions in its own way. In many 
 
THE PILGRIM AND THE PURITAN: WHICH? 85 
 
 respects the two colonies were similar, in other 
 respects they were unlike. It was with them 
 much as it had been with the Republics of Greece 
 in the best periods of Grecian history. The dif- 
 ferences between them small as well as great 
 were continued from one generation to another. 
 If the two colonies had not been welded together 
 by the imperial mandate from England, it is very 
 likely that the differences between them would 
 have continued, and perhaps become more strik- 
 ing, just as the differences between Athens and 
 Sparta and Corinth did. 
 
 We shall come to a closer study of these two 
 colonies, as we consider the question: Which 
 has had most to do in moulding the people of New 
 England ? 
 
 I. 
 
 THE earlier historians usually gave the prece- 
 dence to the Puritans. Even so recent a writer 
 as Mr. Palfrey gives much the larger -meaner 
 space to the annals of the younger Historians, 
 colony. Plymouth occupies quite a subordinate 
 place in his volumes. But in later times there 
 has been a higher estimate of the character and 
 influence of the Pilgrims. Dr. Leonard Bacon, 
 for example, wrote of them as though almost every- 
 thing that is excellent in the New England char- 
 acter had been derived from them. He has been 
 
86 THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND AND NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 followed by a number of more recent authors, 
 so that it has become the fashion to ascribe 
 almost every excellence of our people to those 
 who came over in the Mayflower. New Eng- 
 land families are eager to trace their lineage back 
 to the Pilgrim Fathers. A great many churches 
 have been named from the Pilgrims, few, in com- 
 parison, from the Puritans. 
 
 \ 
 
 II. 
 
 THE Pilgrims began their settlement at Ply- 
 mouth in 1620. So that theirs was properly 
 Difference m called the Old Colony. The Puritans 
 Date. began their colony at Salem eight 
 
 years later ; and as their settlements extended 
 around Massachusetts Bay, the Colony was called 
 the Colony of Massachusetts Bay. In a new 
 country the advantage of a few years in residence 
 counts for much. The Pilgrims had a Colony 
 well organized and governed according to demo- 
 cratic principles, and a Church organized after 
 the Congregational way before the Puritans 
 came. It may be that the Puritans would have 
 come to America if the Pilgrims had not been 
 already settled at Plymouth; but it is certain 
 that the Puritans were more inclined to make 
 the venture, from the fact that a Colony of devout 
 Protestant Englishmen had already gained a 
 
THE PILGRIM AND THE PURITAN: WHICH 1 87 
 
 foothold here. The Puritans naturally looked 
 to the Colony at Plymouth for models in the 
 organization of their State, and of their churches. 
 
 III. 
 
 THE pioneers in these two colonies differed 
 in some important respects in their views of the 
 Church. The Pilgrims had been, for e 
 
 & Separatists 
 
 many years before they came to Ply- and won-con- 
 mouth, Separatists. The Puritans had 
 no scruples about their connection with the 
 Protestant Church established in England. They 
 could continue in its worship and discipline with 
 good consciences, provided it was faithful to the 
 Protestant Reformation. It has been abundantly 
 shown that their objection was not to the use of 
 the Liturgy in public worship, nor to prelatical 
 government. They objected to certain teachings 
 of the Book of Common Prayer then in use, and 
 to certain forms and ceremonies which, as they 
 believed, tended toward the superstitions of the 
 Church of Rome. The Puritans therefore, so 
 long as they remained in England, claimed their 
 rights as members of the National Church. They 
 refused to conform to practices which they re- 
 garded as evil, and claimed the right to worship 
 in the churches of the establishment, and to con- 
 tinue members of the National Church, without 
 
88 THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND AND NEW ENGLAND 
 
 conforming to its objectionable practices. Several 
 of the men who came with Governor Winthrop, 
 in 1630, had been church wardens in England. 
 Some of them went back to the Church of Eng- 
 land when they returned to the Old Country to 
 spend their declining years. It is related that 
 when the ship which carried Mr. Higginson to 
 Salem came to Land's End, he called the passen- 
 gers to take a last view of England, and said : 
 " We will not say as the Separatists were wont 
 to say, Farewell, Babylon, farewell, Rome; but 
 we will say, Farewell, dear England, farewell, the 
 Church of God in England. We do not go to 
 New England as Separatists from the Church 
 of England, though we cannot but separate from 
 the corruptions of it ; but we go to practise the 
 positive part of Church reformation, and to pro- 
 pagate the Gospel in America." 1 
 
 When Governor Winthrop was setting out for 
 America with his company, they issued an address 
 to their countrymen, which was dated April 7, 1630, 
 in which they said : " We esteem it an honor to 
 call the Church of England our dear Mother, and 
 cannot part from our native country without much 
 sadness of heart, and many tears in our eyes. . . . 
 We bless God for the parentage and education as 
 members of the same body, and shall always rejoice 
 
 1 Genesis of the New England Churches, Dr. Leonard Bacon, 
 467. 
 
THE PILGRIM AND THE PURITAN: WHICH? 89 
 
 in her good. . . . We wish our heads and hearts 
 may be fountains of tears for your everlasting 
 welfare, when we shall be in our poor cottages in 
 the wilderness. . . . And so, commending you to 
 the grace of God in Christ, we shall ever remain 
 your assured friends and brethren." * It is plain 
 from these words, which were probably written by 
 the Reverend John White, the Puritan rector of 
 Trinity Church in Dorchester, that the 
 
 were much less severe in their judgments of the 
 English Church, much more charitable in these 
 respects, than the Pilgrims. 
 
 IV. 
 
 IT was not alone in their relations to the Church 
 of England that the Pilgrims differed from the Pur- 
 itans. The Pilgrims were, for the most , 
 
 . Y i<i t* f Social Position 
 
 part, people m humble stations in life, 
 
 - 
 
 /- JT j ij.1 in England. 
 
 Governor Bradford says, "they were 
 not acquainted with trades, nor traffic, but had 
 Ijeen used to a plain country life, and the innocent 
 trade of husbandry." Mr. Palfrey speaks of them 
 as " north country peasants ; " and he states that it 
 is not known to this day from what English homes 
 they came. 2 They were people of simple faith, 
 
 1 Quoted by Dr. Twitchell in his Life of Governor Winthrop, 
 53-54. Also in Palfrey, vol. i. 312. 
 
 2 Young's Chronicles, 25. Palfrey, vol. i. 139, 160. 
 
9O THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND AND NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 ready to suffer the loss of all things for conscience's 
 
 sake. When they came to Leyden, they fell into 
 such trades and employments as they best could. 
 Some were registered as silk-workers, some as 
 wool-carders, fustian-makers ; three were printers, 
 one a mason, one a carpenter, one a tailor, one a 
 smith, and five were merchants. 
 
 I do not forget by any means the eminent men 
 who were the leaders of the Plymouth Colony : 
 the excellent Governor Carver; Governor Brad- 
 ford, the historian of the Colony, and for thirty 
 years its enterprising and sagacious chief magis- 
 tate ; Governor Winslow, descended from an an- 
 cient English family, a gentleman of consummate 
 address, a born diplomatist; and Elder Brewster, 
 a scholar and courtier in earlier life, and later 
 the beloved ruling Elder of the Church, and for 
 the many years while the people were without a 
 minister, the religious teacher of the congregation. 
 
 On the other hand the Puritans who came to 
 Massachusetts were, for the most part, persons in 
 comfortable circumstances in life, of good educa- 
 tion, and with good social connections in England, 
 social position " The jprincjpal planters of Massachu- 
 oftne setts," says Dr. Bacon, "were English 
 
 Puritans. * = ,' 
 
 country gentlemen of no inconsidera- 
 ble fortunes, of enlarged understandings, improved 
 by liberal education." 1 The great Puritan party 
 
 i Genesis of New England Churches, 229, 230. 
 
THE PILGRIM AND THE PURITAN: WHICH? 91 
 
 of England moulded the public opinion of that 
 country, for the first half of the seventeenth cen- 
 tury. Those who came to New England were 
 fitted by their abilities and training to be the 
 founders of^States. An unusual proportion of 
 them were graduates from the English universi- 
 ties7 Qthers who were noFgraHuates were well 
 read in historyjmd^nterature, and in theology. 
 Their ministers were the equals in ability and in 
 culture of the clergymen who remained in the 
 National Church. 
 
 V. 
 
 IT will help us to understand the two colonies, 
 if we compare them with respect to the leading 
 objects of their founders. The Pilgrims came to 
 these shores, not from the Mother Country, but 
 from Holland. They were already exiles. They 
 came to the wilderness as a place of refuge. They 
 were already a people without a country. rf 
 
 Their condition in Holland had been a 
 
 Colony. 
 
 hard one ; so hard that they were glad 
 to go from it into the New World. They were 
 especially anxious to find a place where they could 
 bring up their children to good habits, and where 
 they would be likely to use the English language, 
 and to keep their connection with the English na- 
 tion. They had alsojyery^much at heart the con- 
 version of the pagan Indians to the Christian faith. 
 
92 THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND AND NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 The plans of the Puritans were much more 
 
 comprehensive. They came to found a New 
 owectsof England because the Old England 
 the puritan seemed to have lost its liberties, and to 
 l.ie helpless at the ^bet of Charles the 
 .First. Thej^came here as the representatives of 
 diej^uritan party, a party which included at that 
 time a majority of the English people. It does 
 not appear from their history that religious mo- 
 tives had less influence with the Puritans than 
 with the Pilgrims, gut the Puritans had, in addi- 
 tion to their religious interests, certain political 
 plans which they never lost sight of. There were 
 great statesmen among them, and great theolo- 
 gians. That portion of this party which settled 
 Massachusetts was in sympathy with the great 
 Puritan leaders in England. They regarded 
 themselves as the pioneers of a movement which 
 was likely to transfer a large part of the nation to 
 the New World. They had suffered for many 
 years for their devotion to liberty and to the 
 Protestant religion in England ; and they purposed 
 to found a Colony in which they, and those who 
 should join them, would be free according to the 
 ancient charters and statutes of England. Jjt was^ 
 not their purpose to open their Colony to people 
 of different views from their own, for the reason 
 that they were yet weak and comparatively few 
 in number, and they could not tell what would be 
 
THE PILGRIM AND THE PURITAN: WHICH J 93 
 
 the result of opening their doors to all comers. 
 Thejr were going into the wilderness to enjoy 
 peace and freedom ; and they did not dare run the 
 risk of losing the objects for which they had 
 expatriated themselves, by admitting people of all 
 faiths, and of all political views. They would 
 found a Puritan state for the oppressed Puritans ; 
 and they claimed the right to send away any per- 
 sons who seemed to them likely to disturb the 
 peace and unity of the Colony. 
 
 In the earlier years of their history there was a 
 prospect that a large proportion of the English Pur- 
 itans would be compelled to leave England for 
 America, just as a large proportion of the French 
 Huguenots had been compelled to leave France. 
 They were as resolute as Cromwell's Ironsides to 
 prof-prt tVp asylum wh^h they had founded. 
 Their plans were carefully laid. When there was 
 a prospect that King Charles would try to compel 
 them to submit to unjust demands, they proceeded 
 to build fortifications in Boston Harbor, and to 
 arm and discipline the militia, so as to be prepared 
 to resist any attempts to subjugate them, JThe 
 Spirit of 1776 had been developed among the 
 Massach usetts_^uritans more than a hundred 
 years before that date. They were bold, partly 
 because they were men of courage as well as of 
 faith, and partly because they had back of them 
 a numerous and powerful party at home. 
 
94 THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND AND NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 VI. 
 
 lN_respect to the form of organization for the 
 churches,Jhe influence of the Pilgrims was the 
 leading influence. They had a church organized 
 after the Congregational way before they came 
 from Leyden. Their pastor, John Robinson, had 
 given them clear and decided views in regard to 
 the pattern of the Church which the New Testa- 
 ment furnishes. It had been agreed that although 
 the Pastor and a large part of the members were 
 to remain in Holland, those who went to America 
 were to constitute an Independent Church. The 
 Pilgrim Church at Plymouth was an independent 
 branch of the church in Leyden. When the 
 Puritans began their Colony this Pilgrim Church 
 had been in regular existence a number of years. 
 
 So far as can be known, the Puritans had no 
 definite plans for the organization of the Church 
 when they landed. It is as clear as anything else 
 in their history that they had continued up to that 
 j;Lme_ members of the Church of England. Their 
 ministers had been ordained as ministers 
 
 The Puritan 
 
 views of the in the Episcopal Church, and all their 
 ministry had been in that church. The 
 Puritans had decided objections to the Separatist 
 Churches, and had been unfriendly to the Pilgrims 
 because they had broken away entirely from the 
 
THE PILGRIM AND THE PURITAN: WHICH "i 95 
 
 National Church. Their natural affiliation as 
 Protestants and Non-Conformists was with the 
 Reformed Churches of Geneva, and of France and 
 Scotland. The connections between the English 
 Puritans and the churches of Geneva had been 
 very close for many years. If they were to break 
 away from the Church of England it was the most 
 natural thing in the world for them to follow the 
 method of almost all the Protestant churches, 
 except the Church of England, and organize 
 according to some of the Presbyterian models. 
 Their leading men were in correspondence with 
 the leading Calvinistic ministers on the continent, 
 and they were familiar with the practical working 
 of their churches. 
 
 But the Puritans were hardly an organized 
 Colony before they consulted the Pilgrims in 
 regard to the best way of forming a church. 1 Their 
 bitter experiences in the English Church had pre- 
 pared them to look with more favor upon the 
 non-prelatical churches. When the conciliatory 
 proposals of the Millenary Petition were rejected, 
 and when the whole power of the Established 
 Church was used to " make them conform, or to 
 harry them out of the land," and when, for many 
 years, they saw their national church moving 
 toward the practices and the doctrines of the 
 
 1 Mass. Hist. Collections, iii. 65, 75. Young's Chronicles, 386. 
 Winslow's Brief Narrative. 
 
96 THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND AND NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 Romanists, their opinions were gradually modified 
 in respect to the forms of worship and the modes 
 of government in that Church. So that the Puri- 
 tans, who were entirely loyal to the Episcopal 
 Church when James the First became King of 
 England, were prepared to look with favor upon 
 a much simpler organization when they came to 
 New England. The fact that they had left behind 
 the institutions of the Old Country, and that they 
 were entirely free to. carry out their own ideas, had 
 much to do with the change. < 'The most conserva- 
 tiye people become progressive in a new country. 
 
 But there is decisive evidence that they were 
 guided by the teachings and the experiences of 
 the men of Plymouth. Governor Winslow, for 
 Reasons why example, says that some of the chief of 
 SndSf'the Puritans advised with us in respect 
 churches. ^o a r jght way of worship, and desired 
 to know whereupon our practice was grounded. 
 " We accordingly showed them," he says, " the 
 primitive practice, taken out of the Acts of the 
 Apostles, and the Epistles written to the several 
 churches by the said Apostles, together with the 
 Commandments of Christ the Lord in the Gospel, 
 and other our warrant for every particular we did, 
 from the book of God." 1 Endicott, writing to Gov- 
 ernor Bradford from Salem, in 1629, thanks him for 
 sending Dr. Fuller to them. He says that he has 
 
 1 Young's Chronicles, 386. Walker's Creeds and Platforms. 
 
THE PILGRIM AND THE PURITAN: WHICH? 97 
 
 been satisfied by Dr. Fuller in regard to the out- 
 ward form of God's worship. This Dr. Fuller was 
 a deacon of the church at Plymouth. During the 
 winter of 1628-9 there was a serious epidemic 
 among the settlers at Salem, and Cover- Dea. samuei 
 nor Endicott sent a messenger to ask 
 that Dr. Fuller might be sent to their 
 aid. He came at their call, and remained at Salem 
 until the sickness abated. He was the guest of 
 Governor Endicott ; and " they had much conver- 
 sation about what had been going on at Plymouth 
 during the eight years since its settlement." Dr. 
 Fuller explained their methods of procedure in 
 civil matters, and also in church matters; and 
 Governor Endicott accepted his views. This was 
 before the organization of the first church in the 
 Massachusetts Colony. In the month of June 
 following this visit of Dr. Fuller, three ships landed 
 at Salem, bringing a large number of passengers. 
 On the 6th of August of that year, the first church 
 was formed. A small number of the people at 
 Salem desired to use the Book of Common Prayer ; 
 but a great majority preferred to follow the ex- 
 ample of the Pilgrim Church at Plymouth, and 
 organize after the Congregational way. How 
 much the influence of Governor Bradford and of 
 Dr. Fuller had to do with this decision may never 
 be known. Undoubtedly they were among the 
 instruments in the change that took place among 
 
 7 
 
98 THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND AND NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 the Puritans. For it is plain that there was a 
 decided change of sentiment among them. When 
 the first church among the Puritans was formed, 
 August 6, 1629, it was almost an exact copy of the 
 Pilgrim Church in Plymouth. 1 " We have come 
 away from the Common Prayer, and ceremonies 
 in our native land," they said, " where we suffered 
 much for non-conformity. In this place of liberty 
 we cannot use them. Their imposition would be 
 a sinful violation of the worship of God." " We 
 separate not from the Church of England, but from 
 its corruptions." 
 
 The example of the church in Salem was fol- 
 lowed by the churches that were formed within a 
 year or two in Charlestown and in Boston. The 
 precedent was thus firmly established, and the 
 churches of the Pilgrims and those of the Puritans 
 were organized as Independent or Congregational 
 Churches. 
 
 VII. 
 
 IN respect to the political and social institutions 
 of Massachusetts, the influence of the Old Colony 
 was very great. The frame of government in 
 the Pilgrim Colony was as near as practicable a 
 pure Democracy. The suffrage was conferred by 
 
 1 Dr. Tarbox, in Collections of the Old Colony Historical Society, 
 1878, 41-50. Three Episodes of Massachusetts History, Charles 
 F. Adams, 1892. 
 
THE PILGRIM AND THE PURITAN: WHICH! 99 
 
 the freemen upon all whom they deemed worthy of 
 it There was no religious test. The Governor 
 was chosen by general suffrage. The Political 
 citizens also elected a Council of Five and social 
 
 Institutions. 
 
 to advise and assist the Governor. The 
 whole body of adult male inhabitants constituted 
 the Legislature. 1 There could be no law or tax 
 without the consent of the freemen. The general 
 meeting of the freemen of the Colony was like a 
 modern town-meeting. As population increased, 
 a representative system became necessary, and 
 each town in the Colony sent its representatives 
 to the House of Delegates. Their social Thepiigrim 
 institutions were also very simple. There Re P ul)lic - 
 were few traces of an aristocracy. The people of 
 the Old Colony lived together on terms of Chris- 
 tian equality. 
 
 The influence of Holland appears in these insti- 
 tutions of the Pilgrim Fathers. Their twelve years 
 among those stanch defenders of liberty had 
 given them new ideas in regard to the right of 
 the people to direct the course of government, 
 and in regard to the right of suffrage, and the 
 organization of the town, and in respect to legis- 
 lation, and to common schools for the people. 
 They introduced a number of principles which 
 had not at that time been accepted in England, 
 when they laid the foundations of the NEW 
 
 England. 
 
 1 Bancroft, i. 251. 
 
\; 
 
 THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND AND NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 In the Massachusetts Colony, however, we find 
 that they copied the institutions of the Mother 
 me puritan Country, and adopted many of its social 
 Republic. distinctions. The right of suffrage was 
 restricted to the members of the churches of the 
 Colony, just as in England the suffrage was limited 
 to communicants in the Church of England. The 
 churches which were recognized by law, that is, 
 the Independent Congregational Churches, were 
 supported by a tax upon all the inhabitants, just 
 as in England the Established Church was sup- 
 ported by rates upon all property of the people 
 of the parish. The Governor and the Assistants 
 were chosen by the votes of the freemen of the 
 Colony. The Deputies were elected by the free- 
 men in each town. It was seriously proposed that 
 members of the Court of Assistants should hold 
 office for life, or until removed for cause. John 
 Cotton preached before the General Court, in 1634, 
 " that a magistrate ought not to be turned into the 
 condition of a private man without just cause." 
 It was at one time proposed that a number of the 
 great Puritan noblemen should settle in Massa- 
 chusetts, with the understanding that they should 
 have a permanent place in the government, and 
 that their rank should be hereditary. The fact that 
 these proposals were made shows one of the ten- 
 dencies of the times. But these tendencies were 
 not permitted to control the colony. The Demo- 
 
THE PILGRIM AND THE PURITAN: WHICH 1 
 
 cratic principles of the people. asserted themselves 
 even in the earlier years. /The eminent public 
 men, like Governor Winthrop, learned from ex- 
 perience that they had no secure tenure of official 
 position, except so long as they carried out the will 
 of those who had elected them. It is an error to 
 suppose that either the ministers, or the more 
 prominent citizens, had the control of the Colony. 
 There were instances, even in the early years, 
 when these natural leaders were out-voted and set 
 aside in a popular election. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 IN respect to numbers and wealth the two colo- 
 nies were very unlike. When the Old Colony was 
 four years old, it contained only thirty- Num1bers ^^ 
 two cabins, inhabited by one hundred Wealth ' 
 and eighty persons. Six years later, it numbered 
 three hundred. Five years after this, when the 
 Colony was fifteen years old, it had only five hun- 
 dred people. After seventy years, it had only eight 
 thousand people. So slow was its growth. And 
 yet that small Colony has exerted an influence out 
 of all proportion to its numbers. Its 
 
 , . , ... i r i Weakness 
 
 history reads like a work or the imagma- oftneoid 
 tion, rather than a recital of events in 
 this prosaic world. There is a certain poetic 
 quality about it which makes its simple annals 
 
 fl/v 
 
IO2 THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND AND NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 very fascinating. The sublime faith of its people, 
 their patience under adversity, their boldness in 
 crossing the sea with limited numbers and scanty 
 resources, the motives which inspired the enter- 
 prise, " that we might enjoy liberty of con- 
 science " and " keep our own language and the 
 name of Englishmen," and " train our children 
 as we were trained," and " enlarge the Church of 
 Christ," 1 and besides all this, their gentleness 
 and charity toward those who differed with them, 
 their freedom from the spirit of persecution, their 
 tolerance in a century of intolerance, all these 
 have won for them the sympathy and the admi- 
 ration of good men everywhere. 
 
 So much as this may be fairly and heartily con- 
 ceded to the Pilgrim Fathers. And yet the clear- 
 headed student of New England history will find, 
 as he compares the two colonies, that, after all, 
 the elements of vigorous growth and permanent 
 influence were in the Puritan Colony, rather than 
 in the Colony at Plymouth. He will look first 
 at the numbers who came to the Bay Colony. 
 The number of Pilgrims in Holland when the 
 Mayflower sailed for America was not much 
 more than three hundred. Less than half of 
 these sailed in the Mayflower on its first voyage. 
 Those who remained behind were a small com- 
 pany from which to recruit a colony. But when 
 
 1 Winslow's Narrative in Young's Chronicles, 381. 
 
THE PILGRIM AND THE PURITAN: WHICH? 
 
 the Puritans crossed the sea the larger part of 
 England was Puritan. Twelve years after the 
 beginning of the Puritan settlements, vigorous 
 the Colony had more than twenty thou- 
 sand people. In that time they had 
 planted fifty towns and villages, built thirty or 
 forty churches and a larger number of ministers' 
 houses, a castle, forts, roads, and a prison, all at 
 their own charges. They were living in comfort- j' 
 able houses, with gardens, orchards, cornfields, 
 and well-fenced fields. 1 They had founded Har- 
 vard College, and they were taxing themselves for 
 its support. Colonies had already gone out from 
 them to begin settlements on the Connecticut 
 River, at Springfield, and at Hartford, and also at 
 New Haven, and in Rhode Island, and New 
 Hampshire. This is a marvellous record of 
 growth for a Colony separated from the Mother 
 Country by the width of the Atlantic. It indi- 
 cates the singular energy and enterprise of the 
 Puritans. It is from such elements that colonies 
 grow into a nation. 
 
 IX. 
 
 THIS is the outward material growth. But the 
 contrast was quite as marked in the intellectual 
 spirit of the two colonies. Let us take as the 
 
 1 Wonder Working Providence, ch. xiv. New England's First 
 Fruits. 
 
IO4 THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND AND NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 first illustration of this contrast, the religious 
 teachers of the people in the two colonies. Dur- 
 The inteiiec- ing the first fifty years of the history of 
 the TWO t f Plymouth there was a singular lack of 
 colonies. permanence in the ministry of that town. 
 Lyford, who was their first minister, proved to be 
 a weak as well as a bad man, and he was finally de- 
 P ose d and sent out of the Colony. The 
 
 the Plymouth ne xt minister was a youug man named 
 
 Colony. J 
 
 Rogers, who had been sent over from 
 England. He proved to be "crazed in his brain," 
 says Bradford, " so that they were fain to be at 
 further charges to send him back next year." 
 The third minister was Smith, who came over 
 with Higginson in 1629. He exercised his gifts 
 among them five or six years. He was soon seen 
 to be a man of mean abilities, and finally " laid 
 down his place of ministry, partly by his own wil- 
 lingness, as thinking it too heavy a burden, and 
 partly at the desire and by the persuasion of 
 others." 1 
 
 Next came John Norton, who was " well liked 
 and much desired of them," but who could not be 
 persuaded to remain longer than one winter, and 
 then departed to enter upon his grand career in 
 Massachusetts. Next came Mr. Raynor, an excel- 
 lent man, but not of commanding abilities or 
 character. Mr. Charles Chauncy was about three 
 
 1 Bradford. Young's Chronicles, 351. 
 
THE PILGRIM AND THE PURITAN: WHICH 1 1 05 
 
 years associated with Mr. Raynor as Pastor, Mr. 
 Raynor being Teacher. It was very fortunate 
 for the Pilgrims that during these years of con- 
 tinued change in the pastoral office, they were 
 able to fall back upon their excellent Ruling El- 
 der, Mr. Brewster, of whom Governor Bradford 
 has written that " when the church had no other 
 minister, he taught every Sabbath, and that pow- 
 erfully and profitably, to the great contentment of 
 his hearers and their comfortable edification." 1 
 For thirteen years after the departure of Mr. 
 Raynor the church in Plymouth was without a 
 stated minister. Elder Cushman, the successor 
 of Elder Brewster, preached, without being a 
 pastor. In 1667, John Cotton, Jr., came to" them 
 from Boston, and continued with the church for 
 many years. 2 
 
 The Royal Commissioners reported to the 
 king, in 1666, that they found in the Plymouth 
 Colony " only twelve small towns," and that the 
 people were so poor that " they were not able to 
 maintain scholars to their ministers, but were 
 necessitated to make use of a gifted brother in 
 some places." 3 This statement of the Commis- 
 sioners may have been true of some towns, but 
 there were a number of university men settled as 
 
 1 Young's Chronicles, 467. 
 
 2 Goodwin's Pilgrim Republic. 
 8 Hutchinson's Collection, 417. 
 
IO6 THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND AND NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 pastors in the Old Colony, such as Ralph Par- 
 tridge of Duxbury, John Lothrop of Barnstable, 
 Henry Dunster of Scituate, Samuel Newman of 
 Rehoboth, and Charles Chauncy of Plymouth. 1 
 " The contrast is very marked between such a 
 ministry as these statements indicate, and the 
 ministry which we find in the Colony of Massa- 
 chusetts in its earlier years, when Higginson, 
 Cotton, Norton, Hooker, Mather, Shepard, and 
 The Ministers their associates were the intellectual 
 cnut e tT^~ leaders of their people, as well as their 
 colony. spiritual guides. Some of them had 
 carried off the honors in the English universities. 
 They were among the strongest men in the Col- 
 ony. | This difference indicates a great difference 
 in the financial resources of the people of the 
 two colonies, and possibly a difference in their 
 intelligence also. 
 
 There were among the Puritans at that time a 
 large number of men of broad and liberal learn- 
 ing. They were already beginning to send to 
 the press books and pamphlets that were very 
 creditable to their intelligence and their train- 
 ing. These books were published in London at 
 first, and later in Salem and Boston. The litera- 
 ture of the first half century is creditable not 
 only to the authors, but to the readers who were 
 able to follow such close and logical thinking. 
 
 1 Goodwin's Pilgrim Republic, 510-540. 
 
THE PILGRIM AND THE PURITAN: WHICH 1 
 
 Copies of these old books have been preserved as 
 heirlooms in the older New England families, 
 whence they are finding their way into the best 
 historical libraries. Those who contributed to 
 this literature were for the most part dwellers in 
 the Puritan colony. The Pilgrims made some 
 valuable contributions, but they are few in num- 
 ber. Boston and Cambridge were as truly the 
 intellectual centres of New England in the seven- 
 teenth century as they are in the nineteenth. Har- 
 vard College was an important means of influence, 
 and it had much to do in giving the pre-eminence 
 to the younger Colony. 
 
 X. 
 
 THE great enterprises undertaken for the gen- 
 eral interest of New England had their origin 
 in the Puritan colonies. ( The synod The 
 which prepared the Cambridge Plat- 
 form, for example, was called by the 
 General Court of Massachusetts ; and the men 
 who had the leading part in framing that Plat- 
 form, and so in moulding the Congregational 
 polity for a hundred years, were either citizens of 
 Massachusetts at that time, or men like Hooker, 
 who had once belonged to that Colony. Governor 
 Bradford was present as the messenger of the 
 church in Plymouth. So was Ralph Partridge 
 
IO8 THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND AND NEW ENGLAND: 
 
 of Duxbury, and possibly two or three others from 
 the Old Colony. John Cotton of Boston, Rich- 
 ard Mather of Dorchester, and Ralph Partridge 
 of Duxbury were appointed to draw up, each by 
 himself, a model of church government. The 
 one drawn up by Richard Mather was for sub- 
 stance adopted by the synod. Mr. Partridge 
 also prepared a model, which was not acceptable 
 to the majority, on account of its Low Church ten- 
 dencies.^) The manuscript copy, which is still 
 preserveH in the Library of the Antiquarian 
 Society at Worcester, shows that the Pilgrim 
 pastor was not as advanced a Congregationalist 
 as the Puritans had already become. 1 This was 
 all that the Plymouth Colony contributed toward 
 the result of this most important synod. 
 
 The confederacy of the four principal colonies 
 of New England had its origin in the Puritan 
 The New Colony of Connecticut. Plymouth was 
 England a member of it, with the colonies of 
 
 Confederacy. 
 
 Massachusetts Bay and New Haven; 
 but Plymouth never had a leading part in the 
 Confederacy. This was the first in the long 
 series of unions between the English colonies and 
 provinces of North America, which led, in the 
 course of time, to the confederation of the States 
 
 1 Dr. Dexter's Congregationalism as seen in its Literature, 
 335-338. It should be added that the present Congregationalism 
 is much nearer that of the Plymouth Church than that of the 
 Cambridge Platform. 
 
THE PILGRIM AND THE PURITAN: WHICH 1 IOQ 
 
 in the national Union. On the whole view of 
 the history, it is plain that the political influence 
 of Plymouth was never very great. 
 
 XI. 
 
 IN respect to legislation, there was less differ- 
 ence between the Pilgrim and the Puritan colo- 
 nies than is commonly supposed. Both ^ islation 
 were influenced by the precedents to 
 which they had been accustomed in England, 
 and by the general spirit of the seventeenth cen- 
 tury. The Pilgrims had profited by the larger 
 ancTmore tolerant spirit of the Dutch Republic. 
 In both colonies the people claimed the rights 
 and liberties of Englishmen. In both, after a few 
 years, the people were taxed for the support of 
 the regular ministers, just as they had been in 
 England. Punishments which would now be 
 considered harsh and cruel, such as the use of 
 the stocks, the pillory, and the whipping-post, 
 were used in both colonies. 
 
 The laws of Plymouth against the Quakers 
 were as severe as those of Massachusetts. Meet- 
 ings of the Quakers for public worship 
 were forbidden by the laws of the Col- 
 ony of Plymouth, and all who attended such 
 meetings were liable to a fine of ten shillings, and 
 all who spoke at such meetings were liable to a 
 
HO THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND AND NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 fine of forty shillings. Men in the Plymouth 
 Colony were disfranchised because they were 
 Quakers, and also because they had harbored 
 Quakers in their houses. The law provided that 
 the people called Quakers could be arrested, sent 
 to the House of Correction, put in the stocks, or 
 in the cage, their books could be seized, and their 
 horses also ; they could be banished, and, by a late 
 law, they could be put to death. 1 The last law, 
 however, was never executed. 
 
 The laws of Plymouth provided that a witch 
 should be put to death. The Pilgrims shared the 
 common belief of their time that human beings 
 actually had direct dealings with the Devil, and 
 Laws against that they used the power which he gave 
 witchcraft, them to torture and to destroy their 
 enemies; and they thought it their duty to punish 
 in the severest way those who were guilty of 
 such an offence against their kind. They em- 
 bodied this common belief in their laws. 
 
 But there was a difference between the two 
 colonies in respect to the execution of the laws. 
 The Quakers were fined, and imprisoned, and 
 disfranchised, and even whipped in the Plymouth 
 Colony, not, however, on account of their religious 
 opinions, but because of their disorderly practices. 
 
 1 The authority for these statements is found in the printed 
 Records of the Plymouth Colony, vol. xi. n, 12, 95, 100, 172. 
 Goodwin's Pilgrim Republic, 478-490, 531. 
 
THE PILGRIM AND THE PURITAN: WHICH 1 III 
 
 But the merciful spirit of the people would not 
 have tolerated the execution of the death-penalty 
 for such offences. They adopted the wiser course 
 of shutting them up in prison when they The Merclful 
 became persistent in disturbing the good spirit of the 
 
 Pilgrims. 
 
 order and peace of the community, as 
 the Quakers of that day frequently did. It is 
 quite possible that this leniency of the people of 
 Plymouth may have influenced the people of 
 Massachusetts to repeal their law which pre- 
 scribed the penalty of death for such offences. 
 
 There were two trials for witchcraft within the 
 Colony of Plymouth. But the people had cooler 
 heads than the people of Salem and of Trials for 
 Boston. They cross-examined the wit- Se^y^th 
 nesses, and scanned their testimony, and Colony - 
 found the charges not proven. The people of 
 Massachusetts came at length to the same judg- 
 ment. But before they reached it, they had done 
 many acts of cruel injustice, which are the darkest 
 stain upon their history. 
 
 These classes of laws, however, constitute but a 
 small part of the legislation of the Colony of Mas- 
 sachusetts Bay. There is much in the Legislation 
 records of the Colony which shows how ^Lmsetts 
 vigilant and how wise the people of that Colony - 
 Colony were in protecting the rights of the citi- 
 zen, in caring for the unfortunate, in restraining 
 crime, in securing the financial prosperity of the 
 
112 THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND AND NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 community, and in protecting it from the dangers 
 which threatened it. That body of laws has 
 exerted an influence far beyond the limits of 
 Massachusetts, and has had much to do in mould- 
 ing the institutions of our nation. 
 
 XII. 
 
 IN summing up the results of this comparison 
 of these two colonies, we shall do well not to judge 
 either the Pilgrims or the Puritans by the stand- 
 ards of our times, because our times owe very 
 much to their teaching and example. For we 
 know that 
 
 " Men may rise on stepping stones 
 Of their dead selves to higher things." 
 
 Nor should we give too much weight to the 
 superiority of the Puritans in numbers and 
 Results of wealth, and in intellectual and social 
 comparison. cu it u re. For the influences that rule 
 the world do not come from such things as these. 
 " The meek shall inherit the earth." It may be 
 fairly claimed that the influence of the Puritans 
 upon New England has been greater in some 
 respects than that of the Pilgrims. The energy, 
 the enterprise, the political sagacity, the genius 
 for creating new types of government, these are 
 the inheritance of New England from the Puritan 
 fathers. The intellectual life of New England, 
 
THE PILGRIM AND THE PURITAN: WHICH? 113 
 
 and much of its best religious life, have come 
 from them. I do not know that the Pilgrims 
 were more devout than the Puritans. There is 
 no evidence at all, that I have been able to find, 
 that the religious life in the churches within the 
 Colony of Plymouth was higher than that within 
 the churches of the Colony of Massachusetts. 
 Governor Bradford lamented, in his last days, the 
 degeneracy of his people at Plymouth, just as the 
 ministers in Boston lamented the decline from 
 the old spirit of New England. 
 
 But the Pilgrims had been purified by the fires 
 of a fiercer persecution. They had learned les- 
 sons of patience and of gentleness in the hard 
 school of adversity. Their " gentleness had made 
 them great." New England would not have had 
 the same elements of power if its founders had 
 all been like those who came in the Mayflower. 
 The New England character would not have given 
 its impress to a great nation like this republic. 
 But, after all, the beauty, the poetry, of New Eng- 
 land have come, in great part, from those who 
 landed on Plymouth Rock, They have taught 
 the world a larger tolerance, gentler manners, 
 purer laws. We have learned from them the 
 grand possibilities which wait for men of faith, 
 who are content to bow their heads to the storm, 
 and commit their way unto the Lord, and trust 
 Him to bring them to the desired haven. 
 
III. 
 
 The Early Ministers of New 
 England. 
 
The Early Ministers of New 
 England. 
 
 HPHE Puritan ministers were the best repre- 
 -*- sentatives of the Puritan fathers. The 
 materials for the study of their character and 
 work are provided for us in their own writings, 
 and in the writings of those who were associated 
 with them in planting the New England colonies. 
 There was a reason why those men published 
 so many books and pamphlets in the years 
 when they were so much engaged in laying the 
 foundations of the Colony. They were, as we 
 have seen, the pioneers of the Puritan party 
 in England, and it was part of their work to 
 send home clear and definite accounts of the 
 towns and of the churches which they were 
 planting. These narratives disclose to us the 
 motives and the principles which governed 
 them. They are the original documents from 
 which the early history of New England can 
 be written. 
 
Il8 THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND AND NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 I. 
 
 THESE early ministers were of course in 
 sympathy with the intense Protestantism of the 
 The Early English Puritans. They had been 
 S S Mo r i d the special victims of Bishop Laud, 
 by persecution. Many of them had been driven from 
 their parishes, after years of faithful service, by 
 the new requirements of the dominant party in 
 the Church. They had suffered from heavy fines, 
 and from imprisonment. Some of them had been 
 driven from England years before they came to 
 America. They had found a place of refuge in 
 Geneva, and had come under the Calvinistic 
 influences of that city. These men had cut loose 
 from human traditions, and had formed the habit 
 of appealing to the Scriptures for the rules of 
 life, and methods of worship, and of political 
 administration. 
 
 They were men of one book, and that book the 
 Bible ; and they regarded the Book as the suffi- 
 cient rule in all matters, secular as well as 
 ecclesiastical. They had also a remarkable 
 sense of the authority of righteousness. It has 
 been said by French writers that the English 
 people differ from the French in that they are in- 
 clined to exalt conscience as the supreme guide 
 of life. But among the English people the Pilgrim 
 
THE EARLY MINISTERS OP NEW ENGLAND. 1 19 
 
 and Puritan ministers were pre-eminent in this 
 regard. They tested all things by a moral rule. 
 
 They had also a profound sense of the presence 
 of God in the world, and of the responsibility of 
 every man to Him for every act of his life. With 
 this, there was also a conviction of the dignity of 
 man, as a free being, responsible directly to his 
 Creator. These high views raised them above 
 the lower motives of life. Their religion gave 
 them, as one has recently said, " a superb and 
 shining courage." It mattered very little to 
 them what consequences might come from their 
 actions, so long as they had the approval of 
 their consciences. Their history is full of in- 
 cidents which show that they did their work 
 from day to day as though standing on the 
 threshold of the spiritual world. In that light, 
 duty becomes the supreme law. It is related of 
 Governor Cranfield of New Hampshire, that he 
 sent an order to Rev. Joshua Moody, the min- 
 ister of Portsmouth, to administer the Lord's 
 Supper, according to the rites of the Church of 
 England, to himself and two of his friends, on a 
 certain Sunday. But neither the Governor nor 
 his friends, according to the opinions of Mr. 
 Moody, were prepared to receive the Sacrament. 
 So the minister refused to obey the order of the 
 Governor, and, in consequence, was sent to prison 
 for six months. It is related of another Puritan, 
 
I2O THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND AND NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 not a minister, that on the famous Dark 
 Day, when the Day of Judgment was supposed 
 to be at hand, he refused to consent to an ad- 
 journment of the Legislature, of which he was a 
 member, saying, "Either the Day of Judgment 
 has come, or it has not ; if the Day has come, I 
 choose to be found at the post of duty ; and if it 
 has not come, there is no reason for an adjourn- 
 ment." 
 
 It is difficult to conceive of a finer opportunity 
 than the New England Puritans had to work 
 out a fresh and original system of religion and 
 of government. Given those vigorous Anglo- 
 Saxons, trained in the hard school of adver- 
 sity, men of faith and prayer, who had searched 
 all history for examples, transplanted to the 
 wilderness, and left by themselves for a cen- 
 tury and a half, to build, as best they could a 
 Church and a state, and the world might be 
 sure that something would be evolved that 
 would be worthy the attention of the most 
 thoughtful students of history. 
 
 II. 
 
 THE early ministers of New England were, as 
 a class, men of thorough education and culture. 
 John Robinson, 1 who certainly deserves to be 
 
 1 Prince's History of New England, 38. 
 
THE EARLY MINISTERS OP NEW ENGLAND. 121 
 
 counted among the ministers who formed the 
 character of the Pilgrims, although he never 
 came to America, was a graduate of Cam- 
 bridge, in 1600, and was a man of great learning, 
 as well of rare sweetness of temper, and of a 
 broad and tolerant habit of mind. While his 
 people were settled at Leyden, he was connected 
 with the university of that city, and was put 
 forward as the ablest champion of Calvinism 
 against the Arminians. John Wilson and John 
 Cotton, the two earliest pastors of the First 
 Church in Boston, were both graduates of Cam- 
 bridge, and had both been for years clergymen 
 in the Church of England. Cotton had been a 
 Fellow and a Tutor in Emmanuel College. For 
 more than twenty years he was vicar in the 
 Church of St. Botolph, in old Boston, " perhaps 
 the most stately parish church in England," 
 says Mr. Palfrey, "a cathedral in size and 
 beauty." His name is still held in honor in St. 
 Botolph, and a beautiful chapel has been re- 
 cently fitted up, in that church, which bears his 
 name, and a Latin inscription to his memory. 
 From this superb temple he came, while in the 
 vigor of his manhood, "to preach the Gospel 
 within the mud walls, and under the thatched 
 roof of the first meeting-house in Boston." l 
 Cotton Mather says of him, that "he was a 
 
 1 Palfrey, History of New England, vol. i. 368. 
 
122 THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND AND NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 walking library, a universal scholar, an indefati- 
 gable student, the Cato of his age for his gravity, 
 but having a glory with it which Cato had not." l 
 Francis Higginson and Samuel Skel- 
 ton, the first ministers of Salem, were 
 a ^ so graduates of Cambridge, and had 
 been clergymen in the Church of 
 England. Roger Williams was graduated from 
 Pembroke College, Cambridge, and was probably 
 admitted to orders in the National Church. He 
 was a man of learning, a close observer of nature, 
 and was the master of a clear and vigorous 
 English style. 
 
 Four years after the settlement of Boston, there 
 were thirteen ministers in Massachusetts, most of 
 them graduates of Cambridge or Oxford, and 
 several of them distinguished , for professional 
 attainments, and most of them men who had held 
 livings in the Church of England. Ten years 
 later, there were about eighty ministers in New 
 England, that is, one in three hundred of the 
 population. A number of these ministers were 
 men of good property, and aristocratic connections. 
 Generally they were graduates of the English 
 universities. The education which those univer- 
 sities imparted at that time was such as the classic 
 writers and the great statesmen of the seventeenth 
 century received. Those ministers, as a rule, were 
 
 1 Quoted in Sprague's Annals of the American Pulpit, vol. i. 29. 
 
THE EARLY MINISTERS OP NEW ENGLAND. 12$ 
 
 able to read both the Old and New Testaments in 
 the original tongues, and were familiar with the 
 best theological literature of their time. The peo- 
 ple demanded an educated ministry. The Royal 
 Commissioners reported to the king, in 1666, that 
 " every town or village in Connecticut had a 
 scholar to their minister." 
 
 Thomas Hooker, who was the leader of the 
 Connecticut Colony, was distinguished as a scholar 
 at the University of Cambridge, where Thomas 
 he was graduated, became a clergyman Hooker> 
 in the English Church, was silenced in the time of 
 Laud, went to Holland, and, in 1633, came to New 
 England. Cotton Mather speaks of him as " the 
 incomparable Hooker, a man in whom learning 
 and wisdom were tempered with zeal and holiness." 
 The Mathers Richard, Samuel, Increase, and 
 Cotton were among the most learned and accom- 
 plished men of their time. The first was educated 
 at Oxford, and the three others were graduated 
 from Harvard. They showed that the education 
 that was given by the new college, was a fair equiv- 
 alent for that which the old English universities 
 were able to impart. John Norton, also a graduate 
 of Cambridge, came to Boston in 1635, and was 
 settled at Ipswich, and was afterwards the pastor 
 of the First Church in Boston. He was a man 
 of great ability, a fine classical scholar, and a 
 well read divine, author of a System of Divinity, 
 
124 THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND AND NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 and of a number of other theological works which 
 had great influence in their day. Among them 
 was the first book in the Latin language produced 
 in Massachusetts. 
 
 Governor Winthrop states that as early as 1638 
 there were probably forty or fifty sons of Cam- 
 bridge dwelling in the villages of Massachusetts 
 and Connecticut, and not a few of the sons of 
 Oxford ; while Mr. Palfrey states that there were 
 in New England, at any time between 1630 and 
 1690, as many sons of these two famous nurseries 
 of learning as would have been found in a pro- 
 portionate number of their fellow-subjects in the 
 Mother Country. 1 
 
 We have some account of the libraries of the 
 early settlers of New England, laymen as well as 
 ministers. Elder Brewster left a library of two 
 hundred and seventy-five substantial volumes. 
 Hooker's library was appraised after his death at 
 three hundred pounds, Davenport's at two hundred 
 and thirty-three pounds, Stone's at one hundred 
 twenty-seven. John Harvard, the founder of 
 Harvard College, left a library of three hundred and 
 twenty volumes, classical and patristic works, as 
 well as modern writings in theology and general 
 literature. 2 When we consider that the sums at 
 which these libraries were appraised represent the 
 salary of a minister in those times for three or 
 
 1 Palfrey, vol. ii. 38-39. 2 Palfrey, i. 549 ; vol. ii. 45. 
 
THE EARLY MINISTERS OP NEW ENGLAND. 12$ 
 
 four years, we can see that they prized good books, 
 and paid more for them than for almost anything 
 else. Even more decisive in regard to the intel- 
 lectual spirit of the early ministers of New England 
 is the quality of the books which they intellectual 
 published. One who reads them is 
 constantly surprised at the extent and 
 thoroughness of the learning of their authors. 
 The founding of Harvard College, in 1636, was 
 perhaps the most decisive evidence of their love 
 of learning. The founders said it was their pur- 
 pose " to advance learning, and perpetuate it to 
 their posterity, dreading to leave an illiterate 
 ministry to the churches, after our present minis- 
 ters shall lie in the dust." 1 And so the people of 
 the Colony taxed themselves heavily, from year to 
 year, for the support of the college. They knew 
 that the free church in a free state, which they 
 were trying to establish, must rest upon the intel- 
 ligence of the people, and that the people are 
 dependent in large part upon the culture of their 
 professional men. 
 
 III. 
 
 THE early ministers of New England were also 
 men of great dignity of character, and courtliness 
 of manner. The age of Queen Elizabeth, and of 
 the Stuarts, was a time when the dress and man- 
 
 1 New England First Fruits. 
 
126 THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND AND NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 ners of professional men, and of public officials, 
 were of the first importance. There was a great 
 The Manners ^^ * formality in the intercourse of 
 of the Early such persons with other men. The 
 
 Ministers. 
 
 Puritans brought with them the style 
 and manners of the higher classes in England, and 
 they were very careful to guard against the ten- 
 dency, which must always be felt in a new country, 
 toward ruder manners and a lower culture. The 
 Governor and the judges wore their official robes 
 on important public occasions. The portraits 
 which we have of some of the early ministers of 
 Boston, and of some other places in Massachusetts, 
 represent them as wearing the gown and bands. 1 
 The practice may not have been followed in the 
 small towns ; and yet, if I may judge from the por- 
 traits I have seen, it was not uncommon. The Pur- 
 itan ministers had been, the most of them, ministers 
 
 1 One cannot be sure of the authenticity of old portraits, in all 
 cases. The portrait of John Cotton, e.g. which is given without the 
 suggestion of a doubt, in the Memorial History of Boston, and in 
 the History of the First Church, is now known to belong to some 
 descendant of the great Puritan divine. It is possible that some 
 other portraits are not authentic. The following are represented 
 in old portraits with gown and bands: John Wilson, Richard 
 Mather, Increase Mather, Cotton Mather, Samuel Willard, Benja- 
 min Coleman, John Davenport, Charles Chauncy, Thomas Prince, 
 John Hancock of Lexington, William Cooper, Benjamin Wads- 
 worth, Samuel Phillips of Andover, and Stephen Williams of Long- 
 meadow. After the time of Charles II. the ministers are represented 
 with the wig. This list can be easily extended, but these names* 
 from different localities, indicate the general custom. 
 
THE EARLY MINISTERS OP NEW ENGLAND. J27 
 
 in the Church of England, and had been accus- 
 tomed to wear the priestly robes. So far as the 
 customs of the National Church seemed to them 
 to tend toward Popery, they laid them aside ; 
 and the Puritans certainly had decided objections 
 to certain forms of clerical vestments, which the 
 reactionary party " the high fliers," as they were 
 called in the English Church, were disposed to 
 adopt. But there is no reason to suppose that the 
 simple clerical vestments which were used by the 
 Protestant ministers in the English Church were 
 objected to by the Puritans. But the gown and 
 bands which the ministers of New England used, 
 came from Genevan and Scottish sources, not from 
 prelatical ; and they put them on, as the Presby- 
 terian and Dissenting ministers of Great Britain 
 do at the present time, simply as the customary 
 badges of their office. 
 
 The early Puritan ministers who came from 
 England represented the best life of the Mother 
 Country. Three of those ministers Cotton, 
 Hooker, and Davenport were invited to sit in 
 the Westminster Assembly. One of them, Increase 
 Mather, was sent to represent the Colony in Eng- 
 land, when there was need of skilful diplomacy; 
 and he was kept abroad, as the agent of the Colony, 
 a number of years. He was a man of practical 
 wisdom, gentle without weakness, and cautious 
 without timidity. His face, as represented in the 
 
128 THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND AND NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 old portraits, was almost feminine in its aspect, as 
 far as possible from the hardness that is so often 
 ascribed to the Puritan ministers. 
 
 There was a dignity and authority in the pasto- 
 rate in those times which could not outlast the 
 simple habits of Colonial days. The minister was 
 at the head of a little theocracy. He used his 
 power wisely and unselfishly, for the most part ; 
 but he was a man of power by virtue of his office 
 as a minister of religion. " Are you, sir, the person 
 who serves here ? " said a traveller, to the pastor at 
 Rowley, whom he met in the street. " I am, sir, 
 the person who rules here," was the prompt reply. 
 Professor Park has described Rev. Samuel Phil- 
 lips, who was pastor of the church in Andover 
 eighty years after the settlement of New England, 
 riding on horseback through his parish, with his 
 wife on a pillion behind him, his majestic figure 
 crowned by a three-cornered hat, as one whom 
 every traveller would be sure to recognize as a 
 man who held control over his diocese. He 
 governed well. He was loved as well as feared. 
 He was a man of learning, author of nineteen 
 books and pamphlets, an energetic pastor, a pun- 
 gent and impressive preacher, to the hearts, but 
 especially to the consciences of his people. 1 
 
 Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe has given some 
 interesting sketches of some of the old-time min- 
 
 1 Bibliotheca Sacra, 1856-1861. 
 
THE EARLY MINISTERS OP NEW ENGLAND. I2Q 
 
 isters, which are drawn, for the most part, from 
 reliable sources, though none of them relate to the 
 first period of Puritan history. " The parson 
 most vivid image of respectability and Lotia:o ^ 
 majesty," she says, " which a little boy, born in a 
 Massachusetts village, could form, was the min- 
 ister. In the little theocracy which the Puritans 
 established in the wilderness, the ministry was the 
 only order of nobility. It was their voice that 
 determined, ex-cathedra, all questions, from the 
 choice of a Governor to that of the village school- 
 teacher." She describes Parson Lothrop, a 
 successor of the missionary Eliot, as a fair repre- 
 sentative " of the third generation of the ministers 
 of Massachusetts ; one of the cleanest, most gentle- 
 manly, most well-bred of men, never appearing 
 without all the decorums of silk-stockings, shining 
 knee and shoe buckles, well-brushed shoes, and 
 the ample, immaculately-powdered clerical wig, 
 out of which shone his calm, clear, serious face, 
 like the moon out of a fleecy cloud. His Sunday 
 sermons were well-written specimens of the purest 
 and most Addisonian English. He had the forma] 
 and ceremonious politeness of a gentleman of the 
 old school. He was ever gracious and affable, as 
 a man who habitually surveys every one from 
 above, and is disposed to listen with indulgent 
 courtesy, and who has advice for all seekers ; but 
 there was not the slightest shadow of anything 
 
 9 
 
I3O THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND AND NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 which encouraged the most presuming to offer 
 advice in return. Parson Lothrop was so calmly 
 awful in his sense of his own position and author- 
 ity, that it would have been a sight worth seeing 
 to witness the coming of any of his parish to him 
 with suggestions and admonitions." l 
 
 The sketch which Mrs. Stowe has drawn of 
 Dr. Hopkins of Newport will answer for the 
 ministers of the next generation. " He entered 
 the dining-room with all the dignity of a full- 
 bottomed, powdered wig, full flowing coat, with 
 ample cuffs, silver knee and shoe buckles, as 
 Dr. samuei became the majesty of a minister of those 
 Hopkins. days. The company rose at his entrance. 
 The men bowed, and the women courtesied ; and 
 all remained standing while he addressed to each, 
 with punctilious decorum, those inquiries in regard 
 to health and welfare which preface a social 
 interview." 2 
 
 IV. 
 
 IN respect to the maintenance of the ministers, 
 
 it was ordered by the Court of Assistants of the 
 
 * * .* Colony of Massachusetts, at their first 
 
 me support t J 
 
 of the meeting on this side the Atlantic, that 
 
 houses should be built for the ministers 
 
 " with convenient speed," and that an allowance 
 
 of thirty pounds a year be made to each of the 
 
 1 Old Time Folks, 3-10. 2 Minister's Wooing, 60. 
 
THE EARLY MINISTERS OP NEW ENGLAND. 131 
 
 ministers from the common treasury. In Boston, 
 the ministers were provided for by voluntary con- 
 tributions made every Sunday in the churches. 
 This custom was followed in that town for more 
 than a century. In some other towns the same 
 method was followed for a few years. The first 
 meeting-house in Boston, and the house for Mr. 
 Wilson, the first minister, were paid for out of a 
 voluntary contribution. The cost of the two was 
 about a hundred and twenty pounds. After a few 
 years, the larger number of the churches adopted 
 the method of raising the salary for the minister by 
 taxation. In 1654, a law was passed which pro- 
 vided for raising money by taxation for the salaries 
 of ministers, the erection of meeting-houses, and 
 for building or hiring houses for the ministers to 
 live in. 1 Cotton Mather said that the ministers of 
 the Gospel would have a poor time of it, if they 
 must rely upon a free contribution of the people 
 for their maintenance ; and so it was " enacted 
 that the salary for the minister who has been duly 
 elected by the majority of the people shall be levied 
 by a rate upon all the inhabitants ; and the minister, 
 thus chosen by the people, is the king's minister, 
 and the salary raised for him is raised in the king's 
 name, and is the king's allowance unto him." 2 
 
 1 Palfrey, vol. i. 317; vol. ii. 39. Winthrop, vol. i. 87. Mass, 
 Records, i. 87. 
 
 2 Ratio Disciplinae, 20-21. 
 
132 THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND AND NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 He says further that the churches of New England 
 consider not so much the age as the worth of a 
 candidate for ordination, so that they even accept 
 very young ministers of great promise, and their 
 youth is no prejudice against them. 
 
 It was common to provide what was called a 
 settlement, in addition to the annual salary, in 
 order, as they said, " that if the minister should die 
 during his ministry among them, his family may 
 have a comfortable maintenance." The church in 
 New London, Connecticut, for example, agreed to 
 pay their minister eighty pounds a year, for three 
 years, and afterwards " as much more as God shall 
 move our hearts to give, and we do find it needful 
 to pay." He was to have "all such silver as is 
 weekly contributed by strangers, to help toward 
 buying of books." The people were also to pay 
 the expense of transporting his family and effects 
 from Concord, and also to provide him a house, 
 and small farm, and firewood free of charge. 1 
 
 In Good News from New England there are 
 definite statements in respect to the salaries of 
 ministers at that time : John Norton of Ipswich 
 had ^70 a year; Richard Mather of Dorchester, 
 ^70; John Cotton of Boston, ^90; while John 
 Wilson of the same church had ^60; Thomas 
 Parker of Newbury, ^40 ; and William Thompson 
 of Braintree, ,30. The salary of the President of 
 
 1 Felt's Ecclesiastical History of N. E., vol. ii. 331. 
 
THE EARLY MINISTERS OP NEW ENGLAND. 133 
 
 Harvard College in those days was ,100, after- 
 ward increased to ^iso. 1 In the earlier years of 
 the Colony, much of the salary was paid in provi- 
 sions. There was often an agreement that a 
 certain proportion should be paid in this way. 
 
 In most instances where we are able to get defi- 
 nite accounts of ministers who lived in the second 
 or third generation of the Colony, we find that 
 they owned the dwellings which they occupied, 
 and that they also owned a farm from which a 
 part of their maintenance was derived. Peter 
 Thatcher of Milton had a farm, and was so well 
 informed in respect to agriculture that he was 
 constantly consulted by his parishioners in respect 
 to the management of their farms. Even Presi- 
 dent Edwards of Northampton was a farmer ; and 
 though he did not know his own cows when he 
 saw them, Mrs. Edwards managed the business 
 so well that a large part of the support of the 
 family came from it. Rev. Jonathan Strong of 
 Randolph had a farm, which he cultivated. He 
 used to labor with his hands a large part of the 
 week during the summer, and to teach Latin and 
 Greek to boys preparing for college in the winter. 2 
 These examples, taken from different periods of 
 New England history, are typical illustrations of 
 the close connection of the ministers with agricul- 
 ture. New England, for the first two centuries 
 
 i This was published in London in 1648. 2 Sprague's Annals. 
 
134 THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND AND NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 was almost exclusively an agricultural country, 
 and the pastors were the better fitted for their work 
 by a certain familiarity with that way of life. 
 Undoubtedly this practice contributed to the per- 
 manence of the pastorate, and to the independence 
 of the ministers. They were, for the most part, 
 men of substance. They had a position and in- 
 fluence as permanent citizens, who were rooted in 
 the soil. Having their permanent homes, the 
 ministers were not inclined to move from place to 
 place. They had their own horses and carriages, 
 and made long journeys in their own conveyances. 
 A minister, in the old times, was not usually a 
 poor man. He was the equal of his parishioners 
 in the things that give one an independent position 
 in the community. His office was respected; his 
 income was sure ; his home was his own ; and he 
 could go and come with as much freedom as any 
 other busy man. 
 
 Out of this state of things grew the old-time 
 ministerial hospitality. It was not common for 
 ministers on their journeys to stop at hotels. 
 Each country pastor was eager to welcome a 
 brother minister on his journey ; and so it came 
 to pass that the pastors had the opportunity very 
 often to exchange thoughts and impulses with 
 each other. These habits of the New England 
 ministers continued to a time within the memory 
 of some now living. The old independence of 
 
THE EARLY MINISTERS OF NEW ENGLAND. 135 
 
 the ministers, living on their own homesteads, 
 among their people, and cultivating the generous 
 hospitality which was common before the days of 
 railways, went along with habits of thorough inves- 
 tigation, and independent thinking, along with a 
 permanent pastorate, the catechetical instruction 
 of children, and a profound pastoral influence. 
 
 V. 
 
 IN respect to the dwellings of the early minis- 
 ters of New England, and their furniture, their 
 way of living, and their food, the information is 
 abundant. In Massachusetts, as in the other 
 colonies, the log-house, very often with Dwellings of 
 a thatched roof, served a large proper- the Ministers, 
 tion of the people for a dwelling in the early years. 
 The houses of the ministers were like those of 
 the people. For a few years after the settlement 
 of Boston, the larger part of the houses in that 
 town were built of logs. The old writers state 
 that the tall grass, gathered on the beaches, was 
 much used for thatching the roofs* of houses. 
 But the improvement was rapid. A Puritan 
 writer of 1642 says, " The Lord hath been pleased 
 to turn all the wigwams, huts, and hovels the 
 English dwelt in at their first coming, into orderly, 
 fair, well-built houses, well furnished, many of 
 them, together with orchards filled with goodly 
 
136 THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND AND NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 fruit-trees, and gardens with variety of flowers." l 
 There is an old house, built in 1639 by Rev. Mr. 
 Whitfield, which was still standing a few years 
 ago, in Guilford, Connecticut, which was supposed 
 to be the oldest house in the United States, north 
 of Florida. The walls are of stone, very thick, 
 from a ledge not far away. The roof is inclined 
 at an angle of sixty degrees. The height of the 
 first story is seven feet, eight inches, and that of 
 the second six feet, nine inches. In every princi- 
 pal room there is an ample fire-place, opening into 
 the great old-fashioned chimney. This house, 
 however, was exceptional. The small log-cabin, 
 with the old well-sweep outside, and with culti- 
 vated fields about it, this was the home of the 
 ministers of the first generation. They were 
 enterprising men however, and, as the country 
 became older and richer, the ministers secured 
 more comfortable dwellings. 
 
 The articles of furniture which are carefully 
 preserved in our time, and which are said to have 
 come over in the Mayflower, give one the impres- 
 sion that the Pilgrim homes were well 
 the puritan furnished. Many of the articles are of 
 English oak, elaborately carved. One 
 may see cuts of them in volumes that have been 
 recently published. But the larger number of 
 these articles are not as old as the Mayflower. 
 
 1 Johnson's Wonder Working Providence, 174. 
 
THE EARLY MINISTERS OP NEW ENGLAND. 137 
 
 If they had all been loaded into that small vessel, 
 " there would have been no room," as one has said, 
 " for the Pilgrim Fathers." * It is true, however, 
 that some of the old furniture which is still pre- 
 served did come from England, at various times, 
 during the Puritan exodus, and it is also certain 
 that some of their homes were well furnished. 
 But the furniture in most of the early dwellings 
 was very plain, and of moderate cost. Most articles 
 of table furniture were made of pewter. No forks 
 appear in the early inventories of household goods. 
 Governor Bradford had " four large silver spoons, 
 and nine of smaller size." But he was accounted 
 one of the rich men of the Colony. In 1662, one 
 of the principal men of Salem left to his daughter 
 by will, " two pewter platters and likewise an iron 
 pot." From such items as these, which appear in 
 a great many inventories, it would seem that the 
 style of furnishing was a long way below that of 
 country homes in our time. On the other hand, 
 a few chairs and tables and other articles which 
 undoubtedly belonged to the early Colonists show 
 that some of them brought into the wilderness 
 the best from their ancestral homes. 
 
 The food used in the homes of the early minis- 
 ters was not too rich for health and comfort. Not 
 much butcher's meat was to be had at first. The 
 few domestic animals were permitted to multiply 
 
 1 Palfrey, vol. ii. 64, note. 
 
138 THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND AND NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 that the fields might be stocked with flocks and 
 
 herds. But game and fish were abundant. You 
 
 recollect that the PnVrims sent out a 
 
 Their Food. 
 
 hunting party before their first Thanks- 
 giving, that they might have " rare and dainty 
 fare " for the festival. In 1642, however, "beef, 
 pork, and mutton were common in many houses," 
 according to an old writer, and also " apples, pears, 
 and quince tarts, instead of their former pumpkin- 
 pies ; poultry they have plenty, and great variety, 
 and they have not forgotten the English fashion of 
 stirring up their appetites with variety of cooking 
 their food." 1 
 
 " In the early days of New England," says Mr. 
 Palfrey, " wheaten bread was not so uncommon 
 as it afterwards became, but its place was largely 
 supplied by preparations of Indian corn. A mix- 
 ture of two parts of Indian meal, with one part of 
 rye flour, seems for two hundred years to have 
 furnished the bread for the great body of the 
 people." The morning and evening meals, for a 
 hundred and fifty years, were commonly of boiled 
 Indian meal, hasty pudding, with milk or 
 molasses, or else there was a porridge made of 
 beans or peas flavored with salted beef or pork. 
 That was the age of homespun, plain living 
 and high thinking. 
 
 Tea was not much used in the first century and 
 
 1 Wonder Working Providence. 
 
THE EARLY MINISTERS OF NEW ENGLAND. 139 
 
 a quarter of New England history, nor coffee for 
 a century and a half. Beer, such as could be brewed 
 in families, was in common use ; and after 
 the orchards were grown, cider was a very 
 common drink. Wine and spirituous liquors were 
 brought into the country in considerable quanti- 
 ties, and were used freely by the people, ministers 
 as well as laymen. It was common for the people 
 to provide these liquors for their ministers when- 
 ever they came to their homes, and also for the 
 ministers to offer them to their guests. Yet a 
 careful observer, writing from Massachusetts in 
 1641, said, "Drunkenness and profane swearing 
 are but rare in this country." Another writer 
 said, " One may live there from year to year and 
 not see a drunkard, hear an oath, or meet a beggar." 
 " In seven years," said another, " among thousands 
 there dwelling, I never saw any drunk, nor heard 
 an oath, nor saw any begging, nor the Sabbath 
 broken." 1 
 
 VI. 
 
 THE New England Puritans called their places 
 of worship meeting-houses, not because they were 
 places of assembly for the people, but because they 
 went there to meet the Lord, and to receive His 
 blessing ; as the children of Israel used to go to 
 the Tabernacle in the Wilderness, to receive com- 
 
 1 Lechford, 69. New England First Fruits. Hugh Peters. 
 
I4O THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND AND NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 munications from God. Cotton Mather said, " I 
 find no just ground in Scripture to apply such a 
 trope as church to a house for public worship. A 
 meeting-house is the term that is most commonly 
 Meeting- used by New England Christians ; and 
 Houses. every town, for the most part, can say, 
 we have a modest and a handsome house for the 
 worship of God, not set off with gaudy, pompous, 
 theatrical fineries, but suited unto the simplicity 
 of Christian worship." 1 The meeting-house was 
 the central building of a Puritan town. The village 
 grew up around it, and the country roads were 
 laid out with reference to it. The first meeting- 
 houses were built of logs, and thatched. The pulpit 
 was a simple desk. There were rough benches on 
 either side of the central aisle. The men sat on 
 one side, and the women on the other. Sometimes 
 the meeting-house was surrounded by palisades, 
 with a sentinel at the gate ; and the people used it 
 as a place of deposit for powder, and also for their 
 most valuable possessions. 
 
 Later, the meeting-houses were built on a larger 
 plan, and covered with boards or planks, and the 
 roofs were shingled. The form of the village meet- 
 ing-house, in the second period of our history, was 
 nearly square, with a roof in the form of a pyra- 
 mid, crowned with a steeple. If the people could 
 afford the luxury of a bell, it was hung in the 
 steeple, and the bell-rope hung down in the centre 
 
 1 Ratio Discipline. 
 
THE EARLY MINISTERS OP NEW ENGLAND. 14! 
 
 of the audience-room. The sexton used to stand 
 half-way between the principal entrance and the 
 pulpit, when he rung the bell. The only one of 
 these Puritan meeting-houses now in use is the 
 one in Hingham, Massachusetts, which was built 
 in 1 68 1. 1 It is of wood, and is sixty-five feet by 
 forty-five. The pulpit stood in the middle of the 
 long side. The galleries were on three sides. 
 The old timbers still show the marks of the axe, 
 and are massive enough for the ribs of a ship. 
 This ancient meeting-house, which is commonly 
 called the Old Ship, is now a well-furnished and 
 elegant Unitarian church. The churches of that 
 time in New Haven, and in Milford, Connecticut, 
 in Andover and West Springfield, Massachusetts, 
 were fine specimens of this type. Of similar 
 form was the third edifice of the First Church in 
 Boston, built in 1713, and occupied by that con- 
 gregation for almost a century. 2 
 
 That style of church architecture, which was 
 followed in New England for about a hundred 
 years, was peculiar to the Puritans. The churches 
 in the old country with which they were familiar, 
 were much like the churches of our own time in 
 form. But our fathers did not desire to repro- 
 duce those old models in their new homes. The 
 
 1 For a view of this ancient Meeting-House, as it is at the 
 present time, see the plate which faces page 117. 
 
 2 Dr. Dexter's article on Meeting-Houses, Congregational Quar- 
 terly, vol. i. 1 86. President Porter's article, New Englander, 1883, 
 303. 
 
142 THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND AND NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 churches of England had been built while that 
 country was under the Romish ritual. They had 
 been used for the Mass, and could easily be 
 adapted to the services of the old Church. The 
 Puritans made it a point to avoid whatever could 
 be suggestive of the forms of worship which they 
 disliked. So they provided buildings spacious 
 enough to accommodate the people, and plain 
 enough to guard against ecclesiastical pomp and 
 the traditional forms of worship. Hence that 
 style of building, which was once common in all 
 parts of New England, that used to be called the 
 " barn meeting-house." Its original form, before 
 porches and the steeple were added, was a perfectly 
 plain structure, almost square, without a chimney 
 or anything to mark it as a place of worship. It had 
 doors on three sides, with two, sometimes three, 
 rows of windows. The principal door was placed 
 in the middle of one of the long sides, the pulpit 
 being in the middle of the opposite side. The 
 side-doors were placed in the middle of each of 
 the ends. Galleries were built on three sides. 
 The pulpit was high, and was overhung by the 
 sounding-board, suspended from the bare and 
 unpainted rafters by a slender iron rod. This 
 sounding-board looked not unlike a huge extin- 
 guisher, made ready to drop upon the head of any 
 preacher who should prove unfaithful to his trust. 1 
 
 1 The sounding-board was borrowed from the churches of 
 Europe, where it is still common. 
 
THE EARLY MINISTERS OP NEW ENGLAND. 143 
 
 The people were seated, in the early days, on 
 rough benches, the men and women on opposite 
 sides. Pews were not provided at first. Now 
 and then a special vote was passed by the town 
 authorizing some person to build a pew in the 
 meeting-house at his own expense. Squares on 
 the floor, about six feet by six, were deeded to 
 individuals, on which they erected pews to suit 
 themselves. Later, it was customary to require 
 the pews to be built " with wainscot worke, and 
 all of a kind." These pews were apt to be set 
 up next the wall, or in front of the pulpit. Some- 
 times they had curtains, which screened the occu- 
 pants from view. The pews gradually encroached 
 upon the open spaces, until the practice was 
 adopted of providing pews for all the congrega- 
 tion. With permanent pews came the practice 
 of seating families together. The pews were 
 large and high, with seats on four sides, because 
 the average Puritan family was numerous. 
 
 A committee was appointed to assign seats in 
 the meeting-house. This was called dignifying 
 the seats, because they were assigned according 
 to the social position, or the wealth of 
 
 The Pews. 
 
 the occupants. The best seat was some- 
 times assigned to the man who paid the highest 
 tax in the parish. Sometimes the committee 
 were instructed " to have respect unto them that 
 are fifty years old and upwards, others to be 
 
144 THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND AND NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 seated according their pay." In one instance, we 
 have a record that the committee was instructed 
 " to have respect to age, office, and estate, so far 
 as it tendeth to make a man respectable, and to 
 everything else that hath the same tendency." 
 
 A third modification in the form of the meet- 
 ing-house was adopted in what may be called the 
 third period of New England history. 
 House of the As the danger from Popery did not 
 
 Third Period. r . , , . . 
 
 seem to our fathers to be so great as it 
 had appeared to be in the beginning, they were 
 disposed to build their houses of worship much 
 nearer the traditional type of a Christian church, 
 a form borrowed perhaps from the Roman basilica. 
 The ground plan was no longer square, but oblong. 
 The steeple was placed at the front end, and usu- 
 ally projected a little from the main building. 
 The pulpit was commonly, though not always, at 
 the end opposite the main entrance. The ample 
 galleries were still on three sides of the audience- 
 room, and were provided with pews. There were 
 double rows of windows, on three sides. At the 
 end where the pulpit was placed, there was one 
 window, larger than the others, and arched at the 
 top. The pulpit was still far above the pews, 
 with the sounding-board above it 
 
 One of the oldest examples of this style, now in 
 constant use, is Christ Church in Salem Street, 
 Boston, built in 1723. This church has two gal- 
 
THE EARLY MINISTERS OP NEW ENGLAND. 145 
 
 leries, the upper of which is still called " the slaves' 
 gallery." A much finer specimen is the Old South 
 Meeting-House, on Washington Street, Boston, 
 erected in 1729. The First Church in Spring- 
 field, the First in Westfield, and the Old South 
 in Windsor, Vermont, are fine examples of this 
 style. This became the common form for a Con- 
 gregational place of worship, in the later years of 
 the last century and the first half of the present 
 century. Some of these old buildings have been 
 changed in recent years, but they are easily recog- 
 nized, by an experienced observer, as belonging to 
 the type of the later Puritan age. It is character- 
 istic of these buildings, that they are all admirably 
 adapted to their purpose as places for preaching 
 the Gospel. They can accommodate a larger 
 number of people than buildings of other forms. 
 The pulpit is still the central object, and the occu- 
 pants of every pew are in view of the preacher. 
 
 The old meeting-houses of New England em- 
 bodied the ideas of the Puritan ministers. There 
 were few professional architects in the new 
 country, and in many instances the meeting-house 
 was planned by the minister. The plainness and 
 simplicity of those places of worship suited the 
 worshippers. Our fathers would have felt uncom- 
 fortable in a beautiful Gothic church, such as those 
 in which they had worshipped while in England. 
 The plain meeting-house was in harmony with the 
 
 10 
 
146 THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND AND NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 way of worship which they had chosen. If the 
 pulpits were high, it was because the ministers 
 were expected to stand far above the people, and 
 to be shining examples of Protestant principles. 
 They would have been afraid of low pulpits, lest 
 they might tend toward Popery and the service of 
 the Mass. 
 
 The meeting-house was never lighted except by 
 
 the sun, until singing-schools, at a comparatively 
 
 late period, made it necessary to intro- 
 
 Lightingand J . . , 
 
 warming of the duce candles. Night meetings in the 
 
 Meeting-House. , i -\ i 
 
 meeting-house were considered quite 
 improper; and the Puritan ministers would have 
 thought candles too suggestive of the superstitions 
 of the Church of Rome. There were no fireplaces, 
 or stoves, or other means of warming those old 
 meeting-houses for a hundred and fifty years after 
 the Colony was planted. 1 This is not so strange 
 as it seems, for the churches and cathedrals in 
 Europe were not warmed until a time compara- 
 tively recent. Our forefathers had been accus- 
 tomed to worship in cold churches in the Mother 
 Country. 2 Still those cold places of worship must 
 
 1 Dr. Dexter says : " The first church stove which I have seen 
 mentioned in Massachusetts was in the First Church in Boston, 
 I 773" There is, however, a suggestion of an earlier one in the his- 
 tory of the First Church in Newton. 
 
 2 Any traveller can verify these statements. The old stone church 
 in Grasmere, e.g. where Wordsworth was accustomed to worship for 
 many years, has not to this day a chimney. It is not many years 
 
THE EARLY MINISTERS OP NEW ENGLAND. 147 
 
 have been severe tests of the zeal and fidelity of 
 the worshippers. President Porter remarks, " The 
 breath of the worshippers of a cold winter morning 
 would not unfrequently seem like smoke from a 
 hundred furnaces, as it came in contact with the 
 frosty atmosphere. The walls, which had been 
 almost congealed into ice by the fierce north- 
 westers of the preceding week, would strike a chill 
 of death into the frame of many in the congrega- 
 tion, who had come ploughing through unbroken 
 roads and unswept walks." 1 "Herein is the 
 patience of the saints." 
 
 VII. 
 
 OF course the Puritan ministers regarded the 
 public worship of God on the Lord's-day as of the 
 first importance. The people were ex- PuWlc 
 emplary in their attendance, and the laws WorsM P- 
 which they enacted required all persons within 
 their jurisdiction to go regularly to the religious 
 services. To neglect this, exposed the neglector 
 to a heavy fine. 2 These laws were not peculiar to 
 
 since the first stoves were introduced into that church, and the smoke 
 pipes are still carried through the roof. This is not uncommon in 
 the parish churches of England. The heating apparatus in the great 
 abbeys and cathedrals is so modern that it contrasts strangely with 
 the other work of the interiors. 
 
 1 Bibliotheca Sacra, 1883, 3 TO - 
 
 2 General Laws, 83. Palfrey, vol. ii. 33; vol. iii. 49. Mass. 
 Records, vol. iii. 317. Felt, vol. ii. 453. 
 
148 THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND AND NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 New England. The laws of Virginia made the 
 same requirement. So did the laws of England. 
 This was in accordance with the spirit of that age. 
 It was even provided by the laws of Massachusetts 
 that on the recurrence of the mid-week lectures, 
 all innkeepers and victuallers within one mile 
 from the meeting-house should clear their houses 
 during the time of service of all persons able to go 
 to meeting. It was also provided that any person 
 who should smoke tobacco within two miles from 
 the meeting-house, going or returning from public 
 worship, should pay a fine of twelvepence. So 
 they carried out the injunction, " Keep thy foot 
 when thou goest to the house of God." 
 
 The Lord's-day began at sunset on Saturday, 
 according to the laws of Connecticut. 1 But the 
 The Lord's- ^ aws ^ Massachusetts provided that 
 da y- persons employed to labor might stop 
 
 work at three o'clock Saturday afternoon, and 
 spend the remainder of the day in catechising their 
 children, and in preparation for the Sabbath. Both 
 these enactments imply that it was the custom to 
 begin the Sabbath on the evening of Saturday. 
 The early ministers of New England regarded the 
 Sabbath as a time for the public worship of God, 
 and for religious instruction. The people came 
 together " at nine of the clock," for the morning 
 service. In the early times, before they could 
 
 1 Felt, vol. ii. 33. Mass. Records, vol. i. 395. 
 
THE EARLY MINISTERS OP NEW ENGLAND. 149 
 
 afford the luxury of bells, they were summoned 
 by the beat of a drum. Sometimes the voice of 
 the town-crier, or the blowing of a conch-shell, or 
 of a horn, served instead of the drum. The old 
 meeting-houses were crowded, for they were not 
 too large, and the people had a mind to go. 
 
 Inside the doors, the most conspicuous object 
 was the pulpit, with the things that belonged to 
 it. In front of the pulpit, on a low platform, sat 
 the deacons, facing the congregation. On a plat- 
 form a little higher than the deacons sat the rul- 
 ing elders. Above them, in the pulpit itself, sat 
 the two ministers. This array of dignitaries, some 
 of them, at least, in robes of office, looked down 
 upon the congregation, and was looked up to by 
 the people. " Our principal care and desire," says 
 John Cotton, " is to administer the ordinances of 
 Christ himselve in their native puritie, -me order of 
 and simplicitie, without any dressing or Services - 
 painting of human inventions." * And so, leaving 
 the traditional forms of worship, they conducted 
 the services in this wise : 
 
 First, " the bills which any of the neighbors put 
 up, desiring a remembrance in the public prayers 
 and praises were read." 
 
 Then, the pastor began with solemn prayer, 
 continuing about a quarter of an hour. 
 
 After this, the teacher read and expounded a 
 
 1 Cotton's Way of the Churches. 
 
I5O THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND AND NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 chapter in the Bible. For they would have no 
 reading without " giving the sense." This expo- 
 sition of the chapter was one of the leading parts 
 of the service. It was generally a very thorough 
 exposition, and continued a long time. It was one 
 of the most instructive parts of the service. 
 
 Then a psalm was sung by the congregation, 
 " whichever one of the ruling elders dictates." l 
 In some churches, though not in all, it was the cus- 
 tom for the elder to read the psalm, line by line, 2 in 
 order that those who were not provided with books 
 might be able to join in the singing. No instru- 
 n , mental music was allowed in the Puritan 
 
 Church Music. 
 
 churches, partly because such music was 
 very prominent in the services of the prelatical 
 churches, and partly because it was believed to 
 
 1 Lechford, Plain Dealing, 44. 
 
 2 From the beginning of the Reformation, the singing of psalms 
 and hymns, by the people, was made a prominent part of the pub- 
 lic services of religion. It has been said, that the Reformation 
 among the German people was advanced quite as much by Luther's 
 hymns, as by his sermons. Our fathers brought to New England 
 a version of the Psalter made by Ainsworth of Amsterdam, which 
 they used in their religious services for many years. About 1640, 
 the Bay Psalm Book was introduced into the churches. This was 
 prepared by some New England ministers, among whom were 
 Mather of Dorchester, President Dunster of Harvard College, Weld 
 and Eliot of Roxbury. This was in use for about a century, passing 
 through seventy editions. It did not contain the Te Deum, or the 
 Gloria in Excelsis, but it did contain a metrical version of the 
 Psalms, the Song of Solomon, and the Lamentations of Jeremiah. 
 
 In 1693, an edition of Sternhold and Hopkins was published in 
 Cambridge, and was used in the churches to some extent. 
 
THE EARLY MINISTERS OP NEW ENGLAND. 151 
 
 be contrary to the word of God. 1 But the people 
 were able to sing the few tunes that were in use in 
 the English churches when they came over. Cot- 
 ton Mather, who is a good authority upon such a 
 matter, states that " their way of singing was not 
 with disorderly clamors, but in such grave tunes 
 as are most used in our nation : it has been com- 
 mended by strangers, as melodious and agreeable : 
 more than a score of tunes are heard regularly 
 sung in our assemblies. The churches of New 
 England admit not into their public services any 
 other than the Psalms, Hymns, and Spiritual Songs 
 of the Old and New Testaments faithfully trans- 
 lated into English metre. They did not favor the 
 Te Deum, or any merely human composition." 2 
 
 1 Amos, v. 23. 
 
 2 Ratio Discipline, 54-56. Palfrey, vol. ii. 41. 
 
 " The early settlers of New England," says Rev. Mr. Symmes, 
 " used to sing by note, and there are many now living who learned 
 to sing from their forefathers." Music was studied in Harvard 
 College for many years after it was founded, and the ministers 
 educated there were taught to sing. The music used in churches 
 was written in their Psalm-books. The number of tunes thus 
 written rarely exceeded five or six. The music was taken from 
 Ravenscroft's collection, published in England in 1618, which was 
 the standard book for the churches in England and America for a 
 long time. About 1690, music began to be printed in this country, 
 appended to the Psalm-book. Some of the tunes thus printed were 
 Litchfield, Canterbury, York, Windsor, Cambridge, St. David's, 
 Martyrs, Hackney, and Old Hundredth. They were printed in two 
 parts only, and were accompanied by a few simple directions for 
 singing. 
 
 Toward the end of the first century of New England history, the 
 
152 THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND AND NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 Our fathers did not favor church choirs. The 
 singing was by the congregation for the larger 
 part of the first century. 
 
 After the psalm came the sermon by the pastor. 
 This was the great feature of the service. Its 
 length was measured by the hour-glass, which 
 commonly stood on the pulpit. The minister 
 turned the glass when he began his sermon ; and 
 he was expected, on ordinary occasions, to draw 
 his discourse to a close when the last sands were 
 
 decline in church music had become very perceptible. The culti- 
 vation of music had been neglected, and at the commencement of 
 the eighteenth century few congregations were able to sing more 
 than three or four tunes. The knowledge and use of notes had been 
 long neglected, so that the few melodies in use became corrupted, 
 until no two individuals sang them alike. " Every melody was tor- 
 tured and twisted," says an old writer, "until the psalms were uttered 
 in a medley of confused noises, rather than in a decorous song." 
 " It is with great difficulty that this part of worship is performed, 
 and with great indecency in some congregations, for want of skill." 
 
 About 1720, a reformation was inaugurated. The ministers as 
 usual took the lead, and preached and published excellent discourses 
 upon the subject. Singing-schools were commenced about this time, 
 and sacred music was taught by competent teachers. From these 
 schools came church choirs. The objections to the use of instru- 
 ments of music in church services were gradually overcome. This 
 reform however was vigorously opposed. The question whether it 
 was better to sing by note, or to sing by rote, was hotly debated. 
 In some places the discussion was so warm as to interrupt the har. 
 mony of the churches. Several ecclesiastical councils were con- 
 vened during the first half of the last century to consider that 
 question. In the end, the better methods of singing were gen- 
 erally adopted, and musical cultivation in this country was rapidly 
 advanced. 
 
 History of Music in New England, by George Hood; Palfrey, 
 vol. ii. 40. 
 
THE EARLY MINISTERS OP NEW ENGLAND. 153 
 
 running out from the glass. Yet there were in- 
 stances when the glass was turned two or three 
 times. To quote again, one of the old writers, 
 " The pastor, bespeaking attention, reads a text, 
 longer or shorter, as he pleases, from the sacred 
 Scriptures ; and then makes a sermon. 
 
 TT . .. , r ,.. .. Sermons of 
 
 He gives himself a liberty, either to the Puritan 
 
 ^ i rr^- *. i Ministers. 
 
 preach over a Body of Divinity, in order, 
 or to handle such doctrines and cases as he may 
 judge most necessary. Care was taken not to 
 weary the hearers, so that they should be dull at 
 the evening assembly ; so that ministers generally 
 limited themselves unto about one hour." * 
 
 The sermons of the early ministers of New 
 England were not written, although they were 
 carefully prepared. It is said that Mr. Wareham 
 of Dorchester was the first who used written ser- 
 mons in New England. But in the time of 
 Cotton Mather the use of written sermons had 
 become common. 
 
 The sermon being finished, the teacher makes 
 a shorter prayer. After the prayer, another psalm 
 was sung. 
 
 After these services of worship and of instruc- 
 tion were concluded, baptism was admin- Baptismand 
 istered to children who were presented the Lord's 
 by their Christian parents. It was com- 
 mon to insist that all such baptisms should be 
 in the meeting-house, and in the presence of the 
 
 1 Ratio Discipline, 55-57. 
 
154 THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND AND NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 congregation. In most instances the children 
 were presented within seven days from their birth, 
 though they were sometimes presented earlier. 
 
 Once a month, the Sacrament of the Lord's 
 Supper was administered, in connection with the 
 morning services. It was very simple, conforming 
 to the words of the New Testament. The min- 
 isters, with the other officers of the church, were 
 seated at the table. After the prayer of conse- 
 cration, the ministers handed the elements, first 
 to those seated with them at the table, after which 
 they were passed to the deacons, who distributed 
 them to the communicants. They received them 
 sitting in their usual seats. The minister who 
 had not offered the prayer of consecration prayed 
 after the elements had been passed. Then a 
 psalm was sung, and the people were dismissed 
 with the benediction. 
 
 This completed the morning services. The 
 intermission was longer or shorter, according to 
 the convenience of the people, though the more 
 common hour for the evening service was two 
 o'clock. At this service, the pastor began with 
 prayer, as in the morning. Then a psalm was 
 sung by the congregation. The minister who 
 had preached in the morning, expounded the 
 chapter in the afternoon, and the one who had 
 expounded in the morning, preached in the after- 
 noon. After the sermon another psalm was sung. 
 
THE EARLY MINISTERS OF NEW ENGLAND. 155 
 
 When this was ended, one of the deacons arose 
 and said : " Brethren of the congregation, now 
 there is time left for contribution : Wherefore, as 
 God hath prospered you, freely offer. Then they 
 bring their offering to the deacon at his seat, and 
 put it into a box of wood for the pur- 
 
 -. . The Offerings 
 
 pose, if it be money or papers. If it in the 
 be any other articles, they set it, or lay 
 it down, before the deacons, and so pass another 
 way to their seats again. In coming forward, 
 they are careful to have the Majistrates, and 
 chiefe Gentlemen first, and then the Elders, and 
 all the congregation of men, and most of them 
 that are not of the church, all single persons, 
 widows, and women in absence of their husbands." 
 " I have seen," says Lechford, " a faire gilt cup 
 with a cover offered there by one, which is still 
 used at the Communion. These moneys, and 
 goods, the deacons dispose towards the mainte- 
 nance of the ministers, and the poore of the 
 church, and the church's occasions/' The con- 
 tribution finished, there follows the admission of 
 members to the church, or hearing matters of 
 offence, or other things, sometimes till it is very 
 late. They sing a psalm at the close, and the 
 pastor concludeth with a prayer and a blessing. 1 
 
 1 The materials for this account of the way of worship of our 
 fathers are derived from John Cotton, Lechford, Winthrop, Cotton 
 Mather, and some others. 
 
156 THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND AND NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 THERE was a mid-week lecture in many of the 
 churches. This was conducted much like one of 
 The the services on the Lord's-day. The 
 
 Mid-week people were expected to attend it, as 
 they were to attend on the Sabbath. In 
 Boston, and some other towns, the lecture was on 
 Thursday; but it might be on any day of the 
 week, so that in sections where the churches 
 were not far apart, the people had the opportunity 
 to hear the word preached every day. When John 
 Norton was pastor of the Church in Boston, his 
 reputation for eloquence and piety was so great 
 that people used to come from the adjoining 
 towns, sometimes even from places as far away 
 as Ipswich, to hear him. In 1639, there were so 
 many lectures, and so many persons neglected 
 their business for the purpose of attending them, 
 going often two or three days in a week, that the 
 General Court sought a conference with the elders 
 " to consider about the length and frequency of 
 church assemblies," lest they should seriously 
 interrupt the work of the people. 
 
 The old writers make frequent references to 
 these week-day lectures. John Cotton was preach- 
 ing a series of expository lectures upon the Book 
 of Revelation, on Thursdays, about 1640. This 
 
THE EARLY MINISTERS OP NEW ENGLAND. 157 
 
 series extended through several years, and parts 
 of it were published in London, from notes taken 
 by one of his hearers. It was the method of 
 Mr. Cotton in all his preaching to go through the 
 books of Scripture in the way of exposition, and 
 it is stated that in the course of his ministry he 
 had expounded almost every one of the books of 
 the Bible. 1 
 
 There are records, more or less complete, of 
 the parochial work of the early ministers. In 
 1641, the General Court requested the Their paro- 
 elders to "make a Chatechisme for the chialWork - 
 instruction of youth in the grounds of religion." 2 
 " Milk for Babes," by John Cotton, was used for 
 more than a century, and it was always printed 
 in the earlier editions of the " New England 
 Primer." Its full title was " Spiritual Milk for 
 American Babes drawn out of the Breasts of 
 Both Testaments for Their Souls' Nourishment." 
 Later, the "Westminster Shorter Catechism" was 
 introduced ; and this supplemented the less ambi- 
 tious teaching of Mr. Cotton. Some of the 
 pastors were wont to catechise the young people 
 on the Lord's-day, in the afternoon, before the 
 sermon. Others gathered the children at their 
 
 1 Cotton, Way of the Churches. Winthrop's History of 
 New England, i. 324 (folio p. 390). Lechford, 51, notes. Cotton 
 Mather, Ratio Disciplinae, 63. 
 
 2 Records of the Colony of Massachusetts, vol. i. 328. 
 
158 THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND AND NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 own houses, on some week-day, for the same pur- 
 pose. Others went from house to house to cate- 
 chise the children. There were also more public 
 recitations of the catechism. So that the careful 
 and systematic teaching of religious truth to the 
 young was a great part of the work of the early 
 ministers. 
 
 The visiting of the sick, and of the aged and 
 infirm, and the pastoral care of the families that 
 made up the congregation, was then, as now, a 
 great part of the work of the ministers. Those 
 visits were more formal and professional than 
 such visits are in our times. But there is abun- 
 dant evidence that they were full of kindness 
 as well as fidelity, and that they supplemented in 
 an admirable way the other parts of pastoral 
 labor. 1 
 
 IX. 
 
 THE churches that were organized by the Pilgrim 
 ministers were strictly Independent Churches. 
 The Pilgrims had followed that way at Scrooby, 
 and in Holland, and they naturally organized the 
 Church in Plymouth according to their old models. 
 The Puritans, after a little time, adopted the same 
 model. 
 
 Within four weeks after the arrival of Higgin- 
 son and Skelton at Salem, in 1629, a day was set 
 
 1 Cotton Mather's Ratio Discipline, 106-111. 
 
THE EARLY MINISTERS OP NEW ENGLAND. 159 
 
 apart for the choice of a pastor and a teacher. 
 Mr. Skelton was chosen pastor, and Mr. Higgin- 
 son teacher. Mr. Higginson, and three or four of 
 the gravest men, laid their hands on Mr. Skelton's 
 head, and prayed. So he was inducted into his 
 office as pastor. Then, by a similar religious 
 service, Mr. Higginson was set apart for his office 
 as teacher, Mr. Skelton laying his hands upon his 
 head. After this had been done, Mr. 
 Higginson drew up a Confession of Earnest or- 
 
 Faith, and a Church Covenant; and 
 copies of the same were delivered to 2 ew , 
 
 Y England. 
 
 thirty persons who were to constitute 
 the church. Messengers were sent to Plymouth 
 to ask the Pilgrim Church in that place to send 
 delegates to witness the further proceedings. At 
 the day appointed the two ministers prayed and 
 preached ; thirty persons assented to the Articles 
 of Faith and Covenant ; the ministers were again 
 ordained, by the imposition of the hands of some 
 of the brethren appointed by the newly organized 
 church. Governor Bradford and the other mes- 
 sengers from the Church in Plymouth gave to the 
 new church the hand of fellowship, and thus the 
 second church in New England was organized. 
 The other churches within the Puritan Colony 
 were organized in a similar way. 1 
 
 1 Morton's New England Memorial, 99. Prince's History of 
 New England (edition of 1736), 91-92. 
 
I6O THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND AND NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 In the first generation of New England history, 
 a church which was fully equipped had two min- 
 isters, one the pastor, and the other the teacher. 
 Both of them were preachers. Both were called 
 elders, and both were authorized to administer 
 the Sacraments. The special function of the 
 pastor was public and private exhortation, and 
 that of the teacher was doctrinal and biblical 
 explanation. In practice, the two offices were 
 much the same, the pastor preaching one part of 
 the day, and expounding the other, and the 
 teacher also preaching once, and expounding 
 once each Lord's-day. The pastor was, however, 
 the leading officer of the church. Both gave 
 themselves to parochial work. Each church had, 
 also, one or more ruling elders, who shared with 
 the ministers the responsibility for the discipline 
 of the church. The church had also one or more 
 deacons, who had charge of the finances of the 
 church, and of providing for the poor. In later 
 times, however, this large number of officers, sug- 
 gested perhaps by the various ranks in the min- 
 istry of the Episcopal Church, was found to be 
 unnecessary. The offices of pastor and teacher 
 were united in a single minister, and the ruling 
 elders were dispensed with. 1 
 
 People in the Episcopal Church have some- 
 times questioned the validity of Non-Episcopal 
 
 1 Cotton's Way of the Churches. Lechford's Plain Dealing. 
 
THE EARLY MINISTERS OP NEW ENGLAND. l6l 
 
 ordination. But among the Puritans, the ques- 
 tion was whether Episcopal ordination was valid. 
 They held that the only valid call to the ministry 
 was the call of Christ through a congregation of 
 His people. So that, although their ministers 
 had been ordained years before, by the bishops 
 and presbyters of the Church of England, they 
 held that their office had terminated with the end 
 of their pastorate. The doctrine of the perma- 
 nence of the office of the ministry, aside from the 
 pastorate of a local church, they held to be 
 nothing short of a Romish heresy. One who 
 ceased to be a pastor was no longer a minister. 
 He could enter the ministry again only by the 
 call of a church, and a new ordination. So 
 that it was not so much a disowning of Episcopal 
 ordination, as the opinion that the validity of the 
 ordination had passed away when the pastorate 
 ended. If the call of the church was the only 
 true call to the ministry, it followed that it was 
 proper for the church to set apart the man of 
 their choice to the sacred office. 
 
 They also limited the functions of the pastor 
 by the bounds of his parish. It was provided by 
 law, in Massachusetts, that if any minister should 
 preach, or administer the Sacraments, outside his 
 own parish, except by the invitation of the settled 
 minister of that place, he should lose his salary. 
 It was also provided, by law, that if any person, 
 
1 62 THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND AND NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 not a settled minister, should exhort in any 
 parish, without the invitation of the pastor, and 
 a majority of the congregation, he should be put 
 under bonds of one hundred pounds to keep the 
 peace. The practice of private members speak- 
 ing in religious assemblies, without a special in- 
 vitation from the officers of the church, was not 
 encouraged. 1 So carefully did the Puritan legis- 
 lature protect the privileges of the settled 
 ministers! It is even related of a Puritan min- 
 ister, who was making a voyage across the 
 Atlantic, that when he was asked to baptize a 
 child, which was at the point of death, he de- 
 clined to do it, because, as he said, there was no 
 regular congregation worshipping in that place. 
 
 X. 
 
 IT only remains to speak of the mistakes of the 
 early Puritan ministers. They were laying foun- 
 dations. They were the builders of states. They 
 had few precedents to guide them. It is not sur- 
 prising that they made mistakes. Those mistakes 
 stand out distinctly in their history. It is easy to 
 overrate them. Some recent writers have given 
 so much prominence to these mistakes that they 
 have failed to do justice to the Puritan spirit 
 
 1 Lechford's Plain Dealing, 12-16, and 43, note. Palfrey, vol. 
 ii. 39. 
 
THE EARLY MINISTERS OP NEW ENGLAND. 163 
 
 and work. Those mistakes were the mistakes of 
 great men, and of sincere and honest men. Their 
 honesty was shown in their readiness to correct 
 their errors. 
 
 The Puritan ministers were limited by their 
 environment, as we are by ours. They lived in 
 times of conflict; and it was their mis- TheMistakes 
 sion to stand for the truth, and to suffer ? ^! Ea ^, 
 
 jrurit3.ii jviims* 
 
 for it, as the heroes of faith. Their ters. 
 fidelity to the truth made them positive men. 
 Such men are liable to push a point too far. 
 They were not far enough from the experiences 
 of persecution to give a hospitable reception to 
 the new truth that was breaking from the Word 
 of God. It is too much to require that the opin- 
 ions and the methods of such men should be up to 
 the standard of the last decade of the nineteenth 
 century. But the Puritan ministers, with all 
 their limitations, were men of remarkable good 
 sense. If they made mistakes, they had enough 
 of Anglo-Saxon sagacity to discover and correct 
 them. They made progress in building the 
 Church and the state in the New World by recti- 
 fying their errors. 
 
 For example, in the earlier years of the 
 Colony of Massachusetts, they would have no 
 public reading of the Bible, unless accompanied 
 by an exposition. The reason was, that it was 
 important, at that time, to guard against a 
 
1 64 THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND AND NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 tendency to a formal and perfunctory service in 
 public worship. They would have the reader 
 give the sense, that the worship might be intelli- 
 gent. But in the course of time they learned 
 that it was quite possible to read the Scriptures 
 intelligently, and devotionally, without an exposi- 
 tion ; so that, before the close of the century, the 
 custom of reading the Scriptures in public worship, 
 without note or comment, had become common. 1 
 Another illustration of the progressive spirit 
 of the Puritan ministers is found in the history 
 Their progres- ^ ^eir met hod of conducting the ser- 
 sive spirit. vices at funerals. They would have 
 nothing that was suggestive of prayers for the 
 dead. One of the old Puritan writers said: 
 " All prayers, either over or for the dead, are not 
 only superstitious and vain, but are also idolatry, 
 and against the plain Scriptures of God." 2 And 
 so the old ministers would not consent, on any 
 ground of sentiment or of feeling, to follow the 
 English customs with respect to funerals, because 
 they apprehended that those customs tended 
 toward the practices of the Church of Rome. 
 To such a point had they come in their opposi- 
 tion to the superstitions of that Church, that, for 
 many years, " nothing was read at burials, nor 
 
 1 Ratio Discipline, 65. 
 
 2 J. Canne's Necessity of Separation, 1634, 112. Ratio Disci- 
 plinae, 117. Lechford, 88. 
 
THE EARLY MINISTERS OP NEW ENGLAND. 165 
 
 any funeral sermon made, but all the neighbor- 
 hood, or a good company of them, came together, 
 by the tolling of the bell, and carried the dead 
 solemnly to his grave, and then stood by him 
 while he was buried. The ministers were most 
 commonly present," but had no part. But all 
 this was too unnatural, and too far from the spirit 
 of the New Testament, to be continued by such 
 Christians as they were. So that, we find, as their 
 dread of the prevalence of Romanism became less, 
 they gradually adopted the funeral customs that 
 have been common among Protestant Christians. 
 The first instance, so far as we know, of prayer 
 at a funeral, in Massachusetts, was at the burial 
 of Rev. William Adams, of Roxbury, in 1685. 
 Judge Sewall has noted in his diary, that, " Mr. 
 Wilson, the minister at Medfield, prayed with the 
 company before they went to the grave." In the 
 earlier years of the eighteenth century, according 
 to Cotton Mather, it had come to be the ordinary 
 practice to have religious services at funerals. 
 
 The celebration of marriage was also by a 
 magistrate, in the earlier years of our history. 
 The reason was that the Church of Rome had 
 exalted marriage to the rank of a Sacrament. 
 As Protestants, the Puritans made their protest 
 against this as emphatic as possible. So they 
 treated marriage as purely a civil contract, and 
 sent the parties who were to be married from the 
 
1 66 THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND AND NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 church to the town-house. The ministers were 
 themselves married by magistrates. But they 
 were in error in saying that marriage was only 
 a civil contract. The people gradually dropped 
 this extreme theory, and began to connect mar- 
 riage with the Church and its religious services. 
 By the time of Cotton Mather, marriage was 
 commonly celebrated by the pastors, and was 
 recognized as an institution which had close con- 
 nections with religion. But the use of the ring 
 in marriage was objected to for many years more, 
 as a Popish superstition. 1 
 
 Our Puritan fathers made it a matter of con- 
 science to call the days of the week by numerals, 
 and to call the months in the same way, as the 
 Quakers do to this day. It was a singular 
 scruple which they had, and it had its origin 
 amongst the Lollards, and the Anabaptists, from 
 whom the Quakers and some other Protestant 
 sects came. They thought it was giving honor 
 to the heathen gods, and to pagan worship, to 
 call their days Sunday, or Monday, or Tuesday, 
 or Wednesday, or to call their months January, 
 or March, or May. But while this scruple has 
 been so tenacious among the Friends, that even 
 Mr. Whittier continued to follow it as long as he 
 
 1 Felt, vol. i. 59. Lechford, 86, note. Ratio Discipline. R. C. 
 Winthrop says, vol. ii. 382, " The earliest record of a marriage by 
 a minister, in Massachusetts, is dated 1686." 
 
THE EARLY MINISTERS OP NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 lived, our Puritan fathers had laid it aside before 
 their colonies had completed their first century. 
 
 The Puritan ministers had very strong preju- 
 dices against the observance of the ancient fasts 
 and festivals of the Christian year. The observance 
 of Christmas and Easter was regarded by them 
 as " one of the earliest apostacies and superstitions 
 of the primitive times." They would have no 
 regularly recurring holy-days except the Sabbath. 1 
 And yet, as deeply religious people, they felt the 
 need of such days. So they appointed from time 
 to time Days of Fasting and Prayer, at the season 
 of planting, or at other seasons ; and, after the har- 
 vest had been gathered, or whenever any special 
 blessing had been given to them, they appointed 
 Days of Thanksgiving. The observance of these 
 days was required by law, just as the observance 
 of the Sabbath was required. 2 In the earlier periods 
 of our history, these days were religiously observed. 
 These occasional fasts and thanksgivings long ago 
 became stated days. The objections to stated 
 days of fasting and thanksgiving have been over- 
 come. The laws which forbade the observance 
 of Christmas and Easter were long ago repealed ; 
 and those days have steadily grown in favor with 
 the best people among the sons of the Puritans, 
 
 1 Ratio Disciplinae, 186. John Cotton's Way of the Churches. 
 
 2 Palfrey, vol. ii. 43, 44. Fasts and Thanksgivings of New Eng- 
 land, by VV. DeLoss Love, Jr., 1895. 
 
1 68 THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND AND NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 until it has come to pass that the Puritan Thanks- 
 giving itself seems to be giving place to the 
 Christmas of the Christian centuries, and the 
 annual Fast-day has already been discarded in the 
 State of Massachusetts. It may be that it is only 
 a question of time when Good-Friday will take the 
 place of the New England Fast-day. I do not 
 doubt that if Governor Winthrop and John Cotton 
 were living to-day they would heartily approve the 
 change. 
 
 XI. 
 
 THESE illustrations of the progressive spirit of 
 the Puritan ministers relate to matters which are 
 perhaps of minor importance. But the same spirit 
 was shown in much more important things. 
 
 In the first years of the Colony of Massachusetts, 
 it was ordered by the General Court that " no man 
 The suffrage shall be admitted to the freedom of this 
 Me^letsof bod Y politic, but such as are members 
 the church. o f some o f the churches within the limits 
 of the same." In this way the Puritans sought to 
 limit the citizenship to the best men. But there 
 were indications almost immediately that the pro- 
 priety of a religious test was questioned, especially 
 by the more progressive men among the ministers. 
 . Thomas Hooker wrote a letter to Governor Win- 
 throp, in which he said, " In matters which concern 
 the common good, a general council, chosen by 
 
THE EARLY MINISTERS OF NEW ENGLAND. 169 
 
 all, to transact business which concerns all, I con- 
 ceive most suitable to rule, and safe for the relief 
 of the whole." With this view of the true basis 
 for the right of suffrage, Mr, Hooker, in 1635, led 
 a company of his friends to found a new colony 
 on the banks of the Connecticut. At the first 
 session of the General Court of the new colony, 
 Mr. Hooker preached a sermon in which he said, 
 " The foundation of authority is laid in the free 
 consent of the people ; " " the choice of public mag- 
 istrates belongs unto the people, by God's own 
 ordinance;" ..." they who have power to appoint 
 officers and magistrates, have the right to set the 
 bounds and limitations of the power and place of 
 those who are called." Thus it was that this Puri- 
 tan minister laid down the principles which under- 
 lie the Constitution of the United States, a hundred 
 and forty years before the American Revolution. 
 These principles were embodied in the written 
 constitution of the Colony of Connecticut, which 
 was adopted in 1639. That constitution did not 
 impose any religious test to limit the admission 
 of adult male citizens to the right of suffrage. 
 These principles had a great influence in Massa- 
 chusetts. In 1647, the General Court voted that 
 those who were not members of the churches 
 might vote for selectmen, and on questions relating 
 to the assessment of taxes, and that such persons 
 might be chosen to fill certain offices in the towns. 
 
I/O THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND AND NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 In 1669, under some pressure from the king, the 
 Court was induced to repeal the law which limited 
 the suffrage to communicants in the churches. 
 And when, in 1692, the Provincial Charter from 
 William and Mary was received, the change in 
 public opinion had been so decided that there was 
 very little opposition to its provisions, which ex- 
 tended the suffrage to all qualified citizens, without 
 reference to their ecclesiastical relations. 1 
 
 It is hardly necessary to mention the well- 
 known fact, that the Plymouth Colony never im- 
 posed any religious test as a qualification for the 
 suffrage. There were persons in that Colony who 
 did not agree with the views of the majority, but 
 some of these persons were voters, and were ad- 
 mitted to a prominent part in the administration 
 of the Colony. 
 
 The next illustration touches a more serious 
 charge. The Puritans of Massachusetts have 
 been called intolerant, because they sent out of 
 the Colony a number of persons whom they re- 
 garded as disturbers of the peace. They claimed 
 the right, in the first years of the Colony, while 
 their institutions were in the forming state, to shut 
 out those who would cause divisions among the 
 people, and those who had shown themselves 
 restless and uncomfortable members of society. 
 In the early years of the Colony, the Browns 
 
 1 Mass. Colonial Records, vol. i. 197; vol. iv. 118. 
 
THE EARLY MINISTERS OP NEW ENGLAND. I /I 
 
 one of them a merchant, and the other a lawyer 
 were shipped back to England, because they at- 
 tempted to gather a congregation, in Salem, which 
 should use the Book of Common Prayer in the 
 worship of God, after the manner of the Episcopal 
 Church. Eight or ten other persons, whose pres- 
 ence in the Colony was found to be inconvenient 
 or dangerous, were sent away at various times. 
 
 The most noted of this class of persons was 
 Roger Williams, who was certainly one of the 
 greatest of the Puritan ministers, and whose ser- 
 vices in behalf of religious liberty have given him 
 a place among the foremost men of that great age. 
 He arrived in Boston, in 1631, when the Colony 
 was still young, and weak, and when he was him- 
 self hardly thirty years of age. He had taken the 
 degree of Bachelor of Arts at Cambridge, in 1626 ; 
 and he had probably been a clergyman in the 
 Church of England. He says that Bishop Laud 
 pursued him out of the land. Soon after he ar- 
 rived in Boston, he was invited to take the place 
 of one of the pastors, for a few months. He 
 declined the courteous request, because, Roger 
 as he said, he did not " dare officiate to wmiams - 
 an unseparated people." By this he seems to have 
 meant that the church in Boston was not radical 
 enough in its separation from the Church of 
 England. After this he preached a few months 
 in Salem, then two or three years for the Pilgrims 
 
1/2 THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND AND NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 in Plymouth, and then, leaving them somewhat 
 abruptly, after setting forth, as Governor Bradford 
 tells us, certain strange opinions, which stirred up 
 controversy, he went back to Salem, and preached 
 some years in that town. Some of the people of 
 Salem were inclined to adopt his opinions, while 
 a large number dissented from them. The mag- 
 istrates came to look upon him as a disturber of 
 the peace, and an enemy of good order in the 
 young Colony. He taught that the charter of 
 the Colony was of no force or authority; that 
 the people had no title to their lands ; that it was 
 unlawful to join in worship with any person who 
 was unregenerate, though that person might be 
 a member of one's own family ; and that it was 
 unlawful to administer the oath to one who was 
 not a Christian. The churches of the Colony, 
 he said, were idolatrous and corrupt, and their 
 ministers were false, and hirelings. 1 
 
 Great efforts were made by Mr. Cotton and 
 Mr. Hooker, to convince Mr. Williams that he 
 was in error in these severe judgments, and to in- 
 duce him to withdraw his accusations, but in vain. 
 Finally the General Court, after long delay, and 
 several hearings, decided that Mr. Williams, hav- 
 ing divulged new and strange opinions, against the 
 
 1 Palfrey, vol. i. 413. Winthrop's History, vol. i. 61, 1 1 1. Mass. 
 Colonial Records, vol. i. 77, 82-86, 91, 108. Dexter's As to Roger 
 Williams, 3, note. Bradford's History. 
 
THE EARLY MINISTERS OP NEW ENGLAND. 1/3 
 
 authority of the magistrates, and of the churches, 
 should depart out of this jurisdiction, within six 
 weeks. The time was afterwards extended to six 
 months, and Mr. Williams finally left the Colony. 
 His great reputation was made after he was him- 
 self at the head of a colony. An independent 
 position made him conservative and constructive. 
 As he grew older and more mature, he developed 
 a character which has secured to him the admi- 
 ration and respect of all the friends of religious 
 liberty. After he left Massachusetts, he became 
 a Baptist, and was baptized by immersion ; and he 
 did a great deal to give influence and usefulness 
 to that religious denomination. But that was not 
 the reason that he was required to depart out of 
 the Colony. 
 
 It is pleasing to know that the sentence of the 
 General Court against Mr. Williams was revoked 
 some forty years later. The vote, which is pre- 
 served in the Archives of Massachusetts, 1 makes 
 honorable mention of the services which Mr. 
 Williams had rendered, by his influence with the 
 Indians, in time of war, and by his respect for the 
 authority of the Colony in several services desired 
 of him ; and also of the misfortunes which he 
 had suffered in his old age, on account of the 
 burning of his house in Providence by the Indians ; 
 and it declares that the " sentence of restraint 
 
 1 Massachusetts Archives, vol. x. 233. 
 
174 THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND AND NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 from coming into the Colony " is repealed, and that 
 Mr. Williams " shall have liberty to repair into any 
 of our Towns for his security and comfortable 
 abode during these Public Troubles." 
 
 XII. 
 
 THE heaviest charge against the early Puritan 
 ministers relates to the part which they had in the 
 prosecution of the Quakers, and in the most cruel 
 and atrocious proceedings which grew out of the 
 delusion concerning witchcraft. The first oc- 
 curred between 1656 and 1661, when the Colony 
 of Massachusetts was about thirty years old ; the 
 second between 1690 and 1692. No reasonable 
 excuse can be made for the extreme folly and 
 wickedness of those proceedings. It seems un- 
 accountable that men with so much of English 
 sense and courage should have been thrown into 
 a panic by the presence of a small band of Quakers 
 in a colony which had at that time a population 
 of thirty or forty thousand people. It is no valid 
 excuse for the Puritans to allege that the Quakers 
 were persecuted in England as well as in New 
 England. It is true that during the years when 
 there were twenty or thirty Quakers in jail in New 
 England, there were more than a thousand of them 
 imprisoned in Great Britain. The whole number 
 who were fined, imprisoned, or scourged in the 
 
THE EARLY MINISTERS OP NEW ENGLAND. 175 
 
 two colonies of Massachusetts and Plymouth may 
 have been sixty ; while the number who suffered 
 in that way in England was between three and 
 four thousand ; and three hundred and Persecution of 
 thirty-eight died in English prisons. 1 ^Q^^ 6 "- 
 But we have a right to expect a larger charity 
 among a people who had themselves endured per- 
 secution. It is true, however, that the Puritans 
 dealt with the Quakers simply as intruders into 
 their Colony. They claimed the right to forbid 
 them to enter their bounds; and they always offered 
 them a free pardon, even after sentence, if they 
 would depart from the Colony. When the law 
 was passed in Massachusetts which provided for 
 inflicting the penalty of death upon Quakers 
 found in the Colony under certain circumstances, 
 it was vigorously opposed by a numerous party, 
 which included both ministers and laymen, and it 
 was finally enacted by a majority of only a single 
 vote. It is also true, that each of the four persons 
 who were put to death under that law came into 
 the Colony from abroad, after he knew of the exist- 
 ence of the law. They came expressly to defy the 
 penalty. Each of them was offered his liberty if 
 he would engage to leave the Colony. They volun- 
 tarily laid down their lives as a testimony against 
 an unrighteous law, and their death led to the 
 
 1 Encyclopaedia Britannica, vol. xx. 148, 9th ed. Palfrey, vol. ii. 
 440-445, note. 
 
1/6 THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND AND NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 repeal of the law. In this case, as in so many others, 
 the victory was with the persecuted party. 
 
 Thirty years later, another epidemic of folly 
 swept over the New England colonies, which led 
 witchcraftin to a multitude of horrors, and the ju- 
 Hew England. ^{ c { a \ murder of about twenty persons. 
 The Puritans had always believed in the existence 
 of what is known in history as witchcraft, as most 
 persons who lived in the seventeenth century did. 
 When it was alleged that there were persons in 
 Salem, and various other places, who had entered 
 into a league with the Devil to torture and kill 
 their neighbors, they seem to have taken leave of 
 their senses, and given themselves up to a car- 
 nival of folly. The history of that delusion is 
 undoubtedly the darkest part of their record. 
 
 And yet it is an error to suppose that our fathers 
 were peculiar in this thing. They only adopted 
 the common belief of their times. The atrocities 
 in New England were much less than those in 
 Old England. The state trials of England show 
 that Chief Justice Hale, and others among the most 
 eminent jurists in that country, believed that witch- 
 craft was a crime to be punished by law. In the 
 years when witches were hung in Massachusetts, 
 a much larger number were put to death in Great 
 Britain. 1 It is related that the bull of Pope Inno- 
 
 1 Encyclopaedia Britannica, Art. Witchcraft. Palfrey, vol. iii. 
 124-125. 
 
THE EARLY MINISTERS OF NEW ENGLAND. 177 
 
 cent the Eighth against witchcraft caused the death 
 of a hundred thousand persons in Germany alone. 
 The story of man's inhumanity to man is not 
 limited to Massachusetts. The English statutes 
 against witchcraft were not repealed until fifty 
 years after the superstition had passed away from 
 New England. It can be fairly claimed, in behalf 
 of our fathers, that the madness was past in about 
 two years, instead of lasting for generations, as it 
 did in so many other countries ; and that the 
 number of victims, when compared with the 
 number who were put to death elsewhere, was 
 small. Moreover, those who had been led to 
 participate in the atrocious acts of the epidemic 
 of cruelty, were among the first to discover the 
 folly and wickedness of the whole thing. The 
 confessions which they made were very full, and 
 as public as their offence had been. 
 
 XIII. 
 
 ANOTHER illustration of the progressive ten- 
 dency among the early New England ministers is 
 to be found in the history of their Church Polity. 
 The first churches were strictly inde- 
 
 ' The Polity 01 
 
 pendent. The ministers were jealous of theEariy 
 
 Churches. 
 
 any act which implied that a neighbor 
 
 church had a right to influence another church. In 
 
 the earliest years the churches exercised their right 
 
 12 
 
I ?8 THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND AND NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 to ordain their own officers, without the advice or 
 help of their neighbors. Thus they lost sight of 
 the fellowship of the churches, in the one kingdom 
 of our Lord. They followed the same course that 
 the English Independents have followed, whose 
 churches were said by one of their own divines 
 to be " like so many ships launched singly, and 
 sailing apart and alone in the vast ocean of these 
 tumultuous times, exposed to every wind of doc- 
 trine." 1 There was no more important work 
 done by the early Puritan ministers than the 
 evolution of the Congregational Church Polity 
 from the Independency of the first years of the 
 Colony. It was by experience and free discus- 
 sion that they learned to limit the tendency to 
 the isolation of the local church, by the principle 
 of fellowship. 
 
 John Cotton and Thomas Hooker seem to have 
 been the leaders in the movement to supply the 
 defects in the ecclesiastical system. Both of them 
 published important works designed to lead toward 
 a better Polity. The movement was strengthened 
 by the apprehension that the Presbyterian party 
 in England designed to impose their system of 
 church government upon the colonies. It was felt 
 that the separate and isolated churches in New 
 England were in no condition to resist such an 
 effort. The General Court of Massachusetts 
 
 i The Savoy Divines of 1658, quoted by Palfrey, vol. ii. 180. 
 
THE EARLY MINISTERS OP NEW ENGLAND. 179 
 
 therefore invited the churches in all the colonies 
 of New England to send their elders and messen- 
 gers to a synod at Cambridge " to establish and 
 settle the right form of government and discipline 
 for the churches." The synod met in 1646, and, 
 after a short session, adjourned for a few months, 
 and then adjourned a second time, so that the 
 final session was held in 1648. All through the 
 two years, the discussion of principles was going 
 on among the churches, so that in the end a good 
 degree of unanimity was secured. 
 
 The Cambridge Platform which the synod 
 finally adopted was designed to introduce order 
 and unity, and to create a system capable of more 
 efficient action than had been provided for by the 
 earlier methods, The synod, in seeking for a 
 bond of union, discarded the methods of the 
 Presbyterian and Episcopal churches, and adopted 
 the system of ecclesiastical councils, which had 
 been growing in favor among them for a long 
 period. The council, as they conceived of it, was 
 not to be a permanent body, but to be convened 
 for special occasions, and to be made up of min- 
 isters and delegates from the churches of the 
 vicinity; and its existence terminated when the 
 business for which it was called had been done. 
 Its decisions were not authoritative, but " had so 
 much weight as there was weight in the reasons 
 for them." The platform recognizes and defines 
 
ISO THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND AND NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 the rights of the local church, and it denies to 
 councils the power of discipline by authority. 
 But it encourages the calling of councils to con- 
 sider and advise in matters of common interest. 
 It allows the ordination of churcli officers by offi- 
 cers of other churches, assembled in mutual 
 councils, thus relaxing the ancient rule. " It be- 
 longeth unto synods and councils to debate and 
 determine controversies of faith, and cases of con- 
 science, to clear up from the Word directions for 
 the worship of God, and for the good government 
 of the church, to bear witness against mal-adminis- 
 tration and corruption in doctrine or manners in 
 any particular church, and to give directions for 
 the reformation thereof." 1 
 
 This platform has not been by any means a 
 fixed rule of procedure. As it was itself the result 
 of the development of principles, so its provisions 
 have been modified and improved as the experi- 
 ence and needs of the churches have required, as 
 they have spread beyond the limits of New Eng- 
 land into all parts of the country. But the Cam- 
 bridge Platform has maintained its place as an 
 ancient and valuable standard among the Congre- 
 gational churches for two hundred and forty-eight 
 years. Its influence in securing the stability and 
 the steady growth of the Puritan churches has 
 
 1 Historical Preface to the Cambridge Platform. Palfrey, vol. ii. 
 165-186. 
 
THE EARLY MINISTERS OP NEW ENGLAND. igl 
 
 been very great. It still holds a place of honor 
 among them, and is one of the finest monuments 
 of the wisdom and piety of our fathers. 
 
 XIV. 
 
 THE right of private judgment, that leading 
 principle of Protestantism, is the source of most 
 of the progress of modern times. The Puritans, 
 in the exercise of this right, had thrown aside a 
 great body of traditions from the Middle Ages; 
 and they had put the ocean between themselves 
 and the old societies and governments and 
 churches, that they might work out freely their 
 convictions in a new church and a new common- 
 wealth. Every man of them felt that it was his 
 right and duty to judge for himself in respect to 
 all matters of truth and duty. It is an error to 
 suppose that the Puritans were content to take 
 their opinions from their ministers, or that the 
 ministers themselves were agreed in respect to all 
 points of faith or practice. The spirit of inquiry 
 possessed all minds. New opinions were spring- 
 ing up every day. One of the synods found it 
 necessary to condemn eighty-two errors that had 
 been set forth by some among them. There could 
 be no more striking illustration of the independent 
 thinking of our fathers. Mr. John Fiske calls this 
 tendency rationalism, and he says, " The conse- 
 
1 82 THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND AND NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 quences of this rationalistic spirit have been very 
 far-reaching. In the conviction that religious 
 opinions must be consonant with reason, and that 
 religious truth must be brought home to each 
 individual by rational argument, we may find one 
 of the chief causes of that peculiarly conservative 
 yet flexible intelligence which has enabled the 
 Puritan countries to take the lead in the civilized 
 world of to-day." l 
 
 These statements of Mr. Fiske lead towards the 
 true philosophy of New England history. Our 
 Puritan fathers felt bound not only to interpret 
 the Bible for themselves, but to test all principles 
 and institutions by their reason and conscience. 
 This habit of mind made them the most original 
 and progressive men of their time. They were 
 not hidebound conservatives. They proved all 
 things, and held fast that which was good. The 
 New England spirit has been developed from the 
 thinking and the devotion of those heroic men, 
 planted in this new world, where they were free 
 to build according to new patterns, bringing out 
 of their treasure things new and old. 
 
 1 Beginnings of New England, 149. 
 
IV. 
 William Pynchon, Gent. 
 
William Pynchon, Gent. 
 
 TN writing of the early Puritan ministers of New 
 England, it has been necessary to speak of a 
 great many persons besides the ministers. For 
 the ministers were closely connected with all the 
 public men of the colonies, and with the social 
 and political interests of the people. So that we 
 have already seen what sort of men the political 
 leaders of the people were ; how they lived, and 
 what ideals they were working out. The picture of 
 Puritan life, however, will be more complete, if we 
 study the lives of some of those who were not 
 ministers. There were men in the colonies who 
 guided the people in working out their principles, 
 as Eliot and Hampden and Pym had me Great 
 led the Puritans in the Mother Coun- l^^ ora 
 try. We think at once of Governor and statesmen. 
 John Winthrop, and his son of the same name, 
 the Governor of Connecticut; and of the more 
 conservative Governor Dudley, of Sir Henry 
 Vane, also a Governor of Massachusetts, and 
 of William Bradford, Governor of Plymouth, 
 
1 86 THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND AND NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 and his successor Edward Winslow. But the 
 lives of these men have been often written, and 
 very little that is new remains to be said about 
 them. 
 
 I. 
 
 I HAVE chosen, therefore, to write of another man 
 of affairs, of the Colonial age, who is not so well 
 known as some of the other men, though he stood 
 in the front rank among the founders of Mas- 
 sachusetts. William Pynchon 1 was a Puritan of 
 the Puritans, who came to New England with 
 John Winthrop, in 1630. He was one of the men 
 who signed the notable agreement at Cambridge, 
 August 1 6, 1629, with Winthrop and Dudley and 
 Isaac Johnson and eight others, which 
 i ec j the way to the settlement of New 
 England. He_was an original member of the 
 Massachusetts Company, formed in England, and 
 was one of its officers. He was the representative 
 of an ancient and wealthy English family. 
 
 " The first of the Pynchon family," 2 says Presi- 
 dent Thomas R. Pynchon, D. D., now of Trinity 
 College, Hartford, Conn., " came to England with 
 the Conqueror, and had a grant of manors in Lin- 
 colnshire. Thence they drifted, after some genera- 
 tions, into Northamptonshire, where W. Pynchon 
 
 1 See the frontispiece for his portrait. 
 
 2 MS. letter from President T. R. Pynchon, dated Trinity Col- 
 lege, Hartford, March 4, 1886. 
 
WILLIAM PYNCHON, GENT. l8/ 
 
 resided, who was the grandfather of Henry Chich- 
 ley, Archbishop of Canterbury, who flourished in 
 the time of kings Henry Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth, 
 between 1414 and 1443. From Northampton- 
 shire they passed into Essex, and had property at 
 Writtle, near Chelmsford. The church of that 
 town, a noble building, has in its chancel many 
 fine monuments running through several genera- 
 tions of the family." Nicholas Pynchon was sheriff 
 of London, in I532. 1 His son John, of Writtle, 
 Essex, married Jane, heiress of Sir Richard Emp- 
 son, one of the ministers of Henry the Seventh. 
 John Pynchon died in 1573, leaving six children. 
 His second son, John, settled in Springfield, Es- 
 sex, near Chelmsford. His son William, of whom 
 I am to write, was born, probably in Springfield, 
 about 1590. The date of his birth is determined 
 by an inscription 2 on his portrait, now in posses- 
 sion of the Essex Institute, at Salem, which indi- 
 cates that the portrait was painted in 1657, and 
 that his age was sixty-seven years. 
 
 /William Pynchon, gent, as his name is always 
 written in the records of the Colony, was a man 
 of fortune, well versed in affairs, and well educated. 
 It is said that he was not a graduate from the 
 university ; but his works show that he had some 
 
 1 Heraldic Journal, No. 14, April, 1866, quoted in Records of 
 the Pynchon Family. 
 
 2 " Guil. Pynchon armg. Effigies. | Delin. Anno Dom. 1657. | 
 Et. 67." 
 
1 88 THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND AND NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 knowledge of the Latin, Greek, and Hebrew lan- 
 guages, and a wide acquaintance with the theo- 
 logical literature of his time. / He was one of the 
 patentees named in the Charter of the Colony of 
 Massachusetts Bay, from Charles the First, which 
 bears the date of March 28, I628. 1 He was also 
 named in the same charter one of the eighteen As- 
 sistants, and was connected with the government of 
 the Company before it was transferred to this side 
 settlement of f the Atlantic by the notable vote of 
 Roxbury. j^ members. f-j e was the leader in the 
 settlement of Roxbury, and one of the founders of 
 the first church in that town. 2 He was engaged 
 in business, perhaps as a merchant. While at 
 Roxbury he was for some years Treasurer of the 
 Colony, and was elected, from year to year, one of 
 the Assistants. He was early licensed as a fur- 
 
 ^rl' ^ -^ J ~" U '"* 
 
 trader. In 1632, he paid twenty-five pounds into 
 the treasury of the Colony for his license as a fur- 
 trader. The same sum was paid each year until 
 1635, when the General Court remitted one fifth of 
 the amount, probably because the trade had become 
 less lucrative. 
 
 II. 
 
 IT is not easy to understand why it was that, 
 within five or six years after the settlements near 
 
 1 Bancroft, vol. i. 265, 281. Mass. Records, vol. i. 
 
 2 Hist. Boston, vol. i. 401-411. 
 
WILLIAM PYNCHON, GENT. 189 
 
 Boston were begun, the people in a number of these 
 settlements were moved by a common impulse to go 
 further west. The reasons given, says Winthrop, 1 
 were their " lack of accommodations for their cattle, 
 so that they were not able to maintain Thel)esireto 
 their ministers, nor could receive any piantawew 
 more friends to help them ; and also the 
 fruitfulness and commodiousness of Connecticut, 
 and the danger of its being possessed by others," 
 Dutch or English ; and, what is always the decisive 
 reason with persons seized by the western fever, 
 "the strong bent of their spirit to remove thither." 
 Cotton Mather says, " It was not long before the 
 Massachusetts Colony was become like a hive 
 overstocked with bees, and many of the new in- 
 habitants entertained thoughts of swarming into 
 plantations extending further into the country." 
 " The Colony," he says, 2 " might fetch its descrip- 
 tion from the Scripture : * Thou hast brought a 
 vine out of England ; Thou hast cast out the 
 heathen and planted it ; Thou preparedst room 
 before it, and didst cause it to take deep root, and 
 it filled the land/ But still there was one stroke 
 wanting, to wit, ' She sent forth her branches unto 
 the river", whereupon many of the planters, belong- 
 ing especially to the towns of Cambridge, Dor- 
 chester, Watertown, and Roxbury, took up reso- 
 
 1 Winthrop's History of New England, vol. i. 140. 
 
 2 Quoted by Dr. Holland in Hist, of Western Mass., i. 20. 
 
I QO THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND AND NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 lutions to travel an hundred miles westward from 
 those towns for a further settlement upon that 
 famous river, the report of which had made a little 
 Nilus of it." All of which means, that Boston, 
 Cambridge, and the rest were full, as the people 
 thought, and they were already feeling the stir- 
 rings of that wonderful instinct which in two 
 centuries and a half has belted the continent with 
 Puritan populations, which stretch already as far 
 as the Massachusetts charter gave a title, even to 
 the western sea. 
 
 The 1 4th of May, 1634,* the General Court 
 granted leave to the inhabitants of Newtown " to 
 remove^ their_jiabitations to some convenient 
 place." On the 6th of May, 1635, it was voted to 
 grant liberty to the inhabitants of Watertown, and 
 to the inhabitants of " Rocksbury to remove them- 
 selves to any place they shall think meete, not to 
 prejudice another plantation, provided they con- 
 tinue still under this government." That same 
 year a company, or several companies, settled on 
 the Connecticut River within the present limits of 
 Connecticut. In 1635, two men, John Cable and 
 John Woodcock, were sent by Mr. Pynchon to 
 the Connecticut River to build a house for the 
 
 *"^ 
 
 new plantation. It is probable that Mr. Pynchon 
 himself had before this crossed the country, to the 
 valley of the river, and selected the place for the 
 settlement. 
 
 1 Mass. Records, i. 136. 
 
WILLIAM PYNCHON, GENT. 19 1 
 
 III. 
 
 / lN_the spring of 1636, Mr. Pynchon and seven 
 other men made their way through the wilderness, 
 following, it is supposed, the Bay Path, Thespringfieid 
 so called, and began a new plantation. Colony ' I636> 
 Their goods were sent by water, in Governor 
 Winthrpp's vessel, i- the " Blessing of the Bay," 
 which left Boston, "April 26th. We ride to Spring- 
 field, over almost the exact route of the Bay Path, 
 in less than three hours. The pioneers were per- 
 haps a week cutting their road through the forest, 
 following, for a part of the way, an Indian trail. 
 The date of their arrival is not known, but on the 
 1 4th of May they subscribed an agreement, which 
 contains fifteen articles, and which was designed 
 as the fundamental law of the Colony. It gives it 
 the name of the Plantation of Agawam, spelled in 
 the agreement Agaam, according to the pronun- 
 ciation of the Indians of the vicinity. The first 
 article provides for the settlement of a " Godly 
 and faithful minister," " with all convenient speed, 
 with whom we propose to joyne in church cove- 
 nant, to walk in all the ways of Christ." 1 The 
 second limits the number of families to forty^^or 
 by; general consent to fifty at the utmost. The 
 others provide for the allotment of land to the 
 
 1 Judge Morris's Address, 1876, Appendix. 
 
1 92 THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND AND NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 various settlers, and for defraying the expenses of 
 the settlement. It was stipulated that no man 
 except Mr. William Pynchon " shall have above 
 ten acres for his house lot." On laying out the 
 land, the general course was to " allow each inhab- 
 itant a house lot on the west side of " what is now 
 called Main Street, " eight rods wide, from the 
 street to the river ; a like width in the meadow in 
 front of his house, to the foot of the hill ; and a 
 wood lot, of the same breadth, extending, at first 
 eighty, and afterwards an hundred rods, nearly to 
 the top of the hill ; and, when practicable, an allot- 
 ment in the intervale, on the west side of the River, 
 of the same width, and, as near as might be, 
 directly against his lot." 1 
 
 J/Ir. Pynchon was the magistrate of the Colony, 
 at^ first under a general commission from the 
 Mr Pynchon Q en eral Court, dated March 3, 1636,2 
 
 the only \yhich authorizes eight persons to de- 
 Magistrate. . . .*? 
 
 termine, in a judicial way, differences, 
 
 and to inflict corporal punishment, or imprison- 
 ment, or to levy fines, in various plantations on 
 the Connecticut River. 
 
 the.re is on record, at the Registry of Deeds in 
 Hampden County, 3 a paper which conveys^ the 
 Indian title to the lands, on both sides of the river 
 
 1 Address by George Bliss, March 24, 1828. 
 
 2 Massachusetts Colonial Records, vol. i. 170-171. 
 8 Dr. Holland's History, vol. i. 29. 
 
WILLIAM PYNCHON, GENT. 193 
 
 for four or five miles, to William Pynchon, Esq., 
 Mr. Henry Smith (his son-in-law), and their heirs 
 and associates. It is dated July 15, 1636, and 
 is signed by thirteen Indians, by their marks. 
 The consideration acknowledged in the deed 'is 
 eighteen fathom of wampum, eighteen coats, 
 eighteen hatchets, eighteen hoes, and eighteen 
 knives, besides certain presents made to some of 
 the chiefs. 
 
 The year following the settlement, the people 
 secured the services of Rev. George Moxon, and 
 under him they formed a church. 1 Mr. Moxon 
 had received Episcopal ordination in England. 
 He was a graduate of Sidney College, Cambridge, 
 and took his degree of A.B. in 1623. He was a 
 personal friend of Mr. Pynchon, and continued 
 in the Colony only so long as Mr. Pynchon did. 2 
 A house was built for him by a voluntary assess- 
 ment in 1639; and he received a salary of forty 
 pounds a year, of which, in 1638, Mr. Pynchon 
 paid 24 6s. 8</. 3 
 
 All the settlements on the Connecticut 
 Wethersfield, Hartford, Windsor, and Agawam 
 were at first united under a joint commission, 
 appointed by the General Court of Massachusetts, 
 of which Mr. Pynchon was a member. He at- 
 tended a court held at Hartford in November, 
 
 1 Hist, of Conn. Valley, 33. 3 Hist, of Conn. Valley, 33. 
 
 2 Holland's History, vol. i. 31. 
 
194 THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND AND NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 1636, and also in 1637. ^ n 1638, Rev. George 
 Moxon and John Burr were chosen to represent 
 Agawam at the same court. 1 It had been uncer- 
 tain how many of the settlements were under the 
 jurisdiction of Massachusetts; but, in 1638, the 
 people of Agawam became satisfied that "by 
 God's Providence they were now fallen into the 
 line of the Massachusetts jurisdiction ; " and they 
 /hose Mr. William PyncJiQjiJlto execute the office 
 Q! a magistrate in this oujplantation of Agawam," 
 ".till we receive further directions from the Gen- 
 eral Court in the Massachusetts Bay." The 
 record of this action occupies the second page in 
 the manuscript volume known as " The Pynchon 
 Record Book." ^he magistrate was authorized 
 " to administer oaths, issue warrants, hear and 
 examine misdemeanors, inflict corporal punish- 
 ment by whipping and the stocks, to commit to 
 prison ; _ to_try actions_fpr debt or trespass, and 
 keep records of verdicts, judgments, and execu- 
 jpns, and whatever else may tend to the king's 
 It was agreed, on account of the scarcity 
 of menC that six persons should be deemed a 
 "good and sufficient jury to try any action, under 
 the sum of ten pounds." 
 
 1 Holland's History, vol. i. 33. 2 Ibid. 
 
WILLIAM PYNCHON, GENT. 195 
 
 IV. 
 
 THIS was really a form of government, adopted 
 by the inhabitants of the Colony, and was an 
 assumption of the right of self-govern- AHew 
 ment, and especially of independence of Government. 
 the authority of Connecticut. This action led to 
 a prolonged controversy, in which Mr. Pynchon 
 acted as the leader of the Colonists. Their posi- 
 tion was finally sustained by the General Court 
 pf Massachusetts, which, on the 2d of Xune, 1641, 
 adopted an elaborate paper, 1 which asserted the 
 claim of the Massachusetts Colony to the planta- 
 tion, and ordered that " William Pynchon, gent, 
 for the year shall have full power and authority 
 tojjovern the inhabitants of Agawam, now Spring- 
 field, to hear and determine all causes and offences, 
 both civil and criminal, that reach not to life, 
 limbs, or banishment, according to the laws heare 
 estabfished."'N A little earlier than this, namely, the 
 1 4th of April, 1640, the inhabitants assembled in 
 general town-meeting, and changed the name of 
 their plantation from Agawam to Springfield, 
 as a compliment to Mr. Pynchon, whose home 
 was in Springfield before his removal to New 
 England. 2 Mr. Pynchon was the magistrate of 
 the Colony from the beginning to 1651, first as a 
 
 1 Mass. Records, vol. i. 321. 2 Holland's History, vol. i. 34. 
 
I Q6 THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND AND NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 member of the joint commission, then by vote of 
 the people of Agavvam, and after June 2, 1641, by 
 commission from the General Court. 
 
 The records of his court show the variety and 
 importance of his duties. One of the most im- 
 portant cases was a suit for slander. John Wood- 
 cock was complained of for slandering the pastor, 
 Rev. George Moxon, by saying that the said 
 Moxon had taken a false oath against him at 
 Hartford. Mr. Moxon claimed g 19^. damages, 
 but the jury awarded him 6 135. There were 
 suits for the collection of debts, and for violation 
 of contract. Estates were settled in Mr. Pynchon's 
 court, and the inventories in his Record Book 
 give us glimpses of the sort of property and of 
 household furniture in those times, as well as of 
 the prices at which articles were valued. In 1651, 
 Hugh Parsons was apprehended on charge of 
 witchcraft. The testimony against him is recorded 
 by Mr. Pynchon. The duty of the magistrate 
 consisted in the examination of witnesses. Parsons 
 was sent to Boston for trial. Witnesses were 
 produced, and the testimony taken in Springfield 
 A case of was read, and the prisoner was found 
 witchcraft, guilty o f the sin of witchcraft. The 
 General Court reviewed the case and reversed the 
 verdict. The wife of Parsons had been insane, 
 and had taken the life of her infant child. She 
 was arrested for the double crime of witchcraft 
 
WILLIAM PYNCHON, GENT. 1 97 
 
 and murder. Her examination was before Mr. 
 Pynchon. She was tried in Boston, and found 
 guilty of murder only. As there is no further 
 record in her case, it is probable that she died in 
 prison. This was forty years earlier than the 
 great excitement in connection with witchcraft in 
 Salem and Boston. It was, so far as I know, the 
 earliest trial for witchcraft in Massachusetts. 
 
 The settlers very early adopted a code of 
 municipal regulations. The annual town-meeting 
 was fixed upon the first Tuesday in November. 1 
 Every householder was required to have a ladder 
 annexed to his house, as a security in case of fire, 
 and to have his chimney swept at stated periods. 
 It was forbidden to carry fire from house to house, 
 not being sufficiently covered, on penalty of a fine 
 of 5,?., and a liability for all damages. As the 
 houses were covered with thatch, and the chim- 
 neys were wooden frames covered with mortar, 
 and there was much inflammable material in the 
 street, the need of this regulation is apparent. 
 November 14, 1639, it was ordered that the 
 " Sealed Peck, which Mr. Pynchon hath, shall be 
 the ordinary Peck to buy and sell by in the Plan- 
 tation." " The exercise of trayning was to be 
 practiced one day in every month/' No person 
 was to trade, give, or lend to any Indian any quan- 
 tity of powder, little or great, under penalty of 
 
 1 Address by George Bliss, 1828, Appendix N. 
 
198 THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND AND NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 The wages of carpenters were fixed at 2s. 6d. a 
 day, for the nine best months, and at 2s. from the 
 
 loth of November to the loth of Feb- 
 Regardto ruary. Mowers should have 2s. 6d. a 
 
 day. Sawers, 6s. 6d. per hundred feet, 
 " they to fall and hewe, and the owner to bring to 
 the pitt." Ordinary farm labor was 2s. a day for 
 nine months, and i8d. for three months; only 
 from the 24th of April to the 24th of June they 
 " are left to their liberty as men can agree." _ A 
 day's work was the whole day, allowing convenient 
 time for food and rest. Violation of these rules 
 to__be punished " by the Magistrate according to 
 the quality and nature of the offence." Any man 
 elected to any office in the town, and refusing 
 or neglecting to serve, " shall pay to the Town 
 Treasurer 2os., unless he have served in that office 
 the year before." And any inhabitant who should 
 absent himself from town-meeting should be liable 
 to a fine of 2s. 6d. " Jan. 8, 1646, it was agreed 
 by the plantation with John Matthews to beat the 
 drum for the meetings, for a year's space, at 10 
 A.M. on Lecture days, and 9, on the Lord's days, 
 in the fournoons only, and he is to beat it from 
 Mr. Moxon's to R. Stebbins house, and ye meet- 
 ings to begin within half an hour after, for which 
 his paynes, he is to have yd., in wampum, of every 
 family in the town, or a peck of Indian corn if 
 they have not wampum." 
 
WILLIAM PYNCHON, GENT. 1 99 
 
 Mr. Pynchon succeeded in preserving friendly 
 relations with the Indians of the vicinity by a 
 wise and conciliatory policy. 1 One part 
 olhis policy was to treat the Indians as withthe 
 an independent people. In 1648, for 
 example, he was directed by Lieutenant-Governor 
 Dudley to take into custody certain Indians who 
 had murdered some other Indians. In his answer 
 Mr. Pynchon convinced Governor Dudley that 
 neither the murderers nor those murdered were 
 under the jurisdiction of the Colony. The attempt 
 to interfere was at once abandoned by the author- 
 ities at Boston. But whenever the Indians com- 
 mitted offences against our own people, Mr. 
 Pynchon claimed jurisdiction, and by a wise 
 blending of authority, with an appeal to the In- 
 dian's sense of justice, he commonly succeeded in 
 securing redress. The Indians had confidence in 
 him, and were plainly ready to be guided by his 
 wisjies. 
 
 Besides his public duties, Mr. Pynchon was an 
 active business man. The trade in beaver and 
 other furs was very lucrative, and this trade in the 
 vicinity of Springfield was controlled by him. To 
 facilitate this trade, he early established a ware- 
 house near the southern limit of what was then 
 considered Springfield. " This place still retains 
 the name of Warehouse Point, and is a station 
 
 1 Address by Judge Morris, 1876. 
 
2OO THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND AND NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 on the railroad below Springfield. It was for 
 many years the centre of an extensive trade with 
 the Indians, and was the point from which the 
 furs were shipped to England. Mr. Pynchon 
 added very largely to his fortune while in 
 Springfield, and at the time of his return to 
 England was one of the richest men in New 
 England. 
 
 He was also the representative man of Spring- 
 field abroad. The communications of the govern- 
 ment at Boston were made through him. For a 
 few years after he went to Springfield he was 
 naturally left off from the Board of Assistants. 
 But, in 1643, tne Colony having become well 
 established, and the Bay Path more easily passed 
 over, Mr. Pynchon was again elected an Assis- 
 tant, and was re-elected annually until 1650. 
 
 V. 
 
 THIS brings us to the time of the publication 
 of Mr. Pynchon's famous book, entitled " The 
 Meritorious Price of Our Redemption."^ It is a 
 small quarto volume of a hundred and fifty-eight 
 pages, " printed in London, by T. M. and George 
 Whittington and James Moxon, and to be sold 
 at the Blue Anchor in Cornhill, near the Royal 
 Exchange, 1650." It is now exceedingly rare. 
 There is one copy in the Congregational Library, 
 
WILLIAM PYNCHON, GENT. 2OI 
 
 Boston, one in the British Museum, and only one 
 other, so far as I can learn, that an elegantly 
 bound copy that has been recently purchased 
 by Rev. Thomas R. Pynchon, D.D., of Hart- 
 ford, Connecticut. Some years ago this copy 
 brought four hundred dollars, a larger sum than 
 the whole edition cost in the beginning. 
 
 This book was received in Boston in the 
 summer of 1650, and produced a great excite- 
 MT. pynchon's m A n t. T ne General Court, 1 coming 
 Famous Book, together in October, adopted a solemn 
 protest against the many errors and heresies of 
 the book. This protest was made, they say, " for 
 vindication of the truth," and also " to keep the 
 people here committed to our care in the true 
 knowledge and faith of our Lord Jesus Christ ; " 
 " and likewise, for the clearing of ourselves to 
 our Christian brethren and others in England," 
 " where this book was printed and is dispersed." 
 They protest their innocency, as not " privy to 
 the writinge, composinge, printinge, nor divul- 
 ginge thereof," and declare that they " detest and 
 abhorre many of the opinions and assertions 
 therein, as false, erronyous, and hereticale ; " and 
 for proof of their sincerity in this protest they 
 " condemne the said booke to be burned in the 
 market place, at Boston, by the common execu- 
 tioner." They also summon Mr. Pynchon to 
 
 * I ^T"* M '^^ ^ m ^ tmm *^~^***^^^^*^ l ^l~*mi^~~*m-^m^^m~i, i n i 'MI miniiii ' ""** 
 
 1 Mass. Records, vol. iii. 215. 
 
2O2 THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND AND NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 appear before the next General Court to answer 
 whether " he will owne the booke as his or not, 
 which, if he doth, we purpose (God willinge) to 
 proceed with him according to his demerits, 
 unless he retract the same." It was also ordered 
 that Mr. John Norton, of Ipswich, " should be 
 entreated to answer Mr. Pynchon's book with 
 all convenient speed." It was also ordered, 
 and this casts light upon the motive for these 
 rapid and extreme measures, that the foregoing 
 declaration " be signed by the Secretary, and sent 
 to England to be printed there." No one can tell, 
 at this distance of time, all the reasons for this 
 unusual action by the General Court. It is plain 
 that it was not simply a judicial proceeding. 
 There were politics in the case. The state of 
 parties ; the opinions of men who happened to be, 
 just at that time, at the head of affairs ; the fears 
 of those who were most solicitous to maintain a 
 certain type of theological opinion ; the presence 
 in the Colony of men whose views were more 
 liberal, and the desire to hold them in check, 
 all these entered into the motives of those who 
 controlled the action of the General Court. 
 
 /Mr. Pynchon was an honored magistrate, a 
 member for many years of the General Court, a 
 gentleman now past his sixtieth year, whose 
 opinions had been treated with great respect 
 throughout the history of the Colony, and who was 
 
WILLIAM PYNCHON, GENT. 2 03 
 
 certainly entitled to be treated with great consid- 
 eration. But the defection of such a man from 
 the truth, as it was held by men like Endicott 
 and Dudley, would be a very serious matter, and 
 one that must be corrected if possible.") There 
 was a law of Massachusetts, passed four years 
 before, which condemned to fine and banishment 
 whosoever should "go about to subvert and 
 destroy the Christian faith and religion by 
 broaching and maintaining 7 ' certain "damnable 
 heresies," among which was specified that of 
 " denying that Christ gave himself a ransom for 
 our sins." This, the book was understood to do. 
 Mr. Palfrey also suggests that there was an un- 
 usual solicitude in the Colony as to the course of 
 affairs in England, after the execution of King 
 Charles, and also that the moderating influence 
 of Governor Winthrop was removed just at this 
 time. 2 We know that Thomas Dudley was Gov- 
 ernor, 3 and John Endicott Deputy Governor, both 
 of whom were men disposed to favor extreme 
 measures for the maintenance of their standard of 
 orthodoxy. A letter written by John Cotton to 
 certain brethren in England, at the time, shows 
 that the action was hastened by the fact that " a 
 
 1 This is the statement of Mr. Palfrey. He cites Mass. Records, 
 vol. ii. 177; Code of 1658, 34. 
 
 2 Palfrey's History, vol. ii. 395, note. 
 8 Mass. Records, vol. iii. 182. 
 
2O4 THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND AND NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 ship was in the harbor, ready to sail for England." 
 " Now the court," 1 he says, " perceiving by the 
 title-page, that the contents of the book were un- 
 sound and derogatory both to the justice of God 
 and the grace of Christ, which would do great 
 harm, they judged it meet, whilst the ship stayed, 
 to declare their own judgement against the book, 
 and to send a copy of their declaration to England 
 by that ship." 
 
 VI. 
 
 THE book itself is worthy of more than a pass- 
 ing notice as a part of the history of the times. 
 It is the production of a very intelligent layman, 
 living upon the outermost rim of civilization, and 
 moved by the currents of theological opinion in 
 character h* 3 time to put forth his independent 
 of the Book, protest against opinions that seemed to 
 him inconsistent with the Word of God. Those 
 were the days of the Westminster Assembly, 
 which sat from 1643 to 1647. The Assembly 
 had carried the expression of Calvinistic doctrine 
 further than moderate Puritans like Mr. Pynchon 
 would be ready to go. For Mr. Pynchon, like 
 many of those who came with Governor Win- 
 throp, had been a devout member of the Church 
 of England. He was one of the wardens in the 
 
 1 Appendix to John Norton's Answer to Pynchon. 
 
WILLIAM PYNCHON, GENT. 20$ 
 
 church in Springfield, in Old England. 1 His 
 theological opinions had been formed under the 
 preaching of the ministers of the Established 
 Church, rather than under the Calvinistic preach- 
 ers of New England. He was properly a Non- 
 Conformist, but not a Separatist. 
 
 The assembly 2 declares that Christ " bore the 
 weight of God's wrath ; " " laid down his life an 
 offering for sin ; " " satisfied divine justice ; " was 
 " under the infinite wrath of God ; " that He " did 
 fully discharge the debt of " the elect, " and did 
 make a proper, real, and full satisfaction to his 
 Father's justice in their behalf;" that we are 
 justified by the " imputing the obedience and satis- 
 faction of Christ " unto us ; that God " imputes 
 the righteousness of Christ " unto us. 3 The min- 
 isters of New England were accustomed to use 
 language which went further than these guarded 
 statements of the Assembly. John Norton, in 
 his reply to Pynchon, maintains, in an elaborate 
 argument, that the sins of the elect were imputed 
 to our Saviour ; that for their sins He suffered the 
 torments of hell, and that the righteousness of 
 Christ is imputed to the elect. 
 
 The heresies which the General Court found 
 
 1 These facts are given on the authority of Professor Pynchon, 
 of Hartford, who states that there is a tablet in the church in Spring- 
 field which shows the fact. 
 
 2 Larger Catechism, ii. 49. Ibid., ii. 38. 
 
 8 Confession, xi. s. n, ch. xi. I. Larger Catechism, 271. 
 
2O6 THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND AND NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 upon the title-page of Mr. Pynchon's book were 
 these : That Christ did not suffer for us those 
 unutterable torments of God's wrath which com- 
 monly are called hell torments ; and that He did 
 not bear our sins by imputation, and consequently 
 did not bear the curse of the Law for them ; and 
 also that the righteousness of Christ is not im- 
 puted to us. The most vigorous part of the book 
 is the discussion of the texts of Scripture which 
 are supposed to prove that our sins were imputed 
 to Christ, and that He suffered the wrath of God, 
 and the punishment due for the sins of the elect. 
 The discussion of Isa. liii. 4-6 ; 2 Cor. v. 21; 
 Ps. xxii. i ; Matt. xxvi. 37 ; Luke xxii. 43-44 ; 
 and Heb. v. 7, is very close and logical. I have 
 followed his reasonings with great interest. He 
 shows an acquaintance with the Hebrew and 
 Greek texts, refers to the Septuagint version, com- 
 pares the rendering of various passages in the 
 Genevan version with that in Tyndale, and in 
 King James's version. He was a correspondent 
 of Ainsworth, and quotes in support of his opinions 
 an autograph letter from that theologian. He 
 scholarship of q uotes Ainsworth, Broughton, Robert 
 Mr.pynchon. Wilmot, John Calvin, Martin Luther, 
 Nichols, Richardson, Ursinus, Bastingius, Good- 
 win, Palanus, John Forbes, and St. Augustine, 
 thirteen in all of the great theologians. 
 
 Following this polemic part of the book is the 
 
WILLIAM PYNCHON, GENT. 2O/ 
 
 constructive part, in which he attempts to define 
 the real basis of our redemption. In this he starts 
 from the passage in Rom. v. 19, which reads : " For 
 as by one man's disobedience many were made 
 sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be 
 made righteous." He holds that as Adam's diso- 
 bedience ruined the world, so Christ's perfect 
 obedience, as our Mediator, redeemed the world. 
 Christ had His work set before Him by the Father. 
 This was the work which He had completed, when 
 He said, " I have finished the work which Thou 
 gavest me to do." 1 If His obedience had been in 
 the slightest degree imperfect, it would have viti- 
 ated the entire work. His death was the final test 
 of His obedience. If He had died unwillingly He 
 had died in vain. So the death of Christ was a 
 voluntary death. " I lay down my life that I might 
 take it again. No man taketh it from me, but I 
 lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, 
 and I have power to take it again." 2 Mr. Pynchon 
 says : " His divine nature was the altar upon which 
 He sacrificed His human nature." His humanity 
 was the oblation. " Then," he goes on to say, 
 "His mediatorial death may well be ^^^01 
 called a miraculous death. It was no Christ 
 
 i . . . , Voluntary. 
 
 less miraculous than the raising the 
 
 dead body of Lazarus." The Devil and his agents 
 
 had power to bruise Him, and buffet Him, and to 
 
 1 John xvii. 4. 2 John x. 17-18. 
 
2O8 THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND AND NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 nail Him to the cross. But they had no power to 
 separate His soul from His body. So His death 
 was not passive. It was active, and so a part of His 
 mediatorial obedience. He quotes Augustine, who 
 says. " Who can sleep when he wist, as Christ died 
 when He would ? Who can lay aside his garment, 
 as Christ laid aside His flesh? Who can leave his 
 place so as Christ left His life ? " : Christ died 
 before the thieves, so that " Pilate marvelled if He 
 were already dead." 2 He died when the life of 
 obedience set for Him was finished, " whereof 
 His mediatorial death was the master-piece." He 
 said that it was " finished," and then, " He bowed 
 His head and gave up the ghost." 3 So Christ did 
 not suffer the wrath of God, but He did the will 
 of God. We may be saved because the law, which 
 was broken by disobedience, was honored and 
 restored by the obedience of the God-man. 
 
 VII. 
 
 IT was ordered by the General Court, after they 
 had burned Mr. Pynchon's book, "that Mr. Norton, 
 Actionofthe one of the reverend elders of Ipswich, 
 General court. s h ou ld be intreated to answer Mr. 
 Pynchon's booke with all convenient speed.' H 
 Tliis John Norton was a man of great reputation 
 
 1 Tractate upon John, 119. 8 John xix. 30. 
 
 2 Mark xv. 44. 4 Mass. Records, vol. iii. 216. 
 
WILLIAM PYNCHON, GENT. 2OQ 
 
 in his day. He was a student at Cambridge 
 University, and was master of an elegant Latin 
 style. He succeeded John Cotton as pastor of 
 the First Church in Boston. 1 His widow, Madame 
 Norton, gave the Old South the ground on which 
 the Old South meeting-house on Washington 
 Street now stands. 2 Mr. Norton's reply is entitled, 
 " A Discussion of that Great Point in Divinity, 
 the Sufferings of Christ." It is a very able and 
 learned work, thoroughly scientific in its methods, 
 and sets forth the doctrine of the Westminster 
 Assembly concerning the Atonement, and goes 
 beyond that Confession in respect to Imputation. 3 
 For this work Mr. Norton received from the Gen- 
 eral Court the sum of 20, with a vote of thanks ; 
 and they sent his book to England to be printed. 
 /In addition to providing for a reply to Mr. 
 Pynchon's book, the General Court advised him to 
 confer with Mr. John Cotton, Mr. Norrice, and 
 Mr. Norton about some points in his book. 4 His 
 conference with them naturally broadened his view 
 of the subject he had in hand. 5 He had been but 
 a solitary thinker, and in giving emphasis to his 
 protest against the extreme satisfaction theory, he 
 
 1 Memorial History of Boston, vol. i. 464. Sprague's Annals, 
 Congl., vol. i. 58. See this volume, 123. 
 
 2 Memorial History of Boston, vol. i. 194. 
 8 Palfrey, vol. ii. 396, note. 
 
 4 Mass. Records, vol. iii. 239, also, 248. 
 6 Mass. Records, vol. iii. 229. 
 
 14 
 
2IO THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND AND NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 jhad failed to do justice to the relation of the work 
 of the Redeemer to sin and guilt. This, as a 
 conscientious man, he was more than willing to 
 acknowledge. J Accordingly he appeared before 
 the General Court, in May, 1651, with the follow- 
 ing paper : 
 
 " According to the Court's advice, I have Conferred 
 with Mr. Cotton, Mr. Norrice, and Mr. Norton 
 statement of a ^out some points of the greatest conse- 
 Mr.pynciion quence in my book, and I hope I have so 
 art * explayned my meaninge to them as to take 
 off the worst construction; and it hath pleased God to 
 let me see that I have not spoken in my book so fully 
 of the price, and merit of Christ sufferings as I should 
 have done, for in my booke I call them but trialls of his 
 obedience, yet intending thereby to amplyfy and exalt 
 the mediatorial obedyence of Christ as the only merito- 
 rious price of man's redemption : but now, at present, I 
 am much inclined to think that his sufferings were ap- 
 pointed by God for a further end, namely, as the due 
 punishment of our sins by way of satisfaction to divine 
 justice for man's redemption. 
 
 " Your humble servant, in all dutifull respects, 
 " WILLIAM PYNCHON." l 
 
 VIII. 
 
 THIS is spoken of by several authorities as a 
 retraction; and Dr. Holland 2 intimates that he 
 
 1 Mass. Records, vol. iii. 229. 
 
 2 Holland's History, vol. i. 38. Art. on Pynchon in N. E. Hist, 
 and Gen. Register, Oct. 1859. 
 
WILLIAM PYNCHON, GENT. 211 
 
 "was convinced against his will." But there is 
 no retraction here; but only a frank statement by 
 a sincere and ingenuous man that after confer- 
 ence with his friends, the learned divines, he had 
 become satisfied that in one respect he had failed 
 to do justice to one side of an important truth ; 
 and further, that he found that some of his ex- 
 pressions had been misunderstood. jQgrtainly, 
 Mr. Pynchon was not the man to be " convinced 
 against his will," or to retract any statement which 
 he believed to be true. Besides, as we shall see, 
 Mr. Pynchon was really master of the situation, 
 and his opponents had more occasion to fear him 
 than he had to fear them. That his paper was 
 not taken as a retraction is evident also from the 
 action of the Court, which voted that this paper 
 showed Mr. Pynchon to be in a hopeful way, and 
 dismissed him till the October session to study 
 the questions by the aid of Mr. Norton's reply, 
 directing that he should appear in October and 
 give all due satisfaction. 
 
 (At this session of the General Court Mr. Pyn- 
 chon was not re-elected one of the Assistants, 
 and was left out of the magistracy. J In October, 
 he failed to appear, and the General Court l judged 
 it " meete that all patience be exercised towards 
 him, that he may be reduced into the way of truth, 
 and renounce his errors and heresies," and there- 
 
 1 Mass. Records, vol. iii. 257. 
 
212 THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND AND NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 fore, as nothing else was possible, gave him until 
 the next General Court in May, "that he may 
 give full satisfaction for his offence, which they 
 more desire than to proceed to so great a censure 
 as his offence deserves." So he was placed under 
 bonds of ,100 to appear in May " to stand to the 
 judgement and censure of the Courte." 
 
 This is the last reference to this case in the 
 Records of Massachusetts. Mr. Pynchon did 
 not appear at Jjie next session of the Court. 
 Whether his bail of ^100 was forfeited we have 
 no means of knowing. During that year, he re- 
 turned to England. Of course he went openly, 
 and probably sailed from Boston. A part of his 
 family followed him ; but his son John remained 
 in Springfield, and became the most important 
 man in the Colony, succeeding to his father's in- 
 fluence and authority. Thus it appears that, 
 
 I notwithstanding the vigorous terms employed by 
 the General Court in October, 1650, proposing, 
 "(God willing) to proceed with" Mr. Pynchon 
 " according to his demerits, unless he retracts his 
 heresies," he yet remained within their jurisdic- 
 tion for about two years, and in that time appeared 
 
 before them only once, although summoned three 
 times, and in the end chose his own time for 
 leaving the Colony, and retiring, with his princely 
 fortune, to his estate in England. 
 
 It deserves to be mentioned, as a part of the 
 
WILLIAM PYNCHON, GENT. 
 
 history of the times, that^Sir Henry Vane wrote 
 to the Magistrates, complaining of the course they 
 haxl taken, and was answered in a joint Letters from 
 letter by nine of them. 1 A letter was E"* 1 "*- 
 also., writ ten by certain men of influence in Eng- 
 land to the ministers of Boston, and others, urging 
 them to set a favorable construction upon the 
 tenets set forth in Mr. Pynchon's book " as dis- 
 pjitable,and_to some of note probable ; " and 
 requesting the ministers to " intercede with the 
 Magistrates to deal favorably with him, as a 
 gentleman pious, and deserving." 2 To this letter , 
 a reply was made, signed by John Cotton, Richard ' 
 Mather, and three others, which explained the 
 occasion of the promptness of the Court in its 
 first action, and stated that the Court was dis- 
 posed to deal favorably with the author of the 
 book, appointing three, all friends and acquain- 
 tances, such as himself chose, to confer with him, 
 and finding him yielding in some main point, 
 which he willingly expressed under his own hand, 
 the Court readily accepted the same. 3 ) 
 
 1 Palfrey's New England, vol. ii. 396. 
 
 2 Appendix to Norton's Answer to Pynchon. 
 
 8 The following is on the first page of John Eliot's record of 
 Church members, Roxbury, Mass. : 
 
 " Mi William Pinchon : he was chosen an Assistant, yearely so 
 long as he lived among us : his wife dyed soone after he landed at 
 N. Eng : he brought 4 children to N. E. Ann, Mary, John, Margret. 
 After some years he married M ris Francis Samford, a grave matron 
 
214 THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND AND NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 IX. 
 
 ON arriving in England, Mr. Pynchon settled 
 in Wraysbury, on the Thames, in Buckingham- 
 Hisidfein shire. This place is in the very heart 
 England. o f England, about three miles below 
 Windsor Castle, and directly opposite Magna 
 Charta Island and Runnymede. Horton, where 
 Milton at one time lived, is an adjoining town. 
 He found himself under the Puritan Common- 
 wealth, in England, which must have been agree- 
 able to one of his political and religious opinions. 
 In the enjoyment of an ample fortune, surrounded 
 by many friends of his earlier life, with abundant 
 leisure, Mr. Pynchon appears to have given the 
 
 of the church at Dorchester. When so many removed fro these 
 parts to Plant Conecicot riv r he also w^? othr company went thith* 
 & planted at a place called Agawam, & was recomended to the 
 church at Windsor on Conecticott, vntill such time as it should 
 please God to pvide y they might enter into church estate among 
 themselves, his daughter Ann : was married to Mr Smith, sone to 
 M r -$ Samford by a former husband he was a Godly, wise young man, 
 & removed to Agawam w^? his parents. His daughter mary was 
 married to M r Hollioke, the sone of M r - Hollioke of Linn ; M r - Pin- 
 chons ancient freind. 
 
 " Afterwards he wrote a Dialogue concerning Justification, w c 
 was printed anno 1650, stiled the meritorious price, a book full of 
 error & weaken?, & some heresies w ch the Generall Court of ye 
 Massachusetts Condemned to be burnt, & appointed M John 
 Norton then Teacher at Ipswich to confute ye errors contained 
 therein." 
 
WILLIAM PYNCHON, GENT. 21$ 
 
 ten remaining years of his life to study and writ- 
 ing. The man who had helped in gathering two 
 Congregational churches in New England, re- 
 turned to the Church of England, and was buried 
 in the ancient churchyard, under the shadow of 
 one of the most beautiful of the rural churches of 
 Old England. 1 
 
 The year of his arrival in England he pub- 
 lished: 
 
 " The Jews' Synagogue, a Treatise concerning 
 the Worship used by the Jews. Quarto. London, 
 1652. John Bellamie." 
 
 Two years later, he published two treatises on 
 the Sabbath : 
 
 " The Time when the First Sabbath was or- 
 dained. By William Pynchon, Esq. Published 
 by authority. London: Printed by R. G., and 
 to be sold by T. N. at the Three Lions in Corn- 
 hill, near the Royal Exchange. 1654." 
 
 " Holy Time : or The True Limits of the Lord's 
 Day. By William Pynchon, Esq. Published by 
 authority. Printed at London, by R. G., and are 
 
 1 In 1886, I visited Wraysbury. The railroad station is a small 
 and very modest one, not far from the Thames, and about twenty 
 miles from London. The scenery has been compared to that of the 
 Connecticut valley. There is perhaps a suggestion of that valley, 
 and of the hills on the west, but the Thames at that point Is much 
 smaller than the Connecticut. In that quiet retreat, environed by 
 the scenes most memorable in the history of English liberty, this 
 great Puritan found the repose which was denied him in Massachu- 
 setts. 
 
2l6 THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND AND NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 to be sold by T. N., at the sign of the Three Lions, 
 in Cornhill, near the Royal Exchange. 1654." 
 
 Mr. Norton's answer to Mr. Pynchon's first 
 book was not published till 1653. Two years later, 
 Mr. Pynchon published a rejoinder, of which the 
 following is the title : 
 
 " The Meritorious Price of Man's Redemption ; 
 or Christ's Satisfaction Discussed and Explained. 
 By William Pynchon, late of New England. 
 1655. Thomas Newbury, London, 1655." 
 
 It is dedicated to Oliver St. John, the author 
 esteeming him " an able Judge, not only in those 
 controversies that concern the common laws of 
 the land, but also in divine controversies." 
 
 This is a quarto of four hundred and forty 
 pages, and is by far the most elaborate of Mr. 
 Pynchon's works. In this he uses the "altar 
 terms," as they have been called, and seems to 
 recognize the side of truth to which he referred 
 in his letter to the General Court ; namely, that 
 in some way "the sufferings of Christ" "were 
 appointed " as " the due punishment of our sins, 
 by way of satisfaction of divine justice/' He 
 controverts again, with great ability, the doctrine 
 that our Lord suffered the vindictive wrath of 
 God and the torments of hell. 
 
 A copy of this book is in the library of Harvard 
 University. 
 
 His last book was entitled : " The Covenant of 
 
WILLIAM PYNCHON, GENT. 2 1/ 
 
 Nature made with Adam Described, etc., and 
 Cleared from Sundry Great Mistakes." In this 
 volume the address to the reader is dated : " From 
 my Study, Wraysbury, Feb. 10, 1661." 
 
 Mr. Pynchon died at Wraysbury some time in 
 October, 1662, aged seventy-two years. 
 
 He was twice married. No record that I have 
 seen gives the date of the first marriage, or the 
 name of his wife. She came with him to New 
 England, and died in Roxbury during the first 
 year, perhaps in consequence of the hardships of 
 the life in the new country. The children of 
 this marriage were : 
 
 John, born 1621 ; 
 
 Annie, who married Henry Smith ; 
 
 Margaret, who married William Davis, of 
 Boston ; 
 
 Mary, who married Elizur Holyoke ; 
 
 And a son, who was drowned in the Connecticut 
 River. 1 
 
 After the death of his wife, Mr. Pynchon mar- 
 ried Mrs. Frances Samford, "a grave matron of 
 the church at Dorchester," as the Roxbury church 
 records say, but they do not give the date of the 
 marriage. Mrs. Pynchon died at Wraysbury, 
 October 10, 1657. 
 
 1 " Mr. Pynchon lately lost a boy, who tending cows near our 
 river, too venturously went into a birchen canowe, which overturned, 
 and he was drowned." [Mr. Moxon's letter to Governor Winthrop 
 about 1638.] Conn. Valley, vol. i. 40. 
 
2l8 THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND AND NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 There is a striking portrait of Mr. Pynchon in 
 the possession of the Essex Historical Society of 
 Salem. It was painted in England, and sent by 
 him to his son John. The frontispiece of this 
 volume is taken from that painting. With his 
 long, closely-fitting coat and small-clothes, the 
 broad collar or band of linen lying flat upon 
 his shoulders, and a closely-fitting silk cap upon 
 his head, he was the impersonation of quiet 
 dignity, and patriarchal grace. His seal ring, 
 with his arms, is still in existence, in the pos- 
 session of a descendant at the South. 
 
V. 
 
 The Family and Social Life of 
 the Puritans. 
 
COLONEL JOHN HUTCHINSON 
 
 OF OWTHORPE. 
 
The Family and Social Life of 
 the Puritans. 
 
 " T T OME, as we conceive it now," says Mr. John 
 ** Richard Green, " was the creation of the 
 Puritan." He gives the reason for his statement. 
 "Wife and child rose from mere dependants on the 
 will of husband or father, as husband and father 
 saw in them saints like himself, souls hallowed by 
 the touch of a divine Spirit, and called with a di- 
 vine calling like his own. The sense of spiritual 
 fellowship gave a new tenderness and refinement 
 to the common family affections." * The philo- 
 sophic historian is undoubtedly correct. The 
 Puritan had broken away from the old traditions, 
 and from ecclesiastical bonds, and had come into 
 a realm of comparatively free and liberal thought. 
 His fellowship was with the Father, and with His 
 Son, Jesus Christ, without the intervention of the 
 priest or of the Church. So far forth he was a 
 free man, in personal relations with God. All the 
 members of his family were equally free, and 
 equally the favorites of God. This intense indi- 
 
 1 Green's History of the English People, vol. iii. 19. 
 
222 THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND AND NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 vidualism opened a new social life, with a broader 
 charity, and a warmer and more absorbing love. 
 It developed a new type of citizenship, and has 
 tended undoubtedly toward Democracy. It has 
 lifted the common man to an equality with those 
 in the privileged classes. The religious sentiment 
 of the Puritans has developed the altruistic feel- 
 ing, so abundant in modern life. 
 
 Some illustrations from Puritan history will 
 make these statements plain, and will set forth 
 the reasons for them. We need to know what 
 sort of men and women the Puritans were in their 
 homes. 
 
 I. 
 
 MRS. HUTCHINSON, writing to her children con- 
 cerning their father, has given a vivid description 
 of that model Puritan, Colonel John Hutchinson, 1 
 of Owthorpe, who lived in the time of Oliver 
 Cromwell. She says : 
 
 " He was of a middle stature, of a slender and exactly 
 well-proportional shape in all parts, his hair of light 
 Coi Hutchinson brown, very thick set in his youth, softer than 
 a Typical the finest silk, and curling into loose great 
 rings at the ends : his eyes of a lively gray, 
 his visage thin, his mouth well made, and his lips very 
 ruddy and graceful ; his teeth even and white as the pur- 
 est ivory, his forehead not very high, his nose raised and 
 
 1 See his portrait, page 220. 
 
FAMILY AND SOCIAL LIFE OP THE PURITANS. 22$ 
 
 sharp ; but withal he had a most amiable countenance, 
 which carried in it something of magnanimity and majesty 
 mixed with sweetness, that at the same time bespoke love 
 and awe in all that saw him." " He was nimble and active 
 and graceful in all his motions ; he was apt for any bodily 
 exercise ; he could dance admirably well, but neither in 
 youth nor riper years made any practice of it ; he had skill 
 in fencing, such as became a gentleman ; he had a great 
 love of music; ... he had good judgment in paintings, 
 graving, sculpture, and all liberal arts, and had many 
 curiosities of all kinds ; he took much pleasure in the 
 improvement of grounds, in planting groves and walks, 
 and fruit trees ; he was wonderfully neat, cleanly and 
 genteel in his habit." " He hated persecution for reli- 
 gion, and was always a champion for all religious people 
 against all oppressors." " Neither in youth, nor riper 
 age could the most fair or enticing women ever draw 
 him into unnecessary familiarity or vain converse or dal- 
 liance with them, yet he despised nothing of the female 
 sex but their follies and vanities ; wise and virtuous 
 women he loved, and delighted in all pure, holy and 
 unblameable conversation with them." " For conjugal 
 affection to his wife, it was such as whosoever would draw 
 out a rule of honor, kindness and religion, need no more, 
 but exactly draw out his example ; never man had a 
 greater passion for a woman, nor a more honorable 
 esteem for a wife. He governed by persuasion, which 
 he never employed but to things honorable and profit- 
 able for herself ; he loved her soul and her honor more 
 than her outside, and yet he had for her person a con- 
 stant indulgence." " So constant was he in his love that 
 when she ceased to be young and lovely, he began to 
 show most fondness ; he loved her at such a kind and 
 
224 THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND AND NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 generous rate as words cannot express." " He was as 
 kind a father, as dear a brother, as good a master, and 
 as faithful a friend as the world had." 
 
 " He understood well, and as well performed when he 
 undertook it, the military art in all parts of it ; he nat- 
 urally loved the employment as it suited with his active 
 temper more than any, conceiving a mutual delight in 
 leading those men that loved his conduct, and when he 
 commanded soldiers, never was man more loved and 
 reverenced by all that were under him," and " they 
 joyed as much in his commands as he in their obedience." 
 " He had a sweet and loving courtesy to the poorest, 
 and would often employ many spare hours with the 
 commonest soldiers and poorest laborers." l 
 
 Yet this man, so gentle, so affectionate, so 
 highly cultured, was a Puritan soldier a Colonel 
 in the army of Cromwell who fought vigorously 
 through the civil war. He was one of the judges 
 who condemned the king to death. After Oliver 
 Cromwell became Lord Protector, Colonel Hutch- 
 inson disclosed to him a plot against his life ; and 
 when Cromwell called him " My dear Colonel," 
 and invited him to "come in and take a part " in 
 his government, Hutchinson refused, telling him 
 plainly that he liked not any of his ways since he 
 broke up the Parliament. After the restoration of 
 Charles the Second, Colonel Hutchinson suffered 
 a long and cruel imprisonment, and finally died 
 in prison, because he would not in any way com- 
 
 1 Memoirs of Colonel Hutchinson, Bohn's Edition, 1863, 19-35. 
 
FAMILY AND SOCIAL LIFE OF THE PUKITANS. 22$ 
 
 promise his principles, or betray his friends. This 
 man was one of the Ironsides, and yet his family 
 and social life was as full of sweetness, and tender- 
 ness, of the love of all beautiful and gracious 
 things, as the lives of those who are the 
 choicest spirits of our own time. 
 
 Nor did Hutchinson stand alone among the 
 Puritans of his time. John Milton is the com- 
 pletest type of Puritanism. " His youth shows 
 us," says a recent writer, " how much of the gay- 
 ety, the poetic ease, the intellectual culture of the 
 Renaissance lingered in a Puritan home." His tract 
 on Education is one of the broadest and most 
 liberal treatises of the seventeenth cen- . 
 
 j onn Milton 
 
 tury, a prophecy of the nineteenth, the poet of the 
 " Whenever the element of beauty is 
 found in Milton," says Professor Shedd, " it is 
 found in absolute purity." " A more absolute 
 beauty and a more delicate aerial grace are not to 
 be found than appear in the Comus, and the fourth 
 book of Paradise Lost." l 
 
 We read in the records of that age, of a certain 
 Puritan mother, in humble life in England, that 
 " she was very loving and obedient to her parents, 
 loving and true to her husband, very tender-hearted 
 to her children, loving all that were Godly." These 
 illustrations of the Puritan spirit and temper can 
 be multiplied from the records of that age. 
 
 1 Literary Essays, 23. 
 
226 THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND AND NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 II. 
 
 ONE of the reliable sources of information in 
 respect to family and social life is the correspon- 
 \ deuce between members of families. Such letters 
 are apt to be destroyed, especially the most sig- 
 nificant and domestic letters. We have, fortu- 
 nately, a large number of the letters which passed 
 between Governor John Winthrop and his wife, 
 and also his letters to his son. Winthrop 
 was in many ways the best representative of the 
 early New England Puritans. There is a statue, 
 in one of the public squares of Boston, 
 the rounder of' to John Winthrop, " Founder of Massa- 
 tts ' chusetts," with the Bible in one hand, 
 and the charter of the Colony in the other. 
 Another statue of him is in the chapel of the 
 cemetery at Mount Auburn. Another statue of 
 him, as a representative of the State, stands in the 
 Capitol at Washington. He was for eleven years 
 the Governor of the Colony, and as long as he 
 lived, he was its foremost citizen. From his let- 
 ters and his journals, we derive our most definite 
 knowledge of the life in the Colony in the first 
 generation. He was born in England, in 1588, so 
 that he was forty-two when he came to New 
 England. Margaret Tyndal was his third wife. 
 When Adam Winthrop, the aged father of John 
 
FAMILY AND SOCIAL LIFE OP THE PURITANS. 22 / 
 
 Winthrop, learned that she was betrothed to his 
 son, he sent her a present, with a letter in which 
 he addressed her as " Gentle Mistress Margaret," 
 and assured her of his fatherly love and affection, 
 spelling Love with a capital letter, and told her 
 with the frankness of a patriarch, that he thought 
 himself happy that in his old age " I shal injoye 
 the familiar company of so virtuous and loving a 
 daughter and passe the residue of my daise in 
 peace and quietness." " I doe heare faithfully 
 promise for my sonne that he will alwaise be a 
 most kinde and lovinge husbande unto you." 
 
 Our first letter from John Winthrop is addressed 
 to " My dearest friend and most heartily beloved 
 Mrs, Marg- Tyndall." This was before their 
 marriage. The next is addressed to " My onely 
 beloved spouse, my most sweet friend, 
 
 r i r M Letters of 
 
 and faithful companion of my pilgrim- 
 
 ,, , , . r 11 i 
 
 age, the happye, and hopefull supplye 
 (next Christ Jesus) of my greatest losses." He 
 says at the end, " My father and mother salute 
 thee heartily." 
 
 The next is addressed to " My deare wife," and 
 was written when she was away from home attend- 
 ing at her mother's bedside in her last sickness. 
 Later, he writes to her as " My Truely Beloved 
 and Deare wife ; " " My sweet wife ; " " My most 
 Deare and Sweet Spouse ; " " My Good Wife ; " 
 " My Deare Wife, my Chiefe Love in this World ; " 
 
 tohisWife. 
 
228 THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND AND NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 and he subscribes the letters, " Thyne ; " " Thy 
 faithful husband ; " " Thine as his owne ; " " Thy 
 faithful husband, still present with thee in his most 
 unkind absence ; " " So I kiss my sweet wife, and 
 rest, Thy frail but faithful husband." 
 
 She begins her letter, " My Dear Husband ; " 
 and ends it with, " Your loving and obedient wife ; " 
 " Most Deare and Lovinge Husband," and " Your 
 obedient wife allways ; " " My most Kinde and 
 Loving Husband," " Your lovinge and obedient 
 wife." In one letter she goes quite beyond all mod- 
 ern precedents, and writes, " Thy unworthy wife." 
 
 Here is a letter, written at Groton, in Suffolk, 
 in 1630, (N. s.) addressed to John Winthrop, Esq- 
 at Mr. Downing's house, in Fleet Street, and 
 written just before his departure for New England. 
 
 " MY DEARE HUSBAND, I knowe thou art desyrus 
 to heere often from us, w- makes me take plesure in 
 rightinge to thee, and in relatinge my true affections to 
 thee and desyers of your wished welfayer. ... I must 
 part with my most deare Husban, w- is a very hard 
 tryall for me to undergoe. If the Lord doe not supporte 
 and healpe me in it, I shalbe unable to beare it. I have 
 now received thy kinde letter w ch I cannot reade without 
 sheding a great many tears, but I will resine thee, and 
 * nt ^ e ^ an< ^ s ^ t ^ ie a l m iti God, 
 
 Margaret Win- 
 
 tnrop's Letters who is allsoficient for thee, whome I truste 
 
 to her Husband. prosper thee in the way 
 
 thou art to goe. ... I know I shall have thy prayers to 
 God for me that what is wanting in thy presence may be 
 
FAMILY AND SOCIAL LIFE OP THE PURITANS. 22$ 
 
 supplyed by the comfort of God's spirit. I am now full 
 of passion, havinge newly received thy letter, and not 
 able to right much. My sonne F. will right about other 
 busines. I beginne to fear I shall see thee no more before 
 thou goest (to New England) w- I should be very sory 
 for and earnestly intreat thee that thou wilt com once 
 more downe if it be possible." 
 
 The Governor did "com once more downe," 
 after such a letter as that. He wrote : 
 
 " I purpose (if God will) to be with thee upon Thurs- 
 daye come senight, and then I must take my Farewell 
 of thee, for a Sumers daye, and a winters daye. The 
 Lord o= good God will, (I hope) sende us a happye 
 meetinge againe in his good tyme : Amen." " Among 
 other things let the brassen quart in the Larder house 
 be putt up : & my gray cloake and the coate w- was my 
 brother Fones : & let this warrant inclosed to sent to 
 Colchester to M- Sam- Borrowes by the next tyme the 
 carte goes. The Lord blesse thee my sweet wife, w- all 
 our children." 
 
 Thy faithfull husband, 
 Feb: 5 1629. (o. s.) Jo: WINTHROP. 
 
 " Remember to putt me up some Cardons & Card- 
 seed." " The readinge of (thy letter) has dissolved my 
 head into tears. ... If I live, I will see thee ere I goe, 
 I shall parte from thee with sorrowe enough: be com- 
 fortable my most sweet wife." 
 
 She wrote again : " I am glad to heere you will 
 come home this weike, for I .desire to enjoy thy 
 sweete presence as ofte as I can, before that longe 
 
230 THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND AND NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 partinge come w- I desyre the Lord to fit us for." 
 He writes, February i4th, " Thou must be my val- 
 entine, f 1 none hath challenged me/' March 2d, 
 the Governor writes again, having in the mean- 
 time been home to Groton to say farewell, and 
 returned to London to complete his arrangements 
 for the voyage to New England. He tells her 
 that their two sons, and most of the servants have 
 already gone to South Hampton: and adds, "Ah 
 my most kinde & deare wife, how sweet is thy 
 love to me. The Lorde blesse thee & thine, w^ 
 the blessinges from above. ... So I kisse & 
 embrace thee & rest thyne ever." March loth, he 
 wrote again, sending his love to his children by 
 name, including " the little one unknown," and to 
 each of the servants, and to his old neighbors. 
 Four days later, he writes again from Southamp- 
 ton ; on the 22d, there is another letter to his 
 wife, written " aboard the Arabella ridinge at the 
 Cowes." He writes once more, March 28th, still 
 on board the ship, which had been detained by 
 adverse winds. " Our boys," he says, " are well, 
 and cheerful, and have no mind of home. They 
 lie both with me, and sleep as soundly in a rug, 
 (for we use no sheets here,) as ever they did at 
 Groton : and so do I myself." " Mondays and 
 Fridays, at five of the clock at night we shall 
 meet in spirit till we meet in person." " Yet if 
 all these hopes should fail, blessed be our God, 
 
FAMILY AND SOCIAL LIFE OF THE PURITANS. 2$ I 
 
 that we are assured we shall meet one day, if not 
 as husband and wife, yet in a better condition." 
 Once more, before the fleet set out on its voyage, 
 he wrote, April 3d, to acknowledge two letters 
 from his wife, and to tell her that " on friday 
 when 5 of the clocke came," he " had respitt from 
 his cares " to remember her, and to " parlye " with, 
 and meet her " in Spiritt before the Lord." 
 
 These extracts from this correspondence 
 two hundred and sixty years old may give 
 some impression of its quality. Time blots out 
 almost all things written by the hand of man ; but 
 there are almost a hundred of these letters, which 
 have been rescued from oblivion, and they give 
 us, almost at first hand, repeated glimpses of 
 the actual life of this representative Puritan 
 family. The correspondence which passed be- 
 tween Governor Winthrop and his son John, 
 cannot be quoted here, for lack of space, but it is, 
 in its own way, as suggestive of the tenderness, 
 and singular wisdom, and piety of this old family, 
 as the correspondence from which these scattered 
 specimen leaves have been selected. 1 
 
 1 Twenty-seven of these letters were printed in 1825, in the 
 appendix to the first volume of Governor Winthrop's Journal. The 
 others were printed in The Life and Letters of John Winthrop, by 
 Hon. Robert C. Winthrop, Boston, 1869, and also in the Collections 
 of the Massachusetts Historical Society. Rev. Joseph H. Twichell, 
 of Hartford, Conn., edited an edition of fifty-eight of the letters, 
 with the title, " Some Old Puritan Love Letters," New York, 1893. 
 In this edition the old spelling is very carefully restored. 
 
232 THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND AND NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 It was the i6th of July before Governor Win- 
 throp had an opportunity to send his next letter. 
 The mails did not cross the Atlantic as frequently 
 then as now. They had a long and tempestuous 
 voyage, and his letter is full of gratitude for their 
 preservation, as well as of affection for those left 
 in the old home at Groton. 
 
 It was the 3d of November (o. s.) of the next 
 year when Mrs. Winthrop was able to join her 
 husband. She went in the ship Lyon, with his 
 eldest son, and other of his children. Great was 
 the rejoicing at their arrival. " Divers of the 
 Assistants, and most of the people of the near 
 plantations came to welcome them, and brought, 
 and sent, for divers days, great store of provisions, 
 as fat hogs, kids, venison, poultry, geese, partridges, 
 etc., so as the like joy, and manifestation of love 
 had never been seen in New England. It was a 
 great marvel," said Governor Winthrop, " that so 
 much people, and such store of provisions could 
 be gathered together at so few hours warning." l 
 
 III. 
 
 IT is not difficult to conjecture what the social 
 and family life would be in a community made up 
 of such men and women as those seventeenth 
 
 1 The History of New England, from 1630 to 1649, by John 
 Winthrop, Esq., Boston, 1853. 
 
FAMILY AND SOCIAL LIFE OF THE PURITANS. 233 
 
 century Puritans of whom we have been reading. 
 Such gentleness, and affection, and refinement of 
 feeling, and such piety would bear fruit in the 
 most beautiful lives. 
 
 But the records that have come down to us 
 from the Colonial period of New England history 
 give us a distinct picture of life as it 
 
 .. . r T Records of the 
 
 actually went on from year to year. It colonial 
 is marvellous how abundant these 
 records are. Those old Pilgrims had a respect 
 for their mission, and they were sure that those 
 who should come after them would desire to know 
 their history. We have, first of all, the incompar- 
 able histories written by Governor Bradford of 
 Plymouth, and by Governor Winthrop of Boston. 
 They cover the time from the earliest settlements 
 to 1646. We have also the official records, not 
 only of these two oldest colonies, but of Rhode 
 Island, Connecticut, and New Hampshire. These 
 are supplemented by a great number of histories, 
 and narratives, journals, pamphlets, and treatises, 
 letters and replies, which make the life of that 
 time luminous to those who will go to the original 
 sources. 
 
 IV. 
 
 WHAT then was the life in the Colonial period 
 of our history? In the first place, it was a life in 
 the earlier part of the seventeenth century. The 
 
234 THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND AND NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 fathers of New England were very much in 
 advance of their time, and yet they were influ- 
 Lifeintue enced by the spirit of their times. It 
 
 Colonial Age. j g not Qn jy unw i se but Unjust to test 
 
 their opinions, and their social habits, by the stan- 
 dards of our time. No intelligent student of their 
 history will ignore the fact that the world has 
 made marvellous progress since 1620. The belief 
 in witchcraft was, I think, universal in Christen- 
 dom in that age. The great jurists and philoso- 
 phers of England were confident that there were 
 such creatures as witches. Sir Matthew Hale, 
 and Sir Thomas Browne, and Ralph Cudworth, 
 and Blackstone, and even John Wesley believed 
 in witchcraft. 1 " It is supposed," says Professor 
 Fisher, " that prior to the witchcraft epidemic in 
 Massachusetts, thirty thousand persons had been 
 put to death in England on this charge, seventy- 
 five thousand in France, and a hundred thousand 
 in Germany." 
 
 Cruel punishments were inflicted in the times 
 of Queen Elizabeth. She sent Mary Queen of 
 Scots to the block, just as Charles the 
 Second sent Sir Henry Vane to the 
 block. The spirit of our age does 
 not tolerate slavery, but slavery was common 
 then. Our societies for the Prevention of Cruelty 
 to Animals ; Cruelty to Children ; the laws that 
 
 1 Professor Fisher's History of the Christian Church, 479-483. 
 
FAMILY AND SOCIAL LIFE OP THE PURITANS. 235 
 
 protect children and women from excessive labor; 
 that prohibit cock-fighting, and prize-fighting, and, 
 in some States, prohibit bull-fighting, all these 
 are the outgrowths of the last years of the nine- 
 teenth century. We do not look for such things 
 in the times of Oliver Cromwell. 
 
 It is not easy for us to do justice to an age so 
 different from our own. Life was more simple in 
 those days, yet in many ways it was more pic- 
 turesque, more courtly, more reverent. The 
 respect that was paid to parents, and to Lifeinthe 
 the aged, and to those in official posi- seventeenth 
 tions, the reverence for the Bible, and 
 the Church, and the Lords-day, the interest in 
 Philosophy and Theology, and in religious ser- 
 vices, these were very unlike the tendencies of 
 our time. It does not follow that the life of that 
 time was inferior to the life of to-day. Those 
 people were evidently sincere in the expression of 
 their opinions. Their manners and methods of 
 life grew out of their experiences. The habits 
 of Queen Elizabeth were very different from 
 those of Queen Victoria, yet it may be that Eliza- 
 beth's place in history is higher than Victoria will 
 deserve. Our nineteenth century has no poets 
 or dramatists to be compared with Milton and 
 Shakespeare. Certainly, we have no reason to 
 look down upon the men who lived in the times 
 of John Hampden, and Eliot, and Pym, and Vane, 
 
236 THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND AND NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 and Milton, and Cromwell. Mr. Gladstone has 
 recently said : " I do not think we are stronger, 
 but weaker, than the men of the Middle Ages. 
 The men of the sixteenth century were stronger 
 in brain power than our men." l 
 
 V. 
 
 WE should also remember that the fathers of 
 
 New England were pioneers. Those who make 
 
 the first settlements in a new country 
 
 Our Fathers / 
 
 lived in a cannot live as they had lived in their old 
 
 New Country. . , ... f , ... . 
 
 homes. Many of the criticisms upon the 
 Puritans are very inconsiderate. They have been 
 spoken of as hard and narrow, because they did 
 not have days of public festivity and amusement. 
 But the settlers at Plymouth had to build 
 houses to shelter their families, with their own 
 hands, in the depth of winter. They had no 
 poverty of the domestic animals except dogs. They 
 Early Pioneers. ^ a( j no ploughs. They must break up 
 the land, and prepare it for corn with hoes. " The 
 first beginning of any cattle in the land," says 
 Bradford, "was in March, 1624, when three 
 heifers and a bull were landed. 7 ' 2 For three years 
 and more the Colony had been without milk or 
 butter or cheese except such as came from abroad. 
 
 1 Review of Reviews, April, 1892. Interview with W. T. Stead. 
 
 2 Bradford, 158. 
 
FAMILY AND SOCIAL LIFE OF THE PURITANS. 
 
 All their journeys were on foot or in boats. There 
 was often great scarcity of food. There were no 
 preserved meats, no vegetables, and no bread 
 stuffs to be had. Water was the only drink, ex- 
 cept beer and liquors. There was a time when 
 lobsters, clams, and mussels furnished the prin- 
 cipal food of the people. After the return of 
 Governor Winslow from England, they were able 
 to allow four ounces of bread a day to each in- 
 habitant, and this was given out each day. Two 
 years after the settlement was begun, two ships 
 arrived from England, bringing a large number 
 of the wives and children of the earliest settlers, 
 who had been left behind at Leyden. It was a 
 joyful reunion, and yet the new-comers " found 
 their old friends in a very low condition ; many 
 were ragged in aparell : & some little better than 
 half naked." " The best dish they could present 
 their friends with was a lobster, or a piece of fish, 
 without bread, or anything els but a cupp of pure 
 spring water." l " The long continuance of this 
 diate," says Governor Bradford, " and their labors 
 abroad had somewhat abated Ye freshness of their 
 former complexion." The fact is, the new-comers 
 hardly recognized their own kindred, so changed 
 were they by the lack of nutritious food, and by 
 the severity of their labors. Governor Bradford 
 compares their condition to that of Jacob and his 
 
 1 Bradford, 145. 
 
238 THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND AND NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 sons in Canaan, in the time of famine. For, he 
 says, although " the famine was great, or heavie 
 in the land ; yet they had such great herds, and 
 store of cattle of sundrie kinds, which, besides 
 flesh, must needs produce other food, as milke, 
 butter & cheese, &c., and yet it was counted a sore 
 affliction ; theirs hear must need be very great, 
 therefore, who not only wanted the staffe of bread, 
 but all these things, and had no Egipte to goe too. 
 But God fedd them out of ye sea for ye most parte, 
 so wonderful is his providence over his in all ages ; 
 for his mercy endureth for ever." 1 
 
 In addition to these troubles, the Colony was 
 in debt to the company in England, which had 
 provided the vessel that brought them over, and 
 the supplies for the settlers. For many years 
 they were obliged to send to England, whatever 
 they had gained from their trade with the natives, 
 towards the payment of their debts. Besides this, 
 they had among them a number of persons who 
 were not honest or industrious men. Some of 
 those who were sent over by the company in 
 England were so bad that they were obliged to 
 send them back at large expense. All through 
 the history of the Plymouth Colony they had to 
 carry along with them a good many people who 
 had no sympathy with the high moral standards 
 of the Pilgrims. 
 
 1 Bradford's History, 146. 
 
FAMILY AND SOCIAL LIFE OP THE PURITANS. 239 
 
 They were also exposed to attacks from the 
 savages about them. They treated the Indians 
 with great kindness and consideration ; Da ngerfrom 
 but they were never free from the danger ttelndiaiis - 
 of a hostile attack. Their village was protected 
 by a line of palisades, with bastions ; and the gates 
 were locked at night and guarded. They built 
 a fort, on the top of which they planted six cannon. 
 In times of special danger, a watch was kept up at 
 the fort day and night. 1 As the years went by, 
 their hardships were less, but their condition was 
 still that of pioneers, in a new country, with the 
 ocean between them and the old home. 
 
 VI. 
 
 THE larger Colony at Massachusetts Bay was 
 better provided for. The first ships that came 
 over brought with the passengers, cows, 
 horses, goats, and swine. 2 They had 
 also a supply of provisions. And yet, more than 
 a quarter of those who came to Salem died during 
 the first winter. Two hundred of Governor Win- 
 throp's company died before the close of the 
 autumn. There was great suffering from the lack 
 of food, in the winter that followed. Shell-fish 
 had to serve for meat, and ground-nuts and acorns 
 
 1 Bradford, 113, 126. 
 
 2 Governor Winthrop's History, vol. i. 34-44. 
 
24O THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND AND NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 for bread. The rude cabins which the people were 
 able to put up were a very poor protection against 
 the cold of a New England winter, for people, 
 many of whom had lived in great comfort in the 
 old country. " Oh the hunger that many suffered," 
 said one of the old writers, " and saw no hope to 
 be supplied, only by clams, and muscles, and fish." l 
 When the first ship arrived from England, with 
 provisions for the Colony, Governor Winthrop 
 was giving the last handfuls of meal in the barrel 
 to a poor man. 
 
 These settlements were also subject to alarms 
 from bands of hostile Indians who were prowling 
 about 2 A few years later, they had occasion to 
 fortify the harbor of Boston, and arm and drill the 
 men of the Colony, because they had reason to 
 expect a hostile attack from the king's ships. The 
 colonies in Rhode Island, and Connecticut, and 
 New Hampshire had a similar record of privation 
 Connecticut, an d suffering during the first years. In 
 Sew land ' the course of time the industry and thrift 
 Hampshire. o f the people brought them such com- 
 forts and such prosperity as can be had in new 
 settlements. But life in New England was very 
 simple for many years. In 1632, Governor Win- 
 throp records the removal of the wind-mill from 
 Newtown to Boston, because at Newtown it would 
 not grind but with a westerly wind. The whole 
 
 1 Wonder Working Providence, xxiv. 2 Winthrop, vol. i. 59. 
 
FAMILY AND SOCIAL LIFE OF THE PURITANS. 24! 
 
 Colony seems to have been dependent upon a 
 single wind-mill. 1 
 
 The next year, a water-mill was set up in Dor- 
 chester, and another in Roxbury. The same year 
 a " Mercate " (Market) was authorized to be kept 
 on Thursday, in Boston, " it being 
 
 / ' The Wind-mill 
 
 lecture day. The long journeys which andwater- 
 Governor Winthrop made on the busi- 
 ness of the Colony were on foot, or in boats, for 
 many years. When he visited Plymouth, Gover- 
 nor Bradford, "a very discreet and grave man," 
 with Mr. Brewster the Elder, and some others 
 came forth and met them without the town, and 
 conducted them to the house of the Governor, 
 where they were very kindly entertained, and 
 feasted each day at several houses. On Wednes- 
 day following, "the Governor and his company 
 came out of Plimouth about five in the morning; 
 the Governor of Plimouth, with the pastor and 
 Elder, etc., accompanying them near half a mile, 
 out of town, in the dark." 2 
 
 In the second generation, as almost always hap- 
 pens in a new country, the people in the New 
 England colonies were, as a class, of ruder man- 
 ners, and of a lower grade of intelligence than 
 those who had come from the Mother Country. 
 There was some improvement in the third gene- 
 ration ; but all through the first century of our 
 
 1 Winthrop, vol. i. 104, 138. 2 Winthrop, vol.i. no. 
 
 16 
 
242 THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND AND NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 history, the people had the characteristics of pio- 
 neers. It is not reasonable for the critics of our 
 time to expect from these pioneers, of two hun- 
 dred and sixty years ago, the broad and liberal 
 views, and the generous culture of their descend- 
 ants of the seventh generation. 
 
 VII. 
 
 MR. LONGFELLOW'S poem, entitled, " The Court- 
 ship of Miles Standish, " gives us a very correct 
 mecourtsM picture of the social and family life of 
 of Miles the Pilgrims. The poet was interested 
 
 Standish. . 
 
 in the tradition on which the poem is 
 founded from family reasons. 
 
 It is not claimed that this poem is in all respects 
 accurate in its statements. It is a work of art; 
 and the poet has grouped about the central story 
 a number of incidents which occurred in a little 
 different connection. John Alden was not quite 
 the youngest of those who came in the May- 
 flower, though he was a young man of twenty- 
 one. Rose Standish was not the first of those 
 who died at Plymouth. The milk-white steer, 
 which, according to the poem, carried the bride 
 on its back, to her new home, after the simple 
 marriage ceremony, was doubtless still in Old 
 England when the marriage occurred, two years 
 after the Mayflower went back. But after all the 
 
FAMILY AND SOCIAL LIFE OP THE PURITANS. 243 
 
 liberty which we have to allow to the poet, it re- 
 mains true that this poem gives a correct repre- 
 sentation of the spirit of the Pilgrims, and of their 
 way of life in 1623. The journals of Mr. Long- 
 fellow show that he was a diligent student of the 
 early New England history at the time he was 
 writing the poem. 1 The characters in the poem 
 are well-known persons in the history of the 
 Colony. Miles Standish was such a man as the 
 poet has described, even to the books me characters 
 in his library, a catalogue of which has Authentlc - 
 been preserved. 2 John Alden is a typical Pil- 
 grim, with a warm heart, a high sense of honor, 
 a vigilant conscience, and the imagination of an 
 enthusiastic leader of men. He became a lead- 
 ing man in the Colony, was one of the Assistants 
 more than forty years, treasurer of the Colony 
 thirteen years, and was frequently a deputy to the 
 General Court. Priscilla Mullins, " the beauti- 
 ful Puritan maiden," the lover of music, 
 
 " Singing the hundredth Psalm, the grand old Puritan anthem," 
 " While with her foot on the treadle she guided the wheel in its 
 
 motion." 
 "Open wide on her lap, lay the well-worn psalm-book of 
 
 Ainsworth, 
 
 Printed in Amsterdam, the words and the music together, 
 Rough-hewn, angular notes, like stones in the wall of a church- 
 yard." 
 
 1 Life of H. W. Longfellow, vol. ii. 289-320. 
 
 2 The Pilgrim Republic, 450-451. 
 
244 THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND AND NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 Governor Bradford, also, is faithfully represented 
 in the poem. So is Elder Brewster, though he 
 was not so aged a man, at the date of the mar- 
 riage, as the poet would have him. 
 
 The tradition on which the action of the poem 
 is founded, is certainly very old. It is probably 
 authentic. It is very likely that the bashful cap- 
 tain "A man not of words, but of actions," " A 
 maker of war, and not a maker of phrases" was 
 so indiscreet as to send his youthful secretary to 
 ask for the hand of the young woman, who was 
 
 "... alone in the world ; her father and mother and brother 
 Died in the winter together." 
 
 Her reply, according to the best tradition, was, 
 " Why so many words for the Captain, and no 
 words for yourself, John ? " 
 
 The charm of the poem for us is in its picture 
 of the life at Plymouth. What can be finer than 
 the description of the departure of the May- 
 flower ? 
 
 " Long in silence they watched the receding sail of the vessel, 
 Much endeared to them all, as something living and human ; 
 Then, as if filled with the spirit, and wrapt in a vision 
 
 prophetic, 
 
 Baring his hoary head, the excellent Elder of Plymouth 
 Said, ' Let us pray ! ' and they prayed, and thanked the Lord 
 
 and took courage. 
 Mournfully sobbed the waves at the base of the rock, and 
 
 above them 
 
FAMILY AND SOCIAL LIFE OP THE PURITANS. 245 
 
 Bowed and whispered the wheat on the hill of death, and 
 
 their kindred 
 Seemed to awake in their graves, and to join in the prayer that 
 
 they uttered." 
 
 Here is the new Pilgrim home : 
 
 " Meanwhile Alden at home had built him a new habitation, 
 Solid, substantial, of timber rough-hewn from the firs of the 
 
 forest. 
 Wooden-barred was the door, and the roof was covered with 
 
 rushes ; 
 Latticed the windows were, and the window-panes were of 
 
 paper, 
 
 Oiled to admit the light, while wind and rain were excluded. 
 There too he dug a well, and around it planted an orchard : 
 Still may be seen to this day some trace of the well and the 
 
 orchard." 
 
 " Oft when his labor was finished, with eager feet would the 
 
 dreamer 
 Follow the pathway that ran through the woods to the house 
 
 of Priscilla, 
 
 Led by illusions romantic and subtile deceptions of fancy, 
 Pleasure disguised as duty, and love in the semblance of 
 
 friendship. 
 Ever of her he thought, when he fashioned the walls of his 
 
 dwelling ; 
 Ever of her he thought, when he delved in the soil of his 
 
 garden ; 
 
 Ever of her he thought, when he read in his Bible on Sunday 
 Praise of the virtuous woman, as she is described in the 
 
 Proverbs." 
 
 "This was the wedding morn of Priscilla the Puritan maiden. 
 Friends were assembled together ; the Elder and Magistrate 
 also 
 
246 THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND AND NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 Graced the scene with their presence, and stood like the Law 
 and the Gospel, 
 
 One with the sanction of earth and one with the blessing of 
 Heaven. 
 
 Simple and brief was the wedding, as that of Ruth and of Boaz. 
 
 Softly the youth and the maiden repeated the words of be- 
 trothal, 
 
 Taking each other for husband and wife in the Magistrate's 
 presence, 
 
 After the Puritan way, and the laudable custom of Holland. 
 
 Fervently then, and devoutly, the excellent Elder of Plymouth 
 
 Prayed for the hearth and the home, that were founded that 
 day in affection, 
 
 Speaking of life and of death, and imploring divine benedic- 
 tions." 
 
 When all was over we read : 
 
 " Onward the bridal procession now moved to their new habita- 
 tion, 
 
 Happy husband and wife, and friends conversing together. 
 
 Pleasantly murmured the brook, as they crossed the ford in the 
 forest, 
 
 Pleased with the image that passed, like a dream of love 
 through its bosom, 
 
 Tremulous, floating in air, o'er the depths of the azure abysses." 
 
 " Like a picture it seemed of the primitive, pastoral ages, 
 Fresh with the youth of the world, and recalling Rebecca and 
 
 Isaac, 
 
 Old and yet ever new, and simple and beautiful always, 
 Love immortal and young in the endless succession of lovers. 
 So through the Plymouth woods passed onward the bridal 
 
 procession." l 
 
 1 The Courtship of Miles Standish, 1859. 
 
FAMILY AND SOCIAL LIFE OF THE PURITANS. 247 
 
 VIII. 
 
 THESE records and traditions may help us to 
 understand the social and family life of the Puri- 
 tans. We pass next to some of the practical methods 
 by which these hardy pioneers directed their social 
 and family life. We are not to expect them to 
 follow the conventional rules of the Old ThePuritans 
 World. They were men of ideas and of in Advance of 
 
 their Times. 
 
 independent principles. They had found 
 it impracticable to develop their ideas in England. 
 The Stuarts, and those who belonged to their 
 party, had crowded these vigorous Protestants 
 the champions of civil and religious liberty 
 from their homes, and they had come to the New 
 World to develop their ideas in a free state and a 
 free Church. They were men far in advance of 
 their times. Longfellow has borrowed the strong 
 expression of one of their leaders, when he says : 
 
 "God had sifted three kingdoms to find the wheat for this 
 
 planting, 
 Then had sifted the wheat, as the living seed of a nation." 
 
 The Puritans sought to develop the individual. 
 As they believed that each man was the special? 
 object of God's love and care, so they insisted 
 that each child should be educated and trained 
 for his duties in this life and beyond. That was 
 the reason why they provided schools for the 
 
248 THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND AND NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 children of the people. They had no examples of 
 such schools in England. They were more than 
 two centuries in advance of the Mother Country 
 in this respect. " Until quite recently," says an 
 English writer, " there was no public provision for 
 education in England, and even now it is only the 
 elementary education of the people that can be 
 said to be regulated by law." 1 James Russell 
 Lowell speaks of the founders of New England 
 as the inventors of Common Schools, 2 and says 
 that these schools are defences against " monopoly 
 in Church and state." Sir William Berkeley, one 
 of the early Governors of Virginia, wrote to Eng- 
 land, " I thank God there are" no free schools or 
 printing, and I hope we shall not have them 
 these hundred years. For learning hath brought 
 heresy, and disobedience, and sects into the world, 
 and printing hath divulged them, and libels against 
 the best government. God keep us from both." 3 
 The Dutch Republic, however, had an excellent 
 The common system of common schools; and when 
 fheDutch the P^gri 8 went to Leyden, they found 
 Republic. a land " where every child went to school, 
 where almost every inhabitant could read and 
 write." 4 Governor Bradford tells us that they 
 
 1 Encyclopaedia Britannica, Art. Education, vol. vii. 678. 
 
 2 Among My Books, 242. This statement, however, needs to 
 be modified. 
 
 8 Campbell's Puritan, vol. i. 32. 
 
 4 Motley's United Netherlands, vol. iv. 432. 
 
FAMILY AND SOCIAL LIFE OP THE PURITANS. 249 
 
 were at first unable to establish a school at Ply- 
 mouth, " for want of a fit person, and also for lack 
 of means to pay a teacher." So the parents taught 
 their own children to read in the first years ; but, 
 as soon as they were able, they set up common 
 schools, and required all towns which had fifty 
 families to maintain such schools. The Annals 
 of the Colony are full of references to schools and 
 schoolmasters. 1 There was a school in Boston 
 five years after the first settlement, of Common 
 which Philemon Parment was the schools in 
 
 i T^ i T\/T i i New England. 
 
 teacher. Daniel Maude was his succes- 
 sor, and for his maintenance a contribution of 
 fifty pounds was made by the leading citizens. 
 Governor Winthrop states that " divers free 
 schools were erected, as at Roxbury, (for the 
 maintenance whereof every inhabitant bound 
 some house or land for a yearly allowance forever) 
 and at Boston, where they made an order to allow 
 forever fifty pounds to the master, and an house, 
 and thirty pounds to an usher, who should also 
 teach to read and write, and cipher; and Indians' 
 children were to be taught freely. Other towns 
 did the like, providing maintenance by several 
 means." 2 In 1647, a general act was passed, which 
 required every town of fifty families or more, to 
 
 1 Bradford's History, 161-162. Goodwin's Pilgrim Republic, 
 494-497. Plymouth Records, vol. i. 37. 
 
 2 Wintbrop's History, vol. ii. 264. 
 
250 THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND AND NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 appoint one to teach all children to read and 
 write ; and every town of one hundred families to 
 set up a grammar school, the masters thereof 
 being able to prepare students for the University. 
 Ezekiel Cheever was the earliest schoolmaster in 
 New Haven, and John Higginson the first in 
 Hartford. Every New England Colony, as soon 
 as it was able, provided for the support of schools ; 
 " to the end that learning may not be buried in 
 the graves of our forefathers in Church and com- 
 monwealth." The movement for universal educa- 
 tion was in the air in those years. Wherever the 
 Puritans planted themselves, their social and 
 family life was the life of readers and thinkers. 
 The common school has gone to Virginia now, 
 and far beyond, in disregard of the prayer of the 
 old Tory Governor. The first settlers of these 
 earliest American colonies, north and south, 
 planted the seeds from which their descendants 
 of the seventh generation are reaping. The 
 schools for the people may have brought some 
 heresies, and some disobedience, but they have 
 brought light ; they have brought free and liberal 
 thought ; they have brought liberty to the slaves, 
 and help to the poor, and light to the ignorant. 
 The common schools made possible the New 
 England town-meeting, that little congress of 
 the local democracy which was the germ of the 
 republic. 
 
FAMILY AND SOCIAL LIFE OF THE PURITANS. 
 
 IX. 
 
 THE legislation of the Puritans also influenced 
 their social life. Many of their laws, it is true, 
 had the characteristics of the seventeenth century. 
 But, as a whole, their legislation was far in advance 
 of their times. It is common, even now, for 
 writers of limited information to refer to the so- 
 called Blue Laws of Connecticut as specimens of 
 the laws of the Puritans. It is said that the laws 
 contained such provisions as these : No one shall 
 travel, cook victuals, make beds, sweep house, cut 
 hair, or shave on the Sabbath day. No woman 
 shall kiss her child on the Sabbath or Fasting 
 day : no one shall read the Book of Common 
 Prayer, keep Christmas, or Saint days, make 
 minced pies, dance, play cards, or play on any in- 
 strument of music, except the drum, 
 
 The Blue Laws. 
 
 trumpet, and jewsharp; no one shall 
 run on the Sabbath day, or walk in the garden 
 or elsewhere except reverently, to and from meet- 
 ing : no food or lodging shall be afforded to a 
 Quaker or other Heretic : every male shall have 
 his hair cut round according to a cap. 1 
 
 It is well known that these Blue Laws were the 
 invention of one Samuel Peters, a Tory, who had 
 
 1 General History of Connecticut, by Rev. Samuel Peters, Lon- 
 don, 1781, 65-82. 
 
252 THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND AND NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 been driven from the country on account of his 
 disloyalty, during the war of the Revolution. He 
 published in London, in 1781, a book which pro- 
 fesses to give " A History of Connecticut from its 
 first settlement." The code of laws which this 
 book contains has been proved to be a fabrication. 
 There were no such laws in Connecticut or in any 
 other part of New England ; " nor is there any 
 record of so much as single judgment pronounced 
 agreeably to the tenor of these provisions." * 
 
 Some of the laws which were enacted in New 
 England were like those in force in other parts 
 laws of the * * e Christian world at that time, 
 seventeenth There were sumptuary laws everv- 
 
 Century. . . , ,-, , 
 
 where ; laws to punish those whose 
 religious opinions were different from those of 
 the majority; laws designed to enforce religious 
 duties ; meddlesome laws, interfering with small 
 matters, which it is wiser to let alone. There were 
 cruel laws : laws which imposed the death-penalty 
 for offences which we have learned to deal with 
 in another way. 
 
 But the laws of New England were more mer- 
 ciful than those of New York, or of Virginia. 
 They were much more merciful than the laws of 
 England. At the end of the reign of Queen 
 Elizabeth, thirty-one crimes were punished with 
 
 1 Blue Laws, True and False, by J. Hammond Trumbull, Hart- 
 ford, 1876, 30-32. Palfrey, vol. ii. 30-37. 
 
FAMILY AND SOCIAL LIFE OP THE PURITANS. 
 
 death by the laws of England. Connecticut had 
 only twelve capital crimes in 1642, Massachusetts 
 at the same date had ten, Plymouth had only 
 eight. 1 In England, those who were adjudged 
 guilty of the crime of witchcraft were ^^ of Bus- 
 to be put to death without benefit of land and of 
 
 i 1*1 -^ r i i HewEngland. 
 
 clergy. 1 he writ for burning a heretic 
 (de haretico comburendo) was not abolished in 
 England till late in the reign of Charles the 
 Second. As late as the time of James the Second, 
 fourteen hundred Quakers were in prison at one 
 time in England, in accordance with the laws 
 then in force in that country. 2 By the laws of 
 Virginia, Quakers, or other Separatists who should 
 join in religious worship not authorized 
 
 J . f LawsofEng- 
 
 m England or this country, were, for the land and of 
 third offence, to be banished from Vir- 
 ginia. 3 Quakers were to be put to death if they 
 should return a second time. No minister was 
 allowed to hold a religious service unless he had 
 been ordained by a bishop in England. Any 
 person absenting himself from divine service for 
 a month was to be fined ; and if he should refuse 
 to pay his fine, he was to be whipped, " on the 
 bare back, ten lashes, well laid on." The penalty 
 for blasphemy, in Maryland, in 1649, was for the 
 
 1 Trumbull, Blue Laws, 59. Palfrey, vol. ii. 27, note, 28-31. 
 Body of Liberties, 81-90. 
 
 2 Encyclopaedia Britannica, Art. Quakers. 
 8 Jefferson's Notes on Virginia, 167. 
 
254 THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND AND NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 first offence to " be bored through the tongue," 
 and for the third offence it was death. 1 
 
 Some of these seventeenth century laws were 
 enacted in the New England colonies. Some 
 were put in a milder form ; many were repealed 
 or greatly modified in a few years. The decided 
 tendency in these colonies was towards softening 
 the penalties or repealing the laws. The reason 
 was that the legislators that enacted all laws were 
 elected by the people in their town-meetings, and 
 these representatives were very susceptible to pub- 
 lic opinion. The law which provided that Quakers 
 Laws against wno returned to the Colony after they 
 Quakers. ^ad j 3een banished should be put to 
 death, was very unpopular among the people. It 
 has been already stated that it was passed in the 
 House of Deputies by a majority of one vote. 2 
 The penalty was executed upon four persons. 
 But the pressure of public opinion against the 
 law was so strong that after three or four years 
 the law became a dead letter, and before many 
 years it was repealed. 
 
 The prosecutions for witchcraft, in 1691 and 
 
 1692, were brought under an old law enacted fifty 
 
 years before. While the excitement 
 
 Witchcraft. ; . . . , . .... . . 
 
 lasted, and within a limited area, juries 
 were found that would convict on such poor testi- 
 
 1 Blue Laws, True and False, J. Hammond Trumbull, Hartford, 
 1876, 309-360. 
 
 2 Mass. Colonial Records, vol. iv. 346. 
 
FAMILY AND SOCIAL LIFE OP THE PURITANS. 255 
 
 mony as was presented. But public opinion soon 
 condemned the prosecutions, and within a few 
 months it was impossible to find a jury that would 
 bring in a verdict of guilty of Witchcraft. The 
 people sent such remonstrances to the General 
 Court that the prosecutions were stopped. It was 
 the enlightened judgment of the Puritan Colonists 
 that put a stop to these judicial murders, which 
 were continued in Europe for many years after- 
 wards. 
 
 The Puritan legislation was very practical. 
 James Russell Lowell has spoken in emphatic 
 terms of the practical good sense of our fathers. 
 They had been the champions of liberty in Eng- 
 land ; and they adopted, very early, the Body of 
 Liberties, prepared by Mr. Nathaniel Ward of 
 Ipswich, a man learned in the law, as well as in 
 divinity, which stated in clear and vigorous terms 
 the rights of the citizen under the law. " No 
 man's life shall be taken away ; no man's honor 
 or good name shall be stained ; no 
 man's person shall be arrested, re- 
 strained, banished, or anyways punished; no man 
 shall be deprived of his wife or children ; no 
 man's goods or estate shall be taken away, . . . 
 unless by virtue of some express law of the coun- 
 try, established by the General Court and suffi- 
 ciently published." 1 
 
 1 Body of Liberties, Art. 90-98. 
 
256 THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND AND NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 The laws tended strongly toward democracy. 
 They tended also to protect the family ; to 
 secure its purity and its permanence ; to restrain 
 vice and crime ; to protect the poor and the weak. 
 The laws regulated the sale of intoxicating drinks, 
 perhaps as effectually as our modern laws have 
 done. It is doubtful whether we have made any 
 real progress in respect to that class of legislation, 
 since the time of Governor Winthrop. For many 
 years the General Court assumed the guardianship 
 of widows and orphans, and the care of the insane 
 and other unfortunate people. There were also 
 laws to protect the Indians from injustice, as well 
 as from the tendencies to vice from their contact 
 with unprincipled white men. These laws were 
 designed to aid the missionary work among 
 them. 
 
 X. 
 
 LIFE in New England was less democratic in 
 the Colonial period than it is in our time. Many 
 of the class distinctions of old England were 
 transferred to the new country. Only twelve of 
 those who came in the Mayflower had the title 
 Mr. prefixed to their names. The others were 
 plain John Alden, Thomas Williams, etc. Only 
 a few of those in the Massachusetts Colony had 
 the prefix Mr., or Mrs. These titles were given 
 to those who had belonged to the class of gentle- 
 
FAMILY AND SOCIAL LIFE OP THE PURITANS. 2$? 
 
 men in England, and also to ministers, and phy- 
 sicians, and their wives. Goodman and goodwife 
 were the appropriate addresses of persons who 
 were below the condition of gentility, and above 
 that of servants. Most of the deputies to the 
 General Court were designated by their names 
 only, unless they had a military title. A gentle- 
 man might be deprived of his rank for a disgrace- 
 ful act. It was ordered by the Court, in 1631, that 
 Josias Plastowe shall be fined five pounds for 
 stealing corn from the Indians, and that hereafter 
 he shall be called by the name of Josias, and not 
 Mr. as formerly he used to be. 1 These distinc- 
 tions in social rank were carefully preserved in 
 the early catalogues of Harvard College. Those 
 who had been graduated from College were en- 
 titled to the title Sir, until they had Aristocratic 
 received the degree of Master of Arts, D* 8 * 11 "* 10118 - 
 when their proper title was Mr. People were 
 sometimes seated in the meeting-house accord- 
 ing to their social rank. Still, the tendency 
 was towards a free and hearty life, as it is always 
 in a new country. Conventional distinctions 
 faded away, although there were traces of the 
 aristocratic traditions they had brought from 
 England, down to the time of the American 
 Revolution. 
 
 1 Winthrop's History, vol. i. 74, note. 
 17 
 
258 THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND AND NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 XI. 
 
 THE dress of the people during the Colonial 
 
 period was generally plain, as well because of 
 
 their limited resources, as because it was the 
 
 policy of the colonies to discourage the wasting 
 
 of their resources by habits of extrava- 
 
 The Dress of J 
 
 the Early gance. And yet those in official posi- 
 
 Colonists. ,. r "* .-, , 
 
 tions were frequently passing to and 
 from England, and it was necessary for them to 
 maintain the style and manners of gentlemen of 
 their rank in the old country. Professional men 
 and public officers were expected to wear a dis- 
 tinctive dress. The typical Puritan, as his appear- 
 ance is preserved in the old portraits, and in 
 modern statues, looks like a man of distinction. 
 Clothes counted for quite as much in the seven- 
 teenth century, as they do now. The Simple 
 Cobbler of Agawam complained of five or six 
 extravagant women in the Colony, who inquire 
 "what dresse the Queen is in this week," and 
 "what is the very newest fashion of the Court," 
 and who " egge to be in it in all haste, whatever 
 it be." " I honor the woman," he says, " that can 
 honor herself with her attire, but for a woman who 
 lives but to ape the newest court fashions I look 
 at her as the very gizzard of a trifle, the product 
 
FAMILY AND SOCIAL LIFE OP THE PURITANS. 
 
 of a quarter of a cipher, the epitome of 
 nothing." l 
 
 The General Court enacted laws at various 
 times to limit extravagance in dress. The fact 
 that such laws were needed shows that human na- 
 ture in the times of the Puritans was very much 
 the same that it is now. Their young people had 
 a love for beautiful things ; and they sought to 
 adorn themselves, even beyond their means. The 
 younger generation were not inconoclasts. Some 
 of them were disposed to break away from the 
 customs of the pioneers. In 1634, it was enacted 
 that "noe person, either man or woman, shall 
 hereafter make or buy any apparel that hath lace 
 in it, or silver and gold." It was afterward 
 ordered that no one whose estate is less than two 
 hundred pounds shall wear gold or silver lace, or 
 gold or silver buttons. Still later, it was enacted 
 that no one shall wear embroidered caps, gold 
 and silver girdles, immoderate great sleeves, or 
 slashed apparel. 2 We read in the Records of the 
 Plymouth Colony of a man who created a sensa- 
 tion by appearing in the streets of Plymouth in 
 long red-silk stockings. 3 In the inventory of the 
 estate of plain Elder Brewster, we find " one blue 
 cloth coat," one " violet color cloth coat," " one 
 
 1 The Simple Cobbler of Agawam, 25-28, 1647. 
 
 2 Colonial Records, vol. i. 273 ; vol. v. 59. Laws, 1634-1651. 
 8 Records, vol. i. 93. 
 
26O THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND AND NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 green waistcoat." In " New England's First 
 Fruits " it is said : " Linnen fustian we are mak- 
 ing already; sheep are coming on for woolen 
 cloth ; in the meantime we may be supplied by 
 way of trade from other parts ; cordovan deer, 
 seal, and moose skins are to be had plentifully, 
 which will help this way, especially for servants' 
 clothing." l Evidently these pioneers were thrifty 
 people, who respected themselves, and dressed 
 as well as they were able, though they avoided 
 with prudent care habits that were beyond their 
 incomes. 
 
 XII. 
 
 THE inventory of the estate of Elder Brewster 
 shows that his furniture was appraised at about 
 Domestic one hundred pounds. The inventory 
 Furniture. Q f tne household goods of Governor 
 Winthrop sums up the value at one hundred and 
 three pounds. This included several feather beds 
 and bolsters worth two pounds apiece ; a down 
 bed, pillows and bolsters worth five pounds ; a 
 large number of pewter dishes and plates, tin 
 plates, brass and copper kettles, brass candlesticks, 
 brass and iron andirons, some old armor, fire-arms, 
 several small carpets, cushions, cloaks, cloth-of- 
 gold scarf, table-cloths, napkins, a large number 
 
 1 New England's First Fruits, ch. xxiv. 
 
FAMILY AND SOCIAL LIFE OP THE PURITANS. 26 1 
 
 of chairs, tables, cabinets, chests, two suits of 
 clothes worth six pounds, six pairs of spectacles, 
 and many other things. 
 
 There is preserved in the Records of the 
 Colony of Massachusetts, 1 an inventory of the 
 household goods of Mrs. Martha Coytmore, who 
 afterwards became the fourth wife of Governor 
 Winthrop. The whole value of the estate of her 
 first husband seems to have been about thirteen 
 hundred pounds. One hundred and twenty- 
 seven pounds of this was represented by the 
 household furniture. The items are much the 
 same as those in the inventory of the furniture 
 of the Governor. Some articles, however, were 
 more expensive. There was a cypress chest worth 
 two pounds ten shillings, diaper table-cloths, with 
 napkins, worth several pounds, a silk red and 
 green quilt, striped curtains, and some silver 
 plate worth fifteen pounds. 
 
 These are specimens of the inventories of the 
 estates of persons in the best condition in life, 
 in Boston, twenty years after the town was 
 settled. The furniture in the largest number of 
 houses was much more primitive and of less 
 cost. 
 
 i Records, vol. ii. 234-236. 
 
262 THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND AND NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 XIII. 
 
 THE amusements of these plain people dwelling 
 in the wilderness were few and simple. And yet 
 they were not as few as some writers would lead 
 us to suppose. It is true that games of chance 
 Amusements of were prohibited by law. No one was 
 the People. permitted to possess cards, dice, or 
 other instrument of gaming. Dancing was also 
 prohibited. 1 But it is possible for the right sort 
 of people to lead a pleasant social life without 
 gaming or dancing. 
 
 The Puritans enjoyed their religion. They de- 
 lighted in prayer, and in communion with God. 
 They were profoundly interested in religious truth. 
 Religious services were very attractive to them. 
 They were intellectual people. The religious 
 spirit has been found to agree very well with 
 the intellectual spirit. The independent thinkers 
 of New England, as a rule, had a Puritan 
 ancestry. 
 
 Our fathers loved their new country, as pio- 
 neers generally do. They believed it was better 
 than any other. They were free to work out 
 their own ideas in this new world. They were 
 readers and thinkers. They debated great 
 
 1 Records of Mass., vol. i. 84 and 233. Records of Connecti- 
 cut, vol. i. 289, 527. 
 
FAMILY AND SOCIAL LIFE OP THE PURITANS. 26$ 
 
 questions under the shadows of the primitive 
 forests. They did not feel the need of the 
 pleasures which people of less intellect and less 
 faith seem to require. 
 
 There is abundant evidence that there was a 
 genuine, hearty, social life in these colonies. 
 Travellers of that period, who came to New 
 England, do not speak of the life they found 
 here as a gloomy life. The people were inter- 
 ested in each other. They had their own simple 
 rustic amusements such as those to which they 
 had been accustomed in England. 
 
 Take as an example the first Harvest Festival 
 at Plymouth. The Pilgrims had gathered their 
 first harvest, after the year of severe labor and 
 privation, while they were building their houses, 
 and breaking up the ground, and caring for 
 their crops. The harvest was bountiful, and 
 they had at last a right to give themselves up to 
 recreation. We read, in Mourt's Relation : 
 " Our harvest being gotten in, our Governor 
 sent foure men on fowling, that we might after 
 a more special manner rejoice together, after we 
 had gathered the fruit of our labors. They 
 foure in one day killed as much fowle, as, with 
 a little help beside, served the Com- Harvest Festival 
 pany almost a weeke, at which time, atpl y mo ^- 
 amongst other Recreations, we exercised our 
 Arms, many of the Indians coming amongst us, 
 
264 THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND AND NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 and amongst the rest, their greatest King, 
 Massasoyt, with some ninety men, whome for 
 three dayes we entertained and feasted, and they 
 went out and killed fine Deere, which they 
 brought to the Plantation, and bestowed on 
 our Governor, and vpon the Captaine, and 
 others." 1 
 
 This was not a religious festival. There is 
 no mention of any religious services. The week 
 seems to have been given up to sports, and a 
 succession of festivals, as well as to the entertain- 
 ment of their dusky neighbors. In these ways, 
 these vigorous men enjoyed themselves, making 
 the best use of their limited opportunities. 
 
 In Massachusetts, there was a larger popu- 
 lation, and a greater variety of occasions of 
 interest. The house of Governor Winthrop was 
 seldom without its guests. There were inter- 
 esting people coming from abroad, whose pre- 
 sence added interest to the home-life. The 
 Commencement week at the new college was 
 always interesting. We read of a great training 
 on Boston Common, which brought together 
 the people from the various settlements. Many 
 gentlemen and gentlewomen dined in tents on 
 the Common. Judge Sewell, in his Diary, refers 
 very often to the dinner parties which he at- 
 tended. He sometimes gives us the names of 
 
 1 Mourt's Relation, 133. 
 
FAMILY AND SOCIAL LIFE OF THE PURITANS. 26$ 
 
 the guests, and tells us something of the bill of 
 fare. The picture of a New England Holiday, 
 in the " Scarlet Letter," with its mingled light and 
 shade, gives a very fair impression of life in those 
 days. Hawthorne says, very truly, that the gen- 
 eration next to the early emigrants who had 
 never mingled in the sports of Old England 
 wore the darkest shade of Puritanism. 1 
 
 Human nature in the colonies was very much 
 like human nature in the rest of the world. The 
 amusements of the young people were not 
 always such as their fathers and mothers ap- 
 proved. There are numerous records of " Mixt 
 dancings, unlawful gamings, extravagence in dress, 
 light behavior," and such like offences. These 
 things do not appear to have been confined to 
 any one period in our history. They became 
 more frequent as the colonies became richer and 
 more populous. The family discipline was careful 
 and faithful, but the habits and characters of the 
 children did not always develop according to the 
 Puritan model. 
 
 XIV. 
 
 WE may draw another class of illustrations of 
 the social life of the Puritans from their inter- 
 course with the French, whose settlements in 
 
 1 Hawthorne's Scarlet Letter, 270-290. In some of his other 
 books, Mr. Hawthorne fails to do justice to the Puritans. 
 
266 THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND AND NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 the north were older than those of the Puri- 
 tans. The French officials were zeal- 
 intercourse 
 
 with the ous Roman Catholics, and their habits 
 were very different from those of 
 the Puritans. 
 
 In 1643, La Tour arrived in Boston harbor 
 with his ship, and a hundred and forty people, 
 among them two Friars, and two women who 
 were to wait upon the wife of La Tour. They 
 were courteously received by Governor Winthrop, 
 who escorted La Tour to his lodgings on shore, 
 " with a sufficient guard." While the Frenchmen 
 were in the town the training day came on, and 
 La Tour witnessed with pleasure the evolutions 
 of the citizen-soldiers. In the afternoon, the 
 French soldiers were landed, with their arms, 
 and they were permitted to exercise, " The 
 Governor and others of the Magistrates coming 
 into the field." The Puritan soldiers escorted 
 the Frenchmen to the landing-place. " Our 
 Governor and others in the town," we are told, 
 "entertained La Tour and his gentlemen with 
 much courtesy, both in their houses and at 
 table. La Tour came duly to our church 
 meetings, and always accompanied the Gov- 
 ernor to and from thence, who all the time 
 of his abode here was attended with a good 
 guard of halberts and musketeers." There 
 were animated discussions among the people 
 
FAMILY AND SOCIAL LIFE OF THE PURITANS. 
 
 in regard to the propriety of receiving these 
 "idolatrous Papists," as some called them, with 
 so much honor. But the majority approved 
 the wise and courteous course of the Governor. 
 There was a good deal of social intercourse 
 between the people and the French. We read : 
 " Of the two Friars which came in this ship, 
 the one was a very learned acute man. Divers 
 of our Elders, who had conference with him, 
 .reported so of him. They came not into the 
 town, lest they should give offence, but once, 
 being brought by some to see Mr. Cotton and 
 confer with him, and when they came to depart, 
 the chief came to take leave of the Governor, 
 and the two Elders of Boston, and showed him- 
 self very thankful for the courtesy they found 
 among us." 1 This picture of the learned Friar, 
 calling on John Cotton, to "confer with him," 
 being brought by some of the Puritans, is one 
 of the evidences that there was a place for 
 courtesy toward those of another faith, among 
 those stanch Protestants. 
 
 Three years later, another company of French- 
 men came to Boston. They arrived on the 
 Lord's-day. " Major Gibbons sent two of his 
 chief officers to meet them at the water side, 
 who conducted them to their lodgings, sine 
 strepitu. The public worship being ended, 
 
 1 Winthrop's History, vol. ii. 128-138, 153. 
 
268 THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND AND NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 the Governor repaired home, and sent Major 
 Gibbons with a guard of musketeers to attend 
 them to the Governor's house, who, meeting 
 them without his door, carried them into his 
 house, where they were entertained with wine 
 and sweetmeats, and after a while, he accom- 
 panied them to their lodgings. The Governor 
 explained to them the Puritan way of observing 
 the Lord's-day, * that all men either come to our 
 public meetings, or keep themselves quiet in 
 their houses.' The French Catholics complied 
 with the customs of the Colony, for * they con- 
 tinued private all that day until sunset, and made 
 use of such books, Latin and French, as the Gover- 
 nor had, and the liberty of a private walk in his 
 garden, and so gave no offence.' When they 
 had finished their business, they were attended to 
 their boat by the Governor, and the Commis- 
 sioners of the Colony. When they sailed for 
 home, they were saluted with five guns from 
 Boston, three from Charlestown, and five from 
 Castle Island. They returned the salute, and 
 went of their voyage." l 
 
 A still more interesting incident occurred four 
 years later. Father Gabriel Druillette, a Jesuit 
 missionary among the Abenaquis, in what is now 
 the State of Maine, was sent by the Governor 
 of Canada, D'Ailleboust, as a diplomatic agent to 
 
 1 Winthrop, vol. ii. 334-336. 
 
FAMILY AND SOCIAL LIFE OF THE PURITANS. 269 
 
 Massachusetts, and to Plymouth. His purpose 
 was to engage the Colonies in alliance with the 
 French, against the Iroquois. The 
 
 . . r* Visit of Father 
 
 Jesuit missionary hoped by such an Druiiiette, 
 alliance to secure protection for the 
 Christian Indians, against their savage enemies. 
 He has left a journal of his visit, in French, which 
 was published some forty years ago. 1 
 
 Druillette reached Boston in December, 1650. 
 He was known as a zealous Jesuit mission- 
 ary. He was received with great courtesy and 
 respect. He was invited to the house of General 
 Gibbons, who charged him to make no other house 
 his home, while he remained there. The General 
 gave to his guest a key to an apartment in his 
 house, where he might be free to pray, and to go 
 through the services of his religion. It has been 
 suggested that the first Mass in Boston may have 
 been solemnized in that room. General Gibbons 
 presented his guest to Governor Dudley, who 
 examined his credentials, and invited him to dine 
 at his house. From Boston, Father Druillette 
 went to Plymouth, where he was courteously 
 received by Governor Bradford, who invited him 
 to dine at his house the next day. As the next 
 
 * Narrd du Voyage faict pour la Mission des Abnaquiois, et des 
 Connaissances tirez, de la Nouvelle Angleterre et des dispositions 
 des Magistrats de cette Republique pour le secours centre les 
 Iroquois, es annees 1650 et 1651. Par le R. PeYe Gabriel 
 Druillette, de la Compagnie de Jesus. Quebec. 
 
27O THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND AND NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 day was Friday, the Pilgrim Governor provided 
 fish for dinner, in recognition of the religious 
 customs of his Jesuit guest. The Priest found 
 favor among the people of Plymouth, although 
 the Magistrates did not embarrass themselves by 
 entering into the alliance which he proposed. 
 On the 24th of December, the good missionary 
 started on his return to Boston by land. On his 
 way back, he called at Roxbury on John Eliot, the 
 Puritan missionary among the Indians. It must 
 have been about the time of Christmas day. He 
 writes in his journal that Eliot invited him to 
 lodge with him, as the night had overtaken him. 
 These two missionaries the Jesuit, and the 
 Puritan had much discourse concerning their 
 work among the Indians. " Here is a scene," says 
 Dr. Ellis, " that might well engage the pencil of 
 an artist. These two men, . . . separated as the 
 poles in their religious convictions, principles and 
 methods, are seen in simple, human, loving con- 
 joim mot ana verse > as kind host, and responsive 
 the catholic stranger guest. The humble sitting 
 and working room of the Apostle Eliot, 
 in his modest cottage, has the essentials of com- 
 fort, and there is a guest chamber." The Priest 
 writes in his journal that Eliot treated him with 
 respect and affection, and invited him to pass the 
 winter with him. " Perhaps their conversation 
 was in Latin," says Dr. Ellis, " though Eliot was 
 
FAMILY AND SOCIAL LIFE OF THE PURITANS 2J1 
 
 an accomplished scholar, and might have the 
 mastery of the French. The morning and even- 
 ing devotions of the Puritan household, with grace 
 and blessing each meal must have kept their 
 wonted course, while the faithful Priest had his 
 oratory, his orisons, and his matin Mass 
 before breaking his fast." * 
 
 So nearly do good people of different creeds 
 approach each other, who are devoted to the 
 service of the one Lord, and to the salvation of 
 their fellow-men. 
 
 XV. 
 
 LAST of all, we can estimate the social and 
 family life of the Puritans, from its results, in the 
 types of character which we find in their descend- 
 ants. We are living among people of the seventh 
 and eighth generation from the founders of New 
 England. That is a long period through which 
 to transmit distinctive traits. Mr. Galton, in his 
 work on Hereditary Genius, tells us that " the 
 ablest race of whom history bears record is un- 
 questionably the Ancient Greeks." 2 But the 
 Greek type, which was preserved for a few centu- 
 ries, became gradually feebler, and was long ago 
 lost. The Patricians at Rome were as distinctly 
 
 1 Palfrey, vol. ii. 305-308. The Puritan Age and Rule, by George 
 E. Ellis, 366-374. 
 
 2 Hereditary Genius, 329. 
 
2/2 THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND AND NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 marked in their time, but Gibbon tells us that at 
 the time of the Republic most of the Patrician 
 families had failed, and that the type was lost. 
 Mr. Benjamin Kidd states that "only five out of 
 over five hundred of the oldest aristocratic families 
 in England, at the present time, can trace direct 
 descent through the male line, to the fifteenth 
 century." 1 " Despite the immeasurable safeguards 
 with which they have been able to surround them- 
 selves, such classes seem to be quite unable to 
 keep up the stock for more than a limited number 
 of generations. They are continually dying out 
 at the top, and being recruited from below." A 
 similar state of things has been found to exist in 
 France among the noble families of that country. 
 The Puritan type in this country has met a 
 number of other vigorous types, each of which has 
 moulded a large number of our people. Beside 
 the Cavaliers of Virginia, who made the Church 
 t ^ of England the established Church in 
 
 The Puritan 
 
 Type in the that Colony, there has been the Scotch, 
 and the Scotch-Irish type, out of which 
 has come the great Presbyterian Body. The 
 French Huguenots have been very numerous. 
 So have the Dutch, and the Germans. There 
 has been a mingling of blood. Each type has 
 exerted an influence upon the others, and there 
 is a tendency to melt down these distinctive 
 
 1 Social Evolution, 277. 
 
FAMILY AND SOCIAL LIFE OP THE PURITANS. 2/3 
 
 types in the comprehensive national spirit and 
 character. 
 
 But for all that, the New England type of mind, 
 after two hundred and seventy years, is still as 
 distinct in the great stream of our American life, 
 as the Gulf Stream in the Atlantic. A large 
 fraction of the people of the United States have 
 sprung from those who settled the colonies of 
 New England. They are to be found in every 
 State, and in almost every city and town. The 
 men and women of Puritan blood, wherever we 
 find them, are apt to be people of vigorous intel- 
 lects, of thrifty habits, of inventive genius, and of 
 strong moral character. They stand for liberty 
 in the Church, and in the state. The leaders of 
 liberal thought have been descendants of the 
 Puritans. A large proportion of the great con- 
 servative leaders have also been of Puritan lineage. 
 I find these men in the South, and in the extreme 
 West, as well as in the East. They are preaching 
 in California and in Oregon. They are Senators 
 and Representatives from Colorado, and from 
 Michigan: from Washington, and from Ohio; 
 from Wisconsin and from Illinois. President 
 John Adams and President John Quincy Adams, 
 and the poet Longfellow were among the descen- 
 dants of John Alden and of Priscilla Mullins. 
 Ralph Waldo Emerson was of the eighth genera- 
 tion of Puritan ministers. Nathaniel Hawthorne 
 
 18 
 
2/4 THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND AND NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 was a descendant of William Hawthorne, who 
 came to America with Governor Winthrop, and 
 who settled in Dorchester, in 1630. James Russell 
 Lowell was a descendant from Percival Lowell, 
 a prosperous merchant, who settled in Newbury, 
 in 1639, and of the long line of his successors, 
 merchants and lawyers and ministers. 
 
 I have before me, as I write, a list of a hundred 
 and twenty-five men who have died within the 
 last three years, and who were members of the 
 New England Historic Genealogical Society of 
 Boston. They were not selected men, excepting 
 that they were especially interested in the history 
 of New England families. The majority of them 
 were residents of Massachusetts, but a large 
 number lived in other parts of New England, and 
 in other sections of the country, and some in 
 foreign lands. There are among them descend- 
 ants of the French Huguenots, of the Scotch, 
 the Dutch, and the English. It has been found, 
 from an examination of this list of a hundred and 
 twenty-five members of this Society, who have died 
 in 1893, 1894, an d 1895, that about two-thirds of 
 them were able to trace their descent from the Pil- 
 grims or the Puritans of New England. The list 
 includes such names as William Frederick Poole, 
 the Librarian of Chicago, Joseph H. Stickney, a 
 merchant of Baltimore, Thomas E. Proctor and 
 Benjamin F. Nourse of Boston, both successful 
 
FAMILY AND SOCIAL LIFE OP THE PURITANS. 2?$ 
 
 business men, and both descended from persons 
 who were put to death in Salem at the time of the 
 witchcraft delusion, Ex-Governor Oliver Ames, 
 and Frederick L. Ames, and Waldo Higginson, 
 Moses Kimball, Gyles Merrill of Haverhill, 
 Warren Ladd of Providence, Judge Charles C. 
 Baldwin of Cleveland, Elisha C. Leonard of New 
 Bedford, James R. Newhall of Lynn, Dr. Henry 
 Delevan Paine of Albany, Daniel Clapp, Peter 
 Butler, Peter Thacher, James W. Austin, Francis 
 G. Pratt, and many others of Boston. These are 
 representative men, specimens of the thousands 
 of men in active life who are of Puritan descent, 
 whom one may meet from day to day in business 
 or in professional life. 
 
 Phillips Brooks was one of these representative 
 men, a descendant on his father's side from 
 Thomas Brooks, and on his mother's side from 
 George Phillips, the first minister of Watertown. 
 Three generations ago one of the descendants of 
 John Cotton became the wife of the great grand- 
 father of Phillips Brooks. So that he came from 
 at least three lines of Puritan ancestors, Cotton, 
 Phillips, and Brooks. He showed what a well 
 developed Puritan of the seventh generation may 
 become under favorable circumstances. Francis 
 Parkman, LL.D., the eminent historian of the 
 French in America, who died in 1893, traced his 
 family line to Elias Parkman, through a long sue- 
 
276 THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND AND NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 cession of ministers and men of letters. Judge 
 Peleg Emery Aldrich, who has only recently 
 passed away, was only one of the many eminent 
 descendants of George Aldrich of early Puritan 
 times. Henry Oscar Houghton, the eminent 
 publisher, was of the seventh generation from 
 John Houghton. Leverett Saltonstall was de- 
 scended from Sir Richard Saltonstall, the leader 
 in the settlement of Watertown. He was the sixth 
 in lineal descent to graduate from Harvard Col- 
 lege. Dr. Andrew P. Peabody was a descendant 
 of the seventh generation from Lieut. Francis 
 Peabody, and from a long line of New England 
 ministers. Dr. Alonzo A. Miner was of the sev- 
 enth generation from Thomas Miner, who came 
 to Boston in 1630. Robert C. Winthrop, LL.D., 
 so eminent as a statesman, an orator, and an 
 author, was of the sixth generation from the great 
 Puritan Governor, John Winthrop. There have 
 been eminent men in every period of the history 
 of the Winthrops, but none have been more ad- 
 mirable than the eminent man who has so lately 
 passed away. 1 
 
 The Puritan discipline was undoubtedly severe, 
 but it trained men for heroic action. That social 
 and family life of theirs is still bearing fruit. The 
 Puritan type is very persistent. No other section 
 
 1 Proceedings of the New England Historic Genealogical 
 Society, 1894-5-6. Genealogical Register, 1893-96. 
 
FAMILY AND SOCIAL LIFE OP THE PURITANS. 
 
 of the Anglo-Saxon race has excelled the Puritans 
 in the number of great men and of good men, 
 soldiers and statesmen and scholars, that it has 
 produced. Whether the social and family life of 
 the present generation in New England is likely 
 to preserve the type for other generations is an 
 interesting and important question. 
 
VI. 
 
 Religious Opinions of the Fathers 
 of New England. 
 
Religious Opinions of the Fathers 
 of New England. 
 
 "V\7E shall fail to understand the Puritans unless 
 we know what views they adopted in re- 
 gard to religious truth. For their whole tone and 
 spirit, and their methods of life, were the outgrowth 
 of their religious opinions. Like a great poet of 
 our time, " they believed in the soul, and were very 
 sure of God." They knew that He was not far 
 from every one of them. Duty to God was their 
 highest rule. Religious motives had the largest 
 place in their lives. They had crossed the sea 
 that they might be free to follow their convictions 
 of duty. The larger number of them had been in 
 a condition of comfort in England ; some of them 
 had been affluent. The early years of the reign 
 of Charles the First had been times of great 
 prosperity for those who could fall in with the 
 teachings of the Established Church and with the 
 views of the court. But they had left their Eng- 
 lish homes behind them, that they might be free 
 to follow their religious convictions. 
 
282 THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND AND NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 I. 
 
 THE Puritans were, first of all, Protestants. 
 
 They lived to protest against error and to bear 
 
 witness to the truth. Their Protestant- 
 
 The Puritans ... , 
 
 were protest- ism was of that intense and aggressive 
 type, which generations of conflict with 
 the Church of Rome had developed. 
 
 As Protestants they appealed to the Bible as 
 the only infallible rule of faith and of duty. They 
 asserted its authority in opposition to that of the 
 traditions of the Church. But, in the interpreta- 
 tion of the Bible they insisted upon the right of 
 private judgment. They denied the right of the 
 Church, or of the councils, to give them an inter- 
 pretation of the Word. A Puritan was a man 
 who submitted with meekness to the teaching of 
 God's word, as he understood it. 
 
 As consistent Protestants, the Puritans gave 
 great emphasis to the doctrine of justification 
 by faith. They guarded very carefully, in their 
 teachings, against the covenant of works. They 
 would not admit that there was any merit, as a 
 ground of justification, in the best actions of the 
 holiest men. 
 
 The Puritans derived from their study of the 
 Bible a new sense of the sanctity of the Lord's- 
 day. It was from the Puritans that the English 
 
RELIGIOUS OPINIONS OP THE PURITAN FATHERS. 283 
 
 people learned to keep the first day of the week 
 so strictly that, even now, their habits of Sabbath 
 observance are in marked contrast with those of 
 the other nations of Europe. The Puritan clergy- 
 men would surrender their livings sooner than 
 sanction the proclamation of the king, which re- 
 quired the people to devote a part of the day to 
 amusements. The King's Book of Sports served 
 the purpose of separating the Puritans from the 
 other classes of their countrymen. One of the 
 leading motives in the great Puritan migration 
 was the desire to establish the habit of the strict 
 observance of the Lord's-day among their 
 children. 
 
 The whole tone and spirit of New England 
 during the first generation was unworldly, to a 
 remarkable degree. There was a good deal of 
 propriety in calling their state a theocracy. The 
 sermons of the seventeenth century were longer 
 and more abstract than those of our time. Many 
 of them consisted of close and logical discussions 
 of the doctrines of the Bible. Some of them were 
 sections of theological treatises. Willard's Body 
 of Divinity deserves to rank high among the 
 theological works of New England ; but it con- 
 sists of two hundred and forty-six sermons. The 
 first of them was preached January 31, 1687; the 
 last, April i, 1707, an interval of twenty years. 
 John Norton's theological works were given to 
 
284 THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND AND NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 his people in the form of sermons. So were those 
 of John Cotton and of Thomas Hooker. 
 
 The few books which the Colonists were able 
 to have in their homes were, for the most part, 
 theological. They became as skilful as the Scot- 
 tish people in theological discussion. They were 
 as quick to detect any departure from the stand- 
 ards of doctrine which they had accepted, as the 
 Athenians were to detect faults of pronunciation, 
 or of style, in their orators. In those periods of 
 their history there was good reason for the prac- 
 tice of preaching as candidates, for there were 
 persons in every congregation who were qualified 
 to form an intelligent opinion of the correctness 
 of the teaching of the preacher. The great doc- 
 trines of religion were living themes for the people, 
 the subjects of discussion at the fireside, in the 
 market, and at all social gatherings. 
 
 II. 
 
 AMONG Protestants, the fathers of New England 
 belonged to the Reformed instead of the Lutheran 
 branch of the Church, and to the Calvinistic in- 
 stead of the Arminian party. The Pilgrims, who 
 settled the Old Colony, had been trained under 
 John Robinson, who was an able defender of the 
 decrees of the Synod of Dort against the Armin- 
 ians. The Puritans of the Bay Colony found the 
 
RELIGIOUS OPINIONS OF THE PURITAN FATHERS. 285 
 
 standards of the Westminster Assembly the best 
 exponents of their faith. Up to the time of the 
 Westminster Assembly, there does not me west- 
 seem to have been much discussion ^^i' 
 among them as to the particular shade Catechis ms. 
 of Calvinism they would teach. Their theology, 
 like their religion, had been shaped by the hard 
 experiences of their lives. It may be that the 
 religion of the camp is not quite the same as that 
 of the fireside. The Puritans desired to exalt the 
 sovereignty of God, for they believed He had 
 chosen them for a great mission, and they de- 
 pended utterly upon Him for protection and suc- 
 cess. Many of those who had been driven from 
 England had spent years in Geneva, and they 
 had been influenced by the decided Calvinistic 
 teachings of the ministers of that city. There 
 was a difference among them, as to some points 
 in the system, but the tendency during the first 
 two generations was toward a very high type of 
 Calvinism. 
 
 III. 
 
 THE books that were written in New England, 
 in the first period, related to the organization and 
 discipline of the churches, rather than 
 to theology. " The Way of the inthepouty 
 Churches," " Necessity of Separation," ofthechurcl1 - 
 " Why Ruling Elders should be Chosen," " The 
 
286 THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND AND NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 Necessity of Infant Baptism," " Should those not 
 in Covenant with the Church present their Chil- 
 dren for Baptism ? " these are specimens of the 
 titles of the early pamphlets. When the Synod 
 was convened at Cambridge, in 1646, it devoted 
 itself to the Platform of Church Government, in- 
 stead of the construction of a New Confession of 
 Faith. The reason was that they were content, 
 for the most part, to accept the Westminster 
 Confession ; but they felt the need of rounding 
 out and completing that form of Church polity 
 which had grown up in New England. 
 
 IV. 
 
 THE Puritans were always, however, deeply in- 
 terested in theology. What their views were, we 
 may learn from the catechisms which they taught 
 their children, as well as from the creeds of their 
 churches, and from the books which they 
 published. 
 
 That famous catechism, prepared by John Cot- 
 ton, in 1641 or 1642, at the request of the General 
 Court, entitled " Milk for Babes," which was in 
 common use for about a century, although it deals, 
 
 for the most part, with practical mat- 
 Milk for Babes. 
 
 ters of duty to God and to men, yet sets 
 forth quite distinctly the doctrine of the Trinity, 
 of the Fall of Man, asserting that " we sinned in 
 
RELIGIOUS OPINIONS OP THE PURITAN FATHERS. 28/ 
 
 Adam, and fell with him," and also that his sin is 
 imputed to us ; that the wages of sin is death ; 
 that "faith is a grace of the spirit whereby I deny 
 myself, and believe on Christ for righteousness and 
 salvation." The rhyming couplet in the New 
 England Primer: 
 
 " In Adam's fall, 
 We sinned all," 
 
 is not unlike the teachings of this catechism, in 
 which several generations of Puritan children 
 were trained. 
 
 Those who were admitted as members of the 
 Puritan churches were required to give to the 
 church an account of their religious experiences, 
 and also of their "knowledge in the 
 principles of religion." This " knowl- Religious 
 edge" included a statement of what * 
 truths and principles they had deduced from the 
 Scriptures. 1 It is cjear from the early pamphlets 
 that our fathers regarded the knowledge of the 
 great principles of the Christian religion as an 
 important preparation for admission to the church. 
 The examination of the candidates as to their 
 " knowledge of the principles of religion " led, in 
 the course of time, to the adoption of a creed by 
 the Church. Thus, the church in Salem, which 
 
 1 These points are fully discussed by Professor Williston 
 Walker in his Creeds and Platforms of Congregationalism, 107, 
 notes. He quotes the original authorities. 
 
288 THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND AND NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 was the earliest in New England, next to the Pil- 
 grim church in Plymouth, had originally only this 
 simple covenant : " We covenant with the Lord, 
 and one with another: and do bynd ourselves in 
 the presence of God, to walke together in all his 
 covenant and waies, according as he is pleased to 
 SSthta? 16 reveale himself unto us in his Blessed 
 saiem. word of truth." As time went on, it 
 
 was found expedient to expand this covenant, and 
 make it more specific. In 1665, a formal creed 
 was set forth with this title : " A Direction for a 
 Public Profession in the Church Assembly, after 
 private Examination by the Elders : which Direc- 
 tion is taken out of the Scripture, and points unto 
 that Faith and Covenant contained in the Scrip- 
 ture; being the same for substance which was 
 propounded to and agreed upon by the Church of 
 Salem in their beginning, the sixth of the sixth 
 moneth 1629." This ancient Confession of Faith 
 sets forth the doctrine of the Trinity ; of God's 
 providence and government of the world ; the fall 
 of man ; the redemptive work of Christ, who 
 " became man that he might redeem and save us, 
 by his obedience unto death ; " of the Holy Spirit ; 
 who, " working Faith in God's Elect, applyeth unto 
 them Christ with all his Benefits of Justification, 
 and Sanctification, unto Salvation." 
 
 The history of the first Synod called by the 
 General Court of Massachusetts, which met in 
 
RELIGIOUS OPINIONS OP THE PURITAN FATHERS. 289 
 
 what is now Cambridge, in 1637, gives some inti- 
 mations of the discussions which went on among 
 the Colonists in the earlier years. l Those were 
 the days of Mrs. Hutchinson, who came to Boston 
 in 1634. The questions which were The First 
 raised by her bold teachings, set the ^^f rs< 
 whole Colony in a turmoil. The Synod I634 - 38 - 
 chose Thomas Hooker, and Peter Bulkly moder- 
 ators, and proceeded to consider eighty-two erro- 
 neous opinions which had been set forth in this 
 country at various times. One would think the 
 Synod had abundant work on its hands, for 
 the twenty-four days of its session. Most of these 
 errors were traced to the teachings of Mrs. 
 Hutchinson. It is plain that the intense religious 
 spirit of the people had led them to speculate very 
 freely with reference to the questions which had 
 been raised by their new teachers. Some of their 
 speculations were crude, and some, in the opinion 
 of the Synod, were subversive to the fundamen- 
 tals of religion. Cotton Mather states that they 
 were of an Antinomian and Familistical tendency. 
 The Synod dealt with these errors one by one. 
 After stating the erroneous opinions, they would 
 say, " This is contrary to such and such texts of 
 Scripture," and this, according to the author of 
 the Magnalia, did " smite the error under the fifth 
 
 1 See Winthrop's History, vol. i. 284-288. Three Episodes of 
 Massachusetts History, 1892. Charles Francis Adams. 
 
 19 
 
2QO THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND AND NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 rib." The influence of this Synod tended to har- 
 monize the opinions of the people. In 1637, 
 however, the General Court of Massachusetts 
 banished Mrs. Hutchinson and some of her 
 supporters from the Colony. l 
 
 About the time of the Westminster Assembly, 
 there was, as we have seen in the sketch of Mr. 
 Fynchon's Dis- Pynchon, 2 more or less dissent from 
 pticeof f some of the statements, which it was 
 Redemption, then CO mmon to make, in regard to the 
 Atonement. Mr. Pynchon did not stand alone 
 in his denial of the dogma of strict satisfaction. 
 Some of the leading men among the Puritans in 
 England were in sympathy with his views. But 
 the larger number were against him. The reply 
 to his book, by Mr. John Norton, asserted in the 
 plainest terms that the Redeemer suffered the 
 punishment which the sinner deserved to suffer. 
 Mr. Norton did not hesitate to affirm that He 
 suffered the torments of the souls that are lost. 
 Both parties in this great debate imply that the 
 Atonement of Christ is limited to the elect, and 
 that there is no provision for the salvation of those 
 whom God has not chosen unto salvation. 
 
 1 See Mather's Magnalia, vol. ii. 508-515. Felt, vol. i. 313-319* 
 Walker's Creeds and Platforms, 133-135. 
 
 2 See pages 201-212 of this volume. 
 
RELIGIOUS OPINIONS OF THE PURITAN FATHERS. 
 
 V. 
 
 THE meeting of the Cambridge Synod, In 1646 
 to 1648, was a very important event, not only 
 because it led to the adoption of the The Westmin . 
 Cambridge Platform of Church Govern- ster confession 
 ment, but because the Synod adopted, 
 for the first time, in the name of the churches of 
 New England, a standard of doctrine. In the 
 preface to the Platform the Synod declares : 
 " Wee beleive & profess the same Doctrine of 
 the trueth of the Gospell, which generally is 
 received in all the reformed Churches of Christ 
 in Europe : so especially, we desire not to vary 
 from the doctrine of faith, & truth held forth by 
 the Churches of our native country." It is further 
 stated in this preface, that the Synod voted unan- 
 imously, " the last of the sixth month 1648, in 
 these words : This Synod, having perused, and 
 considered the Confession of faith published of 
 late by the Reverend Assembly in England, doe 
 judge it to be very holy, orthodox, & judicious 
 in all matters of faith : & doe therefore freely 
 & fully consent thereunto, for the substance 
 thereof." l These declarations of the Synod had 
 an important influence upon the theological dis- 
 
 1 Walker's Creeds and Platforms, 194-196. 
 
292 THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND AND NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 cussions of the New England divines for the next 
 half century, as we shall see from such of their 
 works as have come down to us. 
 
 VI. 
 
 WITHIN a few years after the time of the Cam- 
 bridge Synod, a number of theological books were 
 produced in New England, which were the first 
 fruits of our literature, and which are the most 
 authentic statements of the teachings of the early 
 divines of New England. 
 
 Thomas Shepard, the first pastor of the church 
 in Cambridge, left a number of works which show 
 how an active pastor, and an earnest preacher, 
 understood the doctrines of the Gospel. Mr. 
 Shepard was born in Northamptonshire, in 1605, 
 received the degree of B.A. from Emmanuel Col- 
 lege, Cambridge, in 1623, and that of M.A. in 1627. 
 He received deacon's orders, and was appointed 
 to one of the Puritan lectureships, in Essex, with 
 a salary of ^30 a year. 1 He was permitted to 
 labor in that place about three years and a half, 
 when he was silenced by Bishop Laud, and driven 
 out of the diocese. After incredible sufferings 
 from persecution, during the next four years, he 
 made his escape in disguise, and sailed for New 
 
 1 Shepard's Works, Doctrinal Tract and Book Society, Boston, 
 1853. 3 vols. vol. i. Ixx. Cromwell's Letters and Speeches, by 
 Carlyle, vol. i. 50. 
 
RELIGIOUS OPINIONS OP THE PURITAN FATHERS. 293 
 
 England, in 1635. The next year, the Church in 
 Cambridge was formed, and Mr. Shepard was 
 ordained as the first pastor. That was the year 
 in which Harvard College was founded in Cam- 
 bridge. Mr. Shepard deserves to rank with 
 Cotton, and Hooker, and Mather, among the 
 leading ministers in the Colonies. His works 
 belong to the first generation, for he died in 1649. 
 " God's decree," he says, " is His eternal and de- 
 terminate purpose concerning the effecting of all 
 things, by His mighty power, according to His 
 counsel." And yet, as a preacher, Mr. Shepard 
 held to the freedom of the will. " In the fall, " he 
 tells us, " man abused his own free will, in yield- 
 ing to the temptations which he might have 
 resisted." The sin of Adam " is imputed unto us, 
 and so the punishment must needs follow upon it." 1 
 He reasons in the usual manner in 
 
 Theology of 
 
 regard to this imputation. " We were Thomas 
 in Adam, as the members are in the 
 head, as children in his loins, as debtors in 
 their surety, as branches in their roots : it being 
 just that, as, if he standing, all had stood by impu- 
 tation of his righteousness, so, he falling, all 
 should fall by imputation of his sin." So he de- 
 clares that " every man living is born guilty of 
 Adam's sin." 2 " The justice and equity is this : 
 All our estates were contained in that ship." 
 
 1 Works, vol. i. 335-351. 2 Ibid., 24. 
 
294 THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND AND NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 " We were all in Adam, as a whole country is in 
 a Parliament man, and though we made no agree- 
 ment to have Adam stand for us, yet the Lord 
 made it for us." 
 
 Passing next to Redemption, he tells us that, 
 " It is the satisfaction made, or the price paid to 
 the justice of God, for the life and deliverance of 
 man out of the captivity of sin, Satan, and death, 
 by a Redeemer, according to a covenant made 
 between Him and the Father." So it came to 
 pass that " Christ stood in the room of all them 
 whom mercy decreed to save." " Justification is 
 the gracious act of God, whereby, for the satisfac- 
 tion of Christ, apprehended by faith, and imputed 
 to the faithful, He absolves them from the guilt and 
 condemnation of all sin, and accepts them, as 
 perfectly righteous, to eternal life." " Faith is 
 the first act of our spiritual life, whereby, the soul, 
 believing God, believeth in Him, and thus resteth, 
 as in the only author and principle of life." 1 In 
 this passage he teaches that faith is an act of the 
 believer. So he taught that the sinner is free in 
 his rejection of Christ. "The cause of this ruin," 
 he says, " is from themselves." As a practical 
 preacher, Shepard found it important to teach 
 this truth with great earnestness. It is very plain, 
 that those old Calvinistic preachers tried to develop 
 a sense of freedom and of responsibility among 
 those to whom they were preaching. 
 
 1 Sum of the Christian Religion. 
 
RELIGIOUS OPINIONS OP THE PURITAN FATHERS. 2$$ 
 
 VII. 
 
 THE Orthodox Evangelist, by John Norton, of 
 Ipswich, is one of the oldest elaborate theologi- 
 cal works of the New England divines. It was 
 published in London, in 1654. The original 
 edition contains three hundred and 
 
 . The Orthodox 
 
 fifty-five pages, and was written tor Evangelist, by 
 the use of thoughtful laymen in the JolmWc 
 Puritan churches. The author was a preacher 
 and pastor, as well as a well-read theologian. 
 After a very subtle discussion of the essence of 
 God, and of His attributes, he proceeds to His 
 eternal decrees. 
 
 " The decree of God," he says, " is God's one, 
 eternal, free, constant act, absolutely determining 
 the infallible being of whatever is, besides Him- 
 self, unto the praise of His own glory." He 
 says, with Calvin: " God willeth by one single 
 act. With Him there is nothing past, nothing 
 to come, but all is present. Whatever He thinks, 
 He always has thought, and always doth, and will 
 think. There can no more be a new thought, 
 or purpose, than a new God." 1 " The decree of 
 God is the antecedent of sin, but it is not the 
 cause of sin." " God is free from any motive 
 besides His own will." " God is essentially 
 
 1 Orthodox Evangelist, 51, 52. 
 
296 THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND AND NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 good : He is goodness itself." " All goodness 
 cometh from Him." " God is a full fountain ; 
 willing to communicate of His goodness, as the 
 sun communicates of its light." l " The will of 
 God is the rule of justice between Him and His 
 creatures. The holiness of God is conformity 
 unto Himself." 2 "The justice of God leads 
 Him to render unto the reasonable creature 
 what is due thereunto, according to His word, 
 whether by way of grace, or punishment." 
 
 In respect to man, he says : " The liberty of 
 man, though subordinate to God's decree, freely 
 willeth the very same thing, and no other, than 
 that which it would have willed, had there been 
 no decree. Man acts as freely as if there were 
 no decree. Liberty is the effect of the decree ; so 
 far is the decree from being a hindrance to 
 liberty." 3 In the same connection, he says : 
 " All who hear the gospel, are equally bound to 
 believe. How can God command those to 
 believe, whom He hath decreed that they shall 
 not believe ? " " Hope is grounded upon God's 
 revealed will, not upon the decree that is unre- 
 vealed." " Every person that heareth the gospel 
 is equally capable of believing. We are to look 
 upon all those living under the gospel as elected, 
 in the judgement of charity. It is the duty of 
 
 1 Orthodox Evangelist, 12. 8 Ibid., 76. 
 
 2 Ibid., 16. 
 
RELIGIOUS OPINIONS OP THE PURITAN FATHERS. 
 
 every one to believe." l " It is a sin for any to 
 conclude in this life that he is among the 
 reprobate." 
 
 He agrees with the other Calvinists of his time 
 in respect to the fall of man, and the consequences 
 of the fall. " Adam, being a public person, his 
 posterity, in a seminal respect, was contained in 
 his loins, and so sinned in him sinning." " Adam 
 might not have sinned ; and yet, it could not be but 
 that Adam should sin. Both of these are true." 2 
 " Necessity and liberty consist together." " God 
 imputes the guilt of his sin to all his posterity." 
 " Original sin is propagated in the soul by reason 
 of the sin of Adam." 3 " The soul contracts sin, 
 by its connection with the body, as when one falls 
 into the dirt, he is defiled, and besmeared." " God, 
 whiles He creates souls, doth deprive them of 
 original righteousness." 4 
 
 And yet he teaches that " the Parable of the 
 Prodigal Son's return unto his father's house is 
 proposed as the pattern of the sinner's being 
 brought home unto Jesus Christ. The younger 
 son was sensible of his lost condition before he 
 was found." 5 Still, " the elect's seeking God, is 
 the effect of God's seeking them. Our seeking 
 before faith is the effect of the common work of 
 the Spirit : our seeking after faith is the effect of 
 
 1 Orthodox Evangelist, 198-200. 2 Ibid., 74. 
 
 8 Ibid., 143. * Ibid., 140-144. 5 Ibid., 138. 
 
298 THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND AND NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 the saving work of the Spirit." l " The Armin- 
 ians tax the Orthodox for asserting all acts before 
 faith to be sin ; and they pretend that there is in 
 man, before regeneration, a hunger and thirst, after 
 righteousness, and a hatred of sin, They say that 
 to all such God giveth sufficient grace to believe. 
 But this is contrary to the Scripture." 2 
 
 " Saving faith is an impulse or motion of the 
 Spirit of grace. It enables the soul to yield obedi- 
 irresistibie ence unto the commands of God." 3 
 Grace. u The SO ul is passive in vocation ; that 
 
 is, in the infusion of the principle of life." 4 " The 
 manner of working of faith is irresistible, that 
 is, it prevaileth over all opposition." But there 
 are certain means of obtaining faith ; such as 
 " God's love to men, and Christ's work for 
 sinners, and the invitations of the gospel." 5 
 
 "Justification is a gracious act of God upon a 
 believer, whereby he doth freely discharge him 
 from sin, and accept him as righteous with the 
 righteousness of Christ, and acknowledge him 
 to have a right to eternal life. The efficient 
 cause of Justification is the good pleasure of 
 
 God." 6 
 
 These citations are sufficient to show the 
 method of this most logical of the early divines 
 of New England. Undoubtedly, he held firmly 
 
 1 Orthodox Evangelist, 1 59. 8 Ibid., 220. 6 Ibid., 213, 214. 
 
 2 Ibid., 166. * Ibid., 257. 6 Ibid., 300. 
 
RELIGIOUS OPINIONS OF THE PURITAN FATHERS. 
 
 the system of John Calvin, in all its essential 
 points. And yet he sought constantly to guard 
 against the tendency of that system to a denial of 
 human freedom, and of personal responsibility. 
 He made much of the free love of God, and of 
 the motives of the Gospel. It is plain that his 
 methods of thinking as a logician were very often 
 modified by his moral instincts as a preacher. 
 
 A greater man than John Norton, was the 
 learned and accomplished Thomas Hooker, 
 whose moving eloquence in the pulpit was 
 equalled only by his statesmanship. Hooker 
 was the author of a large number of religious 
 books, which contain altogether more than two 
 thousand pages. These were printed at various 
 times between 1637 and 1651. One 
 of them was printed in Amsterdam, 
 
 the others in London. We find in ^ practical 
 
 Theologian. 
 
 these books the theology of Calvin, 
 concerning the decrees, the fall of man, original 
 sin, inability, irresistible grace, and the persever- 
 ance of the saints. This theology, however, is 
 used in a practical way, and accommodated to 
 the exigencies of the preacher. There are hints 
 in these volumes of the distinction between 
 natural and moral ability, which President 
 Edwards brought out a hundred years later. 
 Hooker teaches that man is free, and therefore 
 fully responsible. He makes much of the abound- 
 
3OO THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND AND NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 ing love of God, and of the free and hearty offers 
 of divine grace. 
 
 His longest work is entitled " The Soul's 
 Vocation, or Effectual Calling to Christ," pub- 
 lished in London in 1638, and contains six hun- 
 dred and sixty-eight pages. He says : 
 
 " The offer of grace from God is free : the means of 
 grace are also free : grace must be free because there is 
 nothing in man to purchase it : and because he can do 
 nothing to merit it. The saints should therefore mag- 
 nify the mercy of God. The wicked, that want this 
 mercy, should take encouragement, and seek after this 
 mercy, seeing it is free. Those burdened under their 
 sins should hope for mercy from the freeness of it. The 
 soul must be willing to recieve Christ and grace before 
 it will have Christ and grace." l 
 
 " The will is the natural power or faculty wherewith 
 every one is endowed to will." " The will is the hand of 
 the soul. But the hand must turn towards the object, 
 The Saint's and open itself before it can grasp its object. 
 So a man must turn his will towards an ob- 
 ject and open itself. The hand of the soul must be open, 
 before it can close with and fasten upon a thing. When 
 the soul opens the hand to catch at grace, and lay hold 
 thereupon, then it wills to receive grace. So, when we 
 are unwilling to receive a thing, we turn away our hearts 
 from the thing. When the soul is unwilling to receive 
 anything, it shuts itself against that thing, and will by 
 no means receive it." 2 " Whosoever in truth doth will 
 to have Christ, shall receive him." 3 
 
 1 The Soul's Vocation, 1-23. 
 
 2 Ibid., 31. 8 Ibid., 54. 
 
RELIGIOUS OPINIONS OP THE PURITAN FATHERS. 30! 
 
 " No man, of himself, by nature, can will to receive 
 Christ. A natural man hath no power to receive Christ, 
 as we learn from I Cor. ii. 14. The natural man is un- 
 willing to be wrought upon, that he may be made cap- 
 able to receive the grace of God." l " While life is 
 continued, and the means of grace afforded to a people, 
 that is the season wherein God meaneth to lead the soul 
 to recieve life and salvation." 2 
 
 This passage is followed by a most earnest and 
 tender appeal to the hearers to give themselves 
 up at once to the Saviour, who is even now wait- 
 ing for their acceptance. 
 
 In another volume, Hooker says : 
 
 " Every man in his natural state is fastened and settled 
 in sinne and corruption. They are in slavery to sinne. 
 But God draws the hearts of sinners, first, by giving them 
 light; then by the manifesting of His mercy, namely, 
 by his readiness to receive sinners, by his calls and en- 
 treaties to them to come, by his patience in waiting for 
 them. He also draws them by their own consciences, 
 which warn them of their sinne, and bear witness against 
 it. More than all, he draws them by his Spirit." 3 
 
 In " The Saints Dignitie and Dutie" we read : 
 
 " Christ gave himself to incarnation that he might be 
 the ransom of the guilty. He suffered the wrath of God. 
 He made a covenant with the Father, and He gave a 
 perfect price, for the full payment of whatever is due to 
 God for all those for whom He paid it." 
 
 1 The Soul's Vocation, 85. 2 Ibid., 160. 
 
 8 The Unbelievers Preparing for Christ, 44. 
 
3O2 THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND AND NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 Without further quotation, it is but just to 
 say that Hooker sets forth the truth with great 
 spiritual discrimination, great tenderness, and 
 fidelity, and with a sweet reasonableness, which 
 must have commended the Gospel to the people 
 to whom the sermons contained in these volumes 
 were preached. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 WE pass over half a century, to the time of 
 President Willard. There had been a decline in 
 the religious spirit of the people during that 
 period. The prevalent Calvinism was stated in 
 harsher and more dogmatic forms. Willard's 
 Body of Divinity was begun in the latter part 
 of the seventeenth century. It was the earliest 
 folio on theology published in this country, and 
 the largest book that had been published on any 
 subject. 1 It is in the form of lectures on the 
 Shorter Catechism. It is valuable as a statement, 
 by an able man, of the theological system which 
 had prevailed for half a century before President 
 Edwards set forth his Improvements in theology. 
 
 President Willard expounded very clearly the 
 external and internal evidence of the divine 
 authority of the Bible. He taught the doctrine of 
 
 1 A Compleat Body of Divinity, by the Reverend and Learned 
 Samuel Willard, late Pastor of the South Church in Boston, and 
 Vice-President of Harvard College. 914 pages. Boston, 1726. 
 
RELIGIOUS OPINIONS OP THE PURITAN FATHERS. 303 
 
 verbal inspiration. The justice of God, he says, 
 is His "inclination to render to all their due 
 according to rule." The benignity of God is 
 " God willing bountifully to bestow the good 
 things of this life upon sinners." 2 " Election is an 
 act of grace. Redemption is an act of pure grace." 
 Election is absolute, not hypothetical. The sub- 
 jects of election are a definite number of men. 
 " There are some men to whom God doth not 
 afford the means and ofHces of Salvation, and they 
 must needs perish." " Adam stood not as a pri- 
 vate, but a public person. He was the represen- 
 tative, and the common stock of all Adam the Root 
 mankind. All men were in him. If oftheR ace. 
 they were in him, and sinned in him, how can 
 they be other than sinners ? Adam sinned and 
 all sinned in him." 3 
 
 " God is under no obligation to redeem men 
 before His good pleasure." * " God's love of cer- 
 tain persons is not the cause of their election, nor 
 is His hatred of others the cause of their repro- 
 bation." The last end of God's election is the 
 manifestation and exaltation of the glory of His 
 grace." " Reprobation is the predestination of a 
 definite number of men for the manifestation of 
 the glory of God's revenging justice in them." 6 
 But " reprobation doth not take away the liberty 
 
 1 Body of Divinity, 75. 2 Ibid., 84. 
 
 8 Ibid., 196-197. 4 Ibid., 251. 5 Ibid., 262-264. 
 
304 THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND AND NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 of the creature. God made no man on purpose 
 to damn him." 
 
 He gives abundant space to the subject of Re- 
 demption. The humanity of Christ, he says, 
 _, ^ " was a compleat undivided human 
 
 Christ the r 
 
 Redeemer of nature." " The body of Christ had its 
 
 God's Elect. , . . f , . , , -. ^, 
 
 natural origin from his mother. 1 he 
 satisfaction by which Christ made reconciliation 
 was given to the justice of God. He suffered the 
 penalty for our sin. Christ died for the elect. 
 " The covenant of redemption must last as long 
 as there are any of God's elect to be born." 
 " Christ died for a select company that was known 
 to him, by name, from eternity." 2 
 
 " In his natural state, no man hath any seed of 
 faith in him. His only capacity is a capacity to 
 receive faith." " The cause of effectual calling is 
 
 the everlasting love of God." The 
 
 Inability. & 
 
 Spirit of God deals with the under- 
 standing and the will. He changes the will. The 
 ability is from God. We are persuaded and 
 enabled to embrace Christ. The terms are pre- 
 sented, and the sinner is made willing. 3 " There 
 is a miserable impotency and malignity of will 
 with respect to holy choices." The will remains 
 a will, however. It has not lost its natural power. 
 It cannot be forced. But a divine change is 
 
 1 Body of Divinity, 293-298. 8 Ibid., 428-436. 
 
 2 Ibid., 331-383- 
 
RELIGIOUS OPINIONS OP THE PURITAN FATHERS. 305 
 
 necessary. The new principle of saving grace in 
 the will and the affections is from God. " We are 
 passive in conversion," and yet " there is an active 
 as well as a passive conversion." " The man is 
 dead. When the Spirit has given him life, then he 
 is active in conversion." "Justification is immut- 
 able: therefore a justified person can never again 
 come under a Law-guilt." " In sanctification there 
 is a new power or ability put into the man." " A 
 natural man can contribute nothing to his own 
 conversion. 7 ' 1 
 
 These quotations are perhaps enough to give a 
 correct impression of this theology of the later 
 Puritan age. The difference between this and 
 the teachings of the earlier divines like Hooker 
 and Norton is that President Willard places the 
 emphasis upon the divine work in our salvation, 
 so as to leave little room for the use of motives 
 addressed to free and responsible beings, while 
 Hooker and Norton are chiefly concerned to de- 
 velop a sense of responsibility and of obligation. 
 Theirs was a theology that could be preached. 
 
 IX. 
 
 THE theological views of our forefathers were 
 influenced by their experiences in their new homes, 
 quite as much as by the writings of their divines. 
 
 1 Body of Divinity, 449-505. 
 20 
 
306 THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND AND NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 If some of their opinions were severe, there was, 
 after all, a fountain of gentleness and kindness in 
 the heart of the typical Puritan. 
 
 One of the remarkable episodes in New Eng- 
 land history relates to the Half-Way Covenant, 
 which was approved by the Synod of 1662, and 
 which was in use for more than a hundred years. 
 The Puritans seem to have adopted this, partly on 
 ; account of their interest in their children and 
 \grandchildren, who were growing up in the Colo- 
 nies which they had planted in the wilderness. 
 It was the easier for them to make this departure 
 from the method of the first generation of Colo- 
 nists, because the Puritans were never rigid 
 Separatists. There was a good deal of truth in 
 the remark of Roger Williams, that the " Churches 
 of the Bay Colony were unseparated Churches." 
 Although they followed the pattern of the Church 
 in Plymouth in the organization of their 
 covenant. ay Churches, they still regarded the Church 
 of England as their " Dear Mother ;" 
 and they had not forgotten its methods of baptism, 
 and confirmation, and hereditary membership. 
 
 1 The early Puritans had made it a cardinal doc- 
 trine that none should be members of the Church 
 except those who gave evidence that they had 
 been regenerated by the Holy Spirit. They 
 believed that the corruptions of the Church of 
 England were due to the easy terms on which 
 
RELIGIOUS OPINIONS OP THE PURITAN FATHERS. 307 
 
 persons had been admitted to the Lord's Table. 
 They attempted to limit the membership in their 
 new churches to those who were able to relate an 
 experience of a work of grace in their souls. And 
 yet they desired, in some way, to bring their infant 
 children into some connection with the Church. 
 " We find in Scripture," they said, " that the Lord 
 is very tender of His grace, that He delighteth to 
 manifest and magnifie the riches of it, and that He 
 cannot endure any straining or eclipsing thereof, 
 which is both dishonorable unto God, and injuri- 
 ous unto men. And in special, He is large in 
 the Grace of His Covenant, which He maketh 
 with His visible Church and people, and tender of 
 having the same straitned. Hence, when He 
 takes any into Covenant with Himself, He will 
 not only be their God, but the God of their seed 
 after them in their generations. . . . Hence, we 
 dare not, with the Anti-pasdobaptist, exclude the 
 infant children of the faithful from the covenant, 
 or from membership in the visible church, and con- 
 sequently, not from Baptism, the seal thereof." 1 
 
 And so they held, that the children of believers 
 are included with their parents, and are entitled 
 to all church privileges of which infants are capa- 
 ble. Among these privileges was baptism. 2 
 
 1 Preface to the Result of the Synod of 1662, Walker's Creeds 
 and Platforms, 303. See also Mather's Magnalia, vol. ii. 238. 
 
 2 Mather on Church Government, 21-22. 
 
308 THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND AND NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 They baptized their children, because these chil- 
 dren were already members of the Church, by 
 reason of the covenant into which their parents 
 had entered. The older divines Cotton, Daven- 
 port, Hooker, and Richard Mather held, in the 
 earlier years, that none but children of " visible 
 saints" should be baptized. But these baptized 
 children constituted a peculiar class in the Puritan 
 churches. They were members, but not in full 
 Communion. Their membership brought to them 
 certain blessings of the covenant. They were 
 hereditary members, and so under the watch and 
 care of the Church. But they were not permitted 
 to come to the Lord's Table, or to vote in the 
 meetings of the Church until they should profess 
 their assent to the doctrines of the Church, and 
 accept its covenant, and give satisfactory evidence 
 that they were born of the Spirit. 
 
 Unfortunately, as we shall presently see, the 
 number of those in the Puritan churches who 
 were in full communion was not large. For 
 some reason, the means of grace were not as fruit- 
 ful as had been expected. So that, in the second 
 and third generations, there was a large number 
 of parents, who were not in " full communion " 
 with the churches. Most of these parents were 
 accounted as members of the churches, because 
 they had been baptized ; but they were not com- 
 municants. Should they be permitted to present 
 
RELIGIOUS OPINIONS OP THE PURITAN FATHERS. 309 
 
 their children for baptism, on the strength of their 
 half-way membership ? According to the earlier 
 practice they were not permitted to do so. But 
 it was found that this practice was leaving the 
 majority of the children without baptism. 
 
 This matter was earnestly debated in Massa- 
 chusetts and Connecticut for many years. The 
 tide was turning, and some of the older ministers 
 began to relax the strictness of their views. In 
 1656, the General Court of Massachusetts sum- 
 moned a council of ministers, who were desig- 
 nated by name, to meet, with such others as any 
 of the " Confederated Colonies " should send, to 
 clear up the question. The Council met in 1657, 
 in Boston, and decided that all members of the 
 Church had the right to present their children for 
 baptism, though some of them had not the right 
 to come to the Lord's Table. 
 
 This decision of the Council, or Assembly, was 
 not accepted as decisive. Some of the leading 
 men, like President Chauncy in Massachusetts, 
 and Mr. Davenport in Connecticut, objected to it, 
 as an abandonment of the principle of a converted 
 Church membership. Finally, the General Court 
 of Massachusetts called a proper Synod, composed 
 of all the ministers and the representa- -me synod 
 tives of all the churches in the Colony. ofl662 - 
 This Synod met in Boston, the second Tuesday 
 in March, 1662. It contained about seventy 
 
3IO THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND AND NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 members, one-third of them ministers. The 
 principal question given to them was this : Who 
 are the Subjects of Baptism ? 
 
 After some weeks of consideration and debate, 
 the Synod, by a vote of seven to one, decided in 
 favor of the Half- Way Covenant. They held that 
 parents who had been baptized in infancy, who 
 were not scandalous in life, and who had solemnly 
 owned the covenant before the Church, wherein 
 they gave themselves and their children to the 
 Lord, might present their children for baptism. 
 This was called the Half-Way Covenant, be- 
 cause these parents were in covenant with the 
 Church, not as "visible saints," who had been 
 renewed by the Holy Spirit, and who were pre- 
 pared to come to the Lord's Table, but only as 
 baptized persons who had an intellectual belief in 
 the truth, and who were living moral lives. These 
 parents were in the Church on account of the faith 
 of their parents, at one remove ; and their children 
 were in the Church on account of the faith of their 
 grandparents, at two removes. 
 
 The decision of the Synod added intensity to 
 
 the discussions among the people. A multitude 
 
 of pamphlets followed, in which one can 
 
 Dissent from . 
 
 the views of still read the close and earnest discus- 
 sions of two hundred and thirty years 
 ago. There were Synodists and Anti-synodists. A 
 decided majority of the ministers favored the Half- 
 
RELIGIOUS OPINIONS OP THE PURITAN FATHERS. 311 
 
 Way Covenant. A large number of the people 
 never accepted it. Some of the most learned and 
 able ministers warned the people that the new 
 method would open the doors of the churches to the 
 unworthy, and that it would tend to throw into the 
 shade the work of the Spirit in regeneration. 
 The need of a change of heart would not be felt 
 by those who had not only been admitted to mem- 
 bership in the Church, but who had participated 
 in some of its most sacred rites. 1 
 
 President Chauncy, of Harvard, and John 
 Davenport, of New Haven, led the opposition to 
 the new system, while Wilson and Norton and 
 Mather, among the older ministers, and a large 
 number of the younger ministers were its earnest 
 advocates. Cotton Mather tells us that although 
 the pastors generally favored it, yet in many of 
 the churches a number of the brethren were so 
 decided in their opposition that it was not 
 practicable to follow the recommendations of the 
 Synod. The First Church in Boston, as soon as 
 there was a vacancy in the pastorate, called Mr. 
 Davenport to be their minister on account of his 
 opposition to the Half- Way Covenant. This call 
 led to a division of the church, and the formation 
 of what is now the Old South Church. 2 For 
 some years these two churches did not commune 
 
 1 Mather's Magnalia, vol. ii. 259-266. 
 
 2 Ibid., 266. 
 
312 THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND AND NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 with each other. But those who accepted the 
 new methods were the more numerous party, 
 and the tendency was for those who had been 
 opposed to them to fall in with the common 
 practice. A few churches, however, never ac- 
 cepted the laxer method. 
 
 As time went on, the Half- Way Covenant 
 was itself modified. In the beginning, only 
 those who had themselves received baptism, were 
 permitted to own the covenant, and to present 
 their children for baptism. In the time of Cotton 
 Mather, any one who was free from scandalous 
 sins, and from open impiety, could be baptized. 1 
 " Owning the Covenant " was at first a very 
 solemn profession of a purpose to lead a Christian 
 life. Before the close of the century, however, 
 owning the covenant, and presenting the children 
 for baptism, had become mere forms, which were 
 supposed to have a certain efficacy of their own. 
 In fact, the rites and sacraments of the Puritan 
 churches came to be regarded in the earlier years 
 of the eighteenth century as means of salvation. 
 So the grand-children of the early Puritans ap- 
 proached very nearly the practices which their fore- 
 fathers had condemned in the Church of England. 
 
 As the seventeenth century closed, there was 
 a low type of piety. in the churches. With this 
 came, on the one side, a hardening of the 
 
 1 Mather's Ratio Discipline, 80. 
 
RELIGIOUS OPINIONS OP THE PURITAN FATHERS. 313 
 
 doctrines which were preached in the pulpits, 
 and on the other side, a departure from those 
 doctrines, and the adoption of what was then 
 called Arminianism. The necessity of a work 
 of the Spirit to renew and sanctify the heart was 
 no longer insisted on. Revivals of religion were 
 few. There was a tendency to preach morality, 
 instead of to insist upon a really spiritual experi- 
 ence. The venerable Stoddard of Northampton 
 published a sermon, in 1707, in which he main- 
 tained that " the Lord's Supper is a convert- 
 ing ordinance, and that sanctification is not a 
 necessary qualification to partaking of the Lord's 
 Supper." 1 These views were accepted in many 
 churches. Discipline was much neglected, and 
 immorality was tolerated. The difference be- 
 tween the Church and the world was fast pass- 
 ing away. It was not until the Great Awaken- 
 ing, in the time of Edwards, and of Whitefield, 
 that the churches came back to the earlier views 
 in regard to the qualifications for membership in 
 the Church. There were a number of churches 
 that refused to hear Whitefield, or to enter into 
 the new religious movement. These churches 
 held to a dry and lifeless orthodoxy, and placed 
 great reliance upon forms and religious rites. 
 New England Unitarianism, which was developed 
 toward the close of the eighteenth century, and 
 
 1 The Great Awakening, Joseph Tracy, 4. 
 
314 THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND AND NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 the beginning of the nineteenth, was the result of 
 a departure from the older religious views, which 
 began in the times of the Half-Way Covenant. 
 
 The preaching which led to the great revival 
 gave special emphasis to the work of the Holy 
 Spirit in the change which is called conversion. 
 It led to a sharp discrimination between the 
 Church and the world. The Half-Way Cove- 
 nant was gradually laid aside, and with it the the- 
 ory of hereditary Church membership. The new 
 method of stating the doctrines of grace, which 
 was set forth by President Edwards, led to a 
 new style of preaching, which gave prominence 
 to the freedom and responsibility of man. This 
 method of preaching prepared the way for the 
 great revivals of religion which marked the close 
 of the last century and the earlier years of the 
 present century. From those revivals have 
 sprung the great missionary movements of the 
 nineteenth century, and the new and more enter- 
 prising spirit in the churches of all denominations, 
 in our times. 1 
 
 X. 
 
 THE discussion of the influence of the Synod 
 of 1662 has led us far beyond the period to which 
 
 1 Edwards' Qualifications for Full Communion. Mather's Mag- 
 nalia, vol. ii. 279. Walker's Creeds and Platforms, 280-290. 
 Tracy's Great Awakening, 1-40. 
 
RELIGIOUS OPINIONS OP THE PURITAN FATHERS. 315 
 
 that Synod belonged. But there was another 
 Synod which had an influence upon the religious 
 views of the fathers of New England, which should 
 have a place in this section. 
 
 This was the Reforming Synod of 1679, 
 which met in Boston, September loth, of that 
 year, at the call of the General Court. It was 
 made up of the Elders and Messengers of the 
 churches of the Colony. It was called to con- 
 sider two questions : first, " What are the evils 
 that have provoked the Lord to bring His 
 judgments upon New England? second, What 
 is to be done that so these evils may be re- 
 formed ? " The people had been suffering from 
 the great Indian wars, and from extensive con- 
 flagrations, from shipwrecks, and from the pesti- 
 lence. They believed that these disasters had 
 come in God's providence, in consequence of 
 their sins; and they set themselves to inquire, 
 with fasting and prayer, for the causes of these 
 great disasters. After mature deliberation the 
 Synod prepared a statement of the T he Reforming 
 evils that were common in the Colony, Synod of I679 - 
 and presented it to the General Court. This 
 careful official document is preserved in Mather's 
 Magnalia, and in other works; and it casts a 
 flood of light upon the religious condition of 
 Massachusetts at the end of the first half-century. 
 I quote only the leading statements, each of 
 
316 THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND AND NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 which is supported, in the original paper, by a 
 number of particulars. They say : l " There has 
 been a great and visible decay of the power of 
 Godliness amongst many Professors in these 
 churches : communion with God, in His ways of 
 worship, especially in secret, is much neglected ; " 
 the sins of " pride," " of contention," and of 
 "extravagance," abound; "servants and the 
 poorer sort of people are guilty in this matter," 
 they " goe above their estates and degrees ; " 
 " church fellowship is greatly neglected ; the 
 rising generation are not mindful of that which 
 their Baptism doth engage them unto;" "Pro- 
 fanity abounds ; " " there is much irreverent be- 
 havior in the solemn worship of God." There is 
 also, " much Sabbath breaking ; " " traveling on 
 the Lord's day is common." " Family worship 
 is much neglected ; " " the Scriptures are not 
 daily read, that so the word of Christ might dwell 
 richly with them." " Law-suits are common, 
 brother going to law with brother." " There is 
 much intemperance. That shameful iniquity of 
 sinfull drinking is become too general a Provo- 
 cation, Dayes of Training, and other publick 
 Solemnityes have been much abused in this re- 
 spect." " Indians have been debauched, by those 
 who call themselves Christians, who have put 
 
 1 Mather's Magnalia, Hartford ed. 1820, vol. ii. 273. Williston 
 Walker's Creeds and Platforms, 426-436. 
 
RELIGIOUS OPINIONS OP THE PURITAN FATHERS. 317 
 
 their bottles to them and made them drunk 
 also." " Instead of converting the Heathen " 
 these people have " taught them wickedness 
 which before they were not guilty of." " Church 
 members frequent publick Houses," and " there 
 misspend precious time, unto the dishonor of the 
 Gospel." " These are hainous breaches of the 
 Seventh Commandment. Temptations thereto 
 are become too common." There is " unlawful 
 gaming," "and an abundance of Idleness," there 
 are " mixed Dancings ; " " immodest apparel is 
 put on ; " " there is a want of truth amongst men : 
 promise breaking is a common sin, for which 
 New England doth stand ill abroad in the world." 
 There is also an " Inordinate affection to the 
 world." " Farms and merchandisings have been 
 preferred before the things of God." " Religion 
 is made subordinate unto worldly interests." 
 " Some traders sell their goods at excessive Rates." 
 Men are " under the prevailing power of a 
 worldly spirit." " There hath been much op- 
 position to the work of Reformation." " Sin and 
 sinners have many Advocates." "A public 
 spirit is greatly wanting in the most of men." 
 " All seek their own ; not the things of Jesus 
 Christ." " Hence, schools of learning, and other 
 publick concerns are in a languishing state," 
 " Christ is not prized and embraced in all his 
 offices and ordinances as ought to be." Last of 
 
3l8 THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND AND NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 all, " there is great unfruitfulness under the 
 means of grace." 
 
 After these statements of the sins which were 
 most common in New England at that time, 
 the Synod made an earnest appeal to the good 
 people to seek to bring about a reformation. 
 They urged those in official positions, first of all 
 to take the lead in a reform of manners. They 
 advised that none be admitted to the " Lord's 
 Supper without making a personal and publick 
 profession of their Faith and Repentance, either 
 orally, or in some other way, to the satisfaction 
 of the Church." They also urged the duty of 
 attending to discipline in the churches ; of seek- 
 ing to "provide a full supply of officers in the 
 churches;" of providing "for the maintenance 
 of ministers ; " of " due care and faithfulness with 
 respect unto the establishment and execution of 
 wholesome laws ; especially laws to regulate 
 Publick Houses, .to regulate the sale of strong 
 drink ; and to punish vice and crime." 
 
 They also recommended solemn and explicit 
 renewal of the Covenant in the churches, the 
 confession of sin, and a turning unto the ways of 
 the Lord. The people should " cry mightily unto 
 God, that He would be pleased to rain down 
 Righteousness " upon them. 
 
 This appeal of the Synod was heartily seconded 
 by the General Court. The laws against intern- 
 
RELIGIOUS OPINIONS OP THE PURITAN FATHERS. 319 
 
 perance, and Sabbath breaking, and various forms 
 of vice were more strictly enforced. The churches 
 entered into the work of reformation with great 
 earnestness. Days of fasting and prayer were 
 appointed ; there was a solemn renewing of the 
 covenant in many places ; the ministers preached 
 frequently, not only on the Lord's-days, but on 
 week days ; and, Cotton Mather tells us : " Many 
 thousands will testifie that they never saw the 
 special presence of God more notably discovered, 
 than in the solemnities of those opportunities." * 
 
 XI. 
 
 THE same Synod met again, by adjournment, 
 May 12, 1680, to propose a Confession of Faith. 
 The Boston Synod of 1648 had ex- ^^^f^ 
 pressed a hearty assent to the Westmin- savoy confes- 
 ster Confession, " for the substance 
 thereof." But the Congregationalists of England 
 determined to have a Confession of their own. 
 Accordingly, a council, or Synod, met at the 
 Savoy, in London, September 29, 1658, composed 
 of representatives of one hundred and twenty 
 churches. The number of members was about 
 two hundred. The session lasted two weeks. 
 The Synod amended the Confession of the West- 
 minster Assembly in a number of respects, with- 
 
 1 Cotton Mather, Magnalia, vol. ii. 283, edition of 1820. 
 
32O THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND AND NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 out changing, however, its strong Calvinistic state- 
 ments; and then adopted the amended Confession 
 unanimously, October 12, 1658. The phraseology 
 was improved in a number of sections. A new 
 chapter was added concerning " the Gospel, and 
 the extent of the Grace thereof," which is intensely 
 Calvinistic. In chapter twenty-four, they asserted 
 the principle of toleration in minor matters, for 
 those who do not disturb others in their way of 
 worship. They omitted such parts of the older 
 Confession as set forth the Presbyterian form of 
 Church government ; and they added thirty sec- 
 tions relating to Church order, according to the 
 Congregational way. 
 
 When the Boston Synod came together, in 1680, 
 for its second session, it proceeded at once to act 
 upon the report of a committee, chosen at its first 
 session, to draw up a Confession of Faith. This 
 committee recommended the adoption of the 
 Savoy Confession, with slight and unimportant 
 amendments. The Synod went carefully through 
 the Confession, adopted the amendments proposed, 
 and then adopted the Confession. The General 
 Court, the next month, approved of this action of 
 the Synod, and ordered that the Confession, with 
 the Platform of 1648, "be printed for the benefit 
 of these churches in present, and after times." 
 This Confession continued to be the standard of 
 
 1 Mass. Records, vol. v. 287. 
 
RELIGIOUS OPINIONS OP THE PURITAN FATHERS. 
 
 the Congregational churches for almost two hun- 
 dred years. The National Council of 1865 
 which represented not merely the churches of 
 the Colony of Massachusetts, but the Congrega- 
 tional churches of the United States declared 
 that it embodied substantially the faith of those 
 churches. 1 There have been a number of periods 
 since 1680, when the Congregational churches 
 have taken up certain improvements upon the 
 older statements of Calvinism, and the New Eng- 
 land theology of to-day is much broader than that 
 of the older Confessions; and yet, the Savoy 
 Confession is the only extended and elaborate 
 Confession of Faith which they have ever adopted. 
 The Connecticut Synod, which met at Saybrook, 
 September 9, 1708, also adopted the Savoy Con- 
 fession, at the same time that they adopted the 
 Saybrook Platform. 
 
 XII. 
 
 IN closing this statement of the religious opin- 
 ions of the fathers of New England, it is impor- 
 tant to point out the influence of this system of 
 religious teaching upon the people. 
 
 These doctrines of the older Calvinism were 
 practically the only doctrines that were preached 
 in New England for about a hundred years. 
 
 1 National Congregational Council, 1865, 361. 
 
322 THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND AND NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 They had full sway among a people who were 
 isolated from the great currents of thought in the 
 larger world. In the results of that teaching, we 
 Results of the have an indication of what that type 
 SfSS** of theology is likely to effect. In 
 Calvinism. no other part of the world, except pos- 
 sibly in Scotland, has High Calvinism been given 
 so clear a field in which to develop its full 
 influence. 
 
 It should be said, in the first place, that the 
 religious teachings of the early preachers of New 
 England did develop a remarkable type of reli- 
 gious character. We have abundant evidence to 
 show what that type was. There was a high 
 ethical standard, for one thing. The religious 
 men of that time were honest men. Their lives 
 were pure. They brought up their children to 
 fear God, and keep His commandments. They 
 were also devout men. They magnified, above 
 all other things, their personal relations with a 
 personal God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. 
 They believed that they were the elect of God, 
 the objects of His peculiar care, and destined to 
 an eternal inheritance in heaven. So they lived 
 as pilgrims and strangers on the earth. Their 
 lives were directed by the Providence of God, and 
 they were working out His great plans. No other 
 people have had more reverence for the Bible, or 
 the Sabbath, or the Church, with its ordinances. 
 
RELIGIOUS OPINIONS OP THE PURITAN FATHERS. 323 
 
 They were guided by the highest motives. They 
 had the world under their feet. Their training 
 made them good soldiers of Jesus Christ. They 
 had the spirit of the Scottish Covenanters. 
 
 Their theological views tended to make them 
 the defenders of liberty. They laid the founda- 
 tions of the Republic. Their churches were 
 democratic. So were their towns. 
 
 o ^ r^ ^ - f ^ Results of the 
 
 bo were the Colonies, as far as the caivinistic 
 people were permitted to frame their 
 government. And when George the Third, far on 
 in the eighteenth century, attempted to deprive 
 the English Colonists of their rights as English- 
 men, the descendants of these Caivinistic Puritans 
 took the lead in the Revolution which made us a 
 free nation. 
 
 Our fathers, also, transmitted to their descen- 
 dants a vigorous type of manhood, and that type 
 has been perpetuated, among the widely scattered 
 sons of the Puritans, for two centuries and a half. 
 They have been men of convictions, with the 
 courage of their convictions, the defenders of 
 liberty, and the champions of the oppressed. It 
 is not too much to claim that this Caivinistic 
 training like iron in the blood gave tone 
 and quality to the New England character. 
 
324 THE PURITAN Of ENGLAND AND NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 XIII. 
 
 So much may be justly claimed for the results 
 of the religious training in the early times in 
 New England, But there were other results of 
 that training which were not so desirable. That 
 which religion gained in intensity in those times, 
 it lost in extension. The religious teaching and 
 discipline, which made a small number eminent 
 in piety, left die largest part of the people outside 
 the churches. The first generation of Colonists 
 were a selected class. God had sifted them out 
 from the mass of their countrymen, that they 
 might be the seed for a new Christian nation. 
 They were men of eminent piety. They were 
 devout men. They walked humbly before God. 
 Religious ideas and religious motives 
 guided their plans of life. But it was 
 not so with the second generation. 
 The majority of the sons of the Puritans never 
 became communicants in their churches. Lech- 
 ford says, that at the time of his visit, in 1641, 
 only a quarter of the people were members of the 
 churches. 1 As none could become voters in the 
 Colony of Massachusetts who were not communi- 
 cants, it was a subject of complaint, at all periods 
 of its history, that only a minority of the male 
 * Lechford's Plain Dealing, 59. 
 
RELIGIOUS OPLVIOXS OP THE PURITAN FATHERS. 325 
 
 adults could have any share in the government. 
 Mr. Palfrey states, as the result of careful in- 
 vestigation, that, in 1670, the number of freemen 
 in Massachusetts was between ten and twelve 
 hundred. That was equal to a quarter or a fifth 
 part of the adult males in the Colony. 1 It is true 
 that some male members of the churches did not 
 become freemen ; but the number of such was 
 never large. So that it appears to be true that 
 only about a quarter of the grown men in the 
 Colony were communicants in the churches. 
 This fact was frequently referred to in the 
 political discussions of those times. This large 
 number of disfranchised people com- 
 
 . Small If umber 
 
 plained of the injustice that was done of Members in 
 
 ,, T-, ,. ,. . the Churches. 
 
 them. From time to time concessions 
 were made to their demands. 2 These facts show 
 very plainly that a large proportion of grown 
 people were outside the churches. These non- 
 communicants were the children of the Puritans. 
 Very few came into the Colony from Europe 
 after 1642. These were the very persons who, 
 under favorable conditions, would have been most 
 likely to come into the churches. Why was it 
 that the children of the Puritans were not pre- 
 pared to become members of the churches? 
 There was something pathetic in the complaints 
 
 1 Palfrey's New England, vol. iii. 41 ; vol. ii. 8, note. 
 a Pages 168-170 of this volume. 
 
326 THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND AND NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 which the fathers were continually making of " the 
 great unfruitfulness under the means of grace." 
 We have seen that it was the consciousness of 
 this "unfruitfulness" that led to the Half- Way 
 Covenant. They hoped to prepare their sons 
 and daughters for "full communion," by admit- 
 ting them to some of the privileges of the Church. 
 But this expedient failed. Those who came into 
 the churches were not benefited, unless there had 
 been a work of God's Spirit in their souls. 
 
 If we compare the " fruitf ulness under the 
 means of grace," in the first century of our his- 
 tory, with that in the present century, we shall 
 find that we have at present one in five of the 
 people of the United States, a communicant in 
 some one of the Protestant churches. This is, 
 not one in five of the adults, but one in five of 
 all who are counted when the census is taken ; 
 persons of all ages, from infancy upwards, in- 
 cluding a great many millions of people of 
 foreign birth and training, and with alien lan- 
 guages. But the Puritans had a population of 
 pure English blood, and of Puritan training. 
 
 XIV. 
 
 ANOTHER very significant fact relating to the 
 Puritan churches in the first century is this : 
 they did not succeed in maintaining a vigorous 
 
RELIGIOUS OPINIONS OP THE PURITAN FATHERS. 
 
 spiritual life among Christians. There were 
 times when the religious spirit rose very high. 
 But there were also times of long-continued 
 declension, when it seemed to good men that 
 " the glory was departing from New England." 
 The election sermons preached in Religious 
 Massachusetts in 1668, 1669, and 1670, ^Purit^ 
 all speak of such a declension at the churches. 
 time of the Reforming Synod. 1 The statement 
 of Thomas Prince is that " a little after 1660 there 
 began to appear a 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: And yet 
 much more to 1680, when but few of the first 
 generation remained." 2 These statements are 
 confirmed by the Result of the Synod of 1679. 
 The earnest religious services which followed the 
 Reforming Synod were of use in checking the 
 downward tendency, and yet, the religious life in 
 New England between 1680 and 1735 was very 
 far below the expectations of the fathers. Revivals 
 of religion were few. Dissensions arose in the 
 churches which led, in some instances, to divi- 
 sions. The fanaticism and cruelty which attended 
 the proceedings relating to witchcraft were partly 
 
 1 Election Sermons, by Mr. Stoughton, 1668, Mr. Thomas Wai- 
 ley, 1669, Mr. Samuel Danforth, 1670. 
 
 2 Christian History of New England, vol. i. 94, Boston, 1743. 
 
328 THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND AND NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 the result of the decay in the religious life of 
 New England. There was a movement, toward 
 the end of the sixteenth century, in Massachusetts, 
 to strengthen the system of Church government, 
 in the hope that by this means the churches might 
 be protected from false doctrines, and prepared to 
 enforce Church discipline. This movement, which 
 failed in Massachusetts, was successful in Con- 
 necticut, and led to the adoption of the Saybrook 
 Platform in 1708. 
 
 Still the process of declension went on. The 
 statements which are made in the works of Presi- 
 dent Edwards, and in the journals of Mr. White- 
 field, and the writings of others who had a leading 
 part in the Great Awakening show that the con- 
 dition of the churches was even worse than it had 
 been at the time of the Reforming Synod. 1 
 
 It appears further, from the writings of the 
 younger Edwards, that the High Calvinism which 
 was preached here so long, finally lost its hold 
 upon the people, in consequence of the spread 
 of what was called in those times Arminianism. 
 There is abundant evidence that during the first 
 third of the eighteenth century, a large number of 
 the pastors became Arminians. Dr. Edwards 
 says, " The Calvinists were nearly driven out of 
 the field by the Arminians, Pelagians, and Socin- 
 
 1 Dwight's Life of Edwards, vol. i. 120. Journals of Whitefield. 
 Life and Times of Whitefield. Tracy's Great Awakening. 
 
RELIGIOUS OPINIONS OP THE PURITAN FATHERS. 329 
 
 ians. The Calvinists appealed to Scripture," he 
 adds, " in support of their peculiar tenets, but the 
 sense in which they interpreted the sacred writ- 
 ings was inconsistent with human liberty, moral 
 agency, accountableness, praise, and blame. It 
 was inconsistent with all command and 
 
 Testimony of 
 
 exhortation, with all reward and punish- the Younger 
 ment. The Calvinists themselves began 
 to be ashamed of their own cause, and to give it 
 up, so far at least, as it relates to liberty and 
 necessity." l 
 
 " But Mr. Edwards," he continues, " put an end 
 to this seeming triumph of theirs." He points 
 out the " Improvements in Theology " which his 
 father had introduced, such as "the difference 
 between natural and moral necessity, and inabil- 
 ity ; " the nature of true holiness ; the origin of 
 evil ; the doctrine of Atonement ; of imputation ; 
 and of regeneration. President Edwards " proved 
 that the Atonement does not consist in the pay- 
 ment of a debt," but that the suffering of Christ 
 establishes " the authority of the divine law," and 
 " supports the divine government," so that " God 
 without the prostration of His authority and 
 government can pardon and save those who 
 believe." 
 
 1 Works of Dr. Jonathan Edwards, vol. i. 480-481. See also the 
 statements in The Case of Robert Breck in this volume, 335-360. 
 
33O THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND AND NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 XV. 
 
 IT is quite possible that some of these strong 
 statements need to be modified. The estimate 
 of the older theology which Dr. Edwards sets 
 forth was doubtless influenced by his own decided 
 leanings toward the new divinity which the elder 
 Edwards had done so much to recommend. But 
 after making all necessary allowances for the per- 
 sonal element in his statements, the evidence is 
 ThewewEng- conclusive that the extreme High Cal- 
 iand Theology. v ; n j sm o f t h e earlier Puritan divines 
 
 had proved insufficient to meet the needs of the 
 later generations of New England people, and 
 that, too, under the most favorable conditions of 
 which we can readily conceive. It failed to do 
 justice to the great truths concerning the Love of 
 God, in the Work of Redemption, and in the free 
 offers of salvation. It also failed to present the 
 claims of God so as to develop the sense of re- 
 sponsibility, which commends the call of God to 
 every man's conscience. 
 
 The elder Edwards our greatest theologian 
 thus far was enabled to relieve that system of 
 some of its difficulties, so as to give to Consistent 
 Calvinism a new lease of life. Out of these Im- 
 provements in Theology there grew a new 
 method of preaching. The great revivals of 1730 
 
RELIGIOUS OPINIONS OP THE PURITAN FATHERS. 331 
 
 to 1750 were the results of this new method of 
 presenting the truth to men. Since the Edward- 
 ean period, there has been in the Puritan churches 
 of New England a modified Calvinism, which has 
 been called the New England Theology. The 
 successors of Edwards Hopkins, Smalley, the 
 younger Edwards, Emmons, and the others 
 have followed out his principles along two diver- 
 gent lines. So that, whatever else may be said of 
 those theological views which have prevailed in 
 New England for the last century and a half, it 
 cannot be said that they have been entirely bor- 
 rowed from others, or that they have been received 
 without original and thorough examination. It 
 is safe to predict that the theology of the future, 
 among the Puritan churches of New England, 
 will be developed along the lines which were 
 marked out by President Edwards. 
 
VII. 
 
 The Case of Reverend Robert Breck, 
 of Springfield. 
 
The Case of Reverend Robert Breck, 
 of Springfield. 
 
 HPHE beginning of the second century in the 
 New England Colonies was a period of 
 transition. Many of the best influences of the 
 earlier period were still vigorous. The country 
 had lost the appearance of a newly settled region. 
 The population was already numerous ; the people 
 were living in comfortable houses; their farms 
 were well-cultivated and productive. The people 
 had lost something of the provincial character. 
 They were already open to the influences from the 
 larger world beyond the sea. Some of the cus- 
 toms of the earlier years had been The Period of 
 dropped. The meeting-houses were Transition - 
 larger and more comfortable. There had been a 
 great improvement in the 'style of sacred music. 
 There were choirs in many of the churches. The 
 practice of reading the Scriptures without an ex- 
 position had become common. Marriages and 
 funerals were conducted by the ministers much 
 as they are now. 
 
336 THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND AND NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 The Half- Way Covenant had brought many 
 changes into the churches. Those who desired 
 to become communicants were not scrutinized as 
 closely as they had been in the earlier times. 
 Yale College had been founded ; and it was already^ 
 an important institution of learning in the new 
 country. The churches of Connecticut had 
 adopted the stronger polity of the Saybrook Plat- 
 form. They were more conservative than those 
 of Massachusetts. There had been a departure, 
 more or less general, from the older theology. 
 There was a conservative wing, and a liberal wing, 
 among the ministers. The term Arminian was 
 applied, as a term of reproach, to those who were 
 beginning to question the views of the older Cal- 
 vinists. 
 
 The best way to study this period is to investi- 
 gate some one of the controversies of the time, 
 important enough to have connections with a 
 large number of people, from different localities, 
 and of different callings in life. Such a contro- 
 versy was the one which arose in Springfield, 
 Massachusetts, in 1734, and continued for two 
 years, in respect to the settlement of Robert Breck 
 as pastor of the church in that town ; an event 
 which had a certain importance, in its time, for 
 the people of Springfield, but which interests us 
 mainly on account of the light it casts upon the 
 way of life of the people a century and a half ago. 
 
THE CASE OF REV. ROBERT BRECK. 337 
 
 I. 
 
 THE town of Springfield was then one hundred 
 years old. There were about a thousand people 
 living within the present limits of that The Town of 
 city. 1 Mr. Breck was the fourth pastor sp**^ 1 *- 
 of the church. The average length of the pasto- 
 rate had been thirty years. The number of 
 members of the church was sixty-seven. The 
 valley of the Connecticut was already full of 
 thriving towns and villages. We read 
 
 f . & . , Prosperity of 
 
 m the pamphlets of that time of Long- the Connecticut 
 meadow, and Westfield, and Hadley, 
 Northampton, Hatfield, and Deerfield, among 
 other places in the vicinity. The Hampshire 
 Association of Ministers was a vigorous organiza- 
 tion, made up of thirteen pastors, among whom 
 were Jonathan Edwards, of Northampton, Isaac 
 Chauncy, of Hadley, William Williams, of Hat- 
 field, Stephen Williams, of Longmeadow, Samuel 
 Hopkins, of West Springfield, and Ebenezer 
 Devotion, of Suffield. This Association, though 
 organized for the mutual improvement of its 
 members, like similar bodies in our own time, was 
 accused of seeking to control the action of the 
 churches in the selection of their pastors. It was 
 alleged that some of these pastors were Presby- 
 
 1 Judge Morris' Historical Address. 
 22 
 
338 THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND AND NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 terians, and that they took it for granted that an 
 Association had powers like those of a Presbytery. 
 Their theological views were, for the most part, 
 those of the earlier Puritans, which are moderately 
 stated in the Westminster Confession of Faith. 
 It was before the time of the " Improvements in 
 theology " set forth by President Edwards. But 
 even then, as we shall see, there was a difference 
 in theological opinion among the pastors, and a 
 still greater difference in their views of Christian 
 liberty. For the most part they were devoted to 
 their religious work. The years 1734 and 1735 
 were the years of the Great Awakening at North- 
 ampton ; and Mr. Edwards was too fully absorbed 
 in his work at home to enter very fully into the 
 affairs of the church in Springfield. 
 
 II. 
 
 THE ministers and churches of Massachusetts 
 at that time were profoundly affected by the con- 
 churchand nection of the Church with the state. 
 state. The laws of the Colony of Massachu- 
 
 setts Bay had limited even the right of suffrage to 
 members of the church. The charter of the Prov- 
 ince of Massachusetts, which was granted by 
 William and Mary, in 1691, extended the suffrage 
 to all male freeholders who possessed an estate 
 worth two pounds a year. This provision of the 
 
THE CASE OP REV. ROBERT BRECK. 339 
 
 charter opened the way for giving to those who 
 were not communicants a voice in the selection 
 of their ministers, and in the direction of the 
 pecuniary interests of the parish. All this tended 
 to liberalize the spirit of legislation. The General 
 Court of the Province never enacted a law for the 
 punishment of heresy by fine and banishment, 
 such as that under which William Pynchon had 
 been summoned to appear before the General 
 Court, in 1650, to answer for his book entitled 
 " The Meritorious Price of our Redemption." l 
 
 Still, the legislation of the provincial period of 
 our history was designed to bring the Church 
 under the fostering care and protection of the 
 state. The basis of this legislation was a law 
 passed in 1692, at the second session of the Gen- 
 eral Court, under the provincial charter, for the 
 settlement and support of ministers. 2 It requires 
 the inhabitants of each town to be constantly 
 provided with " an able, learned, and orthodox 
 minister, or ministers, of good conversation, to 
 dispense the word of God to them." The minis- 
 ter was to be chosen by the church, "according to 
 the directions given in the Word of God." The 
 inhabitants of the town or precinct " who usually 
 attend on the public worship of God," were to be 
 
 1 See page 203 of this volume. 
 
 2 These laws may be found in the Province Laws, vol. i. 62, 102, 
 216, 506, 597 ; and vol. ii. 58 ; vol. iii. 288. 
 
34O THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND AND NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 called together to accept or reject the candidate 
 whom the church had chosen. If they accepted 
 him, he became the legal minister of the town or 
 precinct. If they rejected him, the church might 
 still refer the matter to a council of neighboring 
 churches, and if the council approved the choice 
 of the church, the minister, accepting the call, 1 
 and duly installed, became the legal pastor, and 
 was entitled to his salary. The amount both of' 
 the " settlement " and of the " maintenance " of 
 the minister was fixed by a contract before his 
 introduction to his office ; and the people were 
 required to pay toward his settlement and main- 
 tenance, " each man his several proportion 
 thereof." The Court of General Sessions of the 
 county was required to see that the contract was 
 fulfilled. If any town or precinct should neglect 
 to provide itself with a suitable minister, the Court 
 of Quarter Sessions was required to " make order 
 upon them speedily to provide themselves with a 
 minister." If this order was disregarded, it was 
 the duty of the court to procure and settle a 
 minister, and order the charge of such minister's 
 settlement and maintenance to be levied on the 
 inhabitants of such town. At a later time, it was 
 made the duty of the General Court itself, on 
 
 1 The first law gave the choice to the people of the town. This 
 was amended at the next session so as to give the church the right 
 to lead in the choice. 
 
THE CASE OP REV. ROBERT BRECK. 341 
 
 receiving notice from the court of any county that 
 a town or precinct was destitute of a minister, to 
 provide and send to every such town or precinct 
 an able, learned, and orthodox minister, of good 
 conversation, and to provide for his support by 
 adding to the taxes of such town or precinct so 
 much as they should judge sufficient for this end. 
 
 These laws assumed a definite method of pro- 
 cedure on the part of churches and congregations, 
 such as is marked out in the Cambridge Platform. 
 This Platform had a quasi-legal authority, having 
 been commended to the churches by the General 
 Court, and it was constantly appealed to as the 
 standard in the discussions of those days. 
 
 Thus the churches of the olden time were 
 accustomed to depend on the authority of the 
 state for raising the money to support public 
 worship. In the course of time, they learned to 
 follow legal forms and precedents, and to transact 
 much of their most important business in a legal 
 spirit and environment. There would sometimes 
 be a doubt whether a council called to settle a 
 minister had been legally called, and whether its 
 proceedings were regular and valid ; whether a 
 minister had been " duly settled according to law ; " 
 whether a minister was " orthodox, able, learned, 
 and of good conversation," within the meaning of 
 the law ; and whether he continued to possess all 
 these excellent qualities. On the decision of these 
 
342 THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND AND NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 questions would depend his right to his salary, and 
 also the right of the town, or parish, to assess a 
 tax for his support. Sometimes the question 
 would be raised whether a town which was sup- 
 porting a minister had such a minister that it was 
 not liable to be presented by the grand jury, and 
 prosecuted as a destitute town. These discussions 
 and litigations were among the most characteristic 
 things relating to the life and manners of our 
 fathers. 
 
 III. 
 
 ROBERT BRECK, of Springfield, was the son of 
 Rev. Robert Breck, of Marlboro', of whom the 
 "Boston News-Letter" said: "He was an able 
 minister, a man of great learning in the original 
 languages of the Bible, and in philosophy, and 
 also a man of great courage and prudence." His 
 grandfather was Captain John Breck, "a very 
 ingenious and worthy man." His great-grand- 
 father was Edward Breck, a man of wealth and 
 influence in England, who came to this country 
 in 1636, and settled in Dorchester. 
 
 Robert Breck was born in Marlboro', Massa- 
 chusetts, July 25, 1713, and entered Harvard 
 College at the age of thirteen. His 
 
 RobertBreck. & & . . 
 
 rank as a scholar is indicated by the 
 fact that the President and Fellows awarded to 
 him the honorary prize of thirty pounds as a 
 
THE CASE OP REV. ROBERT BRECK. 343 
 
 "sober, diligent, and promising student, and 
 candidate for the ministry." He was graduated 
 with honor in 1730. It has been stated that 
 he studied theology with his father, but as the 
 father died the year after his son was graduated, 
 it is probable that he continued his studies 
 without an instructor. He began to preach 
 while he was very young, according to the 
 custom of those times. He was hardly more 
 than twenty when we find him preaching in 
 Scotland, a parish in Windham County, Con- 
 necticut, and at various other places in that 
 Colony. The young and untrained preacher 
 was very free and bold in his utterances, and 
 very early subjected himself to the charge of 
 heresy, a charge which some of the pastors of the 
 vicinity were disposed to press to his injury. 
 
 Some time in May, 1734, the First Church in 
 Springfield invited him to preach as a candidate 
 for settlement. He came, and preached called to settle 
 to the acceptance of the people, so that aspastor - 
 after about three months the church and parish 
 gave him a call, and proposed terms of settle- 
 ment. He had then just passed his twenty-first 
 birthday. 
 
 Soon after he came to Springfield, there were 
 reports passing from one to another that he was 
 not sound in the faith. The people listened to 
 his sermons, but failed to detect anything that 
 
344 THB PURITAN IN ENGLAND AND NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 savored of heresy. So far as the pamphlets 1 
 which were published at the time, on both sides, 
 give us information, it was not claimed that there 
 was anything unsound in his religious teachings 
 after he came to Springfield. The reports all 
 came from Connecticut. A letter was received 
 from a minister in that Colony, which stated that 
 " Mr. Breck was not a suitable person to be 
 employed in the ministry," and named Rev. 
 Thomas Clap, of Windham, afterwards President 
 of Yale College, and two others, as persons who 
 were responsible for the charges. This letter 
 was put into the hands of Mr. Breck, who went 
 at once to Windham to confer with Mr. Clap in 
 respect to the accusations. Mr. Clap was not 
 charges against satisfied with the result of the confer- 
 him - ence, and so wrote a long letter to the 
 
 Hampshire Association of Ministers, in which 
 he set forth the four charges against the young 
 candidate for the pastorate. 
 
 i. That he had denied that the passage in 
 i John v. 7, concerning the " three that bear 
 record in heaven," and also the passage in 
 John viii., concerning the woman taken in 
 adultery, were of divine inspiration. 
 
 1 Narrative of the Proceedings of those Ministers of Hampshire 
 County that have disapproved the Settlement of Mr. Robert 
 Breck, Boston, 1736. 
 
 Answer to the Above, Boston, 1736. 
 
 Letter to the Author of the Answer, Boston, 1737. 
 
THE CASE OF REV. ROBERT BRECK. 345 
 
 2. That he had also denied the necessity of 
 Christ's satisfaction to divine justice for sin, 
 and had said that God might, consistent with 
 His justice, forgive sin without any satisfaction. 
 
 3. That he had preached that the heathen, 
 who lived up to the light of nature, would be 
 saved. Christ would be in some way revealed to 
 them ; or they would be saved in some other way. 
 
 4. That there was a general report that he had 
 stolen books from the college library, while a stu- 
 dent, and that he had been expelled from college 
 for this offence ; and further, that when Mr. Clap 
 had informed him of these reports, he had denied 
 them, a denial which was now known to be false. 
 
 In addition to all this, it was stated in other 
 letters that Mr. Breck had said publicly, that " if 
 the decrees of God were absolute, he saw no 
 encouragement for men to try to do their duty, 
 for let them do what they would, they could not 
 alter their condition ; and that we were not under 
 obligation any further than we had power." On 
 the ground of these statements, it was charged 
 that he was an Arminian. 
 
 IV. 
 
 THESE charges were the basis of the opposition 
 to the settlement of Mr. Breck. In reply to the 
 charges, he claimed that it was unjust to use 
 
346 THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND AND NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 against him expressions which he might have made 
 use of in his earliest sermons, at a time when his 
 views were quite immature ; that these expressions 
 did not express his settled opinions ; that some 
 of them had never been used in his sermons, but 
 only in oral discussion with pastors with whom 
 he was discoursing, for the sake of clearing his 
 own mind ; and also, that some of these state- 
 ments were not inconsistent with the Confession 
 of Faith. He asked to be judged, not by these 
 early sermons, but by the sermons he had 
 preached in his present pulpit ; and he repeatedly 
 invited those who questioned his orthodoxy to 
 satisfy themselves by an examination as to his 
 views in theology. 
 
 In respect to the charge of taking books from 
 the library, he admitted that there had been a 
 technical offence, which gave some color to the 
 charge, but claimed that the offence, such as it 
 was, was the fault of a boy of thirteen, and that it 
 was so trivial that the faculty did not make it a 
 matter of formal discipline, and that his subse- 
 quent deportment had been so exemplary that 
 they had selected him as the student most worthy 
 to receive the honorary prize. Mr. Breck also 
 stated that he had never denied that there had 
 been some foundation for the story, but had 
 only denied it in the exaggerated form in which 
 it had been reported. These are the leading 
 
THE CASE OP REV. ROBERT BRECK. 347 
 
 points in the case as it is presented in the 
 pamphlets and in the manuscripts which have 
 been preserved. 
 
 Mr. Breck was informed that these reports had 
 excited a degree of prejudice against him among 
 the ministers of the vicinity, and that Declines 
 if he were to accept the call they might ^ ec ^ 
 refuse to ordain him. He was also informed that 
 they had exerted more or less influence with some 
 members of his congregation. He therefore de- 
 cided to refer the matter again to the people. 
 He knew that he had the confidence of a large 
 majority of his congregation, and that some of 
 the pastors of the vicinity were satisfied as to his 
 integrity and his orthodoxy, so that there would 
 be no serious difficulty in securing ordination. 
 " If one council will not do it," he said, " another 
 will." With these views, he stated, in his reply 
 to the call, that while he was disposed, on some 
 accounts, to accept their invitation, he did not 
 think the provision for his temporal support was 
 sufficient, and that he could not accept the call 
 unless they should see the way clear to increase 
 it. The people were not quite agreed in the 
 matter, and did not think it expedient to increase 
 the salary. So that Mr. Breck finally declined 
 the call, and returned to his friends in Boston. 
 
348 THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND AND NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 V. 
 
 BUT the people were not satisfied. The records 
 of the parish show that the majority believed that 
 his settlement had been prevented by the inter- 
 meddling of " some persons of note who had sent 
 writings to some of the ministers of this vicinity." 
 The parish, therefore, appointed a committee, 
 November 8th, to find out how much ground 
 there was for the charges against Mr. Breck, and 
 also to learn more definitely the views of the 
 ministers. In response to their inquiries, six of 
 the pastors, among whom we find the name of 
 Jonathan Edwards, signed a paper, which reads 
 as follows : 
 
 " Upon consideration of the case of Mr. Robert 
 Breck, represented to us in some letters from 
 Windham and Norwich, we think it advisable 
 that the people of Springfield do no further make 
 their application to him." 
 
 The committee reported, and the people con- 
 sidered the advice. Six weeks later, the freehold- 
 ers, and other inhabitants assembled according to 
 law, voted " that application be made to the worthy 
 Mr. Robert Breck to preach the word of God to us 
 in this place, in order to a settlement." This vote 
 was passed by a decisive majority, and a committee 
 was chosen to proceed to Cambridge, make inves- 
 
THE CASE OF REV. ROBERT BRECK. 349 
 
 tigations, ask advice, and act according to their 
 best judgment. The result was that Mr. Breck 
 returned to Springfield, and began to preach 
 again. This open disregard of the advice of the 
 ministers of the vicinity seems to have been un- 
 usual, and it had the effect to lead them to enter 
 more directly into the case. A majority of them 
 seem to have thought that it would be an in- 
 fringement of their rights for the people to settle 
 a minister within the county in opposition to their 
 advice. The next stage in the business was the 
 effort of the Association to investigate the charges 
 against Mr. Breck. They entered into corre- 
 spondence with various parties in Connecticut; 
 and also induced Mr. Breck to write to Mr. Clap, 
 and endeavor to make his peace with him. They 
 invited Mr. Breck to attend the meeting of the 
 Association, in April, 1735, and make such state- 
 ment as he thought proper with reference to the 
 charges. He seems to have accepted their pro- 
 posals in good faith. He wrote a letter to Mr. 
 Clap, in which he made such acknowledgments 
 and concessions as he thought proper, but he 
 failed to satisfy that gentleman. He also read to 
 the Association a paper which was quite satisfac- 
 tory to some of the pastors, but not to the majority. 
 Six out of thirteen ministers now took his part, 
 and remained his friends to the end. He next 
 asked the Association to satisfy themselves as to 
 
35O THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND AND NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 his theological views by an oral examination. 
 The majority declined to do this, on the ground 
 that charges were already pending against him. 
 At this stage of the business a committee from 
 the First Parish appeared before the Association 
 to inquire " what impediment, if any, there was to 
 the settlement of Mr. Breck ; and if such impedi- 
 ment existed, how it could be removed." 
 
 VI. 
 
 THIS was designed to open the way for a formal 
 examination of the charges of Mr. Clap and others 
 from Connecticut. Mr. Breck and his friends 
 were prepared to welcome such an investigation ; 
 but they asked to be permitted to name one or 
 two of the persons who were to pass upon the 
 case. The Association appointed seven of their 
 own members to hear the whole case, and to give 
 their judgment. It was pointed out to them that 
 several of these gentlemen had already prejudged 
 the case, and expressed their opinion publicly. 
 Mr. Breck offered to go on with the investigation 
 if one of the committee would retire, or if, that 
 gentleman remaining, he might call in two un- 
 prejudiced persons from outside the county. 
 These propositions were declined by the majority, 
 and so the proposed investigation failed. 
 
THE CASE OP REV. ROBERT BRECK. 351 
 
 At this stage of the business the First Church 
 in Springfield, on the lyth of April, renewed their 
 call to Mr. Breck, and one week later The ^^ 
 the parish voted to concur. It ap- Renewed - 
 peared that a decided majority of the church and 
 congregation were very earnest to secure the per- 
 manent settlement of the young preacher as 
 their pastor. It remained to be seen whether the 
 minority of the people, aided by the majority of the 
 Association, would be able to prevent it. Mr. 
 Breck, made wiser by the experiences of the year, 
 acted with a degree of prudence and foresight 
 which he had not before shown. He first sent a 
 communication to the people, in which he said 
 that, in the peculiar circumstances of this case, 
 he should seek advice from his friends before he 
 gave an answer to their call. He went soon after 
 to Boston, and requested the pastors of that town, 
 who were well-known throughout the Province, 
 to examine him as to his views in theology. This 
 they did, and as a result gave him a certificate 1 
 that they had found him sound in the faith. They 
 say : " These may certify that on the 8th day of 
 May, 1735, we discoursed with Robert Breck, 
 
 1 This was signed by Benjamin Coleman, Joseph Sewall, John 
 Webb, William Cooper, Thomas Foxcroft, Samuel Checkley, 
 Joshua Gee, and Mather Byles. One of them said afterwards : " I 
 can assure you that his examination was not a slighty one, if the 
 ability and fidelity of the eight ministers that were concerned in it 
 can be relied on." 
 
352 THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND AND NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 M. A., to our good satisfaction, concerning his 
 orthodoxy in the great doctrines of Christianity, 
 as believed and professed in the churches of Christ 
 in New England, agreeable to the Westminster 
 Confession of Faith ; and so recommend him to 
 the grace of God, and are his brethren in Christ." 
 With this indorsement he returned to Spring- 
 field, and on the 28th of July accepted the call. 
 The next step was to select a council for his 
 ordination. The excitement in Springfield ran 
 very high. Four members of the church presented 
 a protest, which was entered upon the records. 
 Twenty-seven members of the parish sent to Mr. 
 Breck a remonstrance against his course in 
 accepting the call before submitting himself to 
 the judgment of the ministers of the Associa- 
 tion as to his orthodoxy and as to his character. 
 Mr. Breck replied that the council would be the 
 proper tribunal to pass upon all these questions. 
 
 VII. 
 
 IN the end the church voted, by a decided 
 majority, to call a council for his installation. 
 They selected four churches within the county, 
 designating them by the names of their pastors, 
 and left it with the pastor-elect, with a committee 
 of the church, to select an equal number of 
 churches outside the county. The council, as 
 
THE CASE OF REV. ROBERT BRECK. 353 
 
 finally agreed upon, consisted 1 of the church in 
 Hatfield, Rev. William Williams, pastor; Hadley, 
 Rev. Isaac Chauncy, pastor ; Suffield, Rev. Eben- 
 ezer Devotion, pastor; Sunderland, Rev. William 
 Rand, pastor; Brattle Street Church, Boston, 
 Rev. William Cooper, pastor; Second The council 
 Church, Boston, Rev. Samuel Mather, CaUed ' 
 pastor ; the New Brick Church, Boston, Rev. 
 William Welstead, pastor; and the church in 
 Sudbury, Rev. William Cooke, pastor. The 
 council was to meet October yth. 
 
 Those who opposed the settlement of Mr. Breck 
 denied the legality of the council for two reasons : 
 First, because the votes of the church designated 
 the pastors, instead of the churches to which they 
 ministered ; and because these votes left it with 
 the pastor-elect and a committee of the church to 
 select a part of the churches ; and, Secondly, be- 
 cause the church had no right to call churches 
 from outside Hampshire County. It was replied, 
 on the part of the church, that what was done by 
 
 1 Mr. Williams was the oldest minister in the county, being 70 ; 
 Isaac Chauncy (H. C, 1693) was grandson of President Chauncy ; 
 Ebenezer Devotion, H. C., 1707; William Rand, H. C., 1724; 
 William Cooper, born 1694, H. C., 1712, junior pastor with Dr. 
 Coleman, " there was not a more decided Calvinist than he, yet 
 he was a staunch advocate of religious liberty," was elected 
 President H. C., 1737 ; Samuel Mather, son of Cotton Mather, H. 
 C., 1723; D.D., "was charged with looseness of doctrine;" 
 William Welstead, H. C., 1716, " an excellent Christian gentleman, 
 and an exemplary minister; " William Cooke, H. C., 1716. 
 
 23 
 
354 THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND AND NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 its committee, chosen for the purpose, was done 
 by itself, that the letter missive, which went in 
 the name of the church, was addressed to all the 
 churches, by name, and that they had elected 
 delegates to the council, showing that they under- 
 stood the invitation. It was also claimed that 
 they had a right to go outside the county for 
 members of the council, as there was nothing in 
 the Cambridge Platform to forbid it ; and that in 
 this case it was necessary in order to secure an 
 impartial council. 
 
 It is not easy to understand, at this distance of 
 time, the intense interest which this case excited, 
 not only at Springfield, but in other parts of New 
 England. The members of the council from Bos- 
 ton went to Springfield a week in advance of the 
 meeting of the council, in order to consult with 
 the ministers of the vicinity, and learn from them 
 directly the grounds of their opposition. How 
 abundant the leisure of those pastors of the olden 
 time! It is a hundred miles from Boston to 
 Springfield, and the stage-coaches, or ministerial 
 chaises, of those days would be more than one day 
 on the journey. Yet they went from town to town 
 in the Connecticut valley, and tried to induce the 
 pastors to submit their complaints against Mr. 
 Breck to the council. When the time for the 
 meeting of the council came, the ministers of 
 the county were present in Springfield to watch the 
 
THE CASE OF REV. ROBERT BRECK. 355 
 
 proceedings, and to use their influence to prevent 
 the ordination. The President of Yale College 
 was also there, as the champion of orthodoxy, to 
 direct the measures of the opposition. Rev. 
 Thomas Clap and a number of other pastors from 
 Connecticut were there, with documents to be 
 presented to the council. It was confidently 
 asserted by the opponents of Mr. Breck that 
 whatever the council might do, " there would be 
 no ordination." 
 
 In order to secure the fulfilment of this predic- 
 tion, the dissatisfied members of the parish had 
 induced three justices of the Court of Sessions to 
 come from Northampton to Springfield, with the 
 purpose of using the authority of the court, if 
 necessary, to prevent the council from completing 
 the service for which it had been convened. It 
 was afterwards proved before the General Court 
 that it was at first intended to arrest all the mem- 
 bers of the council who had come from outside the 
 county, and lock them up in jail, on the ground 
 that their attempt to sit as members of a council 
 in Hampshire County was an unlawful act, an 
 usurpation of power, to the great injury of the 
 minority. Warrants were actually made out for 
 their arrest, but as one of the justices was doubtful 
 as to their right to issue them, this plan was aban- 
 doned. The second plan was to arrest Mr. Breck, 
 and hold him in custody until the council should 
 adjourn. 
 
356 THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND AND NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 WE may well suppose that when the day for 
 the meeting of the council came business was 
 suspended in Springfield, and that the people were 
 eagerly watching the proceedings. The council 
 met in the morning, not in the church, but in the 
 house of Madam Brewer, the widow of the last 
 pastor. Seven of the eight churches invited were 
 represented by pastors and delegates. The 
 church in Hatfield, of which the venerable William 
 Williams was pastor, declined to respond, on the 
 ground that the council was irregular and illegal, 
 proceedings of The council organized by choosing 
 the council. Rey> William Cooper, of Boston, 
 Moderator. Their first act was to invite the church 
 as well the minority as the majority to lay all 
 the facts in the case before them. Two papers 
 were presented. The first was a remonstrance 
 against the right of " the body calling itself a 
 council " to ordain Mr. Breck, signed by William 
 Pynchon, Jr., Esq., and others of the minority of 
 the parish. The second was a protest against the 
 right of the council to act in the case, signed by 
 six pastors of the county. The council, after con- 
 sidering these papers, and the reasons which were 
 set forth in support of them, voted : " That the 
 elders and other delegates here assembled are an 
 
THE CASE OP REV. ROBERT BRECK. 357 
 
 ecclesiastical council, properly called by the First 
 Church in Springfield to join in the regular carry- 
 ing on of the ordination of Mr. Breck, and are 
 ready to hear, judge, and act in the case." 
 
 The council next called upon those who objected 
 to Mr. Breck to present the evidence in support 
 of the charges which they made against him. 
 This they declined to do, on the ground that they 
 could not recognize the body then in session as a 
 regular and legal council. The Moderator next 
 asked Rev. Mr. Clap and Rev. Mr. Kirkland, the 
 authors of the charges, to let the council know 
 whatever they knew against the candidate, which 
 might disqualify him for the ministry. Mr. Clap 
 proceeded to read a number of documents, most 
 of them sworn to before a magistrate, with refer- 
 ence to the preaching of Mr. Breck while he was 
 in Connecticut. These papers cover the whole 
 case, and constitute the evidence on which the 
 minority based their opposition. They are printed 
 in full in the pamphlet published by the Hamp- 
 shire ministers. Just as Mr. Clap finished read- 
 ing the papers, and before Mr. Breck Arrest of 
 had commenced his reply, an ofHcer tte Candldate - 
 entered the room with a warrant for the arrest of 
 " Robert Breck, gentleman," and for bringing him 
 forthwith before the court then in session in the 
 town-house, " To answer for such things as should 
 be objected to him." Mr. Breck was taken by 
 
358 THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND AND NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 the officer from the council, and carried to the 
 town-house. Proclamation was made that any 
 persons who knew about the principles or the 
 character of Mr. Breck should come forward and 
 give testimony. Mr. Clap and Mr. Kirkland came 
 forward and presented the evidence which they 
 had just read to the council, with some additional 
 statements. Mr. Breck was also examined by the 
 justices as to his theological opinions. The evi- 
 dence tended to show that he was not sound in 
 the faith, and also that he had charged various 
 persons with misrepresentation and falsehood. 
 The old charge of taking books from the college 
 library was also referred to in the testimony as a 
 matter of common report. The proceedings seem 
 to have been of the nature of an inquiry into the 
 character of the candidate and his fitness to be a 
 settled minister under the laws of the Province. 
 
 These proceedings of the secular power had 
 the effect, of course, of suspending the session of 
 the ecclesiastical council. Before adjourning, 
 however, they sent a vigorous protest to the court, 
 in which they say that they u consider it a duty 
 not only to the church in Springfield, but to the 
 churches which they represent, and to all the 
 churches of Christ throughout the Province, to 
 inform the court that when they sent their officer 
 to apprehend Mr. Breck they were regularly and 
 legally convened in council, at the desire of the 
 
THE CASE OF REV. ROBERT BRECK. 359 
 
 church in Springfield, for the regular carrying on 
 the ordination of said Mr. Breck, according to the 
 order of the gospel in the churches of New Eng- 
 land, and were actually hearing the charges 
 against him when the court saw fit to wrest the 
 case out of their hands." Having sent their pro- 
 test, the council waited for the result. Mr. Breck 
 was held in custody until night; and the justices 
 gave orders to their officer to hold him till the 
 next day. But certain members of the council 
 gave their word that he should appear when called 
 for, and he was permitted to go to his lodgings. 
 
 The council reassembled early in the morning, 
 and continued the hearing of the case. Mr. Clap 
 and Mr. Kirkland made oral statements as to 
 the additional testimony they had given in court. 
 The justices soon sent for Mr. Breck, and held 
 him until late in the afternoon, when they made 
 out a warrant which directed the sheriff to take 
 him to Windsor, in the Colony of Connecticut, 
 and deliver him into the custody of the County 
 Court, " there to answer for those things which 
 might be objected against him." He was taken 
 to Windsor, and delivered to the officers of the 
 court. He was permitted to give bonds for his 
 appearance at a subsequent time to answer to a 
 charge concerning the doctrines which he had 
 preached while within that Colony. 
 
 These proceedings increased very much the 
 
360 THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND AND NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 excitement among the people at Springfield. The 
 church appointed a committee to attend him, " in 
 token of respect as their pastor-elect, and the 
 people gave evident marks of their affection for 
 him as he went through the town." The next 
 day they assembled in the meeting-house to pray 
 for his safe return. The record says : " It was a 
 large and weeping assembly." A day or two later, 
 Mr. Breck returned to Springfield, and the coun- 
 cil resumed its sessions. They considered more 
 fully the charges and the testimony for and against 
 him, and listened to his reply. The decisive paper 
 in the case was a Confession of Faith which he 
 drew up for the satisfaction of the council, as a 
 statement of his mature opinions concerning the 
 leading truths of the Gospel. 1 It is a serious and 
 
 i In this Confession, which is too long to insert entire, he declares 
 his belief in one God, who is also triune ; in the Holy Scriptures, 
 which are of divine authority, and which have been preserved by 
 God's providence " pure and uncorrupt ; " in the decrees of God, 
 by which, whatsoever comes to pass in time has been foreordained 
 from all eternity, " yet so as not to take away the will of His 
 creatures, or make Himself the Author of sin ; " in the providential 
 government of the world; in the first covenant with Adam; in his 
 fall from his first estate, which involved the race " in his guilt and 
 corruption ; " in the covenant of redemption, and the vicarious sac- 
 rifice of the God-Man, " which satisfied divine justice for the sins 
 of the elect, and reconciles them to God ; " in the work of the Holy 
 Spirit, "who makes effectual application of the benefits of Christ's 
 redemption to the souls of men ; " in the inability of fallen man to 
 that which is spiritually good, and the necessity of effectual calling 
 by the Almighty Spirit ; in the imputation of the righteousness of 
 
THE CASE OP REV. ROBERT BRECK. 361 
 
 definite statement, following substantially the 
 Westminster Confession, and, by implication, 
 renouncing most of the errors which he had been 
 accused of preaching in Connecticut. After re- 
 citing the statement of his belief, he said : " This 
 is the scheme of Christian doctrine which I have 
 learned from the Holy Scriptures, and which I 
 shall think myself obliged to teach others in the 
 best manner I am able, while at the same time I 
 put them that profess to believe in mind that they 
 be careful to maintain good works. It is my 
 prayer that my knowledge of these things may 
 be enlarged, my faith of them confirmed, and 
 that I may be enabled always to keep the mys- 
 tery of the faith in a pure conscience." This 
 Confession was satisfactory to the whole council. 
 It was read by a man on horseback, to a great 
 crowd of people who assembled in the street 
 in front of the house in which the council was 
 holding its sessions ; and was subsequently read 
 by the candidate to the congregation at his 
 ordination. The council, after a full considera- 
 tion of the case, came to a Result in which 
 they said, that they found that Mr. Breck had 
 been regularly called by a very great majority 
 
 Christ for their justification ; in the work of sanctification ; in the 
 final perseverance of the saints ; the eternal separation of the right- 
 eous from the wicked ; the righteous for life eternal, and the wicked 
 for everlasting punishment. 
 
362 THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND AND NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 to the church and precinct of Springfield ; and 
 also that he was sound in the faith, and of good 
 conversation ; so that they advise the people " to 
 continue their regards for him." " Nevertheless," 
 they say, " having met with an unusual interposi- 
 tion and hindrance in carrying on the work upon 
 which we were called, we do not think it advisable 
 to proceed further herein at this time, but that this 
 council be adjourned " to meet in Boston, October 
 2ist. The Moderator remained in Springfield 
 over the Sabbath, and read this result to the 
 congregation. 
 
 IX. 
 
 THE object of the adjournment was not only 
 to allow time for the excitement to subside, but 
 also to test the legality of the interference of 
 the secular authorities with the work of the 
 council. Two weeks later, the church appointed 
 a committee to bring the matter before the 
 General Court. This committee presented a 
 memorial to the General Court on the 25th of 
 November, in which they stated the fact of the 
 call of Mr. Breck by a very great majority of the 
 church and precinct, and the convening of a 
 council for his ordination, and say that " on the 
 day appointed for that solemnity John Stoddard, 
 Ebenezer Pomeroy, and Timothy Dwight, Esqrs., 
 his Majesty's justices of the peace for the County 
 
THE CASE OF REV. ROBERT BRECK. 363 
 
 of Hampshire, had caused him to be arrested and 
 taken from the aforesaid ecclesiastical council, 
 and brought before them, and that they examined 
 him touching divers points of doctrine; and, 
 further, that by a warrant from the said justices, 
 he was sent to Windsor, in the Colony of Con- 
 necticut, where he was bound over by Appeal to the 
 the County Court to answer to a charge General Court - 
 touching his doctrines." They ask the General 
 Court to decide whether these proceedings have 
 been according to law, and if not, to grant such 
 redress as the case admits. 
 
 The journals of the General Court show that 
 the case was very fully considered by that body. 
 It was first assigned to the 5th of December, at 
 which time the papers were read. It was voted 
 to inquire into the matter of complaint, and to 
 appoint a committee to report what action ought 
 to be taken. Notice was sent to the justices at 
 Northampton, and to other parties interested. 
 The General Court heard not only the committee 
 from Springfield, but Mr. Breck, and the Mode- 
 rator of the council, and various other persons. 
 The matter was before the Court December 5th 
 and 6th, gth, 24th, 26th, and 27th. The decision 
 was ; First, that the council was duly called, and 
 was properly and legally a council, according to 
 the usages of the churches ; and, Secondly, that 
 the justices had no right to " interrupt the church 
 
364 THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND AND NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 and ecclesiastical council, while they were, in the 
 exercise of their just rights, investigating the 
 
 case." 
 
 Strengthened by this decision, the council, 
 which had been continued by successive adjourn- 
 ments, reassembled at Springfield on 
 
 The Ordination. 
 
 the 27th of January, 1736, and " finding 
 that the people did abide firm in their choice of 
 Mr. Breck, and their desire to have him as their 
 pastor," they proceeded to ordain him as pastor 
 of the church. The sermon was preached by 
 Mr. Cooper, the Moderator, from Matthew xiii. 3. 
 In this sermon, which was printed, Mr. Cooper 
 bears this testimony in respect to the young 
 pastor : " I think myself bound to testify, on this 
 occasion, that in all this time I never heard one 
 hard word drop from you respecting any person 
 of any order. I have seen your tears, admired 
 your silence, and hope God has heard your 
 prayers. May the fruit of all be to humble 
 you, to prove you, and to make you a greater 
 blessing to this church and people." 
 
 X. 
 
 THOSE who were opposed to Mr. Breck made 
 one more effort to prevent him from continuing 
 as the minister of the church. They signed a 
 complaint to the Court of Sessions for the county, 
 
THE CASE OF REV. ROBERT BRECK. 365 
 
 which set forth that the church in Springfield 
 was destitute of a minister duly settled according 
 to law ; that one Robert Breck had taken upon 
 himself the office of pastor, under pretence that 
 he had been ordained ; that the said Breck is not 
 qualified, according to the laws of this Province, 
 to be a Gospel minister, inasmuch as he is not 
 orthodox in his belief, and not of good conver- 
 sation ; that, according to law, there can be no 
 money raised for the settlement and support of 
 any person in the ministry but such as are 
 orthodox and of good conversation. They there- 
 fore ask the court to make such order in the 
 premises " that some suitable person may be 
 settled in the pastoral office in said church, it 
 being contrary to the law of this Province, and 
 the peace of the king, that a person of such 
 principles and conversation should take upon 
 himself the office of a minister, or that the said 
 church should be destitute of a settled minister." 
 The court took this petition into consideration 
 on the 2d of March, and summoned the church 
 and parish to appear and answer the complaint. 
 The parish appointed a committee of five, of 
 which William Pynchon, Jr., Esq., was chairman, 
 to represent them before the court, and instructed 
 them to " carry the case as far as necessary, from 
 court to court, in order to a final determination 
 of the matter." As there is no further refer- 
 
366 THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND AND NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 ence to the case in the records of the parish, it 
 is probable that it never came before the court 
 for trial. 
 
 These proceedings were followed by a number 
 of pamphlets, which are the authentic sources of 
 information concerning these matters. The first 
 was published in Boston, 1736, a few months after 
 the ordination had taken place. It is entitled 
 " A Narrative of the Proceedings of those Minis- 
 ters of the County of Hampshire that have dis- 
 approved the Settlement of Mr. Robert Breck." 
 It is a vigorous pamphlet of about one hundred 
 pages. This was followed the same year by " An 
 Answer to the Hampshire Narrative." This also 
 contains one hundred pages. It is said to have 
 been written by Rev. William Cooper, of Boston. 
 The next year appeared another thick pamphlet, 
 with the title, "A Letter to the Author of the 
 Answer to the Narrative." 
 
 XL 
 
 WHILE these proceedings in court, and this war 
 of pamphlets were going on, the young pastor set 
 himself to conciliate the opposition among his 
 people. He gave himself to the duties of his office 
 with exemplary fidelity. It is said of him, that if 
 he wished any favor he would ask it from some 
 one of his people who had been unfriendly. Such 
 
THE CASE OF REV. ROBERT BRECK. 367 
 
 an expression of his confidence won their good 
 will. He chose his wife wisely also. He married, 
 a few weeks after his ordination, Eunice Brewer, 
 the daughter of his predecessor, who had been 
 universally loved and revered. He invited Rev. 
 Stephen Williams, of Longmeadow, who had been 
 one of the most decided of his opponents, to per- 
 form the marriage ceremony; and this act of 
 courtesy is said to have modified his opposition. 
 In a few years, he was accepted by his brethren 
 in the ministry, as well as by his people, as a 
 minister "able, learned, orthodox, and of good 
 conversation." 
 
 Mr. Breck was the pastor of the church in 
 Springfield forty-eight years. The church grew 
 with the town, and its minister became a 
 man of great influence in the Connecti- 
 cut valley. It is more than a hundred years since 
 his death ; but the traditions concerning him at 
 Springfield are still fresh, and he is held in great 
 esteem and veneration. His funeral sermon was 
 preached by Dr. Lathrop, of West Springfield, 
 who had been a student in divinity under him. 
 In this sermon, he said: " His intellectual powers 
 were naturally superior, and were brightened by 
 his education, and enlarged by an extensive ac- 
 quaintance with men and books. He accustomed 
 himself to a close manner of reasoning and think- 
 ing, and filled up his time with diligent application. 
 
368 THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND AND NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 History was his amusement, divinity his study; 
 he excelled in both, especially the latter. He was 
 an accomplished gentleman, and an exemplary 
 Christian. His attendance on the duties of his 
 profession was constant, his preparations for the 
 sanctuary were mature, his public prayers were 
 deliberate and solemn, his sermons were full of 
 thought, dressed in the most proper language, 
 and communicated in the easiest manner. His 
 religious sentiments were formed on a careful 
 examination of the Scriptures, without servile 
 attachment to sects or systems. His turn of 
 thinking was liberal yet Scriptural, exalted yet 
 humble." 
 
 Such was the man as he seemed to his con- 
 temporaries at the close of a pastorate of half a 
 century. 
 
VIII. 
 
 The Religious Life in the Eighteenth Cen- 
 tury in Northern New England. 
 
 Brunswick, Maine. 
 
 24 
 
The Religious Life in the Eighteenth Cen- 
 tury in Northern New England. 
 
 Brunswick, Maine. 1 
 
 A T the close of the seventeenth century, less 
 ** than half of what is now called New England 
 had been settled. There were a few strong towns 
 in New Hampshire, and a few settlements on the 
 coast of Maine. As the people of Puritan descent 
 pushed their way northward, to settle and cultivate 
 what is now Maine, New Hampshire, and Ver- 
 mont, they organized their towns and their 
 churches according to the Puritan models. Those 
 new communities passed through experiences not 
 very different from those through which the 
 people in southern New England had passed a 
 hundred years earlier. It was, in many respects, 
 the Puritan history over again. 
 
 Yet there were decided differences between the 
 older and the newer churches. Many of the most 
 perplexing questions had been settled during the 
 first generation. There was a well-defined polity 
 
 1 An Address at the Hundred and Fiftieth Anniversary of the 
 Congregational Church in Brunswick. 
 
372 THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND AND NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 for the churches. The system of administration 
 
 had been slowly learned from experiences in the 
 
 town and the county and the Province. The new 
 
 churches were likely to receive encour- 
 
 Difference * 
 
 between the agement and material aid from the older 
 Hewer and stronger churches. Southern New 
 England did a great deal of Home Mis- 
 sionary work in northern New England, long 
 before the west was opened for such work. There 
 was a greater diversity of race and nationality 
 when the later churches were gathered. In many 
 of the newer towns the Scotch Presbyterians were 
 as numerous as the descendants of the Puritans. 
 It took a generation or two for these elements to 
 harmonize. The war of the Revolution affected 
 these newer settlements more than it did those 
 that were older, because they were more exposed 
 to attacks from the Indians, and from the English 
 in Canada. 
 
 It is worth while, therefore, to study the religious 
 life in northern New England in the eighteenth 
 century. To do this, let us take a representative 
 church in Maine, in the town of Brunswick, which 
 was settled in the early years of the century. 
 The first settlers began very early to make pro- 
 vision for the preaching of the Gospel. Some- 
 times at Fort George, sometimes in private 
 dwellings, or in barns, and later in the first 
 meeting-houses, for there were two, on opposite 
 
BRUNSWICK, MAINE, IN THE 18TH CENTURY. 373 
 
 sides of the township, they came together to 
 worship God. It is plain, from such records as 
 have come down to us, that the early settlers 
 cared a good deal for these religious services. 
 
 I. 
 
 AMONG the reasons which the inhabitants of 
 Brunswick urged, in their petition for a charter, 
 in 1735, were these: " That a commo- -me petition 
 dious meeting house has been erected, foracharter - 
 and a pious and orthodox minister secured," and 
 that they desired to be vested with power to tax 
 themselves for his maintenance. This commo- 
 dious meeting-house was located midway between 
 the old Fort and Maquoit. The History of the 
 town contains a picture of this meeting-house. It 
 was a plain building, facing the south, with a pro- 
 jecting porch, but without a tower or steeple. The 
 records do not give the dimensions of the edifice, 
 but they give glimpses of its interior. The walls 
 were unfinished ; there was no ceiling ; the roof 
 timbers were in view ; there was a high pulpit, 
 with a sounding-board above it. There was a gal- 
 lery, and both the gallery and the floor of the 
 church had pews, large and square ; and each pew 
 had seats on three sides. The environment of 
 this " commodious meeting-house " was character- 
 istic of the times. In front stood the stocks ; in 
 
374 THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND AND NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 the rear was the whipping-post; near by was the 
 graveyard. North of the graveyard was a pound, 
 with a substantial fence, and a gate securely locked. 
 Within the house, far up under the roof, was a 
 loft used as a powder magazine. 1 
 
 II. 
 
 THIS was the place of worship for the people 
 of the west side of Brunswick for about seventy 
 years, until after Bowdoin College was founded. 
 me Early ^ n that pulpit Robert Rutherford 
 Ministers. preached seven years, and Robert 
 Dunlap thirteen years, up to 1760. Those were 
 times of great peril to the pioneers, when block 
 houses were built for defence against the Indians. 
 It is related that when Mr. Dunlap went to New- 
 meadows to preach, he was escorted by his neigh- 
 bors, who went armed to the place of prayer. In 
 that pulpit also, John Miller preached twenty-four 
 years, which included the period of the Revolu- 
 tionary War, and Ebenezer Coffin eight years. 
 These together cover fifty-two years of somewhat 
 regular pastoral work in the eighteenth century. 2 
 
 1 History of Brunswick, 637. 
 
 2 Rev. Robert Rutherford was a native of Ireland. He came 
 to this country in 1729, preached in Pemaquid four years, preached 
 in Brunswick, 1735-1742. He died 1756, aged 68. History of 
 Brunswick, 802. 
 
 Rev. Robert Dunlap was born in the parish of Barilla, County 
 of Antrim, Ulster, Ireland, August, 1715, was educated in the Uni- 
 
BRUNSWICK, MAINE, IN THE 18TH CENTURY. 375 
 
 III. 
 
 THESE are the outward facts. But underneath 
 all this there must have been a religious spirit 
 and life of which we can gain little knowledge 
 from any records that are now extant. The 
 records of the First Parish relate very naturally 
 to secular matters, such as the arrangements for 
 the settlement and the dismission of pastors, the 
 assessment of the parish taxes, repairs of the 
 meeting-house, and other matters of a 
 
 The Spiritual 
 
 business nature. Whenever there was lifeofthe 
 any lack of harmony among the mem- 
 bers of the church, it was very apt to leave some 
 trace upon the records. It may be that such 
 records give undue prominence to these things. 
 But of the spiritual life of the people, of their 
 religious habits, of the quality of the preaching 
 they were able to get, of the doctrines which they 
 
 versity of Edinburgh, was Master of Arts at nineteen, came to this 
 country in 1736. He was a Presbyterian, preached at various places 
 in Massachusetts and in Maine, was engaged to preach in Bruns- 
 wick in 1746, on a salary of ^200, and ordained in Boston, in 1747. 
 He was dismissed in 1760. He died in Brunswick, June 26, 1776. 
 History of Brunswick, 728. 
 
 Rev. John Miller, of Milton, Mass., was engaged in Brunswick, 
 December, 1761, and installed as pastor the next year, and contin- 
 ued his ministry there about twenty-four years. He died in Boston 
 in 1788. History of Brunswick, 773. 
 
 Rev. Ebenezer Coffin was ordained as pastor of the church in 
 Brunswick in January, 1794. He continued his ministry there about 
 eight years. 
 
376 THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND AND NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 accepted, and of the spiritual power of the Church 
 in the last century, the records give us less in- 
 formation than they do of the votes passed to 
 determine the location of the meeting-house, or 
 the salary of the minister. We should like to 
 know more than we do of the religious life of the 
 people who lived in those times of simplicity and of 
 comparative poverty. In respect to these matters, 
 the indirect evidence is more abundant than that 
 which is direct. 
 
 IV. 
 
 ONE thing which affected the religious life in 
 
 Brunswick was the connection of the Church with 
 
 m the state. It is not quite certain that 
 
 Connection of -11 
 
 church and the church had been organized when 
 Mr. Rutherford became the minister, 
 by vote of the town of Brunswick, or even when 
 Mr. Dunlap began his ministry. The people of 
 the town called the minister by vote in town- 
 meeting. The contract was made between the 
 town and the minister. His salary was raised by 
 a tax, levied upon all the rate-payers. After the 
 church was organized, it had the right, under the 
 laws of Massachusetts, to choose its minister, and 
 the town had the right to accept or reject the 
 candidate whom the church had selected. The 
 laws required that every town should be con- 
 stantly provided with a minister, and if it should 
 
BRUNSWICK, MAINE, IN THE 18TH CENTURY. 377 
 
 neglect for six months to secure an " able, learned, 
 and orthodox minister, of good conversation," the 
 town was liable to be prosecuted and fined for 
 such neglect. Brunswick was prosecuted and 
 fined in 1810 under that law. It was not always 
 easy for the church and the town to agree in the 
 choice of a minister. In a good many instances 
 the minister who had been chosen by the church 
 was rejected by the town. In 1786, the town 
 voted to dismiss the pastor, but the church voted 
 to retain him. Whereupon, the town voted not 
 to raise any money for his support. 
 
 There was always more or less trouble in 
 collecting the tax levied for the support of the 
 pastor. Twenty-one persons were sent to jail, in 
 a parish not far from Brunswick, because they 
 refused to pay the tax assessed upon them for the 
 support of the minister of the town. 1 
 
 The connection of Church and state did not 
 work as well in Maine as it had done in Massa- 
 chusetts. It was not as easy to continue that 
 connection after the Revolution, as it had been 
 before. The growth of a spirit of personal inde- 
 pendence, under a republican government, and the 
 increasing diversity of religious opinions, made it 
 a hard matter for a church and a town to get on 
 with harmony and good feeling in the support of 
 religious institutions. So that the time came, in 
 
 1 Mr. Harlow's Address at Cape Elizabeth. 
 
378 THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND AND NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 the natural course of events, when the connection 
 which had existed so long became a hindrance to 
 the prosperity of religion in the town. 
 
 V. 
 
 THE difference of opinion in respect to Church 
 government was also a great obstacle to the pros- 
 perity of religion in Brunswick. The first church 
 was probably organized as a Presby- 
 tei "i an church, and in its earlier history 
 ism - it was connected with the Presbytery of 
 
 Londonderry. Mr. Dunlap was a Presbyterian 
 from mature conviction, as well as by his training. 
 The people in the west part of the town were, for 
 the most part, Scotch-Irish Presbyterians, while 
 those at New Meadows were Congregationalists. 
 The Presbyterians were the more decided in their 
 preferences, because that had been the polity of 
 their fathers. The Congregationalists were not 
 disposed to yield, because New England was full 
 of churches of their order, and theirs was, in some 
 sort, the State Church. There were never more 
 than ten Presbyterian churches in Maine at one 
 time, while the Congregational churches in the 
 district greatly outnumbered them. In a small 
 town on the frontier, a hundred years ago, the 
 questions between these denominations seemed 
 more important than they seem to us at this time. 
 
BRUNSWICK, MAINE, IN THE 18TH CENTURY. 379 
 
 Nevertheless, there was a spirit of conciliation. In 
 1774, the church in Brunswick voted that the Sac- 
 rament of the Lord's Supper should be adminis- 
 tered " at the West meeting-house from the long 
 table, the communicants sitting around it, or in 
 the body-pews, as they might see fit ; " and that in 
 the East meeting-house it should be according to 
 " the Congregational form." " Baptism was to be 
 in either form, as persons might choose." There 
 was a difference in respect to singing, and, in 1 786, 
 the town voted " to allow the people at the East- 
 end to regulate the way of singing in Divine 
 service in the East-end as they shall think proper." 
 The same year, the church voted against the new 
 way of singing adopted at the East-end of the 
 town, and directed that the psalms and hymns 
 should be read by the deacon, line by line. Some 
 in the church desired to have ruling elders ap- 
 pointed, while others wished to have deacons. 
 The discipline of the church suffered on account 
 of these disagreements, and the relation between 
 pastor and people was sometimes weakened by 
 them. But, as the larger number of those who 
 came to Brunswick from ^ther places were Con- 
 gregationalists, the Presbyterians gradually lost 
 the control, and, by the end of the century, the 
 church had become to all intents a Congregational 
 church. This tendency was strengthened by the 
 establishment of Bowdoin College. 
 
380 THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND AND NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 VI. 
 
 THROUGH all this period Brunswick was but a 
 modest and obscure settlement among the pines. 
 On every side except the river, the dwellings stood 
 close up to the forest, which stretched away for 
 miles. The principal business of the place was 
 the trade in lumber. 1 The people commonly 
 condition of went on foot to the church. Some of 
 the people. those who lived at a distance owned a 
 horse, a saddle, and a pillion, which would accom- 
 modate a man, his wife, and one or two children. 
 It is a matter of dispute whether there were two 
 or three wheeled chaises in town before the 
 Revolution. The New England meeting-houses 
 were not warmed in the last century, and those in 
 these northern regions were not lighted. The 
 people who came in from their long walk through 
 the snow were a strong and hardy race, else they 
 could not have endured the cold, as they sat, in 
 this uminished house, through the long services. 
 The services in those days were held in the day 
 time. 
 
 But through all this period of hardship and 
 poverty the church continued to grow and to 
 prosper. There is reason to believe that pub- 
 lic worship was maintained with a good measure 
 
 1 History of Bowdoin College, 2, 83. 
 
BRUNSWICK, MAINE, IN THE ISTH CENTURY. 381 
 
 of regularity, that the sacraments of the Church 
 were administered, and that the standard of 
 piety was a high one. We have the 
 
 ' Growth and 
 
 names of more than a hundred who Prosperity of 
 
 were members of the church before 
 
 the year 1800, and the list is known to be 
 
 incomplete. 
 
 The service of song in the last century was 
 more simple than it is now. The num- Tne service 
 ber of tunes used in public worship was of Song * 
 very limited, and there was probably no instru- 
 mental music in the earlier years. The choirs 
 were large in those days, and the chorister was 
 a person of great importance. In 1763, the 
 church voted to use " the version of the psalms 
 by Tate and Brady, with the hymns of Dr. Watts 
 annexed thereto." 
 
 VII. 
 
 THE ministers of those times had a position in 
 the community very different from that of their 
 successors in this century. They were still settled 
 for life. The towns were required by law to pay 
 their salaries. They were distinguished from 
 other people by their dress and their T ne Ministers 
 manners. The description of Rev. ofthose Days- 
 Samuel Eaton, minister in Harpswell from 1764 
 to 1822, by Professor Alpheus S. Packard, is very 
 graphic. " He was above the average stature, 
 
382 THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND AND NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 with a large frame, and full habit. His entrance 
 into the church, on the Sabbath, and his stately 
 progress up the broad aisle, bowing to the 
 sitters on each side, according to the custom of 
 those days, always attracted attention. He wore 
 a broad skirted coat, with wide pocket flaps, a 
 waistcoat flaring in front, and falling to the knees, 
 breeches, high shoes with large plated buckles, 
 the whole surmounted with a capacious wig and 
 a cocked hat." l 
 
 Yet those ministers, with all their dignity, and 
 stateliness, had a great deal of human nature 
 about them. They put on their courtly manners, 
 according to the customs of their time, but there 
 was genuine manhood underneath the manners. 
 The pictures of President McKeen which we are 
 accustomed to see, represent him in the dress of 
 his times, with his long hair gathered in a queue. 
 He was the pastor of the church in Beverly, Mas- 
 sachusetts, from 1785 to 1802. He was above the 
 ordinary stature, and of commanding appearance, 
 and dignified manners. In the earlier years of 
 his ministry, he was fond of athletic sports. One 
 day a visitor at his house in Beverly was boasting 
 of his strength and skill as a wrestler ; whereupon 
 the minister invited him to retire to a suitable 
 place that they might both test their abilities in 
 that line. The proposal was accepted, and they 
 
 1 Sprague's Annals, vol. i. Samuel Eaton. 
 
BRUNSWICK, MAINE, IN THE 18 TH CENTURY. 383 
 
 went out But the minister was too much for the 
 athlete and, after repeated falls, he acknowledged 
 that the pastor was the better man. * 
 
 The use of intoxicating drinks was more com- 
 mon in those days than now. Parson Smith 
 speaks of an ordination at New Gloucester, in 
 1765, as a "jolly ordination." He says, " We lost 
 sight of decorum." The progress of the ministers 
 toward the practice of total abstinence from strong 
 drink was slow. It was not till 1813 that the 
 Cumberland Association voted that " there be no 
 ardent spirits used by the Association as a body 
 in future." 2 That vote casts a suggestive back- 
 light upon the social customs of our clerical 
 fathers. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 WHAT were the religious teachings in the old 
 meeting-houses ? 
 
 We have a good many sources of information. 
 In the latter part of the eighteenth century the 
 opinions that had been held by the older Puritans 
 had been modified, partly through the influence 
 of President Edwards, and the divines of his school, 
 and a more liberal, and, as we think, a more 
 Biblical, theology began to be preached. Mr. 
 Dunlap had been trained in the more rigid Scot- 
 
 1 Sprague's Annals, vol. ii. Joseph McKeen. 
 
 2 Centennial Pamphlet, Cumberland Association, 24, 33. 
 
384 THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND AND NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 tish School. He is said to have been vehement, 
 and persuasive in his style of preaching, and to 
 have taken the celebrated Mr. Whitefield, whom 
 he had met soon after his arrival in this country, 
 as his model. But his successor, Mr. Miller, was 
 a decided Congregationalist, and he probably 
 preached the New England theology. He is said 
 to have been very charitable in his treatment of 
 those who differed with him in religious matters. 
 All the ministers of the church in 
 
 Religious .... 
 
 views of the Bruns wick during the last century were 
 Calvinists (except possibly, Mr. Coffin), 
 and they gave their people the strong meat of the 
 Gospel. 
 
 That was before the time of Sunday-schools 
 in New England. The children were taught the 
 catechism at home, and in the day-schools. They 
 were also catechised by their pastors. The Bible 
 was carefully taught to the children, in the last 
 century, by their fathers and mothers ; and it is 
 not certain but they had a better knowledge of 
 the Scriptures, and of the religious truths which 
 they teach, than the children of our own times. 
 
 IX. 
 
 THE methods of pastoral visiting in the last 
 century were more systematic and thorough than 
 those to which we have been accustomed. The 
 
BRUNSWICK, MAINE, IN THE 18TH CENTURY. 38$ 
 
 ministers were expected to go from house to 
 house, and teach religious truths to the people, 
 especially to the young people. They Pas t ora i 
 were also in the habit of conversing Visitin &- 
 with each individual in regard to his religious 
 duties, and to use their personal influence to lead 
 them forward in a religious life. Here is a record 
 made by a pastor in Maine of his method of pas- 
 toral visiting in 1766, and preserved for us in 
 Greenleaf's Ecclesiastical Sketches : " First to 
 salute the house : compare the lists with the 
 family : and note how many know the catechism, 
 how many have taken the covenant, and how 
 many are church members. Then, to exhort the 
 young people to give attendance to reading, to 
 secret prayer, to public worship, the obser- 
 vance of the Sabbath, to live peaceable and 
 faithful lives, to seek the grace of God, and a 
 true conversion. To address parents about their 
 spiritual state, secret devotions, family wor- 
 ship, government, catechising, public wor- 
 ship, the sacraments, if they are church 
 members, see to what profit, if in error or 
 vice, to reclaim, if in divisions, heal, if poor, 
 help, lastly, pray with them all." 1 
 
 It is not surprising that the pastor who followed 
 that method, relates that after a few months of 
 that sort of work, there was a general revival of 
 
 1 Greenleaf's Sketches, 133, note. 
 25 
 
386 THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND AND NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 religion in the town: "A solemn, sweet, and 
 
 glorious season," that "many of God's people 
 
 Revivals of were filled with the joy of the Lord, 
 
 Religion. anc j t kat man y were brought to see 
 
 their need of that Saviour whom they had shame- 
 fully neglected, and wickedly crucified." It is 
 not surprising that this work of grace extended 
 into the adjoining towns. 
 
 The revivals of religion, during the latter part 
 of the eighteenth century, were very wonderful. 
 I have read of a work of grace in Harpswell, 
 Maine, in 1756, which brought sixty-seven 
 persons into the church, in that small community ; 
 of another, in North Yarmouth, in 1791, which 
 pervaded the whole town, and brought one 
 hundred and fifty into the church ; of another 
 in New Gloucester, in 1791, which was exceedingly 
 powerful. 1 These revivals were all in the vicinity 
 of Brunswick. It is well known that the last 
 years of the last century, and the earliest years in 
 this, were marked by very thorough and extended 
 revivals of religion in all parts of New England. 
 
 The establishment of Bowdoin College at 
 Brunswick has had a great influence upon the 
 church. The first building for the College was 
 erected in 1798. It was ready for use in 1802, 
 at which time a house was erected for the Presi- 
 dent. The first class was graduated in 1806. 
 
 1 Greenleaf's Sketches, 69-70, 66-67, 119-120. 
 
BRUNSWICK, MAINE, IN THE 18TH CENTURY. 387 
 
 President McKeen (elected 1801) used to preach 
 on Sunday, either in the meeting-house of the 
 First Parish, or in the College chapel. From 
 that time to the present, there has been a close 
 connection between the College and the church. 
 This connection has given to the church a great 
 increase of influence and of usefulness. 
 
 X. 
 
 IF I were asked to state the essential and 
 permanent qualities in the religious life of New 
 England, during the eighteenth century, I 
 should answer: To-day is the child of yester- 
 day, this century is the child of the last 
 century. New England owes its spe- T he Permanent 
 cial characteristics to the Pilgrims and gJ^J^ 
 the Puritans. The religious life into of that century, 
 which we have entered is a continuation of 
 that .of our fathers. They planted the seed, and 
 we are reaping the harvests. If we have made 
 some improvements in theology, so did they. If 
 we have entered into the work of reform, so did 
 they. If we have been favored with revivals of 
 religion, so were they. Our Bible and Tract 
 Societies, our societies for Home, and Foreign 
 Missions, which grew up in New England in the 
 earlier decades of this century, are the results of 
 their religious training and example. That 
 
388 THE PURITAN IN ENGLAND AND NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 which we are doing, with our more abundant 
 means, and our more fortunate environment, to 
 make human life sweeter, and purer, and to make 
 the world freer and happier, and to enlarge the 
 kingdom of Christ among men, much of this is 
 the flowering and fruitage from the planting of 
 our fathers, who in the great straitness of their 
 lives, with much self-denial, and with devout 
 prayer laid the foundations of our free Christian 
 Commonwealths. The Pilgrims and the Puritans 
 did not live in vain. Their influence has gone 
 out into all the earth. We are drinking at the 
 fountains which they opened. We walk in their 
 light, and we are to pass on the torch to other 
 generations. 
 
Index. 
 
Index. 
 
 ABBOTT, GEORGE, Archbishop of Canterbury, 48; one of the trans- 
 lators of the Bible, favors the Puritans, 48 ; seeks to make 
 peace in the Church, 49. 
 
 AFTERNOON SERVICE OF WORSHIP in Puritan Churches, 154. 
 
 AGREEMENT AT CAMBRIDGE, England, 71. 
 
 ALDEN, JOHN, 242 ; his new home, 245 ; marriage, 246. 
 
 AMUSEMENTS OF THE PILGRIMS AND PURITANS, 262; games of 
 chance forbidden, dancing, 262 ; simple rustic pleasures, 263 ; 
 Harvest Festival at Plymouth, 263; not religious, 264; training 
 days in Boston, 264 ; guests at the house of the Governor, din- 
 ner parties described in the Diary of Judge Sewall, 264; Com- 
 mencement week, 264 ; Hawthorne's Scarlet Letter, 265. 
 
 ASSOCIATION, HAMPSHIRE, of ministers, 337; members of, 337; 
 receives charges against Mr. Breck, 344; advises against his 
 settlement, 348 ; provides for an investigation of the charges, 
 349 ; opposes the installation, 356. 
 
 AUGUSTINE QUOTED, 208. 
 
 AWAKENING, THE GREAT, 314; influence of, 338; connection of 
 the New Divinity with the revival, 339. 
 
 BACON, DR. LEONARD, 85, 90. 
 
 BACON, LORD, on reform of Church, 35, 37. 
 
 BANISHMENT OF ROGER WILLIAMS, 171, 173; the sentence re- 
 voked, 173. 
 
 BAPTISM OF CHILDREN, 153-154; church membership of chil- 
 dren, 308 ; consequence of this doctrine, 309. 
 
 BAY COLONY, THE, 102-103. 
 
 BAY-PATH, 191. 
 
 AY PSALM BOOK, 150. 
 
 BIBLE, love for, and obedience to, 118 ; not read in public without 
 exposition, 163. 
 
392 INDEX. 
 
 BLUE LAWS OF CONNECTICUT, 251; the invention of Samuel 
 
 Peters, 252 ; his book, 252. 
 BODY OF LIBERTIES, 255. 
 
 BOOKS INTRODUCED FROM THE CONTINENT, 21. 
 
 BRADFORD, GOVERNOR WILLIAM, 58, 90, 159, 233, 244. 
 
 BRECK, REV. ROBERT, Ancestry, 342; graduated at Harvard, 
 approved by the Faculty, 343 ; began to preach in Connecticut, 
 called to Springfield, 343 ; opposition to his settlement, 344 ; 
 charges against him, 344-345 ; his reply to the charges, 346 ; 
 declines the call, 347 ; returns to Boston, 347 ; advice of the 
 Association to the Church, 348 ; Mr. Breck again invited to 
 preach in Springfield, 349; action of the Association, 349; ob- 
 jections to the method of investigation, 350; the second call of 
 the church, 351 ; certificate from the ministers of Boston, 352 ; 
 accepts the call, 352; his Confession of Faith, 360; arrest and 
 removal to Connecticut, 358; return, 360; is ordained, 364; 
 marriage, 367 ; his life and work as a pastor, 367 ; his funeral 
 sermon, 368. 
 
 BREWSTER, ELDER WILLIAM, 52, 90, 105, 124, 244-245 ; his dress, 
 259; furniture, 260. 
 
 BROOKS, PHILLIPS, 275. 
 
 BROWNE, ROBERT, views of, 22-24; pastor of the Separatist 
 Church, persecuted, 24 ; returns to the Established Church, 
 24. 
 
 BRUNSWICK, MAINE, 372; early provision for preaching, 373; 
 reasons for seeking a charter, 373; Church and State, 376; 
 condition of the town, 380 ; founding of Bowdoin College, 
 374, 388. 
 
 BURR, JOHN, 194. 
 
 CABLE, JOHN, 190. 
 
 CALVINISM, PREACHED IN NEW ENGLAND, 321 ; influence of, 
 322 ; strong type of Christian character, 322 ; defenders of 
 liberty, 323 ; vigorous type of manhood, 323 ; small number 
 of church members, 324 ; children of the Puritans not members 
 of their churches, 325 ; " unfruitfulness of the means of grace," 
 326; compared with results of modern preaching, 326; frequent 
 religious declensions, 327; testimony of Prince, 327; Salem 
 Witchcraft, 327; dissensions in the churches, 328; growth of 
 Arminianism, 328 ; influence of the Edwardean theology, 329 ; 
 successors of Edwards, 331 ; New England Theology, 331. 
 
 CALVINISM TENDS TOWARD LIBERTY AND DEMOCRACY, 41, 222. 
 
INDEX. 393 
 
 CALVINISTIC DOCTRINES of the Puritans, 41 ; Synod of Dort, 384 ; 
 teachings from Geneva, 285. 
 
 CAMBRIDGE AGREEMENT, 1629, 71, 179, 186. 
 
 CAMBRIDGE PLATFORM, 107, 341. 
 
 CAMBRIDGE SYNOD of 1646, 107 ; called by the General Court of 
 Mass,, 178 ; contained delegates from the other colonies, 179; 
 adopts the Cambridge Platform, 179 ; accepts the Westminster 
 Confession, 291. 
 
 CAMBRIDGE the Puritan University, 121. 
 
 CARVER, GOVERNOR JOHN, 90. 
 
 CATHOLIC POWERS UNFRIENDLY to Elizabeth, 31 ; the Spanish 
 Armada, 31, 42; St. Bartholomew, 32; Duke of Alva, 32; 
 Thirty Years War, 34, 50. 
 
 CHARLES THE FIRST, 59 ; his first Parliament, 60 ; the Petition of 
 Right, 6 1 ; demands forced loans, 63; his tyranny, 69-70; 
 grants the charter of Massachusetts, 70; demands ship money, 
 72, 74; the Long Parliament, 71, 74, 75. 
 
 CHARTER OF COLONY OF MASSACHUSETTS, 70, 188. 
 
 CHURCH AND STATE IN ENGLAND, 39. 
 
 CHURCH AND STATE IN MAINE, 376; the minister paid by the 
 town, 376; trouble in collecting the tax, 377; increase of inde- 
 pendence after the Revolution, 377 ; towns required to pay 
 the salaries, 381. 
 
 CHURCH AND STATE IN MASSACHUSETTS, 339; qualifications of 
 ministers, 339; method of choosing a minister, 340; the salary 
 to be raised by a tax, 340 ; the General Court to select a minister 
 if the town neglects, 341 ; the Cambridge Platform, 341 ; ques- 
 tions that frequently caused divisions, 342. 
 
 CHURCHES, INDEPENDENT, 94; model of Scrooby, 158; Plymouth 
 Church, 158; Salem, 159; officers of, 160, 287. 
 
 COFFEE not used, 139. 
 
 COFFIN, REV. EBENEZER, of Brunswick, note on his life, 375; his 
 religious views, 384. 
 
 COMMITTEE OF RELIGION, 74. 
 
 COMMON SCHOOLS, reasons for, 248 ; Governor of Virginia dislikes, 
 248 ; schools in the Dutch Republic, 248 ; in Plymouth, 249 ; 
 Boston, general law, 250 ; schools in New Haven, 250; Hart- 
 ford; influence of, 250. 
 
 COMPARISON OF THE PILGRIMS with the Puritans, 85, 112; why 
 the Pilgrims came, 83 ; why the Puritans came, 83 ; difference 
 in date of settlement, 86; Separatists and Non-Conformists, 
 87; social position of the Pilgrims, 89; of the Puritans, 90; 
 
394 INDEX. 
 
 objects of the Pilgrim Colony, 91, 102 ; objects of the Puritans, 
 92 ; government of the Pilgrim Colony, 98, 99 ; government of 
 the Puritan Colony, 100; numbers and wealth, 101 ; ministry 
 at Plymouth, 104; confederacy of the colonies of New Eng- 
 land, 1 08; legislation in the two colonies, 109-112. 
 
 CONFEDERACY of New England Colonies, 108. 
 
 CONNECTICUT RIVER JOINT COMMISSION, 193. 
 
 CONNECTICUT SETTLED, 169-193, 240. 
 
 CONTRIBUTIONS ON THE SABBATH, 155. 
 
 COOPER, REV. WILLIAM, member of the Council at Springfield, 
 353 ; moderator of the Council, 356; speaks before the General 
 Court, 363 ; preaches the sermon, 364 ; writes one of the pam- 
 phlets, 366. 
 
 COTTON, JOHN, 100, 106, 108, 121 ; scholarship, 122, 127, 132 ; mid- 
 week lectures, 156, 213, 267 ; Catechism, 286. 
 
 COUNCIL AT SPRINGFIELD, called, 352; members, 353; its regu- 
 larity questioned, 353-354; meets in Springfield, 356; remon- 
 strances presented, 356 ; testimony given, 357 ; arrest of Mr. 
 Breck, 357 ; protest from the Council, 358 ; he is sent to Con- 
 necticut, 359; meets the next day, 359; return of Mr. Breck, 
 360 ; his statement of belief, 360-361 ; result of the Council, 
 361 ; adjournment, 362 ; re-assembles, 364 ; ordains Mr. Breck, 
 
 364- 
 
 COURT OF MR. PYNCHON, 196. 
 COURT OF GENERAL SESSIONS at Springfield, 355 ; arrest of Mr. 
 
 Breck, 357 ; examination as to his religious views, 358 ; sends 
 
 him to Connecticut, 359 ; investigates complaint against the 
 
 Church in Springfield, 365. 
 COURTSHIP OF MILES STANDISH, 242-246; poetic license, 242; 
 
 its historic basis, characters from real life, 243. 
 CRANFIELD, GOVERNOR, 119. 
 CREEDS OF THE CHURCHES, 287; grew out of covenants, 287; 
 
 creed of the Church in Salem, 288. 
 CROMWELL proposes to remove to America, 70 ; Lord Saye and 
 
 Sele, Lord Warwick, and other Puritan noblemen, 70. 
 CULTURE OF THE PURITANS, 78, 79, 222-225. 
 CUSHMAN, ELDER, 105. 
 
 DAVENPORT, JOHN, 124, 127; pastor of the Old South in Boston, 311. 
 DECLINE OF PROTESTANT POWER IN EUROPE, 33. 
 DESCENDANTS FROM THE PURITANS of the seventh generation, 
 273-277. 
 
INDEX. 395 
 
 DEXTER, DR. HENRY M., 24. 
 DIGNIFYING THE SEATS, 143. 
 DRESS OF THE COLONISTS, 258 ; dress of officials, 258 ; portraits 
 
 of Puritans, 126, 258; laws against extravagance, 259; dress 
 
 of Elder Brewster, 259. 
 DRUILLETTE, FATHER GABRIEL, a Jesuit missionary, 268 ; sent to 
 
 Boston, 269 ; to Plymouth, 270 ; visits the Apostle Eliot, 270. 
 DUDLEY, THOMAS, 185, 203. 
 DUNLAP, REV. ROBERT, of Brunswick, birthplace, 374 and note, 
 
 also, 375; salary paid by the town, 376; a Presbyterian, 378; 
 
 manners and theological views, 383. 
 DWELLINGS OF MINISTERS, 135. 
 
 EASTERN COUNTIES OF ENGLAND, full of Puritans, 33. 
 
 EATON, REV. SAMUEL, of Harps well, 381. 
 
 EDWARD THE SIXTH, a Protestant king, n ; Book of Common 
 Prayer, n, 13. 
 
 EDWARDS, PRESIDENT JONATHAN, 133, 299; revival under the 
 preaching of, 313; new divinity, 314; the younger Edwards, 
 328; improvements in theology by President Edwards, 329 ; in- 
 fluence upon the theology of New England, 330 ; influence in 
 the Connecticut Valley, 337, 338. 
 
 EIGHTEENTH CENTURY IN NEW ENGLAND, 371 ; difference be- 
 tween the settlement of Northern New England and Southern, 
 372; mingling of nationalities, 372. 
 
 ELIOT, JOHN, record concerning Mr. Pynchon, note, 213; receives 
 Father Druillette, 271. 
 
 ELIZABETH, a Protestant Queen, 12; Act of Supremacy, 13, 16 ; 
 Act of Uniformity, 13 ; Court of High Commission, 16-19, 64; 
 increased severity against Non-Conformists, 16 ; Whitgift, 18 ; 
 subscription to the Thirty-nine Articles required, 19 ; growth 
 of Puritanism, 30 ; death of the Queen, 30 ; character, 40. 
 
 ELIZABETH, compared with Victoria, 235. 
 
 ENDICOTT, GOVERNOR JOHN, 96, 203. 
 
 ESTIMATE OF THE PURITANS by English historians : Macaulay, 
 3; Hallam, Hume, Carlyle, 3; John Richard Green, xxxvi, xl, 
 14,41,44, 221. 
 
 EXCOMMUNICATION OF NON-CONFORMISTS, 65. 
 
 FARMERS, early ministers were, 133. 
 FOOD in early Puritan times, 137. 
 FREEDOM OF RELIGION in Holland, 53. 
 
396 INDEX. 
 
 FRENCH OF CANADA, 265, Roman Catholics, 266; visits of La 
 
 Tour, 1643 and 1646, 267; Druillette, 268. 
 FULLER, DR. SAMUEL, 96, 97. 
 FUNERALS, methods of conducting, 164. 
 FURNITURE OF THE PILGRIMS AND PURITANS, 135; inventory of 
 
 the furniture of Elder Brewster, 260; inventory of household 
 
 goods of Governor John Winthrop, 260 ; of Mrs. Martha 
 
 Coytmore, 261. 
 
 GENERAL COURT OF MASSACHUSETTS, considers the complaint of 
 the Church of Springfield, 363 ; decides that the Council was 
 regular and legal, 363 ; that the magistrates had no right to 
 interfere, 364. 
 
 GOWN AND BANDS in the pulpit, 126. 
 
 GRASMERE PARISH CHURCH (England), note, 146. 
 
 HABEAS CORPUS, Writ of, insisted on, 62 ; refused, 63. 
 
 HALF-WAY COVENANT, 306; arose from regard for children, a 
 survival from the Church of England, 306 ; " Unseparated 
 Churches," 306 ; the grace of the Covenant, 307 ; why children 
 were baptized, 308; small number in the Churches in "full 
 Communion," 308 ; who are the subjects of baptism ? 310 ; de- 
 cision of the first Council, 309; the Synod of 1662, 309; its 
 decision, 310; dissent from these views, 310; Synodists and 
 Antisynodists, 311 ; leaders on the two sides ; call of Mr. Dav- 
 enport to Boston, 311 ; the Half- Way Covenant modified, 312; 
 reliance on outward forms, 313; the Lord's Supper a con- 
 verting ordinance, 313; results of these doctrines, 314, 336. 
 
 HARVARD COLLEGE, 103, 125, 132. 
 
 HARVARD, JOHN, 124. 
 
 HARVEST FESTIVAL at Plymouth, 263 ; wild game, exercise of 
 arms, 263 ; the Indians feasted, 264 ; not a religious festival, 
 264. 
 
 HENRY THE EIGHTH, Defender of the Faith, 10 ; law of the Six 
 Articles, 10; Progress of the Reformation, n. 
 
 HIGGINSON, FRANCIS, 88, 122, 158. 
 
 HIGH CHURCH PARTY IN ENGLAND, 42 ; reactionary party in the 
 Church, 43 ; the Real Presence in the Sacrament advocated, 59. 
 
 HINGHAM MEETING-HOUSE, 141. 
 
 HISTORIANS ON THE PURITANS: Macaulay, 3, 43; Hallam, 3; 
 Hume, 3; Carlyle, 3; Green, 14,41, 221 ; Bancroft, 58; Camp- 
 bell, 41. 
 
INDEX. 397 
 
 HISTORIC GENEALOGICAL SOCIETY OF NEW ENGLAND, its ne- 
 crology for 1893, 1894, and 1895, 274, 276. 
 
 HOLLAND, Influence of, xxxvii, 99, 109. 
 
 HOOKER'S ECCLESIASTICAL POLITY, 43. 
 
 HOOKER, THOMAS, graduated at the University at Cambridge, 
 125; invited to sit in the Westminster Assembly, 127; letter 
 on the suffrage, 168; sermon, 169; his published works, 289, 
 299; Grace is free, 300; The Free Will, 300; depravity, 301 ; 
 Redemption, 301 ; free invitations, 302. 
 
 HOPKINS, SAMUEL, 130. 
 
 HOSPITALITY OF THE PURITANS, 266 ; the two Friars, 267 ; the 
 Lord's-day, 267 ; second company of Frenchmen, 267 ; enter- 
 tained at the house of the Governor, 268 ; taken to the meeting- 
 house, 268 ; Father Gabriel Druillette, the Jesuit Missionary, 
 268-269 ; visit to Plymouth, a fish dinner on Friday, 270 ; visits 
 the Apostle Eliot, 270. 
 
 HOUSE OF COMMONS investigates abuses, 34, 45 ; refuses to vote 
 supplies without redress of abuses, 62. 
 
 HUTCHINSON, MRS. ANNE, 289 ; banished, 290. 
 
 HUTCHINSON, COLONEL JOHN, of Owthorpe, 78 ; personal descrip- 
 tion, 222; love of art, 223; respect for woman, hatred of per- 
 secution, conjugal affection, 223; love of a military life, 224; 
 saves the life of Cromwell, 224 ; dies in prison, 224. 
 
 HUGUENOTS, 33. 
 
 INDEPENDENT CHURCHES, 158. 
 
 INDIANS, conversion of, 91 ; their marks as signatures to a deed, 
 193 ; friendly relations, 199 ; their independence recognized, 199. 
 
 JAMES THE FIRST, his character, 35, 37, 38, 40; claims unlimited 
 power, 40, 46; his first Parliament, 45; second Parliament, 47; 
 third Parliament, 48; Journals of the Commons, 48; Book of 
 Sports, 49, 65 ; his French Alliance, 50. 
 
 JOHNSON, ISAAC, 186. 
 
 JUDGMENT, DAY OF, 120. 
 
 LAMBETH HOUSE, Conference, 36, 44. 
 
 LA TOUR visits Boston, 266-267 ; welcomed, saluted at his depar- 
 ture, 268. 
 
 LAUD, BISHOP OF LONDON, 59, 64; Archbishop of Canterbury, 64, 
 66,74; suppresses Puritan Lectureships, 64; feoff ments, 65; 
 committed to the tower, 74. 
 
398 INDEX. 
 
 LEGISLATION OF MASSACHUSETTS, 109, in ; in respect to heretics, 
 203 ; tended toward democracy, 256; regulated the sale of in- 
 toxicating drinks, 256. 
 
 LEGISLATION OF THE PURITANS in advance of their times, 251 ; 
 seventeenth century laws, 251 ; more merciful than those of Vir- 
 ginia, 253 ; or New York, or England, 252 ; capital crimes, 252 ; 
 English laws against Quakers, witchcraft, 253 ; blasphemy, pen- 
 alty for, in Maryland, 253; Puritan laws against Quakers, 254; 
 against witchcraft, 255. 
 
 LETTERS FROM ENGLAND in regard to Pynchon's book, 213; reply 
 from the Elders, 213. 
 
 LETTERS OF GOVERNOR WINTHROP TO HIS WIFE, and of Mar- 
 garet Winthrop to her husband, 227-232. 
 
 LETTERS OF GOVERNOR WINTHROP TO HIS SON, 231. 
 
 LEYDEN, the refuge of the Pilgrims, 56. 
 
 LIBRARIES of the Puritans, 124. 
 
 LIGHTING and warming the meeting-houses, 146. 
 
 LONGFELLOW, H. W., a student of New England history, 243; 
 descendant from John Alden, 273. 
 
 LONG PARLIAMENT, 71, 74, 75. 
 
 LORD'S-DAY began Saturday evening, 148 ; religious services* 
 149. 
 
 LORD'S SUPPER, mode of administering, 154. 
 
 LOTHROP, PARSON, 129. 
 
 LUTHER, 9. 
 
 LYCIDAS OF MILTON, 67. 
 
 MAGNA CHARTA, a Puritan watchword, 61. 
 
 MANNERS of the Early Ministers, 125-129, 130. 
 
 MARRIAGE by the Magistrate, 165. 
 
 MARTIN MAR-PRELATE TRACTS, 28 ; replies, 30. 
 
 MARTYRS OF THE SEPARATISTS, 25 ; Copping, Dennis, Thacker, 
 
 25 ; Henry Barrowe, 26; John Greenwood, John Penry, 27. 
 MARY, restores the Mass, n ; martyrs during her reign, 12. 
 MASSACHUSETTS, Government of, 100 ; order of nobility proposed, 
 
 100. 
 
 MATHER, COTTON, 121, 140, 189. 
 MATHER, INCREASE, 127. 
 MATHER, RICHARD, 108, 123; salary, 132; letters to England, 
 
 213. 
 
 MAYFLOWER, THE, 86, 136; departure of, 244. 
 Me KEEN, PRESIDENT JOSEPH, 382; preaching, 388. 
 
INDEX. 399 
 
 MEETING-HOUSES, 139; meaning of, 139; central building of the 
 town, 140 ; built of logs at first, square with pointed roof, 140 ; 
 examples of that style, 141 ; barn meeting-house, 142 ; sound- 
 ing-board, 142; benches, square pews, 143 ; third period, 144 ; 
 Christ Church, 144 ; Old South Meeting-house, 145. 
 
 MEETING-HOUSE, IN BRUNSWICK, 373 ; its environment, 374 ; the 
 East Meeting-house, 373, 379 ; no means of heating or lighting, 
 380. 
 
 MERITORIOUS PRICE OF OUR REDEMPTION. 200; published 1650, 
 copies now extant, 201 ; excitement kindled by the book, con- 
 demned to be burned, 201 ; answered by John Norton, 202 ; 
 letters from England concerning, 203 ; John Cotton explains the 
 action, 204; analysis of the book, 206; discussion of Scripture 
 texts, versions quoted, theologians quoted, 206 ; constructive 
 part of the book, 207; death of Christ a part of His obedience, 
 208. 
 
 MID-WEEK LECTURES, 156. 
 
 MILK FOR BABES, by John Cotton, 157, 286. 
 
 MILLENARY PETITION, 36, 70; Hampton Court Conference, 37; 
 an opportunity lost for the union of English Christians, 39; the 
 points of agreement proposed by the Puritans, 36 ; King James 
 determines to root out Puritanism, 38, 66, 95. 
 
 MILLER, REV. JOHN, of Brunswick, notices of, 375, note : length 
 of his ministry, 374 ; a decided Congregationalist, 384. 
 
 MILTON, JOHN, culture, love of liberty, 68 ; Lycidas, 67 ; love of 
 art, 78, 225. 
 
 MINISTERS, THE EARLY IN NEW ENGLAND, 117; representatives 
 of Puritans, 117; intense Protestants, 118; men of one book, 
 118; of education and culture, 120; original languages of the 
 Bible, 123; libraries, 124; dignity and courtliness, 125; gown 
 and bands, 126; dress of, 129; salaries, 132; dwellings, 135 ; 
 food, 137; preaching, 152; mid-week lectures, 156; parochial 
 work, 157; ordination of, 161. 
 
 MINISTERS IN MAINE, 381 ; description of Rev. Samuel Eaton, 
 382 ; President McKeen, 382 ; use of intoxicating liquors, 
 
 383. 
 
 MINISTERS LIMITED TO THE PARISH, 161. 
 MINISTRY OF THE CHURCH AT PLYMOUTH, Lyford, 104 ; Rogers, 
 
 Smith, Raynor, Charles Chauncy, 104, 106 ; John Cotton, Jr., 
 
 105. 
 MISTAKES OF THE PURITANS, 162; limited by their environment, 
 
 163; no public reading of the Bible without exposition, 163; 
 
4QO INDEX. 
 
 services at funerals, 164 ; marriage by the magistrate, 165 ; 
 
 days of the week by numerals, 166 ; festivals of the Christian 
 
 year, 167. 
 
 MOODY, JOSHUA, 1 19. 
 MOXON, GEORGE, 193 ; salary of, 193. 
 
 NEW ENGLAND THEOLOGY, 330, 383. 
 
 NEW ENGLAND TYPE of mind, 271 ; seventh generation from the 
 founders, 272 ; modified by other types, 273 ; examples of, in 
 our time, 273. 
 
 NEW HAMPSHIRE, 240. 
 
 NEW HAVEN, 108. 
 
 NON-CONFORMISTS prosecuted, 17; Dean of Christ Church in 
 prison, 17; ministers in London suspended, 17; John Foxe; 
 preaching in private houses forbidden, 19 ; Non-Conformists in 
 prison, 17, 19, 25-26. 
 
 NORTON, JOHN, graduates at Cambridge, 106, 123 ; minister of Ips- 
 wich, 123; salary of, 132; mid-week lectures, 156; answers the 
 book of Mr. Pynchon, 202, 290 ; minister of Boston, 209 ; pub- 
 lishes The Orthodox Evangelist, 295 ; Decrees of God, 295 ; 
 liberty of man, 296; the fall of man, 297; saving faith, 298; 
 justification, 298. 
 
 OFFICERS OF A PURITAN CHURCH, 160. 
 
 OLD COLONY LEGISLATION, democratic, 98 ; no religious test, 99 ; 
 severity of it, 109; Quakers at Plymouth, 109-110; witch- 
 craft, no. 
 
 OLD COLONY MINISTERS : Ralph Partridge, John Lothrop, Henry 
 Dunster, Samuel Newman, Charles Chauncy, 106. 
 
 ORDER OF SERVICES on Sunday, 149. 
 
 ORDINATION OF MINISTERS, 158, 160. 
 
 PACKARD, PROF. ALPHEUS S., 381. 
 
 PALFREY, DR. J. G., 60, 78, 85, 89, 121, 138, 325. 
 
 PARK, PROF. EDWARDS A., 128. 
 
 PARLIAMENTARY LEADERS : Pym, 47, 48, 73, 75 ; Eliot, 47, 48, 60, 
 63, 66, 71, 84; Coke, 47, 48, 75; John Hampden, 61, 70, 72, 
 75 ; trial of Hampden's cause, 72 ; Rex is lex, 73. 
 
 PAROCHIAL WORK OF THE EARLY MINISTERS, 157; pastoral vis- 
 iting, in the eighteenth century, 384; methodical and faith- 
 ful, 385- 
 
 PARSONS, HUGH, tried for witchcraft, 196. 
 
INDEX. 4OI 
 
 PETITION OF RIGHT, 61. 
 
 PHILLIPS, SAMUEL, 128. 
 
 PILGRIM CHURCH in Plymouth, 94, 98. 
 
 PILGRIM FATHERS, 49; Gainsborough-upon-Trent, 51; Scrooby, 
 51 ; spirit of the Pilgrims, 53-57 ; their sufferings, 52, 54, 55 ; 
 their departure for Holland, 54-55 ; in Amsterdam, 56 ; remove 
 to Leyden, 56 ; reasons for their going to America, 57 ; their 
 departure, 57, 84 ; poetic quality in Pilgrim history, 101 ; their 
 legislation, 109; Quakers at Plymouth, 109-110. 
 
 PILGRIM MODEL OF A CHURCH adopted, 94, 96. 
 
 PILGRIMS, THE, PIONEERS, 236 ; without domestic animals, 236 ; 
 or ploughs, without milk or butter, 236 ; without nourishing 
 food, 237; or suitable clothing, 237; compared with Jacob and 
 his sons, 238; in debt to the Company in England, 238; ex- 
 posed to savages, 239. 
 
 PLYMOUTH COLONY, 84; government of, 98 ; no religious tests, 99, 
 101, 102, 170. 
 
 POLITY OF THE EARLY CHURCHES, 177; the Cambridge Platform, 
 179; fellowship of the Churches, 180, 285. 
 
 POLITICAL ELEMENTS IN THE PURITAN CAUSE, 39. 
 
 POVERTY OF THE PIONEER SETTLERS IN MAINE, 380 ; the pillion, 
 number of wheeled carriages, 380. 
 
 PREACHING IN BRUNSWICK in the last century, 383; doctrines 
 preached, catechising, 383. 
 
 PRESBYTERIANS IN MAINE, 372; first church in Brunswick Presby- 
 terian, 378 ; became Congregational, 379. 
 
 PRESBYTERIAN ORDINATION recognized by the Church of Eng- 
 land, 42. 
 
 PRINCE, THOMAS, 327. 
 
 PRINTING-PRESSES, not allowed, 20, 28, 31. 
 
 PRISCILLA MULLINS, 243 ; reply to Standish, 244. 
 
 PROTESTANT EXILES return to England, 16. 
 
 PROTESTANT REFORMATION in England, 9; the Puritan protest 
 against error, 282 ; love of the Bible, 282 ; the Lord's-day, 283. 
 
 PROTESTANT REFUGEES IN ENGLAND, 16, 33. 
 
 PROVINCE OF MASSACHUSETTS, 170,338 ; provisions of its charter, 
 union of Church and State, 339; no religious test for the Suf- 
 frage, 340. 
 
 PUBLIC WORSHIP, 147 ; attendance required by law, 148 ; began at 
 9 o'clock, 148; called at beat of the drum, 149; order of ser- 
 vices, 149; prayers, 149; exposition, singing, 150; sermons, 
 152; afternoon services, 154; contributions, 155. 
 26 
 
4O2 INDEX. 
 
 PUBLIC WORSHIP, AND THE SACRAMENTS, in Maine, 374 ; how the 
 Lord's Supper was administered, 379; baptism, 379; regular 
 services on the Lord's-day, 380. 
 
 PURITANS IN ENGLAND, 5, 14, 16; origin of the word, 16; Religio 
 purissima, 16; division of the Puritans, 21; rapid growth of 
 Puritanism, 30 ; political elements in the Puritan cause, 39; the 
 defenders of liberty, 39, 45, 76, 92; requests from the Church 
 of England, 36 ; their so-called bigotry, causes, 68 ; migration 
 to New England, 69, 79; limitations of the Puritans, 76; their 
 culture, 78, 79 ; John Owen, 78 ; Colonel John Hutchinson, 78, 
 222-225 ; their colleges, 79; their influence, 80 ; causes of the 
 fall of the Commonwealth, 75-76. 
 
 PURITANS IN NEW ENGLAND, N on- Conformists, 84 ; from the 
 upper middle classes, 90 ; political plans, 92 ; suffrage restricted 
 by a religious test, 100; thrifty and prosperous people, 102; 
 their intellectual spirit, 106; Harvard College, Cambridge 
 Platform, 107; their legislation, 111,251. 
 
 PURITANS IN MASSACHUSETTS, provided with cattle and other 
 domestic animals, 239 ; often destitute of nourishing food, 240 ; 
 visited by sickness, 240 ; dependent on a wind-mill, 240 ; in- 
 fluence of, 273-276, 306. 
 
 PURITAN INFLUENCE IN NEW ENGLAND, 4 ; numbers who came 
 from England, 4 ; proportion of Puritan descent, 5. 
 
 PURITAN MINISTERS SILENCED, 20, 64, 67. 
 
 PURITAN OBJECTIONS TO SEPARATISTS, 94. 
 
 PURITAN SCRUPLES about Conformity, 15. 
 
 PURITAN TYPE, THE, 271 ; compared with the Greek type, 271 ; 
 Patricians of Rome, 272. 
 
 PYNCHON RECORD BOOK, 194. 
 
 PYNCHON, WILLIAM, GENT., 185; ancestry, 186; portrait, 187; 
 education, member of the Massachusetts Company, Treasurer, 
 188; fur-trader, 188; house lot, 192; magistrate, 192, 194; 
 controls trade with the Indians, 199; gains a large fortune, 
 200 ; publishes a book in 1650, 200 ; the Meritorious Price of 
 our Redemption, 200; called to answer before the General 
 Court, 202 ; required to retract ; causes of the excitement, poli- 
 tics in the case, 202 ; his scholarship, 206 ; constructive part of 
 his book, 207 ; confers with the Elders, 209 ; explains his opin- 
 ions before the General Court, 210 ; meaning of his letter to the 
 Court, 210; left out of the magistracy, 211; placed under 
 bonds, 212; returns to England, 212; Wraysbury, literary occu- 
 pations, 215; Works, 215-216; family, 217; portrait, 218; 
 book, 290, 338. 
 
INDEX. 403 
 
 QUAKERS, their treatment in England, 174 ; reasons why they were 
 not tolerated in New England, 175 ; four of them put to death, 
 175 ; repeal of the law, 175, 254. 
 
 REACTIONARY PARTY IN THE CHURCH, 43 ; advocates passive 
 obedience, 45 ; the divine right of kings, 41, 46, 59 ; the high 
 prerogatives of the king, 47 ; Montague, 59 ; Mainwaring, 59. 
 
 REASONS FOR EXCLUDING those not of their way of thinking, 93. 
 
 REFORMATION IN ENGLAND, 9; Luther, 9; difference between 
 German Reformation and the English, 9. 
 
 REFORMING SYNOD, 315. 
 
 RELIGION IN PURITAN LIFE, 262. 
 
 REPUBLICS OF GREECE, 85. 
 
 REVIVALS OF RELIGION, few, 313; The Great Awakening, 314, 
 338 ; revivals in Maine, 385 ; in Harpswell, 386 ; in North 
 Yarmouth, 386. 
 
 RHODE ISLAND, 240. 
 
 RING IN MARRIAGE, 15. 
 
 ROBINSON, REV. JOHN, 52, 94, 120. 
 
 ROMANISM in the Church of England, 59, 65, 66, 84, 95. 
 
 ROMANISTS, numbers of in England, 1 5. 
 
 ROYAL COMMISSIONERS, 105, 123. 
 
 RUTHERFORD, REV. ROBERT, 374 and note ; length of pastorate, 
 374- 
 
 SABBATH, THE PURITAN VIEW concerning, 65, 148, 268, 282-283; 
 Book of Sports, 65, 283. 
 
 SALEM, First Church formed, 97, 159. 
 
 SAVOY CONFESSION, 319; an improvement on the Westminster 
 Confession, 320 ; adopted in Boston, 1680, 320 ; reaffirmed 
 1865, 321. 
 
 SAYBROOK PLATFORM, 321 ; influence of, 328 ; in the second 
 century, 336. 
 
 SCOTTISH WAR in 1640, 73. 
 
 SECOND CENTURY in New England History, 335 ; period of trans- 
 ition, improved buildings, and ways of living 336; Half-way 
 Covenant, 336; Yale College, 336; Saybrook platform, 336; 
 Arminian theology, 336. 
 
 SEPARATISTS, origin of, 21; Separatist Church in Norwich, 22; 
 Separatists in London, 24 ; persecution of, 25 ; martyrs, 25-28. 
 
 SERMONS OF THE PURITAN MINISTERS, 152; not written; length, 
 153- 
 
404 INDEX. 
 
 SERVICE OF SONG IN MASSACHUSETTS, 150; in Brunswick, 379; 
 number of tunes, 381; version of psalms, 381. 
 
 SETTLEMENT FOR THE MINISTER, 132, 340. 
 
 SEVENTEENTH CENTURY, 233 ; belief in witchcraft, 234 ; cruel pun- 
 ishments, 234; slavery, 234; simple life, reverence, dignity, 235; 
 respect for philosophy and religion, 235 ; its great poets and 
 statesmen, 236. 
 
 SHEPARD, THOMAS, personal history, 106, 292 ; pastor of the Church 
 in Cambridge, 293 ; his views in theology, 293 ; his works, 292 
 note. 
 
 SHIP-MONEY, 72, 74. 
 
 SIMPLE COBBLER OF AGAWAM, 258. 
 
 SINGING, 150; no instruments of music, 150; psalter of Ainsworth, 
 Bay Psalm Book, tunes used, 150; no choirs, 152; singing by 
 note, or by rote, 151 ; decline of church music (note), reform 
 in methods of singing, 151; church choirs, 152; in Maine, 
 
 379- 
 SKELTON, SAMUEL, 122, 158. 
 
 SOCIAL DISTINCTIONS, 143 ; the titles Mr. and Mrs., 256 ; Good- 
 man and Goodwife, 257 ; loss of the title by a misdemeanor, 
 257 ; catalogues of Harvard, 257 ; the title Sir, 257. 
 
 SOUNDING BOARD, 141 ; in English churches (note), 142. 
 
 SPRINGFIELD, Settlement of, 191 ; mutual agreement, 191, 195 ; 
 number of families, allotment of land, 191 ; Agawam, 191 ; agree- 
 ment with the Indians, 192; jury, 194; sets up a government, 
 195 ; town-meeting, 197; penalty for carrying fire ; standard of 
 measure; monthly training, powder not to be sold to Indians, 
 197; wages of carpenters, 198 ; other laborers; penalty for re- 
 fusing to serve as an officer of the town ; stipend paid for beat- 
 ing the drum for the meetings, 198. 
 
 SPRINGFIELD IN ITS SECOND CENTURY, 337; towns in the Con- 
 necticut Valley, Association of Ministers, 337. 
 
 STAFFORD IMPEACHED, 74. 
 
 STANDISH, MILES, 243. 
 
 STAR CHAMBER, 20. 
 
 SUFFRAGE LIMITED by a religious test, 99, 168, 169. 
 
 SUPPORT OF MINISTERS, 130; voluntary contributions, 131; tax 
 by authority of the Colony, 131 ; salaries of, 132; " settlement," 
 132; not poor men, 134 ; qualifications, 339 ; method of select- 
 ing a minister, 340 ; support of, 340. 
 
 SYNOD OF 1637, 289; condemns eighty-two erroneous views, 290. 
 
 SYNOD OF CAMBRIDGE, 1646, 107, 178, 291. 
 
INDEX. 405 
 
 SYNOD OF 1679, 315; time and place of meeting, 315; questions 
 before it, 315; statement of the sins of New England, 316- 
 318; recommendations, 318; seconded by the General Court, 
 318 ; and by the Churches, results, 319 ; adjourned meeting of 
 the Synod, 319; Savoy Synod, and its confession, 319-320; 
 The Boston Synod adopts its confession, 320 ; amendments, 
 320; Congregational Council of 1865,321; influence of this 
 Confession, 321, 327. 
 
 TABLE FURNITURE, 137. 
 TAX FOR SUPPORT OF CHURCHES, 100. 
 TEA, not in use, 138. 
 TENNYSON, quoted, 112. 
 
 THANKSGIVING DAYS, 167 ; days of fasting, 167. 
 THIRTY YEARS WAR, 34, 50. 
 
 TRANSLATIONS OF THE BIBLE, Wyclifs, 6; Tyndale's, n ; Cover- 
 dale's, ii ; King James', 37. 
 
 UNITARIANISM IN NEW ENGLAND, origin of, 313. 
 
 VANE, SIR HENRY, 185, 213. 
 
 VERSIONS quoted in Mr. Pynchon's book, 206. 
 
 WARD, NATHANIEL, 255 ; author of Body of Liberties, and the 
 Simple Cobbler of Agawam, 258. 
 
 WAREHOUSE POINT, 199. 
 
 WATER MILL, the first, 241. 
 
 WESTMINSTER ASSEMBLY, date of, 204; statement of its doctrines 
 concerning Atonement, 205. 
 
 WHITE, REV. JOHN, of Dorchester, England, 89. 
 
 WHITGIFT, ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY, 18. 
 
 WILLARD'S, SAMUEL, Body of Divinity, 283 ; earliest folio in New 
 England, 302; evidence for the Bible, 303; inspiration; elec- 
 tion, 303; Redemption, 304 ; Person of Christ, Inability, 304; 
 difference between this theology and that of Hooker, 305. 
 
 WILLIAMS, ROGER, 122, 171, 173; recalled, 174, 306. 
 
 WILLIAM THE SILENT, 76, 84. 
 
 WILSON, JOHN, 121, 132. 
 
 WINDMILL SET UP IN NEWTOWN, 240; in Boston, 241. 
 
 WINE AND SPIRITUOUS LIQUORS, 139. 
 
 WINSLOW, GOVERNOR EDWARD, 90, 96, 185. 
 
 WINTHROP, ADAM, 226. 
 
406 INDEX. 
 
 WINTHROP, GOVERNOR JOHN, address on leaving England, 88; 
 
 results from his death, 203 ; birth, 226 ; commemorated by 
 
 statues, 226; marriage to Margaret Tyndal, 226; letters to his 
 
 wife from Groton, 227 ; from London, 229; Southampton, 230; 
 
 from the Arabella, 230; from Massachusetts, 232; writes a 
 
 history, 233. 
 WINTHROP, MARGARET, 226; letters to her husband, 228-230; 
 
 sails in the ship Lyon j reception by the people in Boston, 232. 
 WINTHROP, ROBERT C, 276. 
 WITCHCRAFT, Pilgrim laws against, no; common belief in, 176; 
 
 numbers put to death in Europe, 177 ; trial for witchcraft in 
 
 Springfield, 196; belief in, in the seventeenth century, 234; 
 
 English laws against, 253 ; Puritan laws, 255 ; reasons why 
 
 the prosecutions ceased, 255. 
 WRAYSBURY, home of Mr. Pynchon, 214, 215. 
 WYCLIF, JOHN, date of his birth, 6 ; translation of the Bible, 6; 
 
 earliest English Reformer, 6; the Lollards, 7 ; persecuted, 8. 
 
 YALE COLLEGE, 336; its President at the Council in Springfield, 
 355- 
 
 ZEALOUS PROTESTANTS, 282 ; appealed to the Bible, justification 
 by faith, sanctity of the Lord's-day, 282. 
 
14 DAY USE 
 
 RETURN TO DESK FROM WHICH BORROWED 
 
 LOAN DEPT. 
 
 RENEWALS ONLYTEL. NO. 642-3405 
 This book is due on the last date stamped below, or 
 
 on the date to which renewed. 
 Renewed books are subject to immediate recall. 
 
 J 
 
 
 u 
 
 p^ 
 
 
 SBl^ 69 
 
 UflPfifi 19739! 
 
 
 " JL 
 
 
 C 'JUNGS 197? 
 
 
 
 307 4 pM Q t 
 
 RFC D ID MAY 
 
 
 
 JAf 8EK o 6 1 V 
 
 
 
 hW 
 
 
 r~> 
 
 
 
 
 
 Ll 
 
 
 7 
 
 
 LD21A-60m-6 '69 T . Gn . eral f ^"fy . 
 Jronofin Tn ^ TR A T University of California 
 
 Berkeley 
 
 LD 21A-60m-3,'65 
 (F2336slO)476B 
 
 Unirersity of California 
 Berkeley 
 
. . : 2I55S6 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY 
 

 : - -": .