USA > Connecticut > A complete history of Connecticut, civil and ecclesiastical, from the emigration of its first planters, from England, in the year 1630, to the year 1764; and to the close of the Indian wars > Part 18
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171
CONNECTICUT.
CHAP. VIII.
This fanatical spirit prevailed principally in the coun- Book II. ties of New-London and Windham. There was also something of the same spirit in the county of Hartford, in 1742. the towns of Windsor, of Suffield, and in Middletown. The separations began, and principally prevailed in these counties.
In Stonington, there was an early and large separa- tion, especially from the church under the pastoral care of the Rev. Mr. Fish. Perceiving the errors of his people, and sensible that many of them, not excepting some of the members of his church, were very ignorant, he took great pains to instruct them, in private as well as public, and to convince them of their errors. But they appeared haugh- ty and self-sufficient, and, in their own opinion, were much wiser than their teacher, whom they treated with great abuse. They took great offence at a sermon he preached from Ephes. v. 1 .- Be ye therefore followers of God, as dear children. The principal design of the sermon, was to show what is was to follow God, or in what true reli- gion consisted, which was the same thing. It was observ- ed, that following God, as dear children, implied mens' giving themselves wholly to him, to be governed by his commands ; that it implied an imitation of him in his moral perfections, &c. It was insisted, that true religion con- sisted in thus following God ; and that in this we had an infallible rule of trial, whether we were God's children or not. It was inferred, that true religion did not consist in extacies, in crying out in the time of public worship, in powerful impressions, in lively imaginations, or visions of a bleeding Saviour, &c. ; that though the saints might have these things, yet that they were no evidences of a gracious state. On this the house was filled with outcries against the preacher. He was declared to be an opposer of the work of God, making the hearts of his children sad, and strengthening the hands of the wicked. From this time, divisions and prejudices sprang up, increased and became settled. Disregarding their covenant vows, which they had so lately entered into with their pastor and breth- ren ; without taking any pains to reform the church, with respect to those things they conceived to be amiss, or with- out regarding the pains and remonstrances of their pastor and brethren to dissuade them ; a large number finally separated themselves from this and all the standing churches.
They alledged as reasons for their separation, that the Reasons standing churches were not true churches, but of anti- for separa- christ : That hypocrisy was encouraged in them, and tion.
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Book II. they could have no communion with hypocrites. They maintained that the church should be pure, undefiled with 1742. hypocrisy, and that no hypocrite could abide with them. Upon this principle, the separate churches set out. They publicly professed themselves to be elected of God, given to Christ, and effectually called, and as such, they cove. nanted together .* They maintained that the whole power of ordination was in the church. They objected against their pastor for using notes, and at the same time, praying for assistance in preaching. They maintained that God had redeemed their souls, and that they were not bound to rites and forms, but had liberty to worship where they thought fit. They objected that there was not that liber- ty in the standing churches, and that food for their souls, which they found in the meeting of the brethren. ' Because ministers studied their sermons, they called their exer- cises, preaching out of the head, and declared that they could not be edified by it. They maintained, that there was no need of any thing more than common learning, to qualify men for the ministry ; that if a man had the spirit of God, it was no matter whether he had any learning at all. Indeed, the first separatists at Stonington, held to a special revelation of some facts, or future events, not re- vealed in the scriptures. They elected their first minister by revelation. In less than one year, they chose, ordain- cd, silenced, cast him out of the church, and delivered him up to satan.t
The same spirit and delusions were spreading and tak- ing deep root, in some of the neighbouring towns, Pres- ton, Lyme, Norwich, Canterbury, Mansfield and Plain- field, and afterwards terminated in large separations, and the establishment of independent churches.
General associa- tion, June 15th, 1742. Resolu- tions.
When the general' association met in June, at New- London, they passed the several resolutions following :
" This general association being of opinion, that the God of all grace has been mercifully pleased to remember and visit his people, by stirring up great numbers among us to a concern for their souls, and to be asking the way to Zion, with their faces thitherward, which we desire to take notice of with great thankfulness to the Father of mer- cies : Being also of the opinion, that the great enemy of souls, who is ever ready with his devices to check, damp and destroy the work of God, is very busy for that pur- pose : we think it our duty to advise and intreat the minis-
* See their confession of faith and covenant, published by the consocia- -fion of Windham County. i
# Fish's Sermons.
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ters and churches of the colony, and recommend it to the Book II. several particular associations, to stand well upon their guard, in such a day as this, that no detriment arise to the 1743. interest of our great Lord and master Jesus Christ.
" Particularly, that no errors in doctrine, whether from among ourselves, or foreigners, nor disorders in practice, do get in among us, or tares be sown in the Lord's field.
" That seasonable and due testimony be borne against such errors and irregularities, as do already prevail among some persons ; as particularly the depending upon and fol- lowing impulses and impressions made on the mind, as though they were immediate revelations of some truth or duty, that is not revealed in the word of God : Laying too much weight on bodily agitations, raptures, extacics, vis- ions, &c. : Ministers disorderly intruding into other minis- ters parishes : Laymen taking it upon them, in an un- warrantable manner, publicly to teach and exhort: Rash censuring and judging of others : That the elders be care- ful to take hecd to themselves and doctrine, that they may save themselves, and those that hear them : That they ap- prove themselves in all things as the ministers of God, by honor and dishonor, by good report and evil report : That none be lifted up by applause to a vain conccit, nor any be cast down by any contempt thrown upon them, to the neglect of their work ; and that they study unity, love and peace among themselves.
" And further, that they endcavour to heal the unhappy divisions that are already made in some of the churches, and that the like may for the future be prevented :- That a just deference be paid to the laws of the magistrate late- ly made to suppress disorders : That no countenance be given to such as trouble our churches, who are, according to the constitution of our churches, under censure, sus- pension, or deposition, for errors in doctrine or life."
The General Assembly, at their session in May, with a view to suppress enthusiasm, and separations by sanction The act of law, repealed the act made for the relief of sober con- made for sciences, so that now there was no relief for any persons gence of dissenting from the established mode of worship in Con-
the indul-
sober con- necticut, but upon application to the assembly, who were sciences is growing more rigid in enforcing the constitution. The act repealed. of repeal, gave liberty for sober dissenters to apply to the 1743. assembly for relief, and promised that they should be heard, and that such persons as had any distinguishing character by which they might be known, as distinct from presby- terians and congregationalists, might expect the indul- gence of the assembly, upon their taking the oaths and
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Book II. subscribing the declaration, provided by the act of parlia- ment, in cases of the like nature .*
1743. The Rev. John Ow- en, to be arrested.
At the same session, the secretary of the colony was or- dered to issue a writ to the sheriff of the county of New- London, to arrest the Rev. John Owen, of Groton, and bring him before the assembly, to answer for uttering hard speeches, scandalizing the laws and officers of the gov- ernment, and for broaching principles tending to bring the government into contempt.
Oct. 1743.
When the assembly met in October, judging that the ec- clesiastical law against foreigners coming into the colony, was not sufficiently severe, they further enacted, That if any person that is a foreigner, or stranger, and not an in- habitant of this colony, shall return into the same again, at any time, after he has been, by order of authority, trans- ported out of the bounds of the colony, and shall preach, teach, or exhort, in any town or society in this colony, it shall be the duty of any magistrate or justice of the peace, who shall be informed of it, to cause such person to be ap- apprehended and brought before him ; and such person, having been found guilty, shall be bound in the penal sum of one hundred pounds, lawful money, to his peaceable and good behaviour, and that he will not offend again in like manner; and that he shall pay down the cost of his transportation ; and that the county court may further bind him during pleasure.t
As the secretary had neglected to issue his writ for the arresting of Mr. John Owen, until just before the session of the assembly, and until after he was gone out of the colony, so that he had not been arrested, the secretary was now ordered to arrest him and bring him before the asscm- bly, as he had been before directed,
The secretary, at the same time, was required to arrest. the body of Mr. Benjamin Pomeroy, clerk, of Hebron, wherever he might be found, and bring him before the as- sembly, to answer for such matters and things as are ob- jected and complained of against him, on his majesty's be- half.
The legislature not only enacted these severe and un- precedented laws, but they proceeded to deprive of their offices, such of the justices of the peace and other officers, .as were new lights, as they were called, or who favoured their cause. There were no such laws in any of the other colonies, nor were there in Great Britain. Many, both ministers and people, considered them as invasions of the laws of Christ, as well as wholly inconsistent with the Records of the colony, May, 1743. + Records of Connecticut, Oct. 1743.
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CHAP. VIII.
rights of conscience, as making crimes of those things Book II. which the protestant reformers and the puritans had not only judged to be right, but matter of indispensable duty. 1744. They considered the laws as abominable, and, in some in- stances, spake their minds very freely ; more freely, per- haps, than was consistent with prudence or safety.
In May, 1744, Mr. John Owen, and Mr. Pomeroy, were May, 1744, brought before the assembly, to answer to complaints ex- hibited against them.
Mr. Owen, on making some concessions, was dismissed, on paying the cost of prosecution ; the assembly imputing his fault rather to a misguided conscience, overheated zeal, and the difficulty of the times, than to a contempt of the laws and authority of the government.
Mr. Pomeroy was brought before the assembly, in con- sequence of a bill of indictment filed against him by Elihu Hall, Esq. of Wallingford, for publicly saying, that the late laws of this colony, made concerning ecclesiastical affairs, were a great foundation to encourage persecution, and to encourage wicked men to break their covenants ; and that if they did not, it was no thanks to the court : and that the law, which was made to stop ministers from going about to preach in other towns, was made without reason, and was contrary to the word of God. And on another bill he was indicted, for saying, on the fast day, that the great men had fallen in with those that were on the devil's side, and ene- mies to the kingdom of Christ ; that they had raised such persecution in the land, that if there be a faithful minister of the Lord Jesus, he must lose his estate ; that if there be a faithful man in civil authority, he must lose his honour and usefulness ; and that there was no colony so bad as Connecticut, for persecuting laws ; or to that effect.
The assembly appointed Daniel Edwards, Esq. to man- age the prosecution against Mr. Pomeroy, before them. Mr. Pomeroy made such concessions as he judged he could with a good conscience ; but as the principal things were known facts ; that there were no such laws in any other colony in New-England or America ; and as he believed, in his conscience, that they were contrary to the word of GOD, of a persecuting nature, and laid a foundation for peo- ple to break their covenants with their ministers, and with- hold from them stipulated salaries, without any fault of theirs, he could not make any such retraction as the as- sembly would accept. He, therefore, was put upon his trial. He had many powerful friends ; and though the majority of the assembly and people were old lights, yet the new lights, as they were called, were a numerous and
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Book II. strong party, and great efforts were made to save him. All was said against the laws, and in his favour, which the 1744. best attornies thought prudent and best to plead; but the assembly judged him guilty of the charges, ordered him to pay the cost of prosecution, and to be bound to his peace- able and good behaviour, in a bond of fifty pounds, until May, 1744. the session in the next May; and then to appear before the assembly, and, on condition of his peaceable beha- viour till that time, to take up his bond .*
While Mr. Pomeroy was deprived of his lawful salary, and thus harassed and put to expense, he had this conso- lation,-that his people were generally pious, peaceable, and friendly; and expressed their good will towards him, in voluntarily supporting him ; and while large separations were going off from other ministers and churches, not a family or individual was separating from him. He was popular, and wherever he preached, people would flock to hear him.
Every measure appears to have been taken to suppress the zealous, experimental preachers and people, both by the legislature and the leaders among the clergy. Num- bers of them were Arminians, preachers of a dead, cold morality, without any distinction of it from heathen morali- ty, by the principles of evangelical love and faith. Ex- perimental religion, and zeal and engagedness in preach- ing, and in serving God, were termed enthusiasm. And great advantage was taken, by reason of the wild, enthusi- astic errors, which some unhappily imbibed, to decry the whole work as delusion, and the work of the devil. The clergy, who were in opposition to the work, strove to en- force the constitution, in a rigid manner, beyond its true meaning and original design. The exclusion of ministers from preaching in their pulpits, who were orthodox, and zealously preached the doctrines which were contained in the confession of faith, adopted by the constitution, and who were moral in their lives, to whom they had given the right hand of fellowship, was entirely unconstitutional, and perhaps as great a disorder, as ministers preaching in a parish, without the consent of the pastor and church in said parish. The ecclesiastical constitution of the colony; warranted no such measures. The ministers of each as- sociation were amenable to each other, and, until found guilty of error, mal-administration, or immoral conduct, upon a fair and candid hearing, before the association, or consociation, to which they belonged, had a right to be received and treated as brethren. The prohibiting their * The cost of prosecution, was £32, 10s. 8d.
CHAP. VIII.
CONNECTICUT. 177
preaching in the pulpits and parishes of their brethren, Book II. was so far from according with the constitution, that it was a violation of it.
1744.
While the civilians were making and enforcing their se- vere laws, the clergy were adopting measures no less se- vere and unconstitutional. They suspended their mem- bers from their communion, for going to hear Mr. White- field, Mr. Wheelock, Mr. Pomeroy, and other zealous preachers. In some instances, ministers did it by their own power, without ever consulting their churches, or giv- ing them a hearing before their brethren. Some, for this great fault, were excluded from church communion ten and twelve years, or more, until the pastors who suspended them were dead, and others succeeded them.
The consociations, to guard against zealous preachers, or such as were strictly orthodox, ordained young men, in some instances, where there were strong parties in oppo- sition to their settlement ; and in some instances, it seems, against a majority of the church, and even where there was not a majority of the lawful voters in favour of the settle- Ordination ment. In 1738, the consociation of New-Haven county, of Mr. ordained Mr. Samuel Whittelsey at Milford, against a large Whittel- minority in the church and town, who objected to his doc- sey, 1738. trines and preaching. There were warm debates in the council, and opposition to the ordination. Governor Law, and other principal men in the town, were in the majority, and engaged for his settlement. Mr. Whittelsey, of Wal- Jingford, was his father, and an influential character among the ministers, and he was exceedingly interested in the set- tlement of his son, Mr. Noyes, of New-Haven, was close- ly united with him. Mr. Hall, of Cheshire, was brother in law to governor Law, and zealously wished the ordination, and finally the point was carried. In consequence, a num- ber of the church and society withdrew from his ministry, and professed themselves to be presbyterians ; they were strictly calvinistic, and a strict and zealous people, both as to doctrines and morals. They sent into New-Jersey, to obtain a preacher, who was a presbyterian. They ob- tained Mr. Finley to preach to them, a man of genius, and of an unblemished character. He was afterwards presi- dent of the college in New-Jersey. But he was once or twice, by virtue of the transporting law, carried, as a va- grant, out of the colony ; and the people were obliged, about twelve years, to pay their rates to Mr. Whittelsey, and to be at all charges with the first society, in building and repairing their meeting-houses .*
* They were released from taxes in the session in May, 1750, so long as they should continue to worship by themselves.
X .
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BOOK II. The consociation of Windham, proceeded to ordain Mr. James Cogswell, at Canterbury, against a majority of the Dec.28th, church, as has been alledged ; in consequence of a major, 1744. vote of the society. If this was a fact, that a majority of the church were against the settlement of Mr. Cogswell, as those who separated always affirmed, it was unconstitu- tional, and contrary to the universal practice in those cases. The platform expressly provides, that in the ordination of a minister, there shall be a majority of the church.
Separation at Canter- bury.
About fifty families entirely separated from the church and society, and held meetings by themselves. They al- ledged that the consociation had ordained Mr. Cogswell in opposition to a majority, that they had taken seventeen members who were delinquents, and some of them under, censure, and treated them as in good standing. They ob- jected against the standing churches that they received members into full communion without any examination in- to their experience, maintaining that men of good mo- ral characters ought to be admitted to full communion, though unconverted, that they might be under proper or- dinances for their conversion : That they baptized children of parents, neither of which were in full communion. That the ecclesiastical constitution of Connecticut, set the majority of the society of unregenerate men above the church : That Christ was the head of the church ; but the magistrates, the ecclesiastical constitution, and the major vote of the society, was the head of the Connecticut church- es : That the constitution and laws were unjust, oppressive and persecuting. In short, they maintained that the stand- ing churches were antichristian, and that all good people ought to come out from them and be separate : That it was idolatry to pay any thing to the standing ministry, and that none could do it with a good conscience. They repre- sented that the magistrates, ministers, and people who were joining with them, belonged to the generation of the per- secutors, on whom would come all the blood shed from the foundation of the world .* They held to a certain knowl- edge of the saints : denounced Mr. Cogswell as an uncon- verted man, who had no acquaintance with experimental religion, and often treated him with scurrility, with pro- vocation and abuse. They held their meetings in a pri- vate house, and their exhorters conducted their public worship, ministered, and preached. In consequence of this, some of them were arrested, condemned, and sen- tenced to be bound in a bond of an hundred pounds, not to
Exhorters and lay preachers imprison- ed.
* See Solomon Paine's short view of the difference between the church of Christ and the established churches in the colony of Connecticut.
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offend again in the like manner. But as they imagined it Book II. was their indispensable duty to exhort and teach the peo- ple, and as they determined to teach and exhort when they 1744. should have opportunity, they would not give bonds, and so were committed to prison, and kept a long time from their families, and from the worship and communion of their brethren, and endured much hardship in their long con- finement. Others were arrested and imprisoned for re- fusing to pay their minister's rates, which were laid upon them, though they had acted against his settlement and withdrawn themselves wholly from his ministry. Others A had their cattle and goods taken and sold at the post at half their value, to pay for the support of the minister of the parish. These violent measures, instead of checking the separation, and conciliating the minds of the people, alienated them more and more from the constitution and standing churches, and confirmed them in their belief that they were right, and actually suffering in the cause of Christ.
There was another circumstance which took place at this time, which had the same unhappy effect. There were two Cleavelands, John and Ebenezer, who were students in Yale College, whose parents it seems were of the number who had separated from the ministry of Mr. Cogswell, and attended. the separate meetings at a private house, which they had a- greed upon for that purpose. These young gentlemen, while at home, during the vacation in September, attended the separate meetings with their parents. One of them, it seems, was a member of the separate church. For this and their neglect to confess their fault in that respect, they were both expelled from college. The act of expulsion, and the reasons given for it, will exhibit the fullest account of this affair. It is in the words following :'
" YALE COLLEGE, Nov. 19th, 1744. Present, the Rector and Tutors.
" Upon information that John Cleaveland, and Ebene- The zer Cleaveland, members of this college, withdrew from Cleave- the public worship of God, in the meeting-house in Canter- lands ex- pelled bury, carried on by Mr. Cogswell, a licensed and approv- from col- ed candidate for the ministry, preaching there at the de- lege. sire of the first parish or society in Canterbury, with the special direction of the association of the county of Wind- ham; and that they the said Cleavelands, with sundry others, belonging to Canterbury and Plainfield, did go and attend upon a private separate meeting, in a private house, for divine worship, carried on principally by one Solomon Paine, a lay exhorter, on several sabbaths in September
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Book II. or October last ; the said Cleaveland's being several times sent for, acknowledged the facts, as above related. 1744. and justified what they had done, and gave the reasons. Act of ex- given in writing by the said separatists, for their separa- pulsion. tion aforesaid, the most material of which are these, viz : That the first society in Canterbury keep up only the form- of godliness, and deny the life, power and spirituality of it, and had given Mr. Cogswell a call, in order for settle- ment, whom they the said separates had declared to be destitute of those essential qualifications that ought to be in a minister of Jesus Christ, and therefore cannot join with the society in their choice, but look upon it to be their in- dispensable duty to choose one after God's own heart ; one that will be able to comfort the wounded with the same comfort wherewith he himself is comforted of God, and not a blind guide; for then the blind will lead the blind into the ditch of God's eternal wrath : and many of the so- ciety spoke evil of those things which they the separatists received, and held to be the effects of the Holy Ghost : whereupon they look upon it to be a loud call to them to come out from among them, &c. and to appoint the house of Samuel Wadsworth, to be the place to meet in by them- selves, to serve the Lord in spirit and in truth.
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