USA > Connecticut > Contributions to the ecclesiastical history of Connecticut > Part 23
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50
It is impossible not to recognize an overruling providence in the fact that fourteen years before this time the churches of Connecticut had been led to provide themselves with a con- fession of faith, adopted as if with special reference to just such an emergency as had now so unexpectedly occurred. Who can fail to see that the Saybrook Platform was at that time, and has continued to be from that time, the sheet-anchor of the freedom and unity of our churches ?- that it then held our beloved college, and has since held it firmly moored in its primitive and Puritan simplicity ? Had Harvard College, founded in the united prayers and sacrifices of the sister colo- nies, been pledged to some such standard as our platform affords, could it have been so easily perverted from the holy purposes of its founders, and be lending, as at this day, its powerful influence to the propagation of fatal error.
Mr. Cutler and Mr. Brown, having been thus excused from their services at the college, and Mr. Johnson having been about the same time dismissed from his pastoral charge, as also Mr. Wetmore, they all soon after proceeded to England and received holy orders. Of these only one returned to the
* Trumbull's Hist. of Conn., Vol. II., p. 32.
35
266
Other Evangelical Denominations.
colony. The Rev Samuel Johnson, about the year 1724, was stationed as missionary of the church at Stratford, in the place of Mr. Pigot. Mr. Johnson is described by Dr. Dwight as the father of Episcopacy in Connecticut, and, perhaps, the most distinguished clergyman of that order who had settled within its limits. In 1754, he was appointed president of King's Col- lege in New York. He received the degree of D. D. from the University of Oxford.
It was supposed that at this time several other gentlemen of considerable character among the clergy were in the scheme for declaring for Episcopacy, and of carrying over the people of Connecticut in general to that persuasion. But as they had not openly committed themselves, when they saw the conse- quences with respect to the rector and the other ministers, that the people would not hear them, but dismissed them from the service, they were glad to conceal their former purposes and continue in their respective places .* Three instances of defec- tion, however, afterward occurred. The Rev. John Beach, who had been the approved pastor of the Congregational church in Newtown for seven years, seceded from the prevail- ing order, and sailed for England, where he was Episcopally ordained in September, 1732. He afterward preached as a missionary in Newtown and Reading. The Rev. Samuel Seabury, the father of the future bishop of the same name, likewise gave up his charge as stated supply at Groton, declared for Episcopacy, and sailed for England for holy orders.+ And Rev. Ebenezer Punderson, ordained at North Groton (Ledyard) in 1728, after five years, relinquished his pastoral charge and sought Episcopal ordination in England. The two last named likewise returned to Connecticut and labored as missionaries in New London county.
In 1783, immediately after the close of the revolutionary war, the Episcopal clergy of Connecticut and those of New York held a private meeting and elected unanimously the Rev. Samuel Seabury as bishop of the diocese of Connecticut ; and soon after the bishop elect proceeded to England for con- secration. He had been ordained as presbyter by the bishop
* Trumbull's Hist. of Conn., vol. II., p. 33.
t Hollister's Ilist. of Conn., vol. II., p. 544,
267
Other Evangelical Denominations.
of London in 1753, and had sustained the pastoral office at New Brunswick, N. J., at Jamaica, L. I., and at Westchester, suc- cessively. It were long to tell the perplexity and delay which he encountered while urging in England his claim to the apostolic miter. Suffice it to say that on the 14th November, 1784, he received at Aberdeen in Scotland the consecration which England had refused, and returned speedily to take charge of the diocese of Connecticut and Rhode Island .*
With reference to the progress of Episcopacy in Connecticut, the following statistics are given on the best authority :
Ministers of the church of England in Conn. in 1740, 7
Fifteen years later, 11
Episcopal parishes in 1750, 25
Houses of worship, 24
Episcopal parishes in 1800, 62
Increase in the half century, 37
The increase was largest soon after Whitfield's first visits to New England, and just before the war of the revolution. During the struggle for independence, and the separation of the colonies from the mother country, there was a considera- ble loss, which was only beginning to be recovered at the opening of the present century.
The Episcopal clergy in 1800 numbered 17; the same as immediately before the revolution. The parishes had again multiplied, but so many families had been broken up by the war, or had withdrawn after the declaration of peace in 1783, that the communicants could not have numbered more than 1,500.
At the adoption of the present constitution in 1818, when the clergy began to report to the convention of the diocese in detail,
The communicants were 3,400
In 1825, 600 had been added, making 4,000
In 1850, the Journal of the Convention gives 9,360
METHODISTS .- The first seeds of Methodism were sown in Connecticut in 1789.+ In June of that year, the Rev. Jesse
* Hollister's Hist. of Conn., vol. II., p. 548.
t This is the date given by Dr. Bangs, though it appears from the "Memorials of Methodismn," by Rev. Abel Stevens, that Rev. Messrs. Cook and Black had preached in Connecticut a year or two previously.
268
Other Evangelical Denominations.
Lee preached in Norwalk, Fairfield, New Haven, Reading, Hartford, Canaan, and other places, passing three months in the state.
The first Methodist society was formed at Stratford, 26th September, 1789, and consisted of three females. The next was at Reading, and embraced but two persons, one of whom, Mr. Aaron Sanford, became afterward a local preacher.
The first church edifice was built at Weston, and called Lee's Chapel, in honor of its founder.
In 1790, the circuits of New Haven, Hartford and Litchfield were established. There were at that time but four Methodist ministers in New England. Yet there were more ministers than classes, and scarcely more than two members to each preacher. Yet under the earnest and devoted labors of the pioneers of Methodism, the doctrine and discipline inculcated by Wesley gradually extended over the state.
At the close of the year 1802 the number of members was reported as 1,658. Efforts persistently made to obtain the number of members at later periods have been unavailing.
At the adoption of the present constitution in
1818, the number of Methodist churches was, 53 In 1850, 185
Increase in thirty-two years, 132
The increase of the number of Congregational
churches in the same thirty-two years was, 42
Of the Episcopal, 29
Of the Baptist, 25
Of the three last named united, 96
It thus appears that the excess of increase in the number of Methodist churches from 1818 to 1850, over that of the Con- gregational, the Episcopal, and the Baptist combined, was 36. The whole number of Congregational churches in 1850 was 252. Excess over the number of Methodist churches 67.
With the same rates of increase respectively, the Methodist churches would outnumber the Congregational in twenty-four years, that is to say, in fifteen years from the present time .*
* Since the above was written the Christian Advocate and Journal gives as the number of Methodist churches in Connecticut in April, 1839, 164; members and
269
Other Evangelical Denominations.
To what causes is this large increase of the Methodist denomination to be ascribed ?
Our Methodist brethren, if called on for their honest convic- tions, would probably assign, first and mainly, the formalism, the worldliness, and the want of vital piety in the prevailing order. And with too much reason, we must allow, especially if we look back to the close of the last century, when the mischief of the half-way covenant was at its hight, and when Methodism made its entrance among us. Let us hope that they could say it with less truth at the present time.
Another cause may, probably, be found in the fact that Methodism commends itself in various respects to the sym- pathy of the people. Its preachers are taken directly from the body of the people, and without any extended course of pre- paration, enter on their work with their previous habits of intellect and feeling still unchanged. Thus they are able to address the people more in accordance with their own modes of thought, and to carry their sympathies more entirely with them in their public devotions, than one can easily do, who has raised himself by years of study, and of communion with the choice minds of the world's history, to a higher sphere of thought and emotion. From the efforts, however, which are constantly made to elevate the tone of Methodist preaching, it would seem that either our Wesleyan brethren are not conscious of the advantage they have thus enjoyed, or are not careful to retain it. The people, again, are admitted to a large share of duty and responsibility in the common cause. Lay brethren are regularly employed as class leaders and exhorters, and amid volunteer prayers and exhortations, all raise, ad libitum, their fervent responses. In these respects Methodism may be characterized as the religion of the people.
Again, the Methodist organization should hold a place in our account of their success. No church calls its own minister, no preacher selects his own field. There is more than military
probationers, 18,500. The minutes of the General Association, just published, give as the number of members of the Congregational churches in Conneetieut, Jan. Ist, 1559, 45,871. The numbers in the text were taken from the U. S. eensus for 1850, and ought to be reliable. If so, we have a loss of 21 Methodist churches in nine years. The respeeted historiographer of Methodism will, doubtless, be able to explain this.
270
Other Evangelical Denominations.
subordination to the central power-a power which says to this man go, and he goeth ; and to another, come, and he cometh ; and to its servant, do this, and he doeth it.
Add to all this its intensely aggressive policy-aggressive not merely, it would seem, against the world lying in wicked- ness, but, to a good degree, against the churches and clergy of another name, who, perhaps, in its opinion, all need re-convert- ing, with whom, on the other hand, there has been, proverbially, little or nothing of sectarian and proselyting zeal, and who, as their formularies show, have no other object in their organiza- tion than most effectively to fulfil the last command of our common Master.
GENERAL VIEW .- The change in the aspect of affairs since the opening of the last century is indeed marvellous. At that time not a single church existed in our Puritan Connecticut which was not of the Congregational order. In 1850 there were 734 churches, of which 252 only were Orthodox Con- gregational, 29 per cent., or less than one third of the whole number.
In view of this change, we rejoice to say that the legislation of Connecticut has never been opposed to the progress of the minor sects. In 1727, four years after the founding of Christ Church in Stratford, it was enacted that " If it so happen that there be a society of the church of England, where there is a person in orders according to the canons of the church of England, settled and abiding among them, and performing divine service, so near to any person that hath declared himself of the church of England, that he can conveniently and doth attend public worship there," whatever tax he shall pay for the support of religion shall be delivered " unto the minister of the church of England." Those who conform to the church of England were at the same time authorized to tax themselves for the support of their clergy, and were excused from paying any taxes for building meeting-houses. The Quakers and the Baptists received the same exemption and the same indulgence in 1729.
'The reports of religious oppression under these provisions are, probably, to be traced to cases like the following. A meeting-house was to be built, or other unusual expense incur-
271
Other Evangelical Denominations.
red by a Congregational society ; and some who were opposed to the proceeding, would declare themselves Episcopalians or Baptists, and claim that they ought to be exempted from paying the new tax. But unless there was an established society and a resident minister of their professed faith, for whose support they were taxed, according to the letter of statute above quoted, the money was collected according to law, and this was called persecution.
The law of 1727 was modified by subsequent acts of the legislature, every change being intended to make a separation from the Congregational churches more easy to those who wished to leave them .*
By a statute passed October, 1708, the General Assembly did indeed approve the Saybrook Platform, and ordain that the churches within this government that were or should be thus united in doctrine, worship and discipline, be owned and acknowledged established by law, and from that time till the revision of the laws in 1784, the Congregational churches enjoyed the pre-eminence and patronage thus implied.
But in that revision of 1784, the legal establishment of the Saybrook Platform was repealed by being omitted, and liberty of conscience granted to Christians of every name. From that day no sect in Connecticut has been invested with privileges superior to another-no creed is established.
The state was divided into ecclesiastical societies, for the purpose of maintaining religious worship and instruction. Each society was at liberty to adopt such creed and form of worship as it might choose, and to change the same at the pleasure of the majority. To secure the consciences and pro- perty of minorities, it was provided that Christians, of what- ever denomination, differing from the worship and ministry adopted by the majority in any " located society," might form themselves into distinct churches and congregations for public worship ; that the churches or congregations thus organized should have all the corporate powers and privileges of the located societies ; and that every person attending such churches or congregations, and lodging a certificate of the
* Kingsley's Hist. Discourse, pp. 94 and 96.
272
Other Evangelical Denominations.
fact, signed by the minister or clerk of his own society, with the clerk of the located society, should be exempt from all taxation for religious purposes, except by the society of his choice.
Every person was bound, indeed, to belong ecclesiastically somewhere, and unless his certificate was given to the contrary, he was presumed to belong to the located society. The sup- port of Christian worship and instruction was taken to be one of the great interests of the community ; and in theory no man was allowed to rid himself of his part of the burden.
In 1791 the system was completed by an act authorizing any man who might prefer some other place of worship to that of the located society, to give a certificate of the fact under his own hand, and by such a certificate to free himself from all further responsibility to that society .*
By the new constitution formed and adopted in 1818, the long cherished principle was given up that every citizen should bear his part in supporting public worship and Christian instruction, as a matter of public benefit. Thus was the last tie broken between church and state, and every man left to contribute or not to contribute as he might please to the sup- port of religious institutions.
And all these acts, be it remembered, securing to the citizen of Connecticut the largest religious liberty, were passed, not by the minor sects, for in those times they together formed but a fraction of the people, but by the standing order.
It was certainly a picture fair to see, when the people of Connecticut, with their religious teachers, were united under one system of faith and worship. And if we might believe that under this appearance of external conformity, there were no jarring elements, that over all our hills and valleys heart beat to heart iu Christian sympathy, it would be, indeed, a scene over which angels might love to linger.
But alas ! the previous history of the Connecticut churches shows that the elements of discord were rife within them. The churches of Hartford, Windsor, Wethersfield and Stratford were rent with internal dissensions, which in the cases of
* Quarterly Christian Spectator, vol. VIII., p. 500.
273
Other Evangelical Denominations.
Hartford and Stratford, were allayed only when one of the contending parties withdrew to seek a new home in the wilderness .*
And when we take into account the varying minds of men, their right to differ, and the fact that in a free country that right will be maintained, the only question seems to be, shall men differ under apparent and pretended unity, or in open and honorable dissent. Religious freedom was the boon which our fathers sought in coming to this land. In all consistency. then, let it prevail among us their descendants, and let us pre- tend to no unity which is not hearty and free.
* In 1659 Gov. John Webster, Elder William Goodwin, and about thirty others removed to Hadley ; and the agreement by which they mutually bound themselves ." to do. now stands on the records of that town.
36
.
CONGREGATIONALISTS IN THEIR RELATION TO OTHER RELIGIOUS SECTS, CHARACTERIZED BY ERROR, FANATICISM, OR DISORDER
BY REV. ABEL MCEWEN, D. D., NEW LONDON.
The Congregational ministry and churches of Connecticut have, from abroad, been reproached for not having any gen- eral confession of faith. The General Association has no confession of faith. Neither has any District Association, nor any Consociation of churches in the state, set forth any such formulary. Each particular church makes, or adopts, its own confession of faith. This has been deemed requisite to the religious freedom of individual Christians. Though the sev- eral churches have been indulged in this liberty, their confes- sions have, for substance, been so harmonious, that no embar- rassment, during more than two centuries, has been experienced in transferring ordinary members, or pastors, from one church to another.
By ecclesiastical bodies which use general confessions of faith, Congregationalists have been admonished that they expose their churches, by the absence of a general creed, to apostacics from their faith and order into heretical sects.
ยท To this the pertinent reply is :
1. That no Congregational church in Connecticut has be- come UNITARIAN.
Our state borders upon a state, some of whose churches have made this departure from the religion of the Pilgrims. Strenuous efforts, have, in a few instances, been made to seduce churches in Connecticut from their Trinitarianism. But that class of the population, somewhat elevated by taste and educa- tion, which in Massachusetts became Unitarians, have, in our commonwealth, chosen to be Episcopalians, so that the ma- terial has here been wanting for proselytes to their faith.
Toward the close of the eighteenth century, the Rev. Stan- ley Griswold became the pastor of the church in New Milford.
--- - ----- -
275
Unitarians.
Soon after his ordination he manifested religious sentiments di- verse from those of his orthodox brethren. He labored to break the distinction between the church and the world, invi- ting all the congregation to the communion table. To this the church did not respond ; nor is it known that any individ- ual member became a Unitarian. Yet this church so far sym- pathized with its pastor, when he received the censure of the surrounding pastors and churches, that the Consociation of Litchfield South were constrained to exclude it from their fel- lowship. Soon, however, Mr. Griswold was dismissed, and immediately the church employed orthodox candidates, and, at length, settled Mr. Elliot, under whom and succeeding pastors of like soundness in the faith, this church returned to rejoice and to be welcomed in hearty fellowship with the other church- es of the state.
Contemporary with Mr. Griswold, the Rev. Whitfield Cowles, pastor of a church in Granby, became a Unitarian, or something like one. He seems to have had no success in alienating his church and people from their established creed and practice ; and his ministerial habits were such that he soon vanished from public observation.
A little subsequent to these events, the Rev. John Sherman was settled as an orthodox pastor of the South Church in Mansfield. He soon swerved from what the people of his charge and the surrounding clergy and churches took him to be. After a violent struggle, the church and society on one side and he on the other, called a mutual council, part orthodox and part Unitarian. After a session of heat and strife he was dismissed from his charge. The church having obtained re- lief has since progressed in its original integrity, accommodated with pastors faithful to their trust.
A sequel to the council at Mansfield is worthy of note. The Rev. Henry Channing, pastor of a church in New London, was the moderator of that council. He had been settled as an ortho- dox minister ; but after two years, had become eovertly a Uni- tarian, and remained such for seventeen years. Though in the chair, he so displayed himself as the advocate of Mr. Sherman, that the Association of New London County immediately passed and placed on record resolutions that they would not
276
Unitarians.
exchange pulpits with a man who denied the doctrine of the Trinity, of the divinity of Christ, or of the personality of the Holy Spirit. As a test to try his own church and people, Mr. Channing proposed to them to increase his salary, or to unite with him in calling a council for his dismission. They unan- imously complied with the last item of his request, and he be- came a wandering apostle of the theology to which he gave himself a martyr.
While these events were passing, the Rev. Abiel Abbot was settled as pastor of the church in South Coventry. He was from Massachusetts. His ministry had not progressed far before he developed his Unitarian sentiments. For redress, or relief, the church called in the Consociation. He denied its jurisdiction ; nevertheless the Consociation dismissed him. He convoked an ex-parte council, which declared the result of the Consocia- tion null, and that Mr. Abbot was still in his pastoral office. The decision of the Consociation, however, was respected, and Mr. Abbott withdrew.
In the old age of Dr. Whitney, of Brooklyn, Mr. Luther Wilson, a young clergyman, was brought in to aid the aged pastor in his services. Whatever might have been expected of Mr. Wilson, he was soon known as a preacher of Unitarian doctrines. The old tenant of the pulpit was aroused to a more distinctive exhibition of Calvinistic docrines than for years he had been accustomed to make. To him the church mainly adhered. The young man, however, attracted to him- self a party who, acting as a majority, voted their aged pastor and his church out of the parochial house for worship, and subjected them to the expense of erecting a new building. This they manfully encountered, and, under a succession of able and faithful pastors, they have remained, and they still re- main, the strong church of Brooklyn. Mr. Wilson, af- ter a few years of isolated ministration and diminished influ- ence, winning nothing from surrounding churches or societies, left for distant fields of enterprise. He left behind him a people obscurely known as prolonging an intermittent ministration of a changeful gospel.
Early in the present century a Mr. Leonard became the pastor of the church in Canterbury. He had studied theology
277
Universalists.
with a clergyman of Connecticut, who taught the common faith of our churches. Mr. Leonard, however, so preached that he was soon regarded as a Unitarian, and he was, after a short time, dismissed from his charge. Trinitarian pastors have suc- ceeded him, and no characteristic effects of his ministry in Canterbury have been reported.
These are the prominent instances-perhaps all the instances worthy of note-in which strenuous efforts have been made to seduce our churches from their faith in their Divine Saviour. They have all proved abortive, notwithstanding the churches have not been put under the shelter of a general confession of faith.
Besides these attempts to win some of our churches to Uni- tarianism, enterprises have been undertaken to establish a few original institutions of this exotic religion. In Hartford, Nor- wich, and in a few others of our populous towns, congregations have been gathered. The beginning of these ministrations have been proclaimed with the sound of a trumpet before them ; yet, their progress has been feeble, their attainments have been unsuccessful, and their end has, in most instances, been witnessed.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.