USA > Connecticut > The story of the Diocese of Connecticut : a new branch of the vine (Espiscopal Church) > Part 2
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THE PURITAN STATE CHURCH
Circumstances in Connecticut, however, soon forced the churches into dependence upon the state. By inviting the General Court to interfere in such purely religious affairs as membership and excommunication, they walked straight into the trap of civil control. Once started, the Court did not know where to stop. Its "mediation" sometimes made quarrels worse and split towns and
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churches into bitter factions. The legislative mind, eager to split hairs, discovered a fascinating exercise for that talent in trying to solve problems that puzzled the most eminent divines. The Court might even go so far as to thrust a minister out of his pastorate. A Congregational historian has written that Queen Elizabeth I, in all her arrogance, was hardly more "supreme" over the Church of England than the General Court assumed itself to be over the Congregational churches of Connecticut.
In many ways state-churchism crept upon the colony. A law of 1644 decreed a compulsory town tax to support the minister. A law of 1657 forbade any church organization without the permis- sion of the neighboring churches and the General Court. The char- ter granted by King Charles II in 1662, based upon the Funda- mental Orders, practically made Connecticut an independent republic, provided only that its laws did not contradict those of England. It said nothing about religion, apparently assuming that no law should destroy the rights of the Church of England. But those rights were ignored, because such broad powers tempted the government to establish an exclusive Puritan state church, with power to suppress dissent. Its constitution and discipline were sanctioned by civil authority, which laid taxes to build meeting houses and support ministers.
Simple congregationalism was doomed as centralized pres- byterianism began to cast its influence over Connecticut. A strong and growing party opposed pure congregationalism and favored centralized and authoritative church government. Some leaders recommended the old English "parish way," which meant replac- ing the "gathered," covenanted church with a territorial parish, and with an end to local independence and converted members.
Presbyterianism triumphed at a small meeting of ministers and lay delegates at Saybrook, in September 1708, when the first Episcopal parish in Connecticut - at Stratford - was somewhat over a year old. The synod had been called by order of the civil government to remedy "defects of the discipline of the churches."1 The occasion was also the seventh commencement of a little "Collegiate School," now called Yale University.
The synod adopted a confession of faith and referred it to the General Court. It also accepted the "Heads of Agreement" drawn up by certain English ministers, which ignored or beclouded
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the differences between presbyterian and congregational ideas, and provided closer cooperation among ministers and churches. The delegates drafted a constitution providing for local discipline, county consociations to control churches, and permanent associ- ations of ministers. A general association for the colony would con- sist of delegates from the county associations, to which churches wanting pastors must apply.
This was the famous "Saybrook Platform," which by request of the synod was enacted into law by the General Court, and was printed and distributed at public expense. It went far beyond the intention of Connecticut's founders. The mass of church members were not consulted, and their consent would have been doubtful. Congregationalism, of course, was weakly organized without such a centralized government, which discarded local independence for the rule of church officials. Thomas Hooker would have disliked it entirely, for he was careful to guard individual and local liberty against "the binding power of synods."
This system of church government became known as the Standing Order, and was a part of the civil law until omitted by a revision of the statutes in 1784. Under it, and under other church laws that lasted even longer, the Episcopal Church struggled for existence. Episcopalians never felt really free until the present constitution of the state, adopted in 1818, made all religious as- sociations purely voluntary. The General Association consisted entirely of clergymen, and its tyranny was one reason why Episco- palians adopted lay representation in their Diocesan Convention. The Association worked hand-in-glove with secular politicians, and the closely-knit oligarchy finally became the core of the Federalist political party for thirty years after 1788. The end of that political machine, and of its favored state church, came in an explosion of popular wrath in 1817-1818, when dissenters in politics and re- ligion joined to vote it out of power. (See Chapter Twelve, Christian Liberalism and Religious Liberty )
For generations, all Churchmen in Connecticut lived under the shadow of the Standing Order, in constant apprehension of sudden interference by the tax collector and unfriendly magis- trates. If an Episcopalian wished to pay his tax to his own church, he had to sign a special certificate. If there was no church in his town, he was compelled to pay the tax to the established parish,
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even though he attended services elsewhere. If a Church missionary appeared in a town without an Episcopal parish, he might be warned out by the magistrates, and his congregation would be threatened and fined for not hearing the established minister.
The established church controlled education from the dis- trict schoolhouse up to Yale College, where Episcopal students had to beg for special permission to attend the services of their own church. The Calvinist catechism was taught in the schools and Episcopalians felt obliged to establish their own. Ministers of the established church preached the election and fast-day sermons, and so moulded political opinion that for generations no Episco- palian could hope for high public office. It was almost a revolution when the first Episcopalian, William Samuel Johnson, entered the Governor's Council in 1766.
Innumerable petty annoyances kept Churchmen continually restless and irritated, even if they did not choose to fight the law, go to jail, and see their property taken and sold to pay the parish tax. They learned the hard way how their established church in England bore down upon Dissenters. They became convinced therefore that the best way was a free church in a free state, with bishops as purely spiritual agents and without civil powers.
The parochial organization of the Standing Order left its mark on the formation of the Episcopal Church. Its "ecclesiastical society" still exists in the annual parish meeting, composed of legal voters as distinct from the general communicant membership. For generations, Episcopal parishes were called "societies," and towns with more than one had a First and a Second Episcopal Society. The Episcopal societies levied "rates" upon their members to build churches and support the clergy, and conducted their affairs very independently. It was said that Churchmen were Episcopalians at worship and Congregationalists in parish meetings.
The departure of the Puritan churches from simple congre- gationalism indirectly benefitted the Episcopalians. It eventually inspired a movement of protest that aided the Church's growth, in spite of persecution by the Standing Order. The primitive Con- gregationalists considered only genuinely converted persons and their children as worthy of membership, and included in the cove- nant. But when the children came of age and could not claim con- version, it was not clear that they could rightfully present their
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children for baptism. A growing opinion favored admitting all per- sons of blameless life to full communion, simply on profession of belief, without inquiry regarding real conversion.
In 1657 and 1662 conventions of Massachusetts and Con- necticut ministers tried to settle the dispute. They decided that the grown, non-communicant children of members were also members, but they could not vote in church affairs until they professed to be converted. That was the famous "Halfway Covenant," which some people said thrust the churches halfway out of congregational- ism. It only heated the discussion further and caused bitter parish wrangles. In 1669 the General Court approved both sides by per- mitting division of parishes, and so allowed the churches to drift toward endless schisms and looser doctrines.
The conflict was of great importance to the growth of the Episcopal Church because it weakened the Puritan churches. It broke out again very violently in the "Great Awakening" of re- ligion in the 1740's, when the revival preachers insisted upon con- version as a requisite for membership. The bitter disputes and schisms in the established parishes and the revivalist emotional excesses then drove many disgusted persons into the orderly wor- ship and nurture of the Prayer Book. That movement was only the quickening of seeds that had long been germinating in dissatis- faction with the Puritan commonwealth.
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CHAPTER TWO
BREACHING THE PURITAN STRONGHOLD
THE RISE OF DISSENT
A S the eighteenth century opened, Connecticut seemed to be religiously united, for Congregationalism presented a solid front of nearly forty churches. Complete harmony had not been achieved, however, because conflicting doctrines had such big, bony elbows that they could not sit side by side, even at the Lord's Supper. Dissent had taken its uneasy seat at the table during the disputes about church discipline and the Halfway Covenant.
Desertion from the established church was still almost un- known, but restlessness had long been increasing. After 1660 it be- gan to appear openly, encouraged by the collapse of Puritan rule in England. In 1664 several prominent men in and around Hart- ford petitioned the General Court for liberty to become church members, and to have their children baptized, without making a formal profession of faith and signing the covenant. Although not Episcopalians, they displayed an attitude close to that of the Church of England.
Baptists appeared, meanwhile, encouraged by opposition to the Halfway Covenant, which inspired sympathy with their idea of a "gathered" church of converted persons. By 1700, Baptist mis- sionaries were visiting the eastern towns and immersing their con- verts. A famous debate at Colchester between a Congregational minister and a Baptist preacher caused a vast sensation, and in 1705 Baptists in Groton organized the first church outside the es- tablished religion. The eastern towns became so thoroughly perme- ated by Baptist sentiment that dissenters there joined the Bap- tist rather than the Episcopal Church. People used to say "The Episcopals can't come east of the [Connecticut] River."
Religious disquiet was reflected in the growing sensitiveness of the colony to accusations of intolerance. The General Court was uneasily aware that the King's ministers took an increasingly dim
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view of the charter, and was therefore anxious to avoid the charge of persecution. In 1665 royal commissioners brought the King's recommendation of liberty of conscience and worship for all peace- able dissenters. The Governor and the Court hastened to declare that they had not troubled anybody's conscience. The commission- ers reported that the colony would not "hinder any one from en- joying the Sacraments and using the Common Prayer Book, pro- vided they hinder not the maintenance of the public minister."1 If Episcopalians would pay the church tax, they could read the liturgy at home to their hearts' content.
As early as 1669 the pressure for toleration became so in- sistent that the General Court granted to all orthodox Christians "allowance of their perswasion and profession in church wayes or assemblies without disturbance." But it did not define who was orthodox. Six years later the cruelly persecuted Quakers were ex- cepted from penalties for not attending the established churches. In 1689 a general statute permitted all dissenters to worship as they liked. Growing dissent flouted a law of 1723, forbidding private meetings and baptisms except by regular ministers of approved churches. The magistrates had to take a softer line after 1705, when the royal government threatened to abolish the charter, partly because of complaints of religious intolerance.
In 1680 Governor Leete's report to the Lords of Trade and Plantations admitted the existence of Baptists and Quakers. He did not mention Episcopalians, but would not have had to look very hard to find them. Persons who supported the Halfway Covenant were leaning toward the Church. As early as 1667 it was said that some in Stratford would have become converts, if there had been a parish there. The sentiment was strengthened, about 1690, by the immigration of English tradesmen and mechanics, who were "de- sirous to worship God in the liturgy of their forefathers."2 They earnestly begged for a pastor, held private services conducted by lay readers, and kept in touch with the Rev. William Vesey, the rector of Trinity Church in New York.
They were to wait for over twenty years, because there was no agent in England responsible for sending priests to provinces where the Church of England was not established. As late as 1675 there were probably less than fifty priests in the continental colo- nies, and no Episcopal church existed in New England. Thousands
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of colonists had drifted away from the Church, and only a few devoted remnants kept the memory of the Prayer Book alive. Church schools and books were lacking, of course, and children grew up religiously illiterate.
MISSIONARIES FOR THE COLONIES
The Church had never entirely neglected her distant and scattered children. Chaplains sailed on the ships of the early Eng- lish explorers, and missions were an expressed object of colonizing companies. But good intentions were ineffectual without the regu- lar provision of clergy and colonial bishops. In 1633 Charles I had entrusted the colonies to the Bishop of London, but in 1675 Bishop Compton found that "little or no good had come of it."3 For many years Compton was the best friend of colonial Churchmen. He sent chaplains and teachers, persuaded Charles II to give them money and religious books, and appointed "Commissaries" as his colonial deputies. He supported the efforts of pious persons and missionary societies, particularly the New England Company, which included Churchmen like Sir Robert Boyle, a noted scholar and scientist who bequeathed funds to support a missionary.
Especially in the 1670's, interest in missions was promoted by pious societies. They spread all over England and later were favored by Queen Anne (1702-1714), a good Churchwoman and a patroness of many American parishes. That movement inspired the missionary zeal of rich people like Sir Leoline Jenkins, who endowed two fellowships at Oxford University for men who would become missionaries in the fleets or the colonies.
The pious societies were forerunners of a far greater one, founded in 1698 especially to promote colonial missions - the So- ciety for Promoting Christian Knowledge (the "S. P. C. K."). It was a pet project of the Rev. Thomas Bray, a Warwickshire priest. It is said that "no man did more for the Church at home and abroad, and no man received less from her in the way of earthly recom- pense."4. His writings attracted the favorable notice of Bishop Compton, who appointed him as Commissary in Maryland. In 1669 Bray secured a charter for the S. P. C. K., which sent vast quanti- ties of books and tracts to the colonies. After organizing the Church in Maryland, he returned to England in 1700 to urge more aid for the colonial churches.
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Bray decided that the solution would be another society to concentrate upon sending missionaries. He bustled about to line up supporters, including Convocation (the Church's national assem- bly), and such powerful ecclesiastics as Archdeacon Stanley of London, Bishop Burnet of Salisbury, Bishop Compton (who needed no urging), and Archbishop Tenison of Canterbury, who in his will gave a large fund to support a bishop in America. When the Arch- bishop said emphatically "we must have a Charter,"" the tireless Bray petitioned King William III to grant one, which he drafted and which was read to an enthusiastic meeting of the S. P. C. K.
When the parchment received the royal seal on June 16, 1701, a new era dawned for the Church in Connecticut. The fact was acknowledged by a grateful diocese in 1900, when Bishop Chauncey B. Brewster and several priests and laymen sent to the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts an engrossed expression of thanks for its care and protection of the colonial churches.
The Society lost no time in calling its first meeting, which was really a reunion of old friends, as most of the S. P. C. K. mem- bers were among the incorporators. They soon adopted a seal with a device symbolizing their work - a ship approaching land, with a priest standing at the prow and holding an open Bible toward people standing expectantly on the shore. The Latin motto, "Tran- siens Adjuva Nos" (Come over and help us), was repeated in many appeals from Connecticut. The priest and the Bible foretold the services of three hundred missionaries (including about forty in Connecticut ), and the sending of millions of books and tracts. The Society's aid helped to found hundreds of parishes, regain and instruct multitudes of lapsed members, and educate thousands of children, apprentices, and slaves.
The Society's far-flung activity was promoted by an efficient organization spending large (but never enough) funds, raised by subscriptions, collections, and gifts from people in all stations of life, including many who preferred to remain unknown. The So- ciety accumulated enough endowment to make it independent of official aid. Amid the business of mighty London, a small company of devoted men met regularly to direct the vast enterprise, and a standing committee carried on the work between meetings. The secretary toiled to keep up with the correspondence, reports from
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missionaries and teachers, and pleas for help. Success was heavily indebted to the organizing genius of Bray, who seldom appeared in the foreground, but worked behind the "big names," deftly pub- licizing the Society's activities and seeking prominent members.
The Society strove to select good missionaries, whose con- duct would baffle opposition, especially in suspicious New Eng- land. They had to come well recommended and present certificates of ordination and a license from the Bishop of London. Their in- structions pointedly warned them to keep clear of politics, and to win over dissenters and opponents by "meekness and gentleness." They should visit neglected places and preach basic Christian doc- trines, stressing baptism, Holy Communion, and "the Duties of a sober, righteous, and godly Life."6 Their duties included teaching catechism, converting adults, evangelizing the Indians and Ne- groes, and frequently visiting parishioners. All teachers and mis- sionaries were told to keep in constant touch with the secretary, and to report every six months on their work.
The missionary's most important duty was to minister to British colonists, especially the mass of lapsed or nominally loyal Episcopalians. The Society clearly foresaw the future greatness of Anglo-America, and resolved to make it a bulwark of Christian and classical culture. Appeals for funds stressed raising the religious and cultural level of the colonists, who seemed to be in danger of lapsing into barbarism. Libraries sent with the missionaries were inducements for educated men, and were selected to enlarge secu- lar as well as religious knowledge. The Society strove to satisfy the cultural hunger which the trader, the soldier, and the royal of- ficial could not appease. Educated clergymen took the place of cultivated laymen, who did not go to America in large numbers. The S. P. C. K. and the S. P. G. appreciated the frontier problem of intellectual and spiritual poverty, and tried to equalize Chris- tian and classical culture on both sides of the ocean. They were agents in building the "Atlantic Civilization" of modern times.
As the Society began its work, the unchurched Anglicans pressed upon its conscience. To learn more about them, it sent queries to governors, merchants, other eminent persons, and churches. It soon became obvious that most of the people were dissenters, and that often they governed and the Church was the unprivileged minority. A helpful report came from Colonel
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Caleb Heathcote of Westchester County, New York, who became a founder of the Church in Connecticut. His and other letters painted a darker scene than the Society had imagined. Nowhere was it gloomier than in Connecticut, with no church and no minis- ter, and with only thirty-five communicants and fifty "frequenters" in a population of thirty-five thousand. One half of one per cent of the people were professed Churchmen, and most of them probably lived in Stratford.
One encouraging feature, however, was the many petitions for missionaries (including one from Stratford) that poured into the office in London. Deeply moved by those evidences of loyalty, the Society sent priests and literature as fast as funds permitted, and planned to send over a general missionary to survey the situ- ation and report on the needs. His arrival marked the Church's first real penetration of Connecticut.
The man selected, the Rev. George Keith (1638-1716), was precisely the one to defy a state church in its stronghold. He was a highly educated and adept debater and was familiar with the colonies. Bred in the Scottish Presbyterian Church, he took his Master's degree at Aberdeen's Marischal College in 1662. About two years later he embraced Quakerism and began a brilliant preaching career, darkened by imprisonment for his new faith but sweetened by the friendship of William Penn, Robert Barclay, and other cultivated Quaker ministers. There is a dramatic fitness in his association with Aberdeen, the scene of the consecration of Con- necticut's first bishop, Samuel Seabury, in 1784. (See Chapter Ten, The Struggle for the Episcopate) One of his fellow students there was Gilbert Burnet, later Bishop of Salisbury and a patron of the S. P. G. He declared that Keith was the most learned man ever known among the Quakers.
Keith longed to preach in America and remained there for ten years after 1684, as Surveyor General of East Jersey, traveling minister, and teacher of the Friends' School in Philadelphia. The simple, creedless American Quakers irritated his logical and doc- trinal mind, and he offended them by his persistent preaching. His charges of loose Quaker doctrine inevitably led to his expulsion by the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting in 1693, and by the London Yearly Meeting in 1695. After wandering in the waste land of secession and holding his own "Christian Quaker" meetings for a
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SMARINIS
IO IN PARTIBVS TRANSM -
SIGILIVM
ANOJ
TRANSLEN
SOCIETATIS DE PROMO
MOVENDO EVANGELIO
Incorporated by Royal Charter, 1701.
SEAL OF THE SOCIETY FOR THE PROPAGATION OF THE GOSPEL.
(From Lucy Cushing Jarvis, Sketches of Church Life in Colonial Connecticut.)
REV. GEORGE KEITH.
First Missionary of the S. P. G. to preach in Conn. He preached in the Congregational Church in New London, Sept. 13, 1702.
(From Lucy Cushing Jarvis, Sketches of Church Life in Colonial Connecticut.)
few years, he turned to the Church of England and in 1702 was ordained as a priest.
Keith's anti-Quaker writings already had attracted the favor- able attention of the S. P. C. K., which appointed him as a travel- ing agent. The S. P. G. highly appreciated his report on the con- dition and needs of the Church in America, and sent him to tour the colonies, with a generous salary and a stock of Church books. In April, 1702, he was on the Atlantic, bound for New England in the congenial company of Governor Dudley of New England and the ship's chaplain, John Talbot, who had been a parson in Vir- ginia. No doubt their talk in the great cabin sometimes turned to the forlorn Churchmen of Connecticut. Fired by Keith's enthusi- asm, Talbot resigned as chaplain after the voyage and became his unwearied and faithful assistant.
The two missionaries settled in Boston as guests of the minis- ters of King's Chapel, New England's only Episcopal church. All summer long they traveled through New England, preaching, de- bating with the Quakers, and crossing swords with the shrewd Puritan clergy. In September they appeared in New London and were entertained by Governor Winthrop and by the minister, Gur- don Saltonstall, who "expressed his good affection for the Church of England."7 They preached in the meeting house to a "respectable" congregation, and used the Prayer Book liturgy, which most of the people heard for the first time in their lives. The friendly reception not only created a profound sensation and stimulated discussion throughout the colony, but also planted the seeds of St. James's Parish. Keith shrewdly surmised an undercurrent of Episcopalian sentiment - and he was not mistaken. Hope that he would stay in Connecticut soon faded, for he was too restless to be hitched to a parish and was eager to attack the strongholds of Quakerism farther south.
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