History of Essex County, Massachusetts : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. I, Part 28

Author: Hurd, D. Hamilton (Duane Hamilton), ed. n 85042884-1
Publication date: 1888
Publisher: Philadelphia : J. W. Lewis & Co.
Number of Pages: 1538

USA > Massachusetts > Essex County > History of Essex County, Massachusetts : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. I > Part 28

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The reports that came from Plymouth were, to be sure, of hunger, cold, sickness, death and of return- ing malcontents, but also of an undaunted faith, a peaceful following of their own way in religion, and a fixed purpose to stay on the part of the conductors and earliest members of that community. A schis- matic the Puritan would never be, but a non-con- formist he conld be. But at length non-conformity came to be no longer permitted in England. He looked now, then, oftener toward the sea, and thought more of a home and a church in the wilderness.

John White, of the English Dorchester, " a famous Puritan divine," perhaps not thinking of a possible Puritan church at all, but only of a plantation com- bined with a fishing and trading-post,-John White, of whatever thinking, interested himself, at any rate, to induce some faithful men among the number of those who made voyages from his town for the pur-

Lines of minor divergence naturally came to be drawn among the English reformers themselves, and that a good while before they sailed for these shores, as they found they were not agreed as to the ex- tent to which church reform should go, or what were the methods most hopeful for effecting it. Some counseled separation from the cstablished church as | pose of fishing in these neighboring waters and bar-

SALEM.

tering along these neighboring American coasts, and who were often for months together detained about these parts, to make a station at Cape Ann, " where the mariners might have a home when not at sea, where supplies might be provided for them by farm- ing and hunting, and where they might be brought under religious influences."

In 1623 a plant was made, with this view, under Thomas Gardner as overseer. For some cause it failed. Two years later Mr. Roger Conant, who had left the Plymouth colony from disaffection, and had come up the coast as far as Nantasket, being reported to the Dorchester associates as a "religious, sober and prudent gentleman," was invited by them to come to Cape Ann and to take charge of the planta- tion there. Though this confidence in the newly- installed director was not misplaced, the plantation still languished, and a year or two after, those en- gaged in it sold what remained of their vessels and supplies, disbanded, and, as a company, quit their joint proceedings. But a few, of hetter stuff than the rest, and of more staying qualities of character, re- mained behind, and kept charge of the last importa- tion of cattle. Mr. White was not one to accept defeat. He kept up communication with Conant, who meantime had removed to Nahumkeike, as a preferable seat for the general purposes of colonization, and pleaded with him not to be discouraged nor to desist from the undertaking to which he had set his hand. If Conant and three others whom he named would engage to stay at Naumkeag, he promised to obtain a patent for them and send them recruits, with provis- ions and goods suitable for trade with the Indians. The drooping spirits of the settlers were with some difficulty roused again, the faith of the English mer- chants was reinforced by the energetic representations of the Dorchester patron, so that they became willing to risk a portion of their wealth in another attempt. Not only Dorchester fishermen, but London mer- chants and gentlemen and others, were brought to put some capital at stake here. And it fell out that John Endicott, "a man well known to divers persons of good note," " manifested much willingness" to accept the leadership of the new effort proposed, and came in the summer of 1628, at the head of a not large party, to take the management, which, after some objection from those already on the ground, was finally yielded to him, and the name of Salem, which has since come to honor, commemorates, it is said, the pacification of the dispute between the new- comers and the old, which for a while threatened to wreck the project.

So Salem began in 1628. With its beginning began its worship. Probably under some tree, or if a shelter had been reared before the first Sabbath day came round, under its roof, it might be the roof of Conant's house, or of some original "planter's house " at first designed for common use. Their worship followed the prayer-book of the English Church, in part, it is

likely, but they easily loosened themselves from its ritual, and their worship became informal and spon- taneous-exposition, free prayer, mutual exhortations, -largely modifying the traditional forms of their Old World church-life, all parts recognizing the pecu- liarity of their situation as they supplicated for pa- tience, faith and constancy in the way of duty and self-sacrifice.

Let us pause for a moment to observe this type of man who stands for the Salem founder. His portrait has often been drawn, but it differs pretty widely in the hands of different delineators. The differences, however, will turn out to be mainly in the strengtlı of the lines and the depth of the coloring. Under them all the same man is easily recognized. He is of firm make, and his figure, face and spirit always hold their place and are to be identified at a glance. It is thus that the author of the " History of New England during the Stuart Dynasty,"1 has sketched his feat- ures. "The Puritan was a Scripturist-a Scripturist with all his heart, if, as yet with imperfect intelli- gence. . He cherished the scheme of looking to the word of God as his sole and universal directory.

The Puritan searched the Bible, not only for principles and rules, but for mandates-and when he could find none of these, for analogies-to guide him in precise arrangements of public administration and in the minutest points of individual conduct.

His objections to the government of the church by bishops were founded, not so much on any bad working of that polity, as on the defect of author- ity for it in the New Testament ; and he preferred his plain hierarchy of pastors, teachers, elders and dea- cons, not primarily because it tended more to edifica- tion, but because Paul had specified their offices by name. The opposing party in the State was associated in his mind with the Philistine and Amor- ite foes of the ancient chosen people, and he read the doom of the King and his wanton courtiers in the Psalm which put the 'high praises of God' in the mouth of God's people 'and a two-edged sword in their hand, to bind their King with chains and their nobles with fetters of iron.' He would have witchcraft, Sabbath-breaking and filial disobedience weighed in the judicial scales of a Hebrew Sanhe- drim. His forms of speech were influenced by this fond reverence for the Bible. . He named his children after the Christian graces, still oftener after the worthies of Palestine, or, with yet more singular- ity, after some significant clause of holy writ.

"The Puritan was a strict moralist. He might be ridiculed for being over-scrupulous, but never re- proached for laxity. Most wisely, by precept, influ- ence and example-unwisely by too severe law, when he obtained the power-he endeavored to repress pre- vailing vice and organize a Christian people. His error was not that of interfering without reason, or

1 John Gorham Palfrey, vol. i. pp. 274-277.

HISTORY OF ESSEX COUNTY, MASSACHUSETTS.

too soon. When he insisted on a hearing, villainous men and shameless women, whose abominations were a foul offense in the sight of God and of all who rev- erence God, were flannting in the royal dressing-rooms. The foundations of public honor and prosperity were sapped.

" In politics, the Puritan was the Liberal of his day. If he construed his duties to God in the spirit of a narrow interpretation, that punctilious sense of religious responsibility impelled him to limit the as- sumption of human government. In no stress, in no delirium of politics, could a Puritan have been brought to teach that, for either public or private conduct, there is some law of man above the law of God."

The Puritan came to New England, as before stated, as a non-conformist, not as a separatist, with not less definite conceptions of what he did not want in church forms and institutions than of what he did want. The ideal of the true church, which he had derived from the Scriptures, was of a brotherhood-a church of equals. The elder, the bishop, was but a minister. In him was no official superiority or authority, but such as he had been invested with by his brethren. To be rid altogether of the false claims and assump- tions of authority which the English, as well as the Romish hierarchy asserted, and sought to enforce, was what the Puritan saw clearly as his right ; it was one of the promised advantages dearest to his heart, to be gained by his removal to some distant and obscure retreat, that there he would be less subject to jealous observation and easy interference, than under the immediate eye of the Lords Spiritual of England. Seeing his way so far, plainly, he set about modeling his church order accordingly, when he arrived in his new home. The church brotherhood was sufficient unto itself. The local group of Christian people ac- quainted with one another, and assembling together, were competent to proceed with their worship in their own preferred way and to maintain their Christian fellowship on such grounds and conditions as seemed to them Scriptural and fitting, always under a common acknowledged responsibility to their consciences and their God. This was practically "separatism," or "independency," but as yet they did not call it by that name.

This state of things was favorable to the growth of a free and natural church life, such as would develop spontaneously under the existing conditions. There was no preconceived form to which all intellectual conclusions, spiritual aspirations and prophetic vis- ions must mold their expression. Precedents sat loosely upon them. They asked themselves what they wanted, and what best satisfied their religious hunger and need, with the consciousness of a liberty of choice to which they had not been accustomed. So they felt their way along tentatively into the adoption of a church life such as suited their case as they found it then and there existing, regarding it at the same time as subject to modification as they should find it

thereafter to require. If they made mistakes, they were free to repair them. They did make mistakes. They could not help it. They were made up in their individuality of the old traditions and the new long- ings. They put their free principles on trial, and when they ran against some rock of rare and excep- tional individualism like Roger Williams, or some ap- prehended social outcome of the largest liberality, like the familism or antinomianism, as they regarded it, of Ann Hutchinson, they felt a strain upon their before unquestioned postulates, and studied out the problem as they best could, to arrive sooner or later at some practical conclusion as to the next step neces- sary to be taken. They made their church polity, as has been happily said, as they went along. The churches of New England had this opportunity to grow up without an excess of swathing prescriptions, and profited by it as a child in an out-door life, and with not too much sheltering, dictation and repression of its activity, often derives strength from its freedom.

This little Puritan colony was yet a child-in the principles and art of constructing society, framing government and learning how to live together in a self-controlling community, how to draw the line be- tween what might be safely conceded to individual choice and what must be enacted for the general good ; it was a child, it thought as a child, it under- stood as a child, in this new learning. Iu finding out how to use its newly-acquired liberty without abusing it, it could not leap to the highest wisdom at a bound. It must sometimes stumble and fall. If it rose again and went on to better things, taught by experience to avoid its earlier mistakes, its experiment was to be accounted a success. Man's idealism and his hard, practical wisdom for daily use in every-day life never walk together with even feet. The one hastens, the other lags ; the one sees forward, the other is half- blind, and only trusts in experience looking backward. Each corrects the other with much confidence that, hoth as to speed and direction, it is entitled to govern. It was as inevitable as it was human that the Puritan should sometimes push on with a daring that, to his old associates, seemed rashness, and sometimes mani- fest what posterity, with the teachings and experience of centuries behind it, to assure and reassure its judg- ment, loftily pronounces timidity and inexcusable in- consistency. A sufferer for his own dissent, how could he be so inconsistent as to turn and excommunicate, exile and crush out the dissenter from his own creed and church order ? It was simply because it fell to him to pass upon the questions that came to him for judg- ment two and a-half centuries ago, and not now. Where to draw the line between the liberty that is permissible and safe and the license that is reckless of consequences and destructive and must be checked -this is the question that is always up, with the in- dividual and with society, lasting on from age to age, but with applications new and difficult perpetually arising in practice. It is as much our predicament as

SALEM.

it was that of Endicott and Winthrop, of Cotton and Higginson and Williams centuries back. Have we not to decide to-day whether men who, for aught we know, are as honest and sincere as we are, shall be allowed openly and enthusiastically to teach any crowd it can gather, in the streets of any city, that the laws that they live under are oppressive, were enacted in the interest of the strong and rich and overbearing, and may he cast off, and the very foundations of so- ciety upturned and overthrown without scruple, whenever the power can be obtained for the purpose ? Add to this, that a problem more delicate and diffi- cult still was before the Puritan mind, viz., how to steer clear of offense to the jealous and watchful home government, and at the same time preserve the liber- ties they had come here to enjoy, and were fully de- termined to maintain, and the hard conditions under which this Puritan child community was taking its tutelage may be the better appreciated, and a too free criticism of the inhabitants of New England in the first half of the seventeenth century will be likely to be postponed.

Another condition in the circumstances under which the first settlers of New England organized their church system must not be overlooked, for it had a constant influence in giving a cast to the thought as well as a shape to the covenants, the discipline, the teachings and the whole institutional life of the peo- ple. This was the fact that the same community was regarded as both a church and a state. It was work- ing out a double problem. Half consciously and half unconsciously, its citizens were striving, in the dual capacity of citizens and Christian disciples, to realize at once, and in one, an ideal commonwealth and a true church. So, half consciously and half uncon- sciously, each of them, the church and the common- wealth, was tending to usurp at any time the func- tions of the other, and for a considerable period these New England communities were in the process of finding out whether or not the one could stand for the other ; if not, how far the union was possible, and the identification could be made to hold. Though to the mind of the Puritan the problem inclined always to state itself in the form of the question, whether, in the last re- sult, the church, as representing more nearly the divine government, must not of right absorb to itself, as the higher and as sole heir of both, all inferior authorities, and take the ordering of human society in all its in- terests and relations under its own direction, and whether thus the ancient dream of a theocratic rule was not to come to realization in the earth, and that here, first, upon these American shores. The spell of this great hope was upon him alike when he set up tribunals for the trial and punishment of offenders against the peace of society, and when he fixed upon the true order of proceeding in church affairs. Qual- ifications for citizenship and for church membership constantly threatened with him to run into each other, get mixed and to become one and the same thing.

And in the civil and the spiritual sphere alike he was free to enter on experiments which should test the practicability of his long-cherished theories. He made laws, and instituted courts, and prescribed mag- istracies, and called into being agencies of government, a step at a time, as exigencies arose and as new con- ditions pushed him to decisions, which he had been willing to leave till some necessity drove him to judgment and action.

As a fact going to show in strong relief the predomi- nance of religious motive and purpose in the settle- ment of New England, the very leading part taken by the ministers in the administration of public affairs is to be noted. For a considerable period they were but little less conspicuous as counselors and founders in the establishment of civil government and in its conduct, than in constituting churches, settling what should be done in ecclesiastical matters and di- recting both worship and religious instruction. And these ministers of the earlier times of New England possessed high qualifications for the duties they were called to perform. Belonging to that class of persons whose original force of character and independence of thought and action had caused their exclusion from church dignities and chances of preferment in the Church of England, they had had the best train- ing which the universities of Cambridge and Oxford afforded. "By the practice in the colony," it has been said, "the General Court, from time to time, propounded questions to the ministers or elders which they answered in writing. The proceeding was simi- lar to that under a provision of the Constitution re- quiring the justices of the Supreme Judicial Court to give to either branch of the Legislature, or the Gov- ernor and Council, upon request, opinions upon im- portant questions of law and upon solemn occasions. The opinions given by the ministers, which have been preserved, are very able, and will, in logic and sound reasoning, bear a not unfavorable comparison with opinions of justices given under the provision of our Constitution." I

Rev. Edward E. Hale, D.D., whose large informa- tion respecting early American history justly gives great weight to his statements, while discrediting the common notion that the early ministers of Massachu- setts exercised the controlling or leading influence in affairs of civil government which history and tradi- tion have ascribed to them, nevertheless says this of them : "There can be little doubt that John Cotton, minister of the First Church [in Boston], had very great authority here, while he lived, of a social or po- litical character. There can be no doubt, humanly speaking, but that Boston is Boston, because he came and lived here, be it observed, because Winthrop and Dudley wanted him to, and begged him to. . . And probably few affairs of importance were decided

1 Hon. William D. Northend : Address before Essex Bar Association, p. 7. (N.)

HISTORY OF ESSEX COUNTY, MASSACHUSETTS.

in which Cotton did not take part, and in which his advice was not respected." It is difficult to see upon what grounds Cotton is thus assigned a weight of in- fluence wholly exceptional, so that it could be said that "no trace of any such power appeared after- ward." If " there were countless instances," as Dr. Hale says there were, "when the ministers met with the court, advised with them and were consulted as any other intelligent gentlemen might he consulted," we read between these lines that many ministers were found to be "intelligent gentlemen," whom the court deemed it important to consult. Official respect purely, and authority as ecclesiastics it is not claimed that they received. Quite otherwise. In the first church organized in Massachusetts-that in Salem- those who had been ministers in the English Church were first "reduced to the ranks " among the Salem brethren, and then by those brethren raised or set apart to the position of ministers. "There were present, at the time, and on the spot," says Upham, "at least four persons who had borne the ministerial office in distin- guished positions, men of talent, learning and repu- tation, and eminent in worth as well as station."1 If they had great influence afterward, it was because by their solid intelligence and their consistent Christian carriage they entitled themselves to a leading influ- ence. "The leaders led as they always will," says Dr. Hale, words emphatically applicable to men likeHiggin- son, Williams and Peters, as well as to Cotton. "The clergy," says Palfrey, in a résumé of the state of the Massachusetts colony in 1634, "now thirteen or four- teen in number, constituted in some sort a separate estate of special dignity. Though they were excluded from secular office, the relation of their functions to the spirit and aim of the community which had been founded, as well as their personal weight of ability and character, gave great authority to their advice. Nearly all were graduates of Oxford or Cambridge, and had held livings in the Established Church of England. Several had been eminent among their fel- lows for all professional endowments."

The theology of the Salem colonists, as of the set- tlers of New England generally, was Calvinistic. The formularies emanating from the Westminster Assembly of divines embody it with virtual accuracy. It was held with no halfindifference, no mental reserva- tions; not merely for substance of doctrine. Face to face, with a will to blink nothing of the terrible in- ferences involved, as before God, the sombre creed was confessed. And though, with Robinson, these con- fessors believed that more light would break forth from the word of God, they anticipated no such light as would soften the rigors of the divine government or lift the crushing doom of eternal pains from the non-elect-from the unbeliever and the impenitent who remained hardened to the hour of death. This was the Puritan's creed. His human feeling of com-

passion and justice was too strong against it in many a genial hour, and in many a sympathetic tempera- ment, and he took refuge, as often as occasion required, from unbearable thoughts of the fate of the wretched lost, and unbearable thoughts of God, in the comfort- ing sentences of Scripture that reminded him that God would have mercy and not sacrifice.

The first church in New England was that at Ply- mouth. It landed a completed church. The next, the first gathered upon the soil, was that at Salem. Its beginning possesses a curious interest and throws invaluable light upon the principles and aims that guided the founders of the earlier colonial churches. At every point in the proceedings it may be seen that it was a natural and gradual growth, rather than an artificial construction, built upon precedents. It ap- pears that seventeen days intervened between the first step taken in the business of organization and the final one. The 6th of August, 1629, has usually been assumed as the date of its institution. We should rather assign it to the 20th of July. On that day it exercised the highest functions of a corporate body, viz., held an election-voting in the choice of its most important officers, viz., those of pastor and teacher. True, it had no written constitution yet. Its cove- nant was not adopted till more than two weeks after- wards. So far as appears, it had not yet a list of en- rolled members. "Every fit member wrote, in a note, his name whom the Lord moved him to think was fit for a pastor, and so likewise, whom they would have for teacher." But nothing indicates how it was de- termined who were to be deemed "fit members." Perhaps it was by general assent of the assembly, any ballot being received if no objection was made. Per- haps each one was put upon his own conscience to decide for himself whether he ought to participate in the vote. At least the result was accepted without question or dispute. The day had been appointed as a "solemn day of humiliation for the choice of a pas- tor and teacher." It was a public assembly, meeting in response to this appointment which took action. " The former part of the day being spent in praise and teaching, the latter part was spent about the elec- tion."

We are forbidden to suppose that this was a mere preliminary and informal selection, intended to be rati- fied later, by the fact that the church then and there pro- ceeded to set apart the pastor and teacher-elect with solemn and formal ceremony of official investment. "So the most voice was for Mr. Skelton to be pastor and Mr. Higginson to be teacher; and they accepting the choice, Mr. Higginson, with three or four more of the gravest members of the church, laid their hands on Mr. Skelton, using prayers therewith. This being done, then there was imposition of hands on Mr. Higginson." Here are all the circumstances indica- tive of a completed installation of these two chief officers of the church; and this was on the 20th of July. When the church or assembly proceeded to its

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History of Essex County, Massachusetts : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. I, Part 28

Author: Hurd, D. Hamilton (Duane Hamilton), ed. n 85042884-1 Publication date: 1888 Publisher: Philadelphia : J. W. Lewis & Co. Number of Pages: 1538

Author: Hurd, D. Hamilton (Duane Hamilton), ed. n 85042884-1
Publication date: 1888
Publisher: Philadelphia : J. W. Lewis & Co.
Number of Pages: 1538