USA > Massachusetts > Barnstable County > History of Plymouth, Norfolk and Barnstable counties, Massachusetts, Vol. I > Part 26
USA > Massachusetts > Norfolk County > History of Plymouth, Norfolk and Barnstable counties, Massachusetts, Vol. I > Part 26
USA > Massachusetts > Plymouth County > History of Plymouth, Norfolk and Barnstable counties, Massachusetts, Vol. I > Part 26
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How Universalism was regarded in the smaller towns in Plymouth County was indicated in Halifax, a town of less than 400 population, in which a church was erected at the cost of much sacrifice on the part of those of more liberal convictions than the "strictly orthodox." One of the latter sort was seized with violent pains in his stomach and was in fear that he would die. Holding on to his abdomen, he approached the house of a neighbor as a witness and shouted "Damn the Univer- salists, damn the Universalists," acting on the theory that to pass away damning the Universalists would be his own best passport to paradise.
There was no special opposition to Unitarianism or Universalism in Plymouth County, because they were Unitarianism or Universalism. If a person became identified with any religion but that founded by the Pilgrims he was regarded as "irregular," to say the least, by many who might be called bigoted without arousing much controversy. But there has never been any pronounced persecution on account of variance of religious convictions or affiliations, since the colonial days. Nearly every sect has had a church or society in the county that has had a branch in this part of the country, even the Latter Day Saints and so- called "Holy Rollers" and, aside from the attention given them by natural disturbers, have been allowed "to worship God according to the dictates of their own consciences."
Interesting stories of the early struggles and patient efforts of various local churches appear in that part of this history devoted to the in- dividual towns, where there has been anything outstanding or unusual in their experiences.
The rise of liberalism in this vicinity brought forth a remark which has almost become a classic. When Unitarianism, Universalism and Trans- cendentalism were gaining a substantial foothold among men of educa-
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tion and refinement, among them was Ralph Waldo Emerson, the sage of Concord. "Father Taylor," a Methodist minister, and founder of the Seaman's Bethel in Boston, said of Emerson: "He must go to Heaven when he dies for if he went to Hell the devil would not know what to do with him."
Another version is that some of "Father Taylor's Methodist friends objected to his friendship with Emerson who, as a Unitarian, they felt was surely doomed to the lower regions. "Father Taylor" said : "It does look so, but I am sure of one thing, if Emerson does go to that place, he will change the climate and emigration will set that way."
It is remarkable that Boston of all places in the United States should have developed into the centre of liberalism. There is said to be as many sects, cults and denominations in that city of culture and free thinking as can be found under the sun, and it can only be explained by the fact that the pendulum swings back in one direction as far as it swings out in the other. The old-time theology of the Pilgrims and Puritans, backed up by the strictest laws and most unflinching determi- nation to punish heretics, burned itself out, after the people became surfeited with long sermons on the wrath of God
And how, of His will and pleasure, All Souls, save a chosen few, Were doomed to the quenchless burning, And held in the way thereto.
Under the strict rule of the Puritans, Catholics were prohibited from entering the Massachusetts Colony, under pain of death. This law was made in 1647 and for some years after, many Irish Catholics were sold in Boston to people in need of slaves. To quote from James O. Fagan's book entitled "The Old South":
With a few notable and glorious exceptions, nobody in those days wanted religious toleration, and the law of William the Silent, under the protection of which the Pilgrims were harbored in Holland, was universally ridiculed as tending to foster "a cage of unclean birds, the mingle-mangle of religion." Be this as it may, the Puritans' concept of religion lasted in Boston until well into the nine- teenth century, when churches were still permitted to put chains across the streets on Sundays to prevent disturbance, and when the penalties that threatened the unbelievers were seriously expressed in the popular conviction that it was "easier for a shad to climb a greased barber-pole tail foremost than for a sinner to enter the Kingdom of Heaven."
Whitefield and "The Great Awakening"-Much credit for a more liberal religious atmosphere must be given to Rev. George Whitefield, who stirred the people to a new sensation, causing an intense religious excitement about 1740. He was an evangelist who had been a clergy- men of the Church of England, a graduate of Oxford, and, at the time
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of his arrival in Plymouth County, was about 26 years of age. While in Boston, Rev. Jonathan Bowman of Dorchester recorded his impres- sion in the following language, more or less representative of the opinions held by the clergy in general, although there were exceptions: "Things are by some Persons carried too far, contrary to ye design of ye Holy Spirit-as in some places where Laymen go about Exhorting (as they call it), and people crowd in great Assemblies to hear them; and many cry out in ye Assembly, and are so struck (as they call it) that for a time they loose their senses and Reason, and ye like."
It was perhaps a novelty which the conservative clergymen of the day could not understand to see people eagerly flocking to divine service without the stimulus of the law and the penalty of the stocks behind the custom. He seemed to be able to draw all men to hear him and preached to 23,000 at one time on Boston Common.
He wrote to a friend at the time, concerning an invitation he received to preach in one of the churches at 6 o'clock in the morning: "Not ex- pecting a very great auditory, I opened a lecture in one of the smallest meeting-houses, upon these words, 'And they came early in the morning to hear me.' How was I disappointed! Such great numbers flocked to hear that I was obliged to make use of two of their largest places of worship, where I believe, seldom less than two or three thousand as- sembled .... One morning the crowd was so great that I was obliged to go in at the window." His position was peculiar. He was an ordained minister of the Church of England yet his work was done in the meeting- houses in Boston and vicinity which had been erected by those who came from England to escape the Established Church of England.
It is related that a scoffer went to one of the outdoor meetings ad- dressed by Whitefield, holding a stone in his hand which he intended to throw at the preacher. As he listened, the stone dropped from his hand and, after the sermon, he went forward and said: "Mr. Whitefield, I came here to break your head, but God has broken my heart."
The scoffing tongue was prayerful And the blinded eyes found sight, And hearts, as flint aforetime, Grew soft in his warmth and light.
Whitefield accepted invitations to preach in some of the smaller towns, among them being Kingston and Duxbury in this county. Rev. Thaddeus McCarty of Kingston was much impressed with the evangelist and was compelled to quit his pulpit. When he had gone the town held a meeting and appointed a committee of eight men "to prevent itinerant preachers from disturbing the peace of the town." Duxbury took similar action, directing the selectmen to take "care of the meeting-house to keep out itinerant preachers."
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MAYFLOWER COMPACT
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To briefly sketch theological history from the beginning of the pro- vincial period on the Massachusetts coast, for there was not so much difference in the theology of Boston or Plymouth after the Puritan and Pilgrim peculiarities became merged, first of all came the Congrega- tionalists, as the denomination which had first become firmly planted, after much suffering. There was a church of this denomination in every town of ordinary size, and three in Boston. There were a few Baptists, when the colonial charter was withdrawn, and fewer Quakers. Church membership had ceased to be a requisite for voting. The "Thursday lecture" was still observed and it has come down to our own day, Thurs- day being generally observed under the present name of "prayer meeting night," for most evangelical denominations.
Bible Was Not Read in Churches-During the first century of New England there was no Bible set up in the colonial meeting-house, nor did any minister read from the Bible in any pulpit. One of the inno- vations when the Brattle Street Church was organized in Boston was that the minister should read from the Bible to the congregation and it was one of the things which the conservative Congregationalists of the day viewed with alarm, as something dangerous to introduce. In- cluded in the "Manifesto or Declaration" which the Brattle Street Church made at the time of its organization, so that it might be set right before the community and not dependent upon the prejudiced fame which would be spread abroad about it by its opponents, appears : "We design only the true and pure Worship of God, according to the Rules appearing plainly to us in His Word .... We judge it therefore most suitable and convenient, that in our Publick Worship some part of the Holy Scripture be read by the minister at his discretion."
The St. James version of the Holy Bible was printed about the time the Pilgrims left the old country for the new, and it is still the version which is commonly used in this country as well as Great Britain. The Pilgrims, therefore, brought with them a new Bible; and the solemn charge of Rev. John Robinson, their pastor, before they sailed from Holland, was to be always ready to receive whatever further truth should be made known to them; for he was persuaded the Lord had more truth to break forth out of His Holy Word. Why more than a hundred years should have passed before the descendants of the Pilgrims were ready to have the Bible read in the meeting-houses is one of the mysteries which have not been satisfactorily explained.
It was no new thing to have the Bible read at a divine service. Almost a hundred years before the coming of the Pilgrims to Plymouth the Bible had been printed at London, in folio size, under the direction of Coverdale and the patronage of Cranmer, and copies were purchased for
Plym-16
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various English towns. A second edition appeared in 1541 which con- tained a preface written by Cranmer in which he said: "Scripture should be read of the lay and vulger people."
It was in 1541 that a royal proclamation was published which required every parish in England to procure, for public use, a Bible of the largest size, under penalty of forty shillings monthly for a delay. This Bible was to be set up in the churches, where it might be read by the people, but it was not read to the people. The Pilgrims had no Bible in the meeting-houses available for the people and, judging from the attitude of their descendants and the descendants of the Puritans in Boston at the organization of the Brattle Street Church, they "were not ready" to allow the people such a liberty.
It may not be fair to take the attitude of Rev. Cotton Mather as in- dicative of that of the Congregational brethren, as he was an extreme type, but his diary contained an entry, made when he heard of the Brattle Street Church, which reads: "A company of headstrong men in the town, the chief of whom are full of malignity to the holy ways of our churches, have built in the town another meeting-house. And without the advice or knowledge of the ministers in the vicinity they have pub- lished under the title of a Manifesto, certain articles that utterly subvert our churches."
For; testimony on the side of the more liberal-minded Congregation- alists we are able to present an extract from the diary of Samuel Sewall, set down after receiving a visit from the minister of the new church: "I told him If God should please by them to hold forth any Light that had not been seen or entertained before, I should be so far from envying it that I should rejoice in it."
Not so the Rev. Cotton Mather. A few months after writing the entry quoted, he took his quill in hand again and wrote: "I see Satan beginning a terrible Shake unto the Churches of New England and the Innovators that have sett up a New Church in Boston (A New one in- deed !) have made a Day of Temptation among us. The men are Ignorant, Arrogant, Obstinate and full of malice and slander, and they fill the Land with Lyes, in the misrepresentation thereof I am a very singular sufferer. Wherefore I set apart this day again for prayer in my study to cry mightily unto God."
It was just a hundred and fifty years after the landing of the Pilgrims that Duxbury, the home of Captain Myles Standish, John and Priscilla Alden and others of Pilgrim fame, voted that the Holy Scriptures "should be read every Lord's day by the minister."
Pilgrim and Puritan Differences-While considering the different attitudes taken by different members of the old, orthodox churches when
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a more liberal conviction was beginning to find expression in the new church in Boston, it is well to introduce some quotations from recognized historical writers along this line. Chamberlain Benjamin Scott, in his "Pilgrim Fathers Neither Puritans Nor Persecutors," says :
The Pilgrim Fathers and their precursors in England, Holland and at Plym- outh, were Separatists, and had no connection with the Puritans, who subse- quently settled in New England, at Salem and Boston, in Massachusetts, that the principles and practices of the two parties, confounded by some careless writers, differed essentially, the Separatists ever contending for freedom of conscience and separation from the powers of the State, while the Puritans remained in connection and communion with the State Church, and held, both in England and New England, that the State should be authoritative in matters of religion. Hence the anti-Christian and intolerant acts of the Puritan colony (Massachusetts) to the Separatists-Ralph Smyth, Roger Williams, Isaac Robinson, John Cud- worth and Timothy Hatherley. Hence, also, on the arrival of the Friends the cruel laws for whipping, banishing and executing, for matters of religious faith and practice. I have shown that the Separatist colony of Plymouth had no share in this intolerent conduct during the lives of the Pilgrim Fathers, and, moreover, that they acted kindly, and received into their church both Smyth and Roger Williams when forbidden to worship freely elsewhere; and that after the death of the Pilgrim Fathers, some of their sons and successors, acting up to their principles, shielded the Friends, and refused to be parties to the persecuting laws then enacted.
It may interest you to know that two eminent historians, recently deceased, virtually admitted the truth of that which I have thus affirmed. I refer to Lord Macaulay and Earl Stanhope (Lord Mahon) who as Commissioners for decorating, historically, the House of Lords, were appealed to respecting an erroneous inscrip- tion placed under Mr. Cope's painting of "The Pilgrim Fathers Landing in New England."
The inscription stood: "Landing of a Puritan Family in New Eng- land," but, after listening to the proofs submitted, and hearing Mr. Cope, who stated he had taken his ideas from "Bradford's Journal," the Commissioners ordered the terms "Puritan Family" to be removed, as unjust to the memory of the parties concerned, and substituted the words : "Pilgrim Fathers."
Backus, in his "History of New England," wrote: "Rigidness is a word that both Episcopalians and Presbyterians have often cast upon our Pilgrim Fathers. Yet the Massachusetts now discovered so much more of that temper than they, that Mr. Dunstar, October 24, 1654, resigned his office among them and removed and spent his remaining days at Scituate in Plymouth Colony."
Baylies' "History of New Plymouth" contains these paragraphs :
The Plymouth colonists of humbler rank and less excited from having been so long removed from the scene of controversy in England, were more tolerant and mild, and although much swayed by the influence of their domineering neigh- bors, to whom, on all great occasions, they seemed to defer, were never led into
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those horrible excesses of fanaticism which disgrace the early annals of Mas- sachusetts.
Sectarians, it is true, disturbed the tranquillity of the inhabitants of this little Commonwealth; but persecution with them assumed its mildest form, and their annals have escaped that deep and indelible stain of blood, which pollutes the pages of the early history of their sterner and more intolerant brethren of Mas- sachusetts.
Arnold's "History of Rhode Island": "The spirit of Robinson appeared to watch over his feeble flock on the coast of New England, long after his body was moldering beneath the Cathedral church at Leyden .... The Pilgrims of Plymouth were more liberal in feeling, and more tolerant in practice, than the Puritans of Massachusetts Bay. The simple form of democratic government (i. e., in its absolute form, precisely as prac- ticed in the Congregational churches) was maintained in Plymouth for eighteen years, until the growth of the colony compelled the in- troduction of the representative system."
Quotations of this kind might be continued and multiplied from eminent historians. One more will be sufficient for our purposes, some- thing well to remember in connection with civil government, taken from Wellman's "Church Polity of the Pilgrims:" "It has been said and it is true, that it was a Congregational church meeting that first suggested the idea of a New England town meeting; and a New Eng- land town meeting embodies all the germinal principles of our State and national government."
Customs at Early Religious Services-Most public events, like town meetings, the opening of court, the laying of cornerstones of public edifices and even the annual election of officers of the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company of Boston were attended with prayer in former days, and they still are. Marriages, which had been performed by the magistrates in colonial days, were delegated to clergymen under the provincial government, and still are, although there are a few of- ficials, such as mayors and Justices of the Peace who are empowered to perform marriage ceremonies. It was under the provincial government that the English custom of kissing the Bible when taking an oath was changed to the present plan of putting the left hand on the Bible and raising the right hand.
Some idea of the services held in some of the churches in the early days can be gleaned from the diary of Jasper Dankers. It was a Fast day service in 1680: "In the first place a minister read a prayer in the pulpit of full two hours in length; after which an old minister delivered a sermon an hour long, and after that a prayer was made, and some verses sung out of the psalm. In the afternoon, three or four hours were con-
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sumed with nothing except prayers, three ministers relieving each other alternately ; when one was tired, another went up into the pulpit."
Full church membership depended in early times upon an applicant giving a public relation of his religious experience before the whole congregation. Some shrank from laying their hearts bare before their neighbors. Church membership languished and, under the prevailing system, the parish government was vested in the members of the church as distinct from the congregation. This led members of the parish to demand a voice and vote in the business affairs of the parish, and new churches were organized, giving parish members the right to decide upon matters of expense. In time the voting power, so far as the con- trol of property was concerned, became more liberal in its convictions, than those included in full church membership. This accounts for the First Congregational (Unitarian) churches in various towns in the county.
The Puritans allowed no Scripture readings without comment in their services, presumably to be different from the Church of England. They would not allow what they called "dumb reading." The Pilgrims also attempted to have their services differ from that of the English church and a plan was adopted in Plymouth of reading aloud the hymns, line by line, to the congregation. This was convenient for those who could not read, in addition to its merit of originality. The custom spread throughout New England and removed "the embarrassment resulting from the ignorance of those who were more skillful in giving sound to notes, than in deciphering letters."
The first efforts to teach a choir to sing "by rule" instead of "by rote" in the colonial meeting-houses was vigorously opposed. Some churches compromised by having the hymns sung in the morning by the old way and in the afternoon by the new way, but this was regarded by the "conscientious objectors" as "an iniquity of the Devill" and the bitter fight took another inning. The town of Duxbury voted in 1780 that the psalms be "sung without being read line by line," but it had taken years to come to that conclusion. The town records of Barnstable in 1726 show that the civil authorities were called in "to detect and bear testimony against such iniquity" as adopting the new style. These records show that the controversy waged in Plymouth and Barnstable counties at least half a century.
First Liberal Church In Boston-The first movement in Massachu- setts for a more liberal church was taken in 1697 when the Brattle Street Church in Boston was organized and a wooden meeting-house erected. The first minister was Rev. Benjamin Colman, who was the clergyman who first invited Rev. George Whitefield to preach in that city and
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lead in "The Great Awakening." This was called the "Manifesto Church" and, with the possible exception of the matter of baptism, the position assumed by the Brattle Street Church is substantially the same as that of most of the Congregational churches at present and for many years past.
Organizing the "Manifesto Church" did not at once completely liber- alize its members. The land on which the meeting-house was erected was transferred by a deed of gift from Thomas Brattle. He died in 1713 and left as a legacy to the Brattle Street Church "a pair of organs, which he dedicated and devoted to the praise and glory of God with us, if we would accept thereof, and within a year after his decease procure a sober person skilful to play thereon." The church with all possible respect to the memory of "our devoted friend and benefactor," "Voted, That they did not think it proper to use the same in the public worship of God."
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