USA > Massachusetts > Plymouth County > Plymouth > Plymouth church records, 1620-1859 > Part 2
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The faithful administrations of their scholarly and beloved elder did not fully meet all their needs. The duties and authority of an elder of the church did not include and permit the administration of the sacraments. In the absence of the pastor, marriages were performed by civil rather than ecclesiastical authorities, following the practice in Holland, a matter later of reproach to Edward Wins- low and subjecting him to the penalty of imprisonment in the Fleet prison on the occasion of an early visit to London.
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1 In an Appendix (p. 3) to the sermon preached by the Rev. Philemon Robbins at the ordination of his son the Rev. Chandler Robbins at Plymouth on January 30, 1760. This John Cotton (who was a son of Josiah Cotton, a grandson of the Rev. John Cotton of Plymouth, and a great-grandson of the Rev. John Cotton of Boston) graduated at Harvard College in 1730, was ordained the first minister of Halifax in 1735, was dismissed in 1755, retired from the ministry and settled at Plymouth, where he died November 4, 1789. He will be men- tioned again in this Introduction: see pp. xxxvi-xxxix, below. For the title of Mr. Robbins's sermon, see p. Ixi, below.
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The first preacher at Plymouth was one John Lyford, who came to Plymouth in 1624 and before the expiration of a year was dis- covered to be "a vile man and an enemy to the plantation," and was banished from Plymouth.
The church remained without a minister until 1628, and then there was sent over from England to be their minister a young man by the name of Rogers. The church did not hastily determine upon the settlement of Rogers, recalling their experience in Lyford's case, and made some trial of him as a candidate with an unsatisfactory result. They found him to be "Crased in his braine," and at the expense of the church sent him back to England. Their conclusion as to his mental condition seemed to be fully justified, for after his departure he "Grew quite destracted."
The first settled minister of the church was the Rev. Ralph Smith who, at the invitation of the church, became its pastor in 1629 and remained with them until his resignation in 1635. During Mr. Smith's ministry they employed assistants to him, finding him to be "a man of low gifts and parts." Among these assistants were Mr. Roger Williams, "a young Man of bright Accomplishments, but of unstable Judgment," who at his own request, against the wishes of many of the congregation, was granted a dismission to the church at Salem in 1634; and Mr. John Norton, who came to Plymouth in October, 1635, but went to Ipswich in the following March.1
The church then made choice of Mr. John Reyner as the successor to Mr. Smith, "an able and a Godly man; and of a Meek and humble sperite, sound in the truth and euery way vnreprouable in his life and Conversation." During his term of service the church in 1638 en- deavored to secure the services of Mr. Charles Chauncy as his col- league. Mr. Reyner was expected to officiate as pastor and Mr. Chauncy as teacher, according to the distinction of those days, the
1 Mr. Norton arrived in the vessel in which Edward Winslow returned. When Winslow went to England in 1634, he was commissioned "to procure them an able man" to be helpful to Mr. Reyner, and was "prouided of one (as hee hoped) to Come ouer with him viz: one m" Glouer a very able dispencer of the word; but hee ended his life in London before hee Came on board" (p. 73, below). George E. Littlefield identified this "m" Glouer" with the Rev. Jose Glover, who died on the voyage from England to Boston in 1638: see Littlefield, Early Press of Massachusetts, i. 19, 34-35. Cf. W. C. Ford, in Bradford's History, ü. 161 note.
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teacher's duty being chiefly to explain the doctrines, and the pastor's to enforce them with suitable counsels and exhortations.
Mr. Chauncy preached at Plymouth for nearly three years but declined a settlement, being of different opinion from the majority of the church as to the method of baptism, which he held should be by dipping or plunging the whole body in water. The church were reluctant to lose his services and offered to compromise by permit- ting him to administer the ordinance of baptism by immersion, pro- vided he would permit Mr. Reyner to baptize, if requested, by sprinkling, which was then the mode in general use. The position was taken by some of the church leaders that both of these methods were lawful and proper but that the latter method, the baptism by sprinkling, was vastly more convenient in this cold climate. Mr. Chauncy "did not see Light to comply," and left the Plymouth Church to become the minister of the church at Scituate, and later became President of Harvard College, entering upon the duties of his office on November 27, 1654, and died on the 19th of February, 1672.
After eighteen years of service Mr. Reyner resigned in 1654, "Richly accomplished with such Gifts and qvallifications as were befiting his place being wise faithfull Grave sober a louer of Good men Not Greedy of the matters of the world Armed with much faith patience and meeknes mixed with Currage in the cause of God." 1
In 1632 churches at Duxbury and Green's Harbor (or Marshfield) were established, mainly upon practical considerations based upon the difficulty of members bringing "their wiues and Children to the publick worshipp and Church meetings heer."
The third church to be set off was at Nauset, now Eastham. It had been at first proposed that the whole church should migrate to Nauset on account of the "straightnes and barrenes" which' the inhabitants found in Plymouth. There was a marked division of opinion as to the wisdom of the removal which further consideration of the objections to the proposed change increased. It may be in- ferred from Bradford's statement that he was not in favor of aban- doning the settlement at Plymouth which with so great labor and pains they had established, and after much deliberation they began
1 P. 108, below.
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"to see their error," and an agreement was finally reached that only those members of the church who had definitely decided upon re- moval and had made some beginning should establish themselves at Nauset.
The land at Nauset had been reserved by Governor Bradford for the benefit of the "purchasers or old comers" in his assignment of the patent of 1629, and the General Court granted in 1644 to the church at Plymouth or to those that went to dwell at Nauset a large tract, well defined in the grant.1 The effect of this migration to the new settlement of many active and leading members of the Plymouth church is quaintly and tenderly stated by Governor Bradford in these words:
And thus was this poore church left, like an anciente mother, growne olde, and forsaken of her children, (though not in their affections), yett in regarde of their bodily presence and personall helpfullnes. Her anciente members being most of them worne away by death; and these of later time being like children translated into other families, and she like a widow left only to trust in God. Thus she that had made many rich became her selfe poore.2
This movement of families from the town of Plymouth into the outlying districts raised some interesting questions which required consideration and advice. On the 5th day of August, 1639, Mr. Reyner, the pastor, and elder Brewster, wrote a letter, probably to the Rev. John Cotton at Boston, asking some questions "concern- ing the holding of farmes," among them the following:
2. Seeing by meanes of such farmes a mans famylie is Diuided so that in busie tymes they cannot (except vpon the Lords day) all of them joyne with him in famylie duties whether to make use of them because of the forenamed needfulnes be not to doe evell that good may come of yt.ª
After Mr. Reyner's resignation in 1654, the church remained for fifteen years without a settled minister and was obliged to rely upon the services of neighboring ministers, although public worship was carried on each Sabbath by Elder Cushman with the assistance of
1 Plymouth Colony Records, ii. 81.
' History, ii. 369.
* Bradford's History, ii. 275 note, where the letter is printed in full.
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some of the brethren, except when the pulpit was supplied for short periods during these years by Mr. James Williams, an able Gospel preacher, who after a brief service returned to England, and by Mr. William Brinsmead, a well accomplished servant of Christ.
In September, 1666, the Rev. John Cotton, son of the Rev. John Cotton of Boston, was called to Plymouth, but declined the invita- tion. The next year the invitation was renewed and he removed to Plymouth with his family November 30, 1667, but was not ordained as the minister of the church until June 30, 1669.
The distinction between the church and the town or parish in relation to their several powers to contract with or settle a minister may well be noted here, as it tends to explain the reason that the prudential affairs of the church had no consideration in the church meetings, whose full details are preserved in these records.
The power to settle the minister resided wholly in the members of the parish; the members of the church formed but a small part in numbers of the parish. The ancient usage required that the church should first make choice of a minister and then request the con- currence of the parish. If the parish did not concur, the action of the church was a mere nullity. If the parish concurred, then the contract of settlement was made between the parish and the min- ister and bound only the parish and minister. Until the town was divided into precincts or parishes, it was considered to be one parish, and when a separate parish was formed within it, then the inhabit- ants and territory not included in the separate parish constituted the first parish. Before the town was divided their parochial con- cerns were transacted at the town meeting. The town fixed the salary, imposed the rate to pay the salary and to provide for the purchasing of a place or parsonage for the minister, and contracted for the erection of the meeting-house. If a suit was brought by the builders of the meeting-house to recover for failure to pay the agreed cost of construction, it was brought against the town and the town instructed its committee to defend it.
The provisions for the payment of the minister's salary were made by the town and varied with the changing years. Sometimes the salary was fixed in money alone. More often in the earlier years grant was made of money salary and firewood, as in the case of Mr. Brinsmead in 1666, when his salary was fixed at "seaventy
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pounds a yeare besides his fierwood." 1 Three years earlier in 1663 the town had ordered that the wood on Clark's Island, Saquish, and the Gurnett's Nose, be reserved for the use of the minister,2 an interesting record as it established the fact that the now barren points of Saquish and the Gurnett were once covered with wood, as shown in the descriptions of these localities by the early voyagers. Sometimes, as in the case of Mr. Cotton, provision was made by the town for an allowance to his wife or family in the event of his death, of an annual salary and the use of the parsonage house until the town was provided with another minister.
When money was difficult to obtain in 1677, the salary of Mr. Cotton of "four score pounds for this yeare" was paid by the town, one third in wheat or butter or tar or shingles; one third in rye, peas or malt; and one third in Indian corn, at the prices named in the vote.' The town records show that' from time to time efforts were made to provide for the maintenance by free subscription and com- mittees were appointed to see what persons would contribute towards the minister's support. This plan appeared to be unsatisfactory, as the town soon returned to the method of raising the salary by the rates. As late as 1795 the town leased the sedge lands along the Town Brook, which had been reserved for the use of the ministry, for 999 years, at a rental of six bushels of corn on the northerly side, the southerly side of the Brook having been rented for four bushels of corn in 1788, and until the death of the Rev. James Kendall in 1859 this rental was annually paid to the pastor by the lessees or their grantees.
If a town or parish settled a minister without any limitations as to the continuance of his settlement or any stipulation as to the method of dissolution, it created a contract for life and could be terminated only in the manner and for the causes established by law. The connection could not be dissolved by the parish at its mere will and pleasure without alleging some misconduct on the part of the minister. There were three established causes of forfei- ture of office by the minister: first, a substantial and essential change of doctrine; secondly, a wilful neglect of duty; and thirdly, immoral
1 Plymouth Town Records, i. 77.
2 i. 53.
* i. 154. In 1676 Mr. Cotton had been allowed £60 (i. 150-151).
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or criminal conduct. The immoralities sufficient to justify a parish in dismissing their minister without the intervention of a council, are those of the grosser sort, such as habitual intemperance, lying, . unchaste or immodest behavior.1
If the town or parish desired the dissolution of connection between them and the minister or the minister desired such dissolution, and also where there were charges of immorality or neglect on the part of the minister, the parties, if they could not agree to dissolve the contract, called to their assistance an ecclesiastical council. The decision of the council did not bind either party, and the effect of the advice of the council was merely a legal justification of the party who adopted its recommendation.2
The colonial laws as well as the decisions of the court show a solicitous care for the support of an able and godly minister. At the General Court held at Plymouth on the 10th of June, 1650, it was provided that "Whosoever shall villifie by approbrivs tearmes or speaches any church or minestry or ordinance being heerof lawfully convicted shall forfeite and pay to the vse of the collonie ten shill- ings for euery default."' The next year a penalty of ten shillings was imposed for neglecting public worship or assembling at a place upon any pretense whatsoever "in any way contrary to God and the allowance of the gouernment tending to the subversion of Reli- gion and churches."4 In 1655 the General Court provided that "such as shall deney the Scriptures to bee a rule of life shall receiue Corporall punishment according to the descretion of the Majestrate soe as it shall not extend to life or Limb." 5 And with commendable zeal that the minister should not be without oil in his lamps, the General Court recommended in 1662 to the towns "where Gods Prouidence shall cast any whales" that they should agree to set apart some part "of euery such fish or oyle for the Incurragement of an able Godly Minnester amongst them." " But all matters per- taining to the forms of church service were the exclusive concern of the church.
1 Sheldon v8. Congregational Parish in Easton, 24 Pick. 281.
" Avery vs. Tyringham, 3 Mass. 160.
' Plymouth Colony Records, xi. 57.
‘ xi. 57-58.
" xi. 64.
· xi. 207-208.
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The church at Plymouth used Ainsworth's version of the Psalms, entitled "The Book of Psalmes: Englished both in Prose and Metre," until 1692. Longfellow in the Courtship of Myles Standish, de- scribes Priscilla as seated beside her wheel and -
Open wide on her lap lay the well-worn psalm-book of Ainsworth, Printed in Amsterdam, the words and the music together, Rough-hewn, angular notes, like stones in the wall of a churchyard, Darkened and overhung by the running vine of the verses.
The edition here referred to was "Imprinted at Amsterdam, By Giles Thorp. Aº. D'. 1612."
On May 17, 1685, the elders stayed the church after public wor- ship was ended, and "moved to sing Psalm: 130: in another Trans- lation, because in M' Ainsworths Translation which wee sang, the tune was soe difficult few could follow it, the chh readily consented thereunto." On August 7, 1692, the church voted unanimously that "when the tunes are difficult in the Translation wee use, wee will sing the Psalmes now used in our neighbor-ches in the Bay." This was "The Bay Psalm Book," printed first at Cambridge in 1640 and sometimes known as "The New England Version."
As early as 1681 the practice of reading the psalm line by line for the people to sing, was first introduced. At a church meeting held February 10, 1681, the elders told the church that "a Brother ear- nestly desired the Psalmes might be read in publick worship, because else he was incapable of practising that ordinance." The church hesitated to make this innovation in the old custom and desired the pastor to show from the Scriptures the lawfulness of reading the psalm in order to singing. The pastor considered the subject for more than six months and then (on September 18) showed the law- fulness and necessity of reading the psalm, and two weeks later (October 2, 1681) it was decided, although not without opposition, that the reading of the psalms was lawful and the practice was adopted of the elder's reading the psalm and the pastor's expound- ing the psalm before singing.
In several meetings in 1770 and 1771 the church considered changing the version of the Psalms which were sung in public wor- ship.1 For some years the versions of Dr. Watts and of Tait and
1 See the meetings held on January 28, February 1, 11, 13, December 19, 1770, January 6, 1771, and March 21, 1786: pp. 332-336, 366, below.
INTRODUCTION
Brady had been on trial. The church was divided; some strongly in favor of Dr. Watts's version, and others bitterly opposed, and it was decided, subject to the. approval of the congregation, that Tait and Brady's version be hereafter sung in public worship, and also, that the hymns annexed to that version, mainly by Dr. Watts, be made use of. But it was voted in 1786 that Dr. Watts's "Version of the Psalms, & Hymns united, be sung in future."
It is a curious illustration of the bitterness of the feeling as to the use of the hymns by Dr. Watts that on May 1, 1776, one of the deacons was brought to trial before the church charged with saying that "when D' Watts composed his Hymns, he was under the In- fluence of y Devil." The church handled the matter ingeniously and voted that it was proved the deacon "said so with respect to his Psalms, tho not Hymns." The deacon expressed his regret that he used such an expression, if he did use it, and the church accepted his qualified apology and voted to forgive him.1
From the time of Mr. Cotton's settlement, the records of the church were kept by the ministers and during his ministry the prac- tice began, which was followed by all his successors, of giving in full detail the names of communicants of the church and persons admitted to membership, and also full lists of the baptisms and deaths of members, which will be found of especial interest to genealogists and antiquarians .? The pastors of the church also kept full records of the ecclesiastical councils and ordinations to which the church was invited and was represented by its minister and delegates.' The minute reports of the numerous cases in the church which re- quired investigation and trial present some curious cases of church discipline, where the penalty varied from a warning or temporary suspension of privileges to formal dismissal and excommunication.‘
Mr. Cotton introduced (or revived) in 1669 the practice of cate-
1 See pp. 350, 351, below.
' Curiously enough, no marriages were recorded until 1760, when Mr. Robbins began the practice.
' The dates of some early ordinations are to be found in these records only.
" Cf. Charles Francis Adams's paper on church discipline in New England (2 Proceedings Massachusetts Historical Society, vi. 477-516). "I have alluded," he said, "to the early church records of Plymouth as probably offering a pecu- liarly interesting field of inquiry in this matter. I have never seen those records, and know nothing of them " (p. 510). These records fully bear out Mr. Adams's opinion as to their probable value.
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chizing children, using at, first the catechism composed by the Rev. William Perkins, and later (in 1678) the Assembly's cate- chism was adopted. It was also during his ministry that the change was made from the Ainsworth Psalm Book to the New England Psalm Book, before referred to.
In June, 1676, in compliance with the request of the General Court that "all our churches renew their covenant engagement to God for Reformation of all provoking evills," the church met and voted that the following covenant should be left upon record as that which they "did own to be the substance of that Covenant which their Fathers' entered into at the first gathering of the Church:"
In the Name of our Lord Jesus Christ & in obedience to his holy will & divine ordinances.
Wee being by the most wise & good providence of God brought to- gether in this place & desirous to unite our selves into one congregation or church under the Lord Jesus Christ our Head, that it may be in such sort as becometh all those whom He hath redeemed & sanctifyed to himselfe, wee doe hereby solemnly & religiously (as in his most holy prescence) avouch the Lord Jehovah the only true God to be our God & the God of ours & doe promise & binde ourselves to walke in all our wayes according to the Rule of the Gospel & in all sincere conformity to His holy ordinances & in mutuall love to & watchfullnesse over one another, depending wholy & only upon the Lord our God to enable us by his grace hereunto.1
Some differences having arisen in the church, Mr. Cotton resigned and at his request was dismissed on October 5, 1697. The reasons for Mr. Cotton's resignation do not clearly appear in the church records. It is suggested that a difference of opinion between the pastor and his church as to the position taken by Mr. Isaac Cush- man, who accepted an invitation to preach over the "upper society," since called Plympton,2 before his designation to office of ruling elder by the church, was the principal cause for Mr. Cotton's later withdrawal. Judge Sewall in his Diary gives an interesting account of his visit to Plymouth in March, 1698, and his interviews with
1 See p. 148, below.
The Plympton church, to which Mr. Cushman was called in 1695 and over which he was ordained on October 27, 1698, was the fourth offshoot of the Plymouth Church.
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Mr. Cotton and members of the church, which suggests some more serious grounds for Mr. Cotton's resignation.1 . He remained in Plymouth for a year after his withdrawal from his pastorate and then accepted a call to the church at Charleston, South Carolina, having made up all differences as his grandson, John Cotton, says with the Plymouth church, and receiving & recommendation from several ministers. He sailed for Charleston on the 16th of Novem- ber, 1698, and died there after a brief but successful ministry, on the 18th of September, 1699. The Charleston church erected in token of their respect, a monument over his grave in that city, and the Plymouth church erected a monument to his memory on Burial Hill. From a diary kept by Josiah Cotton, son of the Rev. John Cotton of Plymouth, Dr. James Thacher copied an account of the life of this Plymouth minister, in which it is stated:
He had a vast and strong memory, and was a living index to the Bible. . .. He sometimes preached in the Indian language, and he corrected the second and last edition of the Indian bible. . . . He was a competent scholar, but divinity was his favorite study. He discharged the work of the ministry to good acceptance, both in public and in private, and was very desirous of the conversion of souls. He ruled his house like a tender parent; was a hearty friend, helpful to the needy, kind to strangers and doubtless a good man. And yet, what man is there without his failings ??
He was succeeded by the Rev. Ephraim Little, who after two years' probation was ordained in 1699 and continued as the minister of the church until his death on the 24th of November, 1723. It may be noted that Mr. Little was the first minister of the church to be buried on Burial Hill. Since the landing of the Pilgrims only one other minister, the Rev. Chandler Robbins, rests in that grave- yard beside the church.
The meeting of the church council in 1706 to hear the complaints of members of the church in Middleboro of the intemperance and excessive drinking of the minister of that church, shows the limited power and authority of church councils and that the particular province of the church council was to advise and not direct, and that
1 Sewall, Diary, i. 472-473. Cf. C. Mather, Diary, i. 79, 194, 236, 237, 277, 319; Sibley, Harvard Graduates, i. 496-508.
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