USA > Massachusetts > Plymouth County > Plymouth > Plymouth church records, 1620-1859 > Part 3
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" History of the Town of Plymouth (1832), p. 302.
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the right to terminate the pastoral relations between minister and church was vested in the parish alone. Delegates from four churches heard the complaint and adjudged the charges to be proved and then "advised him to make a peaceable and Ordrely Secession" from the church, and advised the church to dismiss him with such expressions of love and charity as became the Gospel. Then those members of the church who were dissatisfied with the advice of the council called a second council of twelve churches. Twelve pastors and twenty-two delegates assembled in response to the call and concurred with the former council.1
Mr. Little is described as a "gentleman more inclined to the active than the studious life; but should be remembered for his useful services as a minister, and for his exemplary life and conversa- tion, being one of good memory, a quick invention, having an excel- lent gift in prayer, and in occasional performances also excelling." ?
The records of the church during Mr. Cotton's and Mr. Little's ministries contain many references to the general fasts and par- ticular fasts observed by the church. The general fasts were fasts throughout the province, held in accordance with the requirements of the General Court, and particular fasts were those limited to the church itself, and the speedy answers to the prayers of the church were often noted with pious satisfaction.
In the administration of the right of baptism, a difference of opinion existed in the practice of the ministers. Mr. Little held that if the mother was in full communion, the child was undeniably a proper subject of baptism. For the first time in the history of the church, the pastor performed the right of baptism privately by bap- tizing on July 19, 1718, one Ephraim Holmes, who being at the , point of death was baptized in his own house, and justifies the pro- ceedings by the following memorandum in the record:
I nev" could find that baptism (viz. the administration of it) is any where in scripture Limitted To ye sabbath or a public Assembly, & I always had a great" regard to y" Scripture than the Custome or practice of any Minister or Church.
1 See p. 203, below.
" In Thacher, History of Plymouth, p. 306, where the passage is quoted from John Cotton's Account, in which it "is extracted from some Manuscript Memoirs, written by one contemporary with him " (p. 24).
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(1) I cant find it Limittd To sabbath in ye Scripture.
(2) nor To a publick Assembly:
1: not to ye sabbath.1
During Mr. Little's pastorate two churches were set off from the ancient church, one in the year 1717 in the north part of the town, now Kingston, which was the fifth church; 2 another in 1738 at Manomet or Monument Ponds, which was the sixth church" founded by members of the original First Church.
On the 29th of July, 1724, the Rev. Nathaniel Leonard of Norton, who had been chosen to succeed Mr. Little on the 13th of February, 1724, was ordained as minister. The formal letters of invitation were sent to the neighboring churches, requesting the presence of minister and delegates to the ministerial council and ordination. Mr. Leonard notes in his record the names of fifty-four male com- municants or members of the church, and one hundred and one females, at the time of his ordination. The house which he built and occupied on the southerly side of Leyden Street is still standing, the oldest parsonage house now remaining in Plymouth.
As a result of the preachings of Andrew Croswell," a revival minister, with whom Mr. Leonard was in sympathy as he permitted him to preach in his pulpit,5 differences arose in the church and Josiah Cotton, son of the Rev. John Cotton of Plymouth, pro- pounded certain queries, one of which at least was aimed directly at Mr. Croswell's methods and preachings. The church met to con- sider the problem "Whether a sudden and short distress, and as . sudden joy, amounts to the repentance described and required. (2 Corin. vii. 9-11.)."" No formal decision was made by the church, but as a result of these church dissensions some of the society who were bitterly opposed to Mr. Leonard withdrew from
1 P. 218, below.
" The organization of the fourth church at Plympton has already been noted (p. xxxi note 2, above).
' Manomet is still part of Plymouth, and the church at Manomet is the Second Church of Plymouth.
4 Andrew Croswell was born at Charlestown in 1709; graduated at Harvard College in 1728; was ordained at Groton, Connecticut, in 1738; was installed over the Congregational Church in School Street, Boston, in October, 1748; and died in Boston April 12, 1785. He was a noted controversialist.
" Mr. Leonard also attended Mr. Croswell's installation at Boston in 1748.
· Thacher, History of Plymouth, pp. 309-310.
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. the church and in 1744 organized the third Congregational society within the town, which was the seventh church formed from the First Church. This church, known as the Third Church, continued as a separate organization until 1784, when it re-united during the pastorate of Mr. Robbins with the old First Church.1
Mr. Leonard's health failing in 1757 he asked to be dismissed from his pastoral relation, which was assented to by the church with the understanding that it was not to be formally completed until his successor had been settled. When his successor was ordained on January 30, 1760, Mr. Leonard was present at the ordination and came from his home in Norton, to which he had removed in 1757, took part in the exercises of the ordination, and secured the formal dismission from his pastorate, the church "at the same Time ac- knowledging it is a great Favour of Heaven, that we have enjoyed his Labours So long. Viz. For near three & thirty Years: In this Time we have found him a diligent, zealous, faithful Minister of Jesus Christ."?
After the dismissal of Mr. Leonard, the church heard many candidates and made several unsuccessful attempts to settle a minister. Invitations to clergymen in other places to become the minister of the church at Plymouth for one reason or another had been declined and after all hopes faded, the Rev. Chandler Robbins of Branford, Connecticut, was invited to preach as a candidate, and on October 30, 1759, the church chose him as Mr. Leonard's successor,. but required that he should declare his assent and consent to the New England Confession of Faith or exhibit one in writing to the satisfaction of the church. Mr. Robbins accepted the call after a public declaration before the church and congregation of his assent and consent to the New England Confession, and on the 30th of January, 1760, was ordained as the minister of the First Church.
On June 11, 1761, Mr. Leonard died at Norton and the church records, quoting from the public prints, pay tribute to his memory: "He was a Man of considerable natural Abilities (as well of acquired
1 There have been two societies in Plymouth, each called the Third Church. The first of these lasted, as stated in the text, from 1744 to 1784, when it was re-united with the First Church; the second was organized in 1801.
· P. 325, below.
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Accomplishments,) of a clear Head, Solid judgment, penetrating Tho't, Excelling in Conference and in giving Counsel & Advice in difficult Cases."1
On December 19, 1770, Mr. Robbins called the church together to consider some matters of importance relative to church discipline, etc. The following question was proposed by him for consideration by the church: "Whither it be the Opinion of this Chh that the half way Practice of owning or entering into Covenant [without coming into full communion], which has of late years, been adopted by this Chh, be a scriptural Method - or a practice warranted by sd Word of God, & so to be persisted in?"?
To this half-way practice Mr. Robbins was strenuously opposed; the church was divided. Mr. John Cotton 8 was a zealous sup- porter and advocate of the practice which permitted persons owning or renewing the covenant to have baptism for their children without coming into full communion. At several church meetings he deliv- ered some essays on this important question as he termed it, and later printed the essays with some vigorous and at times bitter letters which passed between Mr. Robbins and himself. The con- troversy continued during Mr. Robbins's ministry and was one of the contributing causes which led to the withdrawal of some mem- bers of the church shortly after Dr. Kendall's settlement, and to the organization of the Third Church in Plymouth." The issues involved have lost much of their interest to-day and it is not material nor practical to state at length the theological arguments on the one side or the other which the stout champions presented. The curious reader will find in the records," in the little volume of Mr. Cotton's above referred to, and in the other pamphlets published by the disputants, an interesting discussion of the disputed points and a striking illustration of the importance attached to a now forgotten matter of dispute.
The practice of the church from the beginning seemed to sustain the position of Mr. Cotton. That this practice met with the ap- proval of his "grandfather Cotton, the former minister of this
1 Pp. 326-327, below.
· P. 335, below.
" For this John Cotton, see p. xxii note 1, above.
" That is, the second Third Church, organized in 1801.
" Pp. 334-345, below.
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church," he finds by the manuscript written by his grandfather's "own hand." To the suggestion -
"That we received this practice by tradition from our Fathers without examination, and have gone on in a loose way without being able to give any good reason for it." I answer, that neither our Fathers introduced it, nor we received it in this light manner. The question was started in the country soon after grand children were born to the first comers, and the point agitated for twenty or thirty years by the ablest Divines, until at last the Synod of all the Ministers and churches, came to a solemn decision about it in the year 1662, after much prayer, study, and converse, and gave such weighty reasons for it as were never yet answered. Neither did many of their posterity receive it thus lightly: Mr. Leonard in particular had occasion and thoroughly studied the con- troversy, as appeared by several sermons on the point; and the same may be said of many others.1
Nathaniel Morton, writing of the ordination of Mr. Francis Higginson and Mr. Samuel Skelton at Salem in 1629, states the practice clearly and simply as follows:
The two Ministers there being seriously studious of Reformation, they considered of the state of their Children, together with their Parents; concerning which, Letters did pass between Mr. Higginson, and Mr. Brewster the reverend Elder of the church of Plimouth, and they did agree in their judgements, viz. concerning the Church-Membership of the Children with their parents, and that Baptism was a seal of their Mem- bership, only when they were Adult, they being not scandalous, they were to be examined by the Church-Officers, and upon their approbation of their fitness, and upon the Childrens publick and personal owning of the Covenant, they were to be received unto the Lords Supper. Ac- cordingly Mr. Higginson's eldest Son, being about fifteen years of age, was owned to have been received a member together with his Parents, and being privately examined by the Pastor, Mr. Skelton, about his knowledge in the principles of Religion, he did present him before the Church when the Lords supper was to be Administred, and the Childe then publickly and personally owning the Covenant of the God of his Father, he was admitted unto the Lords supper: it being then pro- fessedly owned, according to 1 Cor. 7. 14. that the Children of the Church are holy unto the Lord as well as their Parents, Accordingly, the Parents
1 General Practice of the Churches of New England relating to Baptism, Vindicated [1772], pp. 20-21.
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owning and retaining the Baptism, which they themselves received in their Infancy, in their Native Land, as they had any Children born, Baptism was administred unto them.1
The reason Plymouth Church did not join the Synod was mainly because that church "was without a minister ten years together about that time."
It seems undisputed that Mr. Leonard adopted the practice for which Mr. Cotton contended, but it was objected that he had great difficulty in bringing in the practice and was seven years about it, which delay was due to his prudence, for he waited until he gained the acquiescence of all. This was in accordance with the ancient practice and constitution of the church, for in the records we find that they would not vote in affairs of importance, especially in altera- tions of any part of worship, until they had gained the consent of every brother, at least so far as to acquiesce in the church procedure.
The whole correspondence between the minister and Mr. Cotton was marked with bitterness. Mr. Robbins describes Mr. Cotton's "last Piece" as a "most injurious, unchristian, ungentleman-like, gross, misrepresentation of the sentiments of your brethren." This was bad enough, but it did not disturb Mr. Cotton's sensitive feel- ings as did the suggestion that his (Cotton's) opinions tended "to establish the most dangerous tenets of the Arminians," to which he replies, "Mr. Robbins, I must tell you, I scorn the charge," and later returns to the attack with the assertion that "there is no more con- nexion between this practice and Arminianism than between it and atheism," and closes his argument on that point with the assertion "Methinks the boldest face may be justly ashamed ever to mention it any more." Mr. Robbins offered to "bury the hatchet and forget and forgive and for the future to live in love and peace."
The settlement of the difficulty appeared to Mr. Cotton as "a further insult" and not a retraction or acknowledgment, and the controversy proceeded with his fourth and. last essay 2 in which he proposed that "the church, by a formal vote, adopt the method I proposed the last town meeting, viz. for a neighbouring Minister to
1 New Englands Memoriall (1669), pp. 77-79.
' That is, the fourth and last essay in Mr. Cotton's first pamphlet. For the titles of the four pamphlets printed (two by Mr. Cotton and two by Mr. Robbins), see pp. Ivi and note 2, Ivii and note 1, below.
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baptize the children of the church, as long as Mr. Robbins's scruples remain. . . . We are willing to give him liberty of conscience; and expect the same liberty from him. And should think it hard, if he endeavours to prevent any Minister's coming."1 The town never voted on Mr. Cotton's proposal, and the church at its meeting on June 30, 1772, voted to drop the affair for the present and "to reassume the further Consideration thereof, when they shall think it proper or necessary." The suggestion, however, in time became adopted in practice, and those children who failed to meet with the minister's strict requirements were baptized by a more liberal preacher on the occasion of some of Mr. Robbins's infrequent exchanges.
The church was not only divided on matters of practice and dogma, but also was not in complete accord on the issues presented by the Revolutionary War. Mr. Robbins was a sturdy patriot and served from time to time with the Revolutionary forces at Dorchester as chaplain, but some of the leading citizens of the town were not in sympathy with the demands for independence and separation from the mother country. Deacon Foster was brought before the church charged inter alia that his political conduct and practice were just matters of offence, that he "discovers a Willingness to have this Country enslaved," and "is an Advocate for ye Destructive Doc- trines of Positive Obedience & Non Resistance."
On July 17, 1776, at the hearing upon the charges against Deacon Foster, it was urged against him that he looked upon those of the brethren who were opposed to him in political opinions as rebels and deserving of punishment, and he being unwilling to make any recantation, it was voted almost unanimously that they could not contentedly communicate with him at the Lord's table. At the deacon's request the meeting was adjourned for further deliberation, without proceeding to his formal suspension from the Communion, and before final action was taken Deacon Foster died of small-pox in January, 1777.
Another of the brethren explained his non-attendance upon - church worship upon the ground that "The people of the town in general treated him in contempt, calling him a Tory."
1 The extracts in the text are from Mr. Cotton's first pamphlet, The general Practice of the Churches of New-England, relating to Baptism, Vindicated [1772], pp. 20-21, 34, 36, 41, 72-73.
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In 1794 a committee of the church and a committee of the parish were appointed to meet and prepare a form of admission to the church and confession of faith. Dr. Robbins proposed a plan which met the approval of his committee but the committee of the parish would not concur. The confession of faith, as stated by Dr. Robbins and adopted by the church in June, 1795, contained fourteen articles, agreeing in substance with the six principles of William Perkins.
The records of the church during Dr. Robbins's term of service contain a larger number of cases of church discipline than are to be found in the records kept by any other of the pastors of the church. A scholarly, learned and devout minister, possessing the confidence and respect of all his congregation and the affection of many, he had positive ideas as to the duties and responsibilities of pastor and church to its erring members. The morals as well as the religious beliefs of the members of his parish were subjects of his interest and care. He thoroughly believed in the propriety and importance of public admonitions and public: confessions,1 and while he tempered justice with mercy as he understood it, in the cases of those of his flock who were prepared to retract their errors and confess their sins and show repentance, he did not hesitate to proceed to the severest measures which it was possible for a church to take.
On July 1, 1798, he pronounced formal sentence of excommunica- tion upon one member of his church: "I declare him to belong visibly to the sinful & woful Kingdom of Satan, the Ruler of the Darkness of this World. I declare him to be a Person, from whom Christians, the followers of our holy Lord are to 'withdraw them- selves, as from one that walks disorderly.' And this just Sentence, now passed upon him, by the Church in the Name & by the Author- ity of Christ, is but a Prelude & Representation of a Sentence, far more dreadful to be passed upon him, in the Day when the Lord Jesus Christ shall come to judge the world."?
Upon the re-union of the Third and First churches in 1784, Dr. Robbins became the pastor of a parish including within its limits the town of Plymouth excepting only the precinct of Manomet Ponds, and until his death on June 30, 1799, he was, with the ex-
1 See the reasons given by himself in 1771 for recording confessions, pp. 287- 288, below.
· P. 520, below.
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ception of the pastor of that outlying precinct, the only settled minister in the town. Whatever dissatisfaction existed with Dr. Robbins's strictness in religious and parochial matters was undoubt- edly held in check during his term of service by the affection and respect which the members of his parish entertained for him and no formal action looking towards a division of the church was had, although it is probable that a majority of the church were not en- tirely in sympathy with his attitude upon some matters of discipline and practice.
Until 1788 he occupied the parsonage on the northerly side of Leyden Street, which stands on a portion of the lot presented to the church by the widow and son of Dr. Samuel Fuller of the Mayflower, who for many years was a deacon of the church. This parsonage house is still standing and was occupied by his successor, Dr. Ken- dall. The following memorandum appears in the church records:
Lord's Day June 30th 1799, died, after a long and distressing illness, The Revd Chandler Robbins DD. The justly & highly esteemed & greatly beloved Pastor of this Church; to the great and inexpressible loss of his bereaved flock, and his other numerous acquaintance. After having faithfully and indefatigably laboured in this part of the Lords vineyard, nearly forty years, it pleased his Divine Master to release him from his service here, & to call him home to receive a gracious reward.1
The last entry made by Dr. Robbins on the church records was the record of the meeting of February 12, 1799. The moderator of the next meeting, held November 4, 1799, records the choice of a minister by the church to succeed Dr. Robbins by a vote of twenty- three for Mr. James Kendall and "fifteen were not for him." The parish voted to concur with the church by a vote of 253 in the affirmative and 15 in the negative. Mr. Kendall's answer to the call given him by the church on the 4th of November, 1799, is re- corded in full in the records. He was born at Sterling, November 3, 1769, and was nearly fitted to enter Harvard College at the early age of fourteen, but on account of serious trouble with his eyes, attributed to the closeness of his application to the study of Greek in the evening, he was not permitted to enter college until 1792. He was graduated in the class of 1796 with high rank and in 1798
1 P. 623, below.
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became a tutor of Greek in the College, and later received the degree of A.M. in course and of S.T.D. in 1825. He was the first candidate invited to preach in Plymouth after the death of Dr. Robbins and preached his first sermon as candidate on October 13, 1799. Dr. Thomas Robbins, a nephew of Dr. Chandler Robbins, notes in his diary of that day: "Heard Mr. Kendall preach. He appears to be an Arminian in full. A very great congregation here." 1 .
Without attempting to analyze minutely the differences between the distinguishing tenets of the Arminians and those of the Calvin- ists, it is sufficient to say that the Arminians regarded the doctrines of Calvin with regard to free will, predestination, and grace as too severe, and adopted a religious system which extends the love of the Supreme Being and the "merits of Jesus Christ" to all mankind.
For thirty-eight years Dr. Kendall was the sole pastor of the First Church and after the settlement of his colleague, the Rev. George W. Briggs, he preached frequently as the senior pastor of the church in his own and other pulpits. He died on March 17, 1859, after a ministry of nearly sixty years, leaving "the memory of the pious pastor, the lover of peace, the promoter of good will among men, the stedfast christian friend, who in his daily life, so well exemplified their [the Pilgrims'] virtues, and their all sustaining faith."" He published many sermons and addresses. Eleven years after his death Governor Clifford at his speech on the Pilgrim anniversary in 1870, gracefully referred to "the saintlike aspect, the serene presence, and the mellifluous voice of another divine of a later age, the worthy successor of John Robinson and Elder Brewster, the Reverend Dr. Kendall." 3
The church sent invitations to fourteen churches, to President Willard of Harvard College, and the Rev. Dr. David Tappan, Pro- fessor of Divinity, to be present at his ordination. The ecclesiastical council met at Plymouth on the 31st of December, 1799, nine churches being represented. A remonstrance against ordaining him as pastor of the church was presented to the council by three members,
1 Diary (1886), i. 99.
" These words were used when presenting to Dr. Kendall a casket containing $400 from friends in Boston and vicinity on January 1, 1850: see his Discourse delivered on that day, p. 24.
* Proceedings, etc. (1871), pp. 140-141.
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who said they represented fifteen male members. The council, after due consideration and giving the remonstrance its full weight, voted that they were ready to comply with the request of the First Church of Christ in Plymouth, expressed in their letters missive, and pro- ceeded with the ordination. On January 1, 1800, Mr. Kendall was solemnly ordained to the work of the Gospel ministry and pastor of the First Church of Christ in Plymouth.
On the 17th of September, 1801, a meeting of the church was held and a request was submitted by one of the brethren that all the members, male and female, that wished be dismissed from their relations with the First Church, be formed into a new church by the name of the Third Church of Christ in Plymouth, and that any member who desires hereafter a dismission from either church to join the other one, be dismissed and recommended to the other. And further, that an equal proportion of the church furniture ac- cording to the numbers of the Third Church be granted to that church.
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