USA > Massachusetts > Plymouth County > Plymouth > The church of the Pilgrim Fathers > Part 5
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They carried with them, so far as appears in the minute chronicle of Bradford, no written confession or declaration of faith or creed. They would doubtless have described themselves as Calvinists; but it was a Calvinism which was marked with a singular degree of liberality, much broader and more tolerant than that of the catechism and covenants of later days. Touching the ecclesiastical minis- try they agreed with the French Reformed Churches.
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Perhaps no better description of the doctrine and spirit which animated them can be found than that of the fare- well counsel which the pastor Robinson addressed to those of his flock who were to leave his pastoral care. His parting words to the Pilgrims, as given by Winslow, were:
We are now ere long to part asunder, and the Lord knoweth whether ever he should live to see our faces again. But whether the Lord had appointed it or not, he charged us before God and his blessed angels to follow him no further than he fol- lowed Christ, and if God should reveal anything to us by any other instrument of his to be ready to receive it as ever we were to receive any truth by his ministry, for he was very con- fident that the Lord had more truth and light yet to break forth out of his holy word. He took occasion also miserably to bewail the state and condition of the Reformed Churches who were come to a period in religion and would go no further than the instruments of their Reformation. As for example, the Lutherans they could not be drawn to go beyond what Luther say; for whatever part of God's will he had further imparted or revealed to Calvin, they will rather die than embrace it. And so also, saith he, you see the Calvinists they stick where he left them, - a misery much to be lamented; for though they were precious shining lights in their times, yet God had not revealed his whole will to them, and were they now living they would be as ready and willing to embrace further light as that they had received. Here also he put us in mind of our church covenant, at least that part of it whereby we promise and covenant with God and one with another to receive whatsoever light or truth shall be made known to us from his written word; but withal exhorted us to take heed what we received for truth and well to examine and compare it and weigh it with other Scripture truth before we received it. For it is not possible that the Christian world should come out of such thick and uncommon darkness and that full perfection of knowledge should break forth at once.
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This covenant referred to in the passage which Winslow gives from Robinson, Bradford describes in the church records as a "covenant of the Lord by which they joined themselves while in England into a church society in the fellowship of the Gospel to walk in all his ways made known or to be made known unto them according to their best endeavors, whatsoever it should cost them."
It was not till 1676 that any covenant was entered into by the Plymouth Church. The occasion for the renewal of the covenant was the recommendation of the General Court in June of that year. The colony was then in the midst of King Philip's War. Alarmed by the condition of the colony, which was in great jeopardy from the severity and continuance of the war, the General Court assembled to take action in view of the critical state of affairs. In the first volume of the Records is found the following entry:
The General Court in June, being sensible of the heavy hand of God upon the country in the war with the heathen, appoint a day of Humiliation to be entered into the twenty- second day of June, and added thereto a solemne motion to all our chhs to renew a covenant engagement to God for revision of all provoking evils. The chh attended that day of prayer, and then the elders appointed a chh meeting to be on June twenty-ninth. The chh then all met and offered prayer for God's direction and blessing in so solemne a matter. A chh covenant was ready, and the chh voted that it should be left upon record as that which they did owne to be the sub- stance of that covenant which their fathers entered into at the first gathering of the church, which was in these words follow- ing:
In the name of our lord Jesus Christ & in obedience to His holy will and divine ordinances:
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We being by the most wise & good Providence of God brought together in this place - & desirous to unite ourselves 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 & sanctified to himself. .. . We do hereby solemnly & religiously (as in his most holy presence) avouch the Lord Jehovah the only true God to be our God & doe promise & binde ourselves to walke in all our wayes, ac- cording to the Rule of the gospel - & in all sincere conformity to His holy ordinances - & in mutual love to, and watchful- ness over one another - depending wholy & only upon the Lord our God to enable us by his grace hereunto.
This covenant and the letter of Robinson indicate the breadth of thought and toleration of expression which characterized the views of the early Pilgrims. The church government was purely congregational.
"The Papists place the rulling power in the pope, the Epis- copalians in the bishop, the Puritans or Presbyterians in the presbytery. We put it in the body of the congregation, the multitude called the church."
The Pilgrims held that any competent number of per- sons, when their consciences obliged them, had a right to embody into a church for their mutual edification; when embodied into a church, they had a right to choose all their officers. The officers of that church were the pastor or teaching elders, who had the power of overseeing the teaching and administrating the sacraments; the ruling elders, who were to help the pastor in overseeing, and were qualified to teach occasionally in the pastor's absence or illness: the deacons, who took care of the church funds and distributed for the support of the pastor, the supply of the needy, the propagation of religion, and who minis- tered at the Lord's table.
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The ruling elders of the Plymouth Church were three in all - and first in time and in prominence was William Brewster, who died in 1644. After his death, Thomas Cushman was chosen elder. He was the son of Robert Cushman, who came over in the Fortune, and was for many years the agent of the colony in England, and who preached in Plymouth, in 1621, the first sermon in New England which has been preserved, on the "Sin and Danger of Self Love," - which was printed in London in 1622, and of which many editions have been subsequently printed. Thomas Cushman continued as elder until his death in 1691, at the age of eighty-four. Cushman's suc- cessor as elder was Thomas Faunce, who was the last ruling elder of the church in Plymouth, and who died in the ninety-ninth year of his age, in 1745. To him we are in- debted for the preservation of the Forefathers' Rock. In his ninety-sixth year, hearing that a wharf was to be erected over the Rock, he was carried from his home some three miles away to the shore, that he might bid the rock his last farewell. This was in 1741 that the Elder pointed out the Rock, which had been shown him by the survivors of the Pilgrim company in his youth as the spot on which the Pilgrims landed - which might well dispose of the speculations which recent writers have engaged in as to the true landing place of the Pilgrims.
The first meetings of the church were held in the com- mon house, on the southerly side of Leyden street; but after the construction of the fort upon Burial Hill, the congregation met there. We have an interesting account of the town in its early days, of the fort and of the church, and a description of the Pilgrim company as they wended their way hither on successive Sundays, from the pen of
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Isaac De Rasières, who was sent on an embassy by the Dutch West India Company at Manhattan to the colony at New Plymouth. In his letter to one of his employers he writes:
New Plymouth lies on a slope of the hill stretching east towards the sea coast, with a broad street of about a cannon short of eight hundred yards long heading down the hill, with a street crossing in the middle. The houses are constructed of hewn planks with gardens also enclosed behind and on the side with hewn planks, so that their houses and gardens are arranged in very good order, with a stockade against a sudden attack. At the ends of the streets there are three wooden gates. In the centre on the cross street stands the Governor's house, before which is a square enclosure upon which four paterros are mounted so as to flank along the streets. Upon the hill they have a large square house with a flat roof made of thick sawn planks set on oak beams, upon which they have six can- nons which shoot iron balls of four and five pounds, com- manding the surrounding country. The lower part they use for a church, where they preach on Sundays and the usual holidays. They assemble by beat of drum, each with his mus-
ket or firelock, in front of the captain's door; they have their cloaks on, and place themselves in order three abreast, and are led by a sergeant without beat of drum. Behind comes the Governor, in a long robe; beside him on the right hand comes the preacher with his cloak on, and on the left hand the captain with his side arms and cloak on, and with a small cane in his hand - and so they march in good order, and each sets his arms down near him. Thus they are constantly on their guard night and day.
In 1648, while the church was under the pastorate of the Rev. John Rayner, the first meeting-house was erected in Plymouth, upon which hung the first church bell. John Rayner was the second settled minister of the church. The first minister settled over the church was Ralph Smith,
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who came to Salem in 1629, and soon after found his way to Plymouth, where he was ordained as the first pastor - "a grave man, but of low gifts and parts." In 1624 one John Lyford was sent over to be the pastor; but he was not accepted by the parish, and his unfortunate manners and troublous spirit and the belief that he was an enemy to the plantation caused his banishment from the colony.
Following Mr. Smith, the famous Roger Williams preached for a short time there, but he was never ordained over the church. He resided at Plymouth from 1631 to 1634, and is described in the records as "a young man of bright accomplishments, but of unstable parts." John Norton, who afterwards was the minister at Ipswich, and later the successor of Mr. Cotton in Boston, preached a winter at Plymouth in 1635. Rayner was ordained in 1636, as the second settled minister of the church:
An able and a godly man of a meek and humble spirit, sound in the truth and every way unreprovable in his life and con versation, who after some time of trial they chose for their teacher, the fruit of whose labors they enjoyed many years with much comfort in peace and agreement.
In 1638 it was proposed to Charles Chauncy, afterwards President of Harvard College, to settle at Plymouth for three years; but he refused to become their ordained pas- tor, and left the church on account of the difference be- tween him and the parish as to the method of baptism. The question was whether baptism should be by sprinkling or by immersion, Mr. Rayner and the church preferring the former as more convenient in this cold climate, while Mr. Chauncy stoutly insisted that the latter mode was the only true one. The church offered to let him practice
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immersion to such as desired it, provided that he would consent to Mr. Rayner's administering the ordinance of baptism by sprinkling, as had heretofore been the custom. But, as Cotton quaintly states it, "he did not see light to comply, so that there was a necessity of parting." Mr. Chauncy went to Scituate, where he remained as a minis- ter for some time, and later to Cambridge as president of the college.
In 1654 Mr. Rayner, to the great regret of the church and of the people, dissolved his connection with the church, and was succeeded as settled minister by John Cot- ton, Jr., "a man of strong parts and good abilities to preach the word of God," who was ordained pastor in 1669. Mr. Cotton remained at Plymouth until 1697, and brought many members into full communion with the church. The practice of the Plymouth Church at that time was for candidates who desired to be admitted to fellowship in the church, as distinguished from the parish, to make an "open confession of faith and a declaration of their ex- periences of the work of grace in the heart"; but under Cotton's ministry in 1688 it was agreed that:
Such as were bashful and of low voice and not able to speak in public to the edification of the congregation, the elders might bring before the church in private, but voting for their admission should be before the congregation, they having been examined and heard by the elders in private and they stood propounded in public for two weeks. The relations of the women being written in private from their mouths were read in public by the pastor, and the elders gave testimony of the competency of their knowledge.
In November, 1669, the catechising of the children by the pastor, attended by the ruling elder, began. The cate-
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chism then used was composed by the Rev. William Per- kins, and some years afterwards the Assembly's catechism was adopted. The psalm book then in use was Ainsworth's translation; but the difficulty which the congregation ex- perienced in singing some of the tunes to which the psalms were set led to the substitution of the New England psalm- book, which had long been in use in the other New Eng- land churches. Until 1681 it had been the practice to sing the psalms without first reading the line; and then, on the motion "of a brother who otherwise could not join in the ordinance I suppose because he could not read," says Cotton, they altered the custom and reading was intro- duced. The pastor first expounded the psalm and then the elder lined it off.
During Mr. Cotton's ministry the second church was built, in 1683, on land granted by the town, substantially on the present site. There exists at Plymouth a little pic- ture of this church - an ancient pen and ink drawing in the possession of the family of the late William S. Russell, Esq., a devoted antiquarian and the author of the "Guide to Plymouth" and "Pilgrim Memorials."1
Following Mr. Cotton comes Ephraim Little, ordained as pastor in 1699. He died in 1723, and was the first settled minister of Plymouth whose body lies buried upon Burial Hill, the ancient burying ground adjoining the church. "He was a gentleman more inclined to the active than the studious life, of a good memory, a quick invention, having an excellent gift in prayer and in occasional performances also excelling."
From 1724 to 1756 Mr. Nathaniel Leonard was the
1 In the Archives of Pilgrim Hall, Plymouth, Mass. (Pilgrim Society) .
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settled minister. At his suggestion the church voted that the children be catechised by the deacons between meet- ings on the Sabbath, and to ask them four or five questions each Sabbath until they had learnt the catechism through. This was probably the beginning of the Sunday school system. From the sketch of his life in the church records, it appears that "He was of considerable natural abilities, of a clear head, solid judgment and penetrating thought, of a mild, pleasant, affable disposition, prudent, hospitable, generous, excelling in all the graces and duties of the Christian life." During the ministry of Mr. Leonard, in 1744, the parish built its third meeting-house, which stood substantially upon the same site.
The successor of Mr. Leonard was Chandler Robbins, ordained in 1760, and who died in 1799. He was a graduate of Yale College, and received the degree of D.D. from Dartmouth and Edinburgh. He was distinguished as a scholar whose writings were marked by their elegance, their piety and their learning; and during the trying period of the Revolution he was among the foremost of the patriot clergymen and rendered sufficient service in his advocacy of liberty and independence. In doctrine Dr. Robbins was distinctly Calvinistic, and at his instance the church adopted a Confession of Faith, in entire conformity with his ideas. Strict in all matters of church discipline and government, he did not hesitate to censure or even to excommunicate as the church might direct. But his amiable and courteous manners, his cheerful disposition, his cultivated tastes and undoubted interest in and love for his church and its members allayed or silenced any formal opposition to his doctrines, and prevented any division of the church or society. Upon his death the more
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liberal views prevailed, and the church by a vote of twenty- three in the affirmative to fifteen not voting (in accordance with the custom of the church the negative vote not being taken) , and the parish by a vote of two hundred and fifty-three to fifteen, invited Mr. James Kendall to become their pastor.
The legal effect of the action of church and parish in the early churches is deserving of notice. The church had no power to settle the minister; that power was vested wholly in the parish, of which the members of the church who were inhabitants of the town formed a part. The usage was, however, for the church to first make choice of a minister and request the concurrence of the parish; if the parish did not concur, then the contract of settlement was made wholly between the parish and the minister, and was binding on them and not the church. The settlement of a minister over a congregational church and parish, if made without any limitations as to its continuance or dis- solution, was a contract for life, terminable only for three causes: an essential change of doctrine, a wilful neglect of duty, or immoral or criminal conduct.
Dr. Kendall was a graduate of Harvard College, and received the degree of D.D. from his college. His ordina- tion took place on the first of January, 1800, and his connection with the society continued until his death in 1859. He will be remembered not only as the last settled minister of the whole town, except the precinct of Mano- met Ponds, but also for the unfailing courtesy, fervent piety and deep interest in, and watchful care over, the people whom he served, which won and kept for him the love and respect of the whole community during his long pastorate of sixty years. With him were associated as
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colleagues Rev. George W. Briggs, Henry L. Myrick, George S. Ball and Edward H. Hall. At his death Mr. Hall became the sole pastor of the church, and was succeeded by Rev. Frederick N. Knapp, Edmund Q. S. Osgood, and Charles P. Lombard, bringing the ministry down to the twentieth century.
During Dr. Kendall's ministry the fourth church was erected, in 1831. It was designed by George W. Brimmer, Esq., of Boston, and measured 71 feet by 60 feet in the body of the church. The front, which was four feet wider, had a tower projecting in the center 111/2 feet, and rising 87 feet in height. Since the organization many churches have separated from the first church, some on account of distance and consequent inconvenience in regular attend- ance, some from differences in doctrine and belief. The churches of Duxbury, Marshfield, Eastham, Plympton, Kingston and Manomet Ponds, - the last known as the Second Precinct, - separated on account of their distance from the church, and the establishment of new towns where they were located. In 1744 the Third Church in Plymouth was organized, and continued as a separate organization until 1783, when under the ministry of Dr. Robbins the church congregation uniting with the first parish formed one church and parish. In 1801 the Third Congregational Society was organized, and is the seventh branch now existing from the parent stock. The Fourth Congregational Society was formed in 1814 from the first and third. These various separations from the First Church did not affect in any way the legal existence of the parish. They were organized as distinct parishes, and under the well-settled provisions of law had no claim upon the church property or name. The rule has been stated by
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the supreme court to be that every town is considered to be a parish until a separate parish is found within it, and then the inhabitants not included in the separate parish constitute the first parish, and the property remains with the residue of the original parish, and is not in any way transferred or disturbed by a separation or change among its members or in the territorial limits.
Its three centuries of continued and distinct existence, its records and traditions and history alone, should ensure for the First Church of Plymouth a long future of honor and usefulness.
V The Historical Pilgrim Church and the Modern Witness
BY GEORGE N. MARSHALL
THE "GODLY OLD MAID" OF PLYMOUTH, the First Parish and Church in America, is not only historically interesting from the point of view of its age, but because of the very human documents it has left behind over the span of years. It saw America grow from a wilderness settlement into a great continental power. It saw the industrial revolution and the rise of cities - it saw the colonial way give ground to the emerging democracy of the United States. It wit- nessed the Puritan theocracy and saw the autocracy of the church divines slowly replaced by a commonwealth of man. Its own progress was marked by the change from a fort meetinghouse to a village church, to a venerable mother of many churches, to a great modern church housed in a national memorial shrine. This shrine, contributed to by the American people, befits its unique position as a living Pilgrim memorial, as the mother of American Protestantism and as the oldest continuous organization of any kind in the North American hemisphere. It is the
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grand matriarch of American churches, mother to a nu- merous brood; its rare joy has been to survive and see the distinctive and ample talents of its many children seeking in their own way to fulfill their functions.
There are many humorous stories collected over the years, some true and some apocryphal, that amuse the hearer and show the human foibles of a church to be that of its people.
Once, we are told, the minister was asked to pray for rain during a drought, and immediately his prayer for "just a little drizzle-drossle," was climaxed by a cloudburst and thunderstorm, which drove both minister and people to cover.
It is often related how one minister, fond of chastising members for bringing forth children on the Sabbath, due to the ancient theory that children are born at the same time as conception, was greatly embarrassed when his wife delivered him twins following the morning service at the hour the parish presumed he had retired for prayer.
The difficulty of the parsons to secure adequate recom- pense fills many a record. It was the minister's unfortunate lot to collect his own salary, although the rates were set by the parish. Roger Williams bewailed the fact that in Plymouth he had to labor "on the Land and water, and the Hoe and Oare, for bread." The town ordinance of 1658 gave all lumber rights on Clark's Island, the Gurnet, and Saquish to the minister of the First Parish, as an added aid. The lumber, of course, quickly gave out.
The motions in parish meeting on the part of people whose worship was interrupted by the odor of Indians sit- ting in the next pew was settled by allowing the com-
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plainers to pay for building the new pews at the end of the church for the Indians.
The boys, who were assigned to the gallery of the meetinghouse in the seventeenth century, "larfed out loud" when their elders were pricked by the tithingman's rod for slumbering; the boys passed up and down the pews during the long services, sat during the prayer, and performed other "indecencies." The girls were nearly as bad. They giggled at the boys' "indecencies," and were caught making eyes at them in the meetinghouse.
A March, 1948 news item claimed that two nocturnal listeners heard a popular song being played on the chimes - the escapade of someone a little tipsy. The vagaries of "Parson Kendall's Rooster,"1 sentinel of the meetinghouse weather vane, are well understood in light of the vast his- tory and diverse events that went on beneath its jaunty eye.
The humorous and whimsical are only occasional facets of the somber and heroic history of the Pilgrim parish which has served as a source of strength to its people in every generation. It has stood a witness to much trag- edy during its long existence. The death of one-half its members during that first fateful winter; the burning of the Common House after only one church service; the continual vigilance necessary during those early years when the men worshipped with cocked rifles at their knees. The church, then, was a fort - mounted not by a spire pointing to Almighty God, but by six cannons. As the years went by, the parish was to become weakened by the removal of many members to newer settlements; "And thus was this poore church left like an ancient mother,
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