USA > Massachusetts > Suffolk County > Boston > The memorial history of Boston : including Suffolk County, Massachusetts, 1630-1880. Vol. I > Part 27
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As to the character of the community, - the qualities and habits of the people; the tone of daily life; the relations between individuals and classes ; the public and private virtues, with the offset of evils and errors, which especially manifested themselves in this Puritan Commonwealth in anything peculiar and distinctive, - it would require more space than can here be given for a fair exposition of the subject. One might be prompted to institute a comparison, either in general terms or in details, with other contemporary colonial communities where quite other than Puritan princi- ples and usages controlled the religious, civil, and social life of the people. This, too, would take us beyond our limits. Had this old town of Boston, with the surrounding municipalities which are essentially its offshoots, been left to a natural process of development by modifications working from within of its original elements, and an increase of its homogeneous stock by generations, keeping its homogeneous character, we might then have been able to trace and define our essential Puritan heritage in its pres- ent fruitage. The flood of foreign immigration which has poured in upon us since the beginning of this century has vastly qualified, though it has not neutralized, the original qualities of the old stock. We must reconcile ourselves to any regrets over a promising but arrested development from our heritage by gratefully recognizing its attractiveness for aliens.
George E. Ellis.
CHAPTER IV.
THE RISE OF DISSENTING FAITHS, AND THE ESTABLISH- MENT OF THE EPISCOPAL CHURCH.
BY THE REV. HENRY W. FOOTE. Minister of King's Chapel.
T THE noble vision of the Puritan Commonwealth, compacted of souls united in faith and doctrine, in which Church and State should be substantially one, proved impracticable before the first generation of the Puritans had begun to pass from the stage. It has been related in a for- mer chapter 1 how the successive controversies with the followers of Mrs. Hutchinson, with the Baptists, and with the Quakers, demonstrated more and more clearly the impossibility of such a permanent accord of the whole population on religious questions as was vitally necessary for the perman- ence of the Theocracy. The fixedness with which the policy of repression was pursued until the English Government interfered, although ineffectual to do more than postpone the religious disintegration which nothing could ultimately prevent, had one further effect of immense importance. It secured time to impress on the community a marked character which two centuries since elapsing, with all their modifications of faith and of the population, have not been able to efface. During nearly half a century the Puritan spirit had exercised an unrestricted sway, while the new com- munity was hardening from gristle into bone. The Boston of 365,000 inhabitants to-day, with its mingling of many races and all religions and no religion, is marked profoundly by its inheritances from the temper, spirit, and belief of the Boston which, at the close of the seventeenth century, was a little town of less than 7,000 souls.
The period of forcible repression of dissent from the Established Church of New England was succeeded by a period in which the Protestant bodies gained a firm and recognized footing in Boston. The history of the succes- sive steps by which this was established, much against the will and to the sore reluctance of the dominant powers, is of course less picturesque and exciting than the chapter of punishments, oppositions, and even martyr- doms in which the Quaker and the Baptist conquered by enduring. It is, however, an important chapter in the history of Boston, and interesting not only as a chapter of ecclesiastical antiquities, but as illustrating how, in the
1 [Chap. III., by Rev. George E. Ellis, D.D.]
-
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THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
field of this narrow peninsula, the victory of a policy of religious tolerance was established as a fact for all New England.
The growth of the town in numbers had necessitated the organization of a second church in 1650. For twenty years the "Old Meeting-house " had accommodated the whole population.
No record exists of the first occupation of the Second Church, which was built of wood at the North End ( North Square), and thence derived the name, the " North Church," by which it was usually known.1 This part of the town held at this time about thirty householders, and there was prospect of a speedy increase. The first sermon in the new house was preached June 5, 1650. The services were conducted by one of the brethren, Michael Powell, till 1655, when the Rev. John Mayo was ordained as its first minister. The splendid roll of its ministers gave it a special dis- tinction : it has been called " the Church of the Mathers," four of its early pastors having belonged to that family, who held the pulpit for seventy- three out of the first ninety-one years of the church.
But the era of peace within the Puritan ecclesiastical community was now to be rudely broken.
Of the third church gathered in Boston, Rev. Dr. Wisner2 says: " Like too many other churches of Christ, it originated in bitter contentions among those who are bound by their profession, as well as by the precept of heaven, to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace." These contentions "were not local or of sudden production, but originated in the first ecclesiastical institutions of the country, and were spread through the whole of New England."
The limitation of the political franchise to those who were church- members, made by an order of the second General Court in 1631, continued in effect until the Charter Government was dissolved, since even after it was apparently repealed at the urgency of King Charles II., in 1664. a certificate was required from the ministers to the " orthodox principles " and good lives of candidates for freedom. From the beginning, a consider- able and ever increasing number of inhabitants were disfranchised by this test ; many of the children of the early settlers could not satisfy the tests for admission to the church when they grew up; and as baptism could not be had for the children of those who were not church-members, a genera- tion arose who were largely excluded alike from religious and civil privi- leges. An earnest effort, led by Robert Child and others, was made in 1646, by a petition to the General Court. "that civil liberty and freedom might be forthwith granted to all truly English : and that all members of the Church of England or Scotland, not scandalous, might be admitted to the privileges of the churches of New England." The petitioners, who
1 It was burned in 1676, but soon rebuilt. Brick Church in Hanover St., retaining the name and records of the Second Church.
This later edifice, though in a condition to last many years longer, was destroyed for fuel by the King's tr op- during the siege of Boston in 1775- The congregation then united with the New
2 History of the Old South Church in Bes- ton, IS30, p. 4. We have largely followed Dr. Wisner's account of this controversy.
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THE RISE OF DISSENTING FAITHS.
threatened to appeal to the Parliament of England, and who represented a wide-spread discontent, were denied, their papers seized, and themselves fined; while the political troubles in the mother-country rendered all appeal hopeless.1
But a grievance so well grounded could not be permanently repressed. The growing sentiment that "all baptized persons, not scandalous in life and formally excommunicated, ought to be considered members of the church in all respects except the right of partaking of the Lord's Supper," though strenuously opposed by lovers of the old way, finally induced the Court of Massachusetts to call a General Council in 1657, which met at Boston, delegates from Connecticut also taking part. This Council deter- mined that those who had been baptized in infancy were therefore to be regarded as members of the church, and entitled to its privileges, with the exception of the Lord's Supper, including baptism for their children. Such an innovation on the earlier practice roused yet more bitter opposi- tion. A second Synod was obliged to be held in 1662, at which this decision was substantially reaffirmed. Vigorous protest was, however, made by some of the most eminent pastors, who published writings in opposition ; and among them Rev. John Davenport of New Haven, " the greatest of the anti-synodists." The churches of Massachusetts were divided among themselves, whether to receive or reject conclusions of the Synod. In the First Church of Boston, while a majority favored them, the influence of their pastor, the venerated Wilson, preserved the peace. His death, Aug. 7, 1667, at the age of seventy-nine,2 left a vacancy which was filled by the choice of Mr. Davenport, then seventy years old. The prominent position of this eminent man as an advocate of the stricter side in the con- John Davenporta troversy which was agitating New England occasioned the most earnest opposition to his settlement. The church was divided, the former minority becoming the majority. Mr. Davenport accepted their call and came to Boston, where he died little more than a year after beginning his ministry.3 But the dissatisfied minority did not
1 | Beside Child, William Vassall and Sam- uel Maverick were engaged in this movement. Drake, Boston ; Sumner, East Boston ; Win- throp, New England, &c. Cf. Colonel Aspin- wall on " William Vassall no factionist," in Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc., March, 1863. - ED.]
2 [A daughter of Wilson married the Rev. Samuel Danforth of Roxbury, and their son, the Rev. John Danforth, was the minister of Dor- chester, 1682-1730. The former thus records Wilson's death in his church records : " 7th 6'n. 67. About two of ye clock in ye Morning, my honoured Father, Mr John Wilson, Pastour to ye Church of Boston, aged about 78 yeares and a half, a man eminent in Faith, love, humility, self-denyal, prayer, soundnes of minde, zeal for God, liberality to all men, esp'ly to y= sts and VOL 1 .- 25.
ministers of Christ, rested from his labors and sorrowes, beloved and lamented of all, and very honourably interred ye day following." .V. E. Hist. and Geneal. Reg., July, 18So, p. 297. See the genealogy in the Heraldic Journal, ii. 182 .- ED.] 3 [Davenport died March 11, 1670, and lies buried in the Chapel burial ground, nearly oppo- site where he lived on Tremont Street, on an estate that remained for many years in the pos- session of the First Church, and where several of Davenport's successors lived. Drake, Land- marks, p. 55. The Roxbury records make this mention of his death: "99, 11, 13. Mr John Davenport was taken with y" dead palsey on ye right side, and 2 days after, viz. on ye 15th. of yc first month, died, and was buried on ye 221 of ye same. Aged 73." N. E. Ilist. and Geneal.
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THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
rest here.1 Twenty-eight in number, with one member of the Charlestown Church, they met at Charlestown, probably to avoid, by holding their meeting in another county, the law which required that the magistrates should be consulted before forming another church. Their application to the First Church to be dismissed for this purpose was refused, whereupon they called a council of other churches, by whose advice they organized themselves in due form as the "Third Church in Boston." Thomas Thacher became their first minister in February, 1670. The publication of protests and counter-protests enlisted the whole colony on one side or the other, as it was seen that " the favorers of the old church were against the Synod, and those of the new church were for it."
Nor was the opposition confined to words. It is probable that the "imprisoning of parties " to which a letter of Randolph refers indicates that the members of the new church were punished in this way for their proceeding without consent of the authorities. Governor Bellingham being strenuous for the First Church, of which he was a member, summoned his Council to prohibit the erection of the new meeting-house. The Council,
Jos humble Servants infly ford Thomas FRacher James Allin Jainak Mather 12 1677:
9
name of (y rest
Eden here met
however, was unwilling to take this extreme ground, and the consent of the selectmen of Boston being obtained to the erection of "another Meeting- House in this town," the Third Church was built on what is now the corner of Washington and Milk streets. The land for the purpose was given by Madam Norton, who, though the widow of a former minister of the First Church, was in warm sympathy with the seceders from it.
The dissension agitated the " House of Deputies," who, in 1670, adopted a report from " a committee to inquire into the prevailing evils which had been the cause of the displeasure of God against the land," explicitly con- demning the transaction by which the new church was constituted, " as irregular, illegal, and disorderly." But the next election reversed this
Reg , July, ISSo, p. 300. A History and Genealogy of the Davenport Family, New York, IS51, traces his ancestry and descendants, and a tabular pedigree is given in the N. E. Hist. and Geneal. Reg. ix. 146. - ED.]
I [It appears from an entry by Danforth in the Roxbury church records, that "a Council of
four Churches" was called, and "their advice was to dismiss them in order to ye propagtio. of another church in Boston." - N. E. Hist. and Geneal. Reg , July, ISSo, p. 299. The Synod and the " half-way Covenant," as it was called, are discussed learnedly by Dr. Dexter in his Con- gregationalism as seen in its Literature. - ED ]
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THE RISE OF DISSENTING FAITHS.
. action, and the new General Court, being chosen with reference to this very question, adopted a contrary vote by a decisive majority.
The troubled waters, however, subsided but slowly. The old church refused to have any ecclesiastical relations with its rebellious daughter. Three times it denied dismission to the wives of the brethren who had withdrawn to form the new church, who naturally wished to follow their husbands; nor was it until the forebodings of an invasion of the ecclesi- astical unity of New England by the dreaded Episcopacy of the mother- country grew into certainty, that the breach was healed. In May, 1682, Edward Randolph wrote to the Bishop of London : -
" We have in Boston one Mr. Willard, a minister, brother lo Major Dudley ; he is a moderate man, and baptizeth those who are refused by the other churches, for which he is hated. There was a great difference between the old church and the members of the new church about baptisme and their members joyning in full com- munion with either church ; this was soe high that there was imprisoning of parties and great disturbances, but now, heereing of my proposals for ministers to be sent over, ... they are now joyned together, about a fortnight ago, and pray to God to confound the devices of all who disturbe their peace and liberties." 1
It has been already related how 2 the period of active persecution of obnoxious modes of faith had closed: the two heresies which had been most strenuously resisted, the Baptist and the Quaker, had rooted them- selves in the soil, in spite of all opposition. The former built a place of worship in 1680, which, though closed for a time by order of the General Court, was soon peaccably occupied.3 The Quakers had a regular place of meeting as early as 1677, and in 1697 they erected the first meeting- house built of brick in Boston, on a lot in Brattle Street.4 The Society of Friends continued in considerable numbers until after the Revolution, but then greatly diminished, so much that soon after the beginning of this century they ceased to hold regular meetings.
But bitter to the strict followers of " the old way " as were these indica- tions of the relaxing Puritanism,5 the rooting of the Church of England here was most bitter of all.
The people of the sturdy Puritan stock are not blameworthy for desiring to keep the country of their own way of belief, if they could. For nearly half a century they had had the opportunity to grow far toward an independent na-
1 Hutchinson, Coll. of Papers, ii. 271. 2 See Chap. III.
3 ['The first organized meetings of the Bap. tists were held on Noddle's Island, and in 1666 Henry Shrimpton left fro to these quiet wor- shippers. Sumner, East Boston, pp. 115, 191 ; Snow, Boston, eh. xxvi .; Drake, Boston, p. 379; Backus, History, &c., i. 399; Palfrey, New Eng- land, iii. 91 ; Dr. Neale's Discourse on the two hundredth anniversary of the foundation of the first Baptist Church. John Russell, after suffer- ing imprisonment and other tribulations, becaine
their minister. He had a pamphlet controversy on the commo- tions of the time youu prisonour John Russell with Samuel Willard of the South Church. -ED.]
4 They removed in 1708 to Congress Street, and about 1827 to Milton Place.
5 The formation of the Church in Brattle Sq. was a memorable advance in the same direction, but the history of this falls in a later chapter.
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THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
tion on that ecclesiastical basis, and the presence of the Church of England would be a perpetual sign that this state of things was ended. Nor is it strange that they feared many evils from the admission of the Book of Com- mon Prayer which never came to pass. But they resolutely shut their eyes to the fact that there were those among them who had an equal right with themselves to such religious institutions as they might choose.1 The Church of England had the misfortune to be, in the estimation of the mass of New- Englanders, a part of the tyranny of the Stuarts. If it had been more free from such associations, perhaps they would have feared and hated it less, nor wouldl some of its earliest promoters have been so zealous in its behalf.
The controversy in the reign of Charles II. could only end in one way. Englishmen must surely have the rights of Englishmen in an English colony, and among these none was dearer to some than the right to worship God according to the hallowed and familiar form established in England itself. Yet although there were not a few in Boston who desired it, " most of the inhabitants," says Hutchinson, "who were upon the stage in 1686 had never scen a Church of England Assembly." Edward Randolph discovered in his first visit here in 1676 that there were laws forbidding the observance of " Christmas day or any like festivity," " the solemnization of marriage by any person but a Magistrate," and confining the suffrage to church-members, as well as on other points which contravened the Royal prerogative. The result partly of Randolph's persistency in his frequent crossings of the occan, and partly of the King's own growing certainty of the intractable stubbornness of the people with whom he had to deal, was a steady pressure on our ancestors to alter their laws in these regards. In November, 1678, the General Court appointed a Fast Day, to bescech the Lord " that he will not take away his holy gospel, and it be his good will yet to continue our liberties civil and ecclesiastical to us and our children after us." The times were dark indeed for them, - Charles Stuart on the throne, and they too weak to resist him with open war.
" The thoughtful observer," says Dr. Greenwood, " will mark the strange processes by which the human mind is often forced to the most simple and excellent conclusions. He will see arbitrary power from another country contending against arbitrary power here, and the results of these conflicting and angry authorities to be toleration, liberty, and peace." 2
In 1679 a number of persons residing in Boston petitioned the King " that a Church might be allowed them for the exercise of religion accord- ing to the Church of England." Not until 1681 was the law which forbade the keeping of Christmas repealed. In 1685 Sewall wrote in his diary, - " Xr. 25, Friday. Carts come to Town, and Shops open as is usual : some somchow observe ye day; but are vex'd I believe that ye Body of ye People profane it, and blessed be God no authority yet to compell them to keep it."
1 Lechford, in 1644, says that one sixth of the population were church-members ; Randolph, in 1686, states the number at one tenth.
2 Greenwood, King's Chapel, p. 14.
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THE RISE OF DISSENTING FAITHS.
In those four years events had marched fast in Boston, and on the other side of the water.
Edward Randolph, " his shuttle of mischief being," in 1682, on this " side of the ocean, still working in its loom of hate and revenge," 1 -- doubtless, also, of loyalty to King and Church, after the high-handed fashion of loyalty with which such a man would serve a Stuart king, -wrote two letters to the Bishop of London, urging measures to establish the Church of England here. 2
" In my attendance on your lordship, I often exprest that some able ministers might be appoynted to performe the officies of the church with us. The maine obstacle was how they should be maintayned. I did formerly and doe now propose, that a part of that money sent over hither, and pretended to bee expended among the Indians, may be ordered to goe towards that charge. . . . Since wee are here im- mediately under your lordship's care, I with more freedome press for able and sober ministers, and wee will contribute largely to their maintenance ; but one thing will mainely helpe, when no marriages hereafter shall be allowed lawfull but such as are made by the ministers of the Church of England."
And July 14, 1682,3 besides urging the bringing a quo warranto against the Massachusetts charter, to "disenable many . .. of the faction . from acting further in a public station," he says : -
" Wee have advice . . that your lordship hath remembered us and sent over a minister with Mr. Cranfield ; ... the very report hath given great satisfaction to many hundreds whose children are not baptized, and to as many who never, since they came out of England, received the sacraments. . . . If we are misinformed concerning your lordship's sending over a minister, be pleased to commiserate our condition, and send us over a sober, discreet gentleman. Your lordship hath now good security, as long as their agents are in England, for his civil treatment by the contrary party ; he will be received by all honest men with hearty respects and kindness, and if his maj- esty's laws (as none but fanatics question) be of force with us, we could raise a suffi- cient maintenance for divers ministers out of the estates of those whose treasons have forfeited them to his majesty."
No wonder that good Mr. Sewall and the rest of his Puritan fellow-wor- shippers with him looked darkly on the man who was busy among them with such thoughts as these. For though they could not read his thoughts or the letters which their descendants can read, they knew him as one who hated their ways and looked on them as more than half rebels, and who met their resolute wills against high prerogative in Church and Crown with a will every whit as resolute as theirs. Still the "sober and discreet " minister did not come. Randolph wrote again, and described the religious condition of the country at this time : -
I This phrase is quoted from an unpublished Lowell Institute Lecture by Rev. George E. Ellis, D.D.
2 Hutchinson, Papers, il. 271, May 29, 1682.
3 Hutchinson, Papers, ii. 28o. Randolph to Bishop of London.
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THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON,
" New Eng! is devided into 7 small colonyes or Gonernm', at present managed by men of weake and inconsiderable parts ; most of them hauing different Lawes and methods of executing them. They are devided into. Presbyterians, Independants, ana- bptists, quakers, seauenth day men : who are some of them in all goverm's: such of the Church of England tho' the cheife men and of good parts not appearing soe till a regulation in governm' from hence directed. Our cheife colony is that of Boston, made so by a continuall concourse of people from all parts ; they driue a great trade in y' world, and in deed give Lawes to all the rest ; here all is managed by their Clergye, without whom the magistrates venture not to act, as in the late example of this gove upon receipt of his mates letter, &c. Here noe children are baptized but the children of Church members : some giue a larger latitude and admitt the gran-children of C. members, others the children of such who own the church and promise to liue vnder their watch.
" But none in any of the colonyes are admitted to the Eucharist but as are in full communion. All are obliged, by one way or other to maintaine the ministry : some by weekly contributions in their meeting-houses ; Anabaptists and Quakers pay not vnder that notion, but are rated in towne rates, which also is really for that intent," 1
Randolph went and came again. Meantime, in the neighboring domain of New Hampshire a governor less able than Randolph and Andros, but as overbearing and resolute to crush out opposition in State and Church, was illustrating before the observant watch of the Massachusetts colony what they might expect when their turn should come. In the intervals of Ran- dolph's absence from New England, Governor Cranfield supplied fresh fuel for the flame.
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