USA > New Hampshire > The history of New Hampshire, from its discovery, in 1614, to the passage of the Toleration act, in 1819 > Part 4
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* The time when is uncertain. + F. Belknap.
# With the exception perhaps of Portsmouth, where a small Episcopal society had been formed, but no Congregational society existed there for many years.
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ties, embarrassments and bickerings, arose from CHAP. vexed questions of religious faith and practice. The backsliding of some church member was always an event of importance. The imprudence of some minister was sufficient to agitate all the colonies. These three plantations were in all their circumstances much alike. Their governments were essentially the same. Yet the settlement at Exeter must be regarded as the most important, both in its origin and in its influence upon the character of the state. It was made up of the persecuted Antinomians. But the history of the Antinomians is so intimately connected with that of the puritans, that it is impossible to present the one properly, without at least a preliminary view of the other. Without such a view, the character and motives of the first settlers of Exeter would be but little understood. The term Antinomian was a name of reproach. It signifies, an opposer of law. The Exeter settlers were deemed oppo- sers of law ; and I now propose to glance at the history of the puritans, in order to show who were these Antinomians-why they were thus stigma- tized, and how it came to pass that they were driven out from Massachusetts, and came, as exiles, to take shelter in the woods of New Hampshire.
Next after the merchant adventurers at Ports- mouth, came the band of the persecuted to Exeter. Massachusetts was peopled by a feeble company of puritans, who fled from religious persecution in England. Massachusetts was destined in her turn to draw the sword of persecution, and to people other colonies with the exiles whom she drove from her borders. Her intolerance founded Rhode
II. . .
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II. Island, and gave immortality to the name of Roger Williams.
The puritans distrusted the power of truth to work out her own triumphs. This, however, was the error of the age in which they lived ; and on that account they demand from posterity, when passing judgment upon them, a magnanimous for- bearance. History would do them injustice, did it fail to suggest the universal prevalence of this error, as an apology for the violence which the cause of religious liberty received at their hands. The puritans never professed to be advocates for freedom of conscience. From their writings they carefully excluded the idea of religious liberty. They demanded of the Church of England the right to enjoy their faith unmolested ; not because they approved of toleration, but because they believed they had found the true faith, and that all opposition to it was rebellion against God. They expressly denied and repudiated the doctrine of toleration, as a heresy, whenever it was imputed to them in Eng- land; and when they came to America, they came, not to establish religious liberty, but to enjoy, unmolested, the peculiarities of their own faith. They fled to the New World to escape from inquisi- tion-not to establish a system from which inquisi- tion should be excluded. They regarded their dis- tant retreat rather as a home and household of their own, than as the world's asylum, and they claimed a right to dictate the terms on which their guests should enter. American eloquence and poetry have frequently eulogized them for opening a refuge for the world's outcasts. This is far from being true. They had no such intention. They always claimed
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the right to thrust out those whom they should find CHAP. to be enemies to their safety and harmony. Such II. was the illiberal spirit by which they were actuated, in common with the age in which they lived, that they ever regarded the advocate of new doctrines as an intruder, coming to sow tares in the field. They experienced the alarm which the careful shepherd feels at seeing a wolf enter his fold.
The fame of Massachusetts had gone abroad to the most distant lands, and the year 1635 witness- ed an accession of three thousand emigrants to the puritan colony .* Among these came Henry Vane, the younger ; a youthful statesman of aspir- ing mind, but of spotless integrity. His admirable genius, his energetic will, his noble devotion to the cause of civil and religious liberty, rank his name high amongst those of whom history may be proud. The author of " Paradise Lost" has composed his eulogy in the most splendid forms of the English language. His elevated rank, his distinguished ability, his piety, and love of freedom, commended him to the freemen of Massachusetts, and he was elected governor, notwithstanding his extreme youth and want of experience. Under his admin- istration, the effect of religious divisions began to be felt, and the formation of two distinct religious parties may be perceived. The first party consist- ed chiefly of the original settlers. They had founded the commonwealth, and were intent upon building it up. They were satisfied with the es- tablished order of things. It was the work of their hands. They were afraid of innovations, and
1635.
1636.
* Bancroft, I., p. 383.
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CHAP. dreaded the effects of unlimited freedom of discus- II. sion.
The other party consisted of persons lately ar- rived in the colony. They had come, not so much to build up a commonwealth as to establish, enjoy and perpetuate entire freedom of religious opinion. They had fled from the oppressive laws of Europe, and they determined to resist every form of despot- ism over the mind in America. It was their pride to follow out the principles of the reformation of Martin Luther, with logical precision, to all their consequences .* The founders of this party were, Mrs. Anne Hutchinson and her brother, John Wheelwright; the former, a woman whose eloquence and admirable understanding were universally ac- knowledged and admired. Mr. Wheelwright, her brother, was a clergyman of elegant accomplish- ments and devoted piety, and, at that time, the minister of Braintree, which then formed a part of Boston. When Mrs. Hutchinson and her brother examined the institutions of Massachusetts, they found this new building of the reformation defec- tive, and proceeded in very bold language to point out the "flaws." " They denounced the clergy as "ushers of persecution," and " popish factors"- the magistrates as "priest-ridden," and as not hav- ing imbibed the true doctrines of Christian reform.t They were encouraged by Henry Vane. The men of learning and members of the general court' adopted the opinions of Mrs. Hutchinson, and a majority of the people sustained her in her pre- sumptuous rebellion against the clergy. Thus, at the outset, the party of Mrs. Hutchinson was in
* Bancroft, I., p. 387. + Bancroft, I., 387.
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the ascendency. But the subject became of the CHAP. highest political importance, and both parties pre- II. pared for an obstinate contest. Nearly all the clergy clustered together under Winthrop, and selected him as their candidate for governor ; while the new sectarians rallied under Vane. The whole colony was convulsed with the contest. Throughout Boston and its environs the tide of enthusiasm rose to an unprecedented pitch. The nicest shades of faith were of sufficient magnitude to throw the whole community into transports or broils. The most abstruse distinctions were de- bated with a confidence and a swell of importance, such as the great fathers of theology never felt or comprehended.
The general court consumed its sessions in debating what quantity and quality of piety should be preached on the coming Sabbath, and on Mon- day they enquired what minister had preached sedition the Sunday before. The speeches of the members were made up of apt texts of Scripture, endowed with a new and powerful meaning, de- signed for the context into which they found them- selves thus unceremoniously introduced .* The shops were supplied with elaborate essays, and the streets thronged with crowds eagerly discussing the subtlest points of controversy. Many persons declared themselves in personal companionship with the Holy Spirit. Some became insane, and others, plunged in learned doctrinal disquisitions, forgot the duties of active benevolence. The Wheelwright men were unforbearing and impatient of contra- diction. Mrs. Hutchinson divided the Christian
Grahame.
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CHAP. souls into sound and unsound, and stigmatized the II. last as a set of " unchristian vipers." The Win- throp men, in return, denounced the followers of Wheelwright as fanatics, extreme Calvinists and Antinomians. In Mrs. Hutchinson they found an unconquerable antagonist-slow to hear, quick to speak. She assembled conferences, presided in person, and kept the fire of controversy in a con- stant blaze. She attacked her opponents with acrimony, and those who refused to receive her doctrines found the consequence to be a full mea- sure of abuse. " There is no peace in the neigh- borhood," said the clergy. " Home and the fire- side have no quiet." Though they admitted her to be an adept in debate, they professed to find her deficient in all the gentle graces that adorn the female character.
Meanwhile election day arrived, and on that occasion the pious Wilson deemed it his duty to climb into a tree to harangue the people at the - polls. The result of the election proved the Winthrop party, the fathers and founders of the colony, to be in a majority. They elected their governor and their candidates for the magistracies. When they found themselves in possession of power, they procured a movement to be made in the general court. Thus did the theological jar gain admission into the legislature of the colony. 1637. An act was passed censuring Wheelwright and his friends for sedition. Vane, who pleaded eloquently for the liberties of Catholics and Dissenters in Parliament, and afterwards laid down his life in the cause of religious liberty, remonstrated, but inef- fectually, against this act of censure. He, likewise,
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opposed the alien law, which the puritan fathers CHAP. passed, for the purpose of excluding "such infatu- II. ated men as Wheelwright" from the colony. Wheelwright and his friends, however, bade de- fiance to the decrees of the court. They avowed the dictates of conscience to be of higher authority than acts of legislative assemblies. They declared themselves to be, as usual, in direct communication with the Holy Spirit, and guided by immediate revelations from heaven. . Winthrop and the pious fathers now excited the people with apprehensions of an immediate insurrection of lawless fanatics. This spread alarm through the colony. They declared themselves to be on the eve of a revo- lution, and that it was a crisis calling for a convo- cation of the grand synod of the clergy of New England. It was accordingly convened, but the mountain of investigation gave birth to nothing. The synod found, that with all their theological acumen, they could discover no criminal difference between the dreaded Antinomian heresy main- tained by Wheelwright and his sister, and the more orthodox tenets of Winthrop and Colton. They therefore adjourned, and left to the civil magistrates the task of punishing the leaders of Antinomianism. The magistrates, glad of an op- portunity to exercise their newly acquired power, passed sentence of banishment upon Wheelwright, Anne Hutchinson and Aspinwall. The exiles, wearied with opposition, took up their march for the wilderness, seeking a refuge from intolerance, -banished from among banished men-exiles from a place of exile. Dissenters could not tolerate a dissenter.
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Thus ended the Antinomian controversy in Mas- sachusetts. It now remains to point out the dis- tinctive doctrines of each party. First, then, it is to be observed that the Wheelwright men were rigid Calvinists. They did not come to Massa- chusetts with the first band of emigrants. When they arrived, they found that the colonists had relaxed somewhat from the precise tenets of Cal- vin. They were placing what was considered an undue reliance upon good works, and were swerv- ing from the true faith on the important subjects of election and foreordination. They proclaimed the precise dogmas of Geneva, with which they had come freshly laden, and "reproached the colonists with being practical men under a covenant of works." The Winthrop men wished to pre- serve Calvinism, but softened and mellowed down with an infusion of what they deemed practical religion. The Wheelwright men relied for sal- vation on absolute predestination, which could not be affected by the merits or demerits of men's actions. The Winthrop men relied for salvation on faith and good works. Wheelwright believed that the divine choice had rested, from all eternity, upon a certain number, to whom grace was given by an absolute, unchanging decree. Winthrop believed that the salvation of men was not so abso- lutely decreed as to be impregnable against the assaults of temptation and sin. The divine will is unchangeable, said Wheelwright. The eternal counsels of God are sure. Is the will of Heaven to be defeated by the sins of man ? Of what use, then, enquired Winthrop, is repentance ? To what purpose is the practice of virtue and piety,
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since the divine favor is neither to be propitiated CHAP. nor forfeited ? Wheelwright was himself a most II. powerful pulpit advocate of Calvinism. Both he and his sister, in their conduct and doctrines, were prone to extremes. Yet in the history of the Calvinists there is much to palliate error and much to mitigate the harshness of censure. Liberty never had braver defenders than were these extreme Calvinists. Almost always in the old world, and generally in the new, the warfare for Calvinism has been a warfare against oppression. The soldier of the cross, in the Calvinistic sense of the term, has ever been the soldier of liberty ; and of all the multitudes who have worshipped at the shrine of that goddess, few have been more devout. They have investigated the bounds of authority. They have set limits to the power of kings. They never were the slaves of priestcraft. In their system of church government they acknowledge no sovereign pontiff. It is a pure democracy. The will of the majority is law. There is nothing to disturb equality of rights. Whatever power the clergy may have obtained, is no fault of the system itself; for no power of necessity pertains to them or to any officer of the church. The humblest member has no superior but the King of kings. Nor is the pastor superior to any brother, except it be in faith, humility, and hope. He has no greater power over the brother than the brother has over him. They are monitors of each other-counsellors of each other. They use no liturgy-they bow to no confessor. The pastor is but the expounder of the divine will. The body of the church are the judges of it, and God is the
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CHAP. II. judge of all. This system leads, of necessity and naturally, to popular liberty. The idea that wealth is to be deified, and government founded upon property, never sprung from the system of John Calvin. It is a plant of after growth amongst us. The democratic theory springs naturally from the Calvinistic system of church government. The theory has been caught up by thousands who have rejected the creed. The Calvinists were ad- . herents of a system that sprung from the people. The great reformer was himself a plebeian. His infancy was cradled in a lowly abode. His youth and manhood were spent in wrestling with the errors of a world. He raised and elevated an en- slaved peasantry. He exposed the crimes of a corrupt priesthood. He was the advocate of com- mon schools, the glory of New England. On the whole, humanity is largely indebted to the man whose cruel burning of Servetus has left an indel- ible stain on his memory.
Thus the motives of the first settlers of Exeter were in harmony with democratic principles of gov- ernment. They were exiles "for conscience sake." They came to the wilderness for freedom. They were tried in the school of misfortune ; they were disciplined by struggling with persecution. Such was the Exeter settlement. Christianity presided at its birth and " rocked its cradle."* It grew up. It put forth its hands with increasing strength, and displayed in its form the beauty of youth. It ripened to maturity. It became the State of New Hampshire-a member of that Union which binds together a mighty confederated Republic.
* Bancroft.
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Four distinct governments had been formed on CHAP. the several branches of the Pascataqua. These II. - 1641. combinations were but voluntary agreements. They might be invaded by capricious leaders, or dashed asunder by the first wave of popular dis- content. The people were too much divided to form any general plan of government, and the dis- tracted state of the mother country cut off all hope of the royal attention. In this state of things, the minds of the more considerate men were turned to a union with Massachusetts. The affair was agi- tated for more than a year, and on the fourteenth April 14th. of April, it was concluded by an instrument of union, subscribed in the presence of the general court. Thus did Massachusetts spread the broad wing of her jurisdiction over the Pascataqua set- tlements. Her laws now took immediate effect in New Hampshire, and the histories of the two plan- tations, for a period of thirty-eight years, become blended together. The population of New Hamp- shire, at this time, did not exceed one thousand, which was about one twentieth of the whole popu- lation of the American colonies. When the act of union took place, one extraordinary concession was made to New Hampshire. By a law of Mas- sachusetts, a test had been established, which pro- vided that none but church members should vote in town affairs, or sit as members of the general court. This gospel requisite was dispensed with in favor of the New Hampshire members, and her freemen were permitted to vote in town affairs, and her deputies to sit in the general court, without regard to religious qualifications ; an amazing stride in liberality-a stretch of toleration, which
1641 to 1679.
1641.
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CHAP. some declared to amount to absolute atheism, and II. others looked upon as the entering wedge of impi- ety, destined to sunder the goodly bonds of society. It sent a shudder through the whole body of the church.
Under the new order of things, Wheelwright was no longer safe. His sentence of banishment was still in force, and when the laws of Massachu- setts took effect in New Hampshire, he was obliged to make another remove, to escape the sword of persecution. Attended by a few faithful followers he withdrew to Wells, in Maine, and there gathered a small church. He was afterwards permitted to return, and exercise his ministry at Hampton. Meanwhile, a revolution in England had raised Oliver Cromwell to the head of the English com- monwealth. Some time afterwards, Wheelwright went to England, and was conducted to the pres- ence of Cromwell. The Lord Protector, with characteristic constancy to his early friends, recog- nised him as an old college acquaintance. They had been at the University together. "I remem- ber the time," said Cromwell, turning to the gen- tlemen then about him, " when I have been more afraid of meeting Wheelwright at foot-ball than of meeting any army since in the field." Cromwell received him kindly, took him into favor, and ap- pointed him to a post of distinction. After the 1660. restoration, he returned to Salisbury, in New Hampshire, where he died in 1680, at the advanced age of more than eighty years. It will be remem- bered that the immediate cause of Wheelwright's banishment, was a sermon which he preached at Boston. That sermon was considered, by the
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magistrates, as " tending to sedition." "But it CHAP. was not such," says Savage, " as can justify the II. court in their sentence for sedition and contempt, Win- throp, nor prevent the present age from regarding that p. 215.
vol. I., proceeding as an example and a warning of the usual tyranny of ecclesiastical factions."
Scarcely had the act of union taken place, when 1642. the settlers were alarmed by apprehensions of an attack from the Indians. Rumors were circulated of a plot formed for the utter extermination of the English. A party was immediately despatched to seize and disarm Passaconaway. The old chief, 1642.
as a pledge of amity, readily delivered up his guns. It was soon discovered that the reports of a plot had but a slight foundation, and the affair ended with an apology to Passaconaway, for the acts of violence which had been committed. But ground- less as this alarm proved, it drew the attention of the colonists to the advantages of a confederation. They were surrounded by common difficulties and menaced by common dangers. On the one hand, the Dutch coveted their possessions. On the other the French threatened to encroach. All around them lay savage tribes, against whom they could rely for security only upon their arms, their union and their valor. Influenced by these con- siderations, the inhabitants of four colonies, viz., Connecticut, New Haven, New Plymouth, and Massachusetts, which embraced New Hampshire, formed a confederacy. It lasted for half a century -a type of that more glorious Union under whose broad wings their posterity now repose.
By the articles of confederation, as they were called, these colonies entered into a perpetual
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CHAP. league of friendship and amity. It was declared JI. to have a twofold object. It was to propagate the gospel and for mutual safety and welfare. Each plantation was to retain its own jurisdiction and government. No other colony could be received as a confederate, nor could any two of the confed- erates be united into one, without the consent of the rest. They decreed the establishment of a legislative assembly to manage their affairs, and this consisted of two commissioners, or members chosen from each colony. All affairs of war or peace, leagues, aids, charges, number of men for war, division of spoils, and whatsoever is gotten by conquest, receiving of more confederates for plantations, and all things of like nature, which are the proper concomitants and consequences of such a confederation, for amity, offence and defence, were weighed and determined by these commis- sioners, and the determination of any six of them was to be binding upon all. The expenses of all just wars, were to be borne by each colony, in proportion to its number of male inhabitants. But the commissioners were directed to take into con- sideration the causes of such war ; and if it should appear that the fault was in the colony invaded, such colony was not only to make satisfaction to the invaders, but to bear all expenses of the war. The commissioners were also authorized to frame and establish agreements and orders, in general cases of a civil nature, wherein all the plantations were interested, for preserving peace among themselves and preventing, as much as may be, all occasions of war, or difference with others. It was also wisely provided in the articles, that runaway ser-
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vants and fugitives from justice should be returned CHAP. to the colonies to which they belonged, or from II. which they had fled. If any of the confederates should violate any of the articles, or in any way injure any of the other colonies, such breach of agreement was to be considered and ordered by the commissioners of the other colonies. Such were the powers of the general government of the colonies ; and it was expressly provided that this general power should not intermeddle with the gov- ernment of any of the jurisdictions ; which by the third article was preserved entirely to themselves .*
While the leading men of the colonies were busy 1642. with the confederation, Capt. Neal explored the White Mountains .; He was by no means devoid} of the passion for discovery ; and a feature so prominent in the scenery of New Hampshire could not fail to attract his attention. The Indians had given the name of Agiocochook to the whole group of northern mountains. These awful summits they regarded with superstitious veneration. The red man believed that a powerful genius presided on their overhanging cliffs and by their waterfalls. His imagination peopled them with invisible beings. He saw the Great Spirit in the clouds gathered around their tops. He heard his voice speaking in the revels of the storm, and calling aloud in the thunders that leaped from cliff to cliff and rumbled in the hollows of the mountains. Wherever sur- passing excellence appears in the works of nature, the Indian discerns the presence of a divinity. He believes that some unknown agency has made the
* Pitkin's Hist. U. S., pp. 50, 51. Holmes' American Annals, vol. I., pp. 326-7. + Whiton, p. 11. # Winthrop, Hist. New England, II., 67, 68.
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