USA > Virginia > A history of Virginia : from its discovery and settlement by Europeans to the present time. Vol. II > Part 10
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Though the martial code soon fell into disuse and was repealed, yet the laws of the Colony never recognised the rights of conscience. The first acts of the General Assembly which are now recorded in our statute book, gave permanent establishment to the Episcopal Church, by erecting bounds cor- responding with parishes, and laying a tax on the people for the support of their ministers. Each male over sixteen years of age wero to be liable for ten pounds of tobacco and one bushel of corn, and each minister was to receive fifteen hundred pounds of tobacco and sixteen bushels of corn.' It is thought that at this time there were but five clergy- men in Virginia, Messrs. Whittaker, Bargrave, Wickham, Mease, and Stockham, yet the people found it difficult to yield to them the required sup- port, and it was ordered that six tenants should be placed on every glebe in order to its cultivation. The Bishop of London undertook to provide for the spiritual wants of the settlement, and without any express authority, his jurisdiction as their diocesan seems to have been thenceforth admitted by the churches of Virginia.c
a Vol. i. 206, 207. b Stith, 173 ; Hawks, 35. c Hawks, 36.
150
STEPHEN REEK.
[CHAP. III.
As the settlements advanced up the rivers and embraced belts of fertile land running back from the Bay, the number of parishes gradually increased. We may suppose that outward regularity appeared in the progress of the Church ; that on the Sabbath the preacher was at his stand, clothed with a sur- plice, and armed with an English prayer-book, and that the people complied with the letter of the law, and attended worship rather than pay fines.ª We find no mitigation in the system which required conformity to the teachings of the establishment. Papists and Puritans were alike proscribed, and Quakers were visited with open persecution. Dur- ing the reign of Charles the First, the principles of Archbishop Laud were openly approved by the rulers of Virginia, and his example was proposed as worthy of all acceptation. From an individual case we may form some idea of the intense bigotry of soul which distinguished Sir William Berkeley. In 1642, Stephen Reek was brought before the General Court on grave charges. Indignant at the insolence of the Archbishop, and the favour with which Charles regarded him, Reek had been heard to say that " his Majesty was at confession with my Lord of Canterbury." For this, he was tried, con- demned, and punished. He was set in a pillory for two hours, with a label on his back on which his offence was described ; he was fined fifty pounds and imprisoned during the pleasure of the Go- vernor.b
a See Rule 2d, Sir Francis Wy- att's thirty-five articles, Hawks, 44.
b Hening, i. 552; Hawks, 51; Baird's Religion in America, 98.
151
INTOLERANCE.
1643.]
It may be unjust to blame the Episcopal Church for all the tyranny which the law-makers of Vir- ginia inflicted in her name, but it is natural that men should have revolted at a rule which was manifested in so many odious forms. We have no reason to believe that any one was put to death either for religious opinions or for witchcraft,a but cases of individual wrong were so numerous as to excite indignation even among those who had been friendly to the Church. Immediately after the punishment of Reek, we find a solemn application sent from Virginia to Massachusetts, to implore that ministers of the Gospel might be sent, that the people " might be privileged with the preaching and ordinances of Jesus Christ." This message was sent, not from Puritans, or Quakers, or Dis- senters of any kind, but from men who had grown up under the eyes of the Establishment, and who yet saw enough to make them hate her oppres- sion. Under this invitation three Congregational preachers came to Virginia, but the Governor was prepared to salute them with a law forbidding any man to preach in the Colony, who did not bring a certificate of conformity from some Bishop in Eng- land, and authorizing his Excellency to silence all others, and if necessary to compel them to decamp.e The private people kindly entertained the stran-
a In 1705-06, Grace Sherwood was tried for witchcraft in the county of Princess Anne, and convicted, but the punishment was ducking, not death. See the Record in Howe's Hist. Collec. 436-438.
b Compare Grahame, i. 270, 271, with Hawks, 51, 52; and see Baird Relig. in Am. 98.
" Hening, i. 277, in Hawks, 53.
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152
PARISHES.
[CHAP. III.
gers, but finding that the arm of the law would soon be upon them, they returned to the north.ª
During the administration of Governor Spots- wood, the Church attained a permanency of out- ward position which it had not before enjoyed. The settlements in the Colony had then covered the eastern lands running nearly to the first range of mountains ; each neck of country between the great rivers was well peopled, and it is believed that nearly one hundred thousand souls were to be found in Virginia. Twenty-nine counties com- posed the state, and these were subdivided into fifty-five parishes. The bounds of the parishes did not, however, correspond with those of the counties, and were not often laid out with reference to them. In the northern neck, between the Poto- mac and Rappahannockivers, were eleven pa- rishes ; between the Rappahannocand York there were thirteen ; between the York and James, fif- teen parishes complete, and the part of Bristol lying in Henrico County, north of the river; and between the James and the Carolina boundary, thirteen, together with the remainder of Bristol. On the eastern shore there were two parishes, which bore the names of Hungers and Accomac.b These church divisions were unequal in size, some being more than sixty miles long, while others were not one-fourth so large, but their capa-
a Baird, 98; Grahame, i. 271; mits a slight error in reckoning the Hawks, 53, 54.
b Beverley, Present State of Vir- fifty-four, 84, 85.
ginia. Dr. Hawks, I think, com-
number of parishes. He states it at
153
AMERICAN EPISCOPATE.
1771.]
city was estimated rather by the number of titha- bles they embraced, than by the acres of land over which they were spread.
From this time until the opening of the Revolu- tion, the exterior advance of the Church was nearly in proportion to the progress of the Colony. As the number of inhabitants increased, so did the number of churches and parishes. In 1771, there were in Virginia more than one hundred churches, and nearly that number of ministers.ª It was at this time that a serious attempt was made to pro- cure from the British monarch an American Epis- copate. The Churchmen of New York, New Jer- sey, and Connecticut, had long desired it, and Professor Camm, of William and Mary College, was known to be its ardent advocate. But it is believed that a majority of the clergy of Virginia were opposed to it, and it is certain that the Con- vention assembled to consider the question, con- sisted of but twelve ministers, that a favourable vote was obtained with much difficulty, and that a solemn protest was entered against the scheme by Rev. Messrs. Henly and Gwatkin, whose action drew a vote of thanks from the General Assem- bly.b It is strange that such a proposition should have been made just at the time when the influ- ence of the mother country became most oppres- sive, and when acknowledgment of dependence upon her was growing odious to every patriot; but
a Hawks, 126. 10, 1771; Burk, iii. 364-367, with documents ; Hawks, 126-131.
৳ See Thoughts on an American Episcopate, Virginia Gazette, Oct.
154
APPEARANCE AND REALITY. [CHAP. III.
Episcopacy was so linked with England, that it seemed to draw its life only from her favour.
There had long been, and was still, an appear- ance of prosperity thrown like a veil over the Church in Virginia, which might have deceived a casual observer. Nearly every parish contained a glebe, generally consisting of two hundred acres of land, for the support of the rector ; each glebe had a church or chapel, and commonly a parsonage, where the incumbent should dwell. The stranger who would pass through the Colony without paus- ing to remark closely upon her features, would be charmed with the prospect of her religious charac- ter. After a ride through thick forests or unin- viting plains of tobacco, he would see before him a modest church, contrasting in snowy whiteness with the green foliage around, or overrun with moss and creeping vines. His eye would be re- freshed by the cultivated fields of the glebe, and the humble dwelling of the pastor would bring warmly upon his heart, hopes of piety and domestic bliss.ª And it is not to be denied, that the liturgy of the Church of England contains many whole- some exhortations, many pertinent prayers, many scriptural remonstrances, which ought to improve her worshippers, and that the practice of regularly reading this liturgy, which was required by law, may have spread among the people knowledge which ought to have guided them to virtue. But with this seeming life there was actual death, and not death merely, but all the ghastly consequences
ª See Dr. Hawks' Remarks, 87.
.
155
INJUSTICE.
1771.]
of death,-the bones of the whited sepulchre-the corruption beneath the gilded tomb-the worms which prey upon the corpse when the soul is gone.
-
Let the evils attendant upon the Church esta- blishment of Virginia be fairly stated. First, it de- prived men of the free exercise of the rights of con- science. It is vain to say that men may think as they please, when they are compelled by law to attend on the ministrations of one religious sect, or to endure fines for non-compliance. The privileges of citizenship itself were denied to Dissenters,a and the person who chose to depart from the require- ments of the established religion, was met by innu- merable vexations which would goad almost to madness a soul sensitive to freedom. It was with delay and reluctance that the Courts of Virginia construed the "toleration laws" of England to have any operation in the Colony, and when they were admitted; their efficacy was confined within the narrowest limits possible.b
Secondly, it compelled every man, whatever might be his opinions or his scruples, to contribute to support the Episcopal ministers. He might be a Quaker, or a Baptist, or an Independent, but his fate was the same. After induction by the Gover- nor, the rector had a freehold claim upon his glebe, and a right to demand at law the stipend granted to him by enactments of the Assembly. It is true, that the regular process of induction was
a Baird's Religion in America, 96. address must, I think, have been written by a lawyer of the Esta.
b See Virginia Gazette, Feb. 20, 1772. Address to Anabaptists. This blished Church.
156
CLERGY
[CHAP. III.
not always performed : often the minister was only received by the vestry of the parish, and was considered as only having title to his rents and pro- fits from year to year ; but even in such cases the tithes were to be paid by all liable to them, and he might sue trespasses on the glebe lands. And by a law passed in 1748, it was enacted, that even where a minister was only received without induc- tion, he should have a right to all the spiritual and temporal benefits of his place, and might maintain an action against any who attempted to disturb him.ª This act, in great measure, removed the distinction between the two modes of possessing a benefice, and armed the rectors with legal autho- rity to collect their dues. The effect was obvious: on no subject are men less willing to be forced than in religion, and many who would voluntarily contribute to its support, feel it to be tyrannous, that they shall be compelled to pay teachers with whose ministry they would willingly dispense.
Thirdly, it produced many overt and shameful acts of intolerance. We have already noted some of the laws requiring conformity, and have seen that they were not inoperative. If Virginia never was stained with the blood of Dissenters, it was due to peculiar circumstances, rather than to the mild- ness of her code, or the tolerant spirit of her church- men. Stripes, fines, and imprisonment, were often inflicted ; individual examples have been hereto- fore mentioned, and more oppression will be seen as we pass through the history of other denomina-
a Hawks, 115; Hening, vi. 90.
157
AND PEOPLE.
1771.]
tions. It is vain to say that the Church was not responsible for these cruelties. The establishment unquestionably was, for without it there could have been no such thing as dissent, and therefore no laws against it. These oppressive acts affected strongly, though silently, the whole body of the people, and contributed, with other causes, to re- concile nearly all men to the heavy strokes which finally levelled the Established Church with the ground.
Fourthly, it introduced into Virginia a body of ministers without piety, and by necessary reaction, the people were as graceless as their pastors. We will do full justice to the good men who from time to time adorned the Episcopal Church in the Colony. Such men as Hunt and Thorpe, Whitta- ker, Jarratt, and Morgan, need no apologists, for their conduct was above suspicion. Even Mr. Blair, the commissary, has left behind him evi- dences of personal religion which may lead us to deal gently with his clerical aspirings, and his ex- clusive admiration of his Church. Had he not loved purity, he would not have chosen Christ's Sermon on the Mount as a subject for a series of discourses, and had not his thoughts been worthy of their subject, they would not have drawn praise from the conscientious Doddridge.ª But it is a
a See Dr. Hawks, 75. While Mr. thousand pounds because the nation Blair was soliciting the charter of was at war, and needed all its re- William and Mary College, in Lon- sources. Mr. Blair urged the neces- sity for the grant, and ventured to remind the attorney that the college don, a characteristic incident oc- curred. Seymour, the Attorney- General, opposed the grant of two was to train young men for the
158
CLERICAL MISCONDUCT.
[CHAP. III.
point beyond denial, that the great body of the Episcopal preachers in Virginia were men whose lives were any thing but illustrations of the Gospel. It could not have been otherwise under the system which brought them from the mother country. Men of high character and consecrated learning had little inducement to leave England and come to the Province ; and accordingly, those who offered themselves to the Bishop of London, were gene- rally unfit for preferment at home. Cases are not wanting, in which candidates who had been solemnly rejected in Britain, were afterwards sent with full certificates to the Colony.a .The result of this system was soon apparent.
The clergymen contented themselves with a sleepy performance of their duties on the Sabbath, and on other days pleased the flesh with much worldly entertainment. To read the service be- came mechanical, and the hearers grew weekly in apathetic indifference. Virginia has always abounded in temptations to doubtful pleasure, and her churchmen of the colonial period did much to cultivate this taste. Her Episcopal divines fre- quented the race-field and the ball-room. They baptized children amid scenes of hilarity, where wine flowed in streams, and the dance enabled them to display their clerical grace.b Many of them betted freely at cards, and rattled dice in a
ministry, and that the people of Vir- ginia had souls. Souls ! said Sey- Convention, May 22, 1845, page 5. mour, damn your souls ! make to- bacco .- Grahame, i. 136, in note.
a See Bishop Meade's Address to
৳ Bishop Meade's Address, 1845, page 8.
159
ITS EFFECT.
1771.]
way which would have put Governor Fauquier to shame. One clergyman was known for a long time to be president of a jockey-club,ª and doubtless his services in this capacity were adjudged more im- portant than in the pulpit. One reverend gentle- man laid aside his spiritual armour, and having taken carnal weapons, fought a duel within sight of the very church where his own voice had often been heard praying to be delivered "from battle, murder, and sudden death."
The effect of such a ministry upon the people may be readily conceived. An utter want of the spirit of piety, and a hatred of the truth, can be detected in many of the manifestations of this period. If a minister ever rose above the dead level of his peers, and preached against popular vices, vestry and people both fell upon him, and ceased not to annoy him, until he was driven from his place.b So glaring was the wickedness of the clergy, that the General Assembly, at an early period found it necessary to enact that " ministers shall not give themselves to excess in drinking or riot, spending their time idly by day or night."c Even Sir William Berkeley complained that, as of all other commodities, so of ministers, the worst only were sent to the Province ;d and as late as 1751, the Bishop of London, in a letter to Dr. Doddridge, speaks of the clergymen of Virginia as " willing to go abroad to retrieve either lost for-
a Bishop Meade's Address, page 8.
b Hawks, 91; Bishop Meade's Address, page 4.
c Hening in Baird, page 98.
d Letter of Berkeley in Baird, note, page 98.
1
160
DISSENTERS.
[CHAP. III.
tunes or lost character."" The commissary had no power to depose; distance from the diocesan in England prevented discipline, and cases of enor- mous delinquency occurred among the clergy of the Province which were never visited with punish- ment.b Thirty years ago, eye-witnesses were alive who had seen ministers of the Church enter the pulpit in a state of intoxication, so disabling, that their tongues refused to pronounce the oft-repeated words of the liturgy.
Thus the religious establishment of Virginia was weakened by its own inherent vices. It had the sanction of law, the support of learning, and the countenance of men in high places. Nevertheless it tottered to its fall, and even had it not been attacked by other sects, it would at last have been crushed in the general struggle between tyranny and freedom, of which America was the scene.
The earliest traces of Dissenters in Virginia are found in the year 1619. A small band of Puritans then inhabited her soil, but they soon disappeared under the sinister influences bearing upon them. After the Quakers were introduced, they were for a time active and numerous, but their efforts were gradually relaxed, and their numbers rather dwindled than increased. In 1690, King William sent a large body of French Protestants to Virginia. During the persecutions which were at last con- summated by the revocation of the Edict of Nantz,
a Princeton Review for April 1840, cited by Baird, Rel. in Am. 98.
b Bishop Meade's Address, 4; Hawks, 95; Baird, 98.
c Hawks, 35, 93, 94.
,
161
DISSENTERS.
1642.]
in 1685, under Louis XIV .; it has been estimated that two hundred thousand Huguenots suffered martyrdom, and seven hundred thousand were driven from the kingdom. But the cruelty of France furnished citizens for America. Besides those who came in 1690, nine years afterwards another body of six hundred, under Philippe Da Richebourg, came to Virginia, and were assigned lands on the south side of James River, about twenty miles above the present site of Richmond. They were rigid Calvinists in doctrine, but their misfortunes and industry alike commended them to the favour of the government. They spoke no language except their own, and could have appre- ciated no religious services except from their own pastors. The Assembly passed laws for their en- couragement; gradually they became assimilated to the people around, and lost their national pecu- liarities :ª yet their influence is still felt. While the names of Lacy, and Fontaine, and Maury, shall be found in her borders, Virginia will be reminded of the Huguenots of France.
When the Congregational preachers from New England visited the southern Colony in 1642, it was thought by them that many people could be found favourable to the independent mode of reli- gious worship ; and six years after, the number of such was stated at one thousand, by a Congrega- tional divine who had been driven from Virginia by her intolerant laws.b This was a mere con-
a Hodge's Pres. Church, i. 15, 16,
51; Hawks, 78, 79.
b Savage's Winthrop, ii. 334; in Hawks, 57.
VOL. II.
11
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162
GEORGE WHITEFIELD.
[CHAP. III.
jecture, and we have reason to believe it was exaggerated. It is certain that early in the ad- ministration of Spotswood, dissent was almost un- known. Four churches not connected with the establishment were all that could be found in the whole Colony, east of the Blue Ridge, and the strong denomination soon to be spoken of had not yet commenced its career in the beautiful valley of Virginia.
About the year 1714, a small number of Baptists from England settled in the southeastern part of the Colony, and nearly thirty years afterwards, another body came from Maryland, and occupied one of the northern counties, then thinly inhabited.ª These were the regular Baptists, and though they were not without zeal, they were speedily eclipsed by more enthusiastic brethren.
In 1739, a prodigy of religious energy and elo- quence appeared in America. George Whitefield crossed the Atlantic, and lighted in the New World the flame which had been kindled by the fire of his heart among his countrymen in Britain. To use the thought of one who had appreciated his labours, he was the angel of the Apocalypse flying through the land, having with him the everlasting gospel to preach to all people.' Wherever he came, he roused men who had long slumbered in apathy. His influence was not confined by colony, or state, or sect, or party. He sought for souls with a singleness of purpose, which excluded minor dis-
a Semple's Virginia Baptists, ৳ Dr. Baird, Rel. in Am. 101. chap. i.
163
NEW LIGHTS.
1740.]
tinctions. Independents and Presbyterians, Bap- tists and Churchmen, alike glowed beneath his words. When he came to Virginia in 1740, no opposition was made to his preaching, as he was an ordained minister of the Church of England,a but though some who loved the Establishment heard him gladly, there were others who regarded him as an enthusiast, and would afterwards wil- lingly have closed his mouth.b
Whitefield's appearance was a new era in the religious history of America. Even before he came, deeper interest had been felt by some northern con- gregations as to the personal effects which Chris- tianity ought to produce, but his breath kindled this feeble spark into a brilliant flame. The doctrine of the "new birth," preached with power and ear- nestness by the reformers of the eighteenth cen- tury, was so novel to those who had been slumber- ing beneath the establishments of Congregational- ism and Episcopacy, that its advocates were called "New Lights."c This title was not applied to any particular sect, but to all, of every denomination, who followed the disciples of Whitefield. Exten- sive divisions occurred among the prevailing de- nominations, and a large number of Baptists at the north, inspired by the zeal of the times, left their brethren, and were afterwards known as Separate Baptists.ª Between the years 1744 and '55 many
a Hawks, 100. c Encyc. Rel. Knowledge, art.
b Gillies' Whitefield, 106, referred Presbyterianism, written by Dr. to in letter to the author from the Miller, of Princeton ; Semple's Va. Baptists, chap. i. Rev. G. W. McPhail of Fredericks- burg, Va., dated Nov. 17, 1846.
d Semple's Va. Baptists, chap. i.
164
SEPARATE BAPTISTS.
[CHAP. III.
of these passed through Virginia, and taking their places on her borders, in North Carolina, com- menced preaching to such congregations as they could gather. In a short time their success was great. From twelve or fourteen, their communicants swelled to more than six hundred. They began to extend their labours into Virginia. In August, 1760, the first Baptist Church of this order was planted on the soil of the Old Dominion ;ª but soon the number was greatly increased.
Samuel Harriss was one of the strongest supports of the early Baptists in the Colony. He was born in Hanover, but was a resident of Pittsylvania, and had filled many dignified stations. He had been Sheriff and Colonel of militia, Justice of the Peace, and Burgess for his county ; but, laying aside tem- poral honours, he was baptized by immersion, and became a preacher.b Meanwhile, zealous exertions in the same cause were made by others, and their progress grew with their efforts. The counties of the North Carolina border were visited, and Gooch- land, Louisa, Fluvanna, Orange, and Spotsylvania, witnessed the rise of large Baptist churches. If we may trust to tradition, an influence approaching the supernatural urged on the work, and directed certain preachers to particular parts of Virginia, in which they were specially called to labour. James Read lived in North Carolina, sixty miles from the border. His own account states that powerful im- pulses moved his heart to preach in the neighbour-
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