USA > Vermont > Bennington County > Bennington > Memorials of a century. Embracing a record of individuals and events, chiefly in the early history of Bennington, Vt., and its First church > Part 27
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1 Dr. Sprague's notice of the Rev. Dr. Humphrey, President of Amherst Col- lege, etc., in " New York Observer " for May 7, 1868.
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MEMORIALS OF A CENTURY.
II. SPECIAL CASES OF HARDSHIP UNDER THE LAWS OF MASSA- CHUSETTS RESPECTING PUBLIC WORSHIP. - In 1744, Mr. Paine, of Connecticut, for preaching at Woodstock, in Massachusetts, with- in the bounds of another minister's parish, was imprisoned at Worcester, but the Worcester Court discharged him as being im- prisoned without law.
The Sturbridge case is repeatedly adduced by Backus. It was doubtless an extreme case, and its repeated introduction would lead us to infer that it had not any other cases parallel to it. It will, however, so well illustrate some of the hardships which the Separates were liable to endure, it shall be cited here, as given in the appendix to the " Life and Times of Isaac Backus," by Hovey (p. 329), -- or rather, portions of that version of the affair shall be given. "From the testimony of Henry Fisk, we learn that a New- Light Church was organized in Sturbridge on the 10th of Nov., 1747. The next year John Blunt was ordained pastor. . A petition to be exempted from taxes to support the 'regular minister' was laid before the town by the members of this church ; but their re- quest was denied. On the 26th of May, 1748, a great part of the town got together, and laying hold of two brethren who came from other places (to attend the New-Light meeting) drew them in a hostile manner out of town. About this time some others were seized for rates, paid them privately and were set at liberty. As they went on to rate us from year to year, contrary to the royal act of indulgence and the Province laws
they stripped the pewter from the shelves of such as had it; and they took away skillets, kettles, pots, and warming-pans from those who had it (the pewter) not. Others they deprived of the means by which they got their bread; namely, workmen's tools and spinning-wheels. They drove away geese and swine from the doors of others. . From some who had cows they took one or more of them; from some who had but one, they took that away. They took a yoke of oxen from one, and they thrust some into prison, where they suffered a long and tedious imprisonment. One brother was called from us, ordained pastor of a Baptist church, and came for his family, at which time they seized and drew him away, and thrust him into prison, where he was kept in the cold winter till somebody paid the money and let him out. A few specifications are condensed from the records of the church kept by Henry Fisk, clerk. In 1750 a spinning-wheel was taken from
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OPPRESSION OF SEPARATES.
A. Bloice ; five pewter plates from D. Fiske; a cow from J. Pike ; a trammel, andiron», shovel and tongs from John Blunt; a cradle from J. Perry ; goods from John Streeter; household goods from Benjamin Robins, and also from H. Fisk; a cow from David Morse; goods from Phineas Collar and from John Newell; and during the same year John Corey, J. Barstow, Josiah Perry, Na- thaniel Smith, and David Morse were imprisoned for ministerial rates. A narrative of cases, persons, and particulars of hardship at a subsequent period of this church's history is also given; but let this suffice. Somewhere about 1750 this became a Baptist church.
Two or three other cases of oppression of Separates shall be given. They are cited from Backus' three-volume history. " And among the many instances that discovered how tenacious our oppressors were of their taxing power to support worship, take the follow- ing : Esther White, of Raynham, had a small interest left her, for which she was taxed eight pence to the parish minister, from which she had withdrawn four years, and she seriously declared it was against her conscience to pay it. Therefore for no more than that sum she was seized Feb. 28, 1752, and was imprisoned at Taunton until March, 1753, when said minister's own people were constrained to go and release her, without her paying any acknowl- edgment to that taxing power. She soon after became a Baptist, and continued to give abiding evidence of true piety until she died in peace in 1774.1 " The case of Framingham, twenty-five miles west of Boston, affords another demonstration of the iniquity of supporting ministers by tax and compulsion. The Hon. Edward Goddard, Esq., formerly one of the council of this prov- ince, with other fathers of that town, could not concur with the majority in the settlement of a minister, and by the advice of other ministers they became an organized church by themselves in 1747, and wanted nothing but the sanction of the civil power to make them as regular and orthodox a religious society in civil law as any others were. But as they were zealous friends of the late revival of religion, such an incorporation was denied them. And they had been all taxed to a minister they never chose for six years " (before a publication on the subject quoted in the appen- dix to vol. I.). " Three years after, their minister left them, and
1 Vol. II., p. 194.
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MEMORIALS OF A CENTURY.
a Baptist society was formed among them." The following lines are credited by Backus to this Hon. Edward Goddard, Esq .. 1
" Good conscience men allow, they say, But must be understood To say as they themselves do say, Or else it can't be good."
"In a place called Titicut, upon the river between Bridgewater and Middleborough, a powerful work was wrought in and after the year 1741." "After Titicut precinct was constituted, in Feb., 1743, ministers refused to dismiss the communicants therein, so as to form a new church, lest they should call a minister whom they did not approve of. They were thus denied the right which both the laws of God and man allowed them, until the brethren determined not to be restrained by such tyranny any longer, but came out and began to worship by themselves on Dec. 13, 1747. A church was formed Feb. 16, 1748, which increased to three- score members in ten months. But the opposite party met in March, and voted a large sum of money to finish their meeting- house, and to hire other sort of preaching, and assessed it upon all the inhabitants. Therefore, our society, on Nov. 21, drew up an address to them," - which was answered; "and they"- the respondents - "went so far as to call it 'gross ignorance and enthusiasm ' for any to deny that Christian rulers have a right to compel their subjects to receive and support orthodox minis- ters. And Feb. 6, 1749, the author " (Mr. Backus) " was seized as a prisoner for thirteen shillings and four pence assessed upon him in said tax. But, as he refused to pay it, they, after about three hours' confinement of him, settled it among themselves. This was the best reward they offered him for preaching two months at their request."2 "One of his brethren was imprisoned at Plymouth for said tax. But, when distress was made upon another of his" (Mr. Backus') "hearers, they were prosecuted therefor, and it was found upon trial that said money was voted at an illegal meeting. They therefore appealed to the Superior Court; and in the mean time, Dec. 14, 1749, procured an act of the Legislature, which says, 'That the proceedings of the meeting,
1 Ib., p. 195.
2 See this case spread out at large and more intelligibly in Hovey's Life and Times of Backus, pp. 67-71.
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CONCLUDING REMARKS ON SEPARATISM.
mentioned in the petition be, and they hereby are, held and deemed good and valid in law, the defect of the notification, call- ing said meeting, to the contrary notwithstanding.' And, by vir- tue of said act, the case was turned against the appellee in the next trial; which shows that a worship supported by tax is par- tiality established by law." 1
III. CONCLUDING REMARKS ON SEPARATISM. - Separatism played an important part in probably the most profound religious movement hitherto in this country. The depth of the movement appears in the fact that it embraced and agitated the whole country. To New England, at large, it was what the local revival is to a neighborhood or town. It was natural that such a move- ment should develop a party of revolution, and an antagonist party of avowed and heated conservatism. It is not difficult to see, from the circumstances of the origin of the party of reforma- tion, that there would be some rudeness as well as force in it. In putting forth the energy such exigencies require, human na- ture is not apt to stop before, in its vehemence, it sometimes slips beyond the safe limit of law and order. It becomes more intent upon the object than it is upon the character of the means by which to accomplish the object. Festering corruption within is compatible with much precision of outward manners, which re- formers, who set themselves against the corruptions of aristo- cratic classes, come into opposition to. Such a thing has been as declension in piety and justice, even when ecclesiastical institu- tions, human learning, and civil government of a high order are enjoyed; and when there is such declension, they who rise up as the leaders of reformation are tempted to undervalue these great blessings. This was true of the Separatists of the seventeenth century in Old England, and of those of the eighteenth century in New England. We see this cropping out sometimes in the Ben- nington church, though always in the final action of the church overborne by moderate counsels. We see the same thing in the struggles of Vermont for State sovereignty, and in conjunction with other States for a national existence in opposition to the mother country. Patriotism, the purpose of manly independence, was too much on fire to think just then of furnishing to the world models of legal precision, and refinement in manners. Hence
1 Vol. II., pp. 205-208.
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MEMORIALS OF A CENTURY.
some features of barbarity in the first essayings of this State at legislation, soon, however, pointed out by wise statesmen in the Commonwealth, and soon removed. Hence, too, so much was energetically accomplished in the early history of the settlers toward order and independence, with only' a modicum of legis- lation, as is amply illustrated by what is preserved to us of the records of the Council of Safety, - " the greatest political curi- osity," says Gov. Slade, "which the history of Vermont can furnish." 1
Moreover, while many would be attracted to the general move- ment of Separatism, because of its energy in reformation, others would join the Separates from less pure motives. Backus says, " Such evils had been practised under the name of learning, orthodoxy, and regularity, that many were prejudiced against the truth by what others falsely called by those names. Christian liberty had been so invaded that many ran into licentiousness to avoid tyranny. The right which the gospel gives to every saint freely to improve their several gifts for mutual edification had been so much denied, that frequent instances were now seen of persons putting themselves forward in exercises which they had not a gift for, being so earnest to maintain the liberty of speaking as not duly to regard others' right of judging." 2 The Separates were derided for their uneducated ministry. President Edwards complained of their extravagance, self-conceit, and zeal without knowledge, - particularly of their exhorters, - and of their preaching without license.
The duty or wisdom of " separating " remains an open ques- tion; how far, in what manner, and when, if at all, the minority or the aggrieved party is to go out, and organize a separate wor- ship under the plea that they cannot in conscience any longer countenance the old church in its errors by remaining in it.3 It is not the desire of the writer of these pages, in the case of the Mas- sachusetts and Connecticut Separates, to say, whether, under their circumstances even, Separatism was the best conceivable method of promoting all needed reformation.
It must, however, be apparent that, as compared with any tame acquiescence in the growing evils in the churches, the Separates
1 State Papers, p. 197. 2 Vol. II., p. 185.
3 See some remarks upon this question in the Preface to the Cambridge Plat- form.
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SEPARATISM AN OPEN QUESTION.
are to have our approbation. They exerted an energetic influence for important reforms which in a sequel of remarkable success may be seen and read of all men.
It is to be remembered that the persecuting civil and religious power, and the unfriendly sentiment arrayed against the Separates, were in support of an innovation upon the Puritan principles and practice.1 The halfway-covenant practice too nearly resembled the custom of the old country, which the primitive settlers of New England had intentionally left behind, - not without sacrifice. Strange to say, the doctrinal standards in the churches which adopted the halfway covenant had not been modified to suit it. The articles of faith of the Cambridge Platform, and of the Assem- bly's Catechism, were in form neither altered nor repudiated. The doctrinal formula was as sharp a statement as ever of the doctrine of regeneration.
So far as Separatism involved denunciation of the Standing Or- der churches as no true churches of Christ, in our opinion it was wrong. That in all cases the Separates were innocent of disre- garding the rights and feelings of others, it is not here attempted to maintain. They, in many instances, perhaps, refused to those from whom they came out the same right of private judgment and liberty of conscience which they demanded for themselves. It is the want of discrimination and charity in condemning others which is wrong. The Separates were not by any means entirely innocent of this. Those especially who continued in the same place with the old church from which they had separated had a great temptation to uncharitableness. On the contrary, so far as the Standing Order churches assumed that the. Separates were not responsible to judge for themselves whether they could best wor- ship God in a Separate organization, the Standing Order was wrong. As to the question of the mutual fellowship of neighbor- ing churches, - how intimate it shall be, - it must be decided very much by the circumstances. It has been well settled, and prob- ably will remain so, that no party shall be compulsorily taxed for support of one religious society when there is another accessible which is preferred. This has now of a long time been settled this side of the Atlantic Ocean, though only just beginning to be ac- cepted in the mother country. It has also been settled with us now
1 See Preface to Cambridge Platform,
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MEMORIALS OF A CENTURY.
a good while that no party shall be taxed against his consent for the support of any religious society whatever ; and this, too, is well.
President Edwards, in some passages of his writings, appears to disapprove the course of the Separates in separating ; and, yet, in other passages to justify them.1 He certainly disapproved the course of the majority, whensoever it sought to restrain the Sep- arates by civil penalties or ecclesiastical discipline. There were some distinct results of reformation accomplished, which the Sep- arates had the perspicacity to see, and the spirit to demand, in advance of the most zealous and spiritual, who, like President Edwards, preferred to remain with the old churches. President Edwards received his first convictions of the unscripturalness of the halfway covenant through the Separates.2
On the whole, the conclusion is forced upon us that Separatism, with other Causes added, was, by the overruling providence of God made largely promotive of the interests of mankind.
Briefly to sum up the results : They were in sympathy with and did much to promote a revival acknowledged on all hands to be one of very remarkable greatness and power We have seen how with regard to the progress of civil and religious liberty they were quite in the van.3 Against the use of the civil power to enforce
1 See his Qualifications for Communion, Part III., Obj. 20; also, his Letter to the Rev. Elnathan Whitman, Hartford, Conn. - Works of Jonathan Edwards, London, 1849, Vol. I., p. cxviii .; ib., pp. clvi., vii., viii.
2 " It is certain that the conduct of the Separates (in not approving the halfway covenant) received his anxious attention." " He must, therefore, have seen their arguments against the admission of hypocrites into the church, and it was not in his nature to cast arguments away through prejudice without ascertaining what mixture of truth there might be in them."- Great Awakening, p. 406.
3 " The expedition against Cape Breton, in which Louisburg was taken from the French, 1743, - Col. Pepperell commanding, - was favored by Whitfield; he gave them a motto, after much solicitation of Sherburne, the commissary, - 'Christo duce,' - upon which great numbers enlisted. Separates at Chebacco - separated from Pickering- enlisted. Whitfield preached to the troops upon their departure. Upon their victory Whitfield preached a thanksgiving sermon." -Notes in Great Awakening, p. 67.
The Bennington battle, as a successful contest of native spirit and vigor against odds of culture and of British prestige, was an example of the peculiar spirit and success which had marked the career of many of the early settlers of Benning- ton from the time they, as Separates, protested in Connecticut and Massachu- setts against the aristocratic and domineering formalism of the Standing Order churches.
The resistance of the early settlers of Vermont against the attempts of the
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A CONVERTED MINISTRY.
religious conformity they successfully protested. In the midst of a serious declension in the mind and practice of the churches from the written standards, the Separates rescued, and practically re- established, every important doctrinal sentiment of those stand- ards. One of the so-called excesses of the revivalists was their denunciation of the ministers as unconverted ; but that there was too much reason for this has already been shown. The demand that a minister should be a converted man was made to appear reasonable. Public attention was so strongly fixed upon it that the churches and the community came soon to settle it correctly ; and the correct settlement of this question has practically reached all evangelical denominations in the United States. "In some instances they were founded on separating from degenerate churches and an unconverted ministry, as even charity must ad- mit, and were the means of establishing and preserving gospel ordinances in their life and power where otherwise there would have been only the dead form of religion. Some of them occurred where the Christian population was large enough to justify divis- ion. Some of them became regular and orderly churches and sub- sist to this day. President Clapp, of Yale College, who, in 1742, forbade his pupils to attend the Separate meeting at New Haven, became an attendant there himself in less than ten years,"-now the North Church.1
In respect of every important position named, there has been a singular unanimity, on the part of the Congregational churches, professedly of orthodox faith, in coming over to the ground thus in advance taken by the Separates. When the objections to the old churches in their minds were thus removed, and there was felt to be no other need of the additional church, the Separates readily returned to the old church, excepting in those instance in which the Separate church had become Baptist. "They went out from us, but they were of us : their return was natural, pleasant to us, and honorable both to their candor and to our common religion." 2
New York governors in council to establish their jurisdiction as far east as the Connecticut River, was a decisive struggle of republicanism against the spirit of aristocracy and monarchy.
1 Great Awakening, p. 390.
2 Rev. Dr. McEowen, in Cont. Ecc. Hist., Conn., p. 281. "The close of the Revolutionary struggle found many of the parish churches destitute of pastors, and in some of them the lack was not soon supplied. . . The churches of the Standing Order, so called, gradually abandoned the practices which had
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MEMORIALS OF A CENTURY.
The removal of the Bennington settlers away from the vicinity of the old churches to new seats, would disembarrass them of the most serious evils of Separatism. They who came up hither had necessarily to found a new church. There was no room for any question about the expediency of this. They were under no temptation of uncharitable denunciation of any other church in the neighborhood, for there was no such church to denounce.1 And to this day, the few principles they adopted as the basis of their church order have been sustained. The repudiation of the fellowship of the churches in common counsel and mutual advice, and the idea of lay ordination, were never practically adopted by the church. As has been seen, in less than a year after its organ- ization, it invited a mutual council to convene at Westfield, Mass., to give advice upon the question of the removal of that church and its pastor hither. The duty of infant baptism was strenu- ously maintained from the outset.2 Whatever impracticable pe- culiarities of extreme Separatism cropped out in the case of individual members gradually disappeared. The counsels of moderation and wisdom prevailed.
IV. LAWS OF MASSACHUSETTS AND CONNECTICUT RESPECTING FREEDOM OF PUBLIC WORSHIP, COMPARED. - That Massachusetts did not proceed to as great length as Connecticut in persecuting the Separates has been accounted for in part, and, doubtless, cor-
grieved the Separates, and, to some extent, adopted the very positions and courses which their former pastors had condemned. . . The result was almost inevitable. Indeed, the reunion of churches began in Canterbury, Conn., soon after the close of the Revolution, though not at first completely suc- cessful. The same thing was accomplished, at different dates, in several places ; the last, and one of the most successful instances, being that of North Stoning- ton, where, for a number of years, Rev. Joseph Ayer was the minister, at once, of the old and of the Separatist church, until their happy union in 1827." - Rev. R. C. Learned in " New Englander " for 1853, p. 206.
1 It is a familiar anecdote of the pioneer, Samuel Robinson, Esq., that when new-comers presented themselves to him as chief proprietors' agent for the lands in this region, he would inquire of them as to their religious persuasion : if Episcopalians, he would offer them lands in Arlington; if Baptists, in Shafts- bury ; if no religious persuasion, in Pownal; but if Congregationalists, in Ben- nington. - Thompson's Vermont, Part III., p. 19. It may be questioned whether this slight partiality in the interest of a denomination was not really adverse to that interest and to the interest of true religion.
2 See record of the first case of discipline after the organization of the church.
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MASSACHUSETTS PRIOR TO 1691.
rectly, by the fact that the charter of 1691, obtained from King William III., termed in the account of the Sturbridge case " the royal act of indulgence," required toleration of every religious persuasion except Papists. "Liberty of conscience in the worship of God to all Christians, except Papists, inhabiting, or which shall inhabit or be resident within our said province or territory." This was interpreted to mean that men should not be imprisoned, or otherwise punished, for holding meetings by themselves; and was also interpreted not to prohibit some encouragement by law (as, for example, enforcing upon the Separates the payment of taxes to the Standing Order) of the religion professed by the majority of the inhabitants. To use the language of Mr. Bancroft : "In one respect the new charter was an advancement. Every form of Christianity, except, unhappily, the Roman Catholic, was enfran- chised; and in civil affairs the freedom of the colony, no longer restricted to the members of the church, was extended so widely as to be in a practical sense nearly universal. The Legislature continued to encourage by law the religion professed by the ma- jority of the inhabitants, but it no longer decided controversies on opinion, and no Synod was ever again convened." 1 Backus says : " King William intended by this charter (of 1691) to prevent their making any more persecuting laws, and it had that effect fifty years afterward, when Connecticut imprisoned men for preaching the gospel, but Massachusetts could not do so." 2
It is necessary to a fair comparison between Connecticut and Massachusetts to say, and in justice to Connecticut to recall the well-known historical fact that, prior to the coming into force of this charter of 1691, Massachusetts had an unenviable distinction above Connecticut in punishing with fines, imprisonments, stripes, banishment, and worse, those who were not orthodox according to the Massachusetts way.
CONNECTICUT. - Of the original constitution of the colony of Connecticut Bancroft says (remarks that, of course, do not strictly apply to the colony of New Haven, which, however, was merged in that of Connecticut in 1662) : "Roger Williams had ever been a welcome guest at Hartford ; and that heavenly man, John Haynes,
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