History of the First Church in Boston, 1630-1880

Front matter

HISTORY

OF THE

" And if any tax me for wasting paper with recording these small matters, such may consider that little mothers bring forth little children, small commonwealths matters of small moment, the reading whereof yet is not to be despised by the judicious ; because small things, in the beginning of natural or politic bodies, are as remarkable as greater in bodies full-grown."

Preface

HIS work, like so many others of a similar character, is the extension of a lecture. The lecture was delivered in the chapel at an informal parish gathering of the First Church. The interest which seemed to be awakened at that time among members of the congregation by the approaching celebration of the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the church organization, served to advance a preconceived plan of enlarging the only history of the church which had then been published. The work of Rev. William Emerson (published posthumously in 1812), prepared with great care by one who was thoroughly furnished for the task, covered the ground so completely that at the outset it was proposed merely to add a few pages bearing upon recent events without attempting to revise his publication. But as the present work advanced, finding how completely opinions had altered on some of the topics which he had so ably discussed, — transactions which were at one time obscure or shrouded in darkness having come into the light of knowledge and calling for a different treatment,— something more than an extension or enlargement of his history seemed to be necessary. The task of revision has been pursued with great caution ; and, as it has proved, the qualifications arising from the discovery of viii

PREFACE.

new sources of information have added so little to the earnest and laborious researches of Mr. Emerson that a large portion of his text might have been almost literally transcribed in the present work.

Dr. Frothingham was once asked why he did not write a history of the church. His reply was to the effect that he should be unable to make the dry statement of facts which it4 involved sufficiently interesting to induce any one to read it. It is much to be regretted that he was not persuaded to undertake the task, for it is a subject which, though dull in a common recital, would have been greatly enlivened by some of his charming and often exquisitely humorous forms of expression.

The present work attempts to arrange in concise form and chronological order the chain of events down to the present time. The authorities quoted are generally referred to in the notes. My special acknowledgments are due for the kindness with which I have been allowed the free use of the Massachusetts Historical Society Library. I am indebted to Dr. Samuel A. Green, its librarian, for many, valuable suggestions and references. Among the latter I would specially mention the rare pamphlet on church music referred to on page 217, which is now in the Boston Public Library.

The extent to which I have relied on my uncle, Dr. George E. Ellis, for advice and guidance, can hardly be overestimated. It is sufficient to say that he has directed and supervised it all from beginning to end.

To my father, the present minister of the church, may be attributed an equal share with my uncle, of the labor involved in preparing the volume for the press, a work which was nearly completed during my absence abroad. In the preparation of the later chapters, I was guided and governed to a great extent by his advice.

PREFACE.

ix

I tender my grateful acknowledgments to Mrs. George W. Pratt, of Boston, for valuable aid in preparing the sketch of her ancestor, Thomas Bridge.

My thanks are due to Rev. Henry W. Foote, minister of King's Chapel, and author of a new history of that church, which he is now preparing for the press, for calling my attention to some interesting sermons of Foxcroft and for other acts of kindness ; and to Mr. John Ward Dean, librarian of the New England Historic Genealogical Society, for kindly assisting me to fix the exact location of the first parsonage on Devonshire Street.

I am Indebted to Dr. Charles Deane, of Cambridge, for the introduction of the titlepage of the rare copy of " Cotton's Milk for Babes," in connection with the life of Cotton ; to D. Waldo Salisbury, Esq., of the Standing Committee of First Church, for the use of the ancient records of the church ; and to George O. Harris, formerly clerk of the corporation, for assistance in preparing a statement of the cost of the new meeting-house.

Through the courtesy of Messrs. James R. Osgood & Co., I am permitted to insert excellent woodcuts of three of the ministers, viz., Cotton, Wadsworth, and Chauncy, with autographs of Cotton and Wadsworth, all of which are taken from the " Memorial History of Boston."

Similar attention on the part of the Committee of First Church who had in charge the publication of the memorial volume, enables me to add views of three of the meeting-houses, which were specially prepared for that work.

The likeness of Wilson is taken from a negative of a photograph (by Messrs. Alien & Rowell, of Boston) of a painting in the Massachusetts Historical Society Collections. (As to the authenticity of this portrait, which was at one time considered doubtful, see a satisfactory letter from Hon. Josiah Quincy to Hon. Robert C. Winthrop,

X

PREFACE.

printed in Mass. Hist. Soc. Proceedings, December, 1880, showing it to have been in the possession of the Bromfield family for a great number of years.)

The engraving of Dr. Frothingham was prepared for the memoir of him by Dr. Hedge, referred to in the text.

Mr. A. B. Davenport, of Brooklyn, N. Y., kindly placed at my disposal the steel-plate engraving of John Davenport, which appears in his " History of the Davenport Family," as well as the fac-simile of his handwriting contained in the same volume.

Mr. Thomas Minns, of Boston, who has taken the most friendly interest in the work, generously gave the lithograph of the house of the Rev. John Wilson, taken from a sketch by Eliza Susan Quincy.

It was my intention at one time to unite the memorial volume already referred to, as published by a committee of the church, with this history, and bind them together. But as that work was issued some months before these pages were ready for the press, it seemed advisable to abandon this plan and make them as nearly as possible companion volumes. To the value of the memorial book as an historical treatise, the three sermons by the present minister, which it contains, form the chief contribution. No more trustworthy source of information concerning the early history of the church has ever been published. The Bi-centennial sermon of Dr. Frothingham is another valuable production in the same volume. It is recommended to all who desire to read an interesting chapter in the history of First Church.

A. B. E.

Contents

xvii

Chapter

Page

Introduction

TO PRACTISE THE POSITIVE PART OF CHURCH REFORMATION AND PROPAGATE THE GOSPEL IN AMERICA;"

T^HIS clearly defined and strongly worded statement, reiterated with variations of word and phrase in the writings of the leaders of the English Colonists in the Bay of Massachusetts, gives us from themselves the aim and purpose of their coming and their staying. The founders, ministers and members of the First Church in Boston stand as such leaders in the enterprise. They very soon had followers and associates in it. The relation of that First Church to the secular affairs of the colony, its, so to speak, metropolitan position, its establishment of a precedent and example for other early churches in this wilderness, and the pre-eminent influence and agency of its ministers in settling a form of church polity, make it proper, if not requisite, that a sketch of its history should be introduced by a brief reference to the intent and method of its constitution.

The writer of these introductory pages engages in this, not altogether attractive, effort in part through an interest in the subject, quickened by the recent celebration of the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the planting of the church, and in part at the request of his brother, the pres-

B xviii

INTRODUCTION.

ent pastor, and that of his nephew, its historian. In what is to follow the writer would frankly and distinctly state that he is not assuming the advocacy, the championship, or the defence of a religious fellowship or system, but simply aiming at its truthful historical statement. He is not the eulogist or the apologist of the Puritan theory. There was such a theory put on trial here. There was a purpose and a method in it. The founders of the First Church in Boston represent to us conspicuously the practical working of that theory. And thus a fair exposition of it may appropriately introduce the history of their church.

We have to ask what these Puritan church founders meant by " the Positive Part of Church Reformation ; " and then, taking their own answer to the question, to follow out their purpose and method in attempting to realize their object. Nothing new can be suggested on this wellwrought theme of history and controversy. It has become dull and wearisome even to those who by lineage and heritage might seem most interested to keep it fresh and vitalized ; while to those of uninformed or inert minds — who none the less are ready to speak judgments and opinions upon it — it is consigned to the class of themes which are antiquated and unprofitable. One who in the course of his own historical studies has sought to acquaint himself with facts and events necessary towards forming an intelligent and candid judgment on subjects once kindled and glowing with intense religious zeal and passion, but from which all the heat and all the practical interest are extinct for the living generation, will hardly fail to put to himself the question which others, superficial or indifferent in their own views, will be ready enough to ask him, — Why attempt to review, to restate, to set right, matters into which ignorance, superstition, morbid scruples, intolerance,

INTRODUCTION.

xix and passion entered so largely, and which are now all happily passing into oblivion? This question is thought to have a special pertinency when asked by multitudes living on this old Puritan heritage, in reference to any rehearsal of the stiff, stern, and bigoted ways of the founders of Church and Commonwealth. We are glad to succeed to them and to enjoy their heritage, but we cannot be engaged by any real and genial interest in their harsh and selfinflicting style of piety.

Living under the relaxed discipline, the easy freedom, the indifference and lack of earnestness in what was to our fathers the most intensely engrossing concern of their existence, even those among us who profess to retain, in substance at least, their religious standards and believings, fall far short of making real to us their old exemplars. Reproach, ridicule, contempt, scorn, are the sentiments very often felt or avowed for the crabbed, intolerant, and self-righteous spirit and deeds of those religious zealots, some pages of whose history are here revived. It would not be a less difficult, though certainly a much pleasanter, task to undertake to teach a foreign language or skill in the game of chess to a dull pupil, than it is to inform some facile triflers who wonder that any reasonable person should concern himself with telling anew, with an intent to rectify or readjust the judgment of time and common sense, the story of the stern religionists settling on the shores of Massachusetts Bay. We have repudiated their bigotry and austerity. Why plead even for their sincerity? There are those who are wholly unconscious of the fact that even the privileges of freedom, indifference, and laxity which they themselves enjoy, have come to them without cost* as an inheritance from the stern sincerity, the conflicts, the heroism, of those who thus enfranchised their posterity. There are those among us of the sturdiest Protestant lin-

XX

INTRODUCTION, eage, whose taste, conscience, love of religious repose or rest, has drawn them into the fold of the old Roman communion, where they find relief and joy. They are free to make the change, which involves no penalty or sacrifice. This freedom was won for them by predecessors of sterner stuff, who, in securing the right of private judgment which they used for themselves in breaking the thraldom of the old priestcraft, left others free to use the right as they might please, even if it should be to misuse it or to renounce its exercise.

The founders of the First Church of Boston derived their Christian nurture and heritage from the Church in England. On leaving their native land, with yearning hearts and tearful eyes, they took a tender parting from it on the deck of their vessel, as they were to give Up its wonted holy places and worship for their " poor cottages in the wilderness." They were free to renew and perpetuate on the virgin soil of this continent the characteristic principles and usages of that mother church. They did not do so. They established quite another institution, polity, and discipline. Their own course of action, the surprise, the seeming inconsistency, and the reason of it, Will appear by and by, after the way is prepared for their own explanation of it.

The English Church, as the religious nurse and mother of these Colonists, claimed to be a reformed church, purified, reconstructed, after renouncing and divesting itself, in constitution, doctrine, and discipline, of some of the inventions, corruptions, and superstitions of the Church of Rome. The English Church had made common cause with Protestant churches on the continent of Europe in this work of reformation, but had fallen back on its own special limitations. It had been for the English monarchs and parliaments to decide the steps, stages, degree, and

INTRODUCTION.

xxi substance of this reforming work, holding always to the assurance that no process or amount or result of their renunciation of Romanism impaired one whit their relation to the true Church of Christ.

The Puritans believed, thoroughly and sincerely, that the process of reformation in the English Church had been arbitrarily arrested by statecraft and priestcraft, by aims of policy and by compromising. They found it retaining and enforcing some Roman inventions and corruptions— hierarchical, sacerdotal, and ceremonial — which consistency required should be renounced as of essentially the same erroneous, mischievous, and unscriptural character as others which had been thrown aside. " Rags and remnants of Popery " were as odious to the Puritans as the most elaborate inventions of its costume and ritual. They thought that at the stage which the reformation work had reached, and at the point where it was arbitrarily required to stop, it was neither thorough in its process nor secure of abiding without risk of reversion and overthrow. They had stern facts before them, and reasonable apprehensions to warrant this conviction. There was that in the temper, the treacherous State policy, the arbitrariness and inconstancy of the four Stuart kings, — there was much in the spirit of prelacy, in the inclinations of some of the nobility, and in the lingering attachments of some of the people for the fond devices of Romanism, which kept the great issues of Protestantism in an even balance of suspense and risk for a good part of the century stirred by aggressive Puritanism. Not for more than half a century after the Boston Church was planted was the realm of England solemnly and safely committed, by organic parliamentary enact' ment and by a sincere royal oath, to Protestantism. To make sure of the stage which the purifying work had already reached, and to advance it in consistency with xxii

INTRODUCTION.

its first impulse and principles, was the aim of the Puritans.

It certainly was a serious and by no means easy problem for civil rulers and for ministers of religion, with their combined wisdom, to reconstruct a reformed church, after repudiating and renouncing that of Rome. The Church of Christ was to be the substitute for the Church of the Papacy. It was not strange that while the process of that substitution was advancing there should have been reason and occasion for much variance of judgment as to several matters of ecclesiastical constitution and discipline, — whether they belonged to, or at least were consistent with, the true Church of Christ, or were a part of the Papal system. Here we must recognize the radical difference in the matter of controversy maintained by the Puritans in the English Church, and that of the Reformed churches in general with the Church of Rome. The Puritans held .their own English Church to the obligation of reconstructing itself strictly according to the rule and authority of the Scriptures. In theory this obligation had been recognized. But in practice there was inconstancy in purpose, and, as the Puritans believed, inconsistency, and a dangerous trifling with some of the old Papal inventions. The Papal Church stoutly denied the sole authority of the Scriptures and the obligation to adduce written rules for its constitution and discipline.

The Holy Apostolic Church, said the Romanists, existed and was fully organized, according to the direction of its Founder, and by authority conferred by him, before the Scriptures were written, and independently of what may or may not happen to be found in them for instruction or example. The Scriptures are in fact the free gift of the church to those who belong to its fold, — one of many helps and agencies in which, in the exercise of its

INTRODUCTION.

xxiii divine trust, it seeks to fulfil its work. The church settled the canon of the sacred writings, and has taken care that they should be safely transmitted through the ages for the blessing of the faithful, for whom also the church claims the right to interpret the Scriptures. But the church is by no means held to restrict itself, in every element of its constitution, government, and discipline, to what may be laid down or set forth in Scripture. The Apostles had verbal, unwritten instructions from Christ, which they communicated to their successors. These instructions were actually followed in the planting and government of the first Christian communion ; they appeared in practical observance, in traditional transmission, and in various usages, rules, ceremonies, and methods of discipline, which all have thus an apostolic authority, are the marks and witnesses of the true church, wholly extraneous to what may appear in the sacred writings.

It is easy to conceive that, starting with this theory of a universal, apostolical church, bearing the sanction of its divine Founder, there might have been planted in this world an august and benedictive institution which would have gone far towards realizing for successive generations the establishment of the " Kingdom of Heaven " among men. But what, in contrast to this, the Roman Church became and was when its fearful thrall of despotism and superstition, its foul corruptions, and its debasing tyranny stirred alike the manhood and the piety of earnest souls to renounce it, need not here be related or portrayed. »

In bursting the bonds of the papacy, and in renouncing all connection with the Roman Church, the Reformers in general recognized but one alternative for those who remained in discipleship of the Church of Christ: it was to find their rule and guidance in the Scriptures. If the New Testament Scriptures had indeed been the gift of the

XXIV

INTRODUCTION.

church to Christ's disciples, the gift was bestowed while yet the church lived in its original simplicity and purity. The English Puritans asked of their dear mother church that she would strictly model herself by the simple rule of Scripture. They protested against the retention and the imposition by authority, in the constitution and discipline of their church, of any of the hierarchical, sacerdotal, or ceremonial inventions of the papacy. The ruling party in the English Church insisted that certain observances and usages which the Puritans disliked and repudiated were things " indifferent" The answer was, " Why then do you eject us from our vicarages, fine and imprison us for our scruples about them? " The Papal Church, in its elaborate hierarchy, had developed a system and series of priestly functionaries, with distinctions, ranks, privileges, and offices more numerous and complicated than are covered by all the officials of civil government, as running through all national and municipal departments and all the constituent parts of an army. The ritual, ceremonial, and altar service of the church, with its vestments, its ornaments, its attitudes and observances, was so intricate and complicated that only a glossary, or dictionary of terms and definitions, with something answering to " stage directions," could assign and interpret a meaning for them. To the Puritan they were all " mummeries."

The writer of these pages recalls a remembrance which, at the time, gave him a full sense of the old Puritan abhorrence of the Roman pomp and ceremonial in contrast with the simplicities of the early Christian worship. It was on Christmas day at the Church of St. Peter in Rome. With the blaze of thousands of candles at midday, the swinging of smoking censers, the array of religious orders in monkish hoods and varied garbs, the harlequin suits of the Swiss Guards, and other military escort, and crowds

INTRODUCTION.

XXV of lay-people all in requisite dress-suits, the Pope, lifted in a canopy-covered golden chair, was borne in upon the arms of ecclesiastics. He was clad in robes so heavily wrought with gold that four bearers were needed to relieve their weight when he took a few steps on the pavements. He hardly needed the large fans and bunches of feathers from the tails of peacocks, borne before him, to remind him — as the explanation of the ceremonial is — that " the eyes of the people are upon him." Probably it was the Puritan lineage of the writer, as he looked on the scene, that prompted the thought, that if the dome of the superb temple could have been riven, and the Apostle whose name it bears could have descended upon the scene, he would not have known what was going on there. It would certainly have been interesting to have listened as his " successor " explained the situation to him.

The Puritans, as we say, did not discriminate between what was part and parcel of a corrupt, overladen, pompous, sacerdotal ceremonialism, — the growth of centuries of a towering, domineering priesthood, enslaving the people by greed and superstition, — and certain harmless devices and adaptations still left in the English Church, which, though they could not claim positive Scripture sanction and apostolic precept, had in them fitness and grace, and might help to devout impression, order, and discipline. As the Puritans devoutly read the New Testament they learned from it that the Founder and Head of the Christian Church commissioned a company of men whom he had chosen, by themselves and their successors, to teach and preach to the world what he had taught them, — just that and no more. These teachers were called apostles, evangelists, ministers, elders, presbyters, overseers, bishops, — simply synonymous terms, without any gradations of office or dignity in rank, for they were

XXVI

INTRODUCTION.

" all brethren." A company of men and women in any place, — Jews or Gentiles, — after listening to the teaching of the new religion, might gather together, and with a simple organization, under a competent, regular minister, ■ — or, failing in that, edifying each other in exhortation and prayer, — might form a Christian church and administer its discipline. Some men of years and gravity, called deacons, had special oversight over the poor and the work of charity. The Puritans found nothing relating to " clerical habits or vestments," to a form of prayer and service, to an observance of the Lord's Supper as a commemorative rite by kneeling as in adoration at an altar, or to the drawing of a cross on the brow of an infant in baptism. The point must in fairness be granted that if the field and matter of variance between the Puritans and the prelacy and ceremonial of the Church of England were restricted to the New Testament, the Puritans could hold their ground. Able and candid prelates and scholars of the English Church have frankly admitted that it must look outside of the writings of the apostolic age for its full hierarchical and ceremonial system, and they plead for its right to do so.

With such a meaning and purpose attaching in their minds to the " Positive Part of Church Reformation," we trace the course pursued in the institution and discipline of the First Church in Boston. Its founders adopted, as by spontaneous prompting, the Congregational Polity, simply and for no other reason than because it represented to them the precedent laid down for them in the New Testament. They were constant readers and students of the sacred writings, and it was of supreme interest for them that no counsel or example there set forth should rebuke them for any willing neglect of it. The circumstances of their distant exile, their lack of all the paraphernalia and

INTRODUCTION.

XXV11 furnishings of ecclesiastical ceremonial, and their straits of necessity, might well have excused their disuse of wonted observances, and their recourse to any shifts of their own devising. But they sought no excuse, they offered no apologies for the course which they pursued. They had a fair, free field for the full trial of methods and the exercise of conscientious principles which, before their exile, had profoundly engaged their convictions. Puritanism had exhibited in England its animating spirit, and had indicated its own direction and ideals. These had been impeded and withstood in their development, and in the effort to realize them. Here they , were free to assert themselves, and they did so. The result was that the First Church of Boston, the exemplar in this matter of all the early New England churches, became a Congregational Church. Its polity, widely at variance with that of the English Church, is substantially that of sects and communions which vastly outnumber the discipleship of the English Church on both continents, and still fairly divide it in Great Britain itself.

Just at this point, in the first acts that initiated the New England Congregational Church polity, we have presented to us a question which, whether it be regarded as reflecting severely upon the alleged inconsistency and insincerity of the Boston Puritans, or as merely involving an interesting historical fact, may engage our attention.

The question is, How does the openly schismatic course pursued by the founders of the First Church, in their immediate and complete repudiation of the ecclesiastical methods of the Church of England, consist with the avowed and tender love, gratitude, affection, and yearning regard which they had expressed for it on leaving their native land? Here are some sentences from this parting address to the " Reverend Fathers and Brethren " : " We desire xxviii

INTRODUCTION.

you would be pleased to take notice of the principals and body' of our Company, as those who esteem it our honour to call the Church of England, from whence we rise, our dear mother; and cannot part from our native Country, where she specially resideth, without much sadness of heart and many tears in our eyes, ever acknowledging that such hope and part as we have obtained in the common salvation we have received in her bosom, and sucked it from her breasts. We leave it not, therefore, as loathing that milk wherewith we were nourished there; but, blessing God for the parentage and education, as members of the same body, shall always rejoice in her good," etc.

These tender parting words were evidently the promptings of a deep heart-sincerity. No motive other than the purest and the truest could have drawn them forth. There was a degree of magnanimity, too, in the utterance of them. Some of the exiles had felt the harsh dealing of the prelates and the spiritual courts of the Church of England. Much as they had owed to it, and much as they loved it, they were parting from it of their own free-will, in search of some Christian joys and privileges which they could not find in its communion. Still, the question is a pertinent one, — How could they at once thus actually rend the tie of fellowship with that church by disusing all its forms in institution and observance, and invent or establish their own widely different polity?

In dealing with this question, the matter of most significance for us is that we have not a single word of explanation, much less of justification, coming from themselves as to the course which they pursued. This is the more remarkable as it was their most characteristic habit, their unvarying usage and principle, to debate, to discuss, to deliberately and patiently weigh, every proposition, scheme,

INTRODUCTION.

XXIX and incidental measure involved in their enterprise. They always had recourse to " papers " to mark the stages of that enterprise, and to note all its details and incidents. The " brethren " had equal and common part with the ministers in the laying of plans, the consultations over everything however trifling which concerned their religious or secular interests, and nothing but Scripture arguments ever had weight with them. From these facts we might infer that such vitally interesting matters as related to the institution of a church body, the methods of organization and discipline, and the conduct of public worship, were deliberately considered and discussed by them, and that any new or unwonted practices which they might adopt, would have been the topics of earnest conference in the religious meetings which were of such interest to them. But if any such papers were written, if any such debates were held, they have fallen into entire oblivion. If they had foreseen that their farewell letter would be quoted as testimony against them, they might have been at the pains to have left some record for their justification. In lack of it, their church polity seems to us to have been adopted spontaneously, with no dissent or objection, as if they regarded it as their natural and rightful privilege, when free, to follow a previous inclination and tendency.