The genesis of the New England churches

Front matter

D. C C/ass Book

E. C. Class Jj D Book.ff/^ bureau of Educa..

A. L. A. Columbian Library

Preface

A FEW words will sufficiently explain to the reader of this book the design of the author.

The history of Protestant Christianity in the United States of America is the history, not of a national church, but of voluntary churches. I have attempted to show howit began, and to trace the origin and development of the idea which generated the churches of New England.

It is hardly necessary to say that the Baptist churches — a name which, in the United States, comprehends more churches than any other save one — are constituted on the same platform of polity with the church which came in the Mayflower. I have had no occasion to speak of them or of their influence in giving character to our American civilization ; inasmuch as the history of churches bearing that name, on this side of the Atlantic, begins later than the latest date in the volume now submitted to the public. It has been claimed for those churches that, from the age of the lleformation onw-ard, they have been always foremost and always consistent in maintaining the doctrine of religious liberty. Let me not be understood as calling in question their right to so great an honor.

My life has been too busy for researches among the remotest sources of history. The story in this volume is derived chiefly from works which may be found in all good libraries. Instead of going to the Bj-itish Museum that I might inspect the editio priiicejps of some Separatist book

Vlll PREFACE.

for which the author was hanged, I have made use of the abstracts and extracts in Ilanbury's " Historical Memorials." The documents which were collected, arranged, and published by the late Dr. Alexander Young, with his careful annotations, in those two volumes, the " Chronicles of the Pilgrims " and the " Chronicles of Massachusetts," were worth more to me for my purpose than the originals from which he copied them could have been. Inasmuch as I had before me Bradford's " History of Pljanouth Plantation," transcribed and published at the expense of the Massachusetts Historical Society, with annotations by its learned secretary, Mr. Deane, there was no need of my crossing the ocean to consult the venerable autograph which, having been stolen from the Prince Library when the Old South Meeting-house was occupied by British soldiers, was found after many years in the library of Fulham Palace. I have been as well pi'ovided for the work which I have attempted as I could liave been if the Bishop of London and the Queen of Great Britain had not said their ^'' JVo?i possu- 7nus,^^ or if the omnipotent Parliament had authorized the rendition of the precious relic to its rightful proprietor.

The Prince Library can not be named without honorable mention of its founder, Thomas Prince, the earliest American bibliographer, whose " Annals of N^ew England" — though less impoi'tant as an authority since the recovery of Bradford's History than it was when Dr. Youngincorporated much of it into his " Chronicles" — is so helpful a guide in the study of our history, whether of church or state. The title of his work shows that he did not forget how different is the task of the annalist, collecting facts and arranging them in strictly chronological order as in a table of dates, from that of the historian, who, dealing with the same facts, describes them in their significance and their natural connections. Whatever disappointment may

PREFACE. IX

be experienced by a reader who opens Felt's " Ecclesiastical Histor}^ of ISTew England" with the expectation of finding on its pages a continnous and lively narrative, the reason of that disappointment will be that, while all the facts of the story are there, the book, instead of being really history, is little else than a chronological arrangement of events, set down with exemplary carefulness and diligence, but almost as dry as a volume of statistics. I take pleasure in acknowledging my indebtedness to the annalists and to the collectors and editors of historical docnments — to Felt, Young, Prince, and Hanbury, as well as to the Anglican Strype. I do not profess to have gone behind them for the facts which they give me ; but, on the other hand, I do not regard my work as bearing any resemblance to theirs. I have only attempted to construct a story out of the materials which they, and others like them, have provided.

This book, then, is offered to readers as a histor}- digested from materials wliich others ha\e prepared for me. It makes no profession of bringing to light new facts from documents heretofore inedited, or from black-letter books heretofore overlooked. It simply tells an old story, giving perhaps here and there a new interpretation or a new emphasis to some undisputed fact. My purpose has been to tell the story clearly and fairly, not for the instruction or delight of antiquarians, nor merely for those with whom church history is a professional study, but for all sorts of intelligent and thoughtful readers. He who writes only for scholars, or for the men of some learned profession, can say, " Fit audience let me find, though few ;" but my labor has been thrown away if the story which I have written is not so told as to invite the attention and to stir the sympathies of the many. Those who read the story will understand, I trust — what many are ignorant of, and Mdiat

PREFACE.

some historians have not sufficiently explained — the difference between " our Pilgrim Fathers" and " our Puritan Fathers." In the old world on the other side of the ocean, the Puritan was a Nationalist, believing that a Cln-istian nation is a Christian church, and demanding that the Church oi England sliould be thoi'oughly reformed ; while the Pilgrim was a Separatist, not only from the Anglican Prayer-book and Queen Elizabeth's episcopacy, but from all national churches. Between them there was sharp contention — a controversy quite as earnest and almost as bitter as that which they both had with the ecclesiastico-political power that oppressed them both, iining and imprisoning the Puritan, and visiting upon the Separatist the added penalties of exile and the gallows. The Pilgrim wanted liberty for himself and his wife and little ones, and for his brethren, to walk with God in a Christian life as the rules and motives of such a life were revealed to him from God's Word. For that he went into exile ; for that he crossed the ocean ; for that he made his home in a wilderness. The Puritan's idea was not liberty, but right government in church and state — such government as should not only permit him, but also compel other men to w^alk in the right way. Of all this the ingenuous reader will find, 1 think, some illustration in the history before him.

The words, written or spoken, of the actors in the stoi-y are often introduced for tbe sake of bringing the reader into closer connection with the men whom I describe and with their times ; but, in so doing, I have not always deemed it necessary to transcribe with scrupulous exactness every pleonasm or tautology, and every careless mislocation of words in the structure of a sentence. If in any instance I have misrepresented the meaning of a quotation, let me receive such censure as the unfairness may seem to deserve. Thouo;h I am not aware that I have

PREFACE.

used a larger liberty in this respect tlian is conceded to writers of history, I may say that, if I have erred, the error was because of my desire to make the meaning of every sentence clear, at the first glance, to an ordinarily intelligent reader.

The history of the colonization of New England has been admirably written by Dr. Palfrey ; and it would have been folly in me to attempt a repetition of what he has done so well. Mine is a very different undertaking. The story which I tell is the story of an idea slowly making its way against prejudices, interests, and passions— a story of faitli and martyrdom, of heroic endeavor and heroic constancy. It includes only so much of secular history as is involved in the history of the idea, and of the men whom it possessed, and who labored and suffered to make it a reality in the world of fact. I have attempted nothing moie than a humble contribution to our ecclesiastical history— only a book of Genesis, which, had I written it earlier, might have been followed by a Puritan Exodus. Mr. Punchard's "History of Congregationalism," and Dr. Waddington's most elaborate " Congregational History" (of which a second volume has been lately published), cover a much wider field tlian I have ventured to traverse.

I take the liberty of expressing here my thanks to Professor Fisher of Yale College, who has kindly assisted in revising the proof-sheets of this volume, and whose suggestions have contributed to its accuracy especially in the earlier chapters. In the later and most important chapters, beginning with Chapter X., I have had also the benefit of corrections and suggestions from the Eev. Dr. Henry M. Dexter, who is better acquainted, I suppose, than any other man with every foot-print of the Pilgrim Fathers, at Scrooby, at Amsterdam, at Leyden, or in New England. Yet I must not represent him as responsible for every thing on xii PREFACE.

those pages ; for, being less imbued than he with the antiquarian spirit, I have sometimes ventured not to follow where he seemed to lead me. For example, when he tells me that the first governor of Salem, under the Massachusetts corporation, wrote himself John Endecott, I can not doubt the fact, yet I leave the name in the form in which it has passed into history and poetry — John Endicott. In regard to any more important matter of fact, I should not dare to reject the advice of a friend so learned and so ac- (Mirate.

L. B.

New Haven, July 1, 1874,

CHAPTER I.— A.D. 1-100. Page

What was in the Beginning 17

From the Primitive to the Papal 34

What the Reformation in the Sixteenth Century did for Church Pohty. . 49

The English Reformation and the Puritans GO

Reformation without Tarrying for Any 73

Separatism before the High Commissioners 91

Controversy under Difficulties. — Nationalism, Conformist and Puritan,

against Separatism 110

CHAPTER VIIL— A.D. 1592-1593.

The Martyr Church : the Jails and the Gallows 131

John Penry, the Martyr for Evangelism 155

Persecution and Exile. — The Church at Scrooby 186

XIV CONTENTS.

CHAPTER XI.— A.D. 1608-lGlG.

Pace

The Separatists in Amsterdam 216

CHAPTER XII.— A.D. IGOO-IGIS.

The Sojourn at Leyden. — John Robinson a Pastor and an Author 228

CHAPTER XIIL— A.D. 1G17-1G20.

Struggles and Sacrifices in a Great Attempt 253

CHAPTER XIV.— A.D. 1G20.

From Leyden to Southampton. — Robinson's Pastoral Letter. — The Pilgrims the Reformers of Separatism 284

CHAPTER XV.— A.D. 1G20.

Tiie Voyage of the Mdyjiower, E.xploration, and the Landing of the

Pilgrims 306

CHAPTER XVL— A.D. 1G21.

The First Year at Plymouth 323

CHAPTER XVIL— A.D. 1G22, 1G2;!.

Adversity and Progress. — Weston's Colony, and what came of it 357

CHAPTER XVIII.— A.D. 1624,1625.

Attempts of Nationalism against the Pilgrim Church 390

CHAPTER XIX.— A.D. 1G25-1G29.

The Pilgrim Colony Abandoned by the Puritan Adventurers. — Prosperity at Plymouth. — Death of Robinson. — The Leyden Remnant 421

The Beginning of a Puritan Colony in New England, and what came of it 446

ILLUSTRATIONS.

The Compact in the Cabin of the "Mayflower" Fronli.yiiece.

St. Alban's Hall, Oxford (Penry's College) Faces p. 156

SCROOBY • • 202

Leyden • • 2.S3

The Embarkation at Delft-Haven " 280

Capk Cod (from Young) •' 308

Plymouth (from Young) " 3 1(!

Plymouth — Burial Hill " 318

Sabbath in the Common House at Plymouth '• 320

The " Mayflower " 322

The Return of the " Mayflower" '' '537

Edward Winslow " 373

Pilgrim Autographs 44i>

•fOHN Endicott " 4.54

O God I beneath Thy guiding hand, Our exiled fathers crossed the sea ;

And when they trod the wintry strand,

With prayer and psalm they worshiped Thee.

Thou heard'st, well pleased, the song, the jjrayer- Thy blessing came ; and still its jiower

Shall onward to all ages Ijear The memory of that holy hour.

What change ! through pathless wilds no more The fierce and naked savage roams ;

Sweet praise, along the cultured shore. Breaks from ten thousand happy homes.

Laws, freedom, truth, and faith in God Came with those exiles o'er the waves ;

And where their pilgrim feet have trod, The God they trusted guards their graves.

And here Thy name, O God of love.

Till these eternal hills remove,

And spring adorns the earth no more.

THE GENESIS

OF THE

NEW ENGLAND CHURCHES,

CHAPTER I.

WHAT WAS IN THE BEGINNING.

In the beginning, Christianity was simply Gospel. Ecclesiastical organization was not the cause, but the effect of life. Churches were constituted by the spontaneous association of believers. Individuals and families, drawn toward each other by their common trust in Jesus the Christ, and their common interest in the good news concerning the kingdom of God, became a community united, not by external bonds, but by the vital force of distinctive ideas and principles. New affections became the bond of a new bi'otherhood, and the new brotherhood, with its mutual duties and united responsibilities, became an organized society. The ecclesiastical polity of the apostles was simple — a living growth, not an artificial construction.

How was it at Jerusalem? A few persons — about one hundred and twenty in all — after the ascension of their Lord, were in the practice of assembling in an upper room, which seems to have been the head-quarters of the eleven who had been nearest to him, and whom the others recognized as leaders. These persons were Jews, whose distinction from their countrymen was that, having been followers of Jesus

B

18 GENESIS OF THE NEW ENGLAND CHUECHES. [CH. I.

before his ignominious death, they had not lost their confidence in him ; but, in the face of an immense and triumphant majority, believed that though he had been rejected by the priests and rulers of the nation, and crucified by the Roman power, he was the Messiah risen from the dead, and invested with all authority on earth and in heaven. Waiting for some new manifestation of his glory, they "continued with one accord in prayer and supplication " — not those of the sterner sex only, as if they Avere planning a revolutionary movement in the state, or were setting up a new school in philosophy, but the men " with the women, and Mary, the mother of Jesus, and with his brethren." Thus they were unconsciously forming that new commonwealth of men and women, and of households, united by personal attachment to Jesus, and living in the atmosphere of worship — that commonwealth of faith and love which was to realize in its future all the promise of a new earth encircled by new heavens. At first the few disciples seem not to have thought much about how their society should be organized and its affairs administered, their minds being otherwise occupied. The earliest appearance of any thing like organization among them is when it seemed necessary that one of them should be designated and recognized as an apostle in the place that had been made vacant by the defection and death of Judas. On that occasion the w^hole proceeding, though essentially theocratic in its spirit, was democratic in its form. It seems to have been doubtful which of the two brethren toward whom the minds of the assembly had been turned was best qualified for the work of an apostle. An expedient was resorted to, which, had the assembly been unanimous concerning the superior fitness of either candidate, would have been preposterous. The question whether Barsabas or Matthias should be " numbered with the eleven apostles " was decided by lot, religiously, and with prayer that thus God's will might be manifested. The religious use of the lot for the decision of doubtful questions was customary among the f

Jews from the earliest period of their history, but no other instance of it ajjpears in the New Testament.

On the fiftieth day after that Passover at which Christ was crucified, the new dispensation which had been prepared in his life and death, and completed in his resurrection and ascension, was publicly introduced by the manifestation of a special divine presence, the promised Holy Spirit illuminating and guiding the apostles. Suddenly the one hundred and twenty became three thousand. Of this growing multitude it is said that " they continued in the apostles' doctrine and fellowship, and in breaking of bread and in prayers." In other words, the " three thousand souls " were bound together by their constant attendance on the apostles' teaching, and their sympathy of thought and feeling with the movement which those witnesses for Christ were leading; they had a certain distinctive practice of breaking bread together, as if they were all one family, and they continually prayed together. Their new ideas and new sympathies and hopes were a bond of union ; and though not yet separated from the Jewish people, nor anticipating such a separation, they were beginning to be a distinct community with a life of their own — a community almost unorganized, so far as the record shows, and yet distinct in the midst of the Jewish nation, like that nation in the midst of the Roman Empire. A new and unique commonwealth had begun to live, and must needs grow into some organized form according to its nature.

How, then, shall the new community be organized ? What officers and functionaries shall it have ? How shall it be governed ? The silence of the record seems to show that the apostles, busy with their work of teaching, daily repeating to the thousands of new disciples the remembered words of their Master, telling as eye-witnesses the story of Jesus from his baptism to his ascension, and preaching the good news of the kingdom, gave themselves little concern beforehand about the organization of the community which was coming into existence as the result of their testimony concerning the resurrection and glory of the crucified Christ. Yet something of organization was inevitable, and could not be long deferred. To sustain so large a community — so suddenly constituted, and including multitudes who had come to Jerusalem only as pilgrims, many of them from distant regions — large contributions were necessary, and were made by those who had any thing to give. In the emergency, all that they had was thrown, as it were, into a common stock ; for such as had convertible property of any kind sold it, and made generous distribution of the proceeds to all that were in want. When this liberality is first mentioned [Acts ii., 44, 45], it is as if the distribution were made by the donors themselves, or by their personal friends, without any formal arrangement. Afterward [iv., 34, 35], when the work had become more arduous, and when those of the disciples who had " lands or houses," in Jerusalem or near it, sold them for the benefit of the common cause, the distribution seems to have been in a more systematic way under the direction of the apostles. But after a while the number included in the new community had been so multiplied, and the amounts to be received and distributed had become so great, that these methods were found unsatisfactory. Then it was — and apparently not till then — that special ofiicers or commissioners were appointed to that service.

The procedure in making the appointment was full of a religious spirit, and at the same time democratic. It may be compared with a parallel passage in the history of the Wesleyan polity. After Wesleyanism, with its exquisitely adjusted organization, had become powerful in England, and while John Wesley was still holding the reins of power, he undertook to tell, at one of the conferences of his helpers, what his power was, and how he came by it. He told how a few persons came to him, first in London, and then in other places, desiring that he would advise them and pray with them. "The desire," said he, "was on their part, not on mine " — " but I did not see how I could refuse them my help

A.D. 1-100.] WHAT WAS IX THE BEGINNING. 21

and be guiltless before God. Here commenced my power — namely, a power to appoint when, where, and how they should meet, and to remove those whose life showed that they had no desire to flee from the wrath to come. And this power remained the same whether the people meeting together were twelve, twelve hundred, or twelve thousand." After a time, the people who had thus come under his care and direction proposed a subscription of quarterly payments for certain common interests — such as rent and rej^air of the building in which they held their meetings — and he permitted them to subscribe, "Then I asked," so he continued the story, " ' Who will take the trouble of receiving this money and paying it where it is needful ?' One said, ' I will do it, and keep the account for you ;' so here was the first steward. Afterward I desired one or two more to help me as stewards, and in process of time a greater number. Let it be remembered it was I myself, and not the people, who chose the stewards, and appointed to each the distinct work wherein he was to help me as long as I chose." He gave a similar account of his power over the preachers, whether as individuals or as assembled in conference. Without raising any question as to the wisdom or the rightfulness of the autocracy which Wesley asserted over the voluntary association by which he was hoping to revive religion in the Church of England, we can not but observe the contrast between his account of Avhat he did in the appointment of receiving and disbursing officers in the community which he was founding, and Luke's account of what the apostles did in the appointment of similar officers for the community under their teaching at Jerusalem.

The apostles seem to have been j^roceeding on Wesley's plan, Avhich was natural and reasonable in the circumstances. Offerings for the support of the community had been brought to them, and the distribution seems to have been made by them personally, or by others acting for them. A complaint had arisen that the distribution was not perfectly equitable.

lu dealing with that complaint the apostles convoked not a conference of preachers only, whom they had taken under their direction and control as their " helpers " in the work, but " the multitude of the disciples." Instead of exjDlaining how it was that the power of appointing stewards fell into their hands, and how reasonable it was that they should retain the power, they refused to have any burden of that kind laid upon them. The financial affairs of the growing community were not to be managed by them nor by their agents. " It is not meet," said they, " that we should leave the word of God and serve tables." Their proposal was that special officers for this trust should be designated by popular election. " Brethi'en," said they, " look ye out among you seven men of honest report, full of the Holy Ghost and of wisdom, whom we may appoint over this business. But we" — your teachers and the commissioned witnesses for Christ — we, instead of burdening ourselves with your affairs — " will give ourselves continually to prayer and to the ministry of the word."'

In this record of an office instituted by the vote of a church meeting, and of officers designated by " the whole multitude of disciples " acting as electors, we have an explanation of passages that might otherwise be doubtful touching the organization and polity of the apostolic churches as described or implied in the New Testament. Having seen that the process of organization in the mother church at Jerusalem was essentially democratic while under the immediate guidance of the apostles, we need positive information to convince us that in other places the process by which believers in Christ became an organized body was materially

' The original shows that when the apostles say, "It is not meet that we leave the Word of God," and " We will give ourselves to prayer," etc., the pronoun is emphatic; but when they say, "Whom we may appoint," etc., the pronoun, being merely implied in the form of the verb, can have no special emphasis, but must be understood as including the multitude of disciples with the apostles. See the entire story. Acts vi.

different. But there is no such information. On the contrary, there are indications that in every place the society of believers in Christ was a little republic.

We o-et glimpses of the church at Antioch, which soon became, not less than that at Jerusalem, a metropolitan centre of Christian ideas and enterprises. Even in its origin, it startled the Pharisaic portion of the Jerusalem Church by receiving into fellowship unproselyted Gentiles. It was a community by virtue of the new faith which the members of it had received, and which bound them to each other. Some of its members were prophets and teachers, but all were brethren. It undertook for itself, at a divine suggestion, the first formal mission for the propagation of the Gospel through the Gentile world. When invaded by men from Judea, teaching, in the name of the original apostles, that the Gospel of Christ was to impose the ceremonial and national law of Moses on all Gentile believers every where, it resisted them with strenuous disputation, and instead of waiting for a rescript or a bull from Jerusalem, it sent its own message thither, not only to learn what the facts were there, but also to tell what the facts were at Antioch, and to show that God's blessing had attested the genuineness of a Gospel without Judaism. Thus it obtained from the apostles and elders at Jerusalem, and from " the whole church there," a conclusive declaration in behalf of a Christianity free for all nations.^

We get more than glimpses of the church at Corinth. We see its parties and disputes ; its disorderly and almost turbulent assemblies; its gross offender, whose sin was a reproach to the whole body while he remained uncensured, and on whom the heaviest censure must therefore be inflicted by the many in a full assembly ; its faults and excesses, incidental to an ecclesiastical democracy ; the strange diversity and multiplicity of gifts among its members ; and, at the same time, its ready submission to rebuke and advice from Paul its founder. All that we see of it in the two epistles addressed to it, or in the historic record, shows us an intense vitality working in discordant elements to bring them into unity — an organizing force striving against tendencies to anarchy, but the organization not yet complete — a fermenting chaos, as it were, of Greek, Jewish, and Roman materials ; seething with enthusiasms, speculations, infirmities, and errors; yet hallowed by the formative Spirit brooding over it, and the light of divine truth and love shining into it.^

Every reader of the New Testament books may gather up for himself the hints which they give, incidentally, about the churches of Galatia, or the saints at Philippi " with the bishops and deacons," or " the Church of the Thessalonians," or " the seven churches of Asia," or the seemingly unorganized fraternity of believers at Rome. He may observe the traces and rudiments of organization among " the holy and faithful brethren in Christ " at Colosse, or among those whom Peter and James and the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews addressed in their writings. He may scrutinize the pastoral epistles to ascertain how far the development of ecclesiastical institutions had advanced in the latest years of the apostle Paul. For the purposes of this history, it will be enough to give some results of such an inquiry without repeating the process.

I. The churches instituted by the apostles were local institutions only. Nothing like a national church, distinct and individual among co-ordinate national churches — nothing like a provincial church, having jurisdiction over many congregations within certain geographical boundaries, natural or political — appears in the writings or acts of the apostles. A church, as mentioned in those venerable documents, is always local or parochial, the church of some town or municipality, like Ephesus or Thyatira, Corinth or Cenchrea, Thessalonica

' Acts xviii., 1-18. Epistles to the Corinthians, /jassj/w.

or Philippi. To»say that the church of a given place was always congregational, in the sense of never meeting for wor* ship in two places at once, or of not being divided into two or more assemblies, with one body of "elders" or of "bishops and deacons," would be to say what can hardly be proved. But that the organized church, in the primitive age of Christianity, Avas always a local institution — never national, never provincial or diocesan — is a proposition which few will deny.

II. Each local church was complete in itself, and was held responsible to Christ for its own character, and the character of those whom it retained in its fellowship. The apostles, indeed, had a certain authority in all the churches, as they have now in all churches built on their foundation, for they were Christ's commissioned witnesses to testify what he had taught, as well as the facts of his life and of his resurrection and ascension. If a question arose involving a doubt as to the nature and extent of the new kingdom of heaven — for example, the question whether all converts to Christ must be naturalized in the Hebrew commonwealth, and so brought under the restrictions and obligations of the national law ; or the question whether, in the fellowship of Christ's disciples, there should be a caste distinction between converted Jews and converted Greeks or Romans — there might be " no small dissension and disputation," as happened at Antioch and in many other places ; but if the question could not be settled in that way — if the disputants could not, by arguments from the prophetic Scriptures and from the story of the Gospel as they had received it, bring each other and the church to agree in a common conclusion — the apostles were of course appealed to as most likely to know the principles of the Gospel and their application, or, in other words, as most likely to know the mind of Christ.