UNIVERSITY OF ILUNOIS LIBRARY AT Uiv3ANA-CHAMPAlCN STACKS The person charging this material is re- sponsible for its return to the library from which it was withdrawn on or before the Latest Date stamped below. Theft, mutilation, and underlining of books are reasons for disciplinary action and may result in dismissal f the University. To renew call Telephone Center, 333-8400 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS LIBRARY AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN MAR 17 OCT1119S9 Jm L161 O-1096 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS STUDIES IN THE SOCIAL SCIENCES VOL. 111. NO. 4 DECEMBER, 1914 Church and State in Massachusetts 1691 - 1740 BY SUSAN MARTHA REED, Ph. D. Head of the Department of History, Lake Erie College Sometime Fellow in History, University of Illinois PRICE $1.05 PUBLISHED BY THE UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS URBANA COPYRIGHT, 1914 BY THE UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS PEEFACE. Six years ago I was working on a brief study of the ecclesiastical development of provincial Massachusetts, to present as a master's thesis at the University of Illinois. In putting together the material I was struck with the fact that there were some broad empty spaces in the story of the gradual encroachments on the old Puritan system by religious dissenters. By the middle of the eighteenth cen- tury Anglicans, Baptists and Quakers were all recognized in ecclesiastical law and possessed certain privileges, but the process by which these results had been gained was not clear. Histories of New England Baptists showed that the real work of this sect was practically limited to the second half of the century; local histories of Anglican churches recounted the efforts of the Massachusetts Churchmen; but neither explained the steps by which all three groups gained a fairly comfortable status in Massa- chusetts law before the middle of the eighteenth century. A solution of this problem has been found in the early records of the Society of Friends in New England and in London. The best collection of New England Quaker rec- ords, the minutes of the New England Yearly Meeting and of the Rhode Island Quarterly, are in the library of the Moses Brown School at Providence. Others may be found at the Newport Historical Society, the New Bedford meet- ing house and the meeting house at Lynn. All have been used again and again for local and genealogical purposes but rarely for any general study. In every case they show so close a connection between the Quakers of Massachusetts and those of England that the records of the London Yearly Meeting and the London Meeting for Sufferings are essential for a clear understanding of what the New England Quakers of the early eighteenth century were doing. At Devonshire House, Bishopsgate, the records of the London Quakers are preserved in the Friends' Refer- 3 4 CHURCH AND STATE IN MASS A (II USETTS [458 ence Library and tell a story of astonishing Quaker activ- ity, of which the work done for New England was but a small part. I wish to express grateful appreciation to the mem- bers of the Society of Friends who put their time at my disposal and made it possible for me to use the various Quaker records. Here I would mention especially Dr. Edward T. Tucker of New Bedford, Dr. Seth K. Gifford of the Moses Brown School at Providence, and Norman Penney of the Friends' Reference Library in London. Aside from the Quaker collections my materials have been found in the State House at Boston, the Massachu- setts Historical Society, the New England Baptist Histor- ical Society, the Boston Public Library, the Khode Island Historical Society, the John Carter Brown Library at Providence, Essex Institute at Salem, Bristol County (Mass.) Court House at Taunton; and in London at the S. P. G. House, the British Museum, Dr. Williams' Li- brary, the library of Fulham Palace, the Public Record Office, and the office of the Privy Council. I especially want to acknowledge the courtesy and kindness of Mr. C. F. Pascoe who made it possible for me to use the letters and journal of the Society for the Propa- gation of the Gospel, and the Kev. Sadler Phillips who put at my disposal certain boxes of papers belonging to the library of the Bishop of London. For constant assistance and advice I am indebted to Professor Evarts B. Greene of the University of Illinois, under whose direction this study has been completed. SUSAN MARTHA REED. LAKE ERIE COLLEGE, SEPTEMBER, 1914. CONTENTS PAGE Preface 3 CHAPTER I Introduction 7 CHAPTER II The Ecclesiastical System of Provincial Massachusetts 19 CHAPTER III Opposing Elements 35 CHAPTER IV The System in Practice 50 CHAPTER V The Quakers and Their Allies 86 CHAPTER VI The Church of England 148 Conclusion) ^. 190 Bibliography _ 195 Index 203 CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION. The year 1691 opens the second period in the constitu- tional history of Massachusetts. From the coming of the Puritan settlers of the town of Boston in the stirring days of Charles I's reign to the last years of the restored Stuarts, the Bay Colony had nothing more elaborate than the old charter of 1629 as its instrument of government. This was not primarily a document for the governing of a colony but the charter of a commercial company, organized by certain English Puritans with a view of settling the Mas- sachusetts shore, but not then ready to state their purpose of becoming colonizers. With the sudden transformation of the stockholders of the Massachusetts Bay Company into settlers of Massachusetts Bay, this charter, carried across the Atlantic, became the source of authority in the local administration of affairs, and by a gradual process of stretching and adapting its provisions to suit the new con- ditions it was made to serve as a colonial constitution for over half a century. In this way an unusual degree of inde- pendence was maintained by the local authorities, and the spirit of the leaders in this Puritan experiment in govern- ment became strongly fastened on the manners of the col- ony. A governor and council as well as an assembly were elected by the freemen of the colony, and the legislative body kept up the traditions of the first-comers in maintain- ing a theocratic and exclusive form of government which was fully developed and fairly aggressive by 1660. This in itself was irritating to the restored Stuarts, who were suspicious of an independent colonial govern- ment so thoroly Puritan; but the attack which was begun upon Massachusetts in Charles IPs reign was pri- marily economic. The Navigation Acts of England were fashioned to produce a more efficient commercial system 7 8 CHURCH AND STATE IN MASSACHUSETTS [462 throughout the empire. To promote this scheme, every province must bury its individual advantage for the good of the whole, a thing which the colony of Massachusetts Bay was not content to do. The resistance to authority which Massachusetts offered, with other evidences of an independent spirit, was the cause of the investigation or- dered in the colony in the sixties, of the coming of Edward Randolph as royal agent, and of the subsequent quo war- ranto proceedings which resulted in the loss of the charter. Pending the organization of a strong royal government, Massachusetts during part of the year 1686 was under the authority of a governor and council appointed by the king. Then followed its incorporation in the Dominion of New England, a territory planned to embrace all the broad lands lying between the Delaware and the St. Lawrence, and placed in the hands of Sir Edmund Andros as governor and representative of the royal prerogative of the later Stuarts. Widespread dissatisfaction with the Andros re- gime found a chance to express itself when the news of the English revolution of 1688 reached Boston, and the royal government was then overthrown. In the meantime Increase Mather, who had been dis- patched to England as the representative of Massachusetts in the general resistance to Andros, had been making every effort in frequent audiences with James and later with William to secure the old charter once more. This proved impossible and inadvisable; all that remained was to at- tempt to obtain a new charter from William and Mary which should reserve to the governing powers of Massa- chusetts as much as possible of their former rights and privileges. The result was the province charter of 1691 which opened the second period of Massachusetts history. During the interim between the overthrow of Andros and the arrival of the new charter a temporary government along the old lines managed affairs but gave way to the new regime when the second charter reached Boston. The method of reorganization in Massachusetts indicates the extent to which William III continued the colonial policy 463] INTRODUCTION 9 bequeathed him by the Stuarts. In the charter of 1691 Massachusetts, which now included Plymouth, was made a royal province. The governor was to be appointed by the king and to possess an extensive veto power, while the king himself held the further right of refusing colonial legisla- tion. By these means the authority of the General Court would be much limited and the province would be forced to fall in line to a certain extent with the wishes of the English government. The old order suffered severely by these limitations of its political power. It suffered also as an ecclesiastical state through a change in the franchise. The older rule of church membership as a qualification for voting now gave place to a property qualification, and many persons formerly excluded now had a voice in the govern- ment. Thus it came about that Massachusetts began the second period of her history with an enlarged boundary and under a royal government, on aristocratic lines as before, but no longer as a theocracy. The influence of the new government on the relation between church and state was soon to become apparent. The Massachusetts charter, as we have seen, illus- trates the way in which William III followed the colonial policy of the last two Stuarts in its political and economic phases. William believed, as had the Stuarts, that the well being of the empire lay in the enforcement of the Navigation Acts; he believed that colonial governments which had shown a tendency to resist such law in a spirit of independence must be controlled, and that the way to do this was to be found in uniting them and bringing them more closely under the crown. In the reign of Charles II there had appeared some indications of a desire to advance a religious policy, suggesting the ambitions of Archbishop Laud in the days of Charles I. That unity, so desirable in the administration of the colonies, might be forwarded by supporting the missionary work of the Anglican Church in the British possessions beyond the seas, and by means of the establishment of Episcopacy as the state church throughout the colonial empire the royal government might 10 CHURCH AND STATE IN MASSACHUSETTS [464 have a definite hold upon the colonies. That variety in religious forms and creeds, which was characteristic of British America, was increasing the growth of particular- ism which the authorities at home were anxious to prevent, as it made more difficult the problems of administration. It is doubtful if such a plan was ever frankly recognized as a governing policy. Certain it is that while the com- mercial greatness of England was an object which each reigning house and each political party came more and more to seek, the enforcement of such a religious policy as this depended too much upon the attitude of monarch or chief minister toward the English Church. If such a scheme was in existence, lying dormant, at the accession of William and Mary, it was not to be called to activity by a representative of Dutch Protestantism and low churchmanship. Succeeding reigns, which adhered to the enforcement of British imperial control over the polit- ical and economic life of the colonies, were inconsistent in ecclesiastical affairs. This side of colonial policy was for the most part neglected during the century introduced by the coming of William of Orange except under Queen Anne. The reign of William and Mary was in this way a disappointment to the English Church, and much more so was the period of the early Georges, when the Church in its enterprises over the seas received little sympathy from Walpole. For this reason the Church of England, during the greater part of this time, found itself on almost the same footing in the colonies as any one of the dissenting sects. The laws which proclaimed an establishment at home were not generally considered as extending to the colonies. Whatever attempts were made to advance Epis- copacy in the provinces belonged not to the government but to the Church itself, working through individuals and organizations in both England and America, and only on rare occasions assisted by governmental authority. While the government failed to carry out the plan of promoting the Church in the colonies, the Church itself turned to the matter with zeal. Beginning with the efforts 465] INTRODUCTION 11 of the Bishop of London, acting as diocesan of the colonies, and continued by the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge ( S. P. C. K. ) , under the influence of Dr. Bray, the work culminated in the formation of the Society for Propagating the Gospel in Foreign Parts (S. P. G.), which was to devote itself entirely to the British possessions beyond the seas. In the reign following that of William and Mary, when the influence of Queen Anne was cast on the side of the Society, it made a real beginning and grew rapidly. The Church of England's enthusiastic interest in mis- sionary work among the colonies of British America had no counterpart in any of the other Protestant sects of the mother country except the Quaker body. At the opening of the eighteenth century the Protestants of England out- side of the Anglican Church were divided among four important denominations, Presbyterian, Congregational, Baptist and Quaker, and these sects possessed certain differences which distinguished them from one another as clearly as from the established church. Closest to the Church of England were the Presbyterians who still fa- vored a state church but disapproved of much of the form and ceremony which the Anglicans maintained. The Con- gregationalists, with doctrinal views which were little different from those of the Presbyterians, denounced the theory of a church establishment, and were therefore more in sympathy with the Baptists than with the Presbyterians, except in theology. The Baptists, the term covering a number of dissenting groups which traced their origin to the continent, were more radical in their treatment of the ideas of the Reformation than any of the other noncon- formists except the Quakers. The latter far surpassed them, standing alone as the Protestants of Protestants, unique in belief, in an exclusive attitude toward other Christians, and in their customs. During the last decade of the seventeenth century the leaders of the Presbyterians and the Congregationalists, the two sects having most in common, made some earnest attempts to unite on a single 12 CHURCH AND STATE IN MASSACHUSETTS [466 platform, but neither group as a whole responded with enthusiasm, and the plan fell through. The same fate met another scheme for bringing together Presbyterians, Con- gregationalists and Baptists into a loose union. Through all these years the Presbyterians were the most favored by the Church and were far more inclined to compromise in matters of form and ceremony than the more rigid Baptists and Congregationalists who accordingly looked upon them with some distrust. Union among these three bodies of dissenters was apparently impossible, and as time went on it became evident that they were less numerous and less vigorous than their early history had predicted. They were no longer growing rapidly, adding to their ranks at the ex- pense of the Church of England, as they had in earlier days; they were at odds with one another and they were torn with religious controversy, each within itself. In the last decade of the seventeenth century came the lengthy discussion connected with the various attempts made to secure the passage of a comprehension bill which would make it possible for many of the nonconformists to be gathered again into the national church. When this failed, bringing out the points of difference rather than of likeness among Presbyterians, Congregationalists and Baptists, and the impossibility of broadening the Church so as to include any great number of them, they were almost im- mediately overtaken by the reactionary legislation of the early eighteenth century. After their vain struggle, during Queen Anne's reign, to oppose the Occasional Conformity and Schism Acts which seriously limited the political sphere and educational advantages of all who were not Churchmen, many gave up the position they had held as too costly a luxury. The great men of the first generation had not been followed by others of so high a degree of eminence, able to lead their followers in the face of changed conditions, and many of the prominent nonconformists, when convinced that no method of comprehension could be arranged, or when occasional conformity was made illegal, 467] INTRODUCTION 13 returned to the Anglican Church. Finally, the reign of Queen Anne was hardly ended when the anti-Trinitarian controversy became acute, stretching over a period of many years and dividing the ranks of the nonconformists once more, now on new lines. Real vigor and unity were con- spicuously lacking in the three English nonconforming sects which traced their origin to the Reformation. The case of the Quakers was very different. By the second quarter of the eighteenth century their strangely rapid decline had begun but in George Fs reign it was not yet apparent that their days of steady growth were num- bered, and these years mark for them a period of great vigor as a religious body and as a political force. Actual persecution was now a thing of the past, and they were living like the other dissenters under the Toleration Act. In wealth and political influence they occupied a position second only to that of the established church. Their polit- ical power should in large measure be traced to their strongly centralized organization over which the London Yearly Meeting exercised supreme authority. Difficulties carried by weekly and monthly meetings to this central body were turned over by it to the Meeting for Sufferings which in frequent sittings considered all subjects with due care and took active measures for redress. Through nu- merous wealthy and prominent members who were close to the government in William's reign the ear of authority was reached with little difficulty. It was in Quakerism that the Anglican Church of the late seventeenth century saw its most dangerous adversary and in the Quaker doc- trine read a statement of belief which it looked upon as non-Christian and attacked accordingly. The conversion of the Quakers of England was one of the purposes of the S. P. C. K., while work among the Quakers of the colonies was an important object of the S. P. G. The duel between the Quakers and the Anglicans in the colonies, each backed by a powerful influence at home, the London Yearly Meeting and the English Church, be- came a leading feature of the ecclesiastical situation in 14 CHURCH AND STATE IN MASSACHUSETTS [408 America in the early eighteenth century. The period saw the highest point in numerical strength which Quakerism reached in America as well as in England, and it saw also the most important strides taken by the Church of England in the colonies between the Restoration and the Declara- tion of Independence. Successful attempts were made to establish Episcopacy by law in several colonies, and Angli- can churches, the result of missionary enterprise, sprang up in the whole line of English settlements from New England to the West Indies. While the other nonconformists were relatively stronger in the colonies than in England, they were, as in the mother country, less influential on the whole than the Society of Friends. The various sects had little or no official support from parent groups at home and were even more disunited than they. Of these the Presbyterians were to be found in no great numbers as yet for the chief Presbyterian immigration, that from Scotland and Ireland, belongs to a later period. The Baptists of the colonies were more closely allied with the Quakers than with either Congregationalists or Presbyterians, for their insistence on the separation of church and state placed them at odds with the nonconforming established churches of Massachu- setts and Connecticut. The latter, which called themselves Congregational but were usually known as Presbyterian or Independent, had drifted so far from any corresponding group in England that they were looked upon rather un- sympathetically by English nonconformists, especially be- cause of the extremes in ecclesiastical legislation of which both colonies were guilty. The weakening of the tie between the nonconformists of England and New England had come gradually and through no voluntary act on the part of either. It had come in spite of a friendly intercourse between the leaders on the two sides of the Atlantic. Increase Mather was as closely associated with the nonconformists of England as with those of his native land; many of the New England ministers of 1700 had visited England or corresponded 469] INTRODUCTION 15 with nonconformists at home and the works of English divines were read eagerly in Massachusetts. One primary cause for the independent growth of the churches of New England was the lack of a central organization binding them to the churches of the mother country, as existed in the case of the Anglican and Quaker bodies. Founded independently by the two branches of English dissent, the Nonconformists proper and the more radical Independents, the colonies of Massachusetts Bay and Plymouth had kept in close touch with the English Puritans through the Civil War and Commonwealth periods because of their common cause at a stirring time. Only with the Kestoration came the dissolution of the bond of interest that united New England with nonconformity at home, and in view of the lack of a governing system held in common, it is small wonder that the two divisions fell gradually apart. There was no longer the exciting interest in a great common cause, an interest stimulated by the conditions in the last years of Charles Fs reign; nor was there the common ex- citement which belonged to the period of the Civil War in England when many of the New England Puritans re- turned to enter the army. From the Kestoration on the nonconformists of Eng- land and New England had diverse interests and developed differently. On the Massachusetts shore the two Puritan colonies grew more and more closely together and worked out a system of church and state government which drew inspiration from both Plymouth and the Bay. At the time of the province charter, which joined Plymouth to its larger neighbor, the final compromise was effected and the two systems merged into one. This was the basis of Massa- chusetts ecclesiasticism in the eighteenth century. At the same time the aggression of outside forces was helping to weld together more firmly the members of the "standing order." Such was the coming of the Quakers with the conversion to Quakerism of many persons of the Massa- chusetts towns who had already given evidence of a varying form of theology. A little later the recognition of the 16 CHURCH AND STATE IN MASSACHUSETTS [470 Church of England worship in Boston, in James IPs reign, tended to increase that rigidity in theology and ecclesiasti- cism which was a characteristic of the second and third generations of New England nonconformity. This devel- opment in Massachusetts failed to attract much attention from the English nonconformists who would not have been very sympathetic toward it ; and conditions in England, al- ready described, were in the meantime holding their atten- tion and giving them interests which made little appeal to New England Congregationalism. The discussion con- nected with the comprehension bill emphasized distinctions between Anglican and Puritan which New England had taken for granted and had no desire to minimize. The reactionary legislation of Queen Anne's reign did not extend to the colonies. The anti-Trinitarian movement, which convulsed England in the early eighteenth century, had no great effect in New England until almost a century later. From these ecclesiastical and theological contests waged in England during the reign of William and Mary and that of Anne New England Congregationalism was therefore well nigh free, and in proportion to this freedom it hardened and narrowed, drawing apart and caring little for the constantly developing and increasingly liberal dissent of England. In spite of this failure on the part of New England nonconformity to maintain a close union with the dissent- ers in England, the strength of the state church in both Connecticut and Massachusetts was such that Quakerism made but slight inroads in the former and in the latter was pushed out into the border counties. For this reason the Church of England, when planted in Connecticut, was facing not the Quakers but rather the strongly established Congregational system. Massachusetts, on the other hand, offers the unique case of a three-cornered combat in which the two bodies which possessed most vigorous support at home and were victorious, one or the other, in most of the middle and southern colonies, were here outnumbered and long defied. Their adversaries, the Congregationalists, 471] INTRODUCTION 17 while not receiving systematic, organized help from a parent group abroad, were so united and so rigid that for a long time they Were able to deny any concessions. Altho the New England nonconformists were not receiving direct aid from the dissenting bodies in England they were supported indirectly by William's government. The Massachusetts province charter itself indicated the extent to which sympathy might be expected from this Dutch Protestant ruler who was frankly disappointed in the failure of the comprehension bill and in his inability to do better for the English nonconformists than to secure the Toleration Act. The new charter, the work of Increase Mather, under the authority of William, specified that liberty of conscience should be allowed throughout the province, and no special recognition of the Church of England was demanded. It failed therefore to support the encroachments of Episcopacy which had appeared in the previous decade, aided by Randolph and Andros. The next few years saw the allowance by the king in council of Massachusetts legislation which practically renewed the ecclesiastical system of the seventeenth century. While to a certain extent continuing the methods of the Stuarts in dealing with political and economic problems in New Eng- land, William was not ready to make great use of the English Church as an agent in accomplishing his object. The opposition to the established church of Massachu- setts which had been opened by the intruders of the mid- seventeenth century was renewed soon after 1691 and now had an altered basis for attack in the terms of the new charter. The Quakers were the first to enter the conflict, drafting appeals to the governor and to the Friends of London before the S. P. G. had even been organized. They were regularly supported by the Baptist churches of the province, but the assistance thus given them w r as meager, as the Baptists were not a numerous sect in New England until after the religious revival of the middle of the century known as the Great Awakening. The Anglican invasion of Massachusetts, pushed forward after the founding of 18 CHURCH AND STATE IN MASSACHUSETTS [472 the S. P. G., was an important factor in the progress toward the new era, but was less effective than the Quaker move- ment for reasons that will appear. The Work of Anglican and Quaker, while slow and difficult, was aided by the low condition of spiritual vitality which New England experi- enced in the years immediately preceding the Great Awak- ening. The very absence of spiritual vigor demanded many laws to enforce customs which were now tending to lapse, as the people were no longer interested in maintaining the old standards. The elaborate ecclesiastical structure reared in order to meet the situation was artificial, and had no strength of its own to resist continued pressure upon it. The nature of this artificial structure and the scheme of attack made against it by outside forces will be treated in the following discussion. As a study of institutions it places some emphasis upon the actual constitution of the Massachusetts church town at the highest point of its development and just before its disintegration began. As a study of English influence on colonial life it pays some attention to the political and religious forces at work in England to show what part they played in the events which occurred in Massachusetts. CHAPTER II. THE ECCLESIASTICAL SYSTEM OF PROVINCIAL MASSACHUSETTS. The province of Massachusetts Bay offers an unusual field for the study of contending religious forces in Amer- ica in the early eighteenth century. Against a stronghold of rigid church establishment, in the hands of nonconform- ists, two religious bodies, Anglican and Quaker, contended for years with little apparent effect but with ultimate suc- cess. In so doing they gradually broke down the Massa- chusetts ecclesiastical system which had come into being in the seventeenth century, had withstood the attacks of Antinomians, Baptists and early Quakers, had lapsed dur- ing the Andros regime but was later revived under the province charter. In elaborateness of detail and rigid formality the system reached its highest development in the first quarter of the eighteenth century, in the years when organized attacks upon it caused it to draw its mantle of exclusiveness more closely, and before the attacking forces had begun to gain their demands. It was, therefore, under the provincial government and not during the colo- nial period that this eminence was attained, a fact surpris- ing in view of the many ways in which the province charter created a new era. Postponing for the moment a consideration of the structure of the Massachusetts system as it was formed in the seventeenth century and hardened in the early eight- eenth, let us examine the status of the man who did not sympathize with the existing order in the period before the provincial government. Perfect sympathy, as expressed in church membership, was required as a qualification for admission to the privileges of the body politic under the first charter, and an increasing majority of the inhabitants 19 20 CHURCH AND STATE IN MASSACHUSETTS [474 of the colony were thus excluded from the franchise in spite of the results of the half-way covenant. Actual hos- tility, such as appeared in the views of certain dissenting sects which had crept in, was the attitude which the perse- cuting laws of the seventeenth century were framed to meet. Permitted more and more to lapse, these laws became a dead letter with the abrogation of the charter and under the governments which immediately succeeded. In the commission by which James II constituted a president and council for Massachusetts Bay, a "liberty of con- science" was ordered to "be allowed unto all persons," the Church of England to be "particularly countenanced and encouraged." 1 While the Churchmen of Boston, under the leadership of Randolph and Mason, the only Anglicans on the council, failed to make hoped-for headway, the New England Quakers were recording their appreciation of the changed conditions when they met in the summer of 1686. "We enjoy outward Peace at present," they wrote to the London Yearly Meeting, "the parsecuting spirits being under contemp themselves, and much awed by the present Power in England, so that we enjoy our Meetings Peace- ably." 2 The injunctions issued to Dudley, when repeated in the Andros commission, 3 resulted in very unusual con- cessions which were allowed to both of these hostile bodies. The progress which was made by the Episcopal group in Boston was among the causes of the attempt to regain the charter, as well as of the revolt against authority in 1689 ; the other religious sects were well satisfied in finding *5 Mass. Hist. Colls., IX, 150. 2 Epistles Received, I, 19. A letter written to London later in the same year expresses more strikingly the same idea. "Them that were secure and had made their nests in the Stars, are now in some measure brought to the Dust; their Dagon is fallen, and their Arke is taken, And now are crying whose sorrows are like ours : This we see is the Lords doings, and it appears Marvellous to many, that in the Bloody Town of Boston, and other places where Friends were a hising and by work among them : have now Equal privilege with their persecutors, by reason of the Kings indulgence for Liberty of Conscience." Ibid., I, 21. 3 3 Mass. Hist. Colls., VII, 147-148. 475] MASSACHUSETTS ECCLESIASTICAL SYSTEM 21 themselves for the time being relieved from taxation for the support of the Congregational system. 4 While the towns in general went back to their former methods when the old order was resumed in 1689, its basis was entirely altered when the new charter went into effect two years later. Provisions regarding the relation of church and state are conspicuously lacking in this docu- ment, and because no special prohibition was there laid down it was possible for the General Court to renew the ecclesiastical framework of the seventeenth century with- out exceeding the law. The only limitation appeared in a clause which stated that for the greater Ease and Encouragement of Our Loveing Subjects Inhab- iting our said Province or Territory of the Massachusetts Bay and of such as come to Inhabit there Wee doe by these presents for Our heires and Successors Grant Establish and Ordaine that for ever hereafter there shall be a liberty of Conscience allowed in the Worshipp of God to all Christians (Except Papists) Inhabiting or which shall inhabit or be resi- dent within our said Province or Territory. 5 Later controversy raised a storm over the meaning of "liberty of conscience ... in the Worshipp of God." Examined in the light of events in England at the opening of William's reign and of conditions prevailing in Massa- chusetts during the years of the Dominion of New England, the meaning is obvious. As an echo of the Toleration Act the province charter was attempting to bring the noncon- formists of New England a full assurance that they should suffer no interference in their method of worship by the state church of England. It was therefore in accordance with one of the special requests submitted by Increase Mather. Further than this it gave assurance to the sev- eral dissenting sects in Massachusetts that the general tol- *The London Yearly Meeting, recognizing the opportunity afforded by the appointment of Andros, had urged the New England Quakers to appeal to him, and the latter answered with the report that upon applica- tion he "has taken off that oppression and Yoak that Friends were under for Maintenance of Ministers so called : And Friends have a good Interest in him : and he is very kind & Curteous to us." Epistles Received, I, 58-59. See also Palfrey, New England, III, 522. A Quaker petition bear- ing on this matter in an individual case appears in Mass. Archives, XI, 40. *Mass. Prov. Laws, I, 14. 22 CHURCH AND STATE IN MASSACHUSETTS [476 eration which they had attained by the end of the colonial period should be continued. Neither the hierarchy of Massachusetts nor the dis- senter was satisfied that the interpretation should stop here. The hierarchy found expression for its view in the laws for "maintaining religion" which renewed the old ecclesiastical system; the scattered representatives of the other sects denounced such action as an infringement of the same clause. The view of the elder Mather appears in the election sermon which he preached in 1693. Your religion is secured to you, [he announced.] Now you need not fear being sent to Prison (as some of you were under a late Government) because you scruple Swearing by a Book. You may Worship God in the greatest Purity, and no one may disturb you. If you set apart Daies for Solemn Praier or Praises, as the Divine Providence may call thereunto, you need not fear being interrupted or Obstructed therein as it was here six years ago. You may by laws not only Protect, but encourage that Religion which is the General Profession of the Country. 6 Religion is forever secured, [repeated his son,] a righteous and generous liberty of conscience established. And the General Assembly may, by their acts, give a distinguishing encouragement unto that religion which is the gen- eral profession of the inhabitants. 7 The policy here recommended was hardly expressed in public law before the opposing forces were announcing their interpretation of liberty of conscience. A Quaker appeal of 1702, complaining of taxes for the ministry, begged for a "Liberty of Conscience in the Exercise of Religion as a Priviledge granted by their Majestyes Char- ter," 8 and later petitions to the provincial assembly and to the crown repeated over and over the same idea. To favor one system of theology and church practices, taxing all persons for the support of the favored method, was looked upon by those not in sympathy with the establishment as an infringement of the charter. 9 Many years later Isaac I. Mather, The Great Blessing of Primitive Counsellors, 21. 7 C. Mather, Parentator, 141. ^Bristol Sessions, I, 38. "The position is carefully taken in an elaborate representation to the crown from the Baptists of Rehoboth in 1715. "whereas King Charles the Second of happy memory. When Complaint was made unto his sacred Majestic of the Cruell abuses that his Loyall 477] MASSACHUSETTS ECCLESIASTICAL SYSTEM 23 Backus, the Baptist historian, in critical comment on Cotton Mather, made the assertion that for the General Assembly to "give a distinguishing encouragement" unto a certain form of religion was nothing less than to "em- power some to judge for others about worship, and to enforce their judgments with the sword; which is the root of the worst persecution in the world." 10 These two conflicting opinions in regard to the meaning of the char- ter and the rights of the dissenting sects in the province became the basis of the struggle which continued through a large part of the eighteenth century. In pursuance of the Mather theory that laws might be passed for the encouragement of that form of religion which received popular favor, the General Court began to put once more into operation the system for financial support for the orthodox ministers of the towns which, so far as it was a matter regulated by the central authority, had recently lapsed. In Boston no difficulty had been occasioned because of the long standing custom of sup- porting ministers by voluntary contributions. 11 In the subjects met with all in the Massathusetts Collony in New England, Namely, the Baptists, and the Quakers, and that from the Independant and Presbiterian parties, and that upon the Account of Religion, Some they Severely fined, some weer Cruelly punished, and put to Death, he Did quickly put a Stop to their Tirannie and Enlarged the Libertye of his poor Distressed subjects, to his Immortal honour, Granting Libertye of Conscience in the Worship of God to all his good Subjects in this Prov- ince which we Enjoyed allsoe in the Reign of King James the Second, and Confirmed by King William the third and Queen Mary, By Charter for the Better Encourageing of there Subjects in New England, and when your Sacred Majestic Came to the throne you was pleased to Indulge the tender consciences of your good and Loyall subjects in this Province, for which we owe all true Allegiance to the Church of England for Ever, Yett notwithstanding it has been the Practice of many towns within this province, and Still is to Rate and make Distress Upon the Estates of men whoe Differr in Point of Worship, as the Case is with us in this town of Rehoboth." S. P. G. Papers, B I, No. 169. "Backus, Baptists, I, 446. 11 /&iU, I, 448. In 'The Present State of New England", Randolph writes, "The Ministers in Boston are paid by a Collection weekly made in the several Congregations by the Elders, who give the Ministers what 24 CHURCH AND STATE IX MASSACHUSETTS [478 country, however, especially in towns least in sympathy with the state church, a real problem had presented itself, as the ministers had found themselves unable to collect their salaries. 12 By a law of the 17th of June 1692, the preamble of which stated that several taxes or assessments, necessary for the support of the ministry and other public charges arising in the several counties and towns within this province, have been laid upon the inhabitants, and 'orderly committed to the constables or collectors by the selectmen or assessors in the several towns . . . and in many places remains uncollected, it was ordered that the constables and collectors be re- quired to collect all such rates and pay them to the county treasurer in each county or the selectmen in the town where they were made before the 10th of the following December. In any county or town where such taxes had been agreed on but not assessed, the selectmen of the sev- eral towns were ordered to make such rates and commit them to the constables to be collected in the same manner. 13 Toward the end of the same year came the first of the acts "for the settlement and support of ministers and schoolmasters" under the provincial government, differing only slightly from seventeenth century legislation on the same subject. Each town in the province was ordered to take due care to be provided with an "able, learned ortho- dox minister or ministers, of good conversation," the same to be suitably maintained by the inhabitants of the town. If the inhabitants failed to make a contract, then, upon complaint to the quarter sessions of the peace for the county, the latter was empowered "to order a competent they think fitt, but in other Towns they have a settled maintenance by a rate laid upon every Inhabitant, & houses are provided for them." Perry, Ch. Docs., Mass., 6. "In some Churches, the Salary of the Minister is raised by a Voluntary contribution; especially in populous Places, and where many Strangers resort." C. Mather, Ratio Disciplinae, 20. 12 "Discoragmts upon the hearts of the ministers increase by reason that a licentious people take the advantage of a liberty to withold main- tenance from them." Samuel Willard to Increase Mather, 10 July, 1688, 4 Mass. Hist. Colls., VIII, 571, Mather Papers. 13 Mass. Prov. Laws, I, 28. 479] MASSACHUSETTS ECCLESIASTICAL SYSTEM 25 allowance unto such minister according to the estate and the ability of the town; the same to be assessed upon the inhabitants by warrant from the court, directed by the selectmen," who were then to assess the same and cause it to be levied by the constables. The act further provided that in case a town was without a minister for six months the court of quarter sessions should order such town to provide itself immediately; and in case it failed to do so, the court should procure and settle a minister there "and order the charge thereof and of such minister's maintam- ance to be levied upon the inhabitants of such town." So far no new theory was involved but in the fourth section appeared a new principle. Under the colonial government it had been customary for the members of a church to elect the man who should become their minister; but as church members only could become freemen and hence voters in town affairs, this was practically equivalent to the election of a minister by the town in those towns of the province which still had but one church. That it was looked upon in this way is probable from the fact that the new law ordered that a minister should be chosen by the major part of the inhabitants of a town in town meeting; and that the whole town should then be obliged to pay towards his set- tlement and maintenance. 14 Immediately there arose a difficulty, for the new charter had done away with the old church membership qualification for voting and had sub- stituted a property basis which, now applied, meant that a far larger group of people than the members of a church would be electing its minister. 15 Further than this it failed to satisfy the conditions existing when there was more than one church in a town, particularly true of Bos- ton where even the provision in regard to maintenance was /., I, 62. "'That the world would soon have power over the church." Isaac Backus to Jedediah Morse, 9 March, 1791. Backus Papers (New England Bap. Hist. Soc.), Portfolio 42. Cf. the Massachusetts state constitution of 1780 which again introduced this method, thereby causing difficulties at the time of the Unitarian movement which hastened the separation of church and state. 26 CHURCH AND STATE IN MASSACHUSETTS [480 a dead letter because of the well established method of voluntary contributions to which the Boston churches were accustomed. Before dissatisfaction with these provisions had caused any change in legislation, the General Court con- tinued its supervision of ministerial support in an act for regulating townships and town officers. It was enacted (16 November, 1692) that the selectmen or townsmen should assess the inhabitants and other residents of a town and the lands and estates lying within its bounds to all town charges ordered by the inhabitants in town meeting "for the maintenance and support of the ministry, schools, the poor, and for the defraying of other necessary charges arising within the said town," the constable or constables thereupon to levy and collect such assessments, and to make distress upon all such [as] [who] shall [neglect or] refuse to make payment. And for want of goods or chattels whereon to make distress, to seize the person and commit him to the common goal of the county, there to remain until he pay the sum upon him assessed as afore- said, unless the same, or any part thereof, upon application made unto the quarter sessions, shall be abated. A penalty of five pounds was then declared for refusing to take the oath when duly chosen to serve in the office of constable, and in case the delinquent constable refused to pay this fine, it was to be levied by distress and sale of his goods, the overplus returned. 16 Meanwhile, the unsatisfactory provisions of the act for the settlement and support of ministers was causing annoyance, and to dispel it an act was passed on February 17, 1693, to explain and alter some of its clauses. The new law repealed the fourth section of the older one and gave each church power to choose its own minister with the re- striction that this act of the church to be valid must be concurred in by "the major part of such inhabitants as do there usually attend on the publick worship of God, and are by law duly qualified for voting in town affairs." 17 18 Mass. Prov. Laws, I, 66. "More simply this expression might read, "the majority of the towns- men qualified to vote in town meeting," for it was in town meeting that the matter was decided. By "Such inhabitants as do there usually attend" 481] MASSACHUSETTS ECCLESIASTICAL SYSTEM 27 The clause allowing for his settlement and support was made more explicit, ordering that whether it be an incor- porated town or merely a "part of a town, or a place lim- ited by law for upholding the publick worship of God, all the inhabitants, and rateable estates lying within" it should be obliged to pay in proportion. In the case of Boston an exception was made in both of these matters and this town was allowed to continue its "accustomed method and prac- tice," each church responsible for the choice of its minister, and his support dependent upon the voluntary contribu- tions of its adherents. In dealing with defective towns the second law was much more definite and went farther. Where a town neglected its duty in regard to maintenance of the ministry, the court of quarter sessions, upon com- plaint, should summon the selectmen or other assessors and impose a fine upon them not exceeding forty shillings each person for the first offense; and upon a second conviction of such neglect to impose a fine of four pounds upon each person; and the like sum of four pounds for every after conviction; such fines to be levied by distress and sale of the offender's goods (re- turning the overplus if any be). 18 Such definite measures as these were the result of new con- ditions created by the provisions of the province charter. With the merging of Plymouth Colony in Massachusetts there came under the Boston government three new coun- ties, in each of which were towns that for thirty years had is meant the persons who are included in the precinct, whether church members or not, and who would be expected to attend at that meeting. Nowhere is the exact situation, when finally developed, more clearly stated than in Ratio Disciplinae, 15-16. Mather here says that after the church members have voted to call a certain minister, they "have a Meeting with the other Inhabitants of their Neighborhood, who are not yet arrived into the State of Communicants, When they do all together put it unto the Vote, Whether they have no Objection against the Choice of Mr. A. B. to be the Minister of the Place; but shall concurr, to support him in the Exer- cise of his Ministry. Except the Major-Part of the Inhabitants (inclusive of the Commu- nicants) do agree to this latter Vote, the Act of the Church, does not in the Law, make the whole Taxable in the Maintenance of the Minister, which the Church doth chuse." 18 Mass. Prov. Laws,l, 102; Backus, Baptists, I, 448. 28 CHURCH AND STATE IN MASSACHUSETTS [482 been establishing independent religious services recognized by their own town government and resisting the Plymouth General Court. To provide against this state of affairs among the Baptists and Quakers of Buzzards Bay, Cape Cod, and the Khode Island border was the chief purpose of the ecclesiastical legislation of Massachusetts for the next thirty-five years. The law just quoted went into effect in the winter of 1693. One year from the following May, at the time of meeting of the general assembly of Massachusetts Bay, when, as was customary, the ministers of the province were assembled in their annual convention at Boston, 19 they framed a memorial to present to the General Court de- scribing certain difficulties which some of their number were experiencing under the existing legislation. Inasmuch as destitute Churches are plunged into Extreame Difficultys, [ran this memorial,] in their Election & settlement of Ministers by ye Opposition wo their Acts find from ye Non-concurrence of ye other Inhab- itants in their Towns, It is requested that ye Late Act of ye Generall Court referring thereunto, may be Explained, with an Additional Clause, Declaring, what shall bee done by Churches, In Case ye other Inhabitants in a Town Oppose their Acts in ye Calling of a Minister, without giving Satisfactory Reasons for their Non-concurrence. It was suggested that the inhabitants of the town might in such a case call a council of representatives from several other churches who should consider the question under discussion, and in case of agreement with church rather than town could annul the vote of the town meeting. The charges arising from the entertainment of such a council should be paid by a levy upon the whole town. 20 No law to this effect was passed in this session, but in the following year the ministers again reminded the court of the "many parts of the Country which from year to year live without any settled Ministry," and urged that "This Hona Court would take it into their Consideration whether a Commit- tee may not be appointed ... to Tender fit Methods for the Establishment of the Christian Religion in those "Walker, Creeds and Platforms of Congregationalism, 467-469; Mather, Ratio Disciplinae, 176-177. 20 Mass. Prov. Laws, VII, 537. 483] MASSACHUSETTS ECCLESIASTICAL SYSTEM 29 places." 21 The court now took action. On June 13, 1695, the substance of the memorial of 1694 became law in so far as it provided for the calling of a council "consisting of the elders and messengers of three or five neighboring churches" in case of the non-concurrence in the church's act by the town. 22 It did however suggest the possibility 21 Mass. Archives, XI, 90. 22 "In Case of a Difference between the Church and the Inhabitants on this Occasion," Mather writes, "the Law provides the Remedy of a Council, from three Neighbour Churches, to decide, Whether the In- habitants ought to acquiesce in the Choice, wherein the Church has gone before them. Tho' the Law of the Place, about the Chusing and Settling of a Min- ister, (which has had the Royal Sanction) be a very wholesome Law, and have much of the Gospel in it, yet there grows too much upon the Inhab- itants, who are not yet come into the Communion of the Churches, a Disposition to supersede it, and over-rule it; Many People would not allow the Church any Priviledge to go before them, in the Choice of a Pastor. The Clamour is, We must maintain him!" Mather next quotes "Some of our Divines" who say, " 'A Body of Christians, Associated for all the Ordinances of the Gospel, are a CHURCH of our Glorious LORD, which have among other precious Priviledges, a RIGHT from HIM, To chuse their own Pastors. ******** To introduce a Practice in the Choice of a Pastor, which, being fol- lowed, may soon bring a Pastor to be chosen for a Church, which few, yea, none of the Church have ever Voted for, would be to Betray and even Destroy a most Valuable RIGHT, that such a Society has a Claim unto, and many evil Consequences are to be expected from it. Nevertheless a CHURCH, in the Exercise of its RIGHT, ought in all possible Ways, consistent therewithal, to consult the Edification and Satisfaction of their Neighbours, especially of those, on whose Assistance, to carry on their Affairs, they may have much Dependence. The Church ought to so manage their Choice, that, if the Neighbours have any just Dissatisfaction, all the Respect, required by Scripture, Rea- son, and Gratitude, may be paid unto it.' " Mather finally adds, "To express the Condescention, in the close of these Conclusions, the Churches, do sometimes, by their Vote, make a Nomination of Three or Four Candidates; For every One of which the Majority of the Brethren have so Voted, that whomsoever of these the Choice falls upon, it may still be said, The Church has Chosen him. And then they bring this Nomination unto the other Inhabitants, to join with them in a Vote, that shall determine, which of them shall be the Man." Ratio Disciplinae, 16-18. 30 CHURCH AND STATE IN MASSACHUSETTS [484 of this council's favoring the town's choice rather than that of the church by ordering that in this case the church should "proceed to the election of another minister;" con- cerning the expenses of the council it failed to take any action whatever. 23 Two years later came a law regarding town rates which rounded out this early legislation dealing with the settlement and support of the ministry. Since certain constables and collectors of town rates had proved defect- ive and negligent of duty, it was enacted that in case they failed to issue their accounts with the town treasurer by the time prefixed in their warrants, they should be "lyable to the action or suite of the treasurer" of the town who might "sue for and recover all such rates and assessments, or any arrears thereof, of and from those constables or collectors." 24 From the foregoing laws may be outlined briefly the workings of the Massachusetts ecclesiastical system at the beginning of the provincial period, reproducing as closely as possible the system developed in the seventeenth cen- tury. Three governmental bodies were concerned with the church as related to the state, the town meeting, the court of quarter sessions of the county, and the Massachusetts General Court. The legislative body passed the ecclesias- tical laws ordering that each town be provided with a minister and that he should be supported by public taxa- tion in that town, his salary to be collected by the consta- ble or collector with the other town rates. The General Court also made it the duty of the court of quarter sessions to make sure that these laws were put into execution. Towns which failed to supply themselves with ministers were to be supplied and selectmen or assessors who failed to assess the rates might be prosecuted by this court. Lastly the town itself played an all important part in this system, for it bore the financial burden entailed and was 23 Mass. Prov. Laws, I, 216; Backus, Baptists, I, 455. 24 Mass. Prov. Laws, I, 276. 485] MASSACHUSETTS ECCLESIASTICAL SYSTEM 31 responsible for ratifying the choice of a minister made by the church members. The laws of 1693 and 1695 offered a clear program for dealing with normal towns in their relation to the church, minister and support of religious worship. There had, however, already begun to appear that undercurrent of determination to manage effectively the communities where a large number of dissenters to the standing order prevented a willing support of the system. Trouble with them continued, and an act of 1702 for the first time stated the case by saying that in some few towns and districts within this province, divers of the inhab- itants are Quakers, and other irreligious persons averse and opposite to the publick worship of God, and to a learned orthodox ministry, and find out ways to elude the laws provided for the support of such, and prevent the good intentions thereof, to the encouragement of irreligion and pro- faneness. The law of 1692 for the fining of delinquent selectmen or assessors was now re-enacted with the further provision that the court of general sessions might in their places appoint "three or more sufficient freeholders within the same county, to assess and apportion the sum agreed or set for the yearly support and maintenance of such minis- ter," which would then be passed with a warrant for its collection by two justices of the peace to the constables of the town to collect the amount and pay to the minister, the constables who failed of a due execution of such war- rant to "incur the like pains, penalties and forfeitures as for not collecting and paying in any other rate or assess- ment to them committed." The court of general sessions was also to order a recompense to the assessors for this purpose appointed out of the fines set upon the delinquent selectmen or assessors, the remainder to go to the county. 25 For the next few years following this enactment the court of general sessions for Bristol County found such determined resistance to this legislation in the Quaker towns of Dartmouth and Tiverton that the legislative body 2S Ibid., I, 505. An unsuccessful attempt was made by the Bishop of London to secure the disallowance of this act by the crown. Ibid., I, 509. 32 CHURCH AND STATE IN MASSACHUSETTS [486 of the province was forced to come to its aid with the act of November 14, 1706. The justices of the general sessions of the peace were ordered, at the opening of their court, to give special charge to the grand jury to make presentment of all towns and districts within the county destitute of a minister or failing to provide for his support, and upon such presentment to put into execution vigorously the laws relating to neglects of this kind. If their orders were then eluded by the towns concerned, the justices were to make report of their proceedings at the next meeting of the Gen- eral Court. Upon receipt of this report the General Court of the province should take upon itself the care of securing a minister for such town or district, and provide for his maintenance. The course by which the latter was to be obtained carried the prerogative of the provincial govern- ment in ecclesiastical matters to the highest point which it ever dared assume. It was to add so much to the pro- portion of such town or district in the public taxes as might be deemed sufficient for that end, these additional sums to be assessed, collected, and paid into the public treasury, together with the other public taxes, to be drawn out by warrant from the governor by and with the advice and consent of the council and duly paid to the minister concerned. 20 On December 20, 1715, this law was re- enacted with the further provision that the general assem- bly in procuring a minister for a destitute town or pre- cinct must find one who was recommended by three or more settled, ordained ministers. 27 This law was re-en- acted July 5, 1722. 28 In the meantime a series of enactments dealing with assessing and collecting of town taxes, especially where more than one precinct made up the town, modified the methods by which the minister's rate was gathered. The privileges and rights of the "precinct" as a distinct church- state were rapidly becoming crystallized. In 1702 such a n -*Ibid., I, 595- -Vbid., II, 26; Backus, Baptists, 482. - 8 Mass. Prov. Laws, II, 243. 487] MASSACHUSETTS ECCLESIASTICAL SYSTEM 33 district or precinct was empowered to appoint a clerk (corresponding to town clerk) and separate assessors for raising a maintenance for its minister, as well as to make out a warrant "in form as by law prescribed for town rates or assessments, directed to the constables of the town or district, for the collecting and levying of the same." In case the assesors so appointed refused or neglected to perform their duty the selectmen of the town from which such a district or precinct was set off were required to assess the inhabitants of the sum set for the maintenance of the minister thereof. 29 This law, extending only to the sums agreed on for the support of the ministry, was ex- tended in 1718 so as to include charges for the building and repairing of meeting houses. 30 The existence of assessors apart from the selectmen was arranged by law, for the assessing of the province rate, as early as 1700, 31 and in 1707 they were ordered to assess county and town taxes as well, the duties of the selectmen becoming thus limited. Each town was also given option in the choice of a collector distinct from the constable to col- lect town and county charges as he already gathered the country rate. 32 In 1710 the idea was repeated more definitely, tho the duty remained optional, and was applied to precincts as well as towns. 33 The re-enactment of this law in 1720 included a penalty for failure to serve. Anyone who refused to accept this unsought office or neglected to 29 Ibid., I, 505. 30 Ibid., II, 99, ch. i, 19 June, 1/18; Backus, Baptists, I, 499. 31 Mass. Prov. Laws, I, 406, ch. 26, 20 March, 1700. z -Ibid., I, 606, ch. 2, ii June, 1/07. The ministry rate seems to have been assessed separately under ordinary circumstances, "But," said Mather, "Where Quakerism is troublesome, some Towns are so wise to involve the Salary of the Ministry in a general Rate for all Town Charges, and so the Cavils of those, who would else refuse to pay the Rate for the Ministry, are obviated." Ratio Disciplinae, 22. "They have the Year past brought in another of their Ministers into this town of Rehoboth wherein we Dwell and have Rated us to him allso mixing up both his and their other ministers Rate with the town Debts." Representation from the Baptists of Rehoboth, i Jan., 1714/15, S. P. G. Papers, B I, No. 169. 33 Mass. Prov. Laws, I, 653, ch. 5, 28 June, 1710. 34 CHURCH AND STATE IX .MASSACHUSETTS [488 take the oath was to be fined three pounds ; and if he refused to pay his fine he was to suffer the same prosecution as one refusing to serve in the office of constable. 34 Such is a brief outline of the legislation of the early Massachusetts Bay Province relating to the state church and its maintenance. Starting with the system already worked out in the seventeenth century, the General Court was forced to modify the old plan when it found that its orders went unheeded. The state church of Massachusetts was in the first instance a distinctly local affair, the town playing the chief part, the county giving assistance and the General Court acting principally as the source of authority. Variations from the normal in certain parts of the enlarged province caused a change which brought the legislative body into closer relation with the individual towns and caused it to assert a greater authority over them. After giving the county court very special powers and seeing them eluded, the General Court entered the breach, and endowed itself with the power to secure a minister where one was lacking and to pay his salary from the public treasury, adding such sum to the town's province rate. In this and in other instances the General Court came to play a very prominent part in the church life of the town. Before examining further the exact na- ture of the Massachusetts church town and its intimate relation to the county court and to the general assembly of the province, a short study will be made of the opposing elements in the ecclesiastical life of the province, which will throw further light on the laws above enumerated and explain the changes which occurred. While the principle of the Massachusetts system remained in force for more than a hundred years longer, its claim to complete author- ity was broken down at the beginning of the second quar- ter of the eighteenth century. We shall deal with the external causes and the nature of the change which the old system suffered. 34 Ibid., II, 181, ch. 6, 29 Nov., 1/20. CHAPTER III. OPPOSING ELEMENTS. By the year 1700 New England had lost much of the homogeneity which in the period of settlement had been possessed by the two larger colonies. In religious matters its inhabitants represented a fair sweep of opinion altho as yet they were all alike dissenters to the Church of Eng- land except the small body of worshippers at King's Chapel in Boston. 1 Khode Island, extending toleration as it had from the first to all sects, and hence including several thou- sand persons of various creeds, was under a Quaker gov- ernment, 2 and the prestige which this fact gave to the sect reached well beyond its own borders. While Rhode Island had marched steadily onward in its theory of religious liberty, the case of Connecticut represented the opposite extreme. Here the strictness of early Calvinism had been modified far less than in Massachusetts Bay and, tho va- rious intruders had gained a foothold, they failed to thrive as in certain other parts of New England. 3 Between these a "An Account of the State of Religion in the English Plantations in North America, by Col. Dudley, Governor of New England," Prot. Episc. Hist. Soc. Colls., I, xiv, v. 2 Samuel Cranston, elected governor in 1696 to succeed Walter Clarke, tho not himself a Quaker, was a nephew of Clarke and in sympathy with Quaker policy. Jones, Quakers, 199. 3 As a case in point may be mentioned the Rogerines of New London. Mass. Prov. Laws, VIII, 155, ch. 102; 555. The Quakers made compara- tively little impression on Connecticut. Bownas, the Quaker preacher, who visited New England in 1702-1703, recorded that no meetings were held for two hundred miles in Connecticut, and remarked, "The People being mostly rigid Presbyterians, counted it to be a great Crime to be at a Quakers Meeting." Bownas, Life and Travels, 116. About the time that the Connecticut law against heretics was revived, John Fothergill wrote, "After staying a few Meetings on Long-Island we set out for New-England, having near two hundred Miles to travel by land through the Colony of Connecticut ; in which Space there were few or no Friends, 35 36 CHURCH AND STATE IN MASSACHUSETTS [490 two positions Massachusetts was maintaining herself in a way that could not fail to become increasingly difficult. One problem had been presented to her by the annexation of New Hampshire and Maine towns which were communi- ties of a strikingly different character from those reared under her own theocratic system. These were settlements made by persons who were primarily interested in trade and commerce and careless of her dearest theories in regard to church and state. Tho a menace to theocratic govern- ment, the inhabitants were at least neutral regarding the spread of other denominations. With the merging of Plymouth Colony in Massachusetts a far more difficult problem was offered by the presence of a few Baptist churches and a number of Quaker communities which had not been effectively dealt with by Plymouth court, far more tolerant and less aggressive as it always was than the assembly of the old Bay Colony. Massachusetts at the time we are considering, includ- ing Maine and Plymouth, was made up of about eighty villages, scattered all the way from the fishing communities of the Maine coast, Falmouth and Scarboro, Wells, York and Kittery, to the settlements of Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket. Passing over a large section of rough hill country in the present county of Worcester, it likewise held possession of a number of promising towns in the Connecticut valley, closely related to the river towns of Connecticut. Starting at Springfield, settlers had pushed up the Connecticut and its branches until Northampton, Hadley, Hatfield, Deerfield and Westfield had all come into existence as farming hamlets, forming the county of Hampshire. Just below the New Hampshire border lay the villages of Essex county, some of them among the earliest settled communities in the colony, yet sharing many of the same frontier and trading interests as their neighbors to the northward. Here were the coast towns of Salem, and the People generally very shy of us, and partly by reason of some severe Laws then in force there, they were afraid to converse with Friends." Fothergill, Life and Travels, 39. 491] OPPOSING ELEMENTS 37 Gloucester and Marblehead and the exposed settlements of Haverhill, Andover, Amesbury and Salisbury. 4 Boston was the center of the thickly populated region of Suffolk and Middlesex counties, the former including the capital and the old towns to the southward, Roxbury, Dorchester and Milton, and farther toward Plymouth the early settle- ments of Weymouth and Braintree. 5 Middlesex county, in covering a much larger area, contained some of the oldest places in the province, such as Cambridge, Charlestown, Newton and Watertown, and likewise another group of frontier communities requiring garrisons during the In- dian wars. Among these were Dunstable, Groton, Lancas- ter and Oxford. 6 Of the three new counties which Plymouth had re- cently contributed, Plymouth county itself represented the town of Plymouth, its neighbor Scituate, the Quaker com- munities of Duxbury and Marshfield, and the town of Bridgewater. The broad sand dunes of Barnstable county boasted the Cape Cod villages of Barnstable, Eastham, Sandwich and Yarmouth, and the county of Bristol was made up of the six thriving towns of Taunton, Rehoboth, and Swansea, Dartmouth, Little Compton, and Bristol, with the less vigorous Freetown, Tiverton, and Attlebo- rough. 7 In many of the frontier villages and near some of the older towns as well were scattered numerous plantations of Indians whose conversion had been a matter of serious importance to the colony in earlier days and was later taken up by the province. Here were a number of native Indian preachers and these were assisted by such of the 4 The others represented in the Massachusetts General Court in 1700 were Newbury, Beverly, Boxford, Ipswich, Lynn, Rowley, Topsfield and Wenham. 'Also Dedham, Hingham and Medfield. The" list also included Billerica, Chelmsford, Concord, Marlborough, Maiden, Medford, Reading, Sherburne, Sudbury and Woburn. 7 Oldmixon, Brit. Emp. in Am., I, 81-88; Mass. Prov. Laws, VII, 238. The eastern shore of Narragansett Bay, including Bristol, Tiverton and Little Compton, was later surrendered to Rhode Island. 38 CHURCH AND STATE IN MASSACHUSETTS [492 regular ministers as were interested in visiting and preach- ing in this type of parish. 8 Even the General Court took some limited measures for their evangelization. 9 Of the organized towns of the province none lacked its regular minister except an occasional frontier community or the old settlements of Bristol county which were of a spirit definitely hostile to the purposes of the standing order. The situation in the town of Boston at the beginning of the eighteenth century was not typical of the church life of the province. There were in Boston in 1700 four Con- gregational churches : the old First, the Second, under the direction of the Mathers, the South Church under Mr. Willard, and the Brattle Street Church which, because it had been founded recently on a slightly broader basis of creed and platform, was still looked upon askance by the other churches. 10 The voluntary method of contributing to the support of church and minister had very early sep- arated church and state in the chief town of the colony, so far as this phase of the matter was concerned. Further than this the presence of three "dissenting meetings" in this town materially changed the effect which a uniformity in creed and service would have produced. 11 The society of the French Protestants, organized in Boston in 1687, had little to do with the result, as the Calvinism of the Huguenots was sufficiently close to that of New England to make the Massachusetts ministers unusually cordial. There was even some special legislation in their favor and some definite financial support given them from the public treasury. 12 It was the three "dissenting sects" of Baptists, Anglicans and Quakers which gave the religious life of *Typographus Lectori, with Joseph Baxter, Sermon, 89-98. 9 Mass. Prov. Laws, VII, 254, ch. 45. 10 Winsor, Boston, II, 188 et seq. ll lbid., 192 et seq. * 2 Mass. Prov. Laws, VII, 250, ch. 34, 29 June, 1700. Under the date of 8 Jan., 1686/87, Cotton Mather records in his diary, "I would show all the Kindness that I can, unto the French Refugees arrived in this Coun- try." 7 Mass. Hist. Colls., VII, 134. 493] OPPOSING ELEMENTS 39 Boston so different a flavor from that of the other colonial towns. Of these three the Church of England was the first to receive recognition and permission to build a church in Boston. Orders came from Charles II to the Massachu- setts authorities that the right of using the Book of Com- mon Prayer should be denied to no one, and through Bandolph's influence an Episcopal clergyman was secured for the church of Boston who reached the town May 16, 1686. A building was begun soon after, and, tho it suffered in the revolution of 1689, was soon after open again, and represented a well recognized organization by the end of the century. 13 The first Baptist church in Boston, tho organized as early as 1685, was oppose^ so strenuously that it had no meeting house for many years. By 1700, however, the body was in general on friendly terms with the authorities and was more fortunate than the Anglican society in its freedom from political entanglement. 14 To- ward Quakers the change of attitude in Boston had pro- gressed even more rapidly than toward the other groups of intruders. In forty years they had passed from the violent persecution, meted out to them at their first coming, to the possession of a brick meeting house, and were no longer in general odium. 15 In 1700, then, Boston had four churches 13 Foote, Annals of King's Chapel, passim. "Backus, Baptists, I, 173-199, 205, 383-384 ; Wood, First Baptist Church of Boston, passim. As late as 1696 Mather could write of "A Preacher in my Neighborhood, who, I hope, is a good Man, however hee bee not of my Perswasion, but a froward Anabaptist." 7 Mass. Hist. Colls., VII, 209. "While the general tendency was to be increasingly tolerant of this sect, there were two parties in the matter, each including various shades of opinion. One of these was regretful of the former persecutions, the other only sorry that these had not been more effective. It is disappoint- ing to find Sewall among the latter. He records that in a council meeting on August 23, 1708, he opposed granting a petition for the privilege of building a Quaker meeting house on the ground that he "would not have a hand in setting up their Devil worship." 5 Mass. Hist. Colls., V, 82, Sewall's Diary. In spite of the presentation of the Quakers in Magnolia, (VII, 22, 23) and the author's description of them in -another place as 40 CHURCH AND STATE IN MASSACHUSETTS [494 of the standing order, a French Protestant congregation, a Baptist church, a Quaker meeting, and King's Chapel. Each of these was independent financially except for the missionary help which had been given to the Huguenots; for the Congregational churches maintained themselves exactly as the Baptists were forced to do. If Boston was not characteristic of the province at large in its method of church support, it was essentially unlike the country towns in its inclusion of four recognized sects within a single township. While Quakerism and Baptist doctrines were present in various sections of the province and appeared side by side in several places, yet, in those districts where they were strongest, the standing order was comparatively inconspicuous. Moreover there was, as early as 1700, not a single Episcopal church in all Massachusetts except the Anglican congregation in Bos- "Malicious as well as ... Pernicious Enemies" (Election Sermon, 1690, 34), Cotton Mather had already taken a stand against their persecution on which he prided himself. "Among other things, I ran the Hazard of much Reproch by testifying in that Sermon (Election Sermon, 1692) against the Persecution of erroneous and conscientious Dissenters, by the civil Magistrate. I feared that the Zeal of my Country had formerly had in it more Fire than should have been ; especially, when the mad Quakers were sent into the Gallowcs, that should have been kept rather in a Bed- lam. I did therefore on this great Occasion bear my Testimony; hoping, that if the General Assembly now thank'd me for it, their doing so, would bee accepted both by God and Man. I think, I am the only Minister Liv- ing in the Land, that have testifyed against the Suppression of Haeresy, by Persecution." 7 Mass. Hist. Colls., VII, 149, Cotton Mather's Diary, 14 May, 1692. The Quaker, Thomas Chalkley, visiting Boston in 1698, wrote, "I being a Stranger and Traveller could not but observe the barbarous and unchristianlike Welcome I had in Boston, the Metropolis of New- England. 'Oh! what pity, (said one,) it was that all of your Society was not hanged with the other Four!'" Chalkley, Journal, 18. "Remarkable was the Answer that one of his Neighbours made him, 'I wonder you are not ashamed to say so ; for you know that the Judgments of God have been on our Country ever since.' " Chalkley, Answer to Metcalf, 389. Twenty years before this, Mr. Holmes, minister at Duxbury who had re- cently died, was described by John Cotton as "one of those who impute these dreadful frownes of Providence to our dealing with the Quakers." John Cotton to Increase Mather, 3 Jan., 1675/76, 4 Mass. Hist. Colls., VIII, 228. 495] OPPOSING ELEMENTS 41 ton. 16 King's Chapel itself was an outgrowth of the royal prerogative in the capital. Outside of the chief town of the province, Episcopacy had so little reason for existence that there was no real attempt to introduce it until the formation of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in the following year, and even under its nourishing care the Church in Massachusetts continued to be a foreign plant. On the other hand, the two religious bodies with which the standing order first came into conflict expanded natu- rally with the inevitable reaction to the strictness of seven- teenth century Calvinism. The opposition aroused appeared in two distinct attacks upon the Massachusetts system as it had worked out and applied the teachings of Calvin. One of these was the attack on the alliance between church and state which the Massachusetts government had carried farther than it had ever been in Geneva. The second was the opposition to reliance on authority in religious belief. On this point the Puritans of the late seventeenth century were hardly less traditionalists than the Roman Catholics themselves, for they had substituted the authority of the Bible for that of the Church. In the attack on the relation between church and state, Roger Williams was the fore- runner of both Quakers and Baptists of the later seven- teenth century. In comparison with this principle, for which the Baptists have always stood, their doctrinal di- vergences, especially of the Particular or Calvinistic Bap- tists, were inconspicuous. On the question of the source of authority in religious belief, Anne Hutchinson and the Antinomians foreshadowed the later Quaker teaching. In their opinion divine revelation had not ceased and was to be sought in the immediate communion between the indi- vidual and God. "Heretical" doctrines such as these needed little stimulus from foreign sources and spread through Massachusetts with astonishing speed, dwelling 16 Cf. George Keith. "In all the Continent of New England there is no Church of England I think, but at Boston, I have travelled through much of it, but never heard of any but that one." Prot. Episc. Hist. Soc. Colls., I, xi-xii. 42 CHURCH AND STATE IN MASSACHUSETTS [496 under the surface and then asserting themselves, dividing communities, causing migrations. 17 To such ideas as these the founding of Rhode Island was due in part, while within the Plymouth government, far less rigid as it was than the Bay Colony, were several regions which became the resort of refugees from Massachusetts. Even in Massachusetts itself Salem was early the abode of persons of the mystic type of mind, the one territory within the boundaries of the old colony where they persisted, tho they never flourished here as in the Rhode Island region. Upon such ground as this fell the seeds of Quakerism when the first members of the society reached New England in 1656 and 1657, and tho suffering banishment, perse- cution and finally death, succeeded in planting the doctrine which was to be the greatest foe of New England orthodoxy for almost a century. Along theological lines the Quakers outstripped the Baptists, placing before all else the efficacy of the "inner light," and thus directly assaulting the Calvinist's emphasis upon the Scriptures as authority, the latter interpreted by the trained Calvinistic theologian. The appeal made by the Quaker doctrine in New England was therefore twofold. It attracted the more tolerant of the younger generation in whom was dawning an apprecia- tion of religious liberty. It attracted likewise the religious individualist who fought authority in matters of belief. Among such were many of the third generation in Plymouth Colony who were carrying the principles of Independency to their logical conclusions. In the main, however, the Quaker apostacy in Massachusetts was not so much a thought movement as a popular reaction to a gov- ernment aristocratic in political and ecclesiastical affairs, a government in which a large number of the people had little to say. This explains the fact that, with certain exceptions, the Quaker of New England occupied a far lower social position than the Philadelphia Friend. "The pre-Quaker movement in New England has been described in Rufus M. Jones, The Quakers in the American Colonies, London, 1911. 497] OPPOSING ELEMENTS 43 Between the coming of the Quakers and the beginning of provincial government, when an extended boundary, a new franchise, and a greater liberty of conscience modified the Massachusetts ecclesiastical system, the Society of Friends was spreading rapidly. Within the limits of the old Bay Colony the one center, as already indicated, was Salem and Lynn, and from the north shore itinerant preachers traveled into the Piscataqua region which em- braced the New Hampshire towns and the villages of the Maine coast. But of all the divisions of New England which in 1700 made up the province of Massachusetts Bay, the three counties which had once formed Plymouth Colony offered the most serious problems in the relation of Congre- gationalist and Friend. The reasons for this have already appeared. Among the Plymouth Colony people there was a tendency to resist a rigid ecclesiasticism such as Massa- chusetts was forming. This found expression in the Quaker and Baptist leanings of many individuals and in the comparative liberality of the Plymouth government toward dissenting sects. While it is not true that the authorities at Plymouth were in any way friendly to the Quakers, they may have been influenced in the direction of persecution by the Boston government. They were severe in restrictive laws and fined and imprisoned through a period of many years ; but they failed to enforce the law in the outskirts of the colony and never made use of the death penalty. 18 The close proximity to the liberal towns of Rhode Island was of importance in maintaining this spirit in southeastern Massachusetts. Of the three counties which had formerly belonged to Plymouth Colony and were at the beginning of the eighteenth century a part of the province of Massachusetts Bay, each maintained a thriving Quaker center. Plymouth town in her consistent aversion to the sect had relegated it to her neighbors on the northward; but here, in Scituate, Marshfield and Duxbury, to which towns missionaries from "Backus, Baptists, I, 229, 450-453, 465; Thomas, Quakers, 209; Ellis, New Bedford, 34-36. 44 CHURCH AND STATE IN MASSACHUSETTS [498 Rhode Island had come after 1658, the Society of Friends was holding a meeting as early as 1660. 19 In the county of Barnstable the two towns at the base of the cape, Sand- wich and Falmouth, formed a vigorous Quaker community which held a meeting by 1672. The third Quaker center within the boundaries of old Plymouth Colony, embracing all the southern part of the Massachusetts Bay Province, was Bristol county. 20 There is a certain embarrassment in treating this region as a part of Massachusetts. Including as it did in 1700 not merely the townships which are still within its borders, but the whole eastern shore of Narra- gansett Bay as well, it represented a greater liberality and independence along political and religious lines than any other section of the province. These towns did indeed belong to Rhode Island in their history, their sympathies and their purposes, and were only geographically and politically a part of Massachusetts. The history of the religious development in them was parallel to that on the island. In many there was a mixture of beliefs unified only by an insistence upon independence of authority in both spiritual and temporal concerns. Others possessed a unity in doctrine best represented in the almost solid Quakerism of old Dartmouth. The assembly of Plymouth Colony had attempted to legislate in regard to public worship and the ministry here, but was never able to enforce its orders on the town. 21 While Bristol county was preeminently the stronghold of Massachusetts Quakerism at the beginning of the eighteenth century, to neglect the presence of the Baptists within its borders would be unjust to a sect which, tho more restricted at this period, was destined to become the political successor of the Society of Friends. Backus recognizes only two communities including Boston in which there were Baptist churches before 1700 and mentions no other before 1736. 22 While this is accurate only if a 19 Thomas, Quakers, 212. 20 Jones, Quakers, 39, 40, 57, 58, 60. 21 Potter, First Cong. Soc. in New Bedford, 14. "Backus, Baptists, II, 306-310. 499] OPPOSING ELEMENTS 45 restricted notion is held of the qualifications of such an organization, it is nevertheless indicative of the small numbers of this group of dissenters in Massachusetts in the first quarter of the eighteenth century. 23 It is again sig- nificant of the nature of Bristol county that the first Baptist society within the boundaries of the present state was permitted to establish itself in this region many years before it had any sister church except the group at Boston. This church was founded by a body of Baptists from a town in Wales who left home with their pastor at the ejectment of the nonconforming ministers in the early days of the Kestoration, found favor with certain Plymouth magis- trates of liberal views, and secured the region of Swansea in which to settle. The remarkable feature in the grant of New Swansea in 1667 is that it was only a territorial grant and made no condition as to settlement and government. The immediate growth of the church was due to the fact that there had existed for several years in this part of old Kehoboth a group of persons who opposed the established church and had taken up with certain Baptist principles. Amicable relations were maintained with the orthodox members of the community, a condition made possible by the unusual catholicity of the Welsh pastor, while the church stood out only for independence from government control. Not until he was succeeded by a man who pro- fessed more rigid views in theology and drew the church with him, did religious controversy between Baptist and Congregationalist begin, in time splitting the church on sectarian lines. 24 23 Backus quotes a letter from Edward Wallin of London to Callen- der, dated 9 March, 1720, which says, "I am indeed troubled at the paucity of those of our denomination, in New England ; though I cannot wonder at it, considering the treatment they have generally met with." Baptists, I, 487. 24 Bicknell, Harrington, passim; Backus, Baptists, I, 282-284, 453; II, 24; E. Williams to I. Backus, 25 Nov., 1774, Backus Papers (New Eng- land Bap. Hist. Soc.), Portfolio 2; I. Backus to J. Morse, 9 March, 1791, Backus Papers (R. I. Hist. Soc.), I, 15. 46 CHURCH AND STATE IN MASSACHUSETTS [500 Another early church in Bristol county was the one at Dartmouth itself, whose first teacher had found it profitable to leave the older part of Plymouth Colony because of liberal views. John Cooke had been deacon in Plymouth church for some years, 25 but was said to have been excom- municated for causing dissension and "running into- sectarian and anabaptistical principles ;" leaving Plymouth he finally settled in Dartmouth. A church was probably founded in the west part of the town about 1685. 26 At Tiverton a Baptist church is said to have been organized in the previous year. 27 This description of the first Quaker and Baptist meet- ings within the limits of the later Massachusetts Bay Province has dwelt only on the more important centers of the propaganda. There were Baptists in all the Rhode Island border towns 28 and on the islands adjacent to Cape Cod, 29 while in small numbers they appeared in many other villages of Plymouth Colony. There w r ere also a few in the Piscataqua region. 30 Quakers were found between 1698 and 1705 in many of the communities to the northward such as Hampton (Amesbury), 31 Salisbury, 32 Exeter , 33: Jamaica, 34 Newbury, 35 Haverhill 36 and Strawberry Bank (Portsmouth) 37 as well as the Isles of Shoals. 38 They "John Cotton to Cotton Mather, 19 Apr., 1681, 4 Mass. Hist. Colls., VIII, 251-252. 28 Backus, Baptists, I, 452-454. Z1 i75th Anniversary of the Organisation of the United Congregational Church of Little Compton, R. I., 13. 28 Samuel Lee to Increase Mather, 25 Aug., 1687, 4 Mass. Hist. Colls., Vin, 540, Mather Papers. 29 Bownas, Life and Travels, 120; Keith's Journal, 22, 23. 80 Backus, Baptists, I, 405. 81 Chalkley, Journal, 18, 20; Keith's Journal, 8; Bownas, Life and Travels, 121. 82 Chalkley, Journal, 21 ; Keith's Journal, 10. 33 Bownas, Life and Travels, 121. 84 Chalkley, Journal, 21. &s Keith's Journal, 13 ; Bownas, Life and Travels, 121. 88 Chalkley, Journal, 21. "Keith's Journal, 12-13. 88 Chalkley, Journal, 20. 501] OPPOSING ELEMENTS 47 were living in the towns near Scituate, 39 in the region at the base of the cape around Barnstable and Yarmouth, 40 on the adjacent islands, 41 in all the little settlements on both sides of the Acushnet river, 42 while in even greater numbers they lined the shore of Narragansett bay. It has been estimated that there were three thousand within the limits of old Plymouth Colony and that one-third of the Pisca- taqua region was Quaker. 43 Before 1702 there were eight monthly meetings for business in New England. These were the meeting of Greenwich, covering the Narragansett country; of Rhode Island, which included Tiverton and Little Compton; of Dartmouth; of Sandwich, embracing Falmouth and Yar- mouth; of Pembroke, which included Scituate, Marshfield and Duxbury; of Salem; of Hampton; and of Dover. These monthly meetings were not long in grouping to form the quarterly meetings in which bodies the Friends did a large share of their most important work. The monthly meetings of Barnstable and Plymouth counties made up the Sandwich and Scituate Quarterly Meeting. Dart- mouth and Ehode Island Monthly Meetings joined Green- wich to form the Rhode Island Quarterly, while all the northern towns, whether in Massachusetts proper, New Hampshire, or Maine, united in 1705 to make up the Salem Quarterly Meeting and to this the Boston Friends likewise belonged. 44 This centralized organization was completed 3S Ibid., 39, 45- 40 Ibid., 22, 39, 45 ; Fothergill, Life and Travels, 40. "Chalkley, Journal, 19, 39; Bownas, Life and Travels, 120. 42 Chalkley, Journal, 39, 45. 43 Jones, Quakers, XV. Keith was underrating the Quaker strength in Massachusetts, with a view to encouraging the authorities who had sent him to lead the Quakers from their error, when he wrote, "Few Quakers are at Boston. There are some at Sandwich, some at Piscataway and others scattered Places, but very few." Prot. Episc. Hist. Soc. Colls., I, xii. 4 *Jones, Quakers, 141, note 2; 142, note i; Moses Brown Papers, XVIII, 55; N. E. Yr. M., passim; A Brief Account of the Yearly Meeting of Friends for New England, with the Subordinate Meetings of which it is composed, 11-22. 48 CHURCH AND STATE IN MASSACHUSETTS [502 in the New England Yearly Meeting, occurring every June on Rhode Island, and attended by representatives from all the Quaker towns and villages who flocked to Rhode Island in great numbers. As a business meeting its importance can hardly be overestimated, for by making the local prob- lems of all parts of two governments a matter for group consideration, it effected results for scattered hamlets which could never have been secured by anything but united efforts. The corresponding organization in England was no more thoro in this regard. During the years of this development in the organiza- tion of New England Quakerism, there had come a decided reaction from that spirit of intolerant hatred which had been shown toward the first comers. Prejudice had les- sened but little in the forty years since Quakerism first ap- peared in Massachusetts; but New England orthodoxy was learning that the Society of Friends was not advocating the practices of Mtinster in spite of the extremes to which some of the fanatics had resorted in days gone by. That tendency among the more ignorant of the first converts which the New England Yearly Meeting styled "ranterism" had existed in the earlier days but was rapidly disappearing. 45 Frowned on from the first by the better social class among the Friends, it became less and less conspicuous until little ground for complaint on this score might be found. 46 In 45 Jones, Quakers, 113. "The old spirit and Principle of ye ranters the Lord hath brought down in these parts, Truth having Gained ye vic- tory over them, so yt we meet with little opposition from them." Epistle to Lond. Yr. M., 1699, Epistles Rec'd, I, 301; Lond. Yr. M., II, 302 ;j "Aaron Atkinson's account of his Travels in America," Lond. Yr. M., II, 313- 4 The memorial of the Massachusetts government in respect to Qua- ker grievances in 1708 said, "nor are those that go Under the Denomina- tion of Quakers now such as were then [i7th century], who were some of them Open bold Disturbers of the Publick Peace and their Principles no- toriously known to be Heretical, but are much refined both in principles and Conversation." Mass. Archives, XI, 279-280. Four years later the New England Yearly Meeting was writing to the London Friends, "our Yearly meeting hath been Very Large, and Through the great Love and Contineued ffavor of ouer gratious God and Heavenly ffather, wee have 503] OPPOSING ELEMENTS 49 all its early history Quakerism suffered seriously on both sides of the Atlantic from a failure on the part of its adversaries to appreciate the teachings of George Fox and his followers. It was the inevitable lack of sympathy between the mystic and the religious traditionalist, the latter represented by New England Puritan as well as by English Churchman. To the English clergy and to the New England ministers the doctrine of the inner light and the Quaker treatment of the Bible were nothing less than the overthrowing of the Scriptures as the source of authority, with the substitution of the all sufficiency of the light within. Yet more sacrilegious was the denial of the efficacy of Christ's life and death, the inner light again becoming all important and acting as a substitute for the atonement. The emphasis of the Church of England was on the sacraments, of the Puritan on the Bible. The Quaker in breaking away from the absolute necessity of either was, therefore, it seemed to both schools of theologians, not merely heretical but actually non-Chris- tian. With increasing knowledge and a better apprecia- tion of the Quaker's creed and purposes a far kinder spirit was awakened, while in the meantime the industry and piety of the individual Friend was beginning to make an impression which was bound to have visible results before many years had elapsed. Enioyed the Same without aney Disturbance; Ye Spirit of Ranterism which fformerly Interrupted our-Quiett and peaceable assemblies being well Extingueshed." N. E. Yr. M., 72 ; Land. Yr. M., IV, 326- CHAPTER IV. THE SYSTEM IN PRACTICE. Between the inauguration of royal government in Massachusetts and the first legal confession that the Con- gregational church-state system was weakening and forced to make concessions, there were just thirty-six years. In this period various forces were struggling together. On the one hand appeared seventeenth century Calvinism, still guiding creed and platform, but troubled by what appeared to be the degeneracy of the times, a falling away from the fervent piety of the earlier generation. On the other hand there loomed large the spirit of persistent opposition to authority in matters ecclesiastical w r hich was at last to make its impression because of changes that were at the time working within. These thirty-six years saw two failures of the clergy to secure governmental sanction for the holding of a synod; it saw the death of the elder Mather; it saw also the beginnings of the Anglican move- ment in New England and its support by the royal govern- ors; and it saw the persistent increase in the number of Quaker and Baptist meetings which finally brought about the first exemption laws in their favor. It is for these reasons that the first quarter century under the province charter was conspicuously transitional, and yet, in the first twenty years at least, it represented the highest point which the Massachusetts church-state system reached, so far as detailed legislation and the execution of effective measures were concerned. In the colonial period the name "theoc- racy" best expressed the nature of the government; in the early provincial period there existed the anomaly of an enterprising royal province executing laws which main- tained the shell of a weakening ecclesiasticism, the glory and fervor of which had departed. Yet another century had to pass before the system was allowed to expire and 50 505] THE SYSTEM IX TRACTICE 51 the opposing elements were at this time only beginning to organize. On the threshold then of new adjustments in the old order, that system can best be examined, for those first adjustments made changes that greatly altered the whole legal procedure in ecclesiastical affairs. The foundation of the system was the passage of the first laws under the charter for maintaining religion; its opposing elements were the inward declination from standards of former days and the pressure from without of new hostile forces. The strong feeling of particularism which the first churches of Plymouth Colony transmitted to the more Presbyterianly inclined meetings of the Bay had had its effect in producing a church establishment in which the central government was at first little more than a source of authority, shifting all the execution of its ecclesiastical laws upon the individual towns. The provincial assembly, having ordered that each tow T n be provided with a minister, put it into the hands of that town and its church to procure him and bargain with him; likewise the assembly, having ordered that he be maintained, left it with each town to assess and collect the taxes therefor. A little later the county court began to play an important part in super- vising the towns. Only when difficulties ensued did the General Court appear on the scene of action, acting as court of high appeal or giving advice to contending parties. This was the marked tendency of the last of the seventeenth and the first of the eighteenth century, and shows clearly in what direction matters were traveling. The orthodox towns were tending more and more to rely on central authority, while nothing short of rigorous action on the part of the government could maintain in the whole province the conditions which had been the natural expres- sion of the religious views of the first comers. To get any idea of the actual working of the Massachusetts church- state system and of the position which the General Court came to occupy in ecclesiastical affairs, it is necessary to study local conditions; and this study will be far from perfect because of the nature of the material upon which it must be founded. 52 CHURCH AND STATE IN MASSACHUSETTS [506 The church and state relation was the conspicuous feature of the Massachusetts community. Whether the latter existed as a plantation, as yet unorganized, as a town proper with all its accompanying privileges, as a second precinct of an original town formed on the basis of religious needs, or finally as a second separate town when the new precinct warranted such a measure, 1 the connection between the church and the town, as no less between each of these and the court of general sessions or the general assembly of the province, was close and vital. 2 In the transitional or first stage through which a plan- tation passed before its erection as a town, there was often a movement, especially in those frontier settlements which 1 Channing, Town and County Government, 35. 2 A number of excellent attempts have been made to define the terms relating to New England local government in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. These are usually broader than the present subject requires and should be slightly modified before a perfectly clear idea can be gained of the Massachusetts ecclesiastical system in the early provincial period. Township, which Channing tells us (Town and County Govern- ment, 35) at first meant merely a tract of land granted to persons who intended there to settle a town and gather a church, is already used synonymously with town, tho less often, and when so used is likely to have a territorial sense in contradistiction to town as a civil organization. A group of homesteads not to be considered as a civil organization may be termed a village; and if it is the outlying settlement of some older town the name hamlet is not uncommon, as Salem village (later called Danvers) or the hamlet of Billingsgate, a part of Eastham. Plantation, while some- times used in a general way for town, has more often the technical mean- ing, observed by Channing, of a community which has not yet acquired the dignity of a town. (Town and County Government, 35.) The pre- cinct, parish or district, as it was interchangeably called, tho far less clearly defined than the town itself, was a most essential part of the Massachusetts ecclesiastical system. Briefly it was a division of a town cut off for convenience in regard to attendance at worship and support of the ministry. It had at the same time non-ecclesiastical causes and characteristics which are inclined to detract from its real significance as a little church state, its most important element This fact is underestimated by Howard (Local Constitutional History, 52.) and his definitions are therefore less satisfactory. The name parish was not used interchangeably with town. Perry, Ch. Docs., Mass., 65. 507] THE SYSTEM IN PRACTICE 53 grew but slowly, for some encouragement of the ministry several years before township rights were granted. 3 Upon an appeal to the General Court the latter often responded with a direct money grant. 4 This transitional stage is comparatively rare in the provincial period, limited almost exclusively to the garrison towns, for by this time all the older townships were well established with extensive boundaries including practically all the accessible parts of the province. The change from unorganized plantation to town proper therefore is seen mainly in the frontier com- munities. 5 Upon the organization of these frontier posts as towns, the regular laws for maintaining religion went into effect; but since the circumstances of their condition were unusual, numerous exceptions were made in their favor which gave the transition and resulting conditions an abnormal character. The normal method of forming a new town in the provincial period was to cut off a part of an older township and erect it as a new one, or to create one from a part of an older township which had already been recognized as a separate precinct. The former was the more direct method and was sometimes resorted to when any friction in town or church affairs was likely to make the precinct system impracticable. Several towns by this means skipped the precinct period. 6 However normal and direct this immediate formation of a new town from the outskirts of an old settlement may seem, it was not the usual custom in the provincial period ; and in the history of the "precinct", its origin, its nature, 3 Buck, Mass. Ecc. Law, 151, refers to the organization of the church before the town as the custom of the country but this method was not sufficiently general in the early provincial period to warrant such a state- ment. 4 Brookfield, 1698, 1702. Mass. Prov. Laws, VII, 197, ch. 37, 346, ch. 27. 5 Biddeford, 1716, 1718. Mass. Prov. Laws, IX, 475, ch. 42; 626, ch. 98. Brookline, 1705. Mass. Prov. Laws, VIII, ch. 22; 145, ch. 73 et alia; Sunderland, 1718. Mass. Prov. Laws, IX, 621, ch. 88. 54 CHURCH AND STATE IN MASSACHUSETTS [508 its relation to the parent town, can well be exhibited the application of the church-state system. 7 The first settled towns of Massachusetts resembled small counties in their broad-lying boundaries, and the meeting house, which represented the political as well as the religious center of the community, was often many miles from those townsmen who had taken up with the more distant holdings. As time went on and population increased, it was natural for the outlying farms to form together in smaller groups which, as they increased in size, became more and more dissatisfied with their long distance from the towns' center and growingly eager to begin a new community life of their own. As there were often reasons why the formation of a new town was undesirable, the precinct system was initiated, and was fairly well estab- lished when the provincial government began. Considered as an ecclesiastical unit the precinct may be defined as a geographical division of a town the inhabitants of which were in ecclesi- astical law the attendants at a single meeting house. Channing (Town and County Government, 36) follows Buck (Mass. Ecc. Law, 17-18). Because of the close relation between church and state this formation involved also a civil status for the precinct, of chief importance in the collection of taxes. For this purpose the precinct generally had its separ- ate constable or collectors and a separate precinct meeting with its own moderator and business. It was therefore equivalent to a constablewick. Mass. Prov. Laws, VIII, 141, ch. 64. A separate school was usually sup- ported by the new precinct which in this way became a second district. Channing, Town and County Government, 36. The precinct was in the third place a military unit, such a condition sometimes occurring within a town before a second ecclesiastical precinct had been formed. Baintree, 1707. Mass. Archives, XI, 241. Precinct and less often parish were the technical names for such a division of a town, the latter becoming later associated chiefly with its ecclesiastical functions, a meaning which it has brought down to the present day in a modified form. Mass. Prov. Laws, X, 288, ch. 5. The name society which was applied to the persons of a precinct in their corporate existence has continued in the organization of the older Congregational churches of New England to the present day. The religious body organized as the church relegates its non-religious functions to the corporate body known as the society which is made up of the enfranchised members of the parish and manages the finances of the church. Mass. Prov. Laws, VII, 246, ch. 19. 509] THE SYSTEM IN PRACTICE 55 The order of events was somewhat in this wise. In a corner of some old township a group of farmers, who num- bered some twenty growing families, wished to have a church of their own. 8 There might have been friction between them and the leading members of the congregation, or the roads to town were well nigh impassable, or a river was dangerous of fording in the winter time. A movement would accordingly be started in the "hamlet" to petition the town to agree that they might be set off as a separate pre- cinct. If permission was secured without further trouble, the matter sometimes ended here, with the running of the boundary line between the old and new precincts and a mutual agreement with regard to the other matters, tho an order from the General Court must in the end be gained. 9 It was far more usual for the parent town to be very loath to lose a large and flourishing section. The hamlet might not even apply to the town, quite aware of what the result would be, or upon application and refusal it would appeal to the General Court for interference in the matter. This petition, which came from the inhabitants of the dis- trict concerned, was usually referred to a committee made up of members of the court or inhabitants of neighboring towns, 10 whose recommendations were usually accepted. But often the town was informed of the application, especially if the petition had come direct from the hamlet without previous appearance in town meeting, and then the 8 Cotton Mather, Ratio Disciplinae, 1-2, describes this same develop- ment from the point of view of church government. "A number of Christians," he writes, "either swarmed into a New Plantation, or finding the Church, to which they have belonged, grown to such Circumstances, that it may be for the general advantage to have a New Church formed in the Neighborhood, first settle their Number, and assure themselves that their Number is Competent, and Resolved for the Undertaking." 9 Mass. Prov. Laws, IX, 447, ch. 147. 10 West Springfield, 1696. Mass. Prov. Laws, VIII, in, ch. 12. Of the committee here appointed Edward Taylor was minister of the church in Westfield, Samuel Partridge the representative from Hatfield in the General Court, Aaron Cooke from Hadley and Samuel Root from West- field, the towns in Hampshire county nearest to the west precinct of Springfield. 56 CHURCH AND STATE IN MASSACHUSETTS [510 two sides were given a hearing and long and elaborate negotiations followed. These struggles give a wonderfully clear picture of the ambitions and interests of rural Massachusetts in the early eighteenth century. 11 In the history of Springfield, for example, there appear during this period two particularly animated cases of attempts by outlying districts to gain precinct privileges. The inhabi- tants of the west side of the Connecticut river 12 applied for this degree of independence on the ground that bad roads were as nothing in comparison with the danger of crossing the stream at some seasons of the year. But as Springfield offered a dogged resistance to such curtailment, the matter was soon carried (1695) to the General Court, which sum- moned both parties and appointed an able committee to investigate the matter. While the inhabitants of the west side were assuring the town of their ability to support a separate minister and stating that "wee have not the least thought of separating from you, or becoming a Townshipe, deeming it contrary to our Interest, and an infringement of our priviledges soe to doe," 18 Springfield was grimly replying that they were too few to attempt any such thing and that "to row a boat or paddle a canoe is no worse than to saddle and bridle a horse." 14 The committee of the General Court was favorable to the west side, and on December 4, 1696, the order was made for erecting West Springfield into a separate precinct. Even more deter- mined did Springfield prove in her relation to the district of Longmeadow 15 which had found the town so obdurate that after numerous attempts in town meeting covering the years between 1703 and 1706 she finally petitioned the "The case of Watertown between 1692 and 1707 is typical. Mass. Archives, XI, 63, 64? 73, 86-87, 75, 85, 81 ; Mass. Prov. Laws, VII, 55, ch. 20 et passim; Cat. of St. Papers, Col. Series, Am. and the W. I., 1700; 241, 246. 12 Mass. Archives, XI, 109, 107, 112, 114, 118, 130; Mass Prov. Laws, VII, 77, ch. 9; in, ch. 12; 127, ch. 45. ia .Mass. Archives, XI, no, 12 May, 1696. "Ibid., XI, 114. Ibid., XI, 215-217; Mass. Prov. Laws, VIII, 198, ch. 91; 233, ch. 13. 511] THE SYSTEM IN PRACTICE 57 General Court for assistance. In this appeal was the state- ment that "wee have constantly paid our Dues towards maintainance of the Towne Minister & have for the Greatest part of these three years past upon our owne Charge hiered & provided a minister amongst ourselves & must without Releived be forced to do the same for the future except releefe be Granted." 16 In spite of Springfield's plea that she could not afford such a condition, now that the west side of the river had been cut off, and that she had placed the meeting house with the express purpose of accommo- dating Longmeadow, the court was not slow in granting the request, and within eight months after the date of the petition Longmeadow was made a separate precinct. 17 Between 1692 and 1728 some twenty new precincts were formed in this way by order of the General Court. In the customary resistance on the part of the town economic factors played an important part. In locating the final dividing line therefore, it was not unusual to bear in mind where lay the best land for cultivation and to make the division accordingly. 18 The orders issued by the General Court for the estab- lishment of new precincts were usually accompanied by regulations of the relation between the two parts of the town thus divided, these more or less elaborate as the case might require. They regulated the financial method by which the new meeting house should be built and both maintained, the way in which the two ministers should be supported, and the disposal of the ministry land. Nor- mally the new precinct would be excused from any further payment toward the repair or rebuilding of the old meet- ing house or the support of the minister, as it was now responsible for its own. Normally also it must relinquish its right to the parsonage lot of the original town and procure one for its future minister within its own boun- Mass. Archives, XI, 215, 18 Oct., 1706. "/&*Essex Sessions. ^Pembroke Mo. M., passim. 62 The records of the court of general sessions of the peace for the county of Barnstable are not in existence. 63 Sandwich Mo., M., passim. "Mass. Archives, XI, 256, 257. 70 CHURCH AND STATE IN MASSACHUSETTS [524 meeting house. 65 On later occasions the General Court was forced to coine to the assistance of Joseph Metcalf, the minister, 66 when he complained of the depreciation of the paper currency, of which the town refused to take account when paying his salary. 67 In 1714 and 1717 he was allowed forty pounds from the province treasury, but finally, in 1719, his case was turned over to "the Committee, that receiv'd the Charity of this Province Collected the Last Year, upon a Brief Issued by this Government for the Propagating of the Gospel." 88 If in Barnstable county Massachusetts had a sugges- tion of the problems which could be created by elements unfriendly to her system, in Bristol the difficulty was many times magnified. At Swansea the enforcement of ecclesi- astical law was thwarted by a firmly organized Baptist society; at Dartmouth was the most vigorous Quaker meeting of the province, always supported by the Baptists in its borders; at Tiverton was a smaller Quaker commu- nity ; while Attleboro, Freetown, and Little Compton were towns of mixed type, harboring various sects and sympa- thizing keenly with Rhode Island in her ideas of religious liberty. In this region also a further element of resistance **Mass Prov. Laws, IX, 292, ch. 27. 86 Metcalf was the author of a work on "enforced maintenance" in which he argues strongly in favor of the system. The work has not sur- vived but can be followed closely in the reply to it by the Quaker, Thomas Chalkley. Chalkley, Answer to Metcalf. 87 This difficulty regarding paper money which many other ministers soon encountered became so acute by 1724 that the General Court was obliged to consider the matter. The report of a committee from this body recommended that a law be made to compel every parish to make up to its minister an amount equal to the difference, the county court to determine how much the currency had depreciated. While this report did not become law, a resolve was passed recommending it to every town and precinct, this resolve to be read in every congregation on the next Lord's day and in the parish meetings of the following March. Mass. Prov. Laws, X, 563, ch. 385. **Mass Prov. Laws, IX, 673, ch. 56. The organization of this fund seems to be the cause for the cessation of grants from the public treasury to the ministry throughout the province. Freetown was voted its bene- faction in the same year. House Journal, 1719, i. 525] THE SYSTEM IN PRACTICE 71 to the Massachusetts state church appeared in the first decade of the eighteenth century when the missionaries of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel met some success in the Khode Island border towns. 69 Here they left behind them a number of groups which had announced their allegiance to the Church of England. On this basis these proceeded to resist the ecclesiastical laws of the province but seldom united in this purpose with the Bap- tist and Quaker societies. The first attack made by the court of general sessions of Bristol county in accordance with the laws of 1692 and 1693 was upon Swansea, whose only meeting was the Baptist church now thirty years old. To enforce upon it the Congregational ministry and public taxation for its support was to upset the whole system. When presented for not having a minister according to law, Swansea in town meeting proceeded to approve the Baptist preacher as her minister. 70 The law had not made it plain how the justices were to proceed in such a case, and the matter was dropped for the time being. In 1698 Bristol sessions began to deal vigorously with all the defective towns within its jurisdiction, and contin- ued its efforts for a period of thirty years. But so clearly defined was the type of community which it had to master and so determined was the opposition to its authority, that the attempt resulted only in a series of compromises, many of which foreshadowed the coming exemption laws. In all these years it was never possible to enforce the law in this section of Massachusetts. 69 "As to the Case of ye Church of Tivertone Swanzey ffreeton and little Compton in ye whole of these I believe there may be betwixt 2 or 300 people that are Church people & are resolved never to have any other Minister but a Church Minister unless the Government of ye Collony of Massachusetts under whose Government they are) force and independant upon them, wch they have done in ffreetown already, & will in the rest if their is not a Missionary Sent to take possession of that Church built in Tivertone." Stewart to Nicholson, 12 Feb. 1719/20, 5. P. G. Letters, A XIV, 162. 70 Bicknell, Barrington, 133, 179, 201. 72 CHURCH AND STATE IN MASSACHUSETTS [526 In 1698 failure to procure a minister was reported by the grand inquest for Swansea, Dartmouth, Tiverton, Freetown and Attleboro, while most of this group with Rehoboth and Little Compton lacked school masters. 71 The selectmen of these towns summoned to Bristol had various reports to submit. Swansea, as previously stated, sent word that she was provided, but the statement was for a time not accepted, and she was ordered to procure a minister immediately. 72 By April of 1699, however, the justices had been informed of the exact situation in Swan- sea and agreed not to interfere with the ministry of Samuel Luther. 73 As a matter of fact the Baptist church of Swansea, by standing for principles so liberal that it was able to include the Congregationalists in the region, long saved the town from an effective attack by the general sessions. Not until it was remolded upon a more extreme Baptist form did the Congregationalists of Swansea be- come dissatisfied. The result of this dissatisfaction was a petition to the general sessions in 1707 asking the assist- ance of the justices in procuring an orthodox minister. The selectmen of Swansea who were summoned at this time reminded the general sessions of the long continued recognition by that body of their minister, and after post- ponement and much discussion a compromise was agreed upon. 74 While it was decided that orthodoxy must be introduced into Swansea and a sum assessed upon the town for the support of the ministry, it was agreed that the work of Luther ought to be recognized. Accordingly it was voted that half of the yearly assessment should be settled on him, the rest to go to the minister of the standing order. 75 But no very satisfactory arrangement was discoverd 76 until ^Bristol Sessions, I, 13. Ibid., I, 15. Ibid., I, 17, 19- it/bid., I, 121, 129; Bicknell, Barrington, 139-141. ^Bristol Sessions, I, 133. 76 The result of the negotiations was the coming of John Fisk to Swansea in the office of Congregational minister, but so bitter was the feeling between the two sects in the town that trouble continued. One of 527] THE SYSTEM IN PRACTICE 73 the town was divided, the Congregationalists forming the new parish. 77 After the death of Luther there was a mo- mentary difficulty as Swansea's dispensation had related to him only. The matter was settled by a vote of the gen- eral sessions in 1719 to accept his successor as minister of the town, and the selectmen, who had been summoned to state the case, were dismissed. 78 The affairs of Dartmouth and Tiverton during this same period represent the methods employed by the govern- ment in handling well defined Quaker communities. In Dartmouth the people were almost universally Quaker, the Congregational and Baptist societies being very small; in Tiverton, while the majority supported Quaker teaching, there were among the inhabitants many who shared the general characteristics of the eastern border of the bay. With their freedom in theological opinion which often kept them from allying themselves with any sect, there was a certain volatility in their make-up which occasionally car- ried them into some religious body and out again in a brief time. The S. P. G. in dealing with them met constant disappointment for it was long in learning that a crowded service here meant little real allegiance. These people were no less trying to the Quakers than to the Anglican and Congregational churches. The general sessions of October, 1698, which had at- tacked Swansea, took up the cases of both Dartmouth and the means taken by the Baptist selectmen to rid the town of Fisk was to issue a warrant to the constable "Requiring him in her Majties Name to warn John Fisk to depart the Town in fourteen days time &c." C. O. 5, 865. The constable, knowing that Fisk belonged in none of the classes of undesirable persons included under the law of ejectment, appealed to the quarter sessions for advice. The latter discharged him from the duty of serving the warrant, summoned the selectmen and admonished them for this "Illegal & unpresidential" conduct. Bristol Sessions, II, 150, 151, 155; Dudley to the Board of Trade, i Mar., 1708/9, C. O. 5, 913, 114, 115; "Memorial of the ministers in Bristol County to the General Assembly," Oct. 1711, Mass. Archives, XI, 385. 77 Mass. Prov. Laws, IX, 180, ch. 22; 201, ch. 78; 249, ch. 50; 548, ch. 78; 563, ch. 114. ''^Bristol Sessions, III A, 59, 61 ; Backus, Baptists, I, 499. 74 CHURCH AND STATE IN MASSACHUSETTS [528 Tiverton. Dartmouth, like Swansea, stated that she was provided with ministers already, naming two Quaker preachers of the town. Neither this nor Tiverton's answer was accepted, and both towns were ordered to supply themselves before the winter sessions. 79 For some time the relation between the court of gen- eral sessions and the towns of Dartmouth and Tiverton was little changed. Over and over they suffered present- ment and repeatedly sent answer, that they were properly supplied in the persons of the Quakers whom they named, basing their argument on the fact that nowhere in the law was it stated what was meant by orthodox. 80 This state of affairs continued until the autumn of 1703. 81 Bristol court then became exasperated and took a step which was significant. Eelying upon the right which a recent law (1702) had given her to appoint special as- sessors, the court of general sessions decided to enforce the law of 1692 which gave her the power of appointing minis- ters to negligent towns. It was agreed that eighty pounds per annum be levied on Dartmouth and fifty on Tiverton for the support of ministers whom she should appoint. Not knowing suitable persons for these missions the court or- dered that a letter be written to the president and fellows of Harvard College and Mr. William Brattle of Cambridge for their advice. 82 Tho going so far as to take these measures the jus- tices now allowed the matter to slide 83 until April of 1706 when they renewed their application to authority, includ- 78 'Bristol Sessions, I, 15. 80 Ibid., I, 17, 19, 21. In January 1702 the selectmen of Tiverton pre- sented to Bristol sessions a paper pleading for "a Liberty of Conscience in the Exercise of Religion as a Priviledge granted by their Majestyes Charter and Recipting Several Passages out of the Province laws. Re- ferring to the Priviledges of Churches in the Quallifications choise and Settlement of ministers." Ibid., I, 38. 81 /&trf., II, 20, 23, 47. "Ibid., II, 47. "Ibid., II, 93. 529] THE SYSTEM IN PRACTICE 75 ing now the Boston ministers. 84 Their next meeting dispatched two of its members to Dartmouth and Tiverton to enquire for a place with some family where a minister might be entertained, 85 and upon receiving a most pessi- mistic report once more agreed to state the situation in Boston. 86 The episode was at least making an impression on the ministerial circle in the capital town tho progress with effective measures was slow. 87 Once more it was hoped that results might be gained by further legislation, and the act of November, 1706, now passed, went much further than any previous laws had done. The failure of Bristol ses- sions in dealing with her troublesome towns was to be obviated by bringing the General Court itself into the situation. After making the necessary orders on a delin- quent town and failing with results, the court of general sessions was now ordered to make report of its proceedings at the next session of the General Court, and the latter was not only to supply a minister to such town but was also to provide for his support by a sum added to the town's province tax. By concealing this amount within the coun- try rate the General Court expected to gain its purpose in towns which had never failed to remit their assessments. Bristol sessions in the following year gave Dartmouth and Tiverton one more chance, but when they still neglected her orders, 88 immediately agreed to carry the matter to the General Court. 89 A complete report of the contest between Bristol 84 Bristol Sessions, II, 98; Mass. Archives, XI, 231 ; Potter, First Cong. Soc. of New Bedford, 101. ^Bristol Sessions, II, 104. Ibid., II, 107. "Increase Mather, in his Maintenance Due to those That Preach the Gospel, Boston, 1706, p. 57, writes, "It is a doleful thing, that there should be Towns in New-England, able to Support the Preaching of the Gospel, and yet not one man found therein willing to give Entertainment to a Minister of Christ." ^Bristol Sessions, II, 113. *Ibid., II, 116; Mass. Archives, XI, 231; Potter, First Cong. Soc. of New Bedford, App. A, 102. 76 CHURCH AND STATE IN MASSACHUSETTS [530 sessions and the towns of Dartmouth and Tiverton, with an elaborate petition, was now submitted to the assembly. An appeal was made by the latter to the fellows of the college, 90 and before another year had gone by a minister had been sent to each town, Joseph Marsh 91 to Tiverton and Samuel Hunt 92 to Dartmouth. 93 Their regular appoint- ments were made in the court session of the following summer when their salaries were voted with the under- standing that the sums were to be added to the province rates of the towns. 94 The opposition raised by Dartmouth and Tiverton upon their discovery of what had occurred was one of the first and most important steps taken by the New England Quakers in their struggle against the Massa- chusetts ecclesiastical laws. In spite of petitions from a Dartmouth town meeting 95 and the Dartmouth Monthly Meeting of the Friends 96 the matter was pushed forward by the authorities. Within a short time both towns were in arrears of taxes and their assessors in gaol at Bristol. 97 Succeeding events in both Dartmouth and Tiverton show how the General Court was forced to compromise ii spite of her legislation of 1706. Samuel Hunt whom the court had sent to Dartmouth proved to be a man of unusual breadth in his relation to the town. He refused to have 90 Potter, First Cong. Soc. of New Bedford, App. A, 100; Mass. Ar- chives, XI, 23o-23i,contains the original papers. 91 Mass Archives, XI, 320. * 2 Old Dartmouth Hist. Soc. Colls., No. 3, p. 9. 93 Potter, First Cong. Soc. of New Bedford, 17, note. Bristol sessions, tho now relieved of responsibility, continued to interest itself in the delinquent towns. It was Tiverton which reminded the court "that the Case Reffering to a mister was laid before the great and generall Court and therefore thought it hard measure to be presented & sent for from Court to Court." The general sessions saw the justice of this plea and decided that the "prsons & Case by dismist till the mind of the sd great and generall Assembly be ffurther known." The same was decided in the case ef Dartmouth. Bristol Sessions, II, 128. *Mass. Prov. Laws, IX, 9, ch. 8; II, 269; IX, 17, ch. 36. 95 Potter, First Cong Soc. of New Bedford, App. A, 104. ^Dartmouth Mo. M., 43. "Mass. Prov. Laws, IX, 47, ch. 124; Dartmouth Mo. M., 46-48. 531] THE SYSTEM IN PRACTICE 77 the laws enforced on Dartmouth for his advantage, main- taining constantly that he was a missionary and as such should be regularly paid by the province. 98 For this reason the difficulties so serious in 1708 subsided in subsequent years. The General Court complied with his request and, beginning with a grant of fifteen pounds to finish the meeting house in Dartmouth, 09 voted him various payments of fifteen or twenty pounds between 1709 and 1716. 100 A large grant of one hundred pounds made in 1722 upon a petition from the orthodox inhabitants for an annual salary for Hunt, and added by the General Court to the province rate of the town upset this arrangement and became the occasion of a long and obstinate battle. The chief difference between these events in Dartmouth and the corresponding occurrences in Tiverton was that the General Court, in spite of repeated efforts, was never able to keep a Congregational minister long in the latter town. In 1710 twenty-one pounds were voted from the province treasury for the brief services of two men whom the General Court had sent to Tiverton, 101 but upon an appeal from the orthodox inhabitants for a further appointment, 102 the assembly merely ordered the ministers of the neighboring towns to preach at Tiverton during the summer at twenty shillings a Sunday, paid from the public treas- ury. 103 When in October the order was repeated, an earnest expostulation came from Samuel Danforth, min- ister at Taunton, who foresaw the difficulties of travel- ing to Tiverton in the winter and urged the appoint- ment of a resident minister on the ground that a 98 Potter, First Cong. Soc. of New Bedford, 20, 25, App. A, no; Mass. Prov. Laws, IX, 42, ch. 112. "Mass. Archives, XI, 293. 100 Mass. Prov. Laws, IX, 109, ch. 162; 114, ch. 175; 224, ch. 153; 434, eh. 123; 492, ch. 95; X, 177, ch. 56; II, 269; Potter, First Cong. Soc. of New Bedford, App. A, 106-107. 101 Mass. Archives, XI, 320; Mass. Prov. Laws, IX, ch. 168. 2 Mass. Archives, XI, 293. 103 Afaw. Prov. Laws, IX, 70, ch. 42; II, 269. 78 CHURCH AND STATE IN MASSACHUSETTS [532 meeting house was already partly built. 104 Thereupon a man was secured at twenty shillings a week, 105 but his congregation was meager and his stay brief. 106 In 1712 the General Court ordered twenty-five pounds for the min- istry at Tiverton or "in proportion for such part of the year as they are supplied with a learned, orthodox Minis- ter," 107 but the inducement accomplished little. The fol- lowing years saw only fruitless attempts by the general sessions and the assembly to carry out the law, for cajolery, threats and further ecclesiastical legislation proved of no avail. 108 While it was as early as 1717 that the General Court voted seventy pounds from the public treasury for the support of a minister 109 whom the general sessions had recently voted to secure, 110 it was not until 1722 that this sum was actually added, as in the case of Dartmouth, to the town's country rate. The resistance made by the Qua- kers in behalf of the assessors of the two towns, imprisoned for failure to assess these sums, won an Order in Council on their behalf and was the indirect cause of the first local exemption legislation. 194 Mass. Archives, XI, 304. Danforth made another plea for Tiver- ton in the memorial presented by the ministers of Bristol county to the general assembly in 1711. Mass. Archives, XI, 385. *Mass. Prov. Laws, IX, 131, ch. 42; 166, ch. 141. 10 "Perry, Ch. Docs., Mass., 95. 107 AfC. O. 5, 864. Lond. M. for Sufferings, XVII, 257. **Lond. Yr. M., Ill, 125. 555] THE QUAKERS AND THEIR ALLIES 101 Sir Henry Ashurst 53 in his defense of Connecticut and for seeking advice from William Penn. They supplied specific instances of persecution when called upon and finally, when the Order in Council had been secured, filed it with the other papers. 54 A second attempt was made by the English Quakers to gain the support of the Nonconformists in 1705, after the receipt of the Order in Council. A committee of Quakers then visited the Independents with the invitation to join them in sending to New England the appeal that the "Tol- leration act may by yt Governmt be there admitted by consent in its full force." As neither body took the steps for which the Quakers were hoping, 55 the Meeting for Sufferings independently sent off a copy of the Order in Council to the governor of Connecticut with an earnest recommendation for the future. 56 In this question Dudley became involved through the accusation by Sir Henry Ashurst that it was he who had unearthed this bit of old legislation and published it in Boston in order to stir up in England further hostility to the government of Connecticut. 57 While this w T as not a fact, the charge was a clever one, as it took account of Dudley's appreciation of the importance of the Quakers and of the evidence he was already giving of a desire to conciliate them. Watching from Boston their activities in England he saw that in their first appeals they were asso- ciating Massachusetts with Connecticut in treatment of 53 In Book of Cases, II, 144-154, appear the following papers: Memorial of Sir Henry Ashurst to the Board of Trade, Answer to Ashurst by the Quakers, Ashurst's second petition, Answer by the Quakers, Instances of prosecution under Connecticut law, Letter from the Quakers to the governor of Connecticut. 6 *Lond. M. -for Sufferings, XVII, 108, 112, 156 . . . 212, 226, 234, 241, 274, 276, 291, 299, 303, 309. **Ibid., XVII, 316-317, 320; XVIII, 26. 56 John Field and Joseph Wyeth to the Governor of Connecticut, Book of Cases, II, 152-154. The act had been repealed by Connecticut before this letter arrived. Lond. M. for Sufferings, XVIII, 178. "Dudley to the Board of Trade, 2 Oct., 1706, C. O. 5, 912, 274-276; Trumbull, Hist, of Conn., I, 420. 102 CHURCH AND STATE IN MASSACHUSETTS [556 dissenting sects. He accordingly wrote (1 Jan., 1703/04) to William Crouch, one of the London Quakers, to explain the situation, saying "there are no Laws in ... [Massa- chusetts] yt Affect any perswasion of the Reformed Ke- ligion and . . . their Laws wch were formerly made agst friends are abolished." 58 William Crouch, tho convinced of Dudley's friend- ship, had gained, in the course of his investigations at the Plantation Office, information of the letter which Dudley had written to the Board of Trade, September 17, 1702, berating severely the Quaker government of Rhode Is- land. 59 As a result of this discovery his answer to Dudley's letter contained a rebuke. 60 Meanwhile the letter written to New England by the Congregational ministers of London, carrying with it a copy of the London Quakers' letter to them, had reached Increase Mather. Not long afterwards (29 October, 1705) there appeared in the Boston News Letter, under the editorship of John Campbell, certain insinuations against the London Quakers based upon their letter to the Congre- gational ministers. The chief point here made was that the London Quakers in this letter had misrepresented the Massachusetts government, accusing it of great unfriendli- ness to the Quaker element and in this including Dudley. To the London Friends this was a direct challenge from Dudley as the paper bore the usual heading, "printed by authority." John Field and Joseph Wyeth, who acted as a committee in this affair, 61 visited the Lords of Trade and secured their promise that a letter would be written to clear the London Friends of any suspicion of opposing Dudley's government. A letter written soon after by the Lond. M. for Sufferings, XVII, 268. B9 Ca/. of St. Papers, Col. Series, Am. and the W. I., 1702, 966. Book of Cases, II, 154-157. At the same time the London Meeting for Sufferings agreed to send to the Rhode Island Meeting the com- plaints which Dudley had made in his letter to the Board of Trade in order that the Rhode Island Quakers might prepare to defend themselves if occasion arose. Land. M. for Sufferings, XVII, 276, 282. "Land. M. for Sufferings, XVIII, 11. 557] THE QUAKERS AND THEIR ALLIES 103 Board of Trade to the governor of Massachusetts con- tained this statement: And whereas several of the Quakers here have complained to Us of a paper said to be printed at Boston by Authority, Entituled, The Boston News Letter, Dated the 2Qth of October last, containing reflections upon their proceedings here in England : We think it fit to give you this notice that none of that perswasion have made any Application to this Board in reference to New England otherwise than against the forementioned Law Entituled Hereticks and that the Spreading of false News cannot but tend to the Creating of heats & Animosities amongst her Majesty's subjects. 62 So it was that Dudley received within a few months of each other two letters which called upon him to state his position in relation to Quakerism. To each he returned a reply. To Wm. Crouch in answer to his dated the 3d 6m 1705. Boston ye 15th of Apr ill 1706. Sr This is the first oppertunity Since I had your kind letter and it is to thank you for your respect therein and so freely to accept your Chiding if I have deserved it, it is certain there is no Law of these Prov- inces in force agst any of your perswasion nor pretence thereto but they are as Easie in all points as any others to attend their own Method of Worship and I believe none of them will complain that I have not always Treated them with freedom and respect as well as Justice, but in the matter of Road Island of wch you write it is not a Business of Religion but of a Civil Nature referring to the Jurisdiction of the Admiralty Court in which I did nothing but wt I was Expressly Commanded by her Majesty and their Refusal was agst the Law as is given for the Opinion of her Maties Councill in the Law to wch they and I ought to submitt, however that matter is now over and need never be Remembred or Repeated, I heartily Wish you well and shall be glad of a letter now and then from you and pray you will give my service to Mr. Pen when you may see him. I am Sr. your very humble servt J. Dudley: 83 To the Board of Trade on October 2, 1706 he wrote : I am very sorry that the News Paper should give your Lordships the least disturbance referring to the Quakers here is no Law in being that reflects upon them or is grievous, saving the Military Laws, which demand Fynes for want of Service, which was made before I came hither, but has been used as moderately as I can bring to pass, There are none of that perswasion here, but will give Testimony if need were of my friendship 82 Board of Trade to Dudley, 4 Feb., 1705/06, C. O. 5, 9^2, 119-120. **Book of Cases, II, 167-168; Land. M. for Sufferings, XVIII, 139. 104 CHURCH AND STATE IX MASSACHUSETTS [558 and kind reception of them at all times, 64 and in this Matter I have reprimanded the writer, and required him to tell his News without any reflection for the future, which I am sure he will obey, and of this the Quakers here are knowing and well satisfyed. 85 This somewhat intricate episode is of importance in the light which it throws on numerous civil and ecclesi- astical questions. Dudley appears as the exponent of British imperialism, ready to carry out the wishes of the authority which he represented, with the underlying policy of placating rather than disturbing various religious inter- ests. The London Quakers give marked evidence of their constant support of the smaller groups in Congregational New England and of their ability to enlist the government in their behalf; the Congregational and Presbyterian min- isters of London in their few utterances show how little sympathy and understanding remained between them and the established dissent of New England; they show like- wise the weakness of their organization which was often met when an attempt was made to bring them to share all together in a common cause. 66 * 4 There are several proofs of the truth of this statement. In 1703 a petition from Sandwich Quakers reached Dudley, and he seems to have taken some interest, perhaps attempting to find out the number of the sect in the province. Sandwich Mo. M., 51 ; N. E. Hist, and Gen. Reg., II, 149. 5 C. O., 5, 912, 274-276. In addition to making this statement to the Board of Trade Dudley, in his interview with Campbell, so frightened him that the latter sent in all haste to the Board of Trade a letter of apology. C. O. 5, 864. "Cotton Mather's utter disgust with the interference of the English nonconformists finds vent in his diary on September n, 1706. "More- over, the wicked Quakers having made their Addresses and Complaints and Clamours, at home in England against the Countrey, whereof an Account was address'd unto us, by the Independent Ministers in London; as if we had persecuting Lawes among us : I thought this a good Oppor- tunity, not only to vindicate my injured Countrey, but also to discover more and more of the wicked Spirit of Quakerism, and to demonstrate, that their Light within is a dark, feeble, sinful Creature, and that to sett it up for Christ and God, which is done in Quakerism, is a very horrible Idolatry. I composed a Treatise on this Occasion; and sent it over unto the Ministers in London; under the Title: NEW AND REMARK- ABLE DISCOVERIES OF THE SPIRIT OF QUAKERISM." 7 Mass. Hist. Colls., VII, 571. 559] THE QUAKERS AND THEIR ALLIES 105 During the progress of these events the Quakers of Massachusetts had not been idle. Tho interested primarily in the Massachusetts legislation, 67 the Friends of Lynn threw themselves heartily into resistance to the Connecticut heretic law, and the New England meetings together sent twenty-four pounds to aid in securing its disallowance. 68 In 1706 the London Meeting for Sufferings was beginning to take up with the Board of Trade the further disabilities of the New England Quakers in both Connecticut and Massachusetts but was for a time delayed by the Connecti- cut agent. 69 At this moment events occurred in Massa- chusetts which roused all the little meetings and carried the center of the struggle back to the New England shore. The immediate cause of the rising of the little meet- ings of Massachusetts was the law of November 14, 1706. The weekly meeting which especially stirred itself was that of Little Compton whose relations with the Bristol Court of General Sessions were somewhat strained. This meet- ing, with an appeal to the Governor in mind, on December 3, 1706, applied to the Rhode Island Monthly Meeting of which it was a member; but the latter suggested that it would be better to delay matters until "sufferings were better put in order," and a concerted action possible. 70 Representatives from Rhode Island Monthly now car- ried the idea to the Rhode Island Quarterly Meeting and there urged that all Friends be instructed to collect their sufferings "Especially wt is taken for ye Priest." Rhode Island Quarterly Meeting approved, and Richard Bordon was chosen to Send to ye other monthly or Quarterly meeting in Newengland to doe ye Like ; & So to bring in order Sd Sufferings to Rhoad Island yearly meeting 7 Lond. M. for Sufferings, XVII, 257, 309, 321. 68 This money was collected from Rhode Island, Salem, Lynn, Sand- wich, Dartmouth, Scituate, and Boston. Epistles Rec'd, II, 27-30, Epistle from Lynn Mo. M., 12 Jan., 1707/08; Land. M. for Sufferings, XIX, 65-66; Dartmouth Mo. M., 27; Salem Mo. M., 25; R. I. Mo. M., I, 199, 200, 203; N. E. Yr. M., 35-36. Lond. M. for Sufferings, XVIII, 179, 184, 230, 245. R. I. Mo. M., I, 82, 184. 106 CHURCH AND STATE IN MASSACHUSETTS [560 yt friends may fairly Apeal to ye Masetusus Governer & So for England if Acation be for Releaf. 71 Salein Quarterly Meeting was the next to consider the situation. On April 7, 1707, it was ordered that some of its principal members send to England the law "lately mad for ye maintananc of there Priests" and all others of like nature, and appointed Samuel Collins and Walter New- bury, two of its prominent members, to "acquaint ye Gov- ernar of ye Sd Laws and there intentions before they send it for England." 72 This committee, obedient to instructions, took up the task immediately, but the occurrence of the Yearly Meeting two months later made it possible for them, by carrying the matter to Rhode Island, to broaden their appeal, so as to involve a large part of the Quakers in Massachusetts, tho Richard Borden's independent work in the limits of the Rhode Island Quarterly Meeting was not included. The Yearly Meeting ordered the gathering of "an account of friends Sufferings ffor not paying the priest Ever since Governor Dudley hath Beene present governor for Reliefe and that to Bee done by the ffrst 2d daye of the next month and send in the Same to Walter Newberry, in order ffor him & Saml Collins to Laye before ye Governor ffor Releiefe." 73 The work of Newbury and Collins when finally com- pleted comprised a petition and a paper entitled: "A True Accompt of the sufferings of the People Called Quakers. In divers parts of this her Majtys Colony of New England, for consienciously refusing to pay towards the Maintenance of their Priests." 74 It included the various recorded instances of distraint and imprisonment for priest's rates belonging chiefly to the towns of the Salem Quarterly Meeting, Lynn, Salisbury, Haverhill, Amesbury and Kittery with a few entries for Falmouth and Mendon of the Sandwich Quarterly. The sufferings of the Lynn "/?. /. Quart. M., 47. ^Salem Quart. M., I, 5. 73 tf. E. Yr. M., 36. 74 Mass. Archives, XI, 237. 561] THE QUAKERS AND THEIR ALLIES 107 Quakers in 1705 and 1706 were estimated at seventy-one pounds six shillings and five pence. The accompanying petition reminded the governor and council of their power to block this oppressive legislation and warned them that, unless something were done at Boston for the relief of Quakers, application would surely be made to England. 75 While Dudley had no grudge against the Quakers, the Council was not very friendly. The cause had not yet become a vital issue. A delay was voted and objections raised. No promises were made. 76 Immediately after this, difficulties in Bristol County became so acute that the Salem committee became unim- portant and interest settled on the Rhode Island Quarterly Meeting for which Richard Borden was at work. The exe- cution of the law of 1706 did, as we have seen, particularly affect the Quakers in the towns of Dartmouth and Tiver- ton ; but it was not until September, 1708, that their affairs were taken up systematically by the society. At that time, in the Dartmouth Monthly Meeting, the "business con- cerning the Rate which is required of this town by the Gen- eral Court or Assembly at Boston, part of which rate is supposed to be for the maintenance of a hireling priest," was referred to the Quarterly Meeting at Rhode Island and John Tucker, the leading Quaker of Dartmouth, was sent to Boston with a petition from the Dartmouth Friends to be laid before the governor. 77 In the following meeting Tucker reported that he had been at Boston but had not been able to get a satisfactory answer. 78 In the meantime the Rhode Island Monthly Meeting had begun consideration of the similar situation at Tiver- ton, that town lying within its boundaries. The law of 1706 was denounced and a committee appointed to inform the governor in writing of the "detriment to Friends" caused by the law. It was to request relief and, should its "This petition appears in full in Mass. Archives, XI, 235. Epistles Reed, II, 27-30, Epistle from Lynn Mo. M., 1707/08 ; Land. M. for Sufferings, XIX, 66. ''"'Dartmouth Mo. M., 43. 45. 108 CHURCH AND STATE IN MASSACHUSETTS [562 petition be disregarded, threaten an address to the Queen. 79 At the following meeting Richard Borden reported that he and Joseph Wanton, another prominent Tiverton Quaker, had delivered the paper as ordered and had received from Dudley a verbal answer to the effect that they should have a hearing before the General Court. In this message there was nothing sufficiently encouraging to deter the meeting from ordering more lines, this time to be presented to the Rhode Island Quarterly Meeting, that with its sanction they might be sent to the governor as a second appeal. 80 The two monthly meetings of Dartmouth and Rhode Island had made their independent appeals to Governor Dudley. Both had likewise referred the matter to the Rhode Island Quarterly in which they were represented. This meeting accepted its task and went promptly to work appointing Ebenezer Slocum for to Speake with ye Govener of ye masathuset Bay, in behalf of ffrinds Concerning the Great oppresion ytt Is Likely to fall upon ffrinds In ytt Colloney by ye Priests Raits being Joyned In with ye gineral Publick Tax. 81 This petition did little more than repeat what the Rhode Island Monthly Meeting had already written. 82 Ebenezer Slocum found Dudley willing to give him a personal interview and distinctly friendly, as he had proved in his conversation with Borden and Wanton. While the governor was not able to effect any improve- ment in the situation, the lower house standing firm to the law of 1706, he took matters into his own hands to the extent of including in a letter to the Board of Trade a review of events in Dartmouth and Tiverton with an ex- pression of personal opinion. I thought it my Duty to Acquaint Your Lordships herewith, Expecting a Complaint thereupon, I am sorry for their Suffering though it be not upon the head of Religion, and am also sorry that they would be Assessors of the Tax to bring themselves into trouble, they think it hard to be Taxed "/?. /. Mo. M., II, 15. M Ibid., II, 16. S1 R. I. Quart. M., 53. 82 This petition appears in full in R. I. Quart. M., 54. 563] THE QUAKERS AND THEIR ALLIES 109 to the Maintenance of the Ministry, and if those yt are Strictly of their profession were quitted it would be no great loss but it is Expected that if such an Indulgence be given, a great many will profess themselves Quakers, to quit themselves of this charge, as they have done from bearing Arms, and Many Villages in the Country would be left without any Publick Worship on the Lords Day. I humbly offer it to Your Lordships Consideration having no Interest in the Matter, but that Religion may be Maintained. 83 The petition of 1708, tho failing to secure any relief to the Quakers, had gained something in this letter of Dudley's. Two other results accompanied it. The Quakers, convinced that nothing could be done through the local government, decided to carry out their alternative and make a vigorous application home to England to prevent the allowance of the law of 1706, 84 while the General Court, foreseeing this action, proceeded to draw up a memorial to be laid before the Queen justifying this legislation. 85 This lengthy document, which is a handbook of Massachu- setts ecclesiastical orthodoxy, had practically no effect. 86 The petition from the Quakers to the Queen, which was the third result of their solicitations at Boston in 1708, was temporarily delayed. The petition to the gov- ernor from the Ehode Island Quarterly Meeting had failed, and the following month saw the seizure by the sheriff of Bristol County and imprisonment at Bristol gaol of the neglectful assessors, Eichard Borden of Tiverton and 83 Dudley to the Board of Trade, i Mar., 1708/09, C. O. 5, 913, 113-114. **R. I. Quart. M., 55. ss Mass. Archives, XI, 279-280. The paper is entitled "A Memorial of the Governour Council & Assembly of Her Majties Province of the Massachusetts Bay in New England for their Vindication against the Suggestions and Insinuations of any who may accuse them of harshness and Severitys towards such as are of different perswasions from them in matters of Religion." An undated copy of this document is filed among the Board of Trade Papers for the years 1718-1720. C. O. 5, 869, No. 9. 88 From a letter written by Dummer to Sewall (7 Dec., 1709) it would appear that it did little more than intensify the irritation which the Board of Trade felt toward Massachusetts. Lond. M. for Sufferings, XX, n. The answer written by the Board of Trade to Dudley's letter of March I, 1708/09, and sent to him Jan. 16, 1709/10, ignores the whole discussion. 110 CHURCH AND STATE IN MASSACHUSETTS [564 Thomas Taber and Deliverance Smith of Dartmouth. 87 At this the Rhode Island Monthly Meeting of November 30, 1708, decided to give the governor one more chance ; but in case he failed to answer their requests, the Quakers de- clared, "then this meeting Doth Continue ... to write to the Queen." 88 At the following meeting the petition to the Queen was read, and ordered sent to England. 89 This petition, which reached London in the spring of the following year, was given careful consideration by the Meeting for Sufferings. It was agreed, however, that in- stead of addressing the Queen it would be well to write once more to the Presbyterian and Congregational minis- ters of London. 90 A meeting between the delegation from the London Meeting for Sufferings, headed by John Field, and the Congregational ministers occurred in the latter part of November, 1709, and gave the Quakers good cause for encouragement. From the discussion which took place they were once more convinced that the English noncon- formists had very little feeling of sympathy for their brethren in New England and "seemed Inclined to be Assisting to friends in Endeavouring to get yt Law Ke- pealed wch friends complain of." 91 At a meeting in the following month the Quakers received the offer from the Congregationalists to write once more to New England urging that the annoyances of which the Quakers com- plained, might cease. 92 "During the whole time of imprisonment of these men the Monthly Meetings of Rhode Island regularly arranged for the support of their families. Thomas Taber was a Baptist rather than a Quaker but was included in this benevolence. R. I. Mo. M., II, 21 ; Dartmouth Mo. M., 46-47, 49- 88 #. I. Mo. M., II, 19. *Ibid., 20. Lond. Yr. M., IV, 58; Lond. M. for Sufferings, XIX, 296, 301, 307, 310. 91 Lond. M. for Sufferings, XIX, 324. * 2 "Joseph Grove Reports his and some other friends being with the Independt Preachers according to appointment and were Civilly Treated by them and they seem to shew their great dislike to their Brethren in New Englands proceedings agst our friends there and offered their 565] THE QUAKERS AND THEIR ALLIES 111 Whether or not the dissenting ministers carried out their promise as they had on a previous occasion, an even more effective measure was taken by Jeremiah Dummer, at this time agent for Massachusetts. In consequence of the lengthy memorial from the General Court to the Board of Trade and the action in the London Quaker meetings which might end in a petition to the Queen, he wrote to Samuel Sewall, at this time a member of the governor's council in Massachusetts and Judge of the Superior Court at Boston. In this letter he reminded Sewall of the ill name which Massachusetts magistrates had with the gov- ernment for their many independent actions, and suggested that the Queen would have little sympathy with dissenters for giving severe treatment to Quakers and Baptists who were looked upon in England as equal with the Presbyte- rians and Independents under the Toleration Act. 93 The chief reason why the Quakers did not apply to the Privy Council in 1709 was that the very meeting which received the Rhode Island Monthly Meeting's petition learned also of the liberation of the imprisoned assessors. After dispatching to London their petition to the Queen, the monthly meetings of New England proceeded to take what measures they could for the immediate relief of the imprisoned assessors. The Dartmouth Monthly Meeting of January 17, 1708/09, sent John Tucker to Boston to ask for the release of the prisoners 94 and the results of his efforts were most satisfactory. Between the years 1706 and 1714 Tiverton was regularly, with the exception of the present year, assessed the sum of one hundred seventy pounds while Dartmouth was rated for an amount varying be- tween three hundred forty-five pounds and three hundred seventy. The charges for 1708-1709 of two hundred pounds and four hundred thirty-seven pounds and eleven shillings Assistance in writing over to them, to stop the prosecution agst our friends and one of their ministers that intends sudenly to goe over declar'd he would be assisting therein." Land. M. for Sufferings, XIX, 331. 93 Dummer to Sewall, 7 Dec., 1709, Land. M. for Sufferings, XX, u. 9 *Dartmouth Mo. M., 47. 112 CHURCH AND STATE IN MASSACHUSETTS [566 respectively showed therefore a ministerial rate of thirty pounds for Tiverton and about sixty for Dartmouth. The selectmen not only failed to assess the one hundred pounds extra but declined to have anything to do with the whole rate. Their imprisonment was therefore legal even without the ecclesiastical legislation of 1706. Through a compro- mise now effected the assessors of Tiverton agreed to assess the town's regular rates and the additional tax was re- moved "for the present." 95 In the case of Dartmouth the two assessors were unexpectedly discharged. 96 The probable explanation of these events appears in a vote of the New England Yearly Meeting which soon oc- curred. Richard Borden and Thomas Cornell were ap- pointed to write to Governor Dudley "a sallutation of Respects and acknowledgments of his severall ffavors and Kindnesses shewed unto our ffriends." 97 The Governor of Massachusetts had expressed in his attitude toward the Quakers in his province, the general policy of the Board of Trade as well as what was probably his own personal sympathy. It is significant that the next serious troubles between the Massachusetts authorities and the Quakers of Dartmouth and Tiverton did not occur until after the death of Queen Anne and the removal of Dudley. In 1715, the year of Lieutenant-Governor William Tailer's authority, the Quakers became much concerned upon learning that the Massachusetts Church was taking means to secure governmental sanction for holding a synod, as had been done in the early days of the colony. In this attempt the New England Yearly Meeting saw on the part of the ministers a determination to have the Congrega- tional Church receive more legal recognition. To them it seemed that an act of the legislature, giving the right to hold such a synod, upon receiving royal allowance, would 95 Mass. Prov. Laws, IX, 47, ch. 124. ^Dartmouth Mo. M., 47-48, 49; Lond. Yr. M., IV, 58. 97 N. E. Yr. M., 52. Further Quaker approval of Dudley may be found in Epistles Rec'd. II, 29-30, Epistle from the Lynn Mo. M., 1707/08; ibid., II, 63-64, Epistle from the N. E. Yr. M., 1708; Lond. Yr. M., IV, 58. A different view is taken by Palfrey, New England, IV, 449, note. 567] THE QUAKERS AND THEIR ALLIES 113 make the Congregational Church the true established church of Massachusetts, like "Presbitery ... in North Britain," 98 as they argued it had never really been. A memorial from the Congregational ministers was before the upper house on May 31 when it was voted by the coun- cilors "That the Synod and Assembly above-mentioned, is agreeable to them, and the Keverend Ministers, are Desired to take their own time for the said Assembly." On June 1 it was concurred in by the Representatives." The Yearly Meeting which now opened its sessions appointed a com- mittee to watch the progress of the ministers' memorial and if necessary, inform the London correspondents, that they might prevent the allowance of any such law. 100 The London Meeting for Sufferings, upon receiving this infor- mation, was on the alert 101 but action was unnecessary, as Increase Mather opposed the synod in an address to the House of Representatives and it was never authorized. 102 The law of November 14, 1706, was enacted for seven years only. If the English crown had seen fit to order it disallowed when addressed in 1708, or if the Massachusetts General Court had been willing to let it lapse when its time was run out, the stirring events among the Quakers which began once more in 1717 and culminated in an appeal to the Privy Council in 1723 would never have occurred. The legislation of 1706 was practically repeated in 1715, and the law of 1715 was reenacted in 1722. While the legislation *Lond. M. for Sufferings, XXII, 125. "House Journal, 1715, 8. o.V. E. Yr. M., 90; Epistles Rec'd, II, 186, Epistle from N. E. Yr. M.. * 01 Lond. Yr. M., V, 155-156; Land. M. for Sufferings, XXII, 125, 127. "Our friends of New England had but too much Reason for giving us a hint of their design Because ye Ministers and Elders of Boston had con- certed Such a Project among themselves and That Cotton Mather & Ebenezer Pemberton, Two of their Preachers had agreed to undertake the voyage as agents; But when they came afterwards to lay their Intentions before the Assembly, such Reasons were there offered against it, yt it was Quasht, at least for the present." Lond. M. for Sufferings, XXII, 230; Epistles Sent, II, 238; Lond. Yr. M., V, 220. 102 House Journal, 1715, 17, 18. 114 CHURCH AND STATE IN MASSACHUSETTS [568 of 1715 continued the chief provisions of the law of 1706, it was not followed, as in 1708, by a strict application. For this reason it aroused little immediate excitement among the Quakers. The first evidence we have that they had discovered the act of 1715 is in the action of the Dart- mouth Monthly Meeting of May 20, 1717, when a committee was chosen to Draw up some account to Walter Newbury Concerning a Late act for ye maintenance of ministers and Desire him to take ye said act along with him to Old England and deliver it to John Whiting or some other friend yt he shall think suitable. 103 It was at this same time that the affairs of Dartmouth Quakers were again before the General Court. Peleg Slocum and John Tucker owned land on the Elizabeth Islands and were accordingly rated to the minister of Chilmark, in the boundaries of which town it was located, altho both men resided on the mainland and hence far from Martha's Vineyard. Not only did the two men petition the General Court but the Yearly Meeting 104 also addressed a representation to the governor who was now His Excellency Samuel Shute. The Council, perhaps realizing from the affair of 1709 what the course of events might be, voted a hearing for the following session, all prosecution to cease in the meantime. But the House of Representatives, when finally forced to consider the case, proceeded to vote a dismissal of the whole affair. Even when the minister and town of Chilmark went so far as to ask that the estates of Slocum and Tucker might be exempted from paying toward Chil- mark's ecclesiastical charges and the Council was ready to grant this request, the lower house met the situation with a twice repeated "non concurred." 105 The result of the events of 1717 was that the Quakers of New England in the following year once more took up 103 Dartmouth Mo. M., 115. 104 JV. E. Yr. M., 98, 99; Epistles Rec'd, II, 211, Epistle from N. E. Yr. M., 1717. 105 House Journal, 1717, 21, 24, 25, 27. 569] THE QUAKERS AND THEIR ALLIES 115 their problem of relationship to the established system of the province. Their work so far had shown no lack of energy. Beginning with the systematic recording of suf- ferings and an endeavor to discover the constitutional basis of the laws of which they complained they were soon pouring applications for redress before the governor of the province and the London Yearly Meeting. Several formal petitions to the Queen in Council had crossed the water; but the English Quakers for one reason or another had failed to push these, tho always ready to do what they could for the New England meetings. As a matter of fact, whatever the New England Quakers did before 1718, tho sincere and strenuous, was accomplished largely through individuals or the smaller meetings, and lacked system. The work done in and after 1718, altho it was started by the separate appeal to Boston by Slocum and Tucker, was based on a new theory. All efforts were to center in the Yearly Meeting and by it a common treasury for this spe- cial end was organized, to back up a petition to the crown in England. This policy is recorded in the minutes of the New England Meeting. The Consideration of the Contineued Sufferings of ffriends Under the Prisbeterian, or Independiant Priest; haveing taken hold of this meeting; it is agreed that ffriens doe as soone as with Conveniency they Can wright to our ffriends in great Brittain Requesting Their Endevours ffor ouer Relief in that Case and In order to Carey on Said business ; and to Deffray the Charge thearof it is agreed that the Quarterly meeting of Rhoad Island doe Colect the Some of thirtey pounds; & ye Quarterly meeting of Salem the Some of ffifteen pounds & ye Quarterly meeting of Sand- wich & Sittuat the Some of ffifteen pounds ; and when Colected to be ordered into the hands ; of John Wanton & Thomas Richardson ; they to remit Ye Same home in ye best method thay Can and this meeting will Supply with more money ffor that Sarvice if wanted; and Said John Wanton & Thomas Richardson are desired to Take Ye management of that Affair Uder their Ceare 10 Not waiting for this committee to act, the writers of the epistle to London included in their letter a statement of the case and the request that the London Meeting should 10< W. E. Yr. M., 102. 116 CHURCH AND STATE IX MASSACHUSETTS [570 immediately take up the same with the government. 107 The official communication from the New England Yearly Meeting to the London Friends, by the hand of Thomas Richardson, was dispatched two months later. In it special emphasis was laid upon the sixty pounds which the meet- ing was then raising to help defray the expenses of an application to the crown. 108 According to the order of the Yearly Meeting and the promise of Richardson to the London Friends, the three quarterly meetings of New England went systematically to work to raise the sum of sixty pounds agreed upon as a necessary beginning. In its meeting of July 11, 1718, the Rhode Island Quarterly apportioned its thirty pounds among its five monthly meetings, asking Rhode Island to contribute ten pounds, Dartmouth the same, Greenwich three, Providence two and Nantucket five. 109 Dartmouth and Rhode Island, the two meetings which had felt most keenly the weight of the Massachusetts law, each volun- tarily contributed an extra forty shillings. 110 While there was somewhat less enthusiasm outside of the bounds of the Rhode Island Quarterly Meeting, by the beginning of 1719 the sum of sixty pounds two shillings and six pence had been collected and was dispatched by Richardson to England. 111 Tho the English Friends had so far failed to answer the earlier letter dated in August, that Richardson, when he consigned the money in January, 1719, begged for some word, 112 later events proved that the Londoners were not idle. In fact the answer of the London Yearly Meeting was already on its way to Massachusetts. 113 The London Meeting for Sufferings of November 28, 1718, had considered the Yearly Epistle from New Eng- 107 N. E. Yr. M., 101, 103; Epistles Rcc'd, II, 239, Epistle from N. E. Yr. M., 1718; Lond. Yr. M., V, 363. 106 Letter Book of Thomas Richardson, II, 158-159. 109 fl. I. Quart. M., 96. 110 Ibid., 99, 100. "^V. E. Yr. M., 104. 112 Letter Book of Thomas Richardson, II, 181-182. lls Ef>istles Sent, II, 285, Epistle to N. E. Yr. M., 1718. 571] THE QUAKERS AND THEIR ALLIES 117 land with its account of sufferings and promise to send money for an application to the government, and appointed a committee to consider the situation. 114 The report which was brought in one month later so far assured the meeting of the injustice of the Massachusetts law that an immedi- ate agreement was reached to appeal to the government. 115 Through the rest of 1718 and the following year this committee was retained on the New England affair, and by May, 1719, had progressed so far as to have read in the Privy Council a petition which it had drawn. 116 As in the previous petitions to the Governor and Council of Massa- chusetts the Quakers here set forth the great hardships they suffer by not paying the Demands of the Priests there [and humbly prayed] in regard the Charter granted to that Colony by King William, Allows a free Exercise and Liberty of Conscience to all subjects that should settle there (except Papists) That His Majesty will Commisserate their Case, and Direct the Governor of said Province to Relieve Them herein. This petition was referred to the Board of Trade May 26, 1719. 117 At this point it was suddenly dropped as the result of information given the London Friends by one of the Mas- sachusetts agents. From him the English Friends heard that the local government was contemplating some sort of legislation for the relief of Quakers, 118 and decided that before going farther they would investigate this rumor. A letter was written to New England asking that the matter be looked into; and the Rhode Island Quarterly Meeting responded by sending John Wanton and Thomas Richard- son to consult with Thomas Fitch and Jonathan Belcher of the Governor's Council. 119 It was probably at their suggestion that the Rhode Island Quarterly Meeting irnme- "L . P. G. Journal, V, 164, 21 June, 1728. 148 "As to the two acts about the Lords day, and exempting church men &c I think them both very wrong, and wish they were repealed by 635] THE CHURCH OP ENGLAND 181 Since November 14, 1727, the petition which the Ven- erable Society had drawn up in the name of the Massachu- setts clergymen had lodged with the Attorney and Solicitor General, and was neglected for various reasons. The passage of the act of 1727 somewhat altered the situation but a new petition was not immediately framed. Sharpe on May 21, 1729, at last succeeded in securing an order from the Board that Popple should write again to the Attorney and Solicitor General to remind them that no answer had been made to the question submitted November 14, 1727, but nothing came of this. 149 Two years more passed before the English Churchmen were able to secure the attention which they desired. By that time the Massachusetts act of 1727 had arrived offi- cially, as well as the first Quaker and Baptist legislation which made better concessions than the earlier act had given to the Anglicans. 150 Dissatisfaction with the act of 1727 was expressed in a petition drawn up again in the name of Timothy Cutler to the King in Council which on October 28, 1731, was considered and referred to the Lords Committee. 151 On November 1 it was passed on to the Board of Trade 152 who gave it their consideration. This second petition reminded the Board that it had failed to return a report on the earlier memorial but stated that the situa- tion now was somewhat changed by the legislation of 1727. The objections to the recent act were set forth. Finally His Majesty was besought once more to consider the va- rious acts before mentioned as well as the present law, take action upon them and enjoin the governor not to pass any His Majesty I beleive it would have a good effect if they were so, and the objections mentioned by your Lordship against ym seem to be all well founded, and I wish they could be taught to know that the Independents here are no Established church." Burnet to the Bp. of London, 27 Nov., 1728, Fulhatn Mss., Mass. ** 9 Mass. Prov. Laws, II, 482. 150 Cutler to Capt. John Delapp, 13 May, 1731, Perry, Ch. Docs., Mass., 264-266. Acts of the Privy Council, III, 156. 152 Mow. Prov. Laws, II, 482-483; Acts of the Privy Council, III, 156; Foote, Annals of King's Chapel, I, 455. 182 CHURCH AND STATE IN MASSACHUSETTS [636 act for the future "whereby any Tax shall be laid on the Members of one perswasion for the support of the ministers of any other." 153 As in the former case the Board of Trade, receiving the petition on November 30, 1731, read it and referred it (5 January 1731/32) to the Attorney and Solicitor General with a second reminder of the letter of November 14, 1727. 154 In the meantime the arrival of Governor Belcher with his friendly attitude toward the Quakers of Massachusetts Bay had caused among the Anglicans of New England a greater commotion than the feeble Quaker legislation of 1728 and 1729 had produced. While the Quaker bill of 1731 was being drafted by a committee of the lower house, Roger Price, in his new official capacity as commissary for New England, presented a memorial to the Governor, Council, and House of Representatives in behalf of the Churchmen. 155 Belcher in receiving his appointment had been given instructions which contained a new clause bear- ing on ecclesiastical matters. The recent legal recognition of the Bishop of London's jurisdiction in the colonies was now particularly drawn to the various governors' attention with the charge that they give special care to encouraging the bishop's commissaries in their duties. 156 In spite of Belcher's strong anti-Episcopal feeling he was prepared for political reasons to do what was necessary to satisfy Anglican interests in England, and now promised his support. 157 The committee of the General Court in whose hands the affair was placed was not inclined to make immediate 158 This petition is given in full in Mass. Prov. Laws, II, 483, and in Foote, Annals of King's Chapel, I, 454. 1M JlfoM. Prov. Laws, II, 483-484. 155 Perry, Ch. Docs., Mass., 272-273; Foote, Annals of King's Chapel, 455- 156 C. O. 5, 916, 306-307, 20 Mar., 1729/30. 1B7 Belcher's answer to Cutler's address to the Governor, Boston Ga- zette, 10-17 Aug., 1730; Belcher to the Duke of Graf ton, 12 Dec., 1730, Fulham Mss., Mass.; Price to the Bp. of London, Perry, Ch. Docs., Mass., 272; Belcher to the Bp. of London, 4 Dec., 1731, 6 Mass. Hist. Colls., VI, 72-73; Belcher to Richard Partridge, 27 Apr., 1732, ibid., VI, 123. 637] THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND 183 concessions and asked for further proof of disabilities under existing legislation. In spite of immediate action by the joint vestries of King's Chapel and Christ Church, with financial support, nothing came of this petition. Upon receiving news of its failure they proceeded to draw up a further memorial to present to the King in Council, 158 and solicited contributions from the rural churches of New England. 159 On Feb. 7, 1731/32, the new petition was considered by the vestries of the two Boston churches and ordered sent to the Bishop of London; Thomas Sand- ford was chosen as agent to prosecute the petition to the King, and a local committee was appointed to correspond with him and forward money. John Checkley at this time went into the rural towns to get the memorial signed and to obtain further evidence of distraint. 160 This petition had no immediate result as the Bishop of London was still busy with the Massachusetts memorial of 1731 for which the Board of Trade's attention had been recently secured. Certain difficulties which made it im- possible to gain the attention of authority in 1727 had now been overcome and an opinion from the Attorney and Solicitor General was at last secured, August 16, 1732. Taking up the first petition, drawn before the act of 1727 and complaining of Massachusetts ecclesiastical law, the lawyers pointed out that of the acts therein mentioned the first three had been duly confirmed by the crown, and the subsequent ones had become law when not within the allot- ted time disallowed in England. In either case such laws could not be repealed by His Majesty without the concur- rence of the Massachusetts General Court. The lawyers next proceeded to consider whether the acts were repug- nant to the charter and hence void from the beginning. 158 Foote, Annals of King's Chapel, I, 456-457, quoting the Records of Christ Church. 169 Updike, Narragansett Church, II, 504-505, quoting Records of the Narragansett Church. The Narragansett Church pledged 28 pounds 15 shillings. 160 Foote, Annals of King's Chapel, I, 457-459, quoting the Records of King's Chapel and of Christ Church. 184 CHURCH AND STATE IN MASSACHUSETTS [638 They pointed out that, while the charter granted liberty of conscience, it did neither institute nor expressly prohibit a provincial church to be established in the colony. To provide for the celebration of the public worship of God and for the maintenance of ministers did not seem to them inconsistent with liberty of conscience. Even if the acts were illegal no extrajudicial declaration could pronounce them so ; a judicial proceeding on a test case was necessary. The act of 1727, discussed in the second petition, Yorke and Talbot were asked to pass upon in point of law. But, as they said, it was not a legal objection which was entered against it but prudential, the act not going far enough to please the people whom it was framed to pacify. 161 Edmund Gibson, when informing Price of this action by the law officers of the crown, expressed the regret that the Church had not taken steps earlier and before the power w r hich the Massachusetts dissenters exercised had become so well established. 162 It is possible that an appli- cation in Queen Anne's reign might have proved effective, but for political reasons in England rather than because of developments in Massachusetts Bay. The Hanoverian succession w r ith its substantial Whig support had altered conditions among English Churchmen, and these condi- tions were reflected in America. There was little chance of obtaining from law officers of the crown any legal opin- ion at the expense of dissenters during the Walpole regime. Other decisions resembled this one. Gibson was forced to confess that his influence at court was too weak to oppose the party strength of the dissenting interests. 163 In spite of this condition and the unwillingness of the Honorable Society to push matters under such circum- stances, the united vestries of King's Chapel and Christ Church were determined to go farther. Meeting June 26 mPerry, ch. Docs., Mass., 274-288. 182 Bp. of London to Price, 6 Feb., 1/32/33, Foote, Annals of King's Chapel, I, 461. 163 Petition of the Massachusetts Churchmen to the Archbp. of Can- terbury, Foote, Annals of King's Chapel, I, 464. 639] THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND 185 and October 19, 1733, they voted to try the one remaining mode of procedure, a test case. A committee was accord- ingly appointed to seek the prosecution of such officers as distrained or imprisoned members of the Church of Eng- land in the province, to defend Churchmen in traveling to church on Sunday, and Church of England ministers for marrying in the manner of the Church. 164 This measure was followed by a vigorous prosecution of the case of Matthew Ellis of Medford who, upon imprisonment for failure to pay a ministerial tax, sued Richard Sprague the constable. The case went through the Inferior Court of Common Pleas, the Superior Court and the Court of Re- view. An appeal was denied by the judges of the Superior Court, but was granted by the King in Council, and Sprague w r as summoned to appear before a committee of the Privy Council to answer for the imprisonment of Ellis. 165 Meanwhile the Bishop of London, who had met best success when dealing with the Massachusetts governor, ap- plied once more to the same authority; and Belcher now, as Dummer formerly, assumed certain responsibility. The General Court w r as once more led to consider the disabili- ties of Churchmen and, probably influenced by the recent action of the Boston Episcopal churches, took up the ques- tion of exemption. On July 4, 1734, the Baptists were given the same privileges which the Quakers had obtained two years and a half before; and on December 27, 1735, the Anglicans received a similar recognition. The law, tho not proving entirely satisfactory to the Church of England in the province, did away with the two chief objections to the act of 1727. While it provided merely for a return of taxes rather than a clear exemption, as in the case of the Baptists and Quakers, and still in- cluded Churchmen in a possible second assessment, it took a step forward in its abolition of the five mile clause. A a ' 4 Foote, Annals of King's Chapel, I, 464, quoting Records of King's Chapel and of Christ Church. 165 /&tU, 464, 465, 467; Perry, Ch. Docs., Mass., 311-312. 186 CHURCH AND STATE IN MASSACHUSETTS [640 system of identification, similar to the Baptist and Quaker method, was instituted, the minister and church wardens to indicate to the town treasurer who were members of or gave attendance at the Anglican church. The act was in force for five years. 100 The passage of these two acts, the Baptist and the Anglican laws of 1734 and 1735, rendered practically unimportant the action taken by the Board of Trade and the Privy Council at just this time. At the failure of the petitions in the name of Timothy Cutler which had ab- sorbed the attention of the Bishop of London and the S. P. G. a failure caused by the unsympathetic decision of Yorke and Talbot, there still lay before the bishop the Quaker legislation which King's Chapel and Christ Church were denouncing. At the beginning of the year 1736 Gib- son and William Sharpe were on the alert regarding it, 167 as a decision was imminent ; but the result was not all that might have been desired. The real problem was avoided. In accordance with a report submitted by the Board of Trade the Lords Committee (2 Feb., 1735/36) stated that as the charter granted liberty of conscience to all Chris- tians except Roman Catholics, such exemption ought not to be limited to any one sect of Protestants but extended to all. The act was therefore considered not proper for His Majesty's approbation and was only saved from an un- favorable recommendation by its temporary character, as it was about to expire. The Board of Trade was ordered to draft an additional instruction to Belcher to restrain him from giving his assent in the future to any law of this kind unless the exemption be made general. The order was read at the Board on March 18, 1736. 168 Belcher was not given an opportunity to show his recognition of this order as there was no attempt to pass further exemption laws during his term of office. Each of the three important dissenting sects had secured a tolerable 9 Mass. Prov. Laws, II, 782, ch. 15, 27 Dec., 1735. 18T Sharpe to the Bp. of London, 10 Jan., 1735/36, Fulham Mss., Mass. 188 Acts of the Privy Council, III, 491-492; Mass. Prov. Laws, II, 635. 641] THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND 187 arrangement which tho irritating was not impracticable. The Anglican law of 1735 was made perpetual in 1742. 169 The Anglicans of Massachusetts were behind the Quakers in beginning their struggle to resist maintaining the state church, as there were very few of them in the country towns of the province until after the founding of the S. P. G. When once started the struggle resembled the Quaker conflict in the support which it received from the parent body at home, when it met failure in Boston, as well as in its dependence for success upon political conditions in England. The Massachusetts provincial governors un- derstood that their function in ecclesiastical matters was to use their influence in suppressing warring religious fac- tions and in maintaining "liberty of conscience," as their instructions commanded, in accordance with the wording of the province charter. In the instructions of the early provincial governors of Massachusetts there were no spe- cial charges in regard to support of the Church of Eng- land, but the natural sympathy of men who were stanch Anglicans or who supported the state church of England for political reasons offset this omission, and the governors were generally looked upon as the protectors of Anglican interests. Dudley, who had the clearest vision of his mis- sion as the exponent of British colonial policy, was espe- cially anxious to curb warring ecclesiastical interests and showed a friendly consideration for Quaker as well as Anglican when they came armed with petitions to gov- ernor and council, while he readily discharged ecclesiastical prisoners of either body. In spite of his adopted Anglican sympathies he recognized his limitations when faced by any Massachusetts law which had been allowed in England ; and in spite of repeated proddings by the Churchmen, he went only so far as to make urgent recommendations to stubborn towns where the Anglicans were in an uncom- fortable position. Shute, less well versed in the rights of the Massachusetts legislature, carried the policy of pro- tecting the Church to the point of overstepping his pre- *Mass. Prov. Laws, III, 25, ch. 8, I July, 1742. 188 CHURCH AND STATE IN MASSACHUSETTS [642 rogative when he made definite orders in regard to the treatment of Anglicans. Dummer, who like Dudley recog- nized that relief for "dissenting sects" must come from action by the General Court, nevertheless supported the cause of the Church when he used his influence to secure a law in favor of Anglican interests. His work was so effectual that the Massachusetts act of 1727, relating to the maintenance of the ministry, contained a clause for the partial exemption of Anglicans. Back of the royal governors during this whole period the English Church was itself working busily, through the S. P. G. and the Bishop of London. The scattered Church- men of Massachusetts very early began to make application to the Society and to the Bishop, seeking relief from ecclesiastical charges, and some earnest recommendations came to Dudley, Tailer, and Shute from across the water. If the number of Churchmen in the country towns of Massachusetts had been larger, their appeals might have had more effect, but they were not pushed consistently, and the opportunity to accomplish something before the death of Queen Anne was lost. A little later the belief that Shute had authority and was exercising it for the benefit of the local Churchmen relieved the Society of responsibility. A changed conception of the power of the governor and a better appreciation of the legal status of Episcopacy in Massachusetts came to the Society at about the time that Gibson succeeded Robinson in the see of London ; and under his influence the organization took up seriously the problem of gaining exemption for New England Churchmen. After a study of the Massachusetts ecclesiastical law and an ap- peal to Dummer to use what influence he could, the Society agreed to carry the affair before His Majesty and address the King in Council. Politics delayed immediate action but the agitation was not without its effect on the Massa- chusetts General Court. This body was conscious of its unpopularity with the Board of Trade; it feared an un- friendly decision and anticipated it by following Dummer's suggestions and passing the law of 1727. The activity of 643] THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND 189 the Church party was therefore reflected in Massachusetts legislation but not so far as to satisfy the Anglicans. Finding that the law had gained practically nothing for the local Churchmen, the Society agreed to revive its previous attempt with the crown, a decision soon strengthened by the passage of the Massachusetts Quaker laws of 1728, 1729 and 1731. The influence of the Bishop of London was not sufficient to gain results satisfactory to ecclesiastical interests, but again the General Court was guided by fear of the possible course which events in England might fol- low. Governor Belcher's recommendation in favor of a satisfactory law was accepted ; the act of 1735 was passed and in 1742 it became perpetual. CONCLUSION. This study of church and state in Massachusetts of the early eighteenth century may properly be closed with a summary of the main conclusions which have been reached. While some of these are of local interest merely, others have a much broader significance. The object of the study has been to reconstruct the ecclesiastical system of provincial Massachusetts and to show the steps by which it was broken down through the efforts of hostile forces. In the year 1691 Massachusetts faced the problem of an ecclesiastical adjustment when she found herself re- constituted as a royal province with an enlarged boundary and a broadened franchise. Her first step was to pass a series of legislative acts and resolves which renewed as far as possible the ecclesiastical law of the seventeenth century, while technically granting liberty of conscience, as decreed by the province charter. When these laws failed to be effective by reason of the pressure of elements opposed to their execution, subsequent laws made an at- tempt to carry through by pressure what the earlier legis- lation had been unable to accomplish. Fines, distraint, and imprisonment became more and more common as the laws hardened in a firm endeavor on the part of the law makers to maintain the old standards in the face of changed conditions. The opposing forces which gave the leaders most un- easiness were two, the Episcopal element which appeared in the country towns of the province soon after the organi- zation of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, and the growing communities of Baptists, Quakers, and "other irreligious persons" who were to be found mainly in the region which had formerly belonged to Plymouth Colony. This second group was made up chiefly of de- 190 645] CONCLUSION 191 scendants, in the second and third generations, of the Puritan founders of the commonwealth or of Plymouth Colony, who were inclined to carry to its logical conclu- sion the spirit of independent thinking which had been their heritage. Moving on from the older towns where extreme orthodoxy was the order and social prestige de- pended on it, they settled in the newer plantations of the northern and southern counties where their variations made less stir with the government at Boston or Plymouth. In due time many of them accepted Baptist or Quaker doc- trines, either finding the theology of these sects more satisfying than the extreme Calvinism of Massachusetts orthodoxy, or attracted by a freer political doctrine than that on which they had been reared. There were many who still sympathized with much of the old Puritan teach- ing and yet stood for a complete separation of church and state such as Khode Island maintained. Others and these doubtless made up the greater part of the inhabitants of the villages least under the control of the government were frankly uninterested in church platforms and creeds, tho not violently opposed to religious teaching. Among such men the leaders of the hierarchy met little opposition so long as they were willing to finance the churches which they were trying to establish and did not endeavor to en- force the law for the maintenance of the ministry. Such was the condition in Massachusetts in the last decade of the seventeenth century. The old ecclesiastical system was failing to maintain itself in its earlier vigor, and as the laws were made increasingly elaborate, with a view to strengthening the position of the state church, the opposition grew more determined to defy them. The opening of the eighteenth century saw this opposition in two organized camps, that of the Anglican Church, working principally through the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, and that of the Quakers, supported by the Society of Friends in England. In tracing the steps by which these bodies secured the exemption legislation of the eighteenth century, we observe that the Anglicans 192 CHUECH AND STATE IN MASSACHUSETTS [646 were for a long time less successful than the Society of Friends, and that this difference was caused in very great measure by political conditions in England. The Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, begin- ning its work at the opening of the eighteenth century and given an added impulse by the Queen's favor in the years immediately following, failed to realize the opportunity which her support offered, and met reverses after her death. During the early years of the eighteenth century the Society, when receiving appeals from Massachusetts Churchmen, turned to the royal governors with the ex- pectation that they would use their authority to relieve the situation. The governors were distinctly favorable to the Church ; and one at least went so far as to issue orders to town officials in a way that went quite beyond his authority. Most of the governors, however, were conscious of their limitations and recognized that a change, if made, must come from the General Court or through disallow- ance of Massachusetts legislation by the King in Council. When the Venerable Society was at last persuaded of the truth of these statements, it assumed responsibility and carried the matter before the proper body in England. In doing so it met new difficulties, as it was almost impos- sible to obtain favorable decisions or any real support from the government during the Walpole regime, for the nonconformists constituted too strong a wing of the Whig party to be offended. As a Church society the S. P. G. was finding itself less well supported under the House of Hanover than by the high-church sympathies of Queen Anne. Thus, in spite of the support of the royal gover- nors, the Bishop of London and the Venerable Society, the attempts made by the provincial Churchmen upon Massachusetts ecclesiastical law, were for a time side- tracked, and final success was reached only after the other dissenters had gained recognition and exemption. Meanwhile the same conditions of English politics which hindered the Venerable Society distinctly favored the English Quakers when they came to make appeals for 647] CONCLUSION 193 their people in Massachusetts. Between 1700 and 1718 innumerable complaints were sent to the London Yearly Meeting by the Quakers of New England and in the latter year, finding earlier methods unavailing, the English Friends decided to address the government and follow up their plea with vigor. The Board of Trade, which was the principal body handling colonial affairs, was domi- nated by Newcastle during the following critical years of ecclesiastical controversy concerning Massachusetts. The Board was therefore ready to favor Whig interests and was responsible, as we have seen, for a number of decisions in favor of nonconformists as opposed to Churchmen. The situation was altered when the question was one involving Quaker against Puritan for two of the dissenting sects were here opposing each other. The strong organization of the Society of Friends in England, with its wealth and its political influence, worked in favor of the Quakers in the colonies. The Massachusetts Puritans, on the other hand, were not consistently backed by an influential and wealthy body in England and were therefore left almost alone to resist the attacks of the Quakers on their system. They were, moreover, closely associated in the minds of the British government officials with resistance to law; by its ignoring of the Navigation Acts the General Court of Massachusetts had opposed the British commercial sys- tem ; it was likewise playing at this time a very independ- ent role in its treatment of the royal governors. The English government took the part of the Quaker in his opposition to the New England Puritan and in doing so struck a blow at the unpopular assembly of Massachusetts. It was in this way that a small matter of local signifi- cance, the application of seventeenth century ecclesiastical law in provincial Massachusetts, was influenced by Eng- lish party politics and the enforcement of the British colo- nial system. Throughout the eighteenth century the crown failed to maintain a consistent policy of favoring the Eng- lish Church in the colonies. The Churchmen of Massa- chusetts were therefore handicapped in their efforts to 194 CHURCH AND STATE IN MASSACHUSETTS [648 resist the authorities at Boston in spite of the support of the royal governors, the Bishop of London, and the Vener- able Society. The Quakers on the other hand, because of their political influence in England, were better able to make headway against the unpopular General Court of Massachusetts. Altho the exemption legislation gained in this period was not the real religious liberty which was desired, it marked the first retreating step on the part of the aggres- sive state church of Massachusetts. Since a full disestab- lishment was not gained until 1833, laws of this sort marked the legal position of the dissenters for almost a hundred years. In the second half of the eighteenth cen- tury the Baptists were the great opponents of the Congre- gational system, and the Church of England was at work during both Quaker and Baptist periods; but the Society of Friends was the agent most responsible for the success gained over Massachusetts ecclesiasticism in the first half of the eighteenth century. BIBLIOGRAPHY. GUIDES AND BIBLIOGRAPHIES. Allison, William Henry. Inventory of unpublished material for American religious history in Protestant church archives and other repositories. Washington, 1910. Andrews, Charles M. Guide to the materials for American history to 1783, in the Public Record Office of Great Britain. Vol. I. Wash- ington, 1912. Andrews, Charles M., and Davenport, Frances G. Guide to the manu- script materials for the history of the United States to 1783, in the British Museum, in minor London archives, and in the libraries of Oxford and Cambridge. Washington, 1908. Flagg, Charles Allcott. 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Kelsall Diaries. Moses B'rown School, Providence, R. I. Records of the New England Yearly Meeting. Vol. I. 1683-1786. Records of the quarterly and monthly meetings of Massachusetts are preserved in the following places : R. I. Quarterly, vol. I. 1701-1746, with record of sufferings (1688- 1720). Moses Brown School, Providence, R. I. Sandwich Quarterly, vol. I. 1706-1777. Friends' Meeting House, New Bedford, Mass. Salem Quarterly, vol. I. 1706-1712, voL II. 1727-1799. Friends' Meeting House, Lynn, Mass. R. I. Monthly, vol. I. 1676-1708, vol. II. 1708-1739. Newport Historical Society, Newport, R. I. Dartmouth Monthly, 1699-1770, (transcript). Friends' Meeting House, New Bedford, Mass. Sandwich Monthly, 1672-1754, including sufferings in "latter end" of book. Friends' Meeting House, New Bedford, Mass. Pembroke Monthly, 1701-1741. Friends' Meeting House, New Bedford, Mass. Salem Monthly, 1677-1731, including sufferings. Friends' Meet- ing House, Lynn, Mass. Seabrook Monthly, . In charge of Daniel C. Maxfield, Amesbury, Mass. State House, Boston. Massachusetts Archives. Executive Records of the Council Legislative Records of the Council. 651] BIBLIOGRAPHY 197 Boston Public Library. Miscellaneous Manuscripts. Massachusetts Historical Society, Boston. Miscellaneous Manuscripts. New England Baptist Historical Society, Boston. Isaac Backus Papers. Essex Institute, Salem, Mass. Diary of Z. Collins, 1727-1768. Rhode Island Historical Society, Providence, R. L Isaac Backus Papers. Moses Brown Papers. Newport Historical Society, Newport, R. I. Letter Book of Thomas Richardson, 2 vols. 1710-1719. Bristol County Court House, Taunton, Mass. Records of the General Sessions of the Peace for the County of Bristol, 3 vols. 1702-1738. PRINTED SOURCES Andros Tracts, with notes and memoir, edited by W. H. Whitmore. 3 vols. Prince Society Publications. Boston, 1868-1874. Chalmers, George. Opinions of eminent lawyers on various points of English jurisprudence, chiefly concerning the colonies. Burlington, Vt, 1858. Great Britain. Calendar of state papers, colonial series, America and the West Indies. London, 1860-1912. Hutchinson, Thomas. Collection of papers. Prince Society Publications. 2 vols. Albany, N. Y., 1865. Massachusetts. The acts and resolves, public and private, of the Province of the Massachusetts Bay. 18 vols. Boston, 1869-1912. Massachusetts. Journals, proceedings and debates of the House of Rep- resentatives of his majesty's province of the Massachusetts Bay in New England. Boston and Watertown, 1715-1777. Massachusetts Historical Society Collections. Diary of Samuel Sewall. Series 5, V-VII. Letter Book of Samuel Sewall. Series 6, I-II. Diary of Cotton Mather. Series 7, VII. Mather Papers. Series 4, VIII. Hinckley Papers. Series 4, V. Belcher Papers. Series 6, VI-VII. Massachusetts Historical Society Proceedings. New England Historical and Genealogical Register. Old Dartmouth Historical Society Collections. Perry, William Stevens. Papers relating to the history of the Church in Massachusetts, 1676-1785. New York, 1873. Privy Council, Acts of the. 3 vols. London, 1908-1912. Quakers. Epistles from the Yearly Meeting of Friends held in London, to the quarterly and monthly meetings in Great Britain, Ireland, and elsewhere, from 1681 to 1817 inclusive. London, 1818. Protestant Episcopal Historical Society Collections. 2 vols. New York, 1851-1853. 198 CHURCH AND STATE IN MASSACHUSETTS [652 Rhode Island Historical Society Collections. Diary of John Comer, VIII. Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge. A chapter in English church history: being the minutes of the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, for the years 1698-1704. Edited by Edmund McClure. London, 1888. Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in New England. Some corre- spondence between the governors and treasurers of the New England Company in London and the commissioners of the United Colonies in America, the missionaries of the company, and others between the years 1657 and 1712. Edited by J. W. Ford. London, 1896. CONTEMPORARY BOOKS, PAMPHLETS, ETC. Bownas, Samuel. An account of the life, travels, and Christian experi- ences in the work of the ministry of Samuel Bownas, with a preface by Joseph Besse. London, 1759. Calamy, Edmund. An abridgment of Mr. Baxter's history of his life and times. 2 vols. London, 1713. Calamy, Edmund. Protestant dissenters in England. London, 1736. Chalkley, Thomas. A journal of the life, labours, travels, etc. of Thomas Chalkley. Philadelphia, 1790. Chalkley, Thomas. Forcing a maintenance, not warantable from the holy scripture, for a minister of the gospel. 1713. Dickenson, James. A journal of the life, travels, and labour of love in the work of the ministry of that worthy elder, and faithful servant of Jesus Christ, James Dickenson. London, 1745. Edmundson, William. Journal of the life, travels and sufferings of labour and love in the work of the ministry of William Edmundson. Lon- don, 1774. Fothergill, John. Life and travels of John Fothergill. London, 1753. Honeyman, James. Faults on all sides. The case of religion consider'd. Newport, 1728. Humphreys, David. An historical account of the incorporated Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts. London, 1730. Keith, George. A journal of travels from New Hampshire to Caratuck, on the continent of North America. London, 1706. Mather, Cotton. Magnalia Christi Americana ; or, the ecclesiastical his- tory of New England from . . . 1620 unto 1698 . . . with notes by Rev. Thomas Robbins and memoir by S. G. Drake. 2 vols. Hartford, Conn., 1855. Mather, Cotton. Ratio discipline fratrum Novanglorum. A faithful account of the discipline professed and practiced in the churches of New England. Boston, 1726. Mather, Increase. Discourse concerning the maintenance due to those that preach the gospel. Boston, 1706. 653] BIBLIOGRAPHY 199 Mather, Increase. The excellency of a publick spirit discoursed: in a sermon, preached in the audience of the General Assembly of the Province of the Massachusetts Bay in New England, May 27, 1702. Boston, 1702. Mather, Increase. The great blessing of primitive counsellours. Boston. Neal, Daniel. The history of New-England containing an impartial ac- count of the civil and ecclesiastical affairs of the country to 1700. 2 vols. London, 1747. Oldmixon, John. The British empire in America, containing the history of the discovery, settlement, progress and present state of all the British colonies on the continent and islands of America. 2 vols. London, 1708. Quakers Tythe Bill, Papers relating to. London, 1736. Richardson, John. Account of the life of that ancient servant of Jesus Christ, John Richardson. London, 1774. Sewel, William. History of the rise, increase and progress of the Chris- tian people called Quakers. 2 vols. Philadelphia, 1728. Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts. Abstracts of the proceedings of the society appended to the sermon preached at the annual meetings held in the parish church of St. Mary-le-Bow, 1701-1740, passim. Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts. An account of the society. London, 1706. Trott, Nicholas. The laws of the British plantations in America relating to the church and clergy, religion and learning London, 1721. GENERAL AND SPECIAL HISTORIES, ETC. Adams, Brooks. The emancipation of Massachusetts. Boston and New York, 1887. Adams, Charles Francis. Massachusetts ; its historians and its history. Boston, 1893. Adams, Charles Francis. Three episodes of Massachusetts history. 2 vols. Boston, 1892. Allen, W. O. B., and McClure, Edmund. Two hundred years : The his- tory of the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 1698-1898. London, 1898. Anderson, J. S. M. History of the Church of England in the colonies. 3 vols. London, 1848. Armitage, Thomas. A history of the Baptists; traced by their vital prin- ciples. New York, 1887. Backus, Isaac. A history of New England. With particular reference to the denomination of Christians called Baptists, with notes by David Weston. 2 vols. Newton, Mass., 1871. 200 CHURCH AND STATE IN MASSACHUSETTS [654 Biographical Catalogue, being an account of the lives of Friends and others whose portraits are in the London Friends Institute. London, Bowden, James. The history of the Society of Friends in America. 2 vols. London, 1850-1854. Buck, Edward. Massachusetts ecclesiastical law. Boston, 1866. Burrage, Henry S. History of the Baptists in New England. Philadel- phia, 1894. Channing, Edward. Town and county government in the English colonies of North America. Johns Hopkins University Studies. Baltimore, 1884. Cobb, San ford H. Rise of religious liberty in America. New York, 1902. Colonial Society of Massachusetts Publications. Vol. I. Transactions. Boston, 1895. Cross, Arthur L. The Anglican episcopate and the American colonies. Harvard Historical Studies, 1902. Dale, R. W. History of English Congregationalism. London, 1907. Dickerson, O. M. American colonial government, 1696-1765. Cleveland, 1912. Drysdale, A. H. Presbyterians in England. London, 1889. Foote, Henry W. Annals of King's Chapel from the Puritan age of New England to the present day. 2 vols. Boston, 1882. Ford, David B. New England's struggle for religious liberty. Philadel- phia, 1896. Gough, John. History of the people called Quakers. 4 vols. Dublin, 1789-1790. Hallowell, Richard P. The pioneer Quakers. Boston, 1887. Howard, George E. An introduction to the local constitutional history of the United States. Johns Hopkins University Studies, Baltimore, 1889. Hutchinson, Thomas. History of the Province of Massachusetts Bay, 1691-1750. 3 vols. Boston, 1764-1828. Hutton, William H. The English Church from the accession of Charles I to the death of Anne, 1625-1714. London, 1003. Jones, Rufus M. The Quakers in the American colonies. London, 1911. Kimball, Everett. The public life of Joseph Dudley. A study of the colonial policy of the Stuarts in New England, 1660-1715. New York, 1911. Lauer, P. E. Church and state in New England. Johns Hopkins Univer- sity Studies. Baltimore, 1883. Lloyd, Walter. The story of Protestant dissent and English Unitarian- ism. London, 1899. McConnel, Samuel D. History of the American Episcopal Church. New York, 1899. Marvin, A. P. Life and times of Cotton Mather. Boston, 1892. 655] BIBLIOGRAPHY 201 Newman, A. H. History of the Baptist churches in America. New York, 1893. Overton, John H. Life in the English Church, 1660-1714. London, 1885. Overton, John H., and Relton, Frederic. The English Church from the accession of George I to the end of the eighteenth century, 1714-1800. London, 1906. Palfrey, John G. History of New England. 5 vols. Boston, 1860-1890. Pascoe, C. F. Classified digest of the records of the S. P. G., 1701-1892. London, 1893. Pascoe, C. F. Two hundred years of the S. P. G., 1701-1900. London, 1901. Perry, William S. History of the American Episcopal Church. 2 vols. Boston, 1885. Phillips, Sadler. The early English colonies. A summary of the lecture by the Right Hon. and Right Rev. Arthur Foley, Lord Bishop of London, with additional notes and illustrations, delivered at the Rich- mond Auditorium, Virginia, October 4, 1907. With a preface by the Bishop of London. London, 1908. Quakers. A brief account of the Yearly Meeting of Friends for New- England, with the subordinate meetings of which it is composed. Providence, R. I., 1836. Quincy, Josiah. The history of Harvard University. 2 vols. Boston, 1860. VSkeats, H. S. and Miall, Charles S. History of the Free Churches of England, 1688-1891. London, 1891. Slafter, Edmund. John Checkley ; or the evolution of religious tolerance in Massachusetts Bay, 1719-1774. 2 vols. Prince Society Publications. Boston, 1897. Spencer, Henry R. Constitutional conflict in provincial Massachusetts ; a study of some phases of the opposition between the Massachusetts governor and General Court in the early eighteenth century. Colum- bus, O., 1905. Steiner, Bernard C. Rev. Thomas Bray. His life and selected works relating to Maryland. Baltimore, 1901. Thomas, Allen C., and Richard H. History of the Society of Friends in America. New York, 1000. Tiffany, Charles C. History of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America. New York, 1895. Trumbull, Benjamin. A complete history of Connecticut, civil and eccle- siastical, 1630-1764. 2 vols. Hartford, Conn., 1818. Turell, Ebenezer. The life and character of the Reverend Benjamin Col- man, D.D. Boston, 1749. Uhden, Hermann F. Geschichte der Congregationalisten in New England bis 1740. English version by H. C. Conant, New England Theocracy. Boston, 1858. 202 CHURCH AND STATE IN MASSACHUSETTS [656 Walker, Williston. Creeds and platforms of Congregationalism. New York, 1893. Walker, Williston. History of the Congregational churches in the United States. New York, 1894. Weeden, William B. Economic and social history of New England, 1620- 1789. 2 vols. Boston, 1890. Wendell, Barrett. Cotton Mather, the Puritan priest. New York, 1891. Winsor, Justin. The memorial history of Boston, 1630-1880. 8 vols. Boston, 1884-1889. Wood, Nathan E. The history of the First Baptist Church of Boston, 1665-1899. Philadelphia, 1899. LOCAL HISTORIES. Adams, Charles Francis, Jr. History of Quincy. Cambridge, Mass., 1891. Bicknell, Thomas W. History of Barrington, R. I. Providence, R. I., 1898. Coffin, Joshua. A sketch of the history of Newbury, Newburyport, and West Newbury from 1635 to 1845. Boston, 1845. Currier, John J. History of Newbury, Mass., 1635-1002. Boston, 1902. Currier, John J. "Ould Newbury :" historical and biographical sketches. Boston, 1896. Daggett, John. A sketch of the history of Attleborough. Boston, 1894. Ellis, Leonard B. History of New Bedford and its vicinity, 1602-1892. Syracuse, N. Y., 1892. Fowler, Orin. History of Fall River, with notices of Freetown and Tiverton. Fall River, 1862. Hurd, D. H. History of Bristol County, Massachusetts. Philadelphia, 1883. Jenkins, Charles W. Early history of the town of Falmouth. Falmouth, Mass., 1889. Little Compton, R. I. The i?5th anniversary of the organization of the United Congregational Church of Little Compton, R. I. Providence, R. I., 1880. Also, The 2ooth anniversary of its organization, Septem- ber 7, 1004. 1906. Munro, Wilfred H. The history of Bristol, R. I. Providence, R. I., 1880. Potter, William J. The first Congregational society in New Bedford, Mass. : its history . as illustrative of ecclesiastical evolution. New Bedford, Mass., 1889. Pratt, Ambrose E. 2ooth anniversary celebration of Sandwich and Bourne, 1889. Falmouth. Mass., 1890. Thatcher, J. J. Historical sketch of the First Baptist Church, Swansea, Mass., 1663-1863. Fall River, Mass., 1863. Updike, Wilkins. The Narragansett Church. Boston, 1907. INDEX Akin, John, 119, 126. Andros, Edmund, 8, 17, 20. Anglicans, see Church of England. Anne, Queen, 10, n, 148. Anthony, Joseph, 119, 126. Ashurst, Henry, 101. Ashurst, William, 153. Attleboro, 68, 70, 72, 83, 159. A very, Joseph, minister at Freetown, 81. Backus, Isaac, 22-23, 44> 86. Baptists in England, 11-13; in the colonies, 14; church in Boston, 39; in Mass, in 1700, 44-46; increase in Mass., 50, 86; resistance to ecclesias- tical law at Swansea, 71-73; attack on Mass, church-state system, 17, 86, 132-134, 141. For exemption laws, see Laws. Barclay, William, Anglican missionary at Braintree, 156. Barnstable County, 37; Quakers in, 44; enforcement of ecclesiastical law in, 69-70. Barrington, 159. Belcher, Jonathan, member of the Council, 117; governor, 136; relation to Quakers, 136-144, 145 ; relation to Anglicans, 182-189. B'ellomont, Earl of, governor, 92. Board of Trade, origin, 96; attack on proprietary governments, 97; change in character after 1723, 131 ; relation to Quakers, 93, 98-99, 100, 102, 117, 123-25, 146; relation to Anglicans, 176, 181-182, 186. Borden, Richard, 95, 105, 107, 108, 109, 112, 118, 131, 134, 136, 137-138. Boston, ministerial support in, 23, 25-26, 27, 38; churches in i/oo, 38. Braintree, 155-158, 159, 163-164, 167, 177-179- Bray, Thomas, II, 97, 150, 152. Bridger, John, 161, 166. Bristol, 148, 158-159, 160, 171, 180-187. Bristol County, 37; character, 38, 44, 73; enforcement of ecclesiastical law through Court of General Sessions, 31, 70-84, I57J Anglicans in, 71, I54-I5S, 156-159, 160; Baptists in, 44-46; Quakers in, 44. Brown, John, 155. Brown, Moses, 86. Burnet, William, governor, 180. 203 204 CHURCH AND STATE IN MASSACHUSETTS [658 Charles II, 8, 9. Charter, Mass, charter of 1629, 7; Mass, charter of 1691, 8-9, 17, 21, 94, 142. Checkley, John, 183 Christ Church, Boston, 148, 159, 183, 185. Church of England, relation to imperial policy, 9-10; relation to Quakers, 13-14, 49, 97, 141-143, 150-151; introduced in Mass., 15-16, 39, 50; strength in Mass, in 1725, 148; attack on Mass, church-state system, 17, 163-189. For exemption laws, see Laws. Colonial policy, 7-8. Compton, Henry, Bishop of London, 148-149, 153-154, 156. Congregationalists, in England, 11-13, 16; relation to English Quakers, 98-101, no; relation to New England Congregationalists, 14-16, 99- 102, no. Connecticut, ecclesiastical system, 16, 35 ; law against heretics, 97, 98-101, 105; Anglicans in, 151. Convention of ministers, 28, 174. Council of Churches, 28-30, 84. County, see General Sessions of the Peace. Craghead, Thomas, minister at Freetown, 81-82. Crouch, William, 93-94, 95, 102, 103, Cutler, Timothy, 159, 160, 174, 181. Danforth, Samuel, minister at Taunton, 77, 79, 80. Dartmouth, Baptists in, 46, 70; Quakers in, 70; resistance to ecclesiastical law in, 31, 68, 72, 74-77, 107-112, 119-127. Diamond, Richard, 93. Dissenters in Mass., see Church of England, Baptists, Quakers. Dudley, Joseph, president of the Council, 20; governor, 98; policy, 146, 165; relation to Quakers, 98, 112, 146, 165; relation to Anglicans, 163- 168, 187. Dummer, Jeremiah, Mass, agent, in, 124; governor, 171-179, 188-189. Eager, Thomas, Anglican missionary at Braintree, 157. Eccleston, Theodor, 96. Essex County, 36; Quakers in, 6p; Anglicans in, 160-163. Exemption legislation, see Laws. Falmouth, 44, 68, 69-70. Field, John, 93, 96, 102, no. Franchise, in I7th century, 19-20; affected by charter of 1691, 9, 25. Freetown, 68, 70, 72, 79-82, 154, 156-159. Friends, see Quakers. Frontier settlements, 52-53, 63-68, 83-84, 85. 659] INDEX 205 General Court, authority limited by charter of 1691, 9; relation to estab- lished church, 30; responsible for enforcement of ecclesiastical law, 32, 75; formation of precincts, 55-60; regulation of land for use of ministry, 62; concerned with securing ministers, 62-63; relation to frontier settlements, 53, 63-68; 83-84; management of "unorthodox" communities, 68-84; memorial to the Queen, 109; change in attitude toward Quakers, 145-146. For exemption legislation, see Laws. General Sessions of the Peace, 27, 30, 31, 32, 63, 84-85. Gibson, Edmund, Bishop of London, 172-188. Goddard, Beriah, 126-127. Gurney, John, 96 Guy, William, Anglican missionary at Narragansett, 157-158. Hampshire County, 36. Harris, Henry, 172. Harvard College, 74-76. Hastwell, Edward, 96. Hollis, Thomas, 134. Honeyman, Anglican missionary at Newport, 154, 157, 158. Howland, Henry, 126 Huguenots, in Boston, 38. Hunt, Samuel, minister at Dartmouth, 76-77. Hyam, Thomas, 96. Independents, see Congregationalists. Indians, 37-38, 153. James II, 8. Keith, George, 150, 153, 154, 155. King's Chapel, Boston, 41, 148, 183, 185. Lambton, John, Anglicans' missionary at Newbury, 162. Land, for use of ministry, 58-59, 61-62. Laws of Massachusetts, for maintenance of ministers, (1692), 24, 26, 61, 93, 119-120; (1693), 26, 61; (1695), 29-30, 62; (1697), 30; (1702), 31, 83; (1706), 32, 75, 105; (1715), 32, II3-H4, 119-120; (1722), 32, 113; (1727), 179-180; for exemption of Anglicans, (1727), 176, 179-180, 188; (1735), 142, 185, 189; (1742), 187, 189; for exemption of Bap- tists, (1728), 132; (1729), 135; (1734), 141, 185; (1740), 141, 143; for exemption of Quakers, (1717), 114; (1720), 117-118; (1721), 118- 119; (1728), 132; (1729), 135; (I73i), 138-139; (1737), 143. Little Compton, 70, 82-83, 105, 154-159. Lucas, Henry, Anglican missionary at Newbury, 162. Luther, Samuel, Baptist minister at Swansea, 72-73. Lynn, 91, 94, 105. 206 CHURCH AND STATE IN MASSACHUSETTS [660 Marblehead, 160, 169-170. Marsh, Joseph, minister at Tiverton, 76. Maryland, 97, 98, 151. Massachusetts, composition and character in 1700, 35 et seq. Mather, Cotton, 22. Mather, Increase, 8, 14, 22, 50, 100, 102. Metcalf, Joseph, minister at Falmouth, 70. Middlesex County, 37. Miller, Ebenezer, Anglican missionary at Braintree, 159-160. Ministers, see Court of General Sessions, General Court, Land, Laws, Salaries. Mossom, David, Anglican missionary at Marblehead, 170, 171, 172, 173, 175. Myles, Samuel, 80, 155, 172-173, 174. Narragansett, 154. Newbury, 148, 161-163, 164, 165-166, 170-171, 178-179. Newbury, Walter, 106, 114. Newcastle, Duke of, 96-97, 131, 146. Newport, 153. Nicholson, Francis, 158, 166, 178. Orem, James, Anglican missionary at Bristol, 158-159, 171, 172. Partridge, Richard, 96, 122-124, 128, 129-130, 136, 138-139, 140, 144. Penn, William, 95, 101. Pennsylvania, 97, 151. Pickering, Theophilus, minister at Tiverton, 127. Plant, Matthias, Anglican missionary at Newbury, 177, 178. Plymouth Colony, 27, 36, 42, 43, 44. Plymouth County, 37, 43. Precinct, 53-60. Presbyterians, 11-13, I4 16, 98-99. Price, Roger, 142, 182. Privy Council, Quaker appeals to, 92, 100; (1719), 117; (1723), 123-126; (1725), 130-131, 146; Anglican appeals to, (1726), 175-176; (1731), 181-182; (1732), 183-184; (1736), 142, 185-186; concerned with Mass, synod, 175. Proprietary governments, attack on, 97-98. Providence, 154, 159. Puritans, see Congregationalists. Quarter Sessions, see General Sessions of the Peace. Quakers, in England, 11, 13; influence, 95-97, 144, 146; doctrine, 42; atti- tude of Puritan toward, 48; attitude of Church of England toward, 49; organization, 87; London Yearly Meeting, 13, 91 et seq., 145; London Meeting for Sufferings, 87 ft seq.; opposition to attack on 661] INDEX 207 proprietary governments, 97; decline, 86; in the colonies, 13-14; fore- shadowed by Antinomians, 41; arrival in Mass., 15, 42; in Boston, 39; numbers in Mass, in 1700, 43-44, 46-47; attitude toward Mass. charter of 1691, 22; New England Yearly Meeting, 47-48, 89 et seq.; Sandwich and Scituate Quarterly, 47, 137 > Rhode Island Quarterly, 47, 90, 105, 107, 108, 117-118, 129, 134, 137; Salem Quarterly, 47, 106- 107; Greenwich Monthly, 47; Rhode Island Monthly, 47, 105, no; Dartmouth Monthly, 47, 76, 107, in, 114, 137; Sandwich Monthly, 47; Pembroke Monthly, 47; Salem Monthly, 47, 88, 91, 92; Hampton Monthly, 47; Dover Monthly, 47; resistance to ecclesiastical law at Dartmouth and Tiverton, 73-78; attack on Mass, church-state system, 86, 91-147. For exemption laws, see Laws. Quincy, Col., 178. Randolph, Edward, 8, 17, 20, 97. Rhode Island, 35, 42, 97, 151, 153. Richardson, Thomas, 95, 115, 116, 117, 122-123, 128, 129, 135. Robinson, John, Bishop of London, 172. Salaries of ministers, 61, 62, 82, 85. Salem, 161. Sandwich, 43, 68, 69. Scituate, 160. Sharpe, John, 123-124. Sharpe, William, 175, 180-181, 186. Shaw, William, Anglican missionary to Marblehead, 161. Shute, Samuel, governor, relation to Quakers, 144; relation to Anglicans, 169-171, 173, 187-188. Sisson, John, 119, 126. Slocum, Ebenezer, 108. Smith, Deliverance, no. Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, n, 13, 150. Society for Propagating the Gospel in Foreign Parts, founded, n, 150; purposes, 13, 150-153; work in Rhode Island, 153; work in Mass., 41, 71, 79-80, 154-163. Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in New England, 153. Society for the Propagation of Religion, 153. Society of Friends, see Quakers. Suffolk County, 37. Swansea, Baptist church in, 45, 70; resistance to ecclesiastical law, 68, 71- 73, 133; Anglican church in, 154-155, 159- Synod, 50, 112, 174-1 75. % Taber, Jacob, 126-127. Taber, Philip, 119-126. Taber, Thomas, no. 208 CHURCH AND STATE IN MASSACHUSETTS [662 Tailer, William, lieutenant-governor, 112, 168-169. Taxes, general, 32-34, 90; for maintenance of ministers, regulation of in forming new precincts, 57-58; added to province assessment, 32, 74, 78, 85, IO7, III-II2, I2O-I2I. Tiverton, Baptists in, 46; Quakers in, 70; Anglicans in, 154-159; resistance to ecclesiastical law, 31, 68, 72, 74-78, 107-112, 119-127. Town, 61-85. Town meeting, 30-31. Tucker, John, 107, in, 114, 128-130. Vesey, Col., 155, 167. Voluntary contributions to ministers, see Salaries. Walpole, Robert, 10, 97, 131, 146, 148. Wanton, John, 115, 117-118, 129, 135. Wanton, Joseph, 108, 131, 134, 136, 137-138. Way, William, minister at Freetown, 79-81. West, Richard, 123, 124. Wheaton, Ephraim, 134. Whigs, see Walpole. William III, relation to Mass, charter, 8, 17; relation to Mass, ecclesias- tical legislation, 17; colonial policy, 96; religious policy, 148. Wyeth, Joseph, 96, 102.