The Development of Religious Liberty in Connecticut

Maria Louise Greene

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• Publié par: dutad
• Publié le: 08 décembre 2010
• Nombre de lectures: 44
• Langue: English

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Title: The Development of Religious Liberty in
Connecticut
Author: M. Louise Greene, Ph. D.
Release Date: February, 2005 [EBook #7436]
[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of
schedule] [This file was first posted on April 30,
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Edition: 10
Language: English
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG
EBOOK RELIGIOUS LIBERTY IN CONNECTICUT
***
Produced by Dave Maddock, Charles Franks and
the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.THE DEVELOPMENT
OF RELIGIOUS
LIBERTY IN
CONNECTICUT
BY
M. LOUISE GREENE, PhD.
PREFACE
The following monograph is the outgrowth of three
earlier and shorter essays. The first, "Church and
State in Connecticut to 1818," was presented to
Yale University as a doctor's thesis. The second, a
briefer and more popularly written article, won the
Straus prize offered in 1896 through Brown
University by the Hon. Oscar S. Straus. The third,
a paper containing additional matter, was so far
approved by the American Historical Association as
to receive honorable mention in the Justin Winsor
prize competition of 1901.
With such encouragement, it seemed as if the
history of the development of religious liberty in
Connecticut might serve a larger purpose than that
of satisfying personal interest alone. In Connecticut
such development was not marked, as so often
elsewhere, by wild disorder, outrageous
oppression, tyranny of classes, civil war, or by any
great retrograde movement. Connecticut was more
modern in her progress towards such liberty, and
her contribution to advancing civilization was a
pattern of stability, of reasonableness in
government, and of a slow broadening out of the
conception of liberty, as she gradually softened
down her restrictions upon religious and personal
freedom.
And yet, Connecticut is recalled as a part of that
New England where those not Congregationalists,
the unorthodox or radical thinkers, found early and
late an uncomfortable atmosphere and restrictedliberties. By a study of her past, I have hoped to
contribute to a fairer judgment of the men and
measures of colonial times, and to a correct
estimate of those essentials in religion and morals
which endure from age to age, and which alone, it
would seem, must constitute the basis of that
"ultimate union of Christendom" toward which so
many confidently look. The past should teach the
present, and one generation, from dwelling upon
the transient beliefs and opinions of a preceding,
may better judge what are the non-essentials of its
own.
Connecticut's individual experiment in the union of
Church and State is separable neither from the
New England setting of her earliest days nor from
the early years of that Congregationalism which the
colony approved and established. Hence, the
opening chapters of her story must treat of events
both in old England and in New. And because
religious liberty was finally won by a coalition of
men like-minded in their attitude towards rights of
conscience and in their desire for certain
necessary changes and reforms in government,
the final chapters must deal with social and political
conditions more than with those purely religious. It
may be pertinent to remark that the passing of a
hundred years since the divorce of Church and
State and the reforms of a century ago have
brought to the commonwealth some of the same
deplorable political conditions that the men of the
past, the first Constitutional Reform Party, swept
away by the peaceful revolution of 1818.
For encouragement, assistance, and suggestions, I
am especially indebted to Professor George B.
Adams and Professor Williston Walker of Yale
University, to Professor Charles M. Andrews of
Bryn Mawr, to Dr. William G. Andrews, rector of
Christ Church, Guilford, Conn., and to Professor
Lucy M. Salmon of Vassar College. Of numerous
libraries, my largest debt is to that of Yale
University.
M. LOUISE GREENE.
NEW HAVEN, October 20, 1905.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER
I. THE EVOLUTION OF EARLYCONGREGATIONALISM
Preparation of the English nation for the two
earliest forms of Congregationalism, Brownism and
Barrowism.—Rise of Separatism and Puritanism.—
Non-conformists during Queen Mary's reign.—
Revival of the Reformation movement under
Queen Elizabeth.—Development of
Presbyterianism.—Three Cambridge men, Robert
Browne, Henry Greenwood, and Henry Barrowe.—
Brownism and Barrowism.—The Puritans under
Elizabeth, her early tolerance and later change of
policy.—Arrest of the Puritan movement by the
clash between Episcopal and Presbyterian forms of
polity and the pretensions of the latter.—James the
First and his policy of conformity.—Exile of the
Gainsborough and Scrooby Separatists.—
Separatist writings.—General approachment of
Puritans and Separatists in their ideas of church
polity.—The Scrooby exiles in America.—Sympathy
of the Separatists of Plymouth Colony with both the
English Established Church and with English
Puritans.
II. THE TRANSPLANTING OF
CONGREGATIONALISM
English Puritans decide to colonize in America.—
Friendly relations between the settlements of
Salem and Plymouth.—Salem decides upon the
character of her church organization.—Arrival of
Higginson and Skelton with recruits.—Formation of
the Salem church and election of officers.—
Governor Bradford and delegates from Plymouth
present.—The beginning of Congregational polity
among the Puritans and the break with English
Episcopacy.—Formation and organization of the
New England churches.
III. CHURCH AND STATE IN NEW ENGLAND
Church and State in the four New England
colonies.—Early theological dissensions and
disturbances.—Colonial legislation in behalf of
religion.—Development of state authority at the
cost of the independence of the church.—Desire of
Massachusetts for a platform of church discipline.
—Practical working of the theory of Church and
State in Connecticut.
IV. THE CAMBRIDGE PLATFORM AND THE
HALF-WAY COVENANT
Necessity of a church platform to resistinnovations, to answer English criticism, and to
meet changing conditions of colonial life.—
Summary of the Cambridge Platform.—Of the
history of Congregationalism to the year 1648.—
Attempt to discipline the Hartford, Conn., church
according to the Platform.—Spread of its schism.
—Petition to the Connecticut General Court for
some method of relief.—The Ministerial Convention
or "Synod" of 1657.—Its Half-Way Covenant.—
Attitude of the Connecticut churches towards the
measure.—Pitkin's petition to the General Court of
Connecticut for broader church privileges.—The
Court's favorable reply.—Renewed outbreak of
schism in the Hartford and other churches.—
Failure in the calling of a synod of New England
churches.—The Connecticut Court establishes the
Congregational Church.—Connecticut's first
toleration act.—Settlement of the Hartford dispute.
—The new order and its important modifications of
ecclesiastical polity.
V. A PERIOD OF TRANSITION
Drift from religious to secular, and from
intercolonial to individual interests.—Reforming
Synod of 1680.—Religious life in the last quarter of
the seventeenth century.—The "Proposals of 1705"
in Massachusetts.—Introduction in Connecticut of
the Saybrook System of Consociated Church
government.
VI. THE SAYBROOK PLATFORM
The Confession of Faith.—Heads of Agreement.—
Fifteen Articles.—Attitude of the churches towards
the Platform.—Formation of Consociations.—The
"Proviso" in the act of establishment.—Neglect to
read the proviso to the Norwich church.—
Contention arising.—The Norwich church as an
example of the difficulty of collecting church rates.
VII. THE SAYBROOK PLATFORM AND THE
TOLERATION ACT
Toleration in the "Proviso" of the act establishing
the Saybrook Platform.&#