UNIVERSITY OFILUNOIS LIBRARYAT Uiv3ANA-CHAMPAlCNSTACKSThe person charging this material is re-sponsible for its return to the libraryfromwhich it was withdrawn on or before theLatest Date stamped below.Theft, mutilation, and underlining of booksare reasonsfor disciplinary action and may result indismissal fthe University.To renew call Telephone Center, 333-8400UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS LIBRARY AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGNMAR 17OCT1119S9JmL161 O-1096UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS STUDIESIN THESOCIAL SCIENCESVOL. 111. NO. 4 DECEMBER, 1914Church and State in Massachusetts1691 - 1740BYSUSAN MARTHA REED, Ph. D.Head of the Department of History, Lake Erie CollegeSometime Fellow in History, University of IllinoisPRICE $1.05PUBLISHED BY THE UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOISURBANACOPYRIGHT, 1914BY THE UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOISPEEFACE.Six years ago I was working on a brief study of theecclesiastical development of provincial Massachusetts, topresent as a master's thesis at the University of Illinois.In putting together the material I was struck with the factthat there were some broad empty spaces in the story ofthe gradual encroachments on the old Puritan system byreligious dissenters. By the middle of the eighteenth cen-tury Anglicans, Baptists and Quakers were all recognizedin ecclesiastical law and possessed certain privileges, butthe process by which these results had been gained was notclear. Histories of New England Baptists showed thatthe real work of this sect was practically limited to thesecond half of the century; local histories of Anglicanchurches recounted the efforts of the MassachusettsChurchmen; but neither explained the steps by which allthree 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 earlyrecords of the Society of Friends in New England and inLondon. The best collection of New England Quaker rec-ords, the minutes of the New England Yearly Meeting andof the Rhode Island Quarterly, are in the library of theMoses Brown School at Providence. Others may be foundat the Newport Historical Society, the New Bedford meet-ing house and the meeting house at Lynn. All have beenused again and again for local and genealogical purposesbut rarely for any general study. In every case they showso close a connection between the Quakers of Massachusettsand those of England that the records of the LondonYearly Meeting and the London Meeting for Sufferingsare essential for a clear understanding of what the NewEngland Quakers of the early eighteenth century weredoing. At Devonshire House, Bishopsgate, the records ofthe London Quakers are preserved in the Friends' Refer-34 CHURCH AND STATE IN MASSA (IIUSETTS [458ence Library and tell a story of astonishing Quaker activ-ity, of which the work done for New England was but asmall part.I wish to express grateful appreciation to the mem-bers of the Society of Friends who put their time at mydisposal and made it possible for me to use the variousQuaker records. Here I would mention especially Dr.Edward T. Tucker of New Bedford, Dr. Seth K. Giffordof the Moses Brown School at Providence, and NormanPenney of the Friends' Reference Library in London.Aside from the Quaker collections my materials havebeen 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 IslandHistorical Society, the John Carter Brown Library atProvidence, Essex Institute at Salem, Bristol County(Mass.) Court House at Taunton; and in London at theS. P. G. House, the British Museum, Dr. Williams' Li-brary, the library of Fulham Palace, the Public RecordOffice, and the office of the Privy Council.I especially want to acknowledge the courtesy andkindness of Mr. C. F. Pascoe who made it possible for meto use the letters and journal of the Society for the Propa-gation of the Gospel, and the Kev. Sadler Phillips who putat my disposal certain boxes of papers belonging to thelibrary of the Bishop of London.For constant assistance and advice I am indebted toProfessor Evarts B. Greene of the University of Illinois,under whose direction this study has been completed.SUSAN MARTHA REED.LAKE ERIE COLLEGE,SEPTEMBER, 1914.CONTENTSPAGEPreface 3CHAPTER IIntroduction 7CHAPTER IIThe Ecclesiastical System of Provincial Massachusetts 19CHAPTER IIIOpposing Elements 35CHAPTER IVThe System in Practice 50CHAPTER VThe Quakers and Their Allies 86CHAPTER VIThe Church of England 148Conclusion)^.190Bibliography _ 195Index 203CHAPTER I.INTRODUCTION.The year 1691 opens the second period in the constitu-tional history of Massachusetts. From the coming of thePuritan settlers of the town of Boston in the stirring daysof Charles I's reign to the last years of the restored Stuarts,the Bay Colony had nothing more elaborate than the oldcharter of 1629 as its instrument of government. This wasnot primarily a document for the governing of a colonybut the charter of a commercial company, organized bycertain English Puritans with a view of settling the Mas-sachusetts shore, but not then ready to state their purposeof becoming colonizers. With the sudden transformationof the stockholders of the Massachusetts Bay Companyinto settlers of Massachusetts Bay, this charter, carriedacross the Atlantic, became the source of authority in thelocal administration of affairs, and by a gradual process ofstretching and adapting its provisions to suit the new con-ditions it was made to serve as a colonial constitution forover half a century. In this way an unusual degree of inde-pendence was maintained by the local authorities, and thespirit 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 wereelected by the freemen of the colony, and the legislativebody kept up the traditions of the first-comers in maintain-ing a theocratic and exclusive form of government whichwas 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 wasbegun upon Massachusetts in Charles IPs reign was pri-marily economic. The Navigation Acts of England werefashioned to produce a more efficient commercial system78 CHURCH AND STATE IN MASSACHUSETTS [462throughout the empire. To promote this scheme, everyprovince must bury its individual advantage for the goodof the whole, a thing which the colony of MassachusettsBay was not content to do. The resistance to authoritywhich Massachusetts offered, with other evidences of anindependent spirit, was the cause of the investigation or-dered in the colony in the sixties, of the coming of EdwardRandolph 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 theauthority of a governor and council appointed by the king.Then followed its incorporation in the Dominion of NewEngland, a territory planned to embrace all the broadlands lying between the Delaware and the St. Lawrence,and placed in the hands of Sir Edmund Andros as governorand representative of the royal prerogative of the laterStuarts. Widespread dissatisfaction with the Andros re-gime found a chance to express itself when the news of theEnglish revolution of 1688 reached Boston, and the royalgovernment was then overthrown.In the meantime Increase Mather, who had been dis-patched to England as the representative of Massachusettsin the general resistance to Andros, had been making everyeffort in frequent audiences with James and later withWilliam to secure the old charter once more. This provedimpossible and inadvisable; all that remained was to at-tempt to obtain a new charter from William and Marywhich should reserve to the governing powers of Massa-chusetts as much as possible of their former rights andprivileges. The result was the province charter of 1691which opened the second period of Massachusetts history.During the interim between the overthrow of Andros andthe arrival of the new charter a temporary governmentalong the old lines managed affairs but gave way to thenew regime when the second charter reached Boston. Themethod of reorganization in Massachusetts indicates theextent to which William III continued the colonial policy463] INTRODUCTION 9bequeathed him by the Stuarts. In the charter of 1691Massachusetts, which now included Plymouth, was madea royal province. The governor was to be appointed by theking and to possess an extensive veto power, while the kinghimself held the further right of refusing colonial legisla-tion. By these means the authority of the General Courtwould be much limited and the province would be forcedto fall in line to a certain extent with the wishes of theEnglish government. The old order suffered severely bythese limitations of its political power. It suffered also asan ecclesiastical state through a change in the franchise.The older rule of church membership as a qualification forvoting now gave place to a property qualification, and manypersons formerly excluded now had a voice in the govern-ment. Thus it came about that Massachusetts began thesecond period of her history with an enlarged boundaryand under a royal government, on aristocratic lines asbefore, but no longer as a theocracy. The influence of thenew government on the relation between church and statewas soon to become apparent.The Massachusetts charter, as we have seen, illus-trates the way in which William III followed the colonialpolicy of the last two Stuarts in its political and economicphases. William believed, as had the Stuarts, that thewell being of the empire lay in the enforcement of theNavigation Acts; he believed that colonial governmentswhich had shown a tendency to resist such law in a spiritof independence must be controlled, and that the way to dothis was to be found in uniting them and bringing themmore closely under the crown. In the reign of Charles IIthere had appeared some indications of a desire to advancea religious policy, suggesting the ambitions of ArchbishopLaud in the days of Charles I. That unity, so desirable inthe administration of the colonies, might be forwarded bysupporting the missionary work of the Anglican Churchin the British possessions beyond the seas, and by meansof the establishment of Episcopacy as the state churchthroughout the colonial empire the royal government might10 CHURCH AND STATE IN MASSACHUSETTS [464have a definite hold upon the colonies. That variety inreligious forms and creeds, which was characteristic ofBritish 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 recognizedas a governing policy. Certain it is that while the com-mercial greatness of England was an object which eachreigning house and each political party came more andmore to seek, the enforcement of such a religious policy asthis depended too much upon the attitude of monarch orchief minister toward the English Church.If such a scheme was in existence, lying dormant, atthe accession of William and Mary, it was not to be calledto activity by a representative of Dutch Protestantism andlow churchmanship. Succeeding reigns, which adhered tothe enforcement of British imperial control over the polit-ical and economic life of the colonies, were inconsistent inecclesiastical affairs. This side of colonial policy was forthe most part neglected during the century introduced bythe coming of William of Orange except under QueenAnne. The reign of William and Mary was in this way adisappointment to the English Church, and much more sowas the period of the early Georges, when the Church inits enterprises over the seas received little sympathy fromWalpole. For this reason the Church of England, duringthe greater part of this time, found itself on almost thesame footing in the colonies as any one of the dissentingsects. The laws which proclaimed an establishment athome were not generally considered as extending to thecolonies. Whatever attempts were made to advance Epis-copacy in the provinces belonged not to the governmentbut to the Church itself, working through individuals andorganizations in both England and America, and only onrare occasions assisted by governmental authority.While the government failed to carry out the plan ofpromoting the Church in the colonies, the Church itselfturned to the matter with zeal. Beginning with the efforts465] INTRODUCTION 11of the Bishop of London, acting as diocesan of the colonies,and continued by the Society for Promoting ChristianKnowledge ( S. P. C. K. ) , under the influence of Dr. Bray,the work culminated in the formation of the Society forPropagating the Gospel in Foreign Parts (S. P. G.), whichwas to devote itself entirely to the British possessionsbeyond the seas. In the reign following that of Williamand Mary, when the influence of Queen Anne was cast onthe side of the Society, it made a real beginning and grewrapidly.The Church of England's enthusiastic interest in mis-sionary work among the colonies of British America hadno counterpart in any of the other Protestant sects of themother country except the Quaker body. At the openingof the eighteenth century the Protestants of England out-side of the Anglican Church were divided among fourimportant denominations, Presbyterian, Congregational,Baptist and Quaker, and these sects possessed certaindifferences which distinguished them from one another asclearly as from the established church. Closest to theChurch of England were the Presbyterians who still fa-vored a state church but disapproved of much of the formand ceremony which the Anglicans maintained. The Con-gregationalists, with doctrinal views which were littledifferent from those of the Presbyterians, denounced thetheory of a church establishment, and were therefore morein sympathy with the Baptists than with the Presbyterians,except in theology. The Baptists, the term covering anumber of dissenting groups which traced their origin tothe continent, were more radical in their treatment of theideas of the Reformation than any of the other noncon-formists except the Quakers. The latter far surpassedthem, standing alone as the Protestants of Protestants,unique in belief, in an exclusive attitude toward otherChristians, and in their customs. During the last decadeof the seventeenth century the leaders of the Presbyteriansand the Congregationalists, the two sects having most incommon, made some earnest attempts to unite on a single12 CHURCH AND STATE IN MASSACHUSETTS [466platform, but neither group as a whole responded withenthusiasm, and the plan fell through. The same fate metanother scheme for bringing together Presbyterians, Con-gregationalists and Baptists into a loose union. Throughall these years the Presbyterians were the most favored bythe Church and were far more inclined to compromise inmatters of form and ceremony than the more rigid Baptistsand Congregationalists who accordingly looked upon themwith some distrust.Union among these three bodies of dissenters wasapparently impossible, and as time went on it becameevident that they were less numerous and less vigorousthan their early history had predicted. They were nolonger growing rapidly, adding to their ranks at the ex-pense of the Church of England, as they had in earlierdays; they were at odds with one another and they weretorn with religious controversy, each within itself. In thelast decade of the seventeenth century came the lengthydiscussion connected with the various attempts made tosecure the passage of a comprehension bill which wouldmake it possible for many of the nonconformists to begathered again into the national church. When this failed,bringing out the points of difference rather than of likenessamong Presbyterians, Congregationalists and Baptists,and the impossibility of broadening the Church so as toinclude any great number of them, they were almost im-mediately overtaken by the reactionary legislation of theearly eighteenth century. After their vain struggle, duringQueen Anne's reign, to oppose the Occasional Conformityand Schism Acts which seriously limited the politicalsphere and educational advantages of all who were notChurchmen, many gave up the position they had held astoo costly a luxury. The great men of the first generationhad not been followed by others of so high a degree ofeminence, able to lead their followers in the face of changedconditions, and many of the prominent nonconformists,when convinced that no method of comprehension could bearranged, or when occasional conformity was made illegal,467] INTRODUCTION 13returned to the Anglican Church. Finally, the reign ofQueen Anne was hardly ended when the anti-Trinitariancontroversy became acute, stretching over a period of manyyears and dividing the ranks of the nonconformists oncemore, now on new lines. Real vigor and unity were con-spicuously lacking in the three English nonconformingsects which traced their origin to the Reformation.The case of the Quakers was very different. By thesecond quarter of the eighteenth century their strangelyrapid decline had begun but in George Fs reign it was notyet apparent that their days of steady growth were num-bered, and these years mark for them a period of greatvigor as a religious body and as a political force. Actualpersecution was now a thing of the past, and they wereliving like the other dissenters under the Toleration Act.In wealth and political influence they occupied a positionsecond only to that of the established church. Their polit-ical power should in large measure be traced to theirstrongly centralized organization over which the LondonYearly Meeting exercised supreme authority. Difficultiescarried by weekly and monthly meetings to this centralbody were turned over by it to the Meeting for Sufferingswhich in frequent sittings considered all subjects with duecare and took active measures for redress. Through nu-merous wealthy and prominent members who were closeto the government in William's reign the ear of authoritywas reached with little difficulty. It was in Quakerismthat the Anglican Church of the late seventeenth centurysaw its most dangerous adversary and in the Quaker doc-trine read a statement of belief which it looked upon asnon-Christian and attacked accordingly. The conversionof the Quakers of England was one of the purposes of theS. P. C. K., while work among the Quakers of the colonieswas an important object of the S. P. G.The duel between the Quakers and the Anglicans inthe 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 in14 CHURCH AND STATE IN MASSACHUSETTS [408America in the early eighteenth century. The period sawthe highest point in numerical strength which Quakerismreached in America as well as in England, and it saw alsothe most important strides taken by the Church of Englandin the colonies between the Restoration and the Declara-tion of Independence. Successful attempts were made toestablish Episcopacy by law in several colonies, and Angli-can churches, the result of missionary enterprise, sprangup in the whole line of English settlements from NewEngland to the West Indies.While the other nonconformists were relativelystronger in the colonies than in England, they were, as inthe mother country, less influential on the whole than theSociety of Friends. The various sects had little or noofficial support from parent groups at home and were evenmore disunited than they. Of these the Presbyterianswere to be found in no great numbers as yet for the chiefPresbyterian immigration, that from Scotland and Ireland,belongs to a later period. The Baptists of the colonieswere more closely allied with the Quakers than with eitherCongregationalists or Presbyterians, for their insistence onthe separation of church and state placed them at oddswith the nonconforming established churches of Massachu-setts and Connecticut. The latter, which called themselvesCongregational but were usually known as Presbyterianor Independent, had drifted so far from any correspondinggroup in England that they were looked upon rather un-sympathetically by English nonconformists, especially be-cause of the extremes in ecclesiastical legislation of whichboth colonies were guilty.The weakening of the tie between the nonconformistsof England and New England had come gradually andthrough no voluntary act on the part of either. It hadcome in spite of a friendly intercourse between the leaderson the two sides of the Atlantic. Increase Mather was asclosely associated with the nonconformists of England aswith those of his native land; many of the New Englandministers of 1700 had visited England or corresponded469] INTRODUCTION 15with nonconformists at home and the works of Englishdivines were read eagerly in Massachusetts. One primarycause for the independent growth of the churches of NewEngland was the lack of a central organization bindingthem to the churches of the mother country, as existed inthe case of the Anglican and Quaker bodies. Foundedindependently by the two branches of English dissent, theNonconformists proper and the more radical Independents,the colonies of Massachusetts Bay and Plymouth had keptin close touch with the English Puritans through the CivilWar and Commonwealth periods because of their commoncause at a stirring time. Only with the Kestoration camethe dissolution of the bond of interest that united NewEngland with nonconformity at home, and in view of thelack of a governing system held in common, it is smallwonder that the two divisions fell gradually apart. Therewas no longer the exciting interest in a great commoncause, an interest stimulated by the conditions in the lastyears of Charles Fs reign; nor was there the common ex-citement which belonged to the period of the Civil War inEngland 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 developeddifferently. On the Massachusetts shore the two Puritancolonies grew more and more closely together and workedout a system of church and state government which drewinspiration from both Plymouth and the Bay. At the timeof the province charter, which joined Plymouth to its largerneighbor, the final compromise was effected and the twosystems merged into one. This was the basis of Massa-chusetts ecclesiasticism in the eighteenth century. At thesame time the aggression of outside forces was helping toweld together more firmly the members of the "standingorder." Such was the coming of the Quakers with theconversion to Quakerism of many persons of the Massa-chusetts towns who had already given evidence of a varyingform of theology. A little later the recognition of the16 CHURCH AND STATE IN MASSACHUSETTS [470Church 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 thirdgenerations of New England nonconformity. This devel-opment in Massachusetts failed to attract much attentionfrom the English nonconformists who would not have beenvery 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 toNew England Congregationalism. The discussion con-nected with the comprehension bill emphasized distinctionsbetween Anglican and Puritan which New England hadtaken for granted and had no desire to minimize. Thereactionary legislation of Queen Anne's reign did notextend 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 centurylater. From these ecclesiastical and theological contestswaged in England during the reign of William and Maryand that of Anne New England Congregationalism wastherefore well nigh free, and in proportion to this freedomit hardened and narrowed, drawing apart and caring littlefor the constantly developing and increasingly liberaldissent of England.In spite of this failure on the part of New Englandnonconformity to maintain a close union with the dissent-ers in England, the strength of the state church in bothConnecticut and Massachusetts was such that Quakerismmade but slight inroads in the former and in the latter waspushed out into the border counties. For this reason theChurch of England, when planted in Connecticut, wasfacing not the Quakers but rather the strongly establishedCongregational system. Massachusetts, on the other hand,offers the unique case of a three-cornered combat in whichthe two bodies which possessed most vigorous support athome and were victorious, one or the other, in most of themiddle and southern colonies, were here outnumbered andlong defied. Their adversaries, the Congregationalists,471] INTRODUCTION 17while not receiving systematic, organized help from aparent group abroad, were so united and so rigid that fora long time they Were able to deny any concessions.Altho the New England nonconformists were notreceiving direct aid from the dissenting bodies in Englandthey were supported indirectly by William's government.The Massachusetts province charter itself indicated theextent to which sympathy might be expected from thisDutch Protestant ruler who was frankly disappointed inthe failure of the comprehension bill and in his inabilityto do better for the English nonconformists than to securethe Toleration Act. The new charter, the work of IncreaseMather, under the authority of William, specified thatliberty of conscience should be allowed throughout theprovince, and no special recognition of the Church ofEngland was demanded. It failed therefore to supportthe encroachments of Episcopacy which had appeared inthe previous decade, aided by Randolph and Andros. Thenext few years saw the allowance by the king in councilof Massachusetts legislation which practically renewed theecclesiastical system of the seventeenth century. While toa certain extent continuing the methods of the Stuarts indealing with political and economic problems in New Eng-land, William was not ready to make great use of theEnglish 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 nowhad an altered basis for attack in the terms of the newcharter. The Quakers were the first to enter the conflict,drafting appeals to the governor and to the Friends ofLondon before the S. P. G. had even been organized. Theywere regularly supported by the Baptist churches of theprovince, but the assistance thus given them wras meager,as the Baptists were not a numerous sect in New Englanduntil after the religious revival of the middle of the centuryknown as the Great Awakening. The Anglican invasionof Massachusetts, pushed forward after the founding of18 CHURCH AND STATE IN MASSACHUSETTS [472the S. P. G., was an important factor in the progress towardthe new era, but was less effective than the Quaker move-ment for reasons that will appear. The Work of Anglicanand Quaker, while slow and difficult, was aided by the lowcondition of spiritual vitality which New England experi-enced in the years immediately preceding the Great Awak-ening. The very absence of spiritual vigor demanded manylaws to enforce customs which were now tending to lapse,as the people were no longer interested in maintaining theold standards. The elaborate ecclesiastical structure rearedin order to meet the situation was artificial, and had nostrength of its own to resist continued pressure upon it.The nature of this artificial structure and the schemeof attack made against it by outside forces will be treatedin the following discussion. As a study of institutions itplaces some emphasis upon the actual constitution of theMassachusetts church town at the highest point of itsdevelopment and just before its disintegration began. Asa study of English influence on colonial life it pays someattention to the political and religious forces at work inEngland to show what part they played in the eventswhich occurred in Massachusetts.CHAPTER II.THE ECCLESIASTICAL SYSTEM OF PROVINCIALMASSACHUSETTS.The province of Massachusetts Bay offers an unusualfield for the study of contending religious forces in Amer-ica in the early eighteenth century. Against a strongholdof rigid church establishment, in the hands of nonconform-ists, two religious bodies, Anglican and Quaker, contendedfor 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 beingin the seventeenth century, had withstood the attacks ofAntinomians, Baptists and early Quakers, had lapsed dur-ing the Andros regime but was later revived under theprovince charter. In elaborateness of detail and rigidformality the system reached its highest development inthe first quarter of the eighteenth century, in the yearswhen organized attacks upon it caused it to draw its mantleof exclusiveness more closely, and before the attackingforces 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 chartercreated a new era.Postponing for the moment a consideration of thestructure of the Massachusetts system as it was formed inthe seventeenth century and hardened in the early eight-eenth, let us examine the status of the man who did notsympathize with the existing order in the period before theprovincial government. Perfect sympathy, as expressedin church membership, was required as a qualification foradmission to the privileges of the body politic under thefirst charter, and an increasing majority of the inhabitants1920 CHURCH AND STATE IN MASSACHUSETTS [474of the colony were thus excluded from the franchise inspite of the results of the half-way covenant. Actual hos-tility, such as appeared in the views of certain dissentingsects which had crept in, was the attitude which the perse-cuting laws of the seventeenth century were framed tomeet. Permitted more and more to lapse, these lawsbecame a dead letter with the abrogation of the charter andunder the governments which immediately succeeded. Inthe commission by which James II constituted a presidentand council for Massachusetts Bay, a "liberty of con-science" was ordered to "be allowed unto all persons," theChurch of England to be "particularly countenanced andencouraged."1 While the Churchmen of Boston, under theleadership of Randolph and Mason, the only Anglicans onthe council, failed to make hoped-for headway, the NewEngland Quakers were recording their appreciation of thechanged conditions when they met in the summer of 1686."We enjoy outward Peace at present," they wrote to theLondon Yearly Meeting, "the parsecuting spirits beingunder contemp themselves, and much awed by the presentPower in England, so that we enjoy our Meetings Peace-ably."2 The injunctions issued to Dudley, when repeatedin 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 inBoston was among the causes of the attempt to regain thecharter, as well as of the revolt against authority in 1689 ;the other religious sects were well satisfied in finding*5 Mass. Hist. Colls., IX, 150.2Epistles Received, I, 19. A letter written to London later in the sameyear expresses more strikingly the same idea. "Them that were secureand had made their nests in the Stars, are now in some measure broughtto the Dust; their Dagon is fallen, and their Arke is taken, And now arecrying 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 Kingsindulgence for Liberty of Conscience." Ibid., I, 21.33 Mass. Hist. Colls., VII, 147-148.475] MASSACHUSETTS ECCLESIASTICAL SYSTEM 21themselves for the time being relieved from taxation for thesupport of the Congregational system.4While the towns in general went back to their formermethods when the old order was resumed in 1689, its basiswas entirely altered when the new charter went into effecttwo years later. Provisions regarding the relation ofchurch and state are conspicuously lacking in this docu-ment, and because no special prohibition was there laiddown it was possible for the General Court to renew theecclesiastical framework of the seventeenth century with-out exceeding the law. The only limitation appeared in aclause which stated thatfor the greater Ease and Encouragement of Our Loveing Subjects Inhab-iting our said Province or Territory of the Massachusetts Bay and ofsuch as come to Inhabit there Wee doe by these presents for Our heiresand Successors Grant Establish and Ordaine that for ever hereafter thereshall be a liberty of Conscience allowed in the Worshipp of God to allChristians (Except Papists) Inhabiting or which shall inhabit or be resi-dent within our said Province or Territory.5Later 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 openingof 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 Actthe province charter was attempting to bring the noncon-formists of New England a full assurance that they shouldsuffer no interference in their method of worship by thestate church of England. It was therefore in accordancewith one of the special requests submitted by IncreaseMather. 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 affordedby the appointment of Andros, had urged the New England Quakers toappeal to him, and the latter answered with the report that upon applica-tion he "has taken off that oppression and Yoak that Friends were underfor Maintenance of Ministers so called : And Friends have a good Interestin 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 [476eration which they had attained by the end of the colonialperiod should be continued.Neither the hierarchy of Massachusetts nor the dis-senter was satisfied that the interpretation should stophere. The hierarchy found expression for its view in thelaws for"maintaining religion" which renewed the oldecclesiastical system; the scattered representatives of theother sects denounced such action as an infringement ofthe same clause. The view of the elder Mather appears inthe election sermon which he preached in 1693.Your religion is secured to you, [he announced.] Now you need not fearbeing sent to Prison (as some of you were under a late Government)because you scruple Swearing by a Book. You may Worship God in thegreatest Purity, and no one may disturb you. If you set apart Daies forSolemn Praier or Praises, as the Divine Providence may call thereunto,you need not fear being interrupted or Obstructed therein as it was heresix years ago. You may by laws not only Protect, but encourage thatReligion which is the General Profession of the Country.6 Religion isforever secured, [repeated his son,] a righteous and generous liberty ofconscience 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.7The policy here recommended was hardly expressed inpublic law before the opposing forces were announcingtheir interpretation of liberty of conscience. A Quakerappeal of 1702, complaining of taxes for the ministry,begged for a "Liberty of Conscience in the Exercise ofReligion as a Priviledge granted by their Majestyes Char-ter,"8 and later petitions to the provincial assembly and tothe crown repeated over and over the same idea. To favorone system of theology and church practices, taxing allpersons for the support of the favored method, was lookedupon by those not in sympathy with the establishment asan infringement of the charter.9 Many years later IsaacI. Mather, The Great Blessing of Primitive Counsellors, 21.7C. Mather, Parentator, 141.^Bristol Sessions, I, 38."The position is carefully taken in an elaborate representation to thecrown from the Baptists of Rehoboth in 1715."whereas King Charles the Second of happy memory. When Complaintwas made unto his sacred Majestic of the Cruell abuses that his Loyall477] MASSACHUSETTS ECCLESIASTICAL SYSTEM 23Backus, the Baptist historian, in critical comment onCotton Mather, made the assertion that for the GeneralAssembly to "give a distinguishing encouragement" untoa certain form of religion was nothing less than to "em-power some to judge for others about worship, and toenforce their judgments with the sword; which is theroot of the worst persecution in the world."10 These twoconflicting opinions in regard to the meaning of the char-ter and the rights of the dissenting sects in the provincebecame the basis of the struggle which continued througha large part of the eighteenth century.In pursuance of the Mather theory that laws mightbe passed for the encouragement of that form of religionwhich received popular favor, the General Court began toput once more into operation the system for financialsupport for the orthodox ministers of the towns which, sofar as it was a matter regulated by the central authority,had recently lapsed. In Boston no difficulty had beenoccasioned because of the long standing custom of sup-porting ministers by voluntary contributions.11 In thesubjects met with all in the Massathusetts Collony in New England,Namely, the Baptists, and the Quakers, and that from the Independantand Presbiterian parties, and that upon the Account of Religion, Somethey Severely fined, some weer Cruelly punished, and put to Death, heDid quickly put a Stop to their Tirannie and Enlarged the Libertye of hispoor Distressed subjects, to his Immortal honour, Granting Libertye ofConscience 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 Charterfor the Better Encourageing of there Subjects in New England,and when your Sacred Majestic Came to the throne you was pleasedto Indulge the tender consciences of your good and Loyall subjects inthis Province, for which we owe all true Allegiance to the Church ofEngland for Ever, Yett notwithstanding it has been the Practice of manytowns within this province, and Still is to Rate and make Distress Uponthe Estates of men whoe Differr in Point of Worship, as the Case is withus 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", Randolphwrites, "The Ministers in Boston are paid by a Collection weekly made inthe several Congregations by the Elders, who give the Ministers what24 CHURCH AND STATE IX MASSACHUSETTS [478country, however, especially in towns least in sympathywith the state church, a real problem had presented itself,as the ministers had found themselves unable to collecttheir salaries. 12 By a law of the 17th of June 1692, thepreamble of which stated thatseveral taxes or assessments, necessary for the support of the ministryand other public charges arising in the several counties and towns withinthis province, have been laid upon the inhabitants, and 'orderly committedto the constables or collectors by the selectmen or assessors in the severaltowns . . . 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 countytreasurer in each county or the selectmen in the townwhere they were made before the 10th of the followingDecember. In any county or town where such taxes hadbeen agreed on but not assessed, the selectmen of the sev-eral towns were ordered to make such rates and committhem to the constables to be collected in the samemanner. 13Toward the end of the same year came the first of theacts "for the settlement and support of ministers andschoolmasters" under the provincial government, differingonly slightly from seventeenth century legislation on thesame subject. Each town in the province was ordered totake due care to be provided with an "able, learned ortho-dox minister or ministers, of good conversation," the sameto be suitably maintained by the inhabitants of the town.If the inhabitants failed to make a contract, then, uponcomplaint to the quarter sessions of the peace for thecounty, the latter was empowered "to order a competentthey think fitt, but in other Towns they have a settled maintenance by arate laid upon every Inhabitant, & houses are provided for them." Perry,Ch. Docs., Mass., 6. "In some Churches, the Salary of the Minister israised by a Voluntary contribution; especially in populous Places, andwhere many Strangers resort." C. Mather, Ratio Disciplinae, 20.12"Discoragmts upon the hearts of the ministers increase by reasonthat 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.13Mass. Prov. Laws, I, 28.479] MASSACHUSETTS ECCLESIASTICAL SYSTEM 25allowance unto such minister according to the estate andthe ability of the town; the same to be assessed upon theinhabitants by warrant from the court, directed by theselectmen," who were then to assess the same and causeit to be levied by the constables. The act further providedthat in case a town was without a minister for six monthsthe court of quarter sessions should order such town toprovide itself immediately; and in case it failed to do so,the court should procure and settle a minister there "andorder the charge thereof and of such minister's maintam-ance to be levied upon the inhabitants of such town." Sofar no new theory was involved but in the fourth sectionappeared a new principle. Under the colonial governmentit had been customary for the members of a church to electthe man who should become their minister; but as churchmembers only could become freemen and hence voters intown affairs, this was practically equivalent to the electionof a minister by the town in those towns of the provincewhich still had but one church. That it was looked uponin this way is probable from the fact that the new lawordered that a minister should be chosen by the major partof the inhabitants of a town in town meeting; and that thewhole town should then be obliged to pay towards his set-tlement and maintenance. 14 Immediately there arose adifficulty, for the new charter had done away with the oldchurch membership qualification for voting and had sub-stituted a property basis which, now applied, meant thata far larger group of people than the members of a churchwould be electing its minister. 15 Further than this itfailed to satisfy the conditions existing when there wasmore 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." IsaacBackus to Jedediah Morse, 9 March, 1791. Backus Papers (New EnglandBap. Hist. Soc.), Portfolio 42. Cf. the Massachusetts state constitutionof 1780 which again introduced this method, thereby causing difficultiesat the time of the Unitarian movement which hastened the separation ofchurch and state.26 CHURCH AND STATE IN MASSACHUSETTS [480a dead letter because of the well established method ofvoluntary contributions to which the Boston churcheswere accustomed.Before dissatisfaction with these provisions hadcaused any change in legislation, the General Court con-tinued its supervision of ministerial support in an act forregulating townships and town officers. It was enacted (16November, 1692) that the selectmen or townsmen shouldassess the inhabitants and other residents of a town andthe lands and estates lying within its bounds to all towncharges ordered by the inhabitants in town meeting "forthe maintenance and support of the ministry, schools, thepoor, and for the defraying of other necessary chargesarising within the said town," the constable or constablesthereupon to levy and collect such assessments,and to make distress upon all such [as] [who] shall [neglect or] refuse tomake payment. And for want of goods or chattels whereon to makedistress, to seize the person and commit him to the common goal of thecounty, 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 thequarter sessions, shall be abated.A penalty of five pounds was then declared for refusing totake the oath when duly chosen to serve in the office ofconstable, and in case the delinquent constable refused topay this fine, it was to be levied by distress and sale of hisgoods, the overplus returned.16Meanwhile, the unsatisfactory provisions of the actfor the settlement and support of ministers was causingannoyance, and to dispel it an act was passed on February17, 1693, to explain and alter some of its clauses. The newlaw repealed the fourth section of the older one and gaveeach church power to choose its own minister with the re-striction that this act of the church to be valid must beconcurred in by "the major part of such inhabitants as dothere usually attend on the publick worship of God, andare by law duly qualified for voting in town affairs." 1718Mass. 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 thatthe matter was decided. By "Such inhabitants as do there usually attend"481] MASSACHUSETTS ECCLESIASTICAL SYSTEM 27The clause allowing for his settlement and support wasmade 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, allthe inhabitants, and rateable estates lying within" it shouldbe obliged to pay in proportion. In the case of Boston anexception was made in both of these matters and this townwas 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 thesecond law was much more definite and went farther.Where a town neglected its duty in regard to maintenanceof the ministry, the court of quarter sessions, upon com-plaint, should summon the selectmen or other assessorsand impose a fine upon themnot exceeding forty shillings each person for the first offense; and upona second conviction of such neglect to impose a fine of four pounds uponeach 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).18Such 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 Massachusettsthere came under the Boston government three new coun-ties, in each of which were towns that for thirty years hadis meant the persons who are included in the precinct, whether churchmembers or not, and who would be expected to attend at that meeting.Nowhere is the exact situation, when finally developed, more clearly statedthan in Ratio Disciplinae, 15-16. Mather here says that after the churchmembers have voted to call a certain minister, they "have a Meeting withthe other Inhabitants of their Neighborhood, who are not yet arrived intothe 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 bethe 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 inthe Law, make the whole Taxable in the Maintenance of the Minister,which the Church doth chuse."18Mass. Prov. Laws,l, 102; Backus, Baptists, I, 448.28 CHURCH AND STATE IN MASSACHUSETTS [482been establishing independent religious services recognizedby their own town government and resisting the PlymouthGeneral Court. To provide against this state of affairsamong the Baptists and Quakers of Buzzards Bay, CapeCod, and the Khode Island border was the chief purposeof the ecclesiastical legislation of Massachusetts for thenext thirty-five years.The law just quoted went into effect in the winter of1693. One year from the following May, at the time ofmeeting of the general assembly of Massachusetts Bay,when, as was customary, the ministers of the province wereassembled in their annual convention at Boston,19 theyframed a memorial to present to the General Court de-scribing certain difficulties which some of their numberwere experiencing under the existing legislation.Inasmuch as destitute Churches are plunged into Extreame Difficultys,[ran this memorial,] in their Election & settlement of Ministers by yeOpposition 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 GenerallCourt referring thereunto, may be Explained, with an Additional Clause,Declaring, what shall bee done by Churches, In Case ye other Inhabitantsin a Town Oppose their Acts in ye Calling of a Minister, without givingSatisfactory Reasons for their Non-concurrence.It was suggested that the inhabitants of the town might insuch a case call a council of representatives from severalother churches who should consider the question underdiscussion, and in case of agreement with church ratherthan town could annul the vote of the town meeting. Thecharges arising from the entertainment of such a councilshould be paid by a levy upon the whole town.20 No lawto this effect was passed in this session, but in the followingyear the ministers again reminded the court of the "manyparts of the Country which from year to year live withoutany settled Ministry," and urged that "This Hona Courtwould take it into their Consideration whether a Commit-tee may not be appointed ... to Tender fit Methods forthe Establishment of the Christian Religion in those"Walker, Creeds and Platforms of Congregationalism, 467-469;Mather, Ratio Disciplinae, 176-177.20Mass. Prov. Laws, VII, 537.483] MASSACHUSETTS ECCLESIASTICAL SYSTEM 29places."21 The court now took action. On June 13, 1695,the substance of the memorial of 1694 became law in sofar as it provided for the calling of a council "consistingof the elders and messengers of three or five neighboringchurches" in case of the non-concurrence in the church'sact by the town.22 It did however suggest the possibility21Mass. Archives, XI, 90.22"In Case of a Difference between the Church and the Inhabitantson this Occasion," Mather writes, "the Law provides the Remedy of aCouncil, from three Neighbour Churches, to decide, Whether the In-habitants ought to acquiesce in the Choice, wherein the Church has gonebefore 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, andhave 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, aDisposition to supersede it, and over-rule it; Many People would notallow the Church any Priviledge to go before them, in the Choice of aPastor. The Clamour is, We must maintain him!"Mather next quotes "Some of our Divines" who say, " 'A Body ofChristians, Associated for all the Ordinances of the Gospel, are aCHURCH of our Glorious LORD, which have among other preciousPriviledges, 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 andeven Destroy a most Valuable RIGHT, that such a Society has a Claimunto, and many evil Consequences are to be expected from it.Nevertheless a CHURCH, in the Exercise of its RIGHT, ought inall possible Ways, consistent therewithal, to consult the Edification andSatisfaction 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 Neighbourshave 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 ofthese Conclusions, the Churches, do sometimes, by their Vote, make aNomination of Three or Four Candidates; For every One of which theMajority of the Brethren have so Voted, that whomsoever of these theChoice falls upon, it may still be said, The Church has Chosen him.And then they bring this Nomination unto the other Inhabitants, to joinwith them in a Vote, that shall determine, which of them shall be theMan." Ratio Disciplinae, 16-18.30 CHURCH AND STATE IN MASSACHUSETTS [484of this council's favoring the town's choice rather than thatof the church by ordering that in this case the churchshould "proceed to the election of another minister;" con-cerning the expenses of the council it failed to take anyaction whatever.23Two years later came a law regarding town rateswhich rounded out this early legislation dealing with thesettlement and support of the ministry. Since certainconstables and collectors of town rates had proved defect-ive and negligent of duty, it was enacted that in case theyfailed to issue their accounts with the town treasurer bythe time prefixed in their warrants, they should be "lyableto the action or suite of the treasurer" of the town whomight "sue for and recover all such rates and assessments,or any arrears thereof, of and from those constables orcollectors."24From the foregoing laws may be outlined briefly theworkings of the Massachusetts ecclesiastical system at thebeginning of the provincial period, reproducing as closelyas possible the system developed in the seventeenth cen-tury. Three governmental bodies were concerned with thechurch as related to the state, the town meeting, the courtof quarter sessions of the county, and the MassachusettsGeneral Court. The legislative body passed the ecclesias-tical laws ordering that each town be provided with aminister 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 GeneralCourt also made it the duty of the court of quarter sessionsto make sure that these laws were put into execution.Towns which failed to supply themselves with ministerswere to be supplied and selectmen or assessors who failedto assess the rates might be prosecuted by this court.Lastly the town itself played an all important part in thissystem, for it bore the financial burden entailed and was23Mass. Prov. Laws, I, 216; Backus, Baptists, I, 455.24Mass. Prov. Laws, I, 276.485] MASSACHUSETTS ECCLESIASTICAL SYSTEM 31responsible for ratifying the choice of a minister made bythe church members.The laws of 1693 and 1695 offered a clear program fordealing with normal towns in their relation to the church,minister and support of religious worship. There had,however, already begun to appear that undercurrent ofdetermination to manage effectively the communitieswhere a large number of dissenters to the standing orderprevented a willing support of the system. Trouble withthem continued, and an act of 1702 for the first time statedthe case by saying thatin some few towns and districts within this province, divers of the inhab-itants are Quakers, and other irreligious persons averse and opposite tothe publick worship of God, and to a learned orthodox ministry, and findout ways to elude the laws provided for the support of such, and preventthe good intentions thereof, to the encouragement of irreligion and pro-faneness.The law of 1692 for the fining of delinquent selectmen orassessors was now re-enacted with the further provisionthat the court of general sessions might in their placesappoint "three or more sufficient freeholders within thesame county, to assess and apportion the sum agreed orset for the yearly support and maintenance of such minis-ter," which would then be passed with a warrant for itscollection by two justices of the peace to the constables ofthe 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 asfor not collecting and paying in any other rate or assess-ment to them committed." The court of general sessionswas also to order a recompense to the assessors for thispurpose appointed out of the fines set upon the delinquentselectmen or assessors, the remainder to go to the county.25For the next few years following this enactment thecourt of general sessions for Bristol County found suchdetermined resistance to this legislation in the Quakertowns of Dartmouth and Tiverton that the legislative body2SIbid., I, 505. An unsuccessful attempt was made by the Bishop ofLondon to secure the disallowance of this act by the crown. Ibid., I, 509.32 CHURCH AND STATE IN MASSACHUSETTS [486of the province was forced to come to its aid with the actof November 14, 1706. The justices of the general sessionsof the peace were ordered, at the opening of their court, togive special charge to the grand jury to make presentmentof all towns and districts within the county destitute of aminister or failing to provide for his support, and uponsuch presentment to put into execution vigorously the lawsrelating to neglects of this kind. If their orders were theneluded by the towns concerned, the justices were to makereport of their proceedings at the next meeting of the Gen-eral Court. Upon receipt of this report the General Courtof the province should take upon itself the care of securinga minister for such town or district, and provide for hismaintenance. The course by which the latter was to beobtained carried the prerogative of the provincial govern-ment in ecclesiastical matters to the highest point whichit ever dared assume. It was to add so much to the pro-portion of such town or district in the public taxes asmight be deemed sufficient for that end, these additionalsums to be assessed, collected, and paid into the publictreasury, together with the other public taxes, to be drawnout by warrant from the governor by and with the adviceand consent of the council and duly paid to the ministerconcerned.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 ormore settled, ordained ministers.27 This law was re-en-acted July 5, 1722.28In the meantime a series of enactments dealing withassessing and collecting of town taxes, especially wheremore than one precinct made up the town, modified themethods by which the minister's rate was gathered. Theprivileges and rights of the "precinct" as a distinct church-state were rapidly becoming crystallized. In 1702 such an-*Ibid., I, 595--Vbid., II, 26; Backus, Baptists, 482.- 8Mass. Prov. Laws, II, 243.487] MASSACHUSETTS ECCLESIASTICAL SYSTEM 33district or precinct was empowered to appoint a clerk(corresponding to town clerk) and separate assessors forraising a maintenance for its minister, as well as to makeout a warrant "in form as by law prescribed for townrates or assessments, directed to the constables of the townor district, for the collecting and levying of the same."In case the assesors so appointed refused or neglected toperform their duty the selectmen of the town from whichsuch a district or precinct was set off were required toassess the inhabitants of the sum set for the maintenanceof the minister thereof.29 This law, extending only to thesums agreed on for the support of the ministry, was ex-tended in 1718 so as to include charges for the buildingand repairing of meeting houses.30The existence of assessors apart from the selectmenwas arranged by law, for the assessing of the province rate,as early as 1700,31 and in 1707 they were ordered to assesscounty and town taxes as well, the duties of the selectmenbecoming thus limited. Each town was also given optionin the choice of a collector distinct from the constable to col-lect town and county charges as he already gathered thecountry rate.32 In 1710 the idea was repeated moredefinitely, tho the duty remained optional, and was appliedto precincts as well as towns.33 The re-enactment of thislaw in 1720 included a penalty for failure to serve. Anyonewho refused to accept this unsought office or neglected to29Ibid., I, 505.30Ibid., II, 99, ch. i, 19 June, 1/18; Backus, Baptists, I, 499.31Mass. Prov. Laws, I, 406, ch. 26, 20 March, 1700.z-Ibid., I, 606, ch. 2, ii June, 1/07. The ministry rate seems to havebeen assessed separately under ordinary circumstances, "But," said Mather,"Where Quakerism is troublesome, some Towns are so wise to involvethe Salary of the Ministry in a general Rate for all Town Charges, andso the Cavils of those, who would else refuse to pay the Rate for theMinistry, are obviated." Ratio Disciplinae, 22. "They have the Year pastbrought in another of their Ministers into this town of Rehoboth whereinwe Dwell and have Rated us to him allso mixing up both his and theirother ministers Rate with the town Debts." Representation from theBaptists of Rehoboth, i Jan., 1714/15, S. P. G. Papers, B I, No. 169.33Mass. Prov. Laws, I, 653, ch. 5, 28 June, 1710.34 CHURCH AND STATE IX .MASSACHUSETTS [488take the oath was to be fined three pounds ; and if he refusedto pay his fine he was to suffer the same prosecution as onerefusing to serve in the office of constable.34Such is a brief outline of the legislation of the earlyMassachusetts Bay Province relating to the state churchand its maintenance. Starting with the system alreadyworked out in the seventeenth century, the General Courtwas forced to modify the old plan when it found that itsorders went unheeded. The state church of Massachusettswas in the first instance a distinctly local affair, the townplaying the chief part, the county giving assistance andthe General Court acting principally as the source ofauthority. Variations from the normal in certain parts ofthe enlarged province caused a change which brought thelegislative body into closer relation with the individualtowns and caused it to assert a greater authority overthem. After giving the county court very special powersand seeing them eluded, the General Court entered thebreach, and endowed itself with the power to secure aminister where one was lacking and to pay his salaryfrom the public treasury, adding such sum to the town'sprovince rate. In this and in other instances the GeneralCourt came to play a very prominent part in the churchlife of the town. Before examining further the exact na-ture of the Massachusetts church town and its intimaterelation to the county court and to the general assemblyof the province, a short study will be made of the opposingelements in the ecclesiastical life of the province, whichwill throw further light on the laws above enumerated andexplain the changes which occurred. While the principleof the Massachusetts system remained in force for morethan 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 theexternal causes and the nature of the change which the oldsystem suffered.34Ibid., II, 181, ch. 6, 29 Nov., 1/20.CHAPTER III.OPPOSING ELEMENTS.By the year 1700 New England had lost much of thehomogeneity which in the period of settlement had beenpossessed by the two larger colonies. In religious mattersits inhabitants represented a fair sweep of opinion althoas yet they were all alike dissenters to the Church of Eng-land except the small body of worshippers at King's Chapelin Boston. 1 Khode Island, extending toleration as it hadfrom 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 sectreached well beyond its own borders. While Rhode Islandhad marched steadily onward in its theory of religiousliberty, the case of Connecticut represented the oppositeextreme. Here the strictness of early Calvinism had beenmodified far less than in Massachusetts Bay and, tho va-rious intruders had gained a foothold, they failed to thriveas in certain other parts of New England. 3 Between thesea"An Account of the State of Religion in the English Plantations inNorth America, by Col. Dudley, Governor of New England," Prot. Episc.Hist. Soc. Colls., I, xiv, v.2Samuel Cranston, elected governor in 1696 to succeed Walter Clarke,tho not himself a Quaker, was a nephew of Clarke and in sympathy withQuaker policy. Jones, Quakers, 199.3As 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 wereheld for two hundred miles in Connecticut, and remarked, "The Peoplebeing mostly rigid Presbyterians, counted it to be a great Crime to be ata Quakers Meeting." Bownas, Life and Travels, 116. About the timethat the Connecticut law against heretics was revived, John Fothergillwrote, "After staying a few Meetings on Long-Island we set out forNew-England, having near two hundred Miles to travel by land throughthe Colony of Connecticut ; in which Space there were few or no Friends,3536 CHURCH AND STATE IN MASSACHUSETTS [490two positions Massachusetts was maintaining herself in away that could not fail to become increasingly difficult.One problem had been presented to her by the annexationof New Hampshire and Maine towns which were communi-ties of a strikingly different character from those rearedunder her own theocratic system. These were settlementsmade by persons who were primarily interested in tradeand commerce and careless of her dearest theories in regardto church and state. Tho a menace to theocratic govern-ment, the inhabitants were at least neutral regarding thespread of other denominations. With the merging ofPlymouth Colony in Massachusetts a far more difficultproblem was offered by the presence of a few Baptistchurches and a number of Quaker communities which hadnot been effectively dealt with by Plymouth court, farmore tolerant and less aggressive as it always was thanthe assembly of the old Bay Colony.Massachusetts at the time we are considering, includ-ing Maine and Plymouth, was made up of about eightyvillages, scattered all the way from the fishing communitiesof the Maine coast, Falmouth and Scarboro, Wells, Yorkand Kittery, to the settlements of Martha's Vineyard andNantucket. Passing over a large section of rough hillcountry in the present county of Worcester, it likewiseheld possession of a number of promising towns in theConnecticut valley, closely related to the river towns ofConnecticut. Starting at Springfield, settlers had pushedup the Connecticut and its branches until Northampton,Hadley, Hatfield, Deerfield and Westfield had all comeinto existence as farming hamlets, forming the county ofHampshire. Just below the New Hampshire border lay thevillages of Essex county, some of them among the earliestsettled communities in the colony, yet sharing many of thesame frontier and trading interests as their neighbors tothe northward. Here were the coast towns of Salem,and the People generally very shy of us, and partly by reason of somesevere Laws then in force there, they were afraid to converse withFriends." Fothergill, Life and Travels, 39.491] OPPOSING ELEMENTS 37Gloucester and Marblehead and the exposed settlementsof Haverhill, Andover, Amesbury and Salisbury.4 Bostonwas the center of the thickly populated region of Suffolkand Middlesex counties, the former including the capitaland the old towns to the southward, Roxbury, Dorchesterand Milton, and farther toward Plymouth the early settle-ments of Weymouth and Braintree.5 Middlesex county, incovering a much larger area, contained some of the oldestplaces in the province, such as Cambridge, Charlestown,Newton and Watertown, and likewise another group offrontier communities requiring garrisons during the In-dian wars. Among these were Dunstable, Groton, Lancas-ter and Oxford.6Of the three new counties which Plymouth had re-cently contributed, Plymouth county itself represented thetown of Plymouth, its neighbor Scituate, the Quaker com-munities of Duxbury and Marshfield, and the town ofBridgewater. The broad sand dunes of Barnstable countyboasted the Cape Cod villages of Barnstable, Eastham,Sandwich and Yarmouth, and the county of Bristol wasmade 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.7In many of the frontier villages and near some of theolder towns as well were scattered numerous plantations ofIndians whose conversion had been a matter of seriousimportance to the colony in earlier days and was latertaken up by the province. Here were a number of nativeIndian preachers and these were assisted by such of the4The others represented in the Massachusetts General Court in 1700were Newbury, Beverly, Boxford, Ipswich, Lynn, Rowley, Topsfield andWenham.'Also Dedham, Hingham and Medfield.The" list also included Billerica, Chelmsford, Concord, Marlborough,Maiden, Medford, Reading, Sherburne, Sudbury and Woburn.7Oldmixon, Brit. Emp. in Am., I, 81-88; Mass. Prov. Laws, VII, 238.The eastern shore of Narragansett Bay, including Bristol, Tiverton andLittle Compton, was later surrendered to Rhode Island.38 CHURCH AND STATE IN MASSACHUSETTS [492regular ministers as were interested in visiting and preach-ing in this type of parish.8 Even the General Court tooksome limited measures for their evangelization.9Of the organized towns of the province none lacked itsregular minister except an occasional frontier communityor the old settlements of Bristol county which were of aspirit definitely hostile to the purposes of the standingorder.The situation in the town of Boston at the beginningof the eighteenth century was not typical of the church lifeof the province. There were in Boston in 1700 four Con-gregational churches : the old First, the Second, under thedirection of the Mathers, the South Church under Mr.Willard, and the Brattle Street Church which, because ithad been founded recently on a slightly broader basis ofcreed and platform, was still looked upon askance by theother churches. 10 The voluntary method of contributingto the support of church and minister had very early sep-arated church and state in the chief town of the colony, sofar as this phase of the matter was concerned. Furtherthan this the presence of three "dissenting meetings" inthis town materially changed the effect which a uniformityin creed and service would have produced. 11 The societyof the French Protestants, organized in Boston in 1687,had little to do with the result, as the Calvinism of theHuguenots was sufficiently close to that of New Englandto make the Massachusetts ministers unusually cordial.There was even some special legislation in their favor andsome definite financial support given them from the publictreasury.12 It was the three"dissenting sects" of Baptists,Anglicans and Quakers which gave the religious life of*Typographus Lectori, with Joseph Baxter, Sermon, 89-98.9Mass. Prov. Laws, VII, 254, ch. 45.10Winsor, Boston, II, 188 et seq.lllbid., 192 et seq.* 2Mass. Prov. Laws, VII, 250, ch. 34, 29 June, 1700. Under the dateof 8 Jan., 1686/87, Cotton Mather records in his diary, "I would show allthe Kindness that I can, unto the French Refugees arrived in this Coun-try." 7 Mass. Hist. Colls., VII, 134.493] OPPOSING ELEMENTS 39Boston so different a flavor from that of the other colonialtowns.Of these three the Church of England was the first toreceive recognition and permission to build a church inBoston. 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 throughBandolph's influence an Episcopal clergyman was securedfor the church of Boston who reached the town May 16,1686. A building was begun soon after, and, tho it sufferedin the revolution of 1689, was soon after open again, andrepresented a well recognized organization by the end ofthe century.13 The first Baptist church in Boston, thoorganized as early as 1685, was oppose^ so strenuouslythat it had no meeting house for many years. By 1700,however, the body was in general on friendly terms withthe authorities and was more fortunate than the Anglicansociety 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 ofintruders. In forty years they had passed from the violentpersecution, meted out to them at their first coming, to thepossession of a brick meeting house, and were no longer ingeneral odium.15 In 1700, then, Boston had four churches13Foote, Annals of King's Chapel, passim."Backus, Baptists, I, 173-199, 205, 383-384 ; Wood, First Baptist Churchof Boston, passim. As late as 1696 Mather could write of "A Preacherin my Neighborhood, who, I hope, is a good Man, however hee bee notof my Perswasion, but a froward Anabaptist." 7 Mass. Hist. Colls., VII,209."While the general tendency was to be increasingly tolerant of thissect, there were two parties in the matter, each including various shadesof opinion. One of these was regretful of the former persecutions, theother 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 meetingon August 23, 1708, he opposed granting a petition for the privilege ofbuilding a Quaker meeting house on the ground that he "would not havea 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 as40 CHURCH AND STATE IN MASSACHUSETTS [494of the standing order, a French Protestant congregation, aBaptist church, a Quaker meeting, and King's Chapel.Each of these was independent financially except for themissionary help which had been given to the Huguenots;for the Congregational churches maintained themselvesexactly as the Baptists were forced to do.If Boston was not characteristic of the province atlarge in its method of church support, it was essentiallyunlike the country towns in its inclusion of four recognizedsects within a single township. While Quakerism andBaptist doctrines were present in various sections of theprovince and appeared side by side in several places, yet,in those districts where they were strongest, the standingorder was comparatively inconspicuous. Moreover therewas, as early as 1700, not a single Episcopal church in allMassachusetts 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 onwhich he prided himself. "Among other things, I ran the Hazard ofmuch Reproch by testifying in that Sermon (Election Sermon, 1692)against the Persecution of erroneous and conscientious Dissenters, by thecivil Magistrate. I feared that the Zeal of my Country had formerly hadin it more Fire than should have been ; especially, when the mad Quakerswere 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, wouldbee 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, byPersecution." 7 Mass. Hist. Colls., VII, 149, Cotton Mather's Diary, 14May, 1692. The Quaker, Thomas Chalkley, visiting Boston in 1698, wrote,"I being a Stranger and Traveller could not but observe the barbarousand unchristianlike Welcome I had in Boston, the Metropolis of New-England. 'Oh! what pity, (said one,) it was that all of your Society wasnot hanged with the other Four!'" Chalkley, Journal, 18. "Remarkablewas the Answer that one of his Neighbours made him, 'I wonder you arenot ashamed to say so ; for you know that the Judgments of God havebeen 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 imputethese 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 41ton. 16 King's Chapel itself was an outgrowth of the royalprerogative in the capital. Outside of the chief town ofthe province, Episcopacy had so little reason for existencethat there was no real attempt to introduce it until theformation of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospelin the following year, and even under its nourishing carethe Church in Massachusetts continued to be a foreignplant.On the other hand, the two religious bodies with whichthe standing order first came into conflict expanded natu-rally with the inevitable reaction to the strictness of seven-teenth century Calvinism. The opposition aroused appearedin two distinct attacks upon the Massachusetts system asit had worked out and applied the teachings of Calvin.One of these was the attack on the alliance between churchand state which the Massachusetts government had carriedfarther than it had ever been in Geneva. The second wasthe opposition to reliance on authority in religious belief.On this point the Puritans of the late seventeenth centurywere hardly less traditionalists than the Roman Catholicsthemselves, for they had substituted the authority of theBible for that of the Church. In the attack on the relationbetween 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, forwhich the Baptists have always stood, their doctrinal di-vergences, especially of the Particular or Calvinistic Bap-tists, were inconspicuous. On the question of the sourceof authority in religious belief, Anne Hutchinson and theAntinomians foreshadowed the later Quaker teaching. Intheir opinion divine revelation had not ceased and was tobe sought in the immediate communion between the indi-vidual and God. "Heretical" doctrines such as theseneeded little stimulus from foreign sources and spreadthrough Massachusetts with astonishing speed, dwelling16Cf. George Keith. "In all the Continent of New England there isno Church of England I think, but at Boston, I have travelled throughmuch of it, but never heard of any but that one." Prot. Episc. Hist. Soc.Colls., I, xi-xii.42 CHURCH AND STATE IN MASSACHUSETTS [496under the surface and then asserting themselves, dividingcommunities, causing migrations. 17 To such ideas as thesethe founding of Rhode Island was due in part, while withinthe Plymouth government, far less rigid as it was than theBay Colony, were several regions which became the resortof refugees from Massachusetts. Even in Massachusettsitself Salem was early the abode of persons of the mystictype of mind, the one territory within the boundaries of theold colony where they persisted, tho they never flourishedhere as in the Rhode Island region.Upon such ground as this fell the seeds of Quakerismwhen the first members of the society reached New Englandin 1656 and 1657, and tho suffering banishment, perse-cution and finally death, succeeded in planting the doctrinewhich was to be the greatest foe of New England orthodoxyfor almost a century. Along theological lines the Quakersoutstripped the Baptists, placing before all else the efficacyof the "inner light," and thus directly assaulting theCalvinist's emphasis upon the Scriptures as authority, thelatter interpreted by the trained Calvinistic theologian.The appeal made by the Quaker doctrine in New Englandwas therefore twofold. It attracted the more tolerant ofthe younger generation in whom was dawning an apprecia-tion of religious liberty. It attracted likewise the religiousindividualist who fought authority in matters of belief.Among such were many of the third generation inPlymouth Colony who were carrying the principles ofIndependency to their logical conclusions. In the main,however, the Quaker apostacy in Massachusetts was not somuch 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 hadlittle to say. This explains the fact that, with certainexceptions, the Quaker of New England occupied a farlower social position than the Philadelphia Friend."The pre-Quaker movement in New England has been described inRufus M. Jones, The Quakers in the American Colonies, London, 1911.497] OPPOSING ELEMENTS 43Between the coming of the Quakers and the beginningof provincial government, when an extended boundary, anew franchise, and a greater liberty of conscience modifiedthe Massachusetts ecclesiastical system, the Society ofFriends was spreading rapidly. Within the limits of theold Bay Colony the one center, as already indicated, wasSalem and Lynn, and from the north shore itinerantpreachers traveled into the Piscataqua region which em-braced the New Hampshire towns and the villages of theMaine coast. But of all the divisions of New Englandwhich in 1700 made up the province of Massachusetts Bay,the three counties which had once formed Plymouth Colonyoffered the most serious problems in the relation of Congre-gationalist and Friend. The reasons for this have alreadyappeared. Among the Plymouth Colony people there was atendency to resist a rigid ecclesiasticism such as Massa-chusetts was forming. This found expression in theQuaker and Baptist leanings of many individuals and inthe comparative liberality of the Plymouth governmenttoward dissenting sects. While it is not true that theauthorities at Plymouth were in any way friendly to theQuakers, they may have been influenced in the directionof persecution by the Boston government. They weresevere in restrictive laws and fined and imprisoned througha period of many years ; but they failed to enforce the lawin the outskirts of the colony and never made use of thedeath penalty. 18 The close proximity to the liberal townsof Rhode Island was of importance in maintaining thisspirit in southeastern Massachusetts.Of the three counties which had formerly belonged toPlymouth Colony and were at the beginning of theeighteenth century a part of the province of MassachusettsBay, each maintained a thriving Quaker center. Plymouthtown in her consistent aversion to the sect had relegated itto 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 [498Rhode Island had come after 1658, the Society of Friendswas holding a meeting as early as 1660. 19 In the countyof Barnstable the two towns at the base of the cape, Sand-wich and Falmouth, formed a vigorous Quaker communitywhich held a meeting by 1672. The third Quaker centerwithin the boundaries of old Plymouth Colony, embracingall the southern part of the Massachusetts Bay Province,was Bristol county.20 There is a certain embarrassment intreating this region as a part of Massachusetts. Includingas it did in 1700 not merely the townships which are stillwithin its borders, but the whole eastern shore of Narra-gansett Bay as well, it represented a greater liberality andindependence along political and religious lines than anyother section of the province. These towns did indeedbelong to Rhode Island in their history, their sympathiesand their purposes, and were only geographically andpolitically a part of Massachusetts. The history of thereligious development in them was parallel to that on theisland. In many there was a mixture of beliefs unifiedonly by an insistence upon independence of authority inboth spiritual and temporal concerns. Others possesseda unity in doctrine best represented in the almost solidQuakerism of old Dartmouth. The assembly of PlymouthColony had attempted to legislate in regard to publicworship and the ministry here, but was never able toenforce its orders on the town.21While Bristol county was preeminently the strongholdof Massachusetts Quakerism at the beginning of theeighteenth century, to neglect the presence of the Baptistswithin its borders would be unjust to a sect which, thomore restricted at this period, was destined to become thepolitical successor of the Society of Friends. Backusrecognizes only two communities including Boston in whichthere were Baptist churches before 1700 and mentions noother before 1736. 22 While this is accurate only if a19Thomas, Quakers, 212.20Jones, Quakers, 39, 40, 57, 58, 60.21Potter, First Cong. Soc. in New Bedford, 14."Backus, Baptists, II, 306-310.499] OPPOSING ELEMENTS 45restricted notion is held of the qualifications of such anorganization, it is nevertheless indicative of the smallnumbers of this group of dissenters in Massachusetts in thefirst quarter of the eighteenth century.23 It is again sig-nificant of the nature of Bristol county that the firstBaptist society within the boundaries of the present statewas permitted to establish itself in this region many yearsbefore it had any sister church except the group at Boston.This church was founded by a body of Baptists from a townin Wales who left home with their pastor at the ejectmentof the nonconforming ministers in the early days of theKestoration, found favor with certain Plymouth magis-trates of liberal views, and secured the region of Swanseain which to settle. The remarkable feature in the grant ofNew Swansea in 1667 is that it was only a territorial grantand made no condition as to settlement and government.The immediate growth of the church was due to the factthat there had existed for several years in this part of oldKehoboth a group of persons who opposed the establishedchurch and had taken up with certain Baptist principles.Amicable relations were maintained with the orthodoxmembers of the community, a condition made possible bythe unusual catholicity of the Welsh pastor, while thechurch stood out only for independence from governmentcontrol. Not until he was succeeded by a man who pro-fessed more rigid views in theology and drew the churchwith him, did religious controversy between Baptist andCongregationalist begin, in time splitting the church onsectarian lines. 2423Backus quotes a letter from Edward Wallin of London to Callen-der, dated 9 March, 1720, which says, "I am indeed troubled at the paucityof those of our denomination, in New England ; though I cannot wonder atit, considering the treatment they have generally met with." Baptists, I,487.24Bicknell, 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 [500Another early church in Bristol county was the one atDartmouth itself, whose first teacher had found it profitableto leave the older part of Plymouth Colony because ofliberal views. John Cooke had been deacon in Plymouthchurch for some years,25 but was said to have been excom-municated for causing dissension and "running into-sectarian and anabaptistical principles ;" leaving Plymouthhe finally settled in Dartmouth. A church was probablyfounded in the west part of the town about 1685. 26 AtTiverton a Baptist church is said to have been organizedin the previous year.27This description of the first Quaker and Baptist meet-ings within the limits of the later Massachusetts BayProvince has dwelt only on the more important centers ofthe propaganda. There were Baptists in all the RhodeIsland border towns28 and on the islands adjacent to CapeCod,29 while in small numbers they appeared in many othervillages of Plymouth Colony. There wrere also a few inthe Piscataqua region.30 Quakers were found between1698 and 1705 in many of the communities to the northwardsuch 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, 251-252.28Backus, Baptists, I, 452-454.Z1i75th Anniversary of the Organisation of the United CongregationalChurch of Little Compton, R. I., 13.28Samuel Lee to Increase Mather, 25 Aug., 1687, 4 Mass. Hist. Colls.,Vin, 540, Mather Papers.29Bownas, Life and Travels, 120; Keith's Journal, 22, 23.80Backus, Baptists, I, 405.81Chalkley, Journal, 18, 20; Keith's Journal, 8; Bownas, Life andTravels, 121.82Chalkley, Journal, 21 ; Keith's Journal, 10.33Bownas, Life and Travels, 121.84Chalkley, Journal, 21.&sKeith's Journal, 13 ; Bownas, Life and Travels, 121.88Chalkley, Journal, 21."Keith's Journal, 12-13.88Chalkley, Journal, 20.501] OPPOSING ELEMENTS 47were living in the towns near Scituate,39 in the region atthe base of the cape around Barnstable and Yarmouth,40 onthe adjacent islands,41 in all the little settlements on bothsides of the Acushnet river,42 while in even greater numbersthey lined the shore of Narragansett bay. It has beenestimated that there were three thousand within the limitsof old Plymouth Colony and that one-third of the Pisca-taqua region was Quaker.43Before 1702 there were eight monthly meetings forbusiness in New England. These were the meeting ofGreenwich, covering the Narragansett country; of RhodeIsland, which included Tiverton and Little Compton; ofDartmouth; of Sandwich, embracing Falmouth and Yar-mouth; of Pembroke, which included Scituate, Marshfieldand Duxbury; of Salem; of Hampton; and of Dover.These monthly meetings were not long in grouping to formthe quarterly meetings in which bodies the Friends did alarge share of their most important work. The monthlymeetings of Barnstable and Plymouth counties made upthe Sandwich and Scituate Quarterly Meeting. Dart-mouth and Ehode Island Monthly Meetings joined Green-wich to form the Rhode Island Quarterly, while all thenorthern towns, whether in Massachusetts proper, NewHampshire, or Maine, united in 1705 to make up the SalemQuarterly Meeting and to this the Boston Friends likewisebelonged.44 This centralized organization was completed3SIbid., 39, 45-40Ibid., 22, 39, 45 ; Fothergill, Life and Travels, 40."Chalkley, Journal, 19, 39; Bownas, Life and Travels, 120.42Chalkley, Journal, 39, 45.43Jones, Quakers, XV. Keith was underrating the Quaker strength inMassachusetts, with a view to encouraging the authorities who had senthim to lead the Quakers from their error, when he wrote, "Few Quakersare at Boston. There are some at Sandwich, some at Piscataway andothers 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 Meetingof Friends for New England, with the Subordinate Meetings of which itis composed, 11-22.48 CHURCH AND STATE IN MASSACHUSETTS [502in the New England Yearly Meeting, occurring every Juneon Rhode Island, and attended by representatives from allthe Quaker towns and villages who flocked to Rhode Islandin great numbers. As a business meeting its importancecan hardly be overestimated, for by making the local prob-lems of all parts of two governments a matter for groupconsideration, it effected results for scattered hamletswhich could never have been secured by anything but unitedefforts. The corresponding organization in England wasno more thoro in this regard.During the years of this development in the organiza-tion of New England Quakerism, there had come a decidedreaction from that spirit of intolerant hatred which hadbeen 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 waslearning that the Society of Friends was not advocating thepractices of Mtinster in spite of the extremes to which someof the fanatics had resorted in days gone by. That tendencyamong the more ignorant of the first converts which theNew England Yearly Meeting styled "ranterism" hadexisted in the earlier days but was rapidly disappearing.45Frowned on from the first by the better social class amongthe Friends, it became less and less conspicuous until littleground for complaint on this score might be found.46 In45Jones, Quakers, 113. "The old spirit and Principle of ye rantersthe Lord hath brought down in these parts, Truth having Gained ye vic-tory over them, so yt we meet with little opposition from them." Epistleto 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 ofthem Open bold Disturbers of the Publick Peace and their Principles no-toriously known to be Heretical, but are much refined both in principlesand Conversation." Mass. Archives, XI, 279-280. Four years later theNew England Yearly Meeting was writing to the London Friends, "ourYearly meeting hath been Very Large, and Through the great Love andContineued ffavor of ouer gratious God and Heavenly ffather, wee have503] OPPOSING ELEMENTS 49all its early history Quakerism suffered seriously on bothsides of the Atlantic from a failure on the part of itsadversaries to appreciate the teachings of George Fox andhis followers. It was the inevitable lack of sympathybetween the mystic and the religious traditionalist, thelatter represented by New England Puritan as well as byEnglish Churchman. To the English clergy and to theNew England ministers the doctrine of the inner light andthe Quaker treatment of the Bible were nothing less thanthe overthrowing of the Scriptures as the source ofauthority, with the substitution of the all sufficiency of thelight within. Yet more sacrilegious was the denial of theefficacy of Christ's life and death, the inner light againbecoming all important and acting as a substitute for theatonement. The emphasis of the Church of England wason the sacraments, of the Puritan on the Bible. TheQuaker in breaking away from the absolute necessity ofeither was, therefore, it seemed to both schools oftheologians, 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 spiritwas awakened, while in the meantime the industry andpiety of the individual Friend was beginning to make animpression which was bound to have visible results beforemany years had elapsed.Enioyed the Same without aney Disturbance; Ye Spirit of Ranterismwhich fformerly Interrupted our-Quiett and peaceable assemblies beingwell Extingueshed." N. E. Yr. M., 72 ; Land. Yr. M., IV, 326-CHAPTER IV.THE SYSTEM IN PRACTICE.Between the inauguration of royal government inMassachusetts and the first legal confession that the Con-gregational church-state system was weakening and forcedto make concessions, there were just thirty-six years. Inthis period various forces were struggling together. Onthe one hand appeared seventeenth century Calvinism, stillguiding creed and platform, but troubled by what appearedto be the degeneracy of the times, a falling away from thefervent piety of the earlier generation. On the other handthere loomed large the spirit of persistent opposition toauthority in matters ecclesiastical wrhich was at last tomake its impression because of changes that were at thetime working within. These thirty-six years saw twofailures of the clergy to secure governmental sanction forthe holding of a synod; it saw the death of the elderMather; 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 ofQuaker and Baptist meetings which finally brought aboutthe first exemption laws in their favor. It is for thesereasons that the first quarter century under the provincecharter was conspicuously transitional, and yet, in the firsttwenty years at least, it represented the highest point whichthe Massachusetts church-state system reached, so far asdetailed legislation and the execution of effective measureswere concerned. In the colonial period the name "theoc-racy" best expressed the nature of the government; in theearly provincial period there existed the anomaly of anenterprising royal province executing laws which main-tained the shell of a weakening ecclesiasticism, the gloryand fervor of which had departed. Yet another centuryhad to pass before the system was allowed to expire and50505] THE SYSTEM IX TRACTICE 51the opposing elements were at this time only beginning toorganize. On the threshold then of new adjustments in theold order, that system can best be examined, for those firstadjustments made changes that greatly altered the wholelegal procedure in ecclesiastical affairs. The foundationof the system was the passage of the first laws under thecharter for maintaining religion; its opposing elementswere the inward declination from standards of former daysand the pressure from without of new hostile forces.The strong feeling of particularism which the firstchurches of Plymouth Colony transmitted to the morePresbyterianly inclined meetings of the Bay had had itseffect in producing a church establishment in which thecentral government was at first little more than a sourceof authority, shifting all the execution of its ecclesiasticallaws upon the individual towns. The provincial assembly,having ordered that each towTn be provided with a minister,put it into the hands of that town and its church to procurehim and bargain with him; likewise the assembly, havingordered that he be maintained, left it with each town toassess and collect the taxes therefor. A little later thecounty court began to play an important part in super-vising the towns. Only when difficulties ensued did theGeneral Court appear on the scene of action, acting ascourt of high appeal or giving advice to contending parties.This was the marked tendency of the last of the seventeenthand the first of the eighteenth century, and shows clearlyin what direction matters were traveling. The orthodoxtowns were tending more and more to rely on centralauthority, while nothing short of rigorous action on thepart of the government could maintain in the wholeprovince the conditions which had been the natural expres-sion of the religious views of the first comers. To get anyidea of the actual working of the Massachusetts church-state system and of the position which the General Courtcame to occupy in ecclesiastical affairs, it is necessary tostudy local conditions; and this study will be far fromperfect because of the nature of the material upon whichit must be founded.52 CHURCH AND STATE IN MASSACHUSETTS [506The church and state relation was the conspicuousfeature of the Massachusetts community. Whether thelatter existed as a plantation, as yet unorganized, as a townproper with all its accompanying privileges, as a secondprecinct of an original town formed on the basis of religiousneeds, or finally as a second separate town when the newprecinct warranted such a measure,1 the connectionbetween the church and the town, as no less between eachof these and the court of general sessions or the generalassembly of the province, was close and vital.2In the transitional or first stage through which a plan-tation passed before its erection as a town, there was oftena movement, especially in those frontier settlements which1 Channing, Town and County Government, 35.2A number of excellent attempts have been made to define the termsrelating to New England local government in the seventeenth andeighteenth centuries. These are usually broader than the present subjectrequires and should be slightly modified before a perfectly clear idea canbe gained of the Massachusetts ecclesiastical system in the early provincialperiod. Township, which Channing tells us (Town and County Govern-ment, 35) at first meant merely a tract of land granted to persons whointended there to settle a town and gather a church, is already usedsynonymously with town, tho less often, and when so used is likely tohave a territorial sense in contradistiction to town as a civil organization.A group of homesteads not to be considered as a civil organization may betermed a village; and if it is the outlying settlement of some older townthe 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 acquiredthe dignity of a town. (Town and County Government, 35.) The pre-cinct, parish or district, as it was interchangeably called, tho far lessclearly defined than the town itself, was a most essential part of theMassachusetts ecclesiastical system. Briefly it was a division of a towncut off for convenience in regard to attendance at worship and support ofthe ministry. It had at the same time non-ecclesiastical causes andcharacteristics which are inclined to detract from its real significance as alittle church state, its most important element This fact is underestimatedby Howard (Local Constitutional History, 52.) and his definitions aretherefore less satisfactory. The name parish was not used interchangeablywith town. Perry, Ch. Docs., Mass., 65.507] THE SYSTEM IN PRACTICE 53grew but slowly, for some encouragement of the ministryseveral years before township rights were granted.3 Uponan appeal to the General Court the latter often respondedwith a direct money grant. 4 This transitional stage iscomparatively rare in the provincial period, limited almostexclusively to the garrison towns, for by this time all theolder townships were well established with extensiveboundaries including practically all the accessible parts ofthe province.The change from unorganized plantation to townproper therefore is seen mainly in the frontier com-munities.5 Upon the organization of these frontier postsas towns, the regular laws for maintaining religion wentinto effect; but since the circumstances of their conditionwere unusual, numerous exceptions were made in theirfavor which gave the transition and resulting conditionsan abnormal character.The normal method of forming a new town in theprovincial period was to cut off a part of an older townshipand erect it as a new one, or to create one from a part ofan older township which had already been recognized as aseparate precinct. The former was the more direct methodand was sometimes resorted to when any friction in townor church affairs was likely to make the precinct systemimpracticable. Several towns by this means skipped theprecinct period.6However normal and direct this immediate formationof a new town from the outskirts of an old settlement mayseem, it was not the usual custom in the provincial period ;and in the history of the "precinct", its origin, its nature,3Buck, Mass. Ecc. Law, 151, refers to the organization of the churchbefore the town as the custom of the country but this method was notsufficiently general in the early provincial period to warrant such a state-ment.4Brookfield, 1698, 1702. Mass. Prov. Laws, VII, 197, ch. 37, 346, ch. 27.5Biddeford, 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 [508its relation to the parent town, can well be exhibited theapplication of the church-state system.7The first settled towns of Massachusetts resembledsmall counties in their broad-lying boundaries, and themeeting house, which represented the political as well asthe religious center of the community, was often many milesfrom those townsmen who had taken up with the moredistant holdings. As time went on and populationincreased, it was natural for the outlying farms to formtogether in smaller groups which, as they increased in size,became more and more dissatisfied with their long distancefrom the towns' center and growingly eager to begin a newcommunity life of their own. As there were often reasonswhy the formation of a new town was undesirable, theprecinct 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 ageographical division of a town the inhabitants of which were in ecclesi-astical law the attendants at a single meeting house. Channing (Townand County Government, 36) follows Buck (Mass. Ecc. Law, 17-18).Because of the close relation between church and state this formationinvolved also a civil status for the precinct, of chief importance in thecollection of taxes. For this purpose the precinct generally had its separ-ate constable or collectors and a separate precinct meeting with its ownmoderator 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 thethird place a military unit, such a condition sometimes occurring withina town before a second ecclesiastical precinct had been formed. Baintree,1707. Mass. Archives, XI, 241. Precinct and less often parish were thetechnical names for such a division of a town, the latter becoming laterassociated chiefly with its ecclesiastical functions, a meaning which it hasbrought 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 aprecinct in their corporate existence has continued in the organization ofthe older Congregational churches of New England to the present day.The religious body organized as the church relegates its non-religiousfunctions to the corporate body known as the society which is made upof the enfranchised members of the parish and manages the finances ofthe church. Mass. Prov. Laws, VII, 246, ch. 19.509] THE SYSTEM IN PRACTICE 55The order of events was somewhat in this wise. In acorner of some old township a group of farmers, who num-bered some twenty growing families, wished to have achurch of their own.8 There might have been frictionbetween them and the leading members of the congregation,or the roads to town were well nigh impassable, or a riverwas dangerous of fording in the winter time. A movementwould accordingly be started in the "hamlet" to petition thetown 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 theboundary line between the old and new precincts and amutual agreement with regard to the other matters, thoan order from the General Court must in the end be gained. 9It was far more usual for the parent town to be veryloath to lose a large and flourishing section. The hamletmight not even apply to the town, quite aware of what theresult would be, or upon application and refusal it wouldappeal 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 madeup of members of the court or inhabitants of neighboringtowns,10 whose recommendations were usually accepted.But often the town was informed of the application,especially if the petition had come direct from the hamletwithout previous appearance in town meeting, and then the8Cotton Mather, Ratio Disciplinae, 1-2, describes this same develop-ment from the point of view of church government. "A number ofChristians," he writes, "either swarmed into a New Plantation, or findingthe Church, to which they have belonged, grown to such Circumstances,that it may be for the general advantage to have a New Church formedin the Neighborhood, first settle their Number, and assure themselves thattheir Number is Competent, and Resolved for the Undertaking."9Mass. Prov. Laws, IX, 447, ch. 147.10West Springfield, 1696. Mass. Prov. Laws, VIII, in, ch. 12. Ofthe committee here appointed Edward Taylor was minister of the churchin Westfield, Samuel Partridge the representative from Hatfield in theGeneral Court, Aaron Cooke from Hadley and Samuel Root from West-field, the towns in Hampshire county nearest to the west precinct ofSpringfield.56 CHURCH AND STATE IN MASSACHUSETTS [510two sides were given a hearing and long and elaboratenegotiations followed. These struggles give a wonderfullyclear picture of the ambitions and interests of ruralMassachusetts in the early eighteenth century.11 In thehistory of Springfield, for example, there appear duringthis period two particularly animated cases of attempts byoutlying districts to gain precinct privileges. The inhabi-tants of the west side of the Connecticut river12 applied forthis degree of independence on the ground that bad roadswere as nothing in comparison with the danger of crossingthe stream at some seasons of the year. But as Springfieldoffered a dogged resistance to such curtailment, the matterwas soon carried (1695) to the General Court, which sum-moned both parties and appointed an able committee toinvestigate the matter. While the inhabitants of the westside were assuring the town of their ability to support aseparate minister and stating that "wee have not the leastthought of separating from you, or becoming a Townshipe,deeming it contrary to our Interest, and an infringementof our priviledges soe to doe,"18Springfield was grimlyreplying that they were too few to attempt any such thingand that "to row a boat or paddle a canoe is no worse thanto saddle and bridle a horse." 14 The committee of theGeneral Court was favorable to the west side, and onDecember 4, 1696, the order was made for erecting WestSpringfield into a separate precinct. Even more deter-mined did Springfield prove in her relation to the districtof Longmeadow15 which had found the town so obduratethat after numerous attempts in town meeting covering theyears 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, 246.12Mass. 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 57General Court for assistance. In this appeal was the state-ment that "wee have constantly paid our Dues towardsmaintainance of the Towne Minister & have for the Greatestpart of these three years past upon our owne Charge hiered& provided a minister amongst ourselves & must withoutReleived be forced to do the same for the future exceptreleefe be Granted." 16 In spite of Springfield's plea thatshe could not afford such a condition, now that the westside of the river had been cut off, and that she had placedthe meeting house with the express purpose of accommo-dating Longmeadow, the court was not slow in granting therequest, and within eight months after the date of thepetition Longmeadow was made a separate precinct. 17Between 1692 and 1728 some twenty new precinctswere formed in this way by order of the General Court. Inthe customary resistance on the part of the town economicfactors played an important part. In locating the finaldividing line therefore, it was not unusual to bear in mindwhere lay the best land for cultivation and to make thedivision accordingly.18The orders issued by the General Court for the estab-lishment of new precincts were usually accompanied byregulations of the relation between the two parts of thetown thus divided, these more or less elaborate as the casemight require. They regulated the financial method bywhich the new meeting house should be built and bothmaintained, the way in which the two ministers should besupported, and the disposal of the ministry land. Nor-mally the new precinct would be excused from any furtherpayment toward the repair or rebuilding of the old meet-ing house or the support of the minister, as it was nowresponsible for its own. Normally also it must relinquishits right to the parsonage lot of the original town andprocure one for its future minister within its own boun-Mass. Archives, XI, 215, 18 Oct., 1706."/&*Essex Sessions.^Pembroke Mo. M., passim.62The records of the court of general sessions of the peace for thecounty of Barnstable are not in existence.63Sandwich Mo., M., passim."Mass. Archives, XI, 256, 257.70 CHURCH AND STATE IN MASSACHUSETTS [524meeting house.65 On later occasions the General Courtwas forced to coine to the assistance of Joseph Metcalf, theminister,66 when he complained of the depreciation of thepaper currency, of which the town refused to take accountwhen paying his salary.67 In 1714 and 1717 he was allowedforty pounds from the province treasury, but finally, in1719, his case was turned over to "the Committee, thatreceiv'd the Charity of this Province Collected the LastYear, upon a Brief Issued by this Government for thePropagating of the Gospel."88If in Barnstable county Massachusetts had a sugges-tion of the problems which could be created by elementsunfriendly to her system, in Bristol the difficulty was manytimes magnified. At Swansea the enforcement of ecclesi-astical law was thwarted by a firmly organized Baptistsociety; at Dartmouth was the most vigorous Quakermeeting of the province, always supported by the Baptistsin its borders; at Tiverton was a smaller Quaker commu-nity ; while Attleboro, Freetown, and Little Compton weretowns of mixed type, harboring various sects and sympa-thizing keenly with Rhode Island in her ideas of religiousliberty. In this region also a further element of resistance**Mass Prov. Laws, IX, 292, ch. 27.86Metcalf was the author of a work on "enforced maintenance" inwhich 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, ThomasChalkley. Chalkley, Answer to Metcalf.87This difficulty regarding paper money which many other ministerssoon encountered became so acute by 1724 that the General Court wasobliged to consider the matter. The report of a committee from this bodyrecommended that a law be made to compel every parish to make upto its minister an amount equal to the difference, the county court todetermine how much the currency had depreciated. While this reportdid not become law, a resolve was passed recommending it to every townand precinct, this resolve to be read in every congregation on the nextLord'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 fundseems to be the cause for the cessation of grants from the public treasuryto the ministry throughout the province. Freetown was voted its bene-faction in the same year. House Journal, 1719, i.525] THE SYSTEM IN PRACTICE 71to the Massachusetts state church appeared in the firstdecade of the eighteenth century when the missionaries ofthe Society for the Propagation of the Gospel met somesuccess in the Khode Island border towns.69 Here they leftbehind them a number of groups which had announcedtheir allegiance to the Church of England. On this basisthese proceeded to resist the ecclesiastical laws of theprovince but seldom united in this purpose with the Bap-tist and Quaker societies.The first attack made by the court of general sessionsof Bristol county in accordance with the laws of 1692 and1693 was upon Swansea, whose only meeting was theBaptist church now thirty years old. To enforce upon itthe Congregational ministry and public taxation for itssupport was to upset the whole system. When presentedfor not having a minister according to law, Swansea intown meeting proceeded to approve the Baptist preacheras her minister. 70 The law had not made it plain how thejustices were to proceed in such a case, and the matter wasdropped for the time being.In 1698 Bristol sessions began to deal vigorously withall the defective towns within its jurisdiction, and contin-ued its efforts for a period of thirty years. But so clearlydefined was the type of community which it had to masterand so determined was the opposition to its authority, thatthe attempt resulted only in a series of compromises, manyof which foreshadowed the coming exemption laws. In allthese years it was never possible to enforce the law in thissection of Massachusetts.69"As to the Case of ye Church of Tivertone Swanzey ffreeton andlittle Compton in ye whole of these I believe there may be betwixt 2 or 300people that are Church people & are resolved never to have any otherMinister but a Church Minister unless the Government of ye Collony ofMassachusetts under whose Government they are) force and independantupon them, wch they have done in ffreetown already, & will in the restif their is not a Missionary Sent to take possession of that Church builtin Tivertone." Stewart to Nicholson, 12 Feb. 1719/20, 5. P. G. Letters,A XIV, 162.70Bicknell, Barrington, 133, 179, 201.72 CHURCH AND STATE IN MASSACHUSETTS [526In 1698 failure to procure a minister was reported bythe grand inquest for Swansea, Dartmouth, Tiverton,Freetown and Attleboro, while most of this group withRehoboth and Little Compton lacked school masters.71The selectmen of these towns summoned to Bristol hadvarious reports to submit. Swansea, as previously stated,sent word that she was provided, but the statement was fora time not accepted, and she was ordered to procure aminister immediately.72 By April of 1699, however, thejustices had been informed of the exact situation in Swan-sea and agreed not to interfere with the ministry of SamuelLuther. 73 As a matter of fact the Baptist church ofSwansea, by standing for principles so liberal that it wasable to include the Congregationalists in the region, longsaved the town from an effective attack by the generalsessions. Not until it was remolded upon a more extremeBaptist form did the Congregationalists of Swansea be-come dissatisfied. The result of this dissatisfaction was apetition 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 thistime reminded the general sessions of the long continuedrecognition by that body of their minister, and after post-ponement and much discussion a compromise was agreedupon.74 While it was decided that orthodoxy must beintroduced into Swansea and a sum assessed upon the townfor the support of the ministry, it was agreed that the workof Luther ought to be recognized. Accordingly it was votedthat half of the yearly assessment should be settled onhim, the rest to go to the minister of the standing order.75But no very satisfactory arrangement was discoverd76until^Bristol Sessions, I, 13.Ibid., I, 15.Ibid., I, 17, 19-it/bid., I, 121, 129; Bicknell, Barrington, 139-141.^Bristol Sessions, I, 133.76The result of the negotiations was the coming of John Fisk toSwansea in the office of Congregational minister, but so bitter was thefeeling between the two sects in the town that trouble continued. One of527] THE SYSTEM IN PRACTICE 73the town was divided, the Congregationalists forming thenew parish.77 After the death of Luther there was a mo-mentary difficulty as Swansea's dispensation had relatedto him only. The matter was settled by a vote of the gen-eral sessions in 1719 to accept his successor as minister ofthe town, and the selectmen, who had been summoned tostate the case, were dismissed.78The affairs of Dartmouth and Tiverton during thissame period represent the methods employed by the govern-ment in handling well defined Quaker communities. InDartmouth the people were almost universally Quaker, theCongregational and Baptist societies being very small; inTiverton, while the majority supported Quaker teaching,there were among the inhabitants many who shared thegeneral characteristics of the eastern border of the bay.With their freedom in theological opinion which often keptthem from allying themselves with any sect, there was acertain volatility in their make-up which occasionally car-ried them into some religious body and out again in a brieftime. The S. P. G. in dealing with them met constantdisappointment for it was long in learning that a crowdedservice here meant little real allegiance. These peoplewere no less trying to the Quakers than to the Anglicanand Congregational churches.The general sessions of October, 1698, which had at-tacked Swansea, took up the cases of both Dartmouth andthe means taken by the Baptist selectmen to rid the town of Fisk was toissue a warrant to the constable "Requiring him in her Majties Name towarn 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 classesof undesirable persons included under the law of ejectment, appealed tothe quarter sessions for advice. The latter discharged him from the dutyof serving the warrant, summoned the selectmen and admonished themfor 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, 385.77Mass. 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 [528Tiverton. Dartmouth, like Swansea, stated that she wasprovided with ministers already, naming two Quakerpreachers of the town. Neither this nor Tiverton's answerwas accepted, and both towns were ordered to supplythemselves before the winter sessions.79For some time the relation between the court of gen-eral sessions and the towns of Dartmouth and Tivertonwas little changed. Over and over they suffered present-ment and repeatedly sent answer, that they were properlysupplied in the persons of the Quakers whom they named,basing their argument on the fact that nowhere in the lawwas it stated what was meant by orthodox. 80This state of affairs continued until the autumn of1703. 81 Bristol court then became exasperated and took astep which was significant. Eelying upon the right whicha recent law (1702) had given her to appoint special as-sessors, the court of general sessions decided to enforce thelaw of 1692 which gave her the power of appointing minis-ters to negligent towns. It was agreed that eighty poundsper annum be levied on Dartmouth and fifty on Tivertonfor the support of ministers whom she should appoint. Notknowing suitable persons for these missions the court or-dered that a letter be written to the president and fellowsof Harvard College and Mr. William Brattle of Cambridgefor their advice. 82Tho going so far as to take these measures the jus-tices now allowed the matter to slide83 until April of 1706when they renewed their application to authority, includ-78'Bristol Sessions, I, 15.80Ibid., I, 17, 19, 21. In January 1702 the selectmen of Tiverton pre-sented to Bristol sessions a paper pleading for "a Liberty of Consciencein the Exercise of Religion as a Priviledge granted by their MajestyesCharter and Recipting Several Passages out of the Province laws. Re-ferring to the Priviledges of Churches in the Quallifications choise andSettlement of ministers." Ibid., I, 38.81/&trf., II, 20, 23, 47."Ibid., II, 47."Ibid., II, 93.529] THE SYSTEM IN PRACTICE 75ing now the Boston ministers. 84 Their next meetingdispatched two of its members to Dartmouth and Tivertonto enquire for a place with some family where a ministermight be entertained,85 and upon receiving a most pessi-mistic report once more agreed to state the situation inBoston. 86The episode was at least making an impression on theministerial circle in the capital town tho progress witheffective measures was slow. 87 Once more it was hopedthat results might be gained by further legislation, and theact of November, 1706, now passed, went much further thanany previous laws had done. The failure of Bristol ses-sions in dealing with her troublesome towns was to beobviated by bringing the General Court itself into thesituation. After making the necessary orders on a delin-quent town and failing with results, the court of generalsessions was now ordered to make report of its proceedingsat the next session of the General Court, and the latter wasnot only to supply a minister to such town but was also toprovide for his support by a sum added to the town'sprovince tax. By concealing this amount within the coun-try rate the General Court expected to gain its purpose intowns which had never failed to remit their assessments.Bristol sessions in the following year gave Dartmouth andTiverton one more chance, but when they still neglectedher orders,88 immediately agreed to carry the matter to theGeneral Court. 89A complete report of the contest between Bristol84Bristol 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 theGospel, Boston, 1706, p. 57, writes, "It is a doleful thing, that there shouldbe Towns in New-England, able to Support the Preaching of the Gospel,and yet not one man found therein willing to give Entertainment to aMinister of Christ."^Bristol Sessions, II, 113.*Ibid., II, 116; Mass. Archives, XI, 231; Potter, First Cong. Soc. ofNew Bedford, App. A, 102.76 CHURCH AND STATE IN MASSACHUSETTS [530sessions and the towns of Dartmouth and Tiverton, withan elaborate petition, was now submitted to the assembly.An appeal was made by the latter to the fellows of thecollege,90 and before another year had gone by a ministerhad been sent to each town, Joseph Marsh91 to Tiverton andSamuel Hunt92 to Dartmouth.93 Their regular appoint-ments were made in the court session of the followingsummer when their salaries were voted with the under-standing that the sums were to be added to the provincerates of the towns.94 The opposition raised by Dartmouthand Tiverton upon their discovery of what had occurredwas one of the first and most important steps taken by theNew England Quakers in their struggle against the Massa-chusetts ecclesiastical laws. In spite of petitions from aDartmouth town meeting95 and the Dartmouth MonthlyMeeting of the Friends96 the matter was pushed forwardby the authorities. Within a short time both towns werein arrears of taxes and their assessors in gaol at Bristol.97Succeeding events in both Dartmouth and Tivertonshow how the General Court was forced to compromise iispite of her legislation of 1706. Samuel Hunt whom thecourt had sent to Dartmouth proved to be a man of unusualbreadth in his relation to the town. He refused to have90 Potter, First Cong. Soc. of New Bedford, App. A, 100; Mass. Ar-chives, XI, 23o-23i,contains the original papers.91Mass Archives, XI, 320.*2Old Dartmouth Hist. Soc. Colls., No. 3, p. 9.93Potter, First Cong. Soc. of New Bedford, 17, note. Bristol sessions,tho now relieved of responsibility, continued to interest itself in thedelinquent towns. It was Tiverton which reminded the court "that theCase Reffering to a mister was laid before the great and generall Courtand therefore thought it hard measure to be presented & sent for fromCourt to Court." The general sessions saw the justice of this plea anddecided that the "prsons & Case by dismist till the mind of the sd greatand generall Assembly be ffurther known." The same was decided in thecase ef Dartmouth. Bristol Sessions, II, 128.*Mass. Prov. Laws, IX, 9, ch. 8; II, 269; IX, 17, ch. 36.95Potter, 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 77the laws enforced on Dartmouth for his advantage, main-taining constantly that he was a missionary and as suchshould be regularly paid by the province. 98 For this reasonthe difficulties so serious in 1708 subsided in subsequentyears.The General Court complied with his request and,beginning with a grant of fifteen pounds to finish themeeting house in Dartmouth,09 voted him various paymentsof fifteen or twenty pounds between 1709 and 1716.100 Alarge grant of one hundred pounds made in 1722 upon apetition from the orthodox inhabitants for an annual salaryfor Hunt, and added by the General Court to the provincerate of the town upset this arrangement and became theoccasion of a long and obstinate battle.The chief difference between these events in Dartmouthand the corresponding occurrences in Tiverton was that theGeneral Court, in spite of repeated efforts, was never ableto keep a Congregational minister long in the latter town.In 1710 twenty-one pounds were voted from the provincetreasury for the brief services of two men whom the GeneralCourt had sent to Tiverton, 101 but upon an appeal from theorthodox inhabitants for a further appointment,102 theassembly merely ordered the ministers of the neighboringtowns to preach at Tiverton during the summer attwenty shillings a Sunday, paid from the public treas-ury.103 When in October the order was repeated, anearnest 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 a98 Potter, First Cong. Soc. of New Bedford, 20, 25, App. A, no; Mass.Prov. Laws, IX, 42, ch. 112."Mass. Archives, XI, 293.100Mass. 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. ofNew Bedford, App. A, 106-107.101Mass. Archives, XI, 320; Mass. Prov. Laws, IX, ch. 168.2Mass. Archives, XI, 293.103Afaw. Prov. Laws, IX, 70, ch. 42; II, 269.78 CHURCH AND STATE IN MASSACHUSETTS [532meeting house was already partly built.104Thereupon aman was secured at twenty shillings a week,105 but hiscongregation was meager and his stay brief. 106 In 1712the General Court ordered twenty-five pounds for the min-istry at Tiverton or "in proportion for such part of theyear 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 generalsessions and the assembly to carry out the law, for cajolery,threats and further ecclesiastical legislation proved of noavail.108 While it was as early as 1717 that the GeneralCourt voted seventy pounds from the public treasury forthe support of a minister109 whom the general sessions hadrecently voted to secure,110 it was not until 1722 that thissum was actually added, as in the case of Dartmouth, tothe town's country rate. The resistance made by the Qua-kers in behalf of the assessors of the two towns, imprisonedfor failure to assess these sums, won an Order in Councilon their behalf and was the indirect cause of the first localexemption legislation.194Mass. Archives, XI, 304. Danforth made another plea for Tiver-ton in the memorial presented by the ministers of Bristol county to thegeneral assembly in 1711. Mass. Archives, XI, 385.*Mass. Prov. Laws, IX, 131, ch. 42; 166, ch. 141.10"Perry, Ch. Docs., Mass., 95.107AfC. O. 5, 864.Lond. M. for Sufferings, XVII, 257.**Lond. Yr. M., Ill, 125.555] THE QUAKERS AND THEIR ALLIES 101Sir Henry Ashurst53 in his defense of Connecticut and forseeking advice from William Penn. They supplied specificinstances of persecution when called upon and finally,when the Order in Council had been secured, filed it withthe other papers.54A second attempt was made by the English Quakers togain the support of the Nonconformists in 1705, after thereceipt of the Order in Council. A committee of Quakersthen visited the Independents with the invitation to jointhem in sending to New England the appeal that the "Tol-leration act may by yt Governmt be there admitted byconsent in its full force." As neither body took the stepsfor which the Quakers were hoping,55 the Meeting forSufferings independently sent off a copy of the Order inCouncil to the governor of Connecticut with an earnestrecommendation for the future.56In this question Dudley became involved through theaccusation by Sir Henry Ashurst that it was he who hadunearthed this bit of old legislation and published it inBoston in order to stir up in England further hostility tothe government of Connecticut.57 While this wTas not afact, the charge was a clever one, as it took account ofDudley's appreciation of the importance of the Quakersand of the evidence he was already giving of a desire toconciliate them. Watching from Boston their activities inEngland he saw that in their first appeals they were asso-ciating Massachusetts with Connecticut in treatment of53In Book of Cases, II, 144-154, appear the following papers:Memorial of Sir Henry Ashurst to the Board of Trade, Answer toAshurst by the Quakers, Ashurst's second petition, Answer by the Quakers,Instances of prosecution under Connecticut law, Letter from the Quakersto 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, 26.56John Field and Joseph Wyeth to the Governor of Connecticut, Bookof Cases, II, 152-154. The act had been repealed by Connecticut beforethis 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 [556dissenting sects. He accordingly wrote (1 Jan., 1703/04)to William Crouch, one of the London Quakers, to explainthe 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 agstfriends are abolished."58William Crouch, tho convinced of Dudley's friend-ship, had gained, in the course of his investigations at thePlantation Office, information of the letter which Dudleyhad 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'sletter contained a rebuke.60Meanwhile the letter written to New England by theCongregational ministers of London, carrying with it acopy of the London Quakers' letter to them, had reachedIncrease Mather. Not long afterwards (29 October, 1705)there appeared in the Boston News Letter, under theeditorship of John Campbell, certain insinuations againstthe London Quakers based upon their letter to the Congre-gational ministers. The chief point here made was thatthe London Quakers in this letter had misrepresented theMassachusetts 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 fromDudley as the paper bore the usual heading, "printed byauthority." John Field and Joseph Wyeth, who acted asa committee in this affair,61 visited the Lords of Trade andsecured their promise that a letter would be written toclear the London Friends of any suspicion of opposingDudley's government. A letter written soon after by theLond. M. for Sufferings, XVII, 268.B9Ca/. of St. Papers, Col. Series, Am. and the W. I., 1702, 966.Book of Cases, II, 154-157. At the same time the London Meetingfor Sufferings agreed to send to the Rhode Island Meeting the com-plaints which Dudley had made in his letter to the Board of Trade inorder that the Rhode Island Quakers might prepare to defend themselvesif occasion arose. Land. M. for Sufferings, XVII, 276, 282."Land. M. for Sufferings, XVIII, 11.557] THE QUAKERS AND THEIR ALLIES 103Board of Trade to the governor of Massachusetts con-tained this statement:And whereas several of the Quakers here have complained to Us of apaper said to be printed at Boston by Authority, Entituled, The BostonNews Letter, Dated the 2Qth of October last, containing reflections upontheir proceedings here in England : We think it fit to give you this noticethat none of that perswasion have made any Application to this Board inreference to New England otherwise than against the forementioned LawEntituled Hereticks and that the Spreading of false News cannot but tendto the Creating of heats & Animosities amongst her Majesty's subjects.62So it was that Dudley received within a few monthsof each other two letters which called upon him to statehis position in relation to Quakerism. To each he returneda 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 itis to thank you for your respect therein and so freely to accept yourChiding 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 theyare as Easie in all points as any others to attend their own Method ofWorship and I believe none of them will complain that I have not alwaysTreated them with freedom and respect as well as Justice, but in thematter of Road Island of wch you write it is not a Business of Religionbut of a Civil Nature referring to the Jurisdiction of the Admiralty Courtin which I did nothing but wt I was Expressly Commanded by her Majestyand their Refusal was agst the Law as is given for the Opinion of herMaties Councill in the Law to wch they and I ought to submitt, howeverthat matter is now over and need never be Remembred or Repeated, Iheartily Wish you well and shall be glad of a letter now and then fromyou and pray you will give my service to Mr. Pen when you may see him.I am Sr. your very humble servtJ. Dudley:83To the Board of Trade on October 2, 1706 he wrote :I am very sorry that the News Paper should give your Lordships theleast disturbance referring to the Quakers here is no Law in being thatreflects upon them or is grievous, saving the Military Laws, which demandFynes for want of Service, which was made before I came hither, but hasbeen used as moderately as I can bring to pass, There are none of thatperswasion here, but will give Testimony if need were of my friendship82Board 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 [558and kind reception of them at all times,64 and in this Matter I havereprimanded the writer, and required him to tell his News without anyreflection for the future, which I am sure he will obey, and of this theQuakers here are knowing and well satisfyed.85This somewhat intricate episode is of importance inthe light which it throws on numerous civil and ecclesi-astical questions. Dudley appears as the exponent ofBritish imperialism, ready to carry out the wishes of theauthority which he represented, with the underlying policyof placating rather than disturbing various religious inter-ests. The London Quakers give marked evidence of theirconstant support of the smaller groups in CongregationalNew England and of their ability to enlist the governmentin their behalf; the Congregational and Presbyterian min-isters of London in their few utterances show how littlesympathy and understanding remained between them andthe established dissent of New England; they show like-wise the weakness of their organization which was oftenmet when an attempt was made to bring them to share alltogether in a common cause.66*4There are several proofs of the truth of this statement. In 1703 apetition from Sandwich Quakers reached Dudley, and he seems to havetaken some interest, perhaps attempting to find out the number of the sectin the province. Sandwich Mo. M., 51 ; N. E. Hist, and Gen. Reg., II, 149.5C. O., 5, 912, 274-276. In addition to making this statement to theBoard of Trade Dudley, in his interview with Campbell, so frightenedhim that the latter sent in all haste to the Board of Trade a letter ofapology. C. O. 5, 864."Cotton Mather's utter disgust with the interference of the Englishnonconformists finds vent in his diary on September n, 1706. "More-over, the wicked Quakers having made their Addresses and Complaintsand Clamours, at home in England against the Countrey, whereof anAccount 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 discovermore and more of the wicked Spirit of Quakerism, and to demonstrate,that their Light within is a dark, feeble, sinful Creature, and that to settit up for Christ and God, which is done in Quakerism, is a very horribleIdolatry. I composed a Treatise on this Occasion; and sent it over untothe 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 105During the progress of these events the Quakers ofMassachusetts had not been idle. Tho interested primarilyin the Massachusetts legislation,67 the Friends of Lynnthrew themselves heartily into resistance to the Connecticutheretic law, and the New England meetings together senttwenty-four pounds to aid in securing its disallowance.68In 1706 the London Meeting for Sufferings was beginningto take up with the Board of Trade the further disabilitiesof the New England Quakers in both Connecticut andMassachusetts 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 carriedthe 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 thatof Little Compton whose relations with the Bristol Courtof General Sessions were somewhat strained. This meet-ing, with an appeal to the Governor in mind, on December3, 1706, applied to the Rhode Island Monthly Meeting ofwhich it was a member; but the latter suggested that itwould be better to delay matters until "sufferings werebetter put in order," and a concerted action possible.70Representatives from Rhode Island Monthly now car-ried the idea to the Rhode Island Quarterly Meeting andthere urged that all Friends be instructed to collect theirsufferings "Especially wt is taken for ye Priest." RhodeIsland Quarterly Meeting approved, and Richard Bordonwas chosen toSend to ye other monthly or Quarterly meeting in Newengland to doe yeLike; & So to bring in order Sd Sufferings to Rhoad Island yearly meeting7Lond. M. for Sufferings, XVII, 257, 309, 321.68This money was collected from Rhode Island, Salem, Lynn, Sand-wich, Dartmouth, Scituate, and Boston. Epistles Rec'd, II, 27-30, Epistlefrom 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 [560yt friends may fairly Apeal to ye Masetusus Governer & So for Englandif Acation be for Releaf.71Salein Quarterly Meeting was the next to consider thesituation. On April 7, 1707, it was ordered that some ofits principal members send to England the law "lately madfor ye maintananc of there Priests" and all others of likenature, 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 sendit for England."72This committee, obedient to instructions, took up thetask immediately, but the occurrence of the Yearly Meetingtwo months later made it possible for them, by carrying thematter to Rhode Island, to broaden their appeal, so as toinvolve a large part of the Quakers in Massachusetts, thoRichard Borden's independent work in the limits of theRhode Island Quarterly Meeting was not included. TheYearly Meeting ordered the gathering of "an account offriends Sufferings ffor not paying the priest Ever sinceGovernor Dudley hath Beene present governor for Reliefeand that to Bee done by the ffrst 2d daye of the next monthand send in the Same to Walter Newberry, in order fforhim & Saml Collins to Laye before ye Governor fforReleiefe."73The work of Newbury and Collins when finally com-pleted comprised a petition and a paper entitled: "ATrue Accompt of the sufferings of the People CalledQuakers. In divers parts of this her Majtys Colony of NewEngland, for consienciously refusing to pay towards theMaintenance of their Priests."74 It included the variousrecorded instances of distraint and imprisonment forpriest's rates belonging chiefly to the towns of the SalemQuarterly Meeting, Lynn, Salisbury, Haverhill, Amesburyand Kittery with a few entries for Falmouth and Mendonof the Sandwich Quarterly. The sufferings of the Lynn"/?. /. Quart. M., 47.^Salem Quart. M., I, 5.73tf. E. Yr. M., 36.74Mass. Archives, XI, 237.561] THE QUAKERS AND THEIR ALLIES 107Quakers in 1705 and 1706 were estimated at seventy-onepounds six shillings and five pence. The accompanyingpetition reminded the governor and council of their powerto block this oppressive legislation and warned them that,unless something were done at Boston for the relief ofQuakers, application would surely be made to England.75While Dudley had no grudge against the Quakers, theCouncil was not very friendly. The cause had not yetbecome a vital issue. A delay was voted and objectionsraised. No promises were made. 76Immediately after this, difficulties in Bristol Countybecame so acute that the Salem committee became unim-portant and interest settled on the Rhode Island QuarterlyMeeting for which Richard Borden was at work. The exe-cution of the law of 1706 did, as we have seen, particularlyaffect the Quakers in the towns of Dartmouth and Tiver-ton;but it was not until September, 1708, that their affairswere 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 issupposed to be for the maintenance of a hireling priest,"was referred to the Quarterly Meeting at Rhode Islandand John Tucker, the leading Quaker of Dartmouth, wassent to Boston with a petition from the Dartmouth Friendsto be laid before the governor.77 In the following meetingTucker reported that he had been at Boston but had notbeen able to get a satisfactory answer.78In the meantime the Rhode Island Monthly Meetinghad begun consideration of the similar situation at Tiver-ton, that town lying within its boundaries. The law of1706 was denounced and a committee appointed to informthe 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 [562petition be disregarded, threaten an address to the Queen.79At the following meeting Richard Borden reported that heand Joseph Wanton, another prominent Tiverton Quaker,had delivered the paper as ordered and had received fromDudley a verbal answer to the effect that they should havea hearing before the General Court. In this message therewas nothing sufficiently encouraging to deter the meetingfrom ordering more lines, this time to be presented to theRhode Island Quarterly Meeting, that with its sanctionthey might be sent to the governor as a second appeal.80The two monthly meetings of Dartmouth and RhodeIsland had made their independent appeals to GovernorDudley. Both had likewise referred the matter to theRhode Island Quarterly in which they were represented.This meeting accepted its task and went promptly to workappointing Ebenezer Slocumfor to Speake with ye Govener of ye masathuset Bay, in behalf of ffrindsConcerning the Great oppresion ytt Is Likely to fall upon ffrinds In yttColloney by ye Priests Raits being Joyned In with ye gineral PublickTax.81This petition did little more than repeat what the RhodeIsland Monthly Meeting had already written.82Ebenezer Slocum found Dudley willing to give him apersonal interview and distinctly friendly, as he hadproved 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 thelaw of 1706, he took matters into his own hands to theextent of including in a letter to the Board of Trade areview of events in Dartmouth and Tiverton with an ex-pression of personal opinion.I thought it my Duty to Acquaint Your Lordships herewith, Expectinga Complaint thereupon, I am sorry for their Suffering though it be notupon the head of Religion, and am also sorry that they would be Assessorsof the Tax to bring themselves into trouble, they think it hard to be Taxed"/?. /. Mo. M., II, 15.MIbid., II, 16.S1R. I. Quart. M., 53.82This petition appears in full in R. I. Quart. M., 54.563] THE QUAKERS AND THEIR ALLIES 109to the Maintenance of the Ministry, and if those yt are Strictly of theirprofession were quitted it would be no great loss but it is Expected thatif such an Indulgence be given, a great many will profess themselvesQuakers, to quit themselves of this charge, as they have done from bearingArms, and Many Villages in the Country would be left without anyPublick Worship on the Lords Day. I humbly offer it to Your LordshipsConsideration having no Interest in the Matter, but that Religion may beMaintained.83The petition of 1708, tho failing to secure any reliefto the Quakers, had gained something in this letter ofDudley's. Two other results accompanied it. The Quakers,convinced that nothing could be done through the localgovernment, decided to carry out their alternative andmake a vigorous application home to England to preventthe allowance of the law of 1706,84 while the General Court,foreseeing this action, proceeded to draw up a memorialto be laid before the Queen justifying this legislation.85This lengthy document, which is a handbook of Massachu-setts ecclesiastical orthodoxy, had practically no effect.86The petition from the Quakers to the Queen, whichwas the third result of their solicitations at Boston in1708, 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 ofBristol County and imprisonment at Bristol gaol of theneglectful assessors, Eichard Borden of Tiverton and83Dudley to the Board of Trade, i Mar., 1708/09, C. O. 5, 913, 113-114.**R. I. Quart. M., 55.ssMass. Archives, XI, 279-280. The paper is entitled "A Memorial ofthe Governour Council & Assembly of Her Majties Province of theMassachusetts Bay in New England for their Vindication against theSuggestions and Insinuations of any who may accuse them of harshnessand Severitys towards such as are of different perswasions from them inmatters of Religion." An undated copy of this document is filed amongthe Board of Trade Papers for the years 1718-1720. C. O. 5, 869, No. 9.88From a letter written by Dummer to Sewall (7 Dec., 1709) it wouldappear that it did little more than intensify the irritation which the Boardof Trade felt toward Massachusetts. Lond. M. for Sufferings, XX, n.The answer written by the Board of Trade to Dudley's letter of MarchI, 1708/09, and sent to him Jan. 16, 1709/10, ignores the whole discussion.110 CHURCH AND STATE IN MASSACHUSETTS [564Thomas Taber and Deliverance Smith of Dartmouth. 87 Atthis the Rhode Island Monthly Meeting of November 30,1708, decided to give the governor one more chance ; but incase he failed to answer their requests, the Quakers de-clared, "then this meeting Doth Continue ... to write tothe Queen."88 At the following meeting the petition tothe Queen was read, and ordered sent to England.89This petition, which reached London in the spring ofthe following year, was given careful consideration by theMeeting for Sufferings. It was agreed, however, that in-stead of addressing the Queen it would be well to writeonce more to the Presbyterian and Congregational minis-ters of London. 90 A meeting between the delegation fromthe London Meeting for Sufferings, headed by John Field,and the Congregational ministers occurred in the latterpart of November, 1709, and gave the Quakers good causefor encouragement. From the discussion which took placethey were once more convinced that the English noncon-formists had very little feeling of sympathy for theirbrethren in New England and "seemed Inclined to beAssisting to friends in Endeavouring to get yt Law Ke-pealed wch friends complain of."91 At a meeting in thefollowing month the Quakers received the offer from theCongregationalists to write once more to New Englandurging that the annoyances of which the Quakers com-plained, might cease.92"During the whole time of imprisonment of these men the MonthlyMeetings of Rhode Island regularly arranged for the support of theirfamilies. Thomas Taber was a Baptist rather than a Quaker but wasincluded 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, 307,310.91Lond. M. for Sufferings, XIX, 324.*2"Joseph Grove Reports his and some other friends being with theIndependt Preachers according to appointment and were Civilly Treatedby them and they seem to shew their great dislike to their Brethren inNew Englands proceedings agst our friends there and offered their565] THE QUAKERS AND THEIR ALLIES 111Whether or not the dissenting ministers carried outtheir promise as they had on a previous occasion, an evenmore effective measure was taken by Jeremiah Dummer,at this time agent for Massachusetts. In consequence ofthe lengthy memorial from the General Court to the Boardof Trade and the action in the London Quaker meetingswhich might end in a petition to the Queen, he wrote toSamuel Sewall, at this time a member of the governor'scouncil in Massachusetts and Judge of the Superior Courtat Boston. In this letter he reminded Sewall of the illname which Massachusetts magistrates had with the gov-ernment for their many independent actions, and suggestedthat the Queen would have little sympathy with dissentersfor giving severe treatment to Quakers and Baptists whowere looked upon in England as equal with the Presbyte-rians and Independents under the Toleration Act.93The chief reason why the Quakers did not apply tothe Privy Council in 1709 was that the very meeting whichreceived the Rhode Island Monthly Meeting's petitionlearned 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 takewhat measures they could for the immediate relief of theimprisoned assessors. The Dartmouth Monthly Meeting ofJanuary 17, 1708/09, sent John Tucker to Boston to ask forthe release of the prisoners94 and the results of his effortswere most satisfactory. Between the years 1706 and 1714Tiverton was regularly, with the exception of the presentyear, assessed the sum of one hundred seventy poundswhile Dartmouth was rated for an amount varying be-tween three hundred forty-five pounds and three hundredseventy. The charges for 1708-1709 of two hundred poundsand four hundred thirty-seven pounds and eleven shillingsAssistance in writing over to them, to stop the prosecution agst ourfriends and one of their ministers that intends sudenly to goe overdeclar'd he would be assisting therein." Land. M. for Sufferings, XIX, 331.93Dummer to Sewall, 7 Dec., 1709, Land. M. for Sufferings, XX, u.9*Dartmouth Mo. M., 47.112 CHURCH AND STATE IN MASSACHUSETTS [566respectively showed therefore a ministerial rate of thirtypounds for Tiverton and about sixty for Dartmouth. Theselectmen not only failed to assess the one hundred poundsextra but declined to have anything to do with the wholerate. Their imprisonment was therefore legal even withoutthe ecclesiastical legislation of 1706. Through a compro-mise now effected the assessors of Tiverton agreed to assessthe town's regular rates and the additional tax was re-moved "for the present."95 In the case of Dartmouth thetwo assessors were unexpectedly discharged.96The probable explanation of these events appears in avote 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 ofRespects and acknowledgments of his severall ffavors andKindnesses shewed unto our ffriends."97 The Governorof Massachusetts had expressed in his attitude toward theQuakers in his province, the general policy of the Boardof Trade as well as what was probably his own personalsympathy. It is significant that the next serious troublesbetween the Massachusetts authorities and the Quakersof Dartmouth and Tiverton did not occur until after thedeath of Queen Anne and the removal of Dudley.In 1715, the year of Lieutenant-Governor WilliamTailer's authority, the Quakers became much concernedupon learning that the Massachusetts Church was takingmeans to secure governmental sanction for holding a synod,as had been done in the early days of the colony. In thisattempt the New England Yearly Meeting saw on the partof the ministers a determination to have the Congrega-tional Church receive more legal recognition. To them itseemed that an act of the legislature, giving the right tohold such a synod, upon receiving royal allowance, would95Mass. Prov. Laws, IX, 47, ch. 124.^Dartmouth Mo. M., 47-48, 49; Lond. Yr. M., IV, 58.97N. E. Yr. M., 52. Further Quaker approval of Dudley may be foundin 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 113make the Congregational Church the true establishedchurch of Massachusetts, like "Presbitery ... in NorthBritain,"98 as they argued it had never really been. Amemorial from the Congregational ministers was beforethe upper house on May 31 when it was voted by the coun-cilors "That the Synod and Assembly above-mentioned, isagreeable to them, and the Keverend Ministers, are Desiredto take their own time for the said Assembly." On June 1it was concurred in by the Representatives." The YearlyMeeting which now opened its sessions appointed a com-mittee to watch the progress of the ministers' memorialand if necessary, inform the London correspondents, thatthey might prevent the allowance of any such law.100 TheLondon Meeting for Sufferings, upon receiving this infor-mation, was on the alert101 but action was unnecessary, asIncrease Mather opposed the synod in an address to theHouse of Representatives and it was never authorized. 102The law of November 14, 1706, was enacted for sevenyears only. If the English crown had seen fit to order itdisallowed when addressed in 1708, or if the MassachusettsGeneral Court had been willing to let it lapse when its timewas run out, the stirring events among the Quakers whichbegan once more in 1717 and culminated in an appeal tothe Privy Council in 1723 would never have occurred. Thelegislation of 1706 was practically repeated in 1715, and thelaw 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..* 01Lond. 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 ahint 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 undertakethe voyage as agents; But when they came afterwards to lay theirIntentions before the Assembly, such Reasons were there offered againstit, yt it was Quasht, at least for the present." Lond. M. for Sufferings,XXII, 230; Epistles Sent, II, 238; Lond. Yr. M., V, 220.102House Journal, 1715, 17, 18.114 CHURCH AND STATE IN MASSACHUSETTS [568of 1715 continued the chief provisions of the law of 1706,it was not followed, as in 1708, by a strict application. Forthis reason it aroused little immediate excitement amongthe Quakers. The first evidence we have that they haddiscovered the act of 1715 is in the action of the Dart-mouth Monthly Meeting of May 20, 1717, when a committeewas chosento Draw up some account to Walter Newbury Concerning a Late act forye maintenance of ministers and Desire him to take ye said act along withhim to Old England and deliver it to John Whiting or some other friendyt he shall think suitable.103It was at this same time that the affairs of DartmouthQuakers were again before the General Court. PelegSlocum and John Tucker owned land on the ElizabethIslands and were accordingly rated to the minister ofChilmark, in the boundaries of which town it was located,altho both men resided on the mainland and hence farfrom Martha's Vineyard.Not only did the two men petition the General Courtbut the Yearly Meeting104 also addressed a representationto the governor who was now His Excellency SamuelShute. The Council, perhaps realizing from the affair of1709 what the course of events might be, voted a hearingfor the following session, all prosecution to cease in themeantime. But the House of Representatives, when finallyforced to consider the case, proceeded to vote a dismissalof the whole affair. Even when the minister and town ofChilmark went so far as to ask that the estates of Slocumand Tucker might be exempted from paying toward Chil-mark's ecclesiastical charges and the Council was ready togrant this request, the lower house met the situation witha twice repeated "non concurred."105The result of the events of 1717 was that the Quakersof New England in the following year once more took up103Dartmouth Mo. M., 115.104JV. E. Yr. M., 98, 99; Epistles Rec'd, II, 211, Epistle from N. E.Yr. M., 1717.105House Journal, 1717, 21, 24, 25, 27.569] THE QUAKERS AND THEIR ALLIES 115their problem of relationship to the established system ofthe province. Their work so far had shown no lack ofenergy. Beginning with the systematic recording of suf-ferings and an endeavor to discover the constitutionalbasis of the laws of which they complained they were soonpouring applications for redress before the governor of theprovince and the London Yearly Meeting. Several formalpetitions to the Queen in Council had crossed the water;but the English Quakers for one reason or another hadfailed to push these, tho always ready to do what theycould for the New England meetings. As a matter of fact,whatever the New England Quakers did before 1718, thosincere and strenuous, was accomplished largely throughindividuals or the smaller meetings, and lacked system.The work done in and after 1718, altho it was started bythe separate appeal to Boston by Slocum and Tucker, wasbased on a new theory. All efforts were to center in theYearly Meeting and by it a common treasury for this spe-cial end was organized, to back up a petition to the crownin England.This policy is recorded in the minutes of the NewEngland Meeting.The Consideration of the Contineued Sufferings of ffriends Under thePrisbeterian, or Independiant Priest; haveing taken hold of this meeting;it is agreed that ffriens doe as soone as with Conveniency they Can wrightto our ffriends in great Brittain Requesting Their Endevours ffor ouerRelief in that Case and In order to Carey on Said business ; and to Deffraythe Charge thearof it is agreed that the Quarterly meeting of RhoadIsland doe Colect the Some of thirtey pounds; & ye Quarterly meetingof Salem the Some of ffifteen pounds & ye Quarterly meeting of Sand-wich & Sittuat the Some of ffifteen pounds ; and when Colected to beordered into the hands;of John Wanton & Thomas Richardson ; they toremit Ye Same home in ye best method thay Can and this meeting willSupply with more money ffor that Sarvice if wanted; and Said JohnWanton & Thomas Richardson are desired to Take Ye management ofthat Affair Uder their Ceare 10Not waiting for this committee to act, the writers ofthe epistle to London included in their letter a statementof the case and the request that the London Meeting should10istles Sent, II, 285, Epistle to N. E. Yr. M., 1718.571] THE QUAKERS AND THEIR ALLIES 117land with its account of sufferings and promise to sendmoney for an application to the government, and appointeda committee to consider the situation. 114 The report whichwas brought in one month later so far assured the meetingof the injustice of the Massachusetts law that an immedi-ate agreement was reached to appeal to the government.115Through the rest of 1718 and the following year thiscommittee was retained on the New England affair, andby May, 1719, had progressed so far as to have read in thePrivy Council a petition which it had drawn.116 As in theprevious petitions to the Governor and Council of Massa-chusetts the Quakers here set forththe great hardships they suffer by not paying the Demands of the Prieststhere [and humbly prayed] in regard the Charter granted to that Colonyby King William, Allows a free Exercise and Liberty of Conscience toall subjects that should settle there (except Papists) That His Majestywill Commisserate their Case, and Direct the Governor of said Provinceto Relieve Them herein.This petition was referred to the Board of Trade May 26,1719.117At this point it was suddenly dropped as the result ofinformation given the London Friends by one of the Mas-sachusetts agents. From him the English Friends heardthat the local government was contemplating some sort oflegislation for the relief of Quakers,118 and decided thatbefore going farther they would investigate this rumor. Aletter was written to New England asking that the matterbe looked into; and the Rhode Island Quarterly Meetingresponded by sending John Wanton and Thomas Richard-son to consult with Thomas Fitch and Jonathan Belcherof the Governor's Council.119 It was probably at theirsuggestion 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 churchmen &c I think them both very wrong, and wish they were repealed by635] THE CHURCH OP ENGLAND 181Since 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 SolicitorGeneral, and was neglected for various reasons. Thepassage of the act of 1727 somewhat altered the situationbut a new petition was not immediately framed. Sharpeon May 21, 1729, at last succeeded in securing an orderfrom the Board that Popple should write again to theAttorney and Solicitor General to remind them that noanswer had been made to the question submitted November14, 1727, but nothing came of this. 149Two years more passed before the English Churchmenwere able to secure the attention which they desired. Bythat time the Massachusetts act of 1727 had arrived offi-cially, as well as the first Quaker and Baptist legislationwhich made better concessions than the earlier act hadgiven to the Anglicans.150 Dissatisfaction with the act of1727 was expressed in a petition drawn up again in thename of Timothy Cutler to the King in Council which onOctober 28, 1731, was considered and referred to the LordsCommittee.151 On November 1 it was passed on to the Boardof Trade152 who gave it their consideration. This secondpetition reminded the Board that it had failed to returna 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. FinallyHis Majesty was besought once more to consider the va-rious acts before mentioned as well as the present law, takeaction upon them and enjoin the governor not to pass anyHis Majesty I beleive it would have a good effect if they were so, andthe objections mentioned by your Lordship against ym seem to be all wellfounded, and I wish they could be taught to know that the Independentshere are no Established church." Burnet to the Bp. of London, 27 Nov.,1728, Fulhatn Mss., Mass.**9Mass. Prov. Laws, II, 482.150Cutler to Capt. John Delapp, 13 May, 1731, Perry, Ch. Docs., Mass.,264-266.Acts of the Privy Council, III, 156.152Mow. 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 [636act for the future "whereby any Tax shall be laid on theMembers of one perswasion for the support of the ministersof any other."153 As in the former case the Board ofTrade, receiving the petition on November 30, 1731, readit and referred it (5 January 1731/32) to the Attorney andSolicitor General with a second reminder of the letter ofNovember 14, 1727.154In the meantime the arrival of Governor Belcher withhis friendly attitude toward the Quakers of MassachusettsBay had caused among the Anglicans of New England agreater commotion than the feeble Quaker legislation of1728 and 1729 had produced. While the Quaker bill of1731 was being drafted by a committee of the lower house,Roger Price, in his new official capacity as commissary forNew England, presented a memorial to the Governor,Council, and House of Representatives in behalf of theChurchmen. 155 Belcher in receiving his appointment hadbeen given instructions which contained a new clause bear-ing on ecclesiastical matters. The recent legal recognitionof the Bishop of London's jurisdiction in the colonies wasnow particularly drawn to the various governors' attentionwith the charge that they give special care to encouragingthe bishop's commissaries in their duties.156 In spite ofBelcher's strong anti-Episcopal feeling he was preparedfor political reasons to do what was necessary to satisfyAnglican interests in England, and now promised hissupport.157The committee of the General Court in whose handsthe affair was placed was not inclined to make immediate158This petition is given in full in Mass. Prov. Laws, II, 483, and inFoote, Annals of King's Chapel, I, 454.1MJlfoM. Prov. Laws, II, 483-484.155Perry, Ch. Docs., Mass., 272-273; Foote, Annals of King's Chapel,455-156C. O. 5, 916, 306-307, 20 Mar., 1729/30.1B7Belcher's answer to Cutler's address to the Governor, Boston Ga-zette, 10-17 Aug., 1730; Belcher to the Duke of Grafton, 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 183concessions and asked for further proof of disabilitiesunder existing legislation. In spite of immediate actionby 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 drawup a further memorial to present to the King in Council,158and solicited contributions from the rural churches ofNew England. 159 On Feb. 7, 1731/32, the new petitionwas considered by the vestries of the two Boston churchesand ordered sent to the Bishop of London; Thomas Sand-ford was chosen as agent to prosecute the petition to theKing, and a local committee was appointed to correspondwith him and forward money. John Checkley at this timewent into the rural towns to get the memorial signed andto obtain further evidence of distraint.160This petition had no immediate result as the Bishopof London was still busy with the Massachusetts memorialof 1731 for which the Board of Trade's attention had beenrecently secured. Certain difficulties which made it im-possible to gain the attention of authority in 1727 hadnow been overcome and an opinion from the Attorney andSolicitor General was at last secured, August 16, 1732.Taking up the first petition, drawn before the act of 1727and complaining of Massachusetts ecclesiastical law, thelawyers pointed out that of the acts therein mentioned thefirst three had been duly confirmed by the crown, and thesubsequent ones had become law when not within the allot-ted time disallowed in England. In either case such lawscould not be repealed by His Majesty without the concur-rence of the Massachusetts General Court. The lawyersnext proceeded to consider whether the acts were repug-nant to the charter and hence void from the beginning.158Foote, Annals of King's Chapel, I, 456-457, quoting the Records ofChrist Church.169Updike, Narragansett Church, II, 504-505, quoting Records of theNarragansett Church. The Narragansett Church pledged 28 pounds 15shillings.160Foote, Annals of King's Chapel, I, 457-459, quoting the Records ofKing's Chapel and of Christ Church.184 CHURCH AND STATE IN MASSACHUSETTS [638They pointed out that, while the charter granted liberty ofconscience, it did neither institute nor expressly prohibita provincial church to be established in the colony. Toprovide for the celebration of the public worship of Godand for the maintenance of ministers did not seem to theminconsistent with liberty of conscience. Even if the actswere illegal no extrajudicial declaration could pronouncethem so;a judicial proceeding on a test case was necessary.The act of 1727, discussed in the second petition, Yorkeand Talbot were asked to pass upon in point of law. But,as they said, it was not a legal objection which was enteredagainst it but prudential, the act not going far enough toplease the people whom it was framed to pacify. 161Edmund Gibson, when informing Price of this actionby the law officers of the crown, expressed the regret thatthe Church had not taken steps earlier and before thepower wrhich the Massachusetts dissenters exercised hadbecome 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 becauseof developments in Massachusetts Bay. The Hanoveriansuccession writh its substantial Whig support had alteredconditions among English Churchmen, and these condi-tions were reflected in America. There was little chanceof 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 toconfess that his influence at court was too weak to opposethe party strength of the dissenting interests.163In spite of this condition and the unwillingness of theHonorable Society to push matters under such circum-stances, the united vestries of King's Chapel and ChristChurch were determined to go farther. Meeting June 26mPerry, ch. Docs., Mass., 274-288.182Bp. of London to Price, 6 Feb., 1/32/33, Foote, Annals of King'sChapel, I, 461.163Petition of the Massachusetts Churchmen to the Archbp. of Can-terbury, Foote, Annals of King's Chapel, I, 464.639] THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND 185and October 19, 1733, they voted to try the one remainingmode of procedure, a test case. A committee was accord-ingly appointed to seek the prosecution of such officers asdistrained or imprisoned members of the Church of Eng-land in the province, to defend Churchmen in traveling tochurch on Sunday, and Church of England ministers formarrying in the manner of the Church.164 This measurewas followed by a vigorous prosecution of the case ofMatthew Ellis of Medford who, upon imprisonment forfailure to pay a ministerial tax, sued Richard Sprague theconstable. The case went through the Inferior Court ofCommon Pleas, the Superior Court and the Court of Re-view. An appeal was denied by the judges of the SuperiorCourt, but was granted by the King in Council, andSprague wras summoned to appear before a committee ofthe Privy Council to answer for the imprisonment ofEllis. 165Meanwhile the Bishop of London, who had met bestsuccess when dealing with the Massachusetts governor, ap-plied once more to the same authority; and Belcher now,as Dummer formerly, assumed certain responsibility. TheGeneral Court wras once more led to consider the disabili-ties of Churchmen and, probably influenced by the recentaction of the Boston Episcopal churches, took up the ques-tion of exemption. On July 4, 1734, the Baptists weregiven the same privileges which the Quakers had obtainedtwo years and a half before; and on December 27, 1735,the Anglicans received a similar recognition.The law, tho not proving entirely satisfactory to theChurch of England in the province, did away with thetwo chief objections to the act of 1727. While it providedmerely 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 tooka step forward in its abolition of the five mile clause. Aa'4Foote, Annals of King's Chapel, I, 464, quoting Records of King'sChapel and of Christ Church.165/&tU, 464, 465, 467; Perry, Ch. Docs., Mass., 311-312.186 CHURCH AND STATE IN MASSACHUSETTS [640system of identification, similar to the Baptist and Quakermethod, was instituted, the minister and church wardens toindicate to the town treasurer who were members of or gaveattendance at the Anglican church. The act was in forcefor five years.100The passage of these two acts, the Baptist and theAnglican laws of 1734 and 1735, rendered practicallyunimportant the action taken by the Board of Trade andthe Privy Council at just this time. At the failure of thepetitions in the name of Timothy Cutler which had ab-sorbed the attention of the Bishop of London and theS. P. G. a failure caused by the unsympathetic decision ofYorke and Talbot, there still lay before the bishop theQuaker legislation which King's Chapel and Christ Churchwere denouncing. At the beginning of the year 1736 Gib-son and William Sharpe were on the alert regarding it,167as a decision was imminent ; but the result was not all thatmight have been desired. The real problem was avoided.In accordance with a report submitted by the Board ofTrade the Lords Committee (2 Feb., 1735/36) stated thatas the charter granted liberty of conscience to all Chris-tians except Roman Catholics, such exemption ought notto be limited to any one sect of Protestants but extendedto all. The act was therefore considered not proper for HisMajesty's approbation and was only saved from an un-favorable recommendation by its temporary character, asit was about to expire. The Board of Trade was orderedto draft an additional instruction to Belcher to restrainhim from giving his assent in the future to any law of thiskind unless the exemption be made general. The orderwas read at the Board on March 18, 1736.168Belcher was not given an opportunity to show hisrecognition of this order as there was no attempt to passfurther exemption laws during his term of office. Each ofthe three important dissenting sects had secured a tolerable9Mass. Prov. Laws, II, 782, ch. 15, 27 Dec., 1735.18TSharpe to the Bp. of London, 10 Jan., 1735/36, Fulham Mss., Mass.188Acts of the Privy Council, III, 491-492; Mass. Prov. Laws, II, 635.641] THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND 187arrangement which tho irritating was not impracticable.The Anglican law of 1735 was made perpetual in 1742. 169The Anglicans of Massachusetts were behind theQuakers in beginning their struggle to resist maintainingthe state church, as there were very few of them in thecountry towns of the province until after the founding ofthe S. P. G. When once started the struggle resembled theQuaker conflict in the support which it received from theparent body at home, when it met failure in Boston, as wellas in its dependence for success upon political conditionsin England. The Massachusetts provincial governors un-derstood that their function in ecclesiastical matters wasto use their influence in suppressing warring religious fac-tions and in maintaining "liberty of conscience," as theirinstructions commanded, in accordance with the wordingof the province charter. In the instructions of the earlyprovincial 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 stanchAnglicans or who supported the state church of Englandfor political reasons offset this omission, and the governorswere generally looked upon as the protectors of Anglicaninterests. 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 andshowed a friendly consideration for Quaker as well asAnglican when they came armed with petitions to gov-ernor and council, while he readily discharged ecclesiasticalprisoners of either body. In spite of his adopted Anglicansympathies he recognized his limitations when faced byany Massachusetts law which had been allowed in England ;and in spite of repeated proddings by the Churchmen, hewent only so far as to make urgent recommendations tostubborn towns where the Anglicans were in an uncom-fortable position. Shute, less well versed in the rightsof 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 [642rogative when he made definite orders in regard to thetreatment of Anglicans. Dummer, who like Dudley recog-nized that relief for"dissenting sects" must come fromaction by the General Court, nevertheless supported thecause of the Church when he used his influence to securea law in favor of Anglican interests. His work was soeffectual that the Massachusetts act of 1727, relating to themaintenance of the ministry, contained a clause for thepartial exemption of Anglicans.Back of the royal governors during this whole periodthe English Church was itself working busily, through theS. P. G. and the Bishop of London. The scattered Church-men of Massachusetts very early began to make applicationto the Society and to the Bishop, seeking relief fromecclesiastical charges, and some earnest recommendationscame to Dudley, Tailer, and Shute from across the water.If the number of Churchmen in the country towns ofMassachusetts had been larger, their appeals might havehad more effect, but they were not pushed consistently, andthe opportunity to accomplish something before the deathof Queen Anne was lost. A little later the belief that Shutehad authority and was exercising it for the benefit of thelocal Churchmen relieved the Society of responsibility. Achanged conception of the power of the governor and abetter appreciation of the legal status of Episcopacy inMassachusetts came to the Society at about the time thatGibson succeeded Robinson in the see of London ; and underhis influence the organization took up seriously the problemof gaining exemption for New England Churchmen. Aftera study of the Massachusetts ecclesiastical law and an ap-peal to Dummer to use what influence he could, the Societyagreed to carry the affair before His Majesty and addressthe King in Council. Politics delayed immediate actionbut the agitation was not without its effect on the Massa-chusetts General Court. This body was conscious of itsunpopularity with the Board of Trade; it feared an un-friendly decision and anticipated it by following Dummer'ssuggestions and passing the law of 1727. The activity of643] THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND 189the Church party was therefore reflected in Massachusettslegislation but not so far as to satisfy the Anglicans.Finding that the law had gained practically nothing for thelocal Churchmen, the Society agreed to revive its previousattempt with the crown, a decision soon strengthenedby the passage of the Massachusetts Quaker laws of 1728,1729 and 1731. The influence of the Bishop of London wasnot sufficient to gain results satisfactory to ecclesiasticalinterests, but again the General Court was guided by fearof the possible course which events in England might fol-low. Governor Belcher's recommendation in favor of asatisfactory law was accepted ; the act of 1735 was passedand in 1742 it became perpetual.CONCLUSION.This study of church and state in Massachusetts ofthe early eighteenth century may properly be closed witha summary of the main conclusions which have beenreached. While some of these are of local interest merely,others have a much broader significance. The object ofthe study has been to reconstruct the ecclesiastical systemof provincial Massachusetts and to show the steps bywhich it was broken down through the efforts of hostileforces.In the year 1691 Massachusetts faced the problem ofan ecclesiastical adjustment when she found herself re-constituted as a royal province with an enlarged boundaryand a broadened franchise. Her first step was to pass aseries of legislative acts and resolves which renewed asfar as possible the ecclesiastical law of the seventeenthcentury, while technically granting liberty of conscience,as decreed by the province charter. When these lawsfailed to be effective by reason of the pressure of elementsopposed 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 thelaws hardened in a firm endeavor on the part of the lawmakers to maintain the old standards in the face ofchanged conditions.The opposing forces which gave the leaders most un-easiness were two, the Episcopal element which appearedin 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 mainlyin the region which had formerly belonged to PlymouthColony. This second group was made up chiefly of de-190645] CONCLUSION 191scendants, in the second and third generations, of thePuritan founders of the commonwealth or of PlymouthColony, who were inclined to carry to its logical conclu-sion the spirit of independent thinking which had beentheir heritage. Moving on from the older towns whereextreme orthodoxy was the order and social prestige de-pended on it, they settled in the newer plantations of thenorthern and southern counties where their variationsmade 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 moresatisfying than the extreme Calvinism of Massachusettsorthodoxy, or attracted by a freer political doctrine thanthat on which they had been reared. There were manywho still sympathized with much of the old Puritan teach-ing and yet stood for a complete separation of church andstate such as Khode Island maintained. Others andthese doubtless made up the greater part of the inhabitantsof the villages least under the control of the governmentwere frankly uninterested in church platforms and creeds,tho not violently opposed to religious teaching. Amongsuch men the leaders of the hierarchy met little oppositionso long as they were willing to finance the churches whichthey 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 lastdecade of the seventeenth century. The old ecclesiasticalsystem was failing to maintain itself in its earlier vigor,and as the laws were made increasingly elaborate, with aview to strengthening the position of the state church,the opposition grew more determined to defy them. Theopening of the eighteenth century saw this opposition intwo organized camps, that of the Anglican Church, workingprincipally through the Society for the Propagation ofthe Gospel, and that of the Quakers, supported by theSociety of Friends in England. In tracing the steps bywhich these bodies secured the exemption legislation ofthe eighteenth century, we observe that the Anglicans192 CHUECH AND STATE IN MASSACHUSETTS [646were for a long time less successful than the Society ofFriends, and that this difference was caused in very greatmeasure by political conditions in England.The Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, begin-ning its work at the opening of the eighteenth century andgiven an added impulse by the Queen's favor in the yearsimmediately following, failed to realize the opportunitywhich her support offered, and met reverses after herdeath. During the early years of the eighteenth centurythe Society, when receiving appeals from MassachusettsChurchmen, turned to the royal governors with the ex-pectation that they would use their authority to relievethe situation. The governors were distinctly favorable tothe Church;and one at least went so far as to issue ordersto town officials in a way that went quite beyond hisauthority. Most of the governors, however, were consciousof 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 thetruth of these statements, it assumed responsibility andcarried 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 supportfrom the government during the Walpole regime, for thenonconformists constituted too strong a wing of the Whigparty to be offended. As a Church society the S. P. G.was finding itself less well supported under the House ofHanover than by the high-church sympathies of QueenAnne. 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 uponMassachusetts ecclesiastical law, were for a time side-tracked, and final success was reached only after the otherdissenters had gained recognition and exemption.Meanwhile the same conditions of English politicswhich hindered the Venerable Society distinctly favoredthe English Quakers when they came to make appeals for647] CONCLUSION 193their people in Massachusetts. Between 1700 and 1718innumerable complaints were sent to the London YearlyMeeting by the Quakers of New England and in the latteryear, finding earlier methods unavailing, the EnglishFriends decided to address the government and follow uptheir plea with vigor. The Board of Trade, which wasthe principal body handling colonial affairs, was domi-nated by Newcastle during the following critical years ofecclesiastical controversy concerning Massachusetts. TheBoard was therefore ready to favor Whig interests andwas responsible, as we have seen, for a number of decisionsin favor of nonconformists as opposed to Churchmen. Thesituation was altered when the question was one involvingQuaker against Puritan for two of the dissenting sectswere here opposing each other. The strong organizationof the Society of Friends in England, with its wealth andits political influence, worked in favor of the Quakers inthe colonies. The Massachusetts Puritans, on the otherhand, were not consistently backed by an influential andwealthy body in England and were therefore left almostalone to resist the attacks of the Quakers on their system.They were, moreover, closely associated in the minds ofthe British government officials with resistance to law;by its ignoring of the Navigation Acts the General Courtof 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. TheEnglish government took the part of the Quaker in hisopposition to the New England Puritan and in doing sostruck 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 ecclesiasticallaw in provincial Massachusetts, was influenced by Eng-lish party politics and the enforcement of the British colo-nial system. Throughout the eighteenth century the crownfailed 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 to194 CHURCH AND STATE IN MASSACHUSETTS [648resist the authorities at Boston in spite of the support ofthe royal governors, the Bishop of London, and the Vener-able Society. The Quakers on the other hand, because oftheir political influence in England, were better able tomake headway against the unpopular General Court ofMassachusetts.Altho the exemption legislation gained in this periodwas not the real religious liberty which was desired, itmarked 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 sortmarked the legal position of the dissenters for almost ahundred 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 workduring both Quaker and Baptist periods; but the Societyof Friends was the agent most responsible for the successgained over Massachusetts ecclesiasticism in the first halfof the eighteenth century.BIBLIOGRAPHY.GUIDES AND BIBLIOGRAPHIES.Allison, William Henry. Inventory of unpublished material for Americanreligious history in Protestant church archives and other repositories.Washington, 1910.Andrews, Charles M. Guide to the materials for American history to1783, 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 theBritish Museum, in minor London archives, and in the libraries ofOxford and Cambridge. Washington, 1908.Flagg, Charles Allcott. A guide to Massachusetts local history, being abibliographic index to the literature of the towns, cities and countiesof the state. Salem, Mass., 1907.Ford, W. C. A bibliography of the Massachusetts house journals, 1715-1776. Cambridge, Mass., 1905.Massachusetts. Report of the committee on the custody and conditionof the public records of parishes, towns and counties. By Carroll D.Wright. Boston, 1889.Rhode Island Historical Society. A bibliography of Rhode Island localhistory.Sabin, Joseph. A dictionary of books relating to America. 19 vols.New York, 1862-1892.Smith, Joseph. Bibliotheca Quakeristica, a bibliography of miscellaneousliterature relating to the Friends. London, 1883.MANUSCRIPTS.Public Record Office, London. Board of Trade Papers:Original Correspondence, Massachusetts Bay. C. O. 5, 751-752. 1689-1740.Original Correspondence, New England, Board of Trade. C. O. 5,855-881. 1689-1740.Original Correspondence, New England, Secretary of State. C. O. 5,898-899. 1703-1741-Entry Books, New England. C. O. 5, 905-917. 1688-1741.Journal of the Board of Trade. C. O. 391, 7-48. 1691-1740. C. O.391, 90-119. 1696-1735.195196 CHURCH AND STATE IN MASSACHUSETTS [650Privy Council Office, London. Privy Council Register, 1696-1765.Fulham Palace, London. Papers of the Bishop of London.New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island. (One boxof papers.)Massachusetts. (Two boxes of papers.)5. P. G. House, London.S. P. G. Letters. (A. Mss.), 1701-1736, contemporary copies, 26 vols.S. P. G. Papers. (B. Mss.), 1701-1786, original letters and miscel-laneous documents, 6 vols.S. P. G. Journals, 1701 et seq.Devonshire House, London.Minutes of the London Yearly Meeting. Vols. I-VII. 1668-1770.Minutes of the London Meeting for Sufferings. Vols. XI-XXVII.1696-1745.Epistles Received. Vol. I. 1683-1706. Vol. II. 1705-1738.Epistles Sent. Vol. I. 1683-1703. Vol. II. 1704-1738. Vol. III.1/38-1756.Book of Cases. Vol. II. 1695-1738.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 arepreserved 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. NewportHistorical Society, Newport, R. I.Dartmouth Monthly, 1699-1770, (transcript). Friends' MeetingHouse, 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, NewBedford, 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 CouncilLegislative Records of the Council.651] BIBLIOGRAPHY 197Boston 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. LIsaac Backus Papers.Moses Brown Papers.Newport Historical Society, Newport, R. I. Letter Book of ThomasRichardson, 2 vols. 1710-1719.Bristol County Court House, Taunton, Mass. Records of the GeneralSessions of the Peace for the County of Bristol, 3 vols. 1702-1738.PRINTED SOURCESAndros Tracts, with notes and memoir, edited by W. H. Whitmore. 3vols. Prince Society Publications. Boston, 1868-1874.Chalmers, George. Opinions of eminent lawyers on various points ofEnglish jurisprudence, chiefly concerning the colonies. Burlington,Vt, 1858.Great Britain. Calendar of state papers, colonial series, America and theWest 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 Provinceof 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 inNew 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 inMassachusetts, 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, andelsewhere, from 1681 to 1817 inclusive. London, 1818.Protestant Episcopal Historical Society Collections. 2 vols. New York,1851-1853.198 CHURCH AND STATE IN MASSACHUSETTS [652Rhode Island Historical Society Collections. Diary of John Comer, VIII.Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge. A chapter in English churchhistory: being the minutes of the Society for Promoting ChristianKnowledge, 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 EnglandCompany in London and the commissioners of the United Coloniesin America, the missionaries of the company, and others between theyears 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 prefaceby Joseph Besse. London, 1759.Calamy, Edmund. An abridgment of Mr. Baxter's history of his life andtimes. 2 vols. London, 1713.Calamy, Edmund. Protestant dissenters in England. London, 1736.Chalkley, Thomas. A journal of the life, labours, travels, etc. of ThomasChalkley. Philadelphia, 1790.Chalkley, Thomas. Forcing a maintenance, not warantable from theholy scripture, for a minister of the gospel. 1713.Dickenson, James. A journal of the life, travels, and labour of love inthe work of the ministry of that worthy elder, and faithful servantof Jesus Christ, James Dickenson. London, 1745.Edmundson, William. Journal of the life, travels and sufferings of labourand 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 forthe 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 byRev. Thomas Robbins and memoir by S. G. Drake. 2 vols. Hartford,Conn., 1855.Mather, Cotton. Ratio discipline fratrum Novanglorum. A faithfulaccount of the discipline professed and practiced in the churches ofNew England. Boston, 1726.Mather, Increase. Discourse concerning the maintenance due to thosethat preach the gospel. Boston, 1706.653] BIBLIOGRAPHY 199Mather, Increase. The excellency of a publick spirit discoursed: in asermon, preached in the audience of the General Assembly of theProvince 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. 2vols. London, 1747.Oldmixon, John. The British empire in America, containing the historyof the discovery, settlement, progress and present state of all theBritish 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 JesusChrist, 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 ofthe proceedings of the society appended to the sermon preached atthe 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 accountof the society. London, 1706.Trott, Nicholas. The laws of the British plantations in America relatingto the church and clergy, religion and learning London, 1721.GENERAL AND SPECIAL HISTORIES, ETC.Adams, Brooks. The emancipation of Massachusetts. Boston and NewYork, 1887.Adams, Charles Francis. Massachusetts ; its historians and its history.Boston, 1893.Adams, Charles Francis. Three episodes of Massachusetts history. 2vols. 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 tothe denomination of Christians called Baptists, with notes by DavidWeston. 2 vols. Newton, Mass., 1871.200 CHURCH AND STATE IN MASSACHUSETTS [654Biographical Catalogue, being an account of the lives of Friends andothers whose portraits are in the London Friends Institute. London,Bowden, James. The history of the Society of Friends in America. 2vols. 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 coloniesof 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 NewEngland 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 historyof 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 Ito 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 thecolonial 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. NewYork, 1899.Marvin, A. P. Life and times of Cotton Mather. Boston, 1892.655] BIBLIOGRAPHY 201Newman, 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 theaccession 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 lectureby the Right Hon. and Right Rev. Arthur Foley, Lord Bishop ofLondon, with additional notes and illustrations, delivered at the Rich-mond Auditorium, Virginia, October 4, 1907. With a preface by theBishop 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 ofEngland, 1688-1891. London, 1891.Slafter, Edmund. John Checkley ; or the evolution of religious tolerancein Massachusetts Bay, 1719-1774. 2 vols. Prince Society Publications.Boston, 1897.Spencer, Henry R. Constitutional conflict in provincial Massachusetts ; astudy of some phases of the opposition between the Massachusettsgovernor and General Court in the early eighteenth century. Colum-bus, O., 1905.Steiner, Bernard C. Rev. Thomas Bray. His life and selected worksrelating to Maryland. Baltimore, 1901.Thomas, Allen C., and Richard H. History of the Society of Friends inAmerica. New York, 1000.Tiffany, Charles C. History of the Protestant Episcopal Church in theUnited 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 Englandbis 1740. English version by H. C. Conant, New England Theocracy.Boston, 1858.202 CHURCH AND STATE IN MASSACHUSETTS [656Walker, Williston. Creeds and platforms of Congregationalism. NewYork, 1893.Walker, Williston. History of the Congregational churches in the UnitedStates. 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, andWest 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 andTiverton. 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 theUnited 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. NewBedford, Mass., 1889.Pratt, Ambrose E. 2ooth anniversary celebration of Sandwich andBourne, 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.INDEXAkin, 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.Avery, Joseph, minister at Freetown, 81.Backus, Isaac, 22-23, 44> 86.Baptists in England, 11-13; in the colonies, 14; church in Boston, 39; inMass, 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 lawin, 69-70.Barrington, 159.Belcher, Jonathan, member of the Council, 117; governor, 136; relationto 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; changein 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 lawthrough 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, 180.203204 CHURCH AND STATE IN MASSACHUSETTS [658Charles II, 8, 9.Charter, Mass, charter of 1629, 7; Mass, charter of 1691, 8-9, 17, 21, 94,142.Checkley, John, 183Christ 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 ecclesiasticallaw 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 205General 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 ofministry, 62; concerned with securing ministers, 62-63; relation tofrontier settlements, 53, 63-68; 83-84; management of "unorthodox"communities, 68-84; memorial to the Queen, 109; change in attitudetoward 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, 96Guy, 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, 126Huguenots, 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 [660Marblehead, 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 on661] INDEX 207proprietary 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; HamptonMonthly, 47; Dover Monthly, 47; resistance to ecclesiastical law atDartmouth 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 [662Tailer, William, lieutenant-governor, 112, 168-169.Taxes, general, 32-34, 90; for maintenance of ministers, regulation of informing 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; resistanceto 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.

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