The Great Republic by the Master Historians Religious Dissensions in New England byBancroft, Hubert H.
[The New England colonists made vigorous efforts to establish firmly their
political rights. The original charter contained no provision for the self-
government or religious freedom of the people, who were left, in these
particulars, at the mercy of the Company and the king. In furtherance of their
democratic sentiments, the bold step was taken, in 1630, of removing the
governing council from England to Massachusetts, while the provincial government
took every precaution to prevent the Church of England from extending its
authority over the colony.
In matters of conscience the colonists manifested from the first an autocratic
tendency, and the determination that God should be worshipped in their province
in only one way, and that the way of the Puritans. That thought could be
confined to so narrow a channel was, however, impossible, and there began at an
early date that strenuous effort to weed out what was to them heresy which forms
an important part of the history of New England. To the earliest of these
troubles, that connected with the name of Roger Williams, the settlement of the
province of Rhode Island was due. Similar religious dissensions had their share
in the settlement of the provinces of Connecticut, Maine, and New Hampshire. We
select a description of these events from Robertson's "History of America," a
favorite historical work of the last century.
We may premise by saying that Roger Williams was a young Puritan minister, of
fine talents and education, who had been driven out of England by the
intolerance of Archbishop Laud. On landing in Boston he found himself unable to
join the church in that place, from its opposition to his views respecting
religious freedom. He was subsequently called to the church in Salem, but was
prevented from officiating through the opposition of Governor Winthrop. Two
years afterwards he again received a pastoral call to Salem. Here his doctrine
gave great offence to the colony, though he was warmly supported by the people
of Salem.]
However liberal their system of civil policy might be, as their religious
opinions were no longer under any restraint of authority, the spirit of
fanaticism continued to spread, and became every day wilder and more
extravagant. Williams, a minister of Salem, in high estimation, having conceived
an antipathy to the cross of St. George in the standard of England, declaimed
against it with so much vehemence as a relic of superstition and idolatry which
ought not to be retained among a people so pure and sanctified, that Endicott,
one of the members of the court of assistants, in a transport of zeal, publicly
cut out the cross from the ensign displayed before the governor's gate. This
frivolous matter interested and divided the colony. Some of the militia scrupled
to follow colors in which there was a cross, lest they should do honor to an
idol; others refused to serve under a mutilated banner, lest they should be
suspected of having renounced their allegiance to the crown of England. After a
long controversy, carried on by both parties with that heat and zeal which, in
trivial disputes, supply the want of argument, the contest was terminated by a
compromise. The cross was retained in the ensigns of forts and ships, but erased
from the colors of the militia. Williams, on account of this, as well as of some
other doctrines deemed unsound, was banished out of the colony.
[Among these obnoxious doctrines were, that it was wrong to enforce an oath of
allegiance to the sovereign, or of obedience to the magistrate; that the king
had no right to usurp the power of disposing of the territory of the Indians,
and, more particularly, that all religious sects had the right to claim equal
protection from the laws, and that the civil magistrates had no right to
restrain the consciences of men, or to interfere with their modes of worship or
religious beliefs. It was decided to send the heretical pastor to England, and
he was ordered to repair to Boston. As he did not obey this order, a party was
sent to Salem to arrest him. On reaching there they found that Williams had left
the settlement, and was making his way through the forest wilderness and the
cold and hardship of a New England winter in search of a locality where he might
have the privilege of worshipping God in accordance with the dictates of his
conscience.]
The prosperous state of New England was now so highly extolled, and the simple
frame of its ecclesiastic policy was so much admired by all whose affections
were estranged from the Church of England, that crowds of new settlers flocked
thither (1635). Among these were two persons whose names have been rendered
memorable by the appearance which they afterwards made on a more conspicuous
theatre: one was Hugh Peters, the enthusiastic and intriguing chaplain of Oliver
Cromwell; the other, Mr. Henry Vane, son of Sir Henry Vane, a privy councillor,
high in office, and of great credit with the king: a young man of a noble
family, animated with such zeal for pure religion and such love of liberty as
induced him to relinquish all his hopes in England and to settle in a colony
hitherto no further advanced in improvement than barely to afford subsistence to
its members, was received with the fondest admiration. His mortified appearance,
his demure look, and rigid manners, carried even beyond the standard of
preciseness in that society which he joined, seemed to indicate a man of high
spiritual attainments, while his abilities and address in business pointed him
out as worthy of the highest station in the community. With universal consent,
and high expectations of advantage from his administration, he was elected
governor in the year subsequent to his arrival (1636). But as the affairs of an
infant colony afforded not objects adequate to the talents of Vane, his busy
pragmatical spirit occupied itself with theological subtleties and speculations
unworthy of his attention. These were excited by a woman, whose reveries
produced such effects, both within the colony and beyond its precincts, that,
frivolous as they may now appear, they must be mentioned as an occurrence of
importance in its history.
It was the custom at that time in New England among the chief men in every
congregation to meet once a week, in order to repeat the sermons which they had
heard, and to hold religious conferences with respect to the doctrine contained
in them. Mrs. Hutchinson, whose husband was among the most respectable members
of the colony, regretting that persons of her sex were excluded from the benefit
of those meetings, assembled statedly in her house a number of women, who
employed themselves in pious exercises similar to those of the men. At first she
satisfied herself with repeating what she could recollect of the discourses
delivered by their teachers. She began afterwards to add illustrations, and at
length proceeded to censure some of the clergy as unsound, and to vent opinions
and fancies of her own. These were all founded on the system which is
denominated Antinomian by divines, and tinged with the deepest enthusiasm. She
taught that sanctity of life is no evidence of justification, or of a state of
favor with God; and that such as inculcated the necessity of manifesting the
reality of our faith by obedience preached only a covenant of works: she
contended that the spirit of God dwelt personally in good men, and by inward
revelations and impressions they received the fullest discoveries of the divine
will. The fluency and confidence with which she delivered these notions gained
her many admirers and proselytes, not only among the vulgar, but among the
principal inhabitants. The whole colony was interested and agitated. Vane, whose
sagacity and acuteness seemed to forsake him whenever they were turned towards
religion, espoused and defended her wildest tenets. Many conferences were held,
days of fasting and humiliation were appointed, a general synod was called, and,
after dissensions so violent as threatened the dissolution of the colony, Mrs.
Hutchinson's opinions were condemned as erroneous, and she herself banished
(1637). Several of her disciples withdrew from the province of their own accord.
Vane quitted America in disgust, unlamented even by those who had lately admired
him; some of whom now regarded him as a mere visionary, and others as one of
those dark turbulent spirits doomed to embroil every society into which they
enter.
However much these theological contests might disquiet the colony of
Massachusetts Bay, they contributed to the more speedy population of America.
When Williams was banished from Salem, in the year one thousand six hundred and
thirty-four, such was the attachment of his hearers to a pastor whose piety they
revered, that a good number of them voluntarily accompanied him in his exile.
They directed their march towards the south; and having purchased from the
natives a considerable tract of land, to which Williams gave the name of
Providence, they settled there. They were joined soon after by some of those to
whom the proceedings against Mrs. Hutchinson gave disgust; and by a transaction
with the Indians they obtained a right to a fertile island in Narragansett Bay,
which acquired the name of Rhode Island. Williams remained among them upwards of
forty years, respected as the father and the guide of the colony which he had
planted. His spirit differed from that of the Puritans in Massachusetts; it was
mild and tolerating; an, having ventured himself to reject established opinions,
he endeavored to secure the same liberty to other men, by maintaining that the
exercise of private judgment was a natural and sacred right; that the civil
magistrate had no compulsive jurisdiction in the concerns of religion; that the
punishment of any person on account of his opinions was an encroachment on
conscience and an act of persecution. These humane principles he instilled into
his followers, and all who felt or dreaded oppression in other settlements
resorted to a community in which universal toleration was known to be a
fundamental maxim. In the plantations of Providence and Rhode Island, political
union was established by voluntary association and the equality of condition
among the members, as well as their religious opinions; their form of government
was purely democratical, the supreme power being lodged in the freemen
personally assembled. In this state they remained until they were incorporated
by charter.
To similar causes the colony of Connecticut is indebted for its origin. The
rivalship between Mr. Cotton and Mr. Hooker, two favorite ministers in the
settlement of Massachusetts Bay, disposed the latter, who was least successful
in this contest for fame and power, to wish for some settlement at a distance
from a competitor by whom his reputation was eclipsed. A good number of those
who had imbibed Mrs. Hutchinson's notions, and were offended at such as combated
them, offered to accompany him. Having employed proper persons to explore the
country, they pitched upon the west side of the great river Connecticut as the
most inviting station; and in the year one thousand six hundred and thirty-six,
about an hundred persons, with their wives and families, after a fatiguing march
of many days through woods and swamps, arrived there, and laid the foundations
of the towns of Hartford, Springfield, and Wethersfield.
[As appears in the selection which immediately follows this one, previous
settlements had been made in the same locality.]
The history of the first attempts to people the provinces of New Hampshire and
Maine, which form the fourth and most extensive division in New England, is
obscure and perplexed by the interfering claims of various proprietors. The
company of Plymouth had inconsiderately parcelled out the northern part of the
territory contained in its grant among different persons; of these only Sir
Ferdinando Gorges and Captain Mason seem to have had any serious intention to
occupy the lands allotted to them. Their efforts to accomplish this were
meritorious and persevering, but unsuccessful. The expense of settling colonies
in an uncultivated country must necessarily be great and immediate; the prospect
of a return is often uncertain and always remote. The funds of two private
adventurers were not adequate to such an undertaking. Nor did the planters whom
they sent out possess that principle of enthusiasm which animated their
neighbors of Massachusetts with vigor to struggle through all the hardships and
dangers to which society, in its infancy, is exposed in a savage land. Gorges
and Mason, it is probable, must have abandoned their design if, from the same
motives that settlements had been made in Rhode Island and Connecticut,
colonists had not unexpectedly migrated into New Hampshire and Maine. Mr.
Wheelwright, a minister of some note, nearly related to Mrs. Hutchinson, and one
of her most fervent admirers and partisans, had, on this account, been banished
from the province of Massachusetts Bay. In quest of a new station, he took a
course opposite to the other exiles, and, advancing towards the north, founded
the town of Exeter, on a small river flowing into Piskataqua Bay. His followers,
few in number, but firmly united, were of such rigid principles that even the
churches of Massachusetts did not appear to them sufficiently pure. From time to
time they received some recruits, whom love of novelty, or dissatisfaction with
the ecclesiastical institutions of the other colonies, prompted to join them.
Their plantations were widely dispersed, but the country was thinly peopled, and
its political state extremely unsettled. The colony of Massachusetts Bay claimed
jurisdiction over them, as occupying lands situated within the limits of their
grant. Gorges and Mason asserted the rights conveyed to them as proprietors by
their charter. In several districts the planters, without regarding the
pretensions of either party, governed themselves by maxims and laws copied from
those of their brethren in the adjacent colonies. The first reduction of the
political constitution in the provinces of New Hampshire and Maine into a
regular and permanent form was subsequent to the Revolution.
