The Development of Religious Liberty in Connecticut. M. Louise Greene
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M. Louise Greene
The Development of Religious Liberty in Connecticut
Published by Good Press, 2019
EAN 4064066149758
Table of Contents
THE DEVELOPMENT OF RELIGIOUS LIBERTY IN CONNECTICUT
PREFACE
The following monograph is the outgrowth of three earlier and shorter essays. The first, "Church and State in Connecticut to 1818," was presented to Yale University as a doctor's thesis. The second, a briefer and more popularly written article, won the Straus prize offered in 1896 through Brown University by the Hon. Oscar S. Straus. The third, a paper containing additional matter, was so far approved by the American Historical Association as to receive honorable mention in the Justin Winsor prize competition of 1901.
With such encouragement, it seemed as if the history of the development of religious liberty in Connecticut might serve a larger purpose than that of satisfying personal interest alone. In Connecticut such development was not marked, as so often elsewhere, by wild disorder, outrageous oppression, tyranny of classes, civil war, or by any great retrograde movement. Connecticut was more modern in her progress towards such liberty, and her contribution to advancing civilization was a pattern of stability, of reasonableness in government, and of a slow broadening out of the conception of liberty, as she gradually softened down her restrictions upon religious and personal freedom.
And yet, Connecticut is recalled as a part of that New England where those not Congregationalists, the unorthodox or radical thinkers, found early and late an uncomfortable atmosphere and restricted liberties. By a study of her past, I have hoped to contribute to a fairer judgment of the men and measures of colonial times, and to a correct estimate of those essentials in religion and morals which endure from age to age, and which alone, it would seem, must constitute the basis of that "ultimate union of Christendom" toward which so many confidently look. The past should teach the present, and one generation, from dwelling upon the transient beliefs and opinions of a preceding, may better judge what are the non-essentials of its own.
Connecticut's individual experiment in the union of Church and State is separable neither from the New England setting of her earliest days nor from the early years of that Congregationalism which the colony approved and established. Hence, the opening chapters of her story must treat of events both in old England and in New. And because religious liberty was finally won by a coalition of men like-minded in their attitude towards rights of conscience and in their desire for certain necessary changes and reforms in government, the final chapters must deal with social and political conditions more than with those purely religious. It may be pertinent to remark that the passing of a hundred years since the divorce of Church and State and the reforms of a century ago have brought to the commonwealth some of the same deplorable political conditions that the men of the past, the first Constitutional Reform Party, swept away by the peaceful revolution of 1818.
For encouragement, assistance, and suggestions, I am especially indebted to Professor George B. Adams and Professor Williston Walker of Yale University, to Professor Charles M. Andrews of Bryn Mawr, to Dr. William G. Andrews, rector of Christ Church, Guilford, Conn., and to Professor Lucy M. Salmon of Vassar College. Of numerous libraries, my largest debt is to that of Yale University.
M. LOUISE GREENE.
NEW HAVEN, October 20, 1905.
CHAPTER
I. THE EVOLUTION OF EARLY CONGREGATIONALISM
Preparation of the English nation for the two earliest forms of Congregationalism, Brownism and Barrowism.—Rise of Separatism and Puritanism.—Non-conformists during Queen Mary's reign.—Revival of the Reformation movement under Queen Elizabeth.—Development of Presbyterianism.—Three Cambridge men, Robert Browne, Henry Greenwood, and Henry Barrowe.—Brownism and Barrowism.—The Puritans under Elizabeth, her early tolerance and later change of policy.—Arrest of the Puritan movement by the clash between Episcopal and Presbyterian forms of polity and the pretensions of the latter.—James the First and his policy of conformity.—Exile of the Gainsborough and Scrooby Separatists.—Separatist writings.—General approachment of Puritans and Separatists in their ideas of church polity.—The Scrooby exiles in America.—Sympathy of the Separatists of Plymouth Colony with both the English Established Church and with English Puritans.
II. THE TRANSPLANTING OF CONGREGATIONALISM
English Puritans decide to colonize in America.—Friendly relations between the settlements of Salem and Plymouth.—Salem decides upon the character of her church organization.—Arrival of Higginson and Skelton with recruits.—Formation of the Salem church and election of officers.—Governor Bradford and delegates from Plymouth present.—The beginning of Congregational polity among the Puritans and the break with English Episcopacy.—Formation and organization of the New England churches.
III. CHURCH AND STATE IN NEW ENGLAND
Church and State in the four New England colonies.—Early theological dissensions and disturbances.—Colonial legislation in behalf of religion.—Development of state authority at the cost of the independence of the church.—Desire of Massachusetts for a platform of church discipline.—Practical working of the theory of Church and State in Connecticut.
IV. THE CAMBRIDGE PLATFORM AND THE HALF-WAY COVENANT
Necessity