CHAPTER III.

THE contents of the last chapter reveal something of the condition of the virtuous and orderly people of New England in the years that immediately succeeded the abortive attempt of Lord Clarendon to reduce them to a strict subjection to the King. The course of contemporaneous affairs in Great Britain during the same period, must have often arrested the anxious attention of New England patriots. They saw the parent country governed by a succession of politicians, bigoted, or prof ligate, or both. They watched the struggles between a monarch inclined to Popery and a Parliament of fanatical Protestant churchmen, well knowing that to them the rival parties were equally hostile; and they witnessed persecutions of non-conformists in England and Scotland, which they could not doubt would be equally extended to themselves at the earliest moment when power and opportunity should concur.

Yet their thoughts were not engrossed by dangers threatening from abroad. It is striking to observe, through all periods of their history, how much it has been the habit of the people of New England to divide their attention between great practical matters of state, and disputes upon questions which at a later period may appear essentially barren of excitement. The reader may remember that, at the time when the quarrel with Lord Clarendon's commission was going on, the Colonies of Massachusetts and Connecticut were agitated by a controversy respecting the proper sub

jects of baptism. It had by no means come to an end at the time when the political independence of New Haven was overthrown. New Haven had taken no part in the measures resorted to for an adjustment of the question. Under her rigid constitutions, the plan of admitting to baptism any others than communicants and their children had no considerable advocates.

Removal of

Davenport

from New

Haven to

Boston.

John Davenport, pastor of the first church in New Haven, was the chief framer of the ecclesiastical system which was there maintained. He had also, from the beginning, been second to none among the citizens of the Colony in his attachment to its integrity and independence. Both as a patriot and as a sectary, he was distressed by the union which had taken place, as by the disappointment of hopes and plans cherished above all others through thirty years of thoughtful and busy life. New Haven, almost his creation, the object so long of his solicitude, his devotion, his pride, - ceased to be attractive to him. It was rather the monument of a great defeat and

sorrow.

In the dispute about baptism, the First Church in Boston, under the lead of Wilson and Norton, its pastor and teacher, had taken part with the reformers. But Norton died before the catastrophe of New

3

1667.

Haven, and his aged colleague survived him Aug. 7. only four years. The question as to a successor to the vacant place was one of unsurpassed interest to

1 See Vol. II. pp. 486-492. 2" My zeal for preserving Christ's interest in your parts (though in New Haven Colony it is miserably lost)," &c. Letter of Davenport to Leverett, in Hatch. Coll. 395.

แ

3 Very few," writes Morton in his Memorial (Davis's edit., 327), "ever went out of the world so generally beloved and reverenced as this good

man. He was a good man indeed, and full of the Holy Ghost. He lived to a good old age, and was full of days and full of honor, being in the seventy-ninth year of his age, when the Lord took him to himself." Yet his influence had

for many years been by no means what it once was. Nor did it ever equal that of his successive distinguished colleagues.

all the churches. Owen, now dismissed from his office of Dean of Christ Church at Oxford and Vice-Chancellor of the University, was invited to emigrate, and seriously entertained the proposal. But in consideration

of the probability that he might be useful in the crisis. which was then passing in his own country, he determined to remain there. The man who, on the whole, stood pre-eminent in New England for clerical graces was the dissatisfied pastor of New Haven. The influence of his reputation proved sufficient to surmount the objection of his being the champion of opinions opposite to those entertained by the widowed church; and with an affectionate enthusiasm he was invited to remove to Boston, and assume the highest clerical position in the Colonies. His own mind was made up, but his ancient congregation was averse to parting with him. A correspondence ensued, and the majority of the Boston church were charged by the dissentients with the disingenuousness of withholding some declarations, on the part of the New Haven people, of their unwillingness to lose their pastor. This unwillingness, expressed in terms of generous affection to him and free

1668.

Dec. 9.

from all acrimony towards their rivals, was so far overcome, that an amicable separation was effected, and Davenport, now seventy years old, was installed in Boston, and entered on a new career.1 A numerous minority of the Boston church, however,

1" 2d, 3d [May, 1668]. At three or four in the afternoon, came Mr. John Davenport to town, with his wife, son, and son's family, and were met by many of the town. A great shower of

extraordinary drops of rain fell as they entered the town; but Mr. Davenport and his wife were sheltered in a coach of Mr. Searl's, who went to meet them." (Diary of John Hull, in Archæol. Amer., III. 226.)- Mr. John

Allen was associated with Davenport as Teacher. (Emerson, History of the First Church, 110.)

Davenport had been invited to preach the Election Sermon before the General Court of Connecticut in May, 1666. I have a letter of his to Governor Winthrop (April 10th), declining that service. It is altogether courteous, but indicates his wounded feelings.

ment of a

could not be won by their respect for his character to acquiescence in the views entertained by him Establishrespecting a question, which, though religious Third Church in its first aspect, was not without an important in Boston. political relation. Twenty-nine men, several of whom were persons of consequence, resolved to secede and form another congregation. The project had to encounter opposition, in which the Governor (Bellingham), who fully sympathized with Davenport, was active. The discontented party applied to the First Church for a dismission, which was refused. They then convoked an ecclesiastical council, which advised them to proceed, recognized them as a distinct church, and censured the First Church for opposing their design. The controversy which had occupied the Synod was revived with new warmth, exciting afresh the whole Colony.

1669.

The Governor convoked the Magistrates, July 6.

1 For their names and respective positions, see Wisner, History of the Old South Church in Boston, &c., 76. Eighteen of the twenty-nine are recorded with the honorary prefix of Mr. The name of Mr. John Hull, the mintmaster (see Vol. II. p. 403), stands third on the list. We learn from him (Diary, &c., in Archæol. Amer., III. 229) that, "12th, 3d [May 12th, 1669], the Third Church in Boston gathered or coalesced in Charltown [where Mr. Thacher, whom they intended to make their pastor, lived]. Six Magistrates opposed it, — R. B. [Richard Bellingham], S. S. [Samuel Symonds], W. H. [William Hathorne], J. L. [John Leverett], E. L. (Eleazer Lusher], E. T. [Edward Tyng]. Eight Magistrates encouraged it; and no ministers opposed, but encouraged, except J. A., J. D., [James Allen and John Davenport, ministers of the First Church,] and S. M. [uncertain.]”

of 1669, and carried authority to engage a minister to be colleague with Mr. Thacher in the new church, together with a letter to "the ministers and brethren" of English churches, soliciting their assistance for him in this important business.

2 "The whole people of God throughout the Colony were too much distinguished into such as favored the Old Church, and such as favored the New Church, wherefore the former were against the Synod, and the latter were for it." (Mather, Magnalia, &c., V. 83.) John Eliot found himself able to spare time from his parochial and missionary labors to take a part in the controversy. In 1665 he printed for private circulation a few copies of a treatise entitled "Communion of Churches, or the Divine Management of Gospel Churches by the Ordinance of Councils constituted in Order, according to the Scriptures, which may

Hull went to England in the autumn be a means of uniting those two Holy

and informed them that he "feared a sudden tumult, some persons attempting to set up an edifice for public worship, which was apprehended by authority to be detrimental to the public peace." The Magistrates, however, of whom a majority did not agree with him on the main question, saw no occasion to interfere, and the seceders went on to install a minister Feb. 16. of the Third Church of Boston.2 Till within