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tution of churches as to members, officers, authority, duties, and methods of administration, the Platform merely defines the principles and practices which had all along distinguished the Independent body. It recognizes the prerogative of occasional Synods, composed of "Elders and other messengers" of churches, to give advice and admonition, and in extreme cases to withhold fellowship (or participation in religious services and functions) from an offending church; "but not to exercise church censures in way of discipline, nor any other act of church authority or jurisdiction." "1 It allows the ordination of officers of a

them (Præf. near the end), and a copy was despatched to England to be printed. It never arrived there, and Hooker, whether he had some emendations in mind, or for some other cause, "could not be persuaded to let another copy go over; but, after his death, a copy was sent." (Winthrop, II. 248, 249; comp. Hooker, Survey, &c., Epistle to the Reader; Præf.) The vessel in which Hooker's manuscript was lost, was that which, in the Connecticut legends, and by Longfellow's beautiful poem (comp. Winthrop, II. 266), is known as "Captain Lamberton's Phantom-ship."

Cotton was the person who, on the whole, must be considered to have had the largest agency in reducing Independency into a working system for a large community. In a letter addressed by him to a friend in England, in the year after the meeting of the Long Parliament, he energetically. repelled the imputation of Brownism, or, as

he expressed it, of "disclaiming the churches in England as no churches, but as limbs of the devil; " and he declared that violence of this kind was one of the offences which had brought Roger Williams under censure in Massachusetts. (Copy of a Letter of Mr. Cotton, of Boston, in New England, &c., 1, 2.) Objecting to Independency as

66 a fit name of the way of our churches," he described it as "too strait," "because we do profess dependence upon magistrates for civil government and protection; dependence upon Christ and his word, for the sovereign government and rule of our administrations; dependence upon the counsel of other churches and synods, when our own variance or ignorance may stand in need of such help from them." "To distinguish our way from a national church way, I know none fitter," he said, "than to denominate theirs Classical, and ours Congregational." (Way Cleared, &c., 11; comp. Hooker, Survey, Part II. Chap. III., where, on the contrary, the use of" the distasteful terme" is defended and explained.) And his fifth Chapter is on "The Fruits of Congregational Discipline," in distinction from the fruits of “those corrupt sects and heresies which shroud themselves under the vast title of Independency." (103.) Congregational is the name given to the churches by the divines of the Cambridge Synod in their Preface to the Platform (4-8).

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church by officers of other churches, thus introducing a relaxation of the primitive rule.1 And, as a last resort for the protection of peace and purity, it looks to the intervention of the civil power. "Idolatry, blasphemy, heresy, venting corrupt and pernicious opinions that destroy the foundation, open contempt of the word preached, profanation of the Lord's day, disturbing the peaceable administration and exercise of the worship and holy things of God, and the like, are to be restrained and punished by civil authority. If any church, one or more, shall grow schismatical, rending itself from the communion of other churches, or shall walk incorrigibly or obstinately in any corrupt way of their own, contrary to the rule of the word, in such case the magistrate is to put forth his coercive power, as the matter shall require."2

It is no matter of surprise that an ecclesiastical assembly should thus seek to enlist the government in support of its opinions and its authority. But it does not appear that the government was forward to assume such a responsibility, or to be a party to any sharper definition of the connection between Church and State than circumstances, from time to time, might call for. Presbytery was not likely soon to give trouble again, from abroad or at home; the churches were not for the present so ill able to manage their own affairs, as to make it neces

1 "In such churches where there are elders, imposition of hands in ordination is to be performed by those elders. In such churches where there are no elders, imposition of hands may be performed by some of the brethren orderly chosen by the church thereunto." (Platform, Chap. IX. 3,4; comp. Thirty-two Questions Answered, 69.) Such had been the primitive practice and rule, and it had had the unquestioning approbation of Cotton (Keys, &c., 12, 21, 28, 37, 55; Way, &c., 41, 50, 114), and the approbation of Hooker (Survey of

e Summe of Church Discipline, II. 77). Hooker, however, thought that an elder might, at a church's desire, be ordained in it by elders of other churches (Ibid., 59), and the Platform (Chap. IX. § 5) allowed the innovation: “In such churches where there are no elders, and the church so desire, we see not why imposition of hands may not be performed by the elders of other churches."

* Platform, Chap. XVII. §§ 8, 9; comp. Cotton, Keys, &c., 50 et seq.

1649.

sary to their welfare that there should be a public settlement of questions, some of which were of a nice and embarrassing nature, and might lead to an inconvenient discussion with acute and opinionated men. More than a year had passed after the dissolution of the Synod, when the General Court resolved "to commend it Oct. 19. [the Platform] to the judicious and pious consideration of the several churches within the jurisdiction, desiring a return . . . . . how far it was suitable to their judgments and approbation, before the Court proceeded any further therein." At the end of two years more, they disposed of the business by a brief declaratory vote, giving "their testimony to the said Book of Discipline, that, for the substance thereof, it was that they had practised and did believe." 1

1651. Oct. 14.

Questions of civil and religious liberty, and of church organization, were not the only matters of common interConversion of est between the leaders of affairs in New Engthe Indians. land and their friends in the parent country. To convert the natives to a Christian faith and practice was an object of solicitude with the settlers, in which they sought and found the sympathy and aid of fellow-believers in England.

The reader has observed what a generous purpose in this respect was cherished by the colonists both of Plymouth and of Massachusetts.2 Their enthusiasm had not properly estimated the difficulties they would have to struggle against. They must, indeed, have anticipated that time and pains would be needed, to establish friendly relations with the natives, and to learn the languages which must be the medium of instruction. But they were uninformed as to the unpromising structure, intellectual and moral, of the minds which they proposed to address. And they could not make fit allowance beforehand for

1 Mass. Rec., II. 285; III. 177, 240; IV. (i.) 57; comp. Hubbard, 537.

See Vol. I. 147, 292.

those wants and hardships of their own, which for a time were to afford sufficient employment to the thoughts of every day, nor for the engrossing solicitude with which at a little later period they were oppressed for the preservation of their religious and political immunities. Had they been encouraged by finding in their new neighbors an aptness to be taught, they would without doubt have managed to profit by it, notwithstanding unfavorable circumstances. But the first lesson enforced upon their minds by their observation of the stupid barbarians whom they encountered was, that the making of Christians out of such materials would be no simple task.

Early indica

tions of read

iness to re

tianity.

Still they were never indifferent about the religious condition of the savages around them, nor unconcerned to use such opportunities as occurred for their instruction and improvement. The Plymouth people did what they could for their native visitors, in the way of occasional teaching; and it was a great satisfaction to them that Squanto, when about to die, "desired the Governor to pray that he might go to the Eng- ceive Chrislishman's God in heaven," and that Hobbomok "could never be gotten from the English nor from seeking after their God, but died amongst them, leaving some good hopes in their hearts that his soul went to rest." In Massachusetts, Sagamore John, near Watertown, "began to hearken after God and his ways." He was "kept down by fear of the scoffs of the Indians," but on his death-bed "sent for Mr. Wilson to come to him, and committed his only child to his care." "Divers of the Indians' children, boys and girls," received into English families as servants, "began to understand in their measure the grounds of Christian religion ;" and "some would use to weep and cry when detained by occasion from the sermon." "An Indian maid at Salem..... knew herself naught for present, and like to be miserable for ever, un

1 Bradford, History, 128.

less free grace should prevent it, and after this grew very careful in her carriage, proved industrious in her place, and so continued." A native rebuked an Englishman "for profaning the Lord's day by felling of a tree;" and a Sagamore enjoined upon his subjects, "that none of them should kill pigeons upon the Sabbath-day any more." In Connecticut, "that famous Indian Wequash, who was a captain, a proper man of person, and of a very grave and sober spirit, . seeing and beholding the mighty power of God in the English forces, how they fell upon the Pequots,. from that time was convinced and persuaded that our God was a most dreadful God." "In the use of means, he grew greatly in the knowledge of Christ, and in the principles of religion, and became thoroughly reformed according to his light." Attacked with mortal sickness, he rejected the help of a powow, "and so yielded up his soul into Christ's hands." It was thought that "one mean amongst others, that had thus far won these poor wretches to look after the Gospel, had been the dealings and carriages which God had guided the English to exercise towards them."1

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The hope thus inspired of the existence among the natives of some degree of capacity for the reception of the Gospel, concurred with the comparative leisure and repose of the time to revive attention to the object which had never been lost sight of. The General Court of Massachusetts passed an Order "that the County the General Courts in this jurisdiction should take care that the Indians residing in their several shires should Nov. 19. be civilized, and that they should have power to take order from time to time to have them instructed in the knowledge and worship of God." The Elders were

Action of

Court.

1644.

1 New England's First Fruits, &c., 1-8. (Comp. Winthrop, II. 121, 122.)This work was published in London, in 1643, "at the instant request of sundry

friends, who desired to be satisfied in these points by many New-England men who were there present, and were eye or ear witnesses of the same."

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