tributions made every Sunday in the churches; and in Boston this method was kept up for considerably more than a century. But soon "the churches held a different course in raising the ministers' maintenance; some did it by way of taxation."1 3 1642. churches. A church officer, of whatever degree, was an officer only in his own congregation. The primitive doctrine of New England was, that no man was a clergyman in any sense, either before his election by a particular church, or after his relinquishment of the special trust so Mutual reconferred; and that, even while in.office, he was lation of a layman to all the world except his own congregation, and had no right to exercise any clerical function elsewhere.2 In the earliest times a minister was ordained, not by other ministers, but by officers of the church which had elected him, or, when it had no officers, then by some of its private members. This absolute mutual independence of the churches was in principle equivalent to universal mutual toleration; and, if the original scheme of an ecclesiastical constitution had been carried out, there could have been no interference on the part of the whole community, as represented by its government, with the belief or practices of any single congregation. It has been seen how in Massachusetts the practical exigencies presented themselves, which induced great practical deviations from this theory. As soon as, for supposed reasons of public necessity, church-membership and political power were associated in the same persons, it became necessary for the public to look after the qualifications of church-members; and thus Church and State became insensibly united.* In Massachusetts, a meeting 1 Winthrop, L 295, II. 93. Comp. Hutch. Col. 287-309; Hubbard, 412. Cambridge Platform, Chap. IX. §§ 6, 7; Cotton, Way Cleared, 16. 2 See Winthrop, (II. 91,) for a case which indicates a growing doubt, in 1642, about the earlier practice. Comp. Cambridge Platform, Chap. IX. §§ 3-5. See Vol. I. 432-434. of the whole body of freemen in a General Court was the same as a convention of members of all the churches. In the General Courts of Magistrates and Deputies, none but church-members could sit, or have a voice in choosing others to sit;-in other words, the whole Church of the Colony was represented in the aggregate of that board of Magistrates which church-members had elected; the lower house was a convocation of the several churches of the Colony, represented by the Deputies of the several towns. Thus, when the General Court took cognizance of ecclesiastical affairs, it was but the whole body of the Church legislating for its parts; and this, with the important peculiarity, that all the legislators by whom the Church exercised its supreme power were of the laity. The system had no element of resemblance to prelacy or presbytery. It was pure democracy installed in the ecclesiastical government.1 In the Colony of New Haven a similar state of things existed. In Plymouth and Connecticut, where the association between church-membership and citizenship was not by law made definite and indispensable, there was less action of the government upon church affairs. Public worship. A few particulars may be mentioned of the manner of conducting public worship. It took place in what was called the meeting-house, where assemblies for transacting the town's business and for other purposes were also held. In most of the congregations -bells being obtained but slowly-the assembly was summoned by beat of drum. At the religious service, 1 It is curious to see in the "Body of Liberties" (Article 95, "Of the Liberties the Lord Jesus hath given to the Churches") how, in the mind of the author, the original doctrines of Independency were struggling with considerations of the necessity which in Massachusetts was considered to have grown up for a control of the whole Church over the churches. "There is no just ground from Scripture to apply such a trope as church to a house for a public assembly." (Mather, Ratio Disciplinæ, 5.) "Wonder-Working Providence, &c., 103. families were divided, men and women sitting apart on their respective sides of the house, while boys had a place separate from both, with a tithing-man to keep them in order.1 The men, or such portion of them as was from time to time thought sufficient, were required to come to their worship completely armed. On each Sunday, or Sabbath, as, adopting a designation which had fully won its way into use among the Puritans, they called the day of Christian worship,- two services were held, both by daylight. The service consisted of extemporaneous prayers; of the singing of the Psalms in a metrical version, without instrumental accompaniment; and of 1 The ruling elders had a seat immediately below the pulpit. On a plane further down sat the deacons, also facing the congregation. In the body of the house seats were permanently assigned with reference to the dignity of the occupants. After a meeting-house was built, the first proceeding towards its use was the intrusting of the delicate arrangement of seating to a committee of the church. For a list of Mr. Davenport's hearers at New Haven, in 1646, arranged in their allotted seats, see Bacon's Historical Discourses, 310. See, e. g., Brigham's Charter, &c., 115; Mass. Rec., I. 190. The version of the Psalter which the Colonists brought over, and used at first in their worship, was that made by Henry Ainsworth of Amsterdam. It continued to guide the devotions of Plymouth for seventy years, and those of Salem for forty. The version of Sternhold and Hopkins, however, appears to have been the book first used in Ipswich (Felt, History of Ipswich, &c., 212), and perhaps in some other places. In most of the churches both were superseded in 1640 by the "Bay Psalm-Book," so called, prepared by some New-England divines,—of whom three were Welde and Eliot, of Roxbury, and Mather, of Dorchester. It was issued from the press at Cambridge in that year, the second book printed in British America, and was as well received as any ever published there, for, sooner and later, it went through seventy editions. It also came into extensive use in Great Britain, especially in Scotland (Thomas, History of Printing, I. 233), and was not entirely disused there till after 1750. A couple of stanzas of the nineteenth Psalm, which is rendered by Addison in that beautiful lyric, "The spacious firmament on high," &c., will afford a specimen of this version: "The heavens do declare Also, the firmament shows forth For eighty or ninety years, it is said, not more than ten different tunes, if so many, were used in public worship. Few congregations could sing more than the five tunes now known by the names of York, Hackney, Windsor, St. Mary's, and Martyrs. (Coffin, History of Newbury, 185, 186.) Instrumen a sermon, of which the approved length was an hour, measured by an hour-glass which stood upon the pulpit. "Preaching with notes," or reading sermons, "was very little practised" in the first century. Sometimes the officers invited private members, or strangers who might be present, to prophesy, or exhort; and, under this practice, the occasional preaching of one minister in another's pulpit was justified. The reading of the Bible in the public worship, without exposition, was generally disapproved, being regarded as an improper conformity to the hierarchical service, and qualified by the opprobrious name of dumb reading. Children were baptized in the meeting-house, generally on the next Sunday after their birth; sometimes on the day of their birth, if it took place on a Sunday. Communicants sat while receiving the consecrated elements. For this practice two reasons were given; one, that the sitting posture corresponded to that of the disciples at the original institution; the other, that the practice of kneeling, significant of adoration, grew out of, and expressed, the Romish superstition of the Real Presence of the body and blood of God.* Marriage, which in the mother Church was elevated into a sacrament, was here a mere civil contract, en 2 Hanbury, II. 156; Cotton, True Constitution, &c., 6.- "When a minister preacheth abroad, in another congregation, the ruling elder of the place, after the psalm sung, saying, 'If this present brother hath any word of exhortation for the people at this time, in the name of God let him say on,' this is held prophesying." (Lechford, 15.) 3 Cotton, Way of the Churches, 67. The curious reader will find in Lechford (Plaine Dealing, 16-22) a minute account of the way of conducting public worship in Boston in 1640. Comp. Cotton, Way, &c., 66 – 70; Welde, Briefe Narration, &c., 7. The dead, elsewhere Disuse of of devotion. tered into before a magistrate.1 interred, with pious or superstitious awe, under the floor or the shadow of sacred edifices, in some forms what was called consecrated ground and with solemn ritual observance, were buried here, without so much as prayer, in some convenient enclosure by the road-side. Religious services on these occasions were shunned, as having a connection with prelatical practices and doctrines, and an influence to conduct the mind back to them.2 Of regularly recurring holy days, none was recognized but the first day of the week, the day of the Redeemer's resurrection. In opposition to the judgment of Luther3 and of Calvin, as much as to the rubrics of Rome and England, Sunday was nearly identified with the Sabbath ..... 1 "The first marriage in this place, which, according to the laudable custom of the Low Countries, in which they had lived, was thought most requisite to be performed by the magistrate, as being a civil thing, and nowhere found in the Gospel to be laid on the ministers as a part of their office; . . . . . and this practice hath continued amongst not only them, but hath been followed by all the famous churches of Christ in these parts to this time, anno 1646." (Bradford, 101; comp. 330.)—“There was a great marriage to be solemnized at Boston. bridegroom, being of Hingham, Mr. Hubbard's church, he was procured to preach, and came to Boston to that end. But the magistrates, hearing of it, sent to him to forbear. We were not willing to bring in the English custom of ministers' performing the solemnity of marriage, which sermons at such times might induce; but if any minister were present, and would bestow a word of exhortation, &c., it was permitted." (Winthrop, II. 382.) The "For many years after the first settlement of these Colonies, a marriage was ever celebrated by the civil magistrate, who not only gave the covenant unto the parties, but also made the prayers proper for the occasion." (Mather, Ratio Disciplinæ, 111; comp. Lechford, 39.) — After a while, commissioners were specially appointed to solemnize marriages in Massachusetts towns, where there was no magistrate. (Mass. Rec., III. 31, 109.) But I think no such appointments were made quite as early as the time now under consideration. 2 "At burials nothing is read, nor any funeral sermon made; but all the neighborhood, or a good company of them, come together by the tolling of the bell, and carry the dead solemnly to his grave, and there stand by him while he is buried. The ministers are most commonly present." (Lechford, 39; comp. Ratio Disciplinæ, 117.) 3 Comment. ad Galat. iv. 8-11, in Opp., V. 383–386. Instit., II. Cap. VIII. §§ 28-34. |