Графични страници
PDF файл
ePub

X.

ask. These Indian proselytes soon grew very inquisi- CHAPTER tive after knowledge "both in things divine and also human," and put many questions, some of which their 1648. teacher was not a little puzzled to answer. On the whole, however, the system of religion which he propounded seems to have struck the Indians, such of them, at least, as took an interest in the subject, as sufficiently reasonable. Their questions being answered, Eliot concluded with a prayer in the Indian language. "The Indians were usually very attentive, and kept their children so quiet as caused no disturbance. Some of them began to be seriously affected, and to understand the things of God, and they were generally ready to reform whatsoever they were told to be against the word of God, as their sorcery, which they call pow-wowing, their whoredoms, idleness," &c. Such is Winthrop's account

of these early missionary labors.

Under a commission from Massachusetts, John Winthrop the younger, a man of very active spirit, constantly engaged in new enterprises, had commenced a settlement 1646. at Pequod harbor, where he claimed a large tract on the strength of an alleged verbal gift from an Indian chief before the commencement of the Pequod war-a title, however, which the Commissioners of the United Colonies were hardly willing to recognize. The colony of Connecticut claimed the banks of Pequod River, not only as conquered by that colony from the Pequods, but as included under their conveyance from Fenwick. The Commissioners of the United Colonies, before whom the question was carried, assigned the settlement at Pequod to Connecticut. It presently received the name of New London, Pequod River being called the Thames. But the claim of title by conquest set up by Massachusetts was not entirely disallowed. The territory from

X.

CHAPTER the Mystic River to the country of the Narragansets, including the larger part of the present State of Rhode 1647. Island, was assigned as her share of the spoil.

It had been part of the consideration to Fenwick that for ten years an impost should be levied, for his benefit, of twopence per bushel on corn, and a penny a pound on all beaver passing Fort Saybrook. The people of Springfield presently resisted payment of this impost, denying the right of Connecticut to levy taxes on the inhabitants of another colony. But on appeal to the Commissioners of the United Colonies, the impost was sustained, on the ground that Connecticut had a right to levy it for the support of the fort. The General Court of Massachusetts, taking sides with Springfield, drew up a remonstrance against this decision, and took the same occasion, also, to intimate their dissatisfaction with some other proceedings of the commissioners-indeed, with the whole terms of the union, which imposed upon them half 1648. the burden, while it gave them only a quarter of the

power. This remonstrance, which was duly answered by Connecticut, not producing the desired effect, Massa1649. chusetts imposed upon all goods belonging to any inhabitants of the three other colonies which might enter Boston harbor, a tax or duty, nominally for the support of the forts, but really as a retaliation for the decision. 1650. against her. The commissioners, at their next meeting,

strongly protested against this act, and a state of ill feeling began to spring up, which came near producing, a year or two after, the dissolution of the New England Union.

The Commissioners for the United Colonies, at one of their earliest meetings, had recommended the drawing up of a common confession of faith, and a common scheme 1646. of discipline for the New England churches. The MassaMay. chusetts General Court had subsequently proposed a

X.

synod for that purpose, but the assembly of that body CHAPTER had been delayed by several obstacles. The Boston Church, still infected with some tinges of Hutchinsonian- 1646. ism, and fearful of new stretches of ecclesiastical authority, in spite of the strenuous efforts of Winthrop, Cotton, and Wilson, refused to choose delegates. "So the elders sat down much grieved in spirit, yet told the congregation that they thought it their duty to go not.withstanding, not as sent by the church, but as specially called by the order of the court." The synod being met, Norton of Ipswich, one of the ablest of the elders, Sept. on a lecture day at Boston, labored hard to induce that chureh to appoint delegates. He took for his text Moses and Aaron meeting on the mount and kissing each other, as typical of the relations between church and state; and he laid down the nature and power of the synod as only "consultative, decisive, and declarative, not coative" or compulsory. With much ado, delegates from Boston were at last chosen; but as none had arrived from the other colonies, the session was adjourned. This synod reassembled the next year, but was dispersed by an epi- 1647. demic influenza, the first instance of that disorder of June. which we find mention. It spread far and wide, affecting alike the Indians, the French, the English, and the Dutch, and proving fatal in many cases, especially those in which bleeding and depletion were employed. The synod finally convened at Cambridge, and was opened 1648. with a sermon, containing "a clear discovery and refuta- August. tion of such errors, objections, and scruples as had been raised about it by some young heads." In the midst of this sermon there came a snake into the seat where many of the elders sat. Divers shifted from it, but Mr. Thompson of Braintree, "a man of much faith," trod upon its head, and so held it with foot and staff till it

X.

CHAPTER Was killed. "This being so remarkable," says Winthrop, "and nothing falling out but by divine Providence, 1648. it is out of doubt the Lord discovered somewhat of his mind in it. The serpent is the devil, the synod the representative of the churches of Christ in New England. The devil had formerly and lately attempted their disturbance and dissolution, but their faith in the seed of the woman overcame him, and crushed his head."

Introduced with this favorable omen, the synod "went on comfortably," and proceeded to frame a confession of faith, almost identical, except as to the matter of church government, with that of the famous Westminster Assembly, which closed its sessions about this time. That assembly declared for Presbyterianism, claiming for the church under "King Jesus" a divine authority independent of the state. The New England Platform recognized, on the other hand, the intimate union of state and church, giving, indeed, a full and formal sanction to that theocratic system, of which the origin and organization have been already pointed out. The Westminster Assembly would probably have had no objection to the same system, could they have limited political power, as in New England, to church members only. By neither system was any individual freedom of opinion allowed. The churches and their members were alike subjected in both to the iron will of a majority, assuming to itself all the pretended infallibility of a pope or a General Council, the only difference being that Presbyterianism established a regular gradation of church courts, in which the clergy predominated, while the occasional councils and synods of the Congregational system, as it was called, gave a nominal equality to the lay church members.

Winthrop did but just live to see thus solemnly sanc

X.

tioned that theocratic system, the establishment of which CHAPTER he had so much at heart. He died poor, in his tenth term of office as governor, leaving a fourth wife, whom 1649. he had recently married, and an infant son, to whom the March. General Court voted unanimously £200, near $1000— a generous gift, considering the poverty of the colony. He left, also, a journal, commencing with his departure from home an invaluable document, our chief authority thus far for the history of New England.

Endicott, chosen to the vacant office of governor, sig- May. nalized his entrance upon it by joining with several of the magistrates in an association against wearing long hair. Winthrop, during his life, had displayed not less zeal against the profane custom of drinking healths. Gibbons was chosen major general in Endicott's place.

Dudley, now very old, was once more chosen governor. 1650. He died two years after, leaving, by a second wife, a family of young children, one of whom subsequently played a conspicuous part in the history of Massachusetts. Hard and stern, with none of Winthrop's plausible suavity, some verses found in his pocket after his death express, however, Winthrop's opinions and principles no less than his own:

"Let men of God, in courts and churches watch

O'er such as do a toleration hatch,

Lest that ill egg bring forth a cocatrice,

To poison all with heresy and vice.

If men be left, and otherwise combine,
My epitaph's 'I died no libertine !'"

The same horror of toleration, an inherent and essential characteristic of every theocracy, is very energetically displayed in the enthusiastic pages of Captain Edward Johnson's "Wonder-working Providence of Zion's Savior in New England," finished about this time, and pres

« ПредишнаНапред »