spects, would never have been adopted had it not been for laws unhappily dictated by the colonial union between Church and State. none to become communicants until they had satisfied the proper church authorities that they were converted persons, and had the religious knowledge without which they could not fitly come to the Lord's Supper. Persons who had not these requisites, as might be expected, thought it very hard to be excluded from the privileges of citizenship, although, as was generally the case, their lives were perfectly regular and moral. They therefore complained, and their complaints were felt to be reasonable, and such as parental love, even in the breast of a Brutus, could not Forty years later, twenty persons were put to death for witchcraft! Now it is obvious that so absurd a spectacle would never have taken place among so enlightened a people as the colonists of Massachusetts, within the bounds of which all these executions took place, had not the union of the Church and the State led the government so often to act on grounds purely religious, and to take cognizance of subjects which no political government long resist. is capable of deciding upon.* At all events, In these circumstances, what was the the embarrassment created by Roger Will-course pursued by the colonial legislators, iams, the "Antinomian controversy," as after taking council of their spiritual the contest with Wheelright, Anne Hutch-guides? Instead of abolishing the law, inson, and Aspinwall was called, and the they decided that all baptized persons persecution of the Anabaptists and Qua- might be regarded as members of the kers, unquestionably arose from the en- Church, thus directly interfering with matforcement of the laws passed in favour of ters wholly beyond the sphere of civil le-the theocratic institutions of the colony, gislation, and contravening, likewise, a forand were the legitimate results of the es- mer decision of the Church; for although tablished union between Church and State. there is a sense in which all persons bapThey had a special reference to the law tized in infancy are in their youth memcompelling every man to attend the public bers of the Church, it is only as pupils or worship of the colony. wards, and must not be confounded with the membership of persons who have made a profession of their faith after conversion,. and at an age that qualifies them for taking such a step. Such, at least, is, I apprehend, the opinion of all churches that maintain a strict discipline. The New-England Fa-thers felt this difficulty, and accordingly it was not to all baptized persons that they gave the rights of citizens, but to baptized persons of good moral deportment, who came publicly forward and owned in the Church the covenant made for them by their parents at baptism. I give the substance, if not the exact words of the law. This compromise settled the matter for a time, by providing for the case of their own young men. 2. Much more disastrous were the consequences flowing from another and still more fundamental law, passed by the Conscript Fathers of Massachusetts and Connecticut-that of making church membership requisite to the enjoyment of the rights and privileges of citizenship. Nor was it long before these consequences appeared. Not only did many persons find admission into the colonies as settlers who were not members of any church in the sense almost invariably attached to the term in America-that is, communicants, or, as they are sometimes called, "full members"—but, what the worthy founders seem not to have anticipated, some of their own children grew up manifestly "unconverted," and, consequently, did not become✓ This law was not so hurtful in its concommunicants; the churches planted by the New-England Fathers having maintained at first the strictest discipline, and allowed Anti The putting of witches to death in Massachusetts was a legitimate result of the attempt to build up a sort of theocracy, having for its basis the civil institutions of the Jewish commonwealth. But were witches nowhere put to death in those days save in New-England? Let the reader search and see. I ought to add, that the rulers of Massachusetts put the Quakers to death, and banished the " nomians" and "Anabaptists," not because of their religious tenets, but because of their violations of the civil laws. This is the justification which they pleaded, and it was the best they could make. Miserable excuse! But just so it is: wherever there is such a union of Church and State, heresy and heretical practices are apt to become violations of the civil code, and are punished no longer as errors in religion, but infractions of the laws of the land. So the defenders of the Inquisition have always spoken and written in justification of that awful and most iniquitous tribunal. sequences to the State as it was to Reli-gion. The churches were filled with baptized persons who "owned the covenant,' and with the lapse of time the number of “full members," or communicants, diminished. Many now enjoyed civil privileges in virtue of a less intimate connexion with the Church; this was all that they desired, and with this they were too apt to be content. But the evil went far beyond this. To escape from a state of things in which the churches, though filled with baptized people, had comparatively few " communicants," many of the pastors were led into the dangerous, I may say the fatal error, of considering the Lord's Supper to be a means of grace, in the same sense that the preaching of the Word is such, and that all well-disposed persons may be admitted to it as a means of conversion to the unconverted, as well as of edification | support a church which they dislike, and to "believers," or converted persons. to which they may have conscientious obNot that this was enjoined on the church-jections. Hence serious difficulties, ag gravated afterward when the Legislature was compelled, by the progress of true principles of legislation, to extend the rights of citizenship, and permission to have a worship of their own, to persons of all sects. It seemed unjust that these, while supporting their own churches, should be compelled, in addition, to contribute towards the maintenance of the parish, or town churches, which for a long time they were called upon to do. es as a law of the state. But it was the natural and almost inevitable, though indirect, consequence of the law adjudging all baptized persons who "renewed the covenant" to be considered members of the Church, and entitled to the civil privileges attached to that relation. It is easy to see what would follow. The former measure filled the churches with baptized people who owned the covenant; the latter practice filled the churches with unconverted communicants. In the course of a few A law, however, was passed at length, generations the standard of religious truth not exempting those who did not attend and practice fell lower and lower. This the parish church from all taxation, but aldecline necessarily bore upon the charac-lowing them to appropriate their proporter of the pastors, for upon the occurrence tion to the support of public worship acof a vacancy, the choice, in too many cases, was sure to fall upon a pastor equally low in point of religious character with the parties by whom he was chosen. Such a state of things opened the way effectually for the admission of false doctrine, and the more so, inasmuch as there was no effectual control beyond and above what was to be found in each individual church. But this subject I may dismiss for the present, as I shall have occasion to recur to it when we come to consider the rise and progress of Unitarianism in the United States. So much for the ill consequences flowing from two of the measures by which the New-England Fathers endeavoured to carry into operation their ideas on the subject of the union that should subsist between the Church and the State; let us now look at the mischief produced by a third measure-that, namely, requiring each "town" to maintain public worship by levying a tax on all the inhabitants. cording to their own wishes. Fair as this 3. As the people were invested by law with an absolute control over the application of the money so raised, no great evil 4. Only one farther measure was reseemed, at first sight, likely to arise from quired in order to make this law for the such a mode of supporting the Church; and support of public worship as fatal as possiit may readily be supposed that at the out- ble to the interests of true religion in Masset, when the colonists formed a homo-sachusetts. This was a decision of the geneous society, and were all either members of the established churches, or cordial friends and admirers of their system of doctrine and church polity, this assessment for their support would be submitted to without reluctance. But in process of time, when, whether from the accession of fresh emigrants, or from the growing up into manhood of the children of the original colonists, there happened to be found in any particular town a considerable number of inhabitants who either disliked the services of the parish church, or were indifferent to religion altogether, it is clear that such a law would be considered both burdensome and unjust. Men can never be made to feel that they can with equity be required to pay taxes, in any shape, to Supreme Court of that state, pronounced some twenty or twenty-five years ago, by which the distinction which had previously existed between the "Church" and the "town," or "parish," was destroyed in the view of the law; and the "town," that is, the body of the people who were taxed for the support of the parish church, was allowed to exercise a control in the calling of a pastor, and in everything else. There then ensued great distress in not a few parishes. In every instance in which the majority of the "town" were opposed to *By Universalists I mean those professed Christians in America who, with many shades of difference men will be saved. I shall have to speak of them on the subject, agree in holding that eventually all more at large in another place. habitants of which were required to build, furnish, and uphold churches, and maintain a pastor, by an assessment proportioned to their respective means, these being estimated by the quantity of tobacco that they raised, that being the chief article of their commerce and of their wealth. 2. The people were required to attend the estab evangelical religion, they had it in their | Massachusetts at a later date. 1. The power, by stopping his salary, to turn away country was divided into parishes, the ina faithful pastor, and to choose a Universalist or Unitarian in his place.* This actually took place in numerous instances, and the church, or at least the faithful part of it, which was often the majority, was compelled to abandon the edifice in which their fathers had worshipped, with whatever endowments it might have, and to build for themselves a new place of wor-lished churches, which were for a long ship, call a pastor, and support him on the voluntary plan. The evil, however, which might have gone to still greater lengths, was arrested in Massachusetts in 1833, by the final dissolution of the union between Church and State, in a way hereafter to be described. time the only ones that existed, or that were permitted to exist in the colony. 3. The rights of citizenship were confined to members of the Episcopal Church. Now, it is beyond dispute that the division of the country into parishes, the erection of churches, and the providing of glebes for the rectors and ministers, was useful both in Virginia and Maryland. The picture presented by Dr. Hawks, in his in Such is a simple, brief, and, I trust, comprehensible view of the chief consequences resulting in New-England from the union of Church and State, long maintain-teresting and valuable sketches of the Epised in that part of America. The reader will draw his own conclusions from this exhibition of facts, in all essential points unquestionably correct. That some of these consequences were beneficial, none will deny; but that these were more than counterbalanced by others of an opposite tendency, is, I think, no less manifest.† CHAPTER XX. copal Church in those colonies, is delightful as far as relates to these outward and material matters. Besides, there was a special necessity for some such legislation in Episcopalian colonies of the High Church party, if I may so designate them, as was the case with Virginia; for, although it would be unfair to tax them with a total, or almost total, want of true living piety, they certainly had not the fervent zeal, the devoted enthusiasm in the cause of religion, which mingled with all the proceedings of the Puritans. If, in fact, in any THE INFLUENCES OF THE UNION OF CHURCH part of America, the union of Church and AND STATE.-2. IN THE SOUTHERN AND MID'DLE STATES. State was beneficial, or even indispensable in securing the formation of parishes and the building of churches, it was in the HAVING seen what a Church establish- Southern colonies, planted as these were ment did for Congregationalism in New- by the friends of Prelacy par excellence, England, we have now to see what it did men afraid of fanaticism in religion, whatfor Episcopacy in other provinces, and ever they might think of it in some other particularly in the South. In the case of things. These advantages were, in prothe latter, as in the former, the nature of cess of time, secured at intervals along the the connexion between Church and State, banks of the noble rivers of Virginia, until, and the kind of Church establishment, were at the commencement of the Revolution, very different in different colonies. That that colony could boast of ninety-seven connexion was closest, and the support parishes, more than that number of churchgiven to religion most effective, in Virgin-es, if we include chapels of ease, and above ia; next to it in these respects comes Ma- a hundred ministers. ryland, and New-York occupies the third place. In Virginia, we find that the three main laws connecting the Church and the State were substantially the same as those of * In many cases there was no great difficulty in getting such a majority, by persuading the Universalists and others, who might have ceased for years to allow themselves to be considered to belong to the parish, or congregation, or society, worshipping at the parish church, to return at least for a year or so, since by so doing, and paying again the assessment for the parish church, they could vote at its meetings. The reader will find in the "Spirit of the Pilgrims," vol. i. (a work published in Boston in 18261833), the fullest details on this subject that have appeared as yet in any one publication. This is the chief, or, rather, the only benefit conferred on Virginia by the connexion of the Church with the State; for the maintenance of the clergy, as Dr. Hawks remarks, can hardly be reckoned one, inasmuch as that was nearly, if not altogether, voluntary on the part of the parishioners, and was by no means enforced as the law contemplated. During a large part of the colonial period, too, the want of ministers greatly diminished the advantages that might have accrued from built in them. Thus, in 1619, there were having parishes marked out and churches eleven parishes and only five ministers; and in 1661, the parishes in Virginia were about fifty, and the ministers only about | herent principle of resistance to oppresa fifth part of that number.* sion seated in the very constitution of most men, which disposes them to rebel against the arbitrary exercise of violence seeking to give direction to opinions; and it is not, therefore, to be wondered at, that one sanguinary law to compel men to live piously should beget the necessity for more. But granting that the support secured by law to Episcopacy was ample, which in Virginia it was not, let us notice some of the evils attending on this union of Church and State, and see whether they did not counterbalance all the admitted good. The first of these, and it was no trifling one, was the antipathy which such compulsory 3. Another evil resulting from the union measures created towards the favoured between Church and State in the Southern Church. Men were displeased, and felt colonies, and particularly in Virginia and aggrieved at being taxed for the support of Maryland, is to be found in the almost incesa church whose services they did not fre- sant disputes that long prevailed between quent, but to which they might otherwise the colonial governors and the parish veshave felt no hostility, nay, to which they tries respecting the right of presentation, might by a different course have been which was claimed by both parties. In this won. This was particularly the case in contest the Virginia vestries were, upon the those colonies where the favour shown to whole, successful; still, as the governor the Episcopal Church did not exclude the claimed the right of inducting, there were toleration of other religious bodies, that is, often serious collisions. In order to evade in all in which Episcopacy was established the force of that principle in English law, except Virginia. Episcopacy, in fact, be- which gives a minister, when once installcame influential and powerful, in most ca- ed as pastor, a sort of freehold interest in ses, long after the colonies were founded, the parish, and renders his ejectment aland owed its pre-eminence purely to the most impossible, unless by deposition from favour of the state, as we have seen in the the sacred office altogether, in consecolonies of Maryland, the Carolinas, New-quence of his being found guilty of some York, New-Jersey, &c. In all these, tax-flagrant enormity, instead of presenting a es for the support of a dominant church, representing in some instances but a mere fraction of the population, were extremely offensive to those who were members of other churches or of none, and proved hurtful, in the end, to the Episcopal Church itself. It attached a stigma to it which it took a long time to efface; the more so as, when the Revolution was drawing on, it began to be viewed as the Church favoured of the mother-country, with which the colonists were about to enter into a war for what they deemed to be their rights. Thus the cause of that Church became identified so far with that of the enemies of the country, as they were called. This twofold animosity long prevailed in the very states where the Episcopal Church was once predominant, and no doubt contributed to retard its progress in later times, so that any former favours received from the state may be regarded as having been very dearly purchased. 2. As respects Virginia at least, the interests of true religion and of the Episcopal Church were seriously injured by the compulsory attendance upon the services of the churches, &c., noticed in a former chapter. In the justness of the following remarks every well-informed man must heartily concur: To coerce men into the outward exercise of religious acts by penal laws is indeed possible: but to make them love either the religion which is thus enforced, or those who enforce it, is beyond the reach of human power. There is an in 66 * Dr. Hawks's "History of the Episcopal Church in Virginia," p. 64. G minister, the vestries often preferred employing him from year to year, so as to have it in their power to dismiss him when they thought fit; and this refusal to present involved, of course, an inability on the governor's part to induct. In Maryland the governors long insisted on exercising the right of presentation, a right that put it into their power to thrust very unworthy pastors into the Church. But the case was not much better when left to the vestries, these being often composed of men by no means fit to decide upon the qualifications of a pastor. In no case does it appear that the Church itself, that is, the body of the communicants, possessed the privilege of choosing a pastor for themselves. 4. A fourth evil resulting from the union of Church and State in the colonies where the Episcopal Church was established, lay in this, that the ministers required from time to time by the churches behooved to come from England, or, if Americans by birth, to receive ordination from some bishop in England, generally the Bishop of London, to whose superintendence and government the Episcopal Church in America seems to have been intrusted. As there was no bishop in America during the whole colonial period, this disadvantage continued down to the Revolution. No doubt, many worthy men, endued with the true spirit of their calling and office, were sent over by the bishops who successively occupied the See of London, * Dr. Hawks's "History of the Episcopal Church in Virginia," p. 49. put to death in Virginia, yet they were subjected to much persecution and annoyance, and were glad in many cases to escape into North Carolina. The Puritans, too, were much disliked, and severe laws were passed "to prevent the infection from authority stood as high in Virginia as in England. An offender against that authority, of the name of Reek, was, in 1642, pilloried for two hours, with a label on his back setting forth his offence, then fined £50, and imprisoned during the pleasure of the governor.† It would appear, however, either that all this vigilance could not keep out the Puritans, or else that some of the Virginians themselves had become so disgusted with their own as to wish for Puritan preachers. Be that as it may, certain it is that in 1642 there was transmitted to Boston from certain persons in Virginia an application for preachers, and that two actually went from Massachusetts and one from Connecticut, but were dismissed by the governor. Governor Winthrop, speak some of whom took a deep interest in the Colonial Church. Still, it is no less true that many of a very different stamp were sent over, or came of their own accord, and these, after being once inducted into a parish, it was found almost impossible to remove. At a distance from Eng-reaching the country."* Archbishop Laud's land, and beyond the immediate inspection of the only bishop that seemed to have any authority over them, they generally contrived to secure impunity, not only for the neglect of their duties, but even for flagrant crimes. Some cases of the most shocking delinquency and open sin occurred both in Virginia and Maryland, without the possibility, it would seem, of their being reached and punished. All that could be done by persons commissioned by the Bishop of London to act for him, under the name of commissaries, was done by such men as Drs. Blair and Bray, and their successors, but the evil was too deep to be effectually extirpated by anything short of the exercise of full Episcopal authority on the spot. Besides traditional evidence of the immoralities of some of the established clergy in Virginia and Maryland, we learning of this affair in his Journal, says that, their existence and character from indubitable histories written by Episcopalians themselves, and they were such as even to call for the interference of the colonial legislatures. The General Assembly of In fact, it was not until the lapse of a Virginia, in 1631, enacted that "Mynisters century after those times that toleration shall not give themselves to excess in was established in Virginia, through the drinkinge or riott, spendinge theire tyme persevering efforts of the Presbyterians idellye by day or night, etc."* The fact and other non-established denominations, is, that worthless and incapable men in whose friends and partisans had by that every profession were wont to leave the time greatly increased, partly in consemother-country for the colonies, where quence of this very intolerance on the part they thought they might succeed better of the government, but chiefly by immithan in England; and such of them as be-gration, so far as to outnumber the Epislonged to the clerical profession very naturally supposed that they might find comfortable livings" in those colonies, where their own church was established, and where they heard that there was so great a deficiency of clergymen.† 5. And, lastly, one of the greatest evils of the Establishment we are speaking of, is to be found in the shameful acts of intolerance, and oppression to which it led. Although the Quakers were in no instance * Hening's "Laws of Virginia," 7th Car., i. At a much later period, Sir William Berkeley, governor of Virginia, in reply to this inquiry from the Lords of Plantations, "What provision is there made for the paying of your ministers?" stated, "We have forty-eight parishes, and our ministers are well paid. But as of all other commodities, so of this, the worst are sent to us."-See "Appendix to Hening's Collec tion." + Even so late as 1751, the Bishop of London, in a letter to the well-known Dr. Doddridge, says upon this subject, "Of those that are sent from hence, a great part are of the Scotch-Irish, who can get no employment at home, and enter into the service more out of necessity than choice. Some others are willing to go abroad to retrieve either lost fortunes or lost character."-See Biblical Repertory and Princeton Review for April, 1840." though the state did silence the ministers, because they would not conform to the order of England, yet the people resorted to them in private houses to hear them.‡ copalians of the province when the war of the Revolution commenced. As for Maryland, although the Quakers were greatly harassed in that colony for some time, and Roman Catholics were treated with grievous injustice, yet there never was the same intolerance manifested towards those who were called Dissenters, as had been shown in Virginia. The Protestant Episcopal Church was established there by law in 1692, but not in fact until 1702. But in no colony in which Episcopacy became established by law was there more intolerance displayed than in New-York. That establishment was effected in 1693 by Governor Fletcher, who soundly rated the Legislature because not disposed to comply with all his wishes. But in zeal for Episcopacy he was outdone by one of his successors, Lord Cornbury, a descendant of Lord Clarendon, who would fain *Hening's "Virginia Statutes," 223. Savage's Winthrop, p. 92. Hubbard's "History of New-England,” p. 141. |