could subsist, and political order could be maintained,
without imposing shackles on spiritual life." ^ This
federated union did not work at first without considerable
^ In his Records of Rhode Island^ Lieutenant-Governor Arnold
claims for his country the honour of having l)een the cradle of
American democracy. But, as Dr. Borgeaud says, " tlie historians
of the other States of New England assert their claims also to this
honour, each for his own, with no less talent and no less convincing
proofs." Those who cannot be suspected of bias either the one way
or the other will probably concur in his judgment, that democracy
is not the heritage of any one single State, but of all the States of
New England, though it may be in differing proportions.
GROWTH AND DEVELOPMENT OF NEW ENGLAND 299
friction. The predominance of Massachusetts — a pre-
dominance naturally created by her superior size and
strength, and exacerbated, there can be little doubt, by a
domineering spirit — was resented by her weaker sisters,
and instead of harmony there was jealousy and strife.
But this was incident to the initial stage of the move-
ment rather than to its subsequent development, and in
spite of all drawbacks the Confederacy grew and flourished.
Expansion of New England. — A nation had
now been planted, and had taken firm and fruitful root-
hold in the soil of New England. The population
embraced by it had reached nearly 24,000, of which
15,000 may be assigned to Massachusetts, 3000 to New^
Plymouth, 3000 to Connecticut, and 2500 to New
Haven. During the twenty - three years which had
elapsed since the Mayflower had cast anchor in Cape Cod,
fifty towns and villages had been planted, between thirty
and forty churches had been erected, " and more ministers'
houses, a castle, a college, prisons, forts, cartways, causeys
many, and all these upon our own charges, no public
hand reaching out any help, having comfortable houses,
gardens, orchards, grounds fenced, corn fields," etc.^
Attempted interference on the part of the mother
country. — Nations, like individuals, sometimes profit
by the misfortunes of others. The civil war in England
broke out in 1642, just about the time that the four
colonies of Massachusetts, New Plymouth, Connecticut,
1 New EnfjlamVs First Fruits, etc. (London, 1643) ; Palfrey's His-
tory of New Encjland, vol. ii. p. 6.
300 PURITANISM
and New Haven entered into federated union. But
for this circumstance, the colonists of New England
would probably have been involved in a most bitter and
disastrous struggle for their rights and liberties. The
English Church and hierarchy had from the first main-
tained towards them a hostile attitude. They looked
upon them as escaped victims, as runaway slaves were
afterwards regarded by the planters of Virginia ; and the
tidings which reached Eno-land from time to time of the
freedom enjoyed by the settlers in the New World, and
of their growing prosperity, did not make them feel any
more favourably disposed towards them. The resentment
of the Eoyalist and High Church party was fanned and
intensified by malcontents and seditious persons, who,
finding the rule and discipline of New England too
oppressive, had returned to their native land, and now
sought to revenge themselves upon the colonists by
setting in circulation all manner of defamatory reports.
They said that New England was torn with religious
factions ; that religious sanctions were disregarded ; that
marriage was no longer held to be a sacrament, but
a contract celebrated by the civil magistrate ; that the
colonists held the Church of England in utter detestation ;
and that tliey were determined to owe no sort of subjec-
tion to the English Crown. This was to excite the
deepest susceptibilities of the then rulers in Church and
State.
The King was induced to sanction the appointment of
a Governor-General of Commission, with full power to
revise the laws of the colonies, and to introduce what
form of government tliey judged necessary to bring it
GKO^yT^ and development of new England 301
into subjection to the English Crown. At the head of
this Commission was Laud, the Archbishop of Canterbury.
It was proposed to send out a Governor-General, and
to revoke every patent or charter which had been pre-
viously granted. This struck at the foundation, at the
very life, of the rising commonwealth. There was a
consultation of the Puritan leaders at Boston, and the
resolution come to was : "If a Governor-General were
sent we ought not to accept him, but defend our lawful
possessions if we were able ; otherwise to avoid or
protract." The colonists met this threatened invasion of
their liberties with earnest but dignified remonstrance.
The letter addressed by Winthrop to the Commissioners
concludes by saying : " If the patent be taken from us, the
common people will conceive that His Majesty hath cast
them off, and that hereby they are freed from their
allegiance and subjection, and therefore will be ready to
confederate themselves under a new government, for
their necessary safety and subsistence, which will be of
dangerous example unto other plantations, and perilous to
ourselves of incurring His Majesty's displeasure." They
asked nothing of His Majesty but the favour of neglect.
It will thus be seen that the colonists had no thought
of disowning the authority of the British Crown, to which,
rather than to Parliament, they held themselves bound.
At the same time, they clung jealously to their own
independence, claimed and exercised the right of framing
their own laws, administering their own affairs, and
entering into any compact or alliance they deemed
necessary for their own safety or advantage, without
waiting for any mandate or authorisation from the
302 PURITANISM
mother country. For, said Winthrop, " if we iii America
should forbear to unite for offence and defence against
a common enemy till we have leave from England, our
throats might be cut before the messenger could be half
seas through." This relation of dependence upon the
mother country was unhappily established from the
very beginning. It was enshrined in the covenant
signed in the cabin of the Mayflovxr : " We whose
names are underwritten, the loyal subjects of our dread
sovereign King James," etc. The colonists thus never
suffered themselves to forget that they were liegemen
of a sovereign on the other side of the Atlantic.
" Herein lay the fatal seeds of misunderstanding — of
encroachment on the side of the home Government, of
revolt on that of the growing colony, and ultimately
of revolution. This was the beginning of woes, the full
measure of which came in 1765."^
The Government, represented by Straftbrd, Laud, and
the ecclesiastical hierarchy, saw that, powerless as they
were to check the rising liberties of the colonies, they
could, at any rate, succeed in reducing the dimensions of
the evil l)y staying the tide of emigration. None but the
poorest, and socially the most uninfluential, were allowed
to leave the country without a special permission, and
these were required to take the oath of supremacy and
allegiance to the King. On April 30, 1637, the fol-
lowing proclamation was issued : " The King being in-
formed that great numbers of his subjects are yearly
transported into New England with their families and
whole estates, that they might be out of the reach of
^ See Goldwiii Smith's United States, p[i. G, 7.
ecclesiastical authority, His Majesty therefore commands
that his officers of the several ports should suffer none to
pass without licence from the Commissioners of the
Plantations, and a testimonial from their minister of
their conformity to the orders and discipline of the
Church." To stop the flight of the ministers, the fol-
lowing Order of Council was published : " Whereas it is
observed that such ministers as are unconformable to the
discipline and ceremonies of the Church do frequently
transport themselves to the plantations, where they take
liberty to nourish their factious and sysmatical humours
to the hindrance of the good, conformity, and unity of the
Church, we therefore expressly command you, in His
Majesty's name, to suffer no clergyman to transport him-
self without a testimonial from the Archbishop of Canter-
bury and Bishop of London." This edict did not pro-
duce any appreciable effect in restraining those who
were bent on leaving the country. A squadron of eight
ships in the Thames, preparing to set sail for the Xew
World, was arrested by order of the Privy Council.
It has been alleged that Hampden and Cromwell, with
other illustrious patriots, were on board this fleet, intend-
ing to seek in the New World the rights and privileges
which they had sought vainly in the Old; but this
statement appears to rest upon no basis of fact, and on
the face of it, it is a most improbable story ; and yet, im-
probable as it is, it is avouched by Hallam,i Hume, and
other historians.
^ Hallam's History, vol. ii. p. 58 : " Men of a liiglier rank than
tlie iirst colonists, and now become hopeless alike of the civil and
religious liberties of England ; men of capacious and commanding
304 PURITANISM
Loss to the mother country represented by New
England. — Xeal, the Puritan historian, basing his state-
ments on :\Iather's History of New England, says that
during t^Yelve years of Laud's administration there went
over the sea about four thousand planters, carrying with
them materials, in money and cattle, etc., to the value
of not less than one hundred and ninety-two thousand
pounds. " Upon the whole, it has been computed
that the four settlements of Xew England, viz.
Plymouth, Massachusetts Bay, Connecticut, and New
Haven, all which were accomplished before the civil
wars, drained England of four or five hundred thousand
pounds in money (a very great sum in those days) ; and if
the persecution of the Puritans had continued twelve years
longer, it is thought that a fourth part of the riches of
the kingdom would have passed out of it through this
channel." ^
The Long Parliament met in 1640. This marked the
turn of the tide for the Puritans both at home and abroad.
It not only stayed the tide of emigration, but induced
many to return to their native land. The population of
New England, fed by the continuous stream of emigration
minds, formed to 1)6 tlie legislators and generals of an infant republic,
— the wise and cautious Lord Say, the acknowledged chief of the
Independent sect ; the brave, open, and enthusiastic Lord Brooke ;
Sir Arthur Haselrig Hampden, ashamed of a country for whose
rights he had fought alone ; Cromwell, panting with energies that
he could neither control nor explain, and whose unconquerable fire
was still wrapt in smoke to every eye but that of his kinsman
Hampden, — were prejjaring to embark for America, when Laud, for
his own and his master's cause, procured an Order of Council to stop
their departure."
^ Neal, vol. i. p. 54G ; Palfrey's Hidonj of New Emjland, vol. i.
p. 584.
GROWTH AND DEVELOPMENT OF NEW ENGLAND 305
between the years 1620 and 1640, reached to between
twenty-three and twenty-four thousand. But from 1640
there set in a return tide, which did not cease to flow
for that same century and a quarter, so that, in that
period, more persons passed from New England to the
mother country than came out from the mother country
to New England. It must not be supposed, however, on
this account, that New England continued to be the sterile,
inhospitable soil and clime that it was to the first settlers.
Nowhere was man's power to subjugate by his indomit-
able will the forces of nature, and make them subservient
to his happiness and prosperity, more singularly displayed.
When the persecutions ceased in England there were
dwelling in New England thousands who would not
change their country for any other in the world. At
one time Cromwell offered the colonists the rich and
sunny land of Jamaica in exchange for their own. At
another time he proposed to transplant them to Ireland ;
but, wisely for themselves and for the world, they preferred
to remain where they were. " As Ireland will not brook
venomous beasts, so will not that land vile livers." One
might dwell there "from year to year, and not see a
drunkard, or hear an oath, or meet a beggar." The con-
sequence was a marked increase of health and longevity.
The average duration of life in New England, as com-
pared with Europe, was doubled ; and the human race was
so vigorous that of all who were born into the world,
more than two in ten, full four in nineteen, attained
the age of seventy. Of those who lived beyond ninety,
the proportion, as compared with European tables of
longevity, was still more remarkable. " I have dwelt
20
306 PURITANISM
the longer," continues Mr. Bancroft, " on the character
of the early Puritans of New England, for they were the
parents of one third the whole white population of the
United States as it was in 1834.^ Within the first
fifteen years — and there was never afterwards any con-
siderable increase from England — we have seen that
there came over twenty -one thousand two hundred
persons, or four thousand families. Their descendants
were in 1834 not far from four millions.- Each family
has multiplied on the average to one thousand souls.
To New York and Ohio, where they then constituted
half the population, they carried the Puritan system of
free schools ; and their example is spreading it through
the civilised world."
The progress which had been made in New England in
the planting of free institutions, and the measure in which
civil and religious freedom was possessed and enjoyed, can
be best appreciated, as De Tocqueville ^ has pointed out,
by running our eye, even rapidly, over the then existing
condition of Europe. In every portion of that continent
absolutism still reigned. The aspirations of the people
were stifled ; they were systematically exploited in the
1 " It would probably l)e coming somewhere near the truth to
divide the present [this was written in 1858] white population of the
United States into three equal parts — one part Ijelonging to tlie New
England stock, one the posterity of Englisli who settled in the other
Atlantic colonies, and another consisting of tlie aggregate of Irish,
Scotch, Frencli, Dutch, German, Swedisli, Spanish, and other im-
migrants, and their descendants." — See Preface to Palfrey's History
of New England, ix.
2 Bancroft's History of the United States, revised edition, a'oI. i.
p. 375. The population of tlie United States is now not far from
seventy millions.
^ De Tocqueville, Democracy in America, vol. i. 42, 43.
interest of a governing class ; were left for the most part
to sink further and further in ignorance and degradation
and misery, and anything like independence or liberty
was withheld from them. And yet, " at that very time,
those principles, which were scorned or unknown by the
nations of Europe, were proclaimed in the deserts of the
New World, and were accepted as the free creed of a
great people. ... In the bosom of this obscure de-
mocracy, which had as yet brought forth neither generals
nor philosophers nor authors, a man ^ might stand up in
the face of a free people and pronounce the following
fine definition of liberty : ' I observe a great mistake in
this country. There is a twofold liberty — natural (I
mean as our nature is now corrupt) and civil or federal.
The first is common to man with beasts and other
creatures. By this, man, as he stands in relation to
man, simply hath liberty to do what he lists ; it is a
liberty to evil as well as to good. This liberty is incom-
patible and inconsistent with authority, and cannot endure
the least restraint of the most just authority. The exer-
cise and maintaining of this liberty makes men to grow
more evil, and in time to be worse than brute beasts :
omnes sumus licentia deteriores — we all become worse by
licence. That is the great enemy of truth and peace,
that wild beast which all the laws of God are bent
against, to restrain and subdue it. The other kmd of
liberty I call civil or federal ; it may also be called
moral, in reference to the covenant between God and
man in the moral law, and the political covenants and
constitutions among men themselves. This liberty is the
^ Governor Wiuthrop.
308 PURITANISM
proper end and object of authority, and cannot subsist
without it ; and it is a hberty to that only which is just,
good, and honest. This liberty you are to stand for at
the hazard, not only of your goods, but of your lives, if
need be. Whatsoever crosseth this is not authority, but
a distemper thereof. This liberty is maintained and
exercised in a way of subjection to authority ; it is of
the same kind of liberty wherewith Christ hath made us
free.' "
Such was the Puritan ideal of a well-ordered and free
commonwealth.
IRcIiQioua an& Social aepccte of
IHcw Englanb
Memorable Events and Dates
Harvard College founded 1636
First code of laws, "The Body of Liberties"
adopted 1641
Tlie Bay Psalm Book, tlie first book printed in
America, printed in Cambridge, Massachu-
setts 1640
The " Cambridge Platform " adopted . . . 1651
Contents of Chapter V
Congregational Independency, indigenous to new state of things —
Led to democracy — The Cambridge Platform — Cotton on Independ-
ency — Platform adopted— New England Way— Barrowism— Growth
of Independency— The Sabbath in New England— Passion for worship
— First meeting-house — Saturday evening — Wintry meeting-houses —
Miss Earle's description — Judge Sewall — Social Life in New Eng-
land — Satires on Puritanism — Austereuess of American Puritans —
Amusements and luxuries proscribed — Temperance, not abstinence
— Regulations as to dress, concession to " dignities " — Old Testament
and Mosaism— Nathaniel Ward — The Body of Liberties — Ten capi-
tal offences— Church attendance — Penalty more stringent in Virginia
— Laws more humane than those of England— Prevalence of vice —
Measures for its suppression abortive through their severity — Educa-
tion in New England — Dread of illiteracy — Common schools — Har-
vard College.
CHAPTER V
ItELIGIOUS AND SOCIAL ASPECTS OF NeW ENGLAND
Congregational Independency. — We have seen
how Congregationalism or Independency was the system
of Church government which was carried over in the
Mayflower to the shores of the New World. We have
seen, too, how its principles gradually infiltrated into
the minds of the main body of succeeding settlers, even
of those who were at first hostile and disaffected,
till at last it came to be seen that Congregational
Independency was the only practicable polity, the only
system suited to the necessities of the young rising
Puritan Eepublic. The colonists of Massachusetts, who
were at first the least friendly to this system, " yielded,"
as Dr. Borgeaud has it, " to the necessities of the case,
and also, there is no doubt, to a sincere conviction,
developed by example, that such an organisation was
what was sanctioned by Holy Scripture." So it may be
said that Independency rose to the ascendency which
it gained through the operation of " the law of the
survival of the fittest." It is not too much to say
that it was the only mould into which the new molten
metal could have been run, or, changing the figure, the
only vessel capable of holding the new generous ferment-
312 PURITANISM
ing wine of faith and liberty. True, it might have been
run into other vessels, but in that case it would not
have been the same wine, its quality would have been
altogether changed. This was what happened in Vir-
ginia ; there it acquired a " tang " that was peculiarly its
own, and bore witness to the more ancient, aristocratic
vine from whose clusters it had been pressed. "Its
principles " (those of the Confederation of the Colonies),
says an unfriendly historian, " were altogether those of
Independency, and it cannot easily be supported by any
other." ^ " It may be said that as a general rule Con-
gregationalism produced democracy wherever it was
interpreted by laymen, or by pastors who had broken
away completely and radically from the ideas of the
Anglican clergy, and who followed out the logical con-
sequences of the premises laid down." ^
1 Chalmers' Annals, p. 178, quoted by Dr. Palfrey, vol. i. p. 033.
2 Rise of Modern Democracy, p. 119. In the panegyrists of this
system Dr. Borgeaud detects a strain of irritating self-complacency,
even while doing justice to their contention. " The share of
influence which Congregationalism can claim in the formation of
the national institutions of the United States has been insisted
upon ]jy its literary representatives. Their zeal, which was occa-
sionally excessive, and not always free from the feeling, so provoca-
tive of criticism, which certain interpreters of Holy Scrij)ture call
self-rifjhteousness, caused a reaction." So a new school has risen
up, " in which may he counted some distinguished historians,"
which makes American democracy descend in a direct line from
Teutonic institutions. But, as pointed out on pp. 22, 23, the
credit of giving rise to democracy, both in the Old World and in
the New (whatever that credit may be, and as shown conclusively
by Dr. Borgeaud), certainly belongs to Puritanism and Independ-
ency. The Church covenants, on the basis of which free government
and free institutions, in a word, democracy, were modelled, were
" the essential cause of the Independent congregations." — Rise of
Modern Democracy, pp. 137-140, also p. 32.
RELIGIOUS AND SOCIAL ASPECTS OF NEW ENGLAND 318
The Cambridge Platform. ^ — It will be well here
to advert briefly to an event which took place in 1651,
which, though occurring at a later period than this work
professes to embrace, has a unique importance, " as com-
pleting the theocratic organisation of the Puritan com-
monwealth in Massachusetts." This was the adoption
of the famous Cambridge Platform, which was agreed
upon at a synod of Churches meeting in Cambridge in
1648. It contained some seventeen chapters, and its
credal confession was substantially that of the Westmin-
ster Assembly of Divines. The time had come when, as
Cotton Mather says, it was convenient that " the Churches
of New England should have a system of their discipline,
extracted from the word of God, and exhibited unto
them with a more effectual acknowledged and established
recommendation ; and nothing but a council was proper
to compose the system." This system was to embody
the Congregational idea or conception of the Church in
preference to that denoted by the name Independency.
In his Way of the Congregational Churehes Cleared,
John Cotton, who did perhaps more than any other
leader to make Independency a working system, objects
to Independency as " a fit name of the way of our
Churches," describing it as " too strait," " because we
do profess dependence upon magistrates for civil govern-
ment and protection ; dependence upon Christ and His
word for the sovereign government and rule of our
admmistrations ; dependence upon the counsel of other
Churches and synods, when our own variance or ignor-
ance may stand in need of such help from them." This
^ See Dexter's Coiigregatiunalism as seen in its Literature, p. 439.
314 PURITANISM
broader conception of the Church, and of the relation of
one Church to another, was embodied in the Cambridge
Platform. It is easy to see m this measure of retreat and
recession from the hard and fast line of Independency the
indii'ect influence of the spirit of Presbyterianism, which
had been brought over from the mother country by a
large body of the colonists. The number who resisted the
assimilative process by which the majority of their brethren
became Independents, and who still remained zealous for
Presbyterianism, were ever on the alert to stir up agita-
tion on its behalf, and the victory secured by the Presby-
terians in England under the Long Parliament made
them only the more restless and aggressive. Partly, there-
fore, to disarm their antagonism, but chiefly in order to
consolidate and unify the Churches themselves, and lift
them out of their unintegrated condition and position of
isolation, a plan of government was adopted, entitled, " A
Platform of Church Discipline, gathered out of the Word
of God, and agreed upon by the Elders and Messengers
of the Churches assembled in the Synod at Cambridge
in New England, to be presented to the Churches and