hundred people arrived at Salem. Thirty of them, on the 6th of August, entered into church fellowship, forming the first church gathered in New-England. Mr. Higginson, and Mr. Shelton, two nonconforming ministers, who had been silenced in England, were ordained over them by the imposition of the hands of some of the brethren. Governor Bradford and others, messengers from the church of Plymouth, gave them the right hand of fellowship. "They aimed to settle a reformed church, according to their apprehension of the rules of the gospel, and the pattern of the best reformed churches."

The next year, Gov. Winthrop arrived with a number of valuable ministers, and about 1500 people, and encamped on Charlestown hill. They first worshipped God under a large spreading tree. A day of thanksgiving was observed throughout all the settlements for God's goodness to them.

Some of these settled permanently at Charlestown, and Boston; and, as their great object was the promotion of religion, they entered, August 27, into church covenant, and chose Mr. Wilson, a man of distinguished piety and zeal, who had been minister in Sudbury, England, to be their pastor. This church embraced the governor, deputy governor, and other men of distinction. Others scattered about, forming nine or ten villages, and establishing so many churches. One company settled Watertown, with Mr. Phillips for their pastor. Another settled Roxbury, and chose the famous John Elliot, and Mr. Weld, for their pastors. Another, and a very excellent company, which had been formed into a congregational church in England, under Mr. Wareham and Mr. Maverick, and which came over about the same time, settled Dorchester. Three years after, another valuable company came over under Mr. Hooker and Mr. Stone, and settled Newtown, now Cambridge. Mr. Hooker had been a preacher at Chelmsford, and was silenced for nonconformity, and obliged to flee to Holland. But he was a man of such pulpit talents, that many who viewed him as their spiritual father, were ready to follow him to the ends of the earth. They invited him to go with them to America. Some of them preceded him and formed their settlement, and when he arrived he embraced them with open arms, saying, "Now I live, if ye stand fast in the Lord."

Prince.

"They had been ordained by bishops in England. This ordination was only to the pastoral care of that particular flock, founded on their free election."— 4 See chap. xxii.

As the numbers of the planters increased, the churches at Dorchester, Watertown and Newtown, resolved to remove to the fertile valleys of the Connecticut About the beginning of June, 1636, Mr. Hooker and Mr. Stone, with an hundred men, women, and children, left Newtown, and travelled with the greatest difficulty, over an hundred miles of trackless wilderness, to Hartford. They drove about 160 head of cattle, which afforded them sustenance and carried their arms and utensils. They were about a fortnight in the wilderness. Mr. Warham also removed with his church and settled Windsor. The church at Watertown removed to Wethersfield, but Mr. Philips did not go with them, and they chose Mr. Henry Smith their pastor. The places left vacant were soon filled by new emigrants and able ministers.

In 1637, Mr. Davenport, an eminent Christian and a learned divine, who had preached with great celebrity in London, but had become obnoxious to the ruling party and fled to Holland, came over with Mr. Eaton and Mr. Hopkins, two pious and wealthy merchants of London; and with a few families from Massachusetts, settled New-Haven. Their republic was eminently. Christian. About the same time, settlements were formed on the Piscataqua, and a church was gathered at Exeter.

Ninety-four ministers had now passed from England to Massachusetts, and 21,200 people. Of the ministers, 27 had returned, and 36 had died.

These early pious emigrants, endured almost incredible hardships, from famine, disease, and the barbarous tribes of Indians, but as they looked around them, they were compelled to exclaim, what hath God wrought!" In a very few years, this waste howling wilderness, had become a fruitful field, and the habitations of savage cruelty, had become vocal with the high praises of God. In 1650, there were about 40 churches in New-England, over which had been settled above 80 ministers, and 7,750 communicants.

Both ministers and people, were, as a body, eminently pious. Many of the ministers were distinguished in England, for literature and pulpit talent. They were men," says Neal, "of great sobriety and virtue, plain, serious, affectionate preachers, exactly conformable to the doctrine of the church of England, and took a great deal of pains to promote a reformation of manners in their several parishes." Among the emigrants, they were abundant in preaching, prayer, catechising, and visiting from house to house; and such was the fidelity, and such

the excellent character of the emigrants, that religion exceedingly flourished, and intemperance, profaneness, Sabbath breaking, and other gross immoralities, were for a long time unknown in the community.

Like the church at Leyden, they all aimed at independency. They viewed every church as completely organized, when it had a pastor, teacher, elder and deacons. The pastor was a practical and experimental, and the teacher, a doctrinal preachThe elder assisted the pastor in discipline, and was ordained like the ministers. The deacons were to distribute the

er.

elements and provide for the poor. If a pastor and teacher could not both be supported, the pastor performed the duties of both, and was strictly confined to one congregation.

Synods or general councils, were acknowledged by them as ordinances of Christ, and valuable as advisory bodies, but without juridical power. They confined the right of choosing ministers and exercising discipline, entirely to the churches, which, for this reason, were called congregational churches.

Early provision was made for the support of ministers and schools, and the supply of every family with a Bible, and religious books and catechisms. And that ministers might be raised up from among the rising generation, a college was founded at Newtown, now Cambridge, in 1638, and called Harvard college, after the Rev. John Harvard, of Charlestown, who left it a handsome legacy. With this institution, a press was connected, and there a new version of the psalms was formed and printed, to supplant the miserable rhymes of Sternhold and Hopkins.

Between the civil and religious community, subsisted the most perfect harmony. The leading civilians emigrated, not for any worldly emolument, but for the express purpose of enjoying the ministrations of their exiled pastors. And the pastors looked upon them with great tenderness and affection, as their spiritual children, who had left the comforts and pleasures of their native land, to hear from them the word of life, and aid in building up the church in its primitive purity. No church could be gathered, without liberty from those in authority; and what was, no doubt, a very erroneous principle, and proved, in its operation, very injurious to the country, none could be chosen to the magistracy, or vote for a magistrate, who was not a member of a church. Possessed of Christian benevolence, these devoted men made early and not unsuccessful efforts, toward the conversion of the heathen tribes around them.*

* See Chapter xxi.

But they soon found that this was not their rest. Discord among brethren, difficulties between pastors and churches, and trouble from different denominations, soon taught them that there was no perfection in this land of promise.

Mr. Roger Williams, one of the ministers of Salem, refused to hold communion with the church of Boston, because its members would not make confession of guilt for having communed with the episcopal church while they remained in England. He also taught that the magistrates ought not to punish breaches of the Sabbath, or any disturbance of the worship of God; and that there should be a public toleration of all religions. For these things, which occasioned great commotion, he was banished as a disturber of the church and commonwealth. He afterwards formed a settlement at Providence in Rhode Island, renounced his baptism, was rebaptized by Mr. Ezekiel Holyman, then proceeded to rebaptize him and ten others, and thus formed the first Baptist church in New England.

་

lectures, had

The whole which styled

But a far greater source of trouble was a married woman, by the name of Ann Hutchinson, a violent familist and antinomian. She maintained among other things, That the person of the Holy Ghost dwells in a justified person; That no degrees of sanctification furnish any evidence of justification; that all the ministers, but Mr. Cotton, preached the covenant of works, and that they could not preach the covenant of grace, because they had not the seal of the spirit.' She gave public a crowded audience, and gained many proselytes. colony was agitated and thrown into two rues, each other Antinomians and Legalists. Such was the extent of the controversy, that a synod was called at Cambridge in 1637, consisting of all the ministers in the country, and of messengers from the churches. The Rev. Peter Bulkley, of Concord, and the Rev. Thomas Hooker, of Hartford, were chosen moderators, and the synod sat three weeks. Eighty-two opinions were condemned as erroneous, with considerable unanimity; and, by the general court at their next session, Mrs. H. was banished from the jurisdiction. The sentence made her wild and fanatical, and she was excommunicated from the church and removed to Rhode Island; but it was long before the effects of the controversy ceased. These things broke down in some degree vital piety; but the wars with the Indians did more, for they took the people away from the means of grace and excited a spirit of revenge, and cruelty, and conquest.

In 1642, Mr. Cotton of Boston, Mr. Hooker of Hartford, and Mr. Davenport of New-Haven, received an invitation to sit in

the assembly of Divines, at Westminster, England, convened to settle the faith of the church, but they declined attending.

The next year, several persons arrived at Boston, and endeavoured to establish the presbyterian government under the authority of that assembly; but the ministers and churches were too firm for them in their principles of independency.

Several Anabaptists spread in Massachusetts, and contemned the civil and ecclesiastical authorities. A severe law was passed against them in 1644. An adherence to their principles was punished by banishment. So little did the Puritans understand

rights, for which they themselves had contended.

Hitherto, nothing had been done toward settling an uniform scheme ef ecclesiastical discipline, and as the churches were fast increasing, and errors in faith and practice began to multiply, the general court of Massachusetts called a synod, which met at Cambridge, 1646, to attend to this business. Many objected to the step, fearing that it would lead to persecution. But it was generally agreed to, and a full representation was made of the churches of New-England. The synod protracted its sessions by adjournments for two years, when it adopted the platform of church discipline, called the Cambridge platform, and recommended it with the Westminster confession of faith to the churches. This platform recognised the distinction between pastor and teacher, and the existence in the church of ruling elders; it declared the visible church to cousist of saints and the children of such as were holy, required of every communicant repentance toward God, and faith in Christ; directed every church to choose its own officers, and to ordain them by imposition of the hands of brethren, if no elders or ministers could be procured, and required all to pursue a course of rigid separation from all excommunicated persons. It reterred to synods and councils, controversies of faith and practice, but gave them no disciplinary power. With the ecclesiastical laws, it formed the religious constitution of the colonies. About thirty years after, it was confirmed by another synod at Boston. The churches of Connecticut made it their religious constitution for 60 years, until the adoption of the Saybrook platform.

The churches had felt themselves disturbed by the Anabaptists, but they were much more so afterwards by the Quakers. George Fox had come to Rhode Island and published his sentiments. Numbers also arrived in Boston. They became "open seducers from the Trinity; from the holy scriptures as a rule of life, and open enemies to the goverment as established in the hands of any but men of their own principles." They were