The clergy of Massachusetts, with the true priestly instinct, took in the bearings of their situation from the instant they recognized that their political supremacy was passing away, and in order to keep their organization in full vigor they addressed themselves with unabated energy to enforcing the discipline which had been established; at the same time they set the ablest of their number on guard at Harvard. But the task was beyond their strength; they might as well have tried to dam the rising tide with sand.
There is a limit to the capacity of even the most gifted man, and Increase Mather committed a fatal error when he tried to be professor, clergyman, and statesman at once. He was, it is true, made president in 1685, but the next year John Leverett and William Brattle were chosen tutors and fellows, who soon developed into ardent liberals; so it happened that when the reverend rector went abroad in 1688, in his character of politician, he left the college in the complete control of his adversaries. He was absent four years, and during this interval the man was educated who was destined to overthrow the Cambridge Platform, the corner-stone of the conservative power.
Benjamin Colman was one of Leverett’s favorite pupils and the intimate friend of Pemberton. As he was to be a minister, he stayed at Cambridge until he took his master’s degree in 1695; he then sailed at once for England in the Swan. When she had been some weeks at sea she was attacked by a French privateer, who took her after a sharp action. During the fight Colman attracted attention by his coolness; but he declared that though he fired like the rest, “he was sensible of no courage but of a great deal of fear; and when they had received two or three broadsides he wondered when his courage would come, as he had heard others talk.” [Footnote: Life of B. Colman, p. 6.]
After the capture the Frenchmen stripped him and put him in the hold, and had it not been for a Madame Allaire, who kept his money for him, he might very possibly have perished from the exposure of an imprisonment in France, for his lungs were delicate. Moreover, at this time of his life he was always a pauper, for he was not only naturally generous, but so innocent and confiding as to fall a victim to any clumsy sharper. Of course he reached London penniless and in great depression of spirits; but he soon became known among the dissenting clergy, and at length settled at Bath, where he preached two years. He seems to have formed singularly strong friendships while in England, one of which was with Mr. Walter Singer, at whose house he passed much time, and who wrote him at parting, “Methinks there is one place vacant in my affections, which nobody can fill beside you. But this blessing was too great for me, and God has reserved it for those that more deserved it.—I cannot but hope sometimes that Providence has yet in store so much happiness for me, that I shall yet see you.” [Footnote: Life of B. Colman, p. 48.]
Meanwhile opinion was maturing fast at home; the passions of the witchcraft convulsion had gone deep, and in 1697 a movement began under the guidance of Leverett and the Brattles to form a liberal Congregational church. The close on which the meetinghouse was to stand was conveyed by Thomas Brattle to trustees on January 10, 1698, and from the outset there seems to have been no doubt as to whom the pastor should be. On the 10th of May, 1699, a formal invitation was dispatched to Colman by a committee, of which Thomas Brattle was chairman, and it was accompanied by letters from many prominent liberals. Leverett wrote, “I shall exceedingly rejoice at your return to your country. We want persons of your character. The affair offered to your consideration is of the greatest moment.” William Brattle was even more emphatic, while Pemberton assured him that “the gentlemen who solicit your return are mostly known to you—men of repute and figure, from whom you may expect generous treatment; ... I believe your return will be pleasing to all that know you, I am sure it will be inexpressibly so to your unfeigned friend and servant.” [Footnote: Life of B. Colman, pp. 43, 44.] It was, however, thought prudent to have him ordained in London, since there was no probability that the clergy of Massachusetts would perform the rite. When he landed in November, after an absence of four years, he was in the flush of early manhood, highly trained for theological warfare, having seen the world, and by no means in awe of his old pastor, the reverend president of Harvard.
The first step after his arrival was to declare the liberal policy, and this was done in a manifesto which was published almost at once. [Footnote: History of Brattle St. Church, p. 20.] The efficiency of the Congregational organization depended upon the perfection of the guard which the ministers and the congregations mutually kept over each other. On the one hand no dangerous element could creep in among the people through the laxness of the elder, since all candidates for the communion had to pass through the ordeal of a public examination; on the other the orthodoxy of the ministers was provided for, not only by restricting the elective body to the communicants, but by the power of the ordained clergy to “except against any election of a pastor who ... may be ... unfit for the common service of the gospel.” [Footnote: Propositions determined by the Assembly of Ministers. Magnalia, bk. 5, Hist. Remarks, Section 8.]
The declaration of the Brattle Street “undertakers” cut this system at the root, for they announced their intention to dispense with the relation of experiences, thus practically throwing their communion open to all respectable persons who would confess the Westminster Creed; and more fatal still, they absolutely destroyed the homogeneousness of the ecclesiastical constituency: “We cannot confine the right of chusing a minister to the male communicants alone, but we think that every baptized adult person who contributes to the maintenance, should have a vote in electing.” [Footnote: History of Brattle St. Church, p. 25, Prop. 16.]
They also proposed several innovations of minor importance, such as relaxing the baptismal regulations, and somewhat changing the established service by having the Bible read without comment.
Their temporal power was gone, toleration was the law of the land they had once possessed, and now an onslaught was to be made upon the intellectual ascendency which the clergy felt certain of maintaining over their people, if only they could enforce obedience in their own ranks. The danger, too, was the more alarming because so insidious; for, though their propositions seemed reasonable, it was perfectly obvious that should the liberals succeed in forcing their church within the pale of the orthodox communion, discipline must end, and the pulpits might at any time be filled with men capable of teaching the most subversive doctrines. Although such might be the inexorable destiny of the Massachusetts hierarchy, it was not in ecclesiastical human nature to accept the dispensation with meekness, and the utterances of the conservative divines seem hardly to breathe the spirit of that gospel they preached at such interminable length.
Yet it was very difficult to devise a scheme of resistance. They were powerless to coerce; for, although Increase Mather had taken care, when at the summit of his power, to have a statute passed which had the effect of reënacting the Cambridge Platform, it had been disapproved by the king; therefore, moral intimidation was the only weapon which could be employed. Now, aside from the fact that men like Thomas Brattle and Leverett were not timorous, their position was at this moment very strong from the stand they had taken in the witchcraft troubles, and worst of all, they were openly supported by William Brattle, who was already a minister, and by Pemberton, who was a fellow of Harvard, and soon to be ordained.