[631]. Ibid., vol. IV, pt. i, p. 353.
[632]. The members included Gov. Winthrop of Connecticut, and Richard Smith; R. I. Records, vol. I, p. 464.
[633]. Acts United Colonies, vol. II, p. 248; R. I. Records, vol. I, pp. 465 f.
[634]. As we have already noted, the bounds were vaguely stated, but this western one was clear enough; Ibid., p. 144.
[635]. Ibid., pp. 455 f.
[636]. Ibid., pp. 469 ff., 461.
CHAPTER XI
THE DEFEAT OF THE THEOCRACY
The same decade and a half, the political events of which we traced in the last chapter, was to witness also religious movements of utmost importance. The firm establishment of the government of Rhode Island, based upon religious liberty, and the preservation of the independence of that colony and of its democratic neighbor, Connecticut, were matters of profound import in the political and intellectual life of America. Not less so was the struggle between the leaders of the theocracy and the growing liberalism of the people of Massachusetts. As usual, the political and religious movements were inextricably intertwined, and the same conditions that brought forth the political disturbance over the petition of Dr. Child and his associates, in 1645, were responsible for the most important step taken in the ecclesiastical organization of the theocracy some months later.
That petition had called attention to undoubted evils and injustices in the political and religious régime in Massachusetts; and however effectually the government might silence the protesting leaders, the underlying causes were so widespread as to necessitate some action in regard to them. Owing to the church-membership test for the franchise, the unenfranchised class was so large, and the disadvantage under which it labored was so palpably unjust, that the demand for reform was growing steadily louder. Not only had there been from the very beginning a considerable element in the population which, under no circumstances, cared to join the New England churches, but there was also a large one which would have been glad to do so, had the process not been made so difficult for them. It was not enough that a person should believe in the doctrines of the Church, that he should desire to live a godly life and be in communion with it, but he was also required to have experienced some special motion of God in his heart, by which he had been convicted of his sin, and become regenerate. Of that conversion, he was further obliged to make a public declaration before the congregation, describing the particular manner in which he had thus felt the workings of the spirit within him. Many blameless Christian men and women did not feel that they could discover any such extraordinary change in their lives as their rulers demanded; and modesty and a natural reticence prevented many more from attempting the trying ordeal of publicly detailing such an intimate spiritual experience.[[637]] Failing that, however, they were debarred from Christian communion and from all voice in the civil government, and their children were also denied baptism and participation in the life of the Church. As in Massachusetts no churches were allowed except such as partook of the “New England way,” it followed that those who could not join them were politically disfranchised, and that they and their children were cut off from the advantages of Christian fellowship and discipline.
In so far as the resultant political disabilities were concerned, there were two ways in which the situation might have been remedied. The first and, according to modern ideas, the natural one would have been to do away with the religious qualification for the franchise. This was, theoretically at least, the method of Plymouth and Connecticut and Rhode Island, and of the Bay Colony in so far as its possessions in Maine were concerned. Nevertheless, it did not commend itself to the Massachusetts leaders, and for that reason, and also to meet the religious features of the case, a second method was favored by many, of making less rigid the requirements for admission to the church. Of the two methods, the latter would, of course, be more acceptable to the clergy, not as a step forward, but as the lesser of two evils. They were, in fact, at that very time planning a more formal organization of all the churches, and the establishment of a uniform practice among them.[[638]] The creation of such a standard can hardly be considered as consistent with the principles in which Congregationalism had originated; but the Church in Massachusetts had become as completely a state church as the Anglican had ever been in England.[[639]]