1708.
In this year Mr. Saltonstall, so popular among the clergy and other leading men of Connecticut, as a staunch and able advocate of Congregational church supremacy, is elected governor, and is succeeded in the ministry at New London by Rev. Eliphalet Adams.
Dissenters of several kinds are now so numerous that it is impossible to disregard their combined outcry against ecclesiastical tyranny. Accordingly, in this year we find the General Court enacting a law allowing those “who soberly dissent” to worship in their own way, “without any let, hindrance or molestation whatever,” provided it be well understood that none are excused from paying their full share towards the maintenance of the Congregational and Presbyterian ministry, and that those who desire the liberty of worshipping in other than the Congregational or Presbyterian way, shall “qualify themselves at the County Court, according to an Act, made in the first year of the late King William and Mary, granting liberty of worshipping God in a way separate from that by law established.”
The Rogerenes do not derive any benefit from this law; John Rogers and his followers being resolved never to countenance, by their obedience, any civil law whatever which dictates in regard to the worship of God.[[108]] Baptists, Episcopalians and Seventh Day Baptists build meeting-houses,[[109]] qualify themselves under this law and hold their services in peace; but meetings of the Rogerenes are still held without legal sanction and so without legal protection.
In this year, the Saybrook Platform, conceived by Mr. Saltonstall and his ecclesiastic friends, becomes a law. By this device, church and state are firmly welded together. Although certain dissenters may secure leave to worship in their own way in their own churches (provided they will pay for both their own and the Congregational ministry), the indifferent or irreligious masses are still subject to the dominant church, as regards compulsory Congregational church attendance and money tribute. All yield except the Rogerenes, who heroically go their way, regardless of menace or punishment. They see their cattle and other property sold at outcrys to satisfy extortion, yet hold their peace, unless some action threatening the continuance of their following of New Testament teachings necessitates an extraordinary show of nonconformity, by way of unusual Sunday labor, or perhaps even brings out the countermove, that last but most efficient means of defense.
1709.
In this year, James Rogers, Jr., is admitted to the bar, and soon becomes a prominent lawyer of this vicinity.
An attempt is made at this time to stop the preaching and proselyting of John Rogers. Among his followers at this period is Peter Pratt, son of Elizabeth Griswold (see Chapter VI.). This young man now experiences the great necessity for courage and endurance on the part of anyone who would faithfully adhere to Rogerene principles; since he is imprisoned with other Rogerenes.[[110]]
Judging from past indications, the fact of their having gained a new convert from a prominent family of the Congregational persuasion is at any time a sufficient cause for the institution of severer measures against this sect.
But other annoyances are now at hand for John Rogers. There is the still unsettled residue of the estate, so difficult of adjustment on account of the claims of Samuel Beebe, (under the widow’s “deed” of 1692. See Chapter III.), which will be put forward as soon as any move is made by the executor to divide the residue of the estate according to the codicil. These claims include certain young slaves, coming under the head of “moveables” belonging to the estate of James Rogers, of which movables, by the widow’s deed, one-half was to be given, after her decease, to her daughter Elizabeth Beebe, and one-half to her son Jonathan.