This heavenly title was, indeed, set up by Peters, Hooker, and Davenport, the first three ministers that settled Connecticut, and is generally believed through the Colony to this day. They thus syllogistically stated it: “The heathen are driven out, and we have their lands in possession; they were numerous, and we but few; therefore, the Lord hath done this great work, to give his beloved rest.”
This much for the various pretensions of the occupiers of Connecticut in regard to their right to the soil. I shall now give some account of the proceedings of the
first settlers with respect to their religious and civil establishments, and of their political transactions, etc.
The party which settled at Saybrook, under George Fenwick, Esquire, and the Rev. Thomas Peters, in 1634, contented themselves, in framing the polity of their civil constitution, with the laws of England and a few local regulations.
As to their ecclesiastical institutions, they voted themselves to be a church independent on lords bishops, and Mr. Peters to be their minister, whose episcopal ordination was deemed good, notwithstanding he had been silenced in England. They voted presbyters to be bishops, and possessed of power to ordain ministers when invited by a proper number of people formed into a society by a license from the Governor. They voted that a certain part of the liturgy of the Church of England might be used—the Lord’s Prayer, the Apostles’ Creed, together with one chapter in the Bible, to be read at morning and evening service, or omitted, at the discretion of the minister; that extempore prayers might be used at the pleasure of the minister, but that the surplice should not be worn, nor should the sign of the cross at baptisms, the ceremony of the ring at marriages, or saints’-days, etc., be observed, as in the Church of England; that every society licensed by the Governor, after having a minister ordained over it, be a complete church, and invested with the keys of discipline, dependent only upon Christ, the head of the church; that the minister should be the judge of the qualifications of church-membership, and should censure disorderly walkers; that the members in full communion should have power over the minister, and might
dismiss him from his parish by a majority of voices and with the consent of the Governor; that all children were the objects of baptism, and that none should be debarred that sacrament for the sins of their parents, provided an orderly liver would engage to bring them up in the ways of Christianity; that all sober persons might partake of the Lord’s Supper, provided the minister, upon examination, should find them sufficiently acquainted with their duty; that what is commonly called conversion is not absolutely necessary before receiving the Lord’s Supper, because that sacrament is a converting ordinance; that all gospel ministers were upon an equality in office; and that it was the business of every one to admonish the transgressor, privately in the first place, and next, if no attention was paid to his advice, before his deacons; then, if their admonishment was disregarded, the offender should be presented to the church (that is, the minister, deacons, and communicants, united by the keys of discipline), and, upon his still continuing refractory, he should be censured and rejected by the majority of voters without any appeal; that deacons should be chosen by the minister and communicants upon a majority of voices, and ordained by the minister according to the holy practice of St. Paul; that it was the duty of the Governor and civil magistrates to protect and nurture the Church, but not to govern it, because Christ’s authority, given to his Church, was above principalities and all civil powers, etc., etc.
The settlers of Hertford, having declared themselves to be an independent Colony, and that their dominions extended from sea to sea, voted Haynes to be their
Governor, and appointed six councilors to assist him in framing laws and regulating the State. The same spirit of independence dictated their church discipline. They voted Mr. Hooker to be their minister, and six of their church-members to ordain him. Mr. Hooker accepted of their vote, or call, renounced his Episcopal ordination, and was ordained by the six lay church-members, over the church of the Independents in Hertford. Thus, Mr. Hooker, who was born in Leicestershire, educated at Cambridge, ordained by a bishop, silenced by a bishop in 1630, in England, and reordained by six laymen in America, became what he wished to be—the head of the Independents in the Dominion of Hertford, where he had the honor and pleasure of exercising over all who differed from him in opinion that violent spirit of persecution which he and his friends so clamorously decried as too intolerant to be endured in England. Some of the characteristic doctrines of this persecuting fanatic were of the following purport: That Christ’s Church was not universal, but a particular visible church, formed by general consent and covenant; that Christ had committed the power of binding and loosening to believers, without any distinction between clergy and laity; that ruling and preaching elders are duly ordained to their office by the election and the imposition of the hands of the people; that the tables and seals of the covenant, the offices and censures of Christ’s Church, the administrations of all public worship and ordinances, are in the cœtus fidelium, or combination of godly, faithful men met in one congregation; that a diocesan, provincial, or national assembly, is incompatible with the nature
of Christ’s Church, seeing all and every member of Christ’s Church are to meet every Lord’s-day, in one place, for the administration of the holy ordinances of God; that a multitude of free people may elect and ordain a king over them, although they were not, prior to that act, possessed of kingly power; for the people of Israel imposed their hands on Levites, when they themselves were not Levites (Numbers viii. 10); that Nature has given virtual power to a free people to set up any Christian form of government, both in church and state, which they see best for themselves in the land; but Christ gave the power of his keys to his Church, i. e., to his believing people, and not to Peter or to Paul as ministers, but as professed believers, in conjunction with the rest of true believers; that the Church hath not absolute power to choose whom it will; it hath ministerial power only to choose whom Christ hath chosen, i. e., such as He hath gifted and fitted for the work of the ministry; that neither popes, bishops, nor presbyters, are necessary to ordain ministers of Jesus Christ, because the power of the keys are given by Christ to his Church, i. e., the people in covenant with God; that as ordination is in the power of each church, no church hath power over another, but all stand in brotherly equality; that it is unlawful for any Church of Christ to put out of its hand that power which Christ hath given it into the hands of other churches; that no one church ought to send to ministers of other churches to ordain its ministers or to censure its offenders; that baptism does not make any one a member of Christ’s Church, because papists and other heretics are baptized; therefore, to be a member of Christ’s Church is
to own the covenant of that particular church where God has placed such members; that seven persons may form a Church of Christ, but fifteen thousand cannot, because such a number cannot meet in one place, nor hear, nor partake, nor be edified together; that no one can partake of the Lord’s Supper till he be converted, and has manifested his faith and repentance before the church, etc., etc.[14]