[537] “Teaching in the church publicly,” was, it will be remembered, one of the offences charged against Winslow before the Lords Commissioners at the hearing of 1634, for which, at Archbishop Laud’s “vehement importunity,” he was committed to the Fleet. (Supra, [69]; Proc. Mass. Hist. Soc., 1860-2, p. 131.) On the real practice of the New England churches in regard to the exercise of their gifts by lay members, see Plaine Dealing, p. 42.
[538] “I suppose the first preacher that ever thus preached with notes in our New-England was the Reverend Warham.” (Magnalia, B. III. part 2, ch. xviii.) In regard to John Warham, first of Dorchester and subsequently of Windsor, Connecticut, see Dr. Young’s note in Chron. of Mass., p. 347.
[539] There probably never was any regularly chosen deaconess in New England. The office was recognized as having come down from the primitive churches (Dexter’s Congregationalism, p. 69); and Robert Browne in his definitions, in the Life and Manners of all true Christians, says: “The widow is a person having office of God to pray for the church, and to visit and minister to those which are afflicted and distressed in the church; for the which she is tried and received as meet.” (Bacon’s Genesis of the New England Churches, p. 84.) Bradford in his Dialogue, written in 1648, speaking of the Separatist church at Amsterdam, says, that besides the pastor, teacher, elders and deacons, there was “one ancient widow for a deaconess, who did them service many years, though she was sixty years of age when she was chosen. She honored her place and was an ornament to the congregation. She usually sat in a convenient place in the congregation, with a little birchen rod in her hand, and kept little children in great awe from disturbing the congregation. She did frequently visit the sick and weak, especially women, and, as there was need, called out maids and young women to watch and do them other helps as their necessity did require; and if they were poor, she would gather relief for them of those that were able, or acquaint the deacons; and she was obeyed as a mother in Israel and an officer of Christ.” (Young’s Chron. of Pilg., p. 455.) It would be inferred from the passage quoted that there had in 1648 never been a deaconess in the Plymouth church, as in this Dialogue the old men are supposed to be describing to the young men events strange to the latter, as having occurred long before. Lechford says, speaking of the Massachusetts colony: “No church there has a Deaconesse, as far as I know.” (Plaine Dealing, pp. 24, 40) “I have not met with an instance of [the] actual institution [of the office of deaconess] in New England.” (Palfrey, vol. ii. p. 37, note.)
It does not seem, however, to have been even theoretically one of the functions of the deaconess “to use her gifts at home,” as Morton says, “in an assembly of her sex, by way of repetition, or exhortation.” This would rather have pertained to the office of teacher. Meetings of females, such as those described, were held in the parishes during the early days, and played an important part in the Antinomian controversy. The deaconess did not, however, officiate at them. The character of these meetings appears in the following passage at the trial of Mrs. Hutchinson:
“Court. ... What say you to your weekly public meetings? Can you find a warrant for them?
Mrs. Hutchinson. I will show you how I took it up. There were such meetings in use before I came; and because I went to none of them, this was the special reason of my taking up this course. We began it with but five or six, and, though it grew to more in future time, yet, being tolerated at the first, I knew not why it might not continue.
Court. There were private meetings indeed, and are still in many places, of some few neighbors; but not so public and frequent as yours; and are of use for increase of love and mutual edification. But yours are of another nature. If they had been such as yours they had been evil, and therefore no good warrant to justify yours. But answer by what authority or rule you uphold them?
Mrs. H. By Titus ii. 3-5, where the elder women are to teach the younger.
Court. So we allow you to do, as the Apostle there means, privately and upon occasion. But that gives no warrant of such set meetings for that purpose. And, besides, you take upon you to teach many that are older than yourself. Neither do you teach them that which the Apostle commands, viz: to keep at home.
Mrs. H. Will you please to give me a rule against it, and I will yield.