Part 9

In the year 1800 a division took place in the church at Plymouth, owing to the growth there of liberal sentiments. These began to manifest themselves as early as 1742, as a reaction from the intense revivalism of that Period. Rev. Chandler Bobbins, who was strictly Calvinistic in his theology, was the minister from 1760 until his death in 1799. In 1794 a considerable number of persons in the parish discussed the desirability of organizing another church, in order to secure more liberal preaching. It was recognized that Mr. Robbins was an old man, that he was very much beloved, and that in a few years the opportunity desired would be presented without needless agitation; and the effort was therefore deferred. In November, 1799, at a meeting held for the election of a new pastor, twenty-three members of the church were in favor of Rev. James Kendall, the only candidate, while fifteen were in opposition. When the parish voted, two hundred and fifty-three favored Mr. Kendall, and fifteen were opposed. In September, 1800, the conservative minority, numbering eighteen males and thirty-five females, withdrew; and two years later they organized the society now called the Church of the Pilgrimage. The settlement of Mr. Kendall, a pronounced Arminian, was an instance of the almost complete abandonment of Calvinism on the part of a congregation, in opposition to the preaching from the pulpit. In spite of the strict confession of faith which Dr. Robbins had persuaded the church to adopt, the parish outgrew the old teachings. Mr. Kendall, with the approval of his church, soon grew into a Unitarian; and it was fitting that the church of the Mayflower, the church of Robinson and Brewster, should lead the way in this advance.

As yet there was no controversy, except in a quiet way. Occasionally sharp criticism was uttered, especially in convention and election sermons; but there was no thought of separation or exclusion. The liberal men showed a tendency to magnify the work of charity; and they were, in a limited degree, zealous in every kind of philanthropic effort. More distinctly, however, they showed their position in their enthusiasm for the Bible and in their summing up of Christianity in loyalty to Christ. Towards all creeds and dogmas they were indifferent and silent, except as they occasionally spoke plainly out to condemn them. They believed in and preached toleration, and their whole movement stood more distinctly for comprehensiveness and latitudinarianism than for aught else. They were not greatly concerned about theological problems; but they thoroughly believed in a broad, generous, sympathetic, and practical Christianity, that would exemplify the teachings of Christ, and that would lead men to a pure and noble moral life.

That toleration was not as yet fully accepted in Massachusetts is seen in the fact that the proposed Constitution of 1778 was defeated because it provided for freedom of worship on the part of all Protestant denominations. The dominant religious body was not yet ready to put itself on a level with the other sects. In the Constitutional Convention of 1779 the more liberal men worked with the Baptists to secure a separation of state and church. Such men as Drs. Chauncy, Mayhew, West, and Shute were desirous of the broadest toleration; and they did what they could to secure it. As early as 1768, Dr. Chauncy spoke in plainest terms in opposition to the state support of religion. "We are in principle," he wrote, "against all civil establishments in religion. It does not appear to us that God has entrusted, the state with a right to make religious establishments. But let it be heedfully minded we claim no right to desire the interposition of the state to establish the mode of worship, government or discipline, we apprehend is most agreeable to the mind of Christ. We desire no other liberty than to be left unrestrained in the exercise of our principles, in so far as we are good members of society.... The plain truth is, by the gospel charter, all professed Christians are vested with precisely the same rights; nor has our denomination any more a right to the interposition of the civil magistrate in their favor than any other; and whenever this difference takes place, it is beside the rule of Scripture, and the genuine dictates, of uncorrupted reason." All persons throughout the state, of whatever religious connection, who had become emancipated from the Puritan spirit, supported him in this opinion. They were in the minority as yet, and they were not organized. Therefore, their efforts were unsuccessful.

Another testing of public sentiment on this subject was had in the Massachusetts convention which, in 1788, ratified the Constitution of the United States. The sixth article, which provides that "no religious tests shall ever be required as a qualification to any office," was the occasion of a prolonged debate and much opposition. Hon. Theophilus Parsons took the liberal side, and declared that "the only evidence we can have of the sincerity and excellency of a man's religion is a good life," precisely the position of the liberal men. By several members it was urged, however, that this article was a departure from the principles of our forefathers, who came here for the preservation of their religion, and that it would admit deists and atheists into the general government.

In these efforts to secure religious toleration as a fundamental law of the state and nation the Baptist denomination took an active and a leading part. Not less faithful to this cause were the liberal men among the Congregationalists, while the opposition came almost wholly from the Calvinistic and orthodox churches. Such leaders on the liberal side as Dr. David Shute of the South Parish in Hingham, Rev. Thomas Thatcher of the West Parish in Dedham, and Dr. Samuel West of New Bedford, were loyally devoted in the convention to the support of the toleration act of the Constitution. In the membership of the convention there were seventeen ministers, and fourteen of them voted for the Constitution. The opinions of the fourteen were expressed by Rev. Phillips Payson, the minister of Chelsea, who held that a religious test would be a great blemish on the Constitution. He also said that God is the God of the conscience, and for human tribunals to encroach upon the consciences of men is impious. As the Constitution was ratified by only a small majority of the convention, and as at the opening of its sessions the opposition seemed almost overwhelming, the position taken by the more liberal ministers was a sure indication of growing liberality. The great majority of the people, however, were still strongly in favor of the old religious tests and restrictions, as was fully indicated by subsequent events. The Revolution operated as a liberalizing influence, because of the breaking of old customs and the discussion of the principles of liberty attendant upon the adoption of the state and national constitutions. The growth of democratic sentiment made a strong opposition to the churches and their privileges, and it caused a diminution of reverence for the authority of the clergy. The twenty years following the Revolution showed a notable growth in liberal opinions.

Universalism presented itself as a new form of Calvinism, its advocates claiming that God decreed that all should be saved, and that his will would be triumphant. In many parts of the country the doctrine of universal salvation began to be heard during the last two decades of the eighteenth century, and the growth of interest in it was rapid from the beginning of the nineteenth. This movement began in the Baptist churches, but it soon appeared in others. At first it was undefined, a protest against the harsh teaching of future punishment. It was a part of the humanitarian awakening of the time, the new faith in man, the recognition that love is diviner than wrath. Many persons found escape from creeds that were hateful to them into this new and more hopeful interpretation of religion. Persons of every shade of protest, and "infidelity," and free thinking, found their way into this new body; and great was the condemnation and hatred with which it was received on the part of the other sects. In time this movement clarified itself, and it has had a positive influence for piety and for nobler views of God and the future.

Of much the same nature was the movement within the fellowship of the Friends led by Thomas Hicks. It was Unitarian and reformatory, influenced by the growing democracy and zeal for humanity the age was everywhere manifesting.

In the border states between north and south began, during the last decade of the eighteenth century, a movement in favor of discarding all creeds and confessions. It favored a return to the Bible itself as the great Protestant book, and as the one revealed word of God. Without learning or culture, these persons sought to make their faith in Christ more real by an evangelical obedience to his teachings. Some of them called themselves Disciples, holding that to follow Christ is quite enough. Others said that no other name than Christian is required. They were Biblical in their theology, and unsectarian in their attitude towards the forms and rituals of the church. In time these scattered groups of earnest seekers for a better Christian way, from Maine to Georgia, came to know each other and to organize for the common good.

With the rapid growth of Methodism the Arminian view of man was widely adopted. The Baptists received into their fellowship in all parts of New England, at least, many who were not deeply in sympathy with their strict rules, but who found with them a means of protesting against the harsher methods of the "standing order" of Congregationalists. Their demand for toleration and liberty of conscience began to receive recognition after the Revolution, and their influence was a powerful one in bringing about the separation of state and church. Those who were dissatisfied with a church that taxed all the people, and that was upheld by state authority, found with the Baptists a means of making their protest heard and felt.

In all directions the democratic spirit was being manifested, and conditions which had been upheld by the restrictive authority of England had to give way. The people were now speaking, and not the ministers only. It was an age of individualism, and of the reassertion of the tendency that had characterized New England from the first, but that had been held in check by autocratic power. There was no outbreak, no rapid change, no iconoclastic overturning of old institutions and customs, but the people were coming to their own, thinking for themselves. In reality, the people were conservative, especially in New England; and they moved slowly, there was little infidelity, and steadily were the old ideals maintained. Yet the individualism would assert itself. Men held the old creeds in distinctly personal ways, and the churches grew into more and more of independency.

The theological development of the eighteenth century took two directions: that of rationalism and a demand for free inquiry, as represented by Jonathan Mayhew and William Bentley; and that of a philanthropic protest against the harsh features of Calvinism, as represented by Charles Chauncy and the Universalists. The demand that all theological problems should be submitted to reason for vindication or readjustment was not widely urged; but a few men recognized the worth of this claim, and applied this method without hesitation. A larger number followed them with hesitating steps, but with a growing confidence in reason as God's method for man's finding and maintaining the truth. The other tendency grew out of a benevolent desire to justify the ways of God to man, and was the expression of a deepening faith that the Divine Being deals with his children in a fatherly manner. That God is generous and loving was the faith of Dr. Chauncy, as it was of the Universalists and of the more liberal party among the Calvinists. Their philanthropic feelings toward their fellow-men seemed to them representative of God's ways of dealing with his creatures.

Levi L. Paine, A Critical History of the Evolution of Trinitarianism, 105. "Nathaniel Emmons held tenaciously to three real persons. He said, 'It is as easy to conceive of God existing in three persons as in one person.' This language shows that Emmons employed the term 'person' in the strict literal sense. The three are absolutely equal, this involving the metaphysical assumption that in the Trinity being and person are not coincident. Emmons is the first theologian who asserts that, though we cannot conceive that three persons should be one person, we may conceive that three persons may be one Being, 'if we only suppose that being may signify something different from person in respect to Deity.'"

E.H. Gillett, History and Literature of the Unitarian Controversy. Historical Magazine, April 1871; second series, IX. 222.

Letter to Scripturista by Paulinus, 18.

William S. Pattee, A History of Old Braintree and Quincy, 222. When a copy of Dr. Jedediah Morse's little book on American Unitarianism was sent to John Adams, he acknowledged its receipt in the following letter:--

QUINCY, May 15, 1815.

Dear Doctor,--I thank you for your favor of the 10th, and the pamphlet enclosed, entitled American Unitarianism. I have turned over its leaves, and found nothing that was not familiarly known to me. In the preface Unitarianism is represented as only thirty years old in New England. I can testify as a witness to its old age. Sixty-five years ago my own minister, the Rev. Lemuel Briant; Dr. Jonathan Mayhew, of the West Church in Boston; the Rev. Mr. Shute, of Hingham; the Rev. John Brown, of Cohasset; and perhaps equal to all, if not above all, the, Rev. Mr. Gay, of Hingham, were Unitarians. Among the laity how many could I name, lawyers, physicians, tradesmen, farmers! But at present I will name only one, Richard Cranch, a man who had studied divinity, and Jewish and Christian antiquities, more than any clergyman now existing in New England.

JOHN ADAMS.

Also see C.F. Adams, Three Episodes of Massachusetts History, 643; and J.H. Allen, An Historical Sketch of the Unitarian Movement since the Reformation, 175.

History of Hingham, I., Part II., 24, Memoir of Ebenezer Gay, by Solomon Lincoln.

Sermons, 1755, 83.

Ibid., 103.

Ibid., 119.

Ibid., 125.

Ibid., 245.

Sermons, 1755, 50.

Ibid., 82.

Sermons, 1755, 83.