M. LOUISE GREENE, PhD....

The following monograph is the outgrowth of three earlier and shorter essays. The first, "Church and State in Connecticut to 1818," was presented to Yale University as a doctor's thesis. The second, a briefer and more popularly written article, won the Straus prize offered in 1896 through Brown University by the Hon. Oscar S. Straus. The third, a paper containing additional matter, was so far approved by the American Historical Association as to receive honorable mention in the Justin Winsor pri

The stone which the builders rejected is become the head of the corner.—Psalm cxviii, 22. The colonists of Plymouth, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New Haven were grounded in the system which became known as Congregational, and later as Congregationalism. At the outset they differed not at all in creed, and only in some respects in polity, from the great Puritan body in England, out of which they largely came.[a] For more than forty years before their migration to New England there had been in

Those who cross the sea change not their affection but their skies.—Horace. The rule of absolutism forced the transplanting of a democratic church. The arrogance of the House of Stuart compelled English Puritans to seek refuge in America. The exercise of the divine right of kings and of the divine power of bishops provoked the commonwealths of New England and the development there of the Congregational church, as later it brought the Commonwealth of Cromwell, with its tolerance of Independent an

For God and the Church! With the great Puritan body in England, and with the great mass of the English nation, whatever their religious opinions, the colonists of Plymouth, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New Haven held in common one foremost theory of civil government. Pausing for a brief consideration of this fundamental and far-reaching theory, which created so many difficulties in the infant commonwealths, and which confronts us again and again as we follow their later history, we find that

It is always right that a man should be able to render a reason for the faith that is within him.—Sydney Smith. In each of the New England colonies under consideration, the settlers organized their church system and established its relation to the State, expecting that the strong arm of the temporal power would insure stability and harmony in both religious and civil life. As we know, they were speedily doomed to disappointment. As we have seen, they failed to estimate the influences of the new

Alas for piety, alas for the ancient faith! Though Massachusetts had been indifferent and had left Connecticut to work out, unaided, her religious problem, the two colonies were by no means unfriendly, and in each there was a large conservative party mutually sympathetic in their church interests. The drift of the liberal party in each colony was apart. The homogeneity of the Connecticut people put off for a long while the embroilments, civil and religious, to which Massachusetts was frequently

A Government within a Government. The Saybrook Platform subdivides into a Confession of Faith, the Heads of Agreement, and the Fifteen Articles. The Confession of Faith is merely a recommendation of the Savoy Confession as reaffirmed by the Synod of Boston or the Reforming Synod of 1680. The Heads of Agreement are but a repetition of the articles that, under the same title, were passed in London, in 1691, by fourteen delegates from the Presbyterian and English Congregational churches. Both parti

    They keep the word of promise to our ear and break it to our     hope.— Macbeth, Act V, Sc. viii. The Connecticut General Court incorporated in the act establishing the Saybrook Platform the proviso— that nothing herein shall be intended or construed to hinder or prevent any Society or Church that is or shall he allowed by the laws of this government, who soberly differ or dissent from the United Churches hereby established from exercising worship and discipline in their own way, according t

Ye shall not therefore oppress one another; but thou shalt fear thy God; for I am the Lord your God.—Leviticus, xxv, 17. The dissenters found the terms of the Toleration Act too narrow; the conditions under which they could enjoy their own church life too onerous. Consequently, they almost immediately began to agitate for a larger measure of liberty, and persisted in their demands for almost twenty years before obtaining any decided success. Foremost among the dissenters pressing for greater lib

    Wake, awake, for night is flying:     The watchmen on the heights are crying,     Awake, Jerusalem, arise!—Advent Hymn. The opposition of Episcopalian, Quaker, and Baptist to the Connecticut Establishment, if measured by ultimate results, was important and far-reaching. But it was dwarfed almost to insignificance, so feeble was it, so confined its area, when compared to that opposition which, thirty-five years after the Saybrook Synod and a dozen years after the exemption of the dissenters,

If a house be divided against itself.—Mark iii, 25. From such a revival as that of the Great Awakening, parties must of necessity arise. Upon undisciplined fanaticism, the Established church must frown. But when it undertook to discipline large numbers of church members or whole churches, recognizedly within its embracing fold and within their lawful privileges, a great schism resulted, and the schismatics were sufficiently tenacious of their rights to come out victorious in their long contest f

That house cannot stand.—Mark iii, 25. The times change and we change with them.—Proverb. The omission of all persecuting acts from the revision of the laws in 1750 was evidence that the worst features of the great schism were passing, that public opinion as a whole had grown averse to any great severity toward the Separatists as dissenters. But the continuance in the revised statutes of the Saybrook Platform as the legalized constitution of the "Presbyterian, Congregational or Consociated Churc

The piping times of peace. During the fifteen years following the ratification of the Constitution of the United States by Connecticut, January 9, 1788, no conspicuous events mark her history. These years were for the most part years of quiet growth and of expansion in all directions, and, because of this steady advancement, she was soon known as "the land of steady habits" and of general prosperity. Even in the dark days of the Revolution, Connecticut's energetic people had continued to populat

And make the bounds of Freedom wider yet.—Alfred Tennyson. The legal recognition of conscience, the acknowledgment of fundamental dogmas held in common, the gradual approachment of the various religious organizations in polity, their common interest in education and good government, would seem to furnish grounds for such mutual esteem that the government would willingly do away with the objectionable certificates. On the contrary, the old conception of a state church, and of its value to the bod

    As well dam up the waters of the Nile with Bullrushes as to fetter     the steps of Freedom.—L. M. Child. Leland's attack upon the constitution of Connecticut during the excitement over the Western Land bills called for new tactics on the part of the dissenters. Thus far, in all their antagonism to the union of Church and State, there had been on their part practically no attack upon the constitution itself. Yet even as early as 1786 the Anti-Federalists had proclaimed that the state of Conn

No distinction shall I make between Trojan and Tyrian. The Federal grip upon Connecticut, one of the last strongholds of that party, was weakening. Preceding the deflection of the Episcopalians in Connecticut, there had been throughout New England a strong Federal opposition to the national government and its commands during the War of 1812. Such conduct had shattered party prestige, and when its opposition culminated in the Hartford Convention of 1814, it wrote its own death-warrant. The Republ

1, H. M. Dexter, Congregationalism as seen in Literature, p. 49. 2, Robert Browne, A True and Short Declaration, p. l. 3, H. M. Dexter, Congregationalism as seen in Literature, p. 70. 4, Report of Conference April 3, 1590, quoted in F. J. Powicke, Henry Barrowe, p. 54. 5, W. Walker, Creeds and Platforms, p. 12. 6, Ibid., pp. 14, 15; also H. M. Dexter, Congregationalism as seen in Literature, pp. 96-104. 7, Robert Browne, A Treatise on Reformation without Tarrying, pp. 4, 7,12. 8, Robert Browne,