MR. DAVENPORT REFUSES TO CONFER.

Lord to pardon, and heale those evills and all sharp contentions among us we rest

By the letter above appeareth what private meanes had bin used for their conviction but uneffectuall, Mr. Davenport refused conference with some of them and would not admit them into his presence.

CHAPTER II.

1669-1671.

OHN HULL, in his diary, narrates briefly and graphically the proceedings recorded in the closing pages of our first chapter :

1669 6th 2d Sundry ministers met at Charltown, to advise whether they ought not to apply themselves to the church, and acquaint them that they were grieved and offended at their refusal to dismiss their brethren, and move at their desire, and endeavor to censure them. That day was a great deal of rain.

13th 2d The elders of fifteen churches convened at the request of the dissenting brethren, and sat a council in Boston.

16th 2d Gave in their conclusion. The elders and the church refused all their applications to them.

23d Rev. Mr. Richard Mather, teacher of the church at Dorchester, died. The church of Boston would not let him into the doors, when he, with sundry others, waited with a letter from the council to them; but the Lord soon opened his way into the church triumphant.1

12th 3d The third church in

1 [Cotton Mather, in his Life of Richard Mather, says: "A council of neighbouring churches being assembled at Boston, April 13, 1669, to advise about some differences arisen there, Mr. Mather, for his age, grace and wisdom, was chosen the Moderator of that reverend assembly.

Boston gathered or coalesced in

For divers days, whilst he was attending this consultation, he enjoyed his health better, than of some later months; but as Luther was at a Synod surprised with a violent attack of illness,' which caused him to return home, with little hope of life, so it was with this holy man.

RECORDS OF THE CHURCH IN SALEM.

91

Charltown. Six magistrates opposed it, — R. B., S. S., W. H., J. L., E. L., E. T. Eight magistrates encouraged it;1 and no ministers opposed, but encouraged, except J. A., J. D., and S. M. [James Allen, John Davenport, and, probably, Samuel Mather.]

The records of the Salem church, kept by the Rev. John Higginson, confirm the statements of the Narrative, and the entries of Mr. Hull:

On the 3d of the 2d month [1669] was read a letter from the dissenting brethren at Boston, sent unto this Church, wherein they expressed that the result and advice of the Council called by the Elder and brethren the last summer, was to grant them an amicable dismission, in order to the propagation of another church; this advice they had attended, having several times moved for a dismission, but in vain. Therefore they made this address to sundry other Churches, as their only next refuge left them by Christ in his word; professing their firmness to the government, according to the patent, and that they are not for any other way of church order, than that solemnly declared from the Scriptures, in the Platform of Discipline, and the last Synod about the subject of Baptism and consociation of Churches, desiring ever to maintain brotherly love and communion with the Church they desired to be dismissed from as also with the rest of the Churches. They did humbly again and again desire us, in the bowels of Jesus Christ request and desire us, not to

On April 16, lodging at the house of his worthy son [Increase Mather], a minister in Boston, he was taken very ill. . . . So his Lord found him about the blessed work of a peacemaker; and with an allusion to the note of the German Phonix, Mr. Shepard of Charlestown, put that stroke afterwards into his Epitaph: Vixerat in Synodis, Moritur Moderator in Illis. Returning by coach, thus ill, unto his house in Dorchester, he lay patiently expecting of his change; and, indeed, was a pattern of patience, to all spectators, for all survivors. . . . His son perceiving the symptoms of death upon him, said 'Sir, if there be any special thing which you would recommend unto me to do, in case the Lord should spare me on earth, after you are in Heaven, I would intreat you to express it;' at which, after a little pause, with lifted eyes and hands, he returned, 'A special thing which I would commend to you, is, care concerning the rising generation in this country, that they be brought under the

government of Christ in his church, and that when grown up, and qualified, they have baptism, for their children. I must confess, I have been defective, as to practice; yet I have publickly declared my judgment, and manifested my desires to practice that which I think ought to be attended; but the dissenting of some in our church discouraged me. I have thought that persons might have right to baptism, and yet not to the Lord's Supper; and I see no cause to alter my judgment, as to that particular. And I still think, that persons qualified, according to the fifth proposition of the late Synod-Book, have right to baptism for their children.'"]

1 [In addition to the seven magistrates whose approbation appears on p. 77, there was the deputy governor, Francis Willoughby, who was a friend of the new church.]

2 John, son of the Rev. John Higginson, married, October 9, 1672, Sarah, daughter of Thomas Savage.

receive sinister reports against them, but to send the Elder and messengers of our Church to meet with others in council at Boston upon the 13th of April, to consider, consult, and give their helpful advice in their labouring case.

After the reading of this letter it was desired to defer the issue till the Lord's day after, till it might be known from the Elders of Boston Church whether the Church there consented to such a council, or would give them a meeting: which by the Pastor (and others) was enquired of the week following, who brought a negative answer from the Elders. Yet the brethren of the Church generally did agree in this, that there was and ought to be relief against miscarriages in particular churches in the Congregational way. And in the issue by a vote they desired the Pastor and Capt. Price, to go not as members of the Council to vote therein, but to be present at the Council, and so to do what good they could, as they heard Mr. Whiting and Mr. Laiten of Lin Church were desired so to go.

The Pastor made some

At a Church meeting, April 30, 1669. report of what was done at the Council, wherein there was a meeting of messengers from thirteen other Churches besides Salem and Linne, and that they applied themselves first unto the Elders twice, and then to the Elders and brethren of the Church of Boston; the 3d time in way of mediation for a pacification, but were three times denied to admit of any conference with them. So the Council considered of the advice of the first Council, and the Scripture grounds of it, and saw cause to approve of it, viz., that the dissenting brethren might have their dismission, and in case the Church persisted in denying their dismission, they might take their liberty seasonably to be a Church of themselves, as if they had had a formal dismission.

On the 16 day, [May,] being the Sabbath, was read in the public assembly, a letter sent from the three Elders of the first Church at Boston, to the Church of Salem, expressing their desires of a charitable construction of their actions, and their willingness to declare the reasons of their actions, when it should be desired. The Pastor declared that the week past the dissenting brethren had made use of their liberty at Charlestown in gathering into a Church body of themselves, according to the advice of two Councils in their case, with the approbation of Magistrates and Elders according to the law, and had the right hand of fellowship given them by the messengers from five Churches, so he saw not any need of any further discourse about the contents of the former letter at present. So it rested at the present.1

1 [New England Congregationalism, by Daniel A. White, pp. 76–78.

The records of Roxbury church contain this entry : —

MR. DAVENPORT'S ELECTION SERMON.

93

We will now return for a moment to the Third Church Narrative :

19: (3) Being Election day Mr. Davenport preachd, who then did greivously inveigh against the preceding work and all that did assist therein, to provoke the Generall Court against it. Vide Copiam.

28: A writing was put in by Mr. Everill, Mr. Bridgam, and goodman Grub into the house of Deputies tending to the disturbing of it.1 30. Mr. Davenport in his Lecture sermon did excuse the Churches slownes to dismisse the dissenting Brethren perceiving it stuck with the Country.

2 (4). The writing above mentioned put into the house was rejected by the house.

On account of this controversy, "two parties," says Hutchinson, "were produced, not in the other churches only but in the State also;" and "the whole people of God," says Cotton Mather, "throughout the colony, were too much distinguished into such as favored the old church, and such as favored the new church; whereof the former were against the synod, and the latter were for it." 2

Mr. Davenport was, in part at least, responsible for bringing the dispute between the two churches into the politics of the day. In the month of May following his installation he was invited, as we have seen by the Narrative, to preach the Election Sermon, and he took the opportunity to defend his side of the controversy, and to sharply criticise his opponents. The

"12 3m 69 The Dissenting Brethren aforementioned, made a Secession from the Church at Boston and gathered themselves into a new church estate at Charlestown, having the approbation of seven of the magistrates and the right hand of fellowship from the Elders and Messengers of five churches."]

1 [These were petitioners, and not members of the house. Mr. Bridgham with Peter Tilton represented Hadley in 1670. In 1668 Thomas Grubb, with Edward Hutchinson, Richard Way, Benjamin Negoos, and others, addressed a memorial to the General Court in behalf of the " Anabaptists," and were admonished for "many reproachful expressions" against the authorities which their paper contained.]

2 Edward Randolph wrote to the Bishop of London that the dispute ran so high "that there was imprisoning of

Dr.

parties and great disturbances." Wisner thinks that members of the new church may have been imprisoned for not attending the authorized worship, and for setting up a church assembly without permission from the magistrates; but this is doubtful, because the majority of the magistrates, and by far the larger portion of the people, believed the seceding members from the old church to be in the right, and public opinion, we think, would have shielded them from punishment for any such reason. The "imprisoning of parties," of which Randolph wrote, was probably the arrest of some of the members when they began preparations for building, as will appear in the next chapter.

3 Mr. Davenport's text was I Sam. xxiii. 5: "So David and his men went to Keilah, and fought with the Philistines and brought away their cattle, and