The Beginners of a Nation Part 37

[Sidenote: Note 5, page 328.]

Giles Firmin's Review of Davis's Vindication, 1693, quotes from a letter of Shepard of Cambridge, Ma.s.sachusetts: "Preach Humiliation, labor to possess Men with a Sence of Misery and wrath to come. The Gospel Consolations and Grace which some would have only disht out as the Dainties of the times and set upon the Ministry's Table may possibly tickle and ravish some and do some good to some which are Humbled and Converted already. But if Axes and Wedges be not used withal to hew and break this rough unhewn bold but professing age, I am Confident the Work and Fruit ... will be but meer Hypocrisie."

[Sidenote: Note 6, page 330.]

Notwithstanding his early imprudence during the partisan excitement in Boston, Whelewright was a man of sound judgment, and his testimony regarding his sister-in-law is the most important we have. "She was a woman of good wit and not onely so, ... but naturally of a good judgment too, as appeared in her civill occasions; In spirituals indeed she gave her understanding over into the power of suggestion and immediate dictates, by reason of which she had many strange fancies, and erroneous tenents possest her, especially during her confinement ... attended by melancholy." Mercurius America.n.u.s, p. 7.

[Sidenote: Note 7, page 338.]

Hugh Peter, after his return to England, adopted the views in favor of toleration beginning to prevail there. Nine years after he had obtruded himself so eagerly to testify against Mrs. Hutchinson, he was writing to New England earnest remonstrances against persecution. 4 Ma.s.sachusetts Historical Collections, vi, where the letters are given.

[Sidenote: Note 8, page 338.]

There were those who wished to give time for a second admonition before excommunication, but they were overruled, probably by Wilson.

Winthrop, i, 310. It would, perhaps, have been in better form to take the other and less eager course. There is a Latin paper in the British Public Record Office, dated 3 March, 1635, which professes to give a brief and orderly digest of the canons of government const.i.tuted and observed in the reformed New England churches. I am unable to trace its authority. From this I quote; "Qui pertinacitur consistorii admonitiones rejecerit a coena domini suspendatur. Si suspensus, post iteratus admonitiones nulla poenitentiae signum dederit ad excomunicationem procedat Ecclesia."

[Sidenote: Note 9, page 341.]

It would be a waste of time to controvert the ingenious apologies which have been written to prove that an inexorable necessity compelled the banishment of the Antinomians. The Ma.s.sachusetts government was in its very nature and theory opposed to religious toleration, as we may see by the reference of the case of Gorton and his companions to the elders, and their verdict that these men, not residents of the jurisdiction, ought to be put to death for constructive blasphemy, a decision that the magistrates by a majority vote would have put in execution if the "deputies" or representative members of the a.s.sembly had not dissented. Savage's Winthrop's Journal, ii, 177. The doctrine of intolerance is ingeniously set forth in Cotton's "The Powring Ovt of the Seven Vials, ... very fit and necessary for this Present Age," published in 1642. Cotton compares Jesuits and heretics to wolves, and says, "Is it not an acceptable service to the whole Country to cut off the ravening Wolves?" The Puritans of New England from their very circ.u.mstances were slower to accept the doctrine of religious liberty than their coreligionists in England.

INDEX

Abbot, Abp., on Calvert's resignation, 259, n. 6.

Abercromby's Examination, 258, n. 4; 262, n. 11; 263, n. 12.

Aberdeen Burgh Records, no Sabbatarian legislation in, 140, n. 12; quaint ordinance from, 140, n. 12.

Accidents, New England hung on a chain of slender, 176.

Act, for Church Liberties, 1639, 251; 265, n. 22; for discovering popish recusants, 237, m.; of Toleration, 1649, 255, 256; act to prevent, etc., 237, m.

Activity, intellectual, men excited to unwonted, 1.

Adam's needle and thread, garments woven of fiber of, 79; efforts to cultivate, 80.

Admonition to the People of England, 115, m.

Advertis.e.m.e.nts for Planters of New England, 27, m.

Age of romance and adventure, an, 1, 20; of colony beginnings, 92; dramatic and poetic to its core, 100.

Agrarian and industrial disturbance aids the Puritan movement, 111.

Ainsworth wrote tractate on the Jewish ephod, 108.

Alexander, William, Encouragement to Colonies, 258, n. 3.

Alleghanies deemed almost impa.s.sable, 11.

Almond, an, for a Parrat, 116.

America excited the most lively curiosity, 2; notion that it was an Asiatic peninsula, 3; search for a route through, lasted one hundred and fourteen years, 8; a Mediterranean Sea sought in the heart of, 11; fact and fable about, 14; excepted from the Deluge, 20; treasure from flowing into Spanish coffers, 74; Hakluyt spreading sails for, in every breeze, 76; all one to European eyes, 169.

Amer. Antiqu. Soc. Trans., 22, n. 4.

Amsterdam, Separatists migrated to, 148; called a common harbor of all opinions, 164.

Anabaptism, divergencies in direction of, in Ma.s.s., 267.

Anarchy and despotism the inevitable alternatives of communism, 26.

Anderson's Church of England in the Colonies, 258, n. 3.

Anderson's Commerce, 22, n. 5; 75, m.; 76, m.; 95, n. 3.

Anglican and Puritan party lines not sharply drawn at first, 110.

Anglican Church party, leaders at Zurich and Strasburg, 104; held to the antique ritual, 106; content with moderate reforms, 109; must have a stately liturgy and holy days, 110; becomes dogmatic, 113; aided by Hooker's Ecclesiastical Polity, 122.

Anglican zeal founded a nation of dissenters, 91.

Animals, notions about American, 18; too many kinds for Noah's ark, 20.

Animals for breeding, stock of, 48; sold by Argall, 50.

Antinomianism, divergencies in direction of, in Ma.s.s., 287; found by Winthrop in Mrs. Hutchinson's teachings, 332.

Antinomians sheltered by Vane and Cotton, 267; Davenport took part against, in the synod, 343; banishment of the, 349, n. 9.

See also HUTCHINSON, MRS. ANNE, and HUTCHINSONIAN CONTROVERSY.

Antwerp, a place of refuge for the persecuted, 312, n. 18.

Apocalypse of John, the, received hearty consideration from the New England Puritans, 301.

Apostolic primitivism, aim of the Puritan, 303; goal of the Separatist, 303.

Apostolic succession a.s.serted as essential, 113.

Archdale's Carolina, 171, m.