Religious Life of Virginia in the Seventeenth Century Part 4

The Last Decade

The decade 1690-1700 was an era of steady growth in the religious and cultural life of Virginia. New counties were created as population spread further and further up the great rivers; and parishes increased in numbers as the population grew. The first official list of "The parishes and the clergymen in them" which has survived the wreckage of time was the list of 1680, and the next is the list of 1702. These lists show that in 1680 there were forty-eight parishes and thirty-six clergymen inc.u.mbents. In the list of 1702 there were fifty parishes and forty clergymen.

The one most notable event in the religious life of both England and Virginia was enactment by Parliament in 1689 of the Edict of Toleration. That act in the first year of the reign of King William and Queen Mary was the first incident in the movement of the English people through their legislature toward freedom of religion. The Act did not repeal the severe laws against dissent adopted in the reign of King Charles, II, but it did remove the penalties. It took the first step along a new roadway into human freedom; and the English-speaking world on both sides of the Atlantic hailed it as such.

As it was a law of England, the act did not come into effect in Virginia until it was included within the code of laws of the colony.

That was not done until 1699, although the Council of State had approved the act in principle early in that decade. By that time enforcement of law requiring attendance at church every Sunday had been relaxed for it was impossible of enforcement under the conditions of Virginian life. The law was not repealed until late in the eighteenth century and under it every person wherever possible was required to accept attendance at church as the duty of every citizen. In revisal of the Virginia law in 1699 it was provided that every person must attend wors.h.i.+p in the parish church at least once every two months. The General a.s.sembly at the same time enacted a new proviso whereby dissenters from the Established Church of Virginia, who could qualify if in England as belonging to denominations or groups permitted under the Toleration Act, were free in Virginia from any penalty for non-attendance at the parish Church if they attended their own places of dissenting wors.h.i.+p at least once in the two months period.

In 1699 there were three denominations of dissent in Virginia; the Presbyterians, the Baptists and the Quakers. The many thousands of immigrants from Scotland who had belonged to the Established (Presbyterian) Church of Scotland found little to object to in the wors.h.i.+p of the Established Church of Virginia, and entered into it without difficulty or objection.

But the Presbyterians from England, as dissenters from the Established Church of that country, and the Scotch-Irish Presbyterians who began their immigration to Virginia after the Restoration, brought with them the determination to organize in America as a Presbyterian denomination. They were especially strong in the counties of Princess Anne and Norfolk; and the first Presbyterian congregation in Virginia was organized in 1692 in that area. It is also of interest to note that the Reverend Francis Makemie, who organized the first presbytery in Philadelphia about 1705 and later the first Synod of the Presbyterian Church in America, lived for many years in Accomac County, Virginia.

There was a Baptist minister in the village of Yorktown during the decade 1690-1700 but little is known of his work, nor is it known whether there were then one or more organized Baptist congregations.

The Quakers were the most widely scattered and in numbers probably the strongest of the three groups. They were especially numerous in Henrico County and the eastern section of Hanover County and on the Nansemond river. The Church Attendance Act of 1699 and the Toleration Act of the English Parliament applied to them as to other dissenters, but they were still under suspicion as to their loyalty and also because they continued their early custom of open and violent attacks on the religion and wors.h.i.+p of the orthodox Churches. They gave bitter offense by their public announcements in time of war between England and France or between England and Spain that they would give aid and furnish such supplies as might be needed to any enemy fleet which should come with hostile intent into the Virginian waters.

While the laws which punished interruption of religious services were still necessary and were enforced, the adoption of the proviso in the Virginian Act of 1699 was a real step forward on the way to the ultimate goal of entire freedom of wors.h.i.+p. It made the wors.h.i.+p of the dissenters as truly legal as that of the Established Church, and it removed from the dissenters the requirement that they attend the wors.h.i.+p of the Anglican Church.

Thomas Story, the noted English Quaker, who wrote and published a journal of his life and work as a Quaker preacher, gives an interesting account of his two prolonged visits to Virginia in 1698/99 and in 1705.

In his daily journal for 1705 he comments at every stopping-place, with manifest pleasure, upon the welcome given him and his friends and the freedom of public preaching accorded him wherever he went. He was welcomed and entertained over and again at Anglican homes and he records occasionally the fact that a county sheriff or constable or justice of the county court was present at his preaching. He does not record any instance in which anyone in civil authority in the colony protested against his preaching or attempted to stop him; and the high point of his visit came when the Governor of Virginia, learning of his approach, invited him and his friends to the Governor's mansion, entertained them and gave them fruit to carry with them on their journey toward Philadelphia.

So Virginia came to the end of its first century, having fought through the various adverse conditions which its people found along the way. The colony had come into an era of opportunity and growth with a well established government, a seaborne trade which brought prosperity, and a concept of religion which made room for all forms of the Christian faith that would remain at peace with each other, and as citizens be loyal to their government. As the people approached their first centennial anniversary celebration in 1707 they looked forward with a confidence born of past experience to the new century upon which they were to enter.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

In addition to the t.i.tles in the following brief list the reader will find many references to official papers, and other important and useful works, in the author's _Virginia's Mother Church_, volumes one and two.

A great many of the statements herein made are based upon these two volumes.

Anderson, James S. M. _A History of the Colonial Church_.

London: 1843. 3 vols.

Andrews, Matthew Page. _The Soul of a Nation, The Founding of Virginia and the Projection of New England_. New York: Doubleday, 1943.

Brydon, George MacLaren. _Virginia's Mother Church and the Political Conditions Under Which It Grew_. Richmond, Virginia: Virginia Historical Society, 1947. Vol. I, 1607-1727; Vol. II, 1725-1814.

Fiske, John. _Old Virginia and Her Neighbors_. Boston and New York: Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 1899. 2 vols.

Goodwin, Edward L. _The Colonial Church in Virginia_.

Milwaukee, Wisconsin: Morehouse Publis.h.i.+ng Company, 1927.

With appendix giving list of Anglican clergymen who served in Virginia in the Colonial period.

Hening, W. W. _Statutes of Virginia_, 1619-1792. 13 vols.

Mason, George C. _Colonial Churches of Tidewater, Virginia_.

Richmond, Virginia: Whittet and Shepperson, 1945.

Meade, William. _Old Churches, Ministers, and Families in Virginia_. Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1857. 2 vols.

This is the old standard work upon this subject, and is still of great value, but must be used with the understanding that records and other original sources made available since his day disprove many of his statements about local conditions. This is especially true regarding his statements concerning the unworthiness of the colonial clergy. His expressed conviction that most of them were unworthy morally has been entirely disproved by the evidence of records now available.

Perry, W. S. _History of the American Episcopal Church_.

Boston and New York: Osgood, 1899. 2 vols.

--_Historical Collections Relating to America's Colonial Church. Virginia_: Privately printed, 1870.

Swem, E. G. _Virginia Historical Index_. Roanoke, Virginia: Stone Printing Co., 1934-36. 2 vols.

APPENDIX A

The following extracts from the Journal of the Life of Thomas Story, during his visit to Virginia in 1698 are indicative of the att.i.tude of the people of Virginia toward religious toleration:

8th Day of the 12th Month, we landed in Mockjack Bay----

Next Fourth Day being the 1st day of the 1st month (i.e.

January, 1698/99) we went again by water to a monthly meeting at Chuckatuck, where came our friend Elizabeth Webb from Gloucesters.h.i.+re in England, who had been through all the English colonies on the Continent of America and was now about to depart for England. The meeting was large and the Sheriff of the County, a Colonel, and some of others of note in that county were there, and very sober and attentive.

On the 22nd we had a pretty large meeting at Southern Branch, at the house of Robert Burgess. He was not a Friend by profession, but a Justice of the Peace, and of good account in these parts. There had never been a meeting there before; yet the people were generally solid and several of them tendered; and after the meeting the Justice and his wife were very respectful, and treated us to beer and wine, and would gladly have had us to have eaten with them and lodged in their house that night, but being otherwise engaged in the course of the service.

The next day [several days later] we had a meeting at Romanc.o.c.k, which was large and open. Many persons of note from those parts were there, as Major Palmer, Captain Clayborn, Doctor Walker, and others, all very attentive.

APPENDIX B

A List of Parishes in Virginia, and the Clergy in them under date of July 8, 1702.

Parishes and Inc.u.mbent Ministers

Charles City County.

Bristol Parish, (part) George Robertson [Robinson]

Westover Parish Charles Anderson Martin's Brandon Parish Weyanoke Parish James Bush.e.l.l

Elizabeth City County Elizabeth City Parish James Wallace

Ess.e.x County South Farnham Parish Lewis Latane Sittenbourn Parish (part) Bartholomew Yates St. Mary's Parish William Andrews