by Ronald Golini *

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The Pilgrim Settlers: Background

During the reign of James I, England was in religious ferment. The established church--the official church supported by taxation and the king--exercised control with power seized from authority lost by the pope. Those few subjects who claimed the right to exercise freedom of conscience in matters of religion were looked upon as dangerous to the political and social order. They were the radicals of that time. Persecution had driven the Catholics underground, and even those Protestants who did not agree with the "official" church were subject to periodic oppression. Among these people was a group who disliked the practice of the established church and wished to separate from it. These "separatists" finally fled from England and sought refuge in Holland, where they had freedom to worship in a "reformed church." Difficulty in earning a living and displeasure in seeing their English children grow up as Dutch children, among other things, drove their leaders to seek a more satisfactory solution.

John Carver went to London representing the Separatists and made arrangements with some businessmen to underwrite a plan that would permit the group to leave Holland to settle in America. Under Carver and William Bradford, some of the Separatists left Holland and sailed to England. In order to complete the company, the Separatists added others to their group who did not hold the same strong religious beliefs and whom they called "strangers." Myles Standish and John Alden were "strangers." The company of pilgrims departed from Plymouth, England, in August, 1620, on two ships, the Speedwell and the Mayflower, bound for land in the Hudson River locale. The Speedwell quickly proved unseaworthy, and the ships turned back to England; later the Mayflower alone set out once again. After a successful voyage of sixty-seven days, the Mayflower anchored in Provincetown Harbor.

Since this was outside the area granted them for settlement by their patent, 1 the Pilgrims were concerned about the legality of any government they might establish. The men gathered in the cabin of the Mayflower and forty-one of the principal men of the first band of pilgrims signed an agreement that set up a "body politick":

In the name of God, Amen. We whofe names are underwritten, the loyall subjects of our dread fovereigne Lord, King James, by ye grace of God, of Great Britaine, France and Ireland, King, defender of ye faith, etc., having undertaken for ye glory of God and advancemente of ye Chriftian faith, and honour of our King and countrie, a voyage to plant ye firft colonie in ye Northerne parts of Virginia, doe by thefe prefentf folemnly, and mutually, in ye prefence of God, and of one another, covenant and combine ourfelves togeather into a civill body politic for our better ordering and prefervation and furtherance of ye end aforefaid, and by vertue hearof to enacte, conftitute and frame fuch juft and equall lawes, ordinances, acts, conftitutions and offices from time to time, as fhall be thought moft meete and convenient for ye generall good of ye Colonie, unto which we pomife all due fubmiffion and obedience. In Witnef whereof we have hereunder fubfcribed our names at Cap-Codd ye 11 of November, in ye year of ye raigne of our fovereigne Lord, King James of England, France and Ireland, ye eighteenth, and of Scotland ye fiftie-fourth, Ano Dom. 1620.2

The signers thereby agreed in this Mayflower Compact that they would make and obey the laws, and since the Plymouth Colony never received a charter, the compact became the basis for their government On going ashore, we are told, the pilgrims found fresh water and a cache of Indian corn and fought off the Indians at First Encounter Beach. Exploration in a small boat led them to Plymouth Harbor and a cleared site for the first settlement. They returned to the Mayflower, hauled up anchor and sailed across Massachusetts Bay, entering Plymouth Harbor on December 20, 1620.

Historians clarify that the compact signed on board the Mayflower was not a constitution, as it did not create a government, yet that document is nevertheless of vast importance, and far more than a mere historical manuscript. It showed the desire for a government in which every one was to share, and within four months of landing, moreover, a captain was chose, a treaty with the Indians was concluded, laws and orders were passed, and a governor [Endicott] was elected.3

These were the pilgrims.4 The Puritans, on the other hand, arrived in 1630 and settled at Salem as the Massachusetts Bay Colony by virtue of a charter from Charles I (1628) known as the Colony Charter.5 It begins with "Charles, by the grace of God Kinge of England . . ." followed by a recital of the patent 6 of 1620 and the Grant to Sir Henry Rosewell of 1628, "which grant is by this charter confirmed . . ."7 This document was the source, witness and proof of definitive colonial authority until a new charter was granted by William and Mary in 1691 and known as the Province Charter. It united the Nova Scotia, Maine, Plymouth and Bay Colonies into a Royal Province.

Puritanism in England

Not just the functionaries, of course, but the whole structure of the English national church was permanently changed when Henry VIII declared its independence from Rome in the 1530s, and much of the religious turmoil can be understood as a struggle to complete the severance that Henry had begun. He had transferred authority over English Christians from pope to king, however, and this was only a beginning for reform-minded Englishmen. Roger Williams, roughly a century later, put it this way: "He despoiled the Pope . . . upon a grudge about his wife . . . and left the church half-Popish, half-Protestant."8

Puritanism aggravated the English religious controversy between the advocates of a simpler, fundamentalist church rooted in apostolic Christian times and a more formal, ritualistic, authoritarian church developed since that time. More specifically, Puritanism was an attitude towards religion that arose in opposition to the alleged unscriptural, Catholic forms embodied in the 1534 Act of Supremacy (which endowed the English monarch with full authority over the Church of England), the 1559 Act of Uniformity 9 (requiring all Englishmen to conform to it), and the 1563 Thirty-nine Articles promulgated by Elizabeth.

The first two acts were strict in tone but leniently enforced.

They affirmed the royal authority over the episcopal hierarchy; they prescribed uniformity of worship; and they imposed penalties upon any minister who failed to conform. The substitution of tables for altars, the wearing of copes and surplices, making the cross in the child's forehead in the sacrament of baptism-these and like matters were to the reformers questions of conscience and Scripture, on which they did not hesitate to challenge the authorities of church and state.10

The confession-like Thirty-nine Articles, were

...articles of religion come down from the beginning of Elizabeth's reign in Latin (1563) and English (1571)...The Elizabethan Articles are a careful and thorough revision, undertaken by Matthew Parker with the assistance of other bishops, and then further amended in Convocation, of the forty- two Articles which had been prepared by Thomas Cranmer (in both Latin and English) on the eve of the Marian crisis. Cranmer is, in effect, the "author" of our Thirty Nine Articles; for although Parker's revisions were extensive, especially in the second half of the document, Cranmer's conception and order was preserved, and his theological personality continued to give the Articles their distinctive character...The revisers were cautious and tidy. They filled gaps that Cranmer had left...They edited, corrected, sometimes rewrote. They made the Articles into a better document for church use...12 in place of the existing Episcopalian system of church government and who had already found common ground for opposition to Elizabeth's insistence on conformity.

The different theories of the relation between ecclesiastical and civil affairs at that time may be illustrated by referring to four religious groups. The Anglicans believed in the established church as it was; the Puritans believed in an established church, but they thought the Anglican church needed some reforms; the Separatists thought the Anglican church was like a vessel in which the process of decay had gone so far that it was better to rear a new structure, although they were not agreed on the details of the new structure; the Anabaptists demanded complete freedom of conscience which could he attained only by the separation of church and state. As has been indicated, the Pilgrims were Separatists who were less radical than the Anabaptists.13

This dispute arose when Archbishop Matthew Parker, acting on Elizabeth's order, laid down strict rules governing services and clerical dress. Coercive measures by the Anglican hierarchy followed. Puritan scholars and clergy were suspended, and a flood of pamphlets appeared to support both sides of the question. The idea of a free church was politically and religiously heretical.14

William Bradshaw, an outspoken minister in England, stated that "there is no superior pastor but only Jesus Christ; ...they are led by the spirit of Antichrist, that arrogate or take upon themselves to be pastors of pastors."15

These were harsh words in a society whose church still operated through an elaborate hierarchical structure; it was a direct affront to the authority of bishops and king. "The crown was at one and the same time supreme in matters temporal and in matters spiritual ecclesiastical, so that whenever the royal prerogatives were asserted, religious dissent became indistinguishable from civil sedition." 16 Since the episcopacy supported the crown, defection from the Anglican Church was a political as well as a religious crime, especially because of the instability the crown was undergoing from those opposed to its prerogatives. Religious uniformity was essential to political stability, so that Puritans and Catholics alike were essentially treated as traitors. Many of the penal laws were directed at the Puritans. At first the king himself had seemed sympathetic to those who now had renewed complaints about the sorry state of England's clergy. He even seemed willing to implement some of the requests incorporated in the moderate Millenary Petition of 1603, a document presented by a number of Puritan clergy and designed to foster a "learned and godly" ministry and to curb such abuses as excommunication "for trifles"-in short, a plan to return the church to conformity with what Puritans deemed its apostolic origin.17 But James correctly sensed that the Puritans' logic, even though politely presented, would eventually challenge his own authority: "No Bishop, No King," he declared with unconscious prophecy at the Hampton Court Conference, and added his famous threat: "I will harry them out of the land." 18 It is at this point that historians speak of a Puritan movement heading toward rebellion, or at least of a Puritan element in what would become the English Revolution. The King then deprived about 300 Puritan clergy of their benefices, thereby setting them and their flocks squarely against him. From that time onward neither James nor Charles saw eye to eye with the Puritans, who had heavy representation in the House of Commons.

Not one Parliament, however, between 1604 and 1640 acquiesced to the royal will; not one failed to introduce legislation, petitions, or remonstrances to block many of the crown's religious, financial, and foreign policies, or allowed the country to forget Puritan ideals. A constitutional impasse between parliamentary "rights" and royal prerogatives, frequently punctuated by lengthy periods of royal personal rule, pamphleteering, and occasional Puritan outbursts, culminated in the calling of the Long Parliament in 1640. Their series of legislative and governmental reforms caused another impasse that erupted into the Civil War and the execution of the monarch, and the creation under Cromwell of the first republic in English history.19

James enlisted a new ideology to suppress Puritanism characterized by oratorical elegance, a taste for ritual and splendor, a succession of revised editions of the Book of Common Prayer, a tendency to elevate human reason to autonomy and the idea that the church was an arm of the state. This was not a return to the ecclesiastical past as titles of the writings of the period show: Peter Berault's The Church of Rome Evidently Proved Heretick, Richard Sare's The Church of Rome No Guide in Matters of Faith, Isaac Cleave's The Church of Rome Unmasked or Her False Principles Briefly Detected, Eugenius Junior's Church-Pageantry Display'd or Organ-Worship, and the last but not least mouthful by John Owen, The Church of Rome No Safe Guide or Reasons to Prove That no Rational Man Who Takes Due Care of His Own Eternal Salvation Can Give Himself up unto the Conduct of That Church in Matters of Religion. Instead, it was D. Cawdrey's The Church Reformation Promoted, John Burroughes' Church Reformation Tenderly handled in Fovre Sermons, William Fenwisk's The Church Restored to Her Primitive Lustre, John Stricklsnd's The Church Triumphing in God With Us and Robert Fleming's The Church Wounded and Rent by a Spirit of Division.20

The American faction of the Puritan movement was basically a minor spin-off of English events. Whether with the approval or horror of England, the climax of the English Reformation had now arrived, first in the open and public defiance of episcopal authority in the 1630s, then in the struggle against Charles and William Laud in the 1640s.21

Compared to the "holy war" at home, the Colony settlement of the New World seemed like a diversion of energy and for some, even a mistake.

"A poor, cold, and useless" place was Cromwell's assessment of Massachusetts Bay--an opinion not without adherents among New Englanders themselves...It is necessary, therefore, to understand that the founders of Puritan New England had to contend almost immediately with an articulated sense, both from abroad and from within their own ranks, that they were missing the main event. This helps to explain the many Puritan pages on self-justification. Defensiveness was a part of New England's initiation.22

Puritans continued the long-standing Christian fascination at the middle of the seventeenth century that "the end" was at hand, and even those in the new settlement were to prepare for and would also take part in the triumphant coming of the saints. Roger Williams later saw this expectancy as outlandish pride.23

In England petitions continued to be presented to Parliament against things Roman, especially in the areas of public worship. Parliament obliged, for example, in 1653, by first tightening control through An Ordinance Appointing Commifsioners for Approbation of Publick Preachers and a "certificate" from commissioners; and second in 1654 with An Ordinance for the Ejection of Scandalous, Ignorant and Infufficient Minifters and Schoolmafters.24

Puritanism Comes to Colonial Massachusetts

"We call you Puritans," wrote an English clergyman named Oliver Ormerod at the beginning of the seventeenth century, "not because you are purer than other men . . . but because you think yourselves to be purer." That sentence, contemptuous as it is, contains a fundamental insight into the phenomenon called Puritanism: Ormerod understood that the Puritans had received their name, and even their sense of who they were, from those who reviled them. Theirs was a movement invented, in some respects, by its enemies.25

For so many people who have separated religion from their own daily lives as completely as have most present-day Americans, Puritans appear to have been uniquely obsessed by religious conviction. Yet for most Europeans of the seventeenth century, whether Catholics, Lutherans, Anglicans, Reformed or Jews, religious faith provided a central core for their existence, and in this respect Massachusetts Puritans merely expressed the religious commitment of their own time. In the strictest sense, they were the left-wing protestants within the Church of England and a peculiar result of the Reformation in England. Those who founded Virginia in 1607 and settled in some of the Caribbean islands went largely for material gain, land, and adventure, but "the Puritans who landed at Plymouth Rock in 1620 and Massachusetts Bay in 1628, who were joined by about 20,000 co-religionists during the 1630s, had left England to establish their own Christian commonwealths in the New World." 26 The first chapter of Alexander Young's Chronicles, begins the account "of the First Beginnings of This Church and People." 27 They were selected, "separated," for their piety and character and ability to promote their theocratic reforms effectively through a fresh start in a new world.

The mind of one man at one place and time is clear to us, however: that of John Winthrop, lawyer, manor lord of Groton in Suffolk, England, first governor of the Massachusetts Bay commonwealth, he whom the "Cheife undertakers" of the migration would not do without, "the wellfare of the Plantation" depending "upon his goeinge" with them to the New World.28 En route across the Atlantic on the Arbella, the flagship of the 1630 migration-poised, as it were, between two worlds-Winthrop prepared a lay sermon, "A Modell of Christian Charity," which he delivered to his fellow passengers. In one phrase of the peroration he summed up his thought: "Wee shall be as a Citty upon a Hill." 29

This phrase reflected Winthrop's innermost convictions about the type of society he and his fellow settlers intended to establish. It would be a "city" in the literal and physical sense: a centralized community where each settler would have his own house and garden and beyond this, fields where the general public would cultivate food and raise their livestock.

But the community would be the center, the seat of the church, the place of government, a fortified refuge should the Indians prove hostile or foreign enemies make an appearance. It would be a city, secondly, in the sense of a "city of God." Man would serve God here in all the ways that God demanded He be served. A meetinghouse where God's word in all its purity could be heard would bulk large, and men would worship God as He would have them worship. But far more: Men would serve their fellow men in this city as God would have them serve; men would fit into a society of men in such a way that the society would redound to God's credit, add luster to His crown."30

By the middle of the second decade, however, the "half-mile law" had already been enacted restricting building houses to within a half-mile of the meetinghouse.31

As towns grew, a Puritan theocratic oligarchy grew rapidly and the Presbyterian system established in Massachusetts Bay Colony drove out non-conformists such as the Antinomian Anne Hutchinson and the Seeker Roger Williams as quickly and as ruthlessly as Laud 32 had driven the Presbyterians out of England. Puritanism was shown to be as contentious in New England as it had been in England.

The established government supported and protected the church and, in return, received the cooperation and assistance of the ministers and church elders. Among the roster of ministers were the most educated and capable men in the colony, such as John Cotton, John Wilson, John Norton, Nathaniel Ward and Increase Mather. These men often called attention to needed legislative reform in their election or "calling sermons," and the court took their advice seriously.33 In fact, in 1639 Cotton and Ward were delegated to preparing a code to be reviewed by the magistrates before being submitted to the freemen for approval. With this unique position of ministers in the political and legislative scenes, a person "outside" the church had little chance to become a man of influence or power.

The manner of Cotton's installation into church office was to become traditional. He was invited to speak twice by way of testing, once in open discussion and once to "exercise," after which the communicants fasted, then met to call him to office by unanimous consent. Because Wilson had already been established as pastor of the church in November 1632, Cotton was chosen to the office of teacher.34 Before the approving congregation, the pastor invited Cotton to the pulpit and queried him as to whether or not he would accept their call to minister to them, to which Cotton answered that while "he knew himself unworthy and insufficient," he had "observed all the passages of God's providence, (which he reckoned up in particular) in calling him to it"; hence, "he could not but accept it." The officers of the church laying their hands upon his head in the name of the whole body of members, the pastor prayed. "And then, taking off their hands, laid them on again, and, speaking to him by his name, they did thenceforth design him to the said office, in the name of the Holy Ghost, and did give him the charge of the congregation, and did thereby, (as by a sign from God) indue him with the gifts fit for his office; and lastly did bless him.35

Variant Systems of Government

By far the largest majority of Puritans went along with the Episcopal system, provided the laity could share in the policy-making process and "popish" forms in the liturgy were eliminated from their church services with even more vehemence than in England. This group of moderates retained general control of Puritans. Other Puritans, led by Thomas Cartwright, advocated a Presbyterian ecclesiastical model; they were originally few but later obtained recognition from the Scots, controlling, for instance, Westminster Assembly (1643-49), convened to reform the church.

These Puritans invested ecclesiastical sovereignty in four bodies, the Kirk Session, the Presbytery, the Provincial Synod, and the General Assembly. The Separatists (known also as Brownists originally, and as Independents later on) constituted the third broad category of Puritans. As early as the 1550s groups or persons met in separate congregations (conventicles) to conduct services apart from the Established Church. Robert Browne, one of the early Separatist leaders, wrote several pamphlets that advocated the independence of each parish congregation from either a parental, hierarchical, or secular political control.36

These Puritans held that each congregation was autonomous under the sole supremacy of Christ, and they formed self-governing parishes that supposedly operated on a principle of democracy; subsequent conflicts show that such parishes often became subject to the dictates of their elected ministers. Congregationalism evolved from and became synonymous with this form of Puritanism.

Doctrine and Behavior

Although Puritans disagreed over dogma, practically all stressed the Bible as the only true source of faith and conduct and as evidence of mankind's fall from grace, and in general they shared a belief in predestination. Puritan ecclesiastics as well as individual members of their congregations read the Bible avidly, interpreted it as they chose, and often argued over the form of church government it enjoined. From the Calvinistic conviction of the validity of private interpretation of the Bible grew a specific interpretation of basic beliefs: a deep sense of devotion to Christ and to duty; life after death; God's call of mankind from its natural state of sin and death to eternal life; that man should prepare to receive God's grace no matter how great the odds against his being "among the elect"; how a prolonged period of humiliation can prepare an individual for God's grace; and Bible-based prayer for the forgiveness of sin. They severely criticized what they termed "idolatrous forms," including vestments, statuary, the sign of the cross, the use of holy water and other sacramentals, and the position of the altar (communion table). Puritans also minimized the intermediary role of ministers and encouraged preaching, emphasized simplicity of dress and hair styles, unostentatious ceremony, and church music without instruments. They also regarded the Sabbath as a day absolutely without work, travel, or recreation that might interfere with worship. Aside from these broad tenets of Puritan belief, they agreed upon little else.

Pilgrims' Progress

The Pilgrims of Plymouth and the Puritans of Massachusetts Bay dedicated their land by providing themselves with devout ministers and arranging for their support. Company ships from England put ministers at the top of a list of persons and things to be sent. 37 In fact, the company agreed with the planters to cover half of the support of ministers together with churches and other charges for seven years. From the eighth year onwards there was to be an assessment on the important settlements reckoned according to their means.38 This was for the support of Mr. Wilson and Mr. Phillips, the first ministers. 39 Later, ordinances were passed requiring a committee to see also to the "enjoyment of God's worship."

Boundaries

The word town denoted ecclesiastical and civil boundaries. Parishes are not mentioned as ecclesiastical divisions, and the distinction between the two was not known in old Colony and Massachusetts records. Instead, provincial statutes use precinct, parish and district indiscriminately for ecclesiastical as well as civil purposes. It is only after the Revolution that the term parish begins to be used in a strictly ecclesiastical sense, when its inhabitants began to be considered a "body corporate" and when the parish itself had to be divided. This second type of territorial parish or precinct consisted of contiguous lands, otherwise the term poll parish was used. The third type which sprang up had no reference to lands and estates and was commonly called a religious society.

Support of the Gospel rested on the ecclesiastical law in force in England before the Reformation. In the Massachusetts settlement every man in the town, parish, precinct or district, with his lands, was to contribute to the town parish or precinct where he lived unless specifically exempted by the General Court. To contribute to another town parish when he moved or married was called "setting off" and such transfers were made through application also to the General Court.

It was also not easy for a parish, precinct or individual to be "set off," and a strong case had to be presented to the court. Petitions from towns to call a new minister were frequent, as well as those seeking aid for the support of ministers. Private persons, for example, had to petition to attend a sermon of their favorite preacher in a nearby town.

This mingling of the civil and ecclesiastical in our early history needs no apology; it implies no usurpation of power. The Confederate Commissioners of the New England Colony, from 1643 to 1667, maintained careful supervision of the religious conditions of each colony. They distributed Bibles, they conducted missions to the Indians, on a scale unknown before their time, besides settling the very difficult question of public law relating to war, boundary, and jurisdiction, on high Christian principles, without precedents to guide them.40

With such a concept of the relation between church and state, it was only natural that the General Court should enact laws to maintain the church and protect it from all "corruption and danger." This was not only seen as the right of the court, but also its duty.

Taxation for Religion

With religious tolerance not part of the European scene, where each European state had its respective state church, the colonists naturally modified English laws concerning church support.

The colonists did not consider English law binding. The statutes passed by the General Court were to them the positive, and the Scriptures the subsidiary law. . . [T]he colonists united three elements in their legal system: (1) They brought with them, in a general way, English institutions, judicial procedure, legal forms, and, to a certain extent, personal and property rights. (2) They drew from the Mosaic code and other portions of the Bible certain notions of theocratic government, moral and religious duties, and criminal liability. (3) To these they added a colonial element, made up of laws and customs that were in part somewhat archaic and in part far in advance of the times. These three elements, the English, the Jewish, and the colonial, were curiously blended, producing in effect what was largely a new legal system. . . The Puritans successfully maintained their position until the government under the first charter came to an end.41

Thus one of the earliest statutes (1638) states that every colonist who did not contribute voluntarily to the support of the commonwealth and the church, was compelled to do so by means of an assessment or tithe. Civil documents use "tax," "taxation" and "assessment," whereas ecclesiastical writings usually employ the scriptural "tithe." 42 The object of the church tax was to pay for building houses for ministers and for some of their support, mostly in the form of food, goods and services.43

The laws of 1652 required not only that all towns be supplied with a minister and a parsonage, but also that the town should be taxed for his support.

To the end there may be convenient habitation for the use of the ministry in every town in this jurisdiction, to remain to posterity, it is hereby decreed, by the authority of the Court, where the major part of the inhabitants, according to the order of regulating valid town acts, Numb: __, shall grant or purchase any habitation, it shall be good in law, and in particular sum upon each person assessed by just rate shall be due, to be paid accordingly, as in other cases of town rates; provided always, that such grant be entered in the town book, and the deed of purchase and the deed of gift thereupon to the use of a present parish elder, and his next successor, and so from time to time to his successors, and be acknowledged before a magistrate, and recorded.44

This, of course was to insure that the religious basis of society continued with the financial burden shared by all. 45 The town could appeal the assessment but not the fact that it had to provide an "able and faithful" minister and parsonage to its inhabitants. It could even issue common stock, "the same to be employed only indefrayment of public charges, as maintenance of ministers, transportation of poor families, building of churches and fortificatons..." 46 This town duty continued undiminished, and up to 1800 there are still specific penalties listed for towns that had neglected to supply good preaching to its townspeople. The court in 1637, for example, "desired that the several churches will speedily inquire hereinto and if need be to confer together about it and send some to advise with this Court at the next session thereof, that some order may be taken herein according to the rule of the gospel."47

All inhabitants were required to attend preaching, and it was an offense, not to mention against the law, to be absent from public worship; a penalty was imposed if it was the Lord's Day, fast day or thanksgiving.48

Non-freemen and non-church members were not exempt, and the tax "fell upon all alike, even if they never saw the minister in church." Those civil corporations holding property within the parish boundary were also taxed for support of public worship up to 1831. Even though corporations "had no souls to be saved," public religious and moral instruction was for the prevention of crimes.49

Parish taxes for the support of public worship were collected by the same legal process of attachment and arrest of the body, as taxes for town or county purposes. "Corrupt and sinful" towns content to be without the "ministry of the word" were nevertheless taxed for a future building and minister.50

If a parish was delinquent in paying taxes, each member was liable individually; with court enforcement by virtue of "a long course of court decisions, too ancient to be unsettled."

Forasmuch as it highly tends to the advancement of the gospel that the ministry thereof be comfortably maintained, and it being the duty of the civil power to use all lawful means for the attaining of that end, and that henceforth there may be established a settled and encouraging maintenance of ministers in all towns and congregations within this jurisdiction, this Court does order that the County Court in every shire shall...order and appoint what maintenance shall be allowed to the ministers of that place, and shall issue out warrants to the selectmen to assess, and the constable of the town to collect the same and distribute the said assessment upon such as refuse to pay. 51

A man easily become enrolled (and therefore on the tax rolls) as a parish member when a certificate was filed to that effect with the parish clerk, upon the application of a friend and by regular attendance at parish meetings. However, a change in parish membership also required him to file a certificate with the parish clerk that he no longer considered himself to be a member of the parish. The court followed the English precedent which held that all the inhabitants of the commonwealth belonged to some religious society and were to be taxed somewhere for the support of the gospel. This also meant that all inhabitants were assigned to membership somewhere, that is, forced upon a religious society without its assent.

It was only with a change in law which came in 1836 whereby "no one can be made a member of a religious society without his consent in writing," that legally his general liability for all debts of the parish was also taken away. The member who assented in writing and was accepted in writing by the religious society became liable only for his proportionate amount, not for all the debts of the society as a whole.

Leaving a denomination

Movement or transfer of membership was handled by the certificate pro-cess, whereby the member received official documentation of his exiting membership concomitant with his acceptance into his receiving membership. It was only later by formal heresy, excommunication, banishment, expulsion, dissent and atheism, that any man cold hold the status of a non-member.

Everie Church hath alfo free libertie of admiffion, recommendation, difmiffion & expulfion or depofall of their Officers and members upon due caufe, with free exercife of the difciplin and cenfures of Chrift according to the rules of his word.52

Banishment as a penalty took place with Roger Williams and Ann Hutchinson. The Quakers were killed during a two-year period of rigorous dealing (1658) mainly because they and their dissenting ideas returned from banishment. It took about one hundred years for tolerance laws to allow Anabaptists and Quakers to be "permanently exempted from tax to support Congregational ministers and repair the Congregational meetinghouse, provided they brought certificates from three members of their religious society attesting that they were "conscientious in their scruples" and attended their meetings for the worship of God on the Lord's Day. In the William and Mary charter the "papists" were excepted from the freedom of conscience allowed in the worship of God to all Christians. Tax laws were relaxed for Episcopalians about 1735 when they were allowed to receive their fair share of taxes collected by the town treasurer from their parishioners with certificates. The Baptists persevered in their resistance to the tax and received limited relief only in the 1757 act of the general court.53

The dissenters, as the Quakers, Baptists, Methodists, Presbyterians, Episcopalians, Methodists, Unitarians and Universalists were called, did battle for religious liberty in Massachusetts. They were bent on furthering the separation of church from ties to the state. Following Boston's lead, relief from territorial parish taxes came when it was no longer allowed to tax the inhabitants generally, and so a proportionate assessment was attached to owners of pews. Most religious societies adopted this plan, and it was confirmed by the statutes of 1786.54

The dissenters were also set on doing away with all aspects of ecclesiastical law reminiscent of the English Acts of Uniformity, which means that religion had to support itself on its own merits, not by legislated taxation. This placed all religious societies, now seen and referred to as "denominations," on an equal footing. These were the ideas not only suggested by the dissenters to the Massachusetts Constitutional Convention of 1780, but also tried in the courts to obtain a favorable interpretation of the Massachusetts Bill of Rights with so-called "toleration clauses" stating that all men are equally entitled to the free exercise of religion according to the dictates of conscience.

Art. 3. Section 1. As the public worship of God and instructions in piety, religion, and morality, promote the happiness and prosperity of a people, and the security of a republican government; therefore, the several religious societies of this commonwealth, whether corporate or unincorporate, at any meeting legally warned and holden for that purpose, , shall ever have the right to elect their pastors or religious teachers, to contract with them for their support, to raise money for erecting and repairing houses for public worship, for the maintenance of religious instruction, and for the payment of necessary expenses; and all persons belonging to any religious society shall be taken and held to be members, until they shall file with the clerk of such society a written notice, declaring the written dissolution of their membership, and thenceforth shall not be liable for any grant or contract which may be thereafter made, or entered into by such society; and all religious sects and denominations, demeaning themselves peaceably, and as good citizens of the commonwealth, shall be equally under the protection of the law; and no subordination of any one sect or denomination to another shall ever be established by law.

Section 2. All moneys raised by taxation in the towns and cities for the support of public schools, and all moneys which may be appropriated by the commonwealth for the support of common schools, shall be applied to and expended; . . .and no grant, appropriation or use of public money or loan of public credit shall be made or authorized by the commonwealth or any political division thereof for the purpose of founding, maintaining or aiding any school or institution of learning, whether under public control or otherwise, wherein any denominational doctrine is inculcated...55

Under statutes passed after the Bill of Rights, individuals might pay their taxes for the maintenance of any "public Protestant teacher of piety, religion and morality" of their own denomination, provided there was one in the town where they attended church; otherwise the tax was to be paid to the established Congregational minister of the parish.

A law of 1799 allowed the town treasurers to omit taxing those who belonged to and usually attended other churches, as well as allowing the ministers of non-Congregational churches to recover by petition or suit from the town treasurers the sums paid for the support of the gospel.

Sect. 4. Be it further enacted that every town, parish, precinct, district, precinct, district and other body politic and religious society aforesaid, is hereby authorized to cause all sums of money by them respectively voted to be raised, from time to time, in any legal meeting duly assembled and holden fur that purpose, for the settlement or support of any public teacher or teachers as aforesaid, or the building or repairing any house or houses of public worship, to be assessed on all the ratable polls and property within each particular corporation or religious society aforesaid (the polls and estates of Quakers excepted) in the same proportion as state or town taxes are by law assessed. And such sums of money, when so assessed and collected, shall be paid into the treasury of such town, if composed of one parish or society; if otherwise, to the treasurer of the parish. precinct, district, or other body politic or religious society aforesaid, to be by him paid out as directed and ordered by the selectmen of such town or district committee (where chosen) or otherwise by the assessors of such parish, precinct, and other body politic or religious society, for the purposes for which such money was raised: Provided however, That when any person taxed in any such tax or assessment voted to be raised as aforesaid, for the purposes aforesaid, being at the time of voting or raising any such tax or assessment of a different sect or denomination from that of the corporation, body politic or religious society by which said tax was so assessed, shall request that the tax set against him or her, in the assessment made for the purposes aforesaid, may be applied to the support of the public teacher of his own religious sect or denomination; such person, procuring a certificate signed by the public teacher on whose instruction he usually attends, and by two other persons of the society of which he is a member (having been specially chosen a committee to sign said certificate) in substance as follows, viz.

WE, the subscribers, A. B. Public teacher of a society of the religious sect or. denomination called in the town, district, precinct or parish of and C. D. E. F. Committee of said society, do hereby certify that doth belong to said society, and that he or she (as the case may be) frequently and usually, when able, attends with us in our stated meetings for religious worship.

Sect. 5. Be it further enacted, That the assessors of each parish or religious society within the Commonwealth may omit, in the taxes voted to be assessed On the polls and estates within such parish or society, such persons, living within the limits of the same, as belong to and usually attend public worship provided, That nothing in this Act contained shall take from any church or religious society in the town of Boston, or any other town, the right and liberty to support the public worship of God, by a tax on pews, or other established mode.56

It was also later clarified in the 1804 Ebenezer Washburn v. Fourth Parish of West Springfield case that unless that Methodist minister was "ordained and settled over a society," he could not recover under the 1799 law. 57 Statutes were passed between 1804 and the amendment of the Bill of Rights in 1836 denying ministers of unincorporated societies from receiving the taxes of their parishioners because they were not the "public" teachers prescribed by the Bill of Rights. That they were merely "private teachers of piety, religion and morality" was decided by Chief Justice Parsons in the case of a Universalist minister in Falmouth in 1810.58

Since very few churches along the Atlantic seaboard had been incorporated, this decision sparked a speedy rise in legal incorporations among "dissenters" who also applied to the legislature in 1811 for an enabling statute. In the time of just five years there were approximately seventy special incorporation acts passed and only one of them for a Congregational society.

Statute 1811, Chapter 6, was passed to give to voluntary religious societies some of the attributes which corporations already enjoyed in order for them to have some legal standing in court, thus it was called the "religious freedom act." Because of this act a person might leave a Congregational society for a "dissenting" in the same town whether he had "scruples" or not. His tax eventually reached his own minister-however ordained, settled or itinerant-whether his religious society was incorporated or not. He need only present a certificate that he belonged to a new society. 59 The full text of the "religious freedom act" follows:

Sect 1. Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives, in General Court assembled, and by the authority of the same, That all monies paid by any citizen of this Commonwealth to the support of public worship, or of public teachers of religion, shall if such citizen require it, be uniformly applied to the support of the public teacher or teachers of his own religious sect or denomination, provided there be any on whose instructions he usually attends, as well as where such teacher or teachers is or are teacher or teachers of an unincorporated as of a corporate religious society; and it shall be sufficient to entitle any such teacher or teachers of a corporate or unincorporated religious society to receive the same monies of the town, district, parish or religious corporation, which shall assess, collect, or receive the same, that he be ordained and established according to the forms and usages of his own religious sect and denomination, although his parochial charge or duties may extend over other religious societies, according to such forms and usages.

Sec. 2. Be it further enacted, That whenever any person shall become a member of any religious society, corporate or unincorporate, within this Commonwealth, such membership shall be certified by a committee of such society, chosen for this purpose, and filed with the clerk of the town where he dwells, such person shall forever afterwards be exempted from taxation for the support of public worship and public teachers of religion in every other religious corporation whatsoever, so long as he shall continue such membership. And the certificate of such committee may be as follows: -We certify that A.B. of the town of , is a member of the religious society in the town of , called . Dated this day of A.D. 18 .

}Committee.

Sect. 3. Be it further enacted, That in case any donation, gift, or grant shall hereafter be made to any unincorporate religious society, such society shall have full power to manage, improve, and use the same, according to the terms and conditions on which the same may be made; to elect suitable trustees, agents, or officers therefor, and to prosecute and sue for any right, which may vest in such society, in consequence of such donation, gift, or grant.

Sect. 4. Be it further enacted, That all ministers ordained agreeably to the usages of the sect or denomination to which they severally belong, whether over corporate or unincorporate society or societies, within this Commonwealth, shall have the same exemptions from taxation, as are given to stated ordained ministers of the gospel, in the town, district, parish or plantation where they are settled, subject, however, to the same restrictions and penalties.

Sec. 5. Be it further enacted, That all parts of acts inconsistent with this Act be, and the same are hereby repealed. [June 18, 1811].60

The taxation conflicts which developed around 1811 occurred during a time when the Commonwealth's policy was still one of uniformity-the uniformity which required public worship still to be funded by taxation. Legislation adjusted taxation requirements and took new growth and development into consideration, but judicial decisions aggravated the conflicts, because the enforcement of stringent laws continued to promote dissent and the weakening of the Congregational-established church.

In 1820 the Convention convened to modify the Constitution. The "dissenters," who because of so many statutory changes were not "tolerated," and the Congregationalists alike hoped to modify the Bill of Rights to include the enabling act of 1811. In effect, this would leave very little supervision of religion to towns and to town treasurers. An amendment was prepared to that effect::

III. As the happiness of a people, and the good order and preservation of civil government, essentially depend upon piety, religion and morality; and as these cannot be generally diffused through a Community, but by the institution of the public worship of God, and of public instructions in piety, religion and morality: Therefore, to promote their happiness and to secure the good order and preservation of their government, the people of this Commonwealth have a right to invest their legislature with power to authorize and require, and the legislature shall, from time to time, authorize and require, the several Towns, Parishes, precincts, and other bodies politic, or religious societies, to make suitable provision, at their own Expence, for the institution of the Public worship of God, and for the support and maintenance of public protestant teachers of piety, religion and morality, in all cases where such provision shall not be made Voluntarily. -And the people of this Commonwealth have also a right to, and do, invest their legislature with authority to enjoin upon all the Subjects as attendance upon the instructions of the public teachers aforesaid, at stated times and seasons, if there be any on whose instructions they can Conscientiously and conveniently attend - Provided notwithstanding, that the several towns, Parishes, precincts, and other bodies Politic, or religious societies, shall, at all times, have the exclusive right of electing their public Teachers, and of contracting with them for the support and maintenance. -And all monies paid by the Subject to the Support of public worship, and of the public teachers aforesaid, if he require it, be uniformly applied to the support of the public teacher or teachers of his own religious sect or denomination, provided there be any on whose instructions he attends; otherwise it may be paid towards the support of the teacher or teachers of the parish or precinct in which the said monies are raised -And every denomination of christians, demeaning themselves peaceably, and as good subjects of the Commonwealth, shall be equally under the protection of the Law: and no subordination of any one sect or denomination to another shall ever be established by law.61

The amendment was rejected by a majority of more than 8,000. By Amendment XI, adopted in 1833, an entire new article was substituted for the above:

Instead of the Third Article of the Bill of Rights, the following Modification and Amendment thereof is substituted.

As the public worship of God and instructions in piety, religion and morality, promote the happiness and prosperity of a people and the security of a Republican Government; -Therefore, the several religious societies of this Commonwealth, whether corporate or unincorporate, at any meeting legally warned and holden for that purpose, shall ever have the right to elect their pastors or religious teachers, to contract with them for their support, to raise money for erecting and repairing houses of public worship, for the maintenance of religious instruction, and for the payment of necessary expenses: And all persons belonging to any religious society shall be taken and held to be members, until they shall file with the Clerk of such Society, a written notice, declaring the dissolution of their membership, and thenceforth shall not be liable for any grant or contract, which may thereafter made, or entered into by such society: - And all religious sects and denominations demeaning themselves peaceably and as good citizens of the Commonwealth, shall be equally under the protection of the law; and no subordination of any one sect or denomination to another shall ever be established by law.62

There was still a strong attachment to the Commonwealth's ecclesiastical supervision. The Congregationalists, with 383 churches, 63 had no complaints with the tax system. They saw any amendment to the Bill of Rights as the removal of religion and dignity. The legislature saw its authority to provide for the observance of Sunday as derived from the general authority or "police power" to regulate the business of the community and to provide for its moral and physical welfare. "A Sunday closing law imposes upon no one any religious ceremony or attendance upon any form of worship, and hence is not unconstitutional."64

Chief Justice Parker favored the amendments. The Congregationalists had become complacent in thinking the established order would never end and others would continue to bear their taxes. Another usage that shook the Congregationalists was the manner of "settling" the minister.

From the beginning of the Colony, the church elected the minister without asking for concurrence from the parish in which he was to minister. The usage changed by law first in 1641, then in 1648 and 1668, with the election of ministers by concurrent vote.

The previous and long standing practice of having the church vote for the minister and the parish sanction this vote was pushed aside by the town of Dedham which tossed off allegiance to the church, chose Rev. Alvan Lamson as minister in spite of the objections of two thirds of the church members, and appealed to the Supreme Judicial Court to confirm their choice of minister. 65 Dedham was claiming rights distinct from the church and against the vote of the church.

"Whatever," said Chief Justice Parker in 1820, "the usage in settling ministers, the Bill of Rights of 1780 66 secures to towns, not to churches, the right to elect the minister, in the last resort." The town of Dedham opted to assert its constitutional authority, and the Commonwealth recognized its claim, prior usage notwithstanding. When it came to which of the two churches was to retain records and property, Parker's decision was "Where a majority of the members of a Congregational church separate from the majority of the parish, the members who remain, although a minority, constitute the church in such parish, and retain the rights and property belonging thereto." 67 The adherents, the party adhering to the parish, take the property and the name. The parish (viz. town) has power to hold property, not the church, whether because it was an unincorporated association or because it was severed from the religious society.

Later, in 1831, it was again decided that a seceding church could not retain the records of the church, because they were the property of the church which was connected with the parish. 68 This rule was applied until 1850, when the case of the Hollis Street Church 69 modified the Dedham decision which was based on the distinction that the church was merged in the parish. Here the court recognized that the church was a body capable of holding and managing its own property so long as its connection to the parish was maintained. The practical effect of this was that money acquired from taxation could only be disbursed to the parish, not to any church separated from that parish.

The taxation laws that bound churches and towns together in the past had become unacceptable from the time of the Dedham case. The Congregationalists saw the change as effectively ending all hope of support of religion (Congregationalism) from the Commonwealth. Dissatisfaction became so widespread that in 1833 the amendment to Article III of the Bill of Rights was adopted (supra) and the once "venerable" and two-hundred year old taxation for religion policy of the Commonwealth derived from England was abandoned entirely.70

The Bill of Rights now recognized "the public worship of God and instruction in piety and morality as promoting the happiness and prosperity of a people, and the security of republican government," but gave the Commonwealth no duty to enforce such worship or instruction. By this amendment religious societies "have the right to elect their pastors or religious teachers, to contract with them for their support, to raise money for erecting and repairing houses of public worship, for the maintenance of religious instruction, and for the payment of necessary expenses." The Commonwealth is discharged from nursing and fostering churches.

The separation had taken place. After Henry VIII severed ties with the Church of Rome, England assumed and jealously guarded the authority to direct religion through the Church of England. From the time of the Plymouth landing and onwards for two centuries, established religion assumed and jealously guarded the authority to direct society through taxation for religion.

I have thoroughly enjoyed disproving to myself the preconceived conclusions which prompted this paper: that Pilgrims and Puritans alike were fleeing taxation for religion and that religious "dissenters" (viz. Non-Congregationalists) brought about the end to taxation for religion. The slow historical transition to religious tolerance and legal enactments regarding religious liberty derived from the amendment to the Constitution that "all religious sects and denominations. . . shall be equally under the protection of the law and no subordination of any one sect or denomination shall ever be established by law" 71 are to be seen as better reasons for the abolition of taxation for religion.

It seems that taxation for religion in the Commonwealth just sputtered to a halt for just those reasons.

Endnotes

* A research paper submitted on July 24, 1995, at the Southern New England School of Law in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the course, Massachusetts Legal History, conducted by Professor Frances Rutko, J.D., Ph.D.

1 The colonists tried to obtain a charter but never succeeded. They governed under authority of the patent granted in 1621 by the Council for New England, a body organized in 1620 by a reorganization of the Plymouth Company. It was given rights of government over all the territories included in its charter.

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2 Henry Steele Commager, ed., Documents of American History, New York, Appleton, 1968, p. 12.

3 Louis Adams Frothingham, A Brief History of the Constitution and Government of Massachusetts, Cambridge, Harvard University, 1916, p. 3.

4 With the slight nuance each historian gives, the name seems to be merged with the Puritans, and are they also referred to as settlers, adventurers, planters, Independents and later, Separatists. "Reformers" usually refers to members of the Dutch Reformed (Calvinist) Church, some of whose members were the Mayflower passengers.

5 The 1628 charter was not brought over to this country by Governor Endicott and the first colonists, but instead by Winthrop and other settlers who reached Salem in 1630 and brought the second charter with them. The text of the 1629 Charter is printed in William Dummer Northend, The Bay Colony, Boston, Eston and Lauriat, 1896, Appendix, pp. 305-330.

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6 This is referred to as the Sheffield Patent.

7 op. cit., Commager, p 16.

8 Quoted in Alan Heimert and Andrew Deblanco, eds., The Puritans in America, Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 1985, pp. 1-2.

9 Caroli II Regis, An Act for the Uniformity of Publick Prayers and Adminiftration of Sacraments, and other Rites and Ceremonies: and for eftablifhing the form of Making, Ordaining and Confecrating Bifhops, Priefts and Deacons in the Church of England, Reprint of the London edition, Edinburgh, 1662.

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10 Ralph Barton Perry, Puritanism and Democracy, New York, Vangard Press, 1944, p. 68.

11 Oliver O'Donovan, On the Thirty Nine Articles: a Conversation with Tudor Christianity, Exeter, Paternoster Press, 1986, pp. 11-12.

12 Especially the elimination of bishops and delegation of authority to presbyteries or councils of ministers who were ultimately answerable to their individual congregations. A hierarchical church, such as the Church of England or the Roman Church, saw authority, ministry, teaching and leadership "dispensed" and exercised in a strictly superior-inferior manner-at the discretion of the superior.

13 Jacob B. Meyer, Church and State in Massachusetts from 1740 to 1833, Cleveland, Western Reserve University Press, 1930, p. 2.

14 op. cit., Meyer, note 5, p. 3.

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15 op. cit., Heimert, p. 4.

16 op. cit., Perry, p. 68.

17 The petition was signed by more than eight hundred men of the cloth. The document, called for moderate ecclesiastical reforms, such as the right of the clergy to choose the garb they would wear at services, the abolition of sacramentals, bowing at the name of Jesus, simplicity of worship, and release of clergymen from the necessity of accepting everything in the Book of Common Prayer so long as they subscribed to the Oath of Supremacy.

18 As quoted without reference by Heimert, p. 4.

19 C. Hill, Society and Puritanism and Revolution, London, 1958, p. 45.

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20 Early English Books 1641-1700, Ann Arbor, University Microfilms, 1990, Microfilm Title Index, p. 2078.

21 William Laud became Charles I's bishop of London three years after James's death and Archbishop of Canterbury in 1663. Favoring "high church" ritual and strict uniformity, he relentlessly attacked the Puritans and was at least partially responsible for their emigration to the New World from outright persecution.

22 op. cit., Heimert, p. 6

23 Benjamin W. Labaree, Colonial Massachusetts, Millwood, NY, Kto Press, 1979, p. 72.

24 op. cit., Early English Books, Vol. 1, 20 March, 1653, pp 203-209 and August 29, 1654, p. 210.

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25 op. cit., Heimert, p. 1.

26 op. cit., Perry, p. 71.

27 Alexander Young, Chronicles of the Pilgrim Fathers of the Colony of Massachusetts from 1602 to 1625, Boston, Little and Brown, 1841, p. 19.

28 "Perticular Consideration in the case of J:W [1629]," in Massachusetts Historical Society, Winthrop Papers, 5 vols. Boston, 1929-47, II, p. 133.

29 The phrase is borrowed from the Gospel of Matthew 5:14. "A Modell of Christian Charity," Winthrop Papers, II, 282-95.

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30 Darrett B. Rutman, Winthrop's Boston: a Portrait of a Puritan Town 1630-1649, New York, Norton and Co., 1965, p. 4.

31 Records of the Colony of New Plymouth in New England, vol. 1, 1633-1640, Boston, Press of William White, 1855, pp, 157, 181 The 1636 law was repealed in 1640.

32 Daniel Neal, History of New England ...of 1700, London, Printed for A. Ward, 1747, Chapter IV: "The State of Religion in England under Archbishop Laud, p. 141ff.

33 The abundance of recorded sermons from the time can be traced to the newly developed ritual of "calling a minister," in which the "audition" sermon had to be spectacularly written and delivered to the congregation deciding on his ability and worthiness.

34 "The Paftors fpecial worke is to attend upon Exhortation, and therein to difpenfe a word of Wifdome: The Teacher is to attend upon Doctrine, and therein to difpenfe a Word of Knowledge Romans 12:7-8)," John Cotton, The Doctrine of the Church, London, Printed for Ben. Allen, 1644., p. 2.

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35 Winthrop's Journal, I, as quoted in Rutman, op. cit., pp. 107ff.

36 op. cit., Northend, p. 264-5.

37 "To provide to send for New England:- Ministers; Pattent vnder seale; a seale; Wheate, rye . . .;Stones of all sorts of fruits . . .; Saffron heads; Liquorice seed . . .." in Nathaniel B. Shurtleff, M.D., ed., Records of the Governor and Company of the Massachusetts Bay in New England, vol. 1, 1628-1641, p, 24, 16 March.

38 "That the charge of the ministers now there, or that shall hereafter go to reside there, as also the charge of building convenient churches, and all other public works upon the plantation, be in like manner indifferently borne, the one half by the Company joint stock for the said term of 7 years, and the other half by the planters." op. cit., Shurtleff, vol. 5, p. 55 §37.

39 "It was propounded how the ministers should be maintained, Mr. Wilson and Mr. Phillips . . ." op. cit., Shurtleff, vol. 1, 1930, p. 73.

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40 Edward Buck, Massachusetts Ecclesiastical Law, Boston, Gould and Lincoln, 1866, p. 23.

41 Charles, J, Hilkey, Legal Developments in Colonial Massachusetts 1630-1686, New York, Columbia University, 1910, pp. 144-45.

42 as in Sir Henry Spelman's Tithes Too Hot To Be Touched: certain treatises, wherein is shewn that tithes are due, by the law of nature, scripture, nations, therefore neither Jewish, Popish, or inconvenient, London, Philemon Stevens, 1646; and also in William Lamar, Tithes Totally Routed by Magna Charta, London, Printed by F.L., 1653.

43 John D. Cushing, ed., A Bibliography of the Laws and Resolves of the Massachusetts Bay 1642-1780, pp. 90, 98, 149, references a 1721 and a 1725 near-statutory "Resolve concerning the better support of the ministry," and in 1748 "A vote recommending support of the ministry."

44 Nathaniel B. Shurtleff, M.D., ed., Records of the Governor and Company of the Massachusetts Bay in New England, vol. 2, 1628-1641, Boston, Press of William White, 1853, p, 217 §702. Translation of abbreviations mine.

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45 Plymouth Records of 1637 show the annual tax for the minister and parsonage of the Town of Newbury on all inhabitants to be £60. Massachusetts Bay Records of 1630 spread out the £60 amount to Boston £20, Watertown £20, Charlton £20, Roxbury £6 Medford £3 and Winnett-semett £1. op. cit., Shurtleff, vol 1, p. 82 §66.

46 op. cit., Shurtleff, vol. 5, p. 68.

47 op. cit., Shurtleff, vol. 1, p. 216 §212.

48 "It is ordered that whosoever person or persons shall neglect the frequenting the publick worshipp of God that is according to God in the places where they live or doe assemble themselves vpon and pretence whatsoever in any way contrary to God and the allowance of the gouernment tending to the subversion of Religion and churches or palpable prophanacon of Gods holy ordinances being duely convicted; videlecet euery one that is a master or dame of a family or any other person at theire own desposing to pay ten shillings for euery such default." Nathaniel B. Shurtleff, M.D., ed., Records of the Colony of New Plymouth in New England, vol. 9, 1651, Boston, Press of William White, 1855. 57.

Also, Colonial Laws of Massachusetts, 1660-1672, pp. 147-148; 1672-86, pp. 44-45.

49 The "crimes" in the index considered especially religious and moral are here listed in italics: "Adultery, assault, breach of peace, dancing, defamation, disorderly living, drinking or smoking tobacco, drunkenness, extortion, fornication, hiring land of Indians, lewdness, miller's frauds, murder, neglecting public worship, nuisance, receiving stolen goods, reviling religion, Sabbath breach, seditious speeches, selling gun powder to Indians, servants running away, stealing, swearing, tailor's frauds, towns not providing arms, towns not exercising militia, towns not choosing officers, towns not having pounds, towns not repairing ways, vagrancy." Op. cit., Shurtleff, Plymouth Colony Records, vol. 1, 1633-1640, p, 186.

An Abstract of the Lawes of New England , as they are now established, London, Printed for Coules and Paules, 1641, pp. 10-11, includes also idolatry, banishment for whomsoever reviles the government of the church, heresy and witchcraft as crimes punishable by death.

John Usher, The General Laws and Liberties of the Massachusetts Colony, Cambridge, Samuel Green, 1972, p. 14-16, contains a listing of Capital Laws which closely follows the Decalogue of the Hebrew Bible.

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50 "Whereas It hath bine and is the pious care and true intent of this Court that all such plantations and Townships as are by them Graunted should maintaine the publicke sabbath Worship of God and the preaching of the word and doe to that end affoard them such proportions of lands as may accommodate such a society as may be able to maintaine the same; and yett through the corruption or sinfull neglect of many or most of the Inhabitants of some plantations they content themselues to liue without the minnestry of the word to the great dishonor of God and danger of their soules . . . It is by this Court enacted that in such Townships where noe Minnester is resident . . . the generall Court may and shall henceforth Yearly Impose a certain sume to be raised by rate . . . which shalbe kept as a stocke for building of a meeting house or for Incurragement of a minnester to labor amongst them . . ." Op. cit., Shurtleff, Plymouth Colony Records, vol. 11, 1670, p, 227.

51 op. cit., Shurtleff, vol. 3, 1654, pp. 354-55 §431. Again In 1656 we find "Although the societie may according to theire discretion vse diuers wayes to raise his mayntanance yett if the wayes bee Ineffectuall though the defect may bee by some particulare person yett the Societie cannot be discharged but is the debter." p. 157.

52 The Laws and Liberties of Massachusetts, Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 1929, p. 18.

53 Statutes, Chapter 15 § 2 (1757).

54 Statutes, Chapter 30 §39, 40 (1786).

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55 Commonwealth of Massachusetts, A Manual for the Constitutional Convention 1917, Boston, Wright & Potter, 1917, pp. 110-111.

56 Statutes, Chapter 87 (1799).

57 Washburn v. Springfield, 1 Mass. 34.

58 Barnes v. Falmouth, 6 Mass. 401. This decision was repeated for the Baptists in Lovell v. Byfield, 7 Mass. 230 and in Turner v. Brookfield, 7 Mass. 60.

59 By Statute 1799, Chapter 87, the certificate was to be signed by the minister and a committee of two. By Statute 1811, Chapter 6, the committee alone signed it. By Statute 1823, Chapter 106, the clerk of the society alone signed it. After 1811, the certificate could be filed by the parishioner or any person in his behalf with the town clerk. Fisher v. Whitman, 13 Pick. 350.

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60 Statutes 1811, Chapter 6.

61 op. cit., A Manual for the Constitutional Convention, Articles of Amendment, pp. 100-101.

62 op. cit.,

63 Charles H.Lippy, Christianity Comes to the Americas 1492-1776, New York, Paragon House, 1992, p. 350.

64 Commonwealth v. Has, 122 Mass. 40, 42.

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65 "The first parish and first church in Dedham continued connected and associated together, in the support and maintenance of public worship, until the month of November, 1818, when the Rev. Alvan Lamson was settled and ordained as the minister of the said first parish; and that a majority of the church did not concur with the majority of the parish, in giving a call to Mr. Lamson, nor in his settlement and ordination." Eliphalet Baker and Another v. Samuel Fales, 16 Mass. 403.

66 The language of the Bill is "The several towns, parishes, precincts, and other bodies politic, and religious societies, shall at all times have the exclusive right of electing their public teachers. . ."

67 op. cit., 16 Mass. 487.

68 Sawyer v. Baldwin, 11 Mass. 492.

69 Parker v. May, 5 Cush, 336.

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70 This amendment was adopted by a vote of 32,234 to 3,273. Senate Document No. 3, 1834.

71 op. cit., A Manual for the Constitutional Convention, Articles of Amendment, pp. 177.