it being the churches' duty to receive such unto communion, so far as they are regularly fit for the same. Qu. 2. Whether, according to the word of God, there ought to be a consociation of churches, and what should be the manner of it? Ans. The answer may be briefly given in the propositions following. 1. Every church, or particular congregation of visible saints, in Gospel order, being furnished with a presbytery, at least with a teaching elder, and walking together in truth and peace, hath received from the Lord Jesus full power and authority, ecclesiastical within itself, regularly to administer all the ordinances of Christ, and is not under any other ecclesiastical jurisdiction whatsover; for to such a church Christ hath given the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven, that what they bind or loose on earth, shall be bound or loosed in Heaven. Matt. xvi. 19, &c. Matt. xviii. 17, 18. Acts xiv. 23. Tit. i. 5. Matt. xxviii. 19, 20. Acts vi. 4. 1 Cor. iv. 1, and v. 4, 12. Acts xx. 28. 1 Tim. v. 17, and iii. 5. Hence it follows, that consociation of churches is not to hinder the exercise of this power, but, by counsel from the Word of God, to direct and strengthen the same upon all just occasions. 2. The churches of Christ do stand in a sisterly relation each to other, Cant. viii. 8, being united in the same faith and order, Eph. iv. 5, Col. ii. 5, to walk by the same rule, Phil. iii. 16, in the exercise of the same ordinances for the same ends, Eph. iv. 11, 12, 13, 1 Cor. xvi. 1, under one and the same political head, the Lord Jesus Christ, Eph. i. 22, 23, Eph. iv. 5, Rev. ii. 1, which union infers a communion suitable thereunto. 3. Communion of churches is the faithful improvement of the gifts of Christ, bestowed upon them for his service and glory, and their mutual good and edification, according to capacity and opportunity, i. e. to seek and accept of help one from another, by prayer, counsel, and advice, &c. 4. Consociation of Churches is their mutual and solemn agreement to exercise communion in such acts as aforesaid amongst themselves, with special reference to those churches, which by Providence are planted in a convenient vicinity, though with liberty reserved without offence to make use of others, as the nature of the case, or the advantage of opportunity, may lead there unto. 5. The churches of Christ in New England, having so fair an opportunity for it, it is meet to be commended to them as their duty thus to consociate. 6. The manner of the churches' agreement herein, or entering into this consociation, may be by each church's open consenting unto the things here declared, in answer to this second question. 7. The manner of exercising and practising that communion, which this consent or agreement especially tendeth unto, may be by making use occasionally of elders or able brethren of other churches, or by the more solemn meetings of both elders and messengers in lesser or greater councils, as the matter shall require. These propositions, by way of answer to the two questions, were assented unto by the greater part by far of the Assembly. Some few did manifest their dissent, and afterward in print opposed it, viz. the answer to the first question, as Mr. Chauncy, the President of the College, in his Anti-Synodalia, and the Rev. Mr. Davenport. The first was replied unto by Mr. Allen, the second by the Rev. Mr. Richard Mather. Some think that Mr. Davenport's book hath overthrown the propositions of the Synod, according to their own principles; although they approve not his judgment in the case, who are for a larger latitude about Baptism, as Dr. Owen and Dr. Goodwin, in whose account the seed of the faithful are the subject of Baptism, whether their parents are confederate in particular churches or not; but that is not as yet clearly evinced to satisfaction. But as some were studying how Baptism might be enlarged and extended to the seed of the faithful in their several generations, there were others as studious to deprive all inadult children thereof, and restrain the privilege only to adult believers. A society of that persua sion had taken upon them to join themselves together in a particular company by themselves, and did administer all ordinances amongst themselves in a schismatical way: yea, though some, that had taken upon them the power of such administrations, were themselves under the sentence of excommunication from other churches, which formerly they belonged unto. This company, continuing their assembling together, after they had been warned by the Court to forbear, were sentenced by the Court to be disfranchised if they were freemen, and, if they obstinately continued in their practice, to be committed to prison upon conviction before one magistrate, or the County Court, until the General Court should take further order. By this severity it was expected they should have been restrained, but it proved otherwise. The bent of all men's natures makes it true, nitimur in vetitum, and like waters that are pent up, they swell the more, so came it to pass with these persons who would not forbear, unless the laws had been sharpened to a greater degree of severity than the authority of the place were willing to execute on that account." CHAP. LXVIII.2 The General affairs of New England, from the year 1666 to 1671. DURING this lustre of years there was little alteration in the government of the Massachusetts; Mr. Bellingham holding the first place of government, as Mr. Willoughby did the second, to the end thereof. Nor was there any matters of great moment that happened, besides granting of liberty for several townships, unless the reverting of the Province of Maine to the government of the Massachusetts as heretofore; the occasion and manner thereof shall presently be related. In the year 1667 liberty was granted for erecting a new plantation or township, at a place about thirty or forty miles west from Roxbury, called Mendon, and peopled by some that removed from thence. There was another The first prosecution of the Anabaptists, according to Hutchinson, was in 1665. See Hist. Mass., i. 208; Coll. Papers, pp. 399-401.-H. 2 LXVII in the MS.-H. The Plantation was "granted in answer to Brantry petition " Oct. 16, 1660, and was incorporated by its present name, May 15, 1667.-H. like grant the same year at Brookfield, a commodious place for entertainment of travellers betwixt the Massachusetts and Connecticut, situate about twenty-five miles from Springfield, toward Boston; the liberty had been granted before, in the year 1660, but it was renewed this year, six or seven families being settled there. The grantees having forfeited their first grant, the ordering of the place fell into the Court's power, which was no disadvantage of the township, the management thereof being by the Court committed to the care of two or three prudent persons, fitter to carry on a design of that nature than the whole village was. These two villages last named were erected in an unhappy hour, for before ten years were expired they were utterly ruined and destroyed by the Indians, and not one stick left standing of any building erected there; as may be seen more at large in the narrative of the troubles with the Indians. Marlborough, ten miles beyond Sudbury, ||in|| the road towards Connecticut, (a plat of which was this year laid out and presented to the Court,) escaped very hardly, one half thereof being in like manner destroyed by the barbarous Indians in the years 1675 and 1676. Another village was granted likewise about this time, called Westfield,' seven miles westward from Springfield, which hardly escaped the fury of the Indians in that late rebellion. In the year 1666 two hundred and fifty persons, driven off from St. Christophers, and coming to Boston, were there relieved till they could be transported back to some of the Caribbee Islands, or otherwise disposed of according to their desire. In the following year certain informations being brought to the Massachusetts of some distress his Majesty's fleet was in, at the Caribbee Islands, for want of provision, a motion was made by some merchants of the said place for sending away present supply; which being quickened by the General Court at Boston, was forthwith despatched away, and came seasonably to their relief. In the year 1670 a law was made in the Massachusetts for giving liberty to administrators to sell lands for payment of the debts of the deceased, with the leave of the Court; an order very just and necessary to make || on || 'First settled, from Springfield, in 1658–9.—H. men honest, and careful to pay their debts before they leave the world, in that place where men often die seized of much land, and little other estates, so as creditors would be extremely damnified, without the provision of some such law. CHAP. LXIX.1 The Province of Maine returns to the government of the Massachusetts: the occasion and manner, how it was brought about. THE government of the Province of Maine, called Yorkshire, having been interrupted for near three years, and the people there like to be reduced to a confused anarchy, for want of a settled order of government, upon some application made to the General Court of the Massachusetts, by some principal persons in the said Province, the Court counted it their duty to God and the King to declare their resolution to exert their power and jurisdiction over the Province or County of York, as formerly; and did accordingly, in the year 1668, set out a Declaration to require the inhabitants there settled, to yield obedience to the laws of their jurisdiction, as they had been orderly published, and to issue out warrants for choosing officers, in order to settling affairs there, as in times past; which was done accordingly, and Commissioners appointed to keep a Court in the usual manner and time as before, ordering Nathaniel Masterson, the Marshal, to require the constable to publish the said order. The Commissioners, appointed by the General Court to manage the business, were Major John Leverett [and] Mr. Edward Ting, Assistants, Mr. Richard Waldron and Major Robert Pike. And to prevent misinformation about that affair, it is thought meet to annex hereunto an authentic copy of the Court's order to the said Commissioners, with a relation of the procedure therein, forasmuch as the same hath been publicly misrecited, to the disadvantage of the Mas 1 LXVIII in the MS.-H. 2 We have seen (pp 542-3) that a portion of the Province of Maine submitted to Mass. in 1652-3. But the inhabitants east of Saco River, being mostly Episcopalians, strenuously maintained their independence, nor was it until July 13, 1658, that "the inhabitants of Black Point, Blue Point, Spurwinke, and Casco Bay, with all the Islands thereunto belonging," would acknowledge themselves subject to the jurisdiction of Mass. See Maine Hist. Coll. 1. 57-62, 290-4.-H. 25 VOL. VI. SECOND SERIES. |