Читать книгу The Development of Religious Liberty in Connecticut - M. Louise Greene - Страница 23

[a] "Our pious Ancestors transported themselves with regard unto

Church Order and Discipline, not with respect to the Fundamentals in

Doctrine."—Richard Mather, Attestation to the Ratio Disciplina, p. 10.

"The issue on which the Pilgrims and Puritans alike left sweet fields and comfortable homes and settled ways of the land of their birth for this raw wilderness, was primarily an issue of politics rather than of the substance of religious life."—G. L. Walker, Some Aspects of Religious Life in New England, p. 19.

[b] "After the 17th century 'Independent' was chiefly used in England, while 'Congregational' was decidedly preferred in New England, where the 'consociation' of the churches formed a more important feature of the system." "Congregational" first appeared in manuscript in 1639, in print in 1642. "Congregationalist" appeared in 1692, and "Congregationalism," not until 1716.—J. Murray, A New English Dict. on Hist. Principles.

[c] Separatism is commonly said to date from the year 1554. About 1564, the other branch of the reform party was nicknamed "Puritan."—G. L. Walker, History of the First Church in Hartford, p. 6.

[d] Another noted preacher who left an indelible impression upon several early New England ministers was William Perkins, who was in discourse "strenuous, searching, and ultra-Calvinistic." He was a Cambridge man, filling the positions of Professor of Divinity, Master of Trinity, and Chancellor of the University.—G. L. Walker, Some Aspects of the Religious Life in New England, p. 14.

[e] Cartwright in 1574, the year of its publication, translated Travers's Ecclesiasticae Disciplinae et Anglicanae Ecclesiae ab illa Aberrationis, plena e verbo Dei & dilucida Explicatio, and made it the basis of a practical attempt to introduce the Presbyterian system into England. More than five hundred of the clergy seconded his attempt, subscribing to the principles that (1) there can be only one right form of church government, but one church order and one form of church, namely, that described in the Scriptures; (2) that every local church should have a presbytery of elders to direct its affairs; and (3) that every church should obey the combined opinion of all the churches in fellowship with it. In this declaration lay a blow at the Queen's supremacy.—H. M. Dexter, Congregationalism as seen in Lit. p. 55.

[f] "Browne's polity was essentially, though unintentionally, democratic, and that gives it a closer resemblance in some features to the purely democratic Congregationalism of the present century, than to the more aristocratic, one might almost say semi-Presbyterianized, Congregationalism of Barrowe and the founders of New England. His picture of the covenant relation of men in the church, under the immediate sovereignty of God, he extended to the state; and it led him as directly, and probably as unintentionally, to democracy in the one field as in the other. His theory implied that all governors should rule by the will of the governed, and made the basis of the state on its human side essentially a compact."—W. Walker, Creeds and Platforms, pp. 15, 16. See also H. M. Dexter, Congregationalism as seen in Lit., pp. 96–107; 235–39; 351; R. Browne, Book which Sheweth, Def., 51.

[g] Barrowe wrote, "Though there be communion in the Church, yet is there no equality." This is in strong contrast to Browne's, "Every one of the church is made King and Priest and Prophet under Christ to uphold and further the kingdom of God." Barrowe continues, "The Church of Christ is to obey and submit unto her leaders. … The Church knoweth how to give reverence unto her leaders." In his True Description there is a hazy attempt to define how far the membership of the church may judge its elders. This authority of the elders was defined more clearly and elaborated by Barrowe's followers in their True Confession, published in Amsterdam in 1596–98.—H. Barrowe, A True Description; Discovery of False Churches, p. 188; A Plain Refutation of Mr. Gifford, p. 129 (ed. of 1605).

[h] "Traces of this (Barrowe's) innovation on apostolic Congregationalism have been aptly characterized as a Presbyterian heart within a Congregational body, and are seen long after the denomination grew to be a power in New England."—A. E. Dunning, Congregationalists in America, p. 61.

[i] Barrowe says, "over sixty."

[j] The first English Presbytery was organized in 1572. Among its organizers, there was the seeming determination to treat the Episcopal system as a mere legal appendage.—F. J. Powicke, Henry Barrowe, p. 139.

[k] At the height of its prosperity this church contained about three hundred communicants, with representatives from twenty-nine English counties. Among them was one John Bolton, who had been a member of Mr. Fitz's church in 1571. At the beginning of James the First's reign, 1603, Separatist converts numbered 20,000 souls in England.

[l] "The wish for a reform in the Liturgy, the dislike of superstitious usages, of the use of the surplice, the sign of the cross in baptism, the gift of the ring in marriage, the posture of kneeling at the Lord's Supper, was shared by a large number of the clergy and laity alike. At the opening of Elizabeth's reign almost all the higher churchmen but Parker were opposed to them, and a motion for their abolition in Convocation was lost but by a single vote."—J. R. Green, Short History of the English People, p. 459.

[m] John Davenport, in his Answer to the Letter of Many Ministers in Old England, p. 3.

[n] Its full title is "A True Confession of the Faith and Humble Acknowledgement of the Allegeance which wee his Majestes Subjects falsely called Brownists, doo hould towards God and yeild his Majestie and all others that are over us in the Lord."