The Development of Religious Liberty in Connecticut | Page 3

Israel Holly's "A Word in Zion's Behalf."--Frothingham's "Key to
Unlock the Door."--Joseph Brown's "Letter to Infant Baptizers."--The
importance of the colonial newspaper.--Influence of English
non-conformity upon the religious thought of New England.--The
Edwardean School.--Hopkinsinianism and the New Divinity.--The
clergy and the people.--Controversy over the renewed proposal for an
American episcopate.--Movement for consolidation among all religious
bodies.--Influences promoting nationalism and, indirectly, religious
toleration.--Connecticut at the threshold of the Revolution.--
Connecticut clergymen as advocates of civil liberty.--Greater toleration
in religion granted by the laws of 1770.--Development of the idea of
democracy in Church and State.--Exemption of Separatists by the
revision of the laws in 1784.--Virtual abrogation of the Saybrook
Platform.--Status of Dissenters.
XII. CONNECTICUT AT THE CLOSE OF THE REVOLUTION
Expansion of towns.--Revival of commerce and industries.--Schools
and literature.--Newspapers.--Rise of the Anti-Federal party.--Baptist,
Methodist, and Separatist dissatisfaction.--Growth of a broader
conception of toleration within the Consociated churches.
XIII. CERTIFICATE LAWS AND WESTEKN LAND BILLS

Opposition to the Establishment from dissenters, Anti-Federalists, and
the dissatisfied within the Federal ranks.--Certificate law of 1791 to
allay dissatisfaction.--Its opposite effect.--A second Certificate law to
replace the former.--Antagonism created by legislation in favor of Yale
College.--Storm of protest against the Western Land bills of
1792-93.--Congregational missions in Western territory.--Baptist
opposition to legislative measures.--The revised Western Land bill as a
basis for Connecticut's public school fund.--Result of the opposition
roused by the Certificate laws and Western Land bills.
XIV. THE DEVELOPMENT OF POLITICAL PARTIES IN
CONNECTICUT
Government according to the charter of 1662.--Party tilt over town
representation.--Anti-Federal grievances against the Council or Senate,
the Judiciary, and other defective parts of the machinery of
government.--Constitutional questions.--Rise of the Democratic-
Republican party.--Influence of the French Revolution.--The Federal
members of the Establishment or "Standing Order," the champions of
religious and political stability.--President Dwight, the leader of the
Standing Order.--Leaders of the Democratic-Republicans.--Political
campaigns of 1804-1806.--Sympathy for the defeated Republicans.--
Politics at the close of the War of 1812.
XV. DISESTABLISHMENT
Waning of the power of the Federal party in Connecticut.--Opposition
to the Republican administration during the War of 1812.--
Participation in the Hartford Convention.--Economic benefits of the
war.--Attitude of the New England clergy toward the war.--The
Toleration party of 1816.--Act for the Support of Literature and
Religion.--Opposition.--Toleration and Reform Ticket of 1817.--New
Certificate Law.--Constitution and Reform Ticket of 1818.--Its
victory.--The Constitutional Convention.--New Constitution of
1818.--Separation of Church and State.
APPENDIX

NOTES BIBLIOGRAPHY

THE DEVELOPMENT OF RELIGIOUS LIBERTY IN
CONNECTICUT

CHAPTER I
THE EVOLUTION OF EARLY CONGREGATIONALISM
The stone which the builders rejected is become the head of the
corner.--Psalm cxviii, 22.
The colonists of Plymouth, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New
Haven were grounded in the system which became known as
Congregational, and later as Congregationalism. At the outset they
differed not at all in creed, and only in some respects in polity, from the
great Puritan body in England, out of which they largely came. [a]
For more than forty years before their migration to New England there
had been in old England two clearly developed forms of
Congregationalism, Brownism and Barrowism. The term
Congregationalism, with its allied forms Congregational and
Congregationalist, would not then have been employed. They did not
come into general use until the latter half of the seventeenth century,
and were at first limited in usage to defining or referring to the
modified church system of New England. The term "Independent" was
preferred to designate the somewhat similar polity among the
nonconformist churches in old England. [b] Brownism and Barrowism
are both included in Dr. Dexter's comprehensive definition of
Congregationalism, using the term "to designate that system of thought,
faith, and practice, which starting with the dictum that the conditions of
church life are revealed in the Bible, and are thence to be evolved by
reverent common-sense, assisted but never controlled by all other
sources of knowledge; interprets that book as teaching the reality and
independent competency of the local church, and the duty of fraternity
and co-working between such churches; from these two truths

symmetrically developing its entire system of principles, privileges,
and obligations." [1] The "independent competency of the local church"
is directly opposed to any system of episcopal government within the
church, and is diametrically opposed to any control by king, prince, or
civil government. Yet this was one of the pivotal dogmas of Browne
and of the later Separatists; this, a fundamental doctrine which Barrowe
strove to incorporate into a new church system, but into one having
sufficient control over its local units to make it acceptable to a people
who were accustomed to the autonomy and stability of a church both
episcopal and national in character.
In order to appreciate the changes in church polity and in the religious
temper of the people for which Browne and Barrowe labored, one must
survey the field in which they worked and note such preparation as it