A History of American ChristianityBacon, Leonard Woolsey
Religion
A History of American Christianity
Bacon, Leonard Woolsey
United States -- Church history; United States -- Religion
Warr landed at the fort, where Gates had drawn up his forlorn platoon of
starving men to receive him. The governor fell on his knees in prayer,
then led the way to the church, and, after service and a sermon from
the chaplain, made an address, assuming command of the colony.
Armed, under the new charter, with adequate authority, the new governor
was not slow in putting on the state of a viceroy. Among his first cares
was to provide for the external dignity of worship. The church, a
building sixty feet by twenty-four, built long enough before to be now
in need of repairs, was put into good condition, and a brave sight it
was on Sundays to see the Governor, with the Privy Council and the
Lieutenant-General and the Admiral and the Vice-Admiral and the Master
of the Horse, together with the body-guard of fifty halberdiers in fair
red cloaks, commanded by Captain Edward Brewster, assembled for worship,
the governor seated in the choir in a green velvet chair, with a velvet
cushion on a table before him. Few things could have been better adapted
to convince the peculiar public of Jamestown that divine worship was
indeed a serious matter. There was something more than the parade of
government manifested by his lordship in the few months of his reign;
but the inauguration of strong and effective control over the lazy,
disorderly, and seditious crowd to be dealt with at Jamestown was
reserved for his successor, Sir Thomas Dale, who arrived in May, 1611,
in company with the Rev. Alexander Whitaker, the "apostle of Virginia."
It will not be possible for any to understand the relations of this
colony to the state of parties in England without distinctly recognizing
that the Puritans were not a party _against_ the Church of England, but
a party _in_ the Church of England. The Puritan party was the party of
reform, and was strong in a deep fervor of religious conviction widely
diffused among people and clergy, and extending to the highest places of
the nobility and the episcopate. The anti-Puritan party was the
conservative or reactionary party, strong in the _vis inertiae_, and in
the king's pig-headed prejudices and his monstrous conceit of
theological ability and supremacy in the church; strong also in a
considerable adhesion and zealous cooeperation from among his nominees,
the bishops. The religious division was also a political one, the
Puritans being known as the party of the people, their antagonists as
the court party. The struggle of the Puritans (as distinguished from the
inconsiderable number of the Separatists) was for the maintenance of
their rights within the church; the effort of their adversaries, with
the aid of the king's prerogative, was to drive or harry them out of the
church. It is not to be understood that the two parties were as yet
organized as such and distinctly bounded; but the two tendencies were
plainly recognized, and the sympathies of leading men in church or state
were no secret.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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