The Development of Religious Liberty in ConnecticutGreene, M. Louise (Maria Louise)
History
The Development of Religious Liberty in Connecticut
Greene, M. Louise (Maria Louise)
Connecticut -- Church history
It was in the year following the union of the two colonies that the
quarrel in the Hartford church broke out afresh. The fall preceding
the consolidation of the colonies, an appeal was made to the
Connecticut General Court which helped to swell the dissatisfaction in
the Hartford church and to bring it to the bursting point. In
October, 1664, William Pitkin, by birth a member of the English
Established Church[af] and a man much esteemed in the colony, as
shown, politically, by his office of attorney,[39] and socially by his
marriage with Elder Goodwin's daughter, petitioned the General Court
in behalf of himself and six associates that it--
would take into serious consideration our present state in this
respect that wee are thus as sheep scattered haveing no shepheard,
and compare it with what wee conceive you can not but know both
God and our King would have it different from what it now is. And
take some speedy and effectual course of redress herein, And put
us in full and free capacity of injoying those forementioned
Advantages which to us as members of Christ's visible Church doe
of right belong. By establishing some wholesome Law in this
Corporation by vertue whereof wee may both clame and receive of
such officers as are, or shall be by Law set over us in the Church
or churches where wee have our abode or residence those
forementioned privileges and advantages.
Further wee humbly request that for the future no Law in this
corporation may be of any force to make us pay or contribute to
the maintenance of any Minister or officer in the Church that will
neglect or refuse to baptize our Children, and to take charge of
us as of such members of the Church as are under his or their
charge and care--
_Signed_--
Admitted freeman
Oct. 9th, 1662, Hartford, Wm. Pitkin.
Admitted freeman
May 21, 1657, Windsor, Michael Humphrey.
Admitted freeman
May 18, 1654, Hartford, John Stedman.
Windsor, James Eno.
Admitted freeman
May 20, 1658, -- Robart Reeve.
Windsor, John Morse.
Admitted freeman
May 20, 1658, Windsor, Jonas Westover. [40]
Eno and Humphrey had been complained of because their insistence upon
what they considered their rights had caused disturbance in the
Windsor church. Now, with the other petitioners, they based their
appeal in part upon the King's Letter to the Bay Colony of June 26th,
1662, wherein Charles commanded that "all persons of good and honest
lives and conversation be admitted to the sacrament of the Lord's
supper, according to the said book of common prayer, and their
children to baptism."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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