Massachusetts -- Church history; Massachusetts -- History -- Colonial period, ca. 1600-1775; Puritans -- Massachusetts
“These new Episcopalians have declared their desire to introduce an
usurpation and a superstition into the church of God, clearly condemned
in the sacred Scriptures, which our loyalty and chastity to our Saviour,
obliges us to keep close unto; and a tyranny, from which the whole
church, which desires to be reformed, has groaned that it may be
delivered.... The scandalous conjunction of these unhappy men with
the Papists is, perhaps, more than what they have themselves duly
considered.” [Footnote: The Sentiments of the Several Ministers in
Boston. _Mass. Hist. Coll._ second series, ii. 133.] In “A Faithful
Relation” of what had happened it was observed: “It has caused some
indignation in them,” (the people) “to see the vile indignity cast
by these cudweeds upon those excellent servants of God, who were the
leaders of the flock that followed our Saviour into this wilderness:
and upon the ministry of them, and their successours, in which there has
been seen for more than forescore years together, the power and
blessing of God for the salvation of many thousands in the successive
generations; with a success beyond what any of them which set such an
high value on the Episcopal ordination could ever boast of!... It is a
sensible addition, unto their horrour, to see the horrid character of
more than one or two, who have got themselves qualified with Episcopal
ordination, ... and come over as missionaries, perhaps to serve scarce
twenty families of such people, in a town of several hundred families of
Christians, better instructed than the very missionaries: to think, that
they must have no other ministers, but such as are ordained, and ordered
by them, who have sent over such tippling sots unto them: instead of
those pious and painful and faithful instructors which they are now
blessed withal!” [Footnote: “A Faithful Relation of a Late Occurrence.”
_Mass. Hist. Coll._ second series, ii. 138, 139.]
Only three of the converts had the fortitude to withstand the pressure
to which they were exposed: Cutler, Johnson, and Brown went to England
for ordination; there Brown died of small-pox, but Cutler returned to
Boston as a missionary, and as he, too, possessed a certain clerical
aptitude for forcible expression, it is fitting he should relate his own
experiences:--
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