ased. It may be asked in reply, what makes a Church
but the presence of members of it? An early Christian writer says that
"wherever there are two or three believers there is a Church." But were
not Endicot, and Higginson, and Skelton as much members of the Church of
England on their arrival at Massachusetts Bay as when they left England?
And were not the two latter as much clergymen of the Church of England
when they met Endicot at Naumkeag, or Salem, as when they engaged with
the Company in England to go out as ministers to the new Plantation?
Does crossing the sea change or annihilate the churchmanship of the
missionary, or the passenger, or the emigrant? There may not be a place
of worship, or a minister, but there are the members of the Church. Is a
missionary or agent of a Committee or Board of a particular Church in
London, no longer a member of that Church when he reaches the foreign
land to which he is sent because he finds no Church worship there, much
less if he finds members of his own Church already there? Yet such are
the pretences on which some Puritan writers, and even historians,
attempt to justify the conduct of Endicot, Higginson, and Skelton! But,
be it remembered, I make no objection to their renouncing their Church,
and establishing for themselves and those who chose to follow them, a
new Church confession and worship. The points of discussion are: 1. Was
it honest for them to do so without consulting those who employed and
settled them there, and provided for their religious instruction by
clergymen of the Church of England? 2. Was it right or lawful, and was
it not contrary to the laws of England, for them to abolish the worship
of the Church of England and banish its members from the Plantation, as
settlers, for continuing to worship according to the Church of England?
3. And can they be justified for denying to their friends in England,
and their friends denying to the public and to the King, on their behalf
and on their authority, what they had done, and what all the world now
knows they had done, at Massachusetts Bay? 4. And finally, was it not a
breach of faith to their Sovereign, from whom they had received their
Charter, and, as they themselves acknowledged, most kind treatment, to
commence their settlement by abolishing the established religion which
both the King and they professed when the Charter was granted, and when
they left England, and banish from the territory which the King had
gr