The Bay State Monthly — Volume 1, No. 6, June, 1884 by Various
page 99 of 165 (60%)
page 99 of 165 (60%)
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country!"
Among the manuscripts left by Mr. Harrington there is one prepared for, if not read at, this town meeting, containing the charges in detail, and his reply to each. It is headed: "Harrington's answers to ye Charges &c." It is a shrewd and eloquent defence, bearing evidence, so far as rhetoric can, that its author was in advance of his people and his times in respect of Christian charity, if not of political foresight. The charges were four in number: the first being that of the Bolton Walleyites alleging that his refusal to receive them as church members in regular standing brought him "under ye censure of shutting up ye Kingdom of Heaven against men." To this, calm answer is given by a review of the whole controversy in the Bolton Church, closing thus: "Mr. Moderator, as I esteemed the Proceedings of these Brethren at Bolton Disorderly and Schismatical, and as the Apostle hath given Direction to mark those who cause Divisions and Offences and avoid them, I thought it my Duty to bear Testimony against ye Conduct of both ye People at Bolton, and those who were active in settling a Pastor over them in the Manner Specified, and I still retain ye sentiment, and this not to shut the Kingdom of Heaven against them, but to recover them from their wanderings to the Order of the Gospel and to the direct way to the Kingdom of Heaven. And I still approve and think them just." The second charge, in full, was as follows:-- "It appears to us that his conduct hath ye greatest Tendency to subvert our religious Constitution and ye Faith of these churches.--In his saying that the Quebeck Bill was just--and that he would have done the same had he been one of ye Parliament--and also saying that he was in charity with a professed Roman Catholick, whose Principles are so |
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