Page:History of Barrington, Rhode Island (Bicknell).djvu/236

 186 THE HISTORY OF RAKRINGTON. a town should, for the space of six months, fail for any reason to provide for a minister or a schoolmaster, and to make suitable provision for their support "according to the estate and ability of the town," complaint could be made to the Court of Quarter Sessions of the County, and the Court could command the delinquent town to secure and properly maintain a minister or schoolmaster for the town, and cause a tax to be levied for his support. It was also enacted "that every minister, being a person of good conversation, able, learned, and orthodox, that shall be chosen by the major part of the inhabitants of any town, at a town meeting, duly warned for that purpose (notice being given to the inhabitants fifteen days before the time of such meeting,) shall be the minister of such town ; and the whole town shall be obliged to pay toward his settlement and main- tenance, each man his several proportion thereof." This legislation struck the axe at the life of the Baptist Church in Swansea, for it was not a Church recognized by the ruling faith of the Province ; the minister had not been chosen by the town ; the Church was not supported by the taxable estates of the town, nor did it have " an able, learned, and orthodox " minister in Elder Samuel Luther, who was a layman, one of the common people of the town, who had never been educated or ordained in the orthodox sense for the ministry. Puritan ^Massachusetts expected each town to support by tax a Church and minister of the Congregational faith. Bap- tist Swansea did not intend to do any such thing. The town had enjoyed the benefits of its Church and minister for forty years, by the free contributions of the people, and it proposed to continue on the same plan, notwithstanding the law of the General Court, and it maintained its position in the matter at issue. Plymouth Court had already recognized Elder Luther as the authorized minister of Swansea, but the Bristol Court could not easily overlook nor overturn such an endorsement and recognition. The Court was empowered to see to it that