Page:New England and the Bavarian Illuminati.djvu/60

 Saltonstall, of New London, was raised to the governor's chair. The following May the General Court issued the call for the famous Saybrook Synod. 1 Ministers and messengers of the churches were to assemble in their respective county towns, " on the last Monday in June next ... to consider and agree upon those methods and rules for the management of ecclesiastical discipline which by them shall be judged agreeable and conformable to the word of God." 2 By these county councils ministers and delegates were to be chosen to meet at Saybrook, at the commencement of the "infant college" (i. e., Yale), there "to compare the results of the ministers of the several counties, and out of them and from them to draw a form of ecclesiastical discipline which by two or more persons delegated by them shall be offered to this Court ... to be considered of and confirmed by them." 3

The directions of the General Court were complied with. The doctrinal results of the Saybrook Synod are no part of our concern; but this is not so with regard to its ecclesiastical formulations. The principles contained in the "Proposals of 1705 " were accepted and worked out in more complete detail. Churches were to be grouped in Consociations, one or more in each county as the churches might determine. Cases of discipline too difficult of management in local congregations were to be heard and determined by these Consociations. Refusal to answer to the summons of a Consociation, or to submit to its decision, incurred excommunication, whether a church or a pastor might be the guilty party. All matters relating to the installation, ordination, and dismissal of ministers were to be submitted by the churches to


 * 1 The Public Records of the Colony of Connecticut, vol. v, pp. 51 et seq.


 * 2 Ibid.


 * 3 Ibid.