Hart, William:

$300 · Offered by William Reese Company

REMARKS ON A LATE PAMPHLET, WROTE BY MR. HOBART, ENTITLED, THE PRINCIPLES OF CONGREGATIONAL CHURCHES, RELATING TO THE CONSTITUTION AND AUTHORITY OF ECCLESIASTICAL COUNCILS; CONSIDERED, AND APPLIED TO ... A document relating to the Wallingford church controversy, written in defense of the Wallingford ordination council and of congregational autonomy in general. In 1758, James Dana was called from Massachusetts to be pastor of the church at Wallingford, which formed a council for his ordination. Suspecting the young, "old light" minister of unorthodoxy, the consociation of Connecticut churches attempted to prevent his ordination, but the council proceeded with its plans and, as a result, suffered a declaration of non-communion from the consociated churches. The controversy that followed formed an important part of the wider debates over and eventual fragmentation of New England church polity. In this text, the Rev. Hart, pastor at Saybrook, criticizes a recent pamphlet by Noah Hobart, a Fairfield minister and leader of the church consociation. The volume contains a three-page postscript and an anonymous letter that further support the Wallingford cause.

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