921.73 W589w.pdf - Mesa FamilySearch Library

132 l_emoir of
duced two parties, not in the other churches
only, but in the state also. A considerable
part of the church, both for number and estate,
formed themselves, as has been observed, into
a separate society. Seventeen ministers bore a
public testimony against the proceedings of
the three elders of the first church in Boston,
viz., against Mr. Davenport for leaving his
church at New Haven, contrary to his pro-
fessed principles, and against all of them for
communicating parcels only of letters from the
church of New Haven to the church in Bos-
ton, by which artifice the church was deceived,
and made to believe the church of New Haven
consented to his dismission, when, if the whole
had been read, it would have appeared they did
not. This testimony was sent to the elders
the day before a public fast. An answer was
given, in which the elders deny that the letters
concealed would have been evidence of the re-
fusal of the church of New Haven to consent
to Mr. Davenport's leaving them and settling
at Boston ; the church was only unwilling to
make his dismission their immediate act.