314 PURITANISM

\ broader conception of the Church, and of the relation of
one Church to another, was embodied in the Cambridge

j Platform. It is easy to see in this measure of retreat and ''
recession from the hard and fast line of Independency the /'
indirect influence of the spirit of Presbyterianism, which
had been brought over from the mother country by a
large body of the colonists. The number who resisted the
assimilative process by which the majority of their brethren
became Independents, and who stUl remained zealous for ■^
Presbyterianism, were ever on the alert to stir up agita-
tion on its behalf, and the victory secured by the Presby-
terians in England under the Long Parliament made -
them only the more restless and aggressive. Partly, there-
fore, to disarm their antagonism, but chiefly in order to
consolidate and unify the Churches themselves, and lift
them out of their unintegrated condition and position of
isolation, a plan of government was adopted, entitled, " A
Platform of Church Discipline, gathered out of the Word
of God, and agreed upon by the Elders and Messengers
of the Churches assembled in the Synod at Cambridge
in New England, to be presented to the Churches and
General Court for their consideration and acceptance in
the Lord." This was presented accordingly, and after j
various changes and modifications — none, however, affect- '
tmg the substance of the Platform — it was adopted in
1651.1

; ' " This Platform is the most important document produced ))y the
Congregationalists of the seventeenth century, for it most clearly ■/
represents the belief of the Churches and their .system of government
for more than one hundred years. It was, indeed, the legally recog-
■'■ nised standard till 1780." — Gongrejjationalists in America, hy Rev.
