But it was not quite like a thunderbolt from a clear sky.

It had been immediately preceded by not a little conference and correspondence with Connecticut pastors on the one hand, and on the other hand with representatives of the powerful and wealthy Propagation Society, on the question of support to be received from England for those who should secede.

Its prior antecedents reached farther back into history.

The Baptist convictions of the president of Harvard in 1650 were not more clearly in line with the individualism of the Plymouth Separatists than the scruples of the rector of Yale in 1722 were in line with the Nationalism of Higginson and Winthrop.

This sentiment, especially strong in Connecticut, had given rise to much study as to the best form of a colonial church constitution; and the results of this had recently been embodied (in 1708) in the mildly classical system of the Saybrook Platform.