The Details:
Richard Mather. “A Platforme of Church-discipline, Gathered out of ye Word of God, and Agreed upon by ye Elders and Messengers of ye Churches, Assembled in the Synod at Cambridge in New England, ye 6th month, 1648.” Mather Family Papers. [catalog record]
Gift of Isaiah Thomas and Hannah Mather Crocker, 1814.
The Story:
The Puritan minister Richard Mather emigrated with his family to Boston in 1635 and was settled at the church in Dorchester. In 1646 he took a leading part in drafting “A Platforme of Church-discipline,” which limited the role of secular authority in governing churches. This 1648 manuscript of the Cambridge Platform is in Mather’s hand. The following year the text was printed at the Cambridge press of Samuel Green.
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A Defense of the Answer in Case 3
