REESE LIBRARY
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA
, igo
No. * & 4 O . Cltus No .
a
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TEN
NEW ENGLAND
LEADERS
BY
WILLISTON WALKER
M
SILVER, BURDETT AND COMPANY
NEW YORK BOSTON CHICAGO
COPYRIGHT, 1901,
BY SILVER, BURDETT & COMPANY
PREFATORY NOTE
T
HE lectures here presented were delivered on the
Southworth Foundation," in Andover Theo-
logical Seminary in 1898 and 1899. In the selection U ; M,
of the subjects of these biographical sketches the
lecturer aimed to present as varied and as typical
representatives of the religious thought of Congrega-
tional New England as the number of hours placed at
his disposal would permit. Other names that will
readily occur to the reader might fittingly have been
added ; but it is believed that each of the men whose
portrait has here been attempted deserves the title
of a leader of New England.
HARTFORD, CONN.,
April is, 190*.
92450
CONTENTS
PACK
I. WILLIAM BRADFORD 3
II. JOHN COTTON . . .40^
V^
III. RICHARD MATHER.
IV. JOHN ELIOT ....... 137
V. INCREASE MATHER 175
VI. JONATHAN EDWARDS 217
VII. CHARLES CHAUNCY 267
VIII. SAMUEL HOPKINS 313
IX. LEONARD WOODS . . . . . .361
X. LEONARD BACON 409
INDEX 457
WILLIAM BRADFORD
I.
WILLIAM BRADFORD
IN undertaking the Southworth Lectures on Congre-
gationalism, I am reminded that several themes of
great importance have been treated, and in a sense
made their permanent possession, by those who have
stood at this desk before me. Our learned and be-
loved Dr. Henry Martyn Dexter, than whom none is
more deserving of honored remembrance by all inter-
ested in Congregational history, here sketched out
those marvellously patient studies on the beginnings
of our religious story, afterward gathered into a stately
volume under the title of The Congregationalism of the
last Three Hundred Years as Seen in its Literature, a
volume which, though now eighteen years old, leaves
to those who follow him but scanty gleanings of new
facts to gather from his well-reaped field. Here, too,
our honored Dr. A. Hastings Ross set forth, under
the descriptive title of The Church- Kingdom, the most
elaborate and, in some respects, the most suggestive
presentation of our polity made in recent years. As
incumbent of this lectureship, also, Dr. Amory H.
Bradford has lately outlined the development of the
3
4 WILLIAM BRADFORD
churches of our order in England, and shown the
spiritual and institutional kinship of the Congrega-
tional body on both sides of the Atlantic.
Barred thus from the selection of certain topics
which master hands have wrought upon, the present
lecturer has deemed it alike the part of modesty and
of wisdom to choose a simpler theme. Instead of try-
ing to unfold before you the development of a great
religious movement as a whole, or attempting to out-
line the proper organization of the Body of Christ, he
has thought it best to present to you a brief series of
biographical sketches of men prominent in various
epochs of Congregational history. In connection with
these lives something of the story of Congregationalism
as a whole will necessarily be glanced at ; but the indi-
vidual, human element will be kept as prominent as is
consistent with a recollection that the prescribed theme
of these lectures is " Congregationalism."
In selecting the subjects of our studies one is embar-
rassed by the number of those who have almost equal
claim to a place in our consideration. Congregational-
ism has never produced a single leader of overshadow-
ing influence, as has Lutheranism, or Methodism, or
Moravianism. As befits a polity essentially demo-
cratic, it has enjoyed in all periods of its history many
guides of strong individuality, forceful character, and
high moral worth. And, therefore, as a selection is
imperatively demanded by the limitations of a course
WILLIAM BRADFORD 5
of lectures, I shall present to you a series of men, all
of them prominent in their times, but not the only,
or exclusively the ablest, leaders of Congregationalism.
I desire rather that they should be, as far as possible,
typical not only of the periods in which they lived,
but of a wide variety of Congregational life and
thought. It is with this purpose in view that I have
chosen William Bradford as the subject of this first
lecture. Not a minister, not a holder, apparently, at
any time of any churchly office, he was nevertheless
so identified with the inception, the exile, and the
transplanting of the Pilgrim Church that his experi-
ences are an epitome of its history.
It is always difficult to picture to ourselves an era
different from our own. We are, most of us, sojmich
the^creatures of the. ._age_j tT^which^we live that any ap-
preciation of the thought, or even of the material sur-
roundings, of a bygone generation is difficult; and
even those of antiquarian tastes more often know a
number of facts of interest regarding a past epoch
than enter into its spirit. The past to us is like some
strange country across the sea, from which explorers
bring reports of customs and of interests which strike
us as quaint or amusing because of their want of con-
formity to what we see about us ; of heated excitement
about questions which seem trivial because they do
not happen to be the questions which concern us; a
land in which men move as in a haze, unreal, nebulous,
6 WILLIAM BRADFORD
not flesh and blood as men and women whom our morn,
ing newspaper brings to our acquaintance. It is,
therefore, no easy task to transport ourselves in fancy
back more than three hundred years to the little York-
shire farming hamlet of Austerfield, where Bradford
was baptized on March 19, 1590, probably very shortly
after his birth. What life may have been in such a
rural townlet for an orphaned boy, brought up by a
grandfather's and then by an uncle's care, only vigor-
ous imagination will enable us to conjecture from the
few hints that have come down to us.
Though of a yeoman family, the best-to-do of any in
the little community, Bradford's early life must have
been outwardly the monotonous and laborious round
of an agricultural toiler in that unpicturesque but fer-
tile section of England, in days when farm machinery
beyond the rudest implements was yet unthought of.
To be sure, the great North Road from London to
York ran, an unfenced horse-track, through the village
of Bawtry, a mile away; yet Austerfield must have
heard little of what went on in the world at large.
Doubtless the defeat of the Spanish Armada, nearly
two years before Bradford was born, brought rejoicing
to Austerfield, but travellers of the yeoman class were
few, and news from the great world outside filtered
slowly among those who, as Bradford himself says,
were " used to plaine countrie life."
Yet in that outer world it was a time of marked
WILLIAM BRADFORD 7
events. The splendid reign of Elizabeth was drawing
to its brilliant close. Relieved of fear of overthrow
from without by the death of Mary, Queen of Scots,
and the discomfiture of the avenging Spanish fleet,
the English mind bloomed in a wealth and beauty of
literature such as no other epoch of English story has
displayed. The year of Bradford's birth witnessed the
publication Of Spenser's Faerie Queene ; in 1593, when
Bradford was perhaps learning his letters at his grand-
father's knee, came that " first heir of [his] invention,"
the Venus and Adonis of Shakespeare. In 1597, the
year after the orphaned Austerfield boy was trans-
ferred by the death of his grandfather to an uncle's
care, Bacon's Essays first awoke the admiration of
English readers. Of all these things of such vast mo-
ment in English letters little Austerfield knew noth-
ing, and of any subsequent knowledge of them the
boy who grew to youth while they were happening
showed no trace.
But there was a concern which, more than any
other, touched all men in England at that day, and
that was religion. No feature of the great national
drama which had been played before the eyes of two
generations of Englishmen before Bradford's birth had
so immediate and visible an interest to a young man of
Austerfield, or of any other English village, as that
which concerned the Church. The wars with Spain,
the voyages of a Raleigh or of a Drake, were at best
8 WILLIAM BRADFORD
distant and shadowy compared with the changes that
had been witnessed in the hamlet place of worship,
the gift of John de Builli to the Benedictines of Blyth
more than four hundred years ' before Bradford was
brought to its font for baptism. Perhaps the first evi-
dence of the royal revolt from Rome which Austerfield
had seen had been in the youth of Bradford's grand-
father, when, in 1536,* King Henry VIII., whom an
obsequious Parliament had two years before declared
to be " the only supreme Head in earth of the Church
of England," had suppressed the monastery of Blyth,
to which little Austerfield and the neighboring Bawtry
looked for the appointment of their curates. The
King ultimately transferred the monastic right of ap-
pointment at Blyth and consequently the determina-
tion of what spiritual oversight Austerfield should
enjoy, to the newly founded Trinity College of Cam.
bridge University. This suppression was itself only
an incident in the general abolition of monasticism
throughout England; but the stir occasioned in the
minds of the Austerfield dwellers was doubtless very
considerable, for the region had possessed a larger
proportion of these monastic establishments than most
parts of the realm. Cistercians, Carthusians, Gilbert-
ines, Augustinians, Premonstratensians, and Benedic-
1 See Raine, History and Antiquities of the Parish of Blyth, passim.
Westminster, 1860.
2 Raine, ibid., 72, says 1535, but he is evidently confused between
Old and New Style.
WILLIAM BRADFORD 9
tines had all dwelt in the near vicinity. 1 The region
had fiercely resented this royal invasion of ancient
rights; Lincolnshire and Yorkshiremen, perhaps some
from Austerfield itself, had risen in revolt in the
interest of the older institutions in 1536, but the iron
will of the sovereign had prevailed here as elsewhere.
Almost immediately after the dissolution of the
monastery of Blyth, if the royal mandates were en-
forced, as there is every reason to believe that they
were, a copy of the Bible in English was placed in
Austerfield church, as in every other church in the
kingdom. 3 Still the service continued almost entirely
in Latin and substantially unaltered in doctrinal pur-
port. Then, in 1549, Austerfield in all probability wit-
nessed the introduction of the English Prayer Book,
only to have a revised form substituted in 1552; to see
this swept away in 1553 in favor of the ritual of the
closing days of Henry VIII., and substantially restored
in 1559. As late as 1569, after Bradford's father had
grown to manhood, a great wave of insurrection
directed against these changes rolled from the north
almost to Austerfield ; and so strongly had the old
faith entrenched itself, that, even after Bradford's
birth, several of the neighboring county families, 3 in-
1 Joseph Hunter, Collections concerning . . . the Founders of New
Plymouth, pp. 24, 25. London, 1854.
' 2 J. A. Froude, History of England, iii., p. 80. Books were to be
provided before August I, 1537.
3 Hunter, Collections, pp. 25, 108.
10 WILLIAM BRADFORD
eluding that from which his uncle-guardian leased part
of the acres that young Bradford tilled, were still its
adherents.
There is no reason to suppose, however, that these
changes of institutions and forms of worship were ac-
companied by any material alteration in the character
of the Austerfield ministry, or any very strenuous in-
sistance on vital religion. The curate of Bawtry, a
mile away from Austerfield and, like it, a spiritual de-
pendency of Blyth, is described in the visitation of
1548 as " unlerned." ' What degree of ignorance this
may have implied may be surmised perhaps from the
contemporary statement of Bishop Hooper of Glouces-
ter, that of the priests of that diocese under the Ed-
wardine Reformation " one hundred and sixty-eight
could not say the Ten Commandments." 2 Nor had
matters grown much better twenty years later under
Elizabeth, when, in 1569, a report from the diocese of
Chichester, 3 a region in which the Reformation had
made much more progress than in Yorkshire, affirmed
that " in many churches they have no sermons, not
one in seven years, and some not one in twelve years
. . . few churches have their quarter sermons " \i. <?.,
the four yearly discourses, then the legal minimum of
ministerial pulpit effort] ;
1 Raine, ibid., p. 177.
2 William Clark, The Anglican Reformation, p. 181. 1897.
3 Froude, History of England, ix., p. 512.
WILLIAM BRADFORD II
Cotton Mather affirms that the inhabitants of Aus-
terfield in Bradford's boyhood were " a most ignorant
and licentious people, and like unto their priest."
Happily there is reason to believe the description ex-
aggerated. . The curate of the little church, Henry
Fletcher, certainly had the clerical merit, then by no
means universal, of residing in the community of which
he was the accredited spiritual leader; but the judg-
ment of the antiquary, the Rev. Joseph Hunter, ex-
pressed more than forty years ago, is doubtless correct,
that Bradford owed little to Fletcher's ministry; 2 and
as to the widely prevalent unspirituality and ignorance
of the ministry and people of England at the close of
Elizabeth's reign there is abundant evidence.
That this state of affairs existed so generally was
due to the peculiar character of the English Reforma-
tion. That movement, more than any corresponding
development on the Continent, was checked and con-
trolled by political considerations. National indepen-
dence from foreign control was the one thought to
which the English people, as a whole, readily re-
sponded ; but, for many years after the papal authority
had been rejected, nothing like a majority of the in-
habitants of England could be counted as favorers of
Protestant doctrine. A church essentially unchanged
in organization and discipline, and largely Roman in
ritual and belief, while English in language and gov-
1 Magnalia, ed. 1853, i., p. 109. 2 Collections, pp. 112, 113.
12 WILLIAM BRADFORD
eminent, was the preference not only of Elizabeth,
but, certainly, till the defeat of the Armada, of a ma-
jority of Englishmen. Yet side by side with this con-
servative tendency ran the strong current of intense
Protestant conviction, led especially by those who had
come into contact with the Calvinistic divines of the
Continent during the Marian persecutions, a current
sweeping into its control an ever increasing proportion
of the people as Elizabeth's reign went on. These
two antagonistic elements the great Queen kept from
such civil conflict as France contemporaneously wit-
nessed ; but at the expense of a compromise policy
that preserved the ancient ministry largely undisturbed
by inquiry as to belief or fitness, and repressed severely
the more strenuous desires of the Protestants. The
latter sought the abandonment of such remaining Ro-
man vestments and practices as they deemed super-
stitious; the maintenance of an educated, spiritually
enlightened, earnest ministry, which should preach the
intenser doctrines of Calvinistic Protestantism with
soul-searching force; and the purification of each
parish by the enforcement of rigorous discipline. To
their thinking, the maintenance by the Queen of
the half-reformed, unstrenuous, lax-disciplined, non-
preaching clergy who so largely filled the land, was a
deprivation of the people of the means of grace. In
the view of the Queen, to have permitted the extremer
Protestants, or, as they were usually nicknamed, the
WILLIAM BRADFORD 13
' Puritans," to have their way would have been to
throw the county into civil discord, to limit the royal
supremacy, and to go counter to her own religious
preferences, which were all anti-Protestant save on the
question of her own supremacy. And so it came
about that the Queen and the bishops whom she ap-
pointed everywhere repressed the Puritans, and insisted
that they be held in conformity to the ritual prescribed
by law; so it came about, also, that, while little
Austerfield had a Bible, at least in its church, and
enjoyed a ritual in the English tongue from which
the more obnoxious features of Romanism had been
purged away, its pulpit was silent, its minister igno-
rant and easy-going, and its discipline lax.
This repression by the constituted authorities in-
duced Puritanism to take increasingly an intenser
form. Before Elizabeth's reign had passed far into its
second decade, some Puritans had raised the question
whether a system of church government wherein the
ecclesiastical authorities, particularly the bishops who
were the immediate royal agents, had such powers
to prevent the execution of what Puritans believed to
be essential and Scriptural reforms, could be the right
form of church organization. Under the lead of
Thomas Cartwright, from 1569 onward, the more ad-
vanced Puritans, while clinging to the idea of a
national Church of which all baptized inhabitants of
England were members, denied the rightfulness of the
14 WILLIAM BRADFORD
Anglican Establishment as tested by the Word of
God, and began to agitate for its substantial alteration
by governmental authority. To a small radical wing
of the advanced Puritans even this seemed too slow a
method of approximation to the standard which they
thought was set up in the New Testament ; and, begin-
ning with Robert Browne in 1580, they taught that
the true method of reform was the separation of
Christian men and women from an Establishment
which seemed to them so little answering to the
apostolic congregations, and their organization by
mutual covenant into churches designedly on the
model of those of the Acts and the Pauline Epistles.
If the Bible is the sole source of doctrine, as all Re-
formation divines held it to be, why is it not of polity
also ? was their argument; and, judged by the Biblical
standard, was not the Establishment, which tolerated
so much that was worldly and unspiritual and was ruled
in a way so different from the churches of the first
century, essentially un-Christian and therefore to be
abandoned by those earnestly seeking the Kingdom
of God ? These were no mere speculative theories,
but beliefs for which, within the fifteen years that pre-
ceded Bradford's fourth birthday, several hundred
men and women from Norwich, Bury St. Edmunds,
Gloucester, and London had suffered imprisonment
and exile, and which no fewer than six men had sealed
with a martyr's death.
WILLIAM BRADFORD 15
But how was it that the youthful Bradford, in the
remote country village of Austerfield, came to embrace
the most strenuous type of Puritan faith ? The ex-
planation is to be found in the presence, in the near
vicinity, of several sympathizers with advanced Puritan
views. Of these the most influential were a clergy-
man and a layman, Rev. Richard Clyfton and Post-
master William Brewster. Both had been students
at Cambridge University, 1 and had there come, if not
before, under the dominant impress of Puritanism,
then largely influential in that seat of learning. Both
began their active work shortly before the time of
Bradford's birth; Clyfton having become rector at
Babworth, 2 nine or ten miles south of Austerfield, in
July, 1 586, at the age of thirty-three ; and Brewster hav-
ing begun to assist his invalid father as postmaster at
the old archiepiscopal manor of Scrooby, less than three
miles from Austerfield on the way to Babworth, early
in 1 589," being then some ten years younger than Clyf-
ton. 4 Clyfton's vigorous Puritan preaching and
catechising 5 from his vantage as incumbent of the
Babworth living, was ably seconded by Brewster's zeal
in securing the services of other Puritan ministers for
more temporary labors in the region. For this work
1 Edward Arber, Story of the Pilgrim Fathers, pp. 51, 189. London,
1897. 9 /foV.,p. 52. * Ibid., pp. 71, 83.
4 John Brown, The Pilgrim Fathers, p. 54. 1895. He was born in
1566-7.
5 Bradford, Dialogue, in Young's Chronicle of the Pilgrims, p. 453.
1 6 WILLIAM BRADFORD
Brewster's position as postmaster on the great North
Road gave opportunity, and his own purse contributed
more largely than that of anyone else to support the
preaching that he desired. 1 The result, as described
in Bradford's own words, 2 was that
"by the travell & diligence of some godly & zealous
preachers, & Gods blessing on their labours, as in other
places of y e land, so in y e North parts, many became in-
lightened by y e word of God, and had their ignorance &
sins discovered unto them, and begane by his grace to re-
forme their lives."
One of those thus spiritually quickened was the
youthful Bradford himself. Of a thoughtful turn of
mind by reason of illness, he was led by his study of
the Bible to desire some more awakening religious in-
struction than the ministrations, such as they may
have been, of Henry Fletcher at Austerfield afforded.
And so he began, as a boy of little more than twelve,
to make his way, as opportunity offered, down the
road and across the fields to Babworth; and, as he
grew a little older, was introduced to that company of
seekers for a warmer spiritual life who met under
Brewster's roof at Scrooby. Such a course must have
required no little resolution in the boy, for it had no
countenance from his neighbors or his uncles; 3 and
was sure to involve serious dangers of ecclesiastical
1 Bradford, History of Plimouth Plantation, p. 490. Boston, 1898.
2 Ibid., pp. ii, 12.
3 Mather, Magnalia, i., p. no.
WILLIAM BRADFORD I/
and governmental interference. Yet we may imagine
that Bradford's boyish determination was greatly
strengthened when, apparently in 1604, John Robin-
son, 1 fresh from Cambridge and Norwich, came to the
region, not improbably as one of the preachers of
Puritan earnestness obtained by Brewster, and speedily
added his strong, wise, and generous leadership to the
little company of seekers for a fuller reformation. To
know Robinson was in itself an education. No nobler
figure stands forth in the story of early Congregation-
alism than that of this moderate, earnest, patient,
learned, kindly man, who was for the next sixteen
years to be Bradford's friend and guide. Nor shall we
be far wrong, I take it, if we attribute to the influence
of this one-time fellow of Corpus Christi College, aided
perhaps in a less degree by that of Brewster and Clyf-
ton, that love for learning, which in spite of a total
lack of all the ordinary early advantages for an educa-
tion, made Bradford proficient in Latin, Greek, and
Hebrew, besides the considerable acquaintance with
Dutch and French which his exile brought to him. 2
The coming of a very different, but equally earnest,
man, the erratic, energetic, zealous John Smyth, 3 to the
1 Dexter, Congregationalism as Seen, pp. 373-376.
2 Mather, Magnalia, i., p. 113.
3 The date, 1602, usually assigned for the beginning of Smyth's Gains-
borough work has been subjected to recent criticism. Dr. Dexter,
True Story of John Smyth (1881, p. 2), was inclined to accept it on the
strength of Nathaniel Morton's New England* Memoriall (ii.), though
1 8 WILLIAM BRADFORD
important town of Gainsborough, some eight or nine
miles east of Scrooby and Austerfield, probably late in
1605 or early in 1606, undoubtedly added to the gen-
eral stir and ferment of the region.
It would not appear that Clyfton and Brewster, the
spiritual guides of the youthful Bradford, desired or
designed at first to separate from the Church of England.
They earnestly wished the reform of the Establishment
into something more nearly approaching what they
deemed the Biblical model, they emphasized preaching,
they sought a more strenuous moral discipline ; but they
were not as yet Separatists. Yet the opposition of the
ecclesiastical authorities forced them ultimately to the
Separatist position ; and soon after the coming of
Robinson and Smyth to the region, probably in 1606,
two churches ' were formed, designedly on the New
Testament model. One of these churches was organ-
even he regarded it as " rather early." But Professor Arber, Story of
the Pilgrim Fathers (1897, pp. 133, 134), shows pretty conclusively that
Smyth was a "lecturer" in Lincoln as late as March, 1605, and there-
fore could not have begun his work at Gainsborough till after that time.
On the other hand, Arber's identification of him with the John Smith
who graduated M.A. at Cambridge in 1593 (ibid., p. 132) rather than
with the graduate who received that degree in 1579 (Dexter, etc.) seems
less successful. Compare Thompson Cooper in Dictionary of National
Biography (liii., p. 68). Since the organization of the Scrooby church,
which crossed the Atlantic in the Mayflorver, seems to have been occa-
sioned by, or at least contemporary with (if not indeed originally in
union with), the formation of Smyth's Separatist congregation at Gains-
borough, the question of the date of the beginning of his ministry there
is of importance in determining the age of the Mayflower church.
1 Arber, ibid., p. 54.
WILLIAM BRADFORD 19
ized at Gainsborough, and though destined to encounter
much distraction under the leadership of Smyth in the
Netherlands, was to be the means of establishing the
first Baptist church in England. 1 The other was
gathered at Scrooby, and like that of Gainsborough
speedily became an exile under Clyfton and Robinson
in Holland, but was privileged to become the mother
of the Congregational churches of New England.
The resolution thus to separate from the Church of
their fathers was not quickly or rashly formed by these
Christians. It was the outcome of their study of the
Word of God under the illumination of the persecutions
to which their reformatory efforts within the Establish-
ment subjected them from its constituted authorities.
Bradford himself points this out very clearly. Describ-
ing the steps which brought him and his associates to
the organization of the Scrooby church, he says: 2
' They [the reformers] were both scoffed and scorned by
y e prophane multitude, and y e ministers urged with y e yoak
of subscription, or els must be silenced; and y e poore people
were so vexed with apparators, & pursuants, & y e comis-
sarie courts, as truly their affliction was not smale; which,
notwithstanding, they bore sundrie years with much pa-
tience, till they were occasioned (by y e continuance & en-
crease of these troubls, and other means which y e Lord
raised up in those days) to see further into things by the
light of y e word of God. How not only these base and
beggerly ceremonies were unlawfull, but also that y e lordly
1 A. H. Newman, History of Anti-Pedobaptism, p. 391. Phila-
delphia, 1897. 2 Bradford, Hist. Plim. Plant., pp. 12, 13.
20 WILLIAM BRADFORD
& tiranous power of y e prelats ought not to be submitted
unto; which thus, contrary to the freedome of the gospell,
would load & burden mens consciences, and by their com-
pulsive power make a prophane mixture of persons & things
in y e worship of God. ... So ... they shooke
of this yoake of antichristian bondage, and as y e Lords free
people, joyned them selves (by a covenant of the Lord) into
a church estate, in y e felowship of y e gospell, to walke in
all his wayes, made known, or to be made known unto
them, according to their best endeavours, whatsoever it
should cost them, the Lord assisting them."
I have thus dwelt at considerable length on the
origin and purpose of this Congregational church, of
which Bradford, then entering on his seventeenth year,
was one of the more youthful organizers; and I have
done so, if for no other purpose, to show that it was
no headstrong and hasty opposition to salutary author-
ity that here found expression. The separation,
when it came, was in this instance but the fruit of a
deep conviction that the Church of England as then
administered not only failed to be what a Scriptural
church should be, but that it was irreformable by any
efforts which these men and women of Scrooby, and
Austerfield, and Babworth, and Gainsborough could
make, and hence the only course open to them was to
come out of it.
But to come out of it, as Bradford and those older
than he speedily found, was to be subject to increased
attack. They were now " hunted & persecuted on
WILLIAM BRADFORD 21
every side," ! and, after some hesitation, took the mo-
mentous step of leaving home and country for the
shelter and toleration of Holland. Yet, as Bradford
records, " though they could not stay, yet were y e
not suffered to goe," 8 and, attempting to escape in
the autumn of 1607, 3 Bradford found himself in Boston
prison. His youth, however, procured him speedy
release; 4 and, in the spring of 1608, he, with his asso-
ciates in exile, was in Amsterdam. Though released
from persecution, life was full enough of difficulties for
these poor farmers in their new city home. The
strange sights of the new land were not without their
impressiveness to the observant young Englishman;
but, as he tells us. " though they saw faire & bewti-
full cities, flowing with abundance of all sorts of welth
& riches, yet it was not longe before they saw the
grime & grisly face of povertie coming upon them
like an armed man." 5
To battle for his daily bread, Bradford learned the
silkweaver's trade of some French refugee, 8 perhaps
like himself an exile for conscience, though no easy
taskmaster to the learner in the unaccustomed art.
After the church of which Bradford was a member
removed to Leyden in the spring of 1609, Bradford
1 Bradford, Hist. Plim. Plant., p. 14.
* Ibid., p. 16.
3 On date, see Arber, Pilgrim Fathers, p. 86.
4 Mather, Magnalia, i., p. in.
5 Bradford, Hist. Plim. Plant., p. 22.
6 Mather, ibid.
22 WILLIAM BRADFORD
pursued the same general means of livelihood, though
now he wrought upon the stout cotton cloth then
known as fustian. Indeed, it would seem that he in-
vested the small sum that came to him from the sale
of his inheritance at Austerfield, in 1611, in an inde-
pendent business venture, but the enterprise brought
him more experience than success, and Cotton Mather
believed, probably truly, that he judged his loss " a
correction bestowed by God upon him for certain
decays of internal piety." 1 It was as by occupation
a " fustian-maker " that he was entered in the public
records 2 of Amsterdam, when, on November 30, 1613,
at the age of twenty-three, he was married to the six-
teen-year-old Dorothy May 3 of Wisbech in the home
land, whose drowning seven years later, as the May-
flower swung at anchor in the harbor of Cape Cod, was
to sadden Bradford's coming to the New World. His
young wife was a granddaughter of John May, who
had died as Bishop of Carlisle in 1598, and her elder
sister had been for four years settled at Amsterdam as
the wife of Jean de 1'Ecluse, an elder in the Separatist
church of which Ainsworth was the head. Certainly
Bradford must have been prospered, in some small
way at least, as he grew more acquainted with his new
home and its business methods, for in April, 1619, he
1 Magnalia i., p, in.
2 Arber, Pilgrim Fathers, p. 163 ; Dexter, Cong, as Seen, p. 381.
3 On Dorothy May, see C. H. Townshend in New England Historical
and Genealogical Register, 1., p. 462.
WILLIAM BRADFORD 23
sold a house in the city where he had then lived just
a decade. 1
Yet the chief value to Bradford of this severe expe-
rience in a foreign land was, doubtless, the preparation
that it gave him for his greater work on this side of the
Atlantic. Those formative years of labor and self-
control, and especially of association with Robinson
and Brewster in a company whose first desire was the
service of God, ripened and broadened 'and deepened
his natural qualities. The boy, who at fourteen or
fifteen had been firm enough to resist his companions'
jibes and his uncles' opposition, developed into no bit-
ter and obstinate fanatic, but rather grew, under the
hard discipline of his Leyden experience, into a wise
and kindly manhood, so that when the emigration to
New England came, in 1620, probably no other man
of thirty could have been found better fitted to take
prominent part in an enterprise demanding patience,
courage, and forbearance.
Of the details of that emigration there is no occasion
to speak here at length. We are, or ought to be, fa-
miliar with that heroic exodus story; with its begin-
nings in the desire of the exiles to live as Englishmen
on English soil, to give better advantages spiritually
and temporally to their children, and above all, as
Bradford 3 himself wrote in noble phrase, in a
1 Dexter, True Story of John Smyth, p. 77.
* Bradford, Hist. Plim. Plant., p. 32.
24 WILLIAM BRADFORD
" great hope & inward zeall ... of laying some good
foundation, or at least to make some way therimto, for
y e propagating & advancing y e gospell of y e kingdom of
Christ in those remote parts of y e world; yea, though they
should be but even as stepping stones unto others for y e per-
forming of so great a work."
Very interesting would it be, were not the facts so
familiar, to follow the discussions of the Leyden
church as timrd souls raised difficulties of all magni-
tudes, from the expense and distance of the expedition
and the barbarous cruelty of the natives, to the ability
of the emigrants to substitute water for their accus-
tomed beer. 1 Their negotiations with the English
government, the unfortunate union with a company of
speculative London merchants into which their poverty
drove them, the difficulties of their long voyage, their
arrival at the beginning of winter on another coast
from that on which they had expected to make their
landing, their December debarkation, and the rough
winter experiences in home building in the wilderness,
which cost them before the first springtime more of
their number proportionately than have fallen from
the ranks of an army in any great modern battle, are
all worthy of filial remembrance. But it is with Brad-
ford himself that we have more immediately to do.
There is no reason to suppose that the plan of emi-
gration was especially his conception. Robinson, who
1 Bradford, Hist. Plim. Plant., pp. 32-35.
WILLIAM BRADFORD 2$
remained at Leyden, Ruling Elder William Brewster, 1
Robert Cushman, and John Carver were all more
prominent in the negotiations leading to it than he.
Yet we find him uniting with Fuller, Allerton, and
Winslow in an independent protest against some of the
agreements with the London merchant partners in the
colonizing enterprise, 2 which shows that, before leav-
ing Leyden, Bradford was one of the more important
members of the Separatist community. But, by the
time of the Pilgrims' arrival on the bleak New England
coast, Bradford had shown himself a man of action,
taking a conspicuous share in the search for a place of
settlement; 3 so that when death removed the first
Governor, John Carver, from the civil headship of the
little commonwealth, in April, 1621, the community
turned naturally and unanimously to Bradford 4 as his
successor. That office, uniting as it did the duties of
the executive, legislative, and judicial leadership, was
thenceforward Bradford's by thirty-one 5 annual elec-
tions, and would have been his uninterruptedly through-
out his life had he not insisted successfully at five of the
thirty-six elections held in his lifetime on the desirability
of rotation in office. He always served without salary. 6
1 Winslow (Hypocrisie Unmasked, pp. 88, 89) attributes its inception
to Robinson and Brewster.
2 Bradford, Hist. Plim. Plant., pp. 61, 62.
3 Mourfs Relation, in Young, Chronicles of the Pilgrim Fathers, pp.
126, 149. 4 Mather, Magnalia, i., p. in.
5 J. A. Goodwin, The Pilgrim Republic, p. 456. iSSS. 6 Ibid., p. 455.
26 WILLIAM BRADFORD
So associated has the title, Governor, become in our
minds with the headship of a great commonwealth
that its application to Bradford is likely to deceive us
with suggestions of a state and pomp of which his
office showed no trace. Chosen the leader of the fifty-
seven survivors of that first terrible winter, just after
the Mayflower had left them in the spring of 1621, he
saw the colony grow to about three hundred souls by
1630, while at his death in 1657 it may have numbered
somewhat more than four thousand inhabitants. 1
Never an imposing station from a worldly point of
view, the Plymouth governorship was a post, never-
theless, of great responsibility, for its successful occu-
pancy in these formative years in which Bradford held
it involved not merely the solution of the ordinary
problems of pioneer settlement life, but the establish-
ment of a democratic community and the maintenance
of a democratic church polity under circumstances of
constant peril. To tell with any fullness what Brad-
ford did would be to give an outline of the early his-
tory of Plymouth. That is, of course, impossible in
the space at our command. But we may glance briefly
at four or five of the more important services that
Bradford rendered to the colony of which he was
Governor.
One conspicuous service, then, was the tiding of the
colony over the trying period of its beginnings. As
1 Compare Palfrey, History of New England, ii., p. 6 ; iii., p. 35.
WILLIAM BRADFORD 2J
for most of the Mayflower passengers, so for Bradford,
the months after arrival in New England were a time
of grief. His wife died in Provincetown harbor before
the landing; and he was himself severely ill of the
scurvy which cost half the company their lives within
the first year. It was not till his marriage, in the
summer of 1623, to Mrs. Alice Southworth, who as
Alice Carpenter ' had become the wife of one of his
associates at Leyden the same year that he had mar-
ried Dorothy May, that Bradford was able to have the
comfort of a home. Yet under these discouragements
he showed no want of courage or lack of faith in the
success of the undertaking. 2 But perplexities of a
public nature filled these years. Perhaps the most
pressing was the crying need of food. With scarce
other provisions from Europe than the scant supplies
that were brought in the May flower > and unprovided
with cattle till 1624, the colony for the first two or
three years was reduced to the verge of starvation,
except just after the autumn harvest. Bradford, 3 with
a humor characteristic of him, after recording of the
summer of 1623 that
" all ther victails were spente, and they were only to rest on
Gods providence; at night not many times knowing wher
to have a bitt of any thing y e next day,"
adds that
1 For her history, see Goodwin, Pilgrim Republic, pp. 247-249.
2 Witness the confident tone of the, so-called, Mourfs Relation.
3 Hist. Plim. Plant., p. 164.
28 WILLIAM BRADFORD
" as one well observed, [they] had need to pray that God
would give them their dayly brade, above all people in y e
world."
Of the same year he notes: '
" Many were ragged in aparell, & some litle beter then
halfe naked. . . . But for food they were all alike, save
some y f had got a few pease of y e ship y* was last hear.
The best dish they could presente their friends with was a
lobster, or a peece of fish, without bread or anything els
but a cupp of fair spring water."
One readily credits his further statement a that
1 ' y e long continuance of this diate, and their labours abroad,
had something abated y e freshnes of their former com-
plexion."
Yet this peril of famine was, perhaps, not the worst
of the dangers of the early days. The Indians, whose
reported barbarities had disquieted the Leyden church
when the journey was under discussion, were a source
of great anxiety. True, one of the most surprising
and helpful events in the Pilgrim beginnings was the
arrival in little Plymouth, on April i, 1621, of Tis-
quantum, or Squanto. This sole survivor of the for-
mer Indian inhabitants of the township had gained
acquaintance with the English speech and ways by
reason of an enforced residence in England and in
Newfoundland from 1614 to 1619, and he now became
1 Hist. Plim. Plant., p. 175. *Ibid.
WILLIAM BRADFORD 29
their instructor in planting the unfamiliar corn
and their serviceable guide and interpreter. 1 But
Massasoit, the leader of the Pokanokets, Corbitant,
chief of the Pocassets, and Canonicus of the Narragan-
setts, to say nothing of Wituwamat and his more hos-
tile associates of the Massachusetts tribe, had to be
managed with great skill and firmness for the first
three years of the colony's existence, if the struggling
community was to maintain its life. Without detract-
ing at all from the honor due to the high diplomatic
and medical ability of Winslow, or the prompt execu-
tive force of Standish, no inconsiderable portion of the
credit for the satisfactory relations with its Indian
neighbors at which the settlement so speedily arrived
belonged to the wisdom of Bradford.
But famine and Indian attack were not the only
difficulties through which Bradford had to pilot the
infant colony. Perils from his own countrymen
were probably greater dangers than either. Thomas
Weston, treasurer of the London partners in the Plym-
outh enterprise, and, more than any other man not
a Pilgrim, responsible for the sending out of the May-
flower, had looked upon the Plymouth settlement
simply as a money-making enterprise. The inevitable
failure to pay prompt dividends turned him from a
grasping and grudging supporter of the Pilgrims into
1 Compare Mourfs Relation in Young, pp. 190, 191 ; Bradford, Hist.,
pp. 114-155 ; Charles Francis Adams, Three Episodes of Massachusetts
History, pp. 23-44.
30 WILLIAM BRADFORD
an open enemy. In 1622 Weston sent out a trading
expedition of his own, which, after testing the hospi-
tality of Plymouth to the utmost, settled in unruly
fashion at Wessagusset, on Boston Bay. Resolved
not to burden his colony with wives and children,
Weston gathered together a company of adventurers
of no character, who, in spite of their boasts, were
soon in such straits that they were only saved by the
intervention of the Pilgrims, after having been the
cause of frightful peril to Plymouth from the Indians
whom their ill-treatment exasperated. No higher tes-
timony could be had to the efficiency of the Pilgrim
colony under Bradford's administration than its ability
not only to defend itself but to rescue those who had
at first claimed to have such superiority to it. 1
Nor were this peril from Weston's adventurers, and
that from Thomas Morton and his associates in riotous
proceedings at Mount Wollaston in 1628, 2 the only dan-
gers from their own countrymen which the colonists en-
countered. We often think of the population of Plym-
outh itself as homogeneous, devoted heart and soul to
the advancement of the religious purpose which ani-
mated the Leyden emigrants. But such was by no
means the case. The colony was founded by a joint
partnership, that of London merchant speculators,
who, moved by hope of profit, furnished most of
1 Bradford, Hist., pp. 137-160; Adams, Three Episodes, i., pp. 45-
104. 2 Bradford, ibid., pp. 283-292 ; Adams, ibid., pp. 162-208.
WILLIAM BRADFORD 31
the money (in all some 7000), l and of the real Pil-
grims. Both contributed men at the beginning and
sent reinforcements during the first few years, but the
quality of these respective contributions was very dis-
similar, religion being the dominant motive with the
Pilgrims proper, trade with their merchant partners.
Hence the strange mixture of emigrants that Bradford
notices, 2 for instance, in speaking of the arrival of the
Anne in July, 1623, some of her passengers " being
very usefull persons, and became good members of y e
body . . . and some were so bad, as they were
faine to be at charge to send them home againe y e next
year." The consequence was that the dominance of
Pilgrim principles, even in the colony itself, was main-
tained for a time with difficulty. This difficulty was
much increased when the London merchants, in their
desire to minimize those Separatist features of the col-
ony which they fancied were interfering with its growth
as a trading settlement, sent over John Lyford, a Puri-
tan minister of the Church of England, with intent,
as the event proved, to modify the religious institu-
tions of Plymouth into something more satisfactory to
the majority of Englishmen. Lyford at first appeared
attached to the Congregational worship of the commu-
nity and was consulted in public concerns, but he
soon had the support of certain disaffected elements in
1 Arber, Pilgrim Fathers, p. 320, from John Smith, Gen. Hist, of
Virginia, vi., p. 247. 2 Hist. Ptim. Plant., p. 171.
32 WILLIAM BRADFORD
the colony, notably of John Oldham, and it was not
long before he and his friends " set up a publick meet-
ing aparte, on y e Lords day." ' Here, then, was the
introduction of a religious division which would trans-
plant to the struggling colony the controversies of the
mother country. It was a difficult situation that Brad-
ford was called to face, complicated as it was by res-
tiveness under civil control; but he met it with skill
and courage, while Lyford's own want of character
gave Bradford the decided advantage. Bradford's
opening of Lyford's letters home to the disaffected
merchant partners in London was undoubtedly high-
handed, but his facing Oldham and Lyford in open
town meeting was crowned with the success which his
boldness deserved, and made the Leyden emigrants
from this early summer of 1624 wholly masters of the
internal affairs of Plymouth. 2
The frustration by Bradford of this attempt to
change the religious and political status of the Pilgrim
colony led to the wellnigh complete alienation of the
already disgruntled London partners in the enterprise,
and became the occasion of yet another service ren-
dered by him to the community of which he was the
executive head. That partnership had never been
satisfactory. The terms exacted of the Pilgrims were
onerous, and the expectations of the merchants were
1 Hist. Plim. Plant., p. 209.
2 Compare Goodwin, Pilgrim Republic, pp. 259-276.
WILLIAM BRADFORD 33
wildly extravagant. There was never any complete
community of goods at Plymouth, but at the beginning
of the enterprise, by reason of the joint partnership of all
in it both of emigrants who labored and of merchants
who furnished the supplies the colonists drew food
and tools and clothing from a common store, and
turned into the same common treasury the results of
their labor. In fact, it was an excellent example of
the carrying into actual practice among a people, the
majority of whom were God-fearing and conscientious
in high degree, of the principles advocated by many
of the more moderate of modern socialists. But it did
not operate well. It caused friction at many points,
and broke down, interestingly enough, as a system
of efficient production. People worked under it.
There were as few drones at Plymouth as in any com-
munity ever known. But, as the event proved, the
colonists thus associated did not work enough to pro-
duce a result from their labors sufficient to meet the
needs of the community. The first break came in
1623, at the height of the famine of which mention has
already been made. The communitary methods of
farming were not producing a sufficiency of food, and
therefore Bradford, with the consent of his associates,
reluctantly directed that in this one particular the
communitary rule should be set aside and that each
should plant, till, and possess corn as he saw fit. The
result was so marked an increase in production that
34 WILLIAM BRADFORD
after that harvest Plymouth was never seriously
threatened with extinction by starvation. Bradford l
gives as the reason, that the plan of individual
ownership
" made all hands very industrious, so as much more come
was planted then other waise would have bene by any
means y e Gov r or any other could use, and saved him a
great deall of trouble, and gave farr better contente. The
women now wente willingly into y e feild, and tooke their
litle-ons with them to set corne, which before would aledg
weaknes, and inabilitie; whom to have compelled would
have bene thought great tiranie and oppression."
And Bradford 2 expressed the judgment of the com-
munitary system in general, as experienced at Plym-
outh, that it
" was found to breed much confusion & discontent, and
retard much imploymet that would have been to their bene-
fite and comforte. For y e yong-men that were most able
and fitte for labour & service did repine that they should
spend their time & streingth to worke for other mens wives
and children, with out any recompence. The strong, or
man of parts, had no more in devission of victails & cloaths,
then he that was weake and not able to doe a quarter y e other
could; this was thought injuestice. The aged and graver
men to be ranked and equalised in labours, and victails,
cloaths, &c., with y e meaner & yonger sorte, thought it
some indignite & disrespect unto them. And for mens
wives to be commanded to doe servise for other men, as
dresing their meate, washing their cloaths, &c., they deemd
1 Hist. Plim. Plant., p. 162. 2 Ibid., p. 163.
WILLIAM BRADFORD 35
it a kind of slaverie, neither could many husbands well
brooke it."
The stage was small and the experience brief, I
grant; but it was experience, and that, too, under
favorable conditions ; and a page of recorded experi-
ence is more truly illuminative than a library shelf of
speculation, however picturesque or warm-hearted, as
to the possible workings of systems of society of which
we have no actual knowledge.
The once seemingly necessary yoking of the Ley-
den pilgrims with the London merchants, which had
been the cause of this remarkable experiment, had
proved thoroughly unsatisfactory to all concerned by
the time of Lyford's downfall, and that collapse rap-
idly hastened the termination of the partnership. In
1626, the remaining London merchant partners sold
out their interests to the Plymouth colonists for .1800,
to be paid in nine annual installments. The colony
thus obtained its independence; but, to make it pos-
sible, Bradford and seven of his associates bound them-
selves personally for its payment. 1
Bradford's services to the religious system which he
held dear were considerable. Till 1629 the Pilgrim
church stood alone, sole representative of Congrega-
tionalism in the New World. But in 1628 the van-
guard of the great Puritan immigration which was to
possess most of New England reached Salem under
1 Hist. Plim. Plant., pp. 252-257.
36 WILLIAM BRADFORD
the leadership of John Endicott. He and his associ-
ates, like the early New England Puritans generally,
looked with disfavor on the Plymouth Separatists.
Though the Puritans of the emigration rejected the
hierarchy, the service, and the discipline of the Church
of England, they had no intention of separating from
that body, and they condemned those who did so.
But neighborliness brought better knowledge. Dr.
Samuel Fuller, the godly deacon and physician of
Plymouth, ministered to the sick of Endicott's com-
pany, and talked polity with the well; and when Hig-
ginson and Skelton and a large body of settlers with
them reached Salem in the early summer of 1629, they
found Endicott and his associates not quite ready to
approve Plymouth Separatism, but well pleased with
Plymouth's faith and order. So it came about that
when Bradford heard that the Salem people had organ-
ized a church of experimental believers in Christ, and
had chosen part of its officers according to what Plym-
outh deemed the Scriptural appointment, and had
fixed a day for further election and ordination, 1 he
came in one of the little boats, in which the colonists
then ventured along the coast, from Plymouth to
Salem with a few companions, and, for the first time
on this new continent, gave the " right hand of fellow-
ship " to the new gathered congregation. 2 The head
'See Charles Gott's letter in Bradford, Hist. Plim. Plant., pp. 316,
317. 2 Morton, New Englands Memoriall, p. 99, ed. 1855.
WILLIAM BRADFORD 37
of the older colony thus thought it well worth his
while to welcome with Christian sympathy the Puritan
newcomers to New England, and not a little of the
ease and readiness with which emigrated Puritanism
was led to organize its churches substantially on the
Plymouth model was due to the welcome and example
of Bradford and Fuller.
Time allows us no further glance at Bradford's
manifold public activities for the good of the colony
of which he was the civil head, nor at his relations to
other settlers in New England, illustrated in his presi-
dency, for some two years, 1 of the joint body of
Commissioners which, from 1643 onward till after his
death, represented the united interests of the four
Congregational colonies. But one private and un-
official feature of his services^to the colony of his resi-
dence cannot be passed by, and that is his writings.
Were it not for Bradford's Relation, History, and Let-
ters, little indeed would it be that we should know of
Plymouth's beginnings. He not merely wisely directed
his associates while they lived he found time and in-
clination to preserve their memories and deeds for per-
petual remembrance. His chief work is, of course,
his History, begun about 1630, and continued till the
close of 1646. That History has had a more picturesque
fate than that of any other American manuscript.
Kept for many years in the family of Bradford's son,
1 1648 and 1656.
3 WILLIAM BRADFORD
William, and grandson, John, it was for some time in
the hands of that sturdy Puritan, Judge Samuel Sewall.
Hence, with the consent of its third American owner of
the Bradford name, it passed, apparently in 1728, into
the New England Library collected by that most gifted
as well as most patient of early students of our begin-
nings, Thomas Prince, pastor of the Old South Church
in Boston. 1 Deposited in the tower of the Old South
Church, it was well known as late as 1767; but during
the commotions incident to the Revolutionary struggle
it disappeared, in what precise way seems impossible
to discover, to be mourned as hopelessly lost. The
happy identification in 1855, by a comparatively minor
Massachusetts historian, of certain quotations from
manuscript sources in an English book already nine
years in its second edition, 2 at length revealed to Ameri-
can investigators the fact, not very much to the credit
of their breadth of reading be it confessed, since the
fact had been published in yet another English book
seven years before, 3 that the desired volume was in the
library of the Bishop of London at Fulham. Printed
in 1856, it became at once, as it had been to Morton,
Hubbard, Mather, Prince, and Hutchinson, the prime
source on the beginnings of Plymouth colony; and so
permanent is the interest it excites that a reproduction
in photographic facsimile was issued as recently as
1 See Preface to the 1856 edition of Bradford, Hist. Plim. Plant.,
x., xi. 2 Ibid., iv.
3 Dexter, Bibliography, in Cong, as Seen, under No. 5791.
WILLIAM BRADFORD 39
1896. Of the honors of its home-coming on May 26,
1897, brought by an ambassador of the United States
who had in a peculiar measure won the good-will of
the English people, and welcomed by the Governor
and the senior Senator of Massachusetts in the presence
of the Legislature of the commonwealth, it is only need-
ful to remind you. The newspaper descriptions of that
scene, though too often misnaming the recovered
manuscript the " Log of the Mayflower" must be dis-
tinct in all our memories.
Besides his History, Bradford's busy pen produced
other work of value. The graphic account of the in-
ception of the Plymouth settlement, published at
London, in 1622, and generally known as Mourt's
Relation, was largely his work, though with the as-
sistance of his colleague in the leadership of Plymouth
affairs, Edward Winslow. 1 In more advanced life,
about the year 1648, Bradford put into the form of a
brief dialogue his information and his recollections
concerning the beginnings of Congregationalism and
its leaders in England and Holland. Regarding many
of these personages and events we know much more
than he, thanks to the labors of Dr. Dexter and other
students of Congregational beginnings. It may be,
as has been charged, that his judgment of men was
occasionally over kindly. 2 But with all its brevity and
1 Young, Chronicles of the Pilgrims, p. 115.
2 . g. , by Arber, Pilgrim Fathers, passim,
40 WILLIAM BRADFORD
limitations, the Dialogue gives us many hints and pic-
tures of value. The volume in which Bradford copied
his more important letters was discovered about a hun-
dred years ago, in grievously mutilated condition, in a
baker's shop in Halifax. 1 Besides these more import-
ant writings, and some Hebrew exercises, which have
come down in more or less perfect form to our time,
Bradford left, and Prince certainly handled, several
smaller treatises and records, the character of one of
which, as described in Bradford's will, throws an amus-
ing light on a trait markedly characteristic of the early
settlers of New England, the disposition to write what
they believed to be poetry. Bradford valued his com-
positions in rhyme, for he said to his executors, " I
commend to you a little book with a black cover,
wherein there is a word to Plymouth, a word to Bos-
ton, and a word to New England, with sundry useful
verses." 2 There is nothing in such rhymes as have
survived to give the impression of any loss to New
England letters by the perishing of these compositions,
and in his deficiency in real poetic gift this author was
no exception among the divines, magistrates, and
founders of colonies, who so generally attempted
poetic expression.
Bradford's prose style is simple, direct, dignified.
Often there is a kind of eloquence in his straight-
forwardness and force. Oftener there is a touch of
1 Goodwin, Pilgrim Repttblic, xiv. 2 Ibid., p. 457.
WILLIAM BRADFORD 41
almost unconscious pathos; 1 as of one who had en-
dured and suffered much. Sometimes, though rarely,
there appears a flash of grim humor, that makes you
feel him to have been not without appreciation of the
incongruous and the absurd. 2 To a modern historian
his paucity of definite dates, and his occasional substi-
tution of indefinite generalities for the concrete facts
we desire is a source of regret; 3 but his meaning is
rarely doubtful. His writings are marked throughout
by courage and cheer. They give us the best picture
of the man himself; the modest, kindly, grateful, gen-
erous, honorable leader in a great enterprise. Shrewd
and sober of judgment, profoundly religious with a re-
ligion that masters his actions rather than seeks ex-
pression in words, self-forgetful, without cant, and
with far less superstition than many of his associates,
it is a sweet, strong, noble character that has uncon-
sciously written itself in the pages of his History. You
feel that the man whose native generosity of spirit
prompted him to give a passing Jesuit a dinner of fish
of a Friday, 4 who took on himself a great share of the
debt which weighed on the whole community, who re-
fused to profit by a charter which, if strictly enforced,
would have given large pecuniary gain to him and to
his family, and would even have legally allowed him
1 Hist. Plim. Plant., e. g., pp. 13, 131. 2 Ibid., e. g., 134, 135, 164.
3 E. g., his account of the beginnings of the Pilgrim church.
4 Gabriel Druillettes in 1650 ; Palfrey, History of New England, ii.,
p. 308.
42 WILLIAM BRADFORD
to treat his fellow colonists as his tenants, 1 was one
who not merely deserved the respect but the love of
his associates, and you can appreciate their unflagging
desire that he should be their Governor.
Bradford's last years were not without their trials.
Plymouth was at best a hard place in which to obtain
a livelihood ; its scanty soil, its limited pasturage, its
remoteness from the rivers which were the main avenues
of access to trade with the Indians, and its disadvan-
tages as a commercial port, all led to a scattering of its
early settlers, as soon as the prohibition of removal was
raised, in 1632; indeed the dispersion had begun even
before. Plymouth, though remaining the capital,
steadily waned, and Bradford had the sorrow of mem-
bership in what must be termed, I think, a decaying
church. The strength of the old Mayflower congrega-
tion was largely drawn elsewhere in the colony. Nor
could the ministry of Ralph Smith, who laid down in
1636, as Bradford says, " partly by his own willingness
. . . and partly at the desire, and by y e perswa-
sion, of others," * the pastoral office which he had as-
sumed in 1629, or of the much abler John Reynor,
whose ministry continued nearly to Bradford's death,
compare in spiritual edification with that of Robinson,
the pastor of Bradford's young manhood, or even of
Brewster, the ruling elder who was essentially the pastor
1 Mather, Magnalia, i., p. 113 ; Goodwin, Pilgrim Republic, pp. 337,
338. . * Hist, Plim. Plant., p. 418.
WILLIAM BRADFORD 43
of the first nine years of the colony. Bradford made
the spiritual good of the little commonwealth his first
concern, and his last days were distressed by what he
deemed the neglect of the people over whom he was
Governor to provide the pecuniary means for securing
a more able ministry than the scattered towns of the
colony enjoyed. He would have had them raise the
salaries of their ministers by a tax, as in the other
Congregational colonies, instead of depending on the
precarious device of voluntary contributions. 1 But,
while he worried about many matters, nothing could
disturb the essential serenity of his life, or his trust in
God. Though his physical frame gradually weakened
throughout his last winter, his confidence in the divine
mercy toward him remained unshaken, and found ex-
pression in a triumphant declaration to his friends the
day before his death, " that the good Spirit of God
had given him a pledge of his happiness in another
world, and the first fruits of his eternal glory." 12 He
died May 9, 1657.
They bore him to his rest up the steep hillside to
the wind-swept top, whence the eye glances over the
little town below, and on to the distant slope where
Bradford's helpful comrade, Standish, made his later
home ; or looks out seaward, past the Gurnet, guarding
the harbor, over the waves once plowed by the May-
flower ; till it rests, in clear weather, on Cape Cod,
1 Goodwin, Pilgrim Republic, p. 458. 2 Mather, Magnalia, i., p. 114.
44 WILLIAM BRADFORD
where Bradford first stepped upon American soil.
From that place of thronging memories you can com-
pass the scenes of most of his life in that raw, new
wilderness. There below you he planted his garden ;
there at the foot of the steep southward slope runs the
town brook as it did when, in the springtime of Brad-
ford's first election, Squanto taught the Pilgrims the
value of its then abundant fish ; 1 up the steep hill-path
toward you, to the structure at once fort and meeting-
house that then crowned its top, Bradford used to
come to Sunday worship, in his long robe, with Brew-
ster and Standish walking in state on either hand. 2
And here, somewhere beneath your feet, they laid
him, without a word of prayer or a verse of comfort
from God's Word, for such was to be the unbroken
custom of New England till a generation after his
burial ; 3 yet as Morton 4 says :
" with the greatest solemnities that the jurisdiction to
which he belonged was in a capacity to perform, many
deep sighs, as well as loud volleys of shot declaring that
the people were no less sensible of their own loss, who were
surviving, than mindful of the worth and honor of him that
was deceased."
Bradford's own pen has recorded, in halting verse, his
sense of the divine guidance in his life: 5
1 Hist. Plim. Plant., p. 121.
2 Letter of De Rasieres, in Palfrey, i., p. 227.
3 Till 1685. Even seventy-five years after Bradford's death prayer at
funerals was by no means universal.
* New Englands Memoriall, p. 176, 1855.
WILLIAM BRADFORD 45
From my years young in days of youth,
God did make known to me his truth,
And call'd me from my native place
For to enjoy the means of grace.
In wilderness he did me guide,
And in strange lands for me provide.
In fears and wants, through weal and woe,
A Pilgrim passed I to and fro."
It was this deep and abiding trust in God and willing-
ness to follow God's truth as he understood it that made
Bradford what he was. His talents were undoubtedly
great, his administrative ability conspicuous, his pa-
tience wellnigh unfailing; he was a man whom other
men trusted and revered ; but the power which led
him through the vicissitudes of his changeful life was
that of an unreserved consecration to the service of
God. The covenant of the Congregational church of
which he was a member from its organization at
Scrooby, through its Amsterdam and Leyden exile,
and in its Plymouth transplantation till his death, had
pledged him and his associates l
" to walke in all his [God's] wayes, made known, or to be
made known unto them, according to their best endeavours,
whatsoever it should cost them."
He kept this pledge, and, in so doing, he became a
noble example of a Christian layman of the early days
of Congregationalism, and one whose name Congre-
gationalists delight to honor.
1 Hist. Plim. Plant., p. 13.
JOHN COTTON
47
II.
JOHN COTTON
THERE was occasion to point out, in the first lec-
ture of this course, the steps which gradually led
such a company as that accustomed to gather in Brew-
ster's home in the Scrooby manor-house to separation
from the Church of England. It was seen that Clyfton
and Brewster labored long within the Establishment to
secure for their district of England an earnest, edu-
cated, preaching ministry, and such a degree of in-
struction and discipline as would give a new spiritual
tone to the inhabitants of its parishes. It was noted,
furthermore, that John Robinson probably came to
the region of Scrooby and Austerfield as a preacher in
the employ of those still, nominally at least, within the
Church of England, and that it was not till a year or
two after Robinson's Lincolnshire ministry began that
the little company to which Bradford belonged, and of
which Robinson had become a conspicuous leader,
withdrew from the Establishment under the stimulus
of ecclesiastical interference with their attempt to in-
troduce reforms, being further led to this withdrawal, as
they believed, by truer views of the Biblical teaching as
4 49
50 JOHN COTTON
to what a church should be. But this extreme measure,
which Bradford described as a shaking off of the
' yoake of antichristian bondage," 1 seemed far too
radical to all save a few of the people of England. To
most of those who sought a further reformation, the
Separatists who denied the churchly character of the
Establishment were as objectionable as the bishops
who prevented reform. Yet as the Puritans read their
Bibles, under the light that came from Geneva, they
drew much the same conclusions that the Separatists
did as to the lack of warrant for existing diocesan epis-
copacy ; the desirability that a ^cpngregation should
have a voice in. the selection of its minister; the bond-
age, and as they deemed it, the perversion of the cere-
monies and worship of the Church ; and the wrongful-
ness of a system which allowed persons of unworthy
life practically unrestrained access to sacraments ad-
ministered too often by an ignorant and unspiritual
clergy.
To effect the amendment of these ills the Puritans
looked to governmental action. Hence, no sooner had
Elizabeth passed away than they besought her suc-
cessor, King James I., to introduce some of the
changes that they desired, only to find in him a deter-
mined supporter of a system so consonant with his
own lofty ideas of the royal prerogative. But other
forces than royal disfavor opposed Puritanism. The
1 Hist. Plim. Plant., p. 13.
JOHN COTTON 51
old Anglicanism of the Elizabethan period, conspicu-
ously represented in that vigorous opponent of Puritan-
ism, Archbishop Whitgift, which looked upon existing
ecclesiastical institutions as rinding their chief warrant
in their establishment by governmental authority,
gave way to a new school, largely raised up by the
fierceness of the Puritan attack. From the time when,
in 1589, the later Archbishop Bancroft advanced the
theory at Paul's Cross, till it rose in William Laud
full-panoplied to contend for the mastery of England,
this new party asserted with growing positiveness
that episcopacy and apostolic succession were essential
to the existence of a true Church. Arminian specula-
tions, too, entered England, as the great anti-Calvin-
istic controversy in Holland ran its public course from
1604 onward, and commended themselves to many of
the High Church party by reason of the very vigor of
the Calvinism of the Puritans. So that, through the
first three decades of the seventeenth century, while
Puritanism was constantly growing in the number of
its adherents and in the intensity of its convictions,
the High Church party grew, also; and, aided by the
royal authority, its hand fell with unabating severity
on Puritan offenders of English ecclesiastical laws a
severity that was markedly augmented when Laud
became Bishop of London in 1628. Neither Puritans
nor Anglicans were seekers for religious liberty in any
modern sense of the phrase ; but the Puritan laid pri-
52 JOHN COTTON
mary insistence on right belief and strenuous moral
practice as judged by his interpretation of the Word of
God, while the Anglican emphasized conformity to the
ceremonies, ritual, and hierarchy established by law.
If Puritanism found no favor from the King, it
gained increasing approval from the English Parlia-
ment as the reign of James went on, not only by reason
of the general growth of the Puritan party in the land,
but because two Puritan principles taught the lesson
of constitutional government to an age whose more
open minds were ready to receive it. * The Puritan
contention that a minister should be chosen with the
rnn<^nt nf hifi p Q op! Q j to whom he was thus in a meas-
ure responsible, could not but raise in some minds the
query whether the sovereign himself was in reality the
irresponsible ruler by divine right that the Stuart
kings asserted. The Puritan belief that no law of
man constrained any obedience should it run counter
to the will of God revealed in the Scriptures, similarly
encouraged resistance to arbitrary enactments by
suggesting that all statutes must approve them-
selves by some other test than mere imposition
by royal authority. But Parliament could offer no
efficient resistance to the Stuart absolutism as yet;
and, in 1629, Charles I. dispensed with it alto-
gether, thenceforth calling no session of the repre-
sentatives of the English people till on the eve of the
great catastrophe of the civil war eleven years later.
JOHN COTTON 53
Baffled and harassed by the growing tyranny of the
crown and the increasing oppression by the ecclesiasti-
cal authorities that the crown supported, many Puritans
of the opening years of the reign of Charles I. despaired
of the accomplishment of their reforms in the home
land. Led, in part, by the success of the Pilgrims at
Plymouth, they began to look across the Atlantic.
There, in the wilderness, they might plant a new Eng-
land where the Gospel might have sway in a purity of
teaching and administration denied it, they believed,
in the land of their birth. And so the great emigra-
tion began, in 1628, with the departure of Endicott
and his associates for Salem ; and the stream flowed
stronger in 1629, when Higginson and Skelton and
their fellow-colonists followed him under the protection
of a Company now provided with an ample royal char-
ter and enlisting widely the sympathies of English
Puritanism; till, in 1630, the tide ran full, carrying
Winthrop, Johnson, Saltonstall, Dudley, Wilson,
Phillips, Ludlow, Warham, and Maverick, with about
a thousand beside, across the sea, and leading to the
immediate settlement of Dorchester, Charlestown,
Boston, and Watertown. Thenceforward the emigra-
tion was at its flood till the great political changes,
foreshadowed by the summons of Parliament once
more in 1640, brought it to a sudden end. By that
time more than twenty thousand people had transferred
their homes to New England, while Connecticut, New
54 JOHN COTTON
Haven, and Rhode Island colonies had been added to
Massachusetts and its predecessor, Plymouth.
With this immigration had come the establishment
of churches on this new soil, substantially like to that
of Plymouth in organization and forms of worship, the
first being that of Salem in 1629, and their number,
reaching at least thirty-four by 1640. " God sifted a
whole nation that He might send choice Grain over
into this Wilderness," said William Stoughton in 1668"
in an oft-quoted phrase describing the character of
these founders. They were, indeed, a picked body of
men. No meaner motive and no less noble cause could
have gathered together such a representation of what
was best in the well-to-do, sober, intelligent, God-
fearing middle-class population of England, or of their
leaders in spiritual things. But I think we shall best
comprehend the character of the movement, at the
general story of which we have just glanced, if we look
at it through the biography of one of its most con-
spicuous ministerial leaders, John_gQtton.
Bradford was a country lad and of farmer parents;
Cotton was town-born and the son of a member of one
of the learned professions. Bradford's opportunities
for education were fortuitous; Cotton enjoyed as good
training as contemporary England afforded, i Born in
the enterprising market-town of Derby, on December
4> JS^S, 1 the son of Roland Cotton, a lawyer of stren-
1 Magnalia, i., p. 253. 1853-5. For his early life, see also the
JO PIN COTTON 55
uous religious life, and of a devotedly Christian mother,
his gifts were rapidly developed under the tuition of a
schoolmaster whom his grandson, Cotton Mather,
designated as " one Mr. Johnson," 1 so that, " in the
beginning of [his] I3th year/'-Xne entered the Uni-
versity of Cambridge as a member of Trinity College 3
that great educational foundation whose remote
spiritual dependence we have already seen Austerfield
to be. !What the youthful collegian there found of
teaching or of customs has been described by no one
more graphically than by the late Dr. Dexter, pictur-
ing from this* desk the similar experiences of John
Robinson. 4 fcne of the very youngest of perhaps
twenty-five hundred students, Cotton doubtless shared
with three associates a chamber in the college of which
he was a member, and was compelled to occupy the
trundle-bed by means of which sleeping accommoda-
tions were provided for two of the occupants of the
crowded room. 5 [At six, he breakfasted on bread and
beer; at eleven, ne dined on a bit of beef, mutton, or
fish; and at seven he supped on an omelette. J^is
course of study was spent chiefly on logic and philos-
ophy, and in the acquisition of Latin, Greek, and He-
more valuable sketch of CoftonHBy KisTTnend, Rev. Samuel Whiting,
from which Mather freely drew, printed in Young, Chronicles of Massa-
chusetts, pp. 419-430.
1 Magnalia, i., p. 254.
^-2 Cotton, Way of the Congregational Churches Cleared, p. 33. 1648.
3 Whiting, in Young, p. 420.
4 Dexter, Cong, as Seen, pp. 365-370. 5 Ibid., p. 367.
56 JOHN COTTON
brew in which languages there is abundant evidence
that the young student became remarkably proficient. 1
What we should call the Freshman year was appor-
tioned to Rhetoric in the broad, Roman sense of the
word; Sophomore and Junior years were called years
of Logic, and Senior year that of Philosophy. Fol-
lowing, thus, the round of student life, Cotton gradu-
ated Bachelor of Arts in 1602-3, and then went on till
he received his Master of Arts degree at Trinity in
1606* just as the Scrooby church of which Bradford
was a member was being organized. This second de-
gree implied not merely further study along the lines
already four years pursued, but some acquaintance with
Astronomy, Perspective, and Divinity as well.
Comfortably supplied with money from the earnings
of his father's successful practice, Cotton vigorously
followed his native scholarly bent. His own college
being unable to choose him to a fellowship by reason
of a temporary embarrassment of its funds, he obtained
that coveted position at Emmanuel College, by the
successful passage of an examination in which the cru-
cial test was as to his proficiency in Hebrew. 3 The
institution with which he now became connected had
been founded by that zealous Puritan courtier of Queen
Elizabeth, Sir Walter Mildmay, shortly before Cotton's
1 Whiting, in Young, pp. 421, 422.
2 Records of Trinity College, for the M.A. cited in Ellis, History of
the First Church in Boston, p. 27. 1 88 1.
3 Whiting, ibid.
I
JOHN COTTON 57
birth, and was at this time the most Puritanly inclined
of the colleges of the then prevailingly Puritan Uni-
versity of Cambridge. Thomas Hooker, Samuel
Stone, Thomas Shepard, and John Harvard, to men-
tion no other names honored in the history of early
New England, were also of its sons. But it is curi-
ously illustrative of the mutability of institutions in
this changing world that Archbishop Sancroft and the
non-juror William Law, 1 to whom Wesley was greatly
indebted, looked to Emmanuel as their alma mater,
and were as representative of its later position, at least
in their High Churchism, as Cotton was of its earlier
Puritanism. The head of Emmanuel, during Cotton's
residence, was Laurence Chaderton, who, as one of the
leaders of the Puritan party in the country at large,
had appeared before King James at Hampton Court in
1604, while Cotton was studying for his second degree,
and vainly urged the sovereign to grant the reforms
which the Puritans desired. And under Chaderton's
leadership, spite of the statutes of uniformity, public
worship at Emmanuel had taken on an almost Genevan
simplicity.*
Into this atmosphere, strongly charged with Puritan
thought, the youthful Cotton came; and here at Em-
manuel he experienced a real spiritual awakening. Its
1 Hort, The Christian Ecclesia, p. 296. 1897.
9 See a report to Laud, of date September 23, 1633, in Cooper,
Annals of Cambridge, iii., p. 283. The state of affairs was doubtless
much the same twenty-five years earlier.
58 JOHN COTTON
first public manifestation may be described in the
words of Cotton's parishioner in old Boston, and min-
isterial neighbor in New England, Samuel Whiting,
first pastor of Lynn, Mass., who entered Emmanuel
just as Cotton left it: l
" The first time that he became famouslKroughout the
whole University, was from a funeral oration which he
made in Latin [in 1608] for Dr. Some, who was Master of
Peter House; which was so elegantly and oratoriously per-
formed, that he was much admired for it by the greatest
wits in the University. After that, being called to preach
at the University Church, called St. Mary's, he was yet
more famous for that sermon, and very much applauded by
all the gallant scholars for it. After that, being called to
preach there again, God helped him not to flaunt, as before,
but to make a plain, honest sermon, which was blessed of
God to famous Dr. Preston's soul's eternal good."
To have been the human means of the religious
awakening of this " most celebrated of the Puritans,"
the future head of Emmanuel itself, was in itself no
small contribution to the Puritan cause. Cotton's own
spiritual quickemng, which thus found public expres-
sion, is said to have been due to a similar discourse
by the eminent Puritan fellow of St. John's College,
Richard Sibbes. 3 All Cotton's work was faithfully
1 Voting^ Ghr-<w^.j) Ma s s. , pp. 421, 422.
2 Echard, quoted by~Ybung, ibid., p. 506.
3 Mather, Magnalia, i., p. 255. Mather rewrote Whiting's simple
sketch with characteristic verbosity and pedantry, but with occasional
additions of fact.
JOHN COTTON 59
done. At Emmanuel he became, during the six years
of his residence, as Whiting records, " head-lecturer,
and dean, and catechist," and " a diligent tutor to
many pupils." '
Such a man naturally attracted attention ; and, on
June 24, 1612, when about half-way through his
twenty-seventh year, he was chosen vicar of the mag-
nificent parish church of St. Botolphs, in the busy
Lincolnshire seaport of Boston. 2 Unlike most Eng-
lish livings, the patronage of Boston was not in the
hands of an individual, but of the city government.
Cotton Mather states, what was not improbably the
fact, though it is otherwise unattested, that the City
Council was a tie on Cotton's election, and that the
Mayor, who was his opponent, twice gave, by acci-
dent, the casting vote in his favor. 3 The young vicar-
elect seems to have been acceptable to the Puritanly
inclined people of Boston in general, but Whiting
strongly intimates that Bishop Barlow of Lincoln was
only brought to acquiesce in the appointment by the
employment of something very like bribery with one
of his chief agents by some of Cotton's Boston sup-
porters a transaction in which there is no evidence
that Cotton himself had any part. 4
Here, at Boston, Cotton settled happily, and here,
next year, he brought his young wife, Elizabeth
1 Whiting, in Young, p. 421.
2 Thompson, History and Antiquities of Boston, pp. 17, 412.
3 Magnalia , i., p. 257. 4 Young, pp. 422, 423.
60 JOHN COTTON
Horrocks, who died childless, and greatly lamented by
the parish for her Christian helpfulness, after eighteen
years of wedded life; 1 and here, in 1632, he married
his parishioner, Sarah Hankridge, the widow of Wil-
liam Story, who accompanied him to America, and,
surviving him in the new home across the Atlantic,
became, in 1656, the wife of Rev. Richard Mather, of
the New England Dorchester.*'
There can be no question that Cotton's ministry of
nearly twenty-one years greatly endeared him to the
people of the English Boston. The cold pages of the
records of the Corporation bear repeated testimony to
this esteem. Thus, on May 28, 1613, that body paid
him 20, as a gratuity," he " being ... a man
of very great desertes." In 1616 a similar gift of ;io
was accompanied by an expression of gratitude for
" his pains in preaching very great"; and in 1619,
10 more were voted him " in consideration of his
pains in preaching and catechising."
Samuel Whiting, who knew him well at this period,
L
gives an extended account of his laborious activities. 4
1 The date of the wedding was July 3, 1613, and the place, Balsham,
county of Cambridge. She "was living as late as Oct. 2, 1630."
Cotton Mather says the marriage was at the advice of " his dear friend,
holy Mr. Bayns." See Magnalia, i., pp. 258, 262 ; Young, Chron. of
Mass,, p. 433 ; Ellis, Hist. First Church in Boston, p. 29.
2 Ellis, ibid. The wedding was April 25, 1632. She survived her
third husband, dying May 27, 1676.
3 See Thompson. History and Antiquities of Boston, passim.
4 Many of the details of this paragraph are from Whiting, in Young,
pp. 424-426.
JOHN COTTON 6 1
Sunday mornings, as was the Puritan custom, his
preaching was prevailingly experiential and pastoral ;
and during his ministry in England <4 he preached
over the first six chapters of the Gospel by John, the
whole Book of Ecclesiastes, the Prophecy of Zepha-
niah, and many other Scriptures"; Sunday afternoons,
during those twenty years, he " went over thrice the
whole body of divinity in a catechistical way," and at
his Thursday lectures " he preached through the whole
1st and 2d Epistles of John, the whole book of Sol-
omon's Song, [and] the Parables of our Saviour."
Beside these more formal services, he preached Wed-
nesday and Friday mornings, and Saturday afternoons;
" and read to sundry young scholars that were in his
house, and some that came out of Germany, and had
his house full of auditors." Many of these themes
were repeated in Cotton's new home across the ocean,
and several of these expositions, notably of Canticles
and Ecclesiastes, were ultimately printed * and were
greatly valued by the Puritans on both sides of the
Atlantic. In this manifold effort, Cotton had the
assistance, during the latter part of his Lincolnshire
ministry, of Anthony Tuckney, who was to be his suc-
cessor at the English Boston, and even more famous
for his labors on the two catechisms put forth by the
Westminster Assembly. Nor was this all of Cotton's
service to the region. As Whiting notes, " he an-
1 Canticles^ first in 1642 ; Ecclesiastes, 1654.
62 JOHN COTTON
swered many letters that were sent far and near;
wherein were handled many difficult cases of con-
science, and many doubts by him cleared to the great-
est satisfaction."
One monument of this form of conscientious, time-
consuming effort remains, and may be cited as an
illustration, doubtless, of many others. The most con-
siderable controversy of Cotton's opening ministry was
a defense of the characteristic doctrines of Calvinism
against the then novel Arminian speculations intro-
duced into his parish by a prominent physician of his
congregation, Dr. Peter Baron. Victor in this discus-
sion, and deemed especially successful in clearing " the
Doctrine of Reprobation against . . . exceptions,"
he was appealed to, about 1618, by a neighboring min-
ister to settle some doubts in regard to this much de-
bated point of divinity. Cotton replied at once, and
his answer was still in circulation in manuscript thirty
years later, and so influential that Dr. William Twisse,
the famous supralapsarian moderator of the Westmin-
ster Assembly, felt constrained, as late as 1646, to
print a criticism of its, to his thinking, deficient
Calvinism. 2
1 The story is told at length by Cotton, Way of the Cong. Churches
Cleared, pp. 32-35, London, 1648 ; and by Twisse in the Preface to his
Treatise of Mr. Cottoris clearing certaine Doubts concerning Predesti-
nation. London, 1646.
2 Twisse's argument, not his Preface, was apparently written as early
as 1630.
JOHN COTTON 63
Such a life of activity as this shows what a gulf there
was between the Puritan thought of the ministry, and
that easy-going, spiritually unstrenuous conception,
satisfied with a perfunctory repetition of the service,
and fulfilling at most the minimum requisition of the
law as to preaching, which prevailed very largely out-
side of Puritan ranks. It shows, also, why it was that
those who had once felt the power of such a ministry
often preferred exile to its discontinuance. One read-
ily credits the statement of his friend Samuel Whiting,
that " he was exceedingly beloved of the best, and
admired and reverenced of the worst of his hearers."
Not the least evidence of this affection is the desire of
the people of this parish, repeatedly expressed to the
then long-absent former pastor in New England, that
he should return and take up again the work which
the tyranny of Laud compelled him to lay down ; but
for which the downfall of episcopacy, in 1642, seemed
again to open the door. Absent, he was never forgot-
ten, and some remembrance of his past services, prob-
ably of a pecuniary character, was sent to him by his
former congregation annually as long as he lived. 8
In glancing at Cotton's English ministry, we notice
as its most dramatic feature his rejection of conformity
to those usages of English ceremonial which the Puri-
1 Young,
* See Cotton's grateful Preface to his Holinesse of Church-Members.
London, 1650.
64 JOHN COTTON
tans opposed. He was always a Puritan in inclination ;
but at his settlement he followed the rubrics of the
Prayer Book without serious scruple. A change came
in his feeling about 1615 ;' brought about, as he
records, through two considerations: a
" i. The significancy and efficacy put upon them [the
ceremonies] in the Preface to the Book of Common Prayer,
[and] the second was the limitation of Church-power . . .
to the observation of the Commandements of Christ, which
made it appear to me utterly unlawful!, for any Church-
power to enjoyn the observation of indifferent Ceremonies
which Christ had not commanded."
Under the stress of this conviction, that forms of
worship must have express warrant from the Word of
God, he modified the services of the church of his
charge from the ritual prescribed by law. Just how
far this modification went it is difficult to say. Cot-
ton, writing thirty-two years later, in 1647, declared
that he " forbore all the Ceremonies alike at once " ; 3
but a letter to his bishop in January, 1624, shows that
though he had abandoned the surplice, the sign of the
cross in baptism, and kneeling at communion, he still
retained the ring in marriage and the usage of stand-
ing during the repetition of the Creed. 4 The liturgy of
1 Whiting, in Young, p. 423.
2 Way of the Cong. Churches Cleared, pp. 18, 19.
* Ibid., p. 1 8.
4 See the letter of January 31, 1624, to Bishop Williams in JV. E.
Historical and Genealogical Register, xxviii., pp. 137139.
JOHN COTTON 65
the Prayer Book was still employed in public worship
as late as 1624, and possibly was not abandoned by
Cotton so long as he remained in England. 1 The dis-
crepancy in these two statements is not great, in any
case the abandonment involved the principal cere-
monies attacked by the Puritans ; and from this posi-
tion of rejection Cotton was to be moved neither by
threats nor by offers of preferment. 2 His congregation
loyally supported him, and, thus encouraged, he went
further, after a time, in the direction of Congregation-
alism. As he himself records : 3
' There were some scores of godly persons in Boston in
Lincoln-shire . . . who can witnesse, that we entered
into a Covenant with the Lord, and one with another to
follow after the Lord in the purity of his Worship."
That is to say, that within the general congregation
a special circle of seekers for a truer spiritual life was
formed which, had it further developed, might have
become a church on the New England plan. Indeed,
Cotton states that he and his associates had so far ad-
vanced toward the doctrine of the independence of the
local congregation that they very largely disregarded
the episcopal courts. 4
1 N. E. Historical and Genealogical Register, xxviii., pp. 137-139.
Cotton Mather (Magnalia, i., p. 261) asserts that it was set aside. Cot-
ton, in his letter to the bishop, does not say that he used it, yet the im-
plication would seem to be that he did. At all events, it was in regular
use in his church either by himself or by his assistant.
2 Way of the Cong. Churches Cleared,
'/&V., p. 20.
5
66 JOHN COTTON
Naturally, these things from time to time attracted
the attention of the ecclesiastical authorities; but,
thanks to the hearty support of his congregation, the
friendship of the earls of Lincoln and Dorset, and the
good-will of John Williams, later Archbishop of York,
who, from 1621 onward as long as Cotton remained at
old Boston, was Bishop of the Lincoln diocese to
which Boston ecclesiastically belonged, Cotton was
for many years unhindered to a degree very unusual
among the Puritan ministry.
But, though more secure of his own position for a
time than most of his party, by reason of the degree
of influence that he could command, Cotton seems to
have sympathized with the Puritan movement for the
colonization of New England from its beginning, and
to have looked upon it as one in which he might have
a personal share. It must have been through his in-
fluence that the English Boston was conspicuously
represented in the negotiations of 1629, which resulted
in the great emigration of that year and of 1630.' Nor
can it have been without his countenance that his
Lincolnshire friends and sympathizers, Thomas Dud-
ley, and William Coddington, came to the new land
with Winthrop and his company in the year last
named. Cotton himself preached a sermon to the
departing emigrants at Southampton, whither he had
accompanied them to show his good-will toward their
1 Records of . . . Massachusetts, i., p. 28.
JOHN COTTON 67
undertaking. 1 This discourse was the first of his writ-
ings to appear in print.
But Cotton's own security could not much longer
continue unassailed now that Laud was daily increas-
ing in power. In 1632 process was begun against him
in the High Commission Court to appear before
which tribunal meant for him, as his earliest biographer
expressed it, "scorns and prison." 2 Like Thomas
Hooker under similar circumstances, and with the ap-
proval of the chief members of his congregation, 3 he
sought safety and concealment in flight. In disguise
he reached London and was there concealed by John
Davenport, whose growing non-conformity was greatly
strengthened by Cotton's arguments. Thence, on
October 3, 1632, he wrote 4 to his " dear wife, and
comfortable yoke-fellow " :
" If our heavenly Father be pleased to make our yoke
more heavy than we did so soon expect, remember (I pray
thee) what we have heard, that our heavenly husband, the
Lord Jesus, when he first called us to fellowship with him-
self, called us unto this condition, to deny ourselves and
take up our cross daily to follow him. . . . Where I
am for the present, I am fitly and welcomely accommo-
dated, I thank God; so, as I see, here I might rest, (desired
enough,) till my friends at home shall direct further."
1 Young, Chron. of Mass., p. 126. The sermon was printed as
God's Promise to His Plantation. London, 1630.
2 Young, p. 428.
3 Ibid., p. 440; Cotton, Holinesse of Church-Members, Preface.
4 Letter in Young, p. 432.
68 JOHN COTTON
Such a life of concealment could not long be main-
tained; and consequently, moved partly by the en-
treaties of his friends who had gone to the New World,
Cotton resigned his vicarate, on May 7, 1633, in a
noble letter to the Bishop of Lincoln, 1 and prepared to
go to New England. The watch set upon the ports
to catch him made his escape difficult, 2 but he and his
wife slipped secretly onto the Griffin as she lay an-
chored at the Downs early in the following July, and
got safely away. In the same ship, beside Thomas
Hooker, Samuel Stone, and John Haynes, all des-
tined to be instrumental in founding Connecticut,
were Thomas and John Leverett, Atherton Hough,
Edmund Quincy, William Pierce, and probably oth-
ers of his English parishioners; and the vessel thus
freighted with three prominent Puritan ministers,
and their faithful adherents, had a Puritan feast of
preaching all the voyage through, each minister ordi-
narily discoursing daily to the ship's company ' Mr.
Cotton in the morning, Mr. Hooker in the afternoon,
Mr. Stone after supper." Yet perhaps the most sig-
nificant incident of the voyage was one which showed
Cotton's own advance toward the full theory of early
Congregationalism. His first child, a son named Sea-
born, in remembrance of the momentous voyage, was
1 In Young, pp. 434-437.
2 Winthrop, Journal, i., p. 130, 1853.
3 Mather, Magnalia, i., p. 265.
JOHN COTTON 69
born on shipboard, but Cotton refused to baptize him
then, as he afterwards explained to the church in the
New England Boston, " not for want of fresh water,
for he held, sea water would have served; [but] I, be-
cause they had no settled congregation there ; [and]
2, because a minister hath no power to give the seals
but in his own congregation." Viewed as a depar-
ture from current English practices this was radical
enough.
They landed at Boston on September 4th, and, four
days later, Cotton and his wife were admitted on con-
fession of faith to the Boston church. 2 But the new
arrival was a man of such fame and abilities that, as
Winthrop records: " he was desired to divers places,"
and to determine where his lot should be cast " the
governor and council met at Boston, and called the
ministers and elders of all the churches," less than two
weeks after his landing. The decision was for Boston,
already provided with one minister in the person of
John Wilson, and, accordingly, on October loth, after
his parishioner in old England, Thomas Leverett, had
been ordained a ruling elder of the American Boston
church, Cotton himself was elected teacher of that
congregation ; and, to quote from Winthrop, who was
an eye-witness, 3
" Then the pastor [Wilson] and the two elders laid their
1 Winthrop, Journal, i., p. 131.
* Ibid., i., pp. 128, 131, 132. 3 Ibid., i., p. 136.
;0 JOHN COTTON
hands upon his head, and the pastor prayed, and then,
taking off their hands, laid them on again, and, speaking to
him by his name, they did thereby design him to the said
office, in the name of the Holy Ghost, and did give him the
charge of the congregation, and did thereby (as by a sign
from God) indue him with the gifts fit for his office, and
lastly did bless him."
He had not renounced the separate congregations
that made up the Church of England as false churches,
that he never did, but he had renounced the gov-
ernment and ceremonies of that Church ; and in ac-
cepting office in his new congregation was ordained to
its particular charge as, in his judgment, the only
rightful ordination that a minister could have. And
so he entered on his New England ministry.
Here his ministry had much the same quality as in
the home land. The same indefatigable labor in
preaching and in the exposition of Scripture, the same
affectionate reverence from his congregation, the same
capacity to mold strong men to his way of thinking,
that had marked his career in old Boston, were his in
added degree. We can almost picture him to our
imagination as he stood on Sundays and Thursdays in
the pulpit of the rude New England meeting-house,
soon after his arrival, short of stature ' and rather in-
clined to stoutness, ruddy faced, his long hair already
showing traces of that snowy whiteness that it ulti-
mately attained; his sermon simple, plain, direct,
1 These details are from the Magnalia, i., pp. 275, 280.
JOHN COTTON Jl
levelled in language to the capacities of the humblest
of his hearers; his delivery dignified, never florid, or
oratorical, always forceful, and emphasized by occa-
sional gestures of his right hand. Not so remarkable
in the pulpit, perhaps, as Thomas Hooker or Thomas
Shepard, men always heard him gladly. It is difficult to
give an illustration of his pulpit style within our scanty
limits; but at the risk of injustice, which the presenta-
tion of a fragment always involves, I select the follow-
ing brief passage from his volume of sermons entitled
God's Way, not as peculiar but as typical of his style.
He is speaking of the spirit of prayer: l
" These ever go together, where there is a spirit of Grace,
there is a spirit of Prayer. On the contrary, if you cannot
pray, if you neither know what to pray, nor how to pray, if
you goe to Prayer unwillingly, not any work so wearisome,
or straining to you as Prayer is; if for any businesse that
comes to you, you can be content to avoid Prayer; if any
idle company come to your house, all must be set aside to
mind them; not but that a man's businesse may some-
times be such as may hinder him for a time: but if a man
be glad of any such occasion, and he comes to Prayer as a
Beare to a stake, then be not deceived, you may think you
are gracious, but the truth is, unlesse you find some measure
of ability, and liberty, and necessity to pray, you yet want
a spirit of Grace. You would scarce think a child were
living, if it did not cry as soone as it is borne; if still-borne,
you take it for dead-borne. If thou beest a still-borne
Christian, thou art dead-borne; if thou hast no wants to
1 London, 1641. pp. 9, 10,
72 JOHN COTTON
tell God of, if yet unlisty to pray, and would be glad of
any occasion to shut out Prayer, be not deceived, where
there wants Prayer there wants Grace; no Prayer, no
Grace; little Prayer, little Grace; frequencie of Prayer,
argues power of Grace."
It was this power to make great themes readily com-
prehensible with familiar illustration in simple lan-
guage, that made his effectiveness as a preacher; and
it is a power as demonstrative of his learning and tal-
ents as is his knowledge of Hebrew, Greek, and Latin
in which he had probably no contemporary equal in
the New World. 1
At home Cotton's habits were severely studious.
His grandson, Cotton Mather, says that he was accus-
tomed to call twelve hours " a scholar's day." His
reading in the fathers and the schoolmen was wide,
but Calvin was his delight, and, as he said in old age,
he loved " to sweeten [his] mouth with a piece of Cal-
vin before [he went] to sleep." With his^ household
he worshipped morning and evening, but " was very
short in all, accounting . . . that it was a thing
inconvenient many ways to be tedious in family
duties." Yet he found time for an abundant, though
simple hospitality; and there must have been a kind
of grim humor in his make-up, of which the anecdote
recorded by Flavel and by Mather is an illustration.
I 1 Magnalia, i., p. 273.
2 For the facts in this paragraph, see ibid., i., pp 274-277.
JOHN COTTON 73
One of a party of half-drunken roisterers, so the story
goes, declared to his companions, as he saw the aged
Boston minister coming, " ' I '11 go and put a trick on
old Cotton.' Down he goes, and . . . whispers
these words into his ear: ' Cotton,' said he, ' thou art
an old fool/ Mr. Cotton replied, ' I confess I am so:
the Lord make both me and thee wiser than we are.' '!-
'Cotton Mather affirms of his grandfather that he
" had a great aversion from engaging in any civil "
affairs. 1 The statement is true only in the narrowest
sense of unwillingness to hold office or undertake
quasi-judicial duties. No minister in New England
history was ever more broadly influential or more con-
sulted in political or legislative concerns. His pulpit,
especially at the Thursday lecture, was the place of
frequent declaration of his opinion on current discus-
sion, as, for example, in 1639, when he made a legal
process against a Boston merchant who had been ac-
cused of charging unduly high prices the occasion for
a discussion of the principles of trade; 2 or, in 1641, re-
proved those members of the legislature who proposed
to drop from office "two of their ancientest magistrates
because they were grown poor " ; 3 or when, even more
conspicuously, in 1634, preaching at the request of the
General Court, he successfully defended the veto power
of the magistrates the later upper house of the legisla-
ture against the opposition of the representatives of
1 Magnalia, p. 277. 2 Winthrop, i., p. 381. 3 /foV, ii.,p. 67.
74 JOHN COTTON
I
the Massachusetts towns. 1 In these matters Cotton was
not in advance of his age. As there will be later oc-
casion to notice, he held it to be the duty of a ruler to
suppress error in matters of belief. He heartily ap-
proved the limitation of the suffrage to church-mem-
Jbers^introduced, indeed, in 1631, two years before his
coming, and to escape from which was probably a
strong inducing cause of the settlement of Connecticut
by Cotton's fellow voyagers in the Griffin, and his
early associates in Massachusetts, Hooker, Stone, and
Haynes. He entertained much higher views than
Hooker, for instance, as to the authority of rulers.
Though he asserted it to be " the people's duty and
right to maintain their true liberties," 3 he affirmed in a
famous phrase: 4
" Democracy, I do not conceyve that ever God did
ordeyne as a fitt government eyther for church or common-
wealth. ... As for monarchy and aristocracy, they
are both of them clearely approoved, and directed in Scrip-
ture yet so as [God] referreth the soveraigntie to himselfe,
and setteth up Theocracy in both, as the best form of gov-
ernment."
/Occasionally, indeed, his recommendations were not
approved. The Massachusetts legislature, in 1641,
adopted the code of laws which Rev. Nathaniel Ward of
1 Winthrop, i., p. 168.
2 Magnalia, i., p. 266.
3 Winthrop, i., p. 169.
4 Letter, of 1636, to Lord Saye and Sele, quoted in N. E. Hist, and
Gen. Register, x., p. 12.
JOHN COTTON 75
Ipswich had drawn up, aided in his task by his early
training as a lawyer, rather than the strongly Mosaic
outline of suggested judicial enactment prepared by
Cotton in 1639, and printed in 1641.* But, on the
whole, there is as much truth as exaggeration in the
affirmation of the historian Hubbard regarding Cot-
ton, that " whatever he delivered in the pulpit was
soon put into an Order of Court, if of a civil, or set
up as a practice in the church, if of an ecclesiastical
concernment."
There are, however, three special features of Cotton's
American life that cannot be neglected in any treat-
ment of him, though the hour at our disposal gives
scanty opportunity for more than a mention of them.
First, in the commotion which it excited in its own
day, and in the difficulty of defining Cotton's relation
to it, is the so-called Antinomian controversy. That
most turmoiling of early New England religious dis-
turbances began in the criticisms passed on the preach-
ing of most of the ministers in the vicinity of Boston
by a warm admirer of Cotton, Mrs. Anne Hutchinson, 3
who, with her husband, had followed him from Lin-
colnshire in 1634 to enjoy his ministry in the New
1 Winthrop, i., p. 388 ; ii., p. 66 ; Palfrey, Hist, of N. E., ii., pp.
22-30. For the rare work, An Abstract or the Lawes of New Eng-
land, see Hutchinson's Collection of Papers, or I Coll. Mass. Hist. Soc.,
v., pp. 173-187. 2 General Hist, of N. E., p. 182.
3 The best modern treatment of this controversy is that by Charles
Francis Adams in his Three Episodes of Massachusetts History, and
Antinomianism in the Colony of Massachusetts Bay.
76 JOHN- COTTON
World. Mrs. Hutchinson's views were essentially
those now known as of the "higher life "; but they
were presented in the form of an extreme assertion of
the personal indwelling of the Holy Spirit in the be-
liever, that divine Person becoming so one with him
as to render all other proof of sanctification than a
consciousness of this indwelling not merely unneces-
sary but vain. He who sought evidence of Christian
character in growing enjoyment of the worship of
God, or improvement of conduct, was still under a
" covenant of works "; while only he who based the
proof of his acceptance with God on a sense of per-
sonal union with the divine Spirit was under the
*' covenant of grace."
These views Mrs. Hutchinson taught to many in
the Boston church, who were drawn to her by her skill
and self-sacrifice in nursing; and being a woman of
keen mind, warm heart, and a ready tongue, she soon
became the leader of well-attended meetings in Boston,
at which her peculiar views were set forth, and criti-
cisms freely passed upon the Sunday sermons. At
these meetings Mrs. Hutchinson declared that Cotton
and her husband's brother-in-law, John Wheelwright,
were preachers of the " covenant of grace," while all
the rest of the ministers, Thomas Shepard possibly
excepted, were under the " covenant of works," and
their labors therefore of very dubious spiritual value.
To these opinions she drew a majority of the people of
JOHN COTTON 77
Boston, and among them, Henry Vane, who became
Governor of Massachusetts in 1636 ; while a minority of
the Boston church, led by its pastor, John Wilson, and
John Winthrop, opposed her, and had the sympathy
in this opposition of most of the inhabitants of other
towns of the colony. The Boston church was tur-
moiled ; a ministerial meeting tried in vain, in October,
1636, to heal the breach. In December, Mrs. Hutch-
inson and the colonial ministers generally discussed
the case in the presence of the magistrates. The samef
month Mrs. Hutchinson's supporters tried to discipline/
Pastor Wilson. The gubernatorial election of 1637*
turned on the issue, the choice of Winthrop being dis-
tinctly an anti-Hutchinsonian victory; but at Boston
the halberd-bearers refused to do honor to the Gov-
ernor, and most of the Boston quota for the Pequot
campaign of that summer refused to serve because
Wilson was chaplain and was under the " covenant of
works." Then followed the opening, on August 30,
1637, of the first synod or General Council of Congre-
gational history, ministers and delegates of the
churches meeting and condemning some eighty-two
erroneous opinions alleged to be held in New England,
to be followed in turn in November by the banishment
by the General Court of Wheelwright and Mrs. Hutch-
inson and the disarming of their followers ; the painful
story of fanaticism and persecution closing with the
excommunication of Mrs. Hutchinson in March, 1638.
5- LIB 1 ^^.
OF THE
78 JOHN COTTON
Now, what was the relation of Cotton to this melan-
choly controversy ? As has already been pointed out,
Mrs. Hutchinson had come to New England as his
admirer, and had held him up to praise as one of the
two New England ministers who taught a " covenant
of grace." Cotton did, indeed, at first give large sup-
port to her and her followers. As Cotton himself
later explained : l
" being naturally (I thank God) not suspicious, hearing no
more of their Tenents from them, then what seemed to mee
Orthodoxall, I beleeved, they had been far off from such
grosse errors, as were bruited of them."
More than this, he regarded her religious labors as
valuable means by which 2
" many of the women (and by them their husbands) were
convinced, that they had gone on in a Covenant of Works,
and were much shaken and humbled thereby, and brought
to enquire more seriously after the Lord Jesus Christ."
Cotton, who was something of a mystic, held to
" the indwelling not onely of the Gifts of the Holy
Ghost, but of his Person also in the Regenerate/' as
"an holy Truth of God;" 8 a view which a much
more subtle theologian than Mrs. Hutchinson might
have found difficulty in discriminating from the theory
to which she converted Vane, that the believer is in
" personal union with the Holy Ghost." Acting in
1 Way of the Cong. Churches Cleared, p. 39.
2 Ibid., p. 51. 3 Ibid., pp. 36, 37. 4 Winthrop, i., p. 246.
JOHN COTTON 79
sympathy with the Hutchinsonian party, at first,
Cotton was asked by his fellow ministers twice during
the autumn and winter of 1636-7 to answer in writing
their questions on the disputed points; and did so, not
wholly to their satisfaction. 1 On the last day of 1636,
he publicly rebuked his colleague, John Wilson, the
pastor of the Boston church of which he was teacher,
for his attitude of opposition to the Hutchinsonian
movement. When the anti-Hutchinsonian party, re-
stored to power by the political overturn which placed
Winthrop in the governor's chair in May, 1637, made
an ungracious use of its victory by enacting a law
which rendered further immigration of sympathizers
with Mrs. Hutchinson wellnigh impossible, 2 Cotton,
supported by some sixty of his congregation, planned
to transfer themselves to the place then known as
" Quinipyatk," but destined to be settled by John
Davenport and his associates a year later and to bear
the name that they gave it, New Haven. 3
Yet, as the controversy went on, the views advanced
by the Hutchinsonian party were les^ and lesg pleasing-
to Cotton. Many in his own church had come, by
January, ^1637, to believe " that the letter of the
Scripture holds forth nothing but a covenant of works,
1 Winthrop, pp. 249-253. The second of these series of questions and
Cotton's answers thereto were published as Sixteene Questions of Seriovs
and Necessary Consequence. London, 1644.
2 Records of . . . Massachusetts, i., p. 196.
'Cotton, Way of the Cong. Churches Cleared, pp. 52-54.
80 JOHN COTTON
and to entertain an almost Quaker confidence in " as-
surance by immediate revelation." * To Cotton, as to
the New England ministry generally, the doctrine of
" immediate Revelations without the Word, and these
as infallible as the Scripture itself" was " vile Mon-
tanism." 2 To attack the plainness, authority, or abso-
lute finality and completeness of the Divine Word, was
to undermine the very citadel of Christianity. So it
may well have been that Cotton came seriously to
doubt the character of the Hutchinsonian movement
as he came to know it better. The defeat of the
Hutchinsonian party politically, and the entreaties and
arguments of his ministerial brethren in the synod of
August and September, 1637, undoubtedly also had
weight with him ; and, by the conclusion of the synod,
he had completely gone over to the opponents of the
Hutchinsonian movement. Yet he retained sufficient
regard for Mrs. Hutchinson herself to do what he could
for her at the trial before the General Court which led
to her banishment in November, 1637. 3 But the tide
ran strong; and Cotton was soon declaring that " he
had been abused and made their stalking-horse " 4 by
the Hutchinsonian party and turned almost savagely
upon it. In the merciless church trial of the unfortu-
nate woman he admonished her two sons because they
1 Winthrop, i., p. 252.
2 Cotton, Way of Cong. Churches Cleared, p. 36.
3 Compare Adams, Three Episodes, pp. 492-508.
4 Winthrop, i., p. 304.
JOHN COTTON 8 1
stood by their mother, and he now attacked Mrs.
Hutchinson with a vehemence almost equal to that of
Wilson himself. 1 Though much may be said in excuse
of Cotton's conduct, it is not a page that is pleasant
to look upon. A few years later, when Cotton had
come to be regarded as the great expounder of Con-
gregationalism by the supporters of that polity in the
Westminster Assembly, this episode was turned against
him by Presbyterian champions like Robert Baillie, 8
the Scotch commissioner to that famous body, and he
was charged with " Montanism," " Antinomianisme
and Familism," and various other ill-titled heresies on
its account; but it never diminished his commanding
influence in New England, or seriously affected the
V regard in which he was held in the land of his birth.
A second controversy in which Cotton was involved,
less important indeed than that which has just been
outlined, was a two-fold debate with Roger Williams,
that much employed his pen in the decade following
the Antinomian struggle. As we all doubtless remem-
ber, Roger Williams was banished from Massachusetts
by its legislature an event which occurred on Octo-
ber 9, 1635. It would be an aid to historic accuracy
were it as generally remembered that Williams was
not at this time a Baptist, and that views of baptism
1 Winthrop, i., pp. 306, 307; Adams, Antinomianism, pp. 332, 333.
2 See Baillie, Dissuasive from the Err ours of the Time. London,
1645.
82 JOHN COTTON
had nothing to do with his sentence; and that " soul-
liberty," also, though undoubtedly one of its causes,
was not its only occasion. Williams himself has re-
corded with approval the summary of the grounds of
his banishment formulated by Governor Haynes in
pronouncing the verdict, as involving: 1
" First, That we have not our Land by Pattent from the
King, but that the Natives are the true owners of it, and
that ws^ought to repent of such a receiving of it by Pattent.
" Secondly, That it is not lawfull to call a wicked person
to Sweare, to Pray, as being actions of God's worship.
" Thirdly, That it is not lawfull to heare any of the Min-
isters of the Parish Assemblies in England.
" Fourthly, That the Civil Magistrates power extends
only to the Bodies and Goods, and outward State of men."
It was about the views expressed in the third and
fourth of these articles that the controversy with Cot-
ton turned. The human mind is often a strange com-
pound ; and Roger Williams illustrated this fact by
combining, like Robert Browne half a century earlier,
an almost modern liberality of view as to the wrong-
fulness of persecution for matters of religious faith,
with the most strenuous and illiberal attitude of critical
hostility to the Church of England. The same spirit
which led him to restrict all religious observances to
the companionship of the really regenerate, so that a
man might not rightfully pray or say grace over the
1 Williams, Mr, Cottons Letter lately Printed, Examined and Answered,
pp. 4, 5. London, 1644.
JOHN COTTON 83
common meal if an unregenerate member of his family
were present, 1 induced him to hold that men must
repent of ever having been associated in the mixed
congregations of the Church of England, and, if provi-
dentially in that land, should hear the sermons of none
of its ministers. Williams himself, probably in 1631,
had refused the very office of teacher held by Cotton
in the Boston church, " because I [he] durst not offi-
ciate to an unseparated people " a that is, to a people
who still looked upon the Church of England as a
Christian body, for the Boston church was fully Con-
gregational in organization and government.
It was these views that induced Cotton soon after
Williams's banishment, perhaps in 1637, 3 to send a
letter to Williams, which, as printed in 1643, contains
an epitome of its purpose in its title, to show " that
those ought to be received into the Church who are
Godly, though they doe not see, nor expressly be-
waile all the polutions in Church-fellowship, Ministry,
Worship, Government." 4 In this letter Cotton inci-
dentally remarked of Williams's banishment, " I dare
not deny the sentence passed to be righteous in the
eyes of God." 5 Roger Williams was in London when
1 Winthrop, i., pp. 193, 194; Cotton, Reply to Mr. Williams, p. 9.
London, 1647.
2 Williams's Letter, in Proc. Mass. Hist. Soc., March, 1858, p. 316.
3 Cotton, Reply to Mr. Williams, p. i.
4 London, 1643. Reprinted in Publications of the Narragansett
Club, i. * Ibid., p. i.
84 JOHN COTTON
this already six-years-old letter got into print, appa-
rently without the knowledge of Cotton or himself,
and he naturally answered with an account of his ban-
ishment, but even more with a defense of his position
regarding the proper penitential attitude of those who
came out of the Church of England. To this answer of
1644,' Cotton replied at much length in 1647, beating
over the already well-threshed straw of discussion,
without indicating any change of view on his own part,
or apparently effecting any on that of Williams. 8
Contemporary with this discussion, wherein Cotton
defended the more kindly view of the Church of Eng-
land against Williams, ran a second debate between
these two champions, which showed Cotton in a much
less pleasing light from the view-point of our own age,
though one in which he undoubtedly had the approval
of most of his associates in the New England of his
day. Here, too, the discussion began by an inter-
change of written papers, long before it came into
print. 3 When Williams reached England on his visit
1 Mr. Cottons Letter lately Printed \ Examined and Answered. Re-
printed in Pub. Narr. Club, i.
2 This Reply to Mr. Williams his Examination was printed as an
appendix to Cotton's Blotidy Tenent Washed. It forms the principal
content of Pub. Narr. Club, ii.
3 Williams's and Cotton's recollections disagreed about the circum-
stances of the beginning of the debate. Cotton, writing in 1647,
thought that, about 1635, Williams had sent him a letter in favor of
toleration written by an English Baptist prisoner, and that he had
replied to it speedily in an essentially private letter. According to
Williams's memory, the interchange of papers was between Cotton and
JOHN COTTON 8$
of 1643, the question of religious toleration had been
brought to the front as never before, the Westminster
Assembly was beginning, the religious constitution of
the land was to be remade, and Williams determined
to put his views before the public. Therefore, making
Cotton's brief letter of 1635 the text, he put forth an
elaborate dialogue in 1644, entitled The Bloudy Ten-
ent, of Persecution, for cause of Conscience, discussed, in
a Conference betiveene Truth and Peace. 1 To this Cot-
ton replied at much length in 1647, under the title of
The Bloudy Tenent, Washed, And made white in the
b loud of the Lamb ; and in 1652 Williams made an ex-
tensive rejoinder: The Bloudy Tenent Yet More Bloudy
by Mr. Cottons Endeavour to wash it White in the Bloud
of the Lamb* Cotton did not live to give further an-
swer, had he so desired. But his own view probably
never altered from that which he expressed in 1647: 8
" It is a carnall and worldly, and indeed, even ungodly
imagination, to confine the Magistrates charge to the
bodies, and goods of the Subject, and to exclude them
from the care of their Soules."
How far this " care of soules " might go, Cotton
plainly indicates : 4
" Better a dead soule be dead in body, as well as in
John Hall of Roxbury, and that from the latter the papers came into
Williams's hands. See Pub. Narr. Club, iii., pp. iv., v.
1 Pub. Narr. Club, iii. 3 Bloudy Tenent, Washed, pp. 67, 68.
* Ibid., iv. * Ibid., p. 83.
86 JOHN COTTON
Spirit, then to live, and be lively in the flesh, to murder
many precious soules by the Magistrates Indulgence."
Certainly in this argument Williams, rather than Cot-
ton, has been justified by time.
It must be evident, from what has been said, that
Cotton held a ready pen. We have been able to
glance at only a few of his writings. His controversies
already considered were undoubtedly the most dra-
matic events in his New England life, but they were
less valuable or permanently fruitful than the series
of treatises, published chiefly between 1640 and 1650,
which did more than the work of any other single
laborer to fix the views and consolidate the polity
of our churches. Cotton was not alone in this work.
Thomas Hooker and Richard Mather did a very sim-
ilar service. Probably Hooker was a greater preacher
and a more efficient and far-sighted organizer. Cer-
tainly Mather was singularly gifted in explaining and
formulating Congregational polity. But while others
excelled him in one point or another, in the full circle
of his talents and services, and in the degree in which
he was viewed as the characteristic New England re-
ligious pioneer both here and in England he was fore-
most.
Besides the unwearied pulpit activity already noted,
many fruits of which were published, Cotton's special
treatises did much to direct New England thought.
Thus, in an Answer to Mr. Balls Discourse of set formes
JOHN COTTON 8/
of Prayer, 1 published in London just as the King and
Parliament were beginning the great war in 1642, Cot-
ton laid down the principle that these prescribed peti-
tions were a " sinne against the true meaning of the
second Commandement. " * Extravagant as the thought
is, it undoubtedly represented and strengthened the
then prevailing New England view. Four years later
came Cotton's Milk _f or Babes, the most widely used
formula for youthful instruction in New England, till
the Westminster Shorter Catechism, prepared largely
by Cotton's assistant and successor in his English par-
ish, Anthony Tuckney, gradually displaced it. The
next year, 1647, saw the publication of two argumenta-
tive treatises, beside the Bloudy Tenent, Washed,
already referred to. One was entitled Singing of
Psalmes a Gospel-Ordinance, in which Cotton argued
against all who believed that printed songs were under
the same condemnation that he laid on printed prayers.
But it was no general use of hymns or organs that
Cotton urged. 3
" We hold and beleeve, that not onely the Psalmes of
David, but any other spirituall Songs recorded in Scrip-
ture, may lawfully be sung in Christian Churches," and
1 John Ball was an excellent, and moderate, Puritan minister at
Whitmore, Staffordshire. In the year of his death, 1640, he published
an admirably written little volume, entitled : A Friendly Triall of the
Grounds tending to Separation ; In a plain and modest Dispute touching
the Lawfulnesse of a stinted Liturgie and set form of Prayer. To this
Cotton replied.
2 Answer to Mr. Ball, p. 19. * Singing of Psalmes, p. 15.
88 JOHN COTTON
" wee grant also, that any private Christian, who hath
a gift to frame a spiritual! Song, may both frame it, and
sing it privately, for his own private comfort. . . . Nor
doe we forbid the private use of an Instrument of Musick
therewithall."
This rejection of the public use of all uninspired
hymns and of all music but that of the human voice
remained characteristic of New England for a century
after Cotton wrote.
_-
The other tract of 1647 was a plain, simple argu-
ment in favor of infant baptism, 1 its one hundred and
ninety-six pages having been written originally with
no thought of publication, but for the instruction of a
son of members of Cotton's church in old England,
who, coming to America, had embraced Baptist beliefs.
It well illustrates Cotton's laborious pastoral faithful-
ness in that which was little as well as in that which
was greater in the public view. The same long con-
tinuing pastoral affection induced him, in 1650, to
dedicate to the people of his former charge at the
Lincolnshire Boston his essay on The Holinesse of
Church-Members, in which he set forth, against the
objections of the Scotch Presbyterian champions,
Samuel Rutherford and Robert Baillie, the New Eng-
land view that only persons of recognized Christian
character should be admitted to the full privileges of
church membership.
1 The Grovnds and Ends of the Baptisme of the Children of the Faith-
full. London, 1647.
JOHN COTTON 89
V
But the tracts of greatest repute penned by Cotton
were those in which he exhibited the distinctive traits
of Congregational polity. It was a theme on which
he began to write early in his New England ministry.
In 1642, there was published at London a brief sketch
of his composition, 1 begun as early as January, 1635, 2
in which, in the course of thirteen pages, the nature,
membership, officers, worship, sacraments, and disci-
pline of a Congregational church were set forth with
abundant proof-texts and much plainness of definition.
The time when this tract was issued was one of the
epochal years in English history in August the great
civil war broke out, in October the first bill for an
Assembly to revise English religious beliefs and insti-
tutions passed Parliament, in December the bill for
the abolition of Episcopacy was introduced into the
House of Commons. In such a period of discussion
and examination of the religious foundations of the
land, Cotton's tract naturally aroused the attention of
those Puritans who were satisfied neither with Episco-
pacy nor Presbyterianism. It passed through two
editions in i642, > >and a third in 1643. But this sketch
was slight and elementary, compared with one written
a few years later by Cotton, 3 and sent to England in
1 The Doctrine of the Church, etc.
2 Another draft of this tract, printed as Questions and Ansivers tipon
Church Government, in A Treatise of Faith, etc., probably of 1713, in
the Library of Yale University, reads, "begun 25. n m. 1634."
3 See Way of the Churches, " Epistle to the Reader,"
90 JOHN COTTON
manuscript, probably in 1643. This Way of the
Churches of Christ in New England was a full and
elaborate account of the theory, methods, and usages
of the New England congregations, and is one of the
sources of prime importance for any picture of their
nature, organization, and worship, during their first
quarter century on New England soil. But it is curi-
ously illustrative of the slow publication of books in
those days, especially of books that had to cross the
ocean, that this volume had so considerable a circula-
tion in manuscript that it was answered in Prof. Samuel
Rutherford's Due right of Presbyteries in 1644, yet did
not get into print till 1645, and then from so imper-
fect a transcript of the original manuscript as to cause
the author considerable annoyance. 1
A year before this belated appearance of the Way
of the Churches, Cotton's greatest formative treatise
on Congregational polity was published under a title
characteristic of the technicalities of seventeenth-cen-
tury theologic discussion : The Kcyes of the King-
dom of Heaven. It had been sent to England a year
later than the Way, and its composition was evidently
subsequent to that work. It is a careful, clear, and
exceedingly able presentation of the Congregational
theory of the Church, as it lay in the decidedly un-
1 Cotton, Way of the Cong. Churches Cleared, part ii., p. 2 ; Increase
Mather, Attestation to Cotton Mather's Ratio Discipline, ii. ; Magnalia,
i., p. 281.
JOHN COTTON 91 <
democratic minds of the founders of Massachusetts. v )
In size it is about one half that of the Way of the
CJiurcJies ; and, lacking the descriptive qualities of
that work, it is less interesting; but to the pains-
taking student it demonstrates its value as sharing
with Hooker's Survey and the Cambridge Platform the
honor of being the most conspicuous explanation of
early Congregationalism. But something more than
the argumentative force therein displayed gave dis-
tinction to the Keyes ; it had a peculiar timeliness
in its appearance that gave it a special value and
use. The Westminster Assembly had opened its ses-
sions on July i, 1643. Cotton himself, as well as his
New England associates, Thomas Hooker and John
Davenport, had been asked by influential members of
the English Parliament to allow their names to be in-
cluded in the list summoned to its sessions, and had it
not been for Hooker, who foresaw the hopeless minor-
ity in which the Congregationalists would find them-
selves in that body, he would have done so. 1 Yet,
though no New Englanders were of that body, there*
were five prominent Congregationalists/ and perhaps
as many more less pronounced supporters of the Con-
gregational polity in the Assembly. On a count of
votes they made small show against the Presbyterian
majority ; but they were treated with great respect by
1 Winthrop, ii., pp. gi, 92.
9 They were Thomas Goodwin, Philip Nye, Sidrach Simpson, Jere-
miah Burroughs, and William Bridge.
92 JOHN COTTON
that majority, because of the growing sympathy for
their views, especially in the army.
The Congregationalists in the Westminster Assem-
bly attacked and delayed the Presbyterians, but their
own support in the country at large was made up of
so many elements that it was much easier to depend
upon it for aid in an attack on a polity which promised
to be rigid and oppressive than in the formulation of
any constructive principles. Desirous of advocating
a definite Congregational system, and yet hesitant
about putting their names to any exposition of it of
which they should appear to be the authors, these
Congregationalists in the Assembly now welcomed,
published, and circulated Cotton's Keyes, declaring it
to be the " Middle-way between that which is called
Brownisme, and the Presbyteriall-government " ; * that
is, the golden mean in church polity. Thus supported,
it had an influence even greater in England than in
America, and was looked upon on both sides of the
Atlantic as the most authoritative exposition of Con-
gregationalism set forth by an individual writer. That
position of repute it cannot be said to have lost 2 even
now, though it is no longer consulted save by those
of antiquarian tastes.
These two works, the Way of the Churches and the
Keyes, aroused opponents for themselves and their
1 Keyes, " To the Reader," by Goodwin and Nye.
2 Dexter, Cong, as Seen, pp. 433, 434.
JOHN COTTON 93
author, notably Prof. Samuel Rutherford, whose Due
right of Presbyteries^ has already been mentioned; an
anonymous pamphlet entitled Vindicice Clavium : or
a Vindication of the Keyes of the Kingdome of Heaven,
into the hands of the right owners ; 3 and a savage per-
sonal attack from that ardent Presbyterian champion,
Prof. Robert Baillie, of the Westminster Assembly, in
his general collection and refutation of supposed here-
sies, A Dissuasive from the Err ours of the Time* To
all of these Cotton replied in 1648, in a volume full of
biographical details of value, the Way of the Congre-
gational Churches Cleared. Already recognized as the
foremost controversial defender of the New England
polity, Cotton was naturally chosen, in 1646, by the
Cambridge Synod, one of three ministers to prepare
a " model of church government" 4 for submission
to the body. In the Cambridge Platform y actually
adopted in 1648, preference was given to the draft
formulated by Richard Mather, but considerable use
was made of the work of Cotton, and it was his pen
that wrote the Preface to the Platform as it went forth
to the churches.
Cotton s life was one of activity almost to the end.
A severe cold, caught when returning from a sermon
to the students of Harvard College in the autumn of
1652, developed into more extensive complications of
1 London, 1644. 3 Ibid.
2 Ibid, 1645. 4 Magnalia, ii., p. 211.
94 JOHN COTTON
the respiratory organs. On November 2ist, he
preached for the last time, and he died on December
23d, in the fullness of the Christian hope. 1
It must have been with a sense of peculiar bereave-
ment that the people of New England met the loss of
such a religious leader. His death was the passing
from this stage of human affairs of one who had been
among the foremost in a great movement in old Eng-
land and in the new ; and there were none of the second
generation fully able to take his place. He belonged
to a world of great activities, he had borne his part in
a struggle of national proportions, he had been a
leader in planting a new continent. The generation
that succeeded was, of necessity, provincial ; narrowed
by poverty, struggle with the wilderness, and isolation
from the current of great affairs. With the going of
Cotton and Hooker, and the other leaders of the hope-
ful and heroic age of the beginnings, those that fol-
lowed felt that a glory and a strength had departed
from the land; and the feeling was true. But, to us,
Cotton stands preeminently as a typical Puritan min-
ister, illustrative alike, in his virtues and his defects, in
his studiousness, learning, zeal, moral earnestness, spir-
ituality, breadth of interest in State and Church, yet
narrowness of sympathy and intolerance, of the strength
and the failings of the remarkable race of men that
founded New England.
1 Mag nalia, i., pp. 271-273.
RICHARD MATHER
95
III.
RICHARD MATHER
IT was remarked, in speaking of Cotton, that he was
widely and justly viewed by his contemporaries as
the typical representative of New England religious
thought. Yet New England has never had any ex-
clusively commanding expounder of its characteristic
ecclesiastical polity. Others beside Cotton wrought on
the fabric. Others, perhaps even more than he, found
delight in the solution of the problems which it in-
volved and in tracing out the minuter ramifications of
its principles. It is to one who bore large part in all
that concerned the development or the exposition of
the Congregational system in his day that I shall call
your attention in this lecture that is, to Richard
Mather of Dorchester. [Not so profound a scholar as
Cotton, his kindly spirit and shrewd common sense, no
less than his unfeigned enjoyment of conventions and
debates, made him in no opprobrious sense an ecclesi-
astical politician. His wisdom, his skill, and his native
leadership give him rank, if not as the first, yet among
the first four or five in eminence of the ministerial
founders of New England//)
7 97
98 RICHARD MATHER
Richard Mather was of Lancashire origin, the son of
Thomas Mather and of Margaret Abrams, his wife. 1
His place of birth was the village of Lowton, just out
of what is now the great seaport of Liverpool, but
was then an insignificant harbor, with less than one
hundred and fifty families dwelling about it. The
household in which he saw light, some time in 1596,
was, so Increase Mather declared, 2 in reduced circum-
stances 15v reason of " unhappy mortgages"; and the
few glimpses that we get of his early home indicate
that it was one in which expenditure had to be a mat-
ter of careful calculation. Of the circumstances of his
childhood we know nothing, and the motives which
induced his father to send him to school seem to have
been something of a mystery to Richard himself. 3
The school which he entered was typical of the smaller
preparatory educational institutions scattered at that
day over England. That land then had no national
1 The prime source regarding Richard Mather's life is his son In-
crease's Life and Death of that Reverend Man of God, Mr. Richard
Mather. Cambridge, 1670. This sketch Cotton Mather incorporated,
with slight changes, in the Magnalia. Horace E. Mather, Lineage of
Rev. Richard Mather, Hartford, 1890, has some facts of value ; and
J. P. Rylands has thrown some light on the Mathers of Lancashire in
the N. E. Hist, and Geneal. Register, xlvii., pp. 38, 177, 330. Richard
Mather himself kept a journal to his thirty -ninth year, says In-
crease Mather. The part relating to his voyage to America has been
frequently published, e. g., Young, Chronicles of Massachusetts, pp.
447-480. The remainder is lost. Regarding his mother, see JV. E.
Hist, and Geneal. Register, liv., 349.
2 Increase Mather, Life and Death of . . . Richard Mather, p.
43, ed. of 1850. 3 Ibid., p. 43.
RICHARD MATHER 99
system of elementary public instruction, indeed, it
was to have none till 1871, but private beneficence,
or royal favor, had founded many "grammar schools "
where preparation for Cambridge or Oxford could be
obtained. These were the schools which our ancestors
sought to introduce when, in 1647, Massachusetts
enacted the celebrated statute, ordering that l
" where any towne shall increase to y e numb r of 100 families
or househould rs , they shall set up a gramer schoole, y e - m 1
thereof being able to instruct youth so farr as they may be
fited for y e university."
They were in a true sense the ancestors of our great
academies; though they gave as little prophecy of the
growth and fruitage exhibited, for instance, in the
foundation which has made Andover famous, as the
Harvard of 1642 revealed of the generous university
of to-day.
The particular " grammar school " to which Richard
Mather was sent was at Winwick, four miles from
Lowton. The institution had been founded not far
from seventy years before Mather became its pupil, and
endowed with a rent of 10 annually. 2 The gift seems
small enough, but the impulse thus imparted has
proved sufficient to carry the Winwick Grammar
School to our own day ; though its modest quarters,
not larger than a good-sized dwelling-house, show
1 Records of . . . Massachusetts, ii., p. 203.
9 H. E. Mather, Lineage of Richard Mather, p. 31.
100 RICHARD MATHER
that it has never been one of the more famous seats of
preparatory education. Here Richard's parents boarded
the boy in winter; but in summer household poverty
impelled him to walk the eight miles that measured
the distance from his home to school and back daily.
The boy's school life was not without its trials.
Neither home nor school discipline was then unwilling
to employ the rod for the correction of almost all
offenses, trifling or grave. But Mather's master was
notorious for his harshness, so that the boy begged
his father again and again to be allowed to abandon
the scholar's life. Yet, though Mather when grown
to manhood never quite forgave the brutality of his
teacher, 1 he was honest enough to recognize that
to that teacher's discernment he owed his scholarly
career. For, by the entreaties and remonstrances of
his severe instructor his father was persuaded to put
aside an attractive offer of an apprentice's position in
the neighboring town of Warrington, 3 which impressed
both father and son as too good a business opportunity
to be let slip.
How long Richard Mather studied at Winwick is
uncertain, but at fifteen he was ready for the uni-
versity and would gladly have gone thither. Such a
preparation did not imply the precocity which enabled
his grandson, Cotton Mather,to graduate from Harvard
1 See his remarks in I. Mather, Life and Death of . . . Richard
Mather, p. 44. * Ibid., p. 45.
RICHARD MATHER IOI
at the same age, sixty-six years later; but it cer-
tainly shows much confidence in the stability and
thoroughness of the boy that, on the invitation of the
people of Toxteth Park, now within the limits of Liv-
erpool, he at this early age became first master of their
new-founded grammar school. The duties of such a
position were, indeed, not what now fall to the share
of the head of a preparatory school. The original
conditions to be fulfilled for entrance at Harvard
doubtless represent with substantial accuracy the na-
ture of the instruction which Mather was expected to
instill into his pupils. It was true then, as in New
England in 1642, that 1
" When any Schollar is able to understand Tully, or such
like classicall Latine Author ex tempore, and make and
speake true Latine in Verse and Prose, suo ut aiunt Marte ;
And decline perfectly the Paradigim's of Nounes and Verbes
in the Greek tongue: Let him then and not before be
capable of admission into the Colledge. "
But the work was well done by the youthful teacher ;
and the six years between 1612 a and 1618, which were
spent by Mather in instruction at Toxteth Park, were
formative in many respects. Chief in the experiences
which came to him in his foundation years was his
conversion. We know little of the religious influences
of his home, but, judged by the fact that Richard's
1 Sibley, Harvard Graduates, i., p. 1 1.
2 Anthony Wood, Athencz Oxienses, ii., p. 427, gives the date of his
going to Toxteth Park as 1612.
102 RICHARD MATHER
father had no scruples in consenting to apprentice him
to a Roman Catholic, 1 they cannot have been of a
strongly Puritan character. The sermons of Rev. Mr.
Palin of Leigh had already impressed him ; but the
immediate occasion of his spiritual awakening was the
Christian example of the family of Edwin Aspinwall, of
Toxteth Park, 3 of which family the young schoolmaster
was a member. It was an intense spiritual struggle
through which Mather passed. Touched by a sermon
preached in his hearing by Rev. John Harrison, the
non-conforming Puritan vicar of Histon; alarmed by
the searching tract of the powerful Cambridge preacher,
William Perkins, on the extent to which a man may
go forward in an apparently religious life and yet be
one of the reprobate ; impressed by the Christian
character of the household in which he lived, Mather
passed through despairing agonies of soul, till, some
time in i6i4, 3 he attained peace and comfort in the
conscious acceptance of the Gospel. We shall have
occasion to see, later, that this struggle was natural to
Mather's temperament ; but more than temperament
lay behind it. The intense, introspective, self-exam-
inatory, exacting conceptions which the Puritans en-
tertained of the process of conversion, of the dangers
of self-deception connected with it, and of the contrast
in feeling and life which should distinguish him who
1 Increase Mather's Life and Death of . . . Richard Mather, p. 45.
2 Ibid., p. 48. 3 Wood, A thence Oxienses, p. 427.
RICHARD MATHER 103
was a Christian from him who was not, made these
struggling spiritual births seem the normal method of
entrance into the Kingdom of God. Mather's experi-
ences brought him out a Puritan.
It would not appear that Mather's conversion was
followed by an immediate determination to enter the
ministry. For four years more he remained the head
of the school at Toxteth Park, till desire for a further
education drove him to Oxford. May 9, 1618,' saw
his entrance into the student body of Brasenose Col-
lege. But his university experiences were brief. Al-
ready a man of much learning and decided maturity
of mind, and about twenty-two years of age, the peo-
ple of Toxteth Park gave the most conspicuous testi-
mony possible to the character and repute of their
former schoolmaster by inviting him to become their
minister. Mather accepted the call, and on November
30, 1618, entered on his labors, his first sermon, as is
not uncommon with those of young ministers who
have anything to say, being marked by an attempt to
present matter sufficient, so his son, Increase, declared,
for six ordinary discourses. 3 Like the early Puritans
generally, Mather preached without notes ; and one is
reminded of Judge Samuel Sewall's youthful experi-
ences in the pulpit, when, nervous with excitement,
he dared not watch the hour glass, and, fearful lest he
1 Wood, Athena Oxienses, p. 427.
2 Increase Mather, ibid., p. 50.
104 RICHARD MATHER
defraud the congregation of some portion of their dues,
he held forth," ignorantly and unwillingly," he records,
for " two hours and a half." 1
But whatever may have been the infelicities of his
first discourse, the people of Toxteth Park liked the
young preacher, with his " loud and big" voice, his
" deliberate vehemency " of utterance, and his " awful
and very taking majesty" of pulpit manner. 2 They
renewed their request that he become their pastor,
and accordingly Mather procured ordination at the
hands of Thomas Morton, Bishop of Chester. 3 It
shows clearly the intensity of the feeling of opposition
to the episcopal system which the fathers of New
England entertained that Mather came later to expe-
rience, as his son records, 4 " no small grief of heart "
at the recollection of this conformity; and, years
later, when the same son, rummaging in boyish fashion
in his father's study in the raw New England town,
discovered a torn parchment, he was told by the then
middle-aged Mather that the document was a memorial
of this ordination at Bishop Morton's hand ; but, to
quote Mather's own words to the youthful questioner, 6
" I tore it because I took no pleasure in keeping a
monument of my sin and folly in submitting to that
superstition, the very remembrance whereof is grievous
to me."
1 Sewall's Diary, i., p. 9. 1878. 3 Increase Mather, Life, p. 50.
2 Cotton Mather, Magnolia, i., p. 452. 4 Ibid. 5 Ibid.
RICHARD MATHER 1 05
Mather's change of attitude toward his ordination
illustrates the fact that Puritan opposition to the cere-
monies and government of the Church of England was
a development. From the beginning of his ministry
he was Puritan in sentiment. He never wore the sur-
plice. 1 Yet he habitually preached on the holy days;
though for the characteristic Puritan reason that 2
" there was then an opportunity to cast the net of the
Gospel among much fish in great assemblies, which
then were convened, and would otherwise have been
worse employed," rather than by reason of any special
sanctity in the days themselves. In his ideals of preach-
ing Mather undoubtedly represented the typical, pains-
taking Puritan conception. Like Cotton and Hooker,
he preached over large portions of Scripture in his
English ministry, setting forth sections of Proverbs,
the Psalms, Isaiah, Luke, Romans, Timothy, John,
and Jude. 3 To his own people at Toxteth Park he
preached twice every Sunday, 4 and, not content with
his home ministration, he maintained a " Tuesday
Lecture " every other week at Prescot, some six or
seven miles from his home, and preached frequently
in other towns in Lancashire. 5
Some six years after his ministry began, on Sep-
tember 2g, 1624, he married Katherine Holt, a daugh-
ter of a resident of position in Bury, about twenty
1 1. Mather, Life, p. 56. 3 I. Mather, Life, p. 54.
2 C. Mather, Magnalia, i., p. 447. * Ibid., p. 52. 5 Ibid.
106 RICHARD MATHER
miles from Toxteth Park. The courtship was pro-
tracted; the reason of the delay being, as Increase
Mather records, 1 " her Father's not being affected
towards Nonconformable Puritan ministers." Mar-
riage was followed by the purchase of a house at Much-
Woolton, three miles from Toxteth Park, 2 and the
establishment of the young minister and his bride in
very comfortable surroundings, with every prospect
of a peaceful, honored, and successful ministry.
But, as we have already seen, the years following
Mather's settlement at Toxteth Park were years of
increasing religious and political confusion in England.
James I. closed his troubled career of resistance to the
growing demands of the Commons and of opposition
to the Puritan wing of the Church six months after
the marriage of the young Toxteth clergyman. The
year 1628 saw the elevation of that opponent of all
that Puritanism represented, William Laud, to the
head of the great, Puritanly inclined bishopric of
London; it witnessed also the beginnings of the Puri-
tan colonization of Massachusetts in the settlement of
Endicott and his associates at Salem. The year 1629
beheld the dismissal of Parliament, not to meet again
till eleven years had passed and the country stood on
the eve of the great civil war. In 1633, Laud himself
was raised to the primacy of the English Church
through his elevation to the see of Canterbury, and
1 I. Mather, Life, p. 51. * Ibid., p. 52.
RICHARD MATHER IO/
the powers of Church and State, united in his own
person as Primate and Prime-Minister, were directed,
as never before in England since Protestantism ob-
tained firm footing with the accession of Elizabeth, to
the enforcement of ceremonial and liturgical uniformity
in ecclesiastical affairs. Mather's parish was aside
from the main currents of English life, and these
events for a long time seem to have occasioned him
little disturbance, nor does he appear to have busied
himself, as did Davenport, Cotton, and Hooker, for
instance, with the beginnings of the Puritan settle-
ment of Massachusetts. Doubtless his people at
Toxteth Park largely sympathized with him. It was
at Prescot, where he conducted a Tuesday lectureship,
rather than in his home parish, that his Puritanism
attracted unfavorable notice. But the growing strict-
ness which Laud infused into the administration of
the Church of England would allow no man of promi-
nence long to escape scrutiny; and, in August, 1633,
Mather found himself suspended from his ministry for
non-conformity: the offense charged being, appar-
ently, omission of the disputed ceremonies. Influential
friends in Lancashire procured his restoration in No-
vember of the same year, but it was only a brief res-
pite, and a few months later, visitors representing
Archbishop Richard Neile of York inhibited his min-
istry permanently. 1
1 1. Mather, Life, pp. 54, 55.
108 RICHARD MATHER
The growing difficulties of his pastorate, thus culmi-
nating in its abrupt termination, set Mather anew to
studying the foundation principles of church govern-
ment; and the investigation not merely confirmed his
previous Puritanism, but left him a radical of the Puri-
tan party. He now determined to go to New Eng-
land a decision which he argued out, pen in hand,
in a curious series of reasons that has come down to
our own time; 1 and the determination was strength-
ened by a letter from Thomas Hooker, and possibly
one also from John Cotton, both of whom were already
in the new land. 2 And so, in April, 1635, Mather, his
wife, his four children, and a considerable number of
his friends and associates made the journey to the
West of England seaport of Bristol, where they were
to take their ship. 3 Their voyage, of which Mather
has preserved a most graphic account in his journal, 4
was illustrative of the delays of navigation in those
days delays due as much to the inefficiency of the
1 I. Mather, Life, pp. 57-68.
2 An extract from that of Hooker is given, ibid., p. 69. It has been
suggested with some plausibility that the letter of Cotton, dated De-
cember 3, 1634, in Young, Chronicles of . . . Mass., pp. 438-444,
was to Mather.
3 Cotton Mather (Magnalia, i., p. 449), following his father, Increase,
states that Richard Mather was compelled to make his way to Bristol in
disguise. Such testimony is probably accurate ; yet Mather's journal
plainly shows that his journey was rather a leisurely one, and that he
encountered no such difficulties in getting out of the reach of the ecclesi-
astical authorities as Cotton and Hooker experienced in 1633.
4 Young, Chronicles of . . . Mass., pp. 447-480.
RICHARD MATHER 1 09
human agents as to the uncertainties of the winds and
waves. After waiting a month at Bristol for the ship
to make ready, they embarked on May 23d ; but did
not sail till June 4th, and then, till June 22d, they
lay in harbors or tried in vain to get clear of the
land. Once fairly at sea, an easy and prosperous
voyage carried them almost to their journey's end, till,
on August 1 5th, when anchored off the Isles of Shoals,
a West Indian hurricane, famous as the great storm of
early New England history, caught them in its giant
grasp, and nearly caused their destruction; but, at
last, on August 17, 1635, they landed safely at Boston.
Here Mather settled temporarily, till he could look
about for a more permanent home; and here he and
his wife joined the church of which Wilson and Cotton
were pastor and teacher, on confession of their faith,
October 25, 1635.'
Such a man could not long remain without a parish ;
and Mather was soon invited to settle over the May-
flower church at Plymouth, the congregation at Rox-
bury, and that at Dorchester. The advice of Cotton
and Hooker determined him to accept the latter call.
The situation at Dorchester was curiously illustrative
of the migratory character of the first settlers of New
England. A church, organized at Plymouth, Eng-
land, in March, 1630, under the joint pastorate of John
Warham and John Maverick, had settled there and
1 Savage, Notes to Winthrop, i., p. 218. 1853.
1 10 RICHARD MATHER
founded the town in the early summer of 1630. But,
by the autumn of 1635, its numbers were largely emi-
grating to what was soon named Windsor, Conn., and
in the summer of 1636, if not earlier, the same season
that Thomas Hooker and his Cambridge congregation
removed to Hartford, its surviving minister, War-
ham, followed his flock to Connecticut and completed
the transfer of its organization to the new location.
So completely did the church of 1630 abandon its Dor-
chester home that it was felt necessary that a new
church should be gathered, and of this new congrega-
tion, Richard Mather was asked to become the
" teacher." '
The organization of the new Dorchester church was,
however, beset with difficulties that cast an illumi-
nating light upon the thoroughness of that examina-
tion of candidates for church membership which early
New England demanded. Under the impulse of the
controversies aroused by Roger Williams, the Massa-
chusetts legislature, in March, 1636, had passed a law
forbidding the formation of any further churches with-
out first informing and obtaining the approval of " the
magistrates & the elders of the great 1 p'te of the
1 The editors of the Records of the Pirst Church at Dorchester, vii.-
xxiii., try to show that the churches of Windsor, Conn., and of Dor-
chester, are equally entitled to date back to that organized in 1630 ; but
there can be no question that what Mather was called to preside over as
teacher was a newly organized church, even if it contained some who
were members of the church of 1630, who did not care to remove from
Dorchester to Windsor.
RICHARD MATHER III
churches " ' in the colony. This statute, more than
anything else, caused the gathering of a council at the
organization of a church to become a regular part of
Congregational procedure. It was under this enact-
ment, then not a month old, that Mather and his
associates in the new Dorchester enterprise made ap-
plication for the prescribed civil and ecclesiastical ap-
proval. The magistrates and ministers gathered on
April ist, and Winthrop, who was undoubtedly pres-
ent, records their experiences. 3 The examination was
thorough. The confession of faith presented by the
associates in the would-be church was satisfactory ; but
when the council examined into the spiritual life of
each of the proposed members, they found only Mather
and one other of the candidates worthy of approval,
since " most of them had builded their comfort of sal-
vation on unsound grounds " 3 so Winthrop and the
rest of the assembled magistrates and ministers
thought :
" viz., some upon dreams and ravishes of spirit by fits;
others upon the reformation of their lives ; others upon duties
and performances, wherein they discovered three special
errors; i. That they had not come to hate sin, because it
was filthy, but only left it, because it was hurtful. 2. That,
by reason of this, they had never truly closed with Christ
(or rather Christ with them). ... 3. They expected to
believe by some power of their own, and not only and
wholly from Christ."
1 Records of . . . Mass., i., p. 168.
* Journal, i., pp. 218, 219. 1853. ' Ibid., p. 219.
112 RICHARD MATHER
Just how they satisfied these conscientious critics of
their spiritual estate we do not know; but nearly five
months later, on August 23, i636, 1 the church was at
last organized, by Mather and six associates, " with
the approbation of the magistrates and elders." * To
them many others were speedily added. Of this
church Mather remained the " teacher " till his death,
nearly thirty-three years later. Several colleagues
were, indeed, briefly associated with him, of whom
the first was Rev. Jonathan Burr, once rector at Rick-
ingshall in Suffolk, whose short pastoral relation to the
Dorchester church, begun in 1640, was ended by his
untimely demise in August, 1641. 3 His settlement
gave rise to one of the earlier of New England advisory
councils, for Mather suspected him, apparently with
some show of justification, of those " higher life"
views then branded as " Familism." The matter be-
ing laid before the Dorchester church, Burr wrote a
long statement of his opinions, from which Mather
culled a series of alleged " errors," and reported them
to the church without first exhibiting his unsavory list
to Burr. The latter was naturally incensed ; and, as
Winthrop records, " it grew to some heat and aliena-
tion." But it also led to a desire for a mutual council,
and on February 2, 1640, some ten of the neighboring
pastors, with Gov. Thomas Dudley and John Win-
1 Records of the First Church at Dorchester, pp. i, 2.
2 Winthrop, i., p. 231. 3 See Magnalia, i., pp. 368-375.
RICHARD MATHER 113
throp to represent the lay membership, met at Dor-
chester, and after four days' patient hearing of the case
came to the sensible conclusion that " both sides had
cause to be humbled for their failings," * and that they
be " advised to set a day apart for reconciliation."
The advice was happily successful, for the suspected
young minister fully renounced his supposed errors,
and, as Winthrop records:
" Mr. Mather and Mr. Burr took the blame of their fail-
ings upon themselves, and freely submitted to the judgment
and advice given, to which the rest of the church yielded a
silent assent."
Mather's second colleague was Rev. John Wilson,
of the first class that graduated from Harvard College,
but the relationship lasted only from 1649 to 1651,
when Wilson entered on a pastorate of forty years'
duration at Medfield. 2 William Stoughton, Mather's
parishioner, afterward Lieutenant-Governor of Massa-
chusetts, often preached for him, and, it is said, six or
eight times declined a colleague settlement. 3 But, for
the greater part of his life in America Mather was the
sole minister of the Dorchester church, and the pastor-
ate was a time of internal peace and growth for the
congregation. Yet, as I have already intimated, it was
not always a time of spiritual calm for the pastor him-
self. The early ministers of New England were as
1 For this council and its doings, see Winthrop, ii., pp. 26-28.
2 Sibley, Graduates of Harvard, i., p. 65. * Ibid., i., pp. 195, 196.
114 RICHARD MATHER
strenuous in their own self-examination as in that of
others. John Warham, who removed with his church
from Dorchester to Windsor, Conn., just before Mather
came thither, would sit unparticipating at the Lord's
table where he broke the bread and poured the wine
for others, feeling his own unworthiness to partake. 1
William Tompson, Mather's ministerial neighbor alike
in old England and the new, was even more griev-
ously a prey to melancholy thoughts of his spiritual
state. 2 And Mather's spiritual course, for several years
after coming to Dorchester, was one of doubt and
struggle, or, as his grandson phrases it, of " internal
desertions and uncertainties about his everlasting hap-
piness;" 3 doubts which he did not impart to his
people, but which long made his ministry a period of
distress to him ; till, partly by the clearing of his own
spiritual vision, and partly through the spiritual com-
forting of John Norton of Ipswich and Boston, he
came at length into inward peace ; so that the latter
part of his American pastorate was as much a satisfac-
tion to himself as a source of strength to others.
Our present interest is, however, in Mather's rela-
tions to the development of Congregationalism, rather
than in his somewhat uneventful experiences in his
New England pastorate. Though by no means so
voluminous a writer as his son, Increase, or his grand-
son, Cotton, Richard Mather held a ready pen, and
1 Magnolia, i., p. 442. 2 Ibid., i., p. 439. 8 Ibid., i., p. 451.
RICHARD MATHER 1 15
though Rev. John Cotton's first brief sketch of ecclesi-
astical polity 1 was written several years earlier than
any treatise by Mather, the latter's Church-Government
and Church Covenant Discussed was the first elaborate
defense and exposition of the New England theory of
the Church and its administration to be put forth in
print. Mather's volume was drawn out by a series of
thirty-two questions covering the whole range of
church practice in the new land. These inquiries
were sent over to him by some of his former minis-
terial associates in Lancashire or Cheshire 2 in 1638 or
early in 1639; and Mather's answer was written and
despatched to England in the latter year, though it
was not put into print till 1643, and then with a title
which made no mention of Mather's name, but ascribed
its authorship collectively to " the Elders of the severall
Churches in New England " a title deserved indeed
by the merit of its exposition, but not warranted by
the facts. 3 In this tract Mather informed his English
querists that in Massachusetts more heads of families
were church members than were not, and " likewise
sundry children and servants." He described the
New England churches as neither " meerly Demo-
1 Doctrine of the Chtirch, etc. London, 1642, begun in January, 1635.
2 Cotton, Way of the Churches Cleared, p. 70.
a On its authorship, see Cotton, Reply to Mr. Williams, his Examina-
tion, in Pub. Narragansett Club, ii., p. 103 ; Nathanael Mather, Preface
to Disputation Concerning Church-Members, p. 7, London, 1659 ; In-
crease Mather, Order of the Gospel, p. 73, Boston, 1700.
4 Church-Government and Church Covenant Discussed^ pp. 7, 8.
Il6 RICHARD MATHER
craticall or meerly Aristocraticall "; J he affirmed the
full power of a company of Christian men and women,
even as few as four or five if need be, to form a church,
self-governing in every respect, and choosing and or-
daining its own officers; he denied to women the right
to vote in church affairs; he defined the duties of
pastors and teachers, answered questions as to the
churchly character of English parish assemblies, and
the status of those who came from them to New Eng-
land. In fact, Mather gave his readers a treatise which
was not only the most careful explication of the "New
England way " that had yet appeared, and an effective
contribution to the great debate regarding polity which
renewed its strength in England with the opening of
the Westminster Assembly, but one which presents
our best picture of how Congregational polity actually
shaped itself in the minds of its creators within ten
years of the establishment of the first Puritan church
on this side of the Atlantic.
It illustrates the care with which these early Puritans
worked out the problems of ecclesiastical polity which
were to them of such vital importance, that, in the
same year in which Mather's answers to the Thirty-
two Questions were prepared, he drafted an extensive
essay on that basal compact of a Congregational
church the covenant. This essay, so Richard
Mather's son Nathanael records, " he wrote for his
1 Church-Government and Church-Covenant Discussed, p. 57.
RICHARD MATHER
private use in his own Study, never intending, nor in-
deed consenting to its publication " ; 1 but, three thou-
sand miles from convenient printing, it was not easy
for New England ministers to control their manu-
scripts, and four years after this private investigation
was written, it appeared in England, printed probably
from a copy lent to his ministerial neighbor, John
Cotton, 3 with a title-page which declares it to be " an
answer to Master Bernard "that is, to Rev. Richard
Bernard of Batcombe, an earnest Puritan, but a no less
earnest opponent of the Congregationalism which, years
before, under the influence of John Robinson, he had
been almost persuaded to embrace. And, as if to
make the title still more erroneous, the work, as pub-
lished, bore on its face, An Apologie of the Churches in
New England for Church-Covenant. It is a close-knit
argument, written in popular style, to prove " that a
company [of Christians] becomes a Church, by joyning
in Covenant." 3 But this leads ultimately to the ques-
tion : " Doth not this doctrine blot out all those Con-
gregations [of England] out of the Catalogue of
Churches " ? * to which Mather replies, as nearly all early
New England divines did, by denying the existence of
a National Church in the home land, but at the same
time affirming that the parishes of England, by their
union for various acts of worship, their baptismal vows,
1 Preface to the Disputation Concerning Church- Members, p. 7.
* Ibid. 3 Apologie, p. 5. * Ibid., p. 36.
Il8 RICHARD MATHER
and other similar agreements, were congregations
actually bound together by a real, though implicit and
imperfect covenant, and hence were true, though im-
perfect, churches. 1 And, finally, he replies to the
possible objection that a covenant was not taught by
the founders of New England before their emigration
from their native land by asserting that " some of us
when we were in England, through the mercie of God,
did see the necessitie of Church-Covenant ; and did also
preach it to the people amongst whom we ministred,
though neither so soone nor so fully as were meete " a
a statement which we have already seen was true
regarding Cotton in his Lincolnshire parish. 3
Mather bore his personal part also on other occasions
in the great debate regarding the constitution of the
Church into which the civil war threw England. The
New England Congregationalists felt that the battle
was their own as truly as that of their Puritan brethren
who remained in the home land ; and they felt an
added interest in defending and championing their
own system against the Presbyterian critics who were
dominant in the Westminster Assembly, and were
there formulating the creed, ritual, and organization
of the English Church, as men fondly believed, for all
time. As a contribution to the questions at issue,
and impelled by a meeting of the ministers of
1 Apologie, pp. 36-41.
9 Ibid., p. 44. 3 Way of the Congregational Churches Cleared, p. 20.
RICHARD MATHER 119
New England held at Cambridge, Mass., under the
moderatorship of John Cotton and Thomas Hooker in
September, 1643, where some incipient signs of Pres-
byterianism in the New England colonies were frowned
upon, 1 Richard Mather united with his friend William
Tompson of Braintree in what was entitled A Modest
and BrotJierly Answer to Mr. Charles Herle, his Book
against the Independency of ChurcJies? This was a brief
and vigorous reply to a tract with the descriptive title,
The Independency on Scriptures of the Independency of
Churches, then recently published 3 by Charles Herle,
who was at the time of this interchange of pamphlets
the rector of that Winwick where Mather went to school
as a boy, and was soon to be also the Prolocutor of the
Westminster Assembly itself. Samuel Rutherford's
important critique of Congregationalism, The Due
right of Presbyteries, which appeared the same year that
Mather's reply to Herle was printed, drew forth from
Mather an answer published in 1647, to be followed by
the even more elaborate refutations by Thomas Hooker
and John Cotton printed the next year. Mather's
own method of conducting debate was extremely
courteous for that age, when religious controversy
was too often an interchange of opprobrious epithets: 4
" As for bitternesse of spirit and tartnesse of contests," said
1 Winthrop, ii., p. 165 ; Walker, Creeds and Platforms, pp. 137-139.
2 London, 1644. 3 London, 1643.
4 A Reply to Mr. Rutherford, " Epistle Dedicatory," p. v.
120 RICHARD MATHER
he, " I never thought that to be Gods way of promoting
truth amongst brethren. . . . For those that give apparent
Testimonies that they are the Lord's, and so that they must
live together in heavens, I know not why they should not
love one another on earth, what ever differences of appre-
hensions may for the present be found amongst them in
some things."
The services to the cause of New England Congre-
gationalism just considered were personal and self-
initiated, however fully representative the books
described may have been of the general beliefs and
practices of New England. But the labors at which
we shall now glance were of a more public and dele-
gated nature. First in point of time to attract our
attention is Mather's conspicuous share in the pro-
duction of what is usually known as the Bay Psalm
Book. That translation grew directly out of the gen-
eral Puritan conviction, shared and intensified by the
fathers of New England, that nothing should find place
in the public service of song but the lyrics of the Scrip-
tures. The version of the Psalms in general use in
England at the time that the Puritans came to New
England was that prepared by Thomas Sternhold,
John Hopkins, and others, then generally bound with
the Prayer Book. It had seemed too inexact a render-
ing to the scholarly " teacher " of the London Con-
gregational church, Henry Ainsworth, in his exile in
Amsterdam; and, in 1612, he had published a version
that the Pilgrim Fathers brought with them across
RICHARD MATHER 121
the Atlantic, which was in use at Plymouth for seventy
years, and was also employed at Salem and elsewhere.
But even this careful paraphrase did not seem to the
founders of New England a sufficiently literal and un-
interpolated version of the inspired words. Anxious
to secure the most faithful rendering possibly con-
sistent with such remaining concessions to English
meter as usableness in song absolutely required, a
number of Massachusetts ministers undertook, in 1639,
a new translation. 1 Chief among them were Richard
Mather, Thomas Welde, and John Eliot, the mission-
ary to the Indians. The result was the publication
from the newly established press at Cambridge in 1640
of the Whole Booke of Psahnes a volume which enjoys
the distinction of being the first book printed in the
English colonies. Mather's share in it was conspicu-
ous. Besides his contributions to its versions, he pre-
pared the Preface, and therein announced the object
of the work to be: "Rather a plain translation then to
smooth our verses with the sweetness of any para-
phrase." Probably the resulting compositions were as
melodious as essentially unpoetic men could be ex-
pected to produce under the severe limitations of a
faithful translation ; yet the result was far enough re-
moved from what modern taste would approve. The
rendering of the twenty-third Psalm shows the work
at fully its average height of merit :
1 See Mather, Magnolia, i. , p. 407.
122 RICHARD MATHER
" The Lord to mee a shepheard is,
want therefore shall not I
He in the folds of tender grasse,
doth cause me downe to lie :
" To waters calme mee gently leads
Restore my soule doth hee :
he doth in paths of righteousnes
for his names sake leade mee ; "
while selections like the following from the fifty-first
Psalm reveal the more laboring side of the attempt
to be at once literal and singable : l
" Create in mee cleane heart at last
God : a right spirit in mee new make.
Nor from thy presence quite me cast,
thy holy spright not from me take.
" Mee thy salvations joy restore,
and stay me with thy spirit free.
I will transgressors teach thy lore
and sinners shall be turned to thee."
But the standards of our own age are not those of an-
other, and if successive editions of a volume are any
test of merit, this laborious translation possesses ample
claims to regard, for it was in popular use in New
England for more than a century, and even obtained
a considerable foothold in Scotland and England ;
while its editions number at least seventy.
Already so identified with the exposition and the
furtherance of Congregationalism in New England, it
was but natural that, when the Congregational churches
'Compare Tyler, History of American Literature, i., p. 276.
RICHARD MATHER 12$
undertook to formulate their polity in a united declara-
tion, Mather should have a large share in the work.
That time came with the gathering of the Cambridge
Synod in 1646. New England men had, from the
first, been ready to give a reason for their practices,
but the meeting of the Westminster Assembly made
a united presentation of principles more than ever de-
sirable. 1 That body, it was well known, was preparing
a confession of faith, an order of worship, and a pat-
tern of church government, which, if approved by Par-
liament, would be the legal standard of England and
Ireland; and might readily be extended to the Ameri-
can colonies. The majority in the Assembly were
well known to be jure divino Presbyterians. And, be-
sides this danger of forcible interference with New
England institutions by Parliamentary action from
without, there were not a few critics of Congrega-
tionalism in New England itself, some opposing its
limitation of access to the Lord's Supper to pro-
fessed disciples of Christ; others finding cause of com-
plaint in its restriction of baptism to the children
of church members; still others dissenting from any
baptism of children at all; or opposing its reference
of church acts ultimately to the votes of the mem-
bership. These critics made no secret of their readi-
ness to appeal to the now Presbyterianly inclined
1 The Cambridge Synod is discussed with a good deal of fullness in
Walker, Creeds and Platforms, pp. 157-237.
124 RICHARD MATHER
Parliament of England, if necessary, for forcible
interference with the exclusive supremacy of the
" New England way." It was high time that the
polity, and, if necessary, the creed of New Eng-
land should be clearly defined ; and, therefore, on
May 15, 1646, the Massachusetts legislature called
on all the churches in the various Congregational colo-
nies to meet, on September 1st, at Cambridge for a
synod. Into the details of the doings of that body
there is no need for us here to enter. The essential
point for our notice is that it decided to define the
polity of New England, and appointed Richard Mather
of Dorchester, John Cotton of Boston, and Ralph
Partridge of Duxbury each to prepare tentative drafts
of Platforms for submission to the synod's considera-
tion. It was not till its third session, in August, 1646,
that the synod came to a full discussion of these sug-
gested outlines of polity; but at that time, Mather's
draft was preferred, and though largely amended, and
reduced to half its original size, by the synod, the
Cambridge Platform is his work. Mather did not,
indeed, write all sections anew. In its composition he
made large use of what he and Cotton had already
written on Congregational government. Perhaps Cot-
ton wrote, or revised, some sections of the Platform as
finally adopted ; but the work was essentially Mather's.
It was the natural consequence of this authorship
that the Massachusetts ministers, in 1651, appointed
RICHARD MATHER 12$
Mather to answer the criticisms of the Platform, which
had been referred to them by the Legislature. Of the
Platform itself time will scarcely permit us to speak.
Interest in it is, indeed, now historic rather than prac-
tical, but it remains the most valuable monument of
Congregationalism as it lay in the minds of the first
generation after nearly twenty years of experience on
New England soil. Its basal principle, that " the
partes of Church-Government are all of them exactly
described in the word of God; " and " that it is not
left in the power of men, officers, Churches, or any
state in the world to add, or diminish, or alter any
thing in the least measure," ' we few of us hold ;
but had not the men of that age believed it with all
intensity of conviction there would have been no New
England. We may read with curious eyes its chapters
on the duties of pastors, teachers, and ruling elders,
on the maintenance of church officers, on the power
of magistrates in ecclesiastical matters; but though
here and there the Platform is as archaic in practice as
it is everywhere in expression, one leaves it with the
conviction that it sets forth with the utmost plainness
the abiding features of Congregationalism.
In Mather's original draft of the Cambridge Platform,
but omitted by the synod because of the strenuous
opposition of a few, was a paragraph declaring that a
Chapter i., sec. 3.
2 Walker, Creeds and Platforms, p. 224.
126 RICHARD MATHER
" such as are borne in y e ch: as members, though yet they
be not found fitt for y e Lords Supper, yet if they be not
culpable of such scandalls in Conversation as do justly de-
serve ch: Censures, it seemeth to vs, w n they are marryed
& have children, those their children may be reed to
Baptisme."
The quotation gives us a glimpse into the most seri-
ous controversy which disturbed the first century of
New England religious life that over the Half-Way
Covenant. 1 It was one in which Mather bore a con-
spicuous share, and to the decision of which in the way
it was settled by the first and second generation on
New England soil he powerfully contributed. The
question involved in the Half-Way Covenant debate
has often, but wholly erroneously, been declared to be
political. None but church members, it is said, were
allowed to vote a statement true of Massachusetts
till 1664, and in a modified degree till 1684, and of
New Haven colony till 1665, but never of Plymouth
or Connecticut. It was to increase the voting list
it has been affirmed that an easier method of en-
trance into church fellowship was sought. But the
controversy raged as hotly in Connecticut and Plym-
outh as in Massachusetts, and naturally so, for the
question was in fact purely religious, and Half-Way
Covenant membership brought with it no political priv-
ileges, and its ecclesiastical privileges did not include
1 The controversy is described with considerable fullness in Walker,
Creeds and Platforms, pp. 238-339.
RICHARD MATHER 127
a vote in churchly concerns. It was a perplexing
and embarrassing problem ; but its essential point was
not, how shall the State enter the Church, but how
shall the Church retain control of its wandering sons
and daughters.
The early New England theory of the Church made
the rise of the Half- Way Covenant discussion inevit-
able. That theory held that only evident Christians,
of well-tested intellectual faith and spiritual experi-
ences, conscious of the transforming power of God in
their own lives, could enter into the covenant which
constituted the local Church. But this covenant, like
that with Abraham of old, was made, so early Con-
gregationalism held, not with the believer alone, but
with his children. Hence there were two ways of
entering a church ; by profession of personal faith and
repentance, and by birth. But how about the member
by birth who when grown to manhood could not hon-
estly claim any consciousness of a work of God's Spirit
in his own soul, yet was faithful in prayer and worship
and in parental government ? Was he a member still ?
And, if he was, could he not bring his own children to
baptism ? And, if he was not a member, when, or
by what act on his part, did he cease to be one ?
When had the Church ceased to owe him watch and
discipline ?
To the solution of this difficult question Mather
early directed his attention. In his first considerable
128 RICHARD MATHER
treatise on Congregational polity, the answer to the
Thirty-Two Questions, 1 written, it will be remembered,
in 1639, Mather, indeed, took the ground that
" Such Children whose Father and Mother were neither
of them Believers, and sanctified, are counted by the
Apostle (as it seemes to us) not federally holy, but im-
cleane, whatever their other Ancestors have been, (i Cor.
7. 14). And therefore we Baptise them not."
But by 1645, when Mather wrote an elaborate, but
unfortunately never published, exposition of Congre-
gational polity, 2 he had advanced to the position thus
expressed by question and answer : 3
" When those that were baptized in Infancy by the
Covenant of their Parents being come to Age, are not yet
found fit to be received to the Lords Table, although they
be married and have Children, whether are those their
Children to be baptized or no." " I propound to Con-
sideration this Reason for the Affirmative, viz. That the
Children of such Parents ought to be baptized: the Reason
is, the Parents as they were born in the Covenant, so they
still continue therein, being neither cast out, nor deserving
1 Church-Government and Church Covenant Discussed, p. 22.
2 Increase Mather says (Life and Death of . . . Richard Mather,
p. 84) that Richard Mather " prepared for the Press an Elaborate Dis-
course Entituled, A Plea for the Churches of New England, divided
into two Parts : The former being an Answer to Mr. Rathbands Nar-
ration of Church-Courses in New-England ; The other containing Positive
Grounds from Scripture and Reason, for the Justification of the Way
of the Churches in New England."
3 This bit, the only portion in print, as far as I am aware, of the
treatise described in the above note, is given in Increase Mather, First
Principles, pp. 10, u ; see also Walker, Creeds and Platforms, p. 252.
RICHARD MATHER 12
so to be, and if so, why should not their Children be bap-
tized, for if the Parents be in Covenant, are not the Children
so likewise ? "
In the view indicated by this quotation Mather re-
mained all the rest of his life; and he had with him an
ever-growing proportion of the New England ministry,
for to him, and to others, it seemed that to abandon
this hold upon the young people, and recognize no
church membership in those " born in the covenant "
who were yet not conscious disciples of Christ was to
surrender them to heathenism. Passed by at the Cam-
bridge Synod, where, if pushed to a vote, it would
undoubtedly have received the support of a majority,
it arousejd increasing discussion, and was apparently
first put in practice at Ipswich in 1656. But, by that
time, Connecticut was so aroused on the subject that,
as a result of legislative action in May of that year, a
list of twenty-one questions was sent by Connecticut
to the Massachusetts legislature, which promptly
called a Ministerial Convention, to meet at Boston on
June 4, 1657, and invited all the colonies to be repre-
sented ; an invitation willingly accepted by Connect-
icut, ignored by Plymouth, and vigorously declined by
New Haven as likely to lead to the approval of the
new and looser method. Mather's name is the first in
the list of the thirteen ministerial representatives ap-
pointed by Massachusetts, 1 and his hand drafted the
1 Records of . . . Mass., iv., part i., p. 280.
I3O RICHARD MATHER
conclusions in which the Convention summed up the
results of the fifteen days of discussion. 1 The tract is
a dialectically acute, clear, and often forcible docu-
ment, 2 setting forth with the utmost distinctness the
position that those who were of the Church by reason
of their parents' covenant were so far members, even
in the absence of any conscious work of grace in their
own hearts; that they could, in turn, present their
children for baptism, provided they themselves gave
an intellectual assent to the faith of the Church and
seriously assumed its covenant obligations, as far as
they were able in their unconverted estate. It also
made equally evident the view of the Convention that
such half-way members, so long as they remained
without personal religious experience, should not be
admitted to the Lord's Supper or to a vote in church
affairs.
Here was a radical departure from the early New
England theory in the direction of the " parish way "
of old England It was a departure which ultimately
worked great harm; but it was entered on by good
men in all earnestness of pastoral solicitude. The
Ministerial Convention did not, however, abate the
discussion in Massachusetts or Connecticut, and so
1 Dexter, Cong, as Seen, Bibliography, p. 287. The original is in the
library of the American Antiquarian Society at Worcester.
2 It was printed at London in 1659, under the title of A Disputation
concering Church-Members and their Children in Answer to XXI Ques-
tions ; large extracts are given in Walker, Creeds and Platforms, pp.
291-300.
RICHARD MATHER 131
energetically was it carried on, that in December,
1661, the Massachusetts Legislature ordered a Synod
of all the churches of that colony to meet at Boston
on March II, 1662,' to " consider of such questions
for the setling of peace and trueth in these
churches." To this peremptory call some seventy
ministers and delegates responded. The Dorchester
church was represented by its pastor, Richard Mather,
and his gifted youngest son, Increase. 2 It was a stormy
and strenuously contested session ; but when the battle
was over, the views which we have seen Richard
Mather championing in the Convention of 1657 were
reaffirmed by a vote of seven to one; yet that minor-
ity contained the able president of Harvard, and two
of Mather's own sons, Eleazerand Increase. Richard
Mather did not this time draft the result of the Synod ;
but it was not in a Mather to withhold his pen, and
in the controversies that followed he was as active in
defense of the decision as his sons were in opposing it.
Yet I am not aware that this division of view made
any separation between the Mathers, however un-
seemly such contrariety in public debate may appear;
and within a few years, even before his father's death,
Increase Mather so altered his opinions that he was
speedily the foremost defender of the principles which
he attacked at the synod.
1 Records of . . . Mass, iv., part ii., p. 38.
2 Records First Church, Dorchester, p. 39.
132 RICHARD MATHER
This division of sentiment suggests the fact that,
though Richard Mather could be a leader of conven-
tions and synods, he could no more control the action
of his own church on this point than regulate the
views of his own family. As early as March, 1655,
Mather's church had begun to debate the matter;
but it had then " seemed strange and unsaffe unto
Divers ";' and the debate had dragged on. 2 Mather
acquainted the church with the doings of the Synod,
and made plain his own wishes, but a New England
church was then no more the unthinking servant of its
minister than it now is, and it was not till January 29,
1677, more than seven years after Mather's death, that
his church voted to practice what he had advocated. 3
Mather's church was not divided on this issue. He
seems to have been too good a pastor to force his
views, however strongly held, on what was after all a
minor and not vitally essential feature of ecclesiastical
practice, to the point of open quarrel in his flock.
But not all the churches of New England were as for-
tunate as his. The First Church in Boston, for exam-
ple, was rent on the issue. Its majority was strenuously
opposed to the larger baptism, and called that eminent
champion of the older ways and opponent of the late
Synod's conclusions, Rev. John Davenport of New
Haven, to its vacant pastorate in 1668. Its minority,
1 Records First Church, Dorchester, p. 164.
* Ibid., pp. 34-36, 40, 55, 168. * Ibid., pp. 69-75.
RICHARD MATHER 133
favoring the larger practice, and not approving some
of the methods and circumstances of Davenport's call,
withdrew, after a bitter struggle on the part of the ma-
jority to retain them, and repeated advice from coun-
cils, to form the Third, or Old South, Church in Bos-
ton. 1 In these councils, and in the attempts to find
an honorable and peaceable solution of the disagree-
ment, Mather bore his full share. It was at the second
of these advisory councils, where he was serving as
Moderator, on April 16, 1669, that Mather was seized
with the distressing malady which six days later ended
his earthly pilgrimage. 2 His brief illness, though of
much suffering, was of much patience; and the one
burden on his heart was a pastoral lament strikingly
consonant with his long advocacy of the Half-Way
Covenant, and curiously illumined by what we have
seen as to the refusal of his church to adopt it. To
his son, Increase, who asked a last message, the dying
man said : 3
*' A special thing which I would commend to you is, care
concerning the rising generation in this country, that they
be brought under the government of Christ in his church,
and that when grown up, and qualified, they have baptism
for their children. I must confess I have been defective as
1 For this controversy see H. A. Hill, History of the Old Sotith Church,
Boston, i., pp. 13-112 ; Records First Church, Dorchester, pp. 54, 58.
2 The stone, with total stoppage. See Increase Mather, Life a-nd
Death of . . . Richard Mather, pp. 78-80. He died April 22, 1669.
3 Ibid., pp. 79, 80.
134 RICHARD MATHER
to practice; yet I have publickly declared my judgment and
manifested my desires to practice that which I think ought
to be attended; but the dissenting of some in our church
discouraged me. I have thought that persons might have
right to baptism, and yet not to the Lords Supper: and I
see no cause to alter my judgment, as to that particular."
We may believe the remedy which he commended
for the laxity of the young people of his time a bad
one; but we cannot doubt the absolute sincerity of
conviction with which he approved it.
So passed away, at the ripe age of seventy-three,
one of the most useful ministers of early New England.
Not so brilliant as Cotton or Hooker, he was a strong,
learned, simple, practical, impressive man, a good
companion, a helpful associate, and above all a lover
of Congregationalism, because he believed it the way
of the Scriptures. He died rich in the possession of
five sons, four of them eminent in the ministry; rich
also in the grateful recollection of many services well
done not only for his day and generation, but for the
development of the branch of the Kingdom of God
whose interests he made his first care.
JOHN ELIOT
135
IV.
JOHN ELIOT
ANYONE who glances over a general catalogue,
such as is issued by Andover Seminary, must be
struck first of all by the number of names of those
who, while faithful servants of God in their genera-
tion, have left little record among men. Few of us
can expect even a line in the biographical cyclopaedias
of a century hence. It is to that truer and more per-
fect record of those whose names are written in heaven
that we, most of us, must look for whatever memorial
is to abide of the fact that we have lived and labored
for the advancement of the Kingdom of God. But,
among the comparatively limited number of names
which arouse recollection as of historic moment as one
turns the pages of such a catalogue as I have men-
tioned, a few seem to exhale a peculiar fragrance that
inclines the reader to linger on them with special
regard. As one glances through the list of those con-
nected with Andover in the first three years of its ex-
istence, what pictures of consecration, of sacrifice, and
of endeavor the names of Adoniram Judson, Samuel
Newell, Gordon Hall, and Samuel J. Mills conjure up
137
138 JOHN ELIOT
before the mental vision ! The Church proves that it
has never lost the consciousness of that primal apos-
tolic commission in this, if in no other, way, that it
feels a special thrill of satisfaction as it contemplates
the lives of its missionaries. Its Pauls, its Columbas,
its Xaviers, its Careys, its Pattesons stand forth to
grateful recollection radiant with a peculiar charm
which attaches to none of its dogmaticians, teachers,
or administrators. So among the founders of New
England, the name of John Eliot, known since 1660
as the " apostle," ' draws forth remembrances of the
most winsome aspects of Puritan character, and shines
with a luster distinctly its own among the leaders of
early Congregationalism.
John Eliot was the son of a yeoman, or middle-class
farmer, Bennett Eliot, a man of considerable property,
whose home was at Nazing, county of Essex some
sixteen miles almost directly north of London. 2 But
though Nazing was John's boyhood home, the fact
that he was baptized at Widford, some ten or twelve
miles yet farther northward of London, on August 5,
1604, in the church of St. John Baptist, commemorated
'in Charles Lamb's well-known poem, The Grandame,
makes it probable that Widford was his birthplace,
since our modern fashion of delayed baptisms .did not
1 So first named by Thomas Thorowgood, see Dr. Ellsworth Eliot in
Appleton's Cyclopedia of American Biography, ii., p. 321.
9 See N. E. Hist, and Geneal. Register, xxviii., pp. 140-145.
JOHN ELIOT 139
obtain in the England of that day. Widford, more-
over, was the place of the marriage of his parents,
October 30, 1598.' Of his boyhood and early educa-
tion we know little. Cotton Mather has preserved a
single remark of Eliot's that shows his thankfulness in
old age for the memories of a religious home; 8 but
whatever its degree of religious vigor, the spiritual life
of his parents' home would not appear to have inclined
to Puritanism, for, in March, 1619, he entered Jesus
College at Cambridge instead of the warmly Puritan
Emmanuel College of that University. While a stu-
dent here his father died, and left him 8 a year for
the prosecution of his education. 8 And here Eliot
graduated a Bachelor of Arts in 1622. What next em-
ployed his thoughts we do not know; but it would ap-
pear probable that he was ordained a minister of the
Church of England. Our first definite glimpse of him
after his graduation, however, is seven years later, at the
close of 1629, or the beginning of 1630, when we find
him assisting Rev. Thomas Hooker, afterward eminent
among the founders of Connecticut, in teaching a
school kept by Hooker for a few months at Little
Baddow, 4 a country village about thirty miles northeast
of London.
1 See N. E. Hist, and Geneal. Register, xlviii., p. 80.
2 Magnalia, i., p. 529.
8 Buried November 21, 1621 ; will, November 5, 1621 ; IV. E. Hist,
and Geneal. Register, xxviii., p. 145 ; Dr. Ellsworth Eliot, as cited.
4 M agnalia, i., p. 335.
I4O JOHN ELIOT
The circumstances which had compelled Hooker 1 to
establish this school were typically illustrative of the
religious state of England. Thomas Hooker had grad-
uated at Emmanuel in 1608, and after further study and
service as catechist and lecturer at his alma mater, had
exercised a ministry of some years at Esher, a hamlet
of Surrey, till, in 1626, his fame as a preacher led to
his appointment as Puritan lecturer at Chelmsford.
These lectureships were a favorite device of the more
earnest Protestants of the opening years of the seven-
teenth century to secure a preaching ministry in par-
ishes where the legal incumbent was unable or unwilling
to give sermons to his people. Supplementary services
were conducted, occasionally with the full approval of
the legal rector, by ministers of sermonic ability, sup-
ported by the gifts of sympathetic hearers. And from
his Chelmsford pulpit Hooker preached a deep, search-
ing, spiritual, intensely Calvinistic and powerfully
awakening series of discourses that won him the sup-
port of the more earnest element of the region round
about. But Laud viewed the lectureship system as one
of the chief bulwarks of Puritanism, to the extirpation of
which he had set himself. In spite of the favorable pe-
tition of a large portion of his beneficed clerical neigh-
bors, Hooker was silenced in 1629; and, as a means
of earning his livelihood, took scholars into his fam-
ily in the quiet retreat of Little Baddow. Even this
1 See G. L. Walker, Thomas Hooker, pp. 18-51.
JOHN ELIOT 141
occupation could not shield Hooker from Laud, and
in order to escape imprisonment, or worse, he had to
flee the country, finding refuge in Holland before the
close of 1630.
Eliot's experiences as Hooker's " usher," or assist-
ant, in the Little Baddow school were therefore brief;
but short as the time of this association was it was
permanently influential in his religious life. As Eliot
himself later said of his sojourn in Hooker's household i 1
" To this place I was called, through the infinite riches
of God's mercy in Christ Jesus to my poor soul: for here
the Lord said unto my dead soul, live ; and through the
grace of Christ, I do live, and I shall live forever! When
I came into this blessed family I then saw, and never
before, the power of godliness in its lively vigour and
efficacy."
Eliot's conversion evidently made him fully a Puri-
tan, if he had not been so before; and he seems to
have entered into an agreement with friends, 9 some of
whom were from his home village of Nazing, to be a
pastor to them if possible in the New World. He
doubtless felt that the opposition which drove his
friend and spiritual father, Thomas Hooker, into exile
would make it impossible for him to exercise an effi-
cient ministry in England. Accordingly, leaving his
" intended wife " to follow him, 3 he sailed in the Lyon,
1 Magnalia, i., p. 336.
4 See his own statement in Roxbury Church Records, in Report of the
Record Commissioners, City of Boston, Document 114, p. 76. 3 Ibid.
142 JOHN ELIOT
and, after a voyage of ten weeks' duration, landed at
Boston, November 4, 1631.'
The time of Eliot's arrival in Boston was opportune.
The teacher of the Boston church, John Wilson, had
sailed for a temporary sojourn in England in April pre-
vious, and the Boston congregation gladly welcomed
Eliot's services. Eliot himself became one of its
members, and on Wilson's return, in 1632, the Boston
church urged upon Eliot with insistence the position
of association in its pastorate which was a year later
bestowed on John Cotton. 2 Eliot felt himself bound
to his English friends, some of whom had settled at
Roxbury, where a church had been formed in July,
1632, of which Rev. Thomas Welde had been made
pastor. On the call of this church in the November
following its organization, just a twelvemonth after
his arrival in Boston, Eliot entered on the office of
" teacher" at Roxbury, which he was to occupy for
more than fifty-seven years. 3 He had already gone to
Roxbury to live some months before his settlement,
for the first marriage recorded in that place is that of
Eliot, on September 4, 1632, to Hanna Mumford, the
betrothed bride who had followed him from England,
a woman of remarkable abilities and consecration of
spirit, a true helper to him in his life work, of whom
1 Winthrop, i., pp. 76, 77, 80.
* Ibid., i., p. in. He was offered the teachership.
3 Ibid. ; Roxbury Church Records, p. 76.
JOHN ELIOT 143
he could say, as she lay in her coffin after fifty-five
years of companionship, that she was a " dear, faithful,
pious, prudent, prayerful wife." Indeed, it was to
her careful management of his worldly affairs that
Eliot owed whatever measure of outward comfort a
very moderate measure be it said that he attained.
Like Jonathan Edwards or Nathanael Emmons after
him, he believed business cares incompatible with the
ministerial office, and so absurdly divorced himself
from all concerns in his own property, that he did not
even know his own cattle as they stood before his
study window. 2 Fortunately for him his wife was
competent to supply his deficiencies in household
economics.
But, however indifferent to his own pecuniary wel-
fare, as a pastor Eliot gave himself unsparingly to his
people. His long ministry was not unaided. From
his settlement in 1632 to 1641, Thomas Welde was his
associate, and indeed his superior in public repute, as
was natural for one older in years and in ministerial ex-
perience. From 1649, till death removed him in 1674,
Samuel Danforth was Eliot's younger colleague; and
in 1688, near the close of Eliot's long life, Nehemiah
Walter was installed by his side; but the enumeration
of these bare names and dates shows how large a por-
tion of pastoral labor came to Eliot's constant share.
Whatever honor is his as a missionary, it should not
1 Magnolia, i., p. 529. * Ibid,, i., p. 5380
144 JOHN ELIOT
be forgotten that he was always a pastor, and that the
great toils which his missionary service brought him
were in addition to the strenuous duties of a parish.
No man could have endured such labors had he not
been blessed, as was Eliot, with good health, and that
basis of good health, a cheerful disposition. 1 The ex-
pressions of this temperament which have been re-
corded sound a good deal like cant to our time, when
direct religious allusions fall so seldom from our reluc-
tant lips; but they did not sound so then, nor did they
so impress the men of early New England. On the
contrary, they admired his " singular skill of raising
some holy observation out of whatever matter of dis-
course lay before him." 2 Thus, as he climbed wearily
up the hill to his meeting-house, Cotton Mather records
that he said to the man on whose arm he leaned : 3
' This is very like the way to heaven, 't is uphill,"
and glancing at a bush by the wayside, he instantly
added, *' and truly there are thorns and briars in the
way, too." The same capacity to draw a lesson from
every-day occupations is shown in his remark to a man
of business whose account books he saw on the table,
while the religious books were in a case against the
wall: 4 " Sir, here is earth on the table, and heaven on
the shelf; let not earth by any means thrust heaven out
of your mind." But perhaps Eliot's constant sweet-
ness and kindliness of temper, as well as his transparent
\Magnalia, i., p. 532. 2 Ibid. * Ibid., i., p. 533. * Ibid., i., p. 534.
JOHN ELIOT 145
fidelity to fact, most appears in his elaborately kept
church records, from which I quote but a single entry,
illustrative of the spirit of many others. Eliot is not-
ing the death of a member of his Roxbury parish : l
" William Chandler he came to N. E. aboute the yeare
1637 ... he lived a very religious & Godly life among
us, & fell into a consumption, to w h he had bene long in-
clined, he lay neare a yeare sick, in all w h time, his faith,
patiens, & Godlynesse & contentation so shined, y* Christ
was much gloryfied in him, he was a man of weak p ts , but
excellent fath & holyness, he was a very thankfull man, &
much magnified Gods goodnesse, he was pore, but God so
opened the hearts of his naybe to him, y* he never wanted
y* w h was (at least in his esteeme) very plentifull & com-
fortable to him; he dyed ... in the yeare 1641, &
left a sweet memory & savor behind him."
The man who penned such records as these cannot
have been other than a good pastor, nor can anyone
doubt what interests he placed first.
Eliot's charity to the poorer members of his flock
was unfailing, and far out of proportion to his means
as charity is ordinarily bestowed even by the generous.
The story is told that one of the officers of the Rox-
bury church, knowing Eliot's freedom in gifts, on one
occasion tied up the portion of his salary paid to him
firmly in a handkerchief lest the pastor should part
with any of it before reaching home. On his home-
ward way Eliot visited a family in distress, and as the
1 Roxbury Church Records, p. 83.
146 JOHN ELIOT
pastoral call lengthened his eagerness to aid increased,
till, fumbling in vain at the knots that he could not
loosen, he at last handed the handkerchief and all its
contents to the mother of the household with the
exclamation: "There, there, take it all. The Lord
evidently meant it all for you." 1
Eliot's public prayers had a directness almost as
marked as those of President Finney. When Captain
William Foster of Charlesto\vn and his son Isaac, later
pastor of the First Church in Hartford, were captured
by the Mohammedans on a voyage in 1671, and it be-
came known to their friends that the ruler of the terri-
tory where the Fosters were slaves probably some
part of Algiers had declared that he would never let
his captives go, Eliot prayed : 2
" Heavenly Father, work for the redemption of thy poor
servant Foster; and if the prince which detains him will
not, as they say, dismiss him as long as himself lives. Lord,
we pray thee to kill that cruel prince; kill him, and glorify
thy self upon him."
And this prayer his congregation believed they saw an-
swered in the speedy death of the piratical ruler and
the release of the captives. So, too, Eliot spoke out
freely in prayer that love of schools which made Rox-
bury eminent, under his care, for its excellent instruc-
tion. At the Reforming Synod of 1679, he uttered
the petition :
1 i Coll. Mass. Hist. Soc., x., p. 186.
2 For these illustrations, see Magnalia, i., pp. 544, 551.
JOHN ELIOT 147
" Lord, for schools everywhere among us! That our
schools may flourish ! That every member of this assembly
may go home, and procure a good school to be encouraged
in the town where he lives! That before we die, we may
be so happy as to see a good school encouraged in every
plantation of the country."
No picture of Eliot would be true that did not recog-
nize another trait, at least of his old age; he made
the impression of being an old-fashioned man. I sup-
pose every age has looked back on its predecessor,
sometimes with truth, as a time of simpler faith and
more strenuous habits. It does, indeed, seem odd
enough to the eye of the modern reader, to see the
page which Governor Bradford wrote in the rude set-
tlement of Plymouth, half-wrested from the wilderness,
where, after describing the plain garb of one of the
Congregational confessors of his early youth, he asks, 1
' What would such professors, if they were now
living, say to the excesses of our times ? " The ques-
tion is wellnigh as old as humanity. But, undoubt-
edly, Eliot seemed to the men of the third generation
on New England soil kin to a simpler, as he certainly
was to a more heroic, age. His great moderation at
the table was noticeable even in those days of plain
living; his strict observance of the Sabbath, and his
careful preparation for it, were remarked as unusual
even in that age of Puritan strenuousness ; 3 and Cotton
1 Dialogue, in Young, Chronicles of the Pilgrims, p. 447.
8 Magnalia, i., pp. 535, 538.
148 JOHN ELIOT
Mather, whose full wig showed his conformity to the
supposedly becoming fashions of his age, records that
such was Eliot's preference for the natural and unsup-
plemented covering of the head, which the Puritan
custom of the Roxbury teacher's youth had preferred,
that " he would express himself continually with a
boiling zeal " at sight of examples of what he deemed
a heaven-provoking excess. 1 But Eliot was no intol-
erant bigot; on the contrary, few in New England at
that day would have shown the charity that he did, in
1650, in inviting a visiting French Jesuit missionary,
Gabriel Druillettes, to spend the winter as an inmate
of his house. 2
Eliot's interest in public and ecclesiastical concerns
was always marked. His share in the preparation of
the Bay Psalm Book of 1640 has already been pointed
out in treating of Richard Mather. But regarding his
more ambitious attempts to suggest an improved or-
ganization of political and religious society it is no
dishonor to his memory to suggest that an undue in-
sistence on the permanent and binding authority of the
institutions of the Jewish state, and a want of any
considerable degree of statesman-like insight into the
conditions of the political life in which his lot was cast,
rendered his speculations more curious than valuable.
This is conspicuously true of his tract on government,
1 Magnalia, i. , p. 540.
9 Palfrey, History of New England, ii., p. 308, See ante p. 41.
JOHN ELIOT 149
published, in 1659,' at London, under the title of The
Christian Commonwealth, though written seven or eight
years earlier. 9 In this essay he lays down the basal
principle ' that
"the Lord Jesus will bring down all people, to be ruled
by the Institutions, Laws, and Directions of the Word of
God, not only in Church Government and Administrations
but also in the Government and Administration of all
affairs in the Commonwealth."
The organic rule for the appointment of civil officers
he finds in Exodus xviii. 25 ; and from that passage he
deduces the principle that rulers of tens, of fifties, of
hundreds, of thousands, of ten thousands, of fifty
thousands, and so on should be appointed, each with
judicial and administrative authority over his subdi-
vision ; and that each, together with the officers of the
next grade immediately under him, should constitute
a court of justice the lowest court being that of the
ruler of tens, the next higher being that of the ruler of
fifties, together with the five rulers of tens included in
his fifty, and so on till over all the " Chief Ruler,"
chosen by the people, and assisted by his " Supreme
Council," was reached. Of this reconstructed state
the Bible was to be the sole statute book. The plan
1 J. H. Trumbull, Brinley Sale Catalogue, No. 570.
s See Records of . . . Mass., iv., part ii., 6. The whole tract is
reprinted in 3 Coll. Mass. Hist. Soc., ix., pp. 127-164.
3 Christian Commonwealth, Preface.
150 JOHN ELIOT
was fantastic enough as applied to a country of com-
plex social organization and ancient political traditions
like England, though Eliot carried it out as far as pos-
sible in the regulation of the political affairs of his
Indian converts. But the Massachusetts government,
anxious for its own liberties which were imperilled by
the restoration of the Stuarts, condemned the book in
May, 1661, and ordered its suppression "as justly offen-
cive . . . to kingly government in England." * Eliot
expressed his disavowal of certain expressions in the
book that seemed to reflect on the restored monarchy in
a manly letter, 2 which speaks the tone of sincerity.
But though Eliot might renounce the full application
of his theories to civil affairs, he was much enamored
of his plan of subdivisions and graded courts therein
outlined, so that, in 1665, he printed his Communion
of Churches, in which he carried very similar principles
over to the realm of ecclesiastical affairs. Perhaps his
experiences with the Massachusetts legislature already
narrated inclined Eliot now to caution, for the volume
was not published, and is accounted the first " pri-
vately printed American book." In this tract Eliot
proposed that every twelve churches should unite in a
" first council," composed of pastors and delegates,
and meeting once a month at least; twelve " first
councils " should, in turn, send a chosen pastor and a
1 Records of . . . Mass., iv., part ii., p. 5. 2 Ibid. f p. 6.
8 J. H. Trumbull, in Brinley Sale Catalogue, No. 760.
JOHN ELIOT 151
delegate to a quarterly " provincial council " ; twelve
provincial councils " should in the same way send
representatives to a yearly " national council," and
twelve " national councils" might be represented in
the same fashion in an " oecumenical council," the de-
liberations of which might be conducted in Hebrew. 1
It is needless to say that this fanciful outline of church
polity found as scanty acceptance as Eliot's proposed
reconstitution of civil government. He could not
have done the work of Thomas Hooker or of John
Cotton.
Eliot's fame rests on none of the publications just
described, but primarily on his labors as a missionary,
though as a pastor he would well have deserved com-
memoration had he never preached to the Indians.
The thought of labor for the Indians of the New
World did not originate with Eliot. To say nothing
of the missionary efforts of the Spaniards to which
all America from California southward bears witness
to this day, or of that bright page of heroism and sac-
rifice which French Jesuits wrote as the chief glory of
the early history of Canada, the English colonists,
both of Pilgrim and of Puritan antecedents, had it as
one of their main aims in coming to America to carry
1 I have taken this epitome from Dexter, Cong, as Seen, pp. 509, 510.
Eliot would provide for fractions by counting each group of more than
twelve and less than twenty-four, as twelve ; a device that had already
appeared in his Christian Commonwealth, where, for instance, a " ruler
of ten " may rule over any number from ten to nineteen.
152 JOHN ELIOT
the Gospel to the native inhabitants. But no syste-
matic plan had been adopted for so doing, and the
task of founding homes in the new country proved of
such difficulty that little attention could be given at
first to the Christianization of the Indians. The lan-
guage, moreover, was a formidable barrier, and even
more the dissimilarity of thought between a civilized
and a barbarous race. The Indians were accessible
with difficulty save on the side of trade; to go among
them, to become acquainted with them in any sense
that would render an Englishman familiar with their
thoughts, and permit the impartation of religious
truth, implied days and nights in filthy wigwams,
loathsome fare, and deprivations not merely of the
comforts but of the decencies of life, such as few, how-
ever willing to make the sacrifices involved in setting
up a home in the new land, cared to undergo. The
Puritans from the first treated the Indians with con-
sideration and tried to protect them by law. In spite
of the short, sharp struggle with the Pequots in 1637,
New England feeling did not turn strongly upon the
Indians as a race to be guarded against, as against the
wolf and the lynx, till after the outbreak of Philip's
War in 1675. But the two peoples were apart, mutu-
ally misunderstanding each other, and finding any
terms of intercourse difficult save those on the level of
the exchange of the skins of the beaver and the otter,
for the cloth, the knives, the kettles, and too often the
JOHN ELIOT 153
muskets and the rum, of newcomers to New England
soil.
The first New Englander who made protracted and
successful effort to master the language of the Indians
of eastern Massachusetts was that eccentric, opinion-
ated, yet in many ways far-seeing and devotedly Chris-
tian man, Roger Williams. 1 As early as 1632, it would
appear that Williams had begun to acquire an Indian vo-
cabulary. On this task he labored while ministering at
Plymouth, and he continued the work after his removal
to Salem, so that by the time of his settlement at Provi-
dence in 1636, after his banishment from Massachu-
setts, he had a considerable command of the dialects
of the tribes of the region a linguistic acquaintance
which proved of great value to the colonies, as a whole,
in the negotiations consequent upon the Pequot war
the year following. The fruit of these studies was the
publication, in 1643, of Williams's Key into the Language
of America, a word and phrase list, principally in the
Narragansett dialect, that is our best monument of the
colloquial speech of the aboriginal inhabitants of south-
eastern New England. Williams's purpose in all this
labor was to carry the Gospel to the Indians; but
though he preached to them, as he tells his readers,
many hundred times, and not without results, he did
not undertake systematic missionary work in the exec-
1 See the Preface, by J. Hammond Trumbull, to Williams's Key into
the Language of America, in Publ. Narragansett Club, i.
154 JOHN ELIOT
utive and organizing spirit that the situation demanded
for any permanent success. 1
Now it was just this patient, persistent, consecrated
endeavor that Eliot gave. Just what circumstances
induced him to undertake his work among the Indians
it is hard to say. The time was not blind to the mis-
sionary duty, for on November 13, 1644, the Massa-
chusetts legislature had directed the county courts to
see to it that the Indians in their several jurisdictions
were " instructed in y e knowledge & worship of God." a
Henry Dunster, the first president of Harvard, had
been interested in efforts for the Indians certainly
since 1641. 3 Some instances of the conversion of In-
dians had already occurred and had been narrated in
New Eng lands First Fruits, published in 1643. But
there is no reason to question Eliot's own belief, what-
ever earthly causes may have conduced to the result,
that " God first put into [his] my heart a compassion
for their poor souls and a desire to teach them to know
Christ and to bring them into his Kingdom." * His
first step in preparation was the reception into his
household of a young Indian servant, who had acquired
some knowledge of English, that by his aid he might
1 In 1674 Daniel Gookin wrote : " God hath not yet honored him
[Williams], or any other in that colony [Rhode Island] that I can hear
of, with being instrumental to convert any of the Indians." Palfrey,
Hist. N. E., ii., 195, 196.
2 Records of . . . Mass., ii., p. 84.
3 Lechford, Plaine Dealing, pp. 152, 153.
4 Quoted by A. C, Thompson, Protestant Missions, p. 57.
JOHN ELIOT 155
master the dialect of the Massachusetts tribe. 1 By this
help the Lord's Prayer and the Ten Commandments
were translated ; and Eliot was ready to begin his mis-
sionary work.
His first attempt, of which we know little, appears
to have been discouraging. About the middle of Sep-
tember, 1646, he sought out some Indians under
Chutchamaquin in Dorchester; but they showed little
interest in his message, and asked him questions as to
the cause of thunder, the nature of the tides, and the
source of the wind, instead of those more spiritual in-
terrogations which he hoped to awaken. 2 But Eliot
was not discouraged and soon repeated his missionary
efforts in another quarter; this time with success.
An account of those beginnings, probably from the
pen of Rev. Thomas Shepard, of Cambridge, was
printed in London in 1647, 8 and though very familiar,
is of such interest and importance that I shall not hesi-
tate to quote freely from it.
It was " upon October 28, 1646," the narrative
states, that " four of us " went to Waaubon's wigwam,
at Nonanturn, in the northern part of what is now
1 Eliot, Indian Grammar, p. 66.
a The Day-Breaking, p. 3 (see following note).
3 The story of this first missionary undertaking is told in The Day-
Breaking, if not the Sun-Rising of the Gospell with the Indians in New-
England, London, 1647. Dr. J. H. Trumbull ascribed its authorship
to Shepard, Brinley Sale Cat., No. 445 ; Palfrey thought the author
Rev. John Wilson of Boston, Hist, of New England, ii., p. 191 ; and
it has been attributed to Eliot himself, though page 18 of the tract
shows that this is incorrect.
156 JOHN ELIOT
Newton, and V found many . . . Indians, men,
women, children, gathered together," at Waaubon's
invitation. In their hearing Eliot, or one of his com-
panions, began the work with prayer, " which now
was in English, being not so farre acquainted with the
Indian language as to expresse our hearts herein before
God." Then Eliot, using the scarce familiar speech
of the Massachusetts aborigines, preached " for about
an houre and a quarter " a time none too long for the
contents of the sermon for the narrative records that
" he ran through all the principall matter of religion, be-
ginning first with a repetition of the ten Commandments,
and a briefe explication of them, then shewing the curse
and dreadfull wrath of God against all those who brake
them . . . and then preached Jesus Christ to them the
onely meanes of recovery from sinne and wrath and eternall
death, and what Christ was, and whither he was now gone,
and how hee will one day come againe to judge the world in
flaming fire; and of the blessed estate of all those that by
faith beleeve in Christ . . . the creation and fall of
man, about the greatnesse and infinite being of God, . . .
about the joyes of heaven, and the terrours and horrours
of wicked men in hell, perswading them to repentance for
severall sins which they live in, and many things of the like
nature; not medling with any matters more difficult."
Questions being asked for at the end of the sermon,
the four companions felt that six queries that were
propounded by their Indian auditors were so serious
and pertinent as to indicate some special directing
JOHN ELIOT 157
influence of God. The first inquiry was that funda-
mental question, "How may wee come to know Jesus
Christ ? " To which Eliot answered that such know-
ledge came by reading or hearing the Word of God, by
meditation, and by prayer. This last-named sugges-
tion led to the query, " Whether Jesus Christ did
understand, or God did understand, Indian prayers ";
to which Eliot gave the only answer possible to a
Christian, that " Jesus Christ and God by him made
all things, and makes all men, not onely English but
Indian men, and if hee made them both . . . then
hee knew all that was within man and came from man.
If hee made Indian men, then he knows all
Indian prayers also." Next came that query, so often
asked of missionaries the world over, and so difficult
to answer: " Whether English men were ever at any
time so ignorant of God and Jesus Christ as them-
selves ? " To this Eliot replied " that there are two
sorts of English men, some are bad and naught . . .
and in a manner as ignorant of Jesus Christ as the
Indians now are ; but there are a second sort of Eng-
lish men, who though for a time they lived wickedly
also . . . yet repenting of their sinnes, and seek-
ing after God and Jesus Christ, they are good men
now." The remaining questions had to do with the
nature of idols, the possibility of the acceptance by
God of the good son of a bad father, and the peopling
of the world after the Deluge.
158 JOHN ELIOT
I have entered thus fully into an account of this first
meeting because it shows the type of preaching of
these missionaries. Nor was it without speedy results.
On November 28th, after a third meeting had been
held at Waaubon's wigwam, some of his dusky hearers
came to Eliot's house, confessing their sins, and offer-
ing their children for Christian education, 1 and Waau-
bon himself was reported to have begun the practice
of prayer.
Eliot did not confine his efforts to these spiritual
instructions alone. Like more modern missionaries in
Central Africa or the Pacific islands, he felt that civil-
ization and education must go hand in hand as insep-
arable companions with evangelization. At this first
meeting the Indians had asked him that land be as-
signed them for a permanent town. 3 That request,
seconded by Thomas Shepard of Cambridge and John
Allin, the minister at Dedham, who were probably
two of Eliot's three companions in his Nonantum
visit, the Massachusetts legislature granted about a
week after the missionary sermon just described, the
purpose being " for y e incuragm* of y c Indians to live
in an orderly way amongst us." At the same time
the Massachusetts legislature practically became the
first missionary society in the English colonies, direct-
ing the ministers to choose two of their number
1 Day-Breaking, pp. 19, 20.
9 /#</., p. 7. 3 Records of , . . Mass., ii., p. 166.
JOHN ELIOT 159
annually to labor among the Indians, and promising
assistance in the work. 1 Six months later May, 1647
the legislature voted Eliot 10 " in respect of his
greate paines & charge in instructing y e Indians in
y e knowledg of God." 2 So generally interested were
the ministers in the work that, on the occasion of the
second session of the Cambridge Synod in June, 1647,
Eliot preached in its presence, in their own language,
to a large concourse of Indians. 3 Contributions began
to come in from Puritan sympathizers in England.
One donation had, indeed, anticipated Eliot's work,
that of Lady Armine, a granddaughter of the Earl of
Shrewsbury, who had given 20 a year as early as
1644, for the evangelization of the Indians a sum
which the Massachusetts legislature in May, 1647,
appropriated to Eliot's enterprise. 4
So strong was the interest excited in England by the
printed accounts of these missionary beginnings, that,
on July 19, 1649, less than six months after the execu-
tion of King Charles I., the Long Parliament passed
an act incorporating the first English foreign mission-
ary society, under the name of the " President and
Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in New
1 Records of . . . Mass., ii., pp. 178, 179.
2 Ibid., ii., p. 189.
3 Winthrop, ii., p. 376.
4 See Some Correspondence between the Governors and Treasurers of
the New England Company, etc., p. ix., London, 1896 ; also Records of
. . . Afass., ii., p. 189.
l6o JOHN ELIOT
England," with power to hold lands to the yearly
value of ^2000, and the right to collect money through-
out England and Wales. 1 The response amounted to
the then unprecedented sum of ; 11,430, and the Soci-
ety which thus came into being continues to the present
day, though its principal labors since the war of Ameri-
can independence have been confined to Canada. This
Society made the Commissioners by which the four
Congregational colonies of Plymouth, Massachusetts,
Connecticut, and New Haven were represented in the
loose political confederacy in which they had been
joined since 1643, its direct agents in superintending
the work. By 1658 the Society was spending 520 a
year in New England, of which Eliot received ^50, as
his salary. 2 That year the Society paid 190 for the
education of nine Indian young men at Roxbury and
Cambridge, and, besides the stipend to Eliot, seven in-
habitants of New England of English parentage and
seven Indians were paid, in 1658, for various forms of
missionary labor. 3 All this activity implied wide in-
terest in the work on the part of the people of England
and of New England alike; but it was not without its
vigorous opponents in both lands, as useless, result-
less, and a waste of money needed for religious effort
at home.
1 See History of the New England Company, etc., pp. I, 2, London,
1871 ; Palfrey, History of New England, ii., pp. 197-199.
2 Palfrey, ii., pp. 332, 333.
3 Ibid.
JOHN ELIOT l6l
I have already pointed out that, with Eliot, Chris-
tianity, civilization, and learning were inseparably
united, and that, at the beginning of his missionary
endeavor he sought to gather his converts into a town
on the English model. But Nonantum, where this set-
tlement was first made, proved unsuitable, and there-
fore, in July, 1650, a more ambitious village was begun
at Natick. Here houses were built, chiefly by Indian
labor, gardens and orchards planted, and a combined
schoolhouse and meeting-house erected. For the
government of the little community the Indians were
encouraged to choose, in 1651, rulers of tens, of fifties,
and a ruler of a hundred ; a pattern of civil government
which, as we have already seen, Eliot urged upon
England a little later as that prescribed by the Scrip-
tures. Here, after long testing, a church was estab-
lished, on the Congregational model, in 1660, which
numbered fifty Indian members by 1674, and to which
Eliot preached, while his health permitted, once in
two weeks, though before the close of his life, it came
under the charge of a native Indian pastor. 1
Eliot felt keenly the need of education for the spirit-
ual training of his disciples, and there is no more self-
denying or more successful endeavor in the annals of
American missionary labor than that he made to give
to his pupils the Word of God. Save for the
1 Afagnalia, i., pp. 564-566 ; Palfrey, ii., pp. 336, 338, iii., p. 141. See
also, A Late and Further Manifestation, pp. 1-6. London, 1655.
1 62 JOHN ELIOT
phrase-book of Roger Williams, the Indian dialects of
New England were unwritten ; their structure was pecu-
liarly difficult from a grammatical point of view; their
literature was wholly to be created. That one who was
all his New England life a busy pastor of an English-
speaking congregation, and, also, from 1646 onward,
an active evangelist among the Indians not only at
Nonantum and Natick but over a wide stretch of the
eastern portion of Massachusetts, should find time also
for such an immense labor in the study of the vocabu-
lary, grammar, and idioms of the Massachusetts dialect,
and for so prolific and creditable publication of trans-
lations into that tongue, is one of the marvels of mis-
sionary accomplishment. How he strengthened himself
for such toil, he expressed in one of his volumes in a
phrase that gives the key to his industry and courage:
" Prayers and pains through faith in Christ Jesus will
do anything." ' And what Eliot accomplished as a
translator alone constitutes a monument of which any
scholar might be proud.
His first work in the Indian language was a Cate-
chism which he published in i654. 2 It enjoys the dis-
tinction of being the first volume in the Indian tongue to
be printed in New England ; though, unhappily for the
collector, every copy has disappeared. But the volumes
1 Magnalia, i., 562, from Eliot's Indian Grammar.
2 Dexter, Cong, as Seen, Bibl., 1661. Was it the Catechism used at
Roxbury, June 13, 1654, and printed in English in A Late and Further
Manifestation, pp. IT-2O?
JOHN ELIOT 163
on which Eliot's fame as a translator chiefly rests were
his New Testament of 1661, and his complete Bible of
1663. I can, of course, express no personal estimate
of the qualities of this version. So utterly has the
Massachusetts race and its speech perished from among
men, that few are able to read Eliot's Bible ; though
probably it is not quite true to say, as used to be said
during the lifetime of the late Dr. J. Hammond Trum-
bull, that only he could do so. But Dr. Trumbull, 1
whose competency as a judge no one will criticise,
affirmed regarding Eliot's Bible that it was
" a marvellous triumph of scholarship; achieved in the face
of difficulties which might well have appeared insurmount-
able. It may be doubted if, in the two centuries which
have elapsed since the Indian Bible was printed, any trans-
lation of the sacred volume has been made from the English
to a foreign tongue of more literal accuracy and complete-
ness. If a different impression has been popularly received,
slight study of the Indian text will. suffice to remove it."
It was deemed the great honor of William Carey
that he was the translator of the Bible into the lan-
guages of India; can we give Eliot less meed of praise ?
Eliot's Indian Bible was only the beginning of a
series of translations and publications in the Indian
speech. Bound up with the volume was a translation
of the Psalms in meter. The year 1664 saw the
1 Trumbull in Pub. Narragansett Club., i., pp. 6, 7 ; see also regard-
ing this Indian literature, Trumbull's chapter in Memorial History of
Boston, i., pp. 465 sqq.
164 JOHN ELIOT
putting forth by Eliot, in Indian dress, of Baxter's Call
to the Unconverted ; in 1665, a translation of Bishop
Bayly's Practice of Piety was issued; in 1666 there fol-
lowed Eliot's Indian Grammar Begun ; and, in 1669,
his Indian Primer ; the year 1680 saw a second edi-
tion of the New Testament, and in 1685 of the whole
Bible; and, finally, in 1689, Eliot put forth a transla-
tion of Shepard's Sincere Convert. These volumes
were printed at the New England Cambridge, and
chiefly, if not entirely, at the expense of the English
Society, which thus supplied Christian literature, as
well as tools and other material instruments of civiliza-
tion to the Indian converts. 1 Of course this literature
demanded instruction in reading; and therefore Eliot
made the schoolmaster as prominent as the minister in
his Indian settlements.
It is evident that a movement of such widespread
interest as that in which Eliot was a leader could be
confined to no one portion of New England. He was
indeed the foremost always in leadership and service;
but many others were associated with him, or entered
independently into the missionary enterprise moved
by the secret promptings of the Divine Spirit. Of
these the most conspicuous, perhaps, were the two
Thomas Mayhews, father and son, of Martha's Vine-
yard. There the work had begun, almost without
1 For an example of some expenditures of the Society, see N. E. Hist,
and GeneaL Register, xxxvi., pp. 297-299.
JOHN ELIOT 165
effort, in 1643, by the awakening of Hiacoomes, one
of the leading Indians; and in 1646, the same year
that Eliot began his work at Nonantum, the younger
Mayhew commenced systematic efforts for the Chris-
tianization of his Indian neighbors. 1 After the death
of this missionary the undertaking was carried on by
his father, and in turn by his son, grandson, and great-
grandson, till the demise of the latter in 1806, making
this record of five generations the longest chain of
hereditary endeavor in the annals of missions. 3 This
labor on Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket was re-
markably successful. By 1651 Mayhew could report
one hundred and ninety-nine converts, and in 1670, a
church was formed on Martha's Vineyard, 3 that was
soon followed by several others on the islands of this
group. In all this work the same English Society
that aided Eliot lent its assistance from 1651 onward.
Other, though smaller centers of activity developed
on Cape Cod, at Marshpee, where a church was formed
under Richard Bourne about i6/o, 4 and at Eastham,
where Rev. Samuel Treat long labored for the spiritual
good of the Indians. 5 At Plymouth, the pastor of the
old Pilgrim church from 1669 to 1697, John Cotton,
1 See Mayhew's letter in A Farther Discovery of the Present State of
the Indians, pp. 3-13. London, 1651.
2 A. C. Thompson, Protestant Missions, p. 87.
3 Magnalia, ii., p. 431.
4 Ibid., i., p. 567.
5 Sibley, Graduates of Harvard, ii., pp. 305-307.
1 66 JOHN ELIOT
son of the more famous John, did much for the In-
dians, and helped to revise Eliot's Bible for its second
edition. 1 Branford, in Connecticut colony, saw some
work for its Indian inhabitants by its pastor, Abraham
Pierson, father of the first president of Yale. 2 Eliot's
own immediate mission grew, so that by 1654 a second
town, on the plan of Natick, was organized at Punka-
pog, now known as Stoughton. 3 And he had the
assistance of consecrated and self-denying men, like
Daniel Gookin, whom the Massachusetts government
made, from 1656 to 1687, the " ruler" or superinten-
dent of its Indian subjects. 4 Eliot had the satis-
faction, before his death, of seeing that his work
would be carried on by those in the New England
ministry who were in hearty sympathy with it, like
Grindall Rawson of Mendon, and Samuel Danforth
of Taunton. 5
The missionary endeavor was crowned with unde-
niable success. In spite of its difficulties, by 1674
those Indians who had been brought in some measure
under the influence of the Gospel, or " Praying In-
dians " as they were called, numbered four thousand,
of whom nearly one half were on the islands of the
1 Sibley, i., pp. 496-508 ; Magnalia, i., p. 568.
2 Palfrey, ii., p. 340.
3 Late and Further Manifestation of the Progress of the Gospel, p. 2.
London, 1655.
4 Palfrey, ii., p. 338.
5 Sibley, iii., pp. 163-168, 244-249.
JOHN ELIOT 167
Martha's Vineyard group. 1 About eleven hundred
were in Eliot's villages. They were gathered into six
churches, numbering in all one hundred and seventy-
five members, and in at least twenty places preaching
and schools were regularly maintained, chiefly by edu-
cated Indians. The villages of the " Praying Indians "
numbered thirty-three. But the stronger tribes of
southern New England, the Narragansetts and Wam-
panoags, were scarcely touched by Christianity, and
probably wholly misunderstood the intentions of the
missionaries. 2 They probably conceived the purpose
of settlements like those at Natick and Marshpee as an
attempt to render more formidable the white man's
tribe by the familiar Indian method of the adoption of
weaker neighbors; and doubtless the fear thus excited
in these stronger Indian confederations had something
to do with bringing on the terrific struggle for the
possession of southeastern New England, known as
Philip's war. That awful experience of murder, fire,
and robbery cost New England six hundred men in
1675 and 1676 to say nothing of the complete or
partial destruction of more than forty towns. It cost
the Indians far more, and permanently removed the
Indian menace from southern New England. But it
was a staggering blow for the missionary enterprise.
1 Palfrey, iii., pp. 141, 142 ; see Eliot's report for 1673 in I Coll. Mass.
Hist. Soc., x., 124. The churches were Natick, Grafton (Hassanamisitt),
Marshpee, Nantucket, and two on Martha's Vineyard.
2 See Fiske, Beginnings of New England, pp. 208-210,
1 68 JOHN ELIOT
While most of the converts remained faithful to the
English, arid some, like those on Martha's Vineyard,
were even trusted to guard captives of their own race,
many of those who had come merely into external
connection with the missionary movement went back
to their savage companions, and some even of the
converts vied with their heathen associates in the
cruelties which they inflicted on the settlers. Even
those of Eliot's disciples who remained faithful, as
most of them did, were regarded with such suspicion
that they were compelled to leave their villages and
live under the surveillance of the colonial authorities. 1
And when the war was over there remained a bitter
and often undiscriminating feeling of resentment that
rose against every Indian as a natural enemy. Yet
the work went on. Eliot, Gookin, Mayhew, and their
associates faltered not; and, had it been the war alone
that hindered, Indian missions in New England would
have suffered only a temporary check. As late as
1698, more than twenty years after the war, Rawson
and Danforth could report seven churches of Indians,
and twenty stations where preaching was maintained
and schools were taught. Before Eliot died in 1690,
twenty-four Indians had been ordained to the Gospel
ministry. His own first colony of Natick was under
the pastorate of a devoted convert, Tackawompbait,
who served the spiritual interests of the community
1 Palfrey, iii., pp. 199-202, 220,
JOHN ELIOT 169
till death came in 1716; and some traces of this work
of Indian evangelization, especially on Cape Cod and
Martha's Vineyard, continued till far into the nine-
teenth century.
But it was a dying race for which Eliot labored, and
even the Gospel could not greatly check its decline.
Devoted as the missionaries were, the story of these
Indian churches is one of rapid decay a decay not
owing to a spiritual exhaustion, but. to the fading away
of the Indian race itself. From Philip's war onward it
rapidly dwindled, its decrease being well illustrated in
the story of Natick, where the population of Eliot's
time diminished to one hundred and sixty-six in
1749, to about twenty in 1797, and in 1855 to one. 1
From the standpoint of permanency it must be con-
fessed that Eliot's work has not endured the test of
time; but its failure was not due to any inherent lack
of spiritual power ; and I suspect that the historian, two
hundred years in the future, who writes the story of the
missions of the nineteenth century, will have much
the same tale to narrate of that success of the Gospel in
the islands of the Pacific in which our fathers saw the
hand of God almost visibly displayed, and whose real
power and significance no passing slurs by politicians
anxious to assert the authority of a stronger race can
wholly obscure. Like Eliot's, it is a work for a dying
race ; and like his, its only permanent record will
1 I Coll. Mass. Hist. Soc., x., p. 136 ; Bacon, Hist, of Natick, p. 21.
I/O JOHN ELIOT
probably be in that book of those whose names are
written in heaven. But was it less worth doing? Only
he who values a soul at less than the Master's estimate
can answer in the negative.
Eliot's life was long, far beyond that of any other
conspicuous in the founding of New England. Cotton
died at sixty-seven ; Richard Mather at seventy-three;
Hooker was sixty-one; Davenport was seventy-two.
Eliot had nearly reached eighty-six when death came
on May 20, 1690. He saw the passing away of the
generations who were the leaders in his early manhood
and the companions of his maturer years so completely
as to come to remark, with that cheerful humor that
never deserted him, that " his old acquaintances had
been gone to heaven so long before him that he was
afraid they would think he was gone the wrong way
because he stayed so long behind." But, happily, he
did not see the fatal decline of the mission work in
which he had been so long engaged. He " was shortly
going to heaven " he would say in his last days; " he
would carry a deal of good news thither with him
. . . to the old founders of New England, which were
now in glory." l And the taking down of the mortal
house, timber by timber, so trying an experience often-
times in old age, was for him a kindly process. In-
firmities crept upon him. But, as late as 1687, he was
able to preach to the Indians perhaps once in two
^ i., p. 579.
JOHN ELIOT 171
months; 1 and when weakness would no longer permit
even this labor, his strong missionary spirit turned to-
ward some effort for the despised negro slaves, for
Massachusetts had slavery in those days, and he
gathered those of his vicinity once a week for cate-
chetical and spiritual instruction. 8 As the sands of
the glass of his life ran out, and he was confined to
his house, so that even this endeavor was beyond his
powers, he took the blind son of a neighbor into his
own home, as Cotton Mather says, " with some inten-
tions to make a scholar of him." It is a fitting
picture that the worn-out missionary presents to us in
his last days, seated by the fireside in his Roxbury
home, teaching a crippled boy to repeat by heart that
Bible which he had long before translated with such
diligent fidelity into the Indian tongue. And we may
well leave him there, with his own characteristic re-
mark to those who asked him " how he did " ? " My
understanding leaves me, my memory fails me, my
utterance fails me; but, I thank God, my charity holds
out still." 4
1 Letter of Increase Mather, Magnalia, i., pp. 566, 567.
2 Magnalia, i., p. 576.
* Ibid., i., pp. 576, 577.
., i., 541.
INCREASE MATHER
173
V.
INCREASE MATHER
THE leaders of Congregationalism whose lives and
services we have thus far considered may all
be said to have belonged to the generation of the
founders. They were called away from their work
by death at very different periods, it is true. Eliot
survived Cotton to take the extreme illustrations
which are afforded by the four men at whom we have
glanced by more than thirty-seven years. Yet all four
were born and trained in England, all were exiles for
beliefs embraced while still in the mother country, and
all were pioneers in some feature or other of New Eng-
land's origins. All of them felt, in their various ways,
the glow and the enthusiasm of the work in which they
were engaged ; and all looked back with fondness of
recollection to that English home of their youth, as a
land in whose struggles they had a personal and a per-
manent interest.
The man to whose career we shall turn our atten-
tion to-day shared, indeed, many of these traits of
the founders; but he was unlike them in much also.
Born in New England, educated in the New England
175
INCREASE MATHER
schools, he was a true son of the New England soil.
And strong as was his attachment to the ways of the
founders, his work was cast in a more provincial, less
heroic age, when the great religious impulse which
had made New England possible had largely spent its
fever, and the land had reached the rather humdrum
status of an isolated colonial existence. We love to
study the genesis of countries and of institutions; and
I presume most of us turn by preference to the begin-
nings of New England rather than to what we deem
the more prosaic annals of its second and third genera-
tions. Yet so conspicuously was the subject of our
present lecture the leader and the epitome of his own
age, so gifted was he in talents, so serviceable was he
to the Congregational churches, and so fully does he
(deserve the description, " the greatest of the native
Puritans," ' that few men in New England history are
more worthy of the careful attention of the student of
Congregationalism than Increase Mather.
Increase Mather was born on June 21, 1639, in that
home in Dorchester into which we have already glanced
in considering the career of his father, Richard. Popu-
lar tradition represents Puritan names as Biblical or
fantastically religious to a degree not true of them in
general. If one looks over a list of Puritan emigrants
or a catalogue of early church members, one finds it
made up chiefly, in reality, of the Williams, the Johns,
1 Wendell, Cotton Mather, p. 287.
INCREASE MATHER 177
the Edwards, the Henrys, the Richards, the Thomases,
in which Anglo-Saxon parents have delighted certainly
since the Norman conquest. But occasionally you
will meet an odd exception, and the child whose story
we are beginning received his name, we are told, " be-
cause of the never-to-be-forgotten Increase, of every
sort, wherewith GOD favored the Country, about the
time of his Nativity." The boy whose name was
thus bestowed was the youngest of six children, all
sons, five of whom grew to maturity, and four of
whom entered the ministry, doing service of much
more than ordinary conspicuity. The household at-
mosphere into which he was ushered, that subtle en-
vironment which determines for so many of us what
we are to be, made the path of scholarship and of
Christian service easy for him. His father's character
and studious habits we have already considered; and
his mother had no lower ideals for. her boy. "Child,"
she was wont to say to him, " if GOD make thee a
Good Christian and a Good Scholar, thou hast all that
ever thy Mother Asked for thee." 2 The mother's
desires for his scholarship were early fulfilled, for, at
the age of twelve, the son entered Harvard.
The college of which he became a member was, in-
deed, already an honor to New England; but it was a
1 Cotton Mather, Parentator : Memoirs of Remarkables in the Life
and the Death of . . . Increase Mather, p. 5. Boston, 1724.
9 Ibid., p. 3.
178 INCREASE MATHER
tiny plant as compared with what it has since become.
Founded by the Massachusetts legislature in October,
1636, by an appropriation 400 not now adequate
to endow a first-class scholarship, and encouraged two
years later by the gift of John Harvard, it graduated
its first class in 1642. It was a monument to the de-
sire of the leaders of New England colonization to
perpetuate a learned ministry, and no portion of their
work is more remarkable than this early endeavor to
reproduce the educational institutions of the home
land. The college when Increase Mather entered was
under the able presidency of Henry Dunster, who was
compelled to resign on account of Baptist opinions,
when the young student was half-way through his
course, and was succeeded by Charles Chauncy, under
whom Mather graduated in 1656. Its further instruc-
tion was conducted by two or three tutors or "fellows "
taken from its recent graduates. 1 While the class of
1653 had reached the high-water mark of seventeen,
only one graduated in 1654, two in 1655, and eight in
Mather's own class of 1656. The one college building
was already in a " ruinous condition," and the presi-
dent's salary was largely in arrears; while the " fel-
lows" had to divide 12 between them as their
compensation. 2 Students were admitted, as has al-
ready been noted, when "able to understand Tully, or
1 Quincy, History of Harvard University, i., p. 273.
2 Information of 1633, Ibid.,\., p. 463.
INCREASE MATHER 179
such like classical! Latin Author ex tempore, and make
and speake true Latine in Verse and Prose . . .
and decline perfectly the Paradigim's of Nounes and
Verbes in the Greek tongue." ' Once matriculated in
the college each student was required to attend prayers
" in his Tutors chamber " at seven in the morning and
five in the afternoon, there not merely to worship, but
to give an account of his further study of the Scriptures
twice a day in private. Any student under age was
liable to corporal punishment for infractions of the
college discipline. Monday and Tuesday were days
of lectures and discussions in Logic, Physics, Ethics,
Politics, Arithmetic, Geometry, and Astronomy, for the
various classes. Wednesday was devoted to Greek.
Thursday was spent on Hebrew, Chaldee, and Syriac.
Friday was the time for Declamations. Saturday was
devoted to catechetical and expository instruction in
Theology, and to History and Botany. 3 The students
boarded in commons, and so simple and frugal were the
habits of the time that the total expense, aside from
books and clothing, of the entire four years in college
of those who graduated between 1653 and 1659 was
from $100 to $200. Even this modest sum was usually
paid in corn, malt, wheat, beef, eggs, cider, sheep, or
some other commodity of the home farm rather than
1 Sibley, Graduates of Harvard, i., p. n.
8 Ibid., pp. 11-14. 3 Proc. Mass. Hist. Soc., p. 60. 1860.
180 INCREASE MATHER
In Mather's case, however, his residence at Harvard
was interrupted by ill-health, and probably half his
college course, if not more, was pursued in the house-
hold and under the instruction of that ablest dialectician
among the early New England ministers, Rev. John
Norton, at first at Ipswich, and then at Boston, where
Norton succeeded Cotton in the care of the First
Church. 1 Here at Boston, and in Norton's home, oc-
curred, in 1654, the spiritual turning-point in Increase
Mather's history. That experience was strenuous
enough. Illness had laid its hand on the fifteen-year-
old boy, and turned his thoughts Godward ; but a sense
of his own sinfulness overcame him. He prayed, he
fasted, he wrote out a catalogue of his particular
offenses; but he felt no peace of mind. He feared
that he " Was Guilty of the Unpardonable Sin." At
length in his distress the boy made use of the absence
of his fellow pupils from Norton's house on election
day, in a way that he later described in the following
words : 3
" I took this Opportunity of a Private Chamber; and
shutting the Door, I spent all the Day, in Pouring out my
Complaints unto the Lord. Towards the Close of the
Day, being full of Extremity of Anguish in my Soul because
of my Sin, it was put into my Heart, that I must go and
throw myself down at the Feet of my Saviour, and see
1 Parentator, p. 6.
a Ibid., pp. 7-12 ; Chandler Robbins, History of the Second Church
. . . Boston, pp. 18-19.
INCREASE MATHER l8l
whether He would Accept of me, or no; . . . So I
came before Him with those Words of Esther, If I Perish,
I Perish, Yet, (I said) Lord, if it must be so, I am resolved to
Perish at the Feet of thy Mercy. It is true, I am a Dog, and
indeed unworthy of so much as a Crumb ; I have been a great
Sinner ; Yet I am resolved, I will not Offend any more, but
be Thine, and be Thine only, and be Thine forever. And
while I was thus Praying and Pleading, those Words of
CHRIST were darted into my Mind, Him that cometh unto me
I will in no wise Cast out. . . . After that I had some
Comfortable Perswasion that my Sins were Pardoned."
But the poor boy's hard-won peace of mind was soon
shaken, for Norton preached a sermon in which he ad-
vanced the view often inculcated by the founders of
New England, and notably by Thomas Hooker, "That
a man might Forsake his Sins, and have been in some
Sorrow of Heart for them, and yet not be truly Con-
verted unto GOD." That was a staggering thought,
and it was not till he had heard other sermons, from
his father and from the " matchless " Jonathan
Mitchell, that comfort came to him at last. Nor was
there anything unusual in this intensity of struggle,
this sense of guilt, or this self-distrust even in a school-
boy. We have already observed something similar in
the case of others whose story we have considered.
The preaching of early New England taught it as the
normal mode of entrance into the Kingdom of God,
and represented not merely that the path of conversion
was difficult and open to but few, but that it was
1 82 INCREASE MATHER
surrounded by pitfalls of self-deception, which only
the most rigid scrutiny of the motives and intents of
the heart could guard against.
Graduation came in 1656, and on his eighteenth birth-
day, in 1657, Mather preached his first sermon. 1 But
the favor shown to New Englanders by Cromwell made
the home country very attractive to Harvard graduates
desirous of a career. 8 Many had gone thither; among
them Increase Mather's two older brothers, Samuel,
who had settled over an important congregation in
Dublin, and Nathanael, who had obtained a living at
Barnstaple in Devonshire. At Samuel's invitation,
Increase now sailed for England, on July 3, 1657, less
than two weeks after the delivery of his first sermon ;
and, on reaching Dublin, entered Trinity College, where
he graduated Master of Arts in 1658. s H is decided pul-
pit gifts brought him into notice, and the succeeding
winter was spent by Mather in supplying the congrega-
tion left temporarily vacant at Great Torrington by the
absence of its pastor, John Howe, on chaplain's duty at
the court of Richard Cromwell. The spring of 1659 saw
his appointment, at less than twenty years of age, as
garrison chaplain on the island of Guernsey, a post
which he held till the Restoration made it untenable
in March, 1661. The young preacher was popular.
1 Parentator, p. 15.
2 See letter of Nathanael Mather, March, 1651, in Sibley, i., p. 157.
3 Parentator, pp. 15-17.
INCREASE MATHER 183
He was urged to conform, as some of his fellow
graduates of Harvard had done. A living of 400, at
least four-fold any salary he could hope for in New
England, was offered him ; but his conscience would
not allow him to use the Prayer Book, and on June
29, 1661, he left England, surprising his father by his
unheralded arrival in the Dorchester home on August
3 ist, and his father's congregation by preaching to
them the next morning. 1 A sermon before the Second
Church in Boston a week later was followed by a call
to its charge; but the young minister's deliberations
were distracted by invitations from eleven other con-
gregations, 3 and by the strongly cherished hope that
the political situation in the home land would permit
him to resume his ministry there, so that it was not
till May 27, 1664, that he was ordained, by his father,
Richard Mather, and his colleague, Rev. John Mayo, to
the teachership of the Second, or, as it was generally
called, the North, Church in Boston, which was to be
his post of influence till his death, fifty-nine years later.
The site of this meeting-house, now North Square, is
in the densely populated foreign section of modern
Boston, where Puritan or even Anglo-Saxon occupants
of ancient days have scarcely left a trace behind ; but
under Mather's leadership, it was then the most largely
1 Parentator, pp. 17-23.
* Ibid., pp. 23, 24 ; Chandler Robbins, Hist, of the Second Church,
pp. 21, 22.
1 84 INCREASE MATHER
frequented place of worship in the little colonial sea-
port.
While Increase Mather was debating this call, he
had his first experience of public service for the
churches, being sent by his father's church at Dor-
chester as a delegate to the Synod of 1662, where the
Half- Way Covenant was approved, as has already been
described in narrating the life of Richard Mather. It will
be recalled that the youthful delegate opposed the re-
sult reached by the majority, and defended by his father ;
but on the point at issue he speedily changed his mind,
and, certainly from 1671 onward, there was in New
England no more devoted champion than Increase
Mather of the rather dubious spiritual expedient for
benefiting the young which the Synod had approved
and he had originally opposed. 1
It was in this time of waiting, also, on March 6,
1662, that Increase Mather married his stepsister,
Mary, daughter of John Cotton, whose widow, the
mother of the bride of twenty years of age, had mar-
ried his father, Richard Mather. She bore him ten
children; and when death took her from him, in his
old age, after fifty-two years of life together, he mar-
ried, in 1715, the widow of her nephew, the third to
bear the name of John Cotton in the New England
ministry. 3
1 Though Increase Mather's First Principles of New England Concern-
ing the Subject of Baptism was printed in 1675, its Preface is dated 1671.
3 Sibley, Graduates of Harvard, i., p. 437.
INCREASE MATHER 185
But, though settled over a growing church, the
early years of his ministry were a trying time for the
young teacher and his household. As we have already
seen was the case with his father, serious religious
doubts, even to the extent of questioning the existence
of God, assailed him. His ill-paid salary, in the earlier
years of his ministry, left him under a constant burden
of anxiety by reason of debt. ' I could be Content
to be Poor, I care not how Poor,'" he wrote in his
journal; " But to be in Debt, to the Dishonour of the
Gospel, is a Wounding, Killing Thought to me ; Yea,
so Grievous as that if it be not Remedied, in a little
time it will bring me with Sorrow to my Grave."
But as time went on his spiritual perplexities van-
ished, and the increase of his congregation under his
successful ministry, together with the generosity of a
few friends, at length placed him in circumstances of
pecuniary comfort. 1
As a pastor Increase Mather was most laborious;
though we should probably think as some did in his
own day, disproportionately devoted to his study rather
than to the visitation of his flock. But Mather always
believed the pulpit the seat of ministerial power, and
he made most elaborate preparation for its duties.
His son Cotton records, 8 that sixteen hours of the
twenty-four were usually devoted to mental labor.
1 On these troubles, see Parentator, pp. 26-36, and Chandler Robbins,
Second Church, pp. 29-31.
2 Farentator, p. 181.
1 86 INCREASE MATHER
" His Daily Course was This. ... In the Morning
repairing to his Study, (where his Custom was to sit up very
late, even until Midnight, and perhaps after it) he deliber-
ately Read a Chapter, and made a Prayer, and then plied
what of Reading and Writing he had before him. At Nine
a Clock he came down, and Read a Chapter and made a
Prayer, with his Family. He then returned unto the Work
of the Study. Coming down to Dinner, he quickly went
up again, and begun the Afternoon with another Prayer.
Then he went on with the Work of the Study till the Eve-
ning. Then with another Prayer he went again unto his
Father; after which he did more at the Work of the Study.
At Nine a Clock he came down to his Family- Sacrifices.
Then he went up again to the Work of the Study ; which
anon he Concluded with another Prayer j and so betook
himself unto his Repose."
It makes one ache with sympathy to think of this
Puritan scholar, toiling over his plain desk, by daylight
or by the dim light of a candle, without exercise, and
with scanty interruption for the necessary food, the
laborious round broken only by his frequent and
methodical devotions. No wonder that, under the
special strain of his father's death, in 1669, he so fell
into what Cotton Mather calls " that Comprehensive
Mischief which they call The Hypocondriac Affection,
that," for a time, " his Recovery to any Service, was
by many very much Despaired of."
But perhaps you would like to know a little more in
detail how Increase Mather mapped out his toilsome
1 Parentator, p. 68,
INCREASE MATHER 187
week. He has left a record of its allotment of time. 1
On Sundays he preached, and catechised his family.
Monday was dedicated to the study of his coming ser-
mons, with a slight break, devoted to general reading
after dinner. Tuesday saw the sermons continued
through the morning, while in the afternoon he sought
" to Instruct Personally some or other"; Wednesday
was again devoted to his sermons and his books; a
labor which was resumed the next morning; though
a respite came on Thursday afternoon by the necessity
of attending, and frequently conducting, the Thursday
lecture, which was then the sole midweek service of
the Boston churches. After the lecture Mather was
accustomed to hold, with the other pastors of Boston
and vicinity, what would now be called a ministers'
meeting. Friday was again spent on the sermons and
in general reading; and Saturday was largely devoted
to memorizing the discourses to which so large a part
of the week had been dedicated, for, though Mather
wrote out all that he preached with painstaking minute-
ness, he left his manuscript behind him when he went
into the pulpit. His delivery was clear, his strong,
sonorous voice was used with deliberate gravity, and
his manner, though powerfully impressive, was ex-
tremely simple and non-oratorical. In the pulpit he
was deemed a master always.
It would be natural to imagine, from what I have
1 Quoted, Parentator, p. 38.
1 88 INCREASE MATHER
just said, that Increase Mather was a recluse, persuasive
in the pulpit, perhaps, but dwelling apart from men,
shut away in his study from the concerns of the world
about it. No conclusion could be more mistaken.
Certain it is that he labored with almost the persistence
of a bookworm in the room in which most of his wak-
ing hours were spent; but it is equally undeniable that
no man in the New England ministry of his day had
so great an influence over his professional brethren,
the churches that they served, the educational interests
that they held dear, or the political fortunes of the
commonwealth as Increase Mather, nor could all his
weeks have been mapped out like that just recorded.
A brief consideration of four or five of the most strik-
ing instances of this activity for what he deemed the
general good will illustrate the leadership which it
was possible for a minister to attain in early New
England.
Mather's first conspicuous appearance as the leader
of the Massachusetts churches was in connection with
the so-called " Reforming Synod " of 1679 and 1680.'
To a man of his warm spiritual nature, pastoral zeal,
and conservative devotion to the ideals of early New
England, the spiritual tendencies of the age in which
his ministry was cast were distressing. The old Puri-
tan movement had largely spent its force. The
1 A more minute account of the Reforming Synod and its work is
given in Walker, Creeds and Platforms, pp. 409-439.
INCREASE MATHER 189
spiritual life of the second New England generation
was distinctly lower in vitality than that of its fathers.
Men looked back on the years of colonial beginnings
with their fresh enthusiasms, their self-sacrifice and
their spiritual power as a golden age of better things,
and not wholly without reason. The decline was
undeniable. Preaching in 1668, for instance, William
Stoughton, 1 later Lieutenant-Governor, exclaimed in
his election sermon :
" O what a sad Metamorphosis hath there of later years
passed upon us in these Churches and Plantations. The
first generation have been ripened time after time, and most
of them geathred in as shocks of corn in their season.
. . . Whilest they lived their Piety and Zeal, their Light
and Life, their Counsels and Authority, their Examples and
Awe kept us right . . . but now that they are dead
and gone, Ah how doth the unsoundness, the rottenness
and hypocrisie of too many amongst us make it self known. ' '
Ten years later Increase Mather told his Boston
congregation : 3
" Prayer is needful on this Account, in that Conversions
are becoming rare in this Age of the World. They that
have their thoughts exercised in discerning things of this
Nature have had sad apprehensions with reference to this
Matter; that the Work of Conversion hath been at a great
Stand in the World."
Nor was it only the decay of active piety that
1 New Englands True Interest ; Not to Lie, etc. Cambridge, 1670.
2 Pray for the Rising Generation, etc. Cambridge, 1678.
190 INCREASE MATHER
caused concern. The rough contact with the wilder-
ness lowered the tone of the sons and daughters of
the emigrants; the passion for land led the settlers to
spread themselves over the country in a way that
made education and the maintenance of religious insti-
tutions difficult problems. And the eighth decade of
the seventeenth century was marked by losses and dis-
tresses heretofore unexampled in colonial history. In
1675 and 1676 the struggle known as Philip's war,
which we have noted already in treating of Eliot's
missionary activities, took its ghastly toll of property
and life; in November, 1676, just after this struggle,
Boston had its first great fire, Mather's own church
and dwelling, together with the section of the town
adjacent, being destroyed. This calamitous loss was
followed by an even more disastrous fire in the busi-
ness portion of the chief colonial seaport three years
later. Epidemics of smallpox, failure of crops, and
shipwrecks added to the general sense of calamity,
and, as the Puritan divines interpreted these things,
of divine displeasure. 1
Under these circumstances Increase Mather per-
suaded eighteen of his ministerial associates, doubtless
those assembled at the annual convention then held
at the time of the election, to unite with him in a pe-
tition to the Massachusetts legislature for a Synod.
1 See Preface to Increase Mather's Returning unto God . . . A
Sermon, etc., Boston, 1680; and Magnalia, ii., p. 316.
INCREASE MATHER Igl
The prayer was granted, the summons issued/ and on
September 10, 1679, the body met at Boston. Though
not the moderator at this session, Increase Mather was
the life of the assembly. His pen formulated the con-
clusions, and when those results were presented to the
legislature and by it commended to the attention of the
churches, his voice preached " a very Potent Sermon,
on the Danger of not being Reformed by these things." 2
The pamphlet embodying the Synod's conclusions,
known as the Necessity of Reformation, is a most inter-
esting witness to the religious state of New England,
and to the questions which then awakened pastoral
solicitude. Undoubtedly the picture it presents is too
somber. It was designed to awaken and alarm. But
enough of truth remains after all necessary deductions
are made to make one query whether, indeed, the
former days were better than these. Besides the gen-
eral complaints of the " decay of the power of Godli-
ness," pride, contention, intemperance, profaneness,
lack of public spirit, untruthfulness, and " inordinate
affection to the world," the catalogue of provocations
to divine judgment enumerates certain special offenses,
some of which, as charged on our ancestors of those
supposedly stern and simple days, sound rather
strangely.
" Pride in respect to Apparel," the Synod through
1 Records . . . of Mass., v., p. 215.
2 Parentator, p. 85 ; Records . . . of Mass., v., p. 244.
INCREASE iMATHER
Mather 1 declared, " hath greatly abounded. Servants, and
the poorer sort of People are notoriously guilty in the mat-
ter, who (too generally) goe above their estates and degrees,
thereby transgressing the Laws both of God and man.
. . . There is much Sabbath-breaking. . . . Walking
abroad, and Travelling . . . being a common practice
on the Sabbath day, which is contrary unto that Rest en-
joyned by the Commandment. Yea, some that attend
their particular servile callings and employments after the
Sabbath is begun, or before it is ended. . . . There are
many Familyes that doe not pray to God constantly morning
and evening, and many more wherein the Scriptures are not
daily read. . . . Nay, children & Servants .
are not kept in due subjection; their Masters, and Parents
especially, being sinfully indulgent towards them."
The remedies proposed, in order that God's anger
might be averted from the suffering land, included a
general " Renewal of the Covenant " in the churches,
the enforcement of discipline, the better support of
schools, a more efficient regulation of the liquor traffic,
and " a full supply of Officers in the Churches, accord-
ing to Christ's Institution." This last-named sug-
gestion of amendment reminds us that, by 1679, the
elaborate and supposedly exclusively Scriptural officer-
ing of churches with pastor, teacher, ruling elder and
deacons, had largely given place to the more eco-
nomical service of a single paid officer, the pastor, and
the assistance of the deacons. In a few churches
teachers and ruling elders were long to survive, but in
1 Necessity of Reformation, pp. 4-15.
INCREASE MATHER 193
most they had disappeared already when this Synod
met.
The evils against which the Synod labored were too
deep-seated to be cured by any such palliative as it
had to offer, though undoubtedly some good was ac-
complished. In general, the same state of religious
decline continued till after Mather's death. But one
more act of the Reforming Synod must be noted, in
which, as in the work already described, Mather bore
large share. The Cambridge Synod had approved the
doctrinal portions of the Westminster Confession in
1648 ; but a generation had passed since that event and
though no doctrinal discussion had intervened, the
Reforming Synod, at its first session in 1679, appointed
a committee, of which Mather was a member, to
" draw up a Confession of faith," to be reported at a
second session in May, I68O. 1 Mather and one other
of this committee had been in England, when, in 1658,
the representatives of the Congregational churches of
that land had adopted a slight modification of the
Westminster standard, known from their place of as-
sembly in London as the " Savoy Confession." This
creed, with one or two trifling emendations, was now
adopted by the ministers and delegates, with a unan-
imity and an absence of debate which reveal clearly
how little of departure from, or indeed of discussion
of, the common Calvinism of the Puritan founders had
1 See Walker, Creeds and Platforms, p. 419.
194 INCREASE MATHER
yet developed in New England. Cotton Mather thus
records J his father's share in its approval :
" Though there were many Elder, and some Famous,
Persons in that Venerable Assembly, yet Mr. Mather was
chosen their Moderator. He was then 111, under the Ap-
proaches & Beginnings of a Fever ; but so Intense was he
on the Business to be done, that he forgot his Illness ; and
he kept them so close to their Business, that in Two Days
they dispatch'd it: and he also Composed the Prceface to
the Confession."
So came into being the creed known usually as the
"Confession of 1680," long regarded as the standard of
the Massachusetts churches, though never imposed on
them by governmental or ecclesiastical authority, and
so venerated, in name at least, that it is referred to
as one of the standards of Congregational belief in so
comparatively recent a symbol as the " Burial Hill
Declaration," adopted by the National Council of
these churches in 1865.
Already the most conspicuous minister in New Eng-
land, it was but natural that the trustees of Harvard
College should turn to Mather when the presidency of
that institution became vacant by the death of Urian
Oakes in 1681. He declined at that time. But when
death once more emptied the president's chair, he ac-
cepted the post ; though continuing his Boston pastor-
ate, a labor which was made lighter by the settlement
of his eldest son, Cotton Mather, the same year, as
1 Parentator, p. 87 ; see also Magnalia, ii., p. 180.
INCREASE MATHER 195
colleague pastor of the church of which he was in title
"teacher " an intimate and almost fraternal associa-
tion that was to last for more than thirty-eight years,
and to be broken only by death.
The college of which Increase Mather thus became
president was, as we have already seen, but a feeble
plant, and his aid, though granted necessarily for but a
fragment of his time, seems to have been of real value.
Undoubtedly he considered his services to the college
more indispensable than they were judged by others;
but unquestionably, also, no man in the Massachusetts
of that day was so well fitted to carry the institution
safely through the troublous fifteen years during which
he was its head. The actual work of instruction was
largely in the hands of the tutors, John Leverett and
William Brattle, 1 with whom, as we shall see later,
Mather did not sympathize theologically. But the
credit of bringing the college safely, and with increas-
ing classes, through the crisis which deprived the insti-
tution, as well as the colony, of its charter, and left it
long without a legal basis, as well as of securing for
it the important gifts of Thomas Hollis, must be
ascribed to Increase Mather. And the influence of
this position on the churches can only be estimated
when we remember that nearly all ministerial candi-
dates in New England then received the training of
the one New England college.
1 Sibley, Graduates of Harvard, iii., p. 181.
196 INCREASE MATHER
The time of Mather's accession to the presidency of
Harvard was, indeed, one of concern for Massachu-
setts. The charter of 1629, conferring upon it, as in-
terpreted by the colonists, nearly the powers of an
independent state, had long been looked upon with
disfavor by the Stuart sovereigns; and, in 1683, that
opponent of the colonial liberties, Edward Randolph,
had a writ served on the Massachusetts government
summoning it to defend its charter from annulment by
the English courts. Increase Mather vigorously en-
couraged resistance; and through his influence the
lower house of the legislature and the Boston town
meeting alike strenuously opposed the royal demand.
The blow fell, nevertheless, for in June, 1684, the
Court of Chancery at London vacated the charter.
All Massachusetts institutions, the legislature, the
courts, the college, the churches, even the tenure of
private property, were deprived of their legal basis by
this decision; and with the reign of James II., which
began in February of the next year, Massachusetts
soon chafed under the rule of the younger Dudley
and of Sir Edmund Andros, and trembled with appre-
hension or realization at the abolition of personal,
political, and property rights long held sacred.
To those in Massachusetts who looked with regret
at the passing away of the old order it seemed that
something might possibly be effected by a personal
appeal to James II., whose undisguised Catholic
INCREASE MATHER 197
sympathies disposed him to seek the support of all other
English Non-conformists. 1 No man in the colony was
so fitted for such a mission as Increase Mather, by
reason of his conspicuity in the pulpit, his political
principles, his acquaintance in England, where he had
been an acceptable preacher, and his capacity to ap-
pear to advantage at court. His errand was sus-
pected, and Randolph tried his best to arrest him ;
but on April 7, 1688, after more than a week of hid-
ing, he got safely on shipboard, 2 and twenty-nine days
later landed at the English Weymouth. Jarnes re-
ceived Mather graciously, though he granted none of
his requests; 3 but Mather cultivated the friendship of
the chief of the Non-conformists and of the Whig leaders
with such diligence that when, in the winter of 1688-
1689, the throne of England passed to William and
Mary he was in a position to present the case of the
colonies to the new sovereigns. It needed all the per-
suasive arts of the colonial ambassador-in-chief, for
William was jealous of colonial independence, and the
two associates whom the Massachusetts legislature
had sent over to assist Mather complicated his efforts
1 For Mather's mission to England, see The Andros Tracts, ii.
(Prince Society), Boston, 1869, edited by W. H. Whitmore. I have de-
scribed this incident in Papers of the American Society of Church His-
tory, v., pp. 72-77, and in picturing it here have to some extent
reproduced the language in which I have there told the story.
' 2 Sewall, Diary, v. Coll. Mass. Hist. Soc., v., pp. 209, 210.
8 For these requests, see Hutchinson, Hist. Mass. Bay, pp. 367-369.
London, 1765.
198 INCREASE MATHER
by staking all on a restoration of the old charter, to
which the King would not agree. So Mather fought out
the battle single-handed, and on the whole very
successfully. The charter which he obtained in the
summer of 1691 was not all that he desired. It gave
to the King, instead of to the colony, the right to
appoint the highest officers of state ; it reserved to him
a right to reject distasteful laws; it allowed appeals to
his higher English courts, and it granted freedom of
worship to all Protestants. But though Mather would
gladly have had these provisions other than they were,
the new charter united Plymouth colony to Massachu-
setts, thus permanently preventing its dreaded annex-
ation to New York; it left the legislature under the
control of the people; reserved to it the public purse;
preserved the local governments of the towns; and,
by comfirming all grants heretofore made by the Gen-
eral Court, assured to individuals and the churches the
possession of their property, and largely the mainte-
nance of their ancient constitution.
Though Mather could not escape the criticism of
those who wished the restoration of the old semi-in-
dependent and ecclesiastically exclusive government,
many of whom looked upon him as a traitor for not
securing more than he did, there can be no doubt that
no Massachusetts man of that age could have obtained
as much. It is not extravagant to affirm that he did
more than any other man of his generation to maintain
INCREASE MATHER 199
essentially operative, and to hand down to his succes-
sors, the civil and ecclesiastical institutions of New
England, which without his efforts could not have es-
caped far more serious modification than they actually
underwent in this trying time.
Mather's influence in this negotiation, and the im-
pression of leadership among the citizens of Mas-
sachusetts which he made upon the English authorities
is perhaps best illustrated by the fact that the royal
government left the crown appointments at the initia-
tion of the new provincial administration largely to his
nomination. 1 The extent to which he used this influ-
ence to secure office for his friends and parishioners was
unwise, and was the source of much later hostility
to him. And, in general, it may be said that, while
Mather did a work for Massachusetts of almost ines-
timable importance in this troubled time, he made
more enemies than he could possibly have aroused in
any other way, and the jealousies and antagonisms
now engendered embittered his later life.
Increase Mather was not a man to forget his mission
as a minister in the excitement of politics, and one
incident of his English sojourn illustrates at once his
freedom from ecclesiastical partisanship and his inter-
est in religious affairs. The Toleration Act of 1689,
passed during Mather's time of waiting in London,
gave to Trinitarian Protestant Non-conformists a legal,
1 Parentator, p. 144.
200 INCREASE MATHER
though restricted, right to worship. Of the Non-con-
formist bodies the Presbyterian, of which Richard
Baxter and John Howe were the guiding spirits, was
the largest, the Congregationalists ranking next in size
and counting about one half as many adherents. It
was natural that this new-found freedom should
awaken desire for the union of bodies so long under
persecution, and this desire found expression prima-
rily, it would appear, in London, where Increase
Mather labored with his characteristic activity to bring
Congregationalists and Presbyterians into confedera-
tion. To his efforts, more than to those of any other
man, was due the union effected on April 6, 1691, by
which these Dissenters in London became one body,
and through the efforts of Flavel and others the move-
ment spread rapidly to other parts of England. It
had, indeed, no lasting history. 1 Closely related as
Presbyterianism and Congregationalism are, they seem
impossible of amalgamation, and this confederation
was ruptured in 1694, two years after Mather's return
to New England ; but its written basis, the so-called
" Heads of Agreement," crossed the Atlantic by
Mather's influence, and, in 1708, was adopted, to-
gether with the Saybrook Platform of that year, as a
legal basis of the churches of Connecticut a position
of political authority which it sustained in that com-
monwealth till 1784.
1 The story is told at length in Walker, Creeds and Plat for ;ns, 440-462.
INCREASE MATHER 2OI
One event, closely connected in time with Mather's
return from England, cannot be passed by in any esti-
mate of his influence in New England the grim
witchcraft tragedy at Salem. Increase Mather's con-
nection with it was, indeed, much more remote than
that of his son Cotton. The excitement in the house-
hold of Rev. Samuel Parris, of what is now Danvers,
with which the fanatic outburst opened, had begun
in March, 1692, two months before Mather's return.
But Cotton and Increase Mather were so one in spirit,
that, in the public eye, all that the former did carried
the sanction of the latter. There can be no doubt,
also, that Increase Mather's Illustrious Providences, of
1684, contributed to the popular belief in witchcraft,
if not so powerfully as his son's Memorable Providences,
Relating to Witchcrafts and Possessions, of 1689 and 1691.
Increase Mather certainly could have done much, had
he been so disposed, to check the witchcraft excite-
ment, and he was enlightened enough to argue against
the adequacy of several of the popularly accepted evi-
dences of witchcraft in his Cases of Conscience Concern-
ing Evil Spirits ; but he as certainly believed in the
possibility of compacts with the devil, and, as late as
1694, the Harvard trustees, under his leadership, is-
sued an appeal to the ministers of New England for
the collection of narratives of enchantments. He and
his son Cotton tried their best to suppress that influ-
ential, if exceedingly personal, volume, the More
202 INCREASE MATHER
Wonders of the Invisible World, of 1700, in which
Robert Calef of Boston expressed a skepticism regard-
ing witchcraft which all intelligent persons have since
come to share. But there can be no doubt that
Mather's belief in the reality of satanic possession was
conscientious; and it had the support of many of the
best men of his age on both sides of the Atlantic.
Such a man as Richard Baxter, for instance, was no
less strongly a believer in these supposedly supernat-
ural manifestations. Yet, however we may excuse
Increase Mather, the witchcraft episode is not a pleas-
ant page in his story.
Mather may be said to have been at the height of
his influence and popularity in 1692, the year of his
return from England. In that year, the colonial
legislature granted to Harvard College a new charter
permitting the bestowment of the higher academic de-
grees, and under this charter, which was speedily an-
nulled by the King, Harvard gave to Increase Mather
the first doctorate of divinity ever granted in New
England, and the title of Bachelor of Divinity to the
two tutors, Brattle and Leverett, who had been asso-
ciated with him. Not till 1771 was the doctor's degree
given by Harvard again. 1
But, as has been pointed out, Mather's great ser-
vices to the colony had given offense no less than
1 Parentator, pp. 170-172 ; Sibley, Graduates of Harvard, i., pp.
424, 425.
INCREASE MATHER 203
satisfaction, and the popular awakening from the
witchcraft delusion reacted in considerable measure
upon him. His friend and nominee for Governor, Sir
William Phips, proved an unsuccessful administrator,
and the difficulties of securing a proper charter for
Harvard grew rather than decreased as successive
efforts to this end were frustrated in 1692, 1696, 1697,
1699, and 1700. Mather's parish and his publications
demanded so much of his time that he could only
Visit it [the college] once or twice every Week, and
Continue there a Night or two "j 1 and his opponents
now made the very natural desire that Harvard should
have a resident president the basis for an attack upon
him. At successive sessions of the legislature, in
1693, 1695, and 1698, the wish was expressed by for-
mal vote, 2 that Mather should remove from Boston to
Cambridge ; but he did nothing in the way of compli-
ance, being naturally reluctant to leave the pulpit of
the largest church in the colony for an exclusive devo-
tion to the headship of a charterless college of two
tutors and perhaps sixty students.
As the last decade of the seventeenth century drew
to a close, however, the situation was further compli-
cated by the rise of what may be styled a liberal
movement in Boston and in Cambridge, though the
modifications of usage and thought were so slight that
1 So Vice- President Willard summarized the duties, Sibley, ii., p. 22.
2 Sibley, i., pp. 425-427.
2O4 INCREASE MATHER
it hardly deserves so pretentious a name. 1 Increase
Mather, as has been pointed out, was strongly a con-
servative. Sincerely alarmed by the declining state of
religion in the New England of his time, he considered
a return to the old ways, an enforcement of discipline,
and the perpetuation of the ideals of his early ministry
the true method of fostering the religious life. How
dark the situation of New England then seemed to him
may be judged from a sentence or two in a sermon 2
preached before Harvard College on December 6, 1696:
" There is call to fear lest suddenly there will be no
Colledge in New England; and this is a sign that ere long
there will be no Churches there. I know there is a blessed
day to the visible Church not far off; but it is the Judgment
of very Learned men that in the Glorious Times promised
to the Church on Earth, America will be Hell."
But there were others who regarded a modification
of the usages of early New England as desirable.
Most intimately connected with Mather of any of these
were John Leverett and William Brattle, who, we
have already seen, were long associated with him as
tutors under his presidency, and had become trustees
of the college in 1692. Leverett was a political force.
In 1698 he had entered the legislature, where he rose
to the speakership, and his classes, to accommodate
1 I have told this story at some length in the Yale Review for May,
1892 ; and in Creeds and Platforms, pp. 465-483.
a Quoted in Sibley, i., p. 453, from A Discourse Concerning the Un-
certainty of the Times of Men* Boston, 1697-
INCREASE MATHER 2O5
his political duties, had had to meet at five in the
morning. 1 William Brattle had become pastor of the
Cambridge church in 1696. In hearty sympathy with
his brother was Thomas Brattle, the Harvard treas-
urer, and with them stood Ebenezer Pemberton, a
younger tutor at Harvard, and Benjamin Colman, a
young ministerial candidate of the class of 1692.
Probably the most significant change desired by these
innovators was an abandonment of the early New
England custom of requiring a public account, or re-
lation, as it was styled, of religious experience from
all who united with a church a requirement conso-
nant enough with the intense and conscious piety of
the founders, but which the lowered tone of spiritual
life had rendered irksome to many. They also wished
that all baptized adults who contributed to a minister's
support should share in his selection, and that any
children presented by a Christian sponsor, whether par-
ent or not, should be admitted to baptism. They fur-
thermore desired an enrichment of the service by the
devotional reading of some portion of the Scriptures,
without explanatory comment, a kind of Prayer-
Book-like reading which the early Puritans had stig-
matized as dumb reading, and the occasional liturgical
use of the Lord's Prayer. These modifications do not
seem very radical to us, but to Mather they appeared
full of peril. In 1697, he attacked the innovators'
1 Sibley, iii., p. 183,
206 INCREASE MATHER
view of the needlessness of relations in a letter to the
church at Cambridge of which Brattle was pastor, and
to the students of the college; and three months later
followed this charge into the enemy's camp by a protest
from his church to that of Charlestown, which had
chosen its minister in the way the innovators desired.
All this seemed dictatorial, and though undoubtedly
conscientious, was none the less irritating. The result
was that Thomas Brattle and some Boston sympa-
thizers constructed a new meeting-house in Boston in
1698, called Benjamin Colman home from England to
its pulpit, requesting him to procure ordination before
sailing from more sympathetic hands than he would
find among Mather's friends in Boston, and, on De-
cember 12, 1699, organized a new church Brattle
Church without summoning the advice of any coun-
cil, to occupy the meeting-house and to practice the
innovations. These acts had the approval of the other
members of the liberal party, and they called out from
Increase Mather, in March, 1700, his most interesting
contribution to Congregational history and polity his
Order of the Gospel. In this tract he condemned the
Brattle Church principles, and declared that to ap-
prove them was to " give away the whole Congrega-
tional cause at once, and a great part of the Presbyterian
Discipline also." He remarked, with pointed refer-
ence to Colman's English ordination, that, " to say
that a Wandering Levite who has no Flock is a
INCREASE MATHER 2O/
Pastor, is as good sense as to say, that he that has no
Children is a Father"; and the allusion to his sub-
ordinates at the college was unmistakable in his ex-
hortation, " Let the Churches Pray for the Colledge
particularly, that God may ever Bless that Society with
faithful Tutors that will be true to Christ's Interests and
theirs, and not Hanker after new and loose wayes." 1
Two ecclesiastical parties had evidently developed,
and Mather's opponents were strong enough to have
the question of his non-residence reopened by the
legislature in July, 1700. Thus alarmed, he actually
removed to Cambridge for a few months; but the ab-
sence from his family distressed him, and he proposed
to the legislature that he continue on the non-residen-
tial basis on which his presidency had been actually
placed so long. But while the representatives of the
country towns supported him loyally in the lower
house, sympathetic with his conservative position, the
upper house, largely from Boston and vicinity, and
hostile to him for many reasons, personal, political,
and religious, on September 6, 1701, declined to ap-
prove Mather's continuance as president, and thus
dropped him from the office which he had filled for
sixteen years. How largely personal the action of the
legislature was is shown by the fact that it immediately
made Samuel Willard of the Boston Old South Church
his successor on precisely the same terms of non-resi-
1 Order of the Gospel, pp. 8, n, 12, 102.
208 INCREASE MATHER
dence the court keeping a show of consistency by
calling him vice-president, instead of president.
To Mather the defeat was a bitter disappointment,
and its gall and wormwood continued as long as he,
and his son Cotton, his associate in the struggle, lived.
Nor was it only the pain of a personal discomfiture or
the disregard of services which Mather was conscious
were well rendered and which seemed to him to de-
serve a better recompense. For, besides the personal
motives which had entered into the struggle, his had
been a serious and honest attempt to save the college
from what he deemed essential spiritual harm, and de-
feat seemed the ruin of a cause which he believed to be
that of the Gospel. But the defeat was none the less
final. When Willard died, in 1707, Mather hoped
that the office would come to him or to his son Cot-
ton, but he hoped in vain. His innovating former
subordinate, John Leverett, was the choice, and the
bitterness of the disappointment was shown in a vio-
lent attack by father and son on Governor Joseph
Dudley, whom they looked upon as responsible for
this second shattering of their hopes.
Increase Mather was sixty-two years of age when he
lost the presidency of Harvard, and what was to him
far more important, when he saw in his own rejection
the defeat of the conservative party for whose pre-
dominance in Church and State he labored. He had
twenty-two years of life yet before him. Though he
INCREASE MATHER 2OQ
was to some extent passed by in the current of the
age, though he felt the bitterness of disappointment
always, and a sense that his services to the colony had
not received the appreciation that their worth de-
served, and thus his old age became in some consider-
able degree one of repining, it was a time of usefulness,
fruitfulness, and honor to the end. The estimate in
which he was held by his clerical brethren is shown by
their unanimous choice of him in April, 1715, to bear
the congratulatory address, then expected at the
accession of a sovereign, to George I. an honor
which his age compelled him to decline. 1 His church
valued his services and listened to him with pleasure
so long as he was in physical strength to preach. His
wisdom was much sought at councils and other eccle-
siastical gatherings. And his activity with his pen
was constant. In the case of the other leaders of
early Congregationalism whom we have already con-
sidered I have attempted to give a fairly complete
account of their writings. With Mather their num-
ber and variety make such a treatment impossible.
Though the productions of his pen are far from equal-
ing in number the four hundred and fifty-one titles
attributed to his son, Cotton, they reach the suffi-
ciently remarkable total of one hundred and fifty-
nine. 2 Of these, more than one half were written after
1 Parentator, p. 194.
2 A full list may be found in Sibley, i. , pp. 438-469.
210 INCREASE MATHER
his retirement from the presidency of Harvard in 1701.
Most are small in size, but many are considerable
volumes, and the range of topics which they cover is
as wide as their number is surprising. Some are ser-
mons on events of public interest, fires, earthquakes,
storms, comets, executions. Others are biographical
sketches of deceased worthies, or narratives of import-
ant public events, like the Indian wars; yet others are
political tracts, designed to present the New England
cause, as he saw it, to New England's critics. Re-
ligious controversy has its ample place, of course, but
by far the larger part of these volumes, great and small,
have a distinctly edificatory aim, their prime purpose
being to upbuild the spiritual life. Increase Mather's
style, as compared with the curiously pedantic, whim-
sical diction of his son Cotton, was simple and direct,
though with some tendencies toward the same aberra-
tions that appear in the latter's writings. He reveals
himself everywhere the man of learning and of wide
observation of the world. Yet much of this literature
is trite and uninteresting to modern readers. Much
is commonplace. But it did not seem so then. The
first New England newspaper that had any duration was
not printed till 1704; few non-ministerial households
had any volumes, save perhaps a Bible, an almanac,
and a few treatises of the older Puritan divines. To
such a generation writings like those of Mather came
with all the freshness, timeliness, and interest of the
INCREASE MATHER 211
modern religious newspaper. They met a real need ;
and in a way that made the New England of that day
truly debtor to him who wrote.
Mather's tolerance grew with his years. In 1679,
when he framed the conclusions of the Reforming
Synod, he wrote of the Dissenters then in New Eng-
land : 1
" Men have set up their Threshold by Gods Threshold,
and their Posts by his Post. Quakers are false Worship-
pers ; and such Anabaptists as have risen up amongst us
. . . do no better than set up an Altar against the Lords
Altar."
But, in 1718, he shared in the ordination of Elisha
Callender over the Baptist church in Boston ; and in
the Preface to the sermon which his son Cotton
preached on the occasion he bore testimony that " all
of the brethren of that church with whom I have any
acquaintance . . . are, in the judgment of rational
charity, godly persons." 3 His pecuniary generosity
was unfailing. Besides the tenth of his income which
he devoted to benevolence as a matter of conscience,
he stood ready to render aid to the deserving ; and the
church over which he was pastor was noted for its
liberality in gifts in that day when contributions for
other than home expenses were unusual.
On entering the fiftieth year of his ministry, in 1713,
1 Necessity of Reformation, p. 3.
2 Backus, Hist, of New England, i., p. 421. 1871.
212 INCREASE MATHER
Mather proffered his resignation to his people. Its
acceptance was refused, though the church speedily
voted that he should preach " only when he should
feel himself able and inclin'd." 1 So, blessed in the
kindly regard of his own congregation, and in the con-
tinued association of his son with him in his ministry
and labors, whatever disappointments he may have felt
over other circumstances of his later life, he gradually
relaxed his hold on the world of which he had been
so conspicuous a citizen. His enfeebled condition con-
fined him to the house after September, 1719; the
thought of his approaching rest in the presence of
his Lord seemed increasingly attractive to him. To
his London friend, Thomas Hollis, who had inquired
if he were still in " the land of the living," he sent the
message: "No! Tell him, I am going to it; This
Poor World is the Land of the Dying. 'T is Heaven
that is the true Land of the Living." * But, as in his
father's case, his suffering was prolonged, and he died,
after a distressing illness, but rejoicing in confidence
of entrance into the eternal city, on August 23, 1723,
at the ripe age of eighty-five. They honored him, so
his son recorded, " with a Greater Funeral than had
ever been seen for any Divine , in these . . . parts
/ of the World " ; 3 and it was fitting that they should,
/ for the Massachusetts of that day had lost its most
I gifted son.
1 Parentator, p. 197. * Ibid., p. 209. * Ibid., p. Ml.
INCREASE MATHER 21$
Last summer, toward evening, I walked through the
crowded and foreign streets, where once his congrega-
tion dwelt, to the simple tomb in Copp's Hill burying-
ground where he sleeps. The grateful air blowing
across the open hilltop as the hot summer sun sank
had drawn many from the crowded tenements of the
North End to the cemetery. Many of the faces were
unmistakably Hebrew or Italian ; the boy who pointed
out the tomb to me was of Irish birth. I did not see
one who seemed of the old Puritan race for which
Mather labored. The thought was inevitable that as
the scene of his life work had altered, so the age in
which he lived, its struggles, its endeavors, its dis-
appointments, and its achievements had vanished with-
out leaving a trace behind. But no! as one looked
over the city, in its strength and stateliness, as one
glanced at the shaft on Bunker Hill and remembered
the spirit and the deeds of which it stands the symbol,
and as one thought of the great university beyond,
the truer feeling came, that these strong men so built
themselves into the New England that they loved as
to make the more populous, more cosmopolitan, more
generous, and more tolerant New England of to-day
possible. Whatever strength New England has to-
day she draws from the molding power of men of
whom Increase Mather was a conspicuous example.
JONATHAN EDWARDS
VI.
JONATHAN EDWARDS
TO come to Andover with a lecture on Jonathan
Edwards seems wellnigh an impertinence.
Here, where his name has been honored more, if it
be possible, than anywhere else in New England,
where his life and works have long been familiarly
and affectionately studied, where most of his unpub-
lished manuscripts are guarded, there is nothing
novel that a lecturer can offer; nor can he expect his
knowledge of his theme to compare in thoroughness
with that of several of his hearers. Yet the lecturer
is reminded that this is a course on Congregational-
ism, not on unfamiliar Congregationalists ; and to treat
of the eighteenth century without glancing up, at
least for a few moments, at the towering figure of our
most original New England theologian, is like shut-
ting out from memory the Presidential Range as one
thinks of the White Mountains.
Passing along the sandy road that skirts the edge of
the low bluff above the level meadowland, that borders
the east bank of the Connecticut River, in the town of
South Windsor, one sees by the roadside the site where
217
2l8 JONATHAN EDWARDS
stood, till the beginning of the nineteenth century, the
" plain two-story house " ' in which Jonathan Edwards
was born. Though pleasant farming country, there is
little in the immediate surroundings to detain the eye;
but the blue hills beyond the river to the westward
stretch away into the distance as attractively now as
they did then when, if tradition is to be trusted, Jona-
than's autocratic father, the parish minister, warned a
neighbor whose refusal to remove a wide-spreading
tree annoyed him, that if this disrespectful conduct was
continued he would not baptize that contumacious
neighbor's child. Behind the house, to the eastward a
few rods, rises a low, tree-covered hill, cutting off the
view in that direction, and affording a retreat to which
father and son were accustomed to withdraw in pleasant
weather for meditation or for prayer. 2 Here at what
is now South Windsor, Timothy Edwards, Jonathan's
father, exercised an able, spiritual, and conspicuously
learned ministry from 1694 to his death in 1758." Grand-
son of William Edwards, an early settler of Hartford,
and son of Richard Edwards, a prominent merchant of
Hartford, and of his erratic wife, Elisabeth Tuthill, 4
Timothy Edwards had graduated with distinction from
1 See J. A. Stoughton, Windsor Farmes, p. 46, Hartford, 1883, and
H. R. Stiles, History and Genealogies of Ancient Windsor, i., p. 556,
Hartford, 1891. The house stood till 1813.
2 Stoughton, ibid., pp. 46, 47.
3 Ibid. , passim.
4 See Colonial Records of Connecticut, iv., p. 59; Stoughton, ibid.,
pp. 39, 69.
JON A THAN ED WARDS 2ig
Harvard College in 1691, and was always a man of
marked intellectual power. The considerable list of
boys fitted in his home for college 1 bears witness to
his abilities as a teacher, and the judgment of his con-
gregation that he was a more learned man and a more
animated preacher than his son, Jonathan, 2 reflects the
esteem in which he was held by the people of his
charge. His wife, Jonathan's mother, was a daughter
of Solomon Stoddard, of Northampton, the ablest
minister of the Connecticut valley when the seven-
teenth century passed into the eighteenth, and grand-
daughter of John Warham, the first pastor of Windsor.
Into this intellectual, strenuous, and yet cheerful
home in this bit of rural New England Jonathan Ed-
wards was born on October 5, 1703. Here he grew up,
the fifth among eleven children and the only brother
among ten tall sisters. Here he was fitted for college in
his father's study, and the intellectual sympathy thus
begun between father and son was to be a lifelong bond.
Youthful precocity is by no means an infallible
prophecy of mature strength, but with Jonathan
Edwards the mind received an early development and
manifested a grasp that was little less than marvelous
at an age when most schoolboys are scarcely emerg-
ing from childhood. His observations on nature,
1 For some of these names see Stoughton, Windsor Farmes, pp. 77,
78, 101-103.
2 S. E. Dwight, Life of Pres. Edwards, p. 17. New York, 1830.
220
JONATHAN EDWARDS
notably the well-known paper on
.spider, apparently written when Edwards was_about
the age of twelve; a*ndjrven more himotes-on the
immediate fruit of his reflections upon Locke's famous
tssay, \vhicli he had read when fourteen, witness to
his early intellectual maturity. The same precocious
strength of mind is apparent in his less easily dated,
but youthful, attainment of some of the positions of
Berkeley or Malebranche an attainment that seems
to have been due to an independent development,
rather than to acquaintance with their writings. 1
Naturally, such a boy went early to college; and we
find Edwards ^n raring Valp in .S^pJTIpbpr, T7T6, ^b^ 1 "
a mon^^befoj^_tlie_cio?<" nf hj^ thirteenth year. The
institution whose distinguished graduate he was to
become was far enough removed from the university
of the present. Founded in 1701, and therefore only
two years older than Edwards himself, its precarious
existence had thus far been spent at Saybrook; but
the question of removal to New Haven was in heated
debate just at the time that Edwards entered, 3 and a
month after the beginning of his Freshman year was
1 Dwight, Life, pp. 22-63, 664-702 ; G. P. Fisher, Discussions in
History and Theology, pp. 228-232 ; Allen, Jonathan Ed^vards, pp.
3-31 ; E. C. Smyth, in Proceedings of the American Antiquarian
Society for 1895, pp. 212-236 ; Fisher, History of Christian Doc trine ,
pp. 396, 403. H. N. Gardiner, Jonathan Edwards : A Retrospect, pp.
115-160, Boston, 1901.
' 2 F. B. Dexter, Biographical Sketches of the Graduates of Yale, i.,
pp. 159, 160.
JONATHAN EDWARDS 221
decided by the trustees. Their decision in favor of
New Haven was unpopular in the section of the colony
in which Edwards's home was situated; and, before
the close of 1716, a considerable portion of the students
of the distracted college had gathered at Wethersfield
under the instruction of two tutors, one, a recent grad-
uate of Harvard, the other, three years an alumnus of
Yale. 1 Of these emigrating dissenters Edwards was
one; and at Wethersfield he remained till the healing
of the division in the early summer of 1719 carried
him to New Haven. 8 Here he lived in the newly
erected hall and dormitory, then known distinctively
as Yale College, in a room rented at the moderate rate
of twenty shillings a year; and here, too, he boarded
in commons at a charge of five shillings 83^ cents a
week. These prices were in no way exceptionally
moderate, nor is there any evidence of which I am
aware that Edwards's student days were not as com-
fortable from a pecuniary standpoint as those of any
of his position in the commonwealth. Here at New
Haven he graduated, inJSeptember, 1720, at the head
of a class of ten, after a course involving little more
than an acquaintance with a few books of Virgil and
orations of Cicero, the Greek Testament, the Psalms^
in Hebrew, the elements of Logic, Ames's Theology
1 Elisha Williams, Harvard, 1711, afterward president of Yale,
speaker of the Connecticut lower house, judge of the Superior Court,
and colonel of the Connecticut troops ; and Samuel Smith, Yale, 1713.
2 See Edwards's letter of March 26, 1719, Dwight, Life, pp. 29, 30.
222 JONATHAN EDWARDS
and Cases of Conscience, and a smattering of Physics,
Mathematics^ Geography, and Astronomy. 1 In Ed-
wards's case, however, this course had been greatly
supplemented by the reading at Wethersfield of such
books as he could borrow or purchase, and at New
Haven by the use of the largest and best selected
library then in Connecticut, which the diligence of
Jeremiah Dummer and of other friends in England
had procured for the college. It was doubtless the
opportunity afforded by this library that kept Edwards
at New Haven engaged in the study of theology till
the summer of 1722, when, it seems probable, he was
licensed to preach. 8
Somewhere in this period of study, probably about
the time of his graduation, 3 Edwards passed through
the deepest experience that can come to a human
soul, a conscious change in its relations to God. As
John Wesley was a Christian and a minister before he
was " converted," and yet was wrought upon mightily
by that spiritual experience that came to him as he
heard Luther's Preface to the Commentary on Romans
read in the Moravian Chapel in Aldersgate Street,
London, at a quarter before nine on the evening of May
1 Dexter, Biographical Sketches, pp. 115, 141-143, 177, 200, 203 ;
Dwight, Life, p. 32.
- Hopkins, Life and Character of , . . Jonathan Edwards (Boston,
jyoS)* ed. Northampton, 1804, p. 4 ; Dwight, Life, p. 63.
3 Dwight, Life, p. 58. He is supposed to have joined the church of
which his father was pastor soon after his graduation.
JONATHAN EDWARDS 22$
24, 1738, so Edwards, moved by religious convictions
when^boy and again when in college, yetj-ebellious_
against the absoluteness of the divine sovereignty
which his theology and his philosophy alike demanded,
came in an instant to a " sense of the glory of the
divine Being-" 1 to quote his own words which
thenceforth changed the entire conscious attitude of
his soul toward God. And as Calvin, after the severe
struggle involved in the submission of his will to that
of God, made the divine sovereignty the corner-stone
of his system, so Edwards now found that doctrine
" exceedingly pleasant, bright, and sweet." But it
was not, as with Calvin, a submission to an infinite
authority that was the central thought of the experi-
ence that came to Edwards as he read the words " Now /
unto the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only
wise God, be honor and glory forever and ever, Amen."
Rather it was the high-wrought, mystic conception of
the excellence of the God to whom his heart went out
in a flood of devotion that mastered him with an over-
whelming sense of the divine presence and majesty.
With true mystic outflowing of affection he seems to
have had relatively little sense of a burden of the guilt
of sin ; he was above the plane which makes the ques-
tion of one's own interests central. By him sin was
felt chiefly in a profoundly humiliating sense of his
own infinite unlikeness to God^ But he longed with
1 See Hopkins, Life, pp. 24-42 ; Dwight, Life, pp. 60, 61.
224 JONATHAN EDWARDS
all the power of an ardent nature to " enjoy that God,
and be rapt up to him in heaven, and be, as it were,
swallowed up in him forever." And this new appre-
hension of " the glorious majesty and grace of God "
found poetic satisfaction in enjoyment of Solomon's
Song, in sympathy with external nature, the sky,
clouds, " grass, flowers, trees," or the majesty of the
lightning and the power of the storm.
This new sense of the divine glory, almost a purg
intuition of the majesty, holiness, and power of God ri
satisfied the mystic and imaginative side of Edwards's
nature, no less than the speculations which found in
all being but the manifestation of spirit, and especially
of the potent Spirit of God operating directly on the
human spirit, satisfied the philosophic tendency so
strangely joined with an almost oriental wealth of
fancy in this remarkable man. And from both sides
of his thinking his theology flowed : rock-ribbed in its
speculative logic, in its limitation of the power of
human freedorn, in its recognition of the immediate
agency of God in all events, in itsemphasis on the;
absoTutF and arbitrary sovereignty of the Creator over
his creatures; yet insistent on a " conversion " the
chief resultant of which was an affectionate delight in
God, and finding the highest Christian experience in
a mystical and almost incomprehensible spflgp of the
divine glory manifested io the loving human soul.
This experience, no less than Edwards's belief in the
JON A THA N EDWARDS 22$
immediacy and power of the operations of the divine
Spirit on the soul of man, led him to emphasize a
struggling and conscious " conversion/' rather than a
scarce-observed process of growth, as the normal in-
stead of the occasional method of entrance into the
Kingdom of God, This is a view always widely preva-
lent in times of deep religious quickening. It was
preached in early New England by Hooker, Cotton,
Shepard, and the founders generally. Wesley and
Whitefield taught it. And it was set forth with
such persuasiveness by Edwards as an underlying
principle of his conception of the religious life as
profoundly to affect New England for a century
after his death. Emphasizing as it does the great
truth of the divine origin of all Christian life, its over-
emphasis as a necessary law tends to rob baptism of
significance, to minimize the covenant relationships of
Christian households, and to leave the children of the
truest servants of God presumptively outside the
Christian fold till consciously touched by the trans-
forming power of the Spirit. Edwards's own son and
namesake could write years later : l " Though I had,
during my father's life, some convictions of sin and
danger, yet I have no reason to believe I had any real
religion, till some years after his death."
In the power of these thoughts Edwards entered on
1 Letter of March 30, 1789, in Hawksley, Memoirs of the Rev. Jona-
than Edwards, p. 255. London, 1815.
15
226 JONATHAN EDWARDS
his first pastoral experience, taking charge of a small
Presbyterian church in New York City from August,
1722, to April, 1723 a relation which the congrega-
tion would gladly have made permanent. This prac-
tical experience but deepened his previous aspirations
and convictions into a remarkable series of seventy
resolutions. Some are the familiar maxims of earnest
men, as " To live with all my might while I do live " ;
but more represent the peculiar coloring of Edwards's
religious life, as '/Never to do any manner of thing,
whether in soul or body, less or more, but what tends
to the glory of God, nor be, nor suffer it, if I can pos-
sibly avoid it.' j
New York, though pleasant, did not seem to Ed-
wards a hopeful field for his life work, and in May,
1723, he was back in his father's house in South Wind-
sor. But other churches speedily sought his services.
North Haven called him in vain in September, 1723;
and, in November of that year, he accepted an invita-
tion to the pastorate at Bolton, a little eastward of his
home. Yet, for some reason now unknown he did not
enter upon this ministry, and June, 1724, found him,
instead, in a tutorship at Yale College. 2
The period was one of great distraction in that much
vexed institution. Without a president since the de-
fection of Rector Cutler to Episcopacy in 1722, its
1 In full in Dwight, Life, pp. 68-73.
2 Dexter, Biographical Sketches, pp. 218, 219.
JON A THA N EDWARDS 2 2 7
government and instruction were in the hands of two
young and frequently changed tutors. During Ed-
wards's incumbency, begun when he was not yet
twenty-two, the work was done with credit to himself
and benefit to the college; and he might have con-
tinued in it for several years longer had not a most
attractive invitation come to him from the people of
Northampton to become the colleague of his grand-
father, the venerable Solomon Stoddard. .Induced^
by family ties, drawn by the prominence of the con-
gregation, then esteemed the largest in Massachusetts
outside of Boston, and by that repute for a certain
aristocratic and social charm which Northampton then,
as now, enjoyed, he resigned his tutorship and, on
February 15, I727,jwas ordained to the colleague pas-
torate of the Northampton churctTI The death of^
Stoddard two years later ' left him in sole charge.
The establishment of these ties was speedily fol-
lowed by the formation of others of a more personal
character. On July 28, 1727, he married Sarah Pier-
pont, daughter of Rev. James Pierpont of New Haven,
and great-granddaughter of Thomas Hooker, the
founder of Hartford. Our New England ancestors
married early, the bride and groom were seventeen
and twenty-four, but Edwards had long been at-
tracted by the character, even more than by the
beauty, of the young woman who thus linked her life
1 February n, 1729.
228 JONATHAN EDWARDS
with his ; and his description nf her ar thp agp nf tht>-
jeen is one of the; few driving hif* nf pnetir prnsp
which the rather arid literature of eighteenth-century
New England produced. 1 Mrs. Edwards was well
worthy of his regard. Hers was a nature not only of
remarkable susceptibility to religious impression, but
of executive force, cheerful courage, social grace, and
sweet, womanly leadership. 2 She added cheer to his
house, supplemented his shyness and want of small
talk, and it was no inapt, though facetious, tribute to
her general repute that affirmed ' ' that she had learned a
shorter road to heaven than her husband." Devoted
to that husband, whose frail health required constant
care, administering a large part of the business affairs
of the home with cheerful forgetfulness of her own dis-
abilities that he might be free to spend his accustomed
thirteen hours daily in his study, or to take his solitary
meditative walks and rides, 4 she brought up eight
daughters and three sons and bore her full share of
labor in the vicissitudes of Edwards's life. Warmly
attached to each other, husband and wife were but
1 In full, Dwight, Life, pp. 114, 115 ; Allen, pp. 45, 46.
2 Sketch by Hopkins in his Life and Character of the late Rev. Mr.
Jonathan Ed-wards, Boston, 1765 ; see also Dwight, Life, pp. 113-115,
127-131, 171-190 ; Allen, pp. 44-49-
3 Allen, pp. 47, 48.
4 Hopkins, p. 43 ; Dwight, Life, 110-113. Prof. F. B. Dexter informs
me that an examination of Edwards's unpublished correspondence shows
that he was more of a man of business than his older biographers be-
lieved him to be. He certainly left a larger estate than most New Eng-
land ministers of his time.
JONATHAN EDWARDS 229
briefly separated by death, she surviving him less
than seven months. 1 Every recollection of Edwards's
achievements should also involve a remembrance of
the devoted and solicitous care which made much of
his work possible.
Edwards's ministry was marked from the first; and
it was not long before the Northampton pulpit was
strongly felt in Massachusetts and Connecticut in a
direction largely counter to the religious tendencies of
the time. Taken as a whole, no century in American
religious history has been so barren as the eighteenth.
The fire and enthusiasm of Puritanism had died out
on both sides of the Atlantic. In this country the
inevitable provincialism of the narrow colonial life, the
deadening influence of its hard grapple with the rude
forces of nature, and the Indian and Canadian wars
rendered each generation less actively religious than
its predecessor; and, while New England shone as
compared with the spiritual deadness of Old England
in the years preceding Wesley, the old fervor and
sense of a national mission were gone, conscious con-
version, once so common, was unusual, and religion
was becoming more formal and external.
Then, too, it seems to be the law of the develop-
ment of a declining Calvinism everywhere, whether in
Switzerland, France, Holland, England, or America,
that it passes through three or four stages. Beginning
1 Died October 2, 1758.
230 JON A THA N ED WA RDS
with an intense assertion of divine sovereignty and
human inability, it ascribes all to the grace of God, a
grace granting common mercies to all men, and special
salvatory mercy to the elect. This special grace has its
evident illustrations in struggling spiritual births, lives
of high consecration, and conscious regeneration. In
seasons of intense spiritual feeling, like the Reforma-
tion or the Puritan struggle in England, it is easy to
ascribe all religious life to the special, selective, irresist-
ible, transforming power of God. But, in time, the
high pressure of the spiritual life of a community
or of a nation, which has passed through such a cri-
sis-experience as had the founders of New England,
abates. Men desirous of serving God do not feel so
evidently the conscious workings of the divine Spirit,
and they ask what they can do ? not indeed to save
themselves, this second stage of Calvinism with
no less emphasis than the first asserts that God
alone can accomplish salvation by special grace, but
what they caji^do^toj^ut^ themselves in a position
where God is more likely to save them. And the
/ answer from the pulpit and in Christian thought
is an increased emphasis on the habitual practice of
prayer, faithful attendance at church, and the read-
ing of God's Word, not as of themselves salvatory but
as '* means" by which a man can put himself in a
more'"|$robable way of salvation. From this the patnj
to the third stage is easy; to the belief that religion is/
'
JON A THA N EDWARDS 2$l
a habit of careful attention to the duties of the house
of God and observance of the precepts of the Gospel
in relation to one's neighbors a habit possible of
attainment by all inea^ and [ustifvirig^ the confidence
that though men cannot render an adequate service to
God, yet if each man labors sincerely to do what he
can under the impulse of the grace that God sends to
all men God will accept his sincere though imperfect
obedience as satisfactory. This stage was known in
Edwards's day on both sides of the Atlantic as " Ar-
minianism," and it was accompanied by an unstrenuous
or negative attitude toward the doctrines which the
first stage of Calvinism had made chief. From this
position it was an easy transition for some to the fourth
stage, in which the essence of the Christian life is made
tQ_consist in the*pracjice ot morality, arid the"needjof
man is repre^ehlea toH^e education and culture, not
- . . ~
rescue and fundamental transformation. [English Puri-
tanism had reached the fourth stage in some of its rep-
resentatives when Edwards began his ministry ; New
England had not gone farther than the third as yet,
and was chiefly in the second; but an " Arminian "
point of view was rapidly spreading, even among
those who would warmly have resented classification
as " Arminians." Rev. Samuel Phillips of Andover,
who was certainly thought a Calvinist, thus expressed
a prevalent feeling in 1738 : '
1 Orthodox Christian, p. 75. 1738.
232 JONATHAN EDWARDS
" I can't suppose, that any one . . . who at all
Times, faithfully improves the common Grace he has, that is
to say, is diligent in attending on the appointed Means of
Grace with a Desire to profit thereby; . . . and in a
Word, who walks up to his Light, to the utmost of his
Power, shall perish for want of special and saving Grace."
Now it was Edwards's great work as a religious
leader to be the chief human instrument in turning
back the current for over a century in the larger part
of New England to the theory of the method of salva-
tion and of man's dependence on God which marked
the earlier types of Calvinism. Yet it was not wholly
a return. While he emphasized the arbitrary and
absolute character of the divine election as positively
as the older Calvinists, and even more strenuously as-
serted the immediacy of the divine operations in deal-
ing with the human soul, he tried to find place for a real
and still existent, if unused and unusable, natural hu-
man power to turn to God, and hence a present, as well
as an Adamic and racial, responsibility for not so doing.
Edwards's stimulating preaching soon had a marked
effect on the little Northampton community of two
hundred families. 1 The town was not unfamiliar with
religious quickenings. At least five had occurred
under the able ministry of Solomon Stoddard. But
Edwards's sermons were on themes calculated to stir a
1 Edwards gave a full account of these events in his Narrative of
Surprising Conversions (1736-37) in Works, ed. Worcester, 1808-09,
iii., pp. 9-62, from which the statements in this paragraph are taken.
JONATHAN EDWARDS 233
community, and especially an isolated rural community.
Two sudden deaths in the spring of 1734 excited the
concern of the little town a concern which was deep-
ened by a vague alarm lest the spreading Arminian-
ism which the Northampton pulpit denounced was a
token of the withdrawal of God's redemptive mercy
from sinful men. And the preacher set forth, in ser-
mons which read with power after a lapse of more than
a hundred and sixty years, the complete right of God
to deal with his creatures as he saw fit, the enmity of
human hearts against God, the terrors of the world to
come, and the blessedness of acceptance with God.
" I have found," said Edwards, " that no sermons
have been more remarkably blessed, than those in
which the doctrine of God's absolute sovereignty with
regard to the salvation of sinners, and his just liberty
with regard to answering the prayers or succeeding
the pains of mere natural men, continuing such, have
been insisted on." By December, 1734, a movement
of spiritual power was manifest in the community
which resulted in six months' time in " more than
three hundred " conversions. The experience of those
wrought upon, in large measure, corresponded to the
type of preaching to which they had listened ; and Ed-
wards describes it as normally involving three definite
stages. Of these the first was an " awful appre-
hension " of the condition in which men stand by
nature, so overwhelming as to produce oftentimes
234 JONATHAN EDWARDS
painful physical effects. Next followed, in cases which
Edwards believed to be the genuine work of the Spirit
of God, a conviction that they justly deserved the
divine wrath, not infrequently leading to expressions
of wonder that " God has not cast them into hell
long ago." And from this valley of humiliation
<the converts emerged, often suddenly, into " a holy
repose of soul in God through Christ, and a secret
disposition to fear and love him, and to hope for
/blessings from him," and into such " a sense of the
greatness of his grace " as to lead, in many instances,
to laughter, tears, or even to a " sinking" of the
physical frame, as if the inward vision of God's glory
were too much for mortal spirits to endure.
This type of Christian experience is foreign to the
altered and unemotional age in which we live, but it
was not peculiar to Edwards's congregation. The
Puritan founders of New England had entered the
Kingdom of Heaven by the same door; and one finds
in the sermons of Hooker or of Shepard the same
analysis of the inmost feelings of the sinful human
heart, the same sense of the exceeding difficulty and
relative infrequency of salvation, and the same con-
sciousness of desert of the divine wrath. It was to
appear again not merely in the " Great Awakening"
of 1740-42, but in the remarkable series of revivals
which, beginning in the last decade of the eighteenth
century, lasted nearly to the Civil War. But in
JONATHAN EDWARDS 235
Edwards's sermons the view of conversion of which this
experience is the normal accompaniment is put with a
relentlessness of logic and a fertility of imagination that
have never been surpassed. We trace his steps as he
argues, in terms in which no parent would estimate
the misdeeds of his child, that sin is infinite in its guilt
because committed against an infinite object. 1 We
follow his reasoning with a recoil that amounts to in-
credulity that such is the latent hatred of the unre-
generate human mind that it would kill God if it
could. 2 We revolt as we read Edwards's contention
that the wicked are useful simply as objects of the de-
structive wrath of God ; 3 as he beholds the unconverted
members of the congregation before him withheld for
a brief period by the restraining hand of God from the
hell into which they are to fall in their appointed
time; 4 as he pictures the damned glow in endless
burning agony like a spider in the flame; 5 and height-
ens the happiness of the redeemed by the contrast be-
tween the felicities of heaven and the eternal torments
of the lost, visible forever to the saints in glory. 8 No
wonder one of his congregation was led to suicide and
others felt themselves grievously tempted. 7
1 Sermon on Romans iv., 5, Works, vii., pp. 27, 28.
2 Ibid, v., 10, Works, vii., pp. 168, 175.
3 Sermon on Ezekiel xv., 2-4, Works, viii., pp. 129-150.
4 Sermon on Deuteronomy xxxii., 35, Works, vii., pp. 487, 491, 496, 502.
6 Sermon on Ezekiel xxii., 14, Works, vii., p. 393.
* Ibid., xv., 2-4, Works, viii., pp. 141-143.
7 Narrative of Surprising Conversions, Works, iii., pp. 77, 78.
236 JONATHAN EDWARDS
Repulsive as this presentation is, it is but fair to
Edwards to remember that it seerned to him to be
demanded no less by his philosophic principles than
by his interpretation of the Bible. And it is merely
justice to recall, also, that though the terrors of the
law fill a large place in his pulpit utterances, no man
of his age pictured more glowingly than Edwards the
joys of the redeemed, 1 the blessedness of union with
Christ, or the felicities of the knowledge of God.
When all deductions have been made from his pre-
sentation of Christian truth and much must be made
he remains a preacher such as few have been of the
eternal verities of sin, redemption, holiness, judgment,
and enjoyment of God.
It is evidence that this awakening at Northampton
was not the effect of Edwards's preaching alone, that
a similar stirring took place within a few months
throughout that section of Massachusetts and in a
number of towns of Connecticut. a The news of this
then unusual work drew attention to the young North-
ampton minister, not only from all parts of New Eng-
land but from across the Atlantic. His sermons and
methods brought some enemies, but many friends;
and, at the request of the Rev. Drs. Isaac Watts
and John Guyse, the leading Congregational ministers
of England, Edwards prepared, and these ministers
1 E. g., his sermon on John xiv., 27, Works, viii., pp. 230-247.
^ Narrative of Surprising Conversions, Works, iii., pp. 77, 78.
JON A THA N EDWARDS 237
published at London, in 1737, an extended account of
the revival. 1
Known thus far and wide as one whose ministry
had been signally distinguished by dramatic manifesta-
tions of spiritual power, it was natural that when the
coming of Whitefield to the Congregational colonies,
in the autumn of 1740, gave the human impetus to the
marvellous religious overturning known as the " Great
Awakening," Edwards should be regarded as the best
American representative of the revival spirit which
then had its most extensive manifestation. The story
of that momentous stirring will be told in the next lec-
ture more fully than our time will permit to-day. To
Edwards it seemed at first the very dawning of the mil-
lennial age, and the visible manifestation of the divine
glory. 2 It appeared but the repetition, not merely in
Edwards's own parish, but on a scale coextensive
with the American colonies, of the revival of his early
ministry. He welcomed the youthful Whitefield to
his pulpit; who, in turn, recorded an approval of the
occupants of the Northampton parsonage in the words :
' He is a Son himself, and hath also a Daughter of
Abraham for his wife " ; and said of Edwards, " I think
1 A Faithful Narrative of the Surprizing Work of God in the Conver-
sion of Many Hundred Souls in Northampton and the Neighbouring
Towns, London, 1737. Generally known as the Narrative of Surpris-
ing Conversions. A briefer account by Edwards had been published at
Boston late in 1736.
2 Some Thoughts Concerning the Present Revival of Religion in New
England, pp. 96-103. Boston, 1742.
238 JONATHAN EDWARDS
I have not seen his Fellow in all New England."
Edwards himself preached as an evangelist in many
pulpits besides his own. And when criticism arose and
waxed to denunciation in many quarters as the more
radical elements of the movement ran their violent
and divisive course, he defended the revival as a true
work of the Spirit of God, which every Christian ought
to favor to the utmost of his power, while deprecating
the excesses of many of the exhorters, in his treatise
of 1742, entitled Some Thoughts Concerning the Present
Revival of Religion in Neiv England.
But though Edwards distrusted, in this volume, the
weight laid by many of the friends of the revival on
the bodily effects which so frequently accompanied the
preaching of Whitefield, Tennent, Parsons, Bellamy, or
his own, he nevertheless insisted that they were often-
times a real product of the Spirit of God, and he cites
in proof an experience of his wife begun probably near
the close of 1738 and reaching its culmination in the
revival scenes of 1742. In so doing he gave a part of
one of the most interesting chapters in mystic biog-
raphy anywhere recorded 3 the complement to it
being contained in Mrs. Edwards's own account pub-
lished by Dr. Dwight. 3 It is one which shows how
Edward's thought had in it the germ of a develop-
ment of his theology fully reached by his disciples as
1 Whitefield's Seventh Journal, pp. 47, 48.
* Thoughts, pp. 62-78. 3 Dwight, Life, pp. 171-186.
JONATHAN EDWARDS 239
to the extent to which a Christian must be cordially
submissive to the divine disposal. Edwards did, in-
deed, deprecate the statements of converts that they
were willing to be damned, if God so chose. ' They
had not clear and distinct ideas of damnation," he says;
" nor does any word in the Bible require such self-
denial as this." ' And he also held that an impenitent
man might rightfully pray for God's mercy. 2 But Ed-
wards taught that the essence of virtue is the preference
of the glory of God to any personal interests. And
the burden of Mrs. Edwards's struggle was this crucial
problem of submission. It is illustrative of the wifely
devotion of this remarkable woman that the very crises
of her trial were her willingness to endure, if necessary,
the disapproval of her husband, and to see another more
successful than he in his Northampton pulpit, if God
so desired. After these battles had been won, it was
easy to go on to a sense of readiness to " die on the
rack, or at the stake," or " in horror " of soul, rising
at last to a willingness to suffer the torments of hell in
body and soul "if it be most for the honour of God."
These experiences were accompanied not once, but
repeatedly by such a sense of the divine glory that 4
1 Narrative of Surprising Conversions, Works, iii., p. 37.
3 Letter of 1741, in Dwight, Life, p. 150: "There are very few
requests that are proper for an impenitent man, that are not also, in
some sense, proper for the godly."
3 Dwight, Life, p. 182.
4 Thoughts, pp. 63, 76.
240 JONATHAN EDWARDS
" the Strength of the Body [was] taken away, so as to de-
prive of all Ability to stand or speak; sometimes the Hands
clinch'd, and the Flesh cold, but Senses still remaining ";
and the result was
" all former Troubles and Sorrows of Life forgotten, and
all Sorrow and Sighing fled away, excepting Grief for past
Sins, and for remaining Corruption ... a daily sen-
sible doing and suffering every Thing for GOD,
eating for GOD, and working for GOD, and sleeping for
GOD, and bearing Pain and Trouble for GOD, and doing
all as the Service of Love."
What shall we say to these things ? Not that they
are not the real experiences of sensible men and
women, in a period of high-wrought religious feeling.
They are; or we must deny the Christian conscious-
ness of Paul, of Bernhard, of Francis. But they are
not the experiences of the normal religious life, and to
insist on them as such is to make a great mistake.
And Edwards also came to feel that it was in some
sense a mistake. When the " Great Awakening " was
over, he published, in the light of that tremendous
wave of excitement and its disappointing results, his
noblest purely religious exposition, the Treatise Con-
cerning Religious Affections, of 1746. None but a man
of remarkable poise of judgment could have written it.
It betrays no reaction against the movement which
had so come short of what he hoped. It sees the
good and the bad in it ; and, rising above the temporary
JONATHAN EDWARDS 24!
occasion, seeks to answer the question, " What is the
Nature of True Religion ? " 1
Edwards, 2 unlike modern psychologists, divided the
soul into two " faculties," understanding and affec-
tions the latter including, but not separating, the will
and the inclinations. Each faculty is the realm of re-
ligion, but that of the affections most of all that is to
say, no religion can be genuine which remains merely
a matter of intellectual knowledge of truth without
prompting to acts of will and outgoings of emotion.
But to be moved by strong emotions, Edwards
perceived, is not necessarily to be religious. This
was the mistake that many had made in the re-
cent revival, and it was as great an error, Edwards
thought, as the denial that the affections had to do
with religion, which reaction from the excesses of the
revival had produced in some. That emotion is
greatly stirred, or that bodily effects are produced, are
no signs that men are truly religious though Ed-
wards here sticks to his guns and declares that to
affirm that bodily effects are not of themselves evi-
dences of religion is not to affirm that true religious
emotion may never have bodily effects. Nor are we
to trust to a fluent tongue, a ready recollection of
Scripture, an " appearance of love," a peculiar se-
quence of religious experiences, a sense of assurance,
1 Religious Affections, Preface.
2 In this paragraph I have tried to give a brief synopsis of the book.
16
242 JONATHAN EDWARDS
a zeal for attending meetings, or an ability to give a
well-sounding account of an alleged work of grace, as
proving a man a Christian. Rather, true Christian
affections involve a " new spiritual sense," which
comes not by nature, but by the indwelling power of
the Holy Spirit, inducing a new attitude of the heart
toward God ; an unselfish love for divine things be-
cause they are holy ; a spiritual enlightenment which
leads to a conviction of the certainty of divine truth
and a humiliating sense of unworthiness ; and a change
of disposition which shows itself in love, meekness,
tenderness of spirit, producing symmetry of character,
increasing longing for spiritual attainments, and a life
of Christian conduct in our relations to our fellow-men.
The ideal that Edwards held up is of exceeding
oftiness too high to be made, as he and his followers
made it, the test of all Christian discipleship. But it
is a noble ideal for a Christian man, and especially for
a Christian minister, to hold before himself as that
toward the realization of which his Christian life is
striving in feeling and animating purpose.
It is as a personal illustration of the Religious Affec-
tions, I think, that we should view the biographical
edition of the diary of his young friend, David Brain-
erd, the missionary to the Indians, which Edwards
published in 1749.' Betrothed to Edwards's daughter
1 " There are two Ways of representing and recommending true Re-
ligion and Virtue to the World, which GOD hath made Use of : The one
,
JON A THAN ED WARDS 243
Jerusha, and dying at Edwards's house, in 1747, at
the age of twenty-nine, Brainerd's story has the pa-
thetic interest always attaching to frustrated prom-
ise; and his missionary zeal has made his consecration
a stimulus to others. But, though one of the most
popular of Edwards's books at the time of its publica-
tion, his Life of Brainerd is a distressing volume to
read. The morbid, introspective self-examinations
and the elevations and depressions of the poor con-
sumptive are but a sorry illustration at best of the
noble ideal of the full-rounded, healthful Christian
life.
Edwards shared with Brainerd what our generation
looks upon as the young sufferer's most winsome trait
his missionary sympathy; but opportunities for
manifesting it in a rural New England parish in the
middle of the eighteenth century were few. One such
came in 1746, when a proposition reached New Eng-
land from a number of Scotch ministers that Christians
unite in a "concert of prayer for the coming of our
Lord's kingdom" throughout the earth. 1 Edwards
welcomed it eagerly, and, in 1747, published an ex-
tensive treatise in furtherance of the suggestion." In
is by Doctrine and Precept ; the other is by Instance and Example."
An Account of the Life of the late Reverend .Mr, David Brainerd,
Preface. Boston, 1749.
1 Works, iii., pp. 370-372.
2 An Humble Attempt to promote Explicit Agreement and Visible Union
of Goal's People in Extraordinary Prayer for the Revival of Religion and
the Advancement of Chris? s Kingdom on Earth. Boston, 1747.
244 JONATHAN EDWARDS
the course of this essay he took occasion not only to
urge the desirability of united prayer and to answer
some objections to union which seem rather absurd to
our age, though they were then regarded as real diffi-
culties, but to set forth his interpretation of prophecy
and his ardent hope for the speedy coming of a brighter
religious day.
Edwards's own personal trials were thickening in
the years following the revival at which we have just
been glancing. Some of the causes of growing es-
trangement between him and his Northampton people
are patent enough ; some are obscure. Two are dis-
tinctly in evidence. The first was a case of discipline,
apparently of the year 1744, wherein proceedings
against a number of young people in his congregation
for circulating what he deemed, doubtless truly, im-
pure books, were so managed or mismanaged, as to
alienate from him nearly all the young people of the
town. 1
The other evident cause was the controversy over
the terms of church membership, which was the osten-
sible ground of his dismission. 2 In a former lecture
some account was given of the rise of the '* Half-
Way Covenant" that system approved by the sec-
ond generation on New England soil, by which the
1 Dwight, Life, pp. 299, 300.
2 Dwight gives a full and documentary account of this controversy,
ibid., pp. 300-448.
JON A THAN ED WARDS 245
children of church members, though themselves not
consciously regenerate, were admitted to sufficient
standing in the church to bring their children in turn to
baptism, although themselves barred from the Lord's
table. Hence the nickname " Half- Way Covenant,"
indicating that those who stood in this relation were
members enough to enjoy the privileges of the one
sacrament for their children, but not members enough
to participate in the other.
This system became general in New England by the
beginning of the eighteenth century; but in some
places the earlier practice was yet further modified.
Some argued that if earnest-minded though unregen-
erate children of church members were themselves
sufficiently church members, by reason of the divine
promise, "to be a God unto thee, and to thy seed
after thee," ' to bring their children in turn to bap-
tism, they were sufficiently members to come to the
Lord's Supper. Indeed, it was their duty to come
thither, if sincerely desirous of leading a Christian life,
for they would find the communion, like prayer and
public worship, a means tending to conversion. This
view was made popular in the upper Connecticut val-
ley by the great influence of Edwards's grandfather
and predecessor, Solomon Stoddard. Held by him
as early as 1679, he did not introduce the practice
into the Northampton church till after 1700; but it
1 Genesis xvii., 7-
246 JONATHAN EDWARDS
soon after became the custom in that church and in
most of its immediate neighbors. 1 Edwards was
settled under it and practiced it for nearly twenty
years.
Edwards's own lofty conceptions of the Christian
life and his emphasis on conversion as its beginning
led him gradually, however, to the conclusion that no
church privileges should be given to those not con-
scious, in some degree, of a work of the Spirit of God
in their own souls. He intimated this change of view
in his Religious Affections of 1746;* but it illustrates
the spiritual torpor that followed the fever of the
" Great Awakening," and possibly the alienation be-
tween Edwards and his young people, that he waited
from 1744 to December, 1748, for a single candidate
for church membership to come forward even under
the easy terms of the Northampton church. When
an applicant at last appeared he made known his
change of opinion, and intended change of practice,
temperately and moderately. There was, indeed, a
good deal to be said against such a modification as the
pastor proposed. His honored grandfather had in-
troduced the existing system ; he had been settled,
well knowing what it was; he had practiced it. It
might be urged that it was a breach of contract for
1 Some account may be found in Walker's Creeds and Platforms, pp.
279-282.
2 Edwards's own statement, in Dwight, Life, p. 314.
JONATHAN EDWARDS 247
him to abandon it. But, even granting this, one
hardly understands the virulence of the opposition
which Edwards encountered from those who must
almost all have been his spiritual children. One
hardly sees sufficient ground for the hostility that led
to charges that Edwards planned a Separatist con-
gregation ; that refused to hear his arguments; that
sought to induce prominent ministers to answer the
admirable book which he published in 1749 in defense
of his position ; ' that appears in the long wrangle over
the composition of the council which should consider
his further relations to the Northampton congrega-
tion; or in the bitter enmity of some of his kinsfolk in
and out of the ministry of the county. dwardsjhim-
self once declared that he had little skill in conversa-
tion; " he was thought by some . . . to be stiff
and unsociable " ; he held himself aloof from pastoral
calling save in cases of real need ; 2 and one can but
suspect that he lacked the art of leading men. Honest
and conscientious to the core in this change of prac-
tice, as in the case of discipline, he seems to have
taken none of the preparatory measures which often
make all the difference between success and failure in
swaying a democratic body. Stoddard had certainly-
held his peculiar views for nearly thirty years before
1 An Humble Inquiry into the Rules of the Word of God, concerning
the Qualifications Reqtdsite to a compleat Standing and full Communion
in the Visible Christian Church. Boston, 1749.
2 Hopkins, Life, pp. 44-46, 54.
248 JONATHAN EDWARDS
they became the practice of his congregation, but
such careful nurturing of a desired measure was ap-
parently foreign to Edwards's nature. That^he mat-
ter was intellectually clear to him was sufficient; it
ought to be so to others.
But, however explainable, the fact remains that in
this crisis Edwards had the support of no considerable
portion of his congregation, nor did the strong sense
of professional unity characteristic of the clergy of the
eighteenth century prevent a majority of his neighbor-
ing ministers from opposing him. A council of nine
churches met on June 19, 1750. ' That advisory body
having decided that Edwards's dismission was neces-
sary if his people still desired it, the Northampton
church voted by more than two hundred to twenty-
three to dismiss its pastor. That action the council
approved by a majority of one on June 22d. And
the town added what was an insult to the burdens of
the deposed pastor by voting, probabty in November,
1750, that Edwards should not preach in the commun-
ity. It is interesting to note that one, at least, of
those of Edwards's congregation prominent in procur-
ing his removal, and esteemed by the Northampton
pastor his most energetic opponent, Joseph Hawley,
Edwards's cousin, and a leading lawyer and politician,
1 Dwight gives the documents, Life, pp. 398-403 ; Edwards wrote a
most interesting account in letters of July 5, 1750, to Erskine, and of
July i, 1751, to Gillespie, Dwight, ibid., pp. 405-413, 462-468.
JONATHAN EDWARDS 249
afterward not only privately but publicly avowed his
regret and repentance for what had been done. 1 And
Edwards's contention in the principal subject of this
controversy was not without abundant ultimate fruit-
age. His friends, notably his pupil, Rev. Dr. Joseph
Bellamy, carried forward his attack on Stoddardeanism
and the Half- Way Covenant, with the result that, by
the first decade of the nineteenth century, when Ed-
wards had been fifty years in his grave, the system
had been generally set aside by the Congregational
churches.
Turned out from his pastorate thus, at the age of
forty-seven, with a family of ten living children, 2
he had to look about for a new charge. His
friend, Rev. Dr. John Erskine, suggested a settle-
ment in Scotland, where Erskine was a leader in the
Church; 3 the people of Canaan, Conn., heard him
with approval ; * but the place of his next seven-years'
sojourn was determined by a two-fold call that came to
him through the efforts of his friend and pupil, Samuel
Hopkins, in December, 1750, from the church in the
little frontier village of Stockbridge to become its min-
ister, and from the English "Society for the Propaga-
1 Letter of May 9, 1760, D wight, ibid., pp. 421-427. See Edwards's
characterization of him, ibid., pp. 410, 411.
2 Two daughters, however, were married in the year of Edwards's
dismission.
3 Edwards's letter of July 5, 1750, Dwight, Life, p. 412.
4 Dexter, Biographical Sketches of the Graduates of Yale College, i. ,
pp. 219, 220.
250 JONATHAN EDWARDS
tion of the Gospel in New England/' which had grown
out of Eliot's labors a century before, to become its
missionary to the Housatonic Indians at the same place. 1
Thither he and his household removed in the summer
of 1751. But Stockbridge was not without its serious
controversies between the new pastor and missionary
and those who were exploiting the Indians for pecun-
iary advantage ; and the chief of his new foes was a
relative of some of his leading opponents in the North-
ampton separation. These disputes distressed the
first years of his new settlement, but Edwards's posi-
tion was so manifestly just that, with the support of
the Commissioners whose missionary agent he was,
victory and peace came to him. 8
Edwards doubtless conscientiously fulfilled his stipu-
lated duty of preaching to the Indians once a week
through an interpreter, 3 besides ministering to the
English-speaking Stockbridge congregation, but he
was too settled in scholastic ways to make a successful
missionary. His own judgment of himself he ex-
pressed when he wrote to Erskine, in 1750, that he
was " fitted for no other business but study." And
1 Dwight, Life, p. 449 ; see also Hopkins's statement, West, Sketches
of the Life of the Late Rev. Samuel Hopkins, pp. 53-57. Hartford,
1805.
2 For some aspects of this controversy, see Dwight, Life, pp. 450-541.
3 There is an outline of one of these sermons in Grosart, Selections
from the Unpublished Writings of Jonathan Edwards, pp. 191-196.
Privately printed (Edinburgh), 1865.
4 Dwight, Life, p. 412.
JON A THAN ED WARDS 2$ I
at Stockbridge opportunity came to him, even amid
the distractions of the great military struggle between
France and England in which little Stockbridge was at
times a turmoiled frontier outpost, 1 for studies which
produced the four treatises by which he is best known
his Careful and Strict Enquiry into the modern pre-
vailing Notions of Freedom of Will? his End for which
God created the World, his Nature of True Virtue? and
his Great Christian Doctrine of Original Sin defended*
This is not the time and place, even if the lecturer
possessed the ability, to enter on any thorough criti-
cism, or even on any elaborate exposition, of these
works. Viewed simply as feats of intellectual achieve-
ment they present the highest reach of the New Eng-
land mind and have given their author a permanent
place among the philosophers of the eighteenth cen-
tury. Were Edwards's writings subtracted from the
literature of colonial New England the residue would
embrace little more than the discussions of a narrow
and provincial society, aside from the course of the
world's affairs. It was Edwards who gave to the
thought of eighteenth-century New England about
whatever interest and lasting repute it bears in other
lands. Edwards's treatises involved no changes in his
1 Compare Edwards's letter of April 10, 1756, to McCulloch, in
D wight, Life, p. 555.
2 First edition, Boston, 1754.
3 These two treatises were first published at Boston in 1765.
4 First edition, Boston, 1758.
252 JON A THAN ED WARDS
theology. Rather they were the logical formulation
of what he had long taught.
Edwards's volume on the Will, usually esteemed
his crowning work, was long planned, 1 but was not
written till 1753. It was his supreme effort against
the Arminianism which had been the horror of his
early ministry. Calvinism, in this feature of its stren-
uous creed, had fallen low. Its contemporary defenders
in England, like Watts and Doddridge, had been
compelled, as Edwards's son Jonathan phrased it, to
"bow in the house of Rimmon, and admit the Self-
Determining Power " of the will. 2 In the Discourse
published by Daniel Whitby, rector at the English
Salisbury, in 1710, predestination in the Calvinistic
sense was widely believed to have received its death-
blow; and we may imagine that the arguments therein
advanced had often been pressed upon Edwards's
attention by his keen - minded kinsman and oppo-
nent in Northampton, Joseph Hawley, when the latter
was a student in his household. 3 But whatever of
local and personal interest there may have been for
Edwards in the theme, the general defense of what he
deemed the truth against widely prevalent error was
motive enough to rouse a man of his temperament to
utmost endeavor.
1 Dwight, Life, p. 507.
2 " Improvements in Theology," ibid., p. 614.
8 Ibid., pp. 410, 411.
JONATHAN EDWARDS 2$ 3
To Edwards's thinking, 1 human freedom signifies no
more than a natural power to act in accordance with
the choice of the mind. With the origin of that
choice the will has nothing to do. Man is free to do
as he chooses, but not free to determine in what direc-
tion his choice shall lie. His will always moves, and
moves freely, in the line of his strongest inclination,
but what that inclination will be depends on what man
deems his highest good. While man has full natural
power to serve God, that is, could freely follow a
choice to serve God if he had such an inclination, he
will not serve God till God reveals himself to man as
his highest good and thus renders obedience to God
man's strongest motive. Moral responsibility lies in
his choice, not in the cause of the choice; and hence a
man of evil inclination deserves condemnation, since
each choice is his own act, even though the direction
in which the choices are exercised is not in his control.
Man cannot choose between various choices, nor can
his choice originate without some impelling cause ex-
ternal to the will; but his will acts in the direction in
which he desires to move, and is free in the sense that
it is not forced to act counter to its inclination.
In this treatise Edwards took up conceptions essen-
tially resembling those advanced by Hobbes, Locke,
1 In describing Edwards's books I have borrowed some sentences from
my History of the Congregational Churches in the United States, pp.
283-286. New York, 1894.
254 JONATHAN EDWARDS
and Collins, with whose religious speculations he had
no sympathy ; but his use of these ideas was profoundly
original. He appears to have been acquainted with
the writings of Locke only, and his grasp of the points
involved is far surer than that of the English philos-
opher. The volume was, till comparatively recent
times, in extensive use, being esteemed by Calvinists
generally an unanswerable critique of the Arminian
position. It has met, however, with growing dissent,
and though not often directly opposed of late years,
is largely felt to lie outside the conceptions of modern
religious thought ; but it has acceptance still, especially
1 with those who hold a necessitarian view of the uni-
verse, and may be said never to have had a positive
and complete refutation, though suffering a constantly
increasing neglect.
The preparation of this treatise on the Will was fol-
lowed by the composition of two smaller essays, prob-
ably in 1755 ' that Concerning the End for which God
created the World, and that on the Nature of True
Virtue. Of the former investigation into a profound
and mysterious theme it may be sufficient to say that
Edwards's immediate interpreters, notably his son
Jonathan, regarded it as uniting the two heretofore
supposedly mutually exclusive explanations of the
universe as created either for the happiness of finite
beings or as a manifestation of the glory of the Creator.
1 Dwight, Life, p. 542.
JONATHAN EDWARDS 255
This union Edwards would effect by showing that
both results " were the ultimate end of the creation,"
and that, far from being incompatible, " they are
really one and the same thing." The universe in its
highest possible state of happiness is the ultimate/
^_Y
exhibition of the divine glory. 1
The second of these treatises, that on the Nature
of True Virtue, though incomplete, expresses in
metaphysical form the feature of the teaching of Ed-1
wards that has probably most affected New England
thought. He asserted that the elemental principle in
virtue is benevolence, or love to intelligent being in
proportion to the amount of being which each per-
sonality possesses. 2 Other things being equal, the
worth of each personality is measured by the amount
of being which it has. To use Edwards's illustration,
" an Archangel must be supposed to have more exist-
ence, and to be every way further removed from
nonentity, than a worm." And the benevolence
which constitutes virtue must go out to all in propor-
tion to their value thus measured in the scale of being.
Closely connected with this benevolence toward being
in general is a feeling of love and attraction toward
other beings who are actuated by a similar spirit of
benevolence. But any love for being less wide than
1 " Improvements in Theology," Dwight, Life, pp. 613, 614.
2 Nature of True Virtue, Works, ii., pp. 394-401.
3 Ibid., p. 401.
t
2 5 6 JON A THA N ED IV A RD S
this, or springing from any motive narrower than
I! general benevolence cannot be true virtue.
This theory profoundly influenced New England
theology. Reduced to popular thought, it taught
that selfishness is sin, and that disinterested love to
God and to one's fellow-men is righteousness. It
seemed to furnish a self-evident demonstration of the
necessity of a divinely wrought change of heart. It
gave a ground also for holding that virtue is identical
in its nature in God and man by showing that benevo-
lence toward intelligent personalities in proportion to
the amount of being that each possesses leads God, as
the Infinite Being in comparison with whom the rest
of the universe is infinitesimal, to seek first his own
glory, while man, if actuated by the same motive of
general benevolence, seeks first the glory of God.
Nor was this doctrine less effective in giving a basis
for philanthropy. It was no accident that classed
Samuel Hopkins, sternest of the pupils of Edwards,
or Jonathan Edwards the younger, clearest-minded
expounder of the Edwardean system, among the earli-
est New England opponents of negro slavery, or drew
the earliest missionaries of the American Board from
Edwardean ranks. Like the treatise on the Religious
Affections, this essay holds love to be the basal ele-
ment in piety; but in its banishment of self-interest it
left room for the assertion by some of Edwards's suc-
cessors that no true benevolence could be present till
JONATHAN EDWARDS
the soul was ready to submit willingly to any disposi-
tion of itself which God saw was for the best good of
the universe, even if that disposition was the soul's
damnation. We have already noted that though Ed-
wards never asserted this necessity, Mrs. Edwards
reached this degree of self-renunciation in the revival
of 1742.
The fourth important fruit of Edwards's studies was
a volume that was passing through the press at the
time of his death that on Original Sin. Of all his
works none is more ingenious or intellectually acute,
but none has met so little acceptance. The subject
of original sin, like that of the powers of the will, was
one on which the eighteenth-century opponents of the
historic Augustinian view were widely supposed to
have got much the better of its defenders. Chief
among these opponents in popular regard was John
Taylor, a Presbyterian Arian minister at Norwich,
England, whose Scripture Doctrine of Original Sin, of
1738, argued that sorrow, labor, and physical death
are consequences to us of Adam's transgression, but
we are in no sense guilty of Adam's sin, our rational
powers are in no way disabled, nor are we on account
of that sin in any state of natural corruption so as to
be now without capacity fully to serve God.
These opinions were reflected in eastern Massachu-
setts; and, in 1757 and 1758, a lively exchange of
pamphlets took place in which Rev. Samuel Webster
17
258 JONATHAN EDWARDS
of Salisbury and Rev. Charles Chauncy of Boston at-
tacked the doctrine of original sin, while Edwards's
friend, Rev. Peter Clark of Danvers, and his pupil,
Rev. Joseph Bellamy, defended it. Edwards had
probably written most of his volume when this Ameri-
can discussion opened ; but though he had Taylor
primarily in mind, it was doubtless hastened through
the press in view of the debate on this side of the
Atlantic. 1
In his volume on original sin Edwards argued, with
great wealth of illustration, the innate corruption of
mankind at whatever stage of their existence from
earliest infancy to old age, with proofs drawn from
Scripture and experience. This corruption amounts
in all, of whatever age, to utter ruin. It has its root
in Adam's sin, and that sin is ours, but not by any
Augustinian presence of humanity in Adam. 2 On the
contrary, Edwards explained our guilt of that far-off
transgression by a curious theory of the preservation
of personal or racial continuity a theory drawn in
part from Locke's speculations on Identity and Diver-
sity. 3 That which makes you and me to-day the same
beings that thought or walked or studied yesterday
is the constant creative activity of God. God, by
a " constitution," or appointment of things, that is
1 Some account of this controversy may be found in my History of the
Congregational Churches, pp. 273-276.
2 Here again I borrow from the volume above cited.
3 Compare Fisher, History of Christian Doctrine, p. 403.
JONATHAN EDWARDS 259
" arbitrary" in the sense that it depends on his will
alone, sees fit to appoint that the acts and thoughts
of the present moment shall be consciously continu-
ous of those of the past ; and it is this ever-renewed
creation that gives all personal identity to the in-
dividual. 1 What is true of each man is also true of
the race. God has constituted all men one with
Adam, so that his primal sin is really theirs, and they
are viewed as "Sinners, truly guilty, and Children of
Wrath on that Account." 3
Mr. Lecky has characterized this volume as " one
of the most revolting books that have ever proceeded
from the pen of man." Without at all sharing the
severity of his criticism, it may fairly be said to be a
work that renders more difficult, if anything, one of the
most mysterious problems of religion the origin and
universal pervasiveness of evil.
Our glance at Edwards's principal writings has neces-
sarily been fleeting; but it has sufficed to show that
he impressed several principles on the minds of his
contemporaries and successors. Teaching that the
sinner possesses the natural power, but not the inclina-
tion, to do the will of God, he held that a change
of disposition, wrought by a conversion through the
1 See Original Sin, pp. 338-346. 1758.
* Ibid., p. 355-
3 History of the Rise and Influence of the Spirit of Rationalism in
Europe, i., p. 368, New York, 1866; see also Allen, Jonathan Ed-
wards, p. 312.
260 JONATHAN EDWARDS
transforming work of the Spirit of God, was not
*- i i L _.j_ r "" " ~^rnrru t , uu _
merely the primary, but the only impor |Jn
beginning a Christian life. He taught, also, that the
essential characteristic of that life was love to God and
to his creatures rather than to self, and that there
\
could be no true religious life which did not have its
seat in the emotions and will even more than in the
intellect. Edwards did not live long enough to work
out a full-rounded system. But besides the evident
features of his teachings at which we have glanced, he
dropped many hints and half-elaborated suggestions
which made his work not merely the beginning of a
development carried much farther by his followers,
but have led to the claim that he was the father of most
\ various tendencies in later New England thought.
Edwards's pastorate at Stockbridge was the harvest-
time of his intellectual activity; but it was followed by
a brief episode that had the promise of usefulness for
him as a former of character and a leader of young
men. The death of Rev. Aaron Burr, the husband of
f Edwards's third daughter, Esther, in September, 1757,
left vacant the presidency of Princeton College, which
JBurr had occupied since 1748. The " College of New
Jersey " had been founded, in 1746, as an institution
in more hearty sympathy with the revival movement
to which Edwards was attached than were Harvard or
Yale. \Nine of its trustees were graduates of Yale. 1
1 Dexter, Biographical Sketches, i., p. 220.
JON A THA N ED WA RD S 261
The college had recently been permitted (1753) by the
Connecticut legislature to raise funds in Edwards's
native colony by means of a lottery, " for the encour-
agement of religion and learning," as the act read. 1
It appealed to New England as much as to the Mid-
dle States, and represented what was then freshest
and most spiritually warm-hearted in New England
thought. Naturally the trustees looked to Edwards;
and, two days after Burr's death, elected him to the
vacant presidency. 8
Edwards hesitated. He wished to complete his
History of the Work of Redemption, which should set
forth his conceptions of theology as a whole. 3 Yet
the call was one he felt to be pressing, and with the
supporting advice of an ecclesiastical council which
met at Stockbridge early in January, 1758, he ac-
cepted the appointment. But he was destined to as-
sume the work of the proffered office only to lay it
down. Inoculated with smallpox as a protective
measure, on February 13, 1758, the disease, usually
mild under such circumstances, took an unfavorable
turn, and he died at Princeton, March 22d, in his
fifty-fifth year, leaving his work, from a human point
.* ""
of view, incomplete. >
Jonathan Edwards the controversialist, the revival
1 Colonial Records, x., pp. 217, 218.
* Dwight, Life, p. 565.
3 Letter to the Princeton trustees, ibid., p. 569.
262 JONATHAN EDWARDS :
preacher, and the metaphysician is the figure oftenest
in our thought. It is necessary that it should be so,
for in all these respects he was a leader of men. But
as we think of him in these attributes he seems re-
mote. His controversies are over questions in which
our age takes languid interest, his denunciatory ser-
mons we read with reluctance, his explanations of the
will, of the constitution of the human race, or of the
end for which God created the world we admire as
feats of intellectual strength ; but they do not move
our hearts or altogether command the assent of our
understandings. The thought I wish to leave with
you is rather of the man who walked with God. No
stain marred his personal character, no consideration
of personal disadvantage swayed him from what he
deemed his duty to the truth in the controversy at
Northampton which led to his dismission. He was
the type of a fearless, patient, loyal scholar. But this
steadfast-mindedness was based on more than personal
uprightness. To him God was the nearest and truest
of friends, as well as the strongest of sovereigns. In
his narrative of his religious experience he noted the
delight and the strength that he found in the saying
of the old Hebrew prophet regarding the Saviour: 1
A man shall be as an hiding place from the wind,
and a covert from the tempest ; as rivers of water in a
dry place, as the shadow of a great rock in a weary
1 Isaiah xxxii., 2 ; see Hopkins, Life, p. 36 ; Dwight, Life, p. 132.
JONATHAN EDWARDS 263
land." Above all his other gifts and acquisitions he
had, and Ee made men feel that he had, a vision of
the glory of God that transfigured his life with a
beauty of spirit that makes his memory reverenced
even more than his endowments of mind are respected.
CHARLES CHAUNCY
265
VII.
CHARLES CHAUNCY
AS one walks up Beacon Street from King's Chapel
in Boston one passes, at the crown of the hill,
two handsome buildings, each devoted to the interests
of a religious body calling itself Congregational. Al-
most opposite each other, Channing Hall and the new
Congregational House bear witness in brown-stone, or
in granite, marble, and brick, to the division of the
historic churches of colonial New England into two
separate, and probably permanently antagonistic,
camps, those nicknamed " Orthodox" and " Lib-
eral." The visible manifestation of this separation
dates only from the opening decades of the nineteenth
century; but the causes of this parting run back at
least sixty years before, and reveal themselves in the
sharp antagonisms of pre-Revolutionary Massachu-
setts.
In the last lecture we considered the life and work
of Jonathan Edwards, chief leader among our native
New England ministry in a revived and intenser Cal-
vinism, in a warmer spiritual life, and in an insistent
and awakening type of preaching. To-day we shall
267
268 CHARLES CHAUNCY
turn to the story of one who was often Edwards's
opponent, who had no sympathy with Edwards's
theology, who doubted the wisdom of the revival
movement which Edwards championed, and who
largely helped to give an impetus in the direction
which Edwards stigmatized as " Arminian," or even
toward more " Liberal " views beyond, to a consider-
able section of the New England churches.
The name Charles Chauncy has been twice borne by
men eminently distinguished in the New England
ministry. The first to wear it was a Puritan exile,
who had been born in 1592, had graduated from
Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1613, had enjoyed a
fellowship at that university, and had been vicar at
the English town of Ware for ten stormy years when
the policy of Laud drove him to New England in
1637. * After preaching three years to the Pilgrim
congregation at Plymouth, where he was recognized
as a man of learning and power, in spite of some criti-
cism caused by his insistence on the immersion of in-
fants and the celebration of the Lord's Supper in the
evening as the only rightful modes of observing the
sacraments, 2 he was called to Scituate in 1641 ; and
in November, 1654, became the second president of
1 For sketches of President Chauncy, see Mather, Magnalia, i., pp.
463-476, 1853-55 ; and W. C. Fowler, in New England Historical and
Genealogical Register, x., pp. 105-120, 251-262.
2 Winthrop's Journal, i., pp. 397-399 ; ii., pp. 86, 87, 1853.
CHARLES CHAUNCY 269
Harvard, a post that he filled with conspicuous ability
till his death in February, 1672.
President Chauncy's eldest son, Isaac, after graduat-
ing at the infant Harvard in 1651, discharged a learned,
controversial, and unpopular ministry in England,
chiefly in London, till his death in 1712.' This Isaac
had, in turn, a son, named Charles for his distinguished
grandfather, who in early life followed the grand-
father's example by emigrating to America, and died,
a merchant, at Boston, in May, 171 1. 2 To the mer-
chant a son was born at Boston, on New Year's day,
1705, to whom the name Charles was given in turn,
and who is the subject of the present lecture. 8
Left an orphan at six years of age, Charles grew up
at Boston, and in 1717, when scarcely twelve, entered
Harvard, being a few months younger at the time he be-
gan his college course than was Jonathan Edwards when
the latter entered Yale a year before. Graduating
1 Sibley, Graduates of Harvard, i., pp. 302-307.
3 N. E. Hist, and Gen. Register, x., p. 324.
1 No full biography of Rev. Dr. Charles Chauncy has been published.
His colleague, Rev. John Clarke, published a Discourse . . . at the
Interment of the Reverend Charles Chauncy, at Boston in 1787, which
has some biographic facts. Brief sketches may be found in Emerson,
Historical Sketch of the First Church in Boston, pp. 173214, Boston,
1812; by Fowler, in N. E. Hist, and Gen. Register, x., pp. 324-336;
in Memorials of the Chauncys, pp. 49-70, Boston, 1858 ; in Sprague, An-
nals of the American Pulpit, " Unitarians," pp. 8-13, New York, 1865 ;
and in Ellis, History of the First Chtirch in Boston, pp. 187-208, Bos-
ton, 1881. An appreciation of his literary work may be found in Tyler,
History of American Literature, ii., pp, 199-203, New York, 1879.
270 CHARLES CHAUNCY
in 1721 with a distinguished record for scholarship,
he studied theology at Boston or at Cambridge; and,
on June 12, 1727, was chosen by a vote of sixty-four
to forty-five to the colleague pastorate of the old First
Church of Boston at a salary of four pounds and ten
shillings a week and firewood for his household use. 1
On October 25th, following, he was ordained 2 ; as was
the custom, preaching the sermon himself, 3 for New
England had not yet wholly outgrown the feeling that
such a service was a test of the candidate's pulpit
abilities, as essential to enable the council to judge of
his fitness as his examination in theology or his rela-
tion of Christian experience.
Chauncy's elder associate in the charge of the Bos-
ton First Church was Thomas Foxcroft, who had
occupied that post with eminent repute as a preacher
since 1717, and was to labor side by side with Chauncy
till death separated the colleagues in 1769." It illus-
trates the fundamental kindliness of spirit of the two
men thus joined in a common work, that though they
took diametrically opposite positions regarding the
questions raised by the '* Great Awakening," and
wrote, the one in defense and the other in disapproval,
1 Emerson, p. 176 ; Ellis, p. 187. 2 Ellis, p. 187.
3 His text was Matt, xxviii., 20.
4 Foxcroft died June 18, 1769, in his seventy-third year. Though he
continued in the pastorate of the Boston First Church till his death, he
was thought to have lost something of his early fire and pulpit power,
owing to a paralytic shock experienced in 1736.
CHARLES CHAUNCY 2? I
of that hotly contested movement, this disagreement
never affected their personal good-fellowship. ' He
was a real good Christian," said Chauncy of Foxcroft
as he preached that colleague's funeral sermon, " a
partaker of the Holy Ghost; uniform in his walk with
God . . . fixing his dependence ... on the
mercy of God and the atoning blood and perfect right-
eousness of Jesus Christ " ; ' and this spiritual apprecia-
tion one for the other seems to have underlain the sharp
diversities of view of these long-associated ministers.
Naturally, as the younger colleague of a preacher of
reputed eloquence, and even more because he was
marked, as a sermonizer, by a studious simplicity of
speech that avoided all rhetorical adornment as a
species of intellectual dishonesty, Chauncy's early
ministry attracted little notice. Indeed, this sim-
plicity of pulpit composition, which always charac-
terized him, led a hearer, to whom it was reported
that Chauncy had prayed that God would never
make him an orator, to observe that "his prayer
was unequivocally granted." 2 Something of this
lack of rhetorical adornment may have been due to
a rapidity of composition which frequently enabled
him to write his afternoon sermon in full during the
noon-day intermission between the two Sunday ser-
vices. But the same qualities of style appear in his
1 Sermon on the Death of Rev. Thomas Foxcroft, Boston, 1769,
quoted in Ellis, p. 183. 2 Emerson, p. 184.
272 CHARLES CHAUNCY
most labored treatises ; and in the investigation of a
doctrinal or political theme Chauncy was capable of
most protracted study. He had none of the intuitive
grasp or metaphysical genius of Edwards, but in
patient scholarly investigation he had not a superior,
and probably not an equal, in eighteenth -century
New England. The ornate taste of the period imme-
diately following the American Revolution was inclined
to ridicule Chauncy's style a little; 1 but men always
respected his thought. Yet his very simplicity and
directness make his sermons easy reading; and a mod-
ern reader deems it not the least of merits that one
is never at a loss as to Chauncy's meaning. What
he has to say is always worthy of attention, and the
thought frequently stands out all the more strikingly
by reason of the plainness of its verbal garb.
This directness of public utterance in the pulpit or
by the written page was accompanied by a similar
bluntness of private address. Chauncy would not
flatter. 2 Yet, though deemed rather formidable when
he called on his parishioners, as he was accustomed to
do on Monday mornings, 3 he always had a kindly heart,
and his family life was always cheerful and helpful.
A friend of his later years has thus drawn his portrait : 4
1 John Clarke, Discourse, p. 28 ; Emerson, p. 205.
2 John Clarke, ibid. t p. 25.
8 Ellis, p. 194.
4 Letter of Rev. Dr. Bezaleel Howard, dated January 22, 1033, in
Sprague, Annals, " Unitarians," p. 12.
CHARLES CHAUNCY 2?$
" He was, like Zaccheus, little of stature. God gave him
a slender, feeble body, a very powerful, vigorous mind, and
strong passions; and he managed them all exceedingly well.
His manners were plain and downright, dignified, bold,
and imposing. In conversation with his friends he was
pleasant, social, and very instructive."
In his home-life he was the cheerful and friendly
companion. A student by habit, he yet found the
time to be much with his household. But he had to
endure the discipline of much personal sorrow. His
own health was long precarious. Three times he had
to mourn the death of a wife. His declining years
were spent in the comparative wreck of the town of
his ministry consequent upon the struggles for Ame-
rican independence, for Boston did not recover its
population or its full prosperity till near the time of
Chauncy's death.
The little colonial seaport capital of Chauncy's early
ministry had altered much since the days of John
Cotton. 1 Though still largely Puritan, the Puritan
ascendancy had been more broken there than else-
where in New England. Its inhabitants numbered
about fifteen thousand at Chauncy's settlement, and
did not increase to more than twenty thousand during
the period covered by his long ministry. But they
1 See the Memorial History of Boston, Boston, 1882, passim, espe-
cially ii., pp. 187-268, 437-490; iii., pp. 189-191, for the facts pre-
sented in this paragraph.
2/4 CHARLES CHAUNCY
included the wealthy and the political administrators
of the colony; and the officers of government com-
bined with the more prosperous merchants and ship-
owners to form an aristocracy of much pretensions to
fashion and of much desire to reflect, in a distant way,
London social life. English books were more widely
read than in rural New England. English philosophi-
cal and religious thought found a ready response. The
cosmopolitan spirit characteristic of a seaport was more
manifest in ideals and habits of life than elsewhere in
New England. Congregationalism was the predomi-
nant religious polity, being represented by seven
churches at the time of Chauncy's settlement; but
two Episcopal churches drew upon the elements of
the community which were by reason of crown ap-
pointments or by taste most in sympathy with Eng-
land ; while the French Huguenot exiles, the Quakers,
the Baptists, and the Presbyterians were represented
by single congregations.
If the provincial town had its questions of wealth,
politics, and fashion beyond any other in New
England, it had also in a peculiar degree its prob-
lems of poverty. In spite of a cheapness of many
articles of food as surprising to a Londoner of that
time as to any present New England householder, a
report prepared fifteen years after Chauncy's settle-
ment enumerated a thousand poor widows, sure testi-
mony to the tribute of life wrung by the ocean from
CHARLES CHAUNCY 2?$
the commerce of the seaport, and fifteen hundred
negroes; and as early as 1735, the town authorities
declared to the provincial legislature that Boston had
become " the resort of all sorts of poor people, which
instead of adding to the wealth of the town, serve
only as a burden and continual charge." 1
Religiously estimated, Boston was not what it had
been in the days of the founders. The old Puritan
enthusiasm had departed, and though the Sunday
congregations were large and Sunday was observed
with a strictness that surprised English visitors, the
Thursday Lecture, once so popular, was greatly ne-
glected ; 2 while wealth, commercial interests, and the
presence of a foreign office-holding class had largely
deprived religion of its original primacy in popular
interest. ' The Generality," ' wrote Whitefield in
his journal of 1740, " seem to be too much conformed
to the World. There 's much of the Pride of Life to
be seen in their Assemblies. Jewels, Patches, and gay
Apparel are commonly worn by the Female Sex, and
even the common People, I observed, dressed up in
the Pride of Life."
Such was the general aspect of affairs when Boston,
in common with the American colonies as a whole,
1 Boston Town Records, January i, 1735 ; in Memorial History of
Boston, ii., p. 459.
2 Ibid. , pp. 467, 468 ; see also Whitefield's characterization in his
Seventh Journal, p. 44. 2d edition, London, 1744.
'Whitefield, ibid.
276 CHARLES CHAUNCY
was shaken by the " Great Awakening" 1 in 1740.
Premonitory evidences of an increased interest in re-
ligion had appeared in revival movements in many
places in rural New England during the five years
that had elapsed since the " surprising conversions "
under Edwards's ministry at Northampton narrated in
a previous lecture. But the chief human agency in
the general spiritual overturning that began in 1740
was George Whitefield. That youthful evangelist
came to New England in the height of his early fame.
Not yet twenty-six at the time of his arrival in Bos-
ton, in September, 1740, his reputation for zeal, con-
secration, and an oratorical power probably unmatched
in the history of the Anglo-Saxon pulpit, had pre-
ceded him, and produced an expectancy in the popular
mind that well prepared the way for the deep impres-
sion that his actual presence caused. ' My hearing
how god was with him everywhere as he came along,"
wrote one of his humbler converts, 2 "it solumnized my
mind & put me in a trembling fear before he began
to preach for he looked as if he was Cloathed with
authority from y e great god." His ecclesiastical posi-
tion was one, moreover, to attract attention. In full
sympathy with the type of religious thought char-
acteristic of the Congregational and Presbyterian
1 The best single account of this revival movement and its consequences
is still that of Joseph Tracy, The Great Awakening, Boston, 1842.
2 See Nathan Cole's Narrative, in G. L. Walker, Some Aspects of the
Religious Life of New England, pp. 89-92. Boston, 1897.
CHARLES CHAUNCY 2JJ
Churches, he was yet a minister of the Church of
England ; and he represented also the spiritual power
of the new Oxford movement in which he and the
Wesleys were alike leaders. New England had never
listened to such a preacher, and has never in its history
bowed in such admiration before any proclaimer of the
Gospel message.
At Boston Whitefield was greeted enthusiastically
by all classes in the community. Governor Belcher
welcomed him with effusion and was one of his most
devoted and demonstrative hearers. On the Sunday
following his arrival he preached for Foxcroft, Chaun-
cy's colleague, with " great and visible effect " ; ' and
this experience was repeated for ten days in most of
the Congregational meeting-houses of Boston or with
larger audiences on the Common. A brief journey to
the eastward as far as York was followed by another
week of similar pulpit success in Boston, and then the
evangelist passed onward in his rapid flight by way of
Concord and Worcester to Northampton, and thence,
preaching at Westfield, Springfield, Hartford, New
Haven, and at some of the smaller intermediate towns,
to New York and the southern colonies. Everywhere
his audiences were as wax under the spell of his
eloquence. On repeated occasions men cried out and
women fainted ; many in the weeping congregations
declared themselves converted. Massachusetts and
1 Whitefield, Seventh Journal, p. 28.
278 CHARLES CHAUNCY
Connecticut were profoundly stirred. And the mes-
sage was, on the whole, one addressed to the real
wants of sinful men. It was adapted not merely to
excite the emotions of a passing hour, but to point
out the need and the way of salvation. The move-
ment thus inaugurated had upon it in some very con-
siderable degree the blessing of God. The two or
three years that followed Whitefield's preaching were
the only marked period of general ingathering that
our churches enjoyed between the passing away of the
founders of New England and the last decade of the
eighteenth century.
Yet, if the young evangelist was undoubtedly earnest
and sincere, he was also opinionated and harsh in his
judgments; and these qualities speedily made trouble.
Speaking in the Old South Church during his stay in
Boston he declared that " the Generality of Preachers
talk of an unknown, unfelt Christ. And the Reason
why Congregations have been so dead, is because dead
Men preach to them." This strain of criticism he
reiterated throughout New England. In spite of
Jonathan Edwards's protest/ he preached at Suffield,
to the students at New Haven, and elsewhere on "the
dreadful Ill-Consequences of an unconverted Minis-
try." 3 And, in summing up the impressions of his
1 Whitefield, Seventh Journal, p. 40.
2 Dwight, Life of Pres. Edwards, p. 147.
3 Whitefield, Seventh Journal, pp. 50, 53, 55.
CHARLES CHAUNCY 2Jg
New England pilgrimage for publication, Whitefield
wrote: " Many, nay most that preach, I fear do not
experimentally know Christ " ; ' while of Harvard and
Yale he recorded his impression that " their Light is
become Darkness, Darkness that may be felt." 2
A second characteristic of Whitefield which gave
countenance to what was later to be the most extrava-
gant feature of the ' ' Awakening ' ' was the weight which
he put on the physical effects of his preaching as evi-
dence of the presence of God in the congregation.
Though Rev. Thomas Prince could witness that he
did " not remember any crying out, or falling down,
or fainting " 3 under Whitefield's preaching at Bos-
ton, such extreme physical manifestations took place
during the delivery of his sermons elsewhere ; 4 and
even at Boston Whitefield could record of his preach-
ing in the New North Church that 5
" Jesus Christ manifested forth his Glory. Many hearts
melted within them. . . . Look where I would, the
Word smote them, I believe, through and through, and my
own Soul was very much carried out. Surely it was the
Lord's Passover. I have not seen a greater Commotion
since my Preaching at Boston."
So markedly was this over-valuation of the physical
a trait of the young evangelist that Edwards, who, as
1 Whitefield, Seventh. Journal, p. 56. 2 Ibid., p. 57.
3 Quoted in Tracy, Great Awakening, p. 116.
4 Whitefield, Seventh Journal, pp. S9-, 62, 63, 69, 74.
5 Ibid., p. 39.
280 CHARLES CHAUNCY
we have seen, was not out of sympathy with such
bodily manifestations of extreme feeling, remonstrated
with Whitefield on the importance attached to them. 1
These peculiarities of the English revivalist were
exaggerated by those whom his preaching raised up
to imitate his methods. Many of these itinerating
pastors, like Edwards, Bellamy, Parsons, Wheelock,
Pomeroy, or Graham, were men of the highest charac-
ter and great usefulness to the churches. Yet, under
Edwards's preaching at Northampton in 1741, as Ed-
wards himself recorded, " it was a very frequent Thing
to see an House full of Out-Cries, Paintings, Convul-
sions, and such like " ; 2 and under Parsons's searching
appeals, to quote the preacher's own words, " stout
men fell as though a cannon had been discharged, and
a ball had made its way through their hearts." Men
claimed to see heaven and hell in visions; and whole
communities were thrown into excitement by these
reports, as was Lebanon, Connecticut, by the asser-
tions of a boy of thirteen and of a girl of eleven that
Christ had shown them the Book of Life, and the
names of some of their neighbors written therein, and
that " the Book of Life was filled up, wanting about
One Page . . . and when that was fill'd up, the
Day of Judgment was to come."
1 Dwight, Life of Pres. Edwards, p. 147 ; Tracy, Great Awakening, p.
100. 2 Christian History, issue for January 21, 1743-44- 3 Tracy, p. 138.
4 Solomon Williams, The More Excellent Way, Preface. New Lon-
don, 1742.
CHARLES CHAUNCY 28 1
And the more radical leaders in the movement were
marked by yet more questionable methods. Of these
extremists the most notorious was James Davenport,
minister at Southold, Long Island, regarding whom
Whitefield, whose judgments as to character were not
penetrating, affirmed " that he never knew one keep
so close a walk with God." Preaching as an itinerant
at Boston, in July, 1742, Davenport declared in prayer,
" that most of the ministers of the town of Boston and
of the country are unconverted, and are leading their
people blindfold to hell." * At New London, in
March, 1743, in a scene that was almost a riot, he
heaped up the books of Flavel, Increase Mather, Col- \
man, Sewall, his fellow-revivalist Parsons, and others j
held in esteem in the churches, and walked about the
blazing pile, declaring that as the smoke of these
volumes went upward, so the smoke of their authors
was now rising from the torments of hell. 3 Davenport
did, indeed, later modify his practices, 4 and a Boston
jury, as well as the Connecticut Legislature, adjudged
him insane. But he undoubtedly represented a certain
phase of the "Awakening."
The effect of this turmoil was largely disastrous.
1 Tracy, Great Awakening, p. 230.
* Ibid., p. 247.
3 Ibid., p. 249. For further volumes burned, see Chauncy, Season-
able Thoughts, pp. 222, 223. Boston, 1743.
4 See Two Letters from the Rev. Mr. Williams 6 Wheelock a/
Lebanon, to the Rev. Mr. Davenport, which were the Principal Means
of his late Conviction and Retraction. Boston, 1744.
282 CHARLES CHAUNCY
The "Awakening" ceased almost as speedily as it had
begun, and was followed by a, period of great spiritual
deadness. Edwards himself, as before stated, waited
from 1744 to 1748 for a candidate for church member-
ship to appear. Churches were divided. In Con-
necticut severe measures were taken by the civil
authorities to prevent itinerancy and any preaching
undesired by the regular incumbent of the parish. In
that colony, and to some extent in Massachusetts, the
more extreme sympathizers with the revival formed
Separatist churches that ran a stormy, spiritually dis-
tracted, and persecuted career. In general the minis-
try and the churches of New England and of the
middle colonies were divided into two camps on the
question whether the methods of the revival were to
be praised or blamed, known as " New Lights" and
" Old Lights " in New England and as " New Side "
and " Old Side " in the colonies to the southward.
Of this "Old Light" party in New England
Chauncy was the leader, and this leadership first
brought him into prominence. Thoroughly con-
vinced himself that the Whitefieldian revival was an
outburst of ill-directed emotion that would do more
harm than good to the abiding spiritual life of the
churches, and averse by nature to what he deemed
extravagance of method and appeal, he set himself to
do what he could to check the evils of a movement
that seemed to him dangerous to true religion.
CHARLES CHAUNCY 283
Chauncy, though condemned by many as an "oppo-
ser of the work of God," ' was no denier of the neces-
sity of a fundamental change of heart as essential to
entrance on the Christian life. A brief extract from
his sermon on The New Creature* preached about
eight months after Whitefield's visit to Boston may
illustrate alike his views and his sermonic style. 3
" Put the question to your own soul, Have I had experi-
ence of such a change, as that I can esteem myself a new
creature? Have I indeed been transform d by the renewing
of the HOLY GHOST ? How is it with my APPREHENSIONS ?
What are my tho'ts of sin ? Does it seem a slight
thing or an accursed evil ? What are my thoughts of holi-
ness ? Do I entertain a low opinion of it, or does it appear
a matter infinitely reasonable and important ? What are
my thoughts of CHRIST ? Do I see no beauty in him for
which he should be desired, or does he appear altogether
lovely ? Can I, in my own apprehensions, do without him,
or do I see the need, the absolute need I stand in of him,
and that there is no other name given under heaven among
men, whereby I can be saved ? And how is it with my
PURPOSES ? What am I determin'd for, this world or
another ? Is my resolution for GOD and CHRIST and
heaven and holiness, a sudden, accidental, transient busi-
ness, or the settled, permanent, habitual purpose of my
heart ? And how is it with my AFFECTIONS ? On what are
1 Edwards, Thoughts Concerning the Present Revival, pp. 143, 144,
Boston, 1742 ; Chauncy, Seasonable Thoughts, pp. 392, 393.
2 The New Creature Described, and consider' d as the sure Characteris-
tic of a Man's being in Christ, Boston, 1741. Preach'd at the Boston
Thursday Lecture, June 4, 1741.
3 Ibid., pp. 21, 22.
284 CHARLES CHAUNCY
they plac'd, and after what manner are they exercis'd ?
Whom do I love most, GOD or the world ? Which do I
fear most, the anger of GOD, or outward losses and
crosses ? What grieves me most, the frowns of the world,
or the want of GOD's favour ? Which do I place my hope
most in, the things of time, or the things of eternity ? And
how is it as to my LIFE AND MANNERS ? . Have I
renounced my sins, all my sins, my most beloved sins, or
do I still keep them ? And if I have turn'd from sin, to
whom have I turn'd ? Have I turn'd to GOD in CHRIST ?
And is it my daily constant endeavour to live to GOD ?
What is my course and manner of life ? Is it conducted
by the will of GOD ? Is it conform'd to the example of
CHRIST ? Is it a just transcript of the precepts of the
gospel ? Am I pious towards GOD ? Am I righteous
towards men ? Am I sober in respect of myself ? "
This is no low or mean conception of conversion.
It is not unworthy of Edwards himself in its spiritual
insight. But, all the more because Chauncy thus
emphasized the patient manifestations of the renewed
life as the true evidence of Christian character, he
doubted the spiritual worth of the sudden emotions,
the exciting sermons, the crowds, the outcries, and
the visions of the Whitefieldian revival. Undoubtedly
he discredited that revival too much. God's hand was
in it more than he could see. But his motives in op-
posing it were no lower, or less directed to what he
deemed the advancement of the kingdom of God,
than those of its warmest advocates.
Chauncy preached a sermon having for its theme
CHARLES CHAUNCY 285
the Out-pouring of the Holy Ghost, on May 13, 1742,'
when his church held a fast to supplicate that divine
blessing, and in the discourse he set forth with clear-
ness and power what a permanent work of the divine
Spirit would he; but by the autumn of that year the
coming of Rev. James Davenport to Boston led him
to a positive, rather than a predominantly negative, at-
tack on what he deemed the errors of the "Awakening."
Though he declared in his sermon on Enthusiasm* or,
as we should say, Fanaticism, that " the SPIRIT of
GOD has wro't effectually on the hearts of many, from
one time to another; and I make no question he has
done so of late, in more numerous instances, it may
be, than usual"; 3 he now directly and powerfully
attacked those methods of which the doings of James
Davenport were an extreme instance.
Always a student, and intent on drawing from the
past warnings against the excesses of the present,
Chauncy published the same year an account of the
fanatical manifestations among the persecuted Hugue-
nots of the Cervennes, 4 and of English claimants to
1 The Out-pouring of the Holy Ghost. A Sermon P reached in Boston,
May /j, 1742. Boston, 1742.
t* Enthusiasm described and caution d against, Boston, 1742. Preached
the " Lord's day after the Commencement, 1742." Text, I Cor. xiv., 37.
z lbid., pp. 25, 26.
4 7^he Wonderful Narrative, or a Faithful Account of the French
Prophets, Glasgow, 1742. The best account of these " prophets" is in
Baird, The Huguenots and the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, ii.,
pp. 183-190.
286 CHARLES CIIAUNCY
prophetic inspiration like John Lacy; 1 but his chief
polemic treatise was called out by Edwards's defense
of the revival, printed, as has been pointed out in a
previous lecture," in 1742, and entitled Some Thoughts
Concerning the present Revival of Religion in New
England. To Edwards, Chauncy replied, in 1743, in
an elaborate volume, the Seasonable Thoughts on the
State of Religion in New England* imitating in title
Edwards's work. In this book Chauncy gave an
extensive and painstaking collection of evidence wit-
nessing to the extravagances and disorders of the
"Awakening," and prefaced the whole with a historical
account of the Antinomian controversy of a hundred
years before as affording in some sense a parallel. It
was considered a most effective arraignment at the
time of its publication, and it is indispensable to any
present-day student of the revival.
This protracted controversy caused Chauncy great
labor. How great, and with what physical results, can
best be told in his own words. 4
" Mr. Whitefield made his appearance among us. This
kept me still to close and constant labor in my study. I
1 These "prophecies" may be found in The Prophetical Warnings of
"John Lacy, Esq., Pronounced under the Operation of the Spirit ', Lon-
don, 1707 ; and several similar contemporary tracts.
2 See ante, p. 238.
3 Boston, 1743.
4 From a manuscript letter of May 6, 1768, to Rev. Dr. Ezra Stiles,
now in the possession of Yale University.
CHARLES CHAUNCY 287
wrote and printed in that day more than two vol. in oct?
A vast number of pieces were published also wrote by
others; but y r was scarce a piece . . . but was sent to
me, and I had the labor sometimes of preparing it for the
press, and always of correcting the press. I had also hun-
dreds of letters to write in answer to letters received from
all parts of the country. This labor, continued without
interruption, for so many years, in addition to my minis-
terial work, w ch I did not neglect in any part of the time,
broke my constitution . . . and brot on an habitual
cholic w ch reduced me to a skeleton in opposition to the
utmost skill of all the physicians in town. But by a resolute
severity as to regimen, and a great number of journies of 7,
8, 9, and 10 hundred miles, in the course of three or four
years, I so far recovered my health, as to be able to pursue
my studies again."
Some features of this regimen, to which Chauncy
attributed his restored health, were thus noted by a
friend of his old age. 1
" The Doctor was remarkably temperate in his diet and
exercise. At twelve o'clock he took one pinch of snuff,
and only one in twenty-four hours. At one o'clock, he
dined on one dish of plain, wholesome food, and after din-
ner took one glass of wine, and one pipe of tobacco, and
only one in twenty-four hours. And he was equally
methodical in his exercise, which consisted chiefly or wholly
in walking. I said, ' Doctor, you live by rule.' ' If I did
not, I should not live at all.' '
Chauncy's attitude in the Whitefieldian controversy
1 Letter of Rev. Dr. Bezaleel Howard, in Sprague, Annals, " Unita-
rians," p. 13.
288 CHARLES CHAUNCY
brought him into prominence not only in New Eng-
land but in Scotland. Whether for this eminence or
on more personal grounds, he received the degree of
Doctor of Divinity from the University of Edinburgh
in 1742. '
This controversy showed him to be a man of cour-
age in the expression of his convictions, and the same
characteristic trait was exhibited in another arena in
1747. Massachusetts from 1690 to 1750, and again
during the Revolutionary War was plagued with a de-
preciated paper currency, the story of which might
prove instructive to those among us who wish to " ex-
pand " the circulating medium. At Chauncy's settle-
ment about two and two thirds of a shilling in notes
had been equivalent to a shilling in " hard money " ;
by 1747 it took six and a half of the paper issue to
equal the coin it supposedly represented. 2 In his
election sermon before the governor and legislature,
on May 27, 1747, 3 Chauncy spoke temperately but un-
mistakably against this 4 and a number of other current
abuses from the text, " He that ruleth over Men must
be just, ruling in the Fear of God." This plainness
of speech angered not a few of the legislators, and
1 It first appears on the title-page of his sermon on Enthusiasm ; see
Historical and Genealogical Register, x., p. 325.
2 See the table given by Felt, An Historical Account of Massachusetts
Currency, p. 135. Boston, 1839.
3 Election Sermon, Boston, 1747.
4 Ibid, pp. 19-23, 29-31, 37-42, 62-64. 5 2 Samuel, xxiii., 3.
CHARLES CHAUNCY 289
a fruitless proposition was made that the legislature
should express its displeasure by refusing the custom-
ary publication of the sermon. Chauncy thus answered
the man who told him. 1
" It shall be printed, whether the general court print it or
not. And do you, sir, say from me, that, if I wanted to
initiate and instruct a person into all kinds of iniquity and
double dealing, I would send him to our general court."
The Whitefieldian controversy had interrupted a
course of study which fitted Chauncy for the next
great public discussion in which he engaged, that on
Episcopacy. In his account of his own life, Chauncy
has written thus of the beginnings of his investigation
of this theme. 8
" The occasion was that M r Davenport 3 [first rector of
Trinity Church, Boston] who married my first wife's sister,
declared for the Church, and went over [to England] for
orders, ... I imagined my connection w th him would
naturally lead me into frequent conversations upon this
point. And that I might be thoroughly qualified for a de-
bate w th him or others he might be connected w th .
I entered upon this study."
The studies thus begun for a domestic use were
eventually employed in a much wider debate. To us
the opposition of the Congregational ministry and
1 Emerson, Historical Sketch of the First Church in Boston, p. 198.
2 Letter of May 6, 1768, to Dr. Ezra Stiles, in possession of Yale
University.
8 Rev. Addington Davenport, Harvard, 1719, died in 1746.
290 CHARLES CHAUNCY
churches of the eighteenth century to Episcopacy may
seem undue and uncharitable. An examination of
the situation will disabuse us of the thought. That
opposition was not primarily to Episcopacy as a re-
ligious system, but to Episcopacy in its political con-
sequences. The New England colonies had been
planted by men and women anxious to get beyond the
reach of the bishops and courts of the English Estab-
lishment. But these colonies were still subject to the
authority of the British government, and should that
government see fit to establish the religious institu-
tions of England beyond the Atlantic, there was
nothing to prevent the non-Episcopal churches of
the colonies from suffering the disabilities imposed
on " Dissenters " in England.
Doubtless there was much want of charity in both
parties; but the interferences of the English govern-
ment in the affairs of the Congregational churches of
Massachusetts, an interference incited by the few
Episcopal ministers in the province, was ominous of
what might happen were Episcopacy to grow in power.
Two instances may suffice. When the Congregational
churches of Massachusetts sought to call a " Synod,"
in 1725, to take counsel as to how the prevailing re-
ligious decline could be arrested, the project, though
approved by the Massachusetts Upper House, was
blocked by the English government, aroused thereto
by the Episcopal clergy of Boston and their superior,
CHARLES CHAUNCY 2Q I
the Bishop of London. 1 When, to give a second
example, some Congregational ministers procured a
charter from the Massachusetts legislature, in 1762,
for a " Society for Propagating Christian Knowledge
among the Indians of North America," the Episcopal
ministers of Massachusetts, fearing that the new enter-
prise would endanger the interests of the English
" Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign
Parts," of which most of them were paid missionaries,
stirred up the English ecclesiastical authorities to pro-
cure the disallowance of the new society's charter by
the " King in Council." 2 If such interferences with
local self-government were brought about by a few
scattered and but partially organized Episcopalians,
what might not be feared in the way of parliamentary
interference should a complete hierarchy be set up by
act of Parliament in the colonies ?
That an episcopate should be established was the
ardent wish of the colonial Episcopalians. In 1724,
1725, 1727, 1749, and 1767,' and probably at frequent
1 See W. S. Perry, Papers Relating to the History of the Church in
Massachiisetts, pp. 179-181, 184, 186-190, 351, privately printed, 1873 J
Hutchinson, History of the Province of Massachusetts Bay, ii., pp.
322, 323, ed. Boston, 1767 : Palfrey, History of New England, iv., p.
454, 455-
" 2 Perry, Papers Relating to the History of the Church in Massa-
chusetts, pp. 471, 472, 476-481, 497 ; Chauncy, Remarks on . . .
the Bishop ofLandaff's Society Sermon, pp. 19, 20 ; see also Bradford,
Memoir . . . of Rev. Jonathan May hew, pp. 197, 235, Boston, 1838.
3 Perry, Papers Relating to the History of the Church in Massachu-
setts, pp. 143, 175, 176, 227, 433, 531, etc.
CHARLES CHAUNCY
intervals between, the Massachusetts Episcopal clergy
urged their desires on the English authorities. In
1749 it seemed probable that the British govern-
ment would take the wished-for step, though there
was hesitation about appointing resident bishops for
New England. 1 This prospect was undoubtedly one
of the causes that led that earnest defender of the
validity of New England ordinations, Chief-Justice
Paul Dudley, to found the Dudleian lectureship at
Harvard. The danger passed by at the time, but only
to recur again, in 1761, 2 in aggravated form, and to
become chronic till the Revolution put an end to it
forever. To the men of the generation before the
Revolution the peril seemed very real ; and one of the
acutest and most learned of recent Massachusetts his-
torians has pointed out that, in New England, fear of
bishops imposed by Parliament was as potent a stimu-
lus to the Revolutionary spirit, as fear of taxes im-
posed by Parliament. 3 It was a main cause in uniting
the Congregational ministry almost to a man in defense
of American liberties. And how largely this opposi-
tion to Episcopacy was political resistance to foreign
aggression is shown by the fact that, when once
American independence was achieved, New England
1 Palfrey, History of A r eta England, v., p. 95.
2 See Mayhew's letter to Hollis, in Bradford, Memoir, p. 195.
3 Mellen Chamberlain, John Adams, pp. 21-35, Boston, 1898, with
valuable citation of authorities.
CHARLES CHAUNCY 293
witnessed the introduction of an episcopate with its
characteristic claims to exclusive divine authority, not
only without united resistance such as had been pro-
tractedly manifested before the Revolution, but with-
out more criticism than any innovating religious body
has always to encounter.
Jonathan Mayhew, the brilliant, patriotic, conten-
tious, and Arian pastor of the Boston West Church
began an aggressive defense of American liberties,
civil and ecclesiastical, as early as 1750; ' and, in 1763,
he plunged into a bitter discussion with Rev. East Ap-
thorp of Cambridge over the aims and methods of the
Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign
Parts," which was represented by Apthorp and other
Episcopal missionaries in New England. Before this
debate had run its two years' heated course it had in-
volved the Archbishop of Canterbury himself. 8
Chauncy's first participation in printed opposition
to Episcopacy was in his publication of the Dudleian
lecture in defence of non-Episcopal ordination in 1762.
Five years later, in December, 1767, a sermon preached
before the " Society for the Propagation of the Gospel
in Foreign Parts " by the Bishop of Landaff, 3 in which
1 His Discourse on the Anniversary of the Death of Charles I. was
printed on both sides of the Atlantic and attracted much attention by
its defense of liberty.
2 An extended, though one-sided, account of this controversy may be
found in Bradford, Memoir of . . . Jonathan Mayhew, pp. 243
et seq.
3 Preached at London, February 20, 1767.
2Q4 CHARLES CHAUNCY
the American colonies were represented as lands of
barbarism and heathenism, drew forth from Chauncy
a noble, temperate, and unanswerable defense of the
character of the founders of New England, their
efforts to evangelize the Indians, and the then existing
state of the religious and educational institutions that
they had planted. 1
The reply just noted was to a publication by an
English prelate; Chauncy's next contribution to the
Episcopal debate was an Answer to an able American
Episcopalian, a graduate of Yale, and rector at Eliza-
beth, New Jersey, Thomas Bradbury Chandler. In
1767 Chandler had published An Appeal to tlie Public
in behalf of the Church of England in America, a
sober-minded presentation of the well-known claims of
Episcopacy as a method of church government, and
of the advantages to Episcopacy to be derived from
the establishment of bishops in the colonies. This
Appeal Chauncy answered, in 1768," with an elaborate
pamphlet addressed to every point of Chandler's
argument; and, as Chandler made rejoinder in 1769, 3
Chauncy replied a second time in 1770,* only to draw
1 A Letter to a Friend, etc., the title on fly-leaf being, Dr. Chauncy s
Remarks on certain Passages in the Bishop of Landaff's Society Sermon.
Boston, 1767.
2 The Appeal to the Public Answered in Behalf of the Non-Episcopal
Churches in America. Boston, 1768.
3 The Appeal Defended, etc. All Chandler's tracts in this debate
were printed in New York.
4 Reply to Dr. Chandler's Appeal Defended.
CHARLES CHAUNCY 295
forth a third pamphlet from Chandler in 1771. ' This
controversy led, in 1771, to the publication of Chaun-
cy's chief work on the Episcopal claim, the Compleat
View of Episcopacy, as Exhibited in the Fathers of
the Christian Church, until the Close of the Second Cen-
tury a volume largely based on the studies of his
early ministry. 2 Probably no other New Englander
of his day could have shown such an acquaintance
with the fathers from Clement of Rome to Clement of
Alexandria, and the work must be considered an able
and successful attempt to give an 3
" ANSWER to those, who have represented it as a CERTAIN
FACT, universally handed down, even from the Apostles
Days, that GOVERNING and ORDAINING AUTHORITY was
exercised by such Bishops only, as were of an ORDER
SUPERIOR to Presbyters."
Chauncy's activities against the establishment of a
British episcopate in America were by no means con-
fined to the publications noted. Writing to a friend
in 1766, he said: 4
" We the ministers of this town have for a long course of
years held a correspondence with the ' Committee of Depu-
tation of Dissenters ' at London, and have found our ac-
count in it. They have been greatly serviceable to us
1 The Appeal Farther Defended.
2 Preface, p. iii.
8 Title-page.
4 Letter of September 29, 1766, to Rev. Dr. Ezra Stiles, now in the
possession of Yale University.
296 CHARLES CHAUNCY
many ways. It was owing to y r influence, under God, that
the scheme for the mission of a Bishop into America about
20 years ago ' was entirely disconcerted and defeated."
Chauncy's wisdom derived from this experience led
him to fear that the annual joint convention of dele-
gates from the Synod of New York and Philadelphia
and from the Connecticut General Association, which
met from 1766 to 1775 to guard against Episcopal
encroachment, would defeat its object by arousing
opposition in England to so visible a union of Congre-
gational and Presbyterian forces. In his judgment,
" Separate endeavours, suitably conducted, are the
only ones that will serve our interest." a But to fears
and efforts alike the Revolutionary War put an end.
Of that war the work of Chauncy in this Episcopal
struggle was an important forerunner, and in the
fortunes of the struggle when it came he felt a keen
and patriotic interest. To him there seemed but one
side that could possibly be right, and he told his
friends, with a rhetorical exaggeration very unusual
in him, that angelic aid would come to the Ameri-
cans, so just was their cause, were the patriot strength
to fail. 3 The repeal of the Stamp Act and the suffer-
ings of Boston under the repressive measures of Parlia-
ment called out vigorous publications from his prolific
1 /. e., the attempt of 1749-50.
2 Letter to Rev. Dr. Ezra Stiles, of June 29, 1767.
3 Sprague, Annals, " Unitarians," p. 9.
CHARLES CHAUNCY 29?
pen. 1 When the war came, the siege of Boston
drove him from the town till its capture by Washing-
ton's army, in March, 1776, enabled him to return.
But his age and feebleness precluded any very active
share in the patriot efforts. His own struggle for
American liberty had been fought chiefly in the years
before Lexington and Bunker Hill.
In considering Chauncy's relation to the " Great
Awakening," it has been seen that his attitude was
directly opposed to that of Edwards. But this dis-
agreement was far from being the only point of un-
likeness between the two men. During Chauncy's
ministerial life eastern Massachusetts was largely
moving in a doctrinal direction in striking discord
with that of Edwards and his school, and scarcely less
estranged from the view-point of the founders of New
England. This " Liberal " direction was one, how-
ever, in which the development of English Puritanism
had led the way. In the home land not merely
Arminianism but Arianism had gained strong footing
among Presbyterian Dissenters during the first quarter
of the eighteenth century, and had become predominant
among them before the year 1750 was reached. Arian-
ism, as well as Arminianism, tinged the writings of
some of the ablest English theologians of that period,
both within and without the Church of England, and
1 Discourse on the Good News from a Far Country, 1766 ; A Just Repre-
sentation of the Hardships and Sufferings of the Town of Boston, 1774.
298 CHARLES CHAUNCY
the books of Thomas Emlyn, William Whiston,
Samuel Clarke, Daniel Whitby, and John Taylor, in
which this doctrine is implied or expressly asserted,
were among the most valued treatises in English Dis-
senting circles during the first half of the eighteenth
century. They had strong opponents, indeed, but
they were widely read ; and though English Congre-
gationalism resisted the Arminian and Arian inroad
much more successfully than English Presbyterianism,
its leaders, Watts and Doddridge, defended the his-
toric Calvinism rather feebly.
These works crossed the Atlantic and naturally
found most welcome in eastern Massachusetts, since
that region, owing to its trade, the size of its seaports,
and the acquaintance of its more prominent ministers,
by correspondence at least, with the leading English
Dissenters, was more susceptible to current English
thought than southern and western New England.
Arminian speculations, as they were then called, as to
free will, original sin, and the value of human efforts
in securing salvation had penetrated somewhat widely
by the middle of the eighteenth century, as we have
already had occasion to notice in treating of Edwards.
And though Arianism was too radical a departure for
any extensive rooting before the time of Edwards's
death, it was distinctly advocated by Chauncy's
neighbor in the Boston ministry, Jonathan Mayhew,
in 1755, while his ministerial contemporaries, Lemuel
CHARLES CHAUNCY 2QQ
Briant of Braintree, Ebenezer Gay and Daniel Shute
of Hingham, and John Brown of Cohassett were be-
lieved to sympathize with this denial of the Trinity.
Elsewhere in eastern Massachusetts and New Hamp-
shire Arian outcroppings had appeared before 1760;
and, in 1768, Samuel Hopkins declared his " convic-
tion that the doctrine of the Divinity of Christ was
much neglected, if not disbelieved, by a number of
ministers in Boston." This development was to go
on silently, and for the most part unnoted, during the
distractions of the Revolutionary struggle and of the
political debates that followed it, till it burst forth in
the Unitarian controversy soon after the beginning of
the nineteenth century.
With this gradual modification of doctrine Chauncy
sympathized ; and in its spread his influence was as
great as that of any man in eastern Massachusetts. It
was all the more so because he was no radical or ex-
tremist and because the greater part of the writings of
which he was the author were of a character to win the
approval of Christians generally. This moderation of
most of Chauncy's utterances renders him a hard man
to classify. As his successor in the pulpit of the Bos-
ton First Church pointed out in 1811, his sermons
contain much that is "calvinistick," * as that term was
later used by American Unitarians; but Chauncy
1 William Emerson, Historical Sketch of the First Church in Boston,
p. i 86.
3OO CHARLES CHAUNCY
himself was no Calvinist, and some of his theories are
not in accord with any historic presentation of the
Evangelical faith. The ' ' orthodox " and the ' ' liberal "
are inextricably intermixed in him, and in that char-
acteristic he was probably typical of the contemporary
stage of development of the movement which ulti-
mately became Massachusetts Unitarianism.
Most of Chauncy's doctrinal writings were com-
pleted before 1768, though the more important were
not published till after the Revolutionary War. 1 In a
letter giving an account of them to a friend at the date
just mentioned, he told something of the course of
study by which he was led to them. After his re-
covery from the debility consequent on overwork
during the Whitefieldian period, he said: 2
" My next study was the bible, more particularly the
epistles, more particularly still the epistles of the Apostle
Paul. I spent seven years in this study. . . . The
result of my studying the Scriptures ... is a large
parcel of material suted to answer several designs."
This labor left Chauncy with absolute confidence in
the full and final authority and complete inspiration
of the Bible; but as his investigations were largely
through the lenses furnished by the works of Locke,
Clarke, Taylor, and Whitby, 3 the results were in many
1 See letter of May 6, 1768, to Dr. Ezra Stiles, in the possession of
Yale University. 2 Ibid.
3 See Chauncy's grateful acknowledgments of his indebtedness to
Taylor, in his Salvation of All Men, pp. xi.-xiv. London, 1784.
CHARLES CHAUNCY 301
points variant from current orthodoxy. Yet to
Chauncy they undoubtedly seemed the teachings of
the Bible as distinguished from man-made systems,
and creeds of human composition. 1
The first fruit of this study was a clever anonymous
satirical pamphlet 2 which he contributed to the dis-
cussion on Original Sin in 1758 a debate already
noted in our account of Edwards. The dissent from
current Calvinistic theories of imputation here indi-
cated is further developed in his Twelve Sermons of
1765, and in the last important publication he set
forth, the Five Dissertations on the Fall and its Conse-
quences, printed in 1785, though written before 1768.
In these discussions Chauncy maintained that all men
capable of moral action are sinners; but though that
universal sinfulness is a consequence of the primal
lapse, it is an indirect consequence. No man is guilty
of any but his personal sins, yet those personal sins
are the result of the enfeeblement of his nature which
the Scriptures include under the comprehensive term
" death," and death was the penalty of the Adamic
disobedience. 3
" The judicial sentence of God, occasioned by the one
offence of this one man, is that which fastens ' death,' with
1 See Salvation of All Men , pp. viii., ix. ; also his Twelve Sermons,
p. iii.
2 The Opinion of One that has perused the Summer Morning's Con-
versation concerning Original Sin, wrote by the Rev. Mr. Peter Clark.
Boston, 1758. 3 Twelve Sermons, p. 23.
3O2 CHARLES CHAUNCY
all its natural causes and appendages, upon the human
kind; and tis IN CONSEQUENCE of this sentence, UPON men's
coming into existence under the disadvantages arising from
it, that they ' sin ' themselves."
This may not seem a wide departure from then cur-
rent New England conceptions, yet the cleft between
it and a theory like that of Edwards was deep. It
enabled Chauncy to hold that men were not born sin-
ners, while inevitably becoming offenders if they grew
to years of moral responsibility.
The immediate occasion of the preparation of
Chauncy's Twelve Sermons, just mentioned, was the
preaching in Boston, in the autumn of 1764, of Robert
Sandeman, 1 that curious disciple of the Scotch re-
ligious seceder, John Glas. Sandeman, who found
some following in New England, especially in and
about Danbury, Conn., held that " justifying faith is
nothing more or less than the bare belief of the bare
truth" 2 that is, an accurate and undoubting intel-
lectual acceptance of the precise facts which the Script-
ures reveal concerning the life and work of the Saviour
constitutes saving faith in Christ. Over against
Sandeman, Chauncy asserted faith to be such an
assent of the mind to the truths witnessed to us by
the testimony of God in Revelation as causes them to
1 Chauncy wrote to Stiles, November 19, 1764, " Mr. Sandeman
went from this town last Friday P. M." Letter in possession of Yale
University.
2 See Contributions to the Eccles. Hist, of Conn., p. 284. New Haven,
1861.
CHARLES CHAUNCY 303
become a spring of right action in us, and leads us to
repentance, good works, and holiness of life. 1 It
need not be without admixture of error to be genuine.
Some error, probably, is present in the conceptions of
truth even of those of clearest spiritual vision. 8
This discussion led Chauncy to ask how saving faith
is obtained, and he answered in a way that Edwards
and Hopkins greatly opposed as an irreligious exalta-
tion of human powers, though his answer was not unlike
that of the representatives of the older Calvinism in
his day. He urged that while saving faith is the un-
merited gift of the " Spirit of God," and while God is
sometimes " found of those who sought him not,"
God " no more ordinarily BEGINS, than carries on, the
work of faith, as it respects it's existence and opera-
tion in the hearts of sinners, without the concurring
use of their powers and endeavours." 4 A man should
be urged to use his rational powers to know what he
can of God's ways, to discern good and evil, and to
foresee future rewards and punishments. He ought,
though unregenerate, to recognize the teachings of
Revelation, to feel something of the " sinfulness of
sin," to practise religious duties, to read and meditate
on God's Word, to be present and attentive at public
worship, and pray fervently and persistently to God
for salvation. 6 These things are not saving faith, but,
1 Twelve Sermons, sermons iii.-v. 2 Ibid., pp. 76-82.
3 Ibid., p. 192. *Ibid., p. 195. *> Ibid., pp. 205-216.
304 CHARLES CHAUNCY
Chauncy affirms, "'tis 'ordinarily' in concurrence
with ' these endeavours' of sinners that God bestows
his Spirit to ' begin ' the work of faith " ' The
plain truth is," says Chauncy, that " God, man, and
means are all concerned in the formation of that char-
acter, without which we cannot inherit eternal life." *
Naturally, such cooperation as this in the process of
salvation implies a very different degree of freedom in
man than Edwards believed to exist; and, in his
Benevolence of the Deity, published in 1784, but a work
to which he could refer in 1768 as " wrote many years
ago," 3 Chauncy treated of man's liberty at some
length. 4 He declared that man is " an intelligent
moral agent ; having in him an ability &\\& freedom to
WILL as well as to do, in opposition to NECESSITY
from any extraneous cause whatever." In maintain-
ing this self-determination he had Edwards evidently
in mind as a principal antagonist. 6
It is equally natural, also, that in the generally ex-
cellent series of sermons on the Lord's Supper which
Chauncy published, in 1772, under the title of Break-
ing of Bread, he should uphold the Stoddardean view,
denial of which had cost Edwards the Northampton
pulpit, and urge that 7 " the ordinance of the supper is
1 Twelve Sermons, p. 216. ** Ibid., p. 339.
3 The letter of May 6, 1768, often cited.
4 Benevolence of the Deity, pp. 128-144.
5 Ibid., title-page. * Ibid., pp. 131,132.
7 Breaking of Bread, p. 26; see also ibid., pp. 191-113.
CHARLES CHAUNCY 305
admirably well adapted to promote the edification of
all that come to it in the serious exercise of faith,
though their faith, at present, should not be such as
to argue their being ' born from above.' '
But however much man can cooperate with God,
Chauncy iterates and reiterates that " the worthiness
of that glorious person, who ' once offered up himself
a sacrifice to God for sin,' is the alone foundation of
all spiritual bestowments, whether to saints or sin-
ners." ]
To the thought of an atonement Chauncy holds
tenaciously. That atonement was due to the 2
" good will of God, and [is] one of the glorious effects of
it. ... Some may have expressed themselves, so as
to lead one to think, that the blood of Christ was shed to
pacify the resentments of God, . . . But ... so
far was the blood of Christ from being intended to work
upon the heart of God, and stir up compassion in him, that
it was love, and because he delighted in mercy, that he
' spared him not, but delivered him up for us all.' The
incarnation, obedience, sufferings, and death of Christ are
therefore to be considered as the way, or method, in which
the wisdom of God thought fit to bring into event the re-
demption of man. And a most wisely concerted method it
is. In this way, mankind are obviously led into just senti-
ments of the vile nature, and destructive desert of sin; as
also of that sacred regard, which God will forever show to
the honor of his own governing authority: Nor could they,
1 Twelve Sermons, pp. 267, 268 ; see also Salvation of All Men, pp.
D. 2O.
IQ, 20.
* Benevolence of the Deity, pp. 166, 167.
20
306 CHARLES CHAUNCY
in any way, have been more powerfully engaged to turn
from their iniquities."
Surely this is not far from that governmental theory
of the atonement which the younger Jonathan Ed-
wards was to put forth in the autumn of 1785, a year
after Chauncy's book was published, and to put forth
with such acceptance that it was long regarded as a
prime characteristic of New England theology.
In the biographical letter of 1768, from which we
have repeatedly quoted, Chauncy said : '
' The materials for one design I have put together and
they have layn by in a finished Quarto vol. for some years.
This is wrote w th too much freedom to admit of a publica-
tion in this country. Some of my friends who have seen it
have desired that I would send it home a for publication,
and to have it printed w th out a name. I question whether
it will ever see the light till after my death ; and I am not
yet determined, whether to permit its being y n printed, or
to order its being committed to flames. Tis a work that
cost me much thot, and a great deal of hard labor. It is
upon a most interesting subject."
The work thus tantalizingly indicated was issued at
last by its author, though anonymously, at London,
in 1784, under the title of The Mystery hid from Ages
and Generations, made manifest by the Gospel-Revela-
tion : or. The Salvation of All Men the Grand Thing
1 Letter to Ezra Stiles, May 6, 1768.
s z. e., to England, curiously illustrative of the pre-Revolutionary
feeling.
CHARLES CHAUNCY 307
aimed at in the Scheme of God. Though anonymous,
its authorship was well known, and called forth speedy
reply by name. 1
In this volume Chauncy not merely declared himself
a restorationist, but maintained with great ingenuity,
learning, and evident sincerity of conviction that res-
torationism is the teaching of the New Testament, and
especially of the Pauline epistles. No less positively
than Edwards, Chauncy holds that the vast majority
of intelligent mankind are on their way to hell. 3 But
hell is not eternal ; it is a place of frightful suffering,
prolonged " God only knows how long "; 3 but it has
an end ; and the end will come when the Mediatorial
King of this dispensation will have " put all enemies
under his feet," even that last of enemies, the second
death, and shall have delivered up the ransomed and
purified universe to " him that put all things under
him, that God may be all in all." 4
' The reign of Christ, in his mediatory kingdom, is to
make way for GOD'S BEING ALL IN ALL; and will accord-
ingly fast, till he has ripened and prepared things for the
commencement of this glorious period. . . . He will
[then] give up his mediatory kingdom to the Father, who will,
1 E. g., Jonathan Edwards, the younger, The Salvation of All Men
Strictly Examined, and the Endless Punishment of those who die Im-
penitent, Argued and Defended against the Objections and Reasonings of
the late Rev. Doctor Chauncy, of Boston, etc. New Haven, 1790.
2 Salvation of All Men, p. 322 ; for Edwards's views, see Works, vii.,
pp. 417, 418 : viii., pp. 202, 203. 3 Salvation of All Men, p. 343.
4 See i Corinthians, xv., 21-28, a passage of which Chauncy makes
much in his argument.
308 CHARLES CHAUNCY
from this time, reign IMMEDIATELY himself ; making the
most glorious manifestations of his being a God, and Father,
and Friend to all, in all things, without end.
The question naturally arises, in view of these and
other passages which have been quoted, as to what
conception Chauncy had of the person of Christ.
Chauncy nowhere enters fully into this problem. His
language regarding the Saviour is generally that of the
New Testament, but as far as I have observed he em-
ploys only those descriptive terms of Holy Writ which
may be held to imply subordination. Christ is the
" Son of God," in Chauncy 's sermons constantly.
And when he passes from the words of Scripture he
uses such phrases as " Saviour of Men," ; ' prime min-
ister of God's kingdom," and " grand commissioned
trustee " of God's purposes. 2 He affirms " that, next
to God, and in subordination to him, we should make
his Son, whom he has authorized to be our King and
Saviour, the beloved object of our faith and hope, our
submission and obedience." These, and many similar
proofs that could be adduced, make it evident that
Chauncy was a high Arian. Christ to him was an
object of worship; faith in Christ was the condition of
our salvation. Our acceptance with God is founded on
the " blood and righteousness" of Christ. Christ is
the " all in all," the sovereign of this dispensation; 3
yet he is not God, nor equal with God.
1 Salvation of All Men, pp. 217, 225. 2 Ibid., pp. 195, 324, 364.
id, pp. 217, 358, 364.
CHARLES CHAUNCY 309
It is evident that, in many points, Chauncy had de-
parted not merely from the historic theology of New
England, but from the presentations of truth historic-
ally characteristic of the Church Universal. But he
was curiously unconscious of this departure. He be-
lieved himself " unorthodox " on the question of the
ultimate fate of the wicked, and in his speculations
concerning the consequences of the fall, 1 but he felt
himself in sympathy not merely with historic Chris-
tianity but with the general Christianity of his own
age. Writing in 1765, he had said: 8
' The great fault of the faith of Christians at this day
. . . does not lie, as I imagine, unless in here and
there a detached instance, in fatal mistakes about the truth.
The incarnation, life, death, resurrection, and exaltation
of Christ, and the great articles connected herewith, and
dependent hereon, stand true in the minds of most chris-
tians, at least in this part of the world: Nor do they, as I
conceive, commonly mix falsehood with them, at least in so
gross a sense as to be justly chargeable with wholly subver-
ting their real meaning. And yet, they are far from being
the subjects of a faith that justifies. And the reason is
because the assent of their minds to the report of the gos-
pel, is not of the right kind. Tis the produce of education
and tradition, rather than the testimony of God. Tis a
feeble inoperative persuasion, little affecting their hearts or
influencing their lives. They receive the great doctrines
of Christianity as speculations, not important realities."
I have quoted this passage as illustrative alike of
1 Letter of May 6, 1768. * Twelve Sermons, pp. 91, 92.
310 CHARLES CHAUNCY
Chauncy's unconsciousness as to whither the move-
ment in which he bore an influential part was tend-
ing, and of his piety of heart. And I take it that
this unconsciousness was characteristic of the ministry
of eastern Massachusetts in his day. The Unitarian
outcome was as yet unsuspected. And, as for Chauncy
himself, one can but feel that in piety, devotion to
Christ, depth of consciousness of sin and knowledge
of the way of salvation, in spite of all his serious modi-
fications of the earlier theology, he stood in much
nearer sympathy with the founders of New England
than with Priestley, Lindsey, or their associates who
then bore in England the Unitarian name.
Chauncy's ministry was prolonged to the close of its
fifty-ninth year. Old age had somewhat limited his
activities, but his mind was keenly alive to the last,
and as his end drew near, he " was observed by those
who were near him to be a great part of his time en-
gaged in devotional exercises." 1 On February 10,
1787, he died at the age of eighty-two; and he left
behind him the memory not merely of a strong man
who greatly influenced New England thought, but of
a good man, whose only place could be in that Re-
deemer's kingdom which he believed would ultimately
include all men.
1 Obituary notice, in Massachusetts Gazette, February 13, 1787.
SAMUEL HOPKINS
3"
VIII.
SAMUEL HOPKINS
THE fundamental principles of New England Con-
gregationalism have always encouraged inde-
pendence of thought, however deficient the actual
application of those principles may sometimes have
been. Congregationalism has never held that Christian
truth is the possession of a special order of men, or
that it has been defined once for all in any creed or
exposition of merely human composition. It has
never believed that any man or council, since the
days of the Apostles, has enjoyed infallible divine
guidance; and if it has throughout most of its history
yielded an unquestioning deference to the books of the
Old and New Testaments, it is because of a conviction
of their divine authorship. Congregationalism has
always asserted that the God-given standard of its faith
is open on equal terms to the investigation of laymen
and of ministers; and that the occupant of the pew, if
of equal learning, has no inferiority to the clergyman in
the discovery of truth. That discovery, Congrega-
tionalism has maintained, is brought about by no
mystical processes, or submissions to assertions of
313
314 SAMUEL HOPKINS
authority, but by the application to the divine prin-
ciples of our faith, especially as revealed in the Bible,
of the same reasoning faculties by which truth in any
other realm of knowledge is attained. Hence, Con-
gregationalism has been characteristically rationalistic,
using that term in no opprobrious sense. As a result,
also, New England has produced theologians of greater
speculative originality than any other region of Amer-
ica. It is to one who was above all else a speculative
theologian, who by severest logic carried the hints
and the formulated principles of Edwards to posi-
tions which Edwards himself never reached, however
latent they may have been in his system, who built
on Edwards's foundation a distinct and original school
of theologic thinking, that I wish to turn your
thoughts to-day in speaking of the life and work of
Samuel Hopkins.
Yet, in describing Hopkins as first of all a specula-
tive theologian, the facts cannot be overlooked that
he was also a forerunner in a great philanthropic re-
form and a hard-working pastor. It is to the honor
of New England Christianity that its leaders men
as far apart in theological thinking as Edwards and
Chauncy, Bellamy and Channing, Emmons and Bush-
nell have been men of eminent piety of life and
pastoral instincts prompting to the shepherding of
souls. The speculative recluse, spinning his system
apart from contact with his fellows, or the theologian
SAMUEL HOPKINS 315
of the intellect only, divorcing religious truth from
personal conduct, have never found New England a
congenial soil. But New England thinkers have dif-
fered much in the degree in which their presentations
of truth have been the logically consistent outcome of
principles clearly grasped by the intellect, and in the
relentlessness with which they have allowed their
premises to lead to the full sweep of the dialectic
conclusions which those premises implied. In that
consistency which does not shrink from any conclusion
that accepted principles seem to demand Hopkins was
preeminent; and hence it may truly be said that the
speculative theologian is the aspect under which he
most characteristically presents himself.
The theme and the place alike remind me that it
would be unjust to begin any lecture upon Hopkins in
this classroom without some expression of apprecia-
tion of the admirable Memoir ' in which his life was
narrated and his work estimated by Professor Park
nearly half a century ago a memoir that renders the
path of any later student of Hopkins comparatively
easy, whether he agrees with all the judgments of the
eminent biographer or not.
In an account of his life written in old age, Hopkins
thus introduced himself: a
1 By Edwards A. Park, forming the Preface to The Works of Samuel
Hopkins, i., pp. iv.-264, Boston, 1852 ; also printed separately, Boston,
1854.
2 Hopkins's quaintly expressed and interesting autobiography, begun
SAMUEL HOPKINS
" I was born at Waterbury in Connecticut on the Lord's
day, September 17, 1721. My parents were professors of
religion; and I descended from Christian ancestors, both
by my father and my mother, as far back as I have been
able to trace my descent. ... As soon as I was capable
of understanding, and attending to it, I was told that my
father, when he was informed that he had a son born to
him said, if the child should live, he would give him a
public education, that he might be a minister or a sabbath-
day-man, alluding to my being born on the sabbath."
The little town where Hopkins's father was a
farmer, was, he records, a place " where a regard to
religion and morality was common and prevalent ";'
to how great a degree may be imagined from his
further statement: 2 '" I do not recollect that I ever
heard a prophane word from the children and youth,
with whom I was conversant, while I lived with my
parents, which was till I was in my fifteenth year."
Here the boy grew up, tall and heavily built, " of a
sober and steady make," he said of himself, " not
guilty of external irregularities, . . . disposed to
be diligent and faithful in ... business," so that
he " gained the notice, esteem, and respect of the
neighbourhood." 3 He had "sometimes, though
rarely . . . some serious thoughts of God," and
"in the seventy-fifth year of my age," was published by Rev. Stephen
West, of Stockbridge, in Sketches of the Life of the Late Rev. Samuel
Hopkins, D.D., etc., Hartford, 1805. The quotation is from pp. 23, 24.
* Ibid., p. 24.
p. 25. *Ibid.
SAMUEL HOPKINS 317
a dream in which his youthful fancy pictured himself
as " sentenced to everlasting misery, and driven down
to hell, with the rest of the wicked," made an impres-
sion on him that was vivid even to old age.
At fourteen, the serious-minded, reserved, and taci-
turn boy went from his father's home to the house of
Rev. John Graham, the Scotch-born pastor at South-
bury, ten miles from the Waterbury farm, to be fitted
for college; and two years later, in 1737, he entered
Yale. Of his course there he has recorded the follow-
ing description : '
" While a member of the college, I believe, I had the
character of a sober, studious youth, and of a better scholar
than the bigger half of the members of that society; and
had the approbation of the governours of the college. I
avoided the intimacy and the company of the openly
vicious; and indeed kept but little company, being atten-
tive to my studies. In the eighteenth or nineteenth year
of my age, I cannot now certainly determine which, I made
a profession of religion, and joined the church to which my
parents belonged in Waterbury. I was serious, and was
thought to be a pious youth, and I had this thought and
hope of myself. I was constant in reading the bible, and
in attending on public and secret religion. And sometimes
at night, in my retirement and devotion, when I thought
of confessing the sins I had been guilty of that day, and
asking pardon, I could not recollect that I had committed
one sin that day. Thus ignorant was I of my own heart,
and of the spirituality, strictness, and extent of the divine
law."
1 West, Sketches, pp. 27, 28.
318 SAMUEL HOPKINS
But this degree of Christian experience, although
equaling in depth that which many a theological
student then or now could honestly claim, soon came
to appear wholly inadequate to the young collegian.
Whitefield preached his stirring discourses in New
Haven just as Hopkins's Senior year was beginning;
and Gilbert Tennent, fresh from his revival labors at
Boston, delivered " seventeen sermons " in " about a
week," ;< with a remarkable and mighty power,"
during the spring before Hopkins's graduation. 1
Under Tennent's fiery discourses " many cried out
with distress and horror of mind, under a conviction
of God's anger, and . . . many professors of re-
ligion received conviction that they were not real
Christians. . . . The members of college appeared
to be universally awakened." Several of Hopkins's
fellow students, his classmates Samuel Buell and
David Youngs, with David Brainerd of the then
Sophomore class, " visited every room in college, and
discoursed freely and with the greatest plainness with
each one." a
Hopkins himself heartily approved these efforts
and believed himself a Christian, till Brainerd, in
the exercise of this student evangelism in which he
was a leader, came to Hopkins for an account of
that reticent scholar's religious state. Hopkins gave
1 West, Sketches, pp. 30-32.
SAMUEL HOPKINS 319
no hint of his lack of such religious experiences
as Brainerd thought were alone evidences of a
regenerate condition; but, none the less, Brainerd's
assertion that it was " impossible for a person to be
converted and to be a real Christian without feeling
his heart, at sometimes at least, sensibly and greatly
affected with the character of Christ," " struck con-
viction " through him. To the distressed and honest
student it seemed, as it did to the aged minister, who
thus recorded his youthful experiences, that he " was
indeed no Christian," but "a guilty, justly condemned
creature," whose " condition appeared darker from
day to day." Even a sudden and overwhelming
" sense of the being and presence of God . . .
and the character of Jesus Christ the mediator," which
came to him one evening as he meditated and prayed
alone, flooding his soul with a new consciousness of
the blessedness of communion with God, while reveal-
ing his own unworthiness, did not dispel this feeling
of lack of any saving change of nature; though the
aged Hopkins, as he reviewed this experience, mar-
veled that he did not then recognize in it his conver-
sion. 1
Hopkins was now twenty years of age. From his
first listening to Tennent he had determined to seek
him out and if possible live with that fervent evangel-
ist as soon as college days were over ; but a sermon by
'West, Sketches, pp. 33-37.
32O SAMUEL HOPKINS
Jonathan Edwards on " the trial of the spirits," heard
at New Haven just before graduation, turned Hop-
kins's preference to the Northampton minister, and he
decided, if possible, to enjoy Edwards's personal in-
struction. It was characteristic of the shy and reserved
young Senior that, though thus determined, he did not
speak to the preacher who so powerfully moved him. 1
Graduation saw Hopkins once more in his boyhood
home, praying and fasting and " dejected and very
gloomy in mind " ; 2 yet he took some part in attempts
44 to promote religion among the young people in the
town." But, by the December following the Septem-
ber commencement when he received his degree, Hop-
kins had reached the desired Northampton parsonage
on horseback, unknown, and only to find that Ed-
wards himself was absent on an extended evangelistic
tour; yet welcomed and invited to spend the winter
by Mrs. Edwards and her household.
Yet he could have been no cheerful visitor. ' I was
very gloomy and was most of the time retired in my
chamber," he recorded, and though Mrs. Edwards
offered spiritual comfort and declared to him her belief
that " God intended yet to do great things " by him,
" this conversation did not sensibly raise [his] spirits in
the least degree. " Nor did he admit a trembling hope
that he might, after all, be one of the children of God,
1 West, Sketches, pp. 37, 38.
8 For the facts in this paragraph, see Ibid., pp. 38-43.
SAMUEL HOPKINS $21
till his classmate, Samuel Buell, had greatly stirred
Northampton in January, 1742, and Mrs. Edwards had
passed through her high-wrought experience in con-
scious submission to the divine will, even to a readiness
to be with the lost forever. 1 And even when, after Ed-
wards's return, the self-distrustful young man had
related the reasons for his hesitatingly admitted belief
to the Northampton pastor, it was with no expectation
of receiving full assurance. Edwards " gave not his
opinion expressly ; nor did I desire he should," Hop-
kins later recorded with transparent honesty, " for I
was far from relying on any man's judgment in such a
case. But I supposed he entertained a hope that I
was a Christian." Nor did Hopkins ever wholly rid
himself of the fear that he had been self-deceived in
the fundamental matter of his conversion. One of
the most pathetic memorials of his experience is the
concluding portion of his autobiographic sketches, in
which the worn servant of God, then more than
seventy-eight years of age, and able to look back on a
ministry of fifty-six years' duration, sums up with
hesitating judgment the evidences that point to the
reality of his Christian life, and those which " some-
times are the ground of strong suspicion and doubt
whether [he is] a real friend to Christ."
Doubtless much of this self-distrust was tempera-
mental in Hopkins; but much also was characteristic
} Ante, pp. 238-40. 8 West, Sketches, pp. 113-131.
322 SAMUEL HOPKINS
of the school of religious thought which he repre-
sented, viewing conversion, as it did, as involving the
mightiest exercise of the sovereign and selective grace
of God, and looking upon the human heart not only
as infinite in its depth of wickedness, but wellnigh
infinite, also, in its possibilities of self-deception.
Yet, though self-distrustful, a few weeks in Ed-
wards's home had determined Hopkins to preach the
Gospel. Accordingly, on April 29, 1/42, less than
eight months after graduating from Yale, he sought
and received licensure from the Fairfield East Associa-
tion of his native colony; 1 and, returning to North-
ampton, assisted Edwards in pastoral labors and
preached in neighboring towns. 2 December brought
an invitation to Simsbury, Conn., and a winter of
preaching there was followed by a call to the Sims-
bury pastorate. But the fact that thirty votes were
cast against the proposition induced Hopkins to de-
cline, and he went back to the friendly household at
Northampton for further study in theology. North-
ampton air did not agree with him, and the long
horseback rides suggested as a remedy for his rheu-
matic ills led the young preacher, in July, 1743, to
the frontier Berkshire village then known as Housa-
tonick, but more familiar under its later name, Great
Barrington. It was a discouraging little half-New
1 F. B. Dexter, Biog. Sketches of the Grad. of Yah College, i., p. 671.
2 West, Sketches, pp. 45-48.
SAMUEL HOPKINS 323
England, half-Dutch parish of thirty families, of small
worldly wealth, and of the lax religious and social
habits which life on the verge of civilization always
fosters. But the Great Barrington people gave a
unanimous invitation to Hopkins to become their
pastor, and here he was ordained, as he records, " on
the 28th day of December, just at the end of the year
1743, when [he] was twenty-two years, three months,
and eleven days old."
Here, at Great Barrington, four years after his
ordination, Hopkins married a member of his congre-
gation, Joanna Ingersoll, 1 whose twenty years of severe
invalidism, ending in her death in 1793, added its
burden of care and of sorrow to much of his ministry. 2
Here his five sons and three daughters were born.
Here, too, he enjoyed for nearly seven years, from
1751 to 1758, the close companionship of his revered
friend and teacher, Jonathan Edwards, whose call to
the neighboring Stockbridge, only seven miles from
his home, was procured by Hopkins's endeavors; and
here also he enjoyed throughout his ministry the
friendship of that other eminent disciple of Edwards,
Joseph Bellamy, of Bethlehem, Conn. How influ-
ential this companionship with Edwards must have
been for his younger admirer will readily be conjec-
tured when it is remembered that Edwards's more
1 West, Sketches, p. 54. Married January 13, 1748.
3 Ibid., pp. 82, 83. Died August 31, 1793.
324 SAMUEL HOPKINS
important treatises were talked over with Hopkins and
written during their author's Stockbridge pastorate,
and that after Edwards's untimely death his manu-
scripts were confided to Hopkins's keeping. Nor
was the friendship of the elder divine unrewarded
by sacrifice on the part of the younger, It was Hop-
kins's refusal of the Stockbridge appointment, and of
the handsome increase in his income that it implied,
in order that he might urge the selection of his friend,
that opened the way for Edwards's settlement. 1
Personally, the Great Barrington pastor was, and
remained through his long life, a man of many
peculiarities. " I have loved retirement," said
Hopkins in his old age, " and have taken more pleas-
ure alone, than in any company : And have often
chosen to ride alone, when on a journey, rather than
, in the best company." Every Saturday he spent,
when possible, " in retirement, and in fasting and
prayer." His breakfast and his supper alike, on days
not given to fasting, consisted of " bread and milk,
from a bowl containing about three "gills, never vary-
ing from that quantity, whether his appetite required
more or not so much "a diet which he changed dur-
ing his later Newport years, as far as breakfast was con-
cerned, for " a cup of coffee and a little Indian bread."
1 West, Sketches, p. 54. * Ibid., p. 86.
3 William Patten, Reminiscences of Late Rev. Samuel Hopkins, 1843,
quoted in Park, Memoir, pp. 52, 242.
SAMUEL HOPKINS 325
Exercise he never took, save as his pastoral work
brought it to him; but from fourteen to eighteen
hours a day were spent in his study, beginning at four
in the morning, or between four and five as a conces-
jj n to winter's darkness^ and cold. 1 At nine every
evening he ceased work, prayed with his family, and
it is to be hoped conversed a little, for he could dis-
play much humor in talking with those who penetrated
beyond his barrier of reserve. 2 At ten he was abed.
Though once at the beginning of his ministry, and
in the excitement of the Whitefieldian revival, the
congregation at Suffield had been so moved that he
(< could not be heard all over the meeting-house, by
reason of the outcries of the people," 3 Hopkins was
esteemed a very dull preacher. ' He was the very
ideal of bad delivery," 4 was Channing's comment on
his pulpit manner; " such tones never came from any
human voice within my hearing." And of these de-
ficiencies Hopkins himself was painfully conscious.
In his seventy-fifth year he wrote: " My preaching
has always appeared to me as poor, low, and miserable,
compared with what it ought to be. ... I have
felt often as if I must leave off, and never attempt any
1 West, Sketches, p. 84.
2 Park, Memoir, pp. 242, 243 ; and also W. E. Channing, Works,
iv., pp. 347-354, Boston, 1849, a biographic note of very great value for
Hopkins's appearance in his Newport old age.
3 West, Sketches, p. 44.
4 W. E. Channing, Works, iv.. p. 348.
326 SAMUEL HOPKINS
more." ' Hopkins labored faithfully to overcome his
defects. By diligent effort he freed himself from the
fully written manuscript; but he never attained ease,
animation, or effectiveness. Yet the matter of his dis-
courses always won him friends, whose " satisfaction
and approbation " he attributed with reason as well as
with characteristic modesty " to their high relish for
the truth," as he understood it, " however poor and
defective the delivery and exhibition of it " might be.
One of these satisfied hearers, who listened to a chance
sermon from the aged Hopkins, delivered, at the in-
vitation of Chauncy's Arian successor, John Clarke, in
what had been Chauncy's very un-Hopkinsian Boston
pulpit, presented him five or six hundred dollars as
an expression of esteem at a time when Hopkins's
stipend from his Newport congregation was not more
than two hundred dollars a year. 8
Hopkins always had a low estimate of himself. He
walked very humbly with God, and with great devout-
ness of spirit and practice. His pecuniary generosity
was far beyond that even of reputedly devoted minis-
ters generally in that self-denying age, 3 and was given
from a penury such as few ministers of that epoch had
to endure. " I have taken care not to run in debt
for the necessaries of life," wrote Hopkins in 1796,
1 West, Sketches, pp. 88-92.
2 Park, Memoir, pp. 233, 234.
3 For instances, see Channing, Works, iv., p. 349 ; Park, Memoir, pp.
94 95 \ West, Sketches, pp. xiv., xv.
SAMUEL HOPKINS 327
''' though frequently if a dollar extraordinary had
been called for, it would have rendered me a bank-
rupt I have endeavored to live as cheap and low as
I could, and be comfortable, and answer the ends of
living in my station and business." 1 His comforts
were those of the mind rather than of the body; and
being such he never impressed his acquaintances as a
really poor man. ' He was an illustration of the
power of our spiritual nature," said Channing, speak-
ing of Hopkins's old age. 8
" In narrow circumstances, with few outward indulgences,
in great seclusion, he yet found much to enjoy. He lived
in a world of thought above all earthly passions.
It has been my privilege to meet with other examples of the
same character, with men, who, amidst privation, under
bodily infirmity, and with none of those materials of enjoy-
ment which the multitude are striving for, live in a world
of thought, and enjoy what affluence never dreamed of,
men having nothing, yet possessing all things; and the
sight of such has done me more good, has spoken more to
my head and heart, than many sermons and volumes."
But with all his humility, of one thing Hopkins was
confident with a confidence that led him at times into
arrogance toward or contempt for an opponent. ; ' I
had, from time to time, some opposers of the doctrines
which I preached," 3 wrote Hopkins, ;< but being
1 West, Sketches, pp. 79, 80.
2 Channing, Works, iv., pp. 352, 353.
3 West, Sketches, p. 60.
328 SAMUEL HOPKINS
persuaded, and knowing that they were the truths
contained in divine revelation, this opposition, from
whatever quarter, did not in the least deter or discour-
age me." He believed himself called of God to write
his books, 1 and when asked, just at the end of his life,
whether he would "make any alteration in the sen-
timents" expressed in his System of Divinity, he
answered, " No: I am willing to rest my soul on
them forever." 8 This confidence he imparted to
those near to him. When the wife of his old age, who
survived him, was approached with a suggestion that
an abridged edition of his System would find a readier
market than a full reprint, she answered: " If the
public will not be at the expense of printing it as it is,
let them do without it till the millennium ; then it will
be read and published with avidity."
The mention of the second Mrs. Hopkins recalls the
fact that she was almost as well read in theology as
he, and that the intellectual bond was strong between
the aged husband and the wife of his later days. On
September 14, 1794, a twelvemonth after his first
wife's release from her long years of distressing in-
validism, Hopkins married Miss Elizabeth West, a
member of his Newport congregation and a much
esteemed teacher, who was already in her fifty-sixth
year. Hopkins was then seventy-three. But much
'Diary, in Park, Memoir, p. 197.
'Park, Memoir, p. 232. * Ibid., p. 241.
SAMUEL HOPKINS 329
more than an intellectual sympathy united them.
Hopkins was always kindly and considerate in his
household, and his affection went out toward his wife
with a warmth which even the technically theological
dress of its expression cannot conceal, as he wrote : l
"I . . . esteem it as one of the greatest favours of
my life to have such a companion in my advanced years,
in whose prudence, good family economy, friendship, and
benevolent care I can confide; and who is to me the first
object among creatures, of the love of esteem, benevolence,
complacency, and gratitude."
In glancing thus at Hopkins's personal traits we
have passed beyond the limits of his Great Barrington
ministry. That pastorate was one of trial. The
church, formed on the day of his ordination, began
with only five members, to whom seventy-one were
added by confession and forty-five by letter during
his service of almost exactly a quarter of a century. 3
But the town was divided. Hopkins's sympathy with
Edwards in opposition to the popular Stoddardeanism
and to the Half-Way Covenant cost him the support
of many, and aided in the establishment in 1760 of
an Episcopal church in his parish ; while Hopkins's
patriotism was equally distasteful to a large Tory
element as the controversies preceding the Revolution
ran their course. 3
1 West, Sketches, pp. 83, 84.
2 Park, Memoir, pp. 35, 67. *Ibid., pp. 67-72.
330 SAMUEL HOPKINS
But his theological views most of all made him
enemies. Strenuous, like his teacher and friend Ed-
wards, in asserting not merely the absolute sovereignty
of God, but in representing every act of that sovereignty
as a manifestation of a benevolence which had the good
of the universe as its aim, Hopkins preached a sermon,
in 1757, having as its theme, " The Lord Reigneth,"
which seemed to a parishioner to maintain " that noth-
ing could possibly happen but what was right and
ought to be rejoiced in, because all was exactly as God
would have it, even events the most vile." To the
parishioner's perplexed thought this seemed an asser-
tion that " God and the devil are of one mind " ; and
the parishioner announced his intention of procuring, if
possible, the dismission of a pastor who preached such
doctrine. 1 This discussion led Hopkins to the publica-
tion, in 1759, of his first doctrinal treatise, under the
caption : 2 Sin, thro' Divine Interposition, an Advantage
to the Universe ; and yet, this no Excuse for Sin, or En-
couragement to it ; a title, said Hopkins, writing thirty-
seven years later, " so shocking to many that they
would read no farther." 3
In this treatise Hopkins maintained the following
principles : 4
" The Holiness of God primarily consists in LOVE,
or Benevolence to himself, and to the Creature; in the
1 Park, Memoir, pp. 68, 69. 2 Published at Boston.
'West, Sketches, p. 93. 4 Ed. of 1759, pp. 45, 46.
SAMUEL HOPKINS 331 __.
Exercise of which, he seeks his own Glory, and the Happi-
ness of the Creature; or, in one Word, he seeks the Good of
the UNIVERSE, as comprehending both Creator and Crea-
tures. And this God aimed at and sought in permitting
Sin, as much as in any Act whatever; and therefore this
was an Exercise of Holiness, even to permit Sin. For
God permitted Sin, because he saw that this was the best
way to promote this End, and accomplish the highest Good
of the Universe. . . . The greatest Good of the Whole,
may be inconsistent with the Good of every Individual.
God may be more glorified; yea, there may be
more Happiness among Creatures, than if Sin had never
taken Place. For tho Sin is the Means of the eternal
Misery of many, yet it may be the Means of increasing the
Happiness of others to so great a Degree, as that, upon the
whole, there shall be more Happiness, than if there had
been no Sin. . . . They who are made miserable by
Sin, are justly miserable. Sin is their own Fault; and for
it they deserve eternal Destruction; and therefore God
does them no Wrong in casting them into Hell; they have
but their Desert. . . . God exercises Severity towards
some; but 't is a just Severity ; 'T is as just as if no Good
came to others by Means of Sin."
This was strong meat; though it involved little that
was not implied in the thoughts of Edwards, or, in-
deed, that was not characteristic of the severer type of
Calvinism generally. But it was speedily followed by
a further application of' Edwardean principles that
brought Hopkins into sharp conflict with much of
the Old, or " Moderate " Calvinism of his day. In a
preceding lecture it has been pointed out that eigh-
teenth-century New England Calvinism of the older
332 SAMUEL HOPKINS
school, as distinguished from the " New Divinity " of
Edwards and his sympathizers, though asserting that
salvation was wholly a work of the sovereign grace of
God which man can in no way effect, nevertheless
held that by the use of " means," such as attendance
of public worship, reading the Scriptures, strenuous
uprightness of conduct, and prayer, unregenerate men
could put themselves in a position where God was
more likely to save them. Such earnest and upright
men, though guilty before God and needing a spiritual
new birth for salvation, were not so guilty as if they
lived in open contempt of God's ordinances.
This widely prevalent view, characteristic of eigh-
teenth-century Old Calvinism, was pushed further by
some. In 1744, the missionary to the Indians of
Martha's Vineyard, Experience Mayhew, argued, in
his Grace Defended, that " the best Actions of the
Unregenerate are not properly called Sins, nor uncap-
able of being Conditions of the Covenant of Grace,"
his view being very similar to that of Samuel Phillips 3
of Andover, that a faithful use of the "means of grace "
would fulfill the conditions on which God was pleased to
bestow that special favor which alone brings salvation.
These principles were carried yet further by those of
the New England ministry who were not Calvinists.
Thus Chauncy, for instance, declared in a passage al-
ready quoted from his volume of Twelve Sermons, pub-
1 Page 148. 2 See Ante, p. 231.
SAMUEL HOPKINS 333
lished in 1765, that God " no more ordinarily BEGINS,
than carries on the work of faith, as it respects it's exis-
tence and operation in the hearts of sinners, without
the concurring use of their powers and endeavours." l
But the immediate occasion of Hopkins's first con-
troversial pamphlet on the means of grace was the
publication, in 1761, of two sermons 2 by Experience
Mayhew's un-Calvinistic and Arian son, Jonathan, the
pastor of the West Church in Boston, in which he as-
serted that regeneration is conditioned on the earnest
efforts of good men to obtain it. Four years later,
Hopkins answered these sermons with An Enquiry
Concerning the Promises of the Gospel, whether any of
them are made to the Exercises and Doings of persons in
an Unregenerate State* To Hopkins's thinking/
" the impenitent sinner, who continues obstinately to reject
and oppose the salvation offered in the gospel, does in some
respects, yea, on the whole, become, not less, but more
vicious and guilty in God's sight, the more instruction and
knowledge he gets in attendance on the means of grace."
Hence, in Hopkins's judgment, such preaching as
that of Mayhew was radically wrong. 5
" Instead of calling upon all to repent and believe the
gospel, as the only condition of God's favor and eternal
1 Twelve Sermons, p. 195.
2 Striving to Enter in at the strait Gate Explained and Inculcated 'j
and the Connection of Salvation therewith Proved. Boston, 1761.
3 Boston, 1765.
* Enquiry, pp. 124, 125. 5 Ibid., pp. 99, 139, 140.
334 SAMUEL HOPKINS
life, the most they [such preachers] do, with relation to
unregenerate sinners, is to exhort and urge them to these
doings which are short of repentance. . . . There is
no difficulty in the sinner's complying with the offers of
the gospel, but what lies in his want of an inclination and
true desire to accept the salvation offered; and a strong
and obstinate inclination to the contrary."
Means the sinner must use; for the means of grace
give " speculative or doctrinal knowledge " of truth,
and " there can be no discerning of the beauty of
those objects, of which the mind has no speculative
idea." But the use of means, without the full sub-
mission of the heart to God, only adds guilt. God
has made " no promises of regenerating grace or salva-
tion ... to the exercises and doing of unregener-
ate men." 1 Sinners, while they remain sinners, have
no share in any promise of the Gospel. Their prayers,
their apprehensions of sin, their diligence in studying
God's Word, and attendance upon God's worship are
but aggravations of their guilt. They have the natural
ability instantly to repent and serve God.
Hopkins's denial that there were any promises to the
unregenerate led him to a negation which must have
seemed to the thinking of his own age even more
startling a denial that there are " any promises in
the bible to regeneration itself, or to the regenerate,
antecedent to any exercise of holiness, but only to
those exercises which are the fruit and consequence of
1 Enquiry, pp. 81, 123, 124.
SAMUEL HOPKINS 335
regeneration." 1 This statement gives us a glimpse
of another feature of the theology of Hopkins, based
indeed on the Edwardean theories of will and of
virtue, but much more definitely elaborated than by
Edwards. In Hopkins's view, as set forth in the En-
quiry under consideration, and even more fully in Two
Discourses? preached originally at Ipswich, Mass., 3
and printed in 1768, praise and blame, sin and
righteousness attach to acts, or " exercises of the
mind." For the character of these acts man is
responsible ; but they root themselves back in a
' biass," " heart," " taste, temper, or disposition,"
from which they flow. Yet of itself, and in its passive
state, that bias gives no moral quality to its possessor ;
it is only to acts and " exercises" that moral values
apply. What that " biass " may be in itself " ante-
cedent to all thought," Hopkins declares difficult to
conceive, though he drops a hint that shows an in-
clination toward the views later elaborated by Em-
mons, when he intimates that it "is wholly to be
resolved into divine constitution or law of nature." 5
Now, in regeneration, this "biass " which results in acts
1 Enquiry, p. 54.
2 Two Discourses /. On the Necessity of the Knowledge of the Law
of God, in Order to the Knowledge of Sin. II. A Particular and Critical
Inquiry into the Cause, Nature, and Means of that Change in which Men
are Born of God. Boston, 1768.
8 Letter to Bellamy, in Park, Memoir, pp. 190,, 200. The sermons
were preached in the summer of 1767. ^Enqinry, pp. 77, 79.
5 Two Discourses, p. 38 ; compare also Park, Memoir, pp. 191, 200.
336 SAMUEL HOPKINS
of evil, is changed, " by the Spirit of God, immediately
and instantaneously, and altogether imperceptibly
to the person who is the subject of it," into " a new
and opposite ' biass,' which is by our Saviour called
an honest and good heart." In this transaction " man,
the subject, is wholly passive," a but having this new
" biass " his acts or " exercises " go out freely God ward
in an active " conversion," and " all the promises of
the gospel are made to these exercises of the mind "
which has thus been renewed by the Holy Spirit.
These may seem scholastic distinctions; but in real-
ity they were concerned with matters of great practical
importance, and, being so, they plunged their author
into as heated a controversy as any that eighteenth-
century New England witnessed. Let us put the
problem in a more concrete form. Let us suppose the
case, familiar in the experience of every New England
congregation, of a man of high repute in the commun-
ity, upright, a good citizen, a regular attendant upon
and supporter of public worship, a reader of the Bible,
habitual in prayer it may be, but not consciously or in
public repute a Christian. You have most of you seen
him oftentimes. Sedate, honest, reputable, very
probably interested in philanthropic or moral reform,
regularly in his pew, and his children regularly in the
Sunday-school, he is very likely the main pillar in
1 Enquiry, pp. 78, 79. 2 Two Discourses, p. 38.
* Enquiry, p. 77.
SAMUEL HOPKINS 337
the ecclesiastical society, and he is also apt to be the
problem which most perplexes the minister in seasons
of religious interest.
Now is such a man really better or worse than one
who treats religion with open scorn ? Hopkins answers
that he is much worse. It is his " indispensable duty,"
his " highest interest immediately to repent. . .* .
Nothing can possibly be the least excuse for [his]
neglecting it one minute"; 1 and all exhortations to
effort, all prayer, all knowledge of truth, if this primal
duty is undone, are but aggravations of guilt; for
" there is no difficulty in the sinner's complying with
the offers of the gospel, but what lies in his want of
inclination " 2 to do so.
Yet if such a man is perfectly free to accept or reject
the Gospel if he will, is this then a haphazard world
where God does not rule absolutely, and where He is
uncertain or even undeterminating as to what His crea-
tures shall do ? Not at all, says Hopkins. Though the
man is free, he is free only in the sense that he follows
his inclinations. His acts are good or bad, and as such
deserve praise or blame. But back of the acts lies a taste
or propensity which in all natural men since Adam has
made it certain that all their acts would, though free,
be evil, till that bias is changed by the sovereign
power of God. The man of our supposition may
serve God if he will, he is infinitely guilty that he does
1 Two Discourses, p. 65. 9 Enquiry, p. 99.
338 SAMUEL HOPKINS
not do so ; but, as a matter of fact, he will not serve
God till he is born again, because till then he has no
inclination to do so.
So fundamental is the divine control that not only
is all virtue the product of the divine Spirit, but 1
" there appears to be no rational or consistent medium,
between admitting that God, according to the scriptures,
has chosen and determined that all the moral evil which
does, or ever will exist, should take place, and consequently
is so far the origin and cause of it ; Or believing and as-
serting, that sin has taken place, in every view, and in all
respects, contrary to his will, he having done all that he
could to prevent the existence of it; but was not able; and
is therefore not the infinitely happy, uncontrollable, supreme
Governor of the world ; but is dependent, disappointed
and miserable."
Hence the duty of a minister is to preach instant
and complete repentance, and the guilt of all who do
not exercise this grace, while recognizing that God
will carry out His sovereign purpose in granting or
withholding that " new heart " which alone makes
repentance actual.
By the time that the Two Discourses that have just
been considered were published, in 1768, Hopkins's
own situation at Great Barrington was one of much
difficulty. Opposition, partly from Tories and partly
from doctrinal antagonists, made it very hard for him
to gain even a meagre pecuniary support. Hopkins
1 System, ed. 1811, i., p. 162.
SAMUEL HOPKINS 339
himself felt that he had " had no great apparent suc-
cess in the ministry." And as a result of all these
influences, on January 18, 1769, he was dismissed from
his pastoral charge. The outlook was, indeed, gloomy
from his point of view. Feeling between theological
parties in New England was bitter, and Hopkins had
won the hostility not only of the Liberals of the day,
but of the Old Calvinists, a much more important
factor in New England religious life. Moreover, he
was determined not to settle over any church, the mem-
bers of which did not appear to his strenuous judg-
ment, " at least a good number of them, to be real
Christians" And he recorded his opinion that " it was
not probable that such a Church could be found." It
seemed to him that he would have to live as a farmer
on the bit of land that he owned at Great Barrington.
But not even the personal trials just spoken of
could keep Hopkins from writing in defense of the
views which he believed to be the truth of God. His
reply to Mayhew had drawn out an answer from the
venerable and revivalistic minister at what is now
Huntington, Conn., Rev. Jedidiah Mills, 2 in 1767;
1 For the facts in this paragraph see Hopkins's autobiography, West,
Sketches, pp. 49, 50, 60.
2 An Inquiry concerning the State of the Unregenerate under the
Gospel ; whether on every rising degree of internal Light, Conviction
and Amendment of Life, they are (while unregenerate) undoubtedly, on
the whole, more vile, odious and abominable (in God^s sight) than they
would have been had they continued secure and at ease, going on in their
sins. New Haven, 1767.
340 SAMUEL HOPKINS
and also during the same year from the scholarly Old
Calvinist, Moses Hemmenway, of Wells, Me. ; the
latter pamphlet bearing the suggestive title, Seven Ser-
mons on the Obligation and Encouragement of the Un-
regenerate to labour for the Meat which endureth to
everlasting Life. 1
In the view of the first named of these able and
worthy divines in particular, Hopkins's denial of any
divine promise to "unregenerate doings " appeared not
merely an erroneous but a dangerous perversion of the
Gospel, to which the devil " puts his hearty Amen."
To the task of answering Mills, Hopkins set himself
immediately after his dismission, while still living at
Great Barrington; and the result was a sturdy little
volume, printed at New Haven in 1769, under the title,
The true State and Character of the Unregenerate,
stripped of all Misrepresentation and Disguise, in which
Hopkins repeated, expanded, and reenforced the argu-
ments of his previous Enquiry, in a tone of a good
deal of arrogance and bitterness. That " severity,"
as he later described it, some of his friends deprecated,
since in their judgment, as well as that of Hopkins
himself, Mills " was a good man, and had done much
good," and in his old age Hopkins came to believe that
his friends were right, although he declared that he
had " had no perception " of personal animus when
writing. 2 One is not surprised to find that Hopkins
1 Boston, 1767. 2 West, Sketches, p. 96.
SAMUEL HOPKINS 341
seemed to a liberal theologian like Chauncy " a trouble-
some, conceited, obstinate man "; l or that Chauncy,
in Hopkins's view, was the standard of ''all the uncir-
cumcised in and about Boston." 2 Neither was correct
in his estimate of the other; but these mutually con-
demnatory judgments show the theological animosities
of the time.
Hopkins's writings roused strenuous opposition. An
evidence of this hostility appeared in the severe
criticism of his views put forth in 1769 by one of
the most respected and talented men in the Con-
necticut ministry of that day, the vigorous Old
Calvinist, Rev. William Hart of Saybrook, under the
title, Brief Remarks on a number of False Propositions,
and Dangerous Errors, which are spreading in the
Country; Collected out of sundry Discourses lately pub-
lish d, wrote by Dr. Whitaker and Mr. Hopkins* And,
not content with this attack, Hart stirred Hopkins by
an anonymous satirical pamphlet of the same year,
purporting to be A Sermon of a New Kind, Never
preached ; nor ever will be ; Containing a Collection of
Doctrines, belonging to the Hopkintonian Scheme of
Orthodoxy; or the Marrow of the Most Modern Divinity.
And an Address to the Unregenerate, agreeable to the
Doctrines."
1 Letter to Stiles of November 14, 1769, in the possession of Yale
University.
2 Letter to Bellamy of July 23, 1767, quoted in Park, Memoir, p. 133.
3 New London, 1769. 4 New Haven, 1769.
342 SAMUEL HOPKINS
The satire just mentioned was published in Decem-
ber, 1769, at an interesting juncture in Hopkins's
history. During the spring and summer of that year
he had sought a new settlement. 1 The Old South
congregation at Boston had shown him some favor,
but a strong opposition made a call impossible. Hop-
kins's own disinclination had prevented a settlement
at Topsham, Me. ; but six weeks of preaching at
Newport, R. I., had led to an invitation to the
pastorate of the First Church of that thriving sea-
port by a vote of seven to three. Hopkins decided to
accept the call, divided though it was; but when he
had reached this conclusion, after some weeks of
thought, he found that Hart's pamphlets had roused
such opposition that the committee requested delay,
urging that he supply the pulpit till the minds of the
people could be more united. So Hopkins labored
on, till, by March, 1770, it was evident that the major-
ity was against him. Convinced that his usefulness
at Newport was at an end, he asked leave to preach a
farewell sermon, a discourse which, wholly uninten-
tionally on the part of the preacher, so moved the
congregation in his favor that within a few days, and
under the leadership of some of his chief opponents,
the church gave him, well-nigh unanimously, the long
doubtful call to its pastorate. On April n, 1770, the
1 For some of the facts in this paragraph see West, Sketches, pp.
61-74.
SAMUEL HOPKINS 343
formal relationship was instituted which was to con-
tinue till his death on December 20, 1803.
That pastorate was, however, destined to be a time
of severe pecuniary trial. The Revolutionary War
broke down the trade of Newport, while the British
and afterward the French occupation of the town
brought in all the distractions and distresses of military
control. Hopkins's intense Americanism compelled
him to fly for safety from the British invaders in De-
cember, 1776, and to be absent till the spring of 1780
a time which he spent in pastoral labors at New-
buryport, Canterbury, and Stamford. His home-
coming found his congregation scattered, the parson-
age destroyed, and the meeting-house rendered unfit
for use. For a year the congregation could pay him
nothing, while an attractive call to Middleboro prom-
ised a comfortable support for his invalid wife and
considerable family. 1 But Hopkins was not a man
easily discouraged regarding what he deemed a duty,
however distrustful of his own spiritual life, and he
elected to remain at Newport without fixed salary and
dependent on weekly contributions which are said not
to have exceeded two hundred dollars a year in their
usual aggregate. 2 Nor was the spiritual fruitage of
his pastoral labors at all encouraging. His church
at the comparatively flourishing period of his settle-
ment had only seventy members, and he added but
1 West, Sketches, pp. 77-79. 2 Pa rk, Memoir, p. 243.
344 SAMUEL HOPKINS
fifty-nine by profession and by commendation from
other churches in the thirty-three years of his Newport
ministry. 1
At the time of Hopkins's Newport settlement we saw
that he was smarting under Hart's criticisms, which
he believed were not only an attack on the truth in
general but a special cause of difficulty in his Newport
congregation. To a man of his temperament a speedy
answer to Hart was inevitable, and before 1770 had
run its course Hopkins's Animadversions on Mr. Harfs
late Dialogue 3 had been given to the public. In this
pamphlet he charged Hart with failure to read his own
publications thoroughly, with a denial of total deprav-
ity, and with standing " on the arminian side, so far
as he is on any side, or attempts to reason at all."
Hopkins, moreover, urged Hart's attention to Ed-
wards's posthumous, but extremely influential, essay
on the Nature of True Virtue, which Hopkins had
published in 1765, calling on Hart to attempt its con-
futation. 3 The effort to which the Saybrook minister
was thus dared, he undertook with a good deal of
acumen in 1771;* and, in 1772, his fellow Old
1 Park, Memoir, pp. 84, 85. ^ Published at New London.
3 Animadversions, pp. 17, 29; Professor Park, Memoir, p. 195, has
fallen into error in saying, regarding Hart's anonymous satire entitled
A Sermon of a New Kind, etc., that " Mr. Hopkins took no notice of
this pamphlet." He did, and very positively, see Animadversions, pp.
29-31.
4 Remarks on President Edwards 's Dissertations concerning the
Nature of True Virtue : Showing that he has given a Wrong Idea and
Definition of Virttie, etc. New Haven, 1771.
SAMUEL HOPKINS 345
Calvinist, Moses Hemmenway of Wells, 1 Me., like
Moses Mather of Darien, Conn., two years earlier, 8
took up the cudgels against what Hart had styled
' New Divinity " and the " Hopkintonian " scheme. 3
To all these Hopkins replied in 1773 in his strongest
controversial treatise, An Inquiry into the Nature of
true Holiness."
In presenting his view Hopkins claims no more than
an amplification of Edwards's theory of virtue/ Holi-
ness, to his thinking, is love. 6 It is " universal, dis-
interested good-will, considered in all its genuine
exercises and fruits, and acted out in all its branches
towards God and our neighbour." It is "essentially,
in nature and kind, the same thing in all beings that
are capable of it." It is " the greatest good in the
universe " and that " union of heart, by which the
intelligent system becomes one." The opposite of
holiness is any form of self-love which puts self before
the good of the universe as a whole. A man may
truly and disinterestedly estimate himself at the value
he has in the universe as a whole ; but love for self, as
self, has nothing disinterested in it, and is the essence
1 Vindication of the Power, Obligation . . . of the Unregenerate
to attend the Means of Grace, etc. Boston, 1772.
* The Visible Church, in Covenant, with God: Further Illustrated.
New Haven, 1770.
3 The latter epithet was first employed in Hart's Sermon of a New
Kind, see West, Sketches, p. 97.
4 Published at Newport. 5 Hopkins, True Holiness, pp. iv., v.
6 For the statements and quotations in this paragraph, see Ibid., pp.
2, 3, 7-9, 19-31, 41, 74-
346 SAMUEL HOPKINS
of sin. Nor can any man be sure that he has that
disinterested benevolence wherein holiness consists till
he is ready for whatever disposition of himself the
wise Ruler of the universe may see is for the largest
good of all. He must be able to say " with Moses,
' Blot me, I pray thee, out of thy book.' If God
may not be God, and order all things for his own
glory, and the greatest good of his kingdom ; and if
my salvation is inconsistent with this, I give all up, I
have no interest of my own to seek or desire." True,
says Hopkins, " when he comes to know that he is
thus devoted to God, he may be sure of his own
eternal salvation. But let it be observed, he must
first have such exercises of disinterested affection as
these, before he can have any evidence that he shall
be saved."
The passages last quoted bring to our attention one
of the most famous peculiarities of Hopkins's theol-
ogy, his doctrine of " willingness to be damned," as it
is generally phrased, or, more truly, of willingness to
be disposed as seems best to divine wisdom, whatever
that disposal may be. It is a doctrine that appears
constantly in his writings, but is nowhere more drasti-
cally set forth than in a Dialogue between a Calvinist
and a Semi-Calvinist , written in Hopkins's old age and
published after his death. 1 ;< If any one," z says
he, " thinks he loves God, and shall be saved; if
1 West, Sketches, pp. 141-167. * Ibid., p. 150.
SAMUEL HOPKINS 347
he finds that his love to God does not imply a will-
ingness to be damned, if this were most for his \i. e. t
God's] glory, he has reason to conclude that he is
deceived, and that what he calls love to God is really
enmity against him." Yet this, to most Christians,
utterly repellent demand was not original with Hop-
kins. Edwards had, indeed, rejected the doctrine ; 1
but, to say nothing of thinkers in other branches of the
Church, Thomas Hooker and Thomas Shepard had
forcibly maintained it in the early days of New Eng-
land. 2
From this strenuous doctrine, however, Hopkins
drew hope rather than despair. 3 And, however dis-
couraged about the religious condition of his own
times, he was far from taking gloomy views of the
history of mankind as a whole. The universe, he be-
lieved, is made for happiness. An all-wise and all-
powerful God has allowed no more sin and misery than
he sees necessary for the largest happiness of the
whole. And Hopkins felt convinced that, taking
into view the millennial years which his fancy loved
to picture, there is " no reason to conclude that but
few of mankind will be saved, in comparison with
those who shall perish ; but see ground to believe that
the number of the former will far exceed that of the
1 See ante, p. 239.
2 For this subject and references to the literature, see G. L. Walker,
Some Aspects of the Religious Life of New England, pp. 27, 28.
3 West, Sketches, pp. 165-167.
348 SAMUEL HOPKINS
latter." He held, also, contrary to an impression
that has sometimes been given of him, that no infants
were in hell. 2 Indeed, this doctrine of infant damna-
tion, maintained by some of the divines of seventeenth-
century New England, as a corollary of election and
reprobation, had almost completely died out of
Christian thought in New England by the time that
Hopkins published his first controversial tractates.
The discussion that ended, as far as Hopkins was
concerned, with the publication of his Nature of
true Holiness, in 1773, was his great controversy; in
it most of the peculiarities of his religious opinions
were expressed, and he felt that the victory had been
his in the debate. But Hopkins's pen was busy with
other writings, at which we can simply glance. Thus,
in 1768, he published a sermon, preached in the Old
South Church, Boston, which warmly defended the
full divinity of Christ, then beginning to be doubted
or denied by some in eastern Massachusetts. 3 Again,
in 1783, moved by the spread of Universalist opinions,
Hopkins published an able and extremely uncom-
promising defense of the doctrine of eternal punish-
ment, in which he ventured to affirm that : 4
1 System, i., p. 308, ed. 1811.
2 William Patten, quoted in Park, Memoir, p. 103.
3 The Importance and Necessity of Christians considering Jesus Christ
in the Extent of his high and glorious Character. Boston, 1768.
4 A n Inquiry concerning the future State of those who die in their Sins.
Newport, 1783. The quotation is from pp. 154, 155.
SAMUEL HOPKINS 349
" eternal punishment reflects such light on the Divine char-
acter, government and works, especially the work of re-
demption ; and makes such a bright display of the worthiness
and grandeur of the Redeemer, and of divine love and grace
to the redeemed; and is the occasion of so much happiness
in heaven; and so necessary, in order to the highest glory,
and greatest increasing felicity of God's everlasting king-
dom; that, should it cease, and this fire could be ex-
tinguished, it would, in a great measure, obscure the light
of heaven."
But all Hopkins's wealth of imagination and of
hope, and he had both in abundance, was poured
into his treatise on the Millennium? which was pub-
lished with his System in 1793. The prophecies of
Daniel and Revelation were searched for guidance to
the nature, time, and duration of that blessed dispen-
sation which Hopkins concluded would be ushered in
" not far from the end of the twentieth century," 2
and for which his soul longed.
Hopkins's feeling that the universe was made for
the largest happiness, and that it is the duty of all
disinterestedly to seek that happiness, made him one
of the pioneers in a great philanthropic reform that
of the abolition of slavery. Like his friends, Edwards
and Bellamy, Hopkins, in his early ministry, was a
slaveholder. 3 But by the time of his settlement at
Newport he had become convinced of the enormity
of the traffic in human flesh. Hopkins was not a man
1 A Treatise on the Millennium, bound with his System. Boston, 1793.
2 Ibid., ii., p. 488, ed. 1811. 3 Park, Memoir, pp. 114, 118.
350 SAMUEL HOPKINS
to conceal his convictions. Newport was the centre
of the slave trade in New England ; Newport fortunes
were largely made in slave ships ; men in his own con-
gregation were interested in the trade; but by 1770
or 1771, first of the Congregational ministry of New
England, Hopkins was vigorously denouncing slavery
from his pulpit, and appealing for its abandonment. 1
By personal solicitation, and even by contribution
from his scanty means, he secured the freedom of
quite a number of slaves owned by his Newport
neighbors or his ministerial friends.
But his thought went out beyond the freeing of a few ;
and at his own suggestion and persuasion, he and his
ministerial neighbor, Ezra Stiles, later to be president
of Yale, sent out an appeal, in 1773, for means to train
colored missionaries for labor in Africa. 2 For this pur-
pose a society was organized by Hopkins and Stiles at
Newport the same year, that was able to report gifts
of 102 is. 4|</. by I776. 3 Of this amount, one hun-
dred dollars was the contribution of Hopkins himself
as a kind of reparation to the African race it being
the sum for which he had, long before, sold his
slave. 4 By this society and other friends raised up
by Hopkins's efforts, two young men in Hopkins's
1 Park, Memoir, pp. 116, 118, 160. Judge Samuel Sewall had written
against slavery in his Selling of Joseph in 1 700.
* Ibid., pp. 129-132. Circular letter of August 31, 1773.
3 Stiles's and Hopkins's circular letter of April 10, 1776, p. 4.
4 Park, Memoir, p. 138.
SAMUEL HOPKINS 351
congregation were so fitted at Princeton and elsewhere
as to be ready to go to Africa in 1776, had not the
Revolutionary War prevented. Successive hindrances,
for which Hopkins was in no way responsible, robbed
the missionary project of success during his lifetime,
as it did the plan for African colonization which he
formed before 1784; but the seed he sowed did not die. 1
These efforts Hopkins accompanied by frequent
publication and by letters to men of influence. Much
of this address to the public was through the news-
papers; 2 but two appeals were in more permanent
form. A Dialogue concerning the Slavery of the Afri-
cans ; shewing it to be the Duty and Interest of the
American States to emancipate all their African Slaves
was put forth in I776, 3 with a dedication to the Con-
tinental Congress, and was republished in a large
edition by the New York Manumission Society in
1785. A less important tract was A Discourse upon
the Slave- Trade, and the Slavery of the Africans, de-
livered in 1793.* Moreover, Hopkins succeeded in
having his own church pass votes discouraging the
owning of slaves by its members; and the number of
colored hearers in his congregation and of colored sub-
scribers to his System testified to his unfailing kindness
to those of the oppressed race in his own town, and to
their appreciation of his labors in their behalf. 6
1 Park, Memoir, pp. 138-156. 2 Ibid., p. 119.
3 Published at Norwich. 4 Published at Providence.
5 Park, Memoir, pp. 157, 166.
352 SAMUEL HOPKINS
Hopkins's prominence as a citizen of Rhode Island
led to the bestowal upon him of the degree of Doctor
of Divinity by Brown University in 1790. At that
time he had been for eight years engaged on his chief
work, his System of Doctrines, Contained in divine
Revelation, explained and defended, which was to em-
ploy him for two years more and to be published in
1793. J This rock-ribbed exposition of divinity had a
sale of over twelve hundred copies, and, to the sur-
prise of the author, brought him in nine hundred dol-
lars a sum, wrote Hopkins, " without which I know
not how I should have subsisted." " I consider [it],"
said he, " the greatest public service that I have ever
done. It has met with more general and better ac-
ceptation by far than I expected, both in America and
Europe; and no one has undertaken to answer it."
The expiring hour precludes the possibility of any
consideration of this monument of indefatigable labor,
and fortunately none is needed, since the chief pecul-
iarities of Hopkins's thought have already passed
before us. Without the genius of Edwards, Hop-
kins's iron and relentless logic, his exaltation of the
divine sovereignty, his reduction of righteousness and
of evil to single principles, and his strong conviction
that the universe moves toward a single goal, that of
the greatest possible happiness of the whole, and
1 Published at Boston and reprinted there in 1811 ; and again in
Works, i. and ii., Boston, 1852. 2 West, Sketches, pp. 101, 102.
SAMUEL HOPKINS 353
moves by steps of absolute divine appointment, give
to his system the power that comes from unity, con-
sistency, and intellectual transparency. While built
on the Edwardean foundations, boldness, freedom,
and fearlessness are the prime characteristics of Hop-
kins's thinking. It dared attack accepted truths and
question their rightf ulness to be. It had no shrinking
from any consequences that the logic of the premises
demanded. It was as strenuous and as able a critique
of current beliefs as New England has ever seen.
And its influence was great. Seven years before his
death Hopkins wrote: '
" About forty years ago 2 there were but few, perhaps not
more than four or five who espoused the sentiments, which
have since been called Edwardean, and new divinity, and
since, after some improvement was made upon them, Hop-
kintonian, or Hopkinsian sentiments. But these sentiments
have so spread since that time among ministers, especially
those who have since come on the stage, that there are now
more than one hundred in the ministry who espouse the
same sentiments, in the United States of America. And
the number appears to be fast increasing, and these senti-
ments appear to be coming more and more into credit, and
are better understood, and the odium which was cast on
them and those who preached them, is greatly subsided."
Could Hopkins have looked forward with prophetic
eye, he would have seen the opinions which he
cherished remain a powerful influence in American
1 West, Sketches, pp. 102, 103.
*/. e., about the time of Edwards's death.
23
354 SAMUEL HOPKINS
religious thought till the time of the Civil War. As
the influence of these views widened after his death,
however, the peculiar intensities of his presentation
constantly diminished.
I said, in speaking of Edwards in a previous lecture,
that as a controversialist and a theologian he seems
remote, when viewed from the standpoint of the
present age. I presume most of us have that feeling
in a higher degree regarding Hopkins. The problems
that busied him are not those to which the theologians
of our day most readily turn. The conceptions of the
Gospel that his peculiarities involved are not those
which find large support in current religious thought.
Whether men regret or rejoice that it is so, the pre-
sentation of Christian truth that he made is largely of
the past. But, if I may borrow a somewhat over-
worked current phrase, I query whether more of
" life " ever flowed through the work of any religious
leaders of New England than through that of the
Edwardean school of which Hopkins was the most
strenuous, and on the whole the most influential,
representative.
The Master said, when He gave His disciples a test
of the value of claimants to their regard, " by their
fruits ye shall know them." Hopkinsianism presented
a view of the religious life which called for an instant
and unreserved consecration to the service of God.
Hopkinsianism was the chief human instrumentality
SAMUEL HOPKINS 355
in bringing about the series of revivals that, between
1791 and 1858, revolutionized the spiritual life of our
New England churches; its leader was the pioneer of
our Congregational ministry in attempting to remove
the curse of slavery, and in endeavoring to send mis-
sionaries to Africa ; its representatives, more than any
other party in our churches, checked the Unitarian
defection ; it contributed at least as largely as any
other force to the reforms in theological education
inaugurated by the foundation of Andover Seminary;
and its influence, beyond that of any other religious
party in New England, led to the establishment of
home missions, and to the formation of the American
Board. If these are not good fruits, then the re-
ligious history of New England has none to show.
Hopkins himself survived the publication of his
System ten years. For him they were years of trial
and of increasing feebleness due to old age. His
congregation was small and composed mostly of those
advanced in life. His church membership included
few men. His sermons were reputed " dry and
abstract " by the young people of his flock, who wan-
dered to other churches. 1 His unanimated delivery
became less attractive with years; and his bodily
weakness was greatly augmented by a paralytic
stroke which he suffered in January, I79Q. 2 Still he
1 Sprague, Annals of the American Pulpit, i., p. 433, ii., p. 472, 473.
2 West, Sketches, p. 105.
356 SAMUEL HOPKINS
continued to preach till October, 1803, though with
feebler voice, and needing the assistance of his colored
protege, the sexton, Newport Gardner, to enter the
pulpit and sometimes even to rise to deliver the ser-
mon. 1
It was not much that he could do; and perhaps
it was a consciousness of his limitations in public
speech that induced him to make a list of his congre-
gation and pray for each in his study daily by name.
' We have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the
excellency of the power may be of God, and not of
us," said an Apostle who resembled Hopkins in this
at least, that his written argument was considered
more effective than his spoken discourse. Hopkins
saw the fruit of his prayers before he died. On the
coming of Rev. Caleb J. Tenney as a candidate for
settlement as Hopkins's colleague, in July, 1803, the
revival for which the old pastor had so long vainly
waited began, and more than thirty owned themselves
the subjects of a regenerative change. 2 Hopkins lived
to witness and feebly to take part in the work; but
on December 20, 1803, he died. As one of his
brother ministers 3 sat by his side just before his
departure, the sufferer groaned from excess of physi-
cal distress. " Doctor, why do you groan ? " said his
would-be comforter; " you know you have taught us
1 Park, Memoir, p. 252.
8 Sprague, Annals, ii., p. 472; Park, Memoir, p. 259.
3 Rev. Joshua Bradley, of the Newport Baptist Church.
SAMUEL HOPKINS 357
that we must be willing even to be eternally lost."
The dying theologian, thus reminded of a cardinal
article of his faith, replied, " It is only my body; all
is right in my soul." '
1 Bradley's letter, in Sprague, Annals, i., p. 435.
LEONARD WOODS
359
IX.
LEONARD WOODS
IN our consideration of the life and work of Samuel
Hopkins it was made evident that his theological
battles were even more largely with those of Calvinistic
faith than with the anti-Calvinist and Liberal divines
of his day. Though he directed his attack upon the
Liberals when he maintained the full divinity of Christ
against the Arian innovators about Boston, and criti-
cised Mayhew's wellnigh Arminian conceptions of the
share of man in conversion, his heaviest shots were
sent against the Old Calvinists, Mills, Hart, Hemmen-
way, and Mather, who held none of the distinctively
"Liberal" doctrines. Not that Hopkins had any
sympathy with the tendencies of such men as Chauncy
and Mayhew. Far from it. He wholly rejected their
views, and undoubtedly esteemed the Old Calvinists
as much more worthy of approval. But to Hop-
kins the Calvinism of the Old Calvinists appeared
defective. He and his friends were the " Consistent
Calvinists," as they often styled themselves, who
carried their principles to a logical completeness. In
Hopkins's judgment much of the preaching of the
361
362 LEONARD WOODS
Calvinism which had never come under the renovat-
ing Edwardean touch was wellnigh fatally misleading,
and, as such, deserved strenuous opposition.
It was remarked also in the last lecture that Hop-
kins rejoiced in his old age that " more than a hundred
in the ministry " had adopted his views, and that the
number appeared to him "to be fast increasing." 1
This conviction was no delusion. If all shades of Ed-
wardeanism are taken into view, the comparative
moderation of the younger Edwards, the much greater
moderation of Timothy Dwight, as well as the stren-
uousness of Hopkins, it may truly be said that, by
the year 1800, Edwardeanism had obtained a de-
cided numerical superiority over Old Calvinism in
Connecticut and western Massachusetts, and had
gained possession, though in its most moderate form,
of the chief educational center of western New Eng-
land, Yale College. By the same year, Edwardeanism,
especially in its more radical Hopkinsian presentation,
was beginning to press into eastern Massachusetts
with power, where it had not heretofore been largely
represented.
It was this incoming of the Edwardean type of
Calvinism in general, and of Hopkinsianism in par-
ticular, with its eager and confident polemics, its
positive assertions of divine sovereignty, of total de-
pravity, of the prime need of a radical regeneration,
1 See ante, p. 353.
LEONARD WOODS 363
of the duty of instant repentance and submission, and
of the spiritual worthlessness of all that fell short of
such self-surrender, that made evident the departure
from the historic conceptions of Christianity which
Liberalism had silently, and largely unconsciously,
brought about in eastern Massachusetts. Easy-going
Old Calvinism had dwelt side by side with the new
Liberalism, and neither had distinctly perceived the
cleft between them. The new Edwardeanism came
in its aggressive Hopkinsian form and precipitated the
Unitarian separation.
But at the beginning of the nineteenth century it
seemed as if Hopkinsianism was about as much op-
posed to Old Calvinism as to Liberalism; and it
appeared probable that the effect of the incoming of
Hopkinsianism into eastern Massachusetts would be to
split the historic Congregational body of that region
into three mutually jealous denominations. This
triple schism was avoided, and the conservative forces
of Old Calvinism and New Divinity were so welded
together in opposition to the Liberalism which soon
became Unitarianism, that the fact that they once
stood in danger of cleavage has faded out of the
knowledge of all save historical students. No event
in the development of modern Congregationalism was
more important than this union. Doubtless many
causes contributed to effect it ; but as far as it was due
to any person, the Congregational churches of eastern
364 LEONARD WOODS
Massachusetts owe this service most of all to the sub-
ject of the present lecture Leonard Woods.
The parents of Leonard Woods 1 lived at Princeton,
Mass., where his father was a farmer. Both the
father and the mother were of marked character
and warm religious faith ; the father, in particular,
being of much more than usual mental gifts, and a
considerable reader of philosophy, theology, and
English literature. The little town gave more than
usual opportunity for some acquaintance with these
themes, since a large portion of the extensive library
collected by Rev. Thomas Prince of the Old South
Church, Boston, had been taken thither by Prince's
son-in-law, Moses Gill, afterward Lieutenant-Governor
of the State, and placed at the service of his neigh-
bors who cared to read. Here, under the shadow of
Mount Wachusett, Leonard was born on June 19,
1774, almost exactly a year before the battle of Bunker
Hill. Here he grew up on the farm, his parents ex-
pecting to make a farmer of him, till his own strong
desires to become a minister, his evident abilities of
mind, and an illness which impaired his physical
1 The chief sources of biographical information regarding Leonard
Woods are three brief sketches of his life : (a) in Sprague, Annals of the
American Pulpit, ii., pp. 438-441, based on facts furnished by Woods
himself ; (b) in the funeral sermon preached by Prof. E. A. Lawrence
in memory of his father-in-law, A Discourse Delivered at the Funeral of
Rev. Leonard Woods, D.D., in the Chapel of the Theological Seminary,
Andover, August 28, 1854, Boston, 1854; (c) and in an enlargement of
the sketch contained in this sermon published by Professor Lawrence in
the Congregational Quarterly for April, 1859, * PP- 105-124.
LEONARD WOODS 365
strength led his mother to encourage, and his father
to consent to, his entering on preparation for college
under the supervision of the pastor of the Prince-
ton church, Rev. Thomas Crafts. The pecuniary re-
sources of a farmer's family in the time of financial
reaction that followed the Revolutionary War were
meager at best, and scanty aid could be given the boy
in his preparation ; so that, save for three months at
Leicester Academy, and a little guidance from his
minister, he was self-taught till he entered Harvard in
the autumn of 1792. It gives a glimpse of the home
affection which followed the young student, and of the
simplicity of a hundred years ago, to learn that his
mother spun and wove all the clothing that he wore
during his college course. 1
The Harvard of the closing years of the eighteenth
century had altered much from the college of In-
crease Mather's day, at which we glanced, 2 but was
very unlike the great institution of the present. Its
faculty included a president and seven professors,
three of whom were attached to the then newly
created medical department. Four tutors also carried
much of the burden of instruction. The classics
that is to say, Horace, Sallust, Cicero, Livy, Xeno-
phon, and Homer still constituted the chief employ-
ment of the first three years. 3 Freshmen also studied
1 Lawrence, funeral Discourse, p. 10. 2 See ante, p. 178.
3 Quincy, History of Harvard University, ii., pp. 265, 274, 277-279,
350, 499, 539, 540.
366 LEONARD WOODS
Arithmetic, Sophomores Algebra, and Juniors Dod-
dridge's Lectures on Divinity and the Greek Testa-
ment. Senior year was the special province of Logic,
Metaphysics, and Ethics, while declamation was prac-
ticed and a modicum of History instilled all through
the course. Hebrew was passing away as an under-
graduate study ; those students whose parents fur-
nished them with a written request so to do being
allowed to substitute French ; and the change from
the emphasis once laid upon themes of specific value
for technical ministerial preparation was further recog-
nized by the recent addition of instruction in English
to the duties of the Hebrew professorship.
From a modern standpoint the course of study was
not exacting, nor was the discipline very thorough.
Many ancient customs were then passing away. The
Freshman was beginning to wear his hat when on the
campus, and ceasing to be at the beck and call of
upper classmen when his superiors wished errands
done. The college was struggling to keep its classes
clothed in distinctive uniforms, and fines were still
the punishment for many infractions of college dis-
cipline. Religiously, Harvard, like Yale, was carefully
observant of worship and of doctrinal instruction, as
far as its officers could make it so. Just twenty years
before Woods entered Harvard students had been
relieved from repeating publicly the heads of the
sermons they had recently heard ; and for eight years
LEONARD WOODS 367
they had been excused from attending the more tech-
nical of the two courses of instruction given by the
Hollis Professor of Divinity unless they intended to
enter the ministry. 1 But some theological instruction
was still given to every student.
Yet the period of Woods's residence at Cambridge
was about the ebb-tide of religion among the students
of American colleges. The French alliance in the
Revolutionary struggle and sympathy for France in
her own revolution had popularized the French con-
tempt of religion ; and able and in many ways most
devoted and patriotic Americans, like Franklin, Paine,
and Jefferson, by their example or their writings, had
spread wide among the students, the young lawyers,
the physicians, and the politicians of the period a state
of indifference or of hostility to revealed religion.
While Woods was at Harvard, there was at one time
only one professed Christian among the undergradu-
ates. 8 Harvard was no exception in this matter; the
first labor of President Timothy Dwight, when he
became president of Yale, just as Woods was en-
tering on his Senior year at Harvard, was to combat
the all but universal infidelity of the students of his
new charge. Indeed, so far had the matter gone at
New Haven that many of the Senior class " had as-
sumed the names of the principal English and French
1 Quincy, History of Harvard University, ii., pp. 259, 260, 274.
2 Lawrence, in Congregational Quarterly, i., p. 106.
368 LEONARD WOODS
infidels," and were generally known by these nick-
names throughout the college. 1
Plunged into such a student atmosphere on coming
from a religious home to college, Woods naturally
experienced some mental trials in that painful process
through which many a young collegian has to pass
when a faith received from parental instruction is
being developed into a personal conviction. Steady
and upright in personal conduct he remained ; but the
philosophy of the eminent English Unitarian minister
and chemist, Joseph Priestley, greatly attracted him ;
and, for a time, he made Priestley's material and
mechanical explanations of the visible world his own.'
In scholarship Woods easily led his class of thirty-
three members, delivering an oration, entitled Envy
Wishes, then Believes, at his graduation in I/96. 3
The young graduate returned from college to his
parents' home inclined to pursue a general course of
philosophic, historical, and literary reading, for which
the Prince library gave unusual opportunity. But a
fresh influence now came into his life. A new pastor,
Rev. Joseph Russel, son of Rev. Noadiah Russel, of
Thompson, Conn., had just been settled over the
Princeton church and was preaching a strenuous Ed-
wardean type of theology. Naturally, the two young
1 Life of Pres. Dwight (by his sons), prefaced to his Theology, i., pp.
20, 22, 23.
2 Sprague, Annals, ii., p. 439.
3 Lawrence, in Cong. Quart., i., p. 107.
LEONARD WOODS 369
men talked on the themes suggested by the sermons, 1
and the interest thus aroused in the young graduate
was deepened by a visit to Cambridge and a conver-
sation with his intimate friend of the class below his
own, John Hubbard Church, 8 who had recently de-
clared himself a Christian. Church persuaded his
friend to read Doddridge's Life, and Rise and Prog-
ress : while, at Russel's suggestion, Woods studied
Romans, Galatians, and Ephesians. He had now be-
come a teacher at Medford, and as he thought on the
themes suggested by his reading his perturbation of
soul rapidly deepened. As he himself wrote to his
friend, Church: 3
' Terror, amazement, cold chills of body and mind,
sometimes a flood of sorrow, hard thoughts of God, dread-
ful conceptions of his character, I have no words to
express my state for about a week. I felt my health de-
clining. I wandered about. I tried to run from myself.
I awoke in the morning and read my sentence for having
committed the unpardonable sin."
But light and peace came at last; and with it a de-
sire to confess Christ which led him to unite with the
church at Medford in 1797, and to determine to devote
his life to the ministry. 4
Woods had already come under moderate Hopkins-
1 Russel's statement, quoted by Lawrence, ibid., pp. 107, 108.
2 For his biography, see Sprague, Annals, ii., pp. 445-449.
3 Lawrence, in Cong. Quart., i., p. 109.
4 Sprague, Annals, ii., p. 439.
3/0 LEONARD WOODS
ian influences at Princeton, and though he debated
whether he should not put himself under the theologi-
cal instruction of the Old Calvinist Hollis Professor of
Divinity at Harvard, David Tappan, the advice of the
Princeton pastor, Russel, and the wishes of his Ed-
wardeanly inclined parents, led him to decide in favor
of a more strenuous type of theology. 1 The autumn
of 1797 saw Woods on his way, with his friend Church,
to the home of Rev. Dr. Charles Backus, 2 at Somers,
Conn., then one of the most noted of the house-
hold theological schools of the Edwardean type.
The arrival of the two students found Somers enjoy-
ing one of the earlier of the great transforming series
of revivals which, beginning in 1791, were repeated
at intervals till 1858.
Backus was no believer in multiplied meetings. As
Woods said later of him : ' ' He wished those who
were impressed with the importance of religion to
have time for retirement, for reading the Scriptures
and other books, and for prayer." A man of great
self-control himself, he would allow no expressions of
religious self-conceit, whether of former wickedness or
of present grace, in others. In theological opinions
he sympathized with the more moderate Edwardean-
ism rather than with all of Hopkins's peculiarities;
rejecting, for instance, Hopkins's test of disinterested
1 Lawrence, in Cong. Quart., i., p. in.
2 Biography in Sprague, Annals, ii., pp. 61-68.
3 Letter of August 19, 1849, in Sprague, Annals, ii., p. 63.
LEONARD WOODS 371
benevolence, the " willingness to be damned." But he
was enough of Hopkins's way of thinking to commend
his System as a whole to the approval of his students.
Personally Backus was marked by a profound sense of
sin, and of the greatness of a salvation which could
rescue men from its control.
Such an experience as Woods now enjoyed was the
best possible for a young convert coming from the
chill religious atmosphere of college. Entering thus
into the thought and work of an active, sensible,
acute-minded pastor, his own spiritual life deepened
as his doctrinal thought quickened and clarified. But
his residence at Somers was only for three months, his
studies thus initiated being continued through the
winter of 1797-98 at his Princeton home. So, fitted by
less than a year of special theological training, he was
licensed by the Cambridge Association in the spring
of 1798; and in the summer following was called to
the Second Church in what is now West Newbury,
from which the Old Calvinist David Tappan had gone
to the Hollis Professorship of Divinity at Harvard in
I792. 1 The terms offered by the parish were five hun-
dred dollars for a " settlement," that is, to enable the
young minister to establish a home in the community,
the " use of the parsonage land," a salary of four
hundred dollars and eight cords of firewood annually,
" with the liberty of going to see his parents for two
1 See Sprague, Annals, ii., p. 439.
3/2 LEONARD WOODS
Sabbaths every year." ' Woods's ordination to the
pastorate thus offered occurred on December 5, 1798.
On October 8, 1799, Woods followed the establish-
ment of these ecclesiastical relations by his marriage to
Miss Abigail Wheeler, a daughter of Joseph Wheeler,
long Register of Probate for Worcester County. Mrs.
Woods was a woman of rare devoutness of spirit,
Christian confidence, and great patience during the
long invalidism that preceded her death in i846. 2 Ten
sons and daughters were born into their household.
Like many a young minister since, the new pastor
at West Newbury speedily induced his congregation
to adopt a revised Confession of Faith ; and in Woods's
draft several Edwardean peculiarities distinctly appear.
Thus, with Hopkins and the later Edwardeans gener-
ally, the new creed asserted the doctrine of general
atonement. In consonance with Edwardean opinion
it, tacitly at least, denied the imputation of Adam's
sin to his descendants, while affirming that " by the
wise and holy constitution of God, the character and
state of his posterity depended on his conduct." And
a forecast of controversies speedily to come is seen
in the declaration " that Jesus Christ is a true God
and true man, united in one mysterious person."
1 Contributions to the Ecclesiastical History of Essex County, p. 106.
Boston, 1865.
9 A biographical sketch by her husband was appended to Stuart's A
Sermon Preached at the Funeral of Mrs. Abby Woods. Andover, 1846.
3 Contributions, pp. 382, 383.
LEONARD WOODS 373
Personally the young minister was tall, slender, and
dignified ; and he was marked also by a ready ease of
manner and kindliness of spirit that won for him the
good-will of those he met, whether children or men
and women of age and learning. 1 As a pastor, Woods
was greatly beloved; though, if judged by that
almost valueless basis of estimate, numerical suc-
cess, his ministry was inconspicuous. Probably it was
largely owing to his exalted conception of the re-
quirements of a Christian profession that only fourteen
were admitted to the church during his ten years'
pastorate. Forty-nine had professed their faith during
the eighteen years of his predecessor, Tappan ; and
fifty-one were to join the church in the eight and a
half years included in the pastorates of the three
ministers who came after him. 2
Woods, however, soon came to be a man of public
influence outside his parish. At the Harvard Com-
mencement next following his ordination, July 17,
1799, h e delivered a master's oration that attracted
considerable attention, his theme being A Contrast
between the Effects of Religion and the Effects of Athe-
ism? in which he argued " that the disbelief of GOD
presupposes the depravation of moral principle," and
found a " picture of the genuine spirit and fruits of
Atheism ... in the character and conduct of the
1 Lawrence, in Sprague, Annals, ii., p. 441.
5 Contributions, pp. 383-385. 3 Published at Boston, 1799.
374 LEONARD WOODS
FRENCH " ' black enough to have satisfied the most
exacting Federalist. In his own association, as well
as in his church, he earnestly advocated the abandon-
ment of the Half-Way Covenant, which Edwardeans
generally opposed. 2 This opposition won the hearty
approval of the chief Hopkinsian and, on the whole,
the leading minister of the region, Rev. Dr. Samuel
Spring, who, since 1777, had been pastor of the North
Church, Newburyport, and was related by marriage to
the most noted Hopkinsian then in New England,
Rev. Dr. Nathaniel Emmons of Franklin, Mass. 8
From the beginning of his West Newbury ministry
his friendship for the strenuous Newburyport divine
strengthened and deepened till the death of Dr.
Spring in March, 1819." So great was Spring's regard
for his theological opinions that, when the strongly
Hopkinsian Massachusetts Missionary Magazine was
begun in 1803, Spring asked him to become one
of the contributors. 5 And, on the whole, without
advocating several of the Hopkinsian peculiarities,
Woods was reckoned as belonging in sympathy at this
time to the Hopkinsian side. 6
'Pp. 7, ii.
2 Lawrence, Cong. Quart., i., p. 115 ; see also Spring's letter of June,
1805, in Woods, History of the Andover Theo. Seminary, p. 451.
3 Mrs. Emmons and Mrs. Spring were half-sisters.
4 See Woods's own account of his intimate relations with Spring, in
Sprague, Annals, ii., p. 87.
6 Lawrence, Cong. Quart., i., p. 115.
Woods reports Jedidiah Morse as saying of him, in 1807, that "he
LEONARD WOODS 375
But the young West Newbury minister no less
warmly attracted men of Old Calvinist sympathies.
David Tappan and Eliphalet Pearson had become his
friends when he was their pupil at Harvard ; and an
even more influential and extremely moderate Ed-
wardean, who was regarded as essentially Old Calvin-
ist, Rev. Dr. Jedidiah Morse of Charlestown, father
of the inventor of the electric telegraph, so valued
his friendship and support that he asked Woods
to join in the editorship of the broadly Calvinist
magazine, the Panoplist, which Morse was chiefly in-
strumental in founding in 1805, to offset the Liberal
Monthly Anthology that had been established in 1803.'
The help which Woods contributed to the Panoplist
led to an earnest exhortation to the young minister
from the vigorous Hopkinsian, Rev. Dr. Samuel
Austin of Worcester, not to " secede from the Hop-
kinsian doctrine." a
Such a mind as that of Woods is difficult for extrem-
ists in times of excitement rightly to value. Consti-
tutionally cautious in the expression of opinion,
moderate in his judgments of men and of theories, he
valued union more than the maintenance of what
seemed to him distinctions of secondary moment. In
the great controversy with the Liberal party that
knew that in a moderate sense I was a Hopkinsian." Woods, History
of the Andover Theological Seminary, p. 106. Boston, 1885.
1 Ibid., pp. 42, 43, 70, 106, 426. 2 Letter, ibid., p. 453.
376 LEONARD WOODS
was soon to be forced to take the name Unitarian,
Woods saw that the union of all those who supported
the main doctrines in which Old and New Calvinists
were agreed was of more importance than the further-
ance of any "improvements" in theology at the
expense of increased division. But, though the per-
sonal friendship of a Hopkinsian neighbor like Dr.
Spring might thoroughly comprehend a position like
that of Woods, one cannot wonder that a Hopkinsian
extremist like Emmons looked upon his modera-
tion as in a measure disloyalty to Hopkinsian truth,
and gave scant sympathy to a man whose discrimina-
tion between the two schools of current Calvinism was
so held subservient to a desire for their association.
This largely conciliatory and irenic quality of
Woods's mind in what he regarded as comparatively
minor matters was coupled, however, with much posi-
tiveness of conviction and expression on what he
deemed fundamentals of the faith ; and the combina-
tion of the two fitted him admirably for the work in-
volved in the foundation and early maintenance of
Andover Seminary.
It would be as impossible in the time at my disposal
as it should be unnecessary in this lecture-room, to
recount at length the involved story of the establish-
ment of this oldest of American institutions specifically
devoted to ministerial education ; but so much of the
facts, however familiar, as may be necessary for an
LEONARD WOODS 377
understanding of the share of Woods in the under-
taking may rapidly be passed in review.
Liberalism, as was pointed out in our consideration
of Chauncy, had so far invaded eastern Massachu-
setts by the time of his death in 1787, that the
doctrine of the Trinity was largely questioned, the
total depravity of man was discredited, and the ever-
lasting suffering of the wicked denied. In the year
of Chauncy's death, King's Chapel, the oldest Epis-
copal congregation in Boston, ordained the anti-
Trinitarian James Freeman at the hands of its own
membership as its rector, and became the first dis-
tinctly recognized Unitarian congregation in New
England.
No Congregational church immediately adopted
an avowedly anti-Trinitarian position. But Liberal
views steadily and rapidly advanced, pressed into
definition by the spread of Edwardeanism into east-
ern Massachusetts, and by October, 1801, the old
Mayflower Church at Plymouth had led the schism by
dividing on the issue. The Hopkinsians had estab-
lished the Massachusetts Missionary Society in 1799,
and its Missionary Magazine in 1803; the Old Calvin-
ists and moderate Edwardeans had organized the
Massachusetts General Association in the year last
named, and had sent forth the Panoplist in 1805. The
Liberals had begun the Monthly Anthology in 1803,
and Boston had witnessed the opening of Channing's
378 LEONARD WOODS
notable pastorate the same year. Parties were ranged
for conflict, and the lines were tightening month by
month ; so that when the death of Professor Tappan,
in August, 1803, left vacant the Hollis Professorship
of Divinity at Harvard, it was recognized on all sides
that the character of his successor would reveal the
forces to be dominant in this ancient seat of learning.
The election of Henry Ware, on February 5, 1805,
was the visible token of the passing of Harvard into
the control of the anti-Trinitarians.
The manifest loss of the oldest New England col-
lege to the Evangelical cause quickened into action a
desire that had been growing for some years previous
for a more thorough system of ministerial education.
Harvard and Yale had been founded primarily to
supply the churches with an educated ministry. Their
courses of study had been originally framed with this
purpose in view; and, on the whole, they had met the
requirements of the early colonial ministry. But the
youth of the students and the elementary character of
the curricula rendered the training of the ordinary
college graduate of the eighteenth century inadequate
to the advancing claims of the ministerial office ; and,
to afford a better preparation, the Hollis Professorship
of Divinity was founded at Harvard in 1721, and a
professor of theology appointed at Yale in 1755.
Yet more efficient and popular than these professor-
ships was the habit that grew throughout the eighteenth
LEONARD WOODS 379
century of taking a few months of theological study
with some leading pastor between the candidate's
graduation from college and his entrance on ministerial
labor. Many of the New England clergy thus received
students into their households, but the Edwardean
leaders most of all. Edwards, Bellamy, Smalley,
Backus, Emmons, and others of this party were
notably active in making their own homes theological
seminaries. The training thus afforded was by no
means inconsiderable. It familiarized the student
with problems of parish administration. It propa-
gated most effectively the theological opinions of the
instructor. But it is almost needless to point out that
this system of education gave no broad view of church
history, no careful study of linguistics or exegesis, and
no extensive acquaintance with the development of
Christian doctrine as a whole. A busy New England
pastor of the eighteenth century had neither the time
nor the books nor the technical education to give
instruction along such lines. 1
By the beginning of the nineteenth century the
desire for yet better facilities for theological education
was strongly felt, and with the defection of Harvard,
in 1805, this desire was crystallized into action. In
1806, leaders of the Old Calvinists and of the Hop-
kinsians in eastern Massachusetts were planning, each
1 In this paragraph I have borrowed from my History of the Cong.
Churches, pp. 346, 347.
380 LEONARD WOODS
party at first without knowledge of the purpose of the
other, for the establishment of a theological seminary. 1
The Old Calvinist effort centered at Andover, where
Samuel and John Phillips had founded their Academy
in 1778, and had impressed upon the remarkable in-
stitution that then had its birth a strongly religious
character. Their thought seems to have included the
possible establishment in this institution of a professor-
ship of divinity like those of Harvard and Yale; and
John Phillips had intrusted funds to the trustees of
the Academy, in 1795? for the express purpose of
aiding students in theological branches " under the
direction of some eminent Calvinistic minister." a By
the help of this fund some twelve students of theology
were educated at Andover under the tuition of Rev.
Jonathan French of the South Church, between 1797
and the opening of the Seminary in 1808. 3 When,
therefore, Professor Eliphalet Pearson, who had been
from 1778 to 1786 the principal of Phillips Academy,
resigned his chair of Hebrew at Harvard in 1806, con-
vinced that the passage of that institution to the
Liberals demanded a new and conservative seat of
theological instruction, it was natural that he and his
friends, Rev. Dr. Jedidiah Morse of Charlestown and
1 Woods, History of the Andover Theological Seminary, p. 47. The
best account of the founding of the Seminary is in the work just cited.
2 Report of Committee on Deeds of Gift and Donations, p. 42. An-
dover, 1856.
3 Woods, History, p. 49.
LEONARD WOODS 381
Samuel Farrar, Esq., of Andover, should view An-
dover as the town with which to associate the en-
terprise that they had at heart. In consultation
with them the " Founders," as they were technically
called, Samuel Abbot, Madame Phoebe Phillips and
her son John Phillips, Jr., of Andover, were ulti-
mately led to provide the means for such an under-
taking; and as early as July, 1806, Pearson, Morse,
Farrar, Abbot, and other members of a " Voluntary
Association " were laying definite plans for the estab-
lishment of a theological seminary at Andover. A
constitution for the proposed seminary was soon after
prepared; and in June, 1807, the Massachusetts legis-
lature authorized the trustees of Phillips Academy to
to hold funds for its use. 1
Meanwhile that strict Calvinist of the Hopkinsian
type, Rev. Dr. Samuel Spring of Newburyport, in ig-
norance of the Old Calvinist enterprise at Andover, was
planning a theological school. He had suggested the
thought of such an undertaking to his young friend,
Leonard Woods, as early as i8oi; 3 and by the close
of the year 1806, he had interested in the enterprise
three laymen of wealth and religious character, though
none of them were at this time church members.
These three, William Bartlett and Moses Brown of
Newburyport, and John Norris of Salem, were those
afterward known as the " Associate Founders " of
1 Report of Committee, pp. 67-69. 3 Woods, History, p. 72.
382 LEONARD WOODS
Andover Seminary. Yet at first they had no thought
of anything but an institution exclusively of their own
creation, and they suggested that their seminary might
be at West Newbury, with Woods as its instructor. 1
For this purpose they proposed to give thirty thousand
dollars.
The day following this eventful decision at New-
buryport brought Woods to Morse's house in Charles-
town on business connected with the Panoplist? Of
course, the younger minister told his older friend
what had been done by Dr. Spring and his associates;
and heard in return from his astonished editorial col-
league the plans of the Old Calvinists at Andover.
Morse at once presented the advantages that would
flow from a union of the two enterprises, and Woods
agreed with him, though hesitating at first to put him-
self forward in advocacy of combination on account
of his youth and almost filial relations to Rev. Dr.
Spring. Professor Pearson, and the Andover Old Cal-
vinists generally, favored the union ; but Dr. Spring
believed it fraught with too serious doctrinal peril, and
long opposed all compromise so strenuously that, in
March, 1807, Woods consented to accept a professor-
ship in the proposed West Newbury institution. But
no sooner had Woods come to this decision than he
repented it under the strong conviction that rival
seminaries would be a great misfortune, and, throwing
1 Woods, History, p. 75. 2 Ibid., p. 76.
LEONARD WOODS 383
off all hesitation, began to labor most assiduously to
bring about the consolidation of the enterprises. 1
At first, however, it looked as if union were unattain-
able, and during the early summer of 1807, Spring
drafted, with some assistance from Woods, a broadly
Edwardean creed for the proposed Hopkinsian semi-
nary; 9 while the Andover Old Calvinists committed
their foundation to the care of the trustees of Phillips
Academy in August and September of the same year,
stipulating that the doctrinal test required of instruc-
tors should be conformity to the Westminster Shorter
Catechism. 3 But Pearson and Woods still labored for
union, and chiefly through their persistence it was
ultimately brought about. A hopeful sign was the
appointment of Woods to the Professorship of Chris-
tian Theology in the proposed Old Calvinist institution
at Andover by the " Founder," Samuel Abbot, in
October, 1807, an appointment which Woods did not
accept till just before the union became an accom-
plished fact in May, 1808." The joint institution thus
laboriously brought into being was placed under the
care of the trustees of Phillips Academy; but to
guard their own rights the Hopkinsian " Associate
Founders " procured the establishment of a " Board
of Visitors " with supervisory powers. And the
1 Woods, History, pp. 80, 87. * Ibid., pp. 98-103.
3 Report of Committee on Deeds of Gift and Donations, pp. 6985, par-
ticularly pp. 75, 76.
4 Woods, History, pp. 108, 128, 129.
384 LEONARD WOODS
" Associate Founders " and " Founders " agreed, by
a further compromise, that each professor of their ap-
pointment should assent to the creed which Spring
had prepared for the proposed West Newbury semi-
nary, as a statement in which those doctrines are
" more particularly expressed " which are summarily
expressed in the Westminster Shorter Catechism. 1
The accomplishment of this union of Hopkinsian
and Old Calvinist interests at Andover led immediately
to more cordial relations between the parties else-
where. In June following the agreement of the
' Founders" and " Associate Founders," the Pan-
oplist and the Missionary Magazine were consolidated;
and the Massachusetts General Association, hereto-
fore looked upon askance by Hopkinsians, received in
much larger degree the support of all the Evangelical
forces of the State.
It must have been evident, from the story just nar-
rated in outline, that no small share of the success that
ultimately crowned these complicated endeavors was
due to the labors, and even more to the personality of
Woods. His efforts for union were positive and in-
fluential ; but even more influential was the fact that
he was a man on whom both parties could heartily
unite. The same qualities that had made him equally
welcome to the constituents of the Missionary Maga-
zine and of the Panoplist rendered him an acceptable
1 Report of Committee on Deeds of Gift and Donations, pp. 113, 114.
LEONARD WOODS 385
professor of theology to the Hopkinsians of Newbury-
port and to the moderate Edwardeans and Old Calvin-
ists of Andover. To a few, indeed, this union and the
man who symbolized it were not satisfactory. To
Emmons the union always seemed too great a conces-
sion to Old Calvinistic laxity and error; to Pearson,
who perhaps labored more than any other in the nego-
tiations which brought it about, it appeared ultimately
too complete a Hopkinsian victory. 1 But, looking
backward over the ninety years that have passed since
these events, it is manifest, I think, that no work of
greater importance to our New England churches was
accomplished in the opening decades of the nineteenth
century than the junction of the two Evangelical
streams that flowing out from Edwards's work and
teachings, and that having its source in the older
Calvinism. It consolidated the apparently divided
conservative forces of eastern Massachusetts, it set a
higher standard for our ministerial education, it put a
barrier to the Unitarian advance. And, on the whole,
no man contributed so materially to this union as
Leonard Woods.
Woods's acceptance of the Andover call was fol-
lowed, in June, 1808, by his resignation of the West
Newbury pastorate, his removal to Andover Hill, and
1 Professor Park, in A Memorial of the Semi-Centennial Celebration of
the Founding of the Theological Seminary at Andover, p. 236, Andover,
1859 ; Woods, History, p. 134.
25
386 LEONARD WOODS
his inauguration, together with that of Pearson, as
professors in the Seminary, at its opening, September
28, 1808. On the next day he began his teaching in
the parlor of his house, for Seminary buildings were
yet to be. 1 The teacher was thirty-four years of age.
If any justification of the new foundation was needed,
the Seminary received it amply in the immediate re-
sponse of the churches to its work. Dr. Spring had
hoped that, " in due time," there might be " twelve
or fifteen students in the Seminary at once;" the first
year saw an attendance of thirty-six, and before
Woods resigned his professorship, in 1846, after thirty-
eight years of service, he could say that he had taught
" more than fifteen hundred students," of whom
nearly a thousand had " finished the regular course of
study." 2 Before that resignation, also, nearly thirty
theological schools had been founded by the Protestant
religious bodies of the United States. By Congrega-
tionalists Bangor had been opened in 1816; Yale
Divinity School in 1822; Hartford, then at East
Windsor Hill, in 1834; and Oberlin in 1835. The
Presbyterian body had closely paralleled this develop-
ment, opening Princeton Seminary in 1812 ; Auburn in
1 Lawrence, Funeral Discourse, pp. 16, 17 ; Woods, History, pp. 130-
133 ; an account of the services of September 28, 1808, which included
the ordination of Dr. Pearson, a sermon, on Matt. xiii. 52, by President
Timothy Dwight, and the inaugural address of Professor Woods On the
Glory and Excellency of the Gospel, may be found in the Panoplist, New
Series, vol. i., p. 191.
2 Woods, History, p. 137.
LEONARD WOODS 387
1821; Western, at Allegheny, in 1827; Lane in 1832;
and Union in 1836. The Baptists had begun instruc-
tion at Hamilton in 1819, and at Newton in 1825 ; and
Episcopalians, Lutherans, the Reformed, and Unita-
rians all established strong seminaries early in this
period.
But the attendance of numbers, or imitation by
other groups of Christians, was not the only, or the
best, result of the new foundation, and of the union
of heretofore jealous forces on which it was based.
The rising tide of religious feeling in our churches
here overflowed in missionary consecration. Andover
Seminary did not, indeed, originate American foreign
missions. That movement had many roots. Chief of
all it was due to the new baptism of our churches
which came with the revivals whose first manifestation
was in 1791. The Home Missionary endeavors of
Connecticut and Massachusetts in the last decade of
the eighteenth century stimulated it. The Connecticut
Evangelical Magazine, founded in 1800, and the Massa-
chusetts Missionary Magazine of 1803, spread before
the public the stories of English missionary endeavor,
for foreign missions had begun with power in Eng-
land with the work of William Carey in 1792. It was
from the missionary household of one of the editors of
the Connecticut Evangelical Magazine, at Torringford,
Conn., that Samuel J. Mills went to Williams Col-
lege, determined to give his life to missionary service,
388 LEONARD WOODS
in 1806. Missions were in the air; and when, in
1807, Mills opened his heart, under the shelter of the
Williamstown haystack, to Gordon Hall and James
Richards, he found that the Spirit of God had antici-
pated his words, and the path was ready for the organi-
zation of the Williams College Society of Inquiry in
the spring of 1808.'
Yet, if Andover Seminary did not see the beginning
of the foreign missionary movement of New England,
it gave such a focus to that movement as made its
speedy success possible. Here Judson, Hall, Mills,
Newell, Nott, Richards, and Rice stimulated one
another's consecration to the missionary cause. Here
they found sympathetic counselors in the faculty and
in Dr. Spring of Newburyport and Dr. Samuel
Worcester of Salem. Here on June 25, 1810, in con-
sultation with Professors Woods and Stuart, and Rev.
Drs. Spring and Worcester, the historic application
to the Massachusetts General Association, which was
to meet two days later at Bradford, was determined
upon, and signed by Judson, Nott, Mills, and Newell.
From this consultation Spring and Worcester, on
Tuesday, June 26th, made their memorable journey
by chaise to Bradford a journey in which the Ameri-
can Board, as established by the Association at
Bradford on the Friday following, was planned. 2 It
1 Tracy, History of the American Board, pp. 21-24. New York, 1842.
* Ibid., pp. 25-27 ; Lawrence, Funeral Discourse, p. 17.
LEONARD WOODS 389
must have been with a sense of large participation
in an enterprise of far-reaching significance that
Woods preached the sermon on February 6, 1812,
at Salem, when Newell, Judson, Nott, Hall, and Rice
were ordained " as missionaries to the heathen in
Asia." '
The advancement of missions through the American
Board, on the Prudential Committee of which he
served from 1819 to 1844, was by no means the only
form of their novel Christian service that interested
Woods. The American Tract Society originated at
Andover, through efforts begun in 1813; the Educa-
tion Society of 1815 claimed much of Woods's labor;
and his share in the origin of the American Temper-
ance Society of 1826 was conspicuous. 8
All these services to the causes of religion or of re-
form, important as they might be, were subordinate
to Woods's main work at Andover, that of instruction
in systematic theology. It was in the classroom that
his best labor was accomplished ; yet he had not
all the qualities that bring fame to an instructor. His
mind seldom flashed forth the brilliant, epigrammatic
shafts that make some lecture-rooms scintillate like
the meteor-shot sky of a November night. In the
circle of his friends he could display a considerable
degree of quiet humor, yet he rarely revealed this
1 Published at Boston, 1812. The text was the Sixty-seventh Psalm.
9 Woods, History, p. 199 ; Lawrence, Funeral Discourse, p. 18.
390 LEONARD WOODS
gift in the classroom. 1 His cast of mind was naturally
cautious; on the sharper distinctions between the
shades of Calvinism of his day he sometimes seemed
indefinite ; he lacked, in a measure, that power which
comes in the classroom from having a full, definite,
promptly expressed, and dogmatically asserted opinion
on every question that student inquirers may present.
But he had many of the most salient gifts of a great
teacher. If his instruction was seldom brilliant, it
was solid, well thought out, and thoroughly buttressed
with argument. His patience was remarkable, his
manner uniformly courteous, his skill in drawing out
and directing the thought of his pupils by questions
conspicuous. The story is told that an embarrassed
student of Andover, thrown into perplexity by the
unexpected intricacies developed in an examination
for licensure, cried out to his ministerial judges,
" Now, gentlemen, if Dr. Woods could only ask me
one or two questions, the whole thing would be
cleared up." a His spoken words and his written page
had the beauty of simplicity, clearness, and ready
comprehensibility. And he had that perhaps most
effective of all qualities in a teacher, a hearty personal
interest in the students under his charge that led him
to labor not merely for their individual intellectual
advancement, but for the deepening in them of the
1 Compare the remarks of his son-in-law, Funeral Discourse, pp. 20, 21.
2 Ibid., pp. 23, 24.
LEONARD WOODS 391
personal spiritual life which is worth more in the prog-
ress of the Kingdom of God than any mental attain-
ment, however great.
To give any adequate idea of his doctrinal system in
a single lecture is, of course, impossible; partly be-
cause it so agreed in its main outline with the historic
faith of the moderate Edwardean school to which he
more and more inclined that any adequate character-
ization of his peculiarities would carry us into the
minutiae of doctrinal discussion, and partly because its
range of thought covered the whole field, from the
divine existence down to the particularities of church
government. The age in which a man lives largely
determines by its discussions and its needs the themes
about which his thought will center. With Woods
the salient topics of his argument were the absolute
authority of Scripture, the Trinity and the nature of
Christ's person, the divine purposes as revealed in the
methods by which God has ordered and governs the
animate and inanimate creation, moral agency as illus-
trated in man's present powers, responsibilities, abili-
ties, and inabilities, man's total depravity, and the
nature of the atoning work by which sin is forgiven
and he is reconciled to God. Such an enumeration
signifies little, and I prefer, therefore, instead of at-
tempting any enlargement of these topics, to give you
a hint alike of Woods's doctrinal emphases and of his
literary style, by a quotation from the " Dedicatory
3Q2 LEONARD WOODS
Address" to his pupils prefixed to his lectures in his
collected Works : 1
"As to matters of doctrine, I entreat you to keep at
the greatest distance from all unscriptural speculations, and
to repose unlimited confidence in the word of God. The
minds of men at the present day are, to a fearful extent, in
an unsettled state, and are reaching after something to
satisfy a vain and restless curiosity. . . . There is, in
my view, no ground of safety but a serious, unquestioning
belief, resulting from thorough examination and Christian
experience, that all Scripture is divinely inspired that the
whole Bible was written under the special guidance of the
Holy Spirit, and is consequently clothed with divine author-
ity, and is infallible in all its teachings. Hold fast to this
principle, and you are safe. If you either reject or doubt
it if you consider the whole or particular parts of the
Bible, as written without any special direction of the Holy
Spirit, or if you regard the inspiration of the sacred writers
as of a similar nature with the inspiration of poets and ora-
tors I say, if thoughts like these are suffered to lodge in
your minds, you are standing on slippery places, and there
is reason to fear that your feet will quickly slide.
" A disbelief of the plenary inspiration of the Scriptures
is generally found in those who are inclined to dissent from
the common creed ; and though it may sometimes arise
from other motives, it is often adopted as an expedient to
get rid of unpalatable doctrines. Beware then of that state
of moral feeling which would render any of the teachings
of revelation unpalatable. See to it that you have that re-
newed, spiritual mind, which discerns and loves the truth
which specially recognizes the doctrine that we are by
nature the children of wrath; that in our fallen state we
1 i., pp. xii., xiii. Boston, 1849.
LEONARD WOODS 393
are not sufficient of ourselves to obtain salvation or to do
anything acceptable to God, and that, unless we are regen-
erated by the Holy Spirit, we cannot see the kingdom of
heaven the doctrine that Christ, who is both God and
man, died for our sins in our stead, and that his atoning
blood secures to believers the forgiveness of sin and the
blessedness of the world above. Shun every theological
scheme, which gives an unscriptural prominence to the
agency of man, and comparatively overlooks the agency of
the divine Spirit. . . . On the other hand, I would,
with equal earnestness, warn you against any such views of
our dependence on God, as would interfere in the least
with our free, accountable agency, or with our complete
obligation to obey the law and the gospel. . . . Avoid
all unscriptural views, and unscriptural representations, and
maintain those doctrines of religion, which the experience
of ages has shown to be best adapted to bring men to
believe in the all-sufficient Saviour, and which, through the
divine blessing, have had the greatest influence in promot-
ing personal holiness, and genuine revivals of religion.
" And here let me suggest a very necessary caution. It
is a fact, that the greatest difficulties, and those which
human reason is least able to obviate, exist in regard to
doctrines which are of the greatest value, and which are
supported by the most satisfactory evidence. I might
instance in the eternal, uncaused existence of God, the
Scripture doctrine of the Trinity, the atonement, and the
endless punishment of the impenitent. Now, if you should
adopt the principle, that this or that doctrine is not to be
believed because it is attended with insolvable difficulties,
what would be the consequence ? Evidently, that you would
reject from your creed the most certain and the most im-
portant truths, and in the end be plunged in downright
skepticism. I caution you to guard against whatever woulcj
394 LEONARD WOODS
lead to so fatal a result, and particularly against the habit
of looking off from the truths of religion, and from the clear
evidence of those truths, and occupying your thoughts and
your time with efforts to remove objections and cavils,
which is frequently a hopeless undertaking."
During his years of instruction at Andover, Woods
was constantly busy with his pen. It has already
been pointed out that when a young minister at West
Newbury he was asked to have a part in the two
Evangelical periodicals of that day. The custom of
writing for current publications, thus early begun,
Woods kept up through life. He was, moreover, in
constant demand as a preacher of ordination sermons,
of discourses commemorative of the older ministers or
laymen with whom he had been associated in the
founding of Andover Seminary or in the early history
of the American Board, or as a speaker on special
occasions; and many of these felicitous and appro-
priate addresses were printed. But his chief publica-
tions, during his active teaching at Andover, were
either semi-controversial expositions of the truth as he
understood it, or full-panoplied polemics against what
he deemed the chief errors of the day. Many of these
publications grew directly out of his classroom lec-
tures. Thus, in 1825, he put forth a series of Lectures
on Infant Baptism, and followed them, a year later, by
Lectures on the Inspiration of the Scriptures. In 1832,
he published in the Spirit of the Pilgrims several Letters
LEONARD WOODS 395
to Young Ministers. In 1835, his Essay on Native
Depravity was put forth. The year 1843 witnessed
his vindication of Congregationalism and criticism
of Episcopal claims, the Lectures on Church-Govern-
ment ; and this was followed, in 1846, by his Lectures
on Swedenborgianism. Five years after his retirement
from active duties, in 1851, he issued his defense of
the older New England divinity and criticism of what
he deemed current errors, the Theology of the Puritans.
While all these discussions had some degree of im-
portance in their own day, three controversies, yet to
be mentioned, are of greater significance, not so much
because Woods showed higher skill in them than in
the arguments just enumerated, but because they had
to do with movements of larger moment in American
religious thought. These more noteworthy contro-
versial efforts were his Letters to Unitarians of 1820,
his Reply to Ware of 1821, and his Remarks on Ware's
Answer of 1822, which may be grouped together as a
single discussion; his Letters to Taylor of 1830; and
his Examination of the Doctrine of Perfection as held
by Rev. Asa Mahan, President of the Oberlin Collegiate
Institute of 1841. Woods was not by nature a con-
troversialist. He did not go out of his way to en-
counter theological quarrels; but he did not avoid
such discussions when they came to him as a conse-
quence of his office or of his teachings; and his public
position as professor of theology in the leading
396 LEONARD WOODS
Evangelical seminary of New England during those
years of heated controversy made theological polemics
unavoidable. Yet, when he is compared with the
theological disputants of the eighteenth century, and
with many in his own day, one is struck with the
courtesy with which Woods argued with an opponent.
His own true feeling of Christian charity for those he
deemed in error he well expressed when he said : '
" I cannot avoid the persuasion that I should commit a
less offence against the Christian religion by bad reasoning
than by a bad spirit, and therefore that I am bound to take
as much pains at least to cherish right feeling as to frame
right arguments."
At an earlier point in this lecture we glanced at the
triumph of the Liberal party in the contest for suprem-
acy over the theological teaching of Harvard, and
saw the decisive effect of that victory in determining
the foundation of Andover Seminary. The Liberal
movement had thenceforward intensified, and growing
opposition to it had drawn the lines more and more
sharply between the two parties. Park Street Church
had been organized as an Evangelical outwork in Bos-
ton in 1809; f rom about that time onward conservative
ministers, under the lead of Rev. John Codman of
Dorchester, had begun to refuse to exchange pulpits
with their Liberal associates; in 1815, Jedidiah Morse
had published the much-discussed pamphlet on
1 Lawrence, Funeral Discourse, p. 26.
LEONARD WOODS 397
American Unitarianism which ultimately fixed that
designation on the Liberal party and led to its general
recognition as a separate religious body; and, in 1819,
Channing had outlined the theology of the new de-
nomination in his famous sermon delivered at Balti-
more on the occasion of the ordination of Jared
Sparks.
In all this contention Woods had, of course, inter-
ested himself deeply; and, as his published lectures
show, 1 he had elaborately discussed with his students
the most loudly controverted point in debate, the
nature of Christ. It is probably true, as has been said
of late, that neither side in this warfare comprehended
the doctrine of the Trinity in its historic Athanasian
sense; yet the Evangelical champions defended with
vigor and success not merely the full and eternal
divinity of our Lord, but His full and complete human-
ity as well, against the crude Arian hypotheses of the
earlier American Unitarians, who removed Christ from
entire partnership in humanity, while denying Him a
true participation in deity. 2
But it was not this side of the debate between Amer-
ican Evangelicals and Liberals, so fully set forth in
Woods's lectures, that he discussed in the Letters to
Unitarians which Channing's sermon drew forth. The
1 Works, i., p. 243-455.
2 Compare Chadwick, Old and New Unitarian Belief, pp. 147, 148.
Boston, 1894.
398 LEONARD WOODS
public defense of the person of Christ against the inter-
pretations of Channing he left, in 1820, to his gifted
colleague, Prof. Moses Stuart, while he applied himself
to those questions which, though not so fundamental
when viewed from the standpoint of universal Christian
truth as is that of the person of Christ, yet were, even
more than that, the topics of deepest interest and wid-
est divergence in the debates of the first two decades
of the nineteenth century. What is the nature of man?
Is it full of vast possibilities of good, and in need only
of a salvation by education through which character
may be improved and developed, as the Unitarians
claimed ; or is it profoundly sinful and depraved, need-
ing the special elective application of a divine trans-
forming grace to work in it the regeneration that it
requires, as Woods contended ? This was the point
at issue. Woods's Letters were elaborately answered
by Prof. Henry Ware of Harvard, 1 to whom Woods
replied in 1821, only to have Ware fire a second shot,
which Woods answered in 1822; but little was added
to the arguments already advanced.
Woods's discussion with Taylor grew out of a con-
troversy, now almost forgotten, but which profoundly
convulsed Connecticut in the third and fourth decades
of the nineteenth century, and even affected to some
degree the Presbyterian Church. Nathaniel W. Tay-
lor had passed from the pastorate of the First Church
1 Letters addressed to Trinitarians and Cahinists. Cambridge, 1820.
LEONARD WOODS 399
in New Haven to the Professorship of Theology in
Yale Divinity School, when that department of what is
now Yale University was opened in 1822. A favorite
pupil of President Timothy Dwight, he carried further
than any had thus far done the moderate and concilia-
tory type of Edwardeanism which Dwight had repre-
sented, till he seemed to all Hopkinsians and to many
Edwardeans to be radically astray from Edwardean
principles. Man's acts, Taylor asserted, are not ne-
cessitated by an unqualified law of cause and effect.
God knows, indeed, what man's choices will be, for
He perceives and determines or permits the antecedent
conditions of soul and of man's situation from which
those choices flow. Yet man has the power of con-
trary choice at all times. Man is free; but this " cer-
tainty with power to the contrary," allows God to be
sovereign and man dependent. Man has natural abil-
ity to choose aright, and this ability can be aroused
to action by an appeal to self-love a self-love, indeed,
wholly consistent with that benevolence which has the
best good of the universe as its aim. Yet while man
has entire natural power to change his character so as
to love God supremely, it is certain that he will not
so change his ruling purposes unless the Divine Spirit
so moves upon his feelings as to induce his will to act,
yet to act without coercion. Moreover, contrary to the
opinion of the older Edwardeans and of all Hopkin-
sians, sin is not necessarily the means of the greatest
400 LEONARD WOODS
good to the universe as a whole. Possibly God could
not have excluded sin from a system permitting free
action by His creatures. Yet, though God may not
be able to prevent sin in such a system of freedom,
man can, by resisting temptation ; and such resistance
would be preferable to any yielding to sin, not only
for the interests of the individual but for those of the
universe as a whole.
To the older type of Edwardeans this seemed sub-
versive enough. That self-love, which Edwards and
Hopkins had declared the essence of sin, could be a
motive to holiness, the more conservative disciples
of Edwards could not believe. Doubtless they did
not use the word in the sense in which Taylor did ;
but to use it at all was enough to cause alarm. To
affirm that God possibly could not have prevented
sin in any system was, to many, to deny His sove-
reignty. The conflict waxed so bitter that, in 1834,
the opponents of Taylorism in Connecticut founded a
new theological seminary, under the charge of Rev.
Dr. Bennet Tyler, at East Windsor, Conn., which
is now located at Hartford and is known by the name
of its present domicile.
It was in the earlier stages of this controversy, in
1830, that Woods wrote his Letters to Taylor. Cour-
teous and cautious in tone, yet positive and severe in
his criticisms, Woods directed his attention to Taylor's
treatment of the divine relationship to sin, charging
LEONARD WOODS 40!
him with holding " that sin is not the necessary
means of the greatest good," and " that, in a moral
system, God could not have prevented all sin, nor the
present degree of it." ' Over against this denial
Woods strove to vindicate the common Edwardean
position that " God did not prevent all sin nor the
present degree of it, because it seemed good in his
sight not to prevent it." To Woods, it seemed that
in asserting the possibility that God could not have
excluded the invasion of sin among free moral agents,
while man could have prevented sin by not sinning,
Taylor had attributed to creatures a power which he
had denied to the Creator. And, after a fashion
characteristic of theological controversy in all ages,
Woods proceeded to draw inferences from Taylor's
supposed principles, finding in them a denial that God
can accomplish the good that He desires, or be com-
pletely happy, or has adopted that system in the
government of the universe which He knows to be
best, or that God's control over the world is more than
a limited rule; and deducing from them the conclusion
that, on Taylor's premises, a Christian cannot be justly
happy or truly humble, or confident that God is able
to grant the requests he offers in prayer, however
much God may wish to do so. It is almost needless
1 Letters to Rev. Nathaniel W. Taylor, pp. 22, 54, 94-97. A good
contemporary account of this discussion may be found in Crocker, The
Catastrophe of the Presbyterian Church in 1837, pp. 157-173. New
Haven, 1838.
402 LEONARD WOODS
to say that Taylor replied with a denial that Woods
had correctly stated his principles, and a rejection of
Woods's inferences from, and supposed logical conse-
quences of, those principles. 1
Of Woods's discussion with Mahan it will not be
necessary to speak at length. Among the evidences
of the abounding spiritual life of this period none was
more individual than the foundation, in 1833, f
Oberlin College an institution designed to foster a
warmly spiritual type of piety, to give education to
men and women at a most moderate cost, and to be
the center of a consecrated, self-denying, reform-seek-
ing religious community. In large measure the aims
of the founders of Oberlin have been realized ; but the
founders and early leaders of the college were men of
individuality which bordered in some things on eccen-
tricity, and led to a good many social and doctrinal
innovations. The presidency of Oberlin was held
from 1835 to 1850 by one of Woods's pupils, a gradu-
ate of Andover Seminary, Asa Mahan ; while the
professorship of theology in Oberlin Seminary was
occupied during the same period and long after by
Charles G. Finney. Standing in general on the basis
of the later Edwardeanism, Mahan drew from the
obligation of all men to obey the law of God and from
the promises of the Gospel the conclusions that " we
1 Christian Spectator for September, 1830 ; Crocker, Catastrophe, pp.
165-171.
LEONARD WOODS 403
may now, during the progress of the present life, attain
to entire perfection in holiness," and that " the sacred
writers assert the fact that some of the ancient saints
did, in this life, attain to a state of entire sanctifica-
tion." ' These views Mahan first advanced in his
Scripture Doctrine of Christian Perfection? and they
were substantially adopted by his colleagues at Ober-
lin. They were looked upon by Presbyterians and
Congregationalists in general with great suspicion,
and in consequence of them Oberlin long lay under
accusation of doubtful orthodoxy.
To these views of Mahan, Woods replied with a
wealth of argument in i84i, 3 maintaining that " we
ought to pray God to sanctify us wholly, and to do it
with the expectation that he will, at no distant period,
bestow the very blessing we ask. But as to expecting
the blessing to be fully granted in the present life, we
differ from the advocates of perfection." Moreover,
Woods affirmed that, instead of attaining holiness in
this life, the truth was that even " the most advanced
saints have always been conscious of the imperfection
of their holiness."
In September, 1846, five years after the publication
of the argument just noted, Woods resigned the pro-
1 Mahan, in American Biblical Repository, pp. 409, 419, for October,
1840.
2 Boston, 1839.
3 American Biblical Repository for January and April, 1841, pp. 166-
189, 406-438. The quotations are from pp. 409, 427.
404 LEONARD WOODS
fessorship he had held for thirty-eight years and which
was growing to be too heavy a burden for a man of
seventy-two. For almost eight years more, till August
24, 1854, he lived at Andover, till death came to him
at the age of eighty. The surrender of work which
one has long performed faithfully and well to younger
hands and altered methods is perhaps the hardest trial
that comes to old age. Woods felt its burden. But
his sunset years were a season of considerable physical
strength and mental fruitage. The hand of time
rested kindly on him. He gathered and arranged his
lectures, with such essays and sermons as he wished
to preserve, and published them in five substantial
volumes during 1849 anc ^ 1850. At the close of his
life he had nearly finished a History of Andover Semi-
nary^ narrating at length the story of its foundation in
which he had had so large a share a History that,
by a curious fate, was not published till 1885.
Under the impressive influence of the death of this
venerable and useful teacher of Christian truth, the
preacher of the Discourse at Woods's funeral declared
of his published lectures : ' ' They will constitute a monu-
ment more enduring than Parian or Pentelic marble."
Unhappily, it is given to few theological instructors
to write much that after generations care to read.
New presentations of old truths, new discussions of
altered problems, cast a veil over the old. To build
1 Lawrence, Funeral Discourse, p. 20.
LEONARD WOODS 40$
one's life and thought into the progress of one's own
generation in some greater or smaller measure is the
highest service granted to most teachers or ministers.
Excellent, in many respects, as Woods's lectures are,
they are not his chief claim to remembrance. His
monument is to be found, rather, in a union of the Evan-
gelical forces of New England so complete that they
have wellnigh forgotten that they were ever in danger
of schism by debates between Hopkinsians and Old
Calvinists, in the junction of these forces at a critical
moment in New England history, in the establish-
ment of an advanced system of theological education,
and in the moderate and judicious, yet earnest,
spiritual and positive type of Edwardean Calvinism
that he made part of the mental equipment of a
large proportion of the early graduates of Andover
Seminary.
LEONARD BACON
407
X.
LEONARD BACON
OF the eminent Congregationalists whose lives and
work we have thus far considered, only one can
have been personally known to any who have followed
this course of lectures. Professor Woods is remem-
bered by a few of those who .have kindly listened to
these biographies; but the subject of to-day's address
is doubtless clearly pictured in the recollection of
many of the older of those who are here assembled as
I speak the name Leonard Bacon. It was the lec-
turer's good fortune to sit, in young boyhood, Sunday
after Sunday, in the pew directly in front of the pulpit
in which Dr. Bacon, then virtually pastor emeritus,
habitually took his place beside his younger colleague.
And no figure was more distinctly impressed on the
speaker's boyhood memory than that of the slight,
erect, active, nervous frame, wearing the coat which
fashion has since relegated to evening dress, but which
was then the ordinary pulpit garb; the forceful figure
crowned with a noble head, beautiful in the whiteness
of its abundant hair and beard, and in the quick, in-
cisive expression, to which the piercing blue-gray eyes
409
410 LEONARD BACON
that age had hardly dimmed and the firm yet mobile
mouth gave perpetual play and change. The boy
who then sat before him well remembers, too, the
sweetness of his voice as he would often rise to pray
when the sermon by his colleague and successor in the
active work of the parish had concluded; and even
childish years could appreciate something of the ten-
derness, felicity, and strength of the words in which
he would lift the petitions of the congregation along
the pathway of the thoughts to which it had listened
in the discourse just concluded. To the boy below,
the figure in the pulpit seemed the type of what an
aged minister ought to be in look, in word, in dignity;
and even the boy knew in some childish way that it
was a great man that sat before him, and felt the power
of that greatness, though it was beyond his abilities
then to define wherein that greatness lay.
It was in a cabin in the then frontier fur-trading
town of Detroit that Leonard Bacon was born on Feb-
ruary 19, 1802. His father, David Bacon, 1 by birth
of Woodstock, Conn., had married Alice Parks of
Lebanon, in December, 1800, and on December 3ist
of that year had been ordained at Hartford by the
Trustees of the Missionary Society of Connecticut
" as an Evangelist among the Indian tribes of North
1 The story of the pathetic life-struggle of David Bacon was most sym-
pathetically told by Leonard Bacon himself in the successive numbers
of the Congregational Quarterly for 1876 ; the facts of this and the
following paragraphs are principally gleaned from that source,
LEONARD BACON 411
America." 1 The ordination of the young missionary
the husband being twenty-nine and the wife seven-
teen had been followed by the weary journey by
sleigh and on horseback or afoot to Detroit, a jour-
ney requiring from February nth to May Qth of the
year 1801 for its accomplishment.
At Detroit, when his eldest child, Leonard, was born,
the baffled but courageous missionary was planning to
transfer his labors to the banks of the Maumee, near
the present city of Toledo, as affording a better oppor-
tunity for reaching the Indians; and the same hope
led the missionary parents to go to Mackinaw when
Leonard was four months old. But the work, though
self-denying and difficult to a degree without example
at present in home missionary labor in the United
States, had little promise of success. The Indians
proved practically inaccessible; and, in the autumn
of 1804, the missionary family reached the village
of Cleveland, O., destitute and burdened with the
debts which the unexpected expenses of frontier life,
in spite of rigid economy, had forced upon them.
The missionary left his anxious young wife and little
family at Hudson, O., while he made an arduous win-
ter journey to Hartford and back to explain matters
to the Trustees of the Missionary Society of Connecti-
cut, who had intimated their desire to see him in terms
^American Mercury, quoted ibid., p. 19. See Connecticut Courant
of January 5, 1801.
412 LEONARD BACON
which he deemed far more savoring of censure than
they intended. On his return, he settled in the raw
village of Hudson as part missionary and part pastor.
But the thought of establishing a Christian town
that might leaven the Western Reserve with the best
elements of New England life took strong hold on his
enthusiastic spirit; and, from 1805 to 1812, David
Bacon was engaged in an attempt to create in the
township soon to be known as Tallmadge, 1 a commu-
nity resembling in some features of its religious basis
that later organized at Oberlin. To Tallmadge he
removed his family in July, 1807, and took possession
of " the new log house" that then constituted the
only sign of civilized life in the forest by which the
township was covered. At Tallmadge David Bacon
aided in the organization of a church in January, i8ic;
and there, amid the sights and experiences of a frontier
settlement, Leonard Bacon grew from his sixth to his
eleventh year. At a school exhibition in the neigh-
boring town of Hudson the little Leonard and his
schoolmate, John Brown, later to write his name in-
delibly on American annals at Harper's Ferry, took
the parts of William Penn and Hernando Cortes in a
dialogue as to the proper treatment of the Indians,
drawn from the Columbian Orator?
1 Some facts regarding this enterprise may be found in L. W. Bacon,
A Discourse delivered in the Memorial Presb. Church, Detroit . . . Dec,
24, 2882, pp. 3, 4, 14, 15 ; see also the Congregationalist, Feb. 2, 1899.
2 L. W. Bacon, ibid., etc., p. 14.
LEONARD BACON 413
But, though advantageous for the larger interests
of northern Ohio, the Tallmadge enterprise brought
only anxiety and grievous financial burden to its pro-
jector; and at last, in May, June, and July, 1812,
the disappointed pioneer and his household journeyed
back to Connecticut. David Bacon's remaining years
were few. Hardship and disappointment had laid
their hands upon his physical frame, though they
could not dampen his Christian faith and courage, and
he died on August 29, 1817, at Hartford, not quite
forty-six years of age, leaving seven children, of whom
Leonard, the eldest, was fifteen.
The boy thus early left fatherless had found a helper,
on his coming to Hartford, in 1812, in his father's
older brother, Leonard Bacon, whose name he bore,
and who was a leading physician of the little city.
Through his aid the younger Leonard had received
the training of what was then known as " the Hartford
Grammar School," the excellent institution for pre-
paratory education that traces its history from 1638 to
the Hartford Public High School of the present. Thus
equipped, the boy entered the Sophomore class of Yale
College, in the autumn of 1817, within a month of his
father's death.
The purpose already formed within him was to
devote his life to the ministry, 1 and his Christian
character as manifested in college was decided. But
1 See the Commemorative Volume issued by his congregation, entitled
Leonard Bacon, Pastor of the First Church in New Haven, p. 254, 1882.
414 LEONARD BACON
though he engaged actively in the discussions of the
literary societies, read English literature extensively,
and maintained a good scholastic standing, the boy
of eighteen who was graduated in 1820, had not yet
awakened to the full possibilities and responsibili-
ties of his intellectual life, so that he impressed his
friends as not sufficiently strenuous a student for his
own best development, and as " in danger of hurting
himself by superficial habits of reading." ' Two of
these friends had the kindness to tell him their judg-
ment, and their words had effect. The theological
course which he began at Andover in the autumn sub-
sequent to his graduation was marked by a thorough
application that had its reward in his appointment to
deliver the principal address at the Seminary com-
mencement of i823. 2 Graduation at Andover was fol-
lowed by a fourth year at that Seminary as a resident
licentiate and to some extent as an assistant to Pro-
fessor Ebenezer Porter in the department of Sacred
Rhetoric. 3 But the missionary spirit of Bacon's father
attracted him to the Western frontier, and with the
thought of this labor in view he was ordained as an
evangelist by the Hartford North Consociation, assem-
bled at Windsor, Conn., on September 28, 1824.*
1 President Woolsey, in the Commemorative Volume, pp. 226, 227.
2 Ibid., pp. 227, 228.
3 Leonard Bacon, Two Sermons Preached on the Fortieth Anniversary
of his Settlement, published in the Commemorative Volume above cited,
p. 77. 4 /#</., p. 77-
LEONARD BACON 415
Yet the next day brought the young man who had
just been set apart to the ministerial office a letter
that altered his entire later life. The ecclesiastical
society representing the business interests of the ven-
erable First Church in New Haven, moved thereto
by the suggestion of a former pastor, then the
honored Professor Moses Stuart of Andover, asked
Bacon to preach for them; and on October 3rd, 1824,
he delivered his first sermon in the pulpit that was
to be his own for the next fifty-seven years. 1 Thir-
teen more discourses so largely united the congre-
gation in his favor, that on December I5th, the society,
by a vote of sixty-eight to twenty, invited him to
become its minister and requested the church to join
in the call. Four days later the church expressed its
approval by formal vote, 2 passed with " uncommon
unanimity." The salary offered was a thousand
dollars. On January 17, 1825, Bacon wrote from
Andover, accepting the invitation.
On March 8th following, a council of representatives
of six churches convened at New Haven, after " a day
of fasting and prayer " had been kept by the New
Haven congregation. 4 The candidate was examined
at length; to quote his own description, forty years
later, " Many questions were asked, of which I could
1 Commemorative Volume, pp. 77, 78.
2 Documents in the Commemorative Volume, just cited, pp. 13-19.
3 Leonard Bacon, Letter of Acceptance, ibid., p. 18.
4 Commemorative Volume, pp. 20, 21, 79.
416 LEONARD BACON
not then see the bearing, and which I answered with-
out suspecting their relation to theological parties and
controversies soon to break forth; " ' but all resulted
in his approval. The next day, March Qth, he was in-
stalled over the church of his lifelong ministry, Rev.
Joel Hawes of the First Church in Hartford preaching
the sermon. The new pastor was twenty-three years
of age.
Yet some things besides youth made the beginning
of the pastorate a time of great trial and difficulty
for the young minister. The pulpit was one of the
two popularly ranked as the most conspicuous in Con-
necticut, and much was to be expected of its occupant.
Bacon's immediate predecessors had been among the
princes of the New England pulpit. From March,
1806, to his dismissal to the professorship at Andover
which was to be the scene of his most conspicuous
service to the churches, the New Haven pastorate had
been fulfilled by Moses Stuart, and the time had been
one of constant spiritual quickening. From April,
1812, till December, 1822, Nathaniel W. Taylor, who
left the First Church for the chair of Theology in Yale
Divinity School, had set forth in sermons of attractive
eloquence and searching power the doctrines which
were to lead to such heated controversy when ex-
pounded in his classroom. The young pastor was
conscious of the difficulty of standing in the place of
1 Commemorative Volume, pp. 79, 80.
LEONARD BACON
men of such talents and repute. Addressing his con-
gregation forty years later, he said with characteristic
truthfulness, " I think I understand myself; and I
know it is not an affectation of modesty to say that I
never had any such power in the pulpit as they had in
their best days." 1
The end of the first year left the new pastor
11 with the desponding expectation that [his] minis-
try would be a failure." But courage, patience,
and strength were characteristic of the young man;
and when he was visited by several prominent mem-
bers of the society, headed by James Hillhouse,
treasurer of Yale, Senator of the United States, and
New Haven's leading citizen, with a suggestion that
his sermons were not what the congregation had heard
from Stuart and Taylor, the young pastor simply
answered: " Gentlemen, they shall be made worthy; "
and in due time they were. Always grave, dignified,
and thoughtful in the pulpit, he was soon heard
with entire acceptance; and if not usually manifesting
great oratorical powers in what may be called the more
ordinary ministrations of the house of God, when the
question was one of spiritual interest, moral signifi-
cance, or public concern, he speedily showed the
possession of an eloquence, force, and cogency of argu-
ment that marked him as a born leader of men. By the
1 Commemorative Volume, p. 82 ; compare also President Woolsey,
ibid., p. 228. * find., p. 83.
27
41 8 LEONARD BACON
close of the third year of his pastorate Bacon was able
to see the visible fruit of his preaching in a revival
movement that added forty-eight members to the
church, and from then onward, if not before, his posi-
tion was fully secure, not only in the affection of his
congregation, but in his own confidence of the divine
blessing on his work. 1
As a pastor, Leonard Bacon grew deeper into the
love of his people year by year. Proud of his church,
the history of which he did so much to expound,
recognized as a leader in the community, then in the
State, and ultimately in national affairs, the church
grew proud of him ; and he endeared himself to its
members by his ready and genuine sympathies with
their joys and sorrows, and his own deepening and
expanding spiritual life. His pastorate was one which
witnessed a strengthening bond between pastor and
people to the end.
Dr. Bacon's personal experiences of joy and sorrow
were such as to fit him to sympathize with and minis-
ter to the happiness and burdens of the common lot.
Four months after his ordination, in July, 1825, he
married Miss Lucy Johnson, of Johnstown, N. Y.
Nineteen years later, in November, 1844, she was
taken from him by death. In June, 1847, ^ e married
Miss Catherine Elizabeth Terry, of Hartford, Conn.,
who survived her husband for a few months. Of his
1 Commemorative Volume, pp. 83, 84.
LEONARD BACON 419
fourteen children, five were called from the father's
household before his own summons came. But he had
the satisfaction of seeing four sons enter the Congrega-
tional ministry, and a daughter devote herself to the
elevation of the race whose release from slavery he had
so vigorously advocated. In household joys and sor-
rows alike he felt that the providence of God was
teaching his soul, and fitting him the better for the
Master's service. 1
Dr. Bacon's long pastorate was broken by only one
considerable absence. In July, 1850, when the pastor
had been a quarter of a century in service, the society
granted such a vacation as he might desire to enable
him to visit Europe and the Mediterranean Orient.
The journey is chiefly important for our story as
affording Dr. Bacon, when taken captive by Kurds
between Mosul and Ooroomiah, and in imminent dan-
ger of death, an opportunity to display a physical
courage akin to the moral fearlessness always charac-
teristic of him. 2
Useful and successful as Dr. Bacon was as a minister
in his own congregation, his largest service was beyond
the bounds of his parish. For this wider ministry he
had some remarkable natural talents. His disposition
was sanguine, with a genuine belief in the triumph of
1 See his biographic Half-Century Sermon, in ibid.^ pp. 119-135,
especially pp. 132, 133.
2 An interesting account of this experience, from his own pen, is
given, ibid., pp. 29-38.
420 LEONARD BACON
righteousness. His sympathies with efforts for reform
were broad ; and he was ready to take a part in any
contest which had as its aim the advancement of a
moral principle. He did not shun controversy. In
a measure, he joyed in the battle with the confidence
of one who trusts alike in the justice of his cause and
the adequacy of his powers. But his polemics were
under the control of a sound judgment as to when and
what to strike. From the beginning of his pastorate
Dr. Bacon was recognized as a debater of power in the
local ecclesiastical gatherings of Connecticut ; for the
last thirty years of his life he was regarded as without
an equal among contemporary American Congrega-
tionalists in skill and effectiveness of argument ; and so
ready and well furnished was his mind that it often
seemed to his associates that he spoke most effectively
when drawn unexpectedly into discussion.
To this parliamentary skilfulness Dr. Bacon added a
literary style of remarkable felicity. His writings were
not merely transparent : they sparkled with wit, glowed
with feeling, and expressed his thought with a precision,
appropriateness, and freshness that showed him a mas-
ter in the use of language, and made it a pleasure to read
that which he wrote. He could be largely oblivious
to external distractions in writing, and his thoughts
were transferred to the written page with a quickness
and an apparent ease * that was a constant source of
1 See the remarks of Rev. Dr. R. S. Storrs, ibid., pp. 197, 198.
LEONARD BACON 421
surprise to his associates. An evident appreciation
of these gifts is to be seen in his election, in 1839, to a
professorship of Rhetoric and Oratory in Yale College,
an election which he declined.
One minor evidence of Dr. Bacon's versatility of
mind, not, indeed, as marked as the qualities just men-
tioned, was his poetic strain. He was not conspicu-
ously a poet, he does not even rank among our
foremost hymn writers, yet no hymn promises to be
more permanently acceptable to the sons and daughters
of New England than his noble psalm of 1833:
" O God, beneath Thy guiding hand,
Our exiled fathers crossed the sea."
The mention of this stirring hymn of thanksgiving
for Pilgrim and Puritan achievements reminds us that
one of the greatest of Dr. Bacon's services to Congre-
gationalism was his illumination of its history. In that
story he took an intense and personal delight. As
far as any beginning may be assigned to the studies
which bore fruit till the close of his life, they had their
origin in his reading during those trying years of his
early ministry, 1 reading which, among other results,
led him to put forth, as a stimulus to the spiritual life
" of private Christians, and of Christian families,"
1 Dr. Bacon, in a debate in the Boston Council of 1865, assigned
weight in the development of his interest in Congregationalism to an
article published by Rev. Joshua Leavitt, in 1830, in the Quarterly
Christian Spectator ; see Debates and Proceedings of the National Council
. . . held at Boston, June 14-24, 1865, pp. 445, 446.
422 LEONARD BACON
his first important publication, the Select Practical
Writings of Richard Baxter, in 1831.' To this selec-
tion he prefixed an elaborate biographical sketch of
Baxter, the preparation of which gave him a thorough
initiation into the story of the Puritan movement.
The same pastoral zeal which led Dr. Bacon to the
publication of Baxter's edificatory writings, prompted
him to preach a series of " Sunday evening lectures "
which were gathered up in a useful little volume in
1833, under the title, A Manual for Young Church
Members? In this treatise the author's interest in and
love for Congregationalism are clearly outspoken. " I
cannot but think," he remarks, "that if the Congre-
gational organization should be extensively adopted
by evangelical Christians everywhere, the result would
be not only a vast extension of the principles and of
the life of rational liberty, but a great development of
the spirit of Christian purity and fidelity, and of the
energy of Christian zeal." 3
Such enthusiasm was needed, for Congregationalists
were then generally in the depths of their denomina-
tional self-distrust. The Unitarian defection seemed
to many to be due to a lack of " a strong govern-
ment," such as Presbyterianism then prided itself on
possessing. The ascription of Unitarianism to this
cause was indeed an error; but our pulpits and our
1 Published at New Haven in two volumes of six hundred pages each.
2 Published at New Haven. 3 Manual, pp. 7, S.
LEONARD BACON 423
theological chairs with rare exceptions made little of
the distinctive principles of Congregationalism ; the
majority of our ministers regarded polity, at least
between Congregationalists and Presbyterians, as a
question of geography to be determined by one's posi-
tion to the eastward or to the westward of the Hudson
River. And, in Connecticut, Consociationism had so
modified the feelings as well as the usages of our
churches that at the time when Dr. Bacon published
his Manual their popular designation was " Presbyte-
rian." To no man was the reentrance of our churches
upon their heritage more due than to Dr. Bacon.
The historic bent of Dr. Bacon's mind was revealed
by these early studies, so that when the years 1838 and
1839 brought the two hundredth anniversaries of the
planting of New Haven colony and of the foundation
of the church of which Dr. Bacon was pastor, it was
to be expected that the events should receive some
historic treatment from his pen. But the volume of
Thirteen Historical Discourses ' in which he commemo-
rated these occurrences was a work of more than a
passing significance. It was the first attempt for more
than a generation to tell the religious story of Connect-
icut; and the story is so admirably combined and cor-
related with the local history of his own church that ever
since its publication it has served as a pattern for our
better church histories. Its clearness of historic insight,
1 Published at New Haven, 1839.
424 LEONARD BACON
breadth of treatment, and charm of presentation won
immediate repute for its author as a historian. He
had already, in 1838, been made a corresponding mem-
ber of the Massachusetts Historical Society. He now,
in the year of the publication of his Thirteen Historical
Discourses, was elected to the Historical Societies of
Connecticut, New York, and Georgia. And doubtless
this volume had much to do with the bestowal upon
the still rather youthful pastor of the degree of Doctor
of Divinity by Hamilton College in 1842.
This repute as an interesting interpreter of history
led to frequent calls on Dr. Bacon for commemorative
occasions. Thus, on Thanksgiving Day, 1840, he
spoke in his own pulpit on The Goodly Heritage of
Connecticut? and, in May, 1843, at Hartford, before
the Connecticut Historical Society, on the Early Con-
stitutional History of Connecticut. 5 As the best
equipped of the graduates of Andover, it fell to him
to deliver the Commemorative Discourse * at the cele-
bration in August, 1858, of the fiftieth anniversary of
the founding of the Seminary; and a similar sense of
preeminent fitness induced the Connecticut General
Association to call upon Dr. Bacon for a Historical
Discourse* in June, 1859, on tne completion of a cent-
1 Published at New Haven, 1840. ^ Published at Hartford, 1843.
3 A Memorial of the Semi-Centennial Celebration of the Founding of
the Theological Seminary at Andover, pp. 70-113. Andover, 1859.
4 Contributions to the Ecclesiastical History of Connecticut, pp. 1-72.
New Haven, 1861.
LEONARD BACON 425
ury and a half of its existence. So, once more, when
the Connecticut General Conference celebrated the
centennial of American national life, in 1876, Dr.
Bacon gave the address on The Relations of the Con-
gregational Churches of Connecticut to Civil Govern-
ment, and to Popular Education and Social Reforms,
during the period antecedent to the Declaration of
Independence. 1
Naturally Dr. Bacon was interested in local history.
A charter member of the New Haven Historical So-
ciety and a director from its organization in 1862, he
presented before it, in 1863, the results of his studies
regarding the development of Civil Government in
New Haven Colony? On repeated occasions in his
own pulpit, as on the fortieth anniversary of his settle-
ment, in March, 1865, 3 and on the completion of his
fiftieth year of connection with the church of his
ministry, 4 he gave sermons of rare felicity of expres-
sion and of much historic and autobiographic interest.
The centennial of American independence drew from
Dr. Bacon an address on New Haven One Hundred
Years Ago;* and in 1879 ne published Three Civic
1 Centennial Papers Published by Order of the General Conference of
the Congregational Churches of Connecticut, pp. 145-170. Hartford,
1877.
2 Papers of the New Haven Historical Society, i., pp. 11-27.
3 In Four Commemorative Discourses, New Haven, 1866 ; see also
the Commemorative Volume, entitled Leorrard Bacon, etc., pp. 75-104.
4 Half-Century Sermon, New Haven, 1875 ', a l so m the Commemora-
tive Volume, pp. 119-135. Published at New Haven, 1876.
426 LEONARD BACON
Orations for New Haven , in which he further served
the city of his pastorate.
The most important as well as the most extensive of
Dr. Bacon's later contributions to history was, however,
his volume of 1874, entitled The Genesis of the New
England Churches? in which he narrated with filial and
graphic pen the story of Congregationalism from its be-
ginnings to its full establishment on New England soil
by the addition to the Separatist colony of Plymouth of
the Puritan settlement of Salem the forerunner of
the Puritan emigration which made New England
strong. Perhaps this proportioning of the story indi-
cates, what was the fact, that Dr. Bacon's sympathies
were more with the independent aspects of Congrega-
tionalism than with its centralizing tendencies.
Dr. Bacon's interest in the history of New England
was manifested to the close of his life; two of his
latest publications being an address on The Providen-
tial Selection and Training of the Pilgrim Pioneers of
New England? in 1880; and a paper on Old Times in
Connecticut? printed in 1882, after his death.
Such interest in the history of Congregationalism
was naturally accompanied by an acquaintance with
the details of its polity and a desire to extend its influ-
ence. Dr. Bacon's first essay in the practical application
of Congregational principles the Manual for Young
1 Published at New York. ' 2 Hartford, 1880.
3 New Haven, 1882, reprinted from the New Englander, xli., pp. 1-31.
LEONARD BACON 427
Church Members, of 1833 has already been men-
tioned. His next exposition of Congregational usages
was a careful Digest of the Rules and Usages in the Con-
sociations and Associations of Connecticut 1 a compila-
tion and condensation as clear, as technical, as accurate,
as valuable for reference, and as uninteresting for gen-
eral reading as a code of criminal law. This task was
performed as a member of a committee appointed by
the General Association of Connecticut of which Dr.
Bacon was chairman.
Dr. Bacon's most ambitious draft of a system of
church polity was made more than twenty years later
than his Digest. The Conference of Committees which
prepared the way for the National Council of our Con-
gregational churches that assembled at Boston in June,
1865, appointed Dr. Bacon, Rev. Dr. A. H. Quint,-and
Rev. Dr. Henry M. Storrs a committee to prepare a
statement of polity for submission to the Council.
Such a statement Dr. Bacon drafted, on the model of
the Cambridge Platform, and it was duly laid before the
Council, which referred it, after a spirited debate in
which Dr. Bacon bore large part, to a numerous com-
mittee. 2 By this committee it was somewhat amended,
and at length, in 1872, was reported to the churches. 3
1 Congregational Order, pp. 289-322. Middletown, 1843.
2 Debates and Proceedings of the. National Council of the Congrega-
tional Churches, held at Boston, Mass., June 1424., 186$, pp. 9, IO,
101-115, 117-129, 427-464. Boston, 1866.
3 Ecclesiastical Polity. The Government and Communion Practised
428 LEONARD BACON
This document, generally known as the " Boston Plat-
form," was the fruit of great labor, and deserved a
better fate than the oblivion which immediately over-
took it; but extended platforms of polity are doubtless
as little acceptable to the Congregational churches of
the present as the minute statements of faith in which
the seventeenth century delighted.
Such a man as Dr. Bacon, of active temperament
and ready willingness to bear his part in public efforts
for the advancement of the kingdom of Christ, was
naturally largely interested in organized Christian
work. Thus, from 1825 to 1829, he was the Secretary
of the Domestic Missionary Society of Connecticut,
and one of its directors from 1832 to 1869. In 1837
he became a director of the American Bible Society,
and, in 1845, f tne American Tract Society. From
1842 till his death, he was a corporate member of the
American Board; from 1841 till 1862, he served as a
director of what is now the Congregational Home
Missionary Society, a position which he exchanged
in the latter year for the vice-presidency of the cor-
poration; and from 1844 to the close of his life he
had an official part in promoting Christian education
in the newer sections of the country, at first as a direc-
tor of the Society for Promoting Collegiate and Theo-
logical Education at the West, and then of the
by the Congregational Churches in the United States of America.
Boston, 1872.
LEONARD BACON 429
American College and Education Society into which
the longer-named organization was merged in 1874.
His connection with the two associations last men-
tioned may well remind us that Dr. Bacon never forgot
that he was the son of a western missionary ; and that
recollection, coupled with his sturdy belief in Congre-
gationalism as a polity suited to all parts of our land,
fitted him to do a great work for Congregational
advancement in connection with the Albany Conven-
tion of 1852, and the movements that flowed from that
significant assembly. It has already been pointed out
in this lecture that, at the time of Dr. Bacon's settle-
ment in New Haven, Congregationalism had about
reached its lowest depth of self-distrust, and that a
large proportion of Congregationalists emigrating be-
yond the Hudson joined or organized Presbyterian
churches. This transformation was made all the, easier
by the " Plan of Union," formed, in 1801, by the
Presbyterian General Assembly and the Connecticut
General Association, and designed to adjust in a
perfectly equitable manner the question of the harmo-
nious working together of Presbyterian and Congre-
gational ministers and church members in frontier
communities. In practice, the " Plan " aided Presby-
terianism and proved one of several causes which
gathered the Congregational settlers of New York,
Ohio, Michigan, and Illinois largely into the Presby-
terian fold. Yet some Congregational churches were
430 LEONARD BACON
organized in what was then known as the West ; but
they were looked at askance by their Presbyterian
neighbors, and to some extent by the people of New
England, as under a cloud of doctrinal or governmental
suspicion, an erroneous view, which the local eccen-
tricities displayed by early Oberlin tended to foster
rather than to dispel.
It was to secure a better understanding in both East
and West and to plan effectively for Congregational
advancement that agitation was begun in Michigan by
Rev. L. Smith Hobart as early as 1845, an d furthered
by the General Association of New York, led by Rev.
Dr. Joseph P. Thompson. This discussion resulted
in the meeting at Albany, in October, 1852, of a Con-
vention representative of any Congregational church
that chose to send its pastor and a delegate, and in-
cluding a large proportion of those in our body '
conspicuous for leadership.
By the unanimous vote of this Convention the
" Plan of Union" was abrogated; a greater inter-
course between the Congregationalists of the East
and West was urged; " insinuations and charges of
heresy in doctrine and disorder in practice " were
discountenanced ; an unanimous declaration was
adopted that the missionary societies should support
1 It included four hundred and sixty-three pastors and delegates from
seventeen States. For its work, see Proceedings of the General Conven-
tion of Congregational Ministers and Delegates in the United States,
New York, 1852.
LEONARD BACON" 431
only such ministers in slave States as would " so
preach the Gospel . . . that, with the blessing of
God, it shall have its full effect in awakening and en-
lightening the moral sense in regard to slavery, and
in bringing to pass the speedy abolition of that stu-
pendous wrong." A call was issued for $50,000
that proved to be nearly $62,000 when the response
came to assist struggling churches to procure meet-
ing-houses in Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, Iowa,
Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, and Minnesota. In all
this significant work Dr. Bacon was the foremost
figure, not only as chairman of the Business Com-
mittee, to which, in the first instance, action on these
matters was due, but as the ablest and most convincing
of all the keen-minded debaters who led the Conven-
tion's deliberations. And in the more permanent
organization that sprang from the Convention and
crystallized its work Dr. Bacon was eminent in service.
When the American Congregational Union now
much more appropriately known as the Church Build-
ing Society was formed in May, 1853, " to collect,
preserve, and publish authentic information concern-
ing the history, condition, and continual progress of
the Congregational churches " and " to promote by
tracts and books, by devising and recommending to
the public plans of cooperation in building meeting-
houses and parsonages . . . the progress and
1 Ibid., p. 21.
432 LEONARD BACON
well-working of the Congregational polity," Dr. Bacon
was chosen the first president of the new society, and
continued to hold this office until 1871.
Of his prominence in the next National Council
of Congregationalism that held at Boston in 1865
there has already been occasion to speak in de-
scribing the Platform of Church Polity which he
then presented. The first of our modern series of
triennial Councils, at Oberlin, in 1871, had Dr. Bacon
for its preacher. The second he welcomed to his
church edifice in New Haven, in 1874; and he was
heard gladly and influentially in both. Yet it is but
just to remark that Dr. Bacon was so much of an In-
dependent in his type of Congregationalism that he
did not approve the creation of a representative Na-
tional Council, meeting at stated intervals, lest it
interfere at length with the freedom of the churches, 1
and he therefore looked with some degree of disfavor
on an effort to unite the wisdom and suggest the
policy of our widely scattered churches, which to most
has seemed to contain nothing but good.
The first thirty years of Dr. Bacon's pastorate were
a time of heated controversies in the Congregational
and Presbyterian communions, and the New Haven
pastor had his full share in them. Yet his participa-
tion was, in general, other in intention and effect from
that which the nickname, " the fighting parson," often
1 Pres. Woolsey, in Commemorative Volume, p. 232.
LEONARD BACON 433
applied to him in those days, would lead one to sup-
pose. 1 His influence was, as a whole, irenic and con-
ciliatory, because his sympathies within the lines of
evangelical truth, though largely " new school," were
also broadly catholic. Dr. Bacon's efforts were rather
to prevent than to foster ecclesiastical division, and
in his own State certainly they had a marked effect.
Dr. Bacon's earliest participation in an ecclesiastical
discussion of the first magnitude, as such controversies
then appeared, came almost by chance. So intimate
were the relations of Congregationalists and Presby-
terians at the beginning of the nineteenth century,
that, from 1794 onward to the rupture of the Presby-
terian body in 1837, the Connecticut General Associa-
tion and the Presbyterian General Assembly each sent
delegates who enjoyed full powers of voting in the
sessions of the other body an exchange which~<was
afterwards shared by the General Associations of Mas-
sachusetts and New Hampshire, the General Conven-
tion of Vermont, and the Evangelical Consociation of
Rhode Island.
Yet within the Presbyterian Church itself two
parties were rapidly drawing into antagonism as the
first four decades of the nineteenth century advanced.
Of these parties, that soon known as the " Old
School " represented in large measure the Scotch-
Irish and less inclusive element in the Church, strict
1 Compare the remarks of G. L. Walker, ibid., pp. 178, 179.
28
434 LEONARD BACON
in its adhesion to the older Calvinism, a party in
doctrinal position substantially identical with the Old
Calvinists of eighteenth-century New England, but
more intense in feeling. The opposite, or " New-
School " party, was composed largely of men of New
England antecedents, who sympathized generally with
the Edwardeanism that, by 1830, had become almost
universally prevalent in New England. This Ed-
wardean theology had, as we have seen, many shades;
but its general points of contrast to the Old Calvinism,
both of earlier New England and of existent Presby-
terianism were well stated by Dr. Bacon as follows : '
" Of these views, one was the doctrine of general atone-
ment, or that Christ's expiatory death was for all men, and
not exclusively for an elected portion of mankind. An-
other was the rejection of the theory of imputation, in the
sense of a transfer of personal qualities, or of responsibil-
ities. A third was the opinion, strongly maintained, that
there is in man as fallen, no physical impotency to obey
God's requirements; that the inability which hinders men
from coming to Christ till they are drawn by Almighty
grace, is an inability not of the constitutional faculties, but
only of the voluntary moral disposition."
The alarm felt by the " Old School " party over the
spread in Presbyterian ranks of such common Ed-
wardean views as have just been noted was greatly
intensified from 1830 onward by the rise of that modi-
fication of Edwardeanism known as " New Haven
1 Views and Reviews, i., pp. 52, 53. New Haven, 1840.
LEONARD BACON 435
Theology," of which Professor Nathaniel W. Taylor
was the champion. And the contest in Presbyterian
ranks between those who were willing to tolerate and
those who opposed New England presentations of
doctrine was brought to a head by the dispute occa-
sioned by the settlement of Albert Barnes over the
First Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia.
It so happened that the young New Haven pastor,
as a delegate from Connecticut, was a member of the
General Assembly of 1831, before which first came the
question of the orthodoxy of the sermon in which Al-
bert Barnes had expressed Edwardean views. Dr.
Bacon was appointed upon the committee to which
the case was referred. 1 Naturally, his sympathies
were with the comparatively catholic and largely New-
England-born wing which was soon to become the
excluded "New School " party, rather than with their
" Old School" opponents; but his youth, his self-
control, and his position as a representative of another
body prevented him from taking any leading part in
the discussion. 3
Contemporary with these disruptive debates in the
Presbyterian Church, and to some extent contributing
to them, ran the heated Taylor and Tyler controversy
in Connecticut, at which we glanced in the last lecture.
1 Minutes of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church, vii.,
pp. 176, 180, 181.
2 Dr. Bacon gave a full account of this session in the New Englander,
xxviii., pp. 173-180,
436 LEONARD BACON
As Dr. Taylor's personal friend and successor in the
New Haven pastorate, from which Taylor had gone to
the theological chair at Yale, Dr. Bacon warmly
sympathized with the " New Haven Theology; " but
the feature of this controversy which seems most to
have excited his concern was the possible division of
the Connecticut churches into two warring denomina-
tions as a consequence of the foundation of a new
theological seminary now Hartford Seminary at
East Windsor Hill, by Dr. Tyler and his sympathizers
in 1834. This is the ground note of Dr. Bacon's
Seven Letters to the Rev. George A. Calhoun [of Coven-
try] concerning the Pastoral Union of Connecticut,
originally published in the New Haven Record, and
reprinted as a pamphlet in 1840; and of the sequel to
these letters, the Appeal to the Congregational Ministers
of Connecticut against a Division, of the same year. 1
In these tracts, which constitute Dr. Bacon's chief
contribution to the dispute then disturbing Connecti-
cut, the writer defended the orthodoxy of the New
Haven divines with ardor, and attacked their oppo-
nents with vigor and some personal severity; but the
most characteristic passage is that in which he pointed
out the substantial agreement of both parties on
twenty-six important articles of the Christian faith, and
urged that though " there are differences in the pres-
ent case, differences of no slight moment in respect
1 Published at New Haven in 1840 as Views and Reviews, Nos. I and 2.
LEONARD BACON 437
to the illustration and defense of that evangelical system
which both parties agree in holding," " there may,"
nevertheless, " be differences, of great importance to
the science of theology, among brethren who have yet
no occasion to exscind or renounce each other." '
Fierce as was the controversy aroused in Connecti-
cut by what Dr. Bacon regarded " as a great work "
done by the New Haven divines " for the liberation
of New England Calvinism from certain traditional
encumbrances" 2 a work which certain other good
men in the State estimated in very different fashion
it was largely forgotten, as the century was passing its
middle point, in the debates occasioned by the publica-
tions of Horace Bushnell. Dr. Bushnell's theology
was a departure from the Edwardeanism which had
dominated Connecticut for more than half a century and
which was represented alike by the theologians of East
Windsor Hill and of New Haven. In his first impor-
tant publication, that on Christiai^Nurture, in 1847,
Dr. Bushnell went back from the Edwardean emphasis
on a conscious conversion as the ordinary means of
entrance into the kingdom of God, to the pre-
Edwardean New England view of the covenant conse-
quences of membership in a Christian family, though
he presented his thoughts in a very modern way. In
his opinion, a child in a Christian household should
1 Views and Reviews, No. 2, pp. 36-43.
2 New Englander, xxxviii., p. 702.
438 LEONARD BACON
" grow up a Christian," and never know himself as
being otherwise ; and that, for such a child, a great
change of experience is not necessary. 1
This argument, so foreign to the prevailing concep-
tions of New England at the middle of the nineteenth
century, made much commotion ; but the stir was
greatly increased when, in 1849, Bushnell put forth
his volume entitled God in Christ. Affirming that the
Trinity is a truth of Christian experience, he held, in
this work, that the Godhead is " instrumentally three
three simply as related to our finite apprehension,
and the communication of God's incommunicable
nature." a In the same volume, Bushnell advanced a
view of the atonement which denied to the great sacri-
fice any penally satisfactory or governmental signifi-
cance, and held that in estimating the work of Christ
we must regard " everything done by him as done for
expression before us, and thus for effect in us."
Dr. Bushnell's views were at once attacked ; but the
Hartford Central Association, of which he was a mem-
ber, decided, after full discussion, not to proceed
against him, and proved his bulwark in all the succeed-
ing controversy. 4 Yet in this the Association was
quite out of harmony with the feeling of probably a
1 Christian Nurture, pp. 6, 7. Boston, 1847.
2 God in Christ, p. 177.
* Ibid., p. 237.
4 See Rev. Dr. E. P. Parker, The Hartford Central Association and
the Bushnell Controversy. Hartford, 1896.
LEONARD BACON 439
majority of the ministers of Connecticut; and, by
June, 1850, the Fairfield West Association laid the
case before the General Association of the State. The
struggle that followed in successive meetings of
the General Association was strenuous, and threatened
to become divisive. A positive decision in favor of
either party would have resulted in two denomina-
tions. That this greater evil was avoided was due
more, possibly, than to any other influence, to the
ability and statesmanlike temper of Dr. Bacon, notably
at the meeting of the General Association in 1853.
Dr. Bacon, though a personal friend of Dr. Bushnell,
was far from sympathizing with all his opinions; ' but
he deprecated division, and when a petition signed by
fifty-one Connecticut ministers was laid before the
General Association, calling upon that body to exclude
from its fellowship the Hartford Central Association
of which Dr. Bushnell was a member, Dr. Bacon
secured the passage of a resolution by the General As-
sociation, the point of which, like that of many similar
important decisions, was in what it did not say, but
which made hopeless the attempts to coerce Dr. Bush-
nell and his supporters. This resolution affirmed 3
that "the opinions imputed to Dr. Bushnell by the complain-
ants, and the imputation of which is no doubt warranted,
if the constructions are just which they conscientiously
1 New Englander, xxxviii., p. 7 2 -
2 Minutes of the General Association of Conn., p. 9, 1853.
44O LEONARD BACON
give to certain quotations from his published books,
are opinions with which the ministers in the churches
of Connecticut, as represented in this General Associa-
tion, have no fellowship, and the profession of which on
the part of candidates for the ministry, ought to prevent
their receiving the license or approbation of any of our
Associations."
It did not affirm, however, and it was intended not
to affirm, that the opinions complained of were in
reality justly chargeable on Dr. Bushnell, and it left
the question as to whether or not he really held cen-
surable views a matter of individual opinion.
It will be seen, from the story as thus far narrated,
that Dr. Bacon's sympathies were with the more
liberal movements of his day in the evangelical
churches of New England, but that, in the main, his
efforts were irenic. This catholic tendency of his
mind increased with years, and was never more
marked than in his old age. At the same time,
it should be remarked that partly by reason of his
opposition to the coercive use of the ecclesiastical
system of Connecticut, partly by reason of his own
native inclination to a type of Congregationalism
which emphasized the independence of our churches,
he contributed powerfully to the breakdown of the
peculiar consociational organization of the State of
his ministry, and its practical assimilation into what
may be called the normal present type of American
Congregationalism.
LEONARD BACON 441
Dr. Bacon's interests, or rather his conceptions of his
ministerial privileges and duties, were much wider
than the bounds of his parish or the ecclesiastical dis-
cussions of his State. O|"the first Thanksgiving after
his settlement, it is instructive to note, he made the
theme of his discourse the betterment of the public
schools, then in sore need of reformation and develop-
ment. 1 The topic thus chosen by the youthful pastor
was illustrative of his wide interest in the practical
questions of his time and his readiness to enter into
their debate. And in the discussion of such themes
Dr. Bacon had the instincts and the ready pen of a
born journalist, so that not a little of his most useful
work was as an editor.
His editorial labors began early. In 1826, a year
after his settlement in New Haven, he became
editor of the Christian Spectator, a monthly that later
became a quarterly, published in the city of his minis-
try, and sympathetic, in a general way, with the rising
" New Haven Theology." But Dr. Bacon's editorial
zeal was not strongly enlisted in purely theologic
controversy. As his lifelong friend, President Noah
Porter, has remarked of his connection with this mag-
azine, " His contributions were chiefly literary, and
ethical, and reformatory, rather than theological."
The reformer was always stronger within him than the
1 Leonard Bacon, in Commemorative Volume, p. 90,
* Ibid., p. 220.
442 LEONARD BACON
theologic partisan. Dr. Bacon's service on the Spec-
tator continued till 1838.
The year 1843 witnessed the next step in his edito-
rial career in the foundation, chiefly through his initia-
tive and labors, of the New Englander, a magazine
designed to be, as he declared in the first issue, " on
the side of order, of freedom, of simple and spiritual
Christianity, and of the Bible as the infallible, suffi-
cient, and only authority in religion," ' rather than
the organ of any of the theological parties into which
New England was divided. Dr. Bacon remained on
the editorial committee of the New Englander for over
a score of years, nor did he cease his contributions
to its pages while he lived. A list drawn up nineteen
years after the magazine was founded credited sixty-
two titles to his authorship, and probably over a hun-
dred articles in all were from his pen. It is instructive
to note some of the topics discussed in these witty,
discriminating, and earnest papers, as illustrative of
the breadth of Dr. Bacon's interests. The first of the
long series was in advocacy of the reduction of the
rate of postage and the improvement of the postal
service, then exorbitant in price and inefficient in
delivery. 3 Ministerial education and public libraries
were topics on which he had something to say; 3 capi-
tal punishment he deemed worthy of discussion; 4 the
1 New Englander, i., p. 8.
2 Ibid., i., p. 9 ; Hi., p. 536.
3 Ibid., i., pp. 126, 307. * Ibid., iv., p. 563.
LEONARD BACON 443
conduct of public worship and the development of
music as one of its elements were to him congenial
themes. 1 Some articles were critiques of Episcopal
pretensions, 2 others expositions and defenses of Con-
gregational history, 3 yet others biographic studies; 4
and all along ran a series of trenchant criticisms on the
politics of the years which saw the growth of the pre-
tensions of the slave power, from the war with Mexico
to the attack on Fort Sumter.
Of Dr. Bacon's third, and on the whole most im-
portant, editorial labor, his participation in founding
the Independent, in 1848, and of his service as one of
its editors till 1863, there will be speedy occasion to
speak in another connection.
Two of Dr. Bacon's reformatory efforts deserve
special attention ; and both were labors which cost
him the friendship of some of his congregation and
of many outside. When he was installed in his New
Haven pastorate the temperance reform was just
beginning to be felt. But the conservatism character-
istic of Connecticut led the New Haven Ecclesiastical
Society to provide a generous entertainment for the
installing council, which included, to quote Dr. Bacon's
1 New Englander, vii., p. 350 ; xiii., p. 450.
2 Ibid,, i., pp. 545, 586 ; ii., pp. 175, 309, 440 ; iii., p. 284; vii., p.
143, etc.
3 Ibid., i., p. 250; iv., p. 288 ; xi., p. 136; xviii., pp. 711, 1020 ;
xix., p. 437, etc.
4 Ibid., vi., p. 603 ; viii., p. 388 ; x., pp. 42, 488.
444 LEONARD BACON
own words used forty years later in describing the
event, " an ample supply not only of wine but also of
more perilous stuff." The tone of the community
was such and New Haven did not differ materially
from the rest of New England in this respect that,
to quote Dr. Bacon again, " none could abstain from
the personal use of those liquors without incurring the
reproach of eccentricity and perhaps of moroseness."
But a reform movement was just beginning; and,
though it meant running counter to the prejudices of
many of his congregation, the young pastor threw
himself into it with characteristic energy. In 1829
he published a pamphlet urging Total Abstinence
from Ardent Spirits. Again, in 1838, he printed
a very plain-spoken sermon on the theme, directed
especially against the saloon where liquor is sold
by the glass; 3 and later he enforced in repeated
sermons the same reform. 4 And he had the satis-
faction of being able to record, in the discourses com-
memorative of the completion of forty years of his
pastorate, the change wrought by these and associ-
ated efforts : 5
1 Commemorative Volume, p. 92.
2 Ibid., p. 91.
3 A Discourse on the Traffic in Spirituous Liquors, Delivered in the
Centre Church, New Haven, Feb. 6, 1838. New Haven, 1838.
4 Sermon before the Washington Temperance Society of New Haven,
New Haven, 1843. The Christian Basis of the Temperance Reforma-
tion, in the American Temperance Preacher, January, 1848.
5 Commemorative Volume, p. 92.
LEONARD BACON 445
" In a little while the tyrannical fashion had lost its
power. Every man was at liberty to practice personal
abstinence, either for his own safety or for the sake of sav-
ing others; and there was no law of hospitality requiring
any man to tempt his guests by inviting them to drink with
him."
The most important of Dr. Bacon's reformatory
efforts, the greatest single work of his life, was his
opposition to slavery. His ministry began just as the
question of slavery was passing from the status of a
moral reform earnestly desired by good men both in
the North and in the South though without any
very definite views as to how the reform was to be
effected where the institution was intrenched to the
position of a political question on which parties
were gradually to range for an inevitable conflict.
The Missouri Compromise, effected in Congress when
Leonard Bacon was half-way through his Senior year
at Yale, marks the beginning of this new stage of the
question the struggle for the extension of slavery
into the new Territories of the West. At Andover the
young graduate found a warm anti-slavery spirit.
The topic was one of frequent debate before the
Seminary "Society of Inquiry;" and the first of
Dr. Bacon's writings to have extensive circulation was
a Report to that Society on African colonization, con-
demning slavery in most positive terms. 1 This Report,
1 L. W. Bacon, Irenics and Polemics, pp. 183, 184, New York, 1895.
The Report was published in 1823.
446 LEONARD BACON
prepared in the Senior year of its author's Seminary
course, was given wide publicity by his fellow-students.
Leonard Bacon carried this reformatory spirit with
him to his pastorate, and speedily organized in his new
home a young men's club called the Anti-Slavery
Association, from which grew the African Improve-
ment Society of New Haven, designed for the spirit-
ual, mental, and physical elevation of the local
colored population. 1 On the Fourth of July, 1825, the
newly settled pastor gave, as his oration, A Plea for
Africa ; and a year later, on the same anniversary of
freedom, he declared that : *
" Public opinion throughout the free States must hold a
different course on the subject of slavery from that which
it now holds. Instead of exhausting itself fruitlessly and
worse than fruitlessly upon the operation of the system, it
must be directed towards fat principle on which the system
rests."
These views Dr. Bacon persistently advocated in
every channel open to him, notably in tKe Christian
Spectator, of which mention has already been made.
But a new force came into the field with the publica-
tion of the Liberator by William Lloyd Garrison, from
1831 onward, and the foundation of the American
Anti-Slavery Society by that vigorous agitator in 1832.
In the thought of Garrison and his associates not only
was slavery a wrong for which immediate abolition was
1 L. W. Bacon, Irenics and Polemics, pp. 184, 185. * Ibid., p. 186.
LEONARD BACON 447
the only cure, but " slaveholders are the enemies of
God and man ; their garments are red with the blood
of souls; their guilt is aggravated beyond the power
of language to describe." To Dr. Bacon's thinking,
such indiscriminating condemnation of all slaveholders
was not merely prejudicial to a good cause, it was un-
justifiable. As Dr. Bacon declared in 1846, in words
which Abraham Lincoln recoined into a famous
phrase : a
" If that form of government, that system of social order
is not wrong, if those laws of the southern states, by virtue
of which slavery exists there, and is what it is, are not
wrong nothing is wrong."
But he added: 3
" The wrongfulness of that entire body of laws, opinions,
and practices is one thing ; and the criminality of the in-
dividual master, who tries to do right, is another thing."
To declare the master who had received slaves by
inheritance, and was trying to do them good, as of
practically equal guilt with the master who treated his
slaves as cattle and sold their offspring for gain, seemed
to Dr. Bacon a confusion of moral distinctions. And
so he fought his battle with ever-increasing success,
but with much opposition even in his own home,
against slavery on the one hand and against what
he deemed the damaging methods of the extremer
1 Garrison, Thoughts on African Colonization, p. 67. Boston, 1832.
2 Slavery Discussed in Occasional Essays, x. New York, 1846.
a Ibid.
448 LEONARD BACON
abolitionists on the other. As he told the Albany
Convention in 1852:'
" I have always found myself in a state of ' betweenity '
in relation to parties on questions connected with slavery,
so that, as Baxter said of himself in regard to the contro-
versies of his day, where other men have had one adversary
I have had two."
But this " state of betweenity " was no state of un-
certainty, either in his own mind or that of others, as
to his estimate of the moral turpitude of the slave
system, and the duty of all good men to do what they
could to overthrow it. To no leadership did the sober
judgment of New England, and especially of his own
State, more positively respond than to his.
Just what measures besides moral opposition to this
evil were possible was a question which Dr. Bacon,
like most of the early seekers for its reform, found
puzzling. For a long time he supported the coloniza-
tion plan, which had been a favorite among his friends
at Andover. But time showed the hopelessness of
that solution ; and the course of political events, lead-
ing, through the annexation of Texas, to the conquest
of vast territories from Mexico a conquest accom-
panied and followed by demands that they be thrown
open to slavery pointed out the straight path of
definite resistance to a definite aggression. It was
primarily as a step forward in this struggle for freedom
1 Proceedings of the General Convention . . . held at Albany, p. 84.
LEONARD BACON 449
that Dr. Bacon took the editorial leadership, with Rev.
Drs. Joseph P. Thompson, Richard Salter Storrs, and
Joshua Leavitt as fellow-laborers, and with financial
support furnished by Messrs. Henry C. Bowen, Theo-
dore McNamee, and others, in founding the Indepen-
dent, in December, 1848,' under the declaration, " We
take our stand for free soil."
The successive aggressions of the slave power led
Dr. Bacon, in his Thanksgiving Sermon for 1851, to
support the view which William H. Seward had made
famous on the floor of Congress, that the public do-
main was dedicated to liberty, not only by the Consti-
tution but by a higher law " than the Constitution
a law which must not be disobeyed. The Kansas-
Nebraska act moved him to advocate forcible resistance
to the introduction of slavery into the Territories in-
volved. And when the war began there was no more
strenuous advocate of freedom and patriotism in the
New England pulpit than he.
These labors cost Dr. Bacon much opposition, and
often from those whose friendship he esteemed ; but
when it was nearly over and slavery was close to its
end he could say to his own congregation : a
" You know how I have been blamed and even execrated,
in these later years, for declaring, here and elsewhere,
1 See Dr. Storrs's account, Independent^ December 8, 1898.
2 Two Sermons Preached on the Fortieth Anniversary of his Settlement
(March 12, 1865), Commemorative Volume, p. 95.
450 LEONARD BACON
the wickedness of buying and selling human beings, or
of violating in any way those human rights which are in-
separable from human nature. I make no complaint in
making this allusion; all reproaches, all insults endured in
the conflict with so gigantic a wickedness against God and
man, are to be received and remembered not as injuries
but as honors."
And Dr. Bacon was given a special and peculiar grati-
fication in the recollection of those years of contro-
versy, besides the larger satisfaction of a conspicuous
share in the most momentous work of his generation.
In the heat of the struggle, in 1846, he had pub-
lished at New York a small, black-bound volume,
made up of various contributions to the great debate,
under the title Slavery Discussed in Occasional Essays
from 1833 to 184.6. The volume never had much
of a circulation, but one copy reached the office table
of Abraham Lincoln, then a comparatively unknown
lawyer in his Illinois home. The story of its reception
may be told in the modest words in which Dr. Bacon
related it in 1865. Speaking of a visit paid to the great
emancipating President, Dr. Bacon said : 1
" Less than four years ago, not knowing that he had
ever heard of me, I had the privilege of an interview with
him; and his first word, after our introduction to each
other, was a reference to that volume, with a frank approval
of its principles. Since then I have heard of his mention-
1 Two Sermons Preached on the Fortieth Anniversary of his Settlement
(March 12, 1865), Commemorative Volume, p. 96.
LEONARD BACON 451
ing the same book to a friend of mine in terms which
showed that it had made an impression on his earnest and
thoughtful soul."
Dr. Bacon might, without exaggeration, have said
much more. 1
Dr. Bacon's work was complete, to a degree vouch-
safed to few men, before he reached old age. The
end of the struggle over slavery terminated the contest
to which he had given his largest effort. The contests
over the " New Haven Theology " and over the views
of Dr. Bushnell had died away before the Civil War.
And, in a peculiar degree, his old age was a time of
growing ripeness and sweetness of Christian life as the
golden sunset drew near. It was a life of activity and
usefulness to the end.
Dr. Bacon intimated, in a sermon preached on the
completion of his fortieth year of service, his desire to
be relieved of active pastoral responsibilities, and on
September 9, 1866, the partial separation was accom-
plished on terms alike honorable to pastor and to
people. 8 His resignation was accepted, but he was
never dismissed by council, and he continued to render
aid to his successors and minister to his people as
strength and opportunity offered, being till the day of
his death the pastor emeritus of his church. Few men
1 L. W. Bacon, Irenics and Polemics, p. 198 ; Century Magazine,
xxv., p. 658.
2 Commemorative Volume, pp. 39-49, 104.
452 LEONARD BACON
have ever borne themselves as generously in the often
trying situation of a retired minister, compelled to see
the work in which he had been so long a leader pass
into younger hands, as did Dr. Bacon. His immediate
successor in the active work of the pastorate thus bore
witness to him : '
" He was the most magnanimous man I ever knew.
Had I been his son after the flesh he could not have been
more cooperative or kind. Always ready to help when
asked, he never volunteered even advice; he never in any
instance or slightest particular gave me reason to wish he
had said or done anything otherwise. Apparently incapable
of jealousy even had there been vastly more opportunity
for it than there was he was to the pastor who followed
him a supporter and a comfort always."
Dr. Bacon's old age was a time of honor in the
churches and in the community at large. He ranked
in public repute as the representative American Con-
gregationalist. Harvard gave him the degree of
Doctor of Laws in 1870. The two Brooklyn Councils,
of 1874 and 1876, the most talked-of Congregational
advisory bodies of the last half-century, chose him as
their Moderator. And his years of retirement from
the pastorate proved a time of unexpected but con-
spicuous labor in a new field also. As soon as his
purpose to resign the pastoral office became known,
the corporation of Yale sought his services for the
vacant theological chair in the Divinity School ; and
*G. L. Walker, Memorial Sermon, ibid., p. 184.
LEONARD BACON 453
as a consequence of this invitation he taught as Act-
ing Professor of Revealed Theology in Yale Seminary
from 1866 to 1871, when he became Lecturer on
Church Polity and American Church History, a post
that he occupied as long as he lived. He threw him-
self into the new work with characteristic energy, and
it was during the period of his professorship that the
present buildings occupied by the Divinity School
were erected a material gain for the school of his
service in which his w r ide acquaintance and influence
made him conspicuously helpful.
So he passed onward to the close of his useful life,
beloved and reverenced by the community in which
he had labored, and honored by the churches of which
he had been so long a leader. His old age was a
peaceful and fruitful autumn, and he went from among
men on December 24, 1881, without having been
seriously laid aside from active life till the summons
came.
At his funeral, just before his six sons bore his
body from the church where he had ministered for
fifty-six years, the mourning congregation sang his
serene hymn a hymn no less appropriate in its sug-
gestion of the character of Dr. Bacon's ripening years
than expressive of his Christian hope :
" Hail, tranquil hour of closing day !
Begone, disturbing care !
And look, my soul, from earth away,
To him who heareth prayer.
454 LEONARD BACON
" How sweet the tear of penitence,
Before his throne of grace,
While to the contrite spirit's sense,
He shows his smiling face.
" How sweet, through long- remembered years,
His mercies to recall ;
And, pressed with wants, and griefs, and fears,
To trust his love for all.
" How sweet to look, in thoughtful hope,
Beyond this fading sky,
And hear him call his children up
To his fair home on high.
*' Calmly the day forsakes our heaven
To dawn beyond the west ;
So let my soul, in life's last even,
Retire to glorious rest."
We have followed the lives of ten eminent Congre-
gationalists as we have met together for these succes-
sive hours. The biographies have been those of men
diverse indeed in the circumstances of their history, in
the times in which their work was done, in the interests
that were the uppermost topics of discussion among
those with whom their lot was cast, in their methods
of Christian activity, in their own interpretations of
aspects of Christian truth. From the exile for his faith,
leading a pioneer community in its efforts to strike
root in the somber forest wilderness, to the opponent
of slavery, preaching for more than half a century from
an historic pulpit, and spending his last days as a theo-
LEONARD BACON 455
logical instructor in a venerable university, is indeed a
far cry, if the flight of time and alteration of external
circumstances alone are considered. But a unity
greater than any seeming diversity characterized these
men. To them all God was the verjestpljxalitiea; to
them all his service was the highest earthly privilege ;
to them all his Word was the sufficient guide of life.
No one of them but walked close with God. No one
of them but lived " as seeing the invisible." And
they were one, also, in their thought of the Church as
finding its highest and truest expression, not in a priest-
hood divinely appointed to dispense sacraments neces-
sary for salvation to a laity divinely committed to its
control, but in self-governing and mutually responsible
fellowships of Christian men and women, knit by a
common covenant to one another and to the living
Lord whose name they bear, and enjoying an Apos-
tolic freedom in His worship and service. They were
every one of them in the truest sense ministers in the
household of God.
One they were, too, in their conception of the
Christian life as one of consecration, drawing its
strength from the divine Spirit to whom it owes its
birth, and manifesting in its fruits the presence of the
transforming power of God. It is an honorable suc-
cession. Not one of them but made New England
stronger, better, freer, by reason of his work.
INDEX.
Abbot, Samuel, 381, 383.
Abrams, Margaret, 98.
Adams, Charles Francis, cited, 29,
30, 75, 80, 81.
Ainsworth, Henry, the Separatist,
22, I2O, 121.
Albany Convention, The, 429-432,
448.
Allen, Prof. A. V. G., cited, 220,
228, 259.
Allerton, Isaac, 25.
Allin, Rev. John, 158.
American Bible Society, The, 428.
American Board, The, 388, 389,
394, 428.
American Congregational Union
The, 431.
American Temperance Society,
The, 389.
American Tract Society, The, 389,
428.
Amsterdam, The Separatists in,
21, 22, 45.
Andover Theological Seminary,
why founded, 376-379 ; circum-
stances of foundation, 379385 ;
Woods's services to, 381-386 ;
early growth, 385, 386 ; interest
in missions, 387-389 ; Bacon at,
414, 424 ; mentioned, 389, 390,
394, 396, 402-405, 416.
Andros, Sir Edmund, 196.
Anglican Party, its aims, 51, 52.
Antinomianism, Controversy re-
garding, 7581.
Apthorpe, Rev. East, 293.
Arber, Prof. Edward, cited, 15,18,
21, 22, 31, 39.
Arianism, in eighteenth-century
New England, 293, 297-299,
308-310, 326, 348, 361.
Armada, The Spanish, 6, 12.
Armine, Lady, 159.
Arminianism, 51, 231, 233, 252,
254, 268, 297, 298, 344, 361.
Aspinwall, Edwin, 102.
Atonement, Doctrine of the, 305,
306, 372, 438.
Auburn Theological Seminary, 386.
Austerfield, Bradford's early home
at, 6-20, 49, 55.
Awakening, The Great, 237, 240,
246, 270, 275-287.
B
Babwofth, 15, 20.
Backus, Rev. Dr. Charles, 370,
37i, 379-
Backus, Rev. Isaac, cited, 211.
Bacon, Rev. David, 410-413.
Bacon, Francis, 7.
Bacon, Dr. Leonard, of Hartford,
413.
Bacon, Rev. Dr. Leonard, early
life, 410-413 ; education, 413,
414 ; ordination, 414; settlement
at New Haven, 415, 416 ; early
pastorate, 416-418 ; household
experiences, 418, 419 ; in the
Orient, 419 ; as a religious lead-
er, 419, 420 ; literary gifts, 420 ;
poetic strain, 421 ; services as a
historian, 421-426 ; his Thirteen
457
458
INDEX
Bacon Contin tied.
Discourses, 424 ; doctorate of
divinity, 424 ; his Andover Dis-
course, 424 ; his Historical Dis-
course, 424 ; his Genesis of the
New England Churches, 426 ;
services to Congregational polity,
426-428; his Manuat&nd Digest,
426, 427 ; the " Boston Plat-
form," 427, 428, 432 ; services
to missionary societies, etc.,
428-432 ; at the Albany Con-
vention, 429 ; in theologic con-
troversies, 432-440 ; the Taylor
and Tyler division, 435-437 ;
the Bushnell controversy, 437-
440 ; his editorial services, 441-
443, 449 ; the New Englander,
442 ; the Independent, 443, 449 ;
temperance reform, 443-445 ;
anti-slavery efforts, 445-451 ;
President Lincoln's opinion,
450, 451 ; retirement from
the pastorate, 451, 452 ;
services to Yale, 452, 453 ; his
last days, 453, 454.
Bacon, Rev. Dr. Leonard W.,
cited, 412, 445, 446, 451.
Bacon, Oliver N., cited, 169.
Baillie, Prof. Robert, 81, 88, 93.
Ball, Rev. John, 87.
Bancroft, Archbishop Richard, 51.
Bangor Theological Seminary, 386.
Barlow, Bishop William, 59.
Barnes, Rev. Dr. Albert, 435.
Baron, Dr. Peter, 62.
Bartlett, William, 381.
Baxter, Rev. Richard, 164, 202,
422, 448.
Bay Psalm Book, The, 120-122,
148.
Bayly, Bishop Lewis, 164.
Bawtry, 6, 8, 10.
Bellamy, Rev. Dr. Joseph, 238,
249, 258, 280, 314, 323, 335, 341,
349. 379-
Benevolence, Disinterested, 255-
257, 330, 33i, 345-347, 399,
400 ; see also Willingness to be
Damned.
Berkeley, Bishop George, 220.
Bernard, Rev. Richard, 117.
Bernhard, Saint, 240.
Bible, English translation of the,
9, 13-
Blyth, Monastery of, 8, TO.
Boston, England, Bradford's im-
prisonment at, 21 ; Cotton's work
at, 59-68.
Boston, Mass., settled, 53 ; Cot-
ton settled in, 69 ; the Anti-
nomian controversy in, 75-81 ;
Roger Williams declines settle-
ment in, 83 ; Eliot invited to,
142; Increase Mather settled at,
183 ; the " Thursday Lecture,"
187, 275 ; great fires in, 190 ;
Liberal movement in, 203-207 ;
first half of eighteenth century,
273-275 ; Whitefield's charac-
terization of, 275 ; the Revolu-
tionary War, 296, 297 ; early
Unitarianism in, 299, 377, 378.
Boston, churches of, First
Church, Cotton settled, 69 ;
divided, 132 ; Chauncy's settle-
ment, 270 ; Foxcrof t's pastorate,
270; Whitefield's preaching, 2 77:
Second Church, 183, 194, 195:
Old South Church, 133, 207,
278, 342, 348, 364 : Brattle
Church, 203 - 207 : King's
Chapel, 377: New North
Church, 279 : West Church,
293, 333: Park Street Church,
396.
Boston Platform, The, 428, 432.
Bourne, Rev. Richard, 165.
Bowen, Henry C., 449.
Bradford, Alden, cited, 291-293.
Bradford, Rev. Dr. Amory H.,
Bradford, John, 38.
Bradford, Gov. William, early life,
6-1 1, 54 ; religious training,
15-18 ; reasons for leaving Eng-
and, 19, 20, 50 ; goes to Hol-
land, 20, 21 ; learns a trade, 21,
22 ; marriage, 22 ; at Leyden,
21-24 I emigration to America,
INDEX
459
Bradford Continued.
23-25 ; governor, 25, 26 ; second
marriage, 27 ; services to colony
in peril of famine, 26-29 I ^ n
peril from hostile countrymen,
29-32 ; secures financial free-
dom for Plymouth, 32-35 ; wel-
comes Salem church, 35-37 ; his
History, 37-39 ; his minor writ-
ings, 39, 40 ; his style, 40 ; his
character, 41, 42 ; last days, 42-
44 , his faith, 45 ; on luxury,
147 ; mentioned, 5, 56.
Bradford, Deputy-Gov. William,
38.
Bradley, Rev. Joshua, 356.
Brainerd, Rev. David, 242, 243,
3i8, 319-
Branford, Indian missions at, 166.
Brattle Church, see Boston
churches.
Brattle, Thomas, 205, 206.
Brattle, Rev. William, tutor at
Harvard, 195, 202 ; in liberal
movement, 204-207 ; pastor at
Cambridge, 205, 206.
Brewster, Ruling Elder William,
at Scrooby, 15-18, 49 ; at Ley-
den, 23, 25 ; at Plymouth, 42,
44-
Briant, Rev. Lemuel, 298, 299.
Bridge, Rev. William, 91.
Brown, Rev. Dr. John, of Bed-
ford, cited, 15.
Brown, Rev. John, of Cohassett,
299.
Brown, John, of Harper's Ferry
fame, 412.
Brown, Moses, 381.
Browne, Robert, the Separatist,
14, 82.
Buell, Rev. Samuel, 318, 321.
Builli, John de, 8.
Burial Hill Declaration, The,
194.
Burr, Pres. Aaron, 260, 261.
Burr, Rev. Jonathan, 112, 113.
Burroughs, Rev. Jeremiah, 91.
Bushnell, Rev. Dr. Horace, 314,
437-440
Calef, Robert, 202.
Calhoun, Rev. George A., 436.
Callender, Rev. Elisha, 21 1.
Calvin, John, Cotton's love for,
72 ; mentioned, 223.
Calvinism, " Consistent," 361.
Calvinism, "Old" or " Moderate,"
331, 332, 339, 34i, 344, 345,
361-363, 375-377, 379-385, 405,
434-
Calvinism, Stages of, 229-231.
Cambridge Platform, The, 91, 93,
124-126, 427.
Cambridge Synod, see Synod.
Cambridge University, student
life in, 55, 56 ; colleges of,
Emmanuel, 56, 57, 139, 140 ;
Jesus, 139 ; Peter House, 58 ;
St. John's, 58 ; Trinity, 8, 55,
56, 268.
Canonicus, Indian chief, 29.
Canterbury, Archbishop of
(Thomas Seeker), 293.
Carey, Rev. William, the mis-
sionary, 138, 163, 387.
Carpenter, Alice, 27.
Cartwright, Thomas, Puritan lead-
er, 13.
Carver, Gov. John, 25.
Chaderton, Laurence, Puritan
leader, 57.
Chadwick, Rev. Dr. J. W., cited,
397-
Chamberlain, Dr. Mellen, cited,
292.
Chandler, Rev. Dr. T. B., 294.
Chandler, William, 145.
Channing, Rev. Dr. W. E., 314,
325-327, 377, 397, 398.
Charles I., of England, 52, 53,
159-
Chauncy, Pres. Charles, 131, 178
268, 269.
Chauncy, Charles, merchant, 269.
Chauncy, Rev. Dr. Charles, an-
cestry and early life, 268, 269 ;
settlement at Boston, 270 ; ser-
mon on Foxcroft, 271 ; his
460
INDEX
Chauncy Continued.
personal traits, 269-273, 287 ;
opposes the Whitefieldian re-
vival, 282-288 ; his course criti-
cised, 283 ; on conversion, 283,
33. 34 1 his Seasonable
Thoughts, 286 ; health affected,
287 ; doctorate received, 288 ;
opposes legislature, 288, 289 ;
controversy regarding Episco-
pacy, 289-297 ; reply to the
Bishop of Landaff, 293, 294 ;
Answer to Chandler, 294 ; his
View of Episcopacy, 295 ; his
patriotism, 296 ; his " Liberal "
theology, 297-310 ; his modera-
tion, 299 ; on Original Sin, 258,
301, 302 ; his Twelve Sermons,
301-304 ; views on Saving Faith,
302, 303, 309, 332, 333 ; his
Benevolence of the Deity, 304 ;
view of the Atonement, 305,
306 ; his Salvation of All Men,
306-308 ; his Arianism, 308-310 ;
unfavorable opinion of Hopkins,
341 ; his death, 310 ; mentioned,
314, 326, 377.
Chauncy, Rev. Isaac, 269.
Christian Spectator, The, 441, 446.
Church Building Society, The, 431.
Church, Rev. John H., 369, 370.
Chutchamaquin, Indian chief, 155.
Clark, Rev. Peter, 301.
Clark, Prof. William, cited, 10.
Clarke, Rev. John, 326 ; cited,
269, 272.
Clarke, Rev. Dr. Samuel, 298,
300.
Clement of Alexandria, 295.
Clement of Rome, 295.
Clyfton, Rev. Richard, Separatist,
15, 18, 19, 49.
Coddington, William, 66.
Codman, Rev. Dr. John, 396.
Cole, Nathan, quoted, 276.
College and Education Society,
The, 428, 429.
Collins, Anthony, the Deist, 254.
Colman, Rev. Benjamin, 205, 206,
281.
Columba, Saint, 138.
Confession, The Savoy, 193 ; of
1680, 193, 194; The Westmin-
ster, 193.
Congregational Home Missionary
Society, The, 428.
Connecticut Evangelical Magazine,
The, 387.
Conversion, a difficult process, 102,
181, 318, 319, 369 ; under de-
clining Calvinism, 229-232 ; In-
crease Mather's view of, 189 ;
Edwards's experience and theory
of, 222-225, 233-235 ; Chaun-
cy's view of, 283, 303, 304 ;
Hopkins's view of, 317-322,
333-338.
Cooper, Thompson, cited, 18.
Corbitant, Indian chief, 29.
Cortes, Hernando, 412.
Cotton, Rev. John, parentage, 54 ;
education, 55, 56; religious
awakening, 57-59 ; settlement at
Boston, Eng., 59; marriages,
59, 60 ; his activity, 60-63, IO 5 '<
his defense of Calvinism, 62 ; his
nonconformity, 63-65 ; conse-
quent difficulties and flight, 66-
68 ; letter to his wife, 67 ; his
child's baptism, 68, 69 ; settles
at Boston, Mass., 69, 70; ap-
pearance and preaching, 70-72 ;
habits and influence, 72-75 ;
opinion of Democracy, 74 ; his
draft of laws, 75 ; in the Anti-
nomian controversy, 75-81 ; his
controversy with Roger Wil-
liams, 8 1 86; views on persecu-
tion, 85, 86 ; his answer to Ball,
87 ; his Catechism, 87 ; on
church-music, 87, 88 ; on infant
baptism, 88 ; on church mem-
bership, 88 ; his treatises on
Congregationalism, 89-93, 115 ;
the H'ay, 90 ; the Keyes, 90
92 ; the Way Cleared, 93 ;
invited to the Westminster As-
sembly, 91 ; the Cambridge
Platform, 93, 124, 170; moder-
ator in 1643, 119 ; possible letter
INDEX
461
Cotton Continued.
to Richard Mather, 108 ; death
and character, 94 ; mentioned,
107, 109, 115, 117-119, 134,
142, 151, 166, 175, 180, 225.
Cotton, Rev. John, Jr., of Ply-
mouth, 165, 166.
Cotton, Rev. John, of Hampton,
184.
Cotton, Roland, 54.
Cotton, Rev. Seaborn, 68.
Covenant, The Half-Way, see
Half-Way Covenant.
Crafts, Rev. Thomas, 365.
Crocker, Rev. Zebulon, cited, 401.
Cromwell, Oliver, 182.
Cromwell, Richard, 182.
Cushman, Robert, 25.
Cutler, Rector Timothy, 226.
D
Danforth, Rev. Samuel, 143.
Danforth, Rev. Samuel, Jr., 166,
168.
Davenport, Rev. Addington, 289.
Davenport, Rev. James, 281, 285.
Davenport, Rev. John, conceals
Cotton, 67 ; settlement at New
Haven, 79 ; at Boston, 132, 133 ;
death, 170 ; mentioned, 91, 107.
Derby, 54.
Dexter, Prof. Franklin B., 228 ;
cited, 220, 222, 226, 249, 260,
322.
Dexter, Rev. Dr. Henry M., 3,
39 ; quoted, 55 ; cited, 17, 22, 23,
38, 92, 130, 151, 162.
Disinterested Benevolence, see
Benevolence.
Doddridge, Rev. Dr. Philip, 252,
298, 369.
Dorchester, settled, 53 ; origin of
its churches, 109, no ; Richard
Mather settled at, 110-112 ; In-
crease Mather born at, 176 ;
attitude toward Half-Way Cove-
nant, 131-134; Eliot's mission-
ary efforts in, 155.
Dorset, The earl of, 66.
Drake, Sir Francis, 7.
Druillettes, Gabriel, 41, 148.
Dudley, Gov. Joseph, 196, 208.
Dudley, Justice Paul, 292.
Dudley, Gov. Thomas. 53, 66,
112.
Dummer, Jeremiah, 222.
Dunster, Pres. Henry, 154, 178.
Dwight, Rev. Dr. Sereno E., cited,
219-223, 226, 228, 239, 244,
246-252, 254, 255, 261, 262,
278, 280.
Dwight, Pres. Timothy, 362, 367,
368, 386, 399.
Echard, Laurence, cited, 58.
Education Society, The (Congre-
gational), 389.
Edwardeanism, 361-363, 370, 372,
377, 385, 39 1 - 399-402, 434, 437
(see also Edwards and Hopkins).
Edwards, Esther, Mrs. Burr, 260.
Edwards, Jerusha, 243.
Edwards, Pres. Jonathan, home
and early life, 217-219, 269 ;
precocity, 219, 220 ; student at
Yale, 220-222 ; conversion, 222-
224 ; ministry at New York,
226 ; call to Bolton, 226 ; his
Resolutions, 226 ; a tutor at
Yale, 226 ; settled at Northamp-
ton, 227 ; marriage, 227, 228 ;
characteristics, 143. 228. ^47^
248, 262 ; a slaveholder, 349 ;
quality of his ministry, 229, 32 ;
his great work, 232 ; hispreach-
Tfig, "*232, 235, 236 ; physical
demonstrations under it, 280 ;
majority of mankind to be lost,
307; the revival at Northampton,
232-237; the Narrative of Sur-
prising Conversions, 236 ; meets
Whitefield, 237 ; protests against
certain traits of Whitefield, 278-
280 ; criticises Chauncy, 283 ;
his Thoughts, 238, 286 ; Mrs.
Edwards's religious experiences,
462
INDEX
Edwards Continued.
238-240 ; his opinion on ' ' Wil-
lingness to be Damned," 239,
347 ; his Religious Affections,
240-242 ; the Life of Brainerd,
242, 243 ; efforts for union in
prayer, 243, 244 ; his difficulties
at Northampton, 244 ; his change
of view on terms of communion,
244-246 ; the Humble Inquiry,
247 ; dismissed from Northamp-
ton, 248 ; Hopkins's studies un-
der and friendship for him, 320
-324 ; called to Stockbridge,
249, 323 ; missionary labors and
scholastic studies, 250 ; his writ-
ings, 251 ; the Freedom of Will,
251-254, 304 ; the End for
which God Created the World,
251, 254 ; treatise on True Vir-
tue, 251, 255, 257, 344, 400;
volume on Original Sin, 251,
257-259 ; his influence, 259-263;
removal to Princeton and death,
261 ; mentioned, 267, 268, 282,
284, 297, 298, 302, 329, 331,
335, 345, 352, 354, 379, 385.
Edwards, Mrs. Jonathan, see
Sarah Pierpont.
Edwards, Rev. Dr. Jonathan, Jr.,
225, 252, 254, 256, 306, 307.
Edwards, Richard, 218.
Edwards, Rev. Timothy, 218,
219,
Edwards, William, 218.
Eliot, Bennett, 138, 139.
Eliot, Dr. Ellsworth, cited, 138,
139-
Eliot, Rev. John, his title of
"Apostle," 138 ; early life, 138 ;
education, 139 ; assists Thomas
Hooker, 139-141 ; conversion,
141 ; settles at Roxbury, 142 ;
marriage, 142, 143 ; pastoral
labors, 143-145 ; personal char-
acteristics, 145-148 ; the Bay
Psalm Book, 121, 148 ; his
Christian Commonwealth, 148-
150; his Communion of Churches,
150, 151 ; his missionary labors,
151-171 ; preaches to Waauban,
155-158 ; education for the In-
dians, 158, 160, 161 ; founds
Natick, 161 ; his translations,
162-164 ; results of his work,
166-170 ; his last days, 170,
171 ; mentioned, 175, 250.
Elizabeth, of England, 7, 10, 12,
13, 50, 56, 107.
Ellis, A. B., cited, 56, 60, 269-272.
Emerson, Rev. William, cited,
269-272, 299.
Emlyn, Rev. Thomas, 298.
Emmons, Rev. Dr. Nathaniel,
143, 314, 335, 374, 376, 379,
385.
Endicott, Gov. John, 36, 53, 106.
Episcopacy, controversy over, 289-
297.
Erskine, Rev. Dr. John, 248-250.
Farrar, Samuel, 381.
Felt, Rev. Joseph B., cited, 288.
Finney, Pres. Charles G., 146,
402.
Fisher, Prof. George P., cited,
220, 258.
Fiske, John, cited, 167.
Flavel, Rev. John, 72, 200, 281.
Fletcher, Rev. Henry, curate at
Austerfield, n, 16.
Foster, Rev. Isaac, 146.
Foster, Capt. William, 146.
Fowler, Prof. W. C., cited, 268,
269.
Foxcroft, Rev. Thomas, 270, 271,
277.
Francis, Saint, 240.
Franklin, Benjamin, 367.
Freeman, Rev. James, 377.
French, Rev. Jonathan, 380.
Froude, James Anthony, cited, 9,
10.
Fuller, Deacon Samuel, 25, 36,
37-
G
Gainsborough, Separatist congre-
gation at, 18-20.
INDEX
463
Gardiner, Prof. II. Norman, cited,
220.
Gardner, Newport, 356.
Garrison, William Lloyd, 446, 447.
Gay, Rev. Ebenezer, 299.
George I., of England, 209.
Gill, Lieut. -Gov. Moses, 364.
Gillespie, Rev. Thomas, 248.
Glas, John, 302.
Goodwin, J. A., cited, 25, 27, 32,
40, 42, 43.
Goodwin, Rev. Thomas, 91.
Gookin, Daniel, 154, 166, 168.
Gott, Charles, cited, 36.
Graham, Rev. John, 280, 317.
"Great Awakening," The, see
Awakening.
Great Barrington, Hopkins's pas-
torate at, 322-324, 329, 338, 339.
Grosart, Rev. Alexander B., 250.
Guyse, Rev. Dr. John, 236.
H
Half-Way Covenant, The, 126-
134, 184, 244-247, 249, 329, 374.
Hall, Rev. Gordon, 137, 388, 389.
Hall, John, of Roxbury, 85.
Hamilton College, 424.
Hamilton Theological Seminary,
387.
Hankridge, Sarah, wife of John
Cotton, 60, 67, 69 ; of Richard
Mather, 60.
Harrison, Rev. John, 102.
Hart, Rev. William, 341, 344, 361.
Hartford, mentioned, no, 277, 410,
411, 413, 416, 418, 424.
Hartford Theological Seminary,
386, 400, 436.
Harvard, Rev. John, 57, 178.
Harvard University, early condi-
tions of entrance, 101; Chauncy's
presidency, 268, 269; in Increase
Mather's student days, 177-179 ;
Mather's presidency, 194, 195,
203, 207, 208 ; gives Mather a
doctorate, 202 ; efforts for a
charter, 202, 203 ; the Hollis
professorship, 367, 370, 371,
378, 380 ; the Dudleian lecture-
ship, 292, 293 ; Whitefield's
criticism, 279 ; in Woods's time,
365-368, 370, 373 ; passes to
anti-Trinitarians, 378 ; men-
tioned, 269, 452.
Hawes, Rev. Dr. Joel, 416.
Hawksley, John, cited, 225.
Hawley, Joseph, 248, 252.
Haynes, Gov. John, 68, 74, 82.
Heads of Agreement, The, 200.
Hemmenway, Rev. Moses, 340,
345, 36i.
Henry VIII., of England, 8, 9.
Herle, Rev. Charles, 119.
Hiacoomes, Indian chief, 165.
Higginson, Rev. Francis, 36, 53.
Hill, H. K., cited, 133.
Hillhouse, Senator James, 417.
Hobart, Rev. L. Smith, 430.
Hobbes, Thomas, the philosopher,
253.
Hollis, Thomas, 195, 212.
Hollis, Thomas, the younger, 292.
Holt, Katherine, marries Richard
Mather, 105, 106.
Hooker, Rev. Thomas, at Em-
manuel College, 57 ; English
ministry, 139-141 ; Eliot influ-
enced by, 139, 141; as a preach-
er, 71 ; flight from England, 67,
68; founder of Hartford, 74, no;
advice to Mather, 108, 109 ;
moderator in 1643, 119; death,
170 ; services to Congregational-
ism, 86 ; on conversion, 181,
225, 234 ; on " Willingness to be
Damned," 347 ; mentioned, 91,
94, 105, 107, 134, 151, 227.
Hooper, Bishop John, 10.
Hopkinsianism, 362-365, 369, 370,
3747377, 381-385, 399, 405.
Hopkins, John, Version of the
Psalms, 1 20.
Hopkins, Rev. Dr. Samuel, signif-
icance as a theologian, 314, 315,
352-355, 361; his autobiography,
315 ; early life, 316 ; a student
at Yale, 317 ; his religious ex-
perience, 317-322 ; discipleship
464
INDEX
Hopkins Continued.
and friendship toward Edwards,
249, 320-324 ; called to Sims-
bury, 322 ; settled at Great Bar-
rington, 322, 323 ; marriages,
323, 328, 329 ; personal traits,
324329 ; confidence in his doc-
trines, 327, 328 ; trials at Great
Barrington, 329, 330; treatise on
Sin, 330, 331 ; controversy over
" unregenerate doings," 333-
338 ; his Enquiry, 333 ; his 7 "wo
Discourses, 335 ; views on divine
sovereignty, 337, 338; dismission
from Great Barrington, 338, 339;
criticism of Chauncy, 341 ; on
Arianism in Boston, 299 ; his
reply to Mills, 340; attacked by
Hart, 341, 342 ; his settlement
at Newport, 342-344 ; his reply
to Hart, 344 ; his Trtte Holiness
345 ; view of the nature of virtue,
345, 400 ; his Dialogue, 346 ;
view on " Willingness to be
Damned," 346, 347, 370, 371 ;
his hopefulness, 347 ; confident
of infant salvation, 348 ; defends
divinity of Christ, 299, 348 ;
views on future punishment,
348, 349 ; expectation of a mil-
lennium, 349 ; opposition to
slavery, 256, 349-351 ; his doc-
torate, 352 ; his System, 328,
338, 351, 352, 355, 371 I his in-
fluence, 353-355. 362 ; old age
and death, 355-357; mentioned,
372 ; his writings cited elsewhere
than in the lecture on him, 222,
223, 228, 247, 250, 262, 362.
Horrocks, Elizabeth, marries John
Cotton, 59, 60.
Hort, Rev. F. J. A., cited, 57.
Hough, Atherton, 68.
Howard, Rev. Dr. Bezaleel, 272,
273, 287.
Howe, Rev. John, 182, 200.
Hubbard, Rev. William, the his-
torian, 38, 75.
Hunter, Rev. Joseph, cited, 9, II.
Hutchinson, Mrs. Anne, 75, 81.
Hutchinson, Gov. Thomas, 38,
197; cited, 75, 291.
Immersion of Infants, 268.
Independent, The, 443, 449.
Ingersoll, Joanna, wife of Samuel
Hopkins, 323, 328.
J
James I., of England, 50, 52, 57,
106.
James II., of England, 196, 197.
Jefferson, President Thomas, 367.
Johnson, " Mr.," Cotton's teacher,
55-
Johnson, Isaac, 53.
Johnson, Lucy, Mrs. Leonard
Bacon, 418.
Judson, Rev. Adoniram, 137, 388,
389-
Lacy, John, the "prophet," 286.
Landaff, the Bishop of (John
Ewer), 293.
Lamb, Charles, 138.
Lane Theological Seminary, 387.
Laud, Archbishop William, 51, 57,
63, 67, 106, 107, 140, 141, 268.
Law, Rev. William, 57.
Lawrence, Prof. E. A., cited, 364,
365, 367-370, 373, 374, 386,
388-390, 396, 404.
Leavitt, Rev. Dr. Joshua, 421,449.
Lebanon, Conn., excitement at.
during the ' ' Great Awaken-
ing," 280.
Lechford, Thomas, cited, 154.
Lecky, William E. H., the histor-
ian, quoted, 259.
L'Ecluse, Jean de, 22.
Leicester Academy, 365.
Leverett, John, emigrant, 68.
Leverett, Pres. John, tutor at Har-
vard, 195, 202 ; in "Liberal"
movement, 204-207 ; president
of Harvard, 208.
INDEX
465
Leverett, Ruling Elder Thomas, 68,
69.
Leyden, The Separatists in, 21-24,
.45-
Liberal Theology in eastern
Massachusetts, 267, 297-310,
339, 36i, 363, 375, 377, 378,
38o, 395-398.
Liberator, The, 446.
Lincoln, President Abraham, 447,
450, 45L
Lincoln, The earl of, 66.
Lindsey, Rev. Theophilus, 310.
Locke, John, the philosopher,
220, 253, 254, 258, 300.
London, The Bishop of (Edmund
Gibson), 291.
Ludlow, Roger, 53.
Luther, Martin, 222.
Lyford, Rev. John, 31, 32, 35.
M
Mahan, Pres. Asa, 395, 402, 403.
Malebranche, Nicolas, the philos-
opher, 220.
Marshpee, Indian mission at, 165,
167.
Martha's Vineyard, Indian mission
on, 164-169.
Mary II., of England, 197.
Mary, Queen of Scots, 7.
Massachusetts Missionary Maga-
zine, The, 374, 377, 384, 387.
Massasoit, Indian chief, 29.
Mather, Rev. Dr. Cotton, gradu-
ation from Harvard, 100 ; col-
league pastor with his father,
194, 195 ; in Salem witchcraft,
201 ; desires the presidency of
Harvard, 208 ; his voluminous
writings, 114, 209, 210 ; his wig,
148 ; on the religious state of Aus-
terfield, n ; on Bradford's busi-
ness ventures, 22; his description
of Cotton, 72, 73; his description
of Eliot, 139, 144, 170, 171 ;
mentioned, 38 ; his Magnalia
quoted, 55, 114, 144; cited, 16,
17,21,22, 25, 42,43, 54,55, 58-
60, 65, 68, 70, 72, 74, 90, 93, 94,
98, 104, 105, 112, 121, 141, 143,
144, 146-148, 161, 162, 165, 170,
171, 190, 194, 268 ; his Paren-
tator quoted, 177, 180, 186, 212 ;
cited, 182, 183, 185, 187, 194,
199, 202, 209.
Mather, Rev. Eleazer, 131.
Mather, Horace E., cited, 98, 99.
Mather, Rev. Df. Increase, early
life, 177 ; education, 177-182 :
conversion, 180, 181 ; in Ire-
land, England, and Guernsey,
182 ; settled at Boston, 183 ; at
the Synod of 1662, 131, 184 ;
change of view on Half-Way
Covenant, 131, 184; marriages,
184 ; early trials, 185 ; personal
traits, 186-188 ; leader in the
Reforming Synod, 188-194 ; his
Necessity of Reformation, 191,
192 ; the " Confession of 1680,"
194 ; president of Harvard, 194,
195 ; his son Cotton his col-
league, 194, 195 ; successful
political mission to England,
196-199 ; the Massachusetts
charter, 198 ; efforts to unite
English Congregationalists and
Presbyterians, 199, 200 ; attitude
toward Salem witchcraft, 201,
202 ; his growing unpopularity,
202, 203 ; his opposition to the
Brattle Church movement, 203-
207 ; his Order of the Gospel,
206, 207 ; loses the Harvard
presidency, 207, 208 ; disap-
pointments, 208, 209 ; proposed
mission to George I., 209; his
writings, 114, 209-211 ; his grow-
ing tolerance, 211 ; his books
burned, 281 ; his last days, 212 ;
his tomb, 213 ; mentioned, 115,
365 ; his Life and Death of
Richard Mather, quoted, 98, 104,
106, 128, 133 ; cited, 100, 102-
108 ; other works cited, 90, 171.
Mather, Rev. Moses, 345, 361.
Mather, Rev. Nathanael, 115-117,
182.
466
INDEX
Mather, Rev. Richard, early life
and education, 98-103 ; teacher
at Toxteth Park, 101 ; conver-
sion, 102 ; at Oxford, 103 ; his
ministry at Toxteth Park, 103-
107 ; his Puritanism, 104, 107 ;
his marriages, 60, 105, 106, 184 ;
flight from England, 107-109 ;
settlement at Dorchester, 109-
112 ; spiritual struggles, 113,
114 ; his services to Congrega-
tionalism, 86, 97, 115-125 ; his
Church Government, 115, 116;
his Apologie, 116-118 ; his An-
swer, to Herle, 119 ; his Reply to
Rutherford, 119; the Bay Psalm
Book, 120-122 ; the Cambridge
Synod and its Platform, 123-
126 ; opinion regarding the Half-
Way Covenant, 126-134 ; ordi-
nation of his son Increase, 183 ;
his death, 133, 134, 170 ; men-
tioned, 176.
Mather, Rev. Samuel, 182.
Mather, Thomas, 98.
Maverick, Rev. John, 53, 109.
May, Dorothy, Bradford's wife, 22,
27.
May, Bishop John, 22.
Mayhew, Rev. Experience, 332.
Mayhew, Rev. Dr. Jonathan, 291-
293, 298, 333, 339.
Mayhew, Thomas, Sr. and Jr., 164,
165, 168.
Mayo, Rev. John, 183.
McCulloch, Rev. William, 251.
McNamee, Theodore, 449.
Mildmay, Sir Walter, 56.
Mills, Rev. Jedidiah, 339, 340,
361.
Mills, Samuel J., Jr., 137, 387, 388.
Ministerial education, 378, 379.
Missions, wide interest in, 138 ;
Eliot's labors, 151-171 ; legisla-
tive encouragement, 1 58; foreign
missionary society formed in
England, 159, 160 ; Indian
churches, 161, 165, 167, 168 ;
Eliot's translations, 162-164; the
work of the Mayhews, 164, 165 ;
results of early Indian missions,
166-170 ; Brainerd's missionary
zeal, 243 ; Edwards's work at
Stockbridge, 250 ; Hopkins's ef-
forts, 350, 351 ; the American
Board formed, 387-389.
Mitchell, Rev. Jonathan, 181.
Monthly Anthology, The, 375, 377.
Morse, Rev. Dr. Jedidiah, 374, 375,
380-382, 396.
Morton, Nathaniel, 17, 36, 38, 44.
Morton, Thomas, adventurer, 30.
Morton, Bishop Thomas, 104.
Mumford, Hanna, marries John
Eliot, 142.
N
Nantucket, Indian mission on, 165,
167.
Natick, Indian settlement at, 161,
167-169.
Neile, Archbishop Richard, 107.
Newell, Rev. Samuel, 137, 388, 389.
New Englander, The, 442.
New Haven, settled, 79 ; the First
Church, 398, 399, 415-418, 423,
443, 45i, 453-
New Haven Theology, The, 434-
436, 451-
Newman. Prof. A. H., cited, 19.
Newport, Hopkins's ministry at,
342, 343, 355, 356.
Newton Theological Seminary,
387.
New York, Edwards at, 226.
Norris, John, 581.
Northampton, Edwards's settle-
ment at, 227 ; revival at, 232-
237, 280, 321 ; Whitefield at,
2 37, 2 77 I Edwards's dismission,
244-249 ; Hopkins's life at, 320-
322.
Norton, Rev. John, 114, 180, 181.
Nott, Rev. Samuel, 388, 389.
Nye, Rev. Philip, 91.
Oakes, Pres. Urian, 194.
Oberlin College, 402, 403, 430,
432.
INDEX
467
Oberlin Theological Seminary, 386.
Oldham, John, 32.
Paine, Thomas, 367.
Palfrey, John G., the historian,
cited, 26, 41, 44, 75, 148, 154,
155, 160, 161, 166-168, 291,
292.
Palin, Rev. Mr., 102.
Panoplist, The, 375, 377, 384.
Park, Prof. Edwards A., 315, 344 ;
cited, 324-326, 328-330, 335,
34i, 343, 348-351, 356, 385-
Parker, Rev. Dr. E. P., cited, 438.
Parks, Alice, marries David Bacon,
410.
Parris, Rev. Samuel, 201.
Parsons, Rev. Jonathan, 238, 280,
281.
Partridge, Rev. Ralph, 124.
Patten, Rev. Dr. William, 324,
348.
Patteson, Bishop John C., 138.
Pearson, Prof. Eliphalet, 375, 380-
383, 385, 386.
Pemberton, Rev. Ebenezer, 205.
Penn, William, 412.
Perkins, Rev. William, Puritan
leader, 102.
Perry, Bishop W. S., cited, 291.
Philip's War, 167, 169, 190.
Phillips Academy, 380, 381, 383.
Phillips, Rev. George, 53.
Phillips, John, 380.
Phillips, John, Jr., 381.
Phillips, Mrs. Phoebe, 381.
Phillips, Rev. Samuel, 231, 232,
332.
Phillips, Samuel, 380.
Phips, Sir William, 203.
Pierce, William, 68.
Pierpont, Rev. James, 227.
Pierpont, Sarah, marries Jonathan
Edwards, 227, 228 ; character,
228, 229 ; spiritual experiences,
238-240, 257, 321 ; welcomes
Hopkins, 320.
Pierson, Rev. Abraham, 166.
Plan of Union, The, 429, 430.
Plymouth, settled, 24 ; growth of,
26 ; famine at, 27, 28 ; divisions
in, 30-33 ; socialistic experiment
at, 33-35 I life a struggle, 42 ;
Ainsworth's version of the
Psalms used at, 121 ; Indian
mission at, 165 ; Pres. Chauncy
at, 268 ; the Mayflower Church
divided, 377 ; Burial Hill in, 43,
44-
Pomeroy, Rev. Benjamin, 280.
Porter, Prof. Ebenezer, 414.
Prayer Book, The English, 9, 64,
65, 120, 183.
Presbyterian Church, Discussions
in, 433-435-
Preston, Rev. Dr. John, Puritan
leader, 58.
Priestley, Rev. Joseph, 310, 368.
Prince, Rev. Thomas, 38, 40, 279,
364.
Princeton, Mass., Woods's early
home, 364, 365, 368, 370, 371.
Princeton Theological Seminary,
386.
Princeton University, 260,261,351.
Puritans, The, their aims and scru-
ples, 11-13, 50-52, 63-65; the
lectureships, 140.
Quincy, Edmund, 68.
Quincy, Pres. Josiah, cited, 178,
365, 367.
Quint, Rev. Dr. A. H., 427.
R
Raine, Rev. John, cited, 8, 10.
Raleigh, Sir Walter, 7.
Randolph, Edward, 196, 197.
Rasieres, Isaac de, 44.
Rathband, Rev. William, 128.
Rawson, Rev. Grindall, 166, 168.
Reforming Synod, see Synod.
Revivals, under Stoddard, 232 ;
under Edwards at Northampton,
232-237; the "Great Awaken-
468
INDEX
Revivals Continued.
ing," 237, 240, 241, 270, 275-
287 ; later revivals, 355, 370,
387, 418.
Reynor, Rev. John, 42.
Rice, Rev. Luther, 388, 389.
Richards, Rev. James, 388.
Robbins, Rev. Chandler, cited,
180, 183.
Robinson, Rev. John, the Pilgrim
leader, 17-29, 23, 24, 42, 49, 55,
117.
Ross, Rev. A. Hastings, 3.
Russel, Rev. Joseph, 368-370.
Russel, Rev. Noadiah, 368.
Rutherford, Prof. Samuel, 88, 90,
93, II9-
Rylands, J. P., 98.
Salem, 35-3 7, 53, 54, 106, 201,
381.
Saltonstall, Sir Richard, 53.
Sancroft, Archbishop William, 57.
Sandeman, Robert, 302.
Savage, James, cited, 109.
Savoy Confession, see Confession.
Saybrook Platform, The, 200.
Saye and Sele, Lord, 74.
Scrooby, The Separatists at, 15-20,
45, 49, 56-
Separatists, The, 14, 18-20, 49.
Sewall, Rev. Joseph, 281.
Sewall, Judge Samuel, 38, 103,
104, 197, 350.
Seward, William H., 449.
Shakespeare, William, 7.
Shepard, Rev. Thomas, of Cam-
bridge, at Emmanuel College,
57 ; on conversion, 225, 234 ; on
" Willingness to be Damned,"
347 ; mentioned, 71, 76, 155,
158, 164.
Shrewsbury, The earl of, 159.
Shute, Rev. Daniel, 299.
Sibbes, Rev. Richard, 58.
Sibley, John Langdon, cited, 101,
113, 165, 166, 179, 184, 195,
202-205, 209, 269.
Simpson, Rev. Sidrach, 91.
Skelton, Rev. Samuel, 36, 53.
Slavery, opposed by Jonathan
Edwards the younger, 256; Hop-
kins's efforts against, 256, 349-
35 J , 358 ; declaration at Albany
Convention, 431 ; Bacon's oppo-
sition to, 445-451.
Smalley, Rev. John, 379.
Smith, Rev. Ralph, 42.
Smith, Rev. Samuel, 221.
Smyth, Prof. Egbert, C., cited,
220.
Smyth, John, the Separatist, 17-
19.
Society for Propagating Christian
Knowledge among the Indians,
The, 291.
Society for the Propagation of the
Gospel in Foreign Parts, The,
291, 293.
Society for the Propagation of the
Gospel in New England, The,
159, 160, 249.
Some (Soame), Rev. Dr. Robert,
58.
South Windsor, 217, 218, 226.
Southworth, Mrs. Alice, 27.
Sparks, Pres. Jared, 397.
Spenser, Edmund, 7.
Sprague, Rev. Dr. William B.,
cited, 269, 272, 287, 296, 355-
357, 364, 368-371, 373, 374-
Spring, Rev. Dr. Samuel, friend-
ship for Woods, 374, 376 ;
founding of Andover Seminary,
381-384, 386, 388.
Squanto, Indian, 28, 44.
Standish, Capt. Myles, 29, 43, 44.
Sternhold, Thomas, 120. .
Stiles, Pres. Ezra, anti-slavery
efforts, 350 ; letters to, quoted
and cited, 286, 287, 289, 295,
296, 300, 302, 304, 306, 309.
341-
Stiles, Dr. Henry R., cited, 218.
Stockbridge, 249, 250, 260, 261,
316, 323, 324.
Stoddard, Rev. Solomon, 219,
227, 232, 245-247.
INDEX
469
Stoddardeanism, 245-247, 249,304,
305- ^
Stone, Rev. SartWel, 57, 68, 74.
Storrs, Rev. Dr. H. M., 427.
Storrs, Rev. Dr. Richard S., 420,
449-
Story, William, 60.
Stoughton, Judge John A., cited,
218, 219.
Stoughton, Lieut. -Gov. William,
54, 113, 189.
Stuart, Prof. Moses, 372, 388, 398,
415-417.
Synods, of 1637, 77, 80 ; at Cam-
bridge, 1646-48, 93, 123-126,
J 59, J 93 ! f 1662, 131, 184 ; the
Reforming, of 1679-80, 146,
147, 188-194, 2ii ; attempted in
1725, 290.
T
Tackawompbait, Indian pastor,
168.
Tallmadge, Ohio, 412, 413.
Tappan, Prof. David, 370, 371,
373, 375, 378.
Taylor, Rev. John, 257, 258, 298,
300.
Taylor, Prof. Nathaniel W., 395,
398-402, 416, 417, 435, 436.
Taylor and Tyler Controversy,
The, 398-402, 435-437-
Temperance reform, 443-445 ; see
also Am. Temperance Society.
Tennent, Rev. Gilbert, 238, 318,
319.
Tenney, Rev. Caleb J., 356.
Terry, Catherine Elizabeth, Mrs.
Leonard Bacon, 418.
Thompson, Rev. Dr. A. C., cited,
154, 165.
Thompson, Rev. Dr. J. P., 430,
449-
Thompson, Pishey, cited, 59, 60.
Thorowgood, Thomas, 138.
Toleration Act, The, 199.
Tompson, Rev. William, 114, 119.
Townshend, C. H., cited, 22.
Toxteth Park, Richard Mather at,
101-107.
Tracy, Rev. Joseph, cited, 276,
279-281, 388.
Treat, Rev. Samuel, 165.
Trumbull, Dr. J. Hammond,
quoted, 163 ; cited, 149, 150,
153, 155.
Tuckney, Rev. Dr. Anthony, 61,
87-
Tuthill, Elisabeth, wife of Richard
Edwards, 218.
Twisse, Rev. Dr. William, 62.
Tyler, Pres. Bennet, 400, 436.
Tyler, Prof. Moses Coit, cited, 122,
269.
U
Union Theological Seminary, 387.
Unitaria-nism, see Liberal The-
ology.
V
Vane, Gov. Henry, 77, 78.
W
Waaubon, Indian chief, 155-158.
Walker, Rev. Dr. George Leon,
cited, 140, 276, 347, 433, 452.
Walter, Rev. Nehemiah, 143.
Ward, Rev. Nathaniel, 74.
Ware, Prof. Henry, 378, 395,
398.
Warham, Rev. John, 53, 109, 114,
219.
Waterbury, Hopkins's life in, 316,
317, 320.
Watts, Rev. Dr. Isaac, 236, 252,
298.
Webster, Rev. Samuel, 257.
Welde, Rev. Thomas, 121, 142,
143.
Wendell, Prof. Barrett, cited, 176.
Wesley, Rev. John, 57, 222, 225,
229.
West, Elizabeth, wife of Samuel
Hopkins, 328, 329.
West, Rev, Stephen, 250, 316.
Western Theological Seminary,
The, 61, 62.
470
INDEX
Westminster Assembly, The, Con-
gregationalists in, 91, 92 ; men-
tioned, 61, 62, 81, 85, 116, 118,
119, 123.
Westminster Catechism, The, 87,
383, 384-
Westminster Confession, see Con-
fession.
West Newbury, Woods's re-
lations to, 371-375, 382-385,
394-
Weston, Thomas, 29, 30.
Wethersfield, 221, 222.
Wheeler, Abigail, Mrs. Leonard
Woods, 372.
Wheeler, Joseph, 372.
Wheelock, Rev. Dr. Eleazer, 280,
281.
Wheelwright, Rev. John, 76, 77.
Whiston, Prof. William, 298.
Whitaker, Rev. Dr. Nathanial,
341.
Whitby, Rev. Daniel, 252, 298,
300.
Whitefield, Rev. George, the
"Great Awakening," 237, 276-
282 ; his preaching, 276-278 ;
his censoriousness, 278,279; esti-
mate of Harvard and Yale, 279 ;
at New Haven, 278, 318 ; views
on conversion, 225 ; emphasis
on bodily effects, 279; commenda-
tion of Edwards, 237 ; character-
ization of Boston, 275 ; estimate
of Davenport, 281 ; mentioned.
286.
Whitgift, Archbishop John, 51.
Whiting, Rev. Samuel, quoted, 58,
59, 61-63 ; cited, 55, 56, 60, 64.
Whitmore, W. H., cited, 197.
Willard, Rev. Samuel, 203, 207,
208.
William III., of England, 197,
198, 200.
Williams College, 387, 388.
Williams, Col. Elisha, 221.
Williams, Bishop John, 64, 66, 68.
Williams, Roger, his banishment,
81, 82; his controversy with Cot-
ton, 8 1-86 ; his efforts to Chris-
tianize the Indians, 153, 162
mentioned, no.
Williams, Rev. Solomon, 280, 281.
"Willingness to be Damned,"
Doctrine of, 239, 240, 257, 321,
346, 347, 371-
Wilson, Rev. John, of Boston, 53,
69, 70, 77, 79, 81, 109, 142, 155.
Wilson, Rev. John, Jr., 113.
Winslow, Gov. Edward, 25, 29,
39-
Winthrop, Gov. John, arrival, 53;
in the Antinomian dispute, 77,
79 ; at the organization of the
Dorchester church, in ; at a
Dorchester council, 112, 113 ;
his Journal quoted, 69,70, III-
113 ; cited, 68, 73-75, 78-80, 83,
119, 142, 159, 268.
Winwick, The grammar school, 99.
Witchcraft, at Salem, 201.
Wituwamat, Indian chief, 29.
Wood, Anthony, cited, 101-103.
Woods, Prof. Leonard, early life,
364 ; at Harvard, 365-368 ; re-
ligious experience, 368, 369 ;
theological training, 370, 372 ;
marriage, 372 ; pastorate at
West Newbury, 371-373 ; creed
revision, 372 ; his master's
oration, 373 ; friendship for
Spring, Morse and Pearson, 374,
375 ; deemed a moderate Hop-
kinsian, 374, 375 ; his irenic
spirit, 375, 376, 384, 385 ; two
theological schools planned,
379-382 ; united in Andover
Seminary, 382-385 ; is appointed
Professor of Theology, 383, 385 ;
his inauguration, 385, 386; in-
terest in missions and reforms,
387-389 ; as a teacher, 389-394 ;
his writings, 394-404 ; their
courtesy, 396 ; his Letters to
Unitarians, 395, 397, 398 ; his
Letters to Taylor, 395, 398-402 ;
his controversy with Mahan,395,
402, 403 ; his History of Ando-
ver, 404 ; his lectures, 404 ; last
days, 403-405 ; mentioned, 409.
INDEX
471
Woolsey, Pres. Theodore D., cited,
414, 417, 432.
Worcester, Rev. Dr. Samuel, 388,
389-
X
Xavier, Francis, 138.
Y
Yale University, in Edwards's
student days, 220-222, 226, 227 ;
Hopkins's student life at, 317-
320 ; Whitefield's criticism of,
279 ; comes under Edwardean
influences, 362 ; religious state
at the close of the eighteenth
century, 367 ; Bacon's connec-
tion with, 413, 414, 421, 452,
453 ; instruction in theology at,
378, 380 ; the Divinity School
of, 386, 399, 416, 452, 453 ; see
also New Haven Theology, and
Taylor and Tyler Controversy.
Young, Alexander, Collections of
sources edited by, cited, 25, 39,
55, 56, 58, 59, 60, 63, 67, 68, 98,
108, 147.
Youngs, Rev. David, 318.
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