until 1688, when the interference of the English authorities compelled them
to practise toleration and to widen the suffrage. The words of Sir Richard
Saltonstall to John Cotton and John Wilson show clearly that these methods
were not accepted by all, and even Saltonstall returned to England to
escape the restrictions he condemned. "It doth not a little grieve my
spirit to hear what sad things are daily reported of your tyranny and
persecutions in New England," he wrote, "as that you fine, whip, and
imprison men for their consciences. First you compel such to come into your
assemblies as you know will not join with you in your worship, and when
they show their dislike thereof or witness against it, then you stir up
your magistrates to punish them for such (as you conceive) their public
affronts. Truly, friends, this your practice of compelling any in matters
of worship to do that whereof they are not persuaded is to make them sin,
and many are made hypocrites thereby, conforming in their outward man for
fear of punishment. We pray for you and wish you prosperity in every way,
hoped that the Lord would have given you so much light and love there, that
you might have been eyes to God's people here, and not to practise those
courses in wilderness which you went so far to prevent. These rigid ways
have laid you very low in the hearts of the saints."[4]
Another man who withdrew to England from the narrow spirit of the Puritans
was William Pynchon, of Springfield, one of the best trained and ablest of
the early settlers of Massachusetts. In 1650 he published a book on the
Meritorious Price of our Redemption, in which he denied that Christ was
subject to the wrath of God or suffered torments in hell for the redemption
of men or paid the penalty for all human sins; but such teachings were too
liberal and modern for the leaders in church and state.[5] What is now
orthodox, that Christ's sacrifice was voluntary, was then heretical and
forbidden.
If during the first half-century of New England no liberalism found
definite utterance, it was because of its repression. It was in the air,
even then, and it would have found expression, had there been opportunity
or invitation. There were other men than Williams, Saltonstall, Pynchon,
and Henry Vane, who believed in toleration, liberty of conscience, and a
rational interpretation of religion. In a limited way such men were Henry
Dunster and Charles Chauncy, the first two presidents of Harvard College,
who both rejected infant baptism because it was not consistent with a
converted church membership. It was a small thing to protest against, and
to suffer for as Dunster suffered; but the principle was great for which he
contended, the principle of individual conviction in religion.
The better spirit of the Puritans appears in such a saying as that of Sir
Henry Vane, the second governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, that "all
magistrates are to fear or forbear intermeddling with giving rule or
imposing their own beliefs in religious matters."[6] To a similar purport
was the saying of Thomas Hooker, the founder of Connecticut, that "the
foundation of authority is laid in the free consent of the people."[7] In
the writings of John Robinson, the Pilgrim leader, a like greatness of
purpose and thought appears, as where he says that "the meanest man's
reason, specially in matter of faith and obedience to God, is to be
preferred before all authority of all men."[8] Robinson was a very strict
Calvinist in doctrine; but he was tolerant in large degree, and thoroughly
convinced of the worth of liberty of conscience. His liberality comes out
in such words as these: "The custom of the church is but the custom of men;
the sentence of the fathers but the opinions of men; the determinations of
councils but the judgments of men."[9] How strong a believer in individual
reason he was appears in this statement: "God, who hath made two great
lights for the bodily eye, hath also made two lights for the eye of the
mind; the one the Scriptures for her supernatural light, and the other
reason for her natural light. And, indeed, only these two are a man's own,
and so is not the authority of other men. The Scriptures are as well mine
as any other man's, and so is reason as far as I can attain to it."[10]
When he says that "the credit commending a testimony to others cannot be
greater than is the authority in itself of him that gives it nor his
authority greater than his person,"[11] he puts an end to all arbitrary
authority of priest and church.
It will be seen from these quotations that the spirit of liberality existed
even in the very beginnings of New England, and in the convictions of the
men who were its chief prophets and leaders. It was hidden away for a time,
it may be, though it never ceased to find utterance in some form. The
breadth of the underlying spirit finds expression in the compacts by which
local churches united their members. The liberality was incipient, a
promise of the future rather than a realization in the present.
The earliest churches of New England were not organized with a creed, but
with a covenant. Occasionally there was a confession of faith or a creedal
statement; but it was regarded as quite unnecessary because it was implied
in the general acceptance of the Calvinistic doctrines, and the use of the
Cambridge platform or other similar document. The covenant of a church
could not be a statement of beliefs, because it was a vow between Christ
and his church, and a pledge of the individual members of the church with
relation to each other. The creed was implied, but it was not expressed;
and, although all the churches were Calvinist at first, the nature of the
covenant was such that, when men grew liberal, there was no written creedal
test by which they could be held to the old beliefs. When Calvinism was
outgrown, it could be slowly and silently discarded, both by individual
members of a church and by the church itself, because it was not explicitly
contained in the covenant. The creed was rejected, but the covenant was
retained.
As soon as authority was withdrawn from the Puritan leaders by the English
crown, the spirit of liberty began to show itself in many directions. In a
sermon preached in 1691, Samuel Willard, the minister of the Old South
Church in Boston, and afterwards president of Harvard College, gave
utterance to what was stirring in many minds at that time. He said that God
"hath nowhere by any general indulgence given away this liberty of his to
any other authority in the world to have dominion over the consciences of
men or to give rules of worship, but hath, on the other hand, strongly
prohibited it and severely threatened any that shall presume to do it." He
earnestly asserted that no authority is to be accepted but that of the
Bible, and that is to be free for each person's individual interpretation.
"Hath there not," Willard questions, "been too much of a pinning our faith
on the credit or practice of others, attended on with a woful neglect to
know what is the mind of Christ?" Here was a spirit that not many years
later was showing itself in the liberal movement that grew into
Unitarianism. The effort to free the consciences of men, and to bring all
appeals to the Bible and to Christ, was what gave significance to the
liberal movement of the next century.
[Sidenote: Growth of Liberty in Church Methods.]
There also began a movement to bring church and state into harmonious
relations with each other, and to overcome the inconsistency of being
individualist and socialist at the same moment. The theory of conversion
being retained, it was proposed to make the ordinances of religion free to
all, in order that they might bring about the supernatural change that was
desired. This is the real significance of the position taken by Solomon
Stoddard, of Northampton, who taught that the Lord's Supper is a converting
ordinance, and who in practice did not ask for a supernatural regeneration
as preparatory to a limited church membership, though he regarded this as
essential to full admission. The half-way covenant had been adopted before
Mr. Stoddard became the pastor of the church; but soon after his settlement
this limited form of admission was more clearly defined, and he admitted
persons into what he described as a "state of education."[12] This "large
congregationalism," as it was called, was in time accepted as meaning that
those who have faith enough to justify the baptism of their children have
enough to admit them to full communion in the church. Mr. Stoddard appealed
to the English practice in his defence of the broader principle which he
adopted. He also vindicated his position by reference to the practices of
the leading Protestant countries in Europe. His methods, as outlined and
interpreted in his Appeal to the Learned,[13] were based more or less
explicitly on the corporate idea of the church.
Although Stoddard was a strict Calvinist, there can be no doubt that his
method of open communion slowly led to theological modifications. Not only
did it have a tendency to bring the state and church into closer relations
with each other, by making the membership in the two more nearly the same,
but it led the way to the acceptance of the doctrine of moral ability, and
therefore to a modification of Calvinism. If it was a practical rather than
a theological reason that caused Stoddard to adopt open communion, it
almost inevitably led to Arminianism, because it implied, as he presented
its conditions, that man is able of his own free will to accept the terms
of salvation which Calvinism had confined to the operation of the
sovereignty of God alone.
Another way in which the spirit of the time was showing itself may be seen
in the fact that the parish, towards the end of the seventeenth century, on
more than one occasion refused to the church the selection of the minister;
and church and parish met together for that purpose. This was the case in
the first church of Salem in 1672, and at Dedham in 1685. So long as church
members only were given the right of suffrage, the selection of the
minister was wholly in their hands. As soon as the suffrage was extended,
there was a movement to include all tax-payers amongst those who could
exercise this choice. In 1666 such a proposition was discussed in
Connecticut, and not long after it became the law. In 1692 the
Massachusetts laws gave the church the right to select the minister, but
permitted the parish to concur in or to reject such choice. During the next
century there was a growing tendency to enlarge the privileges of the
parish, and to make that the controlling factor in calling the minister and
in all that pertained to the outward life of the church and congregation.
The result will be seen more and more in the influence of the parish in the
selection of liberal men for the pulpit.
A notable instance of the more liberal tendencies is seen in the formation
of the Brattle Street Church of Boston in 1699. Although this church
accepted the Westminster Confession of Faith and adopted the practices
common to the New England churches at this period, it insisted upon the
reading of the Bible without comment as a part of the church service. The
relation of religious experiences as preparatory to admission to the church
was discarded, all were admitted to communion who were approved by the
pastor, and women were permitted to take part in voting on all church
questions. These and other innovations occasioned much discussion; and a
controversy ensued between the pastor Benjamin Colman and Increase
Mather.[14] The Salem pastors, Rev. John Higginson and Rev. Nicholas Noyes,
addressed a letter to the Brattle Street congregation, in which they
criticised the church because it did not consult with other churches in its
formation, because it did not make a public profession of repentance on
behalf of its members, because baptism was administered on less stringent
terms than was customary and too lax admission was given to the sacraments,
and because the admission of females to full church activity had a direct
tendency "to subvert the order and liberty of the churches." Though the
Brattle Street Church was for a time severely criticised, it soon came into
intimate relations with the other churches of Boston, and it ceased to
appear as in any way peculiar. That it was organized on a broader basis of
membership indicates very clearly that the old methods were not
satisfactory to all the people.[15]
[Sidenote: A Puritan Rationalist.]
The influence of similar ideas is seen in the books of John Wise, of
Ipswich, whose Churches' Quarrel Espoused was published in 1710, and his
Vindication of the Government of the New England Churches in 1717. His
first book was in answer to the proposition of a number of the ministers of
Boston to bring the churches under the control of associations. By this
remonstrance the plan was defeated, and the independence of the local
church fully established. In republishing his book, he added the
Vindication, in order to give his ideas a more systematic expression. The
Vindication is the most thoroughly modern book published in America during
the eighteenth century. It has a literary directness and power remarkable
for the time. Wise gives no quotations indicating that he had read the
great liberal writers of England, but he was familiar with Plato and
Cicero.
In his first book he speaks of "the natural freedom of human beings,"[16]
and says that "right reason is a ray of divine wisdom enstamped upon human
nature."[17] Again, he says that "right reason, that great oracle in human
affairs, is the soul of man so formed and endowed by creation with a
certain sagacity or acumen whereby man's intellect is enabled to take up
the true idea or perception of things agreeable with and according to their
natures."[18] In such utterances as these Wise was putting himself into the
company of the most liberal minds of England in his day, though he may not
have read one of them. The considerations that were influencing Milton,
Chillingworth, and Jeremy Taylor, in favor of toleration and a broad
inclusiveness of spirit, evidently were having their effect upon this New
England pastor.
It is not to be assumed that John Wise was a rationalist in the modern
sense; but he gave to the use of reason a significance that is surprising
and refreshing, coming from the time and circumstances of his writing. In
his Vindication we find him accepting reason and revelation as of equal
validity. He appeals to the "dictates of right reason"[19] and the "common
reason of mankind"[20] with quite as much confidence as to the Bible. He
says that all questions of government, religious as well as political, are
to be brought to "the assizes of man's own intellectual powers, reason, and
conscience."[21] He assumes that God has created man capable of obeying his
will and living in conformity with his law; for he says that, "if God did
not highly estimate man as a creature exalted by his reason, liberty, and
nobleness of nature, he would not caress him as he does in order to his
submission."[22]
Wise says that the characteristic of man which is of greatest importance is
that he is "most properly the subject of the law of nature."[23] He uses
this expression frequently and in a thoroughly modern sense.
The second great characteristic of man, according to Wise, "is an original
liberty enstamped upon his rational nature."[24] He indicates that he is
not inclined to discuss the merely theological problem of man's relations
to God, but, considered physically, man is at the head of creation, "and as
such is a creature of a very noble character." [24] All the lower world is
subject to his command, "and his liberty under the conduct of right reason
is equal with his trust." [24] "He that intrudes upon this liberty violates
the law of nature." [24] The effect of such liberty is not to lead man into
license, but to make him the rational master of his own conduct. Every man
is therefore at liberty "to judge for himself what shall be most for his
behoof, happiness, and well-being."[25]
The third great characteristic of man is found in "an equality amongst
men," [25] which is to be respected and vindicated by governments that are
just and humane. "By a natural right," he says, "all men are born free;
and, nature having set all men upon a level and made them equals, no
servitude or subjection can be conceived without inequality."[26] Again he
says that it is "a fundamental principle relating to government that, under
God, all power is originally in the people."[27] This is true of the church
as well as of the state, and Wise says the Reformation was a cheat and a
schism and a notorious rebellion if the people are not the source of power
in the church.
Two other ideas presented by this leader show his modernness and his
originality. He says that "the happiness of the people is the object of all
government,"[28] and that the state should seek to promote "the peculiar
good and benefit of the whole, and every particular member, fairly and
sincerely."[29] "The end of all good government," he assures his readers,
"is to cultivate humanity, and promote the happiness of all, and the good
of every man in all his rights, his life, liberty, estate, and honor,
without injury or abuse done to any." [29] That government will seek the
good of all is likely to be the case, because man has it as a fundamental
law of his nature that he "maintain a sociableness with others."[30] "From
the principles of sociableness it follows as a fundamental law of nature
that man is not so wedded to his own interest but that he can make the
common good the mark of his aim, and hence he becomes capacitated to enter
into a civil state by the law of nature."[31] This attraction of man to his
kind enables him to yield so much of his freedom as is necessary to make
the state an efficient social power, "in which covenant is included that
submission and union of wills by which a state may be conceived to be but
one person."[32] This thoroughly modern idea of the social body, as being
analogous in its nature to the individual man, is nobly expressed by Wise,
who says that "a civil state is a compound moral person, whose will is the
will of all, to the end it may use and apply the strength and riches of
private persons toward maintaining the common peace, security, and
well-being of all, which may be conceived as though the whole state was now
become but one man."[33]
It is not surprising that the writings of John Wise had no immediate effect
upon the theological thinking of the time, but they must have had their
influence. Just before the opening of the Revolution they were republished
because of their vindication of the spirit of human liberty and democracy.
What Wise wrote to promote was congregational independence, and this may
have been the reason why his theological attitude was never called in
question. It is true enough that he questioned none of the Calvinistic
doctrines in his books; but his political views were certain to disturb the
old beliefs, and to give incentives to free discussion in religion.
[Sidenote: Harvard College.]
The centre of the liberalizing tendencies of the last years of the
seventeenth century was Harvard College. That institution was organized on
a basis as broad as that of the early church covenants, with no creed or
doctrinal requirements. The original seal bore the motto Veritas; but, as
the state-church idea grew, this motto was succeeded by In Christi gloriam,
and then by Christo et Ecclesiae, though neither of these later mottoes was
authoritatively adopted. The early charters were thoroughly liberal in
spirit and intent, so much so as to be fully in harmony with the present
attitude of the university.[34] Under the Puritanic development, however,
this liberality was discarded, only to be restored in 1691, when William
and Mary gave to Massachusetts a new and broader charter. From that time a
new life entered into the college, that put it uncompromisingly on the
liberal side a century later. Even under the rule of Increase Mather,
seconded by the influence of his son Cotton, a broader spirit declared
itself in the culture imparted and in the method of free inquiry.[35]
Samuel Willard, the successor to Increase Mather in the presidency, was of
the liberal party in his breadth of mind and in his sound judgment. He was
followed in 1708 by John Leverett, one of the founders of the Brattle
Street Church, a man in whom the liberal spirit became a controlling motive
in his management of the college.[36] It is not strange that the men who
had been shut out from the suffrage and from active participation in the
management of the churches, should now come forward to claim their rights,
and to make their influence felt in college, church, and state. It was the
distinct beginning of the liberal movement in New England, the time from
which Unitarianism really took its origin.
[1] Kuno Francke, Social Forces in German Literature, 105. "No mediaeval
man ever thought of himself as a perfectly independent being founded
only on himself, or without a most direct and definite relation to
some larger organism, be it empire, church, city, or guild. No
mediaeval man ever doubted that the institutions within which he lived
were divinely established ordinances, far superior and quite
inaccessible to his own individual reason and judgment. No mediaeval
man would ever have admitted that he conceived nature to be other than
the creation of an extramundane God, destined to glorify its creator
and to please the eye of man. It was reserved for the eighteenth
century to draw the last consequences of individualism; to see in man,
in each individual man, an independent and complete entity; to derive
the origin of state, church, and society from the spontaneous action
of these independent individuals; and to consider nature as a system
of forces sufficient unto themselves. When we speak of individualism
in the declining centuries of the Middle Ages, we mean by it that
these centuries initiated the movement which the eighteenth century
brought to a climax."
[2] Williston Walker, the Creeds and Platforms of Congregationalism, 246.
"From the first the fathers of New England insisted that the children
of church members were themselves members, and as such were justly
entitled to those church privileges which were adapted to their state
of Christian development, of which the chief were baptism and the
watchful discipline of the church. They did not enter the church by
baptism; they were entitled to baptism because they were already
members of the church. Here then was an inconsistency in the
application of the Congregational theory of the constitution of a
church. While affirming that a proper church consisted only of those
possessed of personal Christian character, the fathers admitted to
membership, in some degree at least, those who had no claim but
Christian parentage." That is, in theory they were Protestants, but in
practice they were Catholics.