Read The Mathers: Three Generations of Puritan Intellectuals, 1596-1728 Online

Authors: Robert Middlekauff

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The Mathers: Three Generations of Puritan Intellectuals, 1596-1728 (38 page)

BOOK: The Mathers: Three Generations of Puritan Intellectuals, 1596-1728
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Page 215
not do much more. In December of 1691, he attempted to prepare Boston for the worst by giving a sermon decrying discontent and murmuring. His first reactions to the news of the charter and the policy of toleration betray his confusionthe charter was both more than he expected and less than he wanted.
13
During the next few years he attempted to work out the full significance of the new arrangements for New England. His first endorsements of the policy of toleration were undoubtedly insincere; he had not in the years immediately following the receipt of the charter imagined a new basis for Christian unity. Hence in these statements of the 1690's, though he repudiated the persecution of the founders, he confined the guarantees of toleration as tightly as possible. Public policy, he declared, must distinguish between the political capacities of the State and the religious capacities of the churches, The State must not persecute for belief lest it afford "a Root for Cains Club to grow upon."
14
But there are other grounds for freedom of conscience, and Mather clarified them for his listeners: "a Christian by Non-Conformity to this or that Imposed
Way of Worship
, does not break the Terms on which he is to enjoy the Benefits of
Humane Society
. A man has a Right unto his Life, his Estate, his Liberty, and his Family, altho' he should not come up to these and those Blessed
Institutions
of our Lord."
15
These rights, he explained, belong to all Christiansthose in New England prized them as citizens of Britain: Mather did not mean to separate the Church and the world completely, however strong this statement may appear. For, in his view, the magistrate had responsibilities that carried into the arena of the Church. Both Church and State had to concern themselves with morality: the magistrate, for example should punish drunkenness, an offense that a Puritan church could not overlook in one of its members. Nor should the State countenance atheism or blasphemy; nor should it ignore those who reviled religion. Roman Catholics fell into one or more of these categories in Cotton Mather's judgment, and should they ever be incautious enough to appear in Puritan colonies, they must be driven out. More than that fell to the State in Mather's judgment. The true religion continued to be known whatever statutes the British Parliament approved concerning toleration and the magistrate should give protection to those who attempt to advance it. Cotton Mather prescribed "Singular Kindness,
 
Page 216
Defense and Support'' as the duties of the magistrate toward the churches of Christ.
16
In practice this meant the collection of rates for the local Congregational meetings, a practice Mather never repudiated.
The changes in this position did not all occur within the area of theory. In 1718 Mather participated in the ordination of a Baptist minister, Elisha Callender, in a Boston church. This was a remarkable action, and a praiseworthy one, accompanied by a subdued plea for the exemption of the Baptists from payment of rates for Congregational churches. His repudiation of the founders' persecution of the Quakers also required courage, though he never suggested that Quakers be exempt from rates for the established churches.
17
Mather stated his final position on these issues in
Parentator
, his biography of Increase.
18
He did not spare his father in discussing the intolerance of the first generations in New England; Increase, he admitted, had accepted the founders' views eagerly, even going so far as to write an essay justifying them. Increase never published it, Cotton said, because he changed his mind (Cotton might have noted that Increase made his views public in a number of works which did get into print). Cotton Mather ascribed the change to Increase's understanding of the parable of the tares, and his father's comprehension of the irrelevance of this part of Israel's experience for New England; as Cotton said, the persecuting example of Israel could not "Legitimate the like Proceedings among Christian Gentiles."
19
When Cotton Mather first repudiated the founders' position on Church and State, he probably did not realize that he was then on the way to making further revisions in ancient theory. Cutting away the old assumptions in one area left others exposed, including those on the character of the Church in history. What he did in the twenty-five years following the Glorious Revolution, or what he was in some measure unwittingly compelled to do, was to find some basis other than Church polity for that union of Christians which he expected to welcome the chiliad. By the time he had accomplished this reconstruction of prophecy, he had also worked out a new version of the meaning of New England.
The Act of Toleration forced Mather to begin to think anew about the Church itself. He realized that the Congregational
 
Page 217
churches of New England would soon need all the support they could get from other nonconforming bodies in England. He would not concede at first that in receiving it, they would compromise their claims to a pure, scriptural organization. Hence he welcomed the union of Congregationalists and Presbyterian ministers in London that his father helped form in 1691. This league, the United Brethren, joined ministers in consulting organizations and did not include the laity. Both Mathers looked upon it as not only an expression of the Christian spirit but as a device to oppose the Church of England.
20
In the first years of the 1690's, the Church of England looked more threatening even than the innovations in sacramental practice coming out of the Connecticut Valley where Solomon Stoddard held forth. A distant, unknown enemy invariably looks more formidable than the familiar one next doorand so this one did to the Mathers. Always troubled more by the unseen than the visible, Cotton Mather almost blundered into the enemy's Northampton camp in his eagerness to sign an alliance with the Presbyterians in England. By 1690 Stoddard had begun to sneer that the Church covenant had no basis in Scripture. His distaste for the old requirements for Communion had been expressed many times. Cotton Mather ignored these western prejudices as he appealed to the East. There is, he argued, no reason to permit differences between Presbyterians and Congregationalists on principles to forestall an alliance between them. They can agree on most elements of practice and where they cannot, considerable variety is tolerable. The enumeration of the tolerable must have astonished Stoddard, for Mather admitted that some Presbyterian churches might not require the relation of conversion experience, some might not agree that ruling elders, who were qualified laymen, should assist ministers, and some might not choose to follow New England's practice of bringing the children of non-communicants under Church discipline. No matter, said Cotton, implying that these things were fundamentals only in New England. And as for the most crucial of all, the issue of regenerate membership, the New England requirement that grace must be demonstrated by a description of an experience has been considered by some, an "Humane invention!" Cooperation on a practical level ought to be encouraged, too, by the fact that Church societies are founded on natural reason.
21
 
Page 218
Stoddard never seized the opportunity that these incautious statements gave him, probably because Increasealways his major antagonistdid not go so far as Cotton and because Cotton did not repeat all these mistakes in later publications. In any case, the United Brethren split almost as soon as they joined, and not over practice but over an issue of principle, the justification of sinners. When this fissure became a gulf in 1696, the Mathers had begun to relax slightly in their fear of the Church of England and to eye once more their local enemies.
22
Their problems at home in New England could not be solved by signing agreements. Stoddard continued to go his own way in the Valley; and his practice began to appear in the East. The place was neighboring Charlestown where, in 1697, the church searched for a minister to assist the aged Charles Morton. The church asked Cotton Mather for his advice in February 1697; he may have suggested Ebenezer Pemberton, who declined. The town then took matters into its hands and voted to invite Simon Bradstreet, a graduate of Harvard, class of 1693. According to established procedures, the town's action was improper, as the Mathers were quick to point out, for only a church had the power to call a minister. Angered by the presumption of the inhabitants of Charlestown, and the abdication of responsibility by the church, Increase and Cotton prepared an admonition to the Charlestown Church which their own flock endorsed and sent along. Bradsteet probably liked none of this, though he approved of the town's act which the Mathers saw as usurpation. The fact was that Bradstreet had little use for traditional ecclesiastical theory, especially that part which held that a church could be formed only by a covenant; and he made no secret of his views. Bradstreet's dismissal of the Church covenant smacked of Stoddardeanism, though there is no reason to believe that he had not worked out his own ideas independently. In any case the Mathers were horrified and protested strongly to the Charlestown Church which had endorsed him as the choice of the town. The protest changed nothing; the Mathers were beaten; they knew it and when they were invited to participate in Bradstreet's ordination in October 1698, they accepted. Cotton Mather gave the right hand of fellowship, and preached a sermon which, he reported to his
Diary
, produced weeping among his listeners.
23
The Charlestown affair sorely tried Cotton Mather's hopes for
 
Page 219
a union of all Christians; in extending the right hand of fellowship to Bradstreet, he showed how reluctant he was to give them up. The following year all his ecumenical aspirations received a further testing and in the process he was forced to stake out boundaries which separated Congregationalism and the union of all Christians.
The new challenge had actually begun about the time that Charlestown's case took form. Early in 1698 President Leverett of Harvard, Thomas Brattle, a Boston merchant, his brother William, and several others decided to form a new church in Boston. They agreed that Benjamin Colman, a recent graduate of Harvard, then in England, should serve as its minister and that, since his and their plans did not conform to ancient procedures, he should receive ordination before coming home. Colman was ordained by nonconformists in London in August and arrived in Boston in November. Soon after he and the founders or, as the Mathers called them, the innovators, published a
Manifesto
that offered a rationale for what was known as the Brattle Street Church.
24
A part of the
Manifesto
may have been designed to tweak the Mathersfor example, the innovators' announcement that worship in Brattle Street would be that sanctioned by the United Brethren. In fact, the
Manifesto
reeked of the "catholic spirit" that underlay all the yearnings for Christian Union. Leverett had long sniffed at fidelity to traditional rigidities and Colman was known to admire faith that cut across sectarian lines. It was in such a spirit that the
Manifesto
proclaimed its indifference to the polity of the first generation. The old standards, it implied, were a little absurd, when measured against the love that united all Christians. Therefore, though the Brattle Street Church would be gathered volunarily, its covenant should not be understood as a divinely ordered instrument but rather as one contrived under the law of nature. Moreover, its candidates for admission would not be required to make public relations of their experience; simple examination by the minister alone would suffice. The brethren's silence implied their consent. Nor would the sacraments be rigidly confined: "any" child might be baptized (and here the
Manifesto
bade the Half-Way Covenant farewell), and "visible sanctity'' would satisfy requirements for taking the Lord's Supper.
25
 
Page 220
Cotton Mather declared that the articles of the
Manifesto
"utterly subvert our Churches, and invite an ill Party thro' all the Countrey to throw all into Confusion on the first Opportunities."
26
In the month that followed the appearance of the
Manifesto
he fumed about the apostasy he detected in Brattle Street and began composing an attack on the innovators. He did not publish it becauseif his
Diary
may be trustedsome accommodation was worked out that made possible his and his father's participation in the installation of Colman. By his own account, the Brattle Street Church declared its willingness to "publickly recognize their Covenant with God, and one another" and to treat with other churches on the basis of the Heads of Agreement that had joined Congregationalists and Presbyterians in London.
27
This truce with Brattle Street, which Mather tried to convince himself was a concession to orthodoxy, largely reaffirmed the original terms of the
Manifesto
. But it did allow him to believe that he had gained much and the break was smoothed over.
28
By such self-deceptions Cotton Mather managed to persuade himself that ecclesiastical unity continued in New England. Like the original non-separating Congregationalists, he had always maintained that the New England churches were a part of the Church of England. In these years immediately following the Revolutionary settlement this contention proved difficult to maintain and the difficulty placed further strain on his ecumenical hopes. His
Diary
reveals his growing disquiet at the vigor of "High Fliers," the Tory churchmen whom he saw attempting to crush nonconformity in England and America. But still if Christian Union were ever to be attained he knew that the Puritan churches must declare their unity with the Church of England.
29
Mather found it possible to reaffirm this unity by redefining the ecclesiastical polity of the English Churchin effect by branding the Tory Churchmen as Antichristian usurpers. He began this task in 1698 with his
Eleutheria
30
the Happy Union lay in ruins and the limits of the Toleration Act had become obvious to dissenters everywhereand completed it two years later with the publication of his
Letter of Advice to the Churches of the Non-Conformists in the English Nation
.
31
In these works he offered the theory that since the Reformation there had been two groups struggling for control of the Church of England.
BOOK: The Mathers: Three Generations of Puritan Intellectuals, 1596-1728
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