John
Gage
Prof.
Westblade
Presentation
Paper
19
February 2018
Puritans and Politics in the 1680s
Nestled in the New England landscape,
North-Hampton Church stood as the home of Solomon Stoddard’s congregation. When
Stoddard, the grandfather of Jonathan Edwards, delivered his 1687 sermon on
“The safety of appearing at the day of judgement, in the righteousness of
Christ”, his congregation was acutely aware of the civil unrest surrounding
them at the time.[1]
Stoddard’s commitment to be, “doing service to your Souls, and the Souls of your Children;
to be directing, quickening and encouraging of you in the way unto eternal
life” was meant to lift his congregants’ eyes off the troubles of the world
toward the gaze of the ultimate prize.[2] Hierarchy difficulties,
the dissolution of the Massachusetts Bay charter, and the spread of the
Glorious Revolution made the 1680s a period of unrest for the Puritans.
Uneasiness with the Puritans in the
1680s began with the continuing dying off of the first generation of believers.
It was two decades since the introduction of the halfway covenant in 1662. Ministers
were concerned with how they would maintain an authority structure in the New
World. Lack of a natural aristocracy in the New World meant Puritans who had
been born and raised in America were naturally more suspicious of governing
authority—including ministerial authority. Economic issues were at the heart of
the majority of disputes that arose over authority. Puritan ministers clashed
with landholders who they wanted to have taxed for money for their churches
even when though many of those people lived large distances away.[3] Puritan
ministers, such as Increase Mathers, warned about the dangers of
“discovenanting”—claiming that God historically excommunicated whole nations
just as he provided for the excommunication of individuals.[4]
A
second source of unrest for the Puritans occurred in October of 1684 when the
Massachusetts Bay colony had its charter dissolved by the English lords of
Trade. Immediately, decades of self-government were replaced with a government
directly appointed by the crown. At first, most people did not seem to mind the
new government. The first governor, Joseph Dudley, represented for the next
couple years a continuing of the old way of ruling when it came to the
respecting of the old colonial rights. But in 1686, the lords of Trade decided
to replace Dudley with Sir Edmund Andros who lacked the same familiarity with
New England as Dudley had. Almost as soon as he was appointed, Andros began to
threaten civil liberties in the colony. He introduced Anglican services by
forcing colonists to allow the Anglicans to use the Old South Church in Boston.
Additionally, he seized common lands around the city making the colonists fear
he could take or tax their property without consent. To enforce his rule,
Andros used royal courts and employed the first regiments of British regulars
in the colony.[5] The
Puritan response to the upheaval was to generally try and ignore it. Ministers worked
to use unrest as energy for renewed revivalism.[6]
Continued covenant renewal was also a particularly important theme of the time.
Increase Mather’s son, Cotton, had a record of every sermon his father gave
during that time period—and many of them focused primarily on the covenant of
grace.[7]
While
the Puritans in Massachusetts were dealing with their tyrant, across the
Atlantic the English successfully replaced their papal-sympathizing king. In November
of 1688, William the III, Prince of Orange, crossed the English Channel and
deposed James the II as ruler of England in what would become known as the
Glorious Revolution. Preceding his overthrow, many of the English people were
suspicious of James for his Catholicism. Part of this suspicion arose for his
attempts to establish religious liberty in England for Catholics. Disagreements
over this issue caused a power struggle between Parliament and the king which
ended with his deposition and the establishment of an English Bill of Rights in
1689. Back in America, the Glorious Revolution inspired its own mini-revolution
with the overthrow the New England government. In April of 1689, colonists marched
upon Boston—imprisoning Andros and setting up their own government. The fall of
the same year, Increase Mather sent the new governor of the reestablished
colony a letter entitled “The Present State of the New-English Affairs.”[8]
In this letter, Mathers credited the overthrow of the royal governor, the
effort to restore the colonial charter, and the continuing reestablishment of
ancient rights and privileges as a result of the divine pleasure of God.[9]
In another letter to the News-Letter, Mathers referred to the former British
colonial leaders as “publick Criminals.”[10]
While Mathers broadly supported the overthrow of the royal governor, many of
the other Puritan preachers had concerns over what the mini-revolution meant
for future respect for authority structures like the church.
The
final major event of unrest for the Puritans in America was the beginning of
King William’s War in 1688 and lasted until 1697. This war was one of a series
of wars throughout the 17th century which became termed “the border
wars”. These wars started as a result of border disputes between English and
French settlers. In this case, King William’s War was started by over eager New
Englanders trying to demonstrate their loyalty to the new king of England.
Despite their best efforts, William never supported the attempt and the war
unnecessarily killed over a thousand New Englanders and crippled their economy.[11]
The
1680s began and ended as a period of unrest. Puritan ministers went into the
decade concerned about respect for authority and the events of the decade only
furthered those concerns. The 1684 dissolution of the New England charter and
eventual tyrannical royal governor caused many colonists to resent their
rulers. The Glorious Revolution and its spread to the New World allowed this
discontent to bubble to the surface. Finally, the King William’s War in 1688
meant the decade ended in a period of uncertainty. Despite this, the message
from the Puritan ministers was clear—the events of this world were only
momentary and our eyes must always be pointed toward our eternal destination.
Bibliography
Drake, Samuel Adams. Border wars of New England:
commonly called king williams and queen annes wars (classic reprint). S.l.:
Forgotten Books, 2015.
Francis, Richard. Judge
Sewall's apology: the Salem witch trials and the forming of the American
conscience. Harper Perennial, 2006.
Leder, Lawrence. The Glorious Revolution and the pattern of
imperial relationships. New York
State Historical Association, July 1965, 203-11.
http://www.jstor.org/stable/23162882.
Lovejoy, David S. Glorious Revolution in America.
Harper Torchbooks, 1972.
Mather, Increase. A
Confession of faith owned and consented unto by the elders and messengers of
the churches assembled at Boston in New-England, May 12, 1680, being the second
session of that synod. Boston: Printed by John Foster, 1977.
Mather, Increase. The present state of the
New-English affairs. Edited by Samuel Green and William G. Schillaber.
Boston: Printed and sold by Samuel Green, 1689.
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Simmons. The Glorious revolution in Massachusetts: selected documents,
1689-1692. Charlottesville: Published for the Colonial Society of
Massachusetts by the University Press of Virginia, 1989.
Morrice, Roger, and Mark
Goldie. The entring book of Roger Morrice, 1677-1691. Woodbridge: The
Boydell Press, 2007.
Seed, John. Dissenting
histories: religious division and the politics of memory in eighteenth century
England. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2008.
Stoddard, Solomon. The
safety of appearing at the day of judgement, in the righteousness of Christ:
opened and applied. Boston: Printed by Samuel Green, for Samuel Phillips.,
1687. Online.
Stout, Harry S. The New
England soul: preaching and religious culture in colonial New England.
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986. Print.
[1] Stoddard,
Solomon. The safety of appearing at the day of judgement, in the
righteousness of Christ: opened and applied. Boston: Printed by Samuel
Green, for Samuel Phillips., 1687.
[2] Ibd.
[3] Stout,
Harry S. The New England soul: preaching and religious culture in colonial
New England. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986. Pg 106
[4] Ibd., 109
[5] Ibd, 112
[6] Ibd.
[7] Ibd., 113
[8] Mather, Increase. The present state of the
New-English affairs. Edited by Samuel Green and William G. Schillaber.
Boston: Printed and sold by Samuel Green, 1689.
[9] Ibd.
[10] Ibd.
[11] Stout, Harry S. The New
England soul: preaching and religious culture in colonial New England.
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986. Pg 117