USA > Massachusetts > Essex County > Salem > Sketches about Salem people > Part 11
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27
Massachusetts fought to save the charter-always courageous, intolerant, and never yielding an iota of what she considered her rights. The contest lasted until 1684, when the English Court of Chancery vacated the charter.
There are two sons of Essex County who in their time were great advocates-Rufus Choate and Caleb Cushing. They were great advocates because they saw both sides of a question. As statesmen they failed, because people are loath to follow a leader who can see more than one side. Bradstreet had the broadmindedness of Choate and Cush- ing. For a time his prestige waned, but the rejection of his advice was so quickly followed by the loss of the charter, that everyone realized that if they had followed Bradstreet's counsel they could not have been in a worse position, and might have retained many of their ancient rights and privileges.
Toward the end of his life the great services of Brad-
26
THE WORSHIPFUL SIMON BRADSTREET
street in this contest were appreciated. Cotton Mather speaks of him in the Magnalia as "The Nestor of New England" and "The Father of his Country." This was praise from the leading divine in Boston, who, in the heat of the controversy between Crown and people, often condemned the broad sympathies of Bradstreet and his willingness to compromise with what Mather considered the forces of evil.
Bradstreet was Governor when the charter was vacated. Upon the revocation of the charter he was retired from office, and his brother-in-law, Joseph Dudley, was made temporary president of New England, in which office he served until the arrival of Sir Edmund Andros, who succeeded Dudley and became our first royal Governor. Under the new administration Simon Bradstreet was nom- inated one of the counsellors. He refused to accept the office. From December, 1685, to April 19, 1689, the government of all New England under Governor Andros was an undisguised and intolerant despotism. The whole body of colonial laws and customs which had been adopted was ignored. New laws were made, taxes assessed with- out popular vote, and an administration all new and vexatious introduced.
When, on April 4, 1689, news came to Boston that the Prince of Orange had landed in England, the people of Massachusetts were ready to revolt. At this time no rumor of what was taking place in England, except the landing of the Prince of Orange, had reached New Eng- land. Bradstreet, who had hitherto counselled modera- tion, put himself at the head of the revolt, well knowing that if the Stuarts prevailed, this action would bring him to the gallows.
I have said that Bradstreet showed courage in counsel- ling moderation and standing against the eloquence and influence of the clergy of Massachusetts. When the time for action came, the clergy were praying while Bradstreet led the trained bands in action against Andros. He was almost ninety years old when he met the deputation which came to consult him, and he set his hand as the first signature to a proclamation which was a declaration of independence. On the 19th of April, 1689, "about nine
27
GOVERNOR OF MASSACHUSETTS
of the clock, the drums beat through the town and an ensign was set up upon the beacon."
Bancroft tells how the militia, led by Bradstreet, marched up King Street to the Old State House.
Just then the Governor of the Colony, in office when the charter was abrogated, Simon Bradstreet, glorious with the dignity of four-score years and seven, one of the early emi- grants, a magistrate in 1630, whose experience connected the oldest generation with the new, drew near the town-house, and was received with a great shout from the free men. The old magistrates were reinstated, as a council of safety; the whole town rose in arms, with the most unanimous resolution that ever inspired a people. . . . On Charlestown side, a thousand soldiers crowded together; and the multitude would have been larger if needed. The governor, vainly attempting to escape to the frigate, was, with his creatures, compelled to seek pro- tection by submission; through the streets where he had first displayed his scarlet coat and arbitrary commission, he and his fellows were marched to the town-house and thence to prison. All the cry was against Andros. The castle was taken ; the frigate was mastered; the fortifications occupied.
Once more Massachusetts assembled in general court, and the old man, whose blood could still tingle at wrong, was called again to the chair of state.
No deed of any Puritan brought more public honor than this act of Bradstreet's against Andros, whose tyranny had aroused the men of New England to protest and revolt. Simon Bradstreet shares with George Wash- ington the unique distinction of deposing and sending overseas a governor of Massachusetts.
A footnote in the second edition of Hutchinson's His- tory of Massachusetts states that at this time "Mr. Brad- street was eighty-seven years of age. . . . His venerable presence was necessary, but his time for business was over." This is an intimation that Bradstreet was used as scenery, to give respectability to this revolution. Even so, when Governor Andros looked over the palisades of his fortification on Fort Hill and saw the guns of his captured shore battery trained on his stronghold, he real- ized that Bradstreet behind those guns was scenery more persuasive than respectable.
During this administration, Bradstreet carried on a
28
THE WORSHIPFUL SIMON BRADSTREET
war with the Indians in Maine, captured Port Royal, and extended the northern boundary of Massachusetts to the Gulf of St. Lawrence. He fitted out an expedition against Quebec, which failed through the lack of co-opera- tion of another force which was to proceed from Albany against Montreal. The soldiers returned to Boston clamor- ing for pay. This debt was cancelled by an issue of paper money which was redeemed. During these years the clerical party was struggling against much opposition for a restoration of former conditions under a new charter. The administration of the Colony under such circum- stances was difficult and troublesome. Bradstreet re- mained calm and unperturbed until he retired from office in his ninetieth year. His long public service led a Salem wag to observe: "Think what the old man might have done if he had only lived to be two hundred." Per- haps his spirit did live in Wendell Phillips and William Ellery Channing.
Epitaphs as a rule are not reliable. The inscription on Bradstreet's monument in the Charter Street Burying- ground tells the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. It is not known who composed the Latin, but the author had an historical sense and knew the worth of the Governor to his day and generation.
This inscription may be freely translated :
SIMON BRADSTREET
Gentleman and Soldier, Senator in the Colony of Massa- chusetts from 1630 to 1673. Then, until 1679, Deputy Governor, and finally, until 1686, Governor of the Colony by the united and unchanging vote of the people. In judgment, he was as farsighted as Lynceus. Wealth and honor had for him no allurement. He kept an even balance be- tween the authority of the king and the liberty of the people. Of temperate judgment in religion, of blameless life, he overcame the world and left it on March 27, 1697, in the third year of King William, the 9th month, and the 94th year of his age.
THE BIBLE COMMONWEALTH OF MASSACHUSETTS.
BY WILLIAM ANDREWS PEW.
My theme is the Bible Commonwealth of Massachusetts, which lasted from 1630 until the first charter was revoked in 1684. The government of this Bible Commonwealth was based upon the royal charter which gave to the stock- holders of a business corporation the control of their plan- tations in Massachusetts and authorized them to enlarge their membership at will and to make laws for the man- agement of their prudential affairs, provided such laws were not inconsistent with the laws of England.
I have divided my theme into four parts :
I. The Theological Background.
II. The Political Background.
III. The Founding of the Bible Commonwealth.
IV. Seeds of Home Rule in Puritanism.
V. The Emancipation of Massachusetts from Cleri- cal Control.
I. The Theological Background. Many persons have found a paradox in the early strivings of the Puritans to purchase happiness in the hereafter by good conduct in this world, in view of their belief that they were fore- ordained, by a Sovereign God, either to heaven or perdi- tion, and that it was beyond human power to change this status. Probably some Puritans considered righteousness a kind of insurance premium paid now for protection against fire hereafter, but this was not the philosophy of Calvinism.
The early Puritan settlers in Massachusetts had various motives for trying to be good. They were Englishmen before they were Puritans, and as Englishmen had ac- quired habits of law and order which they found satis- factory.
The establishment of a Commonwealth in the wilder- ness was an experiment which they believed could not suc-
(1)
2
BIBLE COMMONWEALTH OF MASSACHUSETTS
ceed without the blessing of heaven. To secure that bless- ing, it was the patriotic duty of every citizen so to regu- late his life as not to offend the Deity. The leaders found in the Bible many examples of the wrath of Jehovah against the Jewish nation for the transgressions of indi- viduals. They did not propose to take any chances by permitting individual offenders to get the Commonwealth into trouble. Upon this notion of corporate responsibility was based their reaction to Quakers, Baptists, and other violators of law.
Their dominant motive-to which I invite your atten- tion-was the reverent and intense curiosity displayed by the Puritans to penetrate the mystery of the hereafter.
This allegation about curiosity as a motive seems strange until we link it with Puritan beliefs. The Puri- tans were Calvinists and held to the doctrine of fore- ordination. The outstanding feature of this theology is the total depravity of man, in consequence of which every soul is condemned in the next world to eternal torture. The explanation is associated with the fall of Adam and Eve for conduct in the Garden of Eden. These progeni- tors were created with free wills. The episode of the apple destroyed their spiritual digestion, so that they could no longer assimilate the Divine will. In some way, because of this sin they and their descendants became impotent to adjust their wills to the will of God. As a consequence the race was doomed to labor in this world and their outlook in the next was unattractive. To better this lot, God, as an act of grace, predestined certain per- sons to eternal salvation ; the rest of mankind was elected to everlasting punishment. No one could do anything to influence the divine choice. The struggle of the Puritan to attain a righteous life seems paradoxical in view of this belief. He could do nothing to ensure salvation, but he was deeply moved to know his status in the next world, and to find a test by which he could discover whether he was numbered among the elect. If he could assure him- self that he had acquired the lost power to conform to the divine will, he felt confident that he was foreordained to eternal happiness.
3
BY WILLIAM ANDREWS PEW
It was assumed that God had a way of doing every- thing, even to the minutest details of daily life. The Puritan divines in Massachusetts once declared against wearing long hair as contrary to the rule of God's word. Roger Williams convinced the women of Salem that it was their duty to cover themselves with veils when they went abroad, which all did, until the Reverend John Cot- ton, preaching one Sunday morning in Salem, enlight- ened their minds from the Scriptures and proved to them that God intends veils to be worn by maidens, harlots, and widows. Between the morning and afternoon service there was a great scrapping of veils in Salem. The Puri- tan had little difficulty in discovering the Divine will. It was declared in the Bible, every word of which was inspired.
During the great emigration to New England, between 1630 and 1640, over one hundred clergymen came over. They were earnest and godly men, nearly all graduates of Cambridge University, the English training school of Puritans. Many knew Latin, Greek, and Hebrew and could expound the Scriptures from the original texts. Their prestige among the first generation of Puritans was supreme. They could and did interpret the Bible to the satisfaction of their flocks. As the Divine will entered into every detail of life the clergy were experts in some phase of everything. They advised with the magistrates and the General Court about government in all its activities, and in the early days their advice was generally followed.
When the Puritan discovered God's will, he had a measuring stick for his thoughts, feelings, and actions. By walking discreetly and by a continual and close intro- spection he discovered whether he had regained the power, lost in the fall of man. If this power had come back, he felt assured that he had been chosen and that his soul was numbered among the elect.
It is obvious that such a philosophy would tempt men unconsciously to force themselves to conform to stand- ards. The leaders of the Puritans recognized this danger
4
BIBLE COMMONWEALTH OF MASSACHUSETTS
and it often caused them periods of depression and un- certainty.
In the Puritan mind there was always a struggle between the self he wished to be and the self he was. By a system of intensive training he subordinated his thoughts, emotions, and desires to a great ideal. He was conscious of a creative impulse which ever held be- fore him a desire to make in life one masterpiece - him- self. Failure to attain perfection was sin. In his glori- fied moments he heard the voice of God. It raised him above fear and corruption and bound him, a willing slave, in the iron bands of discipline. The Puritan discipline was not modest in its demands. Proof of elec- tion was found in an intensive training which involved the organization of all thinking, feeling, and willing.
New learning and criticism have well-nigh abolished Calvinistic beliefs, but they never can detract from the value of Puritan discipline, as long as this is a world of law and order. Law and order imply rules, a right and a wrong way of doing things - standards set and attained by practice.
The need of discipline is as strong to-day as ever. The worth-while discipline is the same inner compulsion which nerved the fathers to lay the foundations of what they believed was a Bible Commonwealth. Within the framework of their theology were practices of eternal value.
The doctrine that salvation is free and can be attained by anyone never entered the minds of the Puritan clergy. Until we grasp this point we have no basis for estimating their functions as they understood them. Their call was to interpret the Divine will.
First as to the elect. In the history of the Roman church a celebrated Bishop in North Africa had to decide whether the church was a congregation of saints or of sinners candidates for salvation. Out of a tender regard for human nature, he chose quantity in preference to quality. The Puritans solved the same problem by declar- ing their church to be composed of saints. The work of the clergy was not evangelical in the modern sense. They
5
BY WILLIAM ANDREWS PEW
felt no call to save sinners. The status of every soul in the hereafter had been established by the divine decree of foreordination before the beginning of time. All that the clergy could do was to furnish to the elect knowledge of the Divine will.
Second. They felt a call to preach to the unregenerate because their conduct might provoke the wrath of God and endanger public well-being. As Sodom and Gomor- rah might have been saved by one righteous man, so Massachusetts might be destroyed by the nefarious prac- tice of one sinner. When the clergy talked to the unre- generate they preached the omnipotence of the moral law and stressed the fact that rightousness exalteth a nation and sin destroyeth it.
Third. The clergy had not been furnished with a list of the elect. It was good policy to disseminate knowl- edge of God's will if perchance it might help some indi- vidual who did not know that his name was written in the book of life.
With this background one can understand how the instincts of curiosity and self-preservation awakened in the Puritan an intense desire to penetrate the mystery of death and to discover the standing of his soul in the great hereafter. To discover the will of God and test his power to conform to it was the absorbing interest of life. It was a joy to listen to long sermons and thereby acquire a knowledge of the way, which was a spiritual yardstick by which he tested his own chances of salva- tion. If he measured up to the standards, a sweet sense of security enraptured him. He felt enrolled in the aristocracy of the elect, a noble by Divine appointment, and thereby raised above all worldly fears and corrup- tions. This religious experience was an enlightenment. In an intellectual analysis to discover whether he was among the elect or damned, the Puritan ever held before himself a standard of perfection. His whole interest was to discover if he had attained that goal. His intense long- ing inhibited thoughts and actions which interfered with the desired solution, and committed him to habits which produced his character. Convinced of his election he was
6
BIBLE COMMONWEALTH OF MASSACHUSETTS
thrilled with dynamic energy to be a worthy soldier in all the purposes of his Sovereign God. Discipline was a joy and the Divine will his sole guide.
It makes little practical difference to the world whether correct behavior is the test or the fruit of salvation. We are interested in having others do the best things in the best way. Everything which prevents this is probably sin, in varying degrees of culpability. What we demand of others, the Puritan took upon himself, and carried on, shunning everything as sin which was not enjoined by God as His way to perfection. As a method of character- building the system has never been surpassed. Upon this theology the Bible Commonwealth was founded.
II. The Political Background of the Bible Common- wealth. For a number of years the Puritan party in Eng- land had steadily grown in numbers until in 1629 it con- tained a working majority in the House of Commons. On March 2, of that year, King Charles I ordered the Speaker of the House to prorogue Parliament. A motion was offered by a Puritan member to the effect that who- ever proposed taxation without the consent of the Com- mons was a traitor to the nation. The clerk refused to read the motion and the speaker attempted to leave the chair. He was forcibly held in place, while a Puritan member put the question. It was carried by an enthusi- astic majority just as the doors of the House were forced by retainers of the king, and Parliament was dissolved, not to meet again for eleven years. The king sent nine Puritan leaders to the Tower. This sudden catastrophe turned the thoughts of many Puritans to emigration as an opportunity of practising pure forms of worship in distant lands far from persecution.
The opening years of the seventeenth century had seen great activity in the planting of English colonies. Over- population, the high cost of living, labor adjustments necessary to meet changing conditions of industry, and the desire on the part of merchants to prosper by the trade and commerce of colonies, were the economic motives be- hind these movements. Many of the adventurers who
BY WILLIAM ANDREWS PEW
financed these enterprises were Puritans. They had plan- tations in Bermuda and in several islands of the West Indies, in addition to a patent for Massachusetts and a plantation at Salem.
The claim of New England as a home for Puritan emi- grants was urged by the Reverend John White, often called "The Father of New England." The matter was debated, and finally it was concluded by several gentlemen to transport themselves to New England as settlers, pro- vided the charter and government of the Massachusetts colony could be transferred from England to New Eng- land. This was agreed to by the Massachusetts Com- pany. The old officers resigned and a new set were elected from among those who promised to emigrate. In 1630, John Winthrop as Governor led a group of more than one thousand settlers to Massachusetts Bay.
III. The Founding of the Bible Commonwealth. The charter which Winthrop brought over was that of a busi- ness corporation under which the freemen (or stockholders as I prefer to call them) elected the officers and directors. Less than a dozen stockholders came to New England. They had elected themselves directors before leaving Eng- land. The mass of emigrants were not stockholders and had no vote in the management of the colony. The few stockholders in Massachusetts were immediately confronted with the demand by the heads of practically every family, to be admitted as stockholders. To refuse might precipi- tate a revolt, and to enlarge membership might endanger control by the leaders. To meet this dilemma, the stock- holders enlarged their membership by admitting new mem- bers, but limited the selection to approved church mem- bers. The franchise was thus extended, but as admission to the churches was in the hands of the clergy, a theo- cratic oligarchy resulted, and Massachusetts for a genera- tion was ruled by the clergy and magistrates in close sym- pathy with the clergy. A great majority of the adult male population was disfranchised.
The theocratic oligarchy planned to establish a Bible Commonwealth. If they had adopted a motto it would
8
BIBLE COMMONWEALTH OF MASSACHUSETTS
have been, "The Lord is our law giver." They found authority for everything in the Scriptures, from which they formulated codes of conduct to be taught in homes, schools, and churches, and enforced by zealous magistrates. They tried to make people good by legislation and passed laws in abundance to punish the vicious and deter others from evil ways. A brilliant and learned clergy, by ex- ample and precept, sought continually and earnestly to establish an environment in which a knowledge of God's ways would become a common possession. They stimu- lated their hearers to sober introspection and self-exami- nation, to discover whether they had attained the perfec- tion of living which justified a conviction of personal sal- vation. 1. Such was the inspiration behind the theocratic oligarchy which founded the Bible Commonwealth.
IV. Seeds of Home Rule in Puritanism. The Puritan leaders were sometimes accused of secretly desiring sepa- ration from the mother country. The accusation was unjust. They were entirely English in heart and in mind. They desired great freedom, but always within the Commonwealth of England. Massachusetts was the first colony to demand rights now conceded by Crown and Parliament to all English-speaking colonies in the British Commonwealth of Nations. The Puritan leaders thought that their charter created in New England a kind of gov- ernment akin to that now established in the Irish Free State. These aspirations had deeper roots than the char- ter. They are implicit in six hundred years of English political thought. Three hundred years before the Puri- tan emigration, the Pope's representatives met the Barons of England and demanded the repeal of certain English statutes. The Barons took the matter under advisement and answered, "Nolemus leges Angliae mutare." It was a declaration of self-determination. This desire for home rule was carried across the Atlantic and planted in New England. Whenever that issue was raised, the colo- nists stood as a unit in defence of what they believed was constitutional liberty under the royal charter. Their re-
9
BY WILLIAM ANDREWS PEW
sistance was audacious and courageous. To quote the words of Rufus Choate :
"From the first, the mother-country complained that we had brought from England, or had found here, too much liberty,-liberty inconsistent with the prerogatives of the Crown, inconsistent with supremacy of Parliament, inconsistent with the immemorial relations of all colonies to the country from which they sprang,-and she set her- self to abridge it. We answered with great submission that we did not honestly think that we had brought or had found much more than half liberty enough ; and we braced ourselves to keep what we had, and obtain more when we could."
The theocratic oligarchy was a form of home rule. Its spirit of home rule persisted and bore fruit after a hun- dred vears in that state of mind which prompted a Boston merchant to reply, when asked why he made such a fuss about a little tax on tea : "Tea !" he said, "we don't care a damn about tea. We have a notion that we can govern Massachusetts better from Boston than you can govern it from London."
The Puritans stood for the doctrine of self-determina- tion which was gradually to change the aspect of the world. They groped after the truth. Ideas of freedom which are self-evident to this generation were to them strange and questionable. They could not be reasonable with the reason of the twentieth century. They floundered and muddled toward fundamentals of government, much as modern statesmen are groping toward a formula which will make war ridiculous and impossible.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.