USA > Massachusetts > Essex County > Essex > Two centuries of church history : celebration of the two hundredth anniversary of the organization of the Congregational church & parish in Essex, Mass., August 19-22, 1883 > Part 11
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In that wave of darkness which swept over New England in the last decade of the 17th century, when the superstition which still shrouded the old country drifted across the Atlantic and settled down into the night of the witchcraft delusion over the new, John Wise was one of the very small number of men having sagacity enough, boldness enough, and firm- ness enough, in the face of whatsoever danger, to resist the sweeping fanaticism. Mr. Upham-who seldom went out of his way to compliment men of a sterner faith than his own - in his History of the Salem Witchcraft-t says: "Mr. Wise was a learned, able, and enlightened man. He had a free spirit, and was perhaps the only minister in the neighborhood or country, who was discerning enough to see the erroneous- ness of the proceedings from the beginning." He risked his own life to save, if possible, his neighbor John Procter, and others, from their terrible fate. And, 8-19 July 1703, we find him conspicuously signing an "Address" to the General Court, which declared :# "there is great reason to fear that innocent persons suffered, and that God may have a contro- versy with the land upon that account," and earnestly begging
* Sibley. ii : +33.
t Salem Witchcraft, etc. ii : 304.
* Ibid. 477.
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at least for the tardy justice involved in declaring null and void the attainders resting upon the heirs of those unfortunate victims-a prayer after more than seven years of further delay at last tardily granted .*
Sometimes radicals grow conservative, if not timid, as they advance in life, but it evidences the genuineness of this man's independence of thought and action, that when he was near- ing his three-score years and ten, he took part in the exciting controversy which then raged in the churches as to singing by note, and wrote to Thomas Symmest his judgement : "That when there were a sufficient number in a Congregation to carry away a Tune Roundly, it was proper to introduce that Tune." So when, in 1721, almost all the physicians, except Dr. Zabdiel Boylston, were bitterly opposing the new practice of inoculation for the small-pox which Cotton Mather was trying to introduce, ; and the vulgar rage so flamed against it that the rabble tried to hang Dr. Boylston, and blow up Cotton Mather's house; your Chebacco pastor took up the cudgels in favor of his life-long opponent and his novel doc- trine, and was among the first to approve, and commend to practice, the simple and effectual, if then startling, remedy.
You will agree with me that all these were great features of humanity, and that only of a great and grand man could they have been true. But I seem to myself only just now to approach the real greatness of John Wise, as I ask you, in the last place, to consider his character in its relation to the Church Polity under which he lived.
The first man, of whom we have certain knowledge, after the semi-Reformation under Henry VIII., to rediscover the original Congregationalism, was Robert Browne.§ But-as all deep thinkers have-he had a philosophy of his own by which he explained the outward facts. As he looked at it, all
* Sibley. ii : 433.
+ T. Symmes. Utile Dulci. etc. 55.
+ Memorial History of Boston, etc. 537 ; Crowell. 131.
§ See as to Browne and his views. etc. Cong. of last 300 years, etc. 98-110.
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church power resides in Christ; yet Christ reveals His will 'to, and works in, all believers. So that the Saviour's absolute monarchy, reaching expression through all faithful persons equally as His vicegerents, becomes practically indistinguish- able from a pure democracy ; because to outward eye there can be no difference between a government of the people exercised because each has inborn inherent right to rule, and one exercised because each acts as by proxy, and substitution- ally, as the channel of the power of another. With this central principle Browne held other related ones, some of which -particularly the constant duty of mutual criticism-proved wholly impracticable, and inapplicable to the unculture of those humble rustics whom, mainly, he gathered around him. Mutual criticism with them soon degenerated into scolding, impertinent scrutiny, crimination and recrimination, until the little church of poor and ignorant people, unfit for responsi- bilities for which they had never enjoyed needful prepara- tion, went to pieces in Middelberg, in confusion and anarchy.
The next Apostle of early modern Congregationalism, Henry Barrowe, seems to have accepted Browne's system in the main, but sought to avoid what had proved fatal to the church in Zeland, by arranging that the management be in the hands of the few wisest and best members; concerning whom the mass of the church should have the two liberties : (1) to elect : (2) ever after to obey them. This, of course, was Presbyterio-Congregationalism ; Presbyterian in its Elder- ship, Congregational in its local church and the right and duty of that church to manage its own affairs without control from without. This scheme was Barrowism in distinction from Brownism. The Amsterdam and Leyden Separatists were Barrowists, although John Robinson, by having but a single Ruling Elder, and by using large conference with the mem- bership always before action, steered his ship much nearer the Congregational, than the Presbyterian side of the channel. New England Congregationalism began as Barrowism. The
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Presbyterians had almost no fault to find with it, and expressly declared it "well sound,"* had it but "given a little more power to Synods." It was essentially Genevan in its College of Elders, (of which the Pastor was chief) inside the local congregation ; essentially Brownistic outside of it. And no one then regarded Democracy as a good, or even tolerable, thing in church or state.
Time passed. Practice began to develop the fact that the essentials of an irrepressible conflict were inborn and inbred in this hybrid system. It was impossible to explain and en- force the right of every church-member to share in the gov- ernment of the body, without demonstrating the absurdity of the claim that all church-members must submit to be governed by the Elders; and, on the other hand, it was even more im- possible to establish the right of the Elders, at least to nega- tive every church act, without emptying the claim of the people to rule, of all possible value. As it proved, more- over, very difficult to obtain in each of the little scattered churches of those days five or six men having sense and cul- ture enough to discharge acceptably the duties of Ruling Elders; that office-as to which, to tell the truth, the regnant good sense of New England was never hearty-fell into dis- use. This left the Pastor sole representative of the Eldership, and crowned him singly with the right, if not to govern the church, at least to prevent it from governing itself, by nega- tiving every church act which he might not approve.
The Half-way Covenant, with its influx of semi-members, and their diluting effect upon the average both of Orthodoxy of faith and spirituality of life, had at length reduced the churches to a condition of alarming depression. Some laid the blame upon the fact that Councils could only advise, and never command or control. Others thought the difficulty was in the well-nigh complete disuse of Ruling Elders. And, in 1700, Increase Mather lifted up his voice in anguish to
* Rutherford, Ratio, etc. 7.
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warn all parties :* "if this begun Apostasy should proceed as fast the next thirty years as it has done these last, surely it will come to that in New England (except the Gospel it self depart with the Order of it) that the most Conscientious People therein, will think themselves concerned to gather Churches out of Churches."
But what was to be done? He, and others like him, who were sagacious in their way, had their answer. And, in 1705, the Boston Association of ministers adopted and sent forth "Certain Proposals," in their judgment eminently adapted to heal the hurt of the daughter of God's people, by going back into the Egypt of "strong" governments for help. A system of Associations of ministers was to have charge of all Church affairs. There were to be Standing Councils to determine all doubtful matters. No Minister uncom- mended by such an Association was to enter a vacant pulpit. And so on.t
This scheme included some good points. But, in the main, it was founded on the false and foolish notion that an atten- uated, decrepid and moribund Congregationalism could be reanimated, and rejuvenated, by a heroic dose of Presbyteri- anism.
It was in the Autumn of 1705 that this Pamphlet of Pro- posals made its way to Chebacco. John Wise read it and laughed at it. And for three or four years he anticipated concerning it that policy which Cotton Mather twenty years later boasted that he had exercised with regard to Mr. Wise's own book, namely that of "generoso silentio, et pio con- temptu."# But when, in 1708, the Connecticut Colony con- voked the Saybrook Synod, and followed its lead into Con- sociationism as the established religion, Chebacco was stirred. The impossible seemed in danger of happening, and lest the
* Order of the Gospel, etc. 11.
t See Proposals etc., as reprinted by J. Wise, in his Churches Quarrel espoused.
* Ratio Dis. etc. 185.
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churches of the Bay be seduced into a like infidelity to their own first principles, John Wise took up his pen, and put his laugh and the philosophy of it into a dense, learned, logical and tremendously caustic 16mo. pamphlet of one hundred and fifty pages, which was printed in 1710. He pitched in to the "Proposals" without pity, and-in a style unique for those days, at once of singular directness, force, and brilliancy - he showed that the proposition really made was that the churches surrender their God-given rights for the sake of a new polity, which seemed to be "a Conjunction of almost all the Church Governments in the World, & the least part is Congregational .* Indeed at the first cast of the Eye, the scheme seems to be the Spectre or Ghost of Presbyterianism, or the Government of the Church by Classes; yet if I don't mistake, in Intention there is something considerable of Pre- lacy in it something which smells very strong of the Infallible chair." so strong of the Pope's Cooks and kitchen, where his Broths and Restoratives are prepared, that they are enough to strangle a Free-born Englishman, and much more those Churches, that have lived in such a clear Air, and under such enlargements so long a time." Lest any should think he was disproportioning the severity of his attack to the size of the enemy, he said: # "though it be but a Calf now, yet in time it may grow (being of a thirsty Nature) to become a sturdy Ox, that will know no Whoa, and it may be past the Churches skill then to sub- due it." Perhaps the most scorching passage is one of his closing paragraphs in which referring to the anonymous character of the pamphlet-which, in deference to the taste of the time, merely announced itself as done by an Associa- tion "at B-" 5 November 1705-he said: "where the Place was, or the Persons who were present in this Randez- vouze, shall never be told by me, unless it be Extorted by the
* Churches Quarrels Espoused, etc. p. 38.
t Ibid. 108. + Ibid. Sı.
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Rack. And tho' I have endeavored with freedom of Argu- ment to subvert the Error, I will never stain their Personal Glory, by repeating or calling over the Muster Roll. There- fore, as Noah's Sons cast a Garment upon their Fathers Nakedness, so (leaving them in the Crowd) their Names (for me) shall repose under a Mantle of honourable pity and for- getfulness."*
Seven years later, when Mr. Wise was sixty-five, he pub- lished a formal treatise-this time a 16mo. of only 105 pages -entitled a Vindication of the Government of New England Churches. He took the ground that democracy must be the best government for the Church, because it is the best govern- for the State. At a day when the idea was novel and unpop- ular, he avowed his conviction that the only rule thoroughly suited to man's nature, is one founded on the fundamental principle of human equality of rights. He was the first logi- cal and clear-headed American democrat. Half a century before Thomas Jefferson, with irresistible logic and almost unmatched magnificence of style, he laid down the everlasting principles of democracy for both civil and ecclesiastical affairs. He did this so well that when more than half a century after, in 1772, the great work of the American revolution was in hand, two successive reprints in a single twelvemonth of his arguments demonstrated of how much value his writings seemed to those patriots who were seeking to achieve our national independence, and establish upon a firm basis in the convictions of intelligent men, our government-of the people, by the people, and for the people. Prof. Moses Coit Tyler in his History of American Literature cites from Mr. Wise this passage :t "The End of all good Government is to Cul- tivate Humanity and promote the Happiness of all, and the good of every Man in all his Rights, his Life, Liberty, Estate, Honour, etc., without injury or abuse done to any;" and says :# "No wonder that the writer of that sentence was
* Ibid. 115. t Vindication, etc., 61. # Hist. Amer. Lit. ii : 116.
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called up from his grave, by the men who were getting ready for the Declaration of Independence !" And I may quote here the same brilliant historian's general tribute to him whom we commemorate. He says :* "upon the whole, no other American author of the Colonial time is the equal of John Wise in the union of great breadth and power of thought with great splendor of style; and he stands almost alone among our early writers for the blending of a racy and dainty humor with impassioned earnestness."
That these two tremendous pamphlets left their mark upon our Congregationalism, need not be told in detail. They were surcharged with the electricity of original and energetic thought to that degree that some who were hit, felt almost as if their author had "shot out lightnings to discomfit them." And as thunder and lightening purify the air, these two little bolts clarified our whole atmosphere. The pregnant good sense which was in them not only prepared the way, but led the march, by which what was bad of Barrowism was left behind, and what was good of Brownism was recovered, until the reasonable and justly balanced self-government of that polity under which we now live, was perfected. So that to him who asks for some monument which shall illustrate and demonstrate the ecclesiastical influence of this man upon his own time, and upon all times-pointing to four thousand sensibly democratic Congregational Churches between the Aroostook and the Golden Gate, we may say of John Wise in those fit words which Mylne, architect of Blackfriars, in- scribed over the entrance of the choir of St. Paul's Cathedral in London, to the memory of Christopher Wren, its builder: "Si monumentum requiris, circumspice."
I wrote the other day to my friend Hon. J. Hammond Trumbull-the greatest, and (I may say ) only, living author- ity upon the Algonkin tongue-asking for the exact sense of this word Chebacco. I could not help noting a singular appro-
* Ibid. 114.
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priateness revealed by his reply. He says he regards it as meaning, literally, "the greatest pond, or principal source, of some stream." Was it not a fit thing that your first Chebacco pastor should be the principal source of the great river of that democratic polity which now gladdens so largely our land ?
It is one hundred and fifty-eight years four months and three days, since, on Thursday, 8-19 April 1725, in his own house, on the spot where the mansion of the late Mr. John Mears now stands, John Wise-who had reached the ripe age of two-and-seventy years, seven months, and twenty-three days-lay a dying. To John White, of Gloucester, he had said in the beginning of his sickness :* "I have been a man of contention, but the state of the churches made it neces- sary. Upon the most serious review I can say I have fought a good Fight: and I have comfort in reflecting upon the same : I am conscious to myself that I have acted sincerely." Happy, my brethren, will it be for you, and for me-since we too have fallen upon times that sometimes are troublous-if we may approach our last hours with a like humble conviction !
And now, when his time is fully come, he expresses his deep sense of nothingness and unworthiness, and of his need of the Divine compassion, and with his last breath invokes upon himself, his widow and seven children, and his beloved church and people to the latest generation, the dear grace of God in Christ.
Then the pale and attenuated, but still majestic, form rests. The sweet light that beamed in winsome gentleness, or flashed in kindly, if withering, sarcasm, or frowned in deserved rebuke, from under the eye-brows, is eclipsed forever. And the voice that for almost two-and-forty years had led as well as taught in all good ways, and cheered as well as chid this people toward all good works, is heard no more at all.
With a kind of sacred awe-as if there were presumption in it-they prepare the body for its last repose, and lay it in
* J. White : The Gospel Treasure in Earthen Vessels, etc., 41.
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the best room. Through the open windows come in the twitterings of the early spring birds praising God in the bud- ding branches; and the sod which they lift as they dig his grave-larger and longer than is their wont-is green with returning life, and has in it the sweet prophecy of reviving after the winter of death, breathed by the faint odor of a few first violets.
On Sunday* a congregation from far and near crowds the meeting-house-the new meeting-house, which never re- sounded with his most imperial eloquence, but in which the last seven years of his ripest ministry had been exercised- and John White preaches his funeral sermon, declining to attempt properly to characterize the dead, for, said he :f "he who would do it to the life, must have his eloquence."
The next day he was "decently Buried amidst the Honors & Lamentations of his Distressed Friends, and of his Loving and Generous Flock, and at their Expense,"# and that he might sleep surrounded by those to whom his life had been given, his grave was ordered to be near the center of the burial-ground. And as they took their last look of his face and stalwart form how many of the old men turned away with moist eyes to say to each other in Shakespeare's thought -though not, consciously to themselves, in Shakespeare's words :
He was a man, take him for all in all, We shall not look upon his like again.
And if the Spring sun shone warm and pleasant, no doubt many of them lingered a while, and sat down in little groups to chat pleasant things of the dead. One tells again the story§ of the strong man of Andover-as yet unwhipt of all -who took the trouble to ride over to Chebacco to try his muscles upon the parson ; and how the good-humored parson, nothing loath, consented to the trial, and concluded a vic-
* Gospel Treasure. etc. preached 11 Apr. etc. Title page.
t Ibid. 44. # Sibley ii : 43S.
$ Felt. Hist. Ipswich, Essex and Hamilton. p. 259.
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torious wrestling bout by gently flirting his overgrown antag- onist over the fence into the street; and how the astonished stranger accepted the situation in the mild suggestion that if Mr. Wise would kindly toss his horse over after him, he would depart satisfied and in peace ! And another says : "Well the parson could wrestle in prayer, too," and goes on to recall how, some years before, a pirate cruiser on the coast had kidnapped a boat's crew of Chebacco boys; and how, in his next Sunday morning's supplication Mr. Wise had remem- bered the poor fellows, and had said: * "Great God ! if there be no other way for their deliverance, stengthen them to rise and butcher their enemies;" and how, in very deed, the boys came back that same week safe and sound, with the statement, that, on Sunday, seizing, on a sudden impulse, a favorable opportunity, they had sprung upon their captors and taken the vessel.
They all well agree that he was great, and that he was good -the best kind of good: singularly gentle for so strong a man.
Here, my friends, I think we have essentially his character in his name. He was Fohn, and he was Wise; and so he was JOHN WISE !
Verily, with rare truth, it was chiseled on his tomb-stone :
FOR TALENTS, PIETY AND LEARNING, HE SHONE AS A STAR OF THE FIRST MAGNITUDE.
Prof. Park's Prager.
AT THE GRAVE OF REV. JOHN WISE.
This prayer was taken down in full by the Stenographer of the Congregationalist and printed in that paper, Ang. 30, 1883.
O Lord, our God. Thou art our God, and Thou wert the God of our fathers. We thank Thee for all of which we have now been reminded of
* Ibid.
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Thy doings among the fathers of this parish and this town. We thank Thee for the great men whom Thou hast here raised up for the promotion of Thy cause throughout our land. We thank Thee for the good men who have served Thee faithfully in the world, and then have been gathered into this place ; this garden of the Lord.
We thank Thee that we are allowed to stand near the venerable dust of him who has been laid in this spot. We thank Thee for all which we have heard this day of his great works, and his humble spirit. We praise and bless Thy name, O Lord, that Thou didst endue him with an excellent understanding, and a capacious memory, and a brilliant imagination ; that Thou didst see fit to give unto him stores of learning and wealth of knowl- edge far beyond the time in which he lived; that Thou didst see fit to give him a clear insight into the nature of his fellow-men, and a clear foresight of that history which was to be enacted after he had gone from the earth. We thank Thee for all his bold thoughts, and his vigorous words ; for the influence which he has exerted on the churches in this Commonwealth, and on the churches which are now springing up in remote parts of our land -in regions which were unknown and unnamed while he was upon the earth. We thank Thee that the seed which he sowed on the borders of this Eastern sea is springing up and bearing fruit along the shores of the Western sea, and throughout the length and breadth of this land- thirty, and sixty, and an hundred fold. We thank Thee that the principles which he elucidated have been laid at the basis of our national structure. We thank Thee that our government, in so great a degree. has been fash- ioned according to those wise rule's which he proposed. We thank Thee that his influence in church and in State has been continued, even to the present time. We pray, O Lord, that it may be prolonged through gener- ations yet to come ; that the light which shone from his humble dwelling may still continue to shine upon the churches and the States of our Union. Wilt Thou say unto the sun, "Go not down," and to the moon, "Depart not from the valley of Ajalon !" May this light be continued, and may more and more rejoice in it.
We thank Thee, O God, that Thou hast revealed unto us that those who serve Thee faithfully shall be crowned with glory and honor and immor- tality ; that the righteous shall be held in everlasting remembrance. We rejoice that Thou dost remember Thy covenant with Abraham, and dost bless the children, and children's children, even unto remote generations of them that serve Thee and keep Thy commandments. Wilt Thou grant that all who have listened to the words spoken this day may receive some new impulse to duty. Particularly may all the members of this parish and this church - calling to mind that here has been the fountain from which have issued streams that have made glad this land, and that Thou hast dis- tinguished them, O Lord, above so many of their fellowmen - all feel their obligation to live a new life, devoted unto the God of Abraham and of Isaac and of Jacob, the God of our fathers, who led our fathers through the wil- derness, and brought them out into a safe place ; and grant, O Lord, that
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we who are now assembled may learn some new lesson of Thy providence here, as we stand in this garden, where so many fathers and mothers have wept for their children, because their children were not; where so many brothers and sisters have come with tears and gone out with sobs, because they should see the face of their loved ones no more. We thank Thee that we are permitted to stand on this ground, where so many prayers have been offered by godly men and godly women who have visited this venerable grave ; and, O Lord, we pray Thee that the prayers which have been offered in this home of the dead may be answered even now, and may richest blessings come down upon us, because Thy weeping and wailing children have looked up to Thee from this place, and supplicated Thy bles- sing. May we form such resolutions as we should form if the dead in Christ should rise and now admonish us of our duty ; such resolutions as we should form if the blessed departed ones should come down and encir- cle us as a great cloud of witnesses, beckoning us onward to a higher life and a nobler duty.
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