NEW ENGLAND THEOLOGY
Lecture 9
Thomas Hooker and the Doctrine of Conversion
Difference between Puritan and Reformed Protestantism
The American Church historian Sydney Ahlstrom once remarked
that “Christian theology exists in the context of history…Just as European
philosophical tradition, in Whiteheads famous phrase, consists of a series of
footnotes to Plato, so Christian theology is a series of footnotes to St. Paul”
(Theology in America, The Major Protestant Voices from Puritanism to Neo-
Orthodoxy. Indianapolis: Bobs-Merrill Educational Publishing, p.23).
Puritan theology, as practiced in England and New England, was no
exception. It was formed in the context of the Protestant Reformation, particularly
the Reformed branch of it with its emphasis on the sovereignty of God and the
doctrines of grace. But while Puritan theologians stood firmly in the tradition of
Geneva, the theology they developed was more than a footnote to Calvin. Their
contribution to Reformed theology was that they put a uniquely practical stamp on
it. They were more concerned with the application of Biblical doctrines than with
their theoretical formulation. . In that sense they were all disciples of William
Ames who defined theology as the art of living well. For him to live well is to live
a life suitable and fitting to God, and so happily in God (The Learned Doctor
William Ames, p.144). Ames who spent many years in the Netherlands and
became a professor at the Franeker University in 1623, never tired of reminding
his students that theology must be much more than dogmatics or polemics and that
men need to hold pure doctrine and practical divinity in proper balance and
relationship (Ibid.,p.129). In his view, Biblical doctrine is the means a theologian-
pastor must use to reach the end or goal of theology which is “to save himself and
them that hear him,”(I Tim. 4: 16). He must model the art of living to God by
living to God himself, and so lead others to God, devoting himself wholly to the
glory of God, and the edification of the church (Ibid., p.145).
Emphasis on Conversion
To be or become such a theologian who can influence others, one needs to
be converted. This may seem very obvious but Ames feared that many students
who aspired to the ministry were sadly deficient when it came to godliness which
he rightly regarded as the evidence of the new birth or conversion. It is because he
saw very little evidence of such godliness in both ministers and their
congregations that Ames stressed the necessity of conversion. How can anyone be
a good man if he is not converted, he reasoned? So ever since his own conversion
at Cambridge under the preaching of William Perkins, Ames made conversion the
first step in theology, for only then, he insisted, would theology have meaning.
(Ibid).
Although Ames died in the Netherlands and never set foot in America, his
influence on New England Puritans was enormous. In fact several of the best
known ministers who served in New England became his disciples while living in
the Netherlands as refugees. Among them were Thomas Hooker, John Cotton and
John Davenport. All three of them became leading lights in New England and
shared Ames’ convictions regarding the necessity of prioritizing the doctrine of
conversion in their preaching and pastoral ministries.
Thomas Hooker (1586-1647)
Thomas Hooker became famous in the 1620s as a highly skilled expositor of
the whole range of Biblical truth, but his overriding concern was to teach people
the absolute necessity of conversion as the first stage of saving religion. He not
only dealt with this subject in most of his sermons but also in several books such
as The Application of Redemption , The Soul’s Preparation for Christ and The
Poor Doubting Christian Drawn to Christ.
While still a young preacher in England Hooker, like all his Puritan
colleagues, was very concerned about the low level of spiritual life in the Church
of England They concluded that many in England, perhaps the majority,
considered themselves Christians when in fact they were not. These “experimental
Puritans” thought that the problem was not simply church government and liturgy
but nominal Christianity. Since the parochial system counted all but the most
scandalous as Christians-and was lax with discipline-hypocrites abounded within
the Church (David Weir, Early New England, p.20).
The Puritans therefore were convinced that the need of the hour was to
evangelize those who were thought to be Christians or “gospellers”, as they were
called,” while in reality their faith was only the temporary faith of the stony-
ground hearers of Jesus’ parable. Their religion, at best, was like that of
Nicodemus before his new birth.
Thomas Hooker fully shared the conviction that most Englishmen who
attended church on Sunday-and remember that church attendance was mandatory
and subject to fines-were unconverted. That helps to explain why his preaching
and that of his Puritan colleagues was so searching. As Iain Murray writes:
It is impossible to do any justice to the burden of Hooker’s preaching in
Essex betw
Sketch of Hooker’s Preaching on Conversion
1. In conversion the human will is hostile to Christ until it is renewed by the
power of God.
The will of the unregenerate man can turn in any direction except to Christ
and to holiness. Certainly the man willing to believe the promises of God shall be
saved but since the Fall such willingness was never found in any natural man. The
will of a natural man is the worst part about him…It is uncontrollable, it will stand
out against all reasons and arguments, and nothing can move the will except God
work upon it. (Application of Redemption, Bks 1-8, p 328).
Therefore, if man is ever to be saved it is absolutely necessary that his will
be changed. This happens, Hooker says, in regeneration or the new birth. It is the
act of God which, implanting a new principle of spiritual life, produces a new
understanding and a new will, so that the person who is the subject of this act may
truly be called ‘a new creature’. It is also an act of sovereign and almighty
power, ‘wrought irresistibly, not issuing from the liberty of our choice, and
therefore it is brought about by the irresistible impression of the work of the
Spirit’ (Ibid, Bks 9-10, p 395). In regeneration ‘the soul behaves itself merely
passively, and is wrought upon by an over-ruling power’. (Ibid, p 50).
For Hooker regeneration involves a great mystery The act of God whereby a
sinner is renewed is so secret and unsearchable, involving as it does his sub-
conscious being, that he can by no means tell with certainty how or when it
occurs. (Ibid, Bks 1-8, pp 77-8). Regeneration is not instantly recognizable either
to observers or to a man’s own consciousness.
But while regeneration itself is hidden, its effects are known, although the
speed with which these become observable in the consciousness of a convert is
subject to wide variations.
2. Conversion involves both a divine and human activity.
Conversion, Hooker says, is not begun and concluded at the actual point of
regeneration. Were that the case then in conversion man would be only passive
and acted upon by God. But Scripture teaches that man also plays an important
role in this process. Unless both the divine and human activities are properly
correlated, the presentation of the gospel is bound to be seriously distorted.
Hooker here is reacting to Antinomians who taught that since all depends upon
Christ, there is nothing left for man to do but to ‘believe’. Some went even further
and said that Christ repents and believes for us. Against these wrong ideas Hooker
points to Scripture and its many exhortations to repent and believe. The Christ
who preached that no one can enter the kingdom of God until he is ‘born of the
Spirit’ (John 3.5-8), also preached, ‘Repent ye and believe the gospel’ (Mark
1.15); ‘Strive to enter in at the strait gate (Luke 13.24). Paul also preached that
men ‘should repent and turn to God, and do works meet for repentance’ (Acts
26.20).
One clear deduction which the Puritans drew from the above texts was that
in conversion God deals with men as responsible moral agents and acts suitably to
their nature. They are not ‘sticks and stones’ but intelligent beings with minds and
consciences which have to be affected by the truth if they are to be converted.
Thus ‘the means of grace’ (preeminently the Word of God) are given to men and
to these they must respond.
Given this conviction it is not surprising that the sermons of Hooker abound
in exhortations to action: men are to humble themselves, repent, pray, believe and
obey the truth. They stressed this not because they believed in human ability but
because they knew it was God’s command to use the means which He is pleased
to use effectively if he so pleases (Ibid., Bks 9-10, p 306).
Hooker’s insistence that man has an active part to play in his conversion has
led some to conclude that he was not free from Arminianism. Perry Miller, for
instance, alleges that in exhorting men to duty, and appealing to their minds,
Hooker and other Puritans were deviating from Calvin by emphasizing human
ability in salvation.’(The New England Mind, 17th Century, p 200). R. T. Kendall
agrees with Miller’s assessment. “Many people who have taken the time to wade
through Thomas Hooker’s long sermons,” he writes, “have been astonished that
Hooker imputed to the natural, unregenerate man an extraordinary ability to take
the initiative in seeking grace’ (The Influence of Calvin and Calvinism upon the
American Heritage, Annual Lecture of the Evangelical Library, 1976, p 14). 1979).
These criticisms are not new. Hooker and his colleagues were well aware of
them and they dealt effectively and decisively with them. They recognized that at
the root of that error lay a defective and one-sided definition of conversion.
Although passive at the instant of regeneration that instant is a point in a process
in which, before and after regeneration, man is active. As Iain Murray writes,
Modern writers criticize the Puritans for making a ‘simple’ subject
needlessly complex but the true explanation of their criticisms may lie
in the wor
3.The importance of using the means of grace
Hooker taught that the means of grace have a definite role to play in
conversion both before as well as after the moment of regeneration. Although the
unregenerate man is spiritually dead, this does not mean that he is incapable of
any reaction to Scripture. His mind and conscience may be reached by the truth:
indeed it is the preacher’s business to see that they are so reached, because until
they are, there will be no conviction of sin, and without conviction of sin there
will be no subsequent conversion. If repentance means turning one’s back upon
sin, and if conversion entails turning from sin to holiness, no one is going to see
the need for such a change who has not first felt sin to be a burden. Faith is more
than reason but it is not against reason. Truth must be presented to the mind before
it can reach the heart. There has to be a knowledge which prepares the way for
faith and that knowledge consists, in the first instance, of the recognition of the
need for a Saviour. Without such a conviction, men, far from being in a state of
readiness to believe, treat the gospel as meaningless, for it proposes remedies for a
sickness from which, they suppose, they do not suffer. Only a changed view of
their real condition will show men their need to respond.
Such is the thinking which lay behind the Puritan belief that evangelism
must proceed from the starting point that men are careless and unprepared. So
long as sin is unseen, Christ will be unsought’. The reason for the change in the
3,000 on the day of Pentecost was not that they had not heard of Christ before but
that they had not been convicted before: ‘They were pricked in their heart and said
unto Peter and to the rest of the apostles, ‘Men and brethren, what shall we do?’
(Acts 2.37). Before sinners are convicted they see no need for reading, hearing,
prayer, seeking and enquiry; but when they find themselves besieged with sins and
plagues, heaven frowning, hell gaping, their consciences accusing, and themselves
dropping down to the grave, and their souls to hell, they think it high time, and
more than time to bestir themselves, to do what they can, and to cry for help and
direction in so desperate distress and danger. ‘The whole need not the physician’,
therefore they do not send, nor yet are they willing to receive, nor care to enquire,
or take any medicine. But when the disease grows fierce, and life is in danger,
then they send out messengers far and near for a physician. (Application of
Salvation, pp 562-3).
Men under conviction of sin, Hooker taught, generally pass through two
stages, first, contrition, and second, humiliation. By the first, ‘God brings the
sinner to a sight of himself and his sin’ so that he sees ‘an absolute necessity of a
change, and therefore thinks thus with himself, If I rest thus, I shall never see God
with comfort’. At this point the man begins to change his life and practices, and
begins to use seriously ‘all the ordinances of God’, yet all his endeavours only
reveal more clearly the real state of his heart and his helplessness to change
anything more than the external. At length, having looked ‘to himself and his self-
sufficiency, and finding no comfort there, he falls down before the Lord and begs
for mercy, and yet he sees himself unworthy of mercy, without which he must
perish. He has nothing, and he can do nothing to merit it’ 76 (The Soul’s
Humiliation, 1638, pp 131-2).
4. No stereo-typed conversions
Although Hooker believed that contrition and humiliation are common in
the experience of converts, he did not insist that everyone had to conform to the
same model or pattern of conversion. He recognized that God saves sinners in
different ways. For one thing, the time element is very variable. Conversion does
not have to be a protracted process: “Sometimes the Lord suddenly sets on the
blow, and pierces the soul through at one thrust.’ Sometimes at one sermon,
maybe in the handling of one point, nay some one sentence, or some special truth,
the Lord is pleased to arm it and discharge it, with mighty power and
uncontrollable evidence, that it astonishes and shivers the heart of the sinner all in
pieces." (Application of Redemption, Bks 9-10, p 372).
Matthew, sitting at the receipt of custom, is thinking about taking money
from the public; Peter and James are casting a net into the sea, to see how to make
provision for themselves; Christ calls them to himself, and so to an interest in
grace and glory, when they had not so much as thought that way. (Ibid, pp 289-
90).
Not only is there variety in the length of time but also the degree of
conviction of sin varies from person to person. Some pass through long periods of
fear and distress. Others, like Lydia, pass from death to life in a very brief time
and in a gentle way, (The Soul’s Preparation for Christ, 1643, p 168).
5. Awakening is not the same as conversion
Hooker warned against treating awakened sinners as if they are already
saved. Conviction of sin, no matter how keenly felt, does not always issue in true
conversion. The rich young ruler was ‘very sorrowful’ but not converted (Luke
18.23). Felix ‘trembled’ under the Word of God but he did not become a
Christian. These are examples of general or common operations of the Holy Spirit
which can be experienced by the unregenerate. Thus when a person comes under
conviction, what results from that conviction is by no means a foregone
conclusion. Any one of three different conditions may follow in the experience of
an awakened person:
(i) Conviction may be lost or thrown off, as Herod at last threw it off under the
preaching of John the Baptist. ‘Thus’, writes Hooker, ‘Millions of men perish, go
within the view of Canaan, and never possess it’(Application of Redemption, Bks
9-10, p 368). A person may get the burden of conviction off his back by a false
belief that he has received Christ. This is the stony-ground hearer of the gospel
of whom Jesus says, he ‘heareth the word, and anon with joy receiveth it; yet
hath he not root in himself’ (Matt 13.20-21). Some in this category will later fall
away from their Christian profession under trials. Others will remain in the church
having the form of godliness without the power.
(2). Puritans understood that there is a real danger for people making a
premature and unsound profession of faith. Many, writes Hooker, are ‘still-born,
not “begotten again to a lively hope”, [1 Pet 1.3]. They heal themselves before
God heals them and make application before sound preparation’ (Application of
Redemption, Bks 9-10, p 449).
(3). The fact that the awakened sinner is unable to change his own heart, and the
danger that he may depend upon his own efforts for acceptance with God, must
not be allowed to weaken his obligation to act. There are things to be done if he
is to be converted. Reading, hearing, repenting, praying and believing are not
duties from which a man is excused until he is regenerate. Hooker presses man’s
responsibility to humble himself, at the same time holding out the comfort of
Christ’s promise: The Lord hath promised to come into our souls if we humble
them, and make them fitting to entertain his Majesty; therefore sweep your hearts,
and cleanse those rooms, cleanse every sink, and brush down every cobweb,
and make room for Christ; for if thy heart be prepared and divorced from all
corruptions, then Christ will come and take possession of it. (Application of
Redemption, Bks 1-8, p 201).
4. Conversion and Assurance of salvation
Regeneration produces great changes in a sinner but the effects of the new
birth may be so gradual in the conscious experience of the convert that a truly
regenerate person may remain for some time more conscious of sin than of
forgiveness. There are believers who, in their own eyes, are still outside of Christ,
whereas in reality their experience is already saving if they did but know it. They
are ‘poor doubting Christians’ who do not understand that a person can be the
recipient of grace even if he lacks assurance of salvation.
Critics like Norman Pettit think they know why people who are exposed to
Hooker’s type of preaching find it difficult to believe they are saved. It is because
Hooker preached ‘preparation’ rather than Christ himself. In other words, by over-
emphasizing self-examination he made it almost impossible for anyone to be sure
of their salvation. (The Heart Prepared, pp 17-8).
Iain Murray believes this criticism is completely off the mark. The claim
that Hooker preached ‘preparation’ rather than Christ himself, he writes, suggests
both a slight reading of his writings plus an utter misconception of the work of
Christ in the application of redemption. What Hooker and Puritans generally
taught on assurance is in marked contrast with the easy-believing approach
followed by many evangelicals today. The programmed, standardized, and
stereotyped conversions that are manufactured at revivals and crusades are very
different from the ones Puritans prayed for and laboured hard to effect. Most
modern conversions it seems, take place in the absence of deep conviction of sin
and they lack the evidence of radically changed conduct. Also, those who are
pressured into making decisions for Christ are immediately assured of their
portion in Christ. Puritan pastors were also diligent in leading men to Christ and to
assurance, but they were careful not to do what only the Holy Spirit can do so they
did not lay hands on converts quickly or heal their wounds lightly.
Hooker’s critics say that he dismissed faith in Christ as the basis for
assurance and instead made men look to their own works and sanctification – a
procedure which, they claim, is bound to lead to protracted doubt and uncertainty.
But again this is a misrepresentation of Hooker. He firmly believed with Calvin
that true faith carries a degree of assurance with it. But he also believed that
assurance is not synonymous with saving faith. If that were so it would be
impossible for a man to be regenerate unless he was assured of his salvation. Yet
every true believer may have assurance because assurance rests not in himself but
in the promises of Christ. Faith, Hooker teaches, is the supreme grace, from which
all other graces flow, because it is faith which receives all from Christ. Therefore
to delay exercising faith in the promises of grace until our attainments in
sanctification give evidence upon which to base our hope is to destroy the
foundations of assurance. ‘It’s Satan’s policy’, writes Hooker, ‘to make the saints
be at a loss when they look for pardon and grace, and peace and comfort within
themselves and then to look to Christ, and so they lose their labour and look in
vain, but we should look up to Christ “the author and finisher of our faith” (Heb
12.1). “God hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings”, but these blessings are
contained “in Christ“ ([Eph 1.3), dispended by Christ and received from Christ by
faith (Ibid, Bks 1-8, p 94).
What Hooker is saying comes down to this: assurance of our justification
does not begin with evidence of our sanctification but with faith in Christ. Yet
while there is a degree of assurance implicit in faith, this assurance may be neither
full nor certain because much weakness can co-exist with faith…Believers do not
commonly have a full or infallible assurance of their salvation from the very time
of their conversion. Assurance exists in degrees. A weak assurance, which goes
with weak spiritual experience, is not to be despised.
Hooker’s overriding concern was to show that assurance belongs to the
realm of personal, spiritual experience. And if that experience is real (whatever its
degree of strength), it is owing to the work of the Spirit of Christ. True assurance,
by definition, is not self-made. The person who can ‘take’ his assurance whenever
he wills from the promises of Scripture is dangerously mistaken. Just as certainly
as true conviction of sin comes by the personal agency of the Holy Spirit, so does
assurance, and the measure in which it is given is in the hands of God: “Complain
not of delays,” Hooker urges, “but wait, for God hath waited for you long; and
therefore if he make you wait for peace of conscience and assurance of his love,
the Lord deals equally and lovingly with you, and as shall be best for you. God
gives what, and when, and how he will; therefore wait for it.” (The Doubting
Christian, H.T.S., p 158).
But while Hooker agreed that assurance of our justification does not begin
with evidence of our sanctification but with faith in Christ, he also taught that
sanctification is an indispensable component of assurance. While the believer’s
first or initial assurance is not founded upon any personal and inward attainments
in grace, any further growth in assurance is closely related to growth in holiness.
Any profession of ‘assurance which is not accompanied by holiness of life
represents a departure from biblical Christianity. The temporary believer may seek
Christ for pardon, forgiveness and joy but the regenerate person wants the rule of
Christ and the holiness of Christ; he wants Christ for sanctification as well as for
justification. Assurance, then, is not based upon the believer’s holiness and yet
holiness and obedience are essential NT tests of the soundness of any Christian
profession. Not to press those tests upon professing Christians is to ignore what
the Bible treats as a necessity, and yet to press them and not to make personal
grace the basis of the Christian’s comfort is one of the most difficult of all the
duties of a faithful pastor. Hooker was well acquainted with the difficulty and it
was the Christ-centredness of his preaching which prevented his emphasis upon
godliness from descending into legalism.
Yet he has often been accused of legalism by modern critics ‘Hooker offered
assurance’, writes Norman Pettit, ‘only as a final reward for prolonged self-
scrutiny and doubt…he deliberately fosters an attitude of doubt, so that no man
can claim to be regenerate without embarking on a process that is harsh, tedious,
and long.’ 34 ( In H.T.S., 137). This is false. The facts are that Hooker never
condoned doubt and uncertainty as virtues. The opposite is the case. At Hooker’s
death, in 1647, Cotton Mather reports, he expired ‘with a smile in his
countenance’, and in ‘the glorious peace of soul which he had enjoyed without
any interruption for near thirty years together’(Magnalia, 1, 350.
It is true that some of his colleagues thought that Hooker at times set the
standards for conversion too high. As one of them wrote in an introduction to his
posthumous work, The Application of Redemption. ‘Perhaps he urged too far and
insisted too much on conviction preceding saving conversion…a man may be held
too long under John Baptist’s water’ But if it this was so, it was not because
Hooker was a legalist. Rather it was because prevailing spiritual conditions at the
time demanded a strong emphasis on conversion. The need of the hour, as Hooker
assessed it, was “to rectify those that have slipped into profession, and leapt over
both true and deep humiliation for sin, and a sense of their natural condition.” God
sent John the Baptist to Israel when it was in great spiritual decline to preach a
stern message of repentance, so the Lord called Hooker to a similar ministry first
in Old and later in New England. He was sent to restore the doctrine of conversion
at a time when that doctrine was not preached at all or if it was preached it was not
preached properly as required by Scripture.
Concluding remarks:
Iain Murray wrote this article on Hooker’s doctrine of conversion to
demonstrate the enormous contrast between the Puritan view of conversion and
assurance and what many evangelicals teach on these subjects today. He writes,
In the 17th Century; conviction of sin was…no theory but a felt
experience and discriminating preaching on assurance was therefore a
necessity. In the last (nineteenth) century, however, the whole understanding
of the doc
Murray concludes with this Biblically warranted optimistic note:
In the early 18th Century, conviction of sin and conversions did become far less comm
Thursday, September 8, 2011
NEW ENGLAND THEOLOGY Lecture 9 Thomas Hooker and the Doctrine of Conversion Difference between Puritan and Reformed Protestantism The American Church historian Sydney Ahlstrom once remarked that “Christian theology exists in the context of history…Just as European philosophical tradition, in Whiteheads famous phrase, consists of a series of footnotes to Plato, so Christian theology is a series of footnotes to St. Paul” (Theology in America, The Major Protestant Voices from Puritanism to Neo- Orthodoxy. Indianapolis: Bobs-Merrill Educational Publishing, p.23). Puritan theology, as practiced in England and New England, was no exception. It was formed in the context of the Protestant Reformation, particularly the Reformed branch of it with its emphasis on the sovereignty of God and the doctrines of grace. But while Puritan theologians stood firmly in the tradition of Geneva, the theology they developed was more than a footnote to Calvin. Their contribution to Reformed theology was that they put a uniquely practical stamp on it. They were more concerned with the application of Biblical doctrines than with their theoretical formulation. . In that sense they were all disciples of William Ames who defined theology as the art of living well. For him to live well is to live a life suitable and fitting to God, and so happily in God (The Learned Doctor William Ames, p.144). Ames who spent many years in the Netherlands and became a professor at the Franeker University in 1623, never tired of reminding his students that theology must be much more than dogmatics or polemics and that men need to hold pure doctrine and practical divinity in proper balance and relationship (Ibid.,p.129). In his view, Biblical doctrine is the means a theologian- pastor must use to reach the end or goal of theology which is “to save himself and them that hear him,”(I Tim. 4: 16). He must model the art of living to God by living to God himself, and so lead others to God, devoting himself wholly to the glory of God, and the edification of the church (Ibid., p.145). Emphasis on Conversion To be or become such a theologian who can influence others, one needs to be converted. This may seem very obvious but Ames feared that many students who aspired to the ministry were sadly deficient when it came to godliness which he rightly regarded as the evidence of the new birth or conversion. It is because he saw very little evidence of such godliness in both ministers and their congregations that Ames stressed the necessity of conversion. How can anyone be a good man if he is not converted, he reasoned? So ever since his own conversion at Cambridge under the preaching of William Perkins, Ames made conversion the first step in theology, for only then, he insisted, would theology have meaning. (Ibid). Although Ames died in the Netherlands and never set foot in America, his influence on New England Puritans was enormous. In fact several of the best known ministers who served in New England became his disciples while living in the Netherlands as refugees. Among them were Thomas Hooker, John Cotton and John Davenport. All three of them became leading lights in New England and shared Ames’ convictions regarding the necessity of prioritizing the doctrine of conversion in their preaching and pastoral ministries. Thomas Hooker (1586-1647) Thomas Hooker became famous in the 1620s as a highly skilled expositor of the whole range of Biblical truth, but his overriding concern was to teach people the absolute necessity of conversion as the first stage of saving religion. He not only dealt with this subject in most of his sermons but also in several books such as The Application of Redemption , The Soul’s Preparation for Christ and The Poor Doubting Christian Drawn to Christ. While still a young preacher in England Hooker, like all his Puritan colleagues, was very concerned about the low level of spiritual life in the Church of England They concluded that many in England, perhaps the majority, considered themselves Christians when in fact they were not. These “experimental Puritans” thought that the problem was not simply church government and liturgy but nominal Christianity. Since the parochial system counted all but the most scandalous as Christians-and was lax with discipline-hypocrites abounded within the Church (David Weir, Early New England, p.20). The Puritans therefore were convinced that the need of the hour was to evangelize those who were thought to be Christians or “gospellers”, as they were called,” while in reality their faith was only the temporary faith of the stony- ground hearers of Jesus’ parable. Their religion, at best, was like that of Nicodemus before his new birth. Thomas Hooker fully shared the conviction that most Englishmen who attended church on Sunday-and remember that church attendance was mandatory and subject to fines-were unconverted. That helps to explain why his preaching and that of his Puritan colleagues was so searching. As Iain Murray writes: It is impossible to do any justice to the burden of Hooker’s preaching in Essex betw Sketch of Hooker’s Preaching on Conversion 1. In conversion the human will is hostile to Christ until it is renewed by the power of God. The will of the unregenerate man can turn in any direction except to Christ and to holiness. Certainly the man willing to believe the promises of God shall be saved but since the Fall such willingness was never found in any natural man. The will of a natural man is the worst part about him…It is uncontrollable, it will stand out against all reasons and arguments, and nothing can move the will except God work upon it. (Application of Redemption, Bks 1-8, p 328). Therefore, if man is ever to be saved it is absolutely necessary that his will be changed. This happens, Hooker says, in regeneration or the new birth. It is the act of God which, implanting a new principle of spiritual life, produces a new understanding and a new will, so that the person who is the subject of this act may truly be called ‘a new creature’. It is also an act of sovereign and almighty power, ‘wrought irresistibly, not issuing from the liberty of our choice, and therefore it is brought about by the irresistible impression of the work of the Spirit’ (Ibid, Bks 9-10, p 395). In regeneration ‘the soul behaves itself merely passively, and is wrought upon by an over-ruling power’. (Ibid, p 50). For Hooker regeneration involves a great mystery The act of God whereby a sinner is renewed is so secret and unsearchable, involving as it does his sub- conscious being, that he can by no means tell with certainty how or when it occurs. (Ibid, Bks 1-8, pp 77-8). Regeneration is not instantly recognizable either to observers or to a man’s own consciousness. But while regeneration itself is hidden, its effects are known, although the speed with which these become observable in the consciousness of a convert is subject to wide variations. 2. Conversion involves both a divine and human activity. Conversion, Hooker says, is not begun and concluded at the actual point of regeneration. Were that the case then in conversion man would be only passive and acted upon by God. But Scripture teaches that man also plays an important role in this process. Unless both the divine and human activities are properly correlated, the presentation of the gospel is bound to be seriously distorted. Hooker here is reacting to Antinomians who taught that since all depends upon Christ, there is nothing left for man to do but to ‘believe’. Some went even further and said that Christ repents and believes for us. Against these wrong ideas Hooker points to Scripture and its many exhortations to repent and believe. The Christ who preached that no one can enter the kingdom of God until he is ‘born of the Spirit’ (John 3.5-8), also preached, ‘Repent ye and believe the gospel’ (Mark 1.15); ‘Strive to enter in at the strait gate (Luke 13.24). Paul also preached that men ‘should repent and turn to God, and do works meet for repentance’ (Acts 26.20). One clear deduction which the Puritans drew from the above texts was that in conversion God deals with men as responsible moral agents and acts suitably to their nature. They are not ‘sticks and stones’ but intelligent beings with minds and consciences which have to be affected by the truth if they are to be converted. Thus ‘the means of grace’ (preeminently the Word of God) are given to men and to these they must respond. Given this conviction it is not surprising that the sermons of Hooker abound in exhortations to action: men are to humble themselves, repent, pray, believe and obey the truth. They stressed this not because they believed in human ability but because they knew it was God’s command to use the means which He is pleased to use effectively if he so pleases (Ibid., Bks 9-10, p 306). Hooker’s insistence that man has an active part to play in his conversion has led some to conclude that he was not free from Arminianism. Perry Miller, for instance, alleges that in exhorting men to duty, and appealing to their minds, Hooker and other Puritans were deviating from Calvin by emphasizing human ability in salvation.’(The New England Mind, 17th Century, p 200). R. T. Kendall agrees with Miller’s assessment. “Many people who have taken the time to wade through Thomas Hooker’s long sermons,” he writes, “have been astonished that Hooker imputed to the natural, unregenerate man an extraordinary ability to take the initiative in seeking grace’ (The Influence of Calvin and Calvinism upon the American Heritage, Annual Lecture of the Evangelical Library, 1976, p 14). 1979). These criticisms are not new. Hooker and his colleagues were well aware of them and they dealt effectively and decisively with them. They recognized that at the root of that error lay a defective and one-sided definition of conversion. Although passive at the instant of regeneration that instant is a point in a process in which, before and after regeneration, man is active. As Iain Murray writes, Modern writers criticize the Puritans for making a ‘simple’ subject needlessly complex but the true explanation of their criticisms may lie in the wor 3.The importance of using the means of grace Hooker taught that the means of grace have a definite role to play in conversion both before as well as after the moment of regeneration. Although the unregenerate man is spiritually dead, this does not mean that he is incapable of any reaction to Scripture. His mind and conscience may be reached by the truth: indeed it is the preacher’s business to see that they are so reached, because until they are, there will be no conviction of sin, and without conviction of sin there will be no subsequent conversion. If repentance means turning one’s back upon sin, and if conversion entails turning from sin to holiness, no one is going to see the need for such a change who has not first felt sin to be a burden. Faith is more than reason but it is not against reason. Truth must be presented to the mind before it can reach the heart. There has to be a knowledge which prepares the way for faith and that knowledge consists, in the first instance, of the recognition of the need for a Saviour. Without such a conviction, men, far from being in a state of readiness to believe, treat the gospel as meaningless, for it proposes remedies for a sickness from which, they suppose, they do not suffer. Only a changed view of their real condition will show men their need to respond. Such is the thinking which lay behind the Puritan belief that evangelism must proceed from the starting point that men are careless and unprepared. So long as sin is unseen, Christ will be unsought’. The reason for the change in the 3,000 on the day of Pentecost was not that they had not heard of Christ before but that they had not been convicted before: ‘They were pricked in their heart and said unto Peter and to the rest of the apostles, ‘Men and brethren, what shall we do?’ (Acts 2.37). Before sinners are convicted they see no need for reading, hearing, prayer, seeking and enquiry; but when they find themselves besieged with sins and plagues, heaven frowning, hell gaping, their consciences accusing, and themselves dropping down to the grave, and their souls to hell, they think it high time, and more than time to bestir themselves, to do what they can, and to cry for help and direction in so desperate distress and danger. ‘The whole need not the physician’, therefore they do not send, nor yet are they willing to receive, nor care to enquire, or take any medicine. But when the disease grows fierce, and life is in danger, then they send out messengers far and near for a physician. (Application of Salvation, pp 562-3). Men under conviction of sin, Hooker taught, generally pass through two stages, first, contrition, and second, humiliation. By the first, ‘God brings the sinner to a sight of himself and his sin’ so that he sees ‘an absolute necessity of a change, and therefore thinks thus with himself, If I rest thus, I shall never see God with comfort’. At this point the man begins to change his life and practices, and begins to use seriously ‘all the ordinances of God’, yet all his endeavours only reveal more clearly the real state of his heart and his helplessness to change anything more than the external. At length, having looked ‘to himself and his self- sufficiency, and finding no comfort there, he falls down before the Lord and begs for mercy, and yet he sees himself unworthy of mercy, without which he must perish. He has nothing, and he can do nothing to merit it’ 76 (The Soul’s Humiliation, 1638, pp 131-2). 4. No stereo-typed conversions Although Hooker believed that contrition and humiliation are common in the experience of converts, he did not insist that everyone had to conform to the same model or pattern of conversion. He recognized that God saves sinners in different ways. For one thing, the time element is very variable. Conversion does not have to be a protracted process: “Sometimes the Lord suddenly sets on the blow, and pierces the soul through at one thrust.’ Sometimes at one sermon, maybe in the handling of one point, nay some one sentence, or some special truth, the Lord is pleased to arm it and discharge it, with mighty power and uncontrollable evidence, that it astonishes and shivers the heart of the sinner all in pieces." (Application of Redemption, Bks 9-10, p 372). Matthew, sitting at the receipt of custom, is thinking about taking money from the public; Peter and James are casting a net into the sea, to see how to make provision for themselves; Christ calls them to himself, and so to an interest in grace and glory, when they had not so much as thought that way. (Ibid, pp 289- 90). Not only is there variety in the length of time but also the degree of conviction of sin varies from person to person. Some pass through long periods of fear and distress. Others, like Lydia, pass from death to life in a very brief time and in a gentle way, (The Soul’s Preparation for Christ, 1643, p 168). 5. Awakening is not the same as conversion Hooker warned against treating awakened sinners as if they are already saved. Conviction of sin, no matter how keenly felt, does not always issue in true conversion. The rich young ruler was ‘very sorrowful’ but not converted (Luke 18.23). Felix ‘trembled’ under the Word of God but he did not become a Christian. These are examples of general or common operations of the Holy Spirit which can be experienced by the unregenerate. Thus when a person comes under conviction, what results from that conviction is by no means a foregone conclusion. Any one of three different conditions may follow in the experience of an awakened person: (i) Conviction may be lost or thrown off, as Herod at last threw it off under the preaching of John the Baptist. ‘Thus’, writes Hooker, ‘Millions of men perish, go within the view of Canaan, and never possess it’(Application of Redemption, Bks 9-10, p 368). A person may get the burden of conviction off his back by a false belief that he has received Christ. This is the stony-ground hearer of the gospel of whom Jesus says, he ‘heareth the word, and anon with joy receiveth it; yet hath he not root in himself’ (Matt 13.20-21). Some in this category will later fall away from their Christian profession under trials. Others will remain in the church having the form of godliness without the power. (2). Puritans understood that there is a real danger for people making a premature and unsound profession of faith. Many, writes Hooker, are ‘still-born, not “begotten again to a lively hope”, [1 Pet 1.3]. They heal themselves before God heals them and make application before sound preparation’ (Application of Redemption, Bks 9-10, p 449). (3). The fact that the awakened sinner is unable to change his own heart, and the danger that he may depend upon his own efforts for acceptance with God, must not be allowed to weaken his obligation to act. There are things to be done if he is to be converted. Reading, hearing, repenting, praying and believing are not duties from which a man is excused until he is regenerate. Hooker presses man’s responsibility to humble himself, at the same time holding out the comfort of Christ’s promise: The Lord hath promised to come into our souls if we humble them, and make them fitting to entertain his Majesty; therefore sweep your hearts, and cleanse those rooms, cleanse every sink, and brush down every cobweb, and make room for Christ; for if thy heart be prepared and divorced from all corruptions, then Christ will come and take possession of it. (Application of Redemption, Bks 1-8, p 201). 4. Conversion and Assurance of salvation Regeneration produces great changes in a sinner but the effects of the new birth may be so gradual in the conscious experience of the convert that a truly regenerate person may remain for some time more conscious of sin than of forgiveness. There are believers who, in their own eyes, are still outside of Christ, whereas in reality their experience is already saving if they did but know it. They are ‘poor doubting Christians’ who do not understand that a person can be the recipient of grace even if he lacks assurance of salvation. Critics like Norman Pettit think they know why people who are exposed to Hooker’s type of preaching find it difficult to believe they are saved. It is because Hooker preached ‘preparation’ rather than Christ himself. In other words, by over- emphasizing self-examination he made it almost impossible for anyone to be sure of their salvation. (The Heart Prepared, pp 17-8). Iain Murray believes this criticism is completely off the mark. The claim that Hooker preached ‘preparation’ rather than Christ himself, he writes, suggests both a slight reading of his writings plus an utter misconception of the work of Christ in the application of redemption. What Hooker and Puritans generally taught on assurance is in marked contrast with the easy-believing approach followed by many evangelicals today. The programmed, standardized, and stereotyped conversions that are manufactured at revivals and crusades are very different from the ones Puritans prayed for and laboured hard to effect. Most modern conversions it seems, take place in the absence of deep conviction of sin and they lack the evidence of radically changed conduct. Also, those who are pressured into making decisions for Christ are immediately assured of their portion in Christ. Puritan pastors were also diligent in leading men to Christ and to assurance, but they were careful not to do what only the Holy Spirit can do so they did not lay hands on converts quickly or heal their wounds lightly. Hooker’s critics say that he dismissed faith in Christ as the basis for assurance and instead made men look to their own works and sanctification – a procedure which, they claim, is bound to lead to protracted doubt and uncertainty. But again this is a misrepresentation of Hooker. He firmly believed with Calvin that true faith carries a degree of assurance with it. But he also believed that assurance is not synonymous with saving faith. If that were so it would be impossible for a man to be regenerate unless he was assured of his salvation. Yet every true believer may have assurance because assurance rests not in himself but in the promises of Christ. Faith, Hooker teaches, is the supreme grace, from which all other graces flow, because it is faith which receives all from Christ. Therefore to delay exercising faith in the promises of grace until our attainments in sanctification give evidence upon which to base our hope is to destroy the foundations of assurance. ‘It’s Satan’s policy’, writes Hooker, ‘to make the saints be at a loss when they look for pardon and grace, and peace and comfort within themselves and then to look to Christ, and so they lose their labour and look in vain, but we should look up to Christ “the author and finisher of our faith” (Heb 12.1). “God hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings”, but these blessings are contained “in Christ“ ([Eph 1.3), dispended by Christ and received from Christ by faith (Ibid, Bks 1-8, p 94). What Hooker is saying comes down to this: assurance of our justification does not begin with evidence of our sanctification but with faith in Christ. Yet while there is a degree of assurance implicit in faith, this assurance may be neither full nor certain because much weakness can co-exist with faith…Believers do not commonly have a full or infallible assurance of their salvation from the very time of their conversion. Assurance exists in degrees. A weak assurance, which goes with weak spiritual experience, is not to be despised. Hooker’s overriding concern was to show that assurance belongs to the realm of personal, spiritual experience. And if that experience is real (whatever its degree of strength), it is owing to the work of the Spirit of Christ. True assurance, by definition, is not self-made. The person who can ‘take’ his assurance whenever he wills from the promises of Scripture is dangerously mistaken. Just as certainly as true conviction of sin comes by the personal agency of the Holy Spirit, so does assurance, and the measure in which it is given is in the hands of God: “Complain not of delays,” Hooker urges, “but wait, for God hath waited for you long; and therefore if he make you wait for peace of conscience and assurance of his love, the Lord deals equally and lovingly with you, and as shall be best for you. God gives what, and when, and how he will; therefore wait for it.” (The Doubting Christian, H.T.S., p 158). But while Hooker agreed that assurance of our justification does not begin with evidence of our sanctification but with faith in Christ, he also taught that sanctification is an indispensable component of assurance. While the believer’s first or initial assurance is not founded upon any personal and inward attainments in grace, any further growth in assurance is closely related to growth in holiness. Any profession of ‘assurance which is not accompanied by holiness of life represents a departure from biblical Christianity. The temporary believer may seek Christ for pardon, forgiveness and joy but the regenerate person wants the rule of Christ and the holiness of Christ; he wants Christ for sanctification as well as for justification. Assurance, then, is not based upon the believer’s holiness and yet holiness and obedience are essential NT tests of the soundness of any Christian profession. Not to press those tests upon professing Christians is to ignore what the Bible treats as a necessity, and yet to press them and not to make personal grace the basis of the Christian’s comfort is one of the most difficult of all the duties of a faithful pastor. Hooker was well acquainted with the difficulty and it was the Christ-centredness of his preaching which prevented his emphasis upon godliness from descending into legalism. Yet he has often been accused of legalism by modern critics ‘Hooker offered assurance’, writes Norman Pettit, ‘only as a final reward for prolonged self- scrutiny and doubt…he deliberately fosters an attitude of doubt, so that no man can claim to be regenerate without embarking on a process that is harsh, tedious, and long.’ 34 ( In H.T.S., 137). This is false. The facts are that Hooker never condoned doubt and uncertainty as virtues. The opposite is the case. At Hooker’s death, in 1647, Cotton Mather reports, he expired ‘with a smile in his countenance’, and in ‘the glorious peace of soul which he had enjoyed without any interruption for near thirty years together’(Magnalia, 1, 350. It is true that some of his colleagues thought that Hooker at times set the standards for conversion too high. As one of them wrote in an introduction to his posthumous work, The Application of Redemption. ‘Perhaps he urged too far and insisted too much on conviction preceding saving conversion…a man may be held too long under John Baptist’s water’ But if it this was so, it was not because Hooker was a legalist. Rather it was because prevailing spiritual conditions at the time demanded a strong emphasis on conversion. The need of the hour, as Hooker assessed it, was “to rectify those that have slipped into profession, and leapt over both true and deep humiliation for sin, and a sense of their natural condition.” God sent John the Baptist to Israel when it was in great spiritual decline to preach a stern message of repentance, so the Lord called Hooker to a similar ministry first in Old and later in New England. He was sent to restore the doctrine of conversion at a time when that doctrine was not preached at all or if it was preached it was not preached properly as required by Scripture. Concluding remarks: Iain Murray wrote this article on Hooker’s doctrine of conversion to demonstrate the enormous contrast between the Puritan view of conversion and assurance and what many evangelicals teach on these subjects today. He writes, In the 17th Century; conviction of sin was…no theory but a felt experience and discriminating preaching on assurance was therefore a necessity. In the last (nineteenth) century, however, the whole understanding of the doc Murray concludes with this Biblically warranted optimistic note: In the early 18th Century, conviction of sin and conversions did become far less comm
Wednesday, September 7, 2011
NEW ENGLAND THEOLOGY Lecture 7 Some Outstanding Puritan Leaders in New England (2)
NEW ENGLAND THEOLOGY
Lecture 7
Some Outstanding Puritan Leaders in New England (2)
Having looked at one of New England’s greatest civic leader, John
Winthrop, let us now turn to some of the leading theologians of the
Massachusetts Bay Company. These easily outnumbered the civil magistrates.
Compared with Old England where there was one clergyman for every
thousand parishioners, in new England there was a pastor for every
congregation numbering between two and three hundred. Al of them were very
well educated most of them having been trained at one of Europe’s most
prestigious universities: Cambridge.
John Cotton
The first one of these prominent church leaders was John Cotton (1584-
1652) who acquired a reputation for being one of the most controversial
preachers among Puritans. Young John was converted while a lecturer and
dean of Emmanuel College in Cambridge. By the time he was appointed to St.
Botolph, however, he was firmly committed to the Puritan cause. Right from
the start he began to omit certain elements of the Anglican worship with the
result that in 1632 he was summoned before the High Commission Court.
Being unable and unwilling to comply with their demands he decided that
same year to join the throng of Puritans moving in great numbers to America.
He arrived in Boston, Massachusetts on September 4 and by October 10 the
First Church in that city asked him to serve as their pastor and teacher
Although he was a powerful preacher and loved by many of God’s people
controversy followed him wherever he went. He was involved in two of the
most difficult cases that disturbed the peace of New England, namely the
Antinomian issue associated with the name Anne Hutchinson and the dispute
with Roger Williams dealing with the issue of the relationship between the
Church and Civil authorities. Hutchinson who had already been a member of
his church in England had followed him to Boston, Massachusetts. Shortly
after her arrival she let it be known that of all the ministers in the colony only
two preached the covenant of grace: Cotton and her brother in law, John
Davenport. The rest, she said, were still under the covenant of works because
they taught that one could attain to assurance of salvation by evidences
gathered from good works or sanctification. Cotton eventually had to distance
himself from her increasingly radical views on grace bordering on
antinomianism.
As for his dealings with Roger Williams, Cotton believed that the
magistrates were called by God to protect the church from her enemies and
enforce proper beliefs and practices.
Cotton earned a reputation for preaching vividly, forcefully and above all
fruitfully, many people being converted under his ministry. He wrote a popular
catechism, Milk for Babes (1646) which became the standard instruction
manual for New England children for decades.
Cotton married twice. His second wife survived him and married another
notable American Puritan preacher, Richard Mather. His daughter Maria
married Increase Mather and became the mother of Cotton Mather, two other
giants of Puritan Massachusetts.
Thomas Hooker: Founder of Hartford
Thomas Hooker, New England’s foremost preacher, pastor, and
evangelist was born at Marfield, England in July 1586 and was much loved and
respected for his many years of effective ministry in England prior to his
migration to the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Hooker was one of the most
famous Puritan divines or theologians of his day and was a major architect of
the New England theology as well as the founder of Hartford, CT in 1636.
Early Life
Thomas Hooker was admitted to Christ College, Cambridge in March,
1604, a few months before his eighteenth birthday. Shortly thereafter Hooker
switched to Emmanuel College Upon receiving his B.A. he stayed on for
another ten years as a tutor. Sometime during his tenure at Cambridge Hooker
went through a long protracted conversion experience. One of his counselors,
Simeon Ash, spent many nights trying to console Hooker by directing him to
Christ and His promises. Clinging to these promises he was at long last
delivered from all his fears and soundly converted. With a certainty born of
experience, he would later say to others, "The promise of the gospel was the
boat which was to carry a perishing sinner over into the Lord Jesus Christ"
(Mather, Great Works of Christ in America, 1:334). His experiences gave him
an abiding sympathy for others involved in similar struggles of the soul.
Shortly after his conversion Hooker believed God was calling him to
preach the gospel. He received a call to a small church in Esher, England.
While there he was asked to minister to a woman who was deeply depressed,
even suicidal, having convinced herself that she had committed the
unpardonable sin and was therefore lost forever. After spending many weeks
counseling her, the Lord used Hooker’s pastoral skills to bring the lady to full
assurance of salvation Years later Hooker wrote his famous The Poor
Doubting Christian Drawn Unto Christ, a book based largely on his own
experience and that of the woman he had led to faith in Jesus.
In 1621 Hooker married Susanna Garbrand, who was the maid of the
lady he had ministered to in Esher. In 1628 he became pastor of the church at
Essex and his fame as a gospel preacher continued to grow. About this time
William Laud, the Archbishop of Canterbury and a fierce enemy of the
Puritans, began harassing Hooker and other preachers who refused to conform
to the new rules for worship in the Established Church. Laud summoned
Hooker to London, asking him about his preaching ministry, finally suspending
him from it. Hooker discontinued his preaching and pastoral ministry,
providing for his family by teaching students When Laud summoned him
again, Hooker, sensing danger, fled for his life with his wife and children to
Amsterdam in 1631 where many other Puritans were living in exile. The Dutch
government allowed the English to establish churches there, assuming that
these churches would take the Presbyterian form of church government. Much
to their amazement the English Puritan churches of Holland established an
Independent or Congregational form of government whereby each
congregation was separate and independent from all others.
John Paget had been selected to pastor the church of Puritan exiles in
Amsterdam and had committed himself to the church polity of the Dutch
Reformed Church. When Paget asked Hooker to share the preaching and
pastoral responsibilities with him, he learned that Hooker was a
Congregationalist and therefore withdrew his invitation. A short time later
Hooker was asked to consider a similar ministry in Delft, but this did not work
out either. So Hooker was in the Netherlands for two years, waiting for a
ministry, which never came. Eventually he believed God was calling him to
move to the new world, as John Winthrop and others had done in 1630. So in
the spring of 1633 Hooker made his way secretly with his family back to
England and from there to America.
Life in New England
Hooker, along with his wife and children, sailed on the Griffin in July,
1633 Travelling with him were two other Puritan preachers, John Cotton and
Samuel Stone, also with their wives and children. The Griffin arrived in Boston
on September 4, 1633. Many of Hooker’s church members from Essex had
preceded him to the new world and eagerly awaited their pastor’s arrival in
Newtown, near Boston. Hooker immediately took up his pastoral duties,
preaching twice on Sundays, giving a lecture on Thursday, and catechizing the
families during the week.
A year or so later Hooker and the members of his congregation decided
to move to the Connecticut River valley because they felt there was not enough
land for themselves and their livestock in the Boston area. Some historians
claim there was also rivalry between these two leaders as well as
disagreements on the issue of voting rights of the settlers, Hooker being in
favour of a more democratic approach while Cotton championed a restricted
and aristocratic form of government. John Winthrop, Governor of the Bay
Colony, opposed the move citing the need to keep as many residents as
possible in Boston in view of potential Indian attacks. The General Court,
however approved the migration and so in October of 1635 a small band of
people, around sixty plus their cattle, left for Connecticut, hoping to begin a
more prosperous life there. The following year Hooker and his family, along
with another group settled in modern day Hartford.
Soon after his move to Hartford Hooker became embroiled in the
Antinomian controversy associated with the name Anne Hutchinson. We have
already seen what that issue was all about and how governor Winthrop handled
it. Hutchinson taught that the Holy Spirit dwells in a believer in such a way
that He speaks directly to the justified person, negating the necessity for
keeping the Ten Commandments. True believers, she said, have a law within
them which overrules any outward law in the Bible or any given by the state.
Thus a believer was free to act as he pleased provided he followed the direction
of the Spirit. She also taught that sanctification is no proof of justification For
all these views she claimed support from her favourite pastor John Cotton.
Now it is true that Cotton taught a form of this, saying that due to the depravity
of one’s heart, a person could be deceived about the nature of his good works.
Just because one gives outward evidence of faith is no guarantee of saving
faith. Cotton’s teaching on this is not unorthodox but Anne Hutchinson took it
much further, saying that there is no reason at all for a believer to be concerned
about keeping God’s law at any point. The danger was that this would cause a
general lawlessness in the Bay, undermining the authority of the state and
church. Hutchinson was banished to Narragansett, later known as Providence,
R.I.
John Winthrop summoned Thomas Hooker to work through the issues
arising from Anne Hutchinson’s views. Hooker’s involvement was to arbitrate
the concerns other ministers had with John Cotton’s views on salvation. While
no one questioned Cotton’s basic orthodoxy he tended to emphasize man’s
passivity in salvation to such an extent that one might conclude there was
nothing man could do but wait for God’s Spirit to act. Hooker and the other
New England Puritans, however, put more stress on man’s responsibility to
seek salvation in Christ, putting away his sin and thus prepare himself for
Christ coming to visit him in grace in due time. Some have concluded from
this that Hooker taught that man could do this in his own strength but this is
wrong. Hooker believed that such preparation is the work of the Holy Spirit
who uses the law to convict of sin and thus get sinners in the right frame to
receive the Gospel. If Cotton’s views took hold, then this passivity could lead,
as it surely did with Anne Hutchinson, to extra-biblical revelation, visions, and
other subjective notions not traceable to the inscripturated Word of God. This
might result in antinomianism, living apart from any adherence to God’s word
and law. Hooker expertly, over several public meetings, showed Cotton and his
followers his error. Cotton eventually amended his views and thus was more
acceptable to the mainstream of Congregational theological thought.
Lessons Learned from the Life of Thomas Hooker
Hooker was a great man with exceptional gifts in many areas. He was a
gifted preacher as well as skilled pastor, organizer and diplomat. That said, it
needs to be pointed out there were also some imbalances and inconsistencies in
his theology. Some have suggested that the later rejection of Calvinism by
New England in favor of Arminianism and later Unitarianism can partly be laid
at the feet of Hooker and other Puritans who taught a system of preparationism.
In a desire to purify the church, they seemed to downplay the simple faith in
Christ in favour of a much more involved way of salvation. They tended to
view conversion as a long process of soul searching conviction of sin. The
impression was given that unless one had a similar experience, then his
conversion to Christ was suspect. The continental Reformers in Geneva and
Holland saw it a differently. They trusted God’s covenant promise that he
would work in believing parents and their children, and believed that the Holy
Spirit usually worked gradually within the family as the father instructed his
children.
Hooker was also very good at handling theological controversy. He was
frequently called upon by John Winthrop to sort through the controversies of
their day. He did this with his friend John Cotton in the Arminian controversy,
with Roger Williams and the threat of separatism and fanaticism, and with
Anne Hutchinson and her extra-biblical revelation and antinomianism.
In evaluating Hooker and other New England people we need to take into
account the times they lived in.
Today many people believe that Anne Hutchinson and Roger Williams.
were unfairly treated by the New England authorities, that they were the
victims of bigotry, cruelty, and religious intolerance which we in our culture
abhor. But we need to take into account the historical context in both cases.
The Massachusetts Bay was a Puritan movement, the vision being John
Winthrop’s famous maxim, a city set upon a hill. Both Hutchinson and
Williams were a major threat to this prevailing view, and the Puritan court in
Boston was long suffering in dealing with them; and even after pronouncing
them guilty, gave both plenty of time to leave for Naragansett, even allowing
Hutchinson to remain in Boston for the winter. Such treatment was considered
very generous by 17th century standards.
Another positive trait in Hooker is his biblical and Puritan view of the
state which has served as the foundation for New England’s concept of
democracy, which, in turn, has affected the formation of the USA. Some
historians have noted the conflict of thinking between John Winthrop,
Governor of Massachusetts Bay, and Thomas Hooker, founder of Hartford.
Winthrop followed an aristocratic view of government; Hooker, on the other
hand, believed in democracy, the consent of the governed. Winthrop wrote, “I
do not conceive that ever God did ordain democracy as a fit government either
for Church or Commonwealth.” To this Hooker wrote Winthrop, saying among
other things, “a general counsel (governance) chosen by all is most suitable to
rule and the most safe for relief of the whole.” On May 31, 1638, one year after
arriving in Hartford, Hooker preached or lectured, from Deuteronomy
1:13, “’Take you wise men, and understanding, and known among your tribes,
and I will make them rulers over you,’ captains over thousands, and captains
over hundreds- over fifties, over tens, etc.” Hooker’s main point in his lecture
was that the choice of public magistrates belongs to the people by God’s own
allowance. The General Court took Hooker’s words to heart and one year later
established the Fundamental Laws which served as the first democratic
constitution in the New World. According to many historians this sermon by
Thomas Hooker is the earliest known suggestion of a fundamental law, enacted
not by royal charter, nor by concession from any previously existing
government, but by the people themselves, a primary and supreme law by
which the government is constituted.” His ideas constitute the germ of the idea
of the Commonwealth, and it was developed into the Constitution of 1639. As
Leonard Bacon wrote in his Early Constitutionary History of Connecticut:
For larger freedom in building his ideal New Jerusalem, the
statesmanlike pastor, Thomas Hooker, led forth his flock a second time
It is not by accident, therefore, that Connecticut is known as the Constitution
State.
Thomas Shephard
A third religious leader of great influence is Thomas Shephard. He was
born in Towcester, Northamptonshire in 1605, the youngest of nine children.
His mother died when Thomas was four years old and his father remarried but
the stepmother showed little interest in her husband’s children. Like most
future Puritan preachers, Thomas was educated at Emmanuel College,
into the gr
Cambridge, enrolling there at the age of 15. He spent the first two years
neglecting God and prayer falling in with bad company indulging in the lusts
of the flesh, pride, gambling and drinking. But the Lord used the powerful
preaching of John Preston to bring him to repentance and faith in Jesus Christ.
Upon graduation he was appointed to a part time lectureship at Earls Colne in
Essex, near London which meant preaching under the auspices of a Church of
England bishop. God greatly blessed his labours and many souls were
converted by his ministry. He would have continued his labours had it not been
for Archbishop Laud’s summoning him to answer charges of non-conformity.
This resulted in his being forbidden to preach in the diocese of London. After a
second and third confrontation with Laud Shephard moved to Yorkshire where
he became chaplain to Sir Richard Darly and was used greatly by the Lord. But
even there the servants of Laud found him and forced him to go elsewhere.
When they followed him again for the third time Thomas knew that is was
impossible for him to serve the Lord in England with a clear conscience, so he
decided to go to America. Living in constant fear of being arrested by Laud’s
soldiers he sailed for Boston in 1634 to with his wife whom he had married
two years earlier. But after only a few hours at sea a terrible storm arose which
forced the captain to return to the harbour. Shepherd remained in hiding in
England until the following year when he sailed again. By that time his
firstborn son had died and a second had been born. The Shepards finally
arrived in New England on October 3, 1635. Four months later his wife died of
tuberculosis. The widower settled in Newtown (Cambridge, where he became
pastor of the newly established Congregational church, a church he served till
his death in 1649.
Influence and reputation
After Hooker and Cotton, Shepherd became the most popular and
influential minister in New England. He was known for his careful sermon
preparations. He used to say, “God will curse that man’s labours who goes idly
up and down all the week, and then goes into his study on a Saturday
afternoon. God knows that we have not too much time to pray in, and weep in,
and get our hearts into a fit frame for the duties of the Sabbath.” (Benjamin
Brook, The Lives of the Puritans, Vol.3, p. 104-105).
Shephard was very involved in the controversies of the day such as the
disputes with Anne Hutchinson and Roger Williams. He defended
Congregationalism, defining it as “a via media between Brownism, which
placed church government entirely in the hands of the members, and
Presbyterianism, which gave that power to the presbytery of the local church”
(Joel Beeke, Meet the Puritans, p.527).
Shephard preached very experimentally and many of his sermons were
later published and are still read today. One of his most famous works is
exposition of the Parable of the Ten Virgins.
Although Shepherd as a good Congregationalist believed the Church of
Christ to be a gathering of true believers, he was realistic enough to know
that “there is and will be a mixture of close hypocrites with the wise hearted
virgins in the purest churches” (Quoted by O.R. Johnston in Puritan Papers,
Vol. 1, 19956-1959, p.117). His aim in expounding this parable therefore is to
set forth the characteristics of what he calls Gospel hypocrites and to urge
professing Christians to examine their hearts to find out in time whether they
belong to this category of “almost Christians.”
In the section entitled The gospel hypocrite and common grace, Shepard
points out that there are many who have a kind of faith that is not saving faith,
but who are yet diligent in Christian duties. Their power to live like that comes
from God but it is his work in common grace, not the work of his saving or
special grace. Gospel hypocrites can have experiences that are almost
indistinguishable from those of true believers. Yet there is a difference as the
following excerpt from Shephard’s treatise shows: Hypocrites have awakening
grace, and are much troubled; they have enlightening grace and know more
than many true Christians: they have affecting grace, and are wonderfully
taken with the glad tidings of the Gospel, but satisfying grace, or that grace that
brings them to full rest, and satisfying sweetness in God, not only to their
consciences but to their hearts…this they never come to…,.this is the last end
and fruit of the redemption of Christ so to satiate as not to desire other things,
and there to stay, though the heart doth oft not feel the same sweetness
(Ibid.,p.125).
Today Thomas Shepherd is not nearly so highly regarded as in his own time.
Many find him morbidly introspective but let us not forget that ours is not an
age that appreciates serious reflection. Even if we must grant that Shepherd
and other New England theologians may have gone too far at times with their
searching and probing questions, judged by Scripture they only did what the
psalmists, prophets, apostles and our Lord Himself did, namely issue frequent
calls to professing believers to examine themselves whether they were indeed
what they professed to be. (Psalm 26:2; 139:23-24; Mathew 7:23; 2 Cor. 13:5; I
John 1:6; 2:9; 4:7-8, etc.)
Lecture 7
Some Outstanding Puritan Leaders in New England (2)
Having looked at one of New England’s greatest civic leader, John
Winthrop, let us now turn to some of the leading theologians of the
Massachusetts Bay Company. These easily outnumbered the civil magistrates.
Compared with Old England where there was one clergyman for every
thousand parishioners, in new England there was a pastor for every
congregation numbering between two and three hundred. Al of them were very
well educated most of them having been trained at one of Europe’s most
prestigious universities: Cambridge.
John Cotton
The first one of these prominent church leaders was John Cotton (1584-
1652) who acquired a reputation for being one of the most controversial
preachers among Puritans. Young John was converted while a lecturer and
dean of Emmanuel College in Cambridge. By the time he was appointed to St.
Botolph, however, he was firmly committed to the Puritan cause. Right from
the start he began to omit certain elements of the Anglican worship with the
result that in 1632 he was summoned before the High Commission Court.
Being unable and unwilling to comply with their demands he decided that
same year to join the throng of Puritans moving in great numbers to America.
He arrived in Boston, Massachusetts on September 4 and by October 10 the
First Church in that city asked him to serve as their pastor and teacher
Although he was a powerful preacher and loved by many of God’s people
controversy followed him wherever he went. He was involved in two of the
most difficult cases that disturbed the peace of New England, namely the
Antinomian issue associated with the name Anne Hutchinson and the dispute
with Roger Williams dealing with the issue of the relationship between the
Church and Civil authorities. Hutchinson who had already been a member of
his church in England had followed him to Boston, Massachusetts. Shortly
after her arrival she let it be known that of all the ministers in the colony only
two preached the covenant of grace: Cotton and her brother in law, John
Davenport. The rest, she said, were still under the covenant of works because
they taught that one could attain to assurance of salvation by evidences
gathered from good works or sanctification. Cotton eventually had to distance
himself from her increasingly radical views on grace bordering on
antinomianism.
As for his dealings with Roger Williams, Cotton believed that the
magistrates were called by God to protect the church from her enemies and
enforce proper beliefs and practices.
Cotton earned a reputation for preaching vividly, forcefully and above all
fruitfully, many people being converted under his ministry. He wrote a popular
catechism, Milk for Babes (1646) which became the standard instruction
manual for New England children for decades.
Cotton married twice. His second wife survived him and married another
notable American Puritan preacher, Richard Mather. His daughter Maria
married Increase Mather and became the mother of Cotton Mather, two other
giants of Puritan Massachusetts.
Thomas Hooker: Founder of Hartford
Thomas Hooker, New England’s foremost preacher, pastor, and
evangelist was born at Marfield, England in July 1586 and was much loved and
respected for his many years of effective ministry in England prior to his
migration to the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Hooker was one of the most
famous Puritan divines or theologians of his day and was a major architect of
the New England theology as well as the founder of Hartford, CT in 1636.
Early Life
Thomas Hooker was admitted to Christ College, Cambridge in March,
1604, a few months before his eighteenth birthday. Shortly thereafter Hooker
switched to Emmanuel College Upon receiving his B.A. he stayed on for
another ten years as a tutor. Sometime during his tenure at Cambridge Hooker
went through a long protracted conversion experience. One of his counselors,
Simeon Ash, spent many nights trying to console Hooker by directing him to
Christ and His promises. Clinging to these promises he was at long last
delivered from all his fears and soundly converted. With a certainty born of
experience, he would later say to others, "The promise of the gospel was the
boat which was to carry a perishing sinner over into the Lord Jesus Christ"
(Mather, Great Works of Christ in America, 1:334). His experiences gave him
an abiding sympathy for others involved in similar struggles of the soul.
Shortly after his conversion Hooker believed God was calling him to
preach the gospel. He received a call to a small church in Esher, England.
While there he was asked to minister to a woman who was deeply depressed,
even suicidal, having convinced herself that she had committed the
unpardonable sin and was therefore lost forever. After spending many weeks
counseling her, the Lord used Hooker’s pastoral skills to bring the lady to full
assurance of salvation Years later Hooker wrote his famous The Poor
Doubting Christian Drawn Unto Christ, a book based largely on his own
experience and that of the woman he had led to faith in Jesus.
In 1621 Hooker married Susanna Garbrand, who was the maid of the
lady he had ministered to in Esher. In 1628 he became pastor of the church at
Essex and his fame as a gospel preacher continued to grow. About this time
William Laud, the Archbishop of Canterbury and a fierce enemy of the
Puritans, began harassing Hooker and other preachers who refused to conform
to the new rules for worship in the Established Church. Laud summoned
Hooker to London, asking him about his preaching ministry, finally suspending
him from it. Hooker discontinued his preaching and pastoral ministry,
providing for his family by teaching students When Laud summoned him
again, Hooker, sensing danger, fled for his life with his wife and children to
Amsterdam in 1631 where many other Puritans were living in exile. The Dutch
government allowed the English to establish churches there, assuming that
these churches would take the Presbyterian form of church government. Much
to their amazement the English Puritan churches of Holland established an
Independent or Congregational form of government whereby each
congregation was separate and independent from all others.
John Paget had been selected to pastor the church of Puritan exiles in
Amsterdam and had committed himself to the church polity of the Dutch
Reformed Church. When Paget asked Hooker to share the preaching and
pastoral responsibilities with him, he learned that Hooker was a
Congregationalist and therefore withdrew his invitation. A short time later
Hooker was asked to consider a similar ministry in Delft, but this did not work
out either. So Hooker was in the Netherlands for two years, waiting for a
ministry, which never came. Eventually he believed God was calling him to
move to the new world, as John Winthrop and others had done in 1630. So in
the spring of 1633 Hooker made his way secretly with his family back to
England and from there to America.
Life in New England
Hooker, along with his wife and children, sailed on the Griffin in July,
1633 Travelling with him were two other Puritan preachers, John Cotton and
Samuel Stone, also with their wives and children. The Griffin arrived in Boston
on September 4, 1633. Many of Hooker’s church members from Essex had
preceded him to the new world and eagerly awaited their pastor’s arrival in
Newtown, near Boston. Hooker immediately took up his pastoral duties,
preaching twice on Sundays, giving a lecture on Thursday, and catechizing the
families during the week.
A year or so later Hooker and the members of his congregation decided
to move to the Connecticut River valley because they felt there was not enough
land for themselves and their livestock in the Boston area. Some historians
claim there was also rivalry between these two leaders as well as
disagreements on the issue of voting rights of the settlers, Hooker being in
favour of a more democratic approach while Cotton championed a restricted
and aristocratic form of government. John Winthrop, Governor of the Bay
Colony, opposed the move citing the need to keep as many residents as
possible in Boston in view of potential Indian attacks. The General Court,
however approved the migration and so in October of 1635 a small band of
people, around sixty plus their cattle, left for Connecticut, hoping to begin a
more prosperous life there. The following year Hooker and his family, along
with another group settled in modern day Hartford.
Soon after his move to Hartford Hooker became embroiled in the
Antinomian controversy associated with the name Anne Hutchinson. We have
already seen what that issue was all about and how governor Winthrop handled
it. Hutchinson taught that the Holy Spirit dwells in a believer in such a way
that He speaks directly to the justified person, negating the necessity for
keeping the Ten Commandments. True believers, she said, have a law within
them which overrules any outward law in the Bible or any given by the state.
Thus a believer was free to act as he pleased provided he followed the direction
of the Spirit. She also taught that sanctification is no proof of justification For
all these views she claimed support from her favourite pastor John Cotton.
Now it is true that Cotton taught a form of this, saying that due to the depravity
of one’s heart, a person could be deceived about the nature of his good works.
Just because one gives outward evidence of faith is no guarantee of saving
faith. Cotton’s teaching on this is not unorthodox but Anne Hutchinson took it
much further, saying that there is no reason at all for a believer to be concerned
about keeping God’s law at any point. The danger was that this would cause a
general lawlessness in the Bay, undermining the authority of the state and
church. Hutchinson was banished to Narragansett, later known as Providence,
R.I.
John Winthrop summoned Thomas Hooker to work through the issues
arising from Anne Hutchinson’s views. Hooker’s involvement was to arbitrate
the concerns other ministers had with John Cotton’s views on salvation. While
no one questioned Cotton’s basic orthodoxy he tended to emphasize man’s
passivity in salvation to such an extent that one might conclude there was
nothing man could do but wait for God’s Spirit to act. Hooker and the other
New England Puritans, however, put more stress on man’s responsibility to
seek salvation in Christ, putting away his sin and thus prepare himself for
Christ coming to visit him in grace in due time. Some have concluded from
this that Hooker taught that man could do this in his own strength but this is
wrong. Hooker believed that such preparation is the work of the Holy Spirit
who uses the law to convict of sin and thus get sinners in the right frame to
receive the Gospel. If Cotton’s views took hold, then this passivity could lead,
as it surely did with Anne Hutchinson, to extra-biblical revelation, visions, and
other subjective notions not traceable to the inscripturated Word of God. This
might result in antinomianism, living apart from any adherence to God’s word
and law. Hooker expertly, over several public meetings, showed Cotton and his
followers his error. Cotton eventually amended his views and thus was more
acceptable to the mainstream of Congregational theological thought.
Lessons Learned from the Life of Thomas Hooker
Hooker was a great man with exceptional gifts in many areas. He was a
gifted preacher as well as skilled pastor, organizer and diplomat. That said, it
needs to be pointed out there were also some imbalances and inconsistencies in
his theology. Some have suggested that the later rejection of Calvinism by
New England in favor of Arminianism and later Unitarianism can partly be laid
at the feet of Hooker and other Puritans who taught a system of preparationism.
In a desire to purify the church, they seemed to downplay the simple faith in
Christ in favour of a much more involved way of salvation. They tended to
view conversion as a long process of soul searching conviction of sin. The
impression was given that unless one had a similar experience, then his
conversion to Christ was suspect. The continental Reformers in Geneva and
Holland saw it a differently. They trusted God’s covenant promise that he
would work in believing parents and their children, and believed that the Holy
Spirit usually worked gradually within the family as the father instructed his
children.
Hooker was also very good at handling theological controversy. He was
frequently called upon by John Winthrop to sort through the controversies of
their day. He did this with his friend John Cotton in the Arminian controversy,
with Roger Williams and the threat of separatism and fanaticism, and with
Anne Hutchinson and her extra-biblical revelation and antinomianism.
In evaluating Hooker and other New England people we need to take into
account the times they lived in.
Today many people believe that Anne Hutchinson and Roger Williams.
were unfairly treated by the New England authorities, that they were the
victims of bigotry, cruelty, and religious intolerance which we in our culture
abhor. But we need to take into account the historical context in both cases.
The Massachusetts Bay was a Puritan movement, the vision being John
Winthrop’s famous maxim, a city set upon a hill. Both Hutchinson and
Williams were a major threat to this prevailing view, and the Puritan court in
Boston was long suffering in dealing with them; and even after pronouncing
them guilty, gave both plenty of time to leave for Naragansett, even allowing
Hutchinson to remain in Boston for the winter. Such treatment was considered
very generous by 17th century standards.
Another positive trait in Hooker is his biblical and Puritan view of the
state which has served as the foundation for New England’s concept of
democracy, which, in turn, has affected the formation of the USA. Some
historians have noted the conflict of thinking between John Winthrop,
Governor of Massachusetts Bay, and Thomas Hooker, founder of Hartford.
Winthrop followed an aristocratic view of government; Hooker, on the other
hand, believed in democracy, the consent of the governed. Winthrop wrote, “I
do not conceive that ever God did ordain democracy as a fit government either
for Church or Commonwealth.” To this Hooker wrote Winthrop, saying among
other things, “a general counsel (governance) chosen by all is most suitable to
rule and the most safe for relief of the whole.” On May 31, 1638, one year after
arriving in Hartford, Hooker preached or lectured, from Deuteronomy
1:13, “’Take you wise men, and understanding, and known among your tribes,
and I will make them rulers over you,’ captains over thousands, and captains
over hundreds- over fifties, over tens, etc.” Hooker’s main point in his lecture
was that the choice of public magistrates belongs to the people by God’s own
allowance. The General Court took Hooker’s words to heart and one year later
established the Fundamental Laws which served as the first democratic
constitution in the New World. According to many historians this sermon by
Thomas Hooker is the earliest known suggestion of a fundamental law, enacted
not by royal charter, nor by concession from any previously existing
government, but by the people themselves, a primary and supreme law by
which the government is constituted.” His ideas constitute the germ of the idea
of the Commonwealth, and it was developed into the Constitution of 1639. As
Leonard Bacon wrote in his Early Constitutionary History of Connecticut:
For larger freedom in building his ideal New Jerusalem, the
statesmanlike pastor, Thomas Hooker, led forth his flock a second time
It is not by accident, therefore, that Connecticut is known as the Constitution
State.
Thomas Shephard
A third religious leader of great influence is Thomas Shephard. He was
born in Towcester, Northamptonshire in 1605, the youngest of nine children.
His mother died when Thomas was four years old and his father remarried but
the stepmother showed little interest in her husband’s children. Like most
future Puritan preachers, Thomas was educated at Emmanuel College,
into the gr
Cambridge, enrolling there at the age of 15. He spent the first two years
neglecting God and prayer falling in with bad company indulging in the lusts
of the flesh, pride, gambling and drinking. But the Lord used the powerful
preaching of John Preston to bring him to repentance and faith in Jesus Christ.
Upon graduation he was appointed to a part time lectureship at Earls Colne in
Essex, near London which meant preaching under the auspices of a Church of
England bishop. God greatly blessed his labours and many souls were
converted by his ministry. He would have continued his labours had it not been
for Archbishop Laud’s summoning him to answer charges of non-conformity.
This resulted in his being forbidden to preach in the diocese of London. After a
second and third confrontation with Laud Shephard moved to Yorkshire where
he became chaplain to Sir Richard Darly and was used greatly by the Lord. But
even there the servants of Laud found him and forced him to go elsewhere.
When they followed him again for the third time Thomas knew that is was
impossible for him to serve the Lord in England with a clear conscience, so he
decided to go to America. Living in constant fear of being arrested by Laud’s
soldiers he sailed for Boston in 1634 to with his wife whom he had married
two years earlier. But after only a few hours at sea a terrible storm arose which
forced the captain to return to the harbour. Shepherd remained in hiding in
England until the following year when he sailed again. By that time his
firstborn son had died and a second had been born. The Shepards finally
arrived in New England on October 3, 1635. Four months later his wife died of
tuberculosis. The widower settled in Newtown (Cambridge, where he became
pastor of the newly established Congregational church, a church he served till
his death in 1649.
Influence and reputation
After Hooker and Cotton, Shepherd became the most popular and
influential minister in New England. He was known for his careful sermon
preparations. He used to say, “God will curse that man’s labours who goes idly
up and down all the week, and then goes into his study on a Saturday
afternoon. God knows that we have not too much time to pray in, and weep in,
and get our hearts into a fit frame for the duties of the Sabbath.” (Benjamin
Brook, The Lives of the Puritans, Vol.3, p. 104-105).
Shephard was very involved in the controversies of the day such as the
disputes with Anne Hutchinson and Roger Williams. He defended
Congregationalism, defining it as “a via media between Brownism, which
placed church government entirely in the hands of the members, and
Presbyterianism, which gave that power to the presbytery of the local church”
(Joel Beeke, Meet the Puritans, p.527).
Shephard preached very experimentally and many of his sermons were
later published and are still read today. One of his most famous works is
exposition of the Parable of the Ten Virgins.
Although Shepherd as a good Congregationalist believed the Church of
Christ to be a gathering of true believers, he was realistic enough to know
that “there is and will be a mixture of close hypocrites with the wise hearted
virgins in the purest churches” (Quoted by O.R. Johnston in Puritan Papers,
Vol. 1, 19956-1959, p.117). His aim in expounding this parable therefore is to
set forth the characteristics of what he calls Gospel hypocrites and to urge
professing Christians to examine their hearts to find out in time whether they
belong to this category of “almost Christians.”
In the section entitled The gospel hypocrite and common grace, Shepard
points out that there are many who have a kind of faith that is not saving faith,
but who are yet diligent in Christian duties. Their power to live like that comes
from God but it is his work in common grace, not the work of his saving or
special grace. Gospel hypocrites can have experiences that are almost
indistinguishable from those of true believers. Yet there is a difference as the
following excerpt from Shephard’s treatise shows: Hypocrites have awakening
grace, and are much troubled; they have enlightening grace and know more
than many true Christians: they have affecting grace, and are wonderfully
taken with the glad tidings of the Gospel, but satisfying grace, or that grace that
brings them to full rest, and satisfying sweetness in God, not only to their
consciences but to their hearts…this they never come to…,.this is the last end
and fruit of the redemption of Christ so to satiate as not to desire other things,
and there to stay, though the heart doth oft not feel the same sweetness
(Ibid.,p.125).
Today Thomas Shepherd is not nearly so highly regarded as in his own time.
Many find him morbidly introspective but let us not forget that ours is not an
age that appreciates serious reflection. Even if we must grant that Shepherd
and other New England theologians may have gone too far at times with their
searching and probing questions, judged by Scripture they only did what the
psalmists, prophets, apostles and our Lord Himself did, namely issue frequent
calls to professing believers to examine themselves whether they were indeed
what they professed to be. (Psalm 26:2; 139:23-24; Mathew 7:23; 2 Cor. 13:5; I
John 1:6; 2:9; 4:7-8, etc.)
Lecture 6 Some Outstanding Puritan Leaders in New England
NEW ENGLAND THEOLOGY
Lecture 6
Some Outstanding Puritan Leaders in New England
Throughout the colonial period New England was blessed with exceptionally
gifted leaders both civic and ecclesiastical. We begin with the former, the greatest
civic leader of early New England, Governor John Winthrop.
Background
John Winthrop was born in 1588 and grew up in a God-fearing family. His
mother was a fervent Puritan who gave Biblical instruction to her children during
the long absences of her husband on his business trips to London. John, the second
born, had three surviving sisters and the household included at least eight servants
who helped with life at Groton Manor. After completing grammar school he
enrolled at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he often heard the great Puritan
William Perkins preach. Although he was brought up in a Christian home and knew
the Gospel way of salvation he wasted his adolescent years pursuing sinful pleasures
His own testimony later was that he had been “lewdly disposed to all kinds of
wickedness, except swearing and scouring religion.” At the age of twelve he began
to hunger for true Religion and read some of the Puritan books of the day.
His marriage in 1605 to Mary Forth cut short his academic pursuits. After
giving him six children, four of whom survived, she herself died in childbirth John
remarried quickly but his second wife also lost her life in childbirth along with the
baby. Happily his marriage to Margaret Tyndal, in 1618 lasted until her death two
years before his own.
Like many Puritans Winthrop wrestled with lack of assurance of salvation.
Although he came to saving faith in Christ he seems to have been susceptible to
various temptations throughout his life. As he wrote in his diary one time: “O Lord,
crucify the world unto me, that though I cannot avoid to live among the baits and
snares of it, yet it may be so truly dead unto me and I unto it.”.
Winthrop first considered becoming a minister but eventually settled on a
career in law. He became justice of the peace at Groton and then lord of Groton
manor. Having acquired a reputation of being a capable lawyer he was appointed to
the Court of Wards where he often had to decide difficult cases having to do with
disputes between the Crown and commoners about land ownership John became
known as a wise and fair arbitrator so that his respect among the people grew
steadily.
Migration
In August of 1629 after much prayer, reflection and discussion with his wife
and Puritan friends, John decided to emigrate to New England What caused a man
of his stature and age (he was forty-two years old) to leave the comforts of England
for a dangerous and uncertain life in the new world? There are several reason for his
decision. The first one was that being a Puritan he was disappointed at the lack of
progress that had been made so far to reform the Church of England. The advent of
Charles I to the throne had made things worse for the Puritans than they had been
under his son James I. Life under this king and especially his archbishop William
Laud was becoming unbearable. Laud demanded that all members of the clergy
adhere strictly to the prescribed liturgy and ceremonies in the Church of England
which meant reading public prayers according to the Prayer Book, and wearing the
surplice. Any who refused were barred from their pulpits and sometimes imprisoned.
Another motive for leaving England was that Winthrop was struggling
financially. He had serious debt problems and economic prospects in England were
not good while they seemed much better in New England. But another reason for
leaving was that Winthrop was a very gifted leader who would certainly have risen
to a place of prominence in England but since he was a Puritan this was highly
unlikely. John Winthrop, always seeking to read God’s providence, put all these
factors together to believe that God was leading him to New England.
When some Puritan friends invited him to become a partner in the
Massachusetts Bay Company which had been chartered by the King, John agreed to
do so Because the charter did not specify where the company should be
administered, the members conveniently interpret this to mean they could do so
from New England. Not surprisingly Winthrop was elected as the Massachusetts
Bay first Governor.
Shortly thereafter, John Winthrop, leaving his wife and all but his two oldest
sons behind, departed in April 1630 on the Arbella for the new world, arriving on
June 12, 1630. His wife and the rest of his children would follow a year later.
Perseverance
After arriving in Boston, John wrote to Margaret, his wife, telling her that their
son Henry had drowned in a river while trying to retrieve a canoe. Meanwhile, back
in England John’s son Forth, who was about to be ordained to the ministry suddenly
became ill and died. While John was still on the Arbella, Margaret gave birth to a
baby girl whom they named Anne, but when later she and the baby were on their
way to New England, little Anne became ill, died and was buried at sea. Several
more of John’s children died before he did. Of John’s six daughters four died as
infants, one as a toddler, and the only surviving daughter died in 1643. John wrote to
Margaret while she was still in England, telling her that at least 200 of those who
had come with him to Massachusetts Bay had died between April and December,
1630 . Yet in spite of all these adversities John was able to tell Margaret and others
that New England was a bountiful place, that God had led them there, and that to get
to heaven we must sometimes go through hell.
Winthrop the Governor
The terms of office of governor of Massachusetts being only one year, he was
elected governor for the first four years, after which he was defeated by Thomas
Dudley his rival. John barely kept a seat as a magistrate. Though painful for him,
John nonetheless brought all the magistrates home for lunch that day, as a sign of
Christian charity. He lost the governorship on several other occasions too. It seems
that some thought John too lenient, not hard enough on those failing to obey the
laws of the Colony, while others respected John’s leadership but were reluctant to
have him serve indefinitely, lest he become a tyrant and control the people. This was
a great disappointment to John, but he humbly took the abuse and rejection.
Winthrop did his best to govern with the Bible as his guide, but he also
realized that Scripture did not always give specific guidance for specific cases.
Therefore he often judged cases based on precedents of British law. He also believed
that since this was a new colony some would violate the law unknowingly. Thus he
sought to use prudence and wisdom in how best to judge individual cases. He would
discretely decide when to prosecute and when to be lenient. This was highly
offensive to some of the Puritan leaders who insisted on judging cases strictly
according to Scripture, especially by O.T. laws and regulations Consequently John’s
style of leadership frustrated many.
In the midst of his many trials, two things remained constant for Winthrop- his
loving wife Margaret and his faith in God. His perseverance in the midst of
incredible deprivation, accusation, and heartache evokes awe. A deep and abiding
faith in his great and faithful God characterized him throughout his life.
Controversy
Winthrop’s name is and reputation has suffered considerably from the way he
handled two very difficult cases. I am referring to the problems surrounding Roger
Williams and Anne Hutchinson. Roger Williams was a godly, pious, and able young
man who had studied at Cambridge and was tutored by the great Puritan theologian
John Owen. Williams came to New England in 1631, one year after Winthrop
arrived there. Pastor John Wilson of the Boston church had returned to England to
fetch his wife, and it was not long before the congregation voted to call Roger
Williams to be their pastor. Williams surprised them by declining their offer, saying
that theirs was not a pure church, because they had not completely separated from
the Church of England and that he consequently could have no fellowship with those
given to impurity. He claimed the Church of England admitted whores and
drunkards into the church and the Boston church’s unwillingness to denounce the
Church of England made them party to such licentiousness.
Williams then went to the Salem church and they also extended him a call to
be their pastor. Winthrop, knowing that Williams held the extreme views just
mentioned, urged the congregation to withdraw the call which they did. Williams
then made his way to the Plymouth Colony hoping that the Pilgrims would invite
him to be their pastor. But they soon found out that he held views which even they,
Separatist as they were, thought extreme. Williams charged the church with worldly
compromise in that the members, when returning to England, worshipped in Church
of England churches. But what provoked the greatest opposition to Roger Williams
was his claim that the Massachusetts Bay had received its charter to gain land by a
lie from King Charles I, and that it must abandon the project and return to England
or demand the King repent of his lie.
By this time Williams was back in Boston and the upheaval he was causing
had to be addressed. Winthrop was not Governor at the time but he was a magistrate
and heard the case with the other magistrates. Williams was put on trial, found
guilty, and banished from the Massachusetts Bay. He traveled to Narragansett Bay,
modern day Rhode Island, and continued his separatist practices. At one point
Williams had become so separatistic that he doubted the spirituality of all in his
church but his wife and refused to take communion with any but her.
Then there is the case of Anne Hutchinson who came to Massachusetts Bay
with her husband, William, in September, 1634. She was not a separatist and she had
a nimble mind, quick wit, was well versed Biblically, and could sustain theological
argumentation with the best of men. She followed her favorite preacher, John
Cotton, to the new world. Cotton had been silenced by William Laud, and was a
highly respected Puritan preacher known for his clear and unambiguous expositions
of the doctrines of grace. While he stood firmly against antinomianism, he was
equally opposed to its opposite danger, namely legalism While Calvinism teaches
the doctrine of election and effectual calling, that people only respond to the gospel
if the Holy Spirit draws them, many Puritans had fallen into preparationism, that one
ought to seek God, often for a long period of time, grieving over his sin and
repenting, in hopes that God would have mercy on him. This seemed to Anne
Hutchinson, and John Cotton for that matter, to border on the hated heresy of
Arminianism, that man by his own free will could choose for Christ. Shortly after
arriving in Massachusetts Bay, Anne Hutchinson began leading a weekly bible class
for women. She would start with discussing the previous Sunday sermons by Cotton
but then move into talk of her peculiar doctrines. Among other things she taught that
one’s outward life of sanctification was no guarantee of one’s salvation or election,
and that people could be deceived. The Puritans taught that sanctification could be a
very strong evidence of sincere conversion but she was not convinced. She also
taught that conversion involved a direct influence of the Holy Spirit which made the
word of God secondary at best. In other words she denied the final authority of
God’s written word in favor of what we now call extra-biblical revelation. She also
taught that the Holy Spirit sealing mentioned in Ephesians 1:4 was the true evidence
of one’s election. This was not contrary to Puritan doctrine for men like William
Perkins, Richard Sibbes, and Thomas Goodwin taught the same thing, but she went
further than they did, saying that the sealing of the Spirit rendered the word of God
redundant and unnecessary. Hutchinson also taught that those with the sealing of the
Holy Spirit had the supernatural ability to discern true believers. Only those were in
the covenant of grace and all others, who sought evidence of conversion through
keeping God’s law, were laboring under the covenant of works. She said that only
two preachers in the Bay were covenant of grace men, John Cotton and her brother-
in-law John Wheelwright. When she sought to have John Wheelwright appointed a
teacher at the Boston church, even though they already had two preachers, John
Cotton and John Wilson, a greatly alarmed John Winthrop knew he had to prevent
his election as a pastor. This was Winthrop’s right as a church member and his
persuasiveness and integrity convinced the congregation to vote against
Wheelwright, but this cost Winthrop dearly. Almost all the people of Boston were
against him.
Finally the teaching and factious spirit of Anne Hutchinson became so great
that the General Court in Boston brought charges against her, citing over 100 errors
in her teaching which threatened the security of the Bay. When brought to trial John
Winthrop did his best to bring out her errors but Hutchinson was far too nimble for
him. She turned his arguments on their head and made him look silly. Those
ministers who testified against her were asked by her to swear that they had heard
her correctly. They were unwilling to swear. This was a very humiliating time for
Winthrop; and Hutchinson certainly would have been acquitted had she not, at the
end of the trial, admitted what Winthrop and the others had sought to prove, that she
received divine revelation from the Holy Spirit, beyond the Scriptures. She said that
she had by way of immediate revelation from the Holy Ghost assurance that she
would be set free, and that God would bring a curse on these men and their posterity
for their mistreatment of her, that the mouth of the Lord had spoken. Later she was
brought before the church on charges of heresy and eventually excommunicated,
banished to Rhode Island along with her husband and John Wheelwright.
Winthrop’s New England Vision
Perhaps the most famous sermon ever preached in connection with America,
one often quoted by Presidents and other political leaders of every political
ideology, but whose author is seldom cited is Winthrop’s Christian Charity sermon
which he preached on board the Arabella just prior to his departure for the New
World.
We find here his vision for New England. Among other things he sets forth
clearly that they were not separating from the Church of England, that she was still
their mother. This was very different from the Pilgrims who proclaimed their
separatism; and as we have already seen, Winthrop later backed up his vision by
banishing Williams and Hutchinson for advocating separatism. Yet his treatment of
those convicted of wrongdoing was always measured certainly by the standards of
that time. He was keenly aware of his own sinful inclinations, as well as those of
others, and this awareness helped him deal charitably and graciously with
transgressors of the law and those who opposed him He believed that life in the New
World would be difficult and therefore demanded extraordinary cooperation and
mutual charity . Just as the human body is held together by ligaments, so the church
which the body of Christ is held together by ligaments of love.. They were to share
in each others joy, sorrow, weal, and woe. They were to strengthen, defend,
preserve, and comfort one another. They must not be content with ordinary effort for
they had entered into a covenant with the Lord for His work. If they failed to honor
the Lord He would break out against them with hardship but if they obeyed Him He
would pour blessings upon them, making them a praise and a glory, a City upon a
Hill. The eyes of all the people were upon them, that they were to do as Micah had
said, “to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with God.”
This was classic Puritanism and would not have sounded strange or new to his
fellow travelers, yet it was the New England vision which Winthrop promoted and
upon which this nation was founded. Winthrop’s Christian charity, whether always
consciously applied or not, was the foundation for how he governed. When faced
with a ruling he sought to go to God’s word for direction, realizing at times that
some would disagree with him, seeking whenever possible to be patient and always
charitable with others, often waiting for more insight on how to decide an issue or
case.
Without question, his New England vision has been the foundation of
American democracy, whatever one’s political or religious persuasion in this
country. Winthrop was a man without guile. He readily admitted his own sin and
shortcomings. He bore patiently with others, often going further than most deemed
necessary to redeem a wayward soul, seeking privately to persuade them of their
error. Only then, and reluctantly at that, would he render judgments against them.
He gave of his own wealth, shared his food with others, and offered his life to the
people of New England.
He was of course a man of his time and therefore limited in his vision. He held
views on democracy that are unacceptable to us today. He had no problem with
government intervention in the church and vice versa. He saw nothing wrong with
slavery. He very well himself may have owned a few. The thought never occurred to
him to allow women the right to vote. He at the very least acquiesced to the
slaughter of the Pequot Indians in 1637 . Neverheless Winthrop tried to bring unity
to the Massachusetts Bay in all the essentials, while allowing a great deal of
diversity in the non-essentials. He was anything but a separatist. He knew that
perfection could not be gained in this world, that all were sinners and none had
perfect understanding, that even sincere Christians disagreed on certain issues. He
walked the fine line, as many great men and women have done throughout history,
of desiring a better, more perfect and just world and laboring for it, while at the
same time realizing the limitations our sinfulness brings to the task.
Lessons Learned from Winthrop
At least four character traits stand out in the life of John Winthrop which
deserve to be emulated First is his humility. Though he had been appointed
Governor of the Bay while still in England, and though he had no reason to give the
right of vote to the majority of men who came with him, he risked anarchy by giving
it to them. When, after four years, he was voted out as Governor, being replaced by
Thomas Dudley, a younger man, much less qualified than he, never expressed his
disappointment or humiliation at losing his high position. He was voted in and out as
Governor several other times, and never complained or acted rudely. He seemed
always to see the hand of providence in all these affairs, keeping in mind his own
sinful propensities, constantly renewing his covenant with God through the blood of
Jesus. When he wrote his case against Anne Hutchinson he allowed Thomas
Shepard to review his argument and Shepard was aghast at Winthrop’s poor
exposition of theology. A great statesman you are; he said, but a very poor
theologian. Winthrop took no offense at Shepard’s rather tactless response and chose
not to publish his arguments against Hutchinson.
Second is his grace. His patience with opponents like Thomas Dudley, Anne
Hutchinson, Roger Williams, and the people of the Bay who periodically challenged
him about his rulings ought to be emulate by our politicians today. The foundation
of such grace was his keen awareness that God had been gracious to him through
Christ. He was always conscious of his sin, how capable he was of great evil, how a
sovereign God of mercy had revealed Himself to a worm like him. He understood
God’s providence in directing all the affairs of his life, that nothing was an accident,
that he had been placed in this high position by One of undeniable wisdom. He
understood well that to whom much is given, much is required. He knew that
because he was a sinner it was possible for him to misinterpret, to misread an issue,
that he may be incorrect in his judgments, and wrongly reading God’s word and law;
thus he was always slow to act, preferring when at all possible to be lenient with
those who erred
Third is his wisdom. If wisdom is knowledge applied to specific circumstances
then Winthrop was one of the wisest men of the last five hundred years. He had an
uncanny ability to look down the road at the decisions he or others made, at where
certain beliefs would take him or others, and he was then able to act or rule in ways
most beneficial to the Bay as a whole. .
And fourth is his magnanimity. One of the problems with separatism is that it
leads to a lack of charity and love. When the settlement in Virginia, which tended to
side with the King against the Puritans in the Civil War in England, and which
generally lacked the godliness present in Massachusetts Bay faced Indian invasion
and asked for powder and shot from the Bay, the General Court refused. Winthrop
reminded them, unfortunately to no avail, that Virginia’s lack of godliness and their
lack of shot and powder, were no reason to refuse help to others in need. Cotton
Mather later noted in his Magnalia Christiana that Winthrop was a veritable Joseph
who provided out of his own storehouse of grain for those in need, in times of near
famine.
Conclusion
The remarkable architect of the American experiment, the one who brought us
the vision of a City upon a Hill, persevered with faith through unimaginable
disappointment and heartache. The modern view of the Puritans as narrow-minded,
unloving, religious bigots and zealots is completely unfounded They were not
perfect to be sure. There was no monolithic Puritan ethic or view, but they still
sought to live out biblical virtues in a fallen world. John Winthrop is the forgotten
founding father who gave us this New England vision and we ought to be inspired
by him and the vision he brought.
The Puritan Dilemma: The Story of John Winthrop, by Edmund S. Morgan,
published by Little, Brown and Company, Boston, Toronto, 1958.
Lecture 6
Some Outstanding Puritan Leaders in New England
Throughout the colonial period New England was blessed with exceptionally
gifted leaders both civic and ecclesiastical. We begin with the former, the greatest
civic leader of early New England, Governor John Winthrop.
Background
John Winthrop was born in 1588 and grew up in a God-fearing family. His
mother was a fervent Puritan who gave Biblical instruction to her children during
the long absences of her husband on his business trips to London. John, the second
born, had three surviving sisters and the household included at least eight servants
who helped with life at Groton Manor. After completing grammar school he
enrolled at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he often heard the great Puritan
William Perkins preach. Although he was brought up in a Christian home and knew
the Gospel way of salvation he wasted his adolescent years pursuing sinful pleasures
His own testimony later was that he had been “lewdly disposed to all kinds of
wickedness, except swearing and scouring religion.” At the age of twelve he began
to hunger for true Religion and read some of the Puritan books of the day.
His marriage in 1605 to Mary Forth cut short his academic pursuits. After
giving him six children, four of whom survived, she herself died in childbirth John
remarried quickly but his second wife also lost her life in childbirth along with the
baby. Happily his marriage to Margaret Tyndal, in 1618 lasted until her death two
years before his own.
Like many Puritans Winthrop wrestled with lack of assurance of salvation.
Although he came to saving faith in Christ he seems to have been susceptible to
various temptations throughout his life. As he wrote in his diary one time: “O Lord,
crucify the world unto me, that though I cannot avoid to live among the baits and
snares of it, yet it may be so truly dead unto me and I unto it.”.
Winthrop first considered becoming a minister but eventually settled on a
career in law. He became justice of the peace at Groton and then lord of Groton
manor. Having acquired a reputation of being a capable lawyer he was appointed to
the Court of Wards where he often had to decide difficult cases having to do with
disputes between the Crown and commoners about land ownership John became
known as a wise and fair arbitrator so that his respect among the people grew
steadily.
Migration
In August of 1629 after much prayer, reflection and discussion with his wife
and Puritan friends, John decided to emigrate to New England What caused a man
of his stature and age (he was forty-two years old) to leave the comforts of England
for a dangerous and uncertain life in the new world? There are several reason for his
decision. The first one was that being a Puritan he was disappointed at the lack of
progress that had been made so far to reform the Church of England. The advent of
Charles I to the throne had made things worse for the Puritans than they had been
under his son James I. Life under this king and especially his archbishop William
Laud was becoming unbearable. Laud demanded that all members of the clergy
adhere strictly to the prescribed liturgy and ceremonies in the Church of England
which meant reading public prayers according to the Prayer Book, and wearing the
surplice. Any who refused were barred from their pulpits and sometimes imprisoned.
Another motive for leaving England was that Winthrop was struggling
financially. He had serious debt problems and economic prospects in England were
not good while they seemed much better in New England. But another reason for
leaving was that Winthrop was a very gifted leader who would certainly have risen
to a place of prominence in England but since he was a Puritan this was highly
unlikely. John Winthrop, always seeking to read God’s providence, put all these
factors together to believe that God was leading him to New England.
When some Puritan friends invited him to become a partner in the
Massachusetts Bay Company which had been chartered by the King, John agreed to
do so Because the charter did not specify where the company should be
administered, the members conveniently interpret this to mean they could do so
from New England. Not surprisingly Winthrop was elected as the Massachusetts
Bay first Governor.
Shortly thereafter, John Winthrop, leaving his wife and all but his two oldest
sons behind, departed in April 1630 on the Arbella for the new world, arriving on
June 12, 1630. His wife and the rest of his children would follow a year later.
Perseverance
After arriving in Boston, John wrote to Margaret, his wife, telling her that their
son Henry had drowned in a river while trying to retrieve a canoe. Meanwhile, back
in England John’s son Forth, who was about to be ordained to the ministry suddenly
became ill and died. While John was still on the Arbella, Margaret gave birth to a
baby girl whom they named Anne, but when later she and the baby were on their
way to New England, little Anne became ill, died and was buried at sea. Several
more of John’s children died before he did. Of John’s six daughters four died as
infants, one as a toddler, and the only surviving daughter died in 1643. John wrote to
Margaret while she was still in England, telling her that at least 200 of those who
had come with him to Massachusetts Bay had died between April and December,
1630 . Yet in spite of all these adversities John was able to tell Margaret and others
that New England was a bountiful place, that God had led them there, and that to get
to heaven we must sometimes go through hell.
Winthrop the Governor
The terms of office of governor of Massachusetts being only one year, he was
elected governor for the first four years, after which he was defeated by Thomas
Dudley his rival. John barely kept a seat as a magistrate. Though painful for him,
John nonetheless brought all the magistrates home for lunch that day, as a sign of
Christian charity. He lost the governorship on several other occasions too. It seems
that some thought John too lenient, not hard enough on those failing to obey the
laws of the Colony, while others respected John’s leadership but were reluctant to
have him serve indefinitely, lest he become a tyrant and control the people. This was
a great disappointment to John, but he humbly took the abuse and rejection.
Winthrop did his best to govern with the Bible as his guide, but he also
realized that Scripture did not always give specific guidance for specific cases.
Therefore he often judged cases based on precedents of British law. He also believed
that since this was a new colony some would violate the law unknowingly. Thus he
sought to use prudence and wisdom in how best to judge individual cases. He would
discretely decide when to prosecute and when to be lenient. This was highly
offensive to some of the Puritan leaders who insisted on judging cases strictly
according to Scripture, especially by O.T. laws and regulations Consequently John’s
style of leadership frustrated many.
In the midst of his many trials, two things remained constant for Winthrop- his
loving wife Margaret and his faith in God. His perseverance in the midst of
incredible deprivation, accusation, and heartache evokes awe. A deep and abiding
faith in his great and faithful God characterized him throughout his life.
Controversy
Winthrop’s name is and reputation has suffered considerably from the way he
handled two very difficult cases. I am referring to the problems surrounding Roger
Williams and Anne Hutchinson. Roger Williams was a godly, pious, and able young
man who had studied at Cambridge and was tutored by the great Puritan theologian
John Owen. Williams came to New England in 1631, one year after Winthrop
arrived there. Pastor John Wilson of the Boston church had returned to England to
fetch his wife, and it was not long before the congregation voted to call Roger
Williams to be their pastor. Williams surprised them by declining their offer, saying
that theirs was not a pure church, because they had not completely separated from
the Church of England and that he consequently could have no fellowship with those
given to impurity. He claimed the Church of England admitted whores and
drunkards into the church and the Boston church’s unwillingness to denounce the
Church of England made them party to such licentiousness.
Williams then went to the Salem church and they also extended him a call to
be their pastor. Winthrop, knowing that Williams held the extreme views just
mentioned, urged the congregation to withdraw the call which they did. Williams
then made his way to the Plymouth Colony hoping that the Pilgrims would invite
him to be their pastor. But they soon found out that he held views which even they,
Separatist as they were, thought extreme. Williams charged the church with worldly
compromise in that the members, when returning to England, worshipped in Church
of England churches. But what provoked the greatest opposition to Roger Williams
was his claim that the Massachusetts Bay had received its charter to gain land by a
lie from King Charles I, and that it must abandon the project and return to England
or demand the King repent of his lie.
By this time Williams was back in Boston and the upheaval he was causing
had to be addressed. Winthrop was not Governor at the time but he was a magistrate
and heard the case with the other magistrates. Williams was put on trial, found
guilty, and banished from the Massachusetts Bay. He traveled to Narragansett Bay,
modern day Rhode Island, and continued his separatist practices. At one point
Williams had become so separatistic that he doubted the spirituality of all in his
church but his wife and refused to take communion with any but her.
Then there is the case of Anne Hutchinson who came to Massachusetts Bay
with her husband, William, in September, 1634. She was not a separatist and she had
a nimble mind, quick wit, was well versed Biblically, and could sustain theological
argumentation with the best of men. She followed her favorite preacher, John
Cotton, to the new world. Cotton had been silenced by William Laud, and was a
highly respected Puritan preacher known for his clear and unambiguous expositions
of the doctrines of grace. While he stood firmly against antinomianism, he was
equally opposed to its opposite danger, namely legalism While Calvinism teaches
the doctrine of election and effectual calling, that people only respond to the gospel
if the Holy Spirit draws them, many Puritans had fallen into preparationism, that one
ought to seek God, often for a long period of time, grieving over his sin and
repenting, in hopes that God would have mercy on him. This seemed to Anne
Hutchinson, and John Cotton for that matter, to border on the hated heresy of
Arminianism, that man by his own free will could choose for Christ. Shortly after
arriving in Massachusetts Bay, Anne Hutchinson began leading a weekly bible class
for women. She would start with discussing the previous Sunday sermons by Cotton
but then move into talk of her peculiar doctrines. Among other things she taught that
one’s outward life of sanctification was no guarantee of one’s salvation or election,
and that people could be deceived. The Puritans taught that sanctification could be a
very strong evidence of sincere conversion but she was not convinced. She also
taught that conversion involved a direct influence of the Holy Spirit which made the
word of God secondary at best. In other words she denied the final authority of
God’s written word in favor of what we now call extra-biblical revelation. She also
taught that the Holy Spirit sealing mentioned in Ephesians 1:4 was the true evidence
of one’s election. This was not contrary to Puritan doctrine for men like William
Perkins, Richard Sibbes, and Thomas Goodwin taught the same thing, but she went
further than they did, saying that the sealing of the Spirit rendered the word of God
redundant and unnecessary. Hutchinson also taught that those with the sealing of the
Holy Spirit had the supernatural ability to discern true believers. Only those were in
the covenant of grace and all others, who sought evidence of conversion through
keeping God’s law, were laboring under the covenant of works. She said that only
two preachers in the Bay were covenant of grace men, John Cotton and her brother-
in-law John Wheelwright. When she sought to have John Wheelwright appointed a
teacher at the Boston church, even though they already had two preachers, John
Cotton and John Wilson, a greatly alarmed John Winthrop knew he had to prevent
his election as a pastor. This was Winthrop’s right as a church member and his
persuasiveness and integrity convinced the congregation to vote against
Wheelwright, but this cost Winthrop dearly. Almost all the people of Boston were
against him.
Finally the teaching and factious spirit of Anne Hutchinson became so great
that the General Court in Boston brought charges against her, citing over 100 errors
in her teaching which threatened the security of the Bay. When brought to trial John
Winthrop did his best to bring out her errors but Hutchinson was far too nimble for
him. She turned his arguments on their head and made him look silly. Those
ministers who testified against her were asked by her to swear that they had heard
her correctly. They were unwilling to swear. This was a very humiliating time for
Winthrop; and Hutchinson certainly would have been acquitted had she not, at the
end of the trial, admitted what Winthrop and the others had sought to prove, that she
received divine revelation from the Holy Spirit, beyond the Scriptures. She said that
she had by way of immediate revelation from the Holy Ghost assurance that she
would be set free, and that God would bring a curse on these men and their posterity
for their mistreatment of her, that the mouth of the Lord had spoken. Later she was
brought before the church on charges of heresy and eventually excommunicated,
banished to Rhode Island along with her husband and John Wheelwright.
Winthrop’s New England Vision
Perhaps the most famous sermon ever preached in connection with America,
one often quoted by Presidents and other political leaders of every political
ideology, but whose author is seldom cited is Winthrop’s Christian Charity sermon
which he preached on board the Arabella just prior to his departure for the New
World.
We find here his vision for New England. Among other things he sets forth
clearly that they were not separating from the Church of England, that she was still
their mother. This was very different from the Pilgrims who proclaimed their
separatism; and as we have already seen, Winthrop later backed up his vision by
banishing Williams and Hutchinson for advocating separatism. Yet his treatment of
those convicted of wrongdoing was always measured certainly by the standards of
that time. He was keenly aware of his own sinful inclinations, as well as those of
others, and this awareness helped him deal charitably and graciously with
transgressors of the law and those who opposed him He believed that life in the New
World would be difficult and therefore demanded extraordinary cooperation and
mutual charity . Just as the human body is held together by ligaments, so the church
which the body of Christ is held together by ligaments of love.. They were to share
in each others joy, sorrow, weal, and woe. They were to strengthen, defend,
preserve, and comfort one another. They must not be content with ordinary effort for
they had entered into a covenant with the Lord for His work. If they failed to honor
the Lord He would break out against them with hardship but if they obeyed Him He
would pour blessings upon them, making them a praise and a glory, a City upon a
Hill. The eyes of all the people were upon them, that they were to do as Micah had
said, “to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with God.”
This was classic Puritanism and would not have sounded strange or new to his
fellow travelers, yet it was the New England vision which Winthrop promoted and
upon which this nation was founded. Winthrop’s Christian charity, whether always
consciously applied or not, was the foundation for how he governed. When faced
with a ruling he sought to go to God’s word for direction, realizing at times that
some would disagree with him, seeking whenever possible to be patient and always
charitable with others, often waiting for more insight on how to decide an issue or
case.
Without question, his New England vision has been the foundation of
American democracy, whatever one’s political or religious persuasion in this
country. Winthrop was a man without guile. He readily admitted his own sin and
shortcomings. He bore patiently with others, often going further than most deemed
necessary to redeem a wayward soul, seeking privately to persuade them of their
error. Only then, and reluctantly at that, would he render judgments against them.
He gave of his own wealth, shared his food with others, and offered his life to the
people of New England.
He was of course a man of his time and therefore limited in his vision. He held
views on democracy that are unacceptable to us today. He had no problem with
government intervention in the church and vice versa. He saw nothing wrong with
slavery. He very well himself may have owned a few. The thought never occurred to
him to allow women the right to vote. He at the very least acquiesced to the
slaughter of the Pequot Indians in 1637 . Neverheless Winthrop tried to bring unity
to the Massachusetts Bay in all the essentials, while allowing a great deal of
diversity in the non-essentials. He was anything but a separatist. He knew that
perfection could not be gained in this world, that all were sinners and none had
perfect understanding, that even sincere Christians disagreed on certain issues. He
walked the fine line, as many great men and women have done throughout history,
of desiring a better, more perfect and just world and laboring for it, while at the
same time realizing the limitations our sinfulness brings to the task.
Lessons Learned from Winthrop
At least four character traits stand out in the life of John Winthrop which
deserve to be emulated First is his humility. Though he had been appointed
Governor of the Bay while still in England, and though he had no reason to give the
right of vote to the majority of men who came with him, he risked anarchy by giving
it to them. When, after four years, he was voted out as Governor, being replaced by
Thomas Dudley, a younger man, much less qualified than he, never expressed his
disappointment or humiliation at losing his high position. He was voted in and out as
Governor several other times, and never complained or acted rudely. He seemed
always to see the hand of providence in all these affairs, keeping in mind his own
sinful propensities, constantly renewing his covenant with God through the blood of
Jesus. When he wrote his case against Anne Hutchinson he allowed Thomas
Shepard to review his argument and Shepard was aghast at Winthrop’s poor
exposition of theology. A great statesman you are; he said, but a very poor
theologian. Winthrop took no offense at Shepard’s rather tactless response and chose
not to publish his arguments against Hutchinson.
Second is his grace. His patience with opponents like Thomas Dudley, Anne
Hutchinson, Roger Williams, and the people of the Bay who periodically challenged
him about his rulings ought to be emulate by our politicians today. The foundation
of such grace was his keen awareness that God had been gracious to him through
Christ. He was always conscious of his sin, how capable he was of great evil, how a
sovereign God of mercy had revealed Himself to a worm like him. He understood
God’s providence in directing all the affairs of his life, that nothing was an accident,
that he had been placed in this high position by One of undeniable wisdom. He
understood well that to whom much is given, much is required. He knew that
because he was a sinner it was possible for him to misinterpret, to misread an issue,
that he may be incorrect in his judgments, and wrongly reading God’s word and law;
thus he was always slow to act, preferring when at all possible to be lenient with
those who erred
Third is his wisdom. If wisdom is knowledge applied to specific circumstances
then Winthrop was one of the wisest men of the last five hundred years. He had an
uncanny ability to look down the road at the decisions he or others made, at where
certain beliefs would take him or others, and he was then able to act or rule in ways
most beneficial to the Bay as a whole. .
And fourth is his magnanimity. One of the problems with separatism is that it
leads to a lack of charity and love. When the settlement in Virginia, which tended to
side with the King against the Puritans in the Civil War in England, and which
generally lacked the godliness present in Massachusetts Bay faced Indian invasion
and asked for powder and shot from the Bay, the General Court refused. Winthrop
reminded them, unfortunately to no avail, that Virginia’s lack of godliness and their
lack of shot and powder, were no reason to refuse help to others in need. Cotton
Mather later noted in his Magnalia Christiana that Winthrop was a veritable Joseph
who provided out of his own storehouse of grain for those in need, in times of near
famine.
Conclusion
The remarkable architect of the American experiment, the one who brought us
the vision of a City upon a Hill, persevered with faith through unimaginable
disappointment and heartache. The modern view of the Puritans as narrow-minded,
unloving, religious bigots and zealots is completely unfounded They were not
perfect to be sure. There was no monolithic Puritan ethic or view, but they still
sought to live out biblical virtues in a fallen world. John Winthrop is the forgotten
founding father who gave us this New England vision and we ought to be inspired
by him and the vision he brought.
The Puritan Dilemma: The Story of John Winthrop, by Edmund S. Morgan,
published by Little, Brown and Company, Boston, Toronto, 1958.
NEW ENGLAND THEOLOGY Lecture 5 The Covenant View of New England Congregationalist
NEW ENGLAND THEOLOGY
Lecture 5
The Covenant View of New England Congregationalist
It is to be expected that the Puritans who settled in New England brought
with them a theological system they had learned and practiced while still in Old
England. This was also true of the way they viewed the covenant. They were
steeped in federal or covenant theology. In a nutshell, federal theology taught
that God had entered a covenant of works with Adam, whereby if Adam would
obey God’s commandments he would receive eternal life. But Adam violated the
covenant, thus cutting off the possibility of earning eternal life by his works.
Whereupon God made a second covenant, the covenant of grace, initially with
Adam by announcing the coming of the Promised Seed and later formally with
Abraham and his seed. This covenant had its roots in the pre-temporal
intertrinitarian covenant of redemption in which arrangements were made to
save the elect by Christ who would pay the penalty for sin and fulfill the terms of
the broken covenant of works Eternal life or salvation would now be by grace
and through faith in the finished work of Christ the second Adam.
All this was standard Puritan covenant theology. But New England
theologians such as John Cotton, Thomas Hooker, Thomas Shepard and Peter
Bulkeley adapted these common characteristics of federal theology to the
situation in which they found themselves in their new surroundings. As Dr. Peter
Y. De Jong wrote in his book, The Covenant Idea in New England
Theology, “The ambition of these early pioneers was to establish in the
wilderness a holy commonwealth in which [their] theocratic ideals would be
realized as never before in the history of Christ’s church” (Grand Rapids:
Eerdmans, 1945) p.78.
Being practical men “they viewed the covenant not merely from the aspect
of personal religious life but made it as well the foundation of their civil and
ecclesiastical government. Thus in a general way the term ‘covenant’ was
used in three senses, which, though divergent from each other, were closely
interwoven in the minds of the colonists” (Ibid.).
Here we see that the Puritans went beyond the Continental Reformed
Calvinists, for although the latter also recognized the implications of personal
faith in Christ for fellowship with other believers and for the ordering of society
and the State, the Puritans did much more with this concept. John Owen who
was persuaded by John Cotton to change from Presbyterianism to a
Congregational view of the Church “saw a very direct relationship between the
covenant of God with his people, and the analogous church covenants by which
Christians mutually bind themselves to him and one another”(Sinclair B.
Ferguson, John Owen on the Christian Life. (Edinburgh: The Banner of Truth
Trust, 1987), p.154. “Since union with Christ is the heart of the covenant, and
fellowship is based on union,” Owen concluded, “the divine and human
covenants belong together, so that the one is the foundation of the other” (Ibid.).
As for the third implication of the covenant of grace, namely for society
and the civil government, the Puritans in England tried but in the end failed to
reform the State along Biblical lines but their New England brethren were to
achieved this goal to a remarkable extent.
Although many of their political theories can be traced to Calvin’s ideas
implemented in Geneva, the theocratic development in New England bore a
clearly discernable native imprint. Ironically, while they rejected both the
Anglican and Presbyterian conception of an established church, they ended up
with a church that was a state church in all but name. While the intent was to
keep matters of church and state separate it did not work out that way in practice.
The Cambridge Platform did indeed spell out that it was as unlawful for church
officers to meddle with the sword of the Magistrate as it was for the Magistrate
to meddle with the duties of church officers, but as it turned out each influenced
the other to such an extent that the Congregational Church to all intents and
purposes became a State church not only protected by but also supervised by
magistrates who in turn were appointed by the Church. In Williston Walker’s
words: “The Church Covenant gave form to the Covenant of Grace and the Civil
Covenant gave power to the Church Covenant” (Quoted by De Jong, Ibid., 80).
The Church Covenant Concept
In this lecture we will focus on the Church Covenant as practiced in the
New England Congregational churches.
The Church Covenant concept is one of the most important characteristics
of New England Puritanism. In fact it is the mark of a true church. According to
classic Reformed ecclesiology there are three marks whereby we may
distinguish a true from a false church: the pure preaching of the Word of God,
the pure administration of the sacraments and the exercise of church discipline
(Confession of Faith, Art. 29). The New England Puritans added a fourth mark.
They believed that the covenant of grace manifested itself also through the
ecclesiastical construct of the church covenant. This represents a new
development in Reformed covenantal theology and it was this new insight into
covenant theology that Robinson was referring to in his farewell address to the
departing Pilgrims. Lamenting the alleged unwillingness of Lutherans and
Calvinists to go beyond the very words of their early leaders, he said, “The
Lutherans cannot be drawn to go beyond what Luther saw for whatsoever part of
God’s will He has further imparted and revealed to Calvin, they will rather die
than embrace it. As for the Calvinists, “they stick where he left them…though
they were precious shining lights in their times, yet God hath not revealed his
whole will to them and were they now living, they would be as ready and willing
to embrace further light, as that they had received.”
That Robinson was indeed referring to the church covenant is clear from
what Governor Winslow records:
Here he [Robinson] put us in mind of our Church covenant, at least that
part of it w
(David Fountain, The Mayflower, Pilgrims and their Pastor, p. 41).
The Role of Scripture and the Creeds
De Jong comments: “This emphasis on the Bible, almost to the exclusion
of written creeds, came to be a prominent characteristic of the New England
Churches” (Ibid.,p.82). This rather severe criticism is supported by David Weir
when he writes, “the non-separating Puritans of New England were technically
bound by the Thirty-nine articles until 1648, when the Cambridge Synod of 1648
adopted the ‘congregational version of the Westminster Confession of Faith.”
The Westminster Standards, however, articulated the federal version of covenant
theology and a Presbyterian doctrine of the church which the framers
recommended to Parliament as a replacement of the Church of England. The
New England Puritans being Congregationalists were concerned that should
Parliament adopt the Westminster Standards, the colonies would be forced to
become Presbyterians rather than Congregationalists. To prevent this from
happening the General Court of the Massachusetts Bay Colony convened a
Synod which produced the Cambridge Platform. It adopted all the doctrinal
statements of the Westminster Standards with the exception of the sections
dealing with the church and its government as well as the relationship between
Church and State.
But although the Cambridge Platform was officially adopted by the New
England churches, this does not mean it played as important a role in the life of
the church as one might expect. As Weir explains: “
Confessions of faith in the Congregational tradition were meant to bind
only the lo
Uniformity and Diversity in Church Covenants
Fortunately for New England the British Parliament never adopted the
recommendations of the Westminster Assembly and following the death of
Cromwell and the collapse of Puritanism as a political force in England, the
colonies were given a free hand in organizing their churches along
congregational lines without any outside interference.
According to David Weir the records of the many Church Covenants
drawn up in the Congregational churches in Early New England show both
uniformity and diversity. This is to be expected given the lack of denominational
authority structures in these independent minded churches. Weir disagrees with
Perry Miller thesis that the New England Congregational churches were all of
one mind, theologically speaking. The title of Miller’s book, The New England
Mind implies that he was looking at the New England community as a
whole “while in reality his work focuses in on the most powerful and largest of
the New England colonies, the Massachusetts Bay Company” (Early New
England, p.148).
But as Weir points out there were nuanced differences between
Massachusetts and the other colonies on a whole range of views and issues
including the use of the law in conversion and in the life of faith, preparationism,
the sacraments, the role of the state and other themes.
However, when it comes to church covenants, Weir says, the evidence
culled from documents points to a substantial uniformity and standardization His
conclusion is that “each congregation independently wrote up its own covenant,
a practice that led to dozens of slightly different covenant commitments.
Nevertheless, the congregational documents on the whole reflect a unity of
thought that was only beginning to fray in the last two decades of the century”
(Ibid.,p.150).
Some Samples of Covenanting Documents
Weir then proceeds to give a few samples of what church covenanting
looked like in 17th century New England. The first example is taken from a
group of believers in Charlestown, Massachusetts gathered on Friday, November
2, 1632 to organize as a congregational church. The covenant that these founding
members signed is written on the first page of the church record book along with
their names. The document states:
In the Name of our Lord and in obedience to his holy will and divine
ordinances. We whose names are here written being by his most wise and good prov
In comparison to many other church covenants entered into during that
period this one is quite brief. It was signed by thirty-five people, both male and
female, made up of family units, first the husband and then the wife, with three
single males.
Weir points out that compared to many later church covenants the number
of signatories here is quite large. The next example we will look at is a covenant
signed at First Church, Dorchester Massachusetts, on Tuesday, August 23, 1636.
Here there were only seven male signatories, led by Rev. Richard Mather, the
author of An Apology of the Churches in New England for Church-Covenant.
Here follows the full text of the Dorchester covenant:
We whose names are subscribed being called of God to join ourselves
together in Church Communion, from our hearts acknowledging our own
1. the presence of God himself, his holy Angels and all his servants here
2. Promising first and above all to cleave unto him as our chief and only
3. And for the furthering of us to keep this blessed Communion with God
4. And lastly we do hereby covenant and promise to further to our utmost
Of the integrity of our hearts herein we call God the searcher of all hearts
What strikes one, especially about this second example of church
covenanting is the repeated references to the signatories’ felt need for the grace
and mercy of God and the enabling power of Christ as well as the deep
awareness of their unworthiness. Their posture also is one of humility, sincerity
and reverence.
According to David Weir who has examined all the available records, this
second document we have looked at is a classic example of the covenant
formulary that marked the majority of the church covenants in early colonial
New England. (Ibid.).
Critique of P.Y. DeJong
In his book The Covenant Idea in New England Theology, Peter De Jong
argues that the voluntary Church-Covenant doctrine with its emphasis on
subjective or experiential litmus tests for membership, has its roots in the
Anabaptist “pure church” ideal (p.86). While there is some truth to this assertion
as there is evidence that the early separatist Puritans were influenced by Dutch
Mennonites and other Anabaptists, I believe that De Jong overstates his case
when he suggests that the New England Puritans tended to admit as members
only those who had reached a very high standard of spirituality, in other words,
nigh perfection. The two documents we have examined just now do not bear this
out. These applicants for church membership were far from perfect in their own
estimation. They were keenly aware of their sin and unworthiness and they could
only throw themselves upon the mercy of God for Christ’s sake. What is true is
that the membership requirements were high, much higher than in Presbyterian
and Reformed churches in England and on the European continent.
Congregationalists insisted that candidates for membership in their churches
needed to show evidence that a work of grace had taken place in their life. In
other words, they had to be able to give a testimony of their conversion
experience. According to De Jong this led to an overemphasis on the subjective
at the expense of the objective basis of spiritual life. By insisting on a conscious
spiritual experience as requisite to church membership the New England
Puritans “lost sight of the distinctive relation in which children of covenanting
unworthin
present th
good, and
and with h
power, the
to witness
parents stood to the visible church” (Ibid).
I will not go further into this subject in this lecture but I hope to deal with
it when we take up the issue of the Half-Way Covenant. For now let me say a
few word about the debate between the Puritans in New England and their
brethren in Old England on the question whether there was any Scriptural
warrant for and necessity of church covenants.
The idea of a church covenant became very controversial in Puritan
circles. Some vigorously attacked the New England proponents of it challenging
them to prove its Scripturalness. To answer these critics John Cotton wrote his
Questions and Answers upon Church Government. One of the objections was
that the New England churches sealed these covenants with unnecessary oaths.
Another concern was that the American brethren gave the impression that church
covenanting was the only right way to organize true churches of Christ. In 1637
a letter was sent requesting all the New England ministers to explain their stand
on the issue. This time Richard Mather wrote An Apologie of the Churches in
New England for Church-Covenant with which he was able to persuade a
number of English ministers, including John Owen, to adopt the practice. But
these were the exceptions. The practice of church covenants never made heavy
inroads in England at least not in the form in which it was practiced in the
American congregational churches. What did happen in England, however, was
that many churches that were influenced by separatist views on the church
eventually did away with infant baptism and became Baptists.
NEW ENGLAND THEOLOGY Lecture 4 The Ecclesiology of the Pilgrims and Puritans
NEW ENGLAND THEOLOGY
Lecture 4
The Ecclesiology of the Pilgrims and Puritans
As we have seen the first settlers in New England were the Pilgrims. They
were Separatist Puritans who had been “harried” out of England by the
repressive ecclesiastical policies of James I. Via an eleven year long stop-over in
The Netherlands they sailed to America where they founded the Plymouth
Plantation and established a church with a congregational form of government.
The Pilgrims believed that the NT model for churches is to organize as
independent assemblies consisting of true believers and their children They are
known as Congregationalists to distinguish them from the Church of England
and the Presbyterian Church both of which have a hierarchical or “from the top-
down” type of government.
The Plymouth settlement grew from 102 persons in 1620 to ten “plantations” of
2500 people by 1643.
Much more numerous and influential were the Puritans of the
Massachusetts Bay Colony (1629).Most of them had left England for similar
reasons as the Pilgrims, namely the ruthless policies of Charles’ I and his
henchman Arch bishop Laud.
Yet, as one of their leaders, Francis Higginson is reported to have said as
he boarded the ship that was to take him and his party to America:
We will not say as the Separatists are wont to say at their leaving
England, “Farewell Babylon, Farewell Rome”; but we will say, “Farewell dear Engl
Differences between Pilgrims and Puritans
According to Hudson the difference between these non separatist Puritans
and the separatist Pilgrims was not great but this statement has to be qualified.
While still living in England they strongly disagreed in their attitudes to the
Anglican Church, the non-Separatists condemning the Separatists for what saw
as the sin of schism while the latter regarded the former for staying in what they
believed was a thoroughly corrupt Church But after they got settled in New
England they not only learned to live with their differences but eventually they
came to a virtual agreement There were two reasons for this. First because the
Pilgrims, inspired by John Robinson, were not as radical as some of their other
separatist brethren were. Robinson, e.g., did not forbid his people to hear godly
non separatists ministers preach on a weeknight or some other special occasion.
Second, in New England the old issue that had divided them in the mother
country lost its relevance because they both were determined to establish
churches modeled after the Biblical model. As a result both groups eventually merged into one Congregationalist federation of churches.
This merger of two formerly opposing factions within the Puritan
movement was to have tremendous ecclesiastical and political consequences not
only for New England but for America as a whole. It also impacted the character
and influence of the Reformed Faith in the English speaking world.
For what exactly is congregationalism? What are its main features and
how different is it from English Anglicanism, Scottish Presbyterianism or
Continental Calvinism? What all these churches had in common was that they
were governed in varying degrees by centralized judicatory structures whether
bishops, presbyteries, synods, or general assemblies In other words, they all
include some form of higher or broader authority structures.
Origin of Congregationalism
The Congregationalist form of church government is a relatively new
phenomenon in Church history. The Roman Catholic Church was and is the
complete opposite of a Congregational Church. But the Church that Luther
founded wasn’t Congregationalist either; neither was the Reformed Church of
Geneva, the Anglican Church in England or the Presbyterian Church of Scotland
To get a handle on this subject we have to go back to the early centuries of
the Christian Church. One of the most difficult problems the Church had to deal
with as she moved from a small band of disciples in Palestine to a fast growing
international movement, was its organization. The Church began as a tiny
minority of volunteers who had heard to call to follow Jesus of Nazareth. Three
hundred years later they were the fasted growing religious movement in the
Roman Empire. It need not surprise us that this rapid growth brought with it
many growing pains After Emperor Constantine converted to Christianity many
Roman citizens followed him into the Church and when later Emperor
Theodosius made Christianity the official religion of his realm many more
pagans entered the Church. When later the western part of the empire fell to the
barbarians these conquerors also adopted Christianity. Mass baptism took place
and entire tribes converted so that by 500 A.D the church was faced with the task
of teaching vast numbers of people who in most cases knew next to nothing
about the new religion.
To meet this challenge the Church adopted the Roman structures of
government. Each part of the empire was divided into small paroikii, from
which we get the word parishes and the church made use of this system to
organize itself. Each parish was linked to a bishop in a larger city and the
bishops were linked by patriarchs who resided in the five most populous cities:
Rome, Constantinople, Antioch, Jerusalem and Alexandria.
This change in government structure resulted in a fundamental change in
the nature of the church. As David Weir explains: “The church moved from an
organization based on voluntaristic principles to a compulsory organization
including all the citizens of a geographical region, whether willing or unwilling”
(Early New England, A Covenanted Society, p.16).
Suddenly the church found itself in a position of power. No longer a small
persecuted minority they were now the majority invested with both spiritual and
political authority and given the means to impose their will on the masses. To
implement this new power they looked to Scripture for guidance and found it in
the O.T. story of the Israelites’s conquest of Canaan and the subjugation of its
inhabitants. Having looked in vain for explicit instructions from the New
Testament regarding this matter, they did discover in the Old Testament ideas
about power that they could adapt to their own new situation. The result was that
For a millennium and a half after the conversion of Constantine, the
church upheld the political regimes and they upheld the church. At times
the two ba
According to Weir, England was divided into some 8,000 parishes, each of
which had “as its nerve centre one-and only one-church, which all the people in
the parish were obligated to attend and support.” Therefore, any attempt to
establish and attend a church other than the official “State Church was deemed
illegal and seen as an act of treason against both the Crown and the Church.
(Ibid).
When Henry VIII severed all ties with Rome and turned England into a
Protestant nation this brought about significant changes in what the church
taught doctrinally but not in how the church was governed. The new Church
continued to be episcopally governed and parochially structured and all English
people were expected to support and attend it at the risk of being fined or
imprisoned.
The debate over church government
This was the situation in England when the Puritan movement began. It all
started with arguments over vestments and other worship related issues that
smacked of Roman Catholic ideas and practices. But soon the focus of the
reformers shifted to the matter of church government. All agreed that the Church
of England still retained too much that reminded of Rome, but there was no
agreement on what needed to be changed, including the way the church should
be governed. There were those who wanted to adopt the Presbyterian form of
church polity and for a while it looked as though they might get their way. After
the Puritans, led by Cromwell, had defeated Charles 1 and his Royalist armies,
the Long Parliament controlled by the Presbyterians called the Westminster
Assembly for the purpose of creating a Presbyterian Church for both Scotland and England But the plan failed because Cromwell did not relish the prospect of
seeing the Anglican Establishment replaced by a Presbyterian Church which he
feared had similar hierarchical tendencies The real reason for its ultimate failure
was that outside of Parliament there was not much grass root support for the idea.
At the opposite pole there were those who were so convinced that the
Church of England was beyond repair that they had begun to withdraw from
local parochial churches to form their own alternative churches. These were the
Separatists and they chose what later came to be called a congregational form of
church government. The essential characteristics of this type of government is
that church membership is voluntary and restricted to those who can give a
credible account of their conversion and that the authority of the church resides
in the local church governed by godly elders who are chosen by the membership.
Perhaps the best description of congregationalism is found in Henry
Barrows’ 1589 pamphlet A True Description of the Visible Congregation of the
Saints. Barrow, one of the earliest leaders of the separatist movement in England
held the position that each church should be an independent religious community
composed of “gathered” believers only, in other words, those who were
consciously and conscientiously Christian in their convictions Those who are
united in such a covenant with Christ thus form a self-governing body, electing
their own pastor and elders according to the pattern allegedly prescribed for the
church in the NT. Neither the state nor any higher church organization should
have the power to demand conformity of any kind from such covenanted
congregations. Each congregation should be independent and of equal status
with all others and within each congregation all members were to be equal in
status and pastors and officers should have no position of prestige but only the
spiritual authority to preach and admonish.
Non-separatist congregationalists
But not all congregationalists were separatists like Barrow and Robinson.
In fact a majority of them wanted to remain in the Church of England. One of
their first leaders, named Henry Jacob, advocated an Established Church in
which each congregation or parish would be free to determine its own policies
and choose its own pastor without interference from higher church authorities.
These non-separatist Congregationalists were prepared to work within the
confines of the Church of England as long as they could focus on their own
congregations to promote godliness. They were less concerned with church
government than with conversion and therefore they, like the separatists insisted
on high standards for admission to full church membership.
In 1658 these Congregationalists met at Savoy Palace and produced the so-
called Savoy Declaration which adopted the Westminster Confession and
Catechisms minus the articles related to church government and discipline
Among the prominent participants at this meeting were John Owen, Thomas
Goodwin and Greenhill.
The Congregationalists who came to Massachusetts Bay under John
Winthrop in 1630 were the early representatives of this group. They were
Puritans who regarded themselves as part of the Church of England and under
the jurisdiction of the Bishop of London But since they were now in America
separated from England by a great distance they were able to operate under
principles very similar to those of their separatist brethren in the Plymouth
Colony. This similarity in approach to church polity as well as basic agreement
on Puritan doctrine went a long way to remove the suspicion with which they
had initially regarded each other
An advanced party of the nonseparatists had established a church on the
congregational model at Salem in 1629 on the basis of the following vow, “We
covenant with the Lord and with one another, and do bind ourselves in the
presence of God, to walk together in all his ways, according as he is pleased to
reveal himself unto us in his blessed word of truth.”
The key sentence here is “we covenant with the Lord and with each other.”
Here we have the essence of congregational ecclesiology. Covenanting for
congregationalists was a sacred rite and an integral part of the communion of the
saints. As William Ames stated in his Marrow of Modern Divinity,
The instituted church is a gathered group of believers joined together by a covenant,
Lecture 4
The Ecclesiology of the Pilgrims and Puritans
As we have seen the first settlers in New England were the Pilgrims. They
were Separatist Puritans who had been “harried” out of England by the
repressive ecclesiastical policies of James I. Via an eleven year long stop-over in
The Netherlands they sailed to America where they founded the Plymouth
Plantation and established a church with a congregational form of government.
The Pilgrims believed that the NT model for churches is to organize as
independent assemblies consisting of true believers and their children They are
known as Congregationalists to distinguish them from the Church of England
and the Presbyterian Church both of which have a hierarchical or “from the top-
down” type of government.
The Plymouth settlement grew from 102 persons in 1620 to ten “plantations” of
2500 people by 1643.
Much more numerous and influential were the Puritans of the
Massachusetts Bay Colony (1629).Most of them had left England for similar
reasons as the Pilgrims, namely the ruthless policies of Charles’ I and his
henchman Arch bishop Laud.
Yet, as one of their leaders, Francis Higginson is reported to have said as
he boarded the ship that was to take him and his party to America:
We will not say as the Separatists are wont to say at their leaving
England, “Farewell Babylon, Farewell Rome”; but we will say, “Farewell dear Engl
Differences between Pilgrims and Puritans
According to Hudson the difference between these non separatist Puritans
and the separatist Pilgrims was not great but this statement has to be qualified.
While still living in England they strongly disagreed in their attitudes to the
Anglican Church, the non-Separatists condemning the Separatists for what saw
as the sin of schism while the latter regarded the former for staying in what they
believed was a thoroughly corrupt Church But after they got settled in New
England they not only learned to live with their differences but eventually they
came to a virtual agreement There were two reasons for this. First because the
Pilgrims, inspired by John Robinson, were not as radical as some of their other
separatist brethren were. Robinson, e.g., did not forbid his people to hear godly
non separatists ministers preach on a weeknight or some other special occasion.
Second, in New England the old issue that had divided them in the mother
country lost its relevance because they both were determined to establish
churches modeled after the Biblical model. As a result both groups eventually merged into one Congregationalist federation of churches.
This merger of two formerly opposing factions within the Puritan
movement was to have tremendous ecclesiastical and political consequences not
only for New England but for America as a whole. It also impacted the character
and influence of the Reformed Faith in the English speaking world.
For what exactly is congregationalism? What are its main features and
how different is it from English Anglicanism, Scottish Presbyterianism or
Continental Calvinism? What all these churches had in common was that they
were governed in varying degrees by centralized judicatory structures whether
bishops, presbyteries, synods, or general assemblies In other words, they all
include some form of higher or broader authority structures.
Origin of Congregationalism
The Congregationalist form of church government is a relatively new
phenomenon in Church history. The Roman Catholic Church was and is the
complete opposite of a Congregational Church. But the Church that Luther
founded wasn’t Congregationalist either; neither was the Reformed Church of
Geneva, the Anglican Church in England or the Presbyterian Church of Scotland
To get a handle on this subject we have to go back to the early centuries of
the Christian Church. One of the most difficult problems the Church had to deal
with as she moved from a small band of disciples in Palestine to a fast growing
international movement, was its organization. The Church began as a tiny
minority of volunteers who had heard to call to follow Jesus of Nazareth. Three
hundred years later they were the fasted growing religious movement in the
Roman Empire. It need not surprise us that this rapid growth brought with it
many growing pains After Emperor Constantine converted to Christianity many
Roman citizens followed him into the Church and when later Emperor
Theodosius made Christianity the official religion of his realm many more
pagans entered the Church. When later the western part of the empire fell to the
barbarians these conquerors also adopted Christianity. Mass baptism took place
and entire tribes converted so that by 500 A.D the church was faced with the task
of teaching vast numbers of people who in most cases knew next to nothing
about the new religion.
To meet this challenge the Church adopted the Roman structures of
government. Each part of the empire was divided into small paroikii, from
which we get the word parishes and the church made use of this system to
organize itself. Each parish was linked to a bishop in a larger city and the
bishops were linked by patriarchs who resided in the five most populous cities:
Rome, Constantinople, Antioch, Jerusalem and Alexandria.
This change in government structure resulted in a fundamental change in
the nature of the church. As David Weir explains: “The church moved from an
organization based on voluntaristic principles to a compulsory organization
including all the citizens of a geographical region, whether willing or unwilling”
(Early New England, A Covenanted Society, p.16).
Suddenly the church found itself in a position of power. No longer a small
persecuted minority they were now the majority invested with both spiritual and
political authority and given the means to impose their will on the masses. To
implement this new power they looked to Scripture for guidance and found it in
the O.T. story of the Israelites’s conquest of Canaan and the subjugation of its
inhabitants. Having looked in vain for explicit instructions from the New
Testament regarding this matter, they did discover in the Old Testament ideas
about power that they could adapt to their own new situation. The result was that
For a millennium and a half after the conversion of Constantine, the
church upheld the political regimes and they upheld the church. At times
the two ba
According to Weir, England was divided into some 8,000 parishes, each of
which had “as its nerve centre one-and only one-church, which all the people in
the parish were obligated to attend and support.” Therefore, any attempt to
establish and attend a church other than the official “State Church was deemed
illegal and seen as an act of treason against both the Crown and the Church.
(Ibid).
When Henry VIII severed all ties with Rome and turned England into a
Protestant nation this brought about significant changes in what the church
taught doctrinally but not in how the church was governed. The new Church
continued to be episcopally governed and parochially structured and all English
people were expected to support and attend it at the risk of being fined or
imprisoned.
The debate over church government
This was the situation in England when the Puritan movement began. It all
started with arguments over vestments and other worship related issues that
smacked of Roman Catholic ideas and practices. But soon the focus of the
reformers shifted to the matter of church government. All agreed that the Church
of England still retained too much that reminded of Rome, but there was no
agreement on what needed to be changed, including the way the church should
be governed. There were those who wanted to adopt the Presbyterian form of
church polity and for a while it looked as though they might get their way. After
the Puritans, led by Cromwell, had defeated Charles 1 and his Royalist armies,
the Long Parliament controlled by the Presbyterians called the Westminster
Assembly for the purpose of creating a Presbyterian Church for both Scotland and England But the plan failed because Cromwell did not relish the prospect of
seeing the Anglican Establishment replaced by a Presbyterian Church which he
feared had similar hierarchical tendencies The real reason for its ultimate failure
was that outside of Parliament there was not much grass root support for the idea.
At the opposite pole there were those who were so convinced that the
Church of England was beyond repair that they had begun to withdraw from
local parochial churches to form their own alternative churches. These were the
Separatists and they chose what later came to be called a congregational form of
church government. The essential characteristics of this type of government is
that church membership is voluntary and restricted to those who can give a
credible account of their conversion and that the authority of the church resides
in the local church governed by godly elders who are chosen by the membership.
Perhaps the best description of congregationalism is found in Henry
Barrows’ 1589 pamphlet A True Description of the Visible Congregation of the
Saints. Barrow, one of the earliest leaders of the separatist movement in England
held the position that each church should be an independent religious community
composed of “gathered” believers only, in other words, those who were
consciously and conscientiously Christian in their convictions Those who are
united in such a covenant with Christ thus form a self-governing body, electing
their own pastor and elders according to the pattern allegedly prescribed for the
church in the NT. Neither the state nor any higher church organization should
have the power to demand conformity of any kind from such covenanted
congregations. Each congregation should be independent and of equal status
with all others and within each congregation all members were to be equal in
status and pastors and officers should have no position of prestige but only the
spiritual authority to preach and admonish.
Non-separatist congregationalists
But not all congregationalists were separatists like Barrow and Robinson.
In fact a majority of them wanted to remain in the Church of England. One of
their first leaders, named Henry Jacob, advocated an Established Church in
which each congregation or parish would be free to determine its own policies
and choose its own pastor without interference from higher church authorities.
These non-separatist Congregationalists were prepared to work within the
confines of the Church of England as long as they could focus on their own
congregations to promote godliness. They were less concerned with church
government than with conversion and therefore they, like the separatists insisted
on high standards for admission to full church membership.
In 1658 these Congregationalists met at Savoy Palace and produced the so-
called Savoy Declaration which adopted the Westminster Confession and
Catechisms minus the articles related to church government and discipline
Among the prominent participants at this meeting were John Owen, Thomas
Goodwin and Greenhill.
The Congregationalists who came to Massachusetts Bay under John
Winthrop in 1630 were the early representatives of this group. They were
Puritans who regarded themselves as part of the Church of England and under
the jurisdiction of the Bishop of London But since they were now in America
separated from England by a great distance they were able to operate under
principles very similar to those of their separatist brethren in the Plymouth
Colony. This similarity in approach to church polity as well as basic agreement
on Puritan doctrine went a long way to remove the suspicion with which they
had initially regarded each other
An advanced party of the nonseparatists had established a church on the
congregational model at Salem in 1629 on the basis of the following vow, “We
covenant with the Lord and with one another, and do bind ourselves in the
presence of God, to walk together in all his ways, according as he is pleased to
reveal himself unto us in his blessed word of truth.”
The key sentence here is “we covenant with the Lord and with each other.”
Here we have the essence of congregational ecclesiology. Covenanting for
congregationalists was a sacred rite and an integral part of the communion of the
saints. As William Ames stated in his Marrow of Modern Divinity,
The instituted church is a gathered group of believers joined together by a covenant,
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