Vernon Louis Parrington

“ A generation younger than the Boston leaders, he came to maturity at the beginning of the wave of radicalism that was to sweep England into civil war. Older ties of class and custom he put aside easily, to make room for the new theories then agitating young Englishmen; and these new theories he advocated with an importunity disconcerting to practical men more given to weighing times and occasions. The kernel of his radicalism was the ideal of a democratic church in a democratic society. ”

“ It was a frankly aristocratic world in which John Cotton was bred, and if he disliked the plebeian ways of the Plymouth democracy equally with the Brownist tendencies of Plymouth Congregationalism, it was because they smacked too much of popular sovereignty to please him. And when he found himself confronted by signs of democratic unrest in Boston his course of action seemed to him clear. The desire for liberty he regarded as the sinful prompting of the natural man, a godless denial of the righteous authority of the divinely appointed rulers. ”

“ But before there could be a free commonwealth there must be free churches; the hand of neither bishop nor presbytery must lie upon the conscience of the individual Christian; and so Roger Williams threw himself into the work of spreading the propaganda of Separatism. Not only did he protest in New England against the tyranny of the magistrates, but he flung at the heads of all enemies of freedom the notable book on toleration in which he struck at the root of the matter by arguing that “conscience be permitted (though erroneous) to be free.” ”

“ The friendliest of souls, time has brought him the friends which his restless intellect drove from him in his own day. However hopelessly we may lose ourselves in the tangle of his writings, confused by the luxuriance of his Hebraic tropes, we can plainly discern the man, the most charitable, the most open-minded, the most modern, amongst the notable company of Puritan emigrants—the sincerest Christian among many who sincerely desired to be Christians. ”

“ But for this the age rather than the man was to blame. It was no fault of John Cotton's that he was the product of a generation still resting under the shadow of absolutism, unable to comprehend the more democratic philosophy of the generation of Roger Williams. He reasoned according to his light; and if he was convinced that the light which shone to him was a divine torch, he proved himself thereby a sound Puritan if not a good Christian. ”

“ If the evolution of modern society falls into two broad phases, the disintegration of the old caste society into free citizens, and the regrouping of the free citizens into a new social democracy, the significance of Puritanism becomes clear—it was a disruptive force that served to destroy the cohesion of the ancient caste solidarity resolving society into its individual members. It was the rebellion of the many against the overlordship of the few; a rebellion that proposed to coerce the freedom of men by the law of God alone ”

“ Far removed as The Christian Commonwealth was from the saner thought of the Army democrats, it is the logical culmination of all theocratic dreams. The ideal of social unity, of relentless conformity, according to which the rebel is a social outlaw to be silenced at any cost, dominates this Christian Utopia as mercilessly as it dominated the policy of Laud. ”

“ When he ascended the pulpit on Sundays and lecture days, he carried thither not only the wisdom of his beloved master Calvin but the whole Puritan theology to buttress his theses. Good men were drawn to him irresistibly by his sweetness of temper, and evil men were overawed by his venerable aspect. ”

“ Out of this same theocratic root sprang the well-known dispute with Roger Williams concerning toleration. Not freedom to follow the ways of sin, but freedom to follow the law of God—this was Cotton's restriction upon the “natural liberties” of the subject of Jehovah. There must be freedom of conscience if it be under no error, but not otherwise; for if freedom be permitted to all sinful errors, how shall the will of God prevail on earth? ”

“ No other phase of Anglo-Saxon civilization seems so singularly remote from every-day reality, so little leavened by natural human impulses and promptings. Certain generations of Englishmen, seemingly for no sufficient reason, yielded their intellects to a rigid system of dogmatic theology, and surrendered their freedom to the letter of the Hebrew Scriptures; and in endeavouring to conform their institutions as well as their daily actions to self-imposed authorities, they produced a social order that fills with amazement other generations of Englishmen who have broken with that order. ”

“ A natural autocrat, he was dictatorial and domineering, bearing himself arrogantly towards all underlings, unyielding in opposition to whoever crossed his will. And in consequence he gathered about his head such fierce antagonism that in the end he failed of his ambitions, and shorn of power he sat down in old age to eat the bread of bitterness. ”

“ The more closely we scrutinize the thought of the great Separatist, the more clearly we perceive that the master principle of his career was Christian—the desire to embody in his life the social as well as the spiritual teachings of Christ. ”

“ Skill in organization was the secret of his strength. In no sense a creative thinker, wholly lacking in intellectual curiosity and therefore not given to speculation, he built up a compact hierarchical machine, and then suffered the mortification of seeing it broken to pieces by forces that lay beyond his control. If the theocratic ideal of ecclesiastical control of secular affairs were to maintain itself against the growing opposition, the ministers must fortify their position by a closer organization. They must speak as a unit in determining church policies ”

“ His personal influence carried far, and doubtless there were many good men in Boston who believed—as Roger Williams said of John Cotton—that “God would not suffer” Increase Mather “to err.” Those whom his voice could not reach his pen must convince, and the busy minister set a pace in the making and publishing of books which only his busier son could equal. He understood thoroughly the power of the press, and he watched over it with an eagle eye; no unauthorized or godless work must issue thence for the pollution of the people ”

“ That a democracy in church or state, is a very honourable and regular government according to the dictates of right reason, And, therefore . . . That these churches of New England, in their ancient constitution of church order, it being a democracy, are manifestly justified and defended by the law and light of nature.
With the advance of the democratic movement of modern times, the life and work of John Wise take on new interest. After a spirited contest lasting for three-quarters of a century, theocratic Puritanism merged in ecclesiastical democracy. ”

“ The democrats were constantly prodding the ruling coterie of gentlemen; and the democratic conception of a commonwealth of free citizens intruded more and more upon the earlier conception of a kingdom of God. Capable leaders of the new radicalism were not lacking; and if we would comprehend the dissension and heart-burnings of those early times, we must set the figures of Roger Williams and Thomas Hooker over against John Cotton and the theocrats. ”

“ The struggle for ecclesiastical democracy was a forerunner of the struggle for political democracy; which was to be the business of the next century; and in justifying his ecclesiasticism by political principles, John Wise was an early witness to the new order of thought.
Judged by the severest standards, the Puritan ministers were a notable group of men; the English race has never bred their superiors in self-discipline and exalted ideals, and rarely their equals in consecration to duty. Their interests might be narrow and their sympathies harsh and illiberal ”

“ Naked theocracy is nowhere more uncompromisingly delineated than in the pages of The Christian Commonwealth. At the base of Eliot's political thinking were the two germinal conceptions which animated his theocratic brethren generally: the conception that Christ is King of Kings, before whom all earthly authority must bow, and the conception that the Scriptures alone contain the law of God. “There is undoubtedly a forme of civil Government instituted by God himself in the holy Scriptures. ”

“ He is a good King that undoes not his Subjects by any one of his unlimited Prerogatives: and they are a good People, that undoe not their Prince, by any one of their unbounded Liberties, be they the very least. ”

“ According to present taste it was an uninviting library; works of pure literature were as lacking as books of history and political philosophy and science. Nevertheless, though their reading was narrow, the ministers in many respects were in advance of their times. For all his grotesque lack of scientific method. Cotton Mather was more nearly a scientist than any other man of his day in Boston,—a weakness which laid him open to criticism. ”

“ We should derogate from the sufficiency and perfection of the Scriptures, if we should deny it.” From these main premises he deduced a system that is altogether remarkable for its thorough-going simplicity. Since the law has been declared once for all, perfect and complete, there is no need for a legislative branch of government; and since Christ is the sole overlord and king, there is no need for an earthly head of the state; it remains only to provide a competent magisterial system to hear causes and adjudicate differences. Society is concerned wholly with duties and not at all with rights ”

“ It is better that the commonwealth be fashioned to the setting forth of God's house, which is his church: than to accomodate the church frame to the civill state. Democracy, I do not conceyve that ever God did ordeyne as a fit government eyther for church or commonwealth. If the people be governors, who shall be governed? ”

“ If democracy were indeed a Christian form of government, was it not strange that divine wisdom should have overlooked so significant a fact? In all the history of the chosen people nowhere did God designate the democratic as the perfect type, but the theocratic ”

“ The duties of all the Rulers of the civil part of the Kingdom of Christ, are as followeth ... to govern the people in the orderly and seasonable practice of all the Commanders of God, in actions liable to Political observations, whether of piety and love to God, or of justice, and love to man with peace. ”

“ For all his severe learning he was a lovable man, with white hair framing a face that must have been nobly chiselled, gentle-voiced, courteous, tactful, by nature “a tolerant man,” than whom none “did more placidly bear a dissentient,” or more gladly discover a friend in an antagonist. ”

“ Reforming Synod' of 1679-80, served as Moderator, dominated the debates, and drafted the report; and the purpose which underlay such work was the substitution of a Presbyterian hierarchy for the older Congregationalism. The church must dominate the state; the organized ministers must dominate the church; and Increase Mather trusted that he could dominate the ministers—such in brief was the dream of this masterful leader of the second generation.
The source of his power lay in the pulpit, and for sixty-four years the Old North Church was the citadel of Mather orthodoxy. ”

“ The old common law must be superseded by the Mosaic dispensation, the priest must be set above the magistrate, the citizen of the commonwealth must become the subject of Jehovah, the sovereignty of the state must yield to the sovereignty of God. ”

“ A man of incredible industry, unrestrained by any critical sense, and infatuated with printer's ink, he flung together a jumble of old saws and modern instances and called the result a book. Of the 470 odd titles, the Magnalia alone possesses some vitality still, the repository of much material concerning early days in Massachusetts that we should not willingly lose. ”

“ Nevertheless there was some hidden bias in the old Puritan's nature that warped him away from Presbyterianism, and made him the advocate of a democratic Congregationalism. The great schism which rent the early theocracy, carrying off three congregations into the Connecticut wilderness, was an early witness to the antagonisms which lurked in the ambitions of diverse-minded enthusiasts. The seceders had other notions of church organization, it appears, than those held by the dominant group ”

“ Diets, Parliaments, Senates, or accountable Commissions, must have power to consult and execute against intersilient dangers and flagitious crimes prohibited by the light of Nature: Yet it were good if States would let People know so much beforehand, by some safe woven manifesto, that grosse Delinquents may tell no tales of Anchors and Buoyes, nor palliate their presumptions with pretense of ignorance. ”