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Catholick Congregational Clergy and Public Piety

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

John Corrigan
John Corrigan
Affiliation:
Mr. Corrigan is Andrew P. Mellon Faculty Fellow in the humanities in Harvard University.
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Extract

The history of Congregationalism in early eighteenth-century Boston has long been dominated by the figure of Cotton Mather (1663–1728), the learned pastor of Boston's Second Church. From Benjamin Franklin's notice of Mather's “do-good” campaign of Christian charitable works to recent scholarly studies of Mather's closet piety, historians have measured the religious mood of the period by the yardstick of ideas, joys, and complaints in Mather's voluminous writings. In the process, some questions about the history of Congregationalism have been answered, but historical understanding of the period has been hindered by the relative lack of scholarly attention to the theology of other members of the clergy who served Boston congregations in the decades leading up to the Great Awakening. Given the fact that the Boston clergy was divided between two parties, namely the Matherians1 and those opposed to them, it should be obvious that any assessment of this stage of Congregationalism that is based primarily on the testimony of one party will be untrustworthy. My purpose here is to outline the thinking of that other party, the “catholicks,” with particular attention to how they addressed Congregationalism's most pressing issue, the nature of public piety.

Type
Research Article
Information
Church History , Volume 60 , Issue 2 , June 1991 , pp. 210 - 222
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Church History 1991

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References

1. This party included Cotton Mather, his father Increase, elder ministers such as John Higginson and Nicholas Noyes both at Salem, a circle of Boston clergy who orbited Mather, namely Joshua Gee (Second Church), Samuel Checkley (New South Church), and Mather Byles (Hollis Street Church), among others, and laity such as Judge Samuel Sewall.

2. Quincy, Josiah, The History of Harvard University, 2 vols. (Cambridge, Mass., 1840), 1: 314.Google Scholar Benjamin Colman to White Kennet, 17 December 1725, Colman Papers, Massachusetts Historical Society. A concise description of the disputes at Harvard involving the two parties is found in Miller, Perry, The New England Mind from Colony to Province (New York, 1953), pp. 236–240, 455–462.Google Scholar A summary of some of the features of the Leverett curriculum is in Fiering, Norman, Moral Philosophy at Seventeenth-Century Harvard: A Discipline in Transition (Chapel Hill, 1981), pp. 22–42.Google Scholar Pemberton and Brattle were tutors at the college, Wadsworth served as president (Colman turned down the post). Appleton was a Fellow of the College for over six decades and Foxcroft was closely involved in many aspects of administration and curriculum.

3. Mather, Cotton, The Diary of Cotton Mather, 2 vols. (New York, 1957), pp. 329–330.Google Scholar On the Brattle Street Church see Motte, Ellis R., Jenks, Henry Fitch, and Homans, John, 2nd, The Manifesto Church: Records of the Church in Brattle Square … 1699–1872 (Boston, 1902);Google ScholarLothrop, Samuel K., A History of the Church in Brattle Square, Boston (Boston, 1851), pp. 1–64.Google Scholar

4. Willey, Basil, The Eighteenth-Century Background: Studies on the Idea of Nature in the Thought of the Period (London, 1961;Google Scholar orig. pub. 1940), p. 4. A partial list of English authors read by New Englanders includes scientists and physico-theologians such as Robert Boyle, William Whiston, William Derham, and John Ray; latitudinarian writers such as Joseph Glanvill, John Tillotson, Edward Stillingfleet, and John Wilkins; and Cambridge Platonists Henry More, Ralph Cudworth, and Benjamin Whichcote. The personal libraries of catholick ministers (as well as the Harvard College library) included works by these authors, and catholicks made reference to them both in their notes and published writings. Norman Fiering in Moral Philosophy at Seventeenth-Century Harvard and “The First American Enlightenment: Tillotson, Leverett and Philosphical Anglicanism,” William and Mary Quarterly 54 (1981): 307–344,Google Scholar has outlined in a general way the influence of these English writers in America, but the clearest evidence for their considerable influence in shaping catholick thought is found in catholicks' commonplace books and other notebooks on their reading. See for example “Subject Notebook,” Thomas Foxcroft Notebooks, the Congregational Library, Boston.

5. Wadsworth, Benjamin, An Essay to do Good (Boston, 1710), p. 27.Google Scholar

6. Thomas Foxcroft, sermon preached 5 August 1722, Thomas Foxcroft Notebooks, Congregational Library, Boston.

7. Appleton, Nathaniel, Faithful Ministers of Christ (Boston, 1743), pp. 39, 22.Google Scholar

8. Colman, Benjamin, God Deals with Us as Rational Creatures (Boston, 1723), pp. 7, 8.Google Scholar

9. Colman, , A Brief Dissertation on the First Three Chapters of Genesis (Boston, 1835), p. 8.Google Scholar

10. Foxcroft, , The Voice of the Lord (Boston, 1727), p.3.Google Scholar

11. Colman, , Faithful Pastors (Boston, 1739), p. 4.Google Scholar

12. Foxcroft, , The Character of Anna (Boston, 1727), pp. 15–16.Google Scholar

13. More, Henry, The Immortality of the Soul (London, 1659), p. 457.Google Scholar For an example of Morton's thinking see the notes taken by Ebenezer Williams on “Pneumaticks, Or a Treatise of the Rev'd Mr Charles Morton about the Nature of Spirits,” Commonplace Book 1707–1708, pp. 6–7, Harvard University Archives.

14. Pemberton, Ebenezer, A Christian Fixed in His Post (Boston, 1704), p. 12.Google Scholar

15. Foxcroft, , The Blessings of a Soul in Health (Boston, 1742), p. 3.Google Scholar

16. Colman, , A Humble Discourse (Boston, 1715), p. 37.Google Scholar

17. Appleton, , The Wisdom of God (Boston, 1728), p. 388.Google Scholar

18. Foxcroft, sermon preached 3 September 1719, Thomas Foxcroft Notebooks, Congregational Library, Boston.

19. Colman, , The Faithful Ministers (Boston, 1729), p. 5.Google Scholar

20. Appleton, , The Origin of War Examin'd (Boston, 1733), p. 11.Google Scholar

21. Colman, , A Humble Discourse, pp. 43, 33, 36;Google ScholarEarly Piety Again Inculcated (Boston, 1720), pp. 12–13, 3–4;Google ScholarThe Lord Shall Rejoice (Boston, 1741), p.2.Google Scholar

22. Mather, Cotton, Conversion Exemplified (Boston, 1703), p. 1.Google Scholar

23. See Breitweiser, Mitchell, Cotton Mather and Benjamin Franklin: The Price of Representative Personality (New York, 1986), pp. 109–110.Google Scholar

24. Greven,, Philip Jr, The Protestant Temperament: Patterns of Child-Rearing, Religious Experience, and the Self in Early America (New York, 1977), pp. 66–67.Google Scholar

25. Byles, Mather, A Discourse on the Present Vileness of the Body (Boston, 1732), p. 2.Google Scholar Other examples are Checkley, Samuel, The Death of the Godly (Boston, 1727)Google Scholar and Gee, Joshua, The Strait Gate (Boston, 1729).Google Scholar

26. Morton, , “Pneumaticks,” p. 10Google Scholar and The Spirit of Man (Boston, 1693), p. 15.Google Scholar

27. John Leverett, “Commonplace Book, 1680–1711,” Massachusetts Historical Society, Boston.

28. Wadsworth, sermon preached 4 November 1711, RBR Ms. drawer 7, Congregational Library, Boston. Appleton, sermon preached late October or early November 1718, in Ebenezer Parkman, “Notes of Sermons, 1718–1722,” Massachusetts Historical Society, Boston. For other examples see Wadsworth, sermons preached at the Brattle Street Church 4 November 1771 and 18 November 1711, RBR Ms. drawer 7, Congregational Library, Boston and sermon preached 30 March 1712 in “Twenty-three Manuscript Sermons,” Harvard University Archives. Thomas Foxcroft, sermon preached 13 February 1708, Thomas Foxcroft Notebooks, Congregational Library, Boston. Ebenezer Pemberton, sermon preached 28 March 1697, in “Hunting and Gibbs. Sermons. 1696/Richard Brown, Notes to Sermons, 1696,” Massachusetts Historical Society, Boston and “Sermons June 13, 1708-April 3, 1709,” 101.205, Massachusetts Historical Society, Boston (see especially the sermons preached by Pemberton in the fall of 1708 and 7 January 1709). Arthur Kaledin has stressed that the Brattle Street Church was the leader in the promotion of emotional religion in Boston (“The Mind of John Leverett” [Ph.D. diss., Harvard University, 1965], pp. 242, 249).

29. Colman, , The Government and Improvement of Mirth (Boston, 1707), pp. 26, 27–30, 34, 48, 30, 139, 150, 152, 149, 153.Google Scholar

30. Appleton, , The Wisdom of God (Boston, 1728), p. 282.Google Scholar I have argued elsewhere that Cotton Mather's short treatise on singing (The Accomplished Singer [Boston, 1721])Google Scholar took a view of singing that was fundamentally different from the thinking of Colman, Appleton, and other catholicks. See Corrigan, John, The Prism of Piety: Catholick Congregational Clergy at the Beginning of the Enlightenment (New York, 1991).Google Scholar

31. Appleton, sermon preached 7 January 1720, in Ebenezer Parkman, “Notes,” Massachusetts Historical Society, Boston, and God, and Not Ministers (Boston, 1741), pp. 30, 18.Google ScholarShipton, Clifford K., Biographical Sketches of Those Who Attended Harvard College in the Classes 1701–1712, 12 vols. (Boston, 1937), 5: 602.Google Scholar

32. Wadsworth, , Five Sermons (Boston, 1714), p. 30Google Scholar and sermon preached 16 April 1696 in “Nineteen Sermons, 1696–1704,” Harvard University Archives. See also his sermon preached 10 February 1712 in “Twenty-three Manuscript Sermons, August 19, 1711-April 27, 1712,” Harvard University Archives. Wadsworth and Foxcroft were directly influenced by Fenner, William, the English author of A Treatise of the Affections (London, 1642).Google Scholar Fenner had argued that a person “may raise up his affections a good way towards Christ.” Asserting that “the minister that preaches must Stir up the affections,” Fenner offered a checklist of the ways in which that might be accomplished including certain uses of the voice, the stamping of feet, waving the arms, etc. (pp. 3–8, 112, 114–125), Fenner, Wadsworth cites in The Benefits of a Good, and the Mischiefs of an Evil, Conscience (Boston, 1719), p. 12.Google Scholar Foxcroft's interest in Fenner is apparent in “vid. Fenner, Treat of the Affs” in “Subject Notebook,” Thomas Foxcroft Notebooks, Congregational Library, Boston.

33. For a discussion of occasional sermons and regular sermons see Stout, Harry S., The New England Soul: Preaching and Religious Culture in Colonial New England (New York, 1986), pp. 148–165.Google Scholar

34. Pemberton, sermon preached 2 December 1711, in Thomas Foxcroft Notebooks, Congregational Library, Boston.

35. Foxcroft, , The Character of Anna (Boston, 1723), pp. 35, 23, 37;Google ScholarA Practical Discourse Relating to the Gospel Ministry (Boston, 1718), pp. 36, 24–25, 26;Google ScholarThe Day of a Godly Man's Death (Boston, 1722), p. 108;Google ScholarCleansing Our Way in Youth (Boston, 1719), pp. 59, 61, 71, 72–73.Google Scholar

36. Some examples of catholicks' promotion of private devotions and family religion are found in Colman, , An Argument (Boston, 1728), pp. 42, 2–5;Google ScholarJesus Weeping (Boston, 1744), p. 44;Google ScholarFaith Victorious (Boston, 1702), p. A2;Google ScholarDavid's Dying Charge (Boston, 1723), p. 9.Google ScholarWadsworth, , The Well-Ordered Family (Boston, 1712), p. 4;Google ScholarA Dialogue Between a Minister and His Neighbor (Boston, 1724), p. 22;Google ScholarAn Essay on the Decalogue (Boston, 1721), p. 54.Google ScholarFoxcroft, , A Serious Address to Those Who Unnecessarily Frequent the Tavern (Boston, 1726), p. 9;Google ScholarMinisters Spiritual Parents (Boston, 1726), p. 6;Google ScholarThe Voice of the Lord, pp. 38, 41. Pemberton, , A Sermon Preached in the Audience (Boston, 1706), pp. 12–14.Google Scholar Appleton, in Solomon Prentice, “Notes on Sermons, 1724–1726,” p. 77.

37. The catholick clergy led the “renaissance” in sacramental piety described by Holifield, E. Brooks in The Covenant Sealed: The Development of Puritan Sacramental Theology in Old and New England, 1570–1720 (New Haven, 1974).Google Scholar For examples of catholicks' emphasis upon the Lord's Supper see Wadsworth, A Dialogue Between a Minister and His Neighbor; Appleton, sermon preached 11 October 1719 in Ebenezer Parkman, “Notes of Sermons, 1718–1722,” Massachusetts Historical Society, Boston and The Wisdom of God, pp. 297–312.

38. Gee, Joshua, The Strait Gate (Boston, 1729), pp. 67–69.Google Scholar David D. Hall, writing about the emotional complexity of public religious life in New England at this time, has observed that “purity and danger converged in the meetinghouse.” Moreover, this was a religious world in which “it was the clergy who took the lead in defining what was safe or dangerous”—even though the laity did not always follow that lead (Worlds of Wonder, Days of Judgment: Popular Religious Belief in Early New England [New York, 1989], pp. 163, 241).Google Scholar Catholicks inclined toward a view of ritual that valued its goodness and purity, while the Mather party remained more conscious of the dangers associated with public religious life.

39. Brown, quoted by Youngs, J. William T. Jr, God's Messengers: Religious Leadership in Colonial New England, 1700–1750 (Baltimore, 1976), p. 62Google Scholar (citing the diary of Israel Loring).

40. Appleton, , The Wisdom of God, pp. 302, 300.Google Scholar

41. Wadsworth, , Assembling at the House of God (Boston, 1711), p. 7.Google Scholar

42. Colman, , An Argument (Boston, 1747), p. 3.Google Scholar

43. Foxcroft, , The Character of Anna (Boston, 1723), p. 35.Google Scholar

44. Harry S. Stout has observed that “themes of love and reconciliation were especially prominent in the preaching of Boston's ‘liberal’ clergy” (The New England Soul, p. 155). Some ‘liberal’ clergy in the Boston area did not promote the affections in religion as did catholicks. Those ministers included Ebenezer Gay (First Church, Hingham), his South Shore colleague John Hancock the younger (First Church, Braintree), and John Barnard (First Church, Marblehead) who served briefly as an assistant as the Brattle Street Church in 1705.

45. Foxcroft, Thomas Foxcroft Notebooks, Congregational Library, Boston.

46. Some examples of scholarship that has addressed various aspects of the drift of private life from public life are: Konig, David Thomas, Law and Society in Puritan Massachusetts: Essex County, 1629–1692 (Chapel Hill, 1979), pp. 129, 130,Google Scholar ch. 5; Salska, Agnieszka, “Puritan Poetry: Its Public and Private Strain,” Early American Literature 19 (1984): 108, 117;Google ScholarLeverenz, David, The Language of Puritan Feeling: An Exploration in Literature, Psychology, and Social History (New Brunswick, N.J., 1980), pp. 164, 196–199;Google ScholarMiddlekauff, Robert, The Mathers: Three Generations of Puritan Intellectuals, 1596–1728 (New York, 1971), p. 319.Google Scholar