The Emancipation of Massachusetts

by Brooks Adams

It is true that Vassal’s petition was the event which made the ministers decide to call a synod [Footnote: Winthrop, ii. 264.] by means of an invitation of the General Court; but it is also certain that under no circumstances would the meeting of some such council have been long delayed. For sixteen years the well-known process had been going on, of the creation of institutions by custom, having the force of law; the stage of development had now been reached when it was necessary that those usages should take the shape of formal enactments. The Cambridge platform therefore marks the completion of an organization, and as such is the central point in the history of the Puritan Commonwealth. The work was done in August, 1648: the Westminster Confession was promulgated as the creed; the powers of the clergy were minutely defined, and the duty of the laity stated to be “obeying their elders and submitting themselves unto them in the Lord.” [Footnote: Cambridge Platform, ch. x. section 7.] The magistrate was enjoined to punish “idolatry, blasphemy, heresy,” and to coerce any church becoming “schismatical.”

In October, 1649, the court commended the platform to the consideration of the congregations; in October, 1651, it was adopted; and when church and state were thus united by statute the theocracy was complete.

The close of the era of construction is also marked by the death of those two remarkable men whose influence has left the deepest imprint upon the institutions they helped to mould: John Winthrop, who died in 1649, and John Cotton in 1652.

Winthrop’s letters to his wife show him to have been tender and gentle, and that his disposition was one to inspire love is proved by the affection those bore him who had suffered most at his hands. Williams and Vane and Coddington kept their friendship for him to the end. But these very qualities, so amiable in themselves, made him subject to the influence of men of inflexible will. His dream was to create on earth a commonwealth of saints whose joy would be to walk in the ways of God. But in practice he had to deal with the strongest of human passions. In 1634, though supported by Cotton, he was defeated by Dudley, and there can be no doubt that this was caused by the defection of the body of the clergy. The evidence seems conclusive, for the next year Vane brought about an interview between the two at which Haynes was present, and there Haynes upbraided him with remissness in administering justice. [Footnote: Winthrop, i. 178.] Winthrop agreed to leave the question to the ministers, who the next morning gave an emphatic opinion in favor of strict discipline. Thenceforward he was pliant in their hands, and with that day opened the dark epoch of his life. By leading the crusade against the Antinomians he regained the confidence of the elders and they never again failed him; but in return they exacted obedience to their will; and the rancor with which he pursued Anne Hutchinson, Gorton, and Childe cannot be extenuated, and must ever be a stain upon his fame.

As Hutchinson points out, in early life his tendencies were liberal, but in America he steadily grew narrow. The reason is obvious. The leader of an intolerant party has himself to be intolerant. His claim to eminence as a statesman must rest upon the purity of his moral character, his calm temper, and his good judgment; for his mind was not original or brilliant, nor was his thought in advance of his age. Herein he differed from his celebrated contemporary, for among the long list of famous men, who are the pride of Massachusetts, there are few who in mere intellectual capacity outrank Cotton. He was not only a profound scholar, an eloquent preacher, and a famous controversialist, but a great organizer, and a natural politician. He it was who constructed the Congregational hierarchy; his publications were the accepted authority both abroad and at home; and the system which he developed in his books was that which was made law by the Cambridge Platform.

Of medium height, florid complexion, and as he grew old some tendency to be stout, but with snowy hair and much personal dignity, he seems to have had an irresistible charm of manner toward those whom he wished to attract.

Comprehending thoroughly the feelings and prejudices of the clergy, he influenced them even more by his exquisite tact than by his commanding ability; and of easy fortune and hospitable alike from inclination and from interest, he entertained every elder who went to Boston. He understood the art of flattery to perfection; or, as Norton expressed it, “he was a man of ingenuous and pious candor, rejoicing (as opportunity served) to take notice of and testifie unto the gifts of God in his brethren, thereby drawing the hearts of them to him....” [Footnote: Norton’s Funeral Sermon, p. 37.] No other clergyman has ever been able to reach the position he held with apparent ease, which amounted to a sort of primacy of New England. His dangers lay in the very fecundity of his mind. Though hampered by his education and profession, he was naturally liberal; and his first miscalculation was when, almost immediately on landing, he supported Winthrop, who was in disgrace for the mildness of his administration, against the austerer Dudley.

The consciousness of his intellectual superiority seems to have given him an almost overweening confidence in his ability to induce his brethren to accept the broader theology he loved to preach; nor did he apparently realize that comprehension was incompatible with a theocratic government, and that his success would have undermined the organization he was laboring to perfect. He thus committed the error of his life in undertaking to preach a religious reformation, without having the resolution to face a martyrdom. But when he saw his mistake, the way in which he retrieved himself showed a consummate knowledge of human nature and of the men with whom he had to deal. Nor did he ever forget the lesson. From that time forward he took care that no one should be able to pick a flaw in his orthodoxy; and whatever he may have thought of much of the policy of his party, he was always ready to defend it without flinching.

Neither he nor Winthrop died too soon, for with the completion of the task of organization the work that suited them was finished, and they were unfit for that which remained to be done. An oligarchy, whose power rests on faith and not on force, can only exist by extirpating all who openly question their pretensions to preeminent sanctity; and neither of these men belonged to the class of natural persecutors,—the one was too gentle, the other too liberal. An example will show better than much argument how little in accord either really was with that spirit which, in the regular course of social development, had thenceforward to dominate over Massachusetts.

Captain Partridge had fought for the Parliament, and reached Boston at the beginning of the winter of 1645. He was arrested and examined as a heretic. The magistrates referred the case to Cotton, who reported that “he found him corrupt in judgment,” but “had good hope to reclaim him.” [Footnote: Winthrop, ii. 251.] An instant recantation was demanded; it was of course refused, and, in spite of all remonstrance, the family was banished in the snow. Winthrop’s sad words were: “But sure, the rule of hospitality to strangers, and of seeking to pluck out of the fire such as there may be hope of, ... do seem to require more moderation and indulgence of human infirmity where there appears not obstinacy against the clear truth.” [Footnote: Winthrop, ii. 251.]