COLONIZATION OF VIRGINIA - CHARTER - ITS CHRISTIAN 0BJECTS - PREACHING OF THE G0SPEL ENJOINED - INDIANS TO BE CHRISTIANIZED - COLLEGE INSTITUTED - JEFFERSON'S REMARKS - ACTS OF CHRISTIAN LEGISLATION - EPISCOPACY ESTABLISHED - COLONIZATION OF MARYLAND - LORD BALTIMORE - CHARTER - RELIGI0US TOLERATION BECOMES THE FUNDAMENTAL LAW OF AMERICAN CONSTITUTIONS - COLONIZATION OF SOUTH CAROLINA - CHARTER - FRAME OF GOVERNEMENT FORMED BY LOCKE - COLONIZATION OF NORTH CAROLINA - BIBLE THE BASIS OF THEIR INSTITUTIONS - CHRISTIAN INSTRUCTIONS TO CIVIL DELEGATES - COLONIZATION OF GEORGIA - OGLETHORPE - THE WESLEYS - CHRISTIAN ELEMENT IN GEORGIA - LESSONS OF THE COLONIZATION OF THE CONTINENT - REMARKABLE PROPHECY OF AN ENGLISH BISHOP - A NEW SCENE OF PROVIDENCE OPENED IN THE SETTLEMENT OF AMERICA.
The Colonization of Virginia
Began in 1607, fourteen years previous to the Puritan settlement in New England, and seventy-five before William Penn gave to Pennsylvania the basis of a Christian government. In April, 1606, James, King of England, granted to a colony forming to emigrate to America a charter for the possession of those territories lying on the sea-coast between the 34th and 45th degrees of north latitude, and all the islands within a hundred miles of those shores. That charter declared the design of the colonists to be ''to make habitation and plantation and to deduce a colony of sundry of our people into that part of America commonly called Virginia; and that so noble a work may, by the providence of Almighty God, hereafter tend to the glory of his divine majesty in propagating of the Christian religion to such people as yet live in darkness and in miserable ignorance of the true knowledge and worship of God, and may, in time, bring the infidels and savages living in those parts to human civility and a quiet government."
It is, moreover, in the Virginia charter of 1609 declared ''that it shall be necessary for all such as inhabit within the precincts of Virginia to determine to live together in the fear and true worship of Almighty God, Christian peace, and civil quietness;" and that " the principal effect which we [the crown] can desire or expect of this action is the conversion and reduction of the people in those parts unto the true worship of Grod and the Christian religion."
In a code of laws for the government of the Virginia colony, which the king assisted to frame, were "enjoined the preaching of the gospel in America, and the performance of divine worship in conformity with the doctrines and rites of the Church of England." In 1619, twelve years after the first settlement of Virginia, "The King of England having formerly issued his letters to the bishops of the kingdom, for collecting money to erect a college in Virginia for the education of Indian children, nearly fifteen hundred dollars had been already paid to this benevolent and pious design, and Henrico had been selected as a suitable place for the seminary. The Virginia Company granted ten thousand acres of land to be laid off for the University at Henrico. The first design was to erect and build a college in Virginia for the training up and educating infidel [Indian] children in the true knowledge of God." The principal design of William and Mary College was to instruct and christianize the Indians.
Jefferson, in his "Notes on Virginia," says, "The purposes of the institution would be better answered by maintaining a perpetual mission among the Indian tribes, the object of which, besides instructing them in the principles of Christianity, as the founder required, should be to collect their traditions, laws, customs, languages, and other circumstances which might lead to a discovery of their relation with one another or descent from other nations. When these objects are accomplished with one tribe, the missionary might pass to another."
"The colony of Virginia consisted of Church-of-England men, and many of their first acts related to provision for the Church. The ministers were considered, not as pious and charitable individuals, but as officers of state, bound to promote the true faith and aid sound morality by authority of the commnnity by which they were paid, and to which they were held responsible for the performance of their duty. The very first act of the Assembly required every settlement in which the people worship God to build a house to be appropriated exclusively for that purpose; the second act imposed a penalty of a pound of tobacco for absence from divine service on Sunday; and another act prohibited any man from disposing of his tobacco until the minister's portion was paid.
When the population had increased to fifty thousand, in 1668, there were "nearly fifty Episcopal parishes, with as many glebes, church-edifices, and pastors. Episcopacy was established by law; attendance was enforced by penalties: even the sacramental services of the Church were legally enjoined upon the people; every thing wore the appearance of a very strict religious economy." The Christian religion was the underlying basis and the pervading element of all the social and civil institutions of the Virginia colony.
In 1662, the Assembly of Virginia passed an act to make permanent provision for the establishment of a college. The preamble of the act establishing it recites "that the want of able and faithful ministers in this country deprives us of those great blessings and mercies that always attend upon the service of God;" and the act itself declares "that for the advancement of learning, education of youth, supply of the ministry, and promotion of piety, there be land taken up and purchased for a college and free school, and that with all convenient speed there be buildings erected upon it for the entertainment of students and scholars." In 1693 the College of William and Mary was founded.
Maryland
Began her colonial settlement in 1632, under the auspices of Lord Baltimore, a British nobleman and a Roman Catholic. His object was to "people a territory with colonists of his own religious faith, and to erect an asylum in North America for the Catholic religion." He obtained a charter from Charles I., in which it was declared that the "grantee was actuated by a laudable zeal for extending the Christian religion and the territory of the British empire; and if any doubt should ever arise concoming the true meaning of the charter, there should be no construction of it derogatory to the Christian religion."
The first band of colonists, consisting of two hundred men of rank, led by Leonard Calvert, brother of Lord Baltimore, sailed from England in November, 1632, and landed on the coast of Maryland early in 1633. As soon as they landed, the governor erected a cross, and took possession of the country "for our Lord Jesus Christ, and for our sovereign lord the King of England." "To every emigrant fifty acres of land were given in absolute fee; and the recognition of Christianity as the established faith of the land, with an exclusion of the political predominance or superiority of any particular sect or denomination of Christians was enacted." The colonists "soon converted a desolate wilderness into a flourishing commonwealth enlivened by industry and adorned by civilization."
Religious toleration was, from the beginning, proclaimed as one of the fundamental laws of the colony. The Assembly, mostly of the Roman Catholic faith, passed, in 1650, a memorable Christian act, entitled, an "Act concerning Religion." The preamble declared that "the enforcement of the conscience had been of dangerous consequence in those countries where it had been practised;" and therefore it was ordained "that no person professing to believe in Jesus Christ should be molested on account of their faith, or denied the free exercise of their particular modes of worship." This act of religious toleration was as honorable to the first Catholic colony as it was a fitting tribute to the genius and sanction of the Christian religion." It was the earliest example," says Judge Story, "of a legislator inviting his subjects to the free indulgence of religious opinion."
"With all that was excellent and grand and far-reaching in the principles of the Pilgrims, and with all the mighty influences of the religion of the Pilgrims in its bearing on the liberties of this nation, - ultimately infinitely more far-reaching than those which had gone out from Maryland, - still, it cannot be denied that the principles adopted in that colony were in advance of those which were held by the settlers of either Plymouth or Jamestown; and though coming short of those held by Roger Williams and William Penn, yet they were such as the age, in its progress, was carrying to that result." This beneficent and fundamental law exerted a highly favorable influence on the prosperity of the Maryland colony, and largely increased its population. It was, in time, incorporated in the legislation of the less tolerant colonies, and finally became the supreme law in all the State Constitutions, as well as in the Constitution of the United States.
South Carolina
Began her colonial existence and history under the auspices of the Christian religion. In 1662, a company of emigrants, generally grandees of England and courtiers of Charles II., obtained a charter and settled in South Carolina. In the charter, it was stated that the colonists, "excited with a laudable and pious zeal for the propagation of the gospel, have begged a certain country in the parts of America, riot yet cultivated and planted, and only inhabited by some barbarous people, who have no knowledge of God."
In 1669, a second charter was obtained, and the outlines of its government, under the title of "the Fundamental Constitution of Carolina," was drawn up by John Locke, the great Christian philosopher, who declared that Christianity had "God for its Author, salvation for its end, and truth without any mixture of error for its matter." In that constitution it is declared that -
"Since the natives of the place, who will be concerned in our plantations, are utterly strangers to Christianity, whose idolatry, ignorance, or mistake gives us no right to expel or treat them ill, and those who remove from other parts to plant there will undoubtedly be of diflferent opinions concerning matters of religion, the liberty whereof they will expect to have allowed them, and it will not be reasonable on this account to keep them out; that civil peace may be maintained amidst, the diversity of opinions, and our agreement and compact with all men ihay be duly and faithfully observed; the violation whereof, upon what pretence soever, cannot be, without great offence to Almighty God, and great scandal to the true religion which we profess; and also that Jews, heathens, and other dissenters from the purity of the Christian religion may not be scared and kept at a distance from it, but, by having opportunity of acquainting themselves with the truth and reasonableness of its doctrines and the peaceableness and inoffensiveness of its professors, may by good usage and persuasion, and all those convincing methods of gentleness and meekness suitable to the rules and designs of the gospel, be won over to embrace and unfeignedly to receive the truth: therefore any seven or more persons, agreeing in any religion shall constitute a Church or profession, to which they shall give some name, to distinguish it from others."
In the terms of communion of every such Church or profession, it was required that the three following articles should appear : - that there is a God; that public worship is due from all men to this Supreme Being; and that every citizen shall, at the command of the civil magistrate, deliver judicial testimony with some form of words indicating a recognition of divine justice and human responsibility. Only the acknowledged members of some Church or profession were capable of becoming freemen of Carolina, or of possessing any estate or habitation within the province; and all persons were forbidden to revile, disturb, or in any way persecute the members of any religious association allowed by law. What was enjoined to freemen was permitted to slaves, by an article which declared that ''since charity obliges us to wish well to the souls of all men, and religion ought to alter nothing in any man's civil estate or right, it shall be lawful for slaves, as well as others, to enter themselves and be of what Church or profession any of them shall think best and thereof be as fully members as any freeman."
In another of the articles of ''the Fundamental Constitution" it was declared that "whenever the country should be sufficiently peopled and planted, the provincial parliament should enact regulations for the building of churches, and the public maintenance of divines, to be employed in the cause of religion according to the canons of the Church of England;" "which, being the only true and orthodox and the national religion of all tiie king's dominions, is so also of Carolina; and therefore it alone shall be allowed to receive public maintenance by grant of parliament."
After twenty years of experiment, the form of government instituted by Locke was abolished. The French Protestants, and Dissenters from England, became the ruling power, and established a more just and liberal system of government.
The Huguenots formed an important part of the colony of South Carolina.
The same lovely picture of piety as in the New York colony was presented by these Christian refugees who had settled in South Carolina. ''There it was," says Bancroft, "that these Calvinist exiles could celebrate their worship, without fear, in the midst of the forests, and mingle the voice of their psalms with the murmur of the winds which sighed among the mighty oaks. Their church was in Charleston. They repaired thither every Sunday from their plantations, which were scattered in all directions on the banks of the Cooper." The descendants of these Christian colonists became distinguished in American history, and exerted a prominent influence in achieving the independence of the nation. American patriotism, eloquence, oratory, and jurisprudence are adorned by many noble names, descendants of the Huguenots.
North Carolina,
From the beginning of her colonial history, laid the basis of her institutions on Christianity. The first permanent settlements were made by fugitives from Virginia, who sought refuge from the rigid, intolerant laws of that colony, which bore so heavily on all that could not conform to the ceremonies of the established Church. When the Puritans were driven from Virginia, some eminently pious people settled along the seaboard, where they might be free from the oppression of intolerant laws and bigoted magistrates. About the year 1707, a colony of Huguenots located on the Trent River, and one of Palatines at Newborn, each maintaining the peculiar religious services of the fatherland. The Quakers were, like other sects, compelled to flee from the severe laws passed against them in Virginia, and sought refuge in Carolina. As early as 1730, scattered families of Presbyterians from the north of Ireland were found in various parts of the colony. In 1736 a colony of Presbyterians came from the province of Ulster, Ireland, and made a permanent settlement. Subsequently several other colonies of Presbyterians came from Ireland, and settled in different sections of the colony. These Presbyterian bands rapidly increased, and formed numerous large congregations, which multiplied into other congregations; and thus the colony became thoroughly Christian, and the people imbued with a fervent love of liberty.
In 1746 and 1747 a large emigration of Scotch came into the colony of North Carolina. In the efforts of Prince Charles Edward to obtain the crown of England, the Scotch were in sympathy with him. George II. granted pardon to a large number on condition of their emigration and taking the oath of allegiance. This is the origin of the Scotch settlements in North Carolina. A large number who had taken up arms for the Pretender preferred exile to death or to subjugation in their native land, and during the years 1746 and 1747 emigrated with their families and those of many of their friends, to North Carolina. In the course of a few years, large companies of industrious Highlanders joined their countrymen.
This Christian people, both in Scotland and this country, contended "that obligation to God was above all human control, and for the government of their conscience in all matters of morality and religion the Bible is the storehouse of information, - acknowledging no Lord of the Conscience but the Son of God, the head of the Church, Jesus Christ, and the Bible as his divine communication for the welfare and guide of mankind."
The Scotch-Irish Presbyterians, who formed so large a proportion of the people of North Carolina, and moulded its religious and political character, were eminently pious and ardent lovers of liberty. "Their religious principles swayed their political opinions; and in maintaining their form of worship and their creed they learned republicanism before they emigrated to America."
The religious creed of these Christian emigrants formed a part of their politics so far as to lead them to decide that no law of human government ought to be tolerated in opposition to the expressed will of God. Their ideas of religious liberty have given a coloring to their political notions on all subjects, - have been, indeed, the foundation of their political creed. The Bible was their text-book on all subjects of importance, and their resistance to tyrants was inspired by the free principles which it taught and enforced.
The following instructions to the delegates of Mecklenburg county exhibit the sentiments of the people on the Christian religion as the basis of civil government. It bears date September 1, 1776. The first Provincial Congress of North Carolina was then in session.
"13th. You are instructed to assent and consent to the establishment of the Christian religion, as contained in the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament, to be the religion of the state, to the utter exclusion forever of all and every other (faisely so called) religion, whether pagan or papal; and that a full and free and peaceable enjoyment thereof be secured to all and every constituent member of the state, as their individual right as freemen, without the imposition of rites and ceremonies, whether claiming civil or ecclesiastical power for their source; and that a confession and profession of the religion so established shall be necessary in qualifying any person for public trust in the state.
"14th. You are also to oppose the establishment of any mode of worship to be supported to the oppression of the rights of conscience, and at the destruction of private judgment."
This political paper declares that the people of North Carolina believed the Bible, and from it drew their principles of morals, religion, and politics. To abjure the Christian religion would have been, with them, to abjure freedom and immortality. They asserted in every political form the paramount authority of the Christian religion as the sole acknowledged religion of the state and community.
These Christian men, and others like them, constituted the celebrated Mecklenburg Convention of North Carolina convened in 1776. The convention was composed largely of Presbyterians, the most distinguished of whom were ministers. The delegates met on the 15th of May, 1775, and during their sittings news arrived of the battle of Lexington. Every delegate felt the value and importance of the prize of liberty, and the awful and solemn crisis which had arrived. Every bosom swelled with indignation at the malice, inveteracy, and insatiable revenge developed in the late attack at Lexington.
After a full and free discussion of various subjects, it was unanimously -
"2. Resolved, That we, the citizens of Mecklenburg county, do hereby dissolve the political bands which have connected us with the mother-country, and hereby absolve ourselves from allegiance to the British crown, and abjure all political connection, contract, and association, with that nation which has wantonly trampled on our rights and liberties, and inhumanly shed the innocent blood of American patriots at Lexington.
"3. Resolved, That we do hereby declare ourselves a free and independent people, - that we are, and of right ought to be, a sovereign and self-governing association, under the control of no power other than that of God and the general government of the Congress; to the maintenance of which independence we solemnly pledge to each other our mutual co-operation, our lives, our fortunes, and our most sacred honor."
This declaration of independence preceded the one made by Congress in 1776 more than a year, and is a noble monument of the patriotism and piety of the people of North Carolina.
The colony of North Carolina is particularly distinguished for the large number of able and patriotic ministers who were diligent laborers in the fields of intellectual and Christian culture and in sowing broadcast the seeds of liberty and of future independence. The annals of Biblical learning and of freedom are adorned with the names of Campbell, Hall, Hunter, McAden, Craighead, Alexander, McWhorter, McCane, Petillo, and others, who were master-workmen in their department of Christian labor, and ardent and fearless patriots. These men were the pioneers of freedom and independence, and in all the measures preparatory to the coming revolution they were the foremost leaders.
The Colony of Georgia
Has a suggestive Christian history. James Oglethorpe, a member of the British Parliament, imbued with the philanthropic spirit of the gospel, obtained in 1732 a charter from George II. to establish a colony in North America. He had in former years devoted himself to the benevolent work of relieving multitudes in England who were imprisoned for debt and suffering in loathsome jails. Actuated by Christian motives, he desired to see these poor sufferers placed in an independent condition, and projected a colony in America for that purpose. "For them, and for persecuted Protestants," says Bancroft, "he planned an asylum and a destiny in America, where former poverty would be no reproach, and where the simplicity of piety could indulge the spirit of devotion without fear of persecution from men who hated the rebuke of its example." This Christian enterprise enlisted "the benevolence of England; the charities of an opulent and enlightened nation were to be concentrated on the new plantation; the Society for Propagating the Gospel in Foreign Parts sought to promote its interests; and Parliament showed its good will by contributing ten thousand pounds."
In January, 1732, Oglethorpe, with one hundred and twenty emigrants, landed in America, and on the basis of the Christian religion laid the future commonwealth of Georgia.The Christian liberality and philanthropy of the founder of the colony spread its fame far and wide; for it was announced that the rights of citizenship and all the immunities of the colony "would be extended to all Protestant emigrants from any nation of Europe, desirous of refuge from persecution, or willing to undertake the religious instruction of the Indians." The Moravians, or United Brethren, - a denomination of Christians founded by Count Zinzendorf, a German nobleman of the fifteenth century, - were invited to emigrate to the colony of Georgia. They accepted the invitation, and arrived in the winter of 1736. Their object was to Christianize and convert the Indians, and to aid in planting the institutions of the New World on the basis of Christianity. The journal of John Wesley during the voyage exhibits the godly manner of the emigrants. "Our common way," says he, "of living was this. From four of the morning till five, each of us used private prayer. From five to seven we read the Bible together, carefully comparing it (that we might not lean to our own understanding) with the writings of the earliest ages. At eight were public prayers. At four were the evening prayers, - when either the second lesson was explained, or the children were catechized and instructed before the congregation. From five to six we again used private prayer. At seven I joined with the Germans in their public service. At eight we met again, to exhort and instruct one another. Between nine and ten we went to bed, where neither the roaring of the sea nor the motion of the ship could take away the refreshing sleep which God gave us." What a Christian way of spending the time, for emigrants sailing over the mighty deep to aid in founding a Christian empire on the shores of a new world!
When these Christian emigrants touched the shore, their first act was "to kneel and return thanks to God for their having safely arrived in Georgia." "Our end in leaving our native country," said they, "is not to gain riches and honor, but singly this, - to live wholly to the glory of God." Their object was "to make Georgia a religious colony, having no theory but devotion, no ambition but to quicken the sentiment of piety."
The Christian founder of the commonwealth of Georgia carried his Christian principles into all the official transactions of the colony. The survey and division of the lots in the city of Savannah were conducted under the sanctions of religion. On the 7th of July, 1733, the emigrants met in a body upon the bluff of the river, before Oglethorpe's tent, and, having returned thanks to Almighty God and joined in prayer for his blessing to rest upon the colony and city they were about to found, they proceeded to lay out the lots and divide them in a Christian manner. They felt and said, "Except the Lord keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain."
Under the administration of Oglethorpe, the colony greatly prospered and increased in numbers. "His undertaking will succeed," said Johnson, Governor of South Carolina; "for he nobly devotes all his powers to serve the poor and rescue them from wretchedness." "He bears a great love to the servants and children of God," said the pastor of a Moravian church. "He has taken care of us to the utmost of his ability. God has so blessed us with his presence and his regulations in the land, that others would not in many years have accomplished what he has brought about in one."
In 1734, after a residence of fifteen months in Georgia, Oglethorpe returned to England. He succeeded in obtaining additional patronage for the colony, and in October, 1736, set sail with three hundred emigrants, and after a long and stormy voyage they reached the colony of Georgia in February, 1736, where they were joined a few days after by a band of Christian emigrants from the highlands of Scotland.
These colonists were accompanied by John and Charles Wesley, the founders of the Methodist Episcopal Church. Their purpose was to aid Oglethorpe in his philanthropic labors and to convert the Indians to Christianity. Charles Wesley held the office of Secretary for Indian Affairs, and also that of a chaplain to Governor Oglethorpe.
Rev. Mr. Stevens, a historian of Georgia, says that "John Wesley established a school of thirty or forty children, and hired a teacher, in which he designed to blend religious instruction with worldly wisdom; and on Sunday afternoon Mr. Wesley met them in the church before evening service, and heard the children recite their catechism, questioned them as to what they had learned in the Bible, instructed them still further in the Bible, endeavoring to fix the truth in their understandings as well as in their memories. This was a regular part of their Sunday duties; and it shows that John Wesley, in the parish of Christ's Church, in Savannah, had established a Sunday-school nearly fifty years before Robert Raikes originated his noble scheme of Sunday-instruction in Gloucester, England, and eighty years before the first school in America on Mr. Raikes's plan was established in New York."
George Whitefield visited Georgia, and preached with wonderful eloquence and zeal, and labored with apostolic faith and perseverance in founding an Orphan Asylum, a "Bethesda," a "House of Mercy," for orphan children. His fame and influence soon spread over the colonies, and wherever he went tens of thousands of people hung with breathless interest on his preaching. He made a number of voyages to England and back to America, and died in Newburyport, Massachusetts, in 1770. In consequence of his Christian services to Georgia, and especially his eflforts for the orphans, the legislature of the colony proposed to remove his remains to Savannah and to bury them at public cost. Dr. Franklin wrote to Dr. Jones, of Georgia, on the subject as follows: - "I cannot forbear expressing the pleasure it gives me to see an account of the respect paid to Whitefield's memory, by your Assembly. I knew him intimately upwards of thirty years: his integrity, disinterestedness, and indefatigable zeal in prosecuting every good work I have never seen equalled, I shall never see excelled." And such was the effect of Whitefield's preaching in Philadelphia that Franklin said, "It was wonderful to see the change soon made in the manner of our inhabitants. From being thoughtless or indifferent about religion, it seemed as if all the world were growing religious, so that one could not walk through the town in an evening without hearing psalms sung in different families in every street."
"It is a matter of great interest," says the historian of Georgia, "that religion was planted with the first settlers, and that the English, the Salzburgers, the Moravians, the Methodists, the Presbyterians, and the Israelites severally brought with them the ministers or the worship of their respective creeds. The Christian element of colonization - that without which the others are powerless to give true and lasting elevation - entered largely into the colonization of Georgia, and did much for her prosperity and glory. No colony can point to a leader or founder in whose character meet more eminent qualities or more enduring worth than in that of James Oglethorpe, the father of Georgia."
These Christian facts in the colonial history of our country suggest the following lessons: -
1. The faith of the Puritans, and of the founders of the various colonies, in the divine origin and authority of civil government.
They held firmly to the declarations of the Bible, that "there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God. Whosoever therefore resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God." And the doctrine of the divine origin of civil government led these Christian men to regard the civil ruler as the "minister of God to the people for good; and that he that ruleth should rule in the fear of God." This true and noble faith in reference to civil government and the character of the men who administered it placed the entire administration of government under the direction of God and in harmony with his will. The results of this faith and practice will always be in perfect harmony with the just ends of government and with the highest political and moral propriety of a nation. This grand idea was one that was always supreme in the minds and purposes of the Puritan and other colonial legislators in respect to civil government. They ever regarded government as from God; and this view invested it with all the dignity and authority of a divine institution.
"The first settlers," says Lord Brougham, "of all the colonies, were men of irreproachable character. Many of them fled from persecution; others on account of honorable poverty; and all of them with their expectations limited to the prospect of a bare subsistence in freedom and peace. All idea of wealth or pleasure was out of the question. The greater part of them viewed their emigration as a taking up the cross, and bounded their hopes of riches to the gifts of the Spirit, and their ambition to the desire of a kingdom beyond the grave. A set of men more conscientious in their doings, or simpler in their manners, never founded an empire. It is indeed the peculiar glory of North America that, with very few exceptions, its empire was founded in charity and peace."
2. The subordination of civil government to the power of the Christian religion.
"They looked upon their commonwealths as institutions for the preservation of the Churches, and the civil rulers as both members and fathers of them." Hence it was a favorite doctrine with the first settlers of the colonies of Massachusetts and Connecticut, that all freemen and civil rulers must be in communion with the Churches, and so promote the interest and spread of Christianity.
This doctrine had an eminent advocate in the celebrated John Cotton, the first minister of Boston.
"The government," says he, "might be considered as a theocracy, wherein the Lord was judge, lawgiver, and king; that the laws which he gave Israel might be adopted so far as they were of a moral and perpetual equity; that the people might be considered as God's people in covenant with him; that none but persons of approved piety and eminent gifts should be chosen rulers." At the desire of the court, he compiled a system of laws, which were considered by the legislative body as the general standard.
The same fact was stated by President Stiles, of Yale College, in 1783. "It is certain," said he, "that civil dominion was but the second motive, religion the primary one, with our ancestors in coming hither and settling this land. It was not so much their design to establish religion for the benefit of the state, as civil government for the benefit of religion, and as subservient and even necessary towards the peaceable and unmolested exercise of religion, - of that religion for which they fled to these ends of the earth. They designed, in thus laying the foundations of a new state, to make it a model for the glorious kingdom of Christ."
Rev. John Norton, in 1661, declared, in an election sermon, that they came into this wilderness to live under the order of tlie gospel; "that our policy may be a gospel policy and may be complete according to the Scriptures, answering fully to the word of God: this is the work of our generation, and the very work we engaged for in this wilderness; this is the scope and end of it, that which is written upon the forehead of New England, viz., the complete walking in the faith of the gospel according to the order of the gospel."
3. The end and operations of civil government to propagate and subserve the Christian religion.
"The Pilgrims," says Rev. R. S. Storrs, "would have held that state most imperfect which contented itself and complacently rested in its own advancement and special prosperities, without seeking to benefit others around it. They esteemed that progress to be radically wanting in greatness and value which was a mere progress in power and wealth and in physical success; which gained no results of great character and culture, and blossomed out to no wealthy fruits of enlarged Christian knowledge. The moral, to them, was superior to the physical; the attainments of Christian wisdom and piety, above accumulations of worldly resources; the alliance of the soul with God, through faith, above the conquest and mastery of nature. And to these they held the state to be tributary, as they held all things else that existed on the earth, - the very earth itself and its laws. Not a mere police establishment was the state, on their theory, accomplishing its office in protecting its subjects and punishing criminals. It was to them a place and a power of the noblest education; a teeming nursery of all good influences and heavenly growths, from which letters, charities, and salvation should proceed, and in which they should perpetually be nourished. Philanthropic endeavors, and missionary enterprises, were to be its results, the proofs of its prosperity, the real and imperishable rewards of its founders. It existed in order that characters might be formed, commanding, large, and full of light, whose record should make all history brighter, whose influence should link the earth with the skies. And they expected the Millennium itself, with its long eras of peace and of purity, of tranquil delight and illuminated wisdom, to spring as the last and crowning fruitage from the states they were founding, and from others like them."
4. The position and influence of the ministers of the gospel in the civil affairs of the state.
They were consulted on all matters pertaining to the civil affairs of the New England colonies, and had the controlling influence in forming and directing the civil government. The very first written code of laws for Massachusetts, under the charter of 1629, was drawn up by a minister. And the instruction of the civil court, appointed to frame the laws of the commonwealth, was to make them "as near the law of God as they can." "They had great power in the people's heart," says Winthrop. "Religion ruled the state through its ministers."
Ministers were selected as agents to obtain charters and petition the king and Parliament, as well as to direct the character of the civil government at home. "The clergy were generally consulted on civil matters, and the suggestions they gave from the pulpit on election-days and other special occasions were enacted into laws."
Before the Declaration of Independence, the Bishop of St. Asaph, in England, published a discourse, in which are found the following remarkable passages in reference to the North American colonies: -
"It is difficult," says he, "for man to look into the destiny of future ages: the designs of Providence are vast and complicated, and our own powers are too narrow to admit of much satisfaction to our curiosity. But when we see so many great and powerful causes constantly at work, we cannot doubt of their producing proportional eflFects.
"The colonies in North America have not only taken root and acquired strength, but seem hastening with an accelerated progress to such a powerful state as may introduce a new and important change in human affairs.
"Descended from ancestors of the most improved and enlightened part of the Old World, they receive as it were by inheritance all the improvements and discoveries of their mother-country. And it happens fortunately for them to commence their flourishing state at a time when the human understanding has attained to the free use of its powers and has learned to act with vigor and certainty. And let it be well understood what rapid improvements, what important discoveries, have been made, in a few years, by a few countries, with our own at the head, which have at last discovered the right method of using their faculties.
"May we not reasonably expect that a number of provinces possessed of these advantages and quickened by mutual emulation, with only the progress of the human mind, should very considerably enlarge the boundaries of science? It is difficult even to imagine to what height of improvement their discoveries may extend.
"And perhaps they may make as considerable advances in the arts of civil government and the conduct of life. May they not possibly be more successful than their mother-country has been in preserving that reverence and authority which are due to the laws, - to those who make them, and to those who execute them? May not a method be invented of procuring some tolerable share of the comforts of life to those inferior useful ranks of men to whose industry we are indebted for the whole? Time and discipline may discover some means to correct the extreme inequalities between the rich and the poor, so dangerous to the innocence and happiness of both. They may, fortunately, be led by habit and choice to despise that luxury which is considered with us the true enjoyment of wealth. They may have little relish for that ceaseless hurry of amusements which is pursued in this country without pleasure, exercise, or employment. And perhaps, after trying some of our follies and caprices, and rejecting the rest, they may be led by reason and experiment to that old simplicity which was first pointed out by nature, and has produced those models which we still admire in arts, eloquence, and manners.
"The diversity of the new scenes and new situations, which so many growing states must necessarily pass through, may introduce changes in the fluctuating opinions and manners of men which we can form no conception of; and not only the gracious disposition of Providence, but the visible preparation of causes, seems to indicate strong tendencies towards a general improvement."
John Adams, in contemplating the Christian colonization of the American continent, uttered the following views of the design of Providence: - "I always consider," said he, "the settlement of America with reverence and wonder, as the opening of a grand scheme and design of Providence for the illumination of the ignorant and the emancipation of the slavish part of mankind all over the earth."