Read Online The Mathers: Three Generations of Puritan Intellectuals, 1596-1728 by Robert Middlekauff - Free Book Online
Authors: Robert Middlekauff
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thus came to New England as an avowed exile; he had been banished because of his attachment to purity in the Church of Christ. His purpose in coming was to protect himself and help maintain the ordinances of Christ in His Church. His mood and his understanding of what he was doing was widely shared among the immigrants of the 1630's. 22
The sense of exile lasted until the early years of the English Civil War, an event which convinced Mather that New England was no longer isolated in the conflict with the Antichrist. With the war he discovered that God had raised up in England a number of faithful supporters in His cause. To be sure, while the fighting continued they suffered, but they had the consolationRichard Mather pointed outof suffering in God's cause. Their sufferings in fact were similar to the afflictions he had endured while still preaching in England. Grievous though afflictions were, they revealed God's interest in the afflicted, and His intention of punishing them until they were purged of their corruption. 23
This was one meaning Mather discovered in the war. It had still another dimension: it marked the death throes of the Beast. The servants of Antichrist had forced the issue; they had attacked true Christians just as they formerly had presecuted them. Now Christians were defending themselves in a sacred cause, and in the process of destroying the prelacy they were ushering in a period of purity in doctrine and worship. The struggle was worth it, Richard insisted, for the New Jerusalem would follow Christ's triumph. 24
If, in the 1640's, the war promised the end of the Antichrist, events seemed less favorable to the prospect of the conversion of the Jews. And yet Richard Mather had hopes for this prophecy too. If the Lord had intervened to forestall the bloody conquest of England by the Beast, He had chosen America to give a prevision of the salvation of Israel. He had planted Indians in America, another nation of heathen, and now as the conflict with the Beast in England rendered its climax, He had begun to
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snatch the Indians from Satan. What impressed Richard was the fact that the Indians had resisted all attempts to convert them before. The English had preached without avail for almost thirty years; and not until 1650 did their message begin to take hold. And if the Indians could be brought out of the wasteland of America after all this time, he asked, was not there hope for the Jews? Perhaps the Lord had selected this means to give impetus to further attempts to salvage them. 25
Whatever their hopes for the future, Richard Mather and his colleagues who led the migration to New England did not ever expect that the Congregational Church polity would serve as a model for others; nor did they expect that, as Perry Miller contends, "ultimately all Europe would imitate New England." 26 The first generation had no such conception of history; and they did not even begin to think of what they were doing as an errand. (In fact, they did not ever use the word "errand" to describe their purposes; its first use came in the next generation.)
An interpretation of their mission in such terms simplifies their conception of the historical process. It fails to concede their psychological subtletythey did not believe that men followed rational modelsand it strips from the historical process the power they attributed to conflict as a determinant in human affairs. It also discovers in them a pride they did not possess. Richard Mather, John Cotton, Thomas Hooker, and most of the great figures of the first generation continued to follow English events after their removal to America. Their interest, however, was not marked by a feeling of superiority, or a belief that the truth resided in New England and nowhere else. Ten years after Richard Mather arrived in Boston, he joined William Thompson, an old friend from England and then minister to the Braintree Church, in writing a long letter of advice to their old
The sense of exile lasted until the early years of the English Civil War, an event which convinced Mather that New England was no longer isolated in the conflict with the Antichrist. With the war he discovered that God had raised up in England a number of faithful supporters in His cause. To be sure, while the fighting continued they suffered, but they had the consolationRichard Mather pointed outof suffering in God's cause. Their sufferings in fact were similar to the afflictions he had endured while still preaching in England. Grievous though afflictions were, they revealed God's interest in the afflicted, and His intention of punishing them until they were purged of their corruption. 23
This was one meaning Mather discovered in the war. It had still another dimension: it marked the death throes of the Beast. The servants of Antichrist had forced the issue; they had attacked true Christians just as they formerly had presecuted them. Now Christians were defending themselves in a sacred cause, and in the process of destroying the prelacy they were ushering in a period of purity in doctrine and worship. The struggle was worth it, Richard insisted, for the New Jerusalem would follow Christ's triumph. 24
If, in the 1640's, the war promised the end of the Antichrist, events seemed less favorable to the prospect of the conversion of the Jews. And yet Richard Mather had hopes for this prophecy too. If the Lord had intervened to forestall the bloody conquest of England by the Beast, He had chosen America to give a prevision of the salvation of Israel. He had planted Indians in America, another nation of heathen, and now as the conflict with the Beast in England rendered its climax, He had begun to
Page 32
snatch the Indians from Satan. What impressed Richard was the fact that the Indians had resisted all attempts to convert them before. The English had preached without avail for almost thirty years; and not until 1650 did their message begin to take hold. And if the Indians could be brought out of the wasteland of America after all this time, he asked, was not there hope for the Jews? Perhaps the Lord had selected this means to give impetus to further attempts to salvage them. 25
Whatever their hopes for the future, Richard Mather and his colleagues who led the migration to New England did not ever expect that the Congregational Church polity would serve as a model for others; nor did they expect that, as Perry Miller contends, "ultimately all Europe would imitate New England." 26 The first generation had no such conception of history; and they did not even begin to think of what they were doing as an errand. (In fact, they did not ever use the word "errand" to describe their purposes; its first use came in the next generation.)
An interpretation of their mission in such terms simplifies their conception of the historical process. It fails to concede their psychological subtletythey did not believe that men followed rational modelsand it strips from the historical process the power they attributed to conflict as a determinant in human affairs. It also discovers in them a pride they did not possess. Richard Mather, John Cotton, Thomas Hooker, and most of the great figures of the first generation continued to follow English events after their removal to America. Their interest, however, was not marked by a feeling of superiority, or a belief that the truth resided in New England and nowhere else. Ten years after Richard Mather arrived in Boston, he joined William Thompson, an old friend from England and then minister to the Braintree Church, in writing a long letter of advice to their old
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