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The Rule of the Saints in American Politics

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

Jerald C. Brauer
Jerald C. Brauer
Affiliation:
University of Chicago
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Extract

It has been observed that in America the preachers act like politicians and the politicians talk like preachers. Recent developments in American politics have given renewed support to this observation. There are a number of possible explanations as to why the American public is so concerned, at this particular time in history, to appear as a godly people and nation. However, the question that immediately presents itself to the historian is why the American public so quickly responds to the religious motif in political life.

Type
Research Article
Information
Church History , Volume 27 , Issue 3 , September 1958 , pp. 240 - 255
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Church History 1958

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References

1. Niebuhr, Reinhold, The Irony of American History (New York: Scribner's, 1952), p. 133.Google Scholar

2. Adams, Brooks, The Emancipation of Massachusetts (Boston: Houghton Miffun Co., 1887)Google Scholar. Parrington, Vernon L., Main Currents in American Thought (3 vols., New York: Harcourt, Brace and Co., 1927–1930)Google Scholar. Perry, Ralph Barton, Puritanism and Democracy (New York: Vanguard Press, 1944)Google Scholar. Wertenbakor, Thomas J., The Puritan Oligarchy (New York: Scribner's, 1947)Google Scholar. Miller, Perry, The New England Mind (New York: Macmillan Co., 1939)Google Scholar. Schneider, Herbert W., The Puritan Mind (New York: Henry Holt and Co., 1930).Google Scholar

3. Studying Puritanism in terms of theocracy has been common practice since the first Puritan historians. They had no doubts that they lived under a theocracy and subsequent historians have agreed with them. Our intention here is to exhibit a framework of thought and even practice deeper than the external structure of the theocratic state in New England.

4. Mather, Cotton, Magnalia Christi Americana, as the Ecclesiastical History of New England (London: 1702) 2 vols.Google Scholarpassim.

5. Cotton, John, A Brief Exposition… Upon the Whole Book of Ecclesiastes (Edinburgh: James Nichol, 1868), p. 122Google Scholar. In commenting on verse fourteen Cotton said, “There is no work, whether it be open or secret, good or evil, but God will bring it under judgment.” Ibid., 134.

6. In his New England Mind, Professor Perry Miller undertakes a thorough analysis of the Puritan ambivalence with regard to God's immediate and mediate rule. It is dealt with at length in chapters 2, 3, 5, 7, 14, 15.

7. The Savoy Declaration, V, 1Google Scholar. in Walker, Williston, The Creeds and Platforms of Congregationalism (New York: Scribner's 1893), p. 372.Google Scholar

8. John Cotton, Copy of A Letter from Mr. Cotton to Lord Say and Seal in the Year 1636. Printed in Hutchinson, Thomas, The History of the Colony of Massachusetts Bay (Boston: Thomas and John Fleet, 1764) Appendix III, p. 496 f.Google Scholar

9. Ibid., 497 f.

10. Winthrop, John, Journal ed. 1, Hosmer, James K. (New York: Scribner's, 1908), II, 36.Google Scholar

11. John Cotton, op. cit., 497. Cf. John Eliot, The Christian Commonwealth: or, The Civil Polity of the Rising Kingd om of Jesus Christ. Printed in the Massachusetts Historical Collections, Third Series, IX, p. 144Google Scholar. Those who are redeemed in Christ “solemnly with the rest of God's people joyn together… receiving from the Lord both the platforme of their Civil Government, as it is set down (in the essentials of it) in the holy Scriptures….”

12. Hooker, Thomas, A Survey of the Summe of Church Disalpline (London: 1648)Google Scholar. Preface. Cf. pt. I, 185 f.

13. Ibid., p. 3.

14. Cotton J. op. cit., p. 499.

15. Ibid.

16. Hooker, op. cit., pt. I, 16 Cf. Ibid., pp. 5 f., 185.

17. Cotton, John, The Keyes of the Kingdom of Heaven (London: 1644) pp. 65f.Google Scholar

18. Cotton, John, The Way of the Churches of Christ in New England (London: 1645), p. 44.Google Scholar

19. Cotton, , Keyes of the Kingdom, p. 54.Google Scholar

20. Hooker T. op. cit., pt. II, 80.

21. Cambridge Platform, XVII, 6Google Scholar. in Walker W., op. cit., p. 236.

22. Ibid.

23. It is on this religious basis of the magistracy that the distinction is made between aristocracy and democracy in the Bay Colony. Cotton and Winthrop could actually maintain that they did not have a democracy even though freemen had the right to elect magistrates. It is this perspective that is not made sufficiently clear in the article by Brown, B. Katherine, “A Note on the Puritan Concept of Aristocracy,” Mississippi Valley Historical Review, XLI, 1, 105ff.Google Scholar

24. John Winthrop, Speech to the General Court July 3, 1645. Printed in Miler, P. and Johnson, T. H., The Puritans (New York: American Book Co., 1938) p. 207.Google Scholar

25. Wise, John, A Vindication of the Government of the New England Churehes (Boston: John Boyles, 1772).Google Scholar

26. A penetrating and stimnlating analysis of the possible ways Christianity can be related to polities and society is Niebuhr's, H. RichardChrist and Culture (New York: Harper & Bros., 1951)Google Scholar. Under his typology the earlier Puritans would represent the attempt to make polities and culture conform to the Christ. The position of John Wise was directed rather towards identifying the highest values of his culture with the Christ. Such a position would be called Christ of Culture. An interesting observation is that as to their sociological consequences there appears to be little difference between these two positions. The Niebuhr study is invaluable for any who wish to study the relation of Puritanism and politics.

27. In spite of the differences between the Mathers and the Brattle Street group their similarity is pronounced in the ways they relate Christ and local culture. Though the Mathers were supposedly concerned with transforming local culture and politics through the kingship of Christ, they almost identified the will of Christ with what was achieved in Boston. To be sure this was in the past, but not iu a remote past. In fact they were still living in this tradition. Cf. Mather, Cotton, Magnalia Christi Americana.

28. Beecher, Lyman, Autobiography, Correspondence, Etc. of Lyman Beecher ed., Beecher, Charles (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1865) I, 344.Google Scholar

29. Ibid.

30. Beecher, Lyman, A Sermon Addressed to the Legislature of Connecticut… on the day of the Anniversary Election, 05 3d, 1826. (New Haven: I. Bruce, 1826), pp. 9–10.Google Scholar

31. See especially Beecher's “The Being of a God,” “The Remedy for Duelling,” “The Perils of Atheism to the Nation,” “The Government of God Desirable,” “A Reformation of Morals Practical and Indispensable,” “The Bible a Code of Laws.”

32. Beecher, Lyman, Works (Boston: John P. Jewett & Co., 1852), I, 334Google Scholar. Lecture XV, entitled “The Memory of the Fathers” is a revised and expanded edition of the 1826 election sermon. In the new edition Beecher strengthens his statements approving old Puritan religious beliefs and practices. He considers himself to be a legitimate descendant, and he is.

33. Beecher, L., Election Sermon 1826, p. 11.Google Scholar

34. Professor Sidney E. Mead pointed out that it was in the fight against infidelity and Unitarianism that Beecher learned the value of revivals and voluntary associations for political purposes. Cf. Mead's, Nathaniel William Taylor (Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1942) pp. 74–94, 173–176Google Scholar. It was only after disestablishment that Beecher apparently put together the old Puritan ideal with the new church instruments.

35. Beecher, op. cit., pp. 12, 17.

36. Beecher, L., Works. I, p. 335.Google Scholar

37. Beecher, L., Election Sermon, 1826, p. 15.Google Scholar

38. Ibid., p. 19.

39. Ibid., pp. 21–22.

40. Beecher's writings abound with this idea. In addition to the Election Sermon, cf. Plea for the West, Plea for Colleges, The Building of Waste Places.

41. A number of recent studies have f oeused attention on the social-political ideas and activities of the Protestant clergy 1812–1860. Cole, Charles C., The Social Ideas of the Northern Evangelists 1826–1860 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1954)Google Scholar is an excellent survey of these ideas and provides countless leads for further investigation. Unfortunately it lacks an adequate interpretative scheme in terms of which one can understand the emergence and importance of these ideas. Bodo, John R., The Protestant Clergy and Pub ho Issues 1812–1848 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1954)Google Scholar attempts to provide such a framework for his study, but it proves inadequate. He uses the concept of the theocratic pattern but vastly oversimplifies it in trying to limit it to an Old Testament legalism directly applied as God's will for the nation. He correctly notes the use of revivals and voluntary societies, but attempts to limit the concept to a Calvinistic educated clergy. As a consequence, he falls to trace the ideal from its past, note its major transformation, or understand how it can embrace men from Methodist or Lutheran as well as Presbyterian, Congregational, or Reformed churches. The finest introduction to the problem of relating Christianity and political-social life in America stifi remains Niebuhr's, H. RichardKingdom of God in America (Chicago: Willett, Clark & Co., 1937)Google Scholar. He attempted to trace the entire Iris- tory in terms of the rule of God first through his sovereignty, then the kingdom of Christ, and finally the coming kingdom in society.