Life of Henry Dunster

This is a reproduction of a library book that was digitized by Google as part of an ongoing effort to preserve the information in books and make it universally accessible. https://books.google.com NYPL RESEARCH LIBRARIES 3 3433 08235692 8 e > 25 LIFE OF HENRY DUNSTER , FIRST PRESIDENT OF HARVARD COLLEGE . BY REV . JEREMIAH CHAPLIN , D.D. ANDIT CO . VIL BOSTON : JAMES R. OSGOOD AND COMPANY , ( LATE TICKNOR & FIELDS , AND FIELDS , OSGOOD , & co . ) 1872 . Dunster stiwp . 4 CHAPLIN Entered , according to Act of Congress , in the year 1872 , BY JEREMIAH CHAPLIN , D.D. , In the Office of the Librarian of Congress , at Washington . NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBP : Astor , Lenox and Tilden Foundations . 1896 28/3 Boston : Stereotyped and Printed by Rand , Avery , & Co. PREFACE . HE name of Henry Dunster , the first President of T'Harvard Harvard College College ,, passedpassed under under aa cloudcloud of of neglect neglect about the year 1652 , but without any fault of his own . His contemporaries , who had extolled his accomplish ments and virtues until the fatal hour when he “ fell ” into certain “ briars ” of dissent from the established creed , then suddenly dropped him from their calendar of wor thies , and he has never been really invited to resume his place . Different writers in our day , especially Quincy and Palfrey , " have indeed eulogized his character and services in eloquent words , but no special effort has been made to gather the scattered materials of his life into a fitting me morial , that the world might know what he was , what part he acted in laying the foundations of our civil and reli gious institutions , and what he was willing to suffer , with singular patience and charity , for the sake of truth , as he understood it . A due examination will show that his character is one 1 History of Harvard College . 2 History of New England . jii iv Preface . of the most beautiful , as his history is one of the most touching , to be found in the early annals of New England . A singularly honest mind , which no promises and no per secutions could turn from his convictions , forced him into antagonism with brethren whom he loved , and made him the target for sharp arrows , ecclesiastical and civil , which sorely wounded his pure and sensitive spirit . Firm as a rock in the defence of his principles , he could never be roused to a fight with his adversaries . He bore his testi mony calmly and manfully , in the fear of God and the love of truth , and then yielded to the storm which drove him into retirement . From that retirenient of more than two centuries , it is well that he should come forth to teach us of this genera tion the great duty of loyalty to conscience , and how to harmonize conscience and charity . A life which , says Palfrey , is “ of the purest and noblest , ” is not , alas , so very common , that the world can afford to lose the benefit of its bright example . In pursuance of our purpose , we have reviewed the con duct of our Puritan ancestors of Massachusetts , in their treatment of what they deemed heresy and sectarism , a duty not altogether agreeable , but yet unavoidable if regard is had to the facts of history and the lessons of experience . A letter of Dr. Watts informs us , that when Neal was blamed for “ the freedom he had taken to expose the per secuting principles and practices of the first planters , " in his History of New England , " he replied , that the fidelity Preface . V of an historian required him to do what he had done . " Similar is our apology , if apology is needed . The author , as of Puritan descent , may be supposed to take as favor able a view as possible , of the Puritan fathers of Massa chusetts . While ready to extol their grand virtues , he would deal charitably with their grave faults . Yet these men were so truly great and good , that , better than most men , they can bear the exposure which historic justice necessitates . Subject their characters to as rigid an ex amination as we may , they yet command our love and veneration . Then , too , it should not be forgotten , that the Puritans of New England were not sinners above all the American Colonists , in religious intolerance . Virginia certainly has nothing to boast over Massachusetts . She began her in quisitorial work at an earlier period . The Dutch of New York pursued the same course , though with unequal steps . It was the grand mistake – to use the mildest term of the Reformers generally , which may as well be con fessed — of Calvin and Zwingle and Knox and Cranmer , and a host of other noble champions of Protestantism , that they were persecutors . They were untrue to their own principle of the right of private judgment . And so the Puritans of the new world , in one sense , came honest ly by their intolerance . If not in the line of apostolical succession , it was by ecclesiastical tradition . And they would have thanked no one for setting up an apology for their conduct towards sectarists and errorists on the low vi Preface . ground of expediency or political necessity . They perse cuted from principle . They verily thought they were do ing God service . Persecution of heretics was using “ the holy tactics of the sword . ” “ The most perfect harmony , ” says Trumbull , “ subsisted between the legislature and clergy ; like Moses and Aaron ,' they walked together in the most endearing friendship . ” And , in their view , Moses and Aaron , as symbolical of state and church , never " kissed each other ” to such good purpose , as when they united in “ Mount Zion ” to maintain the gospel against antichrist . A dreadful mistake ; but an honest one . 1 The Rev. John Norton , in 1646 , preached a sermon in Boston , on “ Moses and Aaron kissing each other in the Mount of God , ” in which he urged the churches ( Aaron ] to send Delegates to the Synod which had been summoned by the General Court ( Moses ). In 1661 , Rev. James Noyes , of Newbury , whom Cotton Mather highly praises , wrote , under the title of , “ Moses and Aaron : or , The Rights of Church and State , " as follows : " Civil and sacred power did consist well in the same subject , and surely they are most subject to violence when at greatest distance from one another . Moses and Aaron have cause to embrace each other , and Israel both of them togeth er . ” “ It is needful that Magistrates should have power to preserve the Church from desolation , by taking away foxes and wolves & c . Magistrates have a just power to use the sword in their hands against any persons for the good of the Church and the glory of Christ's kingdom . It appears by Paul's appealing unto Cæsar , that magistrates have power in some religious controversies ; why not in all ? ” In 1684 , an English minister wrote to In crease Mather : “ I rejoice to hear of so sweet a harmony between Moses and Aaron , and such a joint pursuit after reformation . ” Mass . Hist . Col. Mather Papers . This was four years after the meetinghouse of the First Baptist Church of Boston , of which the Rev. Rollin H. Neale D.D. is now the senior pastor , was shut up by order of the General Court - a fine specimen of the sweet harmony . " Preface . vii Probably no case could more clearly exhibit the inher ent injustice of the New England theocracy in its dealings with dissentients , than that of Mr. Dunster . Here was no crazy reformer , “ conscientiously contentious , " as has been affirmed , falsely , we think , of Roger Williams , in boisterous collision with established opinions and insti tutions . Mr. Dunster craved but the bare privilege of expressing his honest thoughts , with no purpose of assail ing or abusing others . He was no iconoclast . He was just the opposite . Thoroughly manly and courageous , he was yet gentle and courteous . But no , said the managers of the theocracy , he does not think as we do , and says so - away with him . One of our own writers , whom the world delights to honor for his rare felicities of thought and style , has un dertaken the brave task- we profoundly respect his cour age – of defending the Puritan way of dealing with sec taries . Mr. Lowell's main argument is as follows : “ that John of Leyden had taught them how unendurable by the nostrils of honest men is the corruption of the right of private judgment in the evil and selfish hearts of men when no thorough mental training has developed the understanding and given the judgment its needful means of comparison and correction . They knew that liberty in the hands of unreasoning and feeble -minded persons ( and all the worse if they are honest ) means nothing more than the supremacy of their particular form of imbecility , means nothing less therefore than downright chaos , a Bedlam chaos of monomaniacs and bores . " * * Among my Books , p . 235 . viii Preface . But most assu suredly our Puritan fathers could not have proceeded upon this principle in dealing with Mr. Dunster for his exercise of the right of private judgment . If “ un reasoning and feeble -minded persons ” must be held in with bit and bridle , here was a sectary possessed of “ thor ough mental training . " But the Puritans drew no such distinctions , except that they evidently deemed the heretic who was capable of “ comparison and correction ” to be the more dangerous . What could there be in him of Cambridge — in his opinions or his conduct - most remotely suggestive of him of Leyden ? Verily it requires a brilliant imagination to convert the mild , cultured , devout Mr. Dunster , known to everybody as a good neighbor , an orderly citizen , a gen tleman and a Christian , into a lineal descendant of the monster of Holland , with his traditional hoofs and horns .

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