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Puritan Eschatology from John Cotton to Jonathan Edwards

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Puritan Eschatology from John Cotton to Jonathan Edwards University of Montana ScholarWorks at University of Montana Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers Graduate School 1970 Kingdom and church in New England; Puritan eschatology from John Cotton to Jonathan Edwards William Charles Eamon The University of Montana Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.umt.edu/etd Let us know how access to this document benefits ou.y Recommended Citation Eamon, William Charles, "Kingdom and church in New England; Puritan eschatology from John Cotton to Jonathan Edwards" (1970). Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers. 5529. https://scholarworks.umt.edu/etd/5529 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at ScholarWorks at University of Montana. It has been accepted for inclusion in Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks at University of Montana. For more information, please contact [email protected]. KINGDOM AND CHURCH IN NEW ENGLAND Puritan Eschatology from John Cotton to Jonathan Edwards By William C . Earaon B.A., University of Montana, 1968 Presented in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts UNIVERSITY OF MONTANA 1970 Approved by: ChaUrman, Board of Examiner an, Gr Date UMI Number: EP40993 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. Dissertation Publishing UMI EP40993 Published by ProQuest LLC (2014). Copyright in the Dissertation held by the Author. Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code ProQuest LLC. 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106- 1346 Then the Lord put forth his hand, and touched my mouth. And the Lord said unto me, Behold, I have put my words in thy mouth. See, I have this day set thee over kingdoms, to root out, and to pull down, and to destroy, and to throw down, to build, and to plant. JEREMIAH 1:9-10 TABLE OF CONTENTS PREFACE ......................... ........... iv Chapter I. KINGDOM AND CHURCH . .......................... 1 II. THY KINGDOM COME . .................. 22 III. GOD’S CONTROVERSY WITH NEW ENGLAND . .......... 55 IV. REASONABLE RELIGION .....’ ... 94 V. JONATHAN EDWARDS ............. 125 VI. CONCLUSION . ...... 149 BIBLIOGRAPHY.................... .152 iii PREFACE One of the more enduring myths in European history has been the belief in a future golden age, or messianic kingdom, during which an elect people would reign in a world perfectly peaceful and perfectly happy. Recurrently, from the early middle ages to our own century, people have been seized by an eschatology, or body of doctrine concerning the last state of the world, foretelling of a millennium in which the world would for a thousand years be transformed into a Kingdom of Saints, a world purged of suffering and sin. Sometimes such beliefs took on the wildest tones of phantasy, sometimes they were the serious occupation of respectable scholars. Often they became full-fledged his­ torical movements, varying from the most aggressively mili­ tant to the mildest pacifism; and,they could be deeply spiritual or utterly materialistic. The slogans changed from age to age, but the basic myth remained the same. This study is concerned with the ways in which traditional beliefs concerning the apocalypse and the mil­ lennium fit into the larger context of the theology of American Puritans. It will attempt to show that eschatology provided the thrust of the Puritan mission, that it furnished iv the assurance that their mission could in fact be accom­ plished. The Puritans came to the New World with the intent of completing the Reformation of the Christian Church, and of erecting the foundation upon which Christ would estab­ lish his millennial Kingdom on earth. Eschatology was thus never separated from the desire for church reform; it contin­ ually associated the Kingdom with the Church. But as New England society gradually moved in the direction of becoming a secular community and a commercial commonwealth, theolo­ gians somehow attempted to update religion, to make the church relevant not just to an elect body of saints but to the larger populace. Puritanism changed partly out of the necessity to preserve the churches, since it found that the rigid standards of reformation in 1630 were far too rigid for the society of 1700. But it changed also because theolo­ gians earnestly desired to accommodate religion to the Age of Enlightenment. Eschatology survived this transition, even though it was far different in the eighteenth century than it was at the beginning of the seventeenth. By the time of Jonathan Edwards, eschatology took a place among the progressive ideas of the Enlightenment, foretelling of a millennium gradually occurring through the normal course of history, and of a future embodying endless progress for the world. In a narrow sense, then, this study concerns itself with the religious background of the idea of progress. But v that was only my secondary purpose, for I believe the Puri­ tans are worth studying in their own right, without drawing implications for later historical movements. The decision to become a Puritan was essentially a decision to withdraw from the world, or at least from the sin of the world. Hence it is a decision not altogether confined to the seven­ teenth century. The attempt to remain one, however, was far more difficult than the decision to become one: as the American Puritans found, they confronted at every juncture forces which compelled them to take up more of the world, not less of it, to hold on to their mission. This, then, is a study of how Puritans, and their eschatology, grew less sectarian, less pious, less medieval; and became more uni­ versalized, more pietistic, more modern, as they converted the meaning of religion from a way of worship to a way of living. vi CHAPTER I KINGDOM AND CHURCH -Early in April, in the year 1630, a fleet of four small vessels, carrying about four hundred Englishmen together with livestock and supplies, slipped out of the Cowes in the Isle of Wight and headed for New England, in America. Crossing the cold North Atlantic in April and May, the company braved stormy seas and heavy rain without "fear or dismayedness" until it finally cast anchor in the Massachusetts Bay in early June. It would have taken a discerning eye to spot the essential differences between this and the numerous other companies already settled up and down the Atlantic coast of America, They were men and women of common social status, for the most part, led by men of influence and education. But they went with a larger purpose in mind than many of their predecessors who sought mere private gain; for they came to the New World not to erect a planta­ tion of traders but a plantation of saints. Never before, they believed, had men embarked on a mission with such profound purpose as this: theirs would be a Holy City, a plantation built upon the Word of the Lord. It would in 2 fact be the work of God himself, for they were the men God had chosen to complete the work of fulfilling His prophecies concerning the last age. Their task, set clearly before them, was to prepare the way for the Kingdom of Christ. These devout souls were members of a vociferous minority movement of religious non-conformity, called Puritanism, which since the middle of the sixteenth century had proved equally annoying to both the Anglican clergy and the British Crown. Whatever their individual differences, Puritans were all dissatisfied with the religious establish­ ment in England because they thought the English Reformation had not gone far enough. It brought purity in doctrine, but not in the forms of church polity. They espoused, therefore, a radical rupture with the immediate past and were bent on establishing new churches based entirely on Scripture. Most * importantly, they were not' carrying on this enterprise on their own, but believed they had a clear appointment from God, They were, as one of their ministers told them in a farewell sermon, a "people of Godvs Plantation," a chosen people "commissioned" by God to complete the work of reforma­ tion. Their plantation, said the leader of the company, was to be a "citty on a hill," in plain view for all to see the proper course for the reformation of the churches. The impulse to erect pure churches, in both form and in substance, was not without precedent. From among 3 the earliest Christians there arose groups which thought the Church of Christ could achieve in this world a holiness "without spot and wrinkle.St. Augustine, in the fourth century, warned against attempting to completely purify the churches; while the visible church on earth must strive for purity, it must inevitably contain many spots and wrinkles, since it operated in the world of human corrup­ tion. Reformers often found the efforts of the Catholic Church insufficient, however, and in the sixteenth century a host of zealous Protestants left the Church to build new ones of their own. Many reformers even found the efforts of normative Protestantism lacking. In their impatience with mere reform, they called for a more radical break with the forms and policies of Catholicism and for the erection of new churches, all in an eschatological mood far more intense than anything in normative Protestantism or Catholi­ cism.^ The Puritans who settled in Massachusetts in 1630 were part of this movement.
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