by Paul T. Butler

Over six hundred Separatists fled England after trying to reform the Church of England had resulted in severe persecution. They took up residence in Leyden, Holland. Bradford wrote they had "as the Lord's free people, joined themselves by a covenant to the Lord into a church estate, in the fellowship of the Gospel, to walk in all His ways made known . . . ."They could not fulfill their ambitions for a Biblically-based civil society in Holland so they made arrangements to migrate to "the New World" (America). One of the most significant leaders of these "Puritans" was Reverend John Robinson, minister of the congregation. He could not join the "Pilgrims" bound for America on the Mayflower. There was room for only 120 persons from a congregation of 600, but he prayed for them at their departure and wrote a letter of warnings and instructions which William Brewster read to the "saints and strangers" as they began that epochal journey — it ended: ". . . whereas you are to become a body politic, using amongst yourselves civil government, and are not furnished with any persons of special eminency above the rest . . ." (no "lords," "earls" or "barons" on board), they would have to choose their leaders from among equals. Rev. Robinson continued: "Let your wisdom and godliness appear not only in choosing such persons as do entirely love and will promote the common good, but also in yielding unto them all due honor and obedience in their lawful administrations ... for the image of the Lord's power and authority, which the magistrate beareth, is honorable, in how mean persons soever . . . ."

Bible-believing preachers have always been in the forefront for civil government as ordained by God and structured on the principles for civil society as revealed in the Bible. The "Mayflower Compact," dated November 11th, 1620, the first time in recorded history that free and equal men voluntarily covenanted together to create their own new civil government, was drafted by ministers and other church leaders among the "Pilgrims." In the "Pilgrim" colony of Plymouth and the ever-expanding colonies of all New England, Puritan preachers like John Cotton, Cotton Mather, Roger Williams, and Thomas Hooker were singularly instrumental in forming the structures of the earliest democratic civil governments of America.

Thomas Hooker left the Bay Colony and settled with his congregation on the Connecticut River. Hooker's concept of civil government was that it should parallel the "covenant" structure of the church of Christ as he saw it in the Bible: "There must of necessity be a mutual engagement, each of the other, by their free consent, before by any rule of God they have any right or power, or can exercise either, each toward the other . . . ." The Fundamental Orders of Connecticut, principles for civil governance of Hooker's community were constituted:

(a) religious qualification or affiliation in order to vote was not required;

(b) clear, definitive restraints were enjoined regarding the authority of the magistrates; (c) non-landholders (servants, etc.), not allowed to vote for executive civil officers, could elect deputies to the governing council; (d) the chief executive's powers (the governor's) were closely circumscribed and he was prohibited from immediate re-election. It was not yet the great American republic, but it was on its way — thanks to a preacher!

Slowly, gradually, however, the obsession for civil freedom and human rights began to subside. The colonies were growing in population, territory and resources. Ships were docking daily, disembarking hundreds and hundreds of "old world" immigrants. These were from every class, vocation and religious or non-religious persuasion of Europe (as well as slaves from Africa). Secular historians would say that the mania for "making a fortune" smothered the Pilgrim dream for a free civil republic founded on the principles of the Bible. The truth of the matter is, however, that with economic prosperity came a suffocating complacency toward spiritual matters. Sermons about justice, righteousness, human rights and truth fell on increasingly deaf ears. The majority of immigrants were no longer interested primarily in civil and religious reformation but in economic advancement. A prolonged and disinterested civic and religious complacency seemed to settle over America between the end of the seventeenth century and the first three decades of the eighteenth century. Between the "Puritan era" and the first stirrings for independence, Americans seemed content with the subtle, but ever-increasing, encroachments upon their civil rights as "Englishmen" so long as profits continued.

The most eminent figure of the Great Awakening was George Whitefield. Whitefield went to Oxford in 1733 and was ordained to the ministry in 1736 at the age of 22. After extraordinary evangelistic success in England, he was convinced of a mission to evangelize the Indians of America.

ibid, pp. 244,246

It is recorded that Benjamin Franklin was deeply impressed by the preaching of Whitefield. Listening to Whitefield preach one evening on the steps of the Philadelphia courthouse, Franklin was amazed and intrigued, of course, at the carrying power of his voice. Like the scientist he always was, Franklin retraced his steps backward down Market Street until he could at last no longer hear Whitefield. The amazed Franklin computed that in an open space, Whitefield's Words could be distinctly heard by 30,000 people.

It was George Whitefield's passion to convert all of New England and arouse believers and non-believers alike to personal faith and righteous living. Horseback, through rain, snow, blistering heat and dust he rode the highways and byways of New England covering nearly 2000 miles in a five-month period. He often preached four times per day, sometimes for two hours per sermon.

ibid, p. 251

Altogether, Whitefield preached more than 18,000 sermons between 1736 and 1770. Whitefield proclaimed that: men are reconciled to God by grace, that God is no respecter of person^, that denominational divisions should disappear and all should be known simply as Christians. Single-handedly, Whitefield inoculated the American mentality with the divine concepts of human rights which would fan the spark of freedom into a burning flame again. And that flame burned brightest in the hearts of Bible-believing preachers.

As the great Biblical principles of civil government (i.e. that all civil rulers are subject to the divine laws of social contract the same as all citizens, that there are unalienable rights belonging to all human beings equally such as life, liberty and proprietorship, that government's singular reason for existence is to protect these rights) were emphasized more and more in American pulpits. It was inevitable that colonial political "philosophers" (many of them faithful Christians) would rise to libertarian activism. Men like Samuel Adams, John Adams, Patrick Henry, George Washington, George Mason, James Madison, and a host of others were convinced that Almighty God had moved providentially in the colonization of America. God was continuing His providential work with America thrusting her toward the "great experiment" — a democratic-republic. America would be the first civil society where the citizenry would have a voice in its governmental structure. That government would be so constituted as to guarantee, as much as humanly possible, man's basic unalienable rights. It would be so because it would be constituted on the revealed will of Almighty God for civil social structure in the Bible.

ibid, p. 255

The British Parliament and Crown increasingly imposed arbitrary civil restraints and taxes upon the colonies. Subtle, but ever increasing abridgments of Englishmen's constitutional and natural civil rights were exacted. The colonial citizenry was being denied the basic right of the Englishman's civil contract (Magna Charta), representation in the government enacting its laws and levying its taxes. For the King and Parliament to suspend this right meant that they were putting themselves above the law (constitution) and that was contrary to God's word and to reason (the natural law).

During this ominous erosion of basic human rights, an "army" of American preachers were continuing to proclaim Biblical principles and precepts antithetical to these infringements and demanding reformation of the "mother government" in England. Thanks to the Great Awakening, there was now a new generation of committed preachers spread throughout the American colonies, and out to their frontiers, many of them men of considerable mental and spiritual depth and maturity.

It is in the so-called "Election Sermons" of New England ministers that we find some of the most fluent expressions on the subject of civil government. "Election Sermons" were preached annually on "general election day" (the last Wednesday in May when colonial legislatures met according to their "charters" to elect representatives for the coming year). Such sermons were also preached later when officers of the militia were elected. On these occasions political subjects were considered very proper. Usually the sermons were printed so that they could be distributed among the civil and military nominees. Many of the sermons most zealous about human rights and most apt to spread the thirst for liberty were often printed far and wide in patriot newspapers. Many an agitated Loyalist or Tory admonished these preachers to "... confine themselves to gospel truths" instead of mixing religion with politics. But for the Puritan ministers the cornerstone of liberty was the Bible. Favorite texts were: "Where the Spirit of the Lord is there is liberty" (II Cor. 3:17); and "Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free . . ." (John 8:32). Upon such Biblical truths New England preachers fed their own souls and those of their congregations. Charles Turner, preacher at Duxbury, Massachusetts, expressed the point of view of many ministers: "The scriptures cannot rightly be expounded without explaining them in a manner friendly to the cause of freedom."

Because of their education these preachers were well grounded in Greek and Roman philosophers and historians. From these ancients they became aware of the fruits of both liberty and tyranny. They also studied in their colleges the writings of John Locke, Baron Montesquieu, Hugo Grotius, Samuel Pufendorf, Emmerich de Vattel, Sir Edward Coke, and John Milton (theologians and philosophers). From these and political philosophers contemporary with themselves they formed clear conclusions about civil government which they shared unequivocally with their parishioners and others through the printed page. Their Biblically based political conclusions may be summarized as follows.

The intent of this paper is to give a minuscule biographical sampling of preachers whose ideas gave birth to American independence. There were hundreds of others, (especially on the frontiers of the colonies), besides these mentioned, equally fervent in preaching liberty and independence. But their sermons were not printed so their legacy was not preserved.

First, there is Jonathan Mayhew (1720-1766), of Boston. His contribution was one of the most significant:

Jonathan Mayhew was born on Martha's Vineyard in 1720, the son of Reverend Experience Mayhew and his wife, named Remember. His parents had bravely evangelized the Indian tribes of New England. Jonathan graduated from Harvard with honors in 1744. He reported that his university training had initiated him in the doctrines of civil liberty as taught by such men as Plato, Demosthenes, Cicero, and other ancients, along with Milton, Locke and Hoadley. Mayhew said, "I liked them; they seemed rational .... And having learned from the Holy Scriptures that wise, brave and virtuous men were always friends to liberty . . . because where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty — this made me conclude that freedom was a great blessing." He advocated the right of private judgment and the reality of the free human will. Ignoring the creeds of both Catholicism and Calvinism, Mayhew went directly to the Bible for his religious authority. He was a New Testament Church "Restorationist" a hundred years ahead of the times. In 1750 a quarter of a century before the Declaration of Independence, Jonathan Mayhew preached his famous sermon entitled, "A Discourse Concerning Unlimited Submission and Non-Resistance to the Higher Powers." It was preached on January 30, 1750, and heard by a young lad of 15 named Paul Revere, in the West Church of Boston. John Adams said later that this sermon "fired the opening gun of the Revolution." In this sermon Mayhew expounded the people's right to resist, even to the "chopping off of kings' heads" to resist tyranny. This sermon was widely read and quoted throughout the colonies and in Great Britain. Mayhew said:

Fifteen years later he responded to the hated Stamp Act:

The Light and The Glory, by Marshall and Manuel,
pub. Revell, pp. 264, 265

It is enlightening to compare parts of Mayhew's sermons with the Declaration of Independence. The Declaration says: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed . . ."etc. Twenty-six years earlier, Mayhew preached: "Nothing can ... be imagined more directly contrary to common sense than to suppose that millions of people should be subjected to the arbitrary, precarious pleasure of a single man — who has naturally no superiority over them in point of authority — so that their estates and everything that is valuable in life, and even their lives also, shall be absolutely at his disposal, if he happens to be wanton and capricious enough to demand them."

The Declaration says: "But when a long train of abuses and usurpations . . . evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such a Government, and to provide new Guards for their future Security . . . ." Mayhew said: "Those in authority may abuse their trust and power to such a degree that neither the law of reason nor of religion requires that any obedience ... be paid them; but . . . they should be totally discarded, and the authority which they were before vested with transferred to others, who may exercise more to those good purposes for which it is given."

The Declaration closes by a lengthy listing of constitutional violations and usurpations of King George III — Jonathan Mayhew constructed a case against the King and Parliament very similar to Jefferson's (Mayhew's was directed against King Charles I). Great minds may run in the same channel, but preacher Mayhew's ran there before Jefferson's.

A generation before 1776, the congregation of New England had heard and read many "declarations of independence." Sermon after sermon referred to the "natural rights of life, liberty, and property." But to Jonathan Mayhew belongs the distinction of being the first of the Revolutionary preacher-patriots. Mayhew was an intimate of James Otis, John Adams, and Samuel Adams. It was Mayhew who suggested to Otis, in a letter dated June 8, 1766, the idea of Committees of Correspondence, which later rendered invaluable service to the patriot cause:

They Preached Liberty, p. 33

Six weeks later, on July 19, 1766, at the prime age of 46, Jonathan Mayhew, preacher of the gospel and father of American liberty, died of a "nervous fever," probably stroke or heart attack due to stress and overwork.

Next, we give you Samuel Cooper, one of the half-dozen most influential men of Boston during America's struggle for independence. Born in Boston in 1725, graduated from Harvard in 1743, he became the minister of the Brattle Street Church in Boston and remained there 40 years until he died in 1783. He was elected President of Harvard in 1774 but declined the position. His father before him was elected and also declined. Both considered their life's work to be the ministry of the Brattle Street Church.

Samuel Cooper was a vigorous preacher in behalf of the patriot cause, and a stirring writer as well. He dared to protest the Stamp Act and other "intolerable acts" in Boston Gazette articles bearing his signature. This made him a target of abuse by officers of the Crown in and around Boston. In 1775 the British contemptuously quartered troops in his church building. He was a close friend of Benjamin Franklin, John and Samuel Adams, and John Hancock was one of his faithful parishioners. Generals George Washington and Henry Lee along with Franklin and Hancock were guests at his table and recipients of his correspondence.

Samuel Cooper preached: "We want not, indeed, a special revelation from Heaven to teach us that men are born equal and free; that no man has a natural claim of dominion over his neighbors, nor any one nation any such claim upon another; and as government is only the administration of the affairs of a number of men combined for their own security and happiness, such a society has a right freely to determine by whom and in what manner their own affairs shall be administered. These are the plain dictates with which the Common Parent of men has informed the human bosom."

Cooper pled for peace, but not without liberty: "Peace, peace we ardently wish; but not upon terms dishonorable to ourselves, or dangerous to our liberties; and our enemies seem not yet prepared to allow it upon any other. At present the voice of Providence, the call of our still invaded country, and the cry of everything dear to us, all unite to rouse us to prosecute the war with redoubled vigor . . . ."

Foreign policy was also a topic for Reverend Cooper: "Conquest is not indeed the aim of these rising states; sound policy must ever forbid it. We have before us an object more truly great and honorable. We seem called by heaven to make a large portion of this globe a seat of knowledge and liberty, of agriculture, commerce, and arts, and what is more important than all, of Christian piety and virtue .... May our conduct correspond to the face of our country . . . ."

Finally, one of the most colorful and versatile of the patriot-preachers of Revolutionary New England was Jonas Clark. He graduated from Harvard in 1752 and settled in Lexington, Massachusetts, for a ministry that lasted 50 years, he supplemented his meager income as a minister by farming. His salary of 80 English pounds per year plus 20 cords of wood, was never enough to support a family of six girls and six boys. He made his home a meeting place for many of the patriot leaders. The very night Paul Revere made his famous ride to warn that the British were coming, April 18, 1775, the two "rebels" for whom the British were "coming," Samuel Adams and John Hancock, were being entertained in Jonas Clark's home! When Adams and Hancock asked Jonas Clark if the Lexington people would fight, Clark replied, "I have trained them for this very hour." It was just a few strides from the Clark parsonage that the first blood of the Revolution was shed on the following day, April 19, 1775, when the "shot was fired heard round the world." Many of the men who fell slain or wounded that day were members of Clark's congregation. Upon viewing the aftermath of the Lexington-Concord engagement and his slain parishioners, Clark said: "From this day will be dated the liberty of the world."

Jonas Clark had these words to say about Lexington and Concord: "And this is the place where the fatal scene begins! . . . without provocation, without warning, when no war was proclaimed, they draw the sword of violence, upon the inhabitants of this town, and with a cruelty and barbarity, which would have made the most hardened savage blush, they shed INNOCENT BLOOD .... They have not bled, they shall not bleed in vain . ..." In the same sermon he said: "Injustice, oppression, and violence (much less the shedding of innocent blood) shall not pass unnoticed by the just Governor of the world. Sooner or later, a just recompense will be made upon such workers of iniquity."

Striking statements from a few more American patriot-preachers are worthy of quotation here:

Benjamin Stevens, of Kittery, Mass., 1761

During the War for Independence many ministers descended from the pulpit in order to engage actively in the fighting:

New England Clergy and the American Revolution,
by Baldwin, pp. 154-167

Many who did not join in the actual fighting rendered invaluable service to the cause for independence through preaching and writing, encouraging boycotting of English imports, giving of their small salaries to the cause of liberty, feeding soldiers, nursing wounded, caring for husbandless families, and serving as recruiting agents in towns and villages.

Peter Muhlenberg, having delivered a passionate sermon on the text "For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven" climaxed the message by saying, "In the language of the Holy Writ, there is a time for all things. There is a time to preach and a time to fight." Throwing off his clerical robe he revealed to his startled congregation the uniform of a colonel in the Continental Army, and cried, "And now is the time to fight . . . roll the drums for recruits!" He went off to war and his 8th Virginia Regiment distinguished itself in battle and he rose to the rank of brigadier general.

One story which is filled with both pathos and irony for preachers would be that of a battle in New Jersey, just across the river from Staten Island'

Scores of Quaker preachers (and church members) gave physical support, as well as verbal, in the form of food and clothing to the soldiers. Some of the Quakers even bore arms in the war. The contributions of preachers on America's frontiers (Georgia, southwest Virginia, western North Carolina, east Tennessee, Kentucky, western Pennsylvania, etc.) is a story by itself. The impact that the "over-the-mountain" people had on the Revolution, led and empowered by their preachers, is immeasurable!

In a day when our liberties are threatened by pressure groups at home and by totalitarian philosophies and wars from abroad, we may well hearken to these preachers of liberty. Although their wisdom has been ignored by our generation, they can tell us much about the nature of liberty which is relevant for our day. They can tell us from sacrificial experience of the cost of liberty. But, perhaps most important of all, they can help us root our passion for liberty deep in the soil of American tradition, as well as Providential creation. Their age taught them, as our age teaches us, that democracy and the religion of Jesus are closely allied; when one falls the other is likely to follow. "Where the spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty" — a favorite text of the Revolutionary ministers — may well be the watchword of freedom in every age.

Copyright © 1990, Paul T. Butler