Main currents in American thought An interpretation of American literature from the beginnings to 1920
own day he was accounted an enemy of society, and the commonwealth
of Massachusetts has never rescinded the decree of banishment issued
against him; yet like so many unshackled thinkers, he was a seeker
after a better order, friend to a nobler and more humane society.
If he transported to America the democratic aspirations of English
Independency, it is perhaps well to recall the price that was exacted
of him for his service:
Let the reader fancy him in 1640, a man of thirty-four, of bold and
stout jaws, but with the richest and softest eyes, gazing out over
the Bay of his dwelling, a spiritual Crusoe, the excommunicated
even of Hugh Peters, and the most extreme and outcast soul in all
America.[69]
Footnotes
[37] See Walker, _Thomas Hooker, Preacher, Founder, Democrat_.
[38] _Ibid._, pp. 40-44.
[39] _Ibid._, pp. 45-46.
[40] The testimony of Roger Williams seems to imply as much: “Mr.
Haynes, Governor of Connecticut, though he pronounced sentence of my
long banishment against me, at Cambridge, then Newtown, yet said to me
... ‘I think, Mr. Williams, I must now confess to you, that the most
wise God hath provided and cut out this part of His world for a refuge
and receptacle for all sorts of consciences. I am now under a cloud,
and my brother Hooker, with the Bay, as you have been, we have removed
from them thus far, and yet they are not satisfied.’” (_Letter to Major
Mason_ [1670], in _Narragansett Club Publications_, Vol. VI, p. 133 ff.)
[41] Borgeaud, _The Rise of Modern Democracy_, p. 123.
[42] Quoted in J. T. Adams, _The Founding of New England_, p. 194.
[43] Walker, _Thomas Hooker, etc._, p. 122.
[44] _Ibid._, p. 125.
[45] _Ibid._, p. 88.
[46] _Survey of the Summe of Church Discipline_, Introduction.
[47] _Ibid._, Part II, pp. 66, 72.
[48] _Magnalia_, Vol. II, p. 495.
[49] For the date, see _Rhode Island Historical Society_, Vol. VIII, p.
156; _Narragansett Club Publications_, Vol. VI, p. 599.
[50] The Seekers were thus described by a contemporary English pen:
“Many have wrangled so long about the Church that at last they have
quite lost it, and go under the name of _Expecters_ and _Seekers_,
and do deny that there is any Church, or any true minister, or any
ordinances; some of them affirm the Church to be in the wilderness, and
they are seeking for it there; others say that it is in the smoke of
the Temple, and that they are groping for it there--where I leave them
praying to God.” (Paget, _Heresiography_; quoted in Masson, _Life of
Milton_, Vol. III, p. 153.)
[51] The Biblical authority for Separatism Williams found in
both general and specific injunctions. The former, in the second
commandment, in the third chapter of Daniel, in the seventeenth and
eighteenth chapters of Revelation--the “wine of her fornication” being
the ceremonial and ordinances of the English church--and in the Song
of Solomon. The latter were: Revelation, 18:4: “And I heard another
voice from heaven, saying, Come out of her, my people, that ye be not
partakers of her sins....”; Isaiah, 53:11: “Depart ye, depart ye, go ye
out from thence, touch not the unclean thing; go ye out in the midst of
her; be ye clean, that bear the vessels of the Lord”; II Corinthians,
6:17: “Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith
the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you.” On
these texts he based his argument with Cotton for the total separation
of the New England churches. (See _Narragansett Club Publications_,
Vol. I, p. 300.)
[52] For much of the material made use of here, I am indebted to _The
Political Theory of Roger Williams_, a dissertation by Dr. James E.
Ernst of the University of Washington.
[53] “Letter to the Town Clerk of Providence,” in _Narragansett Club
Publications_, Vol. VI, p. 401.
[54] “The Bloudy Tenent,” in _Narragansett Club Publications_, Vol.
III, p. 349.
[55] “The Bloudy Tenent Yet More Bloody,” in _Narragansett Club
Publications_, Vol. IV, p. 187.
[56] “The Bloudy Tenent,” in _Narragansett Club Publications_, Vol.
III, p. 398.
[57] See _Narragansett Club Publications_, Vol. III, pp. 214, 355, 366.
[58] “The Bloudy Tenent Yet More Bloody,” in _ibid._, Vol. IV, p. 487.
[59] “The Bloudy Tenent,” in _ibid._, Vol. III, p. 248.
[60] _Ibid._, Vol. III, p. 248.
[61] “The Bloudy Tenent Yet More Bloody,” in _ibid._, Vol. IV, p. 222.
[62] “The Bloudy Tenent,” in _ibid._, Vol. III, p. 76.
[63] Preface to “The Bloudy Tenent,” in _ibid._, Vol. III, p. 3.
[64] _Narragansett Club Publications_, Vol. VI, p. 51.
[65] “Letter to the Town of Providence,” in _Narragansett Club
Publications_, Vol. VI, p. 263.
[66] Duguit, _Law in the Modern State_, p. 51.
[67] Gooch, _History of Democratic Ideas_, p. 80.
[68] _Narragansett Club Publications_, Vol. VI, p. 268.
[69] Masson, _Life of Milton_, Vol. II, p. 563.
Chapter V • Other Dreamers in Israel
I • Nathaniel Ward • Elizabethan Puritan
The most caustic pen of early New England was wielded by the
lawyer-minister and wit, Nathaniel Ward of Ipswich, author of the
crotchety little book, _The Simple Cobler of Aggawam_, and chief
compiler of the celebrated _Body of Liberties_. He is a strange figure
to encounter in the raw little settlements. To come into his presence
is to feel oneself carried back to an earlier age, when the courtly
wits were weaving their silken terms into gorgeous tapestries. Born
about the year 1578, he was only five years younger than Ben Jonson.
Highly educated and intimate with the best society of England and the
continent, he was well advanced in middle life when he set foot in the
new world, and in his late sixties when he wrote _The Simple Cobler_.
Far more strikingly than any of his emigrant brethren he belonged in
taste and temperament to the later Elizabethan world, which lingered on
into the reigns of James and Charles, zealously cultivating its quaint
garden of letters, playing with inkhorn terms, and easing its cares
with clever conceits. Faithful disciple of Calvin though he was, he
was something of a courtier as well, with a rich sap of intelligence,
which, fermented by much thought and travel in many lands, made him the
raciest of wits, and doubtless the most delightful of companions over
a respectable Puritan bottle. “I have only Two comforts to Live upon,”
Increase Mather reported him as saying. “The one is in the Perfections
of Christ; The other is in The Imperfections of all Christians.”
_The Simple Cobler of Aggawam_ is certainly the brightest bit of
Renaissance English penned in America--an Elizabethan clipped garden
set down in a wilderness of theology. It deserves to be far better
known than it is, not only for its “convenient condiments” of speech
that will tickle the palate of an epicure, but for its quaint
exposition of the muddled state of England in the year 1645. Like a
belated Euphuist, Nathaniel Ward delighted in fantastic words.
If I affect termes [he confessed, by way of apology] it is my
feeblenesse; my friends that know me, thinke I doe not: I confesse,
I see I have here and there taken a few finish stitches, which may
haply please a few Velvet eares; but I cannot now well pull them
out, unlesse I should seame-rend all. It seems it is a fashion
with you to sugar your papers with Carnation phrases, and spangle
your speeches with new quodled words.... I honour them with my
heart, that can expresse more than ordinary matter in ordinary
words; it is a pleasing eloquence; them more, that study wisely
and soberly to inhance their native language.... Affected termes
are unaffecting things to solid hearers; yet I hold him prudent,
that in these fastidious times, will helpe disedged appetites
with convenient condiments, and bangled ears, with pretty quicke
pluckes.[70]
The casual reader is chiefly impressed by the quaint satire of the
book, with its caustic comment on women’s fashions--the “foole-fangles”
of “nugiperous Gentledames,” who “transclout” themselves into “gant
bar-geese, ill-shapen-shotten-shell-fish”; and it is such bits that
are commonly picked out for reprinting in the anthologies. But the
real significance of the work lies elsewhere. _The Simple Cobler_ is
an old man’s plea for accommodation of differences. It is bitter with
intolerance of toleration; it is torn between an old loyalty to King
Charles whom Ward knew and loved--“my long Idolatry towards you,” as
he confesses sadly--and a new loyalty to Parliament; and it is sobered
by a strong concern over the desperate condition of England, which
required looking to speedily, he believed, if the realm were not to be
torn past all mending. On both sides there was abundant “misprision
of Treason,” which properly considered, he held to be no other than
a “misprision of Reason”; and it was in the hope of summoning reason
back to the national councils that the Cobbler offered his humble
suggestions for the consideration of Englishmen.
Ward had been a lawyer before he turned to the ministry, and he seems
to have impressed himself upon his fellow emigrants chiefly as a
“subtile statesman.” In his own way he was a political philosopher,
little given like Roger Williams to exploring theory and examining
principles, but applying rather a shrewd common sense to the problems
of the times. He was convinced that old ways no longer sufficed; that
prerogative and liberty could not much longer strain and pull against
each other without rending the whole fabric of the commonwealth;
and the kernel of the book lies in a new theory of constitutional
government for England which he offers as a convenient way out of the
difficulties. Ward recognized that new interests were challenging the
long sway of King and Tories; and as the antagonisms of rival interests
strengthened, the insufficiency of the traditional use and wont to
maintain a due balance of power was daily becoming more apparent. Hence
had resulted confusion, and out of the confusion, civil war. From
these patent facts Ward had convinced himself that there must be an
overhauling of the fundamental law of England: the twilight zones must
be explored and charted; the several rights and privileges of King,
Lords, and Commons, must be sharply delimited; and thus every party in
the government be brought to understand the exact bounds of its sphere.
Neither King nor Commons would then encroach upon the other, and royal
prerogative and popular will no longer dwell at sword’s point with each
other. What was needed, in short, was a written constitution, carefully
arrived at by common consent, the terms of which should be just to all.
Hitherto God “hath taken order, that ill prerogatives, gotten by the
Sword, should in time be fetched home by the Dagger, if nothing else
will doe it: Yet I trust there is both day and means to intervent this
bargaine.”
To preserve a just balance between rival interests in the state, and
to hold all parties to their responsibility to God, were then the two
problems to which Nathaniel Ward addressed himself, and the manner
and terms of his argument are sufficiently revealed in the following
passages:
Authority must have power to make and keep people honest; People,
honesty to obey Authority; both a Joynt-Councell to keep both safe.
Morall Lawes, Royall Prerogatives, Popular Liberties, are not of
Mans making or giving, but Gods: Man is but to measure them out
by Gods Rule: which if mans wisdome cannot reach, Mans experience
must mend: And these Essentialls, must not be Ephorized or Tribuned
by one or a few Mens discretion, but lineally sanctioned by
Supreame Councels. In _pro-re-nascent_ occurrences, which cannot be
foreseen; Diets, Parliaments, Senates, or accountable Commissions,