John Harvard
Puritan whose bequest allowed the founding of Harvard College in 1636 (commemorative statue at Harvard University)
“The church is to promote holiness and thus to be the bulwark of the state. The state in return is to give ‘free passage’ to the gospel.”
—Herbert L. Osgood, “The Political Ideas of the Puritans” (1891)
More Online Resources
Puritans
(New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge)
Foxe's Book of Martyrs
(Christian Classics Ethereal Library)
Sourcebook of Puritan Writings compiled by Perry Miller and Thomas Herbert Johnson
Studies in the History of the Book of Common Prayer (Christian Classics Ethereal Library)
Puritans: Church as Foundation for State
Puritan ministers in early America were the conscience of the state. Their outspoken sermons and community activism kept elected officials in alignment with the Bible. Politicians became qualified for office by declaring that they believed in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior and accepted the Bible as truth. Elected officials had to sit in church every Sunday while the pastor pounded into them the biblical principles by which they should make their decisions.
The following quote describes the church/state model used by the Puritans in colonial Massachusetts, patterned after John Calvin in Geneva. It also helps explain why Black pastors take such an active role in politics.
“The end of the state is to preserve ‘external and temporal peace,’ and that of the church to ‘maintain internal and spiritual peace.’ The work of both is to be done ‘in all godliness and honesty.’ Both are to be guided by the rules of the Word. The church is to promote holiness and thus to be the bulwark of the state. The state in return is to give ‘free passage’ to the gospel. . . .
"Still, they have no authority to interfere in the election of church officers, to perform any ecclesiastical functions or to establish anything but a pure form of worship. Finally, all freemen should be church members, and magistrates should be chosen exclusively from them.”—Herbert L. Osgood, “The Political Ideas of the Puritans” (1891)
Here is a summary of the main points from that quote:
• The Church maintains inner, spiritual peace. It promotes holiness, which gives stability to the state. It builds the character qualities necessary for individuals serving in state office.
• All candidates for office in the civil government must be church members.
• The state maintains peace in society. It provides protection for the freedom of the Church to spread the Gospel. It cannot interfere in church elections or functions.
• Leaders of both Church and state are expected to be godly and honest, guided by the Word of God.
Black Americans of the 19th and early 20th century were influenced by school teachers from the American Missionary Association and other Christian organizations who had come from the North to educate the freed slaves.
Many teachers were descendants of the New England Puritans, where in colonial times men could not qualify for state office until they had demonstrated the reality of their faith to their churches.
Black Americans benefited greatly from the protection given to churches in America. Churches became places to develop spirituality and also character qualities of good citizens. Even though Blacks were rarely allowed to vote, run for office, or become social activists, when that opportunity came briefly during Reconstruction and later during the Civil Rights movement, the leadership training process was already in place in the Black church. Pastors like the Martin Luther King, Jr., Ralph Abernathy, and Fred Shuttlesworth were already established leaders.
The success of Black pastors in the Civil Rights movement as well as Puritan leaders from our past gives hope for a spiritual revival that will restore the Church as the foundation of the state in our day.
'Purity and truth' of the Christian religion
"They were not actuated solely or chiefly, as has often been charged, by hostility to ecclesiastical government by bishops, but by the intense conviction that the hierarchy, as it was and as it seemed certain to remain, was destructive of the purity and truth of religion."
New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge
