Unity, Liberty, and Charity

"In essentials, unity; in non-essentials, liberty, in both, charity," a principle that must have appealed to our first minister, the Reverend John Lowell, for it was prominently displayed on a painted panel over the fireplace in his study. A worthy principle for a parish minister, a worthy one for all of us today, but like most principles not easy to live up to either then or now. How well Mr. Lowell succeeded in doing so is the subject of this morning's sermon. ¹

Unity was essential to the early settlements of Massachusetts – first as a defense against native Americans – several of my New England ancestors, and some of yours as well, I suspect, were killed or captured by Indians, for the danger was ever-present in frontier towns until about 1760. Secondly, parish ministers worried, like shepherds everywhere, that if some of the flock wandered away on their own, they would become lost sheep. And finally, in communities controlled by town meeting, geographical unity and political consensus were essential for effective government. Symbolizing this unity, the meeting house in colonial New England towns traditionally stood at the center of the community it served.. In 1636 the first settlers in Newbury chose the banks of the Parker river because they wished to maintain contact with Ipswich via Plum Island Sound. And there on the lower green there they put their meeting house. When, a few years later, they realized how much of! the land surrounding their tiny settlement was salt marsh, difficult for pasturage and impossible for farming, they moved a few miles north to the Upper Green, where after great discussion and some dissent, the townspeople erected a new meeting house. One town, one parish, one meeting house, one minister. ²

That was the ideal, and for several generations that was also the practice in the town of Newbury because most families lived within walking or riding distance of the upper green. But as the population gradually spread out to the more distant corners of the town, two new meeting houses were built, one in the remote village of Byfield, and the other in what is now West Newbury. At the same time a new generation which was turning to the sea for its livelihood, began to settle in the area called "the waterside," around present-day Market Square. There in 1725 they built a meetinghouse for Newbury's Third Parish, soon to become the First Parish of Newburyport. Geographical realities, not doctrinal disputes, led to the creation of these new parishes. The only other denomination was a small group of Anglicans who worshiped at Queen Anne's Chapel to the west of town until they built the first St. Paul's Church. But the vast majority of Newbury's inhabitants were and remaine! d staunchly Calvinist.³

The new parish at the waterside chose for its first minister the Reverend John Lowell, born in Boston of modest but respectable origins. Lowell graduated from Harvard at the age of seventeen, and at his installation as our first minister, he was only 21 years old. The visiting minister presiding at the service cautioned the congregation not to worry: "Let no man despise his Youth. The Pastoral Power, accompany'd with a good Degree of Knowlege ... gives Age & Seniority to such as are but young in Years." ⁴

In the years after the first generation of devout Puritans had passed on, the eagerness of their descendants for getting ahead in this world gradually overwhelmed by their forebears' concern for getting into the next. During the first half of the eighteenth century Calvinist ministers periodically held revivals to encourage backsliders to return to their fold. The greatest of these revivals burst upon the scene in 1739, with the arrival in America of the English evangelist, George Whitefield. The effect of his preaching was immediate and overwhelming. "I was in my field at work," a Connecticut farmer later recalled when he learned that Whitefield was about to preach in nearby Middletown. "I dropped my hoe ... and ran home to my wife telling her to make ready.... We mounted the horse and went forward as fast as [we could]." As they approached the town the air was filled with the sound of rumbling hooves, and a great cloud of dust rose over th! e valley. When they reached the meeting house, thousands of people were already there. "When I saw Mr. Whitefield come upon the platform," the farmer continued, "he looked as if he was clothed with authority from the Great God ... and my hearing him preach gave me a heart wound. By God's blessing, my old foundation was broken up, and I saw that my righteousness would not save me." Here in the words of an ordinary farmer was the sum and substance of the Great Awakening. When they were told that their "righteousness" was no guarantee of salvation, "the old foundations"of thousands of Americans were indeed broken up. ⁵

At issue was the question: What might one do to gain salvation? Ever since John Calvin's break with the Catholic Church in the early sixteenth century, his followers' answer had been --- nothing. There was nothing one could do to earn salvation. The Calvinist God wasn't in the business of awarding harps and wings to the highest bidder, or even to the most earnest "goody-goodies" among us. On the scale of divine eternity, they argued, human efforts went for naught. One could be saved only by the intervention of God's "sovereign mercy." That is to say, although no one deserved anything better than eternal damnation, God chose some persons for salvation merely as a demonstration of his mercy, not as a reward for their good behavior. Furthermore, there was no sure way to know whether one was among the saved or the damned, although by the middle of the eighteenth century many American Calvinists came to believe in the doctrine of "prep! aration," that it might be a good idea to behave in a "sanctified" manner, because such behavior might be an indication that God had predestined one for salvation. The doctrine of "preparation" was condemned by strict Calvinists, who identified it with the heresy of Arminianism, the belief that man could achieve faith, and therefore salvation, by his own will. Not surprisingly, Arminianism continued to tempt New England's Calvinists for many years. After all, to rely on predestination for one's eternal fate required more self-confidence than most of us have, and for many the temptation to give God a helping hand by demonstrating one's worthiness for election was often too strong to resist. Even if one couldn't influence God, a show of wealth or a good life might at least convince one' neighbors of your sainthood.

The success of revivalist ministers like Northampton's famed Jonathan Edwards lay not so much in the words they used as the way in which they used them. Edwards and other revivalists used words not to convey sterile ideas of orthodox Christian thought, distilled through centuries of tomes written by scholastics hidden away in their studies, but to arouse the senses of their listeners. In his sermon "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God," Edwards called upon the audience to "imagine yourself to be cast into a fiery oven, all of a glowing heat ... where your pain would be ... much greater than that occasioned by accidentally touching a coal of fire.... Imagine also that your body were to lie there for a quarter of an hour.... for twenty-four hours! ... for a whole year, .... for a thousand years. Imagine how your heart would sink ... if you knew you must bear it for forever and ever..., that there would be no end! ... that you never, ever should be delivered.&qu! ot; The key word here is "imagine," compelling the audience to sense, to feel, the meaning not only of hell but of eternity, two words that had become lifeless in the sermons of traditional ministers. While the older generation believed that man's reason should always govern his emotions, "new light" ministers, as revivalists were called, believed with John Locke in the unity of the human personality, that mind and feelings were inseparable and that understanding is acquired only through one's sensory experience. ⁶

The Reverend John Lowell's commitment to the second of his precepts -- liberty -- was sorely tested by the arrival of George Whitefield in Newbury in September 1740. Many ministers throughout New England refused to allow the famous evangelist to preach to their congregations for fear it would cause dissension. But Lowell took a chance and welcomed Whitefield to his pulpit. Stirred by the message of Whitefield and other evangelists, nearly 200 people hastened to join Lowell's parish, among whom was my ancestor, Elizabeth Labaree, and two of her children. Lowell's gamble seemed to have paid off. But a few years later, when Lowell was away, a group of radical itinerants invaded his meeting house and held a revival meeting of their own. ⁷ Like other trusting souls who have been taken advantage of, Lowell could not forgive these transgressors, and he banned evangelical preachers thereafter from the meeting-house. This policy prompted the "n! ew lights" of the parish, already unhappy with Lowell's liberal leanings, to withdraw. Along with other like-minded people in the area, they founded what became the First Presbyterian Church of Newbury in 1746. For the first time since the settlement of the town more than a century before, the solidarity of its Calvinist core had developed a crack. ⁸

Lowell and his colleague at the First Parish, Christopher Toppan, acted swiftly to halt the schism. First they refused to grant any seceder the customary letter of dismissal, which also served as a letter of introduction to one's new parish. Then they insisted that the seceders continue to pay taxes to their old parish, knowing full well that this would mean double taxation. Lowell knew that liberty usually comes at the expense of unity, and his harsh reaction toward the Presbyterians demonstrated that for him preserving the unity of his parish was more important than granting others the liberty to worship according to their conscience. ⁹

It is difficult for us to imagine how impassioned these theological arguments could become. The minister of Newbury's second parish, the amiable Thomas Barnard, was a well-known Arminian. His sermons clearly implied that in his opinion a good God would not inflict such doctrines as predestination and infant damnation on his children. As a result of his liberal views Barnard was singled out for attack by the new lights, one of whom was a young minister named Joseph Adams. After graduating from Harvard in 1742, ten years after Barnard, Adams returned to his native Newbury to deliver evangelical sermons wherever he could find an audience. But he didn't stop there. In an open letter to Barnard, he wrote: "I don't think it any breach of charity to call you an opposer of this blessed Reformation.... God in his own time will frown you into Hell, where you will mourn your folly when it is too late, [unless] you repent.... I hope the Lord will convert you and every other unconver! ted minister or turn you out of the ministry." Barnard was not to be intimidated. "Arrogant young man!," he wrote in his public reply, "who take upon you to seat yourself on the throne of the most high God and without any Hesitation... [denounce] all who are not precisely of your opinion ...." Young Adams was in fact the first minister to preach to the newly-formed Presbyterian church, but his enthusiasm was too much even for them, and when it came time to settle a permanent minister, they turned to a more temperate candidate, the Reverend Jonathan Parsons.

Now here is what we might call a delicate situation. Marsh was an orthodox Calvinist who believed in humankind's essential depravity. "We are in debt --- infinitely behind hand ... and all the services we could do to all eternity... would never pay a single farthing.... Even our best services are impure and need a pardon... [Our] every prayer is defiled with selfish ends or self-righteousness. ¹¹ Cary, on the other hand, was becoming ever more liberal in his views, proud to be called a "rational Christian." Not surprisingly, the two did not get along very well.

Reconciling liberty and unity in the spirit of charity is a challenge for us today as well. Theological matters are no longer at issue – freedom to worship as one pleases has long since been won in our country. In fact, during the two centuries since the construction of this meeting house we as a nation have made enormous strides in extending liberty into almost all every aspect of our lives. But some believe we have gone so far in allowing people to do as they please that we are losing our sense of community. Others are just as certain that we haven't gone far enough. There is no shortage of issues that array liberty against community: on this Earth Day I need only mention protecting our environment as one. What is in short supply, howewver, is a spirit of charity in the discussion of these issues. It is dismaying to see how uncharitable we are toward those with whom we disagree. Surely we who sometimes find it so difficult to esteem our neighbors can sympathize with the Reverend John Lowell.

"Unity, liberty, and charity." Perhaps the greatest of these three is also charity. Amen.

Benjamin W. Labaree

Footnotes:
¹ Newburyport Herald, as quoted in John J. Currier, "Ould Newbury:"Historical and Biographical Sketches. Boston, Damrell and Upam. 1896, p. 451.
² Currier, "Ould Newbury," pp.13-21, 91-109.
³ Currier, "Ould Newbury," pp. 291-300; 430ff; John J. Currier, History of Newburyport, Mass., 1764-1905. 2 vols. (Newburyport: the author. 1906), I, 252-257.
⁴ Thomas Foxcroft, Ministers (Boston, 1767), p. 31, quoted in Clifford K. Shipton, ed. Biographical Sketches of those who Attended Harvard College [hereafter Sibley's Harvard Graduates] (Boston: Massachusetts Historical Society, 1942), VI: 1713-1721, p. 497.
⁵ Quoted in Benjamin W. Labaree, America's Nation-Time, 1607-1789 (Boston: Al;lyn & Bacon, 1972) . 138; for Whitefield's visits, see Currier, History of Newburyport, II, 455-457.
⁶ Benjamin W. Labaree, Colonial Massachusetts: A History. (Millwood, NY: KTO Press. 1979), pp. 172-174.
⁷ "John Lowell," in Clifford K. Shipton, ed.Biographical Sketches of Those Who Attend Harvard College: Sibley's Harvard Graduates, (Boston: Massachusetts Historical Society, 1942), VI (1713-1721), 498-499;, Minnie Atkinson, A History of the First Religious Society of Newburyport, Massachusetts. [Boston]: Unitarian Historical Society. 1933] pp. 21-23.
⁸ Historical Survey of the Origins and Annals of the First Presbyterian Church of Newburyport. (Boston, 1896), pp. 25-29; Currier, "Ould Newbury," pp. 508-509.
⁹ Currier, "Ould Newbury,"pp. 509-517; Currier, History of Newburyport, I, 265-267.
¹⁰ "Thomas Cary," in Shipton, ed. Sibley's Harvard Graduates, vol. XV - 1761-1763, 29-33; "Christopher Bridge Marsh," in Shipton, ed. Sibley's Harvard Graduates, XV, 71-72; Atkinson, First Religious Society, pp. 31-32.; Contributions to the Ecclesiastical History of Essex County (Boston: 1865), pp. 236-239. Currier, History of Newburyport, I, 271-275.
¹¹ "Thomas Cary," in Shipton, Harvard Graduates, XV (1761-1763), 29-30; "Christopher Bridge Marsh," in Shipton, Harvard Graduates, XV (1761-1763), 71-72; [Amos Noyes, Esq.] Oration on the 150th Anniversary of the First Religious Society of Newburyport [October 20, 1875], Newburyport, 1875. p. 30.