COLMAN, BENJAMIN
(19 October 1673, Boston, MA-29 August 1747, Boston). Education: B.A., Harvard College, 1692; graduate study, Harvard, 1692-95. Career: Preacher, Medford, MA, 1692; preached occasionally, especially at Bath, England, 1695-99; minister, Brattle Street Church, Boston, 1700-47.
Increase Mather* called him a raw and unstudied youth and claimed he had a very unsanctified temper and spirit. And his Brattle Street Church in Boston was castigated as a "Presbyterian brat." None the less, Benjamin Colman eventually won the respect of the Boston clergy, and despite his controversial beginning, he came to represent moderation and conciliation in New England's religious life. With the death of Cotton Mather* in 1727, Colman became the most influential minister in New England.
Colman was prepared for college by the great schoolmaster, Ezekiel Cheever. After graduating from Harvard, Colman preached in several pulpits and was regarded as a promising ministerial candidate. But rather than settle immediately, he decided to go to England, drawn like many other young men of his generation to English culture; he probably anticipated that time abroad would serve as a kind of postgraduate education. On the voyage his vessel, however, was overtaken by a French privateer, and Colman found himself sleeping on a bed of straw in a French prison. Hearing that he was a clergyman, a Catholic priest tried to persuade him that all "heretics" were ipso facto "devils." Naturally Colman was not convinced, and fortunately, he was soon released in a general exchange of prisoners.
In England he became acquainted with leading Dissenters-Congregationatists and Presbyterians-and with their support he preached for two years in Bath. His Bath sermons have been studied for signs of Arminianism, but Colman managed then and later in his career to exalt humanity without denying the Calvinist doctrine of innate depravity. Colman developed a reputation as a good preacher and might have stayed on in England, but events at home soon drew him back. A group of Bostonians, discontented with certain features of Congregationalism, decided that they wanted a preacher like Colman, an orthodox Puritan, to be sure, but willing to disregard some of the stricter practices of the church. Led by William Brattle, John Leverett, and Simon Bradstreet, they undertook to create a new congregation in Boston, to be known as the Brattle Street Church. The "undertakers," as they were called, invited Colman to serve as minister. Recognizing that they would not find local ministers willing to ordain him, they recommended that Colman be ordained by English ministers, perhaps even a bishop.
Colman was ordained by the London Presbytery and returned to Boston in 1699 to begin his ministry. The next year the backers of the new church issued a manifesto declaring their principles. They would not require a confession of personal religious experience as a condition of admission to communion, and so the church would be open to Anglicans, among others. The Bible could be read at the service, and the congregation could recite the Lord's Prayer. These innovations in worship, so innocuous to a later time, seemed sacrilegious to conservatives, many of whom felt that any sort of reading during the service interfered with the direct communion between God, the minister, and the congregation. A pamphlet war followed, and for years some Bostonians stigmatized others as "manifesto men, n supporters of the Brattle Street Church.
But Colman worked hard to prove his orthodoxy and was soon accepted by most of his fellow clerics. He joined the Mathers in advocating moral reform in New England, and he proved himself orthodox on such matters as the need for supernatural revelation for information about the soul and salvation. He was for many years a fellow and overseer of Harvard, and was instrumental in finding donors to establish chairs for the college. Interested in science and literature, he corresponded with many notable Englishmen, including Isaac Watts. During the smallpox inoculation controversy of 1721-22, Colman was one of the foremost supporters of the practice, even though one opponent claimed that "Satan was the first inoculator." But whenever possible Colman avoided controversy. Having begun his career on a divisive note, he became increasingly a voice for moderation and unity. During the Great Awakening he welcomed George Whitefield* to New England, and after hearing him preach, he said that "it was the most pleasant time he ever enjoyed in that meeting-house through the whole course of his life." He steered a middle ground between those who would denounce the revival as a whole because of its excesses and those who favored even its most radical manifestations.
Benjamin Colman published more than ninety books during his lifetime, most of them tracts occasioned by a particular event-a funeral, ordination, election. He was notable not so much for theological originality or even innovation in worship, but for a distinctive style that seemed attuned to eighteenth century cosmopolitan sensibilities. In one of his most popular series of lectures, The Government and Improvement of Mirth (1707), he described a Boston that had lost some of its early Puritan sternness and become more worldly. "A good deal of pleasantry there is in the town," he declared, "and very graceful and charming it is so far as it is innocent and wise. Our wit like our air is clear and keen, and in very many 'tis exalted by a polite education, meeting with good natural parts." Colman approved of cheerfulness, and claimed that melancholy people "commonly make drooping Christians, to the disadvantage of Religion."
Colman's death was as peaceful as his later life. Expecting that his end was near he had invited friends and family to visit. He passed a restless night and the next morning, in the phrase of a nineteenth-century historian, he was "almost in the twinkling of an eye, rapt away from earth to Heaven."
Bibliography
A: The Gospel Order Revived (New York, 1700); Faith Victorious (Boston, 1702); The Government and Improvement of Mirth (Boston, 1707); Practical Discourses upon the Parable of the Ten Virgins (London, 1707); The Piety and Duty of Rulers (Boston, 1708); A Gospel Ministry (Boston, 1715); The Warnings of God unto Young People (Boston, 1716); The Religious Regards We Owe to Our Country (Boston, 1718); The Nature of Early Piety (Boston, 1721); Some Observations on the New Method of Receiving the Small-Pox by Ingrafting or Inoculating (Boston, 1721); God Deal's with Us as Rational Creatures (Boston, 1723); An Argument for and Persuasive unto the Great and Important Duty of Family Worship (Boston, 1728); Souls Flying to Jesus Christ (Boston, 1740); The Vanity of Man as Mortal (Boston, 1746).
B: AAP 1,223-29; DAB 4,311; NCAB 7, 153; SHG 4, 120-37; Ebenezer Ture1I, Life and Character of Benjamin Colman (Boston, 1749); "Benjamin Colman," in James W. Jones, The Shattered Synthesis: New England Puritanism before the Great Awakening (New Haven, 1973), 104-28; "Benjamin Colman and the Shaping of Balance," in Teresa Toulouse, The Art of Prophesying (Athens, Ga., 1987), 46-74; Theodore Hornberger, "Benjamin Colman and the Enlightenment," New England Quarterly, 12 (1939), 227-40; Teresa Toulouse, "Syllabical Idolatry: Benjamin Colman's Rhetoric of Balance," Early American Literature, 18 (1983-84), 257-274.
Increase Mather* called him a raw and unstudied youth and claimed he had a very unsanctified temper and spirit. And his Brattle Street Church in Boston was castigated as a "Presbyterian brat." None the less, Benjamin Colman eventually won the respect of the Boston clergy, and despite his controversial beginning, he came to represent moderation and conciliation in New England's religious life. With the death of Cotton Mather* in 1727, Colman became the most influential minister in New England.
Colman was prepared for college by the great schoolmaster, Ezekiel Cheever. After graduating from Harvard, Colman preached in several pulpits and was regarded as a promising ministerial candidate. But rather than settle immediately, he decided to go to England, drawn like many other young men of his generation to English culture; he probably anticipated that time abroad would serve as a kind of postgraduate education. On the voyage his vessel, however, was overtaken by a French privateer, and Colman found himself sleeping on a bed of straw in a French prison. Hearing that he was a clergyman, a Catholic priest tried to persuade him that all "heretics" were ipso facto "devils." Naturally Colman was not convinced, and fortunately, he was soon released in a general exchange of prisoners.
In England he became acquainted with leading Dissenters-Congregationatists and Presbyterians-and with their support he preached for two years in Bath. His Bath sermons have been studied for signs of Arminianism, but Colman managed then and later in his career to exalt humanity without denying the Calvinist doctrine of innate depravity. Colman developed a reputation as a good preacher and might have stayed on in England, but events at home soon drew him back. A group of Bostonians, discontented with certain features of Congregationalism, decided that they wanted a preacher like Colman, an orthodox Puritan, to be sure, but willing to disregard some of the stricter practices of the church. Led by William Brattle, John Leverett, and Simon Bradstreet, they undertook to create a new congregation in Boston, to be known as the Brattle Street Church. The "undertakers," as they were called, invited Colman to serve as minister. Recognizing that they would not find local ministers willing to ordain him, they recommended that Colman be ordained by English ministers, perhaps even a bishop.
Colman was ordained by the London Presbytery and returned to Boston in 1699 to begin his ministry. The next year the backers of the new church issued a manifesto declaring their principles. They would not require a confession of personal religious experience as a condition of admission to communion, and so the church would be open to Anglicans, among others. The Bible could be read at the service, and the congregation could recite the Lord's Prayer. These innovations in worship, so innocuous to a later time, seemed sacrilegious to conservatives, many of whom felt that any sort of reading during the service interfered with the direct communion between God, the minister, and the congregation. A pamphlet war followed, and for years some Bostonians stigmatized others as "manifesto men, n supporters of the Brattle Street Church.
But Colman worked hard to prove his orthodoxy and was soon accepted by most of his fellow clerics. He joined the Mathers in advocating moral reform in New England, and he proved himself orthodox on such matters as the need for supernatural revelation for information about the soul and salvation. He was for many years a fellow and overseer of Harvard, and was instrumental in finding donors to establish chairs for the college. Interested in science and literature, he corresponded with many notable Englishmen, including Isaac Watts. During the smallpox inoculation controversy of 1721-22, Colman was one of the foremost supporters of the practice, even though one opponent claimed that "Satan was the first inoculator." But whenever possible Colman avoided controversy. Having begun his career on a divisive note, he became increasingly a voice for moderation and unity. During the Great Awakening he welcomed George Whitefield* to New England, and after hearing him preach, he said that "it was the most pleasant time he ever enjoyed in that meeting-house through the whole course of his life." He steered a middle ground between those who would denounce the revival as a whole because of its excesses and those who favored even its most radical manifestations.
Benjamin Colman published more than ninety books during his lifetime, most of them tracts occasioned by a particular event-a funeral, ordination, election. He was notable not so much for theological originality or even innovation in worship, but for a distinctive style that seemed attuned to eighteenth century cosmopolitan sensibilities. In one of his most popular series of lectures, The Government and Improvement of Mirth (1707), he described a Boston that had lost some of its early Puritan sternness and become more worldly. "A good deal of pleasantry there is in the town," he declared, "and very graceful and charming it is so far as it is innocent and wise. Our wit like our air is clear and keen, and in very many 'tis exalted by a polite education, meeting with good natural parts." Colman approved of cheerfulness, and claimed that melancholy people "commonly make drooping Christians, to the disadvantage of Religion."
Colman's death was as peaceful as his later life. Expecting that his end was near he had invited friends and family to visit. He passed a restless night and the next morning, in the phrase of a nineteenth-century historian, he was "almost in the twinkling of an eye, rapt away from earth to Heaven."
Bibliography
A: The Gospel Order Revived (New York, 1700); Faith Victorious (Boston, 1702); The Government and Improvement of Mirth (Boston, 1707); Practical Discourses upon the Parable of the Ten Virgins (London, 1707); The Piety and Duty of Rulers (Boston, 1708); A Gospel Ministry (Boston, 1715); The Warnings of God unto Young People (Boston, 1716); The Religious Regards We Owe to Our Country (Boston, 1718); The Nature of Early Piety (Boston, 1721); Some Observations on the New Method of Receiving the Small-Pox by Ingrafting or Inoculating (Boston, 1721); God Deal's with Us as Rational Creatures (Boston, 1723); An Argument for and Persuasive unto the Great and Important Duty of Family Worship (Boston, 1728); Souls Flying to Jesus Christ (Boston, 1740); The Vanity of Man as Mortal (Boston, 1746).
B: AAP 1,223-29; DAB 4,311; NCAB 7, 153; SHG 4, 120-37; Ebenezer Ture1I, Life and Character of Benjamin Colman (Boston, 1749); "Benjamin Colman," in James W. Jones, The Shattered Synthesis: New England Puritanism before the Great Awakening (New Haven, 1973), 104-28; "Benjamin Colman and the Shaping of Balance," in Teresa Toulouse, The Art of Prophesying (Athens, Ga., 1987), 46-74; Theodore Hornberger, "Benjamin Colman and the Enlightenment," New England Quarterly, 12 (1939), 227-40; Teresa Toulouse, "Syllabical Idolatry: Benjamin Colman's Rhetoric of Balance," Early American Literature, 18 (1983-84), 257-274.