Preface
The history of the Congregational clergy in provincial New England is the story of mortal men entrusted with a divine mission. The pastors nurtured the spiritual life of a community that had become, in their eyes, shamelessly secular. 'But even in seeking to arouse religious sentiments among their people, they had difficulty in transcending their own material interests. The ministers were actually members of two communities. They belonged to the congregations of laymen among whom they worked, and they were members of the ministerial profession. In theory, the welfare of the one affected the welfare of the other, but during the first half of the eighteenth century, many pastors appeared to care more for the prestige of their profession than for the well-being of their congregations. This development, which can be termed "Congregational clericalism," was undermined by the Great Awakening of the 1740s, which forced the ministers to revise their understanding of their own mission.
At any point in the story there are signs both that the ministers were in control of their own destiny and that they were victims of social forces beyond their control. By professionalizing they maintained a position of authority in a society that was becoming increasingly conscious of rank, but they unwittingly gave comfort to those forces that were uncongenial to traditional Calvinism. To revitalize themselves and their people they sponsored a revival that was enormously successful, but that undercut their position of religious leadership. Deprived of their claim of unique holiness they succumbed not to defeat, but to a new view of themselves that emphasized their work among their people.
I became interested in Congregational ministers because the problem of their role in Puritan society is at the heart of a central issue in American religious historiography. For several decades colonial American historians generally accepted Perry Miller's belief that one can construct a coherent picture of colonial life by relying almost entirely upon the published works of the Congregational ministers. But, subsequently, critics have argued that Miller failed to grasp what Darrett B. Rutman has called "the actuality of the man in the streets." In the past ten years historians have sought to portray that "actuality" by relying heavily upon land records, wills, and minutes of public meetings. Religion usually plays a minor role in these accounts.
The new social history raises the question of the relevance of the Puritan ideology to the individual colonists and of the relationship of the ministers to the rest of New England. Did clergymen articulate the common feelings of all New Englanders? Or was their own spiritual life more pure and intense than that of other men? There are many ways of exploring the relationship between ministers and laymen. For example, the topic deserves, and is receiving, intensive scrutiny from historians who are interested in demography and social structure. My own emphasis, however, lies elsewhere. I have attempted here to construct an "inside view" of the ministers' experience, to discover how they perceived and shaped their own reality. Accordingly, their diaries and sermons have supplied the most valuable evidence for my argument.
The exploration of these sources has led me to a series of questions that could profitably be asked of other clergymen in other periods of time. How did a man become a minister-what besides his office distinguished him from other men? What was the nature of the minister's work among his people? How did he understand his profession and his relationship to his colleagues? And, finally, what was the impact on the clerical profession of a religious movement that seemed to come directly from God? In studying these problems, I have been impressed by the parallels between the development of clerical and civil leadership in colonial New England. Between 1700 and 1750 the definition of the good ministers evolved from an elitist notion based upon English norms to a more democratic concept based on the American experience. A similar change in political consciousness came to fruition during the American Revolution.
It should be noted that in the period under consideration there were other ministerial groups in New England. The Baptists and Anglicans, for example, had made many inroads in the Puritan colonies of Connecticut and Massachusetts by 1740. Although clerical histories of these and other denominations would be useful additions to our knowledge of early American religious and social history, I have limited this work to the story of the Congregationalist ministers. The Congregationalists were the strongest denomination in most of New England throughout the colonial period, and, hence, to a degree untrue of other groups, their history is interwoven into the history of the society as a whole.
The preparation of this study has been facilitated by the help of numerous scholars and institutions. I am indebted to the University of California, the Ford Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the American Philosophical Society for their financial assistance. The staffs of the libraries listed in the Abbreviations (preceding the notes at the back of the book) were helpful in directing me to pertinent manuscripts. As a graduate student at Berkeley, I benefited from the prompt, incisive, and generous criticisms of Robert Middlekauff, Larzar Ziff, and Henry F. May. Subsequently, Richard H. Dunn, Philip J. Greven, Jr., Richard Johnson, and Michael McGiffert have offered valuable suggestions. I am grateful for the encouragement of the Brewer Prize committee of the American Society of Church History. And I am deeply indebted to my wife for her perceptive editorial assistance. As to my children, Hope and Teddy, twins who were born while I was revising an earlier version of the manuscript, they taught me better than any pastor's diary the fine complexity of striving to lead a full intellectual life in the midst of pressing domestic obligations.
At any point in the story there are signs both that the ministers were in control of their own destiny and that they were victims of social forces beyond their control. By professionalizing they maintained a position of authority in a society that was becoming increasingly conscious of rank, but they unwittingly gave comfort to those forces that were uncongenial to traditional Calvinism. To revitalize themselves and their people they sponsored a revival that was enormously successful, but that undercut their position of religious leadership. Deprived of their claim of unique holiness they succumbed not to defeat, but to a new view of themselves that emphasized their work among their people.
I became interested in Congregational ministers because the problem of their role in Puritan society is at the heart of a central issue in American religious historiography. For several decades colonial American historians generally accepted Perry Miller's belief that one can construct a coherent picture of colonial life by relying almost entirely upon the published works of the Congregational ministers. But, subsequently, critics have argued that Miller failed to grasp what Darrett B. Rutman has called "the actuality of the man in the streets." In the past ten years historians have sought to portray that "actuality" by relying heavily upon land records, wills, and minutes of public meetings. Religion usually plays a minor role in these accounts.
The new social history raises the question of the relevance of the Puritan ideology to the individual colonists and of the relationship of the ministers to the rest of New England. Did clergymen articulate the common feelings of all New Englanders? Or was their own spiritual life more pure and intense than that of other men? There are many ways of exploring the relationship between ministers and laymen. For example, the topic deserves, and is receiving, intensive scrutiny from historians who are interested in demography and social structure. My own emphasis, however, lies elsewhere. I have attempted here to construct an "inside view" of the ministers' experience, to discover how they perceived and shaped their own reality. Accordingly, their diaries and sermons have supplied the most valuable evidence for my argument.
The exploration of these sources has led me to a series of questions that could profitably be asked of other clergymen in other periods of time. How did a man become a minister-what besides his office distinguished him from other men? What was the nature of the minister's work among his people? How did he understand his profession and his relationship to his colleagues? And, finally, what was the impact on the clerical profession of a religious movement that seemed to come directly from God? In studying these problems, I have been impressed by the parallels between the development of clerical and civil leadership in colonial New England. Between 1700 and 1750 the definition of the good ministers evolved from an elitist notion based upon English norms to a more democratic concept based on the American experience. A similar change in political consciousness came to fruition during the American Revolution.
It should be noted that in the period under consideration there were other ministerial groups in New England. The Baptists and Anglicans, for example, had made many inroads in the Puritan colonies of Connecticut and Massachusetts by 1740. Although clerical histories of these and other denominations would be useful additions to our knowledge of early American religious and social history, I have limited this work to the story of the Congregationalist ministers. The Congregationalists were the strongest denomination in most of New England throughout the colonial period, and, hence, to a degree untrue of other groups, their history is interwoven into the history of the society as a whole.
The preparation of this study has been facilitated by the help of numerous scholars and institutions. I am indebted to the University of California, the Ford Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the American Philosophical Society for their financial assistance. The staffs of the libraries listed in the Abbreviations (preceding the notes at the back of the book) were helpful in directing me to pertinent manuscripts. As a graduate student at Berkeley, I benefited from the prompt, incisive, and generous criticisms of Robert Middlekauff, Larzar Ziff, and Henry F. May. Subsequently, Richard H. Dunn, Philip J. Greven, Jr., Richard Johnson, and Michael McGiffert have offered valuable suggestions. I am grateful for the encouragement of the Brewer Prize committee of the American Society of Church History. And I am deeply indebted to my wife for her perceptive editorial assistance. As to my children, Hope and Teddy, twins who were born while I was revising an earlier version of the manuscript, they taught me better than any pastor's diary the fine complexity of striving to lead a full intellectual life in the midst of pressing domestic obligations.