Chapter VIII

Mr. Eliot’s avowal of republicanism, and his retraction of it.
His connection with the controversy about Mrs. Hutchinson.
Richard Baxter’s Testimony about Mr. Eliot. Roman Catholics
instructing the Indians. Mrs. Eliot. Close of Mr. Eliot’s life.
Conclusion.

Two events in the life of Mr. Eliot must necessarily be noticed in giving a complete account of him. One is the publication and subsequent retraction of a book called the Christian Commonwealth, and the other is his connection with the controversy raised by that notorious woman, Mrs. Anne Hutchinson.

Mr. Eliot wrote a book about the year 1650, called the Christian Commonwealth. It was carried to England in manuscript and printed. In 1660, the Governor and Council of Massachusetts condemned this book as being “full of seditious principles and notions in relation to all established governments in the Christian world, especially against the government established in their native country.”

Mr. Eliot wrote an acknowledgment of error as the author of the book, and presented his recantation to the General Court. He speaks in it of Cromwell and his friends as “the late innovators” in the government of Great Britain, and of the monarchy as restored under Charles II., “as not only a lawful but eminent form of government.” The book was suppressed, and Mr. Eliot’s recantation was published through the colony.

This incident has been considered as reflecting on Mr. Eliot’s character for discretion, or for decision. The book does not survive in this country to speak for itself. The facts in the case seem to be that during the success of Cromwell, Mr. Eliot composed his book in accordance with what seemed to be the tendency in England towards a settled republican form of government. But upon the restoration of Charles II., the provincial government of Massachusetts felt in duty bound to show their allegiance to the crown by protesting against the sentiments of a book which favored republicanism. How often it is the case that success is regarded as settling the question of right. Had Cromwell’s plan succeeded, the Massachusetts government would not have felt obliged to condemn Mr. Eliot’s book. We may perhaps reflect upon him for not maintaining and defending the principles of his book; but to have done so would have been treason, seeing that monarchy had again become the established form of government in the mother country. Mr. Eliot, perhaps, felt that it was right for him to find reasons for that permanent change in the government of Great Britain which in the providence of God seemed to be at hand. When the event proved otherwise than he expected, loyally being then so much a part of religion, and “the powers” in the government of the mother country being, according to the received opinions of Christians, and like all other powers “that be,” “ordained of God,” it was a question with Mr. Eliot between decision and boldness, amounting to a treasonable spirit, and submission to constituted authority. The ill success of Cromwell no doubt made Eliot think that he had misinterpreted the purposes of God. Men are apt to feel and reason in this manner. If a colony, or province, or a number of men make insurrection, and succeed in overthrowing the government, men call it a revolution, and the independence of the new state or nation is acknowledged. If they do not succeed, the attempt is called a plot, conspiracy, insurrection, and the actors who in the event of success would have been “the fathers of their country,” “the founders of a nation,” are gibbeted by their generation, and regarded as traitors by the next, and by the world. While a revolution is pending, a man may say many things as an observer and theorizer, which, when events contradict them, he will do his best to retract, or cover up. It cannot be wondered at, that, amid the enthusiasm which attended the Restoration, and the implicit submission of the Colonial government to the restored king, and influenced by the loyal spirit of his times, Mr. Eliot should have deemed it a Christian duty to confess and retract that which the providence of God seemed to indicate was an error. He was not prepared to lift up a standard against the government of Great Britain; the appeal which Cromwell and his friends had made to the God of nations and of battles, had not been answered in his favor, and Mr. Eliot was meek enough to yield submission to that which, in the circumstances, seemed to be a Christian obligation. What should he have done? Had he still believed that Cromwell was the anointed of the Lord, and that Charles was the usurper, he should have suffered any punishment rather than falsify his sentiments. It may be charitably supposed, however, that the events of the Restoration changed his opinion, and made him satisfied to be still a royalist. We have no evidence in any part of his life, that Mr. Eliot was a time-server, or coward; on the contrary, he was remarkable for decision of character and independence.

In confirmation of what has now been said respecting Mr. Eliot’s decision and firmness, we may allude to the part he took in opposing the sentiments and influence of that notorious disturber of the churches in his day, Mrs. Anne Hutchinson. She was of the sect of Antinomians, who abused the doctrines of free grace, maintaining that the law is of no use or obligation under the dispensation of the Gospel, while the doctrines they taught superseded the necessity of good works. Mrs. Hutchinson pretended to immediate impressions from heaven as the rule of conduct, saying that she knew God “spake to her, just as Abraham knew that it was the command of Heaven to sacrifice Isaac.” The Governor, Vane, who was an enthusiast, countenanced this woman, and Rev. Mr. Cotton, who took Mr. Eliot’s place in the church at Boston, when Mr. Eliot removed to Roxbury, was also infected by her influence so far as to oppose his colleague, the Rev. Mr. Wilson, and the other ministers, who were generally opposed to her. Had Mr. Eliot remained the teacher of the church in Boston, it would have prevented that church from being divided as it was with regard to Mrs. Hutchinson, through the influence of his successor, Mr. Cotton. Mr. Eliot, with several other ministers, visited her, conversed with her upon religious subjects to ascertain her sentiments and spirit, and remonstrated with her for her bold denunciation of all the Plantation except Messrs. Cotton and Wheelright. Mr. Eliot appeared as a witness against her on her trial before the magistrates, and with Hugh Peters and Mr. Weld, testified that she said to them that “Mr. Cotton preached a covenant of grace, and the other ministers a covenant of works.” Mr. Eliot added, “I do remember this also, that she said we were not able and faithful ministers of the new covenant, because we were not like the apostles before the ascension.” Mr. Eliot took occasion on this trial to bear testimony against yielding to _impressions_ as a rule of faith and duty. A passage from Mr. Hooker’s sermons was quoted in justification of Mrs. Hutchinson’s statements. But Mr. Eliot who had been brought up at the feet of Mr. Hooker, and knew his opinions well, insisted that the construction given to the passage was contrary to Mr. Hooker’s mind and judgment. His old friend, Gov. Winthrop, gently dissented from Mr. Eliot’s strong testimony against impressions. Mr. Eliot said, “I say there is an expectation of things promised; but to have a particular revelation of things, as they shall fall out, there is no such thing in the Scripture.” Gov. Winthrop replied, “We must not limit the word of God.”[40] Mrs. Hutchinson was condemned and banished. Her end softened the feelings of those who condemned her, and made them reflect upon the inexpediency of proceeding so strenuously as they did against her. Such feelings always arise in the minds of good men who have withstood prevailing errors, not to make them regret the testimony they bore for the truth, but to mourn over hasty and excessive zeal, when patience, and perhaps a measure of neglect, might sooner have ended a controversy, or have prevented it altogether. But it is easier for those who are removed, by time or place, from the excitements of a controversy, to moralize upon the best way of conducting it, than it would have been for them to exercise the judicious temper which they recommend and praise, had they themselves partaken in the strife. Mr. Eliot showed himself in this controversy to be no fanatical enthusiast, and gave evidence that he was a man of decision and courage.

The following characteristic letter was written by the famous Rev. Richard Baxter to Dr. Increase Mather then in London. It was occasioned by the receipt of Cotton Mather’s Life of Eliot.

“DEAR BROTHER:

I thought I had been near dying at 12 o’clock, in bed; but your
book revived me. I lay reading it until between one and two. I
knew much of Mr. Eliot’s opinions, by many letters which I had
from him. There was no man on earth whom I honoured above him.
It is his evangelical work that is the apostolical succession
that I plead for. I am now dying, I hope, as he did. It pleased
me to read from him my case, [_my understanding faileth, my
memory faileth, my tongue faileth_,] (and my hand and pen,)
_but my charity faileth not_. That word much comforted me. I
am as zealous a lover of the New England Churches as any man,
according to Mr. Noyes’, Mr. Norton’s, Mr. Mitchel’s, and the
Synod’s model.

I loved your father upon the letters I received from him.
I love you better for your learning, labors, and peaceable
moderation. I love your son better than either of you, for the
excellent temper that appeareth in his writings.[41] O that
godliness and wisdom (may) thus increase in all families! He
hath honoured himself half as much as Mr. Eliot. I say but
half as much; for deeds excel words. God preserve you and New
England! Pray for

Your fainting, languishing Friend,

RI. BAXTER.”

_August 3, 1691._

In contrast with the instructions which Mr. Eliot and other Protestant missionaries to the Indians gave the children of the wilderness, Cotton Mather alludes to the instructions given to the Indians in some parts of the country by the Popish missionaries. He says,

“By an odd accident there are lately fallen into my hands
the manuscripts of a Jesuit, whom the French employed as a
missionary among the western Indians, in which papers there
are both a catechism, containing the principles which those
heathens are to be instructed in, and cases of conscience
referring to their conversations. The catechism, which is in
the Iroquois language—with a translation annexed, has one
chapter about heaven, and another about hell, wherein are such
thick skulled passages as these.”

_Q._ How is the soil made in heaven?

_A._ ’Tis a very fair soil, they want neither for meats nor
clothes; ’tis but wishing, and we have them.

_Q._ Are they employed in heaven?

_A._ No, they do nothing; the fields yield corn, beans,
pumpkins, and the like without any tillage.

_Q._ What sort of trees are there?

_A._ Always green, full, flourishing.

_Q._ Have they in heaven the same sun, the same wind, the same
thunder that we have here?

_A._ No, the sun ever shines; it is always fair weather.

_Q._ But how are their fruits?

_A._ In this one quality they exceed ours, that they are never
wasted; you have no sooner plucked one, but you see another
presently hanging in its room.

Concerning hell, it thus discourses.

_Q._ What sort of a soil is that of hell?

_A._ A very wretched soil; ’tis a fiery pit in the centre of
the earth.

_Q._ Have they any light in hell?

_A._ No. ’Tis always dark; there is always smoke there; their
eyes are always in pain with it; they can see nothing but the
devils.

_Q._ What shaped things are the devils?

_A._ Very ill shaped things; they go about with vizards on, and
they terrify men.

_Q._ What do they eat in hell?

_A._ They are always hungry, but the damned feed on hot ashes
and serpents there.

_Q._ What water do they drink?

_A._ Horrid water, nothing but melted lead.

_Q._ Don’t they die in hell?

_A._ No; yet they eat one another every day; but anon, God
restores and renews the man that was eaten, as a cropt plant in
a little time repullulates.

One case of conscience is thus resolved by the Jesuit:

_Q._ Whether an Indian stealing a hatchet from a Dutchman be
bound to make restitution?

_A._ If the Dutchman be one that has used any trade with other
Indians, the thief is not bound unto any restitution; for it is
certain he gains more by such a trade than the value of many
hatchets in a year.

In the History of the Early Jesuit Missions to the Indians
of this country,[42] as well as in all other Jesuit missions,
there is a degree of zeal and devotedness which is truly
wonderful. This is not the place to discuss the motives of
these men, nor the principle in human nature which leads to
their self-sacrifice in the missionary work. The fruits of
their work, however, show that they do not promulgate the
Gospel of Christ in its simplicity, did we not know this by
more direct evidence.

The wife of Mr. Eliot died three years before him, at the age of 84. She had come to him across the ocean, a betrothed bride, when he had found a home for her in this new world. During her residence here, “she had attained unto a considerable skill in physick and chirurgery which enabled her to dispense many safe, good, and useful medicines unto the poor that had occasion for them; and some hundreds of sick and weak and maimed people owed praises to God for the benefit which therein they freely received of her.”[43]

She managed all the private affairs of her husband for him that he might devote his whole time and strength to his arduous public labors. She brought up his six children of whom he beautifully said, “they are all in Christ, or with Christ,” and then she smoothed his passage to the tomb by going before him, and making him more willing to depart. “That one wife,” says Mather, “which was given to him truly from the Lord, he loved, prized, cherished, with a kindness that notably represented the compassion which he thereby taught his church to expect from the Lord Jesus Christ; and after he had lived with her for more than half an hundred years he followed her to the grave with lamentations beyond those which the Jews, from the figure of a letter in the text,[44] affirm, that Abraham deplored his Sarah with; her departure made a deeper impression on him than what any common affliction could. His whole conversation with her had that sweetness and that gravity and modesty beautifying of it, that every one called them Zachery and Elizabeth.”[45]

The old gray haired apostle stood over her coffin, and said to the concourse of people who had come to the funeral, “Here lies my dear, faithful, pious, prudent, prayerful wife. I shall go to her, but she shall not return to me.”

Lord Bacon[46] speaking of “marriage and single life,” tells us what wives are to young men, and that “for middle age” they are “companions,” and “old men’s nurses.” Men generally do not wait till old age before they experience the exquisite tenderness and assiduity of woman in their sickness. We all subscribe to the last couplet of the following quotation, but not to the first:

“O woman! in thine hours of ease
Deceitful, coy, and hard to please.
...
When pain and sickness wring the brow,
A ministering angel thou.”

There is a beautiful passage in one of Steele’s papers in the Spectator. It purports to be a letter to his wife. He says,

“It is impossible for me to look back on many evils and pains which I have suffered since we came together, without a pleasure which is not to be expressed from the proofs I have had, in those circumstances, of your unmeasured goodness. How often has your tenderness removed pain from my sick head! how often anguish from my afflicted heart! With how skillful patience have I known you comply with the vain projects which pain has suggested, to have an aching limb removed, by journeying from one side of a room to another! how often, the next instant, traveled the same ground again, _without telling your patient it was to no purpose to change his situation_. If there are such beings as guardian angels, thus are they employed. I will no more believe one of them more good in its inclinations, than I can conceive it more charming in its form than my wife.”

As Mr. Eliot became disabled by age for the ministerial work, he seemed to have the earnest solicitude about a successor which Moses had when, towards the close of his life, he “cried to the Lord” that he would “set a man over the congregation.” Mr. Eliot more than once assembled the people of the town to fast and pray with reference to a successor. The Rev. Nehemiah Walter was by the unanimous vote of the people associated with him in the pastoral office, after which it was with difficulty that he could be persuaded to conduct any public religious service, saying, “It would be a wrong to the souls of the people for him to do any thing among them when they were supplied so much to their advantage.” The last time that he preached is said to have been on the occasion of a public fast, when he expounded the lxxxiii. Psalm, being, (as the caption has it,) a complaint to God of the enemies’ conspiracies, and a prayer against them that oppress the church. He concluded his exposition with an apology, begging his hearers to pardon the poorness and meanness and brokenness of his meditations, adding, “my dear brother here will by and by mend all.”

He once expressed the fear that his old friends and neighbors, Messrs. Cotton, of Boston, and Mather, of Dorchester, who had gone to heaven before him, would suspect him to have gone the wrong way, because he staid so long behind them.

Towards the close of his life his mind dwelt much on the coming of the Son of Man, and whatever theme he began to converse upon, he soon fell into a strain of remarks upon this subject. On one occasion some one brought him intelligence of certain sad events whereby the Churches of New England were much afflicted. His reply was, “Behold some of the clouds in which we must look for the coming of the Son of Man.”

Mr. Walter coming in to see him on his dying bed, Mr. Eliot said, “Brother, thou art welcome to my very soul. Pray retire to thy study for me, and give me leave to be gone,” meaning that he should pray for his speedy release.

Being asked how he did, he said, “Alas, I have lost every thing; my understanding leaves me, my memory fails me, my utterance fails me; but I thank God my charity holds out still; I find that rather grows than fails.”

Speaking of the work in which he had been engaged among the Indians, he said, “There is a cloud, a dark cloud, upon the work of the gospel, among the poor Indians. The Lord revive and prosper that work, and grant that it may live when I am dead. It is a work which I have been doing much and long about. But what was the word I spoke last? I recall that word, _my doings_! Alas! they have been poor and small, and lean doings; and I’ll be the man that shall throw the first stone at them all.”

The Rev. Increase Mather had gone to England on business connected with the ecclesiastical affairs of New England. Mr. Eliot wrote the following letter to him, and it is the last writing of his of which we have any account.

“Reverend and beloved Mr. Increase Mather.

I cannot write. Read Neh. 2:10. When Sanballat the Horonite,
and Tobiah the servant, the Ammonite heard of it, it grieved
them exceedingly that there was come a man to seek the welfare
of the children of Israel.

Let thy blessed soul feed full and fat upon this and other
Scriptures. All other things I leave to other men, and rest,

Your loving Brother,

JOHN ELIOT.”

One of Mr. Eliot’s last expressions was this, Welcome joy! His last breath was spent in calling upon those who stood around his dying bed to “Pray, Pray, Pray.” He died in the beginning of the year 1690, in the eighty-sixth year of his age.

Before his death, Mr. Eliot had the pleasure of seeing several faithful men raised up to labor among the Indians; among whom were Daniel Gookin, James Noyce, Rowland Cotton, Peter Thacher, Grindal Rawson, Goddefred Dettins, and M. Bondet. Mather says, “about the year 1700, through the blessing of God in this one Massachusetts province, the Indians have mostly embraced the Christian religion. There are I suppose, more than thirty congregations of Indians, and many more than three thousand Indians, in this one province, calling on God in Christ, and hearing of his glorious Word.”

In writing these pages, I have before me a copy of Eliot’s Indian Bible, to which are annexed his Psalms and Hymns, in the Indian tongue, and a short Catechism. Here is the monument of John Eliot; and what monument of earthly greatness is to be compared with it! The kings of the earth sleep in the great cathedral; the beautiful, ivy grown, ruined abbey crowns the sepulchre of the novelist and poet; the marble statue immortalizes the name and deeds of the conqueror by land or sea. They are but the grass that withereth, and the flower which fadeth, “but the word of the Lord endureth forever.” “Endureth”? There is not one Indian on this continent, or on the face of the earth, that can read this book. It can never guide another soul to God. As you look upon its title page, written in an unknown tongue, you see these words, Up-Biblum God, the Book of God. How significant, we may say, the appearance of those words when we consider the condition of the book bereaved of the race who once read it. “Up-Biblum God.” Like the man-child of the woman clothed with the sun who fled into the wilderness, and whose child was caught up unto God, and to his throne, this book, having done its office here, is, in a certain sense, caught up to God; and there it “endureth forever,” in the hearts and souls of redeemed savages.

This book will never, of course, be reprinted, and copies of it are becoming rare. But if we wished to send something to a desponding missionary, or an example of condescension and love for souls to a minister who despises and neglects his poor, humble people, no better gift could be selected than a copy of Eliot’s Bible. What gentle rebuke, what exhortation and encouragement, its long barbarous words would speak oftentimes in the minister’s or missionary’s study. We might appropriately inscribe on its cover the third reflection of Mr. Eliot on returning from one of his visits to Nonantum, and send it to every missionary station round the globe: “There is no need of miraculous or extraordinary gifts in seeking the salvation of the most depraved of the human family.”

The mention of this Bible may lead us to think of that half million of wild Indians and that million and a half of partly civilized Indians who now occupy the wilderness of the west. It bids us attempt their conversion; it shows us that no difficulties are too mighty for the Gospel to overcome, no discouragements too great for true Christian faith and courage. The objects of our forefathers’ zeal and hope in coming to these shores, are now beyond the Rocky Mountains. A wilderness still invites our increasing missionary efforts, as a wilderness once invited the labors of the Pilgrims. Wronged and driven away by the while man, still they cry: