The Prophetic Faith of Our Fathers, vol. 3

VIII. The Power of the Colonial Clergy

In the planting of the New England colonies and the founding of its towns, the building of the meetinghouse and parsonage and the choosing of a minister usually had precedence. ²⁹ For about sixty years, New England was a theocracy, with the Bible sanctions reproduced as the civil code. ³⁰ The ministers were actually the chief advisers of state. Marked deference was paid to them, and they usually conducted themselves in a manner worthy of this prestige. The pulpits of the churches were high and remote from the congregations, typifying the elevation of the sacred office. ³¹ PFF3 30.2

Sunday was a solemn day, meet only for preaching, praying, and Bible study. ³² The sermon challenged undivided attention—and well it might, for attendance thereto was required. Absentees were subject to fine, and persistent indifference led to public exposure in the stocks or wooden cage. ³³ Moreover, the sermons not infrequently lasted from three to five hours, actually measured by the hourglass on the pulpit. The entire community was present, for there were no newspapers, radios, theaters, lectures, or musical entertainments to disturb or compete. These diversified sermons are therefore among the most representative records of the times extant. ³⁴ This was particularly true of the “election” sermons. About 1633 the governor and his assistants began to appoint someone to preach on the day of election. This was the beginning of the annual “election” sermons, which continued for several generations. ³⁵ PFF3 30.3

The matter of early official and clerical censorship also had a bearing. Not only was means of production limited, but the few printing plants—only five in Boston by 1715, one in Philadelphia, one in New York, and one in New London—were all under censorship. In this the controlling clergy exercised a rigid though unofficial control. Bradford’s imprisonment in Philadelphia in 1692 was for printing matter displeasing to the Quaker cause, and led to his removal to New York and the establishment of his press there. ³⁶ PFF3 31.1

The first newspaper, Publick Occurrences, was ended after a single issue, in 1690, by “censorial infanticide ... murdered in its first issue.” ³⁷ In 1695 a Salem Quaker was proceeded against for circulating a book he had had printed in New York, but escaped in the general reaction following the witchcraft excitement. ³⁸ In 1700 Colman of Massachusetts had to send his answer to Cotton Mather to New York to be published, because of control of the clerical clique. ³⁹ And William Brattle had to send his book against Mather to London for printing, and when it was returned it was publicly burned in Harvard College churchyard ⁴⁰ PFF3 31.2

Poor postal facilities and high costs presented yet further difficulties. The population of the colonies was scattered, and there was only slight communication between Massachusetts and the New England colonies, and Maryland and Virginia. In 1711 the cost of sending a letter between New York and Philadelphia was 9 pence, and between New York and Boston, 1 shilling. ⁴¹ PFF3 31.3