The Reformation – and Martin Luther

October 28, 2001
Venice

Rewrite of
October 26, 1958, Akron
Also: Rochester 10/29/61, Revised 10/25/64

This is Reformation Sunday, marking the birthday of the Protestant Church and the revolt from Roman Catholicism. Next Wednesday marks the four hundred and eighty-fourth anniversary of the day Martin Luther tacked the 95 theses to the door of Wittenberg Cathedral. The religious, political, economic, and social changes effected by the Protestant Reformation represent [some] of the most important, if not the most important, changes in the history of the Western world. I would like to discuss the leading person of the Reformation, one of the most controversial persons in history, Martin Luther. He was a saint, sinner, vulgarian, or anti-Semitic bigot, depending on the point of view from which he is seen. His followers hailed him as a true prophet of the Lord. Roman Catholics called him a child of the devil and accused him of demolishing Christianity. The agrarian reformers of that turbulent sixteenth century said he was the toady, tool, and supporter of the feudal lords and princes. Religious radicals, Carlstadt and Muenster, for example, compared him to Moses, who led the way out of captivity in Egypt, but then deserted his followers, leaving them to perish in the wilderness. Those who have looked at this personal life with critical eye have thought him to be a coarse libertine who broke with his Roman Catholic tradition so that he might marry a nun and rear children in sin and vulgarity. The critics submit Luther’s own writings, TABLE TALK, as evidence of his degraded personality.

This we know, the history of the world was altered because Martin Luther lived. In abolishing the authority of the Pope, Martin Luther established the freedom of the Christian. When this principle became established, the administration of the religious institution became the responsibility of the parish, a congregation of lay people. Martin Luther did not anticipate, and actually opposed, some of the consequences of the Reformation he spearheaded. The principle of the authority of the lay congregation had extreme political as well as religious effects. The self-administration of religion pointed the way to worldly self-government as well. Therefore, it is of particular importance to the liberal groups whose guiding principle of freedom is the most uninhibited, to try to understand Martin Luther. This presentation divides into

1) the setting,
2) the Augustinian priest,
3) the reformer and supporter of princes, and
4) the man, Martin Luther.

Although Martin Luther is the most notable figure of the Reformation, he was not born when the Reformation began. To know the Reformation, we need to understand that the Renaissance, the revival of learning, the recovery of the ancient Greek belief in the worth of the humans, had been in progress for at least two centuries. Petrarch and Boccaccio had notably advanced Humanist studies. The Medici family, also of Florence, had been the greatest patrons of art, sculpture, literature, and philosophy that the European world had known. Under their patronage, Michelangelo, DaVinci, Mirandola, Raphael and others had created arts and letters that still summon our wonder at their genius. In 1453, the world’s greatest cultural center, Constantinople, had fallen to the Turks. The scholars there who had preserved the manuscripts and art objects of Hellenism fled to Italy and other parts of Europe. 12 Universities were founded in Germany between 1409 and 1506.

Not only did the Renaissance signal the revival of arts and learning, but a most important political movement was beginning to make its strong eddies felt in the ebb and flow of the Holy Roman Empire. Although Germany lagged somewhat, England, France and Spain had assumed form as nations. The mass of people had no share in the political rewards or freedoms, although they were the objects of the most severe hardships and sufferings. Their unquestioned place was serfdom.

The Roman Catholic was the authoritarian church. There was no toleration of heresy, but the seeds that were to bear fruit in Luther’s time had already been sown. John Wyclif of England, opposed to the wealth of the church and clerical interference in all walks of life, believed that the Bible should be the possession of the people and had translated the scriptures into English. Wyclif was executed for heresy, his ashes scattered on Thames, but neither his convictions nor his bravery were forgotten. 1373 marked the birth of John Hus, a Bohemian priest, who was influenced by Wyclif’s teachings and Hus preached an evangelical doctrine which was anathema to the Roman Catholic church. John Hus avowed publicly that the head of the Church was Christ, not the Pope. The unprincipled church gave him safe conduct to the Council of Constance, but broke faith and burned him at the stake, July 6, 1415, but neither was his memory forgotten nor his principles rejected by his followers. In 1498, the austere monk of Florence, Savonarola denounced the Pope. After a succession of temporary triumphs and then humiliating defeat, Savonarola was burned at the stake. But even as smoke and smell from the burning flesh and faggots were dispersed to the winds, so the knowledge of his revolt became widely perceived by later reformers, including Martin Luther, who was but a fifteen-year-old student when Savonarola was executed.

Something else had happened which was to make the world different than it had ever been before. Moveable type printing had been invented – the peoples of the world would not only become more literate, but the printed word was to bring them the wisdom of scripture in their own language, and they read the protesting pamphlets of the reformers.

In this seething caldron of social change, a baby boy was born to a peasant miner, Hans Luther and his wife, Marguerite, in 1483. November 10 was St. Martin’s day, and the infant was named Martin after the patron saint. Martin’s parents were peasants, but Hans Luther was not content to accept the poverty and misery of the miner’s lot. By individual effort he labored to make his lot better and his family more comfortable and privileged. In these beginning times of individualism, his efforts brought some rewards. Martin was able to go to school and University to be prepared for the practice of law, which was his father’s wish for his eldest son.

The schools at that time were organized, administered, and taught by the Church and its various orders. Martin’s early schooling was directed by the Brethren of the Common Life, an order dedicated to education. Then, in the University, he was influenced by the Augustinian order. Under the strong influence of the monks, together with his personality, which was unusually sensitive to supernaturalism and mystery, along with his fine mind, which was capable of wrestling with the intricate language of philosophy and theology, Martin Luther found his hopes turning toward the Church and away from the Law. Although Hans Luther was deeply religious, his wish that Martin be a Doctor of Law was so strong that when Martin announced that he was to become an Augustinian monk, his father was deeply hurt. Years were to pass before he really forgave the son who was frustrating the parent’s deepest wish.

After a farewell party, Martin’s friends escorted him to the Augustinian cloister at Erfurt on the 17th of July 1505. He entered its gates there to endure the privation of the order and to know the religious joy of humbling his passions, following the tedious routine of prayer and study, eventually, when ordained to know the mystery or celebrating the Mass, in which the wafer and wine became the body and blood of Christ.

As a monk, Martin Luther was conscientious to a degree we would believe to be unnatural. He fasted for days at a time, went night after night without sleep so that he might devote himself to prayer unceasingly (and in so doing permanently injured his health). He whipped himself to subdue the desires of the flesh. Although he was a model of holiness to his brother monks, his personal anxiety increased. He became increasingly morbid. Luther, a child of his times, feared the devil and believed the arts of witchcraft could have a dreadful effect on him. The iron discipline of the Augustine order had the natural effect of subduing his outward expressions of feeling and intensifying the inward fires of human passions.

Following his ordination as a priest, he turned to teaching at the University and soon became a most popular teacher. His large following of students was drawn for several reasons. His peasant inheritance gave him the common touch, plain talk, and natural illustration which reached the core of subjects. To a lesser degree than monks of more aristocratic background, was he bound to narrow conventions and traditional formulas. Following his master’s degree, he earned the degree of Doctor of Theology, a scholastic honor rare in those days.

His talents and drive soon won greater recognition. When only 31 years old, in 1515, he was appointed District-Vicar of the Augustinian order. Thus, in addition to his devotional duties as a monk, his university responsibilities as a teacher of philosophy, he had the additional duty of administrative responsibility, superintending the 10 Augustinian monasteries in his district.

This devout Augustinian monk was obsessed not only with neurotic fears for his salvation, but also he was upset by dishonesty and corruption readily discovered in the church of that day, which was dominated by the Renaissance Popes, who had a high degree of sensitivity to artistic beauty and an insensitive attitude toward personal and organizational corruption.

Martin Luther and another monk made a pilgrimage to Rome. He had hopes that this would be a high experience in his life, but [it] resulted in considerable disillusion. In Rome he could not help observing the corruption, hypocrisy, and political knavery of the hierarchy. The irreverence of the priesthood shocked this simple, devout German peasant priest. It is said that while climbing the sacred stairs on his knees, that Paul’s words to the Romans fixed themselves in Luther’s brain, “the just shall live by faith.” He realized that acts of piety like climbing stairs on his knees were of little effect. The extent to which the Rome visit influenced his revolt, we do not know. Perhaps it was a small but significant episode in his life.

The real spark of the Reformation was ignited when the Roman hierarchy decided that in order to build magnificent St. Peter’s Basilica, much money had to be raised. So the sale of indulgences was authorized. The doctrine was that by their purity the saints had built up a bank account (so to speak) of piety, on which the sinful could draw to lessen their years in Purgatory. So, Tetzel, a monk went through the countryside urging the peasants to buy indulgences so that their dead relatives might be released from Purgatory sooner. It is said that Pope Leo X, who was the son of Lorenzo de Medici, said cynically about the response of the believing peasants, “This story of Jesus has helped us a lot.”

On October 31, 1517, Martin Luther tacked a manuscript to the door of Wittenberg Cathedral. 95 propositions for debate were listed. Luther questioned the indulgences with a series of logical propositions, the most telling of which proposed that if the Pope had the power to release souls from Purgatory, then he should do so at once, not for money, but out of the spirit of love and charity.

Although years were to elapse between the nailing of the theses to the door of Wittenberg Cathedral and the actual formation of the Reformed Church, that date is historically looked upon as the birthday of Protestantism.

Luther’s theses were formal statements, but his vernacular comment was, “God will not tolerate this flea market.”

News of the opposition of this Augustinian monk to the plans of the hierarchy soon reached Rome, and action followed. There were years of ecclesiastical maneuvering. Luther refused to recant. He had a famous debate with John Eck and undoubtedly would have been executed except for a new historical tide. Nationalism was dawning; and the feudal lords and princes of Germany were very much opposed to the Roman Church drawing off large sums of money from the homeland for St. Peter’s or any other foreign enterprise.

Luther began to write and his statements pointed unquestionably to strong differences with the Church at Rome. He proposed the priesthood of all believers, and that there were only two sacraments authorized by scripture: baptism and the Lord’s Supper. These statements were heretical, unquestionably, and Luther was summoned to appear before the Diet of Worms (“Here I stand”). Luther was excommunicated, and would have been seized, except Frederick, elector of Saxony, had him spirited away to Wartburg Castle. But the printing press was pounding out Luther’s writings, [which] were distributed widely, and the people responded. When Luther emerged from Wartburg, he found himself organizing a Reformed Church.

Then occurred one of the more puzzling aspects of Luther’s strange character: The impetus to religious freedom had other consequences. The peasants revolted against the landlords and princes. It was somewhat natural, but unexpected that they should seek to throw off political and economic oppression when the way to religious freedom had been pointed out. From our perspective we know this is one of the glories of religious freedom – other benefits to humankind are natural consequences. But Luther proved to be the the toady, the tool, the supporter of the princes. Neither the implications of religious freedom nor love for the peasant people from which he sprang mitigated the severity of his condemnation of the Peasants’ Revolt. To the aristocratic Lords and Princes, Luther offered these words of encouragement, “Hearken dear Lords... Let him who can stab, strike, and strangle... These are such times that a prince can go to heaven more easily by spilling blood than others through prayer.”

The peasants were crushed, murdered, tortured, starved.

Luther was not a tolerant man. Even admitting that like all persons, he was a child of his own age, we find it difficult to reconcile this devout man who professed the Lordship of the gentle Christ with the Luther who was savage not only with the Peasants’ War, but also had a bigoted hatred of Jews, and was unremitting in his urgings to destroy and persecute them.

Luther could not get along with other reformers. He refused to shake hands with Zwingli, because the latter would not accept Luther’s interpretation of the Lord’s Supper.

But Martin Luther was not only an Augustinian priest, a reformer of strange and devious as well as noble ways, he was also a man. When the reformers were celebrating freedom from the Roman Catholic church, the monasteries and convents were opened, the monks and nuns sought marriage and Christian homes, sometimes marrying each other. Catherine von Bora was a nun jilted by a suitor shortly after her release from the convent. Martin Luther tried to be a marriage broker for her and find a suitable husband. However, when it was reported to him that Catherine von Bora would marry only Dr. Amsdorf or Dr. Luther, he investigated further, he checked it out, with the result shortly after, Martin Luther and ex-nun Catherine von Bora were married. They established their home in the Augustinian cloister where Luther formerly had led the monastic life.

Theirs was a busy home with much affection, the ex-nun soon became “my Katie” to Luther. Not only were children born to them, but also they were hospitable and generous to the homeless. At one time not less than eleven orphans shared their home and table. The reminiscences of this home life are found in Luther’s TABLE TALK, remarkable for the insight it gives into the personality of this father. He was gentle, but at times objectionably vulgar and rude.

When illness or the plague struck, as it did frequently in those days, the hand of death entered the home. Of the children, Elizabeth died in infancy. When little Hans was ill, Martin Luther composed and to comfort him sang the famous childrens’ Christmas carol, “Away in a Manger”. Hans and Paul lived to maturity. Marguerite lived to girlhood, but in a agonizing time of trial for the busy parents, she died of illness. In the grief of that occasion, Luther formed the tune and words of his greatest hymn, “A Mighty Fortress is our God.” [CJW note: based on Psalm 46]

This aging father had innumerable organization details of the reformed church. He was called to settle disputes between princes. His health, never good since his monastic days, grew worse. After a winter journey under difficult conditions, he died after attempting to resolve a conflict between two Lords.

What shall we say of this man? He was a leading reformer. He was a reactionary who was unbelievably harsh with his fellow peasants. He was intolerant. He was an anti-Semite. He was coarse and vulgar. But also, he was a great preacher and scholar. He translated the Bible into German, giving the people the Scripture. His courage sparked the Reformation, giving birth to the numerous free Christian groups, among which in later years our own was to be numbered. He was the Reformation’s greatest hymn writer. Albert Schweitzer, who had a doctorate in music as well as doctorates in medicine and theology, remarked that the only person who really understood Martin Luther was Johann Sebastian Bach. He was a kind and loving but financially embarrassed father. He was a teacher who won the respect of his students.

But the most affectionate and most human epitaph that the Reformer earned was written by the ex-nun who became his wife and the mother of their children. A month after his death, Catherine von Bora Luther, writing to her sister, Christina, said, “Who would not be sorrowful and mourn for so noble a man as my dear Lord, who served not only one city or land, but the whole world? Truly I am so distressed that I cannot tell my sorrow to anyone. If I had a principality or an empire, it would never have cost me so much pain to lose them as I have now that our Lord God has taken from me, and not from me only, but from the whole world, this dear and precious man.”

Religion must be not only in a person’s heart as an inward loyalty to that which he or she believes true and righteous, convictions must become known in the world. And no reformation is ever complete until justice is accomplished and the world of persons ruled by all persons, because equally they are entitled to the human dignity and worth which should be the birthright of all souls. Those who are devoted to such religious values will discover in their own experience that the cause of reform is never jaded, its goals ever re-defined.

Not because we would endorse the theology of Luther’s greatest hymn, but because a tribute to him is fitting on this 484th anniversary of Protestantism, may we join in singing #104, “A Mighty Fortress is our God.”

The Star And The Link

July 9, 2000
Sarasota

[Expanded from the original, dated 1976 and filed under 1979]

Reading: APOSTLE OF LIBERTY, George Akers, p. 70-71 (Jonathan Mayhew)

Thus for example, we ought not to believe that there is, or that there is not a God; that the Christian religion is from God, or an imposture; that any particular doctrine fathered upon it is really contained in it, or not; or that any particular sect of Christians is in the right, or in the wrong; ’til we have impartially examined the matter. And see evidence on one side or the other. For to determine any point without reason or proof cannot be to judge freely, unless it be in a bad sense of the word.

To attempt to dragoon men into sound orthodox Christians, is as unnatural and fruitless as to attempt to dragoon them into good poets, physicians, or mathematicians. A blow with a club may fracture a man’s skull; but I suppose he will not think and reason the more clearly for that; though he may believe more orthodoxly according to the opinions of some.

... We may as well pick our neighbor’s pocket for fear he should spend his money in debauchery, as take from him his right of judging for himself, and chusing his religion, for fear he should judge amiss and abuse his liberty.

Let us all stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free; and not sufer ourselves to any human impositions in religious matters; it is better to throw off the yoke even now, than let it gall us for a life time: it is not too late to assert our liberty, and free ourselves from an ignominious slavery to the dictates of men.

Sermon:

Jonathan Mayhew lived forty-five years between 1720 and 1766. Years after his death, some named him, “The Morning Star of the Revolution”; and a church historian has called him “The link between 18th century Puritan religion and 19th century Unitarianism.” Robert Treat Paine, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, said that Jonathan Mayhew was the “father of civil and religious liberty in Massachusetts and America.”

Surely he ought to be of interest to us. Particularly, because he would have been outraged to be called either “the star” or “the link.” Mayhew was loyal to the British King and British Parliament. In terms of Unitarianism as it developed, Mayhew was passionately opposed to the Arian, Deistic, and Socinian theologies which characterized many 19th century Unitarians. Mayhew would be equally irate at Universalist salvation theology of the time because he believed thoroughly in divine judgment, punishment, and hell.

Jonathan Mayhew was not always consistent with his own deeply-held principles. He preached tolerance, but was guilty of intolerance on more than one occasion. His contemporary, John Adams, who said he had been influenced by Mayhew, said that “a dozen volumes would be required to delineate the character of Jonathan Mayhew.”

Therefore, I am attempting to high-light the life of Jonathan Mayhew – his remarkable family heritage; the religious climates that prevailed in his age, the political influence he had on two continents, even though he was never in his life more than 100 miles from Boston, and the crucial intersections between his religious beliefs, the issues of the day, and how he used his pulpit to energize public opinion.

HIS REMARKABLE FAMILY

When Jonathan Mayhew was born in 1720, he was a fifth generation American. To me, a 1st generation American, born in the twentieth century, I am awed that an early 18th century child was a fifth generation American.

His forbear, Thomas Mayhew, left Tisbury, England, in 1631, one of the astonishing number of 20,000 persons who migrated to Massachusetts in 13 years. In 1641, Thomas Mayhew acquired title to the island of Martha’s Vineyard, 100 miles square. Thomas Mayhew named himself “Governor Mayhew”, with some accuracy because Martha’s Vineyard was the only feudal manor in New England until it was annexed by Massachusetts in 1691.

Martha’s Vineyard was not a deserted island. Living there were 3000 Pokanoket Indians, a branch of the Narragansett tribe.

While Thomas Mayhew Sr. was interested in land and making money from it, his son, Thomas Mayhew Jr., who had emigrated from England with his father, and somehow had received a liberal education, devoted himself to bringing Christianity to the Pokanokets. Thomas Jr. spent the remainder of his life as a missionary on Martha’s Vineyard with remarkable results. By the year 1652, “there were 283 converts, a school for Indian children and two Indian meetings each Sabbath.”

I am not asserting that Christian missionary efforts are a worthy enterprise. These Indians would probably have been better off with their own nature religion. However, I cannot be very harsh on such missionary enterprises when I recall that for years in the Unitarian directory there was listed “The Society for propagating the gospel among Indians and Others.” The 19th and 20th century Unitarians had missionary efforts in India, and the Universalists [had missionary efforts] in Japan.

The Praying Indians, as they were called, became so well-known that by 1649, a London missionary society began to help the Mayhews’ efforts. In 1657, Thomas Jr. was lost at sea on a voyage to raise missionary funds. His father sought a replacement for the missionary work, but finding no one, took on the task himself at the age of 60 and continued in it for 25 years.

Following his death, the family carried on the work. The Mayhew family suffered many deaths – infants, mothers in childbirth, fathers, sisters, and brothers dying too young. The family economic situation deteriorated over the years. But the mission to the Indians was as example of Indian/Colonist goodwill, seldom if ever duplicated. In the bloody King Philip’s War, 1675-76, the Pokanokets, although outnumbering the Europeans 20 to 1 on the island, never attacked. A church historian (Latourette) has written that the “missionary Mayhews represent what is likely the longest and most persistent family missionary endeavor in the annals of all Christianity.”

From this island heritage, Jonathan Mayhew, son of Experience Mayhew, great grandson of Governor Mayhew, arrived at Harvard in 1740 to be educated. He was not committed to the ministry then; that call came later in his Harvard years.

During his college years the New England theological kettle was bubbling with sermonic debate. The Monday newspapers printed full sermons preached the day before. Religious news was daily fare such as the astrological predictions and Ann Landers’ column are today. For the remainder of his life, Jonathan Mayhew was to increase the heat to boiling controversies.

THE RELIGIOUS CLIMATE THAT PREVAILED

From its beginnings, the Massachusetts Bay Colony had been Calvinist in its theology. The five points of Calvinism were (a summary perhaps oversimplified):

1) Absolute predestination
2) Particular redemption
3) Total depravity
4) Irresistible grace
5) The perseverance of saints

By Mayhew’s time, this tightly woven theological system showed some signs of unraveling. The rationalistic writings of Isaac Newton, John Locke, and other Deists were being read and discussed at Harvard. Biblical revelation as the complete and unerring word of God was no longer believed by some to be as seamless and complete tapestry.

As much as Rationalism, Arminianism had been threatening Calvinism. The liberals, among whom Jonathan Mayhew could be numbered by the time he finished Harvard and decided to become a minister, were increasingly Arminian, supra-rational and hedging on the doctrine of the Trinity. [Of] Arminianism, Conrad Wright, a Unitarian Universalist historian wrote, “Arminianism asserted that men are born with the capacity both for sin and for righteousness; that they can respond to the impulse toward holiness as well as the temptation to do evil; and that life is a process of trial and discipline by which, with the assistance God gives to all, the bondage to sin may gradually be overcome ....

“Supernatural rationalism asserted that unassisted reason can establish the essentials of religion: the existence of God, the obligations of morality, and a divine order of rewards and punishments.”

But unlike Deism, it insisted that natural religion must be supplemented with a special revelation of God’s will – the Bible.

“Finally the liberals tended to be anti-Trinitarian, largely because they were convinced that the doctrine of the Trinity was not scriptural.... They were not ‘Unitarian’, since only a small minority believed in the simple humanity of Jesus.”

Quite apart from Harvard’s heady intellectual climate, Jonathan Mayhew’s father, Experience Mayhew, was Arminian in his thought. He found in his mission work with the Pokanokets on the island that it was impossible to teach the complexities of Calvinism to the Indians. A God who chooses to save only a portion of mankind (His elect) could not be the basis of a widespread appeal to the Indians to become Christian and to give up their “pagan” ways. Experience taught them, “all that truly believe in Christ, Christ will save, Indians or English, high or low, bond or free.”

Although Jonathan Mayhew had some initial difficulty locating a church, in 1747 he was elected minister of West Church, Boston, a most desirable pulpit. The parish was largely composed of rising, prosperous merchants. Mayhew's salary was set at £15 a week, plus a full woodbox and house rent – a very comfortable salary package for that time.

Most of his Calvinistic colleagues shunned him because of his liberal views. Only a few would exchange pulpits with him, an important practice of the day. [CJW note: 3 sermons] One hundred years later, this was to happen to Theodore Parker when his Unitarian ministerial brethren refused to exchange pulpits.

One anecdote how some people detested Mayhew’s unorthodox preaching: While still a teen-ager, Paul Revere attended a service where Mayhew spoke. Paul’s enthusiasm for the sermon “resulted in a beating by his strict father, fearful that young Paul would stray into heresy.” The sermon that caused Paul Revere to be thrashed may have been one of the character inputs that years later, in 1775, motivated Paul Revere to make his famous ride awakening every Middlesex village and town that the British were coming.

Significant from the point of view of our theme of the Star and the Link were Jonathan Mayhew’s plain, bold statements on the right and duty of free inquiry, private judgment and liberty.

POLITICAL INFLUENCE AND THE INTERSECTION OF RELIGIOUS BELIEFS AND THE ISSUES OF MAYHEW’S TIME

While Mayhew always based his social commentary on scriptural foundations, inevitably because he spoke boldly, he was politically controversial. In 1750, he preached on “Unlimited submission and non-resistance to higher powers.” [CJW note: scroll Google] He cited the English traditions of the Puritan Revolution off 1642 and the Glorious Revolution of 1688 as the right of citizens to “rid their nation of a ruler who does not govern for the common good.” It was the most important defense of the right of revolution to be plainly said in the American Colonies prior to 1776. One sentence was memorable: “Rulers have no authority from God to do mischief.”

[CJW note - “ ‘Divine’ right of kings – quote Charles I: ‘The state of monarchy is the supremest thing upon earth: for kinds are not only God’s lieutenants, and set upon God’s throne, but even by God himself are called gods.’ ”]

Mayhew also infuriated the growing Anglican Church in the Colonies by denouncing Bishops and leading the fight to prevent the settling of an Anglican Bishop in Massachusetts. That such an attitude infringed upon Anglican’s liberty to have a resident Bishop if they wanted one, deterred Mayhew’s attack not at all. His fear that the alliance of Crown and surplice in Massachusetts would destroy the freedom tradition outranked his belief in religious liberty. There were other inconsistencies in his polemics. But through his preaching, along with others who supported this point of view, the British Parliament and the King were influenced – they desisted in the attempt to appoint an Anglican Bishop for Massachusetts. They feared, and rightly so, that the political cost would be too great.

The last ten years of Mayhew’s life were continuously controversial – religious and political. He attacked the Calvinistic concepts of original sin and the Trinity. He taught that Adam and Eve sinned, but since they were the only violators, they alone were guilty. Furthermore that it was unjust and impossible for God to impute the sins of their parents to posterity. Such was not agreeable to truth, reason, or scripture. Therefore Christ’s atoning death was unnecessary. He still believed in Christ’s atonement, but this was a logical weakness in his theology. It was not only what he said, a few others were also saying these things, but in the way he said it – plainly, boldly, argumentatively.

Politically, Britain and France were fighting for possession of the North American continent. When had history ever offered a richer prize? Mayhew used his pulpit as a sounding board for Holy War. To him, France was both a tyrant and the champion of Romish superstition, “forces of the devil seeking to enslave both religiously and politically.” He reviewed the progress of the war in his sermons and gloated in the fall of Quebec.

Today, it may seem somewhat bizarre, if not immoral, that Mayhew should also remind his congregation frequently how good business was in wartime. But his congregation was largely comprised of merchants who prospered under war conditions. His biographer noted, “Seldom in the annals of Christendom had righteousness and profits seemed so indissolubly welded.”

Mayhew was loyal to England and praised the coronation of King George III.

Then came sparks that would eventually ignite the fuse of the American Revolution—the Writs of Assistance – the right to search for contraband and smuggled goods, which the Colonists merchants insisted was a violation of the fundamental property rights, with which Jonathan Mayhew publicly and eloquently agreed.

The Stamp Act of 1765 became a serious and inflammatory constitutional issue. British taxation without representation became obnoxious in Massachusetts. Mobs gathered and hung the English Governor in effigy. Then Mayhew preached on Sunday, August 25, 1765 (texts existing may be inaccurate). His text was from Galatians, V 12/13: “Ye have been called unto liberty.” The next evening, Monday, the mobs struck again, attacking the homes of customs officers, destroying records, looting and destroying the house of the Lieutenant Governor. Many believed, including English officials, that Mayhew’s sermon was the incendiary cause. An Episcopal clergyman wrote the Archbishop in England, “one of the most seditious sermons ever delivered, advising the people to stand up for their rights even to the last drop of blood.” !!!

Mayhew was shocked that he should be so accused. There was even some talk of transporting him to England for trial on charges of sedition. Pitt, the English Prime Minister, wisely decided that to attempt that would really inflame the Colonies. If they
did not know clearly then, who can tell now that Mayhew set off the riots? Whatever he said may have been as much in the tone, spontaneous gestures, and inflections he used as much as the actual text.

Anyway, the Stamp Act was repealed. When the notice arrived, there was the largest celebration in Boston's history – a 23 hour party with wine supplied abundantly by John Hancock, a wealthy merchant then, later the first signer of the Declaration of Independence.

But no revolution yet, for there were cheers for King and Parliament because they repealed the Stamp Act. But Parliament had reserved the right to legislate for the Colonies.

I have said nothing about Jonathan Mayhew’s happy marriage. This would be an important episode if there were Mayhew Chronicles as a few years ago there were the Adams Chronicles. Mayhew’s one surviving daughter, Elizabeth, married Peter Wainwright. Their first son was named Jonathan Mayhew Wainwright. Since then, the oldest son of the oldest son has always carried the name. Among them, JMW became an eminent Episcopal clergyman, who at the time of his death in 1854 was probably the most famous Episcopalian in the U. S. – Bishop JMW of New York. How ironic, when his grandfather had successfully been instrumental in preventing the King from naming and settling an Anglican Bishop in Massachusetts. Those who memories go back to World War II will remember General Jonathan Mayhew Wainwright, the hero of Corregidor. He was the fifth in the line to bear the name.

In 1766, three months before his 46th birthday, Jonathan Mayhew took ill, and died in a few days. The funeral procession was the longest Boston had ever seen.

Jonathan Mayhew was not a great original thinker. His logic was sometimes imprecise. He was influenced by European rational and Arminian thought. His theology was a link to later Unitarianism, although he would have been appalled at such coupling, and would have delivered a caustic, hostile sermon about it. His political thought, as well as his religious thought, was influenced by Thomas Hollis, a wealthy Colonist who constantly sent Mayhew books, particularly on political liberties as well as rational philosophical thought. Mayhew was not always ready to grant to others the privileges he claimed for himself. But thoroughly consistent heroes have never lived.

But Mayhew’s religious and political zeal was based on liberty, experience, inquiry, the right of private judgment, all undergirded by passionate convictions – guidelines which can serve all the rest of us inconsistent souls – at least until something better comes along –and that’s not likely.

Our second President, John Adams, when old in years, long retired, rich in honors, but still strong of mind and passionate for the United States, said, 68 years after he heard Mayhew’s sermon on unlimited submission, “If 4th of July orators really wish to investigate the feelings which produced the American Revolution, then that’s the sermon to read.”

[Postscript – from Abraham Lincoln]

We are a mighty nation and as we run our memory back over the pages of history, we find a race of men whom we claim as our fathers.

They were iron men, and we understand that by what they did it has followed that the degree of prosperity which we enjoy has come to us.

They were pillars of the temple of liberty; and now that they have crumbled away, that temple must fall unless we, their descendants, supply their places with other pillars hewn from the solid quarry of sober reason.

Passion has helped us, but can do so no more; it will in the future be our enemy. Reason must furnish all the materials for our future support and defense.

The sentiment in the Declaration of Independence gave liberty to the people of this country, and hope to all the world.

Let us readopt the Declaration of Independence and [with it] the practices and policy which harmonize with it.

Let all Americans, let all lovers of liberty everywhere, join in the great and good work.

A Five-Letter Word

September 16, 1992

I was curious to confirm an anecdote by an English writer, so I did not pay much heed to my painful knees as we climbed the many steps up that picturesque promontory, Plymouth Hoe, overlooking the most historic of British harbors. Reaching the top and walking a short distance, there it was – the statue of a 16th century sea-captain forever facing the harbor he inscribed indelibly on history. Chiseled at the base of the statue was one five-letter word – DRAKE. There were no dates of birth and death, no brass plate listing his achievements, no indication that he was Sir Francis Drake, knighted by Queen Elizabeth, nothing to indicate that to the Spanish he was “the scourge of God.”

The writer who had stirred my interest noted that the reason for one word, DRAKE, was simply that no English man, woman, or child would need more than that five-letter word, because they all knew who he was, what he did, and why he was vital to England, not only keeping her safe from Spain, but also a prime mover in the establishment of British sea-power so important to the coming British Empire which produced the motto, a reality for centuries, “Britannia Rules The Waves.” Actually, the strategy of protecting the British Isles through sea-power began with Henry VIII who invested much money in ships.

Realistically, the writer’s explanation of the five-letter word is probably no longer accurate. Since World War II, the United Kingdom has experienced a large in-migration of persons from India, Pakistan, Thailand, the Near-East and other lands. Many of these thousands of immigrants probably need much more explanation than one five-letter word, DRAKE. So did I, although I knew of some of the exploits and adventures that carved Drake’s place in English history and legend. So I did a little digging in my favorite garden – history.

Francis Drake was one of ten children of a Puritan “hedge” preacher. In the short reign of Queen Mary (“Bloody Mary”) when Roman Catholicism was re-instituted and Protestants persecuted, the Drake family had to flee the home farm and possessions because Queen Mary would have burned the elder Drake at the stake if he had been caught. Then the family lived secretly on a rotting hulk on the Medway River.

Francis Drake learned the sea at an early age. When 10 years old he worked on river boats. He shipped out to sea at the age of 15. When he was 20 he commanded his own coastal sloop. Then he sold his ship and invested the proceeds with John Hawkins, his older cousin and famous freebooter. John Hawkins was a slave trader, buying slaves on the African coast and selling them to Spanish colonists in the Americas.

The historical context of that time was complex and muddled. In 1493, Pope Alexander VI (Rodrigo Borgia, the most infamous of Popes) issued the “Bull of Demarcation” dividing all New-World discoveries between Spain and Portugal, forbidding all other nations any rights of discoveries, shipping and treasure. That “Bull” was global effrontery, of course.

(Such Vatican Global chutzpah still occurs. William Wilson, a Reagan-Bush appointee as an ambassador to the Vatican admitted “that in withdrawing U.S. funding for International Planned Parenthood, ‘American policy was changed as a result of the Vatican’s not agreeing with with our policy.’” Rather than go on for pages about that subservience of the Republican President to the Roman Pope, just a one sentence quote: “In view of the present rate of population growth, the attempt to export a Western standard of living to the rest of the world, even if, it was economically or politically feasible in the first place, would amount to a recipe for environmental disaster.” (Lasch – THE TRUE AND ONLY HEAVEN).

Back to our subject: Even though Queen Elizabeth had been excommunicated by Pope Pius V and “deprived of her pretended right to the Throne,” King Philip II and the Spanish interests gave tacit approval to the English slave-traders in spite of the “Bull of Demarcation.” In the ambiguous and complicated European mix of discovery, religious wars, treasure, commerce and shifting alliances, there was a time when Spain winked at English shipping because they feared the French freebooters. France, although nominally a Roman Catholic country, had a strong Huguenot (Protestant) movement. Furthermore, the Gallican Catholic church disputed Papal authority on a number of issues.

Drake was not interested in slave-trading. He [was in it] for loot, raiding the Spanish Main, capturing Spanish treasure ships bound for Spain. Spain protested vehemently about these acts of piracy, and Queen Elizabeth presented apologies. But that was just a formal gesture, because the Queen was a secret investor in the voyages of her Sea-Dogs. The wealth of this freebooting she needed to finance the Dutch in their war with Spain. Also, she loaned vessels of the Royal Navy to the freebooters, again sharing largely in the profits from the gold, silver and jewels Drake, Hawkins and the other captains brought back to her Realm.

Drake’s raids on the Spanish Main are too well-known to re-tell. But one example of his daring and innovative tactics was his raid on the Isthmus of Panama. He landed small forces, secured help from natives and captured gold, silver, and jewels being transported overland from the Pacific to the Atlantic. In modern times these methods would be called commando raids. Drake could not take back all the treasure he seized, so he buried tons of silver to make room for thirty tons of gold. Sadly for Drake, two of his brothers, John and Joseph were killed on this venture.

Drake never thought of himself as a pirate. In his unyielding Puritan faith he saw himself at war with Catholic Spain and the Pope. He was a blunt and decisive commander as well as master seaman, navigator and innovative warrior.

There was an unusual, unspoken affinity between Queen Elizabeth I and Drake. After the Panama and Cartagena raids, as Felix Reisenberg writes (GREAT MEN OF THE SEA, p. 6), “Drake was summoned to London for an audience with the Queen and her Court. Eager to voyage again, he told the Queen his dream of sweeping the Spanish towns along the Pacific coast. In the Court, the politicians shuddered. The Ambassador from Spain turned red.

“Queen Elizabeth admonished Drake: Spain was the ally of England, she reminded the captain. But when she presented him with a sword she said, ‘We do account that he which striketh at thee, Drake, striketh at us.’ The two redheads – Queen and mariner- exchanged an understanding smile.”

In 1577, Drake, aboard the “PELICAN” with three other ships, set sail for the Magellan Straits. The Queen had given her permission (but she did not consult or tell her closest councillor, William Cecil, Lord Burghley). There was no declared war between Spain and England. After all, King Philip II had been Elizabeth’s brother-in-law, although they had not seen each other for thirty years. But the Queen and Drake understood each other.

Drake, with his uncanny shrewdness, had chosen to sail into the Pacific because the Spanish had concentrated their naval might and defenses on the Spanish Main and Caribbean. On this history-making voyage, three of his small fleet were lost. Overhauling the “PELICAN” on a remote island, he renamed the ship, “THE GOLDEN HIND.” Sir Christopher Hatton, a favorite of the Queen had a golden hind woven into his coat of arms.

Surviving terrible storms in rounding Cape Horn, Drake looted and burned towns along the Pacific coast, seizing much treasure. The Spanish began calling him, “El Draque, the scourge of God.” Then sailing north, he went as far as Vancouver, turning back because of cold, mist and fog. Putting in at San Francisco Bay, he claimed the land for Queen Elizabeth, erecting a brass plate which was found in 1936.

Crossing the Pacific, Drake added spices to the cargo, returning to Plymouth Harbor nearly three years after the start of the voyage – the first Englishman to circumnavigate the globe. Drake’s first question: “Is the Queen alive and well?” The treasure on the “GOLDEN HIND” was valued at nearly 750,000 pounds – and the Queen’s profit from her secret investment was 163,000 pounds. The return for investors was 4700%.

Although war between England and Spain had not been openly declared, King Philip II began assembling the Armada in Cadiz. Drake believed that a swift strike at Cadiz could deter, even ruin the Spanish plans. There was a “peace party” among Queen Elizabeth’s councillors, and she withheld approving Drake’s plan. Finally, she gave a go-ahead and Drake rushed preparations. He had been warned that the Queen might change her mind. On board the flagship, “ELIZABETH BONAVENTURE”, Drake and his small fleet sailed out of Plymouth, April 2, 1587.

The Queen did change her mind; and a courier galloped to Plymouth only to find Drake long gone to sea. Was this another case of the intuitive relationship between the Queen and Drake? Did she know or sense that Drake would be at sea by the time her message revoking permission would reach Plymouth? She could, and did assure the Spanish Ambassador that she had tried to recall Drake’s orders.

Drake proceeded to the Spanish coast with his usual daring and skill. In Cadiz he damaged or sunk about thirty Spanish ships, ruined tons of supplies and generally harassed the Spanish. From the area of Cape Vincent where he made a temporary base, he raided Spanish coastal shipping, much of it with cargoes for the Armada. Most important of all, he captured shiploads of barrel staves, which he burned. Seasoned barrel staves to make tight casks for water, oil, vinegar, and wine were a naval necessity. Green or rotting barrel staves would leak. One of the major difficulties when the Armada did sail was leaky casks. Thus the water shortage was a major difficulty for the Armada.

Drake departed the Spanish coast, sailing westward toward the Azores. Somehow he had heard of the “SAN FELIPE” with a cargo of spices, oriental goods and other treasure. Drake located the “SAN FELIPE”. As historian Garret Mattingly observed, “No wonder the Spaniards thought Drake had a magic mirror in his cabin on which he could see the ships moving on all seas of the world.” Drake had no “magic mirror” – he was a superb navigator, and from his knowledge of winds, tides, and sealanes, [he] could plot the place where he would intercept the “SAN FELIPE.”

The captured cargo of the “SAN FELIPE” and the vessel itself, which Drake sailed to Plymouth, assuaged any anger, real or pretended, that the Queen might have poured on Drake. The cargo was worth 114,000 pounds. Merchant investors took their share, but the Queen’s share was more than 40,000 pounds and Drake’s, 17,000 pounds.

Because of Drake’s raids, the Spanish preparations for the invasion of England were delayed about a year. King Philip II was eager to get the Armada on the seas, more hasty than careful preparations would allow. Finally, in May 1588, the Armada, 130 ships, large and small, set sail. The ablest of Spanish sea-captains commanded the vessels of the great array. On board were 26,000 Spanish and Portuguese soldiers.

The Spanish plan to conquer England involved not only the soldiers aboard the Armada, but also the the battle-hardened army of the Duke of Parma, which had been fighting to conquer the Dutch. The Armada would rendezvous with Parma’s army, which would be on barges to be towed to the invasion landing in England.

The plan was a complete failure. The Armada experienced the most disastrous expedition in naval history. That most humiliating of Spanish experiences was caused by innovative naval architecture and battle tactics, the Dutch “flyboats” and the weather, along with the poor preparations of the Armada, the leaky casks causing continuous shortage of water, wine and oil. There were many other instances of sloppy logistical preparation.

Primarily due to the experience, skill, and influence of Sir John Hawkins, the English had developed a newer type of fighting ship – faster, smaller, more maneuverable with longer range guns and better trained gunners. The Spanish relied on the older type of naval warfare, which called for grappling with the enemy ships, then hand-to-hand fighting. But the English never let them get close enough to grapple. The English longer range guns with better gunners created havoc, death, and destruction. The Spanish were offended. They complained that the English were not “sporting.” (Just as the French were indignant that the English yeomanry with their long-bows destroyed the French at the famous battles of Crecy and Agincourt.)

The Armada sought safe harbor at Calais. But the English , when the winds and tides were favorable, sent “fire-ships” into the harbor – small vessels loaded with tar and gunpowder (A Drake tactic) forcing the Armada out of Calais, still hoping to meet the Duke of Parma and and his veteran army. Although the English fleet was commanded by Lord Howard, the Queen’s uncle, and the famous sea-dogs (Hawkins, father and son, Gilbert, Frobisher, [and] others commanded ships), all the fearful Spanish speculation centered on Drake. Where is Drake? What will Drake do next?

The Duke of Parma could not leave Holland with his barges of troops, because the Dutch flyboats guarded the canals and would blow the clumsy troop-laden barges out of the water if they ventured forth. It must have been galling to Spain that the Dutch were financed by Queen Elizabeth with the wealth captured by the sea-dogs from Spanish treasure ships.

The violent storm gave the Armada opportunity to escape total destruction by the English fleet. But reaching the North Sea, hoping to escape by rounding Scotland and heading home by the Irish Sea turned out cruelly. The storm wrecked vessel after vessel. Most of the Spaniards who did not drown were slain when they waded ashore. Only 60 vessels reached Spain; at least 10,000 men perished. Both the English and the Spanish called the storm, “the waves of God.”

One of the most well-known Drake stories tells how Drake was playing bowls on Plymouth Hoe when the Armada was sighted. As the story goes (and legends are usually larger than life), Drake remarked, “We have time to finish the game and beat the Spanish too.” The story may be true, but the reality was that the tide was running strongly into Plymouth Harbor with an unfavorable wind. Drake, a superb seaman, would sail when the wind and tide were right; and he did.

Both cousins, Sir Francis Drake and Sir John Hawkins died in the Caribbean in 1597; Drake of dysentery. Six years later, Queen Elizabeth I (“Gloriana”) died, ending the momentous Elizabethan Age.

Drake on his voyages had a drum in his cabin used to summon his officers for orders or to call the crew for one of his inspirational speeches (sermons, really). I have been told that in some Devon pubs when the pints of bitters have freely flowed, sooner or later, an old sailor will hold the folk in thrall reciting the poem, “Drake’s Drum.” The second verse illuminates the reason and tradition that the five-letter word, DRAKE, said all that needed to be said of the statue atop Plymouth Hoe:

“Drake he was a Devon man, an’ ruled the Devon seas,
(Capten, art tha sleepin’ there below?)
Rovin’ tho’ his death fell, he went wi’ heart at ease,
An’ dreamin’ arl the time o’ Plymouth Hoe.
‘Take my drum to England, hang et by the shore,
Strike et when your powders’ runnin’ low;
If the Dons sight Devon, I’ll quit the port o’ Heaven,
An’ drum them up the Channel as we drumm’d them long ago.’”

From Bankruptcy To Founding A Faith – John Murray

February 28, 1988
Lakeland

John Murray, who was bankrupt, came to America and became known as a founder of Universalist churches in America. To describe him as a founding father of Universalism is true, but incomplete and oversimplified. There were roots to Universalism, religious convictions [that were] underground and repressed during all the centuries of the Christian movement.

Consequently, before recounting the life and describing the influence of John Murray, the stage must be set with political and economic backdrops as well as religious scenery. Although I shall make brief reference to the ancient history of Universalism, a larger need is to understand the turmoil of 17th century England, when the lives of several English kings were tied to the carnage, bloodshed, and radical change of the Puritan Revolution of the 1640s, the beheading of King Charles I, the dictatorship of Oliver Cromwell, and the restoration of the monarchy in the person of King Charles II.

First, a definition which expresses the principle of Universalism as it was generally held in the 18th and 19th centuries: “Universalists are all those who accept the doctrine of the final salvation of all mankind .... The denomination reaches the conclusion of the final holiness and happiness of all from the teachings of scripture, corroborated by the deductions of reason” (HANSON’S POCKET ENCYCLOPEDIA). Universalists refused to believe that anyone would be punished eternally in hell; they believed that the nature of God’s love would prohibit the endless suffering of anyone.

Lest you think that such theological talk is of antiquarian interest only, a recent survey taken in this country reported 79% of those surveyed believed in Hell. Those who believe that undoubtedly hold widely differing notions of what and when Hell is. Some believe it refers to suffering, misery, and disaster occurring here in this life. Others believe Hell to be a psychological state wherein passions, fears, vanities, guilt, and repressions make a person’s life hell on earth, so to speak.

But many still believe Hell to be a place of endless punishment after death. Just eight days ago in our Lakeland Ledger a local minister wrote this in the “Saturday Sermon” column:

[Editor’s note: clipping from THE LEDGER, February 20, 1988, “The Lord gives man three crucial appointments”, by minister Danny Williamson of Christian Home Freewill Baptist Church. CJW quoted from a passage dealing with a literal and punitive hell.]

Some fundamentalist preachers might be disconcerted to learn, or embarrassed to admit, that eternal punishment was a doctrinal development, not an original position among the early Christians.

There is no substantive evidence that in the Judeo part of our Judeo-Christian heritage, among the laws, prophets, and poets in the literature we call the Old Testament, there is any belief in, or doctrine of, everlasting punishment. Sheol, the Hebrew equivalent of Hades, was not the location of a place of punishment for bad people, but the grave of all, the place of death. In Sheol there was no punishment, no joy; it was a place of shades.

In the early centuries of the Christian church such “Church Fathers” as Origen and Clement of Alexandria believed all souls would be saved, no one would be forced to endure everlasting torture. Not until Augustine developed his intricate theology would universal salvation be regarded as heresy. Not until the Church Council at Constantinople in 553 A.D. would universal salvation be officially condemned as heresy and anathematized. Nevertheless, many expressions of Universalism emerged during the centuries following, even though officially heretical and frequently punishable by death.

The more immediate historical context for beliefs in Universalism surfaced in England during the 17th century amid the turbulent times referred to as the Puritan Revolution, the Restoration, and the Glorious Revolution.

Puritans, [were] so-called because they were determined to purify the Anglican Church of what they called “Popery” - bishops, sacraments, rituals, pomp, all of which they saw as an effort by Roman Catholics to regain power. When James VI of Scotland became James I of England, Puritan hopes were high because James I was a Calvinist Presbyterian – he had to be, because Scotland was Presbyterian. However, James did not act on the grievances of Parliament, which was largely Presbyterian.

James’ son, Charles I was even more obstinate in such matters – leading to the Revolution, the beheading of Charles, and the dictatorship of Cromwell. Cromwell organized an effective military force, "The New Model Army", never lost a battle, and Puritanism prevailed over the Royalists, also called Cavaliers.

Important in this context is the economic situation of England. The various Parliaments in this revolutionary period were composed of men of wealth and a rising middle-class. They were country squires, lawyers, other professionals, [and] entrepreneurs in the rather new and growing system of Capitalism. Many Royalists, particularly Roman Catholics, had been dispossessed of property, beginning a century earlier in the time of Henry VIII.

In spite of, or perhaps because of this growing capitalistic wealth, the gap between rich and poor was wider than it ever had been. Unemployment was great, the poor were driven off the land as the country squires enclosed common lands formerly available to the poor. The country gentry and the business men who controlled Parliament and the Church did not care much, seemingly, about the grinding poverty, cruel suffering and desperate anguish of these dispossessed and oppressed people. [CJW note: one historian estimates to be 50% of the population.]

But their cries began to be heard for several reasons. The Bible, printed in English, had become widely circulated, and many who studied the scriptures came to conclusions different from the doctrines which had been imposed by the Church for centuries. A printing press could be assembled for relatively low cost. In the period 1640 to 1660, the years of the Puritan Revolution, there was more latitude for the distribution of tracts and pamphlets attacking the standing order – a standing order which combined doctrine, politics, and economics.

There were numerous movements and groups to which many historians seem to have paid little attention: Quakers, Lollards, Levellers, Diggers, Ranters, [and] Familists, all of which passionately attacked the status quo, not only with pamphlets and tracts, but also frequently [through] civil disobedience and riots.... Many of these radical groups advocated strange and weird ideas (to us). But in relation to Universalism as a denomination to emerge in America a century or so later, one man merits focus because he is one who was quoted and cited by later Universalists, Gerrard Winstanley.

Gerrard Winstanley, born in Wigan, England, came to London in the early 1640s, and after an apprenticeship in the clothing business, set up his own business, but soon lost [it]. He then herded cows and wrote religious pamphlets. He reported a vision in a trance, telling him to publish abroad that “the earth should be a common treasury of livelihood to whole mankind, without respect to persons.”

He attacked the Calvinistic doctrine of pre-destination theology, with heaven for the elect and hell for most persons. He condemned the prevailing notion of Puritanism that success and prosperity were signs that one was among the elect. Winstanley blasted the clergy, writing, e.g., “Priests lay claim to heaven after they are dead and yet grumble mightily against the people that will not give them a large temporal maintenance. And yet they tell the poor people they must be content with their lot and they shall have heaven hereafter.” (Hill, p. 113)

Winstanley was passionately convinced of Universalism – that all would be saved. He also wrote succinctly, “The rich are the enemies to true freedom.”

Winstanley knew the Bible well, but treated it as mythology and allegory. He noted contradictions. He believed the Bible should be used to illustrate truths of which one was already convinced by reason. He used the story of early Christian communism found in Acts to support his belief that all of the riches of the earth should be equally shared. Many of these dissenting radical groups advocated that all property is community property. These were communist principles and theories two centuries before Marx and Engels.

(One of the subjects which interests me, although I have not studied it enough, is why there are numerous instances where radical theologies were integrated with radical economics in their beginnings, but decades, sometimes centuries later, the radical theology remained, but the radical economics had faded out. But that is a subject for another day, when I know more and have thought more about it.)

Winstanley, as well as other radical persons of his time, influenced dissenters in later decades. Most of the early radicals gave up or were totally defeated in their convictions that all wealth should be shared by all. But the theological idea that all would be saved had powerful influence on John Murray, born 10 December 1941 in Alton, England (50 miles southwest of London). His family was middle-class; his father was a stern Calvinist who warned his little son continuously about how terrible was the lot of the damned in hell.

As a young man, Murray experienced a different gospel as he heard and came to know George Whitfield, the famous evangelist and revivalist, and John Wesley, the pioneer of Methodism, who was a visitor in the Murray home.

John Murray went into business, although he was never successful. He married at the age of 18 to Eliza Neale. Because of his interest in religion and his self-educated but wide and deep knowledge of the Scriptures, he was in demand as a Methodist “lay preacher.”

Then a momentous event happened. Murray was asked by his Methodist congregation to check out a dissenting preacher, James Relly, who had a London congregation. When Murray visited, he found that he was unable to answer the biblically based and logically sound arguments that all mankind would be saved. Relly, a Welchman, found warrant for his beliefs not only in the Bible, in the arguments and challenges come down from Winstanley and others, but also in a book THE EVERLASTING GOSPEL, written in Germany by one Siegfolk (an alias), which was also influential in the colonies.

Murray, more and more taken by the universal gospel, eagerly attended Relly’s preaching, was soon named as an apostate and was voted out of his Methodist congregation.

But in the midst of his new religious enthusiasm, his world began to crumble. He had trouble paying his bills; his business failed; he was jailed briefly for debt. His little son, aged one year, died. His wife’s health began to fail. Murray was not well himself. When Eliza died, his debts increased, and his morale and hopes were sunk.

James Relly urged Murray to become a public preacher of Universalism. Although sustained in his sorrow and trouble by Relly's friendship, Murray did not respond to the urging. In his words, Murray preferred to “pass through life, unheard, unseen, unknown to all as though I had never been.” (Miller p. 10)

Someone talked with him about America, and he decided to come here and bury himself in the wilderness. Helped by his late wife’s brother, Willie Neale, he sailed July 21, 1770 on the vessel “Hand-In-Hand”. His possessions were few: a Bible, a bundle of his wife’s letters, clothing, and a few other papers.

Not far from New York, the Hand-In-Hand ran aground on a sandbar at Cranberry Inlet, Barnegat Bay, New Jersey. Murray, who was acting as super-cargo, went ashore at a point called Good Luck to buy provisions, and met a farmer named Thomas Potter. Potter was unlettered but deeply religious, believed in universal salvation, and had built a meeting house to invite preachers to speak. Potter had been influenced by the Ephrata Brethren from Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, who openly taught universal salvation (they did not persist as an organization because they also believed in celibacy).

As one historian (Miller, p. 12) puts it, “Potter became convinced that Murray had been heaven-sent to fill the pulpit and preach on Universalism.” Murray did speak. Somehow word spread, and when he had landed in New York City a short time later, he began to receive receive numerous invitations to speak at various cities along the Atlantic Seaboard. Between journeys, he lived for several years with Thomas Potter and helped on the farm.

Then came the astonishing sequence of events that led to the founding and organization of the first Universalist church in America. In 1770, Gloucester was a seaport in touch with the European world. In 1769, a man named Gregory, whether ship’s officer, sailor, or passenger (no one knows), had brought to the town a book written by James Relly. The book signaled the organized beginning of Universalism in America, three years before Murray arrived in Gloucester. The meetings were discussion groups, Bible study – and a forerunner of what we have called the Fellowship movement in the 20th century.

Members of the group heard of John Murray’s itinerant preaching which had included Portsmouth, New Hampshire and Boston. Winthrop Sargent, a member of the Universalist group and one of Gloucester’s leading citizens, was requested to go to Boston and invite Murray to Gloucester. Responding to the invitation, Murray came and preached nine times on nine successive days. For the first time in his three years in America, he found a group of influential people, somewhat organized, and already in accord with his Universalist views.

From that time on for twenty years, with the exception of eight months when he was a chaplain in the Army of the Revolution, Gloucester was his home, although he did undertake occasional traveling preaching missions. His term in the Revolutionary Army also revealed another facet of his character. Although his chaplaincy service was very much limited because of a breakdown in health, when he returned to Gloucester he found a need to serve. Gloucester was in bad straits financially because the British blockade had effectively closed down the main industry – fishing, shipping, and port activities. Murray took it on himself to solicit aid from his former associates in the Revolutionary Army. His subscription list to help the distress in Gloucester was headed by a 10 pound donation from General George Washington.

At first Murray was given the use of the established parish church. Very soon after his coming, this privilege was denied him, and thereafter services were held in the homes of lay members, usually in the spacious parlors of Winthrop Sargent's hospitable mansion, which still stands and is preserved as an historic building. The congregation grew, converts increased in number, and opposition became more bitter and determined to shut Murray up. When his followers stopped attending the parish church, the storm broke – a mob assembled before the house of Winthrop Sargent, where Murray was living. He was called a British spy, among other slanders. They were set on riding Murray out of town. Being dissuaded, they continued to threaten violence if he remained. An effort was made to expel him as a vagrant, because anyone not a land-owner had no legal status at that time. This danger was averted when one of his supporters made him a gift of land.

Nevertheless, Murray was summoned before the committee of safety and ordered to leave town within five days. The town at its annual meeting, by a vote of 54 for and 8 against, approved the action of the committee of safety. But he refused to go. Curses followed Murray and stones were thrown at him as he walked the streets of the town. Through it all, Murray and his brave supporters stood firm and unwavering. In spite of this, or perhaps because of this, the number of Universalists steadily increased, and little by little the threats and dangers of physical violence diminished.

There is no time to spell out in detail the next and most formidable obstacle – the right of the Universalists not to pay taxes to the established church. They built a meeting house. In spite of the legal battle, the seizure of members' goods by the court, the jailing of at least one member, Epes Sargent, eventually the Universalists won the long, complicated, and landmark case in which some of the best legal counsel was employed on both sides. [CJW note: There is not time today to review that important legal case.]

In 1788, John Murray married Judith Sargent, the widowed daughter of Winthrop Sargent. She was an able, forthright, supportive spouse, liberated by the standards of the day, a poet and writer. When John Murray died in 1816, she moved to Louisiana to live with brother. There are no known descendants.

In focusing on John Murray as a founder of the organized religion of Universalism, I have attempted to point out that whenever a religious denomination begins, although one or a few names may seem all-important, always there are forces, prior conditions, opportunities, and pressure to produce change. The idea of theological salvation for every one may seem passé to some of you, but large numbers are still afraid of Hell and need to be liberated from that oppression.

Then, too, Universalism moved on to another logical conclusion. If God saves everyone, then everyone is worth saving. Thus, the first principle of today’s Unitarian Universalist Association is that “we affirm the inherent worth and dignity of every person.” Whether one holds anything like the theology of the 18th and 19th century Universalists, it is hard to dispute that the evolution of such a principle of human dignity and worth began with the fervent belief of our forefathers and foremothers that everyone would be saved.

That’s a big idea – even today, most people would gulp when asked to affirm the inherent worth and dignity of everyone – both Sandanistas and Contras, for example, or Castro Cubans and Miami Cubans both, Iranians and Iraqis, Palestinians and Israelis – the list could go on in our wounded and warring world still divided by hates and fears of clan, economic ideology, nation, race, and religion.

It’s a big idea, unrealized with innumerable difficulties unresolved, but it’s as great a goal as ever Winstanley, Relly, or Murray and other radicals dreamed in their idealistic visions – visions, which now, as then, are born of human need, human experience, and human hope.

John Ciardi – 1916-1986

May 4, 1986
Lakeland

[Editor’s note: the following biographical sermon was apparently delivered with a number of books of poetry at hand; the poems themselves are referenced here, but as they are likely still under copyright, they cannot be reproduced here.]

When I read of the death of John Ciardi, a month ago, I thought of the time when this American poet spoke to a Unitarian Universalist congregation in Plainfield, New Jersey. I was deeply impressed with his wit, witness, and wisdom, his exuberant and warm personality. Following that service, he joined a group of us for lunch and drinks at a member’s home. He didn’t eat and run, but stayed for hours. The wine and whiskey flowed; jokes and serious talk cast a magic spell over the occasion.

John Ciardi was a poet, teacher, critic. Many of you I’m sure heard his weekly program on National Public Radio, “Word in Your Ear” - his resonant voice showing his love of words and their origins. Today, in sharing samples from his poetry, I’m conscious of how John Ciardi was an American speaking to us.

His words and thoughts are seldom sugared soap-opera lines; he loved living, but also knew life’s contradictions and cruelties as well as hope and happiness. Many would find him quite cynical, but his cynicism, laced with humor, was a product of wide-open eyes and a searching mind that had no patience with sham and pomposity.

John Ciardi was born in Boston, the son of Italian immigrants. In 1921, his father was killed in an auto accident. After college – Bates, Tufts, and the University of Michigan – he taught at Kansas State, Harvard, and Rutgers. For 16 years he was poetry editor of the Saturday Review.

In 1942 he enlisted in the Army Air Corps and was a gunner aboard a B-29 in the aerial offensive against Japan. He was decorated with the Air Medal and the Oak-Leaf Cluster. Out of that ... experience, he wrote several poems which tell us more about the war than most statistics:

An Alphabestiary - “B is for Bomber
In Fact – p. 5 - “My Tribe”
Strangest Everything – p. 56 – The Formalities

It comes through clearly both in his poetry and my recollection that he had little patience with sham and pomposity. In his poem, “an elegy for the American school system” his poetic scalpel is sharp, as he has fun with some of the jargon of the social sciences and language fog [CJW note: disdain for some of the language forms which erupted in the 60s – encounter and confrontation; the language of learned dissertations at teacher’s colleges....]

For Instance – p. 68

Ciardi was much in demand as a traveling lecturer. This both increased his income and increased his ability to look at himself with humor, and at the world with thanks.

The Strangest Everything – p. 9 (60s)

Like many of us, he was sometimes skeptical of politicians and VIPs:

Alphabestiary - “G”
In Fact - “Oration” - p. 33
“Waive” - not wave

He was a seeker of meanings beyond the orthodoxies or liberalisms of his day.

Strangest Everything p. 43 – A ballad of teleologies -
67 Project for a cliff face
“In Fact” - 49 – In My Father’s ...
For Instance – 60 – Roman Diary

Ciardi wrote many lines to love – love of parent for child, love of child for parent – love of man and woman. Of the latter, Ciardi once wrote, “Love is the word used to label the sexual excitement of the young, the habituation of the middle aged, and the mutual dependence of the old.” (CONTEXT)

Ciardi loved children [and] was a parent. His poems for children are noteworthy.

For Instance – 44 – For John L
Strangest Everything – 28 - “Buy”
Woman – p. 57 – In Fact
“Strange wooing words....”

Ciardi’s eroticism and sensuality didn’t need 4-letter words.

Ciardi’s words and thoughts about religion walk strange and lonely paths.

Alphabestiary - “R” is for rat
The Strangest Everything – notes on Psalmist, p. 59
Daemons – p. 11

So John Ciardi, sleep well.

Kenneth Rexroth, a fellow-poet, said of Ciardi: “He is singularly unlike most American poets with their narrow lives and feuds. He is more like a very literate, gently appetitive, Italo-American airplane pilot, fond of deep, simple things, like his wife and kids, his friends, his students, Dante’s verse and good food and wine.”

So for those moments
When you’d like to meditate
On the poetic imagination
Of a man who loved life,
And loved it without rose-colored
Glasses, I recommend John Ciardi

(Lover’s quarrel with the world)
He is one

The theologians
gather dust upon the shelves
of my library, but the poets
are stained with my fingers
and blotted with my tears
I never seem, etc.

Holiday For Martin Luther King, Jr.

January 15, 1984
Lakeland

The Congress voted and the President signed a bill providing that the birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr. – January 15 – will be a national holiday beginning in 1986. There has been a mixed reaction. Some persons are troubled that King has been honored with a national holiday while such national heroes and historic persons as Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, and FDR (to name a few) have not been so honored and commemorated. Others have said there are too many holidays already.

There are also those who have commented cynically that many who voted for the measure did so only because it was politically expedient. The black voters, although a minority, now represent a substantial enough group to be a swing vote in certain elections. To vote “no” would be akin to voting “no” on motherhood (or so it has been said). Of course, there were those who voted “yes” simply because they believed that King was a primary force in establishing civil rights for black people and that he personified, exemplified, and was a martyr to the turnabout in American history where we came to ourselves and accepted the beginning, basic value of the Declaration of Independence, that all are created equal, with the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Before I state my views on whether I think this is a proper national holiday, I would like to remind us of Martin Luther King, Jr., – how he lived, how he died, the convictions he held, and the influence he exerted.

Martin Luther King, Jr. was born January 15, 1929 to Reverend Martin Luther King, Sr. and Alberta Williams King. The father (for years he has been “Daddy King”) was the son of an impoverished sharecropper. The branch grows from the root. There were many events in the father’s early life that must have molded the son. Let me recount just one, for it throws light on the urgency which the King family felt about civil rights and a fair chance.

Martin Luther King Sr. was about seven years old when he witnessed a murder which he never forgot (DADDY KING, p. 42). In the back country of Georgia, when times were bad, white men out of work were enraged when they encountered a black man who had a job. This rage was not diluted even when it was the case that wages for black men were much lower for comparable work.

Outside the country store, a group of white men, well-stoked with corn liquor, saw a black man walk past after collecting his wages. When profanely insulted by the white men, the black man walked past them trying to smile his way peacefully. Further insults, and of course, no retaliation. Then they tried to take his pay away. The victim put up a struggle, “This money’s for my children, I can’t let you have that.” Attacked, beaten by tree limbs, the black man was overcome. Then one of the whites took off his belt and put it around the victim’s neck and lynched him on a tree. King Sr. writes in his autobiography (p. 44), “I was still there when they’d all gone, staggering off down the road, laughing to themselves, waiving the jugs of corn whiskey they carried. The black man was dead, his head all twisted over, his feet five or six inches off the ground. Suddenly I could hear my breathing coming through me harder and harder, and then there was a scream pouring through my lips that nobody heard but me. Why, I thought, why did they do ‘that.’”

King Sr. did not stay in the poor back country. He was a minister at 15, but an uneducated one. Determined to learn, at the age of 21 he was in the fifth grade [CJW note: working his way/job]. But he went on, learned, and was eventually accepted at Morehouse College. He succeeded to the prominent pulpit of his father-in-law, Reverend A. Williams at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta.

To this couple, Martin Luther King Jr. was born, went to public schools in Atlanta, and at 15 years old passed the entrance examination at Morehouse College – before graduating from high school. At Morehouse, King received a B.A. in sociology. From there he went to Crozer Theological Seminary in Philadelphia, PA, a liberal Baptist seminary. (Those of you who have attended our Wednesday night discussion groups have heard me frequently cite Morton Enslin in our considerations of the New Testament. Dr. Enslin was for many years Professor of Bible Studies at Crozer).

At Crozer, King began his serious studies of the life and teachings of Gandhi under the stimulus of lectures by A.J. Muste (for years the courageous pacifist of the Fellowship of Reconciliation) and Dr. Mordecai Johnson.

Graduating in 1951 from Crozer, King went on to Boston University school of theology where he earned a PhD. In 1953 King and Coretta Scott were married. They had met in Boston where Coretta Scott, born in Marion, AL, was studying voice at the prestigious New England Conservatory of Music after graduating from Antioch. Four children were born to this marriage: Yolanda, Martin Luther King III, Dexter Scott, and Albertine.

In October 1954, King was installed as minister at the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, AL. In 1955 and 1956, the young minister was propelled into national attention by events in Montgomery. This is the bare outline of these events:

December 1, 1955 – Rosa Parks, a 42-year-old seamstress, refused to yield her seat on the bus to a white man, and she was arrested.

December 5, 1955 – First day of the bus boycott. King, then 26, was elected president of the Montgomery Improvement Association, which led the effort.

January 26, 1956 – A bomb is thrown on the porch of Dr. King’s Montgomery home. Because she had been alerted to such a possibility, Coretta, with baby Yolanda and a friend, hurried to the back of the house when they heard a thud. They were not injured, but the house was damaged.

The Montgomery buses were integrated on Dec 20, 1956 after the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed a June decision of a U.S. District Court.

In February 1957, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference was founded, with King as its first president.

In September 1958, he was stabbed in the chest in New York City by a deranged woman.

In early 1959, Dr. and Mrs. King spent a month in India studying Gandhi’s techniques of non-violence. They were the guests of Prime Minister Nehru.

In January 1960, they moved to Atlanta where King became co-pastor of Ebenezer Baptist with his father.

In February 1960, the lunch counter sit-ins begin to desegregate eating facilities in North Carolina, Tennessee, Georgia, and other parts of the South. King is arrested with others at an Atlanta sit-in. The charges are dropped for all jailed demonstrators except King, who is held on a traffic violation and transferred to state prison, where is is subsequently released on bond.

In 1961-1962, King was arrested several times for his part in demonstrations in Albany, GA, and Birmingham, AL. On May 20, 1963, the U.S. Supreme Court rules that Birmingham’s segregation ordinances were unconstitutional. August 28, 1963 – at the great March on Washington, King delivers his “I Have A Dream” speech on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial to 250,000 civil rights marchers from all parts of the nation.

There have been notorious murders: Medgar Evers in Jackson, MS; James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner in Philadelphia, MS; James Reeb, a Unitarian Universalist minister and Viola Liuzzo in Selma, AL.

December 10, 1964 – Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo.

August 6, 1965 – President Johnson signs the Voting Rights Act.

In 1966, King leads a Washington rally to protest the war in Vietnam.

July 1967, the Justice Department reports that more than 50% of all eligible black voters are registered in Mississippi, Georgia, Alabama, and South Carolina.

A pattern of riots had punctuated these years. July 1967, Newark and Plainfield NJ, Detroit Michigan. 23 die in Newark and 43 in Detroit; hundreds were injured.

In 1968, sanitation workers went on strike in Memphis, TN.

In March, King led 6,000 demonstrators through downtown Memphis in support of the strike.

April 3, 1968 – King delivers his last speech, “I’ve Been To The Mountaintop” in the Masonic Temple in Memphis.

On April 4, he is shot by a sniper and dies in St. Joseph’s Hospital, Memphis.

Much has been said and written about this man for whom a national holiday has been declared. I believe the holiday is appropriate and that he is justly honored and singled out.

First of all, he gave the Black people of this nation a sense of their own worth and dignity even amid the sad and awful oppressions not only during the centuries of slavery, but discriminations, bigotry, deprivations, lynchings, and injuries that followed emancipation. Speaking of the civil rights struggles, King said it best:

“I think the greatest victory of this period was something internal. The real victory was what this period did to the psyche of the Black man. We armed ourselves with dignity and self-respect. The greatness of this period was that we straightened our backs up. And a man can’t ride your back unless it’s bent.” (WORDS OF MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR., p. 47)

So, in answer to the cynical charge that the votes in the House and Senate and the signature of the President were political expedients in deference to the voting power of Black people, it can be asserted, accurately, I believe, that had it not been for King and all the others in the civil rights movement, there would have been no substantial Black vote to warrant political consideration.

Then, too, as writer David Halberstam pointed out, King compelled white Christians of the South to confront their own beliefs. Halberstam said that this was so because the South was the most seriously religious of any area of the country. I had very little personal experience of the South, so I cannot pronounce on that point.

But I do believe that all over the land, King’s life and death forced many to look at the Black struggle in the light of religious beliefs. To persons in the Judeo-Christian streams of belief, there was difficulty in denying or obviously obscuring the reality that the great Hebrew prophets and Jesus claimed generosity, understanding, acceptance, and assistance to the poor, the disinherited, the persecuted. The ethical premise of all the religions was that every person was of worth and entitled to full dignity and all rights.

Again, King’s words penetrate: “Any religion that professes to be concerned with the souls of men and is not concerned with the slums that damn them, the economic conditions that strangle them, and the social conditions that cripple them, is a dry-as-dust religion. Such a religion is the kind that Marxists like to see – an opiate of the people.” (WORDS OF MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR., p. 66)

One thing more, as engulfing as was King’s absorption in the struggles of his people, his vision was wider still. He spoke out against the Vietnam War. He was criticized for doing so by some who believed he was diluting the strength of the civil rights movement in this country.

He maintained his stand of non-violence, although some black leaders, particularly in the North, thought him more naïve. They believed more in the militancy of Malcolm X, who too was assassinated. And it seemed that King’s influence in the North was far weaker than in the South, which may be so.

But he maintained his values and beliefs. One knew where he stood. Gandhi’s influence on King was immense, although he never knew Gandhi in the flesh. But from his seminary days, he studied Gandhi’s life and words. King wrote,

“I’m tired of violence. And I’m not going to let my oppressor dictate to me what method I must use. We have a power, power that can’t be found in a Molotov cocktail, but we do have a power. It is a power as old as the insights of Jesus of Nazareth and modern as the techniques of Mahatma Gandhi.” (WORDS OF MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR., p. 71)

The national holiday for Martin Luther King Jr. is worthy to be celebrated. George Washington, is justly honored; he led the armies of the Revolution and wisely presided over the early days of the Republic. The Fourth of July recognizes the great document of our independence.

But a King holiday, at least in one important sense, represents the past and the future. Not only what he was, what he did, and what he valued, but also it can be a holiday for what we could be if we cherish and stand for not only a nation fair, free, and at peace, but a world fair, free, and at peace.

Erasmus – Christian Humanist

October 1, 1983
Lakeland

Why talk about people and times of 500 years ago? I am aware that, as illustrated in the brief readings, history captures the interest of very few persons. So perhaps I am being self-indulgent or irrelevant to use my October Sundays to speak of the Reformation. In a world where the political tensions throw menacing shadows on the prospects for survival and justice, why take time to think about the Reformation and Renaissance? Why take your time when there are vital current issues by the dozen, even though 1983 is the 500th anniversary of the birth of Martin Luther?

To understand a little of the conflicts of power in times past and how the conflicts were resolved is to become more aware of confrontations in our day. To look at such men as Erasmus and Luther and others is to become sensitive to human nature in all times – strengths and frailties, courage and cowardice, bigotry and understanding, generosity and narrowness, belligerence and peacemaking, reason and passion, love and hate. When we see such qualities mixed in the same historical persons, we may come to understand that there are no super saviors. Sir Galahad without fear and without reproach was a myth. To understand this about human nature may make us less confident that the leaders have all the answers which will save this troubled world, and more assertive of our own reasons and judgments.

The Reformation and Renaissance overlapped. There had been dissidents opposing certain practices of the Holy Roman Church long before Erasmus and Luther were energizing forces. Savonarola, John Hus, John Wycliff, were warning signals that the authority of the pope and magnificence of the Church would sooner or later be questioned and challenged.

The Renaissance had been born and fostered for at least a couple centuries, before the time of Erasmus and Luther. There had been a revival of classic Greek and Roman learning. Art and sculpture again became treasured possessions of culture. The wealthy families and the Vatican competed to become patrons of the great artists – DaVinci, Michelangelo, Ghiberti, many others. Instead of a fixed focus on the afterlife, there developed a greater appreciation of the promises, rewards, and pleasure in this life, at least for the wealthy and powerful.

In 1453, Constantinople fell to the Turks, and many scholars, bearing priceless classical manuscripts and art, fled to Italy, further stimulating the revival of learning.

The Age of Exploration had begun. New geographical discoveries were stimulating inquiry, curiosity and adventure. Aztec and Peruvian gold enriched the royal coffers of Spain.

Gutenberg’s printing press revolutionized communication. Without the printing press neither Erasmus nor Luther could have been such agents of mammoth social and religious change.

Erasmus was born in Rotterdam 10/26/1466. He was the illegitimate son of a priest. Little is known about his father. The novelist Charles Reade speculated a good deal in THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. Erasmus’ mother may have been a servant. Erasmus was always sensitive about the conditions of his birth, although he never denied his illegitimate origins.

In his early schooling, there was some influence of Renaissance Humanism. [CJW note: Brethren of the Common Life] When he was 16 he joined an Augustinian order in Steyn. Unlike Luther, who entered an Augustinian monastery to save his soul, Erasmus entered because the monastery had a fine library – he wanted good books.

Because he was illegitimate, Erasmus needed papal dispensation to enter the priesthood [CJW note: received it and was ordained in 1492]. On the basis of his devotion and literary work throughout the rest of his life, he secured dispensation from saying mass or performing other sacraments. He hated fish and, pleading truthfully, bad digestion, was dispensed from meatless days.

One of his early essays while still in the monastery was a defense of classic learning - “pagan” as it was called, answering those who insisted that the only proper learning was in the study of Christian dogma and Church history. Erasmus wrote, “You tell me we should not read Virgil because Virgil is in hell. Do you think many Christians are not in hell whose works we read? It is not for us to discuss whether the pagans before Christ were damned. But I conjecture that they are saved or no one is saved. If you want to reject everything pagan you will have to give up the alphabet and the Latin language, and all the arts and crafts.”

Erasmus was unhappy in the monastery – but how to get out? Most scholars did not have salaries from a university. They depended on patrons who would provide them with a living while their studies and writings proceeded. The prior of the monastery was able to situate Erasmus as the secretary of the Bishop of Cambrai. That Erasmus was illegitimate did not cause any difficulty for the Bishop, because he himself was one of the 36 illegitimate children of John, the Lord of Bergen.

For the rest of his life, Erasmus lived on patronage and some income from his writings. In those days, to secure these benefits, one had to write elaborate, flattering dedications to the patron – if one wanted to remain in his favor. Erasmus was no exception. His historical skills extolled his patrons in ways that, to say the least, inflated the virtues of the patrons, usually quite untruthfully. We would call it hypocrisy at best, and lies at worst. But friends apologized that Erasmus was writing what the Prince or the Cardinal ought to be, not what he was. This is a weak defense. Erasmus never had the courage of a Luther or a John Hus.

His succession of patrons made him perennially a traveler. He studied and lectured at the University of Paris. He visited England 3 times, staying 5 years (1509-14); the third visit ... he was a close friend of such distinguished Christian Humanists as Thomas More, John Fisher, John Colet.

Erasmus’ literary production [CJW note: thoughtful, rational] made him the intellectual of Europe. Over the years his influence was such that some called him the “second pope.”

Later there was a saying, “Erasmus laid the egg that Luther hatched.” Nevertheless, before his life was over he was despised by Luther and accused by the Roman Catholics of fracturing Christendom.

He spent most of his life studying and writing. He never made impassioned speeches. Because of many qualifications in his writing, it was difficult, as time went on, to discover whether he supported the Reformers or the Catholic Church.

His most famous work was IN PRAISE OF FOLLY.

Erasmus had visited Rome, saw the luxurious and decadent life of many cardinals and the Pope. Leaving Rome, on his way to England, he traversed the Alps, reflecting on the horseback journey the contradictions he had witnessed.

During his 5-year stay in England, he wrote IN PRAISE OF FOLLY (printed in 1511). The literary form has the goddess “Folly” ridiculing many respected human endeavors. Today, the style is clumsy but in his day, the book achieved widespread popularity. 40 editions were published in his lifetime, and who knows how many since.

Folly ridicules marriage. The philosophers are not spared. [quote from Durant] “The philosophers confound the confused and darken the obscure; they lavish time and wit upon logical and metaphysical subtleties with no result but wind; we should send them, rather than soldiers, against the Turks who would retreat in terror before such bewildering verbosity.”

Physicians and theologians are not spared. Some of the ritual mainstays of the Church, miracles and prodigies, shrines for healing, the worship of relics are [derided as] “bugbears of superstition.”

How did he get away with such devastating ridicule? Many theologians were upset. However, Pope Julius II did not bother him. [CJW note: our Dutch friend is with us again]. Julius was not interested in such things. Julius was a military pope, leading the armies of the papal states in the complex series of alliances and wars. Francis I (France), Henry VIII, and Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, all wanted power over Europe. Julius also initiated the building of magnificent St. Peter’s Cathedral. For many years, the wandering Erasmus was undisturbed. [CJW note: his religious writings did not bother the popes and cardinals – their interest was in other things]

Another distinctive literary and religion contribution of Erasmus was a new Greek translation of the New Testament. Up to then, the 4th century Latin translation of Jerome, a translation known as the Vulgate, had been the standard Bible for the Church.

Going back to available ancient manuscripts, Erasmus not only offered some fresh interpretations but asserted certain parts of the Vulgate were erroneous.

Two of Erasmus’ omissions caused considerable agitation. One of the mainstays for asserting the Trinity was a passage in 1st John 5:7 which, in the Vulgate, reads the “three are one.” Erasmus translated, the “three agree.” To us, this may be trivial, but to the scholastic theologians of that day, it was a monumental and radical change.

Then too, “ecclesia” which Jerome had translated as “church,” Erasmus translated as “congregation.” To the hair-splitter of that day, this was a severe weakening of the power and authority of the Church and its episcopal system. [CJW note: Linacre: “Either this is not the gospel or we are not Christians.”]

But Erasmus never supported Luther’s Reformation. He always believed there could be reform within the Church. His pacific nature shied away from conflict. He saw the many sides to most controversial issues. Perhaps he was a coward, as Luther called him. Nothing was more difficult for Erasmus than to say a plain “Yes” or a forthright “no” in a controversy. He did hedge. He saw various sides to questions, arguments to support either of differing views. His criticisms were frequently cloaked in satire.

Nevertheless, in many ways, Erasmus was ahead of his times. Ahead of our times in some ways.

In a time when heretics were tortured and burned at the stake, Erasmus took a more enlightened course. Although under pressure to support the church’s condemnation and excommunication of Luther, he did not join in the hue and cry. He wrote, “Let us not devour each other like fish. Why upset the world over paradoxes, some unintelligible, some debatable, some unprofitable? The world is full of rage, hate, and wars. What will be the end if we employ only papal bulls and the stake. It is not great feat to burn a man. It is a great achievement to persuade him.” [Bainton, p. 178]

In contrast to the dogmas of the Church that truth is that which the Church, through the Pope, proclaims, Erasmus believed that truth appears through dialogue. His love for the classic philosophers, particularly Plato and Socrates, was apparent in his belief that truth exists but arrives through the matching of minds in rational discourse.

Many of his moves from city to city were motivated because he detested dictatorship. When a Protestant dictatorship took over Geneva, Basel, or other places, Erasmus moved to where he thought greater freedom existed.

In a period when intense nationalism was the coming order [Bainton, p. 114], Erasmus dissented. When twice invited to become a citizen of Zurich, he answered, “I wish to be a citizen of the world, not of a single city.” He said more than once, “The whole universe is my fatherland.”

He hated war and was pacifistic in a time of constant war and bloodshed. He wrote, “sweet is war to him who has had no taste of it.” He believed disputes could be settled by mediation, not bloodshed. Replying to urgings that he approve the violence of the Reformation, he wrote, “I cannot be other than what I am ... I cannot but love peace and concord. I see the obscurity in all things human. I see how much easier it is to start rather than assuage a tumult.” [Bainton, p. 176]

Erasmus believed the test of a Christian was not creed, but conduct. When he was appalled at popes making cardinals and princes of their sons and nephews, and distributing the wealth of the church to family, he reminded the Pope, “Jesus said, ‘Feed my sheep,’ not ‘Feed your sheep.’” He also wrote, “You will not be damned if you do not know whether the spirit proceeding from the Father and Son has one or two beginnings, but you will not escape damnation if you do not cultivate the fruits of the Spirit, which are love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, mercy, faith, modesty....” [Bainton]

As his life drew near to its end, he felt that all he had written was extinguished in the wars of the Reformation. Before he died in 1536, his influence had waned. In 1559, the one-time friend Cardinal Caraffa, by this time Pope Paul IV, placed the writings of Erasmus under the ban of the Church.

The wild events of the Reformation had demonstrated that the pen of Erasmus was not mightier than the swords of Luther, the kings, and popes.

Yet many of his ideas did not die. George Williams of Harvard, a Reformation historian, describing what he calls the “Evangelical Rationalist,” finds that the ideas of Erasmus and Servetus were not only the forerunners of Socinianism ..., but also of the Enlightenment, the intellectual basis of Unitarianism and Universalism, and of representative government. [CJW note: not that Erasmus was a Unitarian; Servetus tried to convert]

Stefan Zweig, in his biography, wrote this epitaph of Erasmus of Rotterdam: “Erasmus was forced to leave Louvain because it was too Catholic; he was forced to leave Basle because it was too Protestant. A free and independent mind, which refuses to be bound by any dogma and declines to join any party, never finds a home on earth.”