LIFE
OF
HENRY DUNSTER,
FIRST PRESIDENT OF HARVARD COLLEGE.
BY
REV. JEREMIAH CHAPLIN, D.D.
BOSTON:
JAMES R. OSGOOD AND COMPANY,
(LATE TICKNOR & FIELDS, AND FIELDS, OSGOOD, & CO.)
I872.




Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1872,
BY JEREMIAH  CHAPLIN, D.D.,
In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.
Boston:
Stereotyp5ed and Printed by Rand, A very, <&  Co.




PREFACE.
T    HE name of Henry Dunster, the first President of
Harvard College, passed under a cloud of neglect
about the year I652, but without any fault of his own.
His contemporaries, who had extolled his accomplish-.
ments and virtues until the fatal hour when he " fell " into
certain "briars" of dissent from the established creed,
then suddenly dropped him from  their calendar of worthies, and he has never been really invited to resume his
place.
Different writers in our day, especially Quincyl and
Palfrey,2 have indeed eulogized his character and services
in eloquent words, but no special effort has been made to
gather the scattered materials of his life into a fitting memorial, that the world might know what he was, what part
he acted in laying the foundations of our civil and religious institutions, and what he was willing to suffer, with
singular patience and charity, for the sake of truth, as he
understood it.
A due examination will show that his character is one
1 History of Harvard College.    2 History of New England.
iii




iv                     Preface.
of the most beautiful, as his history is one of the most
touching, to be found in the early annals of New England.
A singularly honest mind, which no promises and no persecutions could turn from his convictions, forced him into
antagonism with brethren whom he loved, and made him
the target for sharp arrows, ecclesiastical and civil, which
sorely wounded his pure and sensitive spirit. Firm as a
rock in the defence of his principles, he could never be
roused to a fight with his adversaries.  He bore his testimony calmly and manfully, in the fear of God and the
love of truth, and then yielded to the storm which drove
him into retirement.
From that retirement of more than two centuries, it is
well that he should come forth to teach us of this generation the great duty of loyalty to conscience, and how to
harmonize conscience and charity.  A  life which, says
Palfrey, is "of the purest and noblest," is not, alas, so very
common, that the world can afford to lose the benefit of
its bright example.
In pursuance of our purpose, we have reviewed the conduct of our Puritan ancestors of Massachusetts, in their
treatment of what they deemed heresy and sectarism, 
a duty not altogether agreeable, but yet unavoidable if
regard is had to the facts of history and the lessons of
experience.
A letter of Dr. Watts informs us, that when Neal was
blamed for " the freedom he had taken to expose the persecuting principles and practices of the first planters," in
his History of New England, "he replied, that the fidelity




Preface.                       v
of an historian required him to do what he had done."
Similar is our apology, if apology is needed. The author,
as of Puritan descent, may be supposed to take as favorable a view as possible, of the Puritan fathers of Massachusetts. While ready to extol their grand virtues, he
would deal charitably with their grave faults. Yet these
men were so truly great and good, that, better than most
men, they can bear the exposure which historic justice
necessitates. Subject their characters to as rigid an examination as we may, they yet command our love and
veneration.
Then, too, it should not be forgotten, that the Puritans
of New England were not sinners above all the American
Colonists, in religious intolerance. Virginia certainly has
nothing to boast over Massachusetts. She began her inquisitorial work at an earlier period. The Dutch of New
York pursued the same course, though with unequal
steps.
It was the grand mistake - to use the mildest term 
of the Reformers generally, which may as well be confessed-of Calvin and Zwingle and Knox and Cranmer,
and a host of other noble champions of Protestantism,
that they were persecutors. They were untrue to their
own principle of the right of private judgment. And so
the Puritans of the new world, in one sense, came honestly by their intolerance. If not in the line of apostolical
succession, it was by ecclesiastical tradition. And they
would have thanked no one for setting up an apology for
their conduct towards sectarists and errorists on the low




vi                           Preface.
ground of expediency or political necessity. They persecuted from principle. They verily thought they were doing God service. Persecution of heretics was using " the
holy tactics of the sword. "    The most perfect harmony,"
says Trumbull, " subsisted between the legislature and
clergy; like Moses and Aaron,l they walked together in
the  most endearing  friendship."   And, in  their view,
Moses and  Aaron, as symbolical of state  and  church,
never "kissed each other " to such good purpose, as when
they  united  in  " Mount Zion "  to  maintain  the  gospel
against antichrist. A dreadful mistake; but an honest
one.
1 The Rev. John Norton, in 1646, preached a sermon in Boston, on
"Moses and Aaron kissing each other in the Mount of God," in which he
urged the churches [Aaron] to send Delegates to the Synod which had been
summoned by the General Court [Moses]. In i66I, Rev. James Noyes,
of Newbury, whom Cotton Mather highly praises, wrote, under the title of,
" Moses and Aaron: or, The Rights of Church and State," as follows: " Civil
and sacred power did consist well in the same subject, and surely they are
most subject to violence when at greatest distance from one another. Moses
and Aaron have cause to embrace each other, and Israel both of them together."  "It is needful that Magistrates should have power to preserve the
Church from desolation, by taking away foxes and wolves &c. Magistrates
have a just power to use the sword in their hands against any persons for the
good of the Church and the glory of Christ's kingdom.... It appears by
Paul's appealing unto Caesar, that magistrates have power in some religious
controversies; why not in all?"  In 1684, an English minister wrote to Increase Mather: " I rejoice to hear of so sweet a harmony between Moses and
Aaron, and such a joint pursuit after reformation." Mass. Hist. Col. Mather
Papers. This was four years after the meetinghouse of the First Baptist
Church of Boston, of which the Rev. Rollin H. Neale D.D. is now the senior
pastor, was shut up by order of the General Court - a fine specimen of the
" sweet harmony."




Preface.                    vii
Probably no case could more clearly exhibit the inherent injustice of the New England theocracy in its dealings
with dissentients, than that of Mr. Dunster. Here was
no crazy reformer, "conscientiously contentious," as has
been affirmed, falsely, we think, of Roger Williams, in
boisterous collision with established opinions and institutions. Mr. Dunster craved but the bare privilege of
expressing his honest thoughts, with no purpose of assailing or abusing others. He was no iconoclast. He was
just the opposite. Thoroughly manly and courageous, he
was yet gentle and courteous. But no, said the managers
of the theocracy, he does not think as we do, and says so
-away with him.
One of our own writers, whom the world delights to
honor for his rare felicities of thought and style, has undertaken the brave task - we profoundly respect his courage - of defending the Puritan way of dealing with sectaries. Mr. Lowell's main argument is as follows:"that John of Leyden had taught them how unendurable
by the nostrils of honest men is the corruption of the
right of private judgment in the evil and selfish hearts of
men when no thorough mental training has developed
the understanding and given the judgment its needful
means of comparison and correction. They knew that
liberty in the hands of unreasoning and feeble-minded
persons (and all the worse if they are honest) means
nothing more than the supremacy of their particular form
of imbecility, means nothing less therefore than downright
chaos, a Bedlam chaos of monomaniacs and bores." *
* Among my Books, p. 235.




viii                  Preface.
But most assuredly our Puritan fathers could not have
proceeded upon this principle in dealing with Mr. Dunster
for his exercise of the right of private judgment.  If " unreasoning and feeble-minded persons" must be held in
with bit and bridle, here was a sectary possessed of " thorough mental training." But the Puritans drew no such
distinctions, except that they evidently deemed the heretic
who was capable of "comparison and correction" to be
the more dangerous.
What could there be in him  of Cambridge —in his
opinions or his conduct —most remotely suggestive of
him of Leyden? Verily it requires a brilliant imagination
to convert the mild, cultured, devout Mr. Dunster, known
to everybody as a good neighbor, an orderly citizen, a gentleman and a Christian, into a lineal descendant of the
monster of Holland, with his traditional hoofs and horns.
After fourteen years of proof that he was strong-minded
and sound-hearted, it was altogether too late to make him
out, of a sudden, " unendurable by the nostrils of honest
men."
The case is just here. The Puritans believed that to
them was specially intrusted, here in this western world,
the safe-keeping of the pure gospel, its doctrines, ordinances and institutions. It was a religious duty to defend it against all dissidents and opposers, whether these
were " unreasoning and feeble-minded persons," or those
in whom a "thorough mental training had developed the
understanding."  They were bound to defend it by both
spiritual and temporal weapons. The state was a divine




Preface.                      ix
instrument for guarding the church - their church - and
punishing sectaries and schismatics. It was not at all a
question of strong-minded or feeble-minded, but simply
of contrary-minded.  The Puritans were remorselessly
impartial. Their method of dealing with Mr. Dunster
abundantly proves this. He questioned their infallibility,
and was punished for it.
In all this the Puritans acted as if orthodoxy had, by
them, been fully and finally settled. The possibilities of
future illumination were exhausted.
Dunster was also a Puritan; but he was a consistent
one, in demanding for himself and all others the right of
private judgment. He " boldly " defended this right for
the Quakers. In so doing he acted up to the advice to
the departing Pilgrims, of another John of Leyden, John
Robinson, pastor of the Pilgrim church and "father of
independency:"-" If God reveal anything to you by
any other instrument of his, be as ready to receive it as
ever you were to receive any truth by my ministry; for I
am verily persuaded the Lord has more truth yet to break
forth out of his holy word."
The Puritans in and around Boston unfortunately knew
the whole truth.  There was no more light to "break
forth."  Humble Mr. Dunster, President of the College
and a learned Orientalist, felt that there was something
more to be known, and opened his eyes to the light.
Then this Massachusetts Galileo, for daring to look above
his creed, and to proclaim what he thought a new discovery, was speedily summoned before the Puritan tribunals.




x                      Preface.
" Moses and Aaron" were all agog to punish him  for
using his eyes. But, unlike the illustrious seer of Pisa,
he did not, to save himself, deny his belief, or utter it only
in a whisper.
But while we thus speak of our Puritan fathers, we most
heartily apply to them what the late Mr. Grote said so
finely with reference to Sir Thomas More: "The spirit
of persecution is no peculiar attribute of the pedant, the
bigot or the fanatic, but may coexist with the fairest graces
of the human character." In fact, we have only repeated
the opinion entertained of these men by eminent Puritans
of a succeeding generation. Benjamin Colman, for nearly
fifty years pastor of the Brattle-street Church, Boston,
said, in a Fast-day sermon delivered in I716: "If there
were of old among our fathers any laws enacted, or judgments given, or executions done according to those laws,
which have carried too much the face of cruelty and persecution, we ought to be greatly humbled for such errors
of our fathers, and confess them to have been sinful; and
blessed be God for the more catholic spirit of charity
which now distinguishes us.  Or if any of our fathers
have dealt proudly in censuring and judging others who
differed from them in modes of worship, let us their posterity the rather be clothed with humility, meekness and
charity, preserving truth and holiness with the laudable
zeal of our predecessors." And two years later, Cotton
Mather wrote as follows: " In this capital city of Boston
there are ten assemblies of Christians of different persuasions, who live so lovingly and peaceably together, doing




Preface.                      xi
all the offices of good neighborhood for one another in
such a manner as may give a sensible rebuke to all the
bigots of uniformity, and show them  how consistent a
variety of rites in religion may be with the tranquillity of
human society, and may demonstrate to the world, that
persecution for conscientious dissents in religion is an
abomination of desolation, a thing whereof all wise and
just men will say,'Cursed be its anger, for it is fierce, and
its wrath, for it is cruel.' "
Gladly do we acknowledge the vast debt of gratitude
we owe to the stern Puritans, who, with the more catholic
Pilgrims, founded our institutions; who established a
Church without a bishop, and a State without a king; but
surely very much is due to the men, who, while sharing
the general views of the Puritans, did, either by a bold
spirit of resistance, or a patient spirit of endurance, put
themselves in opposition to certain errors which marred
the beauty and weakened the power of the Puritan character, and thus gave to mankind an example of Protestantism more accordant with its true genius. Such men
in their own day are likely to be misunderstood and even
slandered, because their testimony breaks rudely in upon
the established order of society; but surely posterity,
which enjoys and glories in the results of their work,
ought to do something better than to perpetuate the
reproaches which were heaped upon them  by a less
enlightened or less tolerant age.
1 See Neal's History of New England.




xii                   Preface.
In the preparation of this work, the original sources of
information have been diligently examined. The Public
Library of Boston, especially the Prince Collection, the
libraries of the Massachusetts Historical Society and
the Historic-Genealogical Society, of Boston, the State
Library, including the State Archives, the University
Library at Cambridge, and the Middlesex County Records
have been searched for material, and have been of invaluable service.  The author would acknowledge the courtesy of the Historical Society and the Historic-Genealogical Society in granting the use of valuable manuscripts,
never before published. And in this connection, he takes
the liberty to make special mention of Dr. S. A. Green,
Librarian of the former, and Jeremiah Colburn, Esq., one
of the officers of the latter.
The valuable manuscript volume 1 of Rev. Thomas
Shepard, from which several pages have been taken, was
found quite difficult to decipher, some of it defying the
skill of the most experienced expert, so that our copy is
not entirely perfect; but perseverance has for the most
part succeeded in penetrating its mysteries; in which
effort we have been very kindly and materially aided, in
the hardest places, by the suggestions of Mr. John W.
Dean, one of the officers of the Historic-Genealogical Society, and of David Pulsifer, Esq.
The author is much indebted to Mr. Sibley, the courteous librarian of Harvard College, for permission to examine manuscripts relating to the subject of the memoir,
1 Page 257.




Preface.                   xiii
and also, primarily, for the interesting account which we
give of the discovery of Mr. Dunster's grave.
Much aid and encouragement have been afforded by
two of President Dunster's direct descendants, Mr. Samuel Dunster, of Attleboro', Mass., and his son, Edward
Swift Dunster, M.D., of New York, a graduate of Harvard in the year 1856. The genealogical table of the Dunster Family was prepared by them, with great care.
The author has spared no pains to make this volume a
faithful portrait of the eminent person who forms its principal subject, and of the times during which he acted so
conspicuous a part. He trusts that it may subserve the
cause of Truth and Spiritual Freedom.








CONTENTS.
PREFACE.....                             i-xiii
CHAPTER I.
Native Place. - Age of Matriculation. - Milton. - Jeremy
Taylor. - His Father. - The  Family. - Religious
Impressions.- Educated at Magdalen College, Cambridge, Eng. - Sketch of Emmanuel College. - Dr.
Preston. -Graduates of Cambridge settled in New
England. -  Contemporaries in the University. 
Preacher and Teacher in England....
CHAPTER  II.
State of England. - Persecution. - Letter from Mr. Dunster's Father. - Political Principles. - Views of Church
Polity..........  8
CHAPTER  III.
Arrives in Boston. - Description of Boston. - Population
of New England.- A Lawyer in Boston. - Ministers
in Boston and Vicinity. - Eminent Men in the Different
xv




xvi                    Contents.
Colonies. - Indians. - Antinomian Controversy. -
Anabaptists. -Joins the Artillery Company. - Edward
Johnson....3I
CHAPTER IV.
Elected President of Harvard College. - His Qualifications.
-Foundation of the College. - College Seal. - Donations to the College...                          45
CHAPTER V.
Joins the Church in Cambridge. - Marriage. -A Freeman.
Character as a Preacher.      Interest in Indian
Missions.....55
CHAPTER VI.
Cotton Mather's Account of the College.-  Nathaniel
Eaton. - Mr. Dunster's Work. - Reputation of the
College. -  Students' Bills.-  Course of Study. 
"Rules and Precepts."    Corporal Punishment.Titles.-Whipping.-A  Case from  Judge Sewall's
Journal. - Expulsion of Satan... 60
CHAPTER  VII.
Steward's Department. - Library. - Mr. Scottow. - Fellowships. - Appeal to Commissioners of United Colonies.-Letter to Winthrop. -First Commencement.
- Reputation Abroad. - Letter to Ravis... 77
CHAPTER  VIII.
Printing-press. - Where set up. - First Issues. - License




Contents.                    xyii
of Press. - Psalm-book. - Revision by Mr. Dunster.
- Mr. Shepard's Advice. - Circulation of Psalm-book 91
CHAPTER IX.
Avowal of Anti-Paedobaptism.- Neal's Account of his
Change of Views. -  Cotton  Mather's Account. —
Great Excitement. -Mr. Mitchell disturbed. -Mr.
Dunster's Children. —The Persecuted Baptists from
Rhode Island.....                                 Io
CHAPTER X.
Action of the Magistrates. - Their Letter to the Ministers.
Conference of Ministers and Elders.- His Views of
Baptism. - Action of General Court. - Letter to General Court. - His Resignation. - The Court accepts it.
Condition of Continuance in Office. -  Summoned
before the  County Court. - His Testimony against
Infant Baptism. - Public Admonition. - His Reply
to the Court. - Action of Overseers. - Second Resignation. - President Quincy's Comments. -Mr. Chauncy's Election. - Conditions imposed. - Mr. Pierce's
Comments.....9
CHAPTER XI.
The World before him. - Petition to General Court. -
" Heartless " Reply of the Court. - They refuse his
Request. - Bellingham and Endicott. - " Considerations" addressed to General Court.- Asks Permission
to remain in the President's House.- Noble Spirit. -
The County Court. - A second Trial for withholding a
Child from Baptism. - Rights of Conscience invaded. I44




xviii                  Contents.
CHAPTER XII.
The Persecution accounted for. - Puritan Views of Infant
Baptism. - Cotton. - Cobbett. - Ward. - Mitchell.
- Hostility to Anabaptism. - Oakes. - Hubbard. -
Bellingham. - Thomas Gould. - Increase Mather. 
Views of Toleration. - Cotton. - Cambridge Platform.- Johnson. - Norton. - Mitchell. - Shepard. -
Oakes.- Arnold.- Tolerant Views of Thomas Prince.
- Laws against Anabaptists..               170
CHAPTER XIII.
Appeal of Corporation and Overseers on behalf of Mr.
Dunster. - Action of Magistrates.. 195
CHAPTER XIV.
Mr. Dunster at Charlestown. - Thomas Gould. - Scituate.
- Baptist Principles. - Tolerant Opinions. - Society
of Scituate. - Lawsuit.   99
CHAPTER XV.
Letter from Dublin. - Proposals for Mr. Dunster's Removal
to Ireland. - Interest of Henry Cromwell in the Plan.
- Mr. Dunster declines the Invitation.... 214
CHAPTER  XVI.
Mr. Dunster's Death.- His Will.- Burial at Cambridge.
-Discovery of his Grave. -A  New  Monument. —
His Character...221




Contents.                        xix
APPENDIX.
I. Genealogy.....235
II. Confession of Faith and Christian Experience.. 257
III. Course of College Studies...     266
IV. Commencement Theses.. 268
V. Letter to Ravis..... 271
VI. Letter to Rev. Mr. Alt.... 276
VII. Letter to Christian Friends..... 280
VIII. Conference of Ministers and Elders.       289
IX. Persecution of Rhode Island Baptists... 30I
X. Will....303
XI. Facsimile of Autograph.... 309
XII. Epitaph.........3I




" I AM not the man you take me to be."
President Dunster's " Considerations,"
addressed to the General Court, 1654.
" I conceived then, and so do still, that I spake the truth in
the feare of God, and dare not deny the same or go from  it
untill the Lord otherwise teach me; and this I pray the Honored Court to take for mine Answer."
From his Letter to the Middlesex County Court, I655.




Lzfe of Henry DuIster.
CHAPTER  I.
T may seem a late day to write the memoirs
of a man's life, more than two hundred years
after his death.  But when that life evidently
furnishes an example worthy of study and imitation in whatever period of the world, the long
neglect to do it justice is only an additional reason for rescuing it from comparative oblivion,
and lifting it, if so we may, to a merited prominence. Such, we believe, was the life of Henry
Dunster, the first president of the first College
in America.
Henry Dunster was a native of Lancashire,
England, - " Ego enim Lancastrensis sum,"  is
his own language,- and was one of that noble
1 Page 272.




2         Life of Henry Dunster.
company, who, in the seventeenth century, emigrated to the New World, and laid the foundations of our civil and religious institutions.
The place and year of his birth cannot be exactly ascertained. Since the discovery, in the
year 1852, of a letter  from his father written to
him, from England, after his arrival in America,
it has generally been believed that he was born
in or near the town of Bury, as that letter is
dated at Balehoult,2 which is supposed to have
been a gentleman's seat in the vicinity of Bury,
and which appears to have been the family residence.  Then there are extant two letters 3 from
President Dunster to friends in and near Bury,
of a character which seems to indicate the writer's intimate connection with the place.  The
question would be settled in favor of Bury, if we
should accept the records of a Dunster family
contained in the parish register of that town, as
that of the family of the father of the President.
There are strong points of correspondence, but discrepancies, also, which it is difficult, perhaps im.
possible, to reconcile. One difficulty in the way,
1 Page 21 andIV. Mass. Hist. Collections II., I9o, n.
2 Page 256.               3 Pages 276-288.




Life of Henry Dunster.              3
is the year (I620) assigned in the register for the
baptism  (and birth)  of the son Henry, which
would make him but twenty years old when he arrived in New England and became President of the
College. This, however, of itself, would not be
an insuperable objection to the birth-date in the
parish records. The average age of matriculation in the English universities in the seventeenth
century was fourteen,2 the age at which Jeremy
Taylor entered College, and there is nothing unreasonable in supposing that Dunster may have
entered a year younger, especially as he seems
to have been a somewhat precocious youth. In
that case, he could have received his first degree
in 1637, and his second in I640, the very year
of his coming to New England.  Not to mention other notable examples of very early development and promotion, in ancient and modern
times, that of Cotton Mather is specially in
point. This distinguished Puritan was graduated
at Harvard College when he was fifteen, and
1 Page 254.
2 Mullinger. Cambridge in the Seventeenth Century. The
present average is between eighteen and nineteen. On The
Cam. By William Everett.




4        Life of Henry Dunster.
was settled in the old North Church, Boston,
as his father's colleague, when twenty-one, having, at this early period of his life, earned an
extraordinary reputation for scholarship.  But
the parish record does not agree with the dates
of Mr. Dunster's obtaining his first and second
degrees at the University, I630 and I634, as
given by Savage.' Perhaps future researches in
England may clear up these difficulties.  At
present, however, we must accept these last dates
as correct.  Assuming that Mr. Dunster went
to Cambridge when he was fourteen, the year of
his birth would be 1612, and he would be twenty-eight when he left England.
Mr. Dunster's father, also Henry, appears to
have been a religious man, of the Puritan stamp.
Besides Henry, we know that he had three sons,
Thomas, mentioned in the father's letter alluded
to above, as a widower, who had lost his wife
and  children, Richard  and Robert; and  at
least three daughters, Elisabeth, Mary, and, according to Savage, but upon what authority we
do not know, a third named Rose.2  Richard,
1 Geneal. Dict. and Young's Chron. of Mass. 553, n.
2 Gen. Diet., Art. Hills.




Life of Henry Dunster.                5
who, we suppose, was younger than Henry, as he
was commended by the father to  his "good
counsell," came  to  America, probably in his
brother's company. The sisters remained with
the parents - " wee two ould folke" - and the
other brothers, but subsequently made New England their home, Elisabeth becoming the second,
and Mary the third, wife of Major Simon Willard,l of Concord, a distinguished name in the
early history of Massachusetts, and Rose, the
wife of Captain Joseph Hills, of Malden, a gentleman of note, and Speaker of the General Court
"in the earliest year."
As a child, Henry seems to have been thoughtful above his years. Even at the age of four or
five, the religious awakening which stirred the
Puritan element of England, arrested his attention. In the account of his Christian experience
given to the Cambridge church in I640, as preserved in manuscript notes by the pastor, Rev.
Thomas Shepard,2 speaking of that early period
1 "The Dunsters and Willards are intimately allied, having
a common transmitted inheritance of blood flowing through the
veins of very numerous descendants." Willard Memoir. By
Joseph Willard.
2 Page 262.




6        Lzfe of Henry Dunster.
of his life, he mentions a Mr. Hubbard, a "powerfull" and popular preacher, and says: " I heard
many scoff at his preachinge, at this great flocking after him, and I asked why men did so.
They said, to heare the word; and I said, then if
it be the word, why do men speake against it; if
it be not, why do men heare it?"  Here appears
even in the child that inquiring spirit and logical
bent of mind which distinguished Mr. Dunster in
later years.
When he was about twelve years old, he became deeply concerned as to his personal responsibility to God. "The Lord gave me," he relates,
"an attentive eare and heart to understand preachinge.... The Lord showed me my sins, and reconciliation by Christ," " and this word was more
sweet to me than any thing else in the world."
This was probably the commencement of that
religious life which we shall see grandly developed in his subsequent career in New England.
Not only when a boy at home, but in mature
years, amid powerful temptations to sacrifice his
convictions to personal advantages, the truth of
God was "made more sweet to [him] than any
thing else in the world."




Life of Henry Dunster.                   7
But after that first experience of delight in
religious things, he was destined to pass through
years of inward conflict before he arrived at settled  peace.   "The  greatest thing,"  he  says,
"which separated my soule from God was an inordinate desire  of humane learning."   But he
wisely concluded to meet the temptation, and go
to the University at Cambridge.  He came out
of the trial an humble and earnest Christian, not
spoiled by learning and culture, but fitted thereby
for the wide sphere of usefulness designed for
him by Providence, in after years, in the New
World.
From  an early period, Cambridge University 
had a special reputation for liberality of sentiment,
which at one time went to a latitudinarian extreme, and hence it "fostered [Protestantism]
towards the end of the sixteenth century, as it
had promoted the Reformation fifty years before.
1 " In the early state of the University the students lodged in
hostels, or houses hired in the town [at their own expense]; but
in process of time Colleges were founded and endowed by various benefactors for the promotion of piety and learning under a
well-ordered system of internal discipline, and for affording
assistance towards the maintenance of the inmates." Cooper.
Memorials of Cambridge.




8         Life of Henry Dunster.
In 1565, the University was restive under the
yoke of ceremonies, and almost all the men of St.
John's came to chapel without hoods or surplices." " Sidney was Puritan, and so was Catharine Hall." " Cambridge had the credit of being'a nest of Puritans' in the middle of King James'
reign."' In this respect Emmanuel College was
pre-eminent.  This house was founded in I585,
in the twenty-seventh year of Elisabeth, by Sir
Walter Mildmay, Chancellor of the Exchequer, " to
be a nursery of Divines for the maintenance of
the true Protestant religion against Popery and
all other heresies whatsoever." The Queen is
reported to have said to him, " So, Sir Walter, I
hear that you have erected a Puritan foundation."
"No, Madam," he replied, with a measure of
courtier-like evasion, " far be it from me to countenance any thing contrary to your established
laws; but I have set an acorn, which, when it
becomes an oak, God alone knows what will be
the fruit thereof." " The fruit," says Stoughton,
"proved Puritan to the heart's core."  And Fuller,2 who relates the story, says of this College:
1 Rev. J. Stoughton, D.D., Church of the Civil Wars, I. 474.
2 History of the University of Cambridge.




Life of Henry Dunsler.                 9
"Sure I am at this day it hath overshadowed all
the University."  "During  the  period  of the
Commonwealth, no less than eleven heads of
other Colleges in this University came from this
house." 1 In Percy's Ballads, we find the following hit from Corbet's satirical poem  (1615):
" In the house of pure Emanuel
I had my education,
Where my friends surmise
I dazzled my eyes
With the light of Revelation.
Boldly I preach, hate a cross, hate a surplice,
Mitres, capes, and rotchets;
Come hear me pray, nine times a day,
And fill your heads with crotchets."
So many were the graduates of this University
who came to New England, and helped to found
or foster the new College, that it has been well
said: "Cambridge in America is the child of
Cambridge in England." 2
New England was even more indebted than
this to the English Cambridge, especially to Emmanuel College, - for from this house Higginson
1 Cooper. Memorials of Cambridge.   2 On The Cam.




io         Life of Henry Dunsler.
of Salem, Shepard of Cambridge, Hooker of New
Haven, Harvard, who gave half his fortune, his
library, and his name to the infant American
College, John Cotton, Hugh Peter, Richard Saltonstall,l Simon Bradstreet, the last a Governor
of Massachusetts, and many others came to New
England to occupy important positions in its
churches and  commonwealths.  John Robinson,
father of the Pilgrim Colony, was a graduate of
Emmanuel.  Other Colleges of Cambridge gave
such men to the New World as Wilson and Norton, of Boston, John Eliot, the apostle to the Indians, Charles Chauncy, the second President
of Harvard College, and Roger Williams.
Mr. Dunster was educated at Magdalen College, of which the quaint Thomas Fuller, the his1 Richard, son of Sir Richard Saltonstall (217, n.) was a magistrate in the Massachusetts Colony, and, like his father, was
a man of catholic views and tolerant spirit. Both were liberal
benefactors of Harvard College. The son seems to have formed
a warm attachment to Mr. Dunster. Writing to him from England in I65I, he addresses him as "my very worthy friend,"
" worthily endeared," and says, " I may truly tell you, you are
written in my catalogue with greate letters."
2 See Arnold's History of Rhode Island, I. 49. He took the
degree of B.A., in Pembroke College, in 1626-7, the year that
Mr. Dunster was matriculated at Magdalen.




Life of Henry Dunsler.            ii
torian of the University, says: "This college
alone [of all the colleges that constitute the University] is on the northwest of the river, having
the Rose-garden on the one, and what is no rose
(a smoking brew house) on the other side thereof, belonging this 150 years to Jesus College.
Every year this house produces some eminent
scholars, as living cheaper and privater, freer
from town temptations by their remote situation."
According to the reckoning of Savage, Dunster was at Cambridge during at least two years
of Dr. John Preston's mastership of Emmanuel
College, and felt, as he himself informs us, the
influence of his decided Puritan teachings. This
divine, who succeeded Dr. Chadderton (a Puritan, and one of the translators of King James'
Bible), as head of this College, was regarded by
the Puritans of England as their leading man;
and he not only " kept up the reputation of [his
own College] as the most Puritanical in the University," 1 but made his influence felt through the
other houses, by his public lectures and sermons,
especially as " Town-lecturer" at Trinity Church
an appointment which he received in I623-4.
1 Masson. Life and Times of Milton, I.




12       Life of Henry Dunster.
Mr. Dunster, afterwards alluding to his College
days, says:  "After this I went to Cambridge,
when, growing more careless, I lost my comfort.
But I came to Trinity to hear Dr. Preston, by
whom I was quickened and revived."  Mr. Dunster also mentions "Mr. Goodwin" as. one to
whom he was much indebted for religious counsel during his College course. Thomas Goodwin,
who " was, in many respects, the greatest divine
among them all"2 in the Westminster Assembly,
was lecturer at Trinity before Dr. Preston, and
was afterwards made President of Magdalen College by Oliver Cromwell.
Among the contemporaries of Dunster at the
University, for at least a part of his course, were
Ralph Cudworth, author of The  True Intellectual System of the Universe, Henry More,
the Platonist, Joseph Mede, a learned commentator on the Apocalypse, John Pearson, afterwards
a bishop, and expositor of the Creed, Jeremy Taylor and John Milton; the last of whom was two
years in advance of Dunster, but, as he remained
three years after his graduation, studying for his
second degree, the two may have spent four years
1 Page 263.      2 Stoughton.




Life of Henry Dunster.            I3
together at the University. It is not unlikely,
also, that Dunster prosecuted, as a resident graduate, those Oriental studies which gained him a
high reputation even before he left his native
land. It is worthy of note, that John Harvard,
who was afterwards a generous benefactor of the
New-England Cambridge, spent more than two
years of his University course with one who became its first President, the former having entered
Emmanuel College in 1628, the latter, Magdalen
College, in 1626.
Cotton Mather speaks of Mr. Dunster as having exercised his ministry in England. It is probable that, like most of the early Puritan ministers
of New England, he had taken orders in the Established Church, and that he retained that connection till after his arrival in the New World.
In his Confession of Faith,l he says: " The Lord
hath made me bid adieu to all worldly treasures;
and, as corruptions in the Church came, first I
began to suspect them, then to hate them." To
which he adds: "So, after io years' trouble, I
came hither [to New England]; and the Lord
gives me peace to see the order of his people."
1 Page 265.
2




i4       Life of Henry Dunster.
In two letters  of his, which have been preserved, written from New England, one to Mr.
Alt, a Church of England minister, at Bury, and
the other to "Christian friends in and about
Bury," Mr. Dunster forcibly argues the right of
separation from a corrupt church for the purpose
of forming, or uniting with, a purer body. These
letters would appear to be in part a vindication
of his own conduct and that of his New England
brethren, in seceding from the Episcopal Church.
Referring to Mr. Alt's arguments, in reply probably to a letter from him, Mr. Dunster says:
"It's a glorious church, say you. Whence, I pray
you, was it gathered, out of the Church of Rome,
or else yet it stands in it? If it stand yet in it,
then it is one of the daughters of the great
whore, pudet haec opprobria nobis, et dici potuisse
refelli. No; the Church of England is gathered
out of Rome.  Come out of her, my people. Go
to then, behold a church gathered out of a
church.... But why should we gather a church
out of the English Church?  I pray you, Sir,
where hath Christ constituted a church of that
form?  Where's the national ministry, temple
1 Pages 276-280.




Life of Henry Dunster.           I5
&c.? If you will find this, you have the verity,
we the vanity. If congregations be the visible
churches of Christ, we have the day in that respect."
In the other letter, addressed, we infer, to
friends, some in, and some separated from, the
Church of England, he says: " If any that utter
big and bitter invectives against the Congregational way, can convince any members of the same
that they have separated themselves from the
saints and people of God, that they may live profanely, unrighteously, luxuriantly and wantonly
&c., or to any other end that is contrary to sound
doctrine, I think they shall do well to admonish
them by the Word of the Lord, which they have
transgressed. But if they have only withdrawn
themselves from [the] communion of, and communicating with, the dark, profane and scandalous
world, that lieth in that Evil One, I John v. I9;
that knoweth not Christ, nor hath received his
Spirit, that they may live together in holy communion with Christ and his people in all his instituted ordinances, then I say, whosoever condemn these people, Christ's word will justify
them to and before all his true churches in the




16       Life of Henry Dunster.
world. And his Spirit will speak peace to their
spirits whoever have so done in sincerity, as unto
sons and daughters of the Living God. Glorious,
I confess, and forever honorable to those instruments of Christ, is that passage in the 33d page
of the Vindication of the Army's Declaration
against the Scots' Reply:'Give us leave to ask
you of Scotland, who alone would seem  to be
the true Reformers, whether we have any [n]ational sins, as the compulsive joining of the precious with the vile in the administration of the
seals of the covenant of grace, or the corrupt and
horrible constitution  of the matter of your
churches, making them up of people grossly ignorant and very scandalous &c.'"
Yet with all this Puritanic strictness, his noble
charity shines out in the following passage from
this same letter: " Yet truly all your letters speak
such plain and candid expressions of your single,
sincere hearts, that, for my part, I can, with every
good assurance in my own heart, believe Christ
Jesus hath gathered you all in one and the same
church mystical and spiritual, even into that body
whereof he is the head, in whom, if you lovingly
strive together in faith and love, then for out



Life of Henry Dunster.            17
ward  administrations  bear kindly  one with
another, where you cannot by the Word of the
Lord clearly convince your brother of sin."
From  Mr. Dunster's "Christian Experience"
we learn that after leaving the University, he
spent some time, probably before engaging, or
fully so, in the ministry, in teaching school.
2*     1 Page 263.




8        Life of Henry Dunster.
CHAPTER  II.
T HOSE  were troublous times, and  big
with great events, when Mr. Dunster left
England. Charles I. with Strafford as lord-lieutenant and archbishop Laud as chief-inquisitor,
was seeking to compel uniformity to the Established  Church, in its semi-popish character.
Then flourished the Council Table, Star Chamber and High Commission, infamous engines for
crushing out the liberties of England. Non-conforming Protestants were the victims of intolerable oppression, so that in twelve years of Laud's
administration four thousand persons emigrated
to America, among whom were many eminent
Puritan divines. "The sun," said they, "shines
as pleasantly on America as on England, and
the Sun of Righteousness much more clearly.
The Church of England has added to the ceremonies and habits of Popery the only marks of




Life of Henry Dunster.           19
Antichrist which were wanting, corruption of
doctrine and serious persecution of her members.
Let us move whither the Providence of God calls,
and make that our country which will afford us
what is dearer to us than our property or our
lives, the liberty of worshipping God in a way
which appears to us most conducive to our eternal welfare."
It had been the plan of Elizabeth to get rid of
Puritanism by expelling dissentients from the
kingdom, but another policy was adopted by
Charles, who issued a proclamation forbidding
emigration to New England except by special
license; and, because "such ministers as are
not conformable to the discipline and ceremonies
of the Church do frequently transport themselves
to the plantations, where they take liberty to nourish their factious and schismatical humours," it
was ordered, that no clergyman should be suffered to go without a testimonial from the archbishop of Canterbury, and the bishop of London.
"The people of New England," said the king,
" are factious and unworthy of our support."
But in spite of these orders, not a few nonconformists escaped to the New World; though




20         Life of Henry Dunsfer.
the emigration in I639 and I640 was very much
below that of previous years.
The  letter alluded to above, written  to  Mr.
Dunster from his father,* and fortunately rescued from oblivion "after it had long been given
up for lost," refers to various events which had recently taken place in the mother country, and
which were the prelude to the Civil War that
overthrew   the  monarchy  and  established  the
Puritan Commonwealth.  The attempt of Charles
to impose Episcopacy upon the Scotch had roused
them to an armed resistance, which led to the
invasion of England and the possession of the
town of Newcastle, in the year I640, followed in
November of the same year, by the assembling
of the Long Parliament, the impeachment and
* In the year I852, this interesting document was presented
by Miss Hannah Dunster, of Pembroke, Mass., a daughter of
Rev. Isaiah Dunster, of Harwich, Mass., great-grandson of the
president, to Edward S. Dunster, then a student in Harvard
College. Miss Dunster was then 84 years of age. The letter
was copied by Rev. Samuel Sewall, of Burlington, Mass., a connection of the family by marriage, and, with other " Dunster
Papers," was published in the Massachusetts Histor. Collections (IV. series, vol. ii.). The original, with other papers and
relics of President Dunster, is now in the possession of Mr.
Samuel Dunster of Attleboro', Mass.




Lzfe of Henry Dunster.             21
execution of Laud and Strafford and the beheading of the king.  It was this same year that
Oliver Cromwell, then forty years of age, was
elected to Parliament from  Cambridge.  The
Prince of Wales, afterwards Charles II., was then
ten years old.
LETTER.
Grace, mercy and  peace  be  multiplied in
Christ Jesus upon you. Amen.
Kind and loving sons, I am very glad of your
welfare and good prosperity. I have received
four letters from you since you arrived in New
England, the first dated the I7th of August, by
Robert Haworth, of Boulton, the second dated
the 2ISt of August, both which came to my hand
in seven weeks after you sent them. The red
wheat I received, but the Indian wampem pegs 1
were lost out of your letter.  The third was
dated the 29th of October, which I received on
Christmas eve, with a letter of Richard's enclosed in the same; the last dated the I2th of
1 Wampum peaque - Indian money, then and long after current among the English. To the time of the American Revolution of I775, a peag or peaque was valued as the sixth part of a
penny. Drake. Hist. of Boston.




22        Life of Henry lDunster.
October, which I received of one Millus, that had
been with you in New England, who lodged with
me about mid January, but it seems it should
have come by Colier.  Your sisters remember
their loves unto you both, but you must not expect them so long as your mother and I do live.'
Your brother Thomas remembers his love, and
hath sent you two dozen of almanacks; but now
he is a widower, for both wife and children are
dead since Michaelmas.  I pray God he take
good ways.  I do not know of any that you sent
for that entend to come as yet. Touching Richard, I would advise him not to come over again
as yet, for whatsoever is his due shall be left in
the hands of his sisters, for I have taken a general acquittance of Robert, so that Richard and
his sisters may have what we two old folk leave,
and we will make no waste.  Now  concerning
our England, since you went over we have been
sore troubled, for the Scotts came into England
1 Willard (Willard Memoir, p. 363, n.) supposes that the parents must have died soon after the date of this letter, and that
Elisabeth (and probably another sister) left England immediately after their death, reaching New England as early as
May, I64I.




Life of Henry Dunster.            23
a month fore Michaelmas, and came to Tyne
water, where some of our troopers lay. The
Scotts proffered to come over, and our men withstood them for a while, but ours being but 500
were not able to withstand thirty thousand, but
fled amain, insomuch as one Constable, a gentleman of a company, cried to his band, Ride,
thieves, ride for your lives: and he himself, for
his part, rode so fast that he lost his cap, and
missed it not of riding two miles. Then the
Scotts came pedentim  towards Newcastle in
some 2 or 3 days, where they yielded the town
immediately. Then was England in a fright, for
they did not know what to do. But at last all
the freeholders and trained band were called together, every hundred by itself, and trained for a
fortnight together, so that upon the eighth of
September, being Bury Fair, there was at Bury
40 thousand with such weapons as they could
get, and those that had no better, took everyone
a great club, and it was called club fair at Bury,
and all the provision for the fair was eaten up
that day, so that the 800 which trained there
were scanted for a fortnight after of victuals.
The butchers and alewives 1 made a gain of them.
1 Women who kept alehouses.




24          Life of Henry Dunster.
Then great troops of soldiers were sent into
Yorkshire, and it was thought that there would
have been some battle speedily, but the Lord
turned all to peace, and a Parliament 1 was called,
which began the 3d of November, and they go
on very joyfully. God be praised for the same.
And the Scotts are to remove from Newcastle
before the 25th of March, and they must receive
300 thousand pounds to bring them home again.
Now for our great men of England, the most of
them are proved traitors. First, Lord Deputy
of Ireland2 and the archbishop of Canterbury3
and the great Judges. The rest of the bishops
are found in a premunire 4 except the bishop of
1 The Long Parliament.    2 Strafford.    3 Laud.
4 In order to prevent the pope from assuming the supremacy
in granting ecclesiastical livings, a number of statutes were made
in England during the reign of Edward I., and his successors,
punishing certain acts of submission to the papal authority. In
the writ for the execution of these statutes, the words praemunirefacias, being used to command a citation of the party, gave
not only to the writ, but to the offence itself, of maintaining the
papal power, the name of praemunire. Bouvier. Law Dictionary.
The Puritan party, when in the ascendant, availed themselves
of these statutes against the adherents of Charles and the Church
party.




Life of Henry Dunster.                     25
Lincoln,l who  is supposed  to be in the Parliament house. All the rest are excluded. Finch,
the lord-keeper, is fled. Wyndebanck, the king's 2
chief secretary, is fled. The bishop Wren 3 had
thought to have flown, but his wings were too
short.    All  non-conformists  are  suffered  to
preach, and our altars are some of them pulled
up, surplice and communion books some torn,
the communion-tables  brought down  into  the
body of the  church.  Burton  and  Prynne4 are
1 Dr. John Williams.            2 Charles I.
3 Wren, bishop of Norwich, had been chaplain to Charles I.
Being suspected of treason by the parliamentary party, he was
thrown into prison during the period of the Civil War, where he
lay eighteen years. Under Charles II. he regained his bishoprick.
4 Henry Burton, a Puritan clergyman, strongly opposed the
proceedings of Laud. For preaching what were regarded as
seditious sermons, he was, in 1637, condemned by the Star Chamber to a fine of ~5,000, to have his ears cut off, and to be imprisoned. In 1640, the Long Parliament restored him to liberty and
his "living."
William Prynne, a lawyer, also rendered himself obnoxious
to Laud, and was sentenced to the pillory, a heavy fine, the loss
of his ears, to be branded on the forehead, and imprisoned for
life. The year I640 brought his release, and a place in the parliament. Both of these men were " escorted into London by a
calvacade of 5,000 men and women decked with rosemary and
bags."  See May's History of the Long Parliament.
3




26       Life of Henry Dunsler.
brought into the parliament-house with great
respect, and were met out of the city with 200
coaches in triumph, so that the king did take it
somewhat harshly, and said so many did not meet
him when he came from  York from  quieting
the Scotts. Many petitions are proffered into
the Parliament against idle, drunken ministers
and against double beneficed parsons, and suit
made that all chapels shall be relieved out of
church livings. Your sister Elisabeth is turned
scribe, and can do very well of three weeks' time.
I pray you give Richard good counsel, and be the
means to train him up in goodness, and make
much of each other, for it repenteth me very sore
of my life heretofore spent in idle company, and
I thank God heartily, that prolonged my life to
see my errors and folly.
The old lady Ashton and Mr. Rawsthorns have
died within two hours together upon Wednesday afore Candlemas, and were buried at Bury
both in one grave upon the Monday following.
The papists had conspired with the Deputy of
Ireland' to set fighting in the north parts that
1 Strafford.




Life of Henry Dunster.               27
they might have begun in the South where they
should have had aid out of Ireland, and the Spaniard lay watching upon the seas likewise to
have aided them, but the Hollanders meeting
with them, gave them a great stroke and scattered them sore, so that we may well say, that
men purposseth but God disposeth.  My Lord
Saye and my Lord Brooke  are sworn of the
king's privy counsel, whose lives the bishops had
meant to have taken away. Not long since your
old friend Doctor Cossins for his honesty is put
in the cage to see if he can sing well or no. All
the monopolies for licenses are disannulled, so
that every man may buy and sell at their pleasure without control.  We have gotten old Mr.
Horocks to be lecturer at Bury every Thursday.
He began afore Christmas, and hath promised
for a twelvemonth, if God spare his health and
ability. Mr. Ashton of Middleton is one of the
knights for the Parliament, who hath with him
1 Lord Say and Sele and Lord Brook were both of them distinguished for worth of character, and were deeply interested in
the settlement of New England. At one time they proposed to
emigrate to America. At the restoration, under Charles II.,
Lord Say became Keeper of the Privy Seal.




28         Life of Henry Dunster.
for advise and counsel your friend old Mr. Rathband, who hath been with him since it began.
The Scotts, as soon as they came to Newcastle, sang the 74th psalm:'Why art thou, Lord,
so long from  us,'" &c.   Many great men  are
thought to  be faulty, as I writ afore.   Thus
committing you both to the protection of the
Almighty, I rest,
Your loving father,
HENRYE DUNSTER.
From   Balehout this  20th  of March, I640
[ 640-I].2
The writer was evidently in warm sympathy
with the party which aimed at the most thorough reformation in civil and religious affairs.
His son Henry was of the same mind.  He was
opposed to Charles, the monarchy, and the national Church, and to the Presbyterian party,
1 Sternhold and Hopkins' version.
2 According to " Old Style," which continued in use in New
England till the year 1752, the year began in March. To prevent any doubt whether January, February and a part of March
ended the old year or began the new, it was customary to date
as in the text - "20th of March, 1640-I."  There is no difference as to the year between the two Styles, after the 25th of
March.




Life of Henry Dunster.            29
which sought to establish a national Church, after
the Scottish pattern, as indeed it actually did for
a brief period. " A reformation of the Scottish
edition," wrote Mr. Dunster,l some time after his
arrival in America, "it [will] leave you in deep
distress, inward and outward."  "National and
provincial churches are nullities ini rerus natmra,
since the dissolution of that of the Jews." " For
the monarchy, man's wickedness as the meritorious cause, and God's providence and mighty
hand as the efficient cause hath dissolved [it].
The nation then is free from it.... No man's
oath tieth him to what is not. If the people and
nation be free from monarchy, the question is,
what form  they should set up? And what, I
pray you, but that which is most suitable to the
matter?  I say, to the form which is most suitable to the matter; which the nation itself by
their faithful representatives, being pious and
prudent men, can best judge of."
Here the republican doctrine of the right of
the people to choose their own form of government and their own rulers, is clearly stated.
Whether he had yet rid himself of the doctrine,
1 Page 286.
3*




30       Lzfe of Henry Dunsler.
which  most unfortunately and inconsistently
then characterized the Puritans of Old and New
England, that the civil arm was bound to support
the church, we have no means of knowing.  If
he accepted this opinion, such a liberal mind
as his could  not long  retain  it.  In  religious matters, he certainly recognized the supremacy of Jesus Christ, as head of the church,
against all human authority. Referring to certain sermons preached by Mr. Shepard, he said:
"But I list not to stay to justify any phrases
of men. That vanity (blessed be the Lord) is
well blasted, of human authority in the church of
Christ, where this canon is received, [viz.]'This
is my beloved Son, hear him,' whom the Father
hath sent to be head of the church. To whom
who will not hearken, the Lord require it of
them." 1 The subsequent career of one so catholic and progressive in his spirit need not be a
matter of surprise. How could he do otherwise
than claim for himself and all others, the Quakers, for instance, the right of private judgment?
1 Page 278.




Life of Henry Dunster.             31
CHAPTER  III.
-
IM       R. DUNSTER  arrived in Boston "toward the latter end of this summer," 
that of 1640. For a short time, he resided in
Boston, " on his own estate, at the North East
corner of Court Street and Washington Street." 2
Boston, now a city of 240,000 inhabitants, was
then only a village, the peninsula on which it was
originally built comprising but 700 acres. In I634,
Wood, in his Description of Massachusetts, gave
this record of his impressions of the place: Its
"situation is very pleasant, being a peninsula
hemmed in on the South side with the bay of
Roxberry, on the North side with Charles River,
the marshes on the back side being not half of a
quarter of a mile over; so that a little fencing
will secure the cattle from the wolves. It being
a neck, and bare of wood, they are not troubled
1 Wonder-Working Providence, p. I62.  2 Whitman.




32         Life of Henry Dunster.
with three great annoyances, of wolves, rattlesnakes and mosquitoes." In I638, it was said to
be "rather a village than a town, consisting of
no more than twenty or thirty houses." Thirtyfive years after Mr. Dunster's arrival, it had
4,000 inhabitants.
In I643, in the four Confederated Colonies,
there was a population of about 24,000, of whom
I5,ooo were in  Massachusetts, 3,000  each  in
Plymouth and Connecticut, and 2,500  in New
Haven.2  In Massachusetts there were twentysix towns, and 1,708 persons entitled to the franchise; which agrees with the statement of Lechford, in 1640, that about one fourth of the people
of Massachusetts were at that time in the church,
less than one eighth therefore having the privileges of freemen.
1 In 1643, these Colonies formed a league "for mutual help
and strength," under the name of " The United Colonies of New
England."  Two Commissioners were to be chosen from each
of the Colonies, to meet annually either at Boston, Hartford,
New Haven, or Plymouth. This Confederation was a sort of
Congress, though for the most part only advisory. It lasted
forty-one years. Rhode Island, for obvious reasons, was not
allowed a place in the Confederacy.
2 Palfrey. Hist. of N. England, I.




Life of Henry Dunster.                 33
In I640, there were twenty-nine churches in
Massachusetts and  Plymouth, to which fifteen
more were added during the next ten years.
Though Boston at that time was numerically
an inconsiderable place, yet it had an enterprising  population.   About  this  period,  chiefly
through the influence of the famous Hugh Peter,
six large vessels were built, and a commerce was
carried on not only with the mother country, but
with Madeira, the Canaries, Spain &c., staves,
and codfish being exchanged for wines, sugar,
and dried fruit.l Hemp and flax were already
cultivated, and the manufacture of linen, woollen
and cotton cloths had been commenced in the
Colony.
In I640, there was but a solitary lawyer in
Massachusetts, probably in all New England,2
Thomas Lechford  of Lincoln's  Inn, who had
1 Hildreth. Hist. of the United States, I.
2 The General Court, in 1639, took Mr. Lechford in hand
"for going to a jewry and pleading with them out of Court;" for
which he was " debarred from pleading any man's cause hereafter,
unless his owne, and admonished not to presume to meddle beyond what he shall be called to by the Court." A little after,
having " acknowledged [such is the Court record] he had overshot himself, and was sorry for it, promising to attend his calling,




34         Life of Henry Dunster.
come to try his fortune in Boston; and so extreme was the prejudice against his profession,
that after an uncomfortable residence of three
years among an  unappreciating  people, he  returned, in the year I64I, in disgust, to his native
England, where lawyers were  more  respected.
What was said  by John  Rogers, a graduate of
Harvard  College  under  Mr. Dunster, and  its
President in I683, about the "incredible wickedness of that profession," expressed the opinion
prevalent among our Puritan fathers. As late as
and not to meddle with controversies," he "was dismissed."
Mass. Col. Records, I. 270, 310.
In the Plymouth Colony there were no lawyers for many
years. For a time the General Court was the only Court,
and the Governor and Assistants tried most of the cases during
the whole history of the Colony. They discarded all the cumbersome forms in use at that time in England, and adopted such
forms as their own good sense dictated. Punishments were
often left to the discretion of the Court. For some years their
deeds of lands were neither signed nor sealed; but an acknowledgment of the sale was made before a magistrate, who made a
memorandum of it. It was not till 1671 that the law expressly
authorized any party to employ one or two attorneys on his case,
but on the express condition that they should do nothing "to
deceive the Court, or to darken the case."   The Colony of
New Plymouth &c. William Brigham.




Life of Henry Dunster.                    35
I687, fifty-nine years after the settlement of Boston, that town, and probably the Colony, had but
two lawyers. Had it been revealed to our pious
ancestors, that, two hundred years later, in Boston alone, the two should be multiplied to eight
hundred, they would have proclaimed a fast and
arrayed themselves in sackcloth, in view of the
coming calamity.
But what the society of Boston and vicinity
lacked in gentlemen of the bar, it more than
made up in able and learned ministers. In I640,
over the one church  of Boston were two eminent preachers, John Cotton,l then fifty-five, and
1 Cotton had been a pastor in Boston, England, before coming to Boston in New England. " Its ancient church of St. Botolph was," says Palfrey, "perhaps the most stately parish
church in England, a cathedral in size and beauty. It was from
this superb temple that John Cotton came to preach the gospel
within the mud walls and under the thatched roof of the meeting
house in a rude New England hamlet."  Hist. N. E. I. 368.
Hubbard, a graduate of Harvard College, in 1642, and author
of a History of New England down to I680, says of Mr. Cotton,
that " he had such an insinuating and melting way in his preaching that he would usually carry his very adversary captive after
the triumphant chariot of his rhetoric." He was called the
"father of Congregationalism," and was more influential than
any other man, in establishing the New England theocracy.




36         Life of Henry  Dunsler.
John Wilson fifty-two, both Cambridge graduates,
and "the most powerful of [the] ecclesiastical
leaders" of New England; the former, according
to the custom of that day, the Teacher of the
church, the other its Pastor, a distinction doubtless quite without a difference. Thomas Shepardl "a poore, weake, pale-complectioned man,"
but a "gratious, sweete, heavenly-minded, and
soul-ravishing minister," then thirty-five, was settled at Cambridge.  The future " apostle to the
Indians," John Eliot, at the age.of thirty-six, was
pastor at Roxbury, and already forecasting his
work among the natives of the forest. Richard
Mather, from  Oxford, the father of Increase
Mather, afterward President of the College, and
grandfather of Cotton Mather -himself to be, a
few years later, the principal author of the Cambridge Platform, the authoritative creed of the
churches, was now, at the age of forty-four, pastor
1 Thomas Fuller (Hist. Cambridge University, Eng.) classes
Shepard among "the learned writers of Emmanuel College."
His works were greatly esteemed by President Edwards, who
styled him " that famous experimental divine." He died at the
age of 44. John Quincy Adams was a descendant in the sixth
generation from Mr. Shepard.  Young's Chron. of Mass. p.
558, note.




Life of Henry Dunster.           37
at Dorchester. John Norton, at the age of thirty-four was preaching in Ipswich, awaiting his
transfer to Boston; a strong preacher, but of a
"melancholy temperament" and an intolerant
spirit. The same town was also the abode of
Nathaniel Ward, formerly a lawyer, now a preacher, author of that humorous but abusive work
against religious toleration, The Simple Cobbler of
Agawam, and of the Body of Liberties, the basis
of Massachusetts legislation in its early days.
Nearer, in Salem, was that singular man, Hugh
Peter, preacher, politician, and political-economist, "the father of New  England commerce,
and the founder of her fisheries." At the same
place was Edward Norris, a man of very different
stamp, devoted to his pastoral work, of " distinguished learning and influence," and specially to
be remembered for that tolerant spirit, alas, so
rare in his day, which kept him from taking part
in the proceedings against the Baptists. To these
we might add other influential names.
Thus Mr. Dunster found himself in the midst
of a circle of cultivated men, trained in the English Universities, who had come to the western
wilderness to found a religious Commonwealth.
4




38       Life of Henry Dunster.
"There were probably at that time forty or fifty
sons of the [English] University of Cambridge 
one for every two hundred or two hundred and
fifty inhabitants - dwelling in the few villages
of Massachusetts and Connecticut. The sons of
Oxford were not few." 1 Governor Hutchinson 
says, "The reputation of the New England clergy had been for some time very great in England, and the opinions of Mr. Cotton, Mr. Hooker, Mr. Davenport and others, are cited as authorities by many English divines." Nathaniel
Mather,3 a brother of Increase, who, after his
graduation at Harvard College, went to England
to reside, wrote as follows, about the year I650:
"'Tis incredible what an advantage to preferment it is to have been a New Englishman."
One man, in some respects of congenial spirit
with Dunster, was not now in Massachusetts.
Four years before, Roger Williams, a graduate
of Cambridge, had been banished into the wilderness, and was now, at the age of forty-one,
building up his little republic at Providence, upon
1 Savage. Note to Winthrop's Journal, 265.
2 History of Massachusetts.
3 IV. Hist. Col. viii. 3.




Life of Henry Dunster.    39
the sacred principle, avowed anew this very year,
of " holding forth liberty of conscience."
But another great man, between whom  and
Williams there subsisted a friendship which the
banishment of the latter could not sunder, and
who, in his later years, regretted the part he had
taken against the religious rights of his fellowChristians of another name, contrary to the better instincts of his nature, -John Winthrop,l
first governor of Massachusetts, was still living,
at the age of fifty-four. Thomas Dudley was that
year (I640) chosen Governor, and Richard Bellingham, Deputy Governor, able men, but severe
towards dissenters from the established church.
Endicott and Bradstreet, afterwards chief magistrates, and also stern toward " heretics," were now
in the Colony.
1 Hutchinson (Hist. of Massachusetts I. 142) says, "that
upon his [Winthrop's] death bed, when Mr. Dudley pressed
him to sign an order of banishment of an heterodox person, he
refused, saying,' I have done too much of that work already.'"
In a letter to John Winthrop Jr., the accomplished son of
the Governor of Massachusetts, Roger Williams shows the characteristic magnanimity of his nature, when he says that he " ever
honored and loved and ever shall the root and branches of your
deare name." Hist. Col. Winthrop Papers.




40         Life of Henry Dunster.
It was of these and such as these that Chalmers wrote as follows: "The principal planters
of Massachusetts were English country gentlemen of no inconsiderable fortunes; of enlarged
understandings, improved by liberal education."
In the sister Colony of the Pilgrims, " Elder"
Brewster, a patient and loving spirit, was still
living, at the age of fourscore; Bradford was
Governor; and Prince and Winslow, Cudwor h
and Hatherly, the last two noble champions of
religious freedom, Miles Standish, the valorous
captain, and John Alden, his traditional rival,
were now  among the leading men of that part
of New   England.   In  Connecticut,  Edward
Hopkins, who  afterwards, having  returned  to
England to take part in the great contest for freedom, became member of Parliament, and Com1 Quincy (I. i68) speaks of him as one of the noblest benefactors of the College, and as a "lofty and intellectual spirit." In
his will, he left a thousand pounds to institutions in Connecticut,
for the promotion of religion, science or charity, and five hundred pounds for the benefit of Harvard College, or its vicinity.
"After an unceasing flow of annual benefits for more than a century, his bounty now exists on a foundation of productive and
well-secured capital, amounting nearly to thirty tnuusad dollars."




Life of Henry Dunster.           41
missioner for the Navy and Admiralty, was now
Governor, and John Haynes, five years before
Governor of Massachusetts, was Deputy Governor. We refer to these prominent men in the
different Colonies, as persons with whom Mr.
Dunster was now for a series of years to come in
contact, either socially, or as President of the
only College in New England.
At this time there were probably about 50,000
Indians within the limits of New England, a few
thousands of whom  were in  Massachusetts;
some, as the friendly tribe at Newtown and Natick, in the close vicinity of the whites, while
others, more remote, were threatening the peace
of the Colony. This very year, I640, Miantonomo, the great Narragansett chief, afterwards condemned to an unhappy fate which he did not
deserve, came to Boston to talk with the Governor.
The great Antinomian controversy, in which
Mrs. Anne Hutchinson was the central figure,
had been terminated three years before by her
banishment, and peace restored to the churches.
Another trouble to our Puritan fathers was
1 "A gentleman of large estate in England." Arnold.




42       Life of Henry Dunsler.
now beginning to loom up, - the " Anabaptist"
heresy, as it was deemed. Among the first settlers, according to Cotton Mather, there were
persons holding anabaptist sentiments, but they
had given little trouble to the Puritan churches.
Now, however, the distemper was beginning to
assume a more alarming aspect, and to attract
the special attention of the guardians of the
established religion. In I640, Lady. Deborah
Moody, a person of noble family and of heroic
character, whom Winthrop I styled "an anciently
religious woman," came to Massachusetts, and
united with the church at Salem; but the same
year, she, with several others, became infected
with the anabaptist doctrine. Being, three years
after, excommunicated, she found it convenient
to emigrate to Long Island, where she was disappointed in not finding a more tolerant government than she had fled from. Other indications
of the spread of this heresy created much uneasiness.
We have stated that Mr. Dunster, for a short
time, after his arrival, resided in Boston. It is
somewhat singular that the name Dunster, just
1 Journal.




Life of Henry Dunster.           43
at that time, appears on the roll of members of
the Boston Artillery Company, now The Ancient
and Honorable Artillery Company, which was
formed in I639-the  oldest regular military
organization in America. The historian of the
Company 1 has prefixed Henry to the surname,
which is probably correct. It is certain that at
that day the most religious men did not deem it
unbecoming their sacred profession to take an
active part in military affairs. It is stated that
Rev. Mr. Cotton, of Boston,2 was so much impressed with the importance of a strong military
force, that he gave a thousand pounds for the
purchase of cannon. Indeed, under the circumstances of the times, such a course was a necessity. The field exercises were opened and closed
by prayer.  Robert Keayne, "an ancient professor of the gospel," was the first captain of the
above Company.  Captain Johnson, author of
Wonder- WItorking Providence, and very zealous
in religious matters, was a member, at this time.
"See," said he, "that with all diligence you encourage every soldier-like spirit among you, for
the Lord Christ intends to achieve greater mat1 Whitman.    2 Dearborn. Boston Notions.




44       Life of Henry Dunster.
ters by this little handful than the world is aware
of." Another member, also in fellowship with
the church in Boston, was Nicolas Upsal,' the
brave man, who, afterwards, in 1656, then sixty
years of age, when the cruel law enacted that year
by the General Court against the Quakers, was
proclaimed with beat of drum through the streets
of Boston, came forth from his house, and openly
warned the government, "that the execution of
this law would be the forerunner of judgments
on the land," beseeching them to beware what
they did, " lest they might be found among those
who were fighting against God " a manly,
Christian protest, which brought upon him swift
punishment in the shape of a fine of twenty
pounds and banishment from the Colony.
1 Uhden's New England Theocracy, translated by Mrs. H.
C. Conant.




L~fe of Henry Dunster.          45
CHAPTER IV.
M      R. DUNSTER'S residence in Boston was
very brief, for in August of the same year,
which must have been almost immediately upon
his arrival, he was called by the elders, ministers
and magistrates, almost by " acclamation," to remove to Cambridge, to engage in what proved to
be his great life-work, as President of the College.
The work was an arduous one, but it was doubtless congenial with his scholarly tastes, as well as
answerable to his more sacred ambition to be useful in the kingdom of Christ; and he entered upon his task as a work of love and duty. The circumnstances under which he undertook it must
have seemed to him as the finger of Providence,
and have made him feel that he had been led
here for a high purpose, welcomed so cordially, as
he was, by the leading men of the Colony, in
1 Chap. III. page 31.




46       Life of Henry Dunster.
Church and State, and conducted immediately to
a post, just made vacant, which all regarded as
one of peculiar responsibility and dignity.
It is the testimony of his contemporaries,
which later writers have unanimously indorsed,
that Mr. Dunster brought to his work qualifications of no ordinary character.  He was a profound scholar, especially in the Oriental languages, and an attractive preacher, and seemed
to happily combine, as we gather from his subsequent career, decision of character with suavity
of disposition.  He was not a literary recluse,
but put himself in sympathy with the great enterprise which had brought so many others to
New England, the building up a Christian commonwealth. The men of that period were inspired
by a noble enthusiasm, and Mr. Dunster was one
with them in spirit, only that he proved himself
to be in one great respect far superior to the majority of his contemporaries. Captain Johnson
gave the opinion generally entertained of him,
when in quaint prose and execrable poetry he
said, at a little later period: " Mr. Henry Dunster is now President of this Colledge, fitted from
the Lord for the work, and by those that have




Life of Henry Dunsler.               47
skill that way, reported to be an able Proficient
in both Hebrew, Greek and Latine languages, an
Orthodox Preacher of the truths of Christ, very
powerful through his blessing to move the affections...   But seeing the Lord hath been pleased
to raise up so worthy an instrument for their
good, he shall not want for incouragement to go
on with the work, so far as a rusticall rime shall
reach.
Could man presage prodigious works at hand,
Provide he would for's good and ill prevent,
But God both time and means hath at's command,
Dunster in time to his New England hath sent.
When England'gan to keep at home their guides,
New England began to pay their borrowed back,
Industrious Dunster, Providence provides,
Our friends supply, and yet ourselves no lack.""
Rev. Thomas Shepard, pastor at Cambridge
during the first nine years of Mr. Dunster's administration, speaks of him as "a man pious,
painful, and fit to teach, and very fit to lay the
foundations of the domesticall affairs of the Col1 Alluding to gentlemen in England having sent their sons
to New England to be educated at Cambridge.
2 Wonder-Working Providence.




48        Life of Henry Dunster.
lege;  whom  God  hath  much  honored  and
blessed." 1 The following passage in a letter
from Mr. Shepard to John Winthrop shows in
what esteem he held Mr. Dunster's judgment and
learning: "Your apprehensions agaynst reading and learning heathen authors, I perswade
myselfe were suddenly suggested, and will easily
be answered by H. Dunstar, if you should impart
them to him." 2
One of his successors in office, also an historian of the College, Josiah Quincy, well expresses
the sentiment of our day, when he says: " Among
the early friends of the College, no one deserves
more distinct notice than Henry Dunster. He
united in himself the character of both patron
and President; for, poor as he was, he contributed, at a time of its utmost need, one hundred
acres of land [in Shawsin, now Billerica] towards
its support; besides rendering to it, for a succession of years, a series of official services, well
directed, unwearied, and altogether inestimable." 3
Again he speaks of him as having " never omit1 Mem. &c. Young's Chronicles of Mass. 552,
2 IV. Hist. Col. VII.
3 Hist. Harvard University, I.




Life of Henry Dunsler.            49
ted any opportunity to be useful to the College,"
and as having "possessed a gentle heart and a
noble vein of Christian charity." With reference to Dunster and his successor Chauncy, he
says: " Both were able, faithful and earnest....
Both were learned beyond the measure of their
contemporaries; and probably, in this respect,
were surpassed by no one who has since succeeded to their chair."  "President Dunster," says
Peirce, an earlier historian of the College, "was
a truly worthy, as well as an eminently learned
man."  Palfrey speaks of him  as "the learned
and excellent Mr. Dunster," of "eminent worth
and accomplishments," under whose administration " a new era was inaugurated."
Such was the man who undertook the task of
laying the foundations and moulding the character of the first College' on the American continent.
It was now only four years since the incipient
steps were taken in the General Court, by the appropriation of four hundred pounds, towards establishing an institution of learning. Says the
1 William and Mary College, Va., was founded.fifty years
later; Yale in I701.
5




50          Life of Henry Dunster.
author of New  England's First Fruits, published
in I643: " After God had carried us safe to New
England, and we had  builded  our houses, provided necessaries for our livelihood, reared convenient places for God's worship, and settled the
civil government;  one of the  next things we
longed for and looked after was to advance learning and perpetuate it to posterity; dreading to
leave an illiterate ministery to the Churches when
our present ministers shall lie in the dust." 1 The
College Seal, In  Christi Gloriam, and the  later
one which was substituted for it, Christo et Ecclesie,2 show  the  spirit and  main  design  of the
1 About the year 1652, the Second Church in Boston, having
failed to secure a pastor, called Mr. Powell, one of their own
number, to conduct their worship. His services were so acceptable, that they would have ordained him as their Teacher, had
not the General Court objected that he was " illiterate as to academical education," and was therefore specially unfit " in such
a place as Boston."  "If," they argued, "such men intrude
themselves into the sacred function, there is danger of bringing the
profession into contempt. If an exception should be made in the
case of Mr. Powell, by reason of his peculiar gifts, it might establish a dangerous precedent." Mass. Hist. Coll. Robbins' History of the Second Church.
2 In this connection the following sentiments uttered by President Stearns of Amherst College, and Hon. John H. Clifford,




Life of Henry Dunster.                     51
founders and friends of the College. It was to
be a " School of the Prophets," while at the same
time it was to promote the general interests of
learning.
The selection of Cambridge as the site of the
College, was not only because it was "a place
President of the Board of Overseers of Harvard College, will be
read with interest:
"Our old colleges were founded for Christian education, manhood and usefulness. Even the mottoes and devices of the college seals bear witness to the fact. The first and temporary seal
of Harvard contained three open Bibles, with a syllable of the
word Veritas upon each of them; its second temporary seal, the
same three Bibles, with the words In Christi gloriam: the words
which characterize its permanent and present seal are Christo et
Ecclesie. Yale has one open Bible, with the Hebrew words of
the high priest's breastplate, Urim and Thummim, inscribed in
Hebrew letters upon it, and the Latin words, LuA et Veritas,
around it, signifying, probably, that light and truth are to be obtained by inquiring of the Lord. Brown University has a red
cross on a white field between four open books, illuminated by a
sun rising amid clouds, bearing the motto, In Deo Speramus.
Dartmouth, established originally on the frontiers of our civilization, partly to educate converted natives, bears among other emblems the open book, the cross, a forest of Indians bending
towards a college building, with the words, Vox clamantis in deserto. Our own college exhibits on its seal an open Bible with a
full-orbed, unclouded sun pouring down upon its pages, and the
words beneath it, Terras irradient. Such was the design of




52         Life of Henry Dunster.
very pleasant and accommodate," but a stronghold of orthodoxy, it having been " kept spotless
from the contagion of the opinions," 1 i.e. " the
nearly all our American colleges, and such ought to be their mission. They set themselves up as the world's teachers: let them
take care, lest, by moral unsoundness or neglect, they become
the world's destroyers."
The words of Mr. Clifford were spoken at the inauguration
of President Eliot:
"In the progress of what is complacently called the'advanced thought of New England,' and it may be at no distant
day, there doubtless will be waged a conflict of opinion of the
highest import to the cause of truth and the welfare of the race.
" Whenever it comes, Harvard College can hold no subordinate place among the institutions of the country, in whose armories must be forged the weapons with which it will be fought.
Her friends can have no misgivings as to the position she will
occupy on such a field. Her great influence can never be arrayed on the side of those whose arrogant self-conceit can find
no higher object of worship than the pretentious intellect of man
- to-day, asserting its own omnipotence; to-morrow,'babbling of green fields,' as its possessor sinks beneath the turf that
covers them to mingle with his kindred clod; of those whose
misty speculations shut out the life-giving rays of the' Star of
Bethlehem,' and who, with puny but presumptuous hand,
would, 
"' hang a curtain on the East,
The daylight from the world to keep.'"
1 Mather's Magnalia, III. 87.




Life of Henry Dunster.            53
Antinomian and Familisticall errors," and being
favored with the " enlightened and powerful ministry" of Thomas Shepard..
The clergy of course rallied around the College,
giving it all their influence, which, at that period,
was very great, and what they could of their substance, which was necessarily small. The people
generally, if they had not enjoyed the advantages
of a liberal education, had sat under an educated
ministry, and were anxious to transmit the same
privileges to their posterity.  Hence we find
them making their offerings to the infant College,
some, of their abundance, the majority, of their
poverty. In I640, John Newgate of Boston made
a donation of "five pounds per annum forever,
towards the maintenance of lawfull, usefull, and
good literature therein, and chiefly to the furtherance of the knowledge of Jesus Christ, and his
word and will." Peirce, in his History of the College, speaks " of a number of sheep bequeathed
by one man, a quantity of cotton cloth worth nine
shillings presented by another, a pewter flagon
worth ten shillings by a third, a fruit-dish, a
sugar-spoon, a silver-tipt jug, one great salt, one
1 Thos. Shepard's Mem.
5*




54       Life of Henry Dunster.
small trencher-salt, by others; and of presents or
legacies amounting severally to five shillings, nine
shillings, one pound, two pounds &c.,"- showing
the liberal views and spirit of the people, even
when the colony was poor and struggling with
the stern experiences of a settlement in the wilderness.  "The earliest, the noblest, and the
purest tribute to religion and science, this western world had yet witnessed," was, says Quincy,
made in 1638, by John Harvard.




Life of Henry Dunster.              55
CHAPTER V.
O   N his removal to Cambridge, Mr. Dunster
united with Mr. Shepard's church, now
the First Church of Cambridge, at which time
he gave his Confession of faith and an account
of the "Lord's personal dealings" with his soul.
Except in one point, he was in full accord with
the church, and that difference was not deemed
a bar to fellowship. He held to the baptism of
infants, but that immersion had the preponderance of proof in its favor. He told the church,
however, that, as "there was something  for
sprinkling in the Scriptures, he should not be
offended when [it] was used." 1
In June of the next year (1641), he married
Mrs. Elisabeth Glover,2 the widow of Rev. Jesse
1 See pages o09 and 260.
2 This marriage resulted in a somewhat intimate connection
between the Dunster and Winthrop families, by the subsequent




56         Life of Henry Duns/er.
Glover,l who, in I638, had died on his passage
from  England.  There was  no issue from  this
union, but he became the guardian of Mr. Glover's five children, a trust which he seems to have
executed as " a kind and watchful parent, a faithful and considerate instructor."2  Mrs. Dunster
died in August, 1643, a little more than two years
after their marriage, and sometime the next year,
Mr. Dunster took a second wife, also named Elisabeth, a native of England, by whom he had five
children, three sons and two daughters, all of
whom  were born in Cambridge.  Mrs. Dunster
survived  her husband  more than thirty years,
dying at an advanced age in Cambridge.
Mr. Dunster became a freeman in I641, a privilege then limited to church-members, and we
marriage of two of Mrs. Glover's daughters to sons of Governor
Winthrop; and it was in this way, doubtless, that the latter's
"Christian Experience," given in Hon. Robert C. Winthrop's
" Life and Letters " (II. I65) of his illustrious ancestor, came into
Mr. Dunster's possession. The copy from the lost original, in
the " Dunster MS." in the Library of the Mass. Hist. Society, is
in the President's clear and beautiful handwriting. "The neatness of his copy," says Mr. Winthrop, "attests the interest
which he attached to it."
1 See page 91.       2 MS. of Mr. Harris.




Life of Henry Dunster.           57
occasionally meet with his name in connection
with various town and colonial affairs.
His pulpit services were very acceptable to the
churches, for "as a preacher of the truths of
Christ," he was, says Captain Johnston, "very
powerful through his blessing to move the affections;" and after the death of Mr. Shepard, in
I649, he was called to "supply" the church at
Cambridge until the election of a new pastor. In
1642, he was a member of a council of ministers
and other delegates convened at Woburn to constitute a church in that town; and sometime afterwards assisted at the ordination of a pastor
over the church.
Mr. Dunster took a deep interest in the conversion and education of the Indians. At the
time of the settlement of New England, they
probably numbered, within the Plymouth and
Massachusetts colonies, between eight and nine
thousand souls.' The Mayhews, father and son,
and John Eliot felt themselves specially called to
labor for the spiritual welfare of these savage
tribes, and not without remarkable results. By
the year 1674, within a period of thirty years,
1 Palfrey. Hist. New England, III. I37.




58       Life of Henry Dunster.
there were about 4,000 "praying Indians" in
New England, I,Ioo of whom were connected
with Mr. Eliot's congregations in Massachusetts.l
In I647, President Dunster,2 with other ministers, "besides many other Christians," went out
to Nonantum [Newton] to attend Mr. Eliot's Indian lecture, a scene of exceeding interest. Lechford, the Boston lawyer, had already, several years
before, spoken of Mr. Dunster's zeal in this missionary work: "Master Henry Dunster, schoolmaster of Cambridge, deserves commendations
above many; he hath the platform and way of
conversion of the natives indifferent right, and
much studies the same, wherein yet he wants
not opposition, as some other also have met
with: He will without doubt prove an instrument
of much good in the country, being a good scholar, and having skill in the tongues. He will
make it good that the way to instruct the Indians
must be in their own language, not English, and
that their language may be perfected." 
It was during his administration, that provision was made by the Commissioners of the Col1 I. Mass. Hist. Col. I.    2 Clear Sunshine &c.
3 Plain Dealing &c.




Life of Henry Dunster.           59
onies for the education, at Cambridge, of young
men "to be helpful in teaching such Indian children as should be taken into the College for that
end;" and in the second charter of the College,
obtained in I650, on his express petition, its object was declared to include "the education of
the English and Indian youth of this country in
knowledge and godliness." As the result in part,
no doubt, of his zealous efforts in this direction,
a brick building, called the Indian College, was
erected, in I665, within the college grounds.'
1 Peirce. Hist. Harvard College, p. 28.




60       Life of Henry Dunster.
CHAPTER VI.
OTTON MATHER' thus describes the
doings at Cambridge before Mr. Dunster's
election to the Presidency: " While these things
were a doing, a society of scholars to lodge in the
new nests were forming under the conduct of one
Mr. Nathaniel Eaton, a blade, who marvellously
deceived the expectations of good men concerning him; for he was one fitter to be the master
of a Bridewell than a Colledge; and though his
avarice was notorious enough to get the name
of Philargyrius fixed upon him, yet his cruelty
was more scandalous than his avarice. He was
a rare scholar himself, and he made many more
such; but their education was truly in the school
of Tyrannus. Among many other instances of
his cruelty, he gave one in causing two men to
hold a young gentleman, while he so unmercifully
1 Magnalia, Bk. IV. p. 126.




Life of Henry Dunster.            6 
beat him with a cudgel, that, upon complaint of
it unto the Court, in I639, he was fined an hundred marks, besides a convenient sum to be paid
to the young gentleman that had suffered by his
unmercifulness." Mr. Eaton and his wife seem
to have been as well matched as Ananias and
Sapphira, for while he was unmerciful in discipline, she was equally so in parsimony. While
he flogged, she starved, the students; it being the
custom for them to board in Commons.
The work before Mr. Dunster was of no ordinary character, demanding for its execution rare
qualifications; not only learning, but administrative ability of a high order, a happy combination
of suavity with firmness, and unbounded patience. In all respects he was found equal to the
highest expectations that had been formed of
him. " That which was before but at best schola
illustra, grew to the stature and perfection of a
College, and flourished in the profession of all
liberal sciences."' Indeed it "soon acquired so
high a reputation, that in several instances youth
of opulent families in the parent country were
sent over to receive their education in New Eng1 Hubbard. Hist. of N. England.
6




62         Life of Henry Dunster.
land." 1  "As good  instruction,"  says  Peirce,
"was offered here as at the first schools in the
Old World."
The whole system of instruction and government, modelled, as far as circumstances would
allow, after the plan of the English Universities,
especially Cambridge, had now to be drawn up,
and the means for putting it in operation, for the
most part to be created, and mainly by the President's personal efforts. Besides the business of
instruction and discipline, which largely devolved
upon him, he had the supervision of the interests of
the College in general and particular; including
personal communication or correspondence with
leading  men  in the four Colonies, appeals to
the General Court and the Commissioners of the
United Colonies, as well as the completion of the
College edifice,2 the erection of a President's
1 Palfrey. Hist. of N. England. Johnson's Wonder-Working
Providence, and Mather's Magnalia.
2 "The edifice is very fair and comely within and without,
having in it a spacious Hall (where they daily meet at Commons, Lectures, Exercises) and a large Library with some books
in it, the gifts of diverse of our friends, their chambers and studies also fitted for, and possessed by the students, and all other
rooms of office necessary and convenient."




Life of Ieenry Dunster.             63
house, the direction of Commons Hall, and finally
the collection of his own salary. In fact, he was
Treasurer as well as President. The President's
house was built by funds derived from his friends
by personal appeals or drawn from his own scanty means.  The students' bills were generally
paid, too, in various commodities,' which, however useful some of them might be in the family
of the President or in Commons hall, must have
been attended with no little inconvenience in
meeting various liabilities of the College. Thus
sheep, calves and cows, wheat, corn, apples and
parsnips, butter, sugar and malt, beef and lamb,
satin and cotton, are enumerated as among the
College revenues.
The requisites of admission, introduced by
Mr. Dunster, were "so  much Latin  as was
sufficient to understand Tully, or any like classical author, and to make and speak true Latin,
in prose and verse, and so much Greek as was
included in declining perfectly the paradigms
of the Greek nouns and verbs."  The College
1 From the scarcity of coin especially when immigration fell
off, or from I640, grain was made a legal tender for the payment
of debts. Hildreth, I.




64         Life of Henry Dunsler.
course 1 embraced the study of arithmetic, geometry, rhetoric, logic, ethics, physics, metaphysics,
and divinity, and of Hebrew, Chaldee and Syriac.
1 In the seventeenth century, in the English Cambridge, the
purest Greek and Latin authors were not always studied. Patristic literature was much in vogue. Rhetoric and logic, pure
and applied, were the leading studies — "the logic of Aristotle
and the commentaries of the schoolmen." Aquinas, Daneus, &c.
were in use. Mathematics were altogether subordinate to logic
and metaphysics.  Arithmetic, a little geography, and such
astronomy as was then taught, were embraced in the College
course. Theology was learned chiefly from private tutors, under whom also the Greek and Latin classics could be read more
extensively than in the regular curriculum. " The crowning test
of excellence consisted in the public disputations.... The most
distinguished men in the University frequently engaged in them,
and with an ardor which seems puerile when we recollect that
the exhibition was really worthless in respect of the results attained, and simply represented a passage of arms between two
accomplished masters of fence, wherein all the laws and by-laws
of a rigorous logic were mercilessly enforced.... Haddon, in a
letter to Dr. Cox, speaking of a public disputation, Sir Thomas
Smith at a Cambridge Commencement, uses the following language:'Had he [Dr. Cox] been there he would have heard
another Solomon; that he caught the forward disputants as it
were in a net with his questions; and that he concluded the
most profound cases in philosophy with great gravity and deep
knowledge."' Mullinger. Cambridge Characteristics in the
Seventeenth Century.




Life of Henry Dunsler.           65
Twice a day, at prayers in the hall, the students
read the Scriptures, "out of Hebrew into Greek,
from  the Old Testament in the morning, and
out of English into Greek, from the New Testament, in the evening." 1 There were weekly
declamations and public disputations.  Latin
was the only language allowed to be used on the
College premises. From time to time the President was accustomed " to preach on Lord's day in
Cambridge," for the special benefit of the students, who had "a particular gallery allotted
unto them," and they were required to " commonplace" these and other sermons, and repeat
them in the College hall.
Among the " Rules and Precepts " of the Dunster code were the following, which were published in Latin:
"Let every student be plainly instructed, and
earnestly pressed to consider well, the maine end
of his life and studies is, to know God and yesus
Christ, which is eternall lzfe, and therefore to lay
Christ at the bottome, as the only foundation of
all sound knowledge and learning."
"They shall honor, as their parents, the ma
1 Magnalia, B. IV. and N. England's First Fruits.
6*




66       Life of Hezry Dunsler.
gistrates, elders, tutors, and all who are older than'themselves, as reason requires, being silent in
their presence, except when asked a question,
not contradicting, but showing all those marks
of honor and reverence which are in praiseworthy use, saluting them  with a bow, standing
uncovered &c."
"Let them be slow to speak. Let them avoid
not only oaths, lies, and scandal, but also nonsense, scurrility, levity, ribaldry, and all offensive
carriages."
"Let no one be a busy-body."
"Every undergraduate, unless he be a fellowcommoner (commensalis), the son of a gentleman,
or man of superior rank (nobilis), or the eldest
son of a knight (miles), shall be called by his surname only."
"No student shall buy, sell or exchange
any thing of the value of sixpence, without
the  approbation  of his parent, guardian  or
tutor."
"The scholars shall under no pretext use the
vernacular tongue, unless a public English exercise has been assigned them."
" If any student shall violate the law of God or




Lzfe of Henry Duns/er.    67
of this College, either from perverseness or from
gross negligence, after he shall have been twice
admonished, he may be whipped (virgis coerceatur), if not an adult [eighteen]; but if an adult,
his case shall be laid before the overseers, that
notice may be publicly taken of him according to
his deserts.l In case of graver offences, however, let no one expect such gradual proceedings,
or that an admonition must necessarily be repeated in relation to the same law." 2
Quincy 3 says that " the principles of education
established under the authority of Mr. Dunster "
were not " materially changed during the whole
of the seventeenth century."
The above system of instruction and discipline
1 Sometimes unruly College boys were turned over to the
civil authorities, as the following extract from the records of the
Middlesex County Court, held in Cambridge, June 9, 1656, will
show: " Thomas Parish, a student of Harvard College, being convicted before this Court of some foolish and inordinate carriages
toward the Towne and Church of Cambridge, at a public meeting, was admonished by the Court, and enjoined to make acknowledgments of his fault therein at their next public meeting,
&c."
2 See New England's First Fruits, and Mass. Hist. Coll. I.
242.
3 History of Harvard College, I. I9I.




68          Life of Henry Dunster.
was borrowed in part from the English universities,' and in some respects strikingly displays
1 At the period when Mr. Dunster was pursuing his University course, the government consisted of a Chancellor, Vicechancellor, High Steward, Proctors, Taxors, the Esquire Bedells [beadles], &c.; and its courts held almost exclusive jurisdiction over those who resided within its corporate limits. The
University had its own police, who were supposed to act in concert with the town constables. The Proctors, who were resident
graduates, clergymen, and unmarried, were guardians of the
public morals for the special protection of the students, having
power to search the town, and even to enter houses, for persons
" suspected of evil," particularly suspected females, and to have
them arraigned before the University tribunals.
The authority of the University also extended further, the
Vice-chancellor having the exclusive right of granting licenses
for the sale of wine in the town of Cambridge, for ale-houses in
Cambridge and the adjacent village of Chesterton, and for theatrical performances within fourteen miles of the town.  The
supervision of weights and measures within the town and suburbs, and of the markets and Fairs, and the inspection of provisions, belonged to the University.  The Taxors, who were
resident graduates, Masters of Arts, and generally also clergymen, were intrusted with this special duty, relieving the monotony of literary labor by looking after weights, measures, markets, and meats. The Esquire Bedells were chiefly ornamental,
holding up the dignity of the University and its high officials by
attending the Chancellor &c. with their staves on public occasions, besides sundry other useless performances. Most of these
rules and customs are now in vogue in the English universities,




Lzfe of Henry Dunsler.                    69
the spirit of the times.   For a  hundred  and
thirty years, that is, down to 1773, the names of
students at Harvard  were arranged  upon  the
catalogue, not in alphabetical order, but according to the social standing.'
"The application of both official and conventional titles was [at that time] a matter of careful
observance. Only a small number of persons of
the best condition had the designation Mr. or Mrs.
prefixed to their names.... Goodman and Goodwife were the appropriate addresses of persons
above the condition of servitude and below that
though efforts have been made in Parliament for abolishing
some of them. Cambridge University Commission, Vol. 44.
The discipline of a German University is conducted by a University magistrate, in conjunction with the Rector, the Senate,
and the Dean of the Faculties. The modes of correction are
personal remonstrance, solitary confinement in the University
lock-up, of three days for minor, and not more than a month for
graver offences, and lastly expulsion. Thomson. Almae Matres.
The experience of American Colleges favors an important
modification of the academic government of students. There is
no good reason why college criminals should fare better or otherwise than similar offenders outside Parnassus. The law of
the land should show no favoritism.
1 See Cong. Quart. XIII. 257.




70         Life of Henry Dunsler.
of gentility."' In church, the congregation was
carefully seated in accordance with this aristocratic principle; and, when a new meetinghouse
was opened for worship, one of the most important duties was the appointment of a committee
to attend to this delicate service.
The  practice  of corporal punishment early
and long flourished in the English universities.
It is alluded to amusingly in Sir John Fenn's
Collection of Letters of the Paston Family, in
the time of Henry VI. and by Dr. Johnson  in a
characteristic manner, in his Life of Milton: " I
am  ashamed  to relate, what I fear is true, that
Milton was the last student, in either University,
that suffered the public indignity of corporal
1 Palfrey, II. 67.  Winthrop's Journal has the following
record:  " 163, Aug. 27. At a court, one Josias Plaistowe and
two of his servants were censured for stealing corn &c..... the
master to restore twofold, and to be degraded from the title of
a gentleman."
In a note appended to the History of The Old South Church,
it is stated, that "the title of Mr. was given to those who had
taken a second degree in College [Sir was the title of bachelors
of arts], to all magistrates, to all who were or had been military
officers as high as captain, to those on whose coats-of-arms was
inscribed' generosus,' to merchants of standing, and perhaps to
some others."




Life of Henry Dunster.             7I
punishment."    "In  Trinity  College  [Cambridge], there was a regular service [of this kind]
in the Hall every Thursday evening at seven
o'clock, in the presence of all the undergraduates, on such junior delinquents as had been reserved for the ceremony during the week." 1 At
the New England Cambridge, " the tutors chastised at discretion, and on very solemn occasions
the overseers were called together, either to authorize or witness the execution of the severer
punishments." 2  Judge Sewall, in his Diary,3 relates an instance, which occurred in 1674, during
the presidency of Mr. Hoar. On the charge of
"speaking blasphemous words,"  the  offender,
after an examination by the government, was
transferred to the Corporation, who, after advising with the Overseers, sentenced him to be
"publickly whipped before all the scholars," to
be " suspended as to taking his degree of Bachelor," to "sit alone by himself in the Hall uncovered at meals, during the pleasure of the President and Fellows," 4 to be "obedient in  all
1 Masson. Life and Times of Milton.
2 Quincy.         3 See Peirce.
* " For more than fifty years after the foundation of the Col



72          Life of Henry Dunster.
things, doing what exercise was appointed him
by the President, or else be finally expelled the
College." The sentence was twice read before
him in the presence of the President and Fellows, the Committee, and the scholars, when he
kneeled down, and the President having offered
prayer, "Goodman 1 Hely,"  the  prison-keeper2
at Cambridge, on a sign from the President, " attended... to the performance of his part in the
work."    The solemn  exercise  was  closed  by
prayer from the President.
It would seem that the ingenuous youths at
lege, the tutors, who assisted the President in instruction and
government, were called'Fellows of the College.'"  Peirce.
They were resident graduates.
1 Page 69.
2 Thirty years before, the President personally "attended to
the performance " of this part of the work, as we learn from
Winthrop's Journal (2: I66).-"May, 4, I644. Two of our
ministers' sons, being students in the College, robbed two dwelling houses in the night, of some I5 pounds.  Being found
out, they were ordered by the governours of the College to be
there whipped, which was performed by the president himselfyet they were about 20 years of age; and after they were
brought into the Court and ordered to twofold satisfaction, or to
serve so long for it. We had yet no -particular punishment for
burglary."




Life of Henry Dunster.             73
Harvard, or their tender-hearted parents, must
have rebelled against the College rod, for in 1645,
in a Petition to the "Much Honored the Commissioners of the United Colonies," President
Dunster, "for his more free, conscionable, prudent and unblameable  administration  of his
place," desired their consideration of the following, among other queries:
" i. Whether you be willing to submit the
youth of your Colonies that be or shall be students so far to the College discipline administered by the President and Fellows, and in cases
arduous by the advice of the Overseers, that whatsoever punishments shall be inflicted for their demerits according to the laws of said College,
shall no ways infringe any privileges or honorable exhibition 1 from your Colonies to the College, and whether you do not give your approbation to said laws? " 2 And in I654, the General
Court of Massachusetts was induced to give its
sanction to the flogging system, as follows: " It
is ordered by this Court that the president and
1 A term derived from the English Universities for an allowance or bounty for the maintenance of scholars.
2 Mass. State Archives. Vol 58, p. 9.




74        Life of Henry Dunster.
fellows of Harvard College for the time being, or
the major part of them, are hereby empowered
according to their best discretion, to punish all
misdemeanors of the youth in their society,
either by fine, or whipping in the hall, openly, as
the nature of the offence shall require, not exceeding ten shillings or ten stripes for one offence." 1
Even as late as I734, nearly a hundred years
after the foundation of the College, the revised
body of Laws provides for the bodily chastisement of students: "It shall be lawful for the
President, Tutors, and Professors, to punish undergraduates by Boxing, when they shall judge the
nature or circumstance of the offence call for it."
And in 1746, it could only be said that " corporal punishment was going out of use." 2
While upon the subject of College discipline,
we must not omit to mention a tradition about
Mr. Dunster, "still extant among his descendants, that one day being at Concord, he suddenly ordered his horse to be saddled, as he
must immediately return to Cambridge. On beL Mass. Col. Records III. 417.
2 Peirce, page 228.




LSfe of Henry Dunster.             75
ing asked the cause of his abrupt departure, he
replied, that he had received word that the students there had raised the Evil One, - a practice,
if we may believe the stories of recent College
boys, not yet obsolete, though understood by
them in a very different light from what it was
in former times —and being unable to control
his Satanic Majesty's exhibitions, had become
alarmed.
On arriving at Cambridge, he took his wellfilled powder-horn, and pouring a part of its contents on the floor, abjured the presence of the
ugly visitor, and, to the relief of the affrighted
boys, directly flashed him out of the College. It
is added, that Satan, when thus summarily sent
away, was heard to say, that he would never
trouble the Dunsters afterwards,l a consoling
assurance, which helps us to fix the date of this
terrific appearance.  It must have been posterior
to Mr. Mitchell's remarkable interview with Mr.
Dunster, upon the subject of infant baptism,
when he ascertained, to his horror, that the hith1 We have quoted from a speech delivered at the Mason
(N.H.) centennial celebration, by Samuel Dunster Esq., of Attleboro,' Mass., a descendant of President Dunster.




76       Life of Henry Dunsler.
erto considered pious President, was then troubled, if not inspired, by the " Evil One." 
If the tradition is more than a myth, - and it
has come down in two distinct lines of the Dunster family,  it would seem probable, that the
students, according to the peculiar belief of that
age in the active agency of Satan in human affairs, were really persuaded that he was showing
himself off among them in certain terrible ways,
and that the President dispelled the illusion by
a shrewd but harmless artifice, which, we may
readily imagine, he secretly enjoyed at the expense of his credulous and timorous juniors.
1 See page io6.




Life of Henry Dunster.           77
CHAPTER  VII.
ESIDES the proper duties which pertained
to his office, it belonged to Mr. Dunster,
in those days of straitened means and primitive
simplicity, to prepare rules for the regulation of
the steward's department, and to give personal
attention to its management. He was expected
to issue disbursements to the steward, butler or
cook, for the maintenance of the commons, and
to receive a quarterly report of the same, including an inventory of all the College utensils and
vessels, great and small, and their condition at
the time. It appears that while the butler and
cook were "to see that the said utensils were
kept clean and sweet," they were "not bound to
keep or cleanse any particular scholar's spoons,
cup, or such like, but at their own discretion."
These same officials were also " to see that all the
rooms peculiar to their offices, together with their
7*




78       Life of Henry Dunsler.
appurtenances, be daily set and kept in order,
clean and sweet from all manner of noisomeness
and nastiness or sensible offensiveness."  And
"whereas much inconvenience falleth out of the
scholars' bringing candles in course into the Hall,
therefore the butler shall receive henceforth at
the President's or Steward's hands twenty shillings towards candles for the Hall, for prayertime and supper, which, that it may not be burdensome, it shall be put proportionably upon every
scholar who retaineth his seat in the buttery."
By no express law, but according to English
traditions, "Freshmen were a kind of servitors
to the whole College out of studying hours, to
go of errands," and perform various menial services, -a custom, which, in later times, has been
superseded by " hazing," a practice more annoying, it may be, but less degrading, except to
those who practise it.
The Library was of course small during Mr.
Dunster's Presidency, consisting chiefly of 320
volumes contributed by John Harvard, in 1638,
and of books given by magistrates from  their
libraries, in 1642, to the value of two hundred
pounds. Further donations were doubtless made




Life of Henry  Dunster.               79
by ministers and others. A note given by Mr.
Dunster, preserved on the College records, "is a
curious evidence," says Quincy, "of the scarcity
of books at that period, and of the value attached
to them:" 
"These presents witness, that whereas Joshua
Scottow,l of Boston, merchant, hath of his own
free accord procured for the library of Harvard
College, Henry Stephens his Thesaurus, in four
volumes, in folio, and bestowed the same thereon,
it is on this condition, and with this promise following; that if ever the said Joshua, during his
life, shall have occasion to use the said book, or
any parcel thereof, he shall have free liberty
thereof, and access thereto. And if God shall
bless the said Joshua with any child, or children,
that shall be students of the Greek tongue, then
the said books above specified shall be unto them
delivered, in case that they will not otherwise be
satisfied without it.
I Mr. Scottow "seems to have been the earliest person in the
Colony who had an antiquarian turn of mind." In I69I he
wrote "Old Men's Fears for their own Declensions; mixed with
fears of their and posterity's further falling off New England's
primitive constitution." Young's Chron. of Mass.




80         Life of Henry Dunster.
"In witness whereof this present writing is
signed by me, Henry Dunster, President of the
College, aforesaid, made at Boston, this twentyeighth day of the eighth month, I649.
HENRY DUNSTER."
In his letter to the Commissioners,' in 1645,
Mr. Dunster, in fitting and forcible words, called
their attention to the state of the Library: " Seeing the public library in the College is yet defective
in all manner of books, specially in law, physics,
philosophy, and  mathematics, the  furnishing
whereof would be both honorable and profitable
to the country in general and in special to the
scholars, whose various inclinations to all professions might thereby be encouraged and furthered; we therefore humbly entreat to use such
means as your wisdom shall think meet for supply of the same." 2
The subject of " fellowships " is awakening very
considerable interest among the friends of learn1 See page 34. State Archives, vol. 58, p. 9.
2 In 1764 the Library contained 5,000 volumes. That year it
was consumed by fire. It now numbers 150,000 volumes. Within a radius of six or seven miles of Boston, there are nearly 800,ooo volumes in public libraries.




Life of Henry Dunsler.              8I
ing at the present time, and has been ably discussed in a paper read before an Educational
Convention,l by one of our ripest scholars.2  It
has long been a part of the College system of
England, at Oxford and Cambridge, and in a
modified form, ought to be introduced into our
American colleges. It contemplates the provision, by a special fund, for a post-graduate course
of study by eminent scholars, far beyond the
usual limits of the College curriculum, so that
from  this body of learned men "may go forth,
year by year, accomplished teachers, preachers,
and writers, to positions of the highest influence."
Such a plan, even in the infancy of the College and poverty of the Colony, was inaugurated
by President Dunster at Cambridge, and commended by him  to the liberality of the people,
through the Commissioners of the United Colonies, - a proof of his broad and generous views
of education.  He wrote: "Whereas it is expedient that pious, diligent, and learned graduates
1 Proceedings of The National Baptist Educational Convention, I870.
2 Rev. Dr. Hovey, President of the Newton Theological Institution, and Professor of Theology.




82         Life of Henry Dunster.
should be elected fellows as emergent occasions
shall require, and that then they should have for
their encouragement the stipend due from such
scholars as are under their tuition, which for the
present is a considerable part of the President's
maintenance; therefore, we humbly entreat you
to state what you think to be a meet allowance
for the President, and whence it shall arise."
Prof. Hovey recommends that $Io,ooo be the
basis of a fellowship, yielding an income of 600o
or $700.  President Dunster suggested  to the
Commissioners "fI6  per annum  for a fellowship."
The scantiness and irregularity of his own salary  -  at one period unpaid for two years -did not
prevent his appeals on behalf of deserving " scholars,"2 for whom, as well as for "fellows,"  he
1 "Dunster was a man of marked excellence of character;
learned, religious, conscientious, charitable and forgiving. He
labored and suffered for the good of the College, and expended
of his substance in its service. His insufficient and meagre salary was paid, not in cash, but by transfers of town-rates, of which
he was enforced to be the collector, suffering all the attending
delays, vexations, depreciations, and losses."  Willard Memoir,
p. I79, n.
2 "... And besides, he [Mr. Dunster] having a good in



Life of Henry Dunster.                      83
urged the General Court and the Colonial Commissioners to make provision. Two years before
this (1643), writing  to  Governor Winthrop,l he
had said: "I have suffered abatements from 2 ~6o
to ~50, from  ~50  to  ~45, from   ~45  to  ~30,
which is now my rent from the [Charlestown]
ferry."3   But he added with characteristic nobleness: "I was and  am  willing, considering  the
poverty of the country, to descend to the lowest
spection into the well-ordering of things for the students' maintenance (whose commons hath been very short hitherto) by his
frugal providence hath continued them longer at their studies
than otherwise they could have done; and verily it's great pity
such ripe heads as many of them be, should want means to further them in learning."  Wonder-Working Providence.
1 Mass. Hist. Collec. II. Ser. X. I87.
2 The salaries of ministers at that time ranged from /30 to
90o. Mr. Symmes of Charlestown had the largest, Mr. Cotton
and three others had /80, five others /70, six others /6o, and
so on, the pastor at Reading having the smallest, f30.  Felt's
Eccles. Hist.  Poole's Introd. to Wonder-Working Prov.
3 In I650, the General Court passed the following order:
"The President is authorised to dispose of the Charles
Towne ferry, by lease or otherwise, making the best and most
advantage thereof to his own content, so as those to whom he
dispose it unto perform the service, and keep sufficient boats for
the use thereof, as the order of Court requires." Col. Records,
HII. 214.




84       Life of Henry Dunsler.
step, if there can be nothing comfortably allowed
me; I will sit down appeased desiring no more
but what may supply me and mine with food and
raiment (and to give every one their own), to the
furtherance of the success of our labors for the
good of Church and Commonwealth, without distraction in the work whereunto I am called, and
by God's great mercy and goodness cheerfully
therein abide; desiring your prayers for a continuance, and your praises to God for the sanctifying of all the passages of his fatherly providence
towards
Your loving and much bounden servant,
HENRY DUNSTER."
In this spirit of Christian self-denial, he more
than met the requirement of the Roman poet:
Rebus augustis animosus atque
Fortis appare.
Two years after Mr. Dunster went to Cambridge, a class of nine young men " of good hope "
was found prepared for graduation, and accordingly the first Commencement took place in 1642,
only fourteen years after the settlement at Salem,
and twenty-two after the arrival of the May



Life of Henry Dunster.            85
flower. This gathering of the first-fruits of his
labors in the College must have been an occasion of special interest to the President, as well
as highly gratifying to the colonists generally.
Here, on the borders of a yet unbroken wilderness, almost within sight of Indian wigwams, were
assembled the dignitaries of the Colony, the
learned ministers of the neighborhood, and others,
to reproduce in humbler style the scholastic ceremonies in which so many of them, with " pomp
and circumstance," had participated, in the Universities of old England. Governor Hutchinson'
has preserved the record of the occasion, from
which we learn that "the chief exercises were
disputations  on theses or questions in Logic,
Ethics, Natural Philosophy and most of the liberal arts, which the defendant had published beforehand on a sheet of paper, and obliged himself to answer all objections brought against
them." 3 Some of these theses are curious, as
showing the state of learning, and the subjects
and habits of thought, at that period, not only
in New England but in Europe.  They were in
1 Hist. I, 510.    2 Page 64, note.
3 Neal's History of New England.




86          Life of Henry Dunster.
Latin, and were discussed in the same language.
We fear that some of our modern candidates for
the Bachelor's degree, not to say of the Master's,
would find even the translation of some of these
theses 1 a hazardous experiment.
Of the graduates of I642, two became quite
eminent, -  George  Downing  (the  nephew  of
Hugh  Peter), who  attained  high   distinction
under Cromwell, and was knighted by  Charles
II., and William Hubbard, as historian of New
England.
Besides the management of the College, Mr.
Dunster maintained a correspondence with literary and Christian friends abroad. A letter to
Ravius,2 a distinguished  Oriental scholar, then
1 Pages 268-270.
2 " Ravius or Ravis was a native of Berlin, born in 1613, and,
in order to advance himself in the knowledge of the Oriental
languages, travelled in the East, where he learned Turkish, Persian and Arabic, bringing back some precious manuscripts. At
Utrecht, Kiel, and Frankfort-on-the-Main, as well as in London,
he taught the languages generally termed Oriental, and published
several works on his favorite subject. By letters from Dr. Elichman, De Dieu and Vossius, he was introduced to Archbishop
Usher, who patronized him liberally, and to whom he dedicated
his' General Grammar for the ready attaining the Ebrew, Sa



Lzfe of Henry Dunster.                 87
residing in London, who was deeply interested
in the progress of learning and religion in America, has been preserved, and is proof of the writer's
philological tastes and foreign reputation. It acknowledges favors to the College in the donation
of valuable books &c., but is mainly a reply to
various questions proposed in a previous letter by
his learned friend, relating to linguistic subjects,
especially the Indian language, and the state of
education and religion in the Colonies. In it he
says:
" Yours of the 27th of February came to our
hands, together with the box and all things therein mentioned, about the 2d or 3d of August, for
which I am  not only bounden  to give thanks
unto God for raising up such instruments to promote his kingdom  not only in the places where
they live, but also throughout all the world, to
the utmost of their power. But I am also further
desired, from my occasions in the College, to
maritan, Calde, Syriac, Arabic, and the Ethiopic languages.'
Grotius introduced him to Cardinal Richelieu, and he visited the
court of Christina of Sweden. He died at Frankfort, June 21,
I677." Note to IV. Hist. Col. I. 251.  See also Chalmers.
The entire letter is given in the Appendix.




88       Life of Henry Dunster.
return thanks unto yourself for your special
good will, as to the whole country here in general, so in special to the promoting of learning
in the College amongst the students, and in the
woods amongst the Indians in their savage booths
or wigwams. And albeit it extendeth only to
the power to acknowledge such kindness without further external requitals, yet undoubtedly
the Lord Jesus takes notice of all his faithful subjects' prayers and endeavors to enlarge his kingdom, and will here requite it with the perfume of
a good name better than precious ointment, and
hereafter with a Come, ye blessed of my Father,
inherit the kingdom."
After a reference to the mission among the Indians, the letter concludes as follows:
" Lastly, we profess ourselves unable to answer
the tender of your good will and propensity of
spirit towards us, our infant College compared
with the Academies in Europe being like Mantua unto Rome, and as unworthy to confine a
man of your parts and place, as that small town
the prince of the Latin poets. Yet, nevertheless,
if divine providence should waft you over the Atlantic ocean, or if your spirit desire to see what




Life of Henry Dunster.           89
sons of Seth wander in these woods, then Harvard College would think itself honored in your
visit.
" Meantime, while God's providence continueth
you where you be, as you tender your readiness
to further our studies in the Oriental tongues, and
have already given a real testimony of your benevolent and beneficent spirit, so, if Gbd's providence put an opportunity into your hand that
you help us with books of those languages from
some able hands and willing hearts (for from
yourself it were unreasonable to expect any more
than such books as yourself are personally the
author of) then should we be very glad and evermore thankful to you and them who shall procure us Buxtorf's Concordances and Bible (for
the King of Spain's we have, and the King of
France's Bible is more than we dare hope for)
and whatsoever Hebrew, Chaldee, Syriac or Arabic authors, God's providence shall enlarge their
hands and hearts to procure us. A wonderful
impulse unto these studies lies on the spirits of
our students, some of whom can with ease dextrously translate Hebrew and Chaldee into Greek.
"But I forget myself in detaining you so long
8*




90       Life of Henry Dunster.
from your serious and more profitable studies.
Let me hear, I pray, if you receive this my letter.
The Lord be with you, and prosper all your endeavors.  So, I entreat, pray for yours in the
Lord."




Life of Henry Dunsler.                      9I
CHAPTER VIII.
A   S  Massachusetts established  the first College in North  America, so  also the first
printing-press. It was in January, I639, that the
press procured in England by Rev. Jesse Glover,
was set up  in  Cambridge, by direction  of the
magistrates and  elders, as  "an  appendage  of
Harvard College."  It was considered to be too
powerful an instrument for good or evil, to be
1 Thomas.  History of Printing.
No printing was allowed within the jurisdiction of Massachusetts, except at Cambridge. It was not till 1664, that permission was obtained to set up a press in Boston.
The printing for New Hampshire was done in Boston till
1756, in which year a press was established in Portsmouth.
The first Anglo-American newspaper -The Boston News-Letter, a weekly half-sheet -was printed April, 1704.
The first press in Virginia was set up in 1727. But Trubner
(see Palfrey, II.: 45, n.) states, that there was no printing-press
in the city of Exeter, England, till I669, and none in Liverpool
till 1749.




92          Life of Henry Dunster.
left in private hands, and accordingly from the
first and for more than a hundred years 1 it was
under the control of the General Court, though
it was not till I665 2 that licensers of the press
were appointed by that body. But a sharp lookout was always had upon its issues, lest something deemed heretical or hurtful to the govern1 "For preventing irregularities tnd abuse to the Authority
of this Country by the printing Press, it is ordered by this Court
and the Authority thereof that there shall be noe Printing press
allowed in any towne within this jurisdiction but in Cambridge,
nor shall any Person or Persons presume to print any Copie but
by the allowance first had and obtayned, under the hands of
such as this Court shall from time to time Impowre, the President of the Colledge, Mr. John Shearman, Mr. Jonathan Mitchell, and Mr. Thomas Shepard or any two of them, to survey
such copie or copies, and to prohibit or allowe the same according to this order, and in case of non-Observance of this Order to
forfeite the Press to the Country, and bee dissinabled from using
any such profession within this Jurisdiction for the time to come,
provided this Order shall not Extend to the Obstruction of any
copie which this Court shall judge meet to Order to bee published
in Print." State Archives, Vol., 58, 55.
2 In 1667 the General Court suppressed the Imitation of
Christ, by Thomas ia Kempis, and that too, after the licensers
had permitted its publication.
Legal restraints were not removed till I755. Thomas. I.
246.




Life of Henry Dunster.                 93
ment should by means of it find its way among
the people.
On Mr. Dunster's marriage, in  I64I, to the
widow of Mr. Glover, the press, (which had come
into her possession upon her husband's decease)
was placed under his management, and its profits, in part at least, seem to have accrued to the
revenues of the College. It was set up in the
President's house, where it remained till I655,1
and he was appointed to supervise its publications. Its first contributions to American literature were the Freeman's Oath, Peirce's Almanack,
and the Psalms newly turned into Metre, the last
printed in 1640. Its issues were chiefly of a religious character; the most important being the
works prepared by John Eliot in the Indian language, only one of which, however, the Indian
Catechism, I653, was printed while Mr. Dunster
was its manager.  "The press of Harvard Col1 In the " Information given by the Corporation and Overseers to the General Court, 9 May, I655," it is said: " The revenue of the press (which is but small) must at present be improved for the finishing of the print-house, its continuance in the
President's house being (besides other inconveniences) dangerous and hurtful to the edifice itself."




94       Life of Henry Dunsler.
lege was for a time as celebrated as the presses
of the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, in
England." 
Mr. Dunster had a special connection with one
work which issued from his press, a Psalm-Book.
Previous to I640, the version of Sternhold and
Hopkins had been in use in most of the New
England churches,2 but as this work was not considered a sufficiently accurate rendering of the
original, and its versification was too rugged
for even our not very fastidious fathers, it was
resolved to attempt a new translation  of the
Psalms of David.  Three well known ministers,
Richard Mather of Dorchester, and Eliot and
Weld of Roxbury undertook the difficult task.
In I640, the result of their painful labors was
given to an expectant public, from  Mr. Dunster's house, under the title of, The whole Booke
of Psalnes Faithfully Translated into English Metre. Whereunto is prefixed a discourse declaring
not only the lawfulness, but also the necessity of
1 Thomas.
2 " The Plymouth Churches sang from the Psalter of Ainsworth through their whole history." Brigham, The Colony
of New Plymouth.




Life of Henry Dunster.             95
the heavenly Ordinance of Singing  Scripture
Psalms in the churches of God.'
It is due to the authors to say, that they seem
to have been modestly aware of the poetical defects of their work. " If," said they, in the Preface, "the verses are not always so smooth and
elegant as some may desire or expect, let them
consider that God's Altar needs not our polishings, Ex. 20: for wee have respected rather a
plaine translation than to smooth our verses with
the sweetness of any paraphrase, and soe have
attended Conscience rather than Elegance, fidelity rather than poetry, in translating the Hebrew
words into English language, and David's poetry
into English meetre; that soe wee may sing in
Sion the Lord's songs of prayse according to his
own will; until hee take us from  hence, and
wipe away all our teares, and bid us enter into
our master's joye to sing eternall Halleluiahs."
This edition contained  no hymns, but only
psalms, all else being regarded quite in the light
of a profanation of worship. But in the second
1 Two copies of the first edition are in the Public Library of
Boston, which also has an elegant reprint, edited by Dr. N. B.
Shurtleff, with an Introduction.




96        Life of Henry  Dunsler.
edition (I647), the authors ventured to insert a
few spiritual songs.
"It did not," however, says Neal, "satisfy
the expectations of judicious  men."  "It was
thought," says Cotton Mather, "that a  little
more of art was to be employed." Mr. Shepard
of Cambridge was so much exercised about its
metrical defects, that he despatched the following
admonitory stanzas to  the  reverend  authors,
which can only make us wonder that such a master of verse should not have been intrusted with
furnishing the psalmody of that generation:
"You Roxb'ry poets, keep clear of the crime
Of missing to give us very good rhyme.
And you of Dorchester, your verses lengthen,
But with the text's own words, you will them strengthen."l
The following specimen of the Psalm-Book of
I640 and 1647 will, we are sure, justify the criticism of Mr. Shepard and the general desire for
an improved version:
PSALME I.
I O Blessed man, that in th' advice
of wicked doth not walk:
Nor stand in sinners way, nor sit
in chayre of scornfull folk.
1 Mather's Magnalia.




Life of Henry Dunster.            97
2 But in the law of Jehovah
is his longing delight:
And in his law doth meditate,
by day and eke by night.
For a further improvement of the work," says
Prince,1 "it was committed to the Rev. Mr. Henry Dunstar, President of Harvard College, one
of the greatest masters of the oriental languages,
that hath been known in these ends of the earth."
Associated with him in the task of revisizg and
polishinzg, was Mr. Richard Lyon, tutor to Sir
Henry Mildmay's son, then boarding in Mr. Dunster's house.
Nothing can be more certain than that neither
of these excellent persons was blessed with poetic genius. The oriental learning necessary for
the work of revision was probably supplied in
the main by the President, and this, we judge,
was worked up into something like poetry by the
junior partner in the enterprise; for Mr. Lyon,
we are told, added to the original work a large
number of songs and hymns of his own composition. It is due to Mr. Dunster's memory to
1 Preface to Revised Psalm-book, I758.




98       Life of Henry Dunster.
relieve him, if possible, of the charge of furnishing the poetry.
Yet a real advance was made upon the production of the reverend bards of Dorchester and
Roxbury, though considerably later, Neal, the
historian of New England, suggested that the
improved psalm-book needed "to be revised and
corrected by the more beautiful verses of Dr.
Patrick, Tate and Brady."
But, for that day, the New England PsalmBook was a great achievement, and it was abundantly appreciated.  First printed in I650, it
speedily came into use in the New England
Churches, and obtained a large circulation in
England and Scotland, passing through more
than fifty editions at home and abroad.  In
England it was used in some churches as late
as I717, and in Scotland till I750.
In sacred lyrics, as in material things, the
world has made wonderful progress since Dunster's day; and it ill becomes us to severely criticise the ruder rhymes which aided the devotions
of our fathers. Poor as they are now seen to be,
they raised the thoughts of godly men and women in adoration and thanksgiving to the great




Life of Henry Dunster.               C99
Supreme, and also helped to introduce our richer
modern psalmody, to which so many gifted sons
of song have contributed the choicest productions
of their genius.
From the following specimen of the Dunster
Psalm-Book, the I7th edition, our readers can
form their own opinion of its poetic merit:
i O Blessed man that walks not in
th' advice of wicked men,
Nor standeth in the sinners way,
nor scorners seat sits in.
2 But he upon Jehovah's law
doth set his whole delight,
And in his law doth meditate
both in the day and night.
3 He shall be like a planted tree
by water brooks which shall
In his due season yield his fruit,
whose leaf shall never fail:
4 And all he doth shall prosper well:
the wicked are not so:
But they are like unto the chaff
which wind drives to and fro.




Ioo        Life of Henry Dunsler.
5 Therefore shall not ungodly men
in judgment stand upright:
Nor in th' assembly of the just
shall stand the sinful wight.
6 For of the righteous men, the Lord
acknowledgeth the way:
Whereas the way of wicked men
shall utterly decay.l
1 " For eighty or ninety years, it is said, not more than ten
different tunes, if so many, were used in public worship. Few
congregations could sing more than the five tunes now known
by the names of York, Hackney, Windsor, St. Mary's and Martyrs. Instrumental music was proscribed."  Palfrey, II. 41,
note.




Life of Henry Dunster.   o10
CHAPTER IX.
R. DUNSTER had been President of
the College for a period of twelve or thirteen years, when his public avowal of sentiments
obnoxious to the dominant party in the Colony
awakened an intense excitement against him,l resulting ultimately in his removal from office, and
his exile to the more tolerant sister colony of
Plymouth.
The narrative of events connected with his
"martyrdom" 2 exhibits in  a striking  light the
1 "The orthodox spirit of the whole colony was instantly
roused; and the strongest, because involuntary, testimony is
borne to the intellectual power and moral influence of Dunster,
by the alarm his defection excited, and the harsh measures dictated by that feeling; while his conscientiousness is attested by
the meekness of his submission to the rebukes which were sternly administered." S. A. Eliot. Sketch of the History of Harvard College, I848.
2 Quincy.




0I2     Life of Henry Dunsler.
peculiar spirit of those times, and the nobleness
of his own character.  His independence of
thought, his thorough conscientiousness, his firm
adherence to what he believed to be God's truth,
his readiness to sacrifice the dearest friendships
and a position of high honor and wide influence,
which also involved his most cherished plans of
usefulness, all at the call of duty, and last and
highest, his pious resignation to God's will, and
his gentle and forgiving temper in the midst of
great provocations, - these present him before
us as one of the greatest and best men of his day.
The lessons of those events can never be obsolete.
Neal, an early historian of New England, thus
gives in brief the reasons of Mr. Dunster's removal: " The Overseers were uneasy because he
had declared himself an Anabaptist, fearing lest
he should instil those principles into the youth
that were under his care." One of the Puritan
fathers of Massachusetts, whose father was a
President of the College, and who would have
liked to have been one himself, Cotton Mather,
shall state the case as he understood it: " Among
those of our fathers, who differed somewhat from




Life of Henry Dunster.    103
his brethren, was that learned and worthy man, Mr.
Henry Dunster.... Wonderfully falling into the
errors of Antipaedobaptism, the overseers of the
College became solicitous that the students there
might not be unawares ensnared in the errors of
the President. Wherefore they labored with an
extreme agony either to rescue the good man
from his own mistake, or to restrain him from
imposing  them  upon  the hope of the flock, of
both which, finding themselves to despair, they
did, as quietly as they could, procure his removal,
and  provide  him   a  successor  in  Mr. Charles
Chauncy."     In  another  place2  he  says more
fully: "Our Mitchel,3 presently upon his becoming pastor of Cambridge, met with a more than
1 Magnalia. Book III. 367.        2 Book IV. 78.
3 Rev. Jonathan Mitchell, who succeeded Thomas Shepard
as pastor at Cambridge, was born in England in I624, and was
graduated at Harvard College, where he was called the " glory
of the College," in I649. He had an extraordinary reputation,
even while a young man, for piety and accomplishments, and was
styled the "matchless" Mitchell. As a preacher, he managed
his subjects with an " extraordinary invention, curious disposition, and copious application." " He would speak with such a
transcendent majesty and liveliness, that the people would often
shake under his dispensations, as if they heard the sound of the
trumpets from the burning mountains." His wonderful success




Io4        Life of Henry Dunster.
ordinary trial, in that the good man who was then
President of the Colledge, and a member of the
Church there, was unaccountably fallen into the
briars of Antipaedobaptism; and being briar'd in
the scruples of that persuasion, he not only forbore
to present an infant of his own unto the Baptism
of our Lord, but also thought himself under some
obligation to bear his testimony in some sermons
against the administration of baptism to any infant whatsoever.  The brethren  of the  church
were somewhat vehement and violent in  their
signifying of their dissatisfaction at the obstruction, which the renitencies of that gentleman
threatened with the peaceable practice of infantbaptism, wherein they had hitherto walked; and
judged it necessary for the vindication of the
in dealing with errorists is set forth in the following stanzas from
an Elegy by a young friend of his:
" The Quaker trembling at his thunder fled,
And with Caligula resum'd his bed.
The Munster goblin, by his holy flood
Exorcis'd, like a thin phantasma stood."
Strange that a man who could so shake his audiences, and
deal so vigorously with heretics, should have been so marvellously shaken by tae "Munster goblin," in the shape of Mr.
Dunster. See Magnalia, II. 79, 80.




Life of Henry Dunster.        I05
Church's name abroad in the country, and for the
safety of the Congregation at home, to desire of
him that he would cease preaching as formerly,
until he had better satisfied himself in the point
now doubted by him. At these things extream
was the uneasiness of our Mitchel, who told the
brethren that more light and less heat would do
better; but yet saw the zeal of some against this
good man's error, to push the matter on so far,
that being but a young man, he was likely now
to be embarrassed in a controversy with so considerable a person, and with one who had been
his tutor, and a worthy and godly man.  He
could give this account of it:'Through the
Church's being apt to hurry on too fast and too
impatiently, I found myself much oppressed; especially considering my own weakness to grapple with these difficulties; this business did lye
down and rise up, sleep and wake with me. It
was a dismal thing to me, that I should live to
see truth or peace dying or decaying in poor
Cambridge.'
" But while he was, with a prudence incomparably beyond what might have been expected from
a young man, managing this thorny business, he




o16      Life of Henry Dunster.
saw cause to record a passage, which perhaps
will be judged worthy of some remembrance.'That day,' writes he, (Decemb. 24, I653,)'after I came from him, I had a strange experience;
I found hurrying  and pressing suggestions
against Paedobaptism, and injected scruples and
thoughts whether the other way might not be
right, and infant-baptism an invention of men;
and whether I might with good conscience baptise children, and the like. And these thoughts
were darted in with some impression, and left a
strange confusion and sickliness upon my spirit.
Yet, methought, it was not hard to discern that
they were from the EVIL ONE. First, Because
they were rather injected, hurrying suggestions,
than any deliberate thoughts, or bringing any
light with them. Secondly, Because they were
unseasonable; interrupting me in my study for
the Sabbath, and putting my spirit into a confusion, so as I had much ado to do ought in my
sermon. It was not now a time to study that
matter; but when in the former part of the
week, I had given myself to that study, the more
I studied it, the more clear and rational light I
saw for Paedobaptism. But now these sugges



Life of Henry Dunster.         o07
tions hurried me into scruples. But they made
me cry out to God for his help; and he did afterward calm and clear up my spirit. I thought
the end of them was, First, To show me the corruption of my mind; how apt that was to take
in error, even as my heart is to take in lust.
Secondly, To make me walk in fear, and take
hold on Jesus Christ to keep me in the truth;
and it was a check to my former self-confidence,
and it made me fearful to go needlessly to Mr.
D., for methought I found a venom and poison
in his insinuations and discourses against Paedobaptism. Thirdly, That I might be mindful of
the aptness in others to be soon shaken in mind,
and that I might warn others thereof, and might
know how to speak to them  from  experience.
And indeed my former experience of irreligious
injection was some help to me to discover the
nature of these.' Afterwards in the defence of
the comfortable truth [the baptism of infants] he
preached more than half a score ungainsayable
sermons, while his own church was in some danger by the hydrophobie of anabaptism, which was
come upon the mind of an eminent person in it."
Mr. Mitchell was settled over the Cambridge




Io8      Life of Henry Dunster.
church in August, I650, when twenty-six years
of age.  Mather's account informs us that it
was "presently" upon this, that Mr. Dunster
forbore to present a child for baptism, and in
that year we know his third child was born. As
only "an" infant is spoken of, and this is the
first mention of his withholding a child from the
ordinance, the children previously borne (in I645
and 1648) had doubtless received the "seal of
the covenant." According to this account, Mr.
Dunster's change of views must therefore have
taken place somewhere between I648 and I650.
But this date does not agree with a letter to
friends in England,' now for the first time published, written, it would appear, as late as the
close of I651, in which, in answer to the question, " What do you with them that are baptized,
but give no satisfactory testimony of piety when
they come to age?"   Mr. Dunster replied:
"None of their children are baptized until one
of the parents at the least do approve themselves
faithful and be joined to the church. I have herewith sent you Mr. Davenport's catechism, where
the question is handled, and answered according
to practice."
P rage 287.




Life of Henry Dunster.    I09
If the date 1 assigned to this letter is correct,
Mr. Dunster held to infant baptism certainly as
late  as  December,  I65I.   The  conversation
which Mr. Mitchell held with the President is assigned by Mather, from Mitchell's Diary, to Dec.
29, 1653, in which year also, in September or
October, a fourth child was born to Mr. Dunster.
But as Cotton  Mather is known  to  have  been
sometimes careless in his historical statements,
we are inclined to the opinion that he has here
confounded two periods, and that it was the child
1 The letter was evidently written, not only after the proclamation and crowning of Charles II. as king, in Scotland, which
last event occurred on New Year's [March], I651, but some
months after the battle of Worcester, which is clearly alluded
to, and which took place the 3d of September following. The
letter could, therefore, hardly have been written earlier than
December of that year, as the writer speaks of a proposed day
of Thanksgiving for the ioth of January, which, according to
Old Style, was near the end of the year. We find, indeed, no
mention of such a Thanksgiving in the Colonial Records of
Massachusetts, or in any history of the times, (it may have been
wholly a church appointment); but the Plymouth Records (III.
5) say, that after that " crowning mercy," the battle of Worcester,
" the Court desired [March 2, I652] that a public day of thanksgiving throughout the Colony might be observed therein, to
give thanks for the great victories granted to the army in behalf of the Parliament and Commonwealth of England."
10




IIO         Life of Henry Dunster.
born in I653, and not the one born in i650, that
was withheld from baptism. The intense excitement consequent upon Mr. Dunster's course, and
which led the pastor to visit the offending member of his flock, is placed, as we have seen, by
Mitchell himself, as late as near the close of 1653.
It seems hardly possible that more than two years
should intervene between what was deemed so extraordinary an occurrence, as a leading preacher
and the president of the College refusing baptism to his child, and the worthy pastor's attempt
to allay the public excitement by seeking to recover the delinquent from his errors.l We are
brought then to believe that the statement of
Backus,2 who was very careful as to his facts," Mr. Dunster boldly preached  against infant
baptism, and for believers' baptism, in the pulpit
at Cambridge, in I653," -is the correct one.
1 The later date also better agrees with that of the action of
the magistrates (page II9) and the Conference of Ministers and
Elders, January (probably) and February, I653, (page I20) (four
or five months after the birth of Mr. Dunster's fourth child),
which would naturally, in the then excited state of public feeling,
be the speedy consequence of the public renunciation of infant
baptism by the President of the College.
2 History, II. 418.




Life of Henry DunsLer.           I I 
It was probably, then, some time in the year
1652, that his change of views took place, the
birth of a child the next year, between two or
three months before Mr. Mitchell's interview
with the President, affording a fitting opportunity, or creating a necessity, for the public avowal
of his new views. The " sermons," in which he
bore his testimony against the administration of
baptism to any infant whatsoever, doubtless followed the withholding his child.
Palfrey,' following Mather's dates in part, suggests that Mr. Dunster, after the harsh treatment
which his "fellow-believers" from Rhode Island,
Clarke, Holmes and Crandal, had received in
Massachusetts, in the year 165 I, " felt self-rebuked
for his silence, and that this was what prompted
him  to bear his testimony in some sermons."
This goes upon the ground that as early at least
as I650, Mr. Dunster had become a disbeliever
in infant baptism, but does not agree with Mather's statement, that the President's forbearing to
present his child for baptism, and the preaching
of sermons against the practice, followed immediately upon Mr. Mitchell's settlement at Cam1 History, II. 398.




II2    Life of Henry Dunsler.
bridge, for it was a year and a half after that
event that the three Baptists above named were
visited with stripes and imprisonment. The considerations we have adduced above, especially the
letter to friends in England, make it clear that
his public renunciation of infant baptism must be
assigned a later date. At the time of their unfortunate visit, the three strangers could not have
been Mr. Dunster's "fellow-believers."
It is more likely, therefore, that the persecution of excellent Christian men, Puritans in their
faith, save mainly in the one point of baptism,
two of them ministers of the gospel, one of whom
was an honored leader in the civil affairs of his
Colony,' for the Christian crime of responding to
1 Dr. John Clarke was a prominent figure in the early history of Rhode Island, and, with Roger Williams, both at home and
in England, rendered invaluable services to his Colony, and to
the cause of civil and religious liberty in the whole country. He
was the first pastor of the Baptist Church at Newport, and was
an earnest Christian. Bancroft says, that his "whole life was a
continued exercise of benevolence."
Obadiah Holmes had been a member of the Congregational
Church at Salem, and afterwards at Seaconck. Some years
later he became a Baptist, and united with Mr. Clarke's Church
at Newport, exercising his ministry in the Plymouth Colony. At
Clarke's death he became pastor of the Newport Church.




Life of Henry Dunsler.    II3
the very natural invitation of an aged brother of
the same belief, to visit him  in Lynn, and for
holding a religious service at his house, some two
miles out of town, was what first aroused  Mr.
Dunster to seriously reconsider the whole subject
of baptism.  "By searching into these matters"
[the above persecution], says Backus, " Mr. Dunster... was brought openly to renounce infant
baptism."     We know, too, that, at that time,
this ordinance was the theme of much discussion
in the Colonies, and that there came near being
a public controversy upon it, in Boston, between
Mr. Clarke and some of his friends, and leading
ministers in and around that town.  Under such
circumstances,  an  honest, independent  mind,
like Mr. Dunster's, who had already found reasons for considerably modifying the views of inJohn Crandall was for a time Commissioner or Deputy to the
General Assembly for Newport. For a full account of the persecution, see page 301; also Backus I. ch. iv., and Clarke's " Ill
Newes from New England."
" The'place of execution' was that now occupied by the old
State House. There, or in that immediate vicinity, at the head
of State Street, was the Market, and near the Market stood
the whipping-post." Drake's Hist. of Boston.
1 History, 1. 453.




114       Life of Henry Dunsler.
fant baptism which he brought with him from
England, would naturally be stimulated to a more
thorough investigation than ever of the grounds
of his belief. What his early views had been we
learn from Mr. Shepard's report of his Confession
of Faith.' "I believe," he said (probably in
I640), "that only believers and their seed ought
to be received into the Church by that sacrament.... Concerning  the  outward  element,
something there is concerning sprinkling, in the
Scriptures; hence not offended  when  [it] is
used." Somewhat later, a quite important change
of views appears from the following passage, in
the "Dunster MSS.:" 2 "If parents' churchmembership makes their children members, then
John admitted makes his first-born a church-member; excommunicated for 7 yeares makes suppose 4 children non-members; restored in ye
th yeare makes his 6th child a member.  Show
me where Christ ever indented such a covenant."
From thus separating the church-membership
of infants from that of their parents, it was a natural step to deny baptism and church-member1 Page 259.  2 Library of the Mass. Histor. Society.




Life of Henry Dunster.             115
ship to infants altogether, as was done in the
"sermons" referred to above.  The change of
views appears to have been gradual, extending
through a series of years, though hastened, no
doubt, at last, by the memorable events of the
summer of 65 I. Mr. Dunster's subsequent reference, not only to the Scriptures, but to the
works of various divines of the Reformed Church,
in defence of his new views, before the Conference of Ministers (Feb. 3, 1653-4), and later,
before the County Court (I657), shows that his
course was the result of intelligent and deliberate
research.
Having at length arrived at a settled conviction of the untenableness of infant baptism on
Scriptural grounds, his next step was to conform
his practice to his belief. It was here that his
troubles commenced.  His belief in immersion,
which he seems to have held from the first, was
considered no obstacle to his admission into the
Cambridge Church, so long as he adhered to infant baptism 1 and would make no opposition to
1 In the Records of the Second Church, Boston, we find this
item': "178I.-The tub of the Old North Engine, then the
largest in Boston, was brought into the meeting in order that a




16         Life of Henry Dunsler.
sprinkling; for even Anabaptists  had been tolerated, from the first settlement of Massachusetts,
in the Puritan Churches, so long as they held their
peace.  It was when  honest convictions led  to
honest avowals in word and practice, that Church
and State rose up to silence such impertinence of
freedom.
But the public declaration of his new and, as
then  considered,  monstrous  sentiments, must
child about ten years old might, at the particular request of
the mother, be baptised by immersion."  Robbins' History of
the Second Church.
1 In the controversy between the Reformers, as Luther and
others, and the so-called Anabaptists of their day, the question of the mode of baptism was not necessarily brought up.
The early Anabaptists practised either immersion or sprinkling,
so that for a time the mode was " unsettled and various," and to
this day the Mennonites practise pouring. The English Baptists, before the I7th century, only rejected infant baptism, without insisting upon immersion, and thus "both modes were practised " together; but from the beginning of that period, immersion became the fixed mode, and, says Cutting (Historical Vindications, page 39), "with the greater facility, perhaps, because
dipping had been preserved to about that time in the Church of
England."  SeeEvans, Hist. of the Early English Baptists, II.
53. The denial of infant baptism was what gave their name to
the early Baptists, and made them especially obnoxious alike to
Catholic and Protestant. In America, Baptists have from the
first held to immersion.




Life of Henry Dunsler.           117
have cost Mr. Dunster a severe struggle. By
nature, he was opposed to controversy and strife.
This appears in a letter,' written probably somewhat later, in which he says: " I am not utterly
unacquainted with the levity and timidity of my
spirit. But slender and feeble reasons they are
not, or at least seem not to me, that enforce me
to expose myself (that's the least), my family,
and all the effects and concernments of us both,
viz. the work committed to me, which, I bless
God, I esteem more than myself, the peace of the
church, [at Cambridge?] yea, the churches of
Christ, and the tranquility of the country, which'twere better for me to leave (though never so
dear) than causelessly to hazard, and I say, expose all those."  In the same strain is a letter 2
to a friend in England, written, probably, sometime earlier, in which he says: "Controversies I
am unwilling to launch out into, the ocean of contention over swelling with a spring-tide, insomuch that it overflows the banks of conscience,
and drowns the pleasant meadows of fruitful
love, and all the sweet pastures of piety."
Such being his natural temper, the example
1 " Dunster MSS."    2 Page 276.




18      Life of Henry Dunsler.
of bolder spirits, such as that of his now "fellow-believers" from  Rhode Island, may have
helped him to take an open stand in behalf of
what he was persuaded was the truth of God.
While the conflict in his mind was yet going
on, he would naturally ask himself, whether it
could be a godly desire for peace, and not rather
a cowardly dread of persecution, that would enjoin upon him a safe silence. Others, in defence
of the same views, had been willing to " endure
hardness;" how could he, as a "good soldier,"
shrink from the trial?  And he came to the
conclusion that silence would be cowardice and
hypocrisy; and from  that moment he never
swerved from his integrity. Though ever meek
as a lamb, he was yet bold as a lion. Writing
to the County Court in I655, he nobly said: " I
conceived then, and so do still, that I spake the
truth in the feare of God, and dare not deny the
same or go from it untill the Lord otherwise
teach me."




Life of Henry Dunsler.          I 9
CHAPTER X.
---
T     HESE  opinions of Mr. Dunster being
bruited about, to the "prejudice of the
College and the scandal of the country," the Magistrates, or Assistants, who held nearly the
same relation to the Deputies as the Senate now
does to the House of Representatives, felt themselves moved to send a letter' to the ministers,
urging them to make a thorough examination of
the matter as a basis for their future action. It
was probably sent soon after Mr. Mitchell's interview with the President, and was as follows:
"Reverend Sirs, The magistrates being informed that Mr. Dunster, President of the College, hath by his practice and opinions against
infant baptism rendered himself offensive to this
government, and acknowledging it their duty in
respect of his relation and the trust committed to
1 Mass. State Archives, Vol. 58.




120     Life of Henry Dunster.
us rightly to understand the truth of what we
have heard, that accordingly we might discharge
ourselves.  And considering yourselves not a
little concerned in this business, as ourselves together with you, whereon we are assured you
will not be wanting in approving our endeavors
for the preventing or removing of that which may
tend to the prejudice of the College and scandall
to the country: Think it meet to commend it
to your care so to deal in this business that we
may at our next meeting be thoroughly informed
how the matter stands with him in respect of his
opinions, and be thereby enabled to understand
what may be expected of us, wherein not doubting of your readiness, we commend you to God
and remain
Your very Loving friends."
This document bears no date, but it was
doubtless prepared some time in Jan., I653, after
the interview mentioned on a previous page.l It
was probably in response to this summons, as well
as because of their own "extreme agony to rescue
the good man from his mistake," that a Conference of ministers and elders was held for two
I Page Io6.




Life of Henry Dunster.    121
(lays, Feb. 2d and  3d, 1653-4, in Boston, at
which were present, besides President Dunster,
nine leading ministers of Boston  and vicinity,
and two ruling elders'-  twelve in all.
The thesis, proposed by Mr. Dunster, - Soli
visibiliter fideles sunt baptizendi, Visible believers
only should be baptized, -  was discussed  in  the
syllogistic  method,  Mr. Dunster maintaining
the affirmative, and the rest the negative. This
curious paper, which has never before been published, clearly exhibits Mr. Dunster's position
and the grounds of it. In the course of the discussion  he says: "Children  under the  gospel
have Christ's express testimony that they have
a nearer access unto him, and a nearer accept1 The ministers were Mr. Wilson and Mr. Norton of Boston,
Richard Mather of Dorchester, Mr. Thomson of Braintree, Mr.
Allin of Dedham, John Eliot and Mr. Danforth of Roxbury, Mr.
Simmes of Charlestown, Mr. Mitchell of Cambridge, and the
ruling elders, Mr. Colburn and Mr. Penn. Most of these
ministers had been educated in English universities, and were
trained in the peculiar logic of the day. Mr. Colburn was a
gentleman of great influence in Boston, and for three years was
Deputy to the General Court. James Penn was also a leading
man in the church and commonwealth, and one year a Deputy.
Young's Chron. of Mass.
11




122     Life of Henry Dunster.
ance with him, than children under the law, viz.
in Matt. ig: and Mark Io: in that when John
Baptist, Christ himself and [the] Apostles did
none of them baptize children, Christ, to support
the spirit of parents, gave yet more express testimony than we remember to be under the law,
concerning his good-will to their children in
respect of that best and nearest acceptance with
him, viz. their eternal salvation."  "All instituted gospel worship hath some express word of
Scripture. But paedobaptism hath none." [The
subjects of baptism are] " only penitent believers
confessing their sins.  Then not infants..
They that cannot speak are not penitent believers confessing their sins." And when it was rejoined, that "they [infants] speak virtually," and
" may be baptized in, the parents," he replied:
"If we be engrafted into Christ by personal
faith, then not by parental." To the proposition, "But an infant makes his covenant in his
public person. An immediate parent is a public
person in regard of his children, yea, in respect
to a covenant bought with money, as an Indian
child, that in his infancy doth devenire in potestatem  ejus, and is his to have plenary power




Life of Henry  Dunster.               123
over him. as Abraham's servants. I say, such a
one may  be baptized," -  to this Mr. Dunster
replied, "There is now  no further person but
Christ for us to stand in." 
A  letter,2 written  probably about this time,
further sets forth his views upon the subject in
controversy:
"That way of worship which forcibly deprives
the spiritual babes and converts of the church of
the due consolation from  Christ and dutiful obligation to Christ - that is justly suspicious. But
the baptism of unregenerate infants forcibly deprives the spiritual babes and converts of the
church of their due consolation from Christ, viz.:
the remission of sin &c., and dutiful obligation
to Christ, viz.: to believe on him, die with him
to sin, and rise to newness of life....  Without
visible faith  and  repentance,  they  [John  the
Baptist and the Apostles] baptized none."
I The original document, (page 289) which we were permitted to copy, is in the " Dunster MSS." in the possession of the
Mass. Hist. Society, to which it was presented by Miss Elizabeth Belknap, from among the papers of Dr. Belknap, the historian of New Hampshire.
2 From the " Dunster MSS." For another extract, see page
I 4.




124      Lzfe of Henry Dunster.
This Conference failed to "rescue the good
man" (or, as Cotton Mather elsewhere calls him,
the " erroneous gentleman ") " from his mistake,"
or " to expedite the intangled out of the briars,"
and so, about three months after, on the 3d of
May, I654, the General Court, which, it should
be remembered, was composed wholly of churchmembers, and was the guardian of both Church
and State, passed the following significant vote:
"Forasmuch as it greatly concerns the welfare
of this country that the youth thereof be educated, not only in good literature, but sound doctrine, this Court doth therefore commend it to
the serious consideration and special care of the
Overseers of the College and the selectmen in the
several towns, not to admit or suffer any such to
be continued in the office or place of teaching,
educating, or instructing of youth or child, in
the college or school, that have manifested themselves unsound in the faith, or scandalous in their
lives, and not giving due satisfaction according
to the rules of Christ." 1
"I take it for granted," says Palfrey, "that
i Mass. Col. Rec. III. 343. IV. 182.




Lzfe of Henry Dunster.          125
Dunster considered this as a blow aimed at him;
for in the next month he sent in his resignation." 1 It was plain that he was guilty of more
than a "mistake."  He had committed an unpardonable offence. The "hope of the flock"
were in peril, and his continuance in office would
encourage the Baptists to still greater audacity.
The theocratic leaders were, however, unwilling
to assume the direct responsibility of expelling
him  from  the College; they would make his
position so uncomfortable that he would be compelled to resign.  He understood their meaning, and the next month, June io, 1654, put into
the hands of the Overseers a letter addressed to
the General Court, in which he said: "I here
resign up  the place wherein hitherto I have
labored with all my heart (blessed be the Lord
who gave it) serving you and  yours.  And
henceforth (that you in the interim may be provided) I shall be willing to do the best I can for
some few weeks or months to continue the work,
acting according to the orders prescribed to us;
if the Society in the interim fall not to pieces in
our hands; and what advice for the present or
1 Hist. New England II. 398, note.
II*




126      Life of Henry Dunster.
for the future I can give for the public good, in
this behalf, with all readiness of mind I shall do
it, and daily by the grace of our Lord Jesus
Christ, pray the Lord to help and counsel us all,
in whom I rest.
"Yours faithfully to serve,
" HENRY DUNSTER."1
On the 25th of the same month, the Court
" ungraciously" accepted his resignation, referring the case to the Overseers in the following curt style:
"In answer to a writing presented  to this
Court by Mr. Henry Dunster, wherein amongst
other things he is pleased to make a resignation
of his place as President, this Court doth order
that it shall be left to the care and discretion of
the Overseers of the College to make provision,
in case he persist in his resolution more than one
month (and inform the Overseers) for some meet
person to carry on and end that work for the present."
Neither in Mr. Dunster's letter nor in the
order of the Court is there any allusion to the
1 Mass. Col. Records III. 352.




Life of Henry Dunster.   127
real cause of his resignation or of their acceptance of it.   The whole matter was, however,
well understood  by  both  parties;  and  there
would be something amusing in the sort of byplay which was kept up by the Court in seeming
ignorance of Mr. Dunster's crime, were it not
for the heartless eagerness apparent in their
action to rid the College of one whose "life" no
man doubted, was "of the noblest and purest," 1
and against whose official conduct for nearly fourteen years of toil and sacrifice no suspicion of
incapacity in any sense had ever been whispered
- save, of late, in the one point which covered
a multitude of virtues, his honest disavowal of
infant baptism.
Even now  it was in Mr. Dunster's power to
retain his office,2 but it was upon a condition to
1 Palfrey.
2 Hubbard, a graduate of the College in I642, says in his History: "His body was solemnly interred at Cambridge, where he
had spent the choise part of his studies and of his life, and zzigt
there have continued, if he had been endowed with that wisdom
which many others have wanted besides himself, to have kept hizs
sizegzlar opinion to /himsef, when there was little occasion of
venting thereof," - a confession more creditable to Hubbard as
an historian than as a Christian and Christian minister.




128      Life of Henry Dunster.
which he could not submit, though it was urged
upon him by the Overseers - that he refrain from
"imposing" his opinions upon others.  Simple
silence -that was all. Only one thing stood in
the way, - he was an honest man. What he believed, that he must speak. God's truth, as he
conceived it, was to be published, not concealed.
The work at Cambridge was dear to him, he had
"labored" in it " with all his heart;" but he
could lay it down, rather than wound his conscience or dishonor God. And so, knowing the
consequences of his action, about a month after
the reference by the General Court to the Overseers, of his letter of resignation, with an involved condition, he again bore public testimony
in the Church at Cambridge, on Sunday, against
infant baptism. He probably felt that, under the
circumstances, silence would be construed into
a confession of error, and submission to the understood terms of continuance in office. Doubtless, too, in the excited state of public feeling,
when " the brethren of the Church were somewhat vehement and violent in their signifying of
their dissatisfaction," Mr. Dunster's every act and
word would be watched with eagle eyes. He




Life of Henry Dunster.    129
must therefore re-affirm his honest convictions,
be the consequences what they might.
But it is not in the Church records that we find
an account of his " testimony" at this time. but
in those of the County Court, held at Cambridge.
The record is as follows:
"At a  County Court held  at Cambridge the
3d of the 2d m. [April],' I655.2
Mr. Henry Dunster being presented to this
Court by the Grand Jury for disturbance of the
ordinances of Christ uppon the Lord's daye
at Cambridge July the 30th, 1654, to the dis1 According to the Old Style, the year began in March.
2 Quincy (Hist. of Cambridge Col. p. I8), says: "Indicted by
the grand jury for disturbing the ordinance of infant baptism in
the Cambridge Church, convicted by the Court, sentenced to a
public admonition on lecture day, and laid under bonds for good
behavior, Dunster's martyrdom was consummated by being compelled in Oct., I654, to resign his office of President, and to throw
himself on the tender mercies of the General Court."
He appears to have been deceived as to the order of events,
by the fact that the offence for which Mr. Dunster was tried in
the County Court, was committed prior to his resignation;
but the trial and conviction did not occur till about eight
months after the offence, and about six months after his resignation.




130      Life of Henry Dunster.
honor of the name of Christ his truth and minister.
Severall witnesses tendered to attest uppon
their oathes respectively, that uppon the Lords
daye July the 30h I654, Mr. Henry Dunster
spake to the congregation in the time of the publique ordinance to the interruption thereof without leave, which was also aggravated in that he
being desired by the Elder to forbeare, and not
to interrupt an ordinance of Christ, yet notwithstanding he proceeded in way of complaint to the
Congregation, saying, I am forbidden to speake
that in Christ's name which I would have testified. And in his following speeches he asserted
as his testimony in the name of Christ these
things:
i. That the subjects of Baptisme were visible
pennitent believers, and they only by vertue of
any rule, example, or any other light in the new
testament.
2. That there was an action now to be done,
which was not according to the institution of
Christ.
3. That the exposition as it had been held forth
was not the mind of Christ.




Life of Henry Dunster.    131
4. That the covenant of Abraham   is  not a
ground for Baptisme no not after the institution
thereof.
5. That there were such corruptions 1 stealing
into  the  Church, which every faithful Christian
ought to beare witnes against.
1 Mr. Dunster probably had reference to a tendency which
had begun to show itself, in the opinion of many of the best men,
towards impairing the purity of the churches; a tendency which
clearly revealed itself in the synods of 1657 and 1662, in what
was afterwards called "the half-way covenant," according to
which persons of blameless life, though, as unregenerated, uot
deemed fit for church-membership, were allowed to have their
children baptized, on condition of their " owning " the covenant
made by their parents for them  in their infancy. President
Chauncy, Increase Mather (at first), Mr. Davenport, and others
strongly opposed this broad departure from the original stricness of the churches, fearing that " the sacred ordinance of baptism would come to be applied to such unmeet subjects as would
in a while put an end to New England's primitive and peculiar
glory of undefiled administration." Mr. Dunster foresaw this
danger, but would avoid it by rejecting infant baptism altogether,
and confining baptism to believers. He also, says Uhden, " rejected infant baptism, manifestly for the sake of carrying out
consistently the Congregationalist principle; for the sacraments
being in his view of equal rank, he held the same prerequisites
necessary for both."  The ATew Esngland Theocracy. By H. F.
Uhden. Translated by Mr. H. C. Conant, I859. See page IIO
of this work.




132         Life of Henry Dunster.
The  Court ordered  that Mr. Henry  Dunster
according to the Eclesiast. Law, page g9,1 at the
next lecture at Cambridge should (by such magistrate as should then be present) be publiquely
admonished and give bond for his good behavior.
Mr. Henry Dunster acknowledged that he had
spoaken theis particulars above named, and said
that he owned them, and that he would stand by
them, in the feare of God, and after farther debate,
he gave in his Answer in writing, as followeth,
Aprill 4th, I655.  I answer to the presentment
of the Grand Jury.
1 " Forasmuch as the open contempt of God's word and messengers thereof is the desolating sin of civil State and Churches:
It is ordered, that if any Christian (so called) within this jurisdiction shall contemptuously behave himself towards the word
preached or the messengers thereof called to dispense, either by
interrupting him in his preaching, or by charging him falsely with
any error which he hath not taught in the open face of the church,
or like a son of Korah, cast upon his true doctrine or himself any
reproach to the honor of the Lord Jesus who hath sent him, and to
the disparagement of his holy ordinance, and making God's ways
contemptible and ridiculous: that every such person or persons
(whatever censure the Church may pass) shall for the first scandal be convented and reproved openly by the magistrate at
some lecture, and bound to their good behaviour." 1646. Charters and General Laws of the Colony of Mass.




Life of Henry Dunsler.         133
I Answer first, that I am not conscious that I
did anything contemptuously or in the open contempt of Gods word or messengers, and therefore I am not guilty of the breach of that lawe
pag. I9, as I conceive.
For the particulars that were charged against
mee, the termes or expressions wherein they are
presented to the Honored Court I owne not, being not accurately the same that were spoaken,
especially the Ist, 4th and 5th, but the matter or
purport of them I spake. I also acknowledged
and do, that for the manner they were not seasonably spoaken, but for the matter, I conceived then,
and so do still, that I spake the truth in the feare
of God, and dare not deny the same or go from it
untill the Lord otherwise teach me, and this I
pray the Honored Court to take for mine Answer.
As for any words or expressions that in mixed
or broken conference, interrogations by sundry
persons propounded, and mine Answers, interrupted before they have been fully expressed, I
Heartily and Humbly pray you, mine Honored
Judges, as you desire to find mercy with the gracious Judge the Lord Jesus Christ, that you




134      Life of Henry Dunster.
wilbe pleased to give the most candid and Christian Construction if any were amisse, seeing
Charity thinketh no Evill, and seeing by Interruptions they were not perfected, and especially
seeing since my sicknes yesternight, my mind
and expressions are not in a Capacity to be so
cleere and distinct as usually. That therefore no
lapse in expression proceeding from the aforesaid grounds, or meere naturall infirmity may
be improved against your Humble Servant and
afflicted Brother,
HENRY DUNSTER."
This trial, for the alleged offence of disturbing
the public worship, but for the real crime of believing and avowing an opinion, took place about
eight months after the offence was committed,
and when the offender was no longer President.
The Overseers, however, did not wait so long.
Cotton Mather probably refers to this period,
when he says: "Mr. Henry Dunster continued
the President of Harvard College until his unhappy entanglements in the snares of anabaptism
filled the Overseers with uneasy fears lest the
students by his means should come to be en



Life of Henry Dunster.           I35
snared;  which  uneasiness was at length so
suggested to him, that on October 24th, 1654,
he presented unto the  Overseers an instrument under his hands, wherein he resigned his
presidentship, and they accepted his resignation." 1
Certainly the Overseers, to whose "care and
discretion" Mr. Dunster's resignation had been
referred June 25, 1654, could no longer stand in
doubt.  Mr. Dunster was past hope of recovery
from the "briars," and so, not long after the
scene in the church at Cambridge, July 30th, they
proceeded to inform the President that the interests of the College and Colony required his removal. Mr. Dunster, on his part, could no longer doubt the intentions of the rulers in church
and state, and a second time, Oct. 24th, I654,
he sent his resignation   a final one —to the
Overseers.  He still occupied the President's
house, but his connection with the College, in
the interest of which he had labored with singular disinterestedness and fidelity during fourteen
years, had ceased. The troubler in the Puritan
1 Magnalia.




136      Life of Henry Dunster.
Israel was " driven " from his post of influence, —
driven for an opinion.'
One of his successors in office, Josiah Quincy,
says in this connection: "Dunster would never
have been compelled to resign had not his excited zeal for his own sectarian faith led him, in
a moment of indiscretion, to overstep the bounds
of prudence, and to bear public testimony, in the
church at Cambridge, against infant baptism."
That is, in other words, had Mr. Dunster, in the
exercise of common discretion, kept his new
opinions to himself, he might have retained his
place in the College.
It is, doubtless, true that silence would have
saved him his office, but to keep silence under
present circumstances was just what, as a Christian man, he was incapable of doing. Granted
that he did not select the most fitting time
and place for his public testimony; so much
Mr. Dunster himself was willing to concede.
And it is certainly possible that some other
occasion might have been more "seasonable,"
1 That it was solely for this reason is plain from the language
of Cotton Mather. See page 103 of this work; also page 127,
note.




Life of Henry Dunstcr.          137
especially for himself, inasmuch as he did in
a sense, "interrupt" the ordinary service of the
Sabbath, and render himself liable, according
to the current rigid construction of the laws
against heresy, to the charge of casting reproach
upon an ordinance of the gospel; but had he not
spoken at this time, he must have done so at
some other. It was not with him a choice between the concealment or the declaration of his
sentiments, but a simple question of when and
where he should speak. So that it was not an
imprudent avowal of his opinions in church on
the Lord's day which cost him his place, but his
openly declaring them at all.  The theocracy
would have been just as much offended by any
other public testimony against infant baptism.
It was his standing to his opinions that was his
unpardonable sin.
It is, then, we think, unwarrantable language,
to say that Mr. Dunster's " excited zeal for his own
sectarian faith led him in a moment of indiscretion to overstep the bounds of prudence." His
" sectarian faith " was to him the truth of God,
which, with patience and prayer, he had sought
after, and which he " dare not deny."  His whole




138      Life of Henry Dunster.
life is proof that he was a man of an eminently
catholic and charitable spirit. But he was as
positive in his convictions, as catholic in his
temper.  God's truth was "more sweet to him
than anything else in the world." And certainly
his own view of the case, - given after a night's
opportunity for calm  reflection, —that he had
spoken " the truth in the fear of God," is entitled
to great weight.
At the time he bore this "public testimony,"
the subject of his continuance in office was still
pending, - made contingent upon his consent to
-silence,- and he must consequently have desired to clearly define his position.  Had he
refrained from any public avowal of his obnoxious sentiments, it might have seemed that he
was seeking to conciliate the authorities for the
sake of office. It was therefore indispensable
that he should publickly commit himself- either
to forbear to "disseminate or publish" his peculiar tenets, as was required of his successor, or,
what alone was possible in his case, to refuse to
yield to any compromise.  Another day and
place than what he selected might indeed have
answered his purpose; except that perhaps the




Life of Henry Dunsler.           I39
more public the occasion, the better might all
understand just where he stood. And, as the
point at issue was an ecclesiastical one, there
seemed a special propriety in his making his
remarks in the church.
Those remarks, as we have seen, settled the
question of his connection with the College, and
accordingly, about three months after this open
declaration of opinions, his resignation became a
necessity.  He had not come to the prescribed
terms, and was compelled to vacate his office.
It is wrong, and hurtful to the moral sense of
the community to stigmatize such rare conscientiousness as sectarian indiscretion. Rather
should it be held up to universal admiration. Mr.
Dunster by this sort of indiscretion became one
of the pioneers in the cause of human freedom.
Nine days after his resignation, at a meeting
of " the Honorable and Reverend Overseers of
the College," the following action was taken:
" Mr. Mather [Richard] and Mr. Norton are
desired by the Overseers of the College to tender
unto the Rev. Mr. Charles Chauncy the place of
President, with the stipend of /Ioo per annum,... and withal to signify to him that it is ex



I40        Life of Henry Dnstlcr.
pected and desired that he forbear to disseminate
orpublish  any tenets concerning the necessity of
immersion  in  baptism, and  celebration  of  the
Lord's Supper at evening, or to oppose  the received doctrines therein."'
1 Quincy, 1. 467.  Mr. Chauncy believed in infant baptism,
but by immersion. The Plymouth Church held him in such
high esteem for his learning and pastoral gifts, that in 1639 or
1640, in order to secure his services, they proposed that he and
his colleague, Mr. Rayner, should baptize each according to his
own views. But he was unwilling to accede to the terms, and
accepted a call to Scituate, where more freedom would be allowed him. Had he been as pliable in 1640 as he proved to be
in 1654, he would have remained at Plymouth, and that Colony
might perhaps have had a rival College, with himself for its first
President. This would appear from a letter of Edward Winslow
to John Winthrop, in 1640, in which the writer says: " I suppose
you have heard what was the issue of the day of humiliacion
concerning the election of Mr. Chauncy. But things are like
to goe ill, for on the 2d day of this week a mocon was made
by Mr. Paddy and some that inordinately cleave to him, for his
settling at Jones River, some three miles from Plymouth, who
purposeth there to lay the foundacon of an Academy, and reade
the arts to some that are fitt for that purpose, soe that they also
may have use of his gifts. I manifested my dislike to the
Governor [Bradford], who still pressed his gifts, but I told him
they must still retaine his errors etc. with his gifts, which were
like to weaken if not destroy both the Congregacions of Plymouth and Duxburrow, being situated in the midst equally between both."  IV, Hist. Col, VI. 169.




Lzfe of Henry Dunster.                      41I
To say nothing of the almost indecent haste
with which a pre-arranged plan 1 is consummated,
what honorable mind does not confess the vast
moral superiority of the out-going over the incoming President; the former refusing to retain
an office which necessitated the denial of his
belief, the other accepting that same office on
the express condition of silence? Was it " indis1 On the very day of Mr. Dunster's resignation, Oct. 24th,
the Overseers "agreed that the Rev. Mr. Richard Mather and
the Rev. Mr. John Norton speak with the Rev. Mr. Chauncy,
and, as they shall see cause, encourage him to accept of an invitation to the presidency of the College, in case the Overseers
give him a call thereto."  One would like to know whether Mr.
Dunster had formally signified his resignation to the Overseers,
when this action was taken. Had he done so, we should suppose some note of it would have been made in the records of
the meeting. But no matter; Mr. Dunster's removal was a foregone conclusion.
Nov. 2d, a Committee was appointed to  tender to  Mr.
Chauncy the place of President, and on the 27th of the same
month, being a month after Mr. Dunster's resignation, the services of inauguration took place.
It is interesting to note Roger Williams' allusion to this
event, in a letter to John Winthrop Jr.: "Mr. Dunster (as is
said) expecting to be outed about his judgment of children's
baptisme, withdrew himself, and Mr. Chancie, who was shipt
for England, is now master of the Colledge." Winthrop Papers,
Histor. Coll.




142      Life of Henry Dunsler.
cretion " in Mr. Dunster and " prudence " in Mr.
Chauncy that produced these opposite conclusions?  Mr. Quincy himself shall answer, when,
speaking of the latter, he says: " He seems...
not to have possessed the stern, uncompromising, self-sacrificing spirit which characterized his
predecessor." This is a true record.
Mr. Peirce, a respected historian of the College, says of the controversy on baptism: " Fortunately it is a matter on which little depends;...the substance of Christianity is of infinitely
higher importance than this form of expressing
our devotion to it, and that a controversy which
cannot be settled had better be dropped."  Of
course the " substance " is higher than a " form,"
but by so summary a process Mr. Dunster's, or
any man's, earnest opinions about the doctrine of
baptism cannot be set down as sectarian trifling,
or, as Mr. Quincy has it, as a proof of "fanaticism." Mr. Dunster did not differ from his
brethren for "slight reasons."2  Whether right
or wrong in his views of the ordinance, as to its
mode or subjects, he thought he saw corruptions
1 History of Harvard College, Appendix, page 36.
2 Page 117.




Life of Henry Dunster.         143
stealing into the Church through the perversion
of this ordinance, in which point others of high
standing in the Church, who still held to infant
baptism, were agreed with him. He regarded
the question of the proper subjects of baptism
which widely agitated the churches of New England in his day — as vital to the true idea of
Christianity as a spiritual system and the Church
as a spiritual body, and as also involving the very
authority of Jesus Christ. It is not our province in this volume to pronounce upon  the
correctness of his opinions, but we may clear
him from the charge of narrow sectarianism and
fanaticism. Mr. Dunster was a man who did his
own thinking, and with whom to believe was to
act. And so he suffered for conscience' sake.
Let such suffering be honored.  Mr. Quincy
speaks of Dunster's "martyrdom." Surely that
is too honorable a word for a sectarian zealot.




144    Life of Henry Dunster.
CHAPTER XI.
T HE world was now before Mr. Dunster,
but his prospects were far from  encouraging. Besides himself, he had a wife and children to provide for. There was no other College
in the land to seek the benefit of his profound
learning;  the  churches  regarded   him  as  a
heretic, an Anabaptist, "that bugbear of New
England," a disturber of the peace of Zion and
of the Commonwealth; and  what church would
desire, or if it desired, would dare 1 to invite his
1 In 1653 the General Court enacted, "That every person
that shall publish or maintain any heterodox or erroneous doctrine shall be liable to be questioned and censured by the County
Court where he liveth, according to the merit of his offence." Col. Rec. IV. I5I. It is probable that this action was
prompted by Mr. Dunster's course, and was aimed directly
at him.




Life of Henry Dunster.           I45
services, though he had the reputation of being
"an orthodox preacher of the truths of Christ,
very powerful through his blessing to move the
affection"?  Thus, regarded everywhere with
suspicion, while everywhere acknowledged to
be a man of incorruptible integrity and eminent
ability, whither should he direct his steps, and
what should be his employment? In his embarrassment, he sent, eleven days after his resignation, a Petition to the General Court, in
which with singular meekness but without servility, without receding a step from his avowed
belief, he invoked their merciful consideration of
his circumstances:
"The Petition of Henry Dunster in case of
important and importunate exigencies humbly
sheweth:
" With all thankfulnesse acknowledging your
forbearance to take advantage at his resignation
of his place June the last past untill your humble petitioner might have conference with the
honored and  Reverend Overseers about the
grievances him afflicting, by which your humble petitioner, being enformed to some measure




146      Lzfe of Henry Dunsler.
of satisfaction, in submissive willingnesse re-assumed his place and answerably, ever since, to
his power dutifully demain'd himselfe therein untill the 24 of the 8th month [October] last, when
upon the prudent and peaceable motions of the
said honored and Reverend Overseers for the
publique weal of the Society, concurring with
other reasons your humble petitioner thereunto
inducing, he your said  petitioner  peaceably
laid down  and resign'd  his place again the
second time in such wise and manner as might
be of best report and most inoffensive to all
sides.
" Therefore your humble petitioner submissively
desireth that it may neither be thought, nor by
any of your honored selves reported, that your
said petitioner did cast off his place out of any
froward morosity, foolish levity, or ingratefull despising either of the Court's forbearance or the
Overseers' amicable conferences, for all the Honored and Reverend Overseers can beare witnesse
to the contrary, and how this thing was transacted, composedly by their motives and arguments concurring with your humble petitioner's
conceptions and acceptation.




Life of Henry DuIster.          I47
"Moreover it is your said petitioner's humble
request that the honored Court would be pleased
to take into their Christian consideration the
grounds and reasons whereupon the late honored
Committee for the College commended to your
Court the equity of allowance to be made to your
humble petitioner for his extraordinary labor in,
about, and concerning the weal of the College
over and beside his dayly employment in the
education of youth for the space of these fourteen
yeares last past, that your humble petitioner may
be enabled thereby to discharge his debts in Old
and New England.
"And whereas your humble petitioner with singular industry thorow great difficultyes erected
the house wherein for the present he dwelleth, it
is his humble desire that he may peacably enjoy
the same, untill all accounts due to him from ye
Corporation be orderly and valuably to him your
humble petitioner satisfyed and pay'd.
" And whereas your humble petitioner, being a
free man of this Colony, doth not only by vertue
of his oath, but also, from an innate love and
affection, ever hath and still doth seek the weal
and felicity thereof in all things according to his




148      Life of Henry Dunster.
best light and with his whole person, property
and estate, and soe teacheth all his to doe that
noe member of this Colony may be uselesse or
unprofitable; therefore it is your petitioner's
humble desire for his account's sake one day to
be made to God of the talents to him betrusted,
for the maintenance of his afflicted family (which
the light of nature teacheth infidels), for the weal
of this plantation which it is written in your servant's heart to promote; that therefore according
to his education and abilityes, without all impeachment, molestation, or discountenance from
the authority of this colony, he your said humble
servant, walking piously and peacably, may seek
further and vigorously prosecute the spiritual or
temporall weal of the inhabitants thereof in
preaching the Gospel of Christ, teaching or training up of youth, or in any other laudable or liberall caling as God shall chalk out his way, and
when, and where, and in what manner he shall
find acceptance....
" Yours to his power in all things humbly to
serve.
HENRIE DUNSTER.
"4. 9br [November] 54 [I654]."




Life of Henry Dunster.           I49
To this petition the Court replied as follows: 
"I. In answer to that section, figure I. What
extraordinary labor in, about, and concerning the
weal of the College, for the space of fourteen
years we know of none, but what was the President's duty belonging to his place; unless he can
show the particulars of these labors which were
extraordinary.' 2. In answer to the second. It is most unreasonable. For he may protract the making up
of his accounts some years, and thereby hinder
the comfortable being of him who is chosen to
the work of the College. What the President can
make justly to appear to be his due, it must bee
paid him with convenient speed.
"3. This Court doth not think it meet, for reasons (whereof Mr. Dunster is not ignorant), and
well known to this Court, to grant this part of
the petition. What other laudable or liberal calling, besides preaching and education of youth, is
intended, Mr. Dunster is to explain himself....
"Agreed on by the Magistrates, with further
reference to our brethren, the Deputies.
R. BELLINGHAM, Governor."
1 State Archives, vol. 58, 26.




I50     Life of Henry Dunsler.
Quincy says that Mr. Dunster's "appeal to
their humanity and justice" was treated in a
"heartless way."  The government seems to
have been in no mood favorable to a proper consideration of his claims upon their generosity or
justice. What they must do they will do; nothing more. Instead of magnanimously acknowledging his "extraordinary" services, they indelicately require him  to "show  the particulars." Instead of graciously according him a few
weeks or months in which to make up his accounts, they seem only anxious to hurry him off
the College premises. Instead of treating him as
an honorable man, they regard him with suspicion. He must have some sinister purpose in
what he had suggested about a "laudable or
liberal calling;" let him " explain" himself. To
his appeal for an open opportunity to serve God
and the Commonwealth, and in behalf of his " afflicted family," the Court has no friendly word.
For "reasons well-known" to them, which of
course are neither more nor less than his opinions
about baptism, they will reduce him to hard conditions. He shall have no opportunity to use his
talents or earn his bread within their jurisdiction.




Life of Henry Dunster.    15
Plainly, their object is to drive him from the Colony, as they had done from the College. They
certainly do not want him to teach their youth, nor
to preach; what other " liberal " profession is left
to him? It must be that he intends to be a lawyer, a profession held in detestation and dread by
our Puritan fathers. One limb of the law had been
worried out of Boston; another must not be permitted to start up in his place. Who could tell
what deep designs he might have in mind against
the theocracy? As a lawyer he might endeavor
to employ the Charter,' the laws of England and
1 " From I640 to I660 they [the people of Massachusetts Colony] approached very near to an independent Commonwealth,
and during this period completed a system of laws and government, the plan of which they had before laid and begun to execute. In this they departed from their Charter, and instead of
making the laws of England the groundwork of their code, they
preferred the laws of Moses &c." Hutchinson, Hist. Mass. II.  i.
Capt. Cudworth, an eminent Plymouth magistrate, deposed for
his tolerant views, about the year I658, expressing, while disapproving, the opinions of the ruling party at that time, wrote:
" If we can but keep the people ignorant of their liberties and
privileges, then we have liberty to act in our own wills what we
please."
" I know not how," says Hutchinson, "to excuse the persecution of all who would not conform to their religious establish



152        Life of Henry  Dunzslr.
the established rights of Englishmen, to work
trouble among them.  The Puritans of that day
were trained logicians, and they well knew the
logical results of Mr. Dunster's theological heresy.
And when we consider the political and ecclesiastical dogmas which held sway at that time in
New  England, and the excited  state of public
feeling at the aberrations of one who was President of the College and a leading member of the
Church, we cannot regard these considerations as
puerile.  A  man who had taken the stand that
Mr. Dunster had  done — what might he not
do?
It must be remembered, too, that the government was now under the leadership of Bellingham  and Endicott, who  for years divided the
highest and next highest honors of the Colony
ments, when their Charter granted toleration to all Christians
except Papists."
Lawyers, it was perhaps feared, might insist too strongly
upon following the common law and the Statutes of England,
and oppose leaving so much to the "good sense" and "discretion of the Court." See page 33. For, as Hon. Joel Parker
(Lowell Lectures, I869) says, by way of apology, " The Puritans
claimed the right to pass their own laws, with the Bible, and not
the common law, as their fundamental law."




Life of Henry Dunsler.              I53
between them, the one or the other being Governor or  Lieutenant-Governor.  These  men,
though they rendered  great services  to  the
country, were yet stern and intolerant.l Bellingham's " acerbity of character," as was shown in
his "factious opposition to Winthrop," was especially conspicuous, and he was now Governor.
It is easy to trace his hand in all these proceedings against Dunster.
The "heartless" treatment which his "Petition" had met with from the General Court, did
not prevent Mr. Dunster from  sending to the
same body, within six days, Nov. ioth, the following " Considerations," 2 intended chiefly as a
reply to that part of the Court's response to his
" Petition," in which his request to remain a while
in the President's house had been dismissed as
"most unreasonable:"
" st. The time of the year is unseasonable,
being now very near the shortest day, and the
depth of winter.
1 Savage (note to Winthrop's Journ.) says that "Endicott
[and Dudley also] was less mild than Winthrop."
2 State Archives, vol. 58, 30.




I54      Life of Henry Dunster.
2d. The place unto which I go is unknown
to me and my family, and the ways and means
of subsistence, to one of my talents and parts,
or for the containing or conserving my goods,
or disposing of my cattle, accustomed to my
place of residence.
3d. The place from which I go, hath fire, fuel,
and all provisions for man and beast, laid in for
the winter. To remove some things will be to
destroy them; to remove others, as books and
household goods, to hazard them greatly. The
house I have builded, upon very damageful conditions to myself, out of love for the College,
taking country pay in lieu of bills of exchange
on England, or the house would not have been
built; and a considerable part of it was given
me, at my request, out of respect to myself, albeit for the College.
4th. The persons, all besides myself, are women and children, on whom little help, now their
minds lie under the actual stroke of affliction
and grief. My wife is sick, and my youngest
child extremely so, and hath been for months, so
that we dare not carry him  out of doors, yet
much worse now than before. However, if a




Life of Henry Dunster.          155
place be found, that may be comfortable for them,
and reasonably answer the obstacles above mentioned, myself will willingly bow my neck to any
yoke of personal self-denial, for I know for what
and by whom, by grace, I suffer....
5th. The state of the Colledg Requireth my
residence untill all accounts be made up, ballanced and allowed. That the Honored Overseers and Corporation may know in what estate
I leave the Colledg de facto. That afterward
there may be no uncomfortable complaints or offence on either side unless the Honored Overseers and Corporation accept my accounts given
in already to the end of the year 1652, and so
acquiess.
2ly. My residence is required in reference to
the Reverend President elected, that I may show
him what our way hath been, particularly seeing
Mr. Okes [Oakes] 1 and all long resident fellows
are gone away, and others in the country have
long discontinued and know not the present state
of the Colledg.
3. In reference to the servants of the house,
to regulate all their accounts and declare their
work to the president elect.
1 Urian Oakes, afterwards President of the College.




156     Life of Henry Dunster.
6. What place near the Colledg can be found,
is more convenient by far for the Reverend President elect, who is in a moveable posture, than
for me on that account.
2ly. Because myself for sundry years was compelled to what inconvenience can befall him
though but for a few months, before your desires
be accomplished.
7. The whole transaction of this business is
such, which in process of time, when all things
come to mature consideration, may very probably create grief on all sides; yours subsquent, as
mine antecedent. I am not the man you take
me to be. Neither if you knew what I hould,
[hold] and why, can I persuade myself that you
would act, as I am at least tempted to think
you do? But our times are in God's hands,
with whom all sides hope, by grace in Christ, to
find favor, which shall be my prayer for you, as
for myself,
Who am, honored gentlemen, yours to serve,
HENRY DUNSTER."
The " simple, touching pathos" 1 of this appeal
1 Quincy.




Life of Henry Dunsler.          157
was not without its effect. Mr. Dunster was allowed to remain in the President's house till the
following March, the beginning of 1655. But in
nothing else does the Court abate its severity.
It is observable that in this second communication Mr. Dunster renews only one request
which he had made in the first, - he begs a temporary shelter for his family. He appears before
the Court as the tender husband and father,
pleading that his wife and little ones, the oldest
but nine, and the youngest but four years old,
besides some of the children of his former wife
who were under his care, may not be driven out
homeless in mid-winter. He has no other favor
to ask; and to the suspicions of the Court as to
his future course, he only replies in the simple
language of conscious integrity, " I am not the
man you take me to be."
Nothing but parental tenderness could have
forced the retiring President to present himself
before the Court a second time in the character
of a petitioner. He was evidently as gentle as he
was conscientious.  The necessities of those who
looked up to him as their protector overcame the
natural promptings of pride. And as a Christian,
14




158      Life of Henry Dunster.
he felt that he was in "God's hands," and he
meekly bowed his head to the stroke. It is plain
that there is no revenge in his heart. He still
clings to his brethren, though they cast him off.
They treat him coldly because they do not understand him.  "Neither if you knew what I
hold, and why, can I persuade myself that you
would act, as I am at least tempted to think you
do." By and by they will judge him more intelligently and righteously. Meanwhile, he nobly
adds, "All sides hope by grace in Christ, to find
favor" with God. And with a prayer for his
persecutors - his deluded brethren - he bids
them adieu.
What but a profound conviction of the correctness of his views upon the point in controversy, and an unswerving loyalty to truth, could
have nerved such a man, so gentle and genial, to
brave the terrors of the theocratic rule?
But Mr. Dunster was not permitted to spend
in peace even the brief respite granted him by
the General Court till March. A  little more
than two months after his second petition, he
was summoned, as we have seen,' before the
1 Page I20.




Life of Henry Dunster.          I59
County Court, in Cambridge, on the 3d of the 2d
month [April], 1655, to answer to a charge relating to an offence committed some eight months
before. As this trial belongs to this period of our
narrative, we here refer to it again. And here
Mr. Richard Bellingham, who was soon to give
place to Mr. Endicott, as Governor, appears as
one of the Justices on the occasion, with Increase
Nowell, Capt. Humphrey Atherton, and Major
Simon Willard, Mr. Dunster's brother-in-law, all
men of note, as associates on the bench. These,
with the fourteen members of the Grand Jury, by
whom Mr. Dunster was indicted, were all churchmembers, some of them, no doubt, members
with him  of the church at Cambridge. The
"severall witnesses" who "tendered to attest"
to his offence, must also have been his "brethren;" for who outside the church would care to
appear against him in such a matter? Thus Mr.
Dunster was judged by "the saints," and not by
"unbelievers"! But why then treat him as an
"infidel," and not as a brother?  Why arraign
him before the Court instead of the Church?
Were his opponents afraid to meet him in argument? They were at least reluctant to do so;




160    Life of Henry Dunsler.
for if the pastor, "the matchless" Mitchell, was
"fearfull to go needlessly to Mr. Dunster," finding, as he thought, " a venom and a poison in his
insinuations and discourses  against paedobaptism," as " from  the Evil One," who could safely
listen to the artful words of this emissary of
Satan? The arm of the law shall be invoked to
silence him and disgrace him. And so the same
set of men, who dared not meet him with texts
and syllogisms, cowardly and cruelly sought to
undermine his character and influence. But why
not be satisfied with his dismissal from the College and his removal from the College grounds,
which must have already taken place, it being
now  past the time granted  him  by the  Court
(March, I655)?  It is hardly assuming too much
to suppose that this crowning insult was instigated by Bellingham,' to make sure Mr. Dunster's
1 Hawthorne, in The Scarlet Letter, represents Gov. Bellingham as "naturally stern," and of an "aspect" " rigid and severe," which is perfectly true to the facts of his character. But
while prompt to punish others for violations of the law, even of
an intolerant one, he was not above the meanness of resorting to
a trick to relieve himself from a merited penalty; for " his wife
having died, in 1641 he married a second time, and performed
the marriage ceremony himself. Ile was prosecuted for a viol:,




Life of Henry Dunster.            16I
exodus, not only from the College and the President's house, but from  Cambridge, where his
presence would be fraught with peril to the students and the Church.  The people, who, as
Mather tells us, were so "vehement and violent"
against their heterodox brother, could easily be
persuaded, if they needed any urging, to bring a
suit against him. And so, when he could scarcely
have got over the care of providing a new home
for his family, he was arraigned before the County Court, among men charged with adultery and
other immoralities, to answer for a crime -so it
was called - committed nearly a year before!
Evidently his enemies would allow him no rest
or peace.
What a spectacle, on that 3d day of April, I655!
He who had lived among them for fourteen years
a beloved neighbor, the honored head of the
College, the expounder to them on many occasions of the Word of God, and for a season their
acting pastor, - a man of pure life and unblemished reputation, now arraigned as a criminal,
tion of the law, but at the trial he refused to leave the bench, but
sat, and tried himself, and thus escaped all punishment." Amer.
Cyclopedia.
14*




162      Life of Henry Dunsler.
charged with "contemptuous carriage towards
God's word and messenger;" and all because,
in his spiritual home, among his brethren and
friends, he had frankly stated his objections to
a certain doctrine and practice of the church.
And what a spectacle, when, on lecture-day, this
learned, pious, venerable man was admonished,
before the congregation, by one of the magistrates. This was to give the solemn sanction of
the Church to the civil sentence. As a church
they had feared to try him, but they could say
Amen to the decision of the Court. It is to be
hoped, for the honor of human nature, that all the
congregation did not share the vehemence of his
accusers, or that their animosity relented as they
looked upon the meek sufferer. Some, no doubt,
secretly sympathized with him, and perhaps some
even dared to risk the hazard of expressing, at
least to him, their disapproval of the proceedings.
To the lot of which one of the magistrates for
that year it fell, to administer the " admonition,"
we are not informed. One would suppose that
Mr. Dunster's noble defence in his letter to the
Court the day after the trial would have quite dis



Life of Henry Dunster.             163
armed his persecutors, or at least made the reading to him a public lecture an unpleasant task.
Certainly Major Willard, the ex-president's brother-in-law, would hardly wish to face the duty as a
magistrate, which he had imposed as a judge.
We here introduce, though it occurred nearly
two years later, another prosecution of Mr. Dunster. In the year I656 (Dec. 29th), a daughter
(Elisabeth) was born to him; and as, within the
following three months, he failed to present it for
baptism, Moses and Aaron again fell to "kissing
each other" over this repeated disregard of an
ordinance of the gospel. The inquisition commenced by the action of the grand jury, at Cambridge, on the 7th of April, I657, and was then
taken up by the next County Court, meeting at
Charlestown, on the i6th of June following. There
were present on the Bench, Governor Endicott,
Deputy Governor Bellingham, Capt. Dan. Gookin,1 Major Simon Willard and Major Humph.
Atherton.  The Court record is as follows: 
1 Daniel Gookin resided at Cambridge. " He is characterized as a man of good understanding, rigid in his religious and
political principles, but of exemplary piety &c." Holmes' Hist.
of Cambridge. Hist. Col. II. Ser. VII. 23.




164       Life of Henry  Dunster.
" Mr. Henry Dunster, being summoned to answer the presentment of the Grand Jury at Cambridge, April 7, I657, for not bringing his child
to the Holy Ordinance of baptisme, and also for
neglecting to appear according to former summons, appeared in Court and made his Answer
thereunto, pleading that he could not do it in
faith, as all well knew, and also naming divers
Authors* concerning that poynt, affirmed that
none of them had given any demonstrative argument touching infant baptism, but had left the
same in medio probabile, but in after discourse
being charged with the falcenes of his asserccon
therein by the Government, he answered (waveing his positive assertion) and said it was so to
his conscience.  The  Court  sollemly  admonished him of his dangerous error, and ordered that
he should give bond for his appearance at the
next Court of Assistants at Boston.
* Calvin, Ames, Hooker and some others.
1 Though Mr. Dunster had removed to Scituate (see page
202), he must have retained his civil connection in some sort
with Massachusetts, as we find him here summoned before a
Massachusetts Court. As he had property to look after in this
Colony, he probably spent a portion of his time at Cambridge
and vicinity.




Life of Henry Dunster.    165
"Mr. Henry Dunster acknowledgeth  himself
indebted unto Mr. Richard Russell, Treasurer,
ten pounds sterling well and truly to be paid by
him, his heires, executors, and administrators,
upon condition that he will appear at the next
Court of Assistants to be held at Boston, in September next, then and there to answer the presentment of the Grand Jury at Cambridge, April
7, I657." 
With reference to the two trials before the
County Court, it may be said, that the Grand
Jury in presenting Mr. Dunster, and the judges
in condemning him, only acted under the law of
I646, and that he had no just cause of com1 No record remains of further proceedings. Thomas Gould
(see pages 87 and 98) was a fellow-sufferer with Mr. Dunster at
this Court. The Record reads: " Thomas Goold being presented by the Grand Jury held at Cambridge, April 7, 1657, for
not bringing his child to the holy ordinance of baptism, the said
Goold appearing in Court confessed his child to be unbaptized,
the Court sollemly admonished him of his dangerous error.
Thomas Goold being again called the 24: (4) 57, [24th June,
1657] and not appearing, the Court ordered that the Clarke of
the Court should send an attachment for him to appear before
any magistrate in case he did not refuse upon notice given him
to give twenty pounds bond for his appearance at the next
Court of Assistants at Boston, and that he should pay the costs
of Court."




166      Life of itenry Dunster.
plaint.  He had violated a known law, and
exposed himself to its penalty.
If the law in question is to be interpreted by
the spirit of the times, he was doubtless guilty.
That spirit was one of intolerance, and was disposed to regard any open denial of infant baptism, however calmly and candidly made, as an
"open contempt of God's word."  The jury and
the justices, as certainly did the prime instigators of the prosecution, doubtless shared in this
general feeling. But Mr. Dunster, no more prejudiced on one side than were his prosecutors on
the other, may be presumed to have been as capable of understanding the true meaning of the
statute as any other man; and, persuaded of the
purity of his motives in what he had said and
done, he said to the Court: "I am  not conscious that I did any thing contemptuously or in
open contempt of God's word or messengers, and
therefore I am not guilty of the breach of that
law, page 19, as I conceive."
It should be further considered, that though it
was not customary for any one to follow the
preaching with remarks, on the Sabbath day, yet
the privilege of doing so, at least on rare occa



Life of Henry Dunsler.          167
sions, might, it would seem, have been conceded
to one who had so long been an honored member of the church, who had preached before it
many times, and who, after Mr. Shepard's death,
had been its acting pastor till the appointment
of a successor. It was surely no great offence
for such a man to occupy a few moments, not
"interrupting" the pastor "in his preaching,"
but speaking after his discourse was ended:
And had his remarks been acceptable to the
people, that is, in harmony with their own opinions, we may be quite sure that no complaint,
certainly no appeal to the civil tribunal, would
have ensued. It was not his speaking during the
time of public service, but what he said, that was
construed, in the heat of an intolerant public
sentiment, brooking no departure from the established creed, into a violation of the statute in
question. Even the excuse of a grave indiscretion
would not be allowed. The law was evidently
taken advantage of to make up a case against the
apostate, and the judges, Bellingham especially,
were more than ready to use it as an instrument
of torture. They did not merely pass the judgment they did, because they felt themselves




I68      Life of Henry Dunster.
bound by their oath to decide irrespective of
their views of the justice or expediency of the
law; they cordially approved the statute, and
willingly pronounced its penalty.
That these officials were conscientious in so
doing, far be it from us to deny; but that cannot relieve them, nor the community which cried
out so vehemently for the sacrifice of the distinguished " heretic," of the charge of intolerance.
The stern spirit of the theocracy spoke through
the law, and through all the proceedings under
it, overriding the rights of conscience, and crushing one of the purest and noblest men of the
day.
The second trial especially reveals this unhappy spirit, for here there was no alleged interruption of public worship, by open testimony
against infant baptism. It was for what he had
not done, that is, for not presenting his child for
baptism, that he was arraigned before the Court.
And when, after citing authorities in defence of
his conduct, he finally threw himself upon his
conscience, " pleading that he could not do it in
faith, as all well knew," he was "solemnly admonished of his dangerous error," and bound over




Life of Henry Dunster.          169
under ten pounds sterling to answer at a superior Court. "If," wrote Rev. James Noyes, "a
corrupt conscience maketh God's house a den of
thieves, it is meet it should be whipt out."  Mr.
Dunster was presumed to have such a conscience,
and it was necessary that it be "whipt out."
In view of the entire proceedings against Mr.
Dunster, what can be more appropriate and impressive than his own words,l written years before? "I have seen with much shame of face
much folly and sin in swelling words and bitter
invectives against persons and things where
clearness of reason and evidence of God's word
is wanting to be matter of conviction to their
spirits, against whom  such words have been
darted."
15        1 Page 280.




70      Life of Henry Dunster.
CHAPTER  XII.
T remains to account, if we can, for the
amazement and trepidation with which our
Puritan fathers received the advent of a Baptist
among them. Thunder in a clear sky, a bombshell suddenly bursting over a city in a time of
peace, - these may help to represent the consternation awakened by Mr. Dunster's avowal of
antipaedobaptism. The entire fabric of Puritandom was shaken to its centre. Church and
State took the alarm, and rushed to the rescue.l
But how came it to pass that a man, hitherto
universally regarded as "learned, conscionable,"
and pious, should suddenly become an object of
general suspicion, dread and persecution? To
answer this question, we must understand what
were the then prevalent views of the Puritans
about infant baptism, anabaptism, and toleration.
1 See Preface, page 4, note.




Life of Henry Dunster.    I 7
These we shall endeavor to exhibit, as a necessary part of the history we are narrating, and, so
far as may be, as an apology for the conduct of
the Puritan leaders of New England.l It will be
seen that these men, however mistaken in their
views and spirit, yet acted not without reasons
satisfactory to their consciences. Like Saul of
Tarsus, they verily thought they were doing God
service, in persecuting  "heretics;" though alas,
they did not, like him in his more enlightened
years, repent of their wrong.
The great John Cotton shall be our first witness.  In his Grounds and Ends of the Baptism
of the Children of the Faithful, published in 1647,
-a work written to answer the scruples which
had arisen in the mind of a friend, the son of Pu1 This apology will, of course, apply with equal force to the
persecution of Protestants by Roman Catholics. The difference
between the two classes is this, that in exercising religious intolerance, the former were inconsistent, the latter in harmony,
with the fundamental principles of their respective systems.
Persecuting Protestants are for this reason worthy of double
blame.
The logical development of Protestantism, whose vital idea
is the right of private judgment, has in our day brought unrestricted religious liberty; while Romanism, true to itself, is as
intolerant as ever.




172     Life of Henry Dunster.
ritan parents in England, about the truth of this
doctrine, he clearly shows his estimate of infant
baptism. It seems that this person's house and
goods had been lately consumed by fire, upon
which Mr. Cotton remarks: " I fear this hand of
God is gone out against you, to visit upon you and
your family, your breach of covenant with the
Lord and his people " [in withholding his children
from baptism]. " For surely," he adds, " it will
be your wisest and safest course so to construe
God's meaning, that your breach of covenant
with God did kindle a fire in his wrath, which
brake forth upon your house, and burnt up so
great a part of your estate.... You saw, not
long before, a like fire of God's wrath breaking
forth in burning the houses of others of your
brethren and neighbors, who had awhile before
turned aside into the same way of errors with
yourself; which, when you took no meaning by,
the same fire burst forth for that last upon yours.
How wise and righteous was the hand of the
Lord, that when water was neglected to baptize
your children, water should be wanting to quench
the fire that consumed your house."
" He [Satan] now relinquisheth all those gross




Life of Henry Dunster.    173
and ungracious tenets whereby he was wont to
plead against children's baptism, and now pleadeth no other arguments in these stirring times of
reformation than may be urged from a main principle of purity and reformation, to wit: That no
duty of God's worship, nor any ordinance of religion is to be administered in the church, but such
as hath just warrant from the word of God. And
by urging this argument against the baptism of
infants, Satan transformeth himself into an angel
of light.... For if godly parents do withdraw
their children from the covenant, and from the
seal of the covenant, they do make void (as much
as in them lieth) the covenant both to themselves
and to their children; and then will the Lord
cut off such souls from his people." 
1 John Spur, in his account of the whipping of Obadiah
Holmes in I65I, said: " Mr. Cotton in his sermon immediately
before the Court gave their sentence against Mr. Clarke, Obadiah Holmes and John Crandal, affirmed that denying infant
baptism would overthrow all, and this was a capital offence; and
therefore they were soul-murderers. When therefore the Governor, Mr. John Endicott, came into the Court to pass sentence
against them, he said thus, You deserve to die, but this we agreed
upon, that Mr. Clarke shall pay twenty pounds fine, and Obadiah
Holmes thirty pounds fine, and John Crandal five pounds, and
15*




74      Life of Henry Dunster.
To the same effect Thomas Cobbett, pastor at
Lynn, in his Vindication of the Covenant and
Church Estate of Children of Church Members,
published in I643, says: " Ever since that word
of old,' I will put enmity betwixt thee and the
woman, and betwixt thy seed and her seed,' Satan
hath had a special spite at the seed of the
Church.... Who seeth not how  Satan doth
seek by such suggestions to undermine the succession of the true religion, and of true visible
churches, which have used to be continued in
and by the church seed?...  How many precious professors, to outward view at least, did at
first entertain some scruples about the external
interest of church members' children in the covenant and initiatory seal of it, which now peremptorily censure the same as antichristian and human inventions. Let my advice be... to take
heed of unnecessary discourses and disputes with
Satanical suggestions, under what promising and
plausible pretences soever they come.... It is
not the first age or time, that Satanical suggesto remain in prison until their fines be either paid or security
given for them, or else they are all of them to be well whipped."
Backus, I. I94.




Life of Henry Dunster.           I75
tions,' Thus it is written,' and' Thus saith the
Lord,' hath been propounded." "See the danger
and  detestableness of anabaptistical tenents,
giving  God and Christ (in part) the lie....
And how doth  such doctrine undermine  all
the Churches of the Saints which differ from
them?"
In his Simple Cobbler of Agawam, Nathaniel
Ward, of Ipswich, "lawyer, clergyman and humorist," addresses the Anabaptists: " i. To
entreat them to consider what a high pitch of
boldness it is for a man to cut a principal ordinance out of the kingdom of God.... 2. What
a cruelty it is, to divest children of that only external privilege which their Heavenly Father has
bequeathed them, to interest them visibly in himself, his Son, his Spirit, his covenant of peace,
and the tender bosom of their careful mother the
Church. 3. What an inhumanity it is, to deprive
parents of that comfort they may take from the
baptism of their infants dying in their childhood.
4. How unreasonably and unkindly it is, to interturbe the State and Church with their Amalakitish onsets."
Mr. Mitchell, of Cambridge, whose mind was




176      Life of Henry Dunster.
so much disturbed by Mr. Dunster's arguments
against paedobaptism, was yet so greatly impressed with the importance of the practice, that
he " resolved... that he would have an argument able to remove a mountain, before he would
recede from, or appear against, a truth or practice
received among the faithful," - which resolution
we cannot wonder at, when we read the following,
preserved in Mather's Magnalia:' _
"One of his infants dying before it could be
brought forth to -an orderly baptism, he wrote:'It was a further sad hand of the Lord that it
should dye unbaptized. Though I do not think
they are orthodox that hang salvation upon baptism, and not rather upon the covenant, yet, as it
appears to be a confirming sign, and as it is an
ordinance of grace, so to be deprived of it is a
great frown, and a sad intimation of the Lord's
anger. And though it may be well with the child
notwithstanding (that it becomes me to leave
unto the Lord!) yet it is to us a token of displeasure.  And what construction of thoughts
tending to the Lord's dishonor it may occasion, I
know not, that after my labors in public about in1 Book IV.




Life of Henry Dunster.           177
fant baptism, the Lord should take away my
child without and before baptism! Hereby the
Lord does again and again make me an example
of his displeasure before all men, as if he did say
openly, that he hath a special controversy with
me, this remarkably taking away one after another. The Lord brings me forth, and makes me
go up and down, as one smitten of God: the Lord
spits in my face.'"
In a work  which appeared after the Synod of
I662, opposition to paedobaptism is thus vigorously described: " We should not choose to put anabaptism as contra-distinct to antichristianism.
Take antichrist for all that which is against
Christ his mind, Rules, and kingdom, so surely
anabaptism is a part of it. Take it for the corruptions of the papacy, how near akin the doctrines and principles of the Papists and Anabaptists are, is showed in a late preface to Mr. Shepard's letter.... If to oppose and undermine the
kingdom  of our Lord Jesus Christ be an antichristian thing, let Scripture, reason and experience speak, whether their [the Anabaptists']
1 An Answerto the Apologetical Preface &c. By Some of
the Elders who were members of the Synod of 1662.




I78     Life of Henry Dunster.
tenets and ways be not highly antichristian.
Does not their cutting off so great a part of the
subjects of Christ's kingdom as the children of
the faithful are (Matt. 19: I4), their changing
the frame of the covenant, whereby his visible
kingdom in his church is constituted and continued &c., give it (though secretly and under
plausible pretences) a most deep and dangerous
wound to the interests and progress of Christ's
kingdom? And hath  not experience  shown
Anabaptism  (with its wonted concomitant errors) to be the vexation and clog of Reformation,
ever since the beginning of it?"
Another work i published about the same time,
pursues a similar line of argument: "The way
of the Anabaptists, viz. to admit none to membership and baptism  but adult professors  is the
straitest way, and one would think it would be a
way of great purity, but experience hath abundantly shewed the contrary, that it has been an
inlet to great corruption and looseness both in
doctrine and practice, and a troublesome, danger1 A Defence of the Answer and Arguments of the Synod met
at Boston in the year I662.




Life of Henry Dunster.           179
ous underminer of reformation.... The Lord
hath not set up churches only that a few old
Christians may keep one another warm while
they live, and then carry away the church into
the cold grave with them  when they die; but
that they might with all care nurse up still another generation of subjects to Christ, that may
stand up in his kingdom when they are gone."
In 1672, Urian Oakes, three years afterwards
elected President of Harvard College, where he
had graduated, in 1649, said in a Discourse:
"The fathers took special care for the continuance of the Kingdom of Christ here in after generations, by asserting their [children's] covenant
interest therein: and therefore examine the experience of former times, and Anabaptisme we
shall find hath ever been lookt at by the Godly
Leaders of this people as a Scab to be contended against, being so cruel and hard-hearted an
Opinion, an Engine framed to cut the throat of
the Infantry of the Church."
Mr. Hubbard,' the historian of Massachusetts,
1 Mr. Hubbard was a graduate of Harvard College, in its
first class of 1642, and of course under President Dunster.




I80      Life of Henry Dunster.
said, in a Dedication to an Election Sermon, I676:
"If he were not much mistaken who said it is
morally impossible to rivet the Christian religion into the body of a nation without infant baptism, by proportion it will as necessarily follow,
that the neglect or disuse thereof will as directly
tend to root it out."
To these opinions of eminent ministers, we
may add that of a noted man in the government.
Mr. Gould  (Backus, I. 293), states that one
day he met Deputy-Governor Bellingham  in
Boston, who called to him and said, "'Goodman
Gould, I desire you that you would let the church
baptize your child;"' and on his saying that he
durst not bring out his child (as against his conscience) the Governor " called to Mrs. Norton of
Charlestown, and prayed her to fetch Goodman
Gould's child and baptize it." It must have been
about this time, that Mr. Gould, having been presented by the Grand Jury for denying baptism
to his child, was "admonished" by the County
Court, (the same Richard  Bellingham, then
1 Mr. Thomas Gould was one of the original members and
the first pastor of the first Baptist church of Boston. He had
been a member of the Charlestown Congregational Church.




Life of Henry Dunsler.    181
Deputy-governor, being on the bench,) " of his
error, and of his greate danger of the Lord's displeasure to himself and perill to his seed, in
case he persisted therein, instancing some Scripture  examples, as  that  of Moses,  and   some
other, and gave him some further time to consider of it untill the next County Court at Cambridge.' "
Finally, the common estimate of infant baptism
was summed  up  by  Increase  Mather: "Antipaedobaptism is a blasted error." 2
Such, then, were the opinions of our Puritan
fathers respecting infant baptism. It was, they
1 Records of Middlesex County Court.
2 Divine Right of Infant Baptism. It is due to the author of
this work to add, that at a later period, in the year I718, he
took part in the ordination of a Baptist (Antipaedobaptist)
minister in Boston, and in the Preface to the Ordination Sermon, preached by his son, Cotton, wrote in the following liberal
strain: "It was a grateful surprise to me, when several of the
brethren of the Antipaedobaptist persuasion came to me, desiring that I would give them the Right Hand of Fellowship in
ordaining one whom they had chosen to be their pastor. I
did... readily consent to what they proposed; considering that... all the brethren of the church with whom I have any acquaintance (I hope the like concerning others of them) are, in
the judgment of rational charity, godly persons."
i6




I82      Life of Henry Dunster.
contended, indispensable to the very existence
of the Church, and of a true Commonwealth.
Their views of toleration were consistent with
such views of baptism.
"This is not unfitting," wrote John Cotton in
his Bloody Tenent, "that a magistrate should
draw his sword, though not in matters spirituall,
yet about matters spirituall to protect them in
peace, and to stave off the disturbers and destroyers of them."
" Though  spirituall weapons  are  mighty
through God, and sufficient to those ends for
which the Lord appointed them; which are to
purge out leaven from their holy communion, and
to mortify the flesh of offenders: yet that is not
supercedeas to Civill Magistrates to neglect
to punish those sins which the Church hath
censured, if the persons censured do proceed to
subvert the truth of the gospel, or the peace of
the Church or the salvation of the people."
"It was toleration that made the Church antichristian; and the Church never took hurt by
the punishment of hereticks."
The Cambridge Platform of I649, the Book of
Discipline for the New England Churches, thus
refers to the civil power: -




Life of Henry Dunster.          183
"Idolatry, Blasphemy, Heresy, venting corrupt
and pernicious Opinions that destroy the Foundation, Open Contempt of the Word preached,
and the like, are to be restrained and punished
by Civill Authority. If any Church, one or more,
shall grow Schismaticall, rending itself from the
Communion of other Churches, or shall walk incorrigibly or obstinately in any corrupt way of
their own, contrary to the Rule of the Word, in
such case the Magistrate is to put forth his coercive power, as the matter shall require."
Captain Edward Johnson, a man of note in
Massachusetts, in Mr. Dunster's day, wrote as
follows, in  his  Wonder- Working Providence,
&c.: 
" Familists, Seekers, Antinomians and Anabaptists, they are so ill armed, that they think it
best sleeping in a whole skin, fearing that if the
day of battell once go on, they shall fall among
Antichrist's armies, and therefore cry out like
cowards, If you will let me alone, and I will let
you alone; but assuredly the Lord Christ hath
said, He that is not with us is against us. There
is no room in his Army for toleratorists."
1 Book III. ch. 12.




184     Life of Henry Dunster.
"To be sure there are many that strive for a
Toleration, yet the people of Christ, who are
the naturall mothers of this government, resolve
never to see their living child so divided."
Addressing the magistrates, he said: "You
know right well that the Churches of Christ have
not thrived under the tolerating government of
Holland, from whence the Lord hath translated
one Church already &c."
John Norton, of Boston, declared, that when
fundamental errors were openly broached, the
"holy tactics of the civil sword should be employed" to suppress them.
The views of Jonathan Mitchell appear from
the following extract from an Election sermon,
delivered in I667. Addressing the magistrates, he
said: " Do not mar and wrong an excellent work
and profession by mixing and weaving in spurious
Principles or Practices; as those of Separation,
Anzabaptism, Morellian (anarchical) Confusion,
and Licentious Toleration..... Separation and
Anabaptisn are wonted Intruders and seeming
Friends, but secret fatal enemies to Reformation."
Thomas Shepard of Charlestown, a son of




Life of Henry Dunster.          I85
Shepard of Cambridge, said, in his famous Election sermon -" Eye Salve" 1   in I672: "It is
to be hoped that this coercive power of a godly
magistracy, which we have experienced the benefit of so many wayes, being duely managed, shall
not be abandoned, nor therefore a repealing of
any wholesome law about religion for the defence and maintenance of the gospel among us;
or that liberty should be proclaimed to men of
any religion to come and set up Shops or Schools
of Seduction among us." "'Tis Satan's policy
to plead for an indefinite and boundless toleration."
"I look," said Urian Oakes, in I672, "upon
an unbounded Toleration as the first-born of all
Abominations.  If this should be once born and
brought forth among us, you may call it Gad, and
give the same reason that she did of the name of
her son: Behold, a troop cometh, even a troop of
all manner of Abominations.... No doubt but
it belongs to the Magistrate to judge what is tolerable in his dominions in this respect. And the
eye of the civil magistrate is to be to the securing of the way of God that is duly established..   Boundless liberty will expose us to great
1 Artillery Election Sermon.




186      Life of Henry Dunster.
danger." The next year,l Mr. Oakes was of the
same mind, only, if possible, a little more vehement: "Wanton Gospellers, giddy Professors,
men of corrupt mindes, would have magistrates
that will allow them in publishing and spreading
their damnable Heresies, disturbing the Peace
and Order of the Churches of Christ, and spurning all that is precious and sacred amongst us."
In I674, Mr. Arnold, of Marshfield, in an
Election sermon, advocated the same doctrine:
"Tolerate not things that are intolerable. A
boundless Toleration will be found at last an intolerable thing. Such as differ only in Circumstantials, controversial points, and are quiet,
peaceable, moderate, and do not busy themselves
in learning others, we may and must bear with
them; but when persons err in Fundamentals,
deny Christ Jesus, the Word of God, Eternal Election &c., such Heresies and Hereticks must be
suppressed."
Indeed it was commonly said in Massachusetts, that "Antichrist was coming in at the
back-door, by a general liberty of conscience."
Governor Hutchinson told the truth when he
1 New England Pleaded With, an Election Sermon.




Life of Henry Dunsler.    187
said: " Toleration was preached against [in New
England] as a sin in rulers, which would bring
down the judgments of heaven upon the land."
The time had not yet come for the utterance,
by a New England Puritan minister, of such sentiments as the following, contained in a sermon
by Thomas Prince, of Boston, in the year I 73I-2:
" How opposite to Christian charity and union is
it, for the imposers [of things which they own
Christ has not appointed] to make themselves
judges of the hearts of those who differ from them,
and engross the sacred name of Conscience to
themselves, by asserting the dissent of others is
from  humor only, and not from  conscience."
" And how exceeding beautiful would be the Christian world... where they differ about an ordinance of his [Christ's], these both preserve their
brethren's consciences entire, and believe in
charity they differ from a conscientious regard to
what they apprehend to be Christ's appointment."
Had this simple gospel rule been in vogue
from the first in New England, some dark and
disagreeable shadows which now rest upon her
early history, had happily been wanting. But
the Puritans, believing, as they did, that the un



188      Life of Henry Dunsler.
restricted expression of religious opinions would
be "damageful," if not ruinous, to church and
state, proceeded, with stern consistency, to carry
out their principles of intolerance into practice.
Laws were enacted to defend that form of faith
and worship which they themselves had accepted
as the genuine gospel, and to suppress whatever,
and punish whomsoever, differed from or was opposed to it.  And as Anabaptism  (as they insisted on calling the system of the Baptists) was
in their view a concentration of heresies, a monstrum horrendum, aiming a deadly thrust at the
church, through its rejection of infant baptism,
it very early received particular attentions from
the managers of the Theocracy.  "Experience
tells us," wrote Samuel Willard, of Boston, " that
such a rough thing as a New England Baptist is
not to be handled over tenderly."  Ministers and
civilians of an earlier day were precisely of his
mind, as the Statute Book of Massachusetts
abundantly proves.  Thus, in I644, it was enacted by the General Court, that " if any Christian
shall openly condemn the baptizing of infants, or
shall purposely depart the congregation at the
administration of that ordinance,... continuing




Life of Henry Dunsler.          I89
obstinate therein, he shall be sentenced to be
banished."
Anabaptists still increasing, a more elaborate
law was passed  "for banishing," as Winthrop
has it, "such as continued obstinate after due
conviction."  It was as follows: " Forasmuch
as experience hath plentifully and often proved,
that since the first rising of the Anabaptists,
about one hundred years since, they have been
the incendiaries of commonwealths, and  the
infectors of persons in main matters of religion,
and the troublers of churches in all places where
they have been, and that they who have held the
baptizing of infants unlawful, have usually held
other errors or heresies together therewith, though
they have (as other heretics use to do) concealed
the same till they spied out a fit advantage and
opportunity to vent them, by way of question or
scruple; and whereas divers of this kind have
since our coming into New England appeared
amongst ourselves, some whereof (as others before them) denied the ordinance of magistracy,
and the lawfulness of making war, and others the
lawfulness of magistrates, and their inspection
into any breach of the first table; which opin



9go      Life of Henry Dunster.
ions, if they should be connived at by us, are like
to be increased amongst us, so must necessarily
bring guilt upon us, infection and trouble to the
churches, and hazard to the whole commonwealth; it is ordered and agreed, that if any person or persons, within this jurisdiction, shall
either openly condemn or oppose the baptizing of
infants, or go about secretly to seduce others
from the approbation or use thereof, or shall purposely depart the congregation at the ministration of the ordinance, or shall deny the ordinance
of magistracy, or their lawful right and authority
to make war, or to punish the outward breaches
of the first table, and shall appear to the Court
wilfully and obstinately to continue therein after
due time and means of conviction, every such person or persons shall be sentenced to banishment." 
The law was not a dead letter.  That very
year, a man for refusing to suffer his child to be
baptized, was tied up and whipped.  Winthrop
says he suffered "for reproaching the Lord's
ordinance."  This poor man was not of consequence enough to be banished; he was only
whipped!
1 Col. Rec. II. 85.




Life of Henry Dunster.    I9I
The next year after the above law was passed,
" upon a petition of divers persons for consideration of the law against Anabaptists, the Court
voted, that the law mentioned should not be altered at all, nor explained." 1
The year following, the Court record reads thus:
"The petition [of 78 persons in  Dorchester and
Roxbury] for the continuance, without abrogation or weakening, of the orders in force against
Anabaptists  and  other erroneous  persons, is
granted." 2
In I646, a law was passed, for punishing contemptuous behavior towards God's word and messengers. 3
The enforcement in I65 I, of the law  of I644
1 Col. Records, II. 141.
2 Ib. II. I49.
3 Page I32. It was with reference to this law that Edward
Winslow wrote in I646: "Against Anabaptists, it is true, we
have a severe law, but we never did or will execute the rigor
of it upon any, and have men living amongst us, nay, some
in our churches, of that judgment; and as long as they carry
themselves peacefully, as hitherto they do, we will leave them
to God, ourselves having performed the duty of brethren to
them."  Hypocrisy Unmasked, p. ioi.  The strangers from
Rhode Island, and later, President Dunster, had another story
to tell.




I92       Life of Henry Dunster.
upon several Baptists has already been referred
to.' And now Mr. Dunster is passing under the
Puritan rod.  He had put himself among "the
incendiaries of commonwealths," "the infectors
of persons in main matters of religion" and " the
troublers of churches;" and though as yet he
had departed from the Puritan faith at only this
single point of baptism, being, for aught they
knew to the contrary, as sound as the soundest
in the cardinal doctrines of the gospel, yet, as
"they who hold the baptizing of infants to be
unlawful, usually hold other errors or heresies
therewith, though concealing the same till they
have spied out a fit opportunity to vent them,"
he was regarded as holding in embryo all possible
opinions subversive  of the  truth.   He  had
started  upon a road which was antichristian,
and of course tending downward.  Besides, the
Puritan fathers believed that anabaptism, or antipaedobaptism, was an emanation from the Father
of lies.2 The " scruples and thoughts " against in1 Page iii.
2 At a later period, Cotton Mather took a more catholic view:
"Infant baptism hath been scrupled by multitudes in our day,
who have been in other points most worthy Christians, and as




Life of Henry Dunster.            I93
fant baptism  which were "injected" into Mr.
Mitchell's mind as the result of his conversation
with Mr. Dunster, were "from the EVIL ONE."
Poor Mr. Dunster was not, then, simply a heretic, misled by his perverted reason; he was in
league with Satan, or, at least, was instigated and
used by the Prince of Darkness to " undermine "
the "true churches."  The Cambridge pastor
clearly saw this, and luckily escaped the snare
into which his once beloved teacher had fallen.
And now Satan must be foiled; and the more
eminent the instrument of his "devices," the
more necessary that he be stripped of his influence. Mr. Dunster, misguided, wretched man,
would not see his errors, would " stand by them"
and "dare not deny " them, and he must be put
where he cannot corrupt the " hope of the flock."
To our minds, looking back from our more enlightened and liberal age, which enjoys the light
of all past experience, the comic and the tragic
seem strangely blended in the events connected
with Mr. Dunster's " martyrdom." Who can but
smile, if he do not laugh outright, at the paroxholy, watchful, fruitful and heavenly people as perhaps any in
the world." Magnalia, Bk. VII. 27.
17




I94      Life of Henry Dunster.
ysms of pious terror which seized upon our Puritan sires because of an opinion, a harmless one
at that, and at their grave suspicions of good,
honest, praying Mr. Dunster as laboring under
a demoniacal possession?  There is something
exceedingly ludicrous in the whole affair; we
should also say contemptible, were it not that
some of the best and most sensible men that ever
lived were concerned in it.
Tantcene animis celestibus ire?
But let us learn a lesson of humility and charity. We laugh at the absurdities of the generations which preceded us, and in our turn we
may be found vulnerable to the shafts of ridicule.
Still, we are not therefore to gloss over the follies
and errors of the past, but to study them in a
philosophic, Christian spirit, and make them helps
to our own wiser and better living.




Life of Henry Dunster.          195
CHAPTER  XIII.
T    O return to our narrative.  It will be recollected that on the 24th of October, I654,
Mr. Dunster had resigned; that on the 4th of
November he had sent a Petition to the General
Court, which was replied to adversely; that on
the ioth of November he had addressed to the
Court "Considerations" showing why he should
not be at once removed from the President's
house; that permission was granted him  to
remain till March, 655; and that after the expiration of this time, on the 3d of April, a presentment was made against him by the Grand Jury
to the County Court, at Cambridge, for "contemptuous treatment of God's word and messengers," for which he was sentenced to receive a
public admonition on Lecture day, and to give
bonds for good behavior,    to which sentence
he responded by letter the following day.'
1 Page I32.




196      Life of Henry Dunster.
His situation was now very uncomfortable,
driven as he was from the College, from his home,
and the victim of a civil prosecution: and this
may have moved the Corporation and Overseers,
in the "Brief Information of the present necessities of the College," which they presented to the
General Court, on the gth of May, 1655, "with
earnest desires of their speedy and effectual help
for supply," to make the following suggestions
about Mr. Dunster: " First. We are indebted to
Mr. Dunster, as expended upon account, near
f4o, notwithstanding that he hath all that we
have been able to pay or assign him. Justice and
equity requires that this be paid him, being due
debt, and apparent upon diligent examination of
accounts. Also, besides what is due upon a strict
account, that former motion sometime made by
a former committee of a hundred pounds to be
allowed Mr. Dunster in consideration of his extraordinary pains in raising up and carrying on
the College for so many years past. We desire
it may be seriously considered, and hope it may
make much for the country's honorable discharge
in the hearts of all, and perpetual encouragement
of their servants in such public works, if it be
attended."




Life of Henry Dunster.          197
Of course it was only an act of honesty, especially as more than six months had now expired
since Mr. Dunster's resignation, that what was
due him from the College should be paid, and it
required no great magnanimity in the Board to
say so. But it is pleasant to find that they went
further, and ventured, with honorable importunity, in the face of the bluff repulse 1 given by the
magistrates to Mr. Dunster's petition for "allowance.... for extraordinary labors," to recommend
to that same body a generous recognition of his
" extraordinary pains."
The magistrates, Endicott being now Governor, referred this, with other matters mentioned
in the " Information, " to the Deputies, as requiring "serious agitation and speedy action," but
gave no further hint of their wishes. Evidently
the " extraordinary pains " of the ex-president for
fourteen years, awakened no grateful sympathy
among them. A cold reference without a recommendation.  The Deputies took up the case, and
found it " meet... to satisfy Mr. Dunster what
shall be truly due him on account."  "The result
of the whole affair was," says Quincy, " that he
1 Pages I49, I50.
17*




I98      Life of Henry Dunster.
obtained nothing from the General Court; and
that the Corporation, after his death, paid to his
widow twenty pounds, in full of the balance due
to his estate." Not only did the Court refuse to
recognize any " extraordinary " service performed
by Mr. Dunster; they delayed paying what they
confessed to be his due, for more than five years.
Such was the sort of " encouragement" given to
the  country's "servants."  Yet, says Quincy,
speaking of the first two Presidents, "for learning, talent and fidelity" they have been "surpassed by no one of their successors;" they " exceeded every one of them in sufferings, sacrifices
and privations;... they were both main supports of the institution for thirty years, and were
not inferior to any of its friends, patrons, or officers, in establishing its character and perpetuating its usefulness."
From this time we hear no more of Mr. Dunster in any transaction with the College, though
we know that he retained his affection for it to
the last, as appears from his dying wish to be
buried in Cambridge.




Life. of Henry Dunster.    I99
CHAPTER XIV.
UT  now, while his brethren  are alienated
from  him, and  Church  and  State are arrayed against him, he must seek a home beyond
the limits of Massachusetts. Here they will not
permit him to teach, or preach, or exercise any
other "liberal" profession.  Fortunately the Pilgrim Colony is more tolerant than its sister of
the  Bay, and  thither, as Roger Williams  had
done before him, he will direct his steps.'
1 It is interesting to contrast the persecuting spirit which
ruled in Massachusetts with the more catholic tone of the
Plymouth government. We have seen with what severity the
Baptists were treated in the former Colony   such as Roger
Williams, Lady Moody, Clarke, Holmes, and Crandal, and President Dunster. But when Holmes and others were presented to
the General Court at Plymouth, they were "only charged to desist from their practice," and " no sentence appears upon record
against them." (Backus, I. I77.) The severest punishment inflicted upon the Baptist Church at Rehoboth, founded in I663
by Rev. John Miles (the first Baptist Church in what is now




200        Life of Henry Dunster.
But meanwhile we find him in Charlestown, in
September, I655, at the house of Thomas Gould,l
now also a sufferer, as he is afterwards to be to
a far greater extent, for the same cause which
had driven Dunsterfrom the College. This person, who, in 1665, became pastor of a Baptist
church, now the First Baptist church of Boston,
was then under the discipline of the Charlestown
church, for refusing to bring his child to baptism, having, it is supposed, been led by Mr.
Dunster's discourses on baptism, to renounce his
former views about that ordinance.2 The occasion which called Mr. Dunster to his house was
a meeting of thanksgiving held there for some
domestic "mercy," to which Mr. Gould had invited a number of his friends. It so happened
that during the meeting a letter came to Mr.
Gould from the elders of the church, desiring his
attendance the next day at "the elder's house"
Massachusetts), was to order the removal of "their meeting into
some other place, where they may not prejudice any other
church," and to assign them for that purpose "an ample grant"
of what was afterwards called Swanzea, where "they made a
regular settlement," and lived in peace. (Backus, I. 285.)
1 Backus, I. 290.       2 Backus.




Life of Ienry Dunsler.          201
for a conference upon his case. The letter was
shown among others, to Mr. Dunster, who advised Gould to comply with their request.
It is noteworthy, that Mr. Dunster is mentioned by Mr. Gould, in his account of the affair,
as among his "friends;" and it certainly speaks
much for the ex-president's humility, strength of
character, and regard for his principles, that he
should permit himself to be thus identified with
a plain man, who, also, though acknowledged to
be "of a grave and serious spirit, and of sober
conversation,"' was laboring under church discipline and reproach. But under present circumstances, the  sympathy and friendship  of the
humblest person, especially if a fellow-sufferer for
conscience' sake, must have been very grateful to
Mr. Dunster's feelings, deserted and persecuted
as he was by those who occupied the higher positions in the community, his former associates
and brethren.  It seems not unlikely that, had
he been living at the time, he might have
been found united with Mr. Gould and nine
others, in 1665, in establishing a Baptist church.
But the hour had not yet come for such a move1 Hubbard, History of New England.




202    Life of Henry Dunster.
ment, and Mr. Dunster was led by Providence
into another field, where he died before a Baptist
church was formed in either the Massachusetts
or Plymouth Colony.
The  town  of Scituate in the latter colony,
which comprised all the present territory of the
counties of Plymouth, Barnstable and Bristol,
except Hingham, is only twenty-eight miles from
Boston, just across the line which separated the
two  provinces; but it was far enough  to  be
beyond the jurisdiction of the General Court of
the Puritans, and could therefore afford a shelter
and a field of usefulness to the exile from Massachusetts.
Deane, in his History of Scituate, says that
Mr. Dunster removed to that place "immediately
after his resignation," where, he adds, "we find
notices of him  the same autumn  employed in
the ministry, in which he continued nearly five
years." 1
1 Backus (I. 453) says: "By searching into these matters,
Mr. Dunster... was brought openly to renounce infant baptism; and seeing the temper that was discovered in the Massachusetts, he removed into Plymouth Colony, the very year that
Reyner moved out of it," which was Nov. 1654.




Life of Henry Dunster.         203
Among all the towns of the more tolerant
Plymouth, Scituate deserves honorable mention
for its friendly treatment of dissenters. It had
also peculiar attractions for a person of Baptist
tendencies. In the year I634, Rev. John Lothrop,
an Independent minister, and  the company
which came with him  from Kent, in England,
settled in Scituate and established a church.
The church to which they had belonged in the
mother country had been divided on the subject
of baptism, a portion seceding, in I633, to establish a Baptist church under Mr. Jesse. "Those,"
says Deane, "who came with" Mr. Lothrop,
"seem not all to have been fully settled on this
point, and they found others in Scituate ready
to sympathize with them." The controversy of
previous years followed them to America, and
"divided them again," which " appears from the
fact, that many of those who remained at Scituate
after his [Mr. Lothrop's] removal to Barnstable,
brought in Mr. Chauncy for their pastor,.
and eagerly adopted his mode of immersion."
During Mr. Chauncy's pastorate, "there seemed
to be three parties in Scituate, one of which
held to infant sprinkling, another to adult im



204       Life of Henry Dunster.
mersion exclusively, and a third to immersion of
infants as well as adults," Mr. Chauncy belonging to the last.
The advent therefore of even the most malignant Baptist would strike no such terror into the
minds of the people of Scituate, as had the announcement of Mr. Dunster's anabaptism, among
the people of Massachusetts.  They were quite
familiar with this delusion of Satan! And so he
was doubtless welcomed as a learned and able
minister; and, in spite of his antipaedobaptist
views, he appears to have served the church in
Scituate for several years, though not probably in
the capacity of pastor.1 Persecution would likely
have forced him to a clear separation from the
established churches, but as it was, he probably
never identified himself with a Baptist church,
as indeed in his lifetime there was scarcely an
opportunity of doing.  We judge that he was
content, under the circumstances, to remain in
fellowship with his Independent brethren so long
as they did not interfere with his liberty of
1 Deane says it is not known whether he was "regularly
inducted into office."  Baylies says that "he occasionally
preached," which seems the more probable.




Life of Henry Dunster.         205
conscience.  It is greatly to the credit of the
people of Scituate, that the true doctrine of the
rights of conscience had made such progress
among them; as also appears from their subsequent mild treatment of the Quakers.
There must have been at this time much excellent society in Scituate. " Many of the fathers
[of the town] were men of good education and
easy fortune, who had left homes altogether enviable, save in the single circumstance of the
abridgment of their religious liberty. In I639,
this town contained more men of distinguished
talents and fair fortune than it has at any period
since. They were' the men of Kent,' celebrated
in English history as men of gallantry, loyalty
and courtly manners. Gilson, Vassall, Hatherly,
Cudworth, Tilden, Hoar, Foster, Stedman, Saffin, Hinckley, and others had been accustomed
to the elegancies of life of England." 1 Some of
these, we know, were living when Mr. Dunster
removed to Scituate, and among them were three
persons whom  he must have found congenial
spirits, Hatherly, Cudworth and Robinson. The
first had been a London merchant, and was now
1 Deane, page 15i.




206      Life of Henry Dunster.
a large landowner in the Colony, and a man of
great worth and influence. He was a prominent
member of the church, and had been a special
friend and admirer of Mr. Chauncy; and in a
civil capacity, he had not only distinguished himself for many years, in the various positions of
Assistant, Treasurer of the Colony, and Commissioner of the United Colonies, but by what is'
far higher, as it was then a rarer quality, a tolerant spirit toward persons of a different faith.
Captain, afterwards General James Cudworth, a
particular friend of Hatherly, and who had accompanied him from England in I632, at different
times held important offices in the civil administration, as Assistant, Deputy, Commissioner and
Deputy Governor.  Isaac Robinson, a son of the
great John Robinson, " the father of independency," was at one time Assistant in the Government. When, after I657, the persecution began
against the Quakers, as well as against those who
harbored them or favored their sentiments, these
three men took a resolute stand against these
oppressive measures, for which, in consequence,
they fell under the displeasure of the majority in
the councils of the Colony, being, with some




Life of Henry Dunster.           207
others who sympathized with them, left out of
office and disfranchised. Captain Cudworth was
most conspicuous in this opposition to the persecuting policy. As one of the Commissioners
of the United Colonies, he refused, in I657, to
sign the document which that body addressed to
the government of Rhode Island, recommending
"that means be taken to banish the Quakers,"
and from this time he himself became an object
of persecution. When, two years later, he was
returned as Deputy from  Scituate, the Court
refused him a seat. A letter which, about this
time, he wrote to England, made him specially
obnoxious to the government, but it remains as a
noble monument to his generous character. Its
spirit will appear from the following passage:
"As to the state and condition of things
amongst us, it is sad, and so like to continue.
The antichristian, persecuting spirit is very active,
and that in the powers of this world. He that
will not lash, persecute and punish men that differ in matters of religion, must not sit on the
bench, nor sustain any office in the Commonwealth.  Last election, Mr. Hatherly and myself
were left off the bench, and myself discharged of




208      Life of Henry Dunster.
my captainship, because I had entertained some of
the Quakers at my house, thereby that I might
be the better acquainted with their principles. I
thought it better to do so, than with the blind
world to censure, condemn, rail at, and revile
them, when they neither saw their persons nor
knew any of their principles. But the Quakers
and I cannot close in divers things, and so I signified to the Court; but told them withal, that as
I was no Quaker, so I would be no persecutor."
Men who were capable of expressing and acting
out such admirable sentiments, the like of which
were not elsewhere heard from Pilgrim or Puritan, could not fail to sympathize with the persecuted exile from  Massachusetts.  Mr. Dunster
had probably been acquainted with their character before this time, as he must have been with
their names and social position, though the Quaker persecution had not yet made specially conspicuous their catholic views. Doubtless they
took him  by the hand, and their large hearts
gave him a hearty welcome to their town and
their homes. The affection and esteem  which
Mr. Cudworth had for him appears in the letter
referred to above, written some four years after




Life of Henry Dunster.         209
Mr. Dunster's removal to Scituate: "Through
mercy we have yet among us the worthy Mr.
Dunster, whom the Lord hath made boldly to
bear testimony against the spirit of persecution,"
-a notice honorable alike to both. This incidental allusion to Mr. Dunster, only the year
before his death, is a gratifying testimony to his
consistent devotion to the last, to the principles
which he had avowed, and for which he had suffered in Massachusetts. Morton,' speaking of
Mr. Dunster in Scituate, says that he " was useful
in helping to oppose their [the Quakers'] abominable opinions, and in defending the truth against
them;" but in this he did no more than Roger
Williams, who had a sharp controversy with
George Fox, but refused to persecute him or his
adherents. Mr. Dunster opposed their views,
but defended their persons. He could not so far
forget how himself had suffered for his opinions,
as to act the part of a persecutor. On the other
hand, "the Lord" "made " him "boldly to bear
testimony against the spirit of persecution."
In I656, Mr. Dunster's peace was somewhat
1 Memorials, 283.




210        Life of Henry Dunster.
disturbed by a suit instituted against him in the
County  Court, at Cambridge, by  his  step-son,
John Glover,l for the recovery of property, such
as "houses, lands, goods, debts, &c.," in the possession of Mr. Dunster, and alleged to belong to
the plaintiff by the will of his father, or of Elisabeth, his wife, whom  Mr. Dunster had married, in
i64I.  At this late day, and from  the imperfect
records which remain, it is impossible to accurately determine the real merits of the case; but
it appears probable that the decision of the Bench
of Magistrates, to whom, by mutual agreement,
the matter was at length referred, by which Mr.
Glover's claim  was reduced from  ~1,447 &c. to
I I7 &c. "leaving some debts... to the value
1 He was a physician, and removed to England. In a letter
(Hist. Col. "Dunster Papers") from William Cutler to Mr.
Dunster, under date of May I9, I654, the writer says: "Your
sonne Mr. Jno. Glover cald att our house as he went into Scotland to be over the hospitale with Coll. fenwicks brother: I
hope he will prove honest."  It will perhaps be unfair to interpret
this expression unfavorably to Mr. Glover. May it not mean,
I hope he will do well - prove himself a man? The word
" honest," at that time, expressed the idea of honorable, becoming,
as in the translation of Rom. xii. I7. Provide things honest in
the sight of all men, i.e. so conduct as to gain the good opinion
of men.




Life of Henry Dunster.          211
of ~57  Is. 6 pence, to be further cleared by
the said Henry &c.," was accepted as a final
adjustment.
It is easy to see that some difference of opinion
might arise as to the expenses incident to the
maintenance and education of several children
during a guardianship of many years; but the
reputation for integrity which Mr. Dunster universally enjoyed during his lifetime, and the
profound respect with which even his most inveterate opposers spoke of him after his decease,
forbid us to doubt that he acted the part of a conscientious and judicious guardian. Several years
before, he had petitioned the General Court to
appoint a Committee " to view and examine what
the estates of Roger and John Glover are, in the
hands of the said Dunster &c." In his Petition
to the Court, the next month after his resignation,' he thus referred to the action of that body
upon his request:
" Whereas this honored Court the 3d of this
present month voted a Committee to examine all
accounts of your petitioner in reference to the
estate of Mr. Jon Glover or what his last wife
1 Page I45.




212      Life of Henry Dunster.
left, or which may concern the estate contended
for, &c., your petitioner humbly conceiveth, prayeth and hopeth that you will readily reverse that
vote as requiring an impossibility at our hand;
for how should your petitioner, unlesse a Joseph
or a Daniel, give an account of a Gentleman's Estate dead above 16 years agoe, whom nor whose
estate he never knew, neither ever was Legatee
immediately, Executor, Administrator or Assignee? nay who may justly say, that he never
knew any estate was in law his, seeing there was
noe Inventory at all annexed to his Will though
legally proved. Neither did the last deceased
wife of your petitioner leave any Estate (after
debts discharged contracted in her life time) in
this country save the lands at Cambridge with
the buildings thereon, and a farme at Sudbury,
the title whereof your honor's Court according to
the Record must determine ere that your petitioner can give any account thereof. And as for
what may concern the estate contended for by
the 2 sonnes, or any other, &c., your petitioner
desireth humbly to be excused from such an infinite task, who yet is willing to give a faithfull
and fatherly account and make satisfaction to the




Life of Henry Dunster.          213
full content of the 2 children of the aforesaid Mr.
Glover, that have not fully received their child's
portion, viz. Mr. John Glover and Mrs. Priscilla
Appleton, and to answer all sutes and pleas that
any other of the children shall for any Estate in
this country legally make, during your humble
petitioner's life. Otherwise it is easily foreseen
what endlesse vexations and tedious decisions
both this honored Court, your humble petitioner
and his posterity, may from generation to generation causelessly be put to."
The Court, as we have shown, having treated
the other requests of Mr. Dunster in a "heartless" manner, contrary to the plainest requirements of equity and humanity, were equally
indisposed to make any concession in the present case. Their spirit was inexorable, they persisted in demanding the pound of flesh, evidently with the purpose of bringing every thing
to bear upon the one object before them -crushing the heretic, and driving him  out of the
Colony.




2I4      Lzfe of Henry Dunsler.
CHAPTER XV.
-4 —
T HE persecutions of Mr. Dunster seem to
have awakened a deep interest among the
Baptists of the mother country, and on the ioth
of July, 1656, he received a letter from a leading
member of that denomination in Dublin, Ireland,
expressing the sympathy of his brethren there,
in the trials he had experienced, and urging him
to make that place his future home:
"Ffor his truely Esteemed ffreind Mr Dunstor: late Provost of the Colleage at Cambridge
in New England,
these
Honored Freind,
I am wholly a stranger to you further then as
to Report which hath spread it selfe to ye rejoicing of many yt feare ye Lord, and hearing that
your Porcon hath been to suffer in some measure
for ye Crosse of Christ, my selfe and some other




Life of Henry Dunsler.            215
that truly Love you on ye ground aforesaid made
it our Request to ye truly vertuous Lord Deputy
to provide for you in this Land, who readily Embraced the same, and ordered fifty pound for ye
bringing over yourselfe and family, as you may
see by a Copy of his Lorpps [Lordship's] and
Councells inclosed, with Direccons for mee to
send to you, which moneys I have sent by Mr.
John Milam of Waterford, once an Inhabitant of
New England, and who will send to you and
Contrive yor passadg, and advise you as to ye
state of this Countrey and ye Christians amongst
us. You need not feare Accomodacons here,
though I hope that will not be your cheife motive, but rather honor of ye Lord and his great
name.  You may through mercy have free liberty of your Conscience; and opportunity of Assotiateing with Saints and free publishing ye Ghospell of Truth, which [is] greatly wanted amongst
us, there being but few able and painefull men
who make ye service of God theire sake. I pray
be not discouraged att any thing you have heard
or shall heare of this place,l but consider ye Prov1 "As to the grand affairs in Ireland, especially as it relates to
the Anabaptist party, I am confident that they are much mis



216       Life of Henry Dunsler.
idence of God who soe unexpectedly as to you
calls for your remove. Paul did not in like case
conferr with fflesh and blood (hapily you may
have Lesse reason in some respect soe to doe). I
desire you to have a Care, knoweing that there
is a Crafty one that lyes in waite for to deceive.
I shall Add noe more but desire you to Consider
that it is ye duty of a Christian to be guided by
ye Call of God, and to be and doe whatever he
shall require from you, by which Rule I desire
you to walke, and the God of mercy be your
Councellor herein, and guide you in the way he
would have you to walke, and that his presence
may attend you to the perfecting your Race with
Joy, and witnessing a good Confession before
men, that soe in ye end you may be perfected in
the Joy and Glory of the Lord att his appearance.  In whome I trust to be found.
Yours and all Saints sincere freind and Servt,
EDW. ROBERTS.'
conceived in England. Truly I am apt to believe, that upon
the change of affairs here was discontent, but very little animosity." State Papers, II. I49. Let. of Edw. Roberts to Secretary
Thurloe, April 5, I654.
1 Mr. Roberts was a Welshman, who, with several others of




Life of Henry Dunsler.    2I:I
Dublin 3d 1655."
[Labelled, "Received, Ioth of July, 1656, from
ye hand  of goodwife Price, ye order of ye consel
inclosed."] I
The  "free  liberty  of  conscience"  enjoyed
under Cromwell's administration, in the mother
country, is notably in contrast with the intolerance practised at the same time in the Massachusetts dependency.  The Puritans of New
England  had not kept pace with  the  Puritans
of Old England.  Owen was in advance of Cotton, and  Sir Richard Saltonstall,2  writing  from
the same religious persuasion, settled in Ireland. In 1683, an
Epistle was sent by Irish Baptists, of ten different churches, to
their brethren in London, recommending a day of fasting, and
a correspondence among all the Baptist churches of England,
Scotland, Wales and Ireland. Among the signers from the
church in Dublin we find the name of Edward  Roberts.
Ivimey. Hist. of English Baptists.
1 Hist. Col. IV. ser. I. 251.
2 He was called by Mather that "excellent knight," and by Johnson, that " much honored and upright-hearted servant of Christ."
In his letter he said, " First, you compel such to come into your
assemblies as you know will not join you in your worship; and
when they show their dislike thereof, or witness against it, then
you stir up your magistrates to punish them for such (as you conceive) their public affronts.... These rigid ways have laid you
very low in the hearts of the saints."




218    Life of Henry Dunsler.
England, in 1652, had felt constrained to rebuke
the " tyranny and persecutions of New England,"
in the case of the Rhode Island visitors at Lynn.
Later, in I669, on the occasion of the further
persecution of the Baptists in Boston, thirteen
Puritan divines of England, including Dr. Goodwin and Dr. Owen, addressed a letter to Governor Bellingham, advising that "an  end" be put
" unto the sufferings and confinements of the
persons censured, and to restore them to their
former liberty." 
Henry Cromwell, a younger son of the Protector, and, at the time of Mr. Roberts' writing,
Lord Deputy of Ireland, was a man of eminently
catholic  spirit.   Thurloe,2  Secretary  to  Oliver
1 As late as I719-20, Dr. Isaac Watts, in a letter to Cotton
Mather, referring to Neal's exposure, in his History of New
England, of " the persecuting principles and practices of the first
planters," said: "But methinks it would be better to have such
cruel and sanguinary statutes as those under the title of heresy,
repealed in form, and by the public authority of the nation, and
if the appearance of this book [Neal's History] in your country
shall awaken your General Assembly to attempt and fulfil such
a noble piece of service to your country, there will be a happy
effect of that part of the history which now makes us blush and
ashamed." Mass. Hist. Col. I. series, V. 200.
2 State Papers, VII. 454.




Life of Henry Dunsler.           2I9
and Richard Cromwell, bears honorable testimony to  this fact, when he says:  "Henry
Cromwell... discovered his enlightened liberality and correct views of religious freedom
equally with the most distinguished  persons
of the age.  He was a genuine lover and
firm promoter of unrestricted religious emancipation, by openly rejecting all impositions in religion." In the same strain is Henry Cromwell's
own letter to  Fleetwood, in which he says:
" Dear Brother, let us not fall into the sins of
other men, lest we partake of their plagues. Let
it be so carried, that all the people of God,
though under different forms, yea, even those
whom you count without, may enjoy their birthright and civil liberty, and that no one party
may tread upon the neck of another. What
have these done, that their blood should be the
price of our lust and ambition?"
It is no wonder that such a man, when made
acquainted  with  Mr. Dunster's  persecutions,
should be deeply interested in him, and zealously second the plan for his removal.
And it must have been peculiarly grateful to
Mr. Dunster's feelings to find his course meeting




220      Life of Henry Dunster.
with such warm  approval and sympathy even
among strangers. For reasons which we may
readily conjecture, he saw fit to decline the above
generous invitation, though we cannot doubt that
he responded with deep emotion. He had long before chosen New England for his home, and here
he wished to live and die.  Here his affections
had taken root, and doubtless it would have cost
him  many a pang to tear himself from  the
beloved soil. We must also believe, that even at
this time, the thought was to him  a pleasant
one, that Cambridge, dear, though so ungrateful,
should be his final resting-place. Besides, he was
no longer in persecuting Massachusetts. Scituate had given him a kindly welcome within the
precincts of the Pilgrims, and here he had doubtless formed strong and tender attachments. We
are glad he did not go. His grave is with us to
this day, and is also where it best should be,
amid the very scene of his arduous labors in the
cause of learning, and of his nobler sufferings in
behalf of what he believed to be God's truth.




Life of Henry Dunster.          221
CHAPTER XVI.
M         R. DUNSTER died at Scituate, Feb. 27,
1659, nearly five years after his resignation at Cambridge. The year before (I658), he
had made his will, which, with characteristic piety,
began as follows:1 "0 Lord, my times are in
thy hands, and I fully submitt unto thine appoyntments for my dissolution, committinge my spirit
into thy hands, for thou hast redeemed it, and
hast, by manifold deliverances out of Tribulation,
sealed to my soule the truth of thy word concerninge thy fatherly love and care of me, but especially by thine own secret and cleare spirit of
grace sealing to my heart that which no mortall
understanding or spirit could possibly conceive
without God," &c. In the will, he provided for
his burial at Cambridge, directing that "twenty
shillings be allowed to any that shall transport
1 See page 303.




222      Life of Henry Duznser.
my body to Charlestowne, or if to Cambridge,
thirty shillings, and five shillings apiece to eight
bearers that shall carry it from Charlestowne to
Cambridge there to be enterred by my loveing
wife and other relaccons."  He appointed President Chauncy and Mr. Mitchell, "his reverend
and trusty friends and brethren," to appraise his
library, and.bequeathed them several books,
which were specified; and it is with particular
reference to this part of the will, that Quincy well
says: " Dunster possessed a gentle heart, and a
noble vein of Christian charity." Mr. Chauncy
"had taken his place at the College," and Mr.
Mitchell was the one who, five years before, had
been "fearful to go needlessly to Mr. Dunster,"
because he " found a venom and a poison in his insinuations and discourses against Paedobaptism,"
thinking that "they were from the EVIL ONE."
Indeed "the injury [he received at Cambridge]
seems to have cut too deeply for resentment;
but his yearning in death after the beloved spot
where he had so faithfully labored, gives touching
evidence how keenly he must have felt it." 
The spirit which led him to direct that his
1 Letter in New York Examiner, by Mrs. H. C. Conant.




Life of Henry Dunster.         223
body should be taken to Cambridge for interment,
finds its explanation, in part, we think, in what he
had said in his " Considerations" addressed, in
1654, to the General Court: "The whole transaction of this business is such which in process of
time, when all things come to mature consideration, may very probably create grief on all sides;
yours subsequent, as mine antecedent. I am not
the man you take me to be." Conscious of having acted in the fear of God, he believed that
time and reflection would change the feelings of
hostility which had driven him from the College,
into a just appreciation of his motives. And presuming, doubtless, that such a change had already
begun, as appears especially from his brotherly
mention of Mr. Mitchell in his will, he wishes to
be laid to rest in Cambridge. He may have
thought that the sight of his dead body would
help to soften whatever asperity remained, and to
give him again that place in the consideration of
the good people of Massachusetts which he felt
had never been withheld through any fault of his
own. He ought to have lived and died in Cambridge, -this he would say by his interment
there. It would be taking him back to his old




224        Lfe of Henry Dunsler.
home. Yet it would also show that he cherished
no resentment. He would be buried among his
former friends, between whom  and himself a
sorrowful shadow had been cast —but only a
shadow.
This loving and forgiving spirit towards those
who had so deeply wronged him shed a beautiful
radiance over the last days of Mr. Dunster. He
was proved to be thoroughly good as well as
great - a man to be loved even more than to be
admired. All his great services in the cause of
sacred and liberal learning while at Cambridge,
were cast quite into the shade by the Christlike
charity and humility which characterized his
obscurity at Scituate, and especially his farewell
to the world.
Morton says that "his body was embalmed,
and removed to Cambridge, and there honorably
buried;" as Hubbard says, " solemnly interred."
We are glad to know this. At the burial-scene,
past differences were doubtless forgotten, or
viewed in a milder light. Many, we would fain
believe, who had honored and loved him in other
years, before the unhappy breach, now shed tears
of sincere grief —such "grief" as Mr. Dunster




Life of Henry Dunster.         225
had predicted, - as they gathered about the
grave. After all —so they must have thought
then, for they had kind Christian hearts -after
all that we once said and did to his injury, he
was a good man, and did a noble work —we
judged him too hastily and harshly. Mitchell,
the Cambridge pastor, must have been prominent on the occasion, and have spoken kind
words of his former teacher and friend. He
could no longer think of him as an emissary of
the Evil One. When he went from the grave,
he composed an elegy, as "a respectful tribute
to his memory."
We would like to know that Bellingham, then
Deputy Governor, was there, to make some
atonement by his presence at the funeral of the
dead saint, for his harsh treatment, as Governor,
of the living President. But, whoever were
there, all hearts must have been subdued and
softened, as the body was solemnly lowered into
its resting-place.
A horizontal slab was placed over the grave,
on which was an inscription, that has since been
lost.  The precise place of burial at length
became doubtful. But it seemed ungrateful that




226      Life of Henry Dunster.
Harvard's first President, "the skilful Palinurus,
who had guided its first fourteen dubious years
with so wise a hand, should  lie within  the
enclosures of its own burying-ground, in an
unknown grave; "  and accordingly, in the year
1846, special search was made for the spot, and
a new monument was reared to Mr. Dunster's
memory. The discovery of the grave was an
occasion of much interest, and we are happy to
give an account of it, written not long after, by
a beloved sister of the author, the late Mrs. H. C.
Conant, after a visit to Cambridge. She says:
"The first effort was fruitless, and the attempt
was abandoned.   Fortunately, among  those
interested in the matter, was one of those keen
antiquarians, who delight in nothing so much as
in a puzzling hunt of this kind. This was Mr.
Sibley, the courteous librarian of Harvard College, from whom we obtained an account of the
circumstances of the discovery. Assuming that
Dunster lay somewhere within the enclosure, he
settled it in his own mind that it could be in no
other than a certain spot, indicated as follows:
first, the tombs of the two Presidents next suc1 Mrs. Conant's Letter.




Life of Henry Dunsler.         227
ceeding Dunster - Chauncy and Oakes - were
distinguished from all the other monuments by
an upper slab of a peculiar kind of stone imported from England; and, not far from these,
partially raised on a heap of loose stones, lay a
slab exactly similar, except that the space for the
inscription was hollowed out, apparently to give
place for a tablet of lead —a practice common
at that time. These three stones being the only
ones of this peculiar and expensive kind, and two
of them appropriated to early Presidents of the
College, the third could scarcely be supposed to
mark any grave but that of Dunster. This was
Mr. Sibley's first point. The second seemed to
make it absolutely sure, viz. that in a line with
the stone heap thus distinguished, were the
graves of two of Dunster's grandchildren, whose
names are yet plainly legible on the low headstones. Here then, if anywhere, he felt certain
would be found the remains of the first President.
"The slab being laid aside, the loose stones
which were heaped some two feet above the surface, were found also to extend downward, filling
a cavity of the usual depth of a grave. These




228     Life of Henry Dunsler.
being removed, the workmen came upon a stone
slab, much decomposed, so as to scale off readily
in handling. Under this was a brick enclosure,
sufficiently large to admit a coffin, whose tiers
were so laid, - the lower ones cross-wise and the
upper ones lengthwise, - as to leave a ledge for
the support of the slab.  The whole interior
space was packed with tansy, among which were
seen scales of lamp-black paint from the coffin,
fragments of a shroud, and   sole remnant of
the mortal body once deposited therein   a
skull, well covered with auburn hair. But was
it Dunster's? On this point there could have
been no doubt, but for one circumstance. His
death occurred in mid-winter, while the tansy
which had been used for the preservation [" embalming"] of the body, being in flower, indicated
the warm  season. This seemed for a time to
defy explanation. The link was at last supplied
by a friend living on the Connecticut, who informed Mr. Sibley, that it was there the custom
to cut the tansy while in blossom, and hang it up
in bunches, for use through the year. The unusual interval, in this case, between the decease
and the interment sufficiently accounted for the




Life of Henry Dunsler.    229
quantity employed, though in the heart of winter.
"The good man's remains were reverently covered  up again; and over them  was erected  by
the Trustees of the University, a plain monument, surmounted  by  that same  ancient slab
appropriated to the purpose two hundred years
ago. The missing lead tablet, supposed to have
done service for the country in the shape of
Revolutionary bullets, was replaced by a more
enduring  one  of stone, and  an  elegant Latin
inscription from the classic pen of Mr. Charles
Folsom, records the virtues of the dead, and his
services to the cause of learning and religion." 
1 "His grave, in the old' God's Acre' near the halls of
Harvard College, was opened July i, I846, when the President
and Fellows renewed the tablet over it. The remains were
found lying, six feet below the surface, in a brick vault which
was covered with irregularly-shaped flagstones of slate about
three inches thick. The coarse cotton or linen shroud which
enveloped them had apparently been saturated with some substance, probably resinous, which prevented it from closely fitting
the body. Between it and the remains of the coffin was found
a large quantity of common tansy, in seed, a portion of which
had evidently been pulled up by the roots.  The skeleton
appeared to be that of a person of middle size; but it was not
measured, as the extremities of the bones of the arms and thighs




230    Life of Henry Dunster.
"There is," to quote further from  the same
writer, "something extremely touching in the
character and  fate  of  Dunster.   One  never
thinks of pitying such a man as Roger Williams.
The prophet fire in his bones, which compels
him to cry aloud and spare not, is at the same
time an inward witness that his work shall not
be in vain; and well may he bravely work and
bravely suffer, who knows that he is thus sent
on a special errand in the service of truth. But
Henry Dunster was not born to be a Reformer.
An  enthusiast in  book-learning, gentle, courteous, affectionate in temper, his natural place
was among the conservatives of society. When
such a man is forced, by his simple fidelity to
had perished, as well as portions of the cancellated structures of
these and of some other bones. The configuration of the skull,
which was in good preservation, was such as to the phrenologists indicates qualities, both moral and intellectual, of a superior order. The hair, which appeared to have retained its
proper place, was long behind, covering thickly the whole head,
and coming down upon the forehead.  This, as well as the
beard, which upon the upper lip and chin was about half an inch
long, was of a light brown color. The eyebrows were thick
and nearly met each other." Palfrey, Hist. New England, II.
534, note.




Life of Henry Dunster.           231
truth, into the lists of a great practical struggle,
he is almost sure to be crushed. John Cotton
was very much such a man; and he too would
have been crushed, but for one gift which was
wanting to Dunster, - ability of being convinced
by the majority.  It was just this difference
which saved Cotton his pulpit, and cost Dunster
his chair. But after all, I reckon Dunster the
more fortunate, as well as the nobler of the two;
for his name has come down to us as pure as
light, while Cotton kept his place to become the
defender of religious persecution."
Cotton Mather, who lived in the second generation after Dunster, has done better justice to
him than to Roger Williams; for while, "as a
kind of small punishment for Mr. Williams' sins,
[he] has left his name out from that remarkable
list of ministers... who were in the ministry
in the Old World before coming to these shores,"
and has " coupled " him " in the same chapter with
the notorious Samuel Gorton;" 1 he has assigned
Mr. Dunster a place among those worthies, and
the still higher honor of bearing "his part in
everlasting celestial hallelujahs." " If," he writes,
1 Rev. I. N. Tarbox, D.D., New Englander, April, I871.




232     Life of Henry Dunster.
"unto the Christian, while singing of psalms
on earth, Chrysostom could well say,'Those art
in a consort with angels!' how much more may
that now be said of our Dunster."




APPENDIX.
233








APPENDIX.
I.
GENEALOGY OF THE DUNSTER FAMILY.
Prepared by Mr. Samuel Dunster, A tlteboro', Mass., and his son, Edward
S. Dunster, M.D., of New York.
REV. HENRY  DUNSTER, first President of Harvard
College, was born in Lancashire, England, probably about
the year I6Io.  He was married to ELIZABETH GLOVER,
relict of Jesse Glover, about the first of July, 1641.
She died Aug. 23, I643, without issue by him.
He married a second wife, ELIZABETH (surname unknown), who died " 12d 7m, I690, aged 60," as shown by
the Cambridge Records. She came from England, as tradition has it, when about eighteen years of age.
1 From a document in President Dunster's handwriting, now in the possession of Mr. Samuel Dunster, we have obtained a specimen of his signature:
235




236                 Appendix.
Mr. Dunster died, in Scituate, Mass., Feb. 27, 1658-9.
I. DAVID, born at Cambridge, May 16,
1645; diedChildren     II. DOROTHY, born at Cambridge, Jan. 29,
of               1647-8; died in infancy, probably.
Henry       III. HENRY, born at Cambridge, I650;
Dunster            died in infancy, probably.
and        IV. JONATHAN, born at Cambridge, Sept.
Elizabeth.          28, or Oct. 27, 1653; died 1725.
V. ELIZABETH, born at Cambridge, Dec.
29, I656.
NOTES.
I. DAVID. Nothing is known of him after he was seventeen years of age. He is mentioned in his father's will,
at which time he was thirteen. In the Rev. Isaiah Dunster's family Bible, now in the possession of the writer, is
this entry in his own handwriting: -
" The children of this President were, I. Henry, who
returned to England, and, as ye family tradition is, died
without issue, a lawyer in Gray's Inn." If Rev. Isaiah
Dunster (Pres. Dunster's great-grandchild) mistook this
name for David's, as he might very naturally have done,
it would explain the want of further knowledge of Pres.
D.'s oldest son.
IV. JONATHAN married, Dec. 5, 1678, Abigail Elyott,
who died, probably in Charlestown, whither they had removed about 1681. He married a second wife, Mrs. Ruth




Appendix.                      237
Eaton, who survived him, and married, Nov. 22, 1732,
Lieut. Amos. Marrett, of Cambridge.
V. ELIZABETH is mentioned in her father's will.
1     I. HENRY,' born at Cambridge, July 17,
I68o;  married  Martha  Russell,
Feb. 25, I707; died Jan. 28, I753.
This date of his death is from the
Bible of his son Jason. In the
probate office at East Cambridge
his death is recorded in 1748.  He
and his wife were among the constituent members of the 2d church
Chiltdren
in Cambridge, now the ist CongreOf
70^natkan        gational Church at Arlington.
Jonathan               ~
II. ELIZABETH, born at Cambridge, Feb.
Dtunster.
22, 1681-2; married Philip  Carand
teret, or Cartwright, a mariner of
Abigail
AbzriZ.     Boston, Nov. 16, 1727.
_~lyott.
III. JONATHAN, born  at Charlestown,
Mass; died in 1742, without issue, and left by will his property to
his brothers and sisters.
IV. THOMAS, born at Charlestown, Mass.,
and is mentioned in the agreement
between  the  heirs  of Jonathan
Dunster, April I, 1728, as having
lately deceased.
1 It is recorded to his honor that he brought wood gratis to his pastor for
seven years.




238                 Appendix.
V. DOROTHY, married April 13, 1732, to
Continuation        Solomon Page, of Hampton, N.H.
Of       VI. DAVID, born in  Charlestown, I705.
Children
Chi~drern     In 1726, shortly after their father's
decease, a guardian was appointed
yonatlhan I
o7nathan ~     for David, he being at that time " a
Dunster
Dunster       Minor in his twentyeth year of age."
and
~~~and biIt is from this David that the family
of Dunsters in Westminster, Mass.,
E lyao U.
have sprung.
(See list at the end, page 251.)
I. MARTHA, baptized at Cambridge, Feb.
13, 1708-9; died-, I800.
II. MARY, baptized at Cambridge, July 13,
1712; died at Mason, N.H., June 29,
Children            795
f    III. ABIGAIL, baptized at Cambridge, Mar.
Henry             2I1, I713-I4.
Hfenry
IV. ELIZABETH. Died Nov. 7, 1716 or
Dunster 
I 717.
and
Martha       V. ISAIAH, born at Cambridge, Nov. I,
Russell.       1720; died Jan. I8, I79I.
Russell.
VI. HENRY, born Feb. 17, 1722-23.
VII. JASON, born July 24, 1726; died Feb.
I9, I805.
VIII. RUTH, baptized Oct. 7, 1733; died
June 30, I735.




Appendix.                   239
NOTES.
I. MARTHA  married Edward  Dickson, March  I8,
1730-31.
II. MARY married Amos Marrett, of Cambridge, Sept.
21, I732. This Marrett was the son of Lieut. Amos Marrett, who married the widow of Jonathan Dunster in 1732.
III. ABIGAIL married a Mr. Cutter.
V. ISAIAH graduated at Harvard College in 174I. Nov.
2, 1748, he was ordained colleague pastor with Rev. Nath.
Stone, at Harwich, Mass. He married at Yarmouth, May
26, 1750, Hannah Dennis of that place, who was born
Oct. I5, I730, N.S. She died May 22, 1766, and on the
13th of November following he married, at Pembroke,
Mary Smith, born at Yarmouth, May 29, 1735, N.S., who
survived him, and died Dec. 23, I796.
VI. HENRY  is mentioned in his father's will, Oct. I,
1848, as lately deceased. His wife's name was Abigail.
He died childless.
VII. JASON married Nov. 6, 1749, Rebecca Cutter.
She was born March 19, 1734. He removed to Mason,
N.H., in I769, the next year after the incorporation of
the Town, and was, with eleven others, the founder of
the First Congregational Church there, Oct. 13, 1772.
In the Covenant it is stated, that, "as to matters of
faith, we cordially adhere to the principles of religion (at
least, the substance of them) contained in the Shorter
Catechism of the Assembly of Divines,... not as sup



240                 Appendix.
posing that there is any authority, much less infallibility,
in these human creeds, yet, believing that these principles
are drawn from and agreeable to the Scripture,... hereby declaring our utter Dislike of the Arminian Principles
vulgarly so called."
These children were all born in Cambridge, or Menotomy in West Cambridge.
I. MARTHA (by Ist wife), born Oct. 7,
Chzildren     1763; died Dec. 19, 1808.
f    II. HANNAH (by 2d wife), born Feb. 26,
~Isaiah      I768; died at Pembroke, Mass.,
Dunster'     May I9, I853.
Dunster
and  III. JUDITH MILLER, born Dec. 6, I769;
Haa -   died March 22, I843.
ZannahI
IV. MARY, born May 17, 1772; died April
Dennis
27, I850.
and
V. CATHERINE, born March I, 1774; died
Mary
~Smith.      May I, 1811.
Smith.
VI. ABIGAIL, born July 29, 1776; died
May 13, 1816.
Probably all born at Harwich.
NOTES.
I. Martha married Dr. James Foster, of Rochester,
Mass. Neither of the five other daughters was married.
By the death of Hannah, in I853, this branch of the family
became extinct. She was the recipient of the generosity
of Harvard College, and bestowed on its library the




Appenzd2ix.                 24I
Bible of President Dunster. She also in 1852 gave to
Edward S. Dunster, at that time a'student in Harvard
College, now a physician in New York City, the original
letters of Prest. Dunster, since published by the Mass.
Historical Soc., Vol. II., 4th series, one of which was from
his father, Henry Dunster, dated Balehoult (Bury, Lancashire, England), 20th March, I640.
I. RUTH, born at Cambridge, Aug. 21,
I750; died at Mason, N.H.
II. REBECCA, born at Cambridge, Aug.
I8, 1752; died at Cambridge, June
5, I753.
III. HENRY, born at Cambridge, Aug. 4,
I754; died in or near Boston, I794.
Children    IV. REBECCA, born at Cambridge, June I8,
of,      I756; died at Mason, N.H., Aug. 3,
7ason            i8ii.
Dunster.  V. MARTHA, born at Cambridge, Aug. 28,
and             1758; died at Nelson, N.H., Sept.
Rebecca           3, 1838.
Cutter.    VI. ISAIAH, born at Cambridge, April Io,
1761; died at Roxbury, 18I5.
VII. JASON, born at Cambridge, March 27,
I763; died at Mason, N.H., March
21, 1828.
VIII. SAMUEL CUTTER, born at Cambridge,
April 20, 1766; died at Ashburnham,
Mass., 1840.




242                 Appendix.
NOTES.
I. RUTH married Joseph Blood, born in Groton, Mass.,
July 29, 1743, who was killed at the battle of Bunker Hill.
They had four children.
III. HENRY lived in Mason from 1769 till about 1780.
He did service in the Revolutionary War. Went to Brookline, Mass., where he married, as tradition says, a Miss
Sharp, and died leaving two children, twins, Henry and
Sally, who were born March 25, 1782 (this is certain).
Sally was given to her Aunt Wright at Packersfield, now
Nelson, Mass. She died April 22, 1808, at the house of
her aunt. She was unmarried.
IV. REBECCA married John Swallow, of Mason, N.H.
V. MARTHA married Oliver Wright, of Nelson, N.H.,
Sept. 7, 1783.
VI. ISAIAH married Miss Davis, of Roxbury, and died
childless. He owned the hotel between Boston and Dedham, called the " Punch Bowl." He did service in the
Revolutionary War.
VII. JASON married, April I8, 1793, Polly Merriam, of
Mason, N.H., who was born Oct. 28, 1768. At the age
of sixteen he enlisted into the Continental Army, from
Lexington or Cambridge, and served four years, until the
close of the war, and was honorably discharged by Gen.
Knox. He received a Revolutionary pension. His widow
also received a pension till her death, May 4, I858.
VIII. SAMUEL CUTTER married Hannah Townsend, of




Appendix.                    243
Mason, N.H. (born in Northborough, Mass.), Jan. 12,
1792, and removed to Ashburnham, Mass., where he introduced the spinning of cotton by machinery. His wife
died about 1822. He afterwards married her sister Madimoisella (called Madie). They had no children.
HENRY and SALLY, twins, born March
Chzildren
Coilf    1   25, 1782. Sally died unmarried at NelHen ry     son, Mass., April 22, I8o8. Henry marDunster     ried Rhoda Jackson, who was born in
1778, at Bridgewater, Mass., and lived
and
Sally         in South Street, Boston, where he died.Sharp (?.    of consumption, July 9, 1813. Buried
Sharp (?).i
J  at Roxbury Neck.
I. JASON, born at Mason, N.H., July I5,
I794. Now (1872) living at Westport, New York.
II. MARY, born at Mason, N.H., Feb. I6,
Children           1796; died at Mason, May 3I, I864.
of       III. ISAIAH, born Dec. io, I798; died at
Jason             Attleboro', Mass., Aug. 4, I857.
Dunster    IV. BETSEY, born April 20, I80I.  Now
and              (1872) living at Mason, N.H.
Polly        V. SAMUEL (the writer of this genealogy),
Merriam. I          born Aug. I, 1803.
VI. REBECCA, born Sept. 25, I805; died
at Mason, June 25, I8IO.
VII. JULIANNA, born Feb. 21, I8o8; died by
j        fall from a bed, July 21, I808.




244                 App endix.
NOTES.
I. JASON married Azubah Felt, of Temple, N.H., Oct.
22, I8i6. She died Oct. 23, 1819, and he married Hannah Hardy, of Westport, N.Y., Jan. 19, 1823. He served
in the war of 1812, as an ensign, and was stationed at
Portsmouth, N.H. For this service he receives a pension
from the United States.
II. MARY married, Dec. 25, I815, Benoni C. Kimball,
of Mason, who died I868.
III. ISAIAH married Ruth Sophia Fisk, of Waltham,
Mass., Feb. 6, 1823. Died at Attleboro', Mass., Aug. 4,
I857.
IV. BETSEY married Moses Russell, of Mason, Aug.
27, I819. Now resides in Mason.
V. SAMUEL married Susan Perkins Dow, of Rochester,
N.H. Is a machinist and calico printer.  Now (1872)
lives in Attleboro', Mass.
1. SARAH, born Dec. 28, I808; married
Children           Joseph Ferrin, July 28, I833.
Of        II. HENRY JACKSON, born Sept. 24, I8Io.
Henry            About 1818 learned the printer's
Dunster           trade.  He married Mary B. Savery,
and             of Plymouth, Mass., who was born
Rhoda             Aug. 23, I813.  Went South  for
Jackson.           his health; died July 7, 1839, and
j        was buried at Georgetown, S.C.




Appendzx.                    245
III. WILLIAM, born April 22, 1812; died at
Contincuation 
sea, 1830.
Children     IV. RHODA, died in infancy, I813.
of    |V. JANE LYDIA DAMON, born Jan. 22,
Henry             1815;  married  Charles Johnston,
Dunster            July 13, 1834; he died about seven
and              years ago. She is now (I872) living
Rhoda             at 763 Broadway, South Boston.
7ackson.    VI. EPHRAIM  JACKSON, born May  22,
J     817; died Sept. 9, I8I7.
All born in Boston.
I. HENRY JASON (by Ist wife), born  at
Mason, N.H., Sept. I9, 1817; died
June 26, I857, at Westport, N.Y.
II. AZUBAH FELT (by 2d wife), b. Westport,
Children           Sept. 14, 1823; d., June 2, I849, unm.
of       III. PHEBE LOUISA, born at Westport,
Jason             Sept. 6, I825.
Dunster    IV. SARAH, b. at Westport, Sept. 8, 1828.
and        V. CHARLES CARROL, b. Westport, March
Azubah  1          I9, 1830. Now liv. in Westport, N.Y.
Felt      VI. SAMUEL K., born at Westport, Aug. I I,
and              1832.  Now living in Philadelphia.
Hannah   VII. ISAIAH HARDY, b. Westport, Feb. 28,
Hardy.             I835. Unm. Livingin Camanche, Ia.
VIII. MARY MERRIAM, born at Westport,
Nov. 4, I837. Unmarried.
IX. ELLERY G., b. Westport, Jan. 8, 1844;
died, Dec. II, I848, of scarlatina.




246                 Appendix.
NOTES.
I. HENRY JASON married Martha Percil, born June
21, I820, at Westport, N.Y., Nov. 7, I840.
III. PHEBE L. married Morris Sherman, of Westport,
May Io, I849.
IV. SARAH  married Wait P. Bristol, of Westport,
May 30, I848.
V. C.HARLES CARROL, married Rachel Benson, of Westport, March I9, I860.
VI. SAMUEL K. married Elizabeth J. Wallace, born
March io, 1843, at Sandwich, N.H., Oct. i6, I860. She
died Nov. I6, I866. He was in the 24th Regt. Mass. Vol.,
and served to the close of the war.
VII. ISAIAH HARDY enlisted in the 8th Regt. of Iowa
Volunteers soon after the secession of the Southern States.
Was taken prisoner at the battle of Shiloh. After being
transported through most of the Southern States, he was
exchanged and joined his regiment. Was commissioned
captain, and raised a company of colored troops.
Children I
of         I. ELIZA  SOPHIA, born  at Waltham,
Isaiah            Mass., April 5, 1824; died Aug. 7,
Dunster            1866.
and        II. HENRY, born at New Ipswich, N.H.,
Sophia            April 13, 1831.
Fisk. 




Appe ndix.                   247
NOTES.
I. ELIZA married Moses Mason, of Attleboro', Mass.,
and died Aug. 7, I866.
II. HENRY married Jane Mellen, of Providence, R.I.,
(who was born Feb. 3, 1831), Oct. 6, 1851.  He now lives.in Providence.
I. MARY SUSAN, born at Dover, N.H.,
Aug. 9, I830; died at Bustleton, Pa.,
Chidren           June 27, 1832.
Children
II. MARY SUSAN, born at Bustleton, Pa.,
S eOf  I    June 27, I833.
III. EDWARD SWIFT, born at Sanford, Me.,
Dunster )
Sept. 2, I834.
IV. CALEB EMERY, born at Sanford, Me.,
Susan P.           July 27, 1836; died at Sanford, Oct.
7, I836.
V. ELIZA ANNIE, born at Durham, N.H.,
Oct. 24, 1838.
NOTES.
II. MARY SUSAN mar. I. E. Smith, of Durham, N.H.,
Dec. 25, 1849.  Had two children; both died in infancy.
III. EDWARD S. was prepared for college in Providence High School; entered Harvard College Sept., I852,
and graduated I856; graduated at New York Medical
College 1858, with the highest honors; appointed surgeon in the army I86; was medical director of the hospital transports in the Peninsular campaign; surgeon at
West Point; and is now Professor of Obstetrics and Dis



248                 Appendix.
eases of Women and Children in the University of Vermont, and also at the Long Island College Hospital, in
Brooklyn, N.Y. Is editor of " The New York Medical Journal," and superintendent of Infants' Hospital, New York.
He married Rebecca Morgan Sprole, daughter of Rev.
Dr. Sprole, of Newburgh, N.Y., Nov. 4, 1863. She was
born in Philadelphia, Pa., Nov. 6, I835.
V. ELIZA ANNIE graduated with high honor at Bradford Academy, at Bradford, Mass., and also attended Mrs.
Willard's Seminary at Troy. She taught in Chicago, and
also at Amitie Seminary in Mississippi.
She married William T. Baker, of Chicago, July 4, I86i,
where she now lives, having had five children, four of
whom are now living.
I. HENRY JACKSON, born at Charlestown, Mass., Oct. 7, I834; he died
Jan. I, I835.
II. ANDREW  JACKSON, born in Boston,
Children           Nov. 30, I836. After the death of
of             their third child and the death of
Henry             her husband, his widow, Mary B.
Dunster  -        Savary, changed the name of Andrew
and             Jackson, their second child, to HenMary B.           ry Jackson, to perpetuate the name
Savary.           of President Dunster, believing that
this child was the only male descendant alive!
III. HENRY JACKSON, b. at Plymouth, Aug.,
1838; died there Sept. 5, I839.




Appendix.                    249
NOTE.
II. HENRY JACKSON (2d) married Marianna Brewster
(a descendant of "Elder" Brewster) Jan. I, I857. She
was born Aug., I837. Now living in Duxbury, Mass.
I. ELIZA E., born Dec. 15, 1841.
II. Lucius F., born Aug. 22, 1843. Died
Chi/dren  i   Dec. 9, 1848, of scarlatina.
Children
III. WHEATON  HENRY, born  Nov. 26,
Of
1845; died Dec. 23, 1848, of scarlaHenry
tina.
Dunsterna.
IV. MYRON N., born Jan. 9, 1848; died
and
~Martha       Dec. 17, 1848, of scarlatina.
V. HARRIET M., born Oct. 23, 1849; died
Percil.  I
May Io, I865.
VI. WHEATON HENRY, born Oct. II, I852.
VII. ATHELIA S., born Jan. I, I855.
All born in Westport, N.Y.
Child of
Charles
Carroll
Dunster       I. CLARA, born Dec. 23, I867.
and
Rachel
Benson.




250                 Appendix.
Child of
Samuel
K.
Dunster       I. CHARLES KIMBALL, born March 23,
and              86x.
Elizabeth
7.
Wallace.
Children
f    I. IDA LOUISA, born at Attleboro', Mass.,
Henry
DHenryse         Sept. 25, I852.
Dunster }II. HENRY, born at Providence, R.I., May
and
25, I857'
7ane
Mellen.
e. HENRY LOYD, born at Duxbury, Mass.,
Children
Dec. 24, I857.
Of
II. LOUISA ANN, born at Duxbury, Mass.,
Henrye           March 28, i86I.
Dunster
III. ELIZABETH  WATSON, born at Duxand
Marianna    bury, Mass., Nov. 30, I864.
Marianna
IV. JANE JOHNSON, born at Duxbury,
Brewster.
Mass., Dec. 24, I866.




Appendinx.                   251
Children'    I. CLARA BERTRAM, born Dec. 19, I865,
of             at West Point, N.Y.
Edward       II. WILLIAM SPROLE, born Nov. 20, 1867,
Swift            at New York City; died at NewDunster  -        burgh, N.Y., July I3, I868.
and       III. ELIZABETH MORGAN, born Aug. 25,
Rebecca          I1870, at Infants' Hospital, New York
M.              City, of which her father is SuperinSprole.          tendent.
Record of the Descendants of David Dunster, the sixth
child of Jonathan Dunster (son of President Dunster),
and Abigail Ellyott, born in Charlestown.
In 1741, Dec. 2, he drew Home lot No. Io of Narragansett, No. 2, and was the third settler of Westminster,
Mass. The line of descent -as given by Mrs. Emma C.
Dunster, the second wife of Martin Dunster, M.D., and
also by Mrs. Daupheny Leland Dunster Parsons, who was
the youngest sister of Dr. Martin D., was as follows: 
HENRY DUNSTER, President H.C.
JONATHAN (omitted by them. S.D.)
DAVID.
HUBBARD.
HUBBARD.
MARTIN.




252                Appendix.
Children ]   I. BETTY.
of       II. MARGERY.
David    III. HUBBARD.
Dunster    IV. MOLLY.
and       V. THOMAS.
Molly     VI. RUHAMA.
Russel.   VII. HENRY.
NOTES.
I. HUBBARD married Ruth Bailey Aug. 31, I769.
V. THOMAS married Lidia Pierce, of Fitchburg, Mass.,
Feb., 1768.
VII. HENRY married Anna Pierce, of Leominster, Nov.,
1778.
Children 1   I. HUBBARD.
Of       II. EPHRAIM.
Hubbard    III. REBECKAH.
and      IV. JASON.
Ruthz      V. NATHAN.
Bailey.    VI. JONATHAN.
NOTE.
I. HUBBARD married, May I, 1797, Becca Kendall, of
Gardner.




Appendix.                   253
I. DAVID.
Children,
I I. KEZIAH.
III. ANNA.
Thomas 
IV. THOMAS.
and
and  V. LYDIA.
Lidia.
J  IV. PRECILLA; married - ESTERBROOK.
I. MARTIN. He was born Jan. 3, I798;
he married Sally Nichols for his Ist
wife, Feb. 13, 1823; died in Quincy,
III., Dec. 2, I854. Was twice married, but left no heirs.
Children
II. PRUDA, born Jan. 23, 1800; married
Isaac Fitts, Jr., I818.
-Hubbard
ubbard    III. REBECKAH, born Feb. II, I802.
Dunster
IV. LOUISA, born Feb. 18, I805.
and        V. ASAPH, born July 6, 1807, was living
Becca.   I        in I860 at Quincy, Ill.
VI. MARY JANE, born Nov. 12, I809.
VII. LYDIA, born Jan. 24, I816.
VIII. DAUPHENY LELAND, born July 18,
J         1818.
See Willard Memoir (pp. 346-350), by Joseph Willard,
for notices of Dunsters in England.
I595, ye io Auguste, baptised Henry, son of Willime
Dunsture.




254                  Appendix.
61I7, xo October, married Henry Dunster and Isabell
Kay.
16i8, Jan'y vij~ [7th], baptised Mary, daughter of Henry
Dunster minor.
I619, Aprill xxij" [22d], baptised Elisabeth, daughter of
Henry Dunster.
1620, November xxix [29th], baptised Henry, son of Henry Dunster.
1622, May 4, baptised John, son of Henry Dunster, of
Elton.
1625, Auguste 8, baptised Daniell, son of Henry Dunster,
of Eltoun.
1627, December 27, baptised Alice, daughter of Henrie
Dunster, of Elton.
1632, July 15th, baptised Elisab, daughter of Henry Dunster, of Elton.
1635, Aprill 26, baptised James, son of Henry Dunster,
of Elton.
1637, November 5, baptised Robert, son of Henry Dunster, of Lane.
The foregoing authenticated record, taken from the
Parish Register of Bury, was placed at the author's service by the courtesy of Charles Deane, Esq. of Cambridge, Mass., who, when in England, in the year I854,
procured it from Mr. Ra Crompton, Parish Clerk.
A comparison of this record with the notices of the
family to which the President belonged, contained in his
father's letter (p. 21) and will (p. 303) and in Savage's
Gen. Dictionary, will show remarkable points of coinci



Appendix.                     255
dence.  In both the former and the latter, there are a
father and son Henry, and a son Robert, and daughters
Elisabeth and Mary. The reference in the letter to Elisabeth:' Your sister Elisabeth is turned scribe, and can do
very well of three weeks time," -which represents her as
having just begun to write, - well agrees with the date of
baptism in the register (1632), making her at the date of
the letter (I640-I) about eight years old. Supposing the
Elisabeth in the register to have been the second wife of
Major Willard, she would have been about twenty at the
time of her marriage. Major Willard married a Mary
Dunster (see Savage, Gen. Dict. Art. Willard) as his third
wife.
But against this, is the record in the register, of four
children, John, Daniel, Alice and James, not named in
the letter.  They may have died, however, before the letter was written; and as to Richard and Thomas (named
in the letter, but not in the register), we.may suppose
them to have been born elsewhere; and that the birth of
one occurred between the years 1620 and 1622, and that
of the other between 1625 and 1627. Alice may have
been the name of the daughter (conjecturally, it would
seem, named Rose by Savage (Gen. Dict. Art. Hills) who
married Captain Joseph Hills. Thomas is spoken of in
the letter as a widower, who had lost his wife and children. Supposing him to have been born in 1621, he would
be only nineteen at the date of the letter - pretty young
to be the father of children. But what is further said of




256                        Appendix.
him: " I pray God he take good ways," might well agree
with his having entered into a premature marriage.
The early age which the parish register would assign to
Henry Dunster for entering  College, and  afterwards becoming President, -  thirteen  ard twenty, -is a  serious
difficulty; as is also the mention by President Dunster,
in his Christian Experience, of Dr. Preston at Cambridge,
he having died in 1628.
It is a curious fact, that two of the sons of Simon Willard by Elisabeth or Mary Dunster were named John and
Daniel (see Savage, Gen. Dict.) 
1 From  the " Willard Memoir," by Joseph Willard, Boston, I858, page
345, we copy the following: "' It was clear [says Rev. Mr. Hunter, of England] that Balehoult was some place so called in the neighborhood of Bury of
Lancashire, and probably in the parish of Bury.'-'The Rev. Mr. Hornby,
the rector of Bury, in a letter addressed to Rev. Canon Raines says, " There
is a place in the township of Elton [thirteen and a quarter miles from Bury]
called now Bolholt, which I don't doubt is the place you mean; because there
is a house not very far from it which goes by the name of'Dunster's.' I
looked through a good deal of the registers, but I could find no entry of any
of the Dunsters." -'The name of Dunster, however,' says Mr. Hunter,'is
ancient in those parts of Lancashire.' -' It frequently occurs,' according to
Mr. Raines,'in the register of Middleton (a parish adjoining that of Bury),
from the beginning.'-' It seems probable,' adds Mr. Hunter,'that the
Dunster who wrote the letter [Henry Dunster, father of the President. See
page 8,] may have transferred his household from the parish of Middleton to
Bury. I am, however, a little surprised at not finding the name in any of our
Subsidy Rolls for those parts of the kingdom, since it is evident that they were
a family possessed of property, and also of better attainments than most of
their neighbors, -belonging, I should say, to the better class of yeomanry.'"




Appendix.                     257
II.
CONFESSION  OF  FAITH  AND  CHRISTIAN  EXPERIENCE.1
Deare brethren and sisters in Christ, I account it no
small mercy that the Lord has called me to give an
account of that fayth and love I beare to Christ and his
Church and people. I: Concerning fayth.
I The summe of [the] Christian religion contaynes
fayth and obedience; as you are dayly taught.
I Concerning fayth.  I hold no fayth which is not
grounded on the revealed Word of God in the worlde, the
only rule of fayth and manners, so that they are not to
be heard though they come as angels from heauen. It
teacheth I God & 2 Ourselves. I Concerning God. We
come to knowe him i. in his essence and persons.
I Concerning his essence, I believe there is one God,
the only maker of all things, who is in himselfe full wise
and holy and gracious, every way perfect and sufficient
ground of happiness and maine pillar of happiness to his
people, so that our spirit can find no adequate object of
happiness but God only; who only can satisfy the spirit,
and who hath a world to command. This God so sufficient yet made a world in time by the word of his power,
by his holy Word Christ and by his Spirit movinge on the
waters to bringe them to forme; wherein he hath shewn
his endless power and bounty.
1 From a MS. volume in the Library of the Historic Genealogical Society, by Rev. Thomas Shepard, entitled, " The Confessions of Diverse propounded to be received, and were entertained as members."
22*




258                 Appendix.
I also believe he governs the whole world by his Providence, so that no bird or hayre falls but by it.
The spirituall creatures are angels and men. Angels,
some are good, and some are bad. Man also by the first
temptation of Satan fell from God, and fell from the
blessed image of God created in holiness and righteousness, and believinge Satan did receive the character and
image of Satan on his soule; and in our naturall state
they have communion with the deuill [and] cannot be
subject unto the law.  Man thus fallinge, God in his
mercy comes to seeke man, and when man appeares
before his Creator, though first convinced of his guilt,
God [imparteth?] out of his mercy, the gospell that the
woman's seed shall break the serpent's head; so that
God, pityinge our estate, hath sent us a Saviour having 2
natures, one divine, begotten of [the] father before all
worlds, the other manly nature because he tooke body
and soule, and so are united in one individuall person.
God —else he could not satisfy, nor be a sufficient
head for the church, to shed his Spirit for the building
[his] kingdom. And man because man had sinned, and
they that sinned must dy and suffer; hath sanctified our
nature in the manhood, and in his person hath perfectly
fulfilled [the] law of God and satisfied wrath, and so hath
wrought for us full salvation. I need not speake of his
judgment, all which I believe as tis in [the] gospell.
Concerning our union to Christ — how we come to
Christ.  I Every man is not partaker of Christ in the
visible way in churches many perish all have not lively




Appendix.                  259
fayth many shall seeke to enter in and shall not be able
though they pretend Christ and fayth; though I hope better in such churches where we are made partakers of
Christ by fayth only, which fayth is not [the] foundation,
every persuasion is not Christ, but lively stickinge to God
and Christ for life, and is ordinarily wrought by the word
of fayth, and hence let those that do not believe attend on
[the] word of fayth. This fayth which God worketh in
men's hearts, he doth dayly strengthen by those ordinances in his church, especially by [the] word - hence
not as some erringe ones cast off the word of fayth to
receive suggestions and revelations without limit, which
is provoking God to take away all the Spirit: The Spirit
teacheth only ordinarily in God's ordinances; hence give
not eare to them that looke only to be fed by heaven
castinge off ordinances.
As [the] word, so Prayer is another means to confirm
fayth. Pray to the Lord, and when ye do pray, believe,
and so this will strengthen fayth.
As prayer, so the Lord hath given 2 sacraments.
i. Baptisme, by which we have our initiation, and concerning it I believe that only believers and their seed
ought to be received into the church by that sacrament.
Hence prophane unbelievers are not to be received into
the church; and then their seed are [not] to be received.
That of Paul is cleare. Else your children were unholy
-hence if holy, let them be offered to God. Let children
come to me, and as children, so those that come to mature age ought to be received into the church by bap



260                 Appendix.
tisme. And concerning the outward elements something
there is concerning sprinkling in the Scriptures -hence
not offended when [it] is used.
You that have been baptised and have made a covenant
in baptisme to forsake the devill, away then with pride, [the]
world, and lust of [the] flesh, hence live not in licentiousness &c: and your covenant is to believe in Christ for life
hence give up yourselves to Christ -so for obedience.
2. The other sacrament is the Lord's Supper - the outward elements bread and wine. And'tis not the quantity
of the elements which our soules neede, but fayth in which
we receive. Outward elements may be given when Christ
is not, and grace may be given when sacraments are not;
for though we have not sacraments every day, yet we may
have communion with Christ, and let those that be kept
out humble themselves, so that it be not contemned. And
here let me protest against the wickednesse of Papists,
who thinke Christ is bodily present —Faith only makes
present. Now altars & tables have no fayth. But we receive Christ spiritually. 3 Holy Conferences. 4 Dayly
reading the Scriptures. 5 The private ordinances of soliloquys and meditations. 6 Discipline in the church.
[The] Lord hath commanded there should be a difference
betweene [the] precious and the vile. Hence 2 sorts should
be held out I unbelievers 2 disobedient, for all Christian religion contayneth fayth and obedience, the soule and body
of the church. Hence if he sayth he hath fayth and hath
no obedience, ought to be kept out. If obedient without
fayth, i.e. walkes civilly only, he ought to be kept out,




Appenzdix.                    261
and hence this keeping forth is holy, just and good, and
[I] shall labour to my power to maintayne. Nay, if those
that do believe and obey, yet if they walk ill, are to be
admonished. If they reforme, blesse God; but if they do
not reforme, then [take] two or three more, and so, at last
cast out, and afterwards to be received if they repenthence I blesse God to see this.
7 There are also extraordinary helps to help the fayth
and obedience and [for] your sins - as Fasting  and
Prayer in case of general calamity; and so with any speciall thanksgiving to feast in God's presence with all moderation and if the Lord do pursue our spirits with some
speciall benefits, a Christian may vow part of his substance
or indearment [indeavor?] to God, which ought to be
performed.
2 Obedience to God which follows from  fayth; for
fayth being in the heart is not concealed, but its effectuall
to cleanse the heart from sin, and to advance his soule
with grace, so that he desires to be holy as Christ is holy.
Now here they fall from fayth who hold they believe, but
they may live dissolutely.  These are worse than the
devills; for a Christian takes Christ's righteousness and
holiness to kill the old man -sanctify as well as justify,
to save you from the guilt of sin on your conscience, and
power of sin in your heart. Papists, the contrary, thinke
to be saved by their own doings and labor for sanctification.  With this last I hope we shall not be pestered,
because [the] Lord is bruising his power, but let us in
this country looke to the other.




262                 Appendix.
The guide of their holiness, or the touchstone by which'tis tryed is generally by [the] word, particularly by Law,
which Law we receive not from Moses out of Christ, but
from Christ writing those Laws on our hearts by the finger of the Holy Ghost. Now this Law is administered
either in the letter, and so convinceth of grosse sins, -and
in the spirit; and so he is convicted of idolatry when he
loves the creature, he is convicted of sabbath [breaking?]
and disobedience to parents, and when he hath any rebellious thoughts- and so far breaking the commandments;
the thought is against the commandments.
A Christian having led his life in christian obedience, I
believe the Lord at death will take him to himself at death
and judgment, when all Christ's enemys shall be trod under his feet; when God [shall say] Ye cursed; and when
he cometh our bodies and soules shall be made like unto
him.
Concerninge the Lord's personall dealings with my
soule. David saith, I will declare thy truth to the greate
congregation - hence I do speake.
There was a servant of God, Mr. Hubbard, powerfull.
I was not past 4 or 5 yeare old: I heard many scoff at his
preachinge, at this great flocking after him, and I asked
why men did so. They said, to heare the word, and I
said then, if it be the word, why do men speake against it;
if it be not, why do men heare it? but I went no further.
But about 12 years old, [the] Lord gave us a minister, and
the Lord gave me an attentive eare, and heart to understand preachinge out of Revela[tion]. Repent, else they




Appendix.                    263
could not be saved. And whereof they should repent, of
the sins shewn out of the Law. This word was more
sweet to me than anything in the world, and hence some
tooke notice of me, and labored to set on the word by confirmation. The Lord showed me my sins, and reconciliation by Christ, and to believe, and when I heare and to
obey. But with many faylings in the schoole. I remembered this worke well. After this I went to Cambridge,
where, growing more careless, I lost my comfort. But I
came to Trinity to heare Dr. Preston,l by which I was
quickened and revived, so that the word did follow. But
especially Mr. Goodwin out of Ps. 85, I was convinced
I had departed from God by folly in dissolute living,
and hence I thought if [I] lived unto God, the Lord
would speake peace; if not, e contra. A moneth [month]
after, my heart did fall off to folly; and the greatest
thing which separated my soule from God was [an] inordinate love of humane learning. Take heed of this least
desiring to be as gods, we become as devills. When I
came from [the] University to teach schoole, the Lord
wounded my soule with temptations for [5?] years together. One in this country seeing me fall in such weakness spoke peacably. But in every thing the Lord showed
me my faylings, so that reading Rom. I and Gal. 5, I saw
all the abominations of [the] Gentiles, even to kill parents;
I [was?] showed I did steale; in stealing from parents;
so that the Lord showed me how I did so live in every
1 Seepage 12.




264                Appendix.
sin, and I saw I did leave a steyne on every ordinance of
God. The more I did strive to keep the Law, the more
vile I felt myself. And hence I thought, thou hast returned
to folly, and hence I speake everlasting wrath to thee. I
saw nothing but doleful horror in [the] conscience, and
looked when lightnings should kill me -ear open and
mind apt to all errors - memory could retayne no good,
and so in [the] affections, and heart unthinkably and inconceivably hard. And at last the Lord showed me where
the fault was, that is, that I sought righteousness by the
Law. In my judgment I sought salvation by Christ, but
indeed did not; but Rom. Io, beginning, the Lord shewed
[me] the Jewes fell on that stumbling-stone. And here
the Lord I informed 2 persuaded my mind, that I could
never have my reconciliation and cleansing but by [the]
righteousness and spirit of his Son.
But here I found another obstacle - will the Lord have
mercy on such an enemy; Hence the Lord, Rom. 5: 8,
9, io, the Lord shewed me that while enemys Christ dyed
for the ungodly; and hence I saw there was not only
righteousness in Christ, but even for those that were sinners, and saw themselves enemys & in feares here I read
the Psalm 40, where every verse tooke an impression on
my soule; I waited patiently, do so, and I in [the] miry
pit, and set me on rock. So I saw [the] Lord could do
so for me, and when I saw no offering was required but
boring the eare, I saw the Lord must enable me to heare,
whereupon I come; as Christ, and of David, and so might
be verifyed of every member of Christ. And I desired




Appendix.                    265
[the] Lord would write his Lawes; and I saw innumerable
evills had compassed me about, yet as David thought,
Now is a time, I was enabled to gather sure'tis a time for
me to call upon the Lord. And herein the Lord answered
me, Looke up to the Lord to be reconciled, and change
my nature. I believe the word, [the] Lord would receive
an enemy; but I did not discourse, Am I such an enemy
as feels it? because I did really feele it. Hence I thought,
he that is such an enemy [the] Lord might receive.
Hence I cast my soule on [the] Lord's grace & then I
bid adeu to all [self] righteousness. When thus I let go
my hold of all that, and took hold on Christ [the] Lord I
did believe, and hence love [the] Lord.
A man may not only see he is a sinner, and so thinke
Christ will receive such a one, but here may be a deceipt, for a man must hold on waitinge till [the] Lord
speake peace. Hence in such cases, stay and waite on
the Lord, and though you do believe the promise, stay for
the Spirit till he seales the promise &c. [The] Lord hath
made me bid adieu to all worldly treasures; and as corruptions in the Church came i I began to suspect them,
then to hate them. But here was my falsenes that I was
loath to read such books as might make me see such
truths, but the Lord helped me among all.
So, after io years troubles, I came hither; and the Lord
gives me peace to see the order of his people. And I
blesse God for keepinge me out, but I desire you to be
carefull what schollers enter to your churches, and pray
for humility of spirit.
23




266                 Appendix.
III.
[From " New England's First Fruits," 1642.]
The Times and order of their Studies, unless experience shall shew cause to alter.
The second and third day of the weeke, read Lectures,
as followeth.
To the first yeare at 8th of the clock in the morning,
Logick, the first three quarters, Physicks the last quarter.
To the second yeare, at the 9th houre, Ethicks and Politicks at convenient distances of time.
To the third yeare, at the Ioth, Arithmetick and Geometry, the three first quarters, Astronomy the last.
AFTERNOONE.
The first yeare disputes at the second houre.
The second yeare at the 3d houre.
The third yeare at the 4th, every one in his art.
The 5th day read Greeke.
To the first yeare, the Etymologie and Syntax at the
eighth houre.
To the second, at the 9th houre, Prosodia and Dialects.
AFTERNOONE.
The first yeare at 2d houre, practice the precepts of
Grammar, in such authors as have variety of words.
The second yeare at 3d houre practice in Poesy,
Nounus, Duport, or the like.
The third yeare perfect their Theory before noon, and
exercise Style, Composition, Imitation, Epitome, both in
prose and verse, afternoone.




Appendix.                  267
The fifth day read Hebrew, and the Easterne Tongues:
Grammar to the first yeare, houre the 8th.
To the 2d Chaldee, at the 9th houre.
To the 3d Syriack, at the ioth houre.
AFTERNOONE.
The first yeare practice in the Bible at the 2d houre.
The 2d in Ezra and Daniel at the 3d houre.
The 3d at the 4th houre in Trostius New Testament.
The 6th day read Rhetorick to all at the 8th houre.
Declamations at the 9th. So ordered that every schollar may declaime once a moneth. The rest of the day
vacat Rhetoricis studiis.
The 7th day read Divinity Catecheticall at the 8th
houre. Common places at the 9th houre.
AFTERNOONE.
The first houre read history in the winter.
The nature of plants in the summer.
The summe of every lecture shall be examined, before
the new lecture be read.
Every schollar, that on proofe is found able to read the
originals of the Old and New Testament into the Latine
tongue, and to resolve them logically; withall being of
godly life and conversation; and at any publick act hath
the approbation of the Overseers and Master of the Colledge, is fit to be dignified with his first degree.
Every schollar that giveth up in writing a System, or
Synopsis, or summe of Logick, naturall and morall Philosophy, Arithmetick, Geometry, and Astronomy, And is




268                Appendiax.
ready to defend his Theses or positions: Withall skilled
in originalls as above said: And of godly life and conversation: And so approved by the Overseers and Master of
the Colledge, at any publique Act, is fit to be dignified
with his 2d degree.
IV.
THE THESES OF THE  FIRST CLASS OF GRADUATES AT HARVARD COLLEGE, IN I642.
THESES PHILOLOGICAS.
Grammaticas.
i. Linguarum Scientia est utillissima.
2. Literae non exprimunt quantum vocis organa efferunt.
3. Hebraea est Linguarum Mater.
4. Consonantes et vocales Haebraeorum sunt coetaneae.
5. Punctationes chatephatae syllabam proprie non efficiunt.
6. Linguarum Graeca est copiosissima.
7. Lingua Graeca est ad accentus pronuntianda.
8. Lingua Latina est eloquentissima.
Rhetoricas.
I. Rhetorica specie differt a Logica.
2. In Elocutione perspicuitati cedit ornatus, ornatui copia.
3. Actio primas tenet in pronuntiatione.
4. Oratoris est celare Artem.
Logicas.
x. Universalia non sunt extra intellectum.




Appendix.                       269
2. Omnia Argumenta non sunt relata.
3. Causa sine qua non non est peculiaris causa a quatuor
reliquis generalibus.
4. Causa et effectus sunt simul tempore.
5. Dissentanea sunt aeque nota.
6. Contrarietas est tantum inter duo.
7. Sublato relato tollitur correlatum.
8. Genus perfectum  aequaliter communicatur speciebus.
9, Testimonium valet quantum testis.
io. Elenchorum doctrina in Logica non est necessaria.
i. Axioma contingens est, quod ita rerum est, ut aliquando falsum esse possit.
12. Praecepta Artium  debent esse Kcara nvirvTo, wai' dVTa,
KcaO' OXov rrpCTrov.
THESES PHILOSOPHICAS.
Ethicas.
I. Philosophia practica est eruditionis meta.
2. Actio virtutis habitum antecellit.
3. Voluntas est virtutis moralis subjectum.
4. Voluntas est formaliter libera.
5. Prudentia virtutum difficilima.
6. Prudentia est virtus intellectualis et moralis.
7. Justitia mater omnium virtutum.
8. Mors potius subeunda quam aliquid culpae perpetrandum.
9. Non injuste agit nisi qui libens agit.
Io. Mentiri potest qui verum dicit.
I. Juveni modestia summum ornamentum,
23*




270                 Appendix.
Physicas.
I. Corpus naturale mobile est subjectum Physicae.
2. Materia secunda non potest existere sine formf.
3* Forma est accidens.
4. Unius rei non est nisi unica forma constitutiva.
5. Forma est principium individuationis.
6. Privatio non est principium internum.
7. Ex meris accidentibus non fit substantia.
8. Quicquid movetur ab alio movetur.
9. In omni motu movens simul est cum mobili.
io. Coelum non movetur ab intelligentiis.
i i. Non dantur orbes in coelo.
I2. Quod libet Elementum haebet unam ex primis qualitatibus sibi maxime propriam.
I3. Putredo in humido fit a calore externo.
I4. Anima not fit ex traduce.
i5. Vehemens sensibile destruit sensum.
Metaphysicas.
i. Omne ens est bonum.
2. Omne creatum est concretum.
3. Quicquid aeternum idem est immensum.
4. Bonum metaphysicum non suscipit gradus.
Hutchinson's Hist. of Mass. I. 5IO-5I3.




Appendix.                   27I
V.
A COPPY OF MY LR TO DR CHRISTIANUS
RAVIUS ORIENTALIU LINGUARU PFESSOR
LONDINI.
REVEREND AND WORTHY SR — Yor of ye 27th of ffebruary came to our hands, together wth the box and all
things therein mentioned about the 2d or 3d of August,
for wch I am not only bounden to give thanks unto God
for raising up such instruments to promote his Kingdome,
not onely in the places where they live, but also throughout all the world to the utmost of their power, But I am
also further desired from my Occasions in the Colledge to
return thanks unto your selfe for yor speciall good will,
as to the whole Country here in Generall, so in speciall
to the promoting of Learning in the Colledge amongst
the Students, and in the woods amongst the Indians in
their Savage booths or wigwams; and albeit it extendeth
onely to ye power to acknowlege such kindnesse, without
further externall requitalls, yet undoubtedly the Lord
Jesus takes notice of all his faithfull subjects prayers and
endeavors, to enlarge his Kingdome, and will here requite
it, wth the perfume of a good name better than pretious
oyntment, and hereafter wth a Come yee blessed of my
Father inherit the Kingdome. Now for a more speciall
answer to the Ten particulars expressed in your letter
wee have attended the first in teaching no use of C when
the sound thereof is confounded with S or K. But onely
where Ch. soundeth, as in our English Language Chaffe,




272                  4ppendix.
Cheif, Chose, Chuse, wch sound is frequent in their Language also, in these Kochittuate, Kuchomakin, Mattachuset, wCh I pray you inform mee why it may not bee most
expedient sound, or power of the letter (n) Cheth as wee
utter it in the word,T- for so I teach for expedience my
pupills to pronounce it dtanpiaews eveca least wee should
confound it wth, or y on the one side, or with: or ~
on the other side. 2T1 whereas you say the letter Q is
superfluous in our English,'tis true the Southern Engglish confound it with K: but wee in the North (Ego
enim Lancastrensis sum) pronounce it fully, and exactly
as your selfe teach. Orthographiae Hebreae delineationis
pag: 5. Col: I. Sect: I       I. of  Qnot K ubi dicis nulli Europaei noverint hujus sonum; praeter Helvetios. Sc. K.
ex imo guttere asperius, sic etiam nos efferimus Quod non
ut meridionales (Kod). The Indians also have use of this
letter frequently in their tongue as in Quillipiog, Quinticut,
Quabaquick, &c., wch sound we can never represent by K.
j x indeed there is no need of wth them, but I cannot say
so of: Z: wch both their Tongue hath need of in some Syllables, & our owne, ffor the Letter: S: is too dry to expresse these sounds following: Zeal, Hazard, Raze, wch to
write Seal, Hasard, Rase, both otherwise doe sound, and
Signify I And now that I am fallen on this matter, pardon
my freedome in desiring a little more yo' grounds why
you pronounce Teth as Th, and Thau as T: contrary to
the most Grammarians, And yet much more I wonder
at your judgement in the difference of': and - for what
yoW write in the forcecited place Sect; -2, that the Ephra



Appendix.                    273
imites jussi dicere Sibboleth dicebant Schibbolet seemes
therefore strange because that Schibbolet is of far harder,
or more difficult pronunciation the text saith 1t5  t  ~5
woh wee render hee could not frame to pronounce it right,
woh had been easy if the sound had been Sibbolet, at least
to our thinking. But and if the difference lye where I
have sometimes conceived it, then the pronunciation were
by far more difficult, for of these three sounds: i and 5
I have for difference sake conceived these sounds b as
our s in sew as consuere to (sew) V as sh to shew indicare,
and. as sch, as to eschew, vitare, so that every one is a
degree dempto; e. harder or more difficult then other;
to sew, shew, eschew Job I. 8. there wee use the word
and you may here how the English utter it. Herein I
crave your judgement as also in y dicis enim  nobis
aphov(6-. [Ms. sic], at bene subjungis potius' quam pronunciatio gn: &c. tecum penitus et ego: veruntamen
quid obstat, quominus efferatur ut nostrum.y. Consona,
cui etiam et figura affinis. uti audies nostrates pronunciantes: Yea, yet, yonder, &c. at diutius in hisce; Cum
vero tua scripta summum  spirant candorem; nullus dubito quin aequi, bonique, haec mea consulas, et quod humillime peto responsum retuleris.
To your 2d We doe not trouble the Indians to Learn
our English, But onely such as for their own behoof doe
it of their owne accord.
To the 3d Mr. Eliot is labouring to bring their tongue
under the Skill of Rules of Grammar, and Dictionary, but
yo" are mistaken in thinking their Etymologie as single




274                 Applendix.
as our English, Albeit this is wonderful in their Tongue
that sometimes one Syllable spreads the virtue of its signification through the whole sentence,l They are indeed
taken greatly in wondering at the skill of the English, and
are enforced to confess many times God is among us.
To the 4" they were never offended at o' calling them
Indians, as by misinformation, you seem to conceive, but
onely inquired of us, the reason of ye name.
To the 5th Wee make what good husbandry wee can
of the writing books you sent, but find them of more use
to the English, then Indians, being above their capacity,
for the present especially being writ in the English
Tongue, And herein again I am  entreated to render
thanks from the severall schooles of the country whereto
I have sent them. This answereth also yor 6h and 7th
directions.
To yor 8th and 9th The students in the Colledge to
whom I have imparted as occasion requireth, yor Hebrew
sheet Grammar, wth yor Conjugationall, Hebrew Table
doe return you hearty thanks, as I myself doe for yo' notes
on Udalls Grammar, and yor Orthographicall delineation.
Lastly, wee professe orselves unable to answer the Tender of your good will and propensity of spirit towards us.
Our Infant Colledge compared wth the Academyes in
Europe, being like Mantua unto Rome, and as unworthy
to confine a man of your parts, and place, as that small
Town the Prince of the Latin Poets. Yet neverthelesse
if Divine providence should waft you over the Atlantick
1 In Eliot's Indian Primer, there are words of fifteen syllables. Palfrey.




Appendix.                     275
Ocean, or if yo' Spirit desire to see what sons of Seth wander in these woods then Harvard-Colledge would think
itselfe honou' in yo' visit.
Mean time while God's providence  continueth  you
where you bee, as you Tender yor readinesse to further o'
studies, in the Orientall-Tongues, and have already given
a reall Testimony of yo' benevolent, and beneficent spirit,
so if Gods providence put an opportunity into your hand
that you help us wth books of those languages from some
able hands, and willing hearts (for from yorselfe it were unreasonable to expect any more then such books as yorselfe
are personally the Author of). then should wee bee very
glad and evermore thankfull to you, and them, who shall
procure us Buxtorfes Concordances; and Bible (for the
King of Spaineswe have) and the King of France his Bible
is more then wee dare hope for) and whatsoever Hebrew,
Caldee, Syriack, or Arabick-authors, Gods providence
shall enlarge their hands, and hearts to procure us: A
wonderfull impulse unto these studies lyes on the spirits
of our students, some of wch can wth ease dextrously translate Hebrew, and Caldee, into Greek.  But I forget my
selfe in detaining you so long from yor serious, and more
profitable Studies: Let mee heare; I pray, if you received
this my letter.  The Lord bee wt you, and prosper all yo'
endeavo"' So I Intreat pray for
Yor" in the Lord.
Harvard Coll: Cambr: in N E.
Febru: [I6481]
1 This letter is republished from the Mass. Hist. Coil. IV. Series, I. 251.




276                 Appendix.
VI.
A COPY OF SOME PART OF A LETTER WRITTEN TO MR
ALT, MIN. OF THE WORD OF GOD AT BURY IN LANCASHIRE.
Reverend and Beloved in the Lord   Lest I shd have
no time to write in these my streits of time and stresse of
businesse therefore will I take the first time of all Lancashire letters to write yours: heartily thanking you for yours
of the Igth of July wol came to hand about the 17th of the
7th [Sept.] by Cozen Mary Dunster, and were very acceptable not onely for the Candor and Piety, that seems to
breathe in your Sentences, but also for ye matter answering the manner of Style. Controversyes I am unwilling to
launch out into; the ocean of Contention overswelling
with a spring tyde; insomuch that it overflows the banks
of Conscience and drownes the pleasant medows of fruitful love, and all the sweet Pastures of Piety. therefore I
can very freely let you abound in your owne Judgment,
onely in a word or two to borrow a little light from you
what you mean by some of your Expressions.
The gathering of a church scruples you. I pray you Sr
what mean you by Church? the Catholique you cannot
mean, National and Provinciall Churches are nullityes in
rerum natura since the dissolution of that of the Jewes; I
hope you want no light hitherto. Presbyterian? By what
rule then are yours gathered or out of what preexistent matter? the Church or the world? If out of the
world then you grant that before the Church of England
(wh you by Mr Shepards authority would magnify page




Appengdixz.                 277
131 Syncere Convert) is not the Church but the world.
But this you will never doe. Its a glorious church say
you. Whence I pray you was it gathered, out of the
Church of Rome or Else yet it stands in it [?] If it
stand yet in it, then it is owne of the Daughters of the
great whore, pudet haec opprobria nobis, et dici potuisse
refelli. Noe, the Church of England is gathered out of
Rome - Come out of her my people. Goe to them, Behould a Church gathered out of a Church. True. But
its out of the Antichristian Church. Be it. It was Christian apostacy makes it Antichristian; and then if Babilon
will not bee healed Depart out of her my people. So (will
you say) you Justify England's departure from Rome, and
so doth Mr Alt. But why should wee gather a Church
out of the English Church? I pray you S', where hath
Christ constituted a Church of that form; where's the
National ministry Temple &c.: If you wil find this, you
have the verity, wee the vanity. If Congregations bee the
Visible Churches of Christ wee have the Day in that respect: But say a National Church is a true Church of
Christ; Lets see from you by what means wee may doe
our duty either to our Brother thats obstinate, or our
mother that should rebuke him; Dic Ecclesiae (i.e.) tell
ye National Church: who are her ears to hear, her mouth
to speak to our Brother that hee may hear. Pape! Papa
pater 21' Bee it; yet suppose this National Church erre
and Apostatize fearfully from Christ, profane his Sabbaths,
his Sanctuary and ordinances: give holy things to dogs
and swine the children's bread, why then come out of her
24




2 78                Appendix.
my people as from Rome, for she also is the image of the
beast. Either justify church gathering or disallow our
Godly reformers and grandfathers ut Supra. What Mr
Shepard said in England (for there were those sermons
preached) when he saw no better light must not be laid
against his constant practise since, besides his meaning is
to bee taken as indeed it was that in England there was a
Company of glorious Believers who inwardly & spiritually before Christ are his Church. But I list not to stay
to justify any Phrases of men; That vanity (blessed bee
the Lord) is well blasted of humane authority in the Church
of Christ, where this Canon is received This is my beloved Sonne hear him, whom the father hath sent to bee
head of the Church. To whom who wil not hearken the
Lord require it of them Deut. I8, I9: for our part wee are
at a poynt in this Isay 33. 22. One word more before I
come to ye next Section. I pray you doe you account a
single congregation no church then what make you of us
all? or rather of the Congregational Churches mentioned
in the New Testament? If churches? then How comes
Holcom to bee gathered out of Bury or such like, but wth
beating to powder your scruples.
Truly Sr my Dulnesse cannot frame an answer to these
questions I put unto you I hope I shall learn if nothing teach.
To your next Section, you approve the 3d section of ye
3d chapter of our Synod (I need not write out the words.
I sent 50 books too you one by this if not before. Let this
suffice to them wth whom they bee to give you it) far bee it
firom me to think you like it because you like corruptions &




Appendix.                    279
would have them patronized: that Section shows no corruptions or Scandals should bee tolerated; but yet they
immediately dissolve not &c. No sin but that against the
Holy Ghost immediately casts a man to hel. But obstinacy in the least sin casts him gradually out of the Church,
if hee hear not his Brother nor Brethren nor the Church.
So Dear St deal with your scandalous ones that know not
or obey not ye fayth of Christ, & then your materialls
will soon bee right: but I fear few. And then though you
gather not a Church out of a Church yet you will throw
the world out of ye Church, and have a little gathered
flock non congregando but segregando you will have
severed a Church from the world, wch is enough. Your
instance of the Church of Corinth Sardis &c, you apply
not rightly, they were embodied already rightly: and the
decayed or corrupt members in them were called on to repentance, least the Lord should lop them off, as hee threatens. John. 15 beg. & had done to many I Cor 11. 28
&c, & that Censures might not proceed as Gal. 5:I2 &
threatens Sardis, Rev. 3. 3. But to speak experimentally
if you saw what declining there is in some of the Churches
here, & of those very members that had a name to live
in Old England & sometime here too, & now what they
bee; you would neither need a Comment to know the
meaning of that text; nor misse so far the mark, as to
take in the world for the Church. When the Churches
enjoy peace, though planted generous vines? you shall
soon see luxuriant branches of them that for knowledge
come to the rule, & for life too for a season. Remem



280                 Appendix.
ber the Parable. Matth. 13. 3. to 24 w"h is the Key of all
Parables concerning the Kingdome of Heaven, Mark 4.
I3. & by w~h wee have seen that not onely temporary believers shew their unsound hearts, for fear of persecution
for the word, but even those that have tryumpht over persecution, fall by the cares profits or pleasures of the world
Luke 8. 14 for persecution hath hardened many in the way
for Christ whom the Sunshine hath thawed miserably.
VII.
PART OF A LETTER TO SOME CHRISTIAN FRIENDS IN
AND ABOUT BURY IN LANCASHIRE.
Sundry reasons move mee at this time to shut you all
up in one letter in all whose sundry letters I find the same
spirit breathing, ye same gratious desires (though for manner diversified some little yet for their matter the same
viz: that God would guide you by his light and truth in
his ways of holiness & peace. Yet truly all your letters
speak such plain & candid expressions of your single
sincere hearts, that for my part I can wth every good assurance in my owne heart believe Christ Jesus hath gathered you all in one & the same Church mysticall &
spirituall even into that body whereof hee is the head, in
whom if you lovingly strive together in fayth and love, then
for outward administrations bear kindly one with another
where you cannot by the word of ye Lord clearly convince
your Brother of sinne. I have seen with much shame of
face much folly & sin & in swelling words & bitter
Invectives against persons or things where clearnes of




Appendix.                   281
reason and evidence of God's word is wanting to bee
matter of conviction to their spirits, against whom such
words have been darted. It's not a painted flame though
never so lively, that consumeth stubble and fuel, but real
material fire will doe it. If any that utter big & bitter
Invectives against the congregationall way can convince
any members of ye same that they have separated themselves from the saynts & people of God that they may
live profanely, unrighteously, luxuriantly and wantonly &c
or to any other end that is contrary to sound Doctrine I
think they shall doe welle to admonish them by ye word of
the Lord which they have transgresst. But if they onely
have withdrawn themselves from communion of & communicating with the Dark, prophane &  scandalous
world that lyeth in that evill one I Jo: 5. I9. that knoweth
not Christ nor hath receyved his spirit that they may live
together in holy communion with Christ and his people in
all his instituted ordinances, Then I say whosoever condemn these people, Christ his word will justify them to
& before all his true Churches in ye world.  And his
spirit will speak peace to their spirits whoever have so
done in sincerity, as unto Sonnes & -Daughters of the
living God. Glorious I confesse and forever Honourable
to those Instruments of Christ is that passage in the
33d page of the Vindication of the Armies declaration
against the Scots' reply. Give us leave to aske you of
Scotland, who alone would seeme to be the true Reformers, whether wee have any nationall sins, as the compulsive Joyning of the pretious with the vile in the adminis



282                 Appendix.
tration of the seales of the Covenant of grace, or the corrupt &  horrible  Constitution  of the matter of your
Churches, making them up of people grossly ignorant &
very scandalous &c.
If King Charles with the house of Lords & Commons
had breathed such a principle of reforming verily, by way
of Edict, proclamation or Statute that ye saints should forbear themselves & the prophane world by no means
compeld to church communion, All the chief priests &
elders & doctors would have cryed out Hosannah, &
Ador'd him with as much admiration as the Jews would
their Messias if he had come in such worldly pomp &
grandeur as they fancied. But if ye Lord Jesus come in
his owne way here in the kingdom of grace, in poor, low
popularl men and means like a refiners fyer & fullers
soap, purifying the Sonns of Levi, a swift witness against
all prophaneness and  Ignorance, witches, adulterers,
swearers, &c Mal. 3: Then who may abide ye day of his
coming? it's Darkness & not light to many souls Amos
5. I8. We would either have a Christe come for manner
after our fancies, or else we will reject him, though he
come full of Grace and Truth, that wee may see him, even
his glory, ye glory of ye only begotten of the father, not in
his physicall person only, but in measure stampt on his
Ordinances, on his servants, on his marvelous works that
he doth for his people, whereoff no nation under heaven
hath larger experience (if their eyes were open to see it)
than now ye English nation, for whom, And specially for
1 i.e., common, inferior.




Appendix.                            283
their Godly Parliament and Victorious Army, we fast &
pray.   We also feast &  rejoice, &  see  much, yea very
much  of ye Lord  Jesus  Christ with  them   &  amongst
them; And purpose on ye Ioth of January in all ye churches
in &  about ye Bay publickly to rejoice before the Lord
for all ye wonderfull works of ye Lord done for his churches
&  people in England, Ireland  &  Scotland, from  ye beginning, but specially this last summer unto ye 20th of 7ber
[September] whithertoo  our Intelligence by ye last ship
(Capt. Gookins) reacheth.  This  I ye rather write, becaus you desire to know how the churches here relish
the proceedings with you. Truely wee are all one heart 
(I mean  ye body  of ye Godly) with  ye parliament  &
Army,  And  see that Christ hath  carried them  beyond
men  &  themselves in all they have (not so much chosen
to do, as) by his impulse in a sort been driven to doe. If
1 There were at least two decided exceptions, in Rev. James Noyes and
Rev. Thomas Parker, of Newbury, who were staunch royalists. The latter
writing of the former, says, " Upon the rising of our late Usurpers [Cromwell]
and the beheading of our late gracious and most excellent King Charles the
first, of blessed memory, by a villanous stroke, and under a wicked pretence
of Justice, and upon the defeating of our renowned King Charles the second
(whom God preserve), he fell into such a depth of sadnesse and sorrow of
heart, that it hastened his death, as was believed." In the " Epistle Dedicatory to the King " (Charles II.), he further says, " The report of proclaiming
your Majesty and your most joyful return into England hath wrought in our
hearts incredible joy and gladnesse. And I am like the servant of Elias
looking out, & looking seven times, till I see the little cloud arising that
shall increase more & more, till all the heavens be covered with clouds, &
a great rain of righteousness come down upon the earth to refresh the hearts
of men parched with drought."




284                        Appendix.
they had ever found Charles pliable to termes of piety &
righteousness  in  sincerity, &   not  still doubling  with
them, he had  been  King  unto  this  day.  But whoever
eyther reads Mayesl  story, or Heeds ye Kings words  &
Declarations with his contradictory Actions, shall be
forced (yea though he weer ye Kings owne sonne to say he
deserted to Scotland [?]2 by ye Lord's appointment, Proverbs 28, 17, wee wonder that Scotland would force young
Charles the fathers owne sonne to condemn old Charles
his own very father as justly demeriting all that hath befaln him  &  his house, from   God  &  his  Instrument ye
state of England,3  &  yet when  they have  done  quarrell
1 The History of the Parliament of England, which began Nov. 3, 1640.
By Thomas May, 1649.
2 The ms. is here obscure, but the probable reading is that given in the
text. The reference seems to be to the time when Charles, in consequence of
severe disasters, resolved to throw himself into the hands of the Scottish
Army.
3 After the establishment of the Commonwealth, Charles II., who had been
a refugee, came to Scotland, at the invitation of the Scots, who proclaimed him
their king. He was crowned on New Year's Day [March] 1651; when he
hypocritically submitted to the humiliation of swearing " that he would prosecute the ends prescribed in the Covenant, and agree to all acts of Parliament
for the establishment, in his Scotch realms, of Presbyterian rule, of the Directory, and the Confession and Catechism of the Kirk." He was also " reminded how his grandfather James had broken his vow, and been plagued therefor,
and was forced into a confession of his father's sin in marrying an idolatress,
and to declare his resolution to do nothing but with the advice of the Kirk."Stoughton, Church of the Commonwealth, ii. 39.
This historical reference fixes the date of the letter as late probably as
I652. It also proves that Mr. Dunster's rejection of infant baptism was after
this date; which agrees with the year (I653), mentioned by Cotton Mather,
when he preached against that practice. See p. Iog of this work, and note i.




Appendix.                    285
with England for doing such an act of glorious justice that
is so clear that not only unbiassed minds but even a mans
natural son must see by its light else he is worthy to be
cast out of Kirk.
And why the good people of England should not own
(at least to be faithfull unto) ye present State Constitution,
I confess I neither have heard, seen, nor can gather any
sound reason. For ye monarchy: Man's wickedness as
ye meritorious Cause, and God's Providence and mighty
hand as ye efficient Cause hath dissolved [it]. The nation
then is free from it Rom. 7, I. &c by proportion [?]. No
man's oth tyeth him to what is not. If the people and
nation be free from monarchy, ye question is what form
they should set up? And what I pray you but that which
is most sutable to ye Matter? I say, to ye form which is
most suitable to ye Matter, which the nation itself by their
faithfull representatives, being pious & prudent men, can
best judge off. As in spiritualls so in temporalls, God
would fain doe us good, but we will not accept it. How
true is allye 26. I say verify'd of the English nation spiritually Io, I  &c. [?] But I hope ye Lord for his own glorious
Name sake [will] perfect the work to his own prayse, that
hitherto he hath so gloriously promoted. For ye lifted up
hand of ye Lord hath effected Terrible things in righteousness, and answering prayers hetherto in England, Wales,
Ireland & Scotland. And I pray him to give you wisdom to see it; And to fill you with ye spirit of holiness
and reall reformation which is now  breathed  into, &
breathes in some of the chief persons that manage ye affairs




286                   Appenzdix.
Civill and Politicall in parliament and Army. And this
you may quietly doe off and amongst yourselves by the
directory of God's Word, Least if nothing will content
our countrymen But a reformation of yO Scottish edition,
It leav you in deep distress inward [and] outward. If not
in [      ]. I must Contract, for truely my time is out, &
other weighty businesses call on me.  To answer you
briefly some of your questions, positively not polemically,
by dissolving all objections.  Ist Is it lawfull to separate
from one Congregation or gather a church out of them?
I Answer  If your Congregation at Bury bee a Church
of Christ, & not lawfull to gather a Church out of them,
how come Holcom Lawfully a Church distinct from yours?
How shall any church that is too numerous to meet in one
place (as Boston in New England) lawfully permit their
members to constitute a second 1 in their towne or villages,
who can doubt of this?
2dy If a company of men Cohabiting become a Congregation, which, be it right or wrong, were at first gathered
into a Church, & by Long Tract of time have lost all
sense and power of religion, &  take Gods name in vain
by a prophane abuse of his Ordinance: Now, when a day
of love light & grace comes, will forsake the evill of
their former ways, & do hold out, every one as he is
called, that he receiveth ye truth, reforms his way, brings
forth fruit worthy of repentance: so many as thus doe,
call'd together, are to renew  their Covenant &  to own
T This fixes the date of this letter as late at least as 1650 or i65i, as the
Second Church of Boston was gathered on the 5th day of June, i650.




Appifendix.                  287
ye Lord God of their fathers: & walking in all his will
as it's manifested to them, such so doing become visible
saints, & a Church of Christ's for what I see. But ye
rest, that seclude themselves by their visible profaneness,
separate themselves from  the Church, 2 Cro. 30. Io.
Accept of all that understandingly owne ye doctrine &
Discipline of Christ; & leav them or let them alone that
know him not their priest that hath made their atonement
with ye father; that hear him not as their prophet, Deut.
I8. I9, that own him not their king, to be subject to plain
and undisputable Rules of his will. Then will you soon
find ye world will leav ye Church.
2 Q. If the Churches or Congregations of England were
ever by that voyse of Christ, Come out of her my people,
gathered from ye Romish apostacy?
Ans. Judge yourselves if ye sword of ye Spirit, or that
of ye Civill Magistrate from Hen[ry] 8 his time [to] yours
have severed the English from the Romish Church. Yet
I will confess the Sword of [the] Spirit hath gathered Sundry Souls home to Christ, as [to] day, blessed be ye Lord,
it doth sundry Indians with us.
2 Q. What sufficient matter of cutting off Members
from ye Churches?
Ans. All scandalous sins, such as I Cor. 5:  I &c.
2". All sins Against any clear rule that a man obstinately will hold. If obstinacy after conviction appear in idle
words, he is not a visible subject of Christ.
4 Q. What do you with them that are baptized, but give
no satisfactory testimony of piety when they come to age,
And what with their children?




288                 Appendix.
Ans. None of their children are baptized untill one of
y" parents at ye least do approve themselves faithfull &
be joyned to ye Church. I have herewith sent you Mr.
Davenport's Catechism, where ye question is handled, &
answered according to practice. As for such persons
themselves, such there be amongst us with whom  ye
Church bears patiently, using means for their Conviction
& Conversion.  And in case they break out into any
unchristain courses, admonish them, & if they continue
in them, wholy withdraw from them. But I have not
knowne any of these formally excommunicated because
they neither cared for nor sought Communion.
5 Q. What do you in Case divers bewray unsoundness
in yo Churches? and yet not faulty enough to be excommunicated?
Ans. Some deserve excommunication, of whose sincerity in the main we have no Cause to doubt. It's therefore
an ordinance of Christ to bring home a soul far and fouly
straying.
21y Those that are not lyable to excommunication, because their sin is neither of a Heynous Nature, nor yet
they obstinate therein, & to be admonished and restored
with a spirit of Love. And if this amend them not (for so
you write) then are they either dead, fruitless branches,
not sencible, not indeed truly capable of Christ's ordinances, as Civill Worldlings: or if knowing & possessors, they are obstinate & to be cast out.




App)endix.                   289
VIII.
CONFERENCE AT BOSTON.
H. D[unster] cum  seni. Mr. Wilson, Norton, Mather,
Thomson, Allen, Eliot, Sims, Danforth, Mitchell, Colebon, Pen.
Feb. 2, I653-4.
Thesis —Soli visibiliter fideles sunt baptizandi. H.
D[unster.]
[Visible believers only should be baptized.]
Mr. 7o[hn] N[orton].- We grant it, but say infants of
believing parents in church state are visible believers.
Mr. D[unster].- Neg[at].
Mr. N[oron]. — Prob[at].  If infants of believers under
the Gospel be as capable of being visible believers as y"
infants of believers under ye Law, unto whom ye original
promise was made, then infants under the gospel are visible believers. At ergo.
Mr. D[unster].- Neg. Maj.
Mr. N[orton].- There can no reason be given why infants under the law should be visible believers more than
infants now. Ergo.
Mr. D[unster].- This reason may be given, because
God made a special promise to Abraham  concerning his
seed.
Mr. N[orton].- If the visibility of believers depend on
divine testimony, there be as much now as then. Then it
follows, at ergo. All Abraham's seed were visible believers.




290                  App endix.
Mr. D[unster].- neg:
Mr. Nr[orton]. —prob: All that were circumcised were
visible believers; but all were circumcised. Maj: prob:
Circumcision was a testimony of their visible faith. Ergo,
Rom. 4: II.  If the child that was circumcised & did
not believe was guilty of breach of covenant in not believing, then infants in circumcision did profess to believe.
At Ergo.
zMr. D[unster]. — neg. Min: if infants die unbelievers
in infancy were guilty of breach of covenant.
Mr. N[orton].- Either infants dying in infancy in unbelief were not guilty of violation of the covenant, or else
they were guilty in not believing. But they were guilty
of the violation. of the covenant if they died in infancy in
unbelief. Ergo.
Mr. D[unster].- Infants have no illicit act of faith.
Mr. N[orton].- Actuall faith is one thing, actuall [active?] faith is another.  Christ in infansie &  a man
asleep have actuall faith, but do not actively believe.
That infants have faith.  I. If Adam  had stood, his
children should have been born with original righteousness of God, with faith in God, i. e. ye faith proper to that
covenant. 2. Christ as infant had faith as the covenant
was made  Ct.  3. Divine test: concerning  children
that God is their God, Acts 2: 38, 39 whence to us.
Those to whom ye promise of remission of sin, according to ye sense of Acts 2: 38 are visible saints. But infants under the gospel are such to whom ye promise of
remission of sins is made &c.




Appendix.                      29I
Mr.D[unster].- It is offered.
Mr. VN [orton]. It is a remission really given to them in
Col. 2: II, 12.
Mr. S [imms].- Either Paul there speaks of external
completeness without reference to children, or else he
doth not there prove that children are as complete in external privileges under ye Gospel as under ye Law.
Mrr. D[unster].- He doth not meddle with children.
Mr. S[inmms].- Ans.  If he speaks of ye saints' completeness in regard of externall privileges, then of children.  If about children was part of ye objection of false
teachers, then ye Apostle in his answer about yC completeness speaks of children, At ergo.
Mr. iV[orton].- If ye false teachers' objection was, according to ye law of Moses, grounded on Mosaicall rites,
then it was about children, for ye false teachers urging
circumcision speak of children.
Mr. D[unster].-  Children under ye gospel have Christ's
express testimony that they have a nearer access unto
him, & a nearer acceptance with him, than children
under ye Law, viz. in Matt. I9: &  Mark Io:, in that
when John Baptist, Christ himself & Apostles did none
of them baptize children, Christ to support ye spirit of parents gave yet more express testimony than we remember
to be under ye law, concerning his good will to their children in respect of that best and nearest acceptance with
him, viz. their eternal salvation.




292                   Appendix.
Dic: Feb. 3d.  Mr. A[llen].  Moderat.
Quest: Whether baptisme of any infants be a Gospel
institution?
Mr. M[ather].- Affir: Baptisme of all their members
is a Gospel Institut: But baptisme of some infants is
Baptisme of Cch: memb's.
MAIr. Dutnster].- Neg: et Maj. et Min: For all church
members are not to be baptised, as ye Jews at John's
preaching.
Mr. M. - All ye members of ye Cch: of ye N. T. are to
be baptised.  At ergo, But some Infants are memb"r of
ye church of ye N. T. go.
Major prob: That which was one end why C[hris]t
gave himself, that ought to be attended. But yet all ye
Mbr' of ye Church of ye N.T. should be baptised, for y~
Baptisme of all ye M.brs of ye Ch[urch] of ye N.T. was an
end why C[hris]t gave himselfe.
Mr. D[unster].- Neg: Min:
Mr. M. - prob: by the express word of Eph. 5.  He
gave himselfe for his Ch[urch] that he might sanctify it by
ye washing of water-by water is meant baptisme. Now
if baptisme be ye constituted means to ye end of sanctifying ye Ch[urch], what was ye end for which C[hris]t gave
himself [other] than baptisme? At ergo.
Mr. D[unster]. -Ans: Means whether instituted or
prudential are to accomplish ye end, but they are not ye
end for which C[hris]t died, for so afflictions & fals of
1 More likely Mr. Mather than Mr. Mitchell, the latter being a much
younger man.




Appendix.                    293
ye Saints are used by C[hris]t for ye sanctifying of ye
Ch[urch], but yet we say not that C[hris]t gave hims: that
ye saints might have afflictions and fals.
Ans. Mr. N[orton].- The lapse & fall of a s[ain]t was
not in itselfe a means, but the sanctifying of ye lapse, now
this he gave himselfe for.
Argument. That which is by right as largely applyable
(or equally extended by) sanctification, that is applyable to
y" whole Ch[urch], or to all ch: Mbee. But Ephes. 5, Baptisme or washing of water is by right (or lawful instituted
use) as largely applyable as sanctification. Ergo, it is applicable to all Ch. Memb.
Againe to the first Major.
Mir. M. - The body of C[hrist] may be baptised. All
membrs of ye Ch: of y N.T. (taken joyntly together) are ye
Body of C[hris]t, go. or thus, All that are Me[m]be" of ye
Body of C[hris]t may be baptised. But all Ch: M[em]br'
of the N.T. are M[em]br" of ye body of C[hris]t. ergo.
Mr. D[unster].- Take ye M[em]br" of Christ's body in
[the] largest sense Neg: Major.
Mr. M. - I Cor. 12: 2, 13.
Mr. D[unster]. -All that were baptised were baptised
into ye Body, but all yt [that] are of the body are not to be
baptised.
Mr. M.   If Baptisme be ye Means to seal up their incorporation into that Body of C[hris]t, then all that are
of that Body may lawfully be baptised. At, go.
Againe, how can all ye M[em]b r make one body, if Baptisme be not belonging to all ye Memb" of that body, as




294                  Appendix.
v" 12. If ye Apost. bring this Argum[en]t of baptising into
one body to prove that all ye M[em]br" are one body, then
baptisme belongs (it is Extendable) to all ye M[em]br" of
that Body. At ergo.
Ans. i Cor. io. The L[or]ds Supp[er] seals ye unity
of all into one body, & yet all that are of ye body may
not p[ar]take of ye Supp[er].
Min: of first Syllogisme. If Infants were sometimes
Membr" of ye Ch[urch], & their membership was under
repeale, then some infants are M[em]b'" of y" Ch[urch] of
ye N.T. At, ergo.
Mr. D[unster]. - Negat Minor:
Mr. M. -prob.  If ye M[em]bership of Infants be repealed, it is either in Mercy for their good or in judgment
to their hurt.  But neither of these.  Ergo.
Mr. D[unster]. - Ans. We are not to dive into God's
ends for repealing it. It sufficeth us that the Lord hath
repealed it - Or it is repealed in mercy to ye elect infants,
in judgment to ye vessels of wrath.
Mr. M. — Not in mercy for their good.  If it be repealed in mercy for their good, either it was before for
their hurt, or else there is some other good given them in
lue of it. But neither of these - Ergo, That no good is
given. If no good besides membership be given to infants
now but what they had before, then there is no good given
them in lue of their M[em]bership.  At, go.
[Dunster]. - Neg: Minor:
[M]. -prob. If besides M[em]bership, they have all
their internall & externall priviledges before that now they




Appendix.                  295
have, then there is no good given them besides M[em]bership that they had not before. At, go.
Min: prob: That the same covenant & the blessings
of it heretofore, viz. under the Law, that they have now,
then they had the same priviledges internall and externall
that now they have.
Againe they of old besides M[em]bership had all the
species though not gradus [degree] of any good that besides m[em]bership now they can have, but takeing away
of m[em]bership, a Gradus ofye former good will not Answer or be in lue of that Species.
Mr. MZ.- Arg: If it be simply a judgment for any one
to be out of ye visible politicall Ch[urch], Then infants
are not now taken out of ye Ch[urch] in mercy. At: g6.
Mr. D[unster]. - Neg. Min: That which God hath appointed for a punishment of sin, that is simply to any one
a judgm[e]nt, but to be taken out of ye Ch[urch] God hath
appointed to be a punishment of sin. ergo. Or, to be out
of visible relation to good is simply a judgm[e]nt. But
to be out of the visible Ch[urch] is to be out of a visible
Relation to God.
Mr. D. -Neg. Min.
IMr. M. - Prob: Min. If when the Ephesians, 2. II,
were out of a visible political Church they were without
God in the world, then to be out of a visible political
Church is to be out of a visible relation to God. g6.
Mr. D[unster] - Neg. Min. For they were when called
in y" Catholique Ch[urch].
Mr. M. - If they were Aliens from the Commonwealth




296                 Appendix.
of Israel &c. then without. But when they were out of
a visible politicall Ch[urch] they were Aliens &c.
Mr. D[unster]. - Neg. Min.
iVr. IM.- To be out of ye Commonwealth of Israel is
to be without God in ye world. But to be out of ye visible
political Church is to be out of ye Commonwealth of Israel
Ergo.
Mr. D[znster]. -  Neg. Min.
Mr. Wis[on] - To be out of ye Arke is a judgm[e]nt.
But to be out ye visible Ch[urch] is to be out of ye Arke.
ergo.
_Mr. D[unsier]. - Neg. Min.
Mr. M.-Againe, To be visibly under ye power of
Satan is a judgm[e]nt. But to be out of ye visible politicall
Ch[urchj is to be under ye power of Satan.
lMr. D[unster]. - Neg. Min.
Mr. AM. - If to be cast out of ye Ch[urch] is to be delivered or put under ye visible power of Satan, then to be out
of ye Ch[urch] is to be visibly under ye power of Satan, at.
Ergo.
Mr. D[unster]. - Neg: Cons[eq.] Maj.
Mr. M.- If Satan doe visibly reigne out of ye visible
politicall ch[urch], Then to be cast out of ye visible
ch[urch] is to be visibly under ye power of Satan.  At.
ergo.
Mr. D[unster]. - Neg. Min.
Mr. M. -Where Satan is visibly a God there he
reignes.  But out of ye visible politicall Ch[urch] Satan is
visibly a God. Ergo.




Appendix.                     297
Mr. D[unster]. - Min. not true of all persons out of y~
visible politicall Ch[urch].
Mr. A[llin]. — To want the visible Government of
C[hris]t is simply a judgm[e]nt. But to be out of ye visible politicall ch[urch] is to want ye visible government of
Christ. Ergo.
Mr. N[orton]. -To make the comming of C[hris]t a
judgm[e]nt unto Infants is an error. But to make infants
M[em]bership repealed by ye comming of C[hris]t in the
Flesh, is to make the comming of C[hris]t a judgm[e]nt
unto Infants, [er]go. That Tenent [tenet] which makes
the coming of Christ a judgm[e]nt to elect infants is unsound. But to deny pedobaptisme makes the coming of
Christ to be in judgm[e]nt to elect Infants, ergo.
Mr. D[unster]. - Neg. Min.
Mfr. N[orton]. - That it deprives infants of ye seals of
the Covenant, makes ye coming of C[hris]t in judgm[e]nt.
But to deny pedobaptism upon ye coming of C[hris]t deprives Infants of ye seals of ye covenant. Ergo.
Mr. D[unster]. - Neg. Min. It does not deprive them.
Mr. N[orton]. - If infants before y' coming of C[hris]t
had ye seals which now they have not, it deprives them.
Or, If ye coming of C[hris]t takes away from infants that
seal of ye coven[an]t which before they had then it deprives them. At. ergo.
Mr. D[unzster]. - Its a negation, not a privation, for ye
seal is out of date, and ye other not instituted to Infants.
Mr. V[orton]. - If it be a taking away of a good which
y" subject was possessed of before, then it's a privation,




298                  Appendix.
not a Negation only. Or, If to be in a capacity or to be
made p[ar]taker of ye seal of ye covenant of grace be a
good [-] if this which they had before is now taken away
from them then it is a taking away of a good which they
were before possessed of. At. ergo.
Mir. D[zunster]. - Neg. Maj. If or though C[hris]t take
away that capacity of or right to ye seal, yet he gives them
something else which is better.
Mr. N[ortonz].- If C[hris]t by his coming takes away
both seal, coven[an]t and present right to a seal, and doth
not either give them any equivalent ordinance, or any
present right to any such ordinance, then he brings in a
personal privation of Good, without making it up with
anything else. At. [er]go.
Air. N [ortonz]. - Arg: That opinion that leaves Infants
less holy under ye gospel than under ye Mosaicall dispensation is not sound.  But ye opinion that denies children
ch[urch] membership (or pedobaptisme) so doth —ergo.
Ar-. D[tuzsler]. - Neg. Min.
Air. NV[o;rloz].   Prob.  They were then holy to ye holiness of ye participation of ye seal of ye coven[an]t, and
then holy to ye holyness of Ch[urch] M[em]bership.  But
this they have not now. Ergo.
Afr. D[unster]. - Ans.  They had  it by institution
then, as also to eat ye passover as soon as they could eat
meat in ye family, therefore ye Argument from such Analogy is not conclusive.
Air. A[orton].    It cannot be prooved that any might
eat of ye passover who (in regard of their discretion to discern) might not be capable of eating yv Lord's supper.




Appendzix.                    299
Againe They only that could discern ye doctrine of the
passover might eat ye passover, and they also that can
discern ye Doctrine of ye L[or]d's suppler] may eate it.
H[ENRY] D[UNSTER] OPPONENT.
i Arg. All instituted Gospel worship hath some expresse word of Scripture. But pedobaptisme hath none.
Ergo.
Mr. N[orton]. —It hath a word by manifest consequence.
Mr. D[uznster]. - Then that's in either ye old Test[ament] or N[ew]; but neither.
Mr. N[orton]. -In both.  But prove it's not in y"
N[ew].
Mr. D[unster]. - If in ye N[ew], either it's in Johns
baptisme, or Christ's or his Disciples.
Mr. N[orton].- In Johns, though not only.
Mr. D[unster]. - If John only baptised penitent believers confessing their sins. Then not infants. At. ergo.
Mr. N[orton]. - Neg. Maj.
Mr. D[unster]. - They that cannot speak are not penitent believers confessing their sins. At. ergo.
Mr. N[orloz]. - They speak virtually, i.e. as they that
were circumcised acknowledging ye coven[an]t sealed to
which implyes confession of sins.  We all in Adam did
virtually speak a word in y" coven[an]t of works.
AMr. D[anforth]. - Soe may we be baptised in our parents.
M1ir. D[zunster]. -If we be engrafted into C[hris]t by
personall faith, then not by parentall. At. ergo.




300                  Appendix.
Mr. N [orton]. - Conceditur [granted]. but an infant
makes his covenant in his publique p[er]son.
Mrr. D[unster]. - There is now noe publique person but
C[hris]t for us to stand in.
Mr. N [orton]. -An immediate parent is a publique
p[er.]son in regard of his children yea in respect to a covenant bought with Money as an Indian child, that in his
Infansie doth devenire in potestatem  ejus,I and is his to
have plenary power over him, as Abraham's servants. I
say, such a one may be baptised.
Mr. D[anforth]. - What say you to  that holynesse
mentioned I Cor. 7. 4?
Mr. DEtunster]. - The holinesse there is not meant of
federall holinesse only of ye children of ch[urch] M[em]bers, for if soe then none that are out of ye church have
such holy children, But some that [are] out of the politicall church have such holy children.
Mr. N[orton]. -Neither have they soe.
Mfr. D[znster]. - Every true believer though not of ye
ch[urch] hath such holy children.
Mr. NV[orton]. - Holinesse there as in Rom. I. I6. and
Malachy is spoken only of p[er]sons in ch[urch] estate.
Mr. W[ilson]. - The woman of Caanan was a true believer and yet she and her children were dogs.
Oknnes Q. - But what say you to the place?
Mr. D[unster].  Holinesse in the i Cor. 17 is expounded, and by most expositors, as Ambrose &c, of the
legitimate issue from God's holy institution of marriage.
I Devenire ad aliquem in servitutem. Plautus.




Appendix.                     30I
So Musculus, Camer[arius]. 2. Of Designation to God's
service, and holy education by C[hris]tian parents, as
Tertullian et caeteri. 3 Of federation, as most Calvinists.
4. Of Mutuall holy use, commerce and conversation.
Mr. N[orton]. - I. Children of infidels are legitimate.
2. Noe General designation to the service of God but
by cov[ena]nt or federation. 3. Unclean, i.e. common,
is opposite to cov[ena]nt holynesse.
Mr. D[unster]. - If the ch[ildre]n of believers be holy
by such a separating federall holynesse, then they are as
the Jews of old separated by a wall of separation from the
ch[ildre]n of unbelievers, or of the world.
Mr. V [orton]. - The wall of separation is the wall of
ceremoniall uncleannesse by the Mosaicall rites, whereby
the Gentiles were farre off. But there is a separating
difference between the children of the ch[urch] and others,
under the N[ew] T[estament]...
IX.
"Rev. John Clarke,... Obadiah Holmes,... and John
Crandall were deputed by the [Newport] Church to visit
an aged member, [William Witter] residing near Lynn,
who had requested an interview with some of his brethren.  Arriving at the place on Saturday, Mr. Clarke
preached the next day to those who were in the house.
While thus engaged, two constables served on them a
warrant for the arrest of the' erroneous persons, being
strangers.' In the afternoon they were carried to church
26




302                  Appendix.
by the officer, where, after service, Clarke addressed the
congregation till silenced by a magistrate. Next day,
although being under arrest, he administered the communion to the aged member of his church and to two others.
The party were examined, and ordered to be sent to Boston, where they were imprisoned to await their trial the
following week. At the trial Gov. Endicott charged them
with being anabaptists.  Clarke denied that he was either
an anabapatist, a pedobaptist, or a catabaptist, and affirmed,
that although he had baptised many he had never re-baptised any, for that infant baptism was a nullity. The
others agreed in this, and the Court sentenced them upon
their own declarations,'without producing either accuser,
witness, jury, law of God or man.'  Clarke was fined
twenty-five pounds, Holmes thirty pounds, and Crandall
five pounds, and in default of payment each was'to be
well whipped.'  They refused to pay the fine, as that
would be to admit their guilt when they felt they were innocent, and were committed to prison. On the following
day Clarke, by a letter to the Court, challenged the members to a discussion of the doctrinal views for which he
had been condemned. The magistrates appointed a time
for the debate. Clarke prepared the heads of discussion,
but before the day arrived an order of Court was sent to
the jail for his discharge, the fine having been paid by
some one without his knowledge. Anxious to hold the
debate, and seeing how this ill-timed kindness might be
represented as being caused by his desire to avoid it,
Clarke, on the same day, renewed the challenge, offering




Appendix.                    303
to come to Boston at any time they might name. In their
reply, the Court seemed to accept the invitation, but fixed
no time. Cotton was to be the chosen champion of Puritan theology —the man of all others... with whom
Clarke most desired to meet, and to discuss the two great
principles of Baptist faith, voluntary baptism and individual responsibility... But although Clarke a third time
notified the Court of his readiness, they failed to appoint
a day, so that the debate was never held. Crandall was
allowed to go home on bail, the jailer being his surety.
Holmes was so cruelly whipped, receiving thirty lashes
with a three-corded whip from the public executioner, that
for many days he could take no rest, except by supporting
himself on his elbows and knees. Two of the spectators,
one an old man named Hazel, who had come from Seekonk, fifty miles, to visit him in prison, were arrested for
shaking hands with him after the punishment was over,
and were sentenced to pay a fine or to be whipped. The
fine was paid by their friends, but Hazel died before reaching home." History of the State of Rhode Island, by S. G.
Arnold, I. pp. 234, 235. See also "Ill Newes from New
England," by John Clarke.
X.
MR. DUNSTER'S WILL.
"0 Lord, my times are in thy hands, and I fully submitt unto thine appoyntments, for my dissolution committinge my spirit in to thy hands for thou hast redeemed it,




304                Appendix.
and hast by manifold deliverances out of Tribulation
sealed to my soule the truth of thy word concerninge thy
fatherly love and care of me, but especially by thine own
secret and cleare spirit of grace sealing to my heart that
which noe mortall understanding or spiritt could possibly
conceive without God-wherefore, committing both soul
and body in life and death and resurrection unto thee, and
my poore family after my decease, to whom thou wilt be
a father and protector; as I hope now to procure peace
as much as in me lyeth concerninge these earthly goods
of which thou hast made me steward, I order and constitute this my last will and testament in manner and forme
followinge.
Imprimis, my will and testament is, that after moderate funerall expenses discharged, wherein I include that
if God's providence by winds and tide do sute, twenty
shillings shall be Allowed to any that shall transport my
body to Charlestowne- or if to Cambridge thirty shillings,
and five shillings apiece to eight bearers that shall carry
it from Charlestowne to Cambridge there to be enterred
by my loveing wife and other relaccons. After my funerall
expenses discharged, then my will is, that of all my lands
and houses, household goods and all manner of debts,
dues and rights to me appertaininge, whether in present
action or by annuall bonds emergent, as in the case of
Edmund Rice, the same my will is that there be taken a
true and just inventory thereof so farre as man's wisdom
can Attaine. But whereas the value of my Library cannot
bee taken but by judicious and learned men som of my




Appendix.                    305
bookes beinge in such languages wherein common English men know not one letter, therefore I do appoint my
reverend and trusty friends and brethren, the President
of the Colledge, and the pastor of the Church of Cambridge, both to vallue them and lay asside the bookes hereafter specifyed as given to my wife, viz. The book of Martirs in two vollumes, Dr. Preston's workes, Mr. Burroughs'
workes, All bookes of Phisicke and surgery that are in
the English tongue, with twelve or sixteen bookes brought
by her out of England, wherein I will have her word for
a legall testimony, because it is good and vallid unto mee
in my will. The other two moyties of my library, I with the
consent of my wife have by deed and gift given and bequeathed unto my two sons David and Jonathan Dunster,
to be equally divided between them, and to be delivered
unto them as they shall have need of any particular books,
and the whole bulke of them when they come to maturity
of age. And after all cleare debts honestly discharged,
that then my other goods be equally divided into three
equal parts, whereof retayninge one third part to my selfe
in legacies to be bequeathed as I see meet, a second part
my will is, that my wife shall choose, and the other third
part to be bestowed upon my three children equally according to the discretion of my executors. As for my
lands, my will is, that my wife shall have the third of the
rent of all my lands during her life. But I constitute and
appoynt David and Jonathan Dunster Heyres to the said
land, divided into two just equal divisions, and whereas
26*




306                       Appendix.
the law of Massachusetts 1 requires the Eldest brother to
be indowed with a double portion, Thereunto I answer,
that I have given unto my son David liberall education in
schools of learning from his childhood unto this very day,
and the Lord continuing my life, I shall continue the said
fatherly care of him, wherefore if hee thinks that considing this, he hath hard measure to have but only equall
with his brother, then let him cause that in Godly schooles
of literature his brother Jonathan to be brought up in the
knowledge of the lattine and principles of the greeke
Tongue untill hee come to  the age  that my son David
shall be at my decease, this being performed, he shall have
a double porccon of lands and goods, otherwise I take it
I have fulfilled the law in the letter thereof. Concerning
my daughter Elisabeth,' my mind and will is, that she
shall be at the disposing of her mother during her life in
her minority, and in the case of my wive's death, then to
live with my sister Mrs. Hills 3 of Mauldon  during  her
1 Body of Liberties, Art. 8i.           2 Born in i656.
" The sisters of the President were Elisabeth and Mary, who successively were wives of Major Simon Willard; the latter survived him and married
Dea. Joseph Noyes, of Sudbury, and a third, perhaps Rose, was wife of Captain Joseph Hills, of Malden." Savage. Gen. Dict. II. 82. Elisabeth died
childless. Mary was the one alluded to in the will.
It has been made a question, however, whether Mary was a sister or cousin
of the President. Willard (Memoir, 351) suggests that if she was a cousin,
she might, perhaps, as the wife of a brother-in-law, be called sister. A letter
of Mr. Dunster's to Rev. Mr. Alt, of Bury, Eng., contained in the "Dunster
Papers," in the possession of the Mass. Hist. Society, speaks of his "cosin
Mary Dunster."  But there is no proof that she became the wife of Major
Willard. There may still have been a sister named Mary, which seems altogether the most probable inference from the decided language of the will.




Appendix.                     307
minority, and faithfully and carefully to serve her as if
shee were her own child, and in case there also the Lord
by death should make such uncomfortable breaches in the
family, that shee could not live comfortably there, then
shee shall live with my sister Willard of Concord doing
her faythfull service as a child untill her marriage or maturity of age, at which time I do appoynt her to receive
from her two brothers, David and Jonathan, five pounds
apiece, annually for ten years space, beside what legacys
her mother or my selfe shall leave her. Concerning the
third part, I reserved in my own hands, I thus dispose
thereof as followeth. Item. I give and bequeath unto Mr.
Chauncy  such mathematicke bookes as hitherto I have
lent him, with what household goods I left at Cambridge,
viz. my great press in the Hall chamber and another press
for bookes in the Study. Item, I give and bequeath unto
Mr. Michell' Rollocke's Commentaries upon John, which
heretofore I lent him, with all the rest of that holy man's
Commentaries upon the Scriptures that shall be found in
my library, that himself hath not already. Item. I give
and bequeath to the holy servant of the Lord Elder ffrost
Twenty shillings, and to my cousin Bowers and her
children five shillings apeece, and to my cousin fayth Dunster five shillings, and to my sister Willard and all her
children five shillings apeece, and to my sister Hills and
all her children Borne in this country five shillings apeece,
and my will is that my faythfull Mayd Mary Russell should
have 15 shillings added to her wages. What then shall
1 President Chauncy.  2 Rev. Jonathan Mitchell, of Cambridge.




308                  A5ppendizx.
remain of this third part, my will is that my wife shall
have a third part of it, and the other two parts to be equally divided among my children. And for the execution of
this my last will and testament in all parcels and particulars that thereunder doth or may fall, I constitute and appoynt Mr. Joseph Hills of Mauldon, and Brother Edmund
Frost, elder of the Church at Cambridge, and Mr. Henry
Shrimpton of Boston, and Mr. Edward Colliers of Cambridge, who shall have full power and liberty to mannage
all singular or singular things, case or cases, difficulty or
difficultyes, that shall be incident or emergent during the
minority of my children, viz. they or the major part of
them, but in case of non-agreement among themselves,
they shall bring it to my singular good friend Mr. Thomas
Broughton, of Boston, who joyning with them, who by his
addition shall be the greater, the case shall be quietly
taken as true and righteous during the minority of my
children. In virtue whereof I have hereunto [sett] my
hand and seale the eighth day of ffebruary, In the year of
our Lord one thousand six hundred and fifty eight."




XI.
The following facsimile of Mr. Dunster's autograph was taken from an interleaved copy of A Concent of Scriture, a book which
belonged to him, and is now in the possession of Mr. Samuel Dunster, Attleboro'.
go,. ~~. 4~ ~.,o,.~e o;~4~&. puce-, E
9  s2.C/ aLf a a;>            G bo~o.    _ p -,   I
4ng t1. >.0
~,.d~aht~,o~~16.9~qo~pr




31I                Appendix.
XII.
The following epitaph for the new monument is from
the classic pen of Charles Folsom, Esq.: -
HENRICUS. DUNSTER
PRIMUS. COLLEGII. HARVARDINI. PRAESES
VIR. PIETATE. DOCTRINA. PRUDENTIA. INSIGNIS
OBIIT. SCITUATAE. AN M.DC.LIX.
HUC. TRANSLATUM. EST. CORPUS
UT. QUOD. ILLE. IN. VOTIS. HABUERAT
PROPE. ACADEMIAM. A. SE. TUM. NUTRITAM. IN. CUNABULIS
EX. RE. FAMILIARI
TUM. RITIBUS. DISCIPLINIS. LEGIBUS. INSTRUCTAM
REQUIESCERET
MONUMENTUM. HOC. INJURIA. TEMPORIS. DIRUPTAM
SOCII. AETERNUM. ACADEMIAE. DECUS. CURANTES
REFICIENDUM. JUSSERUNT. AN. M.DCCC.XLV.




INDEX.
Anabaptists, II9, n., 174, I75, I77, 178, 179, I81, 188-I9I.
Antinomian Controversy, 41.
Archives, State, 73, 80, 92, I19, 149, I53.
Baptists, persecuted, 42, 112, 183, 189, 199; Cotton Mather's
Opinion of, 192, n.; Ireland, 214.
Bellingham, Rich, 153, I59, I60, n., 163, I80.
Boston 31; Population and Commerce, Ministers, 3I-33.
Cambridge Platform, 182.
Cambridge (Eng.) University, 7-I3, 68, n.
Charters and Gen. Laws of Massachusetts Colony, I646, I32, n.
Chauncy, Charles, o08, 131, n., I40, n., 14I, n., 203, 222.
Clarke, John, III, 112, 301.
Cobbett, Thomas, Infant Baptism, 174.
College, Harvard, 49-54, 260-270.
College Seals, 5o.
Commencement, First, of Harvard College, 84, 268.
Conant, H. C., 226, 230.
conference at Boston, 120, 289.
Confession of Faith, Mr. Dunster's, 257.
Corporal Punishment, 67, 70-74Cotton, John, 35, 171, I73, I82, 231.
311




31 2                      Index.
County Court, Middlesex, 129, 159, 163-166.
Cromwell, Henry, 215, 218.
Cudworth, James, I51, 206-208.
Davenport, John, 13I, n.
Dunster, Henry, Early Religious Impressions, 5; enters College, 7; teaches and preaches in England, 13, 17; separates
from English Church, 13; Letter from his Father, 21; Letter
to Mr. Alt, 29, 276; Letter to Christian Friends, 29, 280; in
Boston, 31; in Cambridge, 45; his Reputation, 46-49, IOI,
n.; as a Preacher, 57; Marriage, 55; a Freeman, 56; a
Guardian, 56; Interest in Indians, 57; at Cambridge, 6i;
expelling Satan, 74; Letter to Commissioners, 81; Salary,
82; Letter to Ravis, 86, 271; Views of Baptism, 55, 121, 259;
Views of Infant Baptism, 55, ro1-II7, 121, I30, I64; Psalmbook, 94; Letter of Magistrates concerning him,  I9; at
Ministers' Conference, I21; Action of General Court, 124;
Resignation, 125; Resignation accepted, 126; in the County 
Court, 129, 159, 163; Testimony against Infant Baptism, 130;
Charges against him, 129; Action of Overseers, 134; Second
Resignation, 135; Petition to General Court, 145; Reply to
Petition, 149; Treatment by General Court, 150-153; his
"Considerations," 153; Public Admonition, 161; Recommendation of Overseers, 196; Action of Magistrates, 197; a
New  Home, i99; on Toleration, 209; invited to Dublin,
214; his Will, 221; his Death, 221; his Burial, 224; his
Grave, 225; Genealogy, 235; Confession of Faith and Christian Experience, 257; Views of Church Polity, 276-288;
Facsimile of Autograph, 235, 309; Epitaph, 3IO.
Eliot, John, 36, 57, 58, 93, 94, 273.
Endicott, John, 59, 152, I73.
Emmanuel College, 8.




Index.                         313
Fellowships, College, 80.
Freshmen, 78.
Genealogy of Mr. Dunster, 235.
General Court, Action of, 124-126.
German Universities, 69, n.
Gould, Thomas, i65, I80, 200.
Harvard, John, io, 13, 54.
Harvard College, 60-90.
Hatherly, Thomas, 40, 205, 206.
Historic-Genealogical Society, xii, 257.
Holmes, Obadiah, III, 301.
Hutchinson, Anne, 4I.
Hutchinson, Gov., 39, 85, 151, i86.
Immersion of an Infant, 115, n.
Indians, 41, 57.
Indian Child, 300.
Infant Baptism, 121, 17I-I81.
Lawyers in Boston, 33.
Lechford, Thomas, 33, 58.
Library, Harvard College, 78-80.
Libraries in and near Boston, 80, n.
Lothrop, John, 203.
Magdalen College, Io.
Massachusetts, Population, 32; Ministers, 33; Law of 1646,
$89; Colonial Records, 74, 83, 124, 126, 144, 191.
Massachusetts Historical Society, xii.
Massachusetts Historical Collections, x, 2, 38, 39, 48, 50, 58,
67, 74, 87, 140, I4I, I63Mather, Cotton, x, 3, 60, 62, 65, 96, I02, 104, I35, I36, 176, 192,
231.
Mather, Increase, Views of Infant Baptism and Toleration, I8I.




314                       Index.
Mather, Richard, 36, 94, I2I.
Miles, John, 199.
Mitchell, Jonathan, 103, 105, I75, I84, 222, 225.
Moody, Lady Deborah, 42.
Norton, John, 37, I41, i84.
Oakes, Urian, Views of Infant Baptism, 179; of Toleration, I85.
Peter, Hugh, Io, 33.
Plymouth Churches, Psalmody of, 94.
Plymouth Colony, Toleration towards Baptists, 199; Persecution of Quakers, 206-209.
Prince, Thomas, 97, I87.
Printing-Press, 9I-93.
Psalm-book, 94.
Press, Censorship of, 92.
Quakers, Persecuted, 206.
Ravis, Letter to, 271.
Rehoboth, 199.
Roberts, Edward, Letter to Mr. Dunster, 214, 216.
Salaries of Ministers, 83.
Saltonstall, Sir Richard, 2I7.
Saltonstall, Richard, Io.
Scituate, 202-205.
Seal of Harvard College, 50.
Shepard, Thomas, 36, 47, 53, 55, 92, 96.
Shepard, Thomas, jr., Toleration, I84.
Style, Old and New, 28.
Swanzea, 200.
Titles, 69.
Toleration, I5I, n., I67, 169, 182-194, 206, 207, 218, n.
Ward, Nath., 37; Views of Infant Baptism, I75; "Simple
Cobbler," I75.




Index.                       315
Watts, Isaac, Toleration, 218, n.
Whipping-post, 113, n.
Willard, Samuel, I88.
Williams, Roger, 38, I4I, n.
Wilson, John, 36, 121.
Winslow, Edward, 40, I40, n., I9I, n.
Winthrop, John, 39, 42, 55, n., 70, 189.
Winthrop, John, jr., 39, n.
Yale College, 49, n.