Chapter VI: A Proposal to Madame Helvetius (2)

[Footnote 12: In the following summer Judge Sewall made his addresses to an old friend of his, then a widow, Mrs. Ruggles, by whom he was rejected. In March of the next year he married Mrs. Mary Gibbs.]

COTTON MATHER

Born in Boston in 1663, died in 1728; son of Increase
Mather; colleague of his father in the North Church of
Boston in 1684, remaining in that pulpit until his death;
active in the suppression of witchcraft; published his
"Magnalia" in 1702, his "Wonders of the Invisible World" in
1692.

IN PRAISE OF JOHN ELIOT[13]

He that will write of Eliot must write of charity, or say nothing. His charity was a star of the first magnitude in the bright constellation of his vertues, and the rays of it were wonderfully various and extensive. His liberality to pious uses, whether publick or private, went much beyond the proportions of his little estate in the world. Many hundreds of pounds did he freely bestow upon the poor; and he would, with a very forcible importunity, press his neighbors to join with him in such beneficences. It was a marvelous alacrity with which he imbraced all opportunities of relieving any that were miserable; and the good people of Roxbury doubtless cannot remember (but the righteous God will!) how often, and with what ardors, with what arguments, he became a beggar to them for collections in their assemblies, to support such needy objects as had fallen under his observation. The poor counted him their father, and repaired still unto him with a filial confidence in their necessities; and they were more than seven or eight, or indeed than so many scores, who received their portions of his bounty. Like that worthy and famous English general, he could not perswade himself "that he had anything but what he gave away," but he drove a mighty trade at such exercises as he thought would furnish him with bills of exchange, which he hoped "after many days" to find the comfort of; and yet, after all, he would say, like one of the most charitable souls that ever lived in the world, "that looking over his accounts he could nowhere find the God of heaven charged a debtor there." He did not put off his charity to be put in his last will, as many who therein shew that their charity is against their will; but he was his own administrator; he made his own hands his executors, and his own eyes his overseers. It has been remarked that liberal men are often long-lived men; so do they after many days find the bread with which they have been willing to keep other men alive. The great age of our Eliot was but agreeable to this remark; and when his age had unfitted him for almost all employments, and bereaved him of those gifts and parts which once he had been accomplished with, being asked, "How he did?" he would sometimes answer, "Alas, I have lost everything; my understanding leaves me, my memory fails me, my utterance fails me; but, I thank God, my charity holds out still; I find that rather grows than fails!" And I make no question, that at his death his happy soul was received and welcomed into the "everlasting habitations," by many scores got thither before him, of such as his charity had been liberal unto.

[Footnote 13: From the "Magnalia Christi Americana." This work comprizes an ecclesiastical history of early New England, and has been in much favor with collectors. John Eliot has commonly been called "The Apostle of the Indians." He labored among them many years and translated into their language the Bible. Copies of the "Eliot Bible" are now among the most valuable of early American books.]

But besides these more substantial expressions of his charity, he made the odors of that grace yet more fragrant unto all that were about him, by that pitifulness and that peaceableness which rendered him yet further amiable. If any of his neighborhood were in distress, he was like a "brother born for their adversity," he would visit them, and comfort them with a most fraternal sympathy; yea, 'tis not easy to recount how many whole days of prayer and fasting he has got his neighbors to keep with him, on the behalf of those whose calamities he found himself touched withal. It was an extreme satisfaction to him that his wife had attained unto a considerable skill in physick and chirurgery, which enabled her to dispense many safe, good and useful medicines unto the poor that had occasion for them; and some hundreds of sick and weak and maimed people owed praises to God for the benefit which therein they freely received of her. The good gentleman her husband would still be casting oil into the flame of that charity, wherein she was of her own accord abundantly forward thus to be doing of good unto all; and he would urge her to be serviceable unto the worst enemies that he had in the world. Never had any man fewer enemies than he! but once having delivered something in his ministry which displeased one of his hearers, the man did passionately abuse him for it, and this both with speeches and with writings that reviled him. Yet it happening not long after that this man gave himself a very dangerous wound, Mr. Eliot immediately sends his wife to cure him; who did accordingly. When the man was well, he came to thank her, but she took no rewards; and this good man made him stay and eat with him, taking no notice of all the calumnies with which he had loaded him; but by this carriage he mollified and conquered the stomach of his reviler.

He was also a great enemy to all contention, and would ring aloud courfeu bell wherever he saw the fires of animosity. When he heard any ministers complain that such and such in their flocks were too difficult for them, the strain of his answer still was, "Brother, compass them!" and "Brother, learn the meaning of those three little words, bear, forbear, forgive." Yea, his inclinations for peace, indeed, sometimes almost made him to sacrifice right itself. When there was laid before an assembly of ministers a bundle of papers which contained certain matters of difference and contention between some people which our Eliot thought should rather unite, with an amnesty upon all their former quarrels, he (with some imitation of what Constantine did upon the like occasion) hastily threw the papers into the fire before them all, and, with a zeal for peace as hot as that fire, said immediately, "Brethren, wonder not at what I have done; I did it on my knees this morning before I came among you." Such an excess (if it were one) flowed from his charitable inclinations to be found among those peace-makers which, by following the example of that Man who is our peace, come to be called "the children of God." Very worthily might he be called an Irenæus as being all for peace; and the commendation which Epiphanius gives unto the ancient of that name, did belong unto our Eliot; he was "a most blessed and a most holy man." He disliked all sorts of bravery; but yet with an ingenious note upon the Greek word in Col. iii. 15, he propounded, "that peace might brave it among us." In short, wherever he came, it was like another old John, with solemn and earnest persuasives to love; and when he could say little else he would give that charge, "My children, love one another!"

Finally, 'twas his charity which disposed him to continual applications for, and benedictions on those that he met withal; he had an heart full of good wishes and a mouth full of kind blessings for them. And he often made his expressions very wittily agreeable to the circumstances which he saw the persons in. Sometimes when he came into a family, he would call for all the young people in it, that so he might very distinctly lay his holy hands upon every one of them, and bespeak the mercies of heaven for them all.

WILLIAM BYRD

Born in Virginia in 1674, died, in 1744; educated in England
and the Netherlands; visited the court of France; chosen a
Fellow of the Royal Society; receiver-general of the revenue
in Virginia and three times colonial agent for Virginia in
England; for thirty-seven years member, and finally
president, of the Council of Virginia; his home in Virginia
the famous ancestral seat called Westover.

AT THE HOME OF COLONEL SPOTSWOOD[14]

Sept., 1732. Colonel Spotswood's enchanted castle is on one side of the street, and a baker's dozen of ruinous tenements on the other, where so many German families had dwelt some years ago; but are now removed ten miles higher, in the Fork of Rappahannock, to land of their own. There had also been a chapel about a bow-shot from the colonel's house, at the end of an avenue of cherry trees, but some pious people had lately burned it down, with intent to get another built nearer to their own homes. Here I arrived about three o'clock, and found only Mrs. Spotswood at home, who received her old acquaintance with many a gracious smile. I was carried into a room elegantly set off with pier glasses, the largest of which came soon after to an odd misfortune. Amongst other favorite animals that cheered this lady's solitude, a brace of tame deer ran familiarly about the house, and one of them came to stare at me as a stranger. But unluckily spying his own figure in the glass, he made a spring over the tea-table that stood under it, and shattered the glass to pieces, and falling back upon the tea-table made a terrible fracas among the china.

[Footnote 14: From "A Progress to the Mines," the date of the visit being 1732, which was the year in which Washington was born. Byrd's work is one of several admired writings by Byrd, now known collectively as the "Westover Manuscripts." Colonel Spotswood, of whom Byrd here writes, in early life had been a soldier under Marlborough, and in 1710 Governor of Virginia. In 1714, on his appointment to command a British expedition to the West Indies, he was made a major-general, but he died before embarking. He maintained fine establishments at Yorktown and on the Rapidan.]

This exploit was so sudden, and accompanied with such a noise, that it surprized me, and perfectly frightened Mrs. Spotswood. But 'twas worth all the damage to show the moderation and good humor with which she bore this disaster. In the evening the noble colonel came home from his mines, who saluted me very civilly, and Mrs. Spotswood's sister, Miss Theky, who had been to meet him _en cavalier_, was so kind too as to bid me welcome. We talked over a legend of old stories, supped about 9, and then prattled with the ladies, till it was time for a traveler to retire. In the mean time I observed my old friend to be very uxorious, and exceedingly fond of his children. This was so opposite to the maxims he used to preach up before he was married, that I could not forbear rubbing up the memory of them. But he gave a very good-natured turn to his change of sentiments by alleging that whoever brings a poor gentlewoman into so solitary a place, from all her friends and acquaintance, would be ungrateful not to use her and all that belongs to her with all possible tenderness.

We all kept snug in our several apartments till nine, except Miss Theky, who was the housewife of the family. At that hour we met over a pot of coffee, which was not quite strong enough to give us the palsy. After breakfast the colonel and I left the ladies to their domestic affairs, and took a turn in the garden, which has nothing beautiful but three terrace walks that fall in slopes one below another. I let him understand that, besides the pleasure of paying him a visit, I came to be instructed by so great a master in the mystery of making of iron, wherein he had led the way, and was the Tubal Cain of Virginia. He corrected me a little there, by assuring me he was not only the first in this country, but the first in North America who had erected a regular furnace. That they ran altogether upon bloomeries in New England and Pennsylvania till his example had made them attempt greater works. But in this last colony they have so few ships to carry their iron to Great Britain that they must be content to make it only for their own use, and must be obliged to manufacture it when they have done. That he hoped he had done the country very great service by setting so good an example....

Our conversation on this subject continued till dinner, which was both elegant and plentiful. The afternoon was devoted to the ladies, who showed me one of their most beautiful walks. They conducted me through a shady lane to the landing, and by the way made me drink some very fine water that issued from a marble fountain, and ran incessantly. Just behind it was a covered bench, where Miss Theky often sat and bewailed her virginity. Then we proceeded to the river, which is the south branch of Rappahannock, about fifty yards wide, and so rapid that the ferry boat is drawn over by a chain, and therefore called the Rapidan. At night we drank prosperity to all the colonel's projects in a bowl of rack punch, and then retired to our devotions.

Having employed about two hours in retirement, I sallied out at the first summons to breakfast, where our conversation with the ladies, like whip syllabub, was very pretty, but had nothing in it. This, it seems, was Miss Theky's birthday, upon which I made her my compliments, and wished she might live twice as long a married woman as she had lived a maid. I did not presume to pry into the secret of her age, nor was she forward to disclose it, for this humble reason, lest I should think her wisdom fell short of her years....

We had a Michaelmas goose for dinner, of Miss Theky's own raising, who was now good-natured enough to forget the jeopardy of her dog. In the afternoon we walked in a meadow by the river side, which winds in the form of a horseshoe about Germanna, making it a peninsula containing about four hundred acres. Rappahannock forks about fourteen miles below this place, the northern branch being the larger, and consequently must be the river that bounds my Lord Fairfax's grant of the northern neck.

The sun rose clear this morning, and so did I, and finished all my little affairs by breakfast. It was then resolved to wait on the ladies on horseback, since the bright sun, the fine air, and the wholesome exercise, all invited us to it. We forded the river a little above the ferry, and rode six miles up the neck to a fine level piece of rich land, where we found about twenty plants of ginseng, with the scarlet berries growing on the top of the middle stalk. The root of this is of wonderful virtue in many cases, particularly to raise the spirits and promote perspiration, which makes it a specific in colds and coughs. The colonel complimented me with all we found, in return for my telling him the virtues of it. We were all pleased to find so much of this king of plants so near the colonel's habitation, and growing, too, upon his own land; but were, however surprized to find it upon level ground, after we had been told it grew only upon the north side of Stony Mountains. I carried home this treasure with as much joy as if every root had been a graft of the Tree of Life, and washed and dried it carefully. This airing made us as hungry as so many hawks, so that between appetite and a very good dinner, 'twas difficult to eat like a philosopher. In the afternoon the ladies walked me about amongst all their little animals, with which they amuse themselves, and furnish the table; the worst of it is, they are so tenderhearted they shed a silent tear every time any of them are killed. At night the colonel and I quitted the threadbare subject of iron, and changed the scene to politics. He told me the ministry had receded from their demand upon New England, to raise a standing salary for all succeeding governors, for fear some curious members of the House of Commons should inquire how the money was disposed of that had been raised in the other American colonies for the support of their governors....

Our conversation was interrupted by a summons to supper, for the ladies, to show their power, had by this time brought us tamely to go to bed with our bellies full, tho we both at first declared positively against it. So very pliable a thing is frail man, when women have the bending of him.

JONATHAN EDWARDS

Born In Connecticut in 1703, died in Princeton in 1758;
pastor at Northampton, Mass., in 1727-50; missionary to the
Indians at Stockbridge in 1751-58; president of Princeton in
1758; his "Treatise Concerning the Religious Affections"
published in 1746; "Qualifications for Full Communion" in
1749; "The Freedom of the Will," his most famous book, in
1754; "Doctrine of Original Sin Defended" in 1758, and
"History of the Redemption" in 1772.

OF LIBERTY AND MORAL AGENCIES[15]

The plain and obvious meaning of the words freedom and liberty, in common speech, is power, opportunity, or advantage, that any one has, to do as he pleases. Or, in other words, his being free from hindrance or impediment in the way of doing, or conducting in any respect, as he wills. (I say not only doing, but conducting; because a voluntary forbearing to do, sitting still, keeping silence, etc., are instances of persons' conduct, about which liberty is exercised; tho they are not so properly called doing.) And the contrary to Liberty, whatever name we call that by, is a person's being hindered or unable to conduct as he will, or being necessitated to do otherwise.

[Footnote 15: From "The Freedom of the Will." It is not alone as a contribution to theology that this work has been much admired. It is probably the most famous theological treatise yet produced in America; one writer has called it "one of the most famous philosophical works in the world." But as an intellectual achievement solely, and for the perfection of its style, it has been quite as generally praised.]

If this which I have mentioned be the meaning of the word liberty, in the ordinary use of language; as I trust that none that has ever learned to talk, and is unprejudiced, will deny: then it will follow that in propriety of speech neither liberty, nor its contrary, can properly be ascribed to any being or thing but that which has such a faculty, power or property as is called will. For that which is possest of no such thing as will, can not have any power or opportunity of doing according to its will, nor be necessitated to act contrary to its will, nor be restrained from acting agreeably to it. And therefore to talk of liberty, or the contrary, as belonging to the very will itself is not to speak good sense; if we judge of sense and nonsense by the original and proper signification of words. For the will itself is not an agent that has a will: the power of choosing itself has not a power of choosing. That which has the power of volition or choice is the man or the soul, and not the power of volition itself. And he that has the liberty of doing according to his will, is the agent or doer who is possest of the will; and not the will which he is possest of. We say with propriety that a bird let loose has power and liberty to fly; but not that the bird's power of flying has a power and liberty of flying. To be free is the property of an agent, who is possest of powers and faculties, as much as to be cunning, valiant, bountiful, or zealous. But these qualities are the properties of men or persons and not the properties of properties.

There are two things that are contrary to this which is called liberty in common speech. One is constraint; the same is otherwise called force, compulsion, and coaction; which is a person's being necessitated to do a thing contrary to his will. The other is restraint; which is his being hindered, and not having power to do according to his will. But that which has no will, can not be the subject of these things. I need say the less on this head, Mr. Locke having set the same thing forth, with so great clearness, in his "Essay on the Human Understanding."

But one thing more I would observe concerning what is vulgarly called liberty; namely, that power and opportunity for one to do and conduct as he will, or according to his choice, is all that is meant by it; without taking into the meaning of the word anything of the cause or original of that choice; or at all considering how the person came to have such a volition; whether it was caused by some external motive or internal habitual bias; whether it was determined by some internal antecedent volition, or whether it happened without a cause; whether it was necessarily connected with something foregoing, or not connected. Let the person come by his volition or choice how he will, yet, if he is able, and there is nothing in the way to hinder his pursuing and executing his will, the man is fully and perfectly free, according to the primary and common notion of freedom.

What has been said may be sufficient to show what is meant by liberty, according to the common notions of mankind, and in the usual and primary acceptation of the word: but the word, as used by Arminians, Pelagians and others, who oppose the Calvinists, has an entirely different signification. These several things belong to their notion of liberty. 1. That it consists in a self-determining power in the will, or a certain sovereignty the will has over itself, and its own acts, whereby it determines its own volitions; so as not to be dependent, in its determinations, on any cause without itself, nor determined by anything prior to its own acts. 2. Indifference belongs to liberty in their notion of it, or that the mind, previous to the act of volition, be in equilibrio. 3. Contingence is another thing that belongs and is essential to it; not in the common acceptation of the word, as that has been already explained, but as opposed to all necessity, or any fixt and certain connection with some previous ground or reason of its existence. They suppose the essence of liberty so much to consist in these things that unless the will of man be free in this sense, he has no real freedom, how much soever he may be at liberty to act according to his will.

A moral agent is a being that is capable of those actions that have a moral quality, and which can properly be denominated good or evil in a moral sense, virtuous or vicious, commendable or faulty. To moral agency belongs a moral faculty, or sense of moral good and evil, or of such a thing as desert or worthiness, of praise or blame, reward or punishment; and a capacity which an agent has of being influenced in his actions by moral inducements or motives, exhibited to the view of understanding and reason, to engage to a conduct agreeable to the moral faculty.

The sun is very excellent and beneficial in its action and influence on the earth, in warming it, and causing it to bring forth its fruits; but it is not a moral agent. Its action, tho good, is not virtuous or meritorious. Fire that breaks out in a city, and consumes great part of it, is very mischievous in its operation; but is not a moral agent. What it does is not faulty or sinful, or deserving of any punishment. The brute creatures are not moral agents. The actions of some of them are very profitable and pleasant; others are very hurtful; yet, seeing they have no moral faculty, or sense of desert, and do not act from choice guided by understanding, or with a capacity of reasoning and reflecting, but only from instinct, and are not capable of being influenced by moral inducements, their actions are not properly sinful or virtuous; nor are they properly the subjects of any such moral treatment for what they do, as moral agents are for their faults or good deeds.

Here it may be noted that there is a circumstantial difference between the moral agency of a ruler and a subject. I call it circumstantial, because it lies only in the difference of moral inducements they are capable of being influenced by, arising from the difference of circumstances. A ruler, acting in that capacity only, is not capable of being influenced by a moral law, and its sanctions of threatenings and promises, rewards and punishments as the subject is; tho both may be influenced by a knowledge of moral good and evil. And therefore the moral agency of the Supreme Being, who acts only in the capacity of a ruler toward His creatures, and never as a subject, differs in that respect from the moral agency of created intelligent beings. God's actions, and particularly those which are to be attributed to Him as moral governor, are morally good in the highest degree. They are most perfectly holy and righteous; and we must conceive of Him as influenced in the highest degree by that which, above all others, is properly a moral inducement, viz., the moral good which He sees in such and such things: and therefore He is, in the most proper sense, a moral agent, the source of all moral ability and agency, the fountain and rule of all virtue and moral good; tho by reason of His being supreme over all, it is not possible He should be under the influence of law or command, promises or threatenings, rewards or punishments, counsels or warnings. The essential qualities of a moral agent are in God, in the greatest possible perfection; such as understanding, to perceive the difference between moral good and evil; a capacity of discerning that moral worthiness and demerit, by which some things are praiseworthy, others deserving of blame and punishment; and also a capacity of choice, and choice guided by understanding, and a power of acting according to his choice or pleasure, and being capable of doing those things which are in the highest sense praiseworthy. And herein does very much consist that image of God wherein He made man (which we read of Gen. i. 26, 27, and chapter ix. 6), by which God distinguishes man from the beasts, viz., in those faculties and principles of nature, whereby he is capable of moral agency. Herein very much consists the natural image of God; as His spiritual and moral image, wherein man was made at first, consisted in that moral excellency, that he was endowed with.

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN

Born in Boston in 1706, died in 1790; settled in
Philadelphia in 1729; Postmaster of Philadelphia in 1737;
discovered the identity of lightning with electricity in
1753; proposed a "Plan of Union" at Albany in 1754; Colonial
Agent for Pennsylvania in England in 1757-62 and 1764-75;
Member of the Second Continental Congress in 1775; Member of
the Committee which drew up the Declaration of Independence
in 1776; Ambassador to France in 1776; helped to negotiate
the treaty of peace with England in 1783; President of
Pennsylvania in 1785-88; Member of the Constitutional
Convention in 1787.