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Why did Henry Dunster Reject Infant Baptism? Circumcision and the Covenant of Grace in the Seventeenth-Century Transatlantic Reformed Community
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 26 January 2021
Abstract
In 1653 Henry Dunster, Harvard's first President, refused to baptise his fourth child, initiating a controversy that would end in his resignation from the Harvard presidency in October 1654. This article offers an explanation for Dunster's rejection of infant baptism by re-examining the causes behind the spread of antipaedobaptism across 1640s England and New England, attributing special significance to the Anglophone reception of continental European covenant theology. Supporting this account, it presents an annotated edition of a previously unknown item in Dunster's correspondence, a letter sent to him by a concerned onlooker just months after his heterodoxy became public.
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- Research Article
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- Copyright © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press
Footnotes
This research would not have been possible without the award of the Katharine F. Pantzer Jr Fellowship in Descriptive Bibliography from the Houghton Library, Harvard, as well as an Andrew W. Mellon Fellowship from the Massachusetts Historical Society. I would like to thank both institutions for their generosity, as well as the Andover-Harvard Theological Library for permission to publish an edition of the letter from Edward Holyoke to Henry Dunster in their collections. I would additionally like to thank Nell Carlson for her invaluable expertise in navigating the Andover-Harvard Theological Library's collections, Nicholas Hardy for his feedback on an early draft of this article, as well as Alec Ryrie and the anonymous peer reviewer for such helpful feedback on this article.
References
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2 Broughton, Concent, AHTL, 343 B875co 1590. The letter is in an unpaginated, unfoliated manuscript insert bound into Broughton's Concent after sig. B[1]v. I will supply my own folio numbers in citation, with the first folio of the insert labelled fo.<1>r. The letter covers fos <32>r-<33>r.
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28 Renihan, From shadow to substance, 53–4.
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33 Spilsbury, A treatise, 12–14.
34 Ibid. 26–7, 29–31.
35 This is noted in most pamphlets, for example Cooke, A learned and full answer, 52.
36 Hooker, Thomas, The covenant of grace opened, London 1649Google Scholar (Wing H.2644), 4; Cobbet, Thomas, A just vindication of the covenant and church-estate of children of church-members, London 1648Google Scholar (Wing C.4778), 39; Blake, Vindiciae foederis, 175–88.
37 Hussey, William, An answer to Mr Tombes his scepticall examination of infants baptisme, London 1646Google Scholar (Wing H.3815), sigs A3v–A4r.
38 Tombes, John, An exercitation about infant-baptisme, London 1646Google Scholar (Wing T.1805), 1; c.f. Spinks, Reformation and modern rituals, 63.
39 Tombes, An apology or plea, 6–7; Renihan, Michael, Antipaedobaptism in the thought of John Tombes, Auburn 2001Google Scholar.
40 Vossius, De baptismo disputationes XX, 169–73.
41 Tombes, An exercitation, 2–3, and An examen of the sermon of Mr. Stephen Marshal, about infant-baptism, London 1645 (Wing T.1825), 39–47.
42 Idem, An examen, 49–50.
43 Idem, An exercitation, 2–5.
44 Ibid. 4, and An examen, 39.
45 Idem, An examen, 46–7, 78, 83–8.
46 Ibid. 85, 93.
47 Idem, Refutatio positionis eiusque confirmationis paedobaptismum esse licitum affirmantis ab Henrico Savage, London 1653 (Wing T.1814), 34–6.
48 Idem, An exercitation, 4, and An examen, 39.
49 Idem, An addition to the apology for the two treatises concerning infant-baptisme, London 1652 (Wing T.1794), 3; Bolton, Samuel, The true bounds of Christian freedome, London 1645Google Scholar (Wing B.3532), 353–401.
50 Tombes, An exercitation, 5–9; An examen, 2–3; and An apology or plea, 56–7.
51 Ball, John, A treatise of the covenant of grace, London 1645Google Scholar (Wing B.579), 55.
52 Homes, Nathaniel, A vindication of baptizing beleevers infants, London 1646Google Scholar (Wing H.2578A), 12–17; Hussey, An answer, 7–10, 16–18; Baillie, Anabaptism, 141–3; Baxter, Richard, Plain scripture proof of infants church-membership and baptism, London 1651Google Scholar (Wing B.1344), 251–2; Bakewell, A justification, 10–11.
53 Blake, Vindiciae foederis, sig. a3v.
54 Homes, A vindication, 18–20.
55 ‘if by primarily be intended principally, that Circumcision did chiefly seal earthly blessings, the opinion is too unsavory to be received': Marshall, A defence of infant-baptism, 98–9; Baillie, Robert, The disswasive from the errors of the time, London 1655Google Scholar (Wing B.458), 64.
56 Cobbet, A just vindication, 41.
57 Shepard, The church membership of children, sig. A3v.
58 Hall, The font guarded, 8.
59 Blake, Vindiciae foederis, sigs *4v, a2r.
60 Hooker, The covenant of grace opened, 1–2.
61 With the exception of Renihan's survey, From shadow to substance, 98–103.
62 McLoughlin, New England dissent, i. 27–42, and Soul liberty, 52; Gura, Philip, A glimpse of Sion's glory: Puritan radicalism in New England, 1620–1660, Middletown, Ct 1984, 94–5, 113–15, 125Google Scholar.
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65 Tombes, An examen, 89.
66 Idem, An apology or plea, 90.
67 Idem, Antipaedobaptism: or, No plain nor obscure scripture-proof of infants baptism, or church-membership, pt i, London 1652 (Wing T.1798), 102–7, 140–1.
68 Idem, An apology or plea, 5–6; Marshall, A defence of infant-baptism, 244; Matthew Bingham, ‘English Baptists and the struggle for theological authority, 1646–1646', this Journal liviii (2017), 551–62.
69 John Cotton, The grounds and ends of the baptisme of the children of the faithfull, London 1647 (Wing C.6436), 38.
70 Tombes, Antipaedobaptism, 90–1.
71 Mather, Richard, Church-government and church-covenant discussed, in an answer of the elders of the severall churches in New-England, London 1643Google Scholar (Wing M.1269), 12–14; Den, The second part, 18; Ball, A tryall, 36–45.
72 Cobbet, A just vindication, sig. a2v.
73 Hooker, The covenant of grace opened, 1.
74 MHS, ms N-1143, 145.
75 Ibid. 146.
76 Ibid. 146–7.
77 Ibid. 148–9.
78 Ibid. 150.
79 Tombes, Antipaedobaptism, HL, GEN *AC6.D9236.Zz652t.
80 Ibid. 2.
81 Chaplin, Life of Henry Dunster, 289–301; MHS, ms N-1143, 157ff.
82 MHS, ms N-1143, 157.
83 Ibid. 160–2.
84 Ibid. 159.
85 Ibid. 160.
86 Ibid. 161–2.
87 Ibid. 162.
88 Morison, Harvard College, i. 307.
89 Tolmie, Murray, The triumph of the saints: the separate churches of London, 1616–1649, Cambridge 1977, 50Google Scholar; Carla Gardina Pestana, Quakers and Baptists in colonial Massachusetts, Cambridge 1991, 22; Bingham, ‘English Baptists', 547, 555.
90 Holyoke's copy of Broughton, Concent, HL, *AC6 H7482 Zz590b, fo. 50r.
91 Broughton, Concent, AHTL, 343 B875co 1590, fo.<23>v.
92 Edward Holyoke, The doctrine of life, or of mans redemtion, London 1658 (Wing H.2534), sig. A2r.
93 Ibid. 63–4, 69, 195–8.
94 Ibid. 57.
95 See Holyoke's annotations in HL, *AC6 H7482 Zz590b, fo. 14; AHTL, 343 B875co 1590, fos <11>r-<13>v.
96 See the comments in HL *AC6 H7482 Zz590b, fo. 14; AHTL, 343 B875co 1590, fo. <13>r-v; AHTL, 343 B875co 1590, fo. <13>r; HL, *AC6 H7482 Zz590b, fo. 14.
97 Holyoke's covenant theology was near-identical to that of his friend William Pynchon: Michael Winship, ‘Contesting control of orthodoxy among the godly: William Pynchon reexamined', William and Mary Quarterly liv (1997), 795–822; C. de Jong, ‘“Christ's descent” in Massachusetts: the doctrine of justification according to William Pynchon (1590–1662)’, in C. de Jong and J. van Sluis (eds), Gericht Verleden: kerkhistorische opstellen aangeboden aan prof. dr. W. Nijenhuis ter gelegenheid van zijn vijfenzeventigste verjaardag, Leiden 1991, 129–58.
98 Holyoke, The doctrine of life, sig. A2r–v. Holyoke's annotated books and his relationship to Broughton will be discussed in my forthcoming book, Amateur divines: lay learning and the Bible in the seventeenth-century Atlantic world.
99 AHTL, 343 B875co 1590, fo. <31>r.
100 Isaiah liv.5–6.
101 AHTL, 343 B875co 1590, fo. <31>v.
102 Ibid. fos <31>v-<32>r.
103 Ibid. fo. <32>r.
104 Ibid. fo. <32>r–v.
105 Ibid. fo. <33>r.
106 Ibid. fo. <33>r.
107 Coffey, John, ‘From marginal to mainstream: how Anabaptists became Baptists', in Weaver, C. Douglas (ed.), Mirrors and microscopes: historical perceptions of Baptists, Colorado Springs 2015, 5–10Google Scholar; J. F. McGregor, ‘The Baptists: font of all heresy', in J. McGregor and B. Reay (eds), Radical religion in the English Revolution, New York 1984, 26; Bradstock, Andrew, Radical religion in Cromwell's England: a concise history from the English Civil War to the end of the Commonwealth, London 2010, 4Google Scholar; Gura, A glimpse of Sion's glory, 94.
108 I am grateful to the anonymous peer-reviewer for raising this important issue and suggesting lines of inquiry.
109 Mather, Cotton, Magnalia Christi Americana: or, The ecclesiastical history of New-England, London 1702, iv. 175Google Scholar.
1 This edition follows the conventions of semi-diplomatic transcription.
2 These mediations consist of (a) a paraphrase of Isa. liv. and (b) the address ‘To the Anabaptists', on which the letter is based.
3 The meditations were written between about 1637 and autumn 1653.
4 This refers to the curse of Ham's family in Genesis ix.20–7 and building of the tower of Babel, the latter of which according to Broughton and Holyoke occurred around 1936 annus mundi, approximately 2,000 years before Christ's life (3928–60 annus mundi), after which Ham's descendants were allowed into the Church along with Gentiles, as promised in Isaiah liv, according to Holyoke's reading.
5 Isa. liv.5.
6 Acts ii.38–9; note that earlier in Acts ii.1–12, a polyglot crowd miraculously understood each other, following the prophecy of Joel ii.28-32 (cited in Acts ii.17–22), and inverting the confusion of tongues at Babel that, in Holyoke's reading, marked the excommunication of certain families of Noah.
7 John x.1–21. Holyoke echoes the language of Isa. xl.11.
8 Ephesians iii.18; Psalm cxxxvii.8–9.
9 Ezekiel xvi.20 and xxiii.37, following the theme of Jerusalem as a sinful bride to God, describe how the bride sacrificed God's children to idols. Holyoke's point is that these verses demonstrate God's care for children born in his Church.
10 Isa. liv.17.
11 Isa. liv.12 uses the metaphor of exalted Jerusalem to represent the value of God's covenant. Holyoke interprets shaar, normally ‘gate', as window: compare AHTL, 343 B875co 1590, fo. <31>r.
12 1 Corinthians iii.12–13 contrasts buildings made of wood, hay and stubble with those of gold, silver and precious stone, with the quality of the building revealed by fire. The buildings represent different Churches and the fire represents God's final judgement.
13 Holyoke is thinking of the Münster rebellion, in which anabaptists took control of the German city Münster for a year: Haude, Sigrun, In the shadow of ‘savage wolves': anabaptist Münster and the German Reformation during the 1530s, Leiden 2000, 146–54Google Scholar.
14 Isa liv.16–17.
15 Following Broughton's chronology, the covenant with Abraham that created the nation of Israel occurred at 2108 annus mundi, which was over 1,500 years before the ‘divorce’ of that bond with the New Testament covenant of Jesus (c. 3928–60 annus mundi).
16 Deuteronomy xxxii.21.
17 Romans x.19, citing Deuteronomy xxxii.21, and Galatians iv.27, citing Isa. xliv.1.
18 Gen. xvii.17–21.
19 Isa. liv.13; Ezekiel lvi.20, xxiii.37.
20 Psalm cxlviii.12.
21 1 Cor. iii.12–13.
22 Exodus xxix.45-6 and Leviticus xxvi.15 refer to God forming a covenant with the Israelites and agreeing to be their God; 1 Cor. vi.15, Revelation xxi.3 and 1 Peter ii.5 are similar promises but between Jesus Christ and his followers, echoing the language of the earlier Old Testament promises (as, for example, Rev. xxi.3 echoes Lev. xxvi. 15).
23 Gen. xii.3.
24 The learned man is Hugh Broughton: the ‘like revolutions’ are the recurrence of numerical patterns throughout history. See Broughton, Concent, sig. Aiiir. Holyoke described these revolutions as ‘for ease of our memory, & pleasure of considering old & late matters’ in his copy of Broughton's Concent, HL, *AC6 H7482 Zz590b, fo. 10r.
25 Romans xi.11–16 and 1 Cor. vii.14 were commonly used to argue that the offspring of believers were members of the visible church and had a ‘covenant-holiness’ that enabled them to receive baptism from birth. See, for example, Baxter, Plain scripture proof, 43–9, 80–100, or Beza, Theodore, Novum testamentum, Geneva 1598Google Scholar, fos 130v–131r.
26 Gen. ix.27.
27 Holyoke's anxiety over whether infant baptism was in the earliest ecclesiastical writings is common: cf. Tombes, An apology or plea, 7. Holyoke's insertion could refer to any number of writers from Marshall, A defence of infant-baptism, 1–61 to Henry Savage, Quaestiones tres in novissimorum comitiorum vesperiis Oxon. discussae, Oxford 1653 (Wing S.761A), 5–9.
28 2 Chronicles xx.20.
29 Matthew xviii.7.
30 ‘Let us take heed.’
31 The Greek is 2 Timothy iii.13, which the English translates.