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to keep, there was no disposition to penetrate it. He married twice at New Haven, and by his second nuptials established a family, one branch of which survives. In testamentary documents, as well as in communications, while he lived, to his minister and others, he frankly made known his character and history. He died just too early to hear the tidings, which would have re- 1689. newed his strength like the eagle's, of the down- March 18. fall of the House of Stuart. A fit monument attracts the traveller to the place of his burial, in the park bounded on one side by the halls of Yale College.1

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treatise.

The King's favorable Answer to the Address of the General Court of Massachusetts2 indicated sentiments on his part which it was prudent to make the most of; and, with the same vessel which brought it, or of Eliot's a little earlier, came intelligence of Venner's in- political surrection in London,3 which appears to have suggested the hint of a cheap display of loyalty. Venner's movement, as has been mentioned, was for the establishment of an authority, approved by a considerable class among the mystics of that day, and called by them the Fifth Monarchy, from a passage in the Book of Daniel.* It contemplated the subversion of existing forms of government, and the substitution in their place of a polity of which Christ was to be the chief administrator, assisted by his saints in subordinate offices. Manifestations of a tendency to this scheme had not been entirely wanting in New England. The adoption, to a considerable

1 The inscription on the head-stone, which is ancient, is as follows: "I. D., Esq, deceased March ye 18th, in ye 82d year of his age, 16889."

Mary Dixwell, the only descendant of John then living, married, in 1774, Samuel Hunt, master of the Boston Latin-Grammar School. By an Act of the General Court, their son, John, took the name of Dixwell, now honorably borne by his children.

President Stiles devotes, some pages (History, &c., 339 et seq.) to a recluse, called by the name of Theophilus Whale, who lived on the west shore of Narragansett Bay, and was supposed to be either Whalley or another regicide. But I attach no importance to the story.

2 See above, p. 494.
3 See above, p. 434.
Dan. vii. 3-27.

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extent, of the Mosaic system of law, might be regarded as a step in that direction. Cotton had expressed his vague idea of an eligible code and administration in the text appended to his "Abstract of Laws," "The Lord is our Judge, the Lord is our Lawgiver, the Lord is our King, He will save us;" though Cotton would have been prompt to disavow any such precise inference from his motto as would have confounded him with FifthMonarchists. William Aspinwall, the follower of Mrs. Hutchinson, had subsequently made himself known in England as a leader and champion of those dreamers.2

The Apostle Eliot, when, following the model exhibited in Exodus, he had laid out the plan of a government for his Indians, to be conducted by captains of tens, of fifties, of hundreds, and of thousands,3 had acquired a taste for constitution-making on a larger scale; and the fruit of his meditations on the high theme was, "after his consent

1659.

given," published in London, soon after Cromwell's death, by "a Sower of the Season." The book bears the title of "The Christian Commonwealth, or the Civil Policy of the Rising Kingdom of Jesus Christ." It is dedicated "To the Chosen and Holy and Faithful, who manage the Wars of the Lord against Antichrist in Great Britain, and to all the Saints, Faithful Brethren, and Christian People of the Commonwealth of England." It explains and defends "the Platform of the Lord's Government," as being "approved by God, instituted by Moses among the Sons of Israel, and profitable to be received by any nation or people, who reverence the command of God, and tremble at his word." am bold," says the writer, "to present this Scripture plat

1 Abstract of the Laws, &c., 15. 2 "A Brief Description of the Fifth Monarchy, or Kingdom that shortly is to come into the World, the Monarch, Subjects, Officers, and Laws thereof, and the Surpassing Glory, Amplitude, Unity, and Peace of that Kingdom, &c.

"I

By William Aspinwall, N. E. London, 1653."

See above, p. 337.

It was, however, written seven or eight years earlier. (Mass. Rec., IV. (ii.) 6.)

form of government to public view, if advice so carry it, at this season, because I do believe it to be a divine institution of a civil government, and seemeth to me to be such as will well suit the present condition of England, Scotland, and Ireland, or any other religious people in the world,. . . . . .. the time being come that the Lord is about to shake all the earth, and throw down that great idol of human wisdom in governments, and set up Scripture government in the room thereof."

1

1661.

Eliot's abilities and good deserts were in the department of the Christian ministry, and not in that of statesmanship. There is no evidence, and little likelihood, that this book received any attention; but, the more obscure it was, the more acceptable at court would be the vigilance of that colonial government, which, by detecting and censuring it, purged itself from any sympathy with the vagaries of Venner. The Magistrates, "taking notice" of it, found it “full of seditious principles and notions in regard to all established governments March 18. in the Christian world, especially against the government established in their native country;" but they deferred proceedings in relation to it to the next General Court.2 It is natural to suppose that Eliot took no special pride in his performance, viewed in the light of altered circumstances, and after the experience of ❝ nine or ten years; and, with every disposition to be steadfast to his convictions, whatever they were, it was impossible for him to forget that the life of the Corporation for Propagating the Gospel among the Indians was at this moment dependent on the royal indulgence. He made a written acknowledgment of the ill tendency of the treatise. "Upon perusal thereof," he said, "I do judge myself to have offended; and in way of satisfaction, not only to the authority of this jurisdiction, but also

1 Christian Commonwealth, &c., Præf., 3, 35.

Hutchinson, History, I. 195.

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May 24.

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unto any others that shall take notice thereof, I do hereby acknowledge to this honored Court, such expressions as do too manifestly scandalize the government of England by King, Lords, and Commons as Antichristian, and justify the late innovators, I do sincerely bear testimony against; and acknowledge it to be, not only a lawful, but an eminent form of government." The Court ordered that the acknowledgment should be recorded, that the book should be "totally suppressed," and that all copies of it within the jurisdiction should be "cancelled and defaced," or delivered to a magistrate.1

It has been mentioned that the Navigation Act of the Commonwealth had been permitted to remain inoperative in respect to New England. The General Court of Massachusetts reasonably apprehended difficulty from the execution of the more rigorous law passed in the year of the restoration of the King.3 It was probably not without a view to guard against attacks which it might draw upon them from the commercial interest in England,

1 Mass. Rec. IV. (ii.) 5, 6. -It was impossible for Eliot not to feel how particularly important it was, at this time, to what had become the great object of his life, that he should not be under a cloud at court. His translation of the New Testament, which was to be dedicated to the King (see above, p. 446, note 1), and to be commended to the favor of some of the statesmen and divines about him, was almost ready for publication. And in the Dedication prefixed to it, the translation of the Old Testament, which appeared in 1663, is said to be already in the printer's hands. So large an expense as was thus incurred could not be met without liberal patronage in England.

To the Indian Bible, when completed, were appended a Catechism, and a version in the same language of the metrical paraphrase of the Book of Psalms. To the translations of each of

the two great divisions of the Scriptures was prefixed a Dedication to the King. But the Dedications were attached to scarcely any copies, if to any, but those which were intended to be sent to England. The Dedications were presented in the name, not of the translator, but of "The Commissioners of the United Colonies in New England." They are reprinted in the Collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society (VII. 222).

The number of copies published of Eliot's Bible is not known. It is the opinion of Dr. Francis, (Life of John Eliot, &c., in Sparks's American Biography, V. 221,) that the first edition of the New Testament consisted of fifteen hundred copies. Two hundred were immediately put into strong binding for the use of the Indians. 2 See above, p. 393. 8 See above, pp. 444, 445.

Aug. 7.

that they repealed certain laws which had hitherto made their harbors free to "all ships which came for trading only from other parts," and authorized the Governor for the time being, by himself and such officer as he should appoint, "to take effectual course that bonds be taken of all shipmasters coming hither, as that Act [the Navigation Act] required, and returns made, as was there required, to his Majesty's customs, before they had liberty to depart, that so this country might not be under the least neglect of their duty to his Majesty's just commands." Any departure from the provisions of their charter was likely, in the new circumstances, to attract unfriendly attention in England; and they thought it prudent to enact, "that the law limiting the nomination of but fourteen Assistants be henceforth repealed, and that the freemen be at liberty to choose eighteen Assistants, as the patent hath ordained."1 In practice, however, no alteration was made.

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The same Court appointed a day of public thanksgiving for "the many favors wherewith," as the vote expresses it, "the Lord hath been pleased to com- Precautions pass us about for so many years past in this against enremote wilderness, and in special the gracious answer that he hath given us to our late supplication and humbling of ourselves before Him, in giving us favor in the eyes and heart of our sovereign lord the King, expressed in his gracious acceptance and answer of our late Address to his Majesty." The following vote, constituting the last entry in the Journal of the session, indicates the result of deliberations which must have been anxiously held from its beginning to its close :

"Forasmuch as the present condition of our affairs in highest concernments calls for a diligent and speedy use of the best means seriously to discuss, and rightly to understand, our liberty and duty, thereby to beget unity

1 Mass. Rec., IV. (ii.) 31, 32; comp. 35.

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