1. A History, I (Remastered)

A History, I

R.J. Rushdoony

In order to understand the American theological scene, we must recognize its seventeenth century British roots. The American Puritans both acted and reacted to the British currents of thought.

In eschatology in Britain, there were two schools at the time, premillennial and postmillennial. The curious fact is that most of the men who came to The Colonies were postmillennial, this made a great difference. The premillennial thinking of the day was unlike the present, in that there was no concept of a rapture, the thinking was covenantal, but they believed that Christ would at some point return, and there would be a millennial reign before the end of the world. So they did not see as the postmillennialists did, the coincidence of the Second Coming and the end of the world. The premillennial thinking in the seventeenth century was deeply concerned with the any-moment second coming. A book could be written on how premillennialism over the centuries has been very certain in terms of all kinds of mathematical computations and signs of the times that the Second Coming was due within a few years. As a matter of fact, one of the great revivals in the Middle Ages came after the year one thousand because the year one thousand was assumed to be the time of the Second Coming. And when our Lord did not come Christians realized they had a work to do, and they did it, so the results were dramatic.

But in the sixteen hundreds, the seventeenth century, many churchmen busied themselves with computing the year of the Second Coming. It was believed that Christ would return to establish his millennial reign in the beginning of the six thousandth year of creation, and that was expected to arrive between 1583 and 1600. Later calculations altered this, reduced it to 1649 and 1660. As a result, at the time that the American Colonies were first being established, in England a sizable segment of the Church was waiting for the Second Coming.

Joseph Mede, a particularly great theologian, was prominent in such thinking. So it did command some of the finest minds of the day. There was, however, an important qualifier — the idea of a rapture before the end of the world, as I indicated, was not in their mind, therefore the coming of the Lord was for the premillennialists also a triumph. Added to that there was the theonomic dimension which was common at that time to both schools of eschatology. Law, God’s Law was basic to Christian thinking, the antinomians were very, very few.

James Ussher in his Annals of the World, published in 1758, written much earlier, used God’s Sabbaths of the land and especially the Jubilee as a framework for history. He went all through the Bible up until the end of the New Testament era calculating the times of the Jubilee, the Sabbath years, when they were not observed because of the nation’s sins, and the judgments that fell upon Israel for disobedience to God’s Law. He thus linked God’s grace, mercy, and judgment to the covenant law. The Puritans, especially the American Puritans, moved readily and easily into postmillennialism. As Ball noted:

“Protestant eschatological optimism deriving from the reformation, achieved its most lucid expression with English theologians in the Puritan era; that optimism included the certainty that time would see the fulfillment of biblical prophecy. It included belief in the triumph of good over evil, and hope in the ultimate realization of the will of God on earth.” 1

The source of all this was John Calvin, whose commentaries on Daniel and Isaiah in particular are clearly postmillennial. According to Daniel Day Williams:

“Calvin’s rule of Geneva was based on the belief that the orders of the world could and should be made to conform to the will of God.” 2

The Westminster Standards assume the same faith. In a number of places the postmillennialism of the men who wrote it is apparent, as example in question and answer one hundred and two of the Shorter Catechism.

“Q: What do we pray for in the second petition?

A: In the second petition (which is, Thy kingdom come) we pray, That Satan's kingdom may be destroyed; and that the kingdom of grace may be advanced, ourselves and others brought into it, and kept in it; and that the kingdom of glory may be hastened.”

The early colonists suffered great hardships, but they also, in a generation, created a successful economy, and began the structure which in time led to a powerful free nation. Their success, within a very few years, drew others to America, people whose goals were economic self-betterment and not a Christian commonwealth. As a result, within a few years, people were pouring into New England in particular with a particularly bad character. So that when you read some accounts that tell you how terrible the Puritans were because incest, bestiality, sodomy, and other things were regularly in the court records the answer to that is it was these newcomers who came, not in terms of the faith, but in terms of bettering themselves economically.

Now this is a very important fact, because that open door to anybody who wanted to come in, not only began in the early 1600’s but continued almost to World War II. Why? The people being brought in were hardly of the best character, some were very fine, but many of them were people who were given the choice by countries in Europe and in Britain of either going to America or going to jail, so they came to America. What happened? People with a postmillennial hope welcomed them and converted them as fast as they could. That was their position, that was their optimism, their assurance; that because God had said:

“The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of his Christ…”

Rev. 11:15

“Why! They’re just sending us potential converts!”

Well we can better understand the goals of the leaders, not in terms of the cynical historians, but in terms of Captain Edward Johnson, who in 1654 had published in London A History of New England or Wonder-Working Providence of Sions Saviour in New England. This was a militant postmillennial statement, which declared in part:

“Christ Jesus, intending to manifest His kingly office toward His churches, more fully than ever yet the sons of men saw, stirs up his servants as the heralds of a King, to make this proclamation for volunteers as followers:

‘Oh yes, oh yes, all you the people of Christ that are here oppressed, [this was published in London by Johnson who was in New England - RJR] imprisoned and scurrilously derided, gather yourselves together, your wives and little ones, and answer to your several names as ye shall be shipped for his service in the western world, and more especially for planting the united colonies of New England where you are to attend the service of the King of Kings.’ Upon the divulging of this proclamation by his heralds at arms…

Could Caesar so suddenly fetch over fresh forces from Europe to Asia, Pompey to foil? How much more shall Christ who createth all power, call over this 900-league ocean at his pleasure, such instruments as he thinks meet to make use of in this place…

…know this is the place where the Lord will create a new heaven and new earth in, new churches, and a new commonwealth together…’” 3

For Captain Johnson, the new creation in Christ’s work with His people, “a mighty step in creating a new heaven and a new earth,” was the colonization of America in terms of the Reformed faith. For him this was a major step forward, a break with the past, an effort in terms of God’s work to start afresh, to create the “new order of the ages,” “God’s kingdom in the Americas.”

Even more, as I indicated earlier, Johnson’s confidence in that of the colonists was so great that he specifically calls upon, “the oppressed, imprisoned and the scurrilously derided,” to join the American colony as “volunteers in the wars of the Lord.” Instead of an exclusion of such peoples, Johnson specifically invited them. Every ship was met by people who represented the churches, who were eager to lead the newcomers to Christ, to be a material help to them, to acquaint them with how to live in the new world. Well, such people did come to America, they were a problem, they were amoral degenerates in great numbers, but they were also converted. They were welcomed in Christ’s name because they were potential recruits for His kingdom.

For generations, exuberant Christians saw immigrants as potential recruits for Christ’s kingdom, and it was only as postmillennial hope faded that fears of immigration arose. They were seen, first, as potential recruits for Christ, as potential citizens of His kingdom, and when that postmillennial faith waned, they were seen as threats. Migration to America became a worldwide hope because of this postmillennial dream that marked, for generations, the United States and The Colonies before it. That hope has circulated the world over, that the United States represented a Christian dream, a hope in the process of realization.

In recent years we have done everything to dishonor that worldwide expectation of us. Reformed Christians in that era were hostile to antinomianism. They believed that God’s Law is basic to God’s order. It is a sad fact, by the way, that for generations until recently, almost the only one of the Puritan generation who was in print in the United States was Baxter, and Baxter was very different from the others because he had strong tendencies towards antinomianism. That’s why he was popular in a way that he was not in his own day. But now the other Puritans are becoming well-known also.

In Massachusetts on December 10, 1641, The Massachusetts Body of Liberties was formulated; this was a summary statement of biblical law to be the law of Massachusetts. The hostility of the British crown to such a code made adoption impossible, but indirectly the substance of it became law. Let me add that John Eliot, the missionary to the Indians, created during Cromwell’s years, villages of ‘praying Indians' as they were called; Indian communities of hard-working farmers and businessmen who governed themselves entirely and exclusively by Biblical Law. When King Charles II came to the throne, he ordered Elliot’s book burned by the public hangman and the villages destroyed.

In America the connection between postmillennialism and theonomy was a strong one. Christ’s resurrection as the firstfruits of the world, made new by His atoning death and His victory over sin and death, requires, they held, God’s Law. So the connection between postmillennialism and theonomy is a close and necessary one; how else is God’s order to be established? In 1840 in this country James Henley Thornwell called attention to the fact that historic Calvinism is by nature hostile to antinomianism. It takes only a little thought to realize why this is so. Given the Reformed, or better the Biblical doctrine of predestination, salvation is entirely the work of God, of His grace.

Now the Reformed faith does not attempt to rationalize the faith. Our reason is too small to comprehend the immensity of God’s being and His mind. Therefore the Reformed faith declares that God absolutely predestined all things that come to pass, and yet we are responsible creatures. Our mind cannot reconcile it, but we must accept it if we are to accept the wholeness of God’s Word. The Reformed faith recognizes God’s total predestinating decree, and it also does full justice to man’s responsibility. The Bible sets forth both, and we are not to choose one against the other.

Quoting again from Thornwell:

“If, then, God has made our salvation dependent upon anything to be performed by us, it is not a matter of grace, but of works. The notion that legalism is avoided by ascribing our power to comply with the conditions to the grace of God is a mere evasion of the difficulty. A legal dispensation necessarily supposes power in its subjects to comply with its requirements. We would instinctively revolt at the tyranny involved in the supposition that Adam was destitute of the power necessary to fulfil the condition of the Covenant of Works. It is hardly conceivable that God would make a covenant with man, and solemnly ratify it, without giving man the power to obey its requirements. It signifies little whether this power come from nature or from grace (in either case it is from God); man must have it before he can be the subject or the party of a legal covenant. Neither is the principle affected by the thing required to be done; whether it be obedience to the whole moral law, or only sincere obedience, or only faith, repentance and perseverance which are required, something is to be done—a condition is prescribed—and God's favour ultimately turns upon man's will. The principle of works is as fully recognized in a mild law as in a strict one. He as truly buys who pays only a farthing as he who pays a thousand pounds. If these principles are correct, the Arminianism of Bishop Bull and Baxter, and all who coincide with them, is common ground with barefaced Pelagianism. There is no medium in principle between Pelagianism and Calvinism.” 4

Thornwell was emphatic; it is all of God, we are responsible, but everything is of God’s sovereign decree. So we cannot be selective in our approach to the Word of God, we cannot legitimately take human responsibility and separate it from God’s predestination; both are true and both must be affirmed. The Bible declares that we are responsible and the law is the measure of our responsibility. Thornwell said further:

“Those who deny that the law of God is the measure of duty, or that personal holiness should be sought by Christians, are those alone who can properly be charged with Antinomian principles. The Scriptures are so pointed and explicit in pressing upon believers that ‘denying ungodliness and worldly lusts they should live soberly, righteously and godly in this present world,’ that it becomes a matter of no little interest, even to the speculative inquirer, to account for the origin of Antinomianism.” 5

In other words, antinomianism, Thornwell held, is totally impossible to substantiate from Scripture.

John Gill in The Cause of God and Truth exploded every text used by Arminians. If the law is denied, sanctification is denied, then holiness is no longer what the Bible is requiring of us, only easy-believism. But if the law has its due place as the way of holiness, then we are able to sin a resting place in our lives. At the same time, our application of the law destroys the power of sin in our lives, and it also destroys its power in our society. By this means we extend Christ’s kingdom and succeed in obtaining the postmillennial vision of a restored earth as a great and marvelous realm of Christ our King. The dual emphasis on God’s predestination and human responsibility helps us avoid what Thornwell saw as too common, saying:

“The Gospel, like its blessed Master, is always crucified between two thieves—legalist of all sorts on the one hand and Antinomians on the other; the former robbing the Saviour of the glory of his work for us, and the other robbing him of the glory of his work within us.” 6

Again, as Thornwell summarized it:

“Holiness so far from being the cause of salvation is a part of it… Holiness is a benefit received, and not a price paid…” 7

A doctrine of work sees man's work as efficacious towards salvation. Whereas a doctrine faithful to Scripture sees works as God’s Spirit in our lives, a product of grace, not a cause of it.

In 1676 Charles II suppressed many colonial liberties and made The Colonies more strictly under royal control. At the same time, colonial eschatological thinking had become premillennial and pessimistic. They looked too much to the events in Britain and the defeat of the Puritan cause, and less to Scripture and shifted their ground. But with Jonathan Edwards in the mid-eighteenth century postmillennialism had a major revival together with the emphasis on theonomy; the two over the centuries have gone together.

In The Doctrine of Original Sin Defended Edwards said uncompromisingly:

“The law of God is the rule of right, as Dr. Taylor often calls it: It is the measure of virtue and sin: So much agreement as there is with this rule, so much is there of rectitude, righteousness, or true virtue, and no more; and so much disagreement as there is with this rule, so much sin is there.” 8

Do you see what Edwards was saying? We become world-conquerors, we exercise dominion by means of the law;and if our use of the law of God wanes, then justice wanes, then our postmillennial hope begins to disappear.

Now it is interesting that in his thinking about end times Edwards was emphatically God-centered. This is an emphasis that is gone in modern day eschatological thinking, especially among the premills.

Some years ago, about thirty forty years ago in a church I will not mention, a very wealthy and powerful member ordered me to cease and desist from any more preaching about the Old Testament and its law and about victory in the postmillennial sense — victory was only an inner victory. His wife exploded all over me because: “If I were right then Christians” she said, “won’t escape the tribulation, and I’ll have to go through it.” And she said, “How can Jesus expect me to go through the tribulation when I gave up two things I loved so much — smoking and dancing”.

The emphasis of Jonathan Edwards was not on what the Christian wanted, but only on God’s holy purpose, God’s own glory. As a result, his writings are very alien to modern eschatologies. But Edwards was not too unusual in this. The modern concern is, “What will happen to me and to the world?” Edwards in his postmillennialism had only one goal; to proclaim the holy purposes of the triune God and His victory. This one fact tells us how far astray our contemporary millennial thinking is. Thank you.

1. Brian Ball. A Great Expectation : Eschatological Thought in English Protestantism to 1660. Studies in the History of Christian Thought 12. Leiden: Brill Academic Pub, 1975, 13.

2. Daniel Day Williams. The Andover Liberals: A Study in American Theology. New York: King’s Crown Press, 1941, 114.

3. Alan Heimart and Andrew Delblanco, eds. The Puritans in America: A Narrative Anthology. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1985, 114.

4. James Henley Thornwell. The Collected Writings of James Henley Thornwell: Theological and Ethical. Edited by John B. Adger, D.D. Vol. 2-Theological and Ethical. 4 vols. Richmond, Virginia: Presbyterian Committee on Publication, 1871, 393 - 394.

5. James Henley Thornwell. The Collected Writings of James Henley Thornwell: Theological and Ethical. Edited by John B. Adger, D.D. Vol. 2-Theological and Ethical. 4 vols. Richmond, Virginia: Presbyterian Committee on Publication, 1871, 393. 383.

6. James Henley Thornwell. The Collected Writings of James Henley Thornwell: Theological and Ethical. Edited by John B. Adger, D.D. Vol. 2-Theological and Ethical. 4 vols. Richmond, Virginia: Presbyterian Committee on Publication, 1871, 393. 385.

7. James Henley Thornwell. The Collected Writings of James Henley Thornwell: Theological and Ethical. Edited by John B. Adger, D.D. Vol. 2-Theological and Ethical. 4 vols. Richmond, Virginia: Presbyterian Committee on Publication, 1871, 393. 389.

8. Jonathan Edwards. The Works of President Edwards in Ten Volumes. Vol. Two. Ten vols. New York: G. & C. & H. Carvill, 1830, 336.