21 January 1707 A.D. Warrant Issued for Arrest of
(Presbyterian) Rev. Makemie by British Governor of New York, Lord Cornbury—For Preaching
“Pernicious Doctrines and Principles”
Archivist. “January 21: Francis Makemie and Freedom
of Speech.” This Day in Presbyterian
History. N.d. http://www.thisday.pcahistory.org/2015/01/january-21-3/.
Accessed 21 Jan 2014.
January 21:
Francis Makemie and Freedom of Speech
We are pleased to have Dr. David W. Hall with us today as guest author.
Rev. Hall has served as the pastor of the Midway Presbyterian Church in Powder Springs, Georgia since
2003. Prior to that, he was pastor of Covenant Presbyterian in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. While at
Covenant, he was able to host an Internet-based magazine called Premise, one of
the earliest Christian magazines to appear on the Internet. It began in 1994
and had a five-year run, ending in 1999. Twenty years ago! Ancient history,
when speaking of the Internet!
Premise was taken down off the Web quite some time ago, but the PCA
Historical Center is grateful to have been able to preserve the magazine’s
content. Dr. Hall’s article, which follows, is part of that content, and we
hope to make more Premise articles available in the future.
Francis Makemie and Freedom of
Speech
by Dr.
David W. Hall.
One illustration
of how religion and politics were interwoven, especially the religion and
politics of strongly Scottish Calvinist sentiment, can be seen from the
experience of Ulster Presbyterian missionary Francis Makemie (b. 1658). Makemie
had been reared on tales of the Scottish rebellion that adopted the Solemn
League and Covenant, and he was educated at the University of Glasgow one
generation after Samuel Rutherford. Commissioned by the Presbytery of
Laggan, a fiercely Calvinistic stronghold, the first Presbyterian minister on
the North American continent landed on the eastern shore of Chesapeake Bay in
1683. Over time, he earned a reputation as a threat to the Anglicans in the
area, and he was reported to the Bishop of London (who never had authority over
Makemie) to be a pillar of the Presbyterian sect. His work was commended by
Puritan giant Cotton Mather, and his correspondence with Increase Mather
indicates considerable commonality of purpose among early American Calvinists.
Cotton Mather would later recommend a Catechism composed by Makemie for his New
England churches.
Makemie
organized at least seven Presbyterian churches committed to the Westminster
Confession of Faith and Scottish ecclesiastical order between 1683-1705. In
between the organizing of churches along Scottish models—the Scottish League
and Covenant seemed to be blossoming in America, perhaps more than in its
native Scotland—Makemie served as a pastor in Barbados from 1696 to 1698. He
also sheltered persecuted Irish Calvinist ministers from 1683-1688. Following
the Glorious Revolution in 1688 the need for shelter in America diminished, and
some of these religious refugees returned to Ireland and Scotland. Makemie,
however, remained in America, found a wife, and continued organizing Presbyterian
congregations throughout Maryland, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. In a 1699
letter, Makemie still spoke reverentially of Geneva as a Calvinist center.
Ministers
from the Church of England protested Makemie’s church planting, caricaturing
his ministry as subversive and nonconformist. Eventually the Sheriff of Long
Island at the behest of the British Governor of New York, Lord Cornbury
arrested Makemie and another Presbyterian colleague, John Hampton, for
preaching without a license by. On January 21, 1707, the warrant for their arrest
charged them with spreading “their Pernicious Doctrine and Principles” in Long
Island without “having obtained My License for so doing, which is directly
contrary to the known laws of England.”
Cornbury’s
oppressiveness was well known from several earlier cases, and Makemie realized
that if freedom of religion were not granted in one colony, America would never
have the kind of free expression needed. He may have viewed New York as a
mission for religious freedom; en route to Boston from New Jersey, he could
have simply avoided Cornbury’s territory. In what would become one of the
earliest tests of freedom of speech in America, this Irish Calvinist was
indicted by an Anglican authority (also exposing an early establishment of
religion in New York) and held for two days prior to trial.
Makemie
appeared before Cornbury (who called the missionary “a Disturber of
Governments”) in the council chamber at Fort Anne, New York, on the afternoon
of January 23, 1707. Lord Cornbury (Edward Hyde) charged: “How dare you take
upon you to preach in my Government without my License”! Makemie answered that
Parliament had granted liberty to preach in 1688 under William and Mary.
Cornbury contended that such laws did not extend to the American colonies.
Makemie
answered that the act of Parliament was not restricted to Great Britain alone,
but applied to all her territories; Makemie also produced certificates from
courts in Virginia and Maryland that had already recognized his work. When
Cornbury argued that ‘all politics is local,’ including rights and penalties,
Makemie reminded him and his attorneys that the Act of Toleration was
applicable in Scotland, Wales, Barbados, Virginia, and Maryland, and that
without express restriction it was also applicable in all “her Majesties
Dominions”—unless, of course, New York was not considered under her dominion.
Notwithstanding,
Cornbury did not want Makemie or other “Strolling” preachers in his territory.
Makemie further argued that strolling Quakers were permitted religious liberty
in the colonies, which brought Cornbury’s equal-opportunity-oppressor
rejoinder: “I have troubled some of them, and will trouble them more.” When
Cornbury revived his charge that Makemie was spreading “pernicious doctrines,”
the Ulster missionary answered that the Westminster Confession of Faith was
very similar to the Thirty-Nine Articles of the Church of England and
challenged “all the Clergy of York to show us any false or pernicious doctrines
therein.” Makemie even stated his willingness to subscribe to the Thirty-Nine
Articles should that satisfy the Governor.
Earlier
Makemie had applied to the Governor to preach in a Dutch Reformed Church in New
York and had been denied permission. His speaking in a private home gave rise
to the charge of preaching unlawfully. Cornbury reiterated that Makemie was
preaching without license, charging him to post bond for his good behavior and
to promise not to preach again without licence. Although he disputed any
charges against his behavior, Makemie consented to post bond for his good
behavior (knowing there were no provable charges), but he refused to post bond
to keep silence, promising in Lutheresque words that “if invited and desired by
any people, we neither can, nor dare” refuse to preach. Like Luther, Makemie
could do no other.
Cornbury
then ruled, “Then you must go to Gaol?” Makemie’s answer is instructive.
[I]t
will be unaccountable to England, to hear, that Jews, who openly blaspheme the
Name of the Lord Jesus Christ, and disown the whole Christian religion; Quakers
who disown the Fundamental Doctrines of the Church of England and both
Sacraments; Lutherans, and all others, are tolerated in Your Lordships
Government; and only we, who have complied, and who are still ready to comply
with the Act of Toleration, and are nearest to, and likest the Church of
England of any Dissenters, should be hindered, and that only the Government of
New-York and the Jersies. This will appear strange indeed.
Cornbury
responded that Makemie would have to blame the Queen, to which the defendant
answered that he did not blame her Majesty, for she did not limit his speech or
free religious expression. At last, Lord Cornbury relented and signed a release
for the prisoners, charging both Makemie and John Hampton, however, with court
costs. Before leaving, Makemie requested that the Governor’s attorneys produce
the law that delimited the Act of Toleration from application in any particular
American colony. The attorney for Cornbury produced a copy, and when Makemie
offered to pay the attorney for a copy of the specific paragraph that limited
the Act of Parliament, the attorney declined and the proceedings came to a
close.
In a
parting shot, Lord Cornbury confessed to Makemie, “You Sir, Know Law.” Makemie
was later acquitted, and free speech and free expression of religion,
apart from government’s approval, took a stride forward in the New World.
Makemie pioneered religious liberty at great risk, and all who enjoy religious
freedom remain in debt to this Scots-Irish son of Calvin.
Upon
hearing of Makemie’s eventual (though delayed) release, the esteemed Cotton
Mather wrote to his colleague the Rev. Samuel Penhallow on July 8, 1707: “That
Brave man, Mr. Makemie, has after a famous trial at N. York, bravely triumphed
over the Act of Uniformity, and the other poenal laws for the Church of
England, without permitting the matter to come so far as to pleading the act of
toleration. He has compelled an acknowledgement that lawes aforesaid, are but
local ones and have nothing to do with the Plantations. The Non-Conformist
Religion and interest is . . . likely to prevail mightily in the Southern
Colonies. I send you two or three of Mr. Makemie’s books to be dispersed. . .
.”
In
another blow for religious freedom, the next year a Somerset County, Maryland,
court approved the certification for a Protestant Dissenter church to be
established. By a narrow 3-2 vote of the court, Makemie secured liberty for
Presbyterian churches under “an act of parliament made the first year of King
William and Queen Mary establishing the liberty of Protestant Dissenters.”
Makemie
was also instrumental in laying the groundwork for an Irish priest, William Tennent,
to immigrate to America. Tennent would later establish the “Log College,” and
one of its students, the Rev. Samuel Finley, started the West Nottingham
Academy in 1741. These schools, much like Calvin’s Academy in Geneva, became
the proving grounds of the American republic. From this one Academy came
founders of four colleges, two U. S. representatives, one senator, two members
of the Continental Congress, and two signatories of the Declaration of
Independence (Benjamin Rush and Richard Stockton). Samuel Finley went on
to become president of the College of New Jersey (later Princeton) in 1761.
This
developing American Calvinism, far from the modern caricature as a narrow or
severe sect, was a boost to personal freedom and civil discourse in its heyday.
The first American Presbyterian pastor helped entrench the right to free
expression and free worship by appealing to the principles of the Glorious
Revolution. A tidal wave of Calvinistic thinking came to America through
immigrants like Makemie and continued to radiate outward.
Images :
1. The trial of Francis Makemie
2. Commemorative statue of Francis Makemie
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