Patriarch of Dorchester, Father of Massachusetts

The man who is singly most responsible for the Puritan settlement of Massachusetts is John White, Patriarch of Dorchester (1575-1648). One of many John Whites in his era, and possibly related to John White, Artist and Governor of the Lost Colony of Roanoke (c. 1540-c. 1593), our "Patriarch," who was also the great-grandfather of John and Charles Wesley, was a leading Puritan of his day, and influential on both sides of the Atlantic.

John White was a Puritan whose ties to Dorchester, England, began with his appointment as rector there in 1606. He spent the rest of his life ministering to that community, and his importance as a leader in the town after a calamitous fire in 1613, after which, under his preaching, the town was greatly rebuilt, with a view towards employing and helping the poor, and reformed in its spiritual character. The town prospered in the ensuing years, and White, having noted the Pilgrim expedition to Plymouth upon the publication in 1622 of Mourt's Relation, helped to establish the Dorchester Company, which in 1623 founded a trading settlement at Cape Ann, near what is now Gloucester, Massachusetts, overseen by Thomas Gardner, said by some to be the first governor of Massachusetts, which in 1626 was moved further south, under the leadership of Roger Conant, and would become the town of Salem. White recruited emigrants and helped to raise funds for the work of the Dorchester Company, to help build Massachusetts as both a refuge for nonconforming Puritans as a profitable trading colony, though he himself conformed to the Church of England.

Daniel Neal, The History of New-England, Vol. 1, p. 122:

...the Reverend Mr. White, Minister of Dorchester, encourag'd by the Success of the Plimouth Colony, projected a new Settlement in the Massacuset Bay as an Asylum for the silenced Ministers;...

His trips to London, networking and earnest appeals led to the granting of a patent by the Plymouth Council for New England in 1628 to the successor of the Dorchester Company, the New England Company for the Plantation in Massachusetts Bay, which established the Massachusetts Company. It was under the auspices of this company that the Great Puritan Migration to New England commenced in 1630 with the sailing of the Winthrop Fleet. The Humble Request of His Majesties Loyall Subjects, the Governour and the Company late gone for New England; to the rest of their Brethren in and of the Church of England (1630) was published by John Winthrop and his group is thought to have been been drafted by John White of Dorchester. It sets forth their formal farewell to England, yet affirming their unbroken communion with the Church of England. John Cotton preached a farewell sermon at the departure of the Winthrop Fleet, God's Promise to His Plantation (1630), in which he promised a fuller accounting of the reasons for the Puritan migration, a promise which was fulfilled by the publication later that year of The Planters Plea, Or the Grounds of Plantations Examined, and usual Objections answered. Together with a manifestation of the causes moving such as have lately undertaken a Plantation in NEW ENGLAND: For the satisfaction of those that question the lawfulness of the Action. 2 Thess. v. 21. Prove all things, and hold fast that which is good. by John White. This important document constitutes a full treatise on the history of the settling of Massachusetts to date, and setting forth the Biblical reasons for the planting of this particular settlement, its relation to the Church of England, and the establishment of colonial endeavors generally (including arguments "from Gods gift of the earth to men," "from the Law of marriage" and "from the benefit that comes to mens outward estates"), as well as answering concerns by friends and foes of the Puritans' enterprise. He continued to correspond with John Winthrop, and to labor for the benefit of the colonial settlement. Thus, though White himself never sailed to Massachusetts, his efforts to establish the Puritan colony there have led many to refer to him as the "Father of Massachusetts," even more so than the Pilgrim Fathers.

In 1643, White was chosen to serve among the Westminster Assembly of Divines. When the Assembly swore to uphold the Solemn League and Covenant on September 25, 1643, John Lightfoot recorded in his Journal that "Mr. White prayed near upon an hour." White attended faithfully and contributed diligently to the work of the Assembly, and was in fact married to the sister of Cornelius Burgess, his co-assessor at the Assembly. While the Assembly was engaged in a battle over whose metrical Psalter would be chosen to serve as the instrument of uniformity and "get the civil sanction," the leading candidates being Francis Rous and William Barton, White, who had prepared his own version of the metrical Psalms, preferred not to publish it while the debate was going on, in the interests of harmony. It was published posthumously with the permission of his son under the title David's Psalms in Metre, agreeable to the Hebrew. To be sung in usuall Tunes To the benefit of the Churches of Christ (1655) and shows his poetic skills. He also wrote a catechism. A.F. Mitchell writes, The Catechisms of the Second Reformation, p. xlvii:

His catechism, entitled A Plaine and Familiar Exposition upon the Creed, X. Commandments, Lord's Prayer, and Sacraments, etc., passed through several editions, and, save in the introduction, is identical with that of Josias White, his elder brother, though probably this last was the copyist.

He retired to the country after the end of the English Civil War, and wrote A Way to the Tree of Life: Sundry Directions for the Profitable Reading of the Scriptures: wherein is described occasionally the nature of a spirituall man, and, in A digression, the morality and perpetuity of the Fourth Commandment in every circumstance thereof, is discovered and cleared (1647). He also wrote A Commentary upon the Three First Chapters of the First Book of Moses called Genesis (1656), which contains prefaces by Stephen Marshall and Thomas Manton, commending the work. Charles Spurgeon said of White's commentary, "A folio upon three chapters! There were giants in those days." Manton himself said:

...That praise which was reserved for our Author, was, besides a solid Exposition of the Text, The deducing of Apt and pertinent Observations, together with fit and proper Reasons to each Point, which with what Judgment and Acutenesse it is performed, I leave to the Reader to judge.

To speak of the Worth of the Authour is needlesse, his praise being already in all the Churches:...

He died in 1648, having poured his life into a ministry which served the cause of Christ's kingdom on both sides of the Atlantic, and the name of this good man, as common as it is, is uncommonly worthy of remembrance.

The Unfinished Westminster Catechism

The two catechisms produced by the Westminster Assembly, the Larger and Shorter, are well-known to Reformed Christians and students of theology and history. Less well-known is the fact that there is a third, incomplete catechism produced by the Westminster Assembly, which preceded the other two, which William Carruthers describes as "the first catechism" of the Westminster Assembly and Wayne Spear describes as "the unfinished catechism." It lacks a formal name because it was laid aside when the Assembly decided to scrap this particular catechism and move in a different direction, but from 1643 to 1647, the Assembly's efforts were engaged in the production of a catechism that only saw the light of day with the publication of its Minutes.

A.F. Mitchell traces the history of the catechism in The Westminster Assembly: Its History and Standards (1884), pp. 408-421; but the text itself has only been published twice: 1) W. Carruthers, The Shorter Catechism of the Westminster Assembly of Divines (1897), pp. 21-26; and 2) Wayne Spear, "The Unfinished Westminster Catechism," in John L. Carson and David W. Hall, To Glorify and Enjoy God: A Commemoration of the 350th Anniversary of the Westminster Assembly (1994), pp. 259-266. The numbering of the questions is inconsistent but there are a total of 55 questions and answers. It begins by teaching that the Scriptures are the only rule of faith and obedience and ends with what is required by the Fourth Commandment.

Although not as polished as the later catechisms produced by the Assembly, this first unfinished catechism is worthy of study, and one is able to see how it helped lay the groundwork for those which followed after, and in which new directions the Assembly decided to go with the later catechisms. One may read the text of the catechism at the link provided above. Below is a sample:

[3. What is the rule of faith and obedience ?]

The only rule of faith and obedience is the written Word of God, contained in the Bible or the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament

[4.] What special proofs are there that the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament are the very Word of God ?

The Scriptures are proved to be the very Word of God by their majesty and holiness of doctrine, and the fulfilling of the prophecies, by their exalting God and debasing man, and yet offering him sufficient means of comfort and salvation, and by their light and power in convincing and converting.

5. Are all these proofs sufficient of themselves to persuade a man to believe that the Scriptures are the Word of God?

It is only the Spirit of God that makes any proofs effectual to assure the soul of this truth, that the Scriptures are the Word of God.

Westminster Directory of Church Government

The Westminster Form of Presbyterian Government is a document with which many Reformed Presbyterians are acquainted, primarily because it is published in the Free Presbyterian edition of the Westminster Standards. It is a major contribution of the Westminster Assembly to the understanding of Biblical church polity. What fewer Reformed Presbyterians know is that this was not the Assembly's only official statement on church polity. Another document, the Westminster Directory of Church Government (to be distinguished from the Directory of Public Worship, and the Directory of Family Worship, the latter of which was not published by the Westminster Assembly at all, but by the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, though it is often published with the Westminster Standards), stands as often-overlooked, but perhaps more valuable contribution by the Westminster divines on the subject.

It is largely the work of Alexander Henderson, and partially based on his earlier work The Government and Order of the Church of Scotland (1641) as well as the disciplines of the French and Dutch Reformed Churches. It lead to the creation of the Provincial Assembly of London. The English Parliament approved the Form rather than the Directory and due to the opposition of David Calderwood, the Directory was not approved by the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland; hence, this document, while a product of the Westminster Assembly, is little known today.

Wayne Spear discusses two collections of Presbyterian standards published in Scotland over the years in his unpublished dissertation "Covenanted Uniformity in Religion: The Influence of the Scottish Commissioners Upon the Ecclesiology of the Westminster Assembly" (1976), pp. 326-327:

With regard to the printing of the Westminster Confession, it is apparent that it was one of the best-sellers in the eighteenth century in Scotland, being printed repeatedly. What requires further detailed investigation is that fact that the Confession was published along with other documents possessing varying degrees of authority within the Church of Scotland. In general, there were two types of collections which were being published throughout the eighteenth century. One was more inclusive, containing, inter alia, the First and Second Books of Discipline from the sixteenth century, and the now little-known Directory for Church-Government which was produced by the Westminster Assembly.1 A second kind of collection appeared as early as 1732, containing what came to be the standard selection of documents; the only document on church polity which it included was the Westminster Form of Church Government.2

1 The writer has examined, in Barbour Library of Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, editions of this type which were printed in 1739, 1764, and 1771. All make reference to an edition originally published in 1725.

2 This collection was re-published as recently as 1970 by the Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland.

Dr. Spear went on to say much more about the Directory of Church Government in an essay published by Charles G. Dennison & Richard C. Gamble, Pressing Toward the Mark: Essays Commemorating Fifty Years of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church (1986), pp. 84-85:

After long debates, and with considerable use of the art of accomodation, the Westminster Assembly produced three documents which embodied their advice for the government and worship of the church. The Directory for Worship and the Form of Church Government were both completed in December of 1644. Both documents are fairly well-known, because they have been published repeatedly in the Scottish editions of the Confession of Faith.4

The third document, A Directory for Church-Government, Church-Censures, and Ordination of Ministers, was completed on July 4, 1645.5 It was the basis for legislation passed three years later by the English Parliament setting up presbyteries in London and in counties where the Parliament had military control. Shortly thereafter, Oliver Cromwell purged the Parliament of its Presbyterian members, and the experiment in England with Presbyterian church government came to an end.

The Directory for Church Government was presented to the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland in 1647, and was ordered to be printed for study by the presbyteries. The rise of Cromwell in England brought about the collapse of the effort to achieve agreement in religion between Scotland and England, and no further action on the Directory was taken. The document was reprinted a number of times during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in Scotland, but not in the last 200 years, and never in America.6 Today this product of the deliberations of the Westminster Assembly has been almost entirely forgotten.

This "lost" document of the Westminster Assembly, however, deserves to be better known. While it contains much material that is also in the better-known Form of Church Government, it is a much more polished document. In my doctoral dissertation, I asserted that the Form of Church Government is "a virtual mosaic, whose bits and pieces are the sentences debated and approved by the Assembly over a period of many months, and subsequently rearranged by two different editorial committees."7 It was put together in haste, as a kind of progress report. The Directory for Government clears up some of the confusion in the language of the earlier document. More importantly, it contains the results of the Assembly's deliberations on the subject of church discipline. It also adds practical details about the operation of church government. In his Baird Lectures, A.F. Mitchell said of the Directory for Church Government,

It is practical and comprehensive, a storehouse of valuable counsels as to many things in government, and still more in discipline, not touched on in the propositions [i.e., Form of Church Government], and is well worthy of being studied by Presbyterian ministers, who wish to do full justice to the system of government the Westminster Assembly sanctioned.8

4. See also Iain Murray, The Reformation of the Church (London: Banner of Truth Trust, 1965), 203-230.
5. [A.F.] Mitchell, [The Westminster Assembly: Its History and Standards,] 257ff.
6. Ibid., 264. See also my unpublished dissertation, "Covenanted Uniformity in Religion: The Influence of the Scottish Commissioners upon the Ecclesiology of the Westminster Assembly" (University of Pittsburgh, 1976), 327 note.
7. "Covenanted Uniformity in Religion," 257.
8. Mitchell, 264.

The Westminster Directory of Church Government is among the documents slated for publication by the Westminster Assembly Project. To read transcriptions of two editions of this document, see their digital library. This document is a treasure not to be forgotten.

Puritan Polymath

John Wallis is a name perhaps better known to 21st century mathematicians than 21st century church-goers. But he is worth highlighting because he was, as it were, a Puritan polymath, or Renaissance man, versatile in so many ways. His list of credentials and accomplishments is a marvel to read. He

• Studied under Martin Holbeach (1597-1670), a noted Puritan educator, who also taught Isaac Barrow

• Was the protégé of Herbert Palmer

• Was a Minister of the Gospel

• Served as amenuensis to the scribes of the Westminster Assembly

• Was influential in the preparation and design of the Westminster Shorter Catechism

• Was the author of the first exposition of the Westminster Shorter Catechism (1648)

• Was an Ardent defender of the doctrines of the Trinity, Infant Baptism and the Christian Sabbath

• Was a leading mathematician who is partially responsible for the development of modern calculus, credited with proposing Wallis' Product, introduced the term "continued fraction", coined the phrase "interpolation"

• Was perhaps the first to maintain the theory of circulation of blood in a public disputation

• Was involved in a plan to teach deaf-mutes how to speak

• Authored an English grammar for native speakers and foreigners

• Served as chief cryptographer for Parliament and the royal court between 1643-1689

• Was one of the first members of the Royal Society

• Was appointed Savilian Professor of Geometry at Oxford

• Is credited with introducing the ∞ symbol for infinity

• Was the last surviving member of the Westminster Assembly of Divines (d. October 28, 1703) at the age of 87. [Thomas Case was the last nonconforming Westminster Divine, having died on May 30, 1684, at the age of 84.]

• His autobiography provides the last first-hand account of the proceedings of the Westminster Assembly

• Asteroid 31982 Johnwallis is named for him

His intellectual gifts were astounding. Wikipedia writes:

One aspect of Wallis's mathematical skills has not yet been mentioned, namely his great ability to do mental calculations. He slept badly and often did mental calculations as he lay awake in his bed. One night he calculated the square root of a number with 53 digits in his head. In the morning he dictated the 27 digit square root of the number, still entirely from memory. It was a feat which was rightly considered remarkable, and Henry Oldenburg, the Secretary of the Royal Society, sent a colleague to investigate how Wallis did it. It was considered important enough to merit discussion in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of 1685.

Wallis gives his own account of the matter in a letter to Thomas Smith of Madalene College, which is found in the Spectator, Vol. LII (1879), p. 11 and reproduced by E.W. Scripture, "Arithmetical Prodigies," in The American Journal of Psychology, Vol. IV (April 1891), p. 38:

December 22d, 1669. -- In a dark night, in bed, without pen, ink or paper or anything equivalent, I did by memory extract the square root of 30000,00000,00000,00000,00000,00000,00000,00000, which I found to be 1,77205,08075,68077,29353, fere, and did the next day commit it to writing.

February 18th, 1670. -- Johannes Georgius Pelshower (Regimontannus Borussus) giving me a visit, and desiring an example of the like, I did that night propose to myself in the dark without help to my memory a number in 53 places: 2468135791011112141113151618207192122242628302325272931 of which I extracted the square root in 27 places: 157103016871482805817152171 proxime; which numbers I did not commit to paper till he gave me another visit, March following, which I did from memory dictate them to him.

Yours, etc.,
John Wallis

The discussion by church historians of his role and influence on the productions of the Westminster Assembly may be of particular interest.

William M. Hetherington, History of the Westminster Assembly of Divines, pp. 259-260:

It has been also conjectured, that the first outline of the Catechism may have been drawn by Dr. Wallis, one of the scribes of the Assembly at that period, and afterwards so justly celebrated as Savilian Professor of Geometry at Oxford, and one of the first mathematicians of the age. This conjecture may have arisen from the fact that he wrote a short treatise, entitled, "A Brief and Easy Explanation of the Shorter Catechism;" which was so much approved of by the Assembly that they caused it to be presented to both Houses of Parliament. But in truth, as has been already suggested, the framing of the Catechism appears to have been the work of the committee, and not of any one individual; and it was brought to its present admirable degree of nearness to perfection by the united deliberations of the whole Assembly.

Chad Van Dixhoorn, The Making of the Westminster Larger Catechism:

Having outlined the historical purpose of the Larger Catechism, it still seems appropriate to ask why the Catechism had to be written. After all, respected teachers in Britain had composed good catechisms; Calvin’s catechism was in the bookstores and so was the Heidelberg Catechism. Why could the Assemblymen not agree to use one of these catechisms for purposes of unity and instruction?

One answer has to do with the structure or format of earlier catechisms that the majority of Westminster divines did not like. In the eighth edition of A Brief and Easie Explanation of the Shorter Catechism, a young divine named John Wallis, explains the Assembly’s unique method in setting up the catechism: “The Assembly was careful that all the Answers might be entire sentences by themselves, without depending for their sense upon the foregoing Question, being indeed so many distinct Aphorisms, containing briefly the grounds of Christian Religion.” One benefit of this structure, in Wallis’s view,

is that the learner is not necessitated to charge his memory with the Questions, that he may understand the Answer [sic]; nor is the like danger, as in many other Catechisms, of confounding the understanding by misapplying the Answer to a wrong Question. Their Questions also are so framed, that any one of them may be asked singly and distinctly, without dependance on the Question foregoing.14

14. John Wallis, A Brief and Easie Explanation of the Shorter Catechism Presented by the Assembly of Divines in Westminster, to both Houses of Parliament, and By them Approved. Wherein the Meanest Capacities may in a Speedy and Easie way be Brought to Understand the Principles of Religion, in Imitation of a Catechism, formerly published by Master Herbert Palmer, B. D. and late Master of Queens College (eighth ed., London: for Jane Underhill, 1662), preface. I am grateful to Jason M. Rampelt for bringing this preface to my attention in conversation.

A.F. Mitchell, The Westminster Assembly: Its History and Standards, pp. 430-431:

From first to last, it appears to me in its [the Westminster Shorter Catechism's] clear, condensed, and at times almost frigidly logical definitions, to give unmistakeable evidence of its having passed through the alembic of Dr. Wallis, the great mathematician, the friend of Palmer, the opponent of Hobbes and the Socinians, and probably the last survivor of those connected with the great Assembly who was not ashamed to speak of the benefit he had derived from its discussions during the preparation of its Confession and Catechisms, long after he had conformed to the Church of the Restoration.

James Reid, speaking of his published sermons, Memoirs of the Westminster Divines, Vol. 2, p. 214, sums up his most important qualities:

In these sermons [of Dr. John Wallis], the reader may see both the author's learning and piety; with the Calvinistic doctrines of the Reformation, and of the Holy Scriptures. They may indeed be accounted too Puritannical by some persons; but they will not be the less acceptable on that account to others. The style is plain, and the matter excellent.