Colonial Pastors in Public Affairs - Rev. John Wise P5

I am continuing on the Rev. John Wise, his powerful sermons with ideas that helped influence American thinking leading to the War of Independence. When President Calvin Coolidge delivered a speech in 1926 on the 150th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, he acknowledged:

These thoughts in the Declaration can very largely be traced back to what John Wise was writing in 1710…His works were reprinted in 1772 and have been declared to have been nothing less than a textbook of liberty for our Revolutionary fathers. But Wise did more than just advocate Biblical principles of civil liberty; he also stood boldly in their defense.

While Wise was pastoring, Britain’s King James II sent Edmund Andros to be governor over all the colonies of New England, including Massachusetts. When Andros arrived in 1686, he tried to seize the charters of eight New England colonies (Connecticut, Massachusetts, Plymouth, Rhode Island, New York, New Hampshire, East Jersey and West Jersey), revoke their representative governments, and force them into a single unified colony under his control. And even though they were very religiously diverse, he also tried to force the British Anglican Church upon them all. Wise was a key leader opposing Andros' efforts.

Content Sourced from The American Story, The Beginnings by Dave Barton & Tim Barton