Errand into the Wilderness—From Selfless to Selfish?

In his famous lay sermon, John Winthrop warned that, if they failed to carry out God's errand to establish His kingdom on earth, the Puritans should expect divine wrath and retribution. By the latter third of the seventeenth century, it seemed apparent to the ministers of New England that God was indeed angry with the Puritans. During the 1660s and 1670s ministers throughout New England delivered a series of jeremiads (sermons lamenting New England's failings and calling for its repentance). These sermons castigated the people of New England for having defaulted on their covenant with God. As proof of God's wrath, the ministers cited a long list of afflictions that an angry God had given to New England: crop failures, epidemics, grasshoppers, caterpillars, torrid summers, Arctic winters, Indian wars, hurricanes, shipwrecks, accidents (esp. fires), and (most grievous of all) unsatisfactory children. Several large events particularly had great impact on the spirit of New England's ministers: the Restoration of the monarchy and the accession of Charles II (1660), the adoption of the "Half-Way" Covenant (1662), King Philip's War (1675-1676), and the loss of Massachusetts' original charter and its becoming a royal colony (1684).

In 1679 the clergy and lay elders of Massachusetts met in a formal synod in Boston to discuss "The Necessity of Reformation." Under the leadership of Increase Mather, the synod investigated the reasons for New England's afflications, and upon completion it published a long and detailed list of sins of omission and commission:

1. there was a great and visible decay of godliness;

2. there were overt manifestations of pride--contention in churches, insubordination of inferiors towards superiors, particularly of those inferiors who had, unaccountable, acquired more wealth than their betters, and, astonishingly, a shocking extravagance in attire, especially on the part of the meaner sort who persisted in dressing beyond their means.

3. there were outbreaks of heresies and heretics, especially Quakers and Anabaptists.

4. there was a notable increase in swearing and a spreading disposition to sleep at sermons.

5. the Sabbath was wantonly violated.

6. family government had decayed, and fathers no longer kept their sons and daughters from prowling at night.

7. instead of people being knit together in mutual love, they were full of contention, so that lawsuits were on the increase and lawyers were thriving.

8. the egregious sins of sex and alcohol were becoming widespread: militia days had become orgies, taverns were crowded; women threw open temptation in the way of befuddled men by wearing false locks and displaying naked necks and arms, or, which is most abominable, naked breasts; there were mixed dancings, along with light behavior and company-keeping with vain persons, wherefore the bastardy rate was rising. (In 1672 there was actually an attempt to establish a brothel in Boston.)

9. New Englanders were betraying a marked disposition to tell lies, especially when selling anything.

10. the business morality had declined.

11. the people showed no disposition to reform.

12. the people seemed utterly destitute of civic spirit.

Most ministers generally believed that the people of New England had forsaken their original errand for God in favor of a more personal, selfish errand.

--from Perry Miller, "Errand into the Wilderness"