Henry Dunster and Freedom of Conscience

"The Lord gave me an attentive eare and heart to understand preaching. . . . The Lord showed me my sins, and reconciliation by Christ, . . . and this word was more sweet to me than any thing else in the world."

Henry Dunster, First President of Harvard College, 1653.

"Yet it pleased the LORD to bruise him; he hath put him to grief: when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the LORD shall prosper in his hand." Isaiah 53:10

Harvard College

Henry Dunster was twelve years old when he found "reconciliation by Christ." This was the beginning of a life where the sweetness of that understanding would be tested by the temptations and trials of life. After studying at Cambridge University in England, he became a teacher. Then in 1640, civil war broke out in England, and Dunster emigrated to New England. While no doubt he experienced consternation over the Church of England before leaving to the New World, he would also find the religious leaders in Boston at odds with him. In 1654 Mr. Dunster was asked to resign from Harvard presidency for expressing beliefs the religious leaders of the time deemed heretical.

Currently, I am doing a study on the Messianic Prophecies, those passages in the Old Testament that foretell the first and second coming of Christ. The first coming happened approximately 2000 years ago. We anxiously await the second.

While studying Isaiah 51-53, I found myself pausing at Isaiah 53:10, "when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin". What a thought. Jesus bore our griefs and carried our sorrows. He did not speak in protest when he was afflicted. He did not complain when he was unjustly sentenced to death, because He had a purpose in mind: to make Himself an offering for my sin. He poured out His Soul unto death in place of mine.

Reading through the Life of Henry Dunster, by Jeremiah Chaplin, Samuel Dunster, and Edward Swift Dunster, I reflected upon what needed to happen in Mr. Dunster's life before he would have the conviction of heart and spirit to stand against the religious leaders at that time who would suppress his freedom of conscience. His ability to be strong in the face of opposition began with a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.

Quite likely Dunster took his orders in the Church of England, like other Puritan ministers. However, in his Confession of Faith, we hear his angst over what was happening in that church:

"The Lord hath made me bid adieu to all worldly treasures; and as corruptions in the Church came, first I began to suspect them, then to hate them....So, after 10 years' trouble, I came hither [to New England]; and the Lord gives me peace to see the order of his people." (Life of Henry Dunster, p. 13)

Imagine the thrill he experienced when he found himself not only accepted but highly esteemed by those well-educated leaders of the New World. But in this New World a maelstrom was brewing. As people gained knowledge of God's Word and began to think for themselves, they began to oppose the present religious leadership, and Dunster would be caught in the middle.

Roger Williams, a man Dunster respected, would be banished. Anne Hutchinson would be banished. Lady Deborah Moody was excommunicated. Obadiah Holmes would be brutally whipped. Many others would take a stand and find the fury of the religious leaders either on their back or reaching into their pockets.

Then came Henry Dunster's turn. He would need to examine his convictions and take a stand.

Imagine the horror those esteemed men felt when the man they chose to lead in the education of their youth took a stand against a doctrine to which they clung. I can almost feel the thunder of their anger. And my own knees knock in empathy for the meek and gentle Mr. Dunster.

And then I am reminded what Christ had done for me. I imagine Mr. Dunster thought the same. For taking a stand on what his conscience told him was right, Mr. Dunster would be demonized and considered possessed by Satan.

Today the secular world would have me emotionally stripped, and their verbal whip laid upon my back for my convictions. The Atheists would gladly call me a fool for my faith in God, my belief in Heaven, and my determination to follow Jesus Christ, who is to them a dead man but to me alive and well and Whose Spirit is living in me. I believe in the grace of God which saved me through faith. And because I believe, I stand on His Word thus His laws, as absolute truth contrary to what society and the government would claim is true and to the laws they create that are in direct opposition to God's.

As a child, I remember being mocked for that faith, but I would lock my jaw and push forward. No one could take that faith from me. I remember as a young adult being mocked for my belief that anyone who is not saved will go to hell. I remember having someone scream in my face that I was cruel to tell another that hell existed and the only way to Heaven was through faith in Jesus Christ.

Even a little more than a year ago I made a decision (based on convictions that what God in His Word says God means) to step down from a position of leadership. I could not reconcile what I believed with a stand the organization made, which I believe supported a view contrary to God's Word. My heart pounded in my chest. My palms sweated, and my hands shook. But my spirit was strengthened by God's Spirit. It took courage to speak knowing the emotions stirred by my stance have caused many within the past few years to be the recipients of violence. While I could not imagine the group I spoke to acting in such a manner, I had no doubt if word got out to the general populous I could experience backlash. But then I remembered the Cross. In obedience to God I must walk. In faith that His precepts are truth I must continue.

Each confrontation I have faced regarding my faith stirred within me a strength of conviction I never thought I'd have. Was I wrong to have spoken truth? No. Often I have reflected on whether there could have been a better way, and maybe at times I did not speak with seasoning, but I cannot say that I was ever wrong to answer a question with the truth found in Scripture. Nor was I wrong to walk away from an association yielding itself to the pressures of the world or to stand on God's precepts as absolute truth for my life.

Two facts remain: I am a sinner, and Christ offered Himself for payment of my sin. How then can I not stand for God's laws that declare me a sinner, knowing the price Christ paid for me when I broke God's laws? Would I have Christ sacrificed again?

Each of us will face moments of truth when we will show in our words and actions whether we understand God's laws are above man's. What will that moment reveal about our faith and our understanding of the price paid for our sins?

"Wherefore let them that suffer according to the will of God commit the keeping of their souls to him in well doing, as unto a faithful Creator."

I Peter 4:19

 

John Leland: Convicted and Saved

In the summer of 1772,... When I was returning from my frolicks or evening diversions, the following words would sound from the skies, "You are not about the work which you have got to do."...And without any usual horror of mind or dread of damnation, the charms of those youthful diversions, which had been sweeter to me than the honeycomb, lost all their sweetness, nor could I conceive how there could be any pleasure in them." 

John Leland, The Writings of the Late Elder John Leland, p.10.
(Miss L. F. Greene, G.W. Wood, 29 Gold-street, New York, 1845)

"For he that will love life, and see good days, let him refrain his tongue from evil, and his lips that they speak no guile: Let him eschew evil, and do good; let him seek peace, and ensue it."

I Peter 3:10-11

The above quote is the testimony of the Baptist preacher, John Leland, who helped Madison win the Virginia battles for religious freedom.

Eighteen years old at this time, John Leland was already very knowledgeable of the Bible, having read and studied it since he was five. John's family was religious.Yet, John struggled to get past the thought that he, "was almost in all evil, full of vanity, exceedingly attached to frolicking and foolish wickedness."(p. 10)

His experience that summer evening began a series of events within his heart, reaching to the very depths of his soul. These experiences would change the course of his life. He went to another "evening frolic" to determine if he had truly died to such a lifestyle. In his own words:

"Accordingly I went, but found nothing to please, but everything to disgust." (p. 11)

Later that summer, he watched the baptism of a young woman he had danced with in the past. She had been converted after hearing Elhanan Winchester preach.

"What I saw and heard at the water, greatly effected me. There I stood upon a rock, and made my vows to God to forsake all sinful courses and seek the Lord, if he would direct me how." (p. 11)

Still he worried about his salvation. He concluded that first he must be deeply convict of sin; that if he were converted he'd feel as though:

"a surgeon should cut open my breast with his knife, take out my heart and wash it, put it back again and close up the flesh" (p. 12)

And that if he should ever believe in Jesus he would:

 "see him as plainly as I could see an object of sense."" (p. 12)

Having drawn those conclusions, John Leland pursued faith and salvation. He saw himself a sinner, was convinced that he was condemned, and discovered "the sufficiency of a Mediator," (p. 12) settling his hope on the atoning blood of Jesus Christ.

But he was concerned his conversion was not what it ought to be, until he meditated on Ephesians 1:13b "after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that holy Spirit of promise". He heard in his mind God say to him, "Ye are already sealed unto the day of redemption." (p. 13)

John Leland keenly felt the hold of sin on his life. And as keenly as he felt it, he also rejoiced in the grace of God, freely given to all who receives it. He became a powerful preacher, effective in spreading the Gospel from Massachusetts to Virginia.

If only we all would feel the depth of sorrow Elder John Leland felt for his sin. Perhaps then, we would begin to grasp the greatness of God's grace and seek to live out lives pleasing to Him.

John Leland's struggle to know God's salvation impressed me. He, who had caroused with the youth and danced with the ladies, when convicted by the Holy Spirit, found that old life dead to him.

His passion for the Lord grew and became the driving force of his existence, even to the point where he willing risked being beheaded for his faith. When a woman asked to be baptized, she warned him that her husband threatened to whip her and kill the man who baptized her. He answered, "If you will venture your back, I will venture my head." (p. 20) She was whipped, but he did not lose his life.

Have you ever come to eschew parts of your life that were not pleasing to God? Have you ever become overwhelmed by the knowledge of your sin to the point where you understood your condemnation--that you indeed deserve hell? Have you ever discovered the sufficiency of God's grace through Christ and settled upon the hope of Christ's atoning blood--Christ's payment for your sin?

So many people today claim the title of Christian, yet do not live a life demonstrating the death of sin in their lives. Yes, we still live in the flesh, and therefore we will still sin. But do we eschew evil? Eschew means to shun or keep away from. Therefore, to eschew evil means to keep away from evil.

Peter wrote to Christians who saw and experienced first hand persecution for 'eschewing evil,' for not walking in the 'will of the Gentiles.' How little God asks of us in shunning that which is contrary to His Word, when He took upon Himself the likeness of man and bore our sin on the cross.

"Forasmuch then as Christ hath suffered for us in the flesh, arm yourselves likewise with the same mind: for he that hath suffered in the flesh hath ceased from sin; that he no longer should live the rest of his time in the flesh to the lusts of men, but to the will of God.

For the time past of our life may suffice us to have wrought the will of the Gentiles, when we walked in lasciviousness, lusts, excess of win, revellings, banquetings, and abominable idolatries:

Wherein they think it strange that ye run not with them to the same excess of riot, speaking evil of you: Who shall give account to him that is ready to judge the quick and the dead."
I Peter 4:1-5