Salem Covenant of 1629

I've started at the end rather than the beginning in writing of the idea of covenant in New England.  Several of my posts have addressed Puritan preachers' fears of second and third generation backsliding from the covenant.  Here, though, let's focus on a beginning and discuss the Salem Covenant of 1629.  Mather's description of the founding of the first Massachusetts-Bay church, included in chapter 4, Book I, of Magnalia, illumines the New England church body-politic, the serious resolve of Puritan faith, and the concept of covenant in general. 

The oneness of church body and political body is striking: the church community was simultaneously the political community, for church membership was required for civic participation.  Church membership afterwards depended on the covenant: Persons who were either not present or not able to consent to the original covenant were admitted by "Publickly and Personally own[ing] the Covenant," an act which Mather says can be done in diverse ways.  An Enlarged Covenant of 1636 accounted for increasing number of settlers who were not church members.

In 1629, records Mather, the people of Salem "resolved to begin their Plantation with calling on the Name of the Lord."  Interestingly, the Salem leaders sought practical advice from the church at Plymouth.  Apparently, the two plantations considered themselves "Brethren" and worked in tandem.  They appointed a day of fasting and prayer for three interrelated purposes: "the settling of a Church-State," "making a Confession of their Faith," and "entering into a Holy Covenant, whereby that Church-State was formed."  The formation of their church/civil government was a spiritual act, performed before God and with His guidance.  Their agreement with each other was not a simple contract, but a covenant in which GOD was a party.

Looked at from the Puritan perspective, the magnitude of this agreement takes my breath away!  A binding agreement with fellow erring humans is not the same as one with the Holy God.  They were promising obedience to the Almighty, and they were fully, solemnly aware of His presence.  Salem residents saw God as savior and Father of their people and, at the same time, as the awe-inspiring, holy deity.  The result of their faith is this beautiful covenant.

We covenant with our Lord, and one with another; and we do bind our selves in the presence of God, to walk together in all his ways, according as he is pleased to reveal himself unto us in his blessed word of truth; and do explicitly, in the name and fear of God, profess and protest to walk as followeth, through the power and grace of our Lord, Jesus Christ.

We avouch the Lord to be our God, and our selves to be his people, in the truth and simplicity of our spirits. We give our selves to the Lord Jesus Christ, and the word of his grace for the teaching, ruling and sanctifying of us in matters of worship and conversion, resolving to cleave unto him alone for life and glory, and to reject all contrary ways, canons, and constitutions of men in his worship.

We promise to walk with our brethren, with all watchfulness and tenderness, avoiding jealousies and suspicions, back-bitings, censurings, provokings, secret risings of spirit against them; but in all offences to follow the rule of our Lord Jesus, and to bear and forbear, give and forgive, as he hath taught us.

In public or private, we will willingly do nothing to the offence of the church; but willing to take advice for our selves and ours, as occasion shall be presented.

We will not in the congregation be forward either to show our own gifts and parts in speaking or scrupling, or there discover the weakness or failings of our brethren; but attend an orderly call thereunto, knowing how much the Lord may be dishonoured, and his gospel, and the profession of it, slighted by our distempers and weaknesses in publick.

We bind our selves to study the advancement of the gospel in all truth and peace; both in regard of those that are within or without; no way slighting our sister churches, but using their counsel, as need shall be; not laying a stumbling-block before any, no, not the Indians, whose good we desire to promote; and so to converse, as we may avoid the very appearance of evil.

We do hereby promise to carry our selves in all lawful obedience to those that are over us, in Church or Commonwealth, knowing how well pleasing it will be to the Lord, that they should have encouragement in their places, by our not grieving their spirits through our irregularities.

We resolve to approve our selves to the Lord in our particular callings; shunning idleness as the bane of any stake; nor will we deal hardly or oppressingly with any, wherein we are the Lord's stewards.

Promising also unto our best ability to teach our children and servants the knowledge of God, and of His Will, that they may serve Him also; and all this not by any strength of our own, but by the Lord Jesus Christ; whose blood we desire may sprinkle this our Covenant made in his name.

 In conclusion, I'll add a connection to self-examination. When I studied sermons, preachers continually exhorted people to examine their souls, and I began to gather an understanding of how self-examination is done: it depends heavily on evaluating based on the past, I said.  Well, here in Magnalia we have another example of self-examination through public means.  A form of self-examination is measuring oneself against a defined covenant.  Mather notes that the Salem covenant was afterwards read often by the church, and they "renewed the Consent of their Souls unto every Article in it," especially on "Days of Humiliation."