Conceived in Liberty Volume 2 - Ludwig von Mises Institute

eternal fame." Even the Reverend Cotton Mather incurred the distrust of
such hard-shell Puritans as Samuel Sewall in 1714 by accepting the Copernican
system. Clearly, even Mather was displaying a softness toward modern
trends.
Newton's works graced libraries and private bookshelves throughout colonial
America. Also very popular in America was John Locke's late seventeenth-century
essay Concerning Human Understanding, which set forth an
empiricist philosophy and psychology. The works of both Newton and Locke
contributed to a more rationalist and liberal view of religion.
While liberalism made great strides in New England, it had by no means
completely conquered Puritanism or even Harvard by the end of the first
third of the eighteenth century. Despite the great fears of the orthodox
that liberal, Arminian doctrines were spreading in New England, there were
few Arminian ministers, and no Arminian works had yet been published in
America. (Arminians were followers of the Dutch liberal theologian Jacobus
Arminius [1560-1609], who stressed the moral freedom and responsibility
of the individual to achieve salvation partly by his own merits.) Ensconced
in the theology chair at Harvard was the impeccably orthodox Reverend
Edward Wigglesworth, and at Marlborough the Reverend Benjamin Kent
was forced out of the ministry for his advanced liberal views.
Still, by the end of the first third of the eighteenth century, liberalism
was advancing and religion was definitely declining as a vital force in the
lives of the people.
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