From
THE LETTERS OF
BENJAMIN RUSH
PUBLISHED FOR
THE AMERICAN PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY
BY PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS
1951
INTRODUCTION
Benjamin Rush was a major letter writer in a letter-writing age. Writing letters was almost as natural a function for him as eating, and on the whole he preferred the former activity to the latter. ... When he told his students that their minds should always be, like plants, "in an absorbing state," he was describing his own mental habit.
Opportunity as well as inclination helped make Rush's letters instructive and entertaining. Schooled under Calvinist clergymen, he narrowly missed becoming one himself: the earliest letter in the present collection shows him hesitating between physic and divinity; the latest reveals his lifelong connoisseurship of pulpit oratory. Had he entered the ministry, he would have become a major figure in American religious history, but his choice of a medical career led to European study and travel and to captivation by the scientific developments of the age. In the letters written from abroad, few as they are, the reader can follow the process of Rush's intellectual growth step by step as he encountered the men and the ideas of the Enlightenment. After his return to America Rush seldom left Philadelphia; he almost never did so by choice, for he never took vacations and would not have known what the word meant. But Philadelphia was the political and cultural center of the new nation, and Rush, who in 1774 had ridden out to greet the Massachusetts delegates to the first Continental Congress, made the most of his opportunities to find out, and in turn to transmit to his correspondents, what went on everywhere in America. In describing his regimen in the Autobiography, Rush said that he by no means depended "exclusively upon books" in acquiring knowledge. "I made, as far as was in my power, every person I conversed with contribute to my improvement. I was visited by many literary strangers, and I kept up a constant intercourse with several of the most distinguished philosophical characters who resided in, or occasionally visited Philadelphia."
. . . . .
"There is nothing more common," Rush declared in a public statement early in 1787, "than to confound the terms of American revolution with those of the late American war. The American war is over' but this is far from being the case with the American revolution. On the contrary, nothing but the first act of the great drama is closed." The great work of bringing "the principles, morals, and manners of our citizens" into conformity with republican institutions remained to be done. Into this task Rush plunged with an energy that is almost appalling to witness. His letters during the decade following the peace of 1783 fully document what was, in effect, a one-man crusade to remake America. He wrote dozens of public letters, broadsides, and pamphlets attacking strong drink, slavery, war, capital punishment, public punishments, test laws, tobacco, oaths, and even country fairs; and, on the other hand, advocating beer and cider, free schools, education for women, a college for the Pennsylvania Germans, a national university, the study of science rather Greek and Latin, free postage for newspapers, churches for Negroes, and cultivation of the sugar-maple tree. Writing John Montgomery in Carlisle, Rush informed him that Hall, the printer, would soon send on "a new pamphlet written by that turbulent spirit Dr. Rush, who I hope will never be quiet while there is ignorance, slavery, or misery in Pennsylvania" (4 January 1785). When he fell ill and had a premonition of death, Rush redoubled his efforts, for fear, as he told Jeremy Belknap, that he might not complete his "quota of services to [his] fellow creatures" (2 March 1791). He urged his correspondents to join in all his campaigns, but they could only marvel at him from a distance.
. . . . .
All of this activity rested on a base as fundamentally religious as it was patriotic. In middle age, it is true, Rush gradually parted company with his Presbyterian teachers and associates. This was partly because he had found in some of him reform campaigns that "The clergy and their faithful followers of every denomination are too good to do good" (to Mrs. Rush, 16-17 July 1791), partly because he had quarreled with certain Presbyterian political leaders, but mainly because Calvinist dogmas now appeared to him inhumane and anti-republican. All the same, he continued to denounce all forms of "natural religion," never even sported with Unitarianism, and eventually found a resting place in the theology of Elhanan Winchester, the evangelist of Universalism. In later life Rush attended Presbyterian, Episcopalian, and Baptist church services with equal satisfaction. He appears in fact to have assimilated something from most of the religious leaders and ideas of his time, and he spoke truly when he told John Adams that his creed was "a compound of the orthodoxy and heterodoxy of most of our Christian churches" (5 April 1808).
L. H. BUTTERFIELD
Princeton, January 1951
| TO RICHARD PRICE [1] Philadelphia, October 15, 1785 Dear Sir, I was made very happy by observing that the dissenters of all denominations had united with the Quakers in England to petition Parliament to put a stop to the African trade. We perceive already the good effects of the abolition of Negro slavery in Pennsylvania. The slaves who have been emancipated among us are in general more industrious and orderly than the lowest class of white people. A school has been set on foot for their children by the Quakers in this city; and we have the pleasure of seeing them improve in religion and morals under their instructions, as well as in English literature. Learning begins to spread in all directions through our country. Dickinson College grows daily in funds, pupils, and reputation. The two colleges in Maryland, founded by Doctor Smith, bid fair for being useful to that state. The spring which the human mind acquired by the Revolution has extended itself to religion. The Episcopal clergy and laity have held a convention in this city and agreed on such alterations in their discipline, worship, and articles as will render the Episcopal Church the most popular church in America. They have adopted a form of ecclesiastical government purely republican. A church judicatory is to consist of a bishop, three presbyters, and two or three laymen. They have reduced their thirty-nine articles to nineteen and have reserved from their creeds only the Apostles'. Their baptism, their marriage and burial services are likewise made more consonant to common sense as well as true Christianity.6 While these changes are going forward in the Episcopalian Church, the Presbyterians and Baptists are showing an equal spirit of innovation. A considerable body of them who had been educated in the strictest principles of Calvinism, and many of whom are people who have long been eminent for their piety, have separated from their respective churches and are now forming an independent society under the direction of Mr. Winchester, an eloquent and popular Baptist preacher who has openly and avowedly preached the doctrine of final restitution.[7] Tenets of the same kind are now spreading rapidly in New England, &c. Printed (without signature): [1] Dr. Richard Price (1723-1791), of Newington Green, near London; nonconformist minister, intimate friend of Franklin, and writer on politics, economics, and morals; two of his tracts relating to America were highly influential in this country, and in 1778 he was invited by Congress to become a citizen of the United States. [7] Elhanan Winchester (1751-1797), an itinerant preacher of New England origin, a writer on theological subjects, and one of the principal founders of the Universalist Church in the United States. BR's connection with Winchester was to be intimate and of the first importance in BR's own religious development, for the impact of Winchester's radical doctrine of "universal restoration," or salvation for all mortals, fell upon BR just at the time he was alienated from the Presbyterians for political reasons. In 1787, when Winchester sailed for England to evangelize there, he carried a letter of introduction from BR to Price, and the two men corresponded for some years thereafter. In 1790 BR helped to draft the articles and plan of government of the Universalist Church at its first convention. It is fair to say with Richard Eddy, the historian of the Universalist Church, that whatever BR's connections may have been with other denominations, he was in later life a believer in Universalism. |
| TO RICHARD PRICE Philadelphia, July 29,1787 Dear Sir, The bearer, the Reverend Mr. Winchester, had yielded to an inclination he has long felt of visiting London and has applied to me for a letter to you, for Americans of every profession and rank expect to find a friend in the friend of humankind. You are no stranger to his principles. I can with great pleasure add that his life and conversation have fully proved that those principles have not had an unfavorable influence upon the heart. With a few oddities in dress and manner, he had maintained among both friends and enemies the character of an honest man. He leaves many sincere friends behind him. I know not how his peculiar doctrine of Universal Salvation may be received in London. But in every part of America it has advocates. In New England it continues to spread rapidly. In this city a Mr. Blair, a Presbyterian minister of great abilities and extensive learning, and equally distinguished for his humility and iety, had openly professed his belief of it from the pulpit. Mr. Winchester will deliver you two or three of our last newspapers. With great respect I am, dear sir, your friend and humble servant, BENJN RUSH P.S. All will end well from the federal Convention. Printed: Massachusetts Historical Society, |
| TO ELHANAN WINCHESTER Philadelphia, May 11, 1791 Dear Sir, I sit down with great pleasure to thank you for the instruction I have derived from reading your Lectures on the Prophecies. [1] You have made the Old and New Testaments intelligible books and added greatly to our obligations to love and admire them. To pry into the meaning of the prophecies us certainly a duty. Our Saviour condemns his disciples for being slow of heart in believing all that the scriptures say concerning him, and commends Abraham for beholding his day afar off and rejoicing in the great events which were to follow it. Perhaps a great part of the errors in principle and lukewarmness in practice of all sects of Christians arise chiefly from their ignorance of the literal meaning and extent of the prophecies which relate to the kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Go on, my dear sir, in your researches. As the best natural philosophers are those who examine the works of nature most minutely, so they are the best divines who search and compare the Scriptures most carefully. Your works are beyond the present state of knowledge in our world, but the time must come when they will rise into universal estimation and bear down all the modern systems of our schools. They are founded on a rock, and the more reason and religion prevail in the world, the more their beauty, symmetry, and sublimacy will be seen and admired. He is not a Jew who is one outwardly; we are all alike prone to Jewish infidelity. We condemn the Jews for looking for a temporary deliverer when our Saviour came into the world. We act their folly over again in looking for a (mere) spiritual instead of a temporal kingdom in the Millennium. The Universal doctrine prevails more and more in our country, particularly among persons eminent for their piety, in whom it is not a mere speculation but a new principle of action in the heart prompting to practical godiness. Your native country is rising daily in industry, order, and in everything else that can constitute national happiness. The present wise and just administration of our government refutes all that can be said in Europe in favor of the necessity or advantages of monarchy or aristocracy. Your account of the Restoration of Sacrifices after the coming of our Saviour is the only part of your Lectures that I object to. I suspect they ought to have been placed a short time before the commencement of his personal government. Perhaps you may reconsider this subject in the next edition of them. Adieu, from, dear sir, yours sincerely, BENJAMIN RUSH Printed: Edwin Martin Stone, [1] This is doubtless the letter to which John W. Francis referred in saying that "Winchester's Lectures on Universal Restoration and on the Prophecies had been circulated with a strongly recommendatory letter from the pen of Dr. Rush" (Old New York, NY., 1866, p. 145). I have not seen any edition of Winchester's writings containing this letter, but several of his productions were frequently reprinted; see L.C. Cat. And Brit. Mus. Cat. |
| TO ELHANAN WINCHESTER Philadelphia, November 12, 1791 Dear Sir, Accept of my thanks for your long letter by the Pigou1 and your valuable publications which accompanied it.2 Your letters to Mr. Taylor contain many new and striking ideas. Your funeral sermon for Mr. John Wesley does honor to the philanthropy of your universal principles. I admire and honor that great man above any man that has lived since the time of the Apostles: his writings will ere long revive in support of our doctrine---for if Christ died for all, as Mr. Wesley always taught, it will soon appear a necessary consequence that all shall be saved. But what shall I say to your fourth volume of Lectures on the Prophecies? Accept of my thanks over and over for the insturction and entertainment I have derived from reading them. They are now in the hands of my dear friend and old preceptor in medicine, Dr. Redman, who speaks in the highest terms of them and calls you our Theological Newton. Go on, my dear sir, with your researches into the true meaning of the Scriptures. Your works, however much neglected or opposed now, will be precious to those generations which are to follow us, and like the bones of Elisha, will perform miracles after your death.3 How delightful to a good man should be the thoughts of surviving himself! The persons who are to exist an hundred years hence are as much our fellow creatures as those who are our contemporaries. It only requires more grace to love them than the persons whom we see and converse with every day; but in proportion as we attain to this sublime act of love, we approach nearer the Source of all Love---for he loves and serves all the generation of his creatures with an equal affection. I contemplate with you the progress of reason and liberty in Europe with great pleasure. Republican forms of government are the best repositories of the Gospel: I therefore suppose they are intended as preludes to a glorious manifestation of its power and influence upon the hearts of men. The language of these free and equal governments seems 4 to be like that of John the Baptist of old, "Prepare ye the way of the Lord---make his paths strait."5 The benevolent spirit which has lately appeared in the world, in its governments, in its numerous philanthropic and humane societies, and even in public entertainments, reminds 6 me of the first effort of a child to move its body or limbs. These efforts are strong but irregular, and often in a contrary direction to that which is intended. Time and a few unsuccessful experiments will soon bring these motions into a proper direction. The same will happen, I have no doubt, to the present kind but irregular and convulsive impulses of the human heart. At present they lead men to admire and celebrate human lights and human deliverers, . . . 7 but ere lone, public admiration and praise will rise to him who is the true light of the world and who only delivers from evils of every kind. At present we wish "liberty to the whole world." But the next touch of the celestial magnet upon the human heart will direct it into wishes for the salvation of all mankind. Yours sincerely, BENJAMIN RUSH Printed: Edwin Martin Stone, [1] Doubtless as error for the Pigon, a well-known packet. [2] Winchester's letter has not been found. The publications alluded to by BR are: The Restitution of All Things . . .Defended. Being an Attempt to Answer the Reverend D. Taylor's Assertions . . . in Favour of Endless Misery, in Five Letters to Himself, London, 1790; A Funeral Sermon for the Reverend John Wesley, London, 1791; A Course of Lectures, on the Prophecies That Remain to Be Fulfilled, IV, London, 1790 (Brit. Mus. Cat.; L.C. Cat.). [3] See II Kings 13:21. [4] Text: "seem." [5] Matthew 3:3. "Strait" is an error for "Straight." 6 Text: "remind." 7 Thus in the text. |
| To Elizabeth Graeme Ferguson? Philadelphia, January 18th, 1793 My dear Friend, . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . BENJN RUSH P.S. Have you read Winchester on the Prophecies? He had performed a voyage of circumnavigation around the Old and New Testaments. He has examined passages, verses, and even words with a microscope. In short, he appears to be a theological Newton. MS: Historical Society of Pennsylvania, |
| TO JOHN SEWARD [1] Philadelphia, December 28th, 1796 Dear Sir, . . . . . I lament the change in the principles of my old and much beloved friend Dr. Jones. Godwin [2] has some great and original ideas upon morals and government, but upon the subject of religion he writes like a madman. "Christianity," says Montesquieu, "is full of good sense." Yes, it is more than this. It contains the greatest scope for genius of any science in the world, nor is philosophy opposed to any of its principles or precepts when they are properly understood and explained. To vanquish infidelity, the clergy must take new ground. The Deity must be represented as the impartial Father of the whole human race, the Atonement must be extended and made effectual to the happiness of all, and evil of course be ultimately annihilated. The works of Dr. Hartley, of Mr. Winchester, and of Dr. Stonehouse [3] are worth consulting upon each of those subjects. A clergyman's library is not complete without them. . . . . . . . . . . From, dear sir, your sincere friend, BENJN: RUSH Addressed: The Revd: Dr: John Seward [1] John Seward, clergyman and physician of Northumberland co., Va., had attended BR's lectures in 1794; his card of admission for that year is in the Welch Library, Johns Hopkins University. BR is replying to a letter from Seward dated 24 Nov. 1796 (Rush MSS, XV). [2] In subsequent allusions to the perfectibilitarian doctrines of William Godwin (1756-1836), as set forth in the celebrated Enquiry concerning Political Justice, London, 1793, BR has nothing good to say of them or their author; see especially a letter to Ashbel Green, 31 Dec. 1812. On Godwin, see DNB. [3] Sir James Stonhouse (1716-1795), 11th baronet, was both a physician and a clergyman; he published several devotional tracts (same; also Allibone, Dict. Of Authors) |
From "Having briefly stated the literary, medical and political events of my life, it remains only that I say a few words upon my religious principles." "I was baptised by the Revd. Eneas Ross, an Episcopal minister, and heard divine worship for the first time in Christ Church in Philadelphia. After the death of my father I went with my mother to the Revd. Mr Tennent's meeting, which was held in the building afterwards converted into a College and University in 4th Street. My mother was a constant attendance upon his Presbyterian place of worship, and educated all her children in the principles taught by him, which were highly calvinistical." "At Dr. Finley's School, I was more fully instructed in these principles by means of the Westminster Catechism. I retained them but without any affection for them 'till about the year 1780. I then read for the first time Fletcher's controversy with the Calvinists in favor of the Universality of the atonement. This prepared my mind to admit the doctrine of Universal salvation, which was then preached in our city by the Revd. Mr. Winchester. It embraced and reconciled my ancient calvinistical, and my newly adopted Arminian principles. From that time I have never doubted upon the subject of the salvation of all men. My conviction of the truth of this doctrine was derived from reading the works of Stonehouse, Seigvolk, White, Chauncey, and Winchester, and afterwards from an attentive perusal of the Scriptures. I always admitted with each of those authors future punishment, and of long, long duration." "Of the poor services I have rendered to any of my fellow creatures I shall say nothing. They were full of imperfections and have no merit in the sight of God. I pray to have the sin that was mixed with them, forgiven. My only hope of salvation is in the infinite transcendent love of God manifested to the world by the death of his Son upon the Cross. Nothing but his blood will wash away my sins. I rely exclusively upon it. Come Lord Jesus! Come quickly! And take home thy lost, but redeemed Creature! I will believe, and I will hope in thy salvation! Amen, and amen!" |