An Anglican Critique of the Early Phase of the Great Awakening in New England: A Letter by Timothy Cutler

Abstract

W X THEN Timothy Cutler sat down in May i739 to write the letter to Edmund Gibson, Bishop of London, which is here published for the first time, he was in his mid-fifties and at the height of his career as minister of Christ Church, the second Anglican church to be established in Boston. Since beginning his pastorate in I723, he had gradually become one of the recognized leaders among the episcopal clergymen of eastern Massachusetts. Because Congregationalism had long been the standing order throughout New England, he and his colleagues and their congregations were in the minority and on the defensive. Cutler had brought his zeal as a convert and his wide learning to bear in a whole series of controversies in which he upheld his conception of the rights and prerogatives of the Church of England. As a native New Englander and Harvard graduate who had been a Congregational preacher for a dozen years before his conversion to High Church principles, he had an intimate knowledge of Congregational doctrines and practices of which he could make good use in his disputes with his major opponents. As a High Churchman, he deplored the policy of compromise with the standing order advocated by some liberal Anglicans. He fought hard to free episcopalians from the taxes imposed to support the Congregational system and openly favored such unpopular measures as the annulment of the Massachusetts charter and the appointment of a colonial bishop. He also helped found and did much to foster the episcopal churches at Canton, Dedham, Stoughton, Braintree, and Scituate. In New England in the early eighteenth century, the Church of England did not attract many members from the long established and more prosperous families. Except for royal officials, who were at least nominally Anglican, men distinguished for their wealth, social position, or pro-