Journal of Student Research 2023

Black Robes: God’s Patriots that Prepared America for Independence 69 People” 7 and “it follows as a command of the law of nature, that every man esteem and treat another as one who is naturally his equal.” 8 These sentiments, if not actual quotations, became rallying cries’ for independence amidst the upheaval between the colonists and Great Britain in the 1760s and 1770s. The similarity between these phrases and principles that Wise preached and those which were espoused by the revolutionary generation cannot be viewed as unconnected and/or separate (barring a fantastical belief in historical coincidence). In fact, it is not a coincidence that phrases that became associated with the revolutionary generation were based on fundamental principles taught by Wise in the pulpit generations prior to the Revolution. Rather, those principles were recognized by colonists as speaking important truths related to the emerging struggle against Great Britain. In the early 1770s the tension between the American colonies and Great Britain was building up to its peak. Following the March 1770 Boston Massacre, an uneasy tension existed between the British government and the colonies, especially for those living in Boston, Massachusetts. It was at this moment in history that certain colonists, those who were beginning to consider how to rally the general populace to the cause against Great Britain, considered strategies to increase broad popular support for rebellion against their home country. This is where the familiarity between Wise’s writings and many of the sayings and beliefs that people have come to associate with the American Revolution came together. In 1772, colonists reprinted two of Wise’s works. 9 These works had been originally published in 1710 and 1717 and contained many of the arguments being utilized against Great Britain. The first edition was so popular that it resulted in “Two editions soon exhausted.” 10 The popularity of Wise’s works indicates its resonance with the colonial audience. With the lengthy and challenging printing process of the 18th century, the demand must have been extraordinary for the printers to run a second edition. There was a correlation between what Wise was preaching generations earlier and the shaping of beliefs of many of the colonists in the fight against Great Britain. For example, historian Benjamin Franklin (B.F.) Morris stated, “Some of the most glittering sentences in the immortal Declaration of Independence are almost literal quotations from this essay of John Wise…It was used as a political textbook in the great struggle for freedom.” 11 This illustrates the status that 19th century American historians awarded to the influence of Wise, and the consideration, by historians, of the influence Wise passed onto the founding generation. A strong case exists that Wise’s works inspired some of the greatest lines in the Declaration of Independence—lines which inspired the American colonists to make a clean break from Great Britain. Wise received his inspiration for writing what 7 John Wise, A Vindication of the government of New-England churches: drawn from antiquity, the light of nature, Holy Scripture, its noble nature, and from the dignity Divine Providence has put upon it (Boston: John Boyes, 1772), 5. 8 Wise, 26. 9 Claude H. Van Tyne, The Causes of the War of Independence (Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1922), 357. 10 Van Tyne, 357. 11 Benjamin Franklin Morris, Christian Life and Character of the Civil Institutions of the United States: Developed in the Official and Historical Annals of the Republic (Philadelphia: G.W. Childs, 1864), 341.