BENJAMIN COLMAN (1673–1747). One of the prominent clergymen of his day, Colman became in 1699 the first pastor of Boston’s Brattle Street Church, where he found himself at odds with Increase and Cotton Mather because of certain of his views that deviated from strict Congregationalism. His B.A. and A.M. degrees were from Harvard, and he was awarded an S.T.D. by the University of Glasgow. In 1724 he declined the presidency of Harvard, but he served as one of its trustees (1717–28) and remained an overseer, in addition to his ministry at Brattle Street Church, until his death. A prolific author with more than ninety published titles to his credit, he was a supporter of the evangelical movement stirred by the Great Awakening and was a commissioner of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in New England and for Parts Adjacent. Thrice married, Colman was survived by his third wife, Mary Frost.
The sermon reprinted here was preached at the Thursday Lecture in Boston on August 13, 1730.
1 Sam. ii. 8.
Samuel, the rare and wonderful son of inspir’d Hannah, never outspake his lovely mother in any of his prayers or acts of praise. Eli would have sat at her feet, and laid himself in the dust, at the hearing of this flowing torrent of fervent devotion from her beauteous lips; and saints thro’ all ages hang on the heavenly music of her tongue.
Great things are here said of GOD, and of his government, in the families and kingdoms of men; and such wise and just observations are made, as are worthy of deep contemplation by the greatest and best of men. Had she like Deborah been the princess of the tribes of Israel, she could not have spoken with more loftiness and majesty, with more authority and command; nor better have address’d the nobles and rulers, the captains and the mighty men; to humble and lay ’em low before GOD.
“She celebrates the Lord GOD of Israel,* his unspotted purity, his almighty power, his unsearchable wisdom, and his unerring justice”:
In the praises of these she joys and triumphs, her heart was exalted and her mouth enlarged.
“She adores the divine sovereignty in its disposals of the affairs of the children of men; in the strange and sudden turns given to them; in the rise & fall of persons, families & countries. “She observes how the strong are soon weakned, and the weak are soon strengthned, when GOD pleases: How the rich are soon impoverish’d, and the poor inriched on a sudden: How empty families are replenish’d, and numerous families diminished[”]: All this is of the Lord;
He maketh poor and maketh rich, He bringeth low and lifteth up: He raiseth up the poor out of Dust, and lifteth up the Beggar from the Dunghill; to set them among Princes, and make them inherit the Throne of Glory; For the Pillars of the Earth are the Lord’s, and He hath set the World upon them.
Thus my text is introduced as a reason for those dispensations of GOD towards a person, a family, or a people, which at any time are to us most surprising and admirable.
1. The things spoken of are great and mighty; the Pillars of the Earth. The earth is a vast fabrick, and in proportion to its mighty bulk must its pillars be.
The metaphor is plainly taken from architecture; as in stately, spacious and magnificent structures we often see rows of pillars, to sustain the roof and lofty towers. But whether we apply this manner of expression to the natural or moral earth, it is figurative and not literal.
The natural earth has no pillar. The will and word of GOD is its only basis. It seems to us who dwell on it fix’d and immoveable in the air. It keeps it’s place and line there, as if it were set on some lasting solid pillars, and never mov’d at all.
We darkly philosophise upon the point, and talk of the poles of heaven; which are more unintelligible to a common audience than the pillars of it. We speak obscurely of the earth’s being fixed on it’s own center. And we discourse more intelligibly of the secret power of magnetism which is in matter; whereby bodies mutually attract or gravitate toward each other; by which the mighty globes of the universe preserve their distance, motion and order.
This seems to be the only natural pillar of the earth: The amazing work and power of GOD. And the planets which roll in the same circle with us, have all of ’em the same pillars. That is to say, all bodies thro’ the whole solar system attract or gravitate toward each other, with forces according to their quantities of matter.
But after all this fine doctrine in our new philosophy, concerning the centripetal forces of the sun and planets; a plain Christian is much more edified by the simple and vulgar account which the sacred pages give us of this mysterious thing:* “He stretcheth out the North over the empty space, and hangeth the Earth upon nothing! He hath founded it upon the Seas, and established it upon the Floods.” Which is to say, No man knows how or where, this vast material frame finds it’s basis and station.
Let us hear GOD again on the point, and say no more upon it;
Job xxxviii. Who is this that darkneth Counsel by Words without Knowledge? Gird up now thy Loins like a Man; for I will demand of thee, and answer thou Me. Where wast thou when I laid the Foundations of the Earth? Declare if thou hast Understanding. Who hath laid the Measures thereof, if thou knowest? Or who hath stretched the Line upon it? Whereupon are the Foundations thereof fastned? or who laid the Corner-stone thereof?
We see then that the natural earth has no pillars, in any proper sense; Neither has the moral earth, (i.e. the inhabitants of it) any, but in a metaphorical sense: And so the princes and rulers of it are called it’s pillars; because the affairs of the world ly upon their shoulders, and turn upon their conduct and management, in a very great degree.
And thus the text explains it self, and is to be interpreted from the scope of our context; which speaks of the Bows of the mighty Men, and of the Thrones of Princes, and then adds—the Pillars of the Earth. So that by pillars we are to understand governours and rulers among men; but not the persons that bear rule, so much as the order it self, government and magistracy. For the persons may be weak and slender reeds, little able of themselves to bear up any thing; and here and there they may fall; but the order stands and doth indeed uphold the world.
2. The things said of these pillars of the earth are also very great: “They are the Lord’s, and He has set the World upon them.[”] That is to say, The order and happiness of this lower world, the peace and weal of it, depend on the civil government which GOD has ordained in it. All this is very elegant and rhetorical, a high and noble strain of speech, upon the highest subject that belongs to this our earth.
DOCT[RINE]
The Great God has made the governments and rulers of the earth it’s pillars, and has set the world upon them.
1.