John Eliot – founded, Aug. 22, 1670

“Christ is the only right Heir of the Crown of England”

 

His last words were “welcome joy!”

 

John Eliot a Puritan “missionary” to the American Indians on this date,8/22/1670, founded a church for Indians atMartha’s Vineyard,Massachusetts, and became known as “the Indian apostle.”

 

Earlier he had published The Christian Commonwealth: or, The Civil Policy Of The Rising Kingdom of Jesus Christ.   This was the first book on politics penned by an American.  It also became the first book an American government had banned.

 

Eliot was born in 1604 at Widford, Hertfordshire, England, attended Jesus College, Cambridge, became assistant to Thomas Hooker at a school in Little Baddow, Essex.  Eliot emigrated to Boston, Massachusetts, arriving 11/3/1631.  He died 5/21/1690.

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John Eliot – birth, Aug. 4, 1604

“Much is spoken of the rightful Heir of the Crown of England, and the unjustice of casting out the right Heir: but Christ is the only right Heir of the Crown of England, and of all other Nations also.” He proposed to the English nation, “That you would now set the Crown of England upon the head of Christ, whose only true inheritance it is,” and set their “civil polity” on the model given by God to Moses in the wilderness (in Exodus 18), so that “then shall the will of God be done on earth, as it is done in heaven.”

 

Quotes above are from Eliot’s preface to The Christian Commonwealth: or,The Civil Policy Of The Rising Kingdom of Jesus Christ. 

 

John Eliot was born 8/4/1604 at Widford, England.  He sailed to America in 1631, to pastor a group of Puritans.  Using linguistic training he received at Cambridge, Eliot learned the Indian language.  In a decade he was preaching in the Indian tongue and working on a Bible translation for them.  His “Indian” Bible was first Bible printed in North America (1661-1663).  Eliot also trained twenty four Indians as preachers – he is properly known as “the Apostle to the Indians.”

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