John Wise

John Wise 1652-1725, American clergyman, exponent of the democratic principles of modern Congregationalism, b. Roxbury, Mass., grad. Harvard, 1673. He was pastor at Ipswich, Mass., from 1680 until his death, but his influence extended beyond his parish. For a short time, in 1687, he was deprived of his ministerial office by Governor Andros for having led his fellow townsmen in their refusal to pay taxes violating their charter rights. In 1689 he represented Ipswich in the Boston convention for reorganization of the colonial government. In opposition to Increase Mather and Cotton Mather, he resisted the plan to place individual churches under the jurisdiction of associations of ministers, stating his reasons in two pamphlets that carried great influence, The Churches Quarrel Espoused (1710) and A Vindication of the Government of New England Churches (1717). These expositions of church democracy were reissued and widely read before the American Revolution and again before the Civil War.

Bibliography: See biography by G. A. Cook (1952, repr. 1967).

Wise, John (1652–1725), born at Roxbury, Mass., was minister of the Second Church of Ipswich (1680–1725), except for a brief period (1687) when Governor Andros deprived him of his ministry and jailed him for leading his townsmen in refusing to pay taxes that violated their charter rights. His pamphlets The Churches Quarrel Espoused (1710) and A Vindication of the Government of New‐England Churches (1717) opposed the attempts of the Mathers to establish a centralized association for regulating the churches. Their underlying ideas of democracy caused the pamphlets to be reissued and widely read before the revolution and the Civil War. A Word of Comfort to a Melancholy Country (1721) is a plea for paper money.