Building Bensalem at Massachusetts Bay: Francis Bacon and the Wisdom of Eden in Early Modern New England

2010 ◽  
Vol 83 (4) ◽  
pp. 577-606
Author(s):  
Zachary Mcleod Hutchins
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
New England ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Jonathan Edwards ◽  
Educational Policies ◽  
Francis Bacon ◽  
Massachusetts Bay ◽  
Religious Leaders

Francis Bacon's influence on seventeenth-century New England has long passed unnoticed, but his plan for the restoration of prelapsarian intellectual perfections guided John Winthrop's initial colonization efforts, shaped New England's educational policies, and had an impact on civic and religious leaders from John Cotton to Jonathan Edwards.

Jonathan Edwards and Scripture

2018 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
New England ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Biblical Interpretation ◽  
Jonathan Edwards ◽  
Biblical Exegesis ◽  
Western History ◽  
The Bible ◽  
New Research

Jonathan Edwards and Scripture provides a fresh look at the important, burgeoning field of Edwards and the Bible. For too long, Edwards scholars have published new research on Edwards without paying due attention to the work he took most seriously: biblical exegesis. Edwards is recognized as an innovative theologian who wielded tremendous influence on revivalism, evangelicalism, and New England theology, but what is often missed is how much time he devoted to studying and understanding the Bible. He kept voluminous notebooks on Christian Scripture and had plans for major treatises on the Bible before he died. Edwards scholars need to take stock of the place of the Bible in his thought to do justice to his theology and legacy. In fact, more and more experts are recognizing how important this aspect of his life is, and this book brings together the insights of leading Edwards scholars on this topic. This volume seeks to increase our understanding of Edwards’ engagement with Scripture by setting it in the context of seventeenth-century Protestant exegesis and eighteenth-century colonial interpretation. It provides case studies of Edwards’ exegesis in varying genres of the Bible and probes his use of Scripture to develop theology. It also sets his biblical interpretation in perspective by comparing it with that of other exegetes. This book advances our understanding of the nature and significance of Edwards’ work with Scripture and opens new lines of inquiry for students of early modern Western history.

Language Matters: ‘Counsel’ in Early Modern and Modern Medicine

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ian Sabroe ◽  
Phil Withington
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Scientific Revolution ◽  
Modern Medicine ◽  
Francis Bacon ◽  
Social Worlds ◽  
Founding Fathers ◽  
Human Understanding ◽  
Successful Scientist

Francis Bacon is famous today as one of the founding fathers of the so-called ‘scientific revolution’ of the seventeenth century. Although not an especially successful scientist himself, he was nevertheless the most eloquent and influential spokesperson for an approach to knowledge that promised to transform human understanding of both humanity and its relationship with the natural and social worlds. The central features of this approach, as they emerged in Bacon’s own writings and the work of his protégés and associates after 1605, are equally well known. They include the importance of experiment, observation, and a sceptical attitude towards inherited wisdom (from the ‘ancients’ in general and Aristotle in particular).

Conflicts of Law: Reconsidering the Influence of Religion on Law in Massachusetts Bay

Numen ◽  
1996 ◽  
Vol 43 (2) ◽  
pp. 139-156 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elizabeth Dale
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
New England ◽  
Legal System ◽  
First Generation ◽  
Single Point ◽  
Massachusetts Bay ◽  
Governing System ◽  
Practical Effect ◽  
Points Of View ◽  
Practical Impact

AbstractThe idea that there were different points of view in seventeenth century Massachusetts Bay is not a new one. Several recent studies have undermined Perry Miller's monolithic “Puritan Mind”—demonstrating there were many strands of thought even among the nominally orthodox, and suggesting that we think of the settlers in New England as members of a movement with many ideas, rather than holders of a single point of view.While the idea that there were divisions within the category of Puritan is not a new one, the extent to which that ideological pluralism had a practical impact on the Bay colony's institutions, from its families to its governing system, has not yet been explored. This paper is a preliminary effort to demonstrate how ideological pluralism led to different conceptions of law, and had a practical effect on the legal system developed in the first generation of settlement in Massachusetts Bay.

“Two Suns in One Firmament”: John Cotton, Thomas Hooker, and the 1655 New Haven Sodomy Statute

2018 ◽  
Vol 87 (4) ◽  
pp. 1003-1028
Author(s):  
Sandra Slater
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
New England ◽  
The Other ◽  
Massachusetts Bay ◽  
New Haven ◽  
Sexual Activities ◽  
Legal Code ◽  
Legal Traditions ◽  
Stark Contrast

This piece explores the origins of the anomalous 1655 New Haven statute against sodomy that broke with legal traditions and codes both in England and New England. A lengthy and extraordinarily specific piece of legislation, the New Haven law stands in stark contrast to the minimalist language favored by the English in the early seventeenth century. When viewed within the larger context of clerical animosities, particularly between Thomas Hooker and John Cotton, there is a strong circumstantial case to make for its implementation as an extension of John Cotton's rejected Massachusetts Bay legal code,Moses His Judicials, applied by his friend and admirer John Davenport in New Haven. A devout disciple of John Cotton, John Davenport's New Haven colony relied on Cotton's influence and stood as a rebuke to Thomas Hooker's Connecticut settlements, often criticized as too spiritually lax by those in Massachusetts Bay and New Haven. While seeking to demonstrate greater piety and rigidity, John Cotton and Thomas Hooker sought to exert dominance over the other, with Cotton employing Davenport's colony as an effective castigation of Hooker's perceived liberality. This piece is reflective of trends in studies of sexuality which suggest that ideas and identities related to sexuality do not operate in isolation, but often mirror anxieties not necessarily connected to the regulation of sexual activities. This article situates the 1655 Sodomy Statue within a broader context in order to understand its origins and animosities that potentially motivated its inclusion into the New Haven legal statutes.

Early Modern Biblical Commentary and Jonathan Edwards

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adriaan C. Neele
Keyword(s):  
New England ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
New World ◽  
Biblical Interpretation ◽  
Jonathan Edwards ◽  
European Continent ◽  
Biblical Commentary ◽  
High Esteem ◽  
Modern Context ◽  
Insight Into

Adriaan C. Neele introduces the early modern context of biblical interpretation by discussing Matthew Poole’s Synopsis Criticorum aliorumque Sacrae Scripturae (1669–1674), a frequently referenced volume for many biblical interpreters, whether in England, on the European continent, or in the New World. Neele shows how this work represents early modern exegesis well and how it became an important channel for bringing medieval commentaries into the hands of post-Reformation exegetes. He also establishes the high esteem that this multivolume work gained in New England and its important role in Jonthan Edwards’ exegesis. The Synopsis gives us insight into early modern interpretation yet also serves as a contrast to New England exegesis, helping us set Edwards in his time.

Conclusion

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
David S. Sytsma
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
The Netherlands ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Negative Response ◽  
Jonathan Edwards ◽  
Reformed Tradition ◽  
Mechanical Philosophy

This chapter summarizes the findings of the book and briefly discusses how Baxter’s relation to mechanical philosophy relates to later nonconformist and Puritan tradition. Although Baxter’s response to mechanical philosophy included Cartesianism, he gave greater weight to Pierre Gassendi’s Christian Epicureanism than theologians in the Netherlands, and this fact points to the importance of Gassendi’s philosophy in seventeenth-century England. Baxter’s negative response to the philosophy of Descartes and Gassendi points to an important discontinuity in early modern Puritanism and nonconformity. Later theological leaders working in this tradition such as Isaac Watts, Philip Doddridge, and Jonathan Edwards were far more favorable toward mechanical philosophy. This discontinuity highlights the variegated nature of the larger Puritan and Reformed tradition.

The Social Background of Seventeenth-Century Emigration to America

1979 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 31-52 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anthony Salerno
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
New England ◽  
Social Background ◽  
Human Migration ◽  
Massachusetts Bay ◽  
Systematic Analysis ◽  
East Anglia ◽  
American Colonies ◽  
Essential Questions ◽  
Basic Facts

Students of twentieth-century migration generally agree that in any analysis of human migration two essential questions must be answered: Who are the migrants? And why did they leave? The questions seem obvious, but as they relate to seventeenth-century emigration to the American colonies, they are difficult to answer with precision. The records cannot be expected to reveal much about the emigrants as persons because they were ordinary people. If they could write—and most could not—the seventeenth-century emigrants left few diaries or letters to aid those who would study their movements. In fact, it is a rather fortunate researcher who uncovers even the few basic facts of their lives in the parish registers of christenings, burials, and marriages.The task of identifying and reconstructing the thoughts and motives of such an anonymous body of people is therefore a formidable one. Those who have pursued the task, first in regard to the so-called “Puritan Hegira” of the 1630s to New England, have concerned themselves almost exclusively with the question of motivation, and have failed to consider who the emigrants were. Only in a recent study of East Anglian and Kentish emigration to Massachusetts Bay in 1637 has there been a systematic analysis of the ordinary settlers. Yet, no attempt has been made either to identify emigrants or to investigate motives behind several considerable movements to America from areas outside East Anglia and southeastern England, thereby to test the various emigration theses based exclusively on those models.

The Puritan Notion of the Covenant in Jonathan Edwards' Doctrine of Faith

1965 ◽  
Vol 34 (3) ◽  
pp. 328-341 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. Conrad Cherry
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
New England ◽  
Jonathan Edwards ◽  
Careful Attention ◽  
And Function

The immense importance of the idea of the covenant for the Puritans of England and New England has been thrown into sharp relief by recent Puritan studies. Many problems regarding the origin and function of the Puritan covenant-idea still await the careful attention of the student of Puritanism, but this much is clear: the notion of the covenant was decidedly a pervasive idea in Puritan theology, and the idea was developed in a rather elaborate scheme by a host of Puritan theologians. As Leonard J. Trinterud has discerned, the idea of the covenant so permeated the thinking of the Puritans that in “the first decades of the seventeenth century … scarcely a single important figure was not a covenant theologian” among “the Presbyterian and Independent Puritans.”1

Conclusion and Prospect

2018 ◽  
pp. 206-208
Author(s):  
Adriaan C. Neele
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
New England ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Intellectual History ◽  
Careful Examination ◽  
Reformed Theology ◽  
Initial Attempt ◽  
Intellectual Context

The conclusion makes several observations about Edwards and his intellectual context. The portrait of Edwards is of a private scholar pastoring churches in New England. As such, he stands in discontinuity with the seventeenth-century theologians and philosophers he admired. Furthermore, Edwards is positioned as a transitional figure between the pre-enlightenment and enlightenment era, though firmly rooted in early modern Reformed theology. Methodologically, the conclusion states that the inclusion of early New England history and theology, the period from circa 1625 to circa 1750, into the field of post-Reformation studies assists one in a more careful examination of the rise and development of Reformed Orthodoxy in New England than has been researched thus far. Secondly, this study offers an initial attempt to fulfill the first consideration by placing Edwards in a broader theological context. Thirdly, reading Edwards against the background of early modern intellectual history offers several areas of unexplored research.

Ruling Eldership in Civil War England, the Scottish Kirk, and Early New England: A Comparative Study of Secular and Spiritual Aspects

2006 ◽  
Vol 75 (1) ◽  
pp. 38-68 ◽  
Author(s):  
William M. Abbott
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Civil War ◽  
Comparative Study ◽  
New England ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Christian Mission ◽  
Religiously Based ◽  
Spiritual Body ◽  
Church Government

Within early modern Christianity the idea of church government always entailed a basic contradiction. How could a spiritual body, devoted to Christ's teachings of love and forgiveness, exercise coercive authority? Given the widely accepted need of any sixteenth- or seventeenth-century government to enforce religiously based codes of behavior, churches and church officials were inevitably involved with the secular authorities in detecting and judging offenders. Inasmuch as such judgment had to include the threat of punishment, church officials of any kind were open to the charge of violating their Christian mission, which by nature was to be persuasive and educative rather than punitive, and also their Christian character, which, even among more radical Protestant sects, was to be more otherworldly than that of the laity.

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