SOME HORRIBLE WARNINGS OUR COLONIAL CHILDREN READ ABOUT IN BOOKS

PEDIATRICS ◽  
1967 ◽  
Vol 40 (5) ◽  
pp. 874-874
Author(s):  
T. E. C.
Keyword(s):  
New England ◽  
Colonial America ◽  
Intellectual Activity ◽  
Cotton Mather

In Colonial America children read that they were born not to live but to die. This was largely due to the influence of the puritanical clergymen such as Cotton Mather, who dominated the intellectual activity of New England. Good examples of the horrible warnings children read about are the following: If by Undutifulness to your Parents you incur the Curse of God, it won't be long before you go down into obscure Darkness, even, into Utter Darkness: God has Reserv'd for you the Blackness of Darkness for ever. Though I am Young, yet I may Die And hasten to Eternity: There is a dreadful fiery Hell, Where the wicked ones must always dwell. The Lord Delights in them that speak The Words of truth; but ev'ry liar Must have his portion in the lake (of hell) That burns with brimstone and with fire.

Puritans and Race

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard A. Bailey
Keyword(s):  
New England ◽  
Colonial America ◽  
Colonial New England ◽  
Race And Religion

In scholarly discussions about “race” in the Americas, colonial New England often receives little attention. While race-based slavery perhaps never commanded the same attention in the northern colonies as in regions farther south, “race” factored into nearly every aspect of life in New England from the outset. This chapter not only discusses how scholars have approached this conversation but also investigates some of the ways in which New Englanders made sense of themselves and the peoples of varying ethnicities, relying at times on the specific theological context of New England puritanism. Focusing on the ways in which New Englanders wrestled with the dilemma of racial thinking within their theological system brings New England fully into the discussion of the intersections between “race” and religion in colonial America.

THE TROUBLE WITH THE RISING GENERATION LIVING IN NEW ENGLAND IN 1657

PEDIATRICS ◽  
1973 ◽  
Vol 51 (1) ◽  
pp. 69-69
Author(s):  
T. E. C.
Keyword(s):  
Young People ◽  
New England ◽  
Common Good ◽  
Cotton Mather ◽  
The World

The modernity of Ezekial Rogers' remarks, although written in 1657, may surprise present day readers. In a letter to Cotton Mather, Rogers had this to say about young people: . . . I find greatest trouble and grief about the rising generation. Young people are little stirred here; but they strengthen one another in evil, by example, by counsel. Much ado have with my own family; hard to get a servant that is glad of catechising or family-duties: I had a rare blessing of servants in Yorkshire; and those that I brought over were a blessing: but the young brood doth much afflict me. Even the children of the godly here and elsewhere, make a woful (sic) proof! So that, I tremble to think, what will become of this glorious work that we have begun, when the ancient shall be gathered unto their fathers. I fear grace and blessing will die with them, if the Lord do not also show more signs of displeasure, even in our days. We grow worldly every where; methinks I see little godliness, but all in a hurry about the world; every one for himself, little care of public or common good. It hath been God's way, not to send sweeping judgments when the chief magistrates are godly and grow more so. I beseech all the Bayministers to call earnestly upon magistrates (that are often among them) tell them that their godliness will be our protection: if they fail, I shall fear some sweeping judgment shortly. The clouds seem to be gathering.1

First Impressions and First Arrivals

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Douglas Hunter
Keyword(s):  
New England ◽  
Human Migration ◽  
Biblical Hermeneutics ◽  
King Philip's War ◽  
Cotton Mather ◽  
Indigenous Lands ◽  
History Of ◽  
Colonial New England ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The Relationship

This chapter relates the first decades of colonial interpretation of Dighton Rock after its markings were first described in 1680, mainly by John Danforth and Cotton Mather. It places the interpretation of the rock in the context of dispossession of Indigenous lands following the rebellion known as King Philip’s War. Erasure of Indigenous peoples from the history of colonial New England is discussed. It introduces contemporary theories rooted in Biblical hermeneutics of human migration and the relationship of Indigenous people to the rest of humanity, including ideas that they were descendants of Tartars, Canaanites, or the Lost Tribes of Israel. The author’s concept of White Tribism is explained.

‘A greater revolution’

2019 ◽  
pp. 213-230
Author(s):  
David Parrish
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
South Carolina ◽  
New England ◽  
Political Culture ◽  
Print Culture ◽  
Cotton Mather ◽  
High Church ◽  
Atlantic Empire

Letters to and from prominent Dissenting leaders and their political allies such as Cotton Mather and Benjamin Colman in New England, Archibald Stobo in South Carolina, and Robert Hunter in New York make it abundantly clear that the High-Church Tory ascendency during the final years of Queen Anne’s reign was a fraught period for religious Dissenters living throughout Britain’s Atlantic empire. While Tories were implementing policies designed to inhibit the influence of Dissent, a transatlantic Tory political culture was becoming far more antagonistic to the Hanoverian Succession and was increasingly associated with Jacobitism. Consequently, anti-Jacobitism became a pillar of the transatlantic Dissenting and Whig political and print culture.

The Traditioned Self

2019 ◽  
pp. 10-41
Author(s):  
Rhys S. Bezzant
Keyword(s):  
New England ◽  
Cotton Mather ◽  
Personal Formation

Edwards did not invent the practice of mentoring. In the premodern world, identity was received rather than created, and mentoring served this traditional means of personal formation. This chapter investigates the significance of the cultivation of virtue for a flourishing life, and the ways in which discipline functioned as a strategy for virtue formation in the post-Reformation world. The examples of Richard Baxter and Cotton Mather are presented as significant landmarks in that story. Edwards’s own upbringing in New England, with its Puritan expectations of life and ministry, is unpacked as a way of understanding the innovation Edwards would ultimately pursue in a ministry of mentoring.

Colonial America

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher Clark
Keyword(s):  
Native American ◽  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
New England ◽  
Social Economic ◽  
Colonial America ◽  
Colonial Period ◽  
American Colonies ◽  
Old Order ◽  
Early Settlement ◽  
Different Origins

The British American colonies embodied such social, economic, and political diversity that they did not, of course, constitute a single “old order” any more than Europe did. They had evolved from different origins: English, Dutch, and Scandinavian; and under an array of influences: Native American, French, African, Irish, Scottish, German. Even the two oldest areas of English settlement, the Chesapeake region and New England, differed markedly. In New England, where early settlement involved whole families, and where sex ratios quickly achieved a rough parity, seventeenth-century settlers set patterns for longevity and demographic robustness that were sustained throughout the colonial period.

Ecumenical Relations Between Boston Puritanism and German Pietism: Cotton Mather and August Hermann Francke

1961 ◽  
Vol 54 (3) ◽  
pp. 159-193 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ernst Benz
Keyword(s):  
New England ◽  
Martin Luther ◽  
Church History ◽  
Cotton Mather ◽  
The World ◽  
The Many ◽  
Teaching Church

May I begin with a personal introduction to the theme of this evening's lecture, the encounter between continental pietism and New England Puritanism? I began teaching Church history at the Martin Luther University in Halle-Wittenberg in 1932. There I had the opportunity to study the archives of August Hermann Francke, in the old library of Francke's orphanage. These archives were in a state of highly inspiring disorder, for there were chances of all kinds of unforeseen discoveries, both in the many boxes containing Francke's correspondence and on the shelves holding all the books sent to this head of pietism by his friends all over the world. At first, I studied his correspondence with ministers, scholars, bishops and generals in Russia and the Baltics, publishing an article about Francke in Russia. Then I came across some boxes which held an enormous mass of material connected with New England, letters to German ministers and German communities in Pennsylvania, diaries of emigrants, together with letters in English from Puritan theologians and New England missionaries. I was especially interested in Francke's correspondence with Cotton Mather.

“Declension Comes Home”: Cotton Mather, Male Youth Rebellion, and the Hope of Providential Affliction in Puritan New England

2016 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 31-73
Author(s):  
David Setran
Keyword(s):  
New England ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
Public Issue ◽  
Male Youth ◽  
Cotton Mather ◽  
Colonial New England ◽  
Parent Child Relationships ◽  
Parent Child ◽  
God's Work ◽  
Religious Decline

AbstractThe theme of generational religious decline has been a staple of New England Puritan historiography. Yet while scholars have examined these issues at the larger cultural and ecclesial levels, few have looked at the small-scale manifestations of such “declension” within Puritan parent-child relationships. This article looks at Cotton Mather's perceptions of the causes of and potential solutions for male youth waywardness in colonial New England. Attempting to provide pastoral wisdom for distressed parents in his congregation, Mather also had to deal with this issue in his own home. His rebellious son, Increase, served as a very personal example of a vexing public issue, and Mather worked hard to put his pastoral ideals into “fatherly” practice. As he confronted these challenges, Mather located the causes of male youth rebellion in the perilous nature of “youth,” the failures of Puritan parents, and the inscrutable sovereignty of God. In the end, I argue that Mather was ultimately hopeful about God's work and purposes in the midst of youth declension. His belief in God's providence meant that the afflictions attending youthful rebellion could be perceived as God's means of spurring repentance and renewal, addressing parental sin, bolstering godly childrearing, and arousing youth themselves in the pursuit of righteousness.

‘If thou reckon right’: Angels from John Calvin to Jonathan Edwards via John Milton

2021 ◽  
pp. 392-407
Author(s):  
Kenneth P. Minkema
Keyword(s):  
New England ◽  
John Milton ◽  
Paradise Lost ◽  
Religious Culture ◽  
John Calvin ◽  
Jonathan Edwards ◽  
Cotton Mather ◽  
History Of ◽  
Anglo American

Jonathan Edwards (1703–1758) was part of a neo-Calvinist heritage, but he did not claim to be a disciple of the Genevan Reformer. One area of divergence in interpretation was their teachings about angels. Calvin lessened the roles of angels, ascribing to them certain mysteries beyond human comprehension, while Edwards explored angelic nature and history, initially seeing analogies between angels and humans, and then as part of his grand project, A History of the Work of Redemption. In the process, he was shaped by authors in his New England past, including Increase and Cotton Mather, who intently explored the supernatural realm. He also drew on a variety of religious poets within Anglo-American Protestant religious culture that included John Milton, whose influential depiction of the angelic and human fall in Paradise Lost provided inspiration for Edwards’ own redemptive narrative.

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