PURITANISM IN NEW ENGLAND
SEMINAR ONE
ABOUT PURITANISM IN GENERAL
• Total Depravity - through Adam and Eve's fall, every
person is born sinful - concept of Original Sin.
• Predestination-only a few are selected for salvation
• Limited Atonement - Jesus died for the chosen only,
not for everyone.
• Irresistible Grace - God's grace is freely given, it cannot
be earned or denied. Grace is defined as the saving and
transfiguring power of God-covenant of grace
• Perseverance of the "saints" –only visible saints can
interpret divine intent
• Typology: God’s will can be discerned in human action
and natural phenomena
MORE PURITAN BELIEFS….
• A cyclical or repetitive view of history. History
contains types Moses prefiguring Jesus,
Jonah’s patience is reflected in Jesus’s piety on
the cross, Moses as forerunner to Pilgrims
crossing the Atlantic
• Beware of backsliding, weakening of faith.
Importance of constant soul searching, selfexamination, constant prayer in order to avoid
sin and temptation
FUNCTIONS OF PURITAN WRITERS
• To interpret God’s will to the average person
• To demystify, yet glorify God
• To show the Bible and God’s relevance to
everyday life and the universe
THE RISE OF PURITANISM
• The forming agent of literary and cultural
consciousness
• Desire to form the new Zion
• Reformation in England:
• Forerunners: Wycliff, and the Lollards
• Demand for the vernacular translation of the
Bible
THE PURITAN SERMON
• William Perkins: The Art of Prophecying (1607)
• Text-reading the Biblical passage
• Doctrine- explaining, interpreting the text,
prepare the audience for the argument
• Reasons-connect the text with other parts of
the Bible, minister justifies the doctrine,
paragraphs, sub-paragraphs
• Apllications-apply the teaching to the life of
the believer, to the actual moment
REFORMATION IN EUROPE
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Reformation in Europe, (Luther, Calvin)
Henrician reformation
Act of Supremacy, 1534
Under Edward VI, Calvinism becomes more
popular
• 1552: Book of Common Prayers, a more Calvinist
edition
• 1559: Elizabeth I, The Second Act of Supremacy
REFORMATION IN EUROPE
• Division of Protestants in the European continent:
• Luther, Calvin,
• Scotland: John Knox: Presbyterianism: Church is
governed by elected leaders, presbyters (secular and
lay)
• Church of England: Anglican church, preserves the
hierarchy of the Roman Catholic church, led by bishops,
archbishops
• Elizabeth: able to find compromises, yet promotes a
medium rank Protestantism
• 1603: James I, persecution of Puritans, Archbishop
Laud, follower of Arminianism
THE CONCEPT OF PURITANISM
• A dogma system
• A philosophy of church organization
• A work ethic
THE CONCEPT OF PURITANISM
• 1549: Bishop John Hooper: became familiar with the
teaching of Zwingli and Calvin in Geneva, was already
promoting Puritanism, rejected any attempt reminiscent of
Popism
• When did the term come into use? During Mary I, when the
radical reformists, non-conformists had to escape to Europe
• Anglicans later used the term Puritan to all their
opponents: including Presbyterians, Independents, and
Baptists
• 1620s: the meaning of the term Puritan changes: previously
everyone opposing church hierarchy was called as such,
now those turning against Arminianism were named this
way
ARMINIANISM vs. PURITANISM
• Jacob Arminius,(1560-1609) denied the basic
points of Calvinism:
• Due to the Fall man is branded by the notion of
Original Sin
• Man cannot gain redemption
• Good deeds cannot help you to ascend to
Heaven, only through faith
• Christ only died for the chosen ones
• God provides grace only for those predestined
SO THEN WHAT DID HE BELIEVE IN?
• The Five Articles of Remonstance:
-universal grace for those who persevere in faith
-Christ died for everyone
-Unlimited, universal atonement
-Resistible grace: people can resist the Holy Ghost
-Libertarian free will: our choices are free from the
determination or constraints of human nature
and free from any predetermination by Godindividual decides on accepting election by God
THE SUCCESS OF THE DOCTRINE
• What is the political significance of Puritanism:
• chosen few not only led congregations but
governed as well
• Further development of Calvinism: William
Perkins, (1558-1602) recognizes that only the
privileged groups can become predestined, thus
promotes that through knowledge of the Bible
less privileged groups can gain that status.
Puritan dogma has to be made understandable,
intelligible for less educated groups, promotion of
the plain style
THE SUCCESS OF THE DOCTRINE
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emphasis on redemption
addressed the individual not social classes
attractive for all groups
elite, educated hoped to belong to those chosen
Landlords, businessmen: work ethic tempers
discontent, eliminates church holidays (more
than 100 a year) , greater productivity
• peasants, miners, other less privileged: find
solace in the democratic aspects
JOHN COTTON (1584-1652)
• Dean of Emmanuel College, Cambridge
• Dominant theologian, wrote position papers
defending Puritanism
• Dreamed of a Utopia of Saints
• A scholar and a gentleman
• A most universal scholar, a living system of liberal
arts, and a walking library—Cotton Mather
• God would not suffer Mr. Cotton to err
JOHN COTTON (1584-1652)
• crabbed style, ascetic reasoning, Renaissance
spirit
• a soul melting preacher, believed in the power of
the spoken word
• by nature a tolerant man
• After the Hutchinson trial he gave in to the rising
tide of intolerance
• Became an apologist for the excesses of
Puritanism
• negates democracy and hereditary aristocracy
JOHN COTTON (1584-1652)
• Farewell sermon: before Massachussetts Bay
Company leaves England in 1630
• providing Biblical support for emigration
• to deflect charges of betrayal of colonists’
native land
• justifying the taking of Indian land
• warning of straying far from religion
• protection against degeneration
Gods Promise to His Plantations
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I will appoint a place for my people Israell
Model for colonization, colonial life
He would accept a house from Solomon
Establish the throne of his house for ever
Gods Promise to His Plantations
• Three-fold blessings:
• They shall dwell there like Free-holders in a
place of their owne
• Firme and durable possession,they shall move
no more
• They shall have peacable and quiet resting
there
Gods Promise to His Plantations
• Which part of the document reflect the notion
of chosenness?
• The placing of a people in this or that countrey
is from the appointment of the Lord
• How did God appoint this place?
• He had espied the land for them
• Takes them there
• Makes room for them to dwell
Gods Promise to His Plantations
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Causes of the Great Protestant Migration:
gain of knowledge
for merchandize and gaine-sake
to plant a colony, to settle a City or
Commonwealth
Gods Promise to His Plantations
• to be able to employ talents and gifts better
elsewhere
• for the liberty of Ordinances, to escape from
persecution
• Push factors—evills to be avoyded that may
warrant removeall:
• a prophecy foreseeing persecution
• economic causes: overburdened with debts and
miseries
• to please God
STUDY QUESTIONS
• Define some of the basic concepts of Puritan
ideology and illustrate their significance in
specific works. Choose from among the
following: (a) "new world" consciousness, (b)
covenant theology, (c) typology, (d) innate
depravity, and (e) irresistible grace.
• Identify the components of the Puritan
sermon in the text
THE PURITAN MINDSET
• Original sin condemned mankind to a life of labor, suffering,
and death
• Through Crucifixion those reborn or experiencing
conversion are saved
• Churches should be comprised of people with no sin,
visible saints
• no hierarchic church system
• Church and state are aspects of the same structure
designed to carry out God’s will on Earth
• innate human depravity makes governments necessary: if
people be governors who shall be governed
• Peaceable kingdoms, stable societies
THE PURITAN MINDSET
• stronger family life, more cohesive village life
than in England (Andover, Dedham, Plymouth)
• importance of the covenant with God—covenant
of grace
• Covenant sealed by Baptism and the Lord’s
Supper
• Chosenness
• Mission concept
• Importance of work and industry
• Moderation except in piety
JOHN WINTHROP (1588-1649)
• Raised on an estate (Groton, England)
purchased from Henry VIII
• Studied at Cambridge University
• Married at age 17
• Practiced law
• Congregationalist, wants to reform the church
from within
• 1620: Severe economic depression
• Company of Mass. Bay in N. England receives
a charter
• Winthrop is chosen for governor
• Aboard Arbella delivers his sermon
• ”A Model of Christian Charity”
A Modell of Christian Charity
• John Winthrop’s (1588-1649) model for
America
• An example of the emotional history of the
U.S.
• A blue print for American exceptionalism
A Model of Christian Charity
• Foundations of the model:
• agape—understanding, love, Christian
brotherhood, fellowship
• caritas:charity
• Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians, three gifts
available to believers: faith, hope, charity
• Thomas Aquinas’ notion of charity
• Moral or communal capitalism
A Modell of Christian Charity
• General view of society: some must be rich, some
poore
• The King will have many Stewards– a servant in
realizing a divine plan
• Soe that the riche and mighty should not eate
upp the poore, nor the poore and dispised rise
upp against their superiours
• Knit together in the Bonds of brotherly affection
• Justice and mercy: two basic rules for life
• Mathew 5.44 Love your Enemies
A Modell of Christian Charity
• The duty of mercy: giving, lending, and
forgiving
• Love is the bond of perfection
• It makes the worke perfect
• Most perfect of all bodies: Christ and his
church
• Christians are one body in Christ united by
love
A Modell of Christian Charity
• What kind of love?
• Spiritual, nature free, active strong,
courageous, permanent
• Resembles the virtue of the Heavenly Father
A Modell of Christian Charity (1630)
• The foundation of the Christian commonwealth
• Persons: professing themselves fellow members
of Christ
• The worke: Cohabitation and Consorteshipp
under a due forme of government both civill and
ecclesiasticall
• The end: to serve the Lord and worke out our
Salvation under the power and purity of his holy
ordinances
A Modell of Christian Charity
• The means: Wee must beare one anothers
burthens
• We are entered into Covenant with him
• We follow the counsell of Micah: doe justly, love
mercy, walk humbly
• Matthew 5:14 For wee must Consider that wee
shall be as a Citty upon a Hill
• A city that is set on the hill cannot be hid. Neither
do men light a candle and put it under a bushel,
but on a candlestick.
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A foundational document
Compact made among Americans
Covenant with the Supreme Being
A community united in charity
THE AMERICAN JEREMIAD
• Sacwan Bercowitch: a sermon creating tension
between ideal social life and reality
• --provide a biblical or spiritual standard for
individual activity or public life
• --describe how people fail to meet this standard
• --describe an ideal public life following a return to
religious standards
• Hope v. fear, ideal v. real
• Reagan’s city upon a hill
CAPTIVITY NARRATIVES
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Historical background
The worsening of settler-Indian relations
Aggressive expansion of whites
Undermining Indian spirituality
Aggressive expansion of Christianity
Encroachment on Indian land
CAPTIVITY NARRATIVES
• Indian wars
• 1622-1632: Powhatan war
• 1637: Pequot war
• 1675-76: King Philip’s (Metacomet) War
CAPTIVITY NARRATIVES
• Conflicts at the Frontier—contact zone
• Captives are taken for making them work as
slaves
• For ransom
• For making up a loss in the family
• For being sold to other tribes
THE INDIAN CAPTIVITY NARRATIVE
• 1528-1903
• Basic theme: separation, transformation,
return (staying with Indians)
• Narratives of confinement: Barbary coast
captivity, slave narrative, convent captivity
narratives, captured by UFO narratives
• Indian captivity narrative: forerunner of the
American novel
THE FUNCTIONS OF THE INDIAN
CAPTIVITY NARRATIVE
• Roy Harvey Pearce:
• Religious confessional
• Propaganda (Indian, or French as the
archenemy)
• Penny dreadful—dime novels
• Self-fashioning (Ogushi) –establishment of
identity
MARY ROWLANDSON (1682)
• Attack on Lancaster, Mass. 1675, February 10
• Captured with injured six year old daughter,
Sarah
• Self-fashioning, rebuilding identity
• Motherhood-loses Sarah, yet figurative
mother to Indian children
• Sewing clothes
• Biblical patterns, typology, Loth’s wife, Job
COTTON MATHER: MAGNALIA CHRISTII
AMERICANA (1702)
• Nehemias Americanus. The Life of John Winthrop
• Who does the author compares Winthrop to:
--Lycurgus of Sparta, Numa Pompilius of Romeauthor of Roman laws
--Family relationship to Archdeacon of Winchester
What elements of his life predestined him for being a leader
of the Massachussetts colony?
served as Justice of the Peace at 18, he was impartial,
Weighing not cash, but the case, learned more than the seven arts
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NEHEMIAS AMERICANUS
• How would you describe his governing approach?
• Governed by moderation, called by one of his
enemies: John Temperwell
• How did he justify his leniency? In the infancy of
plantations, justice should be administered with
more lenity than in a settled state—lento gradu—
by slow degrees
• How did he function as Nehemiah?—had to
contend with his own Sanballats (opponents)
Roger Williams,
• Anne Hutchinson
NEHEMIAS AMERICANUS
• How did he create the image of the just leader?
• Sending his family into the houses of the poor, in case
of want, providing for them, curing poor of stealing—
providing them with wood for the winter
• A mixed man:
• When serving as deputy governor in 1645 he was
accused of violating civil liberties, but acquitted
• His interpretation of the covenant: corrupt liberty
undermines the covenant, grand enemy of truth and
peace, moral, civil, federal liberty:proper end and
object of authority
NEHEMIAS AMERICANUS
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Promoted temperance
Three wives
Business problems
He left behind as an eternal memorial, the
walls of New England
WHAT IS THE OVERALL IMAGE?
• Communitiy minded
• Displays Puritan values: sobriety, frugality,
sharing his wealth
• Believes in moderation
• Wise statesman, reliable leader
• Prophetic visionary
A CHRISTIAN AND HIS CALLING
• General Calling: serve the Lord Jesus Christ,
save one’s own soul
• Personal Calling: demonstrate usefulness in a
given employment
• A Christian is like a man in a boat rowing for
Heaven, if he follows only one of the Callings
he will not reach the shore
THE PERSONAL CALLING
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Every Christian should have an occupation, or business
First Adam, Second Adam had a calling
Sin of Sodom, abundance of idleness
We are to live soberly, righteously
How should the occupation be carried out:
industriously, with discretion, honesty, contentment
• Business of Personal Calling should not swallow
General Calling
• Obedience to God be a spring to your business
• Spiritualize your business, have devotionary thoughts
during your workday
THE JOURNAL OF MADAM KNIGHT
• Sarah Kemble Knight (1666-1727)
• First daughter of Thomas Kemble and Elizabeth Trerice
Kemble
• Born in Boston, married Richard Knight
• Prior to husband’s death in 1706 she takes over
business tasks
• Worked as a court scrivener, organized a writing school,
ran a boarding house
• The Journal describes her trip (Boston to New York)
made between October 2, 1704-March 3, 1705
THE JOURNAL OF MADAM KNIGHT
• Trip made fully on horseback
• Second travel text written by a woman after the
Rowlandson Narrative
• Breaking into a male sanctuary, the travel book
• Goal of the trip: settling the estate of deceased
cousin, Caleb Trowbridge
• The Journal was published together with the
Narrative of Reverend Thomas Buckingham in
1825
THE JOURNAL OF MADAM KNIGHT
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Not a spiritual narrative
Self-examination is missing
The writing has no faith protection function
Theodore Dwight’s Preface: “a fateful copy
from a diary in the author’s own handwriting
[…] a lady of uncommon literary attainments
as well as of great taste and strength of mind.”
THE JOURNAL OF MADAM KNIGHT
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Partial inscription into the symbolic order
Gaps in the power system (Foucault)
The limits of the female author
Objectification of the Other
THE PROCESS OF SUBJECTIVATION
• Subject: a fluid concept
• Subjectivation: making someone a subject
(speaking, acting Self, agent) or subordinate
someone to the power or the establishment
• Power is not homogeneous, it has gaps
(Foucault)
• During the process of encountering power the
indvidual becomes subject (assujettissement)
PERFORMANCE V. PERFORMATIVITY
• Means of subject formation: subject is
constructed by acquiring socially and
culturally determined roles
• Performance: a mimetic replaying of norms
and the replaying of ruling ideologies when
constructing the subject
• Performative acts allow people to construct
themselves, subjects are created
performatively in the speaking and the doing
• ”most salvage of all the salvages of that kind that I had ever Seen”
• ”but are not proper to be Related by a Female pen”
• ”The Raptures wch the Sight of that fair Planett produced in mee,
caus’d mee, for the Moment, to forgett my present wearyness and
past toils”
• ”and the Tall and thick Trees at a distance, especially when the
moon glar’d light through the branches, I fill’d my Imagination with
the pleasent delusion of Sumpteous city fill’d with famous
Buildings, and churches, wth their spiring steeples, Balconies,
Galleries and I know not what:”
• ”But desire sincearly to adore my Great Benefactor for thus
graciously carrying forth and returning in safety his unworthy
handmaid.”