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A Divine And Supernatural Light, Immediately Imparted To The Soul By The Spirit Of God, Shown To Be Both A Scriptural, And Rational Doctrine, Jonathan Edwards, Reiner Smolinski

Electronic Texts in American Studies

The early stirrings of the Great Awakening were intensified by Edwards’ famous sermon A Divine and Supernatural Light, Immediately Imparted to the Soul by the Spirit of God (1734). Through a fascinating process of canceling out his opponents’ positions, Edwards clearly defines the workings of God’s grace in the human soul. He distinguishes between “Common Grace” (intrinsic to virtually all unregenerate), which acts upon the mind of natural man and assists the faculties of the soul in their natural course; and “Special Grace” (intrinsic to true saints only), which acts in the human heart and unites with the mind of …

The Threefold Paradise Of Cotton Mather: An Edition Of "Triparadisus", Reiner Smolinski

Electronic Texts in American Studies

No other American Puritan has fueled both the popular and academic imagination as has Cotton Mather (1663-1728). Colonial America's foremost theologian and historian, Mather was also one of its most powerful voices advocating millennialism. His lifelong preoccupation with this subject culminated in his definitive treatise, "Triparadisus" (1726/1727), left unpublished at his death. In it, Mather justified his ideological revisionism; his response to the philological, historical, and scientific challenges of the Bible as text by English and continental deists; and his hermeneutical break from the orthodox exegeses of his father, Increase Mather, and Joseph Mede. In his critical introduction to this …

Theopolis Americana: An Essay On The Golden Street Of The Holy City (1710), Cotton Mather, Reiner Smolinski , Editor

Electronic Texts in American Studies

Theopolis Americana: An Essay on the Golden Street of the Holy City was published in Boston in 1710. It is based on a sermon delivered to the Massachusetts General Assembly on May 9, 1709, by Cotton Mather (1663–1728) who was then (along with his father Increase Mather) pastor of the Second or Old North Church in Boston. The work is an extended interpretation of Revelations 21.21: “The street of the city was pure gold.” Mather makes a twofold application of the verse—“publishing” (as he says) “A TESTIMONY against the CORRUPTIONS of the Market-Place. With Some Good HOPES of Better Things …

The Negro Christianized. An Essay To Excite And Assist That Good Work, The Instruction Of Negro- Servants In Christianity, Cotton Mather

Zea E-Books in American Studies

There were enslaved Negroes in New England before there were Puritans there, and by 1700 they numbered about 1,000 out of a total population of 90,000. Roughly half of them lived in Massachusetts, and were concentrated in Boston and the coastal towns. Puritans actively participated in the colonial slave trade, importing them from the West Indies and sometimes selling Indian prisoners into overseas slavery.

Cotton Mather was a slave-owner, and his congregation at the Second (or North) Church included both slave merchants and Negroes. The pamphlet reprinted here appeared in 1706 without his name, but his authorship of it was …

The Negro Christianized. An Essay To Excite And Assist That Good Work, The Instruction Of Negro-Servants In Christianity (1706), Cotton Mather, Paul Royster , Editor

Electronic Texts in American Studies

There were Africans in New England before there were Puritans there, and by 1700 they numbered about 1,000 out of a total population of 90,000. Roughly half of them lived in Massachusetts, and were concentrated in Boston and the coastal towns. Puritans actively participated in the trafficking of enslaved persons, importing Africans from the West Indies and sometimes selling native American prisoners overseas.

Cotton Mather’s household contained enslaved Negro servants, and his congregation at the Second (or North) Church included both merchants of slavery and persons of African descent. The pamphlet reprinted here appeared in 1706 without his name, but …

The Selling Of Joseph: A Memorial (1700), Samuel Sewall

Electronic Texts in American Studies

The first anti-slavery tract published in English North America. In it, Sewall brings arguments from legal, moral, practical, and biblical grounds against the taking, buying, and holding of slaves, particularly Africans.

A 3-page pamphlet, published in Boston in 1700, by the leading jurist of Massachusetts.

"I am sure, if some Gentlemen should go down to the Brewsters to take the Air, and Fish : And a stronger party from Hull should Surprise them, and Sell them for Slaves to a Ship outward bound : they would think themselves unjustly dealt with; both by Sellers and Buyers. And yet ‘tis to …

Mary Pike, George Heathcote, March 30, 1697; August 6, 1697, Mary Pike

Pemberton Correspondence Transcriptions

A letter from Mary Pike to George Heathcote on March 30, 1697

Phaenomena Quaedam Apocalyptica Ad Aspectum Novi Orbis Configurata. Or, Some Few Lines Towards A Description Of The New Heaven, Samuel Sewall, Reiner Smolinski

Zea E-Books in American Studies

SAMUEL SEWALL (1652-1730) is best remembered as a colonial judge during the Salem Witchcraft trials, as a significant diarist, and as an ardent millenarian, who published a number of eschatological tracts on his favorite obsession. Apart from his political achievements in the colonial judicature, Sewall published a number of significant works. The Selling of Joseph (1700) is one of the earliest abolitionist documents in American history. His famous Diary of Samuel Sewall, 1674-1729 (1878-82) is a Puritan document par excellence and a window on a crucial period in the development of the colony. His millenarian tract Proposals Touching the Accomplishment …

Phaenomena Quaedam Apocalyptica Ad Aspectum Novi Orbis Configurata. Or, Some Few Lines Towards A Description Of The New Heaven (1697), Samuel Sewall, Reiner Smolinski , Editor

Electronic Texts in American Studies

SAMUEL SEWALL (1652-1730) is best remembered as a colonial judge during the Salem Witchcraft trials, as a significant diarist, and as an ardent millenarian, who published a number of eschatological tracts on his favorite obsession. Apart from his political achievements in the colonial judicature, Sewall published a number of significant works. The Selling of Joseph (1700) is one of the earliest abolitionist documents in American history. His famous Diary of Samuel Sewall, 1674-1729 (1878-82) is a Puritan document par excellence and a window on a crucial period in the development of the colony. His millenarian tract Proposals Touching the Accomplishment …

Massachusetts: Or The First Planters Of New-England, The End And Manner Of Their Coming Thither, And Abode There: In Several Epistles (1696), John Winthrop, Thomas Dudley, John Allin, Thomas Shepard, John Cotton, Joshua Scottow, Paul Royster, Editor Of The Online Electronic Edition

Joshua Scottow Papers

In 1696 there appeared in Boston an anonymous 16mo volume of 56 pages containing four “epistles,” written from 66 to 50 years earlier, illustrating the early history of the colony of Massachusetts Bay.

The four “epistles” compiled in Massachusetts, or The First Planters were all originally addressed to English or European audiences:

1. The Humble Request of His Majesties Loyal Subjects (1630), sent from aboard the Arbella and usually attributed to John Winthrop, defended the emigrants’ physical separation from England and reaffirmed their loyalty to the Crown and Church of England.

2. Thomas Dudley’s letter “To the Right Honourable, My …

New Yorke Considered And Improved A.D. 1695, John Miller, Victor Hugo Paltsits, Paul Royster (Depositor)

Electronic Texts in American Studies

The following work is essentially a line-for-line facsimile of Victor Hugo Paltsits’ edition of John Miller’s New Yorke Considered and Improved A.D. 1695. Miller’s work was written during his tenure as chaplain to the British soldiers stationed in New York from June 1692 until July 1695. His first draft was thrown overboard to avoid its falling into the hands of the French privateers who captured the ship in which he was returning to England. Miller re-wrote his work while imprisoned in France, finished it after his return to England in 1696, and presented it as a report to his …

A Narrative Of The Planting Of The Massachusets Colony Anno 1628. With The Lords Signal Presence The First Thirty Years. Also A Caution From New-Englands Apostle, The Great Cotton, How To Escape The Calamity, Which Might Befall Them Or Their Posterity. And Confirmed By The Evangelist Norton With Prognosticks From The Famous Dr. Owen. Concerning The Fate Of These Churches, And Animadversions Upon The Anger Of God, In Sending Of Evil Angels Among Us. Published By Old Planters, The Authors Of The Old Mens Tears., Joshua Scottow, Paul Royster (Transcribed & Edited By)

Joshua Scottow Papers

This edition of A Narrative of the Planting of the Massachusets Colony Anno 1628 is based on the first edition published in Boston in 1694. The spelling, orthography, punctuation, and capitalization of the original have been retained; only obvious typographical errors have been corrected. Scottow's Narrative is the sequel to Old Mens Tears for their Own Declensions, published three years earlier. It is an expansion of the argument that God and history are being unkind to New England because its churches have strayed from the strict practice of the unanimously-minded early founders of the Congregational Way. Scottow treats of …

The Wonders Of The Invisible World. Observations As Well Historical As Theological, Upon The Nature, The Number, And The Operations Of The Devils (1693), Cotton Mather, Reiner Smolinski , Editor

Electronic Texts in American Studies

I. Some Accounts of the Grievous Molestations, by DÆMONS and WITCHCRAFTS, which have lately annoy’d the Countrey; and the Trials of some eminent Malefactors Executed upon occasion thereof; with several Remarkable Curiosities therein occurring.
II. Some Counsils, Directing a due Improvement of the terrible things, lately done, by the Unusual & Amazing Range of EVIL SPIRITS, in Our Neighbourhood: & the methods to prevent the Wrongs which those Evil Angels may intend against all sorts of people among us; especially in Accusations of the Innocent.
III. Some Conjectures upon the great EVENTS, likely to befall, the WORLD in General, and …

Old Mens Tears For Their Own Declensions, Mixed With Fears Of Their And Posterities Further Falling Off From New-England’S Primitive Constitution., Joshua Scottow, Paul Royster , Editor

Joshua Scottow Papers

This is an online edition of Scottow’s popular tract, published in Boston in 1691, based on the first edition. Later editions were published in Boston in 1715, 1733, and 1749, and in New London in 1769. It is a searchable PDF document. The characteristics of Scottow’s original text (spelling, punctuation, capitalization, italics, etc.) have been retained. Obvious typographical errors have been corrected, and a list of emendations is included at the end. Its typographic design is based on that of the original.

The work decries the falling off of New England from the purity and purpose of its original founding, …

Old Mens Tears For Their Own Declensions, Mixed With Fears Of Their And Posterities Further Falling Off From New-England’S Primitive Constitution, Joshua Scottow

Zea E-Books in American Studies

This is an online edition of Scottow’s popular tract, published in Boston in 1691, based on the first edition. Later editions were published in Boston in 1715, 1733, and 1749, and in New London in 1769. It is a searchable PDF document. The characteristics of Scottow’s original text (spelling, punctuation, capitalization, italics, etc.) have been retained. Obvious typographical errors have been corrected, and a list of emendations is included at the end. Its typographic design is based on that of the original. The work decries the falling off of New England from the purity and purpose of its original founding, …

The Widdow Ranter, Or, The History Of Bacon In Virginia (1690), Aphra Behn, Paul Royster , Editor

Electronic Texts in American Studies

The Widdow Ranter, or, The History of Bacon in Virginia was probably written in 1688, first performed in late 1689, and published in 1690. It is a highly fictionalized drama of Bacon’s Rebellion of 1676 in Virginia, when Nathaniel Bacon (c.1640-1676), commander of a volunteer force of Indian fighters, succeeded for several months in overthrowing the government of Sir William Berkeley, who had declared Bacon a rebel and refused to countenance or commission his actions against the Indians. Mrs. Behn’s play casts Bacon as a classical hero, motivated by “Honour,” and in love with an Indian princess. A variety of …

An Arrow Against Profane And Promiscuous Dancing Drawn Out Of The Quiver Of The Scriptures, Increase Mather

Electronic Texts in American Studies

When a dancing master arrived in Boston in 1685 and offered lessons and classes for both sexes during times normally reserved for church meetings, the Puritan ministers went to court to suppress the practice. Increase Mather (1639-1723) took the leading part, writing and publishing this tract, which compiles arguments and precedents for the prohibition of “Gynecandrical Dancing, [i.e.] Mixt or Promiscuous Dancing, viz. of Men and Women … together.” These justifications were certainly shared with the court, which found the dancing master guilty, fined him £100, and allowed him to skip town.

Mather’s tract on dancing is an overwhelming compendium …

A Brief History Of The Warr With The Indians In New-England, Increase Mather

Zea E-Books in American Studies

This ebook represents a new edition of Increase Mather’s influential contemporary account of King Philip’s War, between the English colonists in New England (and their Native allies) and the Wampanoag, Naragansett, and other Indian nations of the region, beginning in 1675. Mather’s account runs through August of 1676, when hostilities in southern, central, and western New England ended; fighting continued in the region of Maine until 1678. The war was disastrous for both sides, but particularly for the hostile Native Americans, who were brought very close to extermination.

Mather describes his history as “brief” (its 30,00 words run to 89 …

An Earnest Exhortation To The Inhabitants Of New-England (1676), Increase Mather, Reiner Smolinski , Editor

Electronic Texts in American Studies

The work reprinted here, An Earnest Exhortation to the Inhabitants of New-England to Hearken to the Voice of God in His Late and Present Dispensations As Ever They Desire to Escape Another Judgement, Seven Times Greater Then Any Thing Which as Yet Hath Been (1676), is transcribed from the copy held by the American Antiquarian Society. It is Mather's theological explication of King Philip’s War (1675-76) as God’s punishment of his people for their backsliding. Characteristic of the homiletic tradition of the jeremiad is Increase Mather’s paradigmatic response to the war with the Indian Sachem Metacom and his action plan …

The Cry Of Sodom Enquired Into, Samuel Danforth

Zea E-Books in American Studies

This is a well-known execution sermon from seventeenth-century Massachusetts, delivered on the occasion of the sentencing to death of a young man convicted of bestiality—specifically of copulation with a mare, in which he was discovered in the open in broad daylight. Samuel Danforth, who wrote and delivered the sermon, would have known the condemned young man very well. Benjamin Goad had been born into Danforth’s congregation at Roxbury and had grown up under his pastoral care. Danforth was also familiar with the anguish of a parent over the death of a child, having suffered the deaths of eight of his …

The Life And Death Of That Reverend Man Of God, Richard Mather, Teacher Of The Church In Dorchester In New-England. A Facsimile Reprint With An Introduction ..., Increase Mather, Benjamin Franklin V, William K. Bottoroff

Electronic Texts in American Studies

We most often turn to American Puritan prose to glean historicalor biographical data. If we seek a biography that spans the evolution of American Puritanism from its nadir in England through its zenith in the New England of the 1630's to 1650's, and to the beginning of its decline as symbolized by the "Half-Way Covenant" in 1662, we may turn to Increase Mather's biography of his father, The Life and Death of That Reverend Man of God, Mr. Richard Mather. It includes the background for the elder Mather's decision to emigrate to New England (events leading to his suspension from …

A Brief Recognition Of New-Englands Errand Into The Wilderness, Samuel Danforth

Zea E-Books in American Studies

Samuel Danforth’s election sermon of 1670 is a classic example of the New England jeremiad. Addressed to the assembled delegates on the occasion of the election of officers for the Massachusetts General Court, it asks the very pointed question: “What is it that distinguisheth New-England from other Colonies and Plantations in America?” The answer, of course, is that the Puritan colonies (Massachusetts, Plymouth, Connecticut, and New Haven) were founded for the pursuit of religious ends by the reformed Protestant churches of England:

“You have solemnly professed before God, Angels and Men, that the Cause of your leaving your Country, Kindred …

A Brief Description Of New-York: Formerly Called New-Netherlands, Daniel Denton

Zea E-Books in American Studies

Denton’s work was the first English account intended to promote settlement of the region recently seized from the Dutch. It is of particular interest for 1) its description of the geographic and topographic features of the region from Albany in the north to the mouth of the Delaware Bay in the south, and from the eastern tip of Long Island to the interior of modern-day New Jersey; 2) its enumeration of the plants, animals, and commodities of the area; 3) its impressive and extended account of the customs and livelihood of the Indians of the region; 4) its early suggestion …

A Sermon Preach’D At The Election Of The Governour, At Boston In New-England May 19th 1669., John Davenport, Paul Royster , Editor

Electronic Texts in American Studies

John Davenport’s A Sermon Preach’d at the Election is a notable and fascinating document on numerous counts. As a statement of Puritan political theory, it outlines the rights of the governed to self-preservation from abusive authority—a subject that would be more extensively explored in the years leading up to the Revolution. But as a document of its specific place and time—Boston in 1669—it bore a large part in the politico-theological controversies that followed the Synod of 1662 that recommended the adoption of the so-called Half-Way Covenant. Davenport’s long digression on the proper role of the state in convening “Councils” on …

God’S Controversy With New-England (1662, 1871), Michael Wigglesworth, Reiner Smolinski , Editor

Electronic Texts in American Studies

Presented here is Wigglesworth’s manuscript poem "God’s Controversy with New-England" (1871)—courtesy of the Massachusetts Historical Society. Composed in 1662 on the occasion of a terrible drought, the poem is a versified jeremiad bewailing the backsliding of the rising generation. Thus, God uses nature’s drought as a secondary cause to punish the exsiccation of the spirit among the offspring of New England’s patriarchs, whose children were either unable (or unwilling) to accept the Half-Way Covenant (1662) governing church admission. More than that, "God’s Controversy" encapsulates the Federal Covenant between God and Saints, whose chastisement, paradoxically, is a sign of God’s loving …

A Declaration Of The Sad And Great Persecution And Martyrdom Of The People Of God, Called Quakers, In New-England, For The Worshipping Of God (1661), Edward Burrough, Paul Royster Editor

Historical Quaker Books

From 1656 through 1661, the Massachusetts Bay Colony experienced an “invasion” of Quaker missionaries, who were not deterred by the increasingly severe punishments enacted and inflicted by the colonial authorities. In October 1659, two (William Robinson and Marmaduke Stevenson) were hanged at Boston; in June 1660, Mary Dyar (or Dyer) became the third; in March 1661, William Leddra became the fourth (and last) to suffer capital punishment or “martyrdom” for their Quaker beliefs.

While members of the Society of Friends rushed to Massachusetts to test the harsh sentences under the newly enacted laws, other Friends in England simultaneously petitioned Parliament …

A Declaration Of The Sad And Great Persecution And Martyrdom Of The People Of God, Called Quakers, In New-England, For The Worshipping Of God (1661), Edward Burrough, Paul Royster , Editor

Electronic Texts in American Studies

From 1656 through 1661, the Massachusetts Bay Colony experienced an “invasion” of Quaker missionaries, who were not deterred by the increasingly severe punishments enacted and inflicted by the colonial authorities. In October 1659, two (William Robinson and Marmaduke Stevenson) were hanged at Boston; in June 1660, Mary Dyar (or Dyer) became the third; in March 1661, William Leddra became the fourth (and last) to suffer capital punishment or “martyrdom” for their Quaker beliefs.

While members of the Society of Friends rushed to Massachusetts to test the harsh sentences under the newly enacted laws, other Friends in England simultaneously petitioned Parliament …

Relation Of The Pequot Warres (1660), Lion Gardener, W. N. Chattin Carlton , Editor

Electronic Texts in American Studies

Lion Gardener (1599-1663) was an English military engineer, formerly in the service of the prince of Orange, who was hired by members of the Connecticut Company in 1635 to oversee construction of fortifications for their new colony. On arriving in Connecticut in early 1636, his first assignment was to finish and garrison Saybrook Fort, at the mouth of the Connecticut River. In August 1636, the area was visited by a punitive military expedition from the Massachusetts Bay Colony, led by John Endicott, intent upon intimidating the Pequot and Niantic tribes and demanding delivery of the killers of a group of …

A Declaration Of The Sad And Great Persecution And Martyrdom Of The People Of God, Called Quakers, In New-England, For The Worshipping Of God, Edward Burroughs

Zea E-Books in American Studies

From 1656 through 1661, the Massachusetts Bay Colony experienced an “invasion” of Quaker missionaries, who were not deterred by the increasingly severe punishments enacted and inflicted by the colonial authorities. In October 1659, two (William Robinson and Marmaduke Stevenson) were hanged at Boston; in June 1660, Mary Dyar (or Dyer) became the third; in March 1661, William Leddra became the fourth (and last) to suffer capital punishment or “mar-tyrdom” for their Quaker beliefs.While members of the Society of Friends rushed to Massachu-setts to test the harsh sentences under the newly enacted laws, other Friends in England simultaneously petitioned Parliament and …

The Christian Commonwealth: Or, The Civil Policy Of The Rising Kingdom Of Jesus Christ, John Eliot

Zea E-Books in American Studies

John Eliot (1604-1690), the Puritan missionary to the New England Indians, developed this plan of political organization for the Christianized tribes that he converted. In the late 1640s, he adapted it for English use and sent a manuscript copy to England, where it appeared in print 10 years later, in 1659, following the death of Cromwell and before the accession of Charles II.

Eliot’s “Preface” to the work was far more radical and troublesome than the utopian theocracy described in the main body. “Much is spoken of the rightful Heir of the Crown of England, and the unjustice of casting …