American Literature Commons^™

The Legacy Book In America, 1664–1792, Roxanne Harde, Lindsay Yakimyshyn

Zea E-Books Collection

Legacy books in colonial America were instruments for the transmission of cultural values between generations: the dying mother (usually) instructing and advising children on the path to salvation and heavenly reunions. They were a popular and influential form of women’s discourse that distilled the ideologies of the religious establishment into practical and emotional lessons for lay persons, especially the young.

This collection draws together legacy texts written by colonial American women and girls: five mother’s legacy books and two legacies by children, organized here chronologically. These legacies were writ­ten in anticipation of dying, making awareness of death central to the …

Increase Mather: The Foremost American Puritan, Kenneth B. Murdock

Zea E-Books in American Studies

The classic biography of preeminent colonial Massachusetts minister and President of Harvard College, Increase Mather (1639-1723). This is the work that re-started Puritan studies in America.

“A book which will be indispensable to students of early American history.” —Times Literary Supplement

“It is a book to welcome and appreciate.” —American Historical Review

“The available sources have been used carefully, and the story is told with great literary skill.” —The Sewanee Review

“[Murdock’s book] opened the sluice gates to powerful streams of scholarship that in the next two decades revised our understanding of American Puritanism.” —Philip F. Gura, in A Concise …

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 …

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, …