Persecution, Persistence, and Piety: The Literature of the Puritans

It can be difficult, at times, to distinguish philosophy from religion. Naturally, philosophy is based on empirical observation, facts, and evidence; religion, conversely, relies on faith and trust to build its convictions. Ideas stem from research and from logical thought, while a dogma might emerge from a vision or intuition. Despite their numerous incongruities, there is something that both institutions have always shared: martyrs. Which ideological establishment has historically seen more martyrs is hard to say.

In the 1600s, Europe had plenty of both. With constant civil war, rampant reform, indecisive leaders, and violent xenophobia, religion and philosophy were the two havens most vehemently sought by those looking to bring an end to the madness. New churches were springing up out of the ashes, as people began to claim that their philosophy, mixed with the old religion, would make for a society envied throughout the world for its order and righteousness.

One such philosophy, called Puritanism, held that the problem with Europe was humans, that they had strayed too far from the principles set in the earliest days of Christianity and were now being punished. The cure, said the philosophy, was to reform the church, forcing it back down to its roots and "purifying" it to focus more fully on God and his commands. This philosophy, which later transformed into a fully-fledged religious sect, created a society.

Outcasts from the moment of their conception, the Puritans embraced a radical conservatism that eventually drew them from their unclean fatherland, to carve a fresh community out of the barren rocks overseas. Having built a society based on intellectually-begotten reform, the Puritans cherished the literary arts as an integral part of their society, and along with producing marvelously talented writers like Jonathan Edwards, Edward Taylor, Cotton Mather, and Anne Bradstreet, sparked a powerful shift in literary culture as well. Puritan writers, faced with brutal religious persecution in Europe, came to America and began wielding a new deeply religious and highly conservative way of writing.

Born in a time ravaged by war and hate, the Puritans' formative years were full of torment and abuse. Their homeland was shredded by a war of ideas, their leaders threw tantrums over the distribution of power, and religion became simultaneously the most important and the most dangerous part of everyone's lives.

The Protestant reformation had 'officially' ended, producing an era in which religion was treated as a political, not spiritual, entity, sparking riots, revolts, mob violence, and blatant discrimination. Subsequently, religious persecution in Europe led to a distrust of established society, deeper tenacity to religious doctrine, and ultimately a migration to America.

The constantly fluxuating religious tastes of erratic monarchs created unrivaled social tension among the various religious sects of Europe. Religions were commonly nationalized within secular boundaries, creating natural points of conflict along state lines, and obvious difficulties when entire nations were forced to convert with a change in regime.

Though royal titles were commonly passed, like religion, through family lines, some religious families, like the many children of Henry VIII, were raised sporadically and with varying religious ideals. Thus, when leadership changed hands, sometimes local religion was affected as well (Miller 2-13).

European monarchs, often inbred and not entirely sane, pushed their religious zealously to levels untouched since the early days of Christianity in Ancient Rome. Unspeakable horrors befell those unfortunate souls who refused to convert with the changing social tides. Religious nonconformists were burned, hanged, crucified, whipped, crushed, drowned, stoned, and publicly mutilated for their crimes, only to have their religion sanctioned as the next ruler came to power (Dr. Meg Gorzyski).

Though England, and eventually other nations in Europe, officially outlawed religious persecution in the 1620's, the majority of organized religions still had little tolerance for nonconformist sects like the Puritans, who practiced an offshoot of Protestantism. The two religions most frequently swapped and scrambled in Europe were Protestantism and Catholicism. Eventually, religious preferences were extremely varied among communities, and those who clung to their religion from the start found themselves at odds with those who re-labeled themselves with each passing trend (Bercovitch 125).

Even priests, who were frequently pressured and coerced into preaching contrary to their true beliefs, were urged, through Protestant propaganda, to preach "not for fear of the law... nor for fashion sake... nor for ostentation sake, but always and only to deliver a man from hell" (Heimert 21). This fear that of religion had become fashionable and superficial led to a redefinition of the meaning of religion and the emergence of new religious sects.

The Puritans were an offshoot of generic Protestantism whose main mission was to 'purify' the church and return to the fundamentals of Christian doctrine. The Puritans, like many other sects, were liberally scorned and punished for their nonconformity to local religious custom, which by the 1620's was rumored to vary from town to town. Then as now, Puritan ethics were known as stuffy and overly conservative, and were a point of frequent ridicule.

Unbelievably, religious persecution was sometimes rationalized by Puritan clergy as necessary to the spiritual growth process: "To suffer imprisonment and disgraces for good causes, this is a good work" (Heimert 19). The Puritans believed that the divine courage that accompanied martyrdom and degradation in the name of religion was extremely virtuous, and held fast to their practices despite constant maltreatment.

Manipulated by governments and religious officials, spirituality was not a personal choice, but a political obligation, and entire communities found themselves faced with the choice between conversion and death. Just as Europe seemed ready to explode with self-hate, an unforeseen opportunity emerged in the West: the New World was discovered, and even the keenest of tensions left-over from the Protestant Reformation began to ease. The Puritans took advantage of this timely opportunity, and fled to America to build new churches and a new society (Miller 14).

Though the primary goal for Puritans migrating to America in the mid-1600's was an escape from religious persecution, Puritan propaganda reveals many other motivations as well. As John Winthrop, who was governor of one of the earliest Puritan settlements, the Massachusetts Bay Colony, proclaimed in his personal letters: "It will be a service to the Church of great consequence to carry the Gospel into those parts of the world...and to raise a Bulwark against the kingdom of AnteChrist which the Jesuits labour to reare up in those parts" (Winthrop 309). Many Puritans were afraid that other religions might spread to the New World ahead of them, and create yet another hostile environment for Protestants.

The Puritans could thus justify running away from tribulations at home by rationalizing their migration to America as a service to God. Another encouraging school of thought which found popularity among Puritans was that God had uncovered the Americas for the Puritans, to show favor for their tenacity to the faith, and to reward them by providing a route of escape from their troubled surroundings.

Winthrop documented this viewpoint as well: "All other churches of Europe are brought to desolation, and our sins, for which the Lord begins already to frown upon us and to cut us short, do threaten evil times to be coming upon us, and who knows, but that God hath provided this place to be a refuge for many whom he means to save out of the general calamity, and seeing the Church hath no place left to fly into but the wilderness, what better work can there be, then to go and provide tabernacles and food for her against she comes thither" (Winthrop 310).

This belief denigrates people of all other religions as sinners and undeserving of God's compassion, and more or less exemplifies the sort of attitude that earned the Puritans their ridicule and notoriety. The Puritans' belief that the discovery of the Americas was meant to show God's favor for them alone may seem laughable from a modern perspective, but it was the Puritan way to attribute every happiness to God, and every suffering to the sins of mankind. A celebration of the discovery of America as a triumph of human exploration would essentially have been blasphemy.

Having seized the fresh opportunities available to them in America, the Puritans were faced with the challenge of building an entirely new community based solely upon their religion and inherited European customs. One of the first challenges the Puritans faced in building their new civilization was in deciding, now that they had free reign over their own public religious practices, which customs to accept and reject from traditional Protestantism. This perceived ethical duty of the Puritans led to extreme indecision and controversy, highlighted by such radical movements as the Great Awakening, led in part by essayist and preacher Jonathan Edwards, and the Salem Witch Trials, spearheaded by Cotton Mather.

Generally speaking, the Puritans accepted the essential policies of the Anglican church, but believed that as a social institution the church was in need of reform, and so established their new churches in present-day New England with an emphasis on the bare basics of their religion, devoid of the corrupt politics and flamboyant ceremonies so common in Europe (Marsden 27). Perhaps more of a social revolution than a religious awakening, "the Puritan project sometimes seemed nothing less than a wholesale revision of the values by which English men and women lived" (Heimert, 20). Always idealistic, many Puritans believed that their restructured society would become the ideal model for Europe, and that they would set a desired societal standard, ending conflicts in Europe, and inducing all of Europe to convert to Puritanism.

The Puritans migrated to the New World in search of refuge and tolerance, but were aching from the corruption, devastation, and blatant bigotry that rampaged ferociously through their homelands. The persecution they faced had been horrendous, pushing them, ironically, to hold tighter to their religion than ever before. This renewed sense of their goals, values, and spiritual beliefs echoes throughout their literature. Motifs of religion, politics, public service, and history dominated their subject matter, and writers like Jonathan Edwards, Cotton Mather, Edward Taylor, and Anne Bradstreet prevailed in their literary mainstream.

Jonathan Edwards, an essayist and clergyman, used his sweeping public influence to reach out to the people of his congregation through his fearsome sermons. In a society clinging fast to tradition and unity while spinning from the exhilaration of revolution and change, Jonathan Edwards was more than a clergyman: he was a crusader for conformity, rejecting any deviance from doctrinal tradition (Marsden 174). As his congregation buzzed from the excitement and novelty of their recent relocation and subsequent social transformation, Edwards, who flatly rejected the revolutionary ideas that were slowly cropping up, firmly asserted, through his sermons, that their God did not allow for open interpretation and flexibility of His laws (Davidson 67).

Many Puritans, with the belief that their God had sent them to the New World in a loving, paternal gesture, began to proliferate the idea that "any individual could earn God's grace through good works and adherence to Christian doctrine" (Tracy 23). As a preacher and devout supporter of old doctrine, Edwards believed that this new interpretation meant that people believed God to be growing lenient in his judgment of mankind, that he was somehow easing up on punishment for sinners (Reuben). Crafting his "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God," sermon in response to this fantastical ideological fad, Edwards called his people to be better Christians, and hold fast to the morals which were passed down to them from their forefathers.

In his sermon, which compared sinners to a helpless spider being dangled over a roaring flame, Edwards paints a picture of God as ferocious and destructive, and makes it clear that He calls for nothing less that the outright eradication of sin: "The God that holds you over the pit of hell, much as one holds a spider, or some loathsome insect over the fire, abhors you, and is dreadfully provoked: his wrath towards you burns like fire; he looks upon you as worthy of nothing else, but to be cast into the fire; he is of purer eyes than to bear to have you in his sight; you are ten thousand times more abominable in his eyes, than the most hateful venomous serpent is in ours" (Edwards).

Though his ferocious verbiage frightened his audience and provoked gasps of horror from everyone in attendance, his message was thoroughly appreciated by all. The Puritans, as was their way, continued to demonstrate an extreme devotion to their religion, discarding fledgling practices as the work of Satan (Calderwood).

Though Edwards posessed a unique view of Puritan beliefs and religious connections, he usually confined his writings to matters of morality and social attitude, rarely dipping into the political sector of Puritan life that was largely the domain of another prominent wordsmith, Cotton Mather. A theologian, politician, and prolific Puritan writer, Cotton Mather wrote controversially on all matters of Puritan life, interpreting the chaos of his time within the scope of Puritan morality.

Cotton Mather was a deeply spiritual and ferociously conservative man. He believed in the sovereignty of the church above all else and fought, at great personal and societal expense, to keep it as the center of society (University of Kentucky). An early supporter of the Salem Witch Trials, Cotton Mather helped sustain Salem's unfounded hostilities against itself with the sole agenda of making the church a more dominant force in the lives of its residents.

Though he was generally supported and revered for his impeccable writing talents and usual political influence, there was a definite suspicious quality to his character: "As the title of his [book] Wonders of the Invisible World implies, Mather believed there was a realm of supernatural beings, claimed to have experienced a visit from an angel when he was thirty, and wrote of confronting devils as well, saying on one occasion that he had physically prevented a devil from wrapping invisible manacles around a girl" (University of Kentucky). Using this supposed expertise in matters of religion as leverage, Mather proved to be a very influential figure in matters of political authority, and through his writings became one of the most trusted philosophers of his time.

Mather's work deviated from that of average Puritans in that his subject matter was often radical, belligerent, and unapologetic in nature, a severe departure from the tranquil works frequently celebrated by Puritans. Though the focus of his work was commonly societal betterment and beneficial social change, Mather's method of presenting his sentiments were often controversially received by the public. His prescriptions for social change were extremely dictatorial and direct, employing crass language and severe imagery to drive his points home (Miller 59). In his lengthy "Bonifacius, an Essay on the Good"Mather, after listing all the qualities a society must demonstrate to be considered "good," draws a rather hopeless conclusion concerning the ability of mankind to adhere to God's righteous codes: "And yet, when such societies have done all the Good they can and nothing but Good, and walk on in a more unspotted Brightness than that of the Moon in Heaven, let them look to be Maligned, and Libell'd; As, A Set of Scoundrels, who are Maintain'd by Lying, Serve God for Unrighteous Gain, and Ferret Whores for Subsistence; and are not more Unanimous against Immorality in their Informations, than for it in their Practice: Avoid no Sins in themselves, and will suffer none in any Body else. I suppose, they that Publish their Censures on the Manners of the Age will express this Malignity, because they have done so. Sirs, Add to your Faith, Courage, and be Arm'd for such Trials of it!" (Mather). Such graphic speculations and grave conclusions that Mather dared draw were both thrilling and frightening to the conservative Puritans, and were thus the subject of continuous controversy.

Cotton Mather's essays drove his personal convictions deep into the psyches of the Puritan community with fierce vocabulary, radical subject matter, and an eventual purpose of sparking social betterment throughout the community (Miller 151). Another Puritan author focused devoutly on social betterment was Edward Taylor, whose writings focused heavily on the daily lives of his fellow Puritans, showcasing how their good works and humble lives were pleasing to God.

Strangely contrasting with the images of Mather and Edwards, Taylor was neither outstandingly tenacious to inherited principles, nor menacingly combative and direct. Taylor's outstanding feature was his unabashed humility. As most of his writings are tinged with a flavor of public service, Taylor frequently challenged his countrymen to renew their faith in Christ, and strive, relentlessly, to improve themselves as men of religion, and as necessary fixtures in their community.

In his poem, "Our Insufficiency to Praise God Suitably for His Mercy," Taylor epitomizes the Puritan virtue of humility, laying out for his readers all of the various things they are failing to do to thank God for forgiving the debt of gratitude that mankind has built up and can never repay. Habitually religious and instructive, Taylor's writings are forcefully simple, obeying in content and form the precise prescriptions for piety which they unpretentiously proclaim. Simple and serene, Taylor's writings did, like Mather's, not allow room for resistance, but, unlike Mather's, were docile and agreeable enough to disallow any occasion of conceivable resistance anyway, which made them easy to swallow and widely read (Miller 186-197). In "Our Insufficiency," Taylor suggests that all people of the world, regardless of tongue, creed, and color, might come together and praise God in one great cacophony of mixed exultation:

"But had each pious man, as many Tongues
At singing all together then
The Praise that to the Lord belongs

As all these Atoms men?
Each man would sing a World of Praise, we guess,

Whose Tongues in number would be numberless" (Taylor).

Taken literally, Taylor insinuates that every man is fit to praise God and will have his prayers received and answered by God in the same manner as anyone else's, regardless of his "tongue" or nationality. This ideology was extremely radical for its time, considering that the Puritans did not accept people of every creed and ethnicity into their community. Keeping in mind that at their cores the Puritans were still very much Protestant, to suggest to a Puritan that he accept a Catholic or a Jew to join him in prayer is absolutely ludicrous. Though his ideas were contrary to popular thought, Taylor was not shunned for his convictions, but instead gained a rapt audience because he presented his notions with grace, optimism, inspiration, and, most importantly, with gentle suggestion in place of Mather's commands (Miller 298).

Taylor's works, though effective, rarely invoked any radical or emotional responses from the public, and were widely accepted as containing a number of well-composed thoughts and good solid sense (Miller 377). Ann Bradstreet, a rare woman among the ranks of the prolific Puritans, parallels Taylor in the sense that her accomplishments were generally flavored by her uncompromising sensibility and rationality, which clashed bitterly with the tumultuous historical background about which she frequently occasioned to write.

Anne Bradstreet, who harbored deep affections for English life and society despite her Puritan persuasions, wrote many poems with an emphasis on the glory and pain of "Old England." As an almost lone female in her field, Bradstreet had been blessed with parents who valued a female's education just as highly as a male's, and sent her to school to learn not only to write, but to reason just as logically and completely as any man of her era. Born and raised in England, Bradstreet did the majority of her writing in America after moving there with her husband. Falling instantly into step with the local Puritan customs and social intricacies, she soon adopted their conservative mode of writing as well, and produced some of the most remarkable Puritan poetry of the era. She was not at a loss for subject matter in the slightest, because the wars and revolutions in Europe had deeply disturbed her, and left her with a feeling of uncompromising melancholy best described through her anthropomorphic description of England in her poem "Dialogue Between Old England and New": "O pity me in this sad perturbation /My plundered towers, my houses devastation /My weeping virgins and my young men slain /My wealthy trading fall'n, my death of grain" (Piercy 83). The devastation wrought by her mother country upon itself created the tumultuous basis for large amounts of tortured prose, to be sure, but for its impact upon her Puritan sensibilities, it awakened in her a desire to start anew, and build, with the other Puritans, an internally infallible, tirelessly improving, spiritually secure, righteous society, with a spirit that could not be broken lest its ideas be shattered, and its roots of unity and justice thoroughly dug up. In other words, the Puritans wanted a society completely immune to the diseases across the ocean, and Anne Bradstreet, with her firsthand experience regarding the horrors still raging in Europe, provided a substantial voice advocating that end (Piercy 70-74).

The Puritans integrated their fears from the past, their spiritual beliefs, and their moral traditions into their writing. Though their best-known writers had varying roles in society, priests, politicians, philosophers, and even women, all focused on the same intrinsic Puritan ideals of societal improvement, moral purity, and of course, spirituality. The content of the Puritans' writings parallels their mechanical style of writing, which was expected to be unadorned, humble, and concerned heavily with spiritual virtue. The Puritan's plain, to-the-point style reflects their pious feelings of humility and reverence for God.

The Puritans strove for simplicity in word, deed, and thought, and their belief that God wished for them to be humble is clearly reflected through their writings. In pursuit of this ideal, they discouraged the use of florid language in both their speech and their literature, preferring instead short, direct verbiage. This style is known today as Puritan plain style. Used in reference to cultural staples other than literature including architecture, clothing design, speech, and carpentry, "The term plain style refers to a mode of expression characterized by its clarity, accessibility, straightforward simplicity, and lack of ornamentation" (Bercovitch 80). The reasoning behind the Puritans' use of plain style was to deflect earthly gain and acclaim from themselves, ensuring that any gratitude for their work would be expressed directly to God. Many Puritans believed that over-embellishing their work would reflect poorly on them, making them appear conceited: "Rejecting ornamental flourishes and superfluous decoration as evidence of sinful vanity, plain stylists worked to glorify God in their productions rather than show off their own artistry or claim any renown for themselves" (Bercovitch 84). Simply put, the goal of Puritan writers employing plain style was not to create lackluster literature, but instead to keep their writings humble and moderate, so as to show respect for God. As John Cotton, a Puritan Clergyman, put it: "God's altar needs not our polishings" (Cotton).

To say that Puritan writers kept creative language to a minimum is in no way meant to insinuate that theirs was a craft without artistry: "the restraint of plain-style writing...can be elegant, powerful, and persuasive in its very simplicity" (www.learner.org). The rationale, however, behind the common simplicity of Puritan literature was that extra energy expended on creating decorative materials, lavish ideas, and extravagant prose, was energy not expended on devoting oneself more fully to God. John Cotton himself, while clearly devoted to the notions that prescribe that writing should be kept free of extraneous embellishment, creates some beautiful prose while outlining, in the beginning of his book The Bay Psalm Book, precisely why he has translated the enclosed Psalms in simple language: "We have respected rather a plain translation, than to smooth our verses with the sweetness of any paraphrase, and so have attended Conscience rather than Elegance, fidelity rather than poetry, in translating the Hebrew words into English language, and David's poetry into English metre; that so we may sing in Sion the Lord's songs of praise according to his own will; until he take us from hence, and wipe away all our tears, and bid us enter into our master's joy to sing eternal Hallelujahs" (Cotton). Though Cotton does not directly distain florid writing, he clearly and tersely states his inclination against overly decorated prose, citing that, especially in the context of biblical translation, God's word will be more accurately conveyed without trifling with poetry, and the Lord, subsequently, will reward the Puritans for their strict preservation of His word. Interestingly enough, Cotton's wording is very stiff and direct up until the point where he begins discussing the spiritual reasoning behind his plain style, at which point his writing, while still faithfully plain, reads something more like a poem. Though this practice may seem vulgar in its lavishness considering the Puritan perspective, Cotton's use of figurative language is not without purpose: "When metaphors appear within plain-style texts, they usually derive from the Bible or refer to homely, everyday objects rather than classical allusions" (www.learner.org). Clearly, Cotton's usage of embellishment while glorifying heaven in this passage does not defy the norms of Puritan plain style, because his slight mechanical extravagance is meant to better convey the righteousness of God, and more accurately communicate the spiritual relevance of his plain style.

Though Puritan plain style is usually regarded as the form most favored by Puritan authors, "many Puritans used elaborate, highly ornate metaphorical language to convey their religious ideals" (www.learner.org). Though this practice was, admittedly, not accepted in Puritan society as readily as plain style was, many authors, like Edward Taylor and Anne Bradstreet, found success by making concessions to the plain style and forging their own literary paths.

Edward Taylor's poetry is replete with figurative devices that, when compared with plain style, seem thoroughly unconventional. Taylor's work includes metonymy, which occurs when an author substitutes the name of an object closely related to a word for the word itself; amplification, through which Taylor accentuates given ideas through repetition and exaggeration; metaphor, simple but effective comparison; paradox, through puns and contrasting images; and, perhaps most outrageously of all, metaphysical conceit, which consists of elaborate, often startling metaphors and associations meant to incite surprise and amusement. This last device appears frequently in Taylor's poem "Huswifery," in which Taylor compares spiritual things, like the soul, heaven, and the Holy Spirit, to earthly things, like looms, spindles, and yarn. The simple fact that many of these literary devices suggest an interest in the form, style, and reception of writing is radical to the Puritans, because, while it doesn't directly steal glory from God, it is unusual in that its purpose is not to glorify God directly (Hundley).

Anne Bradstreet, though she did not wield such a wide variety of outlandish mechanical tactics as did Taylor, focused more heavily in her writing on her personal experiences and on the worth of earthly things than was usually accepted in Puritan writing. Many of her poems reflect her dislike of Puritan traditions, namely Puritan attitudes toward women, and she exposed these criticisms through the uncommon devices of wit and satire. Questioning the submissive role of women in Puritan society, Bradstreet cleverly used the, now dead, Queen of England, as an example of changing attitudes toward women in the western world in her poem, "In Honor of That High and Mighty Princess:"

""Now say, have women worth? Or have they none?
Or had they some, but with our queen is't gone?
Nay Masculines, you have thus taxt us long,
But she, though dead, will vindicate our wrong,
Let such as say our Sex is void of Reason,
Know tis a Slander now, but once was Treason."

Using an unusually frank tone to address her community's easily swayed attitudes toward women, Bradstreet flatly discards the temperate, tranquil, peaceable sensibilities usually observed in Puritan literature, instead adopting a brasher, biting style, driving her points home with indestructible clarity (Lewis).

The Puritan writing style drives home their ethics, religion, and social doctrine through careful expression and conservatism with words and styles. Though some Puritan writers chose to replace the conventional plain style with their own artistic, figurative, and belligerent innovations, the messages, of ethical purity, social improvement, and spiritual virtue, are still clearly presented and highly valued.

Every aspect of Puritan writing, from the ingrained ethics to spiritual expressions, the political undertones to the religious proclamations, to the backgrounds of the authors themselves, echoes back to the roots of the Puritans, when their entire belief structure was no more than a revolutionary philosophy in a troubled land. The climate of that time, the fear and the passion, incited a migration to a new place, reformed ideals, and a novel literary tradition, which produced art, fervor, and unrestrained conviction of a caliber rarely seen before. The poets, priests, politicians, and occasional feminist reformers of this era exemplified the reform and discovery of their time through various works, all of which had an important message to convey to their community. Like magma from a volcano, the Puritans were created in chaos and fire, and fled their homelands in a violent, singular, exodus. Yet, after the lava cooled and the destruction had been repaired, they found the world cleansed, and the soil more fertile than ever before.

Works Cited:

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Cohen, C. God's Caress: The Psychology of the Puritan Religious Experience. New York: Harper Collins, 1986

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http://www.learner.org/amerpass/unit03/context_activ-5.html

Lewis, Jone Johnson. "Themes in the Poems of Anne Bradstreet." New Haven, NJ: Yale UP, 1988

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Mather, Cotton. Bonifacius. Boston: B. Green, 1710

Miller, Perry. The American Puritans: Their Prose and Poetry. New York: Anchor Books, 1956

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Piercy, Josephine K. Anne Bradstreet. New York: Twayne, 1965

Reuben, Paul P. "Chapter 2: Early American Literature: 1700-1800 - Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758)." PAL: Perspectives in American Literature- A Research and Reference Guide.

"Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God." Edwards, Jonathan. April 2006. http://www.jonathanedwards.com/sermons/Warnings/sinners.htm.

Tracy, Patricia. Jonathan Edwards, Pastor. New York: Hill and Wang, 1981

Winthrop, R.C. Life and Letters of John Winthrop. Boston : Ticknor and Fields, 1864 .

Works Consulted

Bremer, Francis,ed. Puritanism: Transatlantic Perspectives on a Seventeenth- Century Anglo-American Faith. Boston: Northeastern Univ. Press/Mass. Historical Society.

http://www.csustan.edu/english/reuben/pal/chap2/edwards.html

Gilmore, Michael T. Early American Literature: A Collection of Critical Essays. Englewood Cliffs, N.J. : Prentice-Hall, 1980.

Jones, James William.The Shattered Synthesis; New England Puritanism Before The Great Awakening. New Haven, Yale University Press, 1973. F7.J66

Morgan, Edmund Sears. Visible Saints; The History Of A Puritan Idea. New York: New York University Press, 1963.

http://www.puritansermons.com/poetry/taylor14.htm