Puritan American Writers

In the writings of Puritan Americans Cotton Mather, Anne Bradstreet, and Mary Rowlandson, we find detailed descriptions of experience which shine a light on the relationship between those details and the authors' belief in God and his will in the world. This study will examine that relationship, and will consider alternative explanations to the authors' religious interpretations.

In the poem "To My Dear and Loving Husband," Bradstreet employs her faith to move from an examination of the joy of her marriage to an appreciation of her belief that that marital happiness is but a sign and a beginning of what will be eternal bliss with him in Heaven;

Then while we live, in love let's so persever,

That when we live no more we may live ever (Bradstreet 97).

When Bradstreet writes "when we live no more," she is referring only to the earthly existence of her husband and herself. Her faith tells her that the love she is experiencing with her husband is a sign of God's love on earth, as well as a sign that the marriage is a blessing for which she is properly grateful.

Of course, a non-believer's interpretation might be that the marriage is not a sign of God's will in the world at all, but is merely the result of two human beings in a big and cold universe who are clinging to one another in order not to be alone. Such a view would also hold that one reason that love between humans is so sweet and poignant is that it takes place in a universe which is completely indifferent to su

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ble testimony. In Bradstreet, we find expressions of love--for husband, for God, for life on earth as well as eternal life in heaven--while in Mather we find pious justification for doing precisely what Jesus warned against--judging others at the risk of judging oneself. The Puritan belief that one is either saved or lost leads Mather to his extreme interpretation of the behavior of others, even while that behavior might be the result of the imagination of others. The social hysteria of the era created such harsh leaders as Mather, and the witch hunts which led to the deaths of innocent women. The hypocrisy of Mather is seen in "A Third Curiosity," in which he seems to be trying to cover himself if he is proven to be wrong in his efforts to root out and punish "witches": If a drop of Innocent Blood should be shed in the prosecution of the Witchcrafts among us, how unhappy are we! . . . The Mind of God in these matters is to be closely looked into, . . . that Satan deceive us not with his devices. . . . But on the other side, if the storm of justice do now fall only on the heads of those guilty Witches . . . , How Happy! (Mather 173). Of course, the question is, how does one determine if the women prosecuted for witchcraft

Category: Literature - P