DOCSLIB.ORG

Cotton Mather's Obsession

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Cotton Mather's Obsession THE THREE JEWISH CHILDREN AT BERLIN: COTTON MATHER'S OBSESSION BY LINDA MUNK Toronto Yea, who knowes what Use the Lord may make of such an Essay? Cotton Mather, The Faith of the Fathers In February 1704, Samuel Sewall, minister of the Second Church of Boston and an avid eschato10gist, recorded in his diary Cotton Mather's "unsuccessful attempt to convert to Christianity a Boston Jewish merchant, one of the Frazon brothers - evidently by some jugglery with holy texts." According to Sewall: '''The forgery was so plainly detected that Mr. C.M. confest it, after which Mr. Frasier [Frazon] would never be persuaded to hear any more of Xianity."'l The historian Lee M. Friedman remarks: "The ambition to be the means of converting a Jew to Christianity was so near an obsession on the part of Cotton Mather that it is easily possible to understand how he overstepped the bounds of propriety when one realizes his Puritan viewpoint." From Mather's millennial point of view, "to be the means of converting a Jew was not merely a matter of personal glory, but another step accelerating the establishment on earth of the Kingdom of God."2 Born on February 12, 1663, Cotton Mather was the first of nine children of Increase Mather and Maria, daughter of the great John Cotton. It seems that "young Cotton had begun to pray as soon as he could speak. His father began to suspect that this gifted child was one of the happy few (a tiny fraction of the elected saints) who are I L. Huhner, "The Jews of New England (Other than Rhode Island) Prior to 1800," Publications of the American Jewish Historical Society II (1903), p. 79, n. 3. 2 L.M. Friedman, "Cotton Mather's Ambition," in Jewish Pioneers and Patriots (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1942), p. 98. This chapter of Friedman's monograph is a revision of an essay that appeared in 1918: "Cotton Mather and the Jews," Publications of the American Jewish Historical Society 26 (1918), pp. 201-211. Huhner (1903), p. 79 n. 272 MUNK given a saving faith and a virtuous character in their very infancy."3 By the time Cotton was twelve, "his proficiency in Latin was so good that while listening to the Sabbath sermon, which was delivered in English, he could take notes on it in Latin." He also "read Greek capa­ bly." By the age of fourteen, he could write in Hebrew. At fifteen the prodigy and visible saint graduated from Harvard College, "hav­ ing consumed enormous numbers of books in most of the arts and sciences known to seventeenth-century scholars."4 Some of those books were out of date; his Harvard thesis of 1678 pleads a lost cause: "An Puncta Hebraica sunt Originis Divinae. Affirmat Respondens Cot­ tonus Matherus."5 At eighteen he "preached so effectively in Grandfather Cotton's First Church in Boston that some auditors declared them­ selves hardly able to forbear crying out aloud during the sermon."6 He died on February 13, 1728, a day after his sixty-fifth birthday. "In every church [we read in Perry Miller's The New England Mind] there were discourses on Cotton Mather, three of which were printed." Benjamin Colman described him as '''the first Minister in the Town, the first in Age, Gifts and in Grace.' From the beginning of the coun­ try to this very day, no leader of these churches amassed so great a trea­ sure of learning 'and made so much use of it, to a variety of pious Intentions, as this our Rev. Brother and Father, Dr. Cotton Mather."'7 The focus of this essay is Mather's conversionism - his pious intention, or obsession, to convert Jews. Christ's return to earth was imminent, Mather believed; the true Church, true Israel, must prepare itself for the bridegroom, the thief who comes in the night, and Mather intended to expedite his com­ ing. Unregenerate children among the Puritan elect must be saved; otherwise, like Papists, Turks, and other heretics, they would perish in the "tremendous Conflagration, which is to precede the New Heavens and the New Earth."s As for the "infidel" Jews, at Christ's 3 D. Levin, Cotton Mather: TIe Young Life if the Lord's Remembrancer, 1663-1703 (Cambridge Mass., 1978), p. 10. 4 R. Middlekauff, TIe Jl,fathers: TIree Generations if Puritan Intellectuals, 1596--1728 (New York, 1971), pp. 194-95. , D. de Sola Pool, "Hebrew Learning among the Puritans of New England Prior to 1700," Publications if the American Jewish Historical Society XX (1911), pp. 66, 80. 6 Levin, (1978), p. 62. 7 P. Miller, TIe New England Mind: From Colony to Province (Cambridge Mass., 1954), p. 482. 8 Cotton Mather, letter to Gordon Saltonstall, August 3, 1724, Diary, II, p. 804. First published in 1911-1912 in 2 Volumes by the Massachusetts Historical Society, .
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Primary Source #3 From: the Diary of Samuel Sewall, 1674-1729
    Primary Source #3 From: The Diary of Samuel Sewall, 1674-1729 (Selected excerpts from Collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society, Vol. 5, Series 5, 1878, pages 358 - 464.) April 11th 1692. Went to Salem, where, in the Meeting-house, the persons accused of Witchcraft were examined; was a very great Assembly; ëtwas awfull to see how the afflicted persons were agitated. Mr. Noyes prayíd at the beginning, and Mr. Higginson concluded. [In the margin], VÊ, VÊ, VÊ, Witchcraft. … July 30, 1692. Mrs. Cary makes her escape out of Cambridge ñPrison, who was Committed for Witchcraft. … Augt. 19th 1692. … This day [in the margin, Dolefull! Witchcraft] George Burrough, John Willard, Jno Procter, Martha Carrier and George Jacobs were executed at Salem, a very great number of Spectators being present. Mr. Cotton Mather was there, Mr. Sims, Hale, Noyes, Chiever, &c. All of them said they were innocent, Carrier and all. Mr. Mather says they all died by a Righteous Sentence. Mr. Burrough by his Speech, Prayer, protestation of his Innocence, did much move unthinking persons, which occasions their speaking hardly concerning his being executed. Augt. 25. Fast at the old [First] Church, respecting the Witchcraft, Drought, &c. Monday, Sept. 19, 1692. About noon, at Salem, Giles Corey was pressíd to death for standing Mute; much pains was used with him two days, one after another, by the Court and Capt. Gardner of Nantucket who had been of his acquaintance: but all in vain. Sept. 20. Now I hear from Salem that about 18 years agoe, he was suspected to have stampd and pressíd a man to death, but was cleared.
    [Show full text]
  • The Literature of .Witchcraft in New England. by Justin Winsor
    1895.] Literature of Witchcraft in Neio England. 351 THE LITERATURE OF .WITCHCRAFT IN NEW ENGLAND. BY JUSTIN WINSOR. THE sporadic and epidemic manifestations of .witchcraft during the seventeenth century in New England were bnt symptoms of a belief in satanic agencies, world-wide and pervading all ages. As a psychological symptom, it has created a large number of treatises, learned or emotional, some confidently adhering to the belief, others corrective or sternly critical. Lecky, who has touched the subject in his History of Rationalism, gives high praise to the learn- ing and ability of Maury's Histoire de la Magie (Paris, 1860). The retrospections of the Commentaries of Black- stone, the records (1661) of the Tryal of Witches at the Assizes for the County of Suffolk, March, 1664, before Sir Matthew Hale (London, 1682), (which Cotton Mather summarized in his Wonders of the Invisible World), and T. Glanvil's Sadducismus triumphans, or full and plain evidence concerning witches and apparitions (London, 1681,)—a book on which the Mathers feasted—show how thoroughly perverse public opinion was in England in tl^e days when colonial New England looked thither for guid- ance. The commonness of the frenzy is. shown in such books as W. H. D. Adams's Historical sketches of magic and loitehcraft in England and Scotland (London, 1889). Michael Dalton's Country Justice (1619, etc.,) was the authority for the English practice in such trials. Dr. Haven, in his Eeport to the American Antiquarian Society (April 24, 1874), says of Dalton's book : "The tests, the manner of examination, the nature of the evidence, the 25 352 American Antiquarian Soeiety.
    [Show full text]
  • The Racial Politics of Resurrection in the Eighteenth- Century Atlantic World
    christopher trigg Nanyang Technological University, Singapore The Racial Politics of Resurrection in the Eighteenth- Century Atlantic World Abstract: This essay examines the impact of the eighteenth century’s developing rheto- ric of racial difference on Protestant attitudes toward the religious salvation of Afri- cans across the Atlantic world. As English colonies passed legislation that widened the legal and social gap between blacks and whites, missionaries and theologians called for more robust and wide- ranging efforts to evangelize African men and women. I show how speculation into the fate of bodies of color in the afterlife helped some Protestant authors navigate this apparently contradictory situation. Reading the work of two Massachusetts puritans (Samuel Sewall and Cotton Mather), and one Connecticut Anglican associated with the English Society for the Propagation of the Gospel (John Beach), I demonstrate that the fine details of these writers’ eschatologi- cal and millennial schemes often belied their overt insistence that ethnic distinctions would be entirely transcended in the world to come. Each suggested, in his own way, that it was impossible to imagine that a resurrected body could be black, thereby underlining the subordinate status of Christians of color during mortal life. Keywords: resurrection, afterlife, millennialism, religious conversion, African Americans, slavery, Cotton Mather, Samuel Sewall On April 3, 1711, Samuel Sewall had dinner with his fellow justices of the Massachusetts Superior Court. He noted in his diary that the com- pany “[s]pake much of Negroes” that day (2: 305). In the course of their dis- cussion, Sewall raised the problem of whether Africans “should be white after the Resurrection,” prompting a vigorous debate at the table.
    [Show full text]
  • Perjurium Maleficis: the Great Salem Scapegoat
    Perjurium Maleficis: The Great Salem Scapegoat by Alec Head The Salem Witch Trials, often heralded as a sign of a religious community delving too deep into superstition, were hardly so simple. While certainly influenced by religion, the trials drew upon numerous outside elements. Though accusations were supposedly based in a firm setting of religious tradition, an analysis of individual stories—such as those of Rebecca Nurse, John Alden, and George Burroughs—shows that the accused were often targeted based on a combination of either fitting the existing image of witches, personal feuds, or prior reputations. The Puritans of Salem considered themselves to be “God’s chosen people,” building a new land, a heaven on earth.1 As with many endeavors in the New World, the Puritans faced innumerable struggles and hardships; their path would never be an easy one. However, rather than accepting their hurdles through a secular perspective, the Puritans viewed matters through a theological lens to explain their difficulties. While other, non-Puritan colonies faced similar challenges, the Puritans took the unique stance that they lived in a “world of wonders,” in which God and Satan had hands in the daily lives of humanity.2 In effect, this led to desperate—eventually deadly— searches for scapegoats. Upon his arrival in Salem, Reverend Samuel Parris publicly insisted that the hardships were neither by chance nor mere human hand. After all, if they were God’s chosen people, any opposition must have been instigated by the devil.3 Satan would not simply content himself with individual attacks. Rather, Parris insisted, grand conspiracies were formed by diabolical forces to destroy all that the Puritans built.
    [Show full text]
  • Cotton Mathers's Wonders of the Invisible World: an Authoritative Edition
    Georgia State University ScholarWorks @ Georgia State University English Dissertations Department of English 1-12-2005 Cotton Mathers's Wonders of the Invisible World: An Authoritative Edition Paul Melvin Wise Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.gsu.edu/english_diss Recommended Citation Wise, Paul Melvin, "Cotton Mathers's Wonders of the Invisible World: An Authoritative Edition." Dissertation, Georgia State University, 2005. https://scholarworks.gsu.edu/english_diss/5 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Department of English at ScholarWorks @ Georgia State University. It has been accepted for inclusion in English Dissertations by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks @ Georgia State University. For more information, please contact [email protected]. COTTON MATHER’S WONDERS OF THE INVISIBLE WORLD: AN AUTHORITATIVE EDITION by PAUL M. WISE Under the direction of Reiner Smolinski ABSTRACT In Wonders of the Invisible World, Cotton Mather applies both his views on witchcraft and his millennial calculations to events at Salem in 1692. Although this infamous treatise served as the official chronicle and apologia of the 1692 witch trials, and excerpts from Wonders of the Invisible World are widely anthologized, no annotated critical edition of the entire work has appeared since the nineteenth century. This present edition seeks to remedy this lacuna in modern scholarship, presenting Mather’s seventeenth-century text next to an integrated theory of the natural causes of the Salem witch panic. The likely causes of Salem’s bewitchment, viewed alongside Mather’s implausible explanations, expose his disingenuousness in writing about Salem. Chapter one of my introduction posits the probability that a group of conspirators, led by the Rev.
    [Show full text]
  • Cotton Mather
    PEOPLE MENTIONED OR ALMOST MENTIONED IN CAPE COD: THE REVEREND COTTON MATHER COTTON MATHER CAPE COD: The Harbor of Provincetown —which, as well as the greater part of the Bay, and a wide expanse of ocean, we overlooked from our perch— is deservedly famous. It opens to the south, is free from rocks, and is never frozen over. It is said that the only ice seen in it drifts in sometimes from Barnstable or Plymouth. Dwight remarks that “The storms which prevail on the American coast generally come from the east; and there is no other harbor on a windward shore within two hundred miles.” J.D. Graham, who GRAHAM has made a very minute and thorough survey of this harbor and the adjacent waters, states that “its capacity, depth of water, excellent anchorage, and the complete shelter it affords from all winds, combine to render it one of the most valuable ship harbors on our coast.” It is the harbor of the Cape and of the fishermen of Massachusetts generally. It was known to navigators several years at least before the settlement of Plymouth. In Captain John Smith’s map of New England, dated 1614, it bears the name of JOHN SMITH Milford Haven, and Massachusetts Bay that of Stuard’s Bay. His Highness, Prince Charles, changed the name of Cape Cod to Cape James; but even princes have not always power to change a name for the worse, and as Cotton Mather said, Cape Cod is “a name which I suppose it will never lose till shoals of codfish be seen swimming on its highest hills.” REVEREND COTTON MATHER HDT WHAT? INDEX THE PEOPLE OF CAPE COD: COTTON MATHER “I was emptying the Cistern of Nature, and making Water at the Wall.
    [Show full text]
  • Cotton Mather - Poems
    Classic Poetry Series Cotton Mather - poems - Publication Date: 2012 Publisher: Poemhunter.com - The World's Poetry Archive Cotton Mather(12 February 1663 – 13 February 1728) Cotton Mather, FRS was a socially and politically influential New England Puritan minister, prolific author and pamphleteer; he is often remembered for his role in the Salem witch trials. He was the son of Increase Mather, and grandson of both John Cotton and Richard Mather, all also prominent Puritan ministers. <b>Biography</b> Mather was named after his maternal grandfather, John Cotton. He attended Boston Latin School, where his name was posthumously added to its Hall of Fame, and graduated from Harvard in 1678 at age 15. After completing his post- graduate work, he joined his father as assistant pastor of Boston's original North Church. In 1685 Mather assumed full responsibilities as pastor at the Church. Cotton Mather wrote more than 450 books and pamphlets, and his ubiquitous literary works made him one of the most influential religious leaders in America. Mather set the moral tone in the colonies, and sounded the call for second- and third-generation Puritans, whose parents had left England for the New England colonies of North America, to return to the theological roots of Puritanism. The most important of these, Magnalia Christi Americana (1702), comprises seven distinct books, many of which depict biographical and historical narratives to which later American writers, such as Nathaniel Hawthorne, Elizabeth Drew Stoddard, and Harriet Beecher Stowe, would look in describing the cultural significance of New England for later generations after the American Revolution.
    [Show full text]
  • Cotton Mather Reading Comprehension Name ______
    Cotton Mather Reading Comprehension Name ______________ Cotton Mather was a Puritan minister who was well-known for his indirect role in the Salem Witch Trials. He was born on February 12, 1663, to a family of New England Puritan ministers. He attended Harvard University at the young age of 12, but when he received his Master of Arts degree at age 18, he realized he wanted to follow in his family's footsteps and join the clergy. He preached his first sermon in 1680, and was ordained as a minister in 1685. From then on, Mather served in Boston’s North Church for 40 years. Mather was known for his progressive views on medicine, which was a heavily contested subject at the time. Mather supported vaccinations for smallpox - a topic which was very controversial - and vaccinated his son, who almost died from the procedure. At the time, vaccinations were very uncommon and feared by many, so Mather's decision to vocally support it was striking for his time period. Mather also published over 400 works throughout his lifetime, on subjects ranging from smallpox inoculation to witchcraft. His work titled "Curiosa Americana" demonstrated his abilities as a scientist, and helped him get elected to the Royal Society of London. While Mather’s medical views were ahead of his time, his actions regarding witchcraft were less progressive. In 1684, Mather published a book titled "Remarkable Provinces," a book recounting his experience with possessed children in Boston's Goodwin family. In the book, Mather outlined symptoms of clinical hysteria and related the children's possession to witchcraft.
    [Show full text]
  • A Pamphlet War in Boston, 1707, Cotton Mather, Gov. Joseph Dudley
    National Humanities Center Resource Toolbox Becoming American: The British Atlantic Colonies, 1690-1763 NYPL Is the Governor NYPL Corrupt? A Pamphlet War in Boston 1707 A long-lived and bitter power struggle between the old-guard Puritan leaders of the Massa- chusetts Bay colony ⎯ including the reverends Increase and Cotton Mather ⎯ and the royal governor Joseph Dudley, an American-born Tory appointed to impose more stringent control over the colony, exploded during the harsh years of Queen Anne’s War (1703-1713). Accusing Dudley of profiting from illegal trade with the French and Indian enemies, and of failing to negotiate the return of captives or provide adequately for the colony’s defense, Dudley’s opponents sent a recall petition (A Rev. Cotton Mather Memorial) to the Queen. Dudley soon published Gov. Joseph Dudley his confident self-defense (A Modest Enquiry). “the very scene Dudley was not recalled and remained in power “needs no other Reply of Arbitrary Power” in 1715, when he was replaced after Queen but Laughter” Anne’s death. REV. COTTON MATHER GOV. JOSEPH DUDLEY A Memorial of the Present A Modest Enquiry into the Grounds Deplorable State of New-England, and Occasions of a Late Pamphlet With the many Disdvantages it lies under, entitled, A Memorial of the Present by the Mal-Administration of their Present Governour, Deplorable State of New-England Joseph Dudley, Esq. and his Son Paul, &c. ______ 1707 [excerpts] ______ ______ 1707 [excerpts] ______ The Inhabitants of New-England had for many A Pamphlet called The Memorial of the Present Years before the Late Happy Revolution1 Enjoy’d Deplorable State of NEW England, having been the Liberty and Property of as Free and Easy a received in Town with various Opinions, according to Charter as a People could Desire; and this too, the different Interests or capacities of its Readers, with as much Satisfaction and Curiosity led me to look into it .
    [Show full text]
  • Salem Witch Trials1
    1 the institution), Brattle had interests in science and mathematics Salem Witch Trials as well as commerce. He was liberal in his political and religious beliefs and opposed Puritan orthodoxy. The second viewpoint The Salem witchcraft trials were one of the most infamous provided here is taken from a letter Brattle wrote to an unknown episodes in American colonial history. In early 1692 some children English clergyman in which he attacks the proceedings used in the in Salem, a village in Massachusetts close to Boston, accused three Salem witch trials, especially the “specter” or supernatural women of bewitching them. Charges and countercharges followed, evidence. The letter was not published in Brattle’s day, but is and in June of that year witchcraft trials were authorized by the believed by historians to have been privately circulated, allowing colonial governor, William Phips. Over the next few months the Brattle to discreetly make his views of the witchcraft proceedings special court appointed by Phips tried, convicted, and executed known. Governor William Phips suspended the witchcraft trials in nineteen people of witchcraft in the largest such proceedings in October 1692. In all several hundred people were accused of American history (one other person was tortured to death after witchcraft, fifty-five confessed, and twenty were killed. refusing to enter a plea of guilty or not guilty). Amid growing criticism and doubts over the witch trials, Phips turned to Cotton Mather, Boston’s leading minister and the author of several books A Defense of the Salem Witch Trials (1692) and sermons on witchcraft, to defend the Salem proceedings.
    [Show full text]
  • Inquiry – Salem Witch Trials
    Inquiry – Salem Witch Trials Hook Discussion Question: To what extent does the culture in which we operate dictate or determine how we think or act? (Discussion must touch on socially acceptable behaviors, groupthink, etc) Hook Visual: Presentation formula Previous Unit: days or weeks into the course This Unit: Repetitive mini lecture (3-5 minutes) interwoven with examination of relevant documents. Next Unit: Colonial America Post-Lesson Discussion prompts 1. Conformity v. individuality…can you really be an individual in Puritan society? 2. Who or what was to blame for the Salem Witch Trials? 3. To what extend did puritan conformity limit/restrict the choices made by individuals? 4. Groupthink 5. How might economic concerns have contributed to the witch crisis? 6. To what extent does how we view the world influence or determine how we interpret evidence, events, etc. 7. Why might women have been the more likely than men to be the one’s caught up in the fervor of accusations? Possible answers: Women were viewed by Puritans as being spiritually weaker, and therefore more susceptible to demonic possession. Men were accused too, such as establishment figures (Burroughs was a former minister of Salem) DOCUMENT A From: John Winthrop; Puritan lawyer and founder of Massachusetts Bay Colony Date/Setting/Background: “City On A Hill” written to describe Puritan culture. We must delight in each other; make other’s conditions our own; rejoice together, mourn together, labor and suffer together, always having before our eyes our Consider these questions: commission and community in the work, as members of the same body.
    [Show full text]
  • The Tale of Robert Calef - Loudoun County CPS
    The tale of Robert Calef - Loudoun County CPS When any man has moral courage enough to speak plainly against any vices, follies, or superstitions surrounding him, he must not only be a bold man, but he does regardless for the cost;” These are the immensely important words of Roger Calef, a resident of Boston, Massachusetts and witness to the Salem witch hysteria in the 1600′s. He wrote critically of the Witch Trials in “More Wonders of the Invisible World”. Additionally, he was very critical of the role of Cotton Mather during the witch trials. Cotton Mather, a prominent minister in the area, was a strong proponent of the trials. Roger Calef was going against the grain with his criticism but yet he still spoke out. Roger Calef and his ideas were not very popular at the time and heavily criticized. Today in modern society, at least in the west, we do not believe in witches. However, during the 1600′s it was a widespread belief. The reader must understand this to appreciate the courage of Roger Calef, this along with the fact that he was a merchant not a trained minister like Cotton. Mr. Calef had beliefs that were assuredly against the norm. He was able to see the fallacies of the trial while Cotton and the majority of others could not. This is one of the more important facts concerning Roger Calef, he was a merchant not a theologian but yet his arguments against the trials were masterfully stated. His book was burned by the Mather and he had difficulty in getting it published.
    [Show full text]