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Perry Miller and the Puritans Perry Miller. The New England Mind: The Seventeenth Century. Cambridge, Mass. and London: Harvard University Press, 1982. xii + 491 pp. $18.50, paper, ISBN 978-0-674-61306-5. Perry Miller. The New England Mind: From Colony to Province. Cambridge, Mass. and London: Harvard University Press, 1998. ix + 485 pp. $18.50, paper, ISBN 978-0-674-61301-0. Reviewed by Don Duhadaway Published on H-Ideas (April, 2000) [Note: This review is part of the H-Ideas Ret‐ or C. Vann Woodward. The New England Mind has rospective Reviews series. This series reviews served as the paradigm for early New England books published during the twentieth century history for the last half century, and Miller's con‐ which have been deemed to be among the most tributions and influence, centered in The New important contributions to the feld of intellectual England Mind, have cast such an immense shad‐ history.] ow over admirer and critic alike that the colonial Perry Miller and the Puritans history of New England can justly be called "Miller country," even nearly forty years after his With the publication of his two-volume study death in 1963. of the American Puritans entitled The New Eng‐ land Mind, Perry Miller achieved immortality in Miller published the frst volume of his work, the historical profession. The New England Mind, The New England Mind: The Seventeenth Century along with other works such as Orthodoxy in in 1939. In it Miller emphasized coherence and Massachusetts(1933) and Jonathan Ed‐ unity as he concerned himself with "defining and wards(1949), established Miller as the Dean of classifying the principal concepts of the Puritan New England history, an accomplishment only mind in New England, of accounting for the ori‐ comparable to those of Frederick Jackson Turner gins, inter-relations, and significance of the ideas" H-Net Reviews (p. vii). Most of his discussion is centered on the adoption of the covenant of grace, the social years prior to 1660, and Miller found that "the covenant, and the church covenant, the partici‐ first three generations in New England paid al‐ pants agreed to a system of mutual obligations most unbroken allegiance to a unified body of and responsibilities. Even God chose voluntarily thought, and that individual differences among to limit Himself in the Covenant of Grace: in ex‐ particular writers or theorists were merely minor change for faith God granted grace. Mankind was variations within a general frame" (p. vii) He took innately depraved and many were damned, but the "liberty of treating the whole literature as through the covenant system Puritans allowed though it were the product of a single intelli‐ free will to humans despite the doctrine of pre‐ gence," and intermingling quotations from vari‐ destination and an omnipotent, omniscient God. ous clergymen in making his point because "in Moreover, covenant theology with mutual obliga‐ most instances, it is a matter of complete indiffer‐ tions helped New England Puritans walk the fne ence or chance that a quotation comes from Cot‐ line between Arminianism and Antinomianism, ton instead of Hooker, from Winthrop instead of both of which they abhorred. Miller ended The Willard; all writers were in substantial agreement New England Mind: The Seventeenth Century with upon all the propositions which I am discussing in a statement of his belief that Puritanism had situ‐ this book" (pp. vii, ix). ated itself well for the future: "New England was In Miller's estimation, there existed an "equi‐ founded as a Puritan commonwealth and was in‐ librium of forces, emotional and intellectual, tended to be a holy and unique corner of the within the Puritan creed," and seventeenth-centu‐ world, but it went into the eighteenth century ry New England Puritanism contained both an in‐ well prepared in the terms of its own tradition to tense piety and "an indispensable intellectual ele‐ keep pace with the intellectual and emotional al‐ ment." In other words, "Puritan theorists sought terations of a new era, with both the emergence to unite in one harmonious system both science of an Age of Reason and the newer religious mood and religion, reason and faith," and they "endeav‐ that was to arise in the reaction against reason" ored to reconcile revelation with natural learning (p. 491). and so to combine in one systematic belief both Fourteen years and a stint in the military piety and the inherited body of knowledge" (p. passed before Miller published the second vol‐ 77). Miller argued that Puritans synthesized the ume, The New England Mind: From Colony to "Augustinian strain of piety" with the Renaissance Province in 1953. This second volume brings conception of reason to form a unified theological Miller's discussion of New England Puritanism and intellectual system that they imposed in New and history up to about 1730, and examines the England. Theirs was a thoughtful system, and effects of the passage of a century on the system their intellectual framework was constructed established by the original founders. Miller be‐ from a variety of influences, including European lieved that the story he told was illustrative: "I be‐ Protestantism, scholasticism, humanism, physical lieve profoundly that the story herein recounted science, and, most significantly, the "new" logic of is chiefly valuable for its representative quality: it Petrus Ramus which Miller believed tremendous‐ is a case history of the accommodation to the ly influential. Puritan thinkers used all these intel‐ American landscape of an imported and highly lectual tools to bolster their piety and their soci‐ articulated system of ideas. We have a chance to ety. see exactly how this process, which began the mo‐ New England Puritanism had at its center the ment the ships dropped anchor in Boston harbor, notion of voluntary contractualism. With the was driven by local influences, and yet was con‐ stantly diverted or stimulated by the influx of 2 H-Net Reviews ideas from Europe. What I should most like to Ministers were increasingly on the defensive. claim for this study is that it amounts to a sort of Largely at their behest, the Half-Way Covenant working model for American history" (p. viii). was adopted as a means of assuring the perpetua‐ Whereas the frst volume stressed unity and tion of church membership. They found, however, coherence, Miller's second installment explores that the measures, though enacted, were bitterly change and conflict. By the late 1650s, the Puritan divisive, and ministers found themselves in con‐ experiment in New England experienced signifi‐ flict with church members and some colleagues. cant challenges. Of the great founders only Moreover, ministers found their positions as‐ Richard Mather (father of Increase) remained. sailed as religious uniformity declined. Many New England Puritans were increasingly an iso‐ found themselves in churches whose members re‐ lated Protestant sect, particularly in light of the fused to grant them adequate wages. In short, a relative religious toleration adopted in England. decided "antiministerial sentiment" prevailed. By "New England had become, by remaining faithful the end of the seventeenth century, Puritan minis‐ to its radical dedication, a stronghold of reaction" ters themselves had split into at least three differ‐ (p. 9) Moreover, "New England was no longer a ent camps: those who favored retaining the tradi‐ reformation, it was an administration. It was no tional covenant religion, those who leaned to‐ longer battling that most of the populace should wards denying covenant theology and embracing be left out of church-fellowship, but was striving Presbyterianism, and those who had pronounced to keep church-fellowship alive" (p. 11). The New democratic tendencies. In the middle stood the England Way as envisioned by the original gener‐ Mathers, Increase and, most significantly, Cotton. ation was under assault by the 1660s. In the frst For Miller, Cotton Mather is a central fgure of his volume, Miller had observed that Puritan piety book. Mather appears again and again as leader was beginning to wane at the time when New of the smallpox inoculation movement, as propo‐ England was frst settled (p. 396). During the sec‐ nent of the "experimental philosophy" and as de‐ ond half of the seventeenth century, other factors fender of covenant theology. Cotton Mather has emerged to further erode the original vision of been almost as difficult to type-cast as Jonathan the city upon a hill. Trade emerged as an end unto Edwards, and Miller reveals his own ambiva‐ itself, not to serve God; younger generations in in‐ lence: "In a hundred respects, Mather is the most creasing numbers failed to meet the tests for intransigent and impervious mind of his period, church membership; old social hierarchies and not to say the most nauseous human being, yet in orders were upset; social vices such as drunken‐ others he is the most sensitive and perceptive, the ness and extramarital fornication became more clearest and most resolute" (p. 476). Mather strove prevalent, and the colonial status within the em‐ to retain the covenant system in the face of men pire changed. Ministers responded to the per‐ such as the extremely influential Solomon Stod‐ ceived erosion of religious values and mission dard (grandfather of Jonathan Edwards) who de‐ with the jeremiad, a new literary form that took nied covenant theology and embraced Presbyteri‐ aim at all the sin and strove to make sense of the anism, offering the Lord's Supper and baptism to changes in society. The jeremiad was a way of all but the most brazen sinners. In the process, "at "making intelligible order out of the transition one stroke he [Stoddard] cut his way through the from European to American experience" (p. 31); it maze of the covenants by identifying the church was, according to Miller, "purgation by incanta‐ not with a society of saints but with the town tion" (p.
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