Journeys to America

Prof. B. Harvey

SUMMARY OF PURITAN MENTALITY: TO BE READ IN CONJUNCTION WITH MARY ROWLANDSON 

For those of you wanting more Puritan theology, check out:

http://www.apuritansmind.com/WilliamPerkins/WilliamPerkinsChapter15.htm
 

Puritan theology was based on the ruthless logic of Calvin (predestination), the unavoidable paradoxes when something finite rubs against something infinite (i.e., because God is infinitely good and perfect, the smallest infraction of disobedience is, in effect, infinitely bad; once you are out of the zone of grace, your fallen mortal faculties infinitely remove you from God; infinite righteous wrath is just the obverse of the infinite rapture of being with God's being--see the Edward Taylor poem below), and what was known as the typological reading of the Bible, in which New Testament events are prefigured by Old Testament events (Christ's redemption of humankind is prefigured by Moses leading the Israelites) and in which the history of both Testaments become allegories of the soul's possibilities (God selects just the Israelites to be their God; this allegorically prefigures Christ's redemptive offer to just a FEW of the hoard of sinners). For the Puritans, God is absolutely sovereign; he does not choose to make you one of the elect because, at the beginning of time, he foresees that you will turn to Christ via faith. Your faith is not something you will into being, which then gives you a ticket to the Book of Life (the image comes from Revelations). God chooses from the beginning of time who will be able to have faith and who will not have faith and will remain reprobate.

The real difficulty in understanding the Puritans is not so much their theology (it is very logical). It is squaring the theology with certain social practices such as preaching and evangelicalism: why preach, why try to convert another, etc., if the minister has no agency in transforming a reprobate's heart towards Christ; or why oblige sinners to obey the Ten Commandments if they were destined to hell anyway. The not entirely satisfactory answer is that the Puritan minister would see himself as a tool of God; as a conduit for God's sovereign efficacy of grace. And as for the sinner: the best you could do was to hollow out the self, to abase yourself in absolute egoless abnegation, and await for God to fill out that chastened being with ecstatic grace.


"THE REFLEXION" BY EDWARD TAYLOR

Canticles 2:1 "I am the rose of Sharon."


Lord, art thou at the Table Head above
Meat, Med'cine, Sweetness, sparkling Beautys, to
Enamour Souls with Flaming Flakes of Love,
And not my Trencher, nor my Cup o'reflow?
Ben't I a bidden guest? Oh! sweat mine Eye:
O'reflow with Teares: Oh! draw thy fountains dry.

Shall I not smell thy sweet, oh! Sharons Rose?
Shall not mine Eye salute thy Beauty? Why?
Shall thy sweet leaves their Beautious sweets upclose?
As halfe ashamde my sight should on them ly?
Woe's me! For this my sighs shall be in grain,
Offer'd on Sorrows Altar for the same.

Had not my Soule's, thy Conduit, Pipes stopt bin
With mud, what Ravishment would'st thou.Convay?
Let Graces Golden Spade dig till the Spring
Of tears arise, and cleare this filth away.
Lord, let thy Spirit raise my sighings till
These Pipes my soule do with thy sweetness fill.

Earth once was Paradise of Heaven below,
Till inkefac'd sin had it with poyson stockt;
And Chast this Paradise away into
Heav'ns upmost Loft, and it in Glory Lockt.
But thou, sweet Lord, hast with thy golden Key
Unlockt the Doore, and made a golden day.

Once at thy Feast, I saw thee Pearle-like stand
'Tween Heaven and Earth, where Heavens Bright glory all
In streams fell on thee, as a floodgate and
Like Sun Beams through thee on the World to Fall.
Oh! Sugar sweet then! My Deare sweet Lord, I see
Saints Heaven-lost Happiness restor'd by thee.

Shall Heaven and Earth's bright Glory all up lie,
Like Sun Beams bundled in the sun in thee?
Dost thou sit Rose at Table Head, where I
Do sit, and Carv'st no morsell sweet for mee?
So much before, so little now! Sprindge, Lord,
Thy Rosie Leaves, and me their Glee afford.

Shall not thy Rose my Garden fresh, perfume?
Shall not thy Beauty my dull Heart assaile?
Shall not thy golden gleams run through this gloom?
Shall my black Velvet Mask thy fair Face Vaile?
Pass o're my Faults: shine forth, bright sun; arise!
Enthrone thy Rosy-selfe within mine Eyes.

 

REVIEW QUESTIONS FOR MARY ROWLANDSON 

1) What different ways does she/could she interpret her ordeal? 

a) Calamity just happens.  Why would this be an unsatisfactory explanation? 

b) "Hell-hound" heathens responsible.  Why is this explanation not entirely satisfactory?           

c) Punishment for sin:  has she sinned; what evidence does she offer?
d) Affliction as God's mercy: since you need to surrender yourself to God's will, yet cannot determine His will (God is unknowable), what psychological/ theological sense does it make to feel subjugated to the force/control of the Indians?

2) Do you sense that her personal feelings and Puritan rhetoric are competing to control her text?

a) Are there details about the Indians in excess of the religious message?
b) Would would happen if she explicitly acknowledged the inadequacy of Puritan stereotypes about the Indians? how do you account for what I called superfluous ethnographic or novelistic detail?     

c) Is she reintegrated into her community at the end? What do you make of her brooding about the Indians getting across the river?  What do you make of her insomnia and image of God's ever-wakeful eyes?

--can she stop thinking about God?

--has she seen the way God sees, as it were?

--is she prideful?

--does she simply keep awake out of fear of another late night attack?