Throughout the history of the church, there are pockets of time where a few prominent individuals influenced the lives of Christians and doctrine of Christianity. In the early church, one might consider Tertullian, Origen, and Irenaeus. Martin Luther, Ulrich Zwingli, and John Calvin, undoubtedly had the greatest influence on the modern church. The Puritan movement had its own unique and influential members but one group, on an admittedly smaller scale than the previous examples, hailed from the same family. Three generations of the Mather family interjected themselves in the first three generation of Puritans in Colonial New England. Richard, the patriarch, his son Increase, and Increase’s son Cotton all made their mark on the New England Puritan experience.

When many think of the beginnings of America, the Pilgrims landing on Plymouth Rock comes to mind. However, a permanent colony began thirteen years earlier at Jamestown in 1607 to propagate the Christian religion, make a profit, and discover a Northwest Passage. Over the next seventy years, thousands would venture to the New World, some from France, Spain, and England, but the dominant group in Colonial New England was the Puritans, so called for their desire to “purify” the Church of England. Although not wholly a group of separatists their desire was to establish colonies in the Americas that resembled a “city on a hill,” emblematic of true Christian community.

Unlike the pilgrims in the Plymouth Bay Colony, the typical Puritans in the Massachusetts Bay Colony consisted of educated and somewhat affluent people willing to maintain ties with England. The colony and many of its associated communities contained close, hard-working families and most all of them attended church every Sunday. Typically, the most influential person in these communities was the minister. He was always a man, above reproach, and likely attended Emmanuel College at Cambridge until the colonies founded Harvard College. The Mathers were no different serving in various capacities of clergy, and filling roles such as college president, author, scientist, ambassador, and intellectual.

For every learned man there was typically one person they could acknowledge as there mentor. One after another, these men passed along a spiritual heritage drawing on another man in ministry to enhance their experience in college and develop a strong cadre-like following.[i] For the Mather family, this heritage resided within the same family. Through various writings, sermons, diaries, and published works, the Mather family proves to be a prominent family in the early years of the New England colonies leaving their mark on doctrine, church politics, education, and community relations. While each are revealed as having the same purpose, specifically to champion the cause of Puritanism, Richard, Increase, and Cotton remain unique individuals who influenced various levels of the church, family, and society.

Three Generations

On May 23, 1635, Richard Mather (1596-1669) boarded a ship bound for New England. Fifteen years previous, a little over one hundred pilgrims had established the Plymouth Bay Colony but Mather’s destination was the larger Massachusetts Bay Colony where several settlements of Puritans existed. Similar to the tens of thousands that had and would make this same journey, Mather was a strong believer in the providence of God. Mather filled his trip journal with numerous remarks regarding God’s provision and times of worship. His July 30 Sabbath day entry states, “this day was a day of refreshing to us; not only because of preaching & prayers, which we enjoyed for ye good of o soules; but also by reason of abundance of foule.”[ii]

Richard Mather

 

Educated at Oxford, Mather entered the pulpit ministry at Toxeth, England and preached for several years until his suspension for non-conformity. Specifically, he refused to where the surplice, a liturgical garment worn in the Anglican Church. Herein describes a problem many Puritans had with the Church of England causing them to separate. There has been much debate whether the Pilgrims and Puritans were escaping persecution or separating from the Church of England. The answer is a mixture of both and Richard Mather is a perfect example. He wrote a series of arguments for separation from Old England to New with such language as “to remove from a corrupt Church to a purer” and “removal is necessary for the enjoyment of some of God’s ordinances for preaching of the Word.” [iii]

Accepting the pastorate at Dorchester in Massachusetts Bay Colony, his style of preaching spoke plainly to his congregation rather than using obscure phrases, difficult words, or Latin sentences.[iv] The distinction of writing the introduction to the Bay Psalm Book speaks highly of his reputation. However, his legacy in various church politics set a precedent for the next two generations. His writings on the New England Way, a precursor toward Congregationalism, formulated the basic doctrine of the Cambridge Platform,[v] but the Halfway Covenant became his main political struggle and one in which he and his son Increase would differ.

Increase Mather (1639-1723) was one of four preaching sons of Richard Mather, with his son Timothy the lone farmer. Under Richard’s leadership, Increase emerged as a leading voice among the generation of Puritans born in New England and educated at Harvard College. After a few years of study in England, he settled in the pulpit of the Second Church of Boston famously preaching jeremiads on issues ranging from King Phillips War to colonial politics. Salem Witch judge Samuel Sewell described him as “a powerful, creative leader,” a fitting description, but also one whose “leadership was always under challenge.”[vi]

Increase Mather

 

Increase’s leadership afforded him opportunities to serve as an ambassador of sorts for the New England colonies in charter negotiations with England and as President of Harvard College. His role as a leading and respected voice remained unchallenged for many years but the suspicion of witches in Salem would alter that standing. One of the most famous occurrences in Puritan New England and the inspiration for Arthur Miller’s The Crucible, was the Salem Witch Trials. It was this event, unlike any other, that linked Increase with the most famous Mather, his son Cotton.

Cotton Mather (1663-1728), just one generation before Great Awakening leaders such as Jonathan Edwards, John Wesley, and George Whitefield, holds a lineage that reads like a “Who’s Who” in New England Puritanism. In addition to his famous father and grandfather, his maternal grandfather was John Cotton, an influential Puritan minister in New England. Graduating Harvard at just sixteen, Cotton Mather led the third generation of New Englanders in upholding the Puritan ideals, mainly through his prolific writings. A true Renaissance man, he was a theologian, scientist, author, biographer, historian, and philosopher.

Cotton Mather

 

The most oft-referenced book of the Mathers is Magnalia Christi Americana, the magnum opus of Cotton Mather. It is a compilation of seven books dealing with everything from history of the colony, to acts of providence, to ecclesiastical matters. A prime example of Mather’s eloquence might be the introduction to book seven where he describes the church in the world as a silly poor maid surrounded by hungry wolves, lions, bears. This is a metaphor for the role the Mathers felt they played as protectors of the church and in particular Puritanism.[vii] The authorship on the title page, “by the Reverend and Learned Cotton Mather, D.D.F.R.S and Pastor of the North Church in Boston, New-England,” speaks volumes regarding the authority to which the work is written. It is this authority the Mathers invoked into nearly every aspect of Puritan society, and their impact ran deep.

Impacting the Church

It is difficult to consider that the denomination of John Cotton, the Mathers, and Jonathan Edwards has morphed into the ultra-liberal United Churches of Christ. Known as Congregationalism, its first name was the New England Way. While their certainly were Presbyterians, Quakers, and Catholics in New England, the dominate Puritan influence that were separating non-conformists believed churches should only consist of the elect.[viii] Congregationalism existed in England but the New England Way version prominently defined the denomination and one of its founding leaders was Richard Mather with son Increase furthering its cause. Increase declared in 1716 “that the Congregational Way … is the very same way that was established and practiced in the primitive times, according to the institution of Jesus Christ.”[ix]

The Cambridge Platform, heavily penned by Richard Mather with Cotton Mather’s grandfather and namesake, John Cotton, as its driving force, formally supported the Congregational Way. The basic purpose of the platform was to establish church polity, order, discipline, and a confession of faith but increased Presbyterian imposition in the colonies prompted its formulation. After its completion in 1646, it was widely distributed and subsequently adopted in places such as Plymouth, Connecticut, and New Haven becoming the established explanation for New England Puritanism.[x] Its greatest test would come very soon on the question of church membership.

Children baptized as infants, at some point, would hopefully report a conversion experience to become full members of the church and participate in the Lord’s Supper. Only full members could have their children baptized. As membership roles decreased, the Halfway Covenant allowed partial membership for those who met certain conditions but had not made the conversion report. The purpose was to uphold the churches standing in the community thinking partial members, once exposed to the blessings of the church and allowed to baptize their infants, would desire full membership. The notion of a shy and sensitive person standing before a congregation to share their testimony seemed an undue burden by many such as Increase and Cotton Mather.[xi]

The great controversy over the halfway covenant arose from the core principles where Congregationalism stressed church membership for only the “proved” elect.[xii] The controversy also existed within the Mather family. Richard Mather had suggested including the halfway covenant in the Cambridge Platform but met with stiff opposition. Nearly twenty years later, he met with the same opposition that included his own son Increase. While many of the old guard felt it an evangelistic endeavor, the younger generations, such as Cotton Mather, felt it “unscriptural, uninstituted, and unwarrantable.”[xiii] While the younger Mathers disagreed with patriarch Richard, all three had the goal of upholding the Scriptural ideals of Puritanism.

Horton Davies describes the view of the sermon for the New England Puritan as “nourishment of the soul, and as the iron rations of the serious pilgrim bound for eternity.”[xiv] Indeed, the strength of the sermon reflected the strength of the pastor from the view of the average Puritan. Typical colonial pastors, if not educated at Harvard, were graduates of Cambridge or Oxford College in England, a male of utmost character, and fully embodying the Scriptural requirements of an elder. Lawrence Cremin describes him this way: “he served some two to three hundred of his fellow men as religious leader, moral overseer, civic administrator, legal counselor, medical advisor, and purveyor of news.”[xv] During the times of their respective ministries, it would be difficult to find anyone suggesting that Richard, Increase, or Cotton Mather did not fit that description.

A typical Sabbath in a Mather church would have reflected many other Puritan churches in New England. Nearly all townspeople, although not required, attended the likely small congregation. Richard Mather considered eight on nine people enough to start a church[xvi]. The seats were uncomfortable and the weather if too cold or too hot only exacerbated the situation. They sang songs from the Bay Psalm Book, offered eloquent and heartfelt prayers, and those that were fortunate carried a Geneva Bible. The sermon might be forty-five minutes but Cotton Mather would preach nearly two hours on occasion. The pastor would have brought intense study into the sermon and likely preached without notes. Cotton Mather’s diary reflects advice from his Uncle Nathanael that his Grandfathers, John Cotton and Richard Mather, never preached with notes.[xvii] The point being that the pastor, so prepared and so learned, did not need notes. Cotton Mather opposed liturgical prayers and expected preaching and prayers to be extemporaneous.

In Magnalia Christi Americana, Cotton Mather argued that poor Sabbaths make poor Christians.[xviii] Indeed, the Puritan Sabbath service, never intended to merely accompany family devotions or weekly activities, set the tone for them. Children were required to take notes during the sermon to include any Latin, Greek, or Hebrew references and fathers typically led a discussion of the past Sabbath’s Sunday during the week. The central point of the Sabbath service, the sermon, pointed to a particular passage rather than a theme. The weight, guide and authority for every sermon, moreover for the Christian life was the Bible. It is what Richard Mather had suggested in his arguments for removal to New England that the “preaching of the Word, will not be denied.”[xix] While every sermon was important, the jeremiad literary device took a certain prominence in times of trouble.

Sinners in the Hands of Angry God by Jonathan Edwards is perhaps the most well known sermon in American History and a perfect example of the jeremiad. Essentially, a jeremiad-type a sermon pointed out any social or moral ills in a community and suggested God’s wrath should they fail to repent. The doctrine of election played heavily in the jeremiad and in particular, Cotton Mather stressed this millenarial view.[xx] In addition, Cotton chose strong conclusions for his sermons ending with words such as “turn now everyone from the evil of his way.”[xxi] Increase Mather effectively used them before, during, and after King Phillip’s War. However, his most effective use of the jeremiad would be in the time of declension.

Declension, described as a falling away or “decline” from the church, was of great concern to second-generation ministers such as Increase Mather. He and several colleagues asked the Massachusetts General Court to call a synod to resolve two issues. First, what provoked the declension and second, how to resolve the declension.[xxii] The Synod issued a call to reinforce Puritan ideals through sermons, covenants, education, etc. Although the effect was minimal as New England faced an influx of secularism, the main proponents such as the Mathers maintained their core principles. Increase Mather’s biographer describing him during the time declension stated that, “Increase Mather, foremost in the college and in the church councils, influential in a large Boston congregation, known abroad, and proved a skillful and popular writer, was ideally equipped to defend New England. Silence in such times would have been for him treachery to his faith.”[xxiii]

Not every Mather sermon was doom and gloom. While holding firm to the strict adherence that only the elect be members of the church, the call of evangelism was prevalent. The older style of preaching had been to the elect but provision such as the halfway covenant afforded opportunities for a new style of preaching to the unsaved that might be in the congregation. Like other ministers, the mixture of conversion and sacramental themes characterized the preaching of Increase Mather.[xxiv] We do not know exactly the body language and tenor which the Mathers used in their sermons and speeches but ministers in good standing, as they were, would certainly have been temperate individuals. It is likely that this temperance and devotion to their religion that made them model citizens and family men.

 

Impacting the Family and Society

The Massachusetts school law of 1647 was enacted to keep that “old deluder, Satan”[xxv] from using illiteracy to keep men from studying the Scriptures. The Puritans sought education as a primary vehicle to bring their children up in the instruction of the Lord. Through rigorous training beginning at an early age in homes, schools, church, and institutions of higher learning such as Harvard, the Puritan society exhibited a literate body of believers. Whether learning the catechism at home or studying for the ministry at college, Puritan children and teens experienced Christian education. The Mathers thoroughly believed in this concept.

Cotton Mather wrote, journaled, and preached on this subject extensively believing it a spiritual obligation to educate his children. Due partly to the strict devotions of his mother, he had taken his own education very seriously, studying as much as sixteen hours per day and entering Harvard at eleven years old, already fluent in Latin.[xxvi] Individual reading, responsive reading, and communal reading were daily exercises in colonial homes as a method to prepare children for the heavy emphasis on languages they would encounter in public school.[xxvii] Future Harvard president Increase Mather preached in 1677 that the colony must nourish the schools “so there might be able instruments raised up for the propagating of truth in succeeding generations.”[xxviii]

A typical day in Cotton Mather’s household began with devotional Scripture reading for the entire household including servants. Each child, according to age, read and then delivered a prepared recitation of the Scripture or catechism they had been assigned. In addition, they would have equally been prepared to defend doctrine with Scripture.[xxix] Somewhat different from the typical Puritan household, Cotton allowed some secular education of his children in the area of science and French. Another slight departure was the advanced education of his daughters whereas most Puritan young women focused on husbandry.

The idea of Bible study and education were one in the same. However, to understand the Bible, language instruction comprised a great deal of the typical day. Although not an exact replica of a Latin-centered education, the Puritans modeled it closely, the difference being that Scripture ran through every course as opposed to Latin running through every course. Cotton’s son Increase (known as Creasy) regularly received Latin instruction from his namesake, Cotton’s father. The senior Increase would certainly have used these opportunities to teach Bible, politics, philosophy, and literature.[xxx] Unfortunately, Creasy did not live up to the standards of his father and Cotton’s son Samuel emerged as the most likely candidate to carry on the Mather tradition.

The culmination of education was as Harvard President Increase Mather stated, “above all things to study Christ.”[xxxi] As President, Increase work diligently to uphold that banner and secure Harvard’s traditions and founding principles. Certainly, education produced doctors of medicine, scientists, lawyers, etc. but all these trades were to support the Puritan family and society. Centered on Christ, education from day one to the end of one’s life, held the Bible as the main text. Whereas today’s parents seek academics for the child’s well-being, financial future, or to become President of the United States, the typical Puritan parent hoped their child would become the minister of a thriving community. The shepherding of the Mathers and the vast distribution of their sermons and other writings are a testament to their ministerial education.

An extension of the Mather family, servants certainly held a second-class standing in the Cotton Mather family but his writings bear a view that considered their education and salvation important. Cotton’s diary mentions a few different servants and that one in particular, Onesimus, should “continue to be instructing in reading, writing, and management.”[xxxii] The end that education served is unknown but it was likely more education than most servants received. As Calvinists, the Mathers believed in sovereign election and never denied the color of skin as a barrier for that election. Because of that belief, Cotton organized the Society of Negroes, providing religious instructions for slaves.[xxxiii]

The Apostle Paul’s condemnation of enslavement in First Timothy 1:10, which would have read as menstealers in their Geneva Bible, seems to have not affected them. The failure of the Mathers and Puritans leaders to correct this wrong would prove to be one of their greatest errors. Similar to other ministers, the Mathers never used their pulpit to condemn slavery but rather emphasized Biblical teachings on master/slave relations. Cotton’s 1709 sermon titled Theopolis Americana, preaches against the lust and methods of enslavers. He states that, “when we have slaves in our houses, we are to treat them with humanity, we are so to treat them that their slavery may really be their happiness; yea, in our treating of them, there must be nothing but what the law of Christ will justify. Above all, we are to do all we can to Christianize them.”[xxxiv] Race relations for Puritan ministers such as the Mathers may have missed the opportunity to end slavery, but the noble purpose of evangelism did not escape them whether the people were slave or native.

Although brief, Harvard created a special section known as the Indian School to educate natives and have them return to their community to propagate the Gospel. The Puritan’s city on a hill struggled to find harmony with the Indians and towns were constantly susceptible to attack. The spreading of the Gospel was not only a Biblical mandate but also a means to quite the Indian threat. Cotton rebuked those who exploited the “ignorance and indigence” of the Indians for monetary gain and believed their Christianization of utmost importance.[xxxv] Race relations with the Native American peoples were like a pendulum swinging back and forth from strife to peace.

Kings Phillips War erupted in the late 1670’s due to land disputes, colonial expansion, and poor negotiations. Essentially, the belligerents were natives against colonists, but natives allied both sides. Eventually, colonial organization and firepower proved too much for the natives. For Increase Mather, the war was the culmination of a long succession of moral decay and corruption in their society, specifically, God’s wrath.[xxxvi] In a series of jeremiads and a book entitled A Brief History of the Warr [sic] With the Indians, Increase Mather took on the role of prophet and encouraged numerous ministers to recognize the apostasy that had occurred and use the crises as a trumpet call for reform.[xxxvii] Just fifteen years later, another social crisis would seek the sage advice of the Mathers.

The events of 1692 in Salem, Massachusetts marked a dark point in the history of Puritan New England. A servant girl named Tituba, whose father was a Haitian witch doctor, practiced the occult and influenced several young girls to participate. Mass hysteria ensued followed by numerous trials of supposed witches. Many felt they were working in coercion with the Devil to bring down the colony. Spreading to other colonies, the hysteria saw its end only after the execution of nineteen people and two dogs.[xxxviii] The mixing of religious and civil affairs tested the colony and in essence, Puritanism. The trials were marked with numerous issues ranging from false accusations, torture, physical ailments, and the question of evidence.

Increase and Cotton Mather, as influential ministers and citizens, commented freely on the trials. Their contributions consisted of two areas, establishing the exact nature of the girl’s actions and the use of spectral evidence. Increase believed the cause to be demon possession rather than witchcraft or some specific medical condition.[xxxix] Cotton Mather’s diary entries of May 1692 are marked with an emphasis of prayer and faith on the matter. Acknowledging the “prudence and patience” of the judges, Cotton suggested separating the afflicted people and then bring six of them to him, at his own expense, where “without more bitter methods, prayer with fasting would not putt [sic] an end unto these heavy trials.”[xl] For the Mathers, this was an issue of satanic influence that needed a Godly response.

Spectral evidence argued whether or not the Devil could take the shape of an innocent person. Witnesses might testify that they the accused’s spirit or witch, taking on the shape of an animal or another person, did something to them even though the accused had an alibi that they were elsewhere at the time. The Mathers objected to the use of spectral evidence arguing a more biblical approach.[xli] Later critics of the witch trials argued that those that led the trials were to blame for holding them. Cotton seemed more fervent in holding the trials with Increase unfairly connected to his son in this criticism. The Mathers, like many other ministers, felt the trials necessary to maintain order and obey the law but their lending of support to the trails was unforgivable in some circles.[xlii]

Twenty years later, Cotton would distinguish himself as an amateur scientist. His 1720 work, The Christian Philosopher, argued that science was an incentive to religion furthering his theological framework into everything he did.[xliii] Cotton, like his father Increase, had no problem with the study of science, seeing it is a natural creation and result of the Creator. Harvard incorporated Galileo and Isaac Newton’s findings into their curriculum. The specific area of contribution for Mather was in smallpox inoculation. Although many feared it would lead to the further spread of the disease, Mather stressed the need for inoculation, which later proved correct as many more non-inoculated people died rather than those inoculated.[xliv]

Legacy

Numerous other Mathers conducted sound ministries, affected various segments of society, and no less nobly served the colonies than the main three mentioned in this research paper. Among the fourth generation since Richard Mather’s cross-Atlantic journey, Cotton’s son Samuel (1706-1785) was a prominent Boston minister installed in his father’s former pulpit at the North Church (also known as the Second Church of Boston). Continuing the Mather’s service to that church for almost eighty years, Samuel never reached his father or grandfathers acclaim. Tragically, All but two of Cotton’s children died before him. Unfortunately, the stigma placed on the Mathers following the Salem witch trials left them not necessarily as outcasts, but certainly in a much lower position.

The legacy of the Mathers many times told in relation to the Salem witch trials obfuscates their strict and staunch defense of Puritan ideals. The episode was but one part of an enormous body of work. Were one to write a complete history on all the Mathers, not only would it contain numerous volumes, but display a enormous achievement in matters of Biblical doctrine, church politics, charter negotiations, authorship, and leadership. A great example is Horton Davies The Worship of the American Puritans holding more references on a wide array of issues to the Mathers than any other individual or group.

The Mathers were first pastors seeking to preserve the faith of their fathers and infusing themselves in the church, family, and society. They considered themselves shepherds of a flock, dutifully called by God to uphold the teachings of Scriptures and minister to those in their congregations. To elevate one Mather over another is a mistake for their legacy built one upon another, serving a needed function in various segments of society. Richard, Increase, and Cotton were like a snowball rolling down hill, picking up momentum and increasing in volume. Grounded in Scripture and poised for its defense, the Mathers embodied the Puritan ideal.

 

[i] David D. Hall, The Faithful Shepherd: A History of the New England Ministry in the Seventeenth Century. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1972), 54-55.

[ii] Richard Mather, journal entry, 30 July 1635. Collections of the Dorchester Antiquarian and Historical Society, Leland Stanford Junior University. Original spelling retained.

[iii] Increase Mather, The Life and Death of that Reverend Man of God, Mr. Richard Mather, Teacher of the Church in Dorchester in New-England. (Cambridge: S.G. and M.J., 1670), 55-59.

[iv] Ibid, 83.

[v] Hall, 115.

[vi] Ibid, 195.

[vii] Cotton Mather, Magnalia Christi Americana. (New York: Russell & Russell, 1967 Reproduction), 489.

[viii] Perry Miller, Errand in the Wilderness, (Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1956), 18.

[ix] Hall, 275.

[x] Francis J. Bremer, The Puritan Experiment, (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1976), 136-37.

[xi] Horton Davies, The Worship of the American Puritans, (Morgan, PA: Soli Deo Gloria Ministries, 1999), 201.

[xii] Miller, 31.

[xiii] Hall, 202.

[xiv] Davies, 116.

[xv] Lawrence A. Cremin, American Education: The Colonial Experience, 1607-1783, (New York: Harper & Row, 1970), 128.

[xvi] Davies, 247.

[xvii] Cotton Mather, diary entry, March 1680-81. Collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society, Massachusetts Historical Society.

[xviii] Davies, 60.

[xix]Increase Mather, 59.

[xx] Davies, 320.

[xxi] Kenneth Silverman, The Life and Times of Cotton Mather. (New York: Harper Row., 1984), 47.

[xxii] Bremer, 166-67.

[xxiii] Silverman, 152.

[xxiv] Hall, 251.

[xxv] Nathaniel B. Shurtleff, M.D., Records of the Governor and Company of the Massachusetts Bay in New England, Vol. II. 1642-1649. (Boston: From the Press of William White, 1853), 203. While the original written record is available to be read under glass in Massachusetts, the current microfiche is unreadable, hence the sourcing by Shurtleff.

[xxvi] E. Jennifer Monaghan, “Family Literacy in Early 18^th-Century Boston: Cotton Mather and His Children.” Reading Research Quarterly 26, no. 4 (Autumn, 1991): 349.

[xxvii] Cremin, 147.

[xxviii] Thomas Jefferson Wertenbaker, The Puritan Oligarchy: The Founding of American Civilazation. (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, Ltd., 1947), 139.

[xxix] Monaghan, 358.

[xxx] Ibid, 354.

[xxxi] Hall, 179.

[xxxii] Monaghan, 358.

[xxxiii] Bremer, 207.

[xxxiv] National Humanities Center Resource Toolbox, “Theopolis Americana – 1709,” Cotton Mather, http://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/pds/becomingamer/economies/text2/theopolisamericana.pdf (accessed August 21, 2009), 3.

[xxxv] Ibid, 4.

[xxxvi] Miller, 7.

[xxxvii] Hall, 241.

[xxxviii] John D. Hannah, “HT102: The Church in the Modern Era.” Unpublished Class Notes in HT102: The Church in the Modern Era, (Dallas Theological Seminary, Spring, 2006).

[xxxix] Ibid.

[xl] Mather, diary entry, May 1692.

[xli] Bremer, 183.

[xlii] Kenneth Ballard Murdock, Increase Mather: The Foremost American Puritan, (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1926), 310.

 

[xliii] Bremer, 197.

[xliv] Ibid, 198.

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