Visible Saints Research Articles

From the Editor’s Gable

From the Editor’s Gable

Visible Saints and Sinners: Witness and Spiritual Uncertainty in “Young Goodman Brown”

ABSTRACTNathaniel Hawthorne’s “Young Goodman Brown” tells the story of a young Puritan who attends a satanic ceremony and ends up permanently afflicted with doubt. This essay analyzes Hawthorne’s use of the idea of witnessing throughout the tale, and the scriptural bases on which this spiritual discipline is built. Both aural and visual witnesses inspire spiritual uncertainty in “Young Goodman Brown”, an uncertainty that ends in his “dying hour of gloom.” Building on the insights of other scholars, including Edmund Morgan’s work on the visible church and Michael Colacurcio’s work on visible sanctity, this essay examines Hawthorne’s use of witnessing as a spiritual discipline and his complex use of scriptural ideas throughout the story.

Between God and Satan: Thomas Thornton, Witch-Hunting, and Religious Mission in the English Atlantic World, 1647–1693

Between God and Satan: Thomas Thornton, Witch-Hunting, and Religious Mission in the English Atlantic World, 1647–1693

‘out of their owne mouths’? Conversion Narratives and English Radical Religious Practice in the Seventeenth Century

This article focuses on a form of writing, the conversion narrative, which was familiar to mid-seventeenth-century godly readers. The purpose of the narrative, which was a prerequisite for admission to the Church of Visible Saints, was to give the congregation a spoken account of the experience of conversion and of the workings of Grace in the life of the regenerate individual. Some of these reports were transcribed, revised, and published by the ministers of the churches. By focusing on the complex relationships between the ‘original’ experience, its expression, and subsequent written transmission, the tension between individuality and conformity, and the various forms of editorial intervention adopted by the ministers, this study attempts to highlight the collaborative nature of the textual construction of the conversion narrative and to address some crucial issues concerning both the authenticity of the memory recorded and its ‘true’ author.

Early New England: A Covenanted Society by David Weir

EARLY NEW ENGLAND: A COVENANTED SOCIETY by David Weir. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2005. Ecumenical consensus proposes full communion as the goal of the ecumenical dialogues. Within this ecclesiological vision, governance has three dimensions: personal, collegial, and communal oversight. The Catholic contribution to this vision is the ecclesiology of hierarchical communion, with its emphasis on the personal role of the bishops in communion with the bishop of Rome. This vision does not obscure the communal role of the whole People of God or the collegial structures whereby this personal service is exercised. The principal complementary gift to this hierarchical theology of communion is the covenant theology to emerge in the Reformed tradition . Under the sovereignty of God, the covenantal interdependence of the whole people of God is expressed in collegial structures to which any and all expressions of personal episcopé are held to be accountable. In the pilgrimage toward full communion, the gift of covenant collegiality and hierarchical mutuality will need to find avenues for dialogue and reconciliation. This volume is a summary of research on covenantal structures of governance , civil and ecclesiastical, in seventeenth century New England. During this period what have become the states of New England was part of old England. The pilgrim fathers set up colonies of separatist and nonseparatist Calvinist congregations in Massachusetts and other colonies of the east coast of North America, from Nova Scotia to South Carolina. Ironically, from 1642 until the 1660 restoration, the Puritan churches became the established Church of England. Those colonists who left England to separate from the established Church in order to establish a new covenantal, converted community in the new world became the state enforced religion in both old and new England during this period. The book, part of the Emory University Studies in Law and Religion, analyzes in detail the documents of this period—covenants, charters, contracts and confessions—their diversity and the covenantal theologies that lie behind them. In pursuing this study, the author has researched and synthesized a vast amount of unpublished material. He looks in detail at this rich array of documents, most of which are Reformed congregational in origin. But some are Baptist from the Rhode Island colony, or civil covenants, especially after the restoration of 1660, which allow for a certain range of Protestant religious diversity, following the acts of toleration in old England in the period of the restoration. The author is able to document the diversity of the approaches to the covenant relationbook reviews 537 538 the jurist ships, especially in the civil societies of the period, and to revise the received wisdom about the uniformity of the “Puritan Mind.” He is also able to document the evolution of contractual and constitutional thinking which developed out of the covenantal principles of the early Reformed colonists. This research is of interest not only to the scholars ofAmericanAngloSaxon Protestantism or of the wider Reformed tradition. Given the influence of British Protestantism on modern legal thinking, on the institutions of post revolutionary American society, and on the civil religion that under girds American public life, this study discloses important new insights on the commonAmerican heritage. Likewise, it demonstrates alternate modes of church order and governance to those of the traditional episcopal forms of the pre-Reformation and the Anglican heritages. Each community, intentionally and in light of their reading of the biblicalcovenant ,theexigenciesoftheirownrelationshipwithGod,withone another, and with the society they were building, developed its own formulationsofrightsandresponsibilities .Oncetherewasevenamodesttoleration in all of England, new and old; and charters for civil society were handed down by authorities, all of whom would have been authorized by the established Church of England in its restored episcopal form, the utopian, puritan experiment was inevitably due to unravel. Even more fundamental to the erosion of covenantal theology and the community of visible saints were the accommodations to the unconverted members of the community and to the children “born” into the covenant, but not themselves yet full communicants in the congregations. The book provides chapters on the European background of the puritan movement and covenant theology, and the early colonial charters of the century. There are chapters on the civil covenants, the church covenants for the Puritan congregations, and for those...

Beyond Narrative: The Conversion Plot of John Dane's A Declaration of Remarkable Providences

Beyond Narrative:The Conversion Plot of John Dane's A Declaration of Remarkable Providences Meredith Marie Neuman (bio) The privileged place in early American literature currently held by personal narratives seems secure, despite the fact that extant texts do not often render a view of interiority that is familiar (or even intelligible) to the modern, secular reader. The earliest accounts of Puritan conversion prove particularly resistant to creating a sense of individual identity, largely because these narratives exhibit, in Edmund Morgan's words, a "pattern . . . so plain as to give the experiences the appearance of a stereotype" (91). The oral "confessions" required for membership in early New England gathered churches virtually guaranteed that at some point every Puritan "saint" would have cause to describe his or her own unique spiritual journey in terms of a recognizable, orthodox morphology.1 The brief, apparently formulaic, sometimes incomplete lay "confessions" pose the most extreme version of the problem that seems to stymie all modern readings of Puritan conversion narratives at some point or another. Whether composed by minister, poet, or virtually anonymous lay person, early autobiographical testimonies appear to emphasize scriptural proof-texts, vague details, and orthodox interpretation over the personalized rendition of experiential phenomenon, leading to the conclusion that the successful narrative of conversion is the one that subordinates subjective interpretation and biographical idiosyncrasy to scriptural citation and soteriological predictability. With lay confessions, such as those recorded by Thomas Shepard, John Fiske, and Michael Wiggles worth, the problems of narrative coherence and psychological legibility are particularly noticeable due to several factors. First, the primary function of these confessions was as testimony for admission to membership in gathered churches. Although they held that election was known only to God, New England Puritans sought to create communities [End Page 251] of "Visible Saints," those who had offered a convincing account of their faith and spiritual state. Accordingly, applicants for full membership in the early New England churches had to convince ministers, elders, and laity of their grounds for assurance. There could, of course, be no absolute formula by which an individual could recognize the signs of redemption, but ministers in New England came to identify and preach a predictable morphology of conversion that corresponded with the "ordinary means" of God's saving his elect. The clerical role in preaching, ministering, and recording conversion constitutes a second problem in reading early narratives. The extant narratives often break off abruptly—presumably when the elders and ministers are satisfied with the testimony—and frequently seem to reiterate the theological and pastoral emphases of the recording minister himself. Consequently, these narratives may preserve the most pivotal expressions of personal, spiritual experience in writing, but the very act of preservation appears to mute the individual speaker. Even more detailed, unmediated narratives tend to disappoint our current preference for the assertive subjectivity of modern "selfhood."2 Regardless of the idiosyncratic attractions of some longer texts—Thomas Shepard's vulnerably narcissistic guilt complex, Anne Bradstreet's clear-toned negotiations of family, gender, and sainthood, Anne Hutchinson's seditious and inspired certitude—all seventeenth-century Puritan narratives demonstrate fundamental adherence to still-vexing generic considerations. One important approach to this problem has treated conversion narratives as documents that either confirm, deny, or qualify an understanding of intellectual history.3 The other main approach, which considers these narratives as primarily literary texts, variously seeks to justify the claim of early American (and particularly Puritan) writing to constitute a "genuine literary realm" (Caldwell 36). Two pioneers of this approach, Daniel B. Shea and Patricia Caldwell, illustrate competing modes of establishing the literary claim of early narratives. While Shea's foundational study tends to assess spiritual narrative in relation to other literary examples, often in anticipation of later developments in the genre of autobiography (along with the attendant connections to the development of the early novel), Caldwell seeks to establish, with the much more restricted set of "confessional" texts, the New England difference of expression and "some of the first faint murmurings of a truly American voice" (41). Ultimately, approaching lay narratives as primarily autobiographical [End Page 252] writing—deviating from or anticipating later developments of the genre, as the case may be—places frustrating...

Between Known Men and Visible Saints: A Study in Sixteenth-Century English Dissent. by Michael T. Pearse. Cranbury, N.J.: Associated University Presses, 1994. 285 pp. $42.50.

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Between known men and visible saints. A study in sixteenth-century English dissent. By M. T. Pearse. Pp. 280 incl. map. Madison–Teaneck: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press/London–Toronto: Associated University Presses, 1994. £32.50. 0 8386 3563 6

Between known men and visible saints. A study in sixteenth-century English dissent. By M. T. Pearse. Pp. 280 incl. map. Madison–Teaneck: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press/London–Toronto: Associated University Presses, 1994. £32.50. 0 8386 3563 6 - Volume 47 Issue 1

Between known men and visible saints: a study in sixteenth-century English dissent

Between known men and visible saints: a study in sixteenth-century English dissent

Preparation and Confession: Reconsidering Edmund S. Morgan's Visible Saints

STUDIES of seventeenthand eighteenth-century New England appearing in the past decade have exhibited a renewed interest in expressions of popular piety as a means of probing the non-elite mentalit6 of the early English settlers, an interest that can be traced back to the work of Edmund S. Morgan in the 1940s and 1950s as well as that of some of his students.' Ironically enough, intellectual historian Perry Miller's brightest student, Morgan, first, and then certain other

Ramist Concepts of Testimony, Judicial Analogies, and the Puritan Conversion Narrative

he Puritans believed that as much as possible a should be constituted of saints—regenerate persons who had experienced an infusion of God's saving grace. Their desire was to make the visible a near reflection of the invisible church; a body made of those elected by God and predestined for salvation. In connection with the congregational underpinnings of their brand of Protestantism, the seventeenth-century New England Puritans also believed that the members of the congregation should play a role in deciding who was to be admitted to the visible and who was to be excommunicated from it. In the early 1630s a controversy erupted over exactly what kind of testimony should be required at the trial of candidates when they came before the congregation to seek membership in the church. In the Puritan concepts of experiential faith and polity, it was expected that candidates would be able to testify to their experiences of conversion in a way that would provide the congregation with appropriate grounds for judging whether they were visible saints. To this end, in contrast to the earlier policy of requiring pious and civil behavior, apparent knowledge of doctiine, and a public declaration of faith, in New England John Cotton and his followers added what was termed a church relation or a conversion narrative.

Inner-Worldly Individualism and the Institutionalization of Puritanism in Late Seventeenth-Century New England

This paper argues that one important « moment » in the development of the modern notion of the ethically autonomous individual was predicated on a particular set of historical circumstances connected with the transformation of Puritanism in the late seventeenth century. These included : a) the introjection within the individual of a particular dimension of grace; b) the development of a new set of individual and collective identities; c) the emergence of the above as a result of the particular problems of institutionalizing Puritan salvational doctrines within the orders of the world. Argument is made that these developments can only be properly appreciated when treated as a particular instance of the articular instance of the articulation and institutionalization of charisma in society. Analysis concentrates on seventeenth-century New England Congregational Puritanism as a paradigmatic case of the institutionalization of sectarian or ascetic-Puritanism. The problems of the early communities of « visible saints » to construct a polity based on « grace are analysed in terms of the particular contradictions inherent to Puritan ideas of grace as a charismatic model for social and political organization

:The Communion of Saints: Radical Puritan and Separatist Ecclesiology 1570-1625

Introduction. Ecclesiology and soteriology history and the future church membership and saving faith visible saints and the logic of Anabaptism government of the gathered church - democracy and aristocracy autonomy and uniformity between the gathered congregations church and magistrate. Conclusion. References. Index.

Fifty Years of American History: An Interview with Edmund S. Morgan

I T has been a little more than half a century since the path of Edmund Morgan, then an undergraduate at Harvard, first crossed that of Perry Miller. The encounter was decisive for Morgan, confirming his historical calling and launching him upon a productive and influential career. Since then he has authored, coauthored, or edited nineteen books, and is well along on his twentieth, a study of Anglo-American political fictions.1 Several of these books, notably The Stamp Act Crisis: Prologue to Revolution; The Puritan Dilemma: The Story of John Winthrop; Visible Saints: The History of a Puritan Idea; and American Slavery, American Freedom: The Ordeal of Colonial Virginia, have become fixed in the canon of early American historiography. Canonical or otherwise, Morgan's books and essays follow a consistent pattern: they are based on exhaustive research in primary sources; emphasize human agency as against historicist forces; and are written in precise and graceful prose. This combination of rigor, empathy, and lucidity is intended for, and has succeeded in capturing, a broad audience. Morgan is read by secondary school students, undergraduates, and graduate students, as well as by his specialist peerssome sixty of whom were trained in his seminars. Morgan, who turned seventy in January i986, has retired from his Sterling Professorship at Yale University. He has been succeeded by John Demos, late of Brandeis University. To mark the occasion of his retirement, I asked Morgan to participate in a formal, taped interview. He agreed, remarking that this was the first time he had been interviewed. The questions were designed to reveal something of Morgan the person, as well as Morgan the historian. How had he become interested in

Visible saints: Social cynosures and dysphoria in the mediterranean tradition

"Visible saints" are individuals in the Mediterranean culture area who lead lives of heroic, exemplary and public suffering. This paper offers an analysis of visible saints as social cynosures as a means of exploring critical cultural psychiatric issues. We examine the changing nature of saintly suffering in the culture area and look at the media through which familiarity with the saints and their passions is developed and maintained. A detailed clinical case study is presented of "Madame Lorca," identified by her peers as a "saint." We focus on a particular illness episode which proved to be an amplification of symptoms of long standing. Psychiatric diagnostic instruments were administered and indicated the presence of severe clinical depression. However, our research suggests that Mme. Lorca's symptomatology reflects culturally specific methods of coping with dysphoric affects and chronic illness. The paper concludes with an exploration of the nature of personal illness as it relates to a wider cultural system of meaning. The findings demonstrate that the visible saint and her symptomatology are part of a cultural system which generates, promotes, patterns and frames the experience of dysphoric affect in a cultural complex quite distinct from that of clinical depression.

Jonathan Edwards, Solomon Stoddard, and the Preparationist Model of Conversion

As a youth of nineteen, Jonathan Edwards was full of questions and anxiety about his conversion. Like many another Puritan seeker, Edwards was eager to obtain the reward of faith but found it impossible not to doubt the genuineness of his religious pretensions. Doubt and self-distrust were hardly unusual in the religious life of a New England Puritan. Indeed, as Edmund Morgan has observed, they were an expected, even prescribed, part of the Christian pilgrim's journey toward God. “This was the constant message of the Puritan preachers: in order to be sure [of one's standing before God] one must be unsure. … [T]he surest earthly sign of a saint was his uncertainty….” Edwards' reflections upon his experience, however, brought to light another, more interesting reason for hesitation—and one that was anything but conventional. He observed a marked discrepancy between what he had experienced and what the theorists of conversion—among them his esteemed grandfather Solomon Stoddard—said he ought to experience. Furthermore, far from glossing over this discrepancy between theory and experience, Edwards brought it to the very center of his attention. He did not seek to evade his difficulty but determined instead to make this aporia the basis for an inquiry that eventually led him to reject the step-by-step model of conversion that had provided the framework for New England's discussion of the knotty problem, never satisfactorily resolved, of how to formulate a reliable procedure for determining who were the visible saints. Even those skeptical about the possibility of arriving at such a procedure, like Solomon Stoddard, phrased their objections within that framework. Stoddard never doubted the truth of the preparationist, step-by-step description of conversion; he did doubt that any reliable procedure for distinguishing true faith from its imitations could be constructed on the basis of that description. Edwards' eventual rejection of his grandfather's open communion practice was a consequence of a critical reevaluation of the step-by-step model upon which New England thought and practice had been based.

The Half-Way Covenant and Religious Scrupulosity: The First Church of Dorchester, Massachusetts, as a Test Case

URING the i630s most New England churches restricted membership to visible saints who could give convincing relations of spiritual regeneration. Only God's elect could partake of the Lord's Supper and offer their children for baptism. What, however, was the status of baptized children? Were they also members of the church? Could they participate in the Lord's Supper? Could they offer their own children for baptism?1 To these increasingly urgent questions the Cambridge Platform of i648 provided partial answers. Baptized children of communicants should come to their tryall and examination, and manifest their faith and repentance by an open profession therof, before they are received to the Lords supper, and otherwise to be admitted there unto.2 Communion was thus restricted without exception to those who could testify to their regeneration. The Synod of i662 further defined the status of children. When grown up they came personally under the watch, discipline and of their parents' church, but they were not therefore to be admitted to full Communion, meerly because they are and continue members, without such further qualifications, as the Word of God requireth therunto. In its fifth proposition the Synod set forth what was later called the half-way covenant: Church-members who were admitted in minority, understanding the Doctrine of Faith, and pub/icily professing their assent thereto; scandalous in life, and solemnly owning the Covenant before the Church, wherin they give up themselves and their children to the Lord, and subject themselves to the Government of Christ in the Church, their children are to be Bacptised.3

The Renaissance of Sacramental Piety in Colonial New England

J N i690 Cotton Mather, disturbed by the Paucity of sacramental manuals in New England, published A Companion for Communicants, a series of discourses on the nature and purpose of the Lord's Supper, along with instructions on preparing for Holy Ordinance.' The publication was a notable event, for it marked the first time that any sacramental meditation was ever printed on New England presses, which had been pouring forth religious treatises continuously since i639. The book portended a transition in the development of New England piety; it was the first of many sacramental manuals to be printed in the colonies. Sacramental meditations provide a singular insight into the changes in the New England religious sensibility during the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. They reflect the emergence of an evangelistic sacramental piety, oriented around practical and pastoral concerns, intended to evoke conversions and to fill the churches with regenerate visible saints. They also reveal a remarkable preoccupation with the dilemmas of overly scrupulous Christians who failed to come to the sacrament for fear that they were unworthy. In fact, the meditations suggest that concern for the scrupulous as well as dismay over the indifferent established the immediate context of the celebrated Stoddardean controversy. Furthermore, the meditations demonstrate that by the beginning of the eighteenth century, sacramental piety was becoming a highly visible and significant part of New England religious life.