Early Puritan and Pilgrim Literature Essay

The puritans and the Pilgrims both migrated to North America to escape religious persecution due to their views about the church of England. They created very little literature because writing was viewed as satanic in both cultures. All that was written in Puritan New England were full treatment to animate perfection and record journeys for historical purposes. The most famous poets of this period include Anne Bradstreet and Edward Taylor. William Bradford, the g overnor of the Plymouth Colony, kept a journal of the events that took place on the journey over on the Mayflower and life within the colony. Jonathan Edwards, a minister during the Great Awakening wrote the sermon Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God. These authors illustrated the following religious beliefs in their works natural rot, irresistible grace, and unconditional election.Puritans believed that all men sinned and that all men were of an evil nature. Ministers instructed them to search their souls for sins an d ask God for forgiveness. In the 1730s and 1740s the Puritan religion began to lose followers. Several ministers went to extreme measures to get their followers to adhere to the teaching in the Bible more sternly. There are in the souls of wicked men those hellish principles reigning, that would presently kindle and flame out into hell fire, if it were not for Gods restraints.(101). The prior excerpt demonstrates the natural depravity of men. Puritans were instructed to frequently search through their souls for instances of which they had done evil doings. The act of constant soul searching wore many puritans down and caused them to convert to a different religious belief while others were driven in to a psychotic state. Edwards also stated that Your wickedness makes you as it were heavy as lead and to tend downwards with gigantic weight and pressure towards Hell(103).The passage refers to the wickedness of men. Hearing every Sunday that you possess natural wickedness which drags you down towards hell is one of the reasons the Puritan faith became unpopular and eventually died out. In his sermon, he also stated So that thus it is, that natural men are held in the hand of God over the pit of Hell they have deserved the fiery pit, and are already sentenced to it(103). Edwards and other preachers of the Great Awakening depict God as an aggravated and cruel man and end up losing many followers of the Puritan faith in the end as members of the faith viewed God as recollect and inhumane andthey felt he was inaccessible to them.Another Puritan belief that was prominently displayed in their literature was unconditional election. Unconditional election states that God decides whether a man will go to heaven or hell in the first place he or she is even born. The poet, Anne Bradstreet illustrates the theme in her poem Upon the Burning of Our offer And, when I could no longer look,/ I blest His name that gave and took,/ That laid my goods no in the dust/ Yea so it was, and so twas just./ It was his own it was not mine/ Far be it that I should repine.(53).This example states that even though her house and earthly possessions are ruined she can take comfort in the fact that the Lord has a house waiting for her in heaven. In another(prenominal) one of her poems, To My Dear and Loving Husband, Anne represents the same theme Thy sack out is such I can no way repay/ The heavens reward thee manifold, I pray./ Then while we live, in love lets so persever,/ That when we live no more we may live ever. (51). Edward Taylor, another poet of the colonial era, writespoem in the mindset of being one of the unconditionally elect. He states in the poem Huswifery Then cloath therewith mine Understanding, Will,/ Affections, Judgment, Conscience, Memory/ My Words, and Actions, that their shine may fill/ My wayes with glory and thee glorify./ Then mine apparel shall display before yee./ (70). Taylor proclaims he is asking God to clothe him in knowledge of the nex t life and that he believes he is of the unconditionally elect for asking for this understanding.Yet another reoccurring theme in the writings of the puritans was irresistible grace. Irresistible grace states men survive by the grace of God. William Bradford uses this theme many times in his compute of the Pilgrims journey to the new world titled Of Plymouth Plantation. Bradford wrote, But herewith they broke their mast in three pieces and their sail cast off overboard in a bery bad sea, so as they had like to have been cast away. Yet by Gods mercy they recovered themselves, and having the flood with them struck into the harbor.(34). He indicates that the Pilgrims were at the mercy of God and by his grace they found the harbor and survived. Bradford later refers to an instance when some Pilgrims were exploring thearea around a possible camp site. Men, Indians Indians And withal, their arrows came prompt amongst them.Their men ran with all speed to recover their arms, as by the g ood providence of God they did. (33). Here Bradford glorifies God for allowing the Pilgrims to get to their weapons before them all fell victims to the arrows of the Indians. Bradford greatens the name of God once more in the account of John Howland. as they thus lay in a mighty storm, a square young man called John Howland, coming upon some occasion above the gratings was, with a seele of the ship, was thrown into sea but it pleased God he caught tick off of the topsail halyards (28). Unlike the man who feel overboard and drowned, for taunting the sick and poor, John Howland had the graces of God extended to him and was rescued from the stormy waters.Throughout the Colonial Age Puritans and Pilgrims stress three major themes in their literature. They wrote of irresistible grace, the natural depravity existing in all of man kind, and predestination for those among the unconditionally elect. Three writers of the period, Bradstreet, Taylor, and Bradford, use their works to glorify God and announce themselves among the unconditionally elect. The fourth, Jonathan Edwards wrote a sermon in an attempt to scare followers in to the more strict puritans ways of historic in an attempt to save the religion.