The Gospel According to Cotton Mather

In 1702 Cotton Mather wrote Magnalia Christi Americana 70 years after the events in Plymouth. Included in his book was a biography on the life and times of William Bradford, governor of Plymouth. Based on his journals, Bradford’s Of Plymouth Plantation encapsulates the Pilgrim’s move from Europe to America. Mather’s biography relies heavily on Plymouth to form his biography. However, Mather expands on the religious ideology found within Bradford’s journals. As an archival text, Magnalia acts as both a biography of Bradford and other critical figures in Plymouth’s early years and a promotional text designed to encourage the continuing effort of settling America. However, as we read and study the text combined with the history of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth century, we discover that Mather’s greater goal was to promote Christian spirituality and its promotion in the New World. Magnalia’s subtitle, The Ecclesiastical History of New England from Its First Planting in 1620, until the Year of Our Lord 1698, infers that it was written with the same purpose and prose as writings found within the New Testament. If Mather was attempting to canonize the Pilgrim’s voyage to Plymouth and William Bradford’s role, he would undoubtedly look to another well-known and widely accepted text found in the New Testament. By looking closely at his text, we will learn how Mather used a similar writing genre as The Acts of the Apostles and gospels found in the New Testament of the Bible, with Bradford being elevated to a Christ-like or Pauline status. In doing so, Mather was able to accomplish two goals: intensifying the miraculous history of Plymouth and crediting the pious individuals responsible for, as translated from Magnalia Christi Americana’s Latin title, the “Glorious Works of Christ in America.”

Cotton Mather wrote his biography of Bradford with similar rhetoric and vernacular as one might read in the King James Version of The Holy Bible. The title alone makes no misgivings about God’s role, Jesus Christ’s importance, and the proselytizing of Indians in the New World. Just as his opening paragraph describes the Christian’s sufferings and persecution in England, Mather is preparing his reader for a narrative similar to the early Christians found in the New Testament (Mather Loc. 2572). It makes sense to use this genre. Mather’s subject is a pious man who led Puritans on a pilgrimage to the New World to purify the church from what they viewed as hypocrisy and false religion found in England. In Maxell’s discussion on the difference between Pilgrim and Puritan, we read that “Pilgrims who settled Plymouth were puritans seeking to reform their church” (Maxwell 1). The protestant reformation arrived late in England as compared to other parts of Europe, yet, it still had a powerful effect on those who subscribed to reformers like Luther and Calvin. Mather’s approach to writing Magnalia was due in part to his deep understanding of his targeted readers. However, it is equally important to understand why Mather chose to credit God and the miraculous events during Bradford’s and Plymouth’s hardships and success. Writing about Mather’s, Junkerman writes, “[Mathers] had reason to believe God’s miraculous power was returning to the world: ‘For there seems as if there were an age of miracles now dawning upon us’” (Junkerman 53). Mather wrote and preached sermons about miracles, signs, and wonders attributed to God in the late seventeenth century. (Junkerman 55). Did Mather write Magnalia to further illustrate God’s miracles to make a continued argument about divine involvement in geopolitical events? The best way to answer this is to look closely at Mather’s biography and Bradford’s writing.

Whereas Bradford writes a narrative detailing the voyage from Europe to America with plenty of mentions to divine intervention, Mather adds to this with a forceful and sometimes biblical discourse. Take Bradford’s explanation for leaving England in search of a new and free place of worship. He writes, “Christians suffered as much from internal dissension as from persecution by the heathen and their Emperors” (Bradford 22). There is no discussion of internal dissension in Mather’s biography. Instead, he blames Queen Elizabeth’s lack of leadership in embracing reformed doctrine and goes onto write, “The Churches there gathered were quickly molested with such a raging persecution, that if the spiril of separation in them did carry them unto a further extream than it should have done, one blameable cause thereof will be found in the extremity of that persecution” (Mather Loc. 2572). One may read this passage and consider the many examples of persecution found in the book of Acts. Chapter 6-8 tells of Stephen, a disciple of Christ, stoned to death for his contributions to Christianity. It reads, “And at that time there was a great persecution against the church which was at Jerusalem; and they were all scattered abroad throughout the regions of Judaea and Samaria” (The Holy Bible, Acts 8:1). Mather purposely begins his biography by directly linking the early Christian church’s persecution to that of the Puritans in England. He describes how the Puritans left their land, friends, and family searching for the “kingdom of God, and the righteousness thereof” (Mather Loc. 2572). Here we see a connection to the Israelites escape from Egypt and voyage to the “promised land.” Moses led God’s chosen people of the Old Testament through a desert for 40 years, eventually arriving in a land flowing with milk and honey (The Holy Bible, Deuteronomy 31:20). Mather compares Bradford to Moses by writing, “The leader of a people in a wilderness had need be a Moses; and if a Moses had not led the people of Plymouth Colony when this worthy person was their governor, the people had never with so much unanimity and importunity still called him to lead them” (Mather Loc. 2683). Bradford, too, evokes Moses’s name in describing his hardships and adversaries in Chapter III but with less dramatic detail. In Magnalia, we read about a consistent theme and style from Mather that takes the biblical genre of writing along with Bradford’s narrative and adds a deeper religious tone and the miraculous intervention by God.

Mather’s biography’s true brilliance lies within the religious undertones of predestination and God’s will, even during difficult times. To write a promotional text with stories of starvation, Indian attacks, shipwrecks, and disease, it would seem impossible to persuade readers to take such a voyage. However, if the author can make it seem that even the Pilgrims’ trials and tribulations were within God’s will, then perhaps a faithful individual would take such a chance. Throughout Plymouth, we read about God’s will from Bradford’s perspective and the many correspondences included in his book. In a letter from Robert Cushman, he writes concerning hardships, “I see not how in reason we can escape the gasping of hunger-starved persons; but God can do much, and His will be done” (Bradford 70). Concerning the voyage across the Atlantic, the Puritans resolved to trust God even amid death, saying, “We sink, we sink,’ they cried (if not with miraculous, yet with sublime faith): ‘Yet Lord, Thou canst save; yet Lord, Thou canst save!’” (Bradford 29). Mather goes on to credit their resolve with the New World as their reward (Mather Loc. 2595). In describing Bradford, Mather uses words like “piety, wisdom and courage” to name a few (Mather Loc. 2639). Throughout his text, the comparisons to Jesus Christ cannot be taken for granted. When Bradford had to correct recruits due to laziness, it was presented in such a way as when Jesus corrected the Pharisees in the Gospel of Luke (The Holy Bible, Luke 11:37-54). Mather wrote that when others were failing in spirit, Bradford rose above. “Certainly, if the spirit which dwelt in the old puritans, had not inspired these new-planters, they had sunk under the burden of these difficulties; but our Bradford had a double portion of that spirit” (Mather Loc. 2661). Mather’s subtle but obvious comparison to Jesus Christ would inspire the next generation of pious explorers to set out and voyage to far off lands in the effort of spreading the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

The New Testament church began with an underground grassroots effort. Twelve disciples took what they learned from their mentor and continued to teach and share what they learned. These teaching were then put into writing by individuals such as Luke, Peter, and Paul, a few of the famous authors of the New Testament. A thousand years later, what began as a grassroots effort created a new religion. This religion was accomplished in two ways: the character and charisma of the men and women sharing the stories of Jesus and the writings of Jesus found within the 22 books of the New Testament. Mather, a preacher and bible scholar, took this to heart when crafting his story of America in Magnalia. He recognized the power of this genre and sought to accomplish the same outcomes that The Acts accomplished. He also understood that if he enhanced the supernatural aspects to his writings, the chances of success would increase. Regardless of God’s divine intervention during the early days of Plymouth, his story reads with the same zeal and passion we find in scripture. With William Bradford as the Christ-like protagonist and Plymouth Rock as the promised land, Mather assembled a collection of texts that reads like The Holy Bible. One might consider Mather as an eighteenth-century Gospel author in the ranks of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.

Works Cited

Delahaye, Agnès. Settling the Good Land Governance and Promotion in John Winthrops New England (1620-1650) (Early American History). e-book, BRILL, 2020.

Junkerman, Nicholas. “Confined unto a Low Chair: Reading the Particulars of Disability in Cotton Mather’s Miracle Narratives.” Early American Literature, vol. 52, no. 1, 2017, pp. 53–78. Crossref, doi:10.1353/eal.2017.0002.

Levy, Babette May. Cotton Mather (Twayne’s United States Authors Series ; TUSAS 328). Twayne Publishers, 1979.

Lightfoot, J., et al. The Acts of the Apostles: A Newly Discovered Commentary (Lightfoot Legacy Set). Illustrated, e-book, IVP Academic, 2014.

Mather, Cotton. Magnalia Christi Americana Volume 1-2. e-book, Book on Demand Ltd., 2013. Kindle Edition

Maxwell, Richard. “Pilgrim and Puritan: A Delicate Destinction.” Pilgrim Society Note, vol. 2, 2003, pilgrimhall.org/pdf/Pilgrim_Puritan_A_Delicate_Distinction.pdf.

Publishers, Christian Art. KJV Holy Bible, Thinline Large Print Bible, Brown Faux Leather Bible w/Thumb Index and Ribbon Marker, Red Letter Edition, King James Version. Large type / Large print, Christian Art Publishers, 2020.