Puritan Values, Laws, and Society study guide

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Puritan Values, Laws, and Society study guide

Lesson Title: Puritan Values, Laws, and Society
Course and Grade: American Literature, 11th
Generalization: The main idea of this lesson is that the Puritan beliefs and actions, and the circumstances in which the Puritans found themselves, historically, each influenced the development of the other; students will understand Dualism as applied to the 1690’s.
Learning Targets: Concepts: Students will be able to demonstrate through discussion understanding of Puritans and colonial America, and synthesize information about that period in history.
Skills: Students will synthesize information from multiple sources, analyze information and moderate a discussion.
EL’s: Communication
1.3b paraphrase to expand and refine understanding
1.3c make judgments and inferences
1.3d ask questions to refine and verify hypotheses
Materials: Lesson plan, pencils/pens, whiteboard and pens, SmartBoard, image of Calvin and Hobbes comic to be projected on to the SmartBoard, video clip from Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life to be shown on the SmartBoard, info. on Dualism as hand outs and/or as a document to be projected on to the SmartBoard, Jigsaw hand outs on the 1690’s; the hand outs for each group will consist of four double-sided copies of two different articles (one on each side of the piece of paper) or four copies of one (generally longer) article:
Group 1: Puritanism Basics
Group 2: The Arbella Covenant and The Mayflower Compact
Group 3: Indentured Servitude in Colonial America, Conditions of the Early American Colony at Jamestown in Virginia
Group 4: The African Slave Trade in Early American Colonial Times
Group 5: The Liberties Of The Massachusetts Collonie New England, 1641
Group 6: Excerpts from “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God”
Group 7: Excerpts from “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God”
Group 8: Bundling in Colonial America, Blue Laws
Anticipatory Set: Guided visualization: “Imagine you are a teenaged girl in early colonial America ... There’s no dancing and no theater; servants can be beaten and killed with no consequence; children are to be seen, not heard; children who disobey their parents can be killed; any sex outside of wedlock is a sin, to be punished with damnation and possibly ex-communication from church, which means being made an outcast, possibly being run out of the village into the wilderness, which you believe is filled with witches and savages and demons. You can inherit property from your parents if they die, and you have no elder siblings or brothers. If you’re a woman you can also inherit your husband’s property if you marry and he dies, and you have no children to contest the inheritance … Okay, open your eyes.”
Context and Purpose: “Today we’re going to be looking at the Puritans among the pilgrims, the early colonists, because to really understand American history and literature, you have to look at the impact of the first long-term European settlers on the East Coast. Their legacy to us is huge. Their impact on the lives of the Native people who were already here, on the African slave trade, on the idea of westward expansion, in fact, on most of our concepts about work, government, community, and morals, is immense. Many of our most centrally American concepts we owe to the Puritans and pilgrims. Understanding their contributions to history and literature in America is essential to understanding everything that followed. Also, the information you learn today will be useful when we read Arthur Miller’s play The Crucible which is set in the 1690’s in Puritan New England, but was actually a response to the McCarthyist era of the 1950’s. However, since history, as it is said, so often repeats itself, there are parallels. When we get to that play we’ll be looking at the history of McCarthyism, but not so much at the actual time setting of the play, the 1690’s. That’s another reason why it’s important for you all to remember what you learn here today about the early American colonies, the pilgrims, and the Puritans. The way you will learn about them today is through Jigsaws. That’s where you work in groups of four to put together the pieces of the puzzle. Each group will have some informational hand outs. Your job is to summarize the information on the hand out that you get and report that to your group. You will all take turns taking notes on your Summary Worksheet and that is what you will hand in for credit. Everyone will take a turn verbally sharing, and everyone will take a turn recording. For some groups, you’ll get two hand outs on a single piece of paper that’s a double-sided copy, for other groups, you’ll get just one hand out. You all read your hand out or hand outs, and then with a pencil you should each LIGHTLY underline or circle what you consider to be the most important information. Then you report back to your group what you thought was most important, summarizing the information you read, putting it into your own words. I don’t want you to just read directly from the hand out, word-for-word. I want you to put it into your own words, which shows that you understand it. While one person reports another person writes down the information on the worksheet. Then the next person summarizes, covering some other important points on the hand out while someone else records. Then the next person reports on his or her hand out, again summarizing, while someone else writes down what she or he is saying, and finally the last person gives a summary of any other important points from his or her hand out while the last person records.” (Give example of this process by choosing four students and using their names to fill in the blanks, explaining how one would be reporting and another recording, then the next reporting and someone else recording, and so on.) “All of the work is to be done on the worksheet; that one worksheet represents the work done by your whole group. By the time you’re finished, everyone will have given a verbal summary of important points from a hand out they’ve read, and everyone will have taken a turn writing down someone else’s summary. You’ll all report and you’ll all record. To help you see what good summarization looks like I’ll also provide to all your groups an exemplar with an article on one side and a summary on the other side to show you the level of quality I’m expecting.”
Instruction: Historical Jigsaws on Puritans, pilgrims, early colonial America. Pass out different Jigsaw hand outs to groups of four (there may be one or two groups of three) along with group summary sheets. Students read these individually, share with each other their information, and write down summaries of information about 17th century American colonial Puritan society. Then, groups share with the whole class their results. (25-35 minutes)
Introduce concept of Dualism with image on SmartBoard and/or hand outs on 1690’s version of Dualism.
(3 minutes)
Show the Calvin and Hobbes comic and discuss it in relation to Jonathan Edwards’ sermon and the Puritan ideas about God, and then show the clip from Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life ‘Growth and Learning’ that depicts more of the Puritans’ attitudes about God.
Closure: Rounds of applause for all groups that shared.
HW: None.

Dualism in the 1690’s

Us (Puritans)          Them (everyone else)
White                     Black
Day                       Night
Good                     Evil
God                       Devil
Heaven                  Hell
Christian                Heathens/Witches
Civilization/Culture Wilderness/Nature
Human                         Animal
Men                       Women
Order                     Chaos
Law/Authority       Anarchy
Virgin                    Whore
Marriage                Fornication
Tradition                the Unknown
Salvation                Damnation

Puritanism Basics: The Puritans’ Beliefs, Writing, and Legacy

I. Basic Puritan Beliefs
1. Total Depravity - through Adam’s fall, every human is born sinful - concept of Original Sin.
2. Unconditional Election - God “saves” those He wishes - only a few are selected for salvation - concept of predestination.
3. Limited Atonement - Jesus died for the chosen only, not for everyone.
4. Irresistible Grace - God’s grace is freely given; it cannot be earned or denied. Grace is defined as the saving and transfiguring power of God.
5. Perseverance of the “saints” - those elected by God have full power to interpret the will of God, and to live uprightly. If anyone rejects grace after feeling its power in his life, he will be going against the will of God - something impossible in Puritanism.
II. The Function of Puritan Writers
1. To transform a mysterious God - mysterious because he is separate from the world.
2. To make Him more relevant to the universe.
3. To glorify God.
III. The Style of Puritan Writing
1. Protestant - against ornateness; reverence for the Bible.
2. Purposiveness - there was a purpose to Puritan writing - described in Part II above.
3. Puritan writing reflected the character and scope of the reading public, which was literate and well grounded in religion.
IV. Reasons for Puritan Literary Dominance over the Virginians
1. Puritans were basically middle class and fairly well-educated.
2. Virginians were tradesmen and separated from English writing.
3. Puritans were children of the covenant; this gave them a drive and a purpose to write.
V. Common Elements in Early Puritan Writing
1. Idealism - both religious and political.
2. Pragmatism - practicality and purposefulness.
VI. Forces Undermining Puritanism
1. A person’s natural desire to do good - this works against predestination.
2. Dislike of a “closed” life.
3. Resentment of the power of the few over many.
4. Change in economic conditions - growth of fishery, farms, etc.
5. Presence of the leaders of dissent - Anne Hutchinson, Roger Williams.
6. The presence of the frontier - concept of self-reliance, individualism, and optimism.
7. Change in political conditions - Massachusetts became a Crown colony.
8. Theocracy suffered from a lack of flexibility.
9. Growth of rationality - use of the mind to know God - less dependence on the Bible.
10. Cosmopolitanism of the new immigrants.

VII. Visible Signs of Puritan Decay
1. Visible decay of godliness.
2. Manifestations of pride - especially among the new rich.
3. Presence of “heretics” - Quakers and Anabaptists.
4. Violations of the Sabbath and swearing and sleeping during sermons.
5. Decay in family government.
6. People full of contention - rise in lawsuits and lawyers.
7. Sins of sex and alcohol on the increase.
8. Decay in business morality - lying, laborers underpaid, etc.
9. No disposition to reform.
10. Lacking in social behavior.
(Ideas in Sections VI & VII are discussed in detail in Perry Miller’s Errand Into the Wilderness)

VIII. Some Aspects of the Puritan Legacy: each has positive and negative implications.
a. The need for moral justification for private, public, and governmental acts.
b. The Questing for Freedom - personal, political, economic, and social.
c. The Puritan work ethic.
d. Elegiac verse - morbid fascination with death.
e. The city upon the hill - concept of manifest destiny.

From: Shucard, Alan. American Poetry: The Puritans Through Walt Whitman. Amherst, Massachusetts: University of Massachusetts, 1988.

“Calvinism”

The government of the early Puritan settlements in Massachusetts was based on the idea of a theocracy (the belief that the Church and the State are one). The Puritans believed that there should be no difference between religion and government, that the same laws should govern the Church and the state. This eventually changed as people rebelled against the strictures imposed by such a form of government.
Most of us know about The Mayflower Compact signed in Plymouth Harbor. Not all of us know about The Arbella Covenant that was signed some ten years later by those Puritans arriving at Salem Harbor aboard the ship Arbella. It is The Arbella Covenant that formed the basis for a theocracy in Massachusetts.
The Arbella Covenant (abridged—also known as A Model of Christian Charity)
God Almighty in His most holy and wise providence, hath so disposed of the condition of mankind as in all times some must be rich, some poor; some high and eminent in power and dignity, others mean and in subjection. First, to hold conformity with rest of His works, ... Secondly, that He might have the more occasion to manifest the work of His spirit, ... Thirdly, that every man might have need of other, ... All men thus (by divine providence) ranked into two sorts, rich and poor, under the first are comprehended all such as are able to live comfortably by their own means duly improved, and all others are poor, according to the former distribution. There are two rules whereby we are to walk, one toward another; justice and mercy. ... There is likewise a double law by which we are regulated in our conversation, one towards another; in both the former respects, the law of nature and the law of grace, or the moral law of the Gospel. (1) For the persons, we are a company professing ourselves fellow members of Christ; (2) the care of the public must oversway all private respects by which not only conscience but mere civil policy doth bind us; (3) the end is to improve our lives to do more service to the Lord, the comfort and increase of the body of Christ whereof we are members; (4) for the means whereby this must be effected, they are twofold: a conformity with the work and the end we aim at. ... Thus stands the cause between God and us: we are entered into covenant with Him for this work; we have taken out a commission, the Lord hath given us leave to draw our own articles, ... if we shall neglect the observation of these articles ... the Lord will surely break out in wrath against us. ... Therefore, let us choose life, that we, and our seed may live; by obeying. His voice and cleaving to Him, for He is our life and our prosperity.

Bundling in Colonial America

Bundling was a custom practiced in Colonial times by courting or engaged couples, when the couple was allowed to spend the night together, in bed, either fully or partially clothed. While it is said there was a chaperone always present, that idea is widely debated.

Because of the distance the couple might live apart, Saturday and Sunday were considered meeting times. A young man might come to visit a young lady on a Saturday, and leave on Sunday afternoon. The rest of the week was reserved for working, usually before daylight until after dark.

The engaged couple was then allowed to spend the night together, the idea being that this allowed the two to spend more time together. Some traditions uphold that a board was placed between the two.

As one might guess, babies were sometimes conceived from these practices. When that happened, there was almost always a marriage ceremony. The conception was ignored or not spoken of. The fact that babies were sometimes conceived gives fuel to the theory that the couples were not always chaperoned. By the mid-1700’s, approximately one-third of all colonial brides were pregnant at the time of their marriages.

The practice of bundling became much more controversial after 1750 in most areas of Colonial America, leading to debates over one taking more personal responsibility.

Reverend Samuel Peters, in his General History of Connecticut, wrote: “Notwithstanding the great modesty of the females is such, that it would be accounted the greatest rudeness for a gentleman to speak before a lady of a garter or leg, yet it is thought but a piece of civility to ask her to bundle.”

From: www.americancolonialhistory.com and togetherdating.com

Indentured Servitude in Colonial America

The Virginia Company’s plan was ... the company would ship unemployed laborers, and some skilled craftsmen, from England. These men would toil for the company for seven years in return for their transport ...

However, this scheme began to fail, and the colonists could either call for entire families and communities to be brought over from England, or they could start to make use of the desperately poor lower-class people of England, both skilled and unskilled workers.*

Promised access to an earthly paradise, those people became indentured servants, contracted to work an average of four to seven years. They were fed, sheltered, and clothed in exchange for their work. If they lived to complete their period of service, they could begin a free life with a bushel of corn, a new suit, and a parcel of land ...

The propaganda campaign of the Virginia Company of London succeeded. There were no moral or physical qualifications for the honor of being bound to servitude in Virginia. Criminals escaped the gallows by signing up. In some instances, innocent people were accused of crimes in order to force them into indentures. People were kidnapped, plied with alcohol. Children were offered sweets. And they were lured to a place where malaria and dysentery and starvation waited to kill them—that is, if they weren’t worked to death by their owners ...

For the next hundred years, between half and two-thirds of all white immigrants to the American colonies came as indentured servants ...

Loving Father and Mother,

This is to let you understand that I your child am in the most heavy case by reason of the nature of the country [which] is such that it causeth much sickness .... I have nothing at all—no, not a shirt to my back but two rags ... nor but one pair of shoes, but one pair of stockings, but one cap, but two bands ... If you love me, you will redeem me. Good father, do not forget me, but have mercy and pity my miserable case. I know if you did but see me you would weep ....

Your loving son,

Richard Frethorne, March 20, 1623

As was fairly standard in Europe at the time, the settlers were driven by an almost mindless focus on profit and a chilling casualness about just how much suffering a human could endure ... Servants were mutilated, maimed, and sold like cattle. They were put up as stakes in card games. They were murdered with impunity. The servants who didn’t die of disease perished because they were abused by the people they worked for or killed by the Indians whose lands they threatened.

Of the fifteen thousand people transported to Virginia during the first fifteen years after 1607, only two thousand survived.

From: Johnson, Charles, Patricia Smith, and the WGBH Series Research Team. Africans in America: America’s Journey Through Slavery. United States: Harcourt Brace & Company, 1998, 30-36.

*Italicized portion is paraphrased—the rest is direct quotation.

The African Slave Trade in Early American Colonial Times

The most conservative estimate of the number of enslaved Africans who died during the four centuries of the slave trade (killed during the Middle Passage, or while evading capture in Africa, or killed in slavery by slave-owners, overseers, mobs, or slave-catchers) is about 50 million.

The “Middle Passage” was the boat ride from the shores of Africa to parts of Europe or North America. The slaves were crammed into decks very tightly, to get as many as possible into the ship, and thus maximize profit: they could not move, even to defecate or urinate, and so were forced to lie in their own wastes. The chains that bound them often cut deeply into their skin, so that the floors of the lower decks were coated and slippery with blood, feces, urine, and vomit. Periodically, the white sailors would swab these decks, and also at that time (sometimes) remove the corpses of those who had died and begun to rot. The lower decks were also in almost constant darkness. Captains of slave ships expected up to one-third or one-half of their captives to die during the Middle Passage; it was a calculated cost; their only concern was how the mortality rate affected their profits. Slaves who refused to eat were force-fed. To avoid having their muscles weaken totally on the trip, slaves were periodically forced to come above deck and ‘dance’ (still chained) for the amusement of the slave ship’s crew.

Jean (John) Barbot, an agent for the French Royal African Company, made at least two voyages to the West Coast of Africa, in 1678 and 1682. He wrote:

... These slaves are severely and barbarously treated by their masters, who subsist them poorly, and beat them inhumanly, as may be seen by the scabs and wounds on the bodies of many of them when sold to us. They scarce allow them the least rag to cover their nakedness, which they also take off from them when sold to Europeans ... The wives and children of slaves, are also slaves to the master under whom they are married; and when dead, they never bury them, but cast out the bodies into some by place, to be devoured by birds ... This barbarous usage of those unfortunate wretches, makes it appear, that the fate of such as are bought and transported from the coast to America, or other parts of the world, by Europeans, is less deplorable, than that of those who end their days in their native country; [slaves rejected by slave-buyers as too sick to work were often killed on the spot by slave-catchers, often Africans selling enemy tribes into slavery] for aboard ships all possible care is taken to preserve and subsist them for the interest of the owners, and when sold in America, the same motive ought to prevail with their masters to use them well, that they may live the longer, and do them more service. Not to mention the inestimable advantage they may reap, of becoming christians, and saving their souls, if they make a true use of their condition ...

Many of those slaves we transport ... to America are [of] the opinion, that they are carried like sheep to the slaughter, and that the Europeans are fond of their flesh; which notion so far prevails with some, as to make them ... refuse all sustenance ... And tho’ I must say I am naturally compassionate, yet have I been necessitated sometimes to cause the teeth of those wretches to be broken, because they would not open their mouths, or be prevailed upon by any entreaties to feed themselves; and thus have forced some sustenance into their throats ...

... when the Europeans are to receive them ... men and women [are] all stark naked. [The slaves rejected as unable to work are set aside] ... each of the others, which have passed as good, is marked on the breast, with a red-hot iron, imprinting the mark of the ... companies, that so each nation may distinguish their own, and to prevent their being chang’d by the natives for worse, as they are apt enough to do ... care is taken that the women, as tenderest, be not burnt too hard.

From: Barbot, John. “A Description of the Coasts of North and South Guinea.” Collection of Voyages and Travels. Ed. John Churchill and Thomas Astley. London, 1732.

The Conditions of the Early American Colony at Jamestown in Virginia

Englishmen believed that God had given them the right to the land and to impose whatever laws they needed to make it theirs ... Indeed, the English clung to a powerful vision. They had come to the New World to save it ... For the settling of Jamestown was not only a religious mission, it was a very important business venture.

The colonists who ventured upon Jamestown’s ragged shore were a varied lot. When King James granted the company charter in 1606, he called for “propagating the Christian religion to such people, as yet live in darkness and miserable ignorance of the true knowledge and worship of God.”

The land was a canny, time-tested adversary. Because the settlers were too lazy and arrogant to work the land, the land deprived them of food and gave them no clue as to where they were or how utterly they were surrounded by yet more land. Gentlemen and their servants felt overwhelmed. The Indians could have helped them, but the English considered them savages, then enemies.

‘Settler’ George Percy, 1607:

The fourth day of September died Thomas Jacob Sergeant. The fift day, there died Benjamin Beast. Our men were destroyed with cruell diseases, as Swellings, Flixes, Burning Fevers, and by warres, and some departed suddenly, but for the most part they died of meere famine. There were never Englishmen left in a forreigne Counterey in such miserie as wee were in this new discovered Virginia.

The cattle, hogs, and poultry had long ago been eaten. Then the settlers dined on the horses ... some colonists found sustenance in makeshift cemeteries by feeding on the bodies of those who had left this life before them.

In his “Generall Historie of Virginia,” written seventeen years after his arrival on the shores of Jamestown, Captain John Smith chronicled the gruesome fate of several hapless settlers:

Nay, so great was our famine, that a salvage [savage?] we slew and buried, the poorer sort tooke him up againe and eat him; and so did divers one another boyled and stewed with roots and herbs: And one amongst the rest did kill his wife, powdered her, and had eaten part of her before it was knowne; for which hee was executed, as hee well deserved: now whether shee was better roasted, boyled or carbonado’d, I know not; but of such a dish as powdered wife I never heard of. This was that time, which still to this day, we called the starving time.

One man who stole two or three pints of oatmeal had a needle forced through his tongue; he was then chained to a tree and left to starve and die publicly.

[Note: average life expectancy in the early American colonies was also lowered by high infant mortality and many young women dying in childbirth—people did live into their sixties, but rarely; many early colonists didn’t survive childhood, due mostly to disease and starvation].

From: Johnson, Charles, Patricia Smith, and the WGBH Series Research Team. Africans in America: America’s Journey Through Slavery. United States: Harcourt Brace & Company, 1998, 30-36.

“Blue” Laws

Blue Laws – or statues of extreme rigor – were to be found both in Europe and in all of the American colonies. They obviously could not be enforced with literal severity, and they generally fell into disuse after the Revolution. Connecticut’s Blue Laws received unpleasant notoriety in the Reverend Peters’ General History of Connecticut (1781) that fabricated decrees as “No woman shall kiss her child on Sabbath or fasting day.” But the valid laws of Connecticut, some of which are here reproduced with the Biblical chapter and verse from which they came, were harsh enough.

If any man or woman, after legal conviction, shall have worship any other God but the Lord God, he shall be put to death. (Deuteronomy 13.6. Exodus 22.20).

If any person within this colony shall blaspheme the name of God, the Father, Son, or Holy Ghost, with direct, express, presumptuous, or high handed blasphemy, or shall curse in the like manner, he shall be put to death. ( Leviticus 24, 15, 16.)

If any man or woman be a witch, that is, has or consults with a familiar spirit, they shall be put to death. (Exodus 2.18 Leviticus 20.27. Deuteronomy 18.10.11)

If any person shall commit any willful murder, committed upon malice, hatred, or cruelty, not in a man’s just and necessary defense, nor by casualty (accident) against his will, he shall be put to death. (Exodus 21.12.13.14. Numbers 35.30.31)

If any person shall slay another through guile, either by poisoning or other such devilish practices, he shall be put to death. (Exodus 21.14)...

If any man steals a man or mankind and sells him, or if he be found in his hand, he shall be put to death. (Exodus 21.16)

If any person rise up by false witness wittingly and of purpose to take away a man’s life, he or she shall be put to death. (Deuteronomy 19.16. 18. 19)

If any child or children above sixteen years old, and of sufficient understanding, shall curse or smite their natural father or mother, he or they shall be put to death, unless it can be sufficiently testified that the parents have been very unchristianly negligent in the education of such children, or so provoked them by extreme and cruel correction that they have been forced thereunto to preserve themselves from death or maiming. (Exodus 21.17. Leviticus. 20.9 Exodus 21.15)

If any man have a stubborn or rebellious son, of sufficient understanding and years, viz. sixteen years of age, which shall not obey the voice of his father, or the voice of his mother, and that when they have chastened him, he will not harken unto them; then may his father or mother, being his natural parents, lay hold on him, and bring him to the magistrates assembled in court, and testify unto them that their son is stubborn and rebellious, and will not obey their voice and chastisement, but lives in sundry notorious crimes, such a son will be put to death. (Deuteronomy 21.20, 21)

Excerpts from THE LIBERTIES OF THE MASSACHUSETTS COLLONIE NEW ENGLAND, 1641

Liberties of Women

If any man at his death shall not leave his wife a competent portion of his estate, upon just complaint made to the Generall Court she shall be relieved.

Everie marryed woeman shall be free from bodilie correction or stripes by her husband, unless it be in his owne defence upon her assault. If there be any just cause of correction complaint shall be made to Authoritie assembled in some Court, from which she shall receive it.

Liberties of Children

When parents dye inestate, the Elder sonne shall have a double portion of his whole estate reall and personall, unless the General Court upon just cause alleadged shall judged otherwise.

When parents dye inestate having noe heires males of their bodies their Daughters shall inherit as Copartners, unless the Generall Court upon just reason shall judge otherwise.

If any parents shall wilfullie and unreasonably deny any childe timely of convenient marriage, or shall exercise any unnaturall severitie towards them, such childeren shall have free libertie to complaine to Authoritie for redresse.

Capitall Laws

Deut. 13.6,10. Deut.17. 32,6. Ex. 22.20

If any man after legall conviction shall have or worship any other god, but the lord god, he shall be put to death.

Ex.22. 18. Lev.20.27. Dut. 18. 10.

If any man or woeman be witch, (that is hath or consulteth with a familiar spirit,) They shall be put to death…

Lev. 20. 15,16

If any man or woeman shall lye with any beaste or bruite creature by Carnall Copulation, They shall surely be put to death. And the beast shall be slaine, and buried and not eaten.

Excerpts from the Sermon “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” by Jonathan Edwards (1741)

There is nothing that keeps wicked men at any one moment out of hell, but the mere pleasure of God.

By the mere pleasure of God, I mean His sovereign pleasure, His arbitrary will, restrained by no obligation, hindered by no manner of difficulty any more than if nothing else but God’s mere will had, in the last degree, or in any respect whatsoever, any hand in the preservation of wicked men one moment.

The truth of this observation may appear by the following considerations:

There is no want of power in God to cast wicked men into hell at any moment. Men’s hands cannot be strong, when God rises up. The strongest have no power to resist Him, nor can any deliver out of His hands.

He is not only able to cast wicked men into hell, but He can most easily do it.

We find it easy to tread on and crush a worm that we see crawling on the earth; so it is easy for us to cut or singe a slender thread that anything hangs by: thus easy is it for God when He pleases, to cast His enemies down to hell.

They deserve to be cast into hell; so that divine justice never stands in the way; it makes no objection against God’s using His power at any moment to destroy them. Yea, on the contrary, justice calls aloud for an infinite punishment of their sins. Divine justice says of the tree that brings forth such grapes of Sodom. “Cut it down, why cumbereth it the ground?”—Luke 13:7. The sword of divine justice is every moment brandished over their heads and it is nothing but the hand of arbitrary mercy, and God’s mere will that holds it back.

They are already under a sentence of condemnation to hell. They do not only justly deserve to be cast down thither, but the sentence of the law of God, that eternal and immutable rule of righteousness that God has fixed between him and mankind, is gone out against them, and stands against them; so that they are bound over already to hell. John 3:18 — “He that believeth not is condemned already.” So that every unconverted man properly belongs to hell; that is his place; from thence he is. John 8:23 — “Ye are from beneath;” and thither he is bound; it is the place that justice, and God’s Word, and sentence of His unchangeable law, assign to him.

They are now the objects of that very same anger and wrath of God, that is expressed in the torments of hell; and the reason why they do not go down to hell at each moment, is not because God, in whose power they are, is not at present very angry with them; as He is with many miserable creatures not tormented in hell, who here feel and bear the fierceness of His wrath. Yea, God is a great deal more angry with great numbers that are now on earth, yea doubtless with some who may read this book, who, it may be are at ease, than He is with many of those that are now in the flames of hell.

So it is not because God is unmindful of their wickedness, and does not resent it, that He does not let loose His hand, and cut them off … The wrath of God burns against them, their damnation does not slumber; the pit is prepared, the fire is made ready, the furnace is now hot, ready to receive them; the flames do now rage and glow. The glittering sword is whetted, and held over them, and the pit hath opened its mouth under them.

It is no security to wicked men for one moment, that there are no visible means of death at hand! It is no security to a natural man, that he is now in health, and that he does not see which way he should now immediately go out of the world by any accident, and that there is no visible danger, in any respect, in his circumstances. Unconverted men walk over the pit of hell on a rotten covering, and there are innumerable places in this covering so weak that they will not bear their weight, and these places are not seen. The arrows of death fly unseen at noon-day; the sharpest sight cannot discern them. God has so many different unsearchable ways of taking wicked men out of the world and sending them to hell, that there is nothing to make it appear that God had need to be at the expense of a miracle, or to go out of the ordinary course of His providence to destroy any wicked man, at any moment.

Almost every natural man that hears of hell, flatters himself that he shall escape it; he depends upon himself for his own security; he flatters himself in what he has done, in what he is now doing, or what he intends to do; every one lays out matters in his own mind, how he shall avoid damnation, and flatters himself that he contrives well for himself, and that his schemes will not fail. They hear indeed that there are but few saved, and that the greater part of men that have died heretofore, are gone to hell; but each one imagines that he forms plans to effect his escape better than others have done. He does not intend to go to that place of torment; he says within himself, that he intends to take effectual care, and to order matters so for himself as not to fail.

But the foolish children of men miserably delude themselves in their own schemes, and in confidence in their own strength and wisdom; they trust to nothing but a shadow. The greater part of those who heretofore have lived under the same means of grace, and are now dead, are undoubtedly gone to hell; and it was not because they did not lay out matters as well for themselves to secure their own escape.

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; and God is dreadfully provoked: His anger is as great towards them as those that are actually suffering the execution of the fierceness of His wrath in hell; and they have done nothing in the least to appease or abate that anger, neither is God in the least bound by any promise to hold them up for one moment. The devil is waiting for them, hell is gaping for them, the flames gather and flash about them, and would fain lay hold on them, and swallow them up …

That world of misery, that lake of burning brimstone, is extended abroad under you. There is the dreadful pit of the glowing flames of the wrath of God; there is hell’s wide gaping mouth open; and you have nothing to stand upon, nor anything to take hold of, there is nothing between you and hell but the air; it is only the power and mere pleasure of God that holds you up.

Your wickedness makes you, as it were, heavy as lead, and to rend downwards with great weight and pressure towards hell, and if God should let you go, you would immediately sink, and swiftly descend and plunge into the bottomless gulf; and your healthy constitution, and your own care and prudence, and best contrivance, and all your righteousness, would have no more influence to uphold you, and keep you out of hell, than a spider’s web would have to stop a falling rock.

The wrath of God is like great waters that are restrained for the present; but they increase more and more, and rise higher and higher, till an outlet is given; and the longer the stream is stopped the more rapid and mighty is its course when once it is let loose. It is true, that judgment against your evil works has not been executed hitherto; the floods of God’s vengeance have been withheld; but your guilt in the meantime is constantly increasing, and you are every day treasuring up more wrath; the waters are constantly rising and waxing more and more mighty; and there is nothing but the mere pleasure of God that holds the waters back, that are unwilling to be stopped, and press hard to go forward. If God should only withdraw His hand from the flood-gate, it would immediately fly open, and the fiery floods of the fierceness and wrath of God, would rush forth with inconceivable fury, and would come upon you with omnipotent power; and if your strength were ten thousand times greater than the strength of the stoutest, sturdiest devil in hell, it would be nothing to withstand or endure it.

The bow of God’s wrath is bent, and the arrow made ready on the string; and justice directs the bow to your heart, and strains at the bow: and it is nothing but the mere pleasure of God, and that of an angry God, without any promise or obligation at all, that keeps the arrow one moment from being made drunk with your blood.

The God that holds you over the pit of hell, much in the same way as one holds a spider, or some loathsome insect, over the fire, abhors you, and is dreadfully provoked; His wrath towards you burns like fire; He looks upon you as worthy of nothing else but to be cast into the fire; He is of purer eyes than to bear to have you in His sight; you are ten thousand times more abominable in His eyes than the most hateful venomous serpent is in ours. You have offended Him infinitely more than ever a stubborn rebel did his prince; and yet, it is nothing but His hand that holds you from falling into the fire every moment. It is to be ascribed to nothing else, that you did not go to hell the last night; that you were suffered to awake again in this world, after you closed your eyes to sleep; and there is no other reason to be given, why you have not dropped into hell since you arose in the morning, but that God’s hand has held you up. There is no other reason to be given, while you have been reading this address, but His mercy; yea, no other reason can be given why you do not this very moment drop down into hell.

O sinner, consider the fearful danger you are in! It is a great furnace of wrath, a wide and bottomless pit, full of the fire of wrath that you are held over in the hand of that God whose wrath is provoked and incensed as much against you as against many of the damned in hell. You hang by a slender thread, with the flames of divine wrath flashing about it and ready every moment to singe it, and burn it asunder …

How awful are those words of the great God. “I will tread them in mine anger, and will trample them in my fury; and their blood shall be sprinkled upon my garments, and I will stain all my raiment” — Isaiah 63:3. It is, perhaps, impossible to conceive of words that carry in them greater manifestations of these three things namely, contempt, hatred, and fierceness of indignation. If you cry to God to pity you, He will be so far from pitying you in your doleful case, or showing you the least reward or favor, that instead of that, He will only tread you under foot: and though He will know that you cannot bear the weight of Omnipotence treading upon you, yet He will not regard that, but He will crush you under His feet without mercy; He will crush out your blood, and make it fly, and it shall be sprinkled on His garments, so as to stain all His raiment. He will not only hate you, but He will have you in the utmost contempt; no place shall be thought fit for you, but under His feet, to be trodden down as the mire of the streets.

Therefore, let every one that is out of Christ, now awake and flee from the wrath to come. The wrath of Almighty God is now undoubtedly hanging over every unregenerate sinner. Let every one flee out of Sodom: “Escape for your lives, look not behind you, escape to the mountain, lest you be consumed.”

Source : http://glacierpeak.sno.wednet.edu/teachers/bjuhl/docs/American%20Lit/American%20Voices/Puritan%20Related%20Documents/Puritan%20World%20View.doc

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