The New England Soul : Preaching and Religious Culture in Colonial New England

the New England Soul Is The First Comprehensive Analysis Of Preaching In New England From The Founding Of The Puritan Colonies To The Outbreak Of The Revolution. Using A Multi-disciplinary Approach—including Analysis Of Rhetorical Style And Concept Of Identity And Community—stout Examines More Than Two Thousand Sermons Spanning Five Generations Of Ministers, Including Such Giants Of The Pulpit As John Cotton, Thomas Shepard, Increase And Cotton Mather, George Whitefield, Jonathan Edwards, Jonathan Mayhew, And Charles Chauncy, As Well A Numerous Lesser-known Preachers. Stout Reconstructs The Full Import Of The Colonial Sermon As A Multi-faceted Institution That Served Both Religious And Political Purposes, And Explained History And Society To The New England Puritans For One And A Half Centuries. This study explores a seventeenth- and eighteenth-century medium of communications -- the New England sermon -- whose topical range and social influence were so powerful in shaping cultural values, meanings, and a sense of corporate purpose that even television pales in comparison. Unlike modern mass media, the sermon stood alone in local New England contexts as the only regular (at least weekly) medium of public communication. As a channel of information, it combined religious, educational, and journalistic functions, and supplied all the key terms necessary to understand existence in this world and the next. As the only event in public assembly that regularly brought the entire community together, it also represented the central ritual of social order and control. Seldom, if ever before, did so many people hear the same message of purpose and direction over so long a period of time as did the New England "Puritans." - Introduction. Invention, 1620-1665 The Institutional Setting of the Sermon Regular Preaching and the Sequence of Salvation "Sion's Out-Casts" Arrangement, 1666-1700 Days of Trouble and Thankful Remembrances Returning unto God: The Conversion of the Children Perpetuating the Covenant in Uncertain Times: The Sermon at Century's End Style, 1701-1730 Anglicization Regular Preaching and the New Pietism Israel's Constitution Delivery, 1731-1763 Awakening A New Balance War Trust in God A Nation Born at Once Epilogue This first comprehensive analysis of preaching in colonial New England uses a multi-disciplinary approach - including analysis of rhetorical style and concepts of identity and community - to examine more than two thousand sermons spanning five generations of ministers, reconstructing the full import of the colonial sermon as a multi-faceted institution that served both religious and political purposes "[Stout] has created a field of scholarship hitherto neglected --the manuscript sermon as a source of religious culture in colonial times. More than that, he has shown the extent to which sermon notes add to our knowledge of the times, notably for the period of the Great Awakening. And he has done so with great insight -- New England Quarterly." This analysis of preaching in colonial New England examines more than 2000 sermons, spanning five generations of ministers, in order to reconstruct the full import of the colonial sermon as a multi-faceted institution that served both religious and political purposes. Harry S. Stout. Includes Index. Bibliography: P. 317-385.