Engineer, Puritans Mission

Historically, the Puritans were an emigrant community with strict allegiance to the covenant made with God. The roots of American literature can be traced back to the influence from the Puritans during the time period from the 1600s to late 1800s. They believed that their community was ordained by God to carry out his work through the doctrine of predestination, the covenant of works and the covenant of grace. The sermons served a specific purpose in this religious and complex Puritan community. A text from the bible would be the basis for the sermons. The people would listen to the sermons from the text and this would be the basis of their daily life. The Puritans sermons followed a logical structure through grammatical analysis of the text. They gave particular importance to religious symbols and to the application of the text in their daily lives. A certain kind of behavior was expected among the community members based on God’s laws.

A model of Christian charity, a famous oration given by John Winthrop aboard the Arbella conveyed a strong message to the emigrants that they were going to build a new society in a city on the hill. This message is similar to the covenant God made with the Jews. The Puritans saw themselves in the new world as creators of a New Jerusalem. Winthrop urged the Puritan community “we must be knit together, in this work as one man.”  The way to carry out God’s work was to live by the duty of mercy through giving, lending and forgiving. Winthrop sets out a convention for the Puritans to abide by God’s law and to stick together in the new world. He wanted everyone to be an example to all nations, so other nations would emulate them. In a quote from Deut.30. “Beloved, there is now set before us life and death…” sends a strong message that through love for God and love one another, they will be blessed and multiply in numbers, and no matter where they go, God will bless them.

The poems of Anne Bradstreet reflect religious symbolism through her personal life, relationship with her children and her husband. Bradstreet’s poems draw on a convention that an individual must fit into the community and the path to salvation is already outlined for each individual. In her poem “By night when others...” Bradstreet bares her soul to God and wonders if God is listening to her. In another poem “In reference to her children….,” the passage “As is ordain’d, so shall they light”, Bradstreet believes that as her children leave home, they will arrive where they are ordained to carry out God’s work. She uses the method of meditation, questioning, doubting. Through this experiential process, she comes to a resolution that God hears her and she will eventually have a place in the community of saints.