The Wonders of the Invisible World by Cotton Mather 1693 ed with an intro by Reiner Smolinski (1998).pdf

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TheWondersoftheInvisibleWorld.

ObservationsasWellHistoricalas

Theological,upontheNature,the

Number,andtheOperationsofthe

Devils(1693)

CottonMather ReinerSmolinski,Editor y

SecondChurch(Congregational),Boston

y GeorgiaStateUniversity,rsmolinski@gsu.edu

ThispaperispostedatDigitalCommons@UniversityofNebraska-Lincoln.

http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/etas/19

The Wonders of the Invisible World:

C OTTON M ATHER (1662/3–1727/8). The eldest son of

New England’s leading divine, Increase Mather and grand-

son of the colony’s spiritual founders Richard Mather and

John Cotton, Mather was born in Boston, educated at Har-

vard (B. A. 1678; M. A. 1681), and received an honorary

Doctor of Divinity degree from Glasgow University (1710).

As pastor of Boston’s Second Church (Congregational), he

came into the political limelight during America’s version

of the Glorious Revolution, when Bostonians deposed their

royal governor, Sir Edmund Andros (April 1689). During

the witchcraft debacle (1692–93), Mather both warns the Sa-

lem judges against admitting “spectral evidence” as grounds

for indictment and advocates prayer and fasting to cure the

afflicted, but he also writes New England’s official defense

of the court’s procedures on which his modern reputation

largely depends: The Wonders of the Invisible World (1693).

As the Lord’s remembrancer and keeper of the Puritan con-

science, he writes the grandest of American jeremiads, his

epic church history Magnalia Christi Americana (1702).

Like his father a staunch defender of Puritan orthodoxy,

Mather persuades Elihu Yale, a London merchant and prac-

ticing Anglican, to endow Yale University (1703) as the new

nursery of Puritanism, when Harvard seemed to become

too liberal in its teaching and too independent in its think-

ing. If such endeavors bespeak Mather’s partisan politics on

the one hand and his transcendent thinking on the other, it

is his chiliastic credo that leads him to champion Pietist ec-

umenism, his effort to unite all Christian denominations in

New England, nay all Christians, Jews, and Moslems in the

Orient and Occident, under the umbrella of his “3 Maxims

of Piety” to hasten the Second Coming of Christ. Likewise,

his interest in the new sciences and in new medical theories

distinguish Mather from his American contemporaries. He

was elected Fellow of the Royal Society of London (1713), de-

Observations as Well Historical as Theological,

upon the Nature, the Number, and the

Operations of the Devils

[1693]

by Cotton Mather

Edited, with an Introduction,

by Reiner Smolinski

COTTON MATHER

INTRODUCTION

iii

fended and popularized the new scientific theories of Henry

More, William Derham, John Ray, Thomas Burnet, Wil-

liam Whiston, Sir Isaac Newton, and others, and staunchly

advocates a new germ theory and inoculation against small-

pox in the face of the united opposition of Boston’s physi-

cians during the epidemic of 1721. Whereas Increase Mather

never quite made the transition into the Enlightenment,

his son Cotton had come full circle; he represents the best

of early Enlightenment thinking in Colonial America. His

contributions to the literature of the New England Errand

are as diverse as his publications are prolific and inexhaust-

ible. In all, he published more than four hundred works on

all aspects of the contemporary debate: theological, histori-

cal, biographical, political, and scientific. It is therefore de-

plorable that Mather’s reputation is still largely overshad-

owed by the specter of Salem witchcraft.

No single work of Mather’s gargantuan publication re-

cord does justice to his long, productive career in New Eng-

land’s foremost pulpit, but several representative types afford

a glimpse at his overall achievement. The Diary of Cotton

Mather (Vol. I, 1911; II, 1912; III, 1964) provides a more

comprehensive insight into his volatile nature than his auto-

biography Pa t e r n a (1976). His Diary is a Puritan document

par excellence. It focuses on him as an instrument of divine

providence in the world. If his public persona in his sermons

is overbearing and bombastic, his private persona in his Di-

ary is modest and unostentatious: a doting son, loving fa-

ther, affectionate husband, and caring Pa s t o r e v a ng e li c u s —

fully aware of his own weaknesses.

Mather’s mythic image still rests on his involvement in

the Salem witchcraft debacle (1692–93) and on Robert Cal-

ef ’s libelling allegations in More Wonders of the Invisible

Wo r l d (1700). Mather’s most important publications on the

supernatural are Memorable Providences, Relating to Witch-

craft and Possessions (1689) and Wonders of the Invisible World

(1693). The former mostly recounts the possessions and an-

tics of the Goodwin children, the eldest of whom Mather ob-

served in his own home and eventually cured through fast-

ing, prayer, and patient reassurance. While to modern readers

the narrative smacks of singular gullibility, Mather’s practi-

cal tests, careful observations, and—most important—san-

ative procedure in indemnifying the girl’s excesses bespeak

his experimental treatment of the case. The latter work aims

at several purposes. On the one hand, Wo n d e r s is New Eng-

land’s official defense of the court’s verdict and testimony

to the power of Satan and his minions; on the other, it is

Mather’s contribution to pneumatology, with John Gaul,

Matthew Hale, John Dee, William Perkins, Joseph Glan-

ville, and Richard Baxter in the lead. Before Mather excerpts

the six most notorious cases of Salem witchcraft, he but-

tresses his account with the official endorsement of Lt. Gov-

ernor William Stoughton, with a disquisition on the devil’s

machinations described by the best authorities that the sub-

ject affords, with a previously delivered sermon at Andover,

and with his own experimentations. Mather’s Wo n d e r s , how-

ever, does not end without a due note of caution. While ex-

posing Satan’s plot to overthrow New England’s churches,

Mather also recommends his father’s caveat Cases of Con-

science (1693), thus effectively rejecting the use of “spectral

evidence” as grounds for conviction and condemning con-

fessions extracted under torture. What ties the various parts

together is Mather’s millenarian theme of Christ’s immi-

nence, of which Satan’s plot is the best evidence. Robert Cal-

ef ’s accusation that Mather and his ilk incited the hysteria

is, perhaps, unfounded, but Calef ’s charge of Mather’s ambi-

dextrous disposition seems warranted. For while Mather de-

fends the court’s verdict and justifies the government’s po-

sition, he also voices his great discomfort with the court’s

COTTON MATHER

INTRODUCTION

procedure in the matter. Wo n d e r s appeared in print just when

the trials were halting, but it remains, in his own words,

“that reviled Book,” a bane to his name.

His most enduring and, at once, most famous legacy

is his Puritan epic Magnalia Christi Americana (London,

1702), an ecclesiastical history of New England in the con-

temporary tradition of providence literature. In seven books

of uneven length, Mather commemorates on an epic scale

virtually every aspect of New England’s formative period

(1620-1698). From a literary point of view, Mather’s Plutar-

chan biographies of New England’s governors and ministers

(book 2) are of greatest interest. Puritan heroes are juxta-

posed with heroes of classical and biblical antiquity, with the

former surpassing the latter by emulating their outstanding

characteristics. Even though each life follows the pattern

of medieval hagiography, he does not fail to mention some

of his heroes’ shortcomings and how they overcame them.

Since its appearance, Magnalia Christi Americana has been

criticized for its lack of thematic unity, bombastic style, and

undigested material. However flawed by modern standards,

each of the seven books develops a specific theme, unified by

Mather’s Virgilian theme of the mighty works of Christ in

the Western hemisphere; Mather’s Baroque style—though

outdated by contemporary standards—is entirely consistent

with his own stylistic principles delineated in Manuductio

ad Ministerium (1726): to entertain with stylistic flourishes

while instructing with pearls of wisdom. Finally, Mather’s

consistent narrative voice and rhetorical intent unifies his

subject matter as the grandest of jeremiads that American

Puritanism has brought forth.

Out of Mather’s Pietist impulse and scientific endeavor

grow three strands of works, the best examples of which are

his civic-minded Bonifacius (1710), his compendium of the

new science The Christian Philosopher (1720/1), his medical

handbook The Angel of Bethesda (wr. 1723/24, publ. 1972),

his manual for the ministry Manuductio ad Ministerium

(1726), and his hermeneutical defense of eschatology The

Threefold Paradise: “Triparadisus” (wr. 1712, 1720-27; publ.

1995). Mather’s Bonifacius, An Essay . . . to Do Good represents

the most comprehensive expression of his life’s purpose:

“ Fructuosis ,” to be serviceable to one’s fellow man. His life-

long interest in the German Pietist movement of his Fred-

erician colleague August Hermann Francke, of Halle (Sax-

ony), convinced Mather that specific practical advice rather

than pious exhortations could engender social reform. His

subsequent essays (chapters) address all classes of society and

their various occupations.

In typical Renaissance fashion, Mather was at home in

virtually every discipline of human knowledge, ancient and

modern. Though a theologian by vocation, he was a vir-

tuoso of science by avocation, as his “Curiosa Americana”

(1712, 1714) and his Christian Philosopher (1720/1) attest. In

the former, he describes in more than 23 separate epistles

his pseudo-scientific observations of the American flora and

fauna, ornithology, birth defects, rattlesnakes, earthquakes,

Indian customs, and many other American curiosities. Per-

fectly consistent with European standards of the time, “Cu-

riosa” also pioneers theories of psychogenic causes of dis-

ease and of plant hybridization, the earliest known account,

which became the basis for the Linnaean system of botany.

The Royal Society of London bestowed upon Mather the

prestigious title of F.R.S. (1713). He was only the eighth co-

lonial American to become a Fellow. Like Increase Mather’s

Illustrious Providences (1684), Cotton Mather’s Christian

Philosopher provides a rational foundation for Christian-

ity, attempting to reconcile Scripture revelation with the

new science. But unlike his father’s earlier work, Christian

Philosopher moves with ease between scientific explanations

COTTON MATHER

INTRODUCTION

vii

and theological justifications. Above all else, Cotton Mather

demonstrates the adaptability of Calvinism to a new philos-

ophy in its progress toward the Transcendentalism of the

nineteenth century.

As an experimenter of medicine, Mather was as qualified

as any medical practitioner in the Old and New World, for he

studied medicine at Harvard when his adolescent stammer

seemed to render him unsuitable for the ministry. His life-

long interest and solid foundation is apparent in this single,

most comprehensive medical handbook in colonial America,

The Angel of Bethesda (wr. 1723/24, publ. 1972). Its threefold

purpose—religious, medical, scientific—is an outgrowth of

his practical Pietism: to provide the indigent with a medi-

cal handbook in the absence of a physician. In 66 chapters

(or Capsulae, as he wittily calls them), Mather quotes from

more than 250 of the best medical authorities, borrowing

remedies from the Galenical, chemical, and occult schools

of medicine. Here loom large such worthies as Hippocrates,

Galen, Paracelsus, Zoroaster, Plato, but also van Helmont,

Boyle, and Sydenham. Each capsula follows the same pat-

tern: (1) Mather’s pious improvement on the disease, fol-

lowed by (2) its clear description and interpretation, and (3)

the best-known remedies and dosages for the possible cure of

the ailment. Yet Mather’s Angel is remarkable not for its sin-

gular medical lore, but for its highly advanced theories that

are of continuing interest to modern medicine. Among still

valuable recommendations are his prophylactic rules of tem-

perate diet, physical exercise, and discouragement of smok-

ing. His most enduring legacy, however, is his method of

overcoming stammer, his benevolent treatment of psychiat-

ric cases, his discussion of psychosomatic causes of illness,

his immunological recommendations on inoculation against

smallpox (eighty years before Edward Jenner developed his

vaccine), and his disquisition on germ theory (animalcu-

lae)—long before Lister and Pasteur discovered their bacteri-

ological approaches to preventive medicine in the nineteenth

century. The warm, comforting, and understanding tone of

Mather’s Angel , its clear structure and consistent narrative

voice, are characteristically embellished by his entertaining

wit, nuggets of wisdom, and occasional metaphors and puns.

In light of his scientific achievements, one almost for-

gets that Cotton Mather was a pastor and minister first and

foremost. Anticipating his imminent departure from this

world, he hastened to write his Manuductio ad Ministerium

(1726), a book-length manual for the ministry. Short on sec-

tarian ideology, Manuductio embodies Mather’s educational

principles for the gentleman minister: Next to the tradi-

tional classical languages, he recommends such modern lan-

guages as French and Spanish; he devalues the customary

Aristotelian curriculum of rhetoric, logic, and metaphysics

in favor of the new Cartesian logic implemented at Harvard,

and advises students to spend their time on the study of the

Bible, German Pietism, medicine, mathematics, astron-

omy, the new science, geography, ancient and modern his-

tory and biography, as well as music for refreshment and po-

etry for recreation. His revealing recommendations on style

(not an end in itself but a means to an end), composition of

sermons, and polished oratory, evince, just how far Mather

had come in his old age: the minister of the future was to be

above all a humane, liberal, erudite gentleman pastor, whose

reformed Calvinism, humanistic scholarship, and polished

grace did not neglect such practical matters as a balanced

diet and physical exercise to offset the stress of his duties.

Cotton Mather’s lifelong preoccupation with millen-

nialism and its significance to his thought and work have

only recently attracted full-scale attention. Beginning with

Things to be Look’d for (1691), he published more than fifty

works in which eschatology played a major role, In fact, it is

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