02/05/2022 – “The Last American Puritan / The Life of Increase Mather” by Michael G. Hall // Post 1 of 2
BIOGRAPHY: INCREASE MATHER (1639-1723):
http://matherproject.org/node/36
I haven’t traced through a multi generational family tree, but a caption underneath an oil painting portrait of Richard Mather from page #8, Increase’ s father: “Richard Mather, suspended from Anglican ministry for nonconformity, came to Massachusetts in 1635 and settled in Dorchester.” (Massachusetts colony)
I am going to share with y’all a short except, with gaps from pages 89 – 91. My purpose is to set for all us how Increase’s sermons would be received today. Have you heard anything remotely resembling it over the past couple of years? And then, in Part 2 of 2, I will follow this up with some Puritan Theology from “A Puritan Theology / Doctrine for Life” by Joel R. Beeke & Mark Jones, a mere 1000 or so pages in length. My purpose is to provide some theology structure that you might better understand Mather’s sermon messages, much as you might still have areas of disagreement. I am confident that no one reading this will recognize him as outside the body of Christ and the foundational Word of God, therefore a brother in Christ, the eternal fellowship of the saints.
So, let’s get started with this part I:
” A Serious Exhortation touched deep chords of feeling in Mather’s time and was reprinted twice during his life. The lasting popularity of the book was due less to that first bereavement, when the earlist leaders died — John Wilson, Norton, Richard Mather, Davenport all died in the 1660’s — than to a mixture of hope and guilt about the next generation. ‘I know you are apt to complain against the Rising Generation,’ Increase wrote, ‘ and it cannot be denied there is cause enough…. But I beseech you to consider whether you give not too much occasion thereunto: Do they not see your Pride, your Worldliness, your Passion, your Vanity? And doth that not harden and stumble them? God hath not given his Gospel unto men, that a few old Christians may enjoy something of the Presence of the Lord while they live, and then carry away the Gospel and the Religion (as worthy Mitchell said) into the cold grave with them when they die.’ ….
All during 1670 and 167 he felt weak and enervated, depressed and despondent. Nightmares tormented his sleep. He lived with the constant fear that his melanchlia, his lack of physical energy, and his awful dreams all foretold some approaching catastrophe… Now Satan set in with my melancholy to perswade me (though there was no ground for it) that this last would be my condition. The thoughts wereof filled me with inexpressible sorrows and fears.
Increase’s struggle upwards from depression over the next few years was carried on in the framework and vocabulary of Augustinian spirituality, in the language of which ‘ a primary emphasis on personal experience , human sinfulness, and divine initiative in salvation through grace are the hallmarks. …
The next summer he experienced such deep religious awakening that he began to think of it as a second conversion… The road back to complete physical and emotional health was long and slow , with many setbacks. The nightmares continued intermittently, and Mather lived a seesaw life between depression and exuberance….
In this final, triumphant mood, soaring like an eagle, Mather transcribed six recent sermons in which he summarized as a second rebirth his spiritual trials since his father’s death. The six sermons formed yet another book, which he dedicated to his church; it was published in London two years later (1674) under the title Some Important Things About Conversion. These sermons bear on one central theme, expressed most clearly in the title of the first, ‘A Sound and Thorough Conversion.’ Mather stressed the absolute necessity of a conversion experience. Only a few of you, he told his readers, are saved. ‘The larger part of you, amongst whom I have been preaching for years, remain unregenerate.’ Those of you who have already experienced a new birth, he went on, may expect ‘a farther and as it were a second conversion.’ Here he spoke of his most recent experience. We cannot convert ourselves, he emphasized, but can and must pray constantly for converting grace. Even so, the number saved will be small compared to the number headed for destruction….
Ok, I hope you stay tuned “Puritan Theology” that might shed more light on this.
Soli Deo Gloria!
Love,
Jimmy