In a lot of ways this essay forms the ideological core of the book, since Miller will discuss in the later essays many of the ways in which the covenant was absolutely essential in understanding Puritan civil society, church, and state. Man can always know where God is and what he intends” (63). “He has become a God chained – by His own consent, it is true, but nevertheless a God restricted and circumscribed – a God who can be counted upon, a God who can be lived with. Now when you professed a belief in God, you and He entered into a covenant – he turned into a God who was capable of making and keeping a promise. No longer, according to these theologians, did you have to believe in God despite his mercurial nature as you used to. Some of the first important Puritan theologians – including Cotton, Hooker, Shepard, and Bulkley – began to constitute a new school that broke from Calvinism in one important way: the incorporation of covenantal theology. Theology had better learn to justify the ways of God to man or else risk losing some of its influence. By 1650, however, the unscientific worldview that would allow this kind of God had, in some respects, given away. The absolute and capricious power of God could still accept or reject human souls according to His whim. The Scientific Revolution was still far off, and the abject nature of human beings was still de rigueur. In 1550, strict Calvinism was still acceptable. It covers the shift from strict fundamentalist Calvinism to covenantal theology that took place sometime within the early part of the seventeenth century. “The Marrow of Puritan Divinity” is one of the longest, and best, essays in the collection. These essays are how the Puritans fashioned a sense of meaning, and eventually, in time, American identity, out of those very raw ingredients whose presence still make themselves felt in American life – Calvinist theology, a sense of community, and profound intolerance. After the English Civil War had failed to turn the heads of the world to their glorious City on a Hill, they were left with a vast wilderness. In other words, they saw themselves very much performing an errand in the first sense. They were just Englishmen and Englishwomen whose task was to see to it that the “errand” of the Reformation could be enacted on Earth. The first generation of Puritans to set foot on North American soil never thought of themselves as Americans. In the title essay, Miller notes the dual meaning of the word “errand.” It can mean a task done by an inferior for a superior, or it can refer to the task alone, the very action itself. The book’s title comes from one Samuel Danforth, whose sermon “A Brief Recognition of New England’s Errand into the Wilderness” sets the existential, searching tone whose tenor can be found in each one of these essays. There are ten essays, all of which are full of the enticing, meaty history of ideas, so I won’t be able to cover all the ground of the book here, though I would like to give a short précis of some of those essays which I thought to be the most impressive. While the main focus here is Puritanism, Miller does occasionally do a bit of wandering some of the latter essays explore Emerson and the formation of American nationalist ideology. And what a fascinating world he uncovers. Miller’s fascinating book opens up Puritan history for those interested in intellectual history – a history of ideas, theology, and polity. The history we know of the Puritans is a history of events – things they did, their names, their travels. We think of their biggest accomplishment as managing to survive disease and pestilence for so long, despite their backward ways. The word conjures up images of earnest, hard-working folk bedecked in golden buckles and ruffles eager to spread their moral superiority to anyone within earshot. Perry Miller’s “Errand Into the Wilderness” more than any other book I’ve read in a long time makes you realize sometimes how little education our educational institutions actually provide.
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