Cotton Mather

Cotton Mather's Wonders of the Invisible World emphasizes two important themes of Puritan hermeneutics. The first theme is Puritan faculty psychology. The second theme is the pivotal role to be played by New England in Protestant eschatology. In this paper, I propose to explore these two themes and investigate how they cohere or unify the apparent disjointed parts of Mather's Wonders of the Invisible World. Puritan faculty psychology provides a theory for looking at Cotton …

…communal asceticism of their original goals and the commercial individualism fast overtaking them, some Puritans, the historians argue, responded with guilt and fear, seeking scapegoats on whom they could blame their sense of moral loss. Within Salem Village, a history of bitter factionalism (as well as resentment toward the more prosperous Salem Town, which controlled the village politically and ecclesiastically) may have helped make the witch-hunt in Salem Village the most virulent in New England.