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"Israel Redivivus: The Eschatological Limits of Puritan Typology in New

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Article in The New England Quarterly · September 1990

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Israel Redivivus: The Eschatological Limits of Puritan Typology in New England
Author(s): Reiner Smolinski
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Source: The New England Quarterly, Vol. 63, No. 3 (Sep., 1990), pp. 357-395
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By arrangementwith the COLONIAL SOCIETY OF
MASSACHUSETTS,
the editors of THE NEW ENGLAND QUARTERLY
are pleasedto publishthetwowinningessays
ofthe 1989
WalterMuir WhitehillPrize in Colonial History
Israel Redivivus: The EschatologicalLimits

of Puritan Typologyin New England
REINER SMOLINSKI
RITICS have long been fascinatedby Puritantypology

and its myth-making power as it conferreddivine ap-
proval on the Puritans'Errand into the Wilderness.As the
familiarargumentgoes, AmericanPuritans,blendingtheir
visionof an AmericanNew Jerusalemwith theirown status
as God's chosen people in theirNew English Canaan, ex-
tended their typological reading of the Old Testament
propheciesbeyondtheirNew Testamentabrogationand ful-
fillmentinto a new covenanttheology.As the literal,spiri-
tual, and figural heirs of Israel's blessings,the Puritans
could look forwardto a future,progressivefulfillment of
biblical prophecieswithin Americansecular history.New
England, and the Americancontinentat large, thuswould
notonlyplay a leading role in the eventsculminatingin the
Second Coming of Christbut would also become the seat of
the New Jerusalem,the City of God which would descend
This paper was presentedas a MemorialLecturein honorof Dr. Karl W. Dietz,

at the AmericanStudies Division, JohannesGutenbergUniversitit,Mainz, Ger-
many,on 12 December 1989.
357
358 THE NEW ENGLAND QUARTERLY
fromheaven. In thismanner,VernonLouis Parrington,H.
RichardNiebuhr,PerryMiller,Alan Heimert,ErnestTuve-
son, Sacvan Bercovitch,Emory Elliott, Cecilia Tichi, Ma-
son Lowance, Philip Gura, and a whole hostof theirdisci-
ples demonstratethat the appropriationof the New Jeru-
salem to the Americanhemisphereinstilledin thecolonistsa
senseofpurposethatcame to fruitionduringtheFirstGreat
Awakening,theWar of Independence,and in theAmerican
missionsto the Third World in the nineteenthcentury.
Such notionsabout AmericanPuritans.and theirAmeri-
can New Jerusalemare now so widelyproliferatedin schol-
arlystudies(see appendix1 fora selectchronologicallisting)
thateven the popular presshas imbibed them: "JohnWin-
thropand his fellowPuritans,"a Newsweekarticlesumma-
rizes the view, "saw themselves ... as destined ... to
found a 'cittyupon a hill' which, come the millennium,
would see the historicalBostontransformed into the escha-
tological 'New Jerusalem.''"But if AmericanPuritansdid
see themselvesas the literal and spiritual heirs of God's
promiseto Jacob's seed and theirNew English Canaan as
the futuresite of the Celestial City and seat of Christ's
worldwidepower, then we should expectto findevidence
in theirown eschatologicalwritingsto validate such an ar-
gument.Surprisingly, this well-knownargumentdoes not
square withthePuritans'eschatologicalpositionon theNew
Jerusalem,nor does it tallywiththe Puritandoctrineof the
National Conversionof the JewishNation. My reexamina-
tion of the typologicaland figuralevidencesuggeststhat in
divorcinglanguage fromdoctrine,criticsironicallyarriveat
conclusionsdiametricallyopposed to Puritaneschatological
and typologicalpositionson theseissues.In fact,millennial-
istsin seventeenth-and eighteenth-century Americapointed
towardan entirelydifferent country,and an entirelydiffer-
ent people, when identifying who would exercisedominion
over the millennial world, a rulershiplater generations
'Kenneth L. Woodward and David Gates, "'How the Bible Made America,"
Newsweek,27 December 1982, p. 46.
ISRAEL REDIVIVUS 359
claimed forAmerica. Typologyas a means of transcending
the cycles of historicalprefigurationand abrogation was
simplynot powerfulenough to shape such meaning.
The chiefpromulgatorof the Celestial City in America,
so the criticsargue, was Cotton Mather,whose Theopolis
Americana (1710) mostclearlyidentifiedBostonas the seat
fortheAmericanNew Jerusalem.A cursoryglance at Math-
er's much quoted sermonseemsto suggestthathe celebrates
the futureglory of America by typologicallyidentifying
New England as the site of Christ'smillennialthrone:
GLORIOUS Thingsare Spokenofthee,O thouCityofGod! The
STREET be in THEE, O NEW-ENGLAND;The Interpretation
of it, be unto you, O American Colonies. . . . There are many
Arguments to perswadeus, That our GloriousLORD, willhave
an Holy Cityin AMERICA; a City,the Streetwhereofwill be
Pure Gold. . . . Yea, the Day is at hand, when the Voice will be
heardconcerning O Amer-
thee,Puton thybeautifulGarments,
ica, theholyCity!
Indeed, read on the surface,the apocalypticovertonesof

TheopolisAmericanaappear to confirmAlan Heimert'srep-
resentativeargumentthat Mather proclaims"America" as
"the seat of the Lord's Kingdom, a New Jerusalemwhose
streetswere paved with gold."2
Similarconclusionscould be drawn fromIncrease Math-
er'sjeremiadA CALL From HEAVEN (1685), in which the
ministerof Boston's Second Church contraststhe gargan-
tuan accomplishmentsof the firstgenerationwith the fail-
ures of theiroffspring:
Wherewas thereevera placeso likeuntoNewJerusalem as New-
Englandhathbeen?It was onceDr. TwisshisOpinionthatwhen
New Jerusalem shouldcomedownfromHeavenAmericawould
be theseat of it. Trulythatsucha Typeand Emblemeof New
Jerusalem,shouldbe erectedin so darka corneroftheworld,is
matterof deep Meditation and Admiration.
SCottonMather,TheopolisAmericana (Boston, 1710), pp. 1, 43, 48, and pas-
sim; Alan Heimert,Religionand theAmericanMind (Cambridge: Harvard Uni-
versityPress, 1966), p. 96.
Urian Oakes's well-known election sermon NEW-EN-
GLAND Pleaded with (1673) is also frequentlycited as evi-
dence forthe Puritans'predilectionto describethemselves
as God's newlychosen,forwhen the ministerof Cambridge
proclaims,"thisour Common-wealthseemsto exhibitto us
a specimen, or a little model of the Kingdome of Christ
upon Earth," in which "You have been as a City upon an
hill," he apparentlyreaffirmsWinthrop'svision of God's
Celestial City in an Americanwilderness.In like manner,
JudgeSamuel Sewall's proclivityto herald America as the
millennialseat of Christ'stheocracyseems obvious in his
often misunderstoodPhaenomena quaedam APOCALYP-
TICA (1697, 1727): "1 propoundthe New World: as being
so far from deservingthe Nick-namesof Gog and Magog;
thatit standsfairforbeing made the Seat of theDivine Me-
tropolis."'
Passageslike the above are legionin the annals of early
Americana.And to legionsof modernscholarstheycorrob-
orate that New England's second and thirdgenerationsnot
only arrogatedthe Celestial City to theirown exclusivedo-
main but also identifiedthemselvesas the latter-dayanti-
typeof God's rejectedIsraelites,whose chosenpositionhad
now been assumed by the most reformedpeople in Chris-
tendom.How else are we to read CottonMather'sarrogant
hyperbole,"The FirstAge was the Golden Age: To return
unto That, will make a Man a Protestant,and I may add,
Increase Mather,A CALL From HEAVEN (Boston, 1685), pp. 77-78; Urian
Oakes, NEW-ENGLAND Pleaded With(Cambridge,1673), p. 21; Samuel Sewall,
Phaenomena quaedam APOCALYPTICA (Boston, 1697; expanded 1727), sig. By;
and Nicholas Noyes,New-EnglandsDuty and Interest(Boston,1698), pp. 44-63.
All echo JohnWinthrop'sfamouslay sermonA Model of ChristianCharity(1630),
in which he exhortshis fellowcolonistson the Arbella, "wee mustConsiderthat
wee shall be as a Cittyupon a Hill, the eies of all people are uppon us" (in Puritan
Political Ideas, ed. Edmund S. Morgan [New York:Bobbs-MerrillCo., 1965], p.
93). In a significantrevisioniststudy,Theodore Dwight Bozeman has called this
passage themostmisquotedand misunderstood expressionin Americanhistory;see
"The Puritans'Errand into the Wilderness'Reconsidered,"New England Quar-
terly59 (1986): 231-51, and hisexcellentstudyTo Live AncientLives: The Primiti-
vist Dimension in Puritanism(Chapel Hill: Universityof NorthCarolina Press,
1988), chap. 3.
a Puritan"?4To understandwhetherthe figurativelanguage

employedhere is conclusiveevidenceforthe Puritans'myo-
pic vision of Christ'sHeilsgeschichteand fortheirabroga-
tion of Abraham's natural seed in the type,we must tally
these claims against Puritan eschatologicaltheoriesof the
callingof the Israelites.Only thencan we attainsome mea-
sure of certainty.
I
While criticshave generallyacknowledgedthe Puritans'
interestin the doctrineof the National Conversionof the
JewishNation, thereis much contradictory and misleading
evidence on how New Englandersaccounted forGod's Pe-
culium, His peculiar people, and theirrestorationprophe-
sied in the Bible. Puritanpreoccupationwith the doctrine
has been interpretedexclusivelyas a rhetoricalfunctionof
thejeremiadand as a typologicaldevice to recapitulateand
underscorethe errandforan increasingnumberofbackslid-
ersin thelatterpart of the seventeenthcentury."The grow-
ing emphasis upon the Jew's Conversion,"Sacvan Berco-
vitch argues in his groundbreakingmonograph "Horo-
logicals to Chronometricals,""merelybringsto the fore a
hithertosubdued or minoringredient,a relativelyneglected
'saving device,' inherentin [the Puritans']complexhistori-
ography."In viewing the propheciesof Israel's restoration
as typologicalproofof theirown election,Bercovitchcon-
tinues,as he embellisheshis argumentin The AmericanJer-
emiad:
theNew EnglandPuritansweredoingno morethanmanyother
Protestant oftheirtime.Theydepartedfromtradi-
millennialists
tion,however,in what I suggestedwas theirmainuseofthedoc-
trineofNationalConversion: theirapplicationofthedoctrine,lit-
and
erally historically,to their
own It
venture. was an application
Cotton Mather, Magnalia ChristiAmericana (London, 1702). All citations

fromthistextare fromKennethB. Murdock'sedition(Cambridge: Harvard Uni-
versityPress, 1977), p. 93.
whichviolateda fundamental tenetofProtestant
exegesis-that
therelationbetweentheold chosenpeopleandthenewwassolely
spiritual-andan application
forwhichthePuritans'rhetoric
and
visionhad amplypreparedthem.As Israelredivivusin thetype,
theycould claim all the ancientprerogatives.. . . This totaliden-
spiritual,and figural-ofOld Israeland New
tification-literal,
is a distinguishing
traitofthejeremiadsin thelastdecadesofthe
seventeenth century.5
Othershave followedBercovitch'slead in assertingthat
the Bay Colony had abrogatedIsrael's Old Testamenttype:
"This identification
of New England as the antitypeof Old
Israel was not original to Increase Mather's eschatology,"
Mason Lowance statesin his assessmentof Mather'scontri-
bution to the jeremiad; "however, the sustainingof this
mythinto the later seventeenthcenturywas a remarkable
mythic,literary,and theological achievement."'6 But such
an identificationwas possible only if Puritan exegetesar-
gued that the Jewishnation had irrevocablypassed on Eli-
jah's mantleto a new "People, whom the Son of God hath
Redeemed and Purifiedunto himself,as a PeculiarPeople,"
sojourning "like Strangers in this World ... in Expectation
of a Kingdom"to come. Such conclusions,however,are not
borne out in Puritaneschatologicalwritingsof the period.
SSacvan Bercovitch,"Horologicals to Chronometricals,"in LiteraryMono-
graphs,ed. Eric Rothstein(Madison: Universityof WisconsinPress,1970), p. 57,
and The AmericanJeremiad(Madison: Universityof WisconsinPress,1978), pp.
75, 76, 78. Most criticshave mentionedthisissue in passing withoutthoroughly
examiningitseschatologicalimplications:Lee EldridgeHuddleston,The Originsof
theAmericanIndians: European Concepts,1492-1729 (Austin:University ofTexas
Press,1967), pp. 110-43; RobertMiddlekauff,The Mathers:ThreeGenerationsof
PuritanIntellectuals,1596-1728 (New York: OxfordUniversityPress, 1971), pp.
28, 105-11, 181; KennethSilverman,The Life and Timesof CottonMather (New
York:Harper & Row, 1984), pp. 170-71, 303-4, 416; Charles Lloyd Cohen, God's
Caress: The Psychologyof PuritanReligiousExperience(New York:OxfordUni-
versityPress, 1986), pp. 181, 192; Michael G. Hall, The Last AmericanPuritan:
The Life ofIncreaseMather,1639-1723 (Middletown,Conn.: WesleyanUniversity
Press, 1988), pp. 76-77, 273-77, 351.
6 Mason I. Lowance, Jr.,The Language of Canaan: Metaphorand Symbolin
New England from the Puritansto the Transcendentalists (Cambridge: Harvard
UniversityPress, 1980), pp. 141-42, and his identicalsentencein Lowance and
David Watters,"Increase Mather's'New Jerusalem':Millennialismin Late Seven-
teenth-Century New England," Publicationsof theAmericanAntiquarianSociety
87 (1977), pp. 346-47.
In fact,Puritanmillennialists stronglyassertedthatthe res-
torationand national conversionof the Jewswas a prereq-
uisiteto theSecond Coming; Christ'sSecond Adventwas in-
definitelypostponeduntilsuch timeas Israel's "dry bones"
were enlivened and restoredto their ancient position of
prominence.7
The doctrineof national conversionas it was expounded
by the leading divinesof the time is affirmedin the Savoy
Declaration of Faith (1658). Most seventeenth-and eigh-
teenth-century millennialistson both sides of the Atlantic
agreed that even thoughthe Jewswere still languishingin
theirdiaspora forhavingrejectedtheirSavior,Jehovahhad
notforgotten His chosenpeople and would, in due time,re-
store them to theironce elevated positionamong the na-
tions.St. Paul, foretelling the restorationof Abraham'snat-
ural seed in his Epistle to the Romans (chap. 11), predicted
that the veil of theirblindnesswould be removedand they
would thenembraceChristianity in everlastingcommunion
with the Ancientof Days.8
While metaphoristsread Paul's textas an allegoryof the
ChristianChurch,AmericanliteralistsinsistedthattheJews
literallywould be restoredat the Second Coming. In this
interpretation theyfollowedthelead ofJosephMede (1585-
1638), the foremost early seventeenth-century English au-
on
thority theapocalyptic,whose Clavis Apocalyptica(Lon-
don, 1627) had triggereda renaissanceofmillennialist think-
7 Cotton Mather,Magnalia, p. 94, and "Problema Theologicum" (1703), pp.

23-36, ms. at the AmericanAntiquarianSociety,Worcester,Mass.
8 The Savoy Declaration (1658) is in WillistonWalker'sCreedsand Platformsof
Congregationalism(1883; reprinted,Philadelphia: PilgrimPress, 1960), p. 396.
For severalhelpfulstudieson the role of the Jewsin the seventeenthcenturysee,
Douglas J. Culver,"National Restorationof theJewishPeople to Palestinein Brit-
ish Nonconformity, 1585-1640" (Ph.D. diss., New YorkUniversity, 1970); Carl F.
Ehle, Jr.,"Prolegomenato ChristianZionism in America: The Views of Increase
Matherand WilliamE. BlackstoneConcerningtheDoctrineoftheRestorationofIs-
rael" (Ph.D. diss., New YorkUniversity, 1977); Mel Scult,MillennialExpectations
and JewishLiberties(Leiden: E. J.Brill,1978); Le RoyFroom, The PropheticFaith
of Our Fathers: The HistoricalDevelopmentof PropheticInterpretation, 4 vols.
(Washington,D.C.: Review and Herald PublishingAssociation,1946-54), esp.
vol. 3.
ingin England, whichsoonsprangforthin America.9"There
shall be a morefulldegreeofcallinghome theJewes,"Peter
Bulkeley stated in The Gospel-Covenant (1651), echoing
Mede's interpretationofPaul:
Andin thistheApostleis cleareand fullin Rom. 11.12,where
speaking ofthecallingoftheJeweshe saith,Thatiftheirfallwas
therichesoftheGentiles, howmuchmoreshalltheirabundance
be? Thatis, theircalling,(whichshallbe in greatabundance)so
that,thenmostproperly is thetime,whereintheNationsshallbe
gathered toJerusalem, namely,whenthemultitude oftheJewes
shallbe called,and all Nationsthenaddeduntothem.'0
nonconformists
Bulkeley,one of the leading first-generation
to definePuritan covenant theologyin America, was cer-
tainlynot alone in expoundinga literalinterpretationof the
Jews'returnto Palestine.In fact,he was in good company
among his colleagues not only of the firstgeneration(Cot-
ton, Davenport, Hooke, Greenhill)but also of the second
(Oakes, Noyes, Willard, Increase Mather), the third(Cot-
ton Mather[before1726], Sewall), and beyondto Jonathan
Edwards-all of whom assertedthat the National Conver-
sionoftheJewishNation and itsRestorationto Judeawould
actuallyoccur (see appendix2 fora brieflistingof sources).
As IncreaseMatherexplainedthedoctrinein his The Mys-
teryofIsrael'sSalvation(1669), "One ofthosegreatand glori-
ous things which the world . .. are in expectation of at this
day,is, The generalconversionoftheIsraelitishNation ...
The Jewswho have been trampledupon by all Nations,shall
shortlybecomethemostgloriousNationin thewhole world,
and all otherNations shall have them in greatesteemand
9 See also The Worksof ... JosephMede, 4th ed. (London, 1677), pp. 139-40,
761-68, 771-76, and passim. For a discussionof Mede's influence,see JoyBourne
Gilsdorf,"The PuritanApocalypse:New England Eschatologyin the Seventeenth
1964), pp. 64-70; and Puritans,theMillen-
Century"(Ph.D. diss., Yale University,
nium and the Future of Israel: Puritan Eschatology,1600-1660, ed. PeterToon
(Cambridge: Cambridge UniversityPress, 1970), pp. 56-65.
"0PeterBulkeley,The Gospel Covenant (London, 1651), pp. 7-8, also 9, 16-17,
19-24; and CottonMatheron "Romans 11," in "Biblia Americana,"ms. Massachu-
settsHistoricalSociety,Boston.
honour."" Mather'sMysteryis the mostdetailed and most
representative publicationon thisissueby an AmericanPuri-
tan oftheperiod. In it he respondsto thefrenziedmillennial
expectationsofEuropean divines,whichin thedecade ofthe
sixtiesfollowed in the wake of Shabb'tai Zvi's self-pro-
claimed messiahshipin Turkey,wherehe inspiredEuropean
and OttomanJewsto returnto Judeato claim theirancestral
seat. Backed by thebestof authorities,fromthe ChurchFa-
thersto hisown contemporaries, Increaseassureshisreaders
thatthedoctrineof nationalconversionoftheJewshas been
receivedin the ChristianchurchfromthetimesoftheApos-
tles.
Taking his thesisfromRomans 11:26, "All Israel shall be
saved," Increase opens his scripturetextby concedingthat
the expression"all Israel" admits of "diverse interpreta-
tions."Some take it to includeonly"some Few ofall Israel,"
or "all theelectof God," or "all and everyone ofthenatural
posterity ofJacob." Cautioningthat"a literalinterpretation
of Scriptureought never to be rejected for an allegorical
one," however,Increase Matherand his literalistcolleagues
assertthat the true meaningof "all Israel" was that "very
manyIsraelitesshall be saved. Yea, all herenoteth,notonly
many, but most; it signifiethnot only a Majority,but a
very full and large Generality."Likewise, their salvation
was not only "Temporal" but also "Spiritual,"for as their
temporal salvation signifiedthat the down-troddenJews
"shall shortlybecome the mostgloriousNation in the whole
world, and all other Nations shall have them in great es-
teem and honour,"so theirspiritualsalvationsignifiedthe
removal of theirblindingveil, theiracceptance of Christ,
and theirrestorationto and possessionof "the land prom-
ised unto theirFather Abraham."'2
Indeed, Increase neverchanged his views on Israel's na-
" IncreaseMather,The Mysteryof Israel'sSalvation (London, 1669), pp. 1, 11,
and passim. For a discussionof Shabbtai Zvi's impacton European and American
see JohnDavenport's"Preface,"in Mystery,sig. A3v; Hall, Life of
millennialists,
Increase Mather,pp. 77-78; and Bercovitch,AmericanJeremiad,p. 75.
12Increase Mather,Mystery,pp. 1, 5-12, 53.
tional conversion,as is evidentfromseveralof his laterser-
monson the topic; nor did he ever assertthatGod's ancient
people had been permanentlysupplantedby the Christian
Gentiles. God would rejectthe Jewishnation as His cove-
nantedpeople onlyfora timeduringwhichthe Gentilesre-
ceived Christ. Once that period passed, God would revive
the Jews; their "blindness" was "neither universal . . . nor
perpetual," for their salvation was "still grounded upon
Gods Covenant." For just as God "hath called the Gentiles,
and so contraryto naturegraffed[sic] thatwhich was wild
into the good Olive tree: Sure then he is able to graff[sic]
theIsraelites,whichare thenaturalbranchesintotheirown
Olive tree." God will "call the Jews again to become his
people." When Richard Baxter propounded an allegorical
readingof Romans 11 in The Kingdomof Christ(1691), In-
crease Mather defendedhis earlierMysteryin his popular
essay A DissertationConcerningthe Future Conversionof
theJewishNation (1709): "But it is clear thatthe Design of
the Apostleis to convincethose Gentilesof theirError" in
assumingthat theyhad irrevocablysupplantedthe Jewish
nationas God's elect. St. Paul, Matherargues,echoingJohn
Cotton'sA BriefExpositionof Canticles (1655), "therefore
tellsthem[Gentiles]thatnot onlysome ofthe thenJewsdid
belongto Election,but thattheObdurationwhichtheBody
of that Nation was punished with, was only.. . for a Time,
untilthe Fulness of the Gentilesshould come in, and that
thenall Israel should be saved, v. 26. To say thathe intends
the Elect, or Spiritual Israel, is against the Drift of his
whole Discourse,"which "speaks of Israel accordingto the
Flesh. "13
Mather'sBostoncolleague Samuel Willard also roseto the
occasion and insistedon a literalinterpretation
of the mes-
sage about the Jews'conversionin Romans 11: "It mustbe
literallyunderstoodwithrespectto thatNation, and cannot
be restrainedto theMysticalBodyofChrist,"Willardassured
13 IncreaseMather,Mystery, pp. 51, 48-50, 69, 77, and A DissertationConcern-

ing the Future Conversionof theJewishNation (London, 1709), p. 10.
hisreadersin hispopularsermonThe FountainOpened: Or,
TheAdmirableBlessingsplentifully tobe Dispensedat theNa-
tionalConversionoftheJews(1700). "Nor can thesethingsbe
understoodallegorically,withoutviolencedone to thewhole
scope of the text."Samuel Sewall's extraordinary effortsto
Judaize the prophecies in his Phaenomena must be men-
tionedhere as well. MusteringevidencefromJohn'sApoca-
lypseand the authorityof Thomas Goodwin, Sewall indig-
nantly rebuffsthose who applied Revelation to Christ's
Gentilebrideratherthanto theJews:"It is indeeda singular
Honour to thatNation,thatsincereChristians;such as with
inviolable Chastitykeep themselvesto the Institutionsof
theirLORD, shouldbe called Jews,Rev. 2.9. But to takean
occasionfromthence,toexcludeall Jacob'sPosterity fromthis
Privilege, is to argueperversely." Christ'sbride is theJewish
nation,not His ChristianChurch of Gentiles:"The Apoca-
lypseis a mostillustriousEpithalamiumsuitedto the stately
Magnificenceof the Bridegroom,and ofthe Bride. Now the
Jewsupon theirReturn,will eminentlysustainthatCharac-
ter. The New-Jerusalem. . . is especiallymade up of Jews,
and fromthenceit hathitsName."'4
To Sewall and Goodwin alike, John'sApocalypse "must
belongto theJews;because the gloriousThingsthatare spo-
ken therein,are eminentlyspoken of them." This Judaical
interpretation may come as a surprise,but it is not at all
uncommonin light of Daniel Whitby'sA Treatise of the
True Millennium(1703). This post-millennialist tractby an
Anglican minister from across the Atlantic comparesPaul's
Epistle to the Romans (chap. 11) with the propheciesabout
theNew Jerusalem in theApocalypseand assertsthatChrist's
bride"was thoughtby thebestcommentators to be theJew-
ish churchand nation" and "the new heavens and the new
earth were the verythingspromisedto the Jews." May it
'4 Samuel Willard's Fountain Opened (Boston, 1700) went throughthreeedi-

tions. My referencesare to the thirdedition, appended to the second editionof
Samuel Sewall's Phaenomena,p. 6. Sewall, Phaenomena,pp. 30, 29, and The Let-
ter-Bookof Samuel Sewall, 1674-1729, in Collectionsof theMassachusettsHistor-
ical Society,6th ser., vols. 1-2 (Boston,1886-88), 2:155-56, 197-99.
sufficeto quote fromanotherpost-millennialist, Jonathan
Edwards, whose posthumously publishedThe Historyof the
Work of Redemption(1774) affirmsthe restorationof the
Jewishnation as well: "Nothingis more certainlyforetold
thanthisnationalconversionoftheJewsis in the 11thchap-
terof Romans. And thereare also manypassagesof the Old
Testamentwhich cannot be interpretedin any othersense.
... When they shall be called, then shall that ancient
people, thatwere alone God's people forso long a time,be
God's people again, neverto be rejectedmore."'5
Given thisbackground,we can now fullyappreciatethat
Increase Mather'stypologicalargumentabout the national
conversionof theJewsat the millenniumcannotreferto the
Puritansaintsas Jacob's "spiritual"seed, as Bercovitch,Lo-
wance, and theirdisciplesassert,but mustreferto thesalva-
tion of Jacob's "natural" seed at the Second Coming. The
Old Testamentprophetictypeembodied in Israel's exile to
and returnfromits Babylonian captivityforeshadowsits
largereschatologicalfulfillment, the anti-type,in the days
of the Messiah'sreturn:"This salvationwhich we are now
speakingof as yet to come," Increase assertsin his Mystery
of Israel's Salvation, "will be more wonderfulthan any of
thoseformerwhich heretoforehave been. That deliverance
of theJewsby Cyrusout ofBabylon,was . .. but a Type of
this,"theirfuturerestoration.Moreover,
theVisionofthedrybonesinEzekieldothfirstly refer
totheJews
captivatedin Babylon,butprincipally
to theforlorn
estateofthe
Jewsat thisday,and thelikemaybe said concerning manypas-
sagesin otherof the Prophets,thattheydo firstly
concernthe
Babyloniancondition oftheJews,butlastlytheirpresentcondi-
tion;but becausethatdeliverancewas a Typeof this,therefore
thiswillbe themoreeminentand wonderful, fortheTypemust
needscomeshortoftheAnti-type.
It is ratherironicand certainlymisleadingthat Mason Lo-
wance quotes this passage as positiveproof that Increase
'~5Sewall, Phaenomena, p. 30; Daniel Whitby,A Treatiseof the True Millen-
nium (London, 1703), p. 1, and JonathanEdwards, The Historyof the Workof
Mathersaw PuritanNew England as the literalfulfillment

of God's propheticpromisesto the Jews.'6In thisinstance,
as in so manyothers,criticsimposepreconceivednotionson
Puritan typologyto certifytheirown theoriesand, in the
process,theydivorcelanguage fromdoctrineand thusalle-
gorize and metaphorizethe literalintentof thosetypologi-
cal passages theyextractforevidence.
II
But how can we be surethatthe Puritanministry in New
England did not merelypay lip serviceto thetraditionalex-
egesisof Israel's restoration?How can we be sure that they
did not depart fromtradition,as Sacvan Bercovitchinsists
theydid, and apply the doctrineof the Jews'salvation"lit-
erallyand historically, to theirown venture"?"7 The spatial
locationof the Cityof God and the natureof itsinhabitants
were much on the mind of Dr. William Twisse, a pre-mil-
lennialist,sometimeresidentof New England in the 1630s,
and later memberof the WestminsterAssembly.In one of
his frequentlettersto JosephMede on eschatologicalsub-
jects,Twissehailed the timelydiscoveryof Americaand the
progressof the Puritangospelin New England and eagerly
inquired of his famous colleague, "Why may not that
[America]be thePlace of the New Jerusalem?"Mede, how-
ever,was not at all impressedwith Twisse's argument.He
venturedthat America was not the futurelocus of Christ's
millennialthronebut ratherthe kingdomof Satan and his
minions,Gog and Magog, whose armieswould once more
rise againstthe City and its inhabitantsin the battleof Ar-
mageddon at the end of the millennium.In fact,according
to Mede, the geographyof Christ'smillennialkingdomlay
withintheboundariesof the formerRoman Empire as it ex-
Redemption(1774), in The WorksofPresidentEdwards, 4 vols. (New York:Robert

Carter and Brothers,1864), 1:487.
6
Increase Mather,Mystery,pp. 77-78; Lowance, Language of Canaan, pp.
141-42, and, withDavid Watters,introduction to "IncreaseMather's'New Jerusa-
lem,'" pp. 346-47; Bercovitch,"Horologicalsto Chronometricals,"
pp. 37, 43-50.
17Bercovitch,AmericanJeremiad,p. 75.
isted in the Apostles'times: "Concerningour Plantationin
the Americanworld," Mede respondedto Twisse'shopeful
inquiry,"I wish them as well as any body; thoughI differ
fromthemfar,bothin otherthings,and in the groundsthey
go upon." While Christmay be pleased withtheirefforts to
convert"those Natives" and "to affrontthe Devil with the
sound of the Gospel and Cross of Christ in those places
wherehe had thoughtto have reignedsecurely,"yet"I will
hope theyshall not so fardegenerate(not all of them) as to
comein thatArmyofGog and Magog againsttheKingdomof
Christ"(see appendix3 forthe Puritans'reactionto Mede's
argument).18
To Mede, the New Jerusalemas describedby Ezekiel and
in the Apocalypse of John was not a metaphor for the
Church Universalin the Augustiniansense but the literal
metropolisof Christ'smillennialkingdomwithitsthronein
His restoredJudea.'9 "For the betterunderstandingof this
Mysterie,"Mede clarifiedthe issue in a letterto his col-
league Dr. Meddus, "we mustdistinguishbetweenthe State
of the New Jerusalemand the State of the Nations which
shall walk in the lightthereof;theyshall not be both one,
but much differing.Thereforewhat is spokenparticularly
of the New Jerusalem,must not be applied to the whole
Church which then shall be: New Jerusalemis not the
whole Church, but the Metropolisthereofand of the [mil-
lennial] New world." While the Saved Nations-huddling
around Christ'smillennialmetropolisin "the land of Jury
[Jewry]"-would partake of the city's saving influences,
theywould again fall preyto Gog and Magog at the end of
the SeventhChiliad. These lessfortunatefollowersof Christ
differedfromthosein the capital citybecause theystillre-
tained their mortalityand with it theirsinfulpropensity,
William Twisse's"FourthLetter" (2 March 1634) to and debate withJoseph
s18
Mede is publishedin Mede's Works,pp. 798-99; Mede's positionis setforthin "De
Gogo 6 Magogo," and his "Answerto Dr. Twisse his FourthLetter,"in Works,
pp. 574-76, 799-802.
19St. Augustine,The City of God, trans.Marcus Dods (New York:ModernLi-
brary,1950), XX.11.17.
while the saintsof the FirstResurrectionand rulersof the
cityhere below had life everlastingand would thusbe im-
mune to the Devil's attack. AgainstMede's authorityand
forceof argument,Twisse and most of his contemporaries
were no match,and the disciplehumblythankedhis master
forhaving"handsomelyand fullyclear'd mefromsuch odd
conceits"as placing the Holy City in PuritanNew England
ratherthan in "the land of Jury[Jewry]."20
The significanceof Mede's restrictionof Christ'sfuture
kingdomto the territory of the Roman Empire as it existed
in the apostles'timeand his identificationof Americaas the
place fromwhich Christ'sadversarieswould again rise to
destroyHis saintscannot be overemphasized,forin essence
he had consignedAmerica to outer darkness.If Mede was
rightand the Americanhemispherewas not to share in the
sacred geographyof Christ'smillennialkingdom,then the
Puritan Errand into the AmericanWildernesswas nolens
volens an errandin futility,an errand,ironically,not into
the futuregarden of Eden but to the verygates of Hell it-
self! By transplantingthemselvesto America,Puritanshad
in effectfoolishlytraded Christ'sfutureParadise in the Old
World forSatan's abode in the New.
It is in this contextthat we must appreciate Nicholas
Noyes'sdefenseof the New World againstMede's exclusion-
ary interpretation:"Now as forNew England, if the First
Plantersof it had dream'd that the very Situationor Cli-
mate of this Land had been crime enough to make men
aliensfromthe Covenantsof promise;theywould not have
Sold their Europaean Birthright,for a mess of American
Pottage." And it is in thiscontext,too, that we mustassess
CottonMather'shopes forthe fateof his fellowNew World
Puritansin The PresentState of New England (1690): "if
the Blessed God intend that the Divel shall keep America
duringthe Happy Chiliad which His Church is now very
quickly Entring into . . . then our Lord Jesus will within a
20Mede's comments,and Twisse's reply,in Mede's Works,pp. 772, 799.

few Monthsbreak up House among us, and we go forour
Lodging either to Heaven or to Europe in a very little
while. But if our God will wrestAmerica out of the Hands
of its old Land-lord, Satan, and give these utmostends of
the Earth to our Lord Jesus,"thenthe Great Sabbatism of
Christ would soon be on the horizon. Representativeof
those criticswho ignore the contextof Mather's oft-cited
passage, Charles L. Sanfordinsiststhat "When everything
looked black even in New England, Cotton Mather ques-
tioned whetherthe nextlodgingplace of the saintswould
be removal'to Heaven or to Europe,' that is, to Heaven or
Hell." More important,Sanford-like his colleagues-ar-
rivesat conclusionsdiametricallyopposed to thoseintended
by Mather and his colleagues precisely because he ap-
proaches their textswith the same predeterminednotion
Cecilia Tichi does, who concludes that come the millen-
nium"Boston"would be "a plausible (and perhapscomfort-
able) locus forthe New Jerusalem."21
How much Mede's pronouncementofAmerica'sdoom af-
frontedNew Englandersand how acutelyit affectedtheir
self-esteem can be gatheredfromthe barrageof refutations
and denials thatreverberatedin theirsermonseven beyond
JonathanEdwards's time. "I thatam an American,"Cotton
Mather counteredindignantlyin his "Problema Theologi-
cum" (1703), "must needs be Lothe to allow all America
stilluntothe Devil's possession,when our Lord shall possess
all the restof the World." "It was neverintended,"he con-
tinued in Theopolis Americana, "that the Church of our
Lord, should be confinedalways withinthe Dimensionsof
Strabo's Cloak; and that,All the World, should always be
no more,thanit was, whenAugustustaxed it." "To striveto
excludeAmerica,"JudgeSamuel Sewall fumedin his twice-
21NicholasNoyes,New-EnglandsDuty and Interest(Boston,1698), pp. 76, 68-
75; CottonMather,The PresentState of New England (Boston,1690), pp. 34-35,
37; Charles L. Sanford,The Questfor Paradise: Europe and theAmericanMoral
Imagination (Urbana: Universityof Illinois Press, 1961), pp. 95, 82-89; Cecilia
Tichi, New World,New Earth (New Haven: Yale University Press,1979), pp. 31,
32-36.
reprinted refutationofMede'sconceit,"AndtomakeAmerica
to be the whole, and only Object of the Curses denounced
againstGog and Magog; and to shutthem[Americans]out
fromall PromisedBlessings;is altogetherUnscripturaland
Unreasonable."For"We neednotgo further than"Dr. Ussher
andJosephMede "to exposethisAntickFancyofAmerica'sbe-
ingHell."22
Even a centuryafterMede had excluded America from
Christ'ssacred geography,JonathanEdwards still feltthe
need to defendhis homeland: "I thinkwe may well look
upon the discoveryof... America,and bringingthe gospel
intoit, as one thingby whichdivineProvidenceis preparing
the way forthe futureglorioustimesof the church; when
Satan's kingdomshall be overthrown,not only throughout
the Roman empire, but throughoutthe whole habitable
globe,on everyside, and on all itscontinents."The kingdom
of Christ,which will have extendedinto all fourcornersof
the world, will then have at its centerthe land of Canaan
withJerusalemits restoredcapital: "The mostgloriouspart
of the churchwill hereafterbe there, at the centerof the
kingdomof Christ,communicatinginfluencesto all other
parts,"Edwards arguesinhis"Noteson theApocalypse."And
"Religionand learningwillbe thereat thehighest;moreexcel-
lentbookswillbe therewritten,"and thesaintsfromtheworld
over"willbe as freetocometoJudea,ortodwellinJerusalem,
as intoanyothercityor country."23
As thissmall sample ofself-conscious denialsindicates,Jo-
sephMede's conjectureperturbedAmericanmillennialists at
least until the middle of the eighteenthcentury.In fact,
twentyyearsafterEdwards's death, Thomas Brayfeltcom-
pelled to addressthe uncomfortable issuein his Dissertation
oftheSixthVial(1780). Like hispredecessors, Brayimplicitly
22Cotton Mather,"Problema Theologicum,"pp. 68-69, and TheopolisAmeri-
cana, pp. 45-48; Sewall, Phaenomena, pp. 40, 42, 27-29, 52-55, and Proposals
Touchingthe Accomplishment(Boston, 1713), pp. 1-12.
23 Edwards, Historyof Redemption,1:468-69, 487, and "Notes on the Apoca-
lypse,"in JonathanEdwards: ApocalypticWritings,8 vols. (New Haven: Yale Uni-
versityPress, 1977), 5:134-35.
acceptsthe termsof Mede's argumentbut refuteshim in the

specificsby definingAmerica as one of "the appendages of
the Roman Empire," which throughthe papacy had ex-
tendeditsdominionacrosstheAtlantic."This takesin Amer-
ica, which is undoubtedlycomprehendedin theseprophe-
cies," Bray triumphedat last-oblivious to the ironythat
accordingto hisschemeAmericawas saved onlythroughthe
intervention of the PuritanAntichrist.24
III
At the centerof moderncritics'confusionabout the Puri-
tans' expectationsforthe Second Coming is the vexed term
New Jerusalem,which bears a richnessof meaning rarely
appreciatedby twentieth-century commentators.Mede, as
well as his Americanfellowmillennialists, pointedto Judea
as the locus of the divine metropolis,but he also made an
importantdistinctionbetweenthe New Jerusalemas the re-
storedJudeancapital of Christ'sthroneand the New Jeru-
salem as the spatial terrainof Christ'smillenial kingdom.
But this importantnuance alone does not fullycover the
spectrumof how the termNew Jerusalemwas used in the
millennialistliteratureof the period. The majorityof com-
mentatorsI have consulted applied the term indiscrimi-
nately to signifyeitherthe restoredJerusalemas Christ's
earthlycapital in Judea,or the literaland corporealCityof
God in the clouds of Heaven as describedby Tertullian,or
the AugustinianChurch Universal, whose harmonywith
theNew Heavens was expressedin metaphoricterms,or, in-
deed, a combinationof those meanings.Thus we findthe
EnglishmillennialistThomas BrightmanassertwithAugus-
tine that the "new Jerusalem . . . is not that city which the
saintsshall enjoy in heaven afterthislife,but a Church to
be expectedon earth.""25
The New Jerusalem(Rev. 21) as a metaphorforChrist's
24Thomas Bray, Dissertationof the Sixth Vial (Hartford,1780), p. vii n.

25Thomas Brightman,A Revelation of the Apocalyps (Amsterdam,1611),
p. 101.
millennialchurch on earth can also be found in Increase
Mather'srecentlyeditedsermon"New Jerusalem"(c. 1692-
95). Unlike Brightman,however,Mather extendsthe term
to encompassthe City of God in Heaven, the Church Tri-
umphant, as well as the church here below: "There is a
double Jerusalem.The litteralland the spirituallJerusa-
lem." The New JerusalemdescendingfromHeaven at the
millennium"is not to bee understoodonlyof the churchtri-
umphantIn the highestheaven,"he explainedin comment-
ing on St. John'svision (Rev. 21) in a seriesof sermonson
the Apocalypse;but it mustbe understood"of a stateof the
churchin thislower Visible world" duringthe millennium,
when the Saved Nations"that mustbe heald" receivetheir
instructionsfrom above. "In this [earthly]Jerusalemthe
tabernacleof god is said to be with men and he to dwell
amongthemRev. 21,3. Now thatis an expressionthatdoth
more properlybelong unto that presenceof god which is
with his churchheer below than unto that triumphantIn
heaven throughoutthe dayes of eternity."26
In the next generation,Cotton Mather rehearsedhis fa-
ther'sargumentabout the two New Jerusalems.Intending
his "Problema Theologicum"(1703) as a means of debating
Nicholas Noyes of Salem on a numberof eschatologicalis-
sues, Matherproposedthat duringChrist'smillennialreign
therewere to be two separateJerusalems,a literal,corpo-
real New Jerusalemin the New Heavens above, hovering-
likeJonathanSwift'sflying islandofLaputa-over a literal,re-
storedJerusalem in theNew Earthbelow: "Thereshallthenbe
Two Jerusalems," Matherexplainedthiscrucialpointin this
unpublishedmanuscript:"JohnsNew Jerusalem,in which
thereis No Temple, and Ezekiels New Jerusalem,in which
thereshall be a Temple." Mather's"Cityof God in the New
Heavens, (as ye ApostleJohnhas informedus) will be four-
square, extendingTwelve Thousand Furlongs; or, Fifteen
Hundred Miles. It will be seated over the Land of Israel,
2i Increase Mather,"New Jerusalem,"in Lowance and Watters'seditionof and

articleabout the text,pp. 364, 380-81.
whichwill now again be possessedbytheIsraelitishNation."
In 1726, he reaffirmed his visionof the Celestial Citywhen
he completed"Triparadisus,"hisdefinitivestudyofeschato-
logical prophecies: "The Situation of it [New Jerusalem],
will be in a Partof theAtmosphere,whichwill be nearerto
ye Earth, where ye Nations are to Walk in ye Light of it,
than as yettit is, and it will be conspicuousto the Nations."
As thesepassages fromMather'srecentlyedited treatisere-
veal, the New Jerusalemwas not to be located in Boston,
nor on the Americancontinent,but above the geographical
terrainofJudea,above theJudeancapital ofa restoredJeru-
salem. He shared his literalistvision of this "Castle in the
Air"withhispredecessorThomas Hutchinson,whoseA Dec-
larationof a FutureGloriousEstate of a Church to be here
upon Earth (1667) picturedthe Holy City descendingupon
the Mount of Olives which it takesforits earthlybase.27
The CelestialJerusalem,as Matherenvisionedit, was not
to be mistakenfora meremetaphor,nor was it a mererep-
resentationof God's grace residingin the hearts of man-
kind, as St. Augustineinterpretedthe visions of Ezekiel
(chaps. 40-47) and John(Rev. 4, 21, 22).28 Rather,it would
be a "Material City,"which would accommodatethe phys-
ical bodies of the Raised Saints. "Spiritualizeye Matter as
much as You please," Mather contestedthe metaphorists,
"but if you think,a Visible City,of a Cubical Form is too
Corporeal a Thing, yettyou mustallow, That therewill be
a Place of ReceptionforBodies." The citizensof thisliteral
castle in the air, Mather agreed with his father,were the
Saintsof the FirstResurrection(Rev. 20:5-6), theirphysical
bodies restoredto perfectionand immortality:"Their Bod-
ies will be so Salted by the Garments of Light ... that they
will become Incorruptible under it. . . . Not ceasing to be
27 Cotton Mather,"Problema Theologicum,"p. 82, and "Triparadisus,"in my

edition, "An AuthoritativeEdition of Cotton Mather'sUnpublishedManuscript
'Triparadisus,'"2 vols. (Ph.D. diss., PennsylvaniaState University,1987), 2:366,
459; Thomas Hutchinson,A Declaration of a FutureGloriousEstate of a Church
to be Here Upon Earth (London, 1667), p. 30.
" St. Augustine,City of God, XX.11.17.18.
Bodies, or turnedinto meer Spirits;They will be Material

still; but highlySpiritualized... Equal to Angels: Doubt-
less, Able to Move, and Mount, and Fly, as theAngelsdo."
From the City of God in the clouds of heaven the Raised
Saints,now wingedmessengers, would be sentwithinstruc-
tionsto the rulersof the earthlyJerusalembelow: "As the
Angelsdo at thisDay, the Raised Saintswill thencome and
go, at ye Bidding of the Lord." Christ"will send them to
Govern Cities and Nations, and they will fly down with
Orders fromHim, forye Managementof theirGrand Af-
fairs:and Speak to themof Thingspertainingto the King-
dome of GOD."29
Mather neverwavered in his literalinterpretation of the
City of God, withitscorporealinhabitants,nor in his iden-
tificationof its location in the heavens above the terrainof
Judea. From the New Jerusalemabove and the restored
Jerusalemin Palestinebelow, the Raised Saintswould rule
the Saved Nations of the Gentileshuddlingaround Judea.
Though saved, thesepeople were stillsubjectto theirsinful
dispositionsand farlessenlightenedthantheirimmortalized
counterpartsin the New Heavens. The nations on earth
would "BegettSons and Daughters" and "continuein this
Condition,until" they"Ripen" to perfection,when Christ
in His own timewill "have them Translated"unto Heaven.
But as long as theirconditionfell shortof perfectionand
immortality, theywere prone to relapse: "It is intimatedin
the Scripturesof Truth," Mather echoes Mede, that "the
Nationsin the RemoterSkirtsof the World, will not be un-
der so high a Dispensationof Christianity,as thosethat ly
nearerto ye Cityof God, & underitsmoreDirect and Shin-
ing Influences."30 Ironically,the spatial distance between
29Cotton Mather,"Triparadisus,"2:365-70, 385-86, 399. Mather's"Garments
of Light," or "Nishmnath-Chajim," distinguishedthe Raised Saints from their
earthlycounterparts,who had not yet regainedtheirimmortality(St. Augustine,
City ofGod, XX.18; Tertullian,AdversusMarcionem). The topic was something
of a passionnot only forCottonMatherbut also forhis fellowmillennialists,
who
debated the issue at greatlength.
" Cotton Mather,"Triparadisus,"2:432, and "Problema Theologicum,"p. 81.
In both cases, Mather relieson Mede as his source, Works,p. 722.
the Cityof God and the Cityof Man duringChrist'sSabba-
tism would be as problematicthen as it was in Mather's
own time.
The Saved Nations will be less likelyto benefitfromthe
new order simplybecause theywill be geographicallyre-
moved from the New Jerusalemhovering in the clouds
above Judea. Accordingly,theywill requiremoreprodding
and shovingabout: "The Rulersof theNew World,"Mather
surmised,"may have more occasion to Employ a Rod of
Iron amongthoseNations,and breakthemto Shiversas the
Vesselsof a Potter,and Execute Punishmentsupon them."
When Christ'skingdomis establishedin the millennialNew
Earth, Mather pleads in TheopolisAmericana,
it willbe impossible,
fortheHolyPeople,and the Teachersand
RulersoftheReformed Worldin theotherHemisphere,
to leave
America unvisited.. . . Can you think,that America, shall be
nothingbut MieryPlaces and Marishes,givento Salt? By no
means.O wideAtlantick,
Thoushaltnotstandin thewayas an
Hindrance of those Communications!. . . They that are of the
City, shall have somethingto do here for Him. O NEW-
ENGLAND, Thereis Roomto hope,Thatthoualsoshaltbelong
to theCITY.31
Clearly CottonMather,like manyof his fellowAmericans,

reacted against Mede's exclusionarystatementsnot by
claimingthe Cityof God forNew England alone but by ex-
tendingtheboundariesof Christ'ssacred geographyintothe
American hemisphere,thus safeguardingNew England's
membershipin Christ's kingdom. Americans' differences
withJosephMede notwithstanding, theywere of one mind
that the New Jerusalemwould be located in Judea.
There was, however,one notable exception,JudgeSam-
uel Sewall, whose Phaenomena quaedam APOCALYPTICA
was exclusivelydevotedto dispellingMede's idle conceit.To
Sewall, Christ'searthlycapital would not be in Judea-but
"westwardof Rome," in the Mexican Americanhemisphere
31Cotton Mather,"Problema Theologicum,"p. 81, and TheopolisAmericana,
pp. 48-50.
of "New-Spain." It was to thisplace that Satan, according
to Mede, had lured the Indians, and there,preservedfrom
the savinginfluencesof Christ'sGospel, theyhad erecteda
temple to the Evil One. For Sewall, on the other hand,
Mexico was embraced because it confirmedManasseh Ben
Israel's once-popularbeliefthatthe AmericanIndians were
of the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel. In showingthat America
housed God's Indian Israelites,who had since been joined
by vast numbersof European Jewsoustedby the pogromof
Queen Isabella of Spain, Sewall was confidenthe had
shown Mede's notion"of America'sbeing Hell" to be noth-
ing but an "AntickFancy." Sewall's Indian-Jewsmightthus
amply supplyhim with the citizensforhis New Jerusalem,
with Mexico its earthlydomicile.32
In solicitingsupportforhis pet idea fromseveral fellow
millennialists,Sewall informedGovernorWilliam Burnetof
New York: "The New Jerusalemis so styled,because the
Citizensthereofwill be mostlyJews"who will retaintheir
separatenesseven duringthe millennium.But, he quickly
added, "I am far frombeing positivethat Judea, or any
otherpart of Asia must affordsituationto the New Jeru-
salem. I ratherhope that America Mexicana will be that
happy Place. Asia, Africa, and Europe have already had
theirTurn, And theyought not to envy, but to rejoice at
this gloriousMarriage of theiryoungerSister."Besides, to
allow the Jews to rebuild their Temple in old Jerusalem
would only "lead them into Temptation"to restoretheir
ceremoniallaws and unchristianpractices. GovernorBur-
net'sresponse-if, indeed,he made any-to Sewall's conjec-
turehas not survived.That Sewall may not have been very
successfulin winningconvertsto hisconceitcan be gathered
fromthe responseof Rev. William Williams, upon whom
Sewall had bestowedthe second editionof his Phaenomena
quaedam APOCALYPTICA (1727) as an invitationto de-
bate the issue: "I must confessmyselfat a loss why new
32Sewall, Phaenomena,pp. 31, 2, 41, 45, 52-59, 37-42. For Sewall's sourcesee
Mede, Works,pp. 799-800, 574-76. ManassehBen Israel, The Hope ofIsrael (Am-
sterdam,1650).
Mexico" should be the place of the New Jerusalem,Wil-
liams rejoined, for "Ezekiels prophecy . . . points us more
directlyto the land of Judea &c., when Jerusalemshall be
built again in its own place, even in Jerusalem."33
AlthoughSewall stood alone in proclaimingAmericathe
futuresite of the Celestial City, he was in good company
when he heralded the Jewsas the leaders of the millennial
New Earth. How vital theirconversionwas to the Puritans'
expectationof the Second Coming and how much New En-
gland's eschatologistsdepended fortheirown temporaland
eternalsalvation on the Jews' literal and spiritualrestora-
tioncan be gatheredfroma varietyof sourceson both sides
of the Atlantic. Once they were restoredto their ancient
possession,God would effectthe conversionof the Jewsin
an instant,just as He had miraculouslyconvertedPaul on
the road to Damascus "by Visionand VoicefromHeaven,"
or He would bringthemintothe foldthroughChrist'stran-
sientappearance in the Clouds of Heaven. As theJacobean
millennialistHenry Finch maintained, the Christianized
Jewswould thenbecome the"Kings and chiefeMonarchsof
the earth" throughwhom "the Gospell shall go out to all
Nations,"a view forwhichhe was promptlyarrested,alleg-
edly forchallengingthe authorityof the Stuartmonarchy.
Joseph Mede agreed with his countryman,insistingthat
"the Jewsshall have a share of the greatestglory"during
the "solemnizingof theJewsrestitution." They "are to have
a preeminenceabove otherNations,when all Nationsshall
flow unto them,and walk in theirlight."So, too, William
Hooke of New Haven, in his preface to Increase Mather's
Mysteryof Israel's Salvation, argued that the calling of the
Jewsand their"conversionshall greatlyinlightentheworld,
likethe risingSun which runshis race fromEast to West."34
Throughthe "plentifuleffusions of the spiritof God upon
the Tribesof Israel," Increase Matherwarranted,His Pecu-
SSewall, Letter-Book,2:155-56, 197-202, 272-74, 251.
4 Mede, Works,pp. 761, 767-68, 139-40; HenryFinch, The WorldsGreat Re-
stauration(London, 1621), pp. 7, 10, 71; William Hooke, preface to Increase
Mather'sMystery,n.p.
lium "shall have most Seraphic giftsbestowed upon them,

yea, theyshall be like to the Angel of the Lord" and their
ministersbecome "burningand shininglights"to the Gen-
tile nationsgatheringaround them."Albeitnow thereis no
Church amongstthe Jews,yet the time is at hand, when
God will erect many gloriousChurches among them, and
upon everydwellingplace of Sion, and upon all the gloryhe
will be a defence." They will be so enlightenedwith the
knowledgeofGod, SamuelSewall corroborated, thattheJews
will "be a guide and blessinguntotheresidueoftheGentiles"
and "be entrustedwith great Empire, and Rule in the
World.''35
Such promisesof power and gloryforthe Jewishnation
could also be employedas a bait to effecttheirconversion,
IncreaseMatherassertedin hisMystery.To insiston an alle-
gorical ratherthan literalreading of Israel's restorationto
prominence(Rom. 11) has given"greatoffenceto theJews,
whentheyperceiveChristiansdenythatwhichtheirProphets
have so abundantlyaffirmed."The best way to bringthem
intotheChristianfoldisnottomakethemjealousoftheChris-
tians,as Mede suggests,but, as Prideauxand Voetiusrecom-
mend,bypromisingthemthepowerand the glory:"It is not
. . . the bestway to deal withtheJews"and theirpromised
glory"to tell themthat all thosethingsmustbe understood
spiritually,and notliterally,whichin theProphetslook that
way; but it were better[to] yield to them, that theyshall
have such gloryas thelikeneverwas, onlythatthismustnot
be at Messiasfirstappearing.""36An allegoricalreadingofthe
propheticpromises to the Jews would thusnot onlyimpede
theirconversionbut also postponetheSecond Coming; a lit-
eral exegesiswas infinitelymore felicitous.In lightof this
evidence, the special role that modern criticsattributeto
AmericanPuritansand theirNew EnglishJerusalemin Bos-
ton,Puritanmillennialists bestowedupon theJewishnation
3 Increase Mather,Mystery,pp. 98, 99, 113; Sewall, quoting William Owen,

in Letter-Book,2:199.
* Increase
Mather,Mystery,pp. 127-28; Mede, Works,pp. 758, 761.
in Judea. For if the Puritanprophetshad laid claim to Eli-
jah's mantle,theyknewonlytoo well thattheyattiredthem-
selvesin borrowedrobes, which come the millenniumhad
to be returnedto Jehovah'struePeculium,who werewaiting
at the gates of the Celestial City, ready and eager to take
back the mantle.
IV
Justhow vital the Jewswere to the Puritans'expectation
of the millenniumcan be seen in theirproselytizing efforts.
BothIncrease and CottonMatherjoyfullyrecordedeach re-
port of conversion,forwith everyJew snatched"as a Bird
out of the Snare of the Fowler," the annus mirabilishad
come one stepclosertowardconsummation.They did their
best to hastenthe Coming of the Lord by convertingJews
of theirown acquaintance. "This Day," Cotton Matherre-
cordedin his diaryfor18 July1696, ''fromthe Dust, where
I lay prostrate,beforethe Lord, I liftedup my Cries; For
thecomingof the Kingdomeof myLord" and "forthe Con-
versionof the JewishNation, and for my own having the
Happiness, at some Time or other,to baptise a Jew, that
shouldby myMinistry, bee broughthome untothe Lord."37
Subsequently, Mather publishedthe firstof a seriesof works
to
designed carry the gospel to the "ObstinateJews."
The FaithoftheFathers(1699) is a briefcatechism"To En-
gage the JEWISH NATION, unto the RELIGION of their
Patriarchs."If onlyAbraham'snaturalseed returnedto the
faithof theirfathers,ifonlytheyreturnedto the religionof
the Old Testament-which was nothingbut the religionof
Christ-then the Jewsmightrecognizetheirerror;thenthe
veil mightbe liftedfromtheir eyes, and the millennium
could commence.For "the ChristianReligion,"Matheran-
nounced in his American Tears Upon the Greek Churches
(1701), is "in reality,but, The FaithoftheFathers,and, The
37Cotton Mather, "Problema Theologicum," p. 31, and Diary of Cotton

Mather,1681-1724, 2 vols., Collectionsof theMassachusettsHistoricalSociety,7th
ser. 7-8 (Boston, 1911-12), 1:200.
Religion of the Old Testament, from whence the modern

Jewsare fallen." Mather'sdiary entryfor9 April 1699 re-
veals his designmostconspicuously:
I considered,
thatwhentheEvangelicalElias,was to preparethe
JewishNation, forthe comingof the Messiah, hee was to do it,
by, bringingdown the Heart of the Fathersupon the Children.
AndI considered,thatit wouldnotonlyconfirm us Christians
in
ourFaithexceedinglyto seeeveryArticleofit,asserted
in theex-
pressWordsoftheOld Testament, butthatitwouldmightily con-
vince,and confoundtheJewishNation.Yea, whoknowes,what
UsetheLordmaymakeofsuchan Essay?Wherefore, withmuch
Contrivance,I drewup a CatechismofthewholeChristian Reli-
gion, and contrivedthe Questionsto fittthe Answers,whereofI
brought everyoneoutoftheOld Testament. I prefacedtheCate-
chism, withan Addressunto the JewishNation,tellingthemin
somelivelyTerms,ThatiftheywouldbutReturnto theFaithof
the Old Testament, and beleevewith theirown ancientand
blessedPatriarchs,
thiswas all thatwee desiredof themor for
them.
The specificquestionsand answersin Mather's "Irresist-

ible and Irrefragable"catechismneed not concernus here,
fortheyreflecttraditionalProtestantChristology;38
what is
more importantis that he receivedgreat satisfactionfrom
contrivingto buttresshis argumentwith Old Testament
propheciesand passages, which even in Judaismforeshad-
owed the Messiah, and fromfindingsupportin the works
of Rabbinical Jewswho embraced the Jesusof the Chris-
tians,forinstance,Rabbi Samuel Marochitanus'sThe Com-
ing of the Messiah (Amsterdam, 1648).
A few monthsafterhis Faith of the Fathers appeared,
Mather'seffortswere blessedwith some surprisingsuccess.
He recordedin his diaryon 2 September1699, "This Day,
I understandby LettersfromCarolina, a thingthatexceed-
inglyrefreshedmee; a Jew thereembracingthe Christian
* Cotton
Mather, The Faith of the Fathers(Boston, 1699), t.p. and p. 4, and
American Tears, Upon the Greek Churches(Boston, 1701), p. 58. For his source
see Mede, Works,pp. 764-65; Cotton Mather,Diary, 1:298.
Faith, and mylittleBook, The Faith of the Fathers,therein

a special Instrumentof good untohim." Even thismoderate
successis ratherastonishing,forMather'sprefatoryaddress
to the Jewishnation is anythingbut flattering.He related,
forinstance,that their"ObstinateAversion"to the religion
of ChristmeritedGod's divinerejectionof the "Rebellious"
Jews. Christian arrogance was the raw material of his
"livelyterms,"rhetoricaltools fashionedto "provoke"the
Jewsto "Jealousie"about God's adoptionof the Gentilena-
tions:
Yourown InspiredProphets,who are now moreOurs thanYours,
foretoldyourbeing paenally givenup to the Deafness,Blindness,
and Hardness now upon you. But, behold, a Proclamationhere
sentyoufromHeaven [Mather'scatechism],invitingyou, to per-
sistno longerin yourDamnable Rebellionagainstthe CHRIST of
God! Here is now put intoyourHands, an Irresistibleand Irrefra-
gable Demonstration,That tho' you say, You are Jews,you are
not so.
Such exaltedcondescensionis certainlynot unique in Math-

er's worksor in those of his contemporaries;it is therefore
notsurprising thatMather'sdiaryis silentabout any further
conversionin whichhisJewishcatechismwas instrumental.
In thesame patronizingvein, MatherpressedhisJewishau-
dience in Thingsto be More Thoughtupon (1713) to refrain
fromofferingany furtherinsultsto the God of the Chris-
tians and forthwithreturnto the Faith of the Fathers: "I
knowyou do it Ignorantlyin Unbelief:But we are Waiting
and Longing for the approaching Time. Ah! Lord how
Long? "
For the longesttime in his life, Cotton Mather agreed
withIncreaseand otherwatchmenofChristthatthe "Great
Sabbatism"would not commenceuntiltheJewishnationbe
3 Cotton Mather,Diary, 1:315, and Faith of the Fathers,pp. 3-4, and Things
to be More Thoughtupon (Boston, 1713), pp. 11, 17. Cotton Mather evidently
followsJosephMede's suggestion(Works,pp. 758, 761) that the conversionof the
Jewsmightbe effectedand the Second Coming quickenedif theywere provoked
to jealousyabout the blessingsGod had bestowedupon the ChristianChurch. In-
crease Mather,however,maintainsthe oppositepositionin Mystery,pp. 127-28.
Christianized.But if the national conversionof the Jews

was indeed a prerequisiteforthe onsetof the millennium,
Matherwonderedin the 1720s,would not such an expecta-
tion be dangerous?Would not such a hope, which would
postpone the millenniumindefinitely,lull the Christian
world-like the fivefoolishVirgins-into a "Dead Sleep"?
Despite some occasional conversionsamongEuropean Jews,
theJewishnationthroughoutthe Old World was as numer-
ous as ever and remainedas stubbornin itsresistanceto the
call of the Gospel. Again Matherpored overthe millennial-
ist works of Hammond, Lightfoot,Calvert, and Baxter,
whose"feebleEssays"bothIncreaseand Cottonhad brushed
aside. In fact,Increase Mather'sA DissertationConcerning
the FutureConversionof theJewishNation (1709) was spe-
cificallydesignedto block the inroadsof Englishmetaphor-
ists. As Cotton lay prostrateon the floorof his study,he
prayedforilluminationon thisuncomfortableissue. On 21
June1724, he jotted down in his diary:
The gloriousLord has led me intofullerViewsthanI haveever
yetthad, andsuchas I haveexceedinglylongedforand askedfor,
ofwhatshallbe thetrueStateofThingsin His Kingdome.AndI
am now satisfied,thatthereis nothingto hindertheimmediate
ComingofourSaviour,intheseFlames,thatshallbringan horri-
ble Destructionon thispresentand wickedWorld,and bringon
thenewHeaven,and thenew Earth,whereinshalldwellRigh-
teousness.I purposequicklyto writeon thesethings.40
Afterthis conversationwith God, Mather completelyre-

vamped his eschatologicalviews on the conversionof the
Jewishnation.
In 1726, while completinghis "Triparadisus," Mather
now registeredhis objectionsagainstthe "Unscriptural"and
"Irrational"opinionsof the day:
A StrongOpiate,whichbindson ye Chainsof theDead Sleep,
whereintheChurchis to be found,whentheDay of theLord,
shall break in like a Thief in the Night upon the World, is a
40Cotton Mather,"Problema Theologicum,"p. 24, and Diary, 2:733.
StrongOpinion,"ThatbeforetheComingoftheLord,thereshall
be a National Conversionof the CircumcisedPeople ... who are
toReturnuntotheirAncientSeatsinPalestine,
andmakea Singu-
lar Figurein the Kingdomof God, and be Distinguished
from,
and Superiorto, theRestoftheNations."
Mather, of course, had subscribedto such a position for
mostof his life; with Increase in the grave, Cottonnow ac-
knowledgedhis error in judgment. "I was myselfa very
long While in your Opinion," Mather conceded. "Alas, I
was a very Young Man; . . . I understood not the True Is-
rael; I Recant; I Revoke; and I now make my mostpublic
Retraction."41
SectionXI of "Triparadisus,"Mather'sdefinitivestudyof
the prophecies,is devoted to dispellingthe consensusthat
unlesstheJewishnationbe converted,Christ'sreturnwould
not be imminent.In an effortto accommodatehis new the-
ory,Matherin essenceshiftedfroma Pauline interpretation
of the restorationof the Jewishnation (Romans 11) to a Jo-
hannine rejectionof Israel, whose repudiationof the Mes-
siah called fora"SurrogateIsrael" of all Jewsand Gentiles
who believedin Christ(John12:36-50). "Tis true,"Mather
rehearsedthe Johanninetradition,"Tis thro'ye Fall of the
Jews that Salvation is come unto ye Gentiles; and . . . the
Kingdomeof GOD was taken fromye JewishNation, and
given to others,that would bringforthye Fruitsthereof."
"The Falling offof so many who were LiterallyIsraelites,
leaves a Chasm, in ... theMysticalBody,whereofCHRIST
is the Head. . . . Tis a, Filling up with the Gentiles,that
must accomplishit. There is no otherIsrael, that is to be
look'd for."42
4' Cotton Mather,Diary, 2:493-94, 528-29. Samuel Sewall was deeplyshocked

to learnthathislife-longfriendhad abandoned theliteralistinterpretation and had
joined RichardBaxter'smetaphoristcamp. Two yearsafterMather'sdeath,Sewall
wroteto Cotton'sson, the Rev. Samuel Mather: "I have one unhappinessbefallen
me, vizt., Dr. Cotton Mather'svehementlyinsistingon the Conflagration,so that
he seemsto thinkthereis no generalCalling or convertionof the Jews,Or that it
is alreadypast and gone. I desirepatientlyto wait till our blessedLord JesusUm-
pire the Difference"(Letter-Book,2:263).
42Cotton Mather,"Triparadisus,"2:515, 519.
Indeed, in joiningthe camp ofsuch metaphorists as Ham-

mond, Lightfoot,and Baxter,CottonMatherdid not over-
step the boundariesof conventionaltypologyin attempting
to convincehis audience that no national conversionof the
Jewswas stillto be expected.Nor did he pour any new wine
into old skins by telling his readers that the Christian
Church had become the "SurrogateIsrael" of Christ. In-
stead his eschatologyhad simply shiftedfrom a futurist
interpretation of Israel'ssalvationto a preteristposition.Pa-
tristictradition-like thepopularsixth-century legendofthe
miraculousconversionof5,500,000 HomericJewsin Tephar
(Arabia)-had givenample proofthat "Great Numbers"of
Jews had embraced Christianityin formerages. In fact,
Matherarguedin "Triparadisus,""ye mostLearned Masters
of Computation ... think, that the Biggest Part of ye Jews"
in thefirstcentury"were Christians"and a large part of the
Christianchurchesin Judea "did consistof Christianized
Jews"who "were soon so unitedwith the Gentiles,in Mar-
riagesand all otherCommunions,particularlyye dropping
ofCircumcision,thattherewas no longeranyIsraelitishDis-
tinction left upon them. .. . If the Jews were all made
Christians,"Mather continued,"To what Purpose then a
Churchof ye Jews!"'4It is importantto recognizethat Cot-
tonMatherdid notrejecttheJewishnationper se but merely
insistedthattheirconversionhad alreadytakenplace in the
past. The remainingJewslivingin Mather'sown timewere
thereforeno longer God's chosen and were unlikelyto be
3 Cotton Mather,"Triparadisus,"2:517, 518, 522. JosephMede may have at-

tractedMather'sattentionto the legendof the miraculousconversion(Works,pp.
767-68). Publishedas SanctipatrisnostriGregentiiTephrensis Archiepiscopidispu-
tatio cum Herbano Judaeo (1586), the popular storyreportsthat duringa debate
between Gregentius(Archbishopof Tephar) and Herban (a Jewishleader of that
city) over the issue of whetherJesusof Nazareth was indeed the Messiah, Christ
appeared visiblyin the clouds, struckall unbelievingJewswith blindness,and re-
storedtheirsightonly aftersubmissionto baptism. Interestingly, Cotton Mather
alternatelyrejectedand affirmedthisaccount throughouthis life. In 1703, he af-
firmeditshistoricity in "ProblemaTheologicum"(pp. 33-34) but in 1713 seriously
questionedthe accuracy of the account in Thingsto be More Thoughtupon (p.
104). In 1726, wnile completinghis definitivestudyof his eschatologicaltheories,
Matheragain questionedthe legend'sauthenticitybut just 200 pages later turned
full circle and affirmedits truthfulness("Triparadisus,"1:320, 2:518).
convertedas a nation.Mather'sshiftfroma futurist to a pre-
teristexegesisof Romans 11 thusimpliesthatthe anti-typal
conversion of the Jewish nation had become quasi-
historicaland quasi-figurative:
no latter-day
conversion,there-
fore,could be expected.
Thus to continuein the "Modern Opinion," Mather ar-
gued, thatthe dispersedIsrael was stillto be convertedand
was to occupyonce again a distinctplace in a "JewishMon-
archy" ruling over the Gentile nations was to ignore the
ChristianizedJews and their offspring,who had already
been shepherdedinto the Christianfold. "This Opinion,"
Mathercountered,"excludesye Offspring"of theconverted
Jews"and confinesye Privilegesto theOffspring of a Cursed
Remnant,whom GOD reservesamongye nations,as a Mon-
umentand SpectacleofHis Vengeanceforye greatestCrime
thatever was committedin the World!" In his TerraBeata
(1726), Mather now confidentlyasked his audience, "Will
our GloriousLord fetchHis People, fromone Circumcised
Nation only! No, No; This Blessed People shall be fetched
out of Many Nations. Even the Indians and the Negro's."
"One foundin the SultryRegionsof Africa,or, among the
Tranquebariansin the Eastern India, or the Massachusett-
sians in theWestern... is as muchvalued by GOD, as ever
any Simeon or Levi, that could show theirDescent from"
Jacob.44
As thesepassages evidence,Mather'sview of God's Heils-
geschichteis perhaps much less myopic than criticscom-
monlyallow. Even afterhe joined the camp of Baxterand
hisfellowallegorists,Mather'seschatologicalvisionsurveyed
the world over and encompassedall nations,even the Mos-
lemsin theLevant and theHindusin India.45In factMather,
as well as his colleagues, had fromthe outsettranscended
theconfinesofNew England,or evenAmerica.For whilethe
Mathersand theircolleaguesextendedthe boundariesof the
44CottonMather,"Triparadisus,"2:518-19, 520-22, 525, and TerraBeata (Bos-
ton, 1726), pp. 35, 33.
4 Cotton Mather,India Christiana(Boston, 1721), in which he shareswith his
congregationnews about German Pietistsuccessesin Malabar.
New JerusalemintotheAmericanhemisphere,theireschato-
logical doctrinesdemonstratethatNew England enjoyedno
special privilegebut merelysharedwiththerestoftheworld
in God's plan of redemption.
To the modernreader,such nicetiesof exegeticaldisputa-

tion may reek of the mildew of Puritan antiquarianism.
However trivialit may appear to us today,CottonMather's
placementof the New Jerusalemin the clouds above Judea
and hisviewson theJewishnationentailfar-reaching conse-
quences which have gone unnoticed.PerryMiller, Sacvan
Bercovitch, EmoryElliott,Cecilia Tichi,Mason Lowance-to
mentionthose criticsmost fullyengaged with the topic-
tracethe originof the Americansenseof missionand mani-
festdestinyto thetypologicalidentificationofNew England
as theNew Jerusalem.In fact,thepresentcriticaltrendis to
read Puritansermonsand apocalypticcommentaries primar-
ily for theirtypologicaland figuraluse of Old Testament
language. As Mason Lowance put it in The Language of Ca-
naan, "the importanceof these lengthycommentaries[by
Mede and Brightman]is not the doctrinalpositionstheyad-
vance concerningthe coming of Christ'skingdombut the
uses they make of typologicaland figurallanguage found
in the Old Testamentpassages examinedby the writers."46
Unquestionably,Puritantypology,withitsfiguraluse oflan-
guage, played a centralrole in nurturinga uniquelyAmeri-
can identitythat came to fullflowerin the nineteenthcen-
tury;but in divorcinglanguage fromdoctrine,criticshave
fundamentallymisunderstoodthe Puritanpositionon such
crucial issuesas the restorationof the Jews,America'smil-
lennial role, and the functionand locationof the New Jeru-
salem. Perhaps, the Mathersare a good case in point and
Cotton'sfrequently cited TheopolisAmericana(1710) a good
testingground; forwhen Mason Lowance quotesEmoryEl-
liott'sassertionthatthechiliasmoftheMathers"'clearlyand
emphatically expressed the belief that ... New England was
46 Lowance, Language of Canaan, p. 123.

certainto be the siteof the New Jerusalem,'"Lowance and
hiscolleaguesseemto mistakewhat NicholasNoyescalls the
"Analogicalsence" and "AnalogicalAccommodation"of the
Old Testamentprophetictypesas New England'sliteralabro-
gationofGod's promisesto His people.47FuturestudiesofPu-
ritantypologymustreconcilethisdiscrepancyand assesshow
thePuritans'visionof Christ'sJudeanBrideand rulershipin
Jerusalemaffectedtheirsenseofpurposeand missionin their
lone wildernessoutpostofAmerica.
4 Lowance, Language, p. 135, quotingEmoryElliott'sPower and thePulpitin

PuritanNew England (Princeton:PrincetonUniversity
Press),p. 190; Noyes,New-
Englands Duty, pp. 10, 42.
ReinerSmolinski,AssistantProfessorof Englishat Georgia

State University,
is currentlycompletinga book-lengthbi-
ographyof Thomas Hooker.
APPENDIX 1
SELECT CHRONOLOGICAL LISTING OF STUDIES
PROLIFERATING THE VIEW OF AN
AMERICAN NEW JERUSALEM
VernonLouis Parrington,Main Currentsin American Thought,

3 vols. (New York: HarcourtBrace and Co., 1927), 1:107-
11.
H. Richard Niebuhr, The Kingdom of God in America (1937;
New York: Harper and Row, 1959), p. 171.
PerryMiller, The New England Mind: The SeventeenthCentury
(1939; Cambridge: Harvard UniversityPress, 1982), pp.
463-91.
-, JonathanEdwards (1949; Westport,Conn.: Greenwood
Press, 1973), pp. 326-27.
, The New England Mind: From Colony to Province(1953;
Cambridge: Harvard UniversityPress, 1983), pp. 188-90.
Charles L. Sanford, The Quest for Paradise: Europe and the
AmericanMoral Imagination(Urbana: University of Illinois
Press, 1961), pp. 82-89.
Ursula Brumm, American Thought and Religious Typology,
trans.JohnHoaglund (1963; New Brunswick:RutgersUni-
versityPress, 1970), chaps. 3, 4.
Loren Baritz, City on a Hill: A Historyof Ideas and Mythsin
America (New York:JohnWiley & Sons, 1964), p. 31.
David E. Smith,"MillenarianScholarshipin America,"American
Quarterly17 (1965): 540.
Alan Heimert, Religion and the American Mind (Cambridge:
Harvard UniversityPress, 1966), p. 96.
Sacvan Bercovitch,"Typologyin PuritanNew England: The Wil-
liams-CottonControversyReassessed,"AmericanQuarterly
19 (1967): 176.
, "Horologicals to Chronometricals,"in Literary Mono-
graphs,ed. Eric Rothstein(Madison: Universityof Wiscon-
sin Press,1970), pp. 4, 6, 15-17, 20, 37, 43-45, 55-75, 201.
, The AmericanJeremiad(Madison: Universityof Wiscon-
sin Press, 1978), esp. pp. 8-9, 49-61, 69-80, and passim.
Ernest Lee Tuveson, Redeemer Nation: The Idea of America's
Millennial Role (Chicago: Universityof Chicago Press,
1968), chaps. 4-5.
JesperRosenmeier,"Veritas: The Sealing of the Promise,"Har-
vard LibraryBulletin 16 (1968): 33-34.
, "New England's Perfection:The Image of Adam and the
Image of Christin the AntinomianCrisis,1634-1638," Wil-
liam and Mary Quarterly,3rd ser. 27 (1970): 457.
J.A. de Jong,As the WatersCover the Sea: MillennialExpecta-
tionsin the Rise of Anglo-American Missions(Kampen: E. J.
Brill, 1970), pp. 29-30.
Karl Keller,"'The World SlicktUp in Types': Edward Taylor in
a Version of Emerson," in Typologyand Early American
Literature,ed. Sacvan Bercovitch(Amherst:Universityof
MassachusettsPress, 1972), pp. 128, 131.
JamesF. Maclear, "New England and the FifthMonarchy:The
Quest forthe Millenniumin Early AmericanPuritanism,"
William and Mary Quarterly,3rd ser. 32 (1975): 230.
Emory Elliott, Power and the Pulpit in Puritan New England
(Princeton:PrincetonUniversityPress, 1975), pp. 186-90.
, "From Fatherto Son: The Evolutionof Typologyin Puri-
tan New England," in LiteraryUses of Typology,ed. Earl
Miner (Princeton: Princeton UniversityPress, 1977), pp.
224-25.
James West Davidson, The Logic of Millennial Thought:
Eighteenth-Century New England (New Haven: Yale Uni-
versity Press, 1977), pp. 53-70.
Mason I. Lowance, Jr.,"Typologyand MillennialEschatologyin
Early New England," in LiteraryUsesof Typology,pp. 233-
34, 243-45.
- and David Watters,"Increase Mather's'New Jerusalem':
Millennialismin Late Seventeenth-Century New England,"
Publicationsof theAmericanAntiquarianSociety87 (1977),
pp. 346-47, and passim.
, The Language of Canaan: Metaphorand Symbolin New
Englandfromthe Puritansto the Transcendentalists (Cam-
bridge: Harvard UniversityPress, 1980), pp. 127-35, 141-
42, 154-59, 160-65.
StephenJ.Stein,introductionto JonathanEdwards: Apocalyptic
Writings,8 vols. (New Haven: Yale University,1977), 5:18,
26-28.
JohnF. Berens,Providence& Patriotismin Early America,1640-
1815 (Charlottesville:UniversityPress of Virginia, 1978),
pp. 14-31.
Cecilia Tichi, New World,New Earth (New Haven: Yale Univer-
sityPress, 1979), pp. vii-x, 15-36, and passim.
SargentBush, Jr.,The Writingsof ThomasHooker: SpiritualAd-
venturein Two Worlds (Madison: Universityof Wisconsin
Press, 1980), p. 55.
Philip Gura, A Glimpse of Sion's Glory: Puritan Radicalism in
New England, 1620-1660 (Middletown: Wesleyan Univer-
sityPress, 1984), pp. 13, 127.
HarryS. Stout, The New England Soul: Preachingand Religious
Culturein Colonial New England (New York:OxfordUni-
versityPress, 1986), pp. 8-9, 45, 102-3.
John Stuart Erwin, The Millennialismof CottonMather:An His-
torical and Theological Analysis (Lewiston, N.Y.: Edwin
Mellen Press, 1990), pp. 5, 54-56.
APPENDIX 2
INTERPRETATIONSOF PAUL'S LETTER TO

THE ROMANS (CHAPTER 11)
CONCERNING THE FUTURE OF THE JEWISH NATION
Literalists
FirstGeneration:
PeterBulkeley,The Gospel Covenant (London, 1651), pp. 3-24.
JohnCotton,A BriefExpositionwithPracticalObservationsupon
the Whole Book of Canticles (London, 1655), pp. 185-86.
JohnDavenport, William Greenhill,and William Hooke, pref-
aces in Increase Mather's The Mysteryof Israel's Salvation
(London, 1669), n.p.
Second Generation:
Increase Mather,Mystery,pp. 1, 17, 49, 62-64, 77, 127-28, and
passim.
--, Diatriba de Signo Filii Hominis, et de Secundo Messiae
Adventu (Amsterdam,1682), pp. 54, 70.
- , CALL From HEAVEN (Boston, 1685), pp. 61-64, 73.
A DissertationConcerningthe Future Conversionof the
-,
JewishNation (London, 1709), pp. 1-34.
-, "A Discourse Concerningthe gloriousstateof the church
on earthunderthe New Jerusalem,"ed. Mason I. Lowance
and David Watters,Publicationsof theAmericanAntiquar-
ian Society87 (1977), pp. 395-97.
Samuel Willard, The Fountain Opened: Or, theAdmirableBless-
ingsplentifullyto be Dispensed at the National Conversion
of the Jews,3d ed., appended to Samuel Sewall's Phaeno-
mena quaedam APOCALYPTICA, 2d ed. (Boston, 1727),
pp. 2-16.
NicholasNoyes,New-EnglandsDuty and Interest(Boston,1698),
pp. 4-9, 26-32.
Third Generation:
Cotton Mather [before 1726], "Problema Theologicum," ms.
(1703), pp. 7-8, 24-31.
Samuel Sewall, Phaenomenaquaedam APOCALYPTICA, pp. 29-
31, and "Appendix,"pp. 16-24.
- , The Letter-Bookof Samuel Sewall, 1674-1729, in Collec-
tionsof the MassachusettsHistoricalSociety,6th ser., vols.
1-2 (Boston, 1886-88), 1:299; 2:154-56, 197-99, 250-52.
EighteenthCentury:
JonathanEdwards, A Historyof the Workof Redemption(1774),
in The Works of PresidentEdwards, 4 vols. (New York:
Robert Carter and Brothers,1864), 1:487-88.
, Thoughtson the Revival of Religion in New England
(1740), in Works,3:313-16.
, "Noteson the Apocalypse,"in JonathanEdwards: Apoca-
lypticWritings,8 vols. (New Haven: Yale UniversityPress,
1977), 5:133-35, 196-97, 333-34, 337.
English Literalists:
RichardBernard,A Key of Knowledge (London, 1617), pp. 336,
339.
Thomas Draxe, The WorldesResurrection;or The Generall Call-
ing of the Jewes (London, 1608), pp. 39, 49-53.
JosephMede, The Worksof ... JosephMede, 4th ed. (London,
1677), pp. 758, 764-65, 798-99, 809-10, 817.
Henry Finch, The Worlds Great Restauration(London, 1621),
pp. 7, 10, 71.
Thomas Parker,The Visionsand PropheciesofDaniel Expounded
(London, 1646), p. 155.
Daniel Whitby,"A Treatiseof the True Millennium"(1703),in A
Paraphraseand Commentaryon theNew Testament,2 vols.
(Edinburgh,1761), 2:1-14.
English and AmericanAllegorists

RobertBaillie, A Dissuasivefromthe Erroursof the Time (Lon-
don, 1645).
Henry Hammond, Paraphrases and Annotationsupon All the
Books of the New Testament(London, 1653).
Jacobus Batalerius, Dissertatio De IsraelitarumConversionea
Paulo de Romanos undecimocapite praedicta (The Hague,
1669).
Hugo Grotius,De VeritateReligionisChristianae(London, 1689).
JohnLightfoot,The Worksof . . JohnLightfoot,2 vols. (Lon-
don, 1693), 1:375-77; 2:112.
Richard Baxter,The Kingdomof Christ(London, 1691).
CottonMather,"An Authoritative EditionofCottonMather'sUn-
published Manuscript'Triparadisus,'" 2 vols., ed. Reiner
Smolinski(Ph.D. diss., PennsylvaniaStateUniversity,
1987),
2:492-535, and 1:xxxii-lxxifordiscussion.
APPENDIX 3
SELECT LISTING OF PURITANREACTIONS AGAINST
JOSEPH MEDE'S REJECTION OF AMERICA
Cotton Mather, The Way to Prosperity(Boston, 1689), in The

Wall and the Garden: Selected MassachusettsElection Ser-
mons, 1670-1775, ed. A. W. Plumstead(Minneapolis:Uni-
versityof MinnesotaPress, 1968), pp. 137-38.
- , The PresentStateof New England (Boston,1690), pp. 34,
37.
- , The WondersoftheInvisibleWorld(Boston,1693), in The
Witchcraft Delusion in New England, ed. Samuel S. Drake,
3 vols. (1866; New York:BurtFranklin,1970), 1:96-97, 201-
2.
- , Batteriesupon the Kingdomof theDevil (London, 1695),
p. 20.
-, Magnalia ChristiAmericana (London, 1702), pp. 93-94,
116-17, 122-23.
- , "Problema Theologicum,"pp. 68-69.
- , TheopolisAmericana (Boston, 1710), pp. 45-48.
-, India Christiana(Boston, 1721), pp. 24-25.
- , Ratio Disciplinae Fratrum(Boston, 1726), pp. 195-96.
- , "Triparadisus,"2:465-72.
Samuel Sewall, Phaenomenaquaedam APOCALYPTICA, pp. 27-
29, 52-55, and passim.
Increase Mather,A Discourse Concerningthe Uncertainty of the
Times (Boston, 1697), p. 35.
- , DissertationConcerningFuture Conversion,pp. 32-34.
Nicholas Noyes,New-EnglandsDuty and Interest,pp. 68-78.
JonathanEdwards, Thoughtson the Revival of Religionin New
England, 3:313-16.
- Historyof Redemption,1:468-69.
------,?,"Notes on the Apocalypse,"5:134-35.
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"Israel Redivivus: The Eschatological Limits of Puritan Typology in New

Article in The New England Quarterly · September 1990

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Israel Redivivus: The EschatologicalLimits

RITICS have long been fascinatedby Puritantypology

This paper was presentedas a MemorialLecturein honorof Dr. Karl W. Dietz,

Indeed, read on the surface,the apocalypticovertonesof

a Puritan"?4To understandwhetherthe figurativelanguage

Cotton Mather, Magnalia ChristiAmericana (London, 1702). All citations

7 Cotton Mather,Magnalia, p. 94, and "Problema Theologicum" (1703), pp.

13 IncreaseMather,Mystery, pp. 51, 48-50, 69, 77, and A DissertationConcern-

'4 Samuel Willard's Fountain Opened (Boston, 1700) went throughthreeedi-

Mathersaw PuritanNew England as the literalfulfillment

Redemption(1774), in The WorksofPresidentEdwards, 4 vols. (New York:Robert

20Mede's comments,and Twisse's reply,in Mede's Works,pp. 772, 799.

acceptsthe termsof Mede's argumentbut refuteshim in the

24Thomas Bray, Dissertationof the Sixth Vial (Hartford,1780), p. vii n.

2i Increase Mather,"New Jerusalem,"in Lowance and Watters'seditionof and

27 Cotton Mather,"Problema Theologicum,"p. 82, and "Triparadisus,"in my

Bodies, or turnedinto meer Spirits;They will be Material

Clearly CottonMather,like manyof his fellowAmericans,

lium "shall have most Seraphic giftsbestowed upon them,

3 Increase Mather,Mystery,pp. 98, 99, 113; Sewall, quoting William Owen,

37Cotton Mather, "Problema Theologicum," p. 31, and Diary of Cotton

Religion of the Old Testament, from whence the modern

The specificquestionsand answersin Mather's "Irresist-

Faith, and mylittleBook, The Faith of the Fathers,therein

Such exaltedcondescensionis certainlynot unique in Math-

Christianized.But if the national conversionof the Jews

Afterthis conversationwith God, Mather completelyre-

4' Cotton Mather,Diary, 2:493-94, 528-29. Samuel Sewall was deeplyshocked

Indeed, in joiningthe camp ofsuch metaphorists as Ham-

3 Cotton Mather,"Triparadisus,"2:517, 518, 522. JosephMede may have at-

To the modernreader,such nicetiesof exegeticaldisputa-

46 Lowance, Language of Canaan, p. 123.

4 Lowance, Language, p. 135, quotingEmoryElliott'sPower and thePulpitin

ReinerSmolinski,AssistantProfessorof Englishat Georgia

VernonLouis Parrington,Main Currentsin American Thought,

INTERPRETATIONSOF PAUL'S LETTER TO

English and AmericanAllegorists

Cotton Mather, The Way to Prosperity(Boston, 1689), in The

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