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Protestant Philosophies In Cotton Mather And Michael Wigglesworth

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With a variety of works from poems to books, both Cotton Mather, and Michael Wigglesworth, show similar protestant philosophies as Anne Bradstreet or Jonathan Edwards do. In the Late 1600’s Cotton Mather, a protestant minister, had much to do with the Salem Witch Trials in Salem MA. He viewed the world as a burden to god, and that humans are completely at the will to his fury, much like Jonathan Edwards did. In one of his sermons, Mather says, "They which lie, must go to their father, the devil, into everlasting burning; they which never pray, God will pour out his wrath upon them; and when they bed and pray in hell fire, God will not forgive them, but there [they] must lie forever. Are you willing to go to hell and burn with the devil and his angels?”(Virginia EDU, 1) Mather believes that people whom sin deserve all the cruel and harsh punishments that god has to offer. …show more content…

Mather also said in one of his writing about witchcraft in Salem, “It is to be confessed and bewailed, that many inhabitants of New-England, and young people especially, had been led away with little sorceries, wherein they "did secretly those things that were not right against the Lord their God;”(Mather, 1). Mathers truly believed like edwards did, that people were subject to evil and must be punished for it. And their sorceries led them to do things that were completely against the glory of god, and therefore, must be punished. And although Michael Wiggins had similar views to Mather and edwards in some of his works, a couple of his poems also resonate with Bradstreet’s views of god and

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