A Two Testament God

Puritans were a New Testament people in an Old Testament setting.

The Puritans were products of New Testament theology: individual salvation lies at the root of Protestantism. Yet, they were also an Old Testament people, emphasizing (perhaps by necessity) the communal/external exigencies of religious living. This New Testament/Old Testament mix appears in Puritan literature. Both Michael Wigglesworth and Anne Bradstreet use Old Testament language and New Testament language in their writings; the two kinds of language intertwine to create one overriding message: God is omnipresent and concerned.

In Wigglesworth, Old Testament language surrounds the concept of Puritans as a covenant people. His New Testament language emerges when he tackles the subject of sin, but submerges when he turns to punishment. Punishment is usually described in the language of the Old Testament.

Likewise, in Bradstreet, punishment has an Old Testament quality. When she turns to the issue of spiritual comfort, Bradstreet's language becomes a mix of the Old and New Testaments.

The Puritans were a covenant people. Jesus refers to the nature of covenants when he tells the Pharisees, "And think not to say within yourselves, We have Abraham to our father: for I say unto you, that God is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham" (Matthew 3:9). To inherit the covenant of Abraham is to inherit a particular relationship with deity, a concept supported by both the New and Old Testaments. The establishment of the covenant, however, is found in the Old Testament—with the Israelites. (See Footnote 1.)

The Puritans saw themselves as new Israelites. The jeremiad of Wigglesworth reinforces the idea of a privileged people who have been "safely led so many thousand miles" to their new Promised Land. The comparison, for Wigglesworth, is so strong that in his jeremiad, the Puritans, like the ancient Israelites, inherit a "country flowing-full of all good things" after the removal of the current inhabitants. Subsequently, the "country" is turned into a "fruitfull paradeis."

The new Israelites then begin to falter in their faith. Likewise, the ancient Israelites also turned from God, but their sins were of the Old Testament: intermarriage with pagans and idol-worship. Wigglesworth's list of sins are New Testament-based: "Pride and Luxurie/ Debate, Deceit, Contention, and Strife/False-dealing, Covetousness, Hypocrisie," which brings to mind the passage in Timothy:

"This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come, For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy . . ." (2 Timothy 3:1-5).

These are all sins of the individual: New Testament sins. A contrast to the sins of the Old Testament is noteworthy.

To the ancient Israelites, the spiritual wholeness of the community was as vital as the wholeness of the individual. This is illustrated by a story from the Book of Judges. A prostitute is killed by a mob. The resident prophet cuts up her body and sends the parts to the different tribes. To modern readers, this is practically incomprehensible. To the Israelites (and later, to the Puritans), the message would have been clear: one act of outrage contaminates us all. (It is possible to see a similar attitude in the contemporary bumper sticker: "No one is free while others are oppressed.")

Old Testament sin is largely external: those actions which burden and/or divide the community. The heart (the internal) is only important in so far as it results in objectionable external actions.

The New Testament altered this pattern. Christ died for all but also for each. Sin is internal—thoughts and habits that occur outside the eyes of the community: pride, hypocrisy, anger at family members, lust for a non-spouse—and individual. Jesus' parables of the lost coin, lost sheep, pearl of great price, all focus on the individual's efforts to find the kingdom of heaven. It was up to later New Testament writers (Paul and James) to discuss the problems faced by the Christian community.

In Wigglesworth, the problem of Christian communal living, especially the Puritan experience, is addressed in his list of sins. While an Old Testament community could rely on external laws to which individuals could conform, whatever their internal feelings, the New Testament community demands a more difficult investment: internal righteousness. When that internal righteousness fails, punishment follows. (See Footnote 2.)

Punishment is rooted in the Old Testament and is, therefore, external. Jesus rebuked his apostles for assuming that external debilities (i.e. blindness) were the result of sin, but the apostles were responding from an Old Testament mindset. In the Old Testament, famine, death, sickness, war, natural disasters are all products of communal unrighteousness. (A modern example is the claim that the Tsunami is punishment for the environmental sins of our generation; "Earth" replaces "God" as the punisher.)

Wigglesworth frets over the punishments: "One wave another followeth/And one disease begins before another cease," bringing to mind the plagues that fell upon Egypt. Wigglesworth believes the punishments are God's "rod" which "instructeth well," an idea drawn from the Book of Proverbs: "He that spareth his rod hateth his son: but he that loveth him chasteneth him betimes" (Proverbs 13:24).

Bradstreet softens these punishments—they are less the beating rod of an angry God and more necessary trials which will refine the individual soul. Yet, her language also invokes Old Testament images. "What though my flesh shall there consume/It is the bed Christ did perfume" from her poem "Weary Pilgrim" echoes lines from the Book of Job. Job endured a massive number of trials: boils, loss of family, loss of animals and house, not to mention the attention of three depressing friends. At the height of his pain, Job cries: "And though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God. Whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold, and not another; though my reins be consumed within me" (Job 19:26-27, my emphasis).

Bradstreet occasionally mentions internal spiritual pain—guilt, unhappiness, fear, loss of the spirit—and she eloquently details her religious doubts to her children. But most punishment still occurs outwardly (Freud is, after all, 150 years away). In her letter to her children, Bradstreet lists such punishments as smallpox, "sickness, weakness, pains," a child's illness, "losses in estate." All these punishments occur for a purpose. Death is release from "burning sin . . . stormy rains . . . briars and thorns . . . rugged stones." Loss of Bradstreet's home by fire reminds her that reliance on the material world is "vanity" (a reference to "Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher, vanity of vanities; all is vanity" from Ecclesiastes 1:2).

Despite these terrible punishments, God is also a source of comfort. Here Bradstreet draws on Old Testament and New Testament language. She refers often to crying out to the Lord in her distress. Likewise, the Old Testament king, David, pleaded with God for comfort: "In my distress I called upon the LORD, and cried unto my God: he heard my voice out of his temple, and my cry came before him, even into his ears" (Psalms 18:6). Prayer is a binding thread between the Old and New Testaments.

Bradstreet turns to New Testament language when she imagines a place of refuge: "an house on high erect/Framed by that mighty Architect . . . It's purchased and paid for too/By Him who hath enough to do" ("Upon the Burning of Our House"). Entry to heaven through Christ's purchase (by blood) is a common New Testament concept. "For ye are bought with a price," Paul wrote the Corinthians (1 Cor. 6:20). The relationship is not only personal but ultimately familial. Anne's plea to her children, "I now travail in birth again of you till Christ be formed in you," a direct citation of Galatians 4:19, carries the implication of Christ as foster parent. Once Christ is formed in us, Paul goes on to explain, we become his children and heirs of God.

In their use of Old Testament and New Testament language, Wigglesworth and Bradstreet demonstrate the Puritan idea of God. Neither Wigglesworth nor Bradstreet would have transitioned deliberately between Old Testament and New Testament language, images and references. To them, the demanding, communal God of the Old Testament and the personal, consoling God of the New Testament was the same.

The Puritans saw God as an omnipresent force in their lives. As they grappled with colonization in a new land, they grappled with God's response to their efforts and their feelings about God. Through Old Testament and New Testament language, they described a covenanting community, an appreciation of sin, fear of external punishment and access to spiritual comfort. They were both an Old Testament people—refugees in a foreign land, attempting to do God's will and punished for their failures—and a New Testament people—individuals seeking personal perfection and spiritual comfort. Both identities were one.

1. The original Israelites were descendents of Abraham through his grandson, Jacob (or Israel). Jacob had twelve sons, whose descendents became the twelve tribes of Israel. Jacob and his family emigrated to Egypt during a famine that swept the Ancient World. Many generations later, the Israelites were led out of Egypt by Moses to the Land of Canaan where they fought the current inhabitants, the Canaanites, for possession of the land, described by an Israelite spy as "[a land which] floweth with milk and honey" (Number 13:27).

2. In the Old Testament, for instance, witchcraft is associated with external behaviors—rebellion, divination—while for the Puritans, witchcraft was the threat of the invisible: the thoughts and feelings of one's neighbors which could not be known.