Asher K. Sisneros
Dr. Gary North
American Literature
October 21, 2024
Cotton Mather was among the most prominent New England writers and preachers during his life. His reach was most prominent in the American colonies, though people read his sermons in Great Britain as well. But like many Puritan preachers, he was concerned with far more than just the spiritual state of his congregation. New England, after all, was built on the premise of building a godly society in Jesus’ name. All aspects of this Puritan culture mandated submission to God, including business practices and politics. Understandably, the Salem witch trials tarnished the reputation of the Puritan government for future generations, as described by modern American textbooks. Aside from any criticisms of the judicial process during the Salem witch trials, they did prove one thing: the society was sincerely interested in obeying the divine decree of God. Although Mather opposed the witch trials, he was no exception to this rule. He, too, was a staunch supporter of biblical law and addressed that day’s legislature, the General Court, in his sermon Theopolis Americana (City of God in America).
Throughout the sermon, Mather emphasizes the importance of proper business ethics. He routinely comes back to the biblical principle of avoiding unjust weights and measures. Contract violation was especially abhorrent to Mather. Members of the legislature who were impacted by his words would have likely taken this to heart and worked to promote biblical business ethics. It all comes back to honesty and the Golden Rule: Do to others what you would have them do to you. All people appreciate honesty and long to be treated fairly. Mather’s plea was for New England legislatures to enact laws that promoted fairness and honesty and be a reproach to evil-doers. It should be noted, however, that Mather repeatedly praised the General Court for judging justly as godly men. But like most 18th-century Jeremiads, his sermon warned New England magistrates and coming generations not to walk away from the ethics of their forefathers. Otherwise, he said negative sanctions would fall upon the land and God would stop blessing them. Thus the covenant they entered with God would break, and when they broke their end of the covenant, God would withhold His blessings and give them curses. One of the central themes in Theolopolis Americana is Revelation’s description of the city of God bearing streets of gold. Throughout the sermon, Mather likened this gold to people and said when the people exemplified good character, proving that God had refined their hearts as gold and silver, then the streets—a metaphor for the entire society—would be made of gold. All of this was dependent on the people. And the civil magistrates, in turn, bore the responsibility to enact policies that encouraged godly behavior, particularly in the business realm.
But honesty in business was not the only thing Mather touched on. He also pushed for basic human rights. At the time, slavery was perfectly legal and some even considered it moral. A century before the Civil War, Mather rebuked the practice of waging war on African tribes to enslave them. He considered it perfectly legitimate for a prisoner of war to put himself into servitude but questioned the motive for war. If warfare was waged justly and one man surrendered, Mather considered this act of slavery as legitimate. But he understood the nature of warfare in Africa. Wars were not fought on just pretenses. Rather, the Anglo-Saxons went there for the purpose of kidnapping individuals and fueling the slave trade. That was not warfare. That was just kidnapping. The theologians at the University of Salamanca understood this, and so did Cotton Mather. And he condemned the practice openly. Another civil right he fought for was the just treatment of Native Americans. While the Puritans under the leadership of John Winthrop and the pilgrims under William Bradford made peace with the Indians and treated them fairly, some tried to take advantage of the natives. Following King Philip’s War, tensions between the two groups only increased. And some New England settlers viewed the natives as subhuman, courtesy of accounts like Mary Rowlandson’s Captivity and Restoration, which described Native American cruelty in times of war. But Mather countered this outlook. He argued that Native Americans still deserved respect as fellow human beings, especially Indians who converted to Christianity. The body of Christians were to accept these believers as fellow brothers in Christ, irrespective of their lineage.
A wise civil magistrate would have taken Mather’s words to heart. Civil magistrates are, at their core, public servants. They are obligated to preserve the public peace and promote prosperity in their land by punishing the wicked. No prosperity comes apart from God, and there is no greater blessing than being the very city of God, a city with golden streets. But as Mather explains, no street can be golden if it is marred with dishonesty in the marketplace; a city cannot be golden and exemplify virtue when its people kidnap others or discriminate against fellow believers. The only way to attain a righteous society—with golden streets—is to submit to the total and sovereign will of Jesus Christ and live according to the Golden Rule.
Asher Sisneros 