Biblia Americana

How to Go to Heaven, or How Heaven Goes? Natural Science and Interpretation in Cotton Mather's "Biblia Americana" (1693-1728) Author(s): Reiner Smolinski Reviewed work(s): Source: The New England Quarterly, Vol. 81, No. 2 (Jun., 2008), pp. 278-329 Published by: The New England Quarterly, Inc. Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20474631 . Accessed: 15/09/2012 17:13 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

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How toGo toHeaven, or How Heaven Goes? Natural Science and Interpretation inCotton

Mather's "BibliaAmericana"(1693-1728) REINER

SMOLINSKI

MATHER (1663-1728), PuritanNew England's COTTON eminent theologian,historian,and virtuosoof naturalphi what is now called losophy,took a leading role in introducing to America. science new colonial North the Mather, historians have established,not onlypopularized Newtonian science from his Boston pulpit but also embraced much of the early En lightenmentscholarshipof his day.' Of a decidedly empirical

I wish For support of my ongoing research on Cotton Mather's "Biblia Americana," to thank the Department State University for various research of English at Georgia and travel grants, the Massachusetts Historical Society for aW. B. H. Dowse Fellow a for the and the American Antiquarian Mayer's Fellowship, Huntington Library ship, a I wish to thank the Society for Kate B. and Hall J. Peterson Fellowship. Moreover, Massachusetts Historical Society for permission to quote from Mather's manuscript. 1 are the most important discussions "Cotton Among George Lyman Kittredge, to the Mather's Scientific Communications Royal Society," Proceedings of the American n.s. 26 "The Date, Antiquarian Society, (April 1916): 18-57; Theodore Hornberger, Interest in Science," American the Source, and the Significance of Cotton Mather's Literature 6 (1935): 413-20, "Cotton Mather's Annotations on the First Chapter of 18 (1938): 112-22, and "Notes on The Christian Genesis," Texas Studies in English in Cotton Mather: A His Works, ed. Thomas J.Holmes, Philosopher," Bibliography of 3 vols. (1940; Newton, Mass.: Crofton Publishing Corporation, 1974), 1:133-38; Perry Miller, The New England Mind: From Colony to Province (1953; Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1983), chap. 26; Otho T. Beall and Richard H. Shryock, Cotton Mather: First Significant Figure in American Medicine ( 1954; New York: Arno Press, 1979); Raymond Phineas Steams, Science in the British Colonies of America (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1970), pp. 150-161, 403-26; Gordon W. Jones, intro. to Cotton Mather: The Angel of Bethesda: An Essay Upon the Common Maladies (Barre, Mass.: American Antiquarian Society and Barre Publishers, 1972), ofMankind "Cotton Mather into the and the Puritan Transition pp. xii-xl; Pershing Vartanian, Early American Literature 7 (1973): 213-24; Jeffrey Jeske, "Cotton Enlightenment," The New England Quarterly, vol. LXXXI, no. 2 (June 2008). ? Quarterly. All rights reserved.

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bent, he studied theworks of his European peers, supplied the Royal Society of London with his own American offerings(his "Curiosa Americana"), and hailed scientificaffirmationsthat tracedGod's providentialhand in thephysicaluniverse.2 In his

publishedforthe much admiredTheChristianPhilosopher, Royal Society of London (1720/21),he set out to establish"that Philosophy [i.e.,natural science] isno Enemy, but amightyand wondrous Incentive to Religion" and "that PHILOSOPHICAL

RELIGION" exhibits "amostsensible Character, andvictorious

Evidence of a: reasonable Service. . . . Behold, a Religion, which will be foundwithout Controversy; a Religion, which will challenge all possible Regards from theHigh, as well as the Low,

among

the People;

...

a PHILOSOPHICAL

RELIGION:

And yet how Evangelical!" (ChristianPhilosopher,pp. 7, 9).3 Mather's words ofwonder led Raymond Phineas Stearns to conclude that in colonial New England "therewas no conflict

no. 4 (1986): 583 Mather: Physico-Theologian," Journal of the History of Ideas 47, in Early America: Cotton Mather's U. Solberg, "Science and Religion 94; Winton Christian Philosopher," Church History 56 (March 1987): 73-92, and intro. to Cotton Mather: The Christian Philosopher (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1994), pp. xix P. in the Restoration Seers of God: Puritan Providentialism cxxxiv; Michael Winship,

and Early Enlightenment (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996); and, of interest in natural science course, the assessments of Mather's by Robert Middlekauff, The Mathers: Three Generations of Puritan Intellectuals, I5g6-i728 (New York: Oxford

University Press, 1971), pp. 279-304; David Levin, Cotton Mather: The Young Life of the Lord's Remembrancer, 1663-1703 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1978), (New York: pp. 91-94; and Kenneth Silverman, The Life and Times of Cotton Mather Harper and Row, 1984), pp. 243-54, 405-10. 2Of the several collections of his "Curiosa Americana" thatMather sent to London, a small handful were abstracted in the Transactions of the Royal Philosophical only First Series (1712), synopsized in "An Extract of several Letters Society. Mather's to JohnWoodward, M.D. and Richard Waller, Esq; S. R. from Cotton Mather, D.D. Transactions 62-71, in of the Royal Society 29 (1714-16): Secretary," Philosophical clude Mather's description of giant bones found at Claverack, his disquisition on the on American "Shittim Wood" used for Noah's Ark, Indian medicines, turkeys and passenger pigeons, on the psychosomatic power of the imagination, monstrous births, miraculous cures, Indian calendars, rainbows and perihelia, earthquakes, hurricanes, curiosa that he into his "Bib hieroglyphics, and many other ultimately incorporated is assessed "Curiosa Americana" lia Americana." The value of Mather's by Beall and in American Medicine, pp. 42-50, and by Steams, Science in Shryock, Cotton Mather the Rritish Colonies of America, pp. 405-25. 3All page references to this work are to the Solberg Interest in Science," pp. 413-20, "The Date of Mather's not confined to the minister's old age.

edition. Hornberger's article proves that that interest was

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betweenscienceand religion, norwere thereanycontroversies of thisnature either in colonialAmerica or in thehomeland."4

Philosopher, Likewise,inhis superbeditionofTheChristian

Winton U. Solberg asserts that "Mather always saw harmony

Mather's ratherthanconflict betweenscienceand religion."5

Christian Philosopherhas thusbecome thehallmarkof a widely accepted concord between faithand factinearlyAmerica. Such

a consensus isnotsurprising, for Matherself-consciously sought

to emulate natural theology'sdesign argument as expressed in the works of Robert Boyle, John Ray, JohnHarris, George Cheyne, and William Derham-all of which Mather mined and copied into his American text. In fact, these fiveauthors alone account for nearly fiftypercent of Mather's Christian

Invariably, their beliefinnature's divineorderas Philosopher.6

imposed by an all-wiseGod who can rescind nature's laws at will shapes thewriters' selectionof evidence asmuch as itcolors the logicof theirinferences.There is simplyno room forblind chance in theGreat Chain of Being, no species towhich God had not assigned itsparticular place and purpose, no survival of the fittestor extinction,no natural catastrophe thatGod had not ordained at thebeginningof time to accomplishHis eternal plan. No wonder, then, thatthe circular reasoningdrivingtheir teleologyprecluded any conflictbetween science and faith.7 But Mather's celebration of natural theology,however ratio nal in theworks he intended forpublic consumption, ismuch less certain and forthcomingin theunexpurgated recordof his

4Stearns, Science conclusion as Miller

in the British Colonies of America, p. 160, comes to the same in his New to Province, pp. From England Mind: Colony

does

437-38. intro. to Christian Philosopher, p. xxxiii. 5Solberg, 6In his "Recapitulation of Mather's Sources," Solberg tabulates the number of lines Mather culls from his principal sources (Christian Philosopher, p. 465). 7Richard Westfall details the pitfalls of circular reasoning among the physico in his Science and in Religion Seventeenth-Century England theologians of the day in Scien (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1958), pp. 49-69. Theodore Hornberger, (1946; New York: Octagon Books, tific Thought in the American Colleges, 1638-1800 P. Inc., 1968), p. 82; Middlekauff, The Mathers, p. 284, and more recently Michael in of Natural Philosophy: The Example "Prodigies, Puritanism, and the Perils Winship, and Mary Quarterly, 3rd ser., 51 (1994): 93n, 105, are of Cotton Mather," William distrustful of this display of surface harmony in early Enlightenment America.


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Mather's massive commentaryon theBible, evolving thought.

"BibliaAmericana"(c. 1693-1728),an enormous manuscript

in folio, the edited version ofwhich is scheduled to appear in tenvolumes under the imprintof theMassachusetts Historical Society, thusbecomes the litmus test fordeterminingthe de

greetowhichhewas committed in toreinterpreting scripture

the lightof earlyEnlightenment science.8Otho T. Beall and Richard H. Shryockare not altogetheroff themark when they suggest that"in the 'Biblia [Americana]'Mather had examined the Scriptures in termsof science,whereas in The Christian Philosopher he reversed thisby surveyingscience froma reli gious perspective."9 If the theologian inMather is at odds with Mather the natural philosopher, ifhis belief inGod's capacity to suspend nature's laws clashes with theCartesian view that these laws and matter operate autonomously, then themost

productive way toexaminethosecontradictions, I would sug

gest, is to turn to those passages in his exegetical commentary inwhichMather was at greatestpains to collate Scripture and Nature intoone seamless volume. In "BibliaAmericana," as he weighed in on a number of hotlycontested issues of his day the creation story,Noah's flood,and suchmiraculous events as theconfusionof tonguesat Babel, the tenplagues ofEgypt, the partingof theRed Sea, and Joshua'sarrestof the sun-Mather was frequentlycaught between the Scylla and Charybdis of his and personal misgivings.After all, it is one public affirmations thingtowelcome the breath-takingdiscoveries of the age, yet quite another to reconcile themwith the traditionalinterpreta tions thatare directlyaffectedby these breakthroughs.

The Grand Projectof the "BibliaAmericana" Before we can appreciate theways inwhich CottonMather's public valorizationof earlyEnlightenment science differsfrom

inmanuscript hisruminations intended forpublicconsumption,

we need to understand his objective forcompiling his "Biblia Americana," the most ambitious and significantundertaking 8 See our website www.bibliaamericana.gsu.edu. in American Medicine, 9Beall and Shryock, Cotton Mather

p. 50.

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in his corpus of more than four hundred fiftypublished

unexplored, thissynoptic andunpublished titles.10 Stilllargely

commentaryon the canonical books of theOld and New Tes tamentswas conceived in 1693, the same year inwhichMather outlined his plans forhisMagnalia ChristiAmericana, hisNew

Englandchurchhistory, subsequently publishedinLondon

(1702). In the "BibliaAmericana,"Mather aimed to collect the most significant discoveriesof the ages, scatteredacross thevar

iousdisciplines and appearinginhundreds ofdifferent tomes

but rarelyaccessible in a single location.At the "Rate of one Illustration"per day, he intendedover a period of seven years (an auspicious number signifying perfection) to fetch fromthe dispersed volumes of his peers "all the Improvements,which the laterAges havemade in theSciences," to include the "innu merable Antiquities, Jewish,Chaldee, Greecian, and Roman," to amass "in one Heap, Thousands of those remarkableDiscover iesof thedeep Things of theSpirit ofGod," and to incorporate "the delicious Curiosities of Grotius, and Bochart, and Mede, and Lightfoot,and Selden, and Spencer, andmanymore Giants inKnowledge, all settupon one Table."" Thus Mather hoped to offer scholars and common readers alike a whole libraryof innovativeresearch in an easily accessed digest form. As was not unusual with grand projects like the one Mather

werewaryofcommitting resources when proposed, publishers

a reasonable returnwas not assured. And so,Mather set out to generate advance interest.In a letterdrafted sometime in March 1714/15 and intended forcirculation among his many correspondents,he advertised his work, to be made available three-volume Cotton Mather: A Ribliography J. Holmes's of His (1940; Newton, Mass.: Crofton Publishing Corporation, 1974) and Keith Ar to Pre-1801 Entries in Thomas bour's "Additions and Emendations Bibli J. Holmes no. 1 Society of America 94, ographies of the Mathers," Papers of the Ribliographical (March 2000): 81-130. His xxDiary of Cotton Mather, 1681-1724, ed. Worthington C. Ford, Massachusetts Historical Society, torical Society Collections, 7th ser., vols. 7-8 (Boston: Massachusetts 1911-12), 7:231, also 7:166, 169-71 (hereafter rendered as Diary, vol. 1 and/or 2). A Christi Americana (London, appears in his Magnolia nearly identical announcement 1702), ed. Kenneth B. Murdock (Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1977), "General Introduction," ? 5, pp. 102-6 (quotation is on p. 105), and 1:229-31. Diary, 10See Thomas

Works


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in two volumes, at the rate of "fivePounds of our Money,

Booksellers to theSubscribers." mightexpect"Subscriptions

formany more than one hundred setts of theWork; to be paid in upon theirArrival here [Boston]; if theywill run the Risque thereof."'2Years earlier,he had also promoted "Biblia

inhisecclesiastical Americana" history MagnaliaChristi Amer

icana (1702), in his do-good essay,Bonifacius (1710), and then again in "ANew OfferTo theLovers ofReligion and Learning" (probablyprinted in 1714). Through the lattercircular,he tried to strikea bargainwith reluctantbooksellers by promisingone set gratis to all thosewho "procure and send in Subscriptions Work." In addition,he wrote long,plead forNine Sets of this

togovernors, ingletters aristocrats, and influential Presbyterian

clergymen inOld and New England to garner subventions.'3 All to no avail.

Mather approachedJohnLawrence,a Presbyterian book

seller of London, in the Poultrey, to publish thework, but

Evidently Lawrencediedwithout having made a commitment.

other publishershad turnedMather down, because inOctober 1715, he complained to SirWilliam Ashurst, governorof the Society of thePropagation of theGospel, thatbooksellerswere more interested in reaping profits than in publishingworthy books byAmerican authors.London publishers "seem to be of the opinion,"Mather protested, "that a poor American must never be allow'd capable of doing any thingworth any ones regarding;or tohave ever look'd on a Book."14Yet never easily deterred, he labored on. As early as 1706, he had gathered 12W. C. Ford, editor of the diaries, Diary, 2:312.

Mather's

incorporated

a copy of this drafted

letter in

(Boston, 1710), pp. 200-206; 13Magnalia Christi Americana, pp. 102-6; Bonifacius "A New Offer To the Lovers of Religion and Learning" (Boston, c. 1714), p. 15. son Samuel Mather's stated in his biography The Life of the Very Reverend and & F.R.S. Learned Cotton Mather, D.D. (Boston, 1729), p. 73, that his father had in "his almost finished "Biblia Americana" fiftyfirst Year" of his life (1714) and issued for printing it, intitutled, A new Offer to the Lovers of Religion and "his Proposals In his edition of the diaries, W. C. Ford of Mather's Learning." incorporated copies Dr. Daniel Williams, Sir William letters to Thomas Reynolds, Jeremiah Dummer, Ashurst, Anthony William Boehm, Henry Walrond, 2:309-19, 330-33. 415"17, 436, 510-12) 14Diary, 2:318, 331.

and John Shute Barrington

(Diary,

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Volumes "very manyThousands" of illustrations into"twolarge

in Folio" but continued to accumulate hundreds of new illus trationseach year. In 1711 alone, he added "manymore than a thousand"; in 1713, "manymore IllustrationsthanDayes in theYear." InMarch of 1715, he prayed forinstructions"about sending theManuscripts of the Biblia Americana, over the Atlantic."But inOctober of 1716,when news arrived thatpub lication"is to be despaired of,"he seemed to consign his great work toGod's hands.15

Disappointments notwithstanding, Matherkeptaddingever

more material to thework until the end of his life.By 1728, "Biblia Americana" had swelled to its present size of more than 4,500 manuscript pages in six volumes folio-too costly an undertaking to charm even his most dedicated supporters inBritain.Meanwhile, Matthew Poole had published his five

Criticorum volumedigestSynopsis AliorumqueS. Scripturae Interpretum (London, 1669-76) and his Annotations on the

in commentary HolyBible (London,1683-85),a two-volume

folio forthecommon reader.To make mattersworse,Matthew Henry's acclaimed Exposition of All theBooks of theOld and New Testaments (London, 1708-10) had since appeared in six volumes.And to top itall off,the tenvolumes of Simon Patrick's Commentaryupon theHistorical Books of theOld Testament

andwent through (London,1695-1710)floodedthebookstalls

a thirdedition by 1727. The London book market was simply not ready to take on yet another huge Bible commentary British or no.'6

Science and the SixDays of Creation Mather's commentaryon the Book of Genesis alone con sists of nearly 430 folio pages, arranged in double columns. Its bulkiness is not reallysurprising;the earlyEnlightenment's

totheolo discoveries challenges revolutionary posedsignificant

gians and believers of all stripeswho sought to harmonize the 1:545, 563-64; 2:162, 178, 310, 376. l6Holmes, Mather: A Ribliography, 2:735, also points to the saturation of the reason for Mather's failure to attract a London London market as the principal lsDiary,

publisher.


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old with the new. In his commentaryon theMosaic creation account (hexaemeron),Mather draws on a vast arrayof ancient and modern sources and cites creationmyths fromChaldea, Egypt,Greece, and Rome in the same space as typologicaland mystical readings fromtheTalmud, Targums, theearlyChurch

Fathers,andRenaissance andReformation commentators. He incorporates up-to-date pre-Newtonian andNewtonianexpla nations from such contemporaries as Lord Chief Justice Sir

MatthewHale; fromconservative andLatitudinarian divines such as Robert Fleming, Pierre Jurieu, and Thomas Pyle; and fromphysico-theologiansand naturalphilosophers such as Robert Hooke, Edmund Dickinson, Nehemiah Grew, Richard Bentley,William Whiston, and Sir Isaac Newton. Over a pe riod of more than thirtyyears,Mather gathered serviceable excerpts from theirwritings, inserted them in his bound folio manuscript as they fell into his hands, and interpolated ref erences between the lines,on half-sheets,even on snippetsof paper glued intohismargins,but he seeminglyhad no intentto order the selectionsby chronologyor significance.The sequen tial arrangementofMather's sourcematerial should therefore not be read as his endorsementof one account above another but as his delight in the richnessof theMosaic hexaemeron and in themultiplicityof explanations itcalled for. Unfortunately,datingMather's various entries is fraught with difficulty.Identifyingthe publication dates for his countless sources is easy enough, but theyonly allow one to approximate the relativedate foreach entry in the bound manuscript vol umes.Mather initiallynumbered each new entry in sequential order.Yet he was forced to abandon thiscountingmethod long before he had filledhis six volumes. Over the commentary's longgestationperiod, he excised, discarded, or otherwiseoblit eratedwhole fasciclesof earliermaterial thathad been super seded by new publications thatcame to his attention.Renum bering thousands of entrieswas thereforean inefficientand never-endingprocess. Only in rare cases didMather juxtapose an old entrywith a new, forhe intendeda state-of-the-art com mentary thatwould rival those of his English peers. Nonethe less,Mather's evolvingintellectualposition can be gauged from

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his frequent asides and his dissatisfactionwith those neoteric philosopherswho, in his opinion, had crossed the line. The varietyof authorsMather included in his "BibliaAmer icana" is as revealing as his critique of their theories, for the spectrumof views he considered suggests the degree towhich he was willing to allow biblical authority to be questioned as he explored early Enlightenment science in thework he thought the crowning achievement of his life. In treatingthe Mosaic hexaemeron-in more than seventyfoliopages in dou ble columns (55r-L29r)-Mather sampled ancient cosmogo nies, earlyEnlightenment science, and philological and textual disputes about the authorshipof thePentateuch.'7 During his lifetime,the biblical creation storywas experiencingunprece dented challenges,with Peripatetics pitting their theoryof the eternityof the universe against those conservative physico theologianswho insisted thatGod had created the universe out of nothing,with Copernican heliocentrism replacing the ancient Ptolemaic geocentric cosmogonies, and with Cartesian mechanism and the immutable laws of nature contesting the venerablemiracles and providentialistviews of conventional lit eralists.The sudden explosion of knowledge and the formation of new fieldsof inquiry-physics,chemistry,botany,geology disrupted theusual progressof biblical exegesis and demanded the attentionof thebrightestand the best.18

17 Mather does not paginate his "Biblia Americana" holograph manuscript; all recto in the edition I am and verso paginations refer to those permanently established MHS. presently preparing for the l8See Mather, Christian Philosopher, pp. 18-19; Andrew D. White, A History of the 2 vols. (1896; New York: Dover, Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom, I. Bernard Cohen, The Rirth of a New i960), 1:171-208; Physics, revised and up to dated (New York: W. W. Norton and Co., 1985); A. Rupert Hall, From Galileo Newton:

"The Ross (New York: Harper and Row, 1963); Grant McColley, 1630-1720 no. 2 (1938): 153-89; Westfall, Science and Controversy," Annals of Science 3, in Religion Seventeenth-Century England, pp. 70?145; Margret C. Jacob, The Newto nians and the (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1976), English Revolution, i68g-i720 to Darwin (Baltimore: pp. 143-200; Francis C. Haber, The Age of theWorld: Moses

Wilkins

Johns Hopkins University Press, 1959); Paolo Rossi, The Dark Abyss of Time: The to Vico ( 1979; History of the Earth and the History of Nations from Hooke Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984); Claude C. Albritton Jr.,The Abyss of Time: Chang ing Conceptions of the Earth's Antiquity after the Sixteenth Century (San Francisco: Freeman, Cooper, and Company, 1980).


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Mather's firstextractconcerningthe Creation ("Biblia

Americana," pp. 55r-57r),written in a hand differentfromthat of the remainderof his holographmanuscript, is fromThomas Pyle (1674-C. 1756), anAnglican clergymanand prebendaryof Salisburywhose two-volumeParaphrase with Short and Useful Notes on theBooks of theOld Testament (1717) was accessible In his preface,Pyle toMather at theHarvard College library.19 announces, "I have had all just Regard to thoseModern Dis coveries,and vast ImprovementsinPhilosophicalKnowledge ... yethave I endeavoured so to expresseveryCircumstance,as not (directlyand explicitly) to clash with any one particular Hy

Newtonian orOpinion."20 bentnever pothesis Pyle'sdistinctly conservative of theMosaic cre seriously compromises exegesis

ation story,and his determination to keep the Battle of the Books out of his commentaryappeals toMather. With Pyle at his elbow,Mather predictably rejects the ancient Peripatetic heresyof an unchanginguniverse thatwas not created by God but had always been in existence; frownsupon such Necessi tariansas Thales and Cicero who, while conceding thatan Ef ficientCause had formedthe universe, asserted that itsmatter was preexistingand eternal; and decries themodern Cartesian disciples ofDemocritus and Epicurus, who insistedthatan in

atomscoalescedthrough blind finite numberof imperishable

(Bostoni, 1723), "Continu igCatalogus Librorum Bibliothecae Collegij Harvardini atio Supplementi" (1725), p. 111. 2?Thomas Pyle, Paraphrase with Short and Useful Notes on the Books of the Old Testament, 2 vols. (London, 1717), i:A6v. Pyle situates his commentary between the radical scholarship of the French Oratorian Richard Simon (1638-1712) and the Dutch on the one hand and, on the other, Arminian theologian Jean Leclerc (1657-1736) the conservative commentaries of the celebrated Nonconformist Henry Ainsworth

of the Bishop of Ely Simon Patrick (1625-1707), of the Lord Bishop (c. 1571-1622), and of Presbyterian minister Matthew of Bath and Wells Richard Kidder (1633-1703), In his Histoire critique du Vieux Testament (Paris, 1678), Richard Henry (1662-1714). Simon denied the Mosaic and postulated that groups authorship of the Pentateuch to ac of public writers periodically recast and updated much of the Old Testament in his anonymous Sentimens their specific historical exigencies. Likewise, commodate sur l'Histoire du Vieux Testament (Amsterdam, de quelques Th?ologiens de Hollande as Five Letters in a the In 1685), appearing Concerning partial English translation sive, Mosis (London, 1690), and in his Genesis, spiration of the Holy Scriptures out of liber primus (Amsterdam, 1693), translated as Twelve Dissertations prophetae Le Clerk's [sic] Genesis the verbatim inspiration (London, 1696), Leclerc questioned of the prophets and argued that Moses authored only parts of the Pentateuch.

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chance or immanentmechanical laws to formcountlessworlds in a vacuum of immeasurableproportion.Mather quotes Pyle's

disclaimer:

TheWorld did not existfromall Eternity,byNecessityofNature, nor did it,or anyPart of it,come intobeing by chance and For tune,but all things Material, whatever,whetherVisible or Invisible, or Immaterial were in thebeginningcreated,by thePower of that infinitely Wise, Good, and Alsufficient beingwhom we callGOD. ["BibliaAmericana,"p. 55r]21 Adding no commentaryof his own,Mather allows Pyle's vol untaristcosmogony to uphold the flagand staffforconformist theologians.The harmonybetween science and religionso care fullycontrolled in Pyle's excerpt foreshadowsMather's agenda in his Christian Philosopher.22 With the old familiar storyof the Creation thus firmlyin place, Mather felt ready to tackle the controversialNew The ory of the Earth, From its Original, to the Consummation of all Things (1696), by Anglican polymathWilliam Whiston (1667-1752), Isaac Newton's fellowArian and successor to the Lucasian Chair ofMathematics at Cambridge. Whiston's New Theory-like the avalanche of refutationsthat followed in itswake-was spawned by Thomas Burnet's popular Tel lurisTheoria Sacra (i68i) and its later incarnationinEnglish, The Sacred Theory of theEarth (London, 1691).23Mather had 1:1-2. Years later,Mather refutes Aristotle's argument about the 21Pyle, Paraphrase, a from George Cheyne's Philosophical counterargument eternity of the universe with Principles of Natural Religion (London, 1705), pp. 95-98: "That the Quantity o? Light in the Sun is It is perpetually emitting Millions of Rays, and Heat daily decreasing. which do not return into it. .. . 'Tis true, the Decrease of the Sun is very inconsiderable. It shews that the Particles of Light are extremely small, since the Sun for so many Ages of Rays, without any very sensible Diminution. has been constantly emitting Oceans it could not have 'tis from hence evident, that the Sun had a Beginning; However, ere now been reduced it: It had been from Eternity; Eternity must have wasted long a unto less than the (Christian Philosopher, p. 40). Light of Candle" 22See Mather's Christian Philosopher, pp. 18-42, 89-95. to the Consum 23William Whiston, New Theory of the Earth, From its Original, mation of all Things (London, 1696); Thomas Burnet, The Sacred Theory of the Earth (London, 1691). See Katharine Collier, Cosmogonies of Our Fathers: Some Theories (1934; New York: Octagon Books, of the Seventeenth and the Eighteenth Centuries 1968), pp. 68-91, and Marjorie H. Nicholson, Mountain Gloom and Mountain Glory:


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repeatedly mockedBurnet'sthesisthattheearth'ssurface was, in their day, the mere ruins of the antediluvian crust that had collapsed in upon vast subterranean caverns filledwith the ocean's waters.24 If this "BurnettianRomance" could be drowned in ridicule,Whiston's New Theory was not so eas ilydismissed: "Learned Men of late used several Essayes, all not with xqual Success, to rescue the InspiredWritings of Moses, from theHardships that have been put upon them," Mather guardedly prefacesWhiston's abstract. "You must not expect, that I declare myself, how far I concurr,with ev ery Point, that shall bee offered.And I will also leave you, to the same Liberty that I takemyself" ("Biblia Americana,"

p. 69r).

Whiston had postulated thatthegreatChaos of theFirstDay, as described byMoses (Gen. 1:1-5), refersto the creation of our sublunaryearth alone; the foundationof the universe, he argued,was the product of an antecedent event, one not cov ered by Moses. In pondering the possibilities,Mather finds some logic inWhiston's position.How could the celestial bod ies proceeding from a single center traversesuch "Immense Distances" as to arrive at their"vastlyRemote Seats" in outer space in so short a time as "a few Hours" of the First Day, he asks as he critiques the standardcreation story,especially if the centripetal forceof universalgravitation(Newton's Second Law ofMotion) pulls all moving bodies toward"the common Center ofGravity"? Even ifa thousandyearswere allowed for each of the sixdays ofCreation, themagnetic propertyofmat terwould countermand the velocity of bodies wafting across space,Mather muses.

The Development of the Aesthetics of the Infinite (1959; Seattle: University ofWash ington Press, 1997), pp. 184-270. By 1755, Whiston's New Theory had gone through at least seven at least six editions, with Burnet's Sacred Theory by 1759. James through in E. Force argues that "By 1700," Burnet's Theory "had stimulated thirty replies," Honest Newtonian (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), P-35 24See my The Threefold Paradise of Cotton Mather: An Edition of "Triparadisus" (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1995), p. 94, and Mather's commentary on Noah's flood (Gen. 8:19), in "Biblia Americana," p. 220V.

William Whiston,

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Now, ifinsteadof the,Vis Centripeta,a Vis Centrifuga;insteadofMu tualAttraction,aMutual RepulsionorAvoidancewere foundtobee ofour era'sbig-bangtheory], thestanding [aneat summary unchang'd Law ofNature, and PropertyofMatter, thismighthave look'd like Force ofGravitationobtains,and possible.But,when thecontrary that,as faraswee have anyMeans of knowing, Universally,thereis now no Room forsuchan Imagination.... In fine,This Fancy, that theHeavenlyBodies proceed originallyfromtheTerrestrialChaos, offfromitevery and cast themselves Way, supposestheEarth tobee theCenterof theWorld, or of all thatSystemof Bodies, and them to bee placed in a kindof Circumferenceevery Way about it.But thisPtolemaicSystemof theWorld,must not hope, at thisTime of with considerate Men. ["BibliaAmericana," Day, tobee entertained p.

70v]25

Suddenly, the tidyarrangementof theMosaic hexaemeron, no doubt pleasing in itspoetic simplicity,seemed strangelyout moded and inadequate when examinedwithin the context of thenew theories.Though sacrosanctamong the faithfulformil lennia, the old Mosaic order strained the credulityof physico theologians likeMather as theywrestled with the problem Christian 25Whiston, New Theory, pt. 1, sec. 4, pp. 37, 38; see also Mather's 1714, Judge Samuel Sewall recorded the Philosopher, pp. 89-90. On 23 December comment in his diary: "Dr. C. Mather preaches excellently from Ps. 37. following Trust in the Lord & c. only spake of the Sun being in the centre of our Sys tem. I think it inconvenient to assert such Problems" (The Diary of Samuel Sewall, 2 vols. [New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1674-1729, 1973], 2:779; I wish to for drawing my attention to Sewall's remarks). Whether thank Kenneth P. Minkema Sewall persuaded his old friend Cotton Mather to abandon his public acknowledgment is not known, but the heliocentrism of Copernicus's published version of Mather's A very brief Essay upon The Methods of Piety (Boston, Thursday lecture, Pascentius. 1714), omits all references to the topic. Sewall's disapproving remark illustrates that even was not in New England, among the Copernican theory universally embraced educated elite. Grant McColley, "The Ross-Wilkins Controversy," pp. 153-89, traces

in Britain from the late Renaissance to the the conquest of Copernican heliocentrism end of the seventeenth century; Dorothy Stimson's still useful Gradual Acceptance of the Copernican Theory of the Universe (1917; Gloucester, Mass.: Peter Smith, 1972), esp. pp. 85-106, does so for continental Europe; and Donald Fleming's festschrift arti in in Puritan New England," cle "The Judgment upon Copernicus M?langes Alexandre 2 vols. (Paris: Hermann, 1964), 2:160-75, does so for Koyr?: L'Aventure de l'Esprit, New England. Fleming's article especially demonstrates that although Copernican he in almanacs and at Harvard in the last three decades liocentrism was readily discussed of the seventeenth century, Copernicus and Kepler did not triumph over Ptolemy until the early eighteenth century.


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of squaring religion and science according to one common

denominator.

In the early Enlightenment, then, the hoarymodel of the cosmos began to lose force as the new science developed alternativeconcepts of space and time,hithertothepurview of theology.Mather grappledwith the implicationsofWhiston's New Theory: To allot to AlmightyGod a "disproportionate" fiveout of six days to create the earth alone, yet "crouding intoOne singleDay" the formationof our sun,moon, stars, and the rest of the vast cosmos-this disorderlyarrangement is not only against reason but also disrespectfulof God's sub limewisdom, he reasoned. If anyonewere to propose such a flawed cosmogony, itwould "bee look'd on as Marks of Un skilfuness,Foolishness,& Imprudence, inparallel Cases; & for which Meer Men, could not escape themost severe and In decorous Imputations" ("Biblia Americana," p. 71r).26 If the lopsided allocation of activitiesduring the firstfivedays ofCre ation failed toprompt discerningminds to question theperfec tionof theGrand Scheme,Mather went on, thenGod's labors as recorded forthe sixthday,plainly"tooNumerous forso short a Space," should certainlydo so. In thatbriefperiod,God had supposedly fashioned earth's animals, includingAdam; given Adam latitude to exercise his dominion over all other animals by naming each species by virtue of itsnature; dropped Adam intoa "Deep Sleep" (whichmust have lasted "more than a Few Minutes"), duringwhich God shaped the protoplast's rib into Eve and healed thewound, then giving the pair time enough to "know"each other, identifytheirfood,and learnGod's Law; and, finally,permitted the arch marplot of Eden towriggle himself into the couple's confidence and precipitate theirFall and expulsion-all in a singleday of twenty-four hours, accord ing to "the vulgarHypothesis" of things!("Biblia Americana," pp. 72v, 7Lr).27

"Now, tho'God Almightycan do all thingsinwhat Portions of Time Hee pleases,"Mather readilyconcedes, "Man cannot. 26Whiston, New 27Whiston, New

sec. 5, p. 45. Theory, pt. 1, Theory, pt. 2, bk. 2, chap. 3, pp. 88, 89, 90.

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Hee must have Time allow'd him, inProportion to theBusiness, that is to bee done. But behold here, Business enough allotted into the SixthDay, to require no small Part of a Year, for the

Even ifAdam Dispatchof it!"("Biblia p. 72v).28 Americana,"

were created in a state of maturity and with fullknowledge and understandingof his assigned tasks, their sheer number would encompass a lifetime,not a day.29How, then,can a ra tional explanation be devised ifGod's creation is constrained by his own physical laws? "It is an Indecent Thing to Re curr unto Pure Miracle, for theAcceleration of them, into the with reference Space of TwentyFour Hours," Mather affirms toWhiston, violates "the Lawes ofMotion, [which]were now already Stated and Fixed in theWorld" ("Biblia Americana," p. 72v).30Caught in thisCartesian bind, God lacks the elbow

roomto arbitrate betweeninherent necessity and temporal exigency.

If Mather's digest of Whiston's New Theory is correct, Whiston did notwholly subscribe toNewton's theologicalvol untarism,which held that the Creator may contravene the course of nature at any time (thoughhe rarelydoes).3' Although 28Whiston, New Theory, pt. 2, bk. 2, chap. 3, p. 90. This rationalist explication was not original to Mather or toWhiston, his source. Simon Patrick, bishop of Ely, in his Commentary upon the First Rook ofMoses, called Genesis (London, 1695), p. 59, raises the same issue (Gen. 2:4). 29Whiston, New

Theory, pt. 2, bk. 4, chap. 1, pp. 227-28. 3?Whiston, New Theory, pt. 2, bk. 2, chap. 3, pp. 89, 90. 31 In his classic Adventures of Ideas (1937; New York: Free Press, 1967), pp. 140?59, Alfred N. Whitehead describes two contrasting views of nature's laws as they obtained inmuch of the seventeenth and centuries: (1) is the eighteenth Theological voluntarism idea that an omnipotent God endowed matter and nature with principles metaphysical of motion that are passive and therefore completely dependent on God's volition; that since the properties of matter (atoms) are extension, impenetrability, and inertia, the motion of matter originates in God, the prime mover; that an active sustains principle motion and activity in nature by counteracting resistance; that this active is the principle source of causes or laws of nature are therefore gravity; finally, that the superimposed on an can from the outside and are completely dependent omnipotent deity, who or course. (2) at will (miracles) to these natural laws their suspend modify abrogate is the view that activity and motion are inherent in matter and Immanence principles in is movement nature autonomous laws that constitute the nature; that all governed by of all activity in nature; that these immanent laws are so embedded interdependence in the structure of nature that cannot be disrupted, that any they disruption of the it contradicts the principles of reason, laws of nature (miracles) is impossible because attributes of God. Essentially voluntaristic, Newtonianism order, and perfection?the


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Whiston does not confinetheomnipotentGod or his immutable will to the immanentlawsof nature, as Rene Descartes (1596 1650) had been wont to do, the protoplast-the crowning achievement of God's creation-is ostensibly subject to the

limitations of hishumanity. Whiston'sreasoning thusimplies

thatmatter or atoms (though indivisibleand having extension) are not inert substances, as Isaac Newton insisted theywere,

withactive,self-sufficient but are insteadendowed principles (energy) thatare inherentin nature and governed bymechan ical lawswhose sole constraint is that of theirown constitu

tions.32 Immutable andmutuallyinterdependent, theselaws comprise realityto the seemingexclusionof any interference by an externalagency thatmight suspend theirintegrity. Mather's

illustration concerning God's omnipotence andAdam's impo

tence thereforeidentifiesa fissurein the textureof Newtoni anism,which in theworks of suchEnlightenmentphilosophers as Blount, Toland, Leibniz, Hume, Reid, Priestley,and Hutton widened into an unbridgeable gap.33

in the to the view of immanent activity in nature thatwas eighteenth century to Ren? Descartes, is to say Cartesian. For essentially mechanistic, which according the laws of nature were decreed by God and are?like his volition?immutable and contradict God's immutable will?unless universally efficient. That is why miracles are embedded in God's grand scheme from the (perhaps) they beginning. Helpful transformations appear in Francis Oakley, "Christian analyses of these Enlightenment Science: The Rise of the Concept of Laws of Nature," Theology and the Newtonian Church History 30, no. 4 (December 1961): 433-57; J. E. McGuire, "Neoplatonism inHermeticism and the and Active Principles: Newton and the Corpus Hermeticum," and McGuire (Los Angeles: University Scientific Revolution, ed. Robert S. Westman of California Press, 1977), pp. 95-133; Henry Guerlac, "Theological Voluntarism and in Newton's Physical Thought," Journal of the History of Ideas Biological Analogies "Voluntarism and Immanence: 44, no. 2 (April-June 1983): 219-28; P. M. Heimann, in of Nature Thought," Journal of the History of Conceptions Eighteenth-Century Ideas 39, no. 2 (April-June 1978): 271-83; and Edward B. Davis, "God, Man and Nature: The Problem of Creation in Cartesian Thought," Scottish Journal of Theology 44 (1991): 325-48. 32See n. 41. gave way

33See J. D. Collins, Descartes' Nature (Oxford: Oxford University Philosophy of and Nature," pp. 332-34; Heimann, Press, 1971), pp. 48-52; Davis, "God, Man I agree with Force "Voluntarism and Immanence," (Whiston, Hon pp. 275-83. est Newtonian, that Whiston's of bibli pp. 32-53) broadly defined principles in spirit; however, I argue that Whiston cal exegesis are Newtonian frequently to facilitate his own views of natural bends or disregards his avowed principles theology.

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The Abyss of Time and theLimits ofNewtonianism Quaint yet faintly modern asWhiston's conjecturemay ap from the safe pear distance of hindsight,itcaused havoc among theologians of all persuasions, for in it theywitnessed the

Mosaichexaemeron crumbling beforetheir veryeyes.Granted, Whiston was not the firstphysico-theologianto take issuewith the Bible's uneven distributionof activityduring the six cre ative days, even if those days were (as theywere for him) each a thousandyears long.Many of the ancient and medieval Church Fathers and ProtestantReformers disputed the issue as well. They posited either an instantaneouscreation or a cre ation occurringover six literaldays.Among thosewho insisted on an instantaneouscreation are Philo Judaeus (De opificio mundi), Origen (Contra Celsum) and (Commentarii in Gen esim), St.Athanasius (Orationes trescontraArianos), St.Hilary

(DeTrinitate), andSt.ThomasAquinas(Summa Theologica).34

The views of St.Augustine (354-430), bishop ofHippo, seem to have been unsettled over his lifetime.For instance, inDe genesi contraManichaeos, he appears to uphold a creation of hours each), but inDe Genesi six literaldays (of twenty-four ad litteramand inLiber imperfectus de genesi ad litteram,ref erencing the apocryphalSirach i8:1, he affirmsa simultaneous creation of all things."Creation,"Augustine explained in The LiteralMeaning of Genesis, "did not takeplace slowly in order thata slow development be implanted in those thingsthatare 34Philo Judaeus (De opificio mundi, sec. 3, ??13-14), Origen (Contra Celsum, bk. 6, in Genesim [Migne, Patrologiae Graecae, vol. 12, cols. chaps. 60-61) and Commentarii (Orationes tres contra Arianos, discourse 2, chap. 19, ??48-49), 45-92], St. Athanasius St. Hilary (De Trinitate, bk. 12, ?40), and St. Thomas Aquinas (Summa Theologica, vol. !> PP- 355~57> question" 74, answers 1-2). The reference to the Alexandrian exegete Philo Judaeus (c. 20 BCE-c. 50 CE) appears in The Works ofPhilo, trans.CD. Yonge Publishers, 1993), p. 4; the respective references to the (Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson

Father Origen (c. 185-c. 254) appear in Ante-Nicene Fathers, ed. 10 vols. (1885; and James Donaldson, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson and in Patrologiae Graecae Publishers, (vol. 12), ed. J. P. Migne 1999), 4:600-601, St. Athanasius (Turnhout: Brepols, n.d); to the bishop of Alexandria (c. 296-373), in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, 2nd ser., ed. Schaff and Henry Wace, 14 Philip to St. vols. (1892; Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson Publishers, 1999), 4:374-75; Hilary inNicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, 9:228; and to St. Thomas of Poitiers (c. 315-67), Aquinas (c. 1225-74), in Summa Theologica: Complete English Edition in Five Volumes, Christian Classics Series (1948; New York: Benziger Bros., 1981), 1:355-57. Alexandrian Alexander

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slow by nature; norwere the ages established at the plodding pace atwhich theynow pass. Time brings about the develop ment of thesecreaturesaccording to the lawsof theirnumbers, but therewas no passage of timewhen theyreceived these laws at creation."Besides, since all natural processes-germinating

feathers, learn seeds,cultivating roots, hatching eggs,growing

ing to fly-take considerably longer than a single day and are dependent each on theother, thehexaemeral divisionmust be seen as merely a didactic structuringdevice: "Thus we might say that the creation of thingstookplace all at once and also that therewas a 'before'and 'after,'but it ismore readilyun derstood as happening all at once than in sequence." If St. Augustine's muddled explication did not encourage one uni fied theory in the Christian Church, another, earlier variant seemed to have resolved thematter formany latter-daythe ologians. Perhaps drawing on theTalmudic traditionof Elias theProphet, St. Irenaeus, ancient bishop of Lyon, insistedthat theworld was made in six days and will terminate(according to Ps. 90:4 and 2 Pet. 3:8) in as many thousandyears.The lat ter supposition seemed particularlypersuasive, for it not only confirmed the traditionof the Prophet Elias but also clearly circumscribed the time limitGod had set forman's historyon earth fromCreation to JudgmentDay.35 35St. Augustine, De Genesi contra Manichaeos (bk. 1, chap. 10, ?16; bk. 1, chap. 14, ??20-21), trans. Roland J.Teske, vol. 84 of Fathers of the Church (Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 1990), pp. 45-141; De Genesi ad litteram (bk. 4, chap. 33, ?52; bk. 4, chap. 34, ?54; bk. 5, chap. 3, ?6; bk. 5, chap. 17, ?35). The Literal of Genesis, trans. John Hammond Meaning Taylor, S.J., vols. 41 and 42 of The Works (New York: Newman Press, 1982), 41:141-42, 143; Liber of the Fathers in Translation imperfectus de genesi ad litteram (7.28; 9.31), The Literal Interpretation of Genesis: An Unfinished Book (4.33.52, 141-42; 4.34.54, 143), in Fathers of the Church, 84:143-88. For St. Irenaeus (c. 130?200), (Adversus haereses, 5.28.3), see Ante-Nicene Fathers, tradition of Elias the Prophet and itsmany proponents, see 1:557. For the Talmudic Sanh?drin 97a, Avodah Zarah 9a, and Rosh HaShana (Soncino) Babylonian Talmud, to this ancient tradition, here 31a. According by Tanna debe Eliyyahu expounded [Elias], "The world is to exist six thousand years. In the first two thousand there was

desolation, two thousand years the Torah flourished, and the next two thousand years in Mather's is the Messianic time can era." How widespread this belief had become be seen in Archbishop famous Annales Veteris Testamenti, A Prima James Ussher's Mundi Origine Deducti (London, 1650), p. 1. According to Ussher's calculations, God created the world on the night preceding Sunday "Octob. 23." 4004 (BCE) before the birth of Christ. Ussher's chronology was incorporated into most editions of the King

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Controversyabout the truenature of the hexaemeron flared

Perhapsto up periodically, notablyduringtheReformation.

control excessive individualismamong those now guided by faithalone, ProtestantReformerswere given to greater literal mindedness than St. Augustine. They insisted thatGod had created the universe in six literaldays.Martin Luther, inLec tures on Genesis, avowed "six natural days,"which his Swiss

colleagueJohn Calvinconfirmed, adding, nonetheless, that"it

would have been no more difficultforhim [God] to have com pleted inone moment thewhole work togetherin all itsdetails than to arrive at its completion graduallyby a progression of this sort."Calvin clearlywanted to have it both ways, for in his Commentary on Genesis (Gen. 1:5, 2:3), he called out the "errorof those . . .who maintain that theworld was made in a moment" yet remindedhimself that toGod "onemoment is as a thousandyears." Speaking for theReformed of PuritanNew England, TheWestminster Confession of Faith (1648) and its successor,The Savoy Declaration (1658), opted for"the space of six days," presumably intendinga literalperiod of twenty

fourhourseach.36

In Mather's generation, even the great Sir Isaac Newton (1642-1727) struggledwith theproblem of creation chronom etry. In an extant fragmentdating to 24 December i68o, he debated the issuewith Thomas Burnet, his old friendinCam bridge, justmonths before Bumet published his divisive Tel lurisTheoria Sacra. Though Mather had no way of knowing, Newton had written toBumet thatthe sixdays of creationwere

at least until the late nineteenth century. For Mather's six-thousand James Version year timetable, see my edition, The Threefold Paradise of Cotton Mather, pp. 60?78, 319-47 36Martin Luther, Lectures on Genesis, chap. 1, on Gen. 1:27, in vol. 1 o? Luther's Works, ed. Jaroslav Pelikan and trans. George V. Schick (Saint Louis: Concordia Pub 1958), pp. 5, 69. For John Calvin, Institutes, bk. 1, chap. 14, sec. 2, lishing House, and trans. Ford L. 22, see Institutes of the Christian Religion, ed. John T. McNeil Battles, 2 vols. (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, i960), 1:161, 182; for Commentary see vol. 1 of Calvin's Commentaries, on Genesis, trans. John King (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker Books, 2005), pp. 78, 105. For The Westminster Confession of Faith and see The Creeds and Platforms of The Savoy Declaration, chap. 4, Congregationalism, ed. Williston Walker (1893; Philadelphia: Pilgrim Press, i960), p. 372.


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noteachmerelytwenty-four hoursinduration butconsiderably longerbecause the earth'sdiurnal revolutionat that timecould "have been very slow, soe yt ye first6 revolutionsor days might containe time enough forye whole Creation."37Burnet

hadpenetrated theunderlying logicofhis friend's self-serving argumentbut pretended to be puzzled by Newton's intrigu

ingsolution-introducing shifting concepts of timebeforetime

began. In his letterof 13 January168o/8i,Burnet rejoined, "I inferrfromthis,yt as ye distinctionof 6 dayes is noe physical realitysoe neither is thisdraughtof thecreation [Moses' hexae meron] physicalbut Ideal, or ifyouwill,morall. Seeing it isnot physicallytrueytye Sun Moon & Starswere made at yt time, viz. 5 or 6ooo yeares sincewhen ye Earth was form'd.And if it bee Ideal in one part, itmay in some proportionbee ideal in every part."38Sir Isaac, Burnet was quick to underscore, had therebyallegorized theCreation, thus snatching it out of the

realmof scientific consideration.

Newton, however,would not concede thathe had offered a wax-nosed interpretation.In responding to Bumet, he re claimed his scientificcredentials. "You may make ye firstday as long as you please," he patiently explained, "& ye second day too if therewas no diurnalmotion till therewas a ter raqueous globe, that is till towardsye end of thatdayswork. And then if you will suppose ye earth put inmotion by an eaven force applied to it,& thatye firstrevolutionwas done in one of our years," the earth could have achieved 365 revo lutionsin "the 183d year."Despite his best attempts,however, Newton was clearly becoming mired in the quicksand of his own mechanistic conjecture and felt compelled to return to the safe ground of divine teleology.Natural causation alone 37Newton

to Burnet, 24 December 1680, letter 244, The Correspondence of Isaac ed. H. W. Turnbull, 5 vols. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, i960), 2:319, 322.

Newton,

38Burnet to Newton, 13 January 1680/81, letter 246, in Newton, Correspondence, than ten years after his correspondence with Newton, Burnet publicly 2:324. More to Newton in his (London, recapitulated his objection Archaeologiae Philosophicae 1692), pp. 277-329. Charles Blount was only too glad to oblige Burnet by translating into Burnet's Latin work thatwere most serviceable to his Deist English those parts of (London, 1693), pp. 52-76. argument; see Blount's The Oracles of Reason

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account for the earth's diurnalmotion, could not sufficiently he emphasized, for none but "God gave the earth it's [sic] motion by such degrees & at such times as was most suitable

to supernatural Paradoxically, by resorting toye creatures."39

agencywhen the going got rough,Sir Isaac appears to be dis avowing theEnlightenment cosmogony thatdares to speak his name: Newtonianism, a concept thatamong his Deist disciples came to signifya rationalistandmechanistic universe devoid of

miracles.40 of ecclesiastical backlash, Newton Justifiably apprehensive did not rush inwhere angels fear to tread.Deeply religious,he desperately clung to theBible as God's revealedWord. But to resorttodogmatismwas out of thequestion; tomiracles, only in extraordinarycases. Itwas much easier forhim to sacrificethe letteras long as the spiritof the hexaemeron-was preserved.4'

and Newton'sresponsetoBurnet'sepistleishighlyrevealing deserves to be quoted at length:

39Newton to Burnet, in Newton, Correspondence, January 1680/81, letter 247, 2:333-34 of the 'Newtonian Worldview': The Role of 4?In his article "Newton's Rejection in Newton's Natural B. Davis perceptively argues Divine Will Philosophy," Edward to voluntarism and to miracles that "correct" the course of that Sir Isaac's adherence nature disqualifies him from being a "Newtonian" and relegates him to the status of a theist or precursor to the (in Facets of Faith and Science: The Role Enlightenment Sciences, ed. Jitse M. van der Meer, 3 vols. [Lanham, Md.: of Beliefs in the Natural University Press of America, 1996], 3:89). 41 In his (1686; 3rd ed., 1729), Newton asserts an omnipotent and omni Principia scient God whose absolute freedom of will can contravene nature's laws at any moment

2 vols. [1934; Berke (in Sir Isaac Newton's Mathematical Principles, ed. Florian Cajori, of vol. General bk. California 2, Press, Scholium, 3, 1962], pp. 544-46). University ley: So, too, in his Opticks (1704; 4th ed., 1730), Newton outspokenly defends God's ability to "vary the Laws of Nature, and make Worlds of several sorts in several Parts of the Universe" [New York: Dover, (in Opticks, ed. I. B. Cohen 1952], bk. 3, pt. 1, quest. ed. H. G. Alexander 31, esp. p. 404). See also The Leibniz-Clarke Correspondence, (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1956), pp. xvi-xviii, 11-12, 17-19, 29-30, see Frank E. Manuel, The Re 42-43, 87-89. For discussions of Newton's theology, Newton Oxford Isaac Press, (Oxford: 1974); Richard H. Popkin, University ligion of "Newton as Bible Scholar," Essays on the Context, Nature, and Influence of Isaac New ton's Theology, ed. James E. Force and Richard H. Popkin (1990; Dordrecht: Kluwer, B. Davis, and Seventeenth "Rationalism, Voluntarism 2001), pp. 103-18; Edward in Facets of Faith and Science, 3:135-54; and my "The Logic of Century Science," in Newton and His Contemporaries," Millennial Thought: Sir Isaac Newton among H. Popkin (Dordrecht: Kluwer, 1999), Religion, ed. James E. Force and Richard pp. 259-89.


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As toMoses I do not thinkhis descriptionof ye creationeither Philosophicalor feigned, but thathe describedrealitiesina language artificially adapted to ye sense of ye vulgar.Thus where he speaks of twogreat lights[Gen. 1:i6] I supposehe means theirapparent, not realgreatness.So when he tellsus God placed thoselightsinye firmament, he speaks I supposeof theirapparentnot of theirreal & thestarrs made place.... So when he tellsus of twogreat lights ye 4th day, I do not thinktheircreationfrombeginningto endwas done ye fourth daynor inanyone dayof ye creationnor thatMoses were physicallbodies in themselves mentions theircreationas they someof themgreaterthen[sic]thisearth& perhapshabitable worlds, were lightsto thisearth.42 but onlyas they Newton thus ingeniouslysaves the day by distinguishingbe tween the "real" (literal)creationoutside timeand ken ofman, and its "apparent" (visible)manifestationas itmight appear to an eyewitnesson earth "ifhe had then lived& were now de scribingwhat he saw."43The formationof the two great lights spoken of in Gen. 1: i6 thereforedid not take place on the fourthday; instead,at that time, theysimplybecame visible to thenaked eye throughthemist of the earth'shazy atmosphere. The Mosaic creation of the fourthdaywas thusno more than an optical illusion. Newton's phenomenological solution thusamounts to a "mid dle way" between the grammatical and allegorical sense of scripture,a didactic narrative of events thatMoses adapted to the needs of the uneducated masses recently freed from Egyptian slavery.Newton explains, Omit themhe [Moses]couldnotwithoutrendering hisdescription of inye judgmentof ye vulgar.To describethem ye creationimperfect were in themselveswould havemade ye narration as they distinctly more tedious& confused,amusedyevulgar& become a Philosopher then [sic] a Prophet.He mentionsthemtherefore only so faras ye were phaenomenainour vulgarhad a notionof them,thatis as they 42Newton 43Newton

to Burnet, January 1680/81, 3:331. to Burnet, January 1680/81, 3:333.

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& describestheir firmament, makingonlyso far& at sucha timeas were made suchphanomena."44 they Sir Isaac's strategyof accommodation, then, is at once philo

sophically plausibleand theologically sound, yetitalsodiscloses

how he wrestled with angels tomake theMosaic hexaemeron safe for the earlyEnlightenment's new science. William Whiston sought his own way out of Newton's bind. He speculated thattheearthhad not set into itsdiurnal rotation until theconclusion of the sixthday: "That tho' theAnnual Mo tionof theEarth, commenced at theBeginning of theMosaic Creation; yett itsDiurnal Rotation did not, until after theFall ofMan" ("BibliaAmericana," p. 71r).Whiston's scheme, then, does not begin the twenty-four-hour day until the end of the sixthday, and thusGod had world enough and time to enact the foundationof thewhole universe. Like Newton,Whiston lambastes the pious for allowing theirblind zeal to outpace their reason. "Suppositions ten thousand timesmore dispro portionate and unaccountable,when ascrib'd toGod Almighty, are easily believ'd," he cautions. "So farcan Ignorance,Preju dice, and a misunderstandingof the Sacred Volumes carry the Faith, nay, the Zeal of Men!" In sum, "The Vulgar Scheme of theMosaick Creation, besides the disproportionas to time, represents all things from firstto last so disorderly,confus edly, and unphilosophical, that 'tis intirelydisagreeable to the Wisdom and Perfectionof God."45Mather must have deemed such radical criticismgrist for themills of his Deist contempo raries,who championed purelymechanical laws,and therefore he silentlypassed over thispart ofWhiston's critique. This, then,was the state of the debate inMather's time when he synopsizedWhiston in "Biblia Americana." A good deal of thediscussion tookplace inprivatecorrespondence and among groups of adepts and did not emerge in the published treatisesof the day; that is, untilWilliam Whiston, Newton's protege and frequentconfidant,stood exposed in the limelight 44Newton

to Burnet,

45Whiston, New sec. 6, p. 64.

January 1680/81, 3:333. Theory, pt. 2, bk. 2, chap. 3, pp. 79-104;

sec. 5, pp. 56, 57; pt. 1,


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of his New Theory of the Earth. No doubt, the Christian virtuoso inMather felt attracted toWhiston's daring theory, even as his theological self feltalarmed and overwhelmed by the plethora of itsdangerous implications."As fora Judgment upon thisDescription of theCreation,"Mather puns uneasily at the conclusion of his summary,"I will praesume tomake None, at all; I leave it untoMen of Judgment."And yet, his better judgment as a Puritan theologianfinallygains theupper hand as he pronounces his verdict: "The Theories of the Creation, (particularlywhat I last offered you), inventedby ourModem Philosophers, do certainlymake too bold with the Mosaic, and Inspired History thereof. It were a Noble, and aWorthyWork; to Illustrate thatHistory, and rescue it from the praesumpteousGlosses, thatmany Neotericks have made upon it" ("Biblia Americana," pp. 76v, 77r). AlthoughMather welcomesWhiston's theoryinsofaras it furnishesnewmethods forupdating time-wornexplanations,he cannot accept theend towhichWhiston's logic finallycarrieshim: the collapse of the Mosaic hexaemeron as he knew it.46

Atomism and Allegory in a ClockworkUniverse Two additional extractsinMather's commentaryon the first chapter of Genesis deserve briefmention, for theybring to light how he tried to blunt radical attacks on the hexae meron withmore congenial assessmentsby likemindedphysico theologians.Richard Bentley'sA ConfutationofAtheism From theOrigin and Frame of theWorld (1693) is next in sequen tial appearance.47Mather condenses the seventh of Bentley's Boylean lectures,delivered on 5 December 1692, into little packed foliopages ("BibliaAmericana," more thanseven tightly fas 46Middlekauff (The Mathers, pp. 285-86, 298-304) aptly describes Mather's enthusiasm for New Theory but also shows how Mather's cination with Whiston's "Reasonable Christianity" waned when he realized that the elevation of human reason was less for Jesus Christ than for John Toland and his productive of making disciples Deist disciples. 47Richard A Confutation of Atheism From the Origin and Frame of the Bentley, World (London, 1693). Although Bentley's eight Boylean lectures were first published 1-6 in 1692, and 7-8 in 1693), collected and revised editions separately (sermons in 1699, 1724, and 1735. appeared

302


pp. 89r-95r). True to the spiritand intentofRobert Boyle's en dowment,Bentley applies a design argument to a constructthat could stillarouse hostilityamong English and continental the ologians, theCopernican heliocentric universe.48According to Mather, Bentley's teleologyhad fullyabsorbed Sir Isaac New ton'svoluntaristtheoryof theplanets' gravitationalrotation: The concentric Revolutionsof thePlanetsaround theSun, proceed froma CompoundMotion; a GravitationtowardstheSun,which is a constant Matter,by theAuthorof allThings;and Energyinfusedinto a Projected,TransverseImpulse,inTangentsto theirseveralOrbs, at first thatwas also Imprinted by theDivineArm upon them,& will carrythemaround,untiltheEnd of allThings. ["BibliaAmericana," p. 89r] For Newton and Bentley, as forMather, God's invisiblearm was most discernible in "the constant Property of Gravita tion.That theWeight of all Bodies around theEarth, is ever proportional to theQuantity of theirMatter." Newton's the ory,Mather asserts,was now mathematicallyproven "beyond all Controversy,"primarilybecause Newton did not enervate Mather's teleology ("Biblia Americana," p. 93r). To but fortify Mather, Bentley's Confutationwas perhaps themost valuable Descartes' mechanis of themodern theses, forit reinterpreted ticprinciplesof natural law in termsof gravitationalproperties inherentinmatter (thoughNewton was loath to call them im manent) but explained thisuniversal force in termsof active principleswhose power to attract and repulse is necessarily sustained by God's volition,which upholds cosmic harmony throughsecondary causes.49Bentley did have his cake and eat it too. 48See

"The Ross-Wilkins Controversy," pp. 153-89; Stimson, Gradual McColley, Universe, pp. 85-106; Fleming, "The Judgment upon of the Copernican in Puritan New K. pp. 160?75; Jac^ B- Rogers and Donald England," Copernicus McKim, The Authority and Interpretation of the Rible: An Historical Approach (New to Newton: York: Harper and Row, 1979), pp. 165-71; A. Rupert Hall, From Galileo and Row, 1963); White, History of the Warfare (New York: Harper 1630?1720 of Science with Theology, 1:134-209. theist position on the properties of matter, 49For a helpful discussion of Newton's see Ernan McMullin, Newton on Matter and Activity (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1978).

Acceptance


303

That our planetary systemcould never have formedout of Chaos simply throughblind chance or accidental concretions of atoms seems all too obvious to virtuosi ofMather's caste. Bentley's nautical trope,which Mather heaves on board his

"BibliaAmericana," makes thissupposition abundantly clear.

Like widely dispersed atoms in limitlessspace, two shipsplaced

on theworld'soceans.How at "opposite Poles"drift rudderless

many "thousands of Years" would it take for these vessels to collide? Besides, "theAtoms may not only flyside-wayes,but over likewise, and under each other; which makes itmany

Milliontimes moreImprobable, thattheyshouldinterfere, than the Ships in our Supposition ... so that theConcourse of our Atoms toproduce a RegularWorld, isvainlyexpected, even in an endless Duration" ("BibliaAmericana," p. 94v).50 Bentley's Newtonian cosmogony, as digested byMather, is repletewith divine volition,which directs and sustainsa finely tuned system thatcould never have evolved by chance. Even if it had, Mather knowinglyrelates, the planets could never have attained theirellipticmotion around the sun; even ifthey had, theirorbitwould have rapidlydeteriorated ifmerely self sustained.5' Contrary towhat Ralph Cudworth and his fellow "Epicureans" opine about principles thatare active and imma nent in corporeal substances,"Gravitation isnot Essential, and InhaerentuntoMatter." For ifgravityand "ReciprocalAttrac tion"were inherentproperties,Mather continues,our planetary systemcould never have arisen, because the atoms dispersed theworld overwould have compacted into "one huge sphaeri cal Mass, which would bee the only Body in the Universe" ("Biblia Americana," p. 95r).52Clearly, then, the old familiar storyof an all-powerfulGod maintaining control at the center was infinitely more reasonable than the alternative,but now 5? Bentley, Confutation of Atheism, bk. 51 In his Christian Philosopher (p. 46), Nova: A Treatise of Dioptricks (London, or dull Matter, could never produce such Bodies so vastly distant [as Jupiter is from in the First Mover!" 52 Bentley, Confutation of Atheism, bk.

7, chap. 2, pp. 18, 22, 23. Mather cites William Molineux's Dioptrica 1709), p. 273, in affirmation that "Chance, an harmonious Regularity in the Motion of the sun]: This shews a Design and Intention 7, chap. 2, pp. 20, 21.

304

THE

NEW

ENGLAND

QUARTERLY

it could be retold in updated versions made fashionable in language acceptable to the Royal Society. Thus Mather took

infinite satisfaction that"thePowerofGravityperpetually act

ing in thepresentConstitution of the System of theUniverse, is an InvincibleArgument for the Being of a GOD" ("Biblia

Americana," p. 95r).53

But it is high time tomove toMather's next digest on the

first chapter ofGenesis.The oldestofhis seventeenth-century cosmographies-though not the first-copied intoMather's fo liomanuscript is an excerpt fromLord Chief JusticeMatthew Hale (1609-76), whose The PrimitiveOrIgination ofMankind, considered and examined according to the Light of Nature (1677) suppliedMather with a witty allegory about the philo sophical controversyof the time.A great artisthides an intri catelydesigned clockworkmechanism,which had been config ured to show "the various Phases of theMoon, theMotion & Place of theSun in theEcliptick, and diverse other curious In dications of CeelestialMotions," in a forestof a remotecountry ("BibliaAmericana," p. 96v). One by one, natural philosophers of various schools of thoughtcome forward to theorize the 53Bentley, Confutation of Atheism, bk. 7, chap. 2, pp. 29-31. Bentley himself relies on Newton's bk. 3 of Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Math "System of theWorld," ematica (1729 ed., reprinted in Cajori's Sir Isaac Newton's Mathematical Principles, voluntarists and Cartesian mecha The debate between the Newtonian 2:397-626). over nists carried into the eighteenth century and is the main focus of the famous A Collection of Papers which passed between the late Clarke-Leibniz correspondence, Learned Mr. Leibnitz [sic] and Dr. Clarke in the years 1715 and 1716 relating to the (London, 1715). For instance, in his Principles of Natural Philosophy and Religion the German philosopher first letter (November 1715) to Caroline, Princess ofWales,

Gottfried Wilhelm

Leibniz charged the Newtonians with subverting the foundation to their doctrine, God wants to wind up his religion: "According Almighty watch from time to time: otherwise itwould cease to move. He [God] had not, it seems, sufficient foresight to make it a perpetual motion. Nay, the machine of God's is is so to these obliged to clean it imperfect, according gentlemen; that he making, an even to mend it, as a clockmaker now and then extraordinary concourse, and by mends his work; who must consequently be so much the more unskilful a workman, . . . as he is oftener to mend his work and to set it [But] I hold, that right. obliged when God works miracles, he does not do it in order to supply the wants of na thinks otherwise, must needs have a very mean ture, but those of grace. Whoever of natural

notion of the wisdom

and power of God" ed. (The Leibniz-Clarke Correspondence, Manchester [1956; Manchester: University Press, 1998], pp. 11-12). admired Leibniz as "One of the greatest Witts of Europe" ("Biblia Americana,"

H. G. Alexander Mather p. i8gr).


305

originof thismarvelous automaton, the likesofwhich theyhad

neverseenbefore. "thatthis predictably hypothesizes The Epicureanatomist

was nothingbut an accidental Concretion ofAtoms, thathap pily fallen together,had made up the Index, theWheels & the Ballance; and thatbeing happily fallen into thisPosture, they were put intoMotion." A Cartesian, with his focus on vortices

inmotion,speaksnext,charging hispredecessor withhaving "there insufficiently accounted fortheengine'sself-propulsion:

is a certainMateria Subtilis," he insists,"that pervades that Engine and themoveable Parts, consistingof certain globular Atoms aptfor Motion; theyare thereby,& by theMobility of theglobularAtoms put intoMotion. "The Stoic philosopher ob jects that the regularmotions of the clockwork,which reflect themovement of timeand of thecelestialbodies, "waswrought

of theHeavenly Bodies,which bysomeadmirable Conjunction

formed this Instrumentand itsMotion, in such an admirable Correspondency to itsown Existence." The fourth,true to his Platonic philosophy,swears that"theUniversal Soul, or Spiritof Nature ... hathformedand set intoMotion thisAdmirableAu tomaton,and regulated& ordered itwith all theseCongruities we see in it."Finally, an Aristotelian,who favorsself-existence and the eternityof the universe, dismisses the new-fangled theoriesof his fellowcontestantsas preconceived fancies: "The Short of theBusiness is," he contends, "thisMachina is eter nal, & so are all theMotions of it,& inasmuchas a Circular Motion hath no Beginning nor End, thisMotion thatYou see both in theWheels & Index,& thesuccessive Indicationsof the CoelestialMotions, is eternal and without Beginning" ("Biblia Americana," p. 96V).54 When all is said and done,Mather's watchmaker comes for ward, reveals to his skepticalphilosophers the origin and in tricatemotions of his machine, and derides his "Philosophical Enthusiasts" for their "fancied Explications, & unintelligible

likea seventeenth-century deist, Hypotheses." Soundingfaintly 54Matthew considered and examined Hale, The Primitive Origination ofMankind, to the Nature (London, 1677), bk. 4, chap. 6, pp. 340-42. Light of

according

306


Mather's clockworkmechanist turned theisthas the last laugh: He celebrates the congruityand reasonableness of theMosaic narrative,which "renders all the Essays of the Generality of Heathen Philosophers to be vain, inevident,& indeed inex plicable Theories, theCreatures of Fancy & Imagination,& nothing else" ("Biblia Americana," pp. 96v, 97r).55 This pop ular storyencapsulates forMather the theoreticalconfusion of contemporaryskepticswho are not satisfiedwith the literal and grammatical sense of Genesis i. More significantly,the storydisclosesMather's conservativeposition, forwhen natu ral philosophy conflictswith theologyand tradition,he clearly privileges divinity,the crown of all disciplines. But the final verdict is not in yet. JohnEdwards's three-volumeDiscourse concerning theAu thority,Stile, and Perfection of the Old and New Testa ment (London, 1693-95), Nehemiah Grew's Cosmologia Sacra (London, 1701), Edmund Dickinson's atomistPhysica Vetus & Vera (London, 1702), and Robert Hooke's posthumous Lec turesand Discourses of Earthquakes and SubterraneousErup tions, in PosthumousWorks (London, 1705), supplyMather with additional proof of how ancient and modern science was consistentwith theMosaic creation account. Mather distills Edwards into one (ioir), Grew into two (67r-68v), Dickin son into eleven (77r-87v), and Hooke into two (1o5r-io6v) manuscript pages-authors appearing inMather's annotations as theirworks fell into his hands.Mather treasuredEdwards, Grew, Dickinson, and Hooke for theirdeft use of pagan lore and theirdefense of theauthorityof traditioneven asDescartes had dismissed the ancients for lacking empirical proof.56 If 55Hale, Primitive Origination, bk. 4, chap. 6, pp. 341, 342. 56Of the four mentioned here, Dickinson's Latin treatise, closely argued and densely is most stance documented, perhaps the interesting. He adopts the popular Renaissance none other than Moses of attributing the atomic philosophy of the ancient Greeks to line of oral tradition, who, having inherited it from Adam through an uninterrupted it to the to the Greeks. taught Egyptians and, via the later Democritus, They added their own admixture, Dickinson argues, and thus gravely corrupted Moses's original account. "Biblia Americana" (77r-86v); Collier, Cosmogonies of Our Fathers, pp. 149 Danton B. "Moses and the Ideas Sailor, Atomism," Journal of 65; 25, no. 1 History of (January-March 1964): 3-16.


307

Mather theChristianvirtuosofeltcomfortable mentioning Thales,Anaximander, Pythagoras, Empedocles, Aristotle, Plato, Cicero, and Diodorus Siculus in the same breath as Coperni cus, Kepler, Galileo, Descartes, and Newton, he emerges as an earlyEnlightenment theologianwho standswith one foot in each camp, ancient and modern. But to callMather a "transi tional figure," worse, "unoriginal,"as someWhiggish historians are prone to do, is to impose expectations thatare clearlyours, not his. He was a pastor by vocation and, at best, a natural philosopher by avocation.He did not bow to romanticnotions of originalitybut made novelty subservientto tradition.Yet in scanning the heavens, he manifestly struggled to maintain a theocentricorbit even as he gravitatedtowardthe trajectoryof

newcosmogonies risingintheNorthern hemisphere. "HowDid theGiant Find theWay Hither?"

Signs of stormand stressare visible throughout"BibliaAmer icana"when Mather moves beyond the grand outline of the Mosaic creation story, which (he reluctantlyadmits) is not in tended to be a scientificallyaccurate explanation in the first place but merely an account of what an eyewitnessesmight have seen or what Moses or any other prophet might have adapted to the simpleunderstandingof an illiteratepeople.57 If Bumet andWhiston could be trusted, Moses did not intend to

impart a philosophically precisedescription but,rather, toinstill

awe and piety in a fractiouspeople: "theMosaic Creation isnot a Nice and PhilosophicalAccount of theOrigin ofAll Things," Mather citesWhiston's New Theory affirmatively, "but an His toricaland True Repraesentationof theFormation of our single Earth, out of a confused Chaos, and of the successive & visi ble Changes thereof,each day, till itbecame theHabitation of Mankind" ("BibliaAmericana," p. 69r; see also pp. 70v, 77r).58 In thisand similarpassages from Whiston, Mather more or less consciouslyechoes themuch maligned Baruch Spinoza, whose

TractatusTheologico-Politicus (Amsterdam, 1670)postulated 57"Biblia Americana," s8Whiston, New

pp.

i8r-i9v,

Theory, pt. 1, p. 3.

on

Joshua

10:12.

308


that the Bible "has nothing in common with philosophy [i.e., natural science], in fact,thatRevelation and Philosophy stand

on totally different footings."59 Mather,differing from Spinoza and theHobbsean materialists, is not yet ready to designate

naturalphilosophy and theology aswhollyautonomous disci

plines. Still, like the rationalist theists,he concedes that at tributingall natural phenomena-however awe inspiringthey might appear on the surface-to God testifies more to awriter's

piousnessthanto his knowledge of naturalphilosophy. And for this reason, he gives scientificexplications full considera tion.His commentaryon theNoachic flood is a good case in

point.

As mentioned above, Thomas Burnet's Sacred Theory of the Earth (i686) was among themost controversialexplanationsof the flood inMather's day. To account for themassive quantity ofwater necessary to inundate theentireglobe, Bumet posited that the antediluvianearthwas entirely"smooth, regular,and uniform;withoutMountains, andwithout a Sea," forthe entire body of water was kept in subterraneous caverns. There was

miraculousabouttheNoachic flood, nothing Burnetproudly

pointed out, because the pillars supporting the earth's crust were eroded by the subterraneousoceans and thuscaused the earth's surface to collapse into the great abyss ofwhich Noah spoke.Our presentmountains and islandsare thereforenothing but the remnantsof the antediluvian crust now juttingout of the deep.60Mather and most of his colleagues on both sides of thewatery abyss ridiculed this "Romance" for its lack of scriptural support.Bumet's "Abyssinian" hypothesiswas not originaleither,Mather wittilypuns, because Burnet had dug it up from the Italian Franciscus Patritius,whose Della retorica dieci dialoghi (Venetii,1562) had attributedtheoriginalversion Treatise, trans. R. H. Elwes (1883; New Spinoza, A Theologico-Political 1951), p. 9. For Mather's view of Spinoza, see my "Authority and In to the in the terpretation: Cotton Mather's Response European Spinozists," Shaping Stuart World, ed. Allan I. Macinnes and Arthur H. Williamson (Leiden: 1603-1714, 59Baruch

York: Dover,

Brill, 2006), pp. 175-203. citations are from the second edition of Burnet's 60My 1691), bk. 1, chap. 5, p. 51, and chap. 6, pp. 66-77.

Sacred

Theory

(London,


309

to "anAbyssinian Philosopher inSpain; who quoted theAnnals of Ethiopia for it" ("BibliaAmericana," p. 203r). The ancients stillheld swayoverMather and most of his peers-even if the modem Cartesians developed empiricalproof to thecontrary and natural philosophers of his era were still relyingon layers upon layersof source citationsat second, third,or even fourth

remove.

Mather also rejectsWhiston's explanationof the flood inThe New Theory of theEarth (1696).Whiston's deus exmachina of a comet passing too close to the earth and thuscausing the in

undation describedinGenesis7 is,Matherinsists, "altogether

Arbitrary" and unsatisfactory("Biblia Americana," p. 203r).Y Moreover, again with no scripturalsupport,Whiston had at tributedthe cataclysmicfloodof fireatChrist's Second Coming (2 Peter 3) to the same comet. Robert St. Clair's alchemical

inTheAbyssinian theory Philosopher Confuted(1697),which

sounds faintlylikeBumet's, does not fullysatisfy Mather ei ther.Noah's deluge, St. Clair had hypothesized,was caused by "a Conflict of contrarySalts,Acid and Alcali, in the bowels of theEarth": tremendousvolumes of acidic gases had forcedout all thewaters fromBurnet's subterraneouscaverns and, react ingwith the air, had precipitated the great rains that,before theyceased, had covered the "top of theHighest Mountains." extractsSt. Clair's explanationbut adds no Mather effortlessly commentsof his own, perhaps because thevast amountsofwa ternecessary to cover thehighestmountains on earthby fifteen cubits (Gen. 7:19-20) were still leftunaccounted for ("Biblia Americana," p. Lggr).62 6lNew Theory (1696), pt. 2, bk. 4, chaps. 4-5, pp. 300-382, and "Appendix, Con a taining New Theory of the Deluge," New Theory (1737 ed.), pp. 459-78. 62 Mather cites St. Clair's "To the Reader," The Abyssinian Philosopher Confuted (London, 1697), pp. C6r-C7r, pts. 2, 3, 5. Thomas Jefferson, too, rejected the idea that the Noachic flood could have covered the highest mountains of the earth, inNotes on the State Peden (1982; Chapel Hill: University (1785), ed. William of Virginia of North Carolina Press, 1995), query 6, p. 31. The Renaissance debate about the Allen in his distinguished The Legend flood is aptly treated by Don Cameron of Noah (1949; Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1963) and in Norman Cohn's Noah's Flood: The Genesis (New Haven: Yale University Press, Story inWestern Thought 1996)

310


JohnRay's Miscellaneous Discourses concerning theDisso lutionand Changes of theWorld (1693) was much more ser viceable in this respect.Written by a highly respectedEnglish botanist, thepopularworkwent throughat least threeeditions; itserudition suppliedMather with a good deal of information he would otherwise have had to dig up on his own. Citing at second hand Athanasius Kircher's famousArca Noe, in tres libros digesta (1675), Mather wonders if a transmutationof one element into another, of air intowater, might "make a Bulk ofWater, of aequal Quantity" sufficientto inundate the entire globe.63This "PeripateticalCondensation and Rarefac tion,"however,was as old asAristotle,had been resurrectedby Descartes, and was then affirmedby the JesuitKircher,whose Latin citationMather deliberately leaves untranslated to shield the untutored.Mather easily dismisses the supposition of his Peripatetic colleagues: "But theSacred Scripturementions not theConversion of theAir intoWater," and therefore"we will ratherconsider theCauses of theFlood, which are theremore expresslymentioned." Mather does, however, agree with Ray to disagree with Edmund Halley's hypothesis that all thewa ter the riverscombined discharge into the seven seas amounts to "Half an Ocean ofWaters" annually ("Biblia Americana," pp. 20ir, 202v).64But this idea, previouslypostulated by the Italianmathematician Giovanni Battista Riccioli and disputed by Sir Isaac Newton, is considerably less satisfyingthan those put forwardby Robert Hooke, JohnRay, Thomas Bumet, and by the great Sir Isaac himself: thatGod might have displaced the gravitationalcenter of the earth and moved itcloser to the middle of the then-populatedhemisphere.65"And a Change of Discourses Miscellaneous and Changes of concerning the Dissolution 63John Ray, theWorld (London, 1693), pp. 64-65. Ray had cited Athanasii Kircheri ? Soc. Jesu Arca No?, in tres libros 1675), bk. 2, chap. 5, p. 132, on the digesta (Amstelodami, air-into-water hypothesis. inA Discourse 64Edmund Halley's hypothesis is discussed concerning Gravity, and its Properties, inMiscellanea Curiosa (London, 1705), vol. 1, pp. 304-25.

65See Giovanni Battista Riccioli, et Geographiae hydrographiae reformatae (Benatij, in A Treatise of the 1661); Newton disputes Halley's System of the World theory (London, 1728), pp. 10-28; Hooke's discussion appears in his "Discourse V," in Posthu mous Works (London, 1705), pp. 321-22, 346-50, 411-12; Burnet's appears in Sacred


311

itsPlace, but the twoThousandth Part of theRadius of this Globe, were sufficientto bury the Tops of theHighest Hills underWater" ("BibliaAmericana," p. 203r). With suchweighty proponents on its side, the theoryof the earth's gravitationalshiftseemed much more respectable than thatof theYorkshire antiquarianAbraham de la Pryme or that of theDutch theologianPetrus Serrarius,who had revived the Stoic notion of "a mighty Flood once foretold from a Con junction of the Planets in Pisces," a speculation thatwas as unworthyas that of the heretic Isaac de la Peyrere,whose Prae-Adamitae (Paris, 1646) claimed thatNoah's floodwas not universal at all but merely local and confined "unto Palxs tine," that is, the horizon the patriarch then deemed the ex tent of theworld ("Biblia Americana," pp. 207r-208v, 213r,

among currency 215v).66Still,thisideaenjoyedconsiderable

such modems as Isaac Vossius, Georg Kirchmaier, Edward Stillingfleet,Baruch Spinoza, Thomas Bumet, Erasmus War ren, JohnRay, andWilliam Whiston, while the famousFather Marin Mersenne and JohannAdam Osiander, his Lutheran colleague inGermany,would allow thewaters to rise nomore than 150 feet or just enough to set the ark afloat.67Not even

Dis (1691), bk. 2, chap. 3, p. 195; Ray's argument appears inMiscellaneous (pp. 98-99); and Newton's theory of the gravitational shift of the globe appears in A Treatise (pp. 10-28). 66Mather here draws on Letter 6 (14 September 1700) by Abraham de la Pryme a Yorkshire at Hull, whose "A Letter of the (1671-1704), antiquarian and minister Reverend Mr. Abr. De la Pryme to the Publisher" was published in The Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society 22, no. 266 (September/October 1700): 683-85. Isaac de la Peyr?re, Prae-Adamitae (Paris, 1646); my reference is to the English translation, Theory courses

Men

before Adam (London, 1656), bk. 4, chap. 7, pp. 239-44. the seventeenth-century physico-theologians who excluded America from 67Among Noah's flood or rejected its universality are De La Peyr?re, Men Refore Adam, bk. 4, Isaac Vossius, Dissertatio de vera aetate mundi (Hagae-Comitis, chaps. 7-9, pp. 239-58; 1659), p. 53; Georg C. Kirchmaier, De diluvii universalitate dissertatio prolusoria (Genevae, 1667), pp. 3-60; Edward Stillingfleet, Origines Sacrae, 3rd ed. (London, Treatise, p. 35, re 1666), bk. 3, chap. 4, pp. 542-43. Spinoza, A Theologico-Political notion of a "Noah thought that beyond the limits of flood because the global jected Palestine the world was not inhabited"; Burnet, Sacred Theory of the Earth, bk. 2, was a stock [of survivors] re providentially chap. 8, pp. 272-73, argues "that there out of which serv'd there [America], as well as here [Old World], they [postdiluvians] in the Earth sprung again." Erasmus Warren, Concerning Geolog?a: Or, A Discourse in A and his the (London, 1690), pp. 292-96, Defence of the Discourse Refore Deluge

312


the traditionsof the flood found among the Indians of North, South, and Central America, or those among the farawayChi

who downgraded the nese,couldentirely drown Noah'scritics,

deluge to a purely local event. "We attempt severalWayes to solve the Phxnomena of the Flood," Mather confesses in his "BibliaAmericana," "and provided ourHypotheses have no un scriptural Extravagancies in them, tis not amiss to produce them" (pp. 217r, 2i8v). After all, a bit of truthmay lie at the bottom of each supposition.Thus armedwith his selection cri teria, Mather kept scoutingforother discussionsof theNoachic flood thatmight yet elucidate themysteriousoriginsof themas sive amounts ofwater thatwere supposed to have covered the highestmountains theworld over bymore than fifteencubits. Perhaps if the floodcould be confined to theOld World, or if

the Earth Before the Flood (London, 1691), pp. 165-69, 172-75, 190-97, Concerning 209, limits the flood to the height of 15 cubits from the ground up but not surpassing Discourses the Dissolution the high mountains. Concerning John Ray, Miscellaneous and Changes of theWorld (London, 1692), pp. 99-100, excludes America from the itwas "in all probability unpeopled at the time." Ray repeats this Noachic flood because assertion in his Three Physico-Theological Discourses (1693), p. 122, but rephrases this in the third edition (London, 1713), pp. 118-19, where he argues that con paragraph to the Old World would be so much more reasonable "and delivers fining Noah's flood us from that great and two Oceans insuperable Difficulty of finding eight, nay, twenty to effect it: For no less is requisite to cover the whole Terraqueous Globe ofWater to the Height of fifteen Cubits above the Tops of the highest Mountains." with Water, William Whiston, New Theory of the Earth, 5th ed. (London, 1737), pp. 138, 405, ar were were excluded from Noah's flood because gues that both China and America they not part of the known world in Noah's day. Earlier in the seventeenth century, the in his Les French philosopher Marin Mersenne (1588-1648), preludes de l'harmonie in Celeb?rrimas universelle (Paris, 1634), pp. 1-135, 210?28, and in his Quaestiones 1007, 1013, 1513-72, 1607-1712, and pt. (Paris, 1623), pt. 1, cols. 799-920, 2, col. 3, clung to the old notion of supercelestial waters crashing in upon the earth. Mersenne still embraced Ptolemy's geocentric universe and asserted that vast quanti to the edge of the universe?lay ties of water?even beyond the solid sphere of the firmament nearly 14,000 terrestrial semi-diameters distant from the earth. This ancient idea continued to enjoy a certain degree of popularity in updated fashion, for even in his third edition of Three Discourses (London, Ray maintains Physico-Theological 1713), discourse 2, chap. 2, pp. 114-18, that the watery vapours in the lower parts oceans of water. A to of the earth's center of the air amounted displacement eight of gravity pressing on the subterraneous caverns filled with water could have easily (1626-97), distinguished triggered the biblical flood. Finally, Johann Adam Osiander was universal, whether German Lutheran theologian, explores whether Noah's flood it covered the mountains, and whether America was populated before the flood in his in Pentateuchum tomi quinqu? (Tubingiae, 1676-78), highly respected Commentarius vol. 1, pp. 186, 192-95, quaestio 2, 3-4. For much helpful background, see Allen, The Legend of Noah, chap. 4-5, and Cohn, Noah's Flood, chap. 4. Genesim


313

theMosaic storymerely intended an inundationof the lower parts but not of the topsof themountains, thebiblical account might yet be saved from the province of themiraculous and harmonized with the researches of the natural philosophers. Mather seemed to have found just the rightsortof model in Erasmus Warren's Geologia: Or, A Discourse concerning the

EarthbeforetheDeluge (1690).

Rector ofWorlington, in Suffolk,England, ErasmusWarren tried to rescue Noah's global flood fromcriticswho sought to confine it to a merely local event in Palestine. Biblical com mentators,Warren argued, are grosslymistaken in supposing thehighestmountains on earthwere covered bywater upward of fifteencubits (Gen. 7:19-20): "Theywere indeed but Fifteen Cubits high in all, above theSurface of theEarth,"Warren in sisted. "Not, that theywere no where Higher, than justFifteen Cubits, above theGround; theymight inmost Places, be Thirty, Forty,FiftyCubits High, ormore." The mountainswere indeed covered "FifteenCubits upwards," but only "on theirSides, not above theirTops: theBottoms of themstood so deep in theWa ters" ("Biblia Americana," p. 218v). Although disallowing any Mosaic hyperboles in thisaccount,Warren asserted "that in the Holy Style, toCover, does not alwayesmean, To Surmount,and Overtop, and Overwhelm," but "Sometimes, itmeans, only to Surround theObject, or to be About it in greatAbundance" ("Biblia Americana," p. 2igr). Moreover, Warren posited that storesofwater were hidden in the sides of themountains and would burst open to drown anyone tryingto climb theirpeaks. "And in thisWay,"Warren congratulatedhimself,"we are sup plied withWaters enough,without a Recourse, either to the Burnettian Romance; or, to a New Creation ofWaters; or to Super-CcelestialWaters; or to a Change of thegreatestPart of theMass ofAir intoWater; a Change, which it seems, ishardly yett justifiedby Experiment; tho' theLord Verulam allowes of it;Descartes subscribes to it;and our Admirable Boyl himself, leaves itundetermined" ("BibliaAmericana," p. 22ov).68 68 source is Erasmus Warren, A Discourse Mather's Geolog?a: Or, concerning Earth before the Deluge (London, 1690), pp. 300-301, 325-26, 332-33. Mather

the (via

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Whether or not Mather fullysubscribed toWarren's the ory, along with that ofMersenne, thatNoah's flood did not cover the topsofmountains-some ofwhich were higher than

15,000feet-hedecidedly sharedhisconviction thattheinun

dation was universal in its extent.Too much irrefutablefossil evidence, being discovered almost daily-even inAmerica spoke in its favor.The bones of the antediluvianNephilim, a race of giantswho, theoffspringof fallenangels, consortedwith the daughters ofmen (Gen. 6:4), were found theworld over, Mather insisted.These "AntediluvianGiants"were nomere po liticaltyrants,thugs,or highwaymen-"Giants forQuality only, and not forQuantity"-as Becanus had argued inhisDe Gigan

inhisChronologicarum tomachia (1569),Temporarius demon

strationum (1596), and the ancientAlexandrian Philo Judaeus in his De Gigantibus (c. 30-50 CE)-but giants of tremen dous size ("Biblia Americana," p. i85r).69David's Goliath was

also brushed aside the old notion that the flood was caused by the transmu Warren) tation of one element into another, of air into water, as the ancients had believed: Aristotle, De mundo (bk. i, sec. 392b, 11. 5-12; bk. 5, sec. 396b, 1. 25; sec. 397a, 1. Laertius, Vitae philosophorum (bk. 1, chap. 11, 11.4-5); Plato, Timaeus 5); Diogenes (sec. 49c, 11.4-5); Philo Judaeus, De Somniis (bk. 1, sec. 20,11. 4-5) and De aeternitate mundi (bk. 19, sec. 103, 11.5-6), inWorks, pp. 366, 718-19; and Heraclitus, Allego sec. 12-13). In the late Renaissance, riae Sir Francis Bacon, Lord Verulam (chap. 40, still maintained this ancient philosophical mainstay, that the element air (1561-1626) can turn intowater, as his experiments seemed to confirm several times over, in his oft or A Naturall Historie in ten Centuries (1627), century 1, reprinted Sylva Sylvarum: (1596-1650) experiments 27, 76-82, pp. 8, 24-26. The great Ren? Descartes agreed with his colleague across the English Channel and affirmed that the particles of air can in his Principia (Paris, 1644), pt. 4, art. 48, pp. 218-19. Philosophiae change intowater, felt that his experiments were incon Finally, the admirable Robert Boyle (1627-91) clusive, in Nova Experimenta Physico-Mechanica (London, 1661), experimentum 22, pp. 103-20, esp. pp. 108-10. Even our New England Muse, Anne Bradstreet, weighed the question in her Quaternions (1650), whether the element air could be transmuted into water. See "The Four Elements," 11. 437-48, The Works of Anne Rradstreet, ed. Jeannine Hensley (Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1967), pp. 30-31. 69Mather was at his Dutch colleague, Jean Leclerc, who argued particularly incensed in his Twelve Dissertations (London, 1696), diss. 2, p. 78, that the word "Nephilim . . . seems to import Robbers. They that after the Septuagint and vulgar Translation have translated it Giants, have indeed own'd themselves to be of their Opinion, but have brought no Arguments to prove it."Mather alludes to the well-known accounts of the Flemish physician and antiquarian Joannes Goropius Becanus (1519-72), who in his "De (bk. 2), inOrigines Antwerpianae (Antverpiae, 1569), pp. 207-12, Gigantomachia" describes several young men and a woman nine and ten feet tall. The work by Joannes aka Jean du Temps and (born c. 1535), French jurist, mathematician, Temporarius,


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puny in comparison to the gargantuawhose bones were lately dug up near Albany,New York,Mather proudly announces in

weighing"Four A "prodigious Tooth" his "BibliaAmericana."

Pounds and Three Quarters" and a thighbone"Seventeen Foot long," judged by anatomists to be of human origin,unmistak ably corroborated the existence of these biblical giants no less than it testifiedto the inundationof theAmerican hemisphere, which JohnRay had excluded fromconsiderationbecause no one had supposedly lived there: "For, I beseech you,"Mather queried his doubtingThomases, "How did theGiant find the What Dutch settlershad unearthed at Claverack, Way hither?" New York, in 1705were, we now know, the fossilizedbones of a mastodon-a species of antediluviansnowherementioned in theBible ("BibliaAmericana," pp. i86v, 187r).70 That Mather and all other eyewitnessesmistook the remains as proof of thebiblicalNephilim is reallynot to thepoint-for virtuallyall authoritiesof his timeagreed thatthebones were of nonhuman originand belonged to thegiant race of theEmims, Anakims, Rephaims, or of Og. The Claverack bones were too big tobe thoseof an elephant-well known inMather's time and too far away from theAtlantic shore to be the bones of whales, so Mather argued.71That Mather and his compeers libri tres (Francofurti, 1596), in demonstrationum is Chronologicarum geographer, which the author traces the word "Nephilim" to Scythian origin. Finally, Philo Judaeus as "men . . . born of the strips these giants of their tall stature and allegorizes them who hunt after carnal pleasure earth"?hedonists (De gigantibus, sec. 13, ? 60), in Works, p. 156. 70Mather transcribed Governor letter (10 July 1706) and his own Joseph Dudley's into "Biblia Americana" and on the giant bones of Claverack (pp. i84v-i98r) thoughts mailed a copy of the missive, along with his disquisitions on giants in his first package of "Curiosa Americana" (1712), to Richard Waller, secretary of the Royal Society, who a Transactions of the Royal Society 29 (1714-16): synopsis in Philosophical published accounts of the excava 62-63. Donald E. Stanford reprints various contemporaneous tion of the mastodon bones in his "The Giant Bones of Claverack, New York, 1705," New York History 40 (1959): 47-61; on Gen. 6:4, in "Giants in the Earth:

Levin reprints Mather's commentary and the Occult in Cotton Mather's Let and Mary Quarterly, 3rd ser., 45, no. 4 (October and David Science

ters to the Royal Society," William 1988): 762-70. 71For the race of see Gen. 6:4, Num. 13:33, Deut. 2:10?11, 3:11; Josh. 12:4. giants, at Robert Plot (1640-96), keeper of the Ashmolean Museum, professor of chemistry Oxford, and celebrated comparative anatomist, employs the same method that Mather a to be of aWoman)" would use thirty years later.When large "thigh-bone (supposed

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interpreted fossilevidencethrough theprismof theirbiblical

beliefs may strikemodem readers as quaint, ifnot amusing; however, the "mistake" isnotMather's but ours.Not developed

untiltheearlynineteenth century, thescienceofpaleontology had yet to classifysuch giant fossilsof extinctspecies or even

coin theterm dinosaurus, though their boneshadbeen found

since classical times.72Perhaps more revealing than lacking the benefitof our hindsight isMather's strategyof employing empiricalproof to validate themore perplexingphenomena of theBible without resortingto supernaturalcausality.For when threatened by evidence to the contrary,he did not become dogmatic or abusive by dismissing his critics as blaspheming atheists, as some lesser lightswere prone to do; nor did he resort to metaphor and allegory until clear evidence to the contraryruled out any literalreadingof theBible. Justhow much science and religionmade common cause duringmuch of the seventeenthand eighteenthcenturies is evi dent in theassiduousnesswithwhichMather pursued a rational and natural explanationof these giantNephilim. The discovery in the i66os ofmicroscopic organisms (animalculae) in a drop and several large molars were dug up in a London churchyard and elsewhere, he surmised that these fossils might be the remains of an elephant brought to London in Roman times. Yet Providence decreed that while he was composing his Natural (London, 1676), Plot had the opportunity to compare his History of Oxford-shire fossils' anatomy with that of a young live elephant then publicly displayed in Oxford. to his surprise the elephant's bones were "not only of a different shape, but Much If then they [fossils] are also incomparably bigger than ours [Nephilim fossils]. ... as I am neither the bones of Horses, Oxen, nor Elephants, strongly perswaded they are not, upon in Churches: It remains, that comparison, and from their like found must have been the bones ofMen they (notwithstanding their extravagant magnitude) orWomen"?like those of the "Sons of Anak" or of the "Titans, and of high Giants" as in the those mentioned apocryphal "Judith 16.V.7" and "Baruch 3.V.26" (The Natural [London, 1676], chap. 5, pp. 135-36, sees. 164, 167, 168). History of Oxford-shire 72Mather also drew on the accounts of his Hispanic and Dutch such colleagues, as del Per? (Antverpiae, Agostin de Z&rate's Historia del descubrimento y Conquista

1555), bk. 1, chap. 5, that giants lived among the ancient Peruvians; Jos? de Acosta's The Naturall ?- Morall Historie of the East and West Indies (London, 1604), bk. 1, on Joannes de Laet's Notae chap. 19, pp. 6-63, and bk. 7, chap. 3, pp. 501-2; and . . . De dissertatio ad dissertationem Grotii, origine gentium Americanarum Hugonis

(Amstelodami, 1643), p. 83. How the ancients in the Old and New World interpreted giant fossils is explored in Adrienne Mayor's The First Fossil Hunters: Paleontology in Greek and Roman Times (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000), and in her Fossil Legends of the First Americans (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2005).


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of water prompted Robert Hooke, Anton van Leeuwenhoek, Marcello Malpighi, Francesco Redi,William Harvey, and other natural philosophers of note to develop germ theory, that microorganisms in fluids are responsible for causing disease. This new theorydealt a mortal blow to thePlatonic concept of the earth's plastic nature, thatprimitive life formsgenerated spontaneouslyfromtheputrefactionof organicmatter or from an inherentspiritualpower.73Mather, with his trainingin the medical arts, applied the new germ theory to his considera tion of theMosaic hexaemeron. Speculating that the giant's tremendoussizemight be explained throughnatural causation, he formed a postulate akin to a rudimentaryunderstanding

"TheMicroscopicalInquisitions, ofmodem generation: have

made itmore thanprobable; That the True Seeds ofAnimals, floatingin theirSuitable Vehicle [seminal fluid],have, lyingin a Space much less than theNaked Eye can discern, thewhole Bodies of theAnimals, even to all theirNerves and Fibres: which afterwardGrow as aforesaid,until theiroriginalStamina can be no furthercarried out" ("Biblia Americana," p. i88v). God may have implanted in the seed of our firstprotoplast an "originalStamina . . .much larger thanothers, and capable of being drawn forth,to themost Gigantic Extension." Or God may have "some of these Gigantaean Stamina" enter man's body throughthe food chain and there slumberuntilGod or dered them to grow.Or God, fromthebeginningof theworld, may have embedded in the seminal fluidofman microscopi cally small, yet fullyformed,animalcules of these giants that upon penetration of the female ovum might grow to colossal proportionsthoughfatheredby parentsof common size ("Biblia

nature in Mather's 73For the time, changing fortune of the concept of plastic see Collier, B. Hunter, "The Cosmogonies of Our Fathers, pp. 428-47; William Doctrine of Plastic Nature," Harvard Seventeenth-Century Theological Review 43 1665 (July 1950): 197-213, and Rhoda Rappaport, When Geologists Were Historians,

1750 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1997), pp. 105-35. Useful historical background on the evolution of germ is found in C. Dobell's and Antony Leeuwenhoeck theory His Little Animals (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1932) and in J. Farley's The Sponta neous Generation to Oparin (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Controversy from Descartes University Press,

1977).

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Americana," p. 189r).74Conjectures of thissortwere common place among thephysico-theologiansof theperiod, andMather drew on themost respected authoritieshe couldmuster tohar monize biblical exegesis and scientificinquiry.75 That he did not become complacent inhis quest forcollating the Book of Scripturewith thatof Nature becomes apparent just a few tightlypacked, folio-sized columns later.Coming across a chapter on animal generationof hybrids inDr. James Drake's AnthropologiaNova (1707),Mather was forced to toss out what had seemed to be the key to unlocking themystery of the giantNephilim: "But, oh! thepalpable Darkness, under Mather bewailed his losses. "After which we are languishing!" I have given you, so fairan Hypothesis, as at firstI thoughtit, about theGenerations carried on in theAnimalWorld, I must now run theHazard of destroyingit all again." Leeuwenhoek's conjecture that fullyformedyetmicroscopically small replicas of man or beast were lodged in the seminal fluidsof every animal species simplydid notmesh with Drake's discussion of hybridsand their inabilityto procreate: [T]hemost commonof all theseAnimals,of mix'd Breeds, is the Mule, begottenby anAss, upon theMare. If thisHypothesisbe true, the Sperm of an Ass, is full of littleAsses, and the being nurs'd by a Mare should never make Mules of them; because the Species is

but living..... praedetermined, and theCreature isnot onlyform'd, I knowsomeEndeavour,toget over thisObjection,by fancying that the differentMatrix may have so much Effect, as to alter the Figure of the Animal so far, as may account for these Mixt Appearances.

a shift,thatit isnotworthan But thisis so poor, so unphilosophical Answer;and theymightwith as goodAuthority perswademe, that 74See also "Biblia Americana," pp. 73r~74v. For information on how the seeds of contain miniscule replicas of each species' complete body, Mather plants and animals New relies in part on Whiston's Theory (1696), pt. 2, bk. 4, chap. 1, pp. 224-25, 228, which in itself is an extract from Bentley's fourth Boylean lecture (6 June 1692), inA Confutation of Atheism, pt. 2, pp. 3-36. published 75See also Mather's annotation on Gen. 3:15 ("Biblia Americana," p. 134V), where Curiosa: A Discourse he digests George Garden's Miscellanea concerning the Modern 3 vols. (London, 1705-7), 1:143-49, in affirmation of how the Theory of Generation, authorities include such noteworthy contempo female ovum is inseminated. Garden's R. de Grael, Leeuwenhoek, and raries as Harvey, Swammerdam, Malpighi, Perrault, others.


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fromSevil toEngland,would bearApples; anOrange-treetranslated and so vice versa. ["BibliaAmericana,"p. 19ov]76 Mather and his With such empirical evidence to the contrary, peers had only two choices: suspend theirjudgmentuntil new discoveries set the record straight,or fall back on the out moded notion thatGod had endowedmatterwith a generative, plastic power thatblindly formedvarious typesof organisms.77 "However old and exploded, theOpinion of a Plastick Power be," Mather laments,with Drake at his side, "I must how ever embrace it; even tho' I know not exactlywherein it lies: at least, till I meet with somewhatmore sufficientto Resolve my Doubts, than hitherto I have done" ("Biblia Americana," p. 190v).78Mather, it is clear,was not afraid to examine scrip ture in lightof contemporaryempirical evidence and, as nec essary, to renegotiatehis interpretativestance ifdeep-rooted traditiondid not squarewith thenaturalphilosophyof his day. Those who went before himwere his guides, not his masters. Yet if errorswere uncovered, theymust be attributed to his guides, not to theBible or itsholy prophets.

Biblical Miracles, Natural Phenomena,or Poetic

Hyperbole?

Through a number of exemplary cases, we can gauge the extent to which Mather crossed the threshold into the 76Mather's extracts are from Anthropologia Nova, 2 vols. (London, 1707), vol. 1, bk. 1, chap. 25, pp. 334-36 (misnumbered 352), by James Drake, M.D. (1667-1707), fellow of the College of Physicians of the Royal Society, whose work explores (among other things) new theories of generation and hybridization. 77The idea of the "Plastick Power" of nature is derived from Plato's concept o? anima mundi (Timaeus), the theory that nature is endowed with a spiritual power that orders and shapes the size and growth of all biological life forms. Revived by the Cambridge Platonists to combat Cartesian materialism, the vitalist theory made a brief comeback time but was largely discredited by the end of the seventeenth century. In Mather's in his the English botanist John Ray (1627-1705) was one of its principal proponents in theWorks of the Creation (London, 1691), esp. of God Manifested popular Wisdom pp. 31-40; Mather employs Ray's vitalist argument at some length in his Christian For a helpful sketch of the concept's short-lived resurgence in Philosopher (essay 26). Doctrine of Plastic the seventeenth century, see Hunter, "The Seventeenth-Century and Rhoda Rappaport, Nature," pp. 200-203; "Geology and Orthodoxy: The Case of Noah's Science

in Flood Eighteenth-Century 11, no. 37 (1978): 1-18.

78Drake, Anthropologia

Nova,

1:352.

Thought,"

British Journal for the History

of

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He clearlyvacillates betweenmiraculousex Enlightenment.

planations and purely natural causation in treatingwondrous biblical events,generallyjuxtaposingold and new paradigms in an effortto arriveat themost intellectuallycompellingopinion to present to the educated men he expected to formthe core

scholarly effort. With fewexceptions, audienceforhissustained hisconservative affirmations ofbiblical miraclesgen however, theydo notnecessarily outweigh erally outnumber-though

the critiques he excerpts fromCartesian materialists. Such is the case with his commentaryon the confusion of tongues at Babel, the ten plagues of Egypt, and the parting of theRed Sea. Mather was well aware of the controversythese stories prompted, and he commonlyalludes to,or names, theprimary contestants in the contemporarydebate about them.The prin cipal targetof his guarded defense of miracles appears to be JeanLeclerc's TwelveDissertations out ofMonsieur Le Clerk's Genesis (1696), an English translationand synopsisof themost controversialrevisionismof his Dutch colleague's Latin com mentary on thePentateuch (1693-95). Mather had long admired Leclerc's scholarshipbut was fre quently put off by his denial of miracles and his radical de mythologizingof the Bible. Although not the firstto do so, Leclerc had rejected the traditionalreading that the confusion of tongues at Babel "was all transactedon the sudden." The Mosaic account does not detail the events,Leclerc argued, but conflates"theOccurrences of severalAges . . . in a few lines." Interpretersthereforewrongly assume an instantaneousalter ationof theoriginal language. "Discord and Dissention" among thepeople-not themiracle of new languages-are heremeant (Gen. 11:7); theirdisagreements led to theirseparationand iso lation fromone another and thus"theirLanguages came to be changed" over a long period of time.79Mather is clearly ill diss. 6, sec. 5, pp. 177-79. Richard Simon offers 79Leclerc, Twelve Dissertations, much the same rationalist interpretation on this text in his Critical History of the Old Testament (London, 1682), bk. 1, chaps. 14-15, pp. 97-107; however, Mather's trusted friend, Simon Patrick, bishop of Ely, is unwilling to go as far as his continental a more conservative middle not give the people ground. God did colleagues and offers new languages, Patrick maintained, but merely confused their memory of the "Original


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at ease with the spread of such trenchantrationalismamong

Europe's leadingtheologians, who eschewmiraclesformea

sured changes over myriads of generations; yet his defense of thisvenerable miracle is tepid, or hollow, at best: "Father Simon, and Leclerc, have embraced this[new]opinion,"Mather comments ruefully,"but . .. tisbetter to own theMiracle." So, too, after condensing into two paragraphs another critic's ra tionalistdismissal of miracles, Mather halfheartedlyremarks,

"I don'tacquiescein [Compegius] Vitringa's Notion"("Biblia

Americana," p. 280v).8o IfMather here speaksout of both sides of hismouth, he perhaps unwittinglyfindshimself inbed with such notoriousDeists as Charles Blount and Thomas Browne, whose anonymouslypublished Miracles, No Violations of the

Laws ofNature (London,1683) and, respectively, Miracles,

Work's [sic] Above and Contrary toNature (London, 1683) ostensiblydefend biblical miracles but do more to spread the ideas ofHobbes and Spinoza than to refutethem. Much the same unintended effectoccurs inMather's com mentaryon the tenplagues of Egypt and thepartingof the seas in theExodus saga.Again he appears to targetthe likesof Jean Leclerc, who bring tobear purelynaturalistexplanationson the Israelites' passing throughtheRed Sea.8i SlyMoses, Leclerc

as made them Language which they spake before, speak it very differently: So that by of divers Dialects, and Pronunciations the various Inflections, and Terminations, they could no more understand one another, than they who understand Latin, Italian, or arise out of it" (Commentary upon the First Rook of Spanish; tho these Languages

Moses,

p. 227). the famous Dutch Hebraist, 8oMather draws on Compegius Vitringa (1659-1722), at Franeker, who argues inObservationum professor of Oriental languages and theology sacrarum libri septem (Franeker, 1683-1708) that "one language" (Gen. 11:1) is a figure of speech, suggesting "unison" or "harmony." In defense of God performing a miracle, the ecclesiastical historian and doctor Mather cites Louis Ellies Du Pin (1647-1719), et at the Sorbonne, whose Dissertationes Historiques, Chronologiques, G?ographiques sur la Rible, 2 vols. (Paris, 1711), vol. 1, diss. 3, asserts that Critiques chap. 2, p. 240, can (if he is form new tongues in people's nothing impossible for God, who pleases) brains and extinguish all traces of their former one. 8lLeclerc decries the fondness of the vulgar for prodigies as positively harmful to the "To believe often without any Reason, that God alter'd the Holy Scripture: is detrimental "because it fills the Minds of Men with ordinary Course of Nature" a to the superstitious Credulity, exposes the Sacred History Contempt and Laughter true Miracles and Prodigies" of Prophane Men, and makes them disbelieve (Twelve diss. 13, p. 320). Dissertations,

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alleged, had carefullystudied the ebb and tide of theRed Sea so that"hemight easily go fromone Shoar to anotherupon the dry ground; and thatbeing a Cunning Man, he vented among the ignorant Multitude, as a Prodigywhat happened according to theordinaryLaws of Nature."82To rebut suchDeist claims, Mather draws on Cosmologia Sacra (1701), by Dr. Nehemiah Grew (1642-1712), an English botanist, physician, and mem ber of the Royal Society with decidedly Cartesian leanings. He derives fromGrew a definitionof miracles broad enough, ironically,to accommodate Jean Leclerc: "Unto a Miracle, it is requisite, that theCause be unknown to us, either in itself, or as to theManner of itsOperation. The Effect also must be extraordinary,for theLimitation of Time, and Place, and other Circumstances. And theDesign of it,must be something that isGood, and Great, and Necessary."83 In framinga constructbroad enough to allow for the possi bility that the parting of the seas was an ordinary side effect of seasonal or inter-tidalchanges,Mather (viaGrew) paradox icallydemystifieshis own definitionof miracles, rendering it nearlynull and void. God maintains the "perfectOrder" of his greatmachine throughtheLaws ofNature ("Second Causes"), Mather concedes; itwould thereforebe "not becoming His Divine Wisdome and Majesty, to do any thing, [I will add, Ordinarily] without some Use of these Causes."84 Mather's bracketed insertion is revealing;he clearly feels the need to reinforceGrew's demarcation between extraordinaryand ordi nary events,between genuine miracles and mere environmen tal conditionswhose causes (thoughperfectlynatural) are not easilydiscernible to awestruckbelievers-especially to those in climes fardifferentfromthatof ancientEgypt. But indwelling on secondary causes, Mather rationalizes these miracle sto ries and deprives them of theirpower to inspire faith in the

supernatural.

diss. 13, p. 321. 82Leclerc, Twelve Dissertations, Sacra: Or 83"Biblia Americana," on Exod. 7:1, p. i6r; Nehemiah Grew, Cosmolog?a a Discourse of the Universe (London, 1701), bk. 4, chap. 5, pp. 194, 195, 196. 84"Biblia Americana," on Exod. 7:1, p. i6r; Grew, Cosmolog?a Sacra, bk. 4, chap. 5, pp. 194-95


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This much is evident as Mather goes on to discuss Grew's explanations for the ten plagues of Egypt. Aaron's rods "were not converted intoReal Serpents" in his contestwith Pharaoh's magicians but "only investedwith the phantastic Image of a Serpent."God would not be sowasteful as to create an authen tic snake, endow itwith a brain and organs digestive and pro creative,only to transmuteit "into its former [wooden] State again." Likewise, the plagues that infected the land started in thewater, struckall marine animals-including "the Hip popotamus, and Crocodile" and amphibians-"with a Dysen tericMurrain," thuscontaminatingthewaterswith theirbloody excrementsthatall turnedred.Likewise, tinyeggs of licemixed with dust, swarmsof pesky flies, locusts,hail, and darkness not wanting "theirNatural Causes"-were carried intoEgypt by a "Hot AfricanWind" and accompanied by "a Shower of Dust, such as often happens in such Countreyes," during the hot season of theyear.Finally, reproachingJosephusFlavius for daring to compareMoses's crossingof theRed Sea toAlexan der's wading throughthePamphylian Straitsat Phaselis, Grew opts fora "strongEast-Wind" dividingtheRed Sea and freezing thewaters "withso Thick an Ice, as tobound them likea Stone Wall on both sides of theWay" and a warm "WesternWind" miraculouslymelting the ice and drowningPharaoh's pursuing armies.Mather's sole remarkon Grew's rationalistexplication speaks volumes: "This brings toomuch Nature into theMat ter."85In spite of Grew's loud plea for the admissibilityof miracles (and ofMather's effortto tonedownGrew's naturalist explications),theouterwall has been breached, themomentum towarda paradigm shift,toward the gradual demystification of the Bible, is clearly irreversible-even-as Mather tries to re cover thepurityofmiracles by supplyingan arrayof annotations

ranging fromconventional miraclesto time-honored typology in his subsequent commentaryon Exodus (chaps. 7-9).

on Exod. 7:1, pp. i6r, 17V; Grew, 8s"Biblia Americana," see also chap. 5, p. 195; Josephus Flavius, Antiquities of Whiston (1733; The Complete Works of Josephus, ed. William 1990), bk. 2, chap. 1, ?? Rapids, Mich.: Kregel Publications,

Sacra, bk. 4, Cosmolog?a the Jews, trans. William P. Nimmo (i960; Grand 4-5.

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disapproval of naturalphilosophy lays Mather'shalfhearted bear his ambidextrous approach, one that looks forwardand backward but one thatcan never again admit of pure miracles without substantialqualification.Perhaps one more example, thisone regarding themiracle that facilitatesJoshua's victory over the fivekings of theAmorites in a battle near theValley of Ajalon (Joshua 10:1-14), hotly debated by both ancients and modems, will be sufficient.Though Jehovah of Armies had already decimated theAmorite warriors by hurling great hailstones on them (so the storygoes), survivorsbeat a hasty retreatas the sun began to set.At thismoment, Joshuapetitions God to arrest theprogressof the sun andmoon so thathe might vanquish his foes. "And the sun stood still,and themoon stayed, until the people had avenged themselvesupon theirenemies. Is not thiswritten in the book of Jasher?So the sun stood still in themidst of heaven, and hasted not to go down about a whole day.And therewas no day like thatbefore itor after it, that theLord harkened unto the voice of a man: for theLord foughtfor Israel" (Joshua10:13-14 KJV). As an aid to appreciatingMather's views on the topic,a quick reviewof thecontroversyis inorder. Significantly,therewas no whomMather could have unanimityamong Jewishinterpreters, consulted inDaniel Bomberg's famouseditionBiblia Rabbinica (Venitiae,1516-17; 2nd ed., 1547), or SebastianMiunster'sHe braica Biblia, Latina Planeq. Sebast.Munsteri Tralatione (2nd ed., Basileae, 1546), or Matthew Poole's invaluable Synopsis Criticorum Aliorumque S. Scripturce Interpretum (Londini, 1669-76)-all of which Mather owned and on which he re lied extensivelythroughout"BibliaAmericana."Whereas Rabbi Solomon Jarchi(Rashi), Rabbi David Kimchi, Rabbi Ibn Ezra, and theBabylonian Talmud (Avodah Zarah 25a) insistedon a miracle that testifiedas much to theirPtolemaic cosmogony as toGod's power to suspend the laws of nature, the twelfth centuryRabbi Moses ben Maimon-highly esteemed by Jews and Christians alike-opted fora metaphoric explanation inhis

DoctorPerplexorum Liber [MoreNevochim] (Basileae,1629). The sun did not stand still,because theHebrew expression tamimmeans perfect and signifies the "longest day in the


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summer" or the summer solstice. The supposed-miracle in Joshua'sday is thereforesimply"ka-jom tamim,"orwhat people perceived to be "the longestpossible day."86

Christianinterpreters also dividedintocampsof literalists

and metaphorists. JohnCalvin, for instance,acknowledged the debate inhis commentaryon Joshuayetupheld the literalmir acle even in lightof Maimonides' linguisticaccommodation.

Ussher,Matthew InMather'sgeneration, Archbishop James

Poole, Matthew Henry, Simon Patrick, andWilliam Derham insisted that nothing short of a miracle had taken place in Joshua'sday.87Even thoughtheuniversewas governed by nat ural laws, they argued, the creatorwas not bound by them and could suspend them at any time. The list of early En

lightenment authorities who spurnedthe letterof Joshua's and includessuch purported miracle is significantly shorter famous authoritiesas theDutch juristHugo Grotius, founder

criticism of theBible, thephilosopher ofhistorical-contextual Baruch Spinoza, and a few lesser lights.88 Mather's annotationson Joshua 10:12-14 testifyto his philo sophical torment:he is clearly tornbetween the letterand the spirit,the authorityof traditionand Newtonian science.Among his earliest comments on themiracle of the sun's arrest is his 86Those who upheld Joshua's miracle are digested inMikraoth Gedoloth: The Rook and R. Sidney Shulman (New York: of Joshua, trans. R. P. Oratz, R. A. J. Rosenberg, Judaica Press Inc., 1992), pp. 72-74; the Rabbinic apocrypha Pirke de Rabbi Eliezer, trans. Gerald Friedlander (1916; North Stratford, N.H.: Ayer Company Publishers, 2004), chap. 52, pp. 423-24, even proposes a duration of "thirty-six hours" for this was available to Mather s in miracle; Maimonides Johannes Buxtorf Latin translation, Liber 0*0133 n"TO Doctor Perplexorum Rabbi Mosis Majemonidis (Basileae, 1629), pt. translation The Guide 2, chap. 35, p. 292; the English citation is from M. Friedl?nder's 1956), p. 224. (1904; New York: Dover, for the Perplexed by Moses Maimonides 87 on The Rook (Grand of Joshua, trans. H. Beveridge John Calvin, Commentaries Rapids, Mich.: Baker Books, 2005), pp. 152-55; James Ussher, Annals of theWorld Poole, Synopsis Criticorum (London, 1660), p. 28 [26]; Matthew (London, 1669 on the Rible (London, 1689), vol. 2, 76), vol. 3, cols. 964-68, and his Commentary pp. 428-29; Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Rible (London, 1689), vol. 2, pp. 47 48; Simon Patrick, Commentary on the First Rook ofMoses (1695), 3rd ed. (London, 1727), vol. 2, pp. 34-37; William Derham, Physico-Theology: Or, a Demonstration of the Reing and Attributes of God (1713), 4th ed. (London, 1716), bk. 2, chap. 3, p. 43. Annotationes 88Hugo Grotius, ologica, 5 vols. (London, 1679), PP- 33-34

in Vetus Testamentum (1646), inOpera Omnia The Treatise, 1:106, and Spinoza, A Theologico-Political

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dismissal of Hugo Grotius's linguisticaccommodation inAn notationes inVetus Testamentum (Paris, 1646), which Mather leavesuntranslatedfromitsLatin original.Halting thecourse of the sun andmoon inmid-heaven isnot amiraculous contraven tionof thenaturalorder,Grotius insisted,echoingMaimonides, but a Hebrew metaphor for the longest day in summer. If Mather did not like this argument at first,he was intrigued by the solutionofferedby Stephen Nye, whose Discourse con cerningNatural and Revealed Religion (1696) distinguished between historicalverityand poetic license: "The Criticks and Rabbins, take notice, that it is not said by theHistorian, that Joshua commanded the Sun and Moon to stand still,but hee recites theWords of a certainBook (supposed to bee a Poem) writtenby one Jasher; inwhich thePoet . .. introducesJoshua, as requiringthe Sun & Moon to stand still,while hee destroy'd theEnemies of theLord: which indeedwas an elegant Fiction, & very proper in a Poem, thatwas written on such an Occa sion."The poet's explanation,Mather agreedwith Nye, "should not bee strained furtherthan itwill naturallybear; that is,not be Understood as a realmatter of Fact."89And yet,perhaps to wrench themiracle out of the grip ofmodern atheists,Mather interpolates the testimonyof pagan poets: for if the Greek poet Callimachus (285-246 BC) allows the sun to stop itschar iot to observe "a Chorus of Nymphs"; ifHerodotus's Euterpe cites the ancient Egyptians as proof for the sun's changingher course; if theRabbis in theTalmud, theGeneva-born diplomat and classical scholarEzechiel Spanheim, theFrench Bishop of Avranches Pierre-Daniel Huet, and Dr. William Jackson,Pres identofCorpus ChristiCollege (Oxford)confirmitshistoricity, and ifArchbishop JamesUssher "thinkshe can demonstrate, that thisRemarkable Phcnoemnon of the Sun, fellout in the Year, 2555" Anno Mundi (c. 1450 BCE), then theseweighty authoritiessimplycannot be ignored.90 con 89"Biblia Americana," pp. i8r-i9v, on Josh. 10:12; Stephen Nye, A Discourse sec. 12, pp. 202-3. cerning Natural and Revealed Religion (London, 1696), pt. 2, 9?"Biblia Americana," pp. i8r-2or, on Josh. 10:12, 13. Mather here leans on Patrick's on commentary Joshua 10:12-14 (Commentary [1727], vol. 2, pp. 36-37). Callimachus, In Dianam (11. 181-82), ed. R. Pfeiffer, 2 vols. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1953), 2:9-18;


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Mather wrestledwith thismiracle forquite some time. If the authorof Joshuacites theheroic book of Jasheras evidence for Joshua'smiracle, then thecelestial event isnot a historyofwhat had actuallyhappened but a poetic celebrationof Joshua'smil

itary victory, not a philosophic accountbutpoetichyperbole.

"The Scriptureswere not writtenwith a Design to teach us Natural Philosophy,"Mather concedes, "but to shew us theway how to Live and Dy well. They might thereforeuse popular nor denying thephilosophi Forms of Speech, neitheraffirming cal Truth of them.... To have rectifiedthevulgarConceptions ofMen, concerning all thePhcenomena,which upon Occasion are mentioned in the Scriptures,would have required a large System of Philosophy,& have rendred the Scriptures a Book unfittforcommon Capacities. And theNew Theory ofNature [Copernicus,Kepler], would have seemed as incredibletomost men, asMiracles themselves.How Incredible does theRest of the Sun, with theMotion of theEarth, seem to all Men but

Philosophers?" Mather'sfinalconcession-here cribbedfrom

Robert Jenkin'sthirdeditionof his popularReasonableness and Certaintyof theChristianReligion (1708)-echoes thedicta of Galileo, Hobbes, Spinoza, Burnet,Whiston, and Newton and illustratesthatEnlightenment science and the inerrancyof the

toreconcile.9' Biblewere increasingly difficult

Although Mather is supremely unwilling to sever the ties between natural philosophy and theology, as Spinoza recommended in 1670, his commentaryin "BibliaAmericana"

were four times when the sun rose out Herodotus reports of the Egyptians that "there now he sets, and twice where of his wonted place?twice rising setting where now he rises?and, (His say the priests, nothing became different among the Egyptians" sec. 142, tory, trans. David Grene [Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987], bk. 2, on his edition of Callimachus, In Cal pp. 193-94); Ezechiel Spanheim's commentary Huet's anti-Cartesian limachi Hymnos observationes (Ultrajecti, 1697); Pierre-Daniel Alnetanae Quaestiones de Concordia Rationis et Fidei (Caen, 1690), bk. 2, chap. 12, sec. 27; Thomas Jackson's A Collection of theWorks ofthat Holy Man and Profound Divine Thomas D.D. (London, 1653), vol. 1, bk. 1, chap. 15, p. 48; Ussher's Jackson, Annals of theWorld (London, 1658), pp. 28 [26]. The page number in brackets is a for p. 28. misnumbering 91"Biblia Americana," pp. i8r-i9v, on Josh. 10:12; Robert Jenkin's The Reasonable ness and Certainty of the Christian Religion. The Third Edition, Corrected, and very much Enlarged, 2 vols. (London, 1708), 2:211-12.

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not infrequently moves in thatdirection.For Mather, the de bate is not about whether the Bible is rightor wrong but whether the biblical message and its linguisticvehicle are in agreement.The Hebrew prophets used the language and con cepts of the vulgar to instructthe people-or as Galileo has it, the Bible teaches people how to go to heaven, not how heaven goes.92Theologians ofMather's time thereforehad to learn the art of distinguishingbetween intendedmeaning and

theancients' prejudices, betweenlanguage and scientific ver

ity,between the form inwhich a truthwas expressed and the intended truthitself.In thismanner, then,Mather is able to

reconcilethevenerabletradition of theBiblewithNewtoni anism, yet he does so frequentlyat the cost of separating the letterof theWord fromitsspirit.IfMather's interestin science

inevitably affects howhe interprets scripture, his theological

purview determines evenmore so how he marshals his empiri cal evidence. Conservative in his theologyyetwelcoming of all manner of new learning,he is-perhaps not surprisingly-more audacious in employing the new sciences as an exegetical tool thanmost of his peers who suppliedAmerican pulpits until the Revolution. So, too, few (if any) tracescan be found in "Biblia Americana" to validate thepopular caricatureofMather as an old witch doctor and diehard bigot; instead,his grand project allows him to reclaimhis rightfulplace in the earlyEnlighten ment inAmerica and to the transferenceof European schol arship to the colonies. "Biblia Americana," an immense and forbiddingly complex holographmanuscript, is certainlyone of themost significantuntapped resources ofAmerican intellec tual history.As such, it deserves sustained scholarlyanalysis, analysis thatwill be rewarded as it reveals the degree towhich England's American colonies, even in theirfirstcenturyof ex istence, fullyparticipated in a global academic network. 92In his "Letter to the Grand Duchess Christina" (1615), Galileo Galilei defends to Cardinal Baronius, his own orthodoxy by attributing his radical accommodationism whom he quotes as saying "that the intention of the Holy Spirit is to teach us how one goes to heaven and not how heaven goes" (The Galileo Affair: A Documentary History, ed. and trans. Maurice A. Finocchiaro [Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989], p. 96).


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Reiner Smolinski, Professor of EarlyAmericanLiterature and Culture at Georgia State University, is the General

Editor of CottonMather's enormous"BibliaAmericana" holograph manuscript. He has published on a wide vari

etyofMatheriana,on millennialism, typology, and Salem witchcraft, on JohnCotton,RogerWilliams,Isaac Newton, Poe,andHawthorne, butmostrecently onMather'sSpinozism. Follow the progress of the "Biblia Americana" project at

www.bibliaamericana.gsu.edu.