Puritanism and Emotion in the Early Modern World [Hardcover]

Puritanism has a reputation for being emotionally dry, but seventeenth-century Puritans did not only have rich and complex emotional lives, they also found meaning in and drew spiritual strength from emotion. From theology to lived experience and from joy to affliction, this volume surveys the wealth and depth of the Puritans' passions.

The stereotype of the emotionless or gloomy Puritan is still with us, but this book's purpose is not merely to demonstrate that it is false. The reason to look at seventeenth-century English and American Puritans' understanding and experience of joy, happiness, assurance, and affliction is to show how important the emotions were for Puritan culture, from leading figures such as Richard Baxter and John Bunyan through to more obscure diarists and letter-writers. Rejecting the modern opposition between 'head' and 'heart', these men and women believed that a rational religion was also a deeply-felt one, and that contemplative practices and other spiritual duties could produce transporting joy which was understood as a Christian's birthright. The emotional experiences which they expected from their faith, and the ones they actually encountered, constituted much of its power. Theologians, historians and literary scholars here combine to bring the study of Puritanism together with the new vogue for the history of the emotions.

Introduction; Alec Ryrie and Tom Schwanda
1. 'Light accompanied with vital heat': affection and intellect in the thought of Richard Baxter; Keith Condie
2. Thomas Goodwin and the 'Supreme Happiness of Man'; Karl Jones
3. The Saints' Desire and Delight to be with Christ; Tom Schwanda
4. 'Milke and Honey': Puritan Happiness in the Writings of Robert Bolton, John Norden and Francis Rous; S. Bryn Roberts
5. Affliction and the Stony Heart in Early New England; Adrian Chastein Weimer
6. Piety and the Politics of Anxiety in Nonconformist Writing lóå