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The New England Soul: Preaching and Religious Culture in Colonial New England

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Harry S. Stout (Ph.D., Kent State University) is currently a professor of American religious history at Yale University. Building on the groundbreaking work of Perry Miller, Stout published The New England Soul in 1986. The study is more extensive than its paperback size might suggest. The main body of the work covers nearly 150,000 words and is supplemented by 68 pages of extensive end notes. The work has become a standard text for college and graduate courses in colonial American history.

Stout's work centers on the content, role, and power of the sermon in Puritan (later New England) America from the first landings to the beginning of the American revolution. His thesis, which is strongly supported through the work, is that the sermon was the central agent in creating a cohesive culture that evolves toward eventual self-identity and independence. Drawing extensively on primary sources, Stout brings to the contemporary reader the piety and passions of the people whose culture forms the soil for the American nation.

Stout follows the sermon through five generations of New England preachers. These generations are marked by gradual but significant changes in the style and, to some degree, content of the sermon. These five generations he labels invention (1620-1665), arrangement (1666-1700), style (1701-1730), delivery (1731-1763), and memory (1764-1776).

These five stages are, he admits, not dramatic shifts as much as a continual evolution. Through these stages Stout demonstrates changes in style (from plain to "Anglican") and, to some degree, in content. He asserts, however, that the essential core elements of the sermon remain consistent, and that the changes reflect the sermon's adjustment to a changing environment. In this assertion Stout challenges to common suggestion that Puritan preaching displaced its original mission and passion over time.

The themes of personal piety and liberty, Stout demonstrates, are constant from the early sermons of John Cotton to sermons like that of Samuel West celebrating the liberation of Boston by George Washington in 1776. These themes are linked by a shared sense of cultural and religious destiny, the "city set on a hill" mission, in which American New England would fulfill the goal of Calvin's Geneva to create the perfect society in which the Kingdom of God might be fully realized on earth.

The New England preacher, more so than the statesman or soldier, was the preeminent power and power-broker in the Colonial period. The sermon was both soteriological and political, reflecting a conceptual marriage of church and state difficult for the contemporary reader to fully grasp.

One great value of Stout's work is, following in the steps of Perry Miller, he brings to the reader the words of voices long forgotten. While John Cotton, Cotton Mather, Jonathan Edwards, and a handful of other divines have remained well known figures, at least to students of early American history, Stout brings to life the words of dozens of other preachers whose works and words are now preserved only in small numbers of rare books and pamphlets.

Stout effectively demonstrates how the sermons, especially of the eighteenth century, laid the foundation for the revolution and the birth of the American nation. The "messianic mission" of the early Puritans was malleable enough to be transfigured into the great battle, against the Beast of the British monarchy, to establish the independence of the colonies. Any student of American or religious history would be well served by including Stout's work in their must-read list. Any teacher of early American history should seriously consider adding this to any list of recommended texts. The contemporary student will be surprised at the multiple connections between religious and political thinking in early American life, as well as the pivotal role the sermon plays in the development of that life.

This is a much more thorough study of Congregational culture and doctrine than that of Perry Miller. Miller's work relied entirely on published weekday sermons. Stout mined the unpublished sermon notes of hundreds of New England preachers to find a balance that Miller missed. Stout convincingly shows that the ministers' commitment to the salvation of their listeners was always paramount, and finds a consistency in their messages that link the ministers of the 1630's with those of the 1770's. Stout finds few doctrinal differences between Old Lights such as John Cotton and New Lights such as Jonathan Edwards. It's a tough read (being intellectual history), but it's well worth the effort if you wish to get inside the Puritan mind.

The theme of this excellent book is that, from 1620 and 1630, with the advent of the Pilgrims at Plymouth and the Puritans at Boston, the vast majority of the regular ministerial preaching was about the salvation of souls, while the occasional sermons, the election and fast day sermons, and as the American Revolution approached, were far fewer, and considered dependent on the regular Sunday homilies.

Harry Stout's knowledge of his material is massive.

For members of the clergy, from Stout's anecdotes, and not just about preaching, calls to mind the French proverb, 'the more things change, the more things stay the same.' The basic framework of a Congregational sermon was 'sin, salvation, and service.' In 1663, Rev. Higginson that the Boston area was 'a plantation of religion, not a plantation of trade.' Stout does an excellent job in portaying the perennial divide between the churches and ministers who 'specialized' in portraying the emotional side of faith, versus those who thought that the essence of faith is rational.

Stout concludes with the almost universal preachers who spoke in favor of being in favor of what became the American Revolution, but ironically it was the Revolution, by stirring up lay political leadership, that bumped the local church and minister from its central, dominating role in the culture of New England.

My one critique of this book is that, the several times Stout quoted excerpts of sermons which demonized Roman Catholics as papists, the whore of Babylon etc., Stout did not declare what those verses were, instances of the Puritan anti-Catholicism.

However, this caveat mentioned, the overall effect of this awesome book is to underscore the central, fundamental role of Christian faith and praxis in colonial New England, and that civic, political themes were secondary and dependant on the former.

This is a great book by a brilliant historian who is deeply revered on both sides of the Atlantic. It will be the definitive work. Christopher Catherwood, author of CHRISTIANS, MUSLIMS AND ISLAMIC RAGE (Zondervan, 2003)

An extremely useful and good book for anyone who is interested in the history of New England Puritanism. The book is in a great condition.