The Mathers: Three Generations of Puritan Intellectuals, 1596-1728 Read Online Free PDF Page B

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In several books which young Richard Mather may have read, Perkins reviewed these problems and analyzed experience in terms which troubled men were able to apply to themselves. Perkins told men that conversion did not change their substance, the stuff out of which they were made, nor did it give them new powers, or faculties of the soul, as the old language he employed put it. All conversion did was to renew what they already had; it restored a measure of the purity that Adam had possessed before his fall. Perkins likened the process to rebuilding an old house but with one difference: a house is restored piecemeal, a room at a time, a window first, and then a wall; but a man who receives grace has his whole beinghis reason, his will, his affections, all his facultiesreconstructed at once, and simultaneously. And yet this restoration occurred over a time, and could be broken down into identifiable periods. 19
Initially, a man might become sensible of his sin, feeling fear and terror in response to the accusations of his conscience. Such feelings are "no graces of God" but fruits of the law. But they do help "tame" a man's nature. 20 Anyone could achieve this much on his own, though God usually got things going. At this point a man may be likened to the breaking of dawn, Perkins said; the darkness remains, but there is light in the air. If the process is genuinely from God, the Holy Spirit next begins to work restraining the worst of the natural impulses and leading the person to moral behavior. A reprobate might proceed this far but no farther. The final step occurred when renewing grace was infused into the soul: the man was now Christ's, he had been born again. 21
By itself Perkins' description, though enlightening, was scarcely comforting. The reader of one of Perkins' tracts would find little encouragement for feelings of ecstasy. Perkins told him that in the beginning he should be afraid and should feel guilt, but at the end he should not expect that raptures would follow. But in a sense Perkins did provide tests for determining

 

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the validity of the process. Grace was ''counterfeit'' unless it grew, he said. The sinner should expect his faith to increase, and he should strive to see that it did. His very striving was evidence that his grace was genuine. Thus he should pray, listen to sermons, read the gospel, and examine himselfhis impulses, his feelings of every sort, and his thoughts. He could expect to fail his God, and his own best intentions, at various times. How he responded to his failures gave further indication of the state of his soul. If he felt grief at his failure to grieve over his sins he should be reassured. If he sorrowed because his desires to close with God were weak, he should be encouraged. Complacency, or as Puritans customarily put it "security," was a great danger and suggested that the grace he claimed was fraudulent. 22
During his conversion in 1614, Richard Mather required no help to avoid security. His heart was broken, and he craved the comfort that reaching the end of the conversion process conferred. Finally, after a prolonged period of misery, he began to feel that he was God's. He was never to feel secure, though he did enjoy the feeling of assurance, the feeling that he had been converted. Still, there were pangs of uncertainty; the last lengthy period of anxiety came after his arrival in New England and his acceptance of the Dorchester pulpit. Then for several years, he was troubled by doubts. He was characteristically quiet about his uneasiness, talking only to John Norton, the pastor of Ipswich, who gave him as much reassurance as he could. 23
Mather continued to teach throughout the period of his conversion and remained in Toxteth Park as master until 1618, when on May 18 he matriculated in Brasenose College, Oxford. His stay was short, probably a little more than a year. It is impossible to say what lasting effect, if any, Oxford had on him. If he was placed with