Daily Meditations, or, Quotidian Preparations for and Considerations of Death and Eternity Begun

Daily Meditations, or, Quotidian Preparations for and Considerations of Death and Eternity Begun

In contrast to many of today’s fundamentalist Christians, the Puritans were an especially literary lot, with much of their faith dependent on the careful study of religious texts, principally, of course, the Bible. The Puritans were great admirers of English poetry, particularly Francis Quarles and George Herbert, though they recoiled from the latter’s catholicity of themes and his rather frank expression of human emotion, which, in contrast to God’s will, was to the Puritans a condition of a flawed and fallen creature, given to the Devil’s temptations and other weaknesses of the flesh. The Puritans’ close study of biblical literature, as well as their composition of devotional poetry and elaborate orations and sermons, represented religious faith in action, a means of strengthening their moral resolve, and a way to obtain righteousness and to convey their devotion to God. Because of the relatively recent advent of widespread literacy and its consequent establishment of Protestantism and other forms of religious freedom, the study of the Bible was considered both blessing and responsibility. from the introduction by Eric Hoffman