The Practice of Piety: Puritan Devotional Disciplines in Seventeenth Century New England

by Charles E. Hambrick-Stowe

A moving and vivid account of what it meant to be a Puritan, this account draws on diaries, spiritual biographies, and devotional manuals to explore the daily and weekly ritual and discipline. The devotional movement was at the heart of Puritanism, and the spiritual pilgrimage was the soul's progress from birth to death to rebirth and eternal glory. Puritan worship brought together college student and illiterate farmer, giving coherence to the community.

Genres: History, Religion, Theology

Paperback

First published January 1, 1982

Reviews

[Scott Bielinski · Rating 4 out of 5]

To the modern social imagination, the Puritans were a repulsive, intolerant, and rigid bunch. Marked by exceptional misanthropy, an obsession with hell, and debilitating anxiety about sex and this worldly life, the Puritans are almost universally despised. For many historians, the Puritans were possessed only of a sense of self-superiority, whose lives were as arid as the doctrine they clutched with their pale-white hands.

This is, of course, a modern myth. As is her custom, Marilynne Robinson charmingly summarizes this social phenomenon for us: “Very simply, it is a great example of our collective eagerness to disparage without knowledge or information about the thing disparaged, when the reward is the pleasure of sharing an attitude one knows is socially approved. And it demonstrates how effectively such consensus can close off a subject from inquiry.” Fortunately, though, not all lines of inquiry have been cut off.

Hambrick-Stowe’s work represents one such line of inquiry, demonstrating that Puritanism was, above all, a religion of the heart: “Personal religious experience was at the heart of Puritanism” (53). To this end, Hambrick-Stowe surveys a genuinely impressive swath of the Puritans’ material culture, attending especially to the metaphors of the spiritual life (especially that of “pilgrim”), and how the Puritans sought to devote themselves (personally and collectively) to the glory of God. Particularly striking for me was the regular practice of “private conferences,” wherein New Englanders would gather to take spiritual responsibility for their friends and family and endeavor to encourage one another with rich, biblical truths. The chapter on private devotions has an exceptional section on meditation: “If any aspect of New England devotional practice was characteristically (though not uniquely Puritan, it was that of meditative self-examination . . . Such meditation led the saint into prayers of thanksgiving” (175). Private devotions were exercises of lives in union with Christ, responses of deep gratitude and desire for God.

I have a relatively high tolerance for “dry reading,” though, to be candid, this one tested that tolerance. The book also lags a bit as it approaches its final chapters. It’ll take a bit of plugging away to work through this one, but it is an important volume that helps to disabuse us of our doomed and puritanical assumptions about the Puritans.

To be sure, they weren’t perfect. But they’re certainly not the rigid, sex-obsessed, doctrinaires they’re often made out to be. Hambrick-Stowe closes by reminding us: “In Puritan devotion the highest relationship of the soul to Christ was that of the lover” (289). They were, above all, lovers of God, who relished their acute sense that they served a God who truly and dearly loved them.

[Gregory · Rating 4 out of 5]

An essential study for understanding the New England Puritan movement.

[Ben Chapman · Rating 4 out of 5]

The final chapter on Cotton Mather and his daily devotional habits is worth the price of the book.

[Brian · Rating 5 out of 5]

The title may not do any thing for you, but the book turns out to be a great read and a valuable insight into Puritan life. One glimpses a way of life far different from the fictional caricatures we often think of when the word "Puritan" is uttered. This would be a great reference for pastors and historians, especially those interested in American History. Indeed, the book was a winner of the Jamestown Prize for early American History.

[Anne · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is my go-to book on Puritan devotional disciplines in 17th-Century New England. A very important topic for those of us writing about, well, 17th-Century Puritan ministers really, really into devotional disciplines. Among other things.