And now you have an extraordinary Opportunity, a Day wherein Christ has flung the Door of Mercy wide open, and stands in the Door calling and crying with a loud Voice to poor Sinners; a Day wherein many are flocking to him, and pressing into the Kingdom of God; many are daily coming from the East, West, North and South; many that were very lately in the same miserable Condition that you are in, are in now an happy State, with their Hearts filled with Love to Him that has loved them and washed them for their Sins in his own Blood, and rejoycing in Hope of the Glory of God.

So Odious and Abominable is the Name of a Witch, to the Civilized, much more the Religious part of Mankind, that it is apt to grow up into a Scandal for any, so much as to enter some sober cautions against the over hasty suspecting, or too precipitant Judging of Persons on this account. But certainly, the more execrable the Crime is, the more critical care is to be used in the exposing of the Names, Liberties, and Lives of Men (especially of a Godly Conversation) to the imputation of it.

Colonial literature features these three types of religious writing: spiritual autobiographies, poetry, and sermons.

Puritans believed that God granted some people grace by changing their sinful human feelings into the ability to love purely. This belief inspired many Puritans to keep diaries to record signs that they were moving closer to a state of grace. Those who felt they had achieved grace often wrote of their experiences in spiritual autobiographies. One spiritual autobiography is John Bunyan's Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners (1666).

Religious poetry was also a part of Colonial literature. Edward Taylor and Anne Bradstreet wrote religious poetry. Bradstreet was the first woman poet in America who wrote of everyday experiences in terms of her deep belief in a loving God. One of her most famous poems is "Upon the Burning of Our House."

Finally, sermons were important in Colonial religious literature. "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God" by Cotton Mather is an example of a famous Colonial sermon.

Perhaps the most famous form of religious writing associated with the colonial period was the jeremiad. Jeremiads were usually sermons written by Puritan and Puritan-influenced ministers that decried the downfall or corruption of religious piety in society, and warned of terrible consequences (i.e. God's wrath) if people failed to reform their ways. Probably the most famous, and certainly the widest read jeremiad would be "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God" by Jonathan Edwards, though it is more a jeremiad in style than in content. Another possibility might be the "conversion narrative," which individuals were required to make before they were officially granted full membership in the Puritan church. Sometimes these narratives were published in newspapers. Captivity narratives, such as that of Mary Rowlandson, were also highly religious in nature and described an individual's experience while in captivity among the Indians. These, I would argue, fall under religious literature because the experience was usually framed as a test or a trial sent by God to remind the individual of the importance of piety. Rowlandson's captivity narrative, for example, was named The Soveraignty & Goodness of God, Together with the Faithfulness of His Promises Displayed; Being a Narrative of the Captivity and Restauration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson, a title that pretty neatly summarizes the tone and the message of the work.