SOURCE: Ahluwalia, Harshapan Singh. “Salvation New England Style: A Study of Covenant Theology in Michael Wigglesworth's The Day of Doom.” Indian Journal of American Studies 4, no. 1-2 (June and December 1974): 1-12.

[In this essay, Ahluwalia compares Wigglesworth's theology as expressed in the Day of Doom to the school of Covenant Theology articulated first by William Perkins.]

Perhaps no poem in American literature has been so much ridiculed as Michael Wigglesworth's The Day of Doom (1662). Whereas the modern reader finds the doomsday verses “smoking with hell-fire and brimstone theology,”¹ Wigglesworth's contemporaries “perfumed their breath”² with them. The poem was a best-seller for a century and ran into at least ten editions before 1760.³ It was so important in American cultural history that in the early years of the nineteenth century there could still be found persons who could repeat nearly all of it by heart. They knew very well the purpose for which the poem was written: “edification” (according to Cotton Mather⁴), or “to set forth truth and win men's souls to bliss” (in the opinion of Jonathan Mitchell⁵). It was the same purpose for which one went to hear a sermon: to learn how to achieve salvation. When Wigglesworth's health failed while at Malden church, he could not preach for seven years; so he turned to verse to serve the Lord and “teach the sons of men thy [Lord's] ways.”⁶ He wanted to shake the readers out of “carnal security” by dramatizing the Day of Judgment and leading them to the path of salvation. The purpose of this essay is to examine Michael Wigglesworth's theology in The Day of Doom in the context of seventeenth century New England Puritanism.

Covenant Theology, a modified form of Calvinism, was the foundation of Puritanism in New England. Although the Puritans were intellectual conservatives, they were forced to develop new doctrines to counteract the “heresies” in other Calvinist sects. Notably, they had to answer for themselves the glaring question left by Calvin's doctrine of Predestination: if man is predestined to either salvation or perdition, why should he trouble himself about his conduct on earth? Arminians had answered by rejecting Predestination in favor of free will: man attained salvation progressively through good works and a virtuous life. Antinomians, on the other hand, expected God's grace to do all. The Covenant Theology was midway between the positions of Antinomianism and Arminianism; it “held to both the grace and the consent, to the decree of God and the full responsibility of man, to assurance in spite of sin and morality in spite of assurance.”⁷

The Covenant of Grace, which was the special feature of Covenant Theology, was first popularized by the English theologian William Perkins in the 1590's and developed chiefly by William Ames and John Preston in the early seventeenth century. It substituted for divine decree as a basis for election the idea of “contractual” relationship between God and man, which man's reason can comprehend. It was held that God promised Adam and his posterity eternal life in exchange for absolute obedience. When Adam broke this Covenant (the Covenant of Works), he incurred punishment as a legal responsibility for himself and his posterity. However, God, of his sovereign, arbitrary, and gracious free will, instituted a new Covenant called the Covenant of Grace by which man was promised hope of eternal life providing only that he had full faith in Christ who “satisfied” the Covenant of Works and would intercede for man. Faith, the condition of the Covenant, meant total commitment to Christ. It meant not simply believing in Christ but struggling for holiness. According to Perry Miller,

… sanctification was not expected to follow upon justification automatically, it was not left for God to work while the man stood idly by, but the will was enlisted and pledged, according to the stipulation, to see that all the faculties bestirred themselves. The covenanted saint does not supinely believe, but does the best he can, and God will not hold his failures against him, … Hence they are convenated to sainthood, not forced into it, and they are to be saved for trying not for succeeding, whereas the reprobate are eternally damned, not for failing, but for not trying.⁸

Man's endeavors—not his successes—become important in Covenant Theology. At the same time man can do good works only when God's Grace is on him; they are not the cause of salvation but the sign of God's Grace. That is why “the declaring of God's manner of working upon the soul” became the test of admission to New England churches, as formulated in the Cambridge Platform (1648).⁹

It cannot be overemphasized that God granted this compact out of his own free will, and that it was a sign of both His divine authority and His mercy. At least for the first generation it would be blasphemous to think of man's rights in the Covenant. It would be distorting the Covenant idea by reducing it to purely such “contractual” terms as “God would do his part if man did his.” Worse still to bring the idea of equality, even as a metaphor.¹⁰ It was the utter kindness of an absolute and sovereign God to give the Covenant to man whereas he deserved eternal punishment because God wanted man's happiness—the end for which he was created.

Although the Covenant of Grace was the part of the doctrine most thoroughly expounded in the seventeenth century, the doctrine of election nevertheless was assumed to be an integral part of Puritan theology. It was expounded as follows: after breaking the terms of the Covenant of Works and forfeiting salvation, men had no reason to expect mercy from God in the punishment to which they were doomed. But from the beginning of the world, God had predetermined to bring back a certain number of fallen men to eternal happiness. Election was not a reward for man's goodness, nor was reprobation an act of justice in punishing him for sin. Election was never taught as depending upon God's foresight of good and evil in man; it was solely to manifest the glory of His Grace. Election was most precious to all who sincerely believed themselves to be chosen. Since by the terms of the Covenant of Grace, God assured salvation to all who fulfilled the imposed condition of faith, hence the emphasis, among the Covenant professors, was felt to be rather upon the ability of all to be saved than upon God's predetermined election of a select few. The Cambridge Platform, therefore, expected two things in church members: “Repentance from sin and faith in Jesus Christ.”¹¹ Men were never allowed to lose sight of the fact that God's Grace would have been wonderfully manifested had He saved but one of Adam's posterity. Yet he did infinitely more by extending restitution to a multitude. Though no man could tell how many would share the gracious privilege of salvation (since God reserved it as a secret to be known by men only upon the day of doom), yet men were given to understand that there would be a very great congregation of the Blessed Ones.

The word “Covenant” does not actually occur in The Day of Doom but the synonymous metaphors of “buying” felicity, “winning” heaven, “turning” to God, “willing” to accept, “improving” talents, etc., are very common in it. In fact, the poem is built around the “covenant” idea of a judge awarding heaven or hell on the basis of man's willing choices and efforts. In order to consider the theology of Wigglesworth, we should examine the patterns of conduct of the regenerate and the unregenerate in the poem and see how they won or lost heaven. We should also study the method of winning Grace as outlined in “A Postscript unto the Reader.”

As in Covenant Theology, both predestination and human responsibility are accepted in Wigglesworth's theology. At the time of justification of the saints, Christ seems to divide them into two classes: “These Men be those my Father chose before the world's foundation” (st. 40) and “But as for those whom I have chose Salvations heirs to be” (st. 44). The distinction between God and Christ is clearly made here (if not in the rest of the poem) and is emphasized by the parallel construction, and the word “But” and the phrase “as for.” An equal number of stanzas (four each) is devoted to each of the categories. They are later called “Blessed Ones” (st. 48) and are placed on the thrones to join Christ in judging the wicked.

The first category of the saints is elected by God before the world's foundation. Their salvation, however, was merited by Christ. It is for their “dear sake” he took flesh and underwent his “Fathers ire.” The “chosen Generation” of the elect is from every nation. The strictly Calvinistic idea that Grace is unmerited is clear from the following lines.

What if ere-while they were as vile
          and bad as any be,
And yet from all their guilt and thrall
          at once I set them free?

(st. 42)

God's Grace is a free gift, and no one can bind God to elect him:

My grace to one is wrong to none:
          none can Election claim,
Amongst all those their souls that lose,
          none can Rejection blame.
He that may chuse, or else refuse,
          all men to save or spill,
May this Man chuse, and that refuse
          redeeming whom he will.

(st. 43)

The idea of free Grace is repeated even more eloquently in 4 stanzas (177-180) in reply to the argument of the little children that they should not be punished for Adam's fall especially because Adam, “the chief offender,” has found Grace. Enraged Christ says that Grace ceases to be Grace if it is not free. It is his, and how can they demand what he wants to bestow only on some? How does it injure others and why should they grudge the happiness of the elect? He questions

Will you teach me whom to set free,
          and thus my grace confine?

(st. 179)

God's method of bestowing Grace on the elect is mysterious and beyond human understanding. The ones “chosen” by Christ, on the other hand, are those who have gained a part in Christ's dessert by true and unfeigned faith. This is according to the Covenant of Grace. That their faith is true and vital, and that they themselves struggled to walk on the path of righteousness is proved by

Their penitence, their Patience,
          their Love and Self-denial
In suffering losses, and bearing Crosses,
          when put upon the tryal.

(st. 145)

Wigglesworth emphasized this variety of the regenerate who won Grace by avoiding sin and by having total understanding and love of Christ. Even “the sheep” who stand on Christ's right hand before the judgment starts are mainly those who had faith in their lifetime. There are four classes here according to the strength of their faith. First, standing like champions, are his holy Martyrs (st. 22). who suffered “shame, calamity and woe,” and gave their blood to testify their faith. It was their “innocence without offence” which appealed to their judge. God put them to trial and they did not compromise with evil and sin. Next to them are the “Christ's afflicted ones” (st. 33) who were turned to God by his rod; they neither quarrelled with God for it nor sank amidst their groans. On the other hand, they loved God all the more when He chastised them. Thirdly, “they're counted sheep also” who “loved [Christ] much” though they were ready to bear the cross when Christ called them to (st. 24). Lastly, there was the “Christ's flock of Lambs” whose “Faith was weak, yet true”; whose “Grace was small, but grew.” They were “sound Believers” whose faith was weak and doubts sometimes troubled them. This class of the regenerates must be very big; it seems that Michael Wigglesworth would have included himself in it as he himself was much disturbed by doubts.¹² The Cambridge Platform encouraged this class, for it says:

The weakest measure of faith is to be accepted in those that desire to be admitted into the church because weak Christians if sincere, have the substance that faith repentance and holiness which is required in church members; & such have most need of the ordinances for their confirmation & growth in grace. The Lord, Jesus would not quench the smoaking flax, nor breake the bruised reed, but gather the tender lambes in his arms, and carry them gently in his bosome.¹³

A throng of young infants is also included in this group whom Christ sanctified “by ways unknown to men” (st. 25).

Throughout the poem there is the idea that the sinners who are damned, themselves refused Grace: they lost eternal happiness by not loving Christ and by leading a sinful life on earth. Christ upbraids them for “means rejected” (st. 61) of God's love and his long suffering and penitence. He asks the reason

Of Grace refused, of light abus'd
          so oft, so wilfully:
Of Talents lent by them mispent,
          and on their Lust bestown;
Which if improv'd, as it behov'd,
Hav'n might have been their own!

(st. 60)

The biblical ideas of “talent” lent and of keeping the lamp ready are important in the poem. It was only in their lifetime that the sinners could have improved the Grace present in them, but now, on Doom's day, they must bear the consequences of leading a sinful life and rejecting Christ's Grace which was always there.

The theme of human effort and predestination gets clearer as the various defendants explain how they lived and what their attitudes were and then learn from Christ what had gone wrong. The doctrine of good works as a means of salvation is totally and uncompromisingly rejected in reply to the pleas of the “hypocrites” and “Civil honest Men.” Without right motives and without total faith in Christ, all works are empty shows. Human effort must be accompanied by contrition, humiliation and love for Christ.

Hypocrites are of three kinds. There are the ministers who helped the afflicted and converted many sinners by their powerful sermons, but Christ asks them why they did not make efforts to repent their sins and to grow in the true faith they preached. To the second group of hypocrites who say that they participated in the Lord's Supper very often, Christ replies that they deserve perdition because they abused the sacrament by approaching the table without proper preparation—without admitting their vileness and honestly vowing to forego the world and evil desires:

Your fancies fed on heav'nly Bread
          your hearts fed on some Lust:
You lov'd the Creature more than th' Creator,
          your Souls clave to the dust.

(st. 79)

Wigglesworth has full faith in the Sacrament of the Last Supper; it is the “Strengthening Seal”; and

… which whoso prize
and carefully improve
Shall saved be undoubtedly,
          and nothing shall them move.

(st. 77)

The third group of hypocrites admit that they are sinners and deserve condemnation but they make a plea that they depended upon Christ for the “whole Salvation.” They lived a pious life of praying, fasting, and hearing the Word of God. Christ exposes their hypocrisy by pointing out that their show of piety was not the result of total and affirmative love for Him but of the negative fear of eternal punishment, and secondly, it was aimed at winning the praise of men. Self-love ends in self-love; it does not lead to anything higher.

If hypocrites performed good works in religion, the “Civil honest Men” did them in their dealings with other human beings. They are told that good actions are only a part of the debt that they owed; besides “True Piety” and honesty, there must be “perfect Obedience” (st. 97). God takes delight in true Faith and without it, all actions are “but barren empty things.” The intention of man's good deeds is pride and self-righteousness:

You thought to scale Heav'ns lofty Wall
          by Ladders of your own.
Your blinded spirit, hoping to merit
          by your own Rightousness
Needed no Saviour, but your Behaviour,
          and blameless carriages;
You trusted to what you could do
          and in no need you stood:
Your haughty pride laid me aside
          and trampled on my Blood.

(st. 101-2)

Good deeds are thus only “sins guilt [guilded] over” (st. 105).

There is a point at which Wigglesworth has to defend the doctrine of Predestination and also maintain the need of human exertion in the same breath. A fine balance between the two is achieved. Every theologian of the seventeenth century reconciled God's sovereignty with man's efforts. Increase Mather in his sermon “Predestination and Human Exertions” seems to be paraphrasing Wigglesworth. But the modern reader finds the doctrine beyond comprehension. A crowd of sinners make a plea that they could not help transgressing because they were rejected by God. Their efforts would have been lost if they had tried to win Grace because, as they say,

Of Man's fall'n Race, who can true Grace,
          or Holiness obtain?
Who can convert or change his heart,
          if God withold the same?

(st. 146)

Christ lays the blame on the men themselves who are now rejected not from predestination but from their breaking of the immutable laws. Salvation is a mystery, for God had linked “end” and “means” which man should not try to separate. Surely God will give means to someone he wants to save and refuse them to the one he wants to pass by, but he had ordered that man's willing consent must also be there. It is “man's free-will electing ill, [which] shall bring his will to pass” (st. 148). God does not force men to Hell by making him choose ill. In fact, his Grace is free and men must make an effort to get it in order to save their souls.

God did ordain sinners to pain
          and I to Hell send none,
But such as Swerv'd, and have deserv'd
          destruction as their own.
His pleasure is, that none from bliss
          and endless happiness
Be barr'd, but such as wrong'd him much
          by wilful wickedness.

To the argument that men condemned before birth had no power to repent, to break their hearts, or to divert their wills, Christ replies that it was not man's potentiality which condemned him, but his own determination (i.e., his own decision) to do evil, not good.

Not for his Can is any man
          adjudged unto Hell:
But for his Will to do what's ill,
          and nilling to do well.

(st. 153)

It would have paid them to seek mercy during life but they did not. Nobody has ever been refused salvation who sought it as it should be sought.

The lowly meek who truly seek
          for Christ, and for Salvation,
There's no Decree whereby such be
          ordain'd to condemnation.

(st. 152)

Since men do not know who are among the elect, they must try to achieve Grace which is freely given by Christ. One who does not try cannot say that God rejected him.

All excuses against human effort are contemptuously rejected. To those who say that they died young and could not repent (though they had the desire to), Christ replies that any short period of time was enough “to turn from evil, defie the Devil, and upon God to call” (st. 109). In reply to those who urge that they were misled by the examples of the regenerate (the Visible Saints), Christ reminds them that they looked to the offences of the Saints and not to the fact that “They did repent, and truly rent their hearts for all known sin.” The defendants did not care to imitate the “holiness” and “grace” of the Saints. They did not even “once prepar'd your [their] hearts to seek my face” (st. 120).

Damnation of the infants who died before they had the opportunity to do good or evil is for the Original Sin. The fall was not only Adam's trespass but theirs too, for he was the “publick Head” and the “common root” (st. 127). Adam's Sin was typical of human nature:

Had you been made in Adam's stead,
          you would like things have wrought
and so into self-same wo,
          your selves and yours have brought.

(st. 176)

They are sinners and must be punished.

Yet to compare your sin with their
          who liv'd a longer time,
I do confess yours is much less,
          though every sin's a crime.

(st. 180)

Since their punishment is solely because of Adam's sin (they did not have time to commit wickedness on earth), Christ allows them “the easiest room in the Hell” (st. 181). But there were some young infants who were among the saved (st. 25). Richard Crowder¹⁴ interprets those infants as the ones who had been fortunate enough to be baptized before death had taken them away from their families, while the damned infants are those who were either still-born or had died before baptism. The interpretation is reasonable enough in the light of Wigglesworth's view of the Lord's Supper.

It is in the “Postscript” that Wigglesworth directly sermonizes on the nature of man's soul and how it can be saved from eternal damnation. Created after the image of God, it could soar on the “Wings of Noblest Faculties” and understand the secrets of heaven. Since its fall, it still retains those faculties of reason and will but they are very much depraved and out of frame. The present situation of man is:

Thine understanding dismally benighted,
And Reason's eye in Sp'ritual things Dim-lighted.
Or else stark blind: Thy will inclin'd to evil,
And nothing else, a Slave unto the Devil,
That loves to live, and lives to transgress
But shuns the way of God and Holiness.
All thine Affections are disordered;
And thou by head-strong Passions are misled.

(ll. 20-28)

By daily “wicked wand'rings” and innumerable “transgressions” man has become a “lump of wickedness.” To the original sin and other criminal faults, he has added the “damning sin of wilful unbelief” (1.83).

He deserves God's wrath and eternal punishment on the day of judgment. He can be saved by having full faith in Christ who satisfied God's justice by paying with his life for man's sin.

… thy soul be washed in the flood
Of Christ's most dear, soul-cleansing precious blood.
That, only that, can pacify God's wrath,
If apprehended by a lively Faith, …

(ll. 35-40)

The word “flood” shows the infinite redeeming capacity of Christ. But the “means of Grace” and “opportunity” (ll. 41, 42) are available only in a lifetime. Man continues in the state in which he dies. If he wastes his life and dies in sin, unbelief, and impenitence, he rises in the same state on the Judgment Day; if he dies “happy,” he shall rise again “happy” (l. 159). Christ knocks at man's door and offers him Grace, which he bought dearly, free, but man rejects the Saviour. Death takes him unaware and he cannot repent and make peace with God. Eternity depends upon that one small point: What is your spiritual state at the time of death?

From line 305 to the end of the “Postscript,” there is a tone of urgency. Wigglesworth directly addresses the reader (“You”) and teaches him the way to “seek the face of God” and achieve redemption. The method is contrition, humiliation, and faith. First you must acknowledge your depravity and recognize your desserts, eternal wrath (ll. 306-7). But you must fully understand that God, if he so pleases, can forgive your sins. God saves all those who have faith in Christ. Even if your sins are crimson red, Christ's blood can cleanse them thoroughly. But man's heart is unbelieving and hinders his becoming a part in Christ. Man cannot have total commitment to Christ and lead a life of holiness till God is pleased to show His Grace. So tell Him

That though Salvation may be had for naught
Thou canst not come and take it till thou'rt brought.

(ll. 333-34)

You must have faith in Christ's power to “bow thy stubborn will” to come to him. Wait with “diligence” for his “call.”

Thus weep and mourn, thus hearken, pray, and wait,
Till he behold and pitty thine estate;
Who is more ready to bestow his Grace
Than thou the same art willing to imbrace;
Yea, he hath Might enough to bring thee home,
Though thou hast neither strength nor will to come

(ll. 345-50)

If he delays to answer your request, do not lose hope, but persevere in begging his Grace. If God hears your cries and forgives your great sins, you have appeased his anger: “And in his Christ he with thee [is] well pleas'd” (1. 388). God has become your Father and your Friend and he shall “bear thy Soul in Everlasting Armes” (1. 395).

To conclude, the pattern of redemption outlined in the Covenant Theology is perfectly embodied by Michael Wigglesworth in The Day of Doom. It becomes vivid and alive in the drama of the poem. The balance between predestination and human exertion is carefully achieved. Although some men are predestined to be saved irrespective of their deserts, other people can also win salvation by true faith blessed by God's Grace. Faith implies understanding and total commitment to Christ. Man must wage a constant war against sin; he must confess sin and totally reject it from his life; and, further, he must make an effort to lead a life of honesty and piety. Then he should beg for God's Grace which is not denied to anyone; sacraments are the seals of Grace. Man must willingly choose the path of holiness after turning away from that of wickedness and sin. One who really tries to seek God finds Him and lives in His Presence here and hereafter. God never refuses the prayers of the faithful.

Notes

1. Harvey Wish, Society and Thought in Early America (New York: 1950), p. 58.

2. Edward Taylor in the elegy on his wife writes, “The Doomsday Verses much perfum'de her Breath.” Quoted in The Poems of Edward Taylor, ed. Donald E. Stanford (New Haven: 1960), p. xlix.

3. Robert Spiller, et al., Literary History of the United States (New York: 1963), p. 63.

4. Quoted in F. O. Matthiessen, “Michael Wigglesworth, A Puritan Artist,” New England Quarterly, I (1928), p. 492.

5. Matthiessen, p. 492.

6. Michael Wigglesworth, The Day of Doom, ed. Kenneth Murdock (New York: 1929), p. 8. All further references to the poem are from this edition.

7. Perry Miller, The New England Mind: The Seventeenth Century (Cambridge: 1954), p. 389.

8. Miller, pp. 383-84.

9. The Cambridge Platform, the basic statement of New England Congregationalism until the adoption of Saybrook Platform in 1708, was drafted by Richard Mather, adopted by a church synod at Cambridge (1648), and printed as A Platform of Church Discipline in 1649.

10. See Miller and Johnson, The Puritans, p. 58. Miller here and in The New England Mind seems to emphasize the “contractual idea” a little more strongly than is warranted by the facts.

11. Williston Walker, The Creeds and Platforms of Congregationalism (Boston: 1960), p. 222.

12. For Wigglesworth's self-doubts and cries over his inability to turn to God, see The Diary of Michael Wigglesworth 1653-1657, ed. Edmund S. Morgan (New York: 1946). These doubts are also analysed in Richard Crowder, No Featherbed to Heaven: A Biography of Michael Wigglesworth, 1631-1705 (Ann Arbor: 1962). Crowder also notes that many times Wigglesworth was attacked by heretical ideas, sins of self-sufficiency, and prides and he had to make real effort to crush these “devouring Lyons.” According to Crowder the struggle between faith and good works continued in his mind: “He could not reconcile himself to a heaven where he would simply gaze and adore. What he wanted was action. Oh, that Arminian doctrine of efficacy of works!” (p. 68). See also p. 51. But in the poem itself there is no such struggle; rather there is a fine balance between the two. He was preaching the official Covenant doctrine.

13. Walker, p. 222.

14. Crowder, pp. 163, 167.