In Remembrance

The American Puritan leaders were continually aware of the importance of memory to the success of their endeavor and to the people's spiritual health.  They had to remember where their fathers came from, why they came, God's gracious providences, and the consequences of disobedience.  Remembrance would develop in each new generation the correct sense of identity, thus propagating the pure, upright commonwealth originally envisioned.  Through its role in self-examination, remembrance purifies the heart of each individual. Further, memory prompts thanksgiving, which is God's proper due.

Stirring the memory, then, was a prominent purpose of the various forms of Puritan communication.  How else would the people remember, unless through words?  Where would they hear the words, unless from the pulpit or in forms appropriate for home and school reading?  As in the sermons, we see a focus on multi-generational memory in the Magnalia. 

In fact, Mather's Magnalia is itself a spiritual memorial, or, using Biblical terminology, an "Ebenezer."  This comes from Samuel's actions after an Israelite victory recorded in the book of I Samuel.  As a memorial to God, Samuel set up a stone and called it "Ebenezer," saying "Hitherto the Lord hath helped us."

Mather ends Book I of Magnalia with a sermon called "The Bostonian Ebenezer," which he sets up as a "stone" of remembrance for the town of Boston, saying "That a people whom the God of Heaven hath remarkably helped in their Distresses, ought greatly and gratefully to acknowledge what help of Heaven they have received."  In this wonderful, buoyant discourse, Mather exhorts Bostonians to give glory to God in the Lord Jesus Christ, particularly for Christ's sacrifice which "purchased for us all our help" and for the ministry of angels.  He encourages hope and piety among all the people.

He then enters directly into jeremiad form, based on another Biblical usage of a stone, in Joshua 24.  Joshua and the people had just renewed their covenant with God, so Joshua "took a great stone, and set it up....And Joshua said unto all the people, Behold, this stone shall be a witness unto us; for it hath heard all the words of the Lord which he spake unto us: it shall be therefore a witness unto you, lest ye deny your God."

Through this Bostonian sermon- and through the Magnalia as a whole- Mather sets up a "great stone" that unites the functions of the two Biblical stones.  The written words both memorialize God's goodness and serves as a witness against the actions of future generations in the covenant.