Cotton Mather, a prominent Puritan minister from Boston during the late 17th and early 18th centuries, was the furthest thing from a science advocate. Deeply conservative, he argued in defense of the ...

Rick Kennedy rewrites the reputation of a reviled Puritan leader. If we remember the Puritan pastor Cotton Mather at all these days, we’re likely to think of him as a meddling, moralistic hypocrite.

Cotton Mather’s response to an outbreak in his community was inspired by Onesimus’s life story. Perhaps no American community is as polemic as the Puritans. One of its biggest personalities was Cotton ...

Click to open image viewer. CC0 Usage Conditions ApplyClick for more information. The son of influential Puritan minister Increase Mather, Cotton Mather belonged to the Puritan dynasty that shaped the ...

If one were to cite the name of the famous Puritan divine Cotton Mather, theologians and clergy would generally roll their eyes in horror. The Rev. Cotton Mather was, after all, the famous preacher ...

To modern taste, he displays also a depth and fineness of character such as Cotton Mather never dreamed of. He was preëminently modest, — the one truly modest Mather, — no talker, and in appearance ...

In 1716, the great New England clergyman Cotton Mather gave a sermon in Boston on a popular virtue of the day. Preaching on Romans 13:8—which reads, in part, “Owe no man any thing”—Mather urged that ...

The Chicago Reader is back in print! Our February issue is being delivered to more than 600 locations across the city beginning February 4. Find the closest newspaper box, coffee shop, bar, library ...