What the Lives of 5 Puritan Women Teach about Holy Living and Devotion to God The writings of the Puritans have had a recent resurgence, but many Puritan women have often been overlooked or misunderstood. As mothers, daughters, grandmothers, and wives, the vibrant faith of Puritan women has much to teach modern day readers. In 5 Puritan Women: Portraits of Faith and Love, Jenny-Lyn de Klerk shows how the lives and writings of Christian women encourage the beauty of holy living and provide practical wisdom for the home and the church. Each chapter portrays a different Puritan woman—Agnes Beaumont, Lucy Hutchinson, Mary Rich, Anne Bradstreet, and Lady Brilliana Harley—telling their stories of devotion, lament, and family. By studying their faith journeys, modern readers can learn more about their roles in church history and glean insights into the Christian life. Accessible Introduction: An affordable, easy-to-read format to introduce readers to the neglected writings of Puritan women Applicable: Explains the need for, and the value of, studying Puritan women today and highlights spiritual disciplines that these women demonstrate Women in Church History: Broadens the reader's understanding of women's roles in furthering God's kingdom throughout history Foreword by Karen Swallow Prior

This collection of essays by leading scholars in the field reveals the major contribution of puritan women to the intellectual culture of the early modern period. It demonstrates that women's roles within puritan and broader communities encompassed translating and disseminating key texts, producing an impressive body of original writing.

In her analysis of the cultural construction of gender in early America, Elizabeth Reis explores the intersection of Puritan theology, Puritan evaluations of womanhood, and the Salem witchcraft episodes. She finds in those intersections the basis for understanding why women were accused of witchcraft more often than men, why they confessed more often, and why they frequently accused other women of being witches. In negotiating their beliefs about the devil's powers, both women and men embedded womanhood in the discourse of depravity.Puritan ministers insisted that women and men were equal in the sight of God, with both sexes equally capable of cleaving to Christ or to the devil. Nevertheless, Reis explains, womanhood and evil were inextricably linked in the minds and hearts of seventeenth-century New England Puritans. Women and men feared hell equally but Puritan culture encouraged women to believe it was their vile natures that would take them there rather than the particular sins they might have committed.Following the Salem witchcraft trials, Reis argues, Puritans' understanding of sin and the devil changed. Ministers and laity conceived of a Satan who tempted sinners and presided physically over hell, rather than one who possessed souls in the living world. Women and men became increasingly confident of their redemption, although women more than men continued to imagine themselves as essentially corrupt, even after the Great Awakening.

In 5 Puritan Women: Portraits of Faith and Love, Jenny-Lyn de Klerk shows how the lives and writings of Agnes Beaumont, Lucy Hutchinson, Mary Rich, Anne Bradstreet, and Lady Brilliana Harley encourage the beauty of holy living and provide practical wisdom for the home and the church.

In this contribution to the study of women and religon, Westerkamp analyzes how the Holy Spirit empowered women inPurtanism and evangelicalism. she argues that "these women, socially and politically subordinate according to custom and law, expreinced the Holy Spirit during their lives and discoved their own charismatic authority." Focusing on prominent women, like A. Hutchinson, J. Lee, and N. Towle, Westerkamp explores the interactions between gendre and religion in Purtanism, the First Great Awakening, Methodism, and voluntary associations.

'Puritan' was originally a term of contempt, and 'Puritanism' has often been stereotyped by critics and admirers alike. As a distinctive and particularly intense variety of early modern Reformed Protestantism, it was a product of acute tensions within the post-Reformation Church of England. But it was never monolithic or purely oppositional, and its impact reverberated far beyond seventeenth-century England and New England. This Companion broadens our understanding of Puritanism, showing how students and scholars might engage with it from new angles and uncover the surprising diversity that fermented beneath its surface. The book explores issues of gender, literature, politics and popular culture in addition to addressing the Puritans' core concerns such as theology and devotional praxis, and coverage extends to Irish, Welsh, Scottish and European versions of Puritanism as well as to English and American practice. It challenges readers to re-evaluate this crucial tradition within its wider social, cultural, political and religious contexts.