The Biblical Meaning of Mather's Bradford

CBITlCISM THE BIBLICAL MEANING OF MATHER'S BRADFORD Thomas Steele, SJ. In the first paragraph of his biography of William Bradford in Magnolia Christi Americana, Cotton Mather tells the reader, "I will not relate the sad things of this kind then seen and felt by this people of God" (p. 109).x If praeteritio may be defined as the professorial figure of speech in which one claims that he will not describe something that he proceeds to describe, then this mention of the sorry plight of the Pilgrims in England launches a praeteritio of almost epic dimensions, for Mather devotes about four hundred words to telling what he is not going to tell us. This praeteritio is also a digression because it does not involve William Bradford; but despite its seeming irrelevance it is in fact a very important rhetorical device for placing Bradford in his proper perspective. Indeed, it is the principal aim of Mather's first paragraph to assert by rhetorical indirection Bradford's biblical meaning. In this digression Mather tells of a group of Separatists who assembled near Grimsby to flee Holland. When part of the group was on the Dutch ship they had hired, pursuivants arrived on shore and the master of the ship, "taking advantage of a fair wind then blowing, . . . put out to sea" (p. 109). After a brief description of the crowd of women and children left on shore while their husbands sailed off, Mather describes the voyage: The men at sea found reason to be glad that their families were not with them, for they were surprised with an horrible tempest, which held them for fourteen days together, in seven whereof they saw not the sun, moon or star, but were driven upon the coast of Norway. The mariners often despaired of life, and once with doleful shrieks gave over all, as thinking the vessel was foundred: but the vessel rose again, and when the mariners with sunk hearts often cried out, 'We sink! we sink!" the passengers, without such distraction of mind, even while the water was running into their mouths and ears, would cheerfully shout, "Yet Lord, thou canst save! Yet, Lord, thou canst save!" And the Lord accordingly brought them at last safe unto their desired haven: and not long after helped their distressed relations thither after them, where indeed they found upon almost all accounts a new world, but a world in which they found that they must live like strangers and pilgrims. Among those devout people was our William Bradford ... (p. 109, italics mine.) Quotations of Magnolia are taken from the Russell and Russell reprint (New York: 1967) of the 1855 edition (New Haven: Silas Andrus & Son). It is in two volumes; citations will be given by page numbers in the text of my article and will always refer to the first volume. 147 148RMMLA BulletinDecember 1970 Bradford himself, in his History of Plymouth Plantation, tells the story of the Grimsby encounter without saying that he was at all a part of the group.2 Mather later gives an account of his removal to Holland which indicates that he could not have been on the ship in the famous storm; and so the words Mather uses to return the reader to the thread of his story, "Among these devout people was our William Bradford," mean at most that he was one of the group left behind on the shore. But they probably do not even mean that. Mather's account of the storm at sea is taken from Bradford. Comparison of short passages from Bradford's version3 and from the Acts of the Apostles with the above quotation from Mather will indicate that both Puritan passages contain a great amount of half-submerged scriptural material: Ye Dutchman seeing yt, swore his countries oath, "sacramente," and having ye wind faire, waiged his Ancor, hoysed sailes, & away. (Bradford) And when the south wind blew sofdy, supposing that they had obtained their purpose, loosing thence, they sailed close by Crete. (Acts 27:13) And afterwards endured a fearfull storme at sea. (Bradford) But not long after there arose against it a tempestuous wind. (Acts 27:14) Being 14. days or more before...