The election sermon owes much of its fame, at least in literary circles, to Hawthorne, and The Scarlet Letter has traditionally offered a convenient avenue into the battles between individual desire and communal obligation as they were played out in Puritan culture.(FN2) The election sermon was, as Hawthorne reimagine it in the novel, a formal, annual religious oration delivered on the only official holiday in New England, and served as a testament to the social responsibilities of each Puritan in the commonwealth. It was the centerpiece of election-day festivities and the most public of all forums in the colony.(FN3) Yet for all of Hawthorne's insights into his Puritan heritage, and for all of his knowledge of New England tradition, his novel does not encompass the rhetorical interplay between the private and the public in seventeenth-century religion and politics. Only the election sermon proper can offer us the pathway into these crucial issues.

By reviewing earlier election sermons in their historical context, we can see how much Mather's rhetorical strategies significantly differ from those of previous practitioners in the genre. Prior to Increase Mather's sermon of 1693, the election-sermon tradition had enjoyed a long history as the premier public forum for clergymen to voice their views about colonial politics. It began in 1634 after problems had occurred in the election proceedings. In 1632, the deputies (the lower house of the legislature) insisted that they elect the magistrates and the gubernatorial officers; previously, only the magistrates (the upper house) had the privilege of electing the lieutenant governor and governor (Winthrop 1: 90). Governor John Winthrop initially acceded to their demands, but over the next two years took steps to restrain the "democratic" tendencies of the deputies. (FN6) In 1634, he and the General Court invited John Cotton to deliver a sermon at the General Court of Elections in an effort to check the political ambitions and legislative aspirations of the deputies. As Winthrop explains in his Journal, Cotton cautioned the deputies to exercise restraint in choosing new political leaders: "Mr. Cotton preached that a magistrate ought not to be turned into the condition of a private man without just cause, and to be publicly convict, no more than the magistrates may not turn a private man out of his freehold, etc., without like public trial" (Winthrop 1:157). So as not to disrupt the social harmony of the Bay colony, Cotton urged the deputies to restrain themselves from electing new political leaders each year. He also called for the reelection of Winthrop as governor. His explicit endorsement of a candidate was ineffective the deputies chose Thomas Dudley instead but the election-sermon tradition was born as a clerical effort to resist the democratization of the voting process and to pronounce publicly the nature and function of colonial politics (Winthrop 1:157).

The election-sermon tradition continued throughout the seventeenth century with the ministers commenting on such concerns as religious reformation, the Half-Way Covenant, and declension from New England's original mission. (FN7) These jeremiads implicitly magnify the office of the minister and reassert his powers within the community. (FN8) In the often-cited premier example of the genre, Samuel Danforth's 1670 election sermon Errand into the Wilderness, Danforth returns to the original mission of the Puritan founders to remind his auditors of their commitment to each other as a covenanted people while simultaneously elevating the status of the ministers. Danforth begins his sermon by lauding the virtues of John the Baptist and then compares him to other "figures," namely Old Testament prophets and New England ministers. This technique allows Danforth to use John the Baptist as an exemplum for the community; the prophet recalls the errand of New England and prophesizes its future (Danforth 6). (FN9) Sacvan Bercovitch has remarked that this prophetic recollection allows New England to forever progress; even when Danforth condemns his generation for not living up to the errand of their ancestors, he foretells of a more optimistic future (Bercovitch, American Jeremiad 12-15). But this progressiveness and optimism is only one feature of Danforth's sermon. After all, Danforth's progression leads to the New England ministers and places them at the center of his encomium. The ministers themselves are to be celebrated for their extraordinary deeds: "The least Prophet in the Kingdome of Heaven, i.e., the least Minister of the Gospel since Christ's Ascension, is greater than John, not in respect of the measure of his personal gifts, nor in respect in the manner of his Calling, but in respect of his Ministry" (Danforth 4). Danforth seems to be careful not to give the minister too great a role; they supersede John the Baptist not because of their own "personal gifts," but because they have a fuller understanding of Christ's ministry having witnessed more of Christ's accomplishments. Nevertheless, Danforth is still elevating the role of the New England minister; his figural progression leads to himself and his fellow clergymen. He also suggests that the Puritan ministers have a greater understanding of Christ, even though they, unlike John the Baptist, never saw the Messiah in the flesh.

In Cotton Mather's two election sermons at the end of the century, he gestures toward a more personal approach as well. His 1689 election sermon, The Way to Prosperity, does briefly mention the colonists' overthrow of royal governor Edmund Andros, but it does not address the central political issue of his day whether to ratify the 1685 government or to create a new provisional government. He does explain that the revolt against the Dominion prompted his sermon: "It was in the time of our greatest heats and straits ... that the ensuing sermon was expected from me" (C. Mather, Way 118). But his emphasis eventually turns to the declaration he personally drafted to secure the overthrow; he even includes a portion of the declaration.(FN10) His sermon of 1690 presents his even more personal views of Andros's government and devotes much of its attention to the "serviceable man," a minister like himself or, most especially, his father. According to Mather, the troubles New England has experienced result from Andros's policy of "liberty of conscience," his opening the doors of Third Church to Anglican services, as well as the colonists' lack of attention to "venerable persons" of the colony, most especially many "Excellent Ministers who have been wonderfully serviceable" to the people (C. Mather, Serviceable 43). The "serviceable man" is someone like Nehemiah who "had addressed the King, on the behalf of his Ruined Country-men," and who "had undergone a Travel of many Leagues to promote their Safety" (C. Mather, Serviceable 6). Although Nehemiah was a civil ruler who introduced administrative reforms during the restoration of the Jewish monarchy, Cotton Mather is most clearly speaking about his father, a member of the clergy, who had traveled to England to acquire a new charter for the Bay colony. Even more than his 1689 sermon, The Serviceable Man implores the congregation to recognize such prominent, representative figures: the colonists should always "Entreat [their] Fathers in the ministry," for they have a "singular Advantage to serve and save this people" (C. Mather, Serviceable 47, 55-56). (FN11)

Increase Mather's 1693 election sermon is the most personal of all the election sermons in the tradition. This turn to more private thoughts is especially important given the immediate historical circumstances that would presumably inform his sermon. The Massachusetts Bay colony had lost its charter nine years before Mather delivered his sermon, resulting in an array of confusing governing bodies. Pressured by colonial policy makers, the "Lords of Trade," and by a commercial inspector, Edward Randolph, the Court of Chancery canceled the Bay charter in 1684. The colonists had no charter and no official government for two years. Under the direction of Joseph Dudley's interim government, from May until August of 1686, they were unable to introduce legislation or enforce laws within their own colony. And shortly afterward, under the royal governor Edmund Andros, they could not elect any representatives in the legislative or judicial branches. In April of 1689, the colonists revolted against Andros, imprisoned him along with Randolph and Dudley, and drafted a temporary, but not politically sanctioned, Council of Safety. The Council lasted for two years, until the monarchy granted the colonists a relatively unpopular new charter under the direction of a royally appointed governor, Sir William Phips. (FN12)

Increase Mather does not emphasize these radical changes in government in his election sermon, unlike earlier ministers who at least attempted to address these kinds of conflicts. Mather expands upon the personalizing tone of his son's rhetoric by referring even less to the numerous conflicts in Puritan culture and by emphasizing in an autobiographical manner (rather than the biographical mode of his son) his own personal problems. Swift changes in power in the Bay colony, from self-appointed colonial administrators through royal appointees Joseph Dudley, Edmund Andros, and William Phips, are less important to Mather than the various conflicts he faced when negotiating for the charter. He is not concerned at all with Edward Randolph's complex relationship to the Bay magistrates, the Court of Chancery, and the Lords of Trade; he is not interested in the monarchical shift in power from James II to William and Mary; and he devotes none of his sermon to the constant religious influx between Puritanism, Anglicanism, and the radical spiritism not endorsed by either one. (FN13) Mather's sermon marks a pronounced change in the minister's approach to and function within colonial politics. He creates a long sermon preface not indicative of the conflicting social currents, but shaped instead as a coherent history of personal and social problems. In many ways, the sermon preface seems to be a sustained defense of his actions as a negotiator in England. It is problematic for two reasons: the preface doesn't introduce the forthcoming sermon; and it frequently turns away from the social issues and toward a more personal confession of Mather's own difficulties in colonial negotiations.

By designing the preface as a personal presentation, rather than as an introduction to the sermon proper, Mather simultaneously elevates and distances himself from his fellow Puritans. To write a traditional election sermon introduction, he would have to limn the current problems in the colony and then concentrate them into a singular proposal that would effectively launch the sermon. In effect, he would have to retrieve the social, political, and religious issues and then resolve (or at least integrate) them before he began. We might think that Mather simply does not have the skill to create this unity; too many points of ideological contestation, in many of which he has a personal interest, are beyond his control. Or we might believe he does not want to write a narrative that would suggest cultural disunity and would indirectly implicate him as chiefly responsible for this fragmentation. The English monarchy already had a watchful eye on Puritan culture; he would not want to confirm their suspicions. But by all accounts, Mather was at least as skillful as his contemporaries and the instabilities of the Bay colony were no secret to anyone. Mather's decision to write a long preface that presents his personal adventures must result from other motives. At six pages, it is more than double the length of a typical election-sermon preface. (FN14) More significantly, the sermon itself is only fifteen pages long. The length of the preface both in proportion to earlier sermon prefaces and to the sermon itself registers Mather's interest in his own welfare. The preface doesn't "preface" and is proportionally overwhelming; it serves not as a public reminder of New England's errand, but as a pronouncement of his own role in colonial negotiations.

In his preface, Mather primarily focuses on his journey to England and his specific intention for restoring the Bay charter. The preface in fact reads like a modern-day expository essay as it proceeds through a number of rational explanations of his recent actions. Mather explains initially that "this Colony was happy as to Civil government whilst they Enjoyed their Former Charter," but it is not as if "there were no imperfections attending that First Patent" (I. Mather, Great Blessing 3). And while "some great Privileges contained in the Old Charter, are not in that which at Present we enjoy," nevertheless they now have a new charter that guarantees every man "Peaceable Enjoyment of his Estate and Property," and no taxation without representation. He concedes that parts of the new charter are not as good as the old one, but he will not admit that he has failed his fellow colonists. Instead, he defends himself by presenting a catalog of his services to New England:

But if I never did any thing for the Vindication of the People in his Province ... I desire to know who it was that Published the Narrative of the Miseries of New England, and that afterwards wrote a First, Second, and Third, Vindication of the People there? ... And who was it that wrote and dispersed, Reasons for the Confirmation of the Charter? Or that did oftentimes Humbly Address Their Majesties, and Their Principal Ministers of State concerning that affair? Day and Night have seen, Heaven and Earth have heard, both Worlds are Witnesses, with what Importunities I have Solicited both God and Man, for all your ancient Privileges.

With these statements, Mather sounds somewhat reminiscent of a modern-day politician, less concerned with "issues" and more interested in speaking personally about his past record. And like latter-day politicians, Mather does not limit himself to this autobiographical mode, explaining his intentions and good faith, but turns instead to biographical "voices" to confirm (even endorse) his actions. He presents a series of character references written on his behalf by many preeminent ministers in London. Mr. Matthew Mead characterizes Mather, as a man "deserved highly of New-England, for the unfainting Diligence and Indefatigable Endeavours he has showed in his Agency for that People". In another testimonial, several ministers describe him as a minister with "Inviolate Integrity, Excellent Prudence, and Unfainting Diligence," a man "Instructed in the School of Heaven to Minister in the affairs of the Soul" and "furnished with a Talent to transact affairs of state". Still another character reference from Sir Henry Ashurst, a "Right Worshipful Gentleman," lauds Mather as a minister who "has been Faithful to your Interests, and diligent, and unwearyed in your service, with neglect of his Health," and as a man who most certainly "deserveth the greatest Marks of your Favor you can bestow on him". Mather contends that he has not even produced "a tenth part of the Testimonies" written on his behalf, for "modesty" has restrained him. Nevertheless, he does offer these three powerful character references and makes sure that each one he reproduces includes a statement about him as a "faithful Agent" of New England who most surely will "receive a Gracious Reward" .

By the end of the preface, Mather transforms the self-as-victim into the self-as-savior, suggesting that his personal image in the colony should enjoy higher status. Mather concludes his defense by offering a series of disconsolate sighs over his present status within New England and his inability to gain favor with his fellow colonists. To a certain extent, he is trying to gain sympathy for his unenviable position. If anger and direct condemnation will not work, perhaps nudging the hearts of his opponents will prove effective. He begins his saddened state by explaining that he didn't have to return to New England: "Some Friends of mine in England who were very willing I should spend the remainder of My days amongst them, told me, that they had bin informed that the People of New-England were always ungrateful to their Public Servants". Mather does, of course, decide to return to New England because he has friends and family there and, as he correctly foresees, many "Inhabitants of the Province" who will "generally rejoyce" in gaining a new charter. Nevertheless, he cannot understand why "some (a few are too many) ill Spirits" have slandered him and "invented stories" about his behavior in England. Surely, as a "Noble Personage" tells him before departing from England, if the people are dissatisfied with the charter, they will not be displeased with him, "for Mankind knows that [he] did all that [he] could to obtain that and all other Privileges which themselves can wish for". And if they are displeased, the nobleman tells him, "Let them Try" to find a man "in all New-England that can get a better Charter for them". The startled tone of the "victim self" gives way to a language of self-abnegation in these passages. Mather says he doesn't expect a reward for his service; he expects his "Reward in another World". He will simply pardon those who believe he was motivated by self-interest and all those who are of the opinion "if they cannot have everything they desire, they will have nothing".

Mather's preface is even more startlingly personal when contrasted with the narrative that he explicitly wrote two years earlier to describe his negotiations for a new charter. Mather's 1691 A Brief Account Concerning Several of the Agents of New-England is an effort to explain his mission abroad and his attempts to secure the best charter for the colony. A Brief Account is much more of a moment-by-moment chronology of the political process of negotiation, rather than a personal testimonial of the great difficulties he endured in trying to obtain a new charter. He describes this entire process from start to finish, from the agents drawing up a bill to reverse Parliament's revocation of the charter, to the Privy Council's ultimate rejection of the final petition from the agents who were not "Plenipotentiaries from another Sovereign State" and therefore had no power to draft such a document (I. Mather, Brief Account 5-10). In this entire discussion, Mather only once offers a personal side-note: the charter negotiations, he says, have "broken my Natural Rest, and [have made me] neglect my Necessary Foods insomuch that my Health [has been] greatly impaired" . This passage only briefly interrupts the continuing sequence of events: the agents drew up a list of objections to the Council's new charter and appealed to the Queen again for further help; the King apparently did not approve of the objections, and so the agents discussed at length with lawyers and other counselors as to whether they should submit to the new charter or hope for a reversal. After listing the pros and cons of the new charter, Mather asserts that it will give greater privileges than the old one, and in some ways, will even be better: "Take it with all its Faults, and it is not so bad, but that when I left New-England, the Inhabitants of that Territory would gladly have Parted with many a Thousand Pound to have obtained one so good" .

Although Mather closes his Brief Account by maintaining his focus on the sequence of charter negotiations and, at this point, the positive features of the new charter, he briefly allows some of his more personal feelings to surface. These personal elements anticipate some of the later developments of the 1693 election sermon, but at this point Mather does not promote his personal skills as much as he discusses the significance of the new charter for the colony. He says that he has spent his own money to aid New England and feels "that there is not a man in this World" that has done more than he has done "to restore the Charter" . He has properly objected to the "bad parts" of the new charter, but to reject all the "good" in it because of "some things inconvenient would be wrong" . He now desires "no Acknowledgment, nor any Reward in the Least, for the Difficult and Expensive Service [he has] for their sakes gone through" . In these brief rhetorical gestures, we can already sense Mather developing the role of the disheartened, self-sacrificing agent. He does not, however, highlight this role in this document in the way that he does in the "Preface" to the 1693 sermon. In some ways, the "Preface" seems to extract this role-playing element of the Brief Account and make it the primary rhetorical voice of the later preface and the sermon proper. For now, Mather will return to the significance of the new charter claiming that it is the "Magna Charta" for his country and that once again the colony has "secured religion and English liberties" .

Although Mather is not technically trying to gain political office, many of his developing rhetorical skills of the 1691 Brief Account and his more polished 1693 "Preface" seem to mirror the strategies of later politicians. Without over-personalizing his role in the 1691 narrative, Mather still indicates his own process of intellectual transition, from his initial unwillingness to relinquish the old charter to his later acceptance of the new charter, from feeling a loss of colonial privileges to sensing newly acquired power in dealing with the King. While Mather knows that the new charter will grant the King more power in making decisions for the colony (appointing the governor, for one), Mather actually thinks of the new charter as a kind of "Magna Charta," a document that limited the powers of the monarchy and protected the rights of the common people. This rhetorical strategy of thinking more in terms of broader political gains is even more striking when we move into the full text of Mather's 1693 sermon. To preach a sermon requires engagement with a culture at a popular level; the minister has an immediate, potentially confrontational audience during the delivery. How does one speak to an audience, engage them with the social currents, by not speaking about them or their cultural conflicts? What is at stake in Mather's efforts to provide so much insight into the making of a political figure?

All the election-sermon ministers were positioned within the complex cultural terrain of Puritanism and certainly did register a number of complicated responses to their audiences. But in his 1693 election sermon, Increase Mather does not overtly discuss the varying tensions in the colony; instead, he turns toward his own personal difficulties to engage his audience and simultaneously reimagine his authority. During the exegesis of the sermon, he speaks of himself more indirectly as a type of Isaiah. Later, however, as he begins to explain the qualities of "primitive counselors" in the doctrine section of the sermon, he reduces his use of typology and speaks more directly about himself. Finally, in the applications portion of the sermon, he addresses the assembly as a counselor and first reminds and then warns his auditors to listen to their advisors. By moving from indirect typology to third person self-reference and finally to first-person address, Mather effectively increases his status. His varying senses of himself recreate his power not so much as a minister, but as a new public figure, one that has to speak personally in a public forum to ensure his auditors' attention.

To recreate his authority in the colony, Mather must fictionalize the "leader" into an image of the traditional heroic figure of New England. Although Mather's conception of himself as a prophet partly rein scribes the orthodoxy (or supports orthodoxy as a viable concept), his conception is actually a much more complicated rhetorical maneuver. (FN15) Mather typologically compares himself to Isaiah in order to establish himself implicitly as one of New England's great counselors. Although he is not yet willing to speak directly about himself or address the assembly in his own voice, he clearly has himself in mind with the biblical example of Isaiah:

When Austin sent to Ambrose, craving his Advice what part of the Scripture he should especially Read, He Commended the Prophet Isaiah to him.... In his Public Ministry, he never spared any unto whom he was sent to Deliver Messages in the Name of the Lord. His Style is not only Heroick and Majestical, becoming a Magnanimous Spirit, but very Evangelical.... The usual Method obserbed by him in his Sermons is with Awful Severity to threaten Judgments on the Impenitent, and to Predict and Promise mercy to the truly Penitent.

Throughout the colony, Increase Mather was considered to be the preeminent figure of his generation, or at the very least, the most conspicuous. He was most decidedly a public figure; a man who felt that he had been sent by God to deliver His message in a much larger forum than his church could offer him. He had, of course, been an agent for New England and had secured a new colonial charter, but he also was President of Harvard College, and a prolific writer surpassed in publications only by his son Cotton. He was known too for his severe, condemnatory tone in his sermons, a harsh rhetoric that he inherited from the founders and which fell out of favor by the end of his life. (FN16) These historical details would, one would think, inevitably lead Mather to the Isaiah-trope (or type) of the traditional New England hero. But Mather's choice of Isaiah is surprising given the circumstances in which he was preaching his sermon. Jeremiah or Ezra would seemingly be the more logical choices. Jeremiah preached roughly one hundred years after Isaiah and during the period in which Jerusalem fell. We might think that Mather would liken the fall of Jerusalem to the fall of New England, considering that the colonists had recently lost their charter. Ezra was a great religious reformer more than a century after Jeremiah who, along with Nehemiah, helped to rebuild Jerusalem. Mather might have compared the restoration of the temple to the restoration of New England now that they had received a new charter. (FN17) Instead, he chose Isaiah, who preached more than a century before Jerusalem fell and two centuries before it was rebuilt. By returning to an earlier prophet one who envisioned both the fall and restoration of Jerusalem long before it occurred Mather likens himself to a figure who existed apart from and prior to the chaos of Jeremiah's and Ezra's eras. In effect, he has reinvented himself as a figure that did not participate in the political turmoil at the end of the seventeenth century. He is instead a prophet who predicted what would happen and tried to prevent it from occurring. His choice of Isaiah still affords him a powerful, prophetic vision, but not the responsibility of a participant in the action. With his selection of Isaiah, he has diminished his role in negotiating for a new charter and established his stance as a prophetic advisor to the colony. Indeed, a passage from Isaiah 1:26, "I will Restore thy Counselors as at the Beginning," is Mather's text for the sermon .

Mather fashions his fictional Isaiah-self into an image of a superior serviceman (or counselor) who has elevated himself above the melodramatic details of society. Mather makes his choice of Isaiah because he does not want to be Ezra or Jeremiah or any other figure that would remind people of these complications. "Isaiah" allows Mather to silence those conflicts. That strategy may indeed be the new "errand": rather than reminding people of their original mission in the wilderness, one that has little meaning with the new charter, Mather instead replaces it with the redefined "representative hero," the autonomous political individual who stands apart from his culture, but who still speaks for it. The new errand into the wilderness emerges as a mission of the representative man, the primitive counselor or serviceman who guides the colony through his own personal vision. No longer, as Mather implies, is the errand an experiment of a community of believers who are knit together to do God's will in continuing the Reformation.

By silencing political problems and focusing on the positive attributes of leadership, Mather not only engages his election audience, but he also reinvests authority in the minister who has refashioned himself as a representative political figure. With the remainder of the exegesis, Mather emphasizes the necessity of counselors (the minister turned politician) in the community. He does mention the need for "Judges, i.e. Chief Magistrates," who must be present as well, but he notes that a "National Reformation" cannot take place unless the magistrates "have their hearts set for Religion and Righteousness" . More significantly, even if the "Chief Magistrates should be for Reformation and Holiness," without the "Counselors," spiritual advisors like Mather himself, "little good can be expected" . The traditional political leader will not be sufficient for the new errand. This redefinition now becomes the focus of the sermon. Mather's doctrine explicitly endorses this position: "That Primitive Counselors are a singular Mercy and Blessing of God to His People" . He explains that good counselors have numerous qualities, but their greatest attribute is their ability to serve both as religious reformers and political advisors. As Mather points out, "primitive counselors" are those "who are fit to give Counsel, especially in the difficult affairs of the State," but who also maintain a "Reforming Spirit," and are "wont to advise in matters of Religion" (10,14,17). According to Mather, "Counselors do assist in Government," and often "encounter many difficulties in serving the Public interest," but know that government officials greatly need their service . Likewise, they also "encourage" religion and reformation and, though they find similar difficulties in doing so, they know that their efforts will leave "the Church of God" in a "more Reformed State than ever yet was known since the World began" . Counselors must be like Hushai the Archite, whose advice to David "saved the Life of his Prince," and like Zachariah, "a Faithful Minister of God," whose wise counsel benefited the people greatly (12, 14). Clearly, Increase Mather is referring to himself in these passages. He had encouraged religious reformation by participating in the 1679 Reforming Synod and by drafting the resolutions that resulted from the synod (I. Mather, Necessity). He had, of course, more recently acted as an advisor to political leaders in England and New England. By playing a dual role, Mather suggests that he is the colony's ideal counselor, one who has skills in both the religious and political arenas.

Mather cannot rely soley on this idealized description of the politician; his audience knew too well the problems he encountered as a dual religious and political agent for New England. Mather's efforts to secure a new charter in England were continually delayed. Although he had drafted a bill for a new charter and had won favor with William and Mary by the end of 1689, Parliament did not pass the bill in early 1690 and hopes for a new charter ended. In the winter of 1690, New England dispatched two agents, Elisha Cooke and Thomas Oates, to assist Mather but their efforts were thwarted as well, largely because the three men could not agree on a strategy to convince Parliament to ratify the new charter. In the remainder of 1690, nothing came of the charter as the colonial agents argued among themselves and as William and Mary became preoccupied with both an Irish rebellion at home and the encroachment of New France abroad (M. Hall, American Puritan 236-40). After Mather and the other agents gained a new charter in 1691, the colonists had a new patent that did not restore enough of their self-governing powers. Under the old charter, the colonists had the power to elect their own deputies two adult, landholding males from each town to serve as the lower house and as the electors of the twenty-eight magistrates of the upper house. Together the two houses would elect the governor of the colony. With the new charter, the lower and upper houses were unchanged, but the king now had the power to appoint the governor of the colony. With the new charter the governor would also have more control in the voting process and in the legislature: he could now veto any of the deputies' selections for magistrate and any new legislation introduced in the colony. As with the old charter, the Bay would once again have their own town meetings and control over their own land; but with the provisions of the new charter, the governor could now call and adjourn meetings at any time and all land titles had to be approved by Parliament (Breen 183-84; M. Hall, American Puritan 249-50). The new governor, Sir William Phips, introduced new political policies, for which he was both supported by Increase Mather but resisted by the majority of the colonists. As T. H. Breen has pointed out, Phips was a military man with virtually no political or diplomatic skills: his only ability seems to have been satisfying factions within the colony that were under the direct control of Increase Mather (Breen 187-90). (FN18)

Mather doesn't address these specific historical issues in the sermon, but he does devise a strategic defensive posture designed to deflect personal attacks on his image as New England's counselor. In the doctrine of the sermon, Mather does not employ the emotional tactics of the preface to present his defense, but draws upon two strategies developed by earlier election-sermon ministers. Mather claims that counselors have no choice but to accept the office of advisor if God so "inclines their hearts" . He also insists that counselors "must not Warp either for fear or favor," or swerve from a "Faithful Discharge" of their duty regardless of whether the "multitude clamor against" them . Earlier election-sermon ministers, like Samuel Willard in 1682, Samuel Danforth in 1670, and Jonathan Mitchel in 1667, also claimed that true counselors are unable to resist the prophetic office and have the strength to preach without fear of reproach. Samuel Willard, for example, explains that once God called Jeremiah to be a "prophet to the nations," he had no choice but to preach the Lord's message. Likewise, as Willard continues, "When God commissioned his ministers to denounce awful threatening against an apostatizing generation, they must deliver." And, as Willard concludes, both Jeremiah and the present-day ministers must continue to "root up and tear down" despite death threats from their auditors (Willard 89-90; Danforth 2-3, 6-7; Mitchel 1-3).

These two rhetorical strategies act as counterparts and serve to strengthen Mather's defense. Together they construct a stabilized authority that cannot be easily dismantled. On the one hand, Mather implies, if you blame the minister for his role as a prophet or counselor, you have misdirected your anger: he cannot choose to accept or deny the prophetic office or the messages that God has asked him to deliver. If you want to blame someone, you should direct your hostility toward God. The ministers, of course, knew full well that their assembly would not do so. On the other hand, if you claim that the minister has continued to censure the people without authorization from God and, as a result, wish to attack him, you have become like all those sinners of the Old Testament who urged their prophets to discontinue their denouncements. Those sinners, as it always turned out, were as sinful as their prophets claimed them to be. In effect, Mather has short-circuited his audience: they cannot blame him for his advice no matter how much they dislike it.

This brief return to earlier election-day rhetoric serves Mather well: it shows us precisely how he reshapes the Puritan tradition in terms of this new political era. Mather uses the rhetorical stance of earlier election ministers not to address current problems, but to allow the "tradition" (the way the clergy usually speaks) to endorse his position. He extends his predecessors' language to subvert it. Likewise, as he moves into the final, applications portion of the sermon, at the very moment he turns to current issues, he simultaneously begins speaking to his auditors as "Increase Mather," an agent and advisor of New England. The closer he comes to the issues reverberating in the colony, the more he will strip away the heroic leader of the tradition. He will now speak in the first person as a director of colonial affairs without disguising himself in typology and without making general allusions to minister-prophets throughout history. He will now appear as a secular figure, unfettered by religious language, which tries to recapture the simplicity and purity of a bygone era. The earlier rhetorical maneuvers in the sermon have allowed him to imagine himself as a secular figure, as primarily a negotiator for the charter giving a political address, rather than as a minister preaching about the political leaders' need to ensure that religious reformation takes place. Because he has transformed the personal language of self-defense and self-affirmation into the public discourse, he can invoke the "purity" of the founders of what they, as colonists, once were a caring, trusting people who believed in the actions of their leaders. He does this even though that original vision is no longer a reality; the Massachusetts Bay charter of the founder's era had been revoked.

Although Mather is technically not a political figure, he secularizes his voice and adopts the stance of a political figure. As he explains, during the Glorious Revolution, poor advisors caused the ruin of King James II: "And thus it has been in our Nation. Not only in former times, but also in our Days. How came the late Abdicated King to be Deposed from his Kingly Throne, and his Glory to be taken from him; but because instead of hearkening to Counselors as at the Beginning, he would be Governed by Popish Counsels" . Mather is simply accumulating more evidence for his argument: good counselors are crucial for maintaining the state. But he is also speaking as if he is a political figure himself by discussing politics in an undisguised, non-theological language. He straightforwardly asserts that James's own Catholicism did not ruin him; his "Popish" advisors did. Had he chosen better advisors, he might still be in power today. Mather's interpretation is indeed a personal one; his chief opposition, Elisha Cooke, read the political changes as the unfortunate outcome of colonial resistance. (FN19) Mather reconstructs the historical moment to favor the role of the counselor. In effect, he refocuses attention on himself, explicitly reinvesting authority in the minister who has become a political advisor.

The outcome of these politician-making gestures is that Mather can now specifically advise the colonists on electoral procedures and work to create a government fashioned in his own image. Toward the end of the sermon, Mather explicitly defines the new voting procedures for the colony and cautions the political leaders to heed his advice. Ordinarily, election-sermon ministers do not recommend candidates for election, but Mather claims that for the current elections, "The Word of the Lord does instruct this General Assembly, whom they ought to chose or confirm this day" . Unlike the old charter, the new royal patent stipulates, "persons Nominated for Counselors should be men of Estate, and of some Port in the World" . Mather also nearly offers his own personal choices for magistrates an unprecedented step for an election-day minister:

Let me also say to you who are the Representatives of this People, that it will not be prudence in you (at this time especially) to propose such Assistants to the Governor as you cannot but know, that He cannot Accept of, and so to necessitate him to make use of his Negative Voice, when He has no desire to do it.... And you cannot but know that no Governor will take those into his Council, who are Male contents, and do what in them is to make others to be disaffected to the Government. Mather comes as close to naming specific candidates without actually doing it. As a friend of Sir William Phips, Mather certainly knew which candidates Phips would accept and which he would veto. In fact, Mather most likely influenced Phips's decisions concerning political assistants to the council (M. Hall, American Puritan 250-51, 264-66). In effect, Mather tells the representatives to elect assistants both he and Phips will approve. He can make these relatively bold statements because he has relocated power into the political advisor, the role he played in England negotiating for a new charter, and is playing now as Phips's main counselor. Mather knew that Phips, unlike his gubernatorial predecessors, had the power to veto any candidate hostile to the Mather faction.

The power relation between Mather and Phips is not a neat exchange; Mather and Phips are not simply working together to define a new political order. Although the new royal charter gives the governor increased control over elections, Mather quickly reminds him that he may not retain that power if he abuses it. Initially, Mather even complains about the governor's veto: "a power which I confess neither you nor any one else should have had, if any Interest that I was capable to make, could have prevented it. You know Sir, that I humbly argued against it to the Kings Majesty, and to many of His chief Ministers of State" . To a certain extent, Mather cautions Phips here: no one in the colony likes the veto including, perhaps even especially, him. Mather also protects himself from those critics who chastised him for losing some of the colonists' power. He claims that he argued against the governor's veto. While he does "now see that God has ordered it to be as it is in Mercy to this his People," he nevertheless reminds Phips that the veto will only favor the colonists "as long as there shall be a Governor whose Heart is Engaged to seek not Himself, but the Public good" . Mather implies that if Phips acts from his own self-interest, he may no longer have the power of the veto. He also implies, shortly afterward, that Phips might even lose his office if he does not conduct colonial affairs according to Mather's best interests. He has some tension in his voice when he notes that Phips has it "in [his] power to make this People happy one year longer" . The phrase "one year longer" suggests that Phips's first year as governor is a trial period and, if he proves to be unworthy, might not have his contract renewed. Of course, the colonists no longer elect the governor, but they did remove Andros from office and Mather himself had successfully influenced William and Mary to choose Phips.

Not only does Mather create a new dynamic of political power between governor and faction, but he also reduces the religious content of this new political process. By speaking more directly to the governor than previous election-day ministers, thereby increasing his own power, Mather ironically reduces the strength of the election-sermon tradition. In many election sermons, the ministers speak forcefully to the lower house, and on occasion to the upper, but seldom do they directly address the governor and never in as animated a fashion as Mather. Unlike his election-day predecessors, Mather does not rely upon traditional religious rhetoric, nor does he employ literary devices to disguise his motives. He speaks not as a typological figure for the majority of the sermon, but as a politician, and he does not typologies Phips, but rather treats him precisely for who he is the governor of the colony. This secular voice strips away the religious facade of election-sermon rhetoric, only to reveal another equally problematic political language. With religious rhetoric, the minister has the power of God residing in his voice; his message and delivery emanate from someone other than himself. But if he admits that his sermon is mostly a political discourse and that he is speaking as a politician, he is simply a political figure like any other offering the colonists political advice. Thus, by speaking as a politician, Mather increases his own status in the political arena, but reduces the authoritative nature of the prophetic voice most often found in the election sermon.

The content of the election sermon has also been radically altered: although Mather refers to the traditional model of "errand," he defines the term differently from his predecessors. Like other election-sermon ministers, Mather briefly reminds the colonists of the "Errand on which their Fathers came into this Wilderness," but unlike them, he does not pay tribute to the ministers who coined the phrase or who continued to use it to urge the people to repent .(FN20) In earlier election sermons, the ministers claimed that apostasy caused the colonists to lose sight of their mission and insisted that only the clergy could help them return to their errand. Mather does claim that "Primitive Counselors" will help them fulfill their mission, but he does not elaborate on their role in maintaining New England's errand. Rarely does he refer to scripture to increase the clergy's prominence within the colony. He also claims that the loss of "estates and properties," through the hands of "Strangers who did exercise an Arbitrary Power over them," directly contributed to the loss of their mission . Losing their land to Edmund Andros and Edward Randolph, not an increase in sin, has caused them to lose sight of their original errand. Their "errand into the wilderness" has broader, more international implications now because they no longer simply run errands for God or for themselves. They must now comply with all English laws and policies and must carry out every assignment given to them by the crown. Mather appeals to religious authority by using errand rhetoric, but he cannot rely upon it as a sole source of power. He instead favors the voice of the political representative who can serve as advisor to and diplomatic agent of New England.

Mather's attempt to construct a new political order is indeed altered by the dynamic exchange between him and his opponents. Within the midst of errand rhetoric, he pleads with his opponents to accept the new charter. He tells them to "be very thankful for what [they] enjoy" for they have "Peculiar Charter-Privileges granted to [them] which no other English Plantation in the World has" . They must try to be satisfied with these privileges, even though there aren't as many as they would have liked:

And what, tho' you have not some Great Privileges which once you had, and which should have been Restored to you, if He that speaketh to you this Day, could have obtained them for you, tho' it be with the Expense of his own Life, and of all that is Dear to him in this World will you be thankful for nothing: because you have not every thing just as you would have? Do any of you say, all that you have is nothing?

Although Mather apologizes for his inability to obtain a better charter, he does make his opponents feel guilty for not supporting him. He might have been able to acquire a better charter, but it would have cost him his life. Mather also appeals to logic in order to win their favor:

Let me Reason with you before the Lord this Day? You have by the Royal Charter granted to you, Property confirmed.... And is this nothing? ... You have all English Liberties Restored to you.... And is this nothing? No Governor can now cause you, or your Children or Servants to be sent out of the Province. Your Present Charter secures you against all such Invasions. And do you now account it nothing?

If these emotional or rational appeals fail, however, Mather has yet another approach. He tells his opponents that if the charter fails, "you the Murmurers will be found the Guilty cause of it" . Although Mather acquired the charter himself and directly influenced political decisions within the colony, he contends that his opponents will be at fault if the new government does not succeed. Mather simultaneously concedes and defends, admits wrongdoing and yet absolves himself. The new political order that he desires will contain these kinds of fluctuations; agreement on the new charter will depend upon varying kinds of disagreements.

Thus, from Mather's point of view, colonial politics will now depend upon a newly revitalized dynamic between England and New England. Like previous election-sermon ministers, he appeals to errand rhetoric and focuses on some of the current political problems, but he does not conclude by paying tribute to the local leadership. He offers instead a prayer for the King and Queen of England who he hopes will maintain their new charter privileges. Of course, he still believes the colonists need "counselors as at the beginning," but his focus is on William and Mary . As long as the King and Queen "hold the English Scepter in their Hands," the colonists will "see Good days" . King William "Fights the Battles of the Lord" and Queen Mary "loveth all people that are good, whatever their perswasions in matters relating to Conscience may be" . Thus, no one "in the World" should "Pray for them with more fervency and frequency than Their Subjects in New England" . By turning his attention to the King and Queen, Mather suggests that New England's political order depends upon maintaining a strong relationship with England, not upon attending to the leadership within New England. Indeed, Mather worries less about New England's religious tolerance than he does in maintaining the connections between the colony and the mother country.

The election sermons after The Great Blessing of Primitive Counselors continue to emphasize the connections between England and New England and expand upon the role of the representative political leader. A. W. Plum stead has argued that between 1690 and 1734 the election sermons fall into two categories: those that focus on errand rhetoric, and those that emphasize political theory in the vein of either Increase Mather's 1693 sermon or his son's 1690 sermon (143-45). While Plum stead accurately pinpoints the Puritan errand and the post-charter politics of New England as two major themes of the election sermons in the late 1690s and of the first half of the eighteenth century, all of the sermons do not fit so neatly into just two categories. And although the ministers of the post-Restoration era continue to appeal to errand rhetoric, the new political context for preaching an election sermon has now radically altered the significance of this rhetoric within Puritan culture. Allusions to New England's errand cannot influence the auditors of the sermon to elect public officials and to think about government as part of the New England Way. The King now appoints the governor of Massachusetts Bay and the colonial government is more fully under the control of Parliament. This radical change in New England politics profoundly affects the ministers' rhetorical conception of community. The ministers conceive of Puritan society less in terms of "errand" and more in terms of "monarchy."

A brief review of the post-Restoration election sermons demonstrates how much the ministers direct their rhetoric toward specific political issues and how frequently the traditional concept of errand seems merely anachronistic in this new context. Sermons by Samuel Willard in 1682, Cotton Mather in 1696, and Increase Mather in 1699 all use verses from Samuel as their biblical text to emphasize the increased role of the monarchy in New England politics. The Mathers excerpt passages from the first book of Samuel, the traditional account of the origins of Israel's monarchy and the transition from Samuel's reign to Saul's, while Willard draws his text from the second book of Samuel, a continuation of the succession to the throne from Saul to David. The choice of texts certainly indicates the ministers' continued interest in the concept of monarchy, and each of their sermons focuses mostly on "the character of the good ruler," the actual title of Willard's sermon. Willard exclaims that "the Weal or Wo of a People mainly depends on the qualifications of those Rulers, by whom we are to be Governed" (Willard 3); Cotton Mather digresses into a fairly lengthy discussion of England's delivery from the French Empire because even "little New England, hast, above all the American Plantations, a share in this Deliverance" (C. Mather, Things 69); and Increase Mather, in his final prayers to God for a good governor, recalls the King once saying, "That he did believe that the people in New England were a Good People," and would therefore warrant a governor who would be "a Rich Blessing to this his People" (I. Mather, Surest Way 36-37). Of these three ministers, only Cotton Mather reminds his auditors of the errand rhetoric through a repeated (and occasionally varied) refrain, "Where is the Glory of the Ancient Things!" (C. Mather, Things 2). The choice of biblical book (Samuel) is the appropriate one for a post-Restoration election sermon, but the specific text from Samuel, one that focuses on fasting as repentance for sin (I Samuel 7:6, 10), does not accord with the new political climate in New England. Certainly, pre-1690s election sermons describe and even emphasize the importance of reformation, and so Mather's focus is not necessarily unusual for an election sermon. But his opening apology for these allusions, and his continued efforts to defend his inclusion of reformation rhetoric in the first few pages of the sermon, are strikingly different and call attention to the changed cultural context in which he utters these phrases.

The rhetoric of the Puritan errand does indeed surface in other election sermons, but always in a modified form because it can no longer shape the election process or political policy. Nicholas Noyes in 1698 so often alludes to the traditional "Israelites in the Wilderness" motif and so repeatedly refers to the bible to support his reformation ideas that he nearly forgets that he's preaching an election sermon. Not until page eighty of an eighty-eight page sermon does he finally say, "Election being the work of the day, I will venture to say a word of it," and indeed he says very little more than "a word" (Noyes 80). We sense how forced the errand rhetoric is because it is so disproportionately longer than the election-day discussion. Indeed, Noyes spends an unusual amount of time just establishing the errand motif with not one but three doctrines for his sermon and a series of reasons and objections for each doctrine .

By the time we reach Samuel Danforth, Jr.'s 1714 election sermon, the return to the errand seems more of an artistic gesture rather than an attempt at religious revivalism. A. W. Plum stead has argued that this sermon not only revives the errand-into-the-wilderness motif of Danforth's father's 1670 sermon, but also serves to elaborate on the garden/wilderness dialectic in its fullest sense (147-48). So vivid is the imagery that Plum stead describes Danforth as "less the lawyer than the priest" and his "oration less a legal exposition than an incantation to drive off the evil spirits and woo back the good" (149). But the imagery is so ornate and the conceits so elaborate that the sermon seems to adapt the artistry of the errand motif for the increasingly baroque world of the eighteenth century instead of recalling that errand for its potential to revive spiritually a backsliding people. Although the younger Danforth makes some mild references to our "lamentable state," he does not focus on the wickedness of the people, but instead emphasizes the maintenance and preservation of the vineyard and the abiding presence of God within his "mystical paradise, his garden of pleasure upon earth" (Danforth, Jr. 172-73).

As the election sermon continued into the eighteenth century, the ministers continued to reshape the tradition according to changing political circumstances. Increase Mather's increased emphasis on the political relations between England and New England surfaces on many occasions, most notably in the sermons of John Barnard in 1734 and Charles Chauncy in 1747, one that uses Samuel as its biblical text. In fact, as Plum stead explains, between 1734 and 1754 the election sermons focus almost entirely on immediate political concerns and biblical quotations continue to diminish (283-84). Even in those cases where the ministers return to errand rhetoric, such as Thomas Prince in 1730, the gesture seems to be nostalgia for a bygone era in the case of Prince, an anniversary celebration of the Great Migration rather than an attempt to realize the power of the errand once again. Sermons from the late 1750s through the 1790s continue to vary in precisely the same way: Samuel Cooke's 1770 address focuses exclusively on political theory in the vein of Barnard's and Chauncy's, whereas Elhanan Winchester's 1788 sermon nostalgically revives the errand just as Prince did, but this time for the anniversary of the Glorious Revolution. By the time we reach the Revolutionary War, the ministers shift their political focus from the responsibilities of rulers to the rights of the people to choose their own rulers, and they intensify their discussions of relations between America and England. Mather's specific vision of political change does not entirely come to fruition within this period, but neither would we expect it to do so. Just as the revocation of the Massachusetts Bay Charter brought upon a new political order, so too would the American Revolution.(FN21) Notably, however, Increase Mather is the one who first suggests the kinds of changes that will need to take place in political thinking for the colony to flourish in the future.

Ultimately, Mather fashions a new political voice for the dawning of a new era in colonial politics. As a quasi-political leader, he is certainly more malleable than he was as a minister-prophet. He resorts to a variety of rhetorical and linguistic strategies in order to defend his position as a "man of the people," one who has suffered great personal discomfort at the hands of his opponents, one who wishes to stress these problems as part and parcel of the public life of a chosen official. From his own point of view, Mather has been victimized by the misperceptions of his enemies and he uses the election sermon to clear his good name.

Although Hawthorne seems to have recognized the power of the election sermon to resocialize the Puritans and reformulate the bonds of community in 1649, Mather could no longer rely upon that same tradition given his circumstances. In The Scarlet Letter, Hawthorne has Dimmesdale make "special reference to the New England which they were here planting in the wilderness," but Mather knew that by the 1690s the errand had run its course (Hawthorne 249). He had to devise instead a new mechanism of colonial power and authority. The outcome was a newly fashioned political leader, one who must adopt different roles in order to appease competing factions and to create a consensus of his constituents. The rhetorical maneuvers of Mather's election sermon demonstrate an alternative way to view consensus building: from addressing the audience through indirect typology to chastising them through first-person harangue, Mather negotiates his own identity before his spectators' eyes. Certainly, Mather's election sermon did not provide him with political status equal to the magistrates or governor, but it did give him the opportunity to decrease the candidates' chances for reelection or reappointment. As T. H. Breen explains, when the representatives did not elect Increase Mather's favorites to office and even elected Elisha Cooke Mather's foremost opponent Phips vetoed the selection at Mather's request (Breen 191).

Many scholars have discussed the formation and development of clerical power. According to these critics, the ministers had to resolve a crucial question: did they receive power from Christ or from their congregations? If solely from Christ, then the congregational system was meaningless; if solely from their congregation, then they were at the mercy of the people. The clergy resolved this problem by choosing the "middle way": individual congregations had the power to elect their own ministers, but could not question their authority once they did so. Clerical power resulted from the overriding cultural authority of the "middle way" (Elliott 88-135; D. Hall 156-85; Lang 22-23; Rutman 89-123). But for Increase Mather at the turn of the century, the new power relations in the colony had destabilized the middle way. Numerous political upheavals dissolved the traditional models of authority and forced Mather to redefine his function and reestablish his status within the colony.

More than any other member of his generation, Mather recognized that this was a new era, one that would demand an autobiographical, even confessional approach to public affairs. The earlier, more generalized language of religious reformation was simply not consonant with the goals of a new charter; New England now needed a more crafted public persona, one that could defend New England through the "Representative Man." Making the election sermon into a personalizing gesture is an effort in that direction: Mather himself represents the charter, is indeed a substitute for it. We learn about and ultimately come to understand New England politics by "knowing the man." That "representative man" must therefore seem trustworthy and his previous actions valuable if his auditors are to be swayed by his sermon.

As we have seen, the election-sermon ministers who preached after Increase Mather did not personalize their sermons in the way Mather had done in 1693. Mather was far more involved in political negotiations than any of the subsequent ministers and had the opportunity to offer his personal insights into colonial politics. But in a significant fashion the ministers did follow Mather's rhetorical innovation of focusing on current political relations. Like Mather, they focused on the newly defined monarchical role in colonial politics, and they reexamined their own relationship to the new transatlantic political issues that had surfaced in the colony. And they shared other similarities with Increase Mather. They, like their 1693 predecessor, occasionally turned to traditional election-sermon rhetoric even with its outdated language of errand, but only to remind us of what once was, rather than to project what was to come.

Thus, in a symbolic sense, and in some ways a literal one, Increase Mather preached the "last" election sermon in 1693. Election sermons did, of course, continue for two more centuries, but after Mather "election" no longer had the same meaning. The ministers preached on "election" day, and they named their orations "election" sermons, but the significance of "election" had radically changed. The pivotal moment in this election-sermon tradition is Increase Mather's The Great Blessing of Primitive Counselors: it stands between an earlier era of pulpit rhetoric that called upon an errand to revive the spiritual mission of the colony, and a new age of political oratory that hailed the representative man who could lead us into more awareness of the relationship between Old and New England. Mather may not have been able to foresee who would fulfill the role of representative man be he minister or not but he did accurately forecast the new direction of colonial politics by reimagining authority in Puritan society.