Michael Wigglesworth (1631–1705) was a Puritan minister, physician, and poet whose poem The Day of Doom was a bestseller in early New England.
In his diaries, Wigglesworth expressed an overwhelming sense of inferiority, shown in his refusal to accept the presidency of Harvard due to lack of self-confidence, and again when he married his cousin because, he claimed he was not good enough to find another woman.
On April 5, 1653, Wigglesworth wrote, "I find my spirit so exceedingly carried with love to my pupils that I can't tell how to take up my rest in God.
[1] In 1662 he published The Day of Doom or a Poetical Description of the Great and Last Judgment, a "doggerel epitome of Calvinistic theology", according to a later anthology, Colonial Prose and Poetry (1903), that says it "attained immediately a phenomenal popularity.
Eighteen hundred copies were sold within a year, and for the next century it held a secure place in New England Puritan households.
As late as 1828 it was stated that "many aged persons were still alive who could repeat it, as it had been taught them with their catechism; and the more widely one reads in the voluminous sermons of that generation, the more fair will its representation of prevailing theology in New England appear.
"[1] A less polemic analysis of the work might also show its rich use of dramatic imagery, combining a number of references from both Hebrew and Christian scriptures, and note the interlocked complexity of its double-rhymed octasina (8-syllable) lines.
[6] Despite the fierce denunciations of sinners and the terrible images of damnation in The Day of Doom, its author was known as a "genial philanthropist, so cheerful that some of his friends thought he could not be so sick as he averred.
Dr. Peabody used to call him 'a man of the beatitudes', ministering not alone to the spiritual but to the physical needs of his flock, having studied medicine for that purpose," according to Colonial Prose and Poetry.
The latter poem was unpublished, yet provides a lengthy commentary on the fears of Puritans that they would be stricken by God for their sin, and persecuted by House of Stuart.
[10][11] After the trials were ended, churchmembers in Salem Village who had suffered, or lost loved ones, sought a Church Council to hear grievances against their pastor Parris and they were supported in this effort by Willard.
and Dear Sir, I am right well assured that both yourself, your son, and the rest of our brethren with you in Boston, have a deep sense upon your spirits of the awful symptoms of the Divine displeasure that we lie under at this day...give me leave to impart some of my serious and solemn thoughts.
I think, and am verily persuaded, God expects that we do the like, in order to our obtaining his pardon: I mean by a Public and Solemn acknowledgment of it and humiliation for it [emphasis added]; and the more particularly and personally it is done by all that have been actors, the more pleasing it will be to God... the whole country lies under a curse... til some effectual course is taken by our honored Governor and General Court to make amends and reparation [to the families of those condemned] for supposed witchcraft [and those] ruined by taking away and making havoc of their estates...
[16] There seems to be no record of a direct response from the Mathers, but judging from their past reactions (see controversy over formation of Brattle Square church, etc) it is unlikely they would have taken Wigglesworth's criticisms lightly.