Wigglesworth's "Day of Doom" poem

[Tis_Bearself]

Hi all, I have a question perhaps for someone who is familiar with early American Calvinism/ Puritanism or otherwise familiar with this author.

Recently I remembered an old poem called The Day of Doom by a clergyman named Wigglesworth. Wikipedia calls it “a doggerel epitome of Calvinistic theology.” A full transcript of the poem is here:

https://www.bartleby.com/400/poem/171.html

I am aware of this poem via another author called Grace Nies Fletcher who was the daughter of a well-known Methodist minister in New England and wrote a book about her childhood called “Preacher’s Kids” that was a bestseller and that I happened to read as a young teen. In the book, young Grace happens to read this Wigglesworth poem which is in her dad’s library and becomes horrified by a really graphic verse about babies who die unbaptized through no fault of their own being sent to Hell (the “Plea of the Infants” section in the poem) and becomes so upset she throws Wigglesworth’s book in the trash and has to have a heart-to-heart with her dad. I’ll admit I had much the same reaction to reading that part of the poem.

“The Day of Doom” has been called “America’s First Bestseller” and a lot of people even learned it by heart. It reportedly scared a lot of people into going back to church (I can see why). The author, Wigglesworth, was reportedly not a gloomy person, but instead was a nice cheerful guy who helped the poor and was well-liked in the community.

I am a bit baffled as to how people thought this “Day of Doom” poem was so great, particularly the part about unbaptized babies being sent to Hell, although Christ allows them to occupy “the easiest room in Hell” so maybe it’s supposed to be more like the old Catholic concept of limbo of the infants. Are there any scholars of poetry, history or theology who can explain to me the colonial popular appeal of a poem like this?

 

[Limoncello4021]

Not sure I can explain it, but I taught the poem many times over in early American lit. classes. It had the same appeal of say, Edward’s Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God sermon. The Great Awakening era was all about emotionalism. It was also a response to the controversy over the “half-way covenant,” which began to admit members to the Church that previously were not admitted. Many felt it was a watering down of theology.
It is worth pointing out that Dante also puts unbaptized infants in Limbo, which to Dante is part of hell, “the easiest room.” So little is new there.

 

[Tis_Bearself]

Good point about Dante, I guess since he was several hundred years earlier and not American it didn’t seem as weird when he did it.

 

[ltwin]

Are there any scholars of poetry, history or theology who can explain to me the colonial popular appeal of a poem like this?

The “Day of Doom” was published in 1662 (way before the Great Awakening). However, the 1660s were a time when many Puritans were concerned that New Englanders had forsaken the covenant with God. You have church councils and even colonial legislatures declaring that it is evident that “God has a controversy with us”.

By the 1670s, the Half-Way Covenant had become widely adopted in Massachusetts specifically because people felt New England was being punished for not bringing more people into the covenant. But even with its adoption there were complaints that less adults were coming forward to relate their conversion narratives to the church and thereby gain full or “covenanted” membership with the right to take the Lord’s Supper.

In any event, there were fears that religiosity within New England was declining. The colonies were more financially successful than ever, and this led to people valuing possessions and worldly things above God–or at least that is what was being preached about from the pulpits. The “Puritan Jeremiad” became a common sermon topic, and this poem fits in with this.

In short, the Puritans had forsaken the covenant and if they did not return they would experience the consequences of their forsaking God.

This general feeling of religious decline does lead to churches holding “covenant renewals” which evolve into the first revivals and ultimately set off the Great Awakening.

 

[Tis_Bearself]

Didn’t the Puritans pretty much die out and get replaced by Congregationalists or other Calvinist groups?

 

[ltwin]

Didn’t the Puritans pretty much die out and get replaced by Congregationalists or other Calvinist groups?

They didn’t die out. People just stopped calling them Puritans because the socio-political-religious environment had changed so much by the 1700s that there was no point in distinguishing them from other Calvinists. They had always been called Congregationalists, and that became the common term.

“Puritan” was a word that was applied derogatorily to hardcore Calvinists within the Church of England beginning in the reign of Queen Elizabeth. After the Restoration of the English monarchy in 1660, Puritans were forced out of the Church of England and split along lines of polity with some becoming Congregationalists and others Presbyterians. Others had already separated and rejected infant baptism; these became the first English Baptists.

The Puritans who immigrated to America chose congregational polity and became Congregationalists.

 

[TheLittleLady]

Grew up with Smith Wigglesworth. Wonder if there is any relation??

http://www.smithwigglesworth.com/

 

[JSRG]

It is worth pointing out that Dante also puts unbaptized infants in Limbo, which to Dante is part of hell, “the easiest room.” So little is new there.

But Limbo in Dante’s poem is explicitly described as a place of no punishment, with the worst anyone suffers simply being sadness at missing their chance at heaven. I suppose that could have been what Wigglesworth meant as the “easiest room” but he doesn’t go into that detail.

Interestingly, those in Limbo (technically part of hell) end up better than the Uncommitted (technically outside of hell), who do get a punishment.

 

[ltwin]

particularly the part about unbaptized babies being sent to Hell, although Christ allows them to occupy “the easiest room in Hell”

On the question of infant baptism and hell, the Congregationalists adopted the Savoy Declaration in 1680 as a confession of faith. The Savoy Declaration chapter 10 on “Effectual Calling” states:

1. Elect infants dying in infancy, are regenerated and saved by Christ, who worketh when, and where, and how he pleaseth: so also are all other elect persons who are incapable of being outwardly called by the ministry of the Word.
2. Others not elected. although they may be called by the ministry of the Word, and may have some common operations of the Spirit, yet not being effectually drawn by the Father, they neither do nor can come unto Christ, and therefore cannot be saved: much less can men not professing the Christian religion, be saved in any other way whatsoever, be they never so diligent to frame their lives according to the light of nature, and the law of that religion they do profess: and to assert and maintain that they may, is very pernicious, and to be detested.

Chapter 29 “Of Baptism” states:

Although it be a great sin to conterin or neglect this ordinance, yet grace and salvation are not so inseparably annexed unto it, as that no person can be regenerated or saved without it; or that all that are baptised are undoubtedly regenerated.

So, the standard Puritan position seems to be that baptism doesn’t really have anything to do with whether an infant goes to heaven or hell. All that really matters is whether the individual (of what ever age) is one of the elect. If they are, then baptism is a “sign and seal” of belonging to the covenant. If they are not, then even if they are baptized it would not have done them any good.

It seems that Wigglesworth is speaking of this because he says:

You sinners are, and such a share
as sinners may expect,
Such you shall have; for I do save **
** none but my own Elect.
Yet to compare your sin with their
who liv’d a longer time,
I do confess yours is much less,
though every sin’s a crime.

So, he’s saying that non-elect infants are guilty of Adam’s sin (since Adam is humanity’s “Federal Head” and “In Adam’s fall we sinned all”); however, they are not guilty of sins actually committed so their guilt is less than those who lived long enough to commit actual sin.