If you had been a member of the General Court, how would the sermon Theopolis Americana have influenced your politics? Theopolis Americana was a sermon written by a man named Cotton Mather. It was basically an  extended description of Revelation 21:21. “The twelve gates were twelve pearls, each gate made of a single pearl. The great street of the city was of gold, as pure as transparent glass.” According to Wikipedia, Cotton Mather was “a New England Puritan child prodigy, clergyman, theologian, and writer. Beginning his Harvard College undergraduate education at age twelve, he is the youngest person ever to be admitted there.”

This sermon was written to the Massachusetts General Assembly, which is also known as the General Court. Mather was hoping that His sermon would change the General Court in how they viewed politics, how they change their laws, and possibly how they think. There were parts of his sermon that were messy and other parts were very serious and extreme. This is because he needed to be vague and general. He needed to keep it civil, because he couldn’t risk dividing up the legislators in being more specific than he needed to be. There were many criticisms in his sermon. Many of these were being dealt with 0r already dealt with, Some of these problems were contract violations, commercial dishonesty, business corruption, and this includes the kidnapping of African slaves. He quoted Richard Baxter to describe how horrible it was to kidnap people from a different continent and force them to work in yours as slaves. He also describes his dislike of alcohol and its overuse. He says h0w he isn’t against it, but he doesn’t encourage it. He only says that he hates its excessive use, but he doesn’t want it banned. He doesn’t give an explanation. He just says he hates its excessive use. He wants them to solve the problem themselves. 

If you had been a member of the General Court, how would the sermon Theopolis Americana have influenced your politics? I don’t think it would. The General Court already knew the problems of the thing that he criticized. If they didn’t already change it, then why would they change.