What This Collection Is
Michael Wigglesworth, a Malden minister too ill to preach, swaps the pulpit for the printing press to deliver a rhyming manual on the apocalypse. Writing in a bouncing common meter that mimics a ballad, he transforms the Last Judgment into a courtroom drama where the defendant is the reader. Christ appears on a cloud to separate the 'Elect' from the 'Goats,' presiding over a theological debate where sinners argue they were misled by bad examples or simply followed their kin. The Judge rejects every loophole, sentencing the ungodly to a duration of suffering that makes fifty thousand years look like a mere beginning.
Figures & speakers
- The Judge
The Son of Man who executes impartial justice and silences all excuses.
- The Elect
The 'Sheep' chosen before the world's foundation to be saved from condemnation.
- The Reprobates
The 'Goats' who favored carnal peace and worldly wealth over eternal health.
- Michael Wigglesworth
The author and Malden teacher who wrote the poem while physically frail.
What it's really about
- Divine Sovereignty
- God’s pre-ordained choices override human effort or merit.
- The Futility of Excuses
- Legalistic defenses crumble before an all-knowing and impartial Judge.
- Eternal Duration
- The terrifying concept of a punishment that never diminishes over time.
Why it's memorable
- Sinners envying the short lives of frogs and serpents to escape the final sentence.
- The mathematical horror of suffering for fifty thousand years twice over without reaching the end.
Where it lands
The wicked are cast into unsufferable torments while the saints ascend in triumph to their heavenly reward.
For your book club
- Why Wigglesworth chose a cheerful ballad rhythm to describe the literal end of the world.
- The effectiveness of using a legal courtroom structure to explain complex Calvinist theology to laypeople.