Michael Wigglesworth

Wigglesworth, Michael (1631–1705), brought from England as a child (1638), graduated from Harvard (1651) and during most of his life served as minister of the Congregational church at Malden, Mass. After 1663 he also practiced medicine. He is remembered for his long theological poem in ballad meter The Day of Doom (1662). His other poetical works, also theological treatises in rhyme, include A Short Discourse on Eternity, Vanity of Vanities, and A Postscript unto the Reader, all annexed to this book. Other versified theology of a similarly edifying nature includes Meat Out of the Eater (1670) and God's Controversy with New‐England, inspired by the drought of 1662, and first published by the Massachusetts Historical Society (1873).

Edward Wigglesworth (c. 1693–1765), his son, graduated from Harvard (1710) and became a Congregational minister and professor of divinity at Harvard (1722–65). He was noted as a pamphleteer and stout defender of orthodoxy against the evangelicalism of George Whitefield.

Michael Wigglesworth 1631-1705, American clergyman and poet, b. England, grad. Harvard, 1651. His family emigrated to New England in 1638. A devoted minister at Malden, Mass., he also practiced medicine and wrote didactic poetry. His Day of Doom (1662), a ballad of Puritan theology, was extremely popular and was followed by God's Controversy with New England (written c.1662; printed 1873), Meat out of the Eater (1670), and lesser writings. Replete with vivid biblical imagery, Wigglesworth's verse reflects his dedication to his austere faith.

Bibliography: See his Diary, 1653-57, ed. by E. S. Morgan (1951, repr. 1970); The Day of Doom (ed. by K. B. Murdock, 1929); memoir by J. W. Dean (2d ed. 1871); biography by R. Crowder (1962).

Day of Doom, The, theological poem in ballad meter by Michael Wigglesworth, published in 1662. The subject is indicated by the subtitle, A Poetical Description of the Great and Last Judgment. Few stanzas approach the poetic, and the work is now interesting only as a historical document, but in its own day it was immensely popular in both America and England. It is estimated that a copy was sold for one in every 20 persons then in New England, or one in every 45 in the colonies. Other versified theology of the same nature is annexed to the work as preface and postscript, while Vanity of Vanities serves as a “Song of Emptiness To Fill Up the Empty Pages Following.”