Several publications yesterday noted that Sept. 25 was the 325th anniversary of the publication in 1690 Boston of America’s first newspaper, Publick Occurrences: Both Forreign and Domestick. None of the reports I saw gave the theological context, though. Publications in the 17th century usually put out only news that would make the king or his officials look good, but New England Puritans encouraged the reporting of bad news because they saw everything, good and bad, as a message from God.
For example, Boston printer Marmaduke Johnson in 1668 published God’s Terrible Voice in the City of London, Wherein You Have the Narration of the Late Dreadful Judgment of Pleague and Fire. In 1674, when Benjamin Goad was hanged in Boston for committing bestiality, Samuel Danforth wrote of crime and punishment and offered a why: “God’s end in inflicting remarkable judgments upon some, is for caution and warning to all others.”
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