Evangelical Time, Separatism, and the "Spiritual Travels of Nathan Cole".

This article examines the temporal dimensions of New England's Great Awakening (1730s–1740s) through a detailed literary and theological analysis of Connecticut farmer Nathan Cole's "Spiritual Travels." Challenging the dominant view of evangelical conversion as an instantaneous, affect-driven event, the study argues that Cole's narrative reveals a complex temporal consciousness structured around intervals rather than moments, reflecting continuities with seventeenth-century Puritan doctrines such as predestination. Cole's writing is positioned as a theological treatise that emphasizes cognitive engagement with time and grace, rather than solely emotional experience, and highlights how his Separatist convictions manifest in a privatized, interval-based sense of spiritual community. The essay further suggests that attending to such temporal formations in evangelical texts can enrich understandings of genre, time, and religious experience in early America.