Distant Reader - author-matherRichard-freebo

Introduction

This is a Distant Reader "study carrel", a set of structured data intended to help the student, researcher, or scholar use & understand a corpus.

This study carrel was created on 2021-05-24 by Eric Morgan <emorgan@nd.edu>. The carrel was created using the Distant Reader zip2carrel process, and the input was a Zip file locally cached with the name input-file.zip. Documents in the Zip file have been saved in a cache, and each of them have been transformed & saved as a set of plain text files. All of the analysis -- "reading" -- has been done against these plain text files. For example, a short narrative report has been created. This Web page is a more verbose version of that report.

All study carrels are self-contained -- no Internet connection is necessary to use them. Download this carrel for offline reading. The carrel is made up of many subdirectories and data files. The manifest describes each one in greater detail.

Size

There are 11 item(s) in this carrel, and this carrel is 385,067 words long. Each item in your study carrel is, on average, 35,006 words long. If you dig deeper, then you might want to save yourself some time by reading a shorter item. On the other hand, if your desire is for more detail, then you might consider reading a longer item. The following charts illustrate the overall size of the carrel.

Readability

On a scale from 0 to 100, where 0 is very difficult and 100 is very easy, the documents have an average readability score of 93. Consequently, if you want to read something more simplistic, then consider a document with a higher score. If you want something more specialized, then consider something with a lower score. The following charts illustrate the overall readability of the carrel.

Word Frequencies

By merely counting & tabulating the frequency of individual words or phrases, you can begin to get an understanding of the carrel's "aboutness". Excluding "stop words", some of the more frequent words include:

church, god, may, covenant, christ, one, yet, doth, churches, power, will, members, faith, therefore, must, also, children, now, us, man, many, though, men, lord, say, shall, word, much, congregation, first, people, answer, synod, without, things, doe, onely, whether, might, saith, way, persons, good, cor, reason, another, membership, true, place, words

Using the three most frequent words, the three files containing all of those words the most are Church-government and church-covenant discussed, in an answer of the elders of the severall churches in New-England to two and thirty questions, sent over to them by divers ministers in England, to declare their judgments therein. Together with an apologie of the said elders in New-England for church-covenant, sent over in answer to Master Bernard in the yeare 1639. As also in an answer to nine positions about church-government. And now published for the satisfaction of all who desire resolution in those points., A defence of the answer and arguments of the synod met at Boston in the year 1662 concerning the subject of Baptism and consociation of churches against the reply made thereto, by the Reverend Mr. John Davenport, pastor of the church at New-Haven, in his treatise entituled Another essay for investigation of the truth &c. : together with an answer to the apologetical preface set before that essay, by some of the elders who were members of the Synod above-mentioned., and A reply to Mr. Rutherfurd, or A defence of the answer to Reverend Mr. Herles booke against the independency of churches. VVherein such objections and answers, as are returned to sundry passages in the said answer by Mr. Samuel Rutherfurd, a godly and learned brother of the Church of Scotland, in his boke entituled The due right of Presbyters, are examined and removed, and the answer justified and cleared. / By Richard Macher [sic] teacher to the church at Dorchester in New England. 1646..

The most frequent two-word phrases (bigrams) include:

visible church, reverend author, lords supper, full communion, new testament, jesus christ, one congregation, whole church, one place, one church, must needs, old testament, single congregation, christ jesus, let us, one another, adult persons, fifth proposition, roman non, english books, early english, many congregations, lord jesus, holy ghost, particular congregation, come together, nationall church, books online, man may, new england, lords table, generall councell, men may, persons spoken, god doth, many churches, members thereof, still continue, true church, reformed churches, nothing else, author saith, church may, particular church, gathered together, word church, church government, may say, author answereth, gods word

And the three file that use all of the three most frequent phrases are A reply to Mr. Rutherfurd, or A defence of the answer to Reverend Mr. Herles booke against the independency of churches. VVherein such objections and answers, as are returned to sundry passages in the said answer by Mr. Samuel Rutherfurd, a godly and learned brother of the Church of Scotland, in his boke entituled The due right of Presbyters, are examined and removed, and the answer justified and cleared. / By Richard Macher [sic] teacher to the church at Dorchester in New England. 1646. A modest & brotherly ansvver to Mr. Charles Herle his book, against the independency of churches. Wherein his foure arguments for the government of synods over particular congregations, are friendly examined, and clearly answered. Together, with Christian and loving animadversions upon sundry other observable passages in the said booke. All tending to declare the true use of synods, and the power of congregationall churches in the points of electing and ordaining their owne officers, and censuring their offendors. By Richard Mather teacher of the Church at Dorchester; and William Tompson pastor of the Church at Braintree in New-England. Sent from thence after the assembly of elders were dissolved that last met at Cambridg to debate matters about church-government., and Church-government and church-covenant discussed, in an answer of the elders of the severall churches in New-England to two and thirty questions, sent over to them by divers ministers in England, to declare their judgments therein. Together with an apologie of the said elders in New-England for church-covenant, sent over in answer to Master Bernard in the yeare 1639. As also in an answer to nine positions about church-government. And now published for the satisfaction of all who desire resolution in those points..

While often deemed superficial or sophomoric, rudimentary frequencies and their associated "word clouds" can be quite insightful:

Keywords

Sets of keywords -- statistically significant words -- can be enumerated by comparing the relative frequency of words with the number of times the words appear in an entire corpus. Some of the most statistically significant keywords in the carrel include:

church, god, lord, churches, christ, scripture, covenant, cor, synod, members, elders, congregation, answer, word, testament, roman, rom, parents, new, lords, gospel, england, argument, act, tim, supper, spirit, sacraments, rutherford, reverend, reason, question, psal, proposition, power, page, mr., ministers, membership, mat, law, iurisdiction, indians, hath, faith, english, confession, communion, children, brother

And now word clouds really begin to shine:

Topic Modeling

Topic modeling is another popular approach to connoting the aboutness of a corpus. If the study carrel could be summed up in a single word, then that word might be church, and A catechisme, or, The grounds and principles of Christian religion set forth by way of question and answer wherein the summe of the doctrine of religion is comprised, familiarly opened, and clearly confirmed from the Holy Scriptures / by Richard Mather, teacher to the church at Dorchester in New England. is most about that word.

If the study carrel could be summed up in three words ("topics") then those words and their significantly associated titles include:

If the study carrel could be summed up in five topics, and each topic were each denoted with three words, then those topics and their most significantly associated files would be:

Moreover, the totality of the study carrel's aboutness, can be visualized with the following pie chart:

Noun & Verbs

Through an analysis of your study carrel's parts-of-speech, you are able to answer question beyonds aboutness. For example, a list of the most frequent nouns helps you answer what questions; "What is discussed in this collection?":

church, power, members, man, men, children, faith, people, things, doth, way, churches, persons, reason, word, words, thing, place, time, others, question, membership, case, part, scripture, matter, nothing, heart, truth, viz, communion, answer, hands, hath, answ, sins, grace, day, covenant, congregation, cause, times, respect, state, person, none, parents, adult, one, government

An enumeration of the verbs helps you learn what actions take place in a text or what the things in the text do. Very frequently, the most common lemmatized verbs are "be", "have", and "do"; the more interesting verbs usually occur further down the list of frequencies:

is, be, are, have, was, were, do, had, being, did, said, say, been, see, make, come, made, know, according, called, let, give, prove, done, given, take, doth, hath, suppose, think, follow, mentioned, baptized, concerning, having, spoken, pray, admitted, taken, thought, doe, saith, hold, found, put, deny, conceive, stand, heard, bee

Proper Nouns

An extraction of proper nouns helps you determine the names of people and places in your study carrel.

church, god, christ, covenant, 〉, ◊, 〈, lord, a., q., synod, ●, churches, cor, congregation, mr., hath, c., lords, doe, pag, wee, rom, baptism, synods, reverend, act, gods, word, elders, faith, new, gospel, england, yea, author, jesus, supper, tim, mat, answer, congregations, israel, testament, proposition, rutherford, doctrine, iohn, ans, law

An analysis of personal pronouns enables you to answer at least two questions: 1) "What, if any, is the overall gender of my study carrel?", and 2) "To what degree are the texts in my study carrel self-centered versus inclusive?"

it, they, their, i, them, his, he, we, our, him, you, us, my, themselves, your, me, himself, her, its, ours, one, thy, theirs, she, thee, yours, whereof, vvhat, mine, understād, u, ourselves, hic, ye, wr, ung, severall, s, pe, hers, heb, excluderetur, essing, em, elias, ce, capere

Below are words cloud of your study carrel's proper & personal pronouns.

Adjectives & Verbs

Learning about a corpus's adjectives and adverbs helps you answer how questions: "How are things described and how are things done?" An analysis of adjectives and adverbs also points to a corpus's overall sentiment. "In general, is my study carrel positive or negative?"

such, other, same, many, good, true, own, more, much, particular, first, visible, great, whole, former, full, like, little, doth, holy, sundry, second, sufficient, saith, ordinary, greater, right, new, present, necessary, latter, personal, very, last, free, able, third, least, non, immediate, plain, lawfull, better, single, fifth, common, fit, old, contrary, subject

not, so, then, therefore, also, now, yet, here, as, onely, more, together, only, well, all, thereof, never, up, there, thus, first, at, much, even, else, still, very, out, therein, otherwise, off, before, indeed, ever, forth, away, alone, again, sometimes, plainly, thereby, in, most, further, once, long, rather, no, down, afore

Next steps

There is much more to a study carrel than the things outlined above. Use this page's menubar to navigate and explore in more detail. There you will find additional features & functions including: ngrams, parts-of-speech, grammars, named entities, topic modeling, a simple search interface, etc.

Again, study carrels are self-contained. Download this carrel for offline viewing and use.

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