Statues of Thomas Hooker and Samuel Stone grace downtown Hartford, Connecticut, but few residents are aware of the distinctive version of Puritanism that these founding ministers of Harford's First Church carried into to the Connecticut wilderness (or indeed that the city takes its name from Stone's English birthplace). Shaped by interpretations of the writings of Saint Augustine largely developed during the ministers' years at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, Hartford's church order diverged in significant ways from its counterpart in the churches of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Hartford Puritanism argues for a new paradigm of New England Puritanism. Hartford's founding ministers, Baird Tipson shows, both fully embraced - and even harshened - Calvin's double predestination. Tipson explores the contributions of the lesser-known William Perkins, Alexander Richardson, and John Rogers to Thomas Hooker's thought and practice: the art and content of his preaching, as well as his determination to define and impose a distinctive notion of conversion on his hearers. The book draws heavily on Samuel Stone's The Whole Body of Divinity, a comprehensive exposition of his thought and the first systematic theology written in the American colonies. Virtually unknown today, The Whole Body of Divinity not only provides the indispensable intellectual context for the religious development of early Connecticut but also offers a more comprehensive description of the Puritanism of early New England than any other document.

A study of the rise and decline of puritanism in England and New England that focuses on the role of godly men and women. It explores the role of family devotions, lay conferences, prophesying and other means by which the laity influenced puritan belief and practice, and the efforts of the clergy to reduce lay power in the seventeenth century.

Hadley, located on the Connecticut River at the far western frontier of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, was settled from the colony of Connecticut to the south, and early Hadley’s social and economic relations with Connecticut remained very close. The move to Hadley was motivated by religion and was a carefully planned removal. It resulted from an important dispute within the church of Hartford, and Hadley’s earliest settlers continued to observe their very strict form of Puritanism which had evolved as the “New England Way.” The settlers of Hadley also believed in a high degree of colonial independence from the Crown. These beliefs, combined with a high degree of internal cohesion and motivation in the early settlement, enabled the community of Hadley, despite its isolation and small size, to play an unusually prominent and contentious role in three great crises which threatened the Bay Colony. The first Episode examines the refuge given by Hadley, at great risk and in defiance of the Crown, to the important English Regicides, Edward Whalley and William Goffe, between 1664 and 1676 when the surviving Regicide, Goffe, was removed to Hadley’s allies in Hartford where he was sheltered before disappearing from the record. The second Episode describes Hadley’s divisive support for Increase Mather and John Davenport in opposing the “Half-Way Covenant,” a dispute which split the New England churches over baptismal practice and church polity. The third Episode deals with an internal dispute within Hadley over the direction of the local school which then was caught up into the larger dispute over the Dominion of New England government imposed by the Crown after the suspension of the Bay’s Charter. Through the course of these troubles within the Bay Colony from the 1660s to the 1680s, the initial internal solidarity of the town fractured, and its original unity of purpose with the rest of Colony was eroded. This secular “declension” led to Hadley’s political decline from prominence into the pleasant but unremarkable village it is today.

"Shedding critical new light on the diverse forms of Puritan belief and practice in England, Scotland, and New England, Hall provides a multifaceted account of a cultural movement that judged the Protestant reforms of Elizabeth's reign to be unfinished"--Provided by publisher.

The Puritan Ideology of Mobility: Corporatism, the Politics of Place, and the Founding of New England Towns before 1650 examines the ideology that English Puritans developed to justify migration: their migration from England to New England, migrations from one town to another within New England, and, often, their repatriation to the mother country. Puritan leaders believed firmly that nations, colonies, and towns were all “bodies politic,” that is, living and organic social bodies. However, if a social body became distempered because of scarce resources or political or religious discord, it became necessary to create a new social body from the old in order to restore balance and harmony. The new social body was articulated through the social ritual of land distribution according to Aristotelian “distributive justice.” The book will trace this process at work in the founding of Ipswich and its satellite town in Massachusetts.

For generations, scholars have imagined American puritans as religious enthusiasts, fleeing persecution, finding refuge in Massachusetts, and founding 'America'. The puritans have been read as a product of New England and the origin of American exceptionalism. This History challenges the usual understanding of American puritans, offering new ways of reading their history and their literary culture. Together, an international team of authors make clear that puritan America cannot be thought of apart from Native America, and that its literature is also grounded in Britain, Europe, North America, the Caribbean, and networks that spanned the globe. Each chapter focuses on a single place, method, idea, or context to read familiar texts anew and to introduce forgotten or neglected voices and writings. A History of American Puritan Literature is a collaborative effort to create not a singular literary history, but a series of interlocked new histories of American puritan literature.

A book on the life and writings of Giles Firmin (1613/14–1697), situating him in the intellectual milieu of late seventeenth century puritanism.

Who were the Puritans, and why are they important? What can we learn from them today? The Puritan movement began in England during the sixteenth century and continued all the way into the early eighteenth century. Although the Church of England was formed as a result of the Reformation, the Puritans believed it needed much more reform. Puritan Heroes is a beautifully illustrated book that gives the reader an idea of what the Puritan movement was about and offers a glimpse into the lives of more than twenty of its most well-known leaders (among them William Perkins, Richard Sibbes, Thomas Goodwin, Anne Bradstreet, and Jonathan Edwards). The book concludes with ten important lessons readers can learn from the Puritans and study questions to help them retain these fascinating stories and assist them in applying the lessons to their lives. It also features a bibliography to encourage further study in greater depth, as well as a glossary and timeline to help readers understand historical context. Written for children and young people, it will prove a suitable introduction to the Puritans for adults as well. Table of Contents: 1. Who Were the Puritans? 2. Richard Greenham: Puritan Pioneer 3. William Perkins: Father of Puritanism 4. William Ames: Calvinist and Congregationalist 5. Richard Sibbes: Warm Heart 6. John Cotton: New England Leader 7. Thomas Hooker: Connecticut Founder 8. Jeremiah Burroughs: Gem of Contentment 9. Thomas Goodwin: Swallowed by God’s Love 10. John Eliot: Apostle to the Indians 11. Thomas Shepard: God’s Story 12. Thomas Brooks: Soul Servant 13. Anne Bradstreet: Pilgrim Poet 14. Richard Baxter: God’s Pen 15. John Owen: God’s Navigator 16. Christopher Love: Presbyterian Martyr 17. John Bunyan: Traveler and Prisoner 18. John Flavel: Providence’s Servant 19. John Howe: Living Temple 20. Joseph Alleine: God’s Arrow 21. Matthew Henry: Bible Commentator 22. Jonathan Edwards: In the Hands of a Loving God

Hezekiah Haynes was shaped by the Puritanism of his father’s network and experienced emigration to New England as part of a community removing themselves from Charles I’s Laudianism. Returning to fight in the British Civil Wars, Haynes rose to become Cromwell’s ruler of the east of England, tasked with bringing about a godly revolution, and in rising to prominence he became the centre of his own developing political and religious network, which included a kin link to Cromwell himself. As one of Cromwell’s Major-Generals Haynes was tasked with security and a reformation of manners, but he was hampered by the limits of the early modern state and Cromwell’s own contradictory political and religious ideas. The Restoration saw Haynes imprisoned in the Tower before emerging to return to the community in which he had been raised, and continuing the links with some of those he had worked with for Cromwell and the kin he had left behind in New England in dealing with the norms of early modern life. This book will appeal to specialists in the area and students taking courses on early modern English and American history, as well as those with a more general interest in the period.