Excerpt from Church and State in Massachusetts: 1691-1740 Six years ago I was working on a brief study of the ecclesiastical development of provincial Massachusetts, to present as a master's thesis at the University of Illinois. In putting together the material I was struck with the fact that there were some broad empty spaces in the story of the gradual encroachments on the old Puritan system by religious dissenters. By the middle of the eighteenth century Anglicans, Baptists and Quakers were all recognized in ecclesiastical law and possessed certain privileges, but the process by which these results had been gained was not clear. Histories of New England Baptists showed that the real work of this sect was practically limited to the second half of the century; local histories of Anglican churches recounted the efforts of the Massachusetts Churchmen; but neither explained the steps by which all three groups gained a fairly comfortable status in Massachusetts law before the middle of the eighteenth century. A solution of this problem has been found in the early records of the Society of Friends in New England and in London. The best collection of New England Quaker records, the minutes of the New England Yearly Meeting and of the Rhode Island Quarterly, are in the library of the Moses Brown School at Providence. Others may be found at the Newport Historical Society, the New Bedford meeting house and the meeting house at Lynn. All have been used again and again for local and genealogical purposes but rarely for any general study. In every case they show so close a connection between the Quakers of Massachusetts and those of England that the records of the London Yearly Meeting and the London Meeting for Sufferings are essential for a clear understanding of what the New England Quakers of the early eighteenth century were doing. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

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This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

Powerful preacher, political negotiator for New England in the halls of Parliament, president of Harvard, father of Cotton Mather, Increase Mather was the epitome of the American Puritan. He was the most important spokesman of his generation for Congregationalism and became the last American Puritan of consequence as the seventeenth century ended. The story begins in 1639 when Mather was born in the Massachusetts village of Dorchester. He left home for Harvard College when he was twelve and at twenty-two began to stir the city of Boston from the pulpit of North Church. He had written four books by the time he was thirty-two. Certain he was God's chosen instrument and New England God's chosen people, he disciplined mind and spirit in service to them both. Tempted to "Atheisme" and unbelief, afflicted early by nightmares and melancholy, then by hope and joy, he was a pioneer in recognizing the excitement of the new sciences and sought to reconcile them to theology. This well-wrought biography, the first of Increase Mather in forty years, draws on the extensive Mather diaries, which were transcribed by Michael Hall.