Troubles
in New England
Religion in America
The English Civil War
• Bishops’
War, 1639
Charles
must call Parliament
Bishops
abolished 1641; Laud executed, 1645
• 1642-49,
civil war, Charles vs. Parliament
Oliver
Cromwell wins; Charles executed
• Westminster
Assembly of Divines, 1643-1653
Westminster
Confession of Faith
• Congregationalists
and Presbyterians split
Toleration
results in proliferation of sects
Baptists, Quakers, Ranters, Levellers, 5th Monarchy Men
Criticism
of intolerant Massachusetts Bay Colony
Puritans exile, imprison, and execute Quakers, 1559-1661
The Restoration
• Cromwell
dies, 1657
• Charles
II, 1660
Secret
Catholic
Return
of the bishops
• Puritans,
Calvinists, sectarians suppressed
Crisis in New England
• Crisis
of purpose: “City on a Hill”?
Ignored
by Cromwell, now cut off by Restoration
New purpose: Puritans as God’s instruments in America
• Sacramental
crisis
Infant
baptism (Gen. 17); conversion assumed
By 1645, clearly many baptized not converting
1662
Synod: the Half-Way Covenant
Controversial: unbiblical
• Declining
fervor, devotion; rising greed, dissension
The Glorious Revolution
• Charles
II revokes charter, 1684
• James
II, 1685, openly Catholic
Dominion
of New England
Governor Edmund Andros, 1686
• William III lands in England, 1688-1689
Spontaneous
revolt: Andros jailed
Act
of Toleration, 1689
New
secular charter, 1691
• Puritan
world crumbling
Witchcraft
hysteria, Salem, 1692