Troubles
in New England

Religion in America

The English Civil War

• Bishops’ War, 1639

– Charles must call Parliament

– Bishops abolished 1641; Archbishop 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, many others

– Criticism of intolerant Massachusetts Bay Colony

– Puritans exile, imprison, and execute Quakers, 1559-1661

The Restoration

• Cromwell dies, 1658

• Charles II, 1660

– Secret Catholic

– Return of the bishops

• Puritans, Calvinists, sectarians suppressed

Crisis in New England

• Crisis of purpose

– 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

• William III lands in England, 1688-1689

– Act of Toleration, 1689

– New secular charter, 1691

• Puritan world crumbling

– Witchcraft hysteria, Salem, 1692