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  • 2 - Puritanism in a Local Context: Ministry, People, and Church in 1630s Massachusetts

  • Edited by Ulinka Rublack, University of Cambridge
  • Book:
    Protestant Empires
    Published online:
    20 August 2020
    Print publication:
    10 September 2020, pp 56-81

  • Summary

    This essay is based on a singular archive of “relations” made by lay people when they were made candidates for church membership in New World Cambridge, Massachusetts ca. 1638–1648. In these narratives, women and men recall the social experience of being among the “godly” in England, reflect on the decision to emigrate, and above all, map the ups and downs of their spiritual histories. These “relations” are paired with sermons preached by Thomas Shepard, the town minister, who addressed the same topics both in sermons and in a journal. Bringing these two sources together makes it possible to explore various dimensions of lay experience and pastoral perspective: continuities between old and New England, disruptions and self-critiques arising out of the transition to Massachusetts, echoes of the “Antinomian” controversy and its objections to some aspects of the practical divinity. Overall, this essay will attempt to redefine “Reformation” as a challenging mixture of the local and the general, and of adaptation and continuity.