Overview

Unmatched in the breadth of its scope, this study takes into account all of the surviving covenants in all of the New England colonies. Weir's comprehensive survey of seventeenth-century covenants leads to a more complex picture of early New England than what emerges from looking at only a few famous civil covenants like the Mayflower Compact. His work shows covenant theology being transformed into a covenantal vision for society but also reveals the stress and strains on church-state relationships that eventually led to more secularized colonial governments in eighteenth-century New England. He concludes that New England colonial society was much more ""English"" and much less ""American"" than has often been thought, and that the New England colonies substantially mirrored religious and social change in Old England.

Full Product Details

Author:   David A. Weir
Publisher:   William B Eerdmans Publishing Co
Imprint:   William B Eerdmans Publishing Co
Dimensions:   Width: 15.20cm , Height: 3.80cm , Length: 22.20cm
Weight:   0.653kg
ISBN:  

9780802813527

ISBN 10:   0802813526
Pages:   460
Publication Date:   05 July 2005
Audience:   General/trade ,  Professional and scholarly ,  General ,  Professional & Vocational
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Out of Print
Availability:   In Print  
Limited stock is available. It will be ordered for you and shipped pending supplier's limited stock.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments List of Tables and Figures Abbreviations Explanation of Quotation Style and Terminology Introduction The European Background The Colonial Charters of Early New England The Civil Covenants of Early New England The Church Covenants of Early New England I: The Standing Order The Church Covenants of Early New England II: The Dissenters The Covenantal Confessions of Early New England: The Seeds of Diversity Conclusion Appendix 1 A Listing of Seventeenth-Century Towns, Churches, and Native American Praying Places in or Related to New England, Including a Checklist of Covenant and Foundational Activity, 1620-1708 Appendix 2 Typology of Early New England Local Civil Covenants, Arranged Chronologically Bibliographical Essay Notes Index

Reviews

David Weir has given us the most detailed study of the civil and church covenants of colonial New England that we have ever had. Moving far beneath the reflections of the theologians, he shows us how the concept of covenant functioned among ordinary settlers attempting to live together in isolated and hazardous colonies. This is a thorough, judicious, and deeply informative book. E Brooks Holifield

Author Information

David A. Weir is professor of history at Nyack College in New York. His other book is The Origins of the Federal Theology in Sixteenth-Century Reformation Thought.

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