Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 May 2020
This essay explores the origins and expansion of New England Praying Towns in the context of the ongoing theological and religious debates of 1646–1674. This period spawned significant debates regarding the extent of the Abrahamic covenant, the requirements for church membership, and the nature of conversion. The ministers present at the Synod of 1662 gathered to settle the question of “extended baptism,” an issue where Indian and English concerns intersected. Reformers who promoted a generational vision of church membership emphasized the efficacy of spiritual preparation for younger generations and the power of a broader and more inclusive church covenant. This development benefitted Algonquians living in Praying Towns because theological preparation validated efforts to catechize and instruct Praying Indians in religious matters. Likewise, a broadening vision of church membership enabled some colonists to consider the possibility that Indians might be included within their religious communities. These projects, launched before the formalization of the Halfway Covenant in 1662, presented a tangible example of spiritual preparation in practice and served to validate the conversionary process within the colony at large. English observers found Indian conversion impressive (or reacted with intense skepticism) because most theologians considered Indians unlikely converts, especially in larger numbers. For Algonquians demonstrating an interest in English spirituality, church membership represented a degree of parity with their New England brethren. Tracing the development of New England missions, the pathway to church membership, and the debates on both missions and extended baptism reveals both the possibilities and limits to the inclusion of Indian Christians within New England's religious institutions.
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37 Eliot, A further Account of the progress of the Gospel Amongst the Indians in New England, 360–361.
38 Richard Mather, Church-government and Church-covenant discussed: In an answer of the elders of the severall churches in New-England to two and thirty questions, sent over to them by divers ministers in England, to declare their judgments therein (London: Benjamin Allen, 1643), 87, 89–90; and Hall, Worlds of Wonder, 90–94, 216–217.
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42 Whitfeld, Strength out of Weaknesse, 226–227; and Richard W. Cogley, “A Presbyterian in Congregationalist New England?” Journal of Presbyterian History 77, no. 2 (Summer 1999): 71–73, 78.
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45 Whitfeld, Strength out of Weaknesse, 233.
46 Julius H. Rubin, Tears of Repentance: Christian Indian Identity and Community in Colonial Southern New England (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2013), 60–63; and Sibbes, Riches of Mercie, 40–42.
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48 Eliot and Mayhew, Tears of Repentance, 265.
49 Rubin, Tears of Repentance, 24–25, 56–58; Henkel, “Represented Authenticity,” 26–27; Kristina Bross, Dry Bones and Indian Sermons: Praying Indians in Colonial America (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2004), 76–83; and Eliot and Mayhew, Tears of Repentance, 272.
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51 Katharine Gerbner, “Beyond the ‘Halfway Covenant’: Church Membership, Extended Baptism, and Outreach in Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1656–1667,” New England Quarterly 85, no. 2 (June 2012): 285; and Pope, Half-Way Covenant, 14–15.
52 Pope, Half-Way Covenant, 20–21; Cogley, John Eliot's Mission, 129; and Richard Mather, A Catechisme: Or, The Grounds and Principles of Christian Religion, set forth by way of Question and Answer [. . .] (London: John Rothwell, 1650), 44–45, 76.
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56 John Eliot, A Late and Further Manifestation of the Progress of the Gospel amongst the Indians in New England, in Clark, Eliot Tracts, 304–307. Eliot did not name the examinees in this tract, collapsing their collective responses into a summary of questions and answers that shed no light on individual speakers or statements.
57 Eliot, Late and Further Manifestation, 308–317; and J. Rendel Harris, “Three Letters of John Eliot and a Bill of Lading of the ‘Mayflower,’” Bulletin of the John Rylands Library 5, nos. 1–2 (1919): 10–11.
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61 Abraham Peirson, Some Helps for the Indians: Shewing them How to improve their natural Reason, To know the True God, and the true Christian Religion (Cambridge: Samuel Green, 1658), 7, 23, 26.
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67 Joseph Caryl, introduction to A further Account of the progress of the Gospel Amongst the Indians in New England, in Clark, Eliot Tracts, 359.
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70 John Davenport to William Goffee, 1662, in Letters of John Davenport: Puritan Divine, ed. Isabel MacBeath Calder (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1937), 199–201; and John Davenport to William Goodwin, 1665, in Calder, Letters of John Davenport, 256–257.
71 John Davenport, Another Essay for Investigation of the Truth: In Answer to Two Questions [. . .] (Cambridge, 1663), v–vi, 23; and William J. Scheick, “An Inward Power and Authority: John Davenport's Seditious Piety,” Religion and Literature 33, no. 1 (Spring 2001): 2.
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76 Newell, Brethren by Nature, 50, 63, 65, 97–98; and Wendy Warren, New England Bound: Slavery and Colonization in Early America (New York: Liveright, 2016), 59–64.
77 Richard Mather, A Defence of the Answers and Arguments of the Synod Met at Boston in the Year 1662 [. . .] (Cambridge, 1664), xi, xiii–ix, 99–100. The numbering of this tract is inconsistent, so for the sake of clarification I have labeled the first sequence of numbers with roman numerals to denote their introductory status within the document.
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79 Walker, Creeds and Platforms, 331.
80 Shepard, Church Membership of Children, 13. Gerbner asserts that this description of the “covenant seal” was “laden with ambiguity”: Gerbner, “Beyond the ‘Halfway Covenant,’” 284.
81 Shepard, Church Membership of Children, 12–13; and Michael McGiffert, God's Plot: Puritan Spirituality in Thomas Shepard's Cambridge, rev. ed. (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1994), 10–19.
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85 Pope, Half-Way Covenant, 152–165.
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87 Breen, “Praying with the Enemy,” 106–107.
88 John Oxenbridge, A Seasonable Proposition of Propagating the Gospel by Christian Colonies in the Continent of Guaiana: Being some gleanings of a larger Discourse drawn, but not published (London, 1670).
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90 Topically, each chapter examines prophecies drawn from a particular part of the Bible: Chapter 2 concerns Mosaic prophecies, chapters 3 and 4 Psalms, chapter 5 Isaiah and Song of Solomon, chapter 6 looks at the remainder of Isaiah, chapter 7 the remainder of the Old Testament prophets, and chapter 8 gives New Testament conversionary examples. This concern for continuity with the Old Testament also appeared in arguments favoring extended baptism by highlighting the Abrahamic covenant. Scobey, “Revising the Errand,” 16–17.
91 John Oxenbridge, “Conversion of the Gentiles, ca. 1670,” Ms. Sbd-56, pp. 11, 13, Massachusetts Historical Society, Boston.
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95 Breen, “Praying with the Enemy,” 104–109. Breen suggests that opposition to the Halfway Covenant may have stemmed from Gookin's promotion of the practice with Indians. I intend to offer more concrete proof that this was the case through the earlier examples from oppositional pamphlets. Katherine Gerbner's analysis of Jonathan Mitchel's implementation of extended baptism at Cambridge similarly asserts that his principle application of the doctrine was to “expand the reach of the church to unchurched families in the community”: Gerbner, “Beyond the ‘Halfway Covenant,’” 283.
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103 Ford, Some Correspondence Between the Governors and Treasurers, 38.
104 Ford, Some Correspondence Between the Governors and Treasurers, 32–33.
105 Fisher, Lemons, and Mason-Brown, Decoding Roger Williams, 38, 163–167.
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109 Eliot, “Letter of the Reverend John Eliot,” 1–2; and Ford, Some Correspondence Between the Governors and Treasurers, 39–40.
110 Cotton Mather, India Christiana (Boston: B. Green, 1721), 39; Mandell, Behind the Frontier, 59–60; and Fisher, Linford D., “Native Americans, Conversion, and Christian Practice in Colonial New England, 1640–1730,” Harvard Theological Review 102, no. 1 (January 2009): 110–111CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 122–123.
111 Anderson, Benedict, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, rev. ed. (London: Verso, 2006), 6–7Google Scholar, 12–19.