Godly Republicanism: Puritans, Pilgrims, and a City on a Hill

Puritans did not find a life free from tyranny in the New World—they created it there. Massachusetts emerged a republic as they hammered out a vision of popular participation and limited government in church and state, spurred by Plymouth Pilgrims. Godly Republicanism underscores how pathbreaking yet rooted in puritanism’s history the project was. Michael Winship takes us first to England, where he uncovers the roots of the puritans’ republican ideals in the aspirations and struggles of Elizabethan Presbyterians. Faced with the twin tyrannies of Catholicism and the crown, Presbyterians turned to the ancient New Testament churches for guidance. What they discovered there—whether it existed or not—was a republican structure that suggested better models for governing than monarchy. The puritans took their ideals to Massachusetts, but they did not forge their godly republic alone. In this book, for the first time, the separatists’ contentious, creative interaction with the puritans is given its due. Winship looks at the emergence of separatism and puritanism from shared origins in Elizabethan England, considers their split, and narrates the story of their reunion in Massachusetts. Out of the encounter between the separatist Plymouth Pilgrims and the puritans of Massachusetts Bay arose Massachusetts Congregationalism.

About the Author :
Michael P. Winship is E. Merton Coulter Professor of History at the University of Georgia.

Review :
Every reader will gain important new knowledge of New England’s religious and political origins from Michael P. Winship’s lively, ambitious, and impressively scholarly book… Winship’s masterful book will surely be read by everyone interested in New England’s or America’s origins. Godly Republicanism is a bold, searching, and overdue analysis of the nexus between churchly and political government in puritan thought. With this book, Winship has further secured his reputation as one of this generation’s finest scholars of puritanism. [A] meticulously researched argument for the distinctly ‘republican’ character of early New England… The book details the significant achievement of the Puritans in establishing a godly political order in the new world, but also the many reversals, ironies, and unexpected twists that attended that achievement. A richly suggestive text… [Winship] present[s] a story of the past that gives one to think, particularly in the light of a brilliant last chapter on Algernon Sidney, proto-Enlightenment theorist and godly Calvinist… This is a splendid book, evidence if needed of an historian equally at home on both sides of the Atlantic. Amazingly insightful. Winship effectively explores how Puritanism and republicanism interacted in England and New England to form the ‘free state’ of Massachusetts. Long depicted as moderates, the Puritan founders become, in Winship’s capable hands, bold and ambitious reformers… This is a very fine book. Wonderful…stunning… A challenging and important book…which offers yet more proof that the most rewarding works are those that require serious, rather than merely superficial, engagement on the part of the reader. Chapter by chapter, Winship brings new insights to what we thought were familiar events… He has a sharp scythe and cuts a clear path. Offers an engaging, meticulously-researched tale of the religious zealots whose conscientious scruples helped give birth to a new political tradition, and eventually a new nation. [Godly Republicanism] forces everyone who assumes a familiarity with the period to sit up and take notice. A stunningly original piece of scholarship… The new picture of early English and American politico-religious thought it provides is complex, densely argued, and quite persuasive. A stimulating and provocative new analysis of puritan views on godly government of church and state and the significance of these beliefs for English and American history. Equally at home on either side of the Atlantic, this is trans-oceanic history at its best. Winship has produced a novel account of the origins of New England congregationalism. He links the fields of English and American puritan studies with facility and authority and shows the crucial role of separatism in establishing the nature of New England puritanism. He also has important things to say about the politics of radical puritanism in England and the controverted question of English republicanism. This wonderful book will be required reading not merely for students and scholars of colonial America but also for anyone interested in the religious and political history of early modern England. A fresh take on a story that historians of American puritanism thought they knew well. Winship reminds readers of the extraordinary accomplishments of Massachusetts’ founders in fulfilling the anti-hierarchical dreams of the puritan movement, achieving a set of religious and social reforms in America that were ultimately stymied in England. This is an important book, the work of a mature and confident scholar, whose mastery of the source material on puritanism in England and America is unmatched.