Review

Reviewed Work(s): The Puritan Experiment: New England Society from Bradford to
Edwards by Francis J. Bremer
Review by: William L. Pitts
Source: Journal of Church and State , Winter 1980, Vol. 22, No. 1 (Winter 1980), p. 149
Published by: Oxford University Press

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/23915869

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 BOOK REVIEWS 149

The Puritan Expe

Edwards. By Fra
1976. 225 pp. $1

The literature on
that he was unab
reviewed the to
Therefore he wro
introductory surve
The survey begins
mid-sixteenth-cen
the declension of
major new movem
outset Bremer re
emphasis on (1)
conversion, and (3
ism vis-à-vis Angli
Puritan Englishm
how unsettled pol
affected Puritans in America.
Bremer concentrates on the American experience of Puritanism,
and he gives full attention to the early histories of separate American
entities: Plymouth, Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Haven,
Rhode Island, and the frontier settlements. He explains the organi
zation of significant institutions of the society—town, family, and
school—and describes creative efforts in the arts. The organization
and governing of both church and state receive extensive treatment,
and their interaction is well illustrated. The problems posed to this
society by religious pluralism are graphically set forth in the
accounts of the Baptists and the Quakers. Despite a few errors (John
Wycliffe is placed in the fifteenth century), this book admirably
fulfills its purpose. In addition to being a useful narrative introduc
tion to Puritanism, the book provides a bibliographical essay for
each chapter and lists of guides to archives, printed sources, and
bibliographies of Puritanism.
William L. Pitts

Render unto God: A Theology of Selective Obedience. By Thomas A.

Shannon. New York: Paulist Press, 1974. 180 pp. $4.50 paper.

Most doctoral dissertations do not, as publishers know, make

good books. Thomas Shannon, however, may have provided an

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