To Live Ancient Lives: The Primitivist Dimension in Puritanism (Published by the Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture and the University of North Carolina Press)

To Live Ancient Lives signals a sharp redirection of Puritan studies. It provides the first comprehensive study of Puritan primitivism, defined as the drive to recover and return to church and society the ordinances of biblical times. This work traces a campaign to purify English Christianity of postapostolic accretions from the Henrician Reformation to the Great Migration of 1630 and through the first five decades in New England. Taking their bearings from a special past, Puritans were not concerned with the future in a modern sense. The Great Migration was not intended as an errand to reform the world or inaugurate the millennium, but as a flight to a free world in which long-lost biblical rules and ways could be reinstituted. Drawing on hundreds of sermons and tracts, Bozeman demonstrates how the search for the long-lost helps to identify Puritanism as a discrete order within Protestant dissent, and he locates that movement within the larger spectrum of restorationist Christian movements and of Western mythology. Originally published in 1988. A UNC Press Enduring Edition -- UNC Press Enduring Editions use the latest in digital technology to make available again books from our distinguished backlist that were previously out of print. These editions are published unaltered from the original, and are presented in affordable paperback formats, bringing readers both historical and cultural value. Foundations Of Puritan Primitivism -- The Protestant Epistemology -- The Errand Into The Wilderness Considered -- Ecclesiastical Re-formation In Earliest New England -- Political Mimesis: The Good Ruler And Moses His Judicials -- First Phases Of Puritan Millennialism -- John Cotton And End-time Progress -- John Eliot And The Civil Part Of The Kingdom Of Christ -- The Jeremiad: Shifting Ideals Of Covenantal Maintenance, 1630-1663 -- New England As Primordium: The New Traditionalism Of The American Jeremiad, 1663-1675 -- Reflections Upon The Primitivist Dimension. Theodore Dwight Bozeman. Includes Bibliographical References (p. [369]-401) And Index. x, 413 pages ; 24 cm Includes bibliographical references (pages 369-401) and index Foundations of Puritan primitivism -- The Protestant epistemology -- The errand into the wilderness considered -- Ecclesiastical re-formation in earliest New England -- Political mimesis: the good ruler and "Moses his judicials" -- First phases of Puritan millennialism -- John Cotton and end-time progress -- John Eliot and the civil part of the Kingdom of Christ -- The Jeremiad: shifting ideals of covenantal maintenance, 1630-1663 -- New England as primordium: the new traditionalism of the American Jeremiad, 1663-1675 -- Reflections upon the primitivist dimension