ABSTRACT
The puritans were “much afflicted with conscience.” According to their Calvinist faith, individuals must wrestle with their sinfulness and strive, with the assistance of their families, ministers and the larger community, to live out their faith as “Visible Saints.” In New England, they had an unprecedented opportunity to live out their faith, but they continued to wrestle both individually and collectively with questions of conscience, toleration and civil order. As English Puritans newly arrived from England, many of the original proprietors and their families would have had experience with active female participation in Church affairs in both Old and New England. The Jane Verin Case set no precedent for subsequent legal cases involving women’s rights in Rhode Island, it must be examined within the full context of events both in Old and New England. The Verin family reflected in microcosm the forces at work in Plymouth and Massachusetts Bay during the 1630s.
