ABSTRACT
The language of establishment took for granted that there was a uniformity of religious life within society. Even as this idiom continued to be used in the eighteenth century colonies, however, developments were taking place that would render it wholly obsolete. Connecticut, along with Massachusetts Bay, took for granted the desirability of a rigorous and exclusive church establishment. Connecticut was able to realize this pattern more successfully, however, due chiefly to a greater insularity. The Connecticut system was incorporated in the Saybrook Platform, which was adopted in 1708. The Mennonites took their name from Menno Simons, who was an Anabaptist leader of the continental Reformation. His followers were incorrectly grouped with the revolutionaries and spiritualists by both Protestants and Catholics, and all were severely persecuted. Samuel Davies, who became fourth president of the College of New Jersey in 1759, was instrumental in organizing Presbyterianism in Virginia.
