ABSTRACT
John Davenport (1597-1670), after an Oxford education, a Puritan pastorate in London, and a troublesome time amongst Dutch Protestants, arrived in Boston sharply opposed to the antinominian opponents of religious order. He rapidly established an independent colony at New Haven with his friend, the London merchant Theophilus Eaton, as governor. There Davenport and Eaton developed a rigorous regime based upon a church of Saints and a close relationship between church and rulers. The extracts below, from 1663, may be read as Davenport's unbending reassertion of his position at a time of disenchant-ment. 1662 had brought the Half-Way Covenant and the absorption of the colony of New Haven into Connecticut. Davenport had opposed both as signs of declension from the true order and true doctrine.
