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Peter Bulkeley
Also Known As Bulkley Older spelling used in the Dictionary of National Biography and in his own century; modern usage generally prefers Bulkeley.
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Peter Bulkeley (baptized 31 January 1582/3 at Odell, Bedfordshire, England; died 9 March 1658/9 at Concord, Massachusetts Bay Colony) was an English Puritan divine, educated at St John's College, Cambridge, where he became a fellow. He succeeded his father as rector of Odell around 1619/20 and held the living for some fifteen years under Bishop Williams's lenient administration, but was silenced for nonconformity once Archbishop Laud became primate. He emigrated to New England in 1635 and, with Simon Willard, led the settlement of Concord, Massachusetts, one of the first inland English towns in the colony. In April 1637 he was appointed, with Thomas Hooker, one of the two moderators of the Newtown synod convened that August to examine the doctrinal errors at issue in the Antinomian Controversy centered on Anne Hutchinson. His sole publication, The Gospel-Covenant, or the Covenant of Grace Opened (London, 1646), a series of sermons on Zechariah 9:11 preached at Concord, became one of the first influential theological works printed for New England and is counted among the founding texts of American Puritan covenant, or federal, theology.
Facts
Life
Lifespan or Floruit Lifespan or Floruit31 January 1582/3 to 9 March 1658/9 (Old Style dating; 1583 to 1659 in New Style year numbering) 1 English dates before 1752 are given Old Style, with the year beginning 25 March; sources render Bulkeley's birth and death years as 1582/3 and 1658/9 accordingly, equivalent to 1583 and 1659 New Style. Office HeldRector of Odell, Bedfordshire (1610 to 1634); first minister of Concord, Massachusetts Bay Colony (1636 to 1659); appointed, with Thomas Hooker, one of two moderators of the Newtown synod of 1637 1 Place of ActivityOdell, Bedfordshire, England (1610 to 1634); Concord, Massachusetts Bay Colony (1635/6 to 1659) 1 Attributions
TraditionChurch of England (conforming until 1634); Puritan and Congregationalist in New England from 1635 1 Position Profile
Key TextSermons on Zechariah 9:11, the blood of thy covenant, preached at Concord and published as The Gospel-Covenant (1646) 1 Disputed
How Its Legacy Is ContestedAs co-moderator of the 1637 Newtown synod, Bulkeley helped frame the doctrinal findings later used against Anne Hutchinson; historians differ over whether the synod's action defended the colony's covenant orthodoxy or represented doctrinal intolerance toward a genuinely held dissenting position. 2 Reflects ongoing historiographical disagreement over the Antinomian Controversy rather than a single settled scholarly verdict. Origins
FoundedEmigrated in 1635 and, with Simon Willard, led the settlement of Concord (formerly Musketaquid), Massachusetts Bay Colony, one of the first inland English towns in the colony. 1 Place of OriginOdell, Bedfordshire, England 1 History
Historical NoteMatriculated at St John's College, Cambridge around age sixteen and became a fellow; succeeded his father as rector of Odell around 1619/20; silenced for nonconformity once Archbishop Laud became primate, after some fifteen years of undisturbed Puritan ministry under Bishop Williams's more lenient administration. 1 Publications
Notable PublicationThe Gospel-Covenant, or the Covenant of Grace Opened (London, 1646; enlarged second edition 1651; third edition 1674) 1 Learn More
Peter Bulkeley and the Making of New England Covenant Theology
This article records tradition as it has been passed down and reported. Its sources are not yet part of the atlas's verified catalogue.
When Peter Bulkeley stood in his Concord pulpit to preach on Zechariah 9:11, the blood of thy covenant, he was doing what dozens of New England ministers did every week: expounding a text. What made the resulting book different was its reach. The Gospel-Covenant, printed in London in 1646 and enlarged in 1651, set out in careful, systematic terms the covenant of grace that Puritan divinity held stood at the center of a believer's relationship with God, distinguished from the covenant of works its own theology found insufficient for salvation. Historians of American religious thought place Bulkeley alongside Thomas Shepard, John Cotton and Thomas Hooker among the New England ministers whose preaching gave the young colony's covenant, or federal, theology its fullest practical expression, work that fed directly into the Cambridge Platform the Massachusetts churches adopted in 1648 to order their own polity. Bulkeley dedicated the book to Oliver St John, later chief justice of the Common Pleas, a friend from his English years whose help he credited again in his will. Three editions across three decades testify to a readership well beyond Concord: a colonial minister's sermons on a single verse, still read as one of the clearest statements New England produced of the theological grammar its churches shared.
Bulkeley, Hooker, and the Synod That Answered Anne Hutchinson
This article records tradition as it has been passed down and reported. Its sources are not yet part of the atlas's verified catalogue.
In April 1637, the ministers of the Massachusetts Bay Colony named Peter Bulkeley one of two moderators for a synod they meant to settle a controversy that had split the colony for more than a year. The other moderator was Thomas Hooker, by then the best known minister in New England. The synod they led convened at Newtown, later Cambridge, on 30 August 1637, and spent weeks working through a long list of doctrinal errors the ministers traced to the preaching of Anne Hutchinson and John Wheelwright: an emphasis on free grace and on direct, personal revelation from the Holy Spirit that the assembled clergy read as loosening the place of visible, disciplined conduct in a believer's assurance of salvation. The synod condemned the errors it catalogued. It did not itself try Hutchinson, who was examined and convicted before the General Court that November and, after her own congregation heard her case in March 1638, excommunicated and banished from the colony. But its findings supplied the doctrinal ground the later proceedings stood on. Bulkeley's own century read his part in this as the ordinary business of a minister defending the colony's covenant orthodoxy against error. Later historians have not all agreed, and the Antinomian Controversy is remembered today as much for the questions it raises about religious dissent and civil authority as for the theology it was fought over.
Cross-Tradition Connections
Belongs to Tradition
Conducted
Opposes
As co-moderator, with Thomas Hooker, of the 1637 Newtown synod that examined and refuted the Antinomian Controversy's doctrinal errors, per the Dictionary of National Biography's own account of his appointment.
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Sources
Dissenting Readings (1 dissenting reading)
Opposes: Anne Hutchinson
Where the synod and Bulkeley's own century read Anne Hutchinson's condemnation as necessary doctrinal discipline, a substantial modern historiographical tradition reads the same trial and banishment as an act of intolerance toward a genuinely held theological position and an early episode in the case for separating civil and religious authority.
A dissenting reading, from Modern historiography of the Antinomian ControversyDavid D. Hall, David D. Hall, The Antinomian Controversy, 1636-1638: A Documentary History (Duke University Press, 1990), Duke University Press, 1990
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