Ezekiel Rogers

Ezekiel Rogers ( * 1590 in Wethersfield, Essex, England; † January 23, 1660 in Rowley, Massachusetts, New England ) was an English Puritan and pioneer settlers in New England.

Life

England

He was the second son of Richard Rogers, one of the leading Puritan preachers and theologians of his time, from his first marriage with Mary Duckenfield. Ezekiel's older brother was Daniel Rogers, who later entered the priesthood and was to become one of the most influential Puritan ministers during the English Interregnum. After studying at Christ's College, Cambridge (BA 1605, MA 1608), he was in 1610 chaplain to Sir Francis Barrington, 1st Baronet of Barrington Hall in Hatfield Broad Oak, Essex.

In his will, Rogers wrote that the recovery from a serious illness at the age of twenty have only strengthened his belief in God so that he opted for the priesthood. As a result, he became an advocate of Puritan beliefs; of the increasing reprisals against too radical reformers he initially remained unscathed in his position as a private chaplain to the Barrington Baronets. Only after Barrington with the help of his connections to the Puritan gentry in Yorkshire 1621, the benefice of the north of England parish of Rowley gave him and Rogers made ​​there with his sermons a name, he came into conflict with the state church. Although Rogers initially enjoyed the benevolence of the Archbishop of York, Tobie Mathew, and could just about in his parish in Rowley establish a regular meeting of the Puritan clergy of the East Riding of Yorkshire, but after William Laud after 1633 as Archbishop of Canterbury a strictly antipuritanische Church Steering pretending the situation for Rogers became precarious. So he refused in 1634 to read the Book of Sports, and thereat was relieved of his duties in 1636. In addition to his financial situation deteriorated, as Thomas Barrington, eldest son of Sir Francis Barrington and patron of community Rowley, refused to Rogers to reimburse the costs for the repair of the parish. Like thousands of Puritans of the 1630s Rogers finally decided to join the Great Migration, so to emigrate to New England. He was followed by more than 20 families from Rowley and environment.

New England

In 1638 it reached America and decided after a brief stay in New Haven in the following summer, with his followers followed him a new settlement on the banks of the Merrimack River north of Boston to set up. For £ 800, the settlers purchased land from the towns of Ipswich and Newbury and founded in the spring of 1639 the new settlement, which was named after the place of origin of the settlers Rowley. At this time, Rogers had completely broken with the teachings of the Church of England and had come to the conviction that it is the privilege of the community to determine their pastor, had thus become a declared Congregationalists. So also the church Rowley was launched on July 4, 1639 by the voluntary covenant ( covenant church ) of the settlers; Rogers should protrude her until his death as a pastor.

In the following years, Rowley was one of the most influential preachers of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. He made his influence in political matters. So he held at the annual election of the governor of the colony in 1643 a sermon in which he expressed the view that no man for more than one term of office should hold the governorship, to avoid that it develops into a life office. Despite admonitions Rogers again John Winthrop was elected to the governorship.

Rogers later years were marked by personal and health hardships. His first wife Joan Hartopp, he had probably already married in 1627 in England, died in May 1649. Rogers then married the much younger Joan Nelson, a daughter of the also acting in Massachusetts preacher John Wilson, but she also died as well as her newborn baby in February 1650 in the puerperium. Then he married on July 16, 1651 Mary Baker's widow, who survived him by several years, but burned in the wedding night, probably by arson of a despised rival Rogers House, together with the library and the church registers from. Only a few weeks after the wedding Rogers was thrown from his horse and pulled a permanent paralysis of the right arm, so that he had to learn to write with his left hand. Until his death, he was plagued by his weak constitution. Rogers died on January 23, 1663 and was buried in the cemetery of Rowley.

Rogers importance for the modern English church history underlined Cotton Mather, by he devoted him in his Magnalia Christi Americana a chapter. In Mather's words, he was, like his namesake Ezekiel " inspired divine spirit " " no less prophet " and one ( And it is not among the smaller Prophets of New England did we have also seen in Ezekiel, one inspired with a divine fortitude for the work of a witness prophesying in the sackcloth of a wilderness ). The only font that Rogers published during his lifetime, was the twelve-page Catechism The Chief Grounds of Christian Religion set down by way of catechizing Gathered longe since for the use of an Honourable Family (London 1648). Are the first 1930 printed diaries Rogers and his extensive correspondence with English as a New England Puritans For historians of interest.