Thomas Allen

Thomas Allen or Allyn (1608 in Norwich – 21 September 1673) was an East Anglian nonconformist minister and divine who preached during the 1640s in Charlestown, Massachusetts, but returned to England during the Commonwealth and was ejected after the Restoration. He was the author of various published works. Life Allen was the son of John Allen, a Norwich dyer. He was educated in Norwich and at Caius College, Cambridge, where he matriculated in 1625 and was scholar 1625-29, taking B.A. in 1627/28 and M.A. in 1631. Having received license and holy orders at Norwich in March 1633/34, he became minister of the parish church of St. Edmund's at Norwich, 1633-38. But he was too pronouncedly evangelical and outspoken. Bishop Matthew Wren silenced him in 1636, together with William Bridge and others, for refusing to read The Book of Sports. To New England In 1638 Allen passed over as a fugitive to New England. Admitted to the church of Boston on 11 January 1638/39, on 9 June following, at his own request and that of the church of Charlestown, he was dismissed from Boston, and was admitted to Charlestown on 22 December 1639 (O.S.). Then, or soon afterwards, he became Teacher, as the fellow-worker of Zechariah Symmes, pastor of Charlestown. In this capacity he succeeded John Harvard, who had died in September 1638 little more than a year after arriving in Charlestown. He is supposed to have married Harvard's widow, Anne, for he acted as administrator in the execution of Harvard's estate and paid his bequests. His recorded children were Mary (1639/40), Sarah (1641), Elizabeth (1643) and Mercy (1646), of whom only Mary survived infancy, and a son, Thomas. On 3 May 1639 Allen received the large grant of 500 acres of land from the General Court, "in regard to Mr. Harvard's gift". Cotton Mather observed that he "approved himself a pious and painful minister of the Gospel at Charlestown", where he remained Teacher until 1651. In his first years in New England he witnessed the foundation of the town of Woburn. The texts of his sermons, not least his series upon the words of St John the Baptist in the closing verses of St John's Gospel, chapter 3, concern the doctrine of Justification by Faith. During this time also he conceived and developed his best-known work, A Chaine of Scripture Chronologie, which constructed a chronology of the history of the world, in seven periods down to the crucifixion of Jesus Christ in 3968 Anno Mundi.