William Stoughton, minister, political leader, and author of an important jeremiad, is best known as the remorseless judge of the Salem witch trials. Born probably in England, the son of Israel Stoughton, a founder of Dorchester, Massachusetts, Stoughton graduated from Harvard College (1650), where he studied divinity. He then went to England, where he received his M.A. at New College, Oxford (1653), and preached in Sussex. At the Restoration he was one of hundreds who refused to conform to standards imposed on the clergy as a prerequisite for their being sanctioned by the Church of England. Ejected from his fellowship as a result, he returned to New England in 1662 and preached at Dorchester.

Invited to give the election sermon on 29 April 1668 (New-Englands True Interest; Not to Lie ..., 1670), Stoughton took the occasion to remind his audience of the "Foundation-work" needed to live up to God's "Expectations" for New England. Stressing...