Topic: · Web viewBachelor of Theology Academic Year 2007/2008 Church History 1.2 Term Essay: “Delineate the history and main features of English Puritanism from the accession of

FREE CHURCH COLLEGEBachelor of Theology

Academic Year 2007/2008

Church History 1.2

Term Essay:

“Delineate the history and main features of

English Puritanism from the accession of

Elizabeth I in 1558 to 1700”

2395 words

Registration No.: 0705

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Introduction

The study of Puritanism has been plagued over many years by issues of definition

and identification. 1 Part of the difficulty arises from the consideration that the term

Puritan (unlike Catholic or Reformed) was never a term of ecclesiological or confessional

precision to which one can attach a crystallized creed or organized movement.2 It was

applied to at least five overlapping groups of people even from its inception.3 As such,

traditional interpretations which characterize the Puritans as one end of the opposition to

moderate Anglicans (with Papists on the other) has come in recent years, to be seen as in

the least, an anachronistic reading, if not highly suspect.4

The Puritan phenomenon as Collinson has argued5 is best understood instead as a

tendency or impulse largely contained within the Protestant mainstream, and sharing

many of its concerns. He further suggests that the history of the English Reformation

before the 1640s forms but the pre-history of the Puritans for “it was only with the

winning of the civil war, the destruction of the Episcopal Church of England, and the

setting up of a republican commonwealth that one reaches what a famous historian called

1 Hylson-Smith, K. The Churches in England from Elizabeth I To Elizabeth II: Vol.1 1558-1688 (London:

SCM, 1996) 48-49. Identifies four strands of historiographical interpretations (Whig, Marxist, revisionist

and post-revisionist), with the revisionist and post-revisionist historians holding the field after 1970s.

2 Collinson, P. “Puritans” in The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Reformation Vol.3 ed Hillerbrand, H.J.

(Oxford:OUP, 1996) 364.

3 See Packer. J. I. Among God’s Giants: The Puritan Vision of the Christian Life (Great Britain: Kingsway,

1991) 41. for a useful summary of these groups.

4 Marshall, P. Reformation England 1480-1642 (New York: OUP, 2003) 114, 132. As Marshall also points

out, it may not however be a pointless exercise to begin looking in this period, for the roots of such an

eventual situation ensuing in later times.

5 Collinson, P. The Religion of Protestants: The Church in English Society 1559-1625 (Oxford, 1982)

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The Rule of the Puritans in England (C.H. Firth, 1900).”6 Before the 1640s, the term

Puritan functioned with no fossilized theological or organizational precision as it first

arose as an opprobrious label, often within the context of charged rhetoric.7

Two considerations may afford a handle on the phenomenon we attempt to

describe. Firstly, Hylson-Smith notes that despite differences, all historians are agreed

that

If the existence of Elizabethan Puritanism is conceded, then it was that movement ‘which sought further reformation and renewal in the Church of England than the Elizabethan settlement allowed.’8

Secondly, Collinson admits that

Insofar as Puritans existed to be described, we cannot quarrel with the following statement, written in 1641… “Those whom we ordinarily call puritans are men of strict life and precise opinions, which cannot be hated for anything but their singularity in zeal and piety (A Discourse Concerning Puritans).”9

The English Puritans may then be taken as loosely referring to those zealous and pious

men who sought for further reformation within the Protestant Church of England from

the time of Elizabeth I.

In keeping with the above historiographical considerations, this paper will briefly

sketch the history and features of English Puritanism not as a crystallized movement from


(Oxford:OUP, 1996) 369.

7 Collinson, P. The Elizabethan Puritan Movement (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1967) 86-88.

8 Hylson-Smith, K. The Churches in England from Elizabeth I to Elizabeth II: Vol.1 1558-1688 (London:

SCM, 1996) 49.


(Oxford:OUP, 1996) 365.

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the start, but as a climate of concern for further reforms within Protestant England which

gained increasing definition towards becoming a movement as the English Reformation

progressed. In this vein, the various controversies surrounding the official ecclesiastical

policies of the monarchs will be used as contexts which gave occasion for ‘Puritan

Voices’ concerning various issues to be heard, and so to gain increasing definition as an

identifiable socio-political phenomenon.10

The Reign of Elizabeth I (1558-1603): Puritan Dissent

In April 1559, Parliament passed the Act of Supremacy and the Act of Uniformity

(imposing the 1552 Edwardian prayer book for worship with modifications) defining the

character of the Elizabethan Church in certain ways. Interpretations over the motivations,

nature and significance of these acts have been variously debated11 but in the very least,

the first act determined that the English Church was officially non-papist while the

second made it less than truly reformed in the views of some Elizabethan Protestants. By

restoring royal supremacy, the Elizabethan Settlement distanced itself formally from

Rome. Nevertheless, there were elements12 in the Uniformity Act which could not have

sat easily with the more stringent consciences of those (especially former Marian exiles)

with more precise and zealous reformed convictions.13 Significant among these elements

10 While this admittedly slants the account in a certain way, given the limit of this essay, it allows us to give

expression to some of the features of Puritanism within a brief historical sketch of its manifestation.

11 See Marshall, P. Ibid 115-119 for a useful navigation through the interpretations.

12 Such as the omission of the ‘Black Rubric’ and modifications in the wordings for administrating the

Lord’s Supper (which may seem to move away from a Zwinglian emphasis) among others.

13 Black, J.B. The Reign of Elizabeth 1558-1603: The Oxford History of England 2nd ed. (Oxford:Clarendon

Press, 1959) 15-17. For example, Edmund Grindal, and also John Jewel who wrote to Peter Martyr in 1560

that “The scenic apparatus of divine worship is now under agitation, and those very things which you and I

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were injunctions for clerical vestments and Church ornaments to revert to the forms of

1548 “until other order shall be therein taken by the authority of the queen’s majesty.”14

Many clergy and people did not comply, seeing these as ‘rags of Rome’,

reminding them of stage props in recent Marian persecutions, or implying a reversion to

the pre-reformation idea of the clergy as a special class.15 Eventually (1565), Elizabeth

pressed for compliance through Archbishop Parker’s Advertisements (1566), suspending

and depriving some of the nonconforming clergy. English Puritanism over this period

may be seen as little more concrete than a climate of mounting moderate dissent within

English Protestantism.

The dissensions though suppressed, were not defused. In the following years

(1566-1572), “the Puritan protest grew from a relatively trivial objection to vestments

and certain ceremonies retained in Anglican worship to a more fundamental rejection of

the Prayer Book in toto- a protest against the whole ethos of Prayer Book worship- and of

the unreformed, Episcopal government of the Church.”16 We shall sketch only the

controversies over Church Government in this section.

Prior to this period, the Thirty-nine Articles (based on Edward’s forty-two) were

drafted and adopted by the consensus of Convocation (1563). However, the Articles were

not legally binding until much later when Parliament sanctioned it. Part of the reason for

the delay was that “the Articles as they were originally drafted…contained non-doctrinal

have so long laughed at, are now seriously and soberly entertained by certain persons (for we are not

consulted) as if the Christian religion could not exist without something tawdry.”

14 The Act of Uniformity 1559 in Bray, G. ed. Documents of the English Reformation (Cambridge:James

Clark, 1994) 334.

15 Hazlett, W.I.P. The Reformation in Britain and Ireland: An Introduction (London: T&T Clark, 2003) 62.

16 Hylson- Smith, K. Ibid 55.

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clauses that were repugnant to the puritan or radical element among the clergy”17 and the

queen was not yet prepared to enforce these by force of law. Nevertheless, the royal

preference on ecclesiology favoring episcopacy was clear enough, since the Articles

(though yet unsanctioned) were published by royal ordinance.

Up till this time, many dissenters accepted the Episcopal structure only because

they viewed it as bene esse.18 With the doctrinal and ecclesiastical position of the Church

of England more crystallized however, Puritan dissensions increasingly polarized19.

In June 1567, the first break away Protestant congregation (conventicle) made up

of deprived ministers and former Marian exiles were discovered meeting secretly in

London, and the derisive label ‘Puritan’ also appeared for the first time in the records.20

Subsequently, the Lady Margaret Professor of Divinity, Thomas Cartwright (holding

views akin to Beza’s ecclesiology21) delivered a significant series of Cambridge lectures

(1570) questioning the biblical legitimacy of the Episcopal system and promoting a

Presbyterian Church order. Cartwright was dismissed from his chair and the Thirty-nine

Articles were passed by Parliament in 1571, legally embracing episcopacy within

England’s Protestantism. Nevertheless, Presbyterian sentiments within Puritanism22 were

kept alive and intensified by John Field and Thomas Wilcox who unsuccessfully

17 Black, J. B. Ibid, 31

18 Hazlett, W.I.P. Ibid, 61

19 both away from Episcopacy, as well as within Puritanism to ‘moderate’ and more ‘extreme’ sentiments.

20 Marshall, P. Ibid, 121.

21 Lindberg, C. The European Reformations (Blackwell, 1996) 328.

22 It should be noted that not all Puritans had Presbyterian sentiments although all Presbyterians were

certainly Puritans. There were moderate Puritans who were appalled by the confrontational tone of the

Admonitions.

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submitted a parliamentary bill against episcopacy in 1571 and later published An

Admonition to Parliament (1572). Subsequently, the flames of ecclesiological dissent

were further fanned during the controversies occasioned by the new ‘anti-Puritan’

Archbishop John Whitgift’s demands for ministers to subscribe to the Three Articles (and

later, take the ex officio oath), provoking a large-scale nonconformist opposition and the

clandestine attacks of the Marprelate Tracts (1586-1589) lampooning the episcopacy.

Elizabethan Puritanism perhaps came closest to being an organized movement

within this period, publishing a Presbyterian Book of Discipline and gaining the support

of parliamentary patrons in the likes of Sir Walter Mildmay and Sir Francis Knollys who

made a second attempt to introduce a ‘modified Presbyterian system’ to Parliament.

Nevertheless, with Whitgift’s strong suppressions and the embarrassments the Marprelate

controversies had caused to the moderate Puritan leadership, by 1590, a sea change in

dissenting outlook had occurred. Puritanism instead “turned inwards, away from political

activism and towards local evangelism and the cultivation of an intense, interiorized

Puritan piety.”23

Worth noting too for the purposes of tracing Puritan features is the earlier incident

of (Archbishop of York) Edmund Grindal’s suspension by Elizabeth over the practice of

Prophesyings. Grindal, who hoped to harness the energies of Puritans in the task of

evangelizing the nation, organized (with much success and Episcopal support) fortnightly

or monthly meetings, bringing the clergy of a locality together for the purposes of

promoting and improving preaching.24 Nevertheless, they were viewed as “subtly

subverting the whole hierarchic structure envisaged by the Queen’s program”25 and

23 Marshall, P. Ibid, 124.24 Marshall, P. Ibid, 122.

25 MacCaffrey, W. Elizabeth I (London, 1993) 318.

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moreover, their legitimacy was not provided for in her 1559 Settlement. When ordered by

the queen to suppress them, Grindal pleaded his non-compliance in a letter:

…Bear with me, I beseech you, Madam, if I choose rather to offend your earthly

Majesty than to offend the heavenly majesty of God.26

Elizabeth suspended him from office (1577).

The Reign of James I (1603-1625): Puritan Piety

After the passing of Elizabeth, Puritan hopes for national church reforms

resurfaced with the accession of James I who was brought up in the Presbyterian Church

of Scotland. The eager Puritan leadership got organized and presented James (even

before he arrived at London) with a Millenary Petition containing the names of 1000

ministers, urging for “the redress of divers abuses of the church…”27 Consequently,

James called for a conference at Hampton Court to give hearing to the Puritan cause.

There were many concessions made to the Puritan concerns28 but historians over the years

have concurred that the only permanent and significant achievement was the authorized

version of the 1611 English Bible. James essentially kept things at the Elizabethan status

quo and made clear his famous commitment to episcopacy: “no bishop, no king.”

Significant for Jacobean Puritanism is the king’s discriminating stance towards

moderate and extreme Puritanism. Although the anti-Puritan Archbishop Bancroft

continued the suppressive regime of his Elizabethan predecessor, the king was “keen not

to completely alienate ‘moderate’ Puritans, and bishops were allowed discretion about

26 Collinson, P. Archbishop Grindal 1519-1583: The Struggle for a Reformed Church (London, 1979) 242.

27 The Millenary Petition quoted in Hylson-Smith, K. Ibid, 95

28 While it is mostly thought that James made only minor concessions, Hylson-Smith, Ibid. notes that many

concessions were made and the conference may not have been regarded as a failure if James and Bancroft

had been committed in following them through.

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whom to pursue.”29 In White’s and Fincham’s analysis, “James granted concessions

which were intended to entice ‘moderate’ Puritans to remain within the national church,

and he thereby isolated their ‘radical’ brethren, who were subsequently ejected from their

ministry.”30 Bancroft was later succeeded by Abbot (1611) who was of moderate puritan

sentiments and often turned a blind eye to infringements on the official ecclesiastical

policy. Puritan dissent was felt over the king’s Declaration of Sports in 1618, but the

agitations caused never reached the volatility of the Cartwrightian times. Consequently, it

is arguable that during James’ reign, the Church of England “was kept broad enough to

contain all but the most extreme radicals, and that as a result nonconformity remained a

relatively insignificant force.”31

This analysis however, is true only in so far as we are speaking about Jacobean

Puritanism as an active political entity. As a spiritual and moral force among the masses

however, Puritanism during this era was far from insignificant. Centered on preaching,

committed to Christian learning and education, fiercely obedient to Scriptural authority,

fervent in evangelism and undergirded by a Calvinistic theology,32 the Experimental

Calvinism of the Jacobean Puritans (with roots in the Elizabethan Puritans) made huge

advances in the spiritual and moral spheres of the nation. Collinson judges that

At this point Puritanism, if it means anything, means a distinctive style of piety and religious culture, with extensive implications for the society that cultivated it or suffered its intrusive influence. These implications have included (for some scholars) capitalism, radical politics, individualism, the rise of the new science, and the invention of the modern family.33

29 Marshall, P. Ibid, 125

30 Hylson-Smith, K. Ibid, 98.

31 Hylson-Smith, K. Ibid, 114.

32 See Hylson-Smith, K. Ibid, 114-121. for a fuller treatment of each of these aspects

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The Reign of Charles I (1625-1642) to 1700s: Puritan Revolution/Restoration and

Contradictions

The historiography of this period has produced an interpretative web of proposals

and counter-proposals, causing confusion over a whole range of issues. Among others,

was this period a Puritan Revolution against an Anglican establishment or a Puritan

restoration of a Calvinistic Consensus which the religious policies of Charles and

Archbishop Laud undermined with their pro-Armenian, anti-Calvinistic and dangerously

Catholic stance? Both Hylson-Smith34 and Marshall35 note in seeking a path through the

maze, that due cognizance must be given both to the on going process of protestantization

(with preaching, writings and catechisms of a highly Calvinistic character bludgeoning

over the Jacobean period), as well as the graduate character of the parish clergy.

What is clear however is that there was a strong reaction from Parliament towards

the aggressive religious reforms introduced by Charles and his ecclesiastical court in the

1620s and 1630s; reforms which have often been christened as Laudism. The agitations

provoked culminated in the crucial years of 1640-1642 which saw Parliament (by now

made up of largely Puritan sentiments) acting to press Charles to come to a religious

settlement which eventually erupted in Civil War and the subsequent Interregnum rule of

the Puritans.

If early Elizabethan Puritanism began as a climate of dissent, Caroline Puritanism

after about 1620 “was progressively reconstructed and repoliticized until it became a


(Oxford:OUP, 1996) 368.

34 Hylson-Smith, K. Ibid, 141-144.

35 Marshall, P. Ibid, 194-195

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force capable of resisting Charles I and of ideologically sustaining a civil war.”36 A few

important qualifications ought to be made however.

While “Puritanism was now reconstructed and confronted by a Conformist

religious style as distinctive and self-conscious as Puritanism itself”37, Hylson-Smith

cautions against analyzing the religious divide in the country as a whole between

supporters of the King and supporters of Parliament.

Firstly, a Puritan is not necessarily a Parliamentarian who was against the

Royalist. There were supporters of the King who were ‘Puritan’ in many of their beliefs

and practices. Secondly, while Caroline Puritanism was generally speaking, of a Calvinist

outlook, a Puritan is not necessarily by definition, one who does not hold to Arminian

theology or influenced by its outlook and perspectives. There were Puritan

Parliamentarians who would not have had difficulty subscribing to at least some aspects

of Arminian theology. Thirdly, there was no homogeneity in Puritan ecclesiology. The

term Puritan did not necessarily imply Presbyterian ecclesiology.

The Puritans of this period while distinctive and identifiable, were not monolithic

in their theological, political and even ecclesiastical outlook. The socio-political reality of

Caroline Puritanism “embraced a variety of attitudes of mind and spirit, and was too

volatile to be caught within the confines of Westminster.”38 It is in the view of Collinson,

the consequences of these internal contradictions within Puritanism that “ultimately

contributed to the downfall of the interregnal regime and the restoration of both the


(Oxford:OUP, 1996) 369.

37 Collison, P. Ibid.38 Hylson-Smith, K. Ibid, 164.

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monarchy and the Church of England.”39 After the restoration, Puritanism as an

identifiable socio-political religious movement waned, but it is arguable that the essence

of its piety and faith was dispersed into English society and reemerged in a different form

in the late 18th century with the appearance of modern evangelicalism.

Rev G.N.M. Collins once noted a certain description of the Church as “a

perpetually defeated thing which survives and vanquishes its conquerors.”40 While no

claims should be made that Puritanism is the only expression of the true Church, the

description fits well the Puritan phenomenon as well. However, to it we may perhaps

further add that it is also a perpetually defeated thing, whose godly piety and faith

survives both its conquerors, as well as its own internal contradictions.

Bibliography

Black, J.B. The Reign of Elizabeth 1558-1603: The Oxford History of England 2nd ed.

(Oxford:Clarendon Press, 1959)

Bray, G. ed. Documents of the English Reformation (Cambridge:James Clark, 1994)

Collins, G.N.M. Whose Faith Follow (Edinburgh: Free Church, 1943)

Collinson, P. The Elizabethan Puritan Movement (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1967)

Collinson, P. The Religion of Protestants: The Church in English Society 1559-1625

(Oxford, 1982)


(Oxford:OUP, 1996) 369.

40 Collins, G.N.M. Whose Faith Follow (Edinburgh: Free Church, 1943) 1.

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Hazlett, W.I.P. The Reformation in Britain and Ireland: An Introduction (London: T&T

Clark, 2003)

Hillerbrand, H.J. ed. The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Reformation Vol.3 (Oxford:OUP,

1996)

Hylson-Smith, K. The Churches in England from Elizabeth I to Elizabeth II: Vol.1 1558-

1688 (London: SCM, 1996)

Lindberg, C. The European Reformations (Blackwell, 1996)

Marshall, P. Reformation England 1480-1642 (New York: OUP, 2003)

Packer. J. I. Among God’s Giants: The Puritan Vision of the Christian Life (Great

Britain: Kingsway, 1991)

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