Puritans

The Puritans were members of a group of English Protestants seeking further reforms or even separation from the established church during the Reformation.

Terminology

The word Puritan is now applied unevenly to a number of Protestant churches from the late 16th century to the early 18th century. However, Puritans did not, by and large, use the term for themselves. It was a term of abuse that first surfaced in the 1560s. "Recusants", "Precisemen", and "Precisions" were other early antagonistic terms for Puritans who preferred to call themselves "the godly." The word "Puritan" was thus always a descriptor of a type of religious belief, rather than a particular form of church order.

That said, the single theological movement most consistently self-described by the term "Puritan" was Reformed or Calvinist and led to the establishment of the Presbyterian Church. The term was used by the group itself mainly in the sixteenth century, though it seems to have been used often and in its earliest recorded instances as a term of abuse. By the middle of the 17th century the group had become so divided that "Puritan" was most often used by opponents and detractors of the group, rather than by the practitioners themselves. The practitioners knew themselves as members of particular churches or movements, and not by the simple and nebulous term "Puritan."

History

Puritanism seems to have arisen out of discontent with the Elizabethan Religious Settlement, which was felt by the more radical Protestants to be giving in to "Popery" (i.e., the Catholic Church). While Protestant movements in Europe were being driven by issues of theology and had broken radically with Catholic models of church organization, the English Reformation had brought the church under control of the monarchy while leaving many of its practices intact; in the eyes of the Puritans, this had made doctrine unacceptably subservient to politics. Persecuted under Mary I of England ("Bloody Mary"), Protestants like Thomas Cartwright, Walter Travers and Andrew Melville had gone into exile as Puritans in Europe, where they came into close contact with the radical reformers in Calvinist Geneva and Lutheran Germany. These contacts shaped their position towards Elizabeth's religious via media (middle way).

Although all influenced by Calvinism, Puritans were not united on every issue of doctrine. This is an outgrowth of the origins of the movement, which went through several phases. They shared a belief that all existing churches had become corrupted by practice, by contact with pagan civilizations (particularly Rome), by the impositions of kings and popes. They all argued for a restructuring and "purifying" of church practice through biblical supremacy, and they shared, to one degree or another, a belief in the priesthood of all believers. However, in church polity (organization of church power), they differed.

At the outset, Puritans were simply the informed, committed, and relatively radical Protestants. As a group, they wanted the Church of England to resemble more closely the Protestant churches of Europe, especially Geneva. The Puritans objected to ornaments and ritual in the churches as idolatrous (vestments, surplices, organs, genuflection), which they castigated as "popish pomp and rags." (See Vestments controversy.) They also objected to ecclesiastical courts. They refused to endorse completely all of the ritual directions and formulas of the Book of Common Prayer; the imposition of its liturgical order by legal force and inspection sharpened Puritanism into a definite opposition movement.

By the 1570s, Puritans were arguing for a Presbyterian model or a Congregationalist model, but all were outspoken in their criticism of the structure and liturgy that the monarchy required. Attempts by the bishops of the Church of England to enforce uniformity of usage in the Book of Common Prayer turned the episcopal hierarchy into a specific target of their grievances. Tracts such as the Martin Marprelate series lampooned the government and the church hierarchs.

The issue of church hierarchy was difficult, and Elizabeth sponsored Richard Hooker to write Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity to counter presbyterian arguments. Hooker writes in direct refutation of the "brothers of the Geneva Church," and he outlines a via media for the English church that, rather than being the absence of doctrine, is a set of specifically ordained rules. His thinking on the matter became the backbone of the Anglican church and would later be put to use by Archbishop William Laud.

These radicals were looked down on by the dominant Anglo-Catholic faction in the Church of England and were given the name "Puritan", in mockery of the radicals' apparent obsession with "purifying" the Church.

Contemporarily with the English Reformation, the Church of Scotland had been created on a Calvinist Presbyterian model, which many Puritans hoped to extend to England. When James VI of Scotland became James I of England, he appointed several known Puritans to powerful positions within the Church of England, and he checked the rise of William Laud. Nevertheless, he was no Puritan, and he regarded Puritans with great suspicion. Since he believed in royal control of the Church he saw Puritanism as a potentially dangerous movement; he authorized the King James Bible partly to reinforce Anglican orthodoxy against the Geneva Bible, which had become popular among Puritans. Luther had insisted on a vulgar Bible for each language, as well as for vernacular church services. Since all Puritan sects were, essentially, believers in biblical supremacy, the presence of an English language Bible was paramount. The Geneva Bible, however, had peculiarly anti-royalist translations and interpolated revolutionary notes.

Each new round of political disappointments during this period faced each individual Puritan and the Puritan congregations with a new crisis. The question was whether they were to continue in outward conformity with a distasteful religious regime, or did they take the separatist and illegal step of withdrawal from the state church? Each fresh controversy led to a new round of schisms, and as such the groundwork was set for the eventual heirs of Puritanism, from the "low-church" Protestant and Evangelical wing of the Church of England, to the various dissenting sects.

During the reign of Charles I, a committed High Churchman, relations soured and it is generally held among historians that religious tensions created by the dominance of the Laudian faction during the Personal Rule were a major factor in the outbreak of the English Civil War. Puritans certainly agitated against the king, and reform of the religion was a rallying cry for the Parliamentary forces. However, Puritanism by this point had become not merely a religion, but a cultural entity.

By this time, Puritans were more often referred to as Dissenters. English Dissenters were barred from any profession that required official religious conformity, and so Puritans had been instrumental in a number of new industries. First, export/import was dominated by Puritans. Second, Puritans were eager colonials. With the flourishing of the trans-Atlantic trade with America, Puritans in England were growing quite wealthy. Similarly, the artisan classes had become increasingly Puritan, thanks to the Puritan emphasis on preaching and evangelizing. Therefore, the economic issues of the Civil War (tax levies, liberalization of royal charters), the political issues of the Civil War (purchasing of peerages, increasing disconnect between the House of Lords and the people, rebellion over the attempt to introduce a Divine right of kings to Charles I), and the religious tensions were all bound together into a general issue of Church of England Cavaliers and Puritan Roundheads.

Puritan factions played a key role in the Parliamentarian victory and became a majority in Parliament, while Puritan military leader Oliver Cromwell became head of the English Commonwealth. In the Commonwealth period, the Church of England was removed from Royal control and reorganized to grant greater authority to local congregations, most of which developed in a Puritan and semi-Calvinist direction. There was never an official Puritan denomination; the Commonwealth government tolerated a somewhat broader debate on doctrinal issues than had previously been possible, and considerable theological and political conflict between Puritan factions continued throughout this period. The label "Puritan" fell out of use when their movement became the status quo; it was replaced by the broader term Nonconformist, which was used after the Restoration to refer to all Protestant denominations outside of the official Church, as well as the continuing use of the pejorative name "Dissenter" (for non-Conforming Protestants, as opposed to Catholics).

The influence of the Puritan movement persisted in England as the Evangelical faction of the Church of England, sometimes called "Low Anglican", while in the United States the Puritan settlement of New England was a major influence on American Protestantism.

The Puritans were one branch of dissenters who decided that the Church of England was beyond reform. Escaping persecution from church leadership and the King, they came to America. Most of the Puritans settled in the New England area. As they immigrated and formed individual colonies, their numbers rose from 17,800 in 1640 to 106,000 in 1700. [1] (See Pilgrim fathers and Mayflower).

The largest denominational group to emerge from the Puritan experience is the group of Presbyterian denominations, historically Calvinist, and practising a church policy that rejects episcopacy, though, of course, Presbyterianism had been strong in Scotland from the late sixteenth century (the Church of Scotland was and still is Presbyterian). The various Baptist denominations also grew in strength in England during the Commonwealth. During this period, the Religious Society of Friends (popularly known as "Quakers") was founded and grew remarkably in strength, though the theology of the Society of Friends is radically different from that of Puritanism (for example, they rejected the doctrine of predestination), and can be seen as a reaction against Calvinist belief in a period of religious upheaval. This period of religious upheaval also saw the appearance of more radical sects, such as the Diggers (Christian communists) and the allegedly antinomian Ranters.

The modern Congregational Church (which merged with the Evangelical and Reformed Church in 1957 to form the United Church of Christ) is the direct descendant of New England Puritan congregations, although in the early 19th century a few of these old congregations adopted Unitarianism.

Beliefs

The central tenet of Puritanism was God's supreme authority over human affairs, particularly in the church, and especially as expressed in the Bible. This view led them to seek both individual and corporate conformance to the teaching of the Bible, and it led them to pursue both moral purity down to the smallest detail as well as ecclesiastical purity to the highest level.

On the individual level, the Puritans emphasized that each person should be continually reformed by the grace of God to fight against indwelling sin and do what is right before God. Every Christian, , a humble and obedient life would arise.

The Puritans tended to admire the early church fathers and quoted them liberally in their works. In addition to arming the Puritans to fight against later developments of the Roman Catholic tradition, these studies also led to the rediscovery of some ancient scruples. Chrysostom, a favorite of the Puritans, spoke eloquently against drama and other worldly endeavors, and the Puritans adopted his view when decrying what they saw as the decadent culture of England, famous at that time for its plays and bawdy London. The Pilgrims (the separatist, congregationalist Puritans who went to America) are likewise famous for banning from their New England colonies many secular entertainments, such as games of chance, maypoles, and drama, all of which were perceived as kinds of immorality.

At the level of the church body, the Puritans believed that the worship of the church ought to be strictly regulated by what is commanded in the Bible (known as the regulative principle). The Puritans condemned as idolatry many worship practices regardless of the practices' antiquity or widespread adoption among Christians, which their opponents defended with tradition,. Like some of Reformed churches on the European continent, Puritan reforms were typified by a minimum of ritual and decoration and by an unambiguous emphasis on preaching. Like the early church fathers they eliminated the use of musical instruments in their worship services, for various theological and practical reasons.

Another important distinction was the Puritan approach to church-state relations. They opposed the Anglican idea of the supremacy of the monarch in the church (Erastianism), and following Calvin they argued that the only head of the Church in heaven or earth is Christ (not the Pope or Archbishop of Canterbury). However, they believed that secular governors are accountable to God (not through the church, but alongside it) to protect and reward virtue, including "true religion", and to punish wrongdoers — a policy that is best described as non-interference rather than separation of church and state. The separating Congregationalists, a segment of the Puritan movement more radical than the Anglican Puritans, believed the Divine Right of Kings was heresy, a belief that became more pronounced during the reign of Charles I of England.

Other notable beliefs included:

An emphasis on private study of the Bible
A desire to see education and enlightenment for the masses (especially so they could read the Bible for themselves)
The priesthood of all believers
The Pope was an Antichrist
Simplicity in worship, the exclusion of vestments, images, candles, etc.
Some approved of the church hierarchy, but others sought to reform the episcopal churches on the presbyterian model. Some separatist Puritans were presbyterian, but most were congregationalists.

In addition to promoting lay education, it was important to the Puritans to have knowledgeable, educated pastors, who could read the Bible in its original Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic, as well as ancient and modern church tradition and scholarly works, which were most commonly written in Latin, and so most of their divines undertook rigorous studies at the University of Oxford or the University of Cambridge before seeking ordination. Diversions for the educated included discussing the Bible and its practical applications as well as reading the classics such as Cicero, Virgil, and Ovid. They also encouraged the composition of poetry that was religious nature, though they eschewed religious-erotic poetry except for the Song of Solomon, which they considered magnificent poetry, without error, regulative for their sexual pleasure, and, especially, as an allegory of Christ and the Church.

In modern usage, the word puritan is often used as an informal pejorative for someone who has strict views on sexual morality, disapproves of recreation, and wishes to impose these beliefs on others. None of these qualities were unique to Puritanism or universally characteristic of the Puritans themselves, whose moral views and ascetic tendencies were no more extreme than many other Protestant reformers of their time, and who were relatively tolerant of other faiths — at least in England. The popular image is slightly more accurate as a description of Puritans in colonial America, who were among the most radical Puritans and whose social experiment took the form of a Calvinist theocracy.

Controversy

Today, Puritans are subjected to various interpretations and criticisms. One common one is that Puritans were close-minded and fundamentalists. Many pundits posit a Puritan spirit in the United States' political culture, especially in its historical tendency to oppose things such as alcohol and sexuality. This view has been criticized by some authors such as Michael Moore, who in Stupid White Men identifies American prohibitionism and fear of sexuality as having roots in slavery rather than in Puritanism.

On the contrary, some critics have credited Puritanism as being the very spirit that founded American democracy. This view first appeared in Alexis de Tocqueville's Democracy in America. According to Tocqueville, Puritans were hard-working, egalitarian and studious.

There are authors who stake out a middle ground, such as John A. Morone, who in his book Hellfire Nation credits opposing tendencies within Puritanism with being the roots of both American democracy, through the desire to improve society and the world as a whole, and on the other hand with paranoia, hate, racism, sexism, and hatred of sexuality and youth.

Orthography

In the United States, "Puritan" was not the only acceptable spelling. Through the twentieth century, British English had "Puritain" as an acceptable alternative spelling. During the seventeenth and eighteenth century in England, the word was spelled both with and without the second i. The "Puritain" spelling was more common in the sixteenth century. The word derives from "purity," in English, and the third syllable formation can be justifiably spelled -ain or -an, depending upon which language one derives "dweller"/"practitioner" from.

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