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Historians have produced and worked with a number of definitions of Puritanism, in an unresolved debate on the nature of the Puritan movement of the 16th and 17th century. There are some historians who are prepared to reject the term for historical use. [1] John Spurr argues that changes in the terms of membership of the Church of England, in 1604–6, 1626, 1662, and also 1689, led to re-definitions of the word "Puritan". [2] Basil Hall, citing Richard Baxter considers that "Puritan" dropped out of contemporary usage in 1642, with the outbreak of the First English Civil War, being replaced by more accurate religious terminology. [3] Current literature on Puritanism supports two general points: Puritans were identifiable in terms of their general culture, by contemporaries, which changed over time; and they were not identified by theological views alone.
Historians now generally reject the idea that before the 1620s and the influence of Arminianism in the Church of England there were significant differences in doctrine between English Puritans in general, and other English Protestants. Puritans were in practice known as "zealous Calvinists" fond of preaching. [4] For this reason a term sometimes preferred is "Hot Protestantism": i.e. one approach to Puritanism is to regard it simply as Protestant belief, intensely held. [5]
Numerous, generally small, Calvinist dissenting groups and sects are classified as broad-sense Puritans. These separating Puritans fit more comfortably into the history of denominations than do the bulk of Puritans who remained within the Church of England (non-separating Puritans).
William Ames provided a self-definition of Puritans via three points, in 1610. [6] Point 3 is sola scriptura .
It has been argued that Puritans adopted the Calvinist regulative principle of worship. The laxer normative principle of worship was characteristic of the Church of England. [7] The Puritans took the side of Calvin and the Zwinglians, against Philip Melanchthon, in this early contentious debate of the Protestant Reformation. [8]
Patrick Collinson states that "puritan" and "papist" were not "taxonomic definitions" in the Elizabethan period. [9]
The approach taken by King James I led to the absorption of many conforming Puritans into the Church of England of the time. [10] Collinson has discussed a moderate Puritanism, as contrasted to an extreme Puritanism that demanded presbyterianism in church polity. [11] Ferrell argues that conforming Puritanism was at the same time part of a theological consensus, and in terms of church polity a target of the sustained and divisive Jacobean polemical campaign against further reform. [12] These definitions contrast with others, less precise in period, that on the one hand identified Puritans closely with presbyterians, as in Perry Miller, or with the whole gamut of presbyterian and Independent believers. [13]
Francis Bacon criticised Puritans for their over-strict judgements on adiaphora. [14] On the other hand, Hill gives examples of conforming Puritans who did not object to set forms of worship. [15] Towards the end of King James's reign Marco Antonio de Dominis analysed the views of the Church of England and Roman Catholic Church, concluding that, excepting the views of the Puritans, they were at root compatible. He did make a further qualification, about the extreme Calvinism of some of the bishops. [16]
The enforcement of a degree of religious uniformity also led to the formation of "semi-separated" clergy. This kind of semi-separatism relied on niches where Puritan clergy could find employment. These niches, however, are not easily classified. [17]
Lay patrons of Puritanism were prominent in the middle years of the reign of Elizabeth I. [18] Godly gentlemen, the so-called Puritan gentry, then became a significant factor in English life and politics. Henry Hastings, 3rd Earl of Huntingdon was a renowned member of the godly nobility. [19]
After about 1620 there arose clear theological points at issue between English Puritans and other English Protestants. The future colonist Emmanuel Downing wrote to James Ussher in 1620 asking that the king should provide a definition. [20] There were also taxonomies of Puritanism offered. Joseph Mede in 1623 divided Puritans into: (a) ecclesiastical Puritans (the originals); (b) moral Puritans; and (c) political Puritans. [21] Henry Parker in his Discourse Concerning Puritans (1641) distinguished also the religious dogmatic Puritan. [22]
The native English strand of Arminianism defined Calvinism as "doctrinal Puritanism". This view gained some support from King James I of England. [23] Thomas Fuller reported that De Dominis used "Puritan" to mean "anti-Arminian". [24] William Laud took up the topic of doctrinal Puritanism in 1624. [25] Hill's book Society and Puritanism is directed towards the concerns of doctrinal Puritans, and their lay appeal. [26]
Hall proposes Puritan casuistry as a "common denominator" of types of Puritan that is of value to historians, and also was inherited by later nonconformists. More specifically, he points to "cases of conscience", and sermons preached on them. The Cripplegate Lectures were one vehicle by which this tradition was passed on. Hall gives also the example of The Practice of Piety, by Lewis Bayly, as representative, and influential on Pietism. [27]
The cultural form of Puritanism that was a major influence in the development of New England is admitted by historians to be problematic in its definition. At the time of emigration around 1630 it was no different from English Puritanism in general; by 1650 religious differentiation in New England was quite marked, and the New England branch of Puritanism had also evolved in its distinctive way. In denominational terms New England Puritanism has been identified with early congregationalism. The "New England mind", however, about which Perry Miller wrote in connection with "Puritan culture", has been subject to extensive revisionism, as has earlier work in this field. [28]
Arminianism is a movement of Protestantism initiated in the early 17th century, based on the theological ideas of the Dutch Reformed theologian Jacobus Arminius and his historic supporters known as Remonstrants. Dutch Arminianism was originally articulated in the Remonstrance (1610), a theological statement submitted to the States General of the Netherlands. This expressed an attempt to moderate the doctrines of Calvinism related to its interpretation of predestination.
Reformed Christianity, also called Calvinism, is a major branch of Protestantism that began during the sixteenth-century Protestant Reformation, a schism in the Western Church. In the modern day, it is largely represented by the Continental Reformed, Presbyterian, and Congregational traditions, as well as parts of the Anglican and Baptist traditions.
The Puritans were English Protestants in the 16th and 17th centuries who sought to rid the Church of England of what they considered to be Roman Catholic practices, maintaining that the Church of England had not been fully reformed and should become more Protestant. Puritanism played a significant role in English and early American history, especially in the Protectorate in Great Britain, and the earlier settlement of New England.
John Owen was an English Puritan Nonconformist church leader, theologian, and vice-chancellor of the University of Oxford. One of the most prominent theologians in England during his lifetime, Owen was a prolific author who wrote articles, treatises, Biblical commentaries, poetry, children's catechisms, and other works. Many of Owen's works reflect his Calvinist interpretation of Scripture. Owen is still widely read by Calvinists today, and is known particularly for his writings on sin and human depravity.
The Elizabethan Religious Settlement is the name given to the religious and political arrangements made for England during the reign of Elizabeth I (1558–1603). The settlement, implemented from 1559 to 1563, marked the end of the English Reformation. It permanently shaped the Church of England's doctrine and liturgy, laying the foundation for the unique identity of Anglicanism.
Via media is a Latin phrase meaning "the middle road" or the "way between two extremes".
Richard Sibbes (1577–1635) was an Anglican theologian. He is known as a Biblical exegete, and as a representative, with William Perkins and John Preston, of what has been called "main-line" Puritanism because he always remained in the Church of England and worshiped according to the Book of Common Prayer.
The Twenty-five Articles of Religion are an official doctrinal statement of Methodism—particularly American Methodism and its offshoots. John Wesley abridged the Thirty-nine Articles of the Church of England, removing the Calvinistic parts among others, reflecting Wesley's Arminian theology.
The history of the Calvinist–Arminian debate begins in the early 17th century in the Netherlands with a Christian theological dispute between the followers of John Calvin and Jacobus Arminius, and continues today among some Protestants, particularly evangelicals. The debate centers around soteriology, the study of salvation, and includes disputes about total depravity, predestination, and atonement. While the debate was given its Calvinist–Arminian form in the 17th century, issues central to the debate have been discussed in Christianity in some form since Augustine of Hippo's disputes with the Pelagians in the 5th century.
Anglican doctrine is the body of Christian teachings used to guide the religious and moral practices of Anglicanism.
The Lambeth Articles of 1595 were nine doctrinal statements on the topic of predestination proposed by the bishops of the Church of England. At the time, there was controversy between Calvinists and non-Calvinists over predestination, and the Lambeth Articles were written to clarify the church's official teaching. William Whitaker, an eminent Reformed theologian, served as the primary author.
James VI and I, King of Scotland, King of England and King of Ireland, faced many complicated religious challenges during his reigns in Scotland and England.
Baptist beliefs are not completely consistent from one church to another, as Baptists do not have a central governing authority. However, Baptists do hold some common beliefs among almost all Baptist churches.
Laudianism, also called Old High Churchmanship, or Orthodox Anglicanism as they styled themselves when debating the Tractarians, was an early seventeenth-century reform movement within the Church of England that tried to avoid the extremes of Roman Catholicism and Puritanism by building on the work of Richard Hooker, and John Jewel and was promulgated by Archbishop William Laud and his supporters. It rejected the predestination upheld by Calvinism in favour of free will, and hence the possibility of salvation for all men through objective work of the sacraments. Laudianism had a significant impact on the Anglican high church movement and its emphasis on the sacraments, personal holiness, beautiful liturgy, and the episcopate. Laudianism was the culmination of the move to Arminianism in the Church of England, and led directly to the Caroline Divines, of which Laud was one of the first. The expression of this since the Oxford movement is often called Central churchmanship
Patrick "Pat" Collinson, was an English historian, known as a writer on the Elizabethan era, particularly Elizabethan Puritanism. He was emeritus Regius Professor of Modern History, University of Cambridge, having occupied the chair from 1988 to 1996. He once described himself as "an early modernist with a prime interest in the history of England in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries."
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The reign of King James I of England (1603–1625) saw the continued rise of the Puritan movement in England, that began during reign of Queen Elizabeth (1558–1603), and the continued clash with the authorities of the Church of England. This eventually led to the further alienation of Anglicans and Puritans from one another in the 17th century during the reign of King Charles I (1625–1649), that eventually brought about the English Civil War (1642–1651), the brief rule of the Puritan Lord Protector of England Oliver Cromwell (1653–1658), the English Commonwealth (1649–1660), and as a result the political, religious, and civil liberty that is celebrated today in all English speaking countries.
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