Francis J. Bremer

Puritanism : Transatlantic Perspectives on a Seventeenth-Century Anglo-American Faith

Written by a leading expert on the Puritans, this brief, informative volume offers a wealth of background on this key religious movement. This book traces the shaping, triumph, and decline of the Puritan world, while also examining the role of religion in the shaping of American society and the role of the Puritan legacy in American history. Francis J. Bremer discusses the rise of Puritanism in the English Reformation, the struggle of the reformers to purge what they viewed as the corruptions of Roman Catholicism from the Elizabethan church, and the struggle with the Stuart monarchs that led to a brief Puritan triumph under Oliver Cromwell. It also examines the effort of Puritans who left England to establish a godly kingdom in America. Bremer examines puritan theology, views on family and community, their beliefs about the proper relationship between religion and public life, the limits of toleration, the balance between individual rights and ones obligation to others, and the extent to which public character should be shaped by private religious belief.

Did John Davenport's Church Require Conversion Narratives for Church Admission?: A Challenge

Two scholars debate whether John Davenport, pastor of the New Haven church (1638–67), required that a prospective church member offer a personal account of the workings of Gods saving grace in him/her to be granted church membership, a matter that, in its broader implications, has significant importance for puritan studies.

Shaping the New England Way

While separatist and non-separatist puritans were wrestling with issues of church formation and governance in England and the Netherlands, beginning in 1620 other reformers were dealing with the same issues on the other side of the Atlantic. In that year members of John Robinson’s Leiden congregation settled at Plymouth, along Cape Cod in New England, and organized their own congregation. Later in that decade members of that Plymouth church traveled up the coast to Salem to offer material and spiritual assistance to the first settlers of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Freed from the close supervision of English bishops and Dutch authorities, New England puritans crafted a religious culture that offered lay believers considerable power. Indeed, the decades of the 1620s and 1630s in New England can be judged to have witnessed the fullest expression of lay empowerment in the history of puritanism. By the early 1630s one colonist claimed that “the order of the churches and of the Commonwealth was so settled, by common consent, that it brought to his mind the new Heaven and the New Earth, wherein dwells righteousness.”1

Varieties of Lay Enthusiasm in New England and England

The previous chapters have demonstrated the dynamic nature of lay puritanism, and it is that quality that allowed for the evolution from the movement itself of what most puritans branded heresies.1 John Coffey has pointed out that “Presbyterians and Congregationalists, General and Particular Baptists, Seekers and Fifth Monarchists, Ranters and Quakers all emerged from the intense religious substructure of the godly.”2 Prophesyings, introspection and self-analysis, the sharing of experiences, and the interpretation of scripture through the grace of the Holy Spirit all drew on a mystical element in puritanism that carried with it a threat that individuals might place their personal understanding before communal understanding of the faith. According to David D. Hall the Free Grace Controversy in Massachusetts in some ways pointed to later controversies since “those who challenged outward behavior as evidence of inner grace could also challenge the practice of infant baptism, and from there move on to deny the objective basis of the ministry. The logic of Anne Hutchinson’s spiritism pointed clearly in the direction of the Baptists and Quakers.”3 A similar development can be found in puritanism in England. A review of Baptists and Quakers on both sides of the Atlantic reveals many characteristics that justify identifying them as part of the mainstream puritan movement.

Clergy and Laity in the Later Seventeenth Century

The latter decades of the seventeenth century saw puritans in the Atlantic world facing new circumstances as they sought to advance God’s kingdom. In England, the Restoration of the Stuart monarchy resulted in an effective end to puritan hopes for an English national church reflecting their understanding of godly faith and practice. In New England the Restoration initially had a limited impact. The colonists welcomed Edward Whalley and William Goffe, two of the regicides fleeing from the king’s justice. When in Massachusetts, prior to their going into hiding, the two men attended services in Boston area churches and even, exercising the gift of prophesy, “preached and prayed, and gained universal applause and admiration, and were looked upon as men dropped down from heaven.”1 Shortly thereafter the New Haven colony lost its independent identity, in part for its role in sheltering the regicides, but the other Bible Commonwealths retained their constitutional forms. Rhode Island, with its more liberal practices, received a new charter and was relatively untouched. Over the years, however, the ability of the puritan leaders of Plymouth, Massachusetts, and Connecticut were forced to bend to new political realities. One of the first examples came with the royal prohibition on further execution of Quakers, which was sent to the Massachusetts authorities in 1661.

The Role of the Laity in England’s Puritan Revolution

The crafting of the New England Way was followed with interest by puritans in England and the Netherlands. John Winthrop’s belief that the eyes of all would be upon the puritan New World adventure certainly appeared to be the case in the late 1630s and early 1640s. The Atlantic debate over the nature and value of the colonial system became of even greater relevance as conflict between Charles I and his subjects broke out in England and the Long Parliament called the Westminster Assembly into existence to advise on the restructuring of the English Church. For two decades English laymen would engage in their own efforts to create a godly kingdom, part of which involved discussion of what the lay role itself should be. One result was the fragmentation of the puritan movement and its subsequent restructuring as distinct denominations. This chapter will focus on the various ways in which laymen and laywomen engaged in the efforts to restructure the English church. The following chapters will examine some of the ways in which puritans dealt with the sectarian diversity that resulted from lay explorations of the faith in the 1640s and 1650s.

Thinking of the Laity in the English Reformation

The English Reformation was begun by a layman who happened to be king.1 Henry VIII, of course, saw himself as a special layman, divinely anointed as king. But the fact remains that the impetus against the right of the papacy to define doctrine and practice in the Catholic Church came from a layman who placed his own interpretation of a key text in Leviticus above that of the pope and then sought learned opinion to support his position. Equally important in our story is that when the split with Rome became inevitable, it was the English Parliament, comprised mostly of laymen (abetted by churchmen in the House of Lords) that invested the king with the title of Supreme Head of the Church in England. Some would later claim that since the monarch’s authority derived from Parliament, that body actually had the right to determine the affairs of the church, a position strongly rejected by future monarchs, but supported by those who saw Parliament as means of pushing for further reform. And while Archbishop Thomas Cranmer arguably played the critical role in shaping the Protestant Church of England, an important role was also played by the layman Thomas Cromwell, whom Henry VIII appointed vicar general and vice-regent of the king in “Spirituals.”2

Epilogue: Looking Backwards, and Ahead

Puritanism began with the beliefs of zealous men and women who were convinced that they had a responsibility to serve God by perfecting the Church of England, and, eventually, all of Christendom. Puritans were inspired by access to the Bible in their own tongue, and possessed of a belief that God would provide them through his Holy Spirit with grace that would enable them to see the truth in the Bible. They sought each other out to share their insights and experiences, creating dynamic communities of godly believers. They were to be lights to lead others to the biblical truths. They valued the insights of clergymen who had superior education, but were divided over how important that was, many believing that the experience of grace, more than book learning, was the essential means that enabled a Christian to recognize and edify fellow believers.

Gatherings of the Saints in England and the Netherlands

Most of those discussed in the previous chapter retained the ideal of a national church while seeking to transform it. John Cotton’s “inner congregation” was located in St. Botolph’s, Lincolnshire. John Davenport and John Wilson sought approval of parishioners to take up livings in established parishes. But the slow pace of reform led some of the godly to question their adherence to the Church of England. The more fervent their commitment to the task of leading godly lives, the more reluctant they were to compromise. Increasingly, many puritans found in their communion with fellow saints a community they valued above that of the national church. This chapter examines those who separated themselves from the Church of England either formally or by relocating in the Netherlands, where they found a greater freedom to reform, even if some still claimed kinship with the English church.

Responding to the Challenges of Diversity, 1640–60

If the eyes of all Englishmen, or at least English puritans, had followed the shaping of the New England Way in the 1630s, the eyes of the colonists were focused on the extraordinary expressions of lay involvement in religion during the decades of England’s Interregnum. In addition to offering their own advice on how their native land should be reformed, the colonists had to deal with the charge that it was New England that was the source of the heresies of the day, while also dealing with the importation of ideas that many considered threatened the order of the churches that they had established. Meanwhile, English Congregationalists, freed from the threat of a Presbyterian national church, were challenged to develop their own course for advancing a reformed kingdom. If the main focus of earlier puritanism had been defining itself against Roman Catholicism and the remnants of that faith found in the Church of England, the new need was to come to terms with radical puritanism.