Puritans and Puritanism

PURITANS AND PURITANISM. - I. HISTORY.

- The Puritans never formed a church, but a party, exponents of a psychological attitude within the various confessions of England and Scotland in the 16th and 17th centuries. It is commonly held that the "first Puritan" was Hooper, imprisoned in 1550 because he refused to be consecrated bishop of Gloucester in the traditional pontifical vestments; however, it was above all after the organization of the Anglican Church under Elizabeth that scruples regarding the Roman usages remaining in the new system began to manifest themselves in a significant portion of the clergy; hence the resolve to "purify" the Church of every "papist" stain. They could not tolerate the daily ecclesiastical vestments and the use of the "surplice" in public functions. As early as 1565 the opposition of the established Church was strong enough and provoked a repression that was to last. At Oxford, the dean of Christ Church was deprived of his office, and at Cambridge some young gentlemen declared that they refused "the rags of the Roman antichrist."

This was precisely the Vestiarion Controversy. The Puritans demanded a revision of the Prayer-Book; they did not want to admit the use of the sign of the Cross in the rite of Baptism, of the ring in the blessing of Marriage, of the bowing of the head at the name of Jesus, of candles on the altar of the Supper. For 20 years, under Elizabeth, such matters were debated.

1. Elizabethan period

The University of Cambridge was the center of the opponents, called "non-conformists." Matthew Parker, the first archbishop of Canterbury after the schism, sought to soften the repression; his successor, Grindal (1575-83), who dared to defend the Puritans, incurred the Queen's anger; therefore Whitgift (1583-1604) committed himself thoroughly to destroying Puritanism: he created the High Ecclesiastical Commission to discover, judge, and condemn the non-conformists; he prohibited the prophesyings (prophetyings), the nickname by which the preachings of the Puritans were designated. To the archbishop's attacks and the legal procedures of the High Commission, the venomous Tracts responded, signed with the pseudonym Martin Marprelate (v.). The first Tract bore as its title: A Letter to the Terrible Priests of the House of Convocation (that is, of the Ecclesiastical Tribunal). It has never been possible to know who the author of the Tracts was, but there is no doubt that, behind the scenes, the celebrated Thomas Cartwright, formerly professor of theology at Cambridge, was at work. A law of 1593 imposed banishment on all those who had refused to attend the official religious "services." Many Puritans emigrated to Holland; those who remained submitted, at least in appearance.

2. Period of the Stuarts

When King James I, who came from Presbyterian Scotland, was elected, the Puritans breathed a sigh of relief; the new King indeed received the famous petition of the thousand (Millenary Petition), but already from the Hampton Court Conference (Jan. 1604) their illusions vanished. The king, who set himself up as a theologian, formulated the well-known principles on the divine right of kings and of bishops. It was then precisely that the twofold tendency of Puritanism was delineated: opposition to the divine right of bishops and to the divine right of kings. Against the bishops, political Puritanism appealed to the Bible; against the kings, theological Puritanism appealed to the rights of the nation. The struggle filled the first half of the 17th century; in the political field, the Puritans fought for the triumph of parliamentarianism; in the religious field, they rekindled hatred for "papism" and for everything that recalled the Catholic Church. Thereupon were sown the seeds of what later became the Low Church, as opposed to the High Church as the Whigs were opposed to the Tories. In this struggle, the Puritans of the established Church found allies among the Presbyterians and the Independents; a kind of fusion, at least in the religious and military field, was thus achieved among the Puritans of these three categories.

3. Period of Cromwell

After the victory over the king, the Puritans divided deeply. Cromwell personally belonged to the party of the Independents; in the army there were ardent partisans, and further to the left still appeared the Levellers, extremist Puritans; indeed, at that time new species of Puritans sprouted: Quakers, Baptists, Perfectionists, Fifth Monarchists, etc. The Presbyterians were deeply disappointed, and Cromwell's death in 1658 marked their defeat. With the royalist restoration there began a harsh reaction against the Puritan customs, which had subjected the nation to an unbearable tyranny. Puritanism survived only in isolated cases within the established Church, but it maintained itself, in spite of persecutions, in the extremist sects of the Presbyterians, Quakers, and Baptists.

II. DOCTRINAL CONTENT

To penetrate deeply into the phenomenon of Puritanism one must read the historical memoirs of Hutchinson (who recounts the life of her husband, the model of the perfect Puritan: The Life of colonel Hutchinson [1615-64]) and the lives of Grindal, Whitgift, Milton, Cromwell, the "memoirs" of Ludlow, who was one of the "most rabid republicans" of the time (1617-92). The works, however, most representative of the Puritan mentality are: The Pilgrim's Progress, by John Bunyan (1628-88), mystic of the Baptist sect (1615-91), first Anglican, then Episcopalian, Presbyterian, chaplain of Cromwell, opponent, then supporter of the Stuarts, and founder of a sect of moderate Calvinists; the Book of Martyrs, by John Fox (1515-87).

1) The Puritan is the man of the Bible, that is, the man of a sacred book, divine, unique, complete. The Bible is for him the religious, moral, social, liturgical, political code; which instructs on everything; what the Bible does not say is useless and by its very nature negligible; everything that opposes the Bible must be condemned. Toward the middle of the reign of Elizabeth, the passion for reading the Bible became general. The reading of the Bible done in church, every Sunday, and in the family, every evening, is the great religious, political, social and literary fact of the era, in England. By this means Puritanism was able to influence customs, fashion, the theater. The language, the history, the English spirit, every expression of life was dominated, in the time of Puritanism, by biblical reminiscences. The Puritan is, therefore, nourished on the Bible, to the point of not being able to move his head without a text from the Psalms or the Prophets springing from it. It has already been said that his preachings, and one might add his conversations, were Prophetyings, "prophesyings." Cromwell, on the battlefield of Dunbar (1650), saw the sun appear in the morning mist, and immediately a biblical text came out of his mouth: the cry of David who is rousing the troops: "Let God arise and let his enemies be scattered" (Ps. 67).

The grave and dramatic tone of the Prophets thus entered into current language; the grandiose images of Hebrew literature conferred a strange accent on the sober enthusiasm of the Puritan, who became sententious, dogmatic, apocalyptic. And not only the external expression was modified, but thought itself, conduct, behavior, even the manner of dress. The Puritan dressed in sober colors, displayed no jewel; his whole life resembled his dress: less lively, less fanciful and varied, but more serious, stronger. Games, dances, amusements were absolutely excluded. But one important thing must be noted: the profound egalitarianism that such familiarity with the Bible introduced among citizens; the idea of brotherhood led the Puritans to a completely new conception of social equality. Among them distinctions disappeared; the peasant felt ennobled by his title of son of God; the nobleman recognized the dignity of the poorest "saints."

2) The Puritan is the elect of God. - However, this principle of equality the Puritan did not extend to all men; his worship of the Bible made him divide humanity into two classes: believers and unbelievers, the elect and the damned. Undoubtedly the pure Calvinists, that is, the Presbyterians, were almost the only ones to profess explicitly the dogma of Calvinist predestination; all Puritans, however, had in common the certainty that the Bible is the book of Life and that all those who remain outside biblical worship are heading toward death. Outside the "saints," who are permeated with biblical perfume, for the Puritan there is only a perverse and accursed world, upon which his hatred falls. This explains the contrast that was observed between the family life of the Puritan, all seriousness, filial tenderness, work and self-denial, and his insensitivity before the torments that he inflicted on his adversaries.

III. INFLUENCE OF PURITANISM

The consequences of Puritanism were: its influence on family and social life, on public and religious life, overshadowing what had until that moment been "Merry England"; the most lasting consequences were in the English language, which was enriched with biblical terms and formulas, and in the creation within the Churches of England of an anti-papism that still persists in the Low Church and in the majority of dissenting sects, whose motto was no popery. Even in the ecumenical movement of the Churches many members remain hostile to any reconciliation with Rome.

Other important consequences:

1. Origin of the American colonies

The famous Pilgrim Fathers (v.), who emigrated to America in 1620 on the Mayflower, were Puritans. The struggle of 1627 against Puritanism strengthened the first stock, which was about to die out, causing a flow of colonists, capital and skilled workers. The two colonies merged in 1691. The individual or collective emigrations of Puritans of every sect never came to an end.

2. Origin of indifferentism and free thought

From a completely different point of view, the rise of free thought must be charged to the fanaticism and eccentricities of Puritanism, as a reaction to the excesses of theological controversies. This is visible in Herbert de Cherbury (1581-1648), in the anti-Puritan reaction of the reign of Charles II, characterized by frenetic pleasure, and in the writings of Toland (1679-1722), who was the first to brandish the title of "freethinker," in the writings of Collins, Tindal, Bolingbroke and of Freemasonry.

3. Origin of business capitalism

It is also due to Puritanism to have created that gentry and that bourgeoisie of English merchants, severe, greedy for gain, who regarded wealth as a blessing of heaven and poverty as the effect of vice. Some of the richest American "billionaires," a typical example being Rockefeller (1839-1937), of the Baptist sect, were Puritans.

Puritanism, at present, tends to disappear.

Leone Cristiani