PURITANS AND PURITANISM. –
I. HISTORY
The Puritans never formed a church, but rather a party, representing a psychological attitude within the various confessions of England and Scotland in the 16th and 17th centuries. HOOPER is commonly regarded as the “first Puritan”; he was imprisoned in 1550 for refusing to be consecrated bishop of Gloucester in traditional pontifical vestments. However, it was especially after the organization of the Anglican Church under Elizabeth that significant numbers of the clergy began to express scruples regarding Roman usages retained in the new system, with the aim of “purifying” the Church of every “papist” stain. They could not tolerate daily ecclesiastical vestments or the use of the surplice in public services. As early as 1565, opposition within the Church became openly strong 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 Vestiarian Controversy. The Puritans demanded a revision of the Prayer Book; they rejected the use of the sign of the Cross in the rite of Baptism, the ring in the blessing of Marriage, the bowing of the head at the name of Jesus, and candles on the altar during the Lord’s Supper. For twenty years, under Elizabeth, these matters were debated.
1. The Elizabethan Period
The University of Cambridge became the center of opposition, and its adherents were called “nonconformists.” Matthew Parker, the first archbishop of Canterbury after the schism, sought to mitigate repression; his successor, Grindal (1575–83), who dared to defend the Puritans, incurred the Queen’s displeasure. Whitgift (1583–1604) then took up the task of destroying Puritanism: he created the High Commission to discover, judge, and condemn nonconformists; he prohibited the “prophesyings,” a term applied to Puritan preaching. In response to the archbishop’s attacks and the legal proceedings of the High Commission, there appeared the venomous Tracts, Marprelate (v.). The first tract bore the title: A Letter to the Terrible Priests of the Convocation House (i.e., the ecclesiastical tribunal). The author of the Tracts was never discovered, 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 banished all who refused to attend the official religious services. Many Puritans emigrated to Holland; those who remained submitted, at least outwardly.2. The Stuart Period
With the accession of James I, a king from Presbyterian Scotland, the Puritans breathed more freely; the new monarch received the famous Millenary Petition. Yet from the Hampton Court Conference (January 1604) their illusions vanished. The king, who posed as a theologian, formulated the well-known principles of the divine right of kings and bishops. At this point, the dual tendency of Puritanism emerged: political Puritanism opposed the divine right of bishops, while theological Puritanism appealed to the rights of the nation against the divine right of kings. The struggle filled the first half of the 17th century; in the political sphere, the Puritans fought for the triumph of parliamentarianism, and in the religious sphere, they intensified their hatred of “popery” and everything reminiscent of the Catholic Church. The seeds were then sown of what later became the Low Church, so opposed to the High Church as the Whigs were to the Tories. In this struggle, Puritans within the established Church found allies among Presbyterians and Independents; a kind of fusion, at least in the religious and military spheres, was thus achieved among Puritans of these three groups.3. The Cromwellian Period
After their victory over the king, the Puritans became deeply divided. Cromwell personally belonged to the Independent Party; in the army there were ardent partisans; further to the left appeared the Levellers, extreme Puritans; indeed, new varieties of Puritans then emerged: Quakers, Baptists, Perfectionists, Fifth Monarchists, etc. The Presbyterians were deeply disappointed, and Cromwell’s death in 1658 marked their defeat. With the Restoration of the monarchy, a reaction began against Puritan practices, which had subjected the nation to unbearable tyranny. Puritanism survived only in isolated cases within the established Church, but it persisted, despite persecution, in the extremist sects of Presbyterians, Quakers, and Baptists.4. DOCTRINAL CONTENT
To penetrate deeply into the phenomenon of Puritanism, one must read the historical memoirs of Lucy Hutchinson (who recounts the life of her husband, a model Puritan: The Life of Colonel Hutchinson [1615–64]), the lives of Grindal, Whitgift, Milton, Cromwell, and the “Memoirs” of Edmund Ludlow, one of the “most rabid republicans” of the time (1617–92). Yet the works most representative of Puritan mentality are: The Pilgrim’s Progress by John Bunyan (1628–88), a mystic of the Baptist sect (1615–91), originally Anglican, then Episcopalian, Presbyterian, Cromwell’s chaplain, an opponent and then a supporter of the Stuarts, and founder of a sect of moderate Calvinists; and The Book of Martyrs by John Foxe (1515–87).1) The Puritan is the man of the Bible, that is, the man of a sacred, divine, unique, and complete book. For him, the Bible is the religious, moral, social, liturgical, and political code that instructs on everything; what the Bible does not say is useless and by nature negligible; everything that opposes the Bible must be condemned. Toward the middle of Elizabeth’s reign, the passion for reading the Bible became widespread. The reading of the Bible in church every Sunday and in the home every evening was the great religious, political, social, and literary fact of the age in England. By this means, Puritanism was able to influence customs, fashion, and the theater. The language, history, and spirit of England, every expression of life, were dominated, in the Puritan era, by biblical reminiscences. The Puritan was thus steeped in the Bible to the point that he could not move his head without a text from the Psalms or the Prophets springing to his lips. It has already been said that his sermons—and one might add his conversations—were “prophesyings.” At the battle of Dunbar (1650), Cromwell, seeing the sun appear in the morning mist, immediately cried out a biblical text: the cry of David that stirred the troops: “Let God arise, and let his enemies be scattered” (Ps. 67).
The grave and dramatic tone of the Prophets thus entered common speech; the grand images of Hebrew literature lent a strange accent to the sober enthusiasm of the Puritan, who became sententious, dogmatic, and apocalyptic. Not only did external expression change, but thought itself, conduct, behavior, and even the manner of dress were affected. The Puritan dressed in sober colors, wore no jewelry, and his entire life resembled his clothing: less lively, less imaginative and varied, but more serious and strong. Games, dances, and amusements were absolutely excluded. Yet one important thing must be noted: the profound egalitarianism that 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 vanished; the peasant felt ennobled by his title of son of God, and the noble recognized the dignity of the humblest “saints.”
The Puritan is God’s elect. Yet this principle of equality the Puritan did not extend to all mankind; his veneration for the Bible caused him to divide humanity into two classes: the believers and the 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; yet all Puritans shared the conviction that the Bible is the Book of Life and that all who remain outside biblical worship are heading for death. Apart from the “saints,” who are steeped in biblical fragrance, for the Puritan there is only a perverse and accursed world, toward which his hatred is directed. This explains the contrast between the Puritan’s family life—all gravity, filial tenderness, work and self-denial—and his insensitivity to the torments he inflicted on his adversaries.
III. INFLUENCE OF PURITANISM
The consequences of Puritanism were: its impact on family, social, public and religious life, overshadowing what had hitherto been “Merry England”; the most lasting effects appeared in the English language, which was enriched with biblical terms and formulas; and in the creation within the Churches of England of an anti-popery that still persists in the Low Church and in most dissenting bodies, whose motto was “no popery.” Even within the ecumenical movement of the Churches, many members remain hostile to any reconciliation with Rome.Other important consequences:
5. 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 fail, by bringing in a flood of colonists, capital and skilled workers. The two colonies merged in 1691. Individual or collective Puritan emigrations of every sort then came to an end.6. Origin of indifferentism and free thought
From a wholly different standpoint, the rise of free thought is to be attributed to the fanaticism and eccentricities of Puritanism, as a reaction against the excesses of theological controversy. This is visible in Herbert of Cherbury (1581–1648), in the anti-Puritan reaction of the reign of Charles II, marked by a frenzied pursuit of pleasure, and in the writings of Toland (1670–1722), who first bore the title “freethinker,” as well as in the works of Collins, Tindal, Bolingbroke and Freemasonry.7. Origin of acquisitive capitalism
Puritanism also fostered the creation of that gentry and body of merchant-burghers who were stern, acquisitive Englishmen who regarded wealth as a blessing from heaven and poverty as the fruit of vice. Some of the richest “millionaires” in America, a typical example being Rockefeller (1839–1937), were Puritans.Puritanism is now tending to disappear.