The English Parliament issues the Parliamentary Act Against Puritans. Who were the Puritans and why were they made a target of the political machinery of the realm? The Puritans were largely made up of returning Marian exiles. During the reign of Mary, I countless Protestants were forced to flee England to survive. The vast majority of them found their way to Geneva where they embraced Calvinism. After Mary’s death, they returned to England with grand ideas of restoring the glory of Protestantism under a decidedly Protestant monarch like Elizabeth I. Unfortunately, Elizabeth’s views of Protestantism were significantly different from the views of the returning exiles. While the returning Protestants wanted sweeping, Scriptural change, Elizabeth was content to create a compromised version of Protestantism that would keep her Catholic subjects from open rebellion. It was part of the challenge of being both a monarch and the head of the church. Once again civil and religious liberty played a significant role in the progress of the Reformation in England.
Disgruntled at the queen’s unwillingness to act decisively, the returning Protestants endeavored to take matters into their own hands. While the Puritans didn’t significantly differ from their conformist Elizabethan contemporaries the most significant variation was the Puritan commitment to incorporate Biblical truth into everyday life. In addition to championing social reform, the Puritans also wanted to rid England of the slightest hint of Catholic tradition which meant moving toward a completely different church structure.
In their pursuit of deeper reform, the Puritans, as they came to be known during this period, became socially and politically divisive.
The Puritan campaign for change led to tensions with the state church and was carried out in two stages. The first phase spanned the decades of the 1560s and 70s. The main emphasis during this period was to call for a fundamental change in the governance structure of the Church of England. The second phase spanning the decade of the 1580s championed a Presbyterian movement calling for the abolition of Bishops and the installation of Elders in their place.
Unfortunately, by the 1590s, the queen was making determined strides to snuff out Purtitanism as a semi-organized movement.
It wasn’t simply Puritan doctrine - which in a nutshell was entire submission to the word of God - that alarmed the queen. It was the emphasis the Puritans placed on placing the authority of Scripture over every other consideration even the sovereignty of the monarch that troubled her.
The practices of organized Puritanism were also a cause for concern. One of the most common habits Puritans engaged in was meetings known as ‘prophesyings’. At these meetings, a group of Puritan preachers would gather and take turns preaching and teaching from the Bible. Once everyone had had a turn they would sit down to discuss and critique each others’s sermons. The purpose of this exercise was to grow in Biblical knowledge while also honing their preaching skills. It was an attempt to discuss Scripture openly among a group of like-minded peers instead of being blindly led as laymen by a priest or bishop.
One of the key operating principles of Puritanism was making Scripture the basis for every decision. The premise was sound but its application left much to be desired. It bred a form of fanaticism that made the movement seem odd at best. For example, some Puritans believed that there should be two church services because there were two burnt offerings on the Sabbath. Others believed that the proper way to preach was while standing in one place because Peter was stationary while he preached. The possibilities were as mind-boggling as they were dangerous.
The queen's sentiment that these prophesyings were dangerous was not without merit however her methods of curbing their enthusiasm were harsh. She commanded the Archbishop of Canterbury to suppress all prophesyings and those who refused to heed the command were placed under house arrest. Here stringent measures led to a rise in militant Puratism among a younger generation of Puritans who wanted to reform a government that was becoming increasingly frustrated with the movement as a whole.
A secret Puritan press was established and pro-puritan anti-establishment tracts were produced. The pamphlets were inflammatory at best, and perhaps not the wisest course of action considering the heightening tensions. This unproductive spate of Purtian-fueled mudslinging was the final straw. The queen viewed it as bordering on anarchy and commanded her councilors to hunt down the secret press.
One of the inherent dangers in Puritan theology was its focus on holy living to the exclusion of Christ. So focused was the movement on righteousness that they forgot to focus on the source of that righteousness. This meant that certain circles of Puritanism were in danger of swinging towards legalism, an organized system of salvation by works which ironically was the very thing Protestant Puritanism was protesting against.
Often the exhortation to righteous living was accompanied by graphic portrayals of eternal damnation and hell dfirr which would leave congregations shaking with fear. In many ways, these manifestations revealed how close to Catholicism Puritanism strayed.
However, amid this danger, God still razed up men who understood the correlation between the law and the gospel; between grace and truth. Men like John Owens, Richard Sibbs, and others directed the attention of congregations to Jesus not only as their sin-bearer but also as the one whose grace was sufficient to enable them to live a life of total obedience.
They portrayed salvation from sin as the result of the union between a man and his savior as opposed to being the result of a man’s hard work. It was a much-needed breath of fresh air that created balance within the movement.
1603 - Elizabeth, I died withou having produced a male heir. The next nearest male relative and apparent heir to the throne was James VI of Scotland, the son of Mary, Queen of Scots. Unlike his mother who was a strong Catholic, James, who had been raised in Scotland during her exile, was Protestant. His protestant views were as temporised as Elizabeth’s had been but they were still clearly protestant. He took the English throne as James I, thus uniting the two kingdoms which for centuries had been at war.
The Puritans saw this new king as an answer to their prayers, believing that he would succeed in bringing facilitating true reform in England. They were doomed to bitter disappointment when they realised that he was as unwilling to support their ideas as Elizabeth I had been.
