The Puritans

The Puritans of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries sought to bring about a more thorough Reformation in England—to purify the English church from any Roman Catholic vestiges—especially in the areas of theology, worship, and personal holiness. Originally used pejoratively, the term Puritan referred to one who, politically, reacted against the via media (middle way) of the Elizabethan Settlement; who, theologically, held the Reformed views of the five solas and (usually) the doctrines of grace summarized by the acronym TULIP; and who was committed to discipleship, evangelism, an experiential faith, communion with God, and personal piety. Despite their commonalities, there was no unified Puritan view on topics such as church government and baptism. While there has been much debate over the exact dates of the Puritan movement, Puritanism flourished between 1558 and 1689 in England and during the early eighteenth century in America.

The Protestant Reformation of the sixteenth century—often associated in particular with Martin Luther (1483–1546)—was really a collection of reformations across Europe. Various reformations of both church and society took place in nations including Germany, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Scotland, and England.

King Henry VIII of England (1491–1547)—who was no friend of Luther and the Protestant Reformation—officially cut the English state church’s ties with the Roman Catholic Church in 1534, declaring himself the only supreme head on earth of the Church of England. After Henry’s death, the English church made a significant swing toward Protestantism under his successor, Edward VI (1537–53). During Edward’s reign, the first edition of the massively influential Anglican Book of Common Prayer was published. The book was largely the work of the influential English Reformer Thomas Cranmer (1489–1556).

When Edward died, Henry’s VIII’s ostracized daughter (by his first wife) Mary Tudor took the throne. A committed Roman Catholic, Mary took sweeping actions against the growing Reformation movement in England, even overseeing the execution of some three hundred Protestants, including Cranmer, earning her the epithet “Bloody Mary.” But the political and ecclesiastical tide swung again when Henry’s daughter (through his second wife, Anne Boleyn), Elizabeth I, became queen in 1558. Significantly, Elizabeth’s church reforms took a via media (middle way) by wedding a Protestant theology to a more Roman Catholic form of government and liturgy. The hierarchical structure of Rome and many of the elements of worship (e.g., kneeling at communion, making the sign of the cross, attributing mediation to the priestly office, etc.) remained. But with the codification and approval of the Thirty-Nine Articles, the Anglican Church was set as theologically Protestant.

Some members of the church believed that Queen Elizabeth’s via media was a half-measure compromise with Rome. They argued that the Church of England should be thoroughly Reformed in its theology, public worship, and piety. These Puritans, as they became known, sought to purify the Anglican Church more thoroughly according to Scripture and remove any vestiges of Roman Catholicism.

From the beginning of Elizabeth I’s reign in 1558 to William and Mary’s assent to the Act of Toleration in 1689, Puritanism took many forms and pushed various emphases. Some early Puritans, such as William Perkins (1558–1602) in his classic works A Golden Chain and The Art of Prophesying, sought to maintain peace within the church by not pushing too hard against the via media’s policies while still promoting an evangelical and Reformed approach to preaching and worship. Perkins in particular—because of his teaching post at Cambridge—influenced an entire generation of other well-known Puritans including William Ames, Thomas Goodwin, and Richard Sibbes.

The Puritans hoped to see their Reformation ideals come to fruition when Elizabeth died in 1603 and James VI of Scotland became King James I of England. However, James (whose name became associated with a new version of the English Bible in 1611) believed in the “divine right of kings,” solidifying his place as the supreme governor of the Church of England and, with it, the general via media policies of Queen Elizabeth. During James’ reign, many Puritans separated from the Church of England, even leaving the country for various Reformation-friendly cities on the European Continent and for the promise of freedom across the ocean in the New World.

James’ son, Charles I (who became king in 1625), was even more intolerant of the Puritan movement and sought complete uniformity within the Church of England, compelling Puritan clergy through the threat of fines, torture, and imprisonment to conduct worship only according to the Book of Common Prayer and the formal elements of the via media. For various political and ideological reasons, tensions mounted between Charles and Parliament—the latter of which had become increasingly sympathetic to the Puritan cause—and that tension broke out into an all-out war in 1642. As the English Civil War raged across the country, a group of Puritans and Puritan-leaning men (known as the Westminster Assembly) formulated the Westminster Confession of Faith, along with two catechisms (Larger and Shorter), a Directory for Public Worship, and other complementary documents. Although these documents were published in the hopes that they would become the doctrinal standards of the Church of England, the Anglican Church never adopted them. Nevertheless, the Westminster Confession of Faith remains a standard of Reformed theological orthodoxy for many denominations around the world today, especially Presbyterians.

Parliament—with the help of its northern ally, Scotland (bound together through the Solemn League and Covenant of 1643)—defeated the royalist army, and Charles himself was executed in 1649. Many historians view the 1650s as a high point of English Puritanism. The general who commanded Parliament’s army, Oliver Cromwell, became lord protector of England. The Puritan clergy could preach expositional sermons, offer extemporaneous prayers, maintain a strict Sabbatarianism, and advocate (with certain effect) for individual and corporate piety without fear of government persecution. But after Cromwell’s death, his incompetent son and the strenuous Puritan zeal meant that England began looking toward restoring the monarchy and the via media principles of Anglicanism.

In 1660, the monarchy was restored at the coronation of Charles’ son, Charles II. Two years later, Parliament enacted the Act of Uniformity, which prescribed the practices of worship according to the Book of Common Prayer. Those who refused to take the oath and submit were expelled from the Church of England, an event known as the Great Ejection of 1662. Those ejected included such Puritans as Richard Baxter, John Owen, Thomas Manton, Stephen Charnock, Matthew Poole, John Flavel, and Thomas Watson. Other Puritans, including John Bunyan (1628–88), who wrote The Pilgrim’s Progress, were imprisoned and subjected to various forms of religious persecution.

The desire of many Puritans from 1662 until 1689 was simply the freedom to worship according to the principles of the Reformation. That freedom came in 1689 when the newly coronated William and Mary enacted the Act of Toleration. Moreover, many of the leading and influential Puritans died during the 1680s, which effectively brought English Puritanism to an end. Many pastors and theologians in the American colonies, including the influential Jonathan Edwards (1703–58), would carry on the Puritan ideals during the early eighteenth century in the New World.