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Godly choice: Puritan Decision-Making in Seventeenth-Century England

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 June 2011

Barbara Donagan
Barbara Donagan
Affiliation:
Chicago, Illinois
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Extract

[We] should … set upon our affairs with looking up to heaven for permission, power, and sufferance. … Let us therefore in all our affairs be holy, and not bind or limit our holiness only to coming to church; but seeing at all times and in all places we are Christians, and ever in the presence of God, let us place ourselves still in his eye, and do nothing but that we would be willing God shall see. … [We] ought not to set upon anything, wherein we cannot expect God's guidance.

Richard Sibbes

In Cromwell's rebellion the cause was managed by whining hypocrites, and no wonder if they cheated.

Roger North

Type
Research Article
Information
Harvard Theological Review , Volume 76 , Issue 3 , July 1983 , pp. 307 - 334
Copyright
Copyright © President and Fellows of Harvard College 1983

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References

1 Sibbes, Richard, “Of the Providence of God,” The Complete Works (ed. Grosart, A. B.; Edinburgh, 1862–1867) 5. 36Google Scholar; “The Autobiography of the Hon. Roger North,” The Lives of the Right Hon. Francis North, Baron Guilford; the Hon. Sir Dudley North; and the Hon. and Rev. Dr. John North. By the Hon. Roger North (ed. Jessopp, Augustus; London, 1890) 3. 160.Google Scholar

2 Gardiner, S. R., History of the Great Civil War 1642–1649 (London, 1894) 4. 288Google Scholar, quoted in Hill, Christopher, God's Englishman: Oliver Cromwell and the English Revolution (London: Weidenfeld and Nicholson, 1970) 217.Google Scholar

3 This paper treats “mainline” seventeenth-century English Puritans, the central body doctrinally distinguished by predestinarianism, which includes presbyterians, independents, and some Anglicans. See Tyacke, Nicholas, “Puritanism, Arminianism Counter-Revolution,” in Russell, Conrad, ed., The Origins of the English Civil War (New York: Barnes & Noble, 1973) 119–43.CrossRefGoogle Scholar The sects demand separate treatment, as do divergences from English practice which developed in New England.

4 The Autobiography of Henry Newcome, M.A. (ed. Parkinson, Richard; Chetham Society, 1852) 26. 71.Google Scholar

5 Persecutio Undecima (n.p., 1648) 3.

6 Newcome, Autobiography, 27. 300.

7 Earl of Warwick to Henry Culwick, 2 July 1634 (Huntingdonshire County Record Office [= Hunts. R.O.], dd M 28/1).

8 Samuel Crook, ΤΑ ΔΙΑΦΕΡΟΝΤΑ, or Divine Characters in Two Parts, Acutely Distinguishing the more Secret and Undiscerned Differences between 1. The HYPOCRITE in his best Dresse of Seeming Virtues and formal Duties. And the True Christian in his Real Graces and Sincere Obedience (London, 1658).

9 Wood, Anthony, Athenae Oxonienses (2d ed.; London, 1721) 2. col. 739.Google Scholar For a conventional modern view, see Shklar, Judith, “Let us not be Hypocritical,” Daedalus 108 (1979) 3–4Google Scholar: “[P]uritanism is invariably accompanied by hypocrisy.” See, however, Seaver, Paul, “The Puritan Work Ethic Revisited,” Journal of British Studies 19 (1980) 37–38CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Walzer, Michael, The Revolution of the Saints (London: Weidenfeld and Nicholson, 1965) 305.Google Scholar

10 See “Some Account of General Robert Venables, … together with the Autobiographical Memoranda or Diary of his Widow, Elizabeth Venables” (Chetham Society, Chetham Miscellanies 4, 1872) 83. 22–27Google Scholar, for Mrs. Venables' account of the death of her son and her subsequent decision to remarry.

11 See Young, Alexander, Chronicles of the First Planters of the Colony of Massachusetts Bay, from 1623 to 1636 (Boston, 1856) 439–42, 528–33Google Scholar; Wallington, Nehemiah, Historical Notices of Events Occurring Chiefly in the Reign of Charles I (London, 1869) 1. xxxviii–xlGoogle Scholar; Newcome, Autobiography, 26. 24–27; Burroughes, Jer., A Vindication of Mr Burroughes (London, 1646) 11Google Scholar; Thorowgood, Thomas, “Epistle Dedicatory,” Moderation Iustified, and the Lords Being at Hand Emproved (London, 1645)Google Scholar n.p.; Historical Manuscripts Commission 77, Manuscripts of … Viscount De L'Isle (London: Her Majesty's Stationery Office, 1966) 6. 598–99.Google Scholar

12 See, e.g., the nonconformist society in which the young Dudley Ryder moved in 1715–16: The Diary of Dudley Ryder (Matthews, William, ed.; London: Methuen, 1939) 45–47Google Scholar, 50, 56, 93, 101–5, 148, and passim. See also Donagan, Barbara, “Providence, Chance, and Explanation: Some Paradoxical Aspects of Puritan Views of Causation,” JRH 11 (1981) 402–3.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

13 This remains true in spite of the moderating aspects of the “Westminster theology,” analyzed in Kendall, R. T., Calvin and English Calvinism to 1649 (Oxford: Oxford University, 1979) chap. 14.Google Scholar

14 Memoirs of the Life of Colonel Hutchinson (London, 1863) 66–67. For common objections to predestination, see Dent, Arthur, The Plain Man's Path-way to Heaven; wherein Every Man may clearly see whether he shall be saved or damned (Glasgow, 1734) 220.Google Scholar

15 Knappen, M. M., ed., Two Elizabethan Puritan Diaries (Studies in Church History 2; Chicago: American Society of Church History, 1933) 108–9Google Scholar; Newcome, Autobiography, 27. 297; Diaries and Letters of Philip Henry, M.A. (ed. Lee, M. H.; London, 1882) 34.Google Scholar

16 Daniel Evance, The Noble Order, or, The Honour which God conferr's on them that Honour Him (London, 1646) 12–13. Rewards, however, were not a matter of God's “debt,” but of his grace. William Ames, The Marrow of Sacred Divinity (London, 1642) 211.

17 Venables, “Diary,” 10–11; Heywood, Oliver, Life of John Angier of Denton (ed. Axon, Ernest; Chetham Society, 1937) 97. 106–7.Google Scholar

18 Joseph Hall, Occasional Meditations (1633), reprinted in Huntley, Frank Livingstone, Bishop Joseph Hall and Protestant Meditation in Seventeenth-Century England (Binghamton, NY: Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 1981) 189.Google Scholar

19 Corbett (ed.), Gods Providence (London, 1642) 28.

20 Sibbes, “A Commentary upon the First Chapter of the Second Epistle of St. Paul to the Corinthians,” Works, 3. 253.

21 E.g., Newcome, Autobiography, 27. 195; Flavel, John, “Divine Conduct: or The Mystery of Providence,” The Works of John Flavel (London, 1820Google Scholar; reprint ed. London: Banner of Truth Trust, 1968) 4. 408–9: “it is a merciful dispensation for our good” (but cf. 4. 374); Young, Chronicles, 529.

22 Hall, The Art of Divine Meditation (1606) in Huntley, Bishop Joseph Hall, 85.

23 Henry, Diaries, 23; Newcome, Autobiograhy, 26. 14, 178–79; Priestley, Jonathan, “Some Memoirs Concerning the Family of the Priestleys,” in Yorkshire Diaries and Autobiographies in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries (Jackson, C. and Margerison, S., eds.; Surtees Society, 1883) 77. 15.Google Scholar

24 The Diary and Correspondence of Dr. John Worthington (ed. Crossley, James; Chetham Society, 1847) 1. 236.Google Scholar

25 Worthington complained (ibid.) of prayers that “were making God a divinity-lecture, or preaching to the people.” See also Table Talk of John Selden (ed. Pollock, Sir Frederick; Selden Society, 1927) 103–4.Google Scholar

26 Newcome, Autobiography, 26. 23–25, 34, 64–66; 27. 297; The Rev. Oliver Heywood, B.A. 1630–1702; his Autobiography, Diaries, Anecdote and Event Books (ed. Turner, J. Horsfall; Brighouse, 1882) 1. 156Google Scholar, 189–92; The Diary of Ralph Josselin 1616–1683 (ed. Macfarlane, Alan; London: Oxford University Press for the British Academy, 1976) 163, 182–83.Google Scholar

27 Worthington, Diary, 1. 236.

28 Henry, Diaries, 16, 87; Josselin, Diary, 413; William Goode, “Epistle Dedicatory,” Jacob Raised (London, 1647) n.p.; The Works of the Right Reverend Joseph Hall (ed. Wynter, Philip; Oxford, 1863) 1. xxvii–xxviiiGoogle Scholar; Mather, Magnolia, 1. 344; Corbett, Providence, 29. See also Richardson, R. C., Puritanism in north-west England (Manchester: Manchester University, 1972) 45–47.Google Scholar

29 Clark, Samuel, England's Remembrancer (London, 1819) 1. 8.Google Scholar

30 Newcome, Autobiography, 26. 67. See also Henry, Diaries, 87.

31 Eyre, Adam, “A Dyurnall … 1646–[7],” Yorkshire Diaries and Autobiographies (Surtees Society, 1875) 65. 53, 67, 78.Google Scholar

32 Ibid., 88; Newcome, 26. 64–67. Eyre was, of course, expressing traditional doctrine.

33 William Turner, A Compleat History of the Most Remarkable Providences … Which have Hapned in this Present Age (London, 1697) [2]. 89.

34 Heywood, Angier, 105–6.

35 Ibid., 106; Venables, “Diary,” 10–11.

36 See McGee, J. Sears, The Godly Man in Smart England: Anglicans, Puritans, and the Two Tables, 1620–1670 (New Haven: Yale University 1976) esp. chap. 3Google Scholar; cf. the Anglican emphasis on charitableness, ibid., 209–11, 221–34. See also Sibbes, “Providence,” 5. 51–52.

37 Sibbes, “The Soul's Conflict,” 1. 209. See also Simoen Ashe, Gray Hayres Crowned with Grace (London, 1655) 57; cf. Seaver, “Puritan Work Ethic,” 43–44, 48–50.

38 Venables, “Diary,” 17. See also Crook, Divine Characters, 36.

39 John Sym to ?. 8 July 1834 (Hunts. R.O., dd M 28/1).

40 Priestley, “Memoirs,” 14; Selden, Table Talk, 84; John Sym, Lifes Preservative against Self-Killing (London, 1637) 119, 121; Shuckburgh, E. S., ed., Two Biographies of William Bedell Bishop of Kilmore (Cambridge: Cambridge University, 1902) 19Google Scholar (Bedell was God's vice-regent in his family, said his son). William Gouge, Of Domesticall Duties, in The Workes of William Gouge (London, 1627) 358; Sibbes, “Soul's Conflict,” 1. 209–10.

41 Heywood, Angier, 78; Turner, “To the … Reader,” Remarkable Providences, n.p.

42 Edward Symmons, “To the Reader,” Scripture Vindicated (Oxford, 1644) n.p.

43 Ibid., 1. See also the defense of repetitive use of certain texts in Crook, “To the Reader,” Divine Characters, n.p.

44 Turner, Remarkable Providences, [2]. 123; Thomas, Keith, Religion and the Decline of Magic (New York: Scribner's, 1971) 118–19Google Scholar; Sibbes, “Providence,” 5. 45, and “Soul's Conflict,” 1. 205–6; Ames, Marrow, 265–69.

45 Sibbes, “Soul's Conflict,” 1. 209; William Ames, Conscience with the Power and Cases Thereof (n.p., 1639) 4. 60–61; Thomas Gataker, A Discours Apologetical (London, 1654) 21.

46 See, e.g., George Hall, “To the Reader,” Gods Appearing For the Tribe of Levi (London, 1655) n.p. Cf. Acts 1:26.

47 William Gouge, The Extent of Gods Providence (London, 1631) 380; Hugh Peter, Gods Doings, and Mans Duty (London, 1646) 42; Ames, Marrow, 264.

48 Thomas Gataker, Of the Nature and Use of Lots (2d ed.; London, 1627) 13–15, 21–22, 42–46; Arthur Wilson, “Observations of God's Providence, in the Tract of my Life,” in The Inconstant Lady, a Play (Oxford, 1814) 140.Google Scholar See also Donagan, “Providence,” 396–97.

49 Gataker, Lots, 25; Wilson, “Observations,” 138; Ames, Marrow, 264. See also Thomas, Religion and Magic, 623–28.

50 Edward Calamy, The Godly Mans Ark (2d ed.; London, 1658) 231; Turner, Remarkable Providences, [2]. 74; Hall, Works, 1. xxi.

51 W[illiam] P[erkins], “A Resolution to The Countreyman,” in The Workes of.… W. Perkins (London, 1631) 3. 654, 662–63; John Bishop, The Marrow of Astrology (London, 1688) 2. 77; Donagan, “Providence,” 398 n. 47.

52 Perkins, “Countreyman,” 3. 653.

53 Newcome, Autobiography, 27. 343–71, passim.

54 Sibbes, “Soul's Conflict,” 1. 209.

55 Hutchinson, Memoirs, 68; Newcome, Autobiography, 26. 8–9.

56 Symmons, “To the Reader,” Scripture Vindicated, n.p.

57 Henry, Diaries, 68–69. See also The Life of Adam Martindale (ed. Parkinson, Richard; Chetham Society, 1845) 4. 136–37Google Scholar; Burroughes, Vindication, 20.

58 Worthington, Diary, 278; Henry, Diaries, 78.

59 Sibbes, “Soul's Conflict,” 1. 211.

60 Ibid.

61 See., e.g., Young, Chronicles, 516, 518; Burroughes, Vindication, 19–21; Gataker, Discours Apologetical, 32–33; Josselin, Diary, 16; Newcome, Autobiography, 26. 57–71.

62 Cf. Walzer, Saints, 223, 261–62, 301–2.

63 Hail, Works, 1. xxvi–xxvii. See Ames, Conscience, 4. 56–57 on legitimacy of release from such a “promissory oath.”

64 Crook, “To the Reader,” Divine Characters, n.p. and 30–42. On the possible damnation of “an honest Man, a quiet liver, a good neighbour,” see Dent, Pathway, 280.

65 Burroughes, Vindication, 15–16; Sibbes, “Providence,” 5. 52–53; and see Ames, Conscience, 4. 56: “In those doubts which fall out about Oathes, the counsell of such as are skilfull, is of good use.”

66 Burroughes, Vindication, 4, 7, 10; Young, Chronicles, 519.

67 Sym, Self-Killing (preface by William Gouge) n.p.; Firmin, Marshal, n.p. Gouge himself was accounted “an oracle of his time” (Gouge, William, A Commentary on the Whole Epistle to the Hebrews [Edinburgh, 1856] 1. 346).Google Scholar See Starr, G. A., “From Casuistry to Fiction: The Importance of the Athenian Mercury,” JHI 28 (1967) 20CrossRefGoogle Scholar, on the weekly “scruple shop” in Oxford in 1646.

68 For general exhortation see, e.g., Dent, Pathway, 128–29; for guidance in very specific cases see, e.g., Ames, Conscience, 3. 80.

69 Newcome, 27. 356, 369–71, and other letters from laymen (passim). I am grateful to Keith Wrightson for pointing out the usual context of de praesenti and de futuro promises. See also William Perkins, “OEconomie: or, Household Government,” Workes, 3. 672; Ames, Conscience, 4. 54–57.

70 Sym, Self-Killing, 144–48; William Gouge, “The Whole Armour of God,” Works, 268 [misnumbered for 266]; Newcome, Autobiography, 26. 81–82; Sir Henry Spelman, A Short Apology for Archbishop Abbot … with a Large Answer To this Apology (the Answer is Spelman's) in The English Works of Sir Henry Spelman (2d ed.; London, 1727) 112, 115–18.Google Scholar

71 Halley, Lancashire, 1. 203–5.

72 Newcome, Autobiography, 26. 12–13, 24–25, 105; and see Wood, Thomas, English Casuistical Divinity (London: SPCK, 1952) 104–16.Google Scholar

73 Mather, Magnolia, 1. 340. See also, e.g., Edmund Chilenden, “The Inhumanity of the King's Prison Keeper, at Oxford,” (London, 1643) in The Somers Collection of Tracts (2d ed. revised by Scott, Walter; London, 1810) 4. 503.Google Scholar The rules regarding equivocation under oath were more rigid: Ames, Conscience, 51–54.

74 Young, Chronicles, 443.

75 Turner, Remarkable Providences, 2. 132; Calendar of State Papers Domestic 1636–37, 545; 1637, 518–19; Auden, J. E., “Ecclesiastical History of Shropshire during the Civil War, Commonwealth and Restoration,” Transactions of the Shropshire Archaeological … Society (3d series) 7 (1907) 283Google Scholar; Halley, Lancashire, 1. 261; Shaw, “Life,” 156; Harold Smith, The Ecclesiastical History of Essex (Colchester, n.d.) 43–45.

76 Sym, Self-Killing, 147–48.

77 Bedell, Biographies, 215, 218; Sibbes, Corinthians, 3. 257, and “Soul's Conflict,” 1. 210; Sym, Self-Killing, 144–49; Robert Bolton, “Epistle Dedicatory,” Instructions for A Right Comforting Afflicted Consciences (London, 1631) n.p., on the duty of loyalty.

78 Sym, Self-Killing, 149.

79 Rogers, Timothy, A Discourse Concerning Trouble of Mind, and the Disease of Melancholy (2d ed.; London, 1706) vii–xiiGoogle Scholar; Newcome, Autobiography, 27. 325–26; and see Rose, Elliot, Cases of Conscience (Cambridge: Cambridge University, 1975) 185–212.Google Scholar

80 The Life and Death of Stephen Marshal (London, 1680) 4.

81 [Firmin], Marshal, n.p. On the vexing question of ministerial job changes, see Gataker, Discours Apologetical, 32–33; Heywood, Angier, 111.

82 Newcome, Autobiography, 27. 356, 368, 370.

83 Gouge, William, A Commentary on the Whole Epistle to the Hebrews (Edinburgh, 1856–1862) 1. 206.Google Scholar See also Bolton, Instructions, 485–86; Walzer, Saints, 264–65. Starr argues that the Athenian Mercury succeeded because it offered an alternative to the “helpless, agitated isolation” resulting, by the 1690s, from the decline in earlier forums of public support in difficult cases (“Athenian Mercury,” 21).

84 Sibbes, “Soul's Conflict,” 1. 210.

85 lbid., 210–11; Ames, Conscience, 3. 86.

86 Bedell, Biographies, 24, 266, 270.

87 Newcome, Autobiography, 26. 25, 27, 34, 45; 27. 296–97; Mather, Magnolia, 1. 306; The Door of Truth Opened (London, 1645) 13–14; Heywood, Angier, 104–7; Wallington, Historical Notices, 1. xxxix–xl; Young, Chronicles, 440–41, 513.

88 Sibbes, “Soul's Conflict,” 1. 210, and “The Bruised Reed and Smoking Flax,” 1. 80–81.

89 Letters of the Earl of Warwick, Henry Culwick, John Smith, and John Sym, April-July 1634 (Hunts. R.O. dd M 28/1).

90 Priestley, “Memoirs,” 77. 7, 9; Heywood, Angier, 104–6; Halley, Lancashire, 1. 187; Newcome, Autobiography, 27. 290. See also Thomas, Religion and Magic, 158–59.

91 See Schochet, Gordon J., Palriarchalism in Political Thought (Oxford: Blackwell, 1975)Google Scholar esp. 64–84; Slater, Miriam, “The Weightiest Business: Marriage in an Upper-gentry Family in Seventeenth-Century England,” Past and Present 72 (1976) 25–54CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Stone, Lawrence, The Crisis of the Aristocracy 1558–1641 (Oxford: Clarendon, 1965) 594–97Google Scholar, 610–12,661–62.

92 See, e.g., The Autobiography of Anne, Lady Halkett (ed. Nichols, J. G.; Camden Society, 1875) (n.s.) 13. 14–15.Google Scholar Cf. Anne Elliot in Jane Austen's Persuasion, chap. 23, on the duty to accept even mistaken advice: “I must believe that I was right, much as I suffered from it, ….in submitting, … and if I had done otherwise, I should have suffered more … because I should have suffered in my conscience.”

93 Manchester, Court and Society, 1. 377–78.

94 Ibid., 1. 387, for Lady Essex Cheke's warning to the Earl of Manchester on his dealings with his son.

95 Henry, Diaries, 33–34.

96 Turner, Remarkable Providences, 3. 36.

97 Autobiography of Mary Countess of Warwick (ed. Croker, T. Crofton; Percy Society, 1848) 22. 6–14Google Scholar, 31, 35–36; H. M. C. 52, Manuscripts of Mrs. Frankland-Russell-Astley (London: Her Majesty's Stationery Office, 1900) 21–23Google Scholar; Calendar of State Papers, Domestic. Additional, 1624–1649, 724–25.

98 Martindale, Life, 16.

99 Ibid., 6–8, 13–14, 17–18, 24–28; Newcome, Autobiography, 26. 170–84.

100 John Brinsley, A Looking-Glass for Good Women (London, 1645) 40–44; William Whateley, A Bride-Bush. Or, A Direction for Married Persons (London, 1623) 97–104.

101 Sibbes, “Soul's Conflict,” 1. 211.

102 Conversely, a disappointing death was no proof of damnation. See Bolton, Instructions, 227. See also Rogers, Trouble of Mind, 184–85.

103 Sibbes, “Soul's Conflict,” 1. 207; Wallington, Historical Notices, 1. xxxiv–xxxv; Bolton, Instructions, 197–98, 206–9; Rogers, Trouble of Mind, 147–49.

104 Symmons, “Preface,” Scripture Vindicated, n.p.; Worthington, Diary, 278.

105 John Sym to ?, Leigh, 8 July 1634. See also Hutchinson, Life, 132; Crook, Divine Characters, 629–32.

106 Gataker, Discours Apologetical, 52–53; Crook, Divine Chanters, 616: “A Christian may be naturally faint-hearted and cowardly …. [God] beareth with those that are weak and faint-hearted.”

107 Priestley, “Memoirs,” 77. 11. See also Sibbes, “Soul's Conflict,” 1. 211; Crook, Divine Characters, 611–14.

108 Newcome, Autobiography, 26. 45. Note the O.E.D. definition of “motion” as a working of God on the soul.

109 Sibbes, “Bruised Reed,” 1. 81–83.

110 Young, Chronicles, 533.

111 Sibbes, “Soul's Conflict,” 1. 209–11.

112 Newcome, Autobiography, 27. 371.

113 Woodhouse, A. S. P., ed., Puritanism and Liberty (London: Dent, 1950) 73–78Google Scholar. See Kishlansky, Mark A., “Consensus Politics and the Structure of Debate at Putney,” Journal of British Studies 20 (1981) 58–59.CrossRefGoogle Scholar