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    This article has been cited by the following publications. This list is generated based on data provided by CrossRef.
    Perry, Nandra 2011. The Imitation of Christ in English Reformation Writing. Literature Compass, Vol. 8, Issue. 4, p. 195.
    Covington, Sarah 2009. Wounds, Flesh, And Metaphor In Seventeenth-Century England. p. 145.
    PERRY, NANDRA 2005. Imitatio and Identity: Thomas Rogers, Philip Sidney, and the Protestant Self. English Literary Renaissance, Vol. 35, Issue. 3, p. 365.
    McKenzie, Andrea 2003. Martyrs in Low Life? Dying “Game” in Augustan England. The Journal of British Studies, Vol. 42, Issue. 02, p. 167.
    Greaves, Richard L. 1985. The Puritan-Nonconformist Tradition in England, 1560–1700: Historiographical Reflections. Albion, Vol. 17, Issue. 04, p. 449.
    Rambo, Lewis R. 1982. CURRENT RESEARCH ON RELIGIOUS CONVERSION. Religious Studies Review, Vol. 8, Issue. 2, p. 146.
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Conversion and the Imitation of Christ in Anglican and Puritan Writing

  • J. Sears McGee (a1)
Extract

In recent years a great deal of scholarly energy has been expended in attempts to identify differing religious parties and movements in Elizabethan and early Stuart England. On the one hand, J.F.H. New has described the actions of Anglicans and Puritans as “teleological acts – attempts to make practice conform to preconceived philosophies.” He believes that Anglican and Puritan doctrines derived from quite different conceptions of human moral capacity, conceptions which were distinct from their sixteenth-century origins and which grew more so as time passed. On the other hand, Charles and Katherine George have insisted that we can at best talk about minor differences of emphasis and of degree within a doctrinally unified “English Protestant mind” before 1640. There were, so this thesis goes, no really significant Anglican-Puritan ideological distinctions, and therefore religious differences had nothing to do with the coming of the English Civil War. The effect of these efforts has been to make historians aware that defining the terms “Anglican” and “Puritan” is a much more difficult enterprise than used to be thought. Despite the Georges' book, the terms are still being used; but New's argument about their meaning has not gone uncriticized.

It would be impossible in a short article to deal with all of the points raised in this extensive debate. The present purpose is to concentrate upon only two of many points of difference between writers traditionally identified as Anglicans and Puritans by means of their activities, attitudes, and associates.

Copyright
COPYRIGHT: © North American Conference of British Studies 1976
References
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1. This article is derived from my dissertation (Yale, 1971). The revised version of that dissertation will be published in 1976 by the Yale University Press as The Godly Man in Stuart England: Anglicans, Puritans and the Two Tables, 1620-1670. Grants from the Committee on Research of the University of California at Santa Barbara and the National Endowment for the Humanities were helpful in the preparation of this article. Seventeenth-century spelling and punctuation have been modernized throughout. Biographical information for writers quoted (except for John Benbrigge) is available in the Dictionary of National Biography. Place of publication is London unless otherwise noted.

2. New, John F. H., Anglican and Puritan: the Basis of Their Opposition, 1558-1640 (Stanford, 1964), p. 4. See also his article, “The Whitgift-Cartwright Controversy,” Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte (1969), pp. 203–11. John S. Coolidge, although he does not approach the subject as New does, finds significant differences between Puritans and “Conformists” in The Pauline Renaissance in England (Oxford, 1970).

3. George, Charles H. and George, Katherine, The Protestant Mind of the English Reformation, 1570-1640 (Princeton, 1961). See also ProfessorGeorge's, article, “Puritanism as History and Historiography,” in Past and Present, No. 41 (1968), 77–104, and Lamont's, William M. criticism in Past and Present, No. 44 (1969), 133–46. Patrick McGrath reviews the controversy in Papists and Puritans under Elizabeth I (1967), pp. 31–46. McGrath's footnotes and those in George's article afford bibliographical details.

4. Patrick Collinson's objection to New's thesis will be discussed below. Everett H. Emerson exemplifies the new caution when he writes that “it is questionable whether one can make sound generalizations about Puritan economic attitudes or Puritan social theory” or about “Puritan style.” English Puritanism from John Hooper to John Milton (Durham, N.C., 1968), p. 46. For another example, see Breen, Timothy H., “The Non-Existent Controversy: Puritan and Anglican Attitudes on Work and Wealth, 1600-1640,” Church History, XXXV (1966), 273–87.

8. Hammond, , The Miscellaneous Theological Works (3rd. ed.; Oxford, 1850), III, 457, 459.

6. Sydenham, , Five Sermons (1637), p. 53. On the consonance of all this with Puritan treatments of the subject, see Morgan, E. S., Visible Saints (Ithaca, N.Y., 1963), pp. 65–75; Pettit, Norman, The Heart Prepared (New Haven, Conn., 1966), Ch.'s 1-3; Miller, Perry, The New England Mind: the Seventeenth Century (Boston, 1961), Ch. 10; Nuttall, Geoffrey, The Holy Spirit in Puritan Faith and Experience (Oxford, 1946), Ch.'s 1-2.

7. Hooker, , The Christian's Two Chief Lessons (1640), pp. 211–12.

8. Fenner, , The Soul's Looking Glass (Cambridge, 1643), pp. 1, 20.

9. Baker, , Meditations and Disquisitions upon Certain Psalms (1639-40) (1882), p. 150. For other endorsements of importunacy, see pp. 114-15, 237.

10. Hyde, , The Mystery of Christ in Us (1651), p. 19. Sir Edward Hyde will be referred to as Clarendon in this essay in order to distinguish him from his cousin.

11. Stranks, C. J., Anglican Devotion (1961), p. 72.

12. New, Anglican and Puritan, Ch. 1.

13. Goodwin, , Works (Edinburgh, 1861–1865), II, lii. By beginning our survey after 1620, it is unavoidable that many of our Anglicans were associated with the rise of “English Arminianism” or “Laudianism.” It is in these Anglicans that the tendencies here described are most pronounced. There were still representatives of an older and more theologically Calvinistic school, such as Bishop Joseph Hall, who did often distinguish between forms of grace. Hall's emphasis, however, is upon the ease of obtaining grace. See his tract, Balm of Gilead, in Works (Oxford, 1863), VII.

14. Watson, , A Body of Divinity (rev. ed., 1965), p. 244. Watson, a Presbyterian, was a member of the Westminster Assembly.

15. Doolittle, , A Spiritual Antidote Against Sinful Contagion (2d ed., 1667), p. 7.

16. Farindon, , Sermons (1849), I, 100. Farindon, who died in 1658, was a lecturer at St. Mary Magdalene, Milk Street, London, from 1647 to 1656. Hammond and Sanderson were among the Anglican divines who attended regularly.

17. Quoted in Jordan, W. K., The Development of Religious Toleration in England (reprint, Gloucester, Mass., 1965), II, 325. Tyacke, N. R. N., “Puritanism, Arminianism and Counter-Revolution,” in Russell, Conrad (ed.), Origins of the English Civil War (New York, 1973), and Schwartz, Hillel, “Arminianism and the English Parliament, 1624-1629,” J. B. S., XII (1973), offer valuable information and interpretations.

18. Fenner, , Soul's Looking Glass, p. 13.

19. Sibbes, , The Complete Works (1864), VII, 12.

20. Brooks, , Works (Edinburgh, 1866), I, 31. H. R. Trevor-Roper describes Brooks's anti-royalism in a parliamentary fast sermon shortly before Charles I's trial. The Crisis of the Seventeenth Century (New York, 1968), pp. 333–34.

21. Benbrigge, , God's Fury, England's Fire (1646), p. 122. A variety of indications of Benbrigge's Puritanism will be found on pp. 22-23n of my forthcoming book. Not least among them is Benbrigge's acceptance of the term: God “owns them for his children, calls them his holy ones; but the world, which had named them Puritans, turned Anabaptist [and rebaptized them] and calls them now Roundheads. But howsoever the world despiseth them, yet they are the flower of his people.” Ibid., p. 57.

22. Sydenham, , Waters of Marah (1630), pp. 1, 11–12. This sermon was dedicated to two of Sydenham's relatives, both courtiers.

23. “Contemplations and Reflections upon the Psalms of David,” in A Collection of Several Tracts of the Right Honourable the Earl of Clarendon (1727), p. 538. References to this work (hereafter cited as Clarendon, Contemplations) are to the section written between 1647 and 1651.

24. Farindon, , Sermons, I, 100, 72. “The Holy Ghost imprints saving knowledge … not forcing or drawing by violence, but sweetly leading us into all faith.” (p. 104.) “When men therefore pretend they cannot do what God requireth, they should change their language; for the truth is, they will not.” (p. 193.)

25. Hales, , Works (1765), III, 195.

26. Hammond, , Works, III, 31–33. For more Anglican and Puritan statements on the difficulty of conversion, see the section entitled “Cure” in Ch. 2 of my book (cited supra, n. 1).

27. Dickens, , The English Reformation (1964), p. 321.

28. Case, , Correction, Instruction (1652), p. 100.

29. Doolittle, , Rebukes for Sin (1667), p. 117.

30. Preston, , Cup of Blessing (1633), p. 7.

31. Preston, , Life Eternal (3rd ed. corr., 1632), Pt. 2, pp. 44–45. John S. Coolidge states that “the very fact that Christ's mediating role can be satisfactorily accounted for in terms of the Covenant tends to reduce it to a formality.” Pauline Renaissance, p. 129.

32. Hooker, , Heautonaparnumenos (1646), pp. 47–48. In a 1665 tract, Thomas Brooks urges Christians to imitate Christ's example of “private prayer.” Works, II, 170–71. I have found no Puritans coming any closer to the Anglican way of employing the imitation theme — and this is a brief passage, not especially characteristic. For Thomas Goodwin's handling of the Christian's “conformity to the image of Christ” — which is clearly within the Puritan context of emphasis upon atonement — see his Works, VI, 217–30.

33. Preston, , The Breastplate of Faith and Love (1631), Pt. 3, p. 132.

34. Caryl, , An Exposition with Practical Observations upon the Fourth, Fifth, Sixth and Seventh Chapters of the Book of Job (1671), p. 175. Caryl's preface to this volume was dated April 28, 1645. Caryl, like some other Puritans, does urge an imitation of Christ in one respect, that of suffering and bearing up bravely under affliction: “Look to Jesus when thou art in sufferings and have a race of patience to run.” (p. 175.) But Caryl is much more comfortable with and goes on at greater length about the actions of godly men: “The Lord hath not registered any one act of the saints [that is not] useful for us. The acts of Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Samuel, David, are full of practical divinity,” (p. 176.)

35. Farindon, , Sermons, I, 221, 55. Anglican use of the theme is discussed somewhat more fully in the section entitled “Anglicans and the Second Table” in Ch. 3 of my book. Norman Pettit quotes Thomas M. Lindsay's characterization of the imitation of Christ as “the medieval solution” to the problem of human salvation, while “justification by faith” was the solution supplied by the sixteenth-century reformers. The Heart Prepared, pp. 29-30n.

36. Clarendon, , Contemplations, p. 411.

37. Taylor, , The Whole Works (1822), I, xciii.

38. Allison, Cragg, From Puritanism to the Age of Reason (Cambridge, Eng., 1966), p. 30. For the theological origins of this shift, see Allison, C. F., The Rise of Moralism (1966), especially pp. 63–106.

39. For a brief bibliography of the authorship controversy, see the Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church (2nd ed., 1974), p. 692.

40. Leighton, , Works (1860), pp. xviii–xix. Charles II was to make him Archbishop of Glasgow. He was, ironically, the son of Laud's enemy and victim, Dr. Alexander Leighton.

41. “There [at Dort in 1617] I bid John Calvin goodnight.” This famous statement comes from a letter by Farindon. Hales, he said, “often told me” this. Quoted in the introduction to Farindon's Sermons by the editor, Thomas Jackson, I, xlix. For Hale's admiration for à Kempis, which was reported by Izaak Walton, see p. liii.

42. Heber, , in Taylor, , Works, I, xxvi, cxxxii.

43. Ibid., II, xii-xiv. For other uses of “perfective,” see pp. xxvi, lvii.

44. Cragg, Gerald R. (ed.), The Cambridge Platonists (New York, 1968), pp. 36, 48.

45. Taylor, , Works, II, xviii–xix.

46. Ibid., p. lxi.

47. Ibid., pp. lix-lx.

48. Farindon, , Sermons, I, 101. Cf. Robert Sanderson preaching to Charles I's court in 1637: “St. Paul … leadeth them … to a more perfect example, even that of Christ …. My example only showeth the thing to be feasible — it is Christ's example only that can render it warrantable.” Sermons (1841), II, 207.

49. Taylor, , Works, II, lxiii. The imitation of Christ was also a source of grace: “Every action of the life of Jesus … becomes full of assistances to us, and obtains of God grace to enable us to its imitation, by way of influence and impetration … every exercise of the life of Christ kindle[s] its own fires, inspires breath into itself, and makes an univocal production of itself in a differing subject.” p. lxv.

50. Ibid., pp. lxiv-lxv.

51. Hammond, , A Practical Catechism (14th ed., 1700) pp. 190–91. First published in 1644.

52. Taylor, , Works, II, lxv.

53. Gauden, , The Love of Truth and Peace (1641), p. 27. Gauden was probably the “ghost writer” of Charles I's Eikon Basilike— see the introduction to the Folger Shakespeare Library's edition edited by Philip A. Knachel (Ithaca, N.Y., 1966).

54. Sydenham, , Sermons upon Solemn Occasions (1637), pp. 182–83. He dedicated this collection to Laud.

55. Taylor, , Works, II, lix.

56. Farindon, , Sermons, I, 30, 51.

57. Ibid., p. 46.

58. Clarendon, , Contemplations, p. 544.

59. Hyde, , A Christian Legacy (Oxford, 1657), pp. 105–6.

60. Roger Williams: the Church and the State (New York, 1967), p. 11.

61. Burroughs, , Irenicum (1646), p. 240.

62. Winthrop Papers (New York, 1968), I, 222–23.

63. George, C. and George, K., English Protestant Mind, p. 389.

64. Sibbes, , The Saint's Cordials (1637), pp. 230–31. Dagon was a Philistine idol (1 Sam. 5). For similar statements about the Arminian menace, see Gouge, William, God's Three Arrows (1631), pp. 46–47; Goodwin, Thomas, Works, VII, 546–48; Preston, John, Sermons Preached Before His Majesty (1631), pp. 14–19. On the widespread belief that the pope was the Antichrist, see Lamont, William, Godly Rule: Politics and Religion, 1603-60 (1969), pp. 20, 23, 28–52; Hill, Christopher, Antichrist in Seventeenth-Century England (1971), Ch. 1.

65. The Reign of King Pym (Cambridge, Mass., 1941), pp. 52–53. In his review article on Stone, 's Crisis of the Aristocracy, Hexter offered a brief but convincing and suggestive argument about the role of Puritanism in causing the English Revolution. J. B. S., VIII (1968), 52–70.

66. English Historical Review, LXXV (1965), 592–93.

67. Winthrop Papers, I, 325–26.

68. D.N.B. s.v. “Robert Naunton.”

69. Abbott, W. C. (ed.), The Writings and Speeches of Oliver Cromwell (Cambridge, Mass., 1937), I, 80.

70. Quoted in Seaver, Paul, The Puritan Lectureships (Stanford, 1970), pp. 48, 201. On Laud's campaign to restore St. Paul's, see Trevor-Roper, H. R., Archbishop Laud (New York. 1965), pp. 120–26.

71. Chillingworth, , Works, (Oxford, 1838), III, 171. Similarly, Sydenham: “between three sermons a week and but one alms” there is no proportion. “Let us as well fill the poor man's belly as his ears.” Sermons upon Solemn Occasions, pp. 314-15.

72. Preston, , The Breastplate of Faith and Love, Pt. 3, p. 102.

73. Caryl, , David's Prayer for Solomon (1643), p. 19.

74. Sanderson, , Sermons, II, 83, 91.

75. Farindon, , Sermons, I, 439.

76. Pierce, , Philallelia (1658), sig. D1 (recto).

77. Preston, , Cup of Blessing, p. 41.

78. Mayne, Jasper, A Sermon Concerning Unity and Agreement (Oxford, 1646), p. 25.

79. Goodwin, Thomas, Works, II, 385.

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