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The Ordination Controversy and the Spirit of Reform in Puritan England

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 March 2011

Richard L. Greaves*
Affiliation:
Assistant Professor of Humanities, Michigan State University

Extract

Commencing with the Waldensian movement in the twelfth century and continuing with the Lollard and Hussite movements in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, critical thinkers in the Christian tradition began to stress the basic equality of all believers. The ideology of Protestantism embraced that principle in its doctrine of ‘the priesthood of all believers’, though the interpretation of the doctrine varied considerably. A century and a quarter after the inception of the Protestant Reformation, English writers engaged in a full-fledged debate on the right to preach. Before the debate had concluded, the original, strictly religious question had given rise to issues of much greater import, and in so doing had helped to create the spirit of reform which was the hallmark of Puritan England.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1970

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References

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page 226 note 3 Cf. John Webster, The Saints Guide, 1654, 13, 15.

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page 227 note 3 Frederick Woodall and Samuel Petto, A Vindication of the Preacher Sent, 1659, 62–3.

page 227 note 4 Webster, The Saints Guide, 22.

page 227 note 5 Glad Tydings from Heaven, 1648, 50.

page 227 note 6 Cf. Hartley, The Prerogative Priests Passing-Bell, 3. Defenders of ordination regarded church polity of more concern than the right of inspired men to preach without first submitting to required ecclesiastical ceremonies. Cf. Lazarus Seaman, The Diatribe Proved to be Paradiatribe, 1647, 4.

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page 234 note 2 Anabaptism, A2v.

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page 236 note 3 A Balm to Heal Religions Wounds, 121. Cf. Thomas Hall, The Pulpit Guarded, 1651, 2.

page 236 note 4 The Holy Ghost on the Bench, 2nd ed. 1657, 16.

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page 237 note 4 What the Independents Would Have, 15.

page 237 note 5 A Modest Plea, 4.

page 237 note 6 The Saints Guide, 21.

page 238 note 1 The Peoples Priviledge and Duty, 22. Cf. Cradock, Glad Tydings, 51.

page 238 note 2 Tyranipocrit, Discovered with His Wiles, Rotterdam 1649, 6 (italics mine).

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page 238 note 5 Hollinworth, The Holy Ghost, 15–16.

page 238 note 6 [Nathaniel Holmes], Ecclesiastica Methermeneutica, 1652, 19–20. Holmes was an Independent minister at Dover with millenarian tendencies.

page 239 note 1 A Vindication, 195.

page 239 note 2 Commendatory Epistle to Sheppard, The Peoples Priviledge and Duty, A5.

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page 240 note 4 An Apologie, 56.

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