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Puritanism: the Problem of Definition

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 March 2016

Basil Hall
Basil Hall*
Affiliation:
University of Cambridge
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Extract

There are those ready to admire the Puritans almost for the very name (as did Spurgeon), and there are others who like Sir Andrew Aguecheek when confronted with ‘a kind of Puritan’ are ready ‘to beat him like a dog’ (as did Macaulay): but may we not with Sir Toby say to both these groups, ‘For being a Puritan? Thine exquisite reason?’—for Sir Toby, even in his cups, saw the need apparently to distinguish and define.

The problem of Puritanism is to define what it was and who the Puritans were—a fact often recognised but leading to little change in the treatment of the subject which is nearly always regarded as a comprehensive but homogeneous entity. Three examples may suffice to show what difficulties may arise for those who, seeking instruction, go to the most respected authors. First, A. S. P. Woodhouse, in Puritanism and Liberty, writes that ‘Puritanism is an entity’ capable of being extended to cover ‘the varied forces generated by the Protestant Reformation and given their opportunity by the revolt against the Crown and the Church in the first half of the seventeenth century.’ However, it is also possible to describe the Puritans as ‘the more conservative,’ ‘the strictly calvinistic,’ who ‘followed the Genevan pattern in Church and State’ and were ‘synonymous with Presbyterians.’ But, ‘the cleavage between the Presbyterians and sectaries is marked,’ yet this division leaves ‘the problem of the centre party, the Independents.’ Following Troeltsch one can speak of ‘a Puritan church type and a Puritan sect type, the ideal of the holy community is true of all the Puritan groups.’ Finally, ‘it is not necessary to posit a unity but there is continuity in Puritan thought.’ Here, as elsewhere, as soon as a statement is made a qualification of it, if not a contradiction of it, becomes necessary.

Type
Research Article
Information
Studies in Church History , Volume 2: Papers read at the second winter and summer meetings of the Ecclesiastical History Society , 1965 , pp. 283 - 296
Copyright
Copyright © Ecclesiastical History Society 1965

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References

page 283 note 1 Woodhouse, A. S. P., Puritanism and Liberty, London 1938, 35-7Google Scholar.

page 284 note 1 Trevelyan, G. M., Illustrateti English Social History, London 1950, 11, 37–8 Google Scholar, 93.

page 285 note 1 Hill, C. , Society and Puritanism in Pre-Revolutionary England, London 1964, 17 Google Scholar.

page 285 note 2 Op cit. 20.

page 285 note 3 (Parker, Henry ?) A Discourse Concerning Puritans. A vindication of those who unjustly suffer by the mistake, abuse, and misapplication of that name, (London?) 1641, 7 Google Scholar, 8, 9.

page 286 note 1 Op cit. 53.

page 286 note 2 Clark, G. Kitson, The English Inheritance, London 1950, 103 Google Scholar.

page 287 note 1 Quoted in The Century Dictionary, London 1914, vu, under Puritan. The quotation from Grafton is from the DNB, XIX, 4, Stow.

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page 289 note 1 Fuller, op. cit. v, 529.

page 289 note 2 The Autobiography of Richard Baxter, ed. Thomas, J. Lloyd (abridged from the Reliquiae Baxteriana, 1696), London 1931, 35-6Google Scholar.

page 289 note 3 Baxter, op. cit. 154.

page 289 note 4 Quoted in OED, under Puritan.

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page 290 note 2 Pierce, op. cit. 118, 413, 215, 304.

page 291 note 1 A parte of a register, contayninge sundrie memorable matters, written by divers godly and learned in our time, which stande for, and desire the reformation of our Church, in Discipline and Ceremonies, according to the pure worde of God, and the Lawe of our Lande. n.p., n.d., (Middleburg?) 1593, 130.

page 291 note 2 Quoted in Hanbury, B., Historical Memorials relating to the Independents, London 1839, 1, 36 Google Scholar.

page 291 note 3 Bradshaw, W., English Puritanisme containeing the maine opinions of the rigidest sort of those that are called Puritanes in the Realme of England, (Amsterdam?) 1605 Google Scholar, with which is bound A Survey of the Booke of Common Prayer, dated 1606. The quotation is from the latter, 10.

page 292 note 1 Helwys, Thomas, The Mystery of Iniquitie, reproduced, London 1935 Google Scholar, from the copy presented by Helwys to King James, now in the Bodleian Library, 86-7, 93.

page 292 note 2 Reprinted in the Church Quarterly Review, CXLVII, London 1949, 65-71, and edited by M. Hussey.

page 293 note 1 Tonson’s edition, London 1734 (where it is erroneously attributed to ‘Mr. Will. Shakespeare’), 23.

page 293 note 2 Jonson, , Works, ed. Herford, and Simpson, , Oxford 1937, v, 333, 342 Google Scholar.

page 294 note 1 Yule, George, The Independents in the English Civil War, Cambridge University Press and Melbourne University Press, 1958 Google Scholar. Professor Yule, it should of course be understood, assumes neither of the alternatives which I have suggested are erroneous.

page 295 note 1 Hall, Basil, Calvin against the Calvinists, Proceedings of the Huguenot Society of London, 1962, XX, no. 3, 284–301 Google Scholar.