Civil War - Religious Radicalism
During Elizabeth 1’s reign there was an uneasy balance maintained between Anglicans and Puritans. The Anglicans were by no means closet Catholics but they did want to keep some of the catholic symbols and ceremonies while the Puritans had been radicalized, many by the experiences in Europe after they were sent into exile by Queen Mary 1, and wanted to purify the Anglican church.
Elizabeth disliked Puritans because they wanted to weaken the role of the sovereign in religious affairs. When James 1 came to the throne in England in 1603 many Puritans hoped that he would give a lead in reforming the English church along Scottish lines but James had experienced the ways in which the Kirk lectured the king on his duty and was determined that the Anglicans and Puritans should both be kept firmly in their place. Towards the end of his reign James began to favour Arminians in the church and to appoint them to important positions.
During this time and Charles 1 accession to the throne, many Puritans left for America to practice their religion without restrictions. Charles was a committed Arminian and the careful balance that had been maintained was beginning to crumble.
This was not just a break between the Anglicans and the Puritans, Quakers and Baptists also disliked the way established religion ruled the lives of the people through a clerical authority
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Anabaptists & Baptists
Anabaptism developed as a radical religious and social movement during the Reformation in 16th century Europe. "Anabaptist" means "re-baptiser" and refers to the movement's central rejection of infant baptism in favour of a conscious act of adult baptism into the Christian faith. The Mennonites, the Amish came out of this movement.
The Baptist faith grew steadily throughout England and Wales. During the 1630s, the movement split into two groups: the General and Particular Baptists. "General" Baptists followed the doctrines of Smyth and Helwys. They believed in free will rather than the Calvinist doctrine of predestination taught by the Presbyterians. The General Baptists were challenged by the emergence in London of John Spilsbury's Calvinist "Particular" Baptist congregation in 1638. Like General Baptists, the Particular Baptists believed in the separation of church and state. Both groups encouraged lay preachers and came to accept total immersion rather than pouring as the preferred method of baptism. However, Particular Baptists practised stricter regulation of their congregations and accepted Calvin's doctrine of predestination. They believed in salvation for a "particular" few, rather than the "general" salvation preached by the General Baptists.
Many officers and men of the New Model Army were Particular Baptists. John Bunyan (1628-88), author of The Pilgrim's Progress and other spiritual works, served in the New Model Army during the final stages of the English Civil War and became a Baptist in 1653
What Drove the Puritans?
The strength of Puritanism was rooted in the Protestant theological conviction called ‘justification by faith alone’ and in reliance upon the Bible as the revealed and infallible word of God. Puritans believed that each person should read and interpret the Bible for himself, and that the Bible alone was the final authority in matters of doctrine, worship and morality.
In its theology Puritanism became synonymous with the beliefs of John Calvin (1509–1564), who preached a doctrine of election and predestination. God has preordained who would be saved and who damned since before the creation of the world. Those who, through a conversion experience, believed themselves to be saved were called ‘the elect’. Calvinism was very influential in the Elizabethan and Jacobean church and the conviction of one’s election often gave Calvinists a unique psychological confidence.
In its social policy, Puritanism demanded a very high standard of public and private morality. The Puritan was supposed to be sober and serious. Also, as the elect were always a minority in any society they had a duty to police the lives and morals of the mass of the un-elect, or ‘the reprobate’, as they were called, imposing a strict social discipline. Thus in the 1640s Puritans in Parliament and the Army tried to restrict traditional festivals and holidays, they closed taverns and theatres, cut down maypoles. They condemned drinking, gambling, horse racing and a range of traditional pastimes, whilst at the same time demanding a strict observance of the Sabbath.
Millenarianism
The belief in the imminent end of the present world order and the establishment of a new and radically different one. Millenarian movements usually occur at times of change and upheaval. It takes its name from the early Christians' anticipation of Christ's Second Coming, to be followed by a millennium, or thousand-year reign of peace and tranquility.
Puritanism and Idolatry
Dowsing was a Suffolk Puritan and a staunch supporter of Parliament. In December 1643 he was appointed by the earl of Manchester as ‘Commissioner for removing the Monuments of Idolatry and Superstition from the Churches of Cambridgeshire and Suffolk’. Over the next year Dowsing went around these counties smashing stained glass windows, breaking statues, fonts, altars and altar rails, destroying or whitewashing over paintings, and tearing up vestments and copies of the Prayer Book in a systematic campaign to cleanse the churches of ‘the rags of popery’. Between 1645 and 1647 John Stearne and Matthew Hopkins, the self-styled ‘Witchfinder General’, toured East Anglia discovering witches in village after village. Of 250 or so people tried or accused of witchcraft over 100 were executed in their two-year campaign before Hopkins died in 1647. Idolatry and witchcraft were the two principal ways in which the devil and his agents polluted the land.
| Author | John Bunyan + and John Calvin + |
| Person | Elizabeth 1 +, Queen Mary 1 +, James 1 +, John Bunyan +, John Calvin + and Manchester + |
