The Independent clergyman John Owen guided the religious settlement under Cromwell. He maintained that the “reformation of England shall be more glorious than of any Nation in the world, being carried on, neither by might nor power, but only by the spirit of the Lord of Hosts.” Doctrinal error was a problem for both Cromwell and Owen, but, as Owen explained, it was better for 500 errors to be scattered among individuals than for one error to have power and jurisdiction over all others.
Such was the basis for a pluralistic religious settlement in England under the Commonwealth in which parish churches were led by men of Presbyterian, Independent, Baptist, or other opinions. Jews were permitted to live in England, but Roman Catholics and Unitarians were not allowed to hold religious views publicly. Cromwell was personally willing to tolerate The Book of Common Prayer, but Parliament was not. Voluntary associations of churches were formed, such as the Worcestershire Association, to keep up a semblance of order among churches and pastors of differing persuasions.
In the upheaval brought on by the wars, radical groups appeared that both challenged and advanced the Puritan vision of the New Jerusalem. The Levellers (a republican and democratic political party) in the New Model Army in 1647 and 1648 interpreted the liberty that comes from the grace of God freely offered to all through Christ as having direct implications for political democracy. In 1649, the Diggers (agrarian communists) planted crops on common land—first at St. George’s Hill near Kingston and later at Cobham Manor, also near Kingston—to bring forth God’s millennial kingdom, which they understood to be an unstructured community of love with a communal economy. In the same year, the Fifth Monarchy Men (an extreme Puritan millennialist sect), presented their message of no compromise with the old political structure and advocated a new one, composed of saints joined together in congregations with ascending representative assemblies, to bring all men under the kingship of Jesus Christ. As distinct units these groups were short-lived. A more enduring group was founded by George Fox (1624–91) as the Society of Friends, or Quakers, which pushed the Puritan position against popery to its logical conclusion by rejecting the need for ministers, sacraments, or liturgy in the church. Puritanism had never been a monolithic movement, and accession to power generated factionalism. The limits of the Puritan spirit showed clearly in the widespread persecution of the Quakers. The Restoration (1660–85)
After the death of Cromwell, chaos threatened, and in the interest of order even some Puritans supported the restoration of Charles II as king. They hoped for a modified episcopal government, such as had been suggested in 1641 by the archbishop of Armagh, James Ussher (1581–1656). Such a proposal was satisfactory, however, to many Episcopals, Presbyterians, and Independents. When some veterans of the Westminster Assembly went to Holland in 1660 to meet with Charles before he returned, the king made it clear that there would be modifications to satisfy “tender consciences.”
These Puritans were outmaneuvered, however, by those who favoured the strict episcopal pattern. A new Act of Uniformity was passed on May 19, 1662, by the Cavalier Parliament that required reordination of many pastors, gave unconditional consent to The Book of Common Prayer, advocated the taking of the oath of canonical obedience, and renounced the Solemn League and Covenant. Between 1660 and when the act was enforced on August 24, 1662, almost 2,000 Puritan ministers were ejected from their positions.
As a result of the Act of Uniformity, English Puritanism entered the period of the Great Persecution. The Conventicle Act of 1664 punished any person over 16 years of age for attending a religious meeting not conducted according to The Book of Common Prayer. The Five Mile Act of 1665 prohibited any ejected minister from living within five miles of a corporate town or any place where he had formerly served. Still, some Puritans did not give up the idea of “comprehension” (the idea that all ecclesiastical factions might yet find common ground). There were conferences with sympathetic bishops and brief periods of indulgence for Puritans to preach, but fines and imprisonment were frequent. Consequently, Puritanism became a form of Nonconformist Protestantism.
Charles, who converted to Roman Catholicism on his death bed, had steered a course through the turmoil among the various religious factions, but his successor and openly Catholic brother, James II (1685–88), could not. Fear of Roman Catholic tyranny and James’s poor judgment united both establishment and Nonconformist Protestants. This new unity brought about the Glorious Revolution (1688–89), establishing William and Mary on the throne. The last attempt at comprehension failed to receive approval by either Parliament or the Convocation under the new rulers. In 1689 England’s religious solution was defined by an Act of Toleration that continued the established church as episcopal but also made it possible for dissenting groups to have licensed chapels. The Puritan goal to further reform the nation as a whole was transmuted into the more individualistic spiritual concerns of Pietism or else the more secular concerns of the Age of Reason. Puritanism in the English colonies Virginia
A decade before the landing of the Mayflower (1620) in Massachusetts, a strong Puritan influence was established in Virginia. Leaders of the Virginia Company who settled Jamestown in 1607 believed that they had a covenant with God, and they carefully read the message of their successes and failures. A typical Puritan vision was held by the Virginia settler Sir Thomas Dale. His strict application of laws disciplining the colony probably saved Jamestown from extinction in 1611, but he also earned a reputation as a tyrant. Dale thought of himself as a labourer in the vineyard of the Lord, as a member of Israel building up a “heavenly New Jerusalem.” Like Cromwell later, Dale interpreted his military success as a direct sign of God’s lending “a helping hand.”
Puritan clergy saw an excellent opportunity for their cause in Virginia. The Reverend Alexander Whitaker, the “apostle of Virginia,” wrote to his London Puritan cousin in 1614: “But I much more muse, that so few of our English ministers, that were so hot against the surplice and subscription, come hither where neither is spoken of.” The church in Virginia, however, became more directly aligned with the English establishment when the settlements were made into a royal colony in 1624. Massachusetts Bay
In New England, however, the Puritans had their greatest opportunity. Between 1628 and 1640 the Massachusetts Bay Colony was developed as a covenant community. Governor John Winthrop stated the case in his lay sermon on board the Arbella:
Thus stands the cause between God and us; we are entered into covenant with Him for this work; we have taken out a commission; the Lord hath given us leave to draw our own articles…Now if the Lord shall be pleased to hear us and bring us in peace to the place we desire, then hath He ratified this covenant and sealed our Commission, [and] will expect a strict performance of the articles contained in it.
The failure to perform the articles, in this view, would bring the wrath of God down upon them.
Church organization in the colony was determined by John Cotton, who pursued “that very Middle-way” between English Separatism and the presbyterian form of government. Unlike the Separatists he held the Church of England to be a true church, though blemished; and unlike the Presbyterians he held that there should be no ecclesiastical authority between the congregation and the Lordship of Christ. Cotton proposed that the church maintain its purity by permitting only those who could make a “declaration of their experience of a work of grace” to be members. Cotton’s plan ensured that church government should be in the hands of the elect.