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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Historical Question: Were the Puritans persecuted?
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Jengie jon
Semper Reformanda
# 273
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Posted
The URC is almost certainly drawing a veil over the fall out of the Subscription controversy at Savoy Hall. I have found Christ and Controversy by Alan Sell online and read part of chapter 4. It gives an idea of what was going on. Basically splits were occuring all over Non-Conformity with respect to whether to be a member you had to subscribe to a statement about the nature of the Trinity. Gainsborough is basically the people who were expelled from the Union chapel* went it wanted to admit people without subscription to the Trinity.
Jengie
*Union Chapels existed until 1972 when Non-Conformist chapels would accept people of more than one tradition into membership commonly Baptist and Congregational but in the late 17th and early 18th quite often were Presbyterian, Congregational and Baptist.
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fausto
Shipmate
# 13737
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jengie jon:
quote:
Originally posted by fausto:
The First Church in Plymouth remains an active congregation to this day, and considers itself the unbroken continuation of the Scrooby congregation. They date their founding not to 1620 but to 1606. (Few of the original Scrooby founders, however, would approve of how their theology has evolved over the centuries.)
Well it has a a competing claim this side of the pond.
Perhaps more important is that it is hard to say that Separatists were Calvinist, they drew on a variety of streams from the Continental Reformation which no doubt included Calvinism and Lutheranism but having dealt with their heritage I would say also has strong Anabaptist and such tendencies.
Jengie
Ha! Did not know that the Gainsborough congregation still exists. I wouldn't say that it is a competing claim, though, because if I understand the history correctly, Scrooby was a daughter congregation of Gainsborough. For a couple of years in the 16-aughts, the Gainsborough and Scrooby congregations met independently. I guess they still do!
About Anabaptist and other influences, you probably know more than I do, but that's certainly what happened when Helwys and Smyth arrived in Holland. Robinson was one of the principal opponents of Arminius in the academic debates at Leyden that provoked the Synod of Dort, so I would describe his followers as primariliy Calvinists -- and it was Dort and Westminster theology that the New England churches professed. However, when Robinson preached his farewell sermon to the departing Pilgrims, he said a few disparaging words about the rigidity of the Calvinists, and also warned them not to let anyone call them Brownists. His chief admonition to them (according to Winslow's recollection) was that "the Lord had more truth and light yet to break forth from his holy word". Those words are emblazoned across the front of the Plymouth sanctuary today -- and probably go a long way toward explaining the increasingly liberal theology that the Plymouth church has followed over the course of nearly four centuries since.
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"Truth did not come into the world naked, but it came in types and images. The world will not receive truth in any other way." Gospel of Philip, Logion 72
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Nick Tamen
Ship's Wayfaring Fool
# 15164
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by fausto:
However, when Robinson preached his farewell sermon to the departing Pilgrims, he said a few disparaging words about the rigidity of the Calvinists, and also warned them not to let anyone call them Brownists. His chief admonition to them (according to Winslow's recollection) was that "the Lord had more truth and light yet to break forth from his holy word". Those words are emblazoned across the front of the Plymouth sanctuary today -- and probably go a long way toward explaining the increasingly liberal theology that the Plymouth church has followed over the course of nearly four centuries since.
Those words have also taken root outside the UCC and Unitarian descendants of the New England Separatists.
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Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812
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Posted
The links between non-conformist Arianism across the various Dissenting groups and the Unitarians as a denomination isn't something I know a lot about either, Jengie Jon, but I suspect your surmise is correct.
My guess would be that there were gradations of such a tendency - most of which would be tolerated in churches which, although largely orthodox (small o) didn't nail their creedal colours so firmly to the mast. Once you got beyond a particular tipping point, which may have varied from place to place and according to various factors, you then toppled over into full-on Unitarianism.
Perhaps there's a thesis waiting to be written there, if someone hasn't done it already.
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fausto
Shipmate
# 13737
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by fausto:
quote:
Originally posted by Jengie jon:
quote:
Originally posted by fausto:
The First Church in Plymouth remains an active congregation to this day, and considers itself the unbroken continuation of the Scrooby congregation. They date their founding not to 1620 but to 1606. (Few of the original Scrooby founders, however, would approve of how their theology has evolved over the centuries.)
Well it has a a competing claim this side of the pond.
Perhaps more important is that it is hard to say that Separatists were Calvinist, they drew on a variety of streams from the Continental Reformation which no doubt included Calvinism and Lutheranism but having dealt with their heritage I would say also has strong Anabaptist and such tendencies.
Jengie
Ha! Did not know that the Gainsborough congregation still exists. I wouldn't say that it is a competing claim, though, because if I understand the history correctly, Scrooby was a daughter congregation of Gainsborough. For a couple of years in the 16-aughts, the Gainsborough and Scrooby congregations met independently. I guess they still do!
On further research, I wonder whether this Gainsborough URC church is an authentic descendant of the original Separatist church in Gainsborough. I have found references to a Unitarian congregation that moved from a chapel on Beaumont Street to one on Trinity Street (O the irony!) in 1928, but I cannot find more recent traces. If that was the original Separatist congregation, it may have finally gone extinct during the 20th century. Too, a different page on the Gainsborough URC church's website seems to suggest that its congregation first gathered in 1773. Does anyone know whether they were two different Gainsborough congregations or one continuous one?
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"Truth did not come into the world naked, but it came in types and images. The world will not receive truth in any other way." Gospel of Philip, Logion 72
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Moo
Ship's tough old bird
# 107
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Posted
In New England, all residents of a town were automatically considered members of the church. When Unitarianism took off in the early nineteenth century, people who rarely attended church showed up and voted to go Unitarian. There was nothing the regular church-goers could do about it.
In Wilton Center, New Hampshire, across the street from the old Unitarian church building is a Baptist church which proclaims, "Preaching Christ in Wilton since 1819."
Moo
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fausto
Shipmate
# 13737
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Moo:
In New England, all residents of a town were automatically considered members of the church. When Unitarianism took off in the early nineteenth century, people who rarely attended church showed up and voted to go Unitarian. There was nothing the regular church-goers could do about it.
In Wilton Center, New Hampshire, across the street from the old Unitarian church building is a Baptist church which proclaims, "Preaching Christ in Wilton since 1819."
Moo
All adults in the town were members of the parish, but only those who had given a testimony of conversion and been accepted into the church covenant were members of the church. As a result, the church as a body-within-a-body was usually more orthodox theologically than the broader parish. A schism between Unitarians and orthodox Calvinists might be precipitated when the entire parish met to call a new minister, since the minister was supported by taxes levied on the entire parish. If he (always a he in those days) was a theological liberal, the orthodox church members might split off to form a second congregation. If he was an orthodox Calvinist, the liberals in the parish might likewise split off to form a second congregation. By the second half of the 19th century, many New England town greens sported both a "First Parish" Unitarian church and a "First Church" Congregational church.
In Plymouth, this schism happened early, with the Calvinists departing in 1800, but in 2006 both churches teamed up to celebrate jointly the 400th anniversary of the Scrooby congregation.
[ 26. November 2016, 00:15: Message edited by: fausto ]
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"Truth did not come into the world naked, but it came in types and images. The world will not receive truth in any other way." Gospel of Philip, Logion 72
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Anglican_Brat
Shipmate
# 12349
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Golden Key:
AB--
You might take a look at the transcript for "The Pilgrims"--part of the "American Experience" documentary series on PBS. (You can also watch the video there, and access other resources.) It discusses the traditional story, and what really happened.
I watched the documentary today on Youtube, thank you. It was very enlightening, especially because I often confuse the Plymouth colony with New Boston, particularly thinking erroneously that John Winthrop was on the Mayflower.
The documentary also helped me understand why many American indigenous people dislike Thanksgiving, considering that the Pilgrims by in large, considered them heathen and inferior.
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Horseman Bree
Shipmate
# 5290
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Og, King of Bashan:
quote:
Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:
I understood that the Puritans were the persecutors and slaughterers of Indians.
Yeah, this was hardly a trait that was unique to the Puritains...
Just look up "Doctrine of Discovery", which was specifically promulgated to allow for the subjugation, enslavement or killing of natives by Good Christian Men. This Doctrine formalised the general feeling that "I/we don't trust anyone who is not like me/us" and is part of the basis for the continuing mistreatment of Blacks and natives in most parts of the Christian world.
Once the Church had preached the Doctrine for long enough, it became a form of tribal memory, rather than continuing formal policy.
Useful collection and summary here
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It's Not That Simple
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Jengie jon
Semper Reformanda
# 273
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Posted
There seems an illogical thought going on here. There is no reason why people who once were persecuted will not when they have the power turn persecutors. Equally, no reason why the persecutors can't if they fall from power then be persecuted.
What slight evidence there is the brutalism of being persecuted quite often seems to leave a level of acceptance of violence that would not otherwise be there.
The victims are not innocent, good or exceptionally moral so much as lacking power. They are likely to be much the same as any other random population of the times.
Jengie
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Kelly Alves
Bunny with an axe
# 2522
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Posted
Yeah, like I was saying upthread, the Mayflower settlers were only a few generations removed from the Reformation. Their recent history has taught them that religious and cultural survival depended on being the people who had the power to purge all traces of competing religions and cultures. Add to that the excuse of "Christianizing" the New World was promoted by every European ruler that sent a boat over anywhere.
[ 27. November 2016, 09:05: Message edited by: Kelly Alves ]
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I cannot expect people to believe “
Jesus loves me, this I know” of they don’t believe “Kelly loves me, this I know.”
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Fr Weber
Shipmate
# 13472
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Posted
They weren't allowed to unilaterally revise the Prayer Book according to their preferences. And following the restoration of the Stuart dynasty, ministers who refused to use the BCP or to submit to episcopal authority were removed from their offices.
They were, in essence, the spiritual ancestors of those who think the "war on Christmas" is persecution.
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--Sr Theresa Koernke, IHM
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Steve Langton
Shipmate
# 17601
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Posted
by Fr Weber;
quote:
They were, in essence, the spiritual ancestors of those who think the "war on Christmas" is persecution.
That seems an odd way of putting it, given that many of the Puritans had their own "war on Christmas". Indeed with much Puritan sympathy myself, I would quite happily lose the modern "Christmas" (and especially that Santa character!).
The simple fact is that 'Puritans' encompassed a diverse range all the way from those who wanted a state church but 'purer' and 'less compromised' than Elizabeth I's creation, to various groups including some Independents and many Baptists who thoroughly disagreed with the state church idea.
In a turbulent time many held all kinds of inconsistent halfways between those extremes, and even some of those opposed to a state church had still not fully worked out the appropriate attitudes to take to non-Christians whether in the UK or those like native Americans. And at the other end an RCC still running a heretic-burning Inquisition was another factor creating all kinds of attitudes...
Reality is that where a state church is believed in, that church and its political supporters will generally make life difficult for dissenters (there was significant discrimination even in the UK until last century); how difficult depended on how troublesome the dissenters were perceived to be and how threatened the authorities felt. The same people, it seems, might be persecuted considerably on mainland UK but not as 'planters' in Ulster where their Puritanism was a weapon against the Catholic Irish....
And yes, some Puritans if they got the upper hand might become persecutors themselves - like I said, it was a confused period....
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Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812
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Posted
There's never been a time when things weren't 'confused'.
Dissent would be just as difficult in an Amish or Hutterite commune as it would be in the Puritan settlement of Plymouth or in Anglican Old England.
People who gain any form of hegemony tend to take a dim view of dissent. That's human nature and I don't see 'regenerate' human nature acting any differently by and large.
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Jengie jon
Semper Reformanda
# 273
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Fr Weber:
They weren't allowed to unilaterally revise the Prayer Book according to their preferences. And following the restoration of the Stuart dynasty, ministers who refused to use the BCP or to submit to episcopal authority were removed from their offices.
They were, in essence, the spiritual ancestors of those who think the "war on Christmas" is persecution.
Yeah chucked out of your benefice the day before pay day isn't persecution. Not being allowed to preach within five miles of your previous benefice ain't persecution or any major centre of population. Not being able to go to University or hold a professional position ain't persecution. Not being allowed to marry or bury your own people ain't persecution.
Go on.
Jengie
[ 29. November 2016, 14:54: Message edited by: Jengie jon ]
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Fr Weber
Shipmate
# 13472
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Posted
The Puritans were disloyal churchmen from the beginning. And it wasn't just that they wanted a place at the table; from the very beginning they were totalizing, and when they came into power they were ruthless in removing "popery" and "prelacy" from the church.
The pendulum swung. They took a "prophetic" stand. There were consequences. Deal with it.
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--Sr Theresa Koernke, IHM
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Jengie jon
Semper Reformanda
# 273
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Posted
Nope does not stand Anglican persecuted Non-Conformist whether or not they were seditious have a look at the story of Henry Vane the Younger.
You are making history fit the story you want it to.
Jengie
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Enoch
Shipmate
# 14322
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jengie jon:
Yeah chucked out of your benefice the day before pay day isn't persecution. Not being allowed to preach within five miles of your previous benefice ain't persecution or any major centre of population. Not being able to go to University or hold a professional position ain't persecution. Not being allowed to marry or bury your own people ain't persecution.
Go on.
Jengie
Jengie, you are right of course, but remember the context. There had been 2+ big regime changes in the previous 20 years. It was in a time when religion and politics were totally intertwined. A person's view on church government could not be separated from their views on who should rule and how. We make a big mistake if we try to read back into the Five Mile Act etc modern ideas about freedom of conscience, and regard them as an outrage for not fitting what we now think.
The first big regime change had followed a violent war. It had traumatised family and community. It's only relatively recently that historians have begun to appreciate the social dislocation inflicted on ordinary people by nine years worth of three civil wars. At the end the winners had dispossessed the losers of both power and property. The wheel had then turned and put the first lot of losers back in the winning seats. Part of the deal was that they should let those who were prepared to acquiesce in the Restoration live in peace.
Our modern eyes may see this as religious intolerance, but what was actually happening was the state attempting to purge of power and influence those ultras that were not really willing to accept the Restoration, that were still really loyal to 'the good old cause' and waiting for a chance to take it up again.
And Fr Weber, this wasn't about being loyal or disloyal churchmen. That's a modern idea. It was about competing visions of the state expressed in religious terms because nobody at that time separated religion and political ideology.
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Fr Weber
Shipmate
# 13472
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Posted
Of course, Enoch--but the church wasn't a bureaucratic department of state. Political theory of the 16th & 17th centuries saw Church and State as twin pillars of the world order. To be disloyal to one was to be disloyal to both.
My point is that what was done to Puritans after the Restoration was no worse than what was done to Anglicans during the Protectorate, as anyone who wasn't on board with Presbyterian polity was cashiered. Step on people on your way up and you can pretty much guarantee that they'll take a swing at you on your way back down.
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"The Eucharist is not a play, and you're not Jesus."
--Sr Theresa Koernke, IHM
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Jengie jon
Semper Reformanda
# 273
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Posted
The University thing continued until the 19th Century or even 20th.
Jengie
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Augustine the Aleut
Shipmate
# 1472
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jengie jon:
The University thing continued until the 19th Century or even 20th.
Jengie
The Oxford University Act of 1854 and the Universities Test Act of 1871.
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Jengie jon
Semper Reformanda
# 273
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Posted
Both those dates are 19th Century the reason for me stating 20th century is that many of the redbricks came from Nonconformity due to lack of access and their founding is significantly later.
Yeah, but the big thing with Enoch post is that it is again the argument that those who are persecuted can't persecute. If the Puritans were not persecuted because they later persecuted. Then I maintain it is equally logical to claim that the Anglicans were not persecuted under the commonwealth because of their behaviour afterwards.
If, on the other hand, the Anglicans are to be let off their later persecution later because of the persecution earlier by the Puritans then so should the Puritans be let off their later persecutions?
Six of one and half a dozen the other both are illogical. The fact is that persecuting and persecutors were often the same people at different times.
Oh, the 17th century of power. Not much truck with that actually. I rather have parliamentary democracy than monarchical dictatorship and the Divine Right of Kings was a claim to Monarchical Dictatorship. Yes, I know Cromwell became just as big a dictator as Charles I but not the approbation of all Puritans (see previous post). Again six of one and half a dozen the other.
Jengie
[ 29. November 2016, 20:49: Message edited by: Jengie jon ]
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Steve Langton
Shipmate
# 17601
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Posted
by Fr Weber;
quote:
Of course, Enoch--but the church wasn't a bureaucratic department of state. Political theory of the 16th & 17th centuries saw Church and State as twin pillars of the world order. To be disloyal to one was to be disloyal to both.
That's a pretty good statement of why 'state churches' result in persecution. Whether they be narrowly nationalist like Anglicans or a broader set-up like the RCC. OK, in England after "Bloody Mary's" killing of many Protestants Elizabeth/Charles/James/etc were imprisoning or simply making life difficult and only killing when there was overt rebellion involved - but what was going on was definitely persecution.
Puritans persecuting back? Like I said earlier, at that stage many of the Puritans were still operating with the idea of a 'Christian state' and saw dissent rather as the Anglicans and RCC did - disloyalty to state and church alike. Other Puritans had advanced further in terms of religious freedom and toleration and the Continental Anabaptists had actually realised that the Biblical teaching opposed such state churches and therefore also opposed such legal persecution. It was a messy situation and few come out of it well, even including the Pilgrims with whom this thread started.
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Callan
Shipmate
# 525
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Posted
I think the bottom line is that the Puritans were both persecuted and persecuting. How much slack you want to give them depends on the extent that you share their theology.
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Steve Langton
Shipmate
# 17601
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Callan:
I think the bottom line is that the Puritans were both persecuted and persecuting. How much slack you want to give them depends on the extent that you share their theology.
In one sense I don't want to give the persecuting Puritans ANY slack. But as I've said, they lived in a turbulent time and given how much theological ground they did cover in Protestant restoration of Biblical ideas, I'm fairly sympathetic to the fact that they didn't all manage to see the point the Anabaptists did. Wish they had all also seen that point, but....
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mr cheesy
Shipmate
# 3330
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Steve Langton:
In one sense I don't want to give the persecuting Puritans ANY slack. But as I've said, they lived in a turbulent time and given how much theological ground they did cover in Protestant restoration of Biblical ideas, I'm fairly sympathetic to the fact that they didn't all manage to see the point the Anabaptists did. Wish they had all also seen that point, but....
Of course, they all thought they were in the business of restoring biblical ideas.
Personally, I think William Penn came closest, and I'm not sure he could really be described as a puritan and certainly wasn't an anabaptist.
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Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Callan:
I think the bottom line is that the Puritans were both persecuted and persecuting. How much slack you want to give them depends on the extent that you share their theology.
This.
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Alt Wally
Cardinal Ximinez
# 3245
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Posted
This is the short hand version of the story I got through my public education:
- The Pilgrims came over on the Mayflower seeking religious freedom. Unclear what this meant, but likely somebody, somewhere was making them do something they didn't want to do.
- They made a compact of some sort.
- They were clueless about how to survive, and probably all would have starved if not the for Native Americans.
I don't recall anything being said about actual persecution or deprivation. It seemed more about just wanting to come over and do their own thing.
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Honest Ron Bacardi
Shipmate
# 38
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Alt Wally:
This is the short hand version of the story I got through my public education:
- The Pilgrims came over on the Mayflower seeking religious freedom. Unclear what this meant, but likely somebody, somewhere was making them do something they didn't want to do.
- They made a compact of some sort.
- They were clueless about how to survive, and probably all would have starved if not the for Native Americans.
I don't recall anything being said about actual persecution or deprivation. It seemed more about just wanting to come over and do their own thing.
Most national histories - as recounted in schools - conveniently airbrush the less salubrious bits away. I was never taught anything (for example) about the Raid on the Medway- probably Britain's most embarrassing military foul-up. Nor were most of my contemporaries, though maybe that's all changed now.
(Good to see you again BTW!)
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Anglo-Cthulhic
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Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812
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Posted
The Dutch Raid on The Medway was taught when I was a kid, alongside the Great Plague and the Great Fire of London.
Maybe I was just a history geek but I knew about them back in the early 1970s.
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Let us with a gladsome mind
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Honest Ron Bacardi
Shipmate
# 38
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Posted
Good to know, Gamaliel, but I lived in Kent when I were but young...
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Anglo-Cthulhic
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Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812
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Posted
It was in the R J Unstead books which most junior schools had in the mid to late 1960s.
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Let us with a gladsome mind
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Kaplan Corday
Shipmate
# 16119
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
It was in the R J Unstead books which most junior schools had in the mid to late 1960s.
And in the 1950s, when I was at primary school.
Unstead history books.....I've just had a Proust's madeleine moment!
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Alt Wally
Cardinal Ximinez
# 3245
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Honest Ron Bacardi:
Most national histories - as recounted in schools - conveniently airbrush the less salubrious bits away.
Indeed. I mentioned what I learned about the Pilgrims only to say I don't believe there is a popular perception of them as being persecuted. Really more that they wanted to "do it their way".
quote:
(Good to see you again BTW!)
Thanks!
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american piskie
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# 593
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
The Dutch Raid on The Medway was taught when I was a kid, alongside the Great Plague and the Great Fire of London.
Maybe I was just a history geek but I knew about them back in the early 1970s.
A staple of Lower* History in 1950s Scotland. I think the subliminal message was that these three disasters would never have been allowed to happen in the Lord Protector's days.
(*) For their Leaving Certificate clever Scottish lads and lasses did five Highers and Lower Geography or History, together with the compulsory Arithmetic.
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Kaplan Corday
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# 16119
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by american piskie:
I think the subliminal message was that these three disasters would never have been allowed to happen in the Lord Protector's days.
Why would the Scotch want to suport the memory of the one who not only thrashed them at Dunbar in 1650, but rubbed their noses in it by singing Psalms 68 ("Let God arise, let his enemies be scattered") and 117 ("his merciful kindness is great toward us")?
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american piskie
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# 593
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Posted
Because Scottish History syllabuses were written to normalise the Union. And there was also the lurking fear of the Irish immigrants.
(Scottish History was just not taught in secondary school: I learned about the English Reformation.)
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fausto
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# 13737
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
quote:
Originally posted by american piskie:
I think the subliminal message was that these three disasters would never have been allowed to happen in the Lord Protector's days.
Why would the Scotch want to suport the memory of the one who not only thrashed them at Dunbar in 1650, but rubbed their noses in it by singing Psalms 68 ("Let God arise, let his enemies be scattered") and 117 ("his merciful kindness is great toward us")?
Uh, I think you meant to say "the Scots". "The Scotch" is a drink -- and its therapeutic use is for memory suppression, not memory support.
But its use in this instance might help explain any omission.
[ 02. December 2016, 13:37: Message edited by: fausto ]
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"Truth did not come into the world naked, but it came in types and images. The world will not receive truth in any other way." Gospel of Philip, Logion 72
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Stetson
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# 9597
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Posted
Fausto wrote:
quote:
Uh, I think you meant to say "the Scots". "The Scotch" is a drink -- and its therapeutic use is for memory suppression, not memory support.
For the record, though, there are some Scottish communities, at least in Canada, that identify as "Scotch".
The Scotch
I also remember my mom, married into a family of Lowlands extraction, referring to Scottish people as "the Scotch", though I'm not sure where she picked that up from. My dad's family were also very much into the libation, so maybe she was overlapping the usage.
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Lamb Chopped
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Posted
A couple of centuries ago "Scotch" (for people) was a standard usage. She may be harking back to that, via exposure to a community that hung on to it.
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Er, this is what I've been up to (book).
Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down!
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Matt Black
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# 2210
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jengie jon:
There seems an illogical thought going on here. There is no reason why people who once were persecuted will not when they have the power turn persecutors. Equally, no reason why the persecutors can't if they fall from power then be persecuted.
What slight evidence there is the brutalism of being persecuted quite often seems to leave a level of acceptance of violence that would not otherwise be there.
The victims are not innocent, good or exceptionally moral so much as lacking power. They are likely to be much the same as any other random population of the times.
Jengie
Yes. Look at (some of the) survivors of the Shoah in post-1948 Israel, or Dutch Calvinists in South Africa from the 17th century.
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"Protestant and Reformed, according to the Tradition of the ancient Catholic Church" - + John Cosin (1594-1672)
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Matt Black
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# 2210
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Posted
Looking at the thread as a whole, I think we're confusing/ conflating two separate albeit connected episodes in 17th century Anglophone history: the first relating to the background to the Pilgrim Fathers' arrival in Massachusetts in 1620, and the second set of circumstances prevailing after the Restoration in 1660 (Five Mile Act, Test Acts, etc). The second period has more overt examples of persecution, not least in the statutes passed, but has nothing to do with the Pilgrims' departure for the New World, so doesn't rally answer the OP question. There was however a similar wave of pressure on the more Reformed/ reforming/ 'lower' sections of the Church of England arising from the Hampton Court Conference of 1604, where James VI/ I famously insisted "No Bishop, no King" and that anyone who dissented from that line he would "harry out of the land"; a significant proportion of CofE clergy (Fisher puts it as high as a third IIRC) resigned their livings in response rather than conform. This provided both the background to the Pilgrims' sense of persecution by the Establishment (State and Church) and also a pool of disaffected individuals from whom they and subsequent Puritan proponents of emigration could draw.
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"Protestant and Reformed, according to the Tradition of the ancient Catholic Church" - + John Cosin (1594-1672)
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Steve Langton
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# 17601
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Posted
Not I think just mixing up two distinct episodes...
The point is that the 'Puritans' as a whole were never a totally cohesive movement. They did pretty much all want a 'purer' form of church than a Church of England which they saw as compromised and still perpetuating too much of the old RCC.
And most of them were still in the 1600s thinking in terms of a national church and as the English Civil War shows, were willing if pushed to take up arms against the monarch and his/her church. Ipso facto they were a threat to law and order in England and attracted varying degrees of persecution.
At the same time Elizabeth and James had learned from the Catholic persecution under 'Bloody Mary' and were trying to control dissent and make life difficult for dissent, rather than simply send them all to the stake.
Except where there was Anabaptist influence from the Continent, separation of state and church was a slow-growing idea and even to this day, UK Baptists can be ambivalent in relation to the state and pacifism.
Like most 'Independent/Separatist' groups of their time, the Pilgrims sat somewhere between the 'Purer State Church' Presbyterians and the Anabaptists; their ideas wouldn't fully satisfy me, but you can see them in their various experiences feeling their way to a more modern (but also more scriptural!) view.
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Gamaliel
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# 812
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Posted
I think the third of the clergy thing was more associated with the later episode in Charles 2nd's reign rather than the earlier one in the reign of James 1st, Matt Black.
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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.
http://philthebard.blogspot.com
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Kaplan Corday
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# 16119
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by fausto:
I think you meant to say "the Scots". "The Scotch" is a drink
"Some inhabitants of Scotland now call themselves 'Scots' and their affairs 'Scottish'. They are entitled to do so. The English word for both is 'Scotch', just as we cal les francais the French, and Deutschland Germany. Being English, I use it." A.J.P. Taylor, English History 1914-45.
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Matt Black
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# 2210
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
I think the third of the clergy thing was more associated with the later episode in Charles 2nd's reign rather than the earlier one in the reign of James 1st, Matt Black.
I looked up Fisher: slight exaggeration, as he says 300 not a third. (Knew there was a three in there somewhere!)
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"Protestant and Reformed, according to the Tradition of the ancient Catholic Church" - + John Cosin (1594-1672)
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Jengie jon
Semper Reformanda
# 273
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Posted
For those who want a different view of the Church of England on the start of the Civil War you might like to listen to the start of Radio 4s Start the week.
Jengie
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"To violate a persons ability to distinguish fact from fantasy is the epistemological equivalent of rape." Noretta Koertge
Back to my blog
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fausto
Shipmate
# 13737
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
quote:
Originally posted by fausto:
I think you meant to say "the Scots". "The Scotch" is a drink
"Some inhabitants of Scotland now call themselves 'Scots' and their affairs 'Scottish'. They are entitled to do so. The English word for both is 'Scotch', just as we cal les francais the French, and Deutschland Germany. Being English, I use it." A.J.P. Taylor, English History 1914-45.
*sigh* One would think the English would have learned by now only to p*** off the Scots when they needed to. But, alas, no. ![[Roll Eyes]](rolleyes.gif)
[ 05. December 2016, 10:20: Message edited by: fausto ]
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"Truth did not come into the world naked, but it came in types and images. The world will not receive truth in any other way." Gospel of Philip, Logion 72
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Gee D
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# 13815
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Posted
Today we remember Richard Baxter - a good example of the sort of persecution that did go on under Charles II.
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Not every Anglican in Sydney is Sydney Anglican
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Albertus
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# 13356
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Posted
Yes. The very best of them- an undoubted saint.
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