I. HISTORICAL ARC#
A. Religious Wars#
Although it would have grieved him, Luther’s immediate legacy was more than a century of religious wars, not only between Catholics and Protestants, but also among various Protestant factions. Religious conviction and political designs became indistinguishable.
Some of the more devastating wars included the French wars of religion (1562–98), the Dutch revolt against Philip II of Spain (1572–1609), the attempted invasion of England by the Spanish Armada in 1588, the Thirty Years War in Germany (1618–48), and the Puritan revolution in England (1640–60).
The century following the Reformation became a century of theological and political entrenchment. With Western Christendom now divided among three communions — Roman Catholic, Lutheran, and Reformed — each developed impenetrable confessional bulwarks against each other.
B. Catholic Orthodoxy#
Catholic orthodoxy achieved its definitive theological shape with the Council of Trent (1545–63). Jesuit theologians played determinative roles at Trent, especially in the formulation of the council’s decrees on justification and grace, the sacraments, and the Eucharist.
Significantly, the Society of Jesus was theologically indebted to Thomas Aquinas as evidenced by Ignatius of Loyola’s stipulation that the theology in the society should look to Thomas for guidance.
Pope Paul III sent two Jesuits to Trent to represent papal theological concerns, and it was largely through their influence that Thomism prevailed at Trent. Trent concluded in 1563, and by 1567 Pope Pius V recognized Aquinas as one of four Doctors of the Church. It was the triumph of Thomism at Trent that set the future trajectory of Catholic theology.
C. Protestant Orthodoxy#
There has been a good deal of confusion regarding the terminology of Protestant orthodoxy and Protestant Scholasticism to describe the post-Reformation developments in the Lutheran and Reformed branches. “Orthodoxy” differs from “Scholasticism” in that:
The former concerns correct theological content
The latter had to do with an academic method
Over the course of a century and a half, Protestant orthodoxy defended, clarified, and codified the insights of the first Reformers. After the deaths of the second-generation Reformers, one may generally identify three successive periods of Protestant orthodoxy. (Both Lutheran and Reformed orthodoxy developed at roughly the same pace.)
“Early orthodoxy” extended from the mid-sixteenth to mid-seventeenth century and is characterized as the period of confessional solidification.
“High orthodoxy” spans from mid-seventeenth to late seventeenth century and rests on the earlier confessional foundation, but engages in somewhat sharper polemics.
“Late orthodoxy” is a period of decline and loss of dominance in the eighteenth century.
In the aftermath of the Reformation, Lutherans, Calvinists, and Roman Catholics felt the need to differentiate their communions theologically. All theologians inevitably resorted to the academic tools at their disposal, hence Aristotelian logic assumed a major role in the defense and articulation of Christian theology.
In the highly polemical atmosphere of the seventeenth century, theological formulation could veer toward metaphysical speculation, especially concerning the nature of God and, above all, the doctrine of predestination.
II. THEOLOGICAL POLEMICS#
After the Council of Trent the opportunity for theological dialogue was lost, and each camp dug in for the long haul — each defining itself over against the other. Emil Brunner described seventeenth-century theology as “a frozen waterfall” that devolved into theologismus, that is, ever greater theological precision regarding the mysteries of the faith. Increasing theological precision eventually produced intra-confessional polemics.
A. Arminianism#
1. Mixing Theology and Politics#
It was during the twelve-year peace between Spain and the Dutch Protestants that the religious tensions surfaced in the Northern Provinces. The two main Protestant factions were
Those who preferred a more theologically tolerant church
The more narrow Reformed Protestants who insisted on religious conformity.
When Spain was the common enemy, the differences among Protestants managed to coexist peacefully, but with the truce, the theological differences intensified.
The controversy centered on a rather well-regarded Reformed theologian, Jacobus Arminius (Jakob Harmenszoon).
Arminius endured a difficult upbringing. His father died when he was an infant, and his mother was slain during the Spanish massacre of Oudewater in 1575. He was taken under the wing of a Dutch minister and was one of the first students to enroll in the new Protestant University of Leiden. He took advanced studies in Geneva and studied with Calvin’s successor, Theodore Beza.
In 1588 Arminius became a pastor in Amsterdam and eventually began to criticize some of the harsher aspects of the doctrine of predestination. Detractors were none too pleased when he was appointed professor of theology at Leiden in 1603. Almost immediately upon his arrival in Leiden, one of his colleagues on the faculty, Franciscus Gomarus, began to challenge his orthodoxy.
The specific theological issues at the center of the debate were:
Supralapsarianism
Unconditional predestination
Irresistible grace
Arminius’s theology put him in conflict with the Belgic Confession, which had become the confessional standard of the Dutch Protestants.
Supralapsarianism (supra [before] + lapse [the Fall] = before the Fall) was concerned with the logical order of God’s decrees in eternity before the creation of the world. Supralapsarianism argues that in eternity God’s decree to predestine preceded his decree to permit the fall of humanity.
In its crudest form, supralapsarianism uses the Fall as the means of realizing the prior decision to send some individuals to hell and others to heaven, thus providing the grounds of condemnation in the reprobate and the need for redemption in the elect.
As for his understanding of divine grace, Arminius posits God’s prevenient (going before) grace granted to all of fallen humanity. This is necessary because the Fall had rendered the human stubborn and disobedient. So in his mercy God grants to all a grace that “goes before” to assist the fallen will. But this prevenient grace is resistible.
Those who do not resist but allow this grace to work efficaciously will be saved.
Those who resist this prevenient grace will be punished for their sins.
Arminius believed that his order of divine decrees was within the bounds of the Reformed faith. Gomarus believed otherwise.
2. The Synod of Dort#
Gomarus began mixing politics and religion when he accused Arminius not only of heresy, but of having sympathy for the Spanish devil. The controversy raged until Arminius’s death in 1609. The following year, supporters of Arminius, led by Jan Uytenbogaert and Simon Epicopius, presented a Remonstrance treatise in five articles formulating their points of disagreement with Gomarus:
election was conditioned on foreseen faith
Christ’s atonement was unlimited in scope
fallen humanity is unable to exercise a saving faith
grace was resistible
falling from grace is possible
In reply, the Gomarists drew up a Counter-Remonstrance.
This theological debate turned political when Johan van Oldenbarnevelt upheld the Remonstrant view and Maurice declared himself on the side of the Contra-Remonstrants. Tensions mounted and the United Provinces (also known as the Dutch Republic) were on the brink of civil war. Maurice prevailed, and in August 1618 Olden-barnevelt was arrested pending the outcome of a national synod.
The Synod of Dort met from November 1618 until January 1619 and was attended by more than a hundred delegates, including those from England, Scotland, France, and Switzerland. Representatives to the synod were exclusively Calvinist.
Three Arminian delegates from Utrecht managed to gain entrance, but were forcibly ejected.
Simon Episcopius was summoned before the synod, but was prohibited from making his case. When he protested, he was dismissed.
The synod ultimately ruled that Arminius’s teachings were heretical, and it rejected the five articles of Remonstrance. In response the synod affirmed:
Total depravity
Unconditional election
Limited atonement
Irresistible grace
Perseverance of the saints
These are referred to as the “Five Points of Calvinism” and remembered by many using the mnemonic “TULIP”.
When Arminius’s theology is measured by Dort, it is clear that he rejected three of the five points: U, L, and I. It is not clear that he rejected total depravity. Arminius was undecided about the perseverance of the saints. He did not deny the doctrine, only that one must be careful about offering false assurance. Followers of Arminius were more definitive in rejecting both perseverance of the saints and total depravity.
During the synod Oldenbarnevelt was arraigned before a special court comprised primarily of personal enemies, and he received a death sentence.
On May 13, 1619, at the age of seventy-one, the old statesman was beheaded in The Hague.
More than two hundred pastors were deposed from their pulpits, and another eighty were exiled or imprisoned.
The famous jurist Hugo Grotius was given a life sentence in prison, but escaped with the help of his wife.
After the death of Maurice in 1625, Arminianism was gradually allowed back in the Netherlands. By 1634 a Remonstrant Brotherhood was established and later became the Remonstrant Reformed Church.
B. Amyraldism#
Within two decades after the Synod of Dort, another theological controversy was brewing in Reformed circles, this time in France. The controversy swirled around the brilliant French theologian Moses Amyraut, professor at the famous School of Samur.
Amyraut famously took issue with one of the articles of the Canons of Dort, the doctrine of limited atonement. He argued instead for unlimited atonement, believing that Christ’s atonement was sufficient for all humanity, but efficient only for the elect. His view is sometimes known as “Hypothetical Universalism” or four-point Calvinism.
In A Short Treatise on Predestination (1634), Amyraut proposed that God foreordained a universal salvation through the universal sacrifice of Christ for all. However, that universal salvation would not be effectual unless appropriated by personal faith.
In so far as it concerns God’s will, his grace is universal.
In so far as it concerns individuals, it is conditioned on faith.
Amyraut’s modification of Calvinist theology sparked repeated charges of heresy
First at the national synod held at Alençon in 1637
Second at the national synod of Charenton in 1644
A third time at the synod of Loudun in 1659
Amyraut was exonerated, yet opposition to him persisted in the Reformed churches of France, Holland, and Switzerland. Especially in Geneva, Francis Turretin (1623–87) opposed Amyraldism as a departure from the orthodox faith and a compromise between Calvinism and Arminianism.
But in the final analysis, most Reformed churches accepted or tolerated Amyraut’s views.
C. Jansenism#
The success of the Council of Trent did not quash the theological enterprise among Catholics. In what was one of the more remarkable theological developments of the seventeenth century, the specter of Calvinism emerged within the bosom of Rome itself.
While studying theology at the Catholic University of Leuven, Cornelius Jansen and his lifelong friend, Jean Du Vergier, developed a deep interest in the thought of Augustine of Hippo. Later Du Vergier became the abbot of Saint-Cyran, and Jansen was consecrated as bishop of Ypres.
Jansen died suddenly during an epidemic in 1638, but before his death, he committed a manuscript to his chaplain, which was his magnum opus on Augustine’s theology. Published in 1640 under the title Augustinus, Jansen took a strict Augustinian stance on such doctrines as original sin, human depravity, and the necessity of divine grace.
Fully embracing Augustine’s strict notion of predestination, he argued that God predestined only a certain portion of humanity for salvation, leaving the rest to their just desserts.
Jesuits especially were indignant and claimed that Jansen was a clandestine Calvinist. Du Vergier took up the cause of his deceased friend.
In 1634 he became the spiritual adviser of the Cistercian convent at Port Royal and managed to persuade Abbess Marie Angélique Arnauld of Jansen’s view, along with her brother, Antoine Arnauld. Thereafter the Port Royal convents became major strongholds of what was termed “Jansenism.”
Du Vergier’s advocacy landed him in prison in May 1638, where he remained until 1642.
He died the next year.
Following Du Vergier’s death, Antoine Arnauld became the chief proponent of Jansenism.
In 1653, at the prompting of the Sorbonne, Pope Innocent X issued the bull Cum Occasione condemning Augustinus. The papal condemnation centered on three basic Jansenist assertions:
that without God’s prevenient enabling grace, fallen humans cannot obey divine commands, exercise faith, or merit divine favor
that God’s grace cannot be resisted
that Christ died only for the elect
Antoine Arnauld defended Augustinus, and Blaise Pascal took up the pen in defense of Arnauld in his famous Provincial Letters. Neither was unable to turn the tide, and Jansenism was systematically dismantled.
The convent of Port Royal was prohibited from receiving the sacraments and forbidden to accept new novices. Finally, in 1708 the pope issued a bull dissolving Port-Royal-des-Champs. The remaining nuns were forcibly removed in 1709, and most of the buildings were razed in 1710.
III. THEOLOGICAL RENEWAL IN GERMAN PIETISM#
After Luther’s death, the movement that bore his name fell into disarray and infighting.
Gensio-Lutherans decried the Philippists and remained at loggerheads until they concluded a theological peace treaty with the Formula of Concord in 1577, which became the definitive statement of Lutheran orthodoxy.
Most of the massive destruction of the Thirty Years War (1618–48), which convulsed Europe, took place on German soil. Agriculture collapsed, famine ravaged the land, and universities closed. By the end the war, there were at least eight million fewer souls in Germany.
The Peace of Westphalia made room for Catholicism, Lutheranism, and Calvinism, depending on the religious sensibilities of the prince. Weary of bloodshed, the three communions withdrew behind polemical firewalls and, instead of firing cannonballs, lobbed theological bombs at the other.
Pietism was a war-weary reaction to the perceived scholastic theology of Lutheranism that seemed to the Pietists more a “dead orthodoxy” than a vibrant faith. It was an intrachurch renewal movement that sought a “living orthodoxy.” Pietism saw itself as an Ecclesiola in Ecclesia, that is, “a little church within the [larger] church,” which was to be the vehicle for renewed attention to Christian piety.
A. Philipp Jakob Spener#
Philipp Jakob Spener (1635–1705) is generally acknowledged as the “father of German Pietism.”
Born at Rappoltsweiler in 1635, Spener was nurtured by a devout godmother, Agatha von Rappoltstein, and her chaplain, Joachim Stoll (1615–78), who became his spiritual mentor, introducing him to devotional writings such as Arndt’s True Christianity.
Stoll also introduced the young Spener to writings of English Puritans that, along with Arndt, generated “the first spark of true Christianity.”
Spener studied theology at Strasbourg, where his primary theological professor was Johann Konrad Dannhauer, one of the leading orthodox theologians of seventeenth-century Lutheranism. Not only Dannhauer’s theology, but also his personal piety deeply inspired the young Spener.
When Spener entered his first pastoral charge at Frankfurt am Main in 1666, he was convinced of the necessity of a moral and religious reformation within German Lutheranism.
His sermons emphasized the necessity of a lively faith and the sanctification of daily life.
Perhaps his most significant innovation was his establishment in 1670 of the collegia pietatis (“pious gathering”).
These were smaller gatherings (also called “conventicles”) of congregants in his home that focused on discussions of sermons, devotional reading, and mutual edification.
In 1675 Spener was asked to write a preface for a collection of sermons by Johann Arndt. The result was his famous Pia Desideria (Pious Wishes), which became a short précis of German Pietism: He called for
“a more extensive use of the Word of God”; to this end, he advocated small group meetings (Ecclesiola in ecclesia) to encourage greater knowledge of the Bible among the congregants
a renewed focus on the role of the laity in Christian ministry
an emphasis on the connection between Christian doctrine and Christian life
restraint and charity in theological disputes
reform in the education of ministers — they must be trained in piety and devotion as well as in academic subjects
the preaching of edifying sermons, understandable by the people, rather than technical discourses, which few were interested in or could understand.
Spener’s Pia Desideria won him many adherents, but also aroused strong opposition among Lutheran theologians and pastors. Despite such criticism, the movement rapidly increased.
B. August Hermann Francke#
Spener had the good fortune to be succeeded by August Hermann Francke (1663–1727), who was born in Lübeck and raised by his devout mother. He graduated from the University of Leipzig, where he excelled in biblical languages. In 1687, while a student at Leipzig, he experienced a dramatic and angst-ridden conversion, which he described as the grosse Wende (“great change”).
Francke’s conversion experience became paradigmatic for Pietism: genuine conversion is inevitably preceded by an agonizing conviction of sin that is a datable event to which one can point for confirmation.
Returning to Leipzig, he led a collegiate revival that spilled over to the town. The revival provoked conflict with the university, and Francke was expelled from the city. It was at this point that the term “Pietist” was first coined by a detractor, Joachim Feller, professor of rhetoric at the university.
By this time, Francke had become closely associated with Spener. It was due to Spener’s influence that Francke was appointed to the chair of Greek and Oriental languages at the new University of Halle (founded in 1694). Francke emerged as the natural successor to Spener.
From his position at Halle he exercised enormous influence in preparing a generation of Pietist pastors and missionaries all over the world, but his impact was not only as an educator.
Under his guidance the university showed what Pietism could mean when put into practice.
In rapid succession Francke opened a school for poor children, a renowned orphanage, a home for indigent widows, an institute for the training of teachers, a medical clinic, a home for street beggars, a publishing house for printing and distributing Bibles, and the famous Paedagogium, a preparatory school for upper-class students.
For thirty-six years his energetic endeavors established Halle as the center of German Pietism and its diffusion. Together Spener and Francke had created a true Ecclesiola in ecclesia.
C. Theology of the Pious#
Spener and Francke were adamant in their affirmation of Lutheran orthodoxy, but insisted that “orthodoxy” goes hand in hand with “orthopraxis”—that is, correct belief goes hand in hand with ethical and liturgical conduct.
Although Pietism is essentially a practical theology, one can identify the basic theological strains that undergird its practice.
1. Conversion#
The starting point for Pietist theology is the necessity of the “new birth.”
While Pietists affirmed the Lutheran doctrine of justification, their theological emphasis shifted from justification to regeneration of the individual. Following the pattern of Francke’s dramatic conversion experience, many Pietists tended to maintain that genuine conversion is always preceded by agonizing repentance.
2. Centrality of Scripture#
The Bible stands at the center of Pietist theology.
Pietists viewed Scripture as their supreme authority, but studied it devotionally for the purpose of spiritual edification rather than academic theology. The Scriptures were so central for Spener that he encouraged laity to learn the biblical languages. Also, Pietists saw an intimate and essential connection between the Holy Spirit and Scripture because it is the Spirit who transforms the dead letter of the text into living power in a person’s life.
3. Sanctification#
For Pietists, theology was never about abstract speculation but always had as its goal personal piety and sanctification.
Thus, preaching was mostly aimed against moral laxity rather than Luther’s doctrine of justification by faith alone. With the emphasis on a godly life came a tendency toward moralism and legalism. Spener expended noticeable energy denouncing drunkenness in the Pia Desidera, and Francke’s advice in his Scriptural Rules for Living warned against “trifling jests and anecdotes.” Worldly amusements, such as dancing, the theater, and public games were condemned as sin.
4. Church Renewal#
From the outset Pietists eagerly sought church renewal, and one of the keys to renewal was an enhanced role for laity.
Luther’s doctrine of “the priesthood of all believers” became a rallying call for Christian laity to engage in the work of ministry. Church renewal included clergy as well as laity. Pietists insisted that pulpits must be manned only by the regenerate, whose primary concern was the edification of parishioners. The formation of small groups was yet another vehicle for spiritual nurture of the laity and thus church renewal.
D. The Pietist Legacy#
Spener and Francke inspired other varieties of German Pietism. Count Nikolas von Zinzendorf, head of the renewed Moravian Church, was Spener’s godson and Francke’s pupil. Zinzendorf organized refugees from Moravia into a kind of collegia pietatis on his estate and later shepherded this group in reviving the Bohemian Unity of the Brethren.
These Moravians, as they came to be known, carried the Pietistic concern for personal spirituality almost literally around the world. This was of momentous significance for the history of English-speaking Christianity when John Wesley found himself in the company of Moravians during his voyage to Georgia in 1735. What he saw of their behavior then and what he heard of their faith after returning to England led to his own evangelical awakening.
The fruit of these Pietist influences can still be seen among modern American Methodists and members of the Holiness movement.
IV. THEOLOGICAL RENEWAL IN ENGLISH PURITANISM#
Defining Puritanism has long been a matter of academic debate. This is due in part to the fact that Puritanism was not only identified with a spiritual and theological orientation, but also has been allied with political and social viewpoints at various stages of its historical evolution.
The word “Puritan” was originally a term of abuse devised in the 1560s by antagonists and had the connotation of “peevishness, censoriousness, conceit, and a measure of hypocrisy.”
The problem of definition is further complicated by the surprising diversity among Puritans.
Although all shared a common theological referent, some Puritans approved of the existing church hierarchy with bishops, while others sought to restructure the Anglican Church according to a Presbyterian model.
Some Puritans were Presbyterian, but most embraced congregational polity.
Some advocated separation from the established church, but others remained.
Some were royalist and others were revolutionary, even to the point of regicide.
Puritans could differ in church polity, in worship style, even in their expressions of piety, but all wanted the English Church to resemble more closely the Reformed churches on the Continent.
For general purposes “Puritanism” refers to an identifiable group of English Protestants from the period of Elizabeth I to the interregnum who embraced Reformed theology to a substantial degree and sought in various ways further to reform the Church of England. When these reform efforts were met with increasing persecution, what had begun as an ecclesiastical reform movement within the Anglican Church morphed into a political revolution.
A. From Tudor to Stuart#
When Sir John Harrington went to see his ailing royal Tudor godmother at Richmond, he was overcome with grief. After forty-four years on the throne, Queen Elizabeth I died in her sleep in the early morning hours of March 24, 1603. It was not only the end of a life, but the end of an age.
With Elizabeth’s departure, the Puritan faction saw a new opportunity to purify the English Church.
Her successor, James I, had ruled Presbyterian Scotland as a Stuart monarch since 1567
The English Puritans had high hopes that he would be more receptive to their reform aspirations.
So in 1603, even before he arrived in London, a group of Puritans intercepted the royal entourage and presented him with the famous “Millenary Petition”, so-called because it purported to have a thousand signatures of support.
Although “loyal subjects,” the group exhorted the new king:
Abolish such popish ceremonies as the sign of the cross in baptism, the wearing of the surplice, the exchange of rings in marriage, and bowing at the name of Jesus
Shorter services with less music, more rigid observance of the Sabbath, and better preaching.
James listened patiently to the demands, but referred the matter to a conference to be held at Hampton Court in January 1604.
At the Hampton Court conference James revealed his true colors, declaring, “I shall make them conform themselves, or I will harry them out of the land.” The new king was no closeted Roman Catholic, but he was determined to enforce episcopacy because it was far more aligned with his royal authority than Puritan presbyters.
Although it was not specifically mentioned in the Millenary Petition, James did approve a new “Authorized Version” of the Bible, which appeared in 1611, known popularly as the “King James Version.”
B. Stumbling toward Civil War#
When James I died in 1625, he was succeed by his son, Charles I. English Puritans greeted the new king with less enthusiasm than they had his father. The new king almost immediately married a Roman Catholic princess, Henrietta-Marie de Bourbon, which raised the specter of a Roman Catholic heir to the English throne.
The relationship between the Crown and the predominantly Puritan Parliament went from bad to worse.
Charles aroused more Puritan antagonism when in 1633 he appointed William Laud as archbishop of Canterbury
Laud embarked on a religious policy of High Anglicanism with its sacramental emphasis on ceremonies and a theological inclination toward Arminianism.
C. Revolt in Scotland#
In what proved to be his undoing, Charles sought to impose on the Scottish Church a new Anglican version of the prayer book in the summer of 1637.
One Scottish wag called it the “vomit of Romish superstition.”
When Jenny Geddes, a vegetable seller, heard the dean of St. Giles Cathedral in Edinburgh read from the new prayer book, she stood up and threw her “creepie-stool” (a folding stool) directly at his head.
Riots soon broke out in Edinburgh, and in February 1638, the Scots formulated their opposition in a National Covenant. Many Scots signed the document with their own blood, signifying they would die before submitting to Anglicanism.
Charles led two futile military campaigns, known as the Bishops’ Wars (1639–40), in an effort to quell the Scottish rebellion.
D. Revolt in Parliament#
When the Scottish army occupied northern England and threatened to march south, Charles finally bowed to pressure and in November 1640 summoned a Parliament that had never been more hostile to the king. Immediately Parliament passed a law forbidding the king to dissolve it without its consent; it came to be known as the “Long Parliament”, since it remained in session until 1660.
Archbishop Laud was charged with high treason.
The archnemesis of the Puritans was imprisoned in the Tower of London in February 1641.
Inevitably, the conflict between king and Parliament reached a flash point.
Charles became convinced that a number of Puritan MPs had committed treason by conspiring with the Scots to invade England.
The traitors were identified, and Charles, accompanied by four hundred soldiers, dramatically burst into the House of Commons in January 1642, only to find the five had fled.
A few days later, fearing for his own personal safety and for that of his family, Charles fled London.
E. The English Civil War#
Civil war had dawned, and it was played out in three phases from 1642 to 1653.
The first phase (1642–46) commenced with the battle at Edgehill in October 1642.
Although this first skirmish was inconclusive, royalist armies proved victorious in most of the other early battles. Unable to defeat the king on the battlefield, the Long Parliament entered into a military alliance with the Scots, which led to its first important success at Marston Moor in July 1644.
With extraordinary skillfulness, Oliver Cromwell, a leader of the parliamentary forces, restructured his forces into the more effective New Model Army. In two decisive engagements in 1645—the Battle of Naseby on June 14 and the Battle of Langport on July 10—they effectively defeated Charles. With his resources exhausted, Charles surrendered in May 1646 to the Scottish army but was handed over to the English.
The second phase of the civil war (1648–49) was prompted by Charles’s secret negotiations with the Scots.
Under the terms of the agreement, the Scots would join royalists to defeat parliamentary forces and restore Charles to the throne on condition of the establishment of Presbyterianism for three years in both England and Scotland, after which a permanent solution would be worked out. After a number of skirmishes, Cromwell decisively routed Scottish and royalist forces at the Battle of Preston in August 1648.
F. Pride’s Purge#
Despite military success, Parliament could not avoid the growing tensions among the various Puritan factions.
Parliament was dominated by Presbyterians, but the New Model Army (including Cromwell) was largely composed of Independents (Congregationalists).
The Presbyterians and Anglicans were willing to restore the king to power, but with limited authority.
Infuriated that Parliament would even consider restoring Charles to the throne, Cromwell’s army marched on Parliament. On December 6, 1648, Colonel Thomas Pride’s regiment took up positions on the stairs leading to Parliament.
As MPs arrived, only Independents who were viewed as supporters of the army were permitted entrance.
Most of the Presbyterians and Anglicans were turned away, and forty-five were imprisoned.
It is estimated that of the 470 members of Parliament, approximately 100 members were allowed to take their seats.
This came to be known as “Pride’s Purge.”
After the purge, the remaining members of Parliament were allied with the Independents and the army. This “Rump Parliament,” as it came to be known, proceeded to put Charles on trial. On January 27, 1649, Charles I was judged guilty of high treason. The execution took place in front of the Banqueting House of the Palace of Whitehall three days later. The king was dead, but the war was not.
The last phase of the English civil war (1649–53) concentrated on new revolts in Ireland and Scotland.
In 1648 Irish confederates formed an alliance with English royalists in opposition to Parliament. Cromwell responded by invading Ireland in August 1649 and harshly suppressing the royalist alliance. He notoriously laid siege to the town of Drogheda and then massacred nearly 3,500 people, including 700 civilians, prisoners, and Catholic priests.
The Drogheda massacre still enflames Irish Catholic – English Protestant strife to the present day.
The English conquest of Ireland continued until 1653, when the last Irish confederate and royalist troops surrendered.
Historians have estimated that around 30 percent of Ireland’s population either died or had gone into exile by the end of the war.
In Scotland, the execution of Charles I decisively altered the dynamics of the civil war. The Scottish Covenanters not only opposed the execution of Charles, but also feared for the future of Presbyterianism and Scottish independence under the new commonwealth.
The Scots turned to Charles II, the son of the late king, and bestowed the throne of Scotland upon him.
He was crowned on June 23, 1650, and immediately signed the Solemn League and Covenant, guaranteeing Scottish Presbyterianism.
In response to the Scottish threat, Cromwell left his lieutenants in Ireland to finish the pacification of the Irish and invaded Scotland.
He took Edinburgh in the summer of 1650, and in July 1651 his forces defeated the Scots at the Battle of Inverkeithing, forcing Charles II to head south into England.
Cromwell followed Charles II and defeated him at Worcester on September 3, thus ending the civil war.
Charles eluded capture by hiding in the Royal Oak at Boscobel House and managed to escape to France.
G. From Commonwealth to Restoration#
After the execution of King Charles I, the monarchy was abolished, and a commonwealth was declared on May 19, 1649.
The Commonwealth of Great Britain (England, Ireland, and Scotland) was a republic from 1649 to 1660. A body of representatives from the Rump, called the “Council of State,” took over the executive functions of the government.
On closer examination it was clear that the Rump depended on the support of Cromwell’s army, and that was a very uneasy relationship.
Frustrated with the bickering among the various factions, Cromwell forcibly dismissed the Rump in April 1653. He replaced it with what has been known as the “Barebone’s Parliament,” a derogatory reference to one of its members, Praise-God Barebone.
The Barebone’s Parliament was short-lived and was soon replaced by the Protectorate. Cromwell was offered the crown by Parliament, but refused it. Instead, he became the first Lord Protector ruling under England’s first written constitution, which mandated that the Lord Protector summon triennial parliaments. The motto of the Protectorate reflects Cromwell’s outlook: “Pax quaeritur bello” (“Peace is sought through war”). Cromwell ruled Great Britain until his death in 1658.
Cromwell’s strong rule brought new stability to England. One of the characteristic features of his Protectorate is the principle of religious freedom. He established a broad policy of tolerance for most religious groups, of which there were many.
Conventional Presbyterian and Congregational churches multiplied, but so did unconventional sects.
Levellers sought a more democratic society, although the rights for women were excluded.
The Diggers wanted an even more egalitarian society, advocating communal ownership of land and absolute equality for males and females.
Ranters were antinomians who denied most traditional Christian doctrine, including the existence of sin.
Baptists formed congregations based on adult rebaptism
Fifth Monarchy Men wanted to establish a “government of saints” in preparation for the imminent return of Christ.
Only Catholics were excluded.
Cromwell’s toleration even extended to the Jews. King Edward I had expelled Jews from England in 1290, but Cromwell gave informal permission for Jews to return. While Jews could not openly practice their faith, they were no longer prosecuted if caught worshiping.
When Oliver Cromwell died, his son, Richard Cromwell, inherited the title Lord Protector, but the lack of support from the army and internal divisions led to his resignation and thus the collapse of the Protectorate in May 1659.
Amid the chaos that ensued, General George Monck, who commanded English forces in Scotland, marched south to London to restore order.
Monck organized the Convention Parliament, which met initially on April 25.
By May 8 Parliament proclaimed that King Charles II had been the lawful monarch since the execution of Charles I in January 1649.
When Charles II was crowned king at Westminster Abbey on April 23, 1661, it was not only a public demonstration that the monarchy was restored, but also a demonstration that the English Puritan experiment had failed.
V. PURITANISM IN NEW ENGLAND#
During the reign of James I some Puritans grew discouraged at the pace of reform and separated entirely from the Church of England. After a short sojourn in the Netherlands, one group of “separating Puritans,” better known historically as the “Pilgrims,” eventually established the Plymouth Colony in 1620 in what is now southeastern Massachusetts.
In the meantime, England was witnessing the crown’s increasing intolerance of the Puritan faction in Parliament. When Archbishop Laud began systematically to suppress Puritans, emigration to the New World increased. As the Puritans’ relationship with the new king soured, John Winthrop, a Puritan lawyer, began to pursue seriously the prospect of a Puritan colony in New England. In March 1629 Winthrop obtained a royal charter to establish the Massachusetts Bay Colony, and in 1630 he was joined by 700 colonists on eleven ships to set sail for New England.
Others were captivated by this Puritan vision of a Christian commonwealth, and from 1630 to the beginning of the English Civil War, nearly 21,000 Puritans emigrated to New England. Winthrop’s expedition of English Puritans was but the first in what came to be known as the “Great Migration.”
These later Puritans were different from the Separatists of Plymouth Colony. Massachusetts Bay Colony settlers believed in reform, but not separation. Winthrop’s colonists were nonseparating Puritans who wished to reform the established church by embracing a quasi-congregational church structure. Even though the Puritans in Massachusetts erected their church along congregational lines, they remained in full communion with the Church of England.
A. From Tolerance to Intolerance#
Winthrop and his fellow English expatriates embraced a vision of a “purified” society committed to biblical principles every bit as much as they desired a “purified” church. Winthrop believed it is the “essence of every society to be knit together by some covenant.” In this covenant they promised to obey God’s commands on the grounds that he in turn promised to bless them.
Strict observance of the Sabbath
Families were also covenantally structured as “little churches,” with the father bestowing blessings for obedience and punishments for disobedience.
It prohibited secular entertainments, such as games of chance, maypoles, horse racing, bear baiting, and the theater.
Christmas celebrations were viewed and outlawed as pagan rituals.
The Puritan vision also included a rich and sometimes odd personal piety.
One of the more important ecclesiastical distinctives of the New England Puritans was the emphasis on a credible public declaration of conversion as a condition for admission to church membership. Problems arose in subsequent generations, however, when children failed to describe a vivid conversion experience and were thus excluded from church membership.
Bitter divisions erupted, and Puritan ministers, led by Richard Mather, developed the so-called “halfway covenant” as a way to address the problem. This granted quasi-membership (including baptism but not participation in the Lord’s Supper) to the children of church members. Puritan preachers hoped to expose these “halfway members” to teaching and piety that would lead to the “born again” experience and thus full church membership.
Some have asserted that the Puritans envisioned a theocracy. Winthrop had been declared the governor of the colony, and although he sought to base the colony’s laws on biblical principles, he disallowed the clergy any formal role in governing. Winthrop and government officials did not hesitate to seek the advice of ministers, which was immensely valued, but political authority rested firmly in the hands of laypeople. Theocratic tendencies existed, but the colony’s congregationalist orientation necessarily restrained such tendencies.
English Puritanism was always a minority movement, even when it held the reins of political power. New England Puritanism was more thoroughly dominant in colonial society. Puritans had come to New England in pursuit of religious freedom — yet once they were established, they proved intolerant of others with the same dream.
Among the more notable recipients of this intolerance were Roger Williams, Anne Hutchinson, and Mary Dyer.
B. Roger Williams#
Arriving in Boston in 1631, he was almost immediately invited to become the pastor of the local congregation. Williams refused the invitation on the grounds that the congregation had not publically repented for having failed to separate from the Church of England. This and other actions so infuriated the Puritan leaders of the Massachusetts Bay Colony that they expelled him.
In 1636 Williams settled at the tip of Narragansett Bay on land purchased from the Narragansett Indians. He named his settlement “Providence” in thanks to God and declared religious freedom — the first colony in the world in which religious liberty was genuinely obtained for all. With newfound religious freedom, Williams became convinced that baptism should be granted upon a profession of faith, and thus infants were to be excluded.
He established the first Baptist Church in America in 1638.
C. The Hutchinson Controversy#
William and Anne Hutchinson arrived at the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1634, following their Puritan minister John Cotton, who had become pastor of a Boston congregation. Like many English Puritans, the Hutchinsons set up a conventicle in their home — a group meeting to discuss John Cotton’s sermon from the previous Sunday. Anne Hutchinson excelled at propounding on Cotton’s ideas, and eventually her conventicle swelled to nearly eighty men and women.
Controversy arose when she began expounding an unusual theology that combined the covenant with double predestination. Hutchinson argued that all are under either a covenant of works or a covenant of grace.
Those under the first are relying on good works for their salvation
Those under the other are depending on God’s grace alone for salvation.
The former, she said, are lost while the latter are truly saved.
Anne crossed the line in 1637 when she began denouncing various Puritan ministers in the colony as preaching a “covenant of works.” Detractors were alarmed and accused her of antinomianism — the view that the elect (under the covenant of grace) did not have to follow the laws of God. It did not help her case that she was a woman teaching the Bible to men and women.
Anne was called before the Massachusetts General Court to give an account. Much to the dismay of the magistrates, she was anything but contrite. Sparks flew when she proved more adept at citing Scripture than her adjudicators. But the tide turned against her when she made an unguarded comment that her knowledge came “by an immediate revelation.” The magistrates, who were already suspicious of her orthodoxy, seized on her claim that God was speaking directly to her and voted to banish her from the colony.
D. Mary Dyer#
On another front, the Puritan vision of the Massachusetts Bay Colony did not include toleration of Quakers.
In 1660 one of the most notable victims of the religious intolerance was English Quaker Mary Dyer. Like many English Puritans, William and Mary Dyer emigrated to New England in search of religious freedom. She first aroused misgivings by her association with Anne Hutchinson. So devoted was she that when Hutchinson was excommunicated, a pregnant Mary Dyer dramatically stood by her side, and after Hutchinson was banished, Mary followed her to Rhode Island.
Suspicion of Mary was greatly increased when it was learned that before departing Massachusetts, she had given birth to a deformed stillborn baby. Governor Winthrop had the baby exhumed in March 1638 and described it in gruesome detail. For many New England Puritans, such a birth was a signal of divine disapproval.
While visiting England in 1652, Mary joined the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) after hearing the preaching of its founder, George Fox. She became not only a devoted Quaker, but an activist.
She returned to Rhode Island in 1657, and the following year she was in Boston protesting a new law banning Quakers.
She was arrested and expelled repeatedly from the colony.
She escaped hanging in 1658 through a last-minute appeal by her son.
She was banished with the solemn warning that there would be no further mercy.
But Mary Dyer was not to be denied her martyrdom. She again returned to Boston in 1660 to defy the anti-Quaker law and was again sentenced to death on May 31. This time the sentence was carried out.
E. The Salem Witch Trials#
Religious intolerance and superstition were all too often two sides of the same coin in the seventeenth century.
Witch hunts first emerged during the fifteenth century in southeastern France and western Switzerland. This manic superstition reached its height between 1581 and 1675 and included victims from both sexes, all ages, and all classes.
The best estimates are that from the late fifteenth to the early eighteenth centuries an estimated total of 40,000 to 60,000 people were executed as witches, the vast majority of whom were women.
The same witch craze found its way to New England, although somewhat belatedly.
The first signs of trouble occurred in Salem Village (Danvers) during the winter of 1692, when the daughter of the village pastor, Betty Parris, age nine, and her cousin Abigail Williams, age eleven, began to display strange behavior. The girls screamed uncontrollably, threw things, uttered strange groans, and contorted themselves into peculiar positions. Witchcraft immediately surfaced as a possible explanation.
Suspicion centered on three local women who lived on the margins of the village.
Sarah Good was a homeless beggar.
Sarah Osborne was considered an unsavory character who rarely attended church meetings.
Tituba was an Indian slave who was accused of fortune-telling.
These three women were interrogated in March 1692 and then sent to jail.
Accusations poured in, and more arrests made. With tensions mounting, Governor William Phips established a special court to adjudicate the cases.
The first person brought to trial was Bridget Bishop, who was accused of being a witch because of her immoral lifestyle and her tendency for wearing black clothing. She was found guilty and was executed by hanging in June 1692.
Five more women were executed in July, and then four men and one woman were executed in August.
The last executions took place in September, when six women and three men were hung.
The last trial occurred at the end of April, and all five accused were found not guilty, thus bringing an end to the episode. In the final count, twenty had been hung, one crushed to death, and at least four others died in prison. In the aftermath of the witch trials, some of the principals expressed regret.
F. The New England Legacy#
Within a generation, the original Puritan vision was lost. A new cosmopolitan worldview from Europe transformed cities like Boston. By the early eighteenth century, American Puritanism had split into three factions.
First were the Congregational churches, which de-emphasized the Calvinist doctrines and looked to the Enlightenment for guidance. These were the “Old Lights.”
Then there were those who continued to practice the rigid Calvinism of their forebears, hence “Old Calvinists.”
The third group emerged in the wake of the “Great Awakening” and its focus on the “new birth.” Adherents of the new revivalism were called “New Lights.”
Like its English counterpart, New England Puritanism ultimately failed. Winthrop’s city on a hill crumbled under its own moral weight.
VI. PURITAN THEOLOGICAL TRAJECTORIES#
In general, the Puritans of England and New England shared the same basic theological convictions.
English Puritans found themselves engulfed in a civil war
Their brethren in New England were carving out of the frontier a new colonial existence.
As noted earlier, there were some theological innovations in New England, such as the halfway covenant, but for the most part, the theological core remained the same. Whether in England or New England, the work of the Westminster Assembly is a reliable guide in identifying the prime theological tenets of Puritanism.
A. The Westminster Assembly#
At the outset, it is important to acknowledge two important facts about the Westminster Assembly (1643–49).
First, without denying their theological sincerity, the calling of the assembly was at its core a political-military decision.
With a civil war raging and parliamentary forces on the defensive, Parliament forged a religious-military alliance with Scotland. As a condition for entering into the alliance with the Scots, the English Parliament signed the Solemn League and Covenant in 1643, which required the Church of England to abandon Episcopal polity and establish Presbyterian standards of doctrine and worship.
Second, it was not an ecclesiastical assembly, but rather a subcommittee appointed by the authority of Parliament.
The assembly was charged with drawing up a new liturgy to replace the Book of Common Prayer and implementing a new church polity. In both cases, the role of the Westminster Assembly was advisory — that is, it could only make recommendations to Parliament, which had the final word on all theological matters.
In 1643 the English Parliament called on “learned, godly and judicious Divines” to provide advice on issues of worship, doctrine, and church government for the Church of England. The Long Parliament appointed 121 divines and 30 laypeople to the assembly.
The Westminster Assembly, so-called because it met in the Henry VII Lady Chapel of Westminster Abbey, met for the first time on July 1, 1643.
Initially, Episcopalians were probably in the majority, but they often failed to attend the critical evening meetings, thus allowing the Presbyterians and Independents to dominate the assembly’s debates. The arrival of the Scottish commissioners, with their strong commitment to Presbyterianism, triggered serious debate.
In February 1644 five members of the assembly — known as the “Five Dissenting Brethren” (Thomas Goodwin, Philip Nye, Sidrach Simpson, Jeremiah Burroughs, and William Bridge) — published a pamphlet strongly advocating congregational authority.
The primary undertaking of the assembly centered on worship and doctrine.
The Book of Common Prayer was supplanted by the Directory of Public Worship in 1645
The doctrinal standards (Thirty-nine Articles of Religion) were replaced by the Westminster Confession in 1646.
Two catechisms were added. The Larger Catechism (designed to be comprehensive for adults) and the Shorter Catechism (designed to be easier for children to memorize) were both approved in 1648.
Initially the House of Commons returned the Confession with instructions to add biblical proof texts. The revisions were made, and the Confession was ratified by Parliament. The Church of Scotland also adopted the document without amendment, thus satisfying compliance with the Solemn League and Covenant.
Its work being completed, the Westminster Assembly was dissolved in 1649.
B. Purified Theology#
Modern scholars have variously identified the theological core of Puritanism.
William Haller concluded that the central dogma of Puritanism was its doctrine of predestination.
Perry Miller found the “marrow of Puritan divinity” in the idea of the covenant.
Alan Simpson locates the animating center of Puritanism in the conversion experience.
The Marxist historian Christopher Hill tends to view Puritanism in terms of its social and political ideology.
Generally speaking, Puritan theology was practical theology whose ultimate aim was spiritual renewal for the individual as well as society. This is not to suggest that they avoided the more technical theology. They did not, as the many Puritan theological treatises demonstrate. However, the goal of the Puritan theological enterprise was always to connect the theology of the head to a devotional heart and a transformed life.
C. Reformed Theology#
Whatever differences in polity, all Puritans shared the same fundamental theological commitment to Reformed theology (Calvinism). Puritans were active participants at the Synod of Dort and fully endorsed the Dortian “TULIP.”
This Reformed theological orientation explains much of the suspicion and hostility toward Archbishop Laud’s reputed Arminianism.
Reformed theology also explains the anti-Catholicism of the Westminster Confession, which openly declares the pope to be the “Antichrist, that man of sin and son of perdition, that exalteth himself in the Church against Christ, and all that is called God” (XXV.vi).
Like their Reformed forebears, Puritans held the Bible in the highest esteem. It is the “rule of faith and life” and “the supreme judge, by which all controversies of religion are to be determined.” The God of the Bible is absolutely sovereign over all and works “all things according to the counsel of his own immutably and most righteous will for his own glory.”
The sovereignty of God logically led the Puritans to a robust doctrine of double predestination. The Westminster Confession boldly states, “By the decree of God … some men and angels are predestined unto everlasting life, and others foreordained to everlasting death.”
D. Covenantal Theology#
One of the distinctive Puritan theological emphases is its covenant theology. The sixteenth-century Reformers had already noted the significance of the covenant.
Although the fundamental ideas of a covenantal theology had been developing in Reformed circles since the mid-sixteenth century, it was the Westminster divines who were the first to give the concept of the covenant confessional status. The divines recognized two covenants: one of works and one of grace.
The covenant of works was an agreement in which God promised Adam and his progeny eternal life if they obeyed him.
The Westminster Confession states, “The first covenant made with man was a covenant of works, wherein life was promised to Adam; and in him to his posterity, upon the condition of perfect and personal obedience” (VII.ii). Having violated the terms of the agreement, Adam and all his posterity were thus subject to the penalty.
But God in his mercy established another covenant — one of grace. The Westminster Confession describes it this way:
Man, by his fall, having made himself incapable of life by [the first covenant], the Lord was pleased to make a second, commonly called the covenant of grace; wherein he freely offereth unto sinners life and salvation by Jesus Christ; requiring of them faith in Him, that they may be saved, and promised to give unto all those that are ordained unto eternal life his Holy Spirit, to make them willing and able to believe (VII.iii).
In this covenantal scheme, Christ is the substitutionary covenantal representative fulfilling the covenant of works on their behalf, in both the positive requirements of righteousness and its negative penal consequences. The covenant of grace became the basis for all future covenants that God made with mankind such as with Noah, Abraham, Moses, David, and finally for the New Covenant founded and fulfilled in Christ.
Some covenant theologians posited a third covenant, the covenant of redemption. This is not mentioned at Westminster, but was accepted by most.
This refers to a covenantal agreement, not between God and humanity, but between the members of the Trinity before creation.
God the Father agreed to send the Son as a sacrifice on behalf of the elect.
As the mediator of the covenant, the Son agreed to pay the penalty for Adam’s disobedience by dying on the cross.
The Holy Spirit agreed to empower Christ for his mission and apply the benefits of Christ to the elect.
E. Sabbatarianism#
Another theological distinctive is the Puritans’ view of the Sabbath, which set them apart from other Reformed groups on the Continent.
Like continental Reformers, the confession affirms that the Sabbath is a “perpetual commandment binding all men in all ages.” But unlike the continental Reformers, the Puritans defined adherence to the Sabbath much more narrowly.
The day is to be given wholly to the Lord whereby they not only “rest all the day from their own works, words and thoughts about their worldly employments and recreations; but also are taken up the whole time in the public and private exercises of his worship and in the duties of necessity and mercy” (XXI.viii).
Sabbatarianism became an acute theological issue during the reign of James I when he issued his Declaration of Sports (1618), allowing personal freedom on how people spend their Sunday afternoons. Although the king’s declaration required everyone to attend church, the Puritans insisted that everyone should adhere to their more restrictive view of the Sabbath.
Once they attained political power, the Westminster divines made the Puritan conception of the Sabbath mandatory on all of England.
F. Conversional Piety#
Puritan theology has been described as “a theology of regeneration,” and indeed, the whole of Puritanism is grounded in the conversion experience. It is this signal spiritual event that gave meaning and purpose to the whole of their lives. For Puritans, conversion and piety formed a seamless garment.
The regenerate life is an integrated life where prayer unites with action, worship with work, and labor with rest.
The love of God necessarily requires love of neighbor.
For the Puritans, conversion entails not only a lifelong pursuit of external godliness, but the purification of one’s internal conscience as well. Their Reformed theology told them they were fallen creatures prone to sin, and so they practiced methodical self-examination to identify spiritual blind spots for improvement. Such self-examination could be extreme, but sin, after all, was a very serious matter.
G. Political Theology#
Puritanism progressively became more militant.
The first Puritans in the reign of Elizabeth I pressed for moderate reforms such as the removing of vestments.
Jacobean Puritanism pushed a bit harder. They sought to rid the English Church of “Popish relics” such as Christmas, exchange of rings in marriage, and bowing at the name of Jesus.
Some Puritans such as Thomas Cartwright pressed for Presbyterian polity.
But there was a marked change during the reign of Charles I. As royal suppression turned into full-fledged persecution, Puritans became political and eventually rebelled against the crown and executed the king.
Affecting each of these reform efforts were deep theological convictions traceable to Calvin and the Reformed tradition. Puritan activism derived in large measure from the same theological tradition that inspired political revolt in the Netherlands, the German Palatinate, and France.
Calvinism, as history demonstrates, was predisposed to a more active view of political resistance.
VII. THEOLOGICAL CONFLUENCES: PURITANISM, PIETISM, AND NADERE REFORMATIE#
Seventeenth-century theology does not lend itself easily to simple cause-and-effect explanations. It is much more complex and seemingly paradoxical than it appears at first sight. It was a century in which theological currents ran on two circuits simultaneously.
On the one hand, it was a century of theological polemics and rigid ecclesial entrenchment amid brutal religious warfare.
On the other hand, it was a century that longed for spiritual renewal.
This was not a rejection of the Reformation theological heritage, but a refocusing on its theological connection to a transformed life. As it turned out, this spiritual longing was European-wide and transcended confessional lines.
A. Puritanism#
The historical genesis of these renewal movements initially arose among the English Puritans during the reign of Elizabeth I. Many of the Marian exiles came under the tutelage of leading Protestant theologians in Zürich and Geneva, and when they returned to their homeland, they began agitating for a more distinctive Protestant worship.
It is sometimes forgotten that the leading Reformers well understood the intimate connection of theology and piety as well. The Marian’s initial focus was largely on practical matters of worship. The desire for a purified worship naturally invited a renewed interest in a purified piety.
B. Pietism#
It is generally recognized that German Pietism was deeply indebted to English Puritanism. A great deal of Puritan devotional literature was translated into German and had a significant impact on the development of German Pietism. The leaders of the German movement read and promoted the writings of English Puritans such as Lewis Bayly, Edmund Bunny, Joseph Hall, Daniel Dyke, Richard Baxter, and John Bunyan.
Furthermore, historical research has demonstrated that characteristic language of German Pietism draws directly from English Puritanism. The German words Gnadenerfahrung (“experience of grace”) and Wiedergeburt (“born again”) are traceable to Puritan literature.
C. Quietism#
Quietism was a mystical philosophy that spread through France, Italy, and Spain. It was stimulated by the meditation and contemplation of Catholics such as Teresa of Avila and John of the Cross and over time took different forms and was influential in the founding of the Quaker movement.
But in the seventeenth century, when it was first called “quietism,” it developed into a form of perfectionism that rejected prayers and hymns and rites because the soul can be swallowed up and laid in the arms of God.
Quietism was declared heretical in a papal bull in 1687.
D. Nadere Reformatie#
Although the Low Countries experienced a variety of Reformation influences from Lutherans, Zwinglians, and Anabaptists, it was the penetration of Calvinism that had the most enduring legacy. By the mid-seventeenth century Dutch Calvinism grew restless with a dead orthodoxy and insisted on a praxis pietatis (the “practice of piety”).
The Dutch version of this renewal movement was called the Nadere Reformatie, most often rendered “the Dutch Second Reformation” or the “Continuing Reformation.” Building on the sixteenth-century Reformation, the Nadere Reformatie sought to integrate the theology of the Synod of Dort with a zealous urgency for personal conversion, church renewal, and societal reform.
As was true with German Pietism, English Puritanism exercised significant influence on the Nadere Reformatie through the many Puritan writings translated into Dutch. Research reveals that more Puritan books were printed in seventeenth-century Netherlands than in all other countries combined.
Willem Teelinck, the most influential early representative of the movement, was converted by Puritans in England and married an English Puritan. He became a significant conduit of Puritanism through his Dutch translation of the Cambridge Puritan William Perkins.
Recent scholarship has documented that during the seventeenth century there were tens of thousands of English (and Scottish) Puritans in the Netherlands, including more than 350 ministers.
Through these various avenues of influence the Nadere Reformatie came to embody many Puritan theological values:
the central importance of practical piety
covenantal theology
observance of the Sabbath
a purified church
the final authority of the Scriptures
The Dutch also embraced some of the more rigid Puritan taboos, which forbade “playing with dice, the wearing of luxurious clothes, dancing, drunkenness, revelry, smoking and the wearing of wigs.”
VIII. CONCLUSION#
In the century following the Reformation there seems to have been a deep-seated European-wide desire for spiritual renewal that crossed Protestant confessional lines and penetrated French Catholicism as well.
It is intriguing that the Catholic renewal movements parallel the Protestant renewal movements at roughly the same time. While there do not seem to be any direct influences, Catholics too were weary of the theological and military conflagration, and thus they turned their attention to nourishing the soul. Like Protestants, Jansenists and Quietists realized that in the midst of a struggle for ecclesial survival, the spirit may be damaged and piety ignored.
The seventeenth century is a testimony that the story does not end in entrenchment. The longing for a theology that renews, not a new theology, may be suppressed for a time, but in the final analysis cannot be destroyed. This is the story of church history.