RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Puritans
were called into the privy council chamber, where they expressed their desires, and explained and enforced the Puritan objections. On the third day the king and the bishops at first conferred by themselves, and, after they had settled matters, the four Puritans were .again called in and told what had been decided. CEhe king said that he expected of them obedience and humility, and added, " if this be all that they have to say, I shall make them conform themselves, or I will harry them out of the land, or else do worse." And so the opportunity for conciliation was lost, and then severities were resumed./
In 1604 the constitutions and canons of the
church were settled in convocation, and, without
receiving the assent of Parliament, were issued on the
strength of the royal supremacy alone. They were
conceived in a rigorous spirit and dealt
13. Arch- freely in excommunication, which at bishop that time was not a mere brutumfulmen.
Bancroft; Bancroft] bishop of London, presided Puritan at this convocation, as Whitgift was Emigration, now dead; and he was afterwardfraised to the archbishopric of Canterbury. In his new office he even surpassed Whitgift in his severities. Three hundred Puritan ministers, who had not separated from the Established Church, were silenced, imprisoned, or exiled in 1604. " But, the more they afflicted them, the more they multiplied and grew." And now the persecuted pastor_g_and people began to think of emigrating! Theigeparatists went to Hollancy-Smyth to Amsterdam in 1606, and John Robinson with the Scrooby church to Amsterdam and Leyden in 1608- 1609. L&ame of the Puritans also sailed for Virginia, whereupon the archbishop obtained a proclamation forbidding others to depart without the king's license, f And so severe was the persecution which they endured that Parliament in 1610 endeavored to relieve them, but with little success./ ^Bancroft died this year, being succeeded by George Abbot, and still persecution continued. In 1618 the king published his Declaration for Sports on the Lord's Day. The controversy on the observance of the Sabbatth... began in the latter part of Elizabeth's reign. ' Dr. Nicholas Bound published his True Doctrine oflhe SabbMh, contending for a strict observance of the dayj[ and Whitgift opposed it. (The Puritans adoptedits positions, but the court clergy rejected them, and now the Book of Sports became the shibboleth of the party. All ministers were enjoined to read it in their congregationsi and those whr^ refused were suspended and imprisoned. LTJie doctrines of the Reformers and of their successors, Conformists and Puritans alike, had been hitherto Calvinistic. Whitgift was a 14. The High Calvinist; the king, who prided
Puritans himself on his theology, had main-
Calvinists. tained Calvinism; and the representatives of England ^£ the Synod of Dort were of the same opinions. \But a change came over the Established clergy and many began to set forth Arminianisrn_ [or, rather a semi-Pelagianism of the Roman Catholic type]. uChe Puritans held fast to the old faith and now in 1620 were forbidden to preach it. And from this time and through the IX.— 24
primacy of Laud, Puritan doctrine, as well as Puritan_practise, was obnoxious to those in poweri
James died in 1625, and was succeeded byTJharles I. Under this monarch " the unjust and inhuman proceedings of the Council Table, the Star Chamber, and the High Commission, are unparalleled."
Non-conformists were exceedingly har-
15. Charles assed and persecuted in every corner
I. ; Arch- of the land. These severities were in-
bishop stigated by Laud, soon after made
Laud. bishop of London, and prime minister
to the kirig.\ Lecturers were put down, and such as preached against Arminianism and the Popish ceremonies were suspended. The Puritans were driven from one diocese to another, and many were obliged to leave the kingdom. In 1633 Laud succeeded to the archbishopric of Canterbury, on the death of Abbot, when the Puritans felt the whole force of his fiery zeal; and during the next seven years multitudes of them, ministers and laymen, were driven to Holland and America. The Book of Sports was republished, with like consequences as at the first publication. William Prynne (q.v.), Burton, and Bastwick suffered their horrible punishments. Ruinous fines were imposed, superstitious rites and ceremonies were practised and enjoined, and the whole church appeared to be going headlong to Rome. [Idu1640 the Convocation adopted new constitutions and canons, extremely superstitious and tyrannical, which the Long Parliament condemned as being " contrary to the fundamental laws of the realm and to the liberty and property of the subject, and as containing things tending to sedition and dangerous consequence." The nation could bear the unmitigated political and ecclesiastical tyranny no longer. Those who had suffered from the king's arbitrary rule joined with those who were groaning under the despotism of the bishops, and with one vast effort overthrew absolute monarchy and Anglican popery together. A new era now commenced. Puritanism properly so called had ended; for the Puritans snlit into two parties, Independents and Presbyterians^ For the further history see
CoNGREGATIONALISTSp PRESB YTEEIANS ; WEST- MINSTER Assembly; see also the biographical notices of men named in this article and others prominent in the Puritan time, as Cromwell, Oliver; Milton, John.
(John Browne")".) Morton Dexter-)". Bibliography: For sources consult: S. R. Gardiner: Constitutional Documents of the Puritan Revolution, London, 1890 (a most useful and fundamental book), cf. P. Bayne, Documents Relating to the Settlement of the Church of England by the Act of Uniformity, ib. 1862; R. G. Usher, Presbyterian Movement in the Reign of Queen Elizabeth as illustrated by the Minute Book of the Dedham Classis, 1682- 1589, ib. 1905 (traces the Puritan attempt to introduce modifications into the Church of England) ; W. Bradford, Hist, of Plymouth Plantation, 1605-46, ed. W. T. Davis, New York, 1908.
For the history consult: B. Brook, Lives of the Puritans, 3 vols., London, 1813; D. Neal, History of the Puritans, best edition by J. Toulmin, 5 vols., Bath, 1822, ed. also by J. O. Choules, New York, 1863 (the great classic) ; E. Hall, The Puritans and their Principles, New York, 1846; W. H. Stowell, Hist, of the Puritans in England, London, 1849, new ed., 1878, New York, 1887; J. B. Marsden, Hist, of the . Puritans . to . 1662,
2 vols., London, 1850-52; J. Tulloch, English Puritan-
Purves Pynchon