Christianity in the Seventeenth Century

Political Upheaval, Piety, and the Coming of the Scientific Revolution

 

Puritanism: Development in the  English Church that results in the English Civil War and the reign of William and Mary; also influential in the establishment of the Massachusetts Bay Colony in North America—theological movement with the bible at the center, the covenanted people of God working to pursue their divine mission in establishing the kingdom of God on earth

Puritanism is often mischaracterized as a stodgy, cold, sanctimonious, morally pure and austere way of life, as H. L. Mencken would characterize it, “The haunting feeling that someone somewhere is having fun.”

 

--Grace alone will work salvation in one’s soul (following traditional Calvinist teaching)

--No confidence in traditional religion

            --spiritual conversion is necessary to enjoying the benefits and privileges of the elect of God (one must be “born again” by the activity of the Spirit of God in one’s soul)

            --church is merely a guide and a help in reaching this experience and in discipleship afterward; the actual saving grace is not channeled through the institutional Church

 

--Puritanism both a personal faith and a public faith

            --must be born again

            --after one’s second birth, there is a mission one must pursue of shaping society along biblical lines (all Christians must participate in this mission, at least to be sure of their election)

 

--Puritanism first makes its appearance in England under Elizabeth I

            --preaching is aimed at the heart, not the intellect

            --many leaders of early Puritanism were returning exiles under the Marian persecutions from Geneva, where they had drunk of the cup of Calvinism

            --desire a congregational selection of ministers (Elizabeth refuses to give up her right to appoint bishops of the Church of England)

            --Elizabeth remains tolerant of Puritan gripes, so long as they do no more than complain about the Church of England’s “Catholic” ways (e.g., vestments, candles, sign of the cross at baptism, prayer books, etc.)

 

Geneva Bible: Translated by exiles in Geneva during Marian persecutions

            --numbered verses and chapters

            --accessibility to the common people

            --scholarly accuracy improved over other English translations

            --contained prologues to the various books of the bible

            --contained marginal notes for study

            --was the most popular English translation (though unauthorized) until the KJV of 1611

 

Puritan sense of destiny: driven in part by a particular identification with the people of ancient Israel

            --also driven in part by the popularity of Foxe’s Book of Martyrs (1563) which traced the history of the persecuted Protestants under Mary’s bloody reign and gave a special place to England in the redemptive purposes of God and served as a vindication of the Church of England as a legitimate expression of the true church of Christ

            --Foxe’s book, along with the Geneva Bible, are the most influential in the New World Puritans’ sense of destiny and duty—Puritans begin to identify themselves as the New Israel

                        --bible is inspired Word of God and God’s revealed will

                        --covenant of grace is central to Puritan theology and worldview (“By grace believers became God’s people and he their God,” says Shelley)

                        --this covenant obligates Puritans to radical obedience to the full and revealed will of God (includes the OT Law along with the NT principles of Jesus)

 

The Reign of King James I (1603-1625)

 

--Elizabeth I dies in 1603 without an heir; James VI of Scotland (son of Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots), her cousin, assumes the English throne as James I of England (his heirs are the kings and queens of Great Britain)

--James is experiencing conflicts with Presbyterians in Scotland; welcomes the opportunity to deal with bishops in England—he has no love for the Presbyterians who do not seem to give due accord to the monarchy (James wishes to rule England as an absolute monarch)

--Hampton Court Conference of 1604—Puritans given the opportunity to express themselves to James; he denies all of their pleas except for a new translation of the bible into English

--Threatens exile for any Puritans who do not comply with James’ decisions

--James wishes to rule as a divine right monarch (God alone ordains the king to rule.  “The state of the monarchy is the supremest thing upon earth, for kings are not only God’s lieutenants upon earth and set upon God’s throne, but even by God himself they are called gods,” he tells Parliament on his first appearance before them)

            --James eventually dissolves Parliament in 1611, does not convene them again till 1621

            --this action leads to a political alliance between Parliamentarians and Puritans

--Separatism: offshoots of Puritans after Hampton Court Conference

            --2 groups go to Holland in 1605, one from Scrooby and one from Gainsborough

                        --Scrooby group returns to England, teams up with another pilgrim group and sails on the Mayflower in 1620

                        --Gainsborough group led by John Smyth reorganizes around a confession of faith and adult baptism—birth of English Baptists in 1609

 

--Charles I crowned 1625

            --attempts to put theory of divine right of kings into practice, with no challenge permitted against the monarch’s rule (God has appointed a king to rule with absolute powers—cf. Hobbes; contrast with Locke)

            --married to a Catholic French princess, Henrietta Maria; alienates many Englishmen

            --Archbishop William Laud appointed by Charles to lead episcopal resistance against the Puritan factions; Laud attempts to restore high-church Anglicanism (altars, vestments, crucifixes, stained glass, BCP, etc.)

                        --more Puritans forced into Separatism and/or depart for America

            --Charles attempts to force high Anglicanism on Presbyterian Scots => Scottish rebellion

                        --Charles calls Parliament to convene to raise an army to meet rebellion

                        --Parliament divided over loyalties, the Royalist minority and the Parliamentary majority that has Puritan sympathies—majority party tries Laud and has him beheaded

                        --Civil War breaks out when Charles attempts to punish parliamentary leaders who participated in the trial and execution of Laud

                        --Royalists leave Parliament and Puritan party has the advantage

                        => 1643-49; Westminster Assembly

                                    --produces the Westminster Confession of Faith and the Westminster Longer and Shorter Catechisms, still used by many orthodox Presbyterians and Congregationalists

                                    --1645 Parliamentary order for creation of presbyteries and election of elders (never fully implemented) nationwide (Parliament never ruled the entire country)

           

--Oliver Cromwell (1599-1658):

            --Leader of the New Model Army (and a Puritan Crusade) in the English Civil War

                        --Force is justified because of the righteous ends of the war (the NMA was known to pray before battles and to go into battle singing hymns)

                        --Forces Charles I to surrender in 1646 (Charles tries between 1646-1648 to play off the Scottish Presbyterians against the Independent Congregationalists in Parliament; makes an alliance with the Presbyterians => intensified war in 1648)

            --1648, NMA defeats the king’s allies, purges Presbyterians from Parliament

                        --Rump Parliament has Charles tried and executed on 16 January 1649

                        --Charles becomes a Royalist martyr

            --Commonwealth is proclaimed

            --1653, Army overturns Parliament and creates the Protectorate with Cromwell as Lord Protector (military dictator)

            --Cromwell dies in 1658; son, Richard takes over; monarchy is restored in 1660 along with the episcopal office

 

New Ideas of the Seventeenth Century

 

Beginnings of the acceptance of religious differences (though not without conflict)

Originally, neither Protestant nor Catholic willing to accept the legitimacy of the other

            --Territorialism of the 1540s-50s and the Peace of Augsburg fostered a “to each according to its own” policy in relation to the official church of a particular realm

 

1562-1598 French Civil Wars between Catholics and Protestants (Huguenots)

            --Edict of Nantes (1598)—issued by Henry IV (Navarre), himself a former Protestant, grants Huguenots freedom and political control in some regions of France; solidifies Catholic dominance in the larger portion of France

 

1560-1618 Dutch war of independence against Spanish rule (Calvinists lead the war)

 

Thirty Years’ War (1618-1648): boiled down, it’s a conflict between the Hapsburg dynasty and everyone else in Europe

            --1617—Ferdinand of Styria (a Hapsburg member) becomes king of Bohemia; was a Jesuit-educated Catholic with Jesuit political counselors

            --alienated Protestants (particularly Calvinists) in his realm; nullifies their religious freedom that they had enjoyed under the Peace of Augsburg settlement

            --May 1618, armed Protestant  nobles confront royal council, demanding liberties be restored to them; council refuses restoration

            --nobles throw two councilors out a window (both uninjured, landing in a dung heap)—becomes known as the Defenestration of Prague, marks beginning of the 30 Years War

                        --Lutherans originally hesitant to back the Bohemian Protestants (because the latter were Calvinist); some Catholics and other Protestants (from England, France, the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, and various  German principalities) ally with each other against the Hapsburg empire

                        --Bohemian Protestants initially succeed and install Frederick V of Palatinate as king (a son-in-law of James I of England), but Emperor Ferdinand II and the Catholic League invade Bohemia and install Jesuit rule in 1620 (including at the University of Prague, Jan Hus’s old school)

                        --Christian IV of Denmark enters war against the Empire and is defeated in 1626

                        --Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden leads his Lutheran army to several victories; killed in combat in 1632 at Lutzen

            --War becomes political power struggle after Gustavus’ death

            --300 newly created independent states emerge

--Denominationalism becomes a real alternative as the religious fervor that instigated the war began to cool and the war dragged on--(more so after Peace of Westphalia of 1648)

            --equal religious recognition for Calvinists

            --princes may opt for religious coexistence in their realms

            --exclusion of pope from religious affairs in Germany (and practically everywhere else); though Pope Innocent X vehemently protests the Peace of Westphalia

 

Christianity in the New World

Puritan migration to Massachusetts between 1629-1642 at its peak (approx. 25,000 went to Boston during this period)

 

American colonies also attract large # of other Protestants (Quakers, Baptists, Lutherans, Dutch Reformed, Huguenots, and Presbyterians, etc.) as well as Catholics

            --Massachusetts Bay Congregationalists against tolerance

                        --caused by an omission in the company charter of the Massachusetts Bay Company that would have kept moral authority in England (Puritans now had an opportunity to implement the reign of the saints on earth)

                        --Massachusetts Bay operated as a virtual independent republic until charter is revoked in 1684 and royal authority is re-established with official religious tolerance

                                    --a personal devotion to scripture encourages several to dissent from enforced conformity (e.g.,  Anne Hutchinson and Roger Williams) and face persecution in the Massachusetts Bay colony or move to the wilderness (availability of space allows escape from Puritan moral authority)

                                    --1687, Old South Meeting Place is seized by the Crown for Anglican worship—end of Puritan experiment in New England

 

Denominationalism—new way of dealing with conflicts in the Church

            --Denominations are inclusive, shy away from claiming to possess the total truth exclusive of any other ecclesiastical organization, they do not claim to be the true church

            --Sects are exclusive, will claim to possess the totality of truth to the exclusion of any other ecclesiastical organization and will claim to be the true church

--Denominational theory is a product of English and New English Puritanism; though the early Reformation sows the seeds of denominationalism

            --Freedom of the Word of God to act (Luther, the Word of God ought be given freedom of action in the world and not be blocked in its power to save)

            --Impossibility of knowing precisely who is of the elect and who is reprobate => willingness to concede that there may be members of both classes in all ecclesiastical structures

 

Congregationalists are the true architects of denominational theory

            --Dissenting Brethren of Westminster (during the Assembly of 1643-49) were Congregationalists who went along with the Presbyterians so as not to divide the “godly Protestant party” in England articulate key points of denominational theory:

                        --inevitability of diverse opinions on church form, because we will always see truth differently; impossibility of us all seeing truth clearly

                        --all Christians are obligated to follow conscience in what the Bible teaches (in matters that do not involve the fundamental tenets of the faith)

                        --no single church has fully comprehended divine truth, therefore no single ecclesiastical structure can represent the true Church of Christ

                        --separation does not equal schism; division on adiaphora does not jeopardize Christian unity; unity is found in inward religious or spiritual experience

                                    --denominationalism takes root in the American colonies

                                    --“the identity of the ‘one true church’ was restricted to those who shared a common understanding of the core of the Christian faith.”

 

Science comes to Europe

 

Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1543): discovers heliocentric solar system; dismantles the old geocentric, Aristotelian assumptions with the earth at the center of the universe and everything else revolving around it in crystal spheres—discoveries are published in his last year of life and are condemned by both Catholic and Protestant authorities as false and dangerous to the faith

 

Galileo Galilei (1564-1642): calculates gravitational constant; discovers Jupiter’s moons, phases of Venus, sun spots, craters on the moon (imperfections); supported Copernicus’ teachings, demonstrated the universal harmony of heavenly bodies in motion and the natural order of the universe; puts the earth in a not-very-special place in the universe; taken before the Inquisition and forced to recant by the Catholic Church