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Puritan Political Thought and the “Cases of Conscience”*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

George L. Mosse
George L. Mosse
Affiliation:
State University of Iowa
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Extract

Looking back over the stormy times of Revolution and Civil War, Thomas Hobbes came to the conclusion that it was superior force which had been decisive. The sword rather than the heavens had passed judgment upon the people of the Lord. The holy zeal of the early Puritans had run its course; the crusade was ended. Had Thomas Hobbes looked across the Atlantic he would have seen another “Holy Experiment” in decline. The second half of the Seventeenth century saw a debacle of Puritanism of such dimension that not even their most purposeful enemies of an earlier date would have had cause to complain. One recent historian has even called the Restoration of Church and King a “Laudian triumph.” Yet for all this, the Revolution took place and triumphed, if only for a time. In evaluating the political ideas which the Puritans held before and even during their rise to power, subsequent events have too often been taken into account. Puritanism led to Revolution; thus doctrine of resistance to authority must be stressed. The movement failed to hold on to power largely due to the Utopianism of its proponents. This also must be explained. The first view has often led to stress upon a straight line of Puritan thought from Christopher Goodman to John Milton. The second contention based itself on the literal application of Scripture which Puritans were sometimes apt to make. It was their urge “to build Jerusalem on England's green and pleasant strand” which led them into all sorts of follies. We are still inclined to think of the Puritan in sombre dress, his intellectual equipment symbolized by the sword in one hand and the Bible in the other.

Type
Research Article
Information
Church History , Volume 23 , Issue 2 , June 1954 , pp. 109 - 118
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Church History 1954

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References

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12. Perkins, William, “The Whole Treatise of the Cases of Conscience,” Works, II, 3.Google Scholar

13. e.g. Thomas Pickering summarizing Perkins' position in the Epistle Dedicatory, “The Whole Treatise of the Cases of Conscience.” Works, II.Google Scholar This view of sin has led to a confirmation of the belief that Puritanism was content with nothing short of absolutes; i.e. Miller, Perry, The New England Mind, (New York, 1939), 45.Google Scholar Perhaps the argument put forward here may serve to modify this judgment in some particulars.

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15. Ibid.

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17. Quoted in Huehn, Gertrude, Antinomianism in English History, (London, 1951), 94.Google Scholar

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19. Ibid, II.

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21. Ibid, 2.

22. Reuter, Karl, Wilhelm Amesius, (Neukirchen, 1940), 126.Google Scholar This is the only full scale work on Ames and has useful comparisons with Perkins. The emphasis Puritans placed on a clear conscience explains partly why the resolving of troubled consciences was so important. Thomas Scales wrote in 1630 “… yet if the conscience be not ferme and free riches is trash and honour but a toy the peace of conscience is the perfect joy” “The Relation of Frances Spira,” 25. Scales Abridgement, H. M. 205 (Hastings Ms.), Huntington Library.Google Scholar

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45. It may be well to mention here that these ideas about the Magistrate come to approximate the concept of “reason of state” which was being accepted in Europe at the time. See my “Puritanism and Reason of State in Old and New England,” William and Maiy Quarterly, IX, (01, 1952), 67–81.Google Scholar

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