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London's 10 oldest theatres". The Daily Telegraph. Archived from the original on 11 January 2022 . Retrieved 6 April 2020. Puritans rejected both Roman Catholic ( transubstantiation) and Lutheran ( sacramental union) teachings that Christ is physically present in the bread and wine of the Lord's Supper. Instead, Puritans embraced the Reformed doctrine of real spiritual presence, believing that in the Lord's Supper the faithful receive Christ spiritually. In agreement with Thomas Cranmer, the Puritans stressed "that Christ comes down to us in the sacrament by His Word and Spirit, offering Himself as our spiritual food and drink". [67] They criticised the prayer book service for being too similar to the Catholic mass. For example, the requirement that people kneel to receive communion implied adoration of the Eucharist, a practice linked to transubstantiation. Puritans also criticised the Church of England for allowing unrepentant sinners to receive communion. Puritans wanted better spiritual preparation (such as clergy home visits and testing people on their knowledge of the catechism) for communion and better church discipline to ensure that the unworthy were kept from the sacrament. [66]
Some Puritans left for New England, particularly from 1629 to 1640 (the Eleven Years' Tyranny under King Charles I), supporting the founding of the Massachusetts Bay Colony and other settlements among the northern colonies. The large-scale Puritan migration to New England ceased by 1641, with around 21,000 having moved across the Atlantic. This English-speaking population in the United States was not descended from all of the original colonists, since many returned to England shortly after arriving on the continent, but it produced more than 16million descendants. [33] [34] This so-called "Great Migration" is not so named because of sheer numbers, which were much less than the number of English citizens who immigrated to Virginia and the Caribbean during this time. [35] The rapid growth of the New England colonies (around 700,000 by 1790) was almost entirely due to the high birth rate and lower death rate per year. [36] Death's head, Granary Burying Ground. A typical example of early Funerary art in Puritan New England The main difference between the Pilgrims and the Puritans is that the Puritans did not consider themselves separatists. They called themselves “nonseparating congregationalists,” by which they meant that they had not repudiated the Church of England as a false church. But in practice they acted–from the point of view of Episcopalians and even Presbyterians at home–exactly as the separatists were acting. a b Lee, Sidney, ed. (1897). "Calamy, Edmund (1671–1732)". Dictionary of National Biography. Vol.51. London: Smith, Elder & Co. pp.63–65. Porterfield, Amanda (1992). Female Piety in Puritan New England the Emergence of Religious Humanism. New York: Oxford University Press. The accession of James I to the English throne brought the Millenary Petition, a Puritan manifesto of 1603 for reform of the English church, but James wanted a religious settlement along different lines. He called the Hampton Court Conference in 1604, and heard the teachings of four prominent Puritan leaders, including Laurence Chaderton, but largely sided with his bishops. He was well informed on theological matters by his education and Scottish upbringing, and he dealt shortly with the peevish legacy of Elizabethan Puritanism, pursuing an eirenic religious policy, in which he was arbiter.
The sermon was central to Puritan piety. [60] It was not only a means of religious education; Puritans believed it was the most common way that God prepared a sinner's heart for conversion. [61] On Sundays, Puritan ministers often shortened the liturgy to allow more time for preaching. [20] Puritan churchgoers attended two sermons on Sundays and as many weekday sermons and lectures they could find, often traveling for miles. [62] Puritans were distinct for their adherence to Sabbatarianism. [63] Puritan rule in England was marked by limited religious toleration. The Toleration Act of 1650 repealed the Act of Supremacy, Act of Uniformity, and all laws making recusancy a crime. There was no longer a legal requirement to attend the parish church on Sundays (for both Protestants and Catholics). In 1653, responsibility for recording births, marriages and deaths was transferred from the church to a civil registrar. The result was that church baptisms and marriages became private acts, not guarantees of legal rights, which provided greater equality to dissenters. [139] Milton, Michael A. (1997). The Application of the Faith of the Westminster Assembly in the Ministry of the Welsh Puritan, Vavasor Powell (1617–1670) (PhD). University of Wales.
Puritans taught that there were two sacraments: baptism and the Lord's Supper. Puritans agreed with the church's practice of infant baptism. However, the effect of baptism was disputed. Puritans objected to the prayer book's assertion of baptismal regeneration. [64] In Puritan theology, infant baptism was understood in terms of covenant theology—baptism replaced circumcision as a sign of the covenant and marked a child's admission into the visible church. It could not be assumed that baptism produces regeneration. The Westminster Confession states that the grace of baptism is only effective for those who are among the elect, and its effects lie dormant until one experiences conversion later in life. [65] Puritans wanted to do away with godparents, who made baptismal vows on behalf of infants, and give that responsibility to the child's father. Puritans also objected to priests making the sign of the cross in baptism. Private baptisms were opposed because Puritans believed that preaching should always accompany sacraments. Some Puritan clergy even refused to baptise dying infants because that implied the sacrament contributed to salvation. [66] That the rituals, ceremonies and teachings developed over centuries by the Catholic Church went against God’s original intentions for his people.
together for a time as copartners in grace here, [that] they may reigne together forever as coheires in glory hereafter. [79]
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