Godly Clergy in Early Stuart England: The Caroline Puritan Movement, c.1620–1643 (Cambridge Studies in Early Modern British History)
Cambridge University Press, 11/6/1997
EAN 9780521461702, ISBN10: 0521461707
Hardcover, 370 pages, 22.9 x 15.2 x 2.4 cm
Language: English
Originally published in English
This book reconsiders the existence of an early Stuart Puritan movement, and examines the ways in which Puritan clergymen encouraged greater sociability with their like-minded colleagues, both in theory and in practice, to such an extent that they came to define themselves as 'a peculiar people', a community distinct from their less faithful rivals. Their voluntary communal rituals encouraged a view of the world divided between 'us' and 'them'. This provides a context for a renewed examination of the thinking behind debates on ceremonial nonconformity and reactions to the Laudian changes of the 1630s. From this a new perspective is developed on arguments about emigration and church government, arguments that proved crucial to Parliamentarian unity during the English Civil War.
Acknowledgments
List of abbreviations
Introduction
Part I. Society, Clerical Conference and the Church of England
1. Clerical education and the household seminary
2. Profitable conferences and the settlement of godly ministers
3. Fasting and prayer
4. Clerical associations and the Church of England
Part II. The Godly Ministry
Piety and Practice
5. The image of a godly minister
6. Religiosity and sociability
Part III. 'These Uncomfortable Times'
Conformity and the Godly Ministers 1628–38
7. Thomas Hooker and the conformity debate
8. Trajectories of response to Laudianism
9. The ecclesiastical courts and the Essex visitation of 1631
10. Juxon, Wren and the implementation of Laudianism
11. The diocese of Peterborough
a see of conflict
12. The metropolitical visitation of Essex and the strategies of evasion
Part IV. 'These Dangerous Times'
The Puritan Diaspora 1631–42
13. John Dury and the godly ministers
14. Choices of suffering and flight
15. The 'non-separating Congregationalists' and Massachusetts
16. Thomas Hooker and the Amesians
17. Alternative ecclesiologists to 1642
18. Conclusion.
' ... a richly nuanced study of forms and practices of clerical sociability that helped to define Puritanism and shape its response to the changing conditions of the Caroline Church ... [Webster] is a new voice in the field of Puritan studies and one that promises to be an important one'. Journal of Ecclesiastical History