Introduction

Who counts as a Puritan and what does that adjective mean? These are important questions that need to be investigated. Like the adjective evangelical it is widely used both in academic and popular literature but there is no consensus as to what it means or who belongs to that category. I have argued that the category of Puritanism is subject to deconstruction just as D. G. Hart has deconstructed Evangelicalism.¹ According to some writers, only those who were dissenters from the established, Episcopal, English (Anglican) church were “Puritans.” Others use a more expansive definition, which includes conforming (Anglican) Reformed pastors (e.g., Richard Sibbes and Perkins), theologians, and writers and non-conforming figures. Must one be theologically orthodox to be a Puritan or does a certain commitment to piety and sanctity qualify one? If we take this approach then we have the anomaly of a shared movement that includes the very orthodox William Perkins (1558–1602) and the heterodox Independent theologian Richard Baxter (1615–91). Where does one draw the line? Might we include the arguably heterodox English poet-theologian John Milton (1608–74), about whose orthodoxy there has been a longstanding debate?²C. S. Lewis (1898–1963) regarded him as orthodox and Michael Bauman argues that he was an Arian.³

William Perkins

William Perkins was born in Warwickshire. He was a “pensioner” (a student who paid his own way) in Christ’s College, Cambridge from 1577–84.⁴ His tutor was Lawrence Chaderton (1536–1640), a contributor to the King James Bible and a well-known critic of the Church of England, and a sponsor of the development of English Reformed orthodoxy.⁵ Perkins took his B.A. in 1581 and proceeded MA in 1584.

His path to Reformed orthodoxy was not entirely direct. As an undergraduate he seems to have been attracted to astrology.⁶ This may suggest to an interest in Alchemy and the “new learning” that was percolating in the Universities of Europe and Britain in the mid and late sixteenth century. There are narratives about a dramatic conversion experience but the historicity of some of the stories is unclear. It is certain that he was conviced of Reformed orthodoxy by the time he became a fellow in Christ’s College. His commitment to Reformed orthodoxy, however, came at a cost. He faced the authorities twice on matters of principle: first in 1587 for refusing to kneel to receive communion (because it might be taken that he was adoring the elements) and again in 1591 for supporting the Presbyterian Book of Discipline, a surprising move for a conforming Reformed theologian. He found himself before the Star Chamber, not as the object of prosecution, but rather as a witness for the prosecution.⁷ These episodes probably pushed him toward conformity for the sake of advancing the Reformation in England. He remained a fellow at Christ’s College until 1595 when he married and was required to forfeit his fellowship.

Perkins was a prolific author, as the recently republished ten-volume works attest.⁸ He was solidly Reformed and he was, if I may put this way, a gospel man. To put it another way, he had Luther in his bones. He was committed to distinguishing law and gospel. His commentary on Galatians is a wonderful source for Christian meditations. In Reformed Catholick he defended the legitimacy of the Reformation from a historical perspective, disputing the Roman Catholic claim that the Reformation was a novelty. His exposition of the Reformed order of the application of redemption by the Spirit, The Golden Chain, to the elect remains a standard Reformed work on the topic. The entire seventeenth-century English Reformed project was deeply influenced by Perkins as was Dutch Reformed orthodoxy. William Ames was his student and Ames carried Perkins’ theology to the Netherlands when he fled the Anglican authorities. There Ames influenced Voetius and through Ames and Voetius, Perkins influenced the Nadere Reformatie (sometimes translated as the Dutch Second Reformation) movement. His significance for Reformed theology both in the British Isles and in Europe can hardly be overstated.

The Background To “Puritan“

Because of the variety of definitons of Puritan, sometimes Perkins is included and sometimes he is excluded. For this reason and others I have argued that the adjective Puritan is so amorphous, so loose, so inclusive as to be hopelessly vague. In this essay, however, I wish to look at the way one of the founders of English Reformed orthodoxy, William Perkins, used the word Puritan, and to consider whether he adopted it of himself and those with whom he identified.

An electronic search of the new edition of Perkins’ works shows that Puritan (in the singular and plural) occurs 360 times but the vast majority occur in the apparatus, i.e., commentary provided by the several editors of individual volumes in the series. Perkins himself used the term nine times, typically to describe the way critics of English Reformed orthodoxy slandered them. He was ambivalent about the adjective Puritan, which was originally meant to signal “Catharist” or “Donatist” or something of that order.

The Donatist movement arose in the early fourth century in North Africa (largely Tunisia today),⁹ over whether a bishop who had handed over a copy of the Scriptures to the pagan authorities under persecution (known as a traditor) was still a legitimate officer holder and whether his ministry was legitmate.¹⁰ The movement lasted until the 7th or 8th century and was opposed by Augustine and was suppressed by Constantine and Constans from 316–61 and again in the early 5th century. In the history of the church, to be called a Donatist is to be called a radical separatist and a shismatic. Like the Donatists, the Cathar movement (12th–13th centuries) had a resemblence to the third-century separatst movement, the Novatianists, which also arose under persecution, who had complained about compromised bishops being ordained to office. The name Cathar is derived from the Greek word for pure and thus it was often translated into English as Puritan long before the English Puritan movement existed.¹¹ In the Middle Ages, the Cathar movement was typically regarded as Manichaean. When a thirteenth-century Western theologian spoke of “the heretics” he was usually referring to the Cathar or Albigensian movement. They had some reason to think of the Cathars as heretics. They thought of the physical world (and especially the human body) as inherently corrupt and corrupting. They were called Manichaean because they affirmed two competing principles in the world: good and evil.¹² For them, salvation was deliverance from the human body. They rejected much of the Old Testament and retained most of the New Testament and rejected the sacraments, the doctrine of hell, and the resurrection of the body. They practiced an extreme asceticism. Like the second-century Gnostics, they divided the world into haves and have-nots, those who have had a second blessing and those who have not. Again, for the English Reformed orthodox to be called “Catharists” was a serious insult.

Next time: Perkins use of Puritan in context.

notes

1. D. G. Hart, Deconstructing Evangelicalism: Conservative Protestantism in the Age of Billy Graham (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2004).
2. For a survey of the views see Stephen B Dobranski’s review of Michael Lieb, Theological Milton: Deity, Discourse, and Heresy in the Miltonic Canon, in Religion & Literature39.3 (2007): 83–85.
3. E.g., Michael Bauman, Milton’s Arianism (New York: Peter Lang, 1987); Michael Bauman, “Milton, Subordination, and the Two-Stage Logos,” Westminster Theological Journal 48.1 (1986): 173–82.
4. I am gratful (again) to my learned colleague (and sometime tutor) Allan Girdwood for his help with the definition of pensioner.
5. Paul R. Schaefer, The Spiritual Brotherhood: Cambridge Puritans and the Nature of Christian Piety (Grand Rapids: Reformation Heritage Books, 2011), 46.
6. Schaefer, ibid.,  47.
7. Schaefer, ibid., 97–98.
8. William Perkins, The Works of William Perkins, General Editors, Joel R. Beeke and Derek W. H. Thomas, 10 volumes (Grand Rapids: Reformation Heritage Books, 2014–20.
9. Here I am following the entries in F. L. Cross and Elizabeth A. Livingstone, eds., The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church (Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 2005), s.v., donatism and traditors. Hereafter, ODCC.
10. See the entry on “Novatianism” in the ODCC.
11. The first use of the adjective Puritan given in the Oxford English Dictionary, s.v., Puritan, occured in 1565. It was used by a Roman Catholic critic of early English Reformed orthodoxy, Thomas Stapleton in A Fortresse of The Faith First Planted Amonge Us Englishmen. He wrote, “We know to weare in the church holy vestements, and to be apparailled priestlike semeth..absurde to the Puritans off our countre, to the zelous gospellers of Geneva.” In 1572, John Whitgift (1530–1604), who, in 1583, would become Archbishop Canterbury, sided with the Reformed on soteriology but not on the rule of worship, wrote, “This name Puritane is very aptely giuen to these men, not bicause they be pure no more than were the Heretikes called Cathari, but bicause they think them selues to be mundiores ceteris, more pure than others, as Cathari did, and seperate them selues from all other Churches and congregations as spotted and defyled.” See An Answere to a Certen Libel Intituled An Admonition to the Parliament (1572). The Presbyterian Thomas Cartwright replied to this accusation in 1573 in his Answer to Whitgift.
12. This survey follows the entry in the ODCC.

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Post authored by:

• R. Scott Clark

  

  R.Scott Clark is the President of the Heidelberg Reformation Association, the author and editor of, and contributor to several books and the author of many articles. He has taught church history and historical theology since 1997 at Westminster Seminary California. He has also taught at Wheaton College, Reformed Theological Seminary, and Concordia University. He has hosted the Heidelblog since 2007.

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