Nielsen’s Nook

Puritanism’s Effect on the Anglican Church

Chapters in Church History,

...Puritan intolerance would have imposed a religious system as unpalatable to the mass of the people as Anglicanism was to the few.¹

... it called forth the famous defense of the Church of England against Geneva, The Laws of Ecclesiastical polity by Richard Hooker, the most notable Anglican scholar of the sixteenth century. ²

The evangelical concern [imparted from the Puritans] with "Gospel before Church" would enable Anglicanism to call itself into judgment. The Catholic element, on the other hand, would bind the Church, even while under judgment, to the traditional stream of Christian life and experience in all ages. By means of this creative tension Anglicanism has remained aware that in religion of Incarnation, history is both the means of God's self-revelation and the scene of God's redemption. ³

¹ Dawley, Powel Mills. Chapters In Church History. (New York: Protestant Episcopal Church, 1950), 186.

² Dawley, Powel Mills. Chapters In Church History. (New York: Protestant Episcopal Church, 1950), 186.

³ Dawley, Powel Mills. Chapters In Church History. (New York: Protestant Episcopal Church, 1950), 187.