Nielsen’s Nook

In Chapters in Church History, discussing the Puritan Revolt in England, Powel Mills Dawley writes:

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

This of course made me smile, given my Presbyterian background. It also made me think of my favorite definition of Puritans from H. L. Mencken that a Puritan was someone that feared that someone somewhere might possibly be having fun. Caricatures aside, the impact of the Puritans on the Church of England has been lasting as Dawley continues:

… 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

However, the most profound impact might be what Dawley records regarding the placement of the Gospel in the self-consciousness of the Anglican Church as a historical continuation of the apostolic faith and practice:

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

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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.