The National Magazine, Vol. XV, No. 1, November 1891Various
History
The National Magazine, Vol. XV, No. 1, November 1891
Various
Local history -- Periodicals; United States -- History -- Periodicals; West (U.S.) -- History -- Periodicals
Many of them however, accepted the change, including Royal Supremacy,
Uniformity of Worship and Articles of Religion. They were nevertheless
much dissatisfied, but hoped to effect still further changes and
reformations. But in this they failed. This as will be seen, was a
party within a party, a church within a church, or a party within the
“establishment,” and they were the “Puritans.” In other words, the
Protestants may be said to have been divided into three classes. The High
Ritualists, Puritans and Separatists. High Ritualists claimed divine
authority for the form of government, and the ceremonial of the Church
of England. The king, they claimed, was the head of the church, as well
as supreme in all civil matters and had power and authority over persons
and property. The Puritans, on the contrary, believed none of these
doctrines, although they were as devoted to the Church of England as was
the other party, the High Ritualists, and the reforms they desired, they
sought to make from within the church. Separation they regarded as the
rankest kind of an offense, a terrible sin. To draw a comparison, or to
make an illustration—the Puritans were Episcopalians—the low-church wing
of that period. In another sense there was a difference or distinction
between Puritans and Pilgrims: The Puritans had among their number, as
influential persons, many of the nobility, men of business, capitalists
and educated, fashionable and accomplished people. Indeed, during the
entire reign of James I, they formed a majority in the House of Commons,
and no person not a communicant of the Church of England could then sit
in that body.
From this body of Puritan Episcopalians sprang that company who landed
at Salem and settled at Boston in 1630, not the Pilgrims who settled at
Plymouth in 1620. The latter, the “Separatists,” renounced the Church
of England, and separated from it. They were likewise socially from the
humbler walks of life. Some of their number, it is true, were persons of
education, culture and refinement, but as has been said, the great bulk
were from among the common people, without means, power or influence.
Indeed, they sustained about the same relation to other classes and
denominations that the Methodists, in their beginning, did to other
religious denominations. In short, they were persecuted by the Church of
England by the Puritans and by the Roman Catholics.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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