War and Peace in the Puritan Tradition
Between 1640 and 1660 the English nation experienced a political, social, and religious upheaval which in retrospect can only be called a revolution. So profound was this crisis, epitomized by the public execution of a duly anointed king, that not even the restoration of the Stuart monarchy could re...
| Main Author: | |
|---|---|
| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
|
| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
Cambridge Univ. Press
1984
|
| In: |
Church history
Year: 1984, Volume: 53, Issue: 4, Pages: 492-503 |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (JSTOR) Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Parallel Edition: | Non-electronic
|
| Summary: | Between 1640 and 1660 the English nation experienced a political, social, and religious upheaval which in retrospect can only be called a revolution. So profound was this crisis, epitomized by the public execution of a duly anointed king, that not even the restoration of the Stuart monarchy could reverse the long-term effects of those turbulent decades. Historians long have noted the religious purpose and zeal which moved so many of the king's subjects, egged on by their ministers, to resort to insurrection against their lawful sovereign. For example, Stephen Marshall, parliamentary preacher, spoke to the House of Commons in February 1642 on the impending civil war: “If this work be to avenge God's church against Babylon, he is a blessed man that takes and dashes the little ones against the stone.” In August of the same year William Carter told the Commons that God sometimes commanded brother to fight against brother: “God hath put into your hands, a work of his, the greatest that hath been on foot for God in these islands for many hundred years … God hath called you to the purging of the land of those locusts and caterpillers.” Two years later, the war against the king still unconcluded, Edmund Staunton declared: “There is a fire of civill war kindled in England, still burning in the bowels of it … but two bloods will quench it, the blood of Christ and that of his desperate enemies.” Such statements, while prompted by the revolutionary stirrings of the 1640s, must be set in the larger context of Puritan theories of war and peace. From the 1570s when Puritanism emerged as a distinct party of reform within the Church of England until 1641 when the Long Parliament convened, English Puritans developed a considerable body of literature dealing with the nature, purpose, and limits of warfare. The purpose of this article is to examine in this literature what might be called a Puritan theology, or perhaps better, spirituality of warfare in prerevolutionary England. |
|---|---|
| ISSN: | 1755-2613 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Church history
|
| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.2307/3166119 |