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DEFINING PURITANISM IN RESTORATION ENGLAND: RICHARD BAXTER AND OTHERS RESPOND TO A FRIENDLY DEBATE

2011; Cambridge University Press; Volume: 54; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1017/s0018246x11000033

1469-5103

Michael P. Winship,

Reformation and Early Modern Christianity

ABSTRACT Around 1670, a group of moderate Restoration puritans published extended explanations of their movement at a particularly tense and pregnant time, when the recently erected, unstable barriers between the institutional Church of England and puritanism were under extreme pressure. Their efforts are important and revealing for their analyses of Restoration puritanism's contemporary situation and its historical roots. These publications, however, have received little scholarly attention. Restoration scholars tend to use the term ‘puritan’ in a static even perfunctory way that bears little resemblance to the self-conscious, fluid approach of historians of earlier puritanism. This usage also bears little resemblance to how Restoration puritans understood themselves. A close examination of these treatises helps to locate Restoration puritanism as the latest evolution of a century-old movement and helps to evaluate and refine the analytical frameworks within which historians attempt to make sense of that movement.