Puritan and Anglican?

Sydney Anglicans more often than not trace their heritage to the great Church of England figures of the sixteenth century – to Cranmer, to Latimer and Ridley and to the others who were leaders under Edward VI and martyred under his sister Mary. Marcus Loane (1911-2009), Archbishop of Sydney from 1966-81 and formerly Principal of Moore College, authored a number of popular histories of this period after the manner of John Foxe’s Acts and Monuments. The defiant stance of these figures on the basis of the Protestant and Reformed character of the Church of England was an marker of identity in 1950s and 60s Australia – a period in which sectarianism was much more prominent as a social issue and a period in which the Anglo-Catholic movement within the Anglican Church of Australia was making a great deal of headway. As the national church came together, would Sydney Anglicans remain true to the faith for which the great Marian martyrs died? Certainly they would.

The somewhat romantic appeal to the martyrdoms of the Marian reign is a hint that a particular reading of the course of the English Reformation is in place: that the short reign of Edward VI was a Protestant high water-mark for the Church of England, but that the programme begun in that brief period (1547-53) had remained unfinished. On this reading of the English Reformation, there is some sympathy for those who later chafed at the slow rate of change under Elizabeth’s rule and who became known as ‘the Puritans’. It is one of those words – like ‘fundamentalist’- that has become (indeed always was) a religious term of abuse, with its image of humourless and stern moral nitpickers. This label has been frequently applied to Sydney Anglicans by their detractors not only to indicate their determination to further reform Anglicanism along Protestant lines but also to their alleged moral seriousness.

Historically speaking, the label ‘Puritan’ is a broad brush. There were Puritans over the long period of their prominence (from 1560s through to 1680s) who strongly disagreed with each other over what needed to change in the church and which doctrines to emphasise. Ultimately it was the Puritans of Parliament who rose up against the forces of Charles I and had him executed in 1649, inaugurating the Protectorate of Oliver Cromwell (1653-58). Puritans were at various times persecuted and even expelled by the church authorities. Yet at the same time, the presence within the Church of England of those who might identify with the Puritan disposition has been ongoing. As Richard Turnbull has written ‘[T]hroughout the history of the Church of England there has also been a persecution of Puritan divines and yet also a continuing presence within the Church of those of Puritan disposition.’ This was so even after the ‘Great Ejection’, when nearly 2,000 Puritan clergy chose to leave their livings in protest against the 1662 Act of Uniformity. Interestingly, it was the issue of the royal supremacy which was most controversial. The restoration of the Book of Common Prayer, somewhat modified in line with Puritan sensibilities, was not nearly as problematic.

To identify with the Puritans, then, is not to repudiate Anglicanism. It is certainly to insist on the importance of right doctrine and on the propriety of ongoing reform of church practices in line with Scripture – and this is not to the taste of some other Anglicans. Some streams of Puritanism certainly found themselves outside the Church of England. Those Puritans who would advocate Presbyterianism, for example, found themselves outside of the bounds of the Church of England following the Restoration. It would be hard to make the case for a non-episcopal version of Anglicanism today. On matters of church governance, discipline and order, the normative rather than the regulative principle holds sway with Anglicanism. However, it was frequently matters to do with Church-State relations that led to the rebellion and then departure of Puritan clergy from the established church. It is fascinating to note that this was the very goad against which the Oxford movement kicked. John Keble’s famous 1833 sermon ‘National Apostasy’ was an attack on the collaboration of the Church of England with its government. For Anglicans not now living in England under royal supremacy, this issue is entirely irrelevant.

What this means is that Puritans have had a long-standing place within the Church of England and within Anglicanism, and that one of the major issues on which they took their stand they were not the only ones to do so and there is now in any case no longer any controversy. If Sydney Anglicans are Puritans, it does not follow that they are not also Anglicans.