English Puritanism and Its Leaders: Cromwell Milton Baxter Bunyan (Classic Reprint)

Excerpt from English Puritanism and Its Leaders: Cromwell Milton Baxter Bunyan

The history Of English Puritanism is the history both Of a theological movement and Of a great national struggle. The spirit Of which Puritanism is the sym bol has entered deeply into the national life, and strongly coloured many Of its manifestations. It has given depth and passion not only to the religion, but to the literature and patriotism of the country; it has largely contributed alike to its intellectual lustre and heroic fame. N 0 one, therefore, can understand the sources Of our mixed civilisation without studying the great Puritanical movement of the seventeenth century. It is necessary to penetrate to the heart of this move ment, and find some sympathetic point of connection with it, before we can appreciate some of the most powerful influences which have moulded the English people and made them what they are. Otherwise, as with some of our historians, the face of the facts may be Observed and delineated, but their genuine mean ing will be missed, and the moral forces out Of which they grew and consolidated into history will remain unintelligible.

Britain was the national soil in which the seeds of the Reformation we're destined to take the deepest and most enduring root. Germany did far more to origin ate and strengthen the movement in its beginnings; France, in many of its highest minds, showed a more ready receptivity and welcome to the new religious ideas; England could boast neither a Luther nor a Calvin: but the spiritual impulses out of which the movement grew, and which constituted its real life and strength, found in the anglo-saxon character their most congenial seat, their highest affinities, their most solid nutriment. Slowly, and under many hindrances, they spread, unaided by the powerful influence of any great teacher, but sinking always more into the depths Of this character, and gaining afirmer hold Of it. While dying out in Germany, and hardly able to maintain themselves in France against the fierce Odds with which they had to contend, they continued to propagate and gather force in England amidst all Obstacles, and only attained, after the lapse Of a cen tury, and under many modifications Of struggle and conquest, to their full development.

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