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From the time of its Elizabethan origins English Puritanism was almost as much a political as a religious movement. Religious in its Biblical inspiration, its main emphasis came to be laid on matters of ecclesiastical polity, since it was on such matters that it principally differed from the established Church of England. It was also by political and constitutional means, at first half-heartedly through Convocation, then more concertedly through Parliament, that the Puritans sought to impose their ideal of a fully reformed Church on the whole nation. Their first sensational impact on the latter institution took the form of yet another anonymous publication, entitled An Admonition to the Parliament, which appeared in the form of “two treatises” bound together in June, 1572. Shortly after its appearance, its two young authors, Thomas Wilcox and John Field, were identified by the authorities and confined in Newgate prison.

In many respects there is a clear line of continuity from Cowley’s Brief Discourse to this Admonition. The same spirit of Puritan opposition is at work in the latter as in the former, though with increased vehemence. The connection is indeed made explicit in the opening paragraph of the Preface “To the Godly Readers”, in which the authors complain of the rigorous dealing of the bishops “for the space of these five or six years last past together” with poor men whom they call “Puritans worse than Donatists”. In each of the two treatises, the Admonition proper by Wilcox and the appended View of Popish Abuses by Field, the Book of Common Prayer is criticized as contrary to the Word of God and as a mere translation of the Popish missal. No wonder, as Field states in the title of his contribution, many “godly ministers have refused to subscribe” to it.

To give examples of their objections, Wilcox specifies such provisions as “baptism by women, private communions, Jewish purifyings, observing of holidays”, which he rejects as “patched (if not altogether, yet the greatest piece) out of the Pope’s portuis”, or breviary. Similarly, Field calls the Prayer-Book “an unperfect book, culled and picked out of that Popish dunghill the portuis and Mass book, full of all abominations.” While going over the abuses mentioned by Wilcox, such as “private communion, private baptism, baptism ministered by women, holidays ascribed to saints”, Field adds further instances, such as “kneeling at communion, wafer-cakes for their bread when they minister it, surplice and cope to do it in”. More comprehensively than his colleague, he dwells on abuses in outward apparel, not only the use of surplice and cope for religious services, but all forms of distinct attire for the clergy. Such “baggage”, he declares with contempt, is but “the preaching signs of Popish priesthood and the garments of the idol, to which we should say, Avant and get thee hence”.

There is even a precise echo of Crowley’s arguments, where Field goes on to protest that these garments “serve not to edification, they have the show of evil (seeing the Popish priesthood is evil), they work discord, they hinder the preaching of the Gospel, they keep the memory of Egypt still amongst us, and put us in mind of that abomination whereunto they in past times have served, they bring the ministry into contempt”, and above all, “they offend the weak, they encourage the obstinate”. His concluding comment on the controversy of 1566 is of special interest, as it indicates the direction in which the Puritan dialectic is steadily moving. “Neither is the controversy betwixt them and us for trifles, as they would bear the world in hand, as for a cap, a tippet, or a surplice, but for great matters concerning a true ministry and regiment of the Church, according to the Word. Which things once established, the other melt away of themselves. And yet consider, I pray you, whether their own argument doth not choke themselves, for even the very name of trifles doth plainly declare that they ought not to be maintained in Christ’s Church. And what shall our bishops win by it? Forsooth, that they be maintainers of trifles, and trifling bishops, consuming the greatest part of their time in those trifles, whereas they should be better occupied.”

This direction is already demonstrated from the beginning of the Admonition, whose general tone is much stronger against the bishops than that of Crowley. On the very title-page are printed the words of Christ from Luke xix.40, “If these should hold their peace, the stones should cry.” Certainly, these young authors do not hold their peace, though in speaking out so strongly they incurred the disapproval of their own more prudent elders, including Crowley himself. Their adversaries are openly proclaimed in the Preface as “the lordly lords, archbishops, bishops, suffragans, deans, university doctors and bachelors of divinity, archdeacons, chancellors, and the rest of that proud generation, hold they never so hard, because their tyrannous lordship cannot stand with Christ’s kingdom”. In their view the authority of such prelates “is forbidden by Christ”, and their “childish articles” are “for the most part against the manifest truth of God”. These men, the authors lament, “were once of our mind, but since their consecration they be so transubstantiated, that they are become such as you see” in taking upon themselves “ungraciously, cruelly and Pope-like” to beat their fellow servants, the godly ministers.

In his opening treatise Wilcox develops a detailed contrast, point by point, between the ideal of the primitive Church and the present reality under the Elizabethan bishops. In those days, he recalls with nostalgia, “every pastor had his flock, and every flock had his shepherd, or else shepherds”, but now, he sorrowfully notes, “they do not only run frisking from place to place (a miserable disorder in God’s Church) but covetously join living to living, making shipwreck of their own consciences, and being but one shepherd (nay, would to God they were shepherds and not wolves) have many flocks”. In those days, he continues, the shepherds were “known by voice, learning and doctrine. Now they must be discerned from others by Popish and Antichristian apparel, as cap, gown, tippet, etc. Then as God gave utterance, they preached the word only. Now they read homilies, articles, injunctions, etc. Then it was painful, now gainful. Then poor and ignominious in the eyes of the world, now rich and glorious, and therefore titles, livings and offices (by Antichrist devised) are given to them, as metropolitan, archbishop, lord’s grace, lord bishop, suffragan, dean, archdeacon, prelate of the garter, earl, count palatine, honour, high commissioners, justices of the peace and quorum, etc. All which together with their offices, as they are strange and unheard of in Christ’s Church, nay plainly in God’s Word forbidden, so are they utterly with speed out of the same to be removed.”

These same abuses are dwelt on by Field at greater length, according to the title he has chosen for his treatise. He also objects to “the names of archbishops, archdeacons, lord bishops, chancellors, etc.” as being “drawn out of the Pope’s shop together with their offices”, and consequently, he declares, “the government which they use by the life of the Pope, which is the Canon Law, is Antichristian and devilish, and contrary to the Scriptures”. In his opinion the rule of bishops in the Anglican Church is little better than, and little different from, that of the Pope in the Roman Church, and so, he adds, “as safely may we by the warrant of God’s Word subscribe to allow the dominion of the Pope universally to reign over the Church of God, as of an archbishop over an whole province, or a lord bishop over a diocese, which containeth many shires and parishes”. Thus it seems that the work of the Reformation in England has all been for nothing.

Because of this corruption in high places, moreover, Field notes a general decline of religion throughout the land, as appears most lamentably in the reformed English services. What takes place on a typical Sunday in church he describes with almost as much relish as indignation. “In all their order of service there is no edification, according to the rule of the apostle, but confusion. They toss the Psalms in most places like tennis-balls, they pray that all men may be saved, and that they may be delivered from thundering and tempest when no danger is nigh, they sing Benedictus, Nunc Dimittis and Magnificat, we know not to what purpose, except some of them were ready to die, or except they would celebrate the memory of the Virgin and John the Baptist, etc. Thus they profane the holy Scriptures. The people, some standing, some walking, some talking, some reading, some praying by themselves, attend not to the minister. He again posteth it over as fast as he can gallop, for either he hath two places to serve, or else there are some games to be played in the afternoon, as lying for the whetstone, heathenish dancing for the ring, a bear or a bull to be baited, or else Jack-an-apes to ride on horseback, or an interlude to be played, and if no place else can be gotten this interlude must be played in the church, etc. Now the people sit, now they stand up. When the Old Testament is read, or the lessons, they make no reverence, but when the gospel cometh, then they all stand up. For why? They think that to be of greatest authority, and are ignorant that the Scriptures come from one Spirit. When Jesus is named, then off goeth the cap and down go the knees, with such a scraping on the ground that they cannot hear a good while after, so that the Word is hindered, but when any other names of God are mentioned, they make no curtsey at all, as though the names of God were not equal, or as though all reverence ought to be given to the syllables.”

On the other hand, the Admonition as a whole is by no means entirely negative in its criticisms of the Prayer-Book and episcopal government. Rather, the authors emphasize, more clearly than Crowley’s Discourse and Answer, a positive “platform of a Church reformed” in contrast to the existing form of “our English Church”, which, they affirm, has “scarce come to the outward face” of true Reformation. Their professed aim is that their readers, members of Parliament, may learn “with perfect hatred to detest the one, and with singular love to embrace and careful endeavour to plant the other”. What the authors have in mind is their ideal of a true Christian Church which is to be known by the three marks of “preaching of the Word purely, ministering of the Sacraments sincerely, and Ecclesiastical Discipline, which consisteth in admonition and correction of faults severely”. In speaking of the first two marks, they point out the defects of the English Church with its episcopal government, but in turning to the third mark, they lay a positive and notable emphasis on their ideal of “Discipline” with its accompanying “admonition”.

This is, above all, the chosen subject-matter of Wilcox in his opening treatise. After duly criticizing “the lordship, the loitering, the pomp, the idleness, the livings of bishops”, he turns to his ideal of “a lawful and godly signory”. In particular, he urges, “instead of an archbishop or lord bishop, you must make equality of ministers, instead of chancellors, archdeacons, officials, commissaries, proctors, summoners, church-wardens and suchlike, you have to plant in every congregation a lawful and godly signory”. He goes on to describe the third function of the deacon. “To these three jointly,” he continues, “that is, the ministers, seniors and deacons, is the whole regiment of the Church to be committed. This regiment consisteth especially in Ecclesiastical Discipline, which is an order left by God unto his Church, whereby men learn to frame their wills and doings according to the law of God, by instructing and admonishing one another, yea and by correcting and punishing all willful persons and contemners of the same.”

In these words we already find English Puritanism not just as a body of opposition to the Anglican establishment but rather as an establishment in its own right, based on an ideal which it professes to find in the Bible, particularly in Matt.xviii, where Christ says to his disciples, “Tell the Church”, but which it derives from the actual model of Calvin’s Church in Geneva. In these words, too, we see the English Puritans as Presbyterian in their theory of Church government. What they chiefly criticize are not so much moral abuses in the established Church of England, any more than their Lutheran predecessors had been chiefly critical of moral abuses in the Church of Rome. They are critical of the Church itself as established. They have their own theory of Church polity, as also of State polity, which is radically different from that of their Anglican adversaries. Between two such systems there can be no compromise, though in fact the Church of England was itself a form of compromise, based on expediency rather than any theory, between Catholic tradition and Protestant reform.

On this point, Field in his more negative View of Popish Abuses has little to add to the positive statements of Wilcox on discipline. Only in his closing commentary on the articles of religion, “which only concern the true Christian faith and the doctrine of the sacraments”, does he admit that the bishops “hold the substance together with us”, “apart from a point or two, which are either too sparingly or else too darkly set down”. Here there is as yet no great difference between Anglican and Puritan. Their difference is rather to be found in “the effect and virtue thereof”, since true doctrine should naturally lead, as he repeats after Wilcox, to “a true ministry according to the word instituted, discipline exercised, sacraments purely and sincerely ministered”.

It wasn’t long after the publication of such a document before the two authors found themselves close prisoners in Newgate and even “next-door to hanging”. Two public sermons were preached at Paul’s Cross against them and their Admonition, and a book was published by the bishops with a collection of its offending passages and a confutation of them. All this prompted the Puritans to issue a second anonymous Admonition, whose author has never been identified with any certainty. While maintaining the basic positions of Wilcox and Field, he adopts a less aggressive, more reasonable – but for that reason, less memorable – attitude.

In the first place, the author considers the various objections that have been voiced against the first Admonition – that it has ventured “to touch the quick too near” and even as it were to “uncover our fathers’ privities” (as Cham did with Noah), and also that its language is “too hot for this time”. On each point, however, he defends the admonishers. He further presents his treatise “as a second Admonition, with the like mind as afore by them, to crave redress of the great abuses in our reformation of religion”, and as another appeal “to this high court of Parliament from all other courts”. The only substantial difference he notes between this and the former Admonition is that “the other books are short” and “have not so much told you how to reform as what to reform”, whereas what he now offers is “a larger discourse”, in order to supply “something that may make to the expressing of the matter, so plainly that you may have sufficient light to proceed by”.

With these words the author embarks, with occasional echoes of the criticisms voiced by Wilcox and Field, on the first of a series of similar declarations of Ecclesiastical Discipline professedly drawn “out of the Word of God”. In itself it may seem insignificant, but it has a close connection with that Directory of Church Government which was published with authority in 1644 from a manuscript “found in the study of the most accomplished divine, Mr.Thomas Cartwright, after his decease”, and which was described as “anciently contended for and, as far as the times would suffer, practised by the first Non-conformists in the days of Queen Elizabeth”.

Bibliographical Note

1 An Admonition to the Parliament. (The first of “Two Treatises ye have here ensuing”, followed by the second, “A View of the Popish Abuses yet remaining in the English Church, for the which godly Ministers have refused to subscribe”). 1572 (RC 112)

2 A Second Admonition to the Parliament. 1572 (RC 113)

3 Certain Articles, collected and taken (as it is thought) by the Bishops out of a little book entitled, An Admonition to the Parliament, with an Answer to the same… 1572 (RC 114)