Several recent scholars appalled by the seemingly impossible task of defining Puritanism have contented themselves with the supposedly easier task of describing the movement. But, a really accurate description is actually a good definition. To the extent that a description enables one to identify and thus partially to understand a man or a movement, it serves as a definition. Thus, whether one wishes to engage in a definition of or a description of the nature of Puritanism makes little difference. The basic problem is that of so delineating the Puritan movement that its differences from other contemporary movements are clearly discernible. Only in that way can one assess its role in its own epoch and its contributions to the ongoing stream of history.

Looking back over the stormy times of Revolution and Civil War, Thomas Hobbes came to the conclusion that it was superior force which had been decisive. The sword rather than the heavens had passed judgment upon the people of the Lord. The holy zeal of the early Puritans had run its course; the crusade was ended. Had Thomas Hobbes looked across the Atlantic he would have seen another “Holy Experiment” in decline. The second half of the Seventeenth century saw a debacle of Puritanism of such dimension that not even their most purposeful enemies of an earlier date would have had cause to complain. One recent historian has even called the Restoration of Church and King a “Laudian triumph.” Yet for all this, the Revolution took place and triumphed, if only for a time. In evaluating the political ideas which the Puritans held before and even during their rise to power, subsequent events have too often been taken into account. Puritanism led to Revolution; thus doctrine of resistance to authority must be stressed. The movement failed to hold on to power largely due to the Utopianism of its proponents. This also must be explained. The first view has often led to stress upon a straight line of Puritan thought from Christopher Goodman to John Milton. The second contention based itself on the literal application of Scripture which Puritans were sometimes apt to make. It was their urge “to build Jerusalem on England's green and pleasant strand” which led them into all sorts of follies. We are still inclined to think of the Puritan in sombre dress, his intellectual equipment symbolized by the sword in one hand and the Bible in the other.

I propose to confine myself to exhibiting certain Utopian features in English Puritanism which displayed themselves during that classic tragedy in the politics of enthusiasm, the English Civil War.

Every effort to deal with the history of ideas is beset by hazards. Semantic traps are strewn along the way of the inquirer; such words as democracy, liberty, justice, etc., point to different concepts or varying complexes of concepts as they are used in different periods of history and by different men. The unuttered and frequently unacknowledged presuppositions of those who employ them also vary; and since meaning largely depends on context the difficulties of understanding what is meant are increased by the difficulty of ascertaining what is at the back of the minds.

During the two decades after the passage of the great Reform Bill, the protestant Dissenters exerted a large influence in English politics. They were the staunch advocates of both liberal and humanitarian reforms. They first desired to abolish slavery. After that they wished to expand the areas of religious liberty to achieve a better social status for both themselves and the Irish Catholics. They strove diligently for a national system of religious education, comprehensive enough to include all the sects. Inasmuch as free trade appeared to them to be corollary of religious liberty and in keeping with their humanitarian sentiments, they joined enthusiastically in the crusade against the Corn Laws. Though they did not achieve all their aims, they did much to transform the Whigs into a Liberal party more representative of the middle classes, and to move the whole nation along the road from aristocracy to democracy.

The eighteenth century was an era of conflict and radical change within the Serbian church. After the establishment of Ottoman control in the Balkan peninsula, the Serbian nation remained united solely by the bonds of the church. It was the center of life and the unchallenged leader of the community. However, in the eighteenth century new ideals and new loyalties emerged which threatened the position of predominance previously enjoyed by the church. Religious nationalism gradually gave way before secular nationalism as the ideas of the enlightenment took root among the Serbs living within the Habsburg empire, until by the end of the century the church as an instrument of national unification had been relegated to a position of secondary importance. Moreover, the change was the result not only of the absorption of western thought by the Serbian intellectuals, but also of the rivalries of the Christian churches in the Balkans, a conflict whose roots are to be found in this century.

This is a segment of local church history in the South in the transition period from the Civil War and Reconstruction to the modern period of World War I. The cross section described here was no doubt typical of most of the deep Southern region with the exception of such areas as the Catholic district of Louisiana. The manner in which the Baptists and Methodists had catered to pioneer needs in furnishing a highly emotional religion without the requirement of an educated clergy certainly contributed to their large memberships in the period covered here.