Hostname: page-component-7479d7b7d-fwgfc Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-09T12:10:37.915Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

The Non-Existent Controversy: Puritan and Anglican Attitudes on Work and Wealth, 1600-1640

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

Timothy Hall Breen
Affiliation:
Graduate Student, Yale University

Extract

George Herbert was a devotional poet in the early part of the seventeenth century; he was also an Anglican minister. Like his friends, John Donne and Lancelot Andrewes, he loved the Church of England, and his faith was a source of creativity. In the later part of his life Herbert had a hobby; he liked to collect simple proverbs. Herbert's sayings, which he published as Outlandish Proverbs, had little to do with religion. Compared with the themes of his poetry, in fact, they were surprisingly secular.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Church History 1966

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1. Herbert, George, Works, ed. Hutchinson, F. E. (Oxford, 1941), 322, 325, 331, 338, 354.Google Scholar

2. Many historians over the past thirty years have denied that there was any direct relationship between Puritanism and capitalism. A bibliography of this debate would include scores of titles. A few major ones, however, are Robertson, H. M., Aspects of the Rise of Economic Individualism; A Criticism of Max Weber and His School (Cambridge, 1933)Google Scholar; Albert, Hyma, Christianity, Capitalism and Communism, A Historical Analysis (Ann Arbor, 1937)Google Scholar; Hudson, Winthrop S., “Puritanism and the Spirit of Capitalirm,” Church History, XVIII (03 1949)Google Scholar; and Charles, and George, Katherine, The Protestant Mind of the English Reformation (Princeton, 1963).Google Scholar

3. Christopher, Hill, Puritanism and Revolution, Studies in Interpretation of the English Revolution of the 17th Century (London, 1958), 223.Google Scholar

4. Ibid., 299. In an article included in this book, “William Perkins and the Poor,” Hill stated that Puritan Perkins was one of the earliest exponents of the belief that riches are good in themselves.

5. Ibid., 236. Another historian, Wright, Louis B., believed that Puritans developed a casuistry especially “pleasing to middle-class prejudices.” Middle-Class Culture in Elizabethan England (Ithaca, N. Y., 1935), 127.Google Scholar

6. Hill, Christopher, Society and Puritanism in Pre-Revolutionary England (Now York, 1964), 139.Google Scholar

7. Tawney, R. H., Religion and the Rise of Capitalism (New York, 1926), 149, 159, 192.Google ScholarHill, Christopher, in his recent Society and Puritanism, treated Anglican writers who wrote about work and wealth in a “bourgeois” manner as exceptions to their faith. (141, 124ff)Google Scholar. For example, he cited Anglican George Herbert and Bishop Robert Sander- son as evidence that “Puritanism helped in the task of imposing labour discipline.” Hill never suggested that there might have been a broad agreement between Anglicans and Puritans and that Herbert and Sanderson were not unusual in their economic views.

8. Hill, Christopher, “Protestantism and the Rise of Capitalism,” Essays in the Economic and Social History of Tudor and Stuart England, ed. Fisher, F. J. (Cambridge, 1961), 36.Google Scholar

9. DNB.

10. Ibid.

11. This study owes a great debt to the Georges' book, The Protestant Mind of the English Reformation. The Georges examined seventeenth-century Protestant theology in depth and concluded that “Puritanism” did not exist as a separate and distinct body of thought before 1640. They pointed out that many English divines shared common beliefs on major religious issues. This essay attempts to test the Georges' thesis in one specific area—economic thought. The conclusion is that there were some subtle differences between Anglicans and Puritans on matters of work and wealth. The writings of Anglicans like Nicholas Ferrar, George Herbert, and Henry Hammond suggest that the two theologies may have clashed in ways that the Georges did not expect. A recent, provocative study of pre-Civil War Protestantism is John, F. H.New's Anglican and Puritaa, the Basis of Opposition 1558–1640 (Stamford, 1964).Google Scholar New tried to explain the confliet between the two faiths as a difference in world views and brought a fresh viewpoint to a debate that has been stale for some time.

12. Sanderson, Richard, works, ed. Jacobson, William (Oxford, 1854), 94.Google Scholar

13. Perkins, William, works, I (London, 1608), 727.Google Scholar

14. Sanderson, , works, III, 142143.Google Scholar

15. Sanderson, , works, III, 102Google Scholar; see also Brathwaithe, Richard, The English Gentleman (London, 1633) 119120Google Scholar, and Perkins, , works, I, 727.Google Scholar

16. Ames, , Conscience With the Power and Cases Thereof, 130.Google Scholar

17. Dod, John and Cleaver, Robert, A Godlie Forme of Householde Government…. (London, 1612), R 45Google Scholar, and Gouge, William, works (London, 1627), 300.Google Scholar

18. Preston, , Foure Godly and Learned Treatises (London, 1633), 41Google Scholar; see also Ames, , Conscience With the Power and Cases Thereof (London, 1643), 248Google Scholar, and Downame, John, The Second Part of the Christian Warfare (London, 1619), 244.Google Scholar

19. Sanderson, , works, III, 114 (italics mine).Google Scholar

20. Hall, Joseph, works, ed. Wynter, Philip, VII (Oxford, 1863), 526Google Scholar; also Sibbes, Richard, The works, ed. Grosart, Alexander Balloch, I (Edinburgh, 1862), 243.Google Scholar

21. Fuller, Thomas, The Holy and Profane States, ed. Walter, Maximillion Graff, II (New York, 1938), passim.Google Scholar

22. Ames, , Conscience With the Power and Cases Thereof, 250.Google Scholar

23. Dod, and Cleaver, , A Godlie Forme of Householde Government, E 2Google Scholar; and Sanderson, , works, III, 140.Google Scholar

24. Perkins, , works, I, 729.Google Scholar

25. Sanderson, , works, III, 99.Google Scholar

26. Herbert, , works, 235.Google Scholar

27. Hall, , works, VII, 476477Google Scholar and Sanderson, , works, III, 98.Google Scholar

28. Dent, Arthur, The Plaine Mans Path-way to Heaven (London, 1601), 187Google Scholar, and Hall, , works, VII, 167.Google Scholar

29. Herbert, , works, 57.Google Scholar

30. Adams, Thomas, The works, III (Edinburgh, 1861), 134.Google Scholar

31. Herbert, , works, 274Google Scholar, and Donne, John, The Sermons, ed. Potter, George R. and Simpson, Evelyn M., III (Berkeley, 1953), 67.Google Scholar

32. Hall, , works, VIII, 151.Google Scholar

33. Sanderson, , works, III, 96Google Scholar, and Francis, White, Treatise of the Sabbath-Day (London, 1635), 42.Google Scholar

34. Sibbes, , works, I, 139.Google Scholar

35. Ibid., VI, 363.

36. Hall, , Work, VII, 168Google Scholar; Dod, and Cleaver, , A Godlie Forme, E3–E4Google Scholar; and Gouge, , works, II, 50.Google Scholar

37. Coffin, Robert P. Tristram and Witherspoon, Alexander M. (eds.) Seventeenth-Century Prose and Poetry (New York, 1929), 469.Google Scholar

38. Adams, , Diseases of the Soule: A Discourse, 2021Google Scholar; see also Herbert, , works, 274Google Scholar, Vaughan, William, The Golden-grove (London, 1608), chapter 56Google Scholar, book 3.

39. Dent, , The Plaine Mans Path-way to Heaven, 186Google Scholar; see also Gouge, , works, II, 301Google Scholar; and Sanderson, , works, III, 100.Google Scholar

40. Fuller, , The Holy and Profane States, II, 154Google Scholar (italics mine); see also Andrewes, Lancelot, The works (Oxford, 1854), V, 43Google Scholar, and Herbert, , works, 248.Google Scholar Fuller's use of the term “Industries Martyrs” has a surprisingly modern sound to it.

41. Greevous Grones For the Poor (London, 1625), 1Google Scholar; also see Perkins, , works, I, 732.Google Scholar

42. Sanderson, , works, III, 113Google Scholar; see also Fuller, , The Holy and Profane States, II, 154155.Google Scholar

43. Adams, , Diseases of the Saute, 22.Google Scholar

44. Ames, , Conscience With The Power and Cases Thereof, 253.Google Scholar

45. Sibbes, , The Works, VII, 225.Google Scholar

46. Hammond, Henry, The Works (Oxford, 1853), I, 268Google Scholar; see also Greevous Crones For the Poor, 17.

47. Hammond, , The Works, I, 263.Google Scholar

48. DNB.

49. Hammond, , The Works, I, 299.Google Scholar

50. Ibid., I, 200, 207.

51. Sanderson, , Works, III, 109Google Scholar; see also 108. Part of the Christian Warfare, 29.

52. Earle, John, Micro-cosinographie or, A Peece of the World Discovered (London, 1628), chapter 19Google Scholar, no page numbers.

53. Ferrar, Nicholas, The Ferrar Papers, ed. Blackstone, B. (Cambridge, 1938), 215.Google Scholar

54. Coffin, and Witherspoon, (eds.), Seventeenth-Century Prose and Poetry, 469Google Scholar; see also Peacham, Henry, The Compleat Gentleman (London, 1661), 2, 9, 17.Google Scholar

55. Brathwaite, , The English Gentleman, 115Google Scholar, and Donne, , Sermons, IV, 99.Google Scholar

56. Ames, , Conscience With Power and Cases Thereof, 253Google Scholar; see also Downame, The Second

57. Donne, , Sermons, III, 51.Google Scholar

58. Adams, , Works, I, 142.Google Scholar

59. Downame, , The Second Part of the Christian Warfare, 41.Google Scholar

60. Herbert, , Works, 13.Google Scholar

61. Ames, , Conscience With Power and Cases Thereof, 254.Google Scholar

62. Sibbes, , Works, VI, 269.Google Scholar

63. Adams, Thomas, God's Anger and Man's Comfort (London, 1652), 9.Google Scholar

64. Sibbes, , Works, IV, 508.Google Scholar

65. Chillingworth, William, The Works (London, 1742), 68.Google Scholar

66. Adams, , Works, II, 232.Google Scholar

67. Preston, , Foure Godly and Learned Treatises, 42.Google Scholar

68. Dod, John and Cleaver, Robert, A Plaine and Familiar Exposition of the Ten Commandments (London, 1619), 273.Google Scholar

69. Andrewes, , Works, V, 414.Google Scholar

70. Perkins, , Works, II, 126.Google Scholar

71. Preston, , Foure Godly and Learned Treatises, 37Google Scholar; see also Downanie, , The Second part of the Christian Warfare, 220221.Google Scholar

72. Preston, , Foure Godly and Learned Treatises, 36Google Scholar; see also Perkins, , Works, II, 125126.Google Scholar

73. Hammond, , Works, I, 177.Google Scholar

74. Sanderson, , Works, III, 138.Google Scholar

75. Ferrar, , The Ferrar Papers, 104.Google Scholar

76. Hammond, , Works, I, 202.Google Scholar

77. Ibid., I, 266.

78. Ferrar, , The Ferrar Papers, 103104.Google Scholar

79. In several minor cases this essay did point up the fact that Hammond appeared more bourgeois than the “middle class” Puritan theologians. I did not intend to switch Hill's labels, however, and to suggest that the Anglicans were the core of a new “industrious” class. It was my purpose to emphasize only the consensus of economic opinion in seventeenth-century England.

80. Hyma, , Christianity, Capitalism and Coinimunism, 200201.Google Scholar

81. Miller, Perry and Johnson, Tomas H. (eds.), The Puritans (New York, 1963), 7 (italiea mine).Google Scholar