Not Peace But a Sword

The Political Theology of the English Revolution (Expanded Edition)

Baskerville

• Publisher: Pickwick Publications
• Year: 2018
• eBook ISBN: 9781498291774
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: British History

Not Peace But a Sword provides a case study in religious radicalism, as exemplified by the Puritanism of the English Revolution. Based on sermons preached to the Long Parliament and other political bodies, Stephen Baskerville demonstrates how Puritan religious and political ideas transformed the English Civil War into the world's first great modern revolution. To understand why, Baskerville analyzes the underlying social changes that gave rise to Puritan radicalism. The Puritan intellectuals developed the sermon into a medium that conveyed not only popular political understanding but also a sophisticated political sociology that articulated a new social and political consciousness. In the process, they challenged the traditional political order and created a new order by appealing to the needs and concerns of a people caught up in the problems of rapid social and economic change. The book explores the social psychology behind the rise of Puritanism, as the Puritan ministers themselves presented it, through textual criticism of their own words, placing them in the mental context of their time, and offers a new understanding of the link between religious ideas and revolutionary politics.

Part One

Doctrine

I

Providence

I have often told you I thought you would see troublesome times; but, my dear Ned, keep your heart above the world, and then you will not be troubled at the changes in it.

—Lady Brilliana Harley, 1642

“Now grant me but these two principles, that there is a God and that scripture is the word of God, and my work is at an end.” Though the second of these two axioms demanded by Francis Cheynell in his sermon to the Long Parliament in 1645 distinguished the Puritans, and finally set them in conflict with their society, the first attached them to it. A professed belief in a God who created and governed the world was the starting point for their effort to create a shared understanding of events, and while this might not seem to possess all the excitement of the more transcendent mysteries of redemption, it was at least simpler to understand, requiring no necessary reference to the Bible. “Had we no other light but that of nature, and no other writings but the book of the world, we might read a God and see his providence,” Edward Corbet told Parliament in 1642. “But to find a saviour, to know a gospel, to understand the mysteries of salvation, is above the art of human learning; the spirit of God must be our tutor therein, and the holy scriptures only can teach us such a lesson.” The metaphor suggests that the two were not always so categorically separated, but despite their preference for the transcendent and the scriptural, the essentially worldly departure point of Puritan religion is evident from the preachers’ attention to God’s control over the things of this world. “The most wise God is pleased . . . to make known himself unto the world, and the works of his providence are one of those means by which he letteth in some beams of himself upon the hearts of men,” John Rowe explained.

The word of God indeed is [where] we have the most direct and express representation both of his nature and his will. But because this word of his is not revealed unto all, and because that many of those who have the word laid before them do wilfully shut their eyes against it, therefore is the Lord pleased to manifest himself in the works of providence, and these are oftentimes so visible and conspicuous that there is no man but must see some appearance of God in them.

The meaning of God’s will derived from the word was often contentious and potentially divisive, and while the preachers did not hesitate to engage in fierce polemic when appropriate, in the pulpit they consistently eschewed doctrinal technicalities and the often arcane disputes they provoked. “The nature and condition of God’s will, with those distinctions and difficulties disputed amongst the schoolmen and betwixt the Arminians and contra-Arminians are either too high for human understanding to reach or else are piously resolved by learned pens already,” Corbet insisted. “I shall only touch upon the power and providence thereof so far as may conduce the quieting of our thoughts in these distracted times.” The ministers generally avoided open confrontation with the authorities (especially before 1640, when government censorship had forced them at adopt covert strategies), preferring to strengthen their movement from within and build support through the recruitment of souls. “To gain men to a party before they be gained to God is not so warrantable,” Thomas Manton cautioned, “and to press zeal in some particular ways doth but produce blind fury, which undoeth all.”34

As indicated, the Calvinist God was an inscrutable deity who condescended to reveal himself only on his own terms, and the preachers emphasized the distance between heaven and earth and the inability of human faculties to fully comprehend God and his ways. “Our God whom we seek is most high,” said Gaspar Hickes. “We cannot mount to him on our own wings, nor reach him by our own strength; as soon may we scale heaven with ladders.” Nevertheless, in his condescending wisdom God had provided some “footsteps” by which the ascent might begin. “God ordereth his good providence upon just and weighty reasons,” said William Gouge, “and though his counsel be unsearchable, and his ways past finding out . . . yet hath he left some footsteps whereby we may observe some grounds of his wise proceedings.” While the preachers did invoke biblical illustrations of the ways of the Almighty, their most compelling evidence for his existence and authority was simply the created order over which his providence presided. “He that created all things . . . must have a providence over all things,” argued Richard Sibbes. “For what is providence but a continuance of creation, a preservation of those things in being that God hath given to have a being.” Socially and politically, even morally neutral in itself, providence in this sense was sufficient in the absence of acute trauma, when the world seemed to be functioning according to plan. “God’s providence is as general as his creation,” Corbet said, in terms that might seem unusually aesthetic for a Puritan. “This glorious fabric of the world would soon lose its beauty and . . . fall into confusion if the hand of providence did not guide their motions and by a sweet command conduct them to their ends.”35

God generally worked his providence through the natural mechanisms he had created, for though the act of creation was by definition without prior cause, once he had created natural causes he tended to use them. “In the work of creation God did all alone, and in many works of providence God only works,” Joseph Caryl explained. “But in most of his works . . . he acts (as I may so speak) in consort with the creature.” Yet creatures themselves were simply “tools” or “instruments,” having no power or will of their own but directly dependent on the immediate will of the creator. “All the world of creatures are but instruments at the most, such as contribute no assistance to the Almighty God,” Corbet continued. “They work by his continual influence and receive their ends from his eternal order.” The point was not wholly to deny the efficacy of natural causes, though it did serve to express a sense of disbelief toward prevailing assumptions concerning the processes of nature. “Atheists of old . . . asked with what tools or instruments . . . the Lord did set up this mighty frame of heaven and earth,” Caryl noted. “In the works of providence . . . little mention is to be made of instruments. All must be ascribed to him.”36

It was not that God would ever entirely forego the use of mechanisms so much as that he could use or not use a variety of them as he chose. “God doth not confine himself to one method or way of working.” Occasionally the preachers seemed to suggest that God still intervened across what were thought to be the laws or causes of nature, and they always insisted that he could do so (and they did believe in “miracles,” though how they defined these will be discussed later); but it was more that even when he did employ “second causes” he continued to keep a direct control over them. “In the ordinary course of providence, second causes do occur,” Corbet conceded. “Yet . . . the God of providence . . . can work above means, sometimes he disableth the greatest means, and sometimes he useth no means at all.” In most instances people tended to focus only on the “means” and did not see the ends, the hand of God controlling the things of the world. “We are so locked up in second causes as not to see the first,” said Thomas Hodges. “Secondary causes indeed can do nothing without him, but he doth in heaven and earth whatsoever he please without them.” And yet sometimes God took steps to make it easier to perceive his presence; since while he seldom abandoned causes altogether, there were times when he seemed to have forsaken the causes through which he customarily worked, and then the world was thrown into a state of disorder and confusion. “When causes seem confused in their operations,” said Samuel Rutherford, “God exerciseth his dominion.”37

It was not so much that God worked with or without “means” as that he selected and manipulated the means according to his own ends, while the creatures themselves, considered on their own terms, remained entirely “free.” “The eternal purpose and . . . rule of providence . . . doth no way prejudice the liberty of second causes,” said John Owen. “He . . . by his making, preserving, and guiding of men, hindereth not, yea effectually causeth that they work freely, agreeable to their nature.” The point was most significant with respect to human creatures: they too were under his determination and control, though this did not limit their practical freedom (or moral responsibility) in mundane affairs in their relation to others. “Those things which be most free and absolute, the hearts and wills of men, follow the influence of divine providence,” Corbet asserted. “They voluntarily perform what certainly shall come to pass.” Though God tended to use nature for continuing the world and grace for transcending it, both were determined by the same eternal decree. “We cannot utter one word, think one thought, turn our eye, or move a finger, without the concurrence of his power who giveth life and breath and all things,” Corbet said. “Much less can we of ourselves . . . tread one step towards heaven.”38

God thus worked in the world much as he did on the soul, and to infer that he had no time for the things of this world and thereby “confine him to heaven” was not piety but heresy. “Those do err who . . . deny the divine providence because they think it too base for the divine majesty of God to take care in human affairs,” said William Perkins. “They do err who make chance and fortune, without any wise ordination of the divine providence . . . who imagine that all things are governed by fate or an unresistable and violent necessity.” The distinction between “temporal” and “eternal” could be thin, and there were times when a realization of God’s command over the most secular of “human affairs,” and his ability to override the powers of “fate” and “necessity,” seemed especially critical. “God hath this sovereign power or command over nations—not only particular persons, but over whole nations—to deal with them as he pleases,” John Cardell asserted. “States and kingdoms are not managed by men only, or according as they please, but they are managed and ordered, and disposed of, by the Lord our God.” The idea that God had the final say in the destinies of not only individuals but nations and states as a whole, often bringing to pass outcomes very different from what people and particularly politicians might intend in their acts of public policy, though by no means new to the 1640s (or anyone versed in the Bible), was perhaps the most significant theme in the sermons of the Revolution. “That the flourishing state of commonwealths springs out rather from the blessing of God’s providence than from the best forecast of human prudence,” argued William Pemberton, “history, the witness of times, and light of truth doth plainly testify.”39

What God wrought in the fullness of time was thus as unalterably predestined as that which lay beyond it. “Every event of providence is managed and preordained by an admirable wisdom,” asserted John Wilkins. “There is no liberty for causes to operate in a loose and straggling way, but in matters of greatest uncertainty there is a preordained course of effects.” Providence...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Preface to the Expanded Edition
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• Part One: Doctrine
• Part Two: Discipline
• Conclusion
• The Trial and Execution of Charles I
• Bibliography