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In a sermon of thanksgiving for parliament's great victory at Naseby in June 1645 the leading parliamentarian preacher Stephen Marshall urged the members of parliament amongst his audience to‘take no rest’until they had set up God's kingdom on earth.They had‘the greatest opportunity’that God had ever put‘into the hands of any’;as Zerubbabel had rebuilt the temple of the Israelites on their return from exile in Babylon,so,‘not onely the managing of a Kingdome of men,but of the kingdome of our lord and saviour Jesus Christ,seems now to be in the hands of the two honourable houses of parliament’.^[1]From the earliest weeks of the Long Parliament,preachers like Marshall had urged members on to a zealous struggle against the cryptopopery and innovations of Charles I's religious policies,and to the further reformation of the church.By June 1645 while much of the work of destruction was complete,the obstacles in the way of positive reformation were becoming all too clear.Parliamentarians in the early 1640s believed that they had a once in a lifetime opportunity to complete at long last the reformation of the English church,left but‘halfly reformed’in the sixteenth century,and this paper will be structured around the aspirations of these‘mainstream’or‘orthodox’parliamentarian Puritans.It will examine their expectations and aims in the early 1640s,and the frustrations as well as the successes of the following twenty years,as the hostility of more radical groups,the stubborn resistance of‘Anglican’,Episcopalian opinion,and their own divisions sabotaged their highest hopes.I hope to show how the religious developments of the 1640s and 1650s owed a great deal to earlier tensions,arising from the contested and partial nature of the English Reformation,but will also stress the impact of the revolutionary upheavals of the civil war years.

As religious issues had loomed large in the opposition to the personal rule of Charles I,so they were prominent amongst hopes for the future when the Long Parliament met in November 1640.The religious policies promoted by the king and his Archbishop William Laud were deeply resented by English Puritans who regarded them as dangerously close to Catholicism,‘popery’ in their contemptuous term.The stress on a ceremonial,sacramental worship,the suspicion of zealous preaching and reinforcement of clerical and episcopal authority,all contributed to a general fear of a‘popish plot’to‘alter the kingdom both in religion and government’as the leading opposition figure John Pym explained in his opening speech to the parliament.^[2]The‘Grand Remonstrance’of December 1641,the extended denunciation of the king's reign,passed in the panic stricken weeks succeeding the alarming Irish Catholic rebellion,described a‘malignant and pernicious design of subverting the fundamental laws and principles of government,upon which the religion and justice of this kingdom are firmly established’.The ringleaders in this design were the‘Jesuited papists,who hate the laws’;the‘Bishops and the corrupt part of the Clergy who cherish…superstition’ and courtiers following private interests.^[3]

It is important to stress at the outset,that religious and political grievances and divisions were closely entangled.A‘popish’plot to subvert true religion would inevitably involve an attack on English law and the English parliament which were seen as the main defenders of the church.More than this,‘Arminian’or‘Laudian’religion was identified with authoritarian impulses in church and state,while zealous Puritanism was aligned with a more activist and participatory understanding of how government should work.Thus when parliamentarians—reluctantly—moved to armed conflict with the king's party they saw themselves as fighting a Godly cause as well as defending English liberties and the rule of law.For royalists,in a parallel process,commitment to an episcopal and ceremonial church was linked to their vision of hierarchical,ordered communities headed by the king.^[4]

‘Puritanism’is a complex and much contested concept,in the early modern period itself,and amongst historians ever since.^[5]There were many tensions within Puritanism,which were to have a profound impact on the events of the English revolution,as we shall see,but as a preliminary framework we can define Puritanism as a particularly zealous version of Protestantism,notable for a strong commitment to the central tenets of the Reformation,such as predestinarian Calvinist doctrine,and purified worship centred on regular preaching.Puritans tended to be active within selfconstructed networks of the godly,setting themselves apart from the more profane or easy-going members of society and working to reform the morals,beliefs and behaviour of their neighbours.They longed for effective‘discipline’within the church,by which they meant a structure that could educate and regulate the behaviour of their congregations.From the beginning,rousing preachers like Marshall urged on the members of parliament to reformation in the regular monthly‘fast-days’and on extraordinary occasions such as the celebration for Naseby.An early sermon by a Warwickshire clergyman,Anthony Burgess,summed up what was needed.Parliament should transform‘doctrine,discipline,and the worship of God,which the godly desire above all their outward advantages’.More specifically they should‘provide against the general ignorance in people by a solid and serious catechizing;and against the profaneness of people by powerful discipline….As in this kingdom,the lawyer,the physician,the tradesman can go comfortably in his calling,so provide that the pastor also in the dispensation of ordinances may do it with joy,and not with grief’.Scripture was the crucial guide to reformation and‘profaneness and licence in wickedness’one of the major barriers to success.Reformation was difficult,but God would punish those that neglected his work,and Burgess reminded his audience that the previous‘times of superstition,of altar-worship,of silencing your ministers[were]as bitter unto you’.Establishing a godly church would be ample reward,as when ancient Israelites reached the promised land:‘Canaan will satisfy for the troubles in the wilderness’.^[6]

Burgess said little about the overall structure a reformed church would have,but by early 1643 a Presbyterian national church seemed probable.The religious liberty that was one of the most significant outcomes of the upheavals of the 1640s was not widely anticipated at the start of the decade.The Grand Remonstrance insisted on adherence to a compulsory,comprehensive national church:clause 164 declared that‘it is far from our purpose or desire to let loose the golden reins of discipline and government in the church,or to leave private persons,or particular congregations to take up what form of divine service they please’.It was therefore‘requisite that there should be throughout the whole realm a conformity to that order which the laws enjoin according to the word of God’.The Remonstrance called for a‘general synod of the most grave,pious,learned and judicious divines’to consider what was necessary for the‘peace and good government of the church’and for‘competent maintenance for conscionable and preaching ministers’.^[7]In the early months of the Long Parliament some kind of limited or‘moderated’episcopacy might have been expected;most of the critics of Charles I's personal rule had,of course,conformed in an episcopal church,and a bill,read in the house of Lords in July 1641 would have established bishops as presidents of their dioceses,assisted by twelve ministers in each county who would participate in ministers’ordination and congregational discipline.But the Laudian associations of most existing bishops discredited the whole institution for many Puritans,while the optimism accompanying the meeting of the Long Parliament radicalized others.A petition from London in December 1640 called for the abolition of episcopacy‘with all its dependencies,roots and branches’for it had promoted false doctrine,and been‘prejudicial and very dangerous both to the Church and Commonwealth’.^[8]At a local level,with encouragement from the House of Commons,altars and images were purged from parish churches.