III

As we shall see moderate Congregationalists like Goodwin were to discover more in common with their Presbyterian opponents of the 1640s in the following decade.In the 1640s however they were often forced by fears of Presbyterian persecution into an uneasy alliance with more radical groups.Radical impulses drew to some extent on tensions already present within precivil war Puritanism.The dilemma of whether to concentrate on building communities of the godly or on the reformation of society as a whole,combined with the pre-war experience of voluntary gatherings of the godly,could prompt sectarian claims that the godly should separate completely from a corrupt national church.In London,in particular,men and women argued that the true church in this world was a gathered,voluntary community of the godly,not a comprehensive mixture of the‘precious’and the‘vile’.^[13]Doctrine as well as organisation had troubled pre-war Puritanism,in disputes that can be characterised as an‘Antinomian’challenge to dominant legalistic Puritanism.^[14]Antinomians before the war such as John Everard or Samuel Eaton rejected the obsessive introspective drive of orthodox Puritans to minutely examine themselves for signs of God's grace and of assurance of salvation.This they denounced as a‘covenant of works’as it suggested that particular forms of conduct could guarantee salvation;in contrast Everard emphasised the overwhelming power of God's grace to transform the elect,and so they underplayed the importance of conventional obedience to the moral law.There were thus perfectionist trends within Calvinist Puritanism,and the potential for a mystical stress on an individual's passionate relationship or identification Christ,rather than a concern with the church as a collective,reforming body.

Puritanism thus had inherent tendencies towards fragmentation,towards liberty rather than reformation,in the formulation of some historians.Small groups of Baptists and other separatists had a precarious underground or exile existence before the civil war.But the practical and ideological upheavals of the 1640s led to a dramatic,exhilarating outpouring of radical speculation and organisation.The coercive mechanisms of the established church had collapsed and no effective alternatives were found.The church courts that had enforced church attendance disappeared and were not replaced,while effective freedom of the press erupted in 1641 when the bishops and the king's courts that had controlled censorship were eclipsed.Intermittent attempts by parliament to crack down on illicit printing were never consistently successful.Radical religious groups were free to gather support,to organise and to campaign for their own positions and for religious freedom.Parliament's triumph over the king,which was seen as God's triumph,intensified the millenarian elements within zealous Protestantism,and the sense that God was doing extraordinary things for his people encouraged radical attempts to build a godly community in this world.

Religious radicalism took many forms.^[15]The basic insight that the true church was a gathered or voluntary community had a variety of implications.Groups varied on how strictly they held to separation from a flawed or corrupt national church;on whether the infant children of members should be baptized,or baptism saved for adults who could demonstrate a true faith from God.They disagreed on the nature of the ministry and on their attitudes to orthodox Calvinism.Respectable Independents were semi-separatists who often served parochial livings alongside their gathered congregations;they usually believed in an educated ministry,set apart from the rest of the congregation by a specific process of ordination and were willing to accept salaries from the state(usually derived from tithes).Calvinist or‘Particular’ Baptist groups on the other hand might be very strict separatists;the groups who formed a West Country Association in the 1650s banned their members from listening to parish or‘national’ministers;it would mean‘conforming to the worship of those men we are commanded to separate from’.For these groups taking any money from the state would be‘a tie and fetter upon the feet of ministers of the gospel’;tithes were‘a soul offending and oppressing yoke’.^[16]

On the other hand,Calvinist Baptists were orthodox in doctrine,believing that God had predestined a minority to salvation.Other radicals took Calvinist theories to extreme conclusions;some rejected them altogether.The loosely connected movement,termed‘Ranters’,adopted a range of transgressive behaviour,justified on the extreme Calvinist or Antinomian grounds,that the elect could not fall from grace and were therefore freed from conventional definitions of sin.‘General’Baptists,on the other hand,preached universal redemption as did the Quakers who argued that God would save all who identified with Christ by embracing the‘light within’.In other ways,however,there were sharp contrasts between Baptist and Quaker religious practices.General and particular Baptists used the Bible methodically as a guide to religious practice and everyday life,and argued that formal procedures such as baptism were an essential mark of a true church;they were scripturalists and formalists.Quakers,on the other hand,interpreted the bible in a distinctively mystical and spiritual fashion,and were the most prominent examples of the tendency defined by Colin Davis as‘anti-formalism’,a rejection of formal structures and rules in favour of an individual experience of a mystical identification with Christ.^[17]

Most radicals rejected the need for a highly educated,ordained ministry,believing that‘gifted men’,inspired by God,should be allowed to preach.In some gathered congregations the gifted men who emerged did develop specialised roles as ministers,but in the most radical groups,notably the Quakers,there was no specialist clerical group at all.Both men and,most alarmingly,women were allowed to speak publicly in religious meetings and undertake missionary activity as the spirit inspired them.As the preceding discussion suggests,Quakers offered the most drastic challenge to conventional Puritan beliefs.They denied Calvinist doctrine,and took a distinctive approach to the scriptures which most Protestants regarded as a straightforward guide to doctrine and church organisation.The early Quakers were an aggressive and provocative group who travelled widely in England and beyond,challenging the parish clergy and competing for support with other radical groups,particularly demoralised Baptists.The Cheshire minister Adam Martindale was interrupted by Quakers in his own church while the Essex minister Ralph Josselin was openly mocked in the street:‘there cometh your deluder’shouted one,‘woe to the false prophet’cried another.^[18]

Religious radicals were never more than a small minority,but they were a very determined and vocal one,whose impact was out of all proportion to their numbers.Precise numbers are impossible to assess.By 1646 there were more than thirty gathered congregations in London,ranging from semiseparatist Independent churches to strict separatist groups with lay pastors.The church founded by Thomas Lamb,a soap-boiler,was a particularly influential grouping out of which many political radicals,such as the Leveller Richard Overton emerged.^[19]On a national level it has been suggested that there were some 25,000 Baptists by 1660,organised in 150 Particular Baptist and 100 General Baptist congregations.They were strongest in the south,the west and the midlands,whereas the Quakers emerged as if from nowhere in the far north-west in the early 1650s,before evangelising much of the rest of England.The remarkable and rapid success of the Quakers came through the coming together of previously scattered groups of‘seekers’,men and women who had rejected all organised,formal religion in favour of personal quests for religious truth.The Quakers were the most significant of all the religious groups to be founded in this period.Although radicals were opposed and sometimes harassed or imprisoned in the 1640s and 1650s,this was a crucial period for English religious history,a time when groups like the Quakers and Baptists had freedom to organise so that they acquired the resources to survive the period of persecution after 1660.^[20]