The Development of Puritan Eucharistic Theology in England in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries

Curran D. BishopSacramental Theology

The Development of Puritan Eucharistic Theology

in England in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries

The Puritans have often received a very negative assessment by later interpreters. The

English historian T. B. Macauley once said that “the Puritan hated bear baiting, not because it

gave pain to the bear, but because it gave pleasure to the spectators” while the American

journalist H. L. Mencken defined Puritanism as “the haunting fear that someone, somewhere

might be happy.”1 Yet this is not a full picture of the Puritan worldview. Belden Lane writes,

The Puritans were a people of passion as well as paradox. Despite their wordiness, their spiritual arrogance, and their reduction of the ways of God to a fixed logic, they plumbed the human experience of desire in every possible way. They saw the yearning that God had sewn into the fabric of creation as echoing God’s own insistent longing for relationship. Sexual passion in marriage and the beauty of an English (or New England) countryside were particularly compelling to them, pointing to an even greater want in the human soul.2

Such a view of Puritan devotion, while rather shocking to the modern world’s conception of

Puritanism, is sufficiently nuanced to begin to engage the qualities—both positive and negative

—which Puritanism demonstrated in reality.

The negative assessment of the Puritan ethos extends—to some degree appropriately—to

their attitude toward the sacraments. Brooks Holifield notes that “later seventeenth-century

Puritanism is not generally associated with eucharistic preoccupations. Such heirs of Puritan

spirituality as Quakers and smaller sectarian groups, who discarded sacraments, have seemed to

express the inner tendencies of Puritan piety.”3 Throughout the period of sacramental conflict

1 Thomas B. Macaulay, The History of England from the Accession of James II (Philadelphia: Porter & Coates, 1882) , 109, quoted in Belden C. Lane, Ravished by Beauty, The Surprising Legacy of Reformed Spirituality (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 78. The reference for the Mencken quote is not given.

2 Lane, 77.3 E. Brooks Holifield, The Covenant Sealed: The development of Puritan Sacramental Theology in Old and New

England, 1570-1720 (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1974), 110.

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leading up to the English Civil War, “Puritan ministers seemingly wrote only to oppose Laud’s

program of restoring ‘altars’ to English churches.... They wrongly accused Laudians of holding

to Roman Catholic notions of propitiatory sacrifice, corporeal presence, and a sacerdotal

priesthood.”4 Yet, while many Puritan sacramental writings focused on polemics and often failed

to fairly engage their opponents’ arguments,

many Puritan ministers were also engaging in positive efforts to revise—or to reaffirm—traditional Reformed doctrines.... Their sacramental concerns... manifested a sensitivity to the seventeenth century’s changing vision of reality and how it is known. The resurgence of sacramental debate and devotion paralleled an expanding conviction that the visible, finite, corporeal creation should be incorporated more fully into the life of piety.5

This paper will seek to trace the development of Puritan Eucharistic theology from its

origins in the early continental reformers and Thomas Cranmer, through the debates and writings

of the seventeenth century, arguing that the mainstream of Puritan Eucharistic theology was not

Zwinglianism or Enlightenment memorialism as is often assumed but was, for the most part,

generally in keeping with the theology of Calvin. In claiming this, however, it must be noted

that there were also concepts within Puritan thought which could lead to sacramental

minimalism, theological ambiguity, and neglect.

Origins of Puritan Sacramental Theology:

Puritan Eucharistic theology naturally flowed from and responded to the Eucharistic

debates of the magisterial reformers on the continent in the mid-sixteenth century. It was

specifically the interaction between the Genevan reformation and the exiles of the English

reformation which gave birth to early Puritanism. Stephen Mayor even says that “the early

history of Dissent [i.e. the Nonconformist tradition of the Puritan movement] can be interpreted

4 Ibid.5 Ibid.

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as what happens when you put the ideas of Calvin in the world of Elizabeth I.”6 John Knox

served as chaplain to the English community in Geneva during Mary Tudor’s reign in England

and he produced an English Eucharistic service for this community which followed closely to

Calvin’s model.7 Such institutions of later Puritanism as commonly celebrating the sacrament

monthly seem to have originated in this context as the frequency of celebration mandated by the

Genevan magistrates was also monthly, despite Calvin’s desire for weekly celebration. In about

1584 a group of English Puritans published a service order called the Waldegrave liturgy, in

which the celebration of the Lord’s Supper is “virtually identical with Knox.”8 Thus the form of

the early Puritan celebration depended heavily on developments in Geneva.

While the Puritan movement may have drawn its forms and much of its theology from

Calvin it was, of course, an English movement and its geographical and cultural context was the

Anglican Church of Elizabeth I, which had been given much of its shape by Thomas Cranmer.

Cranmer himself was influenced by the continental reformers and an examination of his

Eucharistic theology is important to understand the influences which shaped early Puritan

Eucharistic reflection and practice.

Cranmer served as the Archbishop of Canterbury under Henry VIII and Edward IV, and

was influential in the separation of the English Church from Rome. Concerned with reforming

the church not only in structure but also in doctrine and practice, Cranmer was only able to move

slowly during the reign of Henry VIII. With the ascension of Edward IV to the English throne

Cranmer’s reformation was able to proceed much more quickly and he produced a great deal of

doctrinal material in addition to the Book of Common Prayer which substantially altered the

6 Stephen Mayor, The Lord’s Supper in Early English Dissent (London: Epworth Press, 1972), ix.7 Ibid., 3.8 Ibid., 11.

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liturgical practice of the English churches. With the ascension of Mary to the throne, the English

reformation came to a halt as Mary attempted to restore the church to her own Roman Catholic

faith. Cranmer was imprisoned for two years and induced to recant of much of his previous

work. He was burned at the stake on March 21, 1556, but on the day of his execution he

dramatically retracted his recantations, stating his fidelity to his previous beliefs.

Throughout Cranmer’s career his theology, particularly his Eucharistic theology,

continued to develop. When Cranmer was on trial for heresy at Oxford the representative of the

Roman Church accused him have having taught, “three contrary doctrines” concerning the

Eucharist, to which Cranmer replied, “Nay, I taught but two contrary doctrines in the same.”9

This statement has caused some confusion because scholars detect four distinct periods in

Cranmer’s Eucharistic belief.

In 1537 Cranmer corresponded with the Swiss reformer Joachim Vadianus, a theologian

of the Zwinglian tradition. Vadianus had sent Cranmer a number of his books in hope of

“winning him from his adherence to the Real Presence.”10 In his response, Cranmer commends

Vadianus’ attacks on the abuses of the Roman Church, but condemns his stance against the

Church’s Eucharistic doctrine, claiming that it has abundant support in the patristic writers and in

Scripture.11 The letter shows that, at this point, Cranmer still held to the doctrine of

transubstantiation.

The following year, however, in August of 1538, Cranmer wrote a letter to Thomas

Cromwell in which he described the case of one Damplip of Calice who held to the presence of

the body and blood of Christ in the sacrament, but who “confuted the opinion of the 9 Thomas Cranmer, Miscellaneous Writings and Letters of Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury, Martyr,

1556, John Edmund Cox, ed. (Cambridge: Parker Society, 1846), 218, quoted in Peter Brooks, Thomas Cranmer’s Doctrine of the Eucharist, an Essay in Historical Development (New York: The Seabury Press, 1965), 2.

10 Brooks., 4.11 Ibid., 4-5.

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transubstantiation, and therein I think he taught but the truth.”12 This letter gives evidence of

what many call a “Lutheran phase” in Cranmer’s theology, in which he held to the doctrine of

physical presence while denying transubstantiation. Brooks concludes,

it would seem as if evidence is not lacking that shows Cranmer to have been considerably indebted to Wittenberg in the years before 1546. However, the progress that followed also suggests that the Archbishop was motivated not so much by theological affinity, as as by a shared loyalty to Scripture and a resolute refusal to assess the eucharistic presence by reference to any other categories. In short, Cranmer’s respect for Luther resulted from Luther’s respect for the Word.13

It seems that it was the influence of Nicholas Ridley which first moved Cranmer from a

Eucharistic position which rejected transubstantiation and propitiatory sacrifice while holding to

a corporeal presence, to a position which Brooks has labeled a ‘True’ presence as opposed to a

‘Real’ presence.14 Cranmer stated at his Oxford trial, “doctor Ridley, did confer with me, and by

sundry persuasions and authorities of doctors drew me quite from my opinion.”15 Brooks places

this transition in 1546 on the authority of Sir John Cheke, “an intimate and well-informed friend

of Cranmer.”16 Cranmer stated his understanding of the sacrament during this phase most clearly

in the Debate on the Sacraments in the Lords in 1548. There he made statements which smack

of a Zwinglian understanding and identify the sacrament with the believer’s action: “to have

Christ present really here, when I may receave hym in faith, is not avayleable to do me goode”17

and “They be twoo things to eate the sacrament and to eate the Bodie of Christ. The eating of

the bodie is to dwell in Christ, and this may be thoo a man never taste the Sacrament.”18

12 Cranmer, 375, quoted in Ibid., 8.13 Brooks., 36-7.14 Ibid., 38.15 Cranmer, 218, quoted in Ibid., 38.16 Brooks, 38.17 Cranmer, in Certayne Notes touching the Disputacions of the Byshoppes in this law Parliament assembled, of

the Lorde’s Supper (British Museum, MS Royal, 17 B XXXIX, fol. 29b), quoted in Ibid., 47.18 Cranmer, in MS Royal, 17 B XXXIX, fol. 3a, quoted in Brooks, 48.

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Brooks characterizes the final phase in Cranmer’s Eucharistic development as his

“Mature Concept of ‘True’ Presence Doctrine.”19 This phase is best documented in Cranmer’s A

Defense of the True and Catholic Doctrine of the Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Our

Savior Christ published in 1550.20 The most central issues for Cranmer in this work are rejection

of the idea of the Eucharist as a propitiatory sacrifice, and establishing its identification with the

doctrine of justification by faith. In discussing the nature of the presence of Christ in the

sacrament in this work Cranmer states that “my words are so plain, that the least child... in the

town may understand them.”21 To characterize such a teaching as fully in line with Calvin’s

teaching, however, seems problematic as Calvin himself made no such claims of his Eucharistic

teaching, even stating that, “I shall not be ashamed to confess that it is a secret too lofty for either

my mind to comprehend or my words to declare. And, to speak more plainly, I rather experience

than understand it.”22 However, Cranmer did distance himself from many aspects of a Zwinglian

interpretation. Brooks notes that Cranmer’s approach to the words of institution has more in 19 A difficulty in Brooks’ presentation of Cranmer’s theology is the way in which he differentiates the

“Zwinglian” phase from this later, more Calvinist, phase, and the terminology Brooks uses to describe the whole process. He refers to Cranmer’s “Lutheran” phase as a belief in the “real” presence, while he sees both the “Zwinglian” and “Calvinist” phases as distinctions within what he calls a belief in the “true” presence. He defends the use of these terms stating that, “Such epithets not only have a validity in sixteenth-century eucharistic terminology, but avoid further usage of the many label descriptions that have hitherto enjoyed an altogether unwarrantable currency among historians and theologians” (Ibid., 43, footnote I). These epithets do not clear up as much as Brooks seems to think; particularly given that, in his conclusion to his description of Calvin’s position, Brooks quotes from Calvin’s Petit Traicté where (in the English translation) Calvin uses the two terms side-by-side to describe his own position: “according to the Lord’s command, we are truly made partakers of the real substance of the body and blood of Jesus Christ” (quoted in Ibid., 71 – emphasis mine). Brooks conflates the terms “spiritual” and “true” (Ibid., 43), and places “true” and “real” in contrast; it seems he equates “real” with “physical,” summarizing Calvin’s position with the statement, “although there is thus no substantial Real Presence in the Lutheran sense – Calvin rejected the idea out of hand and stressed that the Lord is locally circumscribed at the Father’s right hand on high – the benefits wrought by Christ’s body are nevertheless available in the Sacrament” (Ibid., 67). Given the Petit Tracté, as well as numerous other of Calvin’s writings, explicitly use “real” and “substantial” to describe Calvin’s view, the contrast between “true” and “real” seems an unhelpful way of describing the distinction on Brooks’ part. It is unclear whether Cranmer himself was even aware of this distinction as I shall address below.

20 Ibid, 77.21 Cranmer, Archbishop Cranmer on the True and Catholic Doctrine and Use of the Sacrament of the Lord’s

Supper, Charles H.H. Wright, (London: Protestant Reformation Society, 1907), 140, quoted in Ibid., 87.22 John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, IV xvii, 32, ed. John T. McNeill, trans. Ford Lewis Battles

(Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1960), 1403.

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common with John of Oecolamadius than it does Zwingli’s est = significat.23 Further distinction

from Zwingli’s position can be seen in Cranmer’s statement that, “the faithful communicant

‘spiritually’ ate and drank ‘the very flesh and blood of Christ, which is in heaven and sitteth on

the right hand of his Father.”24 Yet Cranmer’s explanations of the Eucharist seem often to view

the activity of the Eucharist as subjective only,25 and the presence of Christ in the Eucharist as no

more significant than his presence in the believer’s life in general.26 Such a view of the “true”

presence of Christ in the Eucharist does not square with Calvin’s description of the sacrament in

which the presence of Christ is objective as well as unique: experienced in a way distinct from its

experience in the rest of the believer’s life.27 This is not to say that there is not great similarity

between Cranmer’s beliefs and Calvin’s, or that this similarity did not grow with the

developments of the later Calvinist tradition. It is important to note, however, the distinctions

between Cranmer’s earlier “true presence” belief and Zwingli’s Eucharistic theology, and

between Cranmer’s later “true presence” belief and Calvin’s Eucharistic theology.

23 Brooks, 90.24 Cranmer, A Defense of the True and Catholic Doctrine of the Sacrament of the Body and Blood of our Saviour

Christ, in The Works of Thomas Cranmer, ed. G.E. Duffield (Appleford: Berkshire, 1964), 65, quoted in Holifield, 29.

25 Brooks states that Cranmer conceives the Eucharist as, “a physical analogy of God’s spiritual and invisible sustenance” (Brooks., 95). This is such that spiritual feeding may be described in terms which seem to make it a mental exercise: “Faithful christian people, such as be Christ’s true disciples, continually from time to time record in their minds the beneficial death of our Saviour Christ, chewing it by faith in the cud of their spirit, and digesting it in their hearts, feeding and comforting themselves with that heavenly meat, although they daily receive not the sacrament thereof; and so they eat Christ’s body spiritually, although not the sacrament thereof” (Cranmer, Writings and Disputations of Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury, Martyr 1556, Relative to the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper, John Edmund Cox, ed. (Cambridge: Parker Soceity, 1844), 70-71, quoted in Ibid.).

26 Cranmer states, “Doth not God’s word teach a true presence of Christ in spirit, where he is not present in his corporal substance? As when he saith: ‘Where two or three be gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.’ And also when he saith: ‘I shall be with you till the end of the world.’ Was it not a true presence that Christ in these places promised?” (Cranmer, Writings and Disputations, 61, quoted in Brooks, 93).

27 “This name and title of body and blood is given to them [the bread and wine] because they are as it were instruments by which the Lord distributes them to us. This form and manner of speaking is very appropriate. For as the communion which we have with the body of Christ is a thing incomprehensible, not only to the eye but to our natural sense, it is there visibly demonstrated to us” (Calvin, “Short Treatise on the Lord’s Supper” in Thomas F. Torrance, ed., Tracts and Treatises on the Doctrine and Worship of the Church, tr. Henry Beveridge, [Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1958], 171).

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It seems then that Brooks has accurately documented four distinct phases in Cranmer’s

Eucharistic formation. Cranmer himself may not have been aware of the subtleties between his

early “true” presence view and his “mature” concept of the “true” presence. This would explain

his statement at his Oxford trial of only having preached two doctrines contrary to the

Scriptures.28 This latter iteration of Cranmer’s Eucharistic theology, located somewhere between

the teachings of Zwingli and Calvin, and in general agreement with the formulations of the later

Calvinist tradition, formed the liturgical context for the development of early Puritan Eucharistic

theology.

Elizabethan Puritan Sacramental Theology:

The primary distinctions between the early Puritans and Cranmer were not so much

theological as practical. In the 1572 Admonition to Parliament of Thomas Field and John

Wilcox, a demand for radical reform of the practices of the English church, the Eucharistic

complaints focus on issues such as, “kneeling at communion, the use of wafer cakes, the

repetition of the Nicene Creed, the reading of disconnected fragments from Scripture, the singing

of the Gloria, and the pomposity of ‘singing, pyping, surplesse and cope wearyng.’”29 Concerns

over practices sprang from two sources: first, the Puritan application of the Regulative Principle

and, second, a focus in Puritan thinking on the relationship of the sacrament to Calvary. The first

source is a hyper-literal application of the the Reformed tradition’s Regulative Principle which

taught that the Church may only include in its liturgy what it is explicitly commanded in

Scripture. Because of this the Puritans saw all elements in the Book of Common Prayer which

had no specific command in Scripture as illegitimate embellishments which served to invalidate

28 Brooks suggests that Cranmer’s statement, given, “at a moment when he was submitted to all the anxieties of a sixteenth-century heresy trial” should not be viewed as, “a well-nigh infallible and authoritative comment on his own doctrinal development” (Brooks, 13). It could very well be the case, however, that Cranmer himself did not see four distinct positions in his thought, even if others have demonstrated such distinctions in retrospect.

29 Holifield, 33-4.

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worship. The second source, the focus on the relationship between the Eucharist and Calvary—

as opposed to the order of redemption in some more general sense—was so great that the

Puritans could be called the “extreme examples of the Western tradition.”30 Because the

Eucharist identifies the participant with Christ’s work on Calvary, they saw an urgent need for

personal moral purity, achieved through careful self-examination and repentance. Without such

examination Puritans believed that the participant eats and drinks judgment on themselves. Such

a need for individual, subjective examination and purity demanded careful oversight by the

Christian community in order to ensure that the sacrament was not being observed unworthily—

and thus invalidly.

Henry Barrow, in his book A Brief Discoverie of the False Church, written in prison in

1589-90, notes three parts required of a valid sacrament. “1. a lawful minister of the gospel to

deliver them. 2. a faithful people of their seed to receave them. 3. the outward elementes and

forme of wordes which our saviour Christ hath ordeined thereunto.”31 Several things can be seen

in this statement. One is the concern for purity on the part of the recipients of the sacrament. A

major Puritan objection to the practice of the Church of England was the lack of controls to

insure that only believers were participating in the sacraments. In A Brief Summe of the Causes

of Our Seperation, published in 1591, Barrow states his concern “that all the prophane multitude

(without exception of anie person) are admitted and reteined into the bozome of the church” and

that “the prayer or worship of the faithful is poluted if ther be prophane men in companie.”32

Because of their deep concern for pure communion it was imperative that only believers who

were properly prepared be admitted to the table, for the protection of the church, the sacrament

30 Gordon S. Wakefield, Puritan Devotion (1957), 46-52, quoted in Mayor, 15.31 Henry Barrow, The Writings of Henry Barrow 1587-1590, Leland H. Carson, ed. (London: George Allen and

Unwin Ltd., 1962), 418.32 Barrow, 133.

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and the participants. In order to ensure this, a second concern of the Puritans is noted in

Barrow’s statement: that the officiator of the sacrament be a minister of the gospel, an ordained

leader of the church. This was to ensure both of the other items Barrow’s list. The minister

limited who could partake of the sacrament, but also ensured that the sacrament was

administered exactly—and rather woodenly—according to the forms found in Scripture, as

interpreted through the grid of the Puritan application of the Regulative Principle.

These concerns also flowed out of a conviction that the sacraments were not only

individual means of grace, but a communal covenant seal as well.33 Because worship was the

covenant responsibility of God’s people and the sacraments the seal of their covenant

relationship the purity of both was tantamount. The concept of the sacraments as seals of the

covenant was an early, and important one for Puritanism. John Hooper, Bishop of Gloucester,

was an early proponent of this view. In his “Answer to the Bishop of Winchester” in 1548

Hooper wrote,

all sacraments appertaineth unto none but unto such as first receive the promise of God, to say, remission of his sin in Christ's blood : of the which promise these sacraments be testimonies, witnesses ; as the seal annexed unto the writing is a stablishment and making good of all things contained and specified within the writing.... When the matter entreated between two parties is fully concluded upon, it is confirmed with obligations sealed interchangeably, that for ever those seals may be a witness of such covenants, as hath been agreed upon between the both parties. And these writings and seals maketh not the bargain, but confirmeth the bargain that is made.34

The two parties for which the sacraments were a seal of covenant were Christ and the

Church, more than the individual believer. Hence the Puritan concern for the communal aspect

of the sacraments. If the sacrament is a covenantal seal between the community and God, then

the purity of the community is of utmost importance. This communal thrust can be seen in their

33 Holifield, 63.34 John Hooper, Early Writings of John Hooper, Samuel Carr, ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,

1843), 136.

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renunciation of private sacramental observance, and their complaints against the use of singular

pronouns in addressing the congregants in the administration liturgy.35

How various Puritans pursued this ideal of communal holiness caused a split within the

movement. Puritanism began as a movement to reform and restructure the church—as well as

personal piety—according to strict interpretations of Scripture. Men such as Field and Wilcox

wrote their petitions to Parliament expressly for this purpose. As time went on, such actions met

with little advance, and much opposition. Failures of Puritan ministers to conform to the

liturgical specifics of the Book of Common Prayer resulted in prison and exile. The attempts to

bring about reform through parliamentary efforts in the 1570s were ultimately quelled by

Elizabeth’s determination to prevent parliamentary interference in the church over which she was

Supreme Governor. On the whole, “the Elizabethan Puritan political program... was to agitate

for further reform in the church without overstepping the limits of passive resistance. Most of

the party further restricted their activities to the bounds set by the constitution of the established

church, refusing to set up any rival organization.”36 There were, however, exceptions to this rule.

Some felt that the immediate establishment of pure congregations worshiping according to strict

Puritan interpretation was more important than the reform of the broader church. As early as

summer 1567 two Separatist groups were meeting in London.37 Barrow, quoted above, is an

example of a Separatist pastor, and his statements against the established church could be very

harsh. In his examination at the Bishop of London’s palace in 1589 Barrow was asked,

wither he thinketh that the sacraments which are publikly administered in the Church of England be true sacraments or no?... I thinke that the sacraments as they they are ministered in these publike assemblies are not true sacramentes: and seale not the favor and blessing of God unto them.... Wither the Church of England as it standeth now established be the true

35 Holifield, 37.36 Marshall M. Knappen, Tudor Puritanism, a Chapter in the History of Idealism, (Glouchester, MA: Peter

Smith, 1963), 303.37 Ibid., 212.

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established church of Christ: and whither the people therein be the true and faithful people of God, or no.... I thinke that these parish assemblies as they stand generally in England are not the true established... churches of Christ: and that the people as they now stand in this disorder and confusion in them are not to be held the true and faithful people of Christ.38

Barrow’s conviction is representative of many among the Separatists. In 1593, after

seven years in prison, Barrow was hanged for sedition on the argument that “any attempt to set

up a rival to the established church was an effort to overthrow the government.”39 Opposition,

however, did not stamp out either arm of the movement, and both conforming ministers and

Separatists continued to play an important role in the religious life of England.

With respect to the nature of Christ’s presence in the Eucharist, the early Puritans—both

conforming and Separatist—were given to ambiguity. Holifield notes,

The early Puritan theologians cannot be distinguished from one another doctrinally, at least not in sacramental matters. Their presuppositions about spirit and flesh, finitude and infinity, divine sovereignty and human inability, sensuous imagination and rational subjectivity created a common ambivalence about sacraments.40

While they may have been ambivalent, they were not entirely silent. In Dudley Fenner’s

1588 treatise The Whole Doctrine of the Sacraments a thorough-going Calvinism is

demonstrated: “in the Lord’s Supper the faithful Christian received spiritually not only the

benefits of Christ, but Christ himself, both as God and man, through the activity of the Holy

Spirit.”41 Fenner did lack Calvin’s sense of sacramental mystery, however, and in this he is more

in keeping with Cranmer.

To say that the Puritans were thoroughly Calvinist in their sacramental views, while

saying they were ambiguous on a topic which Calvin spent hundreds of pages working out, is

something of a misnomer. As Mayor points out,

38 Barrow, 196-7.39 Knappen, 310.40 Holifield., 61.41 Ibid., 35.

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Those who take for granted what their predecessors repeatedly proclaim with emphasis are on the way to a different position. The new position was not the abandonment nor even the neglect of the Sacraments, which were regarded with reverence by the Separatists, but the observance of them as a fairly formal if still essential part of the Church’s life. The center of interest was elsewhere. The maintenance of a doctrine of Churchmanship, which included the faithful dispensing of the Lord’s Supper to true believers by a preaching ministry, was what really concerned them, and they lacked the great Reformers’ recognition fo the centrality of the Eucharist to the life and worship of the Christian community.42

Thus, while not abandoning the sacramental theology of their predecessors, the early

Puritans attitude toward sacramental theology began a trajectory that was to have significant

consequences for the future of the movement.

Seventeenth Century Puritan Sacramental Theology:

The seventeenth century was very significant for Puritanism as the movement played

such a vital role in the political developments surrounding the English Civil War. I will not

attempt to consider the political developments here, but will focus on the actions of the

Westminster Assembly relevant to sacramental theology as that assemblage served as the focal

point of Puritan debate in the century and gave shape to the nature of Puritanism from that time

on.

Politically, the high point of Puritanism in England was the government of Oliver

Cromwell, and it was under his government that the Westminster Assembly was called to lay out

a systematic summary of Puritan doctrine. This body—made up of 121 ministers, representing

Anglican, conforming and Separatist interests; 30 lay assessors; and six commissioners from the

Church of Scotland, who functioned only in an advisory capacity—met from 1643-1649 and

produced the Westminster Confession of Faith, the Larger and Shorter Catechisms and the

Directory for the Publick Worship of God. Typical of Puritanism—though the nature of the

documents must be taken into account here—the treatment of the sacraments is relatively brief:

42 Mayor, 46.

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less than 1200 words in the Confession, for example. It is consistent in its Calvinism, though

there is less sense of mystery (the word is not used in describing the sacraments themselves), and

the focus on denying Catholic and Lutheran doctrine makes the significance of the real presence

of Christ less considerable than it is in Calvin. The chapter on the Lord’s Supper in the

Confession states that Christ instituted the sacrament,

for the perpetual remembrance of the sacrifice of himself in his death, the sealing all benefits thereof unto true believers, their spiritual nourishment and growth in him, their further engagement in and to all duties which they owe unto him, and to be a bond and pledge of their communion with him, and with each other, as members of his mystical body.43

The chapter goes on to deny the sacrament as a propitiatory sacrifice; transubstantiation;

private masses; the corporal or carnal presence of Christ in, with, or under the elements; or that

unworthy recipients actually receive the thing signified in the elements, though they do still

condemn themselves by partaking. While most of the chapter is spent in negative affirmations,

the Confession does state positively that worthy participants do through the visible elements,

“really and indeed... spiritually, receive, and feed upon, Christ crucified, and all benefits of his

death.” In the Directory for the Publick Worship of God, more positive affirmations are evident.

The Directory calls for “frequent” celebration but explicitly states that what this means is left up

to the individual congregation to determine. The concern for limiting participation and for

personal examination is very evident:

The ignorant and the scandalous are not fit to receive the sacrament of the Lord's Supper. Where this sacrament cannot with convenience be frequently administered, it is requisite that publick warning be given the sabbath-day before the administration thereof: and that either then, or on some day of that week, something concerning that ordinance, and the due preparation thereunto, and participation thereof, be taught; that, by the diligent use of all means sanctified of God to that end, both in publick and private, all may come better prepared to that heavenly feast.44

43 Westminster Confession of Faith, 29.1 in The Confession of Faith; the Larger and Shorter Catechisms with the Scripture Proofs at Large: together with The Sum of Saving Knowledge (Belfast: Graham and Heslip, 1933), 93.

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However, the warning is also to include encouragement: “invite and encourage all that

labour under the sense of the burden of their sins, and fear of wrath, and desire to reach out unto

a greater progress in grace than yet they can attain unto, to come to the Lord's table; assuring

them, in the same name, of ease, refreshing, and strength to their weak and wearied souls.”45 The

minister is exhorted to express, “the inestimable benefit we have by this sacrament.”46 The

minister is to thank God, “for this sacrament in particular, by which Christ, and all his benefits,

are applied and sealed up unto us.”47

This outlook on the sacraments is typical of individual Puritans throughout the century.

Perhaps the most important debate within the Westminster Assembly concerning the sacraments

was the Erastian Controversy. Church discipline had long been important to the puritans, so

much so that it was identified as one of the three marks of the Church, along with faithful

proclamation of the Word and faithful administration of the Sacraments.48 Defining carefully the

difference between excommunication and “Sequestration from the Sacrament” became an

important goal in the early months of the assembly.49 For most Puritans this definition would

allow the churches more positive influence in society by more careful discipline of their

membership. There was a group, however, called the Erastians, who felt that suspending the

ungodly from the sacraments would serve to hinder the moral reformation of society.50 William

Prynne became a main spokesman of this position and based his arguments on a distinction

44 The Directory for the Publick Worship of God, “Of the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper” in Sinclair B. Ferguson & Mark Dever, eds., The Westminster Directory of Public Worship (Fearn, Scotland: Christian Focus Publications Ltd., 2008), 105.

45 Ibid., 106.46 Ibid., 105.47 Ibid., 107.48 Mayor, 29-30.49 Holifield, 111.50 Ibid.

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between two kinds of conversions. He claimed that nonbelieving adults were normally

converted by the Word, while infants were normally converted by the sacrament of baptism. In

both of these instances the “conversion” was formal entry into the visible institution of the

church as, even for the adult, this “conversion” was a “meere externall formal profession of the

Doctrine,” and still required an “inward spiritual embracing and application of Christ.” The

Lord’s Supper was, for these Christians, a “regenerating and converting Ordinance.”51 While

Prynne’s arguments were rejected by the assembly, he raised issues which would shape the

nature of Puritan sacramental debate for the rest of the century. Most significant of these to this

study is Prynne’s questioning of the relation between the presence of Christ and the efficacy of

the Lord’s Supper. Prynne claimed that, “we have a more immediate intercourse with God and

Christ in this sacrament, then in any other Ordinance whatsoever.”52 Despite this statement,

Prynne conceived of the presence in terms of merits and benefits, rather than spiritual substance,

and thought that the benefits of Christ were communicated so effectively in the sacrament only

because it appealed to more senses than the Word.53 In this, Prynne was continuing a common

understanding of the early Puritan tradition that, “the sacramental Word, like all words, was

addressed to the understanding.”54

Prynne’s views influenced the thinking of some Puritans and debate continued between

these and others who sought a more traditionally Calvinist explanation of Christ’s presence. One

of the foremost of those who defended the Calvinist position was Roger Drake, who stated that

in the sacrament, the believing communicant, “eats Christ more than at the word” and went so far

51 William Prynne, A Vindication of foure Serious Questions of Grand Importance Concerning Excommunication and Suspention from the Sacrament of the Lords Supper (London, 1645), 40-41 quoted in Ibid., 114.

52 Prynne, 42, in Ibid., 116.53 Holifield.54 Ibid., 126.

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as to state “that the bread was ‘Christs body by consecration’ even before it was eaten;

‘otherwise the Minister would utter an untruth in speaking those words, Take eat, this is Christs

body, et.’”55 This robust defense of the objective presence paved the way for a flourishing of

sacramental meditation and piety within the Puritan movement, reflected in a burst of

publications of sacramental meditations, treatises, sermons and manuals.

Among those who participated in this sacramental awakening was John Owen, a

Separatist minister, theologian, vice-chancellor of Oxford, and chaplain to Oliver Cromwell.

Some years after the restoration of the monarchy he preached a series of eucharistic sermons, in

which he taught that, while faith is essential to the believer’s reception of Christ in the Eucharist,

Christ is objectively and really received in the Lord’s Supper. The elements are not causal, but

they are not “merely symbols. Without them there is no Lord’s Supper. The believer’s reception

of Christ is mysterious, but real.”56 Owen also accented the uniqueness of Christ’s presence in

the Eucharist, more so even than Calvin had, stating, “It is a common received notion among

Christians, and it is true, that there is a peculiar communion with Christ in this ordinance, which

we have in no other ordinance.”57 Holifield notes, “Owen shared Calvin’s sense of sacramental

mystery: communion with Christ, he said, ‘was always esteemed the principal mystery in the

agenda of the church.’”58 Yet the position of the Eucharist in Owen’s theology should not be

overstated. Owen was a prolific writer, and given to great care and enormous precision. Yet the

proportion of his Eucharistic writings is rather insignificant in comparison to the rest of his

works, or in comparison to the proportion of Calvin’s works dedicated to the topic. Neither is

55 Roger Drake, The Bar, against Free Admission to the Lords Supper, Fixed, or an Answer to Mr. Humfrey his Rejoynder, or Reply (London, 1659) 364, quoted in Ibid., 125-6.

56 Mayor, 119, emphasis his.57 Holifiled, 131. 58 Owen, Works, 9: 524, 620; 8: 560, quoted in Ibid. Holifield notes that “agenda” meant “liturgy.”

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Owen’s eucharistic theology fully developed and, “it is inclined to be rather casual, a criticism

one would not generally level at his works.”59 While the Eucharist is essential to the Christian

life for Owen, it is not central. Though he encouraged frequent—even weekly—celebration he

was careful to protect the individual congregation’s right to choose the frequency. Yet Owen

warned that without the Lord’s Supper there “is a gap in the life of the Church and of the

individual believer which is potentially disastrous.”60

This flowering of sacramental piety is not the only trajectory of seventeenth century

Puritanism. It must be acknowledged that the ambiguity with which most Puritans approached

the sacraments, and the conception that all words—Sacramental or Scriptural—must be

addressed to the reason tended toward a sacramental minimalism in some communities,

particularly the Baptist movement which sprang out of Puritanism, and even complete neglect

and rejection as in the case of the Quakers. The concern for the piety of the individual

communicant led in some cases to situations where the congregation’s high regard for the

spiritual condition of the participants prevented them from celebrating the sacrament at all for

long periods of time.61 Such a view is inherently unstable. Nevertheless, throughout the

sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the mainstream of Puritanism sought to resist the most

damaging of these tendencies and to correct those ministers who would downplay the realities of

the sacramental presence of Christ or the importance of the sacrament to the life of the believer.

Sadly, it was the more rationalistic and minimalistic tendencies which largely triumphed in later

Puritanism, and gave shape to the sacramental theology of much of modern mainstream and

Evangelical Protestantism. Despite this, it is clear that there was a place in Puritanism for a

59 Mayor, 119.60 Ibid.61 Ibid., 43.

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richer Eucharistic theology, and in fact that place frequently occupied the mainstream of Puritan

consciousness. It would be beneficial to the modern church communities which are heirs of the

Puritan tradition to reconnect with the trajectory of sacramental richness which has at times

directed the theological reflection of their tradition. Despite certain weaknesses there is much

ground there for development which could feed the growing sacramental interest of modern

evangelicalism.

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