… book without doing the most minute research. This being a highly debatable subject, I re-consulted Cromwell’s writings, contemporary works of Anglicans, Presbyterians, Congregationalist and Baptists, Parliamentary documents and four major biographies. I also re-read Dr. Urwick’s brief biography of Howe, an avowed opponent of state-controlled religion whether Cromwellian or Stuart, and dipped into Howe’s six volumed works. The author-editor discussed the work with me on the friendliest …
Posts Tagged Cromwell
Cromwell Queried
Aug 21
… artillery projectile filled with material intended to explode on landing. Thus Reilly says of Cromwell’s bombardment: “The shells were effectively flung from their barrels to land from above and would explode on impact. The shell itself was a hollow, iron sphere, filled with gunpowder and a slow burning fuse which would detonate as it landed,” p. 60. Reilly also, obviously following Cromwell (Letters CIII-CVII, Carlyle, vol. 2), describes the shelling of Protestant churches in …
Letter sent to the English Churchman defending criticism of the Cromwell ‘Get Rich Quickly’ Merciless Slaughter in Ireland.
Sir:
Mr Spanner would replace my facts with his opinions. If Cromwell believed in religious liberty why did he outlaw the Church of England, rid Parliament of almost half of its reformed members (Presbyterians) and persecute Baptists, Quakers and other Christian denominations? Why did Love, Adams, Featley, Hall, …
To Honour God
Aug 17
To Honour God: The Spirituality of Oliver Cromwell (134 pages)
Classics of Reformed Spirituality Series Edited and introduced by Michael A. G. Haykin.
The pimples and warts of the Protector
The editor opens up this fine little book by explaining that Cromwell (1599-1658) liked to have his portrait painted with all his “roughness, pimples, warts and everything.” History has taken Cromwell at his word. The verbal …
Men Not Gods
Sep 9
… claiming that the English Church of the Reformation had become corrupt and the rebellion of Oliver Cromwell and the Enlightenment philosophy of Samuel Rutherford put England back on the Reformation path.
Men of Two Natures
Sir: Both Oliver Cromwell and Samuel Rutherford were not gods but men of two natures. Today, Protestants are re-discovering Cromwell ‘warts and all’ and are beginning to realise that Rutherford had a similar verrucosis. Indeed, the political and …
Apostate Church of England
Dec 17
… with the Commonwealth Usurpation. The big surprise in 1662 was that so many who had eagerly joined Cromwell’s Puppet Church, set up by his Model Army and Model Parliament, were equally eager to join the Restoration Episcopal Church which sadly, and very much as a result of this, never regained its former purity. It was leading Independents under Cromwell such as John Tillotson who led the new Rump Church of England along an ever descending path.
It is no use setting up the Aunt …
Contra Relf
Nov 10
… readers’ letters and an article condemning the Church of the English Reformation and supporting Cromwell’s persecutions.
Sir:
In allaying Mr Relf’s fears regarding my research expressed in his April 5th article, I shall keep to the evidence he provides. Bishop Neill, though no authority on this period, confirms the persecuting nature of the times. The Cromwellian definition of ‘malignants, delinquents and scandalous ministers’ was that they refused to accept the …
… gives, most were opposed to the Commonwealth and friends of Christopher Love whose blood fell on Cromwell’s hands. Baxter, their spokesman, called the Commonwealth ‘odious’, and, after Love’s martyrdom, said “The most of the ministers and good people of the land did look upon the New Commonwealth as tyranny, and were more alienated from them than before.” Cromwell, he claimed, found everything lawful that fostered his own exaltation. Farmer’s comments remind us that the laws to …
… comparison between the persecuted and martyrs of dissenting Anglicanism and Presbyterianism under Cromwell and those of the Restitution. Are names such as Hall, Usher, Ward, Featley, Balcanqual and Love unfamiliar to him? Many ‘godly Puritans’ suffered under and documented both persecutions, the second of which was a sad reaction to the first. Twice persecuted Baxter’s severe criticism of both Cromwell and the Restitution Parliament are extant.
My book testifies to …
Demythologising History
Nov 9
… claim that Presbyterians were not consulted concerning union is false. Charles I, Oliver Cromwell and Charles II spent years seeking union with Presbyterianism, conceding far more than they demanded (See John Durie and Robert Leighton). However, Scottish Presbyterians stubbornly fought for a pan-British take-over with a structure of terror, discipline and order hitherto unknown within Reformed churches. Contemporary unionists Richard Sibbes, John Davenport, Samuel Ward, Richard …
