The Reformed Pastor in English Puritanism

Abstract

This paper examines the tensions between aspiration and actuality in the practice of Puritan ministry in early modern England. The English Reformation was essentially Reformed in character, and its theological affinities lay with the churches of Switzerland. But it retained most of its medieval Catholic structures and canon law, and the post-reformation Church of England lacked the institutional frame work for the exercise of pastoral Discipline which Reformed eccle siology considered essential. The paper explores the problems of identity and action which this created for Puritan clergy, with ref erence to the informal exercise of discipline in late Elizabethan and early Stuart England; the paper concludes with an examination of the pastoral initiatives and writings of Richard Baxter in the 1650s, and the eventual frustration of his attempts to reform and redefine the practice of Reformed ministry in mid Stuart England.