PURITANS, a name first given, according to Fuller in 1564, and according to Strype in 1569, to those clergymen of the church of England who refused to conform to its liturgy, ceremonies, and discipline as arranged by archbishop Parker and his Episcopal coadjutors. But in point of fact, the puritan tendency in the church of End land is as old as the church itself; and to seek for its true origin we must go back to the period of Cranmer, who, when laying the foundations of English Protestantism in a. nation only half-prepared for the change, found it necessary to make concessions to the older religion, and to Build the new church on an elaborate system of compromise. This feature of "Anglicanism"—its essential broad-churchism—gave great offense to the stricter and more doctrinal of the English reformers, who neither cared nor were com petent to loolcat the thing from a statesman'sToiat of view. The reign of Edward VI., brief though it was, showed quite clearly that if the party i1i the English church who had acquired not Only their theology, but their opinions of church government from Cal vin, ever got the upper hand, they would not stop till they had reconstructed„on a much simpler basis, the whole ecclesiastical fabric. The reaction under Mary drove most of them to seek safety in exile on the continent. It was here the first definite step in the his tory of puritanism was taken. A number of exiles resident at Frankfurt determined to adopt the Genevan service-book in preference to that appointed by king Edward, and though their attempt proved a failure, partly on apcount of the opposition of others of the exiles, yet it showed the pertinacity with which they tried to carry their convictions into practice. On their return to England, after time accession of Elizabeth, the sting* was renewed. But the virile queen would not tolerate their notions, and during her whole reign punished in the most stringent style all who refused to obey the Episcopal ordinances: The position assumed by the puritans was du.: time liturgy, ceremonies, and discipline of the church pf England required further reformation; that the aura, as then constituted, did not separate itself markedly enough from Roman Catholicism; and that it was desirable, in the interests of religion, to abandon everything that could boast of no other authority than tradition or the will of man, and to follow as far as possible the " pure" word of God. Hence their name, which was probably given in derision. In spite of the sharpest repressive measures their principles gradually spread among the serious portion of the laity, who were also called puritans. Emit the name appears not to have been confined to those who wished for certain radical changes in the forms of the church. The character that generally accompanied this wish led naturally oenough to a wider use of the term; hence, according to Sylvester, "the vicious multi tude of the ungodly called all puritaus that were strict and serious in a holy life, were they ever so conformable." This is the sense in which the Elizabethan dramatists use From this very breadth of usage one sees that there were different degrees of puritanism. Some would have been content with a moderate reform in the rites, dis cipline, and liturgy of the church; others (like Cartwright of Cambridge) wished to -abolish Episcopacy altogether, and to substitute Presbyterianism; while a third party, the Brownists or Independents (q.v.), were out-and-out dissenters, opposed alike to
Presbyterianism and Episcopacy. During the reigns of James I. and Charles I. the spirit of puritanism continued more and more to leaven English society and the English parliament, although the most violent efforts were made by both monarchs to extirpate it. The tyrannical proceedings of Laud and of the Laudian bishops, and the outrages practiced by Charles on the English constitution, led many who were not at all Genevan in' their ideas to oppose both church and king for the sake of the national liberties. Hume distinguishes three kinds of puritans: 1, The political puritan, who disliked the bishops, not so much on ecclesiastical grounds, as on account of their servility toward the king, and their priestly antipathy to civil liberty; 2, The puritans in church discipline, who were for the most part in favor of Presbyterianism; 3, The doctrinal puritans, who were stroll?. Calvinists on such points as predestination, free-will, grace, etc., but were not opposed to Episcopacy or to the ecclesiastical authority of the monarch, and who con tented themselves with assailing the Arminianism that was encouraged at court. The attitude of this third class was certainly anomalous, and it is not wonderful that they exercised so little influence or control on the march of events in the great civil struggle. The second class was by far the most numerous—at least among the clergy; and at first it seemed as if the clergy were going to have things all their own way. For example, in the memorable " Westmiuster assembly of divines" (1643), the great majority of the ministers were Presbyterians, and their Confession of Faith is quite a Presbyterian affair. But genius, energy—the arms of victory—belonged to the more advanced puritans. who were predominant In the army and the parliament, and ultimately triumphed in the per. son of Cromwell (q.v.). But the restoration (1660) brought back Episcopacy, and the act of uniformity. 0662) threw the puritans of the church into the position of dissenters. Their subsequent history is treated under the different forms of diksent. Before the civil war broke out, so great were the hardships to which the puritans were exposed that many of them emigrated to America, to seek liberty and peace on the solitary shores of the new world. There they became the founders of the New England states, and culti vated unmolested that form of Christianity to which they were attached. Nowhere did, the spirit of puritanism in its evil as-well as its good more thoroughly express itself than in Massachusetts and Rhode Island; nor have its traces wholly disappeared even yet. In Scotland puritanism, in the shape of Presbyterianism, was from the first the established religion; hence it does not present itself to us in that country as a struggling, suffering, antagonistic, and protesting force; nor, in point of fact, was the name of puritan ever given even to the extremest sect of Covenanters.—See Neale's History of the Puritans; Price's Histenw of Nonconformity; Macaulay's History of England; and Dr. Sloughton's Works.
a beverage now little used except among the lower classes in and around Lon don. It is made by warming a pint of ale with a quarter of a pint of milk, and adding some sugar and a wine-glassful of gin, rum, or brandy.