Getting Past the Word 'Puritan'

It is very easy to dismiss a doctrine or practice as 'Puritan' rather than to study it in the light of the word of God. The practice is very old, and is continued in our culture today, even within the church, even amongst Reformed Christians. In our society, the word 'Puritan' conjures up images of Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter or evokes the recollection of H.L. Mencken's quip that "Puritanism is the haunting fear that someone, somewhere may be happy." The Puritan-minded are not ashamed of the label assigned to them, but desire above all that people would look at the substance of the thing, more than the label, and Berean-like, then consider whether it is in accord or not with God's word.

Lewis Bayly, The Practice of Piety, p. 86, describes those hindrances which keep sinners back from endeavoring after Biblical piety, among which he lists the use of semantics by the ungodly in their vocabulary designed to label evil good and good evil:

8. The last, and not the least block at which piety stumbles in the course of religion, is by adorning vices with the names of virtues: as to call drunken carousing, drinking of healths; spilling innocent blood, valour; gluttony, hospitality; covetousness, thriftiness; whoredom, loving a mistress; simony, gratuity; pride, gracefulness; dissembling, compliment; children of Belial, good-fellows; wrath, hastiness; ribaldry, mirth: so, on the other side, to call sobriety in words and actions, hypocrisy; alms-deeds, vain-glory; devotion, superstition; zeal in religion, Puritanism; humility, crouching; scruple of conscience, preciseness, &c. And whilst thus we call evil good, and good evil, true piety is much hindered in her progress.

Gisbertus Voetius expounds upon this theme in his Selectae Disputationes Theologicae, "Concerning Practical Theology," Part II, as quoted by John W. Beardslee III, ed. and trans., Reformed Dogmatics: Seventeenth Century Reformed Theology Through the Writings of Wollebius, Voetius, and Turretin, pp. 282-283:

The wholeness and precision of faith and conduct which all the pious are required to seek and to desire have now been assigned by some to a hated "Puritanism." That this has happened to purity of faith and teaching is shown by the vernacular works of the Remonstrants as well as by their Apologia, and by the innovators who began to spread Remonstrant errors in England after the meeting of the Synod of Dort in 1619, and who attacked those who were orthodox in this hateful business, as they regarded it, by the name of Cathari or Puritans; namely, those who were zealous for purity and the orthodox doctrine of the total grace of God, against the old and new scraps of Pelagian depravity. As to conduct and morals, Lewis Bayly, the bishop of Bangor, has witnessed in his widely distributed and famous book The Practice of Piety that piety has often been disparaged under the name of Puritanism. Since we see that the name was first conceived and used by papists in England, in order to have a label for those who desired simplicity of ceremonies and church organization, concern for good works and praxis, it is necessary to inquire whether those on whom they wished to place the label Puritan were ignorant of practical theology or hostile to it. The Puritan teaching must be earnestly studied, to see whether it agrees with the word of God or not, whether it carries on a struggle over shadows and words. I do not remember that it has been proved by anyone that the conduct and praxis that the Reformers urged, and that we urge with them, contradict the word of God.

Blackstone's Formulation

While Increase Mather believed in the existence of witches, and that civil sanctions should be employed against them, he was opposed to the use of spectral evidence during the infamous Salem Trials. In one treatise on the subject, Cases of Conscience Concerning Evil Spirits (1692), he wrote, "It were better that Ten Suspected Witches should escape, than that one Innocent Person should be Condemned."

This statement draws on the earlier statement of Sir John Fortescue, De Laudibus Legum Angliae (c. 1470), who wrote that "one would much rather that twenty guilty persons should escape the punishment of death, than that one innocent person should be condemned and suffer capitally."

This legal theory has been designated "Blackstone's Formulation" after Sir William Blackstone, who wrote in his famous Commentaries on the Laws of England (1765-1769), it is "better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer." This maxim was opposed by William Paley and defended by Samuel Romilly. Others have embraced this principle as well. Voltaire wrote in Zadig (1747) that "Il vaut mieux hasarder de sauver un coupable que de condamner un innocent" ("It is better to risk sparing a guilty person than to condemn an innocent one"). Benjamin Franklin later wrote in 1785 (Works, p. 293) "it is better [that one hundred] guilty Persons should escape than that one innocent Person should suffer." The theory that it is better to err by letting the guilty live or go free than to punish the innocent has since become part of the bedrock of American common law.

In dictatorial fashion, however, Otto von Bismarck is quoted as saying "it is better that ten innocent men suffer than one guilty man escape" (John W. Wade, Uniform Comparative Fault Act, 14 Forum 379, 385 (1979), and Pol Pot said, "You can arrest someone by mistake; never release him by mistake."..."Better to kill an innocent by mistake than spare an enemy by mistake." (Henri Locard, Pol Pot's Little Red Book: The Sayings of Angkar, pp. 208-209). Other statists have uttered similar sentiments.

But the principle articulated by Blackstone, Mather and others is derived from Abraham's famous statement to God in Gen. 18.23-26:

And Abraham drew near, and said, Wilt thou also destroy the righteous with the wicked? Peradventure there be fifty righteous within the city: wilt thou also destroy and not spare the place for the fifty righteous that are therein? That be far from thee to do after this manner, to slay the righteous with the wicked: and that the righteous should be as the wicked, that be far from thee: Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right? And the LORD said, If I find in Sodom fifty righteous within the city, then I will spare all the place for their sakes.

It was during the Albigensian Crusade at the massacre of Albigensians or Cathars (proto-Protestants) at Béziers, France, in July 1209, almost exactly 800 years ago, that Abbot Arnold Amalric is said to have uttered the infamous phrase, "Caedite eos. Novit enim Dominus qui sunt eius" ("Kill them. For the Lord knows those who are his, or, Kill them all, let God sort them out"). Although justice is imperfect here on earth, magistrates do better to follow the example set by our Lord and expressed by his servant Abraham, by sparing the wicked lest the innocent perish.

The Origin of 'Puritan'

According to English Puritan Thomas Wilcox in a 1581 publication, it was Roman Catholic Nicholas Sanders who first coined the (intended-as) derogatory term 'Puritan'.

It thought by some that Catholic polemicists employed this term to 'taint' fervent Elizabethan Protestants with association to earlier groups referred to as Cathari (Greek katharos, pure, literally 'puritans'), including the Albigenses.