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The Communion of Saints: Radical Puritan and Separatist Ecclesiology 1570-1625
This study of left-wing puritan and separatist ecclesiology in Elizabethan and Jacobean England explores such topics as the relationship of soteriology, eschatology, and puritan covenant thought to ecclesiology; radical puritan and separatist ideals about the government of gathered churches; the role of synodical authority, and the relationship between church and state. Brachlow underlines the shared ecclesiastical ideals of both radical puritans and separatist "congregationalists," recognizing that while there were presbyterian as well as congregational tendencies in each tradition, they were by no means always clear or denominationally fixed.
304 pages, Hardcover
First published November 17, 1988
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
January 17, 2025
Insightful treatment of English Separatism furthering the research of Collinson and White, particularly in the following areas of ecclesiology: church membership and saving faith (and assurance), unconditional/conditional covenant idea with relation to paedobaptism/antipaedobaptism, and the gathered church identity.
September 23, 2011
This is an excellent book that helps uncover the theological assumptions undergirding the radical Puritan mindset in the Elizabethan and Jacobean period. There really are no other sources that adequately cover this material, so Brachlow's contribution is essential and indeed groundbreaking. Two points are particularly valuable:
First, Brachlow succeeds in demonstrating substantial continuity between the Separatists and the Presbyterian Puritans during this period, groups that historians have tended to separate, reinforced by denominational self-consciousness--Congregationalists hail the Separatists as their progenitors, Presbyterians the Puritans. In fact, Brachlow suggests, neither can so easily disown the other, or disclaim any relationship between these two parties, who, in fact, shared pretty much the same theological and ecclesial outlook. This argument casts some doubt on Peter Lake's arguments in Moderate Puritans and the Elizabethan Church, which tends to draw lines of continuity between the Presbyterians and the much more moderate reform-minded episcopal Puritans; if Brachlow is right that the Presbyterians were so closely akin to the Separatists, then defenders of the Establishment were perhaps right to be as alarmed as they were.
Second, Brachlow helps show that, far from constituting merely a set of grievances over certain ceremonies and polity issues, the separatist and radical puritan mindset was driven by a theological paradigm that tied together issues of soteriology, ecclesiology, covenant theology, and eschatology. Most illuminating and troubling was the way in which the increasing prominence of the notion of the conditional covenant helped create the pervasive and dangerous legalism of Elizabethan Puritanism.
First, Brachlow succeeds in demonstrating substantial continuity between the Separatists and the Presbyterian Puritans during this period, groups that historians have tended to separate, reinforced by denominational self-consciousness--Congregationalists hail the Separatists as their progenitors, Presbyterians the Puritans. In fact, Brachlow suggests, neither can so easily disown the other, or disclaim any relationship between these two parties, who, in fact, shared pretty much the same theological and ecclesial outlook. This argument casts some doubt on Peter Lake's arguments in Moderate Puritans and the Elizabethan Church, which tends to draw lines of continuity between the Presbyterians and the much more moderate reform-minded episcopal Puritans; if Brachlow is right that the Presbyterians were so closely akin to the Separatists, then defenders of the Establishment were perhaps right to be as alarmed as they were.
Second, Brachlow helps show that, far from constituting merely a set of grievances over certain ceremonies and polity issues, the separatist and radical puritan mindset was driven by a theological paradigm that tied together issues of soteriology, ecclesiology, covenant theology, and eschatology. Most illuminating and troubling was the way in which the increasing prominence of the notion of the conditional covenant helped create the pervasive and dangerous legalism of Elizabethan Puritanism.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews