By the early 1590s, as we have seen, Puritanism had split into two main
groups. First, there were the Conformists, those who stayed within the
Church of England, grudgingly conforming to its rubric but wanting
further reform, mainly of a Presbyterian nature. They hoped that one day
they might have a monarch who would give them a State Church
established according to their principles, with uniformity enforced by law.
The other section of the Puritans were of a very different persuasion. They
were the Separatists who, rejecting the Church of England as an apostate
church and altogether beyond reform, seceded from it. This was illegal, of
course, and carried stern punishment by the State. Eventually, in 1662, all
the Puritans with very few exceptions would ‘re-unite’ to become
Nonconformists and quit the Church of England, but in the 1590s they
were grievously divided, and went their different ways. |
