See What You See

 By Al Baker - Posted at Forget None Of His Benefits:

Rescue me, O Lord, from evil men; preserve me from violent men who devise evil things in their hearts. -Psalm 140:1,2

After the death of Oliver Cromwell in 1658 the Puritan Commonwealth quickly began to unravel. Oliver’s son, Richard, was made the Lord Protector in place of his father, but he lacked the leadership skill of Oliver and lasted only nine months in that role. The Puritan army was not behind Richard. The pro-royalist populace saw an opening and quickly brought Charles II back from exile. King Charles II was a godless man who fathered at least 12 illegitimate children. He was restored to the throne in April, 1661 and quickly began to undermine the Puritan revolution. He was, perhaps even at this early stage, a closet Roman Catholic, and he sought to bring his subjects in Presbyterian Scotland and Northern Ireland, as well as in England and Wales into submission. The “Anti-Puritan Purge” had begun.

First, the Parliament passed the Corporation Act (1661) which required all office holders to swear a solemn oath to never take up arms against or ever to resist the King. They also had to repudiate and denounce the Solemn League and Covenant as an illegal document, and they were forced to receive the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper according to the rites of the Church of England, the state church.

The majority Cavalier (the opponents of Cromwell and the Puritans) Parliament was in a virulent revengeful state of mind and consequently passed, in quick succession, several pieces of legislation which cut the heart out of Puritanism and the strong Biblical stance it took on church and state. The Corporation Act was followed by the infamous Act of Uniformity (1662) which made use of a new Prayer Book, which had been fashioned in a decidedly anti-Puritan direction with several hundred alterations. Every clergyman and schoolmaster had to declare, without equivocation, his complete assent to all things in the book. Among other things they must say, “I, _____, do declare that it is not lawful upon any pretense whatever to take up arms against the King. . . and that I will conform to the Liturgy of the Church and pronounce illegal the Solemn League and Covenant and pledge myself not to seek to make any change in the Constitution of Church or State.” As a result 2000 pastors (twenty percent of the English clergy) refused to submit to the decrees and lost their livelihood and pastorates. Many were imprisoned and even more of them died penniless.

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