Renaissance Forum: Volume 2, Number 2, Autumn 1997: Mark E. C. Perrott

William Lamont. 1996. Puritanism and Historical Controversy. London: UCL Press. viii + 232 pp. ISBN 1-85728-285-X. Ł38.00 hbk / ISBN 1-85728-286-8. Ł11.95 pbk.

Early in his study of puritanism through the lives of William Prynne, Lodowicke Muggleton and Richard Baxter, William Lamont acknowledges the query that 'these are ... extraordinary stories, and so in what sense can they then be held to be representative of "puritanism" as a whole?' (3) This unanswered question hangs over the work, yet Lamont's skilful portrayal of the complexity of the issues surrounding these men's lives allays one's fears of a simplistic narrowing of focus in this biographical approach to the phenomenon of puritanism. The book is by no means a comprehensive survey of puritanism but that was never the author's intention. What the work succeeds in doing, despite its idiosyncrasies, is to call into question historiographic commonplaces about the relationship between puritanism and such concepts as revolution, liberty, capitalism, millenarianism and reason. This is not a new project as Lamont himself acknowledges but, judging by the unchallenged assumptions that one continues to find in studies relating to puritanism, his work is not a redundant addition to contemporary scholarship. The book is not without flaws, yet, through its relentless uncovering of the changes, ambiguities and contradictions in the lives and ideas of these men, it successfully guards against simplistic constructions of puritan identity and outlook, while yet maintaining that puritanism retained a basic coherence and remains a viable subject for historical investigation.
Lamont starts the book with three brief biographies of Prynne, Muggleton and Baxter in which certain key ideas of each are set out, ideas to which Lamont repeatedly returns later in the volume. Prynne's suspicion of Jesuitical influence over Archbishop Laud is described, as is his emerging royalism and subsequent willingness to forgive Charles I. Muggleton's belief in the mortality of the soul and consequent rejection of the autonomous existence of the Devil and witches is outlined. Baxter's repudiation of antinomian tendencies among extreme Calvinists in the Army is touched on and is linked to his adoption of Arminian theology. These and other issues are set out in the opening sketches, to be picked up later in Lamont's account. There is no danger of missing the force of these and other insights, since Lamont adopts a cyclical form of argument in which points once made are frequently returned to for subsequent reiteration and embellishment. The advantage of this strategy is that one is left in little doubt as to what sort of issues Lamont sees as significant and how he interprets them, the disadvantage is that it reinforces the impression that the book has been pieced together from a number of previous essays without sufficient attention being paid to producing a seamless synthesis.
One other aspect of the book that causes concern is the way in which Lamont attempts to create a structure around his three main protagonists. Prynne and Baxter are reasonably well integrated: Lamont instructively links and contrasts the ways in which they processed the events of mid seventeenth-century England and the manner in which their beliefs evolved through this tumultuous period. Muggleton, however, stands apart from such comparisons and is curiously isolated. An account of his ideas enables Lamont to make some interesting links with Thomas Hobbes's rejection of a providential God, but one is left wondering how, precisely, Lamont sees Muggleton in relation to Prynne and Baxter and, more generally, how Muggleton fits into the author's picture of English puritanism. An outline of his life certainly serves to guard against the assumption that the puritan world was a monolith but it is doubtful that Muggleton was as influential in his time as either Baxter or Prynne or that he represented as broad a strand of puritan opinion. Lamont sets out to suggest that these three figures are of comparable utility in the task of assessing early modern puritanism, yet the details of his own account calls this into question, with the result that the structure of the work does not inspire confidence in the reader.
That said, Lamont is on surer ground when undermining conventional historiographic assertions. He argues that, for Baxter and Prynne, the maintenance and reinforcement of ecclesiastical discipline and public authority were pre-eminent objectives, thus challenging the notion that puritans were fixated on popular sovereignty, political radicalism and personal freedom. This is a convincing observation without being a particularly novel one. However, Lamont is more adventurous when he advances a case for arguing that puritans were not necessarily literalist in their uses of scripture. He shows that Muggleton was prepared to override literal readings of certain scriptural passages, while at the same time refusing to resort to allegorical interpretations. According to the author, Baxter conceded that there was no scriptural basis for the assertion that the Pope was Antichrist and also stated that there were five ways in which the Book of Revelation could be read. Lamont is thus acknowledging the force of J.S. Coolidge's argument in The Pauline Renaissance in England that the literalist puritan, as presented by the likes of Richard Hooker, 'is something of a straw-man' (134). Lamont's description of the complex and various uses that these men made of scripture is thus a timely reminder that puritans were not necessarily the dogmatic fundamentalists of popular imagination.
Lamont presents a valuable discussion about the variety and ambiguity of puritan views on and uses of the authority of reason. He points out that Baxter believed in witchcraft as a phenomenon susceptible to rational inquiry, whereas Muggleton did not believe in the autonomous existence of witches and saw such a belief as the erroneous product of human reason which was itself incapable of shedding light on spiritual matters. Lamont points out that Baxter appears modern in his use of reason but not in his views on witchcraft, whereas Muggleton appears modern in his attitude towards witches but not in his opinion regarding the limitations of rational insight. Lamont suggests that this apparent paradox 'is a twentieth-century problem, not a seventeenth-century one' (191), thus guarding against the danger of assuming that there are self-evident, consistent paths of intellectual development through time, into which individuals can be neatly fitted. Lamont thus reiterates C.H. George's warning about the problems of relating puritanism to modern abstractions but nevertheless concludes the book by arguing that there are certain interconnections between puritan dilemmas and those of twentieth-century society, citing the works of John Updike to support this claim. The thumb-nail sketch of the novel 'Roger's version' is a fitting conclusion to a book which is characterised by useful insight presented in an unorthodox style that, at its best, draws out the force of Lamont's argument and, at its worst, threatens to overwhelm it.