I Will Stay In Jail to the End of My Days Before I Make a Butchery of My Conscience

In this you greatly rejoice, even though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been distressed by various trials.

1 Peter 1:6

 

God often allows for situations that are outside the control of the Church to arise that make life difficult for us.  Like the way a blacksmith uses fire, these circumstances are applied to our formerly hard and metallic lives, melting away that which isn’t pure and allowing God to shape us in a new way.

Trials are times of purification and transformation (at least for those who can endure them) and though they are painful should be seen as a means by which the Lord does things in us and in the world.

In my previous post I spoke about the tumultuous period in English history that ranged from the reigns of Henry VIII to Elizabeth I.  Protestants went from being a secretive underground movement to being legal under Henry, followed by a short period of peace with Edward, to a horrifying season of persecution by Bloody Mary, to seeing England turn into a full-blown Protestant nation via Elizabeth.  The virgin queen ushered in an era that brought much relief for those faithful to Scripture, but her religious settlement for the nation was considered by many to be too much of a compromise with Roman Catholicism.  This brought about the Puritan movement – which was a crusade within the English Church to leave behind all things that were not Biblical in the Church’s expression of worship.

Elizabeth was followed by James I, who has been immortalized by the King James Bible.  Jacobean England was by-in-large a continuation of the policies of Elizabeth, where Puritans were tolerated so long as they conformed to the Anglican Church.  Separatists (who I spoke in more detail about in the previous post) however were not, and it was during James’ reign that those 28 brave adults, along with their children, boarded the Mayflower as a kind of basket that Moses’ mother placed him in when she realized that when Egypt found her child that he would be killed.  That basket found its way to America, to the cold winters of the early years, the miraculous provision of a native American who spoke English named Squanto and to a fresh start for those who were unable to find a home on the other side of the ocean.

Many Separatists took the plunge to sail across the Atlantic due to the hostility they were met with by the Anglican Church.  In the decades following the Pilgrim fathers, three more religious colonies were established – Massachusetts, New Haven and Connecticut – all settled by those who could not abide the Church of England and found that due to this, England didn’t want to abide them.  Here we have the formation of “New England”, started by religious nomads who felt they had nowhere else to go, which was to be instrumental in establishing the government that protected religious freedom which was to take shape in the following century in America.

Dark Days in England

After James came Charles I, who’s unwillingness to work with Parliament was equaled only by his disdain for Reformed Theology.  Fears began to grow within the entire Church of England that Charles was trying to re-Catholicize the nation.  These were not helped by his marriage to Henrietta Maria, a French Catholic Princess.  There was now another Queen Mary, and this undoubtedly brought up memories of the last Queen Mary (who actually did try to turn England back to popery).

A series of events brought about a Civil War in England that pitted the largely Puritan Parliament against Charles and his royalist forces.  Under the leadership of Oliver Cromwell and his New Model Army, the Parliamentary forces prevailed, and Charles was executed for the crime of tyranny.

But, as often happens during times of upheaval, the goals of the original resistance to Charles (i.e. – the aspirations of the Puritans) were not accomplished even after the monarchy was abolished.  The Puritans wanted to reform the governmental structure of the Church of England.  They wanted Presbyterianism, which would have meant that decisions for the Church would be made when a group of selected leaders called Presbyters, got together and voted (i.e. - democracy), rather than to have one Bishop unilaterally make decisions all the time (i.e. - monarchy).  This failed because Cromwell’s Army, including Cromwell himself, was largely made up of non-Presbyterian factions and favored religious tolerance as a national policy, as opposed to an established Presbyterian church.

The Toleration Act of 1650 enabled people in England to worship as they wished.  It was to be abolished 10 years later when Cromwell’s rule ended and the monarchy was restored, but during this time all manner of approaches to faith took shape.  One such group were the Quakers who, in 1681 to escape persecution from a re-established Anglican Church, also boarded ships and founded the colony of Pennsylvania.

The re-establishment of the monarchy was nerve-racking for many.  The prior decade had brought unprecedented freedom, which was intoxicating, and many were not inclined to let this go.  People’s nerves were eased when Charles II, the son of Charles I, promised “religious toleration and amnesty for all acts committed in the Civil War” as he was being considered for a return to the throne. 

His promise seems to have been sincere but unexpectedly the national mood shifted, and when new elections were held for Parliament they yielded shocking results that changed the balance of power from that of Puritan to Anglican-Royalist.

A newly established, and deeply vindictive, Anglican Parliament now took to enacting a new religious settlement for the nation.  Where Charles would likely have been more lenient, this freshly minted Legislature was looking to make those who had thrown the nation into chaos over the past 10 years pay for their sins.

They enacted what came to be called the Clarendon Code, a series of laws that severely punished those who refused to conform to the Anglican Church.  The penalties for violating the code “were severe: crippling fines or imprisonment, including (for breaking the Code a third time) being shipped out as slave labor to an American or Caribbean planation for 7 years.*”

These rules were stringently enforced to the point that it has been estimated that “a total number of between 5,000 to 8,000 Nonconformists may have died in prison*” during the 27 years that this was in place.

But the Nonconformists didn’t quit.  In fact, some of the greatest heroes in the history of the Church arose during this time.  One such man was John Bunyan.

John Bunyan

John Buyan, the writer of the Pilgrim’s Progress, which, next to the Bible, is the most printed work in the history of English literature, was saved in 1653 during the 10 years of the Toleration Act.  He began preaching in 1655 and did so freely until the Clarendon Code was instituted and Bunyan was jailed.  He spent most of the next 10 to 12 years in prison, during which his beloved daughter (who was blind) tragically died.

The Pilgrim’s Progress, which he wrote after this, is filled with many analogies about depression – from the slough of despond, to doubting castle – and even grapples with thoughts of suicide.  One struggles to fathom the darkness he faced in that cell when he heard that his precious little girl had passed.

But after this extended stay in prison, Bunyan went right back into the world and began preaching the Gospel again openly in the Nonconformist way.  He was arrested again a second time and did another stint in prison.

He has been attributed with a quote that has been picked up by men throughout the ages as clarion call for living free saying,

"I will stay in jail to the end of my days before I make a butchery of my conscience"

A clarion call it would prove to be.  He was to go on to be with the Lord one year before the draconian laws would be lifted.  A timing so curious that it causes one to wonder.  What if Heaven wanted to see if there was a generation that would be willing to live for Him even if it meant prison?

And what if, without knowing what the future holds, Heaven is asking that question now?

 

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* Much of the information for this post is taken from the excellent series on Church History by Nick Needham titled 2000 Years of Christ’s Power.  I have devoured all 5 volumes and highly recommend it to anyone who is interested in a both a stirring and balanced telling of the history of the Church.