Posted on 04/19/2015 7:28:27 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Despite the fact that Oliver Cromwell was vastly superior to Charles I, I have yet to hear anyone praise Cromwell for deposing and killing the king. There have been many reasonable objections to his killing of Charles, chief among them being that Charles's death immediately led to the instant popularity and eventual kingship of Charles II – historically one of the most profligate and useless kings that England ever saw.
But people are more likely to complain about Cromwell and the Puritans and unfairly loathe them, despite the fact that Cromwell ruled more honestly and rightly than both his predecessor and his successor. King Charles I is almost forgotten in America, despite his unhappy tendency to mangle and murder his subjects. And the reason we hate the better man and forget the worse is simple. Charles I offended the constitutional liberties of Englishmen; the Puritans tried to get rid of dancing on Sundays.
In an age not only ignorant of, but increasingly hostile to the constraints of constitutional limits and the balance of powers, we can only expect such a judgment to be passed. Nobody knows about the dangerous and tyrannical tribunal known as the Star Chamber; nobody cares about whether or not Charles abused the rights of Parliament. We barely care when our own president abuses the limits of executive power and tramples the rights of our own House of Representatives.
But we love dancing and drinking and Christmas and lovemaking – not because we're degenerates, but because we're simply humans. And if some Puritans were against dancing on Sunday, then we remember it and want to run them out on a rail.
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
I have no a priori problem with the killing of kings...
Most of what is popular belief of the Puritans is BS anyway.
The problem with Cromwell is that he did not organize and institutionalize a non-monarchic government. It was just his personal rule, and when he died there was no plan for a logical succession.
Cromwell was a brilliant parliamentarian and a superb military commander. As Europeans are wont to do, he took his idea of revolution too far, and his progeny devoured him. But he was certainly no worse a ruler than some of England’s more regrettable monarchs.
That’s a really “odd” interpretation of Cromwell, a man called the first class revolutionary by Leon Trotsky. (He meant that as a compliment.)
He forcibly dissolved Parliament when it would not concede to his demands and replaced it with a group of his followers. And when they were sufficiently deferential, he sacked them to. He committed mass murder of civilians in Scotland and Ireland and sent countless Irish to slavery in the New World.
He turned the Army on the Levellers when they demanded religious toleration and universal suffrage.
But yeah, he’s unpopular today because he banned dancing on Sundays.
Frankly, any thoughts whatsoever at the good or evil of “Puritans” I’ve ever had (mostly when learning of them 50 years ago or more) pitifully pale in comparison to my thoughts on the same subject with Muslims.
To me, this Puritan question is whimsical and pointless diversion.
When a tyrant is in charge who does not like the truth to be told and there is no freedom of speech, history gets skewed.
When good historians like today go back and read state records they usually find out that the people who supposedly wrote history at the time actually did it to make the tyrant look good. Meanwhile, anyone attempting to write the truth was attainted with treason and executed.
The Puritans were really an interesting bunch.
If you (heart) despotic genociders, he was really the best.
What some would see as the Puritans as “ extremists “ with ultra pieity or no dancing on Sunday is totally incorrect.
As you very well have stated, the popular belief and propaganda of today of the Puritans is total BS.
What the Puritans were , and what they fought for, believed in ?
Religious reforms.
They wanted more reforms than what the church of England accomplished, and to weed out corruption in the church of England.
The technically speaking, or term of the Puritans is?
Is that ?
That had a strict adherence to the bible, the gospel apart from the way of doing things as in regard to the church of England.
That their lives, their peity, the way they do things as in their worship derived totally from the bible, the gospel, theology, no bells or whistles from overly glorified religion.
They wanted to exposed the corruption in the Anglican and Catholic church.
It would be correct to say that Ted Cruz is a Purtians as in regard to the adherence of the US Constitution.
A Putrian as in regard to as they way it was originally intended for government to function with the US constitution as the framework.
Good to see y’all Papists in here on Sunday morning. Aren’t you supposed to be at Mass?
Those of us descended from the Roundheads look past Lord Protector Cromwell’s um, faults to see his magnificent achievement in bringing the idea of the Republic to life.
Next you’ll be upset about Drogheda or something!
But why did you follow us here, Darlings? Couldn’t you have just moved to France or Rome?
The Puritans are a favored target of the left for attacking Christians of today. They were strict in their religious beliefs but far from regressive in them.
For instance, Cotton Mather had a keen interest in science and often came into conflict with the church elders over his experiments. He was an early experimenter with Variolation which was a primitive form of vaccination. He argued that perhaps God wants us to use tools available to ease suffering and disease.
The Salem witch trials (which are wildly overblown) are blamed on religious fervor. Witches were a common superstition of the day. Even the local indians had adopted a belief in witches. While they all centered around puritans, that’s all there was here. The church was trying to stamp it out. Increase Mather wrote something along the lines of “The devil has indeed come to Salem Village but he comes not in the form of witches. Instead the devil came to Salem Village in the form of mortals who bear false witness”.
I have an objection to the lauding of men like Cromwell, who --- you want me to believe --- "brought the idea of the Republic to life" by ruling via unlimited tyranny and bringing so many of his subjects and neighbors to death.
"But why did you follow us here, Darlings? Couldn’t you have just moved to France or Rome?"
It would be clearer if you would specify who is this "you" you are addressing, and what you mean by "Follow us here".
"You" obviously does not mean ME, since my forebears are all Rhineland Palatinate; "here" apparently doesn't indicate Upper East Tennessee.
I didn’t know that Papist was a nickname for deacon in a Southern Baptist church. But that being the case, I guess I’ve been a Papist for the last 13 years. I’ve also been a Sunday school teacher for much of that time as well? What do you call those?
I also didn’t know that being a Protestant meant having to admire genocidal tyrants. Nor did I know that being conservative meant denying that fact that revolutions, even against corrupt regimes, often end up replacing those regimes with something much worse.
Hey, don’t knock Charles II—he originated the Tory Party in England.
The bible tells us that the devil and his demons, and minions masquerade as angels of light, or wolves in sheep’s clothing.
Witches or demons do infiltrate the church or community, but they hide very well their intentions until they have control and ready to strike like a venomous snake.
As am I, Dear. And East Tennessee was founded by my ancestors, as of course you know about the Wautauga Association and Colonel Sevier. You do understand the significance of my FR handle, Right?
But you're homepage notes your conversion back to the One Church, the Mother Church....the church of Caesar.
Ah, the Apostate. We all have them.
This is what my homepage says. Nothing there about conversion, nor apostasy.
Nor "Caesar" for that matter. You're not one of these guys who believes that Jesus Was the Invention of the Roman Imperial Court, are you? --- that's not an accusation, as I'm supposing you're not.
Who are the Tyrants?
My Huguenot ancestors might differ with you. After the massacre, they ended up in the Netherlands and then England...with the "Tyrant" Cromwell, fighting under his banner.
Cromwell was not perfect and the retaliations he engaged in were not justified in their death counts.
Neither were the massacres of tens of thousands starting with the Albigensians and continuing until the 19th Century.
If you deny they exist then you don't know your own history as a Baptist.
So forgive me for taking you at your word. Somewhere along the line you went back to The State Church. So whether the conversion happened with you or a generation ago, it happened somewhere in time! If your Palatinate history is to be believed.
Or perhaps your part of the One Church group here on FR that claims that America was actually a Catholic creation!
That would be news to the 98% of people in the colonies at the time of the Revolution who were, um...Protestant.
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