[A History of American Christianity by Leonard Woolsey Bacon]@TWC D-Link book
A History of American Christianity

CHAPTER V
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The anti-Puritan party was the conservative or reactionary party, strong in the _vis inertiae_, and in the king's pig-headed prejudices and his monstrous conceit of theological ability and supremacy in the church; strong also in a considerable adhesion and zealous cooeperation from among his nominees, the bishops.

The religious division was also a political one, the Puritans being known as the party of the people, their antagonists as the court party.

The struggle of the Puritans (as distinguished from the inconsiderable number of the Separatists) was for the maintenance of their rights within the church; the effort of their adversaries, with the aid of the king's prerogative, was to drive or harry them out of the church.

It is not to be understood that the two parties were as yet organized as such and distinctly bounded; but the two tendencies were plainly recognized, and the sympathies of leading men in church or state were no secret.
The Virginia Company was a Puritan corporation.[44:1] As such, its meetings and debates were the object of popular interest and of the royal jealousy.

Among its corporators were the brothers Sandys, sons of the Puritan Archbishop of York, one of whom held the manor of Scrooby.
Others of the corporation were William Brewster, of Scrooby, and his son Edward.


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