Arguing for Peace: Giles Firmin on New England and Godly Unity

Abstract

Richard Baxter admired the qualities Giles Firmin brought to religious controversy: ‘Candor, Ingenuitie, Moderation, Love and Peace’. Firmin, Vicar of Shalford, Essex, 1648–62, argued for peace during the Interregnum, at a time when disputes fractured the churches of his county. Factions of Presbyterians and Independents still fought about the right path to religious reform, in terms dictated by polemic of the 1640s, while sects like the Quakers rattled confidence in a united Church. Firmin devised arguments that crossed party lines, to unite against sectarianism. He wrote from an unusual perspective. He had been to Massachusetts and come home. He had taken part in the colony’s bold experiment in Congregationalist church order, which inspired English Independents, but came back into parish ministry in Essex without repudiating his colonial experience. Modern historians, like seventeenth-century Presbyterians, struggle to explain why New England’s churches claimed unity with England, but acted differently. Firmin’s outlook sets contemporary polemic in a fresh light. Nowadays, he is better known for his anecdotes than for his views, because he scattered his tracts with stories about people he had known in colony and homeland. His opinions tend to escape notice. Yet Firmin used his experience in Old and New England to make a distinctive appeal for unity.