17-‘Boiled Roots'

A dramatic shift took place in the battle to recover the life and order of the
New Testament church in England during the 1590s and onwards. Since
the conforming Puritans had largely given up the fight, in the main it was
left to the despised and persecuted Separatists to carry it on – it was they
who now ‘took up the weapons against the established Church as the
Puritans were dropping them. The vestment controversy had worn itself
out. The old leaders of it were dead or had conformed’. Thus the
conforming Puritans drew back from the struggle, leaving the field to be
occupied by the Separatists. As I have explained, those Puritans who
conformed devoted themselves to preaching – and they did it very
effectively. But the fact is they gave up the struggle to obtain a truly
reformed church. The Separatists did not.