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Defining the Puritans? The Baptism Debate in Cromwellian Ireland, 1654–56

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

Crawford Gribben
Crawford Gribben
Affiliation:
Research Fellow at the Centre of Irish-Scottish Studies, Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland.
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Extract

In May 1653, John Murcot, a well-connected Merton College Oxford graduate, travelled to Cork to preach at the request of local Puritans. As a minister adhering to the Independent system of church order, he had already faced a series of challenges to the fulfilment of his clerical calling. In the 1640s, his studies had been interrupted when Royalist troops occupied his university; on his first journey to Dublin, in 1651, he had narrowly escaped capture at the hands of pirates in the Irish Sea. In Cork, Murcot's ministry met with much success until he became entangled in a controversy that threatened to tear apart the local Puritan administration and, more widely, the Irish Puritan consensus.

Type
Articles
Information
Church History , Volume 73 , Issue 1 , March 2004 , pp. 63 - 89
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Church History 2004

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