In his 1976 study of Godly Man in Stuart England: Anglicans, Puritans and the Two Tables, 1620-70 (Historical Publications) , J. Sears McGee uses the law’s “two tables” to distinguish Anglicans from Puritans. Puritans were men of the “first table,” Anglicans of the second.
Both worked with the same “palette of sins and virtues” and used the same tubes of paint with the same pigments. But “Anglicans tended to squeeze dry the tubes labelled ‘obedience to crown and mitre,’ ‘material charity,’ and other ‘Second Table duties.’ Puritans, on the other hand, used up tubes of ‘obedience to God first,’ ‘spiritual charity,’ and ‘First Table duties.’ Anglicans put the hearing of sermons and the careful observation of the Sabbath in their icons” of godliness; but they did so “with fine detail brushes rather than palette knives.” Puritans for their part considered obedience to rulers a part of godliness, “but only against the strongly colored background of a higher duty to God” (236-7).
It’s a typology that has some purchase even today.
Dear Reader,
Can I be direct with you?
War abroad. Socialists on the rise. AI upending human life. Endless uproar online. The modern attention economy doesn’t want readers — it wants users enslaved to the tyranny of the present.
First Things is the antidote: literary excellence, timeless truths, and a fixed point of reference in a culture that has lost its bearings.
But we can’t do it without readers like you.
Our goal: Raise $150,000 by November 1 to sustain First Things in the year ahead.
Your gift anchors readers in the permanent things.
Make your Fall Campaign gift now using the button below.
If you have any questions or would like more information, please contact Giovanni Del Piero, Director of the Editor’s Circle, at gdelpiero@firstthings.com or 212-627-1985.
The Church in the Age of Therapy
In 1966, Philip Rieff wrote in The Triumph of the Therapeutic that “Religious man was born to…
Canada’s Deadliest Blind Spot
On September 20, the Daily Mail ran a story with the provocative headline, “Our 83-year-old Christian grandmother…
The Faithful Joy of Dolly Parton and Fulton Sheen
Dolly Parton and Fulton Sheen seem to have had little in common. She favored rhinestones; he wore…