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Tobias Crisp (1600–42/3) chapter 5 Tobias Crisp (1600–42/3) 5.1 Introduction In this chapter, we will assess the “radical” Puritan Tobias Crisp, whose life and thought illustrate both unitas and diversitas within Puritanism.1 As a represen- tative of the antinomian strain, his teachings and emphasis on non-brooding piety illuminate the internal conflicts within Puritanism to come up with an alternative to the precisianist consensus.2 Within the literature, Crisp has been called “an antecedent of the Ranters,” “the great champion of antinomian- ism,” the “arch-Antinomian,” and “a stimulator of religious controversy.”3 In his 1 As we saw in Chapter 1 and will look at again in Chapter 7, classifying Puritans as either “orthodox” or “radical” is not always easy, nor are the terms mutually exclusive. As with Rous, Crisp typifies elements of Reformed orthodoxy, and evinces the more “radical” notions asso- ciated with the alternate strains within Puritanism. 2 See David Como, “Crisp, Tobias (1600–43),” in Puritans and Puritanism in Europe and America: A Comprehensive Encyclopedia, ed. Francis J. Bremer and Tom Webster, 2 vols. (Santa Barbara, 2006), 1:64; Victor L. Nuovo, “Crisp, Tobias (or Crispe: 1600–43),” in The Continuum Encyclopedia of British Philosophy, ed. A. C. Grayling, Naomi Goulder, and Andrew Pyle (London, 2006); Roger Pooley, “Crisp, Tobias (1600–43),” ODNB; Christopher Hill, The Collected Essays of Christopher Hill, 3 vols. (Malden, 1986), 2:141–61; Richard L. Greaves and Robert Zaller, eds., Biographical Dictionary of British Radicals in the Seventeenth Century, 3 vols. (Brighton, 1982), 1:191–2; Benjamin Brook, The Lives of the Puritans, 3 vols. (London, 1813), 2:471–5; Tobias Crisp, Christ Alone Exalted, ed., John Gill, 4th ed. (London, 1791), 1:v– xii; and A Biographical History of England, from Egbert the Great to the Revolution, ed. James Granger, 2nd ed., 4 vols. (London, 1775), 2:179–80. 3 James G. Turner, “The Properties of Libertinism,” in ‘Tis Nature’s Fault: Unauthorized Sexuality during the Enlightenment, ed. Robert P. Maccubbin (Cambridge, Eng., 1988), p. 86, n. 21; Robert Rix, William Blake and the Cultures of Radical Christianity (Aldershot, 2007), p. 30; Tim Cooper, John Owen, Richard Baxter, and the Formation of Nonconformity (Aldershot, 2011), p. 299; Pooley, “Crisp, Tobias,” ODNB. For a helpful study on the rhetoric of seventeenth-cen- tury language, see Conal Condren, The Language of Politics in Seventeenth-Century England (New York, 1994), pp. 140–68. The best analysis of Ranter mythology to date is J. C. Davis, Fear, Myth, and History: The Ranters and the Historians (Cambridge, Eng., 1986). Davis chal- lenges the assumption of a “Ranter” existence in the seventeenth century. It is noteworthy that Laurence Clarkson, an alleged Ranter founder, listed Crisp as one of his mentors, and seems to have attended Crisp’s parish in London. Clarkson, The Lost Sheep Found: Or, the Prodigal Returned to His Fathers House, After Many a Sad and Weary Journey through Many © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���4 | doi ��.��63/9789004�785�6_�06 Tobias Crisp (1600–42/3) 211 own time, Crisp was accused of both “Antinomianisme” and “Libertinisme,” the latter title of which he fully embraced because, for Crisp, at the heart of the theological debate that characterized his ministry was the libertas fidelium in Christ,4 and the real possibility of acquiring assurance.5 Crisp remains one of the most vilified and misunderstood Puritans of the early modern period, having been credited, among other things, with the rise of ranterism, hyper- Calvinism, and communism.6 That the Westminster Assembly recommended his sermons be burnt is indicative of the religious atmosphere and general disfavor with which the antinomian strain, whether genuine or perceived, was met with.7 Crisp’s sermons, despite the wishes of some members of the Religious Countreys (London, 1660), p. 9; Christopher Hill, The World of the Muggletonians (London, 1983), p. 167. 4 Crisp said, “To be called a libertine, is the most glorious title under heaven; take it from one that is truly free by Christ.” Quoted in Rix, William Blake and the Cultures of Radical Christianity, p. 33; Nicholas McDowell, “The Beauty of Holiness and the Poetics of Antinomianism: Richard Crashaw, John Saltmarsh, and the Language of Religious Radicalism in the 1640s,” in Varieties of Seventeenth- and Early Eighteenth-Century Religious Radicalism in Context, ed. Ariel Hessayon and David Finnegan (Aldershot, 2011), p. 43. Of course, Crisp, by this, did not mean lawless living. William Lamont sees Crisp’s “libertinism” as the apotheosis of Puritan commitment to liberty. See Lamont, “Puritanism, Liberty, and the Putney Debates,” in The Putney Debates of 1647: The Army, the Levellers, and the English State, ed. Michael Mendle (Cambridge, Eng., 2001), pp. 250–1. While we must consider such labels within their context of controversy, they are still useful classifications. Though Crisp never embraced the term “antinomian,” and his defenders repudiated its application to him, Crisp can cautiously be classified “antinomian,” if, by this, we contrast his emphasis on free grace with the prevail- ing “legal” strain within English divinity. For contemporary accusations against Crisp, see Robert Lancaster, “The Preface to the Christian Reader,” in Tobias Crisp, Christ Alone Exalted in Fourteen Sermons Preached in and neere London (London, 1644). 5 That the doctrine of assurance was paramount to English Puritanism has been demon- strated in Joel R. Beeke, Assurance of Faith: Calvin, English Puritanism, and the Dutch Second Reformation (New York, 1991). See also David Hoyle, Reformation and Religious Identity in Cambridge, 1590–1644 (Woodbridge, 2007), pp. 88–130, esp. pp. 106–15. 6 Robert J. Mckelvey, “‘That Error and Pillar of Antinomianism’: Eternal Justification,” in Drawn into Controversie: Reformed Theological Diversity and Debates Within Seventeenth-Century British Puritanism, ed. Michael A. G. Haykin and Mark Jones (Göttingen, 2011), pp. 233–7; Curt Daniel, “John Gill and Calvinistic Antinomianism,” in The Life and Thought of John Gill (1697–1771). A Tercentennial Appreciation, ed. Michael A. G. Haykin (Leiden, 1997), pp. 172–5; John Jones, Balliol College: A History, 2nd ed. (New York, 2005), p. 109. 7 For instance, in 1646, William Gouge and John Ley brought the subject of Crisp’s books before the assembly. Three years earlier, Independent divine Joseph Caryl was appointed to a com- mittee of the assembly to consider the spread of antinomism. In his report, he referred to the “unhappy differences . that had lately broken out afresh amongst us.” Chad B. Van Dixhoorn, .
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