To what extent did the Puritans threaten the stability of the Church of England part 2?

Development of 'classes' in 1580

• 'classes' were regional meetings to which congregations sents representatives to discuss issues
• Many meetings in the 1580s were broadly 'Puritan' in nature and were genuine attempts to discuss and educate the clergy and lay-people
• most clergy accepted the Three Articles, having no desire to upset the estabished social structure of society in which the Church of England had a central role
• Parliament in 1856/7 faced demands led by MP Anthony Cope for the introduction of a Calvinist Prayer Book assuming a Presbyterian Church structure to replace Common Prayer Book - Cope and his supporters were sent to the Tower of London
• MP s showed some sympathy with genuine Puritan grievances (in some cases siding with over-zealous bishops) but there was little support for Church of England structural changes
• attitude reflected in the country as a whole and where some some areas (such as large areas of the south east) showed puritan sympathies, other parts tended to be closer to Catholicism)
• nowhere showed widespread support for Presbyterian church structure

Seperatist Movement:

• protestantism insisted the Bible was the only source of religious teaching and shoud be available to all in their own language - therefore seperate deveopment of individual churches was always a possibility
• some english congregations did follow that path, using isolated, voluntary gatherings to explore the Bible and to…