Thomas Cartwright (theologian)

Thomas Cartwright (* 1535 in Hertfordshire, † December 27, 1603 in Warwick ) was an English representative of the Presbyterian Puritanism.

Life

Thomas Cartwright studied at St John 's College (Cambridge) in 1569 and became professor of theology. He denied the right of the Anglican episcopate and called for a presbyterian church constitution. During the reign of Queen Mary Tudor he had to leave Cambridge, but did not after the accession of her sister, Queen Elizabeth I, to return to his theological studies again. He remained as a lecturer at Cambridge and became a well-known critic of Episkopalsystems the Church of England. 1571 sales, the future Archbishop of Canterbury, John Whitgift, Cartwright of Cambridge. Cartwright went to Ghent and when he returned in 1572 to England, he was involved in the publication of the " Admonition to Parliament". To avoid arrest, he returned to the Continent, where he was pastor of the English exile colony of Antwerp. 1584 Cartwright returned back to England. Twice he was arrested, but came after the intervention of high-ranking followers always free again. In his writings, Cartwright advocated a church whose autonomous Churches should be led by freely elected pastors and elders. This plan intervened in the established structure of the state church. Cartwright but was not as far as the extreme Puritans who Barrowisten and Brownists. 1595-98 he lived in Guernsey for the governor of the island, his friend, and since 1601 in his beloved Hospital in Warwick.