Smectymnuus was the nom de plume of a group of Puritan

Puritan

The Puritans were a significant grouping of English Protestants in the 16th and 17th centuries. Puritanism in this sense was founded by some Marian exiles from the clergy shortly after the accession of Elizabeth I of England in 1558, as an activist movement within the Church of England...

 clergymen active in England in 1641. It comprised four leading English churchmen, and one Scottish minister (Young). They went on to provide core leadership for the anti-episcopal forces in the Church of England

Church of England

The Church of England is the officially established Christian church in England and the Mother Church of the worldwide Anglican Communion. The church considers itself within the tradition of Western Christianity and dates its formal establishment principally to the mission to England by St...

, continuing into the Westminster Assembly

Westminster Assembly

The Westminster Assembly of Divines was appointed by the Long Parliament to restructure the Church of England. It also included representatives of religious leaders from Scotland...

, where they also opposed the Independent movement.

The name is an acronym derived from the initials of the five authors: Stephen Marshall, Edmund Calamy

Edmund Calamy the Elder

Edmund Calamy was an English Presbyterian church leader and divine. Known as "the elder", he was the first of four generations of nonconformist ministers bearing the same name.-Early life:...

, Thomas Young

Thomas Young (1587-1655)

Thomas Young was a Scottish Presbyterian minister and theologian, resident in England and a member of the Westminster Assembly. He was the major author of the Smectymnuus group of leading Puritan churchmen...

, Matthew Newcomen

Matthew Newcomen

Matthew Newcomen was an English nonconformist churchman.His exact date of birth is unknown. He was educated at St John's College, Cambridge . In 1636 he became lecturer at Dedham in Essex, and led the church reform party in that county. He assisted Edmund Calamy the Elder in writing Smectymnuus ,...

, and William Spurstow. Their first pamphlet, An Answer to a booke entituled, An Humble Remonstrance. In Which, the Original of Liturgy and Episcopacy is Disussed, appeared in March, 1641. The pamphlet was written in response to Joseph Hall's

Joseph Hall (English Bishop and satyrist)

Joseph Hall was an English bishop, satirist and moralist. His contemporaries knew him as a devotional writer, and a high-profile controversialist of the early 1640s...

 An Humble Remonstrance to the High Court of Parliament. It is thought that John Milton

John Milton

John Milton was an English poet, polemicist, a scholarly man of letters, and a civil servant for the Commonwealth of England under Oliver Cromwell...

 wrote the postscript for Smectymnuus's reply.

This response provoked Hall to write another reply: A Defence of the Humble Remonstrance, against the Frivolous and false Expectations of Smectymnuus. Smectymnuus answered Hall again with their A Vindication of the Answer to the Humble Remonstrance, from the Unjust Imputations of Fivolousnesse and Falsehood.

Milton also published two tracts defending the Smectymnuus group from Hall: Animadversions upon The Remonstrants Defence Against Smectymnvvs

Animadversions

Animadversions is the third of John Milton's antiprelatical tracts, in the form of a response to the works and claims of Bishop Joseph Hall. The tract was published in July 1641 under the title Animadversions upon The Remonstrants Defence Against Smectymnvvs.-Tract:The tract is a direct, personal...

(1641) and Apology for Smectymnuus

Apology for Smectymnuus

Apology for Smectymnuus, or An Apology for a Pamphlet, was published by John Milton in April 1642. It was the final of his antiprelatical tracts which criticize the structure of the Church of England.-Background:...

(1642). Thomas Young was a former tutor and close friend to Milton.