Resisting the Devil: The Case of Edward Dynham (1626) and Options for English Protestant Dispossession

To the displeasure of many puritans, the Church of England canons of 1604 restricted the casting out of Devils to prayer and fasting. Yet after that date not all possession cases disappeared, nor were all dismissed as false. This article explores ways that long-standing general Protestant as well as puritan theology and practices (especially related to ‘resisting the Devil’) informed post-1604 anti-demonic activity. With a clear biblical basis, and primarily as an individual rather than collective practice, resisting the Devil was embraced by people from a wide range of religious positions and remained unrestricted by the religious establishment. There was variation; not everyone approved of how resisting the Devil was applied in particular cases. Yet ample evidence suggests that dispossessions led by lay people, and by means other than prayer and fasting, did in fact have a place within (and influenced the development of) Protestantism in early-modern England.