Early Stuart Church Research Articles

Grace and Conformity: The Reformed Conformist Tradition and the Early Stuart Church of England. By Stephen Hampton

Grace and Conformity: The Reformed Conformist Tradition and the Early Stuart Church of England. By Stephen Hampton

Grace and Conformity. The Reformed Conformist Tradition and the Early Stuart Church of England , by Stephen Hampton

Grace and Conformity. The Reformed Conformist Tradition and the Early Stuart Church of England , by Stephen Hampton

Grace and conformity. The Reformed conformist tradition and the early Stuart Church of England. By Stephen Hampton. (Studies in Historical Theology.) Pp. x + 412. Oxford–New York: Oxford University Press, 2021. £64. 978 0 19 008433 2

Grace and conformity. The Reformed conformist tradition and the early Stuart Church of England. By Stephen Hampton. (Studies in Historical Theology.) Pp. x + 412. Oxford–New York: Oxford University Press, 2021. £64. 978 0 19 008433 2 - Volume 74 Issue 2

Grace and Conformity: The Reformed Conformist Tradition and the Early Stuart Church of England by Stephen Hampton

Reviewed by: Grace and Conformity: The Reformed Conformist Tradition and the Early Stuart Church of England by Stephen Hampton Leif Dixon Grace and Conformity: The Reformed Conformist Tradition and the Early Stuart Church of England. By Stephen Hampton. [Oxford Studies in Historical Theology.] (New York: Oxford University Press. 2021. Pp. 424. $99.00. ISBN 9780190084332.) In his Grace and Conformity, Stephen Hampton rightly identifies an important lacuna in scholarship of the early Stuart Church of England. Where a great deal of [End Page 812] energy has been devoted to more-and-less conformist puritans and to the rise of Laudianism, much less focus has been given to those Calvinists who sought actively to promote the Church as both an episcopal and reformed institution. The impression—at least tacitly—has often been that such ‘moderates’ (a word carefully avoided by Hampton) were lukewarm careerists. On the contrary, Hampton argues, the reformed conformist tradition (RCT) was a “distinct religious identity” and its members were ‘conscious’ that they were neither puritan nor Laudian, and “were, in significant respects, opposed to both groups” (p. 24). Indeed, for Hampton, they were a combative bunch, defending their vision of a reformed Church of England against opponents to the left and right, at home and abroad, and dead as well as alive. The strengths of the book are conspicuous. There can be little question that the ‘reformed conformists’ are an under-studied milieu, and that their marginalisation has leant an air of unreality to previous analyses of the early Stuart Church. Hampton’s theological grasp is excellent, and I am entirely convinced by his central argument, that the RCT was characterised by great “intellectual liveliness” and “inventiveness”, as well as internal “diversity” (p. 176). In tacit contrast to the arid, managerial approach of Elizabethan equivalents like Whitgift, Hampton paints a picture of an uncompromising, self-confident network of authors, as keen to evangelise and to shape pastoral strategies as they were to uphold abstract reformed orthodoxies. At times, the evidence that he provides is truly striking. For instance, when I read that Daniel Featley defended Christmas day commemorations (against puritans) on the grounds (against Laudians) that they contributed to a believer’s sense of assurance and understanding of perseverance, I felt that a strongly distinctive viewpoint was being communicated (p. 282). In some respects, though, Hampton’s study leaves key questions not only unanswered but also, at times, unasked. Hampton’s focus is on ten individuals, who he tells us are “representative” of the RCT. However, most of these—Joseph Hall, Thomas Morton, Samuel Ward, George Downame, John Davenant, George Carleton, John Williams—were bishops, while two others—John Prideaux and Richard Holdsworth—were eminent academics. But this is, to say the least, a top-slice even of the university-educated elites who necessarily populate studies of early modern historical theology. So concerned is Hampton to establish the internal coherences and dynamics of his RCT sample that he draws almost no links between them and other contemporary/historiographical groupings. Throughout the book I was left wondering whether particular RCT positions were distinctive to them, or something that we might not have found in almost identical form among the community of largely conforming puritans. It would also have been interesting to see Hampton discussing how far his account of reformed conformists connects with Judith Maltby’s analysis of a more broad-based “prayer book protestant” movement. While Hampton’s close reading of theological meanings is exemplary, it can result in a narrow, dense feel at times, and I would have liked to see him stepping back to create links to and comparisons with other tendencies within the contemporary spectrum of theological beliefs and identities. [End Page 813] My most consistent nagging doubt, though, revolves around Hampton’s handling of the concept of “conformity.” He tells us that his subjects were “confident that the Reformed theology that they were defending was the official orthodoxy of the English Church” (p. 110). But what precisely were they conforming to here? To the interpretation of the king, reflecting the Church’s Erastian structure; or to the doctrinal architecture of the Elizabethan Religious Settlement (ERS) itself? It would seem that Hampton means the...

Grace and Conformity: The Reformed Conformist Tradition and the Early Stuart Church of England, by Stephen Hampton

This richly researched study engages the whole tradition of Reformed Conformity during the early Stuart period. Moving beyond the ‘bi-polar’ vision of ‘Laudian or Puritan’ to describe the English Protestant topography, Stephen Hampton points to the ‘richer spectrum of religious cultures’ (p. 8) which includes ‘Calvinist episcopalianism’ (as identified by Nicholas Tyacke) or ‘conforming Calvinists’ (Kenneth Fincham) or ‘Calvinist Conformists’ (Anthony Milton). This stream of expression has been well established in the literature. But, Hampton notes, ‘scholarly interest in the tradition has generally been confined to studies of individual “Calvinist Conformists”, rather than attempting to engage with the tradition as a whole’ (p. 9). Here, Hampton remedies this lack. He focuses on ‘Reformed Conformity’, using ‘Reformed’ as a more exact and less ‘misleading label’ than ‘Calvinist’, along the lines Philip Benedict pointed out in Christ’s Churches Purely Reformed (2002). Hampton locates Reformed Conformists contextually, indicating the diversities which emerged in...

Eucharistic devotion and textual appropriation in post-reformation England

ABSTRACT This essay explores the forms of sacrament centred piety that developed in the late Elizabethan and early Stuart church. It does so by utilising Christopher Sutton’s “Godly Meditations”, first published in 1601. The text’s movement from Catholic mass book to Protestant communion guide, and Sutton’s amendments to later editions, are used to examine the ways texts were altered to fit different theological and pastoral requirements. Attention is paid to the ambiguous and flexible rhetoric of the “Meditations” and of avant-garde conformists more generally. It is shown that this ambiguity allowed such texts to be appropriated by Laudians who cast them as precedents for their innovations. In doing so, Laudians recast avant-garde conformity as something much narrower than it had been. Ultimately, it is suggested that a more nuanced approach to avant-garde conformity is required; one which recognises that anti-Calvinism was not an inherent part, or necessary consequence, of sacramental piety.

The Holocaust of His Discretion

Abstract This essay establishes the significance of the concept of “discretion” to the scope and nature of episcopal power in the early Stuart Church. Examples are drawn from the Church’s constitutional documents and the ecclesiology of Richard Hooker, where “discretion” named a faculty of judgment and the particularly controversial form of autonomous power over adiaphora, or “things indifferent,” proper to the clergy. Turning to the manuscript and print records of a dispute between Bishop of Lincoln John Williams and the Archiepiscopal regime of William Laud, the essay argues that contrasting interpretations of discretion within the Church’s institutional culture characterized divergent approaches to conformity. These differences were established through the metaphors that translated between objects at the edges of episcopal jurisdictions and the concerns closest to the Church’s doctrinal identity. Disputes over these metaphors aggravated constitutional tensions in the years preceding the civil wars.

George Herbert and the Mystery of the Word: Poetry and Scripture in Seventeenth-Century England. Gary Kuchar. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017. Pp. xv+288.

<i>George Herbert and the Mystery of the Word: Poetry and Scripture in Seventeenth-Century England</i>. Gary Kuchar. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017. Pp. xv+288.

The Early Defence of 'Lambeth Calvinism': Theological and Pastoral Responses in a Lincolnshire Parish

Recent analyses of the early Stuart church have generally emphasized James ' attempts at consensus and balance. But to whom would this actually have appealed? Here the argument is made that the godly perceived the old Elizabethan Calvinist hegemony to be under attack right from the beginning of the new reign and so mounted a defence to stem the perceived declension. A case study of a Lincolnshire minister reveals both the doctrinal and pastoral strategies to resist an anti-Calvinist thrust that affected the localities as well as the universities and episcopal bench. At ground level, this conscious defence of the theology summed up in the Lambeth Articles (1595) also involved identifying and gathering the godly community as a form of distinction rather than separation.

The Evolution of Early Stuart Conformist Thought: The Liturgical Theology of John Donne

An examination of John Donne's ambiguous understanding of prayer book worship and of the ideas he drew from both John Whitgift and Richard Hooker brings into relief a liturgical theology in the process of evolution. If Donne can be recognized as representative of conformists in the early Stuart church, the evolutionary nature of his theology allows for a less sharp and less dramatic portrait of the rise of ritualism in the 1620s and, perhaps, a different way of looking at the origins of Laudianism.

Dr. Temple's Pew: Sex and Clerical Status in the 1630s

overleaf sex and clerical status in the 1630s 515 42. PRO, SP 16/351, fol. 79v. 43. Haigh,“Clericalism and Anticlericalism,”32–34; C. Haigh and A. Wall,“Clergy JPs in England and Wales, 1590–1640,”Historical Journal 47 (2004): 233–59; A. Foster,“The Clerical Estate Revitalised,” in K. Fincham, ed., The Early Stuart Church, 1603–1642 (Basingstoke, U.K., 1993), 139–60; J. P. Kenyon, The Stuart Constitution (1966), 172; Edward, Earl of Clarendon, The History of the Rebellion and Civil Wars in England, 6 vols. (Oxford, 1888), 1:130. 04HLQ6803_497-516 12/14/05 1:19 PM Page 515 This content downloaded from 207.46.13.51 on Tue, 21 Jun 2016 06:25:14 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms abstract On 1 June 1634 it was rumored in the Gloucestershire village of Bourton-on-the-Water that the rector had had sex in the church with the parish clerk’s wife. The rector was Thomas Temple, doctor of law, son of a baronet, and brother of knights. It is impossible to tell if Dr. Temple and Mary Toms really had committed adultery together—but the accusation was used by a local gentleman to try to destroy Temple’s reputation and drive him from the parish.At issue was local precedence, and Temple’s claim to superiority was symbolized by the building of a prestigious new pew for his family—the pew in which the alleged adultery took place. The rivalry between Temple and Bray Ayleworth was fought out in the Gloucester consistory court, the Court of Chivalry, and Star Chamber, and the evidence from this litigation throws light on the changing status of the clergy in the early seventeenth century.Where should the clergy fit into the status hierarchy, and would their position alter as they were gentrified? 516 christopher haigh 04HLQ6803_497-516 12/14/05 1:19 PM Page 516On 1 June 1634 it was rumored in the Gloucestershire village of Bourton-on-the-Water that the rector had had sex in the church with the parish clerk’s wife. The rector was Thomas Temple, doctor of law, son of a baronet, and brother of knights. It is impossible to tell if Dr. Temple and Mary Toms really had committed adultery together—but the accusation was used by a local gentleman to try to destroy Temple’s reputation and drive him from the parish.At issue was local precedence, and Temple’s claim to superiority was symbolized by the building of a prestigious new pew for his family—the pew in which the alleged adultery took place. The rivalry between Temple and Bray Ayleworth was fought out in the Gloucester consistory court, the Court of Chivalry, and Star Chamber, and the evidence from this litigation throws light on the changing status of the clergy in the early seventeenth century.Where should the clergy fit into the status hierarchy, and would their position alter as they were gentrified? 516 christopher haigh 04HLQ6803_497-516 12/14/05 1:19 PM Page 516 This content downloaded from 207.46.13.51 on Tue, 21 Jun 2016 06:25:14 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms

:Conformity and Orthodoxy in the English Church, c. 1560-1660

The different ways in which people expressed 'conformity' or 'nonconformity' to the 1559 settlement of religion in the English church have generally been treated separately by historians: Catholic recusancy and occasional conformity; Protestant ministerial subscription to the canons and articles of the Church of England; the innovations made by avant-garde conformist clerics to the early Stuart Church; and conformist support for the prayer book in the 1640s. This is the first book to look across the board at what was politically important about conformity, aiming to assess how different attitudes to conformity affected what was regarded as orthodox or true religion in the English Church: that is, the political and cultural significance of the ways in which one could obey or disobey the law governing the Church. The introduction places the articles in the context of the recent historiography of the late Tudor and early Stuart Church. PETER LAKE is Professor of History, Princeton University; MICHAEL QUESTIER is Senior Research Fellow, St Mary's Strawberry Hill. Contributors: ALEXANDRA WALSHAM, MICHAEL QUESTIER, PAULINE CROFT, KENNETH FINCHAM, THOMAS FREEMAN, PETER LAKE, ANDREW FOSTER, NICHOLAS TYACKE, DAVID COMO, JUDITH MALTBY.

George Herbert's Sacramental Puritanism*

The relationship in the early Stuart church between doctrine and discipline — between formal theological belief and outward matters including church governance, polity and ceremonial practice — is important for our understanding of George Herbert's devotional lyrics. Eucharistic theories which entertained notions of “real presence “ tended to support a sacerdotal style of divinity in which priest, ceremony and outward conformity were key features. Belief in the centrality of inward spiritual life, on the other hand, was reinforced by a theology in which the external elements are less effectual instruments than mere signs of a strictly invisible grace. This paper elucidates a sacramental poetics through which Herbert sought to reconcile the ideologically contrary imperatives of public ceremony and private religious devotion. The two are brought together successfully inThe Temple, but this success consists largely in the drama resulting from the conflict the poems trace. Unmistakably inward in focus, Herbert's devotional enthusiasm is cultivated nonetheless through a fully sacramental and sacerdotal apparatus.

Visitation Articles and Injunctions of the Early Stuart Church, Vol. 2., ed. by Kenneth Fincham

Visitation Articles and Injunctions of the Early Stuart Church, Vol. 2., ed. by Kenneth Fincham

Mutua Christianorum Tolerantia: Irenicism and Toleration in the Netherlands: The Stinstra Affair, 1740-1745 by Joris Van Eijnatten

book reviews133 tents. The whole of the edition is fortified with cross-references and notes and an appendix of articles from 1603 to 1642 along with a thorough index. This is an impressive and valuable collection of records for the early Stuart church. William J. Dohar, C.S.C. University ofSan Francisco Mutua Christianorum Tolerantia: Irenicism and Toleration in the Netherlands : The Stinstra Affair, 1 740-1745. ByJoris Van Eijnatten. [Studi e Testi per la Storia della Tolleranza in Europa nei secoli XVI-XVIII, Vol. 2.] (Florence : Leo S. Olschki Editore. 1998. Pp. viii, 335. Lire 64,000 paperback.) This book contains as appendices two important early eighteenth-century Dutch works on religious toleration. The first work is the Deductie voor Het Regt van de Vrijheid van Geloove, Godsdienst, en Conscientie (ArgumentFor The Right ofFreedom ofFaith, Worship, and Conscience) published in Leeuwarden in 1740 byJohannes Stinstra (1708-1790), a Mennonite minister in Harlingen who was accused by the Reformed church of antitrinitarian leanings. This work appears both in the original Dutch and in an English translation made by Eijnatten. The second work is the Oratio de Mutua Christianorum Tolerantia (Oration on Mutual Christian Toleration),the: rectoral address of the professor of theologyJohannes van den Honert (1693-1758), held at Leiden University on February 8, 1745. The two writings are preceded by an introductory text of 213 pages that provides background and context for reading the works by discussing the life and ideas of both Stinstra and van den Honert. The introductory text also explores the sources and inspiration behind the differing views on toleration presented by the two men, puts their ideas within the context of larger traditions of Christian toleration, and examines the controversy that arose around Stinstra's views. Stinstra was educated at Franeker before becoming a minister in Harlingen in Friesland in 1735. In 1738 he became involved in a dispute defending two Mennonite ministers who had refused a request by city magistrates to sign articles subscribing to the doctrines of the Trinity,the divinity of Christ, and Christ's satisfaction . In 1739-1740 Stinstra prepared an official request to the States of Friesland asking that the obligation to sign these anti-Socinian articles be withdrawn , and to this request he appended his Deductie. In this work he put forward his ideas defending freedom of faith, worship, and conscience and attacking religious confessions and constraint of conscience. Van den Honert was the main opponent of Stinstra's ideas on toleration, defending the confessions of the Reformed church as well as the orthodoxy and unity of the church. In the Oratio van den Honert stressed the need for mutual Christian toleration as a step toward unity among the churches, but he did not extend his plea for toleration to an unlimited freedom of prophecy as Stinstra did. Instead van den Honert called for an interconfessional and social toleration among Christians, 134book reviews and he upheld the need for religious confessions, arguing that they were a way to make religious views public and that they did not constrain consciences. Van Eijnatten holds that van den Honert's views represented a confessional irenicism while Stinstra propounded a radical or spiritualist irenicism. Stinstra had a broad view of freedom of conscience that included the complete freedom to publicly express and teach the beliefs that one held. Stinstra, in particular , defended each individual's freedom to make public his own interpretation of the Bible. The importance of van den Honert's Oratio, on the other hand, was that it extended ecclesiastical and confessional toleration into the civil sphere and saw all Christians as brothers in Christ and fellow Christian citizens. Thus Stinstra's views on toleration fell within the Christian tradition of free prophecy, while van den Honert's views were a part of the tradition of Christian colloquy that encouraged rational discussion of the points made by various confessions. Among the influences on the thought of both men van Eijnatten points to the Remonstrant theologians Philip van Limborch, Jean Leclerc, and Johannes Drieberge, as well as to John Locke, the Dutch humanist and legal scholar Gerard Noodt (l647-1725),Hugenot exilesJean Barbeyrac (16471744 ) and Pierre Coste (1668-1747), and Benjamin Hoadly...

Visitation articles and injunctions of the early Stuart Church, II. Edited by Kenneth Fincham. (Church of England Record Society, 5.) Pp. xxx+295. Woodbridge: Boydell Press (for the Church of England Record Society), 1998. £40. 0 85115 518 9; 1351 3087. The Anglican canons, 1529–1947. Edited by Gerald Bray. (Church of England Record Society, 6.) Pp. cxii+992. Woodbridge: Boydell Press (for

Visitation articles and injunctions of the early Stuart Church, II. Edited by Kenneth Fincham. (Church of England Record Society, 5.) Pp. xxx+295. Woodbridge: Boydell Press (for the Church of England Record Society), 1998. £40. 0 85115 518 9; 1351 3087. The Anglican canons, 1529–1947. Edited by Gerald Bray. (Church of England Record Society, 6.) Pp. cxii+992. Woodbridge: Boydell Press (for the Church of England Record Society, in association with the Ecclesiastical Law Society), 1998. £95. 0 85115 557 X; 1351 3087 - Volume 50 Issue 4

Shorter notice. Visitation Articles and Injunctions of the Early Stuart Church. Vol II: 1625-1642. K Fincham (ed)

Shorter notice. Visitation Articles and Injunctions of the Early Stuart Church. Vol II: 1625-1642. K Fincham (ed)

Shorter notice. Visitation Articles and Injunctions of the Early Stuart Church. Vol II: 1625-1642. K Fincham (ed)

Shorter notice. Visitation Articles and Injunctions of the Early Stuart Church. Vol II: 1625-1642. K Fincham (ed)

The Parochial Roots of Laudianism Revisited: Catholics, Anti-Calvinists and ‘Parish Anglicans’ in Early Stuart England

There is no end in sight to historical squabbles about the speed, impact and enduring cultural and ecclesiastical legacies of the English Reformation. The past two decades have witnessed a lively and stimulating debate about the reception and entrenchment of Protestant belief and practice in local contexts. Over the same period we have seen a series of heated and animated exchanges about the developments taking place within the early Stuart Church and the role they played in triggering the outbreak of hostilities between Charles I and Parliament in 1642. While the focus of the first controversy has been the relationship between zealous Protestantism and the vast mass of the ordinary people, the second has been conducted almost exclusively at the level of the learned polemical literature of the clerical elite. So far little attempt has been made to bridge and span the gap. This is hardly surprising – sensible scholars think twice before venturing into two historiographical minefields simultaneously. Nevertheless the problem of reconciling these parallel but largely discrete bodies of interpretation and evidence remains, and it is one which historians like myself, whose interests straddle the sixteenth- and seventeenth-century divide and the Catholic–Protestant confessional fence, can no longer afford to sidestep and ignore. This essay represents a set of tentative reflections and speculations on recent research, a cautious exploration of three clusters of inter-related issues and themes.

Early Modern

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