May we pray.
Just again
to get into the story of the disciplinarian
controversy between the Puritan reformers, or would-be
reformers, and the defenders of the Elizabethan establishment.
I spoke to you of Thomas Cartwright, and
I was just in process of speaking to
you of Field and Wilcox, the two young
men who took up the torch from Cartwright,
and in 1572 presented an admonition to the
Parliament.
They censured the errors of the Book of
Common Prayer and called for their reform, not
for the abolition of the liturgy, but for
a purifying of it, let's be clear on
that, and also, for good measure, they called
for the abolition, now I do mean the
word this time, the abolition of the Episcopal
hierarchy in the Church of England, and the
substitution for it of a Presbyterian scheme of
governance.
Let me read to you from the summary
of the contents of the admonition, in this
book, D.
J.
McGinn, The Admonition Controversy.
The admonition condemns the Book of Common Prayer.
In a general way, it deplores the origin
of the Book in the Mass, the forms
of prayer that it gives, and the way
it uses the name priest instead of minister.
It also attacks specific portions of the Book,
particularly all the ritual taken over from the
Roman Church.
Various traditional elements in the communion service were
picked out there for censure.
Also they censured the use in baptism of
surpluses, interrogatories ministered to the infant, godfathers and
godmothers, prompts and crossings brought in, they affirmed,
long after the purity of the primitive church.
The point about interrogatories for the infant, by
the way, is that the Anglican tradition, the
Cranmer's way of expressing in the baptism service
the idea that the child baptized is committed
to be a Christian, and that it's on
the basis of this commitment that it is
baptized.
The way this is done is to ask
the godparents, the sponsors who represent the church,
to declare in the child's name a commitment
to the Christian faith.
A lot of Anglicans in many centuries have
thought this was a little bit artificial.
These particular Puritans thought it was intolerable.
They also objected to confirmation and the use
of the wedding ring and the private administration
of the sacraments and the rite of giving
thanks after childbirth and the observing of Saint's
Day.
Also they objected to the words receive the
Holy Ghost and then they attacked the whole
existing form of ecclesiastical government, non-episcopal hierarchy,
also the abusers of the system, non-residents
and pluralities, that is, men holding more livings
than one at the same time and not
residing, therefore, necessarily in some of the livings
that they did hold.
All those things must go, they said.
And they put in a plea for Presbyterian
discipline.
Presbyters, lay elders and deacons supplanting the Anglican
three orders of ministry.
I say supplanting because the deacons, whom the
permanent officers concerned with the relief of the
poor, not men doing their first year of
ministerial, probationary ministry really, before being ordained, which
then and now is the Anglican use of
the diocese.
And they go on to prescribe the sootfall,
which we're going to see in a moment.
They end up by asking this pertinent question.
If Presbyterianism is good for Scotland, how can
it be bad for England?
That's an appeal to the fact that in
Sicily they secured a Presbytery.
Well, such was the admonition.
And it was a platform to which Edwin
Sands, who at that time was Archbishop of
York, wrote about the young men of Cambridge
and elsewhere in the country who'd taken up
the points made in the admonition.
Alongside my summary of the contents of the
admonition, I thought I would read this to
you, just to give you further testimony as
to what the young Presbyterians were rooting for.
New orators are rising up from among us,
writes Sands.
Foolish young men who, while they despise authority
and admit no superiors, are seeking the complete
overthrow and rooting off of our whole ecclesiastical
policy and are trying to shape out for
us I know not what new platform of
a church.
Accept this summary of the question of issue
reduced under Serfin Head.
And then he summarises what they're standing for
in seven points.
This, I think, is the clearest of all
the summaries that you get, that's why I'm
reading it to you.
One.
The civil magistrate has no authority in ecclesiastical
matters.
He is only a member of the church,
the government of which ought to be committed
to the clergy.
This point Cartwright had made, though in a
mutiny.
Two.
The Church of Christ admits of no other
government than by Presbyterism.
Three.
The names and authority of archbishops, archdeacons, chancellors,
commissaries, and other titles and dignitaries of the
like kind should be altogether removed from the
Church of Christ.
That's the whole inherited medieval system of interpretation
of administration, I must say.
Four.
Each parish should have its own Presbytery.
Five.
The choice of ministers necessarily belongs to the
people.
Six.
Here's a new point, which I don't think
any of the other documents have made, namely
the point of disendowment.
The goods, possessions, lands, revenues, titles, honours, authorities,
and all other things relating either to bishops
or cathedrals, and which now of right belong
to them, should be taken away forthwith and
forever.
Seven.
No one should be allowed to preach who's
not a pastor of some congregation, and he
ought to preach to his own flock exclusively
and nowhere else.
Sans opposes this on the ground that it's
first, needlessly radical, and second, certainly disruptive.
These things, he writes, as far as I
judge, will make, not for the advantage and
peace of the Church, but for her ruin
and confusion.
Take away authority, and the people will rush
headlong into everything that is bad.
Take away the patrimony of the Church, and
you will by the same means take away
not only sound learning, but, well, my concern
here is simply that you should see what
these young men were after, and you should
also see what some of the older men
in the Reformed tradition thought of it.
So much now for the men and for
the admonition.
The effect of the admonition was to produce
two weighty controversies.
One between Cartwright and John Whitgift, W-H
-I-T-G-I-F-T, who at
the time of the controversy was Master of
Trinity College, Cambridge, and later became Archbishop of
Canterbury.
And the second was between Walter Travers, one
of these young Puritans, and Richard Hooker, who
argued it out when they were both ministers
at the Temple Church in London.
That was a church serving specifically the legal
community based on the law courts.
They were both ministers, as I say, at
the Temple Church in London, and they argued
it out for about 12 months, preaching against
each other, sermon by sermon.
That was from 1585 to 1586.
Thomas Fuller, the 17th century historian of the
Church of England, a man of Puritan sympathies
as far as piety was concerned, though of
strongly Royalist views in politics, he wrote a
history of the Church of England describing this
controversy, he said rather quaintly, the forenoon sermon,
that's Hooker's, folk pure Canterbury, and the afternoon,
Geneva.
That was Hooker laying down various traditions, and
Travers in the afternoon sermon, the second service,
controverting them.
The issues were first, in the doctrine of
predestination, whether reprobation was consequent or antecedent, you
know what that means, I hope, whether God
reprobates those whom he does reprobate on the
foresight of their sins, or apart from that
foresight.
Then they argued the toss in the area
of sermons against each other, as to whether
assurance of faith was less certain than assurance
of sense, and Hooker said it was less
certain, and Travers, and then came the biggest
issue, whether the Church of Rome was an
albeit disfigured, that was Hooker, or whether the
Church of Rome must be adjudged no part
of the Church of Christ at all.
Which was Travers' doctrine.
And they argued the toss, and one Church
issue led to another, and Hooker found himself
at the end of this prolonged debate, feeling
that he wanted to write something about the
Church, which would, on the one hand, clear
the issue on this particular question, and would,
on the other hand, and more important, vindicate
the Anglican establishment, against the criticism that men
like Travers, Travers was known for his private
Presbyterian preferences, which meant they would vindicate the
Church of England against the Presbyterianism of Travers
and others.
Travers already in 1573, twelve years before this
controversy, had brought out a book, in Latin,
entitled, well I'll give you an English translation,
A Full and Clear Explanation, from the Word
of God, of Ecclesiastical Discipline, and of the
Wandering, Aberrationis, the wandering away of the Church
of England from it.
Making the points in the admonition to the
Parliament all over again.
Well, against this background, the debate went on,
Hooker did write his big book, The Laws
of Ecclesiastical Policy, which is still, perhaps, the
most distinguished book that has ever been produced,
in defence of the kind of thing that
you had in the Tudor establishment.
And, equally, witch gifts, writings against Carterites, have
generally commended themselves to critics as being far
more distinguished and cogent, simply as arguing, than
anything that Carterite was able to put up
against them.
But nothing, in fact, was achieved in the
direction of Presbyterianising the establishment.
These literary guns were fired off, but nothing
came of it.
Parliament, to whom the admonition was addressed, did,
as a matter of fact, almost pass, in
1572, a bill that would have legalised non
-conformity from the details of the prayer book
service.
But Elizabeth, when she heard what they were
doing, sent down word to the Parliament House
to say that no religious bills must be
introduced until they pass convocation, and after that
rebuff, the Parliament never even attempted to put
through, on its own initiative, a bill to
Presbyterianise the establishment.
In 1583, witch gifts became Archbishop.
He set himself to put down all forms
of Puritan activity, or, rather, Presbyterianising activity, and
to expel from their livings men of Presbyterian
sentiment.
He had a way of doing it.
He revived a document which Parker had drawn
up in 1571.
Three articles to be subscribed by all clergy
suspected of disloyalty to the established order.
The first acknowledging the royal supremacy, the second
acknowledging that the Book of Common Prayer contains
nothing contrary to the word of God, and
issuing an undertaking to use that book, and
no other, in public worship, and the third
subscribing the doctrinal articles of the Thirty-Nine.
Well, this, of course, caught a lot of
Presbyterianising Puritans at a sore spot.
They could have described the proposition that the
prayer book contained nothing contrary to the word
of God.
In 1585, after two years of very rough
handling of the Puritans by the use of
the three articles, Whitgift was persuaded to modify
his attitude a little, and to content himself
by making Puritan suspects sign an undertaking to
use the Book of Common without their actually
having to subscribe the proposition that it contained
nothing contrary to the word of God.
That gave them a modus vivendi, and most
of them, at any rate, were able to
manage.
So much, then, for the leaders and the
outline of the story.
So far as achievement is concerned, it was
a story of complete failure.
They didn't Presbyterianise the Puritans, it can be
said.
But I'm going to say a little more,
in order that you may understand the movement
better, having spoken of its leader's history, I'm
going on now to speak of the arguments
that were used in these debates between Cartwright
and Whitgift, Travers and Hooker, and then we'll
say just a little about particular forms of
Puritan undercover activity during these years.
The arguments, then.
I quote a sentence from a certain H
.C. Porter.
He writes, Cartwright's teaching was never improved upon
in Elizabethan Cambridge, nor were any important additions
made to his arguments.
That is true.
The admonition, and Travers' book on ecclesiastical discipline,
and a whole lot more texts and books
that were published in favour of Presbyterianising the
establishment, didn't really do more than echo Cartwright.
Now, Whitgift, writing against Cartwright, in one of
these exchanges, replied to an answer.
Cartwright had answered what Whitgift had first written
against the admonition.
Whitgift now replies to Cartwright's answer.
And Whitgift says that Cartwright's position, I quote
him, consisted of two false principles and rotten
pillars.
It really boils down to two points at
which he goes astray.
The one is that we must, of necessity,
have the same kind of government that was
in the Apostles' time, and is expressed in
Scripture, and no other.
The second, that we may not retain in
the Church anything that has been abused under
the Pope.
That's actually a very perceptive summary.
All Cartwright's articles, or Cartwright's arguments, rather, are
expositions, and applications of one or other of
those two theses.
Now, against this, Whitgift and Hooker argued that
the intention of Scripture is actually misconstrued.
The primitive ecclesiastical practice, the ecclesiastical practice of
the New Testament gospel, is a norm for
all time, and it's given to be such.
But what we are told about New Testament
church order, so they argued, is recorded more
as a narrative of fact, and what actually
happened, than as a theological statement of an
ecclesiastical norm.
And, as I say, you misinterpret if you
treat it as a norm, and say we
must have a church order just like that
which they had in the days of the
Apostles.
And therefore, said Whitgift and Hooker, it's no
disobedience to the word of God to alter
the New Testament pattern of church life and
practice, provided that it's clear that by altering
it, in the changed situation of a later
age, you are doing the best thing possible
for edification.
Cartwright and his friends wouldn't allow that you
could possibly, in principle, be doing the best
thing for edification if you altered the New
Testament church order.
Whitgift and Hooker didn't agree.
Whitgift does his argument historically, and he pursues
this line of thought, that now that you
have what you didn't have in the first
century AD, namely Christian magistrates, a Christian civil
government, and a Christian state, you no longer
need, in the way that you needed in
New Testament times, the plural eldership, the corporate
eldership in each individual church, nor do you
need the order of deacons as a class
of men whose whole job was a matter
of poor relief.
They're arguing, of course, from Stephen and the
other six in Acts 6.
Nor do you need a set-up in
which the church is independent of the state.
Our circumstances, said Whitgift, would make adherence to
them at those three points inappropriate and doubtfully
edified.
Provided that we have good order, and an
edifying pattern of government in the church, then
the ends for which church government is instituted
are met.
And the fact that we are doing it
a different way from the Church of New
Testament times, the Christian magistrates, the Queen in
Parliament, settling religion, establishing the Protestant faith in
the country, and an episcopal form of government
within the church, rather than a Presbyterian one,
these facts are not to be regretted, they
need not be altered.
They're developments rather to be welcomed.
They're just as good, to say the very
least, as was the New Testament.
That's his argument, based on the change of
times and seasons.
He...
What do we mean, he says, when we
say that Scripture has, and must have, final
authority in the Church of Christ?
Well, he says, that we must be careful
in answering this question.
Because there are certain things that Scripture presupposes.
It's a book addressed to men.
And it presupposes human nature.
It presupposes in its recipients reason.
It presupposes, and here Hooker picks up a
conception which he took straight from the scholastic
theologian, it presupposes that there is a law
of nature in God's creation, which is embodied
in the right use of reason, also in
the judgments of the Christian Church, as well
as being embodied in Scripture.
Now, Hooker isn't saying for a moment that
reason and the Church don't make mistakes.
He's not saying for a moment that it
isn't necessary to detect and correct those mistakes
by Scripture, when it appears that Scripture is
taking a different line from what the Church
has said and what reason has said.
But, he says, Scripture presupposes that those who
read it have already acknowledged the law of
nature and are and are men who use
their reason and men who judge things by
reason, also that they are men who take
seriously what has happened in the history of
the Church, in which, says Hooker, the Spirit
of God has all these centuries been active,
and on the basis of his insistence that
Scripture presupposes a law of nature, and also
that it presupposes legislative power in societies, Hooker
argues both the propriety and the utility of
the Elizabethan establishments.
He says it's perfectly proper that historic institutions
like bishops and certain ceremonies of, so he
would say, proved edifying power, that's his claim,
it could be disputed, but that's what he
says, bishops and ceremonies of proved edifying power
and a liturgy which embodies a great deal
of old stuff, it's perfectly proper and appropriate
that those things, by the judgment of the
Church, by the judgment, rather, of the Christian
community, which is both Church and State in
England, should have been established as the ecclesiastical,
it's perfectly appropriate that the Queen should be
Supreme Governor of the Church of England.
The law of nature expressing itself approves them
as being natural in the situation, appropriate, fitting,
congruous, and, in their results, edified.
And we are not in any way contravening
the authority of Scripture, this hooker, in accepting
the Tudor establishment as it stands.
Now, that was the argument.
It's complementary to Wyckoff's argument, as you can
see.
Both of them, both hooker and Wyckoff, go
on to argue that it is, in fact,
impossible to extract a complete Church order from
Scripture that these isolated facts recorded about what
they did in apostolic times don't make up
as much of a Church order, so that
you will, in any case, have to fill
certain gaps by making your own judgments as
to what they define and what's appropriate.
Sooner or later, everyone who would write a
Church will be doing it.
And they're able to develop this ad hominem
argument against Carchite and his friends, who claim,
you see, to be arguing from Scripture entirely.
And they're able, I say, to develop this
argument against Carchite and his friends in a
very effective and powerful manner.
They just were better controversialists than their opponents.
Now, all I'm asking you is whether you
understand the argument.
I don't ask you whether you approve or
disapprove.
These are issues which take a certain amount
of thought before one can come to an
opinion.
But my question now is, have you understood
the argument?
You see how the Anglicans argued against the
Presbyterians.
This, again, is important to understand if you
would appreciate the way that this situation was
developing.
The Anglicans were convinced by their arguments the
Presbyterians weren't.
The Anglicans were convinced that they were being
thoroughly loyal to Scripture in supporting the Tudor
establishment.
The Presbyterians were convinced that they were contravening
the Scripture.
The Presbyterians expected judgement on the Church of
England because of its iniquities.
The Anglicans believed that they could, with a
good conscience, pray for the health of God
in all their necessities.
This is part of the tragedy of the
set-up.
Both sides convinced that they had God on
their side and that the other side is
in fact going against the mind and will
of God and simply dishonouring Him and endangering
the Church and Commonwealth.
This is why the Anglicans regarded the Puritans
as thoroughly mischievous people just as the Puritans
regarded the Anglicans as committed to thoroughly ungodly
principles.
It was a tragic situation and it just
got worse.
You'll see when we move into the Jacobean
period.
This argument was only used by the Anglicans
and by that time and
they never even sat under pressure.
Move on then to just a little tailpiece
for that Puritan underground...
well, yes, that's my heading and it's the
right one.
Two underground activities to be noted here.
Both of them dating from the 1880s.
First, the classic movement.
A set-up whereby in particular in different
parts of the country groups of ministers used
to have in effect a presbytery meeting to
debate issues to decide on common policy to
make common decisions helping
ministerial work in the country parishes of the
country the country parishes of England, quite simply.
Between 1583 and 1587 the Classes using a
new edition which they hoped to bring out
as an even better manifesto than the original
Book of Discipline and the Admonition to the
Parliament.
But then in 1588 Fields died and alas
some of the papers from his desk fell
into the hands of one of Whitgift's chaplains
a man named Bancroft.
Whitgift by then was Archbishop of Canterbury and
Bancroft was a man of the same spirit
as himself very strong against the Puritans and
these papers which fell into Bancroft's hands gave
all the details to meetings up and down
the country where they were cited and who
the members were and so on and Bancroft
exposed this scheme in public in a sermon
in the pamphlet and then went into action
as Whitgift's representative to put down these ministerial
meetings and disband them on the grounds that
they were seditious they were hostile to the
establishment and men who were suspected of complicity
in these local ministers' meetings were brought before
the infamous Court of Star Chamber Do you
know what that is?
It's a court which King Edward VII before
the Reformation had set up in which he
himself at his own discretion through commissioners appointed
by himself could investigate first hand any case
which he as King of England thought ought
to be a matter for the monarch's own
jurisdiction there was no there were no strings
no legal strings it was an extra-constitutional
court strictly and in the Court of Star
Chamber you could do just what you liked
well, Whitgift in cahoots with the Queen over
this said Bancroft to bring these people suspected
of complicity in the Catholic movement before the
Queen's ecclesiastical commissioners and the Court of Star
Chamber and some of them had a bad
time and in the year 1590 a whole
string of them were sent off to jail
for complicity in this movement the reason behind
all this was what it had been from
the first Elizabeth would not have Presbyterianism or
any disruption of the ecclesiastical order in her
kingdom and she was not prepared to appoint
as her ecclesiastical officers men who were willing
to be kind to Presbyterianism either when the
Presbyterian Church of Scotland in 1590 passed a
resolution calling for prayer for the poor persecuted
Presbyterians of England Elizabeth wrote a furious letter
to James VI that is James VI of
Scotland later to be James I of England
telling him for goodness sake don't you let
them get away with it don't you let
them pray for our Presbyterians let me read
to you the way in which she addressed
James you find the letter in this book
the non-conformity of Richard Baxter by Irvonwy
Morgan Morgan page 20 and she writes to
James there is risen both in your realm
and mine a sect of perilous consequence such
as would have no kings but a presbytery
and take our place while they enjoy our
privilege with a shade that is the pretext
of God's word which none is judged to
follow right without their censure yea, look we
well unto them James reading this said to
himself a sect of perilous consequence why, that's
my national church but as far as Elizabeth
was concerned it was a thoroughly sectarian manifestation
and indeed James undoubtedly took the line of
thought which her letter expresses to heart because
when he came down to England after her
death to be James I of England he'd
have no more truck with Presbyterianism than she
would he was just thankful to be out
of Scotland where these wretched ministers and well
where the whole national church claimed so much
independence well there it was and that was
the end of the classist movement second underground
activity the Mar Prelate Tract this is worth
mentioning it was rather fun while it lasted
in 1588 and 1589 cavernous tracts lampooning the
bishop began to appear in the oddest places
not put out through the ordinary channels of
distribution they were just found in bundles done
up in stacks by the side of the
highway and in steel paths and so on
at least this was the story and then
people opened them and found the tracts and
distributed them free they were printed by a
secret press that kept moving round the country
it's quite a romantic story how the but
then law enforced the secret press and eventually
they did so and the press the significance
of these tracts is that they give you
an index of just how unpopular the whole
episcopal hierarchy was getting that it was possible
to satirise it in this surrogating way and
to have a good deal of popular support
and have people laughing with you rather than
finding that you've spoken off the record and
that the mind of the country is against
you and this lampooning of the bishops and
this sustained Presbyterian criticism of the episcopal order
did incidentally have another effect which I ought
to tell you which I will tell you
now prompted Anglican theologians to cast around for
ways of defending the inherited diocese of Italy
and it led to the publication of books
beginning with a book by Bishop Dilson Thomas
Dilson the 33 books which maintained that episcopal
government was of apostolic institution and therefore of
divine right and ought to be preserved in
the Church of Christ for that reason this
was an innovation neither Wittges nor Hooker have
taken this line they've taken the line which
all the previous Anglican reformers all the previous
supporters of the Tudor establishment have taken namely
that since the episcopacy is a venerable ecclesiastical
institution it's better to hold on to it
if you can than if you can't but
if you can't well it's not a great
loss and it certainly isn't a maiming of
the Church but here after Dilson and then
Bancroft and then a whole series of writers
in the 17th century you've got Anglicans insisting
that the Church which Christ founded is maimed
if there are no bishops in it and
the Churches without bishops can only at the
best be judged second class churches although when
they've had these writers went on to say
when they've had to give up the episcopal
order because of circumstances we understand it and
we sympathize and we don't blame them too
much but nevertheless they are named churches said
these writers because they haven't got this particular
apostolic institution which we in the providence of
God retain well the mantra of texts I
suppose did something to create the state of
feeling which made these Anglicans feel that they
must say something strong for episcopacy and so
which moved them to put reformed Anglican theology
well that's all that I have to say
in the by the end of Elizabeth and
its leader he never simply stopped writing Cartwright
and Travers both stopped writing before 1590 and
lived the quiet life well Travers not too
quiet he went to 1598 but after he
came back in 1599 materializing
Puritan relapsed in other words into inaction and
in a very perceptive and judicious phrase by
A.F. Scott but in this book page
359 Pearson says they lapsed into inaction quote
giving their wanted allegiance to the establishment but
waiting for a better day in which to
renew their efforts in favour of Presbyterianism unquote
but alas that better day never came meanwhile
in the 1590s after all the Presbyterian propaganda
of the 1570s and 80s a whole set
of writers began to put out pamphlets and
texts defending the Anglican establishment from one standpoint
or another against its critics I think that
this is to be explained partly as a
natural reaction pendulum do swing vigorous propaganda on
one side of a disputed issue does lead
to vigorous propaganda on the other side but
it's also I think to be explained partly
as post-armada euphoria I mean after the
Spanish armada had gone to pieces in 1588
how could an Englishman doubt that the Lord
was on their side and that implied that
the Lord approved of their church the Puritans
had been saying well with a church in
the state in which it is certainly the
judgement of God is going to come down
and this mood of post-armada euphoria lies
behind some of the things that began to
be said in favour of the Church of
England as she was established and that then
is the end of that not
the ordinary secular but it certainly divided the
Puritans because some of the Puritans themselves thought
that this was the wrong way to treat
evil one of them about whom you'll hear
Richard Greenham put on record the following observation
which just about sums up what a lot
of them were feeling the text he said
makes sin ridiculous where they ought to make
it odious that is they encourage people to
laugh at sin rather than to deflore it
and the milder and more genuine I think
it's fair to say genuinely godly did feel
this but the ordinary uncommitted any
general questions oh
there's a book and
all the information that you want don't know
whether you can get hold of any of
his but he gives you complete well
no look by the way you put what
they would have said had all the all
the backing that scripture affords to any church
order this was their line it was really
a hermeneutical difference a difference in evaluating what
the new testament actually says about what they
did in the church concerned to defend the
establishment unworthy motive I mean rather
they were concerned to defend it because they
thought it was the now
you may say you may want to say
but you have to when
you look at the new testament you have
to weigh the facts the evidence on church
order is all very occasional I mean it
describes what was done in particular and when
in the pastoral epistles you've got specific injunctions
for church life to be handled they're
there but we don't know anything
about and yet most modern presbyterians
and if they were arguing in the churches
you would have thought really that they all
and mind Cartwright he's going
the way too that modern brethren of God
everything you do in the church must have
scripture and everything that has precepts or example
in the scripture must be done in the
church well it's a position that in argument
I'm afraid people were able to make well
as I say I mean you
just say well give me the bible and
let's look up devising a godly precept