'Prudently composed'? Taylor's episcopal consecration sermon and the non-episcopal Reformed churches
Now, that the Lord hath re-advanced the crown,
Which thirst of spoyle and frantick zeal threw down.
Now, that the Lord the miter hath restor'd,
Which with the crown lay in dust abhor'd ...
Taylor's sermon was very well-received. Dudley Loftus, a canny political operator during the Commonwealth and at the Restoration, noted in his account of the proceedings:
The Bishop of Downes Sermon was such as gave great and general satisfaction, being elegantly, religiously, and prudently composed, and so convincingly satisfying the judgments of those who have opposed the order and jurisdiction of Episcopacy, as that the Lords, Justices, the Lord Primate, and the general Convention have all of them severally ordered and desired the speedy impression thereof, which is the cause that no more shall be said in this place of Commendation, it being so soon to appear in the lustre of its own excellency.
As Loftus emphasises, a key intention of the sermon was to offer an effective apologia for episcopacy. A particular focus would have been on the wavering - those unsure of the political wisdom of restoring episcopacy two decades on from its abolition and uncertain if it was the best way of securing the peace of Church and State. This is reflected in Taylor's preface to the published sermon:
And although what I have here said, may not stop the mouths of Men resolved to keep up a faction, yet I have said enough to the sober and pious, to them who love Order, and hearken to the voice of the Spouse of Christ, to the Loving and to the Obedient.
What Taylor did not do was follow the path of Hookerian moderation, recommending episcopacy as the best option for church government, with apostolic precedent. He almost certainly was of a view that this strategy had failed in the 1640s and was unlikely to secure episcopacy in the early 1660s, amidst the ecclesiastical wreckage and political uncertainties left by the Interregnum. Instead, he gave voice to Laudian maximalism (to use Peter Lake's terminology):
As Bishops were the first Fathers of Churches, and gave them being: so they preserve them in being. For without Sacraments there is no Church; or it will be starv'd and die: and without Bishops there can be no Priests, and consequently no Sacraments: and that must needs be a supream order from whence ordination it self proceeds. For it is evident and notorious that in Scripture there is no record of ordination, but an Apostolical hand was in it.
We might wonder how Loftus describes such Laudian maximalism as "prudently composed", when even loyal Royalists and Episcopalians generally rejected such language in the 1640s. It is partly the case, I think, that Loftus and those like him - hard-headed political figures who desired peace and order after "the late unhappy confusions" - recognised in Taylor's sermon a case for episcopacy which could end debate and uncertainty.
I am going to push this argument further and suggest that the context and contingent circumstances also influenced Taylor's Laudian maximalism. He was well aware of the strength of support for jure divino presbytery in the north of Ireland, not least in the diocese to which he was going. This needed an equally strong and robust counter-argument for episcopacy. Similarly, the devastated ecclesiastical landscape he was inheriting - with some ministers in parishes ordained after the Commonwealth's rather unregulated Independency model, some appointed without any ordination, some ordained by presbytery - required a clear, unifying ecclesiastical government to bring order out of chaos.
Some readers might reasonably argue that this is a convenient way to avoid recognising the fact that Taylor was speaking in a manner immediately comparable to that of later 19th century Anglo-catholic advocates of 'apostolic succession', far removed from the compromises made by 18th century Anglicanism and the Old High tradition with the non-episcopal Reformed and Lutheran Churches of the Continent.
My response to this is to look at one of Taylor's greatest works, Ductor Dubitantium, or the Rule of Conscience. It was published in 1660, just prior to Taylor's episcopal appointment. In his sermon at Taylor's funeral, George Rust called it "a Book that is able alone to give its Author Immortality". The significance of this text, therefore, can hardly be doubted.
In Ductor Dubitantium, Taylor discusses if those of the Church of England could receive the Sacrament in Huguenot churches. When Taylor was writing this text in the late 1650s, it would have been an issue known to those in exile in France with Charles II. He states:
The sons of the Church of England professing under the government Episcopal may not lawfully communicate in the Huguenot Churches with them that believe Episcopacy to be Antichristian or unlawful, because this does relate to the evil and detriment of those laws and that government and that authority under which we still are tied.
Notice what this does not say: that those of the Church of England may not received Holy Communion in Huguenot churches because those churches have no episcopacy and "consequently no Sacraments". Instead, Holy Communion should not be received in Huguenot churches "with them that believe Episcopacy to be Antichristian or unlawful". This is unlikely to be a reference to all Huguenots. Taylor, after all, points to three Huguenot theologians in the preface to his consecration sermon, who all admitted the antiquity of episcopacy while yet defending presbyterian government:
Rivet affirms that it descended ex veteris aevi reliquiis, that Presbyters should be assistants or conjoyned to the Bishops, (who is by this confessed to be the principal) in the imposition of hands for Ordination. Walo Messalinus [i.e. Saumaise] acknowledges it to be rem antiquissimam, a most ancient thing that these two Orders, (viz) of Bishops and Presbyters, should be distinct, even in the middle, or in the beginning of the next age after Christ. Dd. Blondell places it to be 35 years after the death of S. John.
These are indeed modest admissions regarding episcopacy but it is difficult to then present such writers as expressing a view that "Episcopacy [is] Antichristian or unlawful". Nor is this a description we can easily apply to the French Confession of 1559. The Confession does, of course, set forth a parity of ministers as the rightful order for the French Church: but it does no more than this and has no explicit condemnation of episcopacy. Indeed, it also allows for superintendency. In other words, where Huguenot ministers did not believe episcopacy to be "Antichristian or unlawful", the logic of Taylor's carefully chosen words is that someone of the Church of England could receive the Sacrament in a Huguenot church, with its non-episcopal order.
Nor does Ductor Dubitantium stop there. In this work Taylor also explicitly envisages those of the Church of England sharing in the worship of non-episcopal churches and - crucially - receiving the Sacrament:
But if a son of the Church of England shall come into other Protestant Churches who use it not [i.e. bowing at the Holy Name, as required by the Canons], he is to comply with them in the omission ... in the ceremonial and ritual part of religion, where the religion is the same, we are not tied abroad to our Country customes. A Subject of the Church of England may stand at the Holy Communion, or eat it in leavened bread, if he come into Protestant Countries that have any such custome: and the reason of this is, because the contrary would give scandal, to which our own laws neither doe nor can oblige abroad.
Taylor does not require that such churches have episcopal order. This is evident from the fact that he refers to standing to receive the Sacrament: this was a practice in some Continental Reformed churches, but not in any of the Lutheran churches which had episcopal order. We might also note that the confessions of other Continental Reformed churches, like the French Confession, committed to parity of ministers and a non-episcopal order: this, however, is not stated by Taylor to be an obstacle in receiving the Sacrament in such churches.
Before returning to Taylor's consecration sermon, we can also consider another example of Taylor reflecting on non-episcopal Continental Reformed churches. In his sermon at Bramhall's 1663 funeral, Taylor referred to Bramhall's encounter with Remonstrant ministers before returning to the British Isles in 1660:
at his leaving those Parts upon the Kings Return, some of the Remonstrant Ministers of the Low-Countries coming to take their leaves of this great man, and desiring that by his means the Church of England would be kind to them, he had reason to grant it, because they were learned men, and in many things of a most excellent belief; yet he reprov'd them, and gave them caution against it, that they approched too near and gave too much countenance to the great and dangerous errors of the Socinians.
It is important not to overstate Taylor's description of the Remonstrant church as having ministers who "were learned men ... in many things of a most excellent belief": "in many things", of course, refers primarily to their critique of Calvinist scholasticism, certainly not their ecclesiastical order. That said, "many things" is an interesting comment. It is also at least odd that Taylor would even mention the incident in his funeral sermon for Bramhall if he regarded the non-episcopal Remonstrants as having no ordination and no sacraments. Would it not then have been more appropriate for him - indeed, theologically coherent - to avoid the incident all together?
Note, too, that when he relays Bramhall's critique of the Remonstrants for coming to close to "the great and dangerous errors of the Socinians", Taylor could have made a passing comment on this being a result of their lack of episcopal order. But there is no such comment. The focus is entirely on Bramhall's critique of their being too close to the Socinians.
What we can say of these Remonstrant ministers is that in seeking in "desiring that by [Bramhall's] means the Church of England would be kind to them", they quite clearly did not "believe Episcopacy to be Antichristian or unlawful". This being so, by Taylor's logic in Ductor Dubitantium, those of the Church of England could have received the Sacrament from the hands of such ministers.
All of which brings us back to Taylor's consecration sermon on this day in 1661. How are we to understand the sermon's 'no bishop, no sacraments' line when there is convincing evidence from Ductor Dubitantium, and something of a suggestion in a significant 1663 sermon, that this was not how he viewed non-episcopal Continental Reformed churches?
The answer might lie in a work from nearly two decades before Taylor entered the pulpit of St. Patrick's in 1661. In 1642 - amidst the loud and heated debates regarding episcopacy as the ecclesiastical and constitutional order began to collapse in the Three Kingdoms - Taylor published Episcopacy Asserted. In it he explicitly addressed the matter of the non-episcopal Continental Reformed churches:
But then are all ordinations invalid, which are done by mere presbyters, without a bishop? What think we of the reformed churches?
For my own part, I know not what to think.
Such a hesitant response was, of course, a break with the Hookerian Conformity maintained by anti-Calvinist figures such as Cosin's mentor Bishop Overall. As Taylor continues and explains his hesitation, we begin to glimpse something of the intention behind the 'no bishop, no sacraments' line in his 1661 sermon:
The question hath been so often asked, with so much violence and prejudice, and we are so bound, by public interest, to approve all that they do, that we have disabled ourselves to justify our own. For we were glad, at first, of abettors against the errors of the Roman church; we found these men zealous in it; we thanked God for it, as we had cause; and we were willing to make them recompense, by endeavouring to justify their ordinations; not thinking what would follow upon ourselves. But now it is come to that issue, that our own episcopacy is thought not necessary, because we did not condemn the ordinations of their presbytery.
Hookerian Conformity's willingness to "justify" the non-episcopal order of the Continental Reformed churches had, in the early 1640s, become a danger to the threatened episcopal order of the Church of England. More important than considering the Continental Reformed churches was defending and securing the episcopal order of the Church of England - and for this, in the context of the 1640s, something stronger was required than the approach of Hookerian Conformity.
When Taylor ascended the pulpit of St. Patrick's on 27th January 1661, he no doubt had in mind the bitter experience - which he knew all too well - of the years since he published Episcopacy Asserted in 1642. Hookerian Conformity, he thought, had proved incapable of defending episcopacy when it was assaulted. Now, if episcopacy was to be rebuilt, and the Churches of Ireland and England around that episcopal order, something more robust was required - not least with the fiery advocates of jure divino presbytery present and active in the Kingdom of Ireland. The matter of the Continental Reformed churches was not at all pressing in such circumstances, and, truth be told, of little consequence when it came to securing episcopally ordained ministers - as required by law - in the parishes of Down and Connor. To settle the Church in these Kingdoms, after the confusions of the decades in which episcopacy had been abolished, it remained the case that something stronger than Hookerian Conformity was required. And so, 'no bishop, no sacraments' was heard from the pulpit of St. Patrick's on this day in 1661. The description given by Loftus of the sermon, "prudently composed", might indeed, therefore, be regarded as appropriate.
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