'Fortifying the common cause': Nelson's 'Life of Bull', the Reformed churches abroad, and the 18th century Church of England

Cosmopolitanism has been a theme running through these readings from Nelson's 1713 Life of Dr. George Bull: from the influence of Episcopius on the younger Bull, to a later critical but still admiring response to Episcopius, to the warm relationship with the Gallican Bossuet. Today's reading offers another example of the cosmopolitan context both for Bull and wider 18th Anglicanism. 

In 1703, John Ernest Grabe - of whom Nelson notes, "his particular friend and mine" - published a new Latin edition of Bull's works:

with his [i.e. Grabe's] own many learned Annotations, and introduced it into the World with an admirable Preface, which did great Justice to our excellent Author, as well as to his learned and judicious Writings.

Grabe had been born at Königsberg, in the Kingdom of Prussia, in 1666. Settling in Oxford in 1697, he received Church of England orders in 1700, becoming chaplain of Christ Church. While the son of a Lutheran divine and a subject of the King of Prussia, Grabe, through his own studies, had become increasingly uneasy about the absence of episcopacy in the Prussian Church (itself an uneasy blend of Lutheran and Reformed). It was this which led him to Oxford and Anglican orders. 

Alongside his patristic studies, Grabe sought to persuade the Prussian Church to accept episcopacy.  

He had so great a zeal for promoting the ancient Government and Discipline of the Church, among all those who had separated themselves from the Corruptions and Superstitions of the Church of Rome, that he formed a Plan, and made some advances in it, for restoring the Episcopal Order and Office in the Territories of the King of Prussia his Sovereign; and proposed, moreover, to introduce a Liturgy, much after the Model of the English Service, into that King's Dominions; and recommended likewise the Use of the English Liturgy itself, by the means of some of his Friends, to a certain neighbouring Court. By which means he would have united the two main Bodies of Protestants, in a more perfect and Apostolical Reformation, than that upon which either of them did yet stand, and would thereby have fortified the common Cause of their Protestation against the Errors of Popery. 

Such aspirations and projects were common in the 18th century Church of England. Tenison and Wakes - successive Archbishops of Canterbury from 1694-1737 - advocated for such schemes. Wake, regarding the Swiss Reformed churches, stated, "we should still be importunate with them to receive episcopacy". In 1710, the Lower House of Convocation - dominated by High Church clergy - welcomed "the present endeavours of several reformed churches to accommodate themselves to our liturgy and constitution". Grabe's efforts were supported by John Sharp, Archbishop of York, and William Lloyd, of St Asaph, Coventry and Lichfield, Worchester. All of this reflects both the Church of England's concern for the 'Reformed churches abroad' and the standing of the Church of England amongst the continental Reformed and Lutheran churches. As William Gibson notes, "the Church of England was regarded as the bulwark of Protestantism in Europe".

Nelson's summary of Grabe's project reflects the ethos and concerns of this wider European vision of the 18th century Church of England. Divines of both the Church of England and the continental non-episcopal churches, to again quote Gibson, "saw their churches as doctrinally compatible". This was the assumption of Grabe's project, with its focus on episcopal order and liturgy. Also underpinning all of these projects was a vision of a unified Protestant Christendom - again very evident in Nelson's description of Grabe's project. It "would thereby have fortified the common Cause of their Protestation against the Errors of Popery". 

Likewise, Nelson's view that a restoration of episcopal order to Lutheran and Reformed churches would unite them in "a more perfect and Apostolical Reformation" reflects the standard 18th century Anglican view that the absence of episcopacy. Burnet, for example, described the continental Reformed as "a less perfect church", while saying he had received the sacrament amongst them. Wake stated, in his discussions with the Genevan divine Le Clerc, that the absence of episcopacy was "a defect", but not one which 'unchurched' the Lutheran and Reformed.

The reference to Grabe in Nelson's Life of Bull, therefore, draws us to see the European context and vision of the Church of England in which Bull ministered. This European context and vision flowed from the self-confidence of the 18th century Church of England, from the conviction that its reformed faith allied it continental Lutherans and Reformed, while its episcopacy could provide for those churches an apostolic, patristic order. In the words of the memorial to Grabe in Westminster Abbey (pictured);

With the greatest reverence, he sought after the ancient, primeval, Apostolic church: upon the Church of England (as having diverged least of all from the original) he conferred the next degree of honour.