laudable Practice

In last Friday's post on Thomas Hobbes post-1660 conformity to the Church of England, we considered how - in Considerations upon the Reputation, Loyalty, Manners, and Religion of Thomas Hobbes , published in 1662 - he reflected an influential current of Episcopalian criticism of the Interregnum church.  What, however, of Hobbes' return to England in 1651, and then his living peaceably under the Commonwealth and Protectorate? This, of course, was a key accusation against Hobbes, together with the supposed 'atheism' of Leviathan . Hobbes, however, could point to the example of a particular group of figures whose acted as he did under the Commonwealth and Protectorate. Addressing opponents of the Restoration, he said: Of the Bishops that then were, and for whose sakes (in part) you raised this War, there was not one that followed the King out of the Land, though they loved him, but lived quietly under the Protection, first of the Parliament, and then of Oliver (whole Titl...

Over the past year or so, I have been revisiting the figure of Thomas Hobbes. Partly this is due to the late Sir Roger Scruton's  affection for Hobbes and recognition of his place in the conservative philosophical tradition. Close to the heart of Scruton's affection for Hobbes is a view I heartily endorse: Like Hobbes I remain attached to the idea of civil government and believe it to be in every way superior to the role of priests. In early 2025 I read Thomas Holden's Hobbes's Philosophy of Religion (2023), an excellent and convincing exploration of how the philosopher from Malmesbury understood theology and - much more importantly for Hobbes - piety. Holden defines Hobbes' understanding of the language and practice of piety as "fit and proper, a laudable and rational expression of reverence before the awe-inspiring power of the great cause": Hobbes holds that reason and proper piety require all seventeenth-century English subjects to participate publicl...

In his sermon ' The Faith and Patience of the Saints; Or, the Righteous Cause Oppressed ' - part of the second volume of the Golden Grove series - Jeremy Taylor addressed the dissolution of the monasteries: We know that when, in Henry the Eighth, or Edward the Sixth's days, some great men pulled down churches and built palaces, and robbed religion of its just encouragements, and advantages; the men that did it were sacrilegious; and we find also that God hath been punishing that great sin, ever since; and hath displayed to so many generations of men, to three or four descents of children, that those men could not be esteemed happy in their great fortunes, against whom God was so angry, that he would show his displeasure for a hundred years together. This is the type of comment that might be taken as an example of - to use Peter Lake's terminology - 'maximalist' Laudianism. Here, after all, was a critique of a not insignificant aspect of the English Reformation. ...

Today we reach a final extract from ' Answers to the Exceptions Made Against the Assembly of Perth ' in the 1621 account of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland held at Perth in 1618, by David Lindsay, Bishop of Brechin (1619-34 and Bishop of Edinburgh 1634-38). Lindsay here sets forth a well-established understanding of the civil magistrate's duty to uphold conformity, not for binding the conscience but as a means of securing the peace of the kirk: Since the time that Kings and Princes became Christian, it hath alwayes beene the custome that Synodicall Decrees were authorized by their Lawes; not that the allowance or authoritie of Ciuill Lawes is made a rule to a Christians Conscience, but that the externall man might thereby bee tyed to the obedience of these things, which the Church hath found to be agreeable to the Word of God, that is the only rule of conscience: and it is to bee hoped, that God shall so dispose the hearts of the whole Estate, to the loue of ...

One of the accusations historians often make of those who defended episcopal conformity in the 17th century Church of Scotland is that their case lacked force. Moderation and eirenicism, we are told, could not hold against the passion and conviction of Covenanters. There are good grounds for doubting this in the latter part of the century. (Indeed, the victory of the Covenanter tradition was the chiefly the result of contingent political circumstances , not force of argument.) And, in his 1621 account of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland held at Perth in 1618 , David Lindsay - Bishop of Brechin (1619-34 and Bishop of Edinburgh 1634-38) - demonstrates that this also was not the case in the Jacobean Church of Scotland.  Addressing those who rejected the authority of the Articles of Perth, as accepted by the General Assembly at the request of James VI/I, Lindsay has no hesitation in directly addressing how they disorder both Church and State: And if any will still oppose ...

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Yesterday was Gloriana Day. Elizabeth I was born on 7th September 1533. When the Book of Common Prayer was lightly revised in 1604 following the Hampton Court conference, at the beginning of the reign of James I/VI, a black letter day for the obscure Saint Evurtius was introduced to the Kalendar on 7th September. It was a way of marking the anniversary of Elizabeth's birth. Gloriana Day invites us to give thanks for the Elizabethan Settlement and recognise how that Settlement, despite the awkward embarrassment of 21st century Anglicans, offers a wise path for a contemporary Anglicanism so often confused about its identity. We see this wisdom in one of Elizabeth's bishops, John Aylmer (1521-94), Bishop of London from 1577. Strype's 1701 Historical collections of the life and acts of the Right Reverend Father in God, John Aylmer  offers us an insight into how Aylmer embodied the Elizabethan Settlement.  Aylmer's allegiances were made abundantly clear when he, then an Arch...

Last week , we considered the defence of episcopacy offered by David Lindsay, Bishop of Brechin (1619-34 and Bishop of Edinburgh 1634-38), in his 1621 account of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland held at Perth in 1618 . Central to that Assembly had been the Articles of Perth , which James VI called the Assembly to approve. These Five Articles strengthened the bonds between the three Churches in James' realms by directing that communicants should kneel to receive the holy Sacrament; permitting administration of holy Communion to the sick in the home; likewise, administration of the Sacrament of Baptism, when necessary, in the home; restored Confirmation administered by bishops; and instituting observance of the great festivals of our Lord. Many of these practices, of course, were also to be found in other Reformed Churches. Just as his defence of episcopacy was profoundly Hookerian, so too was Lindsay's defence of the Articles of Perth. The matters at hand were adia...

In a recent post  I suggested that the 'Laudian maximalism' - 'no bishop, no sacraments' - of Taylor's 27th January 1661 sermon , at the consecration of two archbishops and ten bishops (including Taylor) for the restored Church of Ireland, is to be primarily understood as a response to the ecclesiastical and political context he faced at the Restoration. With episcopacy abolished in 1646, advocates of jure divino presbytery present and active in the north of Ireland, and the disorder inherited from the Cromwellian Church, Episcopalians required a robust, confident statement of the claims for episcopacy. Such a robust, confident statement needed to address the perceived failure of the moderate Hookerian conformist case for episcopacy, which was unable to withstand the deluge of the 1640s. Despite this, however, there is significant evidence that Taylor was prepared to nuance such Laudian maximalism when it come to the non-episcopal Reformed churches of the Continent...

To continue the series exploring the contours of Conformity 1662-1832 , we have today another excerpt from Edward Welchman's 1713 commentary on the Articles of Religion .  Welchman is identified by Stephen Hampton in Anti-Arminians as one of the Reformed divines in the early 18th century Church of England. Here Welchman reflects on Article XXIII, 'Of Ministering in the Congregation': Since the Ministers of the Word and Sacraments are Ambassadors for Christ, and Ministers of God (2 Cor. v.20. and v.4) they must necessarily receive their Authority from God, and be sent by him; and must not assume that Authority to themselves, unless they are called to it by God. And since God our Saviour, from the Time when he called the Apostles, has not immediately called any one to the Ministry; it follows, that they must be called by those, whose Business it is to call others. Thus the Apostles ordained Presbyters and Bishops, and the Bishops ordained by the Apostles did from thencefort...

One of the most interesting recent developments in Anglican historiography has been a series of studies demonstrating the vitality of the Reformed tradition in the post-1660 Church of England. The works of Stephen Hampton have, of course, initiated this. His Anti-Arminians: The Anglican Reformed Tradition from Charles II to George I (2008) pointed to "the consistency and resilience of the Reformed tradition within the Church of England into the Hanoverian age". In Grace and Conformity: The Reformed Conformist Tradition and the Early Stuart Church of England (2021), Hampton sought to show the continuity of the post-1660 Reformed tradition with that of the pre-1640s.  Jake Griesel in Retaining the Old Episcopal Divinity: John Edwards of Cambridge and Reformed Orthodoxy in the Later Stuart Church (2022) followed on from Hampton's Anti-Arminians , showing Edwards as an embodiment of the vitality and influence of the post-1660 Reformed tradition. In contrast to the dynamis...