Laud, defender of liberty in Somewhere

In his The Life of Archbishop Laud (1836), Charles Webb Le Bas (a representative of the Old High Church tradition, and a member of the Hackney Phalanx), challenged the Whig interpretation's portrayal of Laud as the supporter of clericalism and arbitrary power. Against this, Le Bas points to Laud as a defender of liberty against the ecclesial and civic authoritarianism of the systems of both Rome and Geneva.

Episcopacy as a bulwark against the exalted claims of papacy and presbytery; the determination "not to suffer unnecessary [doctrinal] Disputations, Altercations, or Questions to be raised" (from His Majesty's Declaration) rather than theological systems promoting "curious and unhappy differences"; and the commitment to promote and protect the civic peace; here was Laud's defence of the liberty and peace of the Church and Commonwealth, against ecclesial and theological claims contrary to both.

A significant understanding of the Anglican tradition is also set forth here, of ordered liberty in the life of Church and Commonwealth, with institutions, customs, traditions, and authority securing this ordered liberty against the powers and systems (of Anywhere) which seek to impose themselves and remake both Church and polity (of Somewhere) according to abstract claims.

The Presbyterian system was, in its original principles, as sternly and avowedly intolerant as the pontifical chair. It extended no hope of salvation, beyond the pale of its own communion. It affected a dominion, paramount to all earthly magistracy. It proclaimed a war of extermination against heresy. It was ready to compass earth and sea for proselytes. Violence and terror were employed to establish its claim to infallibility. And if Popery had its council of Trent, Calvinism had its synod of Dort. If it abjured the idolatry of the mass, it may fairly be said to have found a substitute, in the ordinance of preaching ... If the Pope could proclaim, that to keep faith with heretics, was to be false to the Church, the Presbytery could declare, precisely in the same spirit, that oaths were nullities, whenever they tended to the detriment of the holy cause. Nay, if the Pontiff grasped the keys of St. Peter, the Presbytery wielded the sceptre of Christ himself. And, lastly, to complete the similitude, if the Romish discipline transferred the care of his own conscience from the sinner to the priest, very similar to this was the effect of the system of Geneva.

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