"The true Protestant Churches beyond the Seas": early 18th century High Church praise for Lutheranism
In 1703, Theophilus Dorrington - one time Dissenting minister then ordained in the Church of England, a High Church (Juror, supporter of the Revolution settlement, Hanoverian) Tory - translated Lutheran theologian Samuel von Pufendorf's The Divine Feudal Law, originally written in 1695 to aid Lutheran-Reformed reconciliation in Germany. A second edition of the translation was published in 1714. This time Dorrington's objectives were made rather more explicit with a new title: A View of the Principles of the Lutheran Churches; Shewing how far they Agree with the Church of England. The words above are from Dorrington's preface to the work. In the work itself, Pufendorf regards the Church of England as part of the Reformed tradition, while noting how the Church of England differed from other Reformed churches on the "Differences of Ministers" and liturgy. He also interestingly defends Lutheran liturgical ceremonies by suggesting greater ceremonial existed in England:
As neither do the other of the Reform'd Churches exclude from their Communion the Church of England, which uses yet more Ceremonies than the Lutherans.
While Dorrington's translation of Pufendorf's work certainly reflected dynastic concerns - the first edition followed the 1701 Act of Settlement which had established the Hanoverian succession, the second edition as the Lutheran George I acceded to the throne - it is clear that Dorrington's interest in Lutheranism also had other roots. In 1688 he was touring in Germany and the following year published a recollection of his travels. While this mainly focuses on the Roman Catholicism he encountered, it also includes a very warm account of Lutheran worship in Cologne.
Dorrington's description of the Lutheran church he attended emphasised characteristics shared by Anglican places of worship, particularly noting that Lutheran iconography was "very free from Popery and Superstition":
The Place is Oblong, with the Altar or Communion-Table at the East end, and a good Gallery over the Entrance at the West end. Above that, is a little Gallery, set up for a small Organ, that they might lose no Room by it. The Church was very neat, but not fine. There were but Three distinct Pictures in it, and all very free from Popery or Superstition. On the South Wall hung a Picture of Moses, holding the Two Tables of Stone, on which there was only a Scrawl to represent the Writing of the Ten Commandments. The Communion-Table was large, and very high. It stood against the Wall, upon a flat of Boards, raised a little Step above the Stone Floor of the Church, and which goes out at a good distance from the Table. Over this Communion-Table, or Altar, is a good Picture, which represents our Blessed Saviour in his Agony in the Garden ... The Altar, or Communion-Table, was cover'd with a large Velvet Cloth, which reach'd to the Ground, of a deep blue Colour.
His praise for Lutheran worship is particularly striking, not least his view that this Lutheran congregation's singing of the liturgy exceeded that of Roman Catholic monastic communities:
When a good Number were assembled, they began to sing, with the Organ, their Psalms, and Hymns, and Spiritual Songs. I observ'd many People, both Men and Women, fell in with the singing, without using their Books which they had before them very often; and the Children, who sate together, very readily found what was to be sung, though I saw it was taken out of several distant Places of their Books; which shows that they were all very well acquainted with their Liturgy. I perceiv'd, that in one place they sung the Apostle's Creed; for a Person by whom I sate, and who very civilly turn'd to, and show'd me every thing that they sung; at length pointed to what I understood to be that. This singing took up the greatest part of the time of their Assembly. They all sung with most perfect Concord, and Agreement with their Organ, which was very pleasant; and, which was more pleasant, they did it with greatest Seriousness and Devotion. I never saw in any Quire of Monks or Priests in the Roman Church, that they sung their Devotions with so much Solemnity and Abstraction, as they speak, as the People generally here did. As soon as they were entered in their singing, they appear'd as if the whole Soul was engag'd, and elevated above the vain World, as if they were all Thought and Devotion. I confess it transported me with Pleasure to see how fitly they sung the Praises of the Great and Good Being. I thought my self in Circumstances that were a a pleasant Emblem and Resemblance of Heaven; and blessed my self, to find that I was now amidst the pure Praises, and true Worshippers of God.
A similar warmth is evident in Dorrington's description of his exchange with the Lutheran minister:
In the Afternoon I had some Conversation with this Minister, in which he appear'd a very pious and good Man, and a judicious well studied Divine, as I found afterwards. He has the Reputation of a good Scholar among the Protestant Divines. He was mightily pleased to see a Priest of the Church of England in his Church, and in his House, and express'd a great Veneration and Esteem for our Church He ask'd several important Questions concerning it, and rejoyc'd at every thing I could tell him which look'd well, and in favour of it. He positively condemn'd those of our Nation, who separate so needlessly from a Church so wisely and justly reform'd, but he spoke this with a Spirit of Compassion and Tenderness becoming a Christian; and he discover'd, that he heartily lamented it, as a thing of mighty Prejudice to the Progress and Prosperity of the Reformation.
Finally, Dorrington points to the Lutheran practice of conforming to what Article 34 terms "the common order of the Church", what Cranmer described as the "publick or common Order in Christ's Church":
He told me, the Churches of the Augsburg Confession have not all one Form of Liturgy everywhere exactly the same, nor all the same Modes or Methods of administering the Divine Offices, but in several Countries they have their several Forms and Rites, yet they do not censure, or quarrel, or separate from one another upon this score, but he that is used to Methods of one sort in one Country, when he comes into another joins with the Congregations, and conforms to the Methods there with the Spirit of Meekness, and Charity, and Wisdom; which was in the Primitive Christians, and directed them to demean themselves in like manner, in the like Cases.
Dorrington clearly is providing an account of Lutheranism which emphasises its affinity with Anglicanism: "the State of the Church being much the same with us in England, as it is with them". As such, he reflects a well established High Church tendency, seen in Durel at the Restoration and continued through to Horsley in the late Georgian era, celebrating Lutheran similarities with the Church of England. This sought to demonstrate that the Reformed Catholicism of the English and Irish Churches - national churches, liturgical worship, sacramental practice, a modest doctrinal confession, and episcopacy - did not exist in 'splendid isolation' but was also reflected in the churches of the Lutheran lands.
What is more, with the accession of George I, Dorrington also echoes earlier Laudian ambitions for a "Union of the Churches of the Northern Kingdoms", as seen in the subtitle given to the second edition of his translation:
A Seasonable Essay towards the Uniting of Protestants upon the Accession of His Majesty King GEORGE to the Throne of these Kingdoms.
Significant here is what Dorrington meant by 'Protestants'. In his account of his 1688 tour, he said:
There are in this City Two Congregations of the Reformed Religion, the one Calvinist, the other Protestant, or Lutheran. We spent the Morning of the Lord's-Day in the Protestant Congregation.
This reflected typical High Church usage in England and Ireland, with 'Protestant' being used to mean 'Episcopal and established', in contrast to Non-Conformists. Hence Dorrington's description of the Lutherans as "the true Protestant Churches beyond the Seas", a description of which Laud would have heartily approved.
It is a reminder of the High Church alternative to those ecclesial narratives which were centred on Rome or Geneva: an arc of national churches with Reformed Catholic doctrine and order, stretching from the Kingdoms of Ireland and England, through Germany, and into the Kingdoms of Scandinavia.
(The painting is of a Lutheran Mass in 17th century Hamburg.)
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