"Invincible necessity": Bramhall's Hookerian understanding of the non-episcopal churches
To begin with, in rather Hookerian fashion, invokes Proverbs 6:16f, an exhortation against behaviour and attitudes which are "an abomination unto" the Lord, significantly concluding with "him that soweth discord among brethren". This immediately signals how Bramhall the Laudian views the continental Protestant churches: "brethren".
Bramhall then points to those foreign Protestant churches which were episcopal: "the Bohemian brethren, the Danish, Swedish, and some German Protestants, all which have Bishops". This was a characteristic Conformist and Laudian reminder that significant portions of the continental Protestant churches had an episcopacy.
Turning to the non-episcopal churches, Bramhall robustly rejects any notion of an 'un-churching' them:
But because I esteem them Churches not completely formed, do I therefore exclude them from all hope of salvation? or esteem them aliens and strangers from the commonwealth of Israel? or account them formal schismatics? No such thing.
The reference to "Churches not completely formed", rather than being a nasty Laudian innovation, is clearly taken from Hooker - more of which in a moment.
Bramhall then distinguishes three types of non-episcopal churches:
First, I know there are many learned persons among them, who do passionately affect Episcopacy; some of which have acknowledged to myself, that their Church would never be rightly settled until it was new mouldedm. Baptism is a Sacrament, the door of Christianity, a matriculation into the Church of Christ: yet the very desire of it in case of necessity is sufficient to excuse from the want of actual Baptism. And is not the desire of Episcopacy sufficient to excuse from the actual want of Episcopacy in like case of necessity? Or should I censure these as schismatics?
Secondly, there are others, who though they do not long so much for Episcopacy, yet they approve it, and want it only out of invincible necessity. In some places the sovereign prince is of another communion; the Episcopal chairs are filled with Romish Bishops: if they should petition for Bishops of their own, it would not be granted. In other places, the magistrates have taken away Bishops: whether out of policy, because they thought that regiment not so proper for their republics, or because they were ashamed to take away the revenues and preserve the Order, or out of a blind zeal, they have given an account to God; they owe none to me. Should I condemn all these as schismatics for want of Episcopacy, who want it out of invincible necessity?
Thirdly, there are others who have neither the same desires, nor the same esteem, of Episcopacy, but condemn it as an Antichristian innovation and a rag of Popery. I conceive this to be most gross schism materially. It is ten times more schismatical to desert, nay, to take away (so much as lies in them) the whole Order of Bishops, than to substract obedience from one lawful Bishop. All that can be said to mitigate this fault is, that they do it ignorantly, as they have been mistaught and misinformed. And I hope that many of them are free from obstinacy, and hold the truth implicitly in the preparation of their minds, being ready to receive it, when God shall reveal it to them. How far this may excuse (not the crime but) their persons from formal schism, either à toto or à tanto, I determine not, but leave them to stand or fall before their own Master.
In the first two categories are those churches deprived of the episcopacy by "necessity", including those who "do not long so much for Episcopacy". Listing the circumstances which necessitate non-episcopal church order - the sovereign owing obedience to Rome, the bishops remaining Roman, the decision of the magistrate, republican polity - Bramhall is obviously covering most of the non-episcopal continental churches. This - and the reference to "Churches not completely formed" - is very clearly a restatement of Hooker's understanding:
although I see that certain Reformed Churches, the Scottish especially and French, have not that which best agreeth with the Sacred Scripture, I mean the Government that is by Bishops, in as much as both those Churches are fallen under a different kind of regiment; which to remedy it, is for the one altogether too late, and too soon for the other, during their present affliction and trouble: This their defect and imperfection I had rather lament in such a case then exagitate, considering that men oftentimes without any fault of their own, may be driven to want that kind of polity or regiment which is best; and to content themselves with that, which either the irremediable error of former times, or the necessity of the present hath cast upon them - LEP III.11.16.
Bramhall the Laudian is perfectly Hookerian in his approach to the non-episcopal churches. This should not be a surprise: it was also the position of Laud himself.
As for the third category, those rejecting episcopacy as 'papist', Bramhall almost certainly was thinking of those much closer to home who had overthrown episcopacy in the 1640s: "It is ten times more schismatical to desert, nay, to take away (so much as lies in them) the whole Order of Bishops, than to substract obedience from one lawful Bishop". The latter is what happened, for example, in the Reformed city states. Much worse, says Bramhall, is what happened in England in the 1640s.
For the non-episcopal churches of the continent, then, Bramhall's judgement is explicit:
Should I condemn all these as schismatics for want of Episcopacy, who want it out of invincible necessity?
Their lack of episcopacy was certainly to be regretted, but it did not make them schismatical; it did not unchurch them; it did not compromise their salvation; yes, they were "Churches not completely formed" - but they were Churches.
Bramhall gave repeated expression to the conviction that episcopacy was of divine institution. This, however, was hardly a Laudian distinctive: the anti-Laudian, Dort participant Bishop Joseph Hall wrote Episcopacy by Divine Right in 1641. It was , however, thoroughly Hookerian:
if any thing in the Churches Government, surely the first institution of Bishops was from Heaven, was even of God, the Holy Ghost was the Author of it ... the Apostles who began this order of Regiment by Bishops, did it not but by divine instinct - LEP VII.5.10.
As with Hooker, this commitment was not regarded as requiring an 'un-churching' of the non-episcopal Churches of the continent. It was markedly different from the approach that would be later taken by the Oxford Movement. And, crucially, it is another significant example of the continuity between Laudianism and earlier Hookerian Conformity.
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From The Works of The Most Reverend Father in God, John Bramhall, Volume II.
I am always a little surprised at the apparent ignorance of 17th century English (and Irish) churchmen of the episcopal Reformed Churches of eastern Europe (Hungary, Transylvania, Poland, and Lithuania) despite their knowledge (?) of the Unitas Fratrum (Bohemian Brethren). The Reformed Churches in all four of those dominions were considerably larger than the greatly diminished Bohemian Brethren, many of whom had fled Hapsburg Counter-Reformation persecution in Moravia and Bohemia. True, their bishops were not ordained in historic succession, but neither were the bishops of the Bohemian Brethren, the Danish Church, and those German Churches with episcopal polity.
ReplyDeletePerhaps English knowledge of Jan Amos Komensky (John Amos Comenius) made the difference. Comenius was at that time the last bishop of the Unitas Fratrum and was an internationally-renowned polymath. Some years after he was driven out of his native Moravia by the Counter Reformation, he accepted in 1641 the request of the Long Parliament to join a commission to reform the English education system (the Civil Wars intervened). A few years before (at least according to Cotton Mather), John Winthrop had offered him the presidency of the newly-formed Harvard College in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Declining that invitation, Comenius accepted instead Queen Christina's earlier invitation to reform the Swedish schools. It seems likely that we was better known to English churchmen, and might have made the Bohemian Brethren better known to them, than any other of his fellow eastern European Protestant bishops.
Still, given how widely-read the English churchmen were (whether conformist or nonconformist, Anglican or Puritan) and given the importance at least of Poland on the international stage, it's still at least a little surprising to me that churchmen like Bramhall weren't a little more knowledgeable concerning the state of eastern European Protestantism.
Many thanks for your comment and the insight into the episcopal Reformed churches in central/eastern Europe.
DeleteBramhall does actually mention these churches, in debate with Baxter - "many other Churches in Poloma, Hungaria and those parts of the World, which have an ordinary uninterrupted succession of Pastors, some by the names of Bishops, others under the name of Seniors unto this day" (see https://laudablepractice.blogspot.com/2019/04/the-britannick-churches-bramhall.html).
He also said, "It appears, that three parts of four of the Protestant Churches have either Bishops, or superintendents, which is all one" (see https://laudablepractice.blogspot.com/2021/01/the-thing-is-retained-episcopacy-and.html).
Brian.
Thanks for the reminders that Bramhall was knowledgeable about the episcopal Reformed Churches—at least about their episcopal polity.
DeleteI've sometimes wondered whether the fourth part of the Protestant Churches might have had episcopal polity had the bishop of Strassburg been on board with the Reformation and had the position of antistes in the Church in Zürich evolved into something more like a Magyar or Polish Reformed bishop or superintendent.
An excellent counter-factual. The Second Helvetic Confession - on my reading of it - certainly seems open to the sort of development you suggest. It certainly would have provided a significant counter-balance to the claims of Geneva (with possible consequences for English debates). An intriguing road not taken.
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