"A course more calm and moderate": in praise of the via Elizabeth

Of all the European churches, which shook off the yoke of the papal authority, no one proceeded with so much reason and moderation as the church of England; an advantage, which had been derived partly from the interposition of the civil magistrate in this innovation, partly from the gradual and slow steps by which the reformation was conducted in that kingdom. Rage and animosity against the catholic religion was as little indulged as could be supposed in such a revolution: The fabric of the secular hierarchy was maintained entire: The antient liturgy was preserved, so far as was thought consistent with the new principles: Many ceremonies, become venerable from age and preceding use, were retained: The splendour of the catholic worship, tho' removed, had at least given place to order and decency: The distinctive habits of the clergy, according to their different ranks, were continued: No innovation was admitted merely from spite and opposition to the former usage: And the new religion, by mitigating the genius of the antient superstition, and rendering it more compatible with the peace and interests of society, had preserved itself in that happy medium, which wise men have always sought, and which the people have so seldom been able to maintain.

David Hume The History of England, under the House of Tudor, Volume II, Chapter III.

What is perhaps most striking about Hume's praise for the Elizabethan Settlement is that it was not an expression of Enlightenment scepticism but, rather, an echo of a well established Anglican, indeed Laudian, view.  Note, for example, how Hume's view on the wisdom of retaining "many ceremonies" echoed Laud's defence of the Prayer Book's rites and ceremonies:

we live in a Church Reformed; not in one made New. Now all Reformation, that is good and orderly, takes away nothing from the old, but that which is Faulty and Erroneous. If anything be good, it leaves that standing.

Likewise, Hume's emphasis on the orderly nature of the English Reformation, and the role of the civil magistrate, is akin to Taylor's account:

For to the churches of the Roman communion we can say that ours is reformed, to the reformed churches we can say that ours is orderly and decent; for we were freed from the impositions and lasting errors of a tyrannical spirit, and yet from the extravagancies of a popular spirit too; our reformation was done without tumult, and yet we saw it necessary to reform; we were zealous to cast away the old errors, but our zeal was balanced with consideration and the results of authority: not like women or children when they are affrighted with fire in their clothes; we shaked off the coal indeed, but not our garments, lest we should have exposed our churches to that nakedness, which the excellent men of our sister churches complained to be among themselves. 

Crucially - and contrary to interpretations which regard Laudianism as a foreign innovation rather than a movement characterised by profound continuity with earlier strains of Conformist thought - such a view of the Elizabethan Settlement derived from Hooker. Indeed, Hume's description of the "moderation" of the Settlement is to be explicitly found in Hooker.  Hume's panegyric is very similar indeed to that given by Hooker:

But the Almighty which giveth wisdom and inspireth with right understanding whomsoever it pleaseth him, he foreseeing that which man’s wit had never been able to reach unto, namely, what tragedies the attempt of so extreme alteration would raise in some parts of the Christian world, did for the endless good of his Church (as we cannot choose but interpret it) use the bridle of his provident restraining hand, to stay those eager affections in some, and to settle their resolution upon a course more calm and moderate: lest as in other most ample and heretofore most flourishing dominions it hath since fallen out, so likewise if in ours it had come to pass, that the adverse part being enraged, and betaking itself to such practices as men are commonly wont to embrace, when they behold things brought to desperate extremities, and no hope left to see any other end, than only the utter oppression and clean extinguishment of one side; by this mean Christendom flaming in all parts of greatest importance at once, they all had wanted that comfort of mutual relief, whereby they are now for the time sustained (and not the least by this our church which they so much impeach) till mutual combustions, bloodsheds, and wastes, (because no other inducement will serve,) may enforce them through very faintness, after the experience of so endless miseries, to enter on all sides at the length into some such consultation, as may tend to the best reestablishment of the whole Church of Jesus Christ. To the singular good whereof it cannot but serve as a profitable direction to teach men what is most likely to prove available, when they shall quietly consider the trial that hath been thus long had of both kinds of reformation; as well this moderate kind which the church of England hath taken, as that other more extreme and rigorous which certain churches elsewhere have better liked. In the meanwhile it may be, that suspense of judgment and exercise of charity were safer and seemlier for Christian men, than the hot pursuit of these controversies, wherein they that are most fervent to dispute be not always the most able to determine. But who are on his side, and who against him, our Lord in his good time shall reveal (LEP IV.14.6)

While recent scholarship has quite rightly robustly dismissed an older, vague notion of an Anglican via media between Protestantism and Roman Catholicism, Hume's praise for the obviously Protestant Elizabethan Settlement - echoing the understandings of Hooker, Taylor, and Laud that it was a moderate, ordered settlement - is a reminder that there was what we might term a via Elizabeth, upheld by the Jacobean and Caroline Church.  

Underpinning the via Elizabeth was a recognition that the retention of established ceremonies and polity was for the good order of Church and commonwealth.  Established ceremonies, as Cranmer noted, are reverenced "for their antiquity", and thus contribute to "order and quiet discipline in the Church", accepted by those who are "more studious of unity and concord". The antiquity of the threefold order of bishops, priests, and deacons led to these offices being "had in such reverend estimation", contributing to the "public authority" (Article 23) of the ministry of Word and Sacrament. And so, as the 1559 Injunctions declare, "no man ought obstinately and maliciously to break and violate the laudable ceremonies of the Church, commanded by public authority to be observed". 

This was a stance maintained by James VI/I and Charles I. The 1604 Proclamation issued by James following the Hampton Court conference required conformity to the Book of the Common Prayer, warning Puritans to "not [to] expect nor attempt any further alteration in the common and public form of God's service". Archbishop Laud's statement to the Star Chamber in 1637 summarised how 'Carolinism' (as Charles Prior notes, a more accurate description than 'Laudianism') was defined by a concern to maintain the ceremonies and polity of via Elizabeth: "my care of this Church, the reducing of it into Order, the upholding of the External Worship of God in it, and the settling of it to the Rules of its first Reformation".

Cranmer's words regarding ceremonies also point to another aspect of the via Elizabeth: the commitment to ecclesial and communal peace.  Most notably this was seen in the deletion from the Litany of the petition against the Bishop of Rome, reflecting the call of 1559 Injunctions: 

the queen's majesty being most desirous of all other earthly things, that her people should live in charity both towards God and man, and therein abound in good works, wills and straitly commands all manner her subjects to forbear all vain and contentious disputations in matters of religion, and not to use in despite or rebuke of any person these convicious words, papist or papistical heretic, schismatic or sacramentary, or any suchlike words of reproach.

We see the same commitment in Charles I's Declaration regarding the Articles of Religion:

We hold it most agreeable to this Our Kingly Office, and Our own religious Zeal, to conserve and maintain the Church committed to Our Charge, in Unity of true Religion, and in the Bond of Peace; and not to suffer unnecessary Disputations, Altercations, or Questions to be raised, which may nourish Faction both in the Church and Commonwealth.

Finally, there was a doctrinal modesty of the via Elizabeth.  Protestant, yes; Reformed, yes; but with - in Hooker's words - "suspense of judgment and exercise of charity" on a range of matters that were to become the focus of agitation for a much narrower confessional and doctrinal stance.  At crucial points, the Royal Supremacy ensured that doctrinal modesty was protected: by Elizabeth's rejection of the Lambeth Articles; in the 'Directions Concerning Preachers' issued by James, forbidding parish clergy from preaching on "the deep points of predestination"; in the Declaration of Charles I that "all further curious search be laid aside, and these disputes shut up in God's promises, as they be generally set forth to us in the holy Scriptures, and the general meaning of the Articles of the Church of England according to them".

These were the means by which - to use Hume's phrases - 'reason and moderation, order and decency' characterized the via Elizabeth.  For contemporary Anglicans the via Elizabeth should not be, as it unfortunately too often is, an embarrassing historical episode (whether deemed 'too Protestant', 'too secular', or 'too English').  Rather, it offers a cohesive vision of the generous orthodoxy of a magisterial, liturgical, episcopal Protestantism, while rejecting the sectarian alternatives (whether Ritualist, Revivalist, or Progressive) that can tempt contemporary Anglicanism and which, we might note, condemn Anglican churches to further cultural irrelevance.

The via Elizabeth also has relevance to a Church ministering in a cultural context in which religion is often regarded to be inherently divisive and destructive of social peace. Hume's description of "reason and moderation" guiding the Reformation of the ecclesia Anglicana in a time of bitter and bloody divisions, rendering it "compatible with the peace and interests of society", speaks of an Anglican heritage that should be reclaimed. The peace of the earthly city has historically been a significant Anglican concern and its retrieval could have a particular resonance in an age of culture wars, embittered divisions, and dark fears.

To put it another way, contemporary Anglicanism should consider the Gloriana Option.