'Exasperating passages, which edify nothing': Laud's defence of the peace of Church and Commonwealth

In his account of the life of Laud, Cyprianus anglicus (1668), the Laudian Peter Heylyn addresses the accusation of 'Popery' levelled at the Archbishop by his opponents in church and state. Heylyn is clear, of course, that such accusations had no basis whatsoever, for Laud was committed to the defence of the Church of England, what Heylyn describes as "the true Protestant religion". 

This, Heylyn states, was not at all contradicted by Laud's opposition to a populist, sectarian anti-popery stance. Rather, such opposition stood in the best traditions of the reformed Church of England.

Heylyn first considered how Laud discouraged and used his influence against publications with "exasperating passages" which condemned the Pope as 'antichrist':

he was not pleased that the Pope should be any longer stigmatized by the name of Antichrist; and gave a strict Charge unto his Chaplains, That all exasperating Passages (which edifie nothing) should be expunged out of such Books, as by them were to be Licenced to the Press; and that no Doctrines of that Church should be writ against: but such as seemed to be inconsistent with the establish'd Doctrine of the Church of England. Upon which ground it was, that Baker Chaplain to the Bishop of London refused to Licence the Reprinting of a Book about the Gunpowder-Treason, saying to him that brought the Book, 'That we were not so angry with the Papists now, as we were about twenty years since; and that there was no need of any such Books to exasperate them, there being now an endeavour to win them to us by fairness and mildness'. And on the same ground, Bray Chaplain to the Archbishop, refused the Licencing of another, called, 'The Advice of a Son', unless he might expunge some unpleasing Expressions, affirming, 'That those Passages would offend the Papists, whom we were now in a fair way of winning, and therefore must not use any harsh Phrases against them'. The Chaplains not to be condemned for their honest care, and much less their Lords; though I find it very heavily charged as a Crime in all. 

Laud here reflected part of a wider rejection of 'antichrist' language with reference to the papacy, not only evident amongst other Laudians (such as Bramhall and Montagu) but with important antecedents in Hooker (e.g. LEP V.28.1), James VI/I, and Casaubon.  Describing such language as "exasperating Passages (which edifie nothing)" points to an abiding Laudian concern: that the peace of the Church and of the community is not served by harsh, divisive language applied to other Christians. Here too we can see a significant antecedent in the Elizabethan 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.

The same spirit is found in Jeremy Taylor's Rules and Advices to his clergy:

If there be any Papists, or sectaries in your parishes, neglect not frequently to confer with them in the spirit of meekness, and by the importunity of wise discourses seeking to gain them. But stir up no violences aginst them.

Laud wisely understood that the peace of the Church and community, grounded in charity, required that aggressive, violent language should not be directed at other Christians: he rightly used his authority to protect that peace.

Heylyn then pointed to how Laud's revisions of the Gunpowder Plot service - moderating the service's "whose religion is rebellion", replacing it with the more nuanced "those ... who turn religion into rebellion" -  rather than being an innovation undermining the English Church, also followed the prudent and charitable example of the Elizabethan Settlement:

In the English Litany set out by King Henry viii. and continued in both Liturgies of King Edward vi. there was this Clause against the Pope, viz. From the Tyranny of the Bishop of Rome, and all his detestable Enormities, Good Lord, &c. Which being considered as a means to affright those of the Romish Party from coming diligently to our Churches, was prudently expunged by those who had the Revising of the Liturgie, in the first year of the Queen. In imitation of whose Piety and Christian Care, it was thought fit by the Archbishop to change some Phrases which were found in the Books of Prayer appointed for the Fifth of November ...  The Alterations were but small, but the clamour great which was raised about it ... But he had better reason for it, than they had against it. For if the first Reformers were so careful of giving no offence to the Romish Party, as to expunge a Passage out of the Publick Liturgie, when the Queen was a Protestant; much greater reason had the Archbishop to correct those Passages in a formal Prayer not confirmed by Law, when the Queen was one of that Religion.

Removing gratuitously offensive descriptions of Roman Catholicism from the liturgy had, as Heylyn noted, clear precedent in the 1559 Book of Common Prayer. Nor was the desire to "pass our time in rest and quietness", "quietly and godly governed", aided by phrases in a public liturgy which encouraged disrespectful, sectarian attitudes7 towards Queen Henrietta Maria.

Heylyn might also have pointed to Hooker in this regard.  Hooker reminds us that "the name of Papist is not given unto any man for being a notorious malefactor" and so the Roman Church is "to be held and reputed a parte of the howse of God, a limme of the visible Church of Christ" (LEP V.68.5 & 9). Phrases in public liturgy which obscured or denied this truth were rightly to be regarded as "exasperating Passages (which edifie nothing)".

For Hooker, of course, this was a means of encouraging conformity: "not to quench with delayes and jelousies the feeble smoke of conformitie" (V.68.9). This desire for conformity also - as Heylyn indicates in the above extracts - motivated Laud in his opposition to populist anti-popery discourse. It was a means of seeking and securing ecclesial and civil peace in an age riven by violent confessional conflicts which ravaged the peace of Church and commonwealth.

Laud's principled and brave opposition to anti-popery sentiment should bring us to view him in a rather different light to that suggested by the Whig interpretation.  His use of archepiscopal authority to challenge populist anti-popery stances was not 'arbitrary power' in pursuit of 'Romanising' ends (this, in particular, being a frankly ridiculous interpretation of Laud). Rather, Laud was wisely and prudently using ecclesiastical power to protect the peace of Church and commonwealth against a divisive and sectarian anti-popery ideology which - as Laud had warned and Hooker had also foreseen - would lead to bitter, violent confessional strife in these Islands.

This bitter, violent confessional strife claimed the life of Laud, the rage of  populist anti-popery ideology directed against him for having stood against it in service of Church and commonwealth. As Heylyn stated, he thus "died a Martyr of the English Church and State".