"These names differ more in sound, than in sense": Spottiswoode, Scottish superintendency, and Laudian episcopacy

As touching the Government of the Church, I am verily persuaded that the Government Episcopal is the only Right and Apostolick Form.

So declared John Spottiswoode, Archbishop of Saint Andrews 1615-39, in his last will and testament at his death in 1639.  It is, of course, what we would expect of a Laudian.  The words were quoted in the life of Spottiswoode, prefacing The History of the Church of Scotland. Again we would expect these words to be quoted as the author of the life was another Laudian, Brian Duppa (Bishop of Salisbury 1641-60, Bishop of Winchester 1660-62).

Before, however, regarding this as a high-flying Laudian view of episcopacy contrasting with Hooker's caution and moderation - and thus another example of supposed Laudian innovation - we should take care to read both Spottiswoode and Duppa on the post-Reformation Church of Scotland. 

Consider Spottiswoode's defence of the restoration of episcopacy in Scotland under James VI:

For did men understand how things went at our Reformation and since that time, they would never have been moved to think that Episcopacy was against the Constitutions of this Church; one of the first things done in it being the placing of Superintendents with Episcopal Power in the same, and no act so often iterated in the General Assemblies of the Church, as that Ministers should be obedient to their Superintendents under pain of Deprivation. Then for the Consistorial Discipline brought from Geneva some sixteen years after the Reformation; did men know the Troubles raised thereby both in the Church and State, with the necessity that Your Majesties Father of blessed Memory [Spottiswoode was addressing Charles I] was put to for Reforming that confused Government, they would never magnifie nor cry it up as they do.

Superintendents in the Church of Scotland exercised "Episcopal Power". What Spottiswoode here suggests, in the dedication of his work to Charles I, is made more explicit in the History itself:

The Superintendents held their Office during life, and their power was Episcopal; for they did elect and ordain Ministers, they presided in Synods, and directed all Church Censures, neither was any Excommunication pronounced without their warrant.

It might be argued that this view of superintendency equating to episcopacy was forced upon Spottiswoode by circumstances.  This, however, does not apply to Duppa who, in his account of the author's life, refers to Spottiswoode's father, a parish minister and then a superintendent in the Church of Scotland:

Not long after this he was made Superintendent of Lothian, Merse and Teviot-dale, where he exercised fully the power and discharged faithfully the Office of a Bishop, though under another style: for it was not the Office, but the Name, which the first Reformers out of humor startled at; though they who have succeeded them (for in Errors of this kind the last comers think they have done nothing unless they outbid the former) have since to their own ruine cast out both. He continued in this holy Function with the approbation of all good men till his death.

Duppa the Laudian has no hesitation in regarding superintendency as "the Office of Bishop".  It is the same office, "though under another style". This, we must note, is despite the fact that no personal historic succession or consecration was attached to superintendency. Rather, the fundamental issue was that the office of superintendent preserved the essence of episcopacy, defined by Spottiswoode in his last will and testament:

Parity among Ministers being the breeder of all Confusion, as experience might have taught us.

Episcopacy, in the form of superintendency, ensured the Church's peace, unity, and order. Historic personal succession was not, then, the fundamental feature of the Laudian understanding of episcopacy, as Laud himself had demonstrated in his debate with Fisher the Jesuit. What is more, Laud also identified the German Lutheran system of superintendency as episcopacy:

among the other Lutherans the Thing is retained, though not the Name. For instead of Bishops they are called Superintendents, and instead of Archbishops, General Superintendents. And yet even here too, these Names differ more in sound, than in sense.

Likewise, the Laudian Bramhall pointed to superintendency in both Lutheran and Reformed churches, also equating this with episcopacy:

It appears, that three parts of four of the Protestant Churches have either Bishops, or superintendents, which is all one.

And so he declared that the office of superintendent, "endued with Episcopal Power", ensured that "the function itself was never taken away in Scotland".

Spottiswoode and Duppa, therefore, stand firmly within the Laudian mainstream in their understanding of Scottish superintendents as embodying the essence of episcopacy. 

As an observant commenter mentioned in an earlier post on Spottiswoode and the Church of England's acceptance of his presbyteral ministry, the words on the coffin at his burial in Westminster Abbey also testify to Laudian acceptance of his ministry as a bishop prior to his episcopal consecration by English bishops in 1610.  The earlier post noted that the concern of James VI/I in securing such episcopal consecration at English hands for Scottish bishops was that their appointment and their episcopal ministry had not been accompanied by episcopal consecration - what Duppa termed "the solemnities of consecration". Duppa also quotes the inscription on Spottiswoode's coffin: 

UNDECEM ANNOS ARCHIEPISCOPUS GLASGOENSIS.

Eleven years Archbishop of Glasgow. Spottiswoode was appointed to the see of Glasgow in 1603.  He was translated to Saint Andrews in 1615. He received episcopal consecration from English bishops in 1610.  In other words, the inscription does not at all distinguish between the years he served as Archbishop of Glasgow before and after receiving episcopal consecration: he was exercising the episcopal office in the See of Glasgow for all of those years.

It is a profoundly revealing insight into the Laudian understanding of episcopacy, cohering with the words of leading Laudians on the subject.  For Laudians, the essence of episcopacy was not historic personal succession but, rather, a specific office with oversight of ministers, the right to ordain, exercising discipline, and presiding over a church's councils. Scottish and German superintendency, or Scottish and Danish bishops (both lacking historic personal succession), were, for Laudians, acceptable forms of episcopacy. It is further evidence of how the Laudian understanding of episcopacy was much closer to what MacCulloch terms Hooker's "relativistic discussion of episcopacy" than many historical accounts allow.