Jeremy Taylor's 1634 Gunpowder Treason sermon and a path not taken
From primo of Elizabeth to undecimo, the Papists made no scruple of comming to our Churches, Recusancy was not then so much as a Chrysome, not an Embrio. But when Pius quintus sent forth his Breves of Excommunication and Deposition of the Queen, then first they forbore to pray with us, or to have any religious communion ...
Two yeares therefore after this Bull, this Statute [against Recusancy] was made if it was possible to nullify the effects of it, to hinder its execution, and if it might be, by this meanes to keep them, as they had been before, in Communion with the Church of England, and obedience to her Majesty ...
Because it is plaine Religion did not make them absent themselves from our Churches, unlesse they had changed their Religion since the Bull came over. For if Religion could consist with their Communion with us before the Bull (as it's plain it did) then why not after the Bull, unlesse it be part of their Religion to obey the Pope, rather then to obey God commanding us to obey our Prince?
... for else why should they after the Bull deny their Communion, which before they did not? Either they must think the Queen for a just cause, and by a just power excommunicate, or why did they separate from her Communion?
... The Author of the Epistle of comfort to the Catholiques in prison printed by authority in the year of the Powder Treason, is very earnest to perswade his Catholiques not to come to our Churches or communicate with us in any part of our divine service, affrighting them with the strange terriculamenta of halfe Christians, Hypocrites, Denyers of Christ, in case they joyn'd with us in our Liturgy.
Accepting that Taylor, for polemical purposes, may be over-stating the extent of pre-1570 conformity by 'church papists', it is the case, as Alexandra Walsham has argued, that "this sizeable, if statistically indefinable, proportion of Church of England congregations" challenges "the sectarian model of post-Reformation Catholicism perpetuated by previous historians". What is more, Walsham also emphasises that what she describes as "Catholic conformity" has significance "for our understanding of interconfessional relations":
Church papistry needs to be taken seriously as a means of defusing suspicion and of reaching with the heretical enemy a mutually beneficial modus vivendi. John Bossy has recently depicted it as a manifestation of what he called the 'moral tradition': an instinct for preserving peace and remaining 'in charity' with one's neighbours. The role it played in fostering a climate of practical co-operation and polite interaction between the adherents of rival creeds deserves much more attention.
Taylor's Powder-plot sermon perhaps suggests another aspect of this "moral tradition". Note how the sermon states "the Papists made no scruple of comming to our Churches": Taylor, in other words, is not denying that the theological identity of 'church papists' were that of the Roman communion. It was only after Regnans in exclesis that "they forbore to pray with us": again, there is the sense of a separate papalist identity alongside conformity. Taylor also offered an interpretation of the laws against Recusancy which denied that the purpose of such legislation was to punish theological convictions:
Then there was no cause at all given them by us; none put to death for being a Roman Catholique nor any of them punish'd for his Religion. This hath beene the constant attestation of our Princes and State since the first Lawes made against Recusants & the thing it selfe will bear them record.
Again, "his Religion" makes clear that conformity was not being understood as a denial of Roman Catholic theological convictions. Rather, conformity was about demonstrating that "Religion could consist with their Communion with us".
Two decades later, during the Interregnum, Taylor returned to this theme. In a 'Letter Written to a Gentlewoman' who had converted to Roman Catholicism, he again pointed to the practice of 'church papists' before Pius' bull:
Because for all the time of King Edw 6. and till the eleventh year of Queen Elizabeth, your people came to our Churches and prayed with us, till the Bull of Pius Quintus came out upon temporal regards, and made a Schism by forbidding the Queens Subjects to pray as by Law was here appointed, though the prayers were good and holy, as themselves did believe.
Taylor then went on to provide a theological rationale for such conformity. This rationale is rooted in the statement that what is necessary to salvation is to be found in the Church of England:
what can be supposed wanting in order to salvation? We have the Word of God, the Faith of the Apostles, the Creeds of the Primitive Church, the Articles of the four first general Councils, a holy Liturgy, excellent Prayers, perfect Sacraments, Faith and Repentance, the Ten Commandments, and the Sermons of Christ, and all the precepts and counsels of the Gospel; We teach the necessity of good works, and require and strictly exact the severity of a holy life; We live in obedience to God, and are ready to die for him, and do so when he requires us so to do; We speak honourably of his most holy Name, we worship him at the mention of his Name, we confess his Attributes, we love his Servants, we pray for all Men, we love all Christians, even our most erring Brethren, we confess our sins to God and to our Brethren whom we have offended, and to God's Ministers in cases of Scandal, or of a troubled Conscience. We communicate often, we are enjoyned to receive the holy Sacrament thrice every Year at least; Our Priests absolve the penitent, our Bishops ordain Priests, and confirm baptized persons, and bless their people and intercede for them; and what could here be wanting to Salvation? what necessity forced you from us?
At one level, of course, Taylor is here offering a characteristic Episcopalian defence of the Church of England. A Roman Catholic apologist would have offered a robust challenge to, for example, "perfect Sacraments", resulting in an equally robust response from Taylor. But this was not a debate between theologians. It was pastoral advice to a lay person. Why would a lay person abandon "the Communion of those with whom you have always lived in charity"?
This leads us to read Taylor's account of the Church of England in a different way. Note what he does not say. There is nothing that would demand the - to use a term that would become significant in 1660 - "tender Consciences" of 'church papists' renounce a preference for the doctrine, rites, and ceremonies of the Roman Church. There is no requirement to subscribe to the Articles of Religion. Indeed, there is no necessity that the private, domestic devotions of 'church papists' be taken from the Book of Common Prayer. Instead, there is merely a recognition that salvation can be found in the Church of England, that one can be a Christian living in that communion:
what can be supposed wanting in order to salvation? ... what could here be wanting to Salvation?
In other words, to return to the 1634 Powder-plot sermon, "Religion could consist with their Communion with us".
A 1647 work by Taylor, his The psalter of David with titles and collects according to the matter of each Psalme, also set out why Christians of different confessions should unite in prayer:
For my own particular, since all Christendome is so much divided, and subdivided into innumerable Sects, I knew not how to give a better evidence of my own beleef, and love of the Communion of Saints, and detestation of Schisme, then by an act of Religion, whose consequence might be (if men please) the advancement of an universall Communion. For in that which is most concerning, and is the best preserver of charity, I mean practicall devotion and active piety, the differences of Christendome are not so great and many, to make an eternall dis-union and fracture.
This is, Taylor declared, "the Communion of charity", a sharing in "those things which are certainly true":
But hee that is ready to joyne with all the societies of Christians in the world, in those things which are certainly true, just and pious, gives great probation that he hath at least, animum Catholicam, no Schismaticall soul, because he would actually communicate with all Christendome, if bona fides in falso articulo, sincere perswasion (be it true or false) did not disoblige him, since he clearly distinguishes persons from things, and in all good things communicates with persons bad enough in others. This is the Communion of charity, and when the Communion of belief is interrupted by misperswasion on one side, and too much confidence and want of charity on the other, the erring party hath humane infirmity to excuse him, but the uncharitable nothing at all.
It was not without significance that Taylor pointed to Flemish Catholic humanist George Cassander (d.1566) as encouraging this approach:
For I have seen an Essay of this designe made by that prudent and pious Moderator of Controversies, George Cassander, who did much for the peace of Christendome, when disagreeing interests and opinions made the great Schisme in the Western Churches ...
Having, after the example of Cassander, how and why Christians could share in prayer, Taylor goes further, and indicates how he could share in the public prayers of the Roman communion:
But since all Christians of any publike confession and government, that is, all particular and nationall Churches, agree in the matter of prayers, and the great object, God in the mystery of the Trinity, if the the Church of Rome would make her addresses to God onely, through Jesus Christ our Lord, and leave the Saints in the Calendar, without drawing them into her offices (which they might doe without any prejudice to the suits they ask, unlesse Christs intercession without their conjuncture were imperfect) that we might all once pray together, we might hope for the blessings of peace and charity to be upon us all.
This has relevance, of course, for the divine service of the Church of England. The liturgy of the Prayer Book, of course, had no invocation of saints. Unless the intercession of Christ was deemed insufficient, the absence of such invocations in divine service should have been no obstacle to Roman Catholics - in the words of the Powder-plot sermon - "coming to our churches" and "pray[ing] with us".
What we can see in Taylor's thinking, therefore, is a rich understanding of what Bossy called the 'moral tradition' underpinning 'church papistry'. That 'moral tradition' - both in terms of those English Roman Catholics who were 'church papists' and those in the Church of England who peaceably encouraged and accepted the practice - could be understood as an expression of what Taylor termed the "Communion of charity", of what Christendom - despite its bitter divisions - confessed in common, of the eirenicism encouraged by the "prudent and pious" Cassander.
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