Brad Littlejohn is completing a Ph.D at the University of Edinburgh, where he is working under Oliver O’Donovan on the relationship between law, loyalty, and liberty in the thought of Richard Hooker. His passions include early modern and Reformation studies, as well as political theology and economics
Rethinking “Stuart Anglicanism”
http://calvinistinternational.com/2013/07/17/rethinking-stuart-anglicanism/
17 Jul 2013 
Posted by W. Bradford
Littlejohn
Time was, not too many decades
ago, when any decent (or supposed to be decent) book on late 16th or 17th
century England or New England could be counted on to pontificate about
“Puritanism” and its supposed nemesis, “Anglicanism.” Each member of this
binary pairing relied upon contrast with the other element for its definition, since
coherent definitions of either concept in terms of its own distinctive features
were so hard to come by. To the extent that scholars did attempt to describe in
positive terms what either “Anglicanism” or “Puritanism” stood for, their
descriptions seemed difficult to match up either with one another, or with any
of the primary source material. When you came right down to it, “Anglican”
seemed to designate merely those who were on the whole loyal supporters of the
established Church of England, and “Puritan” those who were dissatisfied with
it in some fundamental way. And yet, given that this church evolved
considerably from, say, 1560 to 1640, both in its prominent emphases and in its
willingness to accommodate dissent, this is hardly a very useful definition.
Thankfully, the past five decades
have witnessed a rich flowering of Puritan scholarship which has undermined the
neat and vapid definitions of the past, and offered us a proliferation of
different forms of “puritanism,” varying considerably both in their top
theological priorities and in how strongly they opposed the status quo. In a
recent review of Michael Winship’s Godly Republicanism: Puritans,
Pilgrims, and a City on a Hill, Mark Noll offers a
particularly helpful schematization of Winship’s elaborate taxonomy of
puritanisms, discriminating between conforming puritans, presbyterian
puritans, congregational puritans, determined congregational puritans, militant
congregational puritans, moderate separatists, and radical separatists.
Clearly, this division uses differences in ecclesiology as the litmus test for
determining different strands of puritan opinion, and while other
distinguishing criteria might be suggested, ecclesiology is probably the most
helpful and historically significant. Of course one might object, as with any taxonomy,
that the divisions are too neat, as each Puritan was unique and many would be
hard to place, particularly as their views and emphases shifted over time. But
on the whole, this is a very useful contribution to the definition and
differentiation of Puritanism.
The problem with this
classification lies in quite another direction—namely, in the blandly
monolithic way in which Winship and Noll continue to identify Puritanism’s
opposite, Anglicanism. Noll’s summary says only: “Stuart Anglicans were
the monarchs, James I and Charles I, and their bishops who opposed Calvinism,
promoted Arminian theology, and moved toward Catholicism in their rituals. To
the Puritans they constituted a stupendous barrier to the biblical reforms that
the English church so desperately needed.”
Now of course, one can’t attempt
to do everything all at once, and in a book about Puritanism, it might seem
excusable to make broad generalizations about non-Puritans. However, Winship
and Noll’s sloppiness here merits comment because it is so representative of
the problems that continue to dog the scholarship of this period. Whereas the
category “Puritanism” has in recent decades finally received the attention it
deserves, recognized as meriting careful definition and discrimination, its
binary partner remains an elusive stereotype. One wonders in part if this
is due simply to our culture’s distaste for conformity and valorization of
dissent. Any differences amongst those who broadly supported the status quo could
not possibly be interesting, we assume; only those protesters, for Noll and
Winship, “the great promoters of church reform” are really interesting and
creative enough to merit close scrutiny. Of course, this way of putting things
also tends to implicitly buy the Puritan claim that only they were
interested in “reform”—which easily morphed into the claim that only they were Reformed.
Noll and Winship certainly veer this way, when they say the “Stuart Anglicans…
opposed Calvinism, promoted Arminian theology, and moved toward Catholicism in
their rituals.” This is hardly a fair representation of all non-Puritans.
Accordingly, I would propose at
the very least that we need to complexity the category of “Stuart Anglicans” at
the same time as we try to complexity the category of “Puritans” (although it
might be better to move beyond the binary opposition altogether, as I shall
suggest below). In suggesting four subcategories, I shall not use the criterion
of ecclesiology per se, but rather, why it was that they thought
conformity and support of the established church to be, on the whole, a good
thing. Much of this follows from the work of Patrick Collinson in his The Elizabethan Puritan Movement
and The Religion of
Protestants: The Church in English Society 1559-1625.
Hardline
Conformists
This type, whose supreme
representative was perhaps Richard Bancroft (Archbishop of Canterbury 1604-10),
tended to believe in order for order’s sake, and to think that conformity and
uniformity were goods that hardly required any external justification.
Bancroft’s predecessor John Whitgift (Archbishop of Canterbury 1583-1604)
was of a similar temperament. This group, while they tended to be orthodox Calvinists
in their doctrine, were not nearly so interested in the promulgation of right
doctrine as their Puritan counterparts; indeed, they sometimes attempted to
shut down doctrinal debates for the sake of preserving peace, leading ardent
Puritans to accuse them (usually wrongly) of having no commitment to Reformed
orthodoxy.
Happy Erastians (or, the
Episcopalian Reformed)
This type, a large class that
incorporated a considerable range of theological emphases, was united by their
broadly irenic disposition, and their shared sense that the English Church
deserved their loyalty because it was the authorized regional expression of the
catholic Reformed faith. These men saw themselves as the English Reformed, or
the Episcopalian Reformed, members of an international confederation of
Reformed churches, but fiercely proud of their English distinctives and their
royal patronage, which they believed were best suited to the order and
edification of the English church. These men were essentially Calvinist in
theology, and in agreement with the great Reformed confessions, although they
tended to prefer avoiding contentious theological niceties such as those that
agitated the Synod of Dort. This group could number among its ranks such
illustrious names as James Ussher, John Davenant, Joseph Hall, and, in most
respects, the Elizabethan Richard Hooker. It should be noted that there is
considerable overlap between this group and the Conforming Puritans that Noll
identifies; for instance, Archbishop of Canterbury George Abbot (1611-33) was a
zealous Calvinist in doctrine, sharing many Puritan goals and emphases, but
from within the very center of the establishment.
Ceremonialists
This group, although overlapping
considerably with the previous category, undeniably represented a somewhat
different set of interests and emphases. Like the Happy Erastians, they broadly
considered themselves part of the international Reformed churches, though with
certain reservations and suspicions, and like the Happy Erastians they
were very proud of their English distinctives; indeed, perhaps more inclined to
suppose their superiority to the Continental Reformed in certain respects.
Their confidence in the virtues of the English church, however, was more
specifically tied toward its liturgical and polity distinctives. That is to
say, they did not merely consider the Book of Common Prayer and the institution
of bishops to be wholesome, edifying, and particularly suited for the
well-being of the English Church, but as representing an intrinsically superior
way of churchmanship. Although basically Reformed in doctrine, therefore, they
tended to major on the importance of liturgical or polity issues, holding at
arms’ length the kind of theological concerns that dominated the early 1600s.
However, we should avoid overstating these tendencies; such men as these had no
interest in abandoning their Reformed identity, and should not be confused with
the full-fledged Laudian strain (below). Undoubtedly the most well-known
representative of this type was Lancelot Andrewes, although John Overall would
be another good example, and Richard Hooker could be considered as having
manifested some tendencies in this direction.
Laudians
Finally, we come to the group
that Noll and Winship (and most historians, it must be said) seem to have in
mind when they speak of the “Stuart Anglicans.” These were men who were
actively hostile to Calvinist doctrine, and actively wanted to downplay their
Reformed identity. They were not about to forsake Protestantism altogether, to
be sure, as their Puritan foes feared, but they were keen on rapprochement with
Rome, and saw their church as something of a via media between
mainstream Protestantism and Catholicism. They carried the enthusiasm for
liturgical ceremony and episcopal polity considerably further than the
Ceremonialists, turning ceremony from an adornment of worship to its main
focus, and developing strong jure divino claims for the institution of
bishops. This group, containing such men as Richard Montagu, John Cosin,
Richard Neile, and of course William Laud, rose rapidly to ascendancy in the
1620s and 1630s, and it was their domination, and influence over Charles I,
that was in many respects responsible for the outbreak of the English Civil
War.
Now, what is striking about this
classification is that it shows that from the standpoint of continental
Reformed theology, a number of sub-groups on both the “Puritan” and “Anglican”
side fell within the fold, plausibly laying claim to the “Reformed” identity,
although divergent in their emphases (as, indeed, Reformed groups in other
countries were in different respects). On the “Puritan” side, we might include
the Conforming Puritans, Presbyterian Puritans, and Congregational
Puritans. On the “Anglican” side, we could include all but the Laudians. This
observation suggests an attractive alternative taxonomy, one that rests not on
a fundamental dichotomy, but a trichotomy, defined in terms of the variegated
mainstream who held to broadly Reformed doctrine and practice, whom we might
call the English Reformed, and of only quasi-Reformed outliers on either
side—the semi-separatists and separatists, and the Laudians. Although this need
not trump altogether an approach like Winship’s (which helps highlight genuine
commonalities across all “Puritans”), such a new schema could be a significant
blessing to scholarship on this period. Why? Because it would help force
scholars of early English Protestantism and scholars of early continental
Protestantism to recognize themselves as studying two aspects of the same
phenomenon. Neither a Thomas Cartwright nor a Richard Hooker nor a John
Davenant can be properly understood except with respect to the broader
constellation of European Reformed churches, of which they perceived themselves
to be a part, and in whose debates and variations they took part, for all their
distinctive Englishness. Such a new taxonomy, then, might look something like
this:
I. The Anabaptistizing Tendency
A. Congregationalists
o Determined Congreationalist Puritans
o Militant Congregationalist Puritans
B. Separatists
o Moderate Separatists
o Radical Separatists
II. The English Reformed
A. Puritans
o Presbyterian Puritans
o Congregationalist Puritans
B. Conformists
o Conforming Puritans
o Hardline Conformists
o Happy Erastians
o Ceremonialists
III. The Catholicizing Tendency
A. Laudians
Obviously, any taxonomy has its
weaknesses, this one included, but I expect that much historical and
theological fruit could be gleaned by an attempt to fill out, nuance, and apply
a schema something like this as part of research on the English church, c. 1570-1650.
