2 Protestant jurisdictionalism and the nature of Elizabethan puritan nonconformity
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Esther Counsell
Abstract
This chapter reassesses Elizabethan puritan arguments against subscription and ecclesiastical oath-taking, paying particular attention to the political fallout attended by Archbishop John Whitgift’s introduction of a new threefold test in October 1583. It challenges previous historiographical narratives of Elizabethan puritan nonconformity which have exalted the agency of the puritan conscience in eschewing popish rites and ceremonies, or else have attributed the phenomenon of puritan nonconformity to the staying power of proto-presbyterian platforms following the Admonition Controversy (1572–78). These explanations have served to portray Elizabethan puritans as intrinsically at odds with a more magisterial and Erastian interpretation of the Elizabethan Settlement of Religion (1559). However, through close analysis of the mainstream Elizabethan puritan response to Whitgift’s extra-parliamentary reforms, particularly against the revived use of ex officio proceedings in church courts, spearheaded by the leading English civilian thinkers William Stoughton and Robert Beale, this chapter reveals a conservative, juridical, and long-standing intellectual movement, which placed pivotal significance on adherence to, and proper implementation of, a truly lay and civil form of national ecclesiastical government. Stoughton and Beale were inspired by the wider European ius commune tradition as much as by English statute and common law, envisioning a more thoroughly Erastian reconstitution of English church government. Whitgift’s extra-parliamentary subscription test, emerging from an exclusively episcopal model of the royal supremacy, proved anathema to this jurisdictionalist approach to church governance, and provides a stark contrast by which to better understand the true nature of Elizabethan puritan nonconformity.
Abstract
This chapter reassesses Elizabethan puritan arguments against subscription and ecclesiastical oath-taking, paying particular attention to the political fallout attended by Archbishop John Whitgift’s introduction of a new threefold test in October 1583. It challenges previous historiographical narratives of Elizabethan puritan nonconformity which have exalted the agency of the puritan conscience in eschewing popish rites and ceremonies, or else have attributed the phenomenon of puritan nonconformity to the staying power of proto-presbyterian platforms following the Admonition Controversy (1572–78). These explanations have served to portray Elizabethan puritans as intrinsically at odds with a more magisterial and Erastian interpretation of the Elizabethan Settlement of Religion (1559). However, through close analysis of the mainstream Elizabethan puritan response to Whitgift’s extra-parliamentary reforms, particularly against the revived use of ex officio proceedings in church courts, spearheaded by the leading English civilian thinkers William Stoughton and Robert Beale, this chapter reveals a conservative, juridical, and long-standing intellectual movement, which placed pivotal significance on adherence to, and proper implementation of, a truly lay and civil form of national ecclesiastical government. Stoughton and Beale were inspired by the wider European ius commune tradition as much as by English statute and common law, envisioning a more thoroughly Erastian reconstitution of English church government. Whitgift’s extra-parliamentary subscription test, emerging from an exclusively episcopal model of the royal supremacy, proved anathema to this jurisdictionalist approach to church governance, and provides a stark contrast by which to better understand the true nature of Elizabethan puritan nonconformity.
Kapitel in diesem Buch
- Front Matter i
- Contents v
- Notes on contributors vii
- Acknowledgements ix
- List of abbreviations x
- Introduction 1
- I Ecclesio-political and liturgical contests 19
- 1 Contests, contexts, and the boundaries of conformity in early modern England 21
- 2 Protestant jurisdictionalism and the nature of Elizabethan puritan nonconformity 44
- 3 Cathedrals, the Reformed, and the Elizabethan Church 71
- 4 Sir Francis Hastings, Jacobean nonconformity, and the House of Commons, 1604–10 97
- 5 Zachary Crofton, the Restoration Church of England, and the dilemmas of partial conformity, 1662–65 117
- II Reformed conformist theology and ecclesiology 139
- 6 Justifying faith and faith as a virtue in the theology of Richard Hooker 141
- 7 The best religion? The revived ambitions of the Reformed conformist establishment, 1637–40 157
- 8 The Reformed conformist tradition, 1640–62 179
- 9 Edward Reynolds and the making of a presbyterian bishop 199
- 10 The Reformed theology of Thomas Hobbes 222
- 11 Reformed orthodoxy as conformity in the post-Restoration Church of England 245
- Afterword 263
- Index 271
Kapitel in diesem Buch
- Front Matter i
- Contents v
- Notes on contributors vii
- Acknowledgements ix
- List of abbreviations x
- Introduction 1
- I Ecclesio-political and liturgical contests 19
- 1 Contests, contexts, and the boundaries of conformity in early modern England 21
- 2 Protestant jurisdictionalism and the nature of Elizabethan puritan nonconformity 44
- 3 Cathedrals, the Reformed, and the Elizabethan Church 71
- 4 Sir Francis Hastings, Jacobean nonconformity, and the House of Commons, 1604–10 97
- 5 Zachary Crofton, the Restoration Church of England, and the dilemmas of partial conformity, 1662–65 117
- II Reformed conformist theology and ecclesiology 139
- 6 Justifying faith and faith as a virtue in the theology of Richard Hooker 141
- 7 The best religion? The revived ambitions of the Reformed conformist establishment, 1637–40 157
- 8 The Reformed conformist tradition, 1640–62 179
- 9 Edward Reynolds and the making of a presbyterian bishop 199
- 10 The Reformed theology of Thomas Hobbes 222
- 11 Reformed orthodoxy as conformity in the post-Restoration Church of England 245
- Afterword 263
- Index 271
