The Problem of Social-Political Obligation for the Church of England in the Seventeenth Century

1971 ◽  
Vol 40 (2) ◽  
pp. 156-169 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Harvey
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Church Of England ◽  
Relative Strength ◽  
Unintended Consequences ◽  
The Political ◽  
English History ◽  
Abundant Evidence ◽  
Constitutional Legality ◽  
The Church ◽  
Christian Society

Much has been written on the political behavior of the Stuart Church of England. And much too has been written on its monotonous reiteration of the divine right of kings' doctrine—with its ancillary ideas of passive obedience and non-resistance to the commands of authority. Indeed, for this perspective on the institution there exists abundant evidence: seventeenth century sermons and treatises were filled with “church politics.” Morever, Figgis' study remains indispensable: before, and perhaps even more clearly and vehemently after the Puritan Revolution, insistence on absolute obedience to existing authority—especially to the king—reverberated in the parish churches of England. Thus, at this point in time little doubt exists as to the political attitudes of clerics; and indeed a consensus exists also on the probable motives for those clerical attitudes: they followed unavoidably upon the second great conquest in English history, the conquest of the church by Henry VIII. But the church was not unwillingly conquered: it both bound itself and was bound to the destiny of the monarchy in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries—its newly-granted constitutional legality protected it while it nourished the hope that the Crown would act as sponsor of reform in Christian society. In a word, the institution of the church, keenly aware of both its relative impotence and its relative strength with regard to the monarchy, made the best of circumstances by offering virtually unqualified support to Stuart kingship, with certain unintended consequences for the church. Given this perspective, it is easy to understand why, apart from special problems and issues, the thought of Anglican clerics commands little attention today. But perhaps another view of clerical thought will yield as much or more understanding than the traditional perspective has so far yielded: it is the purpose of this essay to offer another view.

scholarly journals Profit ‘That is Condemned by the Word of God’: John Jewel’s Theological Method in His Opposition to Usury

Perichoresis ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 39-56
Author(s):  
André A. Gazal
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Church Of England ◽  
Theological Method ◽  
Word Of God ◽  
Church Fathers ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Church Councils ◽  
The Church ◽  
Christian Society

Abstract John Jewel, regarded as the principal apologist and theologian for the Elizabethan Church, was also esteemed as one of England’s most important (if not the most important) authority on the subject of usury, and therefore was cited frequently by opponents of usury towards the end of the sixteenth century and throughout the seventeenth century. One of the most sustained interpretations of Jewel as a theologian on the subject of usury was by Christoph Jelinger, who observed that the late bishop of Sarum employed the same theological method in opposing usury as he did in defending the doctrines and practices of the Church of England against its Catholic opponents, that is, by appealing to the Scriptures, the Church Fathers, Church Councils, and the example of the primitive church. This article seeks to confirm the opinion of Jelinger, and in doing so show that Jewel’s opposition to usury stemmed primarily from the conviction that it was both a vice and heresy that eroded the unifying attribute of Christian society which was love.

Methodists

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard P. Heitzenrater
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Church Of England ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Climate ◽  
Lay Preaching ◽  
George Whitefield ◽  
The Church

While the Wesleys themselves might have been sceptical about the connections between Methodists and Dissenters, there were several ways in which their stories were interlinked. John Wesley’s parents had both been brought up within the Dissenting fold and reading seventeenth-century puritan authors, as well as Pietists, was central to Wesley’s theological development. Many Methodists formally separated from the Church of England after Wesley’s death but their earlier habits of lay preaching and separate societies, alongside an extensive publication programme, meant that there was already a sense of Methodist self-consciousness and identity long before that. While Wesley and many of his followers did not share the Calvinism characteristic of other branches of Dissent, George Whitefield and his Calvinistic Methodist followers did. Moreover, as the political climate changed in the second half of the eighteenth century, field preaching became more suspect and Methodists were increasingly lumped, by their detractors at least, with other Dissenters.

Apprenticeship

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
W. B. Patterson
Keyword(s):  
Church Of England ◽  
English History ◽  
Religious Issues ◽  
Moral Leader ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Town ◽  
The Church

In 1634 Fuller became the minister of the parish at Broadwindsor, in Dorset. This provided him the opportunity to know John White, the minister in nearby Dorchester. White, the spiritual and moral leader of the town became a pastoral model for Fuller. In this setting, Fuller wrote The Historie of the Holy Warre, the first English history of the Crusades. His use of medieval sources was extensive, and his analysis of the motives and tactics of western leaders is shrewd and persuasive. Elected to the clerical Convocation that met in 1640, during sessions of the first Parliament to be called in eleven years, Fuller dissented from the leadership of Archbishop William Laud, who sought to impose more stringent rules or canons on the Church of England. This Convocation, continuing to meet after Parliament was dissolved, passed canons whose legality was contested. War with the Scots ensued over religious issues, forcing the king to call what came to be known as the Long Parliament.

Interpreting Tillotson

1993 ◽  
Vol 86 (1) ◽  
pp. 81-103 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gerard Reedy
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Intellectual History ◽  
Church Of England ◽  
New Model ◽  
Church Politics ◽  
The Church

As archbishop of Canterbury after 1691, John Tillotson (1630–1694) guided the Church of England in the years following the accession of William and Mary in 1688. Whether he guided the church wisely has always been a matter of contention, because Tillotson not only took the oaths to the new monarchs but also helped to fill the vacated offices and sees of those who had not. Although apparently of a genial disposition, with personal gifts of generosity and piety, Tillotson made many enemies because of his church politics. The theological importance of his writings and their place in intellectual history have also provoked controversy. I believe that he is one of the great, yet much misunderstood, writers of late seventeenth-century England; this article offers a new model for interpreting his intellectual significance.

The view from the devil’s mountain: Clarendon, Cressy and Hobbes, and the past, present and future of the Church of England

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Seaward
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
Church Of England ◽  
Church And State ◽  
Thomas Hobbes ◽  
Roman Catholic ◽  
Conventional View ◽  
State Relations ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The Church

The lives, and political thought, of Edward Hyde, earl of Clarendon, and Thomas Hobbes, were closely interwoven. In many ways opposed, their views on the relationship between Church and State have often been seen as less far apart, with Clarendon sharing Hobbes’s Erastianism and concerns about clerical assertiveness in the 1660s. But Clarendon’s writings on Church-State relations during the 1670s provide little evidence of concern about clerical involvement in politics, and demonstrate his vigorous adherence to a fairly conventional view among early seventeenth-century churchmen about the proper boundaries to royal interference in the Church; his worries about attempts to push further the implications of the royal supremacy in ecclesiastical affairs are evident in his writings against Hobbes, as are his even greater anxieties, exacerbated by the conversion of his daughter, the Duchess of York, about the dangers of Roman Catholic encroachment.

Godly Pastors and their Congregations in Mid-Seventeenth-Century London

Church Life ◽  
2019 ◽  
pp. 45-62
Author(s):  
Elliot Vernon
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Civil War ◽  
Church Of England ◽  
Lord's Supper ◽  
Lay Leaders ◽  
Parish Community ◽  
Church Life ◽  
Parish Churches ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The Church

This chapter examines the relationship between pastor and congregation in the London parishes during the Interregnum. It addresses how godly ministers, called on by Parliament at the outbreak of the Civil War to reform parochial discipline and prevent the ‘promiscuous multitude’ from polluting the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper in England’s parish churches, negotiated issues of authority, changes to worship and liturgy, and the already contentious issues of patronage and finance. These factors forced ministers to look to the lay leaders of the parish, whether as elders or vestrymen, making them subject to factional struggles within the church life of the parish community. This chapter assesses the establishment and operation of Presbyterianism in London’s parishes during the 1640s and 1650s, as well as the practical difficulties, economic and administrative, that godly pastors experienced at the parochial level as a result of the dismantling of the Church of England.

Dissent in New England

2020 ◽  
pp. 244-266
Author(s):  
Francis J. Bremer
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
New England ◽  
Church Of England ◽  
New Order ◽  
Men And Women ◽  
Anne Hutchinson ◽  
Religious Establishment ◽  
New England Colonies ◽  
Roger Williams ◽  
The Church

The New England colonies were settled in the early seventeenth century by men and women who could not in conscience subscribe to all aspects of the faith and practice of the Church of England. In creating new societies they struggled with how to define their churches and their relationship with the national Church they dissented from. As their New England Way evolved the orthodox leaders of the new order identified and took action against those who challenged it. Interaction with dissenters such as Roger Williams, Anne Hutchinson, Baptists, and Quakers helped to further define the colonial religious establishment.

Preambles: “But One Use”

2020 ◽  
pp. 76-86
Author(s):  
Charles Hefling
Keyword(s):  
Church Of England ◽  
Primary Sources ◽  
The Political ◽  
Book Of Common Prayer ◽  
Self Presentation ◽  
Prayer Book ◽  
Common Prayer ◽  
The Church

This chapter examines the Prayer Book’s self-presentation in its preliminary, nonliturgical prose: the two Acts of Uniformity (1559 and 1662) that define the constitution of the text and regulate its use in the Church of England; and the three prefatory essays, two of which were written by Thomas Cranmer for the original, 1549 Book of Common Prayer, and have been retained ever since. These texts are themselves primary sources that provide a preliminary context in which to understand the origins and purpose of the liturgies they precede. They outline the successive revisions of the Prayer Book, and indicate both the political and the theological dimensions of its contents.

Evelyn Underhill and the Christian Social Movement

2020 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 180-200
Author(s):  
Jessica L. Malay
Keyword(s):  
Social Movement ◽  
Social Reform ◽  
Church Of England ◽  
Spiritual Life ◽  
The Political ◽  
Anglican Church ◽  
Political Dimension ◽  
Christian Communities ◽  
Social Agenda ◽  
The Church

AbstractEvelyn Underhill is mainly known for her work in mysticism and spirituality. This article explores the political dimension of her work and argues her early work in mysticism and later work in spiritual direction and retreat work underpinned her engagement with leading figures in the interwar Anglican church and their social agenda. During this period Underhill worked closely with William Temple, Charles Raven, Walter Frere and Lucy Gardner among others. In the interwar years she contributed in important ways to the Church of England Congresses, and the Conference on Christian Politics, Employment and Citizenship (COPEC) initiative. She challenged what she called the anthropocentric tendency in the Christian Social movement and insisted on the centrality of the spiritual life for any effective social reform. Underhill worked to engage the general public, as well as Christian communities, in a spiritual life that she saw as essential to the efforts of individuals and organizations seeking to alleviate contemporary social harms.

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