Introduction: The Reformed Conformist Style of Piety

This Introduction opens with an account of the consecration of Exeter College Chapel in 1624 and explains why the ceremony cannot accurately be described as either ‘Laudian’ or ‘Puritan,’ since it reflects theological emphases associated with both groups. It goes on to establish that the historiography of the Early Stuart period has generally acknowledged the presence of English clergy who were committed to both an orthodox Reformed understanding of grace and the established polity of the Church, although no dedicated analysis of their religious tradition has been undertaken before the present study. The ten significant Reformed Conformist theologians who will be the focus of the study are then introduced, and the personal links between them set out.

The Articulation of Justification by Faith

Chapter 5 develops the theme of Reformed Conformist resilience during the reign of Charles I. Drawing principally on Ward’s numerous determinations on the subject, Davenant’s ambitious Praelectiones, and Ward’s posthumously published treatise on justifying faith, it establishes that the doctrine of justification by faith alone was likewise the subject of regular defence and articulation in Cambridge throughout the 1630s. It also underlines the consonance of their position with that outlined in Downame’s 1634 Treatise on Justification. As Prideaux’s lectures and Montagu’s remarks on the subject demonstrate, this doctrine was integral to the Reformed vision of grace. Its ongoing articulation further establishes the vibrancy of Conformist Reformed theological opinion in the 1630s.

Responses to Montagu

Chapter 3 discusses the immediate responses to Montagu’s work undertaken by a number of Reformed Conformists. It exhibits the range of polemical approaches they used and establishes that Reformed Conformists were in the vanguard of the public opposition to Montagu. Featley’s Parallels illustrate how Reformed Conformists brought the teaching of the academy to bear within the public sphere. His Ancilla exhibits the use of devotional literature to advance their cause. Ward’s Gratia Discriminans sets out the Reformed Conformist case that their theology of grace did not undermine human free choice. Carleton’s Examination addressed Montagu’s suggestion that a Reformed view of grace was a manifestation of Puritanism and asserted its consonance with the Thirty-nine Articles. Hall’s unpublished Via Media, by contrast, advocated an irenic and moderate reading of English orthodoxy, but one in which there was still no room for any teaching that made salvation ultimately dependent on the human will.

Conclusion

In the historiography of the Early Stuart English Church, Reformed Conformity has rarely received the attention that it deserves. Scholars have undoubtedly acknowledged the presence of many Conformist clergy who embraced a Reformed theology of grace, but the bulk of their attention has usually been given to Puritan or Laudian voices instead. Reformed Conformity has consequently been reduced to a foil for other traditions, rather than being considered as a theological platform, style of piety, or religious identity in its own right. As a result, the picture of the Early Stuart Church that many historians have drawn does not reflect the full range of its theological and devotional diversity. This study has begun the process of correcting that imbalance in the scholarship, by focusing on ten of the most prominent Reformed Conformist theologians working during the reigns of James I and Charles I....

The Act Lectures of John Prideaux

Chapter 1 focuses on the Act Lectures that Prideaux delivered in Oxford between 1616 and 1624. The series exhibits the breadth, interconnectedness, and pastoral orientation of the Reformed Conformist vision of grace. As the teaching that Oxford’s senior theology professor delivered on the most public occasion in the university calendar, Prideaux’s Act Lectures represent something close to an official statement of English orthodoxy. They are useful both in terms of the range of topics that they cover and because they offer a coherent account of Reformed Conformist teaching on grace that locates specific debates on the topic within their wider theological context.

The Lord’s Supper

Chapter 6 charts the hostility of the Reformed Conformists to the language and liturgical innovations, promoted by some Laudians, that supported the idea that the Eucharist might be understood as a real sacrifice. Drawing particularly on the writings of Williams and Morton, it shows that the Reformed Conformist understanding of Conformity was decisively shaped by their rejection of the Roman Catholic teaching on the sacrifice of the Mass. This rejection informed the Reformed Conformist reading of canon law and inspired their opposition to the erection of altars within English churches. The chapter also returns to Prideaux, whose 1631 Act Lecture on the Mass represented a very public attack on Laudian language and church furnishings at the heart of Laud’s own university.

Episcopacy

Chapter 7 analyses the Reformed Conformist attitude to the Church’s hierarchy. It opens by underlining that the British delegates at Dort had specifically asserted the superiority of the episcopal Church order maintained in the British Isles. It then uses Carleton’s Consensus to establish the high regard in which Reformed Conformists held episcopacy, and reinforces that point through the writings of Ward and Davenant. On that basis, it presents Hall’s notorious work, Episcopacy by Divine Right Asserted, as in fundamental continuity with the Reformed Conformist tradition, despite the editorial interventions of William Laud and Matthew Wren. The chapter then establishes, through Downame’s Two Sermons and Prideaux’s 1624 Oratio, that episcopal ordination played a significant role within Reformed Conformist soteriology.

The Defence of Grace after the 1626 Proclamation

Chapter 4 establishes the ongoing promotion of the Reformed Conformist approach to grace during the 1630s, in the face of an attempt to stifle such opinions by royal proclamation in 1626. Using Ward’s professorial determinations at the Cambridge Commencement, it shows how he ensured that the Reformed vision of grace still held a prominent place within Cambridge and exhibited its compatibility with English Church polity. The chapter also explores Ward’s editorial collaboration with Davenant in the publication of Davenant’s academic works. It underlines that their work ensured that the University press remained a vehicle for Reformed Conformity throughout the 1630s.

John Davenant and the English Appropriation of the Synod of Dort

Chapter 2 builds on the previous chapter’s emphasis on the breadth and pastoral orientation of the Reformed Conformist approach to grace, with an examination of the Collegiate Suffrage of the British delegates at the Synod of Dort (1618–19). It underlines that the Suffrage was drawn up to make room for Davenant and Ward’s distinctive reading of the death of Christ, a reading shared by influential clerics at home. The chapter then shows how the positions adopted in the Suffrage were echoed but also given a different inflection in the lectures that Davenant delivered in Cambridge when he returned from the Synod. Davenant’s lectures on predestination and the death of Christ show how he adapted the teaching of Dort to suit his own reading of the Church of England’s confessional position, whilst offering extensive advice on its pastoral application both in the pulpit and in the spiritual lives of the faithful.

Disputed Ceremonies and the Liturgical Year

Chapter 8 extends this analysis of the conformity of the Reformed Conformists, by establishing that they found spiritual value in the distinctive liturgical provisions of the Prayer Book. The chapter shows that Morton’s defence of three controversial English liturgical provisions did not merely defend them on the grounds of obedience, but also ascribed positive religious value to them, as parts of God’s worship. Featley’s Ancilla made the same point in relation to the liturgical year and Holdsworth in relation to the Lent Fast, an institution that distinguished the Church of England from the other Protestant churches of Europe. The chapter then uses Featley and Prideaux’s polemically inspired collections of sermons to demonstrate that Reformed Conformists believed the liturgical year might be profitably used by the faithful, and so become an instrument of divine predestination and a vehicle for Christian assurance.