Читать книгу Elizabethan Controversialists - Peter Milward - Страница 8

Who was the first Puritan? That is no easy question to answer. For every manifestation of Puritanism, whether the vestiarian controversy of the mid-sixties, or the troubles at Frankfurt in the mid-fifties, or the intransigence of John Hooper in the early fifties, one can point to some precedent or fore-runner. Sooner or later, in fact, one is inevitably led back to the original revolt of Martin Luther in 1517. Not that Luther can himself be called a Puritan, but it is in his ideas that the seeds and first principles of what later came to be known as Puritanism were originally contained.

What then is Puritanism? That, too, is no easy concept to define. One may say it represents the radical element in the Protestant Reformation, the negative attitude of opposition to whatever in Christian tradition is not explicitly allowed in the Bible. As the reforms of Luther, Zwingli and even Calvin came to be accepted in any country, their radicalism had to be softened in face of the practical needs and requirements of the people, and so their revolt became established and institutionalized. A new Church, or what may be called an anti-Church Church, thus came into existence on the ruins of the old Church. But in so far as the original spirit of revolt remained, the practical reforms were often criticized for not going far enough. Thus within the Protestant establishment there arose, by a kind of Hegelian dialectic of thesis and antithesis, a movement of opposition.

This was particularly the case in England after the accession of Queen Elizabeth. Already among the English Protestant exiles in Frankfurt during Queen Mary’s reign a dissension had broken out between those who, like Richard Cox and John Jewel, contented themselves with the Edwardian reforms and those who, like John Knox and William Whittingham, wished to go further according to the purer model of the reformed Church as they found it in Calvin’s Geneva. During the first few years of the new reign, however, this dissension remained simmering beneath the surface of the Elizabethan religious settlement in the pressing need of filling the places vacated by the Marian clergy with as many Protestant ministers as were available. At the time it didn’t seem to matter so much whether they were moderate or radical. In fact, not a few of the new bishops, such as the Bishop of London Edmund Grindal, were in sympathy with the radicals, while themselves accepting certain compromises, such as the very name of “bishop”, for the sake of expediency, according to the practical advice given them by Zwingli’s successor at Zurich, Henry Bullinger.

The revised Book of Common Prayer, issued by Parliament in 1552, had been reissued in 1559 with a few alterations, but its particular prescriptions and ceremonies were commonly neglected by the more radical of the new ministers. Few of the bishops ventured to insist on them, and it was the Queen herself, who disliked such radicalism in religion, who now insisted on steps being taken to restore some measure of conformity in the conduct of religious services and the ordinary attire of the clergy. The onus and opprobrium of taking these steps, however, she left on the shoulders of her bishops, especially her Archbishop of Canterbury, Matthew Parker. After all, it was his responsibility to ensure the observance of a certain measure of decency and order in ecclesiastical ceremonies. Thus it was that in March 1566 certain Advertisements to this effect were published in London under his authority, in which he appealed to “the Queen’s Majesty’s letters commanding the same”.

In the Preface to this document, the Archbishop lays emphasis on the need of “one uniformity of rites and manners in the ministration of God’s holy word, in open prayer and ministration of sacraments”. He advocates “one decent behaviour in their outward apparel”, and adds many particular prescriptions not only concerning the vestments to be worn in religious services but also concerning the distinct habits to be worn by the clergy outside church. These prescriptions, he insists, are to be understood not as implying “any vain superstition” but as imposed according to the express wishes of her Majesty for the sake of “decency, distinction and order for the time”. He also refers to certain unspecified “diversities and varieties among them of the clergy and the people”, which have now to be “reformed and repressed” for the avoidance of “contention, offence and breach of common charity”.

After the Preface there followed various articles – “for doctrine and preaching”, “for administration of prayer and sacraments”, and specially “for outward apparel of persons ecclesiastical”. Nor were they merely issued by authority, but they were also enforced by means of subscription, and all who refused to subscribe were punished by ejection from their livings. The opposition to this ruling was, foreseeably, immediate and vociferous, particularly in the London area, where there were not a few radical ministers prepared to put the archbishop’s newly acquired authority to the test. They refused to subscribe and were duly ejected from their livings. Within the same year, one of their number, Robert Crowley, published their protest under the anonymous title of A Brief Discourse, and for this, in the absence of any more obvious candidate, he may be awarded the title of “the first Elizabethan Puritan”.

From the modern viewpoint it may well seem like the proverbial storm in a teacup. What, we may ask, was all the fuss about? Crowley himself explicitly recognized that the outward apparel to which he and his friends objected consisted merely of “things indifferent”. The anonymous Examiner of his book on behalf of the bishops took him up on this point, that these things “be of their own nature indifferent, and that they may be used or not as occasion shall serve”. So where was the problem? On the one hand, Crowley questioned why “things indifferent” should be imposed on the people of God, thereby restricting the liberty which Christ had won for them – from sin, from the law, and from ceremonies. On the other hand, the Examiner questioned why Crowley and his friends should object to “things indifferent”, when they were merely being imposed for the sake of “decency and comely order” at the express wishes of the Queen’s Majesty. Here, it seemed, was an impasse between members of the Protestant clergy, united in theory yet divided in practical application.

All the same, they weren’t altogether united in theory either. In the eyes of Crowley and his friends this wasn’t a mere schism over trifles, as the Examiner was suggesting. For them “things indifferent” weren’t so indifferent after all. For them such vestments were nothing but “the outward apparel and ministering garments of the Pope’s Church”, “the conjuring garments” of the Popish idolaters, the “relics and remnants” of the Romish abomination and the very limbs of Antichrist. They had originated partly in the ceremonies of the Mosaic Law, from which Christ had set his followers free, partly in heathenish customs, with which Christians ought to have nothing to do, according to the saying of St.Paul, “What agreement is there between Christ and Belial?” (II Cor.vi.15) They were now too intimately connected in the popular mind with the days of Popery and superstition to be regarded by the ministers as “things indifferent”.

This appeal to the popular mind was of special importance to ministers like Crowley, who had already committed themselves to speaking out openly and in no uncertain language against “the relics and rags of Popery”. How could they now go back on their words before the people out of deference to ecclesiastical policy, though this was supported by the Queen herself? In such circumstances wasn’t it incumbent on them to say, as the Puritans were only too ready to say, with St.Peter, “We ought more to obey God than men”? (Acts v.29) This was in fact the conclusion drawn by Crowley, with his sarcastic comment on the “wisdom and policy” of the bishops as passing “the wisdom of God who knoweth what we are”, and how easily we make images into idols. If the bishops chose to follow the winds of policy, in subservience to the temporal ruler, it must fall to the ministers to uphold the course of truth and protect their faithful from spiritual shipwreck.

Of particular concern to Crowley were certain practical consequences of the Advertisements among two different groups of people. On the one hand, they would surely occasion grief of heart and discouragement among those “simple Christians over whom we should have the chief care”. The enforcement of such rules for apparel and ceremonies would only serve to beat them “back to superstition”, from which “they were before making haste to fly”. Not only that, but they would also “take occasion to think that there is no truth in anything that we have taught, and so cleave to that false religion, whereof these indifferent things are relics and remnants”. On the other hand, he adds,“the blind, stubborn and obstinate Papists (whom we ought by all means possible to draw out of the dark dungeon of ignorance, superstition and error) shall by our receiving of these things be encouraged not only to continue in ignorance, superstition and error, but also to increase in the same.”

The more he argues, the more Crowley convinces himself that the objects in question, so far from being merely indifferent, as he seemed to admit from the outset, touch on the inmost nature of Popish idolatry and the original reason for Protestant reform. He therefore concludes with a prayer that may be said to express the very heart of the Puritan movement, “Look, Lord and Judge most just, on the proud brag and boast of Antichrist thine enemy, cut his courage, confound his counsel, disappoint his hope, break his power, and give him that utter overthrow, that there do not remain so much as a memory or token of him to be had in regard, but that his memory may be had in confusion. O Lord, set up thy glory, remove thy wrath, restore thy mercy, comfort thine afflicted, turn thy loving countenance to us, pour forth thy grace on us, build us up in Christ, and love us still. Let the trumpet of thy Gospel with such power and plenty be blown that all flesh may hearken and yield thereto, thine elect to their comfort, the reprobate to their confusion.”

This Puritan challenge was at once met within the same year by an anonymous spokesman for the bishops, possibly Parker himself, in A Brief Examination. He begins by charging the London ministers, in much the same tone as John Whitgift was later to charge Thomas Cartwright, with an arrogancy that may well lead them by degrees to “fall to the sects of Anabaptists, or Libertines”, while by their disobedience to the Queen and division within the Church, they will only give matter for rejoicing to the “English Lovanists”. Considering that they themselves grant that these are but “things indifferent”, he urges them to beware “lest the unity of Christ’s Church should be rent upon every light offence, and horrible schisms for trifles be brought in”. He stresses the right of those in authority to make due determinations in law for the sake of comely order and due discipline, “without impairing of Christian liberty”. Then, retorting the argument from practical need, he points out that, in the view of the common people, “the very change of custom, as it may do good for the profit thereof, so it may make much trouble for the newness thereof”.

Immediately on the publication of this Examination, Crowley again came forward with An Answer for the Time, still within the year 1566. Whereas the Examiner had minimized the number and learning of the London ministers opposed to the Advertisements, Crowley maintained that the opposition included “the greatest part of the best learned and the eldest preachers in England”. The names of some of these “best learned” are contained in the title of A godly and zealous letter written by one of their leading members, Anthony Gilby, in 1570, “to my reverend Fathers and Brethren in Christ, Master Coverdale, M.Turner, M.Whittingham, M.Sampson, M.Doctor Humphrey, M.Leaver, M.Crowley, and others that labour to root out the weeds of Popery”. Crowley further rejected the imputation that, “puffed up in arrogancy”, they were making “post haste to be Anabaptists and Libertines”. Rather, it was “for no small matters” that the ministers had been “content to sustain so grievous loss and trouble” as ejection from their ministry and livelihood. In the days of Edward VI the visiting reformers, Martin Bucer at Cambridge and Peter Martyr at Oxford, may have been content to “bear with the things intolerable for a time”, but they wished “the utter abolishing of them” in the long run, in contrast to this Examiner who now upholds them “as good orders, profitable to edify and therefore meet to be retained still.”

Three points in particular are emphasized by Crowley in his Answer over and above those he made in his Discourse. The first is that, with all this fuss made by the bishops over external matters of apparel, the best ministers will be dismissed and the worst will remain. Already, he notes, “experience teacheth that an ass, a dissembling Papist, a drunkard, a swearer, a gamester, so he receive your apparel, may have the honour of retaining his living”, whereas the best and most conscientious ministers “for only refusing the apparel are thrust out”. Secondly, he uses an argument that will come to the fore in the subsequent development of Puritan opposition to the bishops, when he points out that in maintaining the precepts of men against the Word of God, the bishops are falling back on the Papist position. After all, he demands, “what can the Papist say more in defence of men’s traditions?” Thirdly, he comes to the main point of his position in referring to the old saying, “Principiis obsta”. For when it comes to the ceremonies of Popery, he protests, “if we receive one, we see not how to stay our consciences from the rest. Therefore it is a manifest danger that hangeth over the Church, by receiving any of these.”

This controversy by no means ended here. Within the same year it was augmented by a minor avalanche of little books and pamphlets on either side. Besides the various arguments already discussed, various authorities were cited on either side – not only Martin Bucer and Peter Martyr but also Henry Bullinger and Rudolph Gualter. A series of Pauline “epistles”, to “the faithful brethren”, were penned by Puritan leaders such as Anthony Gilby and William Whittingham and published for the consolation of the ejected ministers and the edification of the other brethren. Yet also within the same year the outcry came to an end for the time, as the strong measures taken by Matthew Parker proved effective against a disorganized opposition.

If however it subsided for the time being, the opposition was by no means silenced in the long run. There is a clear line of connection between this first outbreak of Puritan resistance to the imposition of Anglican ceremonies and the later development of the Puritan movement in the early seventies and mid-eighties. Even at this early date the issue was by no means, as Crowley pointed out in his Answer, a matter of trifles, however trivial ceremonies might seem to be in themselves. For the Puritans it was a matter of principle, the very principle of the Protestant Reformation. Accept this seemingly small point, and everything is accepted, and the road leads straight to the Commonwealth. Give way on this one point, and in Puritan eyes there is little to choose between Anglicanism and Popery.

It was out of this controversy that Anthony Gilby subsequently developed his View of Antichrist, in which he sets forth a table “of the displaying of the Pope and Popery in our unreformed Church of England”. At the beginning of this table he notes how, just as “the Pope of Rome writeth himself Father of fathers and the Head of the Church”, so “the Pope of Lambeth writeth Reverend Father, Matthew of Canterbury, by the sufferance of God Metropolitan and Primate of all England, as much as to say Chief Head of the Church of England”. And out of this View of Antichrist, we may add, sprang Martin Marprelate – even as out of the head of Zeus sprang the goddess Athena fully armed for battle.

Bibliographical Note

1 Advertisements partly for due order in the Public Administration of Common Prayers and using the holy Sacrament, and partly for the Apparel of all Persons Ecclesiastical, by virtue of the Queen’s Majesty’s Letters commanding the same. 1566 (RC 97)

2 A Brief Discourse against the Outward Apparel and Ministring Garments of the Popish Church. 1566 (RC 98)

3 A Brief Examination for the time of a Certain Declaration lately put in print in the name and defence of certain Ministers in London, refusing to wear the apparel prescribed by the laws and orders of the realm. 1566 (RC 99)

4 An Answer for the time to the Examination put in print without the Author’s name, pretending to maintain the apparel prescribed against the Declaration of the Ministers of London. 1566 (RC 100)