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This electronic thesis or dissertation has been downloaded from the King’s Research Portal at https://kclpure.kcl.ac.uk/portal/ Conscience, Conviction and Contention Religious Diversity in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth-Century English Church Tanner, Michael David Awarding institution: King's College London The copyright of this thesis rests with the author and no quotation from it or information derived from it may be published without proper acknowledgement. END USER LICENCE AGREEMENT Unless another licence is stated on the immediately following page this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International licence. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ You are free to copy, distribute and transmit the work Under the following conditions: Attribution: You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work). Non Commercial: You may not use this work for commercial purposes. No Derivative Works - You may not alter, transform, or build upon this work. Any of these conditions can be waived if you receive permission from the author. Your fair dealings and other rights are in no way affected by the above. Take down policy If you believe that this document breaches copyright please contact [email protected] providing details, and we will remove access to the work immediately and investigate your claim. Download date: 24. Sep. 2021 1 Conscience, Conviction and Contention: Religious Diversity in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth-Century English Church __________________________________________________________________________ Thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy: Theology and Religious Studies, King’s College London, by Michael David Tanner 2 Abstract The subject of this research thesis is religious diversity and division within the early modern English Church. Its objective –– in a development of my Master’s dissertation research into the Admonition Controversy of the 1570s1 –– is to reveal the nature of disagreements which culminated in the split between the Church of England and Nonconformity in the early 1660s, the ‘Great Ejection’. What were the imperative incentives, the religious convictions, which motivated the participants, given the deprivation suffered by those driven from their positions of ministry, and the consequences suffered by the national Church in England? The thesis makes a comparative study of events in the late sixteenth century, when controversy in the Elizabethan Church did not result in division: rather the incentive was towards consensus, and a rejection of separation. Why was this, given that the issues at stake were not dissimilar and no less contentious? Having defined the terminology to be used, and explored the historiographical and analytical contributions from historians and theologians, the thesis moves to an exploration of primary evidence from the times under review, the documentary evidence extant from religious controversies during the periods, and the polemical literature from principal participants in religious debate in the late sixteenth, and mid-seventeenth centuries in England. The thesis draws together conclusions resulting from this research, and seeks to make meaningful observations regarding the nature and causes of religious divisions in any century, and then to make comment upon disagreements between Christian believers in our own time, drawing upon the nature of division as revealed in English Christendom’s post-Reformation history. 1 Michael Tanner, ‘The ‘Admonition Controversy’ and the ‘Puritan’ Agenda Within the English Church in the 1570s, with Particular Reference to the Elizabethan Book of Common Prayer’, Master of Arts degree dissertation, History of Christianity, (London, 2002) 3 Acknowledgements I wish to express my thanks, and acknowledge my indebtedness to my supervisors, Dr. David Crankshaw, and Dr. Susannah Ticciati, both of King’s College London, for their wise supervision and counsel, and for the immense encouragement which I have received from them in the preparation of this thesis. I am grateful also for the facilities provided by the Maughan Library at the college, and the expert assistance received from its staff. My research has also drawn upon amenities available at the British Library, Sussex University Library, the Institute of Historical Research, Dr. Williams’s Library, The Bodleian Library, and many others. For personal logistical reasons, attendance at these institutions was not possible as often as would have been desired, but the electronic facilities provided have been of invaluable assistance. In this regard, without the services provided by online sites, such as Early English Books Online, the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, JSTOR,2 British History Online, University of London Research Library, Church History Timeline, and others, it is doubted whether it would have been possible to submit this research thesis in the form in which it is now presented. The author is appreciatively conscious of the incredible amount of electronic information which is now readily available to the researcher. My thanks are also due to the clergy and members of my regular Church, St. Mary’s, Hailsham, and also to members of the Chichester Diocesan Readers’ Committee for their practical and inspirational support. Finally, my warmest appreciation must be reserved for my wife, Pamela, my family, and my friends for their never failing encouragement and patient understanding. 2 JSTOR: Journal Storage online system. 4 Contents Notes on Conventions 5 Abbreviations 6 Introduction 33 Chapter 1 Religious Controversy in the Early Modern English Church 39 a. Definition of Terms 41 b. Historiographical Review: Perceptions Past and Present 56 Chapter 2 The Seventeenth-Century Church 69 Chapter 3 Theological Perspectives 92 Chapter 4 Seventeenth-Century Conformity 106 a. William Laud and Counter Reformation 109 b. Jeremy Taylor and Moral Theology 122 c. Henry Hammond and Anglican Resistance 132 Chapter 5 Seventeenth-Century Puritanism 143 a. Richard Baxter and Conscience 150 b. John Owen and Independency 168 c. The ‘Bartholomeans’ and Deprivation 181 Chapter 6 The Sixteenth-Century Church and the Admonition 196 Controversy Chapter 7 Sixteenth-Century Disputants 215 a. John Whitgift and Thomas Cartwright 215 b. Richard Hooker and Walter Travers 227 c. Lancelot Andrewes and William Perkins 246 Chapter 8 Conscience and the power of institutional authority 262 Chapter 9 Conclusions and Observations; Epilogue 294 Appendices Appendix I: (a) The 1559 Act of Uniformity 309 (b) Articles Touching Preachers (1583) 314 (c) The 1662 Act of Uniformity 315 Appendix II: Richard Baxter’s Doctrinal Controversies 326 Appendix III: (a) Ecumenical Creeds 327 (b) Principal Post-Reformation Confessions 327 having Relevance to British and European Christian Belief Select Glossary 331 Bibliography 337 5 Notes on Conventions In quotations drawn from primary sources, spelling and capitalisation remain as in the original –– unless specified otherwise –– but the practice of capitalising whole words and the frequent use of italics has not been followed. With quotations drawn from secondary sources, that source’s convention has been followed, and any American spelling has been Anglicised. Biblical quotations are from the ‘King James’ version. Surnames together with first names or initials are given at the first mention of individuals: thereafter –– almost always –– surnames only, except where there is a need to differentiate between those having the same surname. In the Bibliography and the list of Abbreviations, the place of publication and date of the edition consulted are given, preceded where applicable by the place and date of the first edition. The common use in the title page of early sources of a capital for the first letter of every word has not been followed. Roman numerals are used for volume numbers and page numbers are in Arabic. In the list of Abbreviations, lengthy titles have been abridged. The purpose of the extensive list of Abbreviations is to facilitate the reduction in the size of footnotes and their complexity. Early modern publications tend to employ lengthy titles and these would need to be abbreviated anyway. This convention is intended to give consistency with simplicity of reference. Dates Dates are Old Style, i.e., according to the Julian calendar. Early modern English practice was normally to begin the year of grace on 25 March. In order to avoid confusion, the split date is given for dates falling between 1 January and 24 March where this is known. Thus: 22 February 1584/5 means 1584 according to early modern usage, but 1585 according to modern usage. When quoting from secondary sources, the dating convention of that source has been followed. ________________________________________________________________ 6 List of Abbreviations Abbot, Reasons George Abbot, The Reasons Which Doctor Hill hath Brought, for the upholding of Papistry, ... (Oxford, 1604) [STC, 37] Abernathy, ‘English George Ross Abernathy, ‘English Presbyterians and the Stuart Presbyterians’ Restoration 1648-1663’, in Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, 55, pt2 (1965), pp.1-101 ‘Act of Uniformity, ‘Elizabeth’s Act of Uniformity. A.D. 1559, 1 Elizabeth, Cap. 2’, 1559’ in Henry Gee and William John Hardy (eds), Documents Illustrative of English Church History (New York, 1896), pp.458-467, reprinted here in Appendix I (a), pp.309-313