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James Ussher and John Bramhall and John Ussher James Irish Ecclesiastics and Politics of Two the Theology Century of the Seventeenth Jack Cunningham JAMES USSHER AND JOHN BRAMHALL James Ussher and John Bramhall The Theology and Politics of Two Irish Ecclesiastics of the Seventeenth Century Jack Cunningham Jack Cunningham Jack ISBN 978-0-8153-8991-0 www.routledge.com an informa business 9780754655664_cover.indd 1 10/16/2017 9:45:50 PM JAMES USSHER AND JOHN BRAMHALL For Terry and Shirley Cunningham, to whom I owe everything James Ussher and John Bramhall The Theology and Politics of Two Irish Ecclesiastics of the Seventeenth Century JACK CUNNINGHAM Bishop Grosseteste University College, UK First published 2007 by Ashgate Publishing Reissued 2018 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017, USA Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © Jack Cunningham 2007 Jack Cunningham has asserted his moral right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. A Library of Congress record exists under LC control number: 2006003673 Notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. Publisher’s Note The publisher has gone to great lengths to ensure the quality of this reprint but points out that some imperfections in the original copies may be apparent. Disclaimer The publisher has made every effort to trace copyright holders and welcomes correspondence from those they have been unable to contact. ISBN 13: 978-0-815-38991-0 (hbk) ISBN 13: 978-1-351-12675-5 (ebk) Contents Preface: The Levitical Candle vii Acknowledgements xvii List of Abbreviations xix 1 James Ussher 1 2 John Bramhall 23 3 Dogmatic Theologies 41 The nature of man 42 Soteriology 46 Predestination 51 Perseverance 57 4 Sacramental Theologies 61 Ussher and Bramhall on the sacraments 65 Baptism 69 The Eucharist 71 Penance 80 5 Ecclesiastical Histories 85 The biblical roots of denominational historical perspectives 86 James Ussher’s ‘godly succession’ 88 John Bramhall’s ‘holy and apostolic succession’ 93 Ecclesiastical nationalism 99 A religion anciently professed: the nationalism of Ussher 100 A schism guarded against: the ecclesiastical nationalism of Bramhall 105 6 Secular Politics 111 Ussher: the reluctant politician 111 Bramhall: the resolute politician 115 The Power of the Prince: James Ussher’s theory of divine right and absolutism 119 A royalist anti-venom: John Bramhall’s theory of divine right and absolutism 128 De jure divino aut non de jure divino: the question of absolutism 139 vi James Ussher and John Bramhall 7 Ecclesiastical Politics 145 Ussher on church government 145 Bramhall on church government 149 Ussher and Roman Catholicism 153 Bramhall and Roman Catholicism 156 Ussher and church unity 160 Bramhall and church unity 164 8 Practical Policy 169 Ussher’s practical policy pre-Convocation 169 Bramhall’s practical policy pre-Convocation 175 The Convocation of 1634 180 Ussher and Bramhall, post-Convocation 191 Conclusion 201 Bibliography 205 Index 229 Preface The Levitical Candle Writing from France in 1658, at the request of a friend, a discourse on the Sabbath controversy, John Bramhall closed his tract with a type of extended postscript in which he expressed some horror that during the course of the dispute, he had apparently become embroiled in a posthumous controversy with his late Lord Primate James Ussher, under whose ‘pious and moderate government he had lived for sundry years.’1 He assured his readers that this was far from his intentions, and as for there being any discord between them they had been, on the contrary, stalwarts of the Church in Ireland. Together they had pursued for it peace in the swiftest of manners, and there they would no doubt have continued had not the present religious upstarts and the naturally rebellious Irish conspired to make exiles of them. Bramhall adds, with retrospective confidence that if the ‘pious prelate were now living, I verily believe he would allow all, or at least not disapprove anything, which I say in this treatise.’2 Bramhall then provides a fairly detailed account of their relationship and in order to refute Ussher’s biographer, Nicholas Bernard,3 he recalls the spirit of deference and unanimity of purpose which prevailed between them during that most potentially incendiary of events, the Irish Church’s Convocation in 1634. At some length Bramhall contests the claim that there had been an acrimonious rift resulting ultimately in Ussher’s involvement in the trial and execution of Strafford. In attempting to salvage the legacy of their friendship, he is also attempting to maintain the compatibility of their theological outlooks. There may have been differences, he admits, but these were in adiaphora, things indifferent. In fundamentals, their foundation was common. Bramhall uses the analogy of the Jewish candelabra, whose branches are conjoined at the base. ‘I praise God’, he exclaimed, ‘we were like the candles in the Levitical Temple, looking one toward another, and all towards the stem.’4 In the following chapters, this Levitical candelabrum will be examined against contemporary reports that suggest that dogmatically they were not only at opposite extremes, but the theology of one was actually antagonistic to the theology of the other. By examining the Christian theology contained within their respective works, sermons and letters, we will set out to demonstrate that twin illuminations they may 1 BW, vol. 5, p. 74. 2 Ibid. N. Bernard, The Judgement of the late Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of Ireland of Babylon, Revelations 18:4 (London 1658). Ussher’s biographer published this treatise which sets out to show that Ussher’s theology was Calvinistic and counter to the Laudian policy which afflicted the Irish and English Churches in the previous decades. 4 BW, vol. 5, p. 74. viii James Ussher and John Bramhall have been, but just as the Jewish menorah spreads its lights, often the individual candles can find themselves with a wide gap separating them. It may have been Bramhall’s proud boast that he and the great luminary of the established Church shared the same base, but a study of their understandings of the Christian dogma, liturgy, and history shows that in these areas they burned their candles each on the furthest branch. Any discussion of early modern Christian theology must of course be viewed against the background of current historical controversy. There is at present a lively debate within the world of seventeenth-century English history over the importance of religion as a contributory factor to the conflict which erupted in these islands in the 1640s. On the one hand, writers such as Conrad Russell, Nicholas Tyacke, and Peter Lake stake a central claim for the rise of Arminianism within the English Church which was (at least theologically) Calvinist, as a major cause of the conflict, though it must be said that the term Arminian is not used without some qualification. Tyacke explained how it should be employed. Of the various terms which can be used to describe the thrust of religious change at this time, Arminian is the least misleading. It does not mean that the Dutch theologian Jacobus Arminius was normally the source of the ideas so labelled. Rather Arminian denotes a coherent body of anti-Calvinist religious thought, which was gaining ground in various regions of early seventeenth-century Europe.5 The slight incongruity of this leads Lake to use instead the word ‘Laudianism,’ again not to imply that it all originates from William Laud, but rather as a ‘short hand’ term for the movement as a whole.6 On the other hand, writers such as Peter White and Kevin Sharpe have attacked what has become by now a type of revisionist orthodoxy. They argue instead that nothing existed within the Laudian Church which could be identified as Arminian. It would, they say, be more accurate to see the Laudians as part of a long line of Church of England tradition which pursued a via media, steering a middle course on the calm waters of moderation, avoiding foundering on one side on the rock of Rome and on the other sinking into the confused whirlpools tossed up by Presbyterian anarchy. White and Sharpe suggest that those scholars who continue to employ such terms as ‘Arminian’ have allowed themselves to be misled by the propaganda of Laud’s enemies and in so doing are guilty of perpetuating a puritan caricature.7 It is one of the purposes of this book to present an alternative method of categorising theological and consequently political approaches. Part of the problem has been with terminology and labelling. As we have seen above, when authors attempt to use precise labels they feel they can only do so with some qualification. N. Tyacke, Anti-Calvinists, the Rise of English Arminianism c.1590–1640 (Oxford, 1987), p. 245. P. Lake, ‘The Laudian Style, Uniformity and the Pursuit of the Beauty of Holiness in the 1630s’, in K. Fincham (ed.), Early Stuart Church. P. White, Conflict and Consensus in the English Church from the Reformation to the Civil War (Cambridge, 1992), passim; K. Sharpe, The Personal Rule of Charles I (New Haven, 1992), passim. Preface ix Besides, there is the added problem that once persons and movements have been forced into tight categorical boxes, it only needs someone like White to illustrate that a certain aspect of their theology runs contrary to such categorisation for the baby to be thrown out with the bath water.8 It might be added that this problem does not only apply to the term Arminian.
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