Worship and the Parish Church in Early Modern Britain

Alec Ryrie, Natalie Mears

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN: 9781409426042
• eBook ISBN: 9781134785841
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Early Modern History
• Index: History

The Parish Church was the primary site of religious practice throughout the early modern period. This was particularly so for the silent majority of the English population, who conformed outwardly to the successive religious upheavals of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. What such public conformity might have meant has attracted less attention - and, ironically, is sometimes less well documented - than the non-conformity or semi-conformity of recusants, church-papists, Puritan conventiclers or separatists. In this volume, ten leading scholars of early modern religion explore the experience of parish worship in England during the Reformation and the century that followed it. As the contributors argue, parish worship in this period was of critical theological, cultural and even political importance. The volume's key themes are the interlocking importance of liturgy, music, the sermon and the parishioners' own bodies; the ways in which religious change was received, initiated, negotiated, embraced or subverted in local contexts; and the dialectic between practice and belief which helped to make both so contentious. The contributors - historians, historical theologians and literary scholars - through their commitment to an interdisciplinary approach to the subject, provide fruitful and revealing insights into this intersection of private and public worship. This collection is a sister volume to Martin and Ryrie (eds), Private and Domestic Devotion in Early Modern Britain. Together these two volumes focus and drive forward scholarship on the lived experience of early modern religion, as it was practised in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

CHAPTER 1
Teaching in Praying Words? Worship and Theology in the Early Modern English Parish

Hannah Cleugh

Eamon Duffy, writing in elegiac tone, closed his Stripping of the Altars with a recognition of the importance of Cranmer’s Prayer Book in transforming the English religious landscape, and shaping English Protestantism. He wrote of the conformist parishioners of Elizabethan England:

Cranmer’s sombrely magnificent prose, read week by week, entered and possessed their minds, and became the fabric of their prayer, the utterance of their most solemn and vulnerable moments. And more astringent and strident words entered their minds and hearts too, the polemic of the Homilies, of Jewel’s Apology, of Foxe’s Acts and Monuments, and of a thousand ‘no-popery’ sermons, a relentless torrent carrying away the landmarks of a thousand years.1

Duffy here identifies the role of the prescribed liturgy of the Elizabethan church in shaping the religious identities of the people of early modern England, and in forming England as a Protestant country. The role of the Prayer Book liturgy in the religious education of those who worshipped according to it was of fundamental significance, shaping not only their devotional language but also their theological understandings. This was no accident: part of the aim of the Prayer Book was, as Kenneth Stevenson has noted, ‘to embody a liturgy that put Reformation teaching into praying words’.2

The effect of the Church of England’s insistence on adherence to her prescribed liturgical forms, and the near obsession – reflected in successive sets of visitation articles and episcopal injunctions – with conformity to practice as dictated by the Prayer Book was that successive generations of English church-goers received the theological education articulated by Cranmer’s ‘praying words’. Trends in academic divinity shifted during the course of Elizabeth’s long reign, but the liturgical theological formation in conformist parishes – like the Settlement itself – remained constant. This said, it is important to recognize two things: first, although the Prayer Book itself was subject to no further revision between the Act of Uniformity and the Hampton Court Conference, English worship did not remain wholly static, as numerous occasional forms of prayer were issued as responses to a variety of international, national and regional events.3 Second, the prescribed worship of the Prayer Book was accompanied by additional officially sanctioned texts, which also contributed significantly to the development of English religious identity, most importantly the English Bible and the Book of Homilies. In addition to these centrally important texts, works such as John Foxe’s Acts and Monuments (1563), Heinrich Bullinger’s Decades (1577) and John Jewel’s Apology (1562) further informed the development of English Protestant identities during Elizabeth’s reign. The importance of the Homilies for theological instruction was indicated by the reference to them in article eleven of the Thirty-Nine Articles, in which the doctrine of justification by faith is stated:

We are accompted righteous before God only for the merite of our Lord & sauior Jesus Christ, by faith, & not for our own woorkes or deseruinges. Wherefore, that we are justified by faith only, as a most wholesome doctrine, and very ful of comfort, as more largely is expressed in the homyly of iustification.4

The connection between the Homilies and the Prayer Book was further established by Cranmer in the Forty-Two Articles as the two texts were upheld in very similar terms by successive articles (numbers 34 and 35). First, on the Homilies:

The homelies of late geuen, and set out by the kings aucthoritie, be godlie and holsome, conteining doctrine to bee receiued of all menne, and therefore are to be readde to the people diligentlie, distinctlie, and plainlie.5

Then, ‘Of the Book of Prayers and Ceremonies of the Church of England’:

The booke whiche of very late time was geuen to the Churche of Englande by the kings aucthoritie, and the Parlamente [the Prayer Book of 1552], conteining the maner and fourne of praying, and ministering the Sacramentes in the Churche of Englande, likewise also the booke of ordering Ministers of the Church, set foorth by the forsaied aucthoritie, are godlie, and in no poincte repugnaunt to the holsome doctrine of the Gospel but agreeable thereunto, ferthering and beautifying the same not a litle, and therfore of al faithfull membred of the Churche of Englande, and chieflie of the ministers of the worde, thei ought to be receiued and allowed with all readinesse of minde, and thankes geuing, and to bee commended to the people of God.6

For each text, the royal sanction is emphasized, as is the claim that the doctrine it reflects is ‘godly’ and ‘wholesome’. Wide reception of each text is also enjoined. Similar emphases are evident in the versions of the article on the Homilies in 1563 and 1571, which asserts the Edwardian book, and then lists the ‘several titles’ added by Elizabeth’s church.7 These themes are reflected, too, in the Preface to the re-issue of the first Book of Homilies in 1559 (published initially in 1547), in which the book receives royal authority sanctioning its spiritual and educational objectives, namely:

the true setting foorth and pure declaring of Gods Word, which is the principall guyde and leader unto all godlynesse and virtue, to expel and dryve awaye as well corrupt and ungodlye lyvynge, as also erronious and poysoned doctrines tending to supersticion and idolatrye.8

The stated intention was that, through hearing and repeating the words of the Prayer Book and the texts which accompanied it, the parishioners of Elizabethan England would be educated in the ‘right doctrine’ of Reformed Protestantism. However, as the remainder of this article will explore, in many areas of the Church of England’s life there existed something of a mismatch between official doctrinal positions, especially as concerned soteriology – theologies of salvation and predestination – and the theology conveyed between the Prayer Book liturgies.

I

The doctrinal package adopted by the Church of England was Reformed Protestant in character. In common with the Reformed churches of continental Europe and Scotland, the Church of England adopted belief in justification by faith alone, and the related doctrine of predestination; eschewed any understanding of ‘real presence’ in the two sacraments she retained; and regarded the right preaching of the Word and right administration of these sacraments as the defining marks of a ‘true’ church. While, as Seán Hughes and others have argued, it is a mistake simply to equate Reformed Christianity with belief in predestination, and particularly with any one account of the doctrine, the fact remains that a theology of predestination constituted a key ingredient in the Reformed doctrinal recipe.9 Serving as a corollary of belief in justification by faith, a doctrine of predestination – at least to life – occupied a place in the theology of every Reformed Protestant church, including the Church of England, which offered one theological expression, among many, of early modern Reformed Christianity.

The Church of England’s statement of the doctrine is found in article seventeen of the Thirty-Nine Articles, entitled ‘On Predestination and Election’:

Predestination to life, is the euerlastyng purpose of God, whereby (before the fundations of the worlde were layde) he hath constantly decreed by his counsel secrete to us, to delyuer from curse and damnation, those whom he hath chosen in Christe out of mankind, and to byng them by Christe to euerlastyng salvation, as vessels made to honour. Wherfore they which be indued with so excellent a benefite of God, be called accordyng to Gods purpose by his Spirite working in due season: they through grace obey the calling: they be iustified freely: they be made sonnes of GOD by adoption: they be made lyke the image of his onlye begotten sonne Jesus Christe: they walke religiously in good works and at length by Gods mercy, they attayne to euerlastyng felicitie.

As the godly consideration of predestination and our election in Christe, is ful of sweete, pleasaunt, and unspeakeable comforte to godly persons, and suchas feele in theselues the working of the spirite of Christe, mortifying the workes of the fleshe, & theyr earthly members, and drawyiung up theyr mynde to high and heauenly things, as wel because it doth greatly establishe and confirme theyr faith of eternal saluacion to be enioyed through Christ, as because it doth feruently kindle theyr loue towardes God: So, for curious and carnal persons, lackyng the spirite of Christ to haue continually before theyr eyes the sentence of Gods predestination, is a moste daungerouse downefall, whereby the deuyl doth thrust them eyther into desperation, or into rechlesnesse of most unclean lyvuyng, no lesse perilous then desperation.

Furthermore, we must receaue Gods promises in such wyse, as they be generally set foorth to us in holy scripture: and in our doynges, that wyl of God is to be folowed, which we haue expressly declared unto us in the worde of God.10

Five features of the article are of particular theological note. First, election is ‘in Christ’. That is, the account of the doctrine is clearly infralapsarian – the decrees of election are logically later than those of the Fall. Second, predestination is ‘to Life’. It is about saving those chosen from the curse and damnation of the Fall. Third, the article’s concern is with those who are thus chosen. They will be ‘as vessels made to honour’. Unlike the letter to the Romans, from where the phrase comes, the article says nothing about those ‘vessels made to dishonour’. Fourth, the article lists the benefits of election, in language which echoes closely Romans 8. Further, faith provides assurance of election, and so consideration of the doctrine ‘is full of sweet, pleasant and unspeakable comfort to godly persons’. Finally, mention is made of those ‘curious and carnal persons’ who do not enjoy the benefits of election in Christ, but there is no attempt to account for them theologically. Both the ‘desperation’ and ‘unclean living’ which may result from them ‘lacking the Spirit of Christ’ are in some sense ‘perilous’, and they – like the godly elect – are bound to abide by God’s word as set forth in scripture.

Article seventeen, then, provides a very clear statement of the doctrine of election, but leaves an echoing silence concerning the converse teaching of reprobation. Unlike in article eleven (on justification), there is no cross-reference to the Homilies, where the subject of predestination is noticeable by its absence: commenting on those of the Homilies which can be linked to Cranmer himself, Diarmaid MacCulloch suggests that the reticence about predestinarian theology reflects the archbishop’s pastoral concern. Like the liturgy of the Prayer Book to which we will turn shortly, ‘[t]he homilies of the Church of England were therefore composed as if all the hearers would be part of the elect’.11

The reticence concerning predestinarian theology evident in the documents of the Edwardian Reformation was continued in Elizabeth’s reign. Most obviously, no homily addressing the doctrine was included in the Second Book of Homilies, and the semi-official texts of the Elizabethan church were similarly hazy on the subject, as, for example, Alexander Nowell’s Catechism (1570) indicates. Nowell composed the first version of his text following his return from his Marian exile, and on the request of Convocation. This was viewed by Convocation in 1562, and received unanimous approval. Although publication was delayed until 1570, by 1575 there were six versions of the original text in print, and Nowell’s Catechism stands as one of the four catechisms most widely used in early modern England. It was also the catechism mentioned most frequently in school statutes and in visitation articles enquiring about religious instruction in schools.12 In the Larger Catechism, published first in Latin in 1570 and then in English in 1573, Nowell makes a theological move made also by Calvin.13 Like Calvin, Nowell considers predestination in the course of discussion about ecclesiology, rather than in the context of the doctrine of justification by faith (of which, as noted above, predestination is a logical consequence). The only place in the whole catechism where predestination receives any attentio...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• List of Figures
• Abbreviations
• List of Contributors
• Introduction: Worship and the Parish Church
• 1 Teaching in Praying Words? Worship and Theology in the Early Modern English Parish
• 2 Special Nationwide Worship and the Book of Common Prayer in England, Wales and Ireland, 1533–1642
• 3 The Elizabethan Primers: Symptoms of an Ambiguous Settlement or Devotional Weaning?
• 4 The Fall and Rise of Fasting in the British Reformations
• 5 Music Reconciled to Preaching: A Jacobean Moment?
• 6 Protestant Worship and the Discourse of Music in Reformation England
• 7 ‘At it ding dong’: Recreation and Religion in the English Belfry, 1580–1640
• 8 Bodies at Prayer in Early Modern England
• 9 ‘Wise as serpents’: The Form and Setting of Public Worship at Little Gidding in the 1630s
• 10 ‘Extravagencies and Impertinencies’: Set Forms, Conceived and Extempore Prayer in Revolutionary England
• Index