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The Early Puritanism of Lancelot Andrewes

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

M. M. Knappen
M. M. Knappen
Affiliation:
The University of Chicago
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Extract

It is a commonplace that young radicals become old conservatives. Not only does this principle apply in modern life but it also finds illustrations in the history of party movements in earlier times. The English Puritans, who were the progressive group of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries in their country, experienced this regular defection of some of their most promising young adherents. The two famous bishops of the English Church in Ireland, James Ussher and William Bedell, were strongly inclined towards Puritanism in their early years. Samuel Ward, the great Master of Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, and delegate of the English Church to the Synod of Dort, was another who became more moderate with the years. In the tributes which have been written to the memory of Lancelot Andrewes as a great High Churchman, court preacher, stylist and Anglican devotional writer, the fact that he also passed through such a stage in his development has been generally neglected. Nevertheless such was the case, and during his early years, Andrewes made an important contribution to the development of one of the most characteristic Puritan doctrines, that of the Sabbath.

Type
Articles
Information
Church History , Volume 2 , Issue 2 , June 1933 , pp. 95 - 104
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Church History 1933

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References

1 e. g., Overton, Canon J. H. in The Dictionary of National BiographyGoogle Scholar; Ottley, R. L.: Lancelot Andrewes, London, 1894Google Scholar; Church, Dean R. W., art., “Lancelot Andrewes” in Barry, Alfred ed.; Masters in English Theology, London, 1877Google Scholar; Teale, W. H.: Lives of English Divines, London, 1846Google Scholar; Russell, A. T., Memoirs of the Life and Works of Bishop Andrewes, London, 1863Google Scholar, (This work is the most complete from a factual point of view); Eliot, T. S.: For Lancelot Andrewes, Essays on Style and Order, London, 1928.Google Scholar

2 Isaacson, , “Life of Andrewes” in Andrewes' Two Answers to Cardinal Perron, ed. Bliss, J. (in the Library of Anglo-Catholic Theology, Oxford, 1854), pp. iii, iv.Google Scholar

3 Isaacson, , ut sufra, viiGoogle Scholar. SirHarrington, John: Briefe View of the State of the Church of England, London. 1653, p. 143Google Scholar. This passage is reprinted in Andrewes, ' Two Answers to Cardinal Perron, ut supra, p. xxxviGoogle Scholar. Ottley, R. L. (op. cit., pp. 6, 7)Google Scholar states, without reference, that Walsingham was a neighbor of the Andrewes family, but from the data given in Conyers Read: Mr. Secretary Walsingham and the Policy of Queen Elisabeth, 3 vols., Oxford, 1925, this appears improbable.Google Scholar

4 Isaacson, , op. cit., p. vii.Google Scholar

5 See D. N. D. art. “Greenham.” Clarke, Samuel: Lives of Thirty-Two English Divines, third ed., London, 1677, p. 13.Google Scholar

6 The Church History of Great Britain, IX, VII, 65 (1845 ed., V, 191).Google Scholar

7 Clarke, Samuel: Lives of Thirty-two English Divines, p. 133Google Scholar. This information came from his son. cf. D. N. B. art. “John Carter.”

8 Cf. D. N. B. on Chaderton and Knewstubs and art. “Nathaniel Culverwell.”

9 Church History, IX, VII, p. 69. (1845 ed., V, p. 193)Google Scholar. Brook, Benjamin: Lives of the Puritans, London, 1813, Vol. I, p. 415Google Scholar. Marsden, J. B.: History of the Early Puritans, London, 1853, p. 246Google Scholar. Fuller makes 1592 the date of Greenham's death, but he lived until after the Lopez affair in 1594 (Works, Preface xi). See D. N. B. article, “Greenham,” and Notes and Queries, VI, 8, 55Google Scholar. His works were edited after his death by his friend Henry Holland, and first published in 1599, four years after the first appearance of Bownde's book.

10 Church History, IX, VII, p. 69. (1845 ed. V, p. 193).Google Scholar

11 This regulation which is frequently quoted by later writers as the most fantastic and ridiculous of the Puritan rules for the Sabbath was rather anti-catholic than Sabbatarian in its origin. It is to be found in the Injunctions and Articles of Archbishop Grindal, where it was obviously placed with a view to the suppression of Roman Catholic practises, cf. Grindal, 's Remains, (Parker Society, Cambridge, 1843) pp. 137, 160.Google Scholar

12 Church History, IX, VIII, 20 (1845 ed. V, 212, 213).Google Scholar

13 Isaacson, , Life, ut supra, vi.Google Scholar

14 Jackson, John, “Epistle Dedicatory” to The Morall Law Expounded, etc., by Bishop Andrewes, London, 1642, A. 3Google Scholar. verso.

15 The problem of the true text is naturally a difficult one in view of the manner in which the material for the various editions was collected and prepared for publication, and some corrections should be made in the statement on the subject by James Bliss, who edited the reprint in the Library of Anglo-Catholic Theology under the title of A Pattern of Catecliislical Doctrine, etc., 1846Google Scholar. The 1630 edition which was published anonymously, can hardly be Andrewes' manual of his lectures, but must be a student's notes thereon. It is so abridged as to be unintelligible in places without comparison with the expanded text of 1642. For example, the argument about Saul being among the prophets (cf. 1642 edition, p. 330) appears simply as: “It were not wise to set a ceremonie in the midst of morall precepts; there be many amongst the Prophets that cannot distinguish.” (p. 234). Furthermore the editor of the 1650 edition comments at length upon tlie “broken rubbish” and “indigested chaos” of the previous editions, and claims to have prepared his edition from the “Author's own copy”—“The only copy he had, as is acknowledged under his hand in the beginning of the book.” (Preface, pp. xvi, xvii). The 1650 copy, which was reprinted in 1675, is therefore probably the best for most passages except those which the editor has admittedly altered, such as the one on the Sabbath. On that topic we must be satisfied with the 1642 edition as giving the fullest and most accurate report available of what Andrewes actually said.

I have, however, quoted also from the 1846 edition as being more generally accessible, and containing some material not in the 1642 edition. It was a reprint of an expanded version of the 1630 text, which appeared in 1641, and of which a copy is in the British Museum. There was another 1641 edition, also based on the 1630 text, which Bliss does not mention. It contains fewer additions than the one which he used. A copy of it is in the Bodleian.

The 1642 edition was entitled The Morall Law Expounded, and the others The Patterne of Catechisticall Doctrine. The 1630 and 1641 editions were published anonymously.

16 A, 4, recto.

17 Anonymous editor, 1650 edition, Preface, B. 4 verso.

18 “A Treatise of the Sabbath Day” in his Workes (1612 ed.), pp. 128–171Google Scholar. I quote from the 1612 edition as being the most accessible. The treatise is unaltered in all the editions.

19 Andrewes, , (1642 ed.) p. 329Google Scholar; (1846 ed.) p. 154. Greenham, , p. 133Google Scholar. Bownde, , (1595 ed.) p. 5Google Scholar; (1606 ed.) p. 6.

20 Andrewes, , (1642 ed.) pp. 330–333Google Scholar; (1846 ed.) p. 154. Greenham, , p. 136Google Scholar. Bownde, , (1606 ed.) pp. 37–39.Google Scholar

21 Andrewes, , (1642 ed) pp. 331, 332Google Scholar; (1846 ed.) p. 155. Greenham, , pp. 155, 156Google Scholar. Bownde, , (1595 ed) p. 39Google Scholar; (1606 ed.) p. 68.

22 Andrewes, , (1642 ed.) p. 339Google Scholar; (1846 ed.) p. 158. Greenham, , pp. 162–171Google Scholar. Bownde, , (1595 ed.) pp. 62–148; (1606 ed.). pp. 122–285.Google Scholar

23 Andrewes, , (1642 ed.) pp. 342–362Google Scholar; (1846 ed.) pp. 158–169. Greenham, , pp. 156–161Google Scholar. Bownde, , (1595 ed.) pp. 149–286Google Scholar; (1606 ed.) pp. 285–475.

24 Cf. D. N. B. (Revised ed.), Art. “Greenham” and “Bownd.”

25 Cf. Bownde, , (1606 ed.) pp. 15, 16Google Scholar, and Greenham, , pp. 131, 132Google Scholar, beginning “And the nature of this word Remember, etc.

26 Hessey, J. A.: Sunday, Its Origin, History and Present Obligations, etc., London, 1860Google Scholar; Coulton, G. G.: Five Centuries of Religion, Cambridge, 1927, II, p. 71Google Scholar; Medieval Village, Cambridge, 1925, pp. 255, 272Google Scholar, and Appendix 34; Cox, Robert, The Literature of the Sabbath Question, 2 vols., Edinburgh, 1865.Google Scholar

27 An Examination and Confutation of a Lawless Pamphlet, London, 1637Google Scholar (in the library of Columbia University, New York City; not in the British Museum) pp. 89, 90.

28 pp. 160–164.

29 Two Answers, etc., pp. 83ff.Google Scholar