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Eirenical Anglicans at the Synod of Dort

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 February 2016

John Platt
John Platt*
Affiliation:
Pembroke CollegeOxford
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Extract

On Tuesday, 6 November 1618, at a crowded gathering of the states general in The Hague at which the prince of Orange, and count William of Nassau were present, George Carleton, bishop of Llandaff and leader of the Anglican delegation to the forthcoming synod of Dort, opened his address thus, ‘Our Lord and King, Christ Jesus, being about to go to his Father, and being desirous to leave his followers whom he loved, the greatest good that is to be found in this life, bequeathed them Peace. Neither could men desire a better gift from Heaven, nor the Angels declare better tidings from thence, than glory to God in the Highest and on earth peace. This band, by which Heaven is united to Earth and Earth to Heaven has bound the heart of the most illustrious King of Great Britain, in such a manner from Heaven, that in consequence of the great care with which he is obliged to protect and defend the true Religion (as also to promote Peace and Unity among Christian Princes through the whole world; and particularly, most illustrious Lords, the tranquility of your Republic, to which he looks upon his kingdom to be allied by very ancient; and consequently the stricter ties) he has deputed us hither, to the end that we should labour to the utmost of our power for your welfare, and for the peace of your church.’

Type
Research Article
Information
Studies in Church History Subsidia , Volume 2: Reform and Reformation: England and the Continent c1500-c1750 , 1979 , pp. 221 - 243
Copyright
Copyright © Ecclesiastical History Society 1979 

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References

1 The version quoted here is that of the English translation of Brandt’s, [Geeraert] Historit der Reformatie en andete kerkelyke geschiedenissen, in en omirent de Nederlandcn, The History of the Reformation and other ecclesiastical transactions in and about the Low Countries, from the beginning of the Eighth Century, down to the famous Synod of Dort, inclusive], 3 (London 1722) pp 4–6Google Scholar. The original Latin sermon was published at The Hague in 1618 as Oratio R. Episcopi Landavensis. Habita in concessu Ordinum Generalium, quinto [sic] Novembris Anno 1618, Stylo Novo and a Dutch translation appeared at Amsterdam in the same year. An English translation was published at London in 1619. The error in dating contained in the Latin title is duly noted by the modern editor of the Resolutien der Staten-General 1617-18 (The Hague 1975) p 549.

2 [The Works of Joseph] Hall, [ed Hall, P.], 12 vols (Oxford 1837-39) 11. P 485Google Scholar.

3 Golden Remains [of the Ever Memorable Mr. John Hales of Eton College, etc] (London 1673) P 50.

4 Ibid p 51.

5 The best account of this period is still that of Harrison, [A. W.], [The Beginnings of Armianism to the Synod of Dort] (London 1926)Google Scholar.

6 Brandt, 3, p 9.

7 Welsby, P.A., Lancelot Andrewes, 1555-1626 (London 1958) pp 43–4Google Scholar.

8 Bodleian Library, Tanner MS 74, fol 180. See Itterzon, [G. P.] van, [‘Engelse belangstel-ling voor de canones van Dordrecht’], N[ederlandsch] A[rchiefvoor] K[erkgeschiedenis], 48 (1968) pp 278–9Google Scholar.

9 Fuller, [T.], [The Church History of Britain], 5 (Oxford 1845) pp 462–3Google Scholar. In a marginal note. Fuller explains, ‘These instructions I saw transcribed out of Dr. Davenant his own manuscript’. The transcription to which Fuller refers is unquestionably that made by Davenant’s newphew, Edward Davenant, DD (1596-1679), who accompanied his uncle to Dort. The piece is to be found on the first folio of Exeter College, Oxford, MS 48 and was published by Itterzon, G.P. Van as the first appendix to his article, ‘Koning Jacobus I en de Synode van Dordrecht’, NAK 24 (1932) pp 178–204Google Scholar. Clearly Van Itterzon was unaware of Fuller’s work since he thought that he was publishing ‘deze onbekende, geheime instructie’ for the first time, see p 197.

10 Hall, 11, pp 479-81.

11 Cardwell, E., A History of Conferences and other Proceedings connected with the revision of the Book of Common Prayer from 1558 to 1690 (3 ed Oxford 1849) p 81Google Scholar.

12 Brandt, 2, p 313. Latin, text in [Praestantium ac Eruditorttm Virorum] Ep[istolae] Ecc[lesiastieae et Theohgicae] (2 ed, Amsterdam 1684) p 484Google Scholar and Briefwisseling van Hugo Grotius, 1, ed Molhuysen, P. L. (The Hague 1928) pp 571–2Google Scholar.

13 Brandt, 2, p 124. For the full French text, see Ep Ecc p 351.

14 Cited, Geyl, [P.], [The Netherlands in the Seventeenth Century, 1609-1648] (London 1961) P 49Google Scholar.

15 King James His Letter and Directions to the Lord Archbishop of Canterbury concerning Preaching and Przachers (London 1642) p 3. The text is printed in Kenyon, J. P., The Stuart Constitution (Cambridge 1966) pp 145–6Google Scholar.

16 Harrison p 196, citing Trigland, [J.], [Kerckelycke Geschiedenissen] (Leiden 1651) p 655Google Scholar.

17 Shriver, [F.], [‘Orthodoxy and Diplomacy: James I and the Vorsrius affair’], EHR 85 (1970) p 453Google Scholar.

18 Brandt, 2, p 124.

19 Nijenhius, W., ‘Calvin’s Life and Work in the Light of the Idea of Tolerance’, Ecclesia Reformata: Studies on the Reformation (Leiden 1972) pp 115–29, esp pp 119–21CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

20 Peters, R., ‘The Notion of the Church in the Writings attributed to King James VI and I,’ SCH 3 (Leiden 1966) pp 223–31Google Scholar.

21 The Workes of the Most High and Mighty Prince, James, ed Montague, J. (London 1616) P 337Google Scholar.

22 Willson, D.H., ‘James I’s Literary Assistants’. The Huntington Library Quarterly, 8 (1944) pp 35–57Google Scholar.

23 Shriver p 454.

24 See Rimbault, [L.], [Pierre Du Moulin 1568-1658] (Paris 1966)Google Scholar.

25 Ep Ecc p 203.

26 Moulin, P. Du. Defense de la foy catholique contenue au livre dc …Jacques I, Roy de Grand Bretagne … contre la response de N. Caeffeteau (Paris 1610)Google Scholar. An English translation was published at London in the same year.

27 James to archbishop Abbot, 10 August 1612. PRO SP 14/70 fol 143.

28 Brandt, 2, pp 153-7. For the French text, see The Ecumenical Review, 1 (London 1948) pp 79-82. Compare Rimbault pp 71-5.

29 Brandt, 2, p 213.

30 Ibid p 312.

31 Trigland p 655.

32 Acta synodi nationals Dordrechti habitae anno 1618 et 1619 (Leiden 1620) pp 287-97. Moulin, P. Du, Anatome Arminianismi (Leiden 1619)Google Scholar English translation London 1620.

33 Heylyn, P., Historia Quinquarticularis (London 1660)Google Scholar.

34 Brandt, 3, p 6.

35 Geyl pp 56-7.

36 [Letters From and to Sir Dudley] Carleton, [Knt. during his Embassy in Holland, , from January 1615 16 to December 1620] (2 ed London 1775) pp 6 and 15Google Scholar.

37 Fuller p 462.

38 Ibid pp 462-3.

39 Brandt, 3, pp 4-5.

40 Carleton p 308.

41 Fuller p 465.

42 Hall, 11, p 485.

43 Golden Remains p 13.

44 Hall, 11, p 483.

45 Ibid 6, pp 287-9. For the relationship between Hall and Reigersberg (±1578-1611) see my forthcoming article in Notes and Queries.

46 The most recent work on Hall assures us that ‘all of Hall’s epistles were composed between 1607 … and 1610, the publication date of the last volume’: Huntley, F. L., Bishop Joseph Hall,1574-1656 (Cambridge 1979) p 65Google Scholar. Arminius died in October 1609.

47 Kinloch, T.F., The Life and Works of Joseph Hall 1574-1656 (London 1951) pp 24–8Google Scholar.

48 Compare Brandt 3, pp 203-4. There may possibly be a hint of this in Thomas Fuller’s delightful phrases, ‘Thus returned Dr. Hall into his own country: since so recovered (not to say revived therein) that he hath gone over the graves of all his English colleagues there, (what cannot God and good air do) surviving in health at this day, three and thirty years after, may well with “Jesse, go amongst men for an old man in these days” …’ (Fuller p 468).

49 DNB 9 (1887) pp 90-1.

50 CalSPD 1611-18, p 399.

51 Ibid p 489.

52 PRO SP 14/94 fol 38.

53 Kautz, A.P., ‘The Selection of Jacobean Bishops’, Early Stuart Studies, ed Reinmuth, H. S. (Minneapolis 1970) p 160Google Scholar.

54 Fuller, M., The Life, Letters and Writings of John Davenant D.D., 1572-1641 (London 1897)Google Scholar.

55 The DNB article—59 (1899) pp 335-6—among other inaccuracies, confuses him at several points with his contemporary namesake, Samuel Ward of Ipswich (1577-1640). See also Knappen, M. M., Two Elizabethan Puritan Diaries (London/Chicago 1933) PP 37–49Google Scholar

56 PRO SP 14/109 fol 157.

57 Carleton p 319.

58 DNB, 22 (1890) pp 20-1. The statement that ‘At Dort, Goad, previously a Calvinist, went over to the Arrainians’, is quite unfounded.

59 PRO SP 105/95 fol 48.

60 DNB, 3 (1885) pp 25-6. One or two errors require correction: Balcanqual was a fellow of Pembroke Hall, Cambridge and never had any connection with Pembroke College, Oxford. He went to Dort as a Bachelor, not a Doctor of Divinity. See Alumni Oxonienses, ed Foster, J., 1 (Oxford 1891) p 60Google Scholar.

61 Golden Remains p 173.

62 Harrison pp 323-4.

63 Golden Remains p 73.

64 Ibid p 177.

65 Fuller p 463.

66 Golden Remains pp 87-8.

67 Ibid p 92.

68 Ibid. ‘Mr. Farindon’s Letter’, ‘You may please to take notice, that in his younger days he was a Calvinist, and even then when he was employed at that Synod, and at the well pressing S. Joh. iii. 16 by Episcopius—“There I bid John Calvin good night”, as he has often told me.’ Since there is no record of any such exposition of this text by Episcopius, the question of Martinius’s influence upon Hales does arise, compare Peters, R.. ‘John Hales and the Synod of Dort’, SCH 7 (1971) p 285Google Scholar.

69 Golden Remains p 115.

70 Ibid p 100.

71 Ibid p 101.

72 Tyacke, [N. R. N.], [Armitmism in England, in Religion and Politics, 1604 to 1640], unpubl Oxford DPhil thesis (1968) pp 142–4Google Scholar. Tyacke’s entire chapter, ‘The British Delegation to the Synod of Dort in 1618-1619’, (pp 132-58) sheds fresh light on various points of the delegates’ conduct.

73 Bodleian Library, Tanner MS 74 fols 132-6.

74 Golden Remains p 181.

75 Ibid p 190.

76 Tanner MS 74, fol 196. Van Itterzon, publishes this letter in an appendix to his article, PP 279-80.

77 Golden Remains pp 184-5.

78 Ibid pp 130-1. Compare Tyacke pp 147-9.

79 Ibid p 181. Compare p 183.

80 Carleton p 325.

81 Ibid, p 326.

82 Ibid p 319.

83 Golden Remains p 178.

84 Carleton p 340.

85 See Batten, [J. M.], [John Dury: Advocate of Christian Reunion] (Chicago 1944)Google Scholar.

86 Davenant’s letter to Festus Hammius was published by Gabbema, S. A., illustrium et Clarorum Virorum Epistolae (Leeuwarden 1669) pp 758–61Google Scholar. Hall’s letter to Bogerman is in the Gabbema manuscript collection in the Provinciale Bibliotheek van Friesland—Leeuwarden, Cod II, fol 8, No. V and Cod F G, fol 12r, No XIII.

87 Batten p 62.

88 Balcanqual, Hall and Ward all survived long enough to suffer varying degrees of persecution at the hands of the king’s enemies.