Religion in Early Stuart England, 1603-1638

Cover

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Title Page, Copyright

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Contents

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Introduction

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pp. xi-xx

The fifty-plus texts here folded into a single volume provide an overview of the theological controversies and cultural forms of early Stuart Christianity—an overview of sufficient range and depth to serve as a source-book for scholars, but with sufficient annotation and standardizing of accidentals to be accessible to students and those not accustomed to the...

Abbreviations for Works Commonly Cited

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pp. xxi-xxii

Note on Nomenclature

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pp. xxiii-xxvii

In the 1980s, the familiar Anglican–Puritan dichotomy collapsed under the realization that a significant percentage of law-abiding mainstream Christians (i.e., Anglicans) in early Stuart England, parishioners and ministers alike, consisted of evangelical Calvinists (i.e., Puritans). The terminology...

John Dod and Robert Cleaver

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pp. 1-2

The youngest of seventeen children, Dod’s conversion took place during his years at Jesus College, Cambridge (BA 1576; MA 1579), where he formed lasting ties both to the nonconformist Thomas Cartwright and to leading moderate puritans like William Whitaker and Laurence Chaderton. Ordained in 1580, in...

John Dod and Robert Cleaver: A plain and familiar exposition of the Ten Commandments 1604

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pp. 3-24

These words contain a preparation to stir us up with all care and conscience to keep the law of God, which partly concerneth the observing of all the Commandments in general, and more especially the keeping of the first. That preparative which pertaineth to all is in these words (God spake): that is, that seeing they...

Lancelot Andrewes

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pp. 25-28

Born in 1555, the eldest child of a moderately prosperous London mariner, Andrewes entered Merchant Taylors’ School around 1565, where, under its master, Richard Mulcaster, he studied Greek, Hebrew, oratorical declamation, and music theory, along with...

Lancelot Andrewes: The copy of the sermon preached on Good Friday last before the King’s Majesty 1604

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pp. 29-41

At the very reading or hearing of which verse, there is none but will presently conceive, it is the voice of a party in great extremity. In great extremity two ways. First, in such distress, as never was any, If ever there were sorrow like my sorrow? And then, in that distress having none to regard him...

William Bradshaw

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pp. 42-45

A poor man’s son, Bradshaw completed grammar school thanks to the generosity of the puritan headmaster at Ashby-de-la-Zouch, where Joseph Hall was a fellow-student; the two entered Emmanuel in 1588. With the son of Marian exile and puritan leader, Anthony Gilby, for his tutor...

William Bradshaw: English puritanism: containing the main opinions of the rigidest sort of those that are called Puritans in the realm of England 1605 (rev. ed. 1641)

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pp. 46-55

It cannot be unknown unto them that know anything that those Christians in this realm which are called by the odious and vile name of Puritans are accused by the prelates to the King’s Majesty and the state to maintain many absurd, erroneous, schismatical, and heretical opinions...

John Buckeridge

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pp. 56-58

Having received his BD in 1592 and ordination shortly thereafter (his DD would come in 1599), Buckeridge left Oxford in 1595 to serve as chaplain to the Earl of Essex, and then in 1596 to Archbishop Whitgift, in whose household he encountered Lancelot Andrewes, another...

John Buckeridge: A sermon preached at Hampton Court before the King’s Majesty 1606

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pp. 59-67

These words are a conclusion of this discourse of the Apostle concerning the obedience of Christians towards their superiors, the process {argument} of which Scripture is grounded upon many reasons: 1. ab authore, from the first founder and author of all power. Omnis potestas est à Deo; all power...

Richard Field

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pp. 68-70

Field matriculated at Magdalen Hall, Oxford, in 1577, receiving his BA in 1581, his MA in 1584, and his BD in 1592—and attaining, in the process, considerable renown for his prowess in disputation and school divinity. In 1594 he was made divinity lecturer at Lincoln’s Inn (a post that...

Richard Field: Of the Church, five books 1606 (rev. ed. 1628)

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pp. 71-99

Most Reverend In Christ, the consideration of the unhappy divisions of the Christian world, and the infinite distractions of men’s minds, not knowing, in so great variety of opinions, what to think or to whom to join themselves (every faction boasting of the pure and sincere profession...

Richard Corbett

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pp. 100-102

Corbett’s father, often described as a “gardener,” was a property-owning gentleman, albeit on a modest scale, with a life-long interest in horticulture. Educated first at Westminster School, in 1598 Corbett entered Broadgates Hall, Oxford, and then in the same year transferred to Christ...

Richard Corbett: “An elegy written upon the death of Dr. Ravis, Bishop of London” ca. 1609

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pp. 103-104

Lewis Bayly

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pp. 105-107

He was born in Carmarthen, Wales—probably the son of the parish curate. No record of his earlier education survives, but in 1611 he received his BD from Oxford, followed by his DD in 1613. He had been a parish priest from the mid-1590s (the sermons he preached while in Evesham, Worcestershire...

Lewis Bayly: The practice of piety directing a Christian how to walk that he may please God 1611–12 [first extant edition 1613]

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pp. 108-140

And if sometimes some good book haps into their hands or some good motion comes into their heads, whereby they are put in mind to consider the uncertainty of this life present or how weak assurance they have of eternal life if this were ended, and how they have some secret sins for...

Thomas Adams

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pp. 141-143

Little more is known of Adams’ early life than that he entered Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1598, received his BA in 1602, was ordained in 1604, and went on to take an MA from Clare Hall in 1606. From 1605 to 1611 he served as curate in a Bedfordshire parish until ousted by its new...

Thomas Adams: The white devil, or the hypocrite uncased: in a sermon preached at Paul’s Cross 1612, published 1613

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pp. 144-159

Honest and understanding reader (if neither, hands off), I never saluted thy general name by a special epistle till now; and now, perhaps, soon enough. But if honesty be usher to thy understanding, and understanding tutor to thy honesty, as I cannot fear, so I need not doubt or treat with thee...

Benjamin Carier

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pp. 160-162

The son of a Kentish clergyman (and exact contemporary of William Shakespeare [1564–1616]), Carier attended King’s School, Canterbury, and thereafter—like his classmate Christopher Marlowe—Corpus Christi, Cambridge, where he enrolled as a student-servant. He took his BA in...

Benjamin Carier: A treatise written by M. Doctor Carier wherein he layeth down sundry learned and pithy considerations by which he was moved to forsake the Protestant congregation and to betake himself to the Catholic Apostolic Roman Church 1614

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pp. 163-177

Having exactly perused (good reader) this treatise here presented to thy view, and finding it both in stuff and style to be learnedly and eloquently contrived, I took myself in some sort obliged in Christian duty to divulge it in print to the world: unwittingly, I confess, to the author; howbeit...

John Howson

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pp. 178-181

On June 10, 1615, John Howson, DD, a prebendary of Christ Church, Oxford, obeyed a summons to appear before the King to answer charges of heterodoxy, barratry, and high treason brought by Robert Abbot, Master of Balliol and Oxford’s regius professor of divinity—his brother...

John Howson: “Dr. Howson’s answers to my Lord Grace of Canterbury{’s} accusations before his Majesty at Greenwich” June 10, 1615

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pp. 182-191

Upon which occasion my Lord Grace {Abbot} began to set upon me and to affirm that I was the most factious preacher that ever lived there; and condemned his brother for nothing more than that he would have any business with me, whom he esteemed ever as pitch and to be avoided...

Collegiate Suffrage

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pp. 192-196

The Synod of Dort (Dordrecht) was called to end a controversy in the Dutch Church dating back to the 1590s, when a young Amsterdam minister, Jacob Arminius, found he could no longer accept Theodore Beza’s supralapsarian view of the divine decrees, the view widely espoused...

Collegiate suffrage: The collegiate suffrage of the divines of Great Britain . . . delivered in the Synod of Dort, March 6, anno 1619, being their vote or voice foregoing the joint and public judgment of that Synod 1619 (English trans. 1629)

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pp. 197-229

The decree of election, or predestination unto salvation, is the effectual will of God, by which, according to his good pleasure, for demonstration of his mercy, he purposed the salvation of man being fallen, and prepared for him such means by which he would effectually and unfallibly...

Robert Sanderson

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pp. 230-232

The son of a Sheffield clergyman, Sanderson matriculated at Lincoln College, Oxford, in 1603, receiving his BA in 1605, his MA in 1607, and his BD in 1617. From 1606 to 1619 he was a fellow of the college and for several years its reader in logic, his lectures forming the basis of his...

Robert Sanderson: Sermon preached at a visitation at Boston 1619, published 1622

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pp. 233-249

I had ever thought the interest of but an ordinary friend might have drawn me to that whereto the despite of a right bitter foe should not have driven me, till the fate of these sermons hath taught me myself better, and now given me at once a sight both of my error and infirmity. The improbity...

Richard Corbett: “The distracted puritan” ca. 1620–21

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pp. 250-252

John Cosin

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pp. 253-256

The son of a prosperous Norwich clothier, Cosin matriculated at Gonville and Caius, Cambridge, in 1610, receiving his BA in 1614, followed by the MA in 1617 and BD in 1623. In 1616 Cambridge’s leading anti-Calvinists, Lancelot Andrewes and John Overall, both sought Cosin as their...

John Cosin: Sermon I: Preached at St. Edward’s in Cambridge, January the 6th, A.D. MDCXXI, and at Coton on the second Sunday after Epiphany 1621

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pp. 257-269

We are still at the feast of Christmas, and this is the last and great day of the feast, as St. John said of another. A feast of joy it has been all this while, but this day was given us that our joy might be full. They were tidings of joy that the angels brought, a while since, to the shepherds...

John Preston

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pp. 270-276

The son of a Northamptonshire farmer, Preston owed his early education to the generosity a wealthy uncle. He entered King’s College, Cambridge, in 1604, intending to study music; within two years, however, he had migrated to Queen’s and natural philosophy. He received his BA in...

John Preston: Plenitudo fontis, or, Christ’s fullness and man’s emptiness 1621, published 1639 (rev. ed. 1644)

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pp. 277-286

Pliny, the great naturalist, taxeth some of the Greek and Latin writers in his time of folly at the least for sending abroad their empty and worthless pamphlets with an overpraise in the title, promising much at the first sight, but utterly deceiving the reader in his further search; but he...

Humphrey Sydenham

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pp. 287-289

A year after Sydenham’s birth, his father found himself having to explain to the Somerset magistrates why he had disrupted church services by “causing the bells to be rung and diverse bagpipes to be blown, to the great dishonor of Almighty God” (Cannon), so young Humphrey apparently did...

Humphrey Sydenham: Jacob and Esau: election, reprobation, opened and discussed by way of sermon at Paul’s Cross, March 4, 1622 published 1626

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pp. 290-293

That the will of God is the principal efficient cause of all those works which he doth externally from himself, so that there is no superior or precedent cause moving and impelling it, shines to us no less from the eternity of his will than the omnipotency. . . . In his eternal decree, why are...

Michael Sparke

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pp. 294-296

The son of an Oxfordshire husbandman, Sparke probably attended a local grammar school, since he could read Latin. From 1603, when he was apprenticed to a London stationer, Sparke made his living as a bookseller and printer. A staunch puritan and, from 1626 on, Prynne’s invariable...

Michael Sparke: Crumbs of comfort, the valley of tears, and the hill of joy 1623

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pp. 297-300

Having known and found by some of my good friends the just want of a prayer book of this volume, I resolved for the glory of God and the good of his people to fit this for thee howsoever, which no doubt (but thou fitting thyself for it) will make thee a fit member to inherit eternal life. Go...

John Donne

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pp. 301-304

Born into a Roman Catholic family, Donne matriculated from Hart Hall, Oxford, in 1584, when he was only twelve, probably in the hope that he could finish his BA before turning sixteen, when he would have to take the Oath of Supremacy. In the event, he left Oxford without taking..

John Donne: Sermon preached at Whitehall, the first Friday in Lent 1623, published 1640

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pp. 305-319

I am now but upon the compassion of Christ. There is much difference between his compassion and his Passion, as much as between the men that are to handle them here. But lacryma passionis Christi est vicaria: a great personage may speak of his Passion, of his blood; my vicarage...

Lancelot Andrewes

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pp. 320-321

The introduction to Andrewes’ life and works is to be found prefacing his 1604 Good Friday sermon <supra>. The Easter 1623 sermon follows the dominant patristic reading of Isaiah 63:1-3 as a prophetic vision of Christ victorious over death and hell. Calvin’s commentary on the...

Lancelot Andrewes: A sermon preached before the King’s Majesty at Whitehall, on the xiii of April, A.D. MDCXXIII, being Easter Day 1623, published 1629

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pp. 322-334

The tenor of Scripture that nobleman then read was out of the 53rd chapter, and this of ours out of the 63rd, ten chapters between. But if St. Philip had found him reading of this here, as he did of that, he would likewise have begun at this same Scripture as at that he did, and preached...

William Drummond of Hawthornden

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pp. 335-337

His first published volume of poems, Tears on the death of Meliades (1613), was an elegaic tribute to Prince Henry (d. 1612). A volume of lyric poetry, including some religious verse, followed in 1616. A year later, Drummond’s verses celebrating King James’ visit to Scotland brought...

William Drummond of Hawthornden: A cypress grove 1623

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pp. 338-349

Though it hath been doubted if there be in the soul such imperious and superexcellent power as that it can, by the vehement & earnest working of it, deliver knowledge to another without bodily organs, & by the only conceptions and ideas of it produce real effects; yet it hath been...

George Wither

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pp. 350-353

The oscillating pattern of Wither’s career established itself early on. The eldest of ten children in a prosperous Hampshire family, Wither entered Magdalen College, Oxford, in 1604, only to depart a year later due to financial difficulties at home. He seems to have moved to London shortly...

George Wither: The hymns and songs of the Church 1623

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pp. 354-367

These hymns, dread Sovereign, having divers ways received life from your Majesty, as well as that approbation which the Church alloweth, are now imprinted according to your royal privilege, to come abroad under your gracious protection. And what I delivered unto your princely...

William Laud

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pp. 368-371

The son of a prosperous Reading merchant and nephew to one of London’s lord mayors, Laud matriculated at St. John’s, Oxford, in 1589; he would remain there until his late forties. His theological views probably owe a good deal to his beloved tutor, John Buckeridge, with whom he...

William Laud: A relation of the conference between William Laud . . . and Mr. Fisher, the Jesuit (Frequently referred to under the title Conference with Fisher) 1624 (rev. ed. 1639)

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pp. 372-397

This tract will need patronage, as great as may be had, that is yours. Yet when I first printed part of it, I presumed not to ask any, but thrust it out at the end of another’s labors, that it might seem at least to have the same patron, your royal father of blessed memory, as the other work...

Richard Montagu

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pp. 398-401

The son of a Buckinghamshire clergyman, Montagu studied at Eton from 1590–94 before proceeding to King’s College, Cambridge, where he took his BA in 1598 and his MA in 1602. He was ordained two years later, after which he left Cambridge, but returned to take his BD in...

Richard Montagu: A gag for the new Gospel? No, A NEW GAG for an old goose 1624

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pp. 402-408

A question of obscurity, which better might have been over-passed in silence, fitting rather Schools than popular ears: especially the differences hanging on such niceties, and the controverted particulars of no great moment in fine {finally}, upon due examination. For it is confessed that...

Richard Montagu: Appello Caesarem: a just appeal from two unjust informers 1625

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pp. 409-417

By a missive, from a papist I am sure, and I suppose from a priest, I was not long since forced upon the controversies of these times between the Protestant and Romish confessionists. And because it hath been ever truly counted a readier way for the advancement of piety rather to...

John Preston: Riches of mercy to men in misery; or, certain excellent treatises concerning the dignity and duty of God’s children ca. 1625, published 1658

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pp. 418-445

In this most sweet and comfortable Scripture, I mean the eighth chapter, our blessed apostle Saint Paul shews at large the happy and safe estate of every true believer that hath his part in Christ, where he proves at large that there is nothing can hinder and disannul that estate, but that he must...

Phineas Fletcher

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pp. 446-448

The son of a Kentish diplomat, cousin to the dramatist John Fletcher, and older brother of the poet Giles Fletcher, Phineas Fletcher studied at Eton, leaving for King’s College, Cambridge, in 1600. He took his BA in 1604, his MA four years later, and a BD some time thereafter. He entered holy...

Phineas Fletcher: The locusts, or Apollyonists 1627

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pp. 449-485

J. R.

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pp. 486-488

Despite some awkward dislocations of word order, this is a neoclassical verse satire of not negligible poetic merit. It is also a seditious libel, representative of the kind of religio-political writing that precipitated the crisis of trust that became the English Civil War...

J. R.: The spy: discovering the danger of Arminian heresy and Spanish treachery 1628

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pp. 489-507

My blushing disabilities have at length adventured to pass the pikes of censure— unprovided of any other arms or ornaments than sincere loyalty, devoted to my king and country’s service—rather than my king and country should be (for want of a timely discovery of those dangers...

John Earle

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pp. 508-512

Born in York, he may have been the John Earle who matriculated from Christ Church, Oxford, in June 1619, as well as the John Earle who graduated BA from Merton College that July, becoming a fellow there soon afterward and proceeding MA in 1624, DD in 1640. However, there seems...

John Earle: Microcosmography: or, a piece of the world discovered, in essays and characters 1628

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pp. 513-518

Is a bird not yet fledged, that hath hopped out of his nest to be chirping on a hedge, and will be straggling abroad at what peril soever. His backwardness in the university hath set him thus forward; for had he not truanted there, he had not been so hasty a divine. His small standing, and time...

William Prynne

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pp. 519-520

The biographical sketch of this incendiary puritan common lawyer and anti-Laudian polemicist is postponed to the introduction prefacing his 1637 News from Ipswich, since the pamphlet’s significance is inseparable from its biographical and historical contexts. The tract reprinted below, one...

William Prynne: God no impostor nor deluder 1629 (rev. ed. 1630)

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pp. 521-529

It is a common demand which the patrons of universal grace and free will use to make, how God can be excused from hypocrisy, collusion, and deceit, if he hath not seriously purposed and determined to convert and call all such to whom the Gospel is preached, but only to...

Joseph Hall

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pp. 530-531

Hall’s early theological formation took place under the guidance of Anthony Gilby, a close family friend, incumbent at Hall’s childhood parish of Ashby-de-la-Zouch, Leicestershire, and noted puritan controversialist. Gilby’s son Nathaniel helped make it possible for Hall to attend Emmanuel...

Joseph Hall: The estate of a Christian laid forth in a sermon preached at Gray’s Inn on Candlemas Day late 1620s

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pp. 532-536

We have done with the negative duty of a Christian, what he must not do: hear now the affirmative, what he must do: wherein our speech, treading in the steps of the blessed Apostle, shall pass through these four heads: first, that here must be a change; secondly, that this change must...

John Everard

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pp. 537-542

Among the most important scholarly developments in recent years has been the excavation of England’s pre-1640 antinomian underground, whose far-flung circles provided the seedbed for the radical religion of the Interregnum and whose conflict with mainstream Protestantism in the late...

John Everard: The Gospel treasury opened ca. 1625–36 (published in 1653)

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pp. 543-567

As there were many causes of delay in publishing these sermons, so there are also in bringing them to light now: the time when they were preached was in the days of the last bishops, who endeavored the strangling of many truths in the birth, as Pharaoh the children of Israel, lest they should...

Richard Sibbes

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pp. 568-569

Son of a wheelwright with a dim view of higher education, Sibbes entered St. John’s, Cambridge, as a work-study student (a subsizar) in 1595 when he was eighteen, seventeen at the youngest. He remained at St. John’s for the next twenty-one years, taking his BA in 1599, his MA in 1602, his BD in...

Richard Sibbes: The bruised reed and smoking flax 1630

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pp. 570-589

To prevent a further inconvenience, I was drawn to let these notes pass with some review: considering there was an intendment of publishing them by some who had not perfectly taken them. And these first, as being next at hand, and having had occasion lately of some fresh thoughts...

The Little Gidding Story Books

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pp. 590-595

Little Gidding was a religious community, an experimental fusion of manor house and monastery, founded in 1625 when an elderly widow, Mary Ferrar, along with her daughter and two sons, their spouses, and a dozen or so children, moved into an abandoned rural estate in...

The Little Gidding Story Books: The story books of Little Gidding: being the religious dialogues recited in the Great Room 1631–32

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pp. 596-616

It was the same day wherein the Church celebrates that great Festival of the Purification that the Maiden Sisters, longing to be imitators of those glorious Saints by whose names they were called (for all bare Saints’ names, and she that was elected CHIEF, that of the Blessed Virgin...

Francis Quarles

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pp. 617-619

Born into the Essex gentry, the younger son of a high-ranking Elizabethan civil servant and puritan mother, Quarles took his BA at Christ’s College, Cambridge, in 1609, departing the next year for Lincoln’s Inn to get a gentleman’s acquaintance with the law. After Princess...

Francis Quarles: Divine fancies: digested into epigrams, meditations, and observations 1632

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pp. 620-628

John Cosin

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pp. 629-630

Among Cosin’s twenty-three surviving sermons are five dealing with the First and Fourth Commandments, all preached at his Brancepath parish outside Durham in 1632 and 1633. The second of these (Sermon X) censures the Roman Catholic veneration of saints along wholly conventional...

John Cosin: Sermons preached at Brancepath 1632–33

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pp. 631-641

Erewhiles I compared the Law of God to a building; in a building the foundation must be first laid, and this is the foundation here of all that follows, the first proposition, that we must have a God; wherein I doubt not but we shall all agree with the Psalmist to condemn him for a fool that...

Richard Corbett: “Upon Fairford windows” ca. 1632–33

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pp. 642-643

William Strode

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pp. 644-646

His father died when Strode was just a child, but the generosity of relatives enabled him to attend Westminster School and, in 1617, to enter Christ’s Church, Oxford, from whence only death did him depart. He took his BA in 1621, his MA in 1624. The majority of his secular poems probably...

William Strode: Sacred Poems ca. 1625–45

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pp. 647-653

Humphrey Sydenham: Jehovah-Jireh. God in his providence and omnipotence discovered: a sermon preached ad magistratum at Chard in Somerset, 1633 published 1637

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pp. 654-663

I think it not unseasonable, nor besides my errand, to sing of the power and mercy of one God in the presence of another. Greatness is a kind of deity, God himself affording rulers & nobles no lower title than his own: of gods—but gods by office or deputation, not by essence; and yet...

Anthony Munday

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pp. 664-667

The final portion of the 1633 Survey of London, written by Anthony Munday, details the reparation and beautification of over a hundred churches in and around London. The original 1598 Survey of London, however, came from the pen of John Stow (1526–1605), whose descriptions of the...

Anthony Munday: The survey of London 1633

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pp. 668-725

The thirteenth day of September, being Monday, anno 1619, the College of Gods-gift in Dulwich, consisting of one master, one warden, and four fellows: three of which are persons ecclesiastical and the fourth a skilful organist; moreover, twelve aged poor people and twelve poor children...

Samuel Hoard

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pp. 726-729

Having entered All Souls, Oxford, as a chorister in 1614, Hoard transferred to St. Mary Hall shortly before receiving his BA in 1618. He graduated MA in 1621, and at about the same time began serving as a curate in a London parish. By 1625 he had become chaplain to Robert Rich, the puritan...

Samuel Hoard: God’s love to mankind 1633 (1635?)

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pp. 730-762

The author of this treatise was persuaded to pen the reasons of his opinion against absolute reprobation that he might satisfy a worthy friend of his who required it. What satisfaction that learned gentleman his friend hath received by these reasons, I know not, but sure I am...

Thomas Laurence

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pp. 763-764

The son of a Dorset clergyman, Laurence matriculated at Balliol in 1615; two years later, he was elected a fellow of All Souls. He received his BA in 1618, his MA in 1621. In 1625, William Herbert—the Earl of Pembroke and also Chancellor of Oxford—made Laurence his chaplain. Laurence...

Thomas Laurence: The duty of the laity and privilege of the clergy 1634, published 1635

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pp. 765-774

GOD made man, placed him in Eden, spake to him, in the second of Genesis, and man was not afraid. God came in a walking voice in the third of Genesis, and man was afraid, because he had not sinned in the second chapter and had sinned in the third. For where no sin is, there is no fear...

Francis Quarles: Emblems 1635

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pp. 775-787

An emblem is but a silent parable. Let not the tender eye check to see the allusion to our blessed Savior figured in these types. In holy Scripture, he is sometimes called a sower, sometimes a fisher, sometimes a physician; and why not presented so as well to the eye as to the ear? Before the...

Robert Shelford

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pp. 788-789

Shelford was presumably a poor man’s son, since he entered Peterhouse, Cambridge, as a sizar (in modern parlance, a work-study student), serving as Bible-clerk and amanuensis to Peterhouse’s master, the proto–Anglo-Catholic Andrew Perne (1519–89). He took his BA in 1584, proceeding...

Robert Shelford: Five pious and learned discourses (with prefatory lyric by Crashaw) 1635

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pp. 790-802

There were a sort of Christians in the apostles’ time which would not consort with their fellows because they understood more then they did. They would eat meat in the idols’ temples with the idolaters because they had learned that an idol was nothing, and that all the creatures of...

Robert Sanderson

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pp. 803-

The point of recognizing a second broader category of jus divinum seems twofold: first, to find a way to soften Laudian claims for divino jure episcopacy so as not to unchurch the non-episcopal Protestant denominations of the Continent; but also—as Sanderson’s reference to infant baptism...

Robert Sanderson: A sovereign antidote against Sabbatarian errors 1636

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pp. 804-806

It is a matter of great use and necessity to have now in remembrance the admonition of the Apostle and teacher of the gentiles, Remember them which have the rule over you, obey them, and submit yourselves (Hebr. 13:7, 17) . . . And it is not without reason, because in the house of God, which...

Sidney Godolphin

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pp. 807-808

The son of a Cornish landed gentleman and mining engineer, Godolphin entered Exeter College, Oxford, in 1624. He may have studied at the Inns of Court in 1627; in the late 1620s he traveled on the Continent and was part of the Earl of Leicester’s embassy to Denmark. He returned...

Sidney Godolphin: “Lord, when the wise men” ca. 1630–40

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pp. 809-810

William Prynne

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pp. 811-815

Prynne, whose pamphleteering counts among the causes of the English Civil War, came from a prosperous farming family. He entered Oriel College, Oxford, in 1616, taking his BA in 1621, the same year he began studying law at Lincoln’s Inn. Between 1626 and his death forty-three years...

William Prynne: News from Ipswich 1636

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pp. 816-822

Christian Reader, this is the deplorable news of our present age: that our presses formerly open only to truth and piety are closed up against them both of late, and patent for the most part to naught but error, superstition, and profaneness. Witness those many profane erroneous, impious books, printed...

John Hales

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pp. 823-827

The son of a Somerset attorney, Hales entered Corpus Christi, Oxford, in 1597, receiving his BA in 1603, by which point—despite (or perhaps because of) this longer than usual time-to-degree—he had already won a reputation for scholarship. Shortly after graduation, Sir Thomas...

John Hales: A tract concerning schism ca. 1636, published 1642

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pp. 828-833

Schism (for of heresy we shall not now treat . . .), schism, I say, upon the very sound of the word, imports division; division is not but where communion is or ought to be. Now communion is the strength and ground of all society, whether sacred or civil. Whosoever therefore they be that...

John Hales: “Letter to Archbishop Laud upon occasion of the Tract concerning schism” ca. 1638, published 1716

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pp. 834-837

Whereas of late an abortive discourse indited by me for the use of a private friend hath, without lawful pass, wandered abroad, and mistaking its way, is arrived at your Grace’s hands, I have taken the boldness to present myself before you in behalf of it, with this either apology or...

John Hales: Sermon on Luke 16:25 (“The danger of receiving our good things in this life”) ca. 1619–38, published 1660

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pp. 838-842

For answer to this question: it is reported of Aristippus, the famous philosopher, that travelling over some parts of Africk, with his servants overladen with gold, when they complained of their burthen and told him that they were so loaded they should never reach their journey’s...

John Hales: Sermon on Galatians 6:7 (“Of inquiry and private judgment in religion”) ca. 1619–38, published 1660

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pp. 843-850

Now that we may the better see what is locked up in this precept, we will consider first, who they are to whom this precept of Christian infallibility is given, together with the means how we may attain it; for I will blend and mix them both together. And secondly, what things they...

Christopher Dow

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pp. 851-853

Moreover, Dow’s account of these controversies suggests that underlying and informing the various specific disputes is a more fundamental disagreement about mediation and middle states. For Dow, God works through human institutions; tradition, the Church, kings, and bishops mediate...

Christopher Dow: Innovations unjustly charged upon the present Church and state 1637

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pp. 854-890

I will add one other particular: when men shall be so impiously presumptuous as to break into the secrets of the Almighty and peremptorily to pronounce of his inscrutable judgments (as if they had been his counselors) and to cast the causes of the present plague and all the evils that...

William Chillingworth

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pp. 891-896

The son of an Oxford mercer, Chillingworth had as godfather the thirty-year-old St. John’s fellow William Laud—a town-gown relationship rare in early modern Oxford. Chillingworth remained in Oxford, matriculating at Trinity in 1619, where he received his BA a year later, followed...

William Chillingworth: The religion of Protestants a safe way to salvation 1637

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pp. 897-932

Upon the first news of the publication of your book, I used all diligence with speed to procure it, and came with such a mind to the reading of it as St. Austin, before he was a settled Catholic, brought to his conference with Faustus, the Manichee. For as he thought that if anything more than...

Sir Kenelm Digby

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pp. 933-937

Raised by his devoutly Catholic mother and Jesuit tutors—his father, Sir Everard Digby, having been executed for his role in the Gunpowder Plot—Kenelm Digby entered Oxford’s recusant-friendly Gloucester Hall in 1618, where he so impressed his humanist and Catholic-leaning tutor...

Sir Kenelm Digby: A conference with a lady about choice of religion 1638

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pp. 938-951

My being conscious to myself how confusedly and intricately I have delivered my conceptions unto your Ladyship, upon the several occasions of discourse we have had together concerning that important subject of what faith and religion is the true one to bring us to eternal happiness...

William Habington

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pp. 952-953

The first two months of his life were particularly eventful. His devoutly Catholic father, Thomas, who nearly went to the block for his involvement in the Babington Plot, had retrofitted his Worcester estate, Hindlip Hall, with multiple priest-holes. There was a Jesuit priest in residence on the...

William Habington: Castara, 3rd ed. 1640

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pp. 954-956

George Wither: Hallelujah: or Britain’s second remembrancer 1641

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pp. 957-983

Fifteen years now past, I was in some things of moment a remembrancer to these Islands, which have in many particulars so punctually and so evidently succeeded according to my predictions, that not a few have acknowledged they were not published so long before they came to pass without the...

Appendix I: List of Authors According to Birth Year

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pp. 984-

Appendix II: Topical Index

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pp. 985-993