This fine collection of eleven chapters from major scholars sheds helpful light on dynamics relating to ‘recurring tensions in early modern England, as both clergy and laity contested the nature or parameters of conformity and the theological–ecclesiological identity of the established Church’ after England’s religious settlement in 1559 (p. 1). The ‘combination of a Reformed Protestant identity with more traditional ecclesiastical structures and liturgical practices, and the temporal sword of the English monarch to enforce ecclesiastical policy’ led to these recurring tensions (p. 1). The eleven case studies here seek ‘to explore how this broadly understood Reformed identity informed or was reflected in recurring contests concerning conformity to the Church of England across the vicissitudes of its “long Reformation”, from the Elizabethan Settlement to the Hanoverian Succession (1559–1714)’ (p. 2).
The two parts of this book supplement each other and are interrelated. The first part, ‘Ecclesio-political and liturgical contests’, discusses important issues of the Church in relation to the state, as well as pragmatic questions of enacting the liturgical lives of churches through this period.
Jacqueline Rose’s initial chapter finely delineates Reformed debates over what adiaphora (‘matters of indifference’) are, and how they were contended in differing contexts where issues had to be ‘negotiated’. Rose indicates the problems when she writes that, ‘while the church’s confessional statement, the Thirty-Nine Articles, was formally Reformed, “the diversity of the Re-formed tradition” [Stephen Hampton] meant that over time there were growing divisions over doctrine, the legacy of conflicting orders from statutes, canons, articles, injunctions, liturgies, and episcopal visitations, as well as the sheer difficulty of imposing uniformity on a patchwork of thousands of parishes’ (pp. 21–2). This ‘rendered conformity more aspirational than real’ (p. 22). The quest for a ‘common Reformed worship’ continued, meaning that ‘matters indifferent were the key to Reformed conformity in practice’. Indeed, ‘quarrels over adiaphora’ had ‘echoed throughout English Reformation history’. Pragmatically, there was real agonising by ‘both clergy and laity over how to worship’, which would arise as ‘a regular headache associated with weekly worship’ (p. 22).
Rose explores issues of adiaphora and toleration, and recognises that ‘leaving diverse forms of worship to co-exist peacefully … might be possible in practice but proved impossible to legislate’ (p. 36). At the core of the matter was that ‘leaving everyone to do what they thought was right was far from a guarantee of stability, for it did not solve the problem of what to do if everyone demanded that their neighbour adhere to their standards of rectitude as well. Without theories of toleration that started from accepting religious diversity, co-existence may have been feasible only if it was not overtly articulated as government policy’ (p. 37, emphasis in original). These dimensions reflected ‘the tense, fraught, and often enigmatic relationship between the theological and experiential dimensions of Reformed Protestantism in early modern England, which both arose from and exacerbated dilemmas over conformity’ (p. 37).
Other chapters here show various ways in which ‘varying battlegrounds of religious conformity’ were experienced. Esther Counsell focuses on the Subscription Crisis (1583–5). Alice J. Soulieux-Evans looks at Elizabethan and early Stuart ecclesiology in relation to cathedrals, testifying to the prevalent diversities of Reformed Protestantism in England. Jacobean nonconformity is examined by Jonathan C. Harris through the figure of Sir Francis Hastings, whose parliamentary agitation (1604–10) leads Harris to call for ‘a reassessment of the extent to which there was in fact “moderate” puritan conformity in Jacobean England, as distinct from puritan nonconformity under Charles I and his Laudian episcopate’ (p. 109). Elliot Vernon’s chapter on ‘Zachary Crofton, the Restoration Church of England, and the dilemmas of partial conformity, 1662–65’ describes hotly contested debates about ‘the proper approach to take to the liturgy and worship of the parish church’ in light of the ejections of ‘Black Bartholomew’s Day’ in August 1662.
The second part, ‘Reformed conformist theology and ecclesiology’, presents the theological thought of Reformed conformists as they sought to navigate the parameters of conformity. Torrance Kirby examines Richard Hooker; Christy Wang writes on Edward Reynolds; and Mark Goldie’s chapter covers ‘The Reformed theology of Thomas Hobbes: the Answer to Archbishop Bramball’. These pieces are stimulating and enlightening.
Peter Lake’s ‘The best religion? The revived ambitions of the Reformed conformist establishment, 1637–40’ looks at Reformed conformists during the reign of Charles I: Daniel Featley, Griffith Williams and John Prideaux, all men who sought to model a Reformed conformist alternative to Laudian authorities. Anthony Milton examines ‘The Reformed conformist tradition, 1640–62’. He notes that, whereas it has often been argued that the Reformed conformist tradition ‘essentially ceased to exist’ in this period, ‘In many ways, the 1640s and 1650s were a period when the Reformed conformist tradition was in fact more important than ever in religious politics and doctrinal debates’ (pp. 179, 180).
Jake Griesel’s final chapter is ‘Reformed orthodoxy as conformity in the post-Restoration Church of England’. Here, Griesel looks at doctrinal conformity in the later Stuart Church. He argues that, ‘contrary to the picture painted by much of the older scholarship, the Reformed theological tradition retained a substantial and conspicuous mainstream (albeit minority) presence in the later Stuart Church of England’ (p. 246). Put theologically: ‘Many of these post-Restoration Reformed conforming churchmen considered subscription to the Church’s Articles as specifically including a confessional commitment to Reformed soteriological orthodoxy on the doctrines of grace, election, and justification. In other words, for these post-Restoration conformists, Reformed doctrinal orthodoxy was very much included in their notion of conformity to the established Church, and a number of them were quite troubled by what they saw as nonconformity to the Church’s soteriological articles among many of their clerical brethren’ (p. 246, emphasis in original).
Diarmaid MacCulloch’s ‘Afterword’ contains fitting reflections on aspects of Reformation studies in Britain. The debates over conformity covered here demonstrate the multi-faceted nature of this issue. As they endured in controversies, these prolonged debates, say the editors, ‘rightly earn the period covered in this volume the title of England’s “long Reformation”’!
