OK Drew – here we go
First I should say that I am not a bona fide academic with research credentials to my name. I’m a sort of’ jack of all trades, master of none’ Arts/Humanities teacher who has worked in Higher Education (although I currently work in Community Education). I do have a good knowledge of secondary sources relating to this issue – hence you sparked my interest - and I know the rules of the game about sifting evidence and exercising due caution (I hope). So I think I can start the ball rolling about your fascinating hypothesis. I need to do a few posts over several weeks – between one and two a week to cover the ground that I see as relevant, and not overload things.
I will endeavour to provide enough background detail to include everyone in the discussion. I will try not to be stodgy or long winded. Always get back to me to add to or question anything I have said. In the end to really clarify issues we will need the help of an expert in the field. Perhaps we could eventually contact Morwena Ludlow via Robin Parry? But here goes (any experts in field reading this –please feel free to wade in).
At the moment, my view of the abrogation of the forty second article is that although the original intention and context was not to open the door for UR (see below) – the logic of the abrogation along with other elements of the Elizabethan Settlement has in fact opened the door.
To talk this through I suggest writing the following posts:
A post about the ‘Elizabethan Settlement and how the 39 Articles, rather than being statements of orthodox purity to exclude people can best be seen in their original context as statements of compromise to encourage Christians of different persuasions to worship together in one Church and thus prevent the country from descending into sectarianism and religious war.
A post about the influence of the Dutch scholar Erasmus on all of the stages of the English Reformation – and particularly on the Elizabethan Settlement -with his emphasis on striving for peace and church unity(compromise) and his scepticism about the ability of fallible human beings to arrive at clear knowledge about ‘ultimate things’/eschatology. I will include a note about Erasmus’ love of Origen (which I believe is rooted in other factors than Origen’s speculation about ‘ultimate things’). I will also include a note about Matthew Parker as a Christian Humanist scholar in the mould of Erasmus.
A post about what I see currently as the real concern of the Elizabethan Reformers in abrogating the 42nd article. That is - a concern about an epidemic of religious despair produced by the crude Calvinism of some English Puritans. The contrary danger of the religious presumption of salvation was obviously a minor issue at the time compared with the Calvinist threat; the Family of Love, and the Grindletonians – sects among the common people - who taught disbelief in Hell – must have seemed inconsequential (however, see next).
A post about the little I know of Elizabeth’s influence on the Prayer Book and her personal religiosity. I do note that for all of her insistence on giving religious comfort to her people in 1585 she felt it necessary to denounce those who said ‘there was no hell but a torment of conscience’ in Parliament.
A post about the Service for the Burial of the Dead in the Book of Common Prayer. Part of Elizabethan compromise was to include words about predestination alongside words of comforting assurance for all in this service. The reason for this was the need to compromise – and Puritan divines did not like this instance of compromise one jot. However, the unintentional logic behind incorporating passages about both election and wide assurance in this service is one of UR. Likewise Richard Hooker, the theorist of the Elizabethan Settlement ,although I’m sure not a universalist as such, wrote many passage of rich comfort for those tempted to despair and showed such a wide charity about whom he hoped might be saved that his logic again, in my view, tends creating a climate in which belief UR becomes an acceptable option.
A post about Geroge Rust, the first prominent Anglican Universalists – Bishop of Dromore in Ireland -inspired by the Cambridge Platonists (who were in turn inspired by both Erasmus and Origen). I can, if you wish, include a note about the Athanasian Creed with this – if the indeed the Athanasian Creed had acted as a barrier to Anglican universalism, by the latter half of the seventeenth century its authority and status had taken a dent. Christian Humanist scholarship had demonstrated conclusively that it was not written by Athanasius (the real Athanasius was a supporter of Origen), it was not originally written in Greek but in Latin, and that it dates from at least 100 years after its ascribed date.
Let me know what you think of my proposal – and we’ll take it slowly.
All good wishes
Dick