Drew
I can well understand if you are cheesed off with me. I can only say –
If I seem to be taking over – that’s a fair point. At the moment I am a carer with time a certain amount of time on my hands because I can only do part time work in Community Education because I have to be around for emergencies etc. Most of the time these days I’m an English Literature teacher in further education – but I can’t do this at the moment and the nearest I get to historical studies is doing reminiscence work with dementia patients (very rewarding - but do miss some intellectual stimulation too). Also your question about the 42nd article dovetails in to a lot of issues I struggled with and read about when I was a recently ‘recovering fundie’ – as they say here. So this is stimulating to me and kind of therapeutic too. Also my time is precarious – any time soon I may have no time – caring pattern varies greatly -so I wanted to set things down now while the going is reasonably good.
I had offered to do a private dialogue with you, and we decided against it. The reason for the post on the ‘Familists’ was to keep anyone else informed who reads this post . (It’s hard to point to a specific site for people to read – a lot of the information I’m getting –without the resources of a University Library to hand - is from bits and bobs of Google Books. And readers/viewers have to get some sort of grasp of the background to this issue, if they are to have any hope of understanding it – a lot of it is pretty obscure). Also you can appreciate my concern about the Children Of God - not with you but with someone else who might read my post. I’ve only just read this stuff on Familism too. The last time I’d thought about them properly was about twenty years ago when the Marxist view prevailed. The only academic I have any contact with these days happens to be something of an expert on English religious sects of the period – so when I can see him again that’s one expert opinion I can ask for (but we’ll have to look elsewhere for expert opinions on other points)
In addition I’m aware of how measly an Anglican stipend is – and therefore I’ve summarised stuff from Screech and D.P, Walker for you. You’ve also haven’t currently got time on your hands.
So I’ve done a synopsis of D.P. Walker for you,. His book may be the standard authority but it is open to question and nuance. I’ve seen a review online concerning his idea of religious toleration and the decline of hell operating in tandem; the reviewer argues that although Walker was basically correct, the early advocates of tolerance saws divine vengeance waiting for the persecutors; so the Decline is in need of nuance. What is exciting to me about the Familist stuff is that it seems to suggest another point of nuance needed of the Decline. Walker argues that it was impossible to think of Universalism as an allowable option if you were a sixteenth century Magisterial Protestant. However, it seems that Elizabeth’s toleration of the Famalists in her circle suggests that it wasn’t impossible within the framework of the Elizabethan Settlement as long as it was done with secrecy and confined to the gentry.
I append my other bits of stuff that I was going to send you before Christmas.
The Abrogation of the 42nd
I have reflected on the context and meaning of the suppression of the 42nd Article a little more. The entry on the 39 Articles in the Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church (p.1622) tells me that “Subscription to the 39 Articles has never been required of any but the clergy and until the nineteenth century, members of the universities of Oxford and Cambridge. From 1865 the clergy were only required to affirm… them as agreeable to the Word of God and undertake not to teach in contradiction of them… Since 1975 they have been required simply to Articles as one of the historic formularies of the C of E which bear witness to the faith revealed in the scripture and set forth in the catholic creeds”.
It strikes me from all of this that through the centuries of the C of E’s existence, those who have been primarily concerned with pondering the meaning and implications of the Articles have been clergy and scholars. All will have been educated to some degree in the history of the Anglican Church and thus most will have know of the abrogation of the Forty Second Article from Edward IV’s Prayer Book . Yes, the 39 Articles do not positively allow the teaching of universal salvation but knowledge of the abrogation/suppression of the 42nd Article condemning universalism must have caused many Anglican clergy through the ages to pause for thought. And Drew, it is such an notable, striking thing to an Anglican who has embraced Universalism that I’m not surprised that others have arrived at the same conclusions as you in the past, and independent of each other (it’s almost a sort of ‘cloud of witness’)
First example I’ve found is that the abrogation of the 42nd Article was used by George Rust, formerly Dean of Conor and later Bishop of Dromore, and a younger associate of the Cambridge Platonists, in A Letter of Resolution Concerning Origen and the chief of his opinions’ (published under a pseudonym in 1661)
**I would fain know why she (i.e. The Church of England) who in her 39 Articles does so punctually (i.e. exactly) follow the Articles agreed upon in King Edward’s Days, or with little variation, should wholly omit that Article which condemns the Restorers (i.e. the exponents) of this opinion, if she had thought it ought to be condemned’ **(quoted in The Decline p.23) D.P. Walker The Decline of Hell, University of Chicago Press, 1964
Second example is Andrew Jukes from The Second Death and the Restitution of All Things, 1867. I’ve seen some conflicting versions of his story but the consensus appears to be that he was ordained in the Church of England but was suspended and left over disagreement with the authorities about Infant Baptism. He went on to found an independent church and was friendly with Darby of the Plymouth Brethren (decidedly not a Universalist) and Samuel Cox the Baptist Universalist. When he published ‘Restitution’ he lost a lot of his congregation in protest and eventually came back to the Church of England as an Anglo Catholic – although he never took holy orders again. In Restitution he wrote -
It ought not to be forgotten also, that our English Church , having in her original Forty-two Articles had a Forty-first, declaring of “Millenarians,” that they “cast themselves headlong into a Jewish dotage,” and a Forty-second, asserting, that “All men shall not be saved at length,” within a very few years, in Elizabeth 's reign, struck out both these Articles. Surely this is not without its significance. The Creeds, which are received both by East and West, not only make no mention whatever of endless punishment, but in their declaration of “the forgiveness of sins” seem to teach a very different doctrine.
The other examples are Screech and, of course, your good self. I think Farrar may well have arrived at the same conclusion as you– and I don’t for a moment think that he was your inspiration (nor do I think Dukes knew of Rust, or Farrar necessarily knew of Dukes). You’d certainly not read Farrar’s sermons when you started the thread and you are good bloke too – and I hope you’ve never thought I’d implied that you had read them (perhaps I’m being paranoid).
Errors in my past posts
I’ve made a lot of slips and errors in my posts – not including typos - and I end with my naughty list. In previous posts -
I have coupled the Family of Love with the Grindletonians; but the latter originated after Elizabeth’s reign and, therefore, are not strictly relevant.
I have said that I seemed to remember that Elizabeth had some influence on the inclusion of ‘comfortable words’ in the Prayer Book. I haven’t been able to find any confirmation of this. Indeed, I must have remembered wrongly because ‘comfortable words’ are already included in Cramner’s Prayer Book
I have referred to Richard Hooker as the ‘theorist’ of the Elizabethan Settlement, implying he had some input into this. However, it is more accurate to call him the ‘apologist’ for the Elizabethan Settlement – he was published in the 1590’s and his apology is for something that has already existed for some time.
I have said that I thought the real reason for suppressing the 42nd article was to guard against an epidemic of spiritual despair (assertion made after initial optimism over your idea had taken a knock from reading Christopher Hill – the Marxist historian I referred to indirectly in my last post). I no longer think it is central; the issue only becomes hugely important in the 1580’s when the Calvinists within the Anglican Church became ideological about predestination and assurance. However, Anglican traditions of compassion for the spiritually depressed plus the paradoxes in the BOCP Funeral Service do provide additional support for Anglican Universalism along with the abrogation of the 42d Article. And - as you know, my optimism about your idea has returned refreshed.
I have suggested that Gerhard Jan Voss in 1642).was the first to question the authorship of the Athanasian Creed. I now know that Joachim Camerarius was the first in 1547. He was a German Classical scholar consulted by the Reformers when they were composing the Ausburg confession. He expressed his ideas on the Creed in Greek, but the storm was such that he had to omit these from the Latin edition of his work in 1593. In 1569, John Jewell, Anglican Bishop of Salisbury spoke guardedly in support of Camerarius’ ideas. The first Anglican to express doubts about the uses of the damnatory clauses, as far as I know, was Jeremy Taylor in ‘A Discourse of the Liberty of Prophesying’ (1646). He wrote that: 'It seems very hard to put uncharitableness into a creed, and so to make it become an article of faith’.
There were also some things I have written about the Civil War that were so brief as to be misleading – I’ve looked things up to gain the proper context.
I have referred to the powerful Calvinist party within the Long Parliament during the Civil War simply as ‘Calvinists’. ‘Presbyterians’ is the better term. Some of the Independents had Calvinist views on Predestination – and two of the Universalists from this period, Sterry and White, were effectively Calvinist Universalists. However, the party in Parliament as well as being theologically Calvinist also wanted to introduce the Presbyterian system of Church Government in the National Church doing away with the power of bishops appointed by the Crown and imposing the hierarchical system of government by Councils of the Elect favoured in Geneva (and arguably replacing one authoritarian system with another more intrusive and authoritarian one).In this they were heirs of the Calvinist Anglicans of the Elizabethan Settlement who seem to have bought in to the Settlement in the hope that a partially reformed Church would one day be fully reformed. The issue of ‘Christian Liberty’ that eventually had them ejected from Parliament was not religious censorship – they had already lost this battle – but rather their willingness to cut a deal with the King rather than supporting his execution as a Tyrant. After the restoration of the Monarchy – with the realisation that the Church was never going to be fully reformed many English Calvinists had a profound and painful rethink and developed a largely tolerant and socially progressive faith.
I have suggested that the ‘Independents’ were somehow linked to the Anabaptist tradition. This is misleading. Independents primarily refers to Dissenters who were non-sectarian/happy to be part of the national church but what more powers for congregations – e.g. to hire and fire ministers instead of having these chosen by Bishops. They became the Congregationalists after the Restoration. However the Independents did support the rights/freedoms of the sects/sectaries – Baptists, Quakers, Levellers, Diggers – who arguably can be linked to the Anabaptists.
I have given the Anglican Armenians too much of an easy ride. They were Armenian in their view of salvation; they developed a high church form of liturgical worship (offensive to the Presbyterians); but most offensive to the Presbyterians – and understandably so – they developed an oppressive theology and policy of the ‘Divine Right of Kings’ with Royal approval/input.
Happy Christmas Drew. Really didn’t mean to cheese you off. I could post in the New Year – I was thinking a couple of big ones and two or three small ones up to Easter before we formulate questions for experts - but could stop now if it’s getting a drag, or communicate in a different way so we can slow down and you can do some research or whatever.
Cheers and Blessings adn Merry Christmas
Dick