The Evangelical Universalist Forum

Church of England Articles allowed Universalism in 1563

OK Jason -

For the moment I’ll just gradually plonk everything down I’ve found out about Universalism in England in chronological order (even if some of the stuff seems trivial at first). Once this is done it will be far easier to make informed patterns and connections. I don’t know how long this will take (a couple of months I should think); but it will be worth it - and a good resource for others too. :slight_smile: I’ll do each new entry I a new post from now on before placing it on the chronology proper.

This is a small detail of an example - but shows how and why some were accused of Universalism wrongly by the hotter sort of Protestants during the early Reformation in England. (Oh and apologies to Maritn Bucer for implying that he expelled Hans Denck from Strasbourg for his alleged Universalism - I believe that suspicions about Denck’s Trinitarian orthodoxy may have been the real reason of this expulsion on this occasion. Denk was actually accused of Universalism before this time at St Gall - and the rumour of this accusation resurfaces when he was in Augsburg, so Denck got out to avoid trouble. His first experience of expulsion from Nuremberg was due to his alleged views on paedo-baptism and the sacraments).

Hi Dick, nice to see you continuing this. shame about the lack of smoking gun, but it still seems that some subtle influence prevented the CofE from totally anathemising the concept of Universal Reconciliation, despite the railings of the critics.
interesting about the Everlasting Gospel, as well, the notion that current religious rules and literalism will be done away with. i still think often of the analogy of the child growing up…when young, the child needs firm, black and white rules…when older, the rules change to embrace new responsibility and understanding (though the foundations remain), and then as one grows up, one finds the appropriate times to obey some rules, or relax others (speaking here of the best possible example, which is what God is growing us up towards).

1853

Here’s something I need to do a proper entry about (but don’t have the time today). The first round in the C of E Victorian conflict about eternal damnation occurred when F.D, Maurice, clergyman and Professor of Divinity at King’s College London. His wide hope opinions stated in his Theological Essays of 1853 were viewed as being heterodox by R.W. Jeff the College Principal who, after some tedious correspondence by letter, had Maurice evicted from his Professorship in the same year. But below is an interesting excerpt from one of Maurice’s replies to Jeff – set out by me to make it an easier read:

Maurice’s opening remarks

**‘’You have alluded (in your last letter) to the absence of a dogmatic statement on the meaning of the word Eternal in our Articles, and to the evidence which the existence of such an Article among the original 42 affords that the omission was deliberate. I hope that the reasons you assign for the course which our Reformers pursued are satisfactory to your own mind. I am most anxious that they should be carefully weighed by the Council of King’s College and by the whole Church, as being the very best which, after a long consideration, a learned apologist was able to produce’’. **

Point 1: Jeff’s argument (as summarized by Maurice)

**‘’… the doctrine on the subject of punishment…was an Anabaptist doctrine, and therefore needed not to be condemned after the first vehemence of the Anabaptist fever had subsided’’ **

Maurice’s reply

‘’To the first reason you have replied yourself in other parts of the letter; for you have stated that Origen in the third century, and not any Anabaptist in the sixteenth, was the author of the tenet which you disapprove’’.

Point 2: Jeff’s argument (as summarized by Maurice)

‘’… the question had already been settled by the adoption of the Athanasian Creed in the 8th Article’’

Maurice’s reply

‘‘…the sense of the words ‘Eternal Life’ and ‘Eternal Death’ which identifies them respectively with the knowledge of God and the absence of that knowledge, is the one which is directly suggested by the Athanasian Creed… the chief objections to it have arisen from the refusal to give the words that force; that unless we did tacitly acknowledge it, the expression “He who does not thus think concerning the Trinity” would become intolerable to the conscience of every minister and every hearer.’’

Point 3: Jeff’s argument (as summarized by Maurice)

‘‘… some of the Reformers–Jewel, for instance–were very strong in condemning Origen’’

*Maurice’s reply *

‘’…if the Reformers did personally concur in your opinion and denounce the opposite, it is all the more remarkable that they were withheld (some might say by their good sense, I should say by a higher wisdom) from enforcing that opinion on the Church’’

Point 4: Jeff’s argument (as summarized by Maurice)

‘’…that there may be many theological propositions which ought thoroughly to be received and believed though they are not contained in the Formulary [that is, the 39 Articles]which we have subscribed’.

*Maurice’s reply *

‘’…the general notion which you encourage–that the King’s College Council may demand of its professors an assent to a number of et caeteras not included in the Formularies [that is, the 39 Articles] to which, as churchmen and clergymen, they have set their hand–is one for which I own I was not prepared. It will alarm, I believe, many persons who differ very widely with me. I do not see how it can fail to alarm every man who attaches any sacredness to his oaths or his subscriptions’’

Lots of things are interesting here. I note that here is another instance of a clergyman of Universalist leanings using the pedigree of the abrogation as his defense against charges of heterodoxy. I note that Jeff obviously produced evidence in his letter that John Jewell, the powerful Bishop of Salisbury – one of the original signatories to the 39 articles – was strong in condemning Origen. I need to check this out by somehow getting hold of Jeff’s letter – but if true (which I do not doubt) it does make the Abrogation of the 42nd even more remarkable.

Will do a proper post on this when I can

1868

Alexander Forbes (1817 – 1875), the Scottish Episcopalian Bishop of Brechiln, publishes his, ‘An Explanation of the Thirty-nine Articles’ in which he articulates a common pastoral sentiment about the doctrine of everlasting punishment:

**“The deep instincts of humanity, combined of pity and of justice, demand a belief in some punishment, but deprecate eternal punishment in the case of many who go out of this world; there such teaching as has been cited from the Early Church comes in to our aid. Nay, not such as these poor outcasts only, whom men have most in their eyes and their minds, because their sins are more tangible and coarse, but — and even yet more than these — rich and educated men and women who have more light than they, yet who, to outward appearance, live mere natural lives, immersed in worldliness, yet not altogether, it is hoped, separated from God, are, as they are, seemingly ripe neither for heaven nor for hell.” ***— (On the Articles, ii. 343). *

**“The true doctrine of which the opinion condemned in Article 42. is an exaggeration and excess, is founded on the tenderest and deepest sympathies of our common human nature. Mankind will not endure the thought that, at the moment of death, all concern for those loved ones who are riven from us by death comes to an end. Nay, we go so far as to say that….though death puts an end to each man’s probation, so far as he is concerned yet the Infinite Love pursues the soul beyond the grave, and there has dealings with it.” **— (On the Articles, ii. 311).

Thanks Dick. Good to hear about Alexander Forbes and his reference to the 42nd Article. Nice work.

Thanks Drew :smiley:

Thanks again Dick. It is great to know that the awareness of the harm that can be done by misguided ministers was around centuries ago. The tragedy is it still goes on today. Only yesterday I heard what another minister had said to a young victim of sexual abuse some years ago. His foolish condemnation of her has caused immense harm, multiplying the damage caused by the original abuse, and has made it very difficult for her to trust anybody connected with the church. It makes my blood boil.

Hi Drew old chum – yes that’s maddening; and I’ve known of similar cases. I think it is reassuring to know that our ancestors also came across similar issues and that there can be a dialogue between present and past regarding pastoral practice. So hey I’ll do one on Richard Hooker (a better version of a post I did on another thread some time ago)…

1579 (?)

From 1570 to the end of the century a bleak and uncompromising form of Calvinists determinism characterised the pastoral (and political) theology of the powerful Puritan wing of the Church of England (both the sectarians and the moderates – although the moderates like Archbishop Whitgift were capable of more nuanced understanding than sectarians like the formidable Thomas Cartwright). According to this theology, because God has decided who is going to hell beforehand it is useless praying for some people (indeed it is superstitious and ungodly). This emphasis very often went ‘with a rather wooden understanding of assurance, and the need for a constant sense of being in God’s favour, with the consequence that if you didn’t feel you were in God’s favour, you had to take this as a likely sign of God’s reprobation. (Rowan Williams, ‘Christian Imagination in Poetry and Polity’, p.p. 25-6)

The man who was to become the main intellectual opponent of extreme Puritanism was Richard Hooker 1554 –16000, the Anglican priest and theologian, given the epithet ‘Judicious’ by his biographers and little in stature by his cotemporary Calvinist detractors. Hooker’s major work is the encyclopaedic ‘Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity’ (several volumes written from the mid 1580s to the end of the century), but his challenge to extreme Calvinism is already evident in an early sermon he preached in the 1570s on the theme of ‘The Certainty and Perpetuity of Faith in the Elect’.

In ‘Faith in the Elect’, against damning teachings about assurance, Hooker maintains that fluctuations of human emotion, periods of darkness and doubt, are to be expected in life and are not indicators of reprobation; people should not be ‘deceived by too hard an opinion of themselves’. His wise pastoral reassurance in this is reminiscent of Staretz Silouan advice: ‘Keep you mind in hell, and despair not’:

’‘An aggrieved spirit is therefore no argument for a faithless mind…(An) occasion for men’s misjudging themselves, as if they were faithless when they are not, is, when they fasten their thoughts on the distrustful suggestions of the flesh, and finding great abundance of these in themselves, they gather thereby ‘Surely unbelief has taken full dominion, it has taken possession of me; if I were faithful it could not be thus (and) …they lie buried and overwhelmed; when notwithstanding as the blessed apostle acknowledges (Romans. Viii. 26, 27) that ’the Spirit groaneth’, and that God hears us when we do not hear God ;so there is no doubt, but that our faith may have and does have her private operations secret to us, but known to God…Tell this to a people who has been deceived by too hard an opinion of themselves, and it will only augment their grief…Well to favour (indulge) them a little in their weakness; let what they imagine be granted– that they are faithless and without belief. But are they not grieved for their unbelief. Do they not wish it might be otherwise and also strive for this. We know they do…The faith therefore of true believers, though it has many and grievous downfalls, yet does it still continue secretly invincible’’. (‘The Works of That Learned and Judicious Divine, Mr. Richard Hooker’, Vol. iii. p. 474-6)

In 1581 Hooker came to prominence as preacher at St Paul’s’ Cross – the open air pulpit at old ST Paul’s Cathedral which was the stage for radical preaching and bookselling.- where he offended Puritans for diverging from the views on predestination and for suggesting that even the Pope might be saved. The following year, he was appointed Master (Rector) of the Temple Church in London by the Queen where he soon came into public conflict with his cousin Walter Travers, a leading Puritan and Reader (Lecturer) at the Temple – they had a sort of dual by sermons.

Hooker’s clearest statement of what could be called’ hypothetical universalism’ – edging towards a hopeful universalism but lacking the resources of a doctrine of purgatory - comes in Book v. of his ‘Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity’ where he states that :

‘[The]safest axioms of charity to rest itself upon are these ‘ he which steadfastly believes is (saved) and ‘he which believes not as yet may be the child of God’. It becomes not us during this lifetime altogether to condemn any man seeing that (for anything we know) there is hope of every man’s forgiveness, the possibility of whose repentance is not yet cut off by death. And therefore charity ‘which hopeth all things’ prayeth also for all men’’. (Hooker, Laws, Bk v, Ch.49. 1-2)

Christopher Insole comments on this passage:

’'This charity which ‘hopes all things’ does not do so in vain theologically speaking. Hooker’s vision of the Church is one which expresses the desire for participation found at every level of creation, finding its ultimate consummation in the infinite desire for God. It cannot be in vain to hope for ‘every man’s forgiveness’ if one’s anthropology inclines one to view the deepest satisfaction of all the yearning creation, is to move towards the creative centre. Peter Lake gives a beautiful evocation of Hooker’s vision, showing how in ‘the face of the Puritans’ inherently subversive view of the community of Christians, permanently fractured by division between the godly and the ungodly/the elect and the reprobate, one has Hooker’s more restful vision of the visible church which included everyone within the slow moving cycle of its outward observances, while the slow trickle of sacramental grace performed its subtly ameliorative work and the mystical body of Christ grew with glacial slowness and a soothing lack of conflict’. (Christopher Insole, ‘The Politics of Human Frailty’ pages 56 -57)

added to list

1413

The first scribal manuscript version of Julian’s Short Text is finished 1413, (this is noted in the introduction to the 15th-century Amherst Manuscript which names Julian and refers to her as still alive). All three of the early manuscripts of the Shewings – two Short Text, one Long Text - have connections to the Brigittine Nunnery, Syon Abbey on the banks of the Thames – destroyed during the Reformation. In the 17th century, the Julian manuscripts were written out and preserved in the Cambrai and Paris houses of the English Benedictines. It was not until 1670 that the first English printed edition appeared edited by Cressy, the English Benedictine.

The Julian manuscripts secret and exclusive circulation can be attributed to a number of factors –

Her radical and inclusive images of Jesus as mother, while not new, go beyond anything written before, and her hopeful universalism as asserted by a loyal daughter of the church is also very ‘avant-garde’.

In a patriarchal age, when schoolmen seriously debated whether or not women have rational souls, the writings of female visionaries were always suspect. Given the right circumstances visions could confer great authority on a woman – as they did to Abbess Hildegard von Bingen in the thirteenth century. However, the history of Joan of Arc and the near escapes of Margery Kempe reveal that another outcome was always a danger. Also – however self effacing Julian is in her writings – she is the first English woman of letters (a dangerous innovator).

Julian translates some passages from the Latin and Hebrew texts of the Bible into English in the Shewings. At this date you could be burnt at the stake for owing a copy of Wycliffe’s ‘Lollard’ translation of the Bible into English. Julain makes her own translations – but her efforts could arouse suspicion.

Julia Bolton Holloway, a leading Julian scholar, has argued that Julian shows extensive knowledge of the Hebrew Bible when translating the Old Testament, the evidence being that she had access to the Hebrew of the Scriptures, likely gained through Cardinal Adam Easton of Norwich who had taught the Hebrew Scriptures at Oxford and who had translated them into Latin, correcting Jerome’s errors. Holloway argues that Julian understands that the Hebrew shalom meaning ‘peace, well-being, in all things’, is wrongly translated by Jerome with the Latin ’recte’, (rightness, correctness) and is better translated as ‘And all manner of thing shall be well’. Holloway even speculates that Julian was of Jewish ancestry. Whether or not this is so, Julian’s knowledge of Hebrew again makes her suspect.
(see bltnotjustasandwich.com/2013/02/ … f-norwich/)

In the final passage of the ‘Shewings’ Julian refers to her readers as ‘even Christians’ – that is Christians who she is ‘on a level with’, and bound to in reciprocal bonds of love rather than by hierarchy. There is nothing to suggest that Julian was a Lollard – far from it – but the phrase ‘even Christians’ was also used by the Lollards.

Briefly worth noting (perhaps later): Julian’s “all will be well” would go so far as to be favorably quoted in the Great Catechism at the end of the 20th century, long after her univeralism was well known, on the topic of the scope and persistence of God’s salvation! (I can give chapter and verse, so to speak, for this later when I get back to my office.) The fact that the Catechism still technically denies universalism makes this even more amazing; but the current pope and some future ones at the time were fairly strong supporters of hopeful and certain universalists among their fellow Roman Catholics.

That would be very interesting and extremely relevant Jason :slight_smile: I’d also be interested to find out when she was given honorific stauts in the Catholic and Anglican calendars.

c. 1367–70
This is the conjectured date for the writing of the first text – Text A – of the Christian Dream Vision allegory ‘Piers Plowman’ (the author revised the original twice and these revisions are known as Text B and Text C). The text B and text C versions contain clear statements of hopeful universalism. The conjectured author of this poem is William Langland (ca. 1332 – ca. 1386). We know very little about him, but the sophisticated level of religious knowledge in the poem indicates that he had some connection to the clergy, and was possibly an itinerant hermit. The tradition that Langland was a Lollard, promoted by Robert Crowley’s 1550 edition of Piers and by early Lollard appropriation of the Plowman-figure, is false. Langland and Wycliffe shared many concerns: both question the value of indulgences and pilgrimage, promote the use of the vernacular in preaching, and attack clerical corruption. But these topics were widely discussed throughout the late fourteenth century anyway, Langland certainly does not echo Wycliffe’s teachings about the sacraments.

Passus 18 of the B text (and 20 of the C text) concludes with Will waking to the ringing of Easter Bells after witnessing in dream vision the events of Holy Week culminating in a debate between the four daughters of God – Mercy, Justice, Truth and Peace. Justice and truth argue for everlasting punishment of sin, while Mercy and Peace argue for forgiveness and restoration. Christ intervenes to harrow hell saying –
Then I shall come as a king, crowned with angels
And have all men’s souls out of hell
Demons great and small shall stand before me
And be at my bidding where I will
My kinship demands that I have mercy
On man , for we are all brethren
In blood, if not in baptism

My righteousness and right shall rule
In hell, and mercy over all mankind before me
In heaven. I were an unkind king
If I did not help my kin.

(Piers Plowman, Passus 18.399)Through the incarnation, all mankind is kin of Christ the King, and this verse emphasizes that Christ is bound by the bonds of kinship to save all of his kin – all of mankind - from the flames of hell. Langland here is drawing on the old Anglo-Saxon views on kinship and its bonds(found for instance in the pagan poem ‘Beowulf’) which held on quite long among the English. However, Langland extends kinship to all mankind, something the older, tribal-based Anglo-Saxons wouldn’t have done, and he does this through his inclusive doctrine of Incarnation. Langland’s egalitarian notions of kingship are very different from the hierarchical Norman French notions found in Anselm’s eleventh century ‘Cur Deus Homo’ – where God’s kingly honour, because God is infinite, is infinitely offended by our sin.

It has to be said that this passage conflicts with more pessimistic passages elsewhere in the poem including one – Truth’s pardon – that echoes the Athanasian Creed’s ;those who do evil will go into the everlasting fire’ (A Passus 8.96, B Passus 7 110B, C Passus 9. 287)… However, in the Harrowing of Hell scene it is important that the words of ultimate hope are placed on the lips of Christ – although it seems that Langland was still troubled by this hope as if the Daughters of God within him were still at loggerheads.

Piers Plowman was widely circulated in the fourteenth century (fifty two known manuscripts are extant). With Crowley’s printed edition of 1550 it reached a wide readership (although I will have to check and see how Crowley glosses the Universalist passages someday). If there is an inspirational link between the first flourishing of hopeful universalism in fourteenth century and the radical Universalists of the sixteenth century, ‘Piers Plowman’ is it.

Even advocate what? (There seems to be at least one phrase missing.)

Hi Jason – yes that was just an error in the mapping notes, which I’ve now deleted. The most important difference between Langland and Wycliffe from a UR viewpoint is that Langland was a hopeful Universalist, while Wycliffe and the Lollard mainstream seem to have been soul sleepers and annihilationist (I’ve seen the claim made on Universalist websites that the Lollards were Universalists but have seen no evidence for this claim given anywhere).

Regarding my notes on the first flourishing of UR in England – well I’ve a little bit more to say about Julian (comparing here with Anselm regarding God’s motherhood seems well worth a note) – but the gist of things is down now. I think I’ll just put some brief contextual notes in about the big events that the early UR crowd shared and which shaped their beliefs –

The Black Death
The Peasants Revolt
The rise and fall of the Lollards
The Hundred Years War
The season of popes and anti-popes

Should have this finished by end of the week. Then I can get cracking on the sixteenth century big time and work forwards (I’ve done enough flitting from one thing to another now).
When the mappings is over it will be time to look back at the first UR set and see if any other perspectives crop up – but I will soon leave them alone for the moment.

Jason – thanks so much for reading this stuff. You are a pal

1368

Louis Ellies du Pin, or Dupin (1657 –1719) the French ecclesiastical historian often quoted by nineteenth century historians of universalism apparently speaks of a council convened by
Langham, Archbishop of Canterbury, .A.D. 1368, in which judgment was given against thirty propositions that were taught in his province; one of which was that “all the damned, even the demons, may be restored and become happy.” I have good reason t believe that Dupin is not always a reliable source –but this is worth checking sometime against ecclesiastical records.

Ann interesting fact (if you are interested in boring stuff) -
When I’ve been working with Pog no his list of ‘hellism deniers’ I scanned through a copy of ‘The Modern History of Universalism: Extending from the Epoch of the Reformation to the Present Time. Consisting of Accounts of Individuals and Sects’ , by Thomas Whittemore on Google Books. Whittemore actually covers the same ground that this thread does about the Abrogation of the 42nd, the connection with Anabaptist Universalism etc – he tells the sane story. I hadn’t known this until now.

What I will say is that there is a lot we know now – a lot of it detailed in this thread – that Whittemore had no idea about. But this is effectively a new telling of an old story.
:bulb:

that’s interesting…i wonder if he’d be interested in this thread??

He’s been dead a long time James :laughing: He departed this life in 1861 - but I’m really glad I’ve done an intensive stint on Pog list because it’s improved my knowledge about American Universalism hugely and enabled me to find this out. :smiley:

does that mean he’s not interested? what a bore :stuck_out_tongue: