The writer is conscious that in his analyses of Davenant's works he has done scant justice to the intellectual acumen and subject matter of these learned treatises, which have been the admiration of the theological world for so many years. It is no small effort to reduce to the limitations of a few chapters a précis of those voluminous and exhaustive works, which have arrested the attention, and won the commendation, of a Bellarmine, a Bull, and a Newman. In fact no one realizes the imperfections of the present work more than the writer himself, but the critics will please to remember that it has been put together during the intervals of a busy pastorate, and in vacation and other off times. It may, however, be stated that it is from first to last a labour of love. The present Bishop of Salisbury, who has kindly looked over some of the proof-sheets, but who is in no way responsible for their contents, writes me under date January 21st, 1897: "I wish the book all success, and thank you for the labour of love spent in illustrating the life of a good man, who deserves to be better known." ST MARK'S VICARAGE, MARYLebone Road, W., M. F. THE LIFE AND WRITINGS OF BISHOP DAVENANT CHAPTER I THE DAVENANT FAMILY AND PEDIGREE "There is a secret Loadstone in every man's native soyle effectually attracting them home again to their country, their center."-FULLER's Abel Redivivus, p. 21, A MONG the signs which seem to prove the presence of God in history, and more especially in the history of His Church and people, we must reckon the appearance, at critical periods, of some great man-or galaxy of great men-who, themselves imbued with the spirit of the age, know how to give to religious and political movements a practical and permanent shape. The end of the sixteenth century and beginning of the seventeenth century were fertile in such leaders. If we take 1571 as the date of the Elizabethan settlement-synchronising with the publication of the thirty-nine articles in their final shape-and 1662 as the last settlement of the Anglican Reformed Church, we must consider that time as one of the most important epochs in our national history. It marks the gradual crystallisation of the National Church, it covers the struggles of the two contending parties in its bosom, it reduces an Anglo-Catholic theology to a system, it brings into prominence the peculiar characteristics of Anglicanism, it emphasises, by a vivid contrast, the differ A ence between the pre-Reformation and post-Reformation eras. It accentuates the Reformation settlement. We must never forget that from the outset of the Reformation in England, about 1533, till the final settlement in 1662, there were two nations-like Jacob and Esau-contending within the womb of the English Church, the men of the Old Learning, who desired to maintain the organic continuity, historical, legal, theological and liturgical, of the post-Reformation and the pre-Reformation Church-to remove all real abuses, but to retain everything which could be justly entitled Catholic by a fair appeal to Scripture and primitive antiquity; and those of the New Learning, whose one aim was the entire destruction of everything ancient, as in Scotland and Geneva, and the formation of a sect, whose purity was to be gauged by its qualitative divergence from the discipline and doctrine of Latin Christendom. It is quite clear that this latter section-the dominant party under Edward VI.—consisted for the most part of very unscrupulous men-cruel,'greedy, and sacrilegious-though a very few of the better stamp abetted them. When the reaction under Queen Mary took place, many persons of this particular sect fled abroad, but some of the more respectable reformers, such as Matthew Parker and Roger Ascham, were left unmolested in England. But the impolitic cruelties of the Queen, instigated by her husband and Cardinal Pole, as narrated in the pages of Foxe, created a counter-reaction, and made the Puritan faction once more popular again. When the Marian exiles returned on the accession of Elizabeth some of the worst among them were advanced, by the influence of Walsingham and Leicester, to the vacant bishoprics and deaneries-offices which, as a rule, they abused, by embezzling church property for their own gain, and fostering Calvinism and Nonconformity amongst the clergy. And as the Church was also freely plundered, two processes went on all through her reign, the gradual disappearance not only of Catholic worship, but of Catholic faith and practice, and the steady lowering of the status and education of the clergy, owing to the scantiness of the funds for their maintenance. Thus when James I. ascended the throne, the Church of England, although it possessed the historic Episcopate and the Old Liturgy, in its main essentials, was in danger of becoming a Calvinist sect, much below the level of 1553, when, although things were outwardly worse, yet the majority of the Clergy and Laity were Catholic. When, for instance, as was brought vividly before us during the recent Laudian Commemoration, William Laud entered St John's College, Oxford, in 1589, he found the university given over to Calvinism, and there was hardly the nucleus of a High Church school of thought visible. It must not, however, be forgotten that Hooker was writing in 1590, and there were also Whitgift, Bilson, the author of the Perpetual Government of Christ's Church, and Bancroft, about the same period. We all know how Laud set himself to combat this state of things, how he did it with the help of Buckeridge, with consummate tact, good temper, and resolution: making new precedents when he had not old ones to fall back upon, and step by step eliminating the dominant error from Oxford. We can hardly realise this in our day when the collapse of Calvinism has been so complete, even in its own chosen homes and centers. Nor was this all. Elizabeth's Bishops, too faithfully seconded by the Presbyterian Archbishop Abbot, under James I. had brought the Church of England to the lowest depths of repute and efficiency. An ignorant, heterodox, and unconforming clergy filled the benefices in many parts of the country: in the parish churches the most disgraceful squalor and irreverence prevailed: the Prelates, in too many cases, were busy in impoverishing their sees for personal gain: and every vanity of abuse, nepotism, and scandal, was rampant. All this has been forgotten in an age which has been so intent on the recovery of the "six points" of Ritual, as not even to know the "five points" of Calvinism, once so dear to the hearts of our countrymen. The period when the subject of our memoir flourished, 1572-1641-the last thirty years of the sixteenth century and the first forty of the seventeenth century-may be regarded as one of the most critical in the development of the National Church. It was then that the Archbishop just alluded to lived and died. William Laud was born 1573 and died 1645. John Davenant was born 1572 and died 1641. It will be noticed that these two great men went through life and their official experience pari passu, and were colleagues in the Episcopate, Davenant being one of Laud's suffragans, and assisting him in carrying out some of his ceremonial reformations, although belonging to another school of thought. But it was emphatically the age of great men-it was the age of Andrewes, Jeremy Taylor, Hall, Fuller, Bedell, Duppa, Peter Heylin, Hornecke, Juxon, Overall, Usher, Montagu, Wren, Mede, Herbert, Hammond, Sanderson, Cosin, Hales and Chillingworth. There were indeed giants in those days. Perhaps it is owing to the fact that his lot was cast among such Titans, that Davenant has not taken that prominence in people's interest and consideration, which was his due. Yet some of our greatest divines have appreciated him at his real value. No other testimony needs to be adduced than one of Bishop Bull, who, however differing from Davenant with regard to the ground of their doctrine, has passed, in the following judgment, the highest eulogium upon his treatise (on Justification) for sterling worth, scholastic ability, and practical soundness. Thus, says he, on drawing to a close of his own discussion of the subject, in his Harmonia, "as a conclusion to this undertaking, I will subjoin a remarkable testimony of a man of most extensive learning, and a most worthy Prelate of the Anglican Church, who well knew and faithfully maintained |
