4 - Apostoli, episcopi, divini?: models of ecclesiastical governance

Summary

The theme of governance was explored in controversies in which writers considered the issue of episcopacy based on minute examinations of the governance of the ancient church. In addition, the civil power of the bishops, that is, the power to deprive clergy of livings, continued to raise questions of a legal and constitutional nature, and represented a continuation of the conflict over conformity and the High Commission examined in the previous chapter. There were therefore two planes on which the debate took place. On one hand, episcopacy was a practical issue: it involved claims to rule the Church and to exercise discipline in order to preserve doctrinal uniformity. As an institution, the Church was ordered as an hierarchy, from Convocation down to visitations and injunctions on the level of the diocese; bishops were the channels through which the Crown's sovereignty over the Church was exercised. On the other hand, episcopacy also invited speculation on matters of ecclesiology, and specifically on how well the Church of England emulated the mode of governance that obtained in the ancient church. Did the Apostles and their successors rule over the church as a whole, or were they merely charged with guidance and instruction? The debates on governance, therefore, exposed to scrutiny the tension inherent in a church defined by its advocates as a blend of civil and spiritual elements, and attacked by its critics as an unholy alliance of doctrinal precept and political expediency.