2 - The language of ecclesiastical polity and Jacobean conformist thought

Summary

The chief intellectual tension that underlay Jacobean ecclesiological debates is illustrated by disputes about the proper relationship between civil and ecclesiastical authority. These disputes stemmed from the decision – taken first under Henry VIII and subsequently refined under Elizabeth I – to define the Church of England as the Church authorised by Christ to continue His earthly ministry; this claim served as the basis for the proposition that since the Church of England was so authorised, it retained within itself power and discretion over matters of doctrine and discipline. This authority did not come solely from the Word, but also from statutes that established the Church. After this initial ‘founding’, conformists were obliged to make an articulate case for why a Church established in law could also agree with scripture and the practice of the Apostolic church. As later chapters will show, the retention of certain ceremonies and episcopal governance drew, from Protestant critics, arguments fleshed out with doctrinal or historical criticism, and designed to undermine the authority of the Church and its human governors. At the root of the debate was a difficult question: how could a church so evidently grounded in the realm of human creation, of culture and custom, also take part in the world of the divine creation, that is, the community of believers joined to Christ and one another in a spiritual association that was by its very nature free from the direction of human agents? This question absorbed contemporary defenders of the established Church and others interested in the development of a theory of ecclesiastical polity.