What are the advantages and disadvantages of a formal liturgy as against extemporized worship? After the restoration of the English monarchy in 1660, it was clear that some form of national ‘Church of England’ would be reconstructed – but would it have a set liturgy, and if so what would it be like? This paper considers over a hundred books published in the following three years, debating whether the Book of Common Prayer should be imposed, reformed or abandoned, with arguments based on biblical precepts, the practice of the early Church and reformed Churches, the duties of ministers and the needs of congregations. The debate shows how the views of both conformists and nonconformists had developed in response to the religious free-for-all of the 1640s and 1650s, though it had little influence on political decisions.

This paper considers how issues of conscience might be considered in seventeenth-century England. It looks at how some of the moral problems arising from the restoration of an episcopal Church of England in 1660 were debated, and focuses on the response of the clergy to the demands for conformity to the Book of Common Prayer, renunciation of the Solemn League and Covenant, and episcopal ordination. A large number of books were published on these subjects, and contemporary diaries show that ministers read these books and discussed the problems among themselves, in reaching difficult and often painful decisions.

This essay draws on the typological framework of Stephen B. Bevans and Roger P. Schroeder in Constants in Context: A Theology of Mission for Today (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2004), to analyse a case study church drawn from the Church of England. It investigates key elements of the theology and life of the church, in particular its implicit eschatology and understanding of salvation, and its approach to evangelism, to identify and establish which of Bevans and Schroeder's models it most closely expresses. This correlation is then used to draw out certain practical implications for the life of the church, most notably how it can more consistently and therefore with more integrity live out its inherent approach to mission. This shows the general practical usefulness of this methodology for other churches in different settings.

From childhood Elizabeth was trained in the ‘New Learning’ and brought up under Protestant influences. Her juvenilia attest to this immersion in Protestant and humanist education. The youthful Elizabeth often wrote formal Latin letters in the style of the mediaeval ars dictaminis replete with humanist and Protestant imagery. She continued this style of writing throughout her brother's reign. However, after Parliament passed the Act of Uniformity of 1549, Elizabeth stopped writing formal Latin letters to her brother and switched to formal English ones instead. This essay will argue that this switch was intentional on the part of Elizabeth; and set within the context of the time gives an early clue to Elizabeth's solidarity with her brother's Protestant efforts in England.