This chapter analyses Andrewes’ account of the central ordinances of divine worship – preaching, prayer, the sacrament and the right conduct of the public worship of God. It argues that Andrewes produced a significant re-evaluation of the roles of those ordinances and practices in the life of the church and of the life of faith; one which downplayed the role of the word preached, and played up those of public prayer and, in particular, of the sacrament. For Andrewes, it was the sacrament that was at the centre of both corporate worship and the devotional life of the Christian; a view founded on his deeply incarnational and Trinitarian theology. As for the reverent conduct of divine worship, that was a natural, indeed a necessary, corollary of the divine presence in the church and the sacrament. All of which was presented as in stark contrast to, and indeed in reaction against, what Andrewes presented as the characteristic religious values and practices of the puritans.

Chapter 12 challenges the assumption that the ‘Restoration church’ inevitably accompanied the political restoration. It begins by charting the different attempted reformations of 1659-60, from radical Congregationalist proposals to the rapid re-establishment of the 1640s Presbyterian settlement just before the king’s return in 1660. The attempted comprehensive settlements of the following ten months are then carefully analysed with reference to the ‘abortive reformation’ of 1640-41 discussed in Chapter 4, the peace negotiations discussed in Chapter 6, and other past reform initiatives. Analysing the wide range of commentary by puritan divines and more moderate episcopalian writers, it points to elements of possible compromise in areas of doctrine, church government (including the revival of plans for ‘reduced episcopacy’), liturgy and ceremonies, and extemporary prayer, culminating in the remarkable concessions of the Worcester House Declaration of October 1660. Other elements of the abortive reformation of 1640-41 are also observable, such as anti-Laudianism, the robust re-assertion of the Church of England’s links with the foreign Reformed churches, and some notable memorializing of earlier evangelical conformists who had been members of the Williams Committee. It is argued that hindsight has led historians to miss these many continuities with earlier reforming initiatives.

Chapter 13 analyses the different forces that worked against the comprehensive religious settlement that was attempted in 1660-61. It begins with a study of conservative elements hostile to any compromise with Presbyterianism, noting their emphasis on the evils of sacrilege, and how the language of ‘restoration’ was often expressed in prophetic rather than conservative terms. It then discusses the Presbyterian opposition to a range of aspects of the new settlement – from the threat of reordination to the repudiation of the Solemn League and Covenant and the stricter imposition of liturgical conformity. While these problems were not insuperable, most puritans could find at least one feature of the new settlement that they considered non-negotiable. The chapter then analyses the settlement itself, and argues that it was not a simple restoration of the pre-war church, or of the Laudian church, but constituted a rather eclectic hybrid of different elements of the Church of England’s earlier identities. Its features could be glossed in different ways, and both the Clarendon Code and the 1667 agitation for a comprehension bill presented themselves as further rationalizations of the intended settlement. It is argued that the principles of the abortive reformation were not conclusively defeated in 1662.