of Thomas Cartwright, there was no one else’s theology to abduct on this
issue. Bullinger and Martyr had counseled the English that it was better
to assume the defiled habits than to let wolves take the pulpit. Yet when
the precise and the wolves collided, as the more precise certainly believed
that they did in England in August 1642, could the result have been
anything other than civil war? The theology of the Church of England
was subject to the prevailing theological winds, and repeatedly the object
of multiple ones. If the monarch failed to reign in the theological
passions of England’s subjects, Jewel’s Church had no way, theoretically,
to resolve its conflicts, for it had neither recourse nor court of appeal
beyond the prince – neither to tradition, a general council, nor a
magisterium.
lily
(lily)
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