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William Bishop as Roman Catholic Theologian and Polemicist
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 16 September 2015
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In a vigorous theological controversy, William Bishop, English Roman Catholic theologian educated at Oxford, Rheims, Rome, and Paris, took on William Perkins, the best-selling English Protestant writer of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. The two writers were formidable champions of their respective religious traditions. As I will argue, this was a significant exchange, though the dispute has been little noticed by historians of the period. The issues the two writers discussed and the way they discussed them throw considerable light on the state of English religion in the early seventeenth century. Bishop emerges as a more powerful and effective spokesman for the Roman Catholicism of his day than has been heretofore recognised.
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1 For Perkins's life and career, see Fuller, Thomas, The Holy State (Cambridge: Roger Daniel for John Williams, 1642), pp. 89–93;Google Scholar Breward, Ian, introduction to The Work of William Perkins, ed. Breward (Abingdon: Sutton Courtenay Press, 1970), pp. 3–131;Google Scholar and Spinks, Bryan D., Two Faces of Elizabethan Anglican Theology: Sacraments and Salvation in the Thought of William Perkins and Richard Hooker (Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 1999),Google Scholar Drew University Studies in Liturgy, 9, pp. 1–92. For specific aspects of his thought, see Merrill, Thomas F., William Perkins, 1558–1602, English Puritanist: His Pioneer Works on Casuistry (Nieuwkoop: B. de Graaf, 1966);Google Scholar Pettit, Norman, The Heart Prepared: Grace and Conversion in Puritan Spiritual Life (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1966), pp. 5–6,Google Scholar 14, 61–79, 130–132, 181, 185–188, 204, 218; Kendall, R. T., Calvin and English Calvinism to 1649 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1979), pp. 1–9, 51–76, 209–213;Google Scholar Wallace, Dewey D. Jr.,, Puritans and Predestination: Grace in English Protestant Theology, 1525–1695 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1982), pp. 55–65, 76, 81–82, 122–123, 129, 197;Google Scholar Muller, Richard A., Christ and the Decree: Christology and Predestination in Reformed Theology from Calvin to Perkins (Durham, NC: Labyrinth Press, 1986), pp. 130–173;Google Scholar Milton, Anthony, Catholic and Reformed: The Roman and Protestant Churches in English Protestant Thought, 1600–1640 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), pp. 18, 129, 133, 144, 148, 177, 220, 230–231, 234, 266, 280, 400, 539–540.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
2 McKitterick, David, A History of Cambridge University Press, 2 vols. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992–98), Vol. I, pp. 125–129, 133, 137, 139, 231–233.Google Scholar For the popularity and influence of Perkins's books, see also Green, Ian, Print and Protestantism in Early Modern England (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), pp. 8, 17–18, 106, 211, 215, 223, 241, 266, 308, 311, 479, 498, 556, 566, 647–648.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
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4 Patterson, W. B., ‘William Perkins as Apologist for the Church of England’, Journal of Ecclesiastical History, 57, 2 (2006), 252–269.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Other recent treatments of Perkins include Spinks (above), Schaefer, Paul R., ‘Protestant “Scholasticism” at Elizabethan Cambridge: William Perkins and a Reformed Theology of the Heart’, in Trueman, Carl R. and Scott, R., eds., Protestant Scholasticism: Essays in Reassessment (Carlisle: Paternoster Press, 1999), pp. 147–164;Google Scholar Walsham, Alexandra, Providence in Early Modern England (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), pp. 18, 23, 26–28, 32, 53, 60, 104–105, 128, 154, 179, 186, 206, 297, 316, 319;Google Scholar Lares, Jamela, Milton and the Preaching Arts (Cambridge: James Clarke, 2001), pp. 12, 49, 68, 77–79, 83–84, 86, 90–94, 101, 104, 106, 144–145, 160, 166, 191;Google Scholar Ferrell, Lori Anne, ‘Transfiguring Theology: William Perkins and Calvinist Aesthetics’, in Highley, Christopher and King, John N., eds., John Foxe and His World (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2002), pp. 160–179;Google Scholar Bruhn, Karen, ‘Pastoral Polemic: William Perkins, the Godly Evangelicals, and the Shaping of a Protestant Community in Early Modern England’, Anglican and Episcopal History, LXXII, 1 (March 2003), 102–127.Google Scholar
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6 à Wood, Anthony, Athenae Oxonienses: An Exact History of All the Writers and Bishops Who Have Had Their Educations in the University of Oxford, third edition ed. Bliss, Philip, 5 vols. (London: F. C. and J. Rivington, et al., 1815–20), Vol. II, col. 356;Google Scholar see also cols 356–357, 862. Wood's work was first published in 1691–92. See also Anstruther, Godfrey, The Seminary Priests: A Dictionary of the Secular Clergy of England and Wales, 1558–1850, 4 vols. (Durham: Ushaw College, and Ware: St. Edmund's College, 1969–77), Vol. I, pp. 36–39;Google Scholar Allison, A. F. and Rogers, D. M., eds, A Catalogue of Catholic Books in English Printed Abroad or Secretly in England, 1558–1640 (London: Wm. Dawson, 1968), p. 151.Google Scholar For the later Catholic activities of the Bishop family, see Haydon, Colin, ‘“The Mouth of Hell”: Religious Discord at Brailes, Warwickshire, c. 1660–c. 1800’, The Historian, 68 (Winter 2000), pp. 23–27.Google Scholar
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8 Ibidem.
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16 Ibidem, pp. 299–300.
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21 Hughes, Rome and the Counter-Reformation, pp. 305–306.
22 Anstruther, The Seminary Priests, Vol. I, p. 37.
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29 Perkins, A Golden Chaine: or, The Description of Theologie, Herunto Is Adioyned the Order Which M. Theodore Beza Vsed in Comforting Troubled Consciences (Cambridge: J. Legat, 1591).Google Scholar Other editions were published in 1592, 1595, 1597, 1612, and 1621. This was a translation of Perkins, Armilla aurea, id est, theologiae descriptio mirandum seriem causarum & salutis & damnationis hominum (Cambridge: J. Legat, 1590).Google Scholar Perkins, An Exposition of the Symbole or Creed of the Apostles, According to the Tenovr of the Scriptures and the Consent of Orthodoxe Fathers of the Church (Cambridge: John Legat, 1595).Google Scholar There were other editions in 1596, 1597, 1611, 1616, and 1631.
30 Perkins, A Reformed Catholike, pp. 11–218.
31 Ibidem, pp. 243–258.
32 Bruhn, ‘Pastoral Polemic: William Perkins, the Godly Evangelicals, and the Shaping of a Protestant Community in Early Modern England’, passim.
33 Perkins, A Reformed Catholike, Dedication, Sig. ¶ 2.
34 Ibidem, pp. 327–328, 350–371. Jewel, John, An Apology of the Church of England, ed. Booty, J. E. (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press for the Folger Shakespeare Library, 1963), pp. 17–21.Google Scholar Jewel's Apology appeared first in Latin in 1562 and then in an authorised English translation by Lady Ann Bacon in 1564.
35 Perkins, An Exposition of the Symbole or Creed, pp. 501–503. Richard Hooker, Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity, Books V and VII, in The Folger Library Edition of the Works of Richard Hooker, gen. ed. Speed Hill, W., 7 vols, in 8 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1977–90;Google Scholar Binghamton, NY: Medieval & Renaissance Texts & Studies, 1993–98), Vols. II, passim, and III, pp. 141–312. See also the introductions to Book V by John E. Booty and to Book VII by Arthur Stephen McGrade in Vol. VI, Part One, pp. 183–247, 309–336. Book V of Hooker's Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity was first published in 1597; Book VII was first published in 1662.
36 The Former Part (n.p.: [English secret press], 1604); The Second Part of the Reformation of a Catholike Deformed by Master W. Perkins (n.p.: [English secret press], 1607). The author's name is given as D.B.P. on the title-page of the first volume, presumably standing for Dr. Bishop, Priest.
37 Bishop, A Reformation of a Catholike Deformed, Sig. * iii verso.
38 Ibidem, Sig. * iv.
39 Ibidem, Sig. * iv.
40 Ibidem, Sig. * iv. The statement was made on the second day of the Hampton Court Conference (16 January 1604) and was published in Barlow's, William The Svmme and Svbstance of the Conference (London: Mathew Law, 1604).Google Scholar See Ashton, Robert, ed., James I by His Contemporaries (London: Hutchinson, 1969), pp. 181–182.Google Scholar
41 Bishop, A Reformation of a Catholike Deformed, Sig. *iv.
42 Ibidem, Sig. * * * ii.
43 Ibidem, Sig. * * * ii.
44 Ibidem, Sig. * * * ii verso.
45 Ibidem, p. 19.
46 Ibidem, p. 19.
47 Ibidem, p. 20.
48 Ibidem, pp. 22–23.
49 Ibidem, part 2, p. 5.
50 Ibidem, part 2, p. 6.
51 Ibidem, part 2, p. 7.
52 Ibidem, part 2, p. 7.
53 Ibidem, part 2, p. 17.
54 Ibidem, part 2, p. 17.
55 Ibidem, part 2, p. 18.
56 Ibidem, part 2, p. 18.
57 Bishop, The Second Part of the Reformation, Sig. A i verso.
58 Ibidem, p. 111.
59 Ibidem, p. 127.
60 Ibidem, p. 139.
61 Ibidem, p. 129.
62 Ibidem, p. 20.
63 Ibidem, p. 20.
64 Ibidem, p. 20.
65 Ibidem, p. 21.
66 Ibidem, p. 21.
67 Ibidem, pp. 21–22. Liberts seems to be a variant of libards or leopards.
68 See Brodrick, James, Robert Bellarmine, 1542–1621, 2 vols. (London: Longmans, 1950), Vol. II, pp. 169–260;Google Scholar Johann Peter Sommerville, ‘Jacobean Political Thought and the Controversy over the Oath of Allegiance’, Ph.D. Thesis, University of Cambridge, 1981; Patterson, King James VI and I, pp. 100–111, 120–123.
69 The First Part (London: George Bishop, 1606);Google ScholarPubMed The Second Part of the Defence of the Reformed Catholicke (London: George Bishop, 1607).Google Scholar
70 Bass Mullinger, J., life of Robert Abbot in the Dictionary of National Biography, 22 vols. (London: Smith, Elder, 1885–1901), Vol. I, p. 24.Google Scholar
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72 (London: Ambrose Garbrand, 1611).
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74 Beales, A. C. F., Education under Penalty: English Catholic Education from the Reformation to the Fall of James II, 1547–1689 (London: Athlone Press, 1963), pp. 190–193.Google Scholar See also Questier, Catholicism and Community, pp. 374–379.
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76 Bede, The History of the Chvrch of Englande, Compiled by Venerable Bede, Englishman, trans. Thomas Stapleton (Antwerp: J. Laet, 1565), Sig. * 2 verso-3.
77 Stapleton, A Fortresse of the Faith, First Planted amonge Vs Englishmen, and Continued Hitherto in the Vniversall Church of Christ, the Faith of Which Time Protestants Call Papistry (Antwerp: J. Laet, 1565).Google Scholar
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80 Hughes, Rome and the Counter-Reformation, pp. 315–322.
81 Patterson, King James VI and I, pp. 305–338.
82 ‘A Summary of the doings of the Very Reverend William Bishop, Bishop of Chalcedon, the first Ordinary of England and Scotland after the Schism’, in The Douay College Diaries, Third, Fourth, and Fifth, 1598–1654, ed. Burton, Edwin H. and Williams, Thomas L., Catholic Record Society, 10 (London: Catholic Record Society, 1911), p. 401.Google Scholar For Bishop's work as Bishop of Chalcedon, see Questier, Catholicism and Community, pp. 400–414.
83 ‘A Summary’, pp. 401–405; Hughes, Rome and the Counter-Reformation, pp. 323–325; Anstruther, The Seminary Priests, pp. 37–38.
84 ‘A Summary’, p. 404.
85 Allison, A. F., ‘Richard Smith, Richelieu and the French Marriage: The Political Context of Smith's Appointment as Bishop for England in 1624’, Recusant History, 7 (1964), pp. 148–211;CrossRefGoogle Scholar Lunn, Maurus, ‘Benedictine Opposition to Bishop Richard Smith (1625–1629)’, Recusant History, 11 (1971), pp. 1–20.Google Scholar
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