Craig,

Good to see you commenting here again!

It is a good reminder that Calvin was *used* by those who followed him, and that modern Calvinism has to be seen as affected by Westminster (sp?) and Dort.

Ignoring the nuances of Calvinism’s history would leave us unprepared to interact with the current resuirgence of Calvinism occuring in many locales.

Thank you Craig,

When I was at Oxford - training for ordination - one of my frequent discussions with a colleague who is now too eminent to name, was if one should be a five point or a six point Calvinist.  Calvin’s contribution was never a matter of doubt to being Anglican.  One of my mentors said to me long ago to read Calvin and Augustine and then to regard all others as commentary - having read the Bible first and foremost, of course.  Later I was thrilled to discover the Summa as well.  Anyway!

Summer began here today in Peru - officially at least.  What a joy!  Christmas blessings - Ian

Craig -

I’d be curious to see you give evidence that Calvin’s Institution (as it was Englished the 16th and 17th centuries) was ‘the very heart heart of theological education at Oxford and Cambridge’.  Recent studies on the influence of Calvin have actually argued that the Institution was a marginal text and that what was more central was Calvin’s exegetical work.  This is certainly what the records of library acquisition reveal from Oxford and Cambridge during these years.  It was not until the final years of the 16th century that either university even purchased a copy of the Institution.  (For more on this, see Peter White’s Predestination, Policy, and Polemic.)  As for Hooker being influenced by the Institution, I am again interested to see evidence - but precisely that, rather than merest assertions to the contrary.  I don’t know anyone within Hooker scholarship who argues what you are proposing here - neither Voak, Kirby, Cromartie, nor Eppely argue what you do.  I’ve not read Atkinson’s work on Hooker, but if you peruse Diarmaid MacCulloch’s article on Hooker’s influence, he argues that Atkinson has rather overstated the case (and MacCulloch argues a similar point in The Later Reformation in England).  Hooker’s legal thought is increasingly read in light of the common law tradition; his theological anthropology is increasingly in dialogue (as you note) and in occasional disagreement (as you again note) with both Reformed and Thomist (which you fail to note) thought.  The influence of Calvinism is one and only one element in Hooker’s history.

As for the evangelical party within Anglicanism, that is a development of the mid-19th century, but it did not look to Calvin - rather, to John Foxe and the Edwardian exiles.  Thus, you may recall, that the Parker Society reprinted the entirety of Bullinger’s Decades but never reprinted anything by Calvin (save where Calvin was in correspondence with English reformers).  If you did a study on how often Calvin’s works were printed in England after the Civil War, you would find the following:

1660 - a short letter from Calvin to Knox on the Church of England’s liturgy was published in London

1719 - a brief (40 page) series of excerpts from Luther and Calvin on the Trinity were printed in London

1762 - Calvin’s Institution was printed in Glasgow

1797 - Calvin’s Commentary on James was printed in London

This is all that was printed.  It is enough to indicate only Calvin’s irrelevance to Anglicanism between 1660 and 1800 (the great dark ages of Anglican historiography).  That Calvin was important for some in the late-16th and early-17th centuries cannot be debated.  But that his importance was anything continual is most certainly unclear, just as the ubiquity of his importance is far from clear (have you ever read Andrewes or Laud?  They cite Calvin like many others did, but only that and only in passing - he was never central).  More editions of Luther’s Commentary on Galatians were printed in the 18th century than all of the editions of Calvin’s works combined (of course, given the above this isn’t saying much - six editions of Luther’s Galatians commentary were printed, btw).  Erasmus, in fact, was far more often printed in England than Calvin ever was; and it was Erasmus whose Biblical Prefaces were required reading for all Church of England clergy (they also had to be owned by every parish, along with the BCP, the English Bible, and the Book of Homilies).  Dozens of editions of Erasmus’s writings were printed between 1660 and 1800.  Do you have access to the ECCO or EEBO databases?  You might find digging in them would be hugely informative.

I trust you are well aware that Richard Muller would disagree quite a lot with the idea that one can separate Calvin from Calvinism.  (Of course, he would also argue for a more robust approach to the Reformed tradition than the term ‘Calvinism’ indicates.  He is right in this.)  To make Calvin central is to miss other continental figures who were more central - Luther, Melanchthon, Erasmus.  Give Calvin a place at the table - I’ve never denied his right to a place and I don’t understand why you accuse me of this.  But give him the right place - and it just isn’t as central as you want to make it.

Ben,
Read Philip Secor’s biography of Richard Hooker with regard to evidence that the Institutes were standard reading in the final quarter of the 16th century, or, at least when Hooker was a student.

Well there is a very good reason why Calvin was unheeded in the English Church after the Civil War and that is because his “party” in England was associated with sectarianism and treason. The remnants of Presbyterianism and Congregationalism slipped into Deism only to be revived with the CofE in the 18th Century revival, part of which was Arminium and part Calvinistic. People like Toplady and Fletcher were full of Calvin.

I find Secor’s biography of Hooker useful but unreliable. He seems to lack a “feel” for the Elizabethan Church which was surely Calvinist when it comes to the Doctrines of Grace, but in a manner diluted by the liturgy and structure of the church. I can think of no prominent Anglican scholar in the late 16th Century who relied on Calvin the person in any systematic manner. Certainly the views of Calvin’s surrogates were part of the discussion which framed Elizabethan and early Stuart Anglicanism, but in some measure they centered more on structure and salvation theology than on systematics.

Certainly it was becoming true that the Anglican theological method was to be practical and pastoral rather than systematic.

“Certainly it was becoming true that the Anglican theological method was to be practical and pastoral rather than systematic.”  Thank you, Fr. Clavier. That helps me understand, I think, that although “dogma” is important in the Anglican tradition, it is not as central as Calvin understood it to be.  It is a tool, perhaps, rather than an end in itself.