CHAPTER II

THE CONTROVERSY WITH ROME AND ITS CONSEQUENCES

Charles and

CHARLES at once showed that he placed the utmost confidence in Laud. Within a fortnight of his father's death he requested a list of the most eminent divines the Puritans, to be prepared for him that he might from among them select his chaplains and those whom he should consider worthy of promotion. Laud drew up the list and Buckingham gave it to Charles. Each name was marked with the letter O or P. Of Puritans Charles had a very clear opinion. He looked upon them, says Clarendon, as a very dangerous and seditious people, who would, under pretence of conscience, which kept them from submitting to the spiritual jurisdiction, take the first opportunity they could find, or make, to withdraw themselves from his temporal jurisdiction, and therefore his Majesty caused these people to be watched, and provided against with the utmost vigilance." It was not likely that he would promote any of the clergy who held their views. He would clearly give his favour to the Orthodox.

This was soon put to the test. The Roman controversy advanced a stage in the first year of Charles's reign.

controversy.

It

passed from the study of theologians into the arena The Roman of public life. The earlier contentions between English and Romanist writers have been dealt with in Volume V. of this history, and the names with which we have now to deal have already been referred to. But the details belong so definitely to the reign of Charles I. and are so closely connected with his chief ecclesiastical adviser that they must be spoken of more fully here.

CHAP. II

LAUD AND FISHER

9

The fame of Laud himself had largely been won by a contest with a Romanist, while King James was still on the throne, in May 1622.

Fisher.

Laud's conference with Fisher was, like many of the controversies of the time, caused by a pressing personal case of conscience. The Countess of Buckingham, Laud's conmother of the brilliant George Villiers, had prob- ference with ably already been converted to Romanisın, by one Percy, or Fisher, a very notable Jesuit; she had been followed by her son's wife, and the duke himself seemed very likely to be lost to the English Church. Conferences at first took place, by Buckingham's wish or the king's command, between Dr. Francis White, Rector of St. Peter's, Cornhill, and Fisher. After two meetings had been held, the king desired Laud, then Bishop of St. David's, to take part in the discussion. Fisher printed his account of the conference— and White also: and Laud at last was compelled to do the same. Reply and retort followed, and eventually in 1639seventeen years after the conference had taken place-Laud found it necessary to publish a complete record of the proceedings. The form of the book makes it irksome reading nowadays. Sentence by sentence Fisher's book is taken, and dissected, and answered. Such a method has the advantage of completeness, but it can hardly fail to be extremely tedious. It is difficult to collect and marshal the arguments it is hard to see the wood for the trees.

Some account of the contents of this famous book must be given before the principles upon which Laud conducted this, his most important controversy, are stated, as a necessary introduction to the special contests controversy.

which followed.

Points of the

The points round which the battle was fought were chiefly :

(1) The Apostolic succession as the guarantee of the infallibility of the Faith in the Church: the Jesuit claimed that this guarantee could be found only in Rome.

(2) The Roman claim that "the Roman Church only, and such others as agree with it in faith, hath true Divine, infallible faith, necessary to salvation."

CHAPTER II

THE CONTROVERSY WITH ROME AND ITS CONSEQUENCES

Charles and

CHARLES at once showed that he placed the utmost confidence in Laud. Within a fortnight of his father's death he requested a list of the most eminent divines the Puritans. to be prepared for him that he might from among them select his chaplains and those whom he should consider worthy of promotion. Laud drew up the list and Buckingham gave it to Charles. Each name was marked with the letter O or P. Of Puritans Charles had a very clear opinion. He looked upon them, says Clarendon, as a very dangerous and seditious people, who would, under pretence of conscience, which kept them from submitting to the spiritual jurisdiction, take the first opportunity they could find, or make, to withdraw themselves from his temporal jurisdiction, and therefore his Majesty caused these people to be watched, and provided against with the utmost vigilance." It was not likely that he would promote any of the clergy who held their views. He would clearly give his favour to the Orthodox.

This was soon put to the test. The Roman controversy advanced a stage in the first year of Charles's reign.

controversy.

It

passed from the study of theologians into the arena The Roman of public life. The earlier contentions between English and Romanist writers have been dealt with in Volume V. of this history, and the names with which we have now to deal have already been referred to. But the details belong so definitely to the reign of Charles I. and are so closely connected with his chief ecclesiastical adviser that they must be spoken of more fully here.

CHAP. II

LAUD AND FISHER

9

The fame of Laud himself had largely been won by a contest with a Romanist, while King James was still on the throne, in May 1622.

Fisher.

Laud's conference with Fisher was, like many of the controversies of the time, caused by a pressing personal case of conscience. The Countess of Buckingham, "Laud's conmother of the brilliant George Villiers, had prob- ference with ably already been converted to Romanism, by one Percy, or Fisher, a very notable Jesuit; she had been followed by her son's wife, and the duke himself seemed very likely to be lost to the English Church. Conferences at first took place, by Buckingham's wish or the king's command, between Dr. Francis White, Rector of St. Peter's, Cornhill, and Fisher. After two meetings had been held, the king desired Laud, then Bishop of St. David's, to take part in the discussion. Fisher printed his account of the conference— and White also: and Laud at last was compelled to do the same. Reply and retort followed, and eventually in 1639— seventeen years after the conference had taken place-Laud found it necessary to publish a complete record of the proceedings. The form of the book makes it irksome reading nowadays. Sentence by sentence Fisher's book is taken, and dissected, and answered. Such a method has the advantage of completeness, but it can hardly fail to be extremely tedious. It is difficult to collect and marshal the arguments it is hard to see the wood for the trees.

Some account of the contents of this famous book must be given before the principles upon which Laud conducted this, his most important controversy, are stated, as a necessary introduction to the special contests controversy. which followed.

Points of the

The points round which the battle was fought were chiefly :

(1) The Apostolic succession as the guarantee of the infallibility of the Faith in the Church: the Jesuit claimed that this guarantee could be found only in Rome.

(2) The Roman claim that "the Roman Church only, and such others as agree with it in faith, hath true Divine, infallible faith, necessary to salvation."

(3) The Roman statement that the faith had never been changed by the Roman Church.

The chief point was what was meant by the infallibility of the Church. The ground was very different from that of the Puritan contention. It was admitted by both sides that there is a continual and visible Church: but the meaning of its infallibility was in question.

First, there was the familiar Roman claim that the Fathers recognised the Roman Church as infallible. Here it is little more than a question of translation. St. Cyprian and St. Jerome and St. Gregory Nazianzen, St. Cyril and Rufinuswhat did they mean in some passages quoted?

Laud had

no difficulty, we should say, in showing that none of them thought of any permanent infallibility in the Roman Church or bishops. And to that point he returns when the arguments are summed up at the end of the controversy. There is no Scriptural or primitive warrant for an infallible pope. A Jesuit attacking Laud's book some years later appears to have conceded this point, for he says, "Catholic faith (in this particular) only obliges us to maintain that the pope is infal lible when he defines with a general council."

From a general denial of the pope's infallibility Laud passed to a particular assertion of the errors of the Roman

of Rome.

Church and bishops in special points-in the The errors "worship of images, and in altering Christ's institution in the Blessed Sacrament, by taking away the cup from the people, and divers other particulars." But first he examined the position of the Greek Church as a permanent witness against the exclusive claim of Rome. "They [the Greeks] continue a true Church in the main substance to and at this day." The Filioque controversy is discussed with a clearness and accuracy that is none too common. "That divers learned men were of opinion that a Filio et per Filium, in the sense of the Greek Church, was but a question in modo loquendi, "in manner of speech, and therefore not fundamental, is evident." "You," he says, turning to his Jesuit antagonist, "You may make them no Church (as Bellarmine doth), and so deny them salvation, which cannot be had out of the true Church; but I for my part dare not do And Rome in this particular should be more moderate,

SO.