Ministers exercising their ministry in a parish Flashcards
John More (CA. 1542–1592)?
An English clergyman known as “the apostle of Norwich.” More was born in Westmorland and studied at Christ’s College, Cambridge, receiving his B.A. in 1563 and shortly thereafter being elected a fellow of the college. He was strongly influenced by the Reformer Thomas Cartwright and was one of the signatories of a petition commending Cartwright in 1570. Two years later, Bishop John Parkhurst appointed him to the living of Aldborough, Norfolk.
In 1573 More became one of the two preachers at St. Andrew’s Church in Norwich, Norfolk, where he remained until his death. He was a popular preacher who was credited with bringing many to a heightened awareness of their relationship to God.
More often preached three times on a Sunday.
***But he was a
nonconformist and was summoned before Bishop Parkhurst for refusing to wear the surplice; the bishop tried to persuade him to conform and defended More in correspondence with Archbishop Matthew Parker. In 1576 More joined with other Norwich clergy in petitioning against the imposition of disputed ceremonies and was suspended from the ministry by Bishop Edmund Freke, the new bishop of the Diocese of Norwich. He signed a submission, which was probably sufficient to have his suspension lifted, but he found himself in trouble again when Archbishop John Whitgift required subscription to his Three Articles in 1584. Together with around
sixty other clergy of Norfolk, More submitted to the archbishop reasons for refusing to subscribe.
His reputation as the apostle of Norwich was based on his preaching and character. An effective preacher himself, More was an advocate for more and better preaching in the church. He used his stature in the puritan movement to advise lay patrons of church livings and to assist fellow ministers. He published nothing in his lifetime, but a number of his treatises and sermons appeared after his death in 1592, brought to print by Nicholas Bownd, who was his successor at St. Andrews and
his literary executor
John Moore (1595–1657)
English clergyman of Puritan views, known as an author of pamphlets against enclosures.
Enclosure
In English landownership, that refers to the appropriation of “waste” or “common land” enclosing it and by doing so depriving commoners of their rights of access and privilege.
Agreements to enclose land could be either through a formal or informal process. The process could normally be accomplished in three ways. First there was the creation of “closes”, taken out of larger common fields by their owners. Secondly, there was enclosure by proprietors, owners who acted together, usually small farmers or squires, leading to the enclosure of whole parishes. Finally there were enclosures by Acts of Parliament.
The primary reason for enclosure was to improve the efficiency of agriculture. However, there were other motives too, one example being that the value of the land enclosed would be substantially increased. There were social consequences to the policy, with many protests at the removal of rights from the common people. Enclosure riots are seen by historians as ‘the pre-eminent form’ of social protest from the 1530s to 1640s
BOWND, NICHOLAS (D. 1613)
Rector in Norton, Suffolk and later at St Andrews in Norwich.
Following the death of his first wife, Bownd married the widow of John More, the celebrated “apostle of Norwich”, who had died in 1592, and he was instrumental in overseeing the printing of a number of More’s works.
Bownd’s mother married as her second husband Richard Greenham, and his sister married John Dod !!!!
The doctrine of the Sabbath (1595) : This work began life as a series of sermons on the Ten Commandments preached in the Bury exercise.
Bownd maintained that all Christians were commanded to rest on the seventh day of the week as much as the Jews were on the Mosaic Sabbath, and that the entire day ought to be devoted to acts of worship and godly service.
He launched a strong attack on the games and sports that profaned the day, and the work reflected and stimulated the growth of Sabbatarianism among the godly in England.
In The holy exercise of fasting (1604), Bownd distinguished between public and private fasting and argued that private fasts could be held, in an orderly fashion. (Source : Webster and Bremer; AMZ)
Lakebride
John Dod (1550-1645)
Educated in Jesus College (Cambridge) and appointed fellow in 1578 where he befriended Cartwright and subscribed to the ideas of puritanism. He was ordained in 1580 at Ely (Cambridgeshire).
He began his career as a preacher as a cambridge lecturer and then moved towards a godly congregation in Ely.
He gained a reputation as an astute and efficient preacher when he moved to Hanwell (Oxfordshire) and engaged in a puritan way of life (preaching, catechism classes, lectures).
He was suspended in 1604 by John Bridges, bishop of Oxford, since he refused to subscribe to Whitgift’s three articles. He eventually fled to Northamptonshire where he was able to evangelize local parishes due to George Abbot’s leniency toward Dod.
His written work constitutes a godly code of ethics popular among puritans (A Godly Form of Household Government). The investigation on Dod’s unlicensed preaching in 1614 led to his suspension lifted by Abott when James I died in 1625.
He was then part of a puritan network in the midlands from 1625 onward under the patronage of the Knightleys in Fawsley (West Northamptonshire) until his death.
(Oxford Dictionary of National Biography)
Samuel Ward (not from the Rogers/Ward Clan)
WARD, SAMUEL (1572–1643)
Master of Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge; an archetypal moderate puritan. As a student in Christ’s College (B.A. 1593, M.A. 1596), he was a devoted follower
of William Perkins (who helped him with his college debts) and Laurence Chaderton. His diary and sermon notebook attest to his fervent evangelicalism, his
commitment to biblical studies, and especially his intensely introspective piety: he listed in painful detail his most trivial sins, both of commission and attitude, bemoaning his sleepiness during college sermons, the ‘sluggishness” of his spiritual affections, his penchant for overindulging in plums swiped from the college trees.
Ward also used his diary to express anxieties about “sins of the land” and the state of the Church of England, afflicted increasingly by clergy “too pontifical and papistical” and by
creeping Arminianism.
His puritan pedigree beyond question, he was elected fellow of Emmanuel College in 1596 (B.D. 1603), and in 1610 (the year of his D.D.) master of the newest puritan foundation, Sidney Sussex.
There are good grounds, however, to attach “moderate” to Ward’s puritanism. He supported episcopacy, maintaining lifelong friendships with Calvinist bishops
like James Ussher, William Bedell, and John Davenant. And however devoted he was to training a preaching ministry, he was a pluralist.
The king rewarded his work on translation of the Authorized Version of the Bible (1604–1611—he was assigned the Apocrypha) with a prebend in Wells, a royal chaplaincy, the archdeaconry of
Taunton, a canon’s stall in York, and rectories in Hertfordshire and Norfolk.
He did preach sermons on occasion, his language redolent with emotion, fervently
exhorting his auditors to repentance. He also called for stricter ecclesiastical discipline. But he visited Taunton rarely, relying on surrogates and curates to serve his judicial and pastoral functions. To be sure, a speech impediment may have disinclined him to preach regularly, and he did appoint puritans to act for him in his archdeaconry court; however, his multiplication of offices may render his puritanism at least problematic.
As master of Sidney and in 1620–1621 vice chancellor of the university, Ward had to balance the demands of administration and scholarship. He introduced
geographic and scientific studies to his students, fretted over the college accounts, and played host to visiting scholars, including in 1627 Lord Brooke’s radically
republican history lecturer, Isaac Dorislaus (though Ward’s own inclination seems to have favored monarchy). The preponderance of both his scholarship and his
actions as a member of the vice chancellor’s court, however, was devoted to maintaining Calvinist orthodoxy and simplicity of worship in the face of rising Arminianism and ceremonialism.
An outspoken Calvinist, he was one of the five British delegates sent by James in 1618 to the Synod of Dort. Therehe was associated with another delegate, John Davenant, as a supporter of hypothetical universalism; however, his argument that Christ’s death created only the
possibility of salvation for all, remaining merely potential for the reprobate, gave no real ground to Arminianism.
In 1623 he became Lady Margaret Professor of Divinity, from which position he continued his vigorous defense of strict predestinarianism, most evident in his 1625 university sermon, published as Gratia discriminans the following year. His posthumously printed Opera nonnulla (1658) displays consistent and thoroughgoing Calvinism. Sidney’s chapel, unconsecrated, maintained a table rather than an altar. Small wonder that the college under his direction attracted puritan students, including Oliver Cromwell, Thomas Edwards, and
the sons of Samuel Ward of Ipswich, John Rogers, and Thomas Gataker.
After Charles’s accession in 1625, Ward found his theological position increasingly under fire in the university, as newly imposed Arminian heads of colleges came
to outnumber their more conservative brethren on the vice chancellor’s court. The court began to exonerate accused anti Calvinists (and on occasion even Catholics) who would have been prosecuted and deprived by its antecedents. In 1629 Ward was himself censured by vice chancellor Matthew Wren for purchasing a copy of William Prynne’s Anti Arminianisme, and a few years later he reported to Ussher that he had been reprimanded for defending puritans in consistory.
At the outbreak of war in 1642, Ward declined financial aid to both sides, but neither his neutrality nor the invitation he received to join the Westminster Assembly could prevent his imprisonment in St. John’s College by Parliamentarian troops occupying Cambridge in 1643. There he contracted his fatal illness, a moderate puritan
scholar sacrificed to the radicalism of his more headstrong brethren
WARD, SAMUEL (OF IPSWICH) (1577–1640)
An enormously popular preacher, who exercised a profound influence upon the town of Ipswich for more than thirty years. Born in 1577, Ward came from preaching stock, being the son of John Ward, preacher of Haverhill, Suffolk. He was admitted a scholar of St. John’s College, Cambridge, on 6 November 1594 on the
nomination of Lord Burghley. He proceeded B.A. in 1597, became a fellow of Sidney Sussex College in 1599, and commenced M.A. in 1600. At about this time, he
succeeded his father as lecturer at Haverhill, and it was during this time that he forged links with the Fairclough family. His tenure at Haverhill was not to last long. On 1 November 1603, he accepted the office of town preacher offered him by the corporation of Ipswich on the handsome terms of a salary of a hundred marks and rented accommodation. The following year he married Deborah Bolton, a widow of Isleham, Cambridgeshire, and resigned his fellowship at Sidney Sussex College. His standing among the burgesses of Ipswich was reflected in the increases made to his salary—an increase to 90 pounds in 1611 was followed by another increase to 100
pounds in 1617.
These were years of constant preaching from the pulpit of St. Mary le Tower, and it was about this time that Ward organized the famous town library of Ipswich.
Yet there was another side to this popular preacher with the plain style. In 1621 Ward, a talented caricaturist, produced a picture showing the king of Spain conversing with the pope and the devil and compared this plotting to the planning of the ill fated Armada of 1588 and the Gunpowder Plot of 1605.
When Count Gondomar, the
Spanish ambassador in London, complained of the insult to his sovereign, Ward was examined by the Privy Council and briefly imprisoned before he was permitted to return to Ipswich.
This marked the first of two clashes with the ecclesiastical authorities on account of his puritan practices. In 1622, Ward was called before Samuel
Harsnet, bishop of Norwich, on charges of nonconformity. Ward appealed to the king, who referred the matter to the examination of Lord Keeper Williams, who
negotiated successfully with Harsnet on Ward’s behalf.
He may have been briefly inhibited from preaching in August 1623, but the details of this episode are unclear.
A sterner test came in 1635 when Ward fell foul of Archbishop William Laud.
In November 1635, Ward was charged with a number of offenses, including
preaching against the Book of Sports and against bowing at the name of Jesus.
He was alleged to have said that the Church of England was ready to ring the changes and that religion and the gospel “stood on tiptoes ready to be gone.”
Ward was suspended from his ministry and imprisoned. On his release, Ward moved to
Rotterdam, where he eventually ministered with William Bridge.
His exile was short lived, as he returned to Ipswich by April 1638, although whether or not he enjoyed the freedom of his ministry is not clear. He died in March 1640 and was buried on 8 March 1640 in the church of St. Mary le Tower.
As a mark of deep gratitude and respect, the town of Ipswich continued paying Ward’s annual stipend of 100 pounds to his widow and eldest son for as long as they lived. Ward, with the sometime editorial assistance of Thomas Gataker, Ambrose Wood, and his younger brother Nathaniel, published a number of immensely popular sermons between 1615 and 1624. A collection of his eminently quotable sermons and treatises appeared in 1627 and again in 1636.
cf gunpowder plot
GREENHAM, RICHARD (D. 1594)
Pastor and preacher. Greenham was likely born in the early or mid 1540s. He matriculated at Pembroke Hall in 1559 and graduated B.A. in 1564. He received his M.A. in 1567, becoming a fellow of that college. He accepted the living of Dry Drayton, a rural parish of around thirty households located five miles from Cambridge,
in the summer of 1570.
In 1573, Greenham was threatened with suspension for refusing to subscribe. Though he signed two letters supporting Thomas Cartwright in 1570, he generally opposed efforts to divide the church. Greenham played a central role in the 1580 anti Familist campaign. He also attacked Separatists such as Martin Marprelate.
At Dry Dayton, Greenham turned his household into a seminary for young men aspiring to the ministry. His pupils included Arthur Hildersham. Over the years his students took extensive notes on his actions and advice, which were copied and circulated and, along with notes of his sermons, became the core of the five
posthumous editions of his Works.
In 1591, Greenham moved to London, where he became lecturer at Christ Church, Newgate. He became part of the steady influx of puritans from the provinces in the 1590s that sustained the London nonconformist community, which was under pressure from Bishop Aylmer and Archbishop Whitgift. He remained in London during the virulent outbreak of plague in 1593, preaching a series of well attended fast sermons. He died late in April 1594 of unknown causes
George Gifford (1548-1600)
Church of England clergyman and prolific writer of “sociological” Protestant tracts. Gifford was born in Dry Drayton, Cambridgeshire. Graduating from Christ’s
College, Cambridge, in 1570, he became an undermaster at Brentwood School, Essex. Although he was still a layman, the archdeacon of Essex allowed him to speak at the “prophesyings” held in Brentwood on the grounds that he was a learned and able teacher.
Ordained by John Aylmer, bishop of London, in 1578, Gifford served a brief curacy at All Saints and St. Peter Maldon, Essex, before his institution as vicar there in August 1582. He was probably the chief organizer at this time of the Braintree conference of ministers. In March 1584 Aylmer suspended him for refusing to subscribe Archbishop John Whitgift’s newly imposed Three Articles, and although William Cecil, Lord Burghley, intervened on Gifford’s behalf he was deprived by the
High Commission in June or July, the only Essex minister to lose his benefice during the subscription crisis.
Compromise was effected, and Gifford remained in Maldon for the rest of his life as town preacher, continuing to lead the Braintree conference. Following a
further suspension for refusing the surplice in July 1586, he joined Robert Earl of Leicester in the Low Countries as a chaplain to the English troops. After Sir Philip
Sidney was fatally wounded at Zutphen on 22 Sept 1586, Gifford remained with him until he died on 17 October. Gifford wrote The Manner of Sir Philip Sidney’s
Death, perhaps at the request of Lady Rich, the “Stella” of Sidney’s sonnets. It remained in manuscript until 1973.
In March 1587, with other members of the Braintree conference, Gifford petitioned Parliament for restoration to his public ministry. He was restored by early 1589, and Aylmer and Whitgift made no further serious attempt to pursue him. He was not examined during the Star Chamber trials of 1590–1591, which followed the exposure of the conference movement and the pursuit of “Martin Marprelate” and the separatist leaders.
One of the most prolific of godly writers, Gifford’s works blended practical piety with common sense and the level headed defense of a moderate, evangelizing Protestant tradition. In 1581 he dedicated to Ambrose Earl of Warwick his most reprinted work, A Briefe discourse of certaine points of the religion, which is among the common sort of Christians, which may be termed the Countrie Divinitie. This proved the inspiration for Arthur Dent’s even more popular The plaine mans pathe way to heaven (1601).
A stream of publications followed during the last nineteen years of Gifford’s life. In A dialogue betweene a papist and a protestant (1582), he coined the
phrase “church papist.” A Discourse of the Subtill Practices of Devilles by Witches and Sorcerers (1587) and A Dialogue concerning Witches and Witchcraftes (1593) have appealed to historians for their moderation and to literary critics for their possible influence upon Shakespeare.
What above all carried Gifford through the crisis years of 1589–1591 was his uncompromising denunciationof separatism. From 1588 he conducted a personal campaign against John Greenwood and Henry Barrow, in 1590 publishing A short treatise against the Donatists of England, whome we call Brownists and A Plaine Declaration that our Brownists be full Donatists, both dedicated to Lord Burghley. A Short Reply unto the Last Printed Books of Henry Barrow and John Greenwood appeared in 1591.
Gifford’s numerous treatises were complemented by a succession of sermons, over forty in all, published either singly or in bulk. His will (dated 8 May, probated
31 May 1600) appointed his wife, Agnes, as sole executrix and left bequests to six sons and two daughters.
Thomas Rogers ( 1550-1616)
Rector of Horringer, Suffolk until his death - owner of an impressive library, translator of books (which he adapted to his godly preferences, for instance in 1580, The imitation of Christ, a traditional work on 15th century mystic Thomas a Kempis). Initially refused to subscribe but then grew tired of PN opposition and of “factious spirits”. he believed that the BCP should be changed in a few places to solve the subscription crisis.
Around Xmas 1589, Bury combination lectures turned to a controversial passage Romans, 12, 6-8 ( the different gifts within the church, often used by PBTians to justify their four-fold division of ministry).
When it was ROgers’s turn instead of turning to the next verse inPaul’s epistle, he preached against A fruitful sermon, (probably by Chaderton) vindictively.
=> he was “secluded”, taken out of the preaching rota.
He put his sermon into print in 1590.
+ author of a manuscript which provides evidence of combination lectures at Bury St Edmund. (Source: Collinson and Cragi, p. cv et seq; AMZ)
