English bishops and the salvation of protestantism 1660-1700

Abstract

The English episcopate of the so-called 'Long Eighteenth Century' has long been presented in scholarly writing as pastorally ineffective and institutionally irrelevant. The bishops of the late-seventeenth century are normally recounted in modern scholarship as unresponsive to criticisms and as the somnambulant predecessors of the quintessential 18th century bishops. Yet these same bishops emerged from an episcopate at the turn of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries that sympathisers presented as a dynamic force actively defending Protestantism from domestic and foreign enemies. Contemporary evidence reinforces this alternative reading of episcopal actions and of reactions to the episcopate, showing how bishops interacted with the major currents of political and social thought to validate episcopacy as suitable agent of reformed religious authority. This paper surveys a range of commentaries on episcopal responsibilities by Gilbert Burnet, William Sancroft, Thomas Tenison and other late-seventeenth century writers who endeavoured to neutralise contemporary arguments for the invalidity of episcopal authority in reformed religion by showing episcopacy as an agent of anti-Catholic security.