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The Percy-“Fisher” Controversies and the Ecclesiastical Politics of Jacobean Anti-Catholicism, 1622–1625

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

Timothy H. Wadkins
Timothy H. Wadkins
Affiliation:
Mr. Wadkins is a Ph.D. candidate in the Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley, California, and lecturer in the religious studies program inSan Jose State University, San Jose, California. This essay was awarded the 1987 Sidney E. Mead Prize.
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Extract

Theologically and ecclesiologically James I of England was a “Gentleman of Wide Swallow.” Although he did not possess the type of skepticism that later emerged in post-Restoration latitudinarianism, he did endorse as orthodox only those essential doctrines which Christians had agreed upon in the early centuries of the church, which were grounded in the “expresse word of God” and given their most basic formulation in the creeds. The king viewed himself as an irenic monarch, one who could bring peace to Christendom by promoting an accommodation to these essentials and compromise between conflicting parties. This was an ecumenical approach to religion for his day, and he believed he could help disagreeing Christians “meet in the middest which is the center and perfection of all things.”

Type
Research Article
Information
Church History , Volume 57 , Issue 2 , June 1988 , pp. 153 - 169
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Church History 1988

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References

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31. SP 14/124/1–9.42.

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46. RMD 47.1.1.If; D. 47.1.7.15f.

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50. Featley, , Fisher Catched, pp. 25, 26.Google Scholar

51. Percy, , Answere to a Pamphlet, p. 38.Google Scholar

52. Featley, , Romish Fisher Caught and Held in His Owne Net (London, 1624)Google Scholar, STC 10738, p.*3.

53. Featley, , Fisher Catched, p. 26.Google Scholar

54. Ibid., p. 3.

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58. Percy's account of this third debate is found in “A Brief Relation of What passed in a thirde private conference betweene a Bp. and me,” Manuscript. 1372.61v, 62, Lambeth Palace Library, London. This manuscript was expanded and printed in Percy's, True Relations, pp. 37–74.Google Scholar

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62. See Tyacke, Anti-Calvinists, chapter 7; also “A Declaration of Dr. White, Dean of Carlisle, touching his approbation of Mr. Richard Montague,” RMC 573.19–92, which contains reasons for White's approbation of Montague's work.

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