William Laud

"Now though in nature the Commonwealth go first; first men, before religious and faithful men; and the Church can have no being but in the Commonwealth: yet in grace the Church goes first; religious and godly men, better than men; and the Commonwealth can have no blessed and happy being, but by the Church. For true religion ever blesses a State: provided that they which profess it do not in their lives dishonour both God and it."

"So the Church and the Commonwealth, God's house, "the Temple," and the King's house, "the house of David," are met in my text. And they would ever meet, and in love, no question, did not some distempered spirits breathe sour upon them. For the Church cannot dwell but in the State. You never read that she "fled" out of the State "into the wilderness," but when some "dragon" persecuted her. And the Commonwealth cannot flourish without the Church: for where the Church is not to teach true religion, States are enforced, out of necessity of some, to embrace a false; and a false is not a help to make a kingdom flourish. But when they dwell together, when the Church, the house of grace, is a welcome inmate to the State, which is a wise fabric of nature, then in the Temple there is meeting; "the people go up to bless and praise the name of the Lord." And then in the State there is meeting, to settle the "thrones of judgment," to make firm "the house of David." And then, and never but then, "Jerusalem," that is, both State and Church, "is as a city that is at unity in itself.""

"And one thing more I will be bold to speak out of a like duty to the Church of England, and the "house of David." They, whoever they be, that would overthrow sedes Ecclesiæ, the "seats of ecclesiastical government," will not spare, if ever they get power, to have a pluck at the "throne of David." And there is not a man that is for "parity," all fellows in the Church,—but he is not for monarchy in the State."

"[T]he King is God's immediate lieutenant upon earth; and therefore one and the same action is God's by ordinance, and the King's by execution. And the power which resides in the King is not any assuming to himself, nor any gift from the people, but God's power, as well in, as over, him."

"I had a serious offer made me again to be a Cardinal. ... But my answer again was, that something dwelt within me which would not suffer that, till Rome were other than it is."

"I do not deny but that Calvin's Institutions may profitably be read, and as one of their first books for divinity, when they are well grounded in other learning; but to begin with it so soon, I am afraid doth not only hinder them from all grounds of judicious learning, but also too much possess their judgments before they are able to judge, and makes many of them humourous in, if not against the Church."

"Whereas it hath been alleged before our well-beloved Sir Nathaniel Brent, knight, our vicar-general, that your said parish being very great and populous, divers of your parishioners have no seats in the church appointed to them, and that others that have been placed in seats are often disturbed, thronged, and sometimes kept quite out of their own seats by others that unmannerly and rudely thrust them selves in contrary to all good order, for the reforming of which disorder petition hath been made to our said vicar-general, that by our authority a commission might be granted to four particular persons to reform this disorder, and to place and displace the parishioners of the said parish according as upon examination of this business they shall in their discretion find to be agreeable to reason and equity, so as men and women may be placed in the church according to their conditions, qualities, and degrees."

"For my care of this Church, the reducing of it into order, the upholding of the external worship of God in it, and the settling of it to the rules of its first reformation, are the causes (and the sole causes, whatever are pretended) of all this malicious storm, which hath lowered so black upon me, and some of my brethren."

"[I]t is versus altare, 'towards His altar', as the greatest place of God's residence upon earth. I say the greatest, yea, greater than the pulpit; for there 'tis Hoc est corpus meum, 'This is My body'; but in the pulpit 'tis at most but Hoc est verbum meum, 'This is My word'. And a greater reverence, no doubt, is due to the body than to the word of our Lord."

"I know the Jesuits are very cunning at these tricks; but if you have no more hold of your printers, than that the press must lie thus open to their corruption."

"[T]he ship-money, the most necessary and most honourable business both for the King and the kingdom, that ever was set on foot in my memory; and I am clear of opinion that if it be so carried that the conformable party be scorned by the refractory, the most orderly men will be disheartened, and the business itself miscarry."

"The tumults in Scotland, about the Service-Book offered to be brought in, began Julii 23, 1637, and continued increasing by fits, and hath now brought that kingdom in danger. No question, but there's a great concurrence between them [the Covenanters] and the Puritan party in England. A great aim there to destroy me in the King's opinion."

"[W]e find, that besides articles and canons and rubrics, &c., the Church of Christ had ever certain customs which prevailed in her practice, and had no canon for them; and if all such may be kicked out, you may bid farewell to all decency and order. In the mean time I will acquaint his majesty with this distemper growing, that the blame may not be cast upon me."

"You cannot have a greater desire to conform Ireland to the Church of England, than I (and this with as seeming great a desire of the King) to conform Scotland to the Church of England."

"Never were there more gross absurdities, nor half so many in so short a time, committed in any public meeting; and for a National Assembly never did the Church of Christ see the like."

"Mr. Alex. Henderson, who went all this while for a quiet and well-spirited man, hath showed himself a most violent and passionate man, and a Moderator without moderation. Truly, my Lord, never did I see any man of that humour yet, but he was deep dyed in some violence or other; and it would have been a wonder to me if Henderson had held free. Good my Lord, since you are good in the active part, in the commixture of wisdom and patience, hold it out till the people may see the violence and injustice of them that would be their leaders, and suffer not a rupture till there be no remedy."

"Wednesday, Coronation-day, King Charles took his journey northward, against the Scottish covenanting rebels. God of His infinite mercy bless him with health and success."

"I have been informed that some masters come to St. Mary's, and stand or sit there bare in sermon time, not out of any devotion, but only to hide their hats... [R]equire every of them to look strictly to their several charges, and to assist you in all things according to the statutes in the university; in which if any man shall fail, I shall take it so much the worse from him, as there is greater necessity to hold up good order in the brokenness of these times."

"[N]o man can set a better state of the question between Scripture and tradition, than Hooker doth. His words are these: "The Scripture is the ground of our belief; the authority of man (that is the name he gives to tradition) is the key which openeth the door of entrance into the knowledge of the Scripture." ... [W]e resolve our faith into Scripture as the ground; and we will never deny that tradition is the key that lets us in."

"The time was, before this miserable rent in the Church of Christ—which I think no true Christian can look upon but with a bleeding heart—that you and we were all of one belief. That belief was tainted, in tract and corruption of times, very deeply."

"There is a great deal of difference, especially as Romanists handle the question of the Church, between the Church and a Church; and there is some between a true Church and a right Church, which is the word you use, but no man else that I know: I am sure not I. For “the Church” may import in our language “the only true Church;” and, perhaps, as some of you seem to make it, “the root and the ground of the Catholic.” And this I never did grant of the Roman Church, nor ever mean to do. But “a Church” can imply no more than that it is a member of the whole. And this I never did nor ever will deny, if it fall not absolutely away from Christ. That it is a “true Church,” I granted also; but not a “right,” as you impose upon me."

"[P]rivate spirits are too giddy to rest upon Scripture, and too heady and shallow to be acquainted with demonstrative arguments."

"Why, but the Roman Church and the Church of England are but two distinct members of that Catholic Church which is spread over the face of the earth. Therefore Rome is not the house where the Church dwells; but Rome itself, as well as other particular churches, dwells in this great universal house."

"Thus I said, and thus I say still; for though the foundation be one and the same in all, yet a "latitude" there is, and a large one too, when you come to consider, not the foundation common to all, but things necessary to many particular men's salvation."

"As for that in which he is quite mistaken, it is his inference, which is this: "That I should therefore consider carefully, whether it be not more Christian, and less brain-sick, to think that the pope, being S. Peter's successor, with a General Council, should be judge of controversies, &c., and that the pastoral judgment of him should be accounted infallible, rather than to make every man that can read the Scripture interpreter of Scripture, decider of controversies, controller of General Councils, and judge of his judges: or to have no judge at all of controversies of faith, but permit every man to believe as he list; as if there were no infallible certainty of faith to be expected on earth; which were, instead of one saving faith, to induce a Babylonical confusion of so many faiths as fancies, or no true Christian faith at all. From which evils, sweet Jesus, deliver us!" I have considered of this very carefully; but this inference supposes that which I never granted, nor any Protestant that I yet know—namely, that if I deny the pope to be judge of controversies, I must by and by either leave this supreme judicature in the hands and power of every private man, that can but read the Scripture, or else allow no judge at all, and so let in all manner of confusion. No, God forbid that I should grant either: for I have expressly declared, "That the Scripture, interpreted by the Primitive Church, and a lawful and free General Council determining according to these, is judge of controversies: and that no private man whatsoever is or can be judge of these.""

"Tuesday, Simon and Jude's eve, I went into my upper study, to see some manuscripts, which I was sending to Oxford. In that study hung my picture, taken by the life. And coming in, I found it fallen down upon the face, and lying on the floor. The string being broken, by which it was hanged against the wall. I am almost every day threatened with my ruin in Parliament. God grant this be no omen."

"Psal. cx. the people are said 'to offer their freewill offerings with an holy worship,' or 'in the beauties of holiness:' and though, perhaps, his Lordship will not allow of this translation, yet so far he may as to see the use of the phrase. And 'in the beauties of holiness,' (which keeps close to the original,) will please him less; since a barn with them is as good as a church; and no church holy with them, but that which is slovenly even to nastiness; but then 'tis void of all superstition."

"For preaching is a speech to man for his edification and instruction in faith and good life. But prayer is a speech to God, to honour and worship Him, in the acknowledgment of His dominion over, and His bounty and goodness towards all creatures, but mankind especially. And therefore, though a man cannot take too much pains in that which he is to speak from God to man, lest he be proved a false relater; yet of the two, there should be more care had, what prayers he puts up for himself and the whole congregation, unto God; lest he be not only a false worshipper, but also, lest he suddenly and unadvisedly ask that, which may be hurtful unto all."

"So that ill praying in public contains almost all the mischiefs that ill preaching hath in it, over and above all the ill that is proper to itself: and so is the more dangerous sin: and therefore the Church cannot be too careful for a set and known form for public prayer; yea, and that enjoined too, so it be well weighed beforehand; though for preaching she leave a greater latitude. So upon consideration, I think there is more difference between a set form of prayer, and a set form of preaching, than that we are invited to the one, and not to the other."

"[A]lmost all of them say that God from all eternity reprobates by far the greater part of mankind to eternal fire, without any eye at all to their sin. Which opinion my very soul abominates. For it makes God, the God of all mercies, to be the most fierce and unreasonable tyrant in the world. For the question is not here, what God may do by an absolute act of power, would He so use it upon the creature which He made of nothing: but what He hath done, and what stands with His wisdom, justice, and goodness to do."

"Ever since I came in place, I laboured nothing more, than that the external public worship of God (too much slighted in most parts of this kingdom) might be preserved, and that with as much decency and uniformity as might be; being still of opinion, that unity cannot long continue in the Church, where uniformity is shut out at the church door."

"[M]y care was against all underminings, both at home and abroad, of the established doctrine and discipline of the Church of England, for which I am now like to suffer. And I pray God that point of Arminianism, libertas prophetandi [the right to proclaim different opinions], do not more mischief in short time, than is expressible by me."

"I have nothing to do to defend Arminianism, no man having yet charged me with the abetting any point of it... [F]or the peace of Christendom, and the strengthening of the reformed religion, I do heartily wish these differences were not pursued with such heat and animosity, in regard that all the Lutheran Protestants are of the very same opinions, or with very little difference from those which are now called Arminianism."

"For the other stuff which fills up this argument, that these 'changes and supplements are taken from the Mass-book, and other Romish rituals, and that by these the book is made to vary from the Book of England;' I cannot hold it worth an answer, till I see some particulars named... I would have them remember that we live in a Church reformed, not in one made new. Now all reformation that is good and orderly takes away nothing from the old, but that which is faulty and erroneous. If anything be good, it leaves that standing. So that if these changes from the Book of England be good, 'tis no matter whence they be taken. For every line in the Mass-book, or other popish rituals, are not all evil and corruptions. There are many good prayers in them; nor is anything evil in them, only because 'tis there. Nay, the less alteration is made in the public ancient service of the Church, the better it is, provided that nothing superstitious or evil in itself be admitted or retained."

"Shall I be accounted an enemy by one part for opposing the papist, and accused for a traitor by the other for favouring and complying with them? Well, if I do suffer thus, 'tis but because truth usually lies between two extremes, and is beaten by both (as the poor Church of England is, at this day, by the papist and the separatist). But in this, and all things else, in despite of all malice, truth shall be either my protection from suffering, or my comfort while I suffer; and by God's gracious assistance I shall never depart from it, but continue at the Apostle's ward, 2 Cor. xiii. Nihil possum contra veritatem, I can do nothing against the truth; and for it, I hope God will enable me patiently to suffer anything."

"I was borne and baptized in the bosome of the Church of England established by Law; in that profession I have ever since lived, and in that I come now to dye; This is no time to dissemble with God, least of all in matter of Religion; and therefore I desire it may be remembred, I have alwaies lived in the Protestant Religion, established in England, and in that I come now to dye. What Clamours and Slanders I have endured for labouring to keepe a Uniformity in the externall service of God, according to the Doctrine and Discipline of this Church, all men know, and I have abundautly felt."

"He was the last of the great ecclesiastical statesmen, perhaps because his example acted as a deterrent to any future aspirants to that position."

"[H]e did court persons too little; nor cared to make his designs and purposes appear as candid as they were, by showing them in any other dress than their own natural beauty and roughness, and did not consider enough what men said or were like to say of him."

"[T]he Commemoration called forth a number of anonymous communications (mostly on postcards) which strangely recall the kind of thing with which Archbishop Laud had to deal; and show that the spirit which animated the fanatic of his day is by no means extinct... and nobody who is acquainted with such "libels" as are preserved in the Record Office or in Lambeth Palace Library will have any difficulty in recognising the resemblance:—... "You are doing the work of the great Whore of Babylon and leading them to the Pope as your Laud did. And you deserve the same recompense as he received from his righteous judges. Curse you.""

"The greatest calamity ever visited upon the Church of England."

"His book against the Jesuit will be his lasting epitaph."

"Do you know whom I find the most tolerant churchman of that time? Laud! Laud got Davenant made Bishop of Salisbury, and he zealously befriended Chillingworth and Hales. (There was some other case, which I forget.)"

"From these two volumes [Laud's Diary and The History of his Troubles and Trial] it may be said that the great Tory and Church movement which was so striking a feature of the age of Anne received no inconsiderable part of its strength. The great figure round whom the later Caroline divines, the eminent writers of the reign of Charles II and the learned and chivalrous non-jurors, clustered, was undoubtedly William Laud, in whom the Church principles which they held dear seemed to be personified and hallowed. The publication of Laud's Works, and particularly his Devotions, exercised on Church feeling a parallel influence to that exercised on politics by the immortal history of Clarendon."

"I have been entreated by Mr. Governor and the rest of the merchants of Exon, to make known unto yourself and the merchants of the towne how far I have waded in the prosecution of the suit unto the King and the Lords, for some course to be taken to suppress the Turks and secure the trades. I have, therefore, sent you herewith enclosed the copies of all the petitions which have been preferred... Unto this my Lord Archbishop (Laud) hee gave this answer, striking his hands upon his breast, that while he hath breth in his bodie he would, to the uttermost of his power, advance a business so necessarie and consequentiall, and has assured me that his Majestie would take such course as that within this twelve months not a Turkish ship should be able to putt to sea; and at the Board his Grace was exceeding heartie in the business."

"Doctor Young the Lord Bishop of Rochester that Ordained him, finding his study raised above the Systems and Opinions of the age, upon the nobler foundation of the Fathers, Councils, and the Ecclesiastical Historians, easily presaged, "That if he lived he would be an instrument of restoring the Church from the narrow and private principles of modern times, to the more free, large, and publick sentiments of the purest and first Ages.""

"The Parliament was certainly far from faultless. We fully agree with Mr. Hallam in reprobating their treatment of Laud. For the individual, indeed, we entertain a more unmitigated contempt than for any other character in our history. The fondness with which a portion of the church regards his memory, can be compared only to that perversity of affection which sometimes leads a mother to select the monster or the idiot of the family as the object of her especial favour."

"That we have our Prayer-Book, our altar, even our Episcopacy itself, we may, humanly speaking, thank Laud... That our Articles have not a Genevan sense tied to them, and are not an intolerable burden to the Church, is owing to Laud. He rescued them from the fast tightening Calvinistic grasp, and left them, by his prefixed "Declaration", open. Laud saved the English Church... The English Church in her Catholic aspect is a memorial of Laud."

"I saw that the English Church had a theological idea or theory as such, and I took it up. I read Laud on Tradition, and thought it (as I still think it) very masterly."

"He is an excellent man, for he is very just, incorrupt, and above all, mistaken by the erring world."

"[H]e remains the Reformer par excellence of his own day, the Chief Advocate of the Working Classes, the Defender of the Poor, the Leader of the Educational Movement, an Administrator who endeavoured to exterminate the corruptions in the Civil Service, and an Ecclesiastic who proposed to widen the boundaries of the English Church."