“A special kindness for dead bishops”: The Church, History, and Testimony in Seventeenth-Century Protestantism

• Published in: The Huntington Library quarterly Vol. 68; no. 1-2; pp. 313 - 334
• Main Author: Spurr, John
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Philadelphia University of California Press 01.03.2005; University of Pennsylvania Press
• Subjects: 17th century; Beliefs; Bible; Bishops; Christian history; Christianity; Church fathers; Churches; Divinity; English language; Essays; Fathers; Greek language; Historiography; Language history; Latin language; Orthodox Church; Parents & parenting; Protestant churches; Protestant Reformation; Protestantism; Protestants; Religion; Religious history; Theology
• DOI: 10.1525/hlq.2005.68.1-2.313
• ISSN: 0018-7895

In English Protestant apologetics of the seventeenth century, John Spurr shows, Church history was a major part of controversies over the canon of Scripture, the significance of the Greek and Latin Fathers, and the development of Christianity in the British Isles. Such debates illustrate the breadth and centrality of historical reflection within English Protestantism but also reveal the partisan uses of church history and, in particular, how theological and intellectual pedigrees for seventeenth-century positions were constructed from the testimony of eminent divines of the immediate and distant past. Such uses of the past are evident in both published works and private marginalia. Not only does this material attest to the seventeenth century's acute sense of the past as a series of personal testimonies, but it also endorses current views of seventeenth-century English religion as a fluid and even negotiable set of spiritual options, personal allegiances, and historical affiliations.