Vestments controversy

In a Latin letter dated October 3, 1550, Hooper laid out his argument contra usum vestium.[lower-alpha 2] He argued that vestments should not be used as they are not indifferent, nor is their use supported by scripture. He contends that church practices must either have express biblical support or be things indifferent, approval for which is implied by scripture. He then all but excludes the possibility of anything being indifferent in the four conditions he sets:

1) An indifferent thing has either an express justification in scripture or is implied by it, finding its origin and foundation in scripture.

Hooper cites Romans 14:23b (whatsoever is not of faith is sin), Romans 10:17 (faith cometh from hearing, and hearing by the word of God), and Matthew 15:13 (every plant not planted by God will be rooted up) to argue that indifferent things must be done in faith, and since what cannot be proved from scripture is not of faith, indifferent things must be proved from scripture, which is both necessary and sufficient authority, as opposed to tradition. He maintains that priestly garb distinguishing clergy from laity is not indicated by scripture; there is no mention of it in the New Testament as being in use in the early church, and the use of priestly clothing in the Old Testament is a Hebrew practice, a type or foreshadowing that finds its antitype in Christ, who abolishes the old order and recognises the spiritual equality, or priesthood, of all Christians. The historicity of these claims is supported by reference to Polydore Vergil's De Inventoribus Rerum.

In response, Ridley rejected Hooper's insistence on biblical origins and countered Hooper's interpretations of his chosen biblical texts. He pointed out that many non-controversial practices are not mentioned or implied in scripture. Ridley denied that early church practices are normative for the present situation, and he linked such arguments with the Anabaptists. Ridley joked that Hooper's reference to Christ's nakedness on the cross is as insignificant as the clothing King Herod put Christ in and "a jolly argument" for the Adamites.

Ridley did not dispute Hooper's main typological argument, but neither did he accept that vestments are necessarily or exclusively identified with Israel and the Roman Catholic Church. On Hooper's point about the priesthood of all believers, Ridley said it does not follow from this doctrine that all Christians must wear the same clothes.

2) An indifferent thing must be left to individual discretion; if required, it is no longer indifferent.

For Ridley, on matters of indifference, one must defer conscience to the authorities of the church, or else "thou showest thyself a disordered person, disobedient, as [a] contemner of lawful authority, and a wounder of thy weak brother his conscience." For him, the debate was finally about legitimate authority, not the merits and demerits of vestments themselves. He contended that it is only accidental that the compulsory ceases to be indifferent; the degeneration of a practice into non-indifference can be corrected without throwing out the practice. Things are not, "because they have been abused, to be taken away, but to be reformed and amended, and so kept still."

3) An indifferent thing's usefulness must be demonstrated and not introduced arbitrarily.

For this point, Hooper cites 1 Corinthians 14 and 2 Corinthians 13. As it contradicts the first point above, Primus contends that Hooper must now refer to indifferent things in the church and earlier meant indifferent things in general, in the abstract. The apparent contradiction was seized by Ridley and undoubtedly hurt Hooper's case with the council.

4) Indifferent things must be introduced into the church with apostolic and evangelical lenity, not violent tyranny.

Ridley warned Hooper of the implications of an attack on English ecclesiastical and civil authority and of the consequences of radical individual liberties, while also reminding him that it was Parliament that established the "Book of Common Prayer in the church of England".

Hooper accepted neither Ridley's rejoinder, nor the offer of a compromise. Heinrich Bullinger, Pietro Martire Vermigli, and Martin Bucer, while agreeing with Hooper's views, ceased to support him; only John a Lasco remained an ally.

Some time in mid-December 1550, Hooper was put under house arrest, during which time he wrote and published A godly Confession and protestacion of the Christian faith, an effort at self-vindication in the form of 21 articles in a general confession of faith. In it, Hooper denounced Anabaptism and emphasised obedience to civil authorities. Because of this publication, his persistent nonconformism, and violations of the terms of his house arrest, Hooper was placed in Thomas Cranmer's custody at Lambeth Palace for two weeks by the Privy Council on January 13, 1551. During this time, Peter Martyr visited Hooper three times in attempts to persuade him to conform but attributed his failure to another visitor, probably John a Lasco, who encouraged the opposite.

Hooper was then sent to Fleet Prison by the council, who made that decision on January 27. John Calvin and Bullinger both wrote to him at this time; Calvin counselled Hooper that the issue was not worth such resistance. On February 15, Hooper submitted to consecration in vestments in a letter to Cranmer, was consecrated Bishop of Gloucester on March 8, 1551, and shortly thereafter, preached before the king in vestments. The 1552 revised Prayer Book omitted the vestments rubrics that had been the occasion for the controversy.

One of those who signed nolo and a former Marian exile, Robert Crowley, vicar of St Giles-without-Cripplegate, instigated the first open protest. Though he was suspended on March 28 for his nonconformity, he was among many who ignored their suspension. On April 23, Crowley confronted six laymen (some sources say choristers) of St Giles who had come to the church in surplices for a funeral. According to John Stow's Memoranda, Crowley stopped the funeral party at the door. Stow says Crowley declared "the church was his, and the queen had given it him during his life and made him vicar thereof, wherefore he would rule that place and would not suffer any such superstitious rags of Rome there to enter." By another account, Crowley was backed by his Curate and one Sayer who was Deputy of the Ward. In this version, Crowley ordered the men in surplices "to take off these porter's coats", with the Deputy threatening to knock them flat if they broke the peace. Either way, it seems Crowley succeeded in driving off the men in vestments.

Stow records two other incidents on April 7, Palm Sunday. At Little All Hallows on Thames Street, a nonconforming Scot precipitated a fight with his preaching. (Stow notes that the Scot typically preached twice a day at St Magnus-the-Martyr, where Coverdale was rector. Coverdale was also ministering to a secret congregation at this time.) The sermon was directed against vestments with "bitter and vehement words" for the queen and conforming clergy. The minister of the church had conformed to preserve his vocation, but he was seen smiling at the preacher's "vehement talk". Noticing this, a dyer and a fishmonger questioned the minister, which led to an argument and a fight between pro- and anti-vestment parishioners. Stow mentions that by June 3, this Scot had changed his tune and was preaching in a surplice. For this, he was attacked by women who threw stones at him, pulled him out of the pulpit, tore his surplice, and scratched his face. Similar disturbances over vestments from 1566 to 1567 are described in Stow's Memoranda.

At St Mary Magdalen, where the minister had apparently been suspended, Stow says the parish succeeded in getting a minister appointed to serve communion on Palm Sunday, but when the conforming minister came away from the altar to read the gospel and epistle, a member of the congregation had his servant steal the cup and bread. This and Crowley's actions were related to Cecil in letters by Parker, who reported that the latter disturbance was instigated "because the bread was not common"—i.e. it was not an ordinary loaf of bread but a wafer that was used for the eucharist. Parker also reported that "divers churchwardens to make a trouble and a difficulty, will provide neither surplice nor bread" (Archbishop Parker's Correspondence, 278). Stow indicates there were many other such disturbances throughout the city on Palm Sunday and Easter.

At about this time, Bishop Grindal found that one Bartlett, divinity lecturer at St Giles, had been suspended but was still carrying out that office without a licence. "Three-score women of the same parish" appealed to Grindal on Bartlett's behalf but were rebuffed in preference for "a half-dozen of their husbands", as Grindal reported to Cecil (Grindal's Remains, 288–89). Crowley himself assumed this lectureship before the end of the year after being deprived and placed under house arrest, which indicates the cat-and-mouse game being played at the parish level to frustrate the campaign for conformity.

Crowley's actions at St Giles led to a complaint from the Lord Mayor to Archbishop Parker, and Parker summoned Crowley and Sayer, the Deputy of the Ward. Crowley expressed his willingness to go to prison, insisting he would not allow surplices and would not cease his duties unless he was discharged. Parker told him he was indeed discharged, and Crowley then declared he would only accept discharge from a law court, a clear shot at the weakness of Parker's authority. Crowley was put under house arrest in the custody of the bishop of Ely from June to October. Sayer, the Deputy, was bound over for £100 and was required to appear again before Parker if there was more trouble. Crowley stuck to his principles and was fully deprived after Parker's three-month grace period had elapsed, whereupon he was sent to Cox, the Bishop of Ely. On October 28, an order was issued to the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of London to settle Crowley's case (Archbishop Parker's Correspondence, 275f.). By 1568–69, Crowley had resigned or had been stripped of all his preferments. He returned to the printing trade, although that had been his immediate reaction in 1566 when he led the nonconformists in a bout of literary warfare. (See below.) In the face of such strong opposition from his subordinates and the laity, Parker feared for his life and continued to appeal to Cecil for backing from the government.

Title page to A Briefe Discourse Against the Outwarde Apparel of the Popishe Church (1566)

While under arrest, Crowley published three editions (including one in Emden) of A Briefe Discourse Against the Outwarde Apparel of the Popishe Church (1566). Patrick Collinson has called this "the earliest puritan manifesto". The title page quotes from Psalm 31; intriguingly, it is closest to the English of the Bishops' Bible (1568): "I have hated all those that holde of superstitious vanities". (See image at right.) Stow claims this work was a collaborative project, with all the nonconforming clergy giving their advice in writing to Crowley. At the same time, many other anti-vestiarian tracts were circulating in the streets and churches. By May, Henry Denham, the printer of A briefe Discourse, had been jailed, but the writers escaped punishment because, according to Stow, "they had friends enough to have set the whole realm together by the ears."

As his title suggests, Crowley inveighed relentlessly against the evil of vestments and stressed the direct responsibility of preachers to God rather than to men. Moreover, he stressed God's inevitable vengeance against the use of vestments and the responsibility of rulers for tolerance of such "vain toys". Arguing for the importance of edification based on 1 Corinthians 13:10, Ephesians 2:19–21 and Ephesians 4:11–17, Crowley states that unprofitable ceremonies and rites must be rejected, including vestments, until it is proved they will edify the church. Taking up the argument that vestments are indifferent, Crowley is clearer than Hooper as he focuses not on indifference in general but indifferent things in the church. Though the tenor of his writing and that of his compatriots is that vestments are inherently evil, Crowley grants that in themselves, they may be things indifferent, but crucially, when their use is harmful, they are no longer indifferent, and Crowley is certain they are harmful in their present use. They are a hindrance to the simple who regard vestments and the office of the priest superstitiously because their use encourages and confirms the papists. Crowley's circumventing of higher ecclesiastical and state authority is the most radical part of the text and defines a doctrine of passive resistance. However, in this, Crowley is close to the "moderate" view espoused by Calvin and Bullinger, as opposed to the more radical, active resistance arguments of John Knox and John Ponet. Nevertheless, Crowley's position was radical enough for his antagonists when he asserted that no human authority may contradict divine disapproval for that which is an abuse, even if the abuse arises from a thing that is indifferent. Crowley presents many other arguments from scripture, and he cites Bucer, Martyr, Ridley and Jewel as anti-vestment supporters. In the end, Crowley attacks his opponents as "bloudy persecuters" whose "purpose is ... to deface the glorious Gospell of Christ Jesus, which thing they shall never be able to bring to passe." A concluding prayer calls to God for the abolition of "al dregs of Poperie and superstition that presently trouble the state of thy Church."

A response to Crowley that is thought to have been commissioned by and/or written by Parker, also in 1566, notes how Crowley's argument challenges the royal supremacy and was tantamount to rebellion. (The full title is A Brief Examination for the Tyme of a Certaine Declaration Lately Put in Print in the name and defence of certaine ministers in London, refusyng to weare the apparell prescribed by the lawes and orders of the Realme.) Following an opening that expresses a reluctance to respond to folly, error, ignorance, and arrogance on its own terms, A Brief Examination engages in a point-by-point refutation of Crowley, wherein Bucer, Martyr and Ridley are marshalled for support. A new development emerges as a rebuttal of Crowley's elaboration of the argument that vestments are wholly negative. Now they are presented as positive goods, bringing more reverence and honor to the sacraments. The evil of disobedience to legitimate authority is a primary theme and is used to respond to the contention that vestments confuse the simple. Rather, it is argued that disobedience to authority is more likely to lead the simple astray. Further, as items conducive to order and decency, vestments are part of the church's general task as defined by Saint Paul, though they are not expressly mandated. Appended to the main argument are five translated letters exchanged under Edward VI between Bucer and Cranmer (one has a paragraph omitted that expresses reservations about vestments causing superstition) and between Hooper, a Lasco, Bucer and Martyr.

Following this retort came another nonconformist pamphlet, which J. W. Martin speculatively attributes to Crowley: An answere for the Tyme, to the examination put in print, without the author's name, pretending to mayntayne the apparrell prescribed against the declaration of the mynisters of London (1566). Nothing new is said, but vestments are now emphatically described as idolatrous abuses with reference to radically iconoclastic Old Testament texts. By this point, the idea that vestments are inherently indifferent had been virtually abandoned and seems to be contradicted at one point in the text. The contradiction is resolved, tenuously, with the point that vestments do possess a theoretical indifference apart from all practical considerations, but their past usage (i.e. their abuse) thoroughly determines their present and future evil and non-indifference. The author declares that vestments are monuments "of a thing that is left or set up for a remembraunce, which is Idolatry, and not onely remembraunce, but some aestimacion: therefore they are monumentes of idolatry." The argument in A Brief Examination for the church's prerogative in establishing practices not expressly mandated in scripture is gleefully attacked as an open door to papistry and paganism: the mass, the pope, purgatory, and even the worship of Neptune are not expressly forbidden, but that does not make them permissible. It becomes clear in the development of this point that the nonconformist faction believed that the Bible always had at least a general relevance to every possible question and activity: "the scripture hath left nothing free or indifferent to mens lawes, but it must agree with those generalle condicions before rehearsed, and such like." On the issue of authority and obedience, the author grants that one should often obey even when evil is commanded by legitimate authorities, but such authority is said not to extend beyond temporal (as opposed to ecclesiastical) matters—a point in which we may see a clear origin of English anti-prelatical/anti-episcopal sentiment and separatism. The author regards it as more dangerous for the monarch to exercise his authority beyond what scripture allows than for subjects to restrain this authority. Every minister must be able to judge the laws to see if they are in line "wyth gods word or no". Moreover, even the lowest in the ecclesiastical hierarchy are ascribed as great an authority regarding "the ministration of the word and sacraments" as any bishop.

Also in 1566, a letter on vestments from Bullinger to Humphrey and Sampson dated May 1 of that year (in response to questions they had posed to him) was published. It was taken as a decisive defence of conformity since it matched the position of the Marian exiles who had accepted bishoprics while hoping for future reforms. Bullinger was incensed by the publication and effect of his letter. It elicited a further nonconformist response in The judgement of the Reverend Father Master Henry Bullinger, Pastor of the church of Zurick, in certeyne matters of religion, beinge in controversy in many countreys, even where as the Gospel is taught. Based on Bullinger's Decades, this tract tried to muster support for nonconformity on vestments from five points not directly related to but underlying that issue: 1) the corrupt nature of traditions and the primacy of scripture, 2) the equality of clergy, 3) the non-exclusive power of the bishops to ordain ministers, 4) the limited scope of the authority of civil magistrates, and 5) the sole headship of Christ in the church—a re-emphasis of the second point.

Two other nonconformist tracts appeared, both deploying established authorities such as St Ambrose, Theophilactus of Bulgaria, Erasmus, Bucer, Martyr, John Epinus of Hamburg, Matthias Flacius Illyricus, Philipp Melanchthon, a Lasco, Bullinger, Wolfgang Musculus of Bern, and Rodolph Gualter. These were The mynd and exposition of that excellente learned man Martyn Bucer, upon these wordes of S. Matthew: woo be to the wordle bycause of offences. Matth. xviii (1566) and The Fortress of Fathers, ernestlie defending the puritie of Religion and Ceremonies, by the trew exposition of certaine places of Scripture: against such as wold bring an Abuse of Idol stouff, and of thinges indifferent, and do appoinct th' authority of Princes and Prelates larger than the truth is (1566). New developments in these pamphlets are the use of arguments against English prelates that were originally aimed at the Roman church, the labelling of the conformist opposition as Antichrist, and advocacy for separation from such evil. Such sharp material militates in favour of taking 1566 as beginning of English Presbyterianism, at least in a theoretical sense.

A conformist response answered in the affirmative the question posed in its title, Whether it be mortall sinne to transgresse civil lawes, which be the commaundementes of civill Magistrates (1566). This text also drew on Melanchthon, Bullinger, Gualter, Bucer, and Martyr. Eight letters between ecclesiastics from the reign of Edward VI to Elizabeth were included, and a no longer extant tract thought to have been written by Cox or Jewel is discussed at some length. Following suit, a non-conformist collection of letters (To my lovynge brethren that is troublyd about the popishe aparrell, two short and comfortable Epistels) by Anthony Gilby and James Pilkington was published in Emden by E. Van der Erve. The collection begins with an undated, unaddressed letter, but it appears in another tract attributed to Gilby (A pleasaunt Dialogue, betweene a Souldior of Barwicke and an English Chaplaine), where it is dated May 10, 1566, and is addressed to Miles Coverdale, William Turner, Whittingham, Sampson, Humphrey, Lever, Crowley, "and others that labour to roote out the weedes of Poperie." The date of the letter is not certain however, since it also appears under Gilby's name, with the date 1570 in a collection called A parte of a register..., which was printed in Edinburgh by Robert Waldegrave in 1593 but was then suppressed.

Regarding Gilby's dialogue, the full title reads: A pleasaunt Dialogue, betweene a Souldior of Barwicke and an English Chaplaine; wherein are largely handled and laide open, such reasons as are brought in for maintenaunce of Popishe Traditions in our English Church, &c. Togither with a letter of the same Author, placed before this booke in way of a Preface. 1581. (This is the only extant version of this tract, barring a later 1642 edition, but it was probably printed earlier as well.) A second title inside the book reads: "A pleasaunt Dialogue, conteining a large discourse betweene a Souldier of Barwick and an English Chaplain, who of a late Souldier was made a Parson, and had gotten a pluralitie of Benefices, and yet had but one eye, and no learning: but he was priestly apparailed in al points, and stoutly maintained his Popish attire, by the authoritie of a booke lately written against London Ministers." In the dialogue, a soldier, Miles Monopodios, is set against Sir Bernarde Blynkarde, who is a corrupt pluralist minister, a former soldier and friend of Monopodios, and a wearer of vestments. In the process of correcting Blynkarde, Monopodios lists 100 vestiges of popery in the English church, including 24 unbiblical "offices".

Digital facsimiles of many of the primary sources listed in this entry can be accessed through Early English Books Online (EEBO).