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Ausgabe: | Januar/2024 |
Spalte: | 82-84 |
Kategorie: | Kirchengeschichte: Neuzeit |
Autor/Hrsg.: | Pagán, Jonathan Warren |
Titel/Untertitel: | Giles Firmin and the Transatlantic Puritan Tradition. Polity, Piety, and Polemic. |
Verlag: | Leiden u. a.: Brill 2020. VIII, 318 S. = Studies in the History of Christian Tradition, 193. Geb. EUR 119,00. ISBN 9789004412910. |
Rezensent: | Paul Silas Peterson |
In the long wake of the anti-episcopacy Marprelate tracts of the 1580s, both before and especially after the English Civil War (or Parliamentarian Revolution), and the arrest in 1641 and later execution of the (authoritarian) Archbishop of Canterbury William Laud on 10 January 1645 (not 1643, [64]), English Protestantism, on both sides of the Atlantic (to differing degrees and in very different contexts), was engulfed in ecclesiological and theological debates, especially regarding church order, oversight appointments, the rules of worship, soteriology and sacramentology. These were magnified in the second half of the century after the reestablishment of the monarchy in 1660, the return of an archbishop and ensuing persecution of the »Dissenters«. This highly variegated dispute about church order and the fractures of disunity were to be put to rest by a decree »from above«, the Act of Uniformity of 1662. Yet the demand to conform to the Book of Common Prayer was rejected by a significant cross section of ministers and theologians, the »Non-Conformists« (who were subsequently ejected from office). The ultimate result of this drawn-out conflict was the shift to a new religious order of tolerance in 1689. Giles Firmin (1613/14–1697) was one of the figures who lived through this dramatic era and contributed to the debates. After his return to Old England in 1644 following a decade of medical employment in New England (Ipswich, Massachusetts) and fellowship there with the Congregationalists, especially his very influential father-in-law, Nathaniel Ward, Firmin entered the fray of post-Reformation dispute about the English church »truly reformed«.
Jonathan Warren Pagán presents him, very convincingly, as a borderline-independent, congregationally-minded Presbyterian, ejected Non-Conformist »Puritan« (or »godly«, P.’s preferred adjective) minister who belonged to the moderate wing of the Dissenters. The published dissertation is well-researched, nuanced and eloquently written and it helps us to understand this very interesting figure (who is not mentioned in the Companion to Non-Conformity and rarely addressed in other general studies). The bulk of the monograph, which is unfortunately somewhat scant on the biographical material, is dedicated to the reconstruction of five major debates (concerning ecclesial leadership and oversight, the order of salvation, non-conformity and the national church, paedo-baptism and the Baptist challenges and finally on Calvinism, antinomianism, justification and Arminianism) with subsequent presentation of Firmin’s positions in these and contributions to them. P.’s interpretive model reemerges in multiple places in the study, even on issues of personal piety, such as the exchange about »holy exercise« (as Baxter called Christian meditation, 142), where Firmin is presented as charting a middle-of-the-road course, often playing very intelligently in the gray areas between the many oppositional parties and schools (Independents, Congregationalists, Presbyterians, old-school Episcopalians, Special/Particular and General Baptists, Quakers, Armenians, hard-core Calvinists, United Brethren, Antinomians, Neonomians, among others). Of course, the epitaph of moderation is always perspectival, and in the fundamental point of church order disagreement among the various strands at this time Firmin sided (later in Old England) with the Presbyterians (against the Congregationalists position which he knew very well before this in New England) and asserted an »indefinite« quality of the presbyters, permitting them rights to church discipline outside their defined local parish. Perhaps there is, in fact, more discontinuity than P. allows. The post-ordination justification of his pre-ordination preaching seems to be more indicative of a genuine theological development, or as could well be argued, a cesura. Firmin’s later support of presbyter and synod power and the general anti-Anabaptist/Baptist and anti-Quaker mentality (a step toward »Heathenisch morality« leading to the »Mare mortuum« as he claimed, 192) seep through as basic features of his mature thought. The contextualization is convincing, yet a bit more could have been said in the introduction and first chapter about the big picture: the symbiotic, interdependent, dialectical process with, on the one hand, the deterioration of the politically-backed Protestant establishment from above, and, on the other, the emergence of the troubling cacophony and contumacy from below or from the middle. In the second chapter, P. does an excellent job in showing how Firmin later endorsed the idea of bishops in a league of presbyters, while demonstrating significant flexibility and freedom in his embrace of traditional liturgy and the idea of a national church (while rejecting a mandatory scheme). The debate with Baxter is treated well, showing how Firmin was more liberal on the necessity of regular and deliberate mediation upon the things of heaven for salvation (one of the few bridges between Puritanism and emerging seventeenth century Pietism). The chapter on the debates about baptism is strong, but the list of Scriptures in the seventeenth century Protestant mind was far more extensive than the passages treated. Firmin’s views of the political events of his day, the treatment of women in English Protestantism, the Native Americans in North America, slavery (which he may well have witnessed), racism and the Jews are all left unmentioned, which would probably go beyond the bounds of the more dogmatically-oriented monograph. The summaries of the positions of his interlocutors are usually very precise (creditur, not »creditor«, 123) and often deeply educational and enlightening. The prose is advanced, and the cross referencing is learned, yet it is often left unstated whether Firmin (who apparently had little formal theological education) was reading some of these authors or not, and whether, on the other hand, he was actually using their ideas without mentioning them. Of course, this is very difficult to discern. Reference to his core sources in private collection, his mode of access to tracts, pamphlets and other literature and libraries and to his favorite translations is not addressed and no subject index is included (although a helpful personal index is provided). The publishers were generous to allow the inclusion of the full length (many filling nearly ten lines) early modern frontispiece titles in the bibliography.
The true strength of this study is twofold: it masterfully reconstructs the major dogmatic conflicts of Firmin’s time, an era that divided English Protestantism, with echoes of the era still heard today. Furthermore, it lets us hear the voice of the »godly« medical doctor turned minister and theologian as he engaged the English church in a paradoxical loyalty in dissent. The monograph has thus contributed to the forgotten (and often intentionally ignored) history of seventeenth century low church Anglicanism.