Re: Laud

My master's thesis at Duke was on the later Caroline Divines, focusing 
especially on the Laudians during the Commonwealth.

Laud, of course, has always been a controversial person.  He was the great 
villain to Whig historians and a hidden Catholic giant to the Tractarians. 
Generally, as most of the historians until recent years were Whigs, Laud has 
been presented in a very unfavorable light.  Only recently has this begun to 
change, w2ith a growing portrait of a troubled and complex man who basically 
thought the Reformation had gone too far.  His means for reversing the gains 
of reformed thought employed all the devices of the age: draconian methods 
by later standards.

The quote sent is one of many that attempted to portray Laud as a 
crypto-Papist, secretly more Roman than the Romans!  Interestingly, after 
Prayer Book Anglicanism was outlawed, it was the Laudians who remained most 
uncompromisingly loyal to the Church of the Elizabethan settlement, refusing 
to use the Directory of Worship and insisting on episcopal ordination. 
There were practicaly no instances of Laudians going over to Rome (indeed, 
the strong defenses of Anglicanism against Roman polemics were by the 
Laudians Henry Hammond and Bp. Bramhall).

Laud himself would seem awfully Protestant to us nowadays.  For a good taste 
of the man's theology, read his Conference with Fisher the Jesuit at 
http://justus.anglican.org/resources/pc/lact/laud/v2/  In my view it ought 
to be required reading.

Mark+