Early Reformation Covenant Theology: English Reception of Swiss Reformed Thought 1520-1555. Robert J. D. Wainwright. Phillipsburg: P&R, 2020, 404 pp., paper. ISBN: 978-1-62995-700-5.
England was formed from the influences of waves of invaders. First, there were the Romans, then the Angles and Saxons, who were followed by the Danes, and, lastly, came the Normans. This, according to Sellar and Yeatman, was a good thing. So good was it that historians have a preference for describing other influences on the English in terms of waves or phases. Wainwright rejects this. In his description of the English Reformation, the influence of the Continental Reformers on their English counterparts is partial, complex, simultaneous, and, on occasion, mediated. His explanation would not make for an easy-to-follow slide presentation with neat diagrams, but it captures and draws the reader into the reality of the English Reformers’ theological and historical situation.
In a lengthy and wide-ranging introduction, the author outlines the historiography of early Continental and English covenant theology. It might be beneficial to speak of these early doctrinal formulations as proto-covenant-theology. Wainwright separates himself from those who seek to look back from the Federal Theology of the 17th century, irrespective of whether they are looking for continuity or discontinuity. In letting the Reformers speak for themselves, he renders much previous work on the subject obsolete.
The introduction is numbered as chapter one, so chapter two gives some historical and theological context to the thesis. Chapters three and four describe Swiss concepts of covenant and English concepts of covenant respectively, while chapters five and six do the same for sacramental theology. Chapter seven is in effect the conclusion.
Wainwright’s main historical point is that the English Reformation was not merely politically motivated. It begins with Henry VIII’s interest in Erasmian reform even before his break with Rome. After the breach, a number of Henry’s reforms went beyond those suggested by Erasmus; nevertheless, he never moved in his views about transubstantiation nor his antipathy toward Lutheran solefidism. At the same time, there were others, Thomas Cromwell for one, who were looking beyond Henry’s reforms to Protestantism.
His secondary point is that the English Reformation was not as insular as some historians have stated. From the beginning, there was contact with European Protestant thought through such things as the Frankfort Book Fair. There were exiles moving in both directions. So, even though the English Reformation culminated in the distinctly English Elizabethan Settlement, Anglican theology had much in common with the rest of the Reformed world.
To prove his secondary point, Wainwright has chosen the doctrine of covenant. As this is a book about Reformation theology, he begins with the Medieval doctrines of the via antiqua and the via moderna schools. Dealing mostly with the latter, he shows that the Swiss Reformers reformed the doctrine from one of grace and works to one of grace alone. Their doctrine was of a unilaterally imposed bilateral covenant. Despite voices to the contrary, this was the doctrine of Zwingli, Bullinger, and Calvin. The covenant is Christocentric. Christ secured its conditions personally. Like Luther, the just shall live by faith alone. Unlike Luther, the Swiss added that the faith which alone justifies is never alone.
Wainwright sees in the Swiss formulation an aversion to personal and social antinomianism. He also uses the word solefidism to distinguish between Luther and the Swiss. He would say that the mark of Luther’s completely unilateral covenant and doctrine of justification by faith alone is solefidism. The mark of the Swiss conception is not solefidism but grace alone. Salvation is by grace and that salvation includes sanctification along with justification.
To investigate the influence of Swiss covenantal thinking on the English Reformation, Wainwright selects William Tyndale, Miles Coverdale, John Hooper, and John Bradford. They are chosen not because they are the perfect balanced sample, but because they have left their opinions in writing. Many in this period from 1520 to 1555, known as Nicodemites, kept their thoughts to themselves, outwardly conformed, and survived Wolsey and More, Henry’s enforcement of the Six Articles, and even Mary Tudor.
The Reformation did not come to England in waves from Wittenberg, then Zurich, and then Geneva. Works by Luther, Zwingli, and Oecolampadius arrived about the same time, followed some years later by those of Bullinger and then Calvin. In the 1540s, exiles came from the Continent to England: Martin Bucer, Peter Martyr Vermigli, and John a Lasko among them. At other times, Englishmen went abroad for safety. They send back their works in which they mediated continental Reformed thought to those at home, and
they brought those influences with them, had they opportunity to return. Out of all these contacts, the strongest were with Reformations in Zurich and Strasburg. Tyndale, Coverdale, and Hooper were influenced by the former while on the Continent; and Bradford at home by Bucer’s lectures at Cambridge. Regarding the doctrine of the covenant, Tyndale, Coverdale, and Hooper held to the Swiss formulation, and Bradford to a unilateral formulation in line with Luther’s view mediated through Bucer.
Using the same Swiss and English writers as before, Wainwright continues to develop his thesis by examining the connection between covenant and sacrament.
To the Swiss Reformers, the sacraments were covenant signs. The point on which they differed was the connection between the sign and the grace which it signified. With regard to the Lord’s Supper, this was worked out in the Consensus Tigurinus.
The English Reformers’ doctrine of the sacraments followed their doctrine of the covenant. Those with a Swiss connection followed the Swiss and expressed themselves in the language of the Consensus. Bradford’s views included elements of Bucer’s and of the Consensus as it was expressed by Cranmer.
Wainwright’s conclusion is that there was Continental influence in the English Reformation. However, rather than coming in waves, there were streams which fed English theology at that time. There was a Lutheran steam which was never strong, but it had its moment at the time of the Schmalkaldic League’s negotiations with Henry VIII in the 1530s. There was the Strasburg stream. But the strongest stream from the 1520s to 1555 was from Zurich, particularly from Bullinger.
Looking forward to the Elizabethan Settlement, which is beyond the scope of his thesis, Wainwright points out that the Church of England had a pre-Reformation polity, a Reformed theology, and a Lutheran form of worship; and that the Settlement was formed by the Nicodemites who survived Mary’s reign, not the returning radicalised exiles.
For students of the English Reformation, this is an important book. It successfully challenges some long-held assumptions.
For students of historical theology, it is a helpful book. It is of the school of Richard Muller, and it complements the work of Andrew Woolsey (Unity and Continuity in Covenant Theology) in his treatment of the Medieval and Early Reformation periods.
Divinity students writing essays on Zwingli versus Calvin on the Lord’s Supper will find the chapters on the Swiss Reformers most plunderable.
A difficulty for the average reader is that this book assumes a greater knowledge of the Tudor period than can be obtained from television series. But then, Ph.D. theses are not written for an airport clientele. Their authors have lived for a number of years immersed in the milieu of their subject, and it is hard for them to realise that not everyone has accompanied them step by step. Perhaps those who print such theses should bear that in mind.
In a book like this, there are always incidentals which catch the attention. Here, there are three. The first is that contemporary reaction to the Marburg Articles was not that Luther and Zwingli did not agree on the last point, the Lord’s Supper, but that the colloquy agreed unanimously on the fourteen points which preceded it. The second is that the English Reformers did not frame their own articles on the Lord’s Supper until the Swiss had formulated theirs in the Consensus Tigurinus. The third is that Wainwright describes Jane Grey as Queen Jane. This writer has never seen that before. Wainwright is to be thanked for giving that ill-used young woman the dignity of her position.
Robert Wainwright is a Priest of the Church of England and a Fellow of Oriel College, Oxford. His book is an important contribution to the literature on the subjects of the English Reformation and early Swiss covenant theology. From whichever area of interest the reader approaches this book, there will be something in the other which will catch the attention.
This review first appeared in the Haddington House Journal, volume 24, 2022, pages 93-96. http://haddingtonhouse.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/zz-website-Haddington-House-Journal-2022-one-document-version-final.pdf