Caroline Divines

The Caroline Divines were influential theologians and writers in the Anglican Church who lived during the reigns of King Charles I and, after the Restoration, King Charles II (Latin: Carolus). There is no official list of Caroline-era divines; they are defined by the era in which they lived, and Caroline Divines hailed from England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales. However, of these four nations, it is Caroline England which is most commonly considered to have fostered a golden age of Anglican scholarship and devotional writing, despite the socio-cultural upset of civil war, regicide, and military rule under Oliver Cromwell. Importantly, the term divine is restricted neither to canonised saints nor to Anglican figures, but is used of many writers and thinkers in the wider Christian church.

The corpus produced by the Caroline divines is diverse. What they have in common is a commitment to the faith as conveyed by Scripture and the Book of Common Prayer, thus regarding prayer and theology in a manner akin to that of the Apostolic Fathers and other later Christian writers. On the whole, the Caroline Divines view the via media of Anglicanism not as a compromise but "a positive position, witnessing to the universality of God and God's kingdom working through the fallible, earthly ecclesia Anglicana." These theologians regarded Scripture as authoritative in matters concerning salvation, although they drew upon tradition and reason as well, the latter in the form of deductive logic and the former with special reference to the Church Fathers. Politically, the Caroline Divines were royalists but primarily of a constitutional, rather than absolutist, bent.

Their promotion of more elaborate ceremonial and their valuation of visual beauty in art and church architecture was variously labelled as “popish”, “Romish”, or “Arminian” by their Puritan opponents. Such embellishments, however, were not only integral to their spirituality, but were seen by the Carolines as combatting the appeal of Roman Catholicism. And, contrary to Puritan accusation, the emphasis upon beauty had nothing to do with “Arminian” influence. Rather than face a choice between an austere Puritanism or an elaborate Roman ceremonial, the Caroline divines presented their countrymen with a via media in which they could remain within the established church and also participate in ancient forms of religion.

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