Cartwright and Whitgift debate reading and preaching

I’m fascinated by the debate in the 1570s between two Cambridge scholars, Thomas Cartwright (deprived of his professorship and fellowship for his views) and John Whitgift (Master of Cartwright's college, later elevated to the See of Canterbury). Not only an interesting bit of history, it seems to still be a live debate.

Cartwright (in his “Replye” to Whitgift’s “Answere to a certen Libel intituled An Admonition to the Parliament [1572]) objected to “reading ministers” — in contrast to preaching ministers — and, therefore, to the legally imposed Prayer Book for facilitating this kind of ministry, because “it requireth necessarily nothing to be done by the minister which a child of ten year old cannot do as well” (qtd. from Whitgift, Works Vol II, p. 455). In other words, the child may be able to read the prescribed script, but faced with a a question, a challenge, or a circumstance not anticipated by the Prayer Book and he does not have the learning necessary to respond adequately. Essentially, he argues for primary orality against reading (in this case, out loud, secondary orality) for the same kind of reasons as Plato’s Socrates — ask the script a question, it cannot answer but can only repeat what it already said.

Whitgift (in 1574) calls these “childish reasons” and handles them as logical fallacies. “Would you have preaching only” — he presses to reduce Cartwright’s objection to absurdity —

“preaching only and neither reading nor praying in the public congregation? or do you think that the chapters and prayers that are read occupy too long a time? or are you persuaded that there cometh no profit by reading and praying? If you mean the first, you have the examples of the churches in all places and at all times against you; if you mean the second, the time is not so long that is spent in praying and reading, but that there may be preaching also: the longest time (if there be no communion) is not more than one hour; and can you spend that hour better than in praying and hearing the scriptures read?” (Whitgift, Works Vol II, p. 455)

In other words, Whitgift argued the Prayer Book is not the enemy of preaching; it is the partner of preaching.

Similarly, Cartwright regarded a minister who reads from the Book of Homilies as no better than a parrot, reiterating the same kind of objection over-and-again: “Then as God gave utterance they preached the word only: now they read homilies, articles, inductions, &c” (qtd. from Whitgift, p. 74). And, so the two Cambridge divines continued to talk past each other. “No man denies but that the word of God only ought to be preached, and that as God giveth utterance,” Whigift replied, “But do you mean that we may not study for our sermons, or that we may speak nothing but the very text of scripture, without amplifying or expounding the same?” (p. 75).

But, of course, Cartwright did not mean that, as Whitgift well knew, since Cartwright had made it quite clear that simply reading the bible aloud in church did not constitute preaching. The non-conformist defends something more immediate and less mediated, the spontaneity of direct inspiration — the preacher as animator, the Spirit as the principal, a principal able to perceive and shape the the heart and mind of the auditors as well as the animator — in other words, Cartwright has in mind something like prophecy. Neverthless, he did not think this excludes sermon preparation -- Cartwright had already conceded that “studying for sermons” was allowable, and chided Whitgift for suggesting otherwise, calling the suggestion “light and ungrounded suspicions” and “slanderous reports.”

To Whitgift’s mind, selecting a sermon to read out of a book to one’s congregation is no different in principle than a minister preparing a sermon of one’s own ahead of time to preach on a given day. Whitgift argues for a more pragmatic approach to the proclamation of the word: “the homilies appointed to be read in the church are learned, godly, agreeable to God’s word, and more effectual to edification, than a number of your sermons… the end whereof is not edification, but contention.” He then points to ancient homilists, whose sermons he and his interlocutor had both read. Augustine and Chrysostom "both committed [their sermons] to writing, and left them to their posterity, [therefore] it argueth that they thought them to be very profitable for the church; neither do I see any cause why they should rather now be thought unlawful to be read, than they were then to be preached" (p. 76).