thumb|Restored monument with effigy of Lancelot Andrewes in [[Southwark Cathedral]]

Lancelot Andrewes (155525 September 1626) was an English bishop and scholar, who held high positions in the Church of England during the reigns of Elizabeth I and James I. During the latter's reign, Andrewes served successively as Bishop of Chichester, of Ely, and of Winchester and oversaw the translation of the King James Version of the Bible (or Authorized Version). In the Church of England he is commemorated on 25 September with a lesser festival.

Early life, education and ordination

Andrewes was born in 1555 near All Hallows, Barking, by the Tower of London, of an ancient Suffolk family later domiciled at Chichester Hall, at Rawreth in Essex; his father, Thomas, was master of Trinity House. Andrewes attended the Cooper's free school in Ratcliff in the parish of Stepney and then the Merchant Taylors' School under Richard Mulcaster. In 1571 he entered Pembroke Hall, Cambridge, and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree, proceeding to a Master of Arts degree in 1578. His academic reputation spread so quickly that on the foundation in 1571 of Jesus College, Oxford he was named in the charter as one of the founding scholars "without his privity" (Isaacson, 1650); his connection with the college seems to have been purely notional, however. In 1576 he was elected fellow of Pembroke College; on 11 June 1580 he was ordained a priest by William Chaderton, Bishop of Chester, and in 1581 was incorporated Master of Arts (MA) at Oxford. As catechist at his college he read lectures on the Decalogue (published in 1630), which aroused great interest.

Once a year he would spend a month with his parents and, during this vacation, he would find a master from whom he would learn a language of which he had no previous knowledge. In this way, after a few years, he acquired most of the modern languages of Europe.

Andrewes was the elder brother of the scholar and cleric Roger Andrewes, who also served as a translator for the King James Version of the Bible.

During Elizabeth's reign

In 1588, following a period as chaplain to Henry Hastings, 3rd Earl of Huntingdon, Lord President of the Council in the North, he became vicar of St Giles, Cripplegate, in the City of London, where he delivered striking sermons on the temptation in the wilderness and the Lord's Prayer. In a sermon (during Easter week) on 10 April 1588, he stoutly vindicated the Reformed character of the Church of England against the claims of Roman Catholicism and adduced John Calvin as a new writer, with lavish praise and affection.

Yet, Andrewes was certainly no Calvinist. It has been said that he developed a proto-Arminian soteriology while at Cambridge and that he maintained this non-Calvinist theology throughout his life. He made it a point to refuse to repeat the common Calvinist slogans of his time. During the first half of the seventeenth century, he argued that Calvinism was incompatible with civil government, preaching, and ministry. Throughout his sermons, he unashamedly criticized Calvinist doctrine and practice. He has been referred to as an avant-garde conformist, which is understood as an implicitly proto-Arminian precursor to Laudianism and explicit English-Arminianism. He outright decried the translation and Calvinistic notes in the Geneva translation of the Bible. He taught that God condemned Cain for his own freely chosen sin and he denied that God unconditionally predestined any to salvation or that he unconditionally condemned anyone. He argued for soteriological synergism, using Lot's wife as a picture that one's salvation is not secure post-conversion apart from an ongoing and freely chosen cooperation with God's saving grace. John Overall and Andrewes were more sympathetic to the Remonstrants than the Calvinists at the time of the Synod of Dort. Andrewes, out of fear, denied his support for the Remonstrants when letters sent to him from that party were intercepted. He was not on friendly terms with the delegates to the synod and he made it clear that he did not support the results. He and the Remonstrants attempted to use the ecclesiological similarities between the Contra-Remonstrants and the Puritans to persuade James I not to involve himself in the Synod of Dort or to support the Remonstrant cause if he did.

Through the influence of Francis Walsingham, Andrewes was appointed prebendary of St Pancras in St Paul's Cathedral, in 1589, and subsequently became master of his own college of Pembroke, as well as a chaplain to John Whitgift, Archbishop of Canterbury. From 1589 to 1609 he was prebendary of Southwell. On 4 March 1590, as a chaplain of Elizabeth I, he preached before her an outspoken sermon and, in October that year, gave his introductory lecture at St Paul's, undertaking to comment on the first four chapters of the Book of Genesis. These were later compiled as The Orphan Lectures (1657).

Andrewes liked to move among the people, yet found time to join a society of antiquaries, of which Walter Raleigh, Philip Sidney, Burghley, Arundel, the Herberts, Saville, John Stow and William Camden were members. Elizabeth I had not advanced him further on account of his opposition to the alienation of ecclesiastical revenues. In 1598 he declined the bishoprics of Ely and Salisbury, because of the conditions attached. On 23 November 1600, he preached at Whitehall a controversial sermon on justification. In July 1601 he was appointed Dean of Westminster and gave much attention to the school there.

When plague struck in 1603 he retreated to Chiswick to teach the boys of Westminster School, where he preached a plague sermon on 21 August arguing in favour of leaving London under such circumstances. His argument rested on the Old Testament's commands to avoid exposing oneself to contagion, to avoid contact with lepers, etc. Andrewes said the plague was caused by "inventions" like "new meats in diet" and "new fashions in apparel" that had roused the wrath of God. He condemns changes in Christian tradition that "our fathers never knew of".

During the reign of James I

thumb|right|220px|Portrait of Andrewes by [[Simon de Passe, engraving]]

On the accession of James I, Andrewes rose into great favour. He assisted at the coronation of James I and Anne, and in 1604 took part in the Hampton Court Conference.

Andrewes' name is the first on the list of divines appointed to compile the Authorized Version of the Bible, which was commissioned in 1604 and published in 1611. He headed the "First Westminster Company" which took charge of the first books of the Old Testament (Genesis to 2 Kings). He acted, furthermore, as a sort of general editor for the project as well.

On 31 October 1605 his election as Bishop of Chichester was confirmed; he was consecrated a bishop on 3 November, installed at Chichester Cathedral on 18 November Following the discovery of the Gunpowder Plot, Andrewes was asked to prepare a sermon to be presented to the king in 1606 (Sermons Preached upon the V of November, in Lancelot Andrewes, XCVI Sermons, 3rd. Edition (London, 1635) pp. 889, 890, 900–1008 ). In this sermon Andrewes justified the need to commemorate the deliverance and defined the nature of celebrations. This sermon became the foundation of celebrations which continue 400 years later. In 1609 he published Tortura Torti, a learned work which grew out of the Gunpowder Plot controversy and was written in answer to Bellarmine's Matthaeus Tortus, which attacked James I's book on the oath of allegiance. After moving to Ely

His collection included:

  • Works of Lancelot Andrewes, 11 volumes (Oxford, 1841–1854),
  • Lancelot Andrewes Collection, 7 volumes

Styles and titles

  • 1555–: Lancelot Andrewes Esq.
  • –1589: The Reverend Lancelot Andrewes
  • 1589–bef. 1590: The Reverend Prebendary Lancelot Andrewes
  • bef. 1590–1594: The Reverend Prebendary Doctor Lancelot Andrewes
  • 1594–1601: The Reverend Canon Doctor Lancelot Andrewes
  • 1601–1605: The Very Reverend Doctor Lancelot Andrewes
  • 1605–1626: The Right Reverend Doctor Lancelot Andrewes

References

Citations

Sources

  • Lancelot Andrewes on Project Canterbury