The Defense of the Aunswere to the Admonition Against T.C

John Whitgift , (Archbishop Of Canterbury)

London: Henry Binneman for Humfrey Toye, 1574

Folio, 28.5 x 19 cm.  Bound in 19th century 1/2 leather over brown boards.  Collated: [24], 812, [11] pages.  Black letter.  Scattered spotting.  Engraved woodcut-title page.  Title page conserved and mounted, moderately soiled.  Rear leaf corner restored.  Minor, intermittent dampstaining along bottom margin. Issue with the errata corrected. Small signature on end page of Barthrop (sp?) Campbell Hall of Princeton University dated 1929.  Refs: STC 25430.5.  Contents: 1. Of dangerous doctrines in the replie. 2. Of falsifications and vntruthes. 3. Of matters handled at large. 4. A table generall.  

John Whitgift was a Cambridge chancellor, and later, Archbishop of Canterbury during the reign of Elizabeth I.  Thomas Cartwright, a Cambridge fellow and leading Puritan preacher, made a powerful denunciation of the episcopal church, which had divided the Cambridge into two camps, one for a strong centralized church leadership (Episcopalian) and one for shared church rule with the laity (Presbyterian, Geneva-style church rule).   Although Whitgift held Calvinist sympathies, he believed in episcopalism as the "only practicable form of church government." As vice-chancellor of Cambridge, Whitgift successfully deprived Cartwright of his fellow position (a position Cartwright had held for 9 years) and later expelled him from the university through shrewd political maneuvering during 1570-1571.  In 1572, John Field and Thomas Wilcox wrote an "Admonition to the Parliament," the same year, Cartwright wrote a second tract by the same name, urging the reorganization of the English church into a Presbyterian structure.  This text is Whitgift's attack on Cartwright, Field and Wilcox's Admonition for a more representative church government.  Cartwright and the Puritan position created a potential threat to Queen Elizabeth's supremacy of the church.  Whitgift helped steer the reformation in England from the more radical changes advocated by Cartwright. He was later made Archbishop of Canterbury for his support of royal supremacy.  Interestingly, Whitgift was Francis Bacon's tutor at Cambridge.    [Defense of the Answer to the Admonition, Against the Reply of Thomas Cartwright]