John Bramhall - Writings

Writings

Bramhall's historical importance lies in his writing while in exile. Without office, he turned his hand to writing replies to all attacks on the Anglican church. In 1643, he wrote Serpent Salve, a defence of episcopacy and monarchy against the attacks of the Puritan presbyterian model and democracy. He followed this with 1649's Fair Warning against the Scottish Discipline, which was an attack on the weaknesses of the presbyterian model and an excoriation of the Puritan religious claims. He also attacked and defended against Hobbes's Leviathan. In 1655, Bramhall wrote Vindication of True Liberty. Hobbes replied to Bramhall with Animadversions, and Bramhall replied to this with Castigation of Hobbes' Animadversions (with an afterpiece called "The Catching of Leviathan, the Great Whale") in 1658.

Additionally, Bramhall attempted to defend the English Church from attacks from the Roman Catholic Church. In 1653, he countered Théophile Brachet de la Milletière's restatement of the doctrine of transubstantiation with a reply that restated the justifications of the Anglican doctrine of Real Presence. He also attacked the Ultramontanists of France. Bramhall's A Just Vindication of the Church of England from the Unjust Aspersion of Criminal Schism (1654) was answered by the titular Bishop of Chalcedon, and Bramhall replied to this with Replication in 1656, where he prays that he might live to see the day when all Christian churches united again.

His works were collected by John Vesey, Dublin, 1677. They break down as

• five treatises against Catholics (including a confutation of the Nag's Head fable);
• three against sectaries;
• three against Hobbes; and
• seven unclassified defences of royalist and Anglican views.

The works were reprinted in the Library of Anglo-Catholic Theology, Oxford, 1842-5, 5 vols.

John Milton thought, mistakenly, that Bramhall wrote the Apologia pro Rege et Populo Anglicano, 1650; the real author was John Rowland. The posthumous publication of Bramhall's Vindication of himself and the Episcopal Clergy from the Presbyterian Charge of Popery, as it is managed by Mr. Baxter, &c., 1672, with a preface by Samuel Parker, produced Andrew Marvell's 'The Rehearsal Transpros'd,' 1672.

He is remembered also for the phrase It is the last feather that breaks the horse's back (Works, 1655), an early version of The last straw that breaks the camel's back.