1606 Convocation Book, Government of the Catholic Church & Kingdoms of the World.
After promulgating the Canons of the Church in the year 1603/4, the whole Convocation of the Church of England (then in session) in 1606 had drafted one of the most important documents in Anglican history: the Convocation Book of 1606. In this book, the Church had set out the nature of the Civil and Ecclesiastical governments, their origins, and their respective functions. Led by the Prolocutor John Overall, Dean of St. Paul’s and later the lord bishop of Norwich, the Convocation through a high level of scholarship and exegesis carefully delineated the Civil institutions, and God’s Church, as described on the pages of the Old and New Testaments. Although the politics of the era prevented the book from reaching publication, it presents the remarkable state of of the mind of the Church in the latter reign of Q. Elizabeth and the early years of King James. We present it here as a monument of the Church’s views, and an invaluable resource for today’s student of the Holy Scriptures on what church government God had instituted upon the Earth.