How Reformed is the Anglican Church?
INTRODUCTION
The answer one receives to the question
“What is Anglicanism[1]?” depends largely on which
of the world’s 85 million Anglicans[2] responds to the question. Nineteenth century “Tractarians”[3] tended to focus on the 17th
century as the beginning of the “specific genius of Anglicanism”. On the other hand, the Parker Society[4] saw those particularly Reformed
aspects of the 16th-century Reformation as being normative for
English Protestantism. Some have even
claimed that Puritanism[5] was the real English
Reformation. The problem is that each of
these approaches assumes that there is a distinctive orthodox English
Protestant position in the years before 1662 which can be identified and its
adherents traced; however, Anthony Milton insists in his introduction to the
first of the 5-volume series The Oxford History of Anglicanism (2017-2019)
that no such thing ever existed.[6]
Granted the absence of a distinctive orthodox English Protestant position before the 1662 Act of Uniformity, Diarmaid MacCulloch goes so far as to speculate that had Mary Tudor not become queen in 1553, England would have become the most politically powerful Reformed nation in Europe, with Cranmer a cordial partner with Calvin.[7] Far from being a marginal movement in the Elizabethan Church (1558-1603), Calvinistic orthodoxy was upheld by most of the English divines in Oxford and Cambridge. Calvin’s works were more popular in England than anywhere else in Europe[8] and it was the writings of Puritan divine William Perkins (1558-1602) which provoked Jacobus Arminius’ (1560-1609) refutation of Calvinism, which in turn occasioned the (“TULIP”) Synod of Dort (1618).[9] Indeed, most English clergy accepted the double predestination taught at Dort and in the Lambeth Articles (1595).[10] In this paper, we will consider some factors which, in spite of obvious widespread support for Calvinist beliefs in England, prevented Reformed orthodoxy from becoming the stance of the “Established Church” during the century between 1559 and 1662 (the Parliament-legislated reforms during the interregnum notwithstanding).[11]
In search of Reformed orthodoxy
So what do we mean by “Reformed
orthodoxy”? Are we merely referring to
Calvinism? R. Michael Allen insists on
distinguishing between the term “Reformed”, which refers to a whole theology[12], and the term
“Calvinist”, which refers to someone’s particular predestinarian beliefs about
salvation.[13] Throughout his career as a reformer, John
Calvin (1509-64) pursued the illusive goal of protestant unity in the hope of
reforming all of Europe. In 1536, Calvin
was subject to an agreement on the Lord’s Supper (the Wittenberg Concord) which
had been negotiated with Luther by Martin Bucer (1491-1551), a Reformed thinker.
Later Reformed theology would reject
this agreement. Calvin participated in
the religious colloquies at Worms (1540-1) and Regensburg (1541) which sought agreement
between Roman Catholics and Protestants.
In 1549, Calvin reached the Consensus Tigurinus with Heinrich
Bullinger (1504-75) in the goal of uniting the Reformed believers of
Switzerland.[14]
Although no individual Reformed confession has been accorded the universal acceptance granted by Lutherans to the Augsburg Confession (1530) and to Luther’s Catechisms,[15] the Westminster Confession of Faith (1646) is the paradigmatic example of a statement of a proper “Reformed” (and not merely Calvinistic) theology and is the most important confession for English-speaking Reformed Christians.[16] The “5 points” of Calvinism are indeed found in the Westminster Confession – Total depravity (chapter VI), Unlimited election (chap. III), Limited atonement (chap. VIII), Irresistible grace (chap. X), and Perseverance of the saints (chap. XVII). Christ’s righteousness is said to be “imputed” to the believer, a member of the elect (chap. XI). The Lord’s Supper is called the sacrament of our Lord Jesus’ body and blood and believers are said to receive Christ in a real, spiritual way by faith (chap. XXIX).[17] Such a theology was never enshrined in official Anglican formularies. At those points where the Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion (1563, 1571) touch upon those subjects contained in the “5 Points”, its exposition varies from them in wording and tone in such a way as to produce a somewhat different vision of salvation. There is no mention of imputed righteousness; the Lord’s Supper (Article XXVIII) – very similar to chapter XXIX of the Westminster Confession – is said to be “a sacrament of our redemption” and believers are said to eat the Body of Christ “after an heavenly and spiritual manner” by the mean of faith.[18] The Articles of Religion are understated enough to allow for Anglo-Catholicism, High-Church positions, “evangelicalism” and the viewpoint of those Puritans who can tolerate a non-Calvinistic statement of faith, all within an Anglican context. So, why did the Church of England limit herself to the Articles of 1571 (reaffirmed in 1662)?
The
Puritans’ one-and-only chance:
The Westminster Assembly, the Civil Wars,
& the Restoration
The designation of “Puritan” refers to
those in England who believed that the Church had not been adequately
“purified” of Roman Catholic forms of worship and doctrine during the all-too-brief
reign of Edward VI (1547-53). Puritans
were Calvinist by definition. Already in
the 1560s, there were groups in the Church which can be distinguished as being
either Puritan or conformist. Among them
were John Foxe (1517-87), William Strickland (d. 1598), and Thomas Norton
(Cranmer’s son-in-law), all of whom felt that the Book of Common Prayer had not
gone far enough towards reforming the Church in England.[19]
The Puritan moment (read: decade) came in
1642. Charles was authoritarian by
nature and didn’t improve his popularity among more conservative-minded Protestants
when he married Henrietta Maria of France (1609-69), a Roman Catholic, almost
immediately after having been crowned. Archbishop
Laud genuinely believed that anyone in the Church who disagreed with him was
part of a single “Puritan” conspiracy; his high-handed reactions against this
imaginary network infuriated enough Protestants in England for the label
“Puritan” to be worn for the first time as a badge of pride, rather than as an
insult.[20]
A potent combination of widespread
hostility to reforms by Laud[21] in the 1630s, heightened
Puritan expectations for further reformation, and the collapse of royal and
episcopal authority, all led to upheaval and change. These included bouts of popular and official
iconoclasm, the overthrow of Laudian ceremonialism, the imprisonment (1641) and
eventual execution of Laud himself in 1645, the investigation of parochial
clergy for scandalous or popish conduct, and, most significantly, calls for a
“root and branch” reform of episcopal government and the abolishment of the established
liturgy.[22] Under the shadow of impending civil war, an
Assembly of Divines was summoned in 1642 by Parliament to Westminster
Abbey. The Assembly sat from 1643-53.[23] This was it – those who wanted to “complete”
the purification of the Church – left, in Puritan eyes, but “halfly reformed” –
along the lines of Genevan Calvinism had a chance to finally achieve their aim. Almost all of the 120 Westminster divines
were hand-picked Calvinists, and many were vocal opponents of Archbishop
Laud. In December 1644, as war raged, the
Assembly completed a Directory for Public Worship to replace the Book
of Common Prayer. Appearing in 1646,
the Assembly’s Confession of Faith replaced the Thirty-Nine Articles. Parliament, with the Assembly’s support,
abolished the whole system of episcopacy and by 1644 the Assembly had made it
obvious that it would offer, as a replacement, a simplified, non-hierarchical
model of ministry.[24]
King Charles and Archbishop Laud had
alienated leaders in England, Scotland and Ireland to such an extent that
rebellions broke out, first in Scotland in 1638 against a typically
heavy-handed royal attempt to introduce a version of the English Prayer Book
without consultation; then in 1641 in Ireland, where Catholics determined to
throw off English rule saw their chance in the Protestant disarray.[25] Civil war had indeed broken out in England in
1642 between the “Parliamentarians” and the “Loyalists”. Although some Catholics fought for Charles,
and the majority of Irish Catholics eventually tactically allied with him
against the Westminster Parliament, the wars and civil wars of England and Scotland
up to 1660 were overwhelmingly fought by Protestants against Protestants, to
decide the future shape of British religion.[26]
Before the ultimate Parliamentarian
victory had been accomplished in 1651, England had witnessed the execution of
king Charles I (1649). Oliver Cromwell
(1599-1658), the Parliamentarian general, ruled the new republican commonwealth
as Lord Protector from 1653 until his death.
Parliament’s initial religious aims were for a reformed national Church,
not for religious liberty or Protestant pluralism. Victory in the civil war promised a chance at
last to complete the reformation of the Church in England. True reformation involved securing
uncompromising Calvinist doctrine and purified worship with zealous preaching
at its heart; and creating a structure that would ensure effective religious
and moral discipline of the population.[27]
Following the parliamentarian victory and
the declaration of the commonwealth, England became, for the first time, a
state modeled along the lines of Calvin’s Geneva rather than contemporary
Lutheranism. Yet disenchantment and
disillusion soon set in. The Puritan
regime was found to be just as oppressive as the one it had deposed. In the end, the Puritan commonwealth died of
exhaustion, infighting, disillusionment, and lack of vision. The Puritans had lost any popular sympathy
through their religious rigidity, most famously expressed in the banning order
issued against the eating of plum pudding on Christmas Day.[28] Puritanism had failed both to uproot an older
ecclesiastical system and to root itself in the hearts of the English people.[29]
As a counterpoint to the chaos which often
reigned in the ranks of the Puritans, those who believed in Royal Supremacy,
the Prayer Book and the episcopacy saw themselves as a persecuted church (and
“nonconformists”!) during the interregnum but proved themselves resilient and
creative as they maintained their identity and indeed stretched the boundaries
of Anglicanism to include Calvinist conformists, Presbyterians, and others who
would have been considered nonconformists before the war. Also, Episcopalians produced a large body of
devotional literature and alternatives to the Prayer Book where it was no
longer available. The Episcopalians
functioned as a highly effective underground church during the interregnum and
were well positioned once the Restoration occurred to go forward with a renewed
commitment to their Anglican identity.[30]
As Cromwell lay dying, the writing was on
the wall. Cromwell had designated his
son, Richard, to succeed him as Lord Protector, but Richard was deposed after
247 days in office (May 1659). After a
year of chaos, the Convention Parliament of 1660 invited Charles I’s exiled son
to return from France and assume the English throne. Charles II (1630-85) convened the Savoy
Conference in 1661, with 12 “Presbyterian”[31] theologians and 12
conformist ones. Those members of
parliament who supported the old church order carried the day and a strict Act
of Uniformity was passed in 1662. Much
repression of nonconformists by the crown and Archbishop Sancroft (1617-93) was
carried out during Charles II’s almost 25-year-long reign. Things came to a head once again in 1688,
when Charles’ successor, James II (1633-1701), a practicing Catholic, was
overthrown in favour of Protestant William III of Orange (reign: 1689-1702) and
his wife Mary II. The Toleration Act of
1689 granted freedom of worship to nonconformists, provided they remained loyal
to the crown. As far as England and its
established Church was concerned, the Puritan project of reform conceived at
Westminster had been stillborn, and now the Baptists and (many of) the Puritans
would go their own ways.[32]
What Westminster couldn’t
overcome (1): Royal Supremacy
So what went wrong at Westminster? In order to better grasp the context and moods
of 1660, we have to go back to say, 1521.
The year 1521 was a busy one for Martin Luther (1483-1546) and all those
across Europe who found themselves caught up in the controversy surrounding the
publication, four years previous, of his Ninety-Five Theses – the year
began with Pope Leo X (1475-1521), for all intents and purposes, excommunicating
Luther on 3 January; (on Easter Sunday, March 31, Ferdinand Magellan [1480-1521[33]] ordered a mass to be
celebrated on the shores of an island in the archipelago that would later be
named “the Philippines”, in honour of Philip II of Spain); a few weeks after
Easter, Luther appeared before the Diet of Worms and on 18 April made his “legendary”[34] “here I stand” speech
before Holy Roman Emperor Charles V (1500-1558); on 29 April, Ulrich Zwingli (1484-1531)
was elected as a canon of the Grossmünster church in Zurich. On 12 May, Luther’s writings were
anathematized in London during a ceremony at St. Paul’s Cathedral presided by Thomas
Cardinal Wolsey (1473-1530), Archbishop of York and Lord Chancellor of England;[35] around that time, Wolsey’s
king, Henry VIII (1491-1547) published Assertio Septem Sacramentorum to,
among other things, refute Luther’s denial of transubstantiation. This apologia of Roman sacramental
theology earned Henry, in October, the title of “Defender of the Faith”, bestowed
upon him by a grateful Pope before his Holiness succumbed to pneumonia on the
first of December. The Pope passed
knowing that all was well in England. Thus,
at Christmas 1521, the papal throne was vacante[36]
and Luther, who had assumed the moniker Junker Jörg[37], was safely squirreled
away in Wartburg Castle[38], probably too busy translating
the New Testament into German to worry much about theological treatises being
published by the king of England. During
the many months that Luther was in hiding, his associate Philip Melanchthon (1497-1560)
had been busy with a theological revolution of his own – he had published Loci
communes, the Reformation’s first work of systematic theology, an
exposition of Christian faith based on “loci” found in Paul’s letter to the
Romans.[39] Meanwhile in Noyon, France, a 12-year-old boy
by the name of Jean Cauvin had spent the
year working as a clerk for the local Bishop.
At Cambridge University, the newly ordained Fr. Thomas Cranmer was busy
working on his doctorate and preaching to the campus population. Little did he know that he had 8 years of
anonymous study left before he would be conscripted into his majesty’s service
and would then spend five years of his life (1529-34) granting Henry’s wish for
a new queen, overseeing England’s separation from Rome along the way…
Henry’s attacks on Luther later hindered his
efforts to ally with the German Lutherans contra Charles V.[40] Further complicating Anglo-Germanic relations
was Luther’s sympathy for Catherine of Aragon (1485-1536), Henry’s queen who,
after almost 20 years of marriage, had failed to give birth to a live son. As of 1527, Henry was desperately trying to have
his marriage to his brother’s widow annulled by papal dispensation so that he
could marry his mistress Anne Boleyn (1501-36) in the hopes of producing a male
heir to the throne. Luther had already
held a low opinion of Henry and he had a deep antipathy to divorce in general,
which led him to suggest – tongue in cheek – that the English king practice
bigamy. Melanchthon went further and
suggested that Henry ask the Pope’s permission to engage in this “unorthodox”
marital triangle![41]
Eleven years had passed since Luther
escaped from Worms; the year 1532 found Cambridge academic Thomas Cranmer
(1489-1556) abroad on the continent, working on his king’s “great matter” – i.e.
gathering scholarly opinions from the universities of Europe in the hope of achieving
a negative learned consensus concerning the legitimacy of Henry’s marriage to
Catherine in the further hope of procuring a papal annulment of the “unlawful”
union. Upon his return to England,
Cranmer would be elevated to the see of Canterbury; meanwhile, his encounter
with the Lutheran Reformation in Nuremberg in 1532 shaped his evangelical
belief for the next fifteen years.[42]
Henry recognized the potential opportunity
in the face of the Pope’s apparent refusal to grant him an annulment – a final
solution to the problem of overlapping papal and royal jurisdictions. By having Parliament declare him Head of the
Church within his realm, and the realm itself an empire subject to no external
jurisdiction, Henry could with a single stroke obliterate centuries of awkward and
sometimes humiliating compromises between Church and state, while at the same
time making him the final arbiter of his own marriage. The 1533 Act in Restraint of Appeals that no
legal case in England could be appealed outside the realm paved the way for the
Archbishop of Canterbury to annul the king’s marriage without fear of external
interference.[43]
One could say that Thomas Cromwell (1485-1540),
Henry’s “vicegerent in spirituals”, created the favorable conditions necessary
for Cranmer’s rise in 1533 from having been an obscure academic to being made
the most powerful cleric in England. By
September of that year, Cranmer had been consecrated Archbishop, ruled that
Henry’s marriage to Catherine was void and that his secret 1532 marriage to
Anne was valid, crowned Anne (who was 6 months pregnant) and stood as godfather
to the newly born princess Elizabeth. On
19 April 1534, Cranmer consecrated bishops for the first time, all without papal
mandate. The Act of Succession had
passed through Parliament, declaring Catherine’s daughter Mary illegitimate and
declaring Anne’s children as the legitimate successors to Henry. On 11 November, Cranmer announced that in
addition to his title of Primate of all England, he would substitute the title
of Metropolitan for that of Legate of the Apostolic See. This was one more indication that Rome no longer
had any say in the affairs of the Church in England. About a week later, the Act of Supremacy
passed Parliament, which did little more than recognize the fait accompli
which the government had achieved by its activity throughout the year. The break with Rome was complete and Henry
was "the only supreme head on Earth of the Church of England"
and could reform the Church as he saw fit.[44]
It was through Archbishop Cranmer that a
distinct evangelical stance entered England.
In 1531, Cranmer had met Zwinglian Simon Grynaeus (1493-1541) when the German
scholar visited Henry’s court. Through
Grynaeus, Cranmer began an 18-year-long correspondence with Martin Bucer
(1491-1551); these friendships formed the basis for an ambitious plan of
alliance (which never materialized) between the evangelicals of central Europe
and of England in the years after 1535.
Fleeing from persecution in Strasbourg, Bucer would spend his final
years as Regius Professor of Divinity at Cambridge under Cranmer’s protection.[45] When Bucer arrived in England, Cranmer laid
eyes on him for the first time. Cranmer
also maintained a steady correspondence with Heinrich Bullinger (1504-75), Zwingli’s
successor in Zurich. By 1546, Cranmer
was making his shift from Lutheranism to Zwinglian Reformed thinking.[46]
Upon Henry’s death in 1547, Cranmer began
to execute his program of reform in earnest under the reign of Edward VI and
the boy-king’s regency council, which was composed uniquely of (at the least
“nominal”) Protestants. Cranmer
immediately published a collection of 12 Homilies, on topics such as Scripture,
Faith, Good Works, and one on Justification which is still included in the Book
of Common Prayer, to be preached in all the parishes throughout the
kingdom. Unlike what Calvin had done in
1536 with his Institutio
Christianae Religionis, or what Melanchthon had done before
that with his Loci Communes, Cranmer did not write a book of systematic
theology[47]
for the Church of England – rather, he compiled a Prayer Book in 1549. Alan Jacobs claims that there has never been
a church to which the motto lex orandi, lex credendi has been more
applicable than the Church of England.
Generations of its priests and laypersons took pride in having no
Magisterium, no Canons of the Synod of Dort, no Westminster or Augsburg
Confession, but just a prayer book that they all agreed to use. Nothing defined the Church of England more
specifically or practically than use of the Book of Common Prayer.[48]
What Westminster couldn’t
overcome (2):
The “settling” of the question
of the episcopacy and the Prayer Book
Thanks to
the Third Succession Act of 1543, Mary became queen upon Edward’s death in 1553. Cranmer did not survive the regime change and
was burned at the stake in 1556. Following
Mary’s death from cancer, Elizabeth came to the throne on 17 November
1558. Within a matter of weeks of having
been crowned, she proposed several acts to Parliament, all of which
passed. There was a revamped Act of
Supremacy which required all clergy to take an oath recognizing Elizabeth as
“the supreme Governor[49]
of the Church in England”, the Act of Settlement, which gave the Crown the
right to decide on matters of heresy, and the Act of Uniformity (1559), which
revived the religion of the final year of the reign of Edward VI, including a
reaffirmation of the 1552 Prayer Book (with slight modifications, including adding the words
from the 1549 Book to the Eucharistic administration). Of course, change takes time, and the queen abruptly
left mass on Christmas Day 1558 when the Bishop presiding refused to omit the
elevation of the host![50] Elizabeth appointed Matthew Parker (1504-75),
who had served as one of her mother’s chaplains, as Archbishop. Bishop John Jewel (1522-71) composed an Apologia
Ecclesiae Anglicanae (1562) defending the Church as being based on
Scripture and the Fathers of the undivided Church of the first 5
centuries. Cranmer’s Forty-Two Articles
of Religion were amended to the Thirty-Nine Articles, which were agreed upon in
1563 and given royal assent in 1571.[51] Peter Marshall notes that the Elizabethan
Settlement resembles a post-war treaty, insofar as it dictated a set of terms
under which the English Church was henceforth to be governed and worship
conducted. Some of these – royal
governorship, episcopacy, the Book of Common Prayer – proved remarkably
durable, and in retrospect look like foundation stones of “Anglicanism”.[52]
After a 45-year reign, Elizabeth I died in 1603. During the reign of James I (1603-25), two strands of churchmanship – evangelical (“Puritan”) and avant-garde conformist – unfolded simultaneously, and struggled with each other for dominance with tactics that became more and more provocative and inflammatory. Richard Montagu (1577-1641) published two controversial anti-Puritan works. Seeking a rapprochement with Catholicism, Montagu claimed that the Catholic critique of the Church of England didn’t apply to the mainstream Church, but rather to marginal “Puritans”, who had no beliefs in common with the Established Church. In 1625, Parliament attempted (unsuccessfully) to prosecute Montagu and to have the Canons of the Synod of Dort (1618) declared to be part of the doctrine of the Church of England. Charles I (1600-1649) came to the throne that same year and Archbishop George Abbott, who had been unable to take action against Montagu, died in 1633. This cleared the way for Charles’ hand-picked cleric, William Laud (1573-1645), to become Archbishop.[53] And the rest is history…
CONCLUSION
So, why didn’t the Church of England follow
the example of the Church of Scotland and reform itself according to the Westminster
Confession? Well, putting questions of
English feelings of superiority aside, some English churches[54] did indeed embrace the
teachings of Westminster – the Congregationalists (1658) and the particular Baptists
(1689) among them.[55]
It seems to me that the main reason why
things flopped back to the status quo ante in 1660 is due to the
circumstances surrounding the Westminster Assembly. The shock of three successive civil wars,
fought, as we have seen, predominantly between Protestants of different stripes,
accompanied by the beheading of the king of England and Cromwell’s numerous
military campaigns throughout the 3 kingdoms and then, to rub salt in the
wound, the imposition of strict Puritan customs onto a largely unwilling
populace combined with the abolition of cherished traditions – it was a recipe
for disaster. By the time of Cromwell’s
death, it seems as if the English people were ready for anything but more republican
governance. “Better the devil who has a
longer track record…”
I feel as if its highly probable that
there were just as many Calvinists in the fold of the established Church after
the interregnum as before. At the end of
the day, for most people (besides the die-hard Puritans), I don’t think that the
priority was getting their theology straight or changing the polity of their
parish. The Puritans had a holistic
approach to reform, but perhaps most people just wanted to continue to pray as
they had before the troubles, in the manner of their parents and grandparents
before them, stretching back to the Settlement of 1559. Habits get ingrained over the course of a
century. Perhaps if Cromwell had
accepted the Crown in 1657, things may have been different…or worse. To say the least, many (if not most) people
were all too happy to return to a monarchical system of government. But then again, if Cromwell had proved to be
unpopular as king, he had already set a precedent for disposing of a monarch
you find unjust. Perhaps its just as
well that Cromwell turned down the offer and thus avoided extending two decades
of strife.
The theology of Westminster has proved its
usefulness. Unfortunately, at the time,
it was wrapped up with tragic political circumstances and was applied much too
hurriedly on a population that was far from being theologically homogenous or
open to the possibility of uniting around a common theological – not to mention
moral – vision. Then again, there is a
difference between policing a society’s morality and effectively catechizing
it. Food for thought… It must be said
that Calvinist thought is still bearing fruit in the Anglican Communion. J.I. Packer (1926-2020), one of the most
popular recent evangelical theologians in North America, was an unabashed 21st-century
Puritan. He provided leadership to what
would become the Anglican Network in Canada, which is a founding diocese of a
new province of the Global Anglican Future Conference (GAFCON) called the
Anglican Church in North America, which is separate from both the Anglican
Church of Canada and the Episcopal Church of the U.S.A. This is one example of orthodox Anglicanism
making a comeback in the West (even though 80% of orthodox Anglicans live in
the Global South).[56] Some seeds take a long time to sprout…
Even if the power of established churches
in the west has evaporated, the gospel of Jesus has lost none of its
potency. The church of Christ is called
to proclaim good news. May the Spirit
move in the hearts of those who hear.
May we experience once again the beauty of the gospel and be empowered
to help others be grasped by the hope and peace that only our Lord Jesus Christ
can give to those who live daily the fulfillment of his promise that “in this world
you will have tribulation”. Let us be of
good cheer.
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Ryken, Leland, Worldly Saints: The
Puritans as they really were, Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1986.
Shagan, Ethan H. “The Emergence of the
Church of England, c. 1520-1553” in ed. Anthony Milton, The
Oxford History of Anglicanism, Vol. 1: Reformation and Identity, c. 1520-1662,
Oxford & New York: Oxford University Press, 2017, pp. 28-44.
The Book of Common Prayer Canada,
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1959 [1918].
The Confession of Faith of the Assembly
of Divines at Westminster (https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Confession_of_Faith_of_the_Assembly_of_Divines_at_Westminster, accessed
19-12-2020).
Trueman, Carl R. “J.I. Packer: An English
Nonconformist Perspective” in ed. Timothy George, J.I.
Packer and the Evangelical Future: The Impact of his Life and Thought,
Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2009, pp. 115-30.
Wright, N.T. “Evangelical Anglican
Identity: The Connection between Bible, Gospel & Church (1980)” in Packer,
J.I. & N.T. Wright, Anglican
Evangelical Identity: Yesterday and Today, Vancouver, Regent College, 2008,
pp. 73-120.
[1] A term made popular by John Henry Newman (1801-90), though it was
sometimes used as early as the second half of the 17th century: MacCulloch, Diarmaid, Christianity: The
First Three Thousand Years, New York: Penguin Books, 2009, p. 654; cf. Wright, N.T.
“Evangelical Anglican Identity: The Connection between Bible, Gospel &
Church (1980)” in J.I. Packer & N.T. Wright, Anglican Evangelical Identity: Yesterday and Today, Vancouver,
Regent College, 2008, p. 75. (J.I.
Packer died on July 17, 2020). An
Anglican Theology conference was held on this very question at Samford
University in 2018: McDermott, Gerald R. “Introduction: Why this Book?” in ed.
G.R. McDermott, The Future of Orthodox Anglicanism, Wheaton: Crossway,
2020, p. 14. The first utterance of the
term may have slipped from the lips of James VI of Scotland in 1598 (he would
eventually become James I of England in 1603): MacCulloch, Diarmaid, Christianity:
The First Three Thousand Years, New York: Penguin Books, 2009, p. 649.
[2] McDermott, Gerald R. “Introduction:
Why this Book?”, p. 13.
[3] I.e. the Oxford movement, of which John Henry Newman was the most
prominent member until his conversion to Roman Catholicism. Cardinal Newman was canonized by Pope Francis
(papacy: 2013-) in 2019.
[4] Founded in 1841 by High-Church and evangelical Anglicans as a
response to the Tractarians, who in turn founded the Library of
Anglo-Catholic Theology in the same year; cf. Chapman, Mark, Anglican Theology, London
& New York: T. & T. Clark, 2012, pp. 43-6.
[5] Puritanism was never a
formally defined religious division within Protestantism, and the term Puritan itself
was rarely used after the turn of the 18th century; Milton,
Anthony, “Unsettled Reformations, 1603-1662” in ed. Anthony Milton, The
Oxford History of Anglicanism, Vol. 1: Reformation and Identity, c. 1520-1662,
Oxford & New York: Oxford University Press, 2017, p. 65.
[6] Milton,
Anthony, “Introduction: Reformation, Identity, and ‘Anglicanism’” in ed.
Anthony Milton, The Oxford History of Anglicanism, Vol. 1: Reformation and
Identity, c. 1520-1662, Oxford & New York: Oxford University Press,
2017, pp. 4-7; cf. Chapman,
Mark, Anglican Theology, London & New York: T&T Clark, 2012, pp.
2, 14-8.
[7] MacCulloch, Diarmaid, Thomas
Cranmer: A Life, New Haven & London: Yale University Press, 2016, p.
619.
[8] It was Cranmer’s son-in-law Thomas Norton (1532-84) who translated
Calvin’s Institutes into English in 1561 and his printer Richard Grafton
(1507-73) who published them: MacCulloch, Diarmaid, Thomas Cranmer: A Life,
p. 610.
[9] Milton, Anthony,
“Introduction: Reformation, Identity, and ‘Anglicanism’”, pp. 3, 24-5; cf. Chapman, Mark, Anglican Theology, London & New York: T.
& T. Clark, 2012, pp. 138-40: James I (1566-1625) sent delegates to Dort,
but there was no official ratification of the Synod in England.
[10] Chapman, Mark, Anglicanism:
A Very Short Introduction, Oxford & New York: OUP, 2006, pp. 46-7; cf. Hampton,
Stephen, “Confessional Identity” in ed. Anthony Milton, The Oxford History
of Anglicanism, Vol. 1: Reformation and Identity, c. 1520-1662, Oxford
& New York: Oxford University Press, 2017, pp. 224-27.
[11] I.e. between the year of the publication of the final edition of
Calvin’s Institutes as well as the Gallican Confession and that of the
Act of Uniformity following on the restoration of the monarchy in England in
1660.
[12] Unlike, say, the 39 Articles: Hampton, Stephen, “Confessional Identity” in ed. Milton, The Oxford
History of Anglicanism, Vol. 1: Reformation and Identity, c. 1520-1662,
Oxford & New York: OUP, 2017, p. 226.
[13] Allen, R. Michael, Reformed
Theology, London & New York: T. & T. Clark, 2010, pp. 1-10; cf.
McGrath, Alister E. Reformation Thought: An Introduction, Malden &
Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 1999 [1988, 1993], pp. 8-9.
[14] Lindberg, Carter, The
European Reformations, Malden & Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010 [1996],
pp. 245, 258.
[15] https://www.encyclopedia.com/religion/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/confessions-faith (accessed December 21, 2020).
[16] Of course, it depends on the articulation of the doctrines of grace
at the Synod of Dort (1618-19). Another
Reformed confession based on Dort is the Helvetic Consensus Formula of
1675. Earlier Reformed formularies
include the Heidelberg Catechism (1563) which is based on the Gallican
Confession (1559) and is the confessional standard of the Reformed churches
of the Low Countries and is itself based on Calvin’s Institutes (1559). The Gallican Confession (= Confession
de LaRochelle, 1571) most accurately depicts Calvin’s distinctive doctrines: McGrath, Alister E. Reformation Thought: An
Introduction, pp. 240-41. There was
indeed a plethora of Reformed confessions, catechisms, and works of theology
that had been circulated since Zwingli’s Short and Christian Instruction
of 1523, including the very popular Second Helvetic Confession of 1566,
written by Heinrich Bullinger: https://www.encyclopedia.com/religion/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/confessions-faith (accessed December 21, 2020).
[17] https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Confession_of_Faith_of_the_Assembly_of_Divines_at_Westminster (accessed December
19, 2020).
[18] The Book of Common
Prayer Canada, Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1959 [1918], pp. 709-10.
[19] MacCulloch, Diarmaid, Thomas
Cranmer: A Life, New Haven & London: Yale University Press, 2016 [1996],
pp. 622-24; idem., Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years,
New York: Penguin Books, 2009, p. 639.
[21] Cf. Chapman, Mark, Anglican
Theology, pp. 140-50; cf. Milton, Anthony,
“Unsettled Reformations, 1603-1662”, pp. 70-77.
[22] Fincham, Kenneth and
Stephen Taylor, “Episcopalian Identity, 1640-1662” in ed. Anthony Milton, The
Oxford History of Anglicanism, Vol. 1: Reformation and Identity, c. 1520-1662,
Oxford & New York: OUP, 2017, p. 459.
[23] Chapman,
Mark, Anglicanism: A Very Short Introduction, Oxford & New York:
OUP, 2006, pp. 50-51.
[24] Van Dixhoorn, Chad,
“The Westminster Assembly and the Reformation of the 1640s” in ed. Milton, The
Oxford History of Anglicanism, Vol. 1: Reformation and Identity, c. 1520-1662,
Oxford & New York: OUP, 2017, pp. 430-40.
[25] MacCulloch, Diarmaid, Christianity:
The First Three Thousand Years, New York: Penguin Books, 2009, p. 651.
[26] MacCulloch, Diarmaid, Christianity:
The First Three Thousand Years, New York: Penguin Books, 2009, pp. 651-52;
cf. Holland, Tom, Dominion: How the Christian Revolution remade the World,
New York: Basic Books, 2019, p. 368.
[27] Hughes, Ann, “The
Cromwellian Church” in ed. Anthony Milton, The Oxford History of
Anglicanism, Vol. 1: Reformation and Identity, c. 1520-1662, Oxford &
New York: Oxford University Press, 2017, p. 446.
[28] Cp. Ryken, Leland, Worldly
Saints: The Puritans as they really were, Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1986, p.
188.
[29] McGrath, Alister E. Christianity’s
Dangerous Idea, New York: HarperOne, 2007, pp. 141-43; cf. Ryken, Leland, Worldly
Saints: The Puritans as they really were, Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1986,
pp. 187-204. Though Ryken spends most of
his work extolling the Puritans’ virtues and debunking modern misconceptions of
this intrepid group of passionate Protestants, this particular chapter makes
one feel rather sorry for those Englishmen who chaffed under Puritan rule for
the better part of a decade during the interregnum. Surely, one cannot impose “regenerated”
behaviour on unconverted people.
[30] Fincham, Kenneth and
Stephen Taylor, “Episcopalian Identity, 1640-1662” in ed. Anthony Milton, The
Oxford History of Anglicanism, Vol. 1: Reformation and Identity, c. 1520-1662,
Oxford & New York: OUP, 2017, pp. 457-82.
[31] I.e. one of several Puritan groups, including Congregationalists
and separatists: McGrath, Alister
E. Christianity’s Dangerous Idea, p. 137.
[32] Cf. Lake, Peter,
“‘Puritans’ and ‘Anglicans’ in the History of the Post-Reformation English
Church” in ed. Anthony Milton, The Oxford History of Anglicanism, Vol. 1:
Reformation and Identity, c. 1520-1662, Oxford & New York: Oxford
University Press, 2017, pp. 377-79; cf. Chapman, Mark, Anglicanism: A Very
Short Introduction, pp. 52-6; cf. Hughes, Ann, “The Cromwellian Church”, p.
456: “many…remained within the episcopal Church to form a more familiar ‘Low
Church’ Anglicanism.”
[33] Magellan died fighting “Filipino”
aboriginals on 27 April.
[34] In both senses of the word.
[35] Cf. Lindberg, Carter, The
European Reformations, Malden & Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010 [1996],
p. 296.
[36] Pope Adrian VI would
be elected on 9 January 1522 and would reign for a mere 20 months before his
death and the subsequent election of Clement VII on 19 November 1523.
[37] I.e. “Squire George”.
[38] Where he had been
taken immediately after his appearance at the Diet of Worms.
[39]
A glance
forward:
contemporary Anglican biblical scholar, N.T. Wright (b. 1948), laments the
trend begun by Melanchthon: “A famous example of assuming
(anachronistically) that the NT contained the answers to (then) contemporary
“culture/theology-bound” questions was when Melanchthon abstracted his famous Loci from Romans, themes which still
form the backbone of much conservative Reformed systematic theology. Once "justification by faith"
became equated, by Luther (following his reading of Romans), with “Paul’s
gospel”, “justification” became the key, not only to Romans, but also to
Protestant theology in general, and thus began to take on its traditional role
as the very essence of Protestant Christianity.
And so, on Wright’s reading, 16th-century Protestantism
undertook its theological enterprise by granting ultimate authority to
Scripture, understood as containing
the timeless message of salvation for sinful individuals; this, coupled with an
understanding of Paul’s most important letter as being a systematic exposition
of his answer to the plight of the
individual sinner, led 16th and 17th-century
Protestant thinkers to erect a dogmatic edifice on this supposedly Pauline
soteriological scheme. Thus did the
Bible, Paul, salvation and doctrine come together to form the Gordian knot of
“Protestant theologizing”, a knot that Wright undertakes to cut on his way to
presenting evangelicalism with a new way
to do theology: Cf.
Wengert, Timothy, “Biblical Interpretation in the Works of Philip Melanchthon”,
pp. 323-26, 332-33. Indeed, Romans has
always been fundamental for Christian thought: Greenman, Jeffrey P. &
Timothy Larsen, eds. Reading Romans
through the Centuries, Grand Rapids: Brazos, 2005, pp. 13-14; cf., however,
Wright, “Historical Paul and ‘Systematic Theology’”, p. 150; cf. Caird’s
remarks: “No doubt the apostles needed successors for the carrying out of their
apostolic tasks, and no doubt with their appointments God gave to those
successors the grace to enable them. But
for the preservation of apostolic meaning Paul’s
only successor is the one who understands Paul”: Caird & Hurst, New Testament Theology, p. 425 (emphasis
added); A practice still honoured by certain contemporary exegetes of Romans,
though not without a certain self-consciousness; e.g. James D.G. Dunn, The Theology of Paul the Apostle, Grand
Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998, esp. pp. 25-26 where Dunn attempts to justify his
decision to structure the outline of his book on the epistle to the Romans,
understood as a systematic exposition of the following themes: theology and
anthropology, Christology, soteriology, ecclesiology, and finally, Ethics; cf.
Jewett, Robert, “Following the Argument of Romans” in Donfried, Karl P., Ed. The Romans Debate, Peabody: Hendrickson,
1991 [1977], p. 277; Cf. Neill, Stephen & Tom Wright, The Interpretation of the New Testament (1861-1986), Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1988 [1964], pp. 444-46.
[40] Lindberg, Carter, The
European Reformations, Malden & Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010 [1996],
p. 301.
[41] MacCulloch, Diarmaid, Thomas
Cranmer: A Life, p. 65.
[42] Ibid., p. 173.
[43] Shagan, Ethan H. “The
Emergence of the Church of England, c. 1520-1553” in ed. Anthony Milton, The
Oxford History of Anglicanism, Vol. 1: Reformation and Identity, c. 1520-1662,
Oxford & New York: Oxford University Press, 2017, p. 30.
[44] MacCulloch, Diarmaid, Thomas
Cranmer: A Life, pp. 79-129. The
more “logistical” reforms (ex: suppression of the monasteries, etc.) would be
entrusted to Thomas Cromwell, who functioned as Henry’s “vicegerent in
spirituals” until his execution for treason in 1540. Like Cranmer, Cromwell also benefited from
Anne Boleyn’s patronage, but he was also instrumental in her downfall and
execution in 1536.
[46] Ibid., p. 357; cf. Jacobs, Alan, The Book of Common Prayer: A Biography, Princeton
& Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2013, p. 14.
[47] Cf. Trueman, Carl
R. “J.I. Packer: An English Nonconformist Perspective” in ed. Timothy George, J.I.
Packer and the Evangelical Future: The Impact of his Life and Thought,
Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2009, p. 125: Trueman bemoans “…the fact that systematics,
if not theology, is a dirty word in many Anglican circles”.
[48] Jacobs, Alan, The
Book of Common Prayer: A Biography, p. 122.
[49] Elizabeth was loth to have herself declared “supreme Head” of the
Church, since Christ was said to be the only true head; also, the fact that she
was a woman may have worried some of the Bishops and members of Parliament,
what with New Testament teachings about the headship of the husband over the
wife, etc.
[50] Marshall, Peter,
“Settlement Patterns: The Church of England, 1553-1603” in ed. Milton, The
Oxford History of Anglicanism, Vol. 1: Reformation and Identity, c. 1520-1662,
Oxford & New York: OUP, 2017, p. 48.
[51] Chapman, Mark, Anglican
Theology, London & New York: T. & T. Clark, 2012, pp. 47-71.
[52] Marshall, Peter,
“Settlement Patterns: The Church of England, 1553-1603” in ed. Anthony Milton, The
Oxford History of Anglicanism, Vol. 1: Reformation and Identity, c. 1520-1662,
Oxford & New York: Oxford University Press, 2017, p. 45.
[53] Milton, Anthony, “Unsettled
Reformations, 1603-1662” in ed. Anthony Milton, The Oxford History of
Anglicanism, Vol. 1: Reformation and Identity, c. 1520-1662, Oxford &
New York: Oxford University Press, 2017, pp. 67-70.
[54] One of the results of
the interregnum was the acknowledgement that there were indeed several Protestant
churches in England, with the church that was later called “Anglican” becoming
established.
[55] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westminster_Assembly#Legacy (accessed December 21, 2020).
[56] Cf. Kujawa-Holbrook,
Sheryl A. “North American Anglicanism: Competing Factions, Creative Tensions,
and the Liberal-Conservative Impasse” in ed. Morris, Jeremy, The Oxford
History of Anglicanism, Vol. IV: Global Western Anglicanism, c1910-present, Oxford
& New York: Oxford University Press, 2017, pp. 362-96; cf. ed. Timothy
George, J.I. Packer and the Evangelical Future: The Impact of his Life and
Thought, Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2009; cf. ed. G.R. McDermott, The
Future of Orthodox Anglicanism, Wheaton: Crossway, 2020.
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