Sunday, January 10, 2010

Anglican History: Anglicanism defended from Puritan Extremists

(In honor of the lesser feast of William Laud, Archbishop and Martyr)

While the forging of the Via Media of Anglicanism began with the liturgical work of Archbishop Thomas Cranmer, the apologetics of Archbishop Jewel, and the theological genius of Richard Hooker, it was a sovereign, Queen Elizabeth, that sought to put into practice the Reformed Catholicism of Protestant Anglicanism (Clark 1897, 248-300). It was under her reign that the major doctrinal and liturgical disputes in the Church of England were “officially” laid to rest. In keeping with the ideals of the Anglican Reformation, the canons of 1571 directed that all who preach in the name of the Church shall: “. . .see to it that they teach nothing in the way of a sermon, which they would have religiously held and believed by the people, save that what is agreeable to the teaching of the Old and New Testament, and what the catholic fathers and ancient bishops have collected from this self-same doctrine.”


Under Elizabeth the liturgy, the Creeds, the historic ministerial Orders of Bishop, Priest, and Deacon would all be preserved in the Church of England. The liturgy of the Church would be simpler and in English (clearly the language of the people, following the ancient custom of national churches as expressions of the Church Catholic; see Article XXIV). In keeping with ancient practice, married clergy would be allowed, although Elizabeth personally disliked the notion (Hibbert 1991). The matter of the Eucharistic presence was not elaborated in the Articles of Religion any further than stating that the Body of Christ is given, taken, and received in the Supper by faith (Article XXVIII). Lutherans and Calvinists could find similarities and common ground with the bare bones theology of the Articles on most points within an ecclesiastical structure that preserved continuity with the pre-Reformation Church.
The Sacraments of Baptism and the Lord’s Supper were affirmed (in keeping with the Anglican Reformers) to be effectual signs of grace (Article XXV), not bare tokens only (rejecting Zwingli’s teaching). While the presence of Christ in the Lord’s Supper was affirmed, transubstantiation was firmly and explicitly rejected (Article XXVIII). Contentious matters like predestination were pronounced upon using the austere language of Saint Augustine of Hippo. Clergy were to wear vestments, namely the surplice for parish churches, surplice and cope for collegiate churches and cathedrals, and use the Prayer Book exclusively, thus providing a common national Use. The first four great Councils of the Church would provide the doctrinal basis for Anglican teaching (Middleton 2001). Essentially, all the basics for a primitive and reformed Catholicism were laid down. It was a lofty ideal. The Church of England was to be a national Church that all Christian people could honestly belong to. It satisfied many, but caused dissent and anger among others.
Queen Elizabeth is purported to have commented that she knew how much the Romans would need to be pleased in the reformed English Church, but she thought that the Puritans would never be pleased—no matter how much she agreed to their demands (Hibbert 1991; Middleton 2001). If this was her mindset, in retrospect she could be pronounced essentially correct. The Puritan element in the Church of England saw the Prayer Book as being culled from the “dunghill of the Mass” and the reformed vestments as being “popish” garb (Bourne 1947). The Church of England, in the Puritan view, was far from being rightly reformed. Episcopacy was seen as a form of prelacy not far removed from Papacy , willfully ignoring that it was the form of church governance as far back as the first century. The Elizabethan appeal to the ancient Catholic past of the English Church, explicit in the use of a fixed liturgy, the maintenance of the Orders of Bishops, Priests, and Deacons, as well as an appeal to patristic theology (the Homilies of the Church of England are punctuated with quotations from the Church Fathers) left many Puritans disquieted and desirous of further change and “reform.”


The English Civil War under the reign of King Charles the First and his Archbishop, William Laud, was a direct result of the goals and ideals of the Elizabethan Settlement and the Puritan resentment it caused. Laud defended the Episcopacy, sought to enforce the use of the Prayer Book, the wearing of vestments, the upkeep of churches, the formal training of ministers, and the use of the King James Bible (Bourne 1947; McGrath 2001). Many historians today see Laud as right in his aim, but heavy handed and errant in the method of his reach (Wedgwood 1958). He was beheaded by a Puritan Parliament for seeking to re-introduce “Popery” into England, and his King was later beheaded as well. Elizabethan Anglicanism, Episcopacy and Prayer Book, was outlawed under the Puritan Commonwealth, only to be brought back at the Restoration under Charles II in 1660. Anglicanism asserted itself again by law, but much less by force as in the days of Elizabeth and Charles. Anglicanism had grown weary of doctrinal disputes, and Puritan sympathies as well as Deist tendencies slowly crept into the Church.

Over the next century Latitudinarianism (an academic approach, at its best broadly orthodox but perhaps a little too philosophical, at its worst Deist and far removed from the relevant issues of Christian orthodoxy) became prevalent in the Church. Distinctly reformed Catholic theology, such as that taught by Cranmer, Jewel, Hooker, and Andrewes was slowly forgotten (although learned men like Bishop Berkeley and William Law resisted the darker aspects of Deism and the overemphasis of Reason in establishing “natural religion”). Anglicanism—broadly speaking—became apathetic concerning its past, in practice often forgetting its own rules and theology. The reformed Catholicism of the Elizabethan Settlement that seemed hard won at the Restoration, with its appeal to the ancient Church and her doctors and martyrs, slowly sunk below the horizon, to be replaced by a Church happy to be the “Established” Church of England. The foregoing might very well be a gross oversimplification of the matter—the essential unity of Anglicanism in England between the years of 1688 and 1832 is stressed—in some detail—by Gibson (2001). Moorman (1983) also attests to the vibrancy of the Church during the 18th century. However, the very existence of extremist Low Church elements within the Church of England that seemed to stand for the very things the Puritan movement stood for argues for a certain doctrinal incoherence within Anglicanism during this period. Teachings concerning the Eucharist, which the Prayer Book describes as the chief act of worship, although in some places it was celebrated only four or five time per year, ran the gamut from the heresy of Zwinglianism—in clear contradiction to the Articles—to the near orthodoxy of Calvin’s teaching (Hall 1993; I say this because most readers today would have difficulty distinguishing Calvin’s teaching on the Eucharist from most quotes from the Henrician Bishop Gardiner), notwithstanding Moorman’s (1983) attestation that there could be no doubt as to the straightforward Anglican teaching in the Prayer Book concerning the Lord’s Supper. The 19th century would see a re-emergence of distinctly “Anglican” theology (in a rediscovery of the works of Hooker, Herbert, Andrewes, etc.) in response to the Evangelical and Oxford Movements (each right in their essentials, but wrong in their extremes).

9 comments:

Carter said...

Christ was the word that spake it.
He took the bread and break it;
And what his words did make it
That I believe and take it.

These words were reputedly spoken by Elizabeth when questioned on her beliefs on the Eucharist in Mary's reign. While perhaps not deeply theological, they have always been a sufficient statement of my own beliefs.

Fr. David F. Coady said...

It is interesting that Elizabeth refused to go to the Council of Trent because she was summoned as a Protestant Monarch and not invited as a Catholic Queen.

Fr. David F. Coady said...

Are Anglicans Protestant or Catholic? Elizabeth I did not attend the Council of Trent because she was summoned as a Protestant Monarch and not invited as a Catholic Queen.

Canon Tallis said...

Actually she wrote them on a pane of glass with a diamond. And, yes, they are hers.

But what I actually came to comment on was the matter of vestments. The Ornaments Rubric orders the continued use of the vestments in use in the year before the introduction of the first Book of Common Prayer. In doing so it orders more than that book did. And they were in fact used in Elizabeth's chapels royal, the cathedrals and colleges of the country and the greater parish churches. There is in a museum in France a chasuble made for one of Elizabeth's chapels of silk damask with a pattern of her initial and bearing the royal motto. It was given by James I and Vi to the French ambassador who arranged the marriage of Prince Charles to Henriette Marie. It had also acquired the addition of the royal arms of Scotland which would seem to indicate that it had continued in use after Elizabeth death and James's coming to the throne.

It is my contention that the prayer book was intended to be used fully and obeyed completely and one can not really know what is intended in Anglicanism without it. But so many seem to be terrified to have given God that much charge of their lives.

Fr. David F. Coady said...

Hooker said it best: " Reformed but Catholic; Catholic but Reformed."

Canon Tallis said...

Elizabeth in another letter claimed to be as Catholic as any prince in Europe. In fact, I believe that she was more. The French Cardinal of Lorraine championed the English reform at Trent and urged it upon all, but as many noted the Holy Spirit seemed to arrive in the diplomatic boxes of the Spanish ambassador meaning that the Pope and the Council served the interests of Spain above those of the Church or Christ.

If Trent had followed the English reform which included a return to married clergy in accordance with the teaching of St Paul in Timothy and Titus one wonders if Ireland would have the horror of the Ryan Report and Australia, Canada and the United States would have suffered the huge scandal of clerical sexual abuse which is now the legacy of the Roman clerical system.

Carter said...

"Are Anglicans Protestant or Catholic?"

Yes!

We protestant "protest" (avow and affirm)the ancient Catholic faith.

In Christ,
Carter

Kimberly Cordell said...

Thank you for your historical piece. I came across your blog by chance. Please continue it as it may reach even one lost soul.

Fr. David F. Coady said...

One can only "protest" if one is still within the Church. Also, one can only "reform" if one is still within the Church. Therefore, it stands to reason, that we Anglicans are still Catholic. We are part of the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church. This we affirm every time we say one of the Creeds which we do at every Morning Prayer, Evening Prayer, and the Holy Communion.