The Homilies taught justification by faith; the Injunctions forbade images; the Chantries Act denied the efficacy of prayers for the dead; the 1549 Prayer Book put the mass into ambiguous English; the 1550 Ordinal turned a sacramental priesthood into a preaching ministry, and for emphasis the altars were taken down; in 1552 the Church was given a Protestant liturgy, and in 1553 a Protestant theology – as Edward lay dying, the old vestments and service equipment were being confiscated from parish churches.
Sure, there's more to the story; Elizabeth's program was somewhat different to Edward's and lots has happened since the Tudors. But let's be clear, we still have essentially the same Prayer Book, the same Ordinal and the same Articles - we're very much the product of the Edwardian reforms.
Praise God for his Reformed Anglican Church!
A quick question that you may know the answer to. When Elizabeth I restored the Church of England, it dropped three of the 42 Articles of Edward VI and Cranmer's church. I've been interested in knowing what they were about for years, but so far I've drawn a blank. Were they a toning down of Cranmer's Protestantism?
ReplyDeleteDave - you've just jingled my bell! That question is bang on topic for my PhD.
ReplyDeleteEight of the 42 were actually cut and five new articles were added.
Cuts were:
- X. Of Grace.
- XVI. Blasphemy against the Holy Ghost.
- XIX. All men are bound to keep the moral commandments of the Law.
- XXXV. Of the book of prayers and ceremonies of the Church of England.
- XXXIX. The resurrection of the dead is not yet brought to pass.
- XL. The souls of them that depart this life do neither die with the bodies nor sleep idle.
- XLI. Heretics called Millenarii.
- XLII. All men shall not be saved at the length.
Additions were:
- V. Of the Holy Ghost.
- XII. Of good works.
- XXIX. Of the wicked which do not eat the body of Christ in the use of the Lord's Supper.
- XXX. Of both kinds. (Country and western?)
- XXXVI. Of consecration of bishops and ministers.
And of course the question is... why these changes? I don't think a toning down of Cranmer's Protestantism so much as a change of focus in Elizabeth's time.
If you're interested in reading around 100,000 words on this...
Plus - I should note that in addition to the cuts and additions, lots of the articles were rewritten - some substantially.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the quick explanation. :)
ReplyDeleteI'm not quite interested enough to read 100,000 words that will mostly be over my head. I'll wait for a shortened and dumbed down executive summary for the non expert, similar to the sort of thing that I usually include as a preface to my research papers.