Through the prompting of the Holy Spirit and from their study of God’s Word the sixteenth century English Reformers discerned that the once pristine stream of the primitive and apostolic Christian faith had in fifteen centuries become polluted. They sought to remove the causes of the pollution so that the stream might flow clear again. They established a set of standards to ensure that the stream was kept unpolluted for future generations. They were not able to remove one major cause of pollution—human nature’s inclination toward evil. Consequently that clear flowing stream has once more become polluted again. The set of standards they left to posterity have been ignored or misinterpreted. They have not been enforced. All kinds of pollutants have been allowed to befoul the stream and in some cases have been deliberately introduced.
The condition of the stream in some places is as bad as it was before the English Reformation. In other places it is even worse. A babble of voices is heard claiming that there is nothing wrong with the water in their part of the stream. The quality of the water in their part of the stream is the way the quality of the water in the entire stream should be. Yet when the quality of the water in their part of the stream is tested against the standards of the Bible and the historic Anglican formularies, its befouled state does not justify their claim.
A number of these voices attack the standards that the English Reformers left us. “They are outdated,” they maintain. “What they believed is impure water is not.” They further argue that the water in their part of the stream is safe to drink and even has health-giving properties. Yet when we examine their claims closely, it becomes quickly evident that they are made to justify certain beliefs and practices that they favor. These beliefs and practices the English Reformers had identified as pollutants and causes of pollution in the stream and had removed them for that reason.
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