An Emboldened Anglicanism

Anglicanism has a heroic history. To acknowledge this is not to praise human courage and endurance in terms of hero worship, but to recognize the gifts of boldness and perseverance bestowed upon the people of God by the Holy Spirit in the cause of the Gospel. There have been many martyrs, many imprisoned, many impeded by authority in their ministries, and many who launched out into danger and public disgrace for the sake of making the Lord Jesus Christ and his saving compassion known to the masses of the lost.

Their stories are poignant and inspiring. John Bradford was brave under the pressure of persecution and the sentence of death. Bilney and Cranmer caved at first, but the recovery of their courage redounds to the grace of God towards his chosen ones in seasons of severe affliction. Davenant refused to be curtailed in his preaching of sovereign grace by edict of king and archbishop and suffered immense humiliation. Whitefield crossed the Atlantic repeatedly in his ministry of evangelism and was often subjected to personal danger for the sake of the Word. Ryle was amazingly steady under the sorrows he bore throughout his life - the loss of his family banking business and consequent settlement of debts incurred, and heavy bereavement at the death of two wives. Simeon's ministry was opposed by university and ecclesiastical authorities, and William Romaine was confronted with almost interminable malice on the part of those who took offence at the Gospel to which he dedicated his life and energy so resolutely. These are only a few examples of the men, and women, who suffered shame, sadness, injury, peril, and loss of personal comfort and even life for the truth of divine revelation and saving light.

The great hazard for the advocates of the Gospel is loss of nerve. Every believer is weak. We delude ourselves, as did Peter, if we think that we have any strength of our own. Even without reckoning with sin, the human constitution is frail by divine design. We were always meant to be reliant on God and should have been content to remain so. Our weakness is a fundamental characteristic of our creature-hood. It follows that our Christian leadership and ministry is weak and our dependence upon God absolute. Who is sufficient in their calling? No one. And therefore there is a tendency to tamper with the truth in its harder aspects. Ministers need the love and support of the people and loss of that love and support can jeopardize ongoing ministry and so sometimes the message is tailored for approval or even applause.  Read more