The Elizabethan Church - More Reformed than Some Let On

By Robin G. Jordan

A great deal of misinformation about the Anglican Church and Anglicanism may be found on the Internet. Among the more common sources of this misinformation are church websites. One church website that I visited made what to me were two astounding claims. These claims are not supported by the historical facts but they frequently appear in online articles or on church websites. They show how much the nineteenth century Anglo-Catholic movement’s false narrative influences perceptions of the Anglican Church and Anglicanism, not only in the Episcopal Church, the Continuing Anglican Churches, and the Anglican Church in North America but also among non-Anglicans. A false narrative “is a plausible but misleading story that serves to explain a phenomenon in an inaccurate and self-serving way.”

The nineteenth century Anglo-Catholic writers created this narrative to convince themselves and others that the Church of England had not entirely abandoned Catholicism, that is, “the forms of Christian doctrine and practice which are generally regarded as Catholic rather than Protestant or Eastern Orthodox” at the Reformation and its retention of a Catholic tradition set the reformed Church of England apart from the European reformed churches. The purpose of this narrative was to establish Catholic theological credentials for the Church of England and their movement not just as a legitimate Anglican theological school of thought but as the only legitimate Anglican theological school of thought. In the process they not only reinterpreted Anglican Church history but also misrepresented the character of the reformed English Church and the European reformed churches.

The first claim that the church website made was that the English Reformers retained “Holy Tradition” where it was not contrary to the Holy Scriptures. The problem with this claim is that the notion of “Holy Tradition,” found in Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy, was repugnant to the English Reformers. In their writings they reject the idea over and over again. What mattered to the English Reformers was what Scripture taught, not tradition. The Roman Catholic Church, on the other hand, when it realized that it was losing the struggle against Protestantism in appealing solely to Scripture in support of its doctrine and practices, formally elevated tradition to the same level as Scripture at the Council of Trent, held between 1545 and 1563, and in its insistence that Scripture must be interpreted by tradition and tradition by the Church, elevated tradition and ultimately the Church above Scripture.

Archbishop Thomas Cranmer in the homily,  A fruitful exhortation to the reading and knowledge of the Holy Scripture compares “men’s traditions” to the “stinking puddles” found in the streets and alleys of sixteenth century England. In the sixteenth century streets and alleys were open sewers. Waste water from the kitchen was dumped into the streets and alleys along with the contents of chamber pots. A chamber pot “is a portable toilet meant for nocturnal use in the bedroom.” In the sixteenth century houses had no indoor plumbing or flush toilets. As well as puddles of human waste, a street or alley might include the rotting carcasses of dead animals and human vomit. The stench would have been overwhelming. In his description of human tradition, Cranmer is expressing a common attitude of the English Reformers toward tradition.

In the nineteenth century Anglo-Catholic writers sought to read back into the writings of the English Reformers their own views of tradition. What they were seeking to do was to create the impression that the positions which they took on a variety of issues stood in continuity with those of the English Reformers. They made all kinds of false claims in their attempt to establish Catholic theological credentials for the reformed Church of England. Among the false claims that they made was that the sixteenth century benchmark Anglican divine Richard Hooker had described the Anglican Church’s view of authority as a three-legged stool. The first leg supporting the stool was Scripture; the second leg, tradition; and the third leg, reason. Hooker, however, wrote no such thing. It was an Anglo-Catholic fabrication.

Nineteenth century Anglo-Catholic writers would also claim that Hooker originated the notion of the Anglican Church as via media between Protestantism and Roman Catholicism. However, a comparison of Hooker’s writings with those of mainstream Reformed theologians of his time place him well within the Reformed theological tradition. On some issues he is more Reformed than the Puritan extremists against whom he wrote.

A second claim that the church website made was that the reformed Church of England was distinct from the European reformed churches in that it retained a liturgy. As in the case of the first claim, the second claim can be attributed to the nineteenth century Anglo-Catholic movement’s false narrative. Its writers made this claim as part of their argument that the English Reformers were more Catholic than the European reformers. But like so many claims that these writers made, it is false. The reformed Church of England was not alone among the reformed churches in retaining a liturgy.

In 1523 Ulrich Zwingli published his first liturgical work in De Canone Missae Epicheiresis (An Attack upon the Canon of the Mass). It contained his proposals for the revision of the Roman rite. Among these proposals was to replace the canon after the Preface and the Sanctus with four prayers of his own composition. Two years later Zwingli published Action Oder Bruch des Nachtmals (Action or Use of the Lord’s Supper). It was far more radical. With the exception of the Institution Narrative, it did away with the Canon. This would become the norm for all later Zwinglian rites.

In 1524 Diobold Schwarz provided the reformed church of Strasbourg with its first reformed rite, which was an almost word for word translation of the Roman rite but which omitted all references to the sacrifice of the Mass and the invocation of Marry and the saints. It underwent thirteen revisions between 1526 and 1539. In 1539 Martin Bucer who had become the leader of the reformers in Strasbourg in 1530 produced his own service book, The Psalter, with Complete Church Practice. Its eucharistic rite fell between Luther and Zwingli’s rites. It was simpler and more didactic than their rites. It would strongly influence John Calvin’s rites and the Scottish rites. Through his  Censura Bucer would also influence Thomas Cranmer’s second prayer book.

John Calvin produced his first version of Form of Church Prayers when he was minister to the congregation of French exiles at Strasbourg from 1538 to 1541. It was an almost word for word translation of Bucer’s German rite into French. When Calvin returned to Geneva at William Farrel’s urging in 1542, he produced his revised version of Form of Church Prayers, which was a simplification of the Strasbourg rite. Structurally, it resembled William Farrel’s rite, which it replaced in Geneva.

In 1556 John Know published The Form of Prayers and Ministrations of the Sacraments while he was a minister to a congregation of English exiles in Geneva. It showed the influence of Calvin’s rite of 1542 and the 1552 Book of Common Prayer. At the same time it exhibited a degree of independence in its intercessions and consecration prayer. It was widely used in Scotland after Knox returned there in 1559.

As can be seen from this survey of early Reformed liturgies, the reformed Church of England did not go the liturgical route by itself. Other reformed churches also took the same route.

The European reformed churches were not homogeneous in what they believed and practiced. The church of Zurich had quite a different view of the relationship of the church and the secular authorities than did the church of Geneva. It was one of the magisterial reformed churches in which the magistracy played a significant role in the affairs of the church. With the Act of Supremacy of 1559 England would adopt the same view of the relationship of the church and the secular authorities as Zurich and the other magisterial reformed churches. In England the English monarch would replace the magistracy.

When the English Protestants who had fled England during the reign of Mary Tudor became embroiled in a dispute at Frankfurt, it was not over the use of a service book in church services but the form of the service book. One party wanted to use the 1552 Book of Common Prayer and the other party, a service book revised along the lines of Calvin’s Form of Christian Prayers The two parties were unable to reach a compromise and decided to go their separate ways. The Prayer Book party would go to Zurich; the other party would join John Knox in Geneva. The Frankfort authorities had expelled Knox for writing an inflammatory pamphlet.

The Genevan party, when the exiles returned to England upon Mary’s death, would press for the reform of the Church of England along the lines of the church of Geneva, including replacing the Book of Common Prayer with a service book based upon Calvin’s Form of Church Prayers. Both the Prayer Book party and the Genevan party were Reformed in their theological outlook. Where they differed was how they believed that the English Church should be reformed.

While nineteenth century Anglo-Catholic writers describe the Prayer Book party as the “Catholic” party or the “Anglican” party, with the inference that historic Anglicanism is Catholic in its theological outlook, these two descriptions are inaccurate. The members of both parties were not only Reformed in their theological outlook but also were members of the Church of England. They were churchmen. In other words, they were Anglicans. A more accurate description of the two parties is that they represented two different Reformed theological schools of thought in the English Church of the time.

The Reformed theological school of thought originally represented by the Prayer Book party were more tolerant or accepting of a limited number of older practices on the grounds that they were not prohibited by Scripture or were inconsistent with Scripture and were adiophora," matters not essential to faith but permissible to Christians or allowable in church." While its tolerance or acceptance of these practices is attributable to differences in the interpretation of Scripture, a second important contributing factor was its view of the relationship between the church and the secular authorities. It shared the view articulated by the Swiss theologian Heinrich Bullinger in his correspondence with the different parties in the vestiarian controversy during the reign of the Elizabeth I. Bullinger had replaced Ulrich Zwingli as the leading reformer in Zurich. Bullinger emphasized the importance of conformity and the need for decency and order. Its tolerance or acceptance of these practices does not represent a leaning toward Catholicism or an openness to Catholic doctrine and practice as nineteenth century Anglo-Catholic writers contended.