Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 1.djvu/562

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ANGLICANISM 502 ANGLICANISM ing the Catholic doctrine were studioiisly eliminated, or so duitiged as to preclude in future any such interpretation, and all allusion to Altar or Sacrifice was carefully omitted (Gasquet and Bishop, Ed- ward Vi and the liook of Common Prayer, 289). In 1552, this, the second Prayer Book of Edward VI, was autho'ized by Parliament. A new Ordinal or Order for making bishops, priests, and deacons was compiled, from which in like manner all mention of the sacrificial office of the priesthood was rigorously excluded. It was approved by Parliament in 1552. In 1551, quite in harmony with this liturgical re- form, an Order in Council issued to Bishop Ridley required the altars to be torn do^-n, and movable tables substituted, while a statement of reasons was to be made to the people explanatory of the change, namely, "that the form of a table may more move and turn the simple from the old superstition of the Ma.ss and to the right use of the Lord's Supper". By Royal Proclamations and episcopal visitations, a multitude of Catholic practices and sacramentals, such as lights, incense, holy water, and palms, were suppressed. These reforms, proceeding tentatively but rapidly, were initiated and carried out mainly by Cranmer and his set, and they reflected his beliefs and those of his fellow-reformers. In 1553, a royal decree was issued requiring the bishops and clergy to subscribe forty-two Articles of Religion which embodied in great part what had been contained in the Thirteen .rticles agreed upon with the Germans. The article on the Eucharist had been significantly changed to agree, as Hooper attests, with the teach- ings of the Swiss reformer, Bullinger. In November, 1558, Queen Elizabeth succeeded Queen Mary, and immediately proceeded to restore the work of Henry VIII and Edward VI. The new settlement of religion was based, not on the First Prayer Book of 1549, but on the more Protestant one of 1552. The latter was adopted with a few slight modifica- tions, and it remains for the most part substantially unchanged to the present day. The statement that Pius IV offered to approve the Prayer Book is de- void Oi" all historical foundation. It has not a vestige of contemporary evidence to support it. Camden, the earliest Anglican historian who mentions it, says: "I never could find it in any writing, and I do not believe any writing of it to exist. To gossip with the mob is unworthy of any historian" (History, 59). Fuller, another Anglican historian, describes it as the mere conjecture "of those who love to feign what they cannot find". In 1563 the Edwardian Articles were revised in Convocation under Arch- bishop Parker. Some were added, others altered or dropped, and the number was reduced to Thirty- eight. In 1571, the XXIXth Article, despite the opposition of Bishop Guest, was inserted, to the effect that the wicked do not eat the Body of Christ. The Articles, thus increased to Thirty-nine, were rati- fied by the Queen, and the bishops and clergy were required to assent and subscribe thereto. During the whole of Elizabeth's long reign, the prevailing tone of Anglican teaching and literature was de- cidedly Genevan and Calvinistic (Dr. Prothero, Eng- lish Hist. Rev., October, 1886). In 1662 a reaction set in agaiast Puritanism, and the Prayer Book, which had been suppressed during the Commonwealth, was brought back and subjected to revision in Con- vocation and Parliament. The amendments made were numerous, but those of doctrinal significance are comparatively few, and of a kind to emphasize the Episcopal character of Anglicanism as against I'resbyterianisni. The most notable were the reinser- tion, with altered wording, of t he Black Rubric (omit ted by Elizabeth) and the introduction in the form of the words, "for the office of a Bishop" and "for the office of a Priest", in the Service of Ordination. The historic meaning and doctrinal significance of the Anglican formularies can only be determined by the candid and competent examination of the evidence as a whole, first, by the study of the plain meaning of the text; secondly, by the study of the historical setting and the circumstances in which they were framed and authorized; thirdly, by the known be- liefs of their chief authors and of those by whom they were accepted; fourthly, by comparison with the Catholic pre-Reformation formularies which they supplanted; fifthly, by the study of their sources and the e.xact value of their doctrinal terminology as found in the controversies of the time; sixthly — if the examination is not to be hopele-ssly narrow — by the study of the general Reformation in Europe, of which the English Reformation, albeit with local and national characteristics, was both a part and a result. Here it is only possible to state the conclu- sions arising from such an inquiry in briefest out- line. Connexion with the Parent Movement of Refokmation. — ^There can be no doubt that the English Reformation is substantially a part of the great Protestant Reformation upheaval of the six- teenth century, and that its doctrine, litjrgy, and chief promoters were to a very considerable extent derived from, and influenced by, the Lutheran and Calvinistic movements on the Continent. There was first of all the living or personal connection. The great English Reformers who took the leading part in the work of the Reformation in England — Cran- mer, Barlow, Hooper, Parker, Grindal, Scory, May, Cox, Coverdale, and many others — were men who lived and laboured amongst the Protestants of the Continent, and remained in constant and cordial touch and communication with them. (See Original Letters of the Reformation.) Reciprocally, conti- nental reformers, like Peter lLartyr and Martin Bucer, were welcomed to England and made pro- fessors of Divinity at the universities. Others, like John i Lasco, and Paul Fagius, became the friends and guests of Cranmer. A second bond was the adoption of the same essential doctrines. The great principles and tenets set forth in the works of Luther, Melanchthon, and Calvin, or Zmngli, are reproduced with or without modifications, but substantially, and often almost verbatim in the literature of the Eng- lish Reformation. The chief doctrines which are essentially and specifically characteristic of the Prot- estant Reformation as a whole are the following nine: rejection of the Papacy, denial of Church Infallibility; Justification by Faith only; supremacy and suffi- ciency of Scripture as Rule of Faith; the triple Eu- charistic tenet [viz. (a) that the Eucharist is a Communion or Sacrament, and not a Mass or Sac- rifice, save in the sense of praise or commemoration; (b) the denial of Transubstantiation and worship of the Host; (c) the denial of the sacrificial office of the priesthood and the propitiatory character of the Mass]; the non-necessity of auricular Confession; the rejection of the invocation of the Blessed Virgin and the Saints; the rejection of Purgatory and omis- sion of prayers for the dead; the rejection of the doctrine of Indulgences. To these may be added three disciplinary characteristics which are founded on doctrine: the giving of Communion in both kinds; the substitution of tables for altars; and the aboli- tion of monastic vows and the celibacy of the clergy. 'These twelve doctrines and practices of the conti- nental Reformation have undoubtedly, though not always in the same measure, entered into the fibre of the English Reformation, and have all found ex- pression, more or less emphatic, in the Anglican formularies. Hence while the name "Protestant" is not found in the Prayer Book, it is used in the Cor- onation Service when the King promises to main- tain "the Protestant religion as by law established". It was from the beginning popularly applied to the