The Anglican Position Towards Rome

“The Anglican Position towards Rome and the Papacy,” Tract 429 from the Church Association.

http://www.churchsociety.org/publications/documents/CAT429_Anglican-Rome.pdf

Do not look for similar treatments anywhere in modern Protestant literature, although the Lutheran Church, Missouri Synod, maintains a Confessional view similar to that advocated by this article.

Do not look for this view from Western Anglicans nor from the recently gathered (M)Anglican or Manglican Church of North America, 22-25 June 2009. Do not look for this article to be posted at http://www.virtueonline.org/, a modern and major news outlet for worldwide Anglicanism.

Do not look for such views in the general Anglican blogosphere. Do not look for them in the Anglican Mission in America (AMiA). Do not look for it from Anglican Mainstream or Stand Firm in the Faith. Most certainly do not look for it from those in Forward in Faith. Avowedly, do not look for it from Bishops Jack Iker, Schofield, or Ackerman, all of ACNA-fame. You also will find nothing from Reformed Episcopal Bishops. Do not look for it from the African or South American Bishops.

Most certainly, look for opposition and resistance from Dr. James I. Packer to this article and well as from the signatories to Evangelical-Catholics Together. Is it the conspiracy of silence? Or, it is a conspiracy of opposition to the English Reformation?

This Church Society article on the position of the English Reformation towards Rome gets no play from moderns; look for no analyses on Romish theology from the Manglicans.

The staunchest Anglican is largely unaware of how deeply the Reformed Church of England “indicted” Rome and the Papacy. That is the fault of the present leaders, writers, teachers, and pastors, a few of whom have been mentioned.

All manner of ingenuity has been offered to mitigate the facts that the English Reformed Church was rigorously anti-Roman. Ridley, Cranmer, Latimer, Bradford, Hooper, Parker, Grindal, Sandys, and Whitgift held that Rome was Anti-Christian and Anti-Christ. Archbishop Whitgift’s successor, Richard Bancroft, was responsible for passing a canon at the Convocation of 1606 that would censure “any who should deny the Pope to be the Man of Sin.” Bancroft’s successor to the Archbishopric of Canterbury was George Abbot, who held the same view.

Other Reformers such as Luther, Bullinger, and John Jewel (the “Jewel” of the English Reformation)--a mere sampling--as well as the Book of Homilies at several places assert likewise, not sparing the Papacy of just censures. The Church of Ireland in its 1615 Convocation and the Westminster Confession of Faith (1647) affirm the similar indictments against that “Man of Sin” and his false Gospel.

It is time for another Reformation, with a solid sweep of the modern leaders with replacements by those who understand the Reformation. But don't look for that either; the elites and hegemonists control the centres of advertisement and the levers of power.

However, where two or three are gathered in His name, there is our LORD, as we are reminded from St. Chrysostom's Prayer in the Order for Morning Prayer. Numbers do not norm or govern our thinking.

Those with investments and vested interests—including pensions and other perks, etc.—won’t be stepping up to the plate as did our Reformers, whose blood was spilled for these truths of the Gospel.

The moderns think these Reformers were culturally-conditioned "kooks" with little to say for our times. Read widely.