Reformed Churchmen

We are Confessional Calvinists and a Prayer Book Church-people. In 2012, we remembered the 350th anniversary of the 1662 Book of Common Prayer; also, we remembered the 450th anniversary of John Jewel's sober, scholarly, and Reformed "An Apology of the Church of England." In 2013, we remembered the publication of the "Heidelberg Catechism" and the influence of Reformed theologians in England, including Heinrich Bullinger's Decades. For 2014: Tyndale's NT translation. For 2015, John Roger, Rowland Taylor and Bishop John Hooper's martyrdom, burned at the stakes. Books of the month. December 2014: Alan Jacob's "Book of Common Prayer" at: http://www.amazon.com/Book-Common-Prayer-Biography-Religious/dp/0691154813/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1417814005&sr=8-1&keywords=jacobs+book+of+common+prayer. January 2015: A.F. Pollard's "Thomas Cranmer and the English Reformation: 1489-1556" at: http://www.amazon.com/Thomas-Cranmer-English-Reformation-1489-1556/dp/1592448658/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1420055574&sr=8-1&keywords=A.F.+Pollard+Cranmer. February 2015: Jaspar Ridley's "Thomas Cranmer" at: http://www.amazon.com/Thomas-Cranmer-Jasper-Ridley/dp/0198212879/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1422892154&sr=8-1&keywords=jasper+ridley+cranmer&pebp=1422892151110&peasin=198212879

Monday, September 14, 2009

Is there Popery in the Prayer Book, Historically Considered

For the full 9-page pdf-article, it is at the URL.

Is there Popery in the Prayer Book, historically considered? http://www.churchsociety.org/publications/documents/CAT016_Boultbee-Popery.pdf

[Church Society] 14 Sep 2009


The very asking the question now proposed for our consideration would have utterly astonished our forefathers of the last century. I am old enough to remember when plain Church people used commonly to speak of their religion simply as Protestantism. Often, in the early days of my ministry, when making my first acquaintance with parishioners, and therefore feeling it necessary to know what they were, I have asked whether they went to church or chapel, and have received the reply, “Oh, I am a Protestant”—meaning thereby a Churchman. Of course they would have admitted that their Wesleyan and Baptist neighbours professed the Protestant faith too. But the old English idea was distinctly that the Church of England was the Protestant Church, and Churchmen were Protestants. How it has come to pass that such a firm English notion should ever have been partially loosened, is a strange story, the telling of which in years to come will be a singular page inhistory.However, that it is loosened is but too clear. The proposed question for our Lecture implies that some think that somehow, and somewhere, there is Popery in our Prayer Book. If there is, it will concern us to find out where it is, and who put it there, and why; and whether they did it consciously or unconsciously? If unconsciously, those who did it were either themselves in a muddle, or were not entirely free from the old system. If consciously, they were either dishonest men, or they yielded to influences they could not resist.

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