Reformed Churchmen: Cranmer's Final Words: Final Courage

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

Saturday, November 6, 2010

Cranmer's Final Words: Final Courage

Cranmer's recantation while imprisoned:

"I, Thomas Cranmer, anathematize every heresy of Luther and Zwingli. . . I confess and believe in one, holy, catholic visible church. . . I recognize as its supreme head upon earth the Bishop of Rome . . . Pope and vicar of Christ, to whom all the faithful are bound subject . . ." He went on to affirm the seven sacraments, including transubstantiation. He concluded, "I beg and pray God to deign of his goodness to forgive me the faults I have committed against him and his church." His humiliation was complete.

Cranmer's recantation of the recantation, the day of his death by fires at the stake, 21 March 1556:

"And now, forasmuch as I am come to the last end of my life, whereupon hangeth all my life past and all my life to come. . . I shall therefore declare unto you my very faith how I believe, without any color or dissimulation."

"I come to the great thing that troubleth my conscience more than any other thing that I ever said or did in my life, and that is setting abroad of writings contrary to the truth, which here now I renounce and refuse, as things written with my hand contrary to the truth which I thought in my heart, and written for fear of death and to save my life if it might be--and that is all such bills which I have written or signed with my own hand since my degradation, wherein I have written many things untrue. And forasmuch as my hand offended in writing contrary to my heart, therefore my hand shall first be punished; for if I may come to the fire, it shall be first burned."

"And as for the Pope, I refuse him as Christ's enemy and anti-Christ, with all his false doctrine."

Concerning the Sacrament of Holy Communion:

"...teacheth so true a doctrine of the sacrament that it shall stand at the Last Day before the judgment!"

His final words:

He stood straight as long as he could, ringed in fire, saying, "Lord Jesus, receive my spirit!"

The gentle rains washed the ashes.

Perhaps it is fitting, musically, to play Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata, as one reflects on the fires that "lit a light" in Western Civilization--these valiant English Reformers.