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

Sunday, March 18, 2012

Puritans in Canterbury Cathedral

From the Canterbury Cathedral guide book: 

"Many of the Cathedral treasures disappeared at that time [1540, dissolution of the monasteries]. More destruction followed. During the Commonwealth period, Parliamentary soldiers rode into the Cathedral and wantonly broke the organ, the font, and many monuments. They burnt the Prayer Books and smashed the windows. For quite some years afterwards the Cathedral became a desolate place." 

When it says "rode into the Cathedral," they mean on horses. They even used the nave as a horse stable.  Cromwell did the same nonsense in the ancestral home of Exeter, that is, at St. Peter's Anglican Cathedral, Exeter, UK.  Disrupted the Holy Communion services and commanding, "Away with all this tom-foolery!" 

See:  http://canterbury-cathedral.org/assets/files/docs/pdf/schools/A_QuickGuide_to_Canterbury_Cathedral.pdf

Charming chaps, weren't they? Burning Prayer Books?  Good Queen Bess's 1559 Books of Common Prayer with the Thirty-nine Articles?  Behold the Puritans then; behold them now, especially in a nation of exhorters, evangelicals and revivalists.  These enthusiasts have simply tossed rather than burned the Prayer Books...tossing the doctrines, worship and quiet piety of Anglican Prayer Book Churchmanship. There are many assumptions that belay these views. 

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