The Remains of Edmund Grindal: Successively Bishop of London and Archbishop of Canterbury, Parker Society Series (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1843)
A word at the outset. Paragraphs throughout will not form well in this venue. Repeated efforts to correct them below do not take here.
This is a major primary work. This should be required reading at Anglican colleges and seminaries. It's not. You're on your own in the Anglican free-fall. But it is available. Free and downloadable at:
We have a saying, "Lead, follow or get out of the way." Since the ACNA leaders can't lead in terms of the Reformational faith, we can't follow. Ergo, even if there are but a few of us, they can follow. If there are obstructionists, like the Windbag and other fawners of compromise, they can get out of the way. Unfortunately, for Reformed Anglicans, we are on our own.
For a free, downloadable version of Strype:
We’ll make general observations on his life prior to reading his work.
1. c. 1519 - 6 July 1583. Age of death, approximately 64. He is buried in Croydon, a suburb in what would be metropolitan London today.
2. An English Reformer. In sequence, a Bishop of London, Archbishop of York and then Cantaur, or Archbishop of Canterbury.
3. His predecessor is Archbishop Matthew Parker, whom we are reviewing separately.
4. His successor was Archbishop John Whitgift, author of the Lambeth Articles, 1595, that we believe should have been adopted, had it not been for Queen Exegete the First and Sovereign Theologian of a national church. This unreformed and uncorrected Erastian would be a ballgame with extra innings in church history.
5. Grindal’s early education began at St. Bees Priory under monks. Nothing like a good education with discipline. He took that discipline with him as he advanced through life. Get it when your young and not like old and ignorant; best to cure it when young (Eccl.11.9-12.1).
6. He was educated at Magdalen and Christ’s Colleges, Cambridge University.
7. He graduated from Pembroke College, Cambridge University with a BA and was elected a fellow in 1538.
8. He obtained his MA from Pembroke in 1541.
9. He was ordained a deacon in the national Church of England in 1544.
10. He was allegedly a Proctor and Lady Margaret preacher, 1549.
11. Nicholas Ridley, Master of Pembroke, elected Grindal to be the Protestant disputant during a visitation in 1549.
12. At the said disputation, Grindal showed signs of success. Word circled back to Nicholas Ridley, another hero of the English Reformation, so little studied in his primary writings. Again, Strype is an excellent and necessary secondary source.
13. Our Church Society article notes from Strype; “Before he came to be taken notice of in the Church, he made a figure in the University, as one of the ripest wits and learnedst men in Cambridge.”
14. When Ridley became the Bishop of London, he became one of Ridley’s Chaplains and gave him the precentorship of St. Paul’s Cathedral.
15. He was soon promoted to be one of King Edward VI’s chaplains and was given a prebendary at Westminster.
16. The Forty-two Articles were submitted to him and six other Churchman in October 1552 for examination prior to submission to the Privy Council. Anabaptists and chiliasts, e.g. Munsterites, are condemned.
17. Upon Queen Mary’s enthronement, Grindal made haste to Strasbourg. He then proceeded to Frankfurt, home to contentions between the “Knoxians” and “Coxians.”
18. Of note, at this time, Grindal was a “Reformed Churchman.” To wit, a Calvinist and Cranmerian on the Table. England was no place for a Reformed man during Mary’s wicked rule.
19. Knox wanted further simplifications of the 1552 Book of Common Prayer while Cox thought it adequate. Of note, Knox was not anti-liturgical.
20. Upon Elizabeth’s enthronement in January 1559, Grindal served on a committee to revise the liturgy.
21. He was elected also to the Mastership of Pembroke Hall.
22. He also succeeded the Papist Bishop Edmund Bonner in London, the famed inquisitor of numerous Reformers under Mary. We've recently been reviewing the trial examinations of (Archdeacon) John Philpott before London, Winchester and others.
23. Grindal, like other English Churchmen, had qualms about vestments and Erastianism.
24. In 1562, Grindal was a prominent churchman in the revision of the Articles of Religion.
25. As the Bishop of London, when the Helvetic Confession was embraced on the Continent in 1566, he wrote to Bullinger saying: “…down to this very day, we do perfectly agree with your churches, and with your confession of faith lately set forth.” He was a Reformed man, no question about it.
26. Grindal was not quick to help Archbishop Matthew Parker in persecuting or executing judgments against English “Puritans.”
27. Grindal’s successor, John Whitgift, however, was willing to go after nonconformists.
28. Bishop Sandys, in London, would face similar difficulties with obstreperousness and recalcitrance, “divisive men.” London was always the hotspot. Grindal went to York as the Archbishop.
29. Grindal attempted to enforce the “surplice,” but met with protest during his tenure in London.
30. Refusal to wear the “surplice” resulted in clerical suspensions. In 1570, Grindal denounced Thomas Cartwright to the Council.
31. In 1570, upon accession to the diocese of York, he did not have to deal with Puritanical puerilities about “surplices,” a childish point, but with Recusancy.
32. In York, however, he had to deal with widespread Romanism, still infecting the nobility and the rank-and-file Churchman. He enforced uniformity--Articles, Prayer Book, Ordinal, and Homilies--on the Papists with care and skill. He has been called the “gentle shepherd.”
33. In York, he gave instruction (called “advertisements”) to ensure that the Churches were decent and in good repair, for worship befitting the faith to be proclaimed in them. High marks were signalled from several sources, including his opposition.
34. Further, in those advertisements, crosses, candle sticks and altar stones were to be removed and destroyed, the latter being replaced by a “decent table standing on a frame for the Communion Table.” This was Bishop Ridley redux. All appearances or suggestions of the Romish Mass, so engrained in the nation’s conscience, were to be removed. (The Exegete herself did not follow these Reformed advertisements or rules, but had her "own" for her "own" private chapel.)
35. He was nominated to Canterbury in July, 1575, by Burghley, a gesture to conciliate the “moderate Puritans.” Burghley, Elizabeth’s chief advisor, advised Grindal to mitigate the severity that Parker had exercised against the nonconformists. It is to be noted that Burghley and Sir Walsingham, Elizabeth's spymaster, were Calvinists' Calvinists, notwithstanding Elizabeth's immoderate moderation.
36. Grindal ran afoul of Elizabeth the Theologian. She wanted “prophesyings” to stop. This was the equivalent of theological conferences or presbyteries of sorts sponsoring preaching. These were often held weekly. Ordained clergymen were the preachers and laymen were invited to attend. Grindal refused to suppress these events, thinking that they were healthy and that Elizabeth had overstepped her boundaries in church affairs. Grindal, as a good Calvinist, believed in the sufficiency, supremacy and necessity of God's Word as the food of he sheep. For that, he suffered.
37. In June 1577, Elizabeth the Exegete suspended him from jurisdictional duties for "disobedience." It was called "non-conformity." This was not about "surplices" but on the necessity of the preached Word. He held his ground; Scriptures were sovereign above the nation’s queen. Grindal thought these gatherings for biblical exposition were healthy and necessary. After all, he was Reformed and held to the Helvetic Confession although the nation never adopted it—to the Exegete’s discredit.
38. In January 1578, Burghley was informed that the Exegete and Theologian of England wanted him deprived. Grindal held fast for the sovereignty of the church sphere, something that redevelop in subsequent English history and the quest for religious freedom. She sowed the seeds of a Civil War, aiding and abetted by that hapless fool, William Laud.
39. Elizabeth was dissuaded from this course, but remained “iron-willed” about her own Majesty and quite errantly. We think her a solid queen, but she made some mistakes too. This much, she kept the Papists out of England and defeated the Papist Spaniards...otherwise, Reformed and Protestant English Churchmen might have been tour-masters on the rosary beads instead of students of Scriptures.
40. In 1581, four years after his suspension, the Convocation (like a national presbytery or General Assembly) petitioned for Grindal's reinstatement. They sympathized with his stand and position on Scriptures. There was a stalemate. Bess suggested he resign, but Grindal would not.
41. At the end of 1582, he was reinstated. Aged for those days and while preparing for the assumption of duties, he died and was buried at Croydon Parish Church. (Croydon, as a locale, would be in the suburbs of metropolitan London.)
Observations on the observations:
1. Archbishop Grindal was a Calvinist’s Calvinist, endorsing the Helvetic Confession of 1566. Contemporary Anglicans would do well to learn the Scriptures like the English Reformed and "upgrade" their essentially reductionist, accomodationistic, and inadequate Articles of Religion.
2. Grindal believed the Scriptures were above the Queen and necessary for the edification of God’s flock. End of the discussion. But he lacked the political power and suffered for it, setting a benchmark for the future.
3. The entire clerical-system in England was not Reformed and Erastianism still errantly prevailed, then as now in England. Switzerland appears to have had a freer hand in the Reformation than than taut and tight Elizabeth.
4. Grindal was a man of principled conviction re: the above. He held out to the last, although sequestered from service for years.
Correlations:
1. The Helvetic Confession of 1566.
2. The Scots Confession of 1560.
Applications:
1. Time for Reformational Anglicans to recover their Reformed roots.
2. Do not trust the ACNA leaders; they’re loaded with Tractarians who’d sneeze, guffaw, object, pout, and whine if the ACNA became “Reformed.”
3. Expect nothing like this from the ACNA.Hold fast to the truth on the Philpott-principle. When Bonner examined him, “But Master Philpott, all of us here, all these Bishops and nobility, yeah, all of England, are arrayed against you.” Philpott resorted to sufficient and perspicuous Scriptures. A Reformed and Anglican Churchman can answer with nothing else but this. Back to the Helvetic Confession, which Grindal affirmed was held widely in the Church of England (minus Exegete the First).
4. Steer young Churchmen away from the ACNA, lest they get a 1979 BCP and no Reformed theology. Better to have the latter, although we would lament the loss of a good liturgical program for prayer and worship. The Civil War ignorantly tossed the entire Book of Common Prayer.
5. Continue to speak about the Anglican follies and incompetencies. They'll never learn in the West.
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