Lee Gatiss: The 350th Anniversary of the 1662 Book of Common Prayer

http://leegatiss.wordpress.com/2012/08/17/the-book-of-common-prayer/

The Book of Common Prayer

This month sees the 350th anniversary of the official adoption of the Book of Common Prayer in 1662.

 

 

 

Last year we celebrated the 400th anniversary of the King James Version of the Bible. This year the history buffs and antiquarians are in joyful mood because it is the 350th anniversary of that famously Anglican date — 1662.

 

In these days of spiritual ignorance in the country and doctrinal laxity in the church, many Anglicans look back to former times with a certain degree of wistfulness.

 

Declining electoral rolls speak of a nation less focused on the things of God than seems to have been the case in centuries gone by when our ancient and airy church buildings must, we imagine, have pulsated with activity and vibrancy.

 

In a period of liturgical diversity and confusion, other Anglicans feel the disappearance of a uniform standard of worship across the denomination to be an incalculable injury, particularly as it permits both a lack of gravity in church services and the propagation (often) of dubious theology.

 

In an era of polarisation in ecclesiastical politics, with pressure groups and ‘turbulent priests’ disturbing the peace of the Church, the search for authoritative leadership to impose order on a fractious, wayward communion is an understandable desire.

 

One date lingers in the collective Anglican memory as suggestive of a golden era: 1662. Weren’t churches full in the seventeenth century? Didn’t the Prayer Book, hallowed by over a century of sacred use, ensure unity and uniformity in the public meetings of every English parish, with a reverent dignity and stylistic polish often wanting in modern expressions of church?

1662 is an emblem of the liturgical good old days.

 

Reformers

 

The Book of Common Prayer (BCP) was not actually invented in 1662. The first such book in English was edited by Archbishop Cranmer in 1549, under good king Edward VI.

 

It was quickly revised again and re-issued in an even more Protestant and Reformed version in 1552. So this year is the 460th anniversary of that second Edwardian prayer book too.

 

Playing a key role in the composition of that book was the Italian reformer Peter Martyr Vermigli. As Regius Professor of Divinity at Oxford, Vermigli had a huge influence over Cranmer and Ridley and other English reformers, and was a great link between the English and Continental Reformations.

 

Vermigli, incidentally, died in 1562. So this year is also the 450th anniversary of this great man going to glory.

 

What Cranmer and Vermigli did with the Prayer Book was concentrate Reformed Protestant theology into a useable liturgical form. So that, from then on, every day in every parish, and every Sunday morning and evening, the English people (and soon the peoples of their far flung empire) began to pray in a new way.

 

The new Prayer Book was in English, ‘understanded of the people’, as the 39 Articles put it, not the Latin of the medieval Mass. It took the best of Augustinian medieval piety, translated it, and fed it into the spiritual diet of the English people, strengthened by the renewed emphases of the Reformers on salvation by grace alone, through faith alone.

 

Not only that, but the Prayer Book prescribed a healthy and robust diet of Bible reading and preaching for every church. If one follows all the set readings laid down in the BCP, one gets through the Bible once a year and the Psalms every month.

 

True worship

 

This exceeded the expectations of every other Church, whether in Rome, Wittenberg, or Geneva. So the Anglican Church had, from this moment, an emphasis on Bible reading and preaching par excellence.

 

This in turn shows us what the authentic Anglican understanding of church is. It is not, as so many would like to make it, merely a religious social club where we gather each week to celebrate ‘community’ — though community is important, and the corporate nature of the church in prayers and responses trumps our more modern individualism and performance mentality.

 

Church is not all about ‘me and my felt needs’ being met by a distant God, who comes down to give me a particular experience. Vermigli once complained of church services that ‘everything is so noisy with chanting and piping that there is no time left for preaching. So it happens that people depart from church full of music and harmony, yet they are fasting and starving for heavenly doctrine’.

 

So in the classic Anglican understanding of church as seen in the BCP, church is not to be centred on any earthly mediator, whether that is a celebrity pastor, a mediating priest or a worship band leader.

 

In 1662, church was about gathering to hear God speak through his Word, confessing our sins and our faith, and responding to the Spirit, in prayer for each other and for the world.

 

Lord’s Supper

 

The Reformers Cranmer, Ridley and Latimer all died as martyrs because they refused to submit to the Roman Catholic doctrine of the Mass.

 

So-called transubstantiation — the changing of the substance of the bread and wine in the Lord’s Supper into the body and blood of Christ himself — was the great dividing issue of that era. Our Reformers refused to believe this, to teach this, or to countenance the superstitious practices that had grown up around it.

 

Why? Because they did not find such a doctrine in the Scriptures that they were now reading afresh. And in every case, it was this very thing which led to these martyrs’ execution. They literally went to the stake and were burned for their view of the Lord’s Supper.

 

But what did they put in the place of the Mass? What was it that they taught Anglicans to pray and to remember as they gather around the Lord’s Table?

 

They taught that the Supper is a divine instrument of assurance. There we confess ‘our manifold sins and wickedness’ to God. Then we are assured by the words of Scripture itself, that ‘Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners’ and that ‘he is the propitiation for our sins’.

 

Grace

 

We come to the table (not, notice, an altar), ‘not trusting in our own righteousness, but in God’s manifold and great mercies’. We come with nothing in our hands to receive God’s mercy. It’s all about God doing something, not us.

 

The movement of the action in the BCP liturgy is from God to us — God in his grace reaching down to us in our sinfulness. We simply take and eat, in remembrance of what Jesus has done. Read theologically, the 1662 service shows us that, although we are more wicked than we ever thought, we are also more loved by a merciful God than we ever dreamed.

 

The result is that, pastorally speaking, our consciences are assured of God’s love towards us in Christ, even when we’ve been most searingly honest about our shortcomings and failures.

 

We praise God that, ‘by the merits and death of thy Son Jesus Christ, and through faith in his blood, we and all thy whole Church may obtain remission of our sins, and all other benefits of his Passion’.

 

1662 makes it very clear that what is going on at the Lord’s Table is not a sacrifice on an altar made by a mediating priest on behalf of the people, which has to be repeated again and again each week to be effective.

 

Finished work

 

That was the wrong message you got from the Mass. In the Mass something is offered to God. What the BCP says, however, is that Christ’s once-and-for-all sacrifice on the cross for us was utterly, completely and totally sufficient to pay for our sins. No additional sacrifices are necessary:

 

‘Almighty God, our heavenly Father, which of thy tender mercy didst give thine only Son Jesus Christ, to suffer death upon the cross for our redemption, who made there (by his one oblation of himself once offered) a full, perfect and sufficient sacrifice, oblation, and satisfaction, for the sins of the whole world…’

 

All the language of us making a sacrifice is kept until after we’ve eaten. Only then do we pray that God would accept from us (to use the language of Hebrews 13) a sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving.

So after we’ve fed on Christ in our hearts by faith, we offer and present to God not the bread and wine but ourselves (to use the language of Romans 12), as a holy and lively (or living) sacrifice.

 

There is of course more we could say about the BCP as it was definitively ordered in 1662. It was almost the same as Cranmer’s book, with surprisingly few alterations considering all that happened in the interim.

 

One thing that was specifically added in 1662 was a service for the baptism of adults or ‘those of riper years’, who may not have been baptised as infants during the confusions of the tumultuous Civil War period.

 

But, generally speaking, the book and liturgy remained unchanged: the same elegant expression of the profoundly liberating gospel. That is something to give thanks for in this 350th anniversary year.

 

This is an article I wrote for the Evangelical Times, Britain’s leading non-denominational evangelical Christian newspaper (published earlier this month). It is reprinted here with their permission.

Lee Gatiss: The Great Ejection of the Puritans

http://leegatiss.wordpress.com/2012/08/24/the-great-ejection-of-the-puritans/

The Great Ejection of the Puritans

Today is the 350th anniversary of the Great Ejection of the Puritans from the Church of England.

 

1662 may have been a significant year for the Book of Common Prayer. It was not, however, a good year for those to whom the gospel and a good conscience were more precious than the institutional church.

We can rejoice, as we think about the triumph of the Prayer Book and its glorious exposition of the Reformed faith in polished liturgical form. But we also need to remember that 1662 was the year that ‘evangelical’ Puritans were excluded from, and then persecuted by, the established Church of England because they could not accept certain aspects of the new religious settlement.

The main problem in 1662 was not with the Prayer Book as such, but with the terms of subscription to it. That is, the issue was what to do with those who in conscience could not agree to everything contained in that book.

Consensus

For a century or more, the Puritans, as they were called, had been calling for further godly reformation of the Church of England.

They were delighted with the Reformation, but they thought the English church ‘but halfly reformed’ compared to many Reformed churches on the Continent. The Elizabethan Settlement had not gone far enough for them in eliminating superstition and Catholicism from the church.

They wanted to push on with further reform, in response to God’s Word in the Bible. Such people were usually able to remain within the Church of England. How? Because there was a theological consensus between the official stance of the national church and these Puritans.

In general terms, they were all agreed on what the Coronation Oath calls ‘the true profession of the gospel … the Protestant Reformed religion’. Historians speak of a ‘Calvinist consensus’ in England, until at least the 1630s. With that general agreement on primary issues of faith and salvation in place, other issues were usually kept in perspective.

Those who did not conform in every detail of clerical vesture or ceremonial and had issues with phrases here and there in the Prayer Book, continued to play an active and prominent role within the Church of England, some of them at the highest levels.

Yet these people had been in charge of the national church during the Commonwealth and Protectorate under Oliver Cromwell. They hadn’t all been in favour of chopping Charles I’s head off — many had vigorously protested against it — but they had helped to banish the high church royalist bishops and their prayer book.

Revenge

So when Charles II was restored to the throne in 1660, he brought with him an Anglican episcopal hierarchy thirsting for revenge. They quickly established themselves in the royal court and grabbed hold of the levers of power.

The king wanted peace and toleration, but the bishops were in no mood for compromise. For much of 1661 they pretended to make concessions to the Puritans, but only until they were comfortable enough in their palaces and in Parliament to deal the Puritans a fatal blow.

The tide turned quite quickly. The bishops and their allies now had such strength that there was no longer any question of Puritans attaining a favourable compromise. The issue for the latter had become whether anything could be salvaged from the wreck of their hopes.

Some of our greatest and most internationally famous theologians were from the more evangelical, puritan sections of the church, but the consensus on primary issues was breaking down. And there was less appetite for tolerance on the part of those holding the reins of power.

Without uniformity and theological consensus on what the gospel is, the bishops looked to enforce outward conformity as their way to bring order to chaos. With a more liberal turn in theology at the Restoration, came a more ceremonial, Catholicising style of church.

It was the imposition of this which had helped cause the Civil War in the first place. Most famously, Archbishop Laud, the most prominent and disliked advocate of this anti-Calvinist movement, had been executed on Tower Hill in 1645 to popular applause.

The Puritans could never accept Laudianism. And hitherto had never been forced to, always finding that the Anglican formularies acted as a sufficient guard against the worst excesses of ceremonialism, superstition and persecution.

But now, things were different; the state decided to enforce uniformity across the board.

Act of Uniformity

The Act of Uniformity in 1662 required all ministers not merely to use the set forms of prayer — which may have allowed them some leeway in practice — but to swear an oath they could not in good conscience swear. They had to give ‘unfeigned assent and consent to all and everything contained and prescribed’ in the new Book of Common Prayer.

This, lamented Richard Baxter, was ‘a weight more grievous than a thousand ceremonies, added to the old conformity, with grievous penalty’.

Furthermore, all ministers, lecturers, and even schoolteachers, had to declare themselves entirely in favour of this new political correctness; they had to swear an oath never to attempt to change anything in church or state!

They had to declare ‘that it is not lawful, upon any pretence whatsoever, to take arms against the king … that I will conform to the liturgy of the church of England as it is now by law established’ and renounce the oaths of the Solemn League and Covenant, swearing not ‘to endeavour any change or alteration of government either in church or state’.

What’s more, those who had taken the ‘Solemn League and Covenant’ oath — that they would work hard to reform the church according to the Bible — had to renounce that oath and declare now that it was an illegal thing to promise in the first place.

All this, they felt they could not do. Why? Because it was saying in effect that the Prayer Book and Church of England were inerrant, whereas they only ever said such things about the unerring Word of God itself.

They did not want to perjure themselves, having made oaths to reform the church in Cromwell’s day; and they could not swear on oath that they agreed with every single word of the liturgy.

Great Ejection

Those with the levers of power in their hands sought to impose a new conformity to the Church of England, to which there could be no legally recognised exceptions whatsoever.

All this was to be enacted on St Bartholomew’s Day, 24 August 1662. A significant day, because it was the day that tithes and rents were due, in arrears, to the clergy. So if any clergy did not conform, they did not get paid and were unceremoniously thrown out of their vicarages, often into poverty.
Attempts were made in Parliament and Convocation to water things down — to provide for ejected ministers, perhaps give them more time and soften the terms of conformity. But these votes were all lost by small margins.

The King and the Lord Chancellor claimed to want a more lenient solution. But they were ignored by those voting.

In total, over 1800 ministers — about 20 per cent of the whole clergy — were forced to leave the Church of England in 1662. They were silenced from preaching or teaching by law. They were barred from positions in church or state and forbidden from meeting, even in small groups in their homes.
The penal code against these dissenters was often enforced with unnecessary brutality and malice. They were spied on, taken to court, fined, and sent to plantations in Virginia for hard labour.

Anglican persecutors could now appeal to a formidable legal arsenal which, potentially, made possible a puritan holocaust. Although the worst possibilities were never realised, 1662 began a persecution of Protestants by Protestants without parallel in seventeenth-century Europe. That was the tragedy of 1662.

Remembering 1662 today

There was a ‘Service of Reconciliation’ at Westminster Abbey in February to mark this anniversary, with CofE and URC ministers joining together in an attempt to ‘heal the memories’. But the established church still needs to face some big questions about whether this sort of thing could be repeated.

Will the Church of England again force its own members’ consciences to accept things they see as clearly unbiblical (such as women bishops or homosexuality)? Will it make no exceptions and tolerate no diversity from the current political correctness?

Will the Church of England again become an agent of persecution against Reformed and evangelical Christians? Those who dissent from the prevailing scepticism of the powerful few at the heart of church and government may yet find themselves in an unenviable position, similar to that of Restoration-era Puritans.

The ghosts of 1662 may yet return to haunt the Church of England. Please pray for those attempting to push the denomination back into the great central currents of Christian faith, and away from the dangerous rocks of current fads and baptised worldliness.

This is an article I wrote for the Evangelical Times, Britain’s leading non-denominational evangelical Christian newspaper (published earlier this month). It is reprinted here with their permission, to commemorate the 350th anniversary of the Great Ejection today.

See also my little book The Tragedy of 1662: The Ejection and Persecution of the Puritans.

7 Feb 2012: History of Cromwellian and 1662 Restoration Periods

We missed this "Service of Reconciliation" on 8 Feb 2012 at Westminster Abbey.  It recalls the divisions of the Cromwellian and Restoration periods in England. What follows below is taken from the service booklet for the occasion.  And here we are--old Westminsterians in theology and old Prayer Book Churchmen, putting both together. 

http://static.westminster-abbey.org/assets/pdf_file/0006/55617/Reconciliation-Service.pdf

The significance of this service for both our churches is rooted in history– in the turbulent events of the mid-seventeenth century. Historians still argue over the relative importance of constitutional, religious, and social elements in the English Civil War. What is clear is that the Parliament

summoned in 1640 to provide finance for King Charles I’s policy in Scotland was originally united in rejecting what they regarded as the King’s unconstitutional actions in the eleven years since Parliament had last met. However, when those who thought that the Reformation of 1559 had not gone far enough tried to press their views, that original unity disappeared. With Scottish assistance, the Puritans within the Church of England pressed their demands and a civil war followed.

The Westminster Assembly of Divines (1643–49), appointed by Parliament, produced a new Confession of Faith (never adopted by Parliament) and a Directory of Worship to replace the Prayer Book. The Christian Year disappeared with its feasts and fasts. Episcopacy was abolished and the bishops went abroad or lay low. Cathedral foundations were dissolved. The archbishop of Canterbury, William Laud, and later the king, Charles I, fell to the executioner’s axe. Large numbers of traditional Anglican clergy suffered deprivation and hardship, and ministers of Presbyterian and Independent views took their places in the parish churches, cathedrals, and universities. Many ordinary people were

bewildered by what was happening.

Charles II’s promise of liberty to tender consciences in the Declaration of Breda encouraged Parliament to invite him to return, and the monarchy was restored in 1660. But the new Parliament elected in that year was less willing to compromise; and after the failure of churchmen to agree at the Savoy Conference, the Act of Uniformity was approved in 1662. The Prayer Book, and with it episcopal ordination and jurisdiction, was reimposed in its definitive form. Charles I was commemorated liturgically as a martyr.

Those ministers who, on theological grounds, could not accept the requirements of the Act of Uniformity were forced to leave and many hundreds did so. Many suffered hardship in what became known as The Great Ejection. The Church of England suffered too, by the loss of approximately one fifth of its clergy, many of them ministers of the highest calibre, while the ejected ministers (some of whom later conformed)

increasingly threw their lot in with those Baptists and Congregationalists who had not accepted livings during the Cromwellian period.

After a lengthy period of doctrinal flux and social disadvantage, in the early decades of the nineteenth century the Baptists and Congregationalists became organized as denominations of the kind with which we are familiar. In 1839 the Church of Scotland permitted the establishment of a

Synod of English Presbyterians who, in 1849, constituted the ‘Presbyterian Church in England’, comprising Scots and the remnant of English trinitarian Presbyterians of Old Dissent.

In 1863 the English Synod of the United Presbyterian Church of Scotland was formed. These two bodies united in 1876 as the ‘Presbyterian Church of England’. This Church and the Congregational Church in England and Wales came together to form the United Reformed Church in 1972.

Thanks to the gradual removal of those civil disabilities to which Dissenters had been subject, and to the work of the ecumenical movement during the past century, feelings have changed. We are now able to acknowledge those events with sadness, without seeking to apportion blame. However, feelings of hurt and bitterness remain lodged in the folk memory of both our churches. There is still a need for reconciliation and the healing of memories so that we can move ahead together in closer visible unity in obedience to our Lord’s will and prayer. We rejoice that in the present climate we are better placed than ever before to address and,

with God’s help, to resolve the theological impediments that continue to divide us.

This year brings the 350th anniversary of the Great Ejection, but it also sees the 40th anniversary of the inauguration of the United Reformed Church, which took place in Westminster Abbey, when Archbishop Michael Ramsey was among the guests of honour.

This service contains some echoes of the liturgy of forty years ago.

Above all else, we will join together in the worship of God. At the beginning of the service some words from Richard Baxter, a moderate and reconciling scholar of this period, whom both our traditions honour, will be spoken. In special litanies we will express penitence for our part in perpetuating Christian disunity and offer prayers for the healing of memories and for grace to work more closely together, in study, prayer, and mission, in the future.

Members of the congregation are kindly requested to refrain from using private cameras, video, or sound recording equipment. Please ensure that mobile phones, pagers, and other electronic devices are switched off.

The Abbey is served by a hearing loop. Users should turn their hearing aid to the setting marked T.

The service is conducted by The Very Reverend Dr John Hall, Dean of Westminster.

The service is sung by the Choir of Westminster Abbey, conducted by

James O’Donnell, Organist and Master of the Choristers.

The organ is played by Robert Quinney, Sub-Organist.

Music before the service:

Andrej Kouznetsov, Organ Scholar, plays:

Prelude and Fugue in G Op 37 no 2 Felix Mendelssohn (1809–47)

Psalm Prelude Set II no 2 Herbert Howells

‘Yea, the darkness is no darkness with thee.’ (1892–1983)

Chorale Prelude on the Old 104th Hubert Parry (1848–1918)

Chorale Prelude on Melcombe Hubert Parry

Chorale Prelude on St Ann’s Hubert Parry

Westminster Confession of Faith, 31.5: Civil and Ecclesiastical Government

WCF 31.5

December 22, 2011

Chapter 31: Of Synods and Councils

5. Synods and councils are to handle, or conclude nothing, but that which is ecclesiastical: and are not to intermeddle with civil affairs which concern the commonwealth, unless by way of humble petition in cases extraordinary; or, by way of advice, for satisfaction of conscience, if they be thereunto required by the civil magistrate.

Robert Shaw says this:

While our Confession denounces any Erastian interference of the civil magistrate in matters purely spiritual and Ecclesiastical, it no less explicitly disavows all Popish claims, on the part of the synods and councils of the Church, to intermeddle with civil affairs, unless by way of petition, in extraordinary cases, or by ray of advice, when required by the civil magistrate. Our Reformers appear to have clearly perceived the proper limits of the civil and ecclesiastical jurisdiction, and to have been very careful that they should be strictly observed. "The power and policy ecclesiastical," say they, "is different and distinct in its own nature from that power and policy which is called civil power, and appertainseth to the civil government of the commonwealth; albeit they be both of God, and tend to one end, if they be rightly used, viz., to advance the glory of God, and to have godly and good subjects." "Diligence should be taken, chiefly by the moderator, that only ecclesiastical things be handled in the Assemblies, and that there be no meddling with anything pertaining to the civil jurisdiction." Church and State may co-operate in the advancement of objects common to both; but each of them must be careful to act within its own proper sphere-- the one never intermeddling with the affairs which properly belong to the province of the other.

Belgic Confession, Article 36: The Civil Government

Belgic Confession

December 21, 2011

Article 36: The Civil Government

We believe that because of the depravity of the human race our good God has ordained kings, princes, and civil officers. He wants the world to be governed by laws and policies so that human lawlessness may be restrained and that everything may be conducted in good order among human beings. For that purpose he has placed the sword in the hands of the government, to punish evil people and protect the good. And being called in this manner to contribute to the advancement of a society that is pleasing to God, the civil rulers have the task, subject to God’s law, of removing every obstacle to the preaching of the gospel and to every aspect of divine worship. They should do this while completely refraining from every tendency toward exercising absolute authority, and while functioning in the sphere entrusted to them, with the means belonging to them. And the government’s task is not limited to caring for and watching over the public domain but extends also to upholding the sacred ministry, with a view to removing and destroying all idolatry and false worship of the Antichrist; to promoting the kingdom of Jesus Christ; and to furthering the preaching of the gospel everywhere; to the end that God may be honored and served by everyone, as he requires in his Word. Moreover everyone, regardless of status, condition, or rank, must be subject to the government, and pay taxes, and hold its representatives in honor and respect, and obey them in all things that are not in conflict with God’s Word, praying for them that the Lord may be willing to lead them in all their ways and that we may live a peaceful and quiet life in all piety and decency. And on this matter we denounce the Anabaptists, other anarchists, and in general all those who want to reject the authorities and civil officers and to subvert justice by introducing common ownership of goods and corrupting the moral order that God has established among human beings.

GREAT ANGLICAN DIVINES – JOHN TILLOTSON (1630-1694)

www.churchsociety.org/Crossway/documents/Cway_020_Clifford-JohnTillotson.pdf

Article reprinted from Cross†Way Issue Spring 1986 No. 20
(C)opyright Church Society; material may be used for non-profit purposes provided that the source is acknowledged and the text is
not altered.

GREAT ANGLICAN DIVINES – JOHN TILLOTSON (1630-1694)
By Alan Clifford

John Tillotson has been described as ‘the wisest and best man that ever sat in the primatial chair of Canterbuy’. More recently, Dr. Edward Carpenter has written that ‘If character in itself qualified for office, no man could have had greater claims to Canterbury than John Tillotson. He was intelligent, liberal and warm hearted.’ Whilst his primacy was brief and uneventful, it may be added that probably no post-Reformation archbishop has ever upheld the Protestant character of the Church of England more than John Tillotson.

Puritan Upbringing

Born at Sowerby, near Halifax in 1630, Tillotson lived through the religious and civil upheavals of the 17th century. His parents being convinced puritans, John embraced decided presbyterian views. He entered Clare Hall, Cambridge in 1647, where he came under the influence of some of the leading puritans of the day. His tutor was the presbyterian David Clarkson. He admired the writings of Dr. William Twisse, prolocutor of the Westminster Assembly, and Dr. Thomas Goodwin, one of the independent members of the assembly. However, Tillotson was also attracted by the rational outlook of Ralph Cudworth, Master of Clare, and William Chillingworth’s Religion of Protestants also influenced him. Tillotson’s conservative, presbyterian puritanism distanced him from some of the more radical puritans of the day. He became disenchanted with Goodwin and others when, a week after the death of Oliver Cromwell in 1658, Tillotson heard these divines call God’s providence into question for
allowing the Protector’s death. His views and personal attachments beginning to change, Tillotson received episcopal ordination at the hands of the Bishop of Galloway, Dr. Thomas Sydserf, who was then in London. Notwithstanding these developments, Tillotson was an auditor with the Presbyterian Commissioners at the Savoy Conference in 1661. With the passing of the Act of Uniformity of 1662, Tillotson conformed to the Church of England, thus severing his formal links with the Presbyterians.

Tillotson’s abilities guaranteed his recognition. In 1672, he was made Dean of Canterbury and,
three years later, Prebendary of St. Paul’s. He became Dean of St. Paul’s in 1689 and Archbishop of Canterbuy in 1691. When Tillotson died, after a primacy of only three years, King William declared “I have lost the best friend that I ever had, and the best man I ever knew.”

Comprehension

Tillotson was an able preacher as well as a godly man. In an age weary of religious controversy and beginning to feel the cold wind of secularism, he believed that good preaching and holy living would be powerful influences for good. Richard Baxter and the young Matthew Henry spoke highly of Tillotson’s preaching. Whilst his manner was less dramatic and emotional than many of the Puritans, it was appealingly Scriptural and remarkably lucid. In this respect, Tillotson never forsook his puritanism completely. In 1664, he had married a niece of Oliver Cromwell, and he maintained close friendships with the leading Nonconformists. In 1674, Tillotson joined with Baxter in drafting a Bill to comprehend the more moderate Nonconformists within the Church of England. With the passing of the Act of Toleration in 1689, he urged the King to summon Convocation with a view to making concession to the Dissenters. These included alterations to the Prayer Book of 1662. Alas, such ideas were rejected by the majority ‘high Church’ party. A more Protestant Anglicanism was not to be.
Despite his impeccable orthodoxy, Archbishop Tillotson was unjustly accused of favouring
heretical views of the person of Christ—Socinianism. His timely stress on the need for practical
godliness was construed as moralistic. His willingness to tolerate an Arminian interpretation of the 39 Articles, along the lines of Bishop Gilbert Burnet’s Exposition, made him the focal point of much criticism. In the next century, the Methodists George Whitefield and John Wesley failed to grasp the true significance of Tillotson’s theological contribution, although Wesley eventually published two of the Archbishop’s sermons in his Christian Library. There can be no doubt that Tillotson’s theology was essentially evangelical. His personal stress on the gospel of salvation by grace is clear for all to see. His sermons reveal an equal intolerance of the kind of fatalistic conception of grace popular with some (Hypercalvinism) and the almost humanistic view of salvation espoused by others (Pelagianism).

Protestant Apologist

If Tillotson’s Calvinism was all but smothered by his Latitudinarianism, there was no concealing the Archbishop’s Protestantism. The only formal treatise he ever wrote, The Rule of Faith was a defence of the Protestant doctrine of Holy Scripture against the Roman Catholic doctrine of tradition. For this work, Tillotson was created D.D. in 1666. Many of his sermons were directed against the errors of Rome. The Hazard of Being Saved in the Church of Rome, preached at Whitehall in 1672 resulted in the permanent absence of the Duke of York—the future James II, from the Chapel Royal thereafter. Other sermons were preached against transubstantiation and the worship of dead saints. The Protestant Religion Vindicated was preached in 1682, and Christ Jesus the Only Mediator between God and Men in 1691. Following the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685, Tillotson gave warm support to the French Protestant refugees. It is plain that Archbishop Tillotson would never have favoured ecumenical dialogue. Union with Rome was unthinkable. He categorically affirmed ‘They cannot come over to us, because they think they are infallible; and we cannot pass over to them, because we know they are deceived.’ It is equally plain that too many of Archbishop Tillotson’s successors no longer think Rome is deceived, while she continues to think she is infallible. Many Anglicans today have forsaken the theological ground once occupied by Archbishop Tillotson.

If the Archbishop’s views, policies and emphases cannot command universal support, his clear,
Biblical Protestantism will continue to earn a place in the affectionate regard of all true
Evangelicals.

Alan Clifford (at the time of publication) was a Baptist minister at Great Ellingham, Norfolk.

Diane Bish - Purcell - Trumpet Tune

Diane Bish on Purcell's "Trumpet Tune." Thankfully, we Anglicans did not toss great music to the loontoondom and rashdom of the radical Puritans.

Here is a Presbyterian organist's rendition of the great organist from St. Paul's, London. A lady who appreciates great music, unlike the radical Reformers.

Oliver Cromwell and the English Civil War

Clips from David Starkey's documentary on the British monarchy. Focuses on Oliver Cromwell and the English Civil War.

Oliver Cromwell and the English Civil War - 1/4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yG37jN7wcZE

Oliver Cromwell and the English Civil War - 2/4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wqRbz97oAHg

Oliver Cromwell and the English Civil War - 3/4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZA6Zj-8BsuY&NR=1

Oliver Cromwell and the English Civil War - 4/4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WvpqbRHgFxs

The next is a short animation giving reasons for the English Civil War starting. It gives some of the political, economic, military, philosophic and ecclesiastical reasons for it.

Why did the English Civil War start?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zzh_7orEBU0&feature=related

The next is a two-part documentary. Part one of the Learning Zone's program on the English Civil War. This first part covers the background to the war including Charles I's character, and ends at Edgehill.

English Civil War - Learning Zone (Part 1)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PuLz8_Wipnk&feature=related

English Civil War - Learning Zone (Part 2). Part two of the Learning Zone's program on the English Civil War. This second part covers the events of the Civil War and questions whether Charles I was a traitor or a martyr.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X531vmyR4IE&feature=related

Oliver Cromwell - Hero or Villain?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LbjCOfCq0cc&feature=related

Some humour from Monty Python. Oliver cromwell by Monty Python
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DJ1yPz14LrU&feature=related