Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 1.djvu/561

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ANGLICANISM 501 ANOLIOANISM him. In like manner, in 1849, when vehement op- position was made to the appointment of Dr. Hami>- den to the See of Hereforcf, the Prime Minister of the day insisted on the riglit of the Crown, and the Vicar-General of the Ardibisliop ruled that no ex- ception could be suffered against one whom the Crown had duly nominated, and the Court of Queen's Bencli sustained liis ruling. Tlius, whatever views or aspirations liave been lield theoretically by Angli- can divines on the spiritual authority of the Anglican Church, the Uoyal Supremacy remaiivs an effective reality, and tiie Crown, supported by Parliament and the Law Courts, both as to the doctrines which may be taught, and the persons who shall be put in otiice to teach them, has possession of the practical and substantial control. It is the characteristic of the Anglican Kefornuition that the supreme ami far- reaching regulative jurisdiction which was e.xerci.sed by the Holy See was, after the severance from Rome, taken over, to all intents and purijosas, by the Crown, and was never effectively entrusted to the Anglican Spiritualty, either to the Primate, or to the Episcopate, or even to Convocation. As a result, there is to this day the lack of a living Church Spiritual Authority which has been to the Anglican Church a constant source of weakness, humiliation, and disorder. In 1904 a royal commission was appointed to investigate the complaints against eccle- sia-<tical discipline, and in July, 1906, it issued its re|x>rt, in which it points out that at no time in the ptust have the laws of public worship been uniformly observed, and recommends the formation of a Court which while exercising the Royal Jurisdiction, would be bounil to accept the episcopate on questions of doctrine or ritual. This, if granted, would Im; the first step towards the partial emancipation of the Spiritualty from the thraldom of the civil power, in which it has been held for more than three centuries. It will be observed that Anglicanism as a religious system is separable from the doctrine of Royal Su- premacy, which is an outcome of its union with the State, and of the circumstances of the English Re- formation. In countries outside of England and Wales . glican Churches exist, and, it is .said, all the more prosjxjrously from being untrammelled by the State connection. But even in those countries the decisive voice in the government of the Anglican Church is not entrusted to the Episcopate alone, and in some of them the lay power in the synods has made itself felt, and has shown that it can be as really a master as any Tudor sovereign invested with royal supremacy. The supremacy of the ."Spiritualty in the domain of doctrine, as the .sole guarantee of tnie religious liberty, is still lacking in the Anglican system, and the problem of supplying it remains un- solved, if not insoluble. norrUIN.^L AND LlTURGIC.I. FouMUL.MilES. — The doctrinal position of the Anglican Church, in like manner, can only be adequately studied in its historj-, which divides it.self into a numl)er of stages or periods. The first, or Henrician, period (1534-47) includes the breach with Rome, the setting up of an independent national church, and the tran.sfer of the supreme Church authority from the Papacy to the Crown. The Edwardian "(1547-.';3) and Elizabethan (l.'j.iS- 1603) periods carried the work of separation much further. Both accepted the Henrician basis of re- jection of the Papacy and erection. of the Royal Su- premacy, but built upon it the admi.ssion of the doctrinal and liturgical clianges which make up mainly the Anglican Refonnation, and brought the nation within the great Protestant movement of the sixteentli centur'. Although the policy of Ilenrj' VIII, after the )reach with Rome, was ostensibly conservative, and his ideal seemed to he the main- tenance of a Catholic Church in England, minus the Pope, it is incontestable that in other ways his action was in fatal contradiction to his professions. By raising to power, and by maintaining m positions of unique influence, his three great agents, Thomas Cromwell, Thomas Cranmer, and Edward Seymour, all of whom were always, and as openly as they dared, in sympathy with the Reformation, Henry VIll, whether by intention or by the indilTerence of his latter days, undoubtedly prepared the way and opened the gates to the Protestantism which came in under Edward and Elizabeth. In 1535 he sent agents to negotiate an agreement with the Reformers in Germany, and in 1537 he was led by Cromwell, in connivance with Cranmer, into further negotia- tions with the Protestant princes assembled at .'^luul- kald. He wrote to Melanchthon to congratulate him on the work whi<-li he had done for religion, and invited him to England. Melanchthon wxs unable lo come, but in l.i3S three German divines, Burkhardt, Boyneburg, and Myconius, were sent to London, where they remained some months, and held con- ferences with a deputed number of the Anglican bishops and clergj'. The Germans presented as a basis of agreement a number of Articles based on the Lutheran Confession of Augsburg. On the doc- trinal part of the.sc Articles, the first thirteen, both parties came to an agreement (Letter of Myconius to Cromwell, 8 September, 1538). On the second part, the "Abuses" (viz., private Masses, celibacy of the Clergy, invocation of .Saints) the King would not give way, and finally dissolved the conference. Although the negotiations thus formally came to an end, the Thirteen Articles on which agreement with the Germans had been made were kept by Arch- bishop Cranmer, and afterwards by Archbishop Parker, and were used as test articles to which the preachers whom they licensed were required to sub- scribe. Eventually they tecame the nucleus of the Articles of Religion which were authorized under Edward VI and Elizabeth. Hence the almost verbal correspondence lx;tween these Articles and the Lu- theran Confession of Augsburg, from which they were originally taken. By the death of Henry VIII ('27 January, 1547) the_main oljstade to the reforming influence was removed. With the accession of Ed- ward VI, who had been brought up in the reformed faith, with Seymour, also a Protestant, omnipotent in the Council, and Cranmer, now able to show his hand and work his will, the party of the Reformation became po.sscssed of lall the resources of national power, and during the five years of the reign (1547- 53) remained triumphantly in the ascendant. This period witnessed the introduction of the great doc- trinal and liturgical changes. One of the cardinal principles of the Reformation which the German delegates had brought over in 1538 was that "the Mass is nothing but a Communion or .synaxis" (Tun- stall's Summary, M. S. Clcop. E. V., 209). Cranmer vehemently upheld this conception of the Eucharist. One of the first Acts under Edward VI was the in- troduction of a new English Communion Service, which was to be inserted at the end of the Ma.ss, and which required Communion to Ije given under both kinds. This w.is soon after followed by a Book of Common Prayer, with a Communion Service entirely taking the place of the Latin Mass. Cranmer wjis the chief author of this lx)ok. Whether it ever re- ceived the a.ssent of Convocation has been que.s- tioncd, but it wa,s approved by Parliament in 1549. Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester, in opposing Cnm- mer's denial of the Real Presence and of the Sacrifice of the M:i.ss, argued that even certain p:vs.sages in the new Prayer Book implied the acceptance of these doc- trines; whercu|xin Cranmer and his fellow-reformers drew up a new Prayer Book, still more Protestant in tone and character. In it the order of the parts of the Communion Scr-ice was considerably altered, and the passages used by Gardiner as apparently favour-