A history of England principally in the seventeenth century, Volume 1 (of 6)Ranke, Leopold von
History
A history of England principally in the seventeenth century, Volume 1 (of 6)
Ranke, Leopold von
England -- Civilization -- 17th century; Great Britain -- History -- Stuarts, 1603-1714
It appeared at once with full force at the Coronation, which was not
celebrated at all after the form traced out by Henry VIII, since even
this would have tied them far too much to the existing system;
Cranmer, in the discourse which he there addressed to the young King,
departed in the most decided manner from all the ideas hitherto
attached to a coronation. Whither had the times of the first Lancaster
departed, in which a special hierarchic sacredness was given to the
Anointing through its connexion with Thomas Becket? Becket's shrine
had been destroyed. The present Archbishop of Canterbury went back to
the earliest times of human history: he brought forward the example of
Josias, who likewise came to the government in tender years and
extirpated the worship of idols: so might Edward VI also completely
destroy image-worship, plant God's true service, and free the land
from the tyranny of the Bishop of Rome; it was not the oil that made
him God's anointed, but the power given him from on high, in virtue of
which he was God's representative in his realm. His duty to the Church
was changed into his duty to religion: instead of upholding the
existing state of things, it at once pledges and empowers him to
reform the Church.[140]
The great question now was, how an alteration could be prepared in a
legal manner, and how far it would be possible to maintain in this the
constitution of the realm in its relation to the states of Europe. On
the ground of the supremacy and of a precedent of Henry VIII, they
began with a resolution to despatch commissions throughout the realm,
to revive the suppressed Protestant sympathies; the precedent was
found in the ordinances that had once proceeded from Thomas Cromwell,
just as if they had not in the least been annulled by what had
happened since, but simply set aside by party feeling and neglect.
They were to enquire whether, as therein ordered, the bishops had
preached against the Pope's usurpation, the parish priests had taught
men to regard not outward observances but fulfilment of duty as the
real 'good works,' and had laboured to diminish feast-days and
pilgrimages. Above all, images to which superstitious reverence was
paid were at last to be actually removed: the young were to be really
taught the chief points of the faith in English, a chapter of the
Bible should be read every Sunday, and Erasmus' Paraphrase employed to
explain it. In place of the sermon was to come one of the Homilies
which had been published under the authority of the Archbishop and
King. For this last ordinance also authority was found in an
injunction of Henry VIII. Archbishop Cranmer, whose work they are,
establishes in them the two principles, on which he had already
proceeded in 1536, one that Holy Scripture contains all that it is
necessary for men to know, the other that forgiveness of sins depends
only on the merits of the Redeemer and on faith in Him. On this
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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