Meet The Puritans: Puritans, Anglican? (What Is An Anglican?)

Yet more historical revisionism and special pleading from the Church Society crowd.  The fact is, the Church of England was done - DONE - with the Puritans by the Restoration Settlement, and, contra Mr. Gatiss, something called "Anglicanism" did take the place of the kind of theological radicalism that marked the short-lived Commonwealth era.  Reformed theology was no longer dominant and had to settle for "party" status as an established but unpopular theologoumenon in the Church of England.  Hooker and the Caroline Divines, the theologians of Anglicanism's "golden era" of theology, successfully resisted Puritanism and set Anglicanism on a trajectory toward an "Arminian" and patristic understanding of the faith.  The English Reformation did not end in 1552, but 1662, and the Oxford Movement would give fresh impetus to the Church of England's understanding of itself as the Catholic Church in England, and its prayer book as an example of the Benedictine way of prayer.

Fr. Rob Desics of St. Timothy's Church Hemlington nailed it in his response to Gatiss' article:

An interesting piece, but may I offer some comments? It is fair to say that the history of what we now term 'Anglicanism' is very complex, intertwining cultural, political and theological causes and effects. It is also fair to say that the English (or 'Anglican') church predates the Reformation of the 16th century as well as post-dating it. I wonder whether it is too simple a statement to deny that 'Anglicanism' is a via media between Medieval Romanism and more radical expressions of Protestantism (including Geneva). After all, the English church retained many of the received practices and doctrines of the catholic church (such as liturgy, the historic orders of ministry, the Creeds etc.) whilst also embracing the desire to return to a study of Holy Scripture and the Early Fathers.

I would question whether it is true to say that 'Anglicanism' is not Catholicism, after all Cranmer and his fellow reformers were firm in their conviction that they were restoring the English church to a purer form of Catholicism - the Catholicism set forth in the Scriptures and the early councils of the Catholic Church. Those bishops, such as Jewell (and theologians such as Hooker), who followed Cranmer in the late 16th and early 17th centuries, whilst firm in their adherence to the 39 Articles of Religion were clear that the English church was the true Catholic church of this land. This being the case, it is wholly inaccurate to label the view that the Anglican church is a 'church in continuity with the Catholic Church but reformed' to be a 19th century fabrication - a fair reading of the historical sources of the Reformation and immediate post-Reformation periods will not allow us to tale seriously such a polemical and unscholarly sweeping denial.

It is also unfair and historically inaccurate to believe that the Oxford Movement/Tractarian Movement was merely the expression of the whims and fancies of John Henry Newman. What of Keble? What of Pusey? Both these men were key players in the Oxford Movement, and both regarded Newman's secession to Rome as a great betrayal. For these men the Anglican church was the Catholic church in this land, expressed in doctrine of the Book of Common Prayer and the Articles.

Of those Puritans of the 17th Century, may it not be possible that they were not Anglican in any meaningful sense? For some advocated Presbyterianism (as some who claim the name of Anglican do today). Some advocated abolishing the Prayer Book and the Articles (just as some also do today). Then, as now, such persons could not truly be identified as Anglicans in any meaningful sense. After all, Richard Hooker, the great Anglican divine, was critical of puritans who sought to take the English in the direction of Geneva. We must be careful to remember that the peculiarity of the English church owes as much to its political entanglements with the State as it does academic theology.

The popular regard for the Church of England as Protestant owes perhaps more to the political machine which sought to preserve Elizabeth the First from Jesuit assassins than it does to reasoned theology! Anglicanism was certainly not invented in the 19th century, nor was it invented in the 16th century. It is the flowering of a rich, long and complex history of the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church in this land. It is the church founded upon the Apostles; the church of Augustine, Anselm, Cranmer, Jewell, Andrewes; and so down to our day. Beware of simplistic polemics!

Comments

[Greg]

A great article. Historically accurate and well composed.