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Pacesetters of Anglican Protestantism: Part 4 of 4

Pacesetters of Anglican Protestantism: Part 4 of 4

By Roger Salter
Special to Virtueonline
www.virtueonline.org
February 15, 2015

For an Anglican of Reformational persuasion the Borough of Croydon ten miles south of central London is aptly regarded as John Whitgift's town. In 1596 Elizabeth's Archbishop of Canterbury built his long hoped for Almshouse for the poor in the area, a project of great expense and enormous charity. The good and generous man also established a school in the locality and his memory survives in a statue recently unveiled by the Duke of York at the school's new site. Close to the entrance of Croydon's impressive library, in scholarly serenity, Whitgift's effigy ponders over an open book, the Bible perhaps. In stark contrast to that contemplative scene, in the vast complex of the Whitgift Shopping Centre, a memorial plaque to the Reformer is affixed to the wall of a crowded cafe and the situation of the tables makes it almost impossible to pause and read its lengthy inscription. Standing at the intersection of George Street and North End it is possible to take in a view of the Parish Church of John the Baptist and there the earthly remains of Whitgift rest until the resurrection. Added to the interest of a visit to that stately church is the fact that Whitgift's courageous predecessor Edmund Grindal, the man of God with a conscience who defied a temperamental monarch, also lies within the precincts of the newly named Croydon Minster.

These two peerless men, Grindal and Whitgift, typify the strength of Reformed faith in the Church of England for the next eighty years or so. Grindal was the faithful English churchman with a healthy dose of Geneva in his veins who contended for the so-called and misnamed "prophesyings" of his tenure of office - lengthy preaching occasions for clergy and laity to establish the church of God in the word of God to which the queen fiercely objected. Whitgift assisted in the consolidation of the Church of England in its rightful course by restraining the excesses of the Puritans and reinforcing the Calvinism of the national church, drafting, with others, and commending, the Lambeth Articles. Though he proceeded in the latter task with the understanding that he had the approval of the queen, Elizabeth refused them official recognition and the corrosion of the Anglican witness to sola gratia commenced in subtleness until it gained full strength under the disastrous duo of William Laud and Charles Stewart.

From Matthew Parker (1559 - 1575) to George Abbott (1611-1633) our Archbishops of Canterbury were men of firm Augustinian conviction. Even Richard Bancroft (1604 -1610), whom many suspect of wavering, took measures to secure the Reformational stance of the church during his episcopate and simply warned of the speculative approach to predestination rather than the experiential method of Article 17. "I live in obedience to God, in love with my neighbour, I follow my occasion, and therefore I trust God has elected me and predestined me to salvation, not thus, which is the usual course of argument: God has predestined and chosen me to life though I sin ever so grievously, yet I shall not be damned, for whom he once loveth, he loveth to the end."

Abbott was not opposed to predestination but to carnal presumption which flourishes from time to time in circles where Reformed indoctrination prevails but hearts are not searched and lives are not cleansed. The author of the source quoted (needs to be retraced) for the Archbishop's statement comments "Bancroft, approving the doctrine of predestination, considered Ascendendo not Descendendo". Susan Doran points out that "Even Richard Bancroft, known as the scourge of Puritans in James' reign, personally licensed in 1598 the publication of a Calvinist treatise which denied that Christ had died for all mankind and asserted the doctrine of unconditional election (page19, Elizabeth I and Religion [1558-1603], Routledge, London, 1994).

Martin Bucer, Peter Martyr, together with Cranmer and his colleagues, planted the seed of electing love in the essential soil of Anglicanism which came to bloom in the Articles, avowals, and witness to the gospel of the Church of England - a better state of affairs than the present time wherein the established body, once a bastion of truth, has become openly weak in its testimony and wicked in its impurities.

Men, mighty in the Lord, gentle of nature and gigantic in the faith, exercised the pastoral care of the church through the reign of Calvinism and into the rough times of Laud and his chosen replacements of Reformed leadership. Hall, Davenant, Ward, Carleton were among the British delegates to the Synod of Dort at the bidding of James I. Hall and Davenent in an exchange of correspondence agreed that the formularies of their Church were consistent with Dort, as did their accompanying delegates to the Synod. Ussher, Primate of all Ireland, and men such as John Preston campaigned for a winsome, gospel centred, presentation of Augustinianism in their generous construal of the atonement as a summons to all to believe, and a circle of poets, embracing Philip Sidney, Edmund Spenser, and Fulke Greville waxed lyrical for the cause in active support of the Protestantism that gripped the country. Spenser specifically had an immense admiration for Grindal referring to him twice as the compassionate shephherd Algrin in the Shepheardes Calender. Such one he was, (as I have heard
old Algrin often sayne)
That whilcome was the first shepheard
and lived with little gain:
As meeke he was, as meeke mought be,
simple, as simple sheep,
Humble and l like in eche degree
the flocke, which he did keepe.
July lines 126 - 132

Joseph Hall himself was an admired poet, and James Ussher took care to translate the poetry of the 9th century persecuted German predestinarian Gottschalk to establish the reputable lineage of the Augustinianism he championed in his Irish Articles the blueprint for the Westminster Confession of faith.

Francis Quarles (1592-1644), secretary to Ussher in the late 1630s, was a religious poet whose theology and devotional style appealed to Calvinists, Anglican and Puritan alike. George Herbert signalled his agreement with Reformed doctrine to Alexander Henderson of the Church of Scotland (Two Gentlemen, Marchette Chute, page 119) and, in opposition to the view of some students of the thought of John Donne, the Dean of St. Paul's differed not one degree from the soteriology of the Puritans, but clashed with them mainly in the area of ecclesiology and the content of worship (see John Carey on Donne, The Poetry of Grace, William H. Halewood, and the poetry and prose of JD himself). John Donne was styled the English Augustine for good reason. A letter written to a noble friend is interesting and informative: Our blessed Savyour establish in you, and multiply to you, the seals of eternal election, and testify his gracious purposes towards you in the next world for ever, by contiuall succession of his outward blessings here, and sweeten your age, by a rectified conscience of having spent your former tyme well and sweeten your transmigration by a modest yet infallible assurance of a present union with him. Amen. And there is also this succinct and simple opening to prayer, supported in its sentiments by larger exposition in his sermons: We returne to thee againe, O GOD, with praise and prayer; as for all thy mercies from before minutes began, to this minute, from our Election to this present beame of Sanctification which thou hast shed upon us now.

Many of these advocates of Augustinianism and distinguishing grace did not fare well in this evil world. Grindal was deprived of his office as Archbishop of Canterbury, perhaps by his own over-scrupulosity and hostile political intrigue as much as the disapprobation of the monarch, and he died in blindness and ill health due to his sequestration. Davenant, who ordained George Herbert to his parish in the Diocese of Salisbury, was humiliated in public by Laud for preaching on the theme of electing love. The lovely Joseph Hall was set aside as Bishop of Norwich by the Puritan faction and subjected to a life of poverty.

Many doughty warriors for truth marched in the wake of that rank of Generals mentioned afore. Their names are included somewhere in the annals of Augustinian Anglicanism if we are prepared to investigate with "due diligence". After Laud and following the "great ejection" many of a Puritan stamp and Reformational mind maintained their ministries in the national church in clear conscience and faithful calling. The amazing divine vindication of their love for and loyalty to the Gospel came in the astounding occurrence of the Great Awakening when the careful crafting and conservation of Anglican Protestantism and Calvinism rose to ascendancy in perhaps the most powerful period in the preaching of the gospel since Pentecost. That is the view of some and may the record of that time, by the surprising grace of God, be a preview of another great epoch of evangelism in our future. The barriers in men's minds, our culture, and the church are great - but God is greater.

Predestination is important. Given the pride of man divine sovereignty is a necessary antidote. All things proceed from the will of God given the correct biblical nuances in our reckoning. The Bible proclaims the fact of election. Israel was an elect nation in terms of divine revelation and mission when the rest of mankind did not enjoy the divine predilection, a prerogative exercised by God at all times. Even within Israel there was an election of distinguishing grace. The New Testament abounds with evidence for the electing love of God and the just passing by of certain sinners who ultimately fulfill their rejection in final disobedience and unbelief. The native hatred of God is not removed from their hearts and they would be miserable in heaven. God's will is supreme and the Arminian version of the gospel is an offence to his power, glory, and honour, and the effectiveness of our Saviour's achievement. Ultimately it is a lie rooted in the self-idolatry of atheism or the tendency to the Christian heresy of universalism (one thinks).

“The church is a witness and guardian of Holy Scripture” from Article 20. The Authority of the Church

The Rev. Roger Salter is an ordained Church of England minister where he had parishes in the dioceses of Bristol and Portsmouth before coming to Birmingham, Alabama to serve as Rector of St. Matthew's Anglican Church

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