28 February 1553 A.D. Cranmer at Edward VI’s Coronation
28
February 1553 A.D. Cranmer at Edward VI’s Coronation
http://theonomyresources.blogspot.com/2013/01/a-godly-rulers-inauguration-coronation.html
Friday, January 18, 2013
"The bishops of Canterbury, for the most part, have crowned your
predecessors, and anointed them kings of this land; yet it was not in their
power to receive or reject them; neither did it give them authority to
prescribe them conditions to take or leave their crowns, although the bishops
of Rome would encroach upon your predecessors, by their act and oil, that in
the end they might possess those bishops with an interest to dispose of their
crowns at their pleasure. But the wiser sort will look to their claws and clip
them.
"Your majesty is God's vicegerent, and Christ's vicar within your own
dominions, and to see, with your predecessor Josiah, God truly worshipped, and
idolatry destroyed; the tyranny of the bishops of Rome banished from your
subjects, and images removed. These acts are signs of a second Josiah,
who reformed the church of God in his days. You are to reward virtue, to
revenge sin, to justify the innocent, to relieve the poor, to procure peace, to
repress violence, and to execute justice throughout your realms. For precedents
on those kings who performed not these things, the old law shows how the Lord
revenged his quarrel; and on those kings who fulfilled these things, he poured
forth his blessings in abundance. For example, it is written of Josiah, in the
book of the Kings, thus: 'Like unto him there was no king, that turned to the
Lord with all his heart, according to all the law of Moses; neither after him
arose there any like him.' This was to that prince a perpetual fame of dignity,
to remain to the end of days.
Edward VI on the
Bible as the Sole Legitimate Source of Law
Canterbury Cranmer at King Edward VI's Coronation
http://theonomyresources.blogspot.com/2013/01/a-godly-rulers-inauguration-coronation.html
Friday, January 18, 2013A godly Ruler's Inauguration: The Coronation of Edward VI
Edward VI
(1537-1553), son of Henry VIII, was crowned king of England
and Ireland in 1547 at the tender age of nine. Despite his youthfulness, and
the brevity of his reign (he died prematurely in 1553 from an illness), Edward
the VI was one of the most godly kings in history. He helped the cause of
the Protestant Reformation, and enforced biblical
civil law.
Edward VI's
coronation took place on February 28, 1547. During the coronation, Archbishop
Thomas Cranmer (who would become a martyr during the reign of Bloody Mary)
delivered a powerful address—the
kind that should be given to all qualified civil rulers. Of Cranmer's charge to
Edward, one writer says:
[T]he most
remarkable circumstance connected with the coronation, was the address of
archbishop Cranmer to the youthful monarch. The prelate therein gave the
following charge, which the king did not forget, as his subsequent conduct
shows.[1]
Cranmer's
charge includes a repudiation of the Roman Catholic Church's authority over the
crown; a discussion of the significance of coronation rites; the king's duties,
which include emulating the godly King Josiah of Judah in banishing idolatry
from the land; and a blessing on the king's reign.
Archbishop Cranmer's charge to Edward VI:
Archbishop Cranmer's charge to Edward VI:
"Most dread and royal sovereign;
the promises your highness hath made here, at your coronation, to forsake the
devil and all his works, are not to be taken in the bishop of Rome's sense;
when you commit any thing distasteful to that see, to hit your majesty in the
teeth, as pope Paul the third, late bishop of Rome, sent
to your royal father, saying, 'Didst thou not promise, at our permission of thy
coronation, to forsake the devil and all his works, and dost thou run to
heresy? For the breach of this thy promise, knowest thou not, that it is
in our power to dispose of thy sword and sceptre to whom we please?' We,
your majesty's clergy, do humbly conceive, that this promise reacheth not at
your highness's sword, spiritual or temporal, or in the least at your highness
swaying the sceptre of this your dominion, as you and your predecessors have
had them from God. Neither could your ancestors lawfully resign up their crowns
to the bishop of Rome or his legates, according to their ancient oaths then
taken upon that ceremony.
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Edward VI
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"The solemn rites of coronation have their ends and utility; yet neither
direct force or necessity: they are good admonitions to put kings in mind of
their duty to God, but no increasement of their dignity; for they are
God's anointed; not in respect of the oil which the bishop useth, but in
consideration of their power, which is ordained; of the sword, which is
authorized; of their persons, which are elected of God, and endued with the
gifts of his Spirit, for the better ruling and guiding of his people.
"The oil, if added, is but a ceremony: if it be wanting, that king is yet a perfect monarch notwithstanding, and God's anointed, as well as if he was inoiled. Now for the person or bishop that doth anoint a king, it is proper to be done by the chiefest. But if they cannot, or will not, any bishop may perform this ceremony.
"The oil, if added, is but a ceremony: if it be wanting, that king is yet a perfect monarch notwithstanding, and God's anointed, as well as if he was inoiled. Now for the person or bishop that doth anoint a king, it is proper to be done by the chiefest. But if they cannot, or will not, any bishop may perform this ceremony.
"To condition with monarchs upon
these ceremonies, the bishop of Rome (or other bishops owning his supremacy)
hath no authority; but he may faithfully declare what God requires at the hands
of kings and rulers, that is, religion and virtue. Therefore, not from the
bishop of Rome, but as a messenger from my Saviour Jesus Christ, I shall most
humbly admonish your royal majesty, what things your highness is to perform.
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Archbishop Cranmer
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"Being bound by my function to
lay these things before your royal highness; the one, as a reward if you
fulfil; the other, as a judgment from God if you neglect them; yet I openly
declare, before the living God, and before these nobles of the land, that I
have no commission to denounce your majesty deprived, if your highness miss in
part, or in whole, of these performances: much less to draw up indentures
between God and your majesty; or to say you forfeit your crown, with a clause
for the bishop of Rome, as have been done by your majesty's predecessors, king
John and his son Henry of this land. The
Almighty God of his mercy let the light of his countenance shine upon your
majesty, grant you a prosperous and happy reign, defend you, and save you;
and let your subjects say, Amen.
"God Save The
King."[2]
During the
coronation, Edward VI, upon being brought three swords representing his three
kingdoms, said that one sword was missing: the Bible.[3] He added the
following, showing his understanding that the Bible alone is a ruler's source
of law:
That book is the sword of the Spirit, and to be preferred
before these swords. That ought in all right to govern us, who use them for the
people's safety by God's appointment. Without that sword we are nothing, we can
do nothing, we have no power. From that we are what we are this day. From that
we receive whatsoever it is that we at present do assume.
He that
rules without it, is not to be called God's minister, or a king. Under that we
ought to live, to fight, to govern the people, and to perform all our affairs.[4]
May God grant us with more rulers
like Edward VI.
Notes
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[1] Unknown author, Writings of
Edward the Sixth, William Hugh, Queen Catherine Parr, Anne Askew, Lady Jane
Grey, Hamilton, and Balnaves: Volume 3: of British reformers (London: The
Religious Tract Society, 1836), 4.
[2] Cited in Ibid., 4-6.
[3] Ibid., 6.
[4] Cited in Ibid.
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