Canon A.T. Mason, D.D.: "Thomas Cranmer:" Ch. 3-Cranmer and Reformation ...
1.
If Cranmer
thought Henry a soft reformer, he was mistaken as the Six Articles are passed.[i] Cranmer
argues against it for three days, vigorously. After the Parliamentary row, Cranmer
loses, must send his wife Margarete off to Germany, and Henry, knowing Cranmer needed
consolation, dispatches the Lords and Councilors to Lambeth for a sumptuous meal
to cheer up the Archbishop. Henry wants Cranmer’s arguments in writing. Morice takes
the book on a wherry but falls overboard due to some bear-baiting event while Cranmer’s
book washes ashore. Crumwell finally retrieves the book. Crumwell falls in 1540
and bets are on that Cranmer is next. The Necessary Doctrine and Erudition
of a Christian Man were produced; some view it as produced by the Roman obscurantists
(our words), but Mason maintains it was Cranmer’s. “For the rest, the Necessary
Erudition is avowedly a reforming work. It looks back with satisfaction upon
what has been accomplished in that direction, although it admits that there has
been evil mixed with the good. The condemnation of Rome is more emphatic than
ever. The new sections on Faith, on Free Will, on Justification, on Good Works,
are all written from the standpoint of one who sympathises with the lately
recovered ideas upon those subjects, though soberly criticising the rash modes
in which they had been promulgated. On Penance, the book speaks in accordance
with the views in which Cranmer and Henry were agreed” (116). Henry VIII is sick
and dies with the oft-told story of Cranmer in attendance bespeaking the Gospel
of Christ’s sufficiency and merits with Henry’s firm and final handshake of Cranmer’s.
[i] https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803100509361
(31 Hen. VIII c. 14). The Act gave legal and penal authority to a set of
highly reactionary statements on issues of church belief and practice. The Six
Articles upheld (a) the catholic doctrine of transubstantiation; (b) the view that one need not receive both bread
and wine in the communion; (c) the obligation of priests to remain celibate; (d) the binding character of vows of chastity; (e) private masses; and (f) auricular confession. Bishops Shaxton of
Salisbury and Latimer of Worcester resigned their sees in protest. The passing
of the Act seems to have resulted from a temporary ascendancy in the king's
council of conservative opponents of Thomas Cromwell, especially the duke of
Norfolk and Bishop Stephen Gardiner. It was repealed in the first Parliament of
Edward VI in 1547.
Comments
Post a Comment