To assess the extent of reform in the English church in 1603, first the meaning of the term ‘reformed’ must be understood. A possible working definition of a reformed church is one in which Scripture is the sole measure of doctrine and practice. Although this appears a simple definition it is complicated by the problem of interpretation. The controversy at the time of the Reformation centered on the applicability of the Scripture to the contemporary situation (hermeneutics in its secondary sense). Calvin believed that the Scripture was personally and corporately applicable in all its detail. For Luther the Bible was a Trostbuch, a book eliciting faith. If the essentials regarding salvation were established there was freedom in the details concerning practice. Any assessment of reform will therefore depend upon the paradigm we choose for comparison.

The hermeneutical divide found its expression in the Church of England in two groups, identifiable as Anglican and Puritan. Anglicans, though thoroughly Protestant in their embracing of sola fide, were content to allow elements of traditional practice. Puritans, however, regarded Calvin’s Genevan church as the paradigm of reform. In this essay the extent of reformation in the church in 1603 is assessed bearing in mind the ambiguity in this concept. This assessment is made not only at a canonical level, e.g. the official doctrine, but also the attitudes, interpretations and aspirations of Anglicans and Puritans are investigated.

It is in the first year of Elizabeth’s reign that the foundations of reform are laid. Few had doubted that her ascension would lead to a repudiation of the Marian settlement and a return to some form of Protestant polity. To the Protestant community the new reign was a greeted as divine deliverance.

The Acts of Supremacy and Uniformity (1559) established the Church of England as a compromise between radical Calvinism and conservative Catholicism. The first of these Acts removed all papal authority and reestablished the sovereign as the Supreme Governor of the church; this was backed with an oath for the clergy. The term head was avoided as a concession to the unease felt at a human, and especially a woman, claiming this title. John Jewel, Bishop of Salisbury, wrote ‘she seriously maintains that this honour is due to Christ alone’. The Marian heresy laws were repealed allowing Protestants freedom of worship; communion in both kinds was established. These measures were slipped in to establish a measure of reform even if the uniformity bill had failed.

The bill for Uniformity was designed to establish a uniform order of worship by imposing the Book of Common Prayer. The most significant departure from the 1552 prayer book is in the words said at the administration of the Eucharist. By combining the memorial version of 1552 with that of the more Catholic 1549 version, a compromise was wrought, which while Scriptural, allayed both Catholic and Protestant opinion. A bill was also introduced to dissolve the monasteries reestablished by Mary. The compromises led some to fear that the new religion was a realpolitik and not a command from God. Jewel expressed it thus: ‘Others are seeking after a golden, or as it rather seems to me, a leaden mediocrity’. It was generally expected that these measures were only the start of a more thorough reforming process When further reform was not established, it was left to Anglican apologists such as Hooker to find philosophical and theological justifications for the via media or middle way of Anglicanism.

The Jesuit Robert Persons gave as the main reason why a Catholic may not attend Anglican worship: ‘because I persuading (sic) myself their doctrine to be false doctrine’. The official doctrine of the Church of England, the Thirty-Nine Articles, was formulated in 1563 and passed by Parliament in 1571. The articles are essentially after Calvin although they are considerably less extensive and precise than his teaching. The Lutheran reformation had been triggered by the issue of justification by faith since it was over this issue that much of the Catholic system stood or fell. What was the position of the Church of England on this definitive Protestant doctrine?

The doctrine of sola fide is expressed in article 11. ‘We are accounted righteous before God, only for the merit of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ by faith, and not for our own works or deservings….". Cranmer in his homily on salvation spoke of ‘a true and lively faith’ derived from Luther’s distinction between mere intellectual assent to doctrine and fiducia, staking ones life in trust.

‘Of Good Works’ (article 12) is not contained in the original Edwardian 42 articles, it states: ‘Works in no put away our sins or turn away God’s judgement, they are seen as the fruit of justification’. Davies has suggested that this reference to works (balancing faith?) is an example of via media, however, its foundation is entirely Scriptural and therefore must be considered reformed. Its addition is possibly due to the waning doctrinal influence of Luther, who belittled the Epistle of James, and the waxing doctrinal influence of Calvin, who taught the equality of Scripture. Nonetheless conservatives would find solace in a doctrine that emphasized the importance of works. Although the doctrine is reformed in essence its effect may have been to appease Catholic opinion. Hooker also helped the cause of reconciliation by stating that belief in sola fide was not necessary for salvation if in other ways a person was a good Christian. This helped to define the more moderate tone of Anglicanism which eschewed the more anti-Catholic Calvinist position.

Predestination is the corollary of justification by faith. The official Anglican version of this doctrine (article 17) teaches the salvation of the elect and only implies the damnation of the reprobate. The article is carefully couched in Scriptural terms leaving a certain amount of interpretation open. It warns against morbid obsession with the doctrine. Calvin had boldly taught double predestination. The Anglican version is perhaps, therefore, a more moderate and equivocal version of the classical reformed position. Some prominent Anglicans at the time such as Andrewes, denied the implication of reprobation while other Cambridge theologians such as Peter Baro and William Barrett where Arminian. Notwithstanding these aberrant tendencies the Church of England sent representatives to the Synod of Dort in 1618 to defend predestinarianism.

The church of England demonstrates two marks of a reformed church: the repudiation of Catholic tradition; and the removal of the apocrypha from the Scriptures (article 6). The relevancy of only the moral aspects of the Law and the continuity of the testaments (article 7) are also after Calvin.

Cartwright expressed the Puritan view of Scripture: ‘ the word of God contains the direction of all things pertaining to the church’. The Archbishop Whitgift answered this with the alternative Anglican opinion ‘nothing ought to be tolerated in the Church as necessary for salvation, or as an article of faith, except it be expressly contained in the word of God’. He then adds ‘Yet I do deny that the Scriptures do express particularly everything that is to done in the church’. Hooker, considered the Bible authoritative in matters of doctrine and prescribed ordinances (e.g. baptism) but was not intended for details of worship, conduct or church government. To Hooker these details were but adiaphora, or things indifferent. To the Puritan this was merely resistance to reform: the Bible was ignored in areas where the present status quo differed from its teaching.

In line with other reformed churches the Sacraments were reduced from the mediaeval seven to two, Baptism and the Eucharist (article 25). Transubstantiation is explicitly repudiated together with raising, processing and adoration of the elements (article 27); the Eucharist is to be taken in both kinds (article 30). The theological position on the Eucharist is close to Calvin’s taking a mean between the memorialism of Zwingli and the consubstaniationism of Luther.

Perhaps the difference between Anglicans and Puritans attitude to Sacraments is best illustrated in the controversy over the fate of unbaptised children. To the Puritan the Sacraments were the seal on a prevenient grace; to the Anglican they were not the grace of God in themselves but they were nonetheless the sine qua non for that grace. The Anglican therefore would insist on the baptism of dying infants which might of necessity be in private. The Puritan believed only in congregational baptism and would not necessarily baptize a dying child believing in the efficacy of prevenient grace.

Anglicans believed in the Eucharist as an ongoing means of grace and therefore instituted regular celebrations of the Eucharist. Calvin had wanted weekly celebrations but this was motivated by the desire to maintain church discipline. The Anglican attitude to the Sacraments though essentially reformed has within it echoes of the Catholic past with a greater emphasis on the necessity of the outward form.

The church is seen as ‘a congregation of faithful men’ and Calvin’s definition of a true church is accepted (article 19). Anglicans and Puritans both accepted the need for a Protestant national church in England; each Englishman was to be baptized a member of the church; the church was mixed as Calvin taught. The Church of England, however, maintained the Catholic parish system and the traditional threefold ministry of bishop, priest and deacon. The Genevan order, considered Apostolic by Puritans, had provided for pastors, doctors, elders and deacons. Anglicans maintained that church government was a matter of time and place: the Apostolic church had no Christian Magistrates so could not be taken as a model in a Christian state. Calvin believed church and state should be in cooperation; the church was not under the state, for the state should be subject to God’s law.. The Church of England was ultimately under the authority of the English state, with the Queen as its Supreme Governor and was therefore at odds with Calvin’s model.

When the Book of Common Prayer was introduced in 1559 all ‘images, shrines, tabernacles, roodlofts and monuments of idolatry’ were required to be removed from churches. Altars were to be replaced by communion tables; bread was to be used instead of wafers; feast days were considerably curtailed. Priests could now marry in spite of Elizabeth’s disapproval. Obedience to these instructions was by no means immediate, but by 1603 the churches were essentially Protestantised in their ornaments. To the chagrin of Puritans much Catholic practice remained. Although the Sacraments had been reduced to two, four of the remaining five remained as quasi-sacramental rites. Marriage was described as ‘holy matrimony’ and confirmation and was still practiced. The Catholic Sacraments of Holy Orders and Extreme Unction found their equivalent in ordination and communion for the sick. The ancient vestments of surplice and cope and the practices of signing with the cross in baptism and the ring in marriage were also retained.

In 1603 the church of England was not a homogenous institution. The Calvinist ideal and the Elizabethan via media were both represented in clergy and laity. The official doctrine, and in particular the soteriology, had been settled essentially in favour of Calvin. It might therefore be argued that in matters pertaining to salvation the church of England was reformed. However, for the Puritan adherence to the details of Scripture were part of salvation in its broader sense. From a Puritan perspective the church was only partially reformed.

Anglicans were more modest about the accomplishments of the Reformation. Hooker for instance was not of the opinion that there was no church ‘until Luther invented it’, and took a far less anti-Catholic line than Calvinists. He argued that remaining Catholic practices were adiaphora and not evidence of a lack of reform. From Anglican attitudes to such issues as the Sacraments and the role of reason, however, it might be argued that these compromises where but superficial evidence of a deeper attempt at synthesis between the old and the new.

Word Count 2111.

G.D. Fee and D. Stuart, How to Read the Bible for all its Worth (1993)

H. Davies, Worship and Theology in England: From Cranmer to Baxter and Fox, 1534-1690 (1996)

W.T. MacCaffrey, Elizabeth I (1993)

C. Haigh (ed.), The Reign of Elizabeth I (1984)

A. Foster, The Church of England, 1570-1640 (1994)

T. Wright, What Saint Paul Really Said (1997)

P.B. Secor, Richard Hooker: Prophet of Anglicanism (1999)

J.F.H. New, Anglican and Puritan (1964)

A. Plowden, Elizabethan England (1982)