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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 January 2025
In the course of the debate in Parliament on the Revised Prayer-Book many startling things were said, but few things can have been more startling than Sir Henry Slesser’s speech.
‘The question of Rome and the question of doctrine are two separate and distinct matters. I need hardly remind the House that when the jurisdiction of Rome was repudiated in England, so little change was made in the sacramental doctrine of the Church of England that the much vexed question of transubstantiation remained the doctrine throughout the reign of Henry VIII. Therefore when we talk about Reformation, we must ask whether we mean the cessation of the Papal jurisdiction in the reign of Henry or the introduction of the German doctrine in the time of Edward VI, because they are not one and the same thing. When we come to the reign of Queen Elizabeth, when the present settlement was really achieved—though, I remind the House, achieved by Act of Parliament without the consent of Convocation—the Book which was then the Book of Common Prayer was so designed, I believe, that it was capable of both the interpretations for which the parties are contending to-day.’
1 See Gairdner, The English Church in the Sixteenth Century, pp. 256, 261–2, 291. The little treatise De Missa Privata found in the Appendix to The Miscellaneous Writings and Letters of Thomas Cranmer, Parker Soc. 1846, dates, according to Jenkins, Remains of Cranmer, I. p. 293, from so far back as 1538, and seems to have been ‘ a draft for an Article on which the English and German divines, assembled in London, could not agree.’ Thus the ‘ made in Germany ’ religion does not date simply from the reigns of Edward or Elizabeth, as Sir Henry Slesser says. In this Tract the Catholic doctrine on the Holy Eucharist—the doctrine Sir Henry would like to claim as being as much a part of the teaching of the Church of England as its Lutheran antithesis—is termed with delightful brevity ‘ papisticum dumtaxat figrneatum ’
2 The oath will be found in Wilkins, Concilia, III, p. 757.
3 Gairdner, l. c., pp. 232–3.
4 Ibid., p. 263.
5 Given in Wilkins, l. c., p. 762.
6 Gairdner, l. c., p. 246–7; Bonner protested, but in vain; there is no hint that he protested on the ground that these Articles had not been passed by Convocation; in fact, Henry had successfully tamed Convocation, and the Edwardine régime had so far done nothing to restore their confidence in any protest they might make. Besides, Convocation had already been ‘packed,’ and there is not the remotest reason to suppose that as a body they were not in sympathy.
7 Gairdner, l. c., p. 254.
8 Ibid., p. 255.
9 Henry ‘ asked him in a merry strain, if his grace’s bedchamber could stand the scrutiny of the six articles,’ Dodd, Church History, ed. Tierney, I, p. 309.
10 Tomlinson, The Prayer Book, Articles and Homilies, p. 118.
11 This historic Debate will be found given in full in Gasquet and Bishop, Edward VI and the Book of Common Prayer, 1890, Appendix V, and its contents summarised, pp. 157-181; also Tomfinson, Great Parliamentary Debate in 1548.
12 Gasquet and Bishop, l. c., p. 86.
13 Ibid., p. 95.
14 Ibid., p. 178.
15 Gairdner, l.C., p. 310.
16 Edzaard VI and the Book of Common Prayer, 1890, p. 156, cf., p. 181
17 Gairdner, The English Church in the Sixteenth Century, 1912, p. 267.
18 J. T. Tomlinson, The Prayer Book, Articles and Homilies, 1897, p. 29, author’s italics
19 Pope Leo XIII, Apostolicae Curae, Sept. 13, 1896.
20 Let none delude themselves into thinking that doctrinal ‘ continuity ’ with the pre-Reformation Church in this country is secured by holding to the doctrine of the Real Presence apart from Transubstantiation. In all the proceedings against Wycliff and his followers, the ‘ substantial ’ character of the change in the elements is insisted upon—e.g., in the formal condemnation of Wycliff at Blackfriars in 1382, cf. Wilkins, Concilia, III, 161b; the replies of John Ashton, ibid., 164a; the sentence pronounced by the Chancellor of Oxford University in the same year, ibid., 170a; the condemnation of Wycliff by Convocation in 1396, ibid., 229b ; the deplorable case of William Sawtree in 1400, with his evasive defence, his declaration of positive heresy on the subject and his subsequent abjuration, ibid., 255-257, with his final relapse and degradation at Norwich, ibid., 258-8; also the case of his companion, John Purney, ibid., 260.