which

credited the Church before the Reformation; and Holy Scripture was to be the agency should bring the freedom.

Nowhere in the formularies of the Anglican Church is it creeds on which the stress is laid, but rather the Scriptures, as the word of God containing all things necessary to salvation. On this point the Reformers had learned a lesson from the formularies in the reign of Henry VIII, where it was shown what an agent for the tyrannical suppression of thought and freedom of inquiry, a creed, even the Apostles' Creed, might be. For a man also might recite creeds and dogmas, and be most loyal in defending without understanding them; but when Holy Scripture became the test and standard, it must needs be carefully and closely and continuously studied in order to its interpretation, and "sound learning" became essential.

This change in the position of the presbyter of the Anglican Church as compared with the Roman priesthood or the Greek, has been commented on by Dr. Hampden, late bishop of Hereford, and the comment is important and deserves to be cited:

"Among other solemn pledges which they [the clergy] are required to give at their

ordination to the Priesthood, is that very remarkable one, that they will 'banish and drive away all erroneous and strange doctrine contrary to God's word.' . I call this a very remarkable injunction of the service for the ordination of Priests; because in no other Church is the like commission given to any but to the highest order of the Ministry, the bishops of the Church, exclusively. Neither in the Greek forms of ordination, nor in the Roman Pontifical, do we find any such charge given to the Ministers of the inferior orders, but only to the bishops. All that is exacted of the priest and deacon, according to the formularies of the Greek and Roman Churches, is the promise of obedience to the bishop. At the Reformation, accordingly, a great change was introduced in this respect. Under the previous system the mass of the clergy were incapable of instructing the people. It was rare to find any who could preach to the people. . . The Reformation corrected this evil."

The Church of England is preeminently a layman's church, more so than any other church in Christendom. If bishops and clergy were

emancipated and set free from what had become the bondage of Rome, still greater was the emancipation secured to the laity. In the ancient Church and in the medieval they had no part in the government of the Church or in the determination of its formularies. It was a common mode of speech to designate the clergy as spirituales, the laity as carnales. All this was changed at the Reformation. It was the laity who took the first steps toward separating the English Church from the authority of Rome, and who finally completed the process. It was by the laity that the Prayer Book was approved and its use made binding. The prominence of the laity in all the changes wrought at the Reformation gives a distinctive character to the Anglican Church as compared with the other reformed

churches.

But in no respect was the revolution made so manifest as in the one supreme act by which the Book of Common Prayer was put into the hands of the people, as the laymen's book no less than that of the clergy. Hitherto such a thing was unknown. Primers were sometimes issued for the instruction of the laity, but at the Reformation, all the offices of the Church, rendered into English, were placed in their hands. What had hitherto been the priests' book was

henceforth to be the possession of all, men, women, and children alike. In the unreformed offices, the clergy responded to the clergy, and to say "Amen" was the only participation of the people. In the Prayer Book the people respond to the clergy on equal terms. The clergy appear acting as the people's representative.

There is a profound spiritual principle involved in this far-reaching change. It is sometimes said by those who are ignorant of the Anglican Church, that in the Reformation she put forth no distinctive doctrine. The Zwinglian Church magnified the glory and majesty of God; the Lutheran Church set forth as its controlling principle, the truth of "justification by faith"; the Reformed Church built upon the Divine will as expressed in decrees of predestination. But a great act characterizes the Anglican Church the making of a book whose possession by the people becomes a means of education, of enlightenment, and of Christian nurture. And beneath this act lies a doctrine or truth, which involves what is essential in the teaching of Christ the priesthood of all Christians, who now offer spiritual sacrifices to God, of themselves, and not through another. In the light of this truth, the agency of the clergy is subordiIn the mutual response of people and

nate.

clergy lies the visible and outward sign of Anglican worship, as contrasted with Greek or Roman or Puritan worship, where the isolated officiant at the altar or in the pulpit alone is speaking and the people are silent.

It is another distinguishing mark of the Reformation in the Church of England, that it was not overcome by a reactionary tendency, as was the case in the Reformed Church, and to a certain extent also in the Lutheran Church. The Anglican Church retained what Christian piety had accumulated during the Christian ages in the line of devotion and in the Christian ordering of time, or in the æsthetic and impressive arrangement of its worship. But there was a cleansing and a purification; whatever was contrary to the Word of God was rejected; whatever harmonized with it was retained. The Prayer Book was not an accidental or fortuitous production, but the work of one who devoted many years to liturgical study, and who by practical experience knew the impressive points in breviary or missal, and felt the impressive features which carried a religious and Christian appeal. The Prayer Book became through Cranmer's influence a constructive work of literary skill and of artistic merit as well as