The content of Christian Doctrine & Faith presupposed and declared in the Latin Collects of the western, medieval Church is not identical with that of the reformed Church of England from 1549.
Of course, there is much in common in terms of the doctrines of (a) the Blessed, Holy and Undivided Trinity of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost, one God; (b) the identity, person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ; (c) the work of the Holy Ghost in the Church, in individual believers and in the world; (d) the Last Things; (e) the sinfulness of mankind and its need for reconciliation with God and also of holiness before God; (f) the Revelation of God given to men and recorded in Sacred Scripture, and so on.
When Archbishop Cranmer began the task of translating and editing the Collects he inherited from the medieval Church (through the "Use of Sarum"), he made the decision to make them conform to the reformed doctrine that had been recovered or discovered or produced through what we call the Protestant Reformation, especially the work of Martin Luther. Now as used in Germany a Protestant originally meant a Christian who protested on behalf of the Christian Message found in Holy Scriptures, as that Message had been received and understood in the Early Church of the first five centuries or so. Hereby a distinction was made between the teaching of the Early Church and of the Medieval Church.
Thus Cranmer and his colleagues believed that they had to purify the religion received from the Medieval Church since in their judgment it had been overlaid with all kinds of accretions which were neither biblical nor in accord with the known mind and message of the early Church.
In particular, the Archbishop believed he had a duty to introduce with clarity the doctrine of justification by faith (= justification by the grace of God through faith which is a gift of God) and at the same time to remove all suggestion of salvation through human merit. Further, he saw it as a theological task to remove (a) all requests to the saints in heaven to pray for the church on earth, and (b) all references to purgatory and prayers by the church on earth for the souls of the departed. Then with regard to the Mass he believed he had to remove any traces of the doctrines of transubstantiation and of propitiatory sacrifice.
Thus if we begin with the Latin Collects in "the Use of Sarum" and see which ones were used and how they were translated; note which were not used; and then look at the content of the ones composed for the 1549 BCP we can get a vivid sense of the reforming mind of Cranmer and his colleagues and of the reformed Catholic religion they professed, and which became the doctrine of the Church of England. To do this large task here is impossible. All we can do is to note a few examples.
1.The Collect for All Souls' Day was totally omitted as also was the commemoration of the day, because they presupposed purgatory and prayed for departed souls. Here is what was rejected: "O God, the Creator and Redeemer of all the faithful: grant unto the souls of thy servants and handmaids the remission of all their sins; that through devout supplications they may obtain the pardon which they have always desired. Who livest..."
2.The Collect for All Saints' Day was completely rewritten in order to exclude ideas of merit and requests for the intercession of departed saints. Here is the prayer rejected by Cranmer: "Almighty and everlasting God, who in one solemnity hast vouchsafed unto us to venerate the merits of all thy Saints: we beseech thee; that, at the intercession of so great a multitude, thou wouldest bestow upon us, who entreat thee, the abundance of thy mercy. Through our Lord, etc."
3.The Collects for other special days - commemoration of the Blessed Virgin Mary and the Apostles - were also completely rewritten to exclude requests for the intercession of these saints. In the Collect for St. Mark's Day, the medieval Church prayed: " O God, who hast elevated thy blessed Evangelist Mark by the grace of gospel preaching; Grant, we pray, that we may always profit by his instruction, and be defended by his praying." Cranmer removed all reference to his intercession and concentrated here and elsewhere on the example to be followed.
4.Collects for certain Sundays were rewritten to exclude suggestions of earning merit before God for good works performed and to emphasize justification by faith. The Sarum Collect for the first Sunday in Lent illustrates what was not acceptable to the Reformers: "O God, who dost cleanse thy Church by the yearly observance of Lent; Grant to thy Family that what it strives to obtain from thee by fasting, it may carry out by good works." In contrast the new Collect is addressed to Christ who fasted for 40 days and asks him for grace to subdue sin and pursue righteousness.
The reformed Catholic religion of the C. of E. thus claimed to be scriptural and in essentials patterned upon the religion of the Church of the first five or so centuries.
The Rev'd Dr. Peter Toon
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