The Religion of the Prayer Book (Paperback)

General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1919 Original Publisher: E. S. Gorham Subjects: Protestantism Religion / Christianity / Anglican Religion / Christianity / Catholic Religion / Christianity / Episcopalian Religion / Christianity / Protestant Religion / Christianity / Denominations Notes: This is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or missing text. When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million books for free. Excerpt: IV THE ENGLISH REFORMATION asked the Roman controversial- ist, " was your Church before the Reformation?" "Where," was the Anglican retort courteous, " was your face before you washed it?" The same truth has been expressed with more suavity by Bishop Bramhall, who said, " I make no doubt that the Church of England before the Reformation and the Church of England after the Reformation are as much the same church as a garden before it is weeded and after it is weeded is the same garden." The weeding of gardens, however, is a delicate process not apt to be successfully prosecuted by amateurs; the expert is needed, else the flowers will go and the weeds remain. Looking at the Reformation in Western Europe as a whole there is evidence of a good deal of amateurish work. " Plough up the garden and make a new start," was a ruling maxim when institutions, beliefs, practices, good, bad, and indifferent, were swept out of existence, and newchurches with new theologies erected on the site of the old. As we look back at the process we are not convinced of its necessity or desirability. There were, no doubt, abuses and superstitions connected with current beliefs and practices at the close of the Middle Ages in the matter of " Purgatory, Pardons, Worshipping, and Adoration as well of images as of relics, and also invocation of Saints "; but to utterly abolish the thing ...