The Mystery of Baptism in the Anglican Tradition. Kenneth Stevenson
into petitions on behalf of the whole congregation, the prayer ends by asking for ‘the everlasting benediction of thy heavenly washing’ and ‘the eternal kingdom which thou hast promised’. Cranmer, like the other Reformers, took to prayers that quoted the Bible. And he also liked prayers that had a strongly devotional flavour to them. In retrospect, therefore, it seems hardly a surprise that it should find itself near the start of Cranmer’s baptism rite.
Another aspect of Reformed liturgies in which the Prayer Book shares is the use of scripture. In the later Middle Ages, the passage about Jesus blessing the children was introduced as a kind of warrant for infant baptism (Matt. 19:13–15). Cranmer, however, followed Luther and changed the reading to the corresponding one in Mark’s Gospel (Mark 10:13–16). He seems to have been interested in the passage as a basis for baptism as far back as about 1537.6 The version in Mark is more forceful. In Mark, where Jesus shows his displeasure to the disciples when they try to stop the children coming to him, he adds the extra teaching about receiving the Kingdom of God as a little child, and he takes the children up in his arms before he blesses them. At a time when the more radical reformers were questioning infant baptism, it was important for the liturgy to be seen to be defending it. It is interesting to note that when the form of baptism for those of ‘riper years’ was framed for the 1662 Prayer Book, the corresponding scripture passage was Nicodemus before Jesus, with the telling command from Jesus that those who were to enter the Kingdom of Heaven must be born again of water and the spirit (John 3:5), a passage much used by many Reformers (and others before them) to defend the necessity of baptism.
It is easy with the benefit of hindsight to underestimate the sheer impact of these prayers written for the first time in a language understood by most people, and using scripture passages from vernacular translations of the Bible. Both those factors were bound to make the activity of creating fresh liturgies and reforming old ones an exciting venture both on the part of those drafting the prayers as well as for those on the receiving end among the church congregations. In both the prayer discussed earlier and in the use of a scriptural warrant for baptism, the English Church was showing its desire to look in both those directions, namely to stand for continuity with its Catholic inheritance, and for discontinuity in the face of Reformation developments.
The debates and controversies built up their own head of steam. Two are of particular importance and both date from the reign of Queen Elizabeth I. The first was occasioned by John Jewel (1522–71) and concerned the Church of England and the Roman Catholic Church. Jewel was probably one of the most brilliant men of his time. A convinced Protestant, he was ordained in 1550 or 1551 and did much to forward the cause at Oxford. He hoped to survive under Queen Mary Tudor but soon realized that his life was in danger. He fled Oxford in March 1555 and spent the next four years in Frankfurt, Strasbourg, and finally Zürich. Such personal contacts as he made there, which included John Knox at Frankfurt and Peter Martyr at Strasbourg, led him to think carefully and clearly about his own theological position. In January 1560, soon after his return to England, he was consecrated Bishop of Salisbury. He is probably one of the most famous occupants of that See. High on the agenda of the Church of England as it settled down to a new monarch and another phase of life as a Reformed Catholic Church was the need to state with clarity and erudition that it was indeed a true part of the Catholic Church.
In 1562, Jewel published his Apology of the Church of England, which was a lengthy defence against the Roman Catholic Church. It was written in Latin and an English translation by Lady Ann Bacon, wife of Sir Nicholas Bacon, Lord Keeper of the Great Seal, appeared in 1564. When you defend yourself against someone else, you must expect a rejoinder. This came in the form of An Answer to M. Jewel’s Challenge, which was written by Richard Harding and published also in 1564. Harding had been a Canon of Salisbury during the reign of Mary Tudor and had been deprived of his post for his Catholic position in 1559. He therefore had little reason to love the new Bishop, and his description of him as Mr. Jewel was an eloquent enough admission of his own view that the man was not really ordained at all. Jewel fought back in the following year with his Reply to Harding’s Answer, and each wrote a subsequent set of rejoinders. Each work is longer than its predecessor.7
In the Apology Jewel states that baptism is a sacrament, and it is to do with the remission of sins and the redemption through the work of Christ. He insists that no-one should be prevented from being baptized, because they are fallen and in need of God’s forgiveness.
Harding accuses Jewel of demoting sacrament to be ‘no more but a token or sign’. And he goes further into the attack by saying that baptism does not depend on the faith of the giver or receiver but on the power and virtue of the sacrament in God’s promise. Jewel counters this in his Reply by agreeing on the sacramental nature of baptism, but emphasizes the need for godparents when babies or young children are being baptized, and he laces his discussion with references to the Fathers, including Augustine and Jerome. It is clear, for example, that Jewel agrees with Augustine (and many of the Fathers) when he identifies the water of baptism as being in the place of the blood of Christ.
We say that baptism is a sacrament of the remission of sins, and of that washing which we have in the blood of Christ; and that no person which will profess Christ’s name ought to be restrained or kept back therefrom, no, not the very babes of Christians, forsomuch as they be borne in sin, and do pertain unto the people of God.8
The second controversy, by contrast, concerned the Church of England and those who wanted to take her in a more Reformed direction. It will be noted that Calvin abolished such patristic practices as godparents and the sign of the cross. These, however, were retained in the 1552 Prayer Book, and not abolished when, with some small alterations, that book was re-issued in 1559 at the start of Queen Elizabeth’s reign. The signing of the cross at baptism was the only example left of many more signs of the cross from the medieval rites, and it was accompanied by a formula which expressed Christian discipleship in terms of combat: ‘we receive this child into the congregation of Christ’s flock, and do sign him with the sign of the cross, in token that hereafter he shall not be ashamed to confess the faith of Christ crucified, and manfully to fight under his banner against sin, the world, and the devil, and to continue Christ’s faithful soldier, and servant unto his life’s end.’9 Cranmer was retaining a traditional custom which went back to the earliest time and was underscoring its significance: baptism is baptism into the cross of Christ, it is about discipleship, it is about witness to him in newness of life. As for godparents, although in 1552. they no longer had to lay their hands on the head of the child after baptism, they were still an integral part of the service. In 1549, the questions at baptism were addressed directly to the child for the godparents to answer, following medieval practice, whereas in 1552, the questions were addressed direct to the godparents, which served to highlight the role of godparents in a stronger way than previously.
There were, however, many for whom Cranmer’s liturgical arrangements had not gone far enough. Baptism by midwives survived from the pre-Reformation era in an age of infant mortality, but many railed against it as archaic and meaningless. The signing of the cross, along with the position of the font, remained contentious. As early as 1562, there was an unsuccessful attempt in Convocation to make the sign of the cross optional.10
In 1572, an ‘Admonition to Parliament’, by John Field and Thomas Wilcox, called for the abolition of the blessing of the water, promises by the godparents, and the signing of the cross; and it recommended that there should be a proper sermon at baptism, and that parents should present the child and make confession of the faith on its behalf. The Second Admonition called for the abolition of confirmation altogether.11
Things could not be left to rest like this. John Whitgift was Master of Trinity College, Cambridge, and Vice-Chancellor of the University. He had already forced the leading Puritan, Thomas Cartwright, who was wholeheartedly behind the Admonitions, out of his Cambridge Fellowship and Professorship. He wrote at once an Answer to the Admonition (1572), and Cartwright wrote a Reply (1573–4); Whitgift wrote a Defence of the Answer (1574), whereupon Cartwright wrote a Second Reply (1575–7). The two of them fought hammer and tongs, Whitgift defending with ever greater fervour the Prayer Book practices, and Cartwright criticizing them with ever increasing conviction. As John New